7680 Kyocera 5135 Mobile Phone 87021 2003/10/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light this is a very nice phone flashy great reception with great features dont buy this phone if you think you might lose it GREAT RECEPTION, EASY TO USE (STORE NUMBERS, RINGERS ETC.) GREAT COLOR (NEON BLUE!) HAS SOME GOOD RING TONES, AND ITS REALLY NICE AND LIGHT. IT DOES VIBRATE ALSO. ITS CHEAP, AND THE CHARGE LASTS FOREVER! YOU CAN BUY HARDWARE TO DOWNLOAD OTHER RING TONES AS WELL. YOU CAN ALSO INSTANT MESSAGE. 87020 2003/11/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 terrific battery life great sound small charges fast easy availability of accessories neat blue screen sometimes won t connect i think this is alltel not the phone Great Phone! I tried the Motorola T-720 and wasn't happy. This little phone ROCKS! Awesome battery life, small, compact size, great neon blue display, clarity is as good or better than my nextel I-90. I have the Kyocera 3325 also, both great phones. I've dropped this phone, gotten it damp, etc, and it never misses a beat! 87019 2004/12/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 flip phone clear screen good reception battery life badbacklight flickers alot i had this phone for about a year in middle school and it worked perfect for me never had a problem 87018 2004/3/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 price the look the signal is always low I bought this cell phone last year.. I had problem with it after 2 months. The volume of the conversation was always switching from very very low to high... 87017 2004/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 the reception is ok the volume is ok looks nice battery life is great limited ring options too many servicing issues The volume is OK. Battery life is great. Looks nice Needs more ringing options -- should have a silent mode or single beep, rather than only vibrate. I got my phone 2 years ago and have had to replace it once. The first time the earpiece died and I couldnt hear anything when people called so they gave me a new phone. Now my phone says "Service Required" and I can't really turn it on anymore..maybe 1 out of 10 times it will be nice and let me turn it on. When I dial out the signal dies and I need to turn it on and off 5 times before it lets me dial. I've had too many problems with this phone -- i dont recommend it Too many servicing issues 87016 2005/2/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 size style battery life but most importantly not the best reception no speaker phone or voice recognition I got this phone a couple years ago and never thought I had a problem until I was in a rural area and dropped a call. I then borrowed a customer's Nokia and retried and had no problem with reception. He has the same carrier. This irritated me so I purchased a Motorola V60s. Dynamite reception. Unfortunately I dropped this phone in the toilet and had to reactivate the Kyocera. I do miss the voice activation and speaker phone but most of all I miss the better reception I had with the Motorola. However, I do love the size and design of the Kyocera. It fits in my pants pocket easily and I don't accidentally bump any buttons when putting it in or extracting it. The features are nice and plentiful. The battery life is awesome, even after 2 years. 87015 2005/3/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 good reception clarity many of these seem to fail in the 1 2 year time frame I have had this phone for just over 2 years and have always really liked it for reception and clarity. However, the phone now powers up with a "service required" message. Even though the Kyocera site says this "may" be fixed with a re-flash, the kyocera service centers indicate the phone cannot be fixed once this message is displayed. I would expect more life than 2 years from a "quality" phone that I purchased. Apparently this problem is quite prevalent - you can find lots of commentary on the web about this problem. Not so impressed anymore ..... I will stay away from Kyocera's from now on. 87014 2004/2/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception good battery life easy to use features limited ring tones no call display on outside of case no voice activated dialing I've had my 5135 for about a year. It's great! I'm finicky about cell phones...I had a Nokia piece of junk for about 6 weeks and couldn't stand its utter "user-unfriendliness". The 5135 is very user friendly by comparison, and if you don't require every last bell and whistle, it is more than enough. Some of the great points are the extended battery life, the bright backlight, the good reception (my phone is always the last one to conk out in malls, etc.) The three things that would improve it infinitely are: external call display on the outside of the clamshell, more ring tones, and voice activated dialing. I've never had any problems apart from losing my AC charger, which isn't the phone's fault! 7681 Kyocera 2235 87043 2004/7/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 great features with easy to use menu battery lasts a long time on standby it has a high maintenance lcd that needs frequent attention due to a poor design If it wasn't for the fact that this Kyocera 2235 is a company cel phone, I would've dumped it over a year ago. It's been a good "value" phone, but that is where it the positives stop. We have leased twenty of these phones during the last two years and a good majority of them have been plagued with a chronic Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) fade or dropout problem. I have been able to repair this problem when it occurs by dismantling the phone and cleaning the contacts on the LCD and circuitboard, but that may only last just a few months when the problem appears again. In short, I would not recommend this model as it has a definite weak point in it's design that can be a real problem. 87042 2003/11/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 t9 predictive text cheap blue led backlighting early revisions had lcd problems features overshadowed by newer models I bought this phone to use on MetroPCS, a CDMA 1X provider in south Florida. Voice calls are loud and clear. Signal sensitivity is above average, but not as good as a comparable Nokia (like the 2270). The blue LED backlighting is bright and makes the display easy to read. The 2235 has many useful features. It has T9 predictive text, voice dialing, Openwave WAP browser, 250 memory locations with multiple contact numbers, and has data connect features. Early 2235's had a problem with the LCD becoming unseated from the UI board, and it would go blank or display scrambled text. Later models have the LCD bonded directly to the UI board, so this problem isn't an issue on later revisions. This phone has survived being dropped and even thrown several times with no problems. 87041 2003/9/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 easy use everything you can think of the absolute worst phone I have ever used. If you can see the screen after the back get loose (it will)you will have performed a miracle. If you can stand listening to a to two tin cans connected by a string, you will love this phone. 87040 2004/2/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 physical setup ok cheap poor connection quality tested with other phones on the verizon network poor software This phone is ok if you are in the same basic area where reception is good and it seems to work. Has lots of software related problems. I have been dealing with little quirks for a year now. But you shouldn't really have to. 87039 2004/12/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 blue back lighting nice interface nice price overly sensitive to water blue back lighting drains battery quickly The phone itself I have loved, it's just the fact that if even a spray of water hits the face, it's toast. I brought it on a trip to Hawaii and a slight mist of water hit the face of the phone while it was stored in a mesh bag. The phone receiver died on impact, I could make calls but not hear anything on the other line, nor speak to anyone. This lasted for two days, then the phone returned to a somewhat useable condition. Besides that, the phone is good to go! 87038 2004/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good looking phone with nifty blue backlighting that is easy to read in the dark cheap parts screen tends to fail after a certain point construction This is a cool looking phone and the brilliant blue backlighting will impress your friends--until, that is, the display completely dies. I got the phone "free" with my service plan. After about a year of use, I could not read any of the text on the display. All I could see was that now-useless blue color. The phone was then out of warranty and Verizon would not replace it. I have a friend in the same situation with the same phone. Stay away! If this has happened to you--try this trick! Open the back cover and jam some folded paper between the cover and the battery. The pressure against the display seems to fix the bad contact that breaks the display. I'm not a phone expert, but the trick worked for me. 87037 2004/9/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 verizon was great great phone deal pretty phone overall i m very pleased i will stay with them display occasionally distorts or disappears This is my first cell phone~I am very pleased with it for the most part. I love the way it looks-and it's fairly light. Pretty good on batteries as long as you don't keep all the features running all the time-ie: screen saver, backlighting etc. I got my phone for free wrapped up in a wonderful deal along with my home phone bill. I got two-one for me and one for hubby. I got mine from Verizon-they were wonderful and helpful. My bills are low every month-free mobile to mobile anytime. I have had it for over a year-never any billing problems or weird charges. In fact I have yet to see any charges for any calls I make yet. Just a standard bill every month. The only problem I have had with this phone is occasionally the screen goes blank-or distorted. Have'nt had too many problems with lost calls or anything. 87036 2004/3/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it took quite a few smashes to break the screen easy to smash weak signal low batter life Wow where to begin? I got one, and both my brothers got one. WIthin a few months the screen went blank. All we saw was blue, on each and every phone! Not to mention you could only talk about 15 minutes on a charge. Im somewhat rough on my phones and this thing did not hold up! Eventually we all got replacement phones and in time the same thing happened. Then came the last straw, when I really needed the phone, when my car broke down, the thing would just say 'calling....' thats when I took the phone and smashed it to pieces! Surprisngly enough my car soon started! 87035 2004/6/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 inexpensiveworked great for a year unreliable don t buy unless you plan to get a new phone after one year Check out CNET and all of these reviews before you buy. There are hundreds of people (including me & my husband) on the internet complaining that the display goes out on this phone. It has happened to both of us and also we have experienced other problems such as the phone automatically shutting itself off, reduced battery life, sticky keypad, etc. The battery only lasts one year as well. We will never buy this phone again. In fact, we are also unhappy with Verizon on their lack of support (especially since we found out that Kyocera knows about this problem and will provide a free fix) and are switching to Cingular. 87034 2003/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy antenna long battery life neon blue screen lightweight known issues with screen assembly in early builds of this model The Bottom LineOverall I rate the phone as a great buy right now because it is getting cheaper, but is still an excellent model. Full Review I purchased the Kyocera 2235 about a year ago now. I am still as happy with the phone as the day I got it. I have gone through a number of phones in the last 4-5 years and I seemed to always have at least one problem with each of them. In some, the battery life was too short, in others the antenna's constantly broke off. With Kyocera 2235 I have had none of the above problems. The antenna is built differently so that the top of the antenna does not get stuck on my pants, or other places. This is a big plus, as I have not had to replace a single antenna in a year. Additionally, I have had absolutely no problems with the battery life. I drive 45 minutes to work, and I still do not need a car charger to keep the phone alive. Charge this phone at night, and you will be all set. As far as size, the phone is small, but not too small. You won't find yourself looking for a magnifying glass and a toothpick to dial a number. Additionally, you probably won't have a hard time carrying this one around. I find it to be the best of both worlds. Other good features: Cool Blue Display (impress your friends) Voice Enabled Dialing Web Enabled Games (only 1 worth while) Alarm Clock Vibrate Mode Text Messaging There is only one problem I had with the phone, and it had to do with the monitor not working correctly. If you have this phone, and the text on the monitor seems to cut out, but you can still see the blue light, you probably are seeing the same thing. This is a manufacturer defect and your wireless provider should be able to replace the part you need for free. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87033 2000/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing lots of features good clarity compact great screen contrast keypad lock doesn t work when phone is off i e keep from turning phone on The Bottom LineMy advice about any product is to use it as much as possible during the warranty period to check for any problems. More money doesn't necessarily mean a better product... Full Review I previously had a Motorola Timeport with a color display which I loved--I just dropped it too many times over its two year life and killed it...but this Kyocera makes up for it all. I got a great price with a credit I had (retails for $80, I got it for $40), it has dozens of features that my other $250 phone didn't have, and for a phone that doesn't fold it's still pretty compact. I've only had it for a week, but have used it quite a bit and have hardly made a dent in the battery charge. The clarity is wonderful compared to my last phone--I'm in a fairly metropolitan area--and it has voice dialing which I love, as well as voice memo recording. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 87032 2000/10/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 many features if you can get the phone to work in the 1st place horrible call quality just bad in general can t talk charge The Bottom LineDay 1: You love the phone, Day 2: You like it, Day 3: You hate it, Day 4: It breaks Full Review This is an awful phone, My first phone was defective out of the box, it wouldn't hold memory. I'd enter a contact, and it would say it was saved, but it never saved it. The second phone just died completely, I lost my entire address book of very important clients and accounts. My 3rd phone is now starting to act up, it keeps dropping calls. This is my 3rd phone of this model in 4 months, I'd love to get a different phone, but I am bound to keep getting these phones by my Cell-Service Contract! Another HORRIBLE thing about this phone is that you can't use A/C power to charge while you talk. This is a big no no for people who talk a lot, I can't use my Car adapter to talk, only charge the batter while I AM NOT talking, being on the road constantly, I use my phone in excess of 2,000 minutes a month. So when I have low batter I need to stay off the phone, while It charges up enough to talk. If I had known this before, I would NOT have bought this thing. Call quality is not so hot on this phone, every now and then, the phone emits an ear piercing chirp randomly in the middle of conversations. There is a constant echo in the phone, sometimes its a faint echo, and sometimes its really bad, but there is always at least a slight echo. Volume is very quiet, with no way to manually adjust the earpiece volume. I Don't reccommend you buy this phone, unless you feel like running to your Cellular Service provider every few weeks to get a new one, thats just going to break again anyway! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): too much 87031 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 contact management system blue backlight price hotkeyvoice management system using the phone while plugged into the wall won t stop battery draineventual shutdown The Bottom LineBuy this phone, it's easily worth the money you'll spend. Full Review To start, I got this phone for $25 bucks with a 1 year contract with Verizon Wireless. The minute deal was great as well, so overall I had zero buyer's remorse and total satisfaction with my purchase. On top of all this, I cancelled my local land-line phone service the same month, so I felt as if I was on the road to actually saving money (which I was, to the tune of $40 a month, but that's another story). This phone has voice dialing (say the name of the person you want to dial), voice shortcuts (i.e. push a button and speak the function you want, i.e. send a text message, record a voice memo to play back later... very useful for recording your parking spot, etc.), a somewhat functional web browser, and a very accessible contact management system. It has great bright blue backlighting which is still rare amongst cell phones. I've had this phone for almost 2 years now, and I'm very happyt with the service it's given me, with one caveat: The display has gone all flaky on me. The contact on the phone's display has gotten dirty or something, because I can no longer see the text on the phone. I have the correct tools, so I'm able to take apart the phone, clean it, and reassemble it, but after cleaning it only works for roughly 2 weeks before the screen goes blank again. I'm not due for a free phone for about 2 months, so I'm hanging in there, but I wish the display on this phone would have lasted a little longer. Another thing I don't like is that this phone cannot operate off of AC power. If you're running low on battery power and decide to recharge it while you're on the phone, it will still run down the battery and turn off.. despite the fact that you're plugged into the wall outlet. Kinda lame, in my opinion, and quite frankly inexcusable in this age where 10% of cell phone users (like myself) have no alternate phone line. Overall a good phone. I would recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87030 2000/11/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reasonable price on options compact packed with features esp for the price nice display optional leather case hands free plug hole doesn t line up well The Bottom LineGreat phone if you don't need a flip phone or other type that protects the key pad. It's very portable and feature-rich for the price with a nice display. Full Review I got this phone because it was the cheapest one that Verizon offered going to their new phone plan. The display is nice and bright. This phone has more features than I'll use. I have no need to surf the web with my cell phone. But the normal features are excellent and well thought out. I especially like the phone contact list and the ability to associate a phone type icon with each phone number (eg, cell, home, work, etc) and a contact type (business or personal). The display also makes very good use of font variations. The keys are a little rubbery, which I like as well. I've checked out replacement part costs on the phone (you can get face plates, replacement keypads, etc) and they are reasonably priced. The reception and signal integrity appear to be a little better than my previous phone. This phone works in some places my other one would not. There are many options to choose from setting up the phone. Great for different personal choices for setup. Includes a silent vibrate mode for ringing, as well as distinctive ringing for different contacts in your list. The battery appears to work fine. I've charged it a couple of times and, without using the phone much, lasts a few days. I don't understand the other revier's comments on the battery. Perhaps for some reason their phone went into analog mode (either by setting or determined by the calling area). Analog mode will suck a battery down in very little time. Someone complained that the reception indicator is flakey. It's possible that the signal is just flakey (the reception is varying). I don't have a problem with the reception indicator. It behaves the same way as my previous phone. My only grip is actually the optional leather case and belt clip I purchased. Although the belt clip is great and the case is good quality, I found that the hands-free plug hole did not line up nicely. It's a problem because the jack has to seat all the way into the hole or it won't connect. If I fiddle with it a bit, I can finally make it work. I ended up using a small scissor and making the hole just a little larger. I guess it's probably hard to make stuff like leather plus stretch material give an accurate mechanical fit. The case allows the keys to be exposed, which is great for me since I hate trying to press buttons through plastic, and I don't use the phone in abusive environments, so no problem. All that said, I would not hesitate recommending this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 87029 2002/10/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good phone features for the price buttons are close togethersmallish The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for any one who wants a good phone with a good set of bells and whistles at a good price. Full Review My audiovox CDM4000 started to get a little squirrelly so I decided to upgrade to a phone with text messaging and vibrating alert. I knew the 2235 was the phone for me when I pushed the button and the bright blue backlight came on. The buttons glowed a bright blue and I said to myself "this ones a keeper" and took it home. This phone is your basic midsize trimode cell phone with WAP browser for the internet. The things that caught my eye other than the blue backlight was the alarm, calculator and countdown timer. It is nice to have a backup alarm that is louder than allmost any watch you can buy. The calculator is not the easiest to use but if you need one in a pinch it will get you buy, though I would not recommend balancing your check book with it. It has a tip calculator feature that lets you calculate a tip for an input bill and then you can split it amongst however many people you punch in. The countdown timer will count down from 99Hrs 59minutes and 59seconds, hey thats a long time. There are three games and a Mystic I Ching feature to answer those tough questions in life. The games are OK if you are stuck and bored but I think a book is a better way to pass the time. I call the phone midsize which is allmost too small for my hands, and the buttons are a little tight for my fingers but some of that is getting used to the smaller size of this phone from my last one. The phone feels solid in your hands without being heavy for its size. The sound quality is better than my last phone and it has not dropped any calls on me yet. If you have a PC you can shell out some bucks and get a serial or USB cable to sync the phone or install more ringers. The manual is pretty basic but the phone has info in it to tell you the basics about the features. There is a hands free jack so you can plug in a standard head set to keep your hands free. The center directional button has three pre-programmed short cuts and a fourth that you can program yourself. The pre programmed ones are, Ringer silence, contacts and keypad lock. I do not like that you need to input your security code before you can lock the phone down to prevent unauthorized calling.You can do voice dialing and speed dialing as well as record reminders.I have not gotten the hang of the voice dialing yet. You can set up to 200 contacts which is more people than I know. You can set the alarm and timer to vibrate or just flash the phone lights. This is a different setting from the keypad shortcut which just silences the incoming call ringer. You have to go through the settings(8 button pushes total)menu to do this which is kind of clunky. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 87028 2002/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 options great reception lots of features light games easy to use so many optionssettings sometimes it s hard to find what you want changed The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a new phone and a new calling plan, look into this deal. And if you've got a friend who also needs a phone, it's great. Full Review I walked into the Verizon Wireless store with an outdated, beat-up Audiovox that I had gotten for free with my last calling plan (550 anytime minutes, 2000 weekend minutes, service throughout the northeast) looking for nothing but a new phone. I walked out with the Kyocera 2235 (and so did a friend who accompanied me- the 2 for 1 deal is great) and a new plan- 550 anytime minutes, 4000 night and weekend minutes, with only a few roaming areas throughout the entire United States. This was the same price as my previous plan, $55 per month. There was no charge for switching plans, which was nice, but the catch is that you have to renew for an entire year from the date you switch plans. So, with phones and plans evolving as they do, so quickly, this may be a way for Verizon to get you "hooked" on their service. If it is, it's effective (I was thinking of switching to A T & T), but the benefits strongly outweigh this fact. The service is great. I got semi-decent reception all the way in the Adirondacks of upstate NY, a place with very few cell phone towers. As for the phone itself, the Kyocera 2235 is almost perfect. There are a variety of settings: everything from ringer options (ring- with 25 ringtones, vibrate, vibrate then ring, silent), to display options (this includes shortcut keys, screensavers, time and date format, etc.) and network settings. There actually seem to be more setting options than are necessary, so sometimes looking for the exact thing that you want to change becomes a bit cumbersome. The phone's address book is fantastic- you can save many numbers under the same person's name, as well as e-mail and street addresses. There's even a place to put notes about people (I've been using it or birthdays). If you wish, you can even put people on speed or voice dial and separate your contacts into business and personal groups. While my previous phone was a bit erratic with sending and receiving text messages, this phone is flawless. I had someone across the room send me a text message just to see how quickly it would get there, and it literally took 1 second. The tools and games section of the menu is, of course, the most fun. It includes a lot of really useful options, such as an alarm clock, a calculator and a stopwatch. My favorite item here is the tip calculator. You can enter the amount of a check, choose from a list of tip percentages, and then divide the total between number of people splitting the check. It's very convenient. Also in this section are a Mystic I Ching fortune teller and the games Cavern Crawl, Space Dudes and Brick Attack (which is really fun). The phone also has a web browser which I haven't used. All in all, this was a great phone, a great calling plan, and a great deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 for 2 87027 2000/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 decent reception high speed internet access lightweight great price good battery life small cheap build quality The Bottom LineThe 2235 is an inexpensive, practical phone that provides fast Internet access Verizon's 1x network. It is a good choice for those moving up from phones with compatible accessories. Full Review I've been using Kyocera 2000 series phones for over two years now, and have a decent amount of money tied up in accessories such as data kits, chargers, batteries and car adapters. So, when Verizon introduced their high-speed 1X data network, and Kyocera's 2235 (which is compatible with said network) was rolled out at about the same time, it was a no-brainer to upgrade. That was about four months ago, and except for some durability concerns, I'm pretty happy with the choice overall. The 2235's periwinkle-blue display gives access to the usual assortment of phone gadgets: messaging, address book, call timers, recent calls list, alarm, count-down timer, stopwatch, and yes, games (my personal favorite is the built-in I-Ching). Navigation of the menus is relatively simple using the rocker switch and twin buttons below the display. For experienced Kyocera phone users, little refinements abound. The buttons are covered in a textured rubber which is both practical and durable, and the display is concave. While this makes it so you can't swap faceplates easily, the resulting display is both scratch resistant and more readable. Numerous tweaks to the user interface have been made: for instance, the alarm and countdown timers now allow you to use the phone's keypad directly when setting alarms. The center rocker has been put to good use: when the phone is displaying the time, holding down left locks the keypad; right puts the phone in silent mode; down shows a list of frequent contacts; up gives you a choice of options, including the recent calls, contact list, messaging and ringer volume. Voice dialing works acceptably, but as with any other phone, be careful to train the unit using whatever method you most often use to speak (i.e. headset). By the way, there is a limit to how many voice-dial entries you can have - mine appeared to be able to hold 50 or so before telling me it was out of memory. The express network (X1) capability of this phone is phenomenal. As a frequent-flyer, the ability to access the Internet at DSL-like speeds from almost anywhere I can get a digital signal on Verizon's network is heavenly. While I'm happy with the phone overall, I've a few problems with faulty units. In trying to keep the per-unit cost down, Kyocera cut a few too many corners, in my opinion, durability-wise. I've had to return two phones to Verizon, one for a faulty keypad, the other for a bad display. Both were replaced under warranty, with no questions asked, but I'd still recommend the optional $3 per month full-replacement warranty just in case, unless you are the kind of person who swaps phones out frequently. Overall, if you want a practical phone that provides fast Internet access for your laptop on Verizon's 1x network, this phone (and the similar Motorola 120e) are two worthy choices. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 87026 2002/7/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 games many features speed dial contact list web browser horrible battery life often defective bad reception The Bottom LineSo many technical glitches/battery problems you can't even get to the long list of features and enhancements. The phone won't do much good if you can't turn it on. Full Review I picked up a Kyocera 2235 Cellular Telephone at my local Wireless ETC because my roommate was getting one, and their was a "buy one get one free deal" going on. My roommate and I split on the cell phones, so mine ended up costing me just about $15. The representatives at the store gave me my plan flat out, and at first glance, these phones are NICE. The phone itself is a light silver color, lightweight, comes with a charger, and is loaded with every imaginable option. 2300 free minutes are also offered after 9PM EST every night and all day on weekends. For only $19.95 a month service fee, this seemed like a bargain. And by comparison, it is. For the first few days, I used the phone only late at night, and found their to be good reception, good battery life, and the phone seemed very easy to use. I was completely wrong. Trying to use the phones during the day is a complete nightmare. From 11-2 during the day you can simply forget about it. If you actually get a call through to someone who lives farther than shouting distance, you'll end up losing the signal within a few minutes. This caused me a lot of headaches, but I found it manageable until more problems started popping up. After a few charges the battery life of my Kyocera was pretty much nothing. I could power it up and make a call maybe seven or eight times before I was getting low battery signals. I also found many times the phone just simply refused to turn on and reacted "dead" like the battery wasn't charged. This would even happen when the phone was plugged in to the charger. This made for a completely painful cell phone experience. You don't want a phone you have to mess with all day to get one out of ten calls to go through. It's not worth it. However, if you can get a good operating Kyocera 2235 there are a number of useful features. First is the contact list and speed dial. This is very good and quite useful. The contact list allows you to make up an on screen address book including names, companies, phone, fax, email, etc. of an unlimited number of people. This would be especially helpful for businesspeople. The speeddial is the same type of thing, but allows for one button links to another number. It works basically like any other speeddial. Ex: You can save it so that if you press 7 and the call button the phone will automatically dial your home #. It's a very useful feature. There are also loads of unneccesary features that are kind of cool. There's an arcade breakout style game where you have to move the paddle back and forth and try and break blocks. There's also some type of 'cave adventure' game, a tip calculator, a timer, a chinese fortune teller, among other things. Voice mail is easy to check by simply pressing star-86 then punching in a four digit code. It also has a web browser which can be used for an additional fee. I haven't used it so I can't comment on how it works or it's value. If the Kyocera phone did not have the numerous techinal problems it did, it would be an excellent phone. However, those technical problems cannot be overlooked, so I could not in anyway recommend the Kyocera. It does have a bunch of features, but if you can't turn the stupid thing on, then those features don't do much for you. If I were you I'd stick to a more expensive phone with better reliability. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 15 87025 2003/3/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features easy to use interface voice dialing lame games The Bottom LineBottom line is, these are really nice phones. Easy to use and feature rich. Very fast and responsive. Full Review When my wife dropped her Motorola Startac, I was a little bitter... it was looking like she was going to get a new phone while I was going to be stuck with my stupid two-year-old phone which wasn't as cool as the Nokia it had replaced. But then I got some good news... to diagnose the phone would mean sending it off and paying $75. There was no guarantee that it could even be repaired, or that I wouldn't end up having to pay even more than the $75 for repairs. But, since we had had the phones for more than two years, we were eligible for the same deals that Verizon was offering brand new customers. In this case, I could buy two brand new sleek and shiny for Kyocera 2235's for a total of $50 for the pair. This is probably one of my most impulsive recent electronics purchases, but I am so glad. Once again we have a cool phone worth showing off and worth bragging about. I really recommend the Kyocera. First, the screen lights up an amazing shade of blue. My wife's is more purple and even cooler, but the light from either phone is really bright. (I used it at a retreat center last night to read the cottage number on a post to figure out where I was in otherwise nearly pitch-black darkness.) Not only does the screen light up, but the buttons do as well. The phone is small and lightweight and fits easily in your hand. It fits ok in a shirt pocket, but I've already caught it in mid-air a few times because I've leaned over to pick something up and it's slid right out. It has a small stub and then an extendable antenna on top of that. I have had great call quality and really don't ever extend the antenna. The mini-jack for a wireless headset is near the top to one side and is the standard 25mm. (Some Motorolas and Nokias have proprietary jacks so you can only buy their equipment which often costs more. The standard jack is nice since our Startacs did have standard jacks, we can use the same headsets.) The screen is slightly concave so that even if you were to scrape your phone along the ground, the edges of the screen are raised enough to prevent the screen from getting scratched which is a nice feature. Above the 12-keys for dialing there is are TALK and END buttons, an OK and a CLEAR and a large button shaped kind of like a fat spaceship (big body with wings that have rockets or laser guns at the end) that has arrows in four directions. Its odd shape makes it very easy to figure out where your finger is so that you end up pushing the correct button. The phone is comfortable to hold to your ear and I probably end up doing that more than I should in the car just because it's so much easier than the Startac was to hold. The screen will usually display the signal strength, battery life, date and time. It switches every minute between your programmed "Banner" (like your name) and the name of your cell phone company. Other indicators may tell you what type of signal (analog or digital), if there is a call in progress, if you have the ringer turned off, have voicemail, etc. The bottom line is used to tell you what will happen if you press the "OK" button. (Typically when the phone is not in use, it would read "MENU" or "UNLOCK".) The navigation is really intelligent. The TALK and END buttons are the same size and in mirror image positions from one another making them easy to find. The END button is also the POWER button if you hold it down. Pressing the arrow button down lists the contacts you call most frequently. You can scroll through them to get to your full list. If you press and hold the arrow to the left, it locks the keypad to prevent keys from accidentally being pressed(like in a pocket or purse). If you press any keys, it will tell you it's locked and ask you to press 1-2-3 to unlock. It's not a security feature to prevent unauthorized use, it's just designed as a convenience feature. If you press and hold the arrow to the right, it puts it into silent mode, which is indicated by a bell with a line through it on the top row and the words "Silent Mode" on an otherwise blank line between the date/time and menu line. Arrow up can be programmed to recognize voice commands or set to do something else. I have it set to display recent calls. Pressing CLR (clear) has no use when the phone's just sitting there. I use it to turn on the screen's backlighting. But it basically works like the "BACK" button on a browser, backing you out of menus. If you press TALK, it prompts you to either say a name, or press TALK again to redial the last call. You can create shortcuts for people, too. For instance, if I press and hold 2, it calls my wife because I set her up on "2". Just as easily, I can set someone up on "12". Then I would press 1 and then press and hold 2. But can also find people by starting to type in their name. For instance, if I press 2, Lori's name comes up. But if I then press 5, Alain comes up and if I press 5 again, Allison's name comes up because I'm spelling her name. If you keep pressing numbers, it realizes that you're typing in a phone number. It displays all the numbers really large and properly hyphenates. (You can turn off.) The following options are available in the menus... 1) Phone Info - tells your phone number (can be turned off with a security setting, but the setting is so draconian that I haven't bothered with it.) 2) Browser - an internet browser. I haven't used because it costs extra from Verizon. 3) Contacts - allows you to manage your contacts. You can add different types of phone numbers, as well as notes and email addresses. You can add speed dialing and voice dialing. You can attach a different speed dial or voice dial to each phone number. Lastly, you can classify the person as "Personal" or "Business" or "Neither". Speed Dial and Voice Dial lists also make it easy to see what you've got programmed into the phone. (Software and a cable allows you to manage your contacts from your computer as well as download additional ringtones.) 4) Messages - allows you to send and receive text messages. I don't use this feature, either, because it costs extra. 5) Recent Calls allows you to see all your recent incoming and outgoing calls as well as find out how long each call was. If they're in your contacts, it shows you additional information. 6) Tools and Games features: a) Alarm Clock - just a simple once-a-day thing, good if you're on the road and don't have an alarm clock b) Tip Calculator - enter in the amount of the bill, and then the percentage of tip you want to leave. You can then even tell it how many people are splitting the bill and it tells how much each person owes. c) Calculator - big numbers, just a standard calculator d) Countdown - a countdown timer e) Stopwatch - a countup timer f) Mystic I Ching - kind of like an executive decision maker. Kinda pointless. g) Cavern Crawl - you move around in this primitive world collecting coins and fighting bats, rats and skeletons. Mildly amusing for a little while h) Space Dudes - space invaders i) Brick Attack - breakout 7) Settings a) Silence All - gives you three choices - (1) 'No, normal.' Turns off Silent Mode if it's on. (2) 'Yes, vibe only.' Turns on Silent Mode. Phone vibrates on incoming calls. (3) 'Yes, lights only.' Phone flashes on incoming calls. If you select (2) or (3), it sets that as your standard the next time you turn on silent mode by pressing and holding the arrow to the right when no menu is being displayed. b) Keyguard - (1) Turn on now, or automatically after (2) 30 seconds, (3) 1 minute or (4) 5 minutes. Also (5) turn off auto-keyguard. c) Sounds - (1) Call Ring/Vibe - you can pick from 'Right only', 'Vibrate Only' and 'Vibrate, then ring.' (2) Ringer volume lets you pick, including a graduated ring that gets louder with each ring. (3) Lets you pick a ringer type. There is 'Standard' plus 10 rings, 10 songs, and then two more. I like the choices, especially the rings. Some are chirps and none are really annoying. One of the songs is Jingle Bells. The next two options are (4) Business Ring Type and (5) Personal Ring Type which lets you pick from the same ring types. But if someone calls you and you defined them as "Business" in Contacts, then it uses the ring you picked for #4 instead of the one you picked for #3. You can also pick a (6) "Roam" Ringer. Then you have (7) Earpiece Volume, (8) Key Beep Volume, (9) Key Beep Sound (click or beep), (10) Missed call alert, (11) Smart sound - adjusts volume based on surrounding noise. All it seemed to do for me is lower the volume. Once I turned this off, all calls were easier to hear. The last option is (12) Minute Alert (beeps every minute). d) Display - (1) backlighting - how long to stay on, (2) My Banner - to display your name or something, (3) Shortcut Key - what happens when you press and hold the up arrow, (4) Main Menu view - large pictures or just a list, (5) Screen Savers - a few things that can show on your display. I didn't like any of them. My wife has the one where animal footprints appear and then a hang comes out with a rag and wipes them up and (6) Auto-hypenation, (7) Lanuage - English or Spanish, (8) Time/Date Format, (9) Display Contrast. e) Voice Services - (1) Voice Memo - to leave yourself a quick voice message recorded on the phone, (2) Voice Shortcuts - managing your contacts from the perspective of voice shortcuts, (3) Add Voice Dial, (4) Voice Training - asks you to say certain words - you can set the shortcut key to listen for these words, (5) Voice wake-up - to train just for the "wake-up" word, a word it listens for when it's plugged in, (6) voice answer - when plugged into a headset or hands-free-kit, if this is enabled, it will announce (female voice)"Incoming call from" (your voice) [voicedial shortcut] (female voice)"Answer?" and then you say "yes" or "no". f) Security - behind a password, you can lock the phone (or set it to lock automatically when it's turned on - that's how I have it set), limit the type of outgoing calls (to just who's in the contacts list), change the security code, as well as do some nasty stuff like erasing all the contacts or resetting the phone. g) Call Information - shows you various call timers h) Network - options you rarely have a need to change i) Extras - turn on and off a few items they couldn't figure out where else to put on the menu. Nothing special. j) Messaging - related to messaging. Not usinging messaging, I haven't played with these settings. k) Accessories - not sure why these aren't combined with Extras, they feature things like what to do with the backlighting when plugged in (should it be on all the time or not?) and when plugged into an headset or HFK, should it ring in the headset or on the phone? Basically it's a really feature rich-phone that's really easy and intuitive to use. Which is great because the manual that comes with it is of really little help. (Some mneu items do have a help button to explain more, but it's pretty inconsistent.) I'm really happy with these phones. I love showing off and people have noticed these new phones. But they've also not noticed them -- I've been able to subletly take calls in busy places without a big disruption thanks to some simple and elegant ringtones and the graduated sound for the ringing. My friend has an Ericsson world phone. It's slightly smaller and has a full-color screen, but its menuing system is much slower and he can't make the voice-dial work. (You program in "cell" and "home" and "work" and then people's names so that you have to say "Joy" and "cell" to call his sister's cell phone. But he can never get the timing right and have given up trying to use it. On the Kyocera, you program full voice commands, so "Loricell" and "Loriwork" are two I have programmed in there (among many) and it's really good at recognizing them. If you ask it to call someone while you're talking to someone else, it may say "Did you want to call?" and you say "Yes" but its recognition is great. --------------------------------------------------------- Update, 3/31/03 I recently purchased some accessories. Leather Case - $20 I am mostly opposed to phone cases. I often found that they looked dumb or covered up important things (like the faceplate or keys or headset plug) The cover for the Kyocera is part leather, part spandex-like material. It looks really nice and fits snugly. The key area is open and visible and the screen part is covered by a thin layer of plastic to cover the screen. My wife wanted Navy and a I got a green one for myself. Affixed to the back is a nob to which a clip snaps in order to clip the phone to your belt. It's really nice and holds the phone securely. A spring-mounted button allows the phone to be released very simply, but only when you want it to. Its position allows you to do it one-handed. Sync Software - $50 The software, for PC or Mac, allows you to manage your phone's list from your computer, instead of tapping it all out with your fingers on the phone's keyboard. It doesn't automatically sync anything, but you can drag and drop items from the phone software to Outlook and back, which is pretty cool. It also allows you to add ringers to your phone. It seems like there are only a limited number of additional rings (mostly on the CD, a few more on the website), but it's cool to be able to add extra ringers. Beach Chair - $5 Ok, this was a splurge. It's a little blue beach chair that my phone can sit in on my desk at work. It was on backorder so I don't have it yet. But I do worry that the phone won't sit correctly while it's wearing its little leather cover. The website was quick and helpful and I wrote to ask about a question with the software (before purchasing) and they responded within 24-hours. The shipping costs aren't that great, so I opted for Fed Ex ground. But, it was shipped from Anaheim, so it still arrived after only one day. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 each 87024 2000/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 a nice blue light easy to use tiny long battery life reception indicator seems flakey bad contact list setup The Bottom LineGreat phone, good quality, easy to use, and good battery. It has a few faults but there are ways around them. I like it and would buy it again. Full Review I purchased two Kyocera 2235 phones from Verizon Wireless a few weeks ago in a "buy one get one free" deal for $49.99. I'm going to try to cover every aspect of the phone from my personal experiences of our relationship. Signal Strength Indicator: Since this is the largest of my concerns with the phone I would like to list it first. The phone has a four bar reception indicator that's supposed to give the user an idea of the strength of the signal being received from the tower. I have simply thrown this concept out the window and now ignore the indicator completely. It tends to jump from showing four bars to zero and back up to four by just walking ten feet. Best yet, using the phone with zero bars of reception yields a perfectly clear connection with whomever you're speaking to. Never before have I had this issue with any of the phones I've used in the past. Battery Life: I find this to be excellent. If you want to save battery life then you can turn off the blue backlight (see below for more details on that one), however for me the battery lasts forever. Both of my previous cell phones have had what I considered decent battery life, and this one beats them both. I can use the phone on a daily basis (not having three hour conversations a day, but just 20 or so minutes a day) and keep it on 24 hours a day and get about 4-5 days of use before having to recharge. Not to mention the actual battery is tiny, very tiny. The Blue Backlight: This may seem tacky to some, or it may have some value in impressing people with the nifty blue light (whatever floats your boat). I think it's useful but it can be too bright. The keys all light up and the display on the face of the phone lights blue. It allows for easy reading in the dark. The phone gives the options of keeping the light on continuously when in use (during conversations), and keeping it on 10 or 30 seconds after a keypress (or similar actions), or simply disabling it completely to save battery. Tools & Games: The phone comes with an alarm clock, tip calculator (put in the % of the bill to tip, the total bill cost, and the number of people to split the bill), regular calculator, a countdown timer and stopwatch, and four games (a space invaders type game, a fortune teller, a pong game, and my favorite, an RPG type game) Options: The phone gives you the option to change the display, to change sounds and volumes, to add shortcuts to different phone options, and to add a security password. The other (very useful) options are the keyguard, which has a shortcut from the base display and is one of the most useful features (as I constantly have the phone hitting things in my pocket) and a "Roam" disable option. This second option allows you the option to select from one of three roam options. Roam A and B I do not know how to distinguish between, but then there is the "no roam" selection, this way your phone will not automatically kick into roam and will stop you from making a roaming call. Definitely the best for me. Information Menus: Since no one reads manuals anymore, the manufacturer included an option on almost every menu that gives details about what the menu options do. It gives very concise information (of course it doesn't destinguish between Roam A and B, sigh). It's useful for the first few days, but it's nonintrusive after that so I like it. Ringers: The phone offers a wide selection of ringer choices from songs to basic rings to sports rings and other various obnoxious rings that will definitely annoy everyone else at the restaurant. I personally prefer the vibrate option. The Display: The main display tells the signal strength (bleh), and battery meter, your own banner choice (name, "Verizon", etc.), the date and time (which are automatically set and can not be changed, they are picked up from the providers tower) and if you're using vibrate or silent mode it displays that as well. The menu structures are very well laid out and the easiest I've seen. Contact List: To get into the contact list you have to press down and then up, and you're at the bottom of it, or you can press down and go through your whole list of people you recently called and at the end press down again and you're at the top. I hate this system. And once within it, you can't search for anyone. Kyocera decided to alleviate some of this tension by allowing you to simply press the number corresponding to the first letter of the person you're looking to call (for example press "5" for anyone with a name starting with J, K, or L. Then it gives the name of the first person alphabetically from J and you can scroll down until you find the person. Also you can store a number of different numbers for each person and from just their name and using the right and left arrows you can switch which number you want to call, for this I give them praise. Miscellaneous: Some things I'd like to mention before I go. The Recent Calls log is pretty bad, it mixes all calls (incoming, outgoing, and missed) into one list and uses symbols to distinguish between them, or course it doesn't have half the calls received. It does display the call length which is nice, but even that doesn't seem to work as well as one would prefer. The phone also has voice activated dialing and voice activated shortcuts. You can speak where you'd like to go and have that come up on the phone, or program and speak a person's name and it will automatically dial their number. It also has one button dialing to program a number for a name and press the call button. Things I didn't mention: I didn't talk about the Web Browser function or messaging functions because I don't use either of them. There may be other things I missed, but if I continue I my as well write a novel on the subject. Last Thoughts: It's an overall good phone for a great price. It's easy to use, has a very good structure, good durability, and excellent size. Menu navigation is simple and well perfected, and it fits anywhere. I has its faults, but so does everything else. Is it worth the cost? Definitely. If I had the choice would I buy it again? Definitely. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87023 2000/9/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the phone is lightweightfits into the palm of my hand there is no face plate The Bottom LineFor a mere $49.99 (and remember, I got buy one get two free) this phone is an absolutely amazing buy. Full Review When Verizon was offering a buy one get one free package offering the Kyocera 2235, I was a tad skeptical to say the least. When I bargained the guy to buy one get two free, I became almost more skeptical, but willing to bite the line he threw me. Having been a prior owner of a Verizon-brand phone, I was a bit worried that the Kyocera would follow the same, somewhat, dismal performance. However, I must say that the Kyocera 2235 has given me very little problems and I am a proud owner of this phone. The phone is both lightweight and fits into the palm of my hand. The facade of the phone is very sharp looking, however, there is no face plate, so make sure you put on your lock while the phone's in your pocket or you could be calling home at 1:30 A.M. in a local bar without knowing it. The phone has a variety of different options that come standard with purchase. There are a multitude of ringers, and you can pre-set different rings for both business and personal contacts. A vibrate/ring option is available so you won't be interrupting any important meetings with your cell phone going off. Internet capabilities are included with this phone. The Kyocera 2235 also comes standard with different games, including Cavern Crawl and Space Dudes. A handy tip calculator will calculate what you should leave your waiter or waitress based on the bill and the percent of the bill you wish to leave. A fashionable and handy screen saver comes with the phone. You can choose from a bouncing Kyocera logo to cat prints walking across your phone's screen. Voice activated calling is a cinch to set up and ideal for those on the go. I have yet to have major problems with the voice recognition, however, like most phones, don't think your voice activation is going to work at the local stadium or rock concert. The blue backlight allows for easy visibility at night time and gives the Kyocera 2235 a very retro look to it. Both voice messaging and text messaging are available. By simply holding down the "1" key, you gain instant access into your voice-mail box and are prompted to enter your password. A nifty address book allows you to classify your contacts, enter what type of phone (cell, home, work) and also allows you to preset those numbers into 1-2 digit speed dials. The Caller ID has yet to fail me and is a nice tool to determine whether you should take the call or whether something of more importance takes precedence over that phone call. For a mere $49.99 (and remember, I got buy one get two free) this phone is an absolutely amazing buy. I have been pleased both with this phone and with Verizon's service through this phone. For more information about Kyocera's products, check out www.kyocera.com. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87022 2003/3/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive reliable good features small good battery life inexpensive blue light becomes annoying at times not as many features as more expensive phones The Bottom LineIt isn't the best cell phone on the market, but the Kyocera 2235 is a great buy for the price! Full Review I generally go for relatively inexpensive cell phones because I am a poor, college student who doesn't really care about those fancy features anyway. The Kyocera 2235 seemed like the perfect choice for me, it wasn't the lowest end model Verizon was selling at the time, but it was the next step up. I figured the extra 20 or 30 bucks would give me some extra features and more dependability and I was right. I have had this cell phone for about one year and will probably continue to use it for another full year. THE LOOK: The Kyocera 2235 is small and lightweight, about the size of my computer mouse. The back of the phone is black and the front is two shades of gray with silver buttons as seen in the picture above. The antenna is pretty sturdy and stays up during use. Overall, the design of the phone is nice. It's small enough to carry around comfortably, but not too small to the point where I feel like I might lose it. I also like the design of the buttons, the number keys are just the right size so that I don't press more than one button at a time. The navigation buttons are also connected making it easy to glide through the menus and options. Two of these navigation buttons can be used as shortcuts, you can choose from a variety of shortcuts (volume control, lock keypad) and then when you press down and hold on the button - it will take you there! FEATURES: Contacts - Lists all of your contacts in alphabetical order with the option to add more than one number for each contact. You can also classify your contacts by labeling them either business or personal. Then, you can assign a ring for business and a ring for personal so that you will know at least the category of who is calling. Messages - This Menu option gives you the option of checking your voice and text messages as well as managing your inbox and sending text messages. I have had no problems with voice mail or text messaging since I have been using this phone. Recent Calls - Lists the last 15 outgoing.incoming calls. The Kyocera 2235 has easy symbols which designate whether the call was incoming or outgoing and whether or not the call was missed. If you select one of the calls, the phone will list the date, time, number and duration of each call. I find this feature very useful. I only wish that it did not list voicemail retrieval as an outgoing call, I obviously don't need to know what time I checked my voicemail and I would rather see more calls. Settings - The settings feature allows you to change ring tones, volume and types. Other choices include Security, Accessories and Messaging Options; however, the most used feature here is the ability to change the ring types and tones. I personally do not care for many of the ring tones featured with the Kyocera 2235, but its not a big deal to me. The rings of all my Verizon based phones have been too high pitched for my liking and I don't care for the songs either. I go for the Sports - Charge! ring, I don't really know why! Tools and Games - I was very surprised at the great features in this Menu category. I use the alarm clock daily and it remembers your alarm time even if you snoozed so that you don't have to take much effort into resetting the alarm. The Tip Calculator is another great feature that I love! Enter the amount of the bill, how much you want to tip and split the bill if necessary. Yes, figuring out tips is not difficult, but this helps with odd numbered percentages like 18% and is great for splitting a bill with a group. The Calculator, Countdown and Stopwatch features are self explanatory. I do not use these as much, but they are certainly there if and when I do need them. Next, the games which are Mystic Ching (more like a horoscope), Cavern Crawl (Super Mario type game), Space Dudes (Shooting from a Spaceship-type game) and Brick Attack (bouncy ball that you must control to knock out bricks). The games aren't exactly PS2 and the graphic quality is quite poor. However in cases of extreme boredom, they're fine for me. Beware that they do eat up the battery life though. OTHER INFORMATION: The Kyocera 2235 features and extremely BRIGHT blue display, which is sometimes overwhelming. In the dark, if your phone rings or you turn it on, it WILL blind you! Luckily, you have the option of shutting off the display or deciding how long you would like it to stay on...ex. the first 30 seconds of use. I find the display quite annoying, but it does make the phone easier to read in bad lighting despite its blinding capabilities. The phone displays a battery bar which will show 4 full bars when the battery is fully charged, 0 bars when the phone is dead or dying. I, however, have found this feature to be misleading. Many times the bar will be on 3 or 4, but then the phone will be dying (0 bars) after a 3 minute phone call. Often, if I then turn the phone right back on again, it's fine! Therefore I don't stress about the low battery display. Battery life is good, above average. I charge the phone strictly at night and use it frequently throughout the day. Sound quality is excellent on the Kyocera 2235, I usually keep the earpice volume rather low because I can hear so well. Also, I have not had too many problems with static or losing signals. In fact, this phone even works in my elevator where previous phones did not. I cannot comment on the Web Browser as I have not signed up for Internet Service for this phone. FINAL THOUGHTS For $80 with my plan and buy one get one free (my Mom got the other!), this phone was cheap and I'm sure it is much cheaper now as I purchased it about one year ago. It is reliable and that is my main concern. It doesn't do anything fancy, but it has the necessary basics and it won't let you down! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $80 w/plan 7682 Kyocera 7135 87077 2004/1/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great integration between phone pda bigger than most cell phones I first saw the PDA/phone combo in a superbowl add about 3 years ago, but they are now reasonably priced. The 7135 allows me to take my schedule, contacts, email, Xcel and head out. It's like having MS Office on my belt. I have pictures and MP3's stored on the optional storage card. I can take it to they gym, listen to mp3's and not miss a phone call. I can check email from the road without a laptop. The integration of the phone with the contacts is awesome. With 1 press of the stylus on a contact, the phone dials it. It has voice dialing too. The battery life is good except when there is a faint, or no, signal. Then the battery can drain fast. I bought the cigarette charger just in cast, but 1 charge a day on the USB charger is fine, even under heavy use. This was more than I've every spent on a phone, but the best purchase I have made. My wife calls it "my brain." 87076 2004/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip style durable great phone good pda battery life ok nice sizing a bit pricey mp3 player is ok no optional earphones palm experience a must I consider myself a technophile but I work in the industrial sector. I always carried around a StarTac and some kind of PDA (Palm). This device has successfully combined the two. I've tried the others with mixed reviews. It should be noted that this is a phone first, which is what you want in such a unit. The reception is great - better than my StarTac. The palm works great as well - I have never lost all of my info - ever. I have had to reset the device a few times but so what. I've dropped this phone 3 times - once from 6ft up and twice from 4ft - it didn't even flinch - I just scratched it up a bit :-( I know that some Palm software is flaky - if you stick to good programs you should be OK. Highly recommended. 87075 2003/11/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 just not on this product palm is a good os it just does not work properly The unit freezes constantly, and both Verizon and Kyocero have terrible support for helping the CUSTOMER (you) getting the problems resolved. This is my 5th Palm device and I have gained a lot of experience. If you know where your reset button is, then it's only the start. It's time for the big players to enter the market and let Kyocera go back to the lab. 87074 2003/9/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great integration of phonepalm pda rugged good display you need to be a pioneer terrible documentation lousy support from kyoceraalltel After just short of two years of operation, the power function quit on my 7135. It wouldn't stay powered up, even with a nearly new battery. After a few days of erratic functions, the phone quit entirely. The PDA continued to work fine. I went through a couple weeks of frustration with Alltell and Kyocera. No one at my Alltel store knew much about it. Learned Kyoocera no longer provides factory service. I bought a used 7135 on Ebay and got it activated. Ran into the same sort of erratic power function. Returned it for a refund. In the meantime, I tried out everything else I could think of - Treo 650, Nextel, Blackberry and more. Despite my frequent frustrations with the 7135, nothing else could match it: tri-mode service, Palm integration, SD smart card memory extention, indestructible case, good sound. Last week, I went back to Alltel and bought my second brand new 7135 and I'm back in business!! 87073 2006/1/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reasonably small flip software glitches hard to push buttons but i accept them all occasional crashes I've owned a few Palm phones and this one is the best.. although I never tried the Samsungs. None have been my dream combo and it looks like the Palm format and phones may not have much of a future. I like this phone. It flips and works. I even bought a second one on Ebay in case I need it because it's been discontinued... just to avoid the Treo. If you're reading this review, you're probably interested in a used one. I recommend it at a good price. You may not love it, but as a Palm phone, you probably won't hate it. 87072 2004/4/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 sturdy user friendly great size need two hands to operate bad technology programs not integrated can t add appointment from database Being a REALTOR I was ecstatic to have my data base contacts, appointment book, calculator, phone and "to-do" list all incorporated into one device. Having a third hand is needed in this business and I finally found the device that would incorporate all my communication/business tools into one and I could operate with single handedly. WHEN IT OPERATES! When it hasn't crashed, When I don't receive the message "fatal exception" (in other words - RESET), When I have to reset the entire unit because I can't hear the phone call I just answered, When the phone just doesn't ring ALL DAY LONG until you decide to check and reset it - and THEN you receive 23 messages from clients, When it just switches to analog and you have to reset it to get digital service again. I could go on and on, but in my opinion, I can't wait till Treo 600 incorporates Verizon service - because I can't loose any more business because of this unreliable piece of junk 87071 2004/3/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 mp3 player if the phone won t work what good is a palm in a word reliabilty I have had $29 cell phones that were years ahead of this $500 clunker that crashes with regularity. In 5 months I am now waiting on my next and third replacement. Trying to get a replacement between Verizon/ Kyocera has been a 2 or 2/12 hour adventure in being on hold each time. Last time I was in the Verizon store where I got his, there were others in line with same phone, same problems. What are the odds of that happening in relation to the relatively small number of these that they sell? 87070 2004/11/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 small outside lcd display allows you to identify callers without opening the flip everything else all in all a big piece of garbage! crashes all the time, resets itself, loses data... and thats just the pda part. the phone part sucks even more. all of the keys are the same height as the phone surface and there is almost no space between the keys, so dialing by feel is almost impossible. the keys give almost no tactile feedback and there is a lag in key acceptance so youre always misdialing. the most fun i had with this phone was breaking it in half after its umpteen millionth crash! to its credit it is built well and took a good bit of force to snap it! on the up-side, the sound is fine and speakerphone works nicely. 87069 2003/7/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 pda second pda is true to palm solid feel to phone phone first verizon service not as good as at t battery life needs help occasional reset needed The Bottom LineWant a phone? And a Palm? Get the 7135 it's the Best. For Microsoft fans buy the PocketPC or a Blackberry for email and suffer their phones. Full Review I have been a Palm user since 1996 and Cell phone user since 1989. I have tested numerous configurations and combinations hoping to find a device that was a phone first and a Palm second. I may be different than most people in that I use my Palm for the Phone Book and the Memo Pad. I sync with Outlook for Calendar, but I do not use the device for email (I receive over 200 a day). I have used the PocketPC and the SideKick. I rejected both of them because they didn't fit the Cell phone factor. I wanted a cell phone that had Palm capabilities. I toyed with a Treo, but it did not act like a phone. Features that I had to have: Speakerphone, coverable screen, voice-dialing, Palm OS, Net-enabled. Good cellular provider. Features I didn't care about: Email access, V4.1 vs 5.0 of Palm OS, relative size (as long as if fit in my pocket. Having a QWERTY keyboard. Where is it lacking? The keypad. My nails are short, but I still can't get a good feel on the phone keys. Verizon service - I guess it is good, but it clips as if the voices cancel each other out (I have T-Mobile (GSM), AT&T and Cingular service and none of those do this). The Battery - it needs to last longer, I carry two with me at all times. Msg symbol - I can't figure out how to get it to tell me I have msgs in my inbox (user error, I'm sure). It does occasionally require a soft reset. There is a delay in the touch pad and I think the system becomes confused when you have touched too many buttons in succession without waiting for a response. Why do I like it? I only have one device! I've loaded 15 programs on it (games, WorldMate, CityTime, Thesaurus, Translator) and I barely see a difference in functionality. It feels like a phone. Sound Quality is great. Screen Contrast is better than my Palm. Voice Dialing is wonderful. I downloaded my own rings without a problem. It was easy to figure out without being married to the manual for a week. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87068 2000/6/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 nice screen awesome features solid comfortable case battery lifestability of os The Bottom LineIf its a gift, or at a serious discount snap it up and be happy, otherwise pass on it for something else. Full Review I've had my Kyocera 7135 for nearly a year. Before that I had the Kyocera 6035 (their other Palm smart phone). Since this is three devices in one: pager, Palm Pilot and cell phone, the somewhat large size is a completely acceptable trade off. In all honesty, if the phone were a little larger (to give me an even larger screen) I wouldn't complain. The feel of the case is solid and the clamshell design feels a lot more comfortable then the 6035. I usually just drop the phone in my pants pocket and barely notice it. The stylus is normal (unlike some smart phones by other companies) and the SD memory slot has worked with all the SanDisk cards I've put into it. The screen is large, bright, and the graffiti area is well placed (it's comfortable to write on). The keypad is backlit and not cramped up like some newer phones. The keys themselves however do not have a positive feel - you're not always sure your button press "took" (And often it doesn't). The rocker button in the center of the phone is great for navigation and has a very positive feel. IMO The battery life sucks! I get no more than 2hrs talk time and no more than 3 days standby. I've tried two different batteries and neither have been on the Kyocera recall list, so I have to assume it's just the way things are with this phone. To get around this, I have a charger in my car, my office and at home. Charging time is relatively quick - about an hour to fully charge a nearly drained battery. The OS implementation seems unstable. I have to soft reset my phone at least two times a week. I've also had the phone reset itself on me a few times. When the phone resets of its own choice I loose all my data until I get back to the office and do a resync (if I didn't do frequent resyncs anyways, I'd be more angry about this). Overall, with all the choices in smart phones I wouldn't recommend buying this at full price ($499). I expect a lot from a phone that costs this much and don't expect such poor quality from the feature that puts it on my wish list to begin with (the Palm OS). If I were to go purchase a new phone right now, I'd be torn between the Treo 600 and the Sony-Ericsson P901 Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 474Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87067 2006/7/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 combo palm phone reasonably integrated what could be better software response delays no more verizon support battery life unreliable keys infuriating pop ups The Bottom LineMight work while you have a warranty, or longer if you roll up your sleeves. Full Review My 7135 displayed the message, "Service required. Contact provider." I contacted Verizon both by phone and store visit, and they told me that Verizon no longer supports the 7135--and mine is out of warranty. On the web I found a discussion of the "Service required" problem, a.k.a. SRCP. Cleaning and pushing on a certain connector inside fixes the problem for many people, including me for 12 hours. http://www.pdaphonehome.com/forums/kyocera-7135/54168-possible-solution-srcp-random-offs.html If that URL is too long to work, this is equivalent: http://tinyurl.com/ebybw The fix didn't hold for me for a full day, and I haven't been able to get the phone working again (the Palm part still works). In any case, this fix is for careful people with phones out of warranty! The one tool you need is a Torx T6 screwdriver, available at Sears and other hardware stores. If the fix stops working for me, I will amend this review. On the same forum is a discussion of experience with providers when the phone was in warranty: http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/kyocera-7135/34717-service-required-contact-provider.html or http://tinyurl.com/n9bpy Often good news, especially with Verizon. If you are thinking of buying a 7135 from a third party and connecting with Verizon, you can check the phone's serial number with Verizon before buying to see if it's compatible. The phone is quite useable although sometimes annoying, and I need that palm/phone combination. Verizon had it before they had the Treo. The processor is about 1/10 the speed of the one in a Treo, and the software is badly written so that when the communications part is busy, the unit doesn't respond to button presses. So, e.g., every time I get my voicemail, there is a two-second dead period in the middle of entering my passowrd. If you recieve a txt while on the phone or trying to send a txt, a popup comes up that must be dismissed. If you are in a place without service, the time and date display is replaced by a "no service" message, and the list of recent calls is unavailable. The integration between the Palm contacts list and the phone works well in both directions. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87066 2000/5/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything you want in a phone pdawireless information appliance quality control The Bottom LineBuy it, learn its few eccentricities and enjoy the greatest cellphone/pda there is. Full Review This is probably the greatest gadget I've ever seen; it's hard to imagine something that would suit me better. The first one I bought was defective; Verizon replaced it immediately, no questions asked. They said mine was the first one ever to come back to that store. The second one has been flawless. Everything came right up and worked the first time; it is now my constant companion. Just for laughs, I even downloaded the "kreeble...bleep" sound from the original Star Trek communicator and made it into a "flip open" sound using the provided software; worked great! Nothing is perfect. The key backlight could be brighter, I'd like to be able to customize a few more of the buttons, and it's a little hard to open one-handed; it can be done, but takes practice. Closing one-handed is much easier. There's a funny division between phone touch-screen functions and up/down cursor key functions; take's a little getting used to. Others have complained about the belt clip, but mine works fine and seems very secure. All in all, it's a dream come true. At $499, it's very competative with a top-of-the-line wireless PDA and a nice cellphone. Be sure to get the insurance; it's too expensive to take chances. I dropped my earlier 6035 Smartphone; I had a brand new one in my hands in two days for $50 instead of $250 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 87065 2000/12/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 feature rich as a business tool hohum support unreliable slow weird issues poor battery life unstable lack of palm application support The Bottom LineFind another phone to do the job you need. Full Review I had the Kyocera 6035 prior to my purchase of the 7135. It was an OK phone with decent cell reception, great battery life, and size being the biggest barrier to usability. I was very much looking forward to the 7135's release to hopefully break the size and the color display barrier. After plopping over $500.00 and being forced to extend my contract with Verizon Wireless for another two years, I am disappointed in many regards. Unstable - The phone crashes all the time. It gives you something equivalent to an anorexic "blue screen of death" and forces you to open the back cover and do a hard reset. At this point it is only guesswork if your data is preserved. 30-40% of the time you loose your data. If this happens while you are away from your docking station or on a trip, as is the case with me often, you are SOL. This happens more with use, so if you want to count on your phone, this is not the phone for you. Slow - The phone is slow. Every time you try to dial a number it may take up to 5 seconds for the phone to recognize your action. This makes it unbelievably frustrating to use. Pop-Ups - I dont like pop-ups on my computer display, in fact I hate them. What makes the folks at kyocera think I want them on my phone. This phone has an absolute infatuation with pop-ups. Here is an example; you have just dialed a number and you are trying to dial an extension --- POP-UP (Voicemail) --- now you have to get rid of the POP-UP before you can dial the extension. Once you do this and are about to dial your extension again --- POP-UP (Text Message) --- again you have to acknowledge the message before attempting to dial the extension. Again POP-UP (e-mail) --- at this point forget the call and just spend your time to deal with the pop-ups. There has been numerous instances when I missed important calls or had to disconnect to deal with the pop-ups and then try my call again. Kyocera needs to get it's priorities straight or at least give you the option to prioritize calls v. Pop-ups. Lack of Palm Application Support - Not all palm applications run on this phone. Many of the apps that may be helpful in your everyday make the phone even less usable than it is already. In fact when I call Kyocera for support on the above issues, they force me to remove all palm applications off the phone claiming that is the cause for my issues. I have replaced my phone two times since and do not even bother to load any external apps. None of my problems were solved by following their suggested guidelines. Battery life - Has been reduced from 4 usable hours on the 6035 to less than 2 hours. Kyocera claims three hours, but they are wrong or have taken artistic license with the facts. Poor Support - The folks in support are good in responding to calls with some (C-) followup. Their only recourse seems to be swapping phones, and this makes me suspect that the problems with the phone are design oriented. Having had this model for just under one year, I have gone through three phones. In one instance Kyocera charged me $75.00 for a replacement of a brand new phone charging cosmetic repairs that had to be made. I am still disputing this with little response from Kyocera. I may need to contact my credit card company on this. Weirdness - While using the phone, whenever I go into my car and SLAM the door, the phone disconnects. I can always redial and connect again, it is just the slamming of the door that forces a hangup. I called kyocera and asked them to try to go into the parking lot and try this with a Jeep Cherokee. They Refused! I called Verizon Wireless. They literally said that it is your car and you should try another! They asked me to change my car! All-in-all the phone had all the potential in the world but lives up to very few of the claims the company makes. This phone does not live up to the "right tool for the right job" motto. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 699.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87064 2003/5/17 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 superb call clarity bright screen difficult to navigate palm osphone do not integrate well The Bottom LineDifficult to use and the synchronization was buggy. Too expensive for the hassle. Full Review My wife needed a new phone to replace her old Startac. She used her Startac PDA (an accessory for the phone) everyday. The Kyocera integrated phone and PDA seemed perfect for her needs. The problems started immediately. Shortly after activating the phone (within hours) it froze up and displayed a message that said "Fatal Alert". This message results in a hard reset. The problem was traced to an issue with the battery. The main battery was bad. When the internal battery is depleted, the result is the error message and a hard reset. Any data in the Palm is lost. We also found a defect in the screen. It did not ruin the display, but was annoying. It looked as if some liquid got under the plastic casing. Our provider did replace the phone. The new phone had fixed both the screen and the battery issue. Next we found out the major annoyances in using the phone. First, we synchronized the phone with Outlook on our PC. In checking the data, we found that not all the home addresses we had in Outlook made it to the Palm. It seemed all the contact's phone numbers and business addresses were there, but not home addresses. Resynchronization did not resolve the problem. Second, missed called are hard to find. It turns out, you have to go into a folder in the Palm and navigate a couple of levels to find your missed calls. Not simple or intuitive, and not something you can do with one hand. Finally, the phone itself is just not easy to use. There is s steep learning curve in using the software. The documentation is poor and seems incomplete. There are no short directions indicating the purpose of the add on software that comes with the phone or which should be loaded for what purpose. We will probably return this phone and get something less expensive and friendlier to use. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 87063 2000/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 more palm than phone all in one good support convenience clam shell tough still not quite stable you must have the insurance you must install a back up buddy The Bottom LineBest of what is available that meets my needs. Full Review This is my 18 hour a day business phone. I have had mine (actually 4) for 15 months, I love it because, as another reviewer notes, it is a StarTak with a PALM. And until they have a better replacement, I'll stick with it. It has great reception, clarity, battery longevity, and the normal phone tools. I don't use the web stuff (no need). Pretty tough housing, as well. Thank heavens for the no-questions-asked insurance, which is a essential, My first unit lasted 6 months (zero key would not work), after another 8 months it constantly turned off, one replacement failed out of the box (they forgot the firmware). As bad and inconvenient as this sounds, you get a virtually new phone in 24 hours! I like that...no drawn out disagreeable conversations with the store-front tech guys. Over the phone support knows if it works or doesn't in a minute. And you get a shiny replacement with most recent physical and software enhancements - almost like a lease, Another essential to get a small flash memory card and back-op Buddy or equivalent software and set it to back up you synch data everyday. It crashes once a week (although I have gone as long as 3 months without incident) and it only takes 20 seconds to restore everything - neat and inexpensive add on. I now synch to the computer only once every two weeks which suits my habits. I shall stay the course. Garyvp Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87062 2000/5/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 full palm functionality good reception nice battery life best phone pda convergence device out there full figured expensive The Bottom LineReally, if you carry both your phone and your pda around all the time, you owe it to yourself to check this phone out. It works as it should. Full Review I am a busy professional who has been using PDA's for years; my phone is my constant companion, and occasionally I like to listen to mp3's on my player. Kyocera allows me to take just one gadget for all of these needs. As others have mentioned, I too have been wanting a good phone/pda convergence device for years. It makes too easy sense. I've gone through my 'batman utility belt' stage, and through my man-purse stage, and I am really ready to carry just one item that can do all the basic things I want done, without making things more complicated, and in a relatively small form factor. For example, there are these PDA/phone devices that are more pda than phones. They don't have a built-in number pad, which is a hassle, their battery life stinks, and they are not designed for you to talk into for length. I consider these more a novelty than functional. There are also the convergence devices with full keyboards (treos) which makes it great for wireless emailing... but still it ain't a phone! What I really, really wanted was simply a good phone with a full PDA functionality. And the people at Kyocera understood. I have been using my 7135 for about a month now, and I do really enjoy it. First, the physical inspection: this is a full-figured phone. Not that that should scare you off, but the first response I get from people is always "Wow, that's a big phone." (Second response is however always "That's a cool phone.") Seriously, this has the longest antennae I've seen on a phone since the original Motorola flip-phones. The size however, is not too big. It works. The body of the phone has a very solid feel, with none of the plastic-twist-squeek that you get from other flip-design phones. It has very solid hinge, and it is clearly built with much usage in mind. The 65K color screen is huge for a phone, and big-enough for pda. It's not the biggest Palm device screen, but it is very bright, indoors and out. There is no problem seeing the screen even in sunlight. As you know, this is a full Palm 4.1 PDA device. That means it synchronizes with your computer, most importantly for me with my Outlook. It has an infrared IR port, input pad (grafitti), in addition to the phone keypad. It even has the quick launch buttons. Nothing particularly special about the Palm functionality, except to say that everything works as it is supposed to. I've experienced no particular glitches. It uses the most commonly used processor (Motorola Dragonball 33 mhz), so the performance is average. The phone integrates very well with the Palm aspect of the device. (Those other reviewers who complained about the software glitches -- is it possible you don't have the latest firmware, or you are using the non-Verizon optimized(AllTel) phones on the Verizon network?) The longer I have this phone, the more I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the phone software on this (e.g. the screen disables the touch sensitive aspect when in phone mode, which makes complete sense in real life usage). The phone software is completely intuitive, and you really don't have to learn anything to make simple phone calls, unlike some other phones. And the built-in speakerphone is actually usable! The 7135 also works as an MP3 player. You need a special stereo headphone/hand-free headset (I purchased mine on ebay for $10) to really get its worth, but you can listen to it through the very loud speakerphone speaker. The sound is excellent. (BTW, you can have your phone to ring to any MP3! Cool...) Two things that really stand out: expandable memory (SecureDisk card) and easily replaceable battery. I don't think there are other phone/pda combos with these two items like this. The expandable memory is a must for a PDA device nowadays, especially if the MP3 is going to be used. I have 256 mb SecureDigital card that I purchased for about $50 at Costco. Also, the swappable battery (no, you won't lose all your data when you swap) is great. I sometimes forget to recharge the battery overnight, and I don't have the time to wait for it to recharge before using it. This was something I loved in my old StarTac. Speaking of battery life -- people complain about how long their other phones would last between charges, are not really being fair. The 7135 has an excellent battery life; its just that you are going to be using this thing more. It is a 3-in-1 device, so of course the battery won't last a long as just a phone, or just a pda, or just an MP3 player. In fact, the Kyocera lasts heck of a lot longer than my Ipaq. Finally, the reception. I have mine setup with Verizon, which generally has the best coverage in my area. I regularly have better reception than other phones, so I am very happy. Did I mention the crazy big antennae? It does allow for some great reception. The calls are absolutely clear. Kyocera has a reputation as having some of the best voice quality in their phones, and the 7135 carries the tradition. In all, as you can tell, I like this phone. It is not perfect (I would have love it if it was just a tad thinner/smaller), but it is one of those gadgets that promise to make your life easier that actually does! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 87061 2003/11/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the best compormise in existence for phone centric people nothing is perfect The Bottom LineThe best compromise on the market for the power user or geek freak. Full Review Look. Don't hate on this phone because it doesn't do your laundry 'cause it does about everything else. I wrote a long review that was accidently "cleared" so I will get straight to the point. If you need a Palm, need a phone and can stand Graffitti, this is it. Period. The integrated 3rd party apps alone are worth the price of admission for the power user or geek freak. Imagine free web browsing, web clipping and email (using plan minutes on Verizon). Imagine looking up telephone numbers/addresses on the web and then instantly getting driving directions and dialing the phone number with the tap of a finger. Imagine storing 4 albums, an entire Palm backup and several Excel files on a 256MB SD card. Imagine an unlimited address book where every call came in with a name attached to it. Imagine instantly getting flight, weather, trading information on your phone with the customization allowed by the Palm. How about a lightening fast searchable Bible in several translations. Again, this product is best for those who already understand the power and ease of a Palm and want to integrate that with the necessity of a cell phone. The integration is great as well. Caveats: Verizon customer service is a sad joke and Kyocera is only slightly better. You'll have to look online for help with some of the errors that will arise from such a feature-rich phone. However, once you work out the kinks, it will become an invaluable companion and the coolest toy on the block at the same time. It was well worth $500 if you actually use it. A good Palm is $300 and a good phone is $150. The integration and carrying only one device is well worth the difference. Definitely get the $4/month total protection plan when getting a phone this complex and expensive. ******************** 6 Month Update **************** I've now lived with my 7135 for 6 months and I'm convinced I made the right choice. Since its introduction, many other 'smartphones' have been announced, even some with the touted 'camera' feature. For my money, I still don't see anything on the horizon that would be better for phone-centric person. I'm in sales and the phone is my lifeline. Having over 500 prospects a finger-tap away is great. Although the phone keypad is not ideal in terms of touch, the clamshell design is just perfect in size and ergonomics. the holster is great as this is not a 'pocket-phone'. As for you people who think you need a camera. Go about your normal life for the next week/month and count the number of times you wish you had a camera handy and you're not at home or in your car. For me, it was seldom, but that's me. Most times when I'm out and want a camera, it's at night and I want a flash. Ooops, these camera/phones have no flash. Most other times, I simply take my flash, zoom, high CCD camera out of the car and take a real picture. If it was worth it, there actually is a camera accessory for the 7135. Instead of a camera, my next accessories will be the keyboard for mobile email/Word, more memory for MP3's and voice notes and maybe a stylus with integrated pen. Other than that, I only have three potential improvements: 1) a more touch sensitive keypad, remove the antenna so I'm not afraid to break it and cut down on the software errors inherent in such a complex device. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87060 2000/5/19 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 intended functionality none of it works reliably The Bottom LineKyocera should be ashamed!!! Full Review The title of this review is "shocking", and by that I mean that I am truly shocked at the number of good reviews that I see on this horrible failure of a "SmartPhone". I'm not going to go long into this. I'll just give you the punch version, so here goes. . The phone crashes quite often. . If you allow the battery to run down you lose all data, and sometimes the thing just seems to go whacky! . Manually dialing the phone is painful due to non tactile keys and very slow response to key presses. . Battery only good for an eight hour day (or less if you make calls). . Did I mention that if you let the battery drain completely, you loose all your data?? I have had this phone for 3+ years. The concept was brilliant. The final product was a complete and utter failure. Kyocera should truly be ashamed of themselves. Why am I writing this review now??? Because after a brief peak at the kyocera website it seems that this phone is actually still in production. Again, shocking!!! My conclusion: Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't even buy this phone used let alone new. In fact, I would honestly, never buy another kyocera phone again! I really mean that. Do I recommend this phone? Absolutely Not! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87059 2000/7/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 solid construction software instability The Bottom LineYou have to be a bit of a geek to love this thing. I am, so I do. Full Review I love this thing. Some say it is too bulky, but I prefer it this way - solid, and closing the lid is like closing the door of a well built new car. But I do want to pass on one word of caution. Before you get too dependent on the Kyocera 7135, do a hard reset, just so you know how it works before you find that you must do it and you are dependent on all the data you have stored in it. As instructed, sync everything first, then do the hard reset, and then re-sync to restore everything. Notice what is (almost everything) and isn't (password setting and possibly some third-party software data) restored. I say this because the software is not entirely stable. Soft resets (a 30-second nuisance, without losing data) have been required, in my case, several times weekly on average. The knowledge base articles tell me why this might be happening - third-party software bugs or removing the phone from the cradle (accidentally) before the sync is completed. That may be true, but that stuff happens, and I haven't figured out yet exactly what software is causing the problems. And on two occasions, in my first month, I could not solve the problem without doing a hard reset (a two-hand, contorted-finger trick, losing all data and requiring a 30-minute re-sync to restore most of the data as of the last sync). Back to the alleged bulkiness, I carry the Kyocera 7135 in my inside coat pocket, in the breast pocket of my coat (so I can see the caller ID display on the top), in its holster clipped to my belt, or sometimes in my shirt or pants pocket. In every case except maybe the shirt pocket, it is not too big to carry comfortably. In fact, I wouldn't want it any smaller, because further miniaturization would have to sacrifice screen size or other functional components. A little bit of extra bulk is, to me anyway, an easy tradeoff to justify. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87058 2000/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to cary around great pda phone combination is reception top notch The Bottom LineGreat PDA/phone combination. Glad I didn't wait longer for something newer/better to come around. Full Review After my Rex6000 gave up, I was in need of a PDA that was first and foremost compact. The ability to integrate this with a cell phone seemed ideal as it would require me to carry one item less. After much searching on the web and visiting several stores, I ended up with a couple options, each with its disadvantages. AT&T had some, but their local coverage was so poor their store refused to sell me something. T-Mobile has no coverage here, and Cingular is about a century behind with their cell phones (I really wanted a GSM as I travel a lot in Europe). Although I liked the Samsung I330, its limited ability to expand turned me off. I could have waited even longer for the I500, but after three months of waiting I grew impatient. Thus, I ended up with the Kyocera 7135 with Alltel. This phone met all my requirements, other than being GSM. Size wise, it is BIG compared to the Rex, but still small enough that it is easy to carry around, even in a pants pocket if required. The belt clip is preferred, though. Having had it for two weeks now I can only say one thing about it: I am happy with it as a clam. The Palm features are great and well integrated with the phone. The top window is very handy, especially since the phone looks up an incoming phone number in your address book and displays the name of the caller on it. It also indicates missing calls, messages, etc., so no need to take the phone off the belt to check what is going on. I also added an excel compatible spreadsheet to it so I can do some math on the road. And with a little bit of fiddling I managed to set up MobileMail (included) to synchronise with my IMAP account (Eudoramail, which is preinstalled, only works with POP). Checking e-mail on the go is a BIG bonus. For MP3s, I plugged in a 256 Mb memory card, and uploaded a couple CDs. From the phone, they sound so-so, but through the headphones they sound great. This is one area where expandable memory is a big bonus. Same is true for the included photo manager. All this horsepower in a small package of course has implications for battery life. As long as I don't use the device too much for palm applications, it will easily last two days. However, spend two hours on the palm, and you'll be glad to make it to the end of the day on a single charge. Thus, plan on recharging it once a day. One concern I have noticed is that on the ground floor of my three story office building, I have difficulty picking up a signal. This may be an Alltel problem, a building problem, or a phone issue. I never noticed this with my previous GSM, though, thus making it more likely to an Alltel or phone issue. Overall, a great phone/PDA combination! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 87057 2003/8/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reminds me of my old startac easy to use stable palm system awesome color display price price price battery life The Bottom LineIf you want to get junk out of your pockets, get this phone. Its bit bigger than the old StarTac and but you don't have to carry multiple devices. Full Review As an update to this review, I have had the phone for about three months now and I have had no major problems with it. The only things I think you should be aware of are the following: 1) Battery life is rather short. On standby, not using the Palm nor making any calls, I get about a day and a half. Pitiful but acceptable if you recharge every day. 2) You can't use the charger from the previous 6035 because they made the adapter hole much smaller than the one on the 6035. Ditto for car adapters. 3) The jack for the headset is smaller than the standard one that comes with most other portable audio equipment. So that means you are stuck either adding an adapter from Radio Shack which sticks out about an inch or paying the $40 for the headset that Kyocera requires. 4) If you let the battery drain to empty, you have to wake up the phone by hard resetting the phone. 5) Kyocera does not provide downloads of the Palm software on their website so don't lose the CD. 6) Don't expect Verizon to know how to trouble shoot this phone. I think given the cost of this phone Kyocera should not nickel and dime their customers and ensure upward compatability of their adapters and include the stupid headset with the phone or make it a standard size. Otherwise, if you don't mind the short battery life, go for it. I bought this phone only because my Kyocera 6035 went for a swim in the toilet. I had it in my shirt pocket as I was trying to put my son on the toilet and Walla, plunk and no phone. I was going to buy another 6035 (I was very happy with it after a year of trouble free operation). However, they discontinued it and no one sold refurbished models. I tried to e-bay one but they were going for $125 to $200 for a used one. I paid $99 for my 6035. Out-the-door, this phone cost me $500 (after I signed a two year extension on my contract). I also took out the insurance for $5 per month in case it goes swimming with its cousin. I definitely was not prepared to pay that much but I kind of missed my Palm. So you only live once. Anyway, when I got the phone I was amazed. It reminded me of my old Motorola StarTac but it has a Palm. Once the two are combined, there is no excuse to throw the Palm into the gadget drawer along with all the other electronic equipment one collects over the years. Even more attractive is the fact that I can use this phone as an MP3 as well. So, move over MP3, the Kyocera is here to stay. The engineering is awesome: 1) It has a holster that clips to your belt which is a big relief on the shirt pocket and much safer for the phone. 2) It has a fairly vivid color display much improved over the monochromatic display of the 6035. It can display 65,000 colors. It is also very bright and vivid even in sunlight. If you have used Palms in the past, the monochromatic display is pitiful in daylight or under a fluorescent light. I can see the screen on this phone in the brightest sunlight with no glare or fade. 3) When the phone is closed and in the holster, you can view a small LCD display across the top of the phone that acts as caller ID, a battery meter, a signal strength meter and a clock. You don't need to take it out of the holster if you don't want to. 4) It has an MMC or SD car slot so that you can download MP3s and pictures to the phone. Now I have my kid's pictures in the phone too. I no longer need to carry bundles of pictures of the kids around. This is so exciting to lighten the load. 5) It comes with PALM OS 4.1. 6) The dock is both USB and serial compatible. 7) You can use this phone for data or web browsing. My only complaint is price. Also, the user manual could use some work. I can't figure out how large of an MMC or CD card this thing can handle. They could also have included the headphones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 87056 2004/11/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sd card excellent beltclip very good phone web access great consolidation fantastic features mp3 player battery life stability see review for workarounds slow for a new palm The Bottom LineGreat phone, but requires much tinkering. If you can hack the tinkering without going nuts its worth it. I guess it's like a wonderful but high maintenance girlfriend/boyfriend. Full Review I purchased this product because at times I was carrying a beeper, a palm and a cellphone. I wanted to lower the load. I saw a vendor of ours with the phone and he let me play with it. The phone seemed to be the solution I was looking for. Well I bought the phone about 6 months ago. It has met every need and expectation, except for one. Having a combined PDA phone has been great. No more belt full of electronics (I felt like Batman with his utility belt). The benefits of having one device to carry cannot be overstated. I always have my Palm and my phone! I always have my schedule and my contacts, even over the weekend. I can access the web anywhere. A couple of weeks ago a friends band was playing at a local bar. Someone asked me what the song was that he was playing. I went on the web, keyed in some lyrics and found the song and who made it famous, all before he finished playing the song. The phone works very well, and the PDA is very good too. The PDA has lots of storage 16MB, and also can hold an SD card (I have a 256mb one). The MP3 player is great, I listen on the subways and when shoveling snow. The belt clip is a phenomenal piece of engineering. It holds the phone reliably. It's easy to take the phone out. It pivots to keep out of your way, and never lets go of your belt. I would recommend that you buy screen protectors, I use ones from StrongEngineering. There is some excellent software available specifically for the phone. Minutes Plus by Rick Whitt tracks your minutes used (so you don't have to call your Wireless provider for a two day old balance). Rick has also written Directory Assistance, which is a web pqa that lets you look up phone numbers, addresses and maps easily. Bebopper by Belltools is a much better MP3 player than what comes with the phone. Of course you also have available thousands of Palm programs to install and use. Now for the negatives. I'll start with the minor stuff. The Palm is slow, I don't feel it's a major problem, but occasionally when lots of things are going on you notice a delay. So it might take a second or two to recognize a button press, when an MP3 file is playing and perhaps you are on the phone. From what I've read some people get very impatient. This hasn't really bothered me much. Battery life is limited. With little use, I can go 2-3 days without recharging. Usually I recharge daily, but some weekends I miss two days with no problems. If you uses it a lot you may have to recharge daily. If you live somewhere were digital service is not available, or where reception is poor you could have even more limited battery life, as analog or poor reception really sucks up the juice. I would strongly recommend having two battery chargers, one for home and one for the office. I also keep a second battery for emergencies. With that in mind, I have never run the batteries dead. (addition: 4/16) I should also mention that I understand talk time is in the 1 - 1 1/2 hour range. That is not a problem for me, but might be for some. Now for the biggest problem. Stability! For whatever reasons there are a couple of glitches you have to live with with this phone. If you can't accept or work around these glitches then this phone is not for you! I have managed to work around these problems and can live with them. If you are not a tinkerer, or are not careful about how you do things, or just want something simple that you don't have to think about, THEN THIS PHONE IS NOT FOR YOU!!! It takes some care, but I think the numerous rewards/advantages make it worthwhile. Basically the phone can hang or crash for a number of reasons (see below). If you don't notice that it crashed (and reset it with a button under the battery cover) it may not receive any incoming calls. This happened to me twice. So I would NOT recommend this phone for Doctors or anyone who has a critical need for receiving calls. One problem is, if you don't do it exactly right, changing batteries is risky. You can lose everything in you're Palm (a hard reset - resets the palm to factory original settings). I should say that I only had one hard reset from replacing the battery, before I figured this out. Here are the steps to avoid a hard reset: - Power off the phone (see instructions) - Power off the palm (see instructions) - Remove and replace the battery quickly and be sure not to let the battery make and break contact (bounce) as you put it in the phone. Now for the big problem, for whatever reason this phone is extremely sensitive to what PALM software you install. Some software causes the phone to crash or hang (requiring a soft reset) without losing any data, but it is also possible to lose data (hard reset). One of the most problematic pieces of software is Avantgo. If you leave Avantgo running and close the flip and then go out of range from a cellphone tower, there is at lease a 75% chance that the phone will hang. I use Avantgo, but alway return to the launcher before closing the flip. Since I figured that out I have probably crashed twice from Avantgo. Other software can also make it unstable. You need to have the time and motivation to figure out what causes the problems and remove it. I had one or two pieces of software that I had to remove/delete. Because of the stability problems, I would say everyone should have an SD (Secure Digital) storage card of at least 16MB and software such as BackUPBuddy VFS, to backup the phone to the SD card. If you backup to the SD card and you lose everything (hard reset) you can restore to the last backup even without hotsynching. As a matter of fact, I always backup to my SD card before changing batteries, before loading new software etc... Also, Hotsynching does not restore everything (voice dialing, call history etc...) so a backup to SD card is the only way to save this. My last recommendation is to read up about the phone on pdaphonehome.com in their 7135 forum. You can learn a lot of tips and tricks, methods to manage any problems with the phone. It definitely helped me get everything working smoothly. So in the end, I am very happy with the phone. I have managed to deal with all the problems and can enjoy all the great advantages of having one device do everything and all the great features of this phone. I can see how other people would hate this phone. You need to be self aware of whether you can cope with it. Some people will love it and some will hate it. Your mileage will vary. I hope this review will give you a little more information to make the right decision for you. By the way, I got such a great price because we have a very aggressive purchasing guy who negotiated this deal. You probably won't be able to get this price easily. 11/04 - I have gotten the phone to be stable enough that I soft reset less than once a month and hard reset (losing data) about once every six months. Lots of people are looking at the various Treo models as a replacement. I feel that I will wait until phones that use Palm OS 6 come out (that supports combo palm/phones directly). I believe that is when there will be a great improvement in stability and function. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87055 2003/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 when it works palmphone in one device don t recommend to a friend keyboardphone don t always work crashes all the time screen The Bottom Lineexcellent idea, poor execution. Software and hardware bugs make this a poor choice. I'm changing cellphone providers rather then stay with this phone. Full Review I've now had this phone for a few months. The best thing is that my palm pilot is always with me in a converged device. It's so handy; but I'm extremely disappointed in this device. It crashes almost every day. I can live with that, although it's annoying. The worst part is that the keyboard and screen don't always work! I've had phone calls and the screen is blank, so you don't know who's calling. I've had the screen on, but the keyboard won't work, and I can't answer the phone. This is the deal breaker for me. I've already replaced the phone twice; today I'm giving it a third try with a new device. The Verizon rep said he's replacing these every day, and hearing complaints all the time. If this one doesn't work I have two not so palatable options: 1. Stay with verizon and use one of their Pocket PC phones or 2. switch to sprint and use the new Samsung Palm phone. Neither is a great option for me, and I'm bummed that Kyocera and Verizon would put out such a poor device- especially since I was one of those who waited anxiously for this device to come out. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87054 2000/10/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 e mailcell phone functions combines pda frequent crashes that wipe out the databases make this a novelty not a business tool The Bottom LineReliability issues keep this from being a serious business tool. Full Review I have owned several cell phones, but they were bought with other people's money. When I finally had to pay for one from my own pocket, I was delighted to find that someone had combined Palm PDA functions with a cell phone. A quick calculation of the costs of a color PDA and cell phone made the expense justifiable. This also meant lightening the load on business trips, since the 7135 could contain information I might otherwise have to use a laptop to access. The phone generally works as advertised, at least most of the time. However, Internet access (Verizon) is too slow to really be useful, unless you're stuck in an airport and want to check the sports scores. As far as getting directions or even phone numbers, surfing was not a practical solution. The e-mail function worked acceptably, although I couldn't get attachments. Apparently some aftermarket software is better at this, but because the Kyocera 7135 system is so unstable, I stuck with manufacturer validated software. Stability of the software and overall quality control are unacceptable. Verizon has done an admirable job of trying to service these problems but I fear it's a losing battle. I have had 4 of these phones since April. Most but not all were software. One phone had a screen with 10-20% dead pixels. Today as I was in for another repair, a gentleman next to me said he was on his second. And the technician at the shop said that a clerk there who had a 7135 was experiencing fewer crashes with the new software. Not a heartening recommendation. My biggest worry now is what happens when the warranty runs out? My interactions with Kyocera customer service have not been as productive as with Verizon. I agree with an earlier review about their replacement policy. It made me very anxious to have $700 riding on some unseen individual's decision. Some might argue that as an early adopter one should expect some difficulties. Agreed. But trips to the shop every 2-4 weeks and 4 replacements in eight months is too much. The instability means you can't rely on this as a business tool. Because if it takes out your database while you're on the road, you have no recourse. And if I have to carry back-up data, what's the advantage of buying this device? It's also fast becoming obsolete. Since it can't use Palm OS 5, it is already limited. I wanted to download an Audible.com book but couldn't because of this limitation. And there's no camera. Recent ads show Kyocera offering a card, but if they haven't gotten the main functions right I'm not optimistic about the accessories. I don't know of an acceptable alternate to the Kyocera 7135, but I'm sure there will be one soon. For my money, it would have been worth the wait. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87053 2004/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception expansion slot for sd cards true pda smartphone w touch screen no touch screen interface with phone main screen a tad bulky The Bottom LineThis phone has everything from mp3 to web surfing to ms office compatibility. Being a palm there are possibility for unlimited updates Full Review Though I was very happy with the LG 4400 I have with verizon wireless, my 10 month old daughter slapped that phone out of my hands and sent it to a cruel death on the pavement. So, I purchased a Kyocera 7135!!! I have been wanting a phone that integrated my palm pilot and my phone into one convinence and this phone does just that. This is a smartphone, that is in design it is a phone first, a PDA second. Because of that you will find a number pad instead of a keyboard like some models. This is a good thing because those keyboards are too small for little fingers but if you must have one this phone has an optional keyboard attachment that is the size of a laptop keyboard, very nice and a big plus for this unit. Being a smartphone the pda and phone apps are two separate units so lets start the review with the phone. The phone has up's and down's that can vary ones desire to purchase is. First we will start with the bad. There is a delay between hitting keys and having numbers appear on the screen. This can be a frustration that if you try to dial too fast, you may end up missing a number of two. Slow and steady dialing is all that wins this race. Also, the only other qualm I have about this phone is that the main phone screen is NOT touch-screen sensative. If you go into a sub menu like phone prefrences (where you adjust ring volume etc,) then it IS touchscreen but the main screen can only use the phonepad controls. THIS SUCKS!!!! BUT as I said these are the only two qualms now lets look at the GOOD SIDE! The phone is a true tri-mode phone, it uses both 1800 and 1900 signals AND the 800 analog signal, yes this phoe is analog. Now, here is the sweet part... My LG 4400 has a reputation of having a pretty good signal reception but at the Church I pastor (in the midst of three state parks, in the middle of nowhere) I get no signal whatsoever. Not so with this phone though. This phones powerful antennae gives me a full digital signal! Being a flip phone you expect to be able to answer the phone by flipping open the unit and ending it by flipping it closed. This is not so at first BUT you can change that in phone preferences. This phone is fully customizable. You can even use an MP3 song file as a ringtone!!! The database and phonebook are very extensive and are unlimited (thanks to the integration of an optional SD card). On the top of the closed unit is a LCD screen giving you the sych on the basics, battery strength; signal strength; incoming number. Did I mention this phone has a speaker phone, not like you need it because the unit has a very powerful speaker, you can hear a pin drop on the other end of the line! Just in case of the need for silence yes there is a vibrating mode. This is enough about the phone, that alone is catalist to purchase this unit, it had me sold. Now let's go on to the PDA section. This is a true PDA with touch screen interface. The phone comes with a stylus that convinently tucks into a pocket in the back of the phone. above the number pad on the bottom section of the phone is the typical palm touch screen for grafitti letters and numbers. Below that is the typical pda four buttons for fast load apps AND a directional pad (up down) with an enter button in the middle. Yes you can surf the web with this phone, yes there is an IR port for data transfer. The most important thing about a pda is the software involved. This phone comes with a game, tetris, quickoffice which can read word and excel docs. There is also an MP3 player. (you can add ear phones to make this an mp3 player unit). There are unlimited software installations and with the SD expansion slot you have no limit on the amount of memory. Typically the PDA has 15MB I believe. The unit itself comes with a dual sync cradle, that is it has both a serial and a USB port for picky choosers. The unit uses the palm standard syncing software, hotsync. It also has a section for a spare battery charger. The BEST thing about this syncing cradle/charger is this: You can unplug the cord from the sync cradle AND plug it directly into the phone!!! You can charge on the cradle or just directly into the wall, perfect for travel! All in all, this phone is everything for the techno geek OR the office on the go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87052 2000/2/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 some things better then others overall it does everything keypad sucks too much has to be done thru menus there are no smartkeys The Bottom LineIt's going to cost you plenty so be sure you test drive it and compare it to the competition. Full Review The other reviewers ratings should clue you in to the fact that you quite possibly will either love or hate this phone/PDA. As background, I used several StarTacs for years. With the StarTac you could do just about everything with one hand by operating the keypad with your thumb and the smart buttons with your fingers. With this phone everything seems to require a mixture of keypad, stylus, and menu's. You can't even switch the ringer from vibrate to ring without going thru a "not a graffiti app", to a graffiti app, using the stylus (or your fingernail) to make the final selections. And the Vibrate level is only powerful enough to feel about half the time. I have missed many calls because I never felt it vibrate. The keypad is a nightmare of terribly placed keys that are too flat and have no feel to them. Combine that with the fact that most of the time there is no relation between the keypress and the time it takes for the result to appear on the screen. Sometimes the OS is busy elsewhere and it doesn't even recognize that you have pressed a key. And the warranty... When my StarTacs had a problem early in their life I just took them back and they gave me a replacement. WHen this 7135 had a problem, ALLTEL could not do anything but tell me I would have to send it back, that was their only option. Fortunately the problem mysteriously cleared up and I never had to send it in. In spite of all these irritating issues, I still prefer to carry this phone/PDA than to carry a seperate phone and seperate PDA. The screen is good and even in bright arizona sun I can read it with a little shading from my hand. The sound quality it good, speakerphone is good. I would definately say anyone considering it should take a look at the competetion before committing to it and make sure you can live with it's idiosyncracies. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87051 2004/1/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 fairly decent converged pda phone horrible address book poor battery life appalling keyboard feel The Bottom LineGood but not great. You definitely make tradeoffs between pure PDA and pure phone. It seems much of the tradeoffs are on the phone side. Full Review I have been waiting for a PDA/phone for a while and had stuck to my old Nokia 6185 until someone in Canada started carrying one. Since I was already a Bell Mobility customer I got $350 in rebates. After a few months use I have mixed feelings about the phone. Why? I needed one that could be sync'ed with Outlook and especially could notify me of calendar reminders while I was at customer sites. It does this well (but I am having a little trouble convincing it I'm in a different time zone). Keypad As mentioned in the other reviews, the keypad is terrible. I have logged an enhancement request with Kyocera on this. I've used other Kyocera's so I know they know how to make a real keypad. Address Book One of this phone's worst features. It's a bit hard to use and very easy to dial the wrong number, or the first number in your list. Dump it and buy the TakePhone software from http://www.shsh.com. Infinitely superior. TakePhone allows you to use the keypad to enter a search string that is more than one character long. Another annoying feature is that if I select a contact from the address book and select dial, and there is another contact with the same number (eg. 2 people at the same customer), the call history always shows the first (alphabetically) contact. Phone App Tap an entry in the phone application and you get a message "The phone app is not touch sensitive". Huh? On a Palm? (I eventually figured this out - holding the phone up to your face would probably select things randomly if it were touch sensitive. That said, the menu could be touch sensitive, and then deactivate it when the call starts.) MP3 Player Another piece of very poor software. It needs to rebuild the playlist almost every time you use it and it takes too long when there is a lot of data. It has no control over the phone buttons so if you start it, then close the phone and then want to change the volume, you need to open the phone (which usually stops the MP3 player) and then restart the player and change the volume. Try http://www.belltools.com/ for a replacement that is very much superior. (And now supports multiple playlists!) Reception It's not my old Nokia. Good but not the best. I definitely get more dropped calls. And a lot more calls go straight to VM. Card Use You need an SD card for the MP3 player. Invest in a card reader as well. The downloader software is too slow. However, you may need to use it once so you can see what directories it creates on the card. You will probably need to use the same directories. Ringer Settings. Has a Vibe, Ring or a Vibe then Ring setting. Desperately needs a Vibe AND Ring setting. Battery Life Initially that battery life was BAD! I'd often run out of juice before the end of the day. It seems to have improved somewhat, but I also carry a spare battery and a charger. To be fair I did that with my Nokia which had far superior battery life. You just never know where you're going to be and how much you'll need your phone. Pros The speakerphone is great. The size and overall functionality is great. It a Palm so go ahead and play. I have the eBook Reader on there and a few books. No more commutes with nothing to occupy my time. Overall Although I clicked 'recommend to a friend' I'd make him/her read this site and make their own decision. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87050 2004/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nearly perfect pda phone not a bad value either software teething pains better but still not perfect The Bottom LinePresently, the 7135 is a great phone that has been bettered in the marketplace by newer models. If cheap, buy it used. Full Review UPDATE: 2/6/2004: At this time, the Kyocera 7135 is no longer being sold by Verizon. It has been replaced by newer phones, such as the Treo 600. While the 7135 was a great phone for it's day, and I still use mine daily, I would strongly suggest purchasing the newer 600 or similar model instead. - Future Shock I waited for 6 months for Verizon to release this phone, and I have had it for 3 weeks now. In reality, I have waited for a viable PDA/Phone for over 5 years, ever since I started traveling with both a PDA and a phone, and realized the silliness of keeping duplicate phone books on each, and typing numbers onto a phone keypad that I was reading off my PDA. Rather than re-list all the features of the Kyocera, I suggest you check the Kyocera web site, or Verizon's web site. What I will do here is give you my experiences and summary of how it compares to other phones that I have reviewed before buying the 7135. Firstly, with regards to many of the complaints of previous posters, apparently Verizon/Kyocera has introduced a new software update that seems to solve many of the problems listed. The phone software is STILL not perfect, the numbers typed on the keyboard are still slower to register than I would like, and the phone has locked on me a handful of times over three weeks. (UPDATE 06/02: yesterday the headset jack stopped working, was finally remedied by RESETing the Palm. Lesson here is that EVERYTHING on PDA/phones is in software, and a RESET seems to cure it.) Does it reduce my enthusiasm? Yes. Does it make me wish to trade it for any other phone in the world? HELL NO! Why not? Because someone finally got the hardware right. The 7135 is only a bit larger than my old StarTac, and still fits in a pants pocket for when I don't want to use the belt clip (which is an outstanding clip). I don't feel stupid holding it up to my ear in public, although I DO need to buy screen protectors ASAP - the screen presses against your oily, sweaty face, and it can't be any good for it in the long run. The PDA functionality is what you would expect from a Palm OS 4.1 device, with the addition of a very useable MP3 application from Kyocera. The MP3 player multitasks: you can start songs and then go use other PDA functions while it plays in the background. The phone's screen is GORGEOUS - 160x160 pixel resolution is smaller than a Pocket PC device, but the 65,000 colors look great and the screen is very bright. The phone lets you speak as with a normal phone, or use the built-in speakerphone, or use a headset. I use all three equally, and appreciate the flexability. To have a phone force me to use a headset, or to not have a useable speakerphone, strikes me as bad design these days. The 7135 is one of the few PDA/phones that offers all three. I have a 128Meg SD card in my phone right now, and it works as you would expect. (I STILL don't like the way PalmOS works with SD memory compared to Pocket PC devices, as they are not directly viewable on your PC's desktop. But that's not a fault of the 7135...). There is no camera, but Vue offers their SD-expansion slot camera for $99,and it works with Palm PDAs. A natural fit into the 7135, and probably my next purchase. The build quality seems quite high - I've dropped mine once or twice so far, no problems, and the hinge design seems very sturdy. Ditto the two-part extensible antenna, which really boosts signal strengh (it's one of the few phones to work well in my NYC apartment). The software bundle that comes with the phone is very complete. The two different browsers included each have their uses - I mostly use text-only EudoraWeb when using the MobileWeb service (14k connection speed), but will probably use graphically enabled EIS when I upgrade to Verizon's ExpressNetwork service (56k plus). Also nice is the software bundle that contains QuickWork and QuickSheet, which I find have more features than Microsoft's Pocket Word and Pocket Excel for Pocket PC (you can also get a Palm version of PowerPoint by paying to register Quick software, which MS doesn't even have). In addition, the docking station is one of the best designs that I have ever seen for a PDA, complete with both USB and serial connections and a spare battery slot. The phone and PDA have a high level of integration. I was shocked to discover that I could highlight text in any document, and then press the CALL key and that number would be dialed! And once you get the feel for the key combinations, looking up a number in the address book and dialing it can be done easily without even using a stylus or Graffiti, just with the keypad and buttons. My only complaint is the main screen for the phone applications: it is NOT touch sensitive, but many of it's underlying applications ARE: it's not a problem in use, but it seems cheap, like someone ran out of time to make the menu touchsensitive at the last second. Easily fixable should Kyocera try to do so. Lastly, the pricing. Yes, it's $500 with a two year contract. But consider that a good color screen phone costs ~$200, and a color screen PDA w/ in-built MP3-player will easily cost $300, and you are getting them both in a more portable package for that amount. Simply put, you aren't paying much of a premium for the reduction in bulk, added convenience, and integrated features. In my mind, that's a good value, even if it isn't cheap. Just be sure to get the optional insurance, just so you can use it without worrying about it... How does it compare to other PDA/phones that I looked at? Short answer: Treo: larger in height and width, a bit thinner. Non-swappable battery. Screen lacks color depth of 7135. Virutal keypad, no Graffiti. Not as good a phone or PDA Samsung I300: larger but thinner, non-clamshell design, no screen protection, no SD expansion slot, lower color depth screen, just as expensive Samsung I500: better than the 300, but still no SD expansion Thera: Dual band phone only, very bulky to use as phone, virtual keypad, bad battery life (I have this as a Pocket PC, without the phone). Nice larger screen though, if you need a PC more than a phone. Tungsten W: Must use headset, no screen protection, bulkier in height and width. Higher resolution screen, but still smaller than Pocket PC devices. Great as a PDA, not as nice as a phone Pocket PC Phone (T-Mobile, etc.): Bigger, bulkier, virtual keypad, but again with larger screen. Again, better as a PDA. Sony P800: Probably the only phone that can compete with the 7135, but lacks third party applications (doesn't run Palm or Pocket PC apps). Great organizer functions, and can run Java apps should you want (or your company want) to write their own. GSM only, and more expensive right now. FINAL THOUGHTS: If you want a market-leading PDA/Phone, this is the best on the market right now. But be sure you are buying it because you need/want the PDA features - there are slimmer, cheaper, more friendly models on the market without PDAs if all you want is a cool phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87049 2003/9/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 it s the future it s here now it works is the echo the phone or telus low battery life where is bluetooth The Bottom LineI like this phone a lot. Battery is lame, and where is bluetooth, but otherwise, thanks Kyocera! Full Review The Kyocera is the first good cell phone/pda hybrid that I've seen so far. There are a lot of things about this phone that work well, and some brilliantly. There are a few things about the phone that don't work so good, and are confusing. Like the other reviewers, I won't go deep into feature descriptions. Go to the Kyocera website to see what it can do. Needless to say, you have to be a Palm fan to dig this phone, and being Mac guy, it's the only way to do the combo cell/pda thing, right now. Essentially, the phone does what it's supposed to do. You have a color Palm, first and foremost, that will make cell calls, browse the web, deal with email and text messages much more elegantly than most of the other WAP phones. Up here in Vancouver, we are a few months (just a few months) behind the smartphone revolution, so I should temper my enthusiam and say that other than the Blackberry, we don't have much more to choose from. So that alone makes the Kyocera 7135 wonderful. Syncing, loading all my data from my old Palm, etc, was transparent and easy. True plug and play. Thank you. I didn't spend much time with the manual and was able to figure out pretty well everything I needed to know about the cell phone/pda overlaps within twenty minutes or so. Phone settings are dealt with a Palm app. Everything is built into a series of preferences which seems to cover function fairly well. The address book call function works fine -- maybe one step too many, but it's good, and fairly easy to find a contact, either using graffiti or using the keypad to enter the first letter of your contact. Speed dialing programming is very simple. Voice activated answering is nice ("You have a call. Answer?"), although a couple of times I've had to repeat myself, especially when I say "No" (like talking to my kid). But I like that I can leave the phone on my belt and answer calls hands-free. Again, these are features we're just seeing in Canada for the first time, so it seems really cool right now! Email access is great. EudoraMail is fine. The web browser is good -- a couple are included with the package and I'm sure there are more available for download -- and I've picked EudoraWeb as my main browser. Loading palm friendly pages is fast and good. You can set the app to chose by default palm-formatted pages at sites that offer them. Full web sites are a little more unwieldy, and I tend to shy away from them, as no one has yet figured out how to properly parse the page for comfortable viewing on this little screen. The rest of my apps seem to run fine. No crashes yet. I had one 16meg SD chip which works fine in the phone. I think Kyocera is saying they don't support these chips, and that if something happens to the phone while the chip is installed, the warrantee is void, so be careful. The phone itself is solid. Opening and closing the flipdoor is nice. It's maybe a little heavier than you'd like, as if going back two years to those heavier cell phones, but it depends on what you've come from as your old cell. It's a little bigger, although I don't think you'd actually want the Kyocera 7135 to be smaller than it is, considering screen size for the palm. Maybe a little thinner, but that's quibbling... Here's a couple drawbacks as I see them: -- no bluetooth. Why, with a phone this advanced (and expensive) is bluetooth not standard? You can buy a headset that comes with a bluetooth adapter (the Kyocera tech support guys said that "only the headset offered on their website should be used", implying that anything else might void the warrantee). From the picture, I think this adapter would add to the bulk of the phone, and I don't think it wirelessly sync the palm -- only a wireless headset. You can buy a SD bluetooth chip to install in the expansion port for syncing, but no one has been able to tell me if this SD adapter will support a bluetooth headset, so worst case is, if you want full bluetooth support for the phone, you need two adapters at $300+ CND, which is not cheap, especially for something that should be standard. I'll bet the next gen of this phone will have it and I'll have to settle either for upgrading or kicking myself for jumping too soon. -- You can't open the phone without pulling it from the beltclip -- not a concern if you have a headset and have activated voice answer... -- You need to place the phone face down (and less securely, it feels) in the belt clip to see the call display on top of the phone -- the clip covers it, and the display is upside down otherwise. -- changing the ring/vibrate settings is a three step process that could be one step, if the buttons on the side of the phone were used like some of the Motorola phones. -- I wish that you could separately program the different alerts to do different things -- ring could be vibrate, with a ring in the headset, text is two quick vibrates, say, and then reminders, and email or voice mail is a couple chimes in the earpiece... Basically, different settings based on the type of function currently possible, with different settings for the headset and the speaker. I have a feeling there is a way to change these settings but damned if I can find them. Maybe the preferences are a little buried, maybe I'm just dumb. -- Battery life is lame. I have a charger on my desk, in my car and at home, and generally don't have to worry about it, but am surprised that a day of moderate cell/pda use will drain the battery Other than these things, I think the phone rocks! I love that I can finally carry one gadget instead of two (although I'm waiting for Apple to finally admit that they have a PDA in the making, so that I can ditch my ipod too, as it's rolled into a cell/pda/ipod all in one unit). The Kyocera 7135 is far from perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 455.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87048 2003/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable well made seamless pdaphone outstanding design loaded with features some may view as bulky battery life only average pricey The Bottom LineWell made, loaded with features, great ergonomics, seamless PDA/phone....the perfect business tool! Full Review OVERVIEW I will not repeat the stats (dimensions, weight, etc) available on the Kyocera website: go to www.kyocera.com and you can get all the stats on the phone, the latest pricing, etc. Besides, I know you are not reading this for the bland stats...you want to know what is NOT on the websites and what is NOT in the advertisements. So, here goes. WHAT COMES WITH THE PHONE: - "quick charge" portable charger. Charges the battery in 2 hours - Cradle that holds the phone for hotsync (palm) to the PC, also has an extra slot to charge an extra battery. The included portable charger plugs into this cradle so you can charge while you are plugged in to your desktop. - User manual - Battery - Phone Holster - Software CD (palm desktop, etc) FUNCTIONALITY Here is the "readers digest" version for those of you like me that want the "bottem line": - Speaker phone - Wireless email - Wireless web browser - Phone can act as wireless modem if plugged into a PC - Jack for external headphones - Slot for memory expansion - backlit, color screen - All keys are backlit (on my phone, even the "call" and "hang up" keys are lit, unlike the other review on this phone where he said those keys weren't lit (Maybe his is just defective?) - The graphitti writing area is backlit too (nice!) - Phone can do 2-way text messaging - Phone has new "911" GPS capability, so you can be tracked by your phone signal in an emergency - There is an MP3 player built into this phone. Works great! - infrared port for beaming info to PC or another palm device. I used it to get data from my old palm i705, worked like a charm. - heavy duty extendable antenna - built in slot on the back that holds a sylus for using the palm touch screen - secondary view screen on the top edge of the phone that displays battery, signal strength, messages, etc without you having to take the phone out of the holster. (I love this feature) - A wide selection of ringers to choose from for incoming calls, alerts, etc. Plenty loud and sounds good. - Full palm pilot functionality and ability to use palm software (loaded all the goodies from my i705, and they all worked with no problem) - Voice activated commands for calling. Works great! - Speed dial (99 slots) - intergrated palm Address book and phone; easy to look someone up and then hit a button to call them. - Battery is user interchangable, a big plus. - You can access all Palm functionality while you are talking on the phone. I am probably leaving out a few small things, but these are the main features ACCESSORIES - external, folding full size keyboard - extra battery - car charger - leather holster - leather case - travel charger - various headphones/ear buds - hands free car kit THE HARDWARE This phone looks and feels like a serious piece of equipment. It has a nice heft, but is not too heavy. The buttons, the way it opens and closes, etc all has a very high quality feel. This is well made and durable. It is just a little bit bigger than a deck of cards, and just a tad thicker. It is not "bulky" in my opinion. When you consider all that this thing does, it amazes me that packed so much into such a small package! I had a sales person at a phone store (trying to sell me what they had in stock versus what I wanted...haha) tell me that the 7135 is "way too bulky, trust me DUDE, you do not want that phone". Well, he was full of crap. DUDE. It is not "bulky". It is well made, loaded with features....and every person I have shown it too has been blown away by how much has been packed into such a small device. The screen is bright and clear, the keyboard is well laid out, the phone feels comfortably held up against your head for talking. Writing on the graphitti (I am sure I am spelling that wrong!) pad is very comfortable...the ergonomics on this phone have been well planned out. The belt clip that comes with the phone is outstanding. Belt clips are a pet peeve for me. Being a gadget nut I view the perfect belt clip/holster as a sort of "holy grail" and in my view 99% of the things made to clip to our belts are just poorly made and designed. However, this one is outstanding. It is comfy, holds to your belt firmly, holds the phone securely, and is easy to get the phone in and out fast. I wish I could shake the hand of the engineer who designed this belt holster (I know, I must sound like such a total GEEK! haha). Speakerphone works great. Sounds a little tinny, but hey this is a small cell phone, for what it is the speakerphone is very good. SOFTWARE The palm OS, version 4 dot something, is the OS. It is your familiar palm functionality. I won't repeat an overview of the palm OS, it has been around forever and is a very stable and proven platform. There is some added functionality for phone features, all well planned and laid out. You can set phone options, track the time you have spent on calls and to where, etc. The phone comes with a few different web browsers. Eudora, MSN/VZW(part of the Vorizon wireless package), and a browser (EIS) that is a Kyocera product. The EIS browser looks the best and works the best. The MSN tool is the WORST. The eudora comes in at the middle of the pack. My phone came with Eudora mail for wireless email. Works great if you have a POP mail account to hook into it. If you don't have a POP mail account, you can't use Eudora. This means that most corporate email users with complicated security, and those that use hotmail and yahoo mail cannot use Eudora. However there are other ways for you to use this phone to get your email, regardless of the source/situation. Its a very long story to figure out things on the email side, I don't want to put 50 pages here to fully address it. But suffice it to say, this phone is VERY full featured when it comes to software, and web/email wireless access. You won't find anything more capable. If you have specific questions about the email stuff, call Kyocera for help. BATTERY LIFE The battery is good for about 3 hours of talking, in my experience. It is less if you are using the palm pilot a lot, and checking email a lot. Basically, if you use this phone/organizer moderately during the day, you need to recharge the battery nightly. I plan on buying an extra battery to keep in my briefcase just in case. If you are using the phone in your office and are hotsync/charging during the day, you are in great shape. Bottom line: for a phone this loaded with features, with a color screen, etc, I am amazed at how decent the battery performance is. AVAILABILITY Here is a sticking point. As of March, only Alltel and Verizon networks will support this phone. Verizon does not carry it in their stores. You can only order it via the web (that is what I did). I have no real, confirmed explanation for why Verizon won't sell it in stores...and yet I can buy it on the web via Kyocera (a partner with Verizon you can get to via their website) and the phone is on a Verizon plan with a Verizon logo all over it. I have talked to several Verizon stores, and called them over the phone. I get different answers from each person I talk to at Verizon. My speculation? There is some issue between Verizon and Kyocera regarding internal pricing deals. Bottom line: This phone has NO BUGS, works GREAT on the Verizon network, and I don't know why they are not selling them like hotcakes out of their outlet stores. Go figure. Anyway, if you are in the northeast, your only option to get this phone is to buy it via the web. I found it VERY easy to buy over the web, got the phone in a few days and it works great. UPDATE: As of May 2003 you can now buy this phone in Verizon phone stores for $499. PHONE CLARITY This is a tri-mode phone, analog or digital; and the performance of the phone is great. OTHER PHONES LIKE THIS I hear Samsung is coming out with a similar phone, clamshell designed with palm integrated. Very similar to the Kyocera. However, the samsung will NOT have the MP3 player, will NOT have the memory expansion slot. However, its another option...if you like the Kyocera 7135 concept, take a look at the Samsung too. CLOSING REMARKS I could go on for a long time on this phone. There is a lot to discuss. The concept of combining an industrial strength PDA with a real cell phone has been sought after by many for a long time. This model by Kyocera comes as close as I ever dreamed such a device could...it is well made, loaded with features...I just love it! I am so happy that I no longer have to have 2 devices strapped to my body in order to have PDA and phone capabilities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 549 87047 2003/4/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 seems like the ultimate solution kyocera warranty scam total disaster The Bottom LineKyocera's outlandish warranty policy is enough reason to avoid this phone. Full Review I will leave my original positive review at the end of this "addendum" because I owe it to you to tell you how the story ends. After a few months of decent service, the phone started freezing. Then a much worse thing happened: I would get a "Routine Maintenance: Please Wait" message, and it turned out that the routine was a TOTAL HARD RESET, eliminating all of my data. This happened several times a day. Finally, I contacted Kyocera....and I want you to know how they handle their warranty: You have two choices. You can send the phone, and if they decide it is their manufacturing fault, they will fix it and send it back. In the meantime, you will have no phone. Or: you can give them a credit card number, which they will pre-authorize a $700 purchase. They send you a new phone, you return yours. If they decide it is not their maufacturing fault, they will WITHOUT NOTIFYING YOU, fix it, and charge up to $700 for the repair, without getting any further authorization. This is the single worst warranty scam I have ever seen in my 53 years. I asked "who on earth would go along with this?" , and the warranty guy named Carlos said "that's why I tell you in advance, so you know what you're getting in to". I STRONGLY ADVICE AGAINST BUYING THIS PHONE. Frankly, I wouldn't buy anything that has the name KYOCERA on it. The phone is flawed, which I can handle for a leading edge product. But the company is DEPLORABLE in how they handle problems. Now you can read my original review, but again I caution you: BUYER BEWARE. I had a palm i705, and prior, I had a blackberry, plus of course I had various cell phones. I waited a year for Kyocera to come out with this much-heralded phone/palm. It was worth the wait, although there are, of course, details that you wish they'd have changed. Let me try to walk through the features and give some honest assessments so your expectations will be appropriate. First, dimension. Length and height are great Thickness is about 1/4-1/2 inch more than you'd initially like. It certainly isn't as discreet as a motorola i 60 in your pocket---on the other hand, maybe it's about time phones stopped trying to be so cute and start looking like the serious tools they are. I like how solid this one is. By any standard, this phone is a nice handy size for real work, and it is built like a sportscar. The lid opens and closes like a Mercedes, not like that flippy-floppy Motorola with the antenna that breaks in half once a week. The anetenna is first class, but I never use it. Have never seen a difference in performance as a result of pullilng it out. The Kyocera looks and feels serious. Open it and you are looking at the world's smallest laptop. The keyboard is awful, plain and simple. There is no tactile feedback whatsoever from the keys. You find yourself constantly missing a digit and having to input the number from scratch. And, just to be cute, instead of lining up the keys in a row, they put the 1 and 3 slightly higher than the middle 2, so you can't go by touch. Speaking of touch, you can barely tell if you have engaged any function, because, again there is no feedback. To make matters worse, there is a slight delay between pressing a number and seeing it on screen. The keys are backlit---with the amazing exception of the "call" and "hangup" keys---meaning, in the dark you can dial but you can't place the call! Also, the buttons on the side only operate volume and ring tone. There is no "smart button". So, if you want to switch from ring to vibrate, you have to open the phone and press a number of buttons. That's the bad stuff. The rest is so positive, I've learned to live with these idiotic flaws. Here's the rest: The speakerphone key, and a speakerphone which works perfectly. The center key,which is the control for the screen is perfect.. All Palm functions are great. A brilliant, amazingly bright screen. A good sized area for character entry. You still have the on-screen keyboard if you choose. And you can use every sort of third-party software to obtain new alternate input methods. The real deal here is Wireless email and internet access. This thing soars in both categories. The huge screen makes the Blackberry and the i705 seem like toys. You press one button and get your email via Eudora, which took me 1 minute to set up with my POP server. You also have various internet browsers, but Eudora is most like Explorer, and it moves quick and beautifully. This thing is fast, and I don't even have 3g available through Alltel. Let me warn you about one thing: you can get email anywhere in the country, but you may not be able to send it outside of your phone company's operating area. In this case, Alltel works great sending and receiving in Cleveland, but will not send in nyc. That's because Alltel's smtp outgoing mail address does not relay mail, which means when you are roaming, even digitally, it will not pass on the mail you sent through their affiliated system. Worse, Alltel's customer service people are clueless about this flaw. After half a dozen calls, most of which sent me on to Kyocera, which has nothing to do with this matter, one person finally admitted it was an Alltel problem. This is a killer weakess which I hope they fix. The usual Palm functions are perfect and familiar. I'm sure you know all about this. One thing to keep in mind: don't update the palm operating system to 5.0, because it is not compatible with this phone, although all Palm software seems to work just fine. I like the voice control---works far better than anything I've had. Very accurate, and 99 slots available. It is very interactive---asks you "do you want to call (name)?", and if you say "no", it suggests the next best one, and remembers. The manual is terrible and the web site in support of it is no better. In fact, had I not called tech support, I never could have gotten the browser connecting because they neglect to give you a special user code and password that are required. Alltell tech support was fabulous, very quick, efficient and devoted. I have Verizon, ATT and Alltel, and Alltel is best by far, plus you get the entire nationwide Verizon net in the bargain. Oh, and how about that removable memory card? And MP3? Honestly, I'm not using it for that because I have an IPOD with 20 gigs, so this phone is a joke in the memory department. Why to buy it? Cause there is nothing like it on the planet. Big vivid screen, phone-centered design, easy character entry, tons of software, fast email and internet access----you don't have to pester with that junky cell-phone "WAP" abbreviated so-called browser. Battery life is pretty much what they claim, about 3 hours. I consider that pretty extraordinary considering they've got lights everywhere, a bright screen and every key backlighted. It opens and closes with precision. It feels like a solid tool. It is not a flimsy little cute lightweight cosmetic case. No, this baby looks and feels good in a serious person's hand, and it is a serious device I am certain is the best ever. Of course, in a year I'll get rid of it for something even better, when we finally get true high speed wireless internet access, but $500 for a year of having the best is not bad! Even given all my complaints, I feel this is the best smartphone in existence. But that's until the next best thing arrives! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 87046 2000/9/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good sound good battery life clam shell design good reception lower res palm screen 160x160 won t work well with avantgo The Bottom LineIf keep your life on your PDA and wouldn't be caught dead without your cell phone, but hate to carry both devices, this phone is for you! Full Review From the moment I saw the phone's introduction in a leading computer magazine, I wanted it. I love the flip-phone style design, I love the integrated Palm functions, I just love the phone. But, in all fairness, I've waited about 4 months to post this review to give a more balanced review (rather than one from a big kid getting a new toy). The phone is sleek. It's a conversation piece. I've met so many new people because of this phone. I'll admit right off that this phone is a bit bigger (well, alot bigger) than my previous phone (the tiny v.60), but when you put it into perspective, and realize you don't have to carry a palm pilot *and* a phone, the size suddenly gets a bit smaller. The screen is the standard Palm 160x160 resolution, which seems to be fine for a phone/pda combination. I'll admit that I'd have loved to have the higher resolution screen, but this one serves me fine. I've also read some reviews and articles that criticize the 7135 for not having the new processor or be OS-5 based. Yeah, again, the features of OS5 are cool, but the standard OS4.1 features serve me fine. Plus I think that the battery performance of an OS5 device wouldn't be up to par, at least not with the current technology. The reception is pretty good (I have Verizon Wireless), but in all fairness, we have pretty heavy VZW coverage at Penn State. I also like the high-speed data capability of the phone, both on the phone's applications and when you use the phone as a modem connected to a computer. Speaking of internet applications, the phone comes with Eudora Internet Suite and the EIS Browser. I love Eudora, it allows me to check my POP3 accounts at work over an SSL-enabled connection. I wish it would let me download files, but alas it doesn't. Personally I think EIS is horrible. It's better than some handheld browsers, but too many times when I use EIS I have to soft-reset the device from a crash. Oh, and I had a horrible experience with Avantgo on the 7135. It appeared to work correctly, but about a week after using Avantgo, my phone crashed and wouldn't boot at all. When I turned it on, it simply told me to take it to the service provider for repair. I hard-reset the unit, pulled the Avantgo program from the backup folder, hot-sync'ed the phone to restore everything and haven't had any problems since. Please, please don't let me discourage you from purchasing this phone... with all computer-based devices there's the chance that the operating system could crash. I think that the best analogy for this is to compare it to my Windows PC. My PC crashes about once every two weeks. Pain in the butt? Yeah. But I still need the PC and I still use it. Same with the phone... the crashes are annoying, but aside from the Avantgo incident, I've never had to do a destructive hard reset on the phone. I briefly mentioned battery life... for a combination color PDA/phone, the battery life is pretty good. I use the PDA fairly heavily and the phone for about 60 minutes of talk-time in a day, and I generally end up with about 75% of the battery still charged. As a rule, I charge the phone each night, but that's primarily because I HotSync the phone at night and just leave the phone in the cradle to charge. I've also heard some other folks give negative opinions on the phone-mode's touch screen capabilities... or lack thereof. But I honestly think that's a good thing. Too often I put the phone between my ear and my shoulder (propped there) while I talk, and I wouldn't want to hang up on someone by accidentally pressing an on-screen button. All in all, I still love the phone. I think it's worth the $500 it cost, considering I would have spent about $250 for a phone and probably $300 for a PDA. Is it for everyone? Nope. If you want a simple phone, this is definitely overkill. But if you are like me, and keep your life on your PDA and are sick of looking up a # in your PDA before you can dial it on your cell phone, then you'll love this phone. Oh one more thing -- the clam-shell design of the phone is perfect for heavy use. No need to worry about damaging the screen when it's clipped to your belt. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87045 2005/1/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 amazing features abilities battery life crash potential size The Bottom LineThe Kyocera 7135 will do much for your entertainment and productivity, but it comes at a price and I don't mean the substantial purchase amount. Full Review I've had my 7135 for a year and a half now and I feel I have enough experience to impart my wisdom (or stupidity) to all. I was an original owner of the 6035 and fell in love with a combination palm/phone. The 6035 was my third PalmPilot and when the 7135 hit the market I had to have it. I'm the kind of guy who squeezes every iota of ability out of a phone and I have tried to do just about everything you can do with this phone. Overall I would say the 7135 is an amazing piece of technology that I personally could not live without, however, it is not for everyone. It does crash fairly consistently (hard crashes that lose all data are rare but they happen). I need to work hard for this phone to function properly, partly because I load it up with third party software (only some of which is reliable), and partly because the phone is not quite ready for prime time. The battery life is not great, the phone is a bit bulky (by today's standards) and I need to give it the same attention I would to an old car to keep it on the road. Now you can imagine why I might hate this phone (considering I paid $500 for it), but let me give you the reasons why I can't live without it. The features that come with this phone are awesome! Voice activated dialing, MP3 player, expansion card slot, color screen (only 160X160 lo res), one touch dialing from the Palm side, voice recorder (that works amazingly well) and all the other normal stuff that come with a PalmPilot. Does all of that add up to $500 worth of phone? Not in my book! What does add up to $500 is the "other stuff" you can make this phone do. First I loaded it with a 256MB SD card and filled about half of it with MP3 music files. There is nothing like having good quality music or audio books always at your fingertips. I replaced the launcher with one that far exceeds the original allowing many of the same functions and features as a laptop. One great feature is the ability to run software from the card since the phone only has 16MB of memory. I am able to seamlessly sync Word, Excel and Access documents (Word and Access work great, Excel leaves a little to be desired). When I update a file on the phone it automatically updates the original on the laptop when I sync. I configured the network to permit internet browsing without paying the extra money my provider wants for "high speed," it's not fast but it's free. I can view color pictures in Palm format or standard bmp and jpeg formats. I have searchable, scaleable maps for driving directions and video games that include great graphics and gameplay. I can run video (with audio of course) and always keep a couple of Seinfeld episodes on the card, I also keep videos of my kids to show off. I am an avid reader and have not read a paper book since I bought this phone, I can configure and convert any text to Palm format and always keep a few books on hand. I can view graphic representations of current tides, animations of the planets (relative to their current positions of course) and a calculator that will convert light-years to miles. I have configured the phone to play the theme to Braveheart when I get a call (the actual MP3 not some cheesy three tone version) and it wakes me up to soothing music in the morning. When my boss calls the phone rings with the red alert from Star Trek! I will never forget the day I was riding my road bike, listening to the MP3 player when a woman's voice interrupted the song I was engrossed in and said, "You have a call, would you like to answer?" I said yes and the song was replaced by the incoming call. Okay obviously I am a geek. I can't stand the idea that this phone can be made to do something and NOT making it do it - especially if I find it of value in my work (or personal life). The point is that the Kyocera 7135 can do all of these things and more and does them well and with style. Not everyone needs to do this much with a phone, but my phone is not only a phone, it's a phone, video player, music player, book reader, document reader, picture viewer, address database and best friend (of the inanimate kind). If you just want to just talk on the phone don't buy this phone. If you can stand switching from PalmPilot to phone don't buy this phone. If you sink into a deep depression if your phone crashes without warning and hate tinkering with it - don't buy this phone. However, if the above capabilities intrigue you and you consider a fair amount of patience and time the price of admission this may be the phone for you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87044 2000/5/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 affordable 1xrtt finally relatively integrated palm phone not overbearingly large application instabilities pricey still a tad bulky only acceptable battery life palm based The Bottom LineUnderstand what this phone is and is not, and you'll be content. Just don't expect it to be a "mobile office powerhouse". It simply isn't. Full Review I was an original owner of the QCP-6035 smartphone. It was fairly large, palm-based phone. No color, no 'express network' conectivity (144kbit high speed 1XRTT CDMA), phone functions not very "integrated" with the palm functionality, but all in all it performed acceptibly. It didn't perform well enough for me to *KEEP* it, particularly when a device like this really requires a fair amount of internet usage to make it worthwhile (for me at least). Enter the 7135. Sporting a flip-style design, it's far more compact than the 6035 was, and it has a color screen and CDMA 1X (Express Network in Verizon terms) connectivity to boot. Included with this phone are the usual suspects. A belt clip (which has managed to keep my phone on my waist where it belongs, though I often read about them falling out of other people's hosters... user error?), a charger, a sync cradle, manuals, and an installation CD. The battery included is of the 1100 mAh Li-ion variety, nothing entirely special there. Palm portion: The palm portion of the phone is on the earpiece portion of the flip phone. The screen at first appears to look somewhat small, but in practice it is appropriately sized. Resolution is the older coarse 160x160 palm standard, so don't expect high-res fonts on this baby. While a 320x320 screen would have been nice, I fail to see how they'd pull it off with this size screen. But then again, I said that with my 1600x1200 resolution laptop, and it looked great. Screen quality is excellent, even when set to minimum brightness levels for the backlight. And you will definitely configure your handset for the lowest possible brightness setting (see the "battery life" blurbs below). My only complaint here is that when using the phone, your face will almost always be in contact with the screen. Smudges abound, they're not easy to clean either since the screen is recessed about 1/8th of an inch into the handset. A simple shirt wipe won't cut it, since you'll only hit the middle of the screen. You'll have to actually clean it up with your finger under your shirt or using the obligatory electronics-standard-issue-lint-free-cloth. The grafitti area of the Palm is on the keypad portion of the flip phone and supports the standard 4 corner "soft" buttons, as well as a contrast/brightness adjustment point and a Text/Numeric entry point. The standard 2 zone grafitti area applies, and the area icons are backlit. The input area does seem a little smaller than the stanard palm and i've fumbled a few stylus strokes. Also included are 4 hardware buttons, and an up/down scroll button with a centrally located OK button. You'll use the scroll/ok buttons a lot, and they're very comfortable to use. PalmOS 4 is installed on the 7135. And that is where you will stay as this unit is NOT upgradeable to PalmOS 5. If there's anything you specifically need out of PalmOS 5, don't buy this phone/palm combo. Phone The phone itself is comfortable to use, though some people who have used mine say it still seems rather "wide" and looks funny when they see other people using one. But hey, I have a big head. For me, I think it looks normal. Since the 7135 *is* larger than your average flip phone, flipping it open with one hand is a bit difficult, but hey. Practice makes perfect. Voice quality is "good", but not stellar. My T720 using a different Vocoder (configurable in the service menus) sounded better than the 7135, but I haven't yet figured out how to change the vocoder on the 7135. I'll update this epinion once I figure out how to do so. I usually scour places like http://groups.google.com and do a search under alt.cellular.verizon for that kind of info. Also, you have to have your ear properly positioned on the receiver. Deviate a little bit, and the caller on the other end will be barely audible. Now, I've read the other epinions in here of this phone, and it seems a few people think the speakerphone quality is good. I don't. The speakerphone on this phone stinks, and I never use it. If you want a REAL speakerphone on a mobile phone, you get a Nextel iDen. Now THAT was a speakerphone. Phone functions are rather standard fare. The button layout is only "okay". I'm not big on the placement of the tiny speakerphone and clr buttons, particularly when it's really easy to fat-finger a number on this thing. The buttons are nearly flush mount and only raised slightly. The buttons themselves are very thin vertically and wide horizontally, making them a bit of a chore for someone with bigger hands like yours truly. The plus side to this is that this phone supports speed dialing (holding down a number) and voice activated dialing (which actually works pretty well). The "Hangup" button also serves as the power button, and can also be used during palm operation to close your 1XRTT express network session (though you receive no confirmation of it - either way, it's handy for me). Battery life When I first started using this phone, I used the palm functions quite a bit with Verizon's new $50/mo unlimited express network plan for PDA's. My battery life was absolutely DISMAL. I would take it off the charger in the morning, use it for maybe 20 minutes on the bus, maybe 5 or 6 times during the day to check my home email, and throw in a few 3 or 4 minute voice calls for good measure. By the end of the business day (5pm), i'd be down to 1 bar of battery life (out of 4). Not exactly a strong showing. After doing some reading, I discovered this was more a result of the backlight on the palm display than anything else. After cranking down to the backlight's lowest level (it's still VERY readable by the way) I got FAR better battery life out of this thing. Palm Performance The palm performance on this unit is standard fare. I have to admit, I really prefer Windows PocketPC OS over PalmOS, particularly with PalmOS' inability to do any kind of multitasking. For instance, if i'm sitting around on IRC (Internet Relay Chat, client available at www.upirc.com) and want to visit a URL using the supplied Eudora browser, I have to comletely exit out of irc (it drops my server connection) and go to Eudora and visit the page, then relog in again when i'm done. Ditto for checking email. Let's face it, PalmOS is just NOT ready for the internet age (though I can't speak for PalmOS 5). Perhaps my biggest problem with the palm portion of this phone is its instability. While it isn't a CONSTANT problem, you WILL be greeted with the occasional "FATAL EXCEPTION" message, which will cause your phone to reboot. Now, i've owned palms before, and I honestly don't think this problem is anything new. And you really ARE stretching the abilities of PalmOS with these fancy-schmancy wireless network functions. But this is definitely a concern to me going forward. If these wireless networks get any better/faster/more usable/less battery consuming, then PalmOS is pretty much done for in the smartphone market. Microsoft will be ready though! Integration of palm applications for things like voice mail, phone number lookup, recent calls and the like are done quite well. But if you have a large number of contacts, be prepared for some very odd pauses when using this phone (or the palm portion for that matter). It appears that the phone does some kind of background processing when looking up contacts. I have roughly 800 contacts on my palm, but I had to trim that down from a few thousand in order for the phone's performance to be acceptible. In fact, even when i'm NOT looking up contacts, i've found that having a large number of contacts on the phone affects OVERALL palm/phone performance. Not exactly what I expected, but I can definitely attribute this to the amount of contacts i'm using. If I scale it down, the phone behaves/performs better. And no, it's not a memory problem, since even with a few thousand contacts, I still have 12MB free out of 16MB. This may very well be a known issue for Kyocera and may have it fixed in a later service upgrade or patch. Network performance Credit where credit is due, Verizon has done a GREAT job of delivering fast internet access to these phones. Web use is bearable, remote AvantGo syncs are effortless, and connectivity to connection-based services (like IRC or even Market data) is stellar with no dropoffs except in fringe areas. Express Network (aka CDMA 1X or 1XRTT) delivers. However, when buying this phone, there are a few things you should know beforehand. -Data mode usage is roughly equivalent to voice call usage. Same digital network, so you'd expect the same battery performance as well. Expect only a few hours of network connectivity (and even I think that's REALLY optimistic since you'll be connected to the network AND using the palm with backlighting at the same time). -This phone will not replace a blackberry or any other "always on" email receive device. You'll eat up your batteries in a couple of scant hours if you leave 1XRTT connected 100%, and while most mail applicatiions allow you to connect/checkmail/disconnect at regular intervals, you'll be greeted by an error message if you happen to walk down a concrete-surrounded stairwell where you don't have any network connectivity and your email app tries to poll your mailserver. -Keep in mind, this device is a PHONE primarily and a Palm device with wireless connectivity as a secondary function. If you treat it as such, you'll likely be pretty happy with it. Software bundle The phone comes with a fair amount of built-in software for internet browsing (Eudora EIS) and mail (Eudora Mail, and also includes MobileMail on CD - which is basically just a more limited version of Multimail, now known as Versamail. Eudora mail is limited to POP email accounts. I personally use IMAP, and found that Mobile Mail has some odd quirks with IMAP connectivity. However, I recently purchased Versamail and have found it to be the BEST mail product for this phone. It is very configurable, syncs well with both POP and IMAP mailboxes, and allows up to 8 mixed and matched mailboxes. Also included is the standard palm desktop software, and yes - you CAN sync to your desktop at home over the 1XRTT express network. I've done it, it works, and it works quite well! An outlook conduit is also included to sync your outlook information (everything but mail) with your Smartphone. An office viewer package is also included should you require the ability to read word/excel type docs on your PDA. Though quite frankly, I can think of far better places to view them. All in all, the software package is well rounded, and for the average user provides everything they need to get full functionality out of this phone. But hey, I have my own app preferences. Conclusion This phone is a mixed bag. We still aren't "there yet" when it comes to smart phones. Here's some points on features i'd like in a smartphone, and where the 7135 falls short: 1. Always on email like a blackberry. I like Blackberry devices. While the RIM mobitex network is slow (8 kilobit) compared to Express Network (144 kilobit), when it comes to Email and nothing else, the Blackberry has no equal. Of course, the OS on the Blackberry is ultra stable - all it has to really support is Email. But boy, it sure would be nice if this phone could behave just like a Blackberry and still retain more advanced functionality like what's included in PalmOS and PocketPC, which brings me to: 2. I'd want a Windows PocketPC OS. Sorry, PalmOS is buggy, it crashes/resets, and i've NEVER had as much luck with ANY palm device when compared to a PocketPC device. PalmOS people always talk about the "simplicity" and "elegance" of PalmOS when it comes to the whole PocketPC vs. Palm argument - and they almost ALWAYS go on and on about how PocketPC's are "boated". But man, the stuff you can *DO* with that bloat is astounding. The lack of multitasking on PalmOS alone just KILLS a smartphone trying to live in the internet age. But I digress. Your only other choice here is the Audiovox Thera, which has the worst battery life i've ever seen in a PDA. And you have to use a hands-free for phone connectivity. I'll pass. 3. Smaller form factor. Granted, we're getting CLOSER to the "sweet spot" size for an all in one device. And yes, carrying around this phone is still a fair amount smaller in volume than both a phone and a PDA. But still, you need to make this phone equivalent in size to EITHER device. I have to admit, the form factor of the new Verizon-enabled blackberries may have some merit after all. But who wants to look like a dork talking into his PDA on the bus? 4. It would have to be equally adept at handling both phone and PDA functions. As it stands right now, NEITHER side is 100% on the 7135. They both do a "good" job of both, but there's still plenty of quirks and shortcomings to deal with. The bottom line: IF you can get over the fact that this is a PHONE first and a Palm device that just happens to have internet connectivity, you'll be ok. If you expect this phone to be a mobile office powerhouse, you're going to be very disappointed. It simply lacks the battery life and stability and OS features to be that. As for myself, I'm actually OK with it. Sure, there's some quirks, but i've learned to either live with them (no multitasking) or work around them (reduce my contact list so the phone runs acceptably fast, and reduce the backlight to get appropriate battery life). I would recommend this phone to a friend ONLY after drilling him in great detail about how the phone operates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 7683 Kyocera 2255 87094 2003/10/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good graphics when visible blue lighting bad screen I'll admit, the first thing that attracted me to this phone was the unique blue lighting. That's it. I had it for about seven months when I started noticing problems. For example, the screen went blue. I could not see who was calling me, how long I was talking, and the number that I dialed. I could not even enjoy my wireless. I moved an LG 5350 (there is a review for it at epinions). The only thing that I liked about this phone was the cost, and the screen graphics when it was working. Other than that, I feel I was better off sending smoke signals. 87093 2004/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 fairly easy to use nice display when it s working looks cool virgin refused to admit it had sold me a lemon display failed after 6 months After working fine for about 6 months, the display screen died. Now it just shows a series of random dots that I can't decode. Maybe it's switched into Martian or Klingon mode.Did any other users on this site also encounter Virgin Mobile USA's unhelpful 'helpline service' that promised to exchange their faulty Kyocera 2255 for exactly the same model? I mean, what is the point of that?The Kyocera 2255 has been an obsolete model for several months now, but Virgin even refused to send me a replacement phone of lesser value in exchange. It's hard to imagine how they could be any more stupid or obstructive than that.Suffice to say I'm now looking to switch to another network ASAP. I will then set fire to my Kyocera 2255 in a public place.Some brainstorming on product quality and the basics of customer service would do Virgin Mobile USA the world of good. 87092 2004/5/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent soundsignal qualitly easy to use old battery so short life beat up phone Have a prepaid Virgin Mobile Kyocera 2255 "super model" which shares the Sprint network. It has better reception and sound qualitly than my brand new 2004 Sprint Toshiba VM4050 camera phone. Battery life is short but it is an old battery. Was purchased used on ebay in a very used condition, but I trust Kyocera because I used to have a model 2119 and has been very reliable and is still being used by a family member. Excellent phone, Highly Recommended!!!! 87091 2004/7/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 vibrate function cool screen don t get this phone screen problems I bought this phone for emergency uses only. It was initially for my wife. After having the phone for about two months, we decided to buy another one for myself to use. The new phone worked well for about six months, then the screen went partially dark. It was still readable, but it's terrible to look at. Now, about a year later, the screen flicks off and on all the time. Very nerve-racking. The old phone was great for about 13 months. Now, I cannot read the screen at all! It is completely blank. The phone works, I can call out and receive calls, but I cannot read the screen that tells me that I have messages, I cannot see other's phone numbers, etc. Total waste since I saved many phone numbers in it and since I cannot get to the screen that tells me if I have messages and who left them. I don't recommend this particular Kyocera. I went to Radio Shack and was told that this is a very common problem with this model. 87090 2002/7/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lighter weight easy to navigate menu nice button layout antenna bends easily screen scratches easily The Bottom LineIf you're going off to college and need a phone, get this one. Perfect for student use and others will love it too. Full Review If you care about nothing but a light weight, you better be prepared to spend some cash. This phone on the other hand is a nice weight for those who don't really. Usually sold with a Mail-In Rebate, the phone can be purchased for less than $10 at some stores. Although it will scratch, it is a strong phone and can take a serious drop. The clarity is wonderful, picking up in areas that other phones on the same plan won't. I have never experienced a better phone at this price. A must for those on a budget and a great gift for students going off to college. And why the blue comment in the title you ask? Well instead of the common green light up screen, this phone treats you to a nice, eye-friendly blue. I can honestly say that I am proud to carry my blue phone in my pocket, appropriately named Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can you guess why? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 87089 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 usefully built in toolsgood sound blue backlight screenkeyboard built in games cheap build quality cheap antenna The Bottom LineA good cheap phone, but I would go with a Nokia phone for a good durably phone. Full Review I bought my Kyocera 2255 cellphone at my local best buy store in Pleasant Hill, CA. I paid $99.00, on which the phone had a mail in rebate for $20.00. This phone was made to be used on the Virgin Mobile pre-paid service. Good Things 1. A contact list that lets you save many different numbers for one person. You can also save a e-mail address for them. I find this a very helpfully feature if you send short e-mails using a cellphone. 2. Blue backlight keypad and screen. 3. Has four built in games Brick Attack Space Dudes Mystic I Ching Caven Crawl 4. Also includes some other usefully tools Alarm Clock Tip Calculator Countdown Stopwatch 5. The phone also has very good sound quality from the speaker and has a very good microphone. Bad Things 1. It is a very large phone compared to allot of newer phones at there now. 2. Very cheap antenna. It is very easily broken. 3. You can only use this phone on a CDMA cellphone system. This phone isn't a multi-band type phone. I only had this phone for about a month when I went to pull out the antenna and it broke off. I took the phone back to the Best Buy store that I bought it from. They told me that I needed to buy a new phone. Since I used all the minutes that I paid for already I just went and bought a AT&T Free-2-Go wirelessphone. This is another pre-pay type of service but it includes a Nokia 3361 phone and it uses the AT&T wireless network. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87088 2000/5/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to navigate menus easy to see blue screen no call timer flimsy antenna small buttons The Bottom LineNot a bad little phone for $50. There is nothing to fancy about it, but it gets the job done. Full Review I went out shopping for cellular service and phones, and they presented me with the Kyocera 2255. It looked like a nice little phone and it had a nice blue screen, and the display was easy to see. And, for $50, it seemed like a reasonable price. As far as durability, it seemed to be all right. I dropped it quite a few times (and of course always on the pavement or other hard surface) and it still worked just fine. It did get a little scratched up, but nothing that was more than a blemish. Buy a leather case for it or something similar, and you will be just fine. As far as clarity goes, I gave it an average score, as the cell service I had was very poor and the calls dropped constantly, and the part of town I live in is just a dead zone. But, I did get it flashed over when I got new service, and it seemed to sound all right, but had to get a new phone as I was having problems with it being compatible with my new service. It is a nice small phone and is very portable. The only problem with the Nokia that I have now, is that the number buttons are very small and you have to be careful when you are punching in new numbers. The Nokia that I have now is just a little more wide, but the buttons are substantially bigger. The battery life seemed to be fine as well. I never seemed to run out of talk time, but then again, I always kept a good charge and did not spend on average more than 30 minutes a day on it. But, when I did get the new service, it would flip into analog and the battery life was much shorter and the phone did get pretty warm. The only cons that I could really think of is that it did not have a call timer. I know for most services this is no big deal as you can look up your minutes on the internet, and the nights/weekends are unlimited or have so many that you cannot use them all up. But, I had a plan that gave me 1200 minutes period and it would have been nice to have. Also, as a lot of people have mentioned, the antenna is a bit on the flimsy side, and can come loose so keep an eye on that. But, the display is good, and some people think that the blue screen is a sill fad, but it is easier to see as I am figuring that out now that I have the green one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87087 2003/6/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool features lightweight great lighted screen kinda expensivethe annoyance of purchasing talk time The Bottom Linegreat phone to start off with Full Review I got this phone a couple of months back, and I must say that it has held up well and is a great phone to have. It is very light and has some pretty cool features, plus the battery lasts almost forever. some of the cool things included in the phone are: first the text messaging its pretty easy to use and you don't really have to be einstein to figure out. it has a great navigational menu, everything pretty much is laid out easily. you can even set it up to where there are pictures on the menu of the things you can do. it stores an abundance of numbers you can add voicemail voice dial another cool thing is the virgin extras where you can download ringtones, get movie reviews, hear songs from mtv and vh1( but you can't get just any song, they provide them) the games are pretty cool but do get boring after extended use of them. not something you want to play all the time it has a stopwatch, tip calculator(for dining out), a regular calculator, and a countdown fuction in the tools section you can pretty much do anything you want with the phone very unique add your personality if you want i would recommend this phone for most people who have never owned a cell phone and for teenagers because it was pretty much made to suit them. some things you may not like are the fact that you cannot change faceplates, and the cost of minutes, but i guess you can get used to it. it does have caller id and shows the name of caller if they are in your contacts and the reception is very good in certain areas and very poor in other like any other phone. in order to get talk time you must purchase a talking card from virgin mobile which is sold almost anywhere phone cards are like gas stations, best buy, circuit city, almost everywhere. you can also purchase minutes through the phone with a credit card. the cards range in price from $20, $30 and $50. kinda expensive but it beats signing a contract. overall its a great cell phone and very durable Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 86.00 87086 2000/1/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 compact design attractive easy to see blue backlighting horrible manufacturing defects that prevent phone usage after about 6 months The Bottom LineAvoid this phone, manufacturing defects seem to be impossible to avoid. There are better options within the price range. Full Review The Kyocera 2255 is the first and only cell phone I've ever owned. I bought it in the fall of 2001, right when it came out. I got it mainly because of the low price and the (at the time) unique blue backlighting. I will admit the phone actually got a lot of attention when I first started using it. The only real problem I had with it was the fact that it got lousy reception (in direct comparison to other phones that used the same carrier) But after about 6 months, the phone began exhibiting several defects that interfered with my ability to use it. The most prominent error involved the screen itself. There were times when no text (or symbols of any kind) would appear on the LCD screen. Only the blue backlighting worked. As a result I could no longer use my contact list, see who was calling, or even check my remaining battery charge. I returned the local Sprint PCS store and asked for it to be repaired. Turns out that they don't repair the phones, the send out replacements (no additional charge). I got the replacement in the mail and tediously transferred my contact list between the phones (once the screen was working again on the bad phone.) Six months later, the screen went out on this phone as well. This time I could force it to appear by squeezing the area just below the screen very firmly. Again, I went to the sprint store to have it repaired. They handed me another replacement at the store, no waiting on the mail this time. They even electronically transferred my contacts, which was helpful. But here I am today; 9 months later, and about three months ago the phone started acting up again. Now it's worse then before. Rather then just having the screen go blank, this phone resets itself (just like turning the power on and off) all the time. It resets itself when I plug it into or remove it from the charger. It resets when I attempt to make my first call of the day. It resets when I receive and incoming call. But the random resetting occurs most often during actual usage, causing countless lost calls. In summary, I've had three of these models all exhibit very serious yet similar issues. I have not mistreated these phones (i.e. getting them wet, dropping them, leaving them in the sun, etc.) There is obviously a continuing manufacturing defect involved in this model's production. Now I can't get a replacement because the warrantee has expired. I don't blame Sprint for this issue, but I will not purchase another Kyocera product again. Avoid this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87085 2000/8/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight compact excellent battery life flimsy antenna The Bottom LineThe Kyocera 2255 is a good phone at a decent price. Full Review My husband and I recently switched to Sprint cell phone service. He switched first, I was satisfied with our current cell phone provider. After he had his phone a couple weeks and I saw all the neat things he could do with his phone (downloading ringers and images) I wanted one too. When I went to the Sprint store the selection of phones that had the "ringers and more" option in my price range were minimal. I went with the Kyocera 2255. It was not my first choice but hey, I was going to be able to download cool ringers and images for my phone! The price of the phone was $99.99 but with a $100 instant rebate I got it for free, you can't beat that! The phone is fairly cool looking and face it, you need a cool looking phone! My favorite part is the cool blue backlighting. I downloaded a cute Betty Boop image that stays on my screen the whole time except for when the phone is in use. I also downloaded a Tears for Fears song as my ringer because hey, I'm an 80's girl. Okay enough about my play toys. The phone itself seems pretty durable, it's lightweight and compact but the antenna is a bit flimsy, I rarely use the antenna anyway. The battery holds a great charge as well. I've had the phone a week and only plugged it into the charger for maybe 10 minutes and it's lasted me all week. I haven't talked on it but maybe 30 minutes but with everything else I've done in the way of downloading and playing games I'm pleased with the battery life. Some other cool features of the phone are one touch dialing, very useful and safe for dialing while driving. It has tools such as a calculator, tip calculator, stopwatch and countdown for when you want to know when a certain time is up. Just set the time and an alarm goes off when the time is up. Games include Mystic/Ching (this is some fortune teller thing), Cavern Crawl, Space Dudes (similar to space invaders) and Brick Attack. The phone is also web capable, I have had a few problems connecting to the web via my phone but nothing to complain about. Overall the Kyocera 2255 is a good phone, I would recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 87084 2003/1/5 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 very compact high speed data capable easy to read w blue display short battery life screen issues common countless problems The Bottom LineGreat looking, neat features, but seemingly plagued by buggy software and hardware. Screen issues common, leaving phone useless. A shame for a phone that could otherwise be a great package. Full Review If you read my other reviews here at Epinions, you will discover that I have reviewed cellphones before - the reason being is that I have owned many. I've allways been an early adopter of the "latest and the greatest". When my old StarTac needed replacement after several years of faithfull service (Through hell and back) I began to look for a phone that not only fit my requirements, but had the looks to match. The Kyocera 2255, with it's nifty blue backlight seemed to fit the bill, and reminded me a great deal of an old AT&T analogue cellphone that I had many years ago, which had red backlighting. The features that it offered were attractive, and another major factor was that this phone was compatible with Bell Mobility's new "1X" high speed (Third Generation Cellular) data service. Throw in an attractive rebate, and I was hooked. - Initial Thoughts What can you say - this is a sleek looking phone, with *excellent* brilliant bacliighting that is easily visible under any light condition. The antenna initially struck me as being a weak point, as was later confirmed - read on. The buttons on the phone offer great tactile feeling, and are fully backit. The menu's are very easy to navigate, and are well laid out - you don't have to fumble through menu's on this phone for very long to find what you are looking for. I was discouraged to see yet another phone that uses a terribly small charger plug. Not only is it more difficult to physically plug the charger in, but an accidental pull on the phone while the unit is still connected can easilly lead to the plug snapping off in the phone itself. Best case, this means a new charger - worst case it could easily mean physical damage to the phone. With this phone being so new to the market when I initially purchased it, I was unable to locate *ANY* accessories, including a case. With the design of the phone, being very flat on the face, an unprotected unit will easilly scratch in no time, so a case was a must. I eventually found a 'horizontal' case by Body Glove that holds the entire phone snugly on my belt. I like having the phone completely encased in a holder when not in use (for maximum protection), yet still having it completely 'naked' for actual usage - I dislike the leather cases and the such that often block speaker and microphone ports, as well as making buttons more difficult to push. Overall, this unit initially seemed like a perfect setup. - As time went on... After a full charge, I activated the phone and took it to work for my first day. I was impressed by many of the features as I began to put them to use, an the phone got a great deal of looks from fellow coworkers. Unfortunately, the latter part of the first day, the phone began to show it's weaknesses. My biggest concern was that the later in the same day, the battery appeared to nearing 1/4 life remainint, even through in reality I had probably less then 20 minutes of talk time, and perhaps 20 minutes of internet 1X browsing - all in a full digital service area. I attributed it to perhaps being a 'fresh charge' problem, and hoped that it would get better. Additionally, within the first few days I began to notice other quirks - the phone would occasionally completely freeze during use, sometimes rebooting, and sometimes locking up so solidy that the only way to reboot it was to physically remove the battery and reinstall. I was not impressed! Some features also failed (and still do to this day) to work as designed, such as the "voicemail notification" selection, which although has been set to "ignore" on my phone since new, repeatedly tells me countless times per day of waiting voicemail, instead of simply using the discreet "voicemail" icon instead. Other features are also wonky, such as the feature to "Ignore" an incomming call - The ringer stops immediately and the caller is immediately sent to voicemail (as desired), yet if you try to place a call immediately afterwards, the phone simply acts dumb, refusing to do as requested. When speaking to my cellular carrier regarding this, and even to some extent other 2255 owners, I seem to be in the minority regarding these problems, however. I am unsure if I have simply received a "lemmon" phone, or perhaps as an early adopter received a phone with buggy software. None the less, the fault seems to fall back upon Kyocera themselves, and I'm a terribly dissapointed owner of this phone. The battery life has never even remotely approached the advertised abilities of this unit. Unlike my StarTac, which could often go for 3-4 days between charges (Even through moderate usage) I am forced to charge my Kyocera 2255 *EVERY* night, otherwise I am guarenteed to have a dead phone by noon the following day. This is without question the absolute worst battey life I have ever experienced on any phone, even dating back to my older Analogue models, which consumed battery power much more liberally with their higher powered transmitters. My local cellular store was nice enough to provide me with a new battery after agreeing with me that the battery life did seem very poor, however the new battery failed to resolve the problem whatsoever. My next major problem began to appear after a few weeks of usage - I noticed that the antenna seemed to loosen itself occasionally. Sure enough, the inevitable happened one day an the antenna loosened to the point of falling out, never to be found again. Bell wants nearly $40 for a new one, which I have so far refused to pay, since I don't feel that the loss of the antenna was my fault to begin with. Since the overall effect of the antenna was questionable to begin with (I can't honestly say it improved calls much), I have used the phone since with minimal problems except in fringe areas. Although this phone also offers a "voice dial" feature which is well touted, I have failed to get much use from it. Although I did initiall train it with many of my frequent contacts, I found that it fails to recognize my voice fairly often - often enough that it simply began to be more convenient to dial by hand instead. There is a great "frequent contacts" section of the phone book that is one of the few high points of this phone. Basically, it keeps track of who you call the most, and places those listings in a seperate area, which can be accessed with a single key-press. I use this feature often, and rather then wasting time try to get the voice recognizer to recognize me, I can place a call with only 2-3 keystrokes anyways, often without looking at the phone. So, what does it have going for it? Although this phone does offer some nice features (Games, Calculator, Alarm clock, downloadable ringers, etc) I can't say that these are exclusive to Kyocera - many other cellphones offer the very same features now. Although I purchased this phone mainly due to the apparent "great technology", I have been thoroughly dissapointed by it. My cellular carrier (Bell Mobility, Canada) was one of the first in North America to fully roll out the 3G (Third Gen) cellular service, which this phone is designed to fully utilize. The 1X Data service was touted as the best thing since sliced bread, capable of operating considerably faster then 56K, while remaining completely wireless over Bell's new 1X network, where available. However, beyond the initial "free trial", this service is priced so horrendously that only a serious businessperson with a very thick wallet, and a pressing need for "internet anywhere" would really consider it. However, since the 3G "1X" network is packet based, you only pay for the KB you use, instead of by the minute with most internet enabled phones. Since most models of this phone outside of Canada are not fully 3G enabled even through they are sold throughout the USA, this all may be moot to many, however. None the less, as most have probably noted by this point - I am not impressed with this phone. Currently, I am in the process of communicating this utter dissapointment with my Cellular Carrier, hoping that they are willing to do something directly, instead of going the route of the usually costly and time consuming "warranty repair". I fear that since some of these problems are intermittent (such as the reboots, etc) that Kyocera will simply claim that "everthing is fine" and simply send it back untouched. In the meantime, I continue to use the phone daily...and I continue to try to remember to charge it every night, for fear of having a dead phone just when I need it most on the following day. I have learned to live with the quirks in the meantime. Unfortunately, the terribly annoying "Voicemail waiting" display that I must cancel countless times per day still frustrates me endlessly. My next phone will definately not be a Kyocera. Although the Kyocera looks more 'refined', and is indeed easier to use when compared to the clunky operation of many other models, I will take the stability and longevity of experiences with Motorola anyday versus the 'sleek and clunky' Kyocera. Your milage may vary - perhaps the newer 2255's have had alot of these bugs worked out, but my overall suggestion would be that you purchase the phone at a store with a liberal cellphone return policy. If you run into the same problems, at least you can bail out. I sure wish I could.... ---UPDATE JANUARY 5, 2003. Finally, after a long saga with my cell carrier, they agreed to provide a free loaner, and completely look afer the return of my Kyocara 2255 to Kyocera for warranty work. The phone was gone for 3 weeks, and upon the return, I eagerly switched back to the 2255, sitting my loaner aside, but not yet jumping to return it. Thankfully, I kept the loaner. The repair slips showed that Kyocera did some resoldering, some replacement of some minor parts, and otherwise not much more. The battery issues (My largest gripe with this phone) were still as bad as ever. However, to top it off, the repair visit seemed to initiate another far too common problem with this model - the dreaded "Blank Screen" issue that can be read about in many other reviews here at Epinions. With a blank scree, the phone became virtually useless. Ocasionally it will reappear, sometimes normally, often correupted, with a mostly unreadable display. Randomly, it dissapears all together, sometimes for days at a time. This was the last straw, and my cellular carrier finally agreed to replace the phone with a brand new model of my choice. I took them up on it, and am awaiting my replacement in the mail - again, courtesly of my cell carrier. Anyone else who was unfortunate enough to have purchased one of these models and is now experiencing endless problems like many others, I urge you to start expressing your malcontent to your carrier right away, and demand a replacement. Personally, I won't be sad to see this Kyocera dissapear. --END UPDATE. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 87083 2000/8/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small clear display nice design inexpensive dropped calls sometimes lots of heat The Bottom LineFor a nice, inexpensive phone with good battery life, clear display and a host of options, this fits the bill. Full Review So here I am, sitting on the deck of my sister's pool watching my kid and cousins swim. So my boy, 6, is playing on an inner tube and somehow gets his head stuck under the water while his arms and legs were still on top up the tube, he wasn't getting out. In I go. Kid survives, Sanyo SCP-4700 cell phone does not. Small price to pay. So off to the store I go to get a replacement. I'm not a huge fan of cell phone technology. I have lots of toys but this is one area I don't see the need for anything drastic. The Sanyo SCP-4700 I had was equipped with features I never even used. But my own fault, I didn't have coverage on the phone, and I still had like 4 months of service left on the contract with Sprint PCS. So I go poking around checking out phones that work with my plan, pretty much just looking for the cheapest. I found the Kyocera 2255 phone at Circuit City for $99.00. Design It is a comfortable phone to hold. Fairly wide yet flat, it fits an average sized hand nicely. Button layout is clear and not confined. One complaint I had with the Sanyo was the button response. When you press a button on the Kyocera 2255, you KNOW you have pressed a button. You can even choose in options where you hear an audible "click" when pressing. Very good, responsive click. Makes dialing when you're not looking easy. The menu's ocean blue backlight with black text is a nice color, readable in all lighting conditions. The main page displays your banner, time/date, battery status, voicemail, signal and type of service, either ROAM or local digital. The battery charger is a small adapter that pretty much fits in one receptacle without taking too much space. The charger has a small pin that plugs into the bottom of the phone. A cradle charger is an optional part. There is a jack for a hands free unit, and access to the battery compartment is painless and quick, though I've found dust and debris tend to get in there. Features Accessing the main menu is straightforward and button control of the programming selections is easy. The "Contacts" menu seems full featured, with the ability to store numbers and names in different lists, such as business and personal. There is a voice dial and speed dial list as well. Inside the contact options are places for email address, street address, a URL and a small note page. Lots of info can be stored for each contact and navigation to these options is easy. The message menu is also full featured, with alerts telling you about voicemail, text messages, web alerts, email, filed messages and message settings. One thing I didn't like was when someone left a number to call, there was no date or time stamp. The wireless web feature seems like the Sanyo's, small screen, long time to enter stuff. Just not the best way to surf in my opinion, and I think it costs extra. But its there if you want it. The Recent Call list goes to 15, which is nice, my Sanyo only went to 10 in the list. There are also icons if your call was incoming, outgoing or missed. The general settings page has a host of features. The ringer has vibrate, ring and combos of the two. I like the vibrate then ring feature. The keyguard also has a timer feature that is adjustable. I set my keyguard to turn on after 30 seconds. In the voice services, you can define voice shortcuts to a few services, such as the calculator, recent calls and some web services. But I found when training the voice setting, it never accepted the work "calculator" I had to use the word "addition".. But, once setup, it works pretty good. There is also voice activated dialing which is cool and works well. To waste time, the phone comes with a few games and goodies, but games on phones to me is somewhat annoying, I think only "Go Fish" has been a game I've enjoyed. This phone does not have that game. You can download additional ringers and graphic text things, but that's something I've not done. There is also the caller ID function, but that's pretty much standard on every phone these days. Performance Well, all the bells and whistles in the world are useless if you can't keep a call connected. I have found this phone to drop calls more frequently than the Sanyo, but not to the point I wanted to throw it out a window. And at times I find I am not able to get a proper signal more often than the Sanyo. When using this phone longer than say, 4 or 5 minutes, it tends to generate considerable heat on your head. I wonder how many of those radiation rays are baking my brain when I use this phone. I understand it has an acceptable radiation rating, but it's towards the high end. Voice quality is fine. Once you are in a call, crackling and background noise are very low. However, this phone does tend to echo your own voice back. I don't think I ever heard that with the Sanyo model. Overall For someone who wants a rather basic, inexpensive phone with a pretty good host of features, this is a good choice. Its simple layout, clear display and form fitting design have suited me well. The service is Sprint PCS and that seems to be pretty good. Even though like I said, on my Sanyo I did not drop as many calls. I'd say one in ten drops on this phone. The Sanyo 4700 was only $30.00 more but I'll keep this phone. It's easier to dial on the run and the display is better. Only drawback is the antenna, but extending it does not seem to help signal quality, so its fine just left in the housing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87082 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 blue screensailboat screensavers yippeeee antenna nuf said The Bottom LineIt's been dropped, chewed on, soaked, thrown and squished — and it's still going. Full Review When my other phone took a nose dive into Crapville, I decided it was time to get a new phone. I had had the other phone for three or four years, so I knew it was really outdated. I picked myself up off the couch and went to Circuit City to see what they had in cell phones. When I got there, I was surprised to learn they made phones that were touch-tone now instead of the old fall back of rotary. It amused me. I started playing around on the phones and a couple of sales guys came over to pretend to hit on me to make a sale. Hum. I wondered if I should tell them I used to sell the stuff and knew what I was doing. Well, one of the guys had a Kyocera 2255 on him and I started playing on it. 'This phone is it,' I thought to myself. It has all the games that I require to play in church and the ringer can be muted when I don't want to pick up a call. "I'll take it," I told the guy. I took my phone home, re-programmed all my numbers into it and had a field-day. A couple of months later, the battery wouldn't charge and I had to take it back. Circuit City was supposed to give me a new one or fix my old one since it was still under the 90-day warranty, but they were out. A good sign that the phone was a good one, in my opinion. Well, I got some crappy deal from Sony and took it home, not really pleased, but then, it did have a couple of neat games on it. Well, that phone went back to Circuit City three days later. It sucked. You never realize you have a good thing until it's gone. I told the sales person that I wanted a Kyocera 2255 and that I wouldn't take anything else. Sure, it doesn't pick up a signal in some place around town, but I think that may have something to do with the service. The antenna is really flimsy and I am always picking it up by that little piece of plastic, but overall, I am very pleased with the dang thing. That's why I waited a week for a new one to come in. My Kyocera has everything. Neat ringers. Travel charger. Blue screen. They say blue and green are calming. I have to agree. When I am loosing at Brick Attack in church, I am not nearly as prone to shout and get hyper as I used to be. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Around $100 87081 2000/9/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 goes on on battery life address book blue screen only keeps length of a single phone call in memory not always a big deal The Bottom LineI suggest the phone, I do not feel that anyone could be upset with the quality of it. It really is quite amazing. Full Review Ok -- this is only my third phone, but we have owned many in my family. Plus, I have had the chance to check out many phones of my friends and see what theirs could do. Visual ----------------------- First of all, this tiny phone gets some big attention. The nice new blue display is loved by all, Kyocera made a good choice to use the technology. The blue background is really good on the eyes, easy to use in any situation. Portability The size of the phone is handy to fit in any pocket, or even to carry it all over. It merely sits inside the palm of my hands (and no, my hands are't that big). The phone is only: 4.72" x 1.89" x .95". It is quite portable due to its size and weight. This phone weighs in at a nice 4.34 oz. The always important BATTERY Now, I have noticed that a few people complained about the battery of this phone. As for myself, I feel the battery is far above average. It is very small Lithium Ion battery that gives me about 3 days of charge (thats with long calls and short calls, never turning it off. If you are unsure about what the difference between a lithium ion batter is compared to a nickel based battery: the nickel based batteries are made in such that if you use them for only a small portion of time, and recharge them. They start to build a memory, and the daily life of your battery will drop drastically over time. As to the lithium ion batteries that have an initial longer life time, but also no memory to track -- therefore you can charge it all you want. Clarity ------------------------ Now in all actuality, I do not feel that this is an appropriate category for a phone. This type of rating would really belong under the service provider (i.e. Sprint, Verizon, etc.). Now if I really could tell the difference between static in my speaker compared to the quality of my service, I would be quite amazed, but yes, my service is quite clear. Durability As for the sturdiness of the phone, I am still unsure of. My phone is about 2 months old at the time. It has been dropped on concrete once, which left no visible scratches or bruises. My 1 question for durability is that my battery seems semi-loose. (right now it is not a worry since nothing bad has came from it). Features -I feel that the phone has a really great address book system. After creating a contact you can specify them as a "personal" or "business" contact. With this, it creates 3 seperate address books: personal, business, and ALL. -The phone has a nice screen that makes reading text messages very easy, and finding your messages is extremely simple. -Phone is easy to use. I have owned 2 previous phones, giving me some knowledge, but I have not once needed to look at my phone manual. (i like to figure things out) -The phone has a calculator, tip calculator, alarm clock, countdown, stop watch, and 3 semi-good games. (brick attack and 2 really weird ones) ----------- I suggest going into a store and asking if you can play with a demo if I haven't persuaded you yet, the phone is quite amazing. If I had to get another phone right now, it would be the same thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 15 87080 2000/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to read display light small tons of features antenna is on the weak side The Bottom LineA load of features for not a load of cash, this phone has what you need and even more. You will probably never use all of its features! Full Review I purchased this phone about two months ago, because I hated the cell company I was with and wanted to switch. I ended up going with Virgin Mobile which has a choice between two phonesm the Kyocera 2225 and the Kyocera 2100. We decided on this one after playing and touching with both in the store. SIZE This is a much smaller and lighter (4.3 oz) than our old phone. Also, despite its small size it is very easy to hold, it has a little groove on the back where your finger would normally rest, which makes your grip a little easier. Unlike some other small phones, this one is a breeze to talk on, some small phones make you shout to be heard, but this one is just spaced correctly. LOOKS This is a very sleek looking phone. The display is blue which is much easier to read than the old green phones, and you have your choice of how you would like to see the menu displayed. You can have large icons that scroll left and right, or small ones in a list you scroll up and down. You can put a title on your phone (ours says "our cool phone") so if you have many in the same house you can tell one from the other. The keypad also lights up, which is a big plus, how many times have you tried to dial in the dark and did it wrong?? EASE OF USE Again, pretty easy to use. The only thing I was confused about when I got it was how to turn it off and on (the end button) but once you get that down you are all set. Menus are easy to scroll through and easy to understand. (Example on mine, the choices are: Balance, Phone info, Tools (more later), settings, recent calls, contacts, games, virginxtras, messages, top-up) They would differ depending on your provider. Keyguard is turned on by simply holding the left arrow and deactivated by hitting 123. Easy easy easy! TOOLS This phone has five items in the tool section. Alarm clock (for that day, cannot choose days in advance) Tip calculator (much cool, can enter your bill and the % you want to tip and then it can even split the total between the people you have in your party), Calculator, Countdown, and stopwatch GAMES Brick attack (like old breakout) Space dudes (like space invaders) Mystic I Ching (asian magic 8-ball) Cavern crawl (honestly, I have not played this one) OTHER FEATURES So many I have not used them all, so here are the ones I have used.... -can store up to 120 contacts, phone numbers or email adresses, entering the names takes some getting used to, but is not too hard. -can send text messages, I advise saving your contacts first to make it easier -have a choice between 25 pre loaded rings (I can also download more from my provider) or have the phone on vibrate, both for messages and calls -voicemail with a 1 touch feature, you set it up and then just hit the 1 button on the keypad to access in the future -can hook up to a computers usb port if you buy the extra cable -easy redial with the down button will scroll through last few calls, then you just hit talk to dial There are many more features, some I have not even touched, but I cannot keep going on that BATTERY LIFE Pretty good. Longer than my past phone.. I get about 3-5 days on standby or a good 6 hours straight talking... Games do drain it fast, about 2.5 hours before you are low. Charging is super fast, fully drained to fully charged in a few hours SUMMARY This is a super phone, easy to use, easy to hold and easy to talk on. I paid 129. which is not too bad considering all the features! The antenna seems weak, but I have not broken or bent it, so who knows? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 87079 2003/12/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 backlight silent mode fails to work when receiving some calls The Bottom LineBuy something better. Full Review I admit it. I finally gave in. I bought a cell phone. Not that I needed it or had any real use for it, I just thought that they were pretty and it was about time that I got to annoy people with that awful beeping during important events. I actually spent over a year researching phones and spending hours deciding whether or not I needed or could afford one. My hatred for things that beep kept me away from these electronic devices for many years, until the first of this year. I've never liked the idea of paying thirty or forty dollars a month on something that I will never use, so I decided to go with the pre-paid service. If you have ever looked into buying a cell phone, you know that pre paid services leave you with a small ugly selection of phones. Every electronic device that I buy must pass a gruesome amount of tests, and the only one that seemed to pass was the Kyocera 2255 provided by Virgin Mobile. Appearance I have one major complaint about the appearance of this phone, it is blue and has sparkles. Why I bought it I do not know, but it was on sale at the time. The Kyocera 2255 is the smallest pre paid phone that I have ever seen, about an inch and a half wide and a little over four inches long. It has a blue case and a silver/gray case with a reasonable size screen. Backlight Being the proud owner of a palm handheld, I am well aware that most electronic devices have a poor excuse for a backlight. I can honestly say that the Kyocera 2255 has the most beautiful backlight that I have ever seen. This monochrome screen has a neon blue backlight that can easily be seen in any light and the settings can be changed so that your phone can stay lit up to 30 seconds after the last button that you push. The backlight also lights up the keypad with the same blue color. I have never seen a better backlight on a phone, and I consider this the best I have ever seen, Battery One of the most important things to consider when buying a phone is the battery life. While the manufacturers claim that you can get a certain amount of time from your phone, I will tell you what I have gotten. When not in use (but still on), my phone has been known to get up to a week and a half of battery time. During heavy use, my phone dies within two hours. I was told that the battery life would be longer and was severely disappointed when I found out that the battery lasted such a short time. You may ask why you would want to talk on a cell phone for two hours and I can honestly tell you that I never have. Heavy use for me is text messaging and wasting hours of my life playing Cavern Crawler. Features The features that come with this phone vary with the service provided that you choose, but all of the 2255 come equipped with basic functions. To access the menu, hit OK. The menu pops up and you are given the choices of Balance, Messages, Games, Contacts, Recent Calls, Settings, Tools, and Phone Info. In the Messages section, you can manage your Voicemail and send and receive text messages. I am not sure whether or not it is my phone, but I have received the same voicemail about ten times. I can delete it on day and it pops back up a few days later claiming that it is a new voicemail. Since I am dumb enough to believe it, I check my Voicemail only to find that it is the same message from the same person that I had deleted only a few days before. To make it worse, that message just cost me valuable minutes. This one voicemail has cost me close to $3.00 to hear over and over. It may not seem like a lot, but mix it with the frustration and you will want to fry this phone just like I do. The Kyocera 2255 comes equipped with 4 games for your mindless entertainment. Brick Attack, Space Dudes, Mystic Ching and Cavern Crawler are all easily accessible and waiting for hours of not only your life, but also your battery. I actually made it to level 53 in Cavern Crawler and then suddenly lost interest in all games when I got Bejeweled on my Palm. Thank you Palm, your battery life is so much better. The contacts icon allows you to view, find and manage your many, many contacts. I've never had much use for this since I discovered voice activated dialing. A simple push of the TALK button and a word or two can let you talk to any idiot on your contacts list that you choose. Minor work is required to set this up, and make sure that each name is much different than the others to prevent confusion. Recent calls allows you to view the last 15 calls to or from your cell phone. It also provides you with the time, date and the caller's phone number. My only complaint is that I frequently receive phone calls from "Unavailable" followed by no response on the other line. This has cost me money and aggravation when it first started. Wiser and not willing to answer these calls, I now want to fry my phone every time it rings and says "Unavailable". Next on the list is Settings. This feature allows you to manage you banner, sounds, backlight and other useless but fun little things that you can do with your phone. Tools comes equipped with an alarm clock, tip calculator, calculator, countdown and stopwatch. All of these items are great to have, but I have never needed to use any of them. This renders the Tools feature to be useless to me, giving me less to play with. Buttons The 2255 comes equipped with your standard phone numerical keypad. On the left side of your screen, a green talk button is used whenever you want to use voice activated dialing or to send your phone call when you choose the old fashioned way of entering the numbers by hand. Four arrow buttons are located in the center, each useful for more than just scrolling. The down button can be held down until your contact list pops up, a nuisance if anything. The up button is used for checking your balance, and 50% of the time, it does not work. The left arrow is used to lock the keypad and the right arrow is used for silent mode. Yes, that brings me to silent mode. There is nothing more disturbing than when your pocket starts vibrating when you are driving or in public. Something more disturbing than a vibrating pocket is that the silent mode doesn't always work! I have received phone calls on silent mode and have been greeted with the sound of smooth criminal instead of my phone vibrating off the table. This is a major flaw that should be a major concern when buying a cell phone because you never want to hear that noise in the middle of important events. By being labeled rude person with cell phone, you are immediately labeled and hated by the electronic illiterate community that just doesn't understand that you are not rude, your phone is. This is reason number three that I want to fry this phone. (When I say fry, I mean throw into the industrial size frier found only and your favorite artery-clogging restaurants). Durability I have dropped this phone once. Since this little accident, I have noticed that the bottom left portion of the screen likes to stay darker than the rest of the screen. I have also noticed that the response to my button pushing keeps getting longer, reminding me of an old computer. Do not blame the dropping, it was on a thick carpet area. I have only had this phone for little over two months and I doubt it will survive for more than a year. Antenna and Reception The antenna is the most flimsy excuse for an antenna that I have ever seen. Mine is bent in about three places and looks like it will break soon. Not to worry, the antenna does not offer any better reception when out of its case, so you better leave it where it is. The reception on this phone is average. I have found that it does not like to have more than one bar inside buildings, but is almost always at four bars when I am outside. I have never had to use roaming on this phone and the clarity is excellent except when calling another cellular phone. This is expected, however, so I have no complaints about this. I have had one dropped call in the two months that I have owned it, but I can't say that I blame it and I actually thanked my phone for ending the call for me. Conclusion For the price (89.00 on sale), the Kyocera 2255 is a great way of teaching me that I have no use for a cellular phone. If you are a serious cell phone user, do not buy the Kyocera 2255, you too will want to fry this phone. I will update this review when I finally break and fry this phone. UPDATE This phone died in early June 2003. It just stopped responding to me pushing buttons. It figures, the one time that I actually needed a cell phone; I didn't have one. I now own a LG VX10 from Verizon and have had ZERO problems. It even survived an accident at a batting cage. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 89.95Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87078 2000/9/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice games ultra cool blue screen exceptional features light weight moderately expensive The Bottom LineWatch out, Nokia...Here comes Kyocera! Full Review When you think about wireless digital phones, you often think of brands such as Nokia, Motorola, Eriksson and the like. Well, it's time to change your thinking and include Kyocera into that select list. Kyocera, makers of such products as copiers, cameras, solar energy products and a host of other electronic components has now bolted their way on to the wireless phone scene with some exceptional products. One of their top of the line models, the 2255, will impress you from the moment you turn it on. Lit up by an impressive and attractive neon blue background, the Kyocera 2255 will capture the attention of anyone who might be looking your way. But good looks aren't the only thing that make the Kyocera 2255 a winner in this completive market. First off, it's rather light weight and small. Appearance and design-wise, it is similar to many conventional Nokia phones, but I found the selection of buttons and the menu set up easier to follow and manipulate than similar Nokia's. The navigation buttons work like a directional mouse - allowing you to go left, right, up and down through a combination of two intuitive buttons. And 'Ok' and 'Clear' button allow you to make and/or alter your choices, and a 'Talk' and 'End' button allow you to do just that - talk or end a call/function. And finally, there's your standard numeric key pad buttons. All the buttons have their own blue-back lighting which makes entry in dark situations easy to manipulate. My experience with this phone is with it linked to the new 'Pay As You Go' service provided by Virgin Mobile USA (See: www.virginmobileusa.com for more details). And if the service and reception capabilities of VMU's service is any indication, the Kyocera 2255 works exceptionally well. Reception and clarity is top-notch, and data transmission for text messaging and web browsing (more on that later) is fast and accurate. Battery Life - another key area for wireless phones, is more than adequate with the Kyocera 2255. My experience has given me nearly 6 days of stand by time and over 3 hours of talk/data/playing around time. As with most phones, the backlighting can really drain battery life, but there is an option available on the Kyocera 2255 to limit the amount of time the backlight is on, thus saving your precious battery time. Text messaging - a key component to the wireless market of late, the Kyocera 2255 allows you to enter text/characters/number in two different modes. First is the standard one key at a time based on the keypad. The next Kyocera's own 'Rapid Entry' which works more like a keyboard but takes a little getting used to at first. So, on to more of the options: Messages The 'Messages' area of the phone will allow you to check your voice mail, text messages (both sent and received) as well as any network messages that may have arrived (if your service has this feature). A host of settings allows you to customize this feature to your own preferences. Games The high resolution of this phone allows for some pretty impressive games. Included on the Kyocera 2255 are the following: Brick Attack: Essentially a multi-level 'break out' game with a few twists. Nice for those boring meetings that go old endlessly. Space Dudes: Space Invaders anyone? A nice translation of an arcade classic. Mystic I Ching: Have your fortune read in this translation of a Chinese classic. Cavern Crawl: An impressive 'Dungeons and Dragons' over-head viewable game that offers a large number of levels, enemies and scenarios. With a save game feature built in, this one will have you depleting your battery life over and over again. Contacts A full array of contacts and features are possible with the Kyocera 2255. You can store email addresses, phone numbers, etc. while designating each as either personal numbers, business numbers, or neither. Then, by doing so, you can link the contacts to specific ringer tones/volumes so you can (almost) instantly tell who is calling you by the tone of the ring. Nice! Recent Calls Missed a call? Just want to see what the last 10 calls were that you received. A host of features and options surround this area which can certainly come in handy when you're trying to remember a number or check your bill against your actual activity. Settings A wide variety of settings can be changed here, from ringer volume and tones (over 35 tones included with more than can be downloaded), alter between ring, vibrate, both, neither and more. Anything you could possibly want to do and/or change on your phone can be had in this menu area. Tools A great list of add-on features that really makes this phone a versatile tool. There's an alarm clock, a tip calculator that will split up your bill by the number of guests in your party, a normal calculator, a countdown-timer and a stop watch. All in all, for a price of somewhere in the $100 range (less with discounts) you get a phone that looks cool, feels cool and works exceptionally well. Hooked up with a great service, like that provided by Virgin Mobile USA, and you're ready to jet-set around the country and keep in touch with all of your friends and family. Below is a complete list of features and specifications. Thanks, as always, for reading. -John Basic Features * Brilliant-blue backlit display and keypad for easy readability * Compact, lightweight ergonomic design: comfortable to hold, includes easy-to-use navigation keys * Productivity tools including voice memos, calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch * Voice-activated dialing * Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) browser makes it easy to view your favorite Web sites specially formatted for your phone* * Up to 25 ringers plus vibrate alert * Includes four electronic games * Headset jack * Contact directory stores personal and business information * Trimode: CDMA digital service at 800 MHz and 1900 MHz, and analog service at 800 MHz - three modes of network coverage to keep you connected virtually anywhere * 5-line, full bitmap display * Predictive text-input software for rapid text entry * CDMA2000 1X technology-capable of high speed data transmission at 153 Kbps when CDMA2000 1X networks launch Technical Specifications * CDMA Talk time: Up to 3.25 hours * CDMA Standby time: Up to 5 days * Battery Type: Standard lithium ion (LiIon) battery * Size: 4.72 in x 1.89 in x 0.95in (12 cm x 4.8 cm x 2.4 cm) * Weight: 4.34 ounces (123 grams) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7684 Kyocera 1135 87100 2005/4/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 none that i can think of phone appears to have a built in obsolesence malfunctions after one year Completely went out on me a little less than one month after warranty expired. I purchased the item on recommendation of Cellular One, who claimed it was the only phone that would work in our remote area. I am obviously unhappy with the situation. Certain functions of the phone never did work right, and now nothing works. All saved numbers were either erased or just a portion of them remained. It did not even save my own number to access messages. After 3 days of having the phone not functioning, I found out that a family member had passed away, and I had missed the funeral. Thanks Kyocera. I purchased a new battery for nearly $40.00, and still the phone does not work. I feel that for $180.00 ( not to mention $40.00 battery and additional new $16.00 cord ), this phone should have lasted more than a year. Sincerely, V. Leno 87099 2005/8/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability ease of use backlit blue screen no extras This is a wonderful phone for anyone who doesn't require a bunch of extras. I use my phone just as a phone, no need for all the extras and it has been great! I have had this phone for 2.5 years with absolutely no problems. My previous phones would stop working properly before my contract was up, this one lasted longer than my contract. It's very easy to use and really love the blue backlighting. 87098 2003/9/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception blue back lighting the battery life clarity you can only personalize ring tones by groups not individuals games battery charging I got this after a very satisfied run with an Audiovox CDM9100 phone. I had finally killed that one off after 3 run ins with the washing machine and many drops on to the concrete. I must say that this phone can take abuse just as well as the Audiovox and after a year and a half is still in use. I travel everyday about 30 miles and I never had a problem with reception or clarity on the road. The menus are easy to get used and i like that you can choose your icon size. I don't really use the phone for games but if you did you would be disappointed by it only having one. The ringtones are decent, but nothing spectacular. All in all I've been completely satisfied with the phone, all in all, it's a phone, not a toy and it does what they are intended to. 87097 2000/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 get this phone free gets the job done if you want a camera this phone won t get the job done The Bottom Linethis is functional cellular phone. Full Review Seriously. This is the nicest piece of junk I've ever used. I got it for free and it works great. The only catch is that I had to sign onto my family's Sprint PCS phone plan at $20 per month. It has turned out to be a great deal. But how about this phone? Well, there aren't many frills about it. It is dual band, so if you get beyond the digital realm of your provider and into Hicksville, I guess that means you can roam on some farmer's cell network at $4.00 a minute. I suppose it's nice to know that. It has several different ring tones, all of which sound terrible except the regular beeping. I had the Hawaiian beach tone on for a while but that was annoying people so I turned that off. The screen isn't big and it's only black and white. It doesn't have many pixels either, so the definition is pretty limited. In other words, about all you can make out are numbers and letters. But I don't care, because it does what I need it to do - make phone calls and store my phone numbers for me. That's all I need. It has caller ID too and voice mail. No problems. What's the big deal? What do I need a camera phone for? That's a joke. This is a nice piece of junk. It was free. Didn't even have to send in a rebate. Absolutely free. The car charger was $17. All at the Sprint PCS store. Go there. brad. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87096 2006/3/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to use attractivelightweight phone long battery life good sound quality limited features such as no speaker phoneno web browsing extremely sensitive to water The Bottom LineIf you have used and liked Kyocera phones before, you will be more than satisfied with this phone. If you havent, then it this phone is definately worth looking at. Full Review The 1135 is Kyocera's new bottom-of-the-line phone. I recieved it for free with a contract in January of 2003. Since I am on my third 1135 (I have a problem with losing things). Basically the 1135 is a 2035a with a makeover. (Kyocera's 2035 is the previous version of this phone.) Those who are stepping up from the 2035 will be very happy with this phone. It has the exact same easy-to-use menu. It takes about 30 seconds to get used to this phone for those who have previously owned a 2035. I have noticed several improvements on the 1135; the most obvious is its physical appearance. The 1135 has been slimmed down and has lost its boxy shape. The faceplate is not removable, but is in a stylish silver with matching silver buttons. This is a very lightweight phone that will easily fit into your pocket. The battery holds a charge very well. Since owning this phone I have not once had it die on me. As far as call clarity goes, I have been very satisfied with the phone. While this is primarily based on your service provider and towers in the area, the phone has a lot to do with picking up a signal. I have had less problems than I had with the 2035 as for as not being able to get a signal and lost calls. In certain areas, especially basements, it can sometimes lose a call, but for the most part I have been satisfied with the phone. I have used other people's phones - the older Nokias for example - and have had trouble hearing the person I am talking to. The earpiece volume can be easily adjusted during a call. As far as features go, this phone has the standard Kyocera features. These include an alarm clock, tip calculator, countown, stopwatch, and the infamous Brick Attack. There is no web browser on this phone. The backlighting is now blue instead of the usual green, and looks very nice with the silver color of the phone. One improvement I have noticed over the previous phone is its handiness. The central up/down left/right button has been utilized more effective than the previous phone. Holding down the left button will lock the keypad. Pressing the down button will start scrolling through contacts. Holding the right button will turn the phone to silent mode and change the ringer to vibrate. This can really come in handy and is much easier to activate than having to do so through the menu. Finally, the up button can be programmed to any of the followig shortcut-key choices: Inbox, to check messages; Send new Message; Ringer Volume; Recent Calls (this is what I leave it on- comes in very handy for calling people back who just called.); Business or Personal list; Stopwatch; Calculator. Pressing the green TALK button twice will redial the last number dialed. All in all this phone is a very nice phone. It does not have any extra gadgets and goodies like some of the phones, but for some people that can be a good thing. It is a matter of choice I guess. All I really want is a phone that I can call people and text message people with. If you are looking for a phone that can do anything more than this, look elsewhere, and be ready to pay extra. The menus are very user-friendly in this phone and can be much easier to understand than some other phones. This can come in handy for those who are "Technologically Challenged" (old). I recieved this phone free with my contract. Since then I have lost 2 of them in my drunken stupor and have had them replaced through my phone insurance provider. I paid a $35 deductible each time. These phones are going on ebay now new and used ranging anywhere from $20-100. *Note - The only 1135 phones I have seen in my area are through US Celular and are silver. Apparently the 1135s used by Sprint are blue and do not have the blue backlighting (Like the one in the picture). Here are the specs from the kyocera.com website: Easy to use • Brilliant-blue backlit display and keypad • Compact, lightweight and ergonomic design provides excellent feel • Navigation keys allow easy menu access Timesaving tools • Includes calculator, alarm clock and stopwatch • Built-in contact directory stores business and personal information Trimode • CDMA digital PCS, CDMA digital cellular and analog - three modes of network coverage to keep you connected virtually anywhere* Additional features • Two-way text messaging capabilities* • 25 ring tones plus vibrate alert • Five-line, full bitmap display • Electronic game • Headset jack • Supports CDMA2000 1X technology Technical specifications •Talk Time: Up to 3.8 hours with standard battery Standby Time: Up to 6 days Times will vary based on user settings, feature use and launch of CDMA2000 1X networks. • Battery Type: Standard lithium ion (LiIon) battery • Size: 4.72 in x 1.89 in x 0.95 in (12.0 cm x 4.8 cm x 2.4 cm) •Weight: 4.34 ounces (123 grams) •Vocoders: 13 Kbps (PureVoice™) and EVRC • Operational Temperature: -22º to 140ºF (-30º to 60ºC) Battery performance limited in temperatures below 32ºF (0ºC) Kyocera 1135 actual size *Depending on services available from your carrier. Please feel free to ask me any questions as to other features of the phone. Thanks, and good luck in choosing your new phone. UPDATE: sorry it took so long to update, at this point this phone is pretty obsolete anyway. However, i just want to say this phone is junk. I went through 7 of them in one year. Do not buy it unless you pay less than $10 for it. Thanks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87095 2004/1/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 holds a charge compact size nice features backlit has some of the same issues as the kyocera 2135 The Bottom LineWith any luck I won't have to reenact the "phone abuse" scene from The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to get someone to hear me through the echo. Full Review The Kyocera series of phones are basic but more than suitable for the cell phone user that doesn't want or need every new gadget or piece of technology. I own the that I have with Verizon through their Free-Up Prepaid service but with the summer months upon us, the boys will be taking field trips and attending day camps and I wanted them to have a cellular phone that they could take with them in case they needed to get in touch with me. I opted to sign up for one of Verizon's calling plans and received the Kyocera 1135 as part of the package. I had my choice of several phones, none of which were the least bit attractive or functional in the least so I went with the best of the worst, the 1135. The salesman ensured me that this was a "state of the art" phone with "crystal clear clarity" and "impeccable range". The next time a cellular salesman lays that slick verbiage on me I am going to get it in writing so I can go back to them, throw the phone in his face and ask for my money back. If the 1135 is Kyocera answer to modern technology, I say stick with smoke signals, Morse Code and tapping on pipes as a more effective means of communication. Kyocera 1135 The phone comes packed with features like a phone book for business and personal entries, backlit display, auto lock feature, 25 ring tones, text messaging, call restriction and more. In most ways this is very similar to the 2135 but doesn't have a web browser or internet access. Since this is something that I never used on the 2135, it wasn't a factor when picking out the phone for the new calling plan. The buttons are easier to use then the other Kyocera models and you don't have to press them hard to get the to work. You can adjust the incoming call volume as well as the volume of the keypad. But beware, if you silence the keypad you may not be able to enter numbers when you call pagers or use the text messaging system. Overall the phone will take you about fifteen minutes to learn the basics and the instruction manual is pretty easy to follow. Battery The battery holds a charge nicely and you can get about two hours of talk time before the power level starts to drop. The charger plugs into the bottom of the phone and the on screen indicator lets you know that it is in the recharge mode. The one downside to charging is that it never shows when it is completely charged, the power level meter flickers across the top of the screen to show you that it is charging, but it never stops so you have to remember exactly how long it's been plugged in. The manual says that it will show a 'full battery' icon [all four bars lit up] when it is done, but my phone has yet to display it even after it's been recharged for four or five hours. The recharge pack doesn't get extremely hot, but it does get warm so make sure you keep it away from anything that is heat sensitive. You can purchase a mobile recharger for your car for about $20.00 or a upright desk recharger for about $50.00 that allows you to charge the phone or just the battery pack. These can be picked up at your cellular phone store or online at the Kyocera website. Call Clarity While some of your call clarity depends on your service provider and the number of towers they have active, the phone plays a key role in hearing every single word or having to be one of those annoying people who wander around trying to find that 'sweet spot' where you can get clear reception. I've made about 30 calls with this - both in the San Diego area and long distance and about 10 of them had a very deep echo - so much so that I had to hang up and call the person back. Since I've only had this phone for about a week I can't say that it's an ongoing thing - but if this is any indication of how it is going to perform, it's going back to the Verizon Store. Features Phonebook If you have a lot of contacts or frequently called friends, you can set up phonebooks that will store their name, phone number, extension and other important information. The manual says that you can store up to 200 numbers, a real perk for those that constantly lose numbers. If you are going to store a large number of contacts, you might want to try to organize them first before you start entering them. Backlight Unlike the tacky green glow of the 2135, this is a sleek blue that is pretty bright. You can adjust the brightness through the menu options and if you have t selected at the highest power, it will drain your battery rather quickly - even more so if you have the phone silenced and it blinks when you get an incoming call instead of ringing or vibrating. Banner You can program the banner on the main screen of your phone to display any text you like. This is useful for displaying your company name, "reward if found" message or emergency information such as allergies or medical conditions. While the last suggestion, medial conditions, might seem a bit strange, it is extremely useful for people who are diabetic or have allergies. One quick look at the screen might help someone aid you or contact emergency services. Programming the text is easy and its fully explained in the instruction book. Alarm I used this feature a lot on the other phone as a back up for my alarm clock and it's set up the exact same way on this phone. Setting it is easy and you can adjust the volume of the alarm from a quiet and pleasant ring to a loud shrill that is guaranteed to wake you up or remind of you of an important event. The small icon on the screen [a bell] lets you know when you've properly set the alarm so you will know for sure that it will go off at the designated time. Something else worth mentioning is the stopwatch feature that I don't use often, but is nice to have. Keypad Lock Locking the keypad won't protect it if it is stolen, but it will keep it from accidentally dialing out a number if it is in your pocket or purse and the 'call' button is pressed. You need to press Ï - 2 - 3" on the keypad to unlock it and make a call however you can still receive incoming calls or place emergency calls with the lock in place. This is only an option and can be enabled or disabled as you need it. Text Messaging This will be something that we will more than likely use a lot. When we had only the 2135 the boys could send me a text message [.05 cents per message] rather than calling me [.10 - .30 cents a minute]. All they needed to do was go to the Verizon Free-Up page, enter the phone number, type in the message and hit send. Since both phones have text messaging capabilities, this will be a great way for us to keep in touch or just goof around sending silly messages. You know you've received a text message when the small letter icon appears on your screen after your phone rings, blinks or vibrates. The one nice advantage this has over the 2135 is that it comes with a list of messages that you can send instead of typing in text, they are common phrases like "I'll be late", "stuck in traffic", "I'm delayed" etc. The list is pretty basic but it does save you some keystrokes. Call Timer You can set your phone to beep once every minute that you are on a call to let you know how long you've been chatting. This is a great feature if you are going the prepaid route so you can keep track of the length of calls. The call time is displayed on the screen but it gets a little nerve racking having to pull away from a call to see the timer. Call Log You can access the last 15 incoming or outgoing calls thought the 'recent call' screen so you'll never have an excuse not to return someone's call. It will show the time the call was made or received, the number, persons name if you have it in your phone book, length of call and which order it was received. It will only store the number once so if your wife or husband called you from home several times during the day, it would only show the most recent call and time. Instructions The book that you get with the phone covers almost every possible question you many have about your phone. Everything from installing the battery to ordering new faceplates are covered. If you still need assistance with your phone you can call the customer service and technical help enter at [800] 349 - 4478. The instructions are easy to understand, come with a lot of illustrations and are model specific so you'll never have to look at your phone and illustration and wonder why there is a difference or discrepancy. Games If you love to pay games on your phone, you will be sorely disappointed. This comes with one game - a knock off version of the Pong classic called Break Out. This is as basic as games come and it makes the original NES look like a million bucks. Still, it's a fun way to kill time when you are stuck in traffic or waiting for an appointment. Size This isn't one of the smallest phones on the market, which is something that I really liked. I can't stand those tiny little phones that look like they were created for Barbie. This one is about 5 inches long, two inches wide and about an inch thick. The antenna tucks in almost all the way and can be replaced if damaged. It's not extremely heavy, maybe eight or nine ounces with the battery pack. All of the bottoms and jacks are conveniently placed with the headphone / headset jack being located at the top so you can have your phone in your pocket and still be able to talk on it without having cords all over the place. The size is just right for me and I know that it will be easy enough for the boys to use since they've had plenty of experience with the 2135. I didn't want something so small that's I lose it or leave it somewhere and didn't want t flip open phone [I have enough trouble with regular phones] so this was one of the few options available to me. The Bottom Line I'm still not sure about this phone. Some of the calls that I've made have sounds completely horrid. I know some of that is due to location, but when I am in the front yard trying to make a call - it is a complete crap-shoot as to whether the person I am calling will be able to hear me or if I'll get the dreaded echo from hell. If you are in the market for a cellular phone that has the basics and is relatively easy to use, the Kyocera line is a good one to check out providing that you get all the information about exchanging the phone it is isn't what you need to isn't working the way you expected as well as upgrading to a newer model later in your contract. If you are going to go the pre-paid route, make sure you ask how you are covered in case there is a defect with the phone or something happens to it. Make sure you read all the service contracts and phone information before you sign up or authorize your carrier to bill you on a monthly basis. This might take you a while to read but it is a lot easier than having to jump through loops to get them to billing your credit card or to get out of your contract without a stiff penalty. The phone seems like it is well made and a little nicer than the design of the 2135 but in all honesty, if I keep getting horrible sounding calls, dropped calls and "the echo" - this phone is going back for a new one. As always ... thanks for the visit! ^V^ Freak ^V^ © 2003 Freak369 Related wireless communication reviews ... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ContractRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7685 LG Electronics VX6000 87135 2004/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 picture taking web enabled tip calculator could use a speaker phone web enabled picture taking When I bought this phone, I never realized that it had so much, much more than I would really need. I have been able to utilized the web feature, instant messaging feature, picture taking (I have my kitty on there now) & I love the tip calculator. I would highly recommend this phone for someone who wants it all in the palm of their hand. The only thing that it doesn't have is a speaker phone but the hands free ear piece is much more comfortable than most so it's not a pain to wear. All in all, I would say this is a great phone. 87134 2004/6/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 takes pictures small light weight small battery life I have had this phone for about 6 months now. I love it. I haven't had any problems. The battery doesn't last long, but the phone itself is great! 87133 2004/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 some what attractive design realiability durability built by lg I received the phone when it first came out. And Im a very technology up to date person. This phone is ok, but camera quality sucks. The durability against falls isnt very good. The phone is limited on features compared to my wifes regular cell phone. Of course was a ungodly amount of money compared to this but still. Its not a phone I kept for long and my wife didnt blame me she said it was a mistake to buy. I droped it once and it had so many nicks and cuts it looked mangled. Compared to her phone I dropped several times on concrete just lik the other and it had ONE measely scratch. This phone has some major quality and features issues. The headset is annoying to use, and the color options stink. Parts are exspensive. 87132 2005/8/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 they ve stopped making them they won t recall this phone for crappiness I bought this phone because I was ready for a better cell phone. I bought a US Cellular plan and this was the "best" (and most expensive) the authorized retail agent had. so I thought I was good to go. Boy, was I wrong. I've had four cell phones in my time and this is the worst. Short battery life, terrible reception, poor software design, awful reception, the hinge is going (I have several friends who have the same phone who had to replace the phone because of the hinge), and, did I mention? BAD RECEPTION. now I know what you're going to say, "you might experience degraded signal reception if using the phone inside of buildings or in bad weather, etc..." No, I've tried other phones on the U.S. Cellular network in the same locations, and have had better results with those phones than with mine. LG VX6000 is a terrible phone. I'll avoid this phone and all others in the LG line for the rest of my days. 87131 2005/11/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 nice size for the features available not good quality phone Well I had this phone from 12/03 until 5/05 however it wasn't working good for at least 5 months. The hands-free thing kept making the phone unable to use without it. Then I couldn't get a signal to save my life. I have VERIZON, there are very few place without a signal. I gave it a break and downgraded and tried to go back but it still didn't work. I didn't have insurance on it, so I was told that I would have to pay $50 to get it fixed. I wasn't willing to do that since I payed $79 for it and I think I got a $50 rebate. 87130 2005/5/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 pics im wierd shut off problems I love this phone I cant really say anythign bad about it. evry now and then it shuts its self off and turns back on and the time is messed up and then it fixes its self my husband has the same one and doesnt have the same problem. i love all the things i can do with it . 87129 2004/5/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great color display integrated camera call quality not the best looking phone out there can only store 20 pics battery life So, I got the LG VX6000 in November, right when it began to get popular. I have Verizon Wireless, and it is a great phone. One thing i found is that get it now can slip in prices for little things like browsing or removing apps, so be careful! the camera is great, but you can only hold 20 pictures at a time. the battery life is meteokre for a phone like this, and i charge it every night. for some reason when i got the phone i expected more. it just didn't seem that it lived up to its reputations. but despite this, the call quality is crystal clear, the color display is bright as ever, and you can get some great ringtones on it!! :-) although its not the best looking phone, that's just my opinion, and you might disagree! if you are getting verizon, definitely go for this phone! definitely reccomended. 87128 2004/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality email pics to yourself camera signal size durability no speakerphone annoying voicemail alert grainy pictures bad clip I have dropped my phone down cement stairs and even as I watched it tumble I was sure it would never turn on again. Sure enough every time it fires right back up. It's not a small phone but it's not so cumbersome that it gets annoying. It's almost perfect in terms of size. I would have liked a few more features (speaker phone mostly). The voicemail alert goes off every 3 minutes even when you tell the phone to ignore. The camera is grainy but it comes in handy more than I expected it to (I can send pics from the phone to my email). Battery life is great and my signal is usually stronger than other phones on the same service. My biggest problem with the phone is the clip that it came with. I accidently pop the phone off of the belt clip and drop it all the time. 87127 2004/10/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 the little colored lights flashing on the front lcd umm connection small buttons signal easily dented scuffed cheap make no speakerphone I've had this phone since February. I live about a block from a cell phone tower, but one day, I just stopped getting any service at my house. In certain areas, I'd have all my bars, and then click send and it would drop down to one bar and I wouldn't be able to hear what the person was saying and then the call would be dropped. VERY frustrating. Then I went to Verizon and they said, Oh! All you need is a system upgrade. So, I had that done, and still, the same problems. This phone is still covered under warranty, and I could get the same one, brand new, but after hearing similar complaints from people with this phone I am just going to have to shell out the money for a different model. 87126 2005/8/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 overall nice phone lacking bluetooth is quite large The LG VX6000 is a fine example of LG's quality. The phone does what a phone is suppose to do and more. It gets great reception, is good for text messageing, has a low power OEL front display(very cool)with moveing time, a decent camera, great inside screen, capable of ringtones of all types and MORE! 87125 2004/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great easy to use hardy design rugged intuitive menus a bit too smoothrounded which is why i ve dropped mine a few times This is my second LG cell phone, and I won't purchase a different brand ever. The biggest selling point is the very very intuitive navigation of the menu and it's options. I've turned on 2 friends to the LG VX6000 and they both agree to the very friendly menu's. It's also extremely rugged as I have dropped mine numerous times. I cracked the camera lens, but it still snaps pictures clearly, except when the sunlight is directly upon it, then I get a lens flare effect. Overall I really admire the thought put into the design of their cell phones. 87124 2004/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 clear reception full functional camera great design not tri mode mobile internet could be better 20 photo storage limit Full-functional camera Clear Reception I love this phone-it's simply amazing! Originally I purchased it only because of it's camera features, because I wanted to start my own photo blog. Instead, I discovered some of this phone's amazing features. For starters, it's interface is the best out there. I had no problems finding any feature or option I wanted. Second, this phone is customizable to the extreme. I can change anything I want, from the colors to the address book to the camera options. Third, the camera on the VX6000 is top notch. You can change many different options on the camera. The only downside is that the VX6000 only has room for 20 saved pictures at a time. However, you can easily overcome this problem by emailing the photos to yourself then deleting them. The service on the VX6000 (with Verizon) is excellent. I've never hit any dead spots. I've only lost one call, and that was while traveling through the mountains. Overall, this is a GREAT phone that deserves your respect. It has got to be one of LG's most popular models. Not Tri-Mode 20 Photo Storage Limit 87123 2005/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability camera features reception voice clarity no speaker phone ringtones need to be louder on high low picture resolution I have had this phone for almost 2 years and I love it. It has great voice clarity and reception and was one of the first digital camera phones on the market. Although the pictures that some of the newer phones have are much better quality, the pictures are pretty good. The talk and stand by time on the battery are good, mine has gone for many days in use and I have never had the battery go dead. The functions are similar to most other phones and I find them easy to use. I am eligible for an upgrade now, and other than obtaining a higher mega pixel for the photos, I don't want to give this phone up! (that is the ultimate compliment from me, as I need the new and better phone the minute it comes out!) It is also quite durable, I cannot count how many times this phone has been dropped! 87122 2006/8/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to text or send pics to email or phone buy the extended warranty not reliable the computer voice really hard to understand I really liked my original LG Flip Camera phone and thought that when it died after 18 months that it was just a fluke! Hah! My new LG6100 lasted 15 months to the day from when I bought it! It actually turned out that it needed to be re-programmed by a Tech. now it's ok but has more background noise. 87121 2004/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nice side buttons size good stationary antenna display is great menus easy navigation navigation buttons too small gets a little warm after long use Excellent phone all around. Not many complaints. Nice clarity. Wish it wasn't cradle charge, but it's useable in the cradle if you must. 87120 2004/7/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen camera call quality battery life after several months I bought this phone last December and have had it for about 7 monhts. All and all the phone seems to be a pretty good phone. I have also had very many different phones. I am also very hard on my phone's they do get beet up a lot and i think this is the one that i have had the longest. I like it!! The pics look pretty good for a camera on a phone that is. Call Quality does seem to be pretty good as well. But i will say after having the phone for 7 months the beating that it has had is starting to show a little. But it has all and all been a pretty good phone. 87119 2000/5/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cute design long battery life good sound quality not much difference in terms of service extra money for image transferring bad image quality The Bottom Linenice looking and good sound quality for styles Full Review I bought this phone as an upgrade in Feb 2004. I got it for $150 with $50 rebate from Radio Shack. The actual mail-in rebate arrived about a few weeks ago, but I'm glad they did do what they promised. Ease of use There are two screens, external one indicating time, the mode of the phone (regular, vibration, or silent), and the internal screen which is full of colors. The screen is very pretty, you can change the picture on the screen to the picture you take. There are nine categories: picture, address, call records, messages, internet features, setting, features including alarm clock and calendar. I don't use internet service , but everything else is fine. No surprising features; it's as good as a monocolor version. One complaint I have is that it is not set up to make noise to remind me that someone had called me while I was away from the phone. The external screen tells the time, and the way dots move around supposedly tell which mode the phone is on (regular, silent, or vibration). But after having it for more than 3 month, I don't know what is what. The complaint I had with my previous phone is that the reception was bad in my room and people I'm talking to had hard time hearing. With this phone, there seems to be less problem, and I don't lose connection as easily as I used to with my old motorola phone. You have a whole bunch (20 ) of ring tones, and you can program so that your friend each gets a ring tone. That way, without looking at the caller ID, you know who is calling. The sound quality is superb, once you have it, you get attention from just owning this phone. Battery life You can go without charing your phone for three days. That's amazing from how cell phone used to be. In terms of continuous use, I've talked for 2hrs, and it was no problem. Of course, I charged it for more chatting the next day. :) Digital Camera If you want to use this phone to take pictures as an substitute for a digital camera, don't do it. I thought I would, and I regret my plan. I'm planning to get a real digital camera. The quality of picture is really bad, and if you want to transfer images to a computer, you need to buy an extra cord USB connection, which costs about $30 officially and $20 from internet sites. You can always send it via e-mail, which costs 5 cents, so that seems to be the easiest solution. Price As I wrote earlier, I paid $100 for this phone. For the same quality phone, I should have shopped around for a better deal. I'm on Verizon and I don't live in the city, so I have restriction on which phone companies I can use. I've seen and friends who got a new phone in Boston got a T-mobile phone with a better quality digital camera and bluetooth for wireless image transfer for free with $75 rebate. It was not a sleek phone, but I don't mind that for such a deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87118 2000/9/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good screen great reception small good battery no speakerphone but i would never use it no flash but that s a battery killer The Bottom LineGreat all around phone with some of the latest technology, and a phone that you can rely on! Full Review I've had the LG Vx6000 for about a year now and have been nothing but happy with it! I got it when it first came out and paid about $50 for it after rebates. But, had I known this phone would be so good I probably would've paid more. First, it's a small phone, fits easily in the pocket, and it looks good. Some of my favorite things about the phone include; 1. REALLY loud speaker 2. Good camera pics 3. Extremely good battery life for the amount of time I use it 4. Great reception 5. Good looking screen and easy to use Previous to this phone I've had motorola and have had nothing but problems with it (at least on the verizon network). This phone will blow your ear drum out of you don't lower the speaker volume, and others in the room will hear your convo if you do not lower the volume! The loud speaker is a big plus for me because my hearings isn't the greatest anymore. As for the camera, it takes good pictures compared to other phones in its class, and beats higher quality phones! A friend has some new nokia camera phone and this phone blows it away! What really surprised me about this phone is battery life. I talk on the phone about 600 minutes a month, text hundreds and text messages, and a few picture messages per month, and I recharge the phone every couple of days. Perhaps it is only my phone, but the battery lasts a surprisingly long time, which I love. Last but not least, the reception is incredible for an all digital phone! I've had no problem anywhere with this phone, except in the basement of an all concrete building, which is to be expected. The screen is also very nice looking on this phone. Overall this phone is greatl. I was thinking about upgrading (or is it upgrading?) to the new Motorola V710, but it's expensive and I've been hearing nothing but bad things about it from a co-worker who has it. Plus, this phone has given me no problems whatsoever so there is no reason to upgrade yet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87117 2000/10/19 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good clarity compact easy to use leather case has to be removed for base charger use The Bottom LineWorks fine, good clarity, intuitive menus i thought, no games from factory, expensive LG brand accessories, inexpensive aftermarket accessories. Full Review First the good points - I was skeptical about flip phones for some reason, i don't know why. One thing that became obvious quick was that when the phone was closed I never had to worry about accidentally dialing a number etc. Yes, my old phone had a key lock but it was a pain to use. I love the fact that the keys are totally protected when the cover is closed. You can assign distinct rings to your contacts which is VERY handy to identify the common incoming calls without looking at your phone. The camera works fine but is not stellar by any means. I am very particular about the feel of the keys. These keys have a nice feel to them and i have no complaints. One cool feature is the instant timer. Its real easy to set a 10 minute (30min, 1 hr, 2 hr all built in) timer with just a few clicks. My old phone you would have to go thru the long process of setting an alarm based on the current time etc. Now you can set a 30 minute timer for example and take a quick nap. The phone book is intuitive enough and everything works pretty good. Like most phones today, I find all the web and media stuff gimmicky and never use it. In theory you can down load games and more ring tones but I never have. The bad things - with the factory base charger you must remove the back half of the leather case from the phone before placing it in the charger. Other things - after market chargers are available for less than $10 compared to the LG brand of $30 or more. If i was doing it again i would buy only aftermarket stuff as you can save many dollars. Also there is an aftermarket base charger where you can leave the leather case on the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87116 2000/6/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 web features ringer volume design camera call quality signal strength application costs picture memory battery life The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a overall great phone that is loaded with features, sleek, impressive and yet fully functional and practical, this phone is for you. Full Review After experiencing sub par cellular phone service for nearly three years and through dozens of phones, I finally found a cellular phone that was sleek, sophisticated, technologically up-to-date and most importantly that provided me with wonderful service. I joined Verizon Wireless about nine months ago. The phone, LG VX6000 was available for $79.99 after a mail in rebate and after signing a two-year contract. The phone provides wonderful features such as a build in camera, external speaker, color screen and large buttons - all packed into a very small and sleek design. Several positive features are worth noting: First, the screen shows brilliant color images and one can avoids straining the eyes when reading the display because of the large text option. The camera takes excellent quality pictures for a cell phone. You even have the option of emailing a picture to a friend using the long list of Web and Internet access capabilities. Next, the menu access is fantastic. There is absolutely no lag from the time a button is pressed to the time the action is executed. The signal strength and overall call quality is excellent - with virtually no dropped calls or static (unless you are clearly in the boondocks). The quality of the speaker is also excellent - at last I have a phone where I can hear the ring while in traffic with news radio blaring. After that, comes the durability factor. At first glance, the phone seems as if it will break open if dropped. Take my word for it that is absolutely not the case. My phone has "slipped" out of my hands at least four or five times and either fallen on concrete or hard floors and a scuff is barely apparent. Lastly, the accessories offered are also wide in variety. Many after market products are available such as extended batteries, colored faceplates, flashing antennas, speakerphone, etc. All though these products are not certified by LG, they certainly add uniqueness to the phone without comprising quality whatsoever. Inevitably, there are also a few cons. First off, the battery life is much less than other phones on the market. Meaning, the talk time and standby time are sub par. If you spend a lot of time on the road and away from a car charger or even home charger, this phone may not be for you - unless of course you invest in a longer life battery, which is available at certain online auction sites for less than 20$. Next, the storage space available for pictures is disappointing. The maximum number of images that can be stored is twenty. However, keep in mind that the cell phone's camera isn't intended to replace that 35mm or 5-mega-pixel camera that you're used to. Lastly, although you can enjoy games such as chess, checkers, golf and even jeopardy on your phone, the cost to download such applications is prohibitively expensive (Verizon charger 4.99$ for one application!) In summary, if you are looking for an overall great phone that is loaded with features, sleek, impressive and yet fully functional and practical, this phone is for you. Although there are certain cons, problems exist with all cell phones - in fact all gadgets all together will have their problems. If you're considering a new cell phone and don't want to empty your wallet, the LG VX6000 is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87115 2000/5/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid build easy to use short battery life The Bottom LineLG did a great job on this one. Full Review I worked for Motorola for over a decade, and we were always encouraged to use their phone for personal sue, and mandated to for company use. So for many years this was all I knew. When LG arrived on the cell scene, the first thing most people thought of was "cheap Korean goods", similar to how the Japanese goods were viewed in the 50's and 60's. But after leaving the company I went to Verizon and saw the LG VX6000 for free with a contract. Prior to this I had the Motorola V60 series and was not satisfied at all with the phone quality, and the LG resembled this phone. At least it looked like what I had been using and I felt comfortable with the design. It felt hefty compared to the other phones I looked at, so I took a chance and grabbed it. Worse case, I could always upgrade if I did not like it. The menu was easier than the previous phones I had and setting up was easy. Transferring all my contacts was an easy task and finding my way around the system was a breeze. My daughter also had no problem with it. The sound clarity was good and it came with a nice variety of tones and vibrations, as well as a camera. It had all the standard alarm features, and it was a nice fit. All in all, I was impressed. Another feature I liked was the voice calling. You flip the phone, it asks you who to call, and it dialed for you. This always kept my fingers free and my attention on what I was doing without having to scroll through the menu or look to dial. And it worked well. Once you "trained" the phone with your voice it rarely messed up unless there was a lot of background noise. I had this phone for 2 and a half years. I traveled with it, I dropped it several times, it got wet, it got scratched and vibrated to death on my motorcycles. But the things still worked. In fact by the time I upgraded, ( to another LG ), the cover was hanging off the hinge by a small ribbon and STILL working. I had Motorolas that I bumped walking through doorways that died on me. The only issue I had was that battery life was short on these. And when the battery was low, communications became less clear and coverage was not as good. It would drop calls when the battery became weak, even if it showed a full load. This is not abnormal for any cell phone, but this particular LG was more susceptible in my opinion. But batteries were cheap on EBAY, change it out and away I went. Good as new. I was not thoroughly impressed with the stock antenna either, and slapped an aftermarket one on that could retract. It improved the signal noticeably. The phone had many features I rarely if ever used, and I hardly ever used the camera. But it did work pretty good and was comparable to most other phones at the time. I since upgraded to the newer 8000 series phone, but i prefer the old menu and voice properties of the 6000 series better. It was easier to use and more adaptable to my purposes then the new one is. I say for the money it is one of the best phones on the market. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87114 2005/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good photo quality for the year it was made battery life t9 text messaging durability hard to find numbers with fingers without looking ring tones aren t so great The Bottom LineOverall, it's an excellent phone. Most definitely the best phone I've had, by far. With only a few shortcomings, I'd recommend phone to anyone. Full Review When I stepped up from my old, clunky Motorola cell phone to the LG VX6000, I knew I was in for a treat. At the time of purchase, the LG VX6000 was probably one of the best on the market. I have been using the phone roughly a year now, so I have a pretty good understanding of the phone's pros and cons. Battery Life: The docking cradle is very nice. You can also purchase a charger for your car and a cable charger for traveling. I found the battery life to be very satisfactory. With steady use, I will usually have to charge the phone overnight each third night. Taking/Sending photographs and long conversations can drain the battery, of course, and sometimes every other night, I'll have to charge the battery. But the life has never really been a problem for me. Durability: The phone is very durable. I've dropped it several times and it has held together nicely. Sometimes, with a flip-phone design, the case can feel flimsy and bulky. This is not the case with the LG VX6000. Camera Quality: The camera quality for this phone is pretty good, for a camera phone made in 2004. The resolution can be adjusted from from 160x120 to 320x240 to 640x480. Your screen becomes a viewfinder once you switch into camera mode, and changing the settings is fairly straight-forward. You can adjust the white-balance, Brightness, File Quality, enable/disable the shutter sound, add color effects, frames, and it has a multishot feature as well. Pictures you take can even be used as the background of your phone's display. You can also take photographs and assign them to names in your contact list, so if someone calls, their picture will display. Next to the lens, there is also a little mirror so you can frame yourself for pictures. That's neat. T9 Text Messaging: This was a big improvement from my old phone... On my old phone, to type Hello, for instance, you'd have to press 44, then 33, then 555, pause 555, 666. On the new phone, you simply type 43556 and the phone is smart enough to know that those numbers correspond to "hello." If more than one word matches, you can use the '0' key to cycle through the various words that match. It's so easy after awhile. Other neat things: Just in general, the phone is customizable. You can add a banner to your main screen, change the clock style, the menu colors, style, etc. For a customizer like me, these are welcomed features. It's also very easy to change the phone from Ring to "Manner Mode" to "Silent Mode." While the phone is closed, momentarily press the bottom-most button on the side of the phone. After a moment, your phone will switch to manner mode (where it only vibrates). Do this again and it will switch to silent mode. Once more and it will switch back to normal mode. The front of the phone looks cool, too, when closed, as it has a blue-on-black display with colored lights that flash (the different patterns correspond to different "states" your phone may be in [Voicemail, text message, etc]). Ring Tones: They are polyphonic, but there just isn't enough variety of "normal sounding" rings in my opinion. Hard to find numbers with fingers: While driving, I'd like to be able to press in a number without looking down. Unfortunately, the '1' button is shaped and feels just like the 'Send' button directly above it, so it's hard to type in a number without looking. Front display difficult to see outdoors: When the phone is closed, there is a display on the front of the phone that will display who is calling on an incoming call. Indoors, this is easily viewable, but outdoors, this is nearly impossible to view. If I am driving, I have to struggle to see who is calling or open the phone. It can be a bit inconvenient. Overall, it's an excellent phone. Most definitely the best phone I've had, by far. There are only a few shortcomings, but I'd recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87113 2000/5/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cool colors easy ignore lights great volume for ringsearpiece sometimes drops calls after slight abuse complicated phone book bad camera very kiddish The Bottom LineNot worth the price but its an okay phone. Full Review After having a water related accident with my verizon T-720 I grabbed 300 bucks and headed over to the verizon store to find my next sidekick. I was basically told that the 2 newest most savvy phones out where the new verizon camer phone (the one I ended up getting) and the new verizon push to talk phone. It wasn't very hard for me to make a decision seeing as though I knew no one who had the push to talk phone. So I decided on the camera one because I do have a couple digital cameras and thought it might be nice to have a extra one that was always with me. I took my phone home and took a good look at it. The first thing I noticed was all of the fast moving bright dots on the front of the phone. They seemed weird to me because I had never seen anything like it on any other phone. I also noticed the smooth blue digital text on the front of the flip phone. This too seemed odd because all the other flip phones I had seen just had boring old black text on the front. I opened up the phone and started to personalize it to my liking. thats when I noticed the first thing I did not like about it. It was extremly kiddish. Little animated smiley faces pop up every time you change somthing and it is annoying. Also all the icons are big and oddly shaped. It just didn't seem like a normal cell phone but more like a novelty phone...ment for fun and not for buisness. About two weeks later after using my phone more I found some things about it that I really liked. The first and the best thing about my phone is the ease to ignore calls. When the phone rings you can simply look at the caller id and press one of the 3 easy to push buttons on the side and boom, your done. All the person calling you hears is 4 rings and then your voicemail. So they don't even know when you ignored them, they simply think you did not answer. Another thing I really liked about this phone is the volume of the rings and the earpeice. With my T-720 I often found myself wishing that my ringers where louder because when it was in my pocket I often missed calls due to not hearing it. With this phone it is not at all a problem. The ringers are so loud that you can hear it even if its deep within a couch or in your coat pocket. Also the earpeice is plenty loud...almost too loud. In fact I always only have the volume on mine only 1/2 way up because its so loud! The battery life on this phone is not that great..but to me it seemed pretty darn good because I had a T-720 and they are known for their poor battery life. This thing will last for about 2 days in standby and a about 2 or 3 hours straight talking. This phone is pretty small, its smaller then the T-720 and is alot smaller then its sprint counter parts. It fits into my pocket along with my wallet and other everyday pocket stuff. It really doesn't get in the way. The camera on this phone is one of the flaws that I found. The quality is terrible...and I know I shouldn't expect alot from a camera phone but the quality is SO much worse then that of the sprint camera phones. If it is even a tiny bit dim in any room that your trying to take the photo in you may is well not even attempt to take a picture. And the gallery only hold about 20 pictures...not too impressive. This phone is pretty easy to use besides the storing of numbers. I felt that it is way too complicated to add numbers and speed dial and voice dial and all of that good stuff. I figured it out without any trouble but I can imagine someone older and not as tech savvy having alot of problems and having to consult the HUGE manual to figure out how to use the phonebook. I have has this phone for almost a year now and I am pretty happy with it but I know that there are better phones on the market. I have dropped this phone quite a few times and now it drops calls more often and people used to always complain about my voice breaking up when I'm talking to them. I took the phone to verizon and they gave me a "update" and now the breaking up has stopped but the dropping of calls still happenes every once and a while. Overall I feel this phone is nice for someone who is looking for a phone as an accsessory rather than for a buissness phone. I do not feel it is worth the price though and I think that if you do some shopping around you can find a much better phone for the same price if not cheaper. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87112 2004/12/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 good styling internet access rather useful camera well designed flip feature attractive very low reliability high vulnerability to moisture poor quality control single mode digital The Bottom LineA nice phone when it works. In view of the many current alternatives with features at least as good, it doesn't work nearly reliably enough to be a good choice. Full Review I would not normally consider writing a review about a product that has been reviewed as much as this one. But I do not think that the bulk of the reviews are accurate, and, frankly, I have noticed a disconcerting tendency for positive reviews to be rated more highly than the negative ones-- unfortunately, regardless of accuracy. In this instance, if I had read the review of pajohngalt (rated 'somewhat helpful') before I purchased this phone, I would not have purchased it. And I would have been much better off. If I had read virtually any of the other reviews (rated 'very helpful') I would have rushed out to buy it, and found myself in the same unfortunate position I now hold. I suspect that the overwhelmingly positive reviews were written after only relatively brief ownership and not modified later. In view of the relatively short expected life of most cell phones, perhaps my experience and that of several others is of limited value, but not for those of us who would like to use the same phone for an extended period of time. I always maintain four separate phone accounts (at least) for me and my immediate family. I have owned many, many phones since the suitcase sized early models, which, by the way, worked very well, owing to greater power. However they were cumbersome and I am as prone as anyone else to a love of bells, whistles and other gimmicks. Phones have been rapidly acquiring these appurtenances for many years. So, along with most of the rest of the country, I have maintained the currency of my toys and rarely required them to last more than a year. Sometimes, though, it would be nice to be able to count on one for at least that long or longer. This phone did not make it. And I strongly suspect that this is not a unique experience. Considering the 20 other reviews available on this phone, most of them excellent presenters of the features and virtues, I will refrain from repeating them at any length here. However, know that there are many splendid features. It is relatively easy to use, protected better from accidental calling than most and packed with both entertaining and useful toys. It uses the LT chip that many phones of this type share, which is a good chip, but limited to digital towers, which, in many areas severely limits its range and usefulness. Its sound quality is usually acceptable and its ring options more than sufficient. It accesses the internet, giving it vast powers to use and play with. It has a surprisingly decent camera, but not a very fast lens and no flash, limiting its low light usefulness. I really liked this phone for six months, although I used it much less than an older tri-mode (Timeport) that was more reliably active in more areas, which, incidentally, I like very much despite its being simply a reliable phone and very little else. (I actually got it for its Bluetooth capability.) The battery life of the VX6000 was reasonably good, unless, of course, you use its more complex features. But after about six months of use, it started becoming very erratic; it frequently lost signals in the middle of cities.; its useful battery life plummeted to a point at which I needed to carry a spare battery if I took it to football game with me (which I did because of its internet connections to sports sites), and it became nearly useless for conversations to my house--a rather serious flaw. Other phones I have owned began acting that way after getting wet, repeatedly. This phone, though, was never exposed to any harsh conditions. I even protected and coddled it at sporting events. Nevertheless, It continued to deteriorate to the point at which it was simply useless. In fact, I was unable to download some precious pictures that I had left on it. I was willing to believe that this deterioration was simply an unusual misfortune, that it was a 'lemon.' After all, it was only a sample of one. Then I read the review of pajohngalt and realized that if it was a lemon, it was certainly not the only one they had made. I suspect a virtual lemonade stand could be supplied by this model. To summarize, and repeat, the point of this review, this phone is a flip phone with an LT chip (limiting its tower capacity). It has a simple camera, no flash, internet access, and a panoply of games. But it is poorly made and designed such that it is likely to become unusable in less than a year. This is a repeated observation and confirmed by several users I have sought out to ask. If you like these features, there are many new options that have better ones and appear to be much more reliable. However, as many of these other phones have only been available for a few months, the data are not in concerning them yet. But so far, all of the newer models I have seen perform better, have more features, a better camera, and have not displayed any reliability problems yet. This phone is a poor choice unless you can get it free, or much cheaper than any of its competitors and you don't mind the inconvenience of early failure. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87111 2000/10/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cool camera awesome features loud flashy looks clear reception protective case makes for inconvenient charging no lock for outside buttons The Bottom LineBuy this phone! LG makes great phones, and this is definitely one that they should be proud of. Full Review I purchased this phone around the time when it first came out in about October 03. I have to say that I've been very happy with this phone, but there are only a few things that I'd have to say I don't like about it. The first thing that caught my eye about this phone as I was looking at it, was obviously its cool looks, and the scrolling clock feature on the outside screen. The number one thing I love about the phone is the fact that my calls are so clear - I actually have to pull the phone away from my ear, because it's so loud and clear, and turn it down, so that no one else can hear my conversation and so that I don't go deaf. I don't think I have ever had below a full signal (I live in a suburban area). The menus are easy to navigate, comes with tons of cool ring tones (I've had my phone for a year and have only wanted to download one ringtone because I have so many that came with it automatically), and tons of other features that I use very often (alarm clock, EZ tip calc, calculator, record your own voice memos, make your own shortcuts to menus you use often, schedule, calendar). This phone comes with a camera that is expected when you get a cell phone with a camera. With no flash or zoom, you can still get DECENT pictures, and then you can send them away to anyone through e-mail or to another Verizon phone with the PIX features. This phone holds 20 pictures at high quality, and I'm not too sure how many at low quality, because I only use high. The camera is great for those spontaneous times when you wish you had a camera, but definitely doesn't come as a replacement to your digital camera. This phone also comes with an Internet browser (haven't used yet though), and the Verizon Get It Now feature. Get it now is cool to use to find pictures to put on your screen, ring tones, etc. It doesn't cost you airtime if you use it on the nights or weekends (considering you have the right plan for that), but it does cost to purchase pix or tones. I bought a tone today for 1.99, for instance. There are only two things that I don't like about this phone. I go to college, so obviously I must turn my phone on silent often. I could turn my phone off, but I could miss calls that way. Unfortunately, even when you lock the keys on this phone, you can still switch it from silent to normal mode by holding a button down on the OUTSIDE of the phone. Once, I had my phone in my purse and was leaning on my purse, and I guess my elbow leaned on the button and caused it to switch from silent to normal mode without me knowing. Luckily, my phone did not ring, or that would have caused a pretty embarrassing situation. Another thing, is that I would like to get the case for the phone to protect the camera and just the outside of the phone in general, but with the case on, the phone does not fit in the desktop charger that it comes with. So, every night before charging my phone, I'd have to take it off and put it back on in the morning. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but it sort of is to me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87110 2000/5/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very reliable camera is easy to use great reception battery life lack of standard free features The Bottom LineWhen I was filling out my review, I was asked who would this phone work best for. It was hard to answer because it fit all of the descriptions. Full Review I have had my LG VX6000 for about 6 months. Prior to this I owned a motorola V120. I believe that I may have written a review of this phone. To recap the experience, I really didn't like the 120c that I had. Reception was horrible, it had few features, and had to return to verizon a couple of times for much needed up dates and a couple of minor problems. Fast forward to today. As I type this I have my VX6000 in my pocket. My main reason for buying this was that it was new technology (at least for Verizon at the time I purchased it) for a really good price. It was their best non-PDA phone in my area and I love new gadgets and technology. I was very excited about the camera feature. So, I picked one up. Let me talk about the bad first. I don't like that it comes with limited ring tones and no games. Of course you can download such things directly onto the phone from Verizon for a fee. This is just ludicrous. So, now the phone is largely left on vibrate mode, or in Verizon lingo, Manner Mode. The battery life as mentioned before leaves something to be desired. It seems that if the phone spends more than an hour in an area with no reception, the battery will be drained within 3 hours. Not sure why this is, maybe the phone is constantly searching. When on the phone and talking, the battery life isn't bad though, at least for me. The phone needs to be charged every night and you should have the car charger in a convenient location. I have had few problems because of this issue due to the listed precautions. I think that really sums up what I don't like about the phone. The camera feature is a mixed bag, so it gets its own paragraph! Overall, it is a toy, nothing more nothing less. Max resolution is 640x480, and is VERY sensitive to light. It has no flash so low light situations can get kind of hairy. In good light, the pictures are mediocre. Kinda grainy but good enough so that you know exactly what you are looking at. Taking pictures is a breeze, as is saving and sending pics. It is very user friendly setup, but then again I like gadgets, so maybe not everyone would agree with me. What do I really like? I really like the reception. I get calls and have conversations in areas that just weren't possible with the motorolla. So this is the biggest advantage to me. Afterall, this is why we have phones, so that we can talk to others. So as a phone, I am very pleased. I like the buttons; both how they feel and the illumination. The LCD screen is also a HUGE improvement over the old phone, which is now color. You can also use pictures that you take as the background of the LCD screen, similar to a computer. As far as reliability is concerned, the phone has been great. It hasn't needed to return to Verizon, nor have I felt the need to update the software. At this point I see no reason, even if there is an updated patch. The phone works great! A final word. The phone is a dual band phone, w/out analogue. Some people find this to be a HUGE drawback. Maybe in some parts of the country or if someone travels a large amount would this be an issue, at least for me. I have always had reception where the old phone (a triband) worked and even in some locations were it didn't. Other times, when out in the middle of nowhere, neither the LG nor the motorolla had reception. I don't regret buying the phone at this time, nor do I care that it has dual band capabilities. If you travel or live in areas that are strictly analogue, this may not be the best phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87109 2000/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 camera battery life great features advanced phone book color display look endless functions no color exterior display signal sometimes 20 pics tops for camera The Bottom LineSturdy, Feature-Packed, Reliable, Sleek and Impressive Gadget with a Camera. This Cell Phone is a Great Gift that will satisfy most anyone. Full Review Introduction The LG VX6000 cell phone was one of the first camera phones that Verizon Wireless released. Not only does it have a camera that produces average-based pictures, but a whole ton of features to satisfy the stingiest of customer. I've had my LG since December, 2003, and it has never displeased me. The phone is very durable and has survived many clumsy drops. Its full line of features include: Features Breakdown > Digital Camera with Smart zoom > Intuitive Contact book with 499 spots, 5 numbers each name > Detailed call lists (30 for dialed, missed, received) > Large inbox/outbox (50 messages each) > Get It Now capable > Mobile Web with Openwave browser enabled > Customizable ringtones/graphics for contacts, background, startup/turn off, etc. > Tools include: Scheduler, Alarm Clock, Voice Memo, Notepad, Tip Calculator, World Clock, and advanced Calculator > Vast settings mode with different theme colors for the look of the phone (Default Blue, Green, Violet, and Orange), as well as an Icon/List Menu Style switchable option All the previous listed facts enclosed in this very sleek, 3.98 oz flip-phone package. Closer Look: Camera The more defined features/options of this cell phone are yet to be noticed, debated. For instance, in the camera mode, there is many ways to take pictures: first you click the handy camera button above the "2" key, below the "CLR / information" key as a shortcut to get to the camera mode. Once there, you can take a picture by clicking: + Camera Button + "OK" + Side "Up" Button + Side "Down" Button For viewing pictures you've taken it is quite simple. There is a four-picture view or a single picture view, very easy to scroll between the two. Once viewing the picture you have many options. To Send the picture to an Email/Cell Phone, Online Album, or to Set it As something on your phone (A Contact, Wallpaper, Power On/Off). Switch to Thumbnail Mode, Lock the picture, Rename it, Erase it, Erase all, and lastly Picture Info. Within the Picture Info it tells you something like this: Title Picture005 Date May 19, 2004 Time 10:56 AM Resolution 640x480 Size 36324 Byte Very informative of picture info. The ability to store 10 pictures in Outbox, 10 in Inbox, and 20 in Gallery total. With the optional zoom feature you can zoom normal (1x), 2x, or 4x in digital zoom, depending on the respective resolution (640x480, 320x240, 160x120). All viewable on a high-resolution 272K Backlit LCD Screen. Closer Look: Phone Book The Contact Book is one of the very advanced ones I've seen in cell phones. Contacts are listed alphabetically when clicked on through "Menu > 2" or the right softkey. The little icon to the left of the names tells whether the contact is: Home, Home2, Office, Office2, Mobile, Mobile2, Pager, Fax, Fax2, or None, for organization of the types of numbers. Once clicked on a name, you can view their: Full Name 1-5 Phone Numbers 1-3 Emails Group (Family, Friends, Colleagues, Business, School, No Group) Ringtone, customizable for each contact Text Message tone, customizable Memo for short notes for a contact Picture that appears when contact calls Secret/Not Secret [This makes the contact private or not basically. If you make it secret, the way to open it again would be to enter the four digit password, which in most cases unless changed are the last four digits of your mobile number] And lastly their URL Each phone number beyond the contact name can have a specific speed dial #2-99 and a voice recording (Up to 30 can be stored on the phone). Ringtones are Polyphonic, and includes a fair vibrate mode, as well as Vib + High. The ringtones mostly include old classical favorites made in to ringtones or random, easy-to-notice sounds. Closer Look: Tools There are a wide array of tools available on this phone. First of all, there is a very useful Scheduler. Up to 300 entries total, there are many options for each one. Those options include: Time (i.e. 6:30p - 7:30p) Event Repeat (None, Daily, Mon - Fri, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly) Alarm (None, On time, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 2 days) Ringer Type Each of those entries are shown in the day to day view. A common question would be if the repeat would count as more than one entry, and the answer is no because it just counts as the default entry. The scheduler may be of a handy tool to many people on the go who like ease with organization. There are 3 alarms on the Alarm Clock mode, as well as a Quick Alarm (10 min later, 30 min later, 1 hour later, 3 hours later), set to your default ringer type. Each one has the same type of options as the Scheduler (Time, Repeat, Ringer type). The Voice Memo mode records up to 4 minutes of audio that is saved on to your phone. You cannot send the messages, according to VZW this feature has not been applied yet. However, the voice memos are there forever until you erase them and you have the option of playing them, erasing them, renaming, or listening to them. The default title is the date/time you recorded it at (i.e. June 1, 3:03 PM). You may get to the voice memo mode by using the shortcut key on the lowest left hand side of the cell phone by holding down for one second. In the Notepad mode you can store messages that are about the equivalent of a text message, with up to twenty entries on the phone. The options include to Edit/Erase the entries. Very useful for pinpoint details in a message (i.e. money totals, website names, model numbers). The "Ez" Tip Calculator lets you enter a Bill amount, then the Tip %, set to a default of 15%. Say your bill was $12.50. A 15% Tip would be $1.88 for 1 person, total of $14.38. If you have 3 people eating, you change the Split to 3, and it shows how much each person would pay, in this case, $4.79. A very handy tool when going out for dinner. The actual calculator is definitely the best one I've seen in a cell phone. The keypad is very easy to type on, and all the signs (+, x, -, division) are the four directional keys, = being "OK". You may even do advanced options with parentheses and such. I always find it useful and easy to get to. Menu > 8 > 7 and you're there. Lastly, the World Clock gives you the functionality to see the times for 50 of the world's most popular cities. You scroll through them using the < and > keys on the full color map of the world. Pretty much just a nifty little tool to use. Other Things to Know Battery Life The battery life on this phone is fairly good. The claimed 150 minutes talk-time is fairly truthful. I've gone through some almost 3 hour calls using the features on the phone beforehand and after. The phone does, however, get a little hot after all that usage. Charging time is very minimal, I've found it to be on a full charge in about 1 1/2-2 hours. The Stand by time for the phone is several days as well. If you forget to charge it overnight, the 12 hours you don't use it would hardly cost you a 10 minute call. Power On/Power Off The power on for this cell phone is probably average, taking around 30 seconds before you can make a call. Turning off the phone takes no more than 5 seconds, however. The customizable pictures for power on/off appear at one time during the two actions. Volumes, Etc. The earpiece volume is claimed to be loud by others, but I find it to be just normal. It could be louder, but it is perfectly fine. Key tone is programmable for louder/softer. The ringertone on its loudest settings seems to blast too loud, making it dissatisfying to listen to. The second to highest setting is best. The vibrate setting can be felt in a small pocket, but in the bottom of a big jeans pocket you'll have 5 missed calls in a day. Within the three modes the phone has: Normal, Manner Mode, and Silent Mode, normal takes the ringer with key tones, manner mode takes vibrate, no key tones, and silent takes no ringers and no key tones. Conclusion Throughout the 8 months I've owned this phone, I've spent well over 200 hours talking on the 3 1/2 thousand calls so far, and I'm very satisfied with what I got. It's still fairly top of the line, camera-wise, and especially functionality-wise. I love this phone solely based on how well the phone book is set up so I can intelligently manage all my contacts, as well as the intuitive Messages menu, tools, and its many settings. The size of the phone is fairly comfortable, though I wish that somehow the 1" antenna could have been compacted into the phone, as it makes it much larger. Overall, this is a very good decision for Verizon Wireless customers. The price hovers from around $80 - $150 depending on if you're new, to the time you buy the phone. I recommend this phone on its well-built hardware, and software internally in the phone. I've tried to include the pinpoint features in this review, but there's so much to go into detail about like Get It Now, Sending Pictures, and In-Call functions, that you'll just have to find out for yourself! There's so much to experiment with (Camera, Mobile Web, Get It Now, several Tools), so you'll never be left with an out of date feature. 5/5 Stars, Chris Hewitt Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87108 2005/1/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact flip phone with nice color screengood digital call quality no external message waiting indicator no analog roaming ability limits the phone s range The Bottom LineAlthough this phone is beginning to show it's age, it remains a sturdy and competent flip-phone. Just beware of it's lack of analog roaming. Full Review I have been using the LG VX6000 for over a year, so I have a very thorough appreciation for the phone's strengths and weaknesses. Strengths First off, this phone is very highly rated by the electronic industry press. It is mostly because of these reviews, along with the stellar reputation of Verizon, that I chose the VX. For the most part I am very happy with this phone, but there are some drawbacks. First I will detail the good stuff. The VX is a nice-looking phone and fairly small. As a flip-phone, it has almost no peer, although some of the latest Samsung and Motorola phones may have eclipsed it in form and function. The VX includes a capable color screen, and a low-grade camera with no flash. The screen is difficult to read in bright sunlight, as is the case with most color screens on the market. The camera is only useful in bright settings, and even then, the resolution is sub-megapixel, so don't expect to print any pictures. It's a handy feature to be able to snap a shot and forward it to friends with camera phones or email addresses. It has come in handy a number of times when a quick snapshot is needed in a pinch. Also, being able to snap a picture and then use it as your background wallpaper that you see everytime you flip open the phone is pretty cool. Sound quality is very good, as should be expected with a digital phone. There is a built in alarm and date book as well as some crude video games. You can purchase additional games from Verizon, but they are all mostly simple vid-games or recycled classics like Asteroids. The ringers included with the phone are not poly-phonic so they get a little tiresome over time. I try to change them once in while just to avoid having a particular ringer sound echo in my head all day. There is the standard SMS message service with T9Word functionality so that the tedium of typing messages is bearable at least for short messages. The external display is attractive with scrolling date and time and some busy-looking colored dots flashing. People who are not familiar with the phone often ask if I have a stock ticker scrolling across the screen. Battery life is good, but not exceptional, with 2-3 hours of talk time on average. Weaknesses Now for the VX's drawbacks. The phone is ALL digital. That means, you need to be in range of a digital cell tower, or the phone is useless. It will not switch over to analog roaming, because it doesn't have that capability. So call quality is great, but coverage is much more limited than a dual or tri-mode phone. Unfortunately I didn't realize this when I purchased this phone and my house is not very close to the nearest digital tower. As a result, I can't get enough signal strength to make or receive calls in my house (although walking outside and down the driveway usually gets me an extra bar or 2 on the signal strength meter.) The antenna is fixed length and cannot be extended to assist reception either. Although Verizon is generally accepted as the carrier with the largest coverage area, there are still vast areas where digital service is absent. I live in Southwestern Connecticut, less than 90 minutes from New York City, and there are quite a few "empty spaces" where the VX is completely useless with the phone displaying the dreaded "handset with the line through it" icon, or the "Service Not Available!" warning. Another strange omission from the VX is the lack of an LED to indicate a missed call, voice mail, or message waiting. I had this ability on my phones 3 years ago, but it's oddly missing from the VX. You need to flip the phone open to see the message indicating missed call, or voicemail waiting. It would be a vast improvement if the phone's external LED (and yes, there is one, but it only flashes for incoming calls!) would indicate a waiting message. Conclusion I am pleased with the VX6000 overall, and it is a near-perfect phone in densely populated areas, but be sure to check out the DIGITAL coverage in your home calling area. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87107 2000/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small exterior screen calendar one touch silence quick simple volume control tight hinge difficult to open with one hand camera only good in bright light The Bottom LineThis phone does everything it is supposed to and much more. This phone renewed my trust in LG. Full Review In January, I switched from my older Sprint Nokia 4000 phone (which was a backup replacing my busted LG TP 1100) and to Verizon Wireless with my girlfriend. At the store, I found the LG VX6000 for $149.99 before the $50.00 mail-in rebate. I was leery of LG due to my original LG TP1100, which was plagued with software problems every 2 months. But we took the risk and it has paid off. After 6 months of phone calls, pix messages and text messages (and dropping it a few times), this phone is as solid as the day I purchased it. I ALWAYS CARY IT IN MY POCKET, so keep that in mind while reading, if you prefer the belt clip. I am using my phone with Verizon's America's Choice 500 plan, which includes free nights and weekends and free anytime mobile-to-mobile minutes and costs $49.99 a month (before all the additional fees which bring my bill to an average $65 per month). The odd thing is that despite being my only phone (no land line) and my moderate usage, my bill never exceeds ~100 peak minutes a month, not that I am complaining. This phone is a versatile tool with few quirks. Out of the three different cell phones I have owned to date, this phone is easily the best. The speaker is quite loud and if you are not careful, people over 25 feet away can hear both sides of your conversation in a quiet room. The ringer volume is loud but still not loud enough when the phone is placed in one's pocket. The phone also features vibrate and "high volume and vibrate" to compensate for this. But this does not do a good enough job. The vibration is too high frequency and often goes unnoticed (again assuming pocket, not belt clip use). The phone features a calendar and four alarm clocks. This is important for those of us who are busy but forget things like birthdays or holidays. Also the alarm is highly useful since I travel a lot and hotel alarm clocks vary at most locations. As stated before, this is my only phone, and I take it everywhere. I have not had any problems with call clarity or dropping calls. In other words, this phone has never failed me in performing its duty as a phone. At 3.54 x 1.9 x 0.95 inches when flipped closed (with the slim 950 mAh battery), this phone weighs in at a mere 3.98 oz. Pros: 1. Small lightweight flip phone. 2. Exterior display for time, date, caller ID and status. 3. Instant ringer mute for when you forgot to turn off the ringer before the meeting, also manner mode and silence all without taking it out of your pocket. 4. Integrated VGA camera with no flash or optical zoom 5. Good battery life with 3 hours of talk time and 3 days of standby per charge. A larger battery is available. 6. Voice recognition dialing. 7. A phonebook capable of storing multiple numbers and a picture of the person. 8. Ability to function as a wireless modem. 9. Wireless web. Cons: 1. Menu slightly difficult to navigate through 2. Insufficient volume on ringer and frequency of vibration is too high. 3. Hinge is tight, making one-handed opening difficult. The Camera The camera is great for those times when you need it, and there is enough light to use it. It does require significant light, so bars/clubs are out of the question. You can take photos at resolutions of 640x480, 320x240, or 160x120. Not great but acceptable for quick shots, you have no optical zoom and no flash available. But if you are looking for great picture quality, go buy a camera. Laptop connectivity Verizon offers the use of the phone as a 14.4 Kbs modem with no charge (but you pay for the airtime). I know this is extremely slow but it works fairly well as long as you can tolerate the speed. You can also set the phone up as a 144 Kbs high-speed modem but there is a charge for this service. The bottom line After the 10th time I took my LG TP1100 to Sprint, I vowed to never buy Sprint or LG again. I am glad that I took this chance on this phone. LG redeemed itself in my eyes. Despite the minor problems, this is the best phone I have ever owned. If you want a sturdy, reliable phone with lots of extras, this is an excellent phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87106 2005/1/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 fairly simple to program good sound qualityrare dropped calls battery life easily drained photo quality not good The Bottom LineA good quality phone with a beginner's camera as an extra. Handy but don't expect quality photos. Many good features, sound quality is great. Battery drains easily. Full Review I have had the LG VX6000 for a while and recently switched to the new LG VX7000 which is not yet rated here (but I will be the first to rate it when I can!). Edit January 29, 2005: Here is the review of the VX7000: I never had a camera phone before and was a bit leery about getting one. However, the VX6000 was very easy to operate. The features were plentiful. I liked the voice calling feature and used it often. The contact list, complete with email addresses and the like was plentiful and kept all my contacts within a fingertip away. The sound quality was and is excellent on this phone and I don't think I ever "dropped a call" even in a mall or in a deserted area while in a car. It is very portable and easy to carry whether in a purse, on your waistband or on a lanyard around your neck. There are plenty of ring tones for those who like variety and you can assign different contacts different ring tones which I enjoyed. I have a ring tone for my son so I immediately know he is calling and pick the phone up faster than I would if it were the "normal" ring tone. After a while, you know who's calling just by ring tone alone without looking at the caller ID! There is also a handy vibrate option for when you are in a meeting or in public and don't want to have the phone playing musical tunes at inopportune times. Now for the camera feature. I have a digital camera so I wasn't looking for a phone that was going to take exceptional pictures and the LGVX6000 doesn't. It takes decent enough photos in well-lit areas like outside during the day. There are different resolutions you can choose from but the high-resolution make s the photo very small. The low resolution makes it larger but grainer. Taking the photos themselves is a snap (no pun intended). You open the flip phone, click on the camera button and you have the subject in the viewfinder. There is no focusing so you must he sure to get close enough to the subject and stay steady. One click of a button and you have your picture. You can immediately preview it and decide whether to keep it, send it to yourself, a friend, or an online photo gallery. There are some fun features as well. You can take photos in black and white, old style brown, or with some built in frames. There is a very funny magazine cover which you line up a person's head and snap and they become the cover person of the magazine. There is also a muscle man that you can line up a subject's head and in a snap, they become Mr. America - even if they're female. That is all good and well and I had some fun with the features but really, the quality of the photos was disappointing. Often, they were too dark and, without a flash, there is nothing that could be done to compensate. The "self portrait" feature is clumsy. You have to view yourself in a tiny metal "mirror" and guess if you got the picture right. You don't know until you turn the camera around and see the actual picture, whether you actually took a decent shot of yourself or not. That is one feature that is SUPER upgraded on the new VX7000 and I am sure people will appreciate it (I do!). I passed my VX6000 onto my 14-year-old son who is enjoying it. He likes that he can customize the phone with photos he sends himself from the internet and he has been snapping some of his own pics. He also is enjoying the voice dial feature. Unfortunately, he is also enjoying the GET IT NOW feature, which encourages users to buy games, ring tones, and other services. This is a feature which I never used but is available on this phone. Get your horoscope sent to you, get news updates, download games and ring tones and more. Just be aware that most of these extras cost money on a reoccurring basis and can really add up. You can also set up your IM list and get text messages and send them to your contacts. If you don't have the text messaging option added to the cost of your plan, though, you will be in for a shock when you get your bill. The cost is 10 cents to send a text message and 2 cents to receive one. If you plan to text message, definitely get on a plan. The same holds true with the photo feature. You have to get on a photo plan or you will be charged per photo you send or receive. I have the 80 photos for $4.99 a month feature (which will be downgraded to 40 photos at the end of this year) and my son has the $7.99 per month text and photo option which allows him 500 in and outgoing (combined) text message and 80 photos (in or outgoing) a month. All in all the phone is good one. If you want a very simple camera phone with a lot of other features that is portable, fairly simple to program, and has good sound quality, don't hesitate to snatch one of these up. However, if you have a choice between this and the VX7000, go for the 7000. It has all the features and so much more (video with sound, flash, and improved picture quality are a few examples). I recommend that you be sure to have the cigarette lighter attachment at all times (or a spare battery) since the battery can get drained very quickly when using all the features and a protective case is a good idea as well as the front of the phone could scuff and scratch easily. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87105 2004/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lg reputation get it now features vibrant color display battery life durability The Bottom LineFeature Rich, Compact, Vibrant Color Display, And Camera Functionality Make This Phone An Excellent Choice For Most Consumers. Full Review Preface I'd like to begin by mentioning that I have been a Verizon Wireless corporate accounts representative for almost eight years now. Needless to say, I've seen a great deal of handsets come and go during that time period. Some good, some bad, and everything in between. I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of the wireless phone over the past few years, as every new generation builds upon itself and offers more to the consumer. I've now been using the LG VX-6000 CDMA handset for nearly a year as my primary phone, so I'm well prepared and eager to provide my two cents now that Epinions has finally included a review slot for it. Specs All Digital handset Built-in digital camera Snap, style and share photos with Verizon Wireless Picture Messaging Large, 7-line 262K TFT color display 31 ring tones plus vibrating alert CMX MIDI for sound & ringers Voice-activated dialing 499 phone book entries GPS capable for E911 emergency location Dimensions: 0.95" Deep x 1.9" Wide x 3.54" High Weight: 3.98 Ounces Battery Life: 150 Minutes Talk Time, 110 Hours Standby Appearance The LG VX-6000 is an appealing phone. Silver exterior/interior, large color display, and blue backlighting on the keypad all contribute to the sleek look of this phone. One of the primary selling points for most of my customers is the same benefit the LG 4400 provided, which is a large, easy to read display. A couple of people that I do business with told me that their eye sight is poor at best without glasses and they wanted me to recommend a phone that wouldn't be hard to see. I had my 6000 with me and they were able to read the digits from five feet away. The contrast helps, with large black digits on a white background. You can change the text size from the menu, but most people like it set to large. The color display is vibrant and clear, making it perfect for viewing the pictures you take. Not to jump ahead, but the pictures you view on the phone are going to look significantly better than the enlarged versions sent via e-mail for a couple of reasons I'll get into later. The stub antenna on the 6000 eliminates the majority of problems that inevitably come up with retractable antennas, such as breakage. The keypad is large enough for people of all sizes and the ergonomics of the phone when held to the head is just about perfect. Buttons are well placed, but the one drawback I have found is that if the phone is in the holster and you're receiving a call, it's very easy to accidentally hit one of the volume keys as you're removing it from the holster, and a double tap will send the call to voicemail. This hasn't been a real problem, but I've run into it several times. Performance As I mentioned, I've been using the 6000 for nearly a year and although I liked my Motorola v60i a lot, the LG has my loyalty now. Once you become used to the intuitiveness of the menu structure, the color display, the camera functionality, and the ease of text messaging, it's hard to part ways with this one. Despite the stub antenna, reception tends to be very good even in weaker areas. The one word of caution I want to pass along in this review is the durability factor of the 6000. If you drop this phone repeatedly, you're going to find yourself in a situation where the signal strength alternates between no service and one bar. A few of my friends have had this happen as well, so I know I'm not alone. For this reason, the $2.99 insurance might be a good option for anyone that tends to be hard on their phones. My v60i could take a real beating, but I've gathered that the 6000 is on the sensitive side, most likely due to the camera and phone components sharing the same housing. I do a great deal of text messaging throughout the day, both receiving and sending, and the 6000 makes this task a simple one. The T9 input makes for easy delivery. Some of the Motorola software had issues in the past that caused problems with text messaging, but the LG line has been trouble free. "Get It Now" is easily accessible on the 6000 and provides you with a great deal of downloadable options - everything from games to ringers. The list is large and growing of apps that can be purchased. Just about any ringer style you can think of, including one that's a woman's voice saying, "You don't like this person" - lol. Classic video games like Frogger and Ms. Pac Man, all in full color with sound effects and/or music. There are functional applications available as well, like one app that will synchronize your calendar on your desktop computer with your phone. Again, a lot of versatility here, to the point that an entire review could be written on "Get It Now" alone. Menu options are easily selected using the directional keypad and the selections can be switched from icons to a list, whichever you prefer. Anyone that can use Windows for a PC can operate the 6000. When in standby mode, pressing the up portion of the directional key brings up a calendar of the current month, allowing you to input appointments and reminders that will alarm you when due. The right keypad brings up "Get It Now", while the left keypad starts the "Mobile Web" minibrowser. This is an optional service, which starts at about $4.99/month. You can check movie showtimes, e-mail (Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL), news, sports scores, etc. Finally, the down keypad brings up messaging options, such as your text messaging inbox and outbox, voice mailbox, etc. Once you learn the various key presses, access to these features becomes quick and easy. Although I included battery life as a con for this model, it's actually quite good for a color phone. Both the external and internal screens shut down after a user defined pre-set amount of time passes, usually just a minute or two. This is the dominant reason for the relatively good battery life. Touch any key, including external volume or voice dialing keys, and the displays come right back up. A good design really. I will suggest that anyone who will be using the phone for more than an hour or two per day, should consider buying an extended battery at some point or at least a cig adapter. The extended battery adds about 50% more talk and standby time over the included standard battery. A worthwhile investment if your battery is dying out or dead by the late afternoon. Sound quality is very good on the 6000, on both ends. Unlike the Motorola microphones that I've complained about on numerous occasions, the LG mic is very clear and unmuffled. Audio quality through the earpiece is very good as well and quite loud at its highest setting. A friend of mine actually lays the phone down and talks into it like a speakerphone when he's in a quiet room. Voice dialing is accurate and easy to configure. I personally don't use voice dialing, but those who do appreciate the 6000's simplicity. The phonebook is extensive with 499 phonebook locations that can store multiple entries in each location. It has room for two home, two office, two mobile, a pager, and two fax numbers for each entry. You can also store an e-mail address for each person, which makes sending pictures very easy. There's room for a memo for each contact as well as the ability to assign a specific ringer. Lots of customizable options. Now to the meat and potatoes of the 6000, the camera. I wasn't expecting much from any camera phone when I got into the LG a year ago. My Olympus 3030 3.0 megapixel digicam takes great pictures, but it also ran me about $550 when it came out. You shouldn't expect that kind of quality out of a 4 ounce device whose primary purpose is to make and receive wireless calls. There are three different resolutions to choose from and if you select the lowest setting, you then have the ability to zoom in with the left and right directional keys when taking a picture. More of a novelty than true function here. For those who haven't used the 6000, I know you're wondering how the pictures are going to look. In a nutshell, if you take pictures in a well lit area and view them on the phone, they look great. If you take pictures in a darker area or send the pics to an e-mail address for viewing on a computer monitor, the quality is going to diminish. This actually occurs for two reasons, as I mentioned before. First, any picture is going to appear to be much sharper on a small screen than it will on a large one. Second, the LG downgrades the compression of the jpeg file when it sends it over the network to another phone or an e-mail address. To see this for yourself, take a look at a picture you took in the Gallery and take a look at the same picture in your photo outbox after you've sent it to someone. You'll be able to see a visible loss of detail in the pic you sent. I'm sure LG chose this option to speed up transfer of the pictures over the airwaves. Some might not notice, but I'm very particular about everything in my life and this was noticeable to me. Overall, the camera should be viewed as a nice bonus to this phone, but certainly no substitute for a good quality digital camera on the market with even a 1.3 megapixel rating. I should mention that the 6000 is "1X" capable, which means that a mobile office kit can be purchased separately and used to connect your phone to a laptop to access the internet at speeds ranging from 14.4 kb/s if you don't pay for any additional features, all the way up to 75-150 kb/s if you opt for one of the express network data options. Conclusion A few other camera phones have come to surface since I began using the 6000 a year ago, including the Audiovox 8900 and the Samsung A610. I've used them all and I have also talked to people that have used them and the 6000 still remains the item of choice for myself and many others. There's a reason Consumer Reports rated it number one in their recent review. I'm sure the camera portion of the phones will be much improved in the next generation, along with even more features, but for now the LG VX-6000 is about as good as it gets! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87104 2004/7/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 more than adequate cameraphone good service no speakerphone or flash or zoom on camera The Bottom LineThe LGVX6000 is a good phone. It's an essential part of our new life with baby, and not a bad deal! Full Review When Mrs Insider and I celebrated the birth of Insider 2.0 early last year, we had no idea the changes he'd bring to our lives, our home or our cellular service. That's right. In addition to the massive toy drive and grandparent flophouse our condo has now become, we're now Verizon customers sporting nifty LG VX6000 phones. In an earlier review, I talked about the new service and it's improvement over AT&T Wireless. This review talks about the new phones we got with this change, the LG VX6000s. I've read that LG designed this phone specifically for Verizon's CDMA network, so it's incompatible with all other networks. Perhaps because it was designed with Verizon in mind, the phone seems to work well for me. In reading the other, older reviews here at epinions, I think that there must be another version of this phone that was available earlier than 2004. This version had not so great battery life (even on standby) and could only hold 10 pics. These two problems are not issues with the phone that I have. Handset Look and Feel The LG VX6000 is a clamshell phone with a stub antenna. I especially like the stub, as friends of mine always have trouble with their telescopic antenna phones. It has a color screen which is fairly large (120 X 160 pixels) -- I'd estimate it to be about 1.5 inches across and almost 3 inches wide. The keypad is backlit, as is the screen -- helpful at night. The LG VX6000 comes in a standard silver color, but as with any phone you can accesorize the color with a slip over cover. In addition, you can customize the screen with your own name and graphics of choice. The phone came complete with a desktop charger, a car kit with charger and headset, and a black leather waist holster. Talk time on this is about 2.5 hours, and standby time for this unit has gone about 5 or 6 days without needing to be charged (with light use). Handset OS The phone allows the user to download all kinds of little treats to while away the time. This is great for the Insider, who's often on the road. You can connect to the GetItNow service to download Foxsports information, play blackjack or PacMan, or just grab fun ringtones or screen graphics. The phone ships with the following useful features: A Handy (and pretty complete) Personal Organizer: Calendar with Scheduler, Alarm Clock, Note Pad, Voice Memo, Calculator, EZ Tip Calculator, World Clock A Large Phone Book: 499 contacts (each stores 5 numbers and 3 email addresses) Multiple ringtones -- comes with 31 + Vibrate & Silent Alert Voice-Activated dialing for 30 entries The ability to Customize Caller ID, Wallpaper,and ringtones for all your contacts The phone also plays CMX and MIDI tones for sounds and ringers. In addition to the 31 it came with, the Insider is currently playing: Rock and Roll All Night (And Party Everyday) by Kiss I Want You (To Want Me) by Cheap Trick And Best of all -- Another Brick In the Wall by Pink Floyd The phone also features the Openwave 4.1 browser for web surfing, but additional charges may apply here. The multimedia part of this phone is what I like the best, but the ringtones are not why I have this phone. I got them because with Insider 2.0, the need to take impromtu pictures really became pressing. He's a funny little guy, and he's always doing something that either my wife or I think needs to be captured. Obviously we can't always carry around our digital camera or our camcorder... but we can always use a cameraphone... LG VX6000 CameraPhone Specs The camera has been really fun to use. We purchased the 30 pictures per month plan -- and pay an additional $3 a month for the right to send Insider 2.0's images to one another. It's worth it. The camera can store 20 pictures at a time at medium resolution (600X400 pixels) In addition you can use the brightness adjustment to make sure you get a good shot. Unfortunately, there's no zoom or flash on my camera, so regular light is really the only situation that really works for this setup. It does have a self timer for including yourself in the pic, but I'm not sure how you'd actually do this with a clamshell phone. One of the best secrets is the 5 Fun Frames option. In this, you can take a picture and make it really silly by inserting your subject in a number of situations -- in a duck pond, on the cover of vogue magazine, etc. It's really pretty funny. Overall We like the phones and the camera is more than enough for our recreational use! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87103 2006/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color display compact built in camera nice looking phone good sound snub antenna no analog roaming some might find a battery life of 2 5 hours limiting The Bottom LineThey say you can't download the photos from the phone onto a computer. I found a way and tell how I do it. Full Review I love new technology and am amazed that it has taken me this long to join those who own cell phones. With my increasingly hectic lifestyle, a cell phone is now a must. After careful consideration, I opted to purchase the LG VX6000 Cell Phone with Built-in Camera. Description This is a nice looking silver digital flip-phone with dark blue accents. The ends are curved to help eliminate the "boxy" look common with some cell phones. When closed, it measures 4 1/2" high x 2" wide x 1" deep. Opened, it measures 6 1/2" x 2" high, and the top of the phone is raised at an angle so that it measures 2 1/2" deep. The front of the phone has a window that scrolls the time in electric blue digits that are easy to read, and also scrolls the strength of the dial signal and the battery charge level. If using Caller ID, this is displayed on the front panel for incoming calls. The front panel also acts as a "mirror" to take self-portraits with the camera. At the back of the camera is where the battery clicks into position. A small 1 1/4" antenna sits atop the phone behind the flip hinge. The antenna does not extend or retract; it is one piece of stubby plastic that is fixed in position. At the bottom of the phone is a data port that supports a data cable (not included), and a tiny rubberized piece fits across the data port when it is not in use. Two buttons on the left side of the camera serve multiple purposes including volume adjustment and whether the camera is in Normal mode, Manner mode (phone vibrates with an incoming call) or Silent All mode (no vibration or ringers). There is also a headset jack port. Flipping open the phone, a large color display dominates the upper portion. The lower section of the phone contains a keypad and control functions. At the top of this keypad section are left and right "soft" keys, which control functions and actions. A center button marked "OK" makes selections and has a circle of controls around it that offer options such as searching the web and accessing the scheduler. A button labeled "Clear" is beneath these keys and is used to delete characters or to go back one command level. There are also "Send" and "End" buttons in addition to the "Camera" button that is a shortcut to the camera menu. In dark areas, the keypad lights up in electric blue, making it easy to see and use. A recharging unit comes with the phone to recharge the battery. The charger is compact, measuring 3 1/4" long x 2 1/2" wide x 1 3/4" tall. The recharger cord is long at just over six feet. The phone comes with the battery, a charging unit, a smoke-gray plastic belt clip, instruction book in English and Spanish and a CD titled "Verizon Wireless: Getting to know your new phone and service". My Experiences Since I was new to the cell phone world, I monopolized the sales person's time in order to learn detailed information about the phone (and phone plan). By the time I left the store, I knew enough about the phone so that I didn't need to open the instruction manual to understand its basic operation. Of course, I quickly wanted to know all the functions of the cell phone, and while the instruction book did cover a lot of information, I felt it also lacked information. It could have been better written. Thank goodness the phone is intuitive to use. It helps that the display is colorful and the characters large for easy viewing. The numbered keypad buttons are easy to push. However, the buttons that operate menu selections are small. I find my fingernail edges come in handy to press these buttons. The buttons along the side edge of the camera are easy to push by accident, but with practice I've become adept at not accidentally pressing them too often. The main menu includes these choices: 1) Camera, 2) Contacts, 3) Recent Calls, 4) Messages, 5) Get It Now, 6) Mobile Web, 7) My Media, 8) Tools, 9) Settings. From this main menu it is easy to navigate the sub menus. A handy two-page spread in the instruction book outlines all the menus and their options. Don't worry about low volume on this phone. The first time I used it at home, someone across the room told me they could hear some of my conversation (the volume was set to medium-high). The sound is clear, too, and the different ringers are loud. Another great feature is voice-recognition, which allows the user to say the name of the person they want to phone, and the phone automatically dials the number. The contact list / phone book offers a screen for each name added. I like that I can list a variety of phone numbers for each name added to the phone book. There are spaces to add: 2 home phone numbers, 2 office numbers, 2 mobile numbers and a pager number. I was curious about the quality photographs the built-in digital camera would take since its highest resolution is 640 x 480. At high resolution, the camera can take and store 20 photos and has a "x1" zoom. The two lower resolutions have more zoom levels. There is also a timer delay for taking self-portraits. There are options to adjust should you wish to do so: brightness, white balance, file quality, shutter sound, fun frames with pre-made foregrounds, and 5 or 3 multi-shots so that the camera takes several photos in rapid succession. The phone camera will never replace a dedicated digital camera - but this phone camera is a good camera. One downside is dim or dark lighting when taking photos. The camera performs best in sunlight or well-lit rooms. If the picture you see in the display is dark, that is the photo you will take. I find it easy to take photos with this camera, and the photos can be saved in a built-in photo gallery on the phone. This phone supports a headset jack. I have a Radio Shack headset (model HS-1957) that I've owned for over a year and use with my cordless digital phone. It's a nice convenience plugging the headset into the LG VX6000 cell phone and then setting the cell phone down while I talk and work at the computer. Occasionally I notice the headset garbles a few words, and the person I am speaking with experiences the same problem during our conversation. I don't have the distortion trouble with the cordless phone when using the headset. The vocal distortion is not enough to disrupt our conversation when using the cell phone. Battery life is about 2 1/2 hours on this cell phone. I had hoped for longer, but the sales person explained that a color display drains a battery faster than a black and white display. If I don't use the phone much during the week, a charge will last me about four days. I like flipping the phone closed to find illuminated on the front panel how many minutes I've spent on a call. Update (May 19, 2005) - My cell phone would not charge this week. So today I visited a local Radio Shack store. The store manager determined that I needed a new battery for my phone. He provided me with an Extended-Life Li-ion Battery (model # 23-1073). The good news is that with my Radio Shack service agreement, the $69.99 battery was free. What I'm also happy about is that this extended life battery is good for 5 hours of "digital talk time". That certainly beats the 2 1/2 hours the old battery gave me. The first thing I noticed about the new battery is that it is thicker than the old battery, but it fits fine in the charging unit. I was not impressed with the plastic phone clip that came with the camera. I don't wear the phone on my belt anyway. Instead, I bought a new purse (any excuse for shopping!), and included with the purse is a beautiful leather cell phone case that can either stay in the purse or clip to the outside of the purse. The phone is light, too, at just under 4 pounds, which makes it easy to carry and use. Downloading Photos from the Camera onto a Computer I could not believe it when the sales person told me that I could not download the photos from the VX6000 onto a computer. What kind of set up is that? Granted the photos aren't top quality pictures like I take with my digital camera ... but I want to save the photos I take. So being the kind of person who finds answers, I did some digging and found a way to download the photos onto my Gateway 500X desktop computer. Now for the disclaimer ... you knew it was coming, right? The information below worked for me. It may not work for you (for whatever reason). I am not responsible for any damage to phones, computers or any other equipment or data files. Use my experiences at your own risk. First I purchased a data cable compatible with the VX6000 camera. I bought a cable from Radio Shack for $20.99. The brand name is FutureDial, and the cable number is 19. The hitch is that FutureDial separately sells software to use with the cable. I visited their website (www.futuredial.com) where there is an area to download the necessary driver for free to use with the cable. But I could not get the driver to install! Frustrating. But I found another driver solution. I scouted around and discovered another website (www.cellphonemall.net) that provided a driver download for the VX6000. I chose the second option, "LG - USB Drivers - Version A" since the FutureDial cable has a black box in the middle of it. Here is the URL to the download page: http://www.cellphonemall.net/wireless/store/accessorydetail.asp?id=24510&phoneid=298 Once the driver file was downloaded onto my computer, I unzipped the file and let the Wizard install the driver. Of course, I needed a program to snag the photos from the phone. There is a freeware program called BitPim that does the job. I went to www.bitpim.org and download the latest version of their free software. The version I downloaded is called "7.20 Official". I installed the program. When the program first opened, it asked me to select my phone model. I choose VX6000. With the BitPim program open, I plugged the data cable into the bottom of the phone, and then plugged the USB connector into the USB port on the computer tower. The computer detected the new hardware and established the connection between the phone and the computer. BitPim is simple to use. There are several choices at the top of the BitPim screen: File, Edit, Data, View, Help. I clicked on "Data". Then clicked on "Get Phone Data". There is the option of collecting the Phone Book, Calendar, Wallpaper and Ringtone files from the phone. The camera photos are considered Wallpaper and will download with those files. As the files download, the file name, size, bytes and origin (ex: camera) are displayed. Also, thumbnail images of the files appear. To view an image in a larger size, I click on an image. There is also the option of saving the .jpg photo onto the computer hard drive. This software program is designed to not only download information from the phone, but that information can also be edited and uploaded back into the phone. I have only used the program to retrieve photos from the phone and as a backup in case the phone data is somehow lost. I have never uploaded files to the phone. Feature Highlights * Any Key Answer * Power Save Mode * Digital Camera * Speed Dial (98 numbers) * Phone Book (holds 500 numbers) * Voice Recognition Auto-dial * Caller ID * Mute * Redial * Voice Memo * Notepad * Voice Mail * Scheduler * Alarm Clock * Calculator (simple functions; no memory feature) * EZ Tip Calc (for calculating tips) * World Clock * Bilingual (English and Spanish) Additional Services Available on the Phone While this phone comes with many free features, there are other features that require payment in order to use them. TXT Messaging - Send and receive text messages. Using this feature does not take time away from Verizon airtime minutes. Get It Now - Allows downloads and use of applications on the phone, such as games, productivity tools and ring tones. No games come pre-loaded on the phone. Mobile Web - Features a mini-browser to view internet content. Call Waiting - Two beeps indicate another incoming call. Purchasing I bought my LG VX6000 cell phone at Radio Shack for $49.99. I also purchased a 2-year Verizon phone plan, which reduced the price of this phone from its original price of $249.99. I did not buy any other accessories at that time. After I researched the possibility of downloading photos from the phone onto my computer, I then returned to Radio Shack for the data cable, which cost me $20.99. Additional accessories are available for the LG VX6000 from the Verizon website (www.verizonwireless.com) - Battery $39.99, travel charger $29.99, vehicle power charger $29.99, desktop charger $39.99, holster $14.99, phone case $19.99, carry-all pouch $29.99, and various headsets. There is even an "Essential Package" for $49.97 that includes the vehicle power charger, a headset and a leather case. Summary I am very happy with the LG VX6000 Cell Phone with Built-in Camera. It has exceeded my expectations. The phone is easy to use, has an abundance of features, has clear reception and the built-in camera. It's also compact and lightweight for easy carrying. People who see my phone are impressed with it, too. I love using this phone! Update -- October 24, 2006 Time for a new phone! This LG phone has been great, but toward the end of my two-year phone contract, the phone became a bit unpredictable. I'm easy on equipment, so the back of the battery case had a few scratches, but the rest of the phone was pristine ... not even a mark on the screen. All the features worked wonderfully. However, sometimes voices would cut in and out, despite having a fully charged battery. So when my two-years was up, and I had a $100 phone credit in my pocket, I went shopping for a new phone. I purchased an . Just click on the link to read my detailed review. I hope you have found this review useful. Enjoy your day, Dawn http://dlstewart.com Additional Information Phone Specifications: Network: CDMA 800 / 1900 Screen Colors: 262000 Screen Size: 120 x 160 px Display: 8-line backlight LCD Navigation: 4-way Keypad Phonebook Capacity: 500 Numbers Speed Dial: 98 numbers Voice Number Recognition: 30 Names Ring Tones: CMX MIDI Memory: 1.6 mb Battery Type: 950 mAh Li-Ion Camera: Low Resolution 160 x 20 (zoom x1, x2, x4) Medium Resolution 320 x 240 (zoom x1, x2) High Resolution 640 x 480 (zoom x1) Please read my other reviews: Copyright 2004 Dawn L. Stewart Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87102 2005/10/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 cuteness factor cute multicolored bouncing lights on the front loud enough tip calculator had to replace after 6 weeks The Bottom LineMy experience with this phone is not good. Perhaps I got a lemon the first time around? I am now on a refurbished replacement phone. I shall update as known. Full Review Things were going okay with my Samsung A310, but it was starting to have some problems, staticy calls, lost calls, and my 2 year contract was up, so I meandered into my Verizon store. Of course meandering when you are talking about Verizon, or perhaps any cellular phone store, means a good hour's investment of time. I had loved my previous Kyocera phone (before the Samsung), even more than the Samsung, so that was the first brand I considered. However, it seemed that LG could better meet my needs on size, specs, cost. I wanted a flip phone so it would be protected from clumsy people dropping it (uh, yeah, moi), I loved the tip calculator on my Kyocera, I wanted the user-friendly address book that wouldn't take me twenty minutes to put in one name (the Samsung was really a hassle in this area), fairly lightweight as I have carpal tunnel syndrome (weight noted below), I wanted numbers and text large enough for my over 40 eyeballs to easily see. I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg. This phone has an average type camera phone, but I rarely use it so that was not really an issue. It came with the camera so that was okay. Specs for techies from the manual: * Dual-band CDMA camera phone * 262,000-color main display * Easy Voice dialing * Voice memo * Get It Now * Modes CDMA 800 / CDMA 1900 * Weight 3.98 oz (113g) * Dimensions 3.54" x 1.90" x 0.95" (90mm x 48mm x 24mm) * Has cute little stub Antenna * Battery Life Talk: 2.50 hours * Standby: 110 hours (4.6 days) * Battery Type LiIon 950 mAh * Phone Book Capacity 499 * Has alarm * Calculator with tip calculator * Calendar Yes * Camera Resolution: VGA (640 x 480) * Data-Capable Yes * Digital TTY/TDD Yes * Games downloadable via BREW * GPS / Location Yes * English, Spanish * Text Messaging 2-Way: Yes * USB internal * Vibrate Yes Bad vibes: Thought this phone was wonderful for the first 4-5 weeks. Alas, that was as long as the phone was trustworthy. Volume/clarity were almost too good (read too loud), calls were not dropped or lost; all went through. I thought I'd made a great choice, and was busy patting myself on the back. Whoa, back-up chick! The phone calls generally stopped going through. If I lucked out and they went through, they were soon dropped. The battery lost its charge almost instantly. My friends and family were becoming miffed with me because of my flaky phone. I was so grateful that I was not job hunting at the time, and was not depending on the phone for business. Of course it was on warranty so I returned to the Verizon store. Everyone gasped with shock when they heard I was way less than pleased with the LG VX6000, as they said they had almost zero complaints with this phone (except of course for a lady in the next line from me). Anyway, they replaced the battery, and did a software upgrade. They had this phone in their store, but convinced me this would do the trick. Uh, not. The phone battery was now fine, but the other problems continued after a couple of days of faux trustworthiness. Fed up and disgusted yet again I returned to Verizon and told them I want a replacement. But they sadly advised me they no longer had the phone (after an hour's wait in line). For anyone who has not had a similar experience I therefore would have had to drive 45 minutes to another store and then most likely wait an hour there, or purchase a temporary phone in the store for $150, wait for a replacement in the mail, then return the defective phone via Fed Ex. I was not a happy camper. Now, here is a warning. I went to return the defective phone today, turn in the replacement phone for reimbursement, and they advised me I just had 15 days to return the phone and I was over by 6 days, so I was out of luck. I was not told about this 15 day return policy or lose my money, so fought for it, and they finally acquiesced. Anyway, so far so good with the replacement phone, but it is refurbished, so I am not sure how it will do over time. I sure hope I have the success/happiness with the phone that most of the other reviewers have had. What I do like about the phone: The size is good for me, it is pretty user friendly for the most part, while it is working it is certainly loud enough; perhaps it is too loud. The ring tones are not wonderful but there is sufficient variety that I have selected a few that I do like. It does give you the option of a different ring tone for caller ID, no caller ID, and restricted calls. You can select a banner, backlight, different screens, menu style, different types of clocks and theme colors. You can press the send button to redial your last call, and I appreciate that option. I love the stubby antenna-it won't break off, and certain dogs (who shall remain anonymous) cannot bite it off. What I don't like about the phone: This phone can easily be changed into manners mode without my even being aware of it. It is a little too sensitive. Once you are aware that has happened it is not easily figured out how to get it back to a regular ring or vibrate. You have to hold down the asterisk for several seconds, but it isn't very logical in my opinion. Why not have those options in the settings area under volume. While I do not dislike the camera it is rather mediocre. Final thoughts and recommendations: Of course this is not one of LG's newest phones. It has been out for a couple of years now, and I do use the more basic options for the most part. For regular, ongoing and non-techie use this phone is easy to use when it is working properly. I had it for quite a while before I even opened the manual. Being me, and being able to easily use a phone without reading about it throughly, well that says this is pretty user friendly. Of course that is before the phone bit the dust in six weeks. I am rating this phone 2 1/2 stars for now due to my negative and frustrating experience with the first phone. I shall update if this phone turns out to be fine over time. Update 09/25/05: Okay I have now had this refurbished LG6000 replacing the wonderful new one I had. I watch it as it refuses to put through a call. My phone calls that do go through continually drop off, or the calls are so broken up friends and family are totally irritated with me. In order to cut expenses a month ago, I reduced my landline to very basic service, just enough for my DSL. No long distance, no call waiting, no wake up call, voicemail, etc. Now I have a cellular that is totally useless. Verizon is sending me out another refurbished one. Can't wait until December when I can get a new phone. Update 10/06/05: 2nd refurbished phone now needs to be replaced. Antenna (the interior kind) must have somehow fallen out. It didn't break-was just in my purse. No reception now. Calls fail. Battery draining instantly. My Samsung SCH A310 Thanks for reading! Suzi Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87101 2000/5/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 built in camera robust contacts application picture camera earpiecehandfree volume call quality 5 way navigator bit awkward menus slightly harder to use build quality limited camera The Bottom LineIf voice quality is your major concern, this phone fits you to a T. Minor issues concern me however especially with the build quality. Full Review In March, I switched my older Nokia 5160 phone using the older TDMA Cingular service. I switched to Verizon Wireless with 5 other friends specifically to get onto the IN-Network promotion. At the store, I found the LG VX6000 for $99.99 before the $50.00 mail-in rebate. These days, you may be able to get the phone for free. I've now had the phone for a little more than 2 1/2 months now... placed over 500 calls and over 56 hours of talk time. This is my first time with a LG cellular product and overall I'm quite pleased with it. It also helped that Verizon's service has been more reliable than the others (although Cingular in the past two month really improved their call quality and signal quality!). It's been over 6 years since I was last with Verizon's cellular service (called Bell Atlantic Mobile back then in New Jersey) and some things haven't changed... Verizon still charges a premium on their cellular service. I am using the LG Vx6000 with Verizon's America's Choice 400 plan which includes free nights and weekends and free anytime mobile-to-mobile minutes (IN-network plan) and costs $39.99 a month (before my 19% hospital discount applies). My uses a Cingular Metro Plan that costs $29.99 and gives me 350 anytime minutes and 1000 nights and weekends with a NY-NJ metro calling area. Oh well... on to the phone. Short Take Overall, the VX6000 is an excellent phone with a few quirks and some worries on the construction. Out of all the cellular phones I've used to date, this phone easily has the loudest earpiece and handsfree volume. This phone could actually hurt your ears at its highest volume setting! The phone is a flip phone with an integrated VGA digital camera that lacks an optical zoom and contains personal information management (PIM) functions. The phone is for Verizon service in the US although I'm unsure if an unlocked phone could be setup with Sprint's PCS cellular service (Sprint and Verizon both run CDMA cellular networks. AT&T, Cingular, and T-Mobile run GSM cellular networks. AT&T and Cingular have an older TDMA cellular network as well. NexTel runs a modified GSM cellular network that is different from AT&T and Cingular's network). The VX6000 cannot be used with AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile, or NexTel! The only issues that worry me about the VX6000 is the feel and construction of the phone. The external screen already has a crack in it from light pressure. The VX6000 and I own were both subjects to similar conditions when I carried them around. The menu system and some of the PIM programs require some getting used to... and at times felt awkward to use. The digital camera is extremely limited even for a cellular phone... and ultimately, the camera seems more of an afterthough than a true feature of the camera. In the end, voice and call quality are the main factors for the phone... and the phone really shines in these qualities. Otherwise, the other features rank around average for the phone. 1) Slim Flip phone with internal color display and external caller ID and status display 2) Integrated VGA camera with no flash or optical zoom 3) Large lighted button 4) Voice Dialing 5) Decent battery life at 2 hours of talk time with 14 hours of standby on a single charge. 6) PIM programs included 7) More robust phonebook application than my Motorola V400 1) Build Quality? No travel charger 2) Camera takes poor shots and only 10 shots maximum 3) Menu slightly harder to access and navigate through because of 5-way navigator and some PIMs slightly user unfriendly Talking... Can You Hear Me Now? The VX6000 seemed to offer comparable reception (judged mostly from signal strength indicator) to other LG phone models used on Verizon's service. This was a quick check with the other doctors owning various LG (VX3100, VX4400B, and VX4500) and Samsung model phones. When signal strength is at one bar, you have a very slim chance of placing a call. I usually got 1 out of every ten tries to connect. However, after connecting the call, the call would disconnect about 40+% of the time. I found that with at least 3 bars of signal strength you almost always could place your calls and disconnects never happened unless the person on the other end had a poor signal... of course this means that you never went below three bars of signal stregth throughout the call. As long as you have a decent connection and signal strength, calls were clear and easily heard through either the earpiece or the handfree jack. The maximum battery life I dragged out of the phone while keeping with a full signal strength is about 2 1/2 hours right after a full charge. However, on average, the standard 950 mAh battery barely gets me through a 14 hour day with standby and about 1 hour of calls... note that this also involves being is areas of low to no signal strength for 4 to 6 hours a day in the hospital (I know that most hospitals do not allow you to have your cell phones on the hospital premises but almost all medical monitoring devices are shielded from interference from cellular devices if built after the 1970s... note that it is not a good idea to carry your cell phone near small medical electronics like a pacemaker or insulin pump since these devices are not shielded as well because of their size). LG rates the slim 950 mAh battery at 150 minutes maximum of talk time or 110 hours maximum of standby time (Verizon's numbers). Unlike my V400 on Cingular's GSM service, the VX6000 does use a severe amount of power when the signal strength falls to two bars or less... this may also be due to the nature of the cellular protocols (Verizon uses CDMA while Cingular uses GSM mostly... although they do have an older TDMA network). Even when my signal strength is at the maximum for the whole day, the phone nets me 30 hours of standby with 45 minutes of talk time. The 1400 mAh extended battery usually brings your talk time up to 5 hours of talk time or 100 hours standby (LG official numbers) although I gotten 3 1/2 to 4 of talk time out of a full charge on the extended battery. Volume is adjustable through several levels defined as silent, low, medium low, medium, medium high, and high. I found that the medium setting was more than enough to hear callers on the other end. At the high setting, the VX6000 acted more like a weak speakerphone. I could still hear the caller from almost 5 feet away from the phone! The VX6000 has an external 96x38 pixel display for displaying the time, date, and caller ID. It also shows how long you've been connected on your current call. This also displays items like signal strength and battery power left as well. Note that the external LCD turns off after a set period of time of phone inactivity (the time is user adjustable but the external LCD cannot be set to always on). Note there is a pattern of 3 sets of 2 colored LEDs (blue, orange, and green) above the external LCD The internal LCD is a 120x160 pixel 65,000-color screen that is quite clear and displays caller ID information and a picture (if you set the phone up that way). One other thing I must note is that the handfree 2.5 mm jack is a bit loose compared to often phones I used. I found it a little to easy to accidentally yank the handfree set from the jack. Specs? The VX6000 has dimensions of 3.54 x 1.9 x 0.95 inches when flipped closed with the slim 950 mAh battery. It weights 3.98 oz again with the slim battery. I've already described the two LCD screens on the phone. The keypad buttons are decently sized and spaced appropriately. You also have a 5-way navigator as well as two buttons for the menu. The 5-way navigator is a bit recessed and hard to use especially if you have short fingernails. The bottom part of the 5-way navigator is overly short as well. You also have a volume rocker and a button to activate voice calling and voice memoing... both of these are on the right side of the phone. The handsfree set 2.5 mm jack is just above these buttons. I already mentioned most of the features of the external LCD display, now a few more details about the internal LCD. It is quite clear overall with Verizon's blue toned color schemes. The internal LCD doesn't shut off when the phone is flipped open although the backlight does go off. Rings on this phone are quite loud and clear. It also seems that the ring and vibrate setting actually works in this phone compared to the troubles I've had with Motorola phones. Where's the Kodak Moment? When this was first introduced for Verizon, it was one of the few (if not the first) camera phone available for Verizon. The VX6000 is a VGA capable phone that is severely limited! You can take photos of 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120 resolution. Not great but acceptable to quick shots. However, you have no optical zoom and no flash available. This limits where you can take pictures and severely hampers the quality of the photos. You need bright to moderately bright light to snap clear and detailed pictures. Anything less than this leads to noise in the picture. Fast motion also doesn't capture well on this camera. On top of all this, you are limited to 10 photos on the camera at any time... no matter the resolution of the photo or even if you're using it for caller ID purposes. Software Pretty much the standard PIM applications like Schedule, Alarm Clock, Voice Memo, Notepad, EZ Tip Calculator, Calculator, and World Clock. The Schedule program is not as nice as the Datebook on the Motorola V400 but it is functional. The majority of the applications are fairly easy to use except for the odd way the normal Calculator was implemented. Actually difficulties in pressing the 5-way navigator make the calculator harder to use than it should be. The PIM functions might be somewhat limited by the use of the telephone keypad to input text. Contacts... i.e. the Phonebook One of the more robust phonebook applications I've used. Each entry can have several phone numbers (one set as primary), e-mail, a specific ring tone, picture ID, voice activated dialing (for up to 30 numbers), specific caller ID message, and a personal note. From Contacts, you can also set one button dialing as well. If you purchase the optional Mobile Office kit from Verizon, you can also copy, add, edit, and delete entries between the VX6000 and the computer. Games? There are no games preloaded but you have access to Verizon's Get It Now service Get It Now! Service for Verizon Wireless customers only Get It Now! allows for you to download applications, games, ringtones, wallpapers, and other material into your phone to entend its capabilities. Note that the VX6000 has only 1.58 MB of free space for these applications and games. LG did include a generous amount of ringtones and sounds on the phone! Verizon's Mobile Office Kit Verizon offers the use of the phone as a 14.4 Kbs modem with no charge (but you pay for the airtime). I know this is extremely slow but it works fairly well as long as you can tolerate the speed. You can also set the phone up as a 144 Kbs high speed modem but there is a charge for this service. Verizon typically sells the package for $69.99 last I checked. I purchased the cable separately for $14.99 from www.cellularaccessory.com and got the software from a friend who purchased the kit. The kit also includes the software for editing the VX6000 phonebook entries and for copying the VX6000 phonebook to your computer. Build Quality Concerns I have some concerns on the build quality... already, the phone is showing more signs of wear and tear versus the Motorola V400 phone (which has been in use almost one month longer than the VX6000) and even my other Nokia and Motorola phones to date. The plastic covering the external LCD is already cracked from light pressure to the case. Note that the phone has been housed in a form fitting leather case purchased from www.daydeals.com. The overall feel of the phone also seems cheaper than other cellular phones that I've owned and used. Buying Accessories Normally, I've gone to www.cellphone.net but this time accessories for both my VX6000 and my Motorola V400 were very scarce on the site. I wound up buying most of my accessories from www.cellularaccessory.com and www.daydeals.com. I found the prices here to be much more tolerable than the prices Verizon was offering. Note that they is no travel charger included with the phone. You get a cradle that attaches to the contacts on the battery for charging. Travel and car chargers attach to a connector on the phone itself for charging. My Final Word As for making and receiving calls, the phone is definitely top notch. However, the additional features and build quality could use a little work. I would suggest buying the phone from Circuit City and spending an extra $40 for the 2 year extended warranty instead of paying the insurance plan that Verizon offers... unless you have a habit of losing cell phones. If you do, get the insurance plan from Verizon... buying a new phone from Verizon before your contract expires is extremely painful to your wallet. To buy a VX6000 will cost $349 if you're contact is not expired yet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7686 LG VX4500 87164 2005/2/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it makes calls everything else It was the "best phone," suggested by the salesperson when I switched to Verizon. If I could find him now, I'd beat him! This has to be the worst phone I've ever owned... hands down! The owners manual is USELESS! So, I threw it away. Now, I have no idea how to set the time. I've gone through every menu setting... Can't find it. The menu is not intuitive at all. Some companies need to stop trying to be on the cusp of the 'next' technological breakthrough, and just leave simplicity alone. If you are away from the phone when it rings, there is no intermittent signal to let you know that you've missed a call or a message. There is no way to set the volume when in vibrate mode. I understand what they were trying to achieve by making it silent and vibrate, or loudest and vibrate, but it's not always that cut and dry. LG tries too hard to reinvent the wheel, and in doing so, completely ruined a phone that has a very cool look. 87163 2004/6/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice color screen with simple easy to use menu volume voice dial buttons in the way not for left hand users no vibrate to ring option Waited 2 years to cash in on my $100 upgrade from Verizon and dropped the Motorola v120, replacing it with the LG VX 4500, and never turned back. 87162 2004/9/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 wonderful voice recognition great speakerphone a deft touch is needed to answer the phone just to lose the caller This phone appears to have it all. I order to have it all it would have to not suffer from some unseen force causing calls to drop. Several times when the phone was STATIONARY all of a sudden there would be a low volume high pitch whistle and then, Hello, Hello, can you hear me now from the person your talking to. The second thing that causes this phone to fall out of favor is the side buttons get in your way or activate when not desired. Numerous times I would flip open the phone to answer a call and I would hit the lower button on the side and hang up on the caller. All in all the phone is a dream...literally. 87161 2004/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable features user friendly looks good loud speakerphone no cons to think of I exchanged my Audiovox 8900 which had a very week speakerphone and took the LG 4500. This phone looks good, can be customized very well(I've configured unwanted callers to ring with just a 'ding' so I don't even have to interrupt my lunch/movies to check who's calling). Lots of ring tones, etc. I love this phone. And yes VERY LOUD SPEAKERPHONE, which I love. Instead of fiddling with a hands free set, I love to use the speakerphone while driving, which is very convenient and the whole family can participate in a conversation. Go for it. 87160 2005/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight speakerphone good price no camera kind of chinsy plastic The great thing about this phone is that it is a speaker phone. It also takes voice commands and is a fairly small phone. 87159 2004/8/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 big keys everything crisp screen easy to use none The 4500 has been by far the best phone I ever owned. The speakerphone is crisp, clear, and abundantly useful. It has a plethora of useful features including advanced voice recognition sending the days of "Training" your voice far behind you. It is ergonomic, the menus are very easily navigated, the phone itself is also easy to learn. With Verizons Get It Now features the amount of add-ons seems never ending. The phone has great reception (due on part to Verizons great service), it has big buttons for effortless dialing, perfect also for near-sighted adults and/or heavy text messagers. The ringers are LOUD! With the ability to have your phone ring and vibrate you will never miss a call. My friend offered me Verizons best LG phone, the vx7000 with camera and video features for only $50 bucks and my phone and I said no! The 4500 is a well balanced phone and perfect from young text messagers who want internet features and games, to technologically challenged adults who just want a simple-easy to use phone. 87158 2004/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 color weight style service have to pay for games I JUST BOUGHT THIS PHONE 2 DAYS AGO, AND IT IS THE OVERALL BEST PHONE I EVER OWNED. THERE IS SO MANY GREAT FETURES (GET IT NOW). IT COST MONEY TO BUY RINGTONES, AND PLAY GAMES. I THINK THYE SHOULD BE CHEAPER THAN 1.99 EACH. SOUND IS GREAT, SERVICE IS GREAT , QUALITY IS AWASOME, AND A VERY SLEEK PHONE. THIMBS UP SO FAR...;) 87157 2005/10/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none dropped calls screen shorted out no service with full bars of service I have had many phones, and this one is by far the worst. I have been into verizon 3 times and been on the phone w/ support many more. There are four of these on our family plan, and each and every one has had problems! While in line to have my phone looked at, every other customer in line had the same phone and all had similar but slightly different problems( more than 10 people) !! The same thing happened when I picked up my phone. When I called support and described the problem, the operator said "Don't tell me you have an LG phone, because if you do the phone is shot!" Apparently, some of these phones just go haywire, and there is nothing you can do to fix it! Never, never again will I purchase (or even take for free) a product from this company. 87156 2004/8/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 each caller has own ringtone small in size caller id speakerphone short battery life comes with no games cant talkcharge battery good phone. excellent features. easy to use. light weight and small in size. no games included, must be purchased seperately. battery is charged in a cradle, so you can not talk on the phone while charging. battery does not last long at all 87155 2004/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good shape quality construction feel good speakerphone decent address book poor reception when inside This phone is relatively good, with one MAJOR problem, the reception is very shoddy when you are inside a building. I have many friends with the same service (Verizon), who get better reception when standing right next to me using the Samsung a650. This may be because it is digital only, or because it has a stubby, fixed antenna. Whatever it is, I wish I had known, because I would return it for another model. Who care about any of the other features when you can't 'hear me now'? Look elsewhere, you will be happier. 87154 2004/8/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cute icons for callers speakerphone loud ringer ugly looks battery life bulky I'm very happy w/ the phone, but I'm not thrilled w/ the battery life. I'm wondering if I just have a lemon, though. After reading the other reviews, it seems that I'm the only one w/ the battery issue. Other than that, the phone is great. The ringer is exremely loud and the speakerphone is awesome. The looks of the phone is another story - I think it's pretty ugly. It's a bit bulky for not having a camera. If the phone were a bit smaller, it would be perfect. With all of that being said ---- I am happy with my purchase! 87153 2006/5/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use excellent speaker phone durability features limitednot vcast compatible The 4500 is a solid unit. After owning this phone I will definitely seek out other LG products. It is very durable, has the best speaker phone around and reception is great. the phone is easy to use and a nice size. The only problem that I (and my friend) have encountered is that sometimes when hooked to the car charger the unit shuts down. Very annoying defect. Otherwise I would recommend this phone, especially if you use speaker phone function a lot. 87152 2006/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 voice quality intuitive operation speaker phone reliability apparently defective software locks up the phone intermittently My wife and I both purchased this phone in November 2004. The speaker phone feature is very nice & the features are easy to access through the intuitive menu-driven interface. Overall, the voice quality is good, but the signal strength often does not seem to be as strong as the Motorola phone I used to have. HOWEVER, reliability of this LG phone is suspect. I have had an intermittent software glitch that locks up my phone. My wife has had this issue as well and she had 2 replacement "refurbished" phones from Verizon, before she pressed Verizon to give her a new phone. 87151 2006/7/21 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 attractive phone with loads of features it quit working after three daysno replacement possible I recently replaced my Samsung SCHA310 after three years of wonderful service with the LG VX4500. For three days I couldn't have been happier with my choice. It had everything I wanted in a cell phone. After three days, it died. People can call in, but I can no longer call out. No it didn't get dropped or anything else. It just quit. I called Verizon for tech support and they ran me through the gamut of things to try to revive it. The technician said it was kaput. It's off to my dealer to pick out another phone, but it won't be an LG. 87150 2005/9/23 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 cute neat speaker phone poor call quality dropped calls voice commands need help Our entire Service Group was provided with these phones as replacements to our Cingular service. We have doubled our dropped call rates, and the level of profanity has increased exponetially. These phones are made to be handled very gently - the slightest bumps and they go south. 87149 2005/3/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great basic phone verizon servicesignal main screen is hard to read no blank wallpaper I'm not really picky about phones; I only get a new one to replace one broken or lost. All I ask of a phone is the following: good audio quality, compact size, generally intuitive controls. The LG 4500 meets all these requirements, and more. The driving mode is great, as is the speakerphone. The display on the outside, for the clock, is a nice bonus. Although battery life is good in areas with strong signals, it's awful in low signal areas. This problem is common to all modern phones, which try to amplify weak signals, thereby using more power. With the small battery, I can almost forget it's in my pocket. Great basic phone - Verizon service and signal is awesome here in Northern California; however, your mileage may differ. 87148 2004/12/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 all features i need for everyday communication software flaws bad cust support The Bottom Linethis is good product, but LG doesn';t care much of its customers -; you have to decide for yourself if you want this hustle Full Review I have a bad reputation with cell phone makers. Started with Motorola in 2000 and made them to upgrade my phone for free twice to better models just because they kept screwing us, users, with bunch of flaws in their phones. In 2001 I got thank you letter from Motorola and V60 as a gift for pointing to the problems. I tried very hard this time to do the same with LG. They respond to the "training" much worse than Motorola did and why? - Because they don't care much about customers! Let's start from the beginning. (I have two months history of communicating with LG and they agree to fix some problems in the nearest future -- thank you, LG!) also they offered me replace VX-4500 with either VX-3200, VX4600 or VX-6000. I didn't make a deal because none of the listed phones are as good as VX-4500. The only replacement I would consider is VX-6100. Let's start: I had VX6000 for 18 month and say it's a good phone. Besides awful manual (and let me point every LG product has bad written manual) this phone had many flaws in it's software and doesn't matter how many e-mails I sent to LG directly and Verizon Cust. Support--LG didn't do any visible work to fix problems. Only after a year the phone is being on the market they released the first fix and the second shortly after that. It's worth mentioning that all flaws was not fixed and were addressed only major bugs like redialing long numbers (over 18 digits), search and some others and also fixed the problems that verizon was concerned with - instant messaging and "get it now" - the stuff that brings money to the company. It seams like bugs found by me NEVER were even addressed to the software development team or maybe (and this is very possible - just didn't think they were important to fix). Still the VX6000 was the first god phone in CDMA system. I would still prefer Motorola's menu and user interface to LG's ones but Motorola became very greedy and I stop patronizing them. Let me mention that Motorola recently slid down to the third place after Nokia and LG. And they deserve it. On all Motorola's phones they put easy to bend/break antennas (a replacement one cost $10-$15 and I personally needed new one every quarter or so. The second problem is that the standard battery's life isn't long enough even for one day (very noticeable after 3-4 month of use). They make you to get an extended one. And the last biggest problem with Motorola - the antenna can be easy broken off at all - making the repairs very costly. Actually I never saw any other brand with broken antennas but Motorola. Well, back to LG. When I needed a new phone I choused VX-4500 to VX-6000 as I needed speakerphone more than I needed lousy useless camera (on vx6000). The VX-4500 has all features I need, very good reception, loud speakerphone and actually useful external LCD. (The one on VX-6000 could not be seen in bright sunshine. I will not stop on it's features as many users already pointed them out. Let me talk about its negative sides (from my point of view). Ergonomics--I still think the voice/record button is located inconveniently. During the conversation you need help of the second hand to press it. In my opinion the best location would be on top of the opposite side. (this is the way Motorola builds they phones and it's very convenient). They changed the holster design (compare to VX6000) the holster holds only bottom part of the phone and you can open it without actually taking out, but the holster itself (with its clip) is kind of big and very inconvenient to hold, so you probably still will take the phone out of holster to talk. The biggest problem I have is when I carry phone on belt and wear short leather jacket - the phone flips open when I get out of my car and can get stock half open under the jacket -- it can potentially lead to the phone breakage. You can get a leather case but you need to get the phone out of case each time you'd like to charge the phone. By the way - standard battery is good for one day before recharging (about 35 calls a day with 1.5 to 2 hours of talk time - not awesome, but not bad either) The next problem that LG keeps looking for the "best menu" template, and they continue "moving" and renaming the same features to the different locations in the menu. I don't like that. My family owns four LG phones: vx 4400, vx4500, vx6000 and vx6100 and all menu looks like they are identical, but they are not - it's hard to used to. LG doesn't offer user created shortcuts to the most often used features - Motorola and Nokia do. Current version of VX4500 has two software bugs in scheduler. The functions "go to date" doesn't work at all, so if you want to schedule an event for many month ahead you need to do a lot of manual scrolling until you get to the desired date. We all can understand that on the new, just released, phone potentially can be software flaws. Well what you say if you find out the same feature doesn't work and still don't fix on VX7000 phone that has been on the market for over one year!! LG just doesn't care of us! The second bug is related to the scheduler as well. On already saved events you cannot change entered date - this is means you cannot move your appointments to the different date - you need to delete existing appointment and create a new one. These are two major flaws I found. Some small bugs are exist in data entering interface (but I don't want to emphasize them as they are not important and exist in both VX6000 and VX4500 models. So if you are planning to put your PDA aside - it's not the time yet. LG promised me to release the fix for the scheduler in the beginning of 2005 - will see. Just want to repeat that LG doesn't provide good customer support. A lot of my e-mails left unanswered. They don't want even take problems reported by me and pass them on to the tech people. Even the overall the phone is excellent value and quality I would refrain from buying it until it gets fixed. My current choice would be LG-6100 if you have extra cash or VX3200 - which is has everything as VX4500 do but external LCD. I want to mention that VX-6100 is not perfect either and it doesn't have desktop charger as previous models do , but it's a phone I like more that VX-6000 and VX-4500. Happy holidays to all Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87147 2000/8/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great phone reception contactsa silly screen The Bottom LineI'd shop around... Full Review Warning: this is going to be a short review. If you want details, read the other excellent reviews. I agree with them 100%. I had an older model LG phone and finally upgraded to this 4500 model after two years. HOWEVER, having just purchased it myself 2 weeks ago, I wanted to mention a few details that REALLY bug me. 1. The reception is awful. And I mean AWFUL. Walk outside and you get 5 bars. Walk INSIDE your house -- and you lose three bars and get static?! I mean, come on! This model does NOT have an extendable antenna (perhaps that's the problem?). I even tried to purchase one -- but the best I could get was an all-metal one (the guy claimed it would help). It did, somewhat. But I never expected to get static inside my own house -- and I live in New York City!! 2. The Contacts feature is a bit of a drag. Don't most people put the most-called people first on their speed dial? But the default for contacts is in alphabetical order. I don't necessary want to see Aunt Agatha's number (who I call once every 2 months) first on the list every single bloody time I list my contacts. Yet to get it to list it by Speed Dial numbers is a few extra keys. That was a silly set-up. 3. Another Contacts feature that was silly -- instead of being able to use the right soft key to "page forward", you can only use the "down" key to scroll down -- which takes forever. Another goof-up. Imagine using up all 99 spots for numbers -- and then trying to get to your friend "Marty". 4. One last thing -- a few days after I bought the phone I dropped it, about two feet, onto linoleum. The phone must have fainted or something, because the SCREEN DIED. But only for about 8 hours before going back on again. Now, the screen will occasionally die out -- and the only way for me to get the screen to go back on again is for me (and I'm not kidding) is to DROP THE PHONE ON THE FLOOR AGAIN. I've NEVER had such a delicate phone as this one. Otherwise I agree -- great phone, if not for the above-mentioned pesky details... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87146 2000/9/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice recognition command technology high quality speakerphone get it now enabled cartridge style charger bad positioning of driving mode button The Bottom LineOn a scale from 1 to 10, this one gets a 9. Full Review The VX4500 is the result of LG partnering with the legendary Qualcomm phonemaker. It features no camera so is categorized as a basic quality mobile phone; though it offers several productivity tools that your basic user on the go will be interested in. Firstly, a high quality speakerphone makes conversing enjoyable and easy. While using the phone, depress the righthand softkey to access OPTIONS. This allows you to access MENU options that you would normally only try to get to when not using the phone [for example, you can look up a number for someone while you're talking to them]. The VX4500 features a circular "Navigation" key which instantly lets you: (a) activate the speakerphone, (b) access Get-It-Now features, (c) check Messages, or (d) get to Web applications; but my favorite features are accessed via the left softkey that pulls up the Menu from which the VOICE and TOOLS submenus are available. Under VOICE I make heavy use of the VOICE MEMO and VOICE SCHEDULER functions. The VOICE MEMO provides 4 minutes of record time for short self reminders. Multiple memos can be recorded as long as the total length of all memos is shy of 4 minutes. The record quality is excellent. The VOICE SCHEDULER features a calendar system allowing you to schedule appointments (which in turn provide automated reminders to you) via either recorded memo or text content (or both). In the TOOL submenu the WORLD CLOCK and EZ TIP CALCULATOR are wonderful tools for when you're traveling or dining out. Under the same submenu I like to use the NOTEPAD to create an all-in-one grocery list when I have to make food runs. The VX4500's DRIVING MODE, accessible either via the VOICE MENU, or by depressing the VOICE COMMAND KEY (while the unit is closed) allows hands-free operation and provides call notification by synthetic voice. Other functions that can be engaged while the phone is closed include engaging MANNER MODE and (because the phone features two LCD screens) activating the lamp for the front LCD so you can see the current time in the dark (say at a theatre or in the middle of the night). For times when you can't look at the display for information (or can't dial) flipping open the unit then pressing the VOICE COMMAND KEY enables state-of-the-art voice recognition technology to give you verbal information about the current TIME, your SCHEDULE for the current day, or you can dial a contact simply by saying the name of the desired person. You never have to train the VX4500 [unlike older voice-dial phones]. With up to 499 contact entries possible, this is a real timesaver. - Use of the text messaging function is also handy. Accessed from the MAIN MENU, a message is addressed by pressing the left softkey [this pulls up your contact list] then typing the letters of the name of the contact you are text messaging. The contact's information (mainly their phone number) is displayed. You choose it then are returned to the text area. The text area will include an "enhanced" symbol. If you attempt to send an "enhanced" message (or one which exceeds 100 characters), delivery will fail. I remove the "enhanced" symbol then type my message. Messages can then be sent without problem. This phone has very little downside. It's for mobile users who don't need a phone in a camera (hopefully good picture takers already own a high end digital camera since cameraphones aren't known for their picture-taking quality). The only faults I find include the location of the Voice Command button and the inability of the phone to be used while charging. These faults are related since I have to remove the lower half of the phone case to recharge the phone. When I do this, the case touches the Voice Command button which causes the phone to ask me for a command (unintended, but also unavoidable). An engineering change to have the phone charge via a small plug would make the VX4500 a "10" in my book. For ease of charging I usually just plug the phone up in the car. It can charge within a few hours so it's a good alternative to home charging. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87145 2004/4/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 loud ringer solid construction great speakerphone landline quality sound large well spaced buttons unncessarily small outer screen button for voicedial interferes with answering calls The Bottom LineTwo thumbs up. Excellent quality, super user friendly, and impeccable features make the awkward phone shape unnoticeable. Full Review Having just had the LG 4400 on Verizon Wireless Network, there was a lot of quality to live up to with my next phone. After researching quite a few different models in the Verizon line up, I drafted the LG 4500 only 3 days ago as my next mobile quarterback. When I first picked up the phone, the tear drop shape looked very awkward to me. But in all actuality, it's very ergonomic and fits well in the hand. So, I opened the clamshell and saw an adaquate sized, super crisp LCD screen with well-spaced, large buttons (which is very necessary for women with long nails!). Though my 4400 had rubberized buttons, I wasn't turned off by the lack of softness of the metal, but easy to use buttons on the 4500. And because beauty is only skin deep, I decided to check out it's inside personality next. Because the screen is laid out so well, navigating through the menus is a breeze. The 4500 gives you the option (as did the 4400) to use icon or list style menus. I like lists (text menus with a small icon to the left) better personally. There are a multitude of options which you can customize your phone. The 4500 comes standard with numerous, polyphonic ringtones and wallpaper pictures. But if you don't like the built in features, the GET IT NOW! service can provide you with thousands more to choose from. My favorite feature is the speakerphone. My 4400 didn't have either feature so I was very eager to find out about them. Because I travel extensively, having my cell in the car is a must. Until now, the only safe option was to use my uncomfortable headset that produced only marginal sound to my callers (even after going through 5 different brands and models). The speakerphone is actually located on the battery side of the phone. It's speaker is large, sensitive and most importantly works exceptionally well especially in "Driving Mode". (Located in the Voice menu catagory, second to last item) Another fabulous feature of the 4500 is that you don't have to "train" the words for the voice command. All you do is hit the side Voice Activation button and through the speaker an eager to service, female voice comes through asking you to "Say a Command". From there, you announce "Contacts" and then say the person's name in your contact after being prompted to do so. Then... it dials!!!! Fantastic! The only down fall I've noticed with this is if you have multiple numbers for a contact, it doesn't give you the option to choose which number you want to dial. Minor problem. But if you're able to look at the screen, you will be able to choose with the arrows which of the multiple numbers you're after. Battery life thus far seems to be fine. I turn off my phone after 10pm and then boot it back up in the morning of which I leave it on all day. I haven't had to charge my phone since I bought it - 3 days ago. This is surprising as I've been warned because of the 4500's offerings, that the battery life is less than acceptable through reviews I've read on the internet. No, it doesn't have a camera... but really... it's a phone... not a camera! If this is a feature you have to have, then the VX6000 is for you. Overall, I rate this phone a 9 out of 10... it would have gotten a 10 if when I took the phone out of the holster to answer it, the voice dial button didn't activate!!! But otherwise, I'm a very happy camper! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87144 2000/9/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great call quality i love driving mode reception only picture wallpapers available nothing plain The Bottom LineGood phone with solid speakerphone that eliminates the need for a car kit. Full Review I recently upgraded my cellular phone using Verizon's "New every Two" program. My old phone was the LG510 that served me well for over two years. With all the new phones on the market I went to Consumer Reports for a little info. The top rated phone according to C&R is the LGVX6000, a camera phone. Being a loyal C&R follower I went off to Verizon to buy a camera phone, with no intention of using the camera much at all. Upon my arrival at Verizon I asked about the VX6000 and comparable phones when the salesperson showed me the VX4500. She said that the VX4500 was the same "guts" as the VX6000 but had a speaker instead of a camera. That got my attention ! A speaker phone is much more important to me than a camera. ( It is noteworthy that camera phones do not take very good images no matter which phone you buy ) Trusting that both phones were basically working off the same platform I bought the VX4500. I have owned it for about a month now and can honestly say that I am pleased with my purchase. The phone has a color screen that is a bit difficult to see with polarized sunglasses. There are several wallpapers to choose from that come with the phone. I honestly wish it had a solid background as I am closer to forty years old than I am to twelve. The buttons on the phone light up when you open the clamshell, a big improvement over my old LG510. Calls are very clear and I find myself asking the other person if they are still there or not as it doesn't sound like I am connected ( silence ) . Reception with this phone is an improvement over the 510 as well. I can field calls in my home with my new phone while the old one dropped in and out constantly. The phone's menu is intuitive and while I did read the manual it is easy to figure out on your own. You can set a myriad of ringtones and "ringsongs" and if you are of the younger set you can download "ringsongs" and games for a fee from Verizon. Some people complain that they don't like that the contact list is alphabetical. I disagree. As my phone fills I like knowing that my friend whos name starts with "Z" is at the bottom of my list. I know my home number and its speed dial by heart, the contact list is for those numbers not used everyday. By alpahbetizing I don't have to hunt through a list of names that are inputted randomly. My favorite thing about the phone is its speakerphone. It is nice and loud and the people I call tell me that they can hear me fine. Now for the BEST part of this phone. DRIVING MODE !!! I live on the CT / NY border, in CT you can talk and drive while in NY you must use hands free by law. With my new phone I wanted to get a car kit but when I learned about driving mode that need ended. When I get into my truck ( I'm a Ford man !! ) I take my phone from my belt open it and clip it to my visor. I then activate driving mode by pressing the bottom button on the side of the phone. The phone, in a female voice, asks me to say a command to which I answer "Driving". The phone then responds "Driving mode activated". I then drive along, crossing the CT / NY border over and over again. When I get a call the phone speaks right up to me " You are receiving a call from 203-555-1212, would you like to connect?" I then say "yes" or "no" and the phone will either pick up the call or send it to voice mail. HOW NEAT IS THAT ?? Don't forget, the speaker phone works great, so this phone is it's own car kit as well. While in driving mode you can also use your contact list without having to "voice train" the phone. When you say contacts it beeps, you then say a name, it repeats the name and asks if thats who you want, with a "yes" on your part you connect. While driving you can also prompt the phone to "digit dial" for you. It asks for a number and you say one, the phone recognizes the numbers, repeats them for accuracy and connects for you. The phone also recognizes the letter "o" as a zero for those of us who mix "o" and zero as the same number. Keep in mind, you have only touched your phone once or twice to activate the driving mode and its command prompt. Very safe in my opinion. So, there you have it solid reasons to own any cell phone. Good call reception, call quality and a full menu with convenient features. As I told my wife " You gotta get this phone ! " Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87143 2000/11/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice commands reception clarity size fantastic voice recognition short battery life poor owner lcd screen illegible in strong light s manual The Bottom LineGet one if you want a great phone. Too often products do not meet our expectations. This one does, for me, and I'm not easy to please. Full Review This is only my 5th cell phone in the past 10 years. It is by far the best and I unhesitating recommend it after two months' of steady use and experimentation. I want only a telephone, not a toy camera, not a tiny game machine, not access to email. Except as noted, this feature-laden phone works flawlessly and should accommodate every calling need. The essentials: reception and clarity. I used Sprint for 9 torturous years (OK, I'm a slow learner) before a neighbor recommended Verizon and a predecessor model, the 4400. Although each individual's coverage will vary, I now get reception inside our house, in the office elevator and in the second floor below ground of the parking garage - places where Sprint simply failed. The calls are consistently clear. The standard features. Everything works just as it should. There is a large phone book (multiple numbers per contact, grouping, sorting), speed dial, redialing, calculator (including tip calculator), voice memos, world clock, alarms. The Manner Mode (vibrate only) is easy to set. Voice recognition. The voice recognition system is an absolute marvel. In Driving Mode (essentially a speakerphone setting), by pressing a single button on the side, you are prompted to give a command and then the name of the person to call. The name is then confirmed by the phone. I have 170 names in my directory and the system almost never fails to recognize the name I request. No training of the commands by repetition is required. You can also voice dial by digits, re-dial, ask for the time or your schedule. Speakerphone and Driving Mode. Using the standard belt clip and Driving Mode, you will have hands-free use of the VX 4500. Pressing one button will activate an array of commands through which you can dial or perform other functions (e.g., ask for the time or your schedule). However, using the speakerphone seems to drain the battery much more rapidly than does ordinary use. Since the Driving Mode is so useful, I highly recommend buying a car charger. The poor owner's manual does not describe the difference between Driving Mode and having the speakerphone on. So far as I can tell, there is little or no difference. Ambient noise. Both the speakerphone and the voice recognition systems suffer when there is high ambient noise (music, wind, talking). This is probably no different than with any other cell phone. Major complaints. You can't read the screen in bright sunlight. The battery drains rather quickly when the phone is used, especially using the speakerphone. So you just put it in the charger at night. Minor annoyances: The accessory ear bud does not have an on/off switch. The optional leather case must be removed before charging. The phone's receptacles for car and cradle charging are different and you can't charge the phone in the cradle while using it, except in speakerphone mode. This is my first flip phone, which took some adjustment. Although the speakerphone works well enough, I don't like the quality of speakerphones on cell phones any more than I do on land lines. Owner's Manual. Worthless. The owner's manual is not much more than a printed version of the phone's menus; it is of little use in learning to use the phone. One example is that there is no reference to conference calling, a feature that I use. Don't expect useful tips from the manual unless your idea of a useful tip is: "Don't crash the car while talking." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87142 2000/6/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 plenty of ringtones downloadable apps two lcd s great speakerphone doesn t connect to your pc without another 50 purchase The Bottom LineThis phone is very practical: speed dial, text messaging, speakerphone, tip calculator. No dazzling features like a camera, but performs well. Full Review Although I am an electronic gadget lover, I don't replace my cell phone too often. In fact, I'm embarrassed to admit that my was purchased in 2001! But one new cell phone feature pushed me to buy a new phone. It wasn't games or fancy ringtones, but simply the built in speakerphone. So I went down to the Verizon kiosk at the mall and asked them "which phone has the best speakerphone," and the LG VX4500 was the immediate recommendation. And they were right. The speakerphone is very loud and clear. It's easy to turn on and off (just press the up button on the directional keypad). It allows me to have my hands free while I'm talking. I had another personal reason for wanting a speakerphone; I use hearing-aids, and putting any cell phone up to my ear usually causes a great variety of buzzes and static. The speakerphone allows me to talk and keep the phone away from my ear. But there are plenty of other features that make the LG VX4500 an excellent phone. It's hard to decide where to begin, but I'll start with the phone book feature. The phone book is pretty advanced. You can store up to 499 entries with up to 5 phone numbers each! You can also store an e-mail address and a URL for each entry. You can customize the ring and the picture ID so you can easily know who is calling. You can put each entry into a different group (family, friends, colleagues, business, school). This makes it easier to search through all 499 of your entries. I like how the contact list is displayed with a little icon next to each name indicating if the default number dialed is a mobile, home, office, pager, or fax number. You can also enter a 2 digit speed-dial for any number, but so far, I find it easier to use the list of contacts rather than memorizing a bunch of speed dials. When you receive a call from anybody in your phone book, the name shows up on the outside LCD. Having two LCD's is very handy with a clamshell design. On the VX4500, the outer LCD is small and monochrome, but it has a backlight. You can easily read the time, date, battery indicator, signal strength, and mailbox indicator. When a call is coming in, a name will be displayed instead of the time. The inside LCD is bright and full color. The resolution is 120x160 pixels, but the display itself seems kind of small. I discovered this when I tried my first game. You can download new games and applications for the VX4500 using the "Get It Now" feature. Each game typically costs $2 to $5. I tried to play an over-the-top shooter game, but it was impossible on such a small screen. Every time I moved, I got shot. It was too hard to see and too hard to control. However, there are other downloadable applications besides games. The phone comes with a very hand tip-calculator already installed. This is the type of functionality that is giving PDA's some serious competition. But this phone is missing something that every PDA has: PC connectivity. Verizon does offer a separate software package and cable for an additional $50, but I would like that ability straight out of the box. They could have done this using Bluetooth. My Nokia N-Gage (which I only use for games) has Bluetooth functionality. No additional PC software is needed to load new games, graphics or ringtones onto the N-Gage. Although the VX4500 ships with 36 ringtones and a few images, there's always that desire for more especially after you discover how to customize phone book entries. I guess Verizon wanted to make sure their customers paid them for each and every new image and ringtone instead of being able to easily install it with their own PC's. So overall, I'm very pleased with the LG VX4500. If I could add one feature it would be Bluetooth. However, I think I'm going to be satisfied with this phone for at least a couple of years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87141 2000/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 it looks nice toy bars The Bottom LineIf you plan on making phone calls with this phone, stay away! Full Review God, I hate Verizon ads. I hate the stupid Verizon guy with their genius line "Can you hear me now?" The Subway guy Jared also annoys me, but I'll save that rant for something else. I tried really hard to like this phone, but I can't. I never had a cell phone in high school, so when I finally got one for college, pretty much anything that worked would've made me happy. That's the thing though...it DOESN'T really work! Cheap Yeah, what's nice about this phone is that it is one of the cheapest Verizon phones. I had to take that into consideration because my mom refused to pay for my phone, so I couldn't spring for a camera phone or anything like that. I believe it was $30 after rebates, which was nice and easy on my wallet. The Verizon lady also noted that she gave me a 732 number. She said it the way I would say something like "Man, I saved your life!" Grrr. Cool Plastic Wrap = Best Thing About This Phone? The coolest thing about this phone was the light blue plastic wrap on the top of the phone. You're supposed to peel it off but I kept it on, as a symbol of my individuality. Haha, seriously though, so many people have this phone, you're better off putting some kind of sticker or mark on it so you can tell it apart from other people in a hurry. Compact This phone's not all bad. Let's talk about the good first. It's nice and compact and easily fits in your pocket. This may seem trivial, but if you have a brick cell-phone like my best friend has, you're just not going to bring it many places. That's why he's always missing calls and stuff. Colorful The 65K color screen is very bright and vibrant. The screen is big enough too, so there's no complaints about the display. Other Nice Stuff It has a nice organizer, tip calculator, regular calculator, and voice recognition too, so you can say "Contacts" and a friend's name so you can call someone without going all the way into your contacts list. Speed-dial is nice and convenient. Battery life does indeed last a few days. Nice. Bad Then why does the banner on my phone wallpaper say "I hatE Verizon"? Toy Bars? I seriously think the reception bars on my phone are just toys. They just show up randomly. Sometimes I'll have no bars, and I can complete a call. Sometimes I'll get the full 6 bars and it won't even let me make a call! The bars have nothing to do with whether my call gets through! More often than not, my calls are garbled, staticy, or just don't get through. If you plan to make phone calls with this thing, I suggest you stay away! My friend's brick phone that I make fun of has much better reception than mine. And his bars aren't fake. I thought about getting one of those reception-boosting things you stick on your battery, but reading those reports of Verizon phones exploding, I decided not to. Other Gripes It doesn't come with any games. You have to buy them all from Verizon's "Get It Now" service. And when you're navigating in the "Get It Now", the transfer speed is really slow. I e-mailed Verizon and asked them to change the name of it to "Getttttt.....Ittttttttt.....Ah, Let's Try Again Later Because This Sh*t's Too Slow." When I say a certain dirty word on voic recognition, it tells me the time. While this is a great source of amusement, it means the voice recognition isn't all that great. The word sounds nothing like "time." When on "manner mode", I often don't feel it vibrate. Also, when someone calls you during class and the phone is on "manner mode", you can still hear it if the class is relatively quiet. Conclusion Just the mere frustration of feeling that the six bars are just painted on and knowing that bars have nothing to do with reception makes me want to destroy this phone. Only 1.5 years left to go on the contract.... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87140 2000/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception voice activation looks good nice screen basic phone no analog receiver The Bottom LineA very nice-looking phone, with great voice activation/speakerphone and good reception. No analog radio. Otherwise it's just a plain phone. Full Review Thanks VZW First a big thank you to Verizon Wireless - I just received this phone today as a replacement for my Kyocera SE47 which has been a nightmare (I went through many warranty replacement units and still had problems - thanks VZW Executive Relations for offering me a free upgrade to this (with a new 2-year which effectively added 6 months to my contract)!). Verizon Wireless (who you'll probably get this phone through in the US, I don't think anyone else here has it) has fantastic support and happily kept replacing the Kyocera Slider, but with a letter directed to the right place I got this. About This Phone - Voice Activation This is a basic phone by LG. I have high expectations for this phone based my previous good luck with LG products (see my reviews on my and my for more information on that). So far, in an afternoon of usage, this phone meets those high expectations. This is not a feature-filled phone in any way, but LG does heavily market it to drivers, busy people, and the visually impaired. It has a fantastic voice activation system. LG has a great demo of how this works on their website at http://us.lge.com/www/product/mobilephones/VX4500demo/ . It's fairly accurate, of course the recognition isn't perfect like that demo would indicate. It's pretty close though, and I haven't trained it in any way. With user-specific training enabled I'm sure you could get it very close. For example, it's digit dial is nearly perfect. It's accuracy is close to 100% if you say the number right (no pauses but not quickly either). With training the SE47 didn't come close to that level of accuracy, and without training it wasn't even usable. Also, on the Kyocera you had to say each digit one at a time, on the LG you just read it fairly naturally (making sure it is at a smooth pace though). All the other voice functions operate very smoothly as well, though the commands aren't -quite- as accurate, especially in a noisy car. It's good though. Very good. So what else does it have? Now that we've got the selling point out of the way, this phone offers very few other special features. It does support Mobile Web 2.0 (which I might subscribe to) and has a nice big screen (though out of the box it looks terrible - the default contrast is too high). The outside screen is a black and white LCD with lilac backlighting. Held at an angle the screen has a holographic green look to it, which helps readability. This screen is surrounded by mirror material. Overall, it's rather feminine looking but also very nice. This design is rounded off by a nice teardrop shape, unfortunately this appears to add unnecessary size to the phone. As expected for a speakerphone unit, this phone has -loud- ringers and a nice selection. One thing many people want is a phone with a plain ring - and this has one (Ring 3) as well as many slightly more fun ringers and a nice choice of musical selections. Additional ringers (and many other applications) can be downloaded for $1.99ea through Verizon's Get It Now! (their branding of Qualcomm BREW - other carriers name it differently but it should usually still be available). Earpiece sound quality and volume is also near the top. The rated battery life is good, and so far, with quite a bit of use it seems to be holding up well, I'll report back in case this becomes an issue but it seems great. Reception This is a big issue for many people (myself included living in Montana...). I'm not going to say this phone has fantastic reception, but it's got good reception for sure. If you want great reception get a cheap little Nokia - they're fantastic. But this phone is definitely a solid performer, which holds it's own against most other phones. It's definitely better than the Kyocera Slider and my mother's LG VX-4400 (that's not as definite, but it does seem a little better) despite having a non-extendable antenna (which I honestly don't think matters) One thing worth noting is that is a dual-band CDMA phone. This means that it runs on 850MHz and 1900MHz but only in CDMA mode. Many other Verizon phones also support 850MHz AMPS (the traditional analog system). Verizon has CDMA on all their towers that I'm aware of (certainly on all their towers here), but Verizon has free roaming partners ("Extended Network") which have sections without CDMA, or which use a different digital technology (mainly GSM) meaning they only share AMPS in common. In these areas many other Verizon phones will give you service and this one just won't. These areas are decreasing by the day, but they do still exist. Not huge, but definitely something to note. The SE47 was dual-mode as well so it's no different for me. Conclusion I know what you're thinking - we've reached the conclusion already?. Well, yes. This is a basic phone with a very nice voice activation function, good screen, and overall a lot of practicality. If you're looking a fun phone consider maybe an LG VX-6100, VX-7000, or if you're rich a VX-8000. If you're like me and want to first and foremost make calls, the LG VX-4500 is a good choice. It's main drawback is the lack of an analog radio. But otherwise it's quite nice. If you have any questions about the phone please feel free to email me and I'll answer them and include the information in my review. Thanks, Mark Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87139 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker quality is superb voice activation technology is great microphone button too easy to activate The Bottom LineIf you going with Verizon Wireless I highly recommend the LG VX4500 wireless phone; again it is far and away the best cellular phone I have ever used. Full Review My new job comes with some great new perks I have never had before, including a brand new cell phone, an LG VX4500 offered by Verizon Wireless. Of course this means that I can (and have) be called into work on a moments notice, but I get a free cell phone and service as part of the bargain and that's not at all bad, considering the phone. Despite my (past) un-natural allegiance to Motorola cell phones, which probably can be attributed to the fact that I used to work for the company, the LG VX4500 is by far the best mobile phone I've ever owned. The Phone What's in the Box • LG VX4500 cell phone • Desktop charger with adapter • Standard lithium-ion battery • Holster with belt clip • User's manual • Welcome CD • Quick Reference Guide The LG VX4500 features a traditional clamshell design with a large TFT color display with 65,000 colors. The LG VX4500 is a small phone, but certainly not the smallest I have ever owned. When its clamshell is closed, the phone measures some 3.5 inches long, 2 inches wide, and just under 1 inch thick.. The LG VX4500 weighs in at only 3.7 ounces. And like most cell phones in this class, the LG VX4500 is powered by a single lithium ion battery. The outside of the silver toned LG VX4500 is adored with the now ubiquitous cover display screen made famous and useful by Motorola that offers the user a number of useful readouts. These include signal strength, battery power status, message notification, and prominent time readout. When an incoming call is received the display will backlight (monotone) and the callers name and or number are displayed. The left side of the phone is the business side; here you will find the headphone jack, volume and voice controls. The bottom of the phone is adorned with a rather large and very clear speaker, and the battery compartment. The top of the phone is festooned with a gray non-telescoping antenna, while the bottom edge of the phone features a USB-capable data and charging port. The inside LCD display panel is a full color somewhat subdued display; it is not as bright as some, but not a dull as others. There are several different wallpaper designs to choose from. Above the LCD is a rather large, and again astoundingly clear earpiece, while below the LCD is a full complement of blue back-lit (number and function/navigational) keys. In addition, the phone features two soft keys that activate functions on the screen above them, but most of the phone's features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset's blue backlit control pad. At the heart of the LG VX4500 are the phone's vigorous calling features, and the heartbeat is the speaker-induced voice recognition that allows you to place calls and access other essential features of the phone. The excellent built-in 2-way speakerphone makes it easy for you to talk hands-free while driving. .By placing the LG VX4500 in "driving mode" voice commands for contacts, digit dialing, redial, voice mail, driving, schedule and time are all made available so you can control these functions with the sound of your voice. The same functionality is realized by pushing the Microphone button on the left side of the phone. The LG VX4500 allows you to access up to 99 speed-dialing numbers almost instantaneously. The VX4500 features a built-in address book that can store up to 499 contacts for quick and easy access and management of people, phone numbers, and email addresses. The LG VX4500 ships with 36 built-in ringers/ring-tones that can be associated with 36 different callers so you can easily identify who's calling you; my daughter loves this feature. The LG VX4500 also features a "Voice scheduler," wherein you can record a 10 second message as well as a text message to alert on to an event. The phone will ring with the ringer of your choice to alert you to the event, and you can set it to ring at the time of the event, 10 minutes before the event, 1hr. before the event or a couple of days before the event. Anyone familiar with the functionality of a computer-based contact manager will be at home here. Impressions and Conclusion I like this phone. The LG VX4500 is feature rich and takes me place a Motorola phone never ventured. While the form and basic functionality is duplicated in almost every phone on the market, LG improves upon the model by placing a high premium on the voice functionality of this phone. Unlike most Motorola models I've used, the built-in speaker on the LG VX4500 is crisp, clear, and virtually static free. I like the way the phone fits in the palm of my hand; it is light weight and curves just right to allow the right amount of space between ear and mouth, not unlike land-line phones of old. The selection of polysonic ring-tones is also appreciated, and I have to admit that it is fun to play with them, assigning different tones to different contacts. The hands-free features of the phone is very useful, but I have to admit that I do not use them very much, since I still have a personal cell phone I use in the car. I use both a standard desktop charger and a travel charger with my phone. I use the desktop charger at home; I like the fact that the LG VX4500 snaps into pace on the charge, though finagling the phone into place take practice. Connectors on the bottom of the phone charge the phone. The travel charge plugs into the bottom of phone and a triangle shaped LED tells you when the phone is charging (red), and when it completed it job (yellow). If you going with Verizon Wireless I highly recommend the LG VX4500 wireless phone; again it is far and away the best cellular phone I have ever used. Features: • Voice command capabilities for dialing and accessing other features • Large, 65,000-color internal display • 26 ring tones plus vibrating alert • 2-way speaker phone • GPS capable for E911 emergency location • Unit Weight: 3.7 oz. • Size (in inches): 1.92 x 3.46 x 0.94 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87138 2005/3/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 crisp color screen size clarity of voices from speakerphone volume button on side of phone can send caller to voice mail by accident The Bottom LineThis little guy is a great new addition to the LG line. Full Review I wrote a review almost a year ago on the cell phone. I really liked it. I STILL like it. Unfortunately, I hated Sprint PCS so I recently switched to Verizon (which I like MUCH better) and that meant I had to get a new phone. So, I started looking on-line at Verizon's offerings and in my price range there wasn't that much I was interested in. I went to a Verizon dealer to look at the phones up close. The phone is primarily for business use so I had certain basic requirements that I find essential: --2-way speakerphone, so I can be at my computer and type while on conference calls --Mute button so when I'm on conference calls in the car, or at home, background noise doesn't disturb the others on the call. --Decent battery life I spend so much time on the phone that by the end of the day most of the cordless phones in the house are dead, and I spend a fair amount of time on the cell phone. This phone has a web browser and web capable, but personally, I really don't care that much about web access. It's expensive and the response rate is too slow. So, I looked around at the Verizon store and found the phone I would eventually buy: The new LG VX4500. I like this phone a helluva lot more than my old Sanyo and that's saying a LOT. As I said in my other phone reviews, I'm not going to be verbose discussing features that are on all cell phones (i.e. headphone jack, how to turn it on and off, etc.). Like many cell phones this one is menu driven and very intuitive. The screen, while small, is very clear and easy to read. There are way too many features to discuss in this review. The user guide is about 160 pages!!! Here is a limited selection of the features: Contact List While I believe most cell phones have the capabilities for storing contacts, you can store 499 contacts in this baby, each contact with 5 phone numbers! Each entry can be up to 22 characters which is much better than my Sanyo on which I was constantly having to truncate names. Each phone number can be up to 48 digits. Not bad, huh? You can also save different ringers for each phone number...so you can know who's calling from the ring (and I know many phones do have this feature). Speed Dial My old Sanyo only allowed speed dial from 2-9, while this phone allows 2-99. Speed dial 1 is always for voice mail. To be perfectly honest, I have a terrible memory and while all those speed dials are nice...I have a difficult time remembering more than 5 or 6. (Call my bad memory a fact of my old age, or dumb stuff I did many years ago in college, which I no longer condone. Lol) Recent Calls While most phones let you see your last 10 dialed, received, and missed calls, this phone also has a Call Listing . This lists the total amount of time on different types of calls: Last Call, Home Calls, Roam Calls, and All calls. Get It Now Verizon's technology to download and use applications on the phone: Watch video, email using MSN Hotmail, America Online and Yahoo accounts, download ringers, games, receive sports/weather/stock alerts, and all kinds of other cool stuff. I won't go into all the details on exactly what all these are because the review would take too long for you to get through. Warning! Of course, monthly subscription charges/messaging rates apply which is why this stuff is cool but I don't use it. VOICE Now this is awesome! The voice feature lets you activate certain features of your phone such as the Scheduler, Memo, and Driving Mode. You can voice dial a name from your contact list. I love this. You press the Voice dial key on the side of the phone and a nice woman asks you to speak a command. So you say, "sixteen ounce T-bone, medium rare." Funny thing here is that nothing happens! But if you say "Contacts" she says, "Please say a name" and then the contact you want is dialed. I love it! I had a similar feature on my phone with Sprint, but it didn't work very well because first you had to record the name of the contact and then repeat it exactly the same way. With this LG phone, you only have to say the contact name and it's recognized from the typed listing. Tools I won't bore you detailing stuff like the calculator, world clock, or notepad, but this phone has a Tip Calculator!!!!! You plug in the amount of the bill, the % tip you want to leave and how many ways you want to split the bill and it's figured out for you. COOL!!! Battery Life Now I know this is near and dear to my heart since I'm on the phone so much. I downgraded my old Samsung because of the lousy battery life (among other things. That phone was plain awful as you can see from many Epinion reviews). This battery is stated to have 189 minutes talk time (~3 hours) and standby time of 110 HOURS. The battery DOES seem to have a decent talk time, but I'm not sure if the 3 hours is accurate. And I certainly cannot speak to the 110 hours standby. My phone is never in that mode for that period of time where I can accurately tell you if that's real. Speakerphone This little baby has one of the best speakerphones I've EVER heard. It's loud and very clear. Ringers This is something that's gotten to be very popular. The phone comes with 26 different ringers. Unlike my older Sanyo the volume can get very high on the ringers. You can also pay and download other ringers. I did this to get my Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven), Kansas (Dust in the Wind), and a couple of other favorite ringers. One thing I do NOT like is that you cannot browse all the ringers on-line. You pay for the ringers from one of a couple of different sources, then get on your phone and have to start browsing from there. Verizon should allow you to view and listen to the ringers BEFORE you use airtime to download. Other This little flip phone is tiny! It only weighs 3.7 oz and is only about 3.5 inches high when closed. Also there is a display on the outside which displays the time. When the phone rings, the caller ID is also displayed. My phone came with the desk charger, a car charger, and a headset, and a plastic holster to clip on your belt. When I check out Verizon's web site it doesn't mention that this phone comes with the car charger, headset, and holster. I know I didn't pay any extra so I'm not sure if those are included with all the phones or I just got some sort of special. Is there ANYTHING I don't like about this phone? Yes, there is one incredibly annoying thing that brings the rating down from 5 stars to 4 stars. There is a volume button on the side of the phone. BUT when you grab the phone to answer a call it's very difficult to NOT press that volume button. The problem is that when you press it when the phone is ringing......you've sent your call directly to your voice mail. I have done that sooooo many times. Now I'm super careful in handling my phone and especially when I'm taking it out of the holster when it's ringing. Another feature I wish was on this phone was the ability to have the ringer AND the vibrate feature at the same time like the Sanyo 4900. This phone does have a vibrate feature, but it's to use instead of the ringer. Before I actually posted this review I bought a Verizon leather case for the phone which is really nice except for one thing. In order to use the desk charger, you have to take the case off! You don't have to worry about the car charger because there's an opening to allow you to connect it, but it's a problem if you use the other charger. If you have Verizon, I highly highly highly recommend this phone. I'm not sure if any of the other wireless services offer this model. If you feel I've left out any critical information, please let me know and I'll be happy to revise the review! Update 4/22/04 I received an email from someone who read my review and she made a comment about one of the features of the phone that I feel I should discuss. I didn't think much of it when I wrote the review because the phone was still pretty new, but this is something that is somewhat frustrating on the Voice Activation feature. The voice activation feature, which will dial a contact via a voice command, will work ONLY on the first number programmed for the contact. So if you have an office number, home number, and cellular number for someone, the voice feature works only on the first number you program for that contact. You can get around that by creating separate entries for a person, but that is kind of a pain in the neck and defeats the purpose of having one contact with multiple phone numbers. Update 3/29/05 Ok I have a couple of updates. First, I still love this phone and highly recommend it! Earlier in my review I mentioned not having the ability to have the ringer and vibrate at the same time. Someone left me a comment telling me that it is a feature in the phone and he was correct. I should have updated the review about this, but I neglected to. Also I noticed that while the battery was great in the beginning it didn't take long for it to stop holding the charge. I bought an extended hour battery but haven't noticed a significant difference in battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87137 2005/4/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good screen better battery life improved from 4400 sleek belt clip improved no analog mode charger can be annoying front mirror gets dirty The Bottom LineThis isn't a top of the line phone, but it reflects LG's improvements, is light, sleek, better battery life and reception - everything I need. Full Review In the midst of chaos, I did something I never have done before. I lost my cell phone. Never in my life have I left my lights on, locked myself out, lost something important. I missed having my trusty , which was only one year old. At the time, I thought it was fortunate that my cell phone was insured. After getting three refurbished LG VX 4400's which were broken, the insurance company, Asurion, finally sent me a new phone, the LG VX 4500. Appearance The LG VX 4500 is a flip phone and weighs in at 3.7 oz. The dimensions measure 3.46H x 1.92W x 0.94D inches. The phone is mainly silver, with a metallic mirror-like section around the screen. The screen displays the time and other most relevant items of importance, and is almost holographic so that it glows green when you're looking right at it as opposed to other angles where it appears as a normal digital screen. This phone has a color screen with 65,536 colors. The key pad inside the phone lights up when you open the phone. Most of the keys are lit up in blue with the exception of the "send" and "end" keys. There is an antenna on the top which does not extend. The only exterior buttons are the volume (up/down) on the side as well as the microphone button. There is also the spot for the hands-free port. The only thing I really have to say about the appearance is that the phone looks very nice, and the mirrored section around the outer display is great to use as a mini mirror! (Ladies, rejoice. Say you're on a date and you want to inconspicuously check out your lipstick. Here's your chance!) The downside to it is that it gets pretty gross pretty fast. Within minutes of getting my phone, I tried buffing it with my shirt to get rid of the fingerprints, which basically smeared the dirt around. I find a tissue works best! LG VX 4500 - Features Talk: 3.25 hours Standby: 165 hours (6.9 days) All Digital handset 2-way speaker phone 499 phone book entries TTY and TDD compatible GPS capable for E911 emergency location Meets FCC SAR limit. Manufacturer's highest FCC reported SAR 1.24 at ear, 1.18 on body. Actual SAR may vary. Menu Features This phone has your typical menu and options: - contacts - phone book - recent calls - keeps track of incoming, missed, and dialed calls - messages - voice or text messages - "get it now" - extras you can pay for (background images, ring tones, etc.) - mobile web - go online - my media - graphics, music, message objects - voice - various voice settings - tools - alarm clock, notepad, tip calculator, calculator, world clock - settings - things like sounds (ring tones, volume, etc), display, etc. - phone info - icon glossary, your phone number, some other phone details - organizer - schedule, alarm clock, notepad, voice memo My Comparison with the LG VX 4400 - . . . Several Improvements in the Past Year! "...mid-range successor to the popular 4400. This dual-band CDMA phone features speakerphone, advanced voice control, dual displays, BREW, 1xRTT high-speed data, and polyphonic ringtones." I immediately noticed some improvements or enhancements made to this phone in comparison with the 4400 model that I had before. I am comparing the two only because it shows how LG has made several noticable improvements to the phone that have made it quite different from the most previous model. First, this phone is lighter and smaller. The talk and standby times have improved (up from 3 and 110 hours, respectively). The screen looks nicer and there are more options. For the most part, it looks similar to the 4400, but the menu looks a little cleaner and the font a little clearer. The 120 x 160 resolution is an improvement (compare with the 120 x 133). The exterior screen also looks pretty neat and is very sophisticated looking. Although I am probably not going to buy a phone because it has more ring tones, background wallpaper, or more space in the address book (499 phone number capacity compared to 199), it is nice. There are 36 ringtones which are pretty cool and including some interesting ones (like "ding") (and again, up from my 4400's 26 tones). Another improvement is that the belt clip does not keep the phone closed. I was told it was originally made that way because people complained that the phone caught on things and was inadvertently opened - but I prefer it the way it is on the LG VX 4400. This way, I can take a call and talk on it while the phone sits in the clip. Changes I Don't Like & Other Potential Downsides A difference that I can't tell if is better or worse is that the silent/manner/normal mode button is now the "*" key (you hold it down), rather than the button on the side of the phone, which is now the microphone/driving mode button. It is convenient and nice to have that driving setting available there, although I still use the silent mode button more often, so it's hard to tell which I like better. I noticed my husband's and some other people's phones (different brands) have the mode button on the keypad as well. One of the reasons I originally had bought the 4400 was that it had analog mode. The 4500 has CDMA only. However, I was willing to take that "downside" because, although we travel quite a bit, it hasn't been a major factor in getting a cell phone signal. Given that I had my 4400 for over a year, analog modes on phones are becoming less popular and less needed as well. Another gripe I have about this phone is that when I put it on the charger, it doesn't tell me that it is charging. It can also be a little fussy to get the phone in the charger, because the bottom half is slightly wider. Once in the charger, the charger light stays red and the phone's screen doesn't change. My last phone would light up and read "Battery Charging". Sometimes you can put the phone just right so that it isn't actually charging, so now I just make sure it really is in place. When it is done charging, the charger light turns green, and obviously the battery indicator shows as full. Along the same lines, the screen on the outside of the phone would flash colors (depending on which color you set it to) when a call was coming in. The 4500 has a little light on the corner that flashes colors, but it isn't as visible and obnoxious as my previous phone. (I loved that feature!) I love the outside window, but I am constantly "buffing" it on my shirt to keep it clean. The mirror-like finish gets dirty very easily, and my co-worker constantly does the same with hers to keep it shiny. More Thoughts & Experiences LG definitely made some improvements in their phones over the past year, and this has turned out to be a nice phone. I lost my analog mode in the upgrade process, but it was worth it. I find that this phone is user friendly. Granted, I owned the previous model, but this was pretty easy to figure out even with several changes. I am able to navigate through the menu options without any difficulties. The icons are simple and straightforward and it is a breeze to browse. I think the reception has improved on this phone. One of our bedrooms got awful reception with my last phone - just one or two bars - whereas with this phone I easily get four bars. I used to have problems chatting on the phone in that room because the signal was bad, sometimes even losing the call. I really think that in general the signal seems improved. Of course, it's also great that the battery life is improved. Overall I really rely on my cell phone quite a bit, which is why it is important that I have a fairly good phone. Although this is not a top of the line phone, it does not disappoint. It may not have bells and whistles like camera capability, but those aren't the things I am looking for in a phone. (I have read that consumers are often frustrated with too many and often-unnecessary features like camera phones). The LG VX 4500 is reliable, dependable, looks great and is user friendly. LG also did a good job of improving this phone from last year. LG: http://www.lge.com Verizon: http://www.verizonwireless.com My review of the and the Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87136 2000/3/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good soundcommands nice display long talk time charging platform is awkward placement of outside buttons The Bottom LineThis is a very good value in a cell phone, with all the bells and whistles you could hope for at a lower than average cost. Full Review Cell phones are a part of a large number of consumers' communication devices and they are considered by many to be an essential piece of electronic equipment. I have been using cell phones on and off for many years now. But recently, when my old cell phone began to have trouble keeping a charge due to a dying battery, I decided to go cell- free for a while to see what it was like. Needless to say, I quickly discovered that I have grown dependant on my cell phone and I need one to keep in close contact with students, family members, and others. Rather than buy a new battery, I decided it was time for a new phone and a new beginning in cell phone technology. My contract with Verizon was up for renewal, so the opportunity for a new phone was ripe. My choice of cell phones was the LG VX4500, a flip- style phone with plenty of capabilities. Features of This Phone: LG VX4500 is a small phone when closed, measuring only 3.5 inches (9cm) in length, 2 inches (5 cm) in width, and just under 1 inch (2.5 cm) in thickness. The unit weighs only 3.7 ounces (110 grams) and it is powered by a single lithium ion battery. The inside display panel on this phone is rectangular in shape and the LCD display is in full color, with several different background designs to choose from. When the flip- top is closed, the panel is, of course, hidden from view. But on the outside there is another display- this one with a black/gray LCD that indicates the time, AM/PM, the date, signal strength, and battery level. When a call comes in, it shows the phone number on the display in place of the time and date. Once opened, you can see the different features of the phone. Besides the LCD display, you have the usual numbered keys, a navigational key, right and left soft keys (for making selections off of the menus), microphone, and earpiece. Other commands are activated by pressing the keys on the left side of the phone, on the outside of the body, to change the volume level or to activate the light. This device also has a speakerphone, earphone jack, and vibration alert. There is a voice- activation system that some will like, as well as web access capabilities, games, an alarm clock, calculator, 26 different ring tones to choose from, and storage space for 499 phone numbers. Pricing: This model of LG phone sells for about $50. When I got mine at a Verizon center, it was free with the renewal of my service plan, but the regular price of the phone was listed as $79. I'm pretty sure this price reflects Verizon's marketing strategy. It is closer to the manufacturer's suggested retail price ands Verizon uses it to make customers think they are receiving something more valuable than they really are, as an enticement to sign up for a service plan or to renew. But checking several on- line sites, I had no trouble at all finding this phone priced for $20 to $30 less. Customer Service: If you need help or have questions about this phone, you can consult the web site, lge.com. The web site is more than just an informational resource- it is also a place to buy additional accessories, batteries, chargers, etc. and to find out more facts about the corporate headquarters. You can also call 800-793-8896 to get answers to more specific questions. Final Thoughts: LG VX4500 is a very good cell phone that performs most of the functions a modern- day cell phone should perform and it has the necessary bells and whistles to keep most users happy. This phone, while less costly than many of the big names (like Motorola, Nextel, and others), still has as many features as the higher priced communication devices. Probably the main reason I selected this type of phone was for its compact size. My old cell phone didn't have a flip top and it took up too much space. If I put it in my pocket, I could feel the phone with a minimal amount of bending and I found I was constantly moving it around or switching to a different pocket. With this phone, the size is so compact I can place it in my pants pocket and not even know its there. I can even, if necessary, place it in my shirt pocket and the length of the phone is short enough that it cannot be seen. My old phone was too long for this. The top would protrude from my chest if I tried to store it in a shirt pocket. Now, let's talk about this phone's functionality. The menu selections allows for mobile web access, voice commands, games, and other things. The voice commands are great for those who like to keep their hands free and let their voices control the phone. The phone talks to you, asks questions, and you answer back with the appropriate command. I sometimes use this in conjunction with the speakerphone for a simple, hands- free call. Once the voice command is activated, all I do is speak the name of the person from my stored numbers list and the phone will call them. I like the color display panel on this phone. One push of any button (or upon flipping the lid open), and the panel lights up, showing your selected background scene, the time, date, battery level indicator, signal strength, service indicator, vibration mode indicator, digital indicator, and voice mail indicator. Press the menu key on the left side and the nine selections (contacts, recent call, messages, get it now, mobile web, my media, web, tools, and settings) will display on your screen in bright, easy to read colors. Push the key on the right side and you will see a quick display of your personal contacts. This is a vast improvement over my old phone, which required several pushes before getting to the contact list- something many consider the most important part of the phone's memory and the part they access more than any other. One push of a button is all it takes with this phone. I like this phone's compact size, its ease of use, and its overall appearance. But one thing I don't like are the two external buttons, located on the left side of the phone. The lower button is used to quickly activate the light so you can read the panel in low- lighting conditions. The upper button is used to change the volume level of the ringer. These are nice features, but what I don't like is the placement of these buttons. If your phone is in your pocket, it is very easy to accidentally push the buttons. This is no big deal if you accidentally push the light button, but it can lead to an embarrassing moment if you accidentally push the volume key and turn the sound up high. Also, because the buttons are placed where they are, it is inevitable that you will push the buttons when you attempt to answer a call. They are placed in the exact position where your thumb goes (when held in your left hand) and I cannot count the times I have pushed the volume key without meaning to do it. If you accidentally press the volume button when you are attempting to answer a call, it will send your caller into voice mail. One way to avoid this is by keeping the phone inside the clip, because this safeguards against inadvertently pressing the buttons. But you really shouldn't have to do this and LG Electronics needs to improve this feature. The manufacturer claims this phone has 189 minutes of talk time per full charge. I haven't timed it to verify, but I can affirm that this phone does offer a long amount of talk time. I have never experienced the phone going dead. I charge it only about once every three or four days and it has never failed. Even after a very long conversation and after two or three days without charging, the battery indicator still shows half of the bars, indicating it still has plenty of time remaining before it dies. This brings me to another small disadvantage of this phone: The charging device. Other cell phones have a cord that plugs directly into the base or side of the phone for charging. LG phones instead have their own charging base. This is a platform that the phone must be locked into in order to charge. It isn't difficult to do, so I'm not going to deduct any points in my rating. But it isn't nearly as convenient as other phone cord charging devices. Once the phone is placed in the charging unit, it will display a red light to indicate it is charging. Once the charging is complete, the light will display a steady green glow. It takes about two or three hours to complete the charging process. The sound quality on this phone is good and, if anything, the sound is often a little too loud and clear. People in the nearby vicinity of my phone can often hear the voices of people I'm talking to loud and clear. So I have never had any trouble at all with sound. The only time this phone has not worked to my satisfaction was this past weekend when I was walking along the Atlantic Ocean coast. I was not able to get a strong enough signal to place a call. Of course, this is probably not the fault of the phone- it is probably because of the tower signal from Verizon not making it to an area on the edge of the ocean. Once I walked back inland, near the resorts, the phone worked with no problem. This phone comes with a belt clip to fasten the phone to your clothing. There is no other accessory, like a car cord, leather case, headsets, or anything else that comes with the phone. You have to purchase these items separately. And even though there are 26 different ring tones, some people will want to download specialized tones off of the internet, which again carries an added cost. Overall, I am happy with the purchase of my LG VX4500 phone. I selected it over the less expensive LG VX3000 phone because the cheaper model doesn't have the outside display panel, which means you have to open up the flip top when a call comes in to see who is calling you. This added display was worth the extra money. The next level up- the LG VX6000- has the added luxury of a camera. I felt this wasn't worth the added cost, since I don't have much need for this feature, but some people may disagree. LG VX4500 is a very good cell phone that satisfies my needs with its compact design, voice commands, clear sound, and ease of use. It could be improved with a few changes to the placement of the buttons. But this is still a very good phone and a great value for the money. Other cell phones like Motorola offer a more prestigious name, but they cost much more without any added features. Buy LG VX4500 instead, and save yourself some money while still enjoying all the conveniences of a modern communication device. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7687 LG VX4400 87246 2003/10/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 advanced features color bad holster software I've seen MANY phones. LG's 4400 is very good. As in previous models (tm510 etc) LG managed to overcome some common maker's mistakes. Unlike in Samsung and others, face display is readable without a backlit making the phone perfect watch (though in newer camera model -- 6000 LG trashed it and made front LCD useless) However, there are some shortcomings: 1) Holster locks screen making it impossible to open phone in the holster. 2) snap-in docking charger is too hard to snap phone in-and-out. Sometimes battery gets dislodged when removing from docking charger. 3) The worst: SYNC software is bad, not compatible with previous models(i.e. doesn't syncronize schedule, voice tags) 4) Can't use as modem: unlike tm510 which could be used as regular modem, 4400 requires Verizon's subscription-proprietery software to connect to internet with this phone. 87245 2003/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight logical menunavigation great screen resolutoin battery life needs to be extended but still better than many competing phones This phone from Verizon in NYC metro area was an excellent replacement for my wife's StarTac (when we dropped Sprint). Screen resolution is excellent (albeit small font for users with limited eyesight), menus and command navigation are well-thought out. My wife (primary user) loves the voice command function, especially for dialing. Receiver sensitivity and transmission power seem adequate (former provides good audio quality; latter is dependent on VZ's tower network). Standard battery life could be longer, but overall is sufficient for a day of *moderate* mobile use. Surprise to see so many Korean companies making top-line consumer electronic goods: looks like LG (and Samsung) will give the Japanese and Nokia a run for this market! 87244 2004/8/10 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 everything is good except for the battery battery will break off easily battery is of poor quality LG designed their batteries so that the two little plastic notches holding the battery on to the phone will break off easily, thus making it so the consumer will have to keep buying batteries. Furthermore, the battery life is short, and the battery has to be replaced after about a hundred charges. Don't buy LG phones! 87243 2004/1/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 nice size clear screen battery life nowhere near what they claim can t turn wallpaper off no simple ring tones I had high expectations of this phone since it was rated so high by Consumer reports. I was disappointed by the sound quality and reception. My old Nokia (which never was rated that well) had much better reception for me. I wanted a good phone for making phone calls. I did not need the web, the Get It Now stuff the color screen and all the other stuff that was in the phone. I hated the screen. The wallpaper makes the text on the screen near impossible to read at a glance. And, it cannot be disabled. The outer screen is awesome. Well deigned, and clearly displays a lot of info. The inner screen is polluted with too much stuff. How could they do one screen so well and the other so poorly? The ring tones are all garbage. There is no simple ascending ring tone. This phone is getting returned. I will keep my lowly rated Nokia. It did phone calls better without all the gimmicks. 87242 2003/12/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality amazing features no speakerphone not too many flips have it illogical icon menus poor manual I've only had the phone for 1 day, but so far I am extremely happy with it. My wife commented that the voice quality was much better than the previous phone that I had for 2 week (had to return the Audiovox 8600 for poor signal strength and poor voice quality). I have a question that hopefully someone could answer. I know that the manufacturer always warns about using third party accessories, but does anyone know where I can get a non OEM car charger that will not damage the phone. I found a retailer at factorydirectcellular.com. I know that they try to appear to sell OEM products which they obviously are not, but does anyone know if their products are good quality that will not damage the phone. 87241 2003/12/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reasonable battery life excellent color display nice simple messaging features 3 vx6000 out there 1 only 199 phone book entries 2 no built in speakerphone The LG vx4440 is clearly for busy people: No fla-fla, straight to the point, a graphic internet browser with a color display, voice notes, and a strong built with good sound quality. But I don't understand why they didn't kick in a built-in speakerphone, the feature of choice for businesspeople in a world where legislators are putting bans on phone use while driving. And why just 200 phone book entries in a market where 500 is the trend? These are the two main flaws that I see, which doesn't mean the LG vx4400 isn't good. If you're not the most demanding business user around, getting a good price and a good service plan with the vx4400 may be just what you need. But also consider other options such as the Sanyo SCP-4900 or Nextel's i95cl. Another alternative is the new VX6000 which excells in display quality, speed you get built-in camera. 87240 2004/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 operationally sound good features good battery life ringer bug text browser This phone is very user friendly and feature rich. Without writing a speech this is a great phone. Battery life *fantastic*, especially when in a Verizon 1x area. Menus are nice and easy to navigate. I do use the phone to check my Yahoo! email and thats working out good. The text browser is.... well, a text browser. What can i say, use it if ya have to. So if your interested in web surfing for fun on the phone this one's not for you. This phone displays 10 lines of text as opposed to 7 like many other text phones. The only software bug I have found so far is when the ringer is set to "Vib and High" it just vibrates. 87239 2003/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 flip phone easy menus games attractive really weak reception really can t talk while charging The LG VX4400 is a beautiful looking phone, with lots of bells and whistles. I tried it in Colorado Springs, CO, using Verizon. Even in a large city, with few obstacles, I could not use this phone in my own house because the other party could not hear and understand me. Switched over to the new Motorola T730, which has similar bells and whistles, and is ALSO a great looking flip phone, like the LG. Much better performance now. You might be happy with this LG phone if Verizon has excellent cell towers in your area... but I know that other people have also complained about its poor reception, so my advice is to stay away. Incidentally, you cannot talk on this phone or answer this phone while it is charging (unlike Motorola phones). If its dead, you simply have to wait for it to recharge before you can use it at all. And the phone sticks in the charger, making it even more difficult to disconnect and try to answer the phone quickly. If you're slow at grabbing phone calls, this is a big problem! 87238 2005/1/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity signal battery life durability vibration mode is not strong enough Battery life Clarity and signal I have owned both a LG TM510 and VX4400 and purchased a VX3200 for my son. I would never buy another brand. These phones are as sturdy as my first Motorola Brick from more than 10 years ago. I've dropped them, banged them and even drowned them and they keep on ticking. 87237 2003/10/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 etc small size nice color screen can download different tones pics can not talk without taking holster off battery dies easily from talking to much i bought this phone from Verizon. i have had no trouble with the service. the phone works great. it has cool features plus you can download games, tones, pics, etc. the battery is good but it will die if you talk a lot. i know because i do tons of talking on nights and weekends which is free time for me. the screen is bright and clear. the sub LCD screen on the front has the time and date which is nice. one cool thing about the front LCD screen is you can change the standby color. just kinda cool. a quality phone and i would recommend it highly. it is both digital and analog and also has GPS for the 911 service if so needed. you cant kill this thing. barring dropping it in the toilet it will not break. 87236 2004/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated small speed dialing different color choicespictures pricey with or without a contract side button ignores calls if pressed by accident I have always wanted a flip phone especially since most people u see today have flip phones. They fit wherever u want them too and pick up and hang up so easily. You can easily ignore a call by pressing the side buttons. I get a lot of compliments on my phone because of the cool colors and cool pictures I can download on my phone. 87235 2004/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lighted keys great displays comfortablesubstantial feel in hand reasonable battery life poor manualsketchy information on some settings I have had excellent reception in the Dallas Texas area, no calls dropped. Navigating through the menus is instinctive and more than adequate choices are provided even though explanation of some functions is sketchy or simply not present (Auto Volume for example). Battery life seems limited but workable. This phone is stylish. I love the choice of Speed Dials or Voice Dialing. Some advance planning of Phone Book entries is a good idea for the Speed and Voice dialing functions. 87234 2003/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen good battery life good reception fun rings user manual i got an lg vx4400 about three months ago, prior to this i had a nextel, i hated it. i ended up getting this phone, and i automatically fell in love with it. 87233 2004/2/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 nice features sound poor reception reliability battery life I'm on my fourth phone (3 months period). Everybody is talking about how good is this phone, including Verizon. Well, if this phone is so good why my phone keeps freezing (Maybe Mr. Gate created the software for it), shuts down on its own (maybe the cell-phone ghost doesn't like me), resets while I'm on a call (wait my ears are SO big I may be pushing the secret reset code). Today I will get my fifth phone, please wish me luck. Maybe I'm lucky enough to get the one you all are saying is a great phone! 87232 2004/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 you can t kill it I have had this phone for almost a year now, and I love it. But what's more, it is the most durable little thing on the planet. I've dropped it numerous times, it's been sat on kicked and once I even dropped it in a puddle. I thought for sure that time it would be dead and I'd have to get a new one, but nope. I took the battery out dried it off and I haven't had any problems whatsoever. Many people commented on how it's a fragile little thing so I felt I had to write to say, no indeed it is not fragile and if you had put the phone to the same abuse I have you would know that. I think that many people think of it as fragile because it's so small, but I've known people that dropped their phone once and it never worked right again. My best friend, one other friend and I all have these phones and all agree that they will probably last forever. 87231 2004/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 it s 99 9 perfect speaker tends to have too much treble hurts my ear I did lots of research before buying this phone therefore I knew what I was getting what I got it! I was thoroughly surprised at how easy this phone was to use. I didn't even need the manual...I just started pressing buttons & figured it out on my own...my theory: "if I can figure it out on my own relatively quickly, then it's a good phone," and it was. A lot of folks complained about the manual but I found it very descriptive. I love the sleekness, the design, the feel, the screen....I am 99.9% happy with it. 87230 2004/1/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception great phone faceplates aren t easily changable I owned this phone for over 6 months and loved it. I have Verizon and recently upgraded to the LG Picture phone(VX6000) and gave my father my LG-VX4400. I loved this phone but wanted the picture capabilites so I upgraded. Color phone with an external LCD screen with Time, date and number display. This phone is great, you have so many features on this phone it is hard to know where to start. It has a Calander similar to a PDA which you can set alerts and other features for meetings and appointments. The phone book can store all your numbers that you ever need including email addresses as well, you can have different ringtones for groups or individuals. A detailed break down of minutes used on the timers for home and roaming minutes. It has the mobile web and get it now features what are really cool, you can download applications for ringtones and all kinds of different applications. It also has a tip calculator as well as a regular calculator and world clock. I loved this phone and hated to give it up. 87229 2004/11/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 i really like the voice dialing i like the color screen snappy little phone the voice dialing sometimes is a little sluggish but still i like it well i have had this phone for a little over a week, I have had the battery down to 1 line and put it on the charge and was still able to use the phone. I were it on my belt clip everyday in and out of cars,desk chairs,forktrucks,and machines all day everyday, have only had the side keys change 1 time and that was to manner mode. which is vibrate, when i got the phone i did not get a manual but from what i read here it is to complacated anyway. i went to yahoo groups vx4400 and find help on what manner mode was. so far i am very happy with the phone, recpetion calls, ringtones. if anything changes on this my opion of this phone i will update this, but so far am very happy with the phone and service. 87228 2005/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 charges fast durable long battery life stays lit while charging I've had this phone for over three years now, and I have not had one problem with it so far. I've used it for 3 days straight without charging and a reasonable number of calls, because it saves battery when I'm not using it. 87227 2005/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen easy menu vibrate ring functionscreen I purchased this phone about two years ago. At the time, it was among a new trend of color screens, so I was very happy. The menu was easy to use, and colorful graphics guided me through the menu. The phone has the volume control on the side of the phone, which is handy. It also has a button on the side that will switch from Normal Mode to Vibrate to Silent. This was a plus, because the phone I had before this you had to access this feature in the menu. The only bad thing I can say is that if you would turn the volume on Ring and Vibrate, the phone would only vibrate and never ring. Also, after a year of having this phone the screen started doing weird things like looking like a fuzzy TV, so I returned it within warranty and got a new model of the same phone. Since then, I have had it for a year and had no problems with the new one. 87226 2005/8/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 video pics extra service numbers mobile charging apparatus has to be manufacturers own This was my first foray into the world of mobile phones and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did not need a child to interpret the handbook or phone for me. Simple instructions, easy to follow and great back up from the manufacturers on any problems. I really enjoy using the separate functions, taking pics and videos everywhere and sending emails when I am on the go. I would recommend this phone to any would-be buyer as simple, inexpensive (in comparison with others) and fun to use. If I can do it at 50 then I am sure there a lot of other people out there who can. 87225 2006/4/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip phone small easy to use doesn t have a lot of extras like a camera phone This has been the best phone I've ever had. I purchased mine over two years ago and have dropped it loads of times. It is still in great condition. I have never had problems with it. The battery still lasts a decent amount of time (I do generally charge it in the car in between but considering its age, not bad). I just recently bought another battery for it for $13 and it's back to being like new. I bought another phone somewhat recently to try out - brand new and it's battery didn't last as long as the two year old one for my LG VX4400. The reception is almost always good and I can hear everyone clearly. 87224 2005/7/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 free with some plans fragile etc poor sound low battery life I'm an engineer that studies product failure. The battery, keypad, antenna, screen, and speaker all failed to an either moderate or complete degree. There must be some defect somewhere in the manufacturing process for 3 of them to fail in 6 months. I have also tested and owned Nokia phones that have received 10 times the abuse and remained near perfect! 87223 2004/7/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use color durable web charger is terrible battery life ringer stinks This was my first real phone. I was the last one of my friends to get one so i have a lot to compare it to. Pros: Color phone, easy phonebook, text messaging, web (easy to use), You get one free ringtone download, easy to customize, very few lost calls, can take a beating ( threw it around like my car keys), can download whatever song you want with GET IT NOW (ringtones, wallpapers), voice dialing, easy to figure out all options, good service, cons: Ringtones stink, downloads for ringtones are expensive, headset volume could be louder, Ringer could be louder, ringer and vibrate don't work together, recharger doesn't have more than 9 monthes of life, need to get another charger, cheap belt clip, antenna easily broken, 87222 2005/1/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery interface durability a little bulky This cell phone will fit anyone, from the teenager of the house, to the ever-shopping mother. It is easy to use, and once you are used to it, calls are a snap. It can take a beating, as long as you don't send it into the washing machine. LCD display is nice, and it has a long battery life. Don't sweat when you drop it here and there, it can take a little of that. 87221 2006/4/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none whatsoever lack of features construction poor antenna software extremely thick battery life functionality This was my first cell phone......luckily not the last. This phone lacks many, many features like camera, AIM, email, EV connectivity, bluetooth, MP3 player, Vcast - to name a few. Structurally, this phone is amazingly weak. It feels as if i could break the screen by only slightly bending it. Luckily, I had insurance on this phone because when it broke (hardware or software) I returned it. I ended up getting 4 others. The antenna is also extremely weak, structurally and functionally. The front speakers also blew out from using its own ringtones on the highest volume. Overall, This is the worst phone. I was forced to wait until my contract was up to get my new one, the LG vx9800....which I extremely recommend. 87220 2000/6/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to navigate fun games nice basic accessories color screen to spell out names annoying ring tones can not feel vibrating in pocket which are often too loud The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone. I have had no problems or real complaints about it. Shop around, it can be found for less than $199.00 Full Review The good: The quality of this phone is excellent. It has a decent battery life. Good reception and call quality. The phone is very easy to navigate and use. It even lets you record small bits of audio (IE notes to self.) The screens are very clear and colorful. The bad: All of the fun extras cost money (which I guess is normal), and are a little bit vague to purchase. Especially when buying ring tones. I should mention that unless you really love songs, the ring tones are bad. The normal ring tones sound very odd. The price: It was initially 199.00 with a 100.00 rebate. The outcome: If your looking for a phone with cute features, this is not the phone. Maybe after some investing, this phone could be cute, but initially it has bad default back ground pictures, no games, and no cute animations like smiling frogs or butterflies. If your looking for a good functioning, high quality phone, and either don't mind paying for the fun extras, or don't care about the fun extras, this phone is great. The color screen is a very nice thing to have. Everything is much more pleasing to look at. Plus it opens up the web and email capabilities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87219 2000/6/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 display looks battery life fails to charge too big silences itself randomly lousy ringtones The Bottom LineSKIP THIS ONE--go with a Motorola or Nokia Full Review I got this phone from work and I'm glad I didn't actually pay for it myself. I'll start with the positives. It's a decent looking phone and has a nice color display. The navigation keys for the menus are good--big plus having up/down/left/right arrows with a separate "ok" or "select" button. Also has a good external b/w lcd--big print for time of day for those who don't like to wear a watch. Battery life is quite good when charged (see below). Entering your phone list is relatively easy as well. That's where the plusses end for me. I'll start with my biggest gripes first. First and foremost, almost half the time I put it in the charging cradle it fails to charge. I have yet to crack the code on what's going wrong. (In all fairness, it always charges if I use a car charger or travel "plug-in" type charger, but it doesn't come with either of those). Next, if the phone is folded and you push the voice-memo button, it acts as a "smart-key" toggling between audible ring, vibrate, and "silence all" (no ring/no vibrate). I have missed many important calls because that button exposed on the side of the phone and it frequently (at random) gets activated in my pocket without my knowing it. It puts the phone into silent mode and there is no indication that a call is coming in. I presume this is less of a problem if you don't mind wearing the phone on your belt (I do mind). Third, the ringers. There are lots of ring tones, but most are songs. If you don't like a song for a ringer (again, I don't), the non-musical rings are quite obnoxious. I've had people come into my office to tell me how annoying the ring is to them. Some have even tried out all the others and agreed that while it is obnoxious, I've chosen the least obnoxious one. Fourth, it's big. Way bigger than the Moto V-60 series. Even larger than the Star-Tac I carried 5 years ago. Finally, it performs poorly with a hands free headset. It doesn't put enough power to the speaker, so while driving for example, I either have to press my headset into my ear with my hand (defeating the hands-free feature) or keep asking my customers to repeat themselves. My last phone (the V-60) was much better with the same headset. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60 +contractRecommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87218 2000/4/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 games excellent reception changable backgrounds ringers color small expensive antenna lame earpiece volume too loud easily scratched battery life The Bottom LineAwesome color small phone packed with easy to use features, a great ringer, and an overall excellent quality phone! Highly reccomended! Full Review I believe this is now my 5th cell phone, and by far the best and most useful. First of all its color, you can put pictures on it, and change to ringers to suit your likings. Text messages from certain people can have different tones as well as different callers. The reception is awesome, and the phone looks really stylish! Battery life is about 2 days with moderate - high usage. The ringer is the best part on this phone. It has moved to the outside, where you can actually hear it, LOUDLY. No more missed calls like I was used to with my VX1 which somehow decided to break 4 times before I upgraded. If you are looking for a color cell phone you dont have any other choice with verizon. This is the best phone they offer and works perfectly. Has full signal everywhere, rings everytime, is small and lightweight, and is actually easy to talk on and use. Text messaging, and calls have been made much easier, and the phone had voice dialing, voice recording, 8 color outside display to alert you without making noise. Overall excited about this phone. Hope it lasts! It seems to be built much better than the others I had. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 365 87217 2003/9/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 backlighting voice dial easy menus good reception no aftermarket car charger will work battery life The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone- the features are easy to use and the reception is good. Full Review This is my first color phone and first time with Verizon Wirelss service. Overall, I am very pleased. My calls are clear, don't drop out, coverage area is great (it's tri-band so it will work just about anywhere), and the phone has many useful features. The battery life is not that long though (it always seems to have one bar when I am getting ready to go out)- I have been charging it every two days (which isn't bad, but my old Nokia 8260 used to get about 4-5 days). I have also just discovered that the only car charger that will work for this phone is the LG/Verizon one, due to pin configuration, so don't buy one at Rado Shack, Best Buy, etc. Also, the outside LCD is NOT able to be assigned different colors for each caller- just for phone book, caller ID, no caller ID (the newest version of the phone's software doesn't allow for this apparently). Overall though, it is a very nice phone. The screen is sharp (although it's hard to see if it isn't backlit), the voice dial works well (unlike my old Motorola V60t), the phone's menus and buttons are laid out well, and it seems to be built solidly. The outside LCD is nice to have and large making it no problem to read. I would recommend it if you are looking for a color screen phone for Verizon Wirless service. It also had a $50 rebate when I bought it, so I ended up getting it for $100. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87216 2000/4/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great rings voice dialing color display low price great features a little heavier than other new phones no games come preset in the phone The Bottom LineThis phone has all the feature the average person would need at half the cost of other comparable phones. It is durable and stylish and works great! Full Review This phone has every feature that I need, and didn't break the bank! It is stylish and not too heavy. I have dropped it a couple times (oops) and it is still in great shape! When I new I was switching to Verizon I did a lot of research on the different phones, trying to find the one that was reliable. I FOUND IT! DISPLAY: The phone has a color screen, which is bonus to me, but not really needed. It has a display resolution of 128 x 133. There is a six line capacity and there are wallpapers and screensavers for the background. You can download more of these with the "get it now" feature. The indicators on the phone are Digital Clock, Missed Calls Indicator, Digital/Analog Channel Indicator, Signal Strength, Roaming, Text Message Waiting, Voice Message Waiting, and Battery strength. The outside of the phone shows you the time and phone number of the incoming call, and it flashes with several colors while your phone is ringing. You can choose from English and Spanish for the language display. There is Short Messaging Service on the phone. BATTERY: The battery included with this phone is Lithium Ion. The phone has 180 minutes of talk time, and 110 hours standby time. I can usually go days between charging my phone, which is wonderful since I always forget to do it. General Info: Height: 3.46 in Length: 1.89 in Depth: 1.07 in Weight: 4 oz The phone has VOICE ACTIVATED DIALing which I believe is a must have. I never have to dial and drive. There is a tip calculator which is great for when my husband and I argue over how much to leave the waitress (waiter). There is also a standard calculator. You can store up to 99 numbers in memory, and there is a voice recording feature, so if you need to make a note and have no paper. As you can see I really have no complaints about the phone. If I HAVE TO say one it would be that there are no games, you have to download them with the GET IT NOW feature. (I don't play the games anyway. Bottom line, my calls are rarely dropped, my calls are crystal clear, and People are always commenting on the cool ring tones I have to choose from. I would recommened this phone to anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87215 2005/12/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fast menus high technology user friendly color display great functionality the charging cradle unit does not work with the leather case on the phone The Bottom LineI would definitely recommend this phone for anyone who wants some of the best technology available today without using a big PDA-style phone. Full Review UPDATE (12/17/2005): My original review is below. I wrote it two years ago after only owning this phone for about a month. I actually sold the phone in August of this year. I served me VERY well for the full 2 years that I had it. I am on Verizon, so of course I did the New-Every-Two deal this year and upgraded to the LG VX8100 (look for my review on that). My VX4400 took ALOT of abuse over those 2 years. I dropped it alot, and once slammed it in a car door (long story). The LCD was damaged, but the thing took it alot better than most phones would. It was built like a fine timepiece, really. My only beef with it was that it came out right before camera phones went mainstream, so it did not have one. Other than that, it was ahead of it's time in terms of software and color screens and all that. Overall, GREAT phone. The best I'd had so far. If you're in the market for an LG, and you're looking at used phones (which is all there is now, since this phone was retired from the VZW lineup almost 2 years ago), I would highly recommend this phone with no reservations. It has the required 911 compatability (you can't get a phone without it activated anymore) and it will serve you very well! One quick note on "Get it Now." I notice that I had talked about it in this review, but at the time I only had a couple of weeks experience with it. After over 2 years and 2 phones of it now, I can say AVOID IT. When it first came out, you could get a phonebook application for $1.99 (one time fee) and a weather application for $1.99 per month. But VZW sees it as a cash cow, so they not only spent the last 2 years doubling or tripling the prices on most applications, but they also made ALL of them subscription. That is, instead of a one-time $1.99 fee, you'll pay $5.99 per month for the same service. They do this because they know that people forget about subscriptions and can end up paying many months before they remember to cancel. Also, VZW canceled most of the really useful applications. No idea why, but most of Get-it-Now is now games and silly little children's things. Worthless. I have owned my LG VX4400 for about a month now. Previously, I have owned a Motorola StarTac and a Nokia 3395. Also, I have used a wide variety of phones on a wide variety of networks over the past several years at work. I was with Verizon for cell phone service from Aug 2001 until January 2003, but had to switch to a local carrier for a few months because the apartment I was living in at the time could not pull down a Verizon signal. Having left that apartment and moved into a place that can receive Verizon service much better, I went back into the local Verizon store in August to find a new phone. My StarTac had worked decently for it's time, but by August of this year it was very outdated technology and I had sold it. I told the worker at Verizon that I wanted the best technology out there right now WITHOUT the PDA functions and all that. I just wanted voice and data service and all the bells and whistles that today's technology offers, since I knew that I would be keeping this phone for a couple of years most likely. She pointed out the camera phone that Verizon is offering right now, but told me that it was digital only. As a result, you would not be covered by the network in certain areas. I asked her for the best phone that would provide maximum coverage and she handed me the VX4400. This phone has been great so far. I agree with the reviews stating that the LCD screen could be alot better in sunlight (can be very difficult to see at times) but I am always able to turn it or go into shade to solve that problem. It's not TOO often that I'm dialing under direct sunlight anyway. Also, I agree that the manufacturer DEFINITELY screwed up on the home charger unit. The one that comes with the phone when you buy it is a desktop style charger. In other words, rather than plugging the charger into the phone, you set the phone in a cradle and it charges there. That works fine until you add a leather cover to your phone, which is always recommended with high-technology flip phones. With the cover on, you CANNOT fit the phone into the cradle, so you have to take the cover off every single time you want to charge it with that charger. I got tired of doing this every time so I ordered a plug-in charger on eBay. This charger plugs in as normal, but unfortunately it's non-OEM and it only seems to charge the battery to about 3 bars, which doesn't even last all day. As a result, it appears that I will be forced to buy the OEM "travel" charger from Verizon for $30. That's not too cool, but for now I'm just plugging it in whenever I'm in my car. As far as functionality of the phone itself, I couldn't ask for more by today's standards. This thing has a great color screen that is very clear, and a very well organized menu system. I am slowly getting the hang of hitting the "ok" button in a controlled manner so I don't hit something else, because they put the button in the middle of the arrow keys. Without nimble fingers, it can get frustrating at first, but over time you learn how to hit it without hitting other keys as well. My phone pulls down a very strong signal in every area I've used it in so far. I traveled 1800 miles half-way across America 2 weeks ago and never lost signal. Also, I've never had a dropped call yet. The "Get it Now" feature came with this phone with Verizon and sometimes, it has trouble connecting to the internet but overall I enjoy using it. Bottom line: I would recommend the LG VX4400 for anyone who is looking for top-quality and up-to-date technology. Most people who see or borrow my phone at all are very impressed with only one use. It is definitely worth the $200 I paid for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87214 2000/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 get it now battery ease of downloads so far ease of menu ease of use size great color nothing else yet can t charge with desktop charger with cover on The Bottom LineColor, flip, price, ease of use, features. All great. Get one. Full Review I needed a new phone because mine was old (a Bell Atlantic Bam 101) so I started researching them a few months ago. I wanted color, but not the ability to take pictures, and looked at the Motorola 720 because my girlfriend had just bought the Moto V60 and loved it. After reading all the reviews here about the Moto 720 I decided to get the LG 4400. The main issue with the Moto was battery life and I did not want to deal with a phone that had a dead battery all the time. The reviews about the LG sold me on it. So..... Positives: I have been very happy with the LG so far. Other reviews have listed all the specific info so I will just say that the phone does not disappoint in any way. The color is great, the menu is easy to understand and the features are great. I have used the "Get It Now" feature twice. I downloaded one free ringtone and that was easy to do. I am a golf freak so I purchased the Tiger Woods golf game and it's really cool for a game on a cell phone! I am thinking about downloading the Accuweather feature too. The sound and talk clarity have been very good with this phone. Everyone I have asked "how do I sound?" have said great. I like that it is small enough to put in your pocket but when you open it it is big enough to use and my fingers fit on the keys. (I'm 6 foot, 180). I have loaded all my numbers in and used the voice dial feature which is very easy. Nothing easier than pushing one button and saying a name and having it dialed. I'm not sure if I will set up different ringtones and colors for different callers, but it is nice to have that option. The caller ID on the front of the phone is very nice. The battery has been fine. Upon the rep @ Verizon showing me a little about the phone and selling me the case and car charger (which he told me would charge WITH the cover on, wrong...but I am going to get the "travel" charger that allows you to charge) I left and only had 1 battery life on the phone out of the box. He said to charge the phone for a couple hours and it will be fine, but when using the car charger only charge it for 45 minutes max. It is a "quick charge" and does not stop trying to charge the phone even after it is fully charged and that could hurt the battery. So I hooked it up with the car charger and received a call immediately. I let it charge for the next 45 minutes (while talking for about 20 minutes) and it was fully charged. I have kept it on the desktop charger every night and had no battery problems. Last night I forgot to charge it and this morning it only took about 1 hour to fully charge. So I am happy with the battery life. Negatives: The owners manual will tell you the features but won't explain exactly how to use them. After "playing" with the menu I figured out how to do things very quickly and I am not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to electronics and directions. The cover situation I discussed earlier as far as charging with the cover on so that will be taken care of. You do have to pay for the "Get It Now" features. The phone was very affordable because of a $100 rebate with trade-in and a $25 off coupon from Verizon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 w/rebate 87213 2003/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone serious accessory issues The Bottom LineBuy the phone if it is in your budget, but if you need the accessories and data access, check availability first. Full Review *** update to the information below *** Having contacted LG through email to voice my concern about the accessory issue, I received a call from one of the actual executives at the company, who was very concerned. He told me the issue was NOT an LG one, rather the after market producers of accessories, such as Radio Shack, etc. Apparently, so customers can save a few bucks, places such as Radio Shack, and even Cell Stores such as Verizon, will carry only 3rd party accessories, simply because consumers as a whole seem to only buy the cheapest accessory available, figuring that quality should be equal. He guaranteed me that official LG parts, which seem to only be available through the web site (and are back ordered until probably April), would work with no problem. This seemed to mirror Radio Shacks opinion, when I asked for an actual LG car lighter adaptor with the model number printed on the packaging, that "The VX10 adaptor will work just fine, and it's cheaper." The quality issue is due to a pin configuration with a certain brand of car lighter adaptor that will in fact DRAIN your battery if you use it (The sprint model in my experience), while the Radio Shack model does "work" apparently (according to the LG executive again, and my experience) but has a problem by showing "Done Charging" after a few seconds, so it would require manually unplugging and checking your phone every hour or so to verify if charging was actually completed. I also wouldn't trust the cable to know when to stop charging, and would be concerned about over charging the battery and ruining it, if that was even possible. Lastly, it seems the data cables are in the last phase of testing at Verizon for LG approval, but sadly, will NOT be interchangeable with any other LG phone at this point in time (maybe future models?) and probably not available until April either. Based on my findings, I have traded in the VX4400 for a VX10. All the accessories work, and are available. Maybe when it wears out or becomes obsolete, I'll consider a next gen phone with color, etc. As nice as the bells and whistles are, if I can't have a fully functional phone with accessories that work now, it's not worth my time to wait around for. *** End Update *** I bought this phone based almost exclusively on other reviews right here on Epinions, so I don't have much to add in that department, except to say the other reviewers were pretty much dead on... it's a great phone with great features, performance and battery life (when using the included wall charger). I particularly like the 64k color capability and the fact the phone doesn't seem to be affected by this when it comes to battery life. I AM quite disappointed in the accessory issues happening right now with this phone though. I bought an LX4400 phone on Sunday February 16th, with a car adaptor charger. In using the car adaptor charger that night, it proceeded to DRAIN my battery, as opposed to charging it. I was told on Monday the 17th, by both Radio Shack (where I bought the phone) and a Verizon store that the adaptor was "supposed" to work, despite the obvious problems that couldn't be explained. Now, I've received a phone call from the Radio Shack today (Wednesday February 19th), where I bought the phone, telling me that magically the adaptor "actually doesn't work and causes problems". No kidding... So, I return the car charger (Radio Shack has no ETA on a new one), and checked out LG and Verizon web site's and they have NO information listed about this. As a consumer, I deserve to know about this, in detail, especially what DAMAGE if or may have happened to my phone or battery because of the charge incompatibilities. I also need to get an idea of when a charger WILL be available. I travel a LOT and not having a charger will affect me significantly. Lastly, how could this OBVIOUS error happen? It took me 2 minutes to plug the phone and adaptor in to discover they DON'T work. This tells me LG is doing NOTHING to QA their products. Hopefully, they will make this right and AT LEAST post something on their web site in the support section, if not on the front page. Also, I'm wondering if this issue going to affect any type of data cable accessory. I need to transfer contact data from my PC to phone, so I'm assuming the VX10 cable will NOT work at this point. Time will tell I guess... Lastly, in reference to the data cables, I'm left wondering if there is or will be software that will sync the VX4400 to a Windows CE device with the ability to sync them for contacts, as well as allow a CE device to surf the web & check Email using only my phone and an Express Network connection. If data needs beyond the phone are important to you, avoid this phone until the supporting accessories are available. As of now, they are not. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87212 2000/2/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality battery features screen not a thing The Bottom LineGreat phone, this is Verizon's best yet. Great features, spectacular clarity, great reception. Need I say more? Full Review Where do I begin? This is one solid, well designed phone. LG has out done themselves. First of all, the color screen that is featured on this phone is excellent. It has the most colors of any Verizon phone out there now, with 65 hundred colors, and the screen stands out there with the best phones out now. The menus are set up logically, with easy to read icons that make it easy to use all of the features of this phone. The color screen is not just a novelty. This phone is a solid performer. I've had this phone for about 2 weeks and have yet to find fault in it. I feel like I am perpetually in 6 bars. Now I've had other Verizon phones, namely the v60i, v800 (Verizon's color dud), and the t720, and I've found that the vx4400 is the all around best when it comes to reception. Voice clarity is as good as a land line. With 2 weeks of use I haven't had any dropped called or cut outs. At all. The battery life is stellar compared to the other Verizon color phones that I've tried (t720/v800). I can go several days without a charge. Verizon definitely did not overstate their numbers with this phone. As a matter of fact, they seem to me a bit understated. When it comes to features, this phone is tops. Well laid out menus and tools are easy to use. Especially useful is the 31 day calender setup that LG has employed. The phone also has a cleverly set up tip calculator. The Get It Now features of this phone are easy to use, I myself have downloaded "Beverly Hills Cop Theme" from Verizons Get it Now Ringster service for two bucks. The polyphonic ringer will definitely turn heads. (Especially with a nice downloaded ringtone). However, the built in tones are drab, so splurge the two bucks and get a nice one through Get It Now. The minibrowser works fine as well. Voice dialing works better than in other phones I've used. This is a great phone. It's cheaper than the t720 now, so there is little other competition in Verizon's line. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 w/plan 87211 2000/3/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great screen compact small worthless manual The Bottom LineHighly recommended. But the manual will leave you with more questions than answers. Full Review I won't reiterate what everyone else has written here about the terrific VX4400. But I will offer a great suggestion for those who plan to use this phone in their car. One of the biggest problems I had with the VX4400 was where to put it and how to mount it in my car (since that's where I use it 99% of the time). I tried using the car (cigarette lighter) adaptor that I bought with the phone from Verizon but I found the connection too shaky for everyday use (and therefore plan to return the adaptor). Instead, I carefully drilled a hole in the side of the regular charger so that the phone can sit in the charger without the headset jack being blocked (an oversight in the phone's design). I made a wooden wedge, 2" wide, 3" deep, sloping up to a height of 1-1/2" at the back. I affixed this wedge to the top of the dashboard in my car with velcro, then affixed the charger to the upward slope of the wedge with velcro and now the phone is perfectly mounted for ease of use and best screen visibility...I never have to take my eyes of the road! I simply connected the charger to the cigarette lighter inverter (a Statpower Jazz-300 300W DC to AC Power Inverter, which also powers my laptop) in my car. I plugged in my headset (along with a Radio Shack headset extension cord) and now I'm using my VX4400 with ease and keeping it fully charged at the same time should I need to ever take it with me. By the way, one minor problem I've run into with the phone is the seeming inability to cancel pause codes at the end of the number I'm dialing. For instance, I might program a number with a pause code at the end followed by other digits to accommodate an answering machine, for example. But if someone answers the phone and I want to cancel those additional tones, I can't. Pressing CLR and other assorted buttons doesn't stop the dialing sequence. Oh well! Not a big problem; just a design oversight. Recommended: Yes 87210 2003/3/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent sound quality vibrant display have not determined any as of yet The Bottom LineOverall, a great handset to own, due to the superior build of the phone itself, in addition to the extended battery lifetime. Full Review ********************************* ***** UPDATE MARCH 9, 2003 ****** After using this phone for a few weeks, I still think that it is an awesome phone. One thing that I do not like about the phone, and that others may not like, is that it does not have "reminder" alerts to let you know that you have a voicemail or text message. In other words, it will alert you when a new message is received, but it will not remind you every minute, or every few minutes, at all. Other than that, the phone is great. ***** END OF UPDATE ***** The talk time on this handset is by far more superior to that of the 720. I have only had to place it on the charger one time since I have received it, and I've been using it quite a bit. The menus are rather easy to use, and navigation amongst them is very easy. The manual itself, however, is lacking in the explanations of certain features, most notable some of the built-in answering machine functions. The ringers on this phone are very loud, and very audible. In addition, you can clearly hear your conversations, while on a call, without having to ask the caller to constantly repeat themselves, due to inability to hear them clearly. To this point, I have not found anything about the phone that I do not like. Granted, if I could change something about the phone, I would change the charger that came with it. Currently it comes with a desktop charger, but if you have a leather case for the phone, you have to constantly remove the case in order to charge it. I believe it would be more sensible to make the travel charger able to plug into the desktop charger itself, more like the Motorola chargers are designed. Overall, however, I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is looking towards getting a color screen phone. It appears that it is going to be a hard hitter, and place some very good competition out there for the "bigger" guys so to speak. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 87209 2000/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen voice dialing too small hard to hold poor ringer choices The Bottom LineThis phone is simply okay. What you gain in overall size, you lose in thickness. Ring tones could be better, and there should be better side grips. Full Review I recently purchased the LG VX 4400b because my 6 year old Motorola StarTac started to have audio problems. I am not much of an expert when it comes to cell phones (started with an analog Ericcson, moved to a digital StarTac, and now have the LG VX 4400b). THE GOOD This phone has an impressive color screen, and I especially like the voice activated dialing, which equates to much safer driving! I like being able to flip the phone open, speak a name, and then just wait while the phone does the rest. The calculator function, tip calculator and calendar are all nice features, too. So far, voice clarity has been average for me. The phone is very small, but I have seen smaller. THE BAD This phone is thick. It's smaller than my old Startac, but thicker. I was hoping that by getting a smaller flip, it might be easier to carry in my pocket, but that hasn't been the case....what I shaved off in size has been replaced by overall thickness, which makes it even harder than before to carry in my pocket. The phone also lacks any type of grooves/grips/indentations on the side of it, making it very slippery and difficult to hold. In my opinion, the old Motorola StarTacs had a great size, shape, and grip. Too bad mine is on the fritz... THE UGLY Flat out - the ringers on this phone stink. There really is no ringer tone that sounds like a traditional ring. You just get a few unusual ring/chimes, and a bunch of really cheesy songs. And heck if I'm pay to download some new ring tones. Even if there is a way to do it for free, you shouldn't have to spend time trying to find an average ring sound....the makers of this phone should have included it in the first place. What were they thinking? OVERALL I guess phones continue to get smaller and come with more features, which for some is really cool, and for others (like me) is just too gimmicky. I have a PDA - it works great. I have a very small digital camera - it works great. What I would like to see is a phone that was just a phone, and worked great, instead of being mediocre at everything (like most new cell phones are today). Don't get me wrong...I don't hate this phone (it does what I need it to do, which is to make and receive calls), but In my opinion, this phone is simply okay. The makers really could have put more thought into the ringer tones, and also into its physical design (better side grips, and not so thick). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87208 2003/6/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use comfort on the eyes options durability The Bottom LineI read the reviews and agreed: it's a great phone. I wish it were encased a little better (I scratched it a little) but it still works great. Full Review Who I am (my cell phone attitude): I'm not a big cell phone guy but the situation was 'calling' me to make the next jump into modern day technology. From that statement you may think I'm of the older persuasion but I'm actually only 21 years old, I just have had a personal vengeance with cell phones due to their unneeded use and annoying rings in unacceptable settings. However like I said, I'm in a position that I now needed one. What I wanted: I wanted the basics. I wanted a phone that was clear and took care of the basics. I had no care for a color screen and especially picture taking abilities. I also wanted to conceal it so i wanted a flip. I would be happier with a longer battery but I didn't see it as an absolute, as long as it did the job. I didn't want dumb rings, just something like a normal phone. And lastly, I had decided to go Verizon, so I wanted a Verizon phone. My path: I really relied on this website. I trusted it's reviews and especially the longer ones. I felt if it was just five words that it was the best thing ever invented that the review might be insincere. I wanted to hear negatives. So I usually only weighed the longer reviews for my decision. I also talked to friends about the plans and phones both. My phone choices: I was down to three phones. The LG VX4400($100), Motorola 720i($80), and the Samsung SCH-A310($50). I had heard bad things about the 720i, so I threw it out pretty quick. Then I was between the basic flip phone deemed "the best flip phone without a color screen" and the LG. I was initially scared of the LG because I hadn't heard of the company, so I was leaning towards the Samsung. Plus I claimed a color screen wasn't important. However, I actually left the phone store to come home and review these phones and found the LG to have excellent ratings as well as the Samsung. As I began to ponder it more, I realized that I was going to sign a 2-year deal. This meant I would have the phone for 2 years and I didn't want it to be out of date in 4 months (plus I'm still a guy and like toys, I also knew that color was in the future). Another factor was how much more relaxing it was to look at a color screen. It just made my eyes feel so much more at ease. For only $50 more I could get a phone that I felt would be just fine in 2 years, just felt better, and had excellent reviews. So there it was, I made the leap. I was now a cell phone owner and had a color screen, I chose the LG VX4400. Phone Details: -It has an large outer display that can displays time, date, reception/roaming, battery, caller ID, and ring/vibrate among other things. I find this quite helpful for knowing what mode I'm in and whether to answer the phone or not (depending on importance, person, battery, roaming, etc.) This display also lights up a few different colors if programed from callers to powering on/off. I have "No ID" to light red and known callers to light up green. It lights blue upon hitting any button (I used this once when the power went out and it sufficed until I found a flashlight). - It has volume buttons and a speaker button on the left. I use the speaker button almost all the time. You can set the phone up to call by voice or speed dial (like I said, I mostly use voice). - The interface is excellent. It's comfortable on the eyes and easy to navigate. I didn't really need the user manual, but I still read it to make sure I knew all my options. You can choose a icon or list menu. I have it on icon. It has a few dorky pictures to set as a wallpaper, but you can download more. I'm going to try to figure out how to display downloaded pictures soon. You can change color themes between a few basic colors which is nice. - It has a icon/list menu with call history, phone book, messages, www, Get It Now, fun tools, organizer, Settings, and phone info CALL HISTORY: has outgoing, incoming, missed calls along with a call timer function. The phone stores incoming/outgoing calls, messages (you can set up your message) and more. It displays if you've missed calls on the outer screen (this is nice). PHONE BOOK: The phone book is set up nice. you have up to 6 #'s per person (2 home, work, and cell #'s). They can have different speed dials and/or voice dialing, and even put them in different categories. You can search easily and quickly for names. MESSAGES: has voice, send new, inbox, info alerts, outbox, and saved messages as well as msg settings, a folder. I only really use the voice messages (text cost $) WWW: I haven't used this, but i'm guessing it's basic GET IT NOW: You can download games, tones, pictures, backgrounds, mail, weather, sports, and more. I'm going to try to download pic's for my background. FUN TOOLS: Easy tip calculator, calculator, and world clock ORGANIZER: Schedule, alarm clock, note pad, and voice memo. I've only used the alarm clock which is actually quick nice. The other functions (notes and such) are pretty basic. SETTINGS: sound, display, system, security, features, data settings, voice services, and location. Sounds lets you adjust your ringers, key tone, volume, alerts, and power on/off. You can set different ringers for each type of call here. PHONE INFO: This has your phone number, icon glossary (which is nice if you forget what that blinking triangle on your screen is), and short-cut help. - The rings are a little annoying. I'm not big on fancy rings and really dislike them. I keep it on vibrate most of the time but there is over 20 songs to chose from (I believe). You can have different rings for different people. Only a few select people have gotten special rings on my phone. - The reception is fine. I've never had a cell phone and generally expect them to be poorer than landline. I've had a few situations where the other party has spoke of me breaking up but I almost expect it. Like I said, I don't have much to compare it to. - Another peice of equipment that comes with the phone is the charger. At first I was a little disappointed to see it was an entire station, I thought it was 'bulky'. However, I talked to a friend and he mentioned that he had a simple plug and his tended to fall of his desk and another friend told me his wouldn't stay plugged. The station isn't really bulky and it solves these two problems. It also lights up green (outer display) and the battery icon lets you know it's charging. When it's finished, it turns blue and displays "finished." 1 month later: I'm still happy. It was incredibly easy to set up and it's been a fun phone. I dropped it once on concrete and it took some bad scratches but it still works fine. It has some dorkier rings but they're fine with me. Another small problem that I've found is that the Caller ID is slow. It doesn't always show me who's calling immediately, but this may be Verizon's fault(?). Overall, I'm very satisfied with the phone and would HIGHLY recommend it. IF YOU HAVE ANY Q'S, PLEASE RESPOND AND I'LL TRY TO UPDATE MY REVIEW. THIS SITE HAS HELPED ME AND I'D LOVE TO HELP YOU. ALSO, CONTINUE TO CHECK THIS AS I'LL UPDATE IT WHENEVER I NOTICE SOMETHING THAT A POTENTIAL BUYER SHOULD KNOW. Enjoy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87207 2004/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 just about everything none thus far The Bottom LineHighly recommended. Full Review I just picked up a new 4400B last week, with service through Verizon, and I couldn't be more pleased. This is the first cellphone I've had since 1995, so it's all pretty new to me. Needless to say, having been out of the loop for so long, I at first found all the phone's features and capabilities to be a bit daunting. But after a little experimentation, I was quickly able to master almost all its functions, as the features are laid out in a very navigable, easy-to-use menu-type format. The reception seems to be great; I even carried on a perfectly clear conversation while riding an elevator, which surprised me. Of course, this could be a function of my wireless service (Verizon) rather than the phone itself--I really don't know. I'm not exactly a constant talker, so I really haven't put the talk time to the test. The battery retains a full charge after an entire day on standby and two or three calls. All in all, I'm extremely satisfied with my new phone. It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase, and looking back, I'm glad I shelled out the $100 for this phone rather than opting for one of the Nokia "free" phones, such as my wife has. As a quick aside, I'm not sure what improvements the 'B' model has over the standard 4400. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 w/ planRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87206 2000/3/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 outer display voice activation keypad chic factor ability to assign ringers photos to callers inside display small inner screen ring volume quality desktop charger blue keypad lights The Bottom LineGreat phone for those who need one right now, but if you have time to wait, there will definitely be a better choice. Full Review So I bought the VX as an upgrade to my tragic V120c which I seriously hated. (BTW- Thanks Verizon for making me keep it 10 months!) Don't you go and buy that new silver V120e either, it's still the same phone, earpiece volume is very quiet, and the thing tends to lock-up as much as Windows Millennium Edition. Overall, the VX is a good phone, I would definitely recommend it until something better comes out this summer. THINGS I LIKE: Ability to assign ringers to certain callers, like that loved one or someone you never want to talk to. Photo caller-id ability with a data cable from RadioShack and a free USB driver download online. Voice-activated dialing is very precise, and will ask you to respond with "yes" or "no" should it not understand completely who you want to call. Push the side volume button 3 times, sends incoming call directly to voicemail. Screen can flash multiple colors to alert you to incoming calls, great for when you are in class or a meeting, because you most likely won't feel the thing vibrate. It's just cute, everybody is like "oooh, can I see that?" So easy to text message people, even the same message to several different addresses. Phone book setup is excellent, very easy to find the person you want to call. Large and huge(!) options for text and numbers. You can even change the color of them. I love the external display, which displays time, day of week and date, signal strength (if any), battery status, voicemail/text msg alerts, and callers' name (if programmed) and their number in whatever color you should choose. Cool built-in answering machine that lets you overhear the message a caller is leaving you. Keypad is so easy to 'Braille' your way around... it's raised and very well laid-out. THINGS I HATE: That neon blue keypad kills your eyes for a while at first, takes getting used to. You gotta pack that big desktop charger (that can only charge 1 battery) anytime you go on a trip. Was that my phone ringing??? The ringer could seriously be louder. Is that 'Charlie's Angels?' or what the heck is that horrific noise- the ringer quality is not impressive, much better is the one on the Motorola T720. I can't for the life of me read the inner screen in any type of sunlight outside. That 'Verizon Wireless' banner on which covers up most of that cute color screen. I really hate when I was looking around the menus, and I kept seeing the message "This feature is not currently available," or "This service is not available at this time." Also, a MAJOR concern of mine is the signal tends to fade for no reason at all while the phone is stationary, and this is my 2nd one, the first was much worse! Is the antenna here for a purpose or for us to play with, it really does not seem to have an effect on the signal strength. And finally, those darn rubber bumps that keep coming out, which are supposed to cushion the screen when closed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87205 2000/10/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good display solid case spaced out number keys big text entry of numeral 1 poor battery life slow operation phone book name lookup The Bottom LineGood if you need a high quality cellphone you don't mind recharging every night. Good reception, good display, loud ringer. Full Review History: Switched to Verizon in August, 2003. Coverage is marginally better than my old AT&T TDMA service and much better than my previous Cingular service in most areas that I frequent. (YES I CAN HEAR YOU NOW.) Only problem is that when the cellphone switches into Analog mode it doesn't sent or receive calls. It shows a few bars and the letter "A"; this indicates service, but there is no service. Going to Verizon, I chose three Motorola T-730c phones for my family. The T-730 is cute and has an awesome display, but sound quality turned out to be very muffled, the ringer was weak, and reception was poor with many calls missed. Also, battery life was horrible. After a few days I asked Verizon for an alternative. They suggested the LG VX4400. I bought two LG VX4400 phones and one LG VX6000 (for its COOL-factor). I traded the VX6000 for a third VX4400 after a couple of days because I found the VX6000 difficult to grip, impossible to flip open and dial with one hand, and battery life was bad. In the process I realized that I really don't need a phone with a camera. With 45 days of LG VX4400 usage experience, I will attest that the VX4400 has excellent sound quality, very good reception except in Analog mode, and a sufficiently loud ringer. I am a happy camper in those respects. I have some gripes, but only one big one: battery life. What I like: I accidentally dropped my LG VX4400 one meter onto a concrete floor and nothing broke loose and the phone still works OK. Other nice aspects of the phone are that the display is readable even in bright sunlight (with some manuevering), though like most color displays it has to be backlit to be usable. I appreciate the big numeric buttons (but I wish there was more space between the 4-way rocker and the left and right soft keys because I suffer from fat-fingering). Main gripe: Battery life. Talk time is acceptable but digital standby time is poor. Even with little use (30 minutes a day) I have to recharge the phone every one to two nights, depending on location. Typically I get less than 24 hours on a charge if I talk for more than 1 hour. That's unacceptable to me, but what can I do? The car charger is slow... up to 5 hours needed for a full charge. In comparison, with similar usage, my AT&T and Cingular Nokia phones had to be recharged every 4 or 5 days, and recharging time was only 2 to 3 hours. So, I wonder, is poor battery life a characteristic of CDMA (compared to GSM/TDMA), or is it just a side effect of a color screen, or something else altogether? The Verizon sales rep recommended an extended battery but that's only 50% more capacity and so I still have no hope of getting 4 days on a charge. I raise the antenna whenever possible because I believe it could result in better reception and therefore less battery drain; but, I don't know whether this truly helps. Second gripe: Text entry. This may seem minor to you, but it's a pain for me. In abc alphabetic text entry mode I enter numbers by cycling past the letters (e.g. a-b-c-2) but this doesn't work for the numeral 1. On my Nokia and Motorola phones, in abc mode the number 1 key cycles through symbols AND a numeral 1, but on the LG phone in abc mode the 1-key is for symbols only. To enter a numeric 1 you have to switch to number mode then press 1 then switch back to abc mode to finish keying in text. Third gripe: Search for phone number. On my Nokia phones, if I knew I wanted the last of 20 names starting with "L", I could press "M" then scroll up one name to get to the last "L" quickly. On the LG, you only get what you press, because it's a full search rather than a starting-letter search as on the Nokia. Pressing CLR doesn't just stop the search... it positions you to the very top of the phone list. Grrrrrrr. This is not at all handy for me because I have over 200 names in the phone book and I need all of them handy and I really miss the lookup capability of the Nokia. Fourth gripe: S-L-0-W-N-E-S-S. After ending a call, the phone displays the airtime of the last call for a L-O-N-G time and it doesn't allow me to dial another number or go into menus right away. I have to wait for a very L-O-N-G time for the call timer to disappear from the screen. Gosh, this is annoying. It slows me down. It's painful. Less annoying to me are the noticably slow power-up and shutdown times for the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 135Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87204 2000/2/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life nothing yet The Bottom LineSee it for yourself to believe it... Full Review I got this phone about a week ago and let me tell you it's hell of a lot better than the Motorla T720. When I first got the T720 I thought it was a pretty nice phone....BUT after the first day of using it I had about close to ten missed calls. Why? because the ringer on that phone is too damn quiet when I'm driving in the car I didn't even notice the phone was ringing...not that I was going to pick it up or anything b/c that would just be illegal, also sometimes it took about 3~5 rings on the phone before it starts ring IF it decides to ring at all. So then the second day comes around my phone's battery had already died. YES THE BATTERY LASTED ONE DAY!!! The bottom line is T720 SUCKS don't ever even consider getting that phone. Battery sucks and you'll have a tons of missed calls...By the way I did the suggested battery maintaince also "charge the battery full, don't charge it again until all used up, then charge it up again....you repeat this process three times to get the maximum battery life" and NO the battery life did not improve also the menu takes too long. The menus don't come up right away after you press it. Every single problem that I have w/ the T720 was solved by the VX4400: the battery is awesome, menu is fast, no more missed calls, ringer is LOUD!!!, monthly calendar (that weekly calendar crap sucks what was Motorla thinking when they made those?), you can set three different alarms (IT'S LOUD!!!), you don't need to open the flip to put the phone in vibrate LG called it a "manner mode", "silent mode" turns off the ringer completely you switch in between these modes by PRESSING and HOLDING the voice dialing button and there are a lot of other features but the above are just the ones that I found useful. Pros: Battery Life...2 1/2 days w/ talking Color screen Loud Ring No dropped calls Screen on the outside is multiple colors and if you missed a call the screen turns RED(by default) you may change that... It comes with a desktop charger which a Motorla phone doesn't... Cons: nothing so far...I've had it for a week If anything maybe it should of came with a leather case...or maybe that's too much to ask I don't see myself changing phones for a while... I highly recommend it, best phone I've had yet... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87203 2000/4/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to read display under normal indoor light better than average voice quality color display washes out completely in sunlight unreliable charger poor quality sound with handsfree connection The Bottom LinePoor handsfree voice quality, a screen that is unreadable in sunlight, an unreliable charger, and ring tones that are distorted at medium volume make this phone one to avoid. Full Review I use my phone for voice communication. For years, my trusty Motorola Star Tac served me well. When it stopped charging the battery, I decided it was time for a new phone and went to the Verizon store. The LG VX4400 seemed the best value so I purchased one with a one year plan renewal. Luckily, Verizon has a 15 day return policy and I'm going to return this phone today. What do I love about the VX4400 1. It's voice quality both in speaking and listening. 2. The screen is very easy to read, except in sunlight. What do I hate about the VX4400 1. The charger isn't very reliable. Twice, I put the phone in for and overnight charge and returned the next morning and find the charger's red light flashing and the phone battery completely drained! The phone doesn't require more than 3-5 hours for a complete charge, but after a complete charge, it's supposed to shut the charger off and the green light is supposed to come on. 2. The color screen is virtually unreadable in sunlight. This is a serious drawback for me because I use my phone primarily outdoors. 3. I find it uncomfortable to rest this phone against my ear in a position that allows for callers to be heard loudly. Unlike the Star Tac which rested on my entire ear, this one seems to need the top of the phone resting against the center of my ear. It's difficult to explain but if you try one, you'll understand. 4. The handsfree connection provides very little amplification. People who I've called said I sound distant and tinny and had difficulties hearing me. The same headset worked terrific on the Star Tac. 5. The ringer tones distort at any volume setting above medium. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87202 2004/3/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice standard ring tones i like the flip phone style that dastardly voice command button the color display eats battery life The Bottom LineFlashy but perfectible. Needs better battery life and more attention to overall design. Full Review I was forced to give up my trusty and durable Nokia 8265 for this newfangled color phone due to a switch of corporate carriers. At first I was little excited about having another flip phone (I loved my old Motorola Star-Tac) with a color screen, to boot. However, reality is less exciting. Switching phones is always a pain, especially when you have to reenter all those darn numbers again. But, it does give you the opportunity to whittle the list down a bit. With the LG, I found the floating "Navigation Key" to be less than friendly to my large fingers. I've kind of got the hang of it after a month, but it's still too hard to operate for my taste. The biggest problem for me is battery life. If I get more than a few lengthy calls a day, it becomes imperative for me to switch batteries that same day. My Nokia could go for 2-3 hours on long distance calls. Secondly, I HATE the voice command button located on the lower left side of the phone. I carry my phone in my jacket, shirt or pants pocket rather than use the clip holster included with the phone. I always end up snagging the holster on some equipment and catapulting the phone to points unintended. The downside of my carrying the phone in my pockets, is I tend to bend or sit a lot and inevitably the darn button gets pressed long enough to switch the phone to "Manner Mode" or worse, "Silent Mode". I contacted Verizon to see if there was a way to disable this button, but apparently the phone designers didn't take my method of carrying the phone into account. I also despise the phone for it's tendency to start beeping when it's in my pocket. I've figured out that, for some inane reason, it wants to inform you that it's trying to locate service. I would hate to be someone who needs to use this phone secretly and be discovered because of this stupid "feature". Imagine a car-jacking victim who manages to secrete their phone only to be thwarted in an attempt to call 911 because of this. In any case, it makes me dislike the phone all the more. Concerning Verizon's coverage, it does seem to be better than AT&T Wireless...at least in my part of the country. There were always consistent dead spots with AT&T, and I have yet to find one with Verizon. Back to the phone, though: the clarity leaves a little to be desired. It's certainly usable, but in noisier environments, it's sometimes hard to decipher what the person on the other end is saying. This is compared to the Nokia, which I bought specifically because it had such clear voice reproduction. Overall, it's a pretty, light, and useful phone. It just has some stupid quirks that I don't care for and it wouldn't have been my first choice as a result. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87201 2003/6/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call clarity reception features user interface battery life build quality just a couple of minor quirks The Bottom LineSimply put, this is an absolutely outstanding product. LG really got it right with the VX4400! Full Review LG hit a home run with the VX4400. The design and layout is well thought out and logical. The user interface is very intuitive, the phone book is a breeze to load and use, the reception and call clarity is absolutely outstanding and the build quality is excellent. And the battery life actually meets (and exceeds) the advertised 3 hour talk time! This is pretty much the whole package that I have been waiting for all these years from Verizon. Call clarity and reception is nothing short of outstanding. Incoming calls are crystal clear with no background noise or static whatsoever. Callers tell me that I sound as if I am on a land line, not a cell phone! I have owned a lot of cell phones over the years, and this one rates as the very best for call clarity and reception. I can't substantiate the headset problems mentioned elsewhere. I have used my VX4400 with a simple earbud headset, a Jabra Earboom and a Plantronics M130, and all are just as clear as a bell. Interestingly, the very best sound quality comes from a simple Samsung earbud. I would suggest that the reviewer that was having problems try exchanging his handset for another (Verizon is very accommodating when a customer has a problem, either real or perceived). It's quite likely the problem was specific to his individual handset and not the VX4400 model. As with any electronic device, it's always possible to get a unit with a minor defect. As I said, I have used my VX4400 with several different headsets and have experienced no problems whatsoever. A headset quirk that DOES exist at this time, however, is that the VX4400 does not work with any headset's on-off button (including LG's own OEM headset). This forces you to open the phone to dial and end calls (interestingly, the memo button on the side prompts the voice dial feature when a headset is plugged in, but you still must open the phone and hit "end" to hang up). Hopefully this is a software issue to be addressed in a future software update. UPDATE # 1: Apparently there are some issues with the Jabra FreeSpeak wireless headset that are software related, and are being worked on by Jabra and LG. UPDATE # 2, 6-13-03: Problem with Jabra FreeSpeak has been fixed. The phone book, voice activation, alarms, scheduler, T9 text input ALL work great. A minor issue is that there is currently only a "vibrate and remind" or "flashing lamp" reminder alert for voice mail notification, text messages, etc. There are NO audible (beep, ring, etc.) message alert reminders. By "reminder", I am referring to an alert every 2 minutes until the message is acknowledged. Hopefully, this will also be addressed in a future software update (S/W version 7?). Regarding battery life, I routinely get 3+ hours of talk time in a one-day time frame and 2 3/4 hours over a 48 hour time frame. I consider that very good performance for a color phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87200 2000/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen basically a pretty fun little phone clarity of calls great reception battery life doesn t compare to my 8390 which would last well over a week The Bottom LineI couldn't be happier with a color phone! I love getting service everywhere and I'm pleased with the battery life. Full Review I just switched from the cute Nokia 8390 phone to this one and there is NOOOOOO comparison!! This phone is just as cute, great color screen, easy navigation (didn't hardly need the useless manual), I've found the info I need thru reviews on this site. I finally picked up this little gem through Verizon (which all my friends have so now I can take advantage of the mobile-to-mobile minutes) and I am very impressed. I love the fact that this phone is just as tiny as my 8390 when closed, but when opened, it's twice as big and ten times as colorful, even down to the keypad! On battery life, one charge and my phone will last about four days, even a little more sometimes, depending on usage. Mine actually lasts a little more than stated both on reviews and from the Verizon website. I'm still pretty impressed. The other minor disappointment is that the vibrate and ringer doesn't work simultaneously. Even on the setting "high and vibrate", it only vibrates. The ringer is loud enough though so it's not that big of a deal. The ringer on my 8390 was not very loud so having the vibrate on at the same time was quite useful. Overall, I love this phone and am very pleased with it and my new service with Verizon. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone wanting a color phone. I debated over this phone and the new VX6000 camera phone for quite a while and although having a camera phone would be pretty cool, I couldn't pass up the tri-mode feature of the VX4400. Also, I guess I just can't justify having a feature on a phone that will just drain the battery even more and cost money every time I take a picture and want to send it to someone or my own e-mail. Although I could save personal screen savers on it, that would be about the only thing missing from the VX4400 (I know a cable could fix that problem, but then again $20.00 for a couple cool shots.....no thanks) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87199 2003/5/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice color screen good battery life for color screen phone standard ringers instruction manual The Bottom LineIf you have Verizon Wireless as a provider, you just can't go wrong with this phone! Full Review I upgraded from a Moto Startac to the LG VX4400, my wife has an LG VX10, and we have been really happy with the phone, although when we bought her phone LG was (and still is) a relatively unknown brand. Unfortunately I am on my 4th VX4400 phone because of different problems - 1st Tech service fried it when doing a software upgrade - 2nd The external up button was broken - 3rd had reception problems, battery charging and spontaneous rebooting. Not sure what this says about the durability and reliability of the phone. On the plus side, Verizon was really good about replacing my phone in each of the cases, and my current one is working extremely well. Clarity and reception: The phone has excellent reception and clarity. Granted my benchmark is an old Startac, but I get excellent signal in areas where I had marginal signal before. Also this phone uses 1xRTT which is the next generation CDMA digital resulting in better signal, lower power requirements (=better battery life) and high speed capabilities. Ringers: The built in ringers are BAD! The good news is that you can use GetItNow to download different ringtones from ModTones. Also the ringers were REALLY loud even on the lowest setting (an issue which they have fixed with a software update). Screens: The screens are bright and easy to read. The external screen is very large (especially when compared to other phones) and provides all the basic information - Signal strength and type (1x, Digital,Analog or Roam), battery remaining and a very visible date and time. The wallpapers which come with the phone are pretty lame, but you can use GetItNow to download new ones. Text messaging: The phone uses the T9 text input, which is actually the main reason I upgraded from my previous phone. It works really well, and adding words to the dictionary is almost automatic (just type the word using the abc mode and then switch back to T9Word entry and it adds it) Get It Now: The phone is equipped with BREW, and applications can be downloaded for a fee from Get It Now (GIN). Most of the games are marginal because of the limitations of the size of the phone, but they are entertaining (have only tried a couple). Most can be downloaded for one time use or require a monthly subscription. Battery life: I have been pretty pleased with the battery life. On an average day I spend about 40 to 45 minutes on the phone, send 6 to 8 text messages and receive 10 to 15 text messages, and I can go two full days without recharging - not bad for a color screen phone! For Techies: If you are so inclined you can use a data cable available online or from Radio Shack and your PC to download tunes from the internet, create your own images to upload to the phone (although this is not for the technically challenged - and you can do a lot of damage to your phone if you do not do it correctly.) You can also manage the phone book and calendar with the purchase of software. The phone as far as I know has three software versions available - Version 4 was the original version for my first phone, it had some significant problems with the volume of the ringers, and some features were not implemented - such as picture ID Version 5 was the version of my second and third phones, they fixed the volume issues and implemented all the features Version 6 my current phone version - it seems to make the phone run a little faster (although it might just be my perception) and is smoother. If you buy the phone from Verizon you will probably get version 5 or 6 (as of May 27th). Overall: It is a well built, feature rich, fun phone, which will keep you connected. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87198 2004/5/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 gorgeous color screen great battery life nothing really so far but ring tones are silly The Bottom LineStop reading and just go get it!! Full Review I am a geek and just have to have toys to play with, so I was really hot to get the T720. But after reading the reviews, I was thinking that might not be such a good idea. I was shocked since my last favorite phone was the Motorola StarTAC and it was a workhorse. Since then I've had candy bar phones and hated every last one of them. But this one is a keeper and now both my business partners have one too! First, the phone is sturdy. Mine gets opened about 25-50 times a day and the hinge seems very sturdy. The battery life is terrific! On the first day after it was charged (which only takes 3 hours, btw) I set out on a mission at 7:30 am to try to run the battery dead. I proceded to input all my old phone numbers for a good couple hours. Then for a few hours over the course of the day, I downloaded and played Yahtzee and Bowling, checked email frequently and surfed the web. And of course I had to call everyone and give them my new phone number. At 10:30 that evening, the battery finally gave me a "battery low" indication. It still had enough juice left in it for me to get home and get it on the charger. Since then, I've used it A LOT and never run it dead. I'm very impressed. The sound quality is great. Most people I talk to don't realize I'm on a cellular phone unless I tell them. The only thing I don't like is that the ringers that come with the phone are very lame. I'm not thrilled to have to pay for ringtones, wallpaper or software, but I've accepted that someone put a bunch of effort into writing the application so they deserve to be compensated. I am going to try the hack that was suggested in an earlier review since I would like to have family photos on my phone instead of the ones that come with it. My husband and I love the games since our 5 year old can play with it whenever he gets restless at a "grownup" function. The bowling is very good. And a few games of Yahtzee can make a wait at the bank or carwash pass in no time. The holster is good and my phone has not fallen out one single time. Nor has the holster fallen off my skirt or slacks. It would be great if the phone was BlueTooth enabled, but it's not, so to go wireless, you have to wear an adapter plugged in and also clipped to your belt. I love the alarm clock with a snooze and the calculator comes in handy quite often. One touch "manner mode" is so convenient to use before going into meetings. Somebody is going to have to come out with something pretty super duper to get me to give up this phone. LG has made a believer out of me. Get the phone...you'll love it!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87197 2003/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life good reception easy to read keypaddisplay attractive styling external buttons recharge cradle menu structure The Bottom LineThe VX4400 is an excellent phone. However, I have a slight preference for the Motorola T720 over the LG VX4400 if these are your choices. Full Review My wife has had a T720 since Christmas and I decided to change phones (partially to upgrade since I was using an old Nokia and partially to escape AT&T which has terrible coverage in Weschester, NY) in late spring. I narrowed it down to the Motorola T720, which has served my wife very well, and the LG VX4400. I had some experience using my wife's T720 on the weekends and was reasonably impressed with it. The reception is clear, the menus are very good, the display is fine, battery life is acceptable - no real issues. I read a bunch of the reviews here and decided to go with the newer LG4400, partially as an "upgrade" and partially to avoid confusing my phone with my wifes. Having used the LG now for about 3 months (it is my work phone so I use it pretty intensively), I think the two phones are roughly equivalent in terms of user experience. With the VX4400, the navigation arrows are small and close together so if you have decent sized fingers like me, you make a lot of unintentional errors if you try to use these buttons in a rapid sequence. I like the menu structure of the T720 better than that of the VX4400. The VX4400 vibrate mode is extremely aggressive which is nice when it's in your pocket but if you have the phone on a hard table in the vibrate mode and it goes off, it makes almost as much racket as a normal phone ringing but in a less pleasant way. Finally one small issue: To recharge the VX4400, you need to insert it into the cradle. It sort of "snaps" in. I have a strong feeling that this is going to break in the not too distant future just by the way it snaps in. Among the many positives: (1) it is a very stylish phone, I've gotten several "hey, neat phone!" types of comments - the color internal display and the fact that the external display even changes color I guess is not all that common yet, (2) being a GPS phone, the time changes as you change time zones while traveling (a small thing but if you travel a lot like me you appreciate it), (3) battery life has been outstanding, (4) reception is great. So the net message from me is that the VX4400 is an excellent phone, however, not very differentiated from the Motorola T720. I think, overall, if I had the choice to make over now, I would probably go with the Motorola T720 over the LG VX4400. I find it easier to use and having a better screen/menu set-up. Either way, I think you can't really go wrong - they're both excellent phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87196 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity overall quality size reception downloaded ringers not as loud as pre loaded The Bottom LineThis is a phone that will not let you down. Great deal and great quality. Full Review I recently went out in search of a new phone to replace my Motorola V60i. I looked at many phones on the Verizon Wireless service network. After evaluating most of the phones that Verizon had to offer, I settled upon the Motorola V60s, LG VX4400B, and the LG VX6000. I decided against the Motorola based on its lack of solid performance and the short time it was available on the market. I then purchased the LG VX6000. It was a great phone, but I eventually decided that the camera that was built in was virtually useless. The resolution on the pictures taken was extremely low. Also, users only have the ability to store up to 20 pictures. Great phone, but I simply didn't feel as though I would utilize the camera enough to necessarily warrant carrying a larger phone, as I prefer my electronics to be as small as possible without effecting the quality or performance. This is the point at which I exchanged the VX6000 for the updated version of the VX4400. The new version, the VX4400B has a blue face. To my knowledge, that is the only difference between the 4400 and the 4400B, but I'm not certain. I have had the 4400B for about a month now and am very pleased with the quality of the phone. The call clarity and volume are absolutely outstanding. I have only had two other phones with the same great reception and volume and clarity; the VX6000 and the Motorola V60i. Much of the clarity and reception is compliments of Verizon Wireless service, which is the best in the Seattle area (see related review). One of the nice features of the 4400 over the 6000 is the battery life. I had to charge the 6000's battery every day. With the 4400, I usually only have to charge it every other day. Sometimes, however, it needs a little bit of a charge in the car to make it through the second day. I am a pretty high volume user, and spend a lot of time on the phone (about 2000 minutes a month). With that kind of usage, I am pretty satisfied with the battery life. The reception of the phone is very good, compliments of the extendable antenna and Verizon Wireless service. In the Seattle area and this phone, there are no dead spots; there is very strong reception everywhere, with the exception of some large cement buildings in the University District. The volume of the handset speaker and the ringers are both very good as well. However, with downloaded ringers, they are a bit quieter. With the ringer volume all the way up, it is usually sufficient, as long as the environment is not too loud, although I would prefer it to be a bit louder. The clarity of the speaker is very good, and there is never a problem hearing the person on the other end of the conversation. The keys are laid out very nicely, and the blue key backlight is very helpful in any light, especially in the dark. The screen is also very well lit and rarely washes out in the direct sun. There is enough contrast to always see enough to know what you are doing. LG had the forward thinking to include settings for the brightness control of the inner LCD screen which is helpful in conserving battery life. The screen is a little smaller (2 lines of text) that the VX6000, but it also makes the phone smaller, so this is not too terribly important for me. The features on this phone are plentiful and very easy to use. The calculator, datebook, voice dialing capability, voice notes, and alarm clock are some of the greatest hits. Many more are available. The menus are very easy to navigate, after a little getting used to, coming from Motorola software. Get it Now features and applications are overpriced by Verizon, but still nice games and such to have on the phone when you are waiting in the dentist's office waiting room or waiting for a bus. They are very clear and have good sound with them as well. Typical games range from about $5 to about $8. Ringers average about $2. Some games are overpriced, but users are by no means required to buy them. All in all, I really like this phone so far. The durability seems to be proportionate with the rest of the phone. Good quality all around. I rarely drop my phone, and am not a big fan of leather cases, so the included belt clip holster works great for me, as it keeps the phone close to the body and doesn't add very much depth to the phone. My final recommendation would be to get the phone and always have a car charger with your phone. It works very well, and Verizon Wireless service is unbeatable, especially in the Northwest. With this LG model, you will not be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87195 2000/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 tri mode digit buttons loud rings battery life charger stand manual navigation buttons The Bottom LineIf you don't need a camera (and who really does?), this will allow you to reliably do everything else you'd want. Full Review When my two year Verizon contract ran out this month I was eager to get my "free" 100 dollar phone upgrade. I had been using a cheap Kyocera 2135 for two years and was generally happy, but annoyed about a couple of things. Now, I guess I'd say I'm happIER -- but also a little more annoyed. First, the salesman wisely steered me to this phone and, in hindsight, it was probably the smartest move (for me) in the Verizon assortment. After I got home, I realized I could have gotten the VX6000 camera phone for free -- but then I found out that the 6000 is not tri-mode capable (not designed for use in many boonies) and I felt better. I really didn't NEED a camera phone, anyway. In short: What I needed is what I got. I wanted a phone with better battery life than the Kyocera, that charges faster, sounds good, and that I can use in my frequent travels around the country. Everything else is splitting hairs, but: 1) The charger stand is a nuisance. The primitive Kyocera only needed a plug to be inserted to charge -- it took one second to do that. Sliding this phone into the stand takes some manipulating. And I wonder if the insertions and removal will damage the contacts down the road? Plus, I bought the leather carrying case and learned later that I have to remove the lower half of the case to charge the phone--annoying! 2) I like that the ring tones are fairly loud. I can actually use the phone as a travel alarm. I'd sleep through the alarm on my old phone. I can also hear the phone ring easily when I'm in my loud car with the tunes on. 3) The manual is rather poor. It needs an index. 4) The number buttons on this phone are fairly large, and I am less likely to hit the wrong digit than my old phone. On the other hand, I find I make more slips navigating through the menus than I did on my old phone -- the "OK" and arrow buttons are too close!! They should have been set off from each other. 5) I'm told the selection of wallpapers and ringers is pretty dismal, as cell phones go. I wouldn't know, and it makes little difference to me. Bottom line: It meets my basic day-to-day needs very well, it looks sharp and allows me easy access to all the fun stuff I may someday want to pay extra to do (games, web, text messaging etc.). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87194 2000/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound gps 911 loud ringtone compact The Bottom LineThis is the best in the mid line color phones verizon wireless offers!!! The only better would of course be a pocket pc phone hybrid. Full Review First, I must mention that I am a man with great expectations and little patience for failure in an electronic device. With that said I must mention that I have gone through four cell phone companies and many various styles of phones finding a fatal flaw in each device over the years. Finally, I have found a phone that after three months, I have no qualms about whatsoever! The LD VX4400 by Verizon Wireless! Many people have many opinions of what makes a cell phone great from the type of ringtones to the games to whether or not there is a calculator to internt. I am going to cover the basic features that everyone agrees is important such as clarity and signal reception. This phone is pure gold! It has a ringtone that is unmistakeable wherever I go. It is loud, and being a polygraphic tone, I it very distinctive in a world where every person you walk by has a phone! It also has a very powerful vibrate feature that really lets me know my phone is ringing in silent mode. The Antennae is nothing special in apperence but it packs a powerful punch in that along with the verizon network I have never lost a signal yet, and I travel in and out of courntry, city, and the middle of nowhere often. The buttons are easy to use and the design of the flip phone makes them easy to access in just one hand. Of course, to answer a call you simply open the phone (if you are concerned with who is calling you there is a bright LCD on the front of the phone along with the date and time, signal display, and roaming/home network access, and battery power on when not in use). to end a call simply flip the phone back down. Did I mention that this is a COLOR screen phone capable of moving screen savers? Yep! Of course, this phone has internet and direct access to Verizon's get it now feature for downloading games and various applications such as screen savers, backgrounds, etc. Now for what I consider to be second in importance next to clarity, the battery life! ... ... It's GREAT! I talk for hours and hours (verizon offers unlimited nights and weekends which by chance is when I do most of my calls) without having to recharge. I actually have gotten three hours non stop talktime with this phone in digital and about an hour and twenty minutes in analog (battery did not run out then, I just finished the call). Best of all, it recharges in under thirty minutes for me with the desktop charger. (it might charge faster but LG built it wehre the LCD on the front always stays lit when charging, oh well this is not a problem!). This phone also has a GPS locator in side it for emergency calls. If your local 911 provides the service, when you dial 911 from your cell phone, the EMS can track you to within a tenth of a mile from where you are via satellite. This is great if you dial 911 in a city you are not familar with and need to be found. Of course, if you feel leary of such things, you can deactivate it. I have not found a difference in battery life that is noticable with it on. This phone also has a built in voice recorder for when you need to leave yourself a message. It has a vast address book, a graphical menu (or textual if you prefer), volume control is on the side of the phone, it has voice dial, a calendar, a soft button where you can program your most accessed feature (for me its the calculator). Oh, By the way, I have accidentally dropped this phone several times and have been caught in terrible rain storms on occasion. Like timex it took a licking and kept on ticking. The phone comes with the desktop charger, a car adaptor, and a belt clip attachment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 87193 2000/4/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good clarity pleasing look built strong great options external silence button that silences phone sometimes less than desireable ringer vibrate options The Bottom LineThis is a good durable phone that has all the options a college student like myself would use. I recommend this phone for almost anyone. Full Review I've been using the VX4400 for around six months now with Verizon Wireless, and I am very satisfied thus far with its performance. With regards to call clarity (the most important factor) this phone performs much better than most flip-phones I have had experience with in the past, even while roaming in analog networks, something previous flip-phones have had problems with. I find the large external and color internal displays very helpful, and the button layout is not so close that you press the wrong ones while text messaging or dialing. The phone is built very well, something necessary for a college student like myself. This phone also excels when it comes to the extras. The phonebook has a large capacity and great options such as speed dial, voice dial, multiple numbers per name, grouping, and the option to assign different rings to different people/groups. Get It Now allows you to download color games, which is good because the phone unfortunately doesn't come with any. The wireless web is fast and very helpful. The phone also has extensive setting options, a calender, notepad, and schedule option, as well as voice memo option that you can actually use to record telephone calls and voicemail (although on calls it only records the other person's voice). These are just a few of the great options. The only real downfalls are with the ringer volume and options. One annoying aspect is that one control between normal right - manner (vibrate) mode - silent mode, is on the side of the phone, and changed by holding the button three seconds. Well, if you have the phone in your pocket, you'll notice this will happen once in a while by itself, therefor perhaps silencing the phone when you don't want it silent. This isnt a problem if you use the belt clip. The other major problem is with the volume control. Unlike my previous phone, this one cannot vibrate and ring at the same time. When set to this option, the phone will vibrate for a while, and then ring. Well, depending on the number of rings you have your phone set to before it goes to voicemail, the phone may never get to the ring and you may miss a call. Overall, this is a very decent phone, and I would recommend it to most people in my position. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87192 2003/4/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features design display lame wallpaper lack of games manual The Bottom LineThe bottom line of this phone is "buy it." You'll love the phone. I do. Full Review I was never sold on flip phones before I purchased this phone. But, after seeing a friend's 4400 I knew I wanted to give it a try. And I haven't been disappointed. When I first started looking for phones I was looking really hard at the Motorola T720. However, I had a bad experience with Motorola years ago and giving them another chance left a bad taste in my mouth. At much urging from my friend, because she wanted to take advantage of the mobile to mobile minutes, I went with Verizon and decided after reading many other reviews that the 4400 was a better choice then the T720. One of my deciding factors was the battery life. However, I've been minorly disappointed with the battery life. Like others say, "it's good for color phone," but I was simply expecting a little more. I should point out that I'm disappointed in the stated time as the phone seems to give what it advertises. My friend bought her phone one week before I did, and she had some problems with text messaging getting messed up requiring a reset. This was an annoyance, but she got it fixed with a software update that Verizon performed in a short time -- she did have to go into a store. I haven't had the problem yet. Other reviewers have reported sub-standard sound quality. But, I have to say that I have been really happy with the sound quality -- with the exception of headset volume. There is a echo from time to time, but it usually goes away with a slight adjustment of how I hold the phone. It baffles me, but I haven't had problems hearing people through the phone itself. After getting the phone I had a blast browsing through menus and changing settings. I love the ability to define custom ringers for each phone book entry including changing the text messaging ringer (and I'm now addicted to text messaging). However, I quickly realized that there's just not enough of the extras included on the phone. The wallpaper selection is small and to add insult to injury the images are lame. The ringer selection is okay, but still lacks anything of particular interest. Navigation was really easy. I love the shortcut key to the calendar which I use heavily. However, it's too easy to hit the key and get thrown into Brew. Text messaging is a breeze, and I've found the TWord functionality which intelligently interprets your words to be pretty extensive with some interesting exceptions. The one thing I found odd is that the entry option for "Smiley" is available when editing the banner text, but not during text messaging. Very odd. My problem with the wallpaper and ringer selection was easily cured by purchasing a data cable and a few minutes of searching the web. The data cable specifically for the 4400, but some very helpful people have posted messages on the internet stating that the cable for the VX10 will also fit. The cable can be purchased from RadioShack for $20 (part 170-0783). I now have a picture of my dog on the background and a picture of my friend displayed when she calls -- of course it's only shown for a millisecond as I open the phone, but it's still cool. Probably my biggest complaint, and it's not that big of a deal to me, is the lack of games. For a $200 phone you should get at least one game! And again to add insult to injury the selection of games is poor (I liked Linez). So, if games are important to you on a phone then you probably don't want this phone. The last point I want to make is about the manual. The manual is easy to navigate, but it seems to sacrifice content in lieu of brevity. It's only thick because half of it is a foreign language. Update: The battery has seemed to improve. The other day I had it off the charger all afternoon until about 2am. And during that time I exchanged several text messages and talked for just over three hours over two phone calls. Also, the sound seems to be pretty weak with some of the polyphonic ring tones I downloaded. However, that is probably to do with the ring tones themselves and not the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87191 2004/1/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durability color screen looks features no speaker phone earpiece not included in the package The Bottom LineA good reliable phone that is available with the most reliable carrier: Verizon Wireless. LG is a good brand and its the first brand I would recommend outside of Nokia. Full Review "Fun, functional, and easy to use, the new VX4400 from LG has everyone talking! The large, full-color Internal LCD has 4 theme colors, 8 wallpapers and a variety of font colors and sizes, and the unique external caller ID LCD has 10 custom colors to identify incoming messages it also features a brilliant backlit keypad, 26 custom ring tones, and is loaded with productivity tools like a web browser, voice-activated dialing, 99 speed dial entries, phone book, and calendar/scheduler. In fact, with its attractive good looks and so many customizable options, the full-color VX4400 phone by LG could almost be called image apparel." At a glance it catches your eye when you wear it on your belt with a belt-clip with which it comes. 1.9 GHz PCS, 800 MHz CDMA, 800 MHz AMPS (TRI-MODE) Features: -Download Pictures, Ringers & Games -Up to 1.5 Mb Downloadable Flash Memory -Openwave UP 4.1 (WAP 2.0) Browser -Customizable External LCD Colors (Identifies types of incoming communication; 7 solid colors, two 2-color rotation settings and 1 dynamic.) -Brilliant Backlit Keypad -Customizable Wallpaper, Screen Saver, Display Themes, Font Sizes and Colors -Caller ID Ringers: 26 + Vibrate -CMX MIDI Sound for Ringers and Games -E911 Emergency Location Capable -External LCD for Quick Access To Caller ID -Personal Organizer: Calendar with Scheduler, Alarm Clock, Notepad, Voice Memo -Tools: Calculator, EZ Tip Calculator, World Clock -Phone Book: 199 contacts (each stores 5 numbers and 1 email address) -Voice Activated Dialing (30 entries) -Two Way Short Messaging Service (SMS) -Internal USB Capable -One Touch Memo (4 minutes) -5 Way Navigation Key -Speed Dial (99 Entries) -T9 Text Input It comes with everything to get you started: -Standard Li-Ion Battery -Desktop Charger with AC Adapter -Holster There are also other accessories available (Sold Separately): -Extended Li-Ion -Vehicle Power Adapter -Hands-Free Headset -Travel Charger -Installed Hands-Free Kit -Portable Hands-Free Kit -Data Connectivity Kit (Includes Dial-Up Software, PC Sync and USB Cable) Specifications: -1xRTT -Dimensions: 3.46"(H) x 1.89"(W) x 1.07"(D) -Weight: 4.0 oz. -Dual LCD: Internal:65K Color STN, 120 x 133 Pixels 6 lines + 1 line icons/16 characters External: 4 Grayscale Levels, 96 x 64 Pixels 1 line + 1 line icons/ 12 characters Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87190 2000/10/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great volume level if not a little too loud sometimes beautiful color screen excellent reception color screen hard to see outside in sunlight included ringtones are truly awful The Bottom LineGreat value for the money. This phone could replace a landline easily with its excellent reception and other features. Full Review I switched to Verizon after using AT&T GSM for the last year. GSM never worked at my house, which sucked because I was originally planning on dropping my landline. I read a lot of good things about Verizon and the LG VX4400, so I ordered from the web site, received it three days later, and was immediately impressed. I get a strong signal on the phone at my house, calls sound crystal clear even away from windows in the center of the house, and the people I'm talking to don't even know I'm on a cell phone most of the time. I've also tried the phone out in several locations throughout my state (NC) and it's worked great every time. It switched to analog one time, but I've since set it to forced CDMA, and that hasn't happened since then. I haven't dropped any calls yet. Battery life seems reasonable. I've been talking, using mobile web, and Get It Now and have had to charge the phone twice in six days. Not too bad for a phone with a really nice color screen. I also have the backlight on constantly while the flip is open; the battery would probably last even longer if I set the backlight to go off after 15 or 30 seconds. The external monochrome screen is easy to see, with large numbers. The internal color screen is great indoors or on a cloudy day, but it's very hard to see in sunlight. I have to shade the phone with my hand to see the screen. All in all, I am totally pleased with my purchase and with Verizon so far. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87189 2000/5/25 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small but not too small very user friendly battery doesn t run out great colors instruction book terrible ring tones not great wallpapers limited The Bottom LineA great phone. Never enjoyed a cell phone as much as this one. Full Review I have been a Motorola cell phone user since my first phone when cell phones were first marketed. I have had at least 8 Motorola cell phones and have always thought I would continue to stick with Motorola. Well, things have changed. I changed plans at Verizon and needed to get a trimode phone. Went to nearest Verizon dealer expecting to get a new Motorola phone and left with the LG VX4400. Checked the models they had and it came down to the Motorola T720 or the LG. Holding the LG felt better than the Motorola and the screen colors seemed brighter. I asked the fellow behind the counter and he told me he was using the LG VX4400 and liked it a lot better than the Motorola phone. With a 15 day return policy I decided to give the LG a try. One of the best decisions I have made. It is a great phone. My friends who went with the Motorola T720 have been very unhappy. The phone itself is light and compact. It comes with a belt clip-on holster which works well. It is very user friendly which is good because the instruction book is terrible. To get around the menu is very easy and it is very easy to add phone numbers to the phone book. I remember how difficult it was on my Motorola. Editing the phone book is also very easy. I wish though the phone had just a plain colored wallpaper instead of having to pick a picture background. The battery seems to never run out. I bought 2 extra batteries, which I keep charged and ready to go, but have not used them yet. On my Motorola phones I constantly used back-up batteries. I keep the key lights, back light, and screen lit all the time and it still doesn't run the battery down. The menu has a call history which includes outgoing calls, incoming calls, missed calls, and call timer. Very easy to deal with. You can set the phone for different rings also. You can tell by the ring if the caller's name appears, no caller ID, or is ID restricted. You can also tell by the color the phone flashes with each caller. The phone has a calculator, world clock, notepad, voice memo, schedule keeper, and alarm clock. All are easy to use. I use the alarm clock all the time and it really wakes me up. The front window on the phone gives you all the pertinent info you need without having to open it. The phone even has voice dialing. You can set the voice dialing to come on either when you open the top or with the press of a button and it works! I could go on and on to praise the phone but will end by saying I am very happy with it and would do it again. It is a great cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $50 with reb 87188 2000/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 very good voice clarity very poor software The Bottom LineGo with Nokia instead! Full Review I wish that someone had warned me about this phone before I bought it. My husband and I had been customers of AT&T using Nokia phones for years. We were having problems with dropped calls, so we decided to switch to Verizon. Unfortunately, Verizon did not offer any Nokia phones at the time. We've been very happy with Verizon's service, but we've been miserable with our LG 4400 phones. Here are our gripes: 1. If you are in an Analog area, you cannot use your voicemail or text messaging. This is crazy. When I had my Nokia, I could send text messages when I couldn't get very good reception. Now I may as well not even have a cell phone. Verizon salespeople will try to tell you that very few areas are Analog areas now, but don't believe them. My parents live in a heavily populated suburb of Philadelphia, and their area is Analog. 2. The software for alerting you when you have a voice message is terrible. Say you get a message from a colleague at 11:45 AM. You press the button to ignore it. At 12:30, your phone decides to check in with your voicemail system again. You'll get an alert on your phone that you have a new message at 12:30. Did you just miss a call? No, it's that same message from 11:45 that you already told the phone you wanted to ignore. Then when you decide to check your voicemail, you get into the messaging system, start to enter your password, and your phone interrupts you YET AGAIN to tell you that you have a new message. Because of this alert, the phone jumbles up your password, and the messaging system tells you that your password is incorrect. This has happened to me well over 10 times and it drives me crazy! 3. When you're in an area with very little reception and try to make a phone call, the phone will not alert you with a beep or anything that the phone call has not gone through. You just sit there for several minutes, until you look at the screen and realize that you're back to the main screen again and your call never went through. My Nokia used to give me short, fast beeps to alert me right away. Wish the LG did the same thing. 4. The phone has a button on the side that allows you to set the phone to silent or manner mode. This is convenient when you're in a public place, but all too often my phone has rubbed up against something else while in my bag and gone to silent mode without my knowing it. I've missed quite a few calls because of this. My husband and I have gone to Verizon to complain about this phone and see if they would let us get a Nokia instead, but they want to charge us $250 each for Nokia phones since our 2-year contract isn't up for another 18 months. We're really disappointed and have a hard time envisioning another 18 months with these phones. The only thing Verizon did for us was give us a free software update, but it did nothing to solve our biggest gripes. I just hope this review keeps someone else from making the same mistake we did. Go with the Nokia!!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87187 2000/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loud intuitive menus clear sound clear display sometimes too loud numbersletters on keypad are blurry with backlighting loud sound The Bottom LineThis is a nice phone worth consideration. It provides many features that should satisfy the average person for the length of some of these cellular contracts. Full Review After deciding that I didn't want to pay $50 a month for telemarketers to call me, I decided to pull the plug. I decided to get rid of the land line and go completely wireless. In order to do this, I had to have a phone. After shopping around with several providers, I decided to go to Verizon. Of the phones they had, I decided on the LG 4400. While this may or may not be the top of the line phone offered by Verizon, I decided to choose it because it was the nicest thing that wasn't a Motorola. Motorola, it seems, wants to buck tradition and transpose the "Send" and "End" buttons. They may like the design, but something is to be said for consistency. After getting hooked up, I made several calls. The sound quality of the LG 4400 is excellent (albeit loud)! I programmed all my friends numbers into the phone's memory without having to read the instructions. The menus are very intuitive. While I like this phone immensely, there are some problems. For one, the speaker volume is extremely loud, even when turned down all the way. This is great if you are hearing impaired, but is a little rough if you aren't. Additionally, the blue backlighting used for the numeric keypad causes the little letters to be blurry, at least for me. The holster doesn't allow the phone to be opened while the phone is in it, and you can't use the charger and a headset at the same time, which may be important if you are using it to replace a land line and you talk on the phone a lot. Since the telephone is new there aren't really that many accessories available for it, at least not when I bought it. Hopefully, this will be resolved soon. All in all, the phone is pretty good. I am happy with it. There are some issues that I listed above, but otherwise it is a nice phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87186 2003/9/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 colorful voice recognition processor speed sound quality ease of use battery life features The Bottom LineI despise this phone. It is poorly programmed and very inflexible. I can't customize features and menus are counter intuitive. Clarity and battery life are poor. Yuck. Full Review I am astonished by the ratings that this phone has received. This is a miserable phone and I hate it and I hope you take the time to see why. It is a company phone so I'm stuck with it. The most maddening thing about this fragile little phone is that the interface (the association between buttons and phone functions) is as illogical and counter intuitive as anything I've seen. Examples: A) Hitting the 'clear' button takes you one menu screen "back," but if you're at the bottom of some menu tree and you just hit 'clear' one too many times to get to the top (or to erase misdialed numbers), it takes you to a help screen at only tells you how to use the pay services and change the volume(!) and, according to tech support, there's no way to disable the help menu. B) Of the 4 'quick' buttons at the top (above numbers), 2 are direct links to pay services - mobile web and feature enhancements such as different rings and games. There are no default games on this phone. If you want any games, you have to buy them. C) If you select a number from your 'phone book' or 'call history,' pushing 'OK' won't dial the number. It'll just show you the number in its own screen. Hitting 'OK' from that point does nothing, literally. F) The menu icons are meaningless and/or cryptic. It seems to be as if almost no thought at all was given to the programming of this phone. Besides this, the battery life is poor at best. It may do OK for a color phone, but it can't hold a charge over the weekend, even if I don't use it. Be prepared to charge it every single day. Since I wear the phone on my belt, the buttons on the side of the phone frequently(!) get pushed against the side of my chair or other random, near-by solid objects, thus turning my phone into 'silent' mode without my knowledge. I have the same happen when I get a call when I'm driving. If it's on my belt, then I inevitably bump it on the seatbelt or in my haste, grab it in the wrong spot and disconnect the caller I was trying to answer. This happened just yesterday and it happens all the time. Many have rated this review as 'Not Helpful' because they probably like their phone, but it doesn't mean it's not helpful just because you disagree. This has not been a good phone for me. Simple as that. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): BusinesspaidRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87185 2000/2/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception almost everything cool color screen no problems so far accidental forwarding to voicemail side buttons The Bottom LineHave to give it a big thumbs up! Not the smallest phone available but possibly easier to use than the tiny ones. Full Review I've had my VX4400 a couple of months now and it seems to be a great little phone. It replaced my somewhat dated Nokia 5165. I never really had any complaints about the old phone but I had no idea what I was missing. I'm no phone guru but compared to my old Nokia, I have to say this is a very cool phone. The color screen is awesome. I got a data cable for the phone so I could make and upload my own wallpaper and midi ringers. That stuff is sort of fun to play with even though it doesn't make the phone any more functional. I was a little concerned about how sturdy a flip phone would be but it seems like it's built very well. I think it would take some serious abuse before it actually broke. It doesn't come with any games, if you're into that sort of stuff(which I am not). I got EasyEdge free for two months when I signed up so I went ahead and downloaded a couple of games in case I get really bored some time. The leap from the older TDMA phone to the CDMA technology is amazing. I work in the basement of a large building and I could never even get a signal with my old phone. I can now send and receive calls from my office with virtually no problems. I was also impressed by how good the voice dial feature was. It's very easy to setup and it has never failed to work correctly. The only real complaint is the same as I have read on some of the other reviews here. The buttons on the side are just too easy to hit when you get a call and reach for the phone. If you grab the phone just right and press the buttons on the side, it sends the call to voicemail. I had this happen a couple of times right after I got it so I'm just very careful now. It's just a dumb design I think. I'm hoping LG will come out with a flash update that will help fix this. I would highly recommend the VX4400 for anyone looking to upgrade. I got mine free with a 2 year contract so I couldn't beat the price. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87184 2000/2/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good size beautiful color display graphics nice layout shape volume is too loud even at lowest setting sound quality is terrible The Bottom LineA fun phone, possibly good for short calls or if other features are more important to you than sound quality. But if sound is important, run in the other direction! Full Review I've been using my StarTac for years and I LOVE it, but bought this LG VX4400 as an almost-free upgrade when I renewed my contract with Verizon. What I like about the LG VX4400: * GORGEOUS color monitor * Graphics (icons, color choices, wallpaper, etc.) are very appealing * Fun added features like tip calculator, organizer, calendar, etc. (I don't care about games and I don't use my phone for text messages.) * Shape, size and weight feel good in the hand. * Menu icons can be displayed as icons or in a list What I dislike: * The Send and End buttons are on opposite sides of the phone from other phones I've used. It's irritating to have to reach clear across the phone to initiate a call. Send should be the button closest to your thumb. (Maybe this phone was designed by a leftie.) * The worst feature of this phone, and the one which is causing me to return it, is the sound quality. Both the phone ringing on the other end and the voice of the person I'm talking with sound as if they are underwater. They burble, and the sound drops off intermittently, to the point where it's sometimes difficult to understand what the other person is saying. * The sound also has a very harsh quality to it, sounding tinny and hollow, like when you're on speakerphone. Since I make all my long distance personal calls on my cell phone, and I spend 45 minutes to an hour at a time on these calls, I want excellent sound quality. This phone is annoying and difficult to hear for both me and the person I'm talking with. * Volume is WAY too loud. Even at the lowest volume setting, the sound in my ear is so loud that it physically *hurts* my ear. You can hear the other person loudly even when I hold the phone far away from my head. I finally went out and bought a headset that had its own volume control on it, and by turning this down low, the sound became something tolerable on my end. But then the person on the other end experienced more sound dropouts. The bottom line: This phone would be really fun for someone who only makes short calls or who isn't bothered by tinny, shrill sound quality and the sound dropping out intermittently. If you make long calls on your cell phone, or you expect or are used to clear and even sound, this phone will probably make you very unhappy. I'm swapping it for a Motorola T730, one of my other upgrade options, or else returning to my old StarTac which still works beautifully but doesn't have all the new techie bells and whistles. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 upgradeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87183 2000/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has a great color internal lcd screen ok battery life pretty good reception The Bottom LineThis is a great phone with great color. It has features which are easy to use. And the reception is good which is important. Full Review I had a Nokia 5185, and really needed an upgrade. When I went to the Verizon Wireless store, they really did not have a wide selection of flip phones to choose from, so I chose the VX4400, which was to me, the best looking phone they had. I was pleased with my purchase. I like the external LCD screen which displays the time and date, reception and battery status. The size of it makes it easy to see and read, unlike other flip phones that I have seen with very small and puny ext.LCD screens which can be hard on the eye. I also like that rainbow effect you get on the external LCD screen when you get an incoming call. This phone comes with great features also. When I first got the phone, I was disappointed it did not come with any games. Anyways, I like the built-in calculator and alarm clock. It also has a calendar where you can schedule events or appointments. The voice dialing system is unique. You just same a name and the phone dials the number for you. I figured out how to record the names but can't figure out how the phone calls the number yet. I must agree that when I read over the manual they really did not do a good job of explaining things. It would show the icons on the page, but really did not elaborate on its function. My Nokia 5185 manual did a better job. I like the Get It Now service on my phone even though you have to pay to download games, applications, etc. Lots of people complain about the fee, BIG DEAL. You just pay one time and after that its unlimited use (no charge). However I did wish Get It Now was free since it is defaulted on this phone. I didn't too much care for the ringtones on this phone either. All of them are kind of dorky. That's why I like Get It Now where you can download better ringtones, instead of being bothered with the internet. Get It Now is so convenient. The battery life is ok. I heard with a color screen phone the battery life is shorter. I learned this because when I play games it shortens the battery life, especially when you download games and other applications. Overall this is a great phone with nice features that I find useful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87182 2000/6/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 well built ease of use size weight style external lcd call quality limited volume control poor speaker quality hideous ring tones The Bottom LineIf you can tolerate the bad ring tones, then this is a great phone. Full Review I bought the LG VX4400 in large part because of the reviews i read on this page. I've found that most everything that has been said about this phone in these reviews is true to some extent. This is my first cell phone, so I don't have much to compare it to, but I'm quickly learning what I like and don't like about this phone. Overall, I really like it. So far the call quality and reception have been great. Almost all of my calls have been clear, with only a few moments of garbled sound and poor connection (probably the result of service quality) The LG VX4400 scores high for style and looks. The large color display has great clarity (although it can be difficult to see outdoors), and the menu formats are easy to understand and pleasant to look at. The buttons on the keypad are large, well spaced, and the key layout is logical and easy to use. The colored key lighting is also attractive and helpful in dark conditions. I've found the external LCD extremely helpful. It tells you everything you need to know before opening the handset: time,date,charge status,signal strength,caller ID,message alerts and so on. Overall this is a very attractive and stylish phone. This phone seems very well built. I haven't owned it all that long, so it's tough to say how durable it will be, but it feels very solid in the hand, and the flip hinge seems tight and sturdy (unlike the moto V60 I've used). Although the antenna looks a little vulnerable, at least the base is molded into the body of the phone (unlike the V60). All of the buttons on the keypad have a solid, responsive feel. The battery fits snug, and overall the phone has a very solid, tight feel to it. Since had never owned a cell phone before, I was not up to speed on how to navigate the menus of a sophisticated phone with so many features. This phone is extremely easy to use. The interface is logical and intuitive, and the menus are easy to follow. Everything on the display and on the menus is clear and easy to read. Despite the horrible users manual, I was able to understand and use most of the features of the phone after working with it for one evening. The address book is especially easy to use, and also powerful. You can store several phone numbers, e-mail addresses and bunch of other information for each name in the 200 line address book. It's really pretty cool. I think the user interface of this phone is exceptional. What I truly dislike about this phone are the ring tones. There are lots of them to choose from, and they all suck. You have the choice of 6 or 7 "basic" ring tones, which all sound like bad wind chimes, or you can choose from a large selection of silly songs to use as your call ringer. These horrible ringtones wouldn't be so bad if you could adequately adjust the volume of the speaker. While you can select between 6 or 7 volume levels for the ringer, the lowest ring volume other than vibrate is still obnoxiously loud. It's almost embarrassing to get a call in grocery store or a mall, let alone an office or restaurant. The vibrate mode isn't all that strong, either, so you're kind of stuck with the loud ringer. I just don't understand why LG would limit the volume adjustment in this way. The speaker quality for the ring tones is not all that great, either. For some ring tones the sound is relatively clear, but for others, the speaker has a tinney, distorted sound quality. Another thing that's not great about this phone is the desk top charger. While it is very compact for a desk top charger, i'm not sure why LG can't use a plug-in charger cord like Nokia. The desk top charger works great, it's larger and more difficult to pack for travel. Despite these irritating flaws, overall, I'm very pleased with the performance of this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87181 2000/10/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 thoughtfully designed easily read screen nice good reception easy accurate voice dialing side buttons too easy to accidentally press limited ringing volumes terrible manual The Bottom LineI easily recommend this phone. It has most of the features, gets reliable reception, has a well-designed OS and easily read color display. Full Review I'm very happy with my LG VX4400. While not perfect, it is much better than the other flip phones I've had to try recently. After 3 months of struggling to find a workable combination of a good phone and good cellular service to replace my old Nokia phones and AT&T, I finally found something I liked with the LG VX4400 and Verizon. Before, I had tried Cingular because of their great plans, but couldn't get reception in my home or office, even though I lived and worked in 1-2 story buildings in the metro Bay Area, having tried both a Motorola T720 and V60. So I switched to Verizon and the VX4400. Next I wanted to get my wife onto a family share service with me. After being unsatisfied with 2 other flip phones offered by Verizon (an LG VX10 and Motorola T730), I traded in for another VX4400 and she's been happy. The reception is reliable and the battery life, while not great is at least acceptable, especially compared with the T730. Some of the things I really like about the VX4400 are: - The voice activated dialing is a snap to use and works very reliably even with loud background noise. - The screen is bright and when you type in a number, they appear in huge type that's effortless to read. Such a simple idea that so few phones have implemented. - The menus are fairly easy to navigate - The side button is handy for turning off the ringer and putting the phone into vibrate mode, all while in my pocket - Reception is good and the sound perfectly acceptable. - It seems quite rugged and has survived several falls without incident - It's small and fits comfortably in my pocket without need to use a holster. - Has a very handy and easy to use voice recorder for capturing spur of the moment memos without need of a pen. Some things I find a little annoying include: - There's no even remotely quiet ring. You go directly from silent vibrate to loud no vibrate, with further options of louder, loudest and loudest + vibrate. - The side buttons can be handy, but they maddeningly can easily be pressed when groping for the phone (e.g., from my pocket) when ringing. The first press turns off the ringer -- handy I guess -- while the 2nd push disconnects the call! There is no reason anyone would ever want that behavior, so why build it in, except to annoy? - The manual is essentially a re-print of the menus with absolutely no explanations for some of the functions and capabilities and with little instruction in general. They can do better. - The OK button in the middle of the 4-way circle button is too small and adjoining keys are too easily pushed by mistake. - The supplied desktop charger is tinny and hard to get the phone onto correctly. If you're not careful and don't put it on just right, it will discharge the battery for you! After a while, however, you learn the signs and do it right. - They make (apparently) every LG phone battery slightly different, making sure you can't use with more than 1 model of LG phones. Again, I see no reason for this except to annoy and/or squeeze customers. - While the screen is usually bright and easy to read, in bright sunlight, it can be very hard to see Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 and 129Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87180 2004/7/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent phone with great receptionergonomicssimple to use the one self healing incident lol The Bottom LineIt has everything but a camera feature which I think is a waste. Best cell phone I have seen yet with easy to use interface. Full Review I have had my Verizon service for over two years so my service plan had expired, and I could change services anytime I wanted. I used this to my advantage when I called Verizon to get a new phone. If they wanted to keep me as a customer they had to give me a great deal on a new updated phone. I got it for free (with 2 yr. contract) and a $50.00 rebate to boot. I chose the LG VX440 because it was a flip phone and has a color screen WITH A DISPLAY ON THE OUTSIDE as well. Why is that important with a flip phone? Because when someone calls you want to know WHO is calling before flipping it open and thus answering it. The color screen didn't matter as much to me as getting the flip phone (wife really wanted this feature). The keypad on this phone looks great with blue backlighting on the keypad that are easy to read at night while driving, and the buttons have a great (read NOT hard plastic) feel to them and are large enough to make dialing very easy with one hand. By having a rubbery like feel to the keys you are less likely to slip over to another key when dialing and avoid dialing the number wrong. It has an easy charger that we just place the phone in when we get home so we never run out of battery power on this phone. This phone has great reception and is pretty easy to operate. I think Verizon wireless service has the best reception in the northeast, but I give a lot of credit to this phone because it does have better reception than the Nokia phone we had before it. The LG VX4400 has a lot of great features that are easy to use. Actually my wife plays with these features much more than I do. It has a button on the side that cycles thru three different ring modes. They are full ring, vibrate only ringing, and silent. All you have to do is hold the button in for it to change to each setting. This is much easier than making changes though menu selections IMO. It comes with about 30 different ringers so you can mix it up if you want, depending on your mood. This phone has a very easy redial function as well. Why is it that cell phones don't have a dedicated button to redial the last number either called or received? It seems to me that it is more important on a cell phone than on a regular phone to have this feature. The ONLY negative thing I can say about this phone is that it didn't work ONCE when my 12 year old son took it when he went sledding. He said he didn't drop it, but it didn't work when he got home. After letting it sit on the charger over night it worked fine again. We assume that it "shut down" because it was a very cold (zero degrees) day when he had it out sledding. It has never happened again so I chalk it up to a fluke thing. Verizon actually gave the phone for free, but with the $50.00 rebate I actually got paid for "buying" this phone. Of course I had to renew for a 2 year contract. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -50.00 afterRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87179 2000/12/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception small brilliant screen voice dial included ringers included wallpapers The Bottom LineGreat reception, beautiful color screen, voice dial feature. I think this is a great phone for anyone looking at Verizon Wireless service. Full Review I recently switched to Verizon wireless from Cingular for several reasons. I knew that I definitely wanted a color screen flip phone, and started doing research. The LG VX4400 got good reviews from online sites and users. I got 2 of them for $49.99 each after rebates. So far I am very pleased with the phone. It is a tri-mode phone, meaning you can get Verizon's digital signal on the America's choice network, or you can roam using the analog signal so that you have virtually nationwide coverage. Verizon claims they cover 85% of the nation. It has a 65,000 color LCD screen with a monochrome LCD on the outside for caller ID and time information. There is a voicemail waiting LED as well as a message on the outside LCD when there is new voicemail. You can browse Verizon's "pay as you go" Get it Now network to download ringers, wallpapers and games. The prices on the Get It Now service seem a bit pricey for my tastes, but there is a good selection of quality ringers and screensavers for your phone. My favorite feature is the voice dial feature. You simply say the name of the person you wish to call and the phone dials the number. No more remembering which speed dial location your friends are in. The voice recognition works very well even in moderately noisy environments. The reception on this phone is great. My office is in what we call "the dungeon" no one else can get cell signal here, but this phone gets digital signal, makes clear calls as well as data transfer, even in "the dungeon". This phone is slightly larger than a double pack of gum and at 4 ounces it is very light. You won't even know that it is on your hip when you use the included, nifty belt clip. I ended up with the new VX4400B which has a blue front cover instead of the solid silver front. I really like the way this phone looks. My one gripe with the phone is that it only comes with a few pretty bad wallpapers and 32 ringtones that are not very impressive. The phone does have a polyphonic ringer however and you can download good sounding ringers from Verizon's Get It Now service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87178 2000/8/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 flip phone design colour screen belt clip positioning of the volumemic trigger on the outside of the phone The Bottom LineI recommend it for anyone who wants basic features (text messaging, making calls) but wants a colour screen/flip phone design. Just be sure to get a different belt clip! Full Review This phone is an interesting creature. I upgraded from a Motorola T720 (meaning I switched cell phone carriers), and chose the VX 4400 because it had two of the main things I wanted in a cell phone: the flip-open design and a colour screen. On the outset, dealing with a different menu layout was a bit of a learning curve, but turned out to be fairly intuitive. The battery life is so-so. It will last at least a day away from the charger, but by the end of the second day it needs to be in the cradle, or you'll lose power. This phone has the following features: Phone book-- The phone book is very nice and includes the ability to store several numbers under the same name, as well as add a voice tag. Organiser-- This feature includes scheduling, an alarm clock, a notepad and a voice memo recorder. However, I have a PDA for most of these functions (typing in everything on the phone keypad seems a bit much), so I can't comment on their usability in this phone. Closed phone display face-- This shows the time, date, ringer mode, battery level and tower reception. Very clear, easy to read. There's also a headphone jack for hands-free operation. Text messaging-- Always a handy thing. E-mail/internet-- I find it's more practical to use my laptop for these functions, so I can't comment on their use with this phone. Keypad-- It's a good size, allowing for number/text entry without a lot of mistyping. Lights up for easier viewing and has the send and end buttons in green and red, respectively, so ya don't go punching the wrong one. There are some things about the phone that I wish could be changed: -The positioning of the volume and mic triggers. They are on the outside of the phone and are likely to be pressed, even when in the clip-on holder. Pressing the mic button while the flip phone is closed can cause the ringer to change mode, cycling through silent, vibrate and sound each time it's pressed. -The belt clip. The phone can fall from it accidentally if the release tab is pressed. Also, the clip exposes the closed phone to damage. I've already cracked the display face. If you are thinking about getting the VX4400, consider getting a different holder for it. While these things are annoying, finding the right belt clip will reduce the damage/accidental drop issues and may also help prevent the ring mode issue, so don't let it dissuade you from getting this phone. Overall, it's been a sturdy telephonic companion and I would recommend it to others searching for a simple, straightforward phone. Good luck in your search! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87177 2000/1/23 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 outstanding reception easy to use slow voice activation cd won t work so so battery life terrible desktop charger bad manual The Bottom LineWell recommended. Excellent reception and easy to use. Full Review Purchased two VX4400Bs. The phone has more features than we need. We don't do the Web. We have had Nokias and Motorolas including the Motorola V60i. This is the better phone. It took a few moments to figure out the Menu system but once I did, I found it very easy to use, much better than the Motorolas. Voice activation is an important feature but it takes too long to work, unlike the V60i which is instant. The reception on this phone is excellent and redialing a number is very easy compared to the Motorola. Nokia is easy to redial but the LG has a better feature in that pressing Send brings up the last four numbers you dialed and allows you to select. It is faster in some cases than using Voice Activation. The design of the desktop battery recharger is the worst I have seen. It is very hard to insert the phone properly and there is no slot for charging an extra battery. An extra battery can be inserted in the recharger when the phone is not in the slot. It is inconvenient. If you purchase a 1600 extended life battery it will not fit in the desktop charger and can only be recharged using a car or travel charger. Battery life is below average and gets worse the longer the screen is backlighted. The default setting for a lighted screen is seven seconds, which is far too short but that saves battery life. If one is using the Menu the backlighting timer must be changed to continuous lighting. While LG like Nokia provides a folding card giving basic instructions (thank you LG) and a quick reference manual, the main manual stinks. It is better than the Motorola manuals but still inadequate and worst of all it has no index. Making it cumbersome to use is that it is in both English and Spanish which is a pain in the butt. It also includes on a CD,a Manual and other goodies. I thought that since the paper manual did not have an index, it might be possible to do a word search on the CD Manual. The problem is that the CD will not work in Windows 98 even though recent surveys indicate that almost 40% of Windows users are still using Windows 98 as their operating system. Compounding this is the fact that LG does not have a support site. The soft keys are not as functional or easy to use as they are on the Motorola and Nokias. One advantage of this phone is that it is tri-mode, digital, analog and GMS. I could have purchased a VX6000 picture phone for the same price but the 6000 does not have analog and it could easily drop calls and in my area would be unusable. Unlike the Nokias and Motorolas, the aerial is a pull out which improves reception although so far I have had good reception without pulling it out. Unlike the Motorola V60i the aerial is not known for breaking and if it breaks it costs around $10 to replace. Motorola antennas replacements are expensive to replace if they can be replaced and don't break the phone also. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87176 2003/12/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size color screen voice quality interface voice dialing ability to hear other party battery life feel of buttons The Bottom Linebest alternative today from verizon. it supports analog roaming, has decent interface, good voice quality and does not require a push-to-talk contract. Full Review I went to this phone when my startac finally cracked in half and it has not been an entirely happy experience. But overall, this is probably the best phone available for verizon customers today. The color screen is a nice feature, although serves no real useful purpose related to the functioning of the phone. I was successful in downloading a new default wallpaper using the open source BitPim program. Compared with the startac this phone is not as comfortable to use every day. You can't cradle it against your shoulder. The buttons are too soft, especially the ones on the side. There is no cup indentation to the earpiece, so the phone slips around on your ear and you find yourself straining to hear the other party. Listeners on the remote side report to me that the phone sounds better than my old startac, although I believe the startac sounds better as a listening device. Trying to get the phone to sync with outlook was a bit of a nightmare. the verizon connectivity kit does not do the trick. the synching phonebook sw that verizons ships has some serious limitations. For one, there is no way to filter on category of contact to choose which 200 contacts to send to the phone; This is definitely a problem if you have more than 200 contacts. Also, the phone book sw imports the memo field from your outlook contacts and tries to download that as well to the phone. if the contact memo is more than some max characters, the phone rejects the contact. All these limitations can be overcome through tedious hand-editing of your contact data in the synching software's screens, but this is both a manual process and would need to be repeated each time you create new contacts and re-import from Outlook. The next option for synching your contacts is Intellisync from Pumasoft. Intellisync is a good product overall. It is flexible in field mappings and does a true sync, changing only the data that has changed on the phone or in outlook. But getting the phone edition of Intellisync to work was no picnic either. Intellisync does not work with the pumasoft supplied cable under XP. Intellisync's tech support was useless on the issue. I did eventually figure out that upgraded serial-to-usb drivers were required for the cable. those drivers are available at futuredial.com. looks like pumasoft ships the futuredial drivers and cable but does not acknowledge it. The open source BitPim program uses the same cable and has better connection-cable debugging info than Intellisync, so use that to figure out your issues. Even after upgrading my cable drivers, synching under XP was unreliable [intellisync would report that 40 contacts were missing from the phone and needed to be added when indeed, they were already there] so I had to synch under win2k. Under Win2k Intellisync works reliably. The build quality of the phone is fine, but the plastics are cheap and you can feel the lack of attention to detail that was the hallmark of the motorola phones in their heyday. for eg: the holster scratches the bottom of the battery. verizon ships the holster with pads on the bottom inside to combat the problem but it still occurs. In addition, removing the phone from the holster with one hand is not nearly as easy or natural as with the StarTac. Many people have commented that there is no business-appropriate ring tone on the phone. Alas, Its true. Sounds like a silly complaint, but listen to the ringtones and you'll agree. Voice dialing works well, but the number of voice dialing slots are somewhat limited (or maybe it is limited by memory). Battery life is just so so with default slim battery. And when the battery runs down, the phone often locks up. phone does have an analog mode but it is pretty poor and is completely inappropriate for the default battery. in fact, slipping into analog mode can eat through your battery pretty quickly. Overall, this is probably the best phone that Verizon is shipping today, but its not perfect and in some ways, inferior to the startac, the old standard-bearer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $129Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87175 2000/2/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome color screen small many features lightweight poor user manual The Bottom LineIf your looking for a cell phone or thinking about upgrading, you can't go wrong with this phone. Full Review Clarity & Reception: This phone has thus far given me great reception, (even in those weird places where my last phone would lose service). Tri-Mode signal reception gives better clarity and less dropped or static calls. (Verizon) Display: Large display screen with vibrant colors. Choice of preset screen wallpapers, apparently downloading your own photos is or will be possible, (haven't tried it yet). Also, an additional standard LCD screen outside of phone, (flip-face closed), that gives you the time, date, battery life, current signal, caller info, missed calls and voice mail notification. The outer screen also flashes through many bright colors when a call is received and can be set to display a user determined color based on the information it displays. Ringers: The phone comes with 26 different ring styles, but more may be added using the Get it Now feature through Verizon. Yeah, you have to pay for the rings, but there some really cool ones and it's worth it to buy a few. You can most likely find the beat to one of your favorite songs, new or old. Phone volume has 8 settings from "Off" up to "High w/ Vibrate". (It has vibrate alone as well.) Phone can quickly be put into manner mode or silent mode by simply holding down a factory set button on the side of the phone, (with flip shut). Menu: This phone has a very impressive menu. You'll swear it's like a mini version of WinXP. Menu is very easy to navigate through and you can back up through the menu without starting over or getting lost. Menu list is as follows... 1. Call History: Very good call history and detail. 2. Phone Book: 199 Entries and you can add multiple numbers for a single person, set speed dials and a voice activated dialer that actually works good. 3. Messages: Voice mail info, instant text message send and receive. 4. Mobile Web: Well, I haven't used this, but I've heard great things about it. 5. Get It Now: Download applications like ringtones, games and other more useful stuff. 6. Fun Tools: Tip calculator, std. calculator and a World clock. 7. Organizer: Month by Month scheduler, Alarm clock (3 separate alarm times if needed), Notepad or leave yourself a voice memo. 8. Settings: Set ring tones, screen display, features, etc. 9. Phone Info: You guessed it, phone info. Has a handy shortcut helper and icon glossary. Features: *Download and Play games in color. *Download Ring tones *Voice Activated dialing *Answering Machine - Like voice mail without calling your voicemail, it saves to the phone itself, and you can listen to the message and it's being recorded. *GPS location automatically shows your location to a 911 operator if dialed for an emergency. *Set different rings for different people in your phone book, so you know who's calling as soon as it rings. *Mobile Web Battery: Battery life is surprisingly long, especially for a color display screen. Nearly 3 days with one charge, with normal use. No memory effect, battery does not need to be fully discharged to recharge properly. Charger: Desktop style charger. Phone displays message and charger light changes to green when charging is complete. 3 hours for a complete charge. Cost: I paid about $225 out of pocket with tax, but LG will send you a rebate check for $100 if you mail in the rebate form and your old cell phone. The even provide the shipping package with postage paid. Retail is $299, with activation $199, after rebate $99. Okay, here's my only complaint, and it's going to seem very petty after all the praise I gave this phone. The user manual is thick, and full of useless information. Basically it tells you how to navigate the menu and the location of features and settings. With all this, it does not explain what most of the features are or explain what you can do with them. To Sum It Up: With my experiences with this phone and with all the features, I'm going to give this phone a solid 5 stars. Trust me, go get it, it's an awesome phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 87174 2000/2/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 external lcd bright lcd screen clearbeautiful ringtones images could not be downloaded some features of the phone are not available The Bottom LineI highly recommend you use LG VX4400 since this phone comes with great features. Try this phone by yourself. Full Review Looking for a beautiful color cellular phone? I strongly recommend you purchase LG VX4400, a phone that is just released. This phone is available only with Verizon Wireless. First of all, this phone has a large, beautiful, 65,000 color LCD screen. In fact, it shows the greatest number of colors among the three cellular phones with color LCD available for Verizon Wireless. It has the brightest, clearest LCD screen among the three phones. In addition, there is an external LCD with caller-ID, which tells you who is calling before answering a call. As a default, when a call is coming, the LCD blinks with dynamic color. Especially at night, the blinking color is so clear, bright, and beautiful. When a phone is idle, it shows time and date. For internal LCD, you could personalize your settings with 8 Wallpapers, 4 Theme Colors, 2 Font Sizes, and 5 Font Color. Isn't this amazing? Second, there are 26 ring tones preinstalled. Each one of them sounds really clear. In fact, this phone comes with 16 chords. You can download beautiful ringers using "Get It Now" feature from Verizon Wireless. Downloading ringers costs some money. You can set different ringtones for different people. Third, you can download many different applications. For example, you can get games, ringers (as I mentioned in the previous point), information about restaurants (Zagat To Go)..etc In addition, you can check your e-mail in Yahoo, Earthlink, Hotmail, etc.. Internet is ready, but costs some money. You need to check with Verizon Wireless to use the internet. Fourth, yon can put 199 different entries in the phonebook. And, you can put multiple numbers for each individual. You can set a speed-dial if you call that person often. Voice-dialing is available, too. In other words, you say someone's name, then this phone will dial the person's number instantly. Fifth, you can send a text message. There are about 10 preinstalled phrases that you can use such as "yes," "No," "Call me now," etc.. This phone comes with different pictures that you can send along with your text message. Unfortunately, Verizon Wireless does not handle pictures with text message yet. I guess Verizon Wireless needs to upgrade their technology asap so that this kind of phone becomes really distinguished. Finally, there are other useful functions. You can input your schedule, set the alarm, take notes, and record voice, called "voice memo." There is a calculator, and world-clock. Difficulty in calculating tip? Well, this phone lets you calculate the amount of tip that you should pay for depending the number of splits. Batterly life is amazingly long compared with other color LCD phones. Overall, I strongly recommend that you get this phone. Well, this phone could have been unbeatable if it came with internal digital camera.. However, this feature is not necessary for a cellular phone. I really enjoy using this phone. (oh! there is $100 rebate) Details: Tri-Mode 1900 MHz PCS, 800 MHz CDMA, 800 MHz AMPS Size: 3.46"(H) x 1.89"(W) x 1.07"(D) ? 87.8 mm (H) X 48mm (W) X 27.2 mm (D) Weight: 4.0 Oz Internal LCD: 120 X 133 pixels, STN Color; 65K Color 6 lines + 1 line icons/16 characters External LCD: 96 X 64 pixels, 4 Grayscale Levels 1 line + 1 line icons/ 12 characters Standard Lithium Ion Battery (950 mAH) Talk Time* 3 Hrs (Digital), 1.83 Hrs (AMPS) Standby Time* 4.6 days (Digital), 16 Hrs (AMPS) ? Get It Now SM* ? 1xRTT Capable ? Openwave UP 4.1 Browser ? External LCD for Quick Access to Caller ID ? Personalize Sub LCD (8 Wallpapers, 4 Theme Colors, 2 Font Sizes, and 5 Font Color) ? Voice Activated Dialing ? E911 Emergency Location Capable ? Phone Book (199 entries X 5) ? Internal USB Capable ? CMX MIDI Sound for Ringers and Games ? 2-Way SMS ? TTY/TDD Capable ? Handy 5-Way Navigation Key ? Voice Recording ? One-Touch Memo (4 minutes) ? Speed Dial (99 entries) ? Scheduler/Calendar ? Languages: English and Spanish ? *Carrier Service Required Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87173 2000/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylishmodern phone alarm clock features ringtones color screen line quality guidebook isn t very thorough no game numberpad clumsy to work with The Bottom LineIf you want a decent, modern phone but aren't so concerned with all the features, this is for you! Full Review So far, the LG VX4400 is the best phone I've had so far. This is my 5th phone since I started my cell phone service in 1998. I tend to change my mind often about the phones, not to mention how technology changes after a year of having a phone. I have a feeling that I'm going to keep this one for a while! I really wanted a flip phone this time around when I renewed my cell phone plan. I decided to pay extra for this one because of the 65K screen so I'd have something modern. I'm the type of person who isn't all that much into the bells and whistles of a phone - I just want something modern, functional and that works. Plus, I wanted a flip phone so I could just slip the phone into my pocket on a quick run to the store or those times when I don't feel like carrying a purse. I love the color screen, the larger choice of ringtones and the modern styling of this phone. I've had Kyocera and Nokia phones in the past and weren't totally satisfied. This phone has the best reception that I've ever had in a phone, and I'm as comfortable talking on this as I am using my home phone. I find that I use my home phone much less because I don't have to worry about a dying battery or bad reception. My husband often shuns his Kyocera so he can use mine. I also like being able to download ringtones from the applications on my phone (for an extra charge, of course). I also love the ability to set up to three different alarms for different days of the week (week days, weekends, every day). My old Kyocera phone had an alarm function, but it never woke me up. The alarm wasn't loud enough and if the alarm wasn't turned off (or set to snooze), it seemed to just go off automatically. I also love the side button to press once to silence a ringing phone, or if I press it twice, it sends the caller directly to voice mail. Also, this phone hasn't died on me yet, even after a two hour conversation. I thought the color screen would drain the battery quickly, but it doesn't, whether you're on the line or just sending text messages or browsing/downloading ringtones. One more plus - the different "wallpaper" you can choose and the fact that you can change color schemes. There are a few things I don't like about the phone. I have to press and hold the asterisk key or side button twice to put my phone on vibrate - either that or go through the menu to do it. Also, I am not fond of the buttons on this one in that they are flush with the rest of the panel and I feel like I have to use my fingernails to press each button. This also causes the numberpad to get dirty easily. I'm always wiping it off since I have darker skin and wear tinted moisturizer. Plus...sadly, this phone doesn't have a standard game. You have to pay extra and download a game. I must also mention this story. When I first received the phone, I was messing around with the guide book and menus. I set the phone to "auto answer after three rings". This wasn't mentioned in the guide book and I thought it meant the phone would answer and send to voice mail after three rings. Well, after a month, I realized it was just automatically picking up the line after three rings...even if the handset was closed. Several people remarked to me that they called me and the phone would just pick up and nothing...or even worse, they could hear me singing in the car! I didn't know the phone could still pick up a call when it was closed. So yes, quite embarassing but funny as well. I'm glad I figured that one out! I think this phone was meant for a cell phone veteran who can figure out a lot of things on their own. The positive aspects of this phone definitely outweight the negatives. There are features on this phone that I never use, like the calendar, but I didn't buy the phone for that reason. I'm not about a ton of features, like a camera - but if you are pretty simple and just want something stylish and modern, this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 w/rebateRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87172 2000/6/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features quality style screen verizon free downloads gps ill advised outside buttons lame ringtones stated battery life is in dog hours The Bottom LineTechnophile and technophobe will love this phone. Downloadable stuff without Verizon. Great quality, easy to use, a few quirks, lousy battery life in weak signal areas. Full Review We have THREE of these puppies, and our reactions are nearly identical after about two months. The reception is slightly above average. The clarity is outstanding, but if you couldn't hear the "Can you hear me now?" guy with your old phone in a given spot, odds are you won't hear him with this one either. Controls are pretty easy to use. Even my lovely, technophobic spouse pilots the thing like a pro, accessing such esoteric functions as the tip calculator and voice mail with ease. She could never get the hang of voice mail with her old phone, and it was fairly simple. The menu driven selection process works very well for her, but if you prefer to work with icons, LG gives you that choice, too. My son uses the cell phone heavily, on his job, talking to friends away at school after the free hours kick in, and he has found it to be rugged, reliable, and a good performer. Plus, the coolness factor is impressive. LG has thought of a few things. The ringer mode can be set with one button and the clamshell closed (but more on that later). It goes into "Power Saver" mode when it can't find a signal (still more later). It comes with a decent address book capability, calendar, alarms, tip calculator (why I picked this phone over a "simpler" monochrome phone for her) - it's a low powered PDA. The memo recording feature is nice. And the color coding of the cover display is a conversation starter, if nothing else. Most critically, the phone has GPS capability that will allow Enhanced 911 to fix the location of the call, and since our cell phones are as much about safety as convenience, that was a big factor. Verizon wants you to upgrade with games, wallpaper and ringtones - for a fee. From what I've seen, they have lots of marginally better ringtones, and you have to pay for them. In researching this phone, I learned that there are newsgroups with free downloadable ringtones, instructions on how to do it (including the $20 cable you buy at Radio Shack), and support. As nearly as I can tell, there is no MP3 file sharing illegality going on here, and there are a lot more and better sounding ringtones. Want your mother-in-law to have a special ring, like the "Imperial March" from Star Wars? Yahoo's got it - just go to their home page and search for LG VX4400 in 'groups'. Disclaimer: I've downloaded the ringtones to my laptop, but not yet to my LG. In theory, if you can get it on a PC (in the right format) you can get it to your VX4400. Nothing is perfect, to wit: 1) There is an outside button that allows you to switch from Normal Mode to Manner Mode (vibrate) to Completely Silent (no ring, no vibrate, no Charades) conveniently and unobtrusively. Unfortunately, as my wife has determined more than once, it also allows the loose cargo in her purse to select the mode without telling her. She's pulled her phone out only to find it in Completely Silent mode. The button is convenient, but too easy and accidents will probably happen to you, too. 2. When the phone can't find a signal, it's supposed to go into Power Saver mode, awakening every fifteen minutes to search for that elusive signal. It may well do that, but I work in a weak/nonexistent cell, and I've found my battery at less than 25% on the drive home, even though it was fully charged in the AM and I hadn't used it all day. The same routine wouldn't even phase my old monochrome Audiovox trimode. I think LG claims a standby life of about 190 hours. If you're a dog. If you're a human, figure on about one day. I don't know if the battery drain is tied to a lack of signal, but all three of us work or go through areas of weak cells and have seen the same effect. At home, where the signal is strong, 2-3 days of battery life is no sweat. But if you use your phone in a low signal area, it appears as though your battery life will be much shorter. With Verizon Wireless' "New Every Two" program and rebates, these phones were free! We all love it, and prefer it to our previous LG, Nokia, and Audiovox phones. It is the ONLY high tech device where I have seen my wife use a) all the features b) understand, c) enjoy, and d) love it! Know up front that color phones have shorter battery life anyhow (and a bigger one is available at a slight size and weight penalty), and that if you use it in a weak signal area, you'll have to recharge it every day. But that's a small compromise to make for a terrific phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87171 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature packed phone that does just about everything imaginable maybe reception The Bottom LineBottom line, I looked at all the other options before purchasing this phone. I believe this phone is the best value for the money today. Full Review There are plenty of great reviews here on epinions.com on this cellphone already, my review will concentrate on some of the features I think make this phone stand out as an excellent phone for the money: Every few years my cellphone dies and I get a replacement. I've always stuck with Motorola but this time I decided to try the LG VX4400. First Impressions When I first got this phone I was amazed at how much different it was from my Motorola StarTac. It had an LCD color screen, voice actuation, Get It Now!, and a slew of other features. I wasn't sure if I'd every be able to learn how to use everything on this phone...I soon learned otherwise. Usage This phone is great. To me, it's a phone that's ready to work for you. When I open the cover for example, the first this is does is say "Name Please?" Most times when I am opening the cover, I want to make a call to someone I know so I simply say "home" and it say "Calling...home". Of course that was an option, I could have it not prompt me for a call when I opened the cover. When I'm at a restaurant, to figure the tip, I open the phone and access the EZ Tip Calculator. If I just need a simple calculator, it's got that too. Need a reminder for something? Set a "Quick Alarm' to go off 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 3 hours later with just a few clicks. Need a more advanced alarm, how about every day at 7AM, or just Mon-Fri at 8PM, or just the weekends? Features Let's start by saying one of the most frustrating things about the StarTac was programming phone numbers into it. I could never figure out how to get a number into that phone without using the manual. With the VX4400, after a few minutes, it becomes very easy. I've already made mention or hinted at some other features. Let's talk voice dialing. When I first saw it in the manual, I thought, "Hmmm...cool gimmick" that I probably wouldn't use. Well once I added a few voice dials to my stored numbers I quickly saw how easy it was to call someone. No longer do I have to open the phone and push those tiny little buttons ten times. I say a name and I'm done. This is especially helpful when driving. Ring Tones: OK, the phone comes with 25 or so ring tones. The first few are typical ring sounds and the rest are musical tunes. For me, I like a phone to sounds like a phone but for others, they may like the "Can-can" song to play when a call comes in. What's very cool about ring tones and this phone is that you can set different ring tones for everyone in you address book (provided the phone can identify their number via CallerID). This is great because my wife has one ring tone, family another, and everyone else something else. This may not sound overly helpful, but just like the voice dialing, you quickly learn to love this capability. Get It Now: Verizon calls this a feature, I call it a capability at best. Get It Now allows you to download games, wallpaper, ring tones and some other goofy stuff like a Magic 8 Ball to your phone. Problem is none of this is really free, with most items costing between $1-$6. Doesn't sound like much but download a few of these babies for fun then see the $20 charge appear on your cell phone bill the next month. If you're like me, after one or two downloads, you'll agree it's not worth the money. Schedules and alarms: I've already mentioned this feature. Here's just a little more on this. The phone has both a scheduler and an alarm feature. With the scheduler you access a calendar and can enter alarms for specific date and times. I mentioned ring tones earlier, each alarm can have it's own ring tone. If you download a "Happy Birthday" ring tone for example, you could schedule everyone in your families birthday in the phone and have it remind you when a birthday comes up. Other features: Again, this phone is feature packed. A quick run-down includes call histories and dialing abilities of incoming and outgoing calls, phone books (you can assign numbers to groups then access the "family" only group for example, messaging, mobile "web" (the phone is capable of surfing the web but a)there's an additional charge for this feature and b)web browsing ona cellphone display isn't really ready for prime time yet. Calculators as I mentioned before, and schedules, alarm clocks and voice memos. The phone has 2 LCD displays. The inside display is a color LCD that you use to navigate through the features and programming and displays the elapsed time when on a call. The outer screen I find especially useful. First when not in a call it displays the date, time, battery, signal strength and roaming status. When a call comes in, the display lights up (incidentally to a color of your choice), and if the phone get the call's number, it will be displayed. Got voice mail? If so, push a button and that call goes right to voice mail. Want the call? Open the cover and begin speaking. Quality I've had this phone for 2 weeks now. Quality wise, I'm quite impressed with its quality. The flip open lid opens nicely and feels quite solid. The buttons glow with a strong blue color that is especially useful when dialing at night (when you're not using voice dialing :) ) Battery life seems very good but I did purchase the LG extended battery from eBay for around $45. Sound quality from the earpiece is good. Actually my Motorola was a bit better, but the LG certainly is acceptable. Cons if any: If there are any cons to discuss, I'd start with a possible reception problem. Actually I wouldn't call it a problem but the VX4400 has dropped calls where my Motorola always worked. This hasn't happened alot at all, but just be aware that reception may be a little better with a different phone. I'm not overly concerned about it, if I was I would have returned the phone and got something else. Another con, that's not really a con is that the ringer sound quality is a bit tinny and can be a bit piercing at time while the phone rings. Again, not really a con, just something you need to get used to. Finally, the phone comes with a desktop charger. I've had continued difficulty getting the phone to easily drop into the charger. I've pretty much got it down now, it's just not an easy drop in, you kinda have to use two hands to line it up and snap it into the charger. Summary: In summary, the VX4400 is a great phone. I couldn't imaging moving back to a phone without the features I learned to love. The voice dialing is fabulous, once you try it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. The cons as I said aren't really cons, they're just the way it is. Nothing can be 100% perfect. The features and functionality of this phone greatly outway and cons this phone may have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87170 2000/11/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 better call quality better battery life ringtones key placement The Bottom LineRecommend the VX4400 over the T720 based on basic performance - battery and reception - even though it's less "flashy". Full Review After an unfortunate incident involving my 2-year-old son and my Motorola T720, I had to claim a loss on my cell phone through the insurance company. A couple days and a lost claim later, I find out that they can't give me another T720, but they can offer me the VX4400. Naturally, I was very skeptical at first, because I'd only owned Motorolas for years, but I decided to give it a try (based on Epinions reviews, thank you very much). On first receiving the phone, it was obviously different (though my unhelpful insurance agent assured me they were near-identical in features). It was more curvy than the boxy T720, and not as "flashy". The color screen is a bit smaller and not as bright. The outer display, however, was larger and easier to read (the time is BIG). Plus, the outer display has multi-colored backlights. FEATURES The menu system isn't as easy to navigate as Motorola's, but isn't bad once you get it set up. My only complaint here is that the fonts are too large. I'd like smaller print, so that I can see more in one screen. The menu size is not adjustable at all. (I feel like my parents, who use oversized fonts whenever possible because of poor close-up vision.) Missed calls are grouped in a separate menu from Outgoing and Incoming calls, which is nice because I can go directly to that menu without guessing which call was missed in a list of incoming calls. As I said, the outer LED has multiple backlight colors, and you can customize them for different situations (incoming call, voicemail, etc). The keys are backlit in pretty blue, and are generally less slippery than the T720. Like the 720, there are two soft keys on the top of the keypad, and four directional arrow buttons, but there is also a circular "OK" button inside the directional navigation keys. Although it's handy to have (beats looking for the "SELECT" button on the T720 every time), but for people with big fingers like me, the keys are placed just too close for comfort. I like to play games on my phone, and find that I accidentally hit a wrong key and exit the game because of the key layout. Voice-activated dialing is a great feature and works reliably, but this model waits approximately 4 seconds after pressing the voice key before asking you "Name, please", which is a little long for me. (I'd like to say the name right away). There are fewer rings on the 4400, and, let me be honest, they all stink. I miss the great ringtones I got with the T720. BUT the ring volume is MUCH louder with the LG, and I like that, because many times I have missed calls because I couldn't hear the phone ring. Even on low volume, you definitely can't miss a call with this baby. Text messaging, another feature I use occasionally, is based on the methods used by Motorola. However, LG has improved upon this by adding shortcuts (like a menu allowing you to add suffixes like .com, .org, .net or whatever, without having to type all of it out). I really appreciate those extra shortcuts. An alarm clock and Notepad were added , which is great for those of us who travel. This is in addition to the scheduler (which I don't use). CALL QUALITY I won't lie and say I haven't had a dropped call on this phone, I have. We all have. But by and large, I have had fewer dropped calls, and better reception, with the VX4400 than with the T720. BATTERY LIFE This is where every inconvenience ... and every "I wish" you've read in this review so far ... goes away. The battery life on this phone is AT LEAST THREE TIMES BETTER than the Motorola T720. With the T720, I had to have a charger at work, and one at home, and one in the car, to keep the battery alive from day to day... the rule of thumb, if I didn't charge it fully one day, it would be dead the next. Of course color-display phones have less-than-desirable battery life... that's the nature of the beast, right? That may be true, but the LG VX4400 helped me break free of my battery-charging habit. Not only does it last longer, but it charges so much quicker... 30 minutes in the car brings me from 2 bars to 3 (wouldn't have made a difference on the T720), and a full charge in 3 hours or less on the home charger. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87169 2003/9/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 size screen battery life sound quality The Bottom LineNice phone but if you are a headset user like I am, beware. Full Review **UPDATE 9/16/03 at the bottom** This phone is nice. I loved my Verizon LG TM510 but had to put it two sleep after two and half years of much use (Apparently that phone gets cranky and starts killing batteries quickly in its old age. But 2.5 years is excusable.) My usage: I use my Verizon cell phone within the NY/NJ areas. My phone usage is approximately 1000 minutes a month. I have been using this phone for a week and two days. Sound: I'm gonna write allot here. If you don't use a headset and are OK with acceptable but slightly tinny sound you can skip this section. My trials and tribulations are within the headset arena. -Straight to the point, I'm disappointed with the sound quality. To me, the most important feature of a cell phone is its sound quality. Primarily for myself, it must sound good when listening and talking through a headset. This phone is on the border of failure in my book (I am a tough customer in this particular department.) You can't just use any headset with this phone. The three headsets I used regularly for my other cell phone and home phone (see my links below) sounded horribly silent and tinny to the people I talk to. Just before I returned the phone, I tried one more recommended headset(the Plantronics M130). This headset gives an acceptable volume and sound for people I talk to. I'm also comfortable using it. However, it still sounds like I'm talking on a cell phone. It ticks me off I am stuck with using a particular headset. This is not acceptable. -Without the headset, the earpiece and microphone on the phone are a bit tinny and the people I talk to usually don't hear that I'm using a cell phone. It's acceptable. Reception: -I'm a little disappointed here as well. It gets the same bars of reception as my previous phone that I was thrilled with, but it is more choppy when talking. Perhaps it's the new 1X technology and 2X will make things better. I was much happier with my old phone. It's not bad, but there is room for improvement. The problem is I get muted every now and then and have to repeat myself. It's not so bad that I'm aggravated, but it's just not as good as what I am used to. Volume: - Ringer is loud and vibration is strong. - Hearing people isn't a problem at all, but I have had louder phones. I keep this one on full volume all the time. Look and feel: - Holding and talking: If fits nicely in the hand and is a little larger and a little thinner than the TM510. It's a little larger and thicker than the Motorola V60. It's square design doesn't feel so great on the ear when talking, but it isn't bad. - Buttons: Not bad. The buttons a large but they are smooth and flat so I find it a little hard. I like the buttons to be more bumpy. - Looks- Looks nice, but you can't change the face plate. What you see is what you get folks. -Screen and Keys- The keys and screen light up very well. The screen is fantastic. It's super clear and large. Best looking color screen I have seen compared to the other flip phones. It has the most colors than the competing flip phones too (as of Feb 6, 2003). I hear it has 65,000 colors but haven't verified that yet. Ease of use / Interface: They have really done a good job here. -The phone book displays only the numbers you enter. You no longer have to see the pager field if the contact does not have a pager. And there are multiple mobile phone and home fields. Along with e-mail address and web page. The book is sorted alphabetically and you still have the option of saving contacts to a numbered list (ie I can call my mom by pressing and holding the number two button.) The are 99 quick dials. You can also sort contacts into groups like family, friends or business. You can even create your own groups (I created a jerky list for all the jerky people I call.) -Voice dialing is a click of a button on the outer shell. Very easy to use. And they now have the voice dialing for the phone number and not the contact. I can call my wife at work or her cell phone and won't have to enter her in the phone book twice. Her numbers have their own voice dial settings. Good job LG! - General navigation- It is fairly intuitive and easy to get to what you are looking for. Keep in mind, I'm used to the TM510. I am particularly pleased with the Shortcut option in the Features menu within Settings. I can customize my access to what I want with the left click navigation button. Battery life: So far, the battery life is good. But I'm OK with charging it once a day or two. I have talked on the phone for over 2.5 hours before a recharge. It lost two bars after two days of no use (and decent digital reception). It looks like the written specs are accurate for a change (see my links below for specs). If you want a battery to last longer here are your options (that I can think of) 1. Buy the thicker extended battery that should be double the life of the battery the phone comes with. 2. Don't buy a color phone. 3. Wait and see what the Motorola V600 has in store for us (coming mid 2003). The V60 had the best noted battery life of any flip phone. I'm guessing the V600 should compare. And that phone will have a camera in it to boot. User Manual: -The manual stinks just like every other LG manual stinks. It explains the menu options rather than teaches you how to use the phone. It doesn't do a god job explaining things either. The TM510 user guide actually forgot quite a few features of the phone. Toys: I'm going to write allot here too. The screen on this phone is fantastic and the cell phone toys look good with lots of space. These now becoming standard features will not be unique to this phone aside for screen quality. You can skip this part if you don't care about web, e-mail or video games. -General Cell phone toys are becoming standard for most Verizon phones. You know, web, SMS, Get It Now, Instant messenger. This phone has it all. Yeah, its got the web stuff, e-mail and the ability to download games. With the great color monitor, it's all very nice. You can have special color settings for the individuals who call, and there are fancy shmancy moving background options. I'll get tired of this stuff quickly. - Web: Although, there is no color web browsing and "world wide web" for a cell phone isn't very wide yet. In fact, it's down right deceiving. If you haven't browsed on a cell phone before, don't expect any more than text. You can get good info and I like being able to get the latest news, stock quote and stuff, but it really isn't a "web browser." I did read somewhere that a hardware update maybe necessary for future color browsing. This phone may never be capable of that, beware. -Get It Now: Verizon's "Get It Now" puts their phones into a new realm. You can download games (but you have to pay for them) and some other stuff. I tried some sample games, I wasn't very impressed. (The bowling game entertained me while waiting for my turn at the Barber shop, but I wouldn't say much more about it than that). I have been able to read my Yahoo! E-mail with a downloaded program I hope I won't have to pay for in the future. It's cool and I look forward to new innovations here. -Rings: I don't care about fancy rings, but it does come with great sounding ones. You can download more, but they ain't free!!! At least I haven't found a free option. The only way I know to get more tunes are from Get It Now and they charge 2 bucks for them. Buyers beware. GPS: Yes the phone has it. I give GPS its own group because in light of those teenagers in Long Island, I feel this feature is extremely important. Once you call 911, they will know exactly where you are. I think all Verizon phones should have this now. Don't know if it's a law though. Verdict: -Nice phone but if you are a headset user like I am, beware. I like the phone and I'm enjoying all the fun things about it. But to repeat myself, the headset problem is a big one for me. -I'm not sure if I will return this phone yet. I don't have the heart to pay more for a black and white Motorola V60 or downgrade to the next lower LG phone (I hear there are battery problems with that one as well.) So it looks like I will hang on to it. If I could, I would wait for the Motorola V600 though. It's supposed to come out mid 2003 and sounds like it will be a real winner. ****UPDATE**** With a few more weeks of use, I have a few more plusses and minuses to add to this review. My opinions above haven't changed, I just have more to say for your consideration of this phone. Ringer tones: -I used to consider different ring tones to be cheesy and served no practical use. I used vibration mode all the time. However, the sounds from this polyphonic phone are fantastic. The ring tones it comes with sound very nice. They become practical (for me) where there are ring tones that are gradual in volume. When my phone rings (ring tone 'Nocturne') it is very quiet at first and gradually gets louder. I can stop it before ticking off people around me. You can choose from a nice variety of obnoxiously loud or calm rings or melodies. Belt Clip / Answering Features: If you aren't a headset user or don't use cell phones while driving, this section can be skipped as well. -The phone will not flip open when in the belt clip. To talk on this phone you have to flip it open. What the heck were they thinking when they came up with this stupidity? I use a headset so I don't have to handle the phone. Previously all I had to do was flip the phone open and slap it closed while in the holster. To answer this phone while driving I have to take it out of the holster, flip it open and closed then put it back in the holster or let is fly around the car freely while attached to the headset. To end the call, I have to take it out and go through the same mess with (and press end). For me, I have to dig under the seat belt to take out the phone. Putting it back in is not exactly easy either. I'm getting used to this annoyance and will be putting up with it (despite this I will still keep the phone) but I am ticked off with LGs ridiculous backward step. -You can set the phone to automatically answer after a set number of rings, but this is not a feature I would want to keep on all the time. To turn the feature on and off takes allot of navigating through the menus and I don't want to have to do this three or four times a day. You can also set the phone to answer when pressing 'Any Key.' But according to LG, the outside buttons on the phone do not fit into the 'Any Key' category. In other words, you will have to flip it open and then press 'Any Key' on the inside. Bottom Line Update:Despite its shortcomings, I am still going to keep the phone. - I went to the Verizon store the other day to talk to them about the headset issue. I used two different headsets on two VX4400s and a Motorola phone. This confirmed the problem with the headset to be genuine (problems were consistent on the vx4400s while the Motorola didn't see any trouble). The guy at Verizon said the headset problem seems to be software related and LG will have to fix it. Who knows if that will happen? _________________ UPDATE 9/16/03: The latest phone software update should resolve the headset problems I have with my phone. I'm not talking about the *228 update (I do that regularly), I am talking about updating the actual operating system. My software version is TC4VZV04, PRL: 50074 and ERI 50018 (I'm not sure which one is relevant). My only problem is that I have not yet been able to update my software. The only way I can update is to go to a Verizon store and have it done there. I have gone to 6 Verizon locations in my area (Edison NJ) and none of them could do it. Most of them didn't even have the data cable. Shocking huh? I have complained to Verizon, but they tell me there is nothing they can do about it. ___________________________________________________________ Related Links: The phone's product page / details / user manual: http://www.lginfocomm.com/products/product_detail.php?p=26 Headsets I have used: -Plantronics: MX100 - Great headset! But didn't work well with the VX4400 http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/catalog/productLink.jhtml?productName=mx100 M130 - My savior for the VX4400. http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/catalog/productLink.jhtml?productName=M130 [My review on this headset: M110 - Clunky and didn't work well with the VX4400 http://www.plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/catalog/display_product_detail.jhtml?rootId=cat1150057&prodId=prod440096&productTypeId=cat1220039 Jensen: A Jensen cheapo and stinky headset I can't find the site for. I paid 20 bucks for it at Best Buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87168 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 decent oem battery life for a color phone excellent color screen prepare to pay verizon for options unless you hack it ringers can be distorted The Bottom LineThe VX4400 is one of the better color phones on the market as of Spring 2003. Awesome screen, great sound quality and cool features make it a good buy. Full Review My Cell Phone History: I've had cell phones since the late 80s (back when they were the size of a two-way radio). The VX4400 is my first color phone and my second LG phone. It is replacing my current LG TM510 (another very good phone). Other Models Considered: Motorola T720, Audiovox 9500 Cost To Value Ratio: I bought this phone brand new in a sealed box for $260 off of eBay (02/2003). I did this because I was not eligible yet to upgrade my equipment at a discounted rate through Verizon Wireless. I wouldn't advise anyone to pay over $200 for *any* phone regardless of what it can do since the technology changes so much so fast that in six months the phone will cost half of what it does now. Case in point: Verizon now sells this (03/2003) for $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year renewal. If you're willing to commit to a two-year contract that's a heck of a deal. Pluses: I'll break these down by features/components - COLOR SCREEN: First, it's a color phone so I will talk about the quality of the screen. This is hands-down the best color screen I've seen so far. Night and day better than the T720. Colors are crisp and clear and photos look as good as on a regular PC screen (or more appropriately a PDA screen). You can adjust both the contrast and the brightness for the main color screen (and contrast of the outer LCD screen) and colors never have that "washed-out" look unless you crank the contrast way down. You can view it from a wide angle without not being able to see it and it's plenty bright and clear in all lighting conditions. Games look good, but pictures look awesome. SOUND QUALITY: Some people forget that no matter how many bells and whistles a phone has, the two most important qualities are sound quality and signal strength. And although signal strength can vary by where you are, sound quality never really changes. Luckily the VX4400 does very well in this category. The earpiece is *very* loud and I usually have it on the lowest setting unless I'm in a car or other noisy environment. The transmitted voice quality is also excellent--I've had people call me with the phone so I can hear how it sounds--sounds really good. Ringer quality is another story (see below). SIGNAL STRENGTH: I realize that signal strength is more a function of location and network coverage than the individual phone, but the VX4400 is very good at acquiring and holding a signal on the fringe areas of digital coverage (where I live). My old StarTac would always lose it in my basement, and my LG TM510 was better, but the VX4400 tops them all. BATTERY LIFE: This is always a subjective comparison since everyone uses their phones differently. I use mine about 20 minutes a day on average, but the phone is on 24/7 so standby time is important to me. With the standard battery that ships with the phone, I can get about 2-3 days on standby, provided I stay in a good digital signal area. Like any newer phone, going into analog or losing a signal altogether really kills battery life. I've also been using the Mobile Web feature recently and the nice thing is the phone will disconnect (to conserve battery power and minutes used) when you are reading a page and not requesting new information after a brief period. I also have the extended OEM battery (I leave one battery on the charger and rotate them when the battery is almost dead) and it does last longer (approx 3-4 days) but it does make the phone significantly bigger. If I had to do it again, I would probably get another standard battery and swap that out instead of the extended battery. I don't think the extra time is a good enough trade-off for the extra size (it's not *huge*, just noticeably bigger than the standard battery). FEATURES: Phone book is great (and alphabetized--a first for LG I think) and gives you lots of options to store numbers, names, email addresses, assign to groups, associate pictures and/or ringers to entries, etc. You get a tip calculator, regular calculator, world time clock, three alarms, a quick alarm, notepad, voice recorder. LG phones have the cool feature where you can press a button while talking and record both sides of the conversation into the voice recorder. Although it's illegal in most states, it is also handy when someone is, say, giving you lengthy directions and you are driving and can't write them down. Just record as they talk and then play it back as many times as you need--great feature! For those of you wanting games, note there are *NO* games on the phone when you get it. The only way to get them is through Get It Now. MINUSES: It's a short list, but here there are - RINGER SOUND QUALITY: Many of the older LG phones got bad reviews for having ringers that were too quiet--even at the loudest setting people were missing calls because they couldn't hear them. Well apparently the LG engineers decided they wouldn't let that happen again. The ringers on the LG VX4400 are LOUD! Very loud. I've got mine on the quietest setting (other than vibrate) and it is still obnoxiously loud in public. The other side effect of making the ringers LOUD like that is they all sound slightly distorted (at least to me and a common complaint on the 'net). Like the speaker is now overdriven. Supposedly the new software update somewhat alleviates this problem, but until I see it firsthand I can't say. Also, some others have complained that out of the 26 or so ringers the phone ships with, only one sounds halfway professional and even that is pushing it. Yes, you can download better ones (through Get It Now), but you'll have to pay. If you like song ringers or funky sounding ones, you'll be fine. But if you want your phone to sound professional, you're going to be disappointed. GET IT NOW: This part of my complaint only applies to Verizon Wireless customers, since I can't speak for other carriers. For me (and I'm sure others too), the main reason you get a color phone is so you can have color pictures on it (wallpaper, picture ringer ID, etc). More specifically--*my* pictures on it. What Verizon doesn't tell you when you buy this, is the phone ships with 4 or 5 wallpapers and that's it. And the only way (there is another--see below) to add pictures or ringers or games is through Get It Now, which means you have to pay for it. You pay all this money for the phone, the service and now you have to pay to put your own picture on your own phone? I don't think so! I'm sure this was a marketing decision by LG & Verizon but I think it stinks. If you are comfortable with computers and electronics, you can visit the fine folks over at Howard Forums (www.howardforum.com) and there is a way you can import your own ringers and pictures into the phone for free using a $20 cable from Radio Shack and a free downloadable piece of software. It is hacking your phone, Verizon doesn't support it, but it works very well (or so I've heard :D ). We shouldn't have to go through such lengths for ringers and photos but unless you want to pay a monthly fee (PictaVision is $3.99 a month and the cheapest ringers are $1 *each*) it is the only way to do it. MINOR BUGS: There are some minor annoyances with the software. Older phones shipped with the 04 software, the latest (as of 03/03) is 05 and it does address some of these (like the T9 predictive input won't add words to the dictionary unless you're in one particular mode, ringer volume is lowered, etc). The phone was great before so ironing out these minor bugs will make it better. These bugs are not nearly as awful or crippling as the early T720 bugs. Conclusion: This is a great color phone. Understand that very shortly Verizon is going to come out with camera phones and push-to-talk phones (a la Sprint PCS) so if those features appeal to you, pass on the VX4400 and wait for something newer (like the VX6000). But if you want a phone with an awesome color screen, great reception, decent battery life and some cool features, I highly recommend the VX4400. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 87167 2003/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features 65k color screen weight signal strength battery life ringer can be too loud at times The Bottom LineGreat Handset With Plenty Of Features, Excellent Display, And Unusually Good Battery Life For A Color Model! Full Review I'd like to begin by mentioning that I have been a Verizon Wireless corporate accounts representative for almost seven years now. Needless to say, I've seen a GREAT deal of handsets come and go during that time period. Some good, some bad, and everything in between. I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of the wireless phone over the past few years, as every new generation builds upon itself and offers more to the consumer. One of the latest releases we're offering, the LG VX-4400 is a handset that I personally use on one of my "house" accounts and I'm ready to provide my feedback on it! Specs Tri-Mode 1XRTT/CDMA Digital Network Operation Includes Get It Now (BREW SW version 1.1) E911 capable 2.5mm headset jack to accept universal hands-free headsets Large, eight-line 65K STN color display (120 x 133) External mono LCD (96 x 64) Voice-activated dialing Voice recorder Web browser capable Send and receive text messages CMX MIDI (musical instrument and games digital interface) sound for ringers Express Network capable (Mobile Office Kit sold separately) 199 phone book entries with 5 alphanumeric entries per name 26 ringer tones plus vibrating alert Melody and character downloads PC connector type: USB 1-Year limited warranty Mode Type - Tri-Mode Digital Battery - Lithium-Ion Battery (950 mAh) Dimensions - 3.46"H x 1.89"W x 1.07"D Standby Time - Up to 110 hours Usage Time - Up to 180 minutes Warranty - One Year Weight - 4.0 oz. As you can see, the 4400 is very similar in size to the former StarTac series, which was very popular. The talk time/standby time is considerably higher than many color handsets on the market at this time (Moto T720 comes to mind). For those that are unfamiliar, the "1X" technology contained within the 4400 allows for high speed data transfer when coupled with a laptop and a mobile office kit (available for purchase in the $60-80 range). This is a definite advantage for the mobile professional that likes to have the latest and greatest while not sacrificing connectivity options. Appearance I like the styling of the LG very much. In terms of visual appeal, I would put it at the top of my list. The visual clarity of the screen cannot be beat currently, as it provides over 65,000 available colors (similar to the new Kyocera 7135), while the Moto T720 only offers a 4,000 color display. Some would say that 4,000 is plenty, which I'd agree with to an extent, but the additional depth of the 4400 translates into increased clarity and richness. There are many customizable features. You can assign various colors to flash on the external caller id display when a particular type of call is coming in. For example, you can have incoming calls flash red on the display, missed calls flash green, new messages flash blue, etc. This way, all you have to do is glance down at the phone while it's ringing to get a better idea of what the situation is. With the number of calls that I receive throughout the day, this is a BIG advantage! A number of people have commented to me on how great the lighting is on the 4400. The keys light blue when the handset is opened and provide for easy operation. It's rather impressive in the dark. I prefer the layout of the keys and the ergonomics to the late model Motorola phones. I've heard several customers comment on this as well, several of which that have returned the Moto's for the 4400. The keys are spaced far enough apart that they provide for easy accessibility and recognition even while not being able to provide full attention in the car. For those that like to customize their phones, I can't think of a better model than the 4400. There's a plethora of options to be tinkered with, not to mention the "Get It Now" applications which further that concept. There are various wallpapers that can be chosen, color schemes that can be altered, and a whole host of other options. Performance In the past, LG phones have always performed well in terms of signal strength and performance. Many people have grown rather fond of the new VX-10 (younger brother to the 4400) for this reason, particularly given it's current low price point. I have found the 4400 to be no exception, providing a good signal, although perhaps slightly shy of the Moto v60i which is at the top of its rank in this respect. Contrary to a few other reviews I have read, I have been very pleased with the voice clarity (both receiving and sending). I have performed side-by-side comparisons of the v60i to the 4400 and the LG is the definite winner. This should provide a reference point for those that are familiar with late model Motorola handsets. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, I've always had a problem with the slightly "muffled" sound of the Moto microphones. Whether using a headset or talking directly into the phone, the 4400 is crisp and clear. For those that are complaining about this, I have a few other models I'd like you to try and see how you feel then! There may be better audio on other phones out there, but I'm going to definitely position this one towards the upper tier. I'm a big fan of the new "Get It Now" feature that is constantly evolving and growing. For those that are unfamiliar, this provides the ability to download custom ringtones, wallpapers, games, etc. directly to your handset. Note that there is a charge for this service and it varies. For example, you can download a one time use of a game for a minimum price and unlimited use for a higher price. For reference, the Get It Now apps generally range from $1-6. The 4400 is a great interface for this with its richly colored display and easy navigation. As mentioned at the top of this review, the ringer tones can be too loud at times when utilizing pre-recorded MP3 ringers. It appears that there is no way to alter the volume of a downloaded ringer, such as the "Mission Impossible" theme, which has forced me to go back to using the stock ringers that can be easily adjusted. I am going to check into this further with our LG representative and will post an update if I found out a quick fix. I should add that the fixed volume of the downloaded ringers is probably just about right under normal circumstances, but there are times that I'd prefer to lower it a notch or two. It wouldn't be complete without commenting on battery life when reviewing a color handset. As many are well aware, they consume batteries at a much greater rate than their black and white siblings. Sometimes by as much as twice, which would be the case with the Moto T720 when compared to the v60i. The former providing some of the lowest talk/standby times that we offer, while the v60i is one of the best. This should be a definite consideration for you prior to purchasing a color model. If you're the type that simply cannot tolerate a dying battery in the middle of the day, then either avoid color phones or pick up an extended battery at the time of purchase. I want to interject that the 4400 does rather well within the color arena. Its rated talk/standby times are right up there with many black and white models. There are approximately 100 representatives in our region of Verizon and we've all been issued the 4400 as our primary phone. Given that the average rep uses about 3-4,000 minutes per month, this should again give you a reference point. I prefer to plug into the home charger or cig adapter when I'm on a lengthy call, but this phone does well with a nightly charge. Conclusion I feel as though I've touched on all of the important aspects that make the 4400 stand out from the pack. I would recommend this model and predict that it will satisfy most. I've received very positive feedback from many customers, some of which I'd classify as unusually critical. I've even had a few Motorola veterans convert to the LG line as a result of the 4400 (Moto fans tend to be very loyal!). There are currently some deep discounts being offered in conjunction with mail in rebates, so it may be worth your while to look into this one! Recommended: Yes 87166 2004/1/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception clear calls cool factor good battery life none other than the included manual The Bottom LineThe LG VX4400 is one of the best cell phones out there with excellent sound quality and reception, quick charging capabilities, decent battery life and options and customizations galore. Full Review Looking for a practical, good looking, easy to use and up-to-date cellular phone? The LG VX4400 fits the bill with cool looks, excellent call quality, simple to operate menu system and extensive options. Since I was already on my 3rd phone in the last 4 years and the antenna on that 3rd phone had just snapped off, I figured that it was time that I broke down and got myself a cell phone that was not offered for free when I signed up for a plan and was a bit more robust. I browsed through what was offered by Verizon at their local store (as I wasn't changing plans or carriers, just upgrading the phone so had to stick with Verizon) and settled on the LG VX4400. I'll admit it, the color screen, the smooth looking silver exterior, the fact that it was a flip phone, it all attracted me to the phone. When you first see it, the phone has that cool factor that immediately makes an impression with you. The other features that I learned about as I read the VX4400's description continued to entice me in. The phone has a lot of functions and customizations that include downloadable ring tones, games, applications, a personal organizer function (calendar and appointment functions), a fairly robust phone book option, voice activated dialing and more. In all honesty, the only thing that I wanted and the VX4400 did not have was a speakerphone. However, after reviewing all of the other phones in the store and their various options, and prices, I kept wandering back over to the VX4400, for the money (retails at Verizon for $269 without a new service plans - the prices drop when you are renewing or starting a new service plan) I felt that it offered the most options and was the best value there. So I did it, I broke down and got myself a new phone, all the while, my boyfriend was there rolling his eyes going "do you really need to get a new cell phone - what's wrong with your old one?" Of course I had to have it, I needed a change, I needed a phone that flipped open, I needed that color screen. VX 4400 Details So you're probably wondering about some details on the phone itself. The phone is about 3 ½ inches long and roughly doubles in size when you flip it open. It's about ½ an inch thick when closed and about half of that when open. There's an extendable antenna. The VX4400 has two different LCD panels. The interior panel is full color and the exterior one is grayscale. The exterior panel displays the time and when a call is being received, shows the caller ID. The exterior panel also displays messages, notices, etc. when you've missed a call or have a voice mail or a text message. The phone comes with a lithium-ion battery, a desktop charger and a belt clip for the phone. Once I got it home I started the process of getting all my phone numbers into the new phone. Entries into the phone book are fairly easy to enter and the process is not too complicated. In addition to the phone number, you can enter the name of the person, their address and email address, and a voice activated dialing entry for the person. I will admit it, I did not read the manual at first. But when I started to see all of the options that were available, I did open the manual and attempt to follow it. The manual is very poorly written and gives only a cursory review of the available options. You're probably better off just playing with the phone and figuring out what each of the options does. There's really no way for you to screw up the phone (except for the "system" options so don't play with those unless you know what they are) so feel free to toggle settings and change defaults. Just about everything with the phone is customizable. From the graphics that show up on the color screen, to the color that the outer LCD panel flashes when you have a call or have a message. One of the coolest features is that you can set up a different ring for different incoming phone calls. You can do this in a basic sense for caller ID versus non-caller ID calls and you can even go down to each entry in your phone book having a different ring tone. That way when your phone rings, you already know who it is. I have found the talk time and the standby time on the supplied batter to be excellent. I have let the phone go for 2 days without a charge and I am still able to use it before charging. Talk time is equally good. I would imagine though if you spend lots of time working with the phone (such as games, etc) with the color screen running, battery life would probably suffer. Charging is very quick. A drained battery will fully charge in less than a few hours. I also purchased the battery recharge adapter for my car. As often I'm traveling and I do not want to have to carry around the desktop charger. The auto-charger plugs into the phone's data port and also works quite quickly. I would suggest only leaving it plugged in when you need to charge the phone, not leaving the phone constantly connected. It heats the battery and while I'm not sure it hurts it too much, it cannot be good for the battery. The belt clip is your standard belt clip accessory. The phone slips into the clip and snaps in. I find that the "snap" is helpful because you know the phone is fully in the clip and you don't stand a chance of having it fall out. But How Does It Work? Sound Quality and Reception Sound Quality - I never knew that a cell phone could sound this good. The first time I used it, it sounded like I was talking on my regular phone in the house, or even better for that fact. The microphone produces crisp and clear sounds and the volume is adjustable for almost too soft to hear, to almost too loud to keep next to your head. However, this is a good thing, because as everyone knows, you might be somewhere very quiet, or you might be stuck in the middle of a construction site trying to listen to someone. People that I have been calling have mentioned the difference in the quality and they are like "you are on your cell phone?" Reception - I'm not sure if it is because of the increased sound quality, but all of my calls sound better. There is significantly less static in the calls and I appear to be able to continue calls without breaking up in areas where my old phone would lose the signal and disconnect. In a month of use in many different areas, I have only lost the signal in a call once. The rest of the times, even in the weak signal areas, the phone is able to hold the call and I can continue to keep talking. The "Cool" Factor Everyone wants to have something that makes everyone go "that is cool" when they take it out. The VX4400 fulfills this requirement. Not only is it a great phone to use and carry, it makes everyone else want to look at it and see how it works. It actually got passed around my office with each new person going "wow - I wish I had this one." The phone will not make you the most popular person - but it sure is fun to make others jealous. When they have got that old clunky cell phone and you pull out your VX4400...just think to yourself of saying to them... "go ahead, eat your heart out." The Final Take The LG VX4400 is one of the best cell phones out there with excellent sound quality and reception, quick charging capabilities, decent battery life and options and customizations galore. If you are looking to upgrade or purchase your first cell phone, this must be one phone that you have to consider. Other Cell Phone Reviews of Mine: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 269.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87165 2003/8/27 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 colorful small flip bad manual doesn t fit my ear The Bottom LineA great little phone, loaded with features...and colors! Full Review I've been with Verizon for several years now, and I usually end up taking whatever cheap phone they have when I renew my plan. Well, I hadn't updated my phone in about two years, and the battery started to wear out. Since the phone was (gasp!) two years old, it seemed easier just to get a new phone and actually keep up with the whole cell phone technology thing. Looking around the Verizon store, I realized I was going to have to shell out some cash if I wanted a phone that could actually do things, and of course, look cool. So I first set my price limit at $69.99 in which I could get a little flip phone. Then I saw the color phones, including the LG VX4400 and I just had to have color. So I raised my price limit to $99.99. The phone was actually $149.99 but I ended up getting a rebate for $50 which was nice. For starters, anything would have been a huge update and improvement from my old phone, which was an old Kyocera. It was basic, and did what I needed it to. Since I was used to a very straight-forward-type phone, the LG VX4400 seemed anything but basic. I'm not a manual reader, so when I first got it I just started pushing buttons and looked at all the pretty colors. I've had the phone for about a month now, so I'm pretty sure I've poked around at everything. For me, the flip factor was a big one. Since cell phones are getting smaller and smaller, I noticed that the mouth pieces were getting further and further away from where your mouth will be when you use it. I figured the flip phone would solve this problem...and it does! I'm not used to holding a flip phone though, so it was kind of awkward not having any specific place to put my fingers, but it really isn't an issue anymore. The phone has a pull-out antenna which I usually don't even bother using (they get caught in my hair, without fail). Another feature I like is the outside LCD. I can leave the phone closed, and still see who is calling on the lighted outside screen, which is actually nice, big, and readable. I also see the time, date, battery power, reception, mode, and all that good info on that same outside screen. On that subject, I can also change the phone's modes without opening it. So, I can put it on manner mode (vibrate) or silence, without having to open it. I just hold down the voice memo button (which is on the side) to switch between modes. The battery is supposed to last about 1.5 days, but mine typically lasts a couple of days if I don't use it too much. Also, charging takes very little time. The initial charge took a lot less than 5 hours, which is what I was told it would take when I bought it. I'd say it was done in a less than 3 hours. Back to the flip thing. I also like the flip because it provides some shortcuts. I can automatically answer the call when I flip it open, which is nice when I have my hands full and can't hit a button. I can also set the phone to ask for a name (for voice dialing) on flip-open. This is really only useful to me in the car, so I usually leave voice dialing set to respond when I press the side (voice memo) button. I should probably mention the voice memo, since I've raved about the stupid button. I like the memo feature. A voice recorder is something I've always needed, but never got around to buying myself. Silly, I know. But anyway, the voice memo sort of gives me that option. I can't record hours on it, but it will give me enough time to record ideas, names, numbers, or whatever it is that I need to remember and can't write down. When I get a good melody in my head, this really comes in handy. Oh, and did I mention the colors? Sure I did, but allow me to explain. First, the outside screen lights up when you get a call, and even flashes several different colors. You can change these colors, or tell it not to flash, but I like the rainbow effect. The main screen is full-color, pictures and all. Yes, the background is that balloon moving back and forth. This can be changed, but I like the balloon because it has some motion. There are also changeable setup and shutdown screens, as well as a sound when the phone turns on and off. There are several picture options in the phone itself, and you can obtain more using Get it Now. Get it Now is a little much for me. There are just so many things to "get." It allows you to browse and download programs, games, pictures, ringtones, services, etc. It's best to browse them on the Verizon website so as to not tie up your phone, and take forever looking at all of this stuff. There are some great downloads, but at best you'll get a free demo. Other than that, you gotta pay. It's just not worth it to me to pay to download something. I did like the weather service though, and I got the free trial of that. There's also a mapping program which is pay-only, but it could be useful. I'll just have to do without new pictures, sounds and games. The phone does come with plenty of (annoying) ringtones, maybe one of which just sounds like a ringing phone. The rest are all songs, which I really don't dig. Although, most people seem to disagree, as I hear little phone melodies constantly. This phone also comes with GPS, which will pinpoint your location if you should dial 911. Other than that, there is nothing yet available to use with GPS. I was hoping that the mapping software used it, but it doesn't. What other features are there? Well, if you pay for the them, you can do text messaging, chat, e-mail, web and everything like that. I don't have any of these. I just don't have enough use for it, since I'm around computers enough to not need to browse the web on my phone. Getting back to the free features, the phone book is like most phonebooks, but it has voice dialing as I mentioned. I thought I would never use it, but just for fun, I recorded all of the names and I actually love it. Especially when it comes to numbers I never remember. You can use speed dial as well. There's also a calendar, which I don't really use to store dates, but it's great as a "What day of the week is the 10th?" type of reference. All of the basic features from my old phones are included in this one as well, like speed-text typing, which I hate and never use. Finally, anytime you do anything on the phone, you can navigate through your options using the menu buttons. There will be a little menu on the bottom of the screen of what you can do, and there are designated arrow keys, menu buttons, and an OK button which make for easy use. Physically, the phone seems pretty durable. I've tried hard not to drop it, but when closed, it doesn't act very delicate, and I feel that if I were to drop it, no harm would be done, save maybe a cracked plastic screen (which is what I did to my old phone). The buttons are nice as well. They're a little rubbery, which I love (I hate that hard plastic feel). They're also laid out in a way that's easy to navigate without looking. There are a few button shortcuts that come in handy for that as well, such as holding down one of the navigation button will launch Get it Now, etc. As I mentioned earlier, the flip is nice because the mouthpiece ends up right in front of your mouth. I will say, however, that I still haven't found a comfortable way to rest the phone on my ear, and hear perfectly at the same time. The phone is small, but I have one minor issue. My old phone was a bit longer, but thinner, and fit much better in my bags. This one is smaller, but a little bulkier because of the flip. So, it doesn't fit quite as comfortably in my little bag. The sound is also great. I hear everything quite well, and no one has complained about anything being fuzzy or having bad reception when I call. One thing I will say that I dislike is the manual. When I finally realized there are just way too many features to find for myself, I started to read that little book, and found that it really said nothing important. It just brushes over the buttons and settings, and doesn't really tell you how to do much of anything. I mean, it covers the basics, but when it gets into the hardcore features it doesn't seem to explain itself very well. On that note, the phone isn't hard to use, but it does a lot. So it takes a while to get used to, especially if you were behind the time of cell phones, like I was. Overall, I am extremely pleased with my new little phone! P.S. It looks really cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 7688 LGIC LG-TM510 87320 2000/7/20 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small easy to carry a nice looking phone compact accessories are a nightmare very short battery life very limited volume on ring The Bottom LineNeat - cute looking - great conversation piece. Leave it on the table or on your desk. Just don't use it that much!! Full Review The phone is neat - no arguement there. The Instruction Book is very difficult to follow - play with the phone and you will learn much faster. The battery life is very limited, - stand-by time is great - just don't make or receive any calls!!!!! If you decide to purchase the extended battery, - good luck!!!! The address and the phone number in the instruction book is no longer in service - and if you happen to decide to go through Verizon, - all you get is Voice_Mail - on back order - not available - we will contact you - etc, etc, etc. In all honesty, there IS NO EXTENDED BATTERY AVAILABLE for this phone - and for that reason, = please, - think twice before you buy. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 87319 2000/10/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy good audio quality price slightly bulky The Bottom LineThe U.S cell phone world is imperfect but this phone is a sign that we are moving forward. Full Review The cell phone world is still an imperfect world. This phone does show that things are getting better. The Good: The phone is sturdy, looks cool (silver model), has front display for data, blue backlighting is cool, audio quality is descent most of the time and connections are pretty good. I was in Manhattan during the WTC crisis and I was able to make phone calls when others couldn't. Its tri-mode It does have a web browser but I haven't tried it. The not so good: No text messaging. The user interface for items like the phone book could be made easier and better formatted. I found the Startac easier to use when storing and looking up phone numbers. The battery is slightly bulky making the phone bulky. The battery can have a longer life but that goes for most phones anyway. Its trimode but I don't think its GSM capable which is the main thing in Europe. The price could be better. Europe is still more advanced with cell phone products and they offer better prices as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87318 2000/8/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size holster clamshell design battery life The Bottom LineTime will tell, but right now I'd recommend the TM510 to a friend. Full Review When it was time to give up my old analog phone and move into the digital age, did the research and ended up with the TM510. Ive had the phone for a couple of months and am very happy. The sound quality is quite good, and the reception (even inside our buildings) is very good. My only complaint is that the battery life is very poor when the phone is in analog coverage. A full charge doesnt even last 12 hours. In digital coverage it is reasonable, a charge will last a couple of days with no usage. Talk time doesnt seem too bad, I havnt really talked too long on a single charge so it is hard to tell. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140.00 87317 2000/11/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life small good options single band dust The Bottom LineGreat Phone. Great Price. Fun to Use! Full Review This is a great little phone. I have been using it for the past 4 months and have not had a problem with it. I get great battery life from it and it does a great job of not letting me down when it's on its last ounces of battery juice. The design makes it very nice, such that you do not have to answer the phone, but instead can screen your calls via the display on the flip. The only problem I have had with that is that dust gets in there after a while. They need to provide a better sealant to protect that. Hopefully the newer model will address that. The sound quality is phenomenal and the reception better than my friends' phones. Only con is that you only have the digital band, but I live in the city and this does not pose a problem. I have traveled across the country with this phone and it, nor Sprint's service, has let me down (except for in the most rural areas). It has all the regular options that most phones on the market offer, a few less ringers than the nokia phones, but plenty of options for setting different ringers for different types of calls. The address book holds 100 people and pretty much unlimited numbers for each (as I have found). The charger that comes with it is sleek and nice, not like some of the motorola ones I have seen. I want to reinforce that it is a very sturdy phone. I have seen the flip of the motorola phone (the competitor) break off a few times on friends' phones, but this one is rock solid, good construction. I have dropped this phone on concrete twice, from about 4 feet each time, and it works just fine. Great phone at a great price. Make sure to buy from Best Buy or another retailer offering rebates. I got mine with a $50 best buy rebate and a $30 sprint rebate, which made the cost very nice! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87316 2000/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception voice dialing good size phonebook does not alphabetize The Bottom Linehighly recommended Full Review this is one of the better phones that verizon has put out. i was looking at the startac and passport until this phone came out. it is smaller and i like the outside display to tell u the date/time, caller id, voicemail etc. overall it is a great phone in a small package. i like the ring and vibrate feature together. i am not sure if other phones have it. they either have ring or vibrate but not both at the same time. voice dialing is awesome and the capability is a lot better than most phones. the only drawback right now is the lack of accessories for the phone. i hope that someone will make a smaller antenna for this phone. the other thing would be a swivel phone holder. lastly the phonebook does not alphabetize - it is listed according to the order u enter them. i wonder if there is an upgrade or some kind of flash we can do from the computer that will improve on the functions on this phone and the phonebook, display and ring types be some of them. they are great already, being able to download more display and ring types would be good too (like the nokias). overall, i recommend the phone highly. excellent reception. not too small like the motorola and slightly smaller than the star tac and passport which makes portability excellent. also - the color of the phone is nice w/ indiglo instead of dull green like other phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87315 2000/10/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 build quality size voice dialing battery life is average The Bottom LineIf the battery life were above average this phone would be just about perfect. Full Review Comparing the LG TM510 to my previous Motorola Timeport 8167, the LG wins. The timeport felt flimsy- it creaked when opening and felt "loose". The TM510 is solid. It also is more comfortable to hold, being narrower and a tad thicker. This shape feels more natural. It's overall smaller than the timeport but LG put the display on the top half of the phone instead of squeezing it in on the bottom half where the buttons are. So it's actually easier to dial than the timeport. On that subject, the buttons have a nice "clicky" response, not the spongy, wiggly kind that many phones have. Pluses: -solid feeling. -good ergonomics, from the clean exterior to the sturdy antenna to the response of the buttons. -just the right size. -outer display so you can see whose calling without opening. -features, especially voice dialing which works well. The calendar is handy also. Minuses: -Battery life is average. If it were better I would say this phone is just about perfect. -takes too many clicks to get to the phone book. -Everyone hates the manual (for good reason). But you'll figure everything out on your own in 20 minutes, so who cares? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87314 2000/9/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good signal strength voice activation small size poor battery life The Bottom LineGreat sound quality, voice activation and overall performer. One big downfall is battery life. Full Review I have had this phone for about two months. I am not a real techie so it took me a while to get used to it. So far I am impressed, compared to my old Nokia 5190. I got my 510 through Verizon and it came with a hands free set and a belt clip. The belt clip is excellent but throw away the headset. The sound quality is very poor. The phone folds easily, has an outer display so you can see who is calling before you answer. Voice activated dialing is fabulous and fairly easy to set up. Text messaging is fairly easy as well with T9 predictive text entry. Voice quality is good and I have had several people tell me that they thought I was on a hardwire line. The downside is the battery life. When the phone is simply on but in an analog service area, the battery will drain within 10 hours. That is without even making a call. In a digital service area the battery life is much better. Perhaps two days with a couple of short calls thrown in. Not exceptional but OK. I have not tried the extended battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 87313 2000/5/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very nice looking cant think of anything The Bottom Linethis is a very good phone and one of the best web enabled phones there is! Full Review this is a awesome phone. i would highly recommend it to anyone. its size for one makes it bery appealing. also i like the idea of the web enabled phones. some phones are kinda unorganized on there web stuff but this phone is exceptional in it. i also like the screen on it. all in all this is a very cool and sleak looking phone. i know several friend and family members that have it and would recommend it to. it is just a great phone simply put. i look forward to preceeding phones this company puts out and also the development of the web enabled phones. it is just amazing what they can do now! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87312 2001/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small lots of feautures external display of caller id manual poorly written translated The Bottom LineTiny phone loaded with newest features. Full Review I just replaced our older phones (Qualcomm 820 - otherwise known as "the brick") with this new phone from LG. I was really looking at the Motorola V60c but then the price changed my mind ($400). The salesman steered me toward this LG-TM510 as a good "clone" of the Motorola for much less money. I really like Motorola stuff, we just bought two FPS radios and love them, but sometimes the price premium is just too high. So far this TM510 has been great. I love the voice call function. Basically you store a number and then give it a voice "tag". If you want to call that number you open the phone and say the tag. According to the poorly translated manual the pone stores around 20-50 voice tags (I guess depending on how big the tags get). This is a VERY handy feature. The phone has a small external screen that displays the date/time and then the number of an incoming call. This is also VERY handy. The phone also has an internal "answering machine". You can set the phone to pickup after a certain number of rings and play an outgoing message and then record a message from the caller. I guess it was just a matter of time for the digital technology to get this small. I have not used this feature yet but I think I will like it. Our wireless provider charges a fee for each mailbox message used so I am hesitant to use it. I will still have to pay airtime charges to use the internal answering machine, but I would have to pay this also to retrieve the messages from their mailbox (along with the per message fee). If the phone is turned off the answering machine will not get the messages (obviously). This phone seems very well built. Perhaps not totally up to the level of the Motorola but I could go through two of these and still not be at the cost of the Motorola unit. Apparently the ability to Sync with a PC/palm has been delayed by LG due to technical reasons, so if the salesperson tell you the phone can do this, they are out of touch. There is an excellent user group for this phone in Yahoo groups. Overall I think this phone will be a welcome addition to our electronic family. I will post updates as I use it more. Bradman Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87311 2000/7/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small great feel to the buttons awesome voice dialing yet very sturdy non alphabetical phone book manual could be better The Bottom LineThe best small phone I've ever laid my hands on at a very reasonable price. I'd recommend this phone to anybody looking for a high quality flip phone. Full Review OK, just when I thought the Nokia 8290 was the best small phone around, along comes the 510...and the more I know it the more I like it. First of all the phone seems very well made and durable. With my 8290 I was always worried about dropping it or bumping it against something, not so with the 510. When you open the flip, it just has a big phone feeling of quality, and the feel to the buttons are better on this phone than any I've tried lately. Contrary to one opinion I've read, you don't have to be a small person to use the buttons on this phone - for a phone of this size they're rather large and well spaced...much easier to dial on this phone than say, a small Nokia. The voice dialing on this phone is very very impressive. You can set it up to press a button, then speak the person's name to be dialed, or you can set it up to automatically prompt you to say the name to be dialed when you open the flip...that's cool! I love the outer LCD which displays the signal status, battery status, date, time, and the name of the person calling you. I'm sure this will be standard issue on all flips in the near future, but it's reality NOW with the 510. I've read opinions slamming the phone for its "quirky" interface, but to be honest, I actually found the menus just as easy if not easier to learn and navigate than the Nokia menus. Granted, the users guide that comes with the phone is bad news, but you'll be able to figure just about everything else out just by playing around with the phone for a few minutes. One tip...pressing and holding some of the keys will get you to some handy shortcuts, so give that a shot when you're playing around with the phone (just don't press and hold the "9" key, that will dial 911!). I've also read negative comments about the battery life on this phone. I'm just charging it up again for the first time after 2.5 days of use. Not stellar, by any means, but it's better than my Nokia. I'd say the battery life on this phone is probably average compared to most small phones, but it's far from terrible. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87310 2000/4/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 199 phone book space external lcd screen not user friendly unable to alphabetize phone book The Bottom Linethis phone lacks too many small features that makes it inconvenient and difficult to use. Full Review the LG TM510 has many problems: 1. phone book can not be alphabetized 2. there isn't a button dedicated to voice mail. the only way to check voice mail is to dial the number or store it in speed dial. 3. when there is voice mail, the phone constantly alerts me until i hear the message. the alert also shows up on the external LCD which makes it annoying when i want to check the time. 4. there is only 2 real "ring" tones 5. the phone is not user friendly. navigating through the menu is a chore compared to Motorola and Nokia. 6. cant access voice dialing on the original LG hands-free head set. 7. battery life is too weak. even on stand-by, i have to recharge the phone everyday. 8. on analog mode, the phone becomes very hot. 9. a lot of useless features. i don't see a difference using voice privacy or audio AGC. the scheduler is completely useless since it is annoying to write and view the schedule. 10. the phone book manual is poorly written. it is not very detailed. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87309 2000/6/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ultra compact loads of cool features manual could be a little more user friendly The Bottom LineGet this phone--it's got everything you could want at a good price. Full Review I bought this phone because my Nokia 5190 was clunky and didn't have that many features. I got the phone with a new Verizon plan, so I got a $100 discount on the price. This phone ROCKS. It is very small, but it's loaded with great features. Among my favorites: *In addition to a larger LCD panel on the inside, it has a mini LCD panel on the OUTSIDE so that if you get a call, you can see the Caller ID without having to open the phone (and thus automatically answer the call). *It has a voice-activation feature. All I have to do is say the name of the person I want to call, and it dials automatically. I still can't get over how cool that is. *It has a huge phonebook memory that allows you to store home, office and cell numbers for your contacts, and each contact is assigned a number that can be used as a speed-dial code (though with the nifty voice-activation feature, I can't imagine ever messing around with speed-dialing). *It has a vibration-only alert option--and the vibration is really aggressive. *It has a headset jack that is compatible with most over-the-counter headsets (so you don't have to buy an expensive one that only works with this phone, like I did for my Nokia 5190) *The phone is also a mini-browser. It's not a feature I expect to use a lot (and not at all once my free Web access subscription runs out with Verizon...), but it seems okay. The phone comes with a belt clip and a desk charger. I paid about $20 for an additional car-charger. The only complaint I have about this phone so far is that the manual isn't as helpful as it could be. For example, it took me three days to figure out how to set up the voice-activation feature because it's not actually presented! In a few places, it simply says that you have to scroll down in the phonebook feature to find it. Not helpful! (Once you DO find it when you're messing around with the phone, it's fairly self-explanatory, but it would have saved me a lot of grief if the manual had been more explicit). Similarly, you can apparently use the phone as an answering machine (vs. just using your cell company voicemail), but the section is so brief that I haven't quite figured it out yet. It's possible I'm just a bit slow, but I don't think that's the problem ;). But the bottom line is that even though I haven't even discovered all the things this little powerhouse can do, I LOVE IT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87308 2000/9/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very small battery phone book The Bottom LineHow come you didn't get one yet? Full Review I was dying to leave Sprint. I have had enough of their crappy service and phones. I used to have a boring Startac that always dropped calls. So I jumped onto the Verizon bandwagon, after seeing all those TV commercials. Walking into the store, I first saw the Motorola V60 and thought, WOW! Awesome lookin phone. Then I saw the price tag and thought, WOW, it's not THAT awesome. With a sigh, I walked away from that display and lo and behold found another mini phone that looked pretty similar in size to the V60. And the price was less than half of it. Sweet deal. I asked for a demo right away. The sales guy was informative and said that this phone was one of their best sellers and that they often run out of stock on this one. But before I was sold, I wanted to see the phone in action before I forked over the dough. So I played around with the phone. I was impressed with the slew of features it comes with like voice dialing, web browser, voice memo, calendar to name but a few. All packed into this little bitty phone! Ok, but how about the reception? I made a test call and was blown away by the clarity of the call. Almost like my landline, if not the same! Pretty loud and clear. Excited, I bought it and took it home to show my friends, who all own those small Nokias. They all wowwed my phone and as the proud owner, I smiled proudly at my new investment. Now they all want to have one too but are bound to their cingular contracts. Haha! What more could I ask for in such a small phone. It has everything! I've had it for about a week now and am extremely satisfied. Not one dropped call and the signal meter is always full. I compared signals with my Startac and the LG could get signal where the Startac didn't. I was deep inside my office building too! Way to go! My only gripe is the phone book because it is not alphabetized. I don't really mind though because I can just use voice dial. And let me tell you, this phone has to be the only phone that can let you have about 50 or more voice dial entries! And it is very accurate as well. The size of the phone book is impressive too, with 199 entries and 5 separate slots per entry. Huge book! I also notice that the battery life isn't so great. I find myself always charging it every night. Maybe I'll have to buy an extra battery. But all in all, this is the best phone I've ever had. Good bye Startac. I won't miss you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87307 2000/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode caller id on outside of phone small not a name brand The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone. I am happy with the features, quality , and price. Full Review When I lost my Motorola V8160 cellphone I was sent a LGIC TM510 as a replacement from the insurance company. I was a little weary because I never heard of LGIC. I looked up some epinions while I awaited the arrival of my new phone. Many people seemed satisfied with the TM510 so I decided it couldn't be too bad. After getting the phone I thought it seemed a little more durable than the V8160. There are a lot more features to this phone than my Motorola, it is a tri-mode phone whereas my Motorola was only dual-band, and the belt clip holds the phone more securely... this way I wouldn't loose the TM-510 like I did the V8160. Because of some of the epinions I read I had to check the battery life. I used the phone for 2.5 days without needing to recharge... and I USED the phone. My Motorola would be dead if I couldn't get home before 10 PM. The buttons and display are bigger than Motorola's older V 8000s series. I already mentioned the better belt clip AND it swivels too. The display on the outside of the phone makes it much easier to know who is calling. I am a little weary of the small rubber plug that covers the headphone jack... then again most phones have no cover on the jack at all ... if they even have a headphone jack. I have to say if you read other epinions you might question the size of the keys or the battery life, but it is a small phone. You can't fit big buttons on a small package. Also small batteries will last less time. If you want a phone with big buttons and long battery life buy a bag phone. In comparison to the almighty Motorola I think this phone is much better ( comparing what you get for the price ). I also have to add that since I have been using this phone I have been able to make calls in places I have never been able to make calls. I always stay in digital mode where as before I would always go into analog ( and then you REALLY use up your battery ). I didn't get a manual with the phone but I did not find it too difficult to set up. There is a manual I will be downloading on LGIC's website www.lge.com. To sum it up I will say that I am very happy with this "noname" phone. Even if I paid the $150 I would definitely say its worth it. My Motorola cost me $450. My sister bought one recently and she loves it... she upgraded from a Motorola StarTac. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50deductable 87306 2000/5/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice recognition small outer lcd screen sturdy large inside lcd screen none The Bottom LineI would highly recommend this phone. Its size, features, outer lcd screen and durability make it a phone I plan to keep awhile. Full Review I have been looking for a new phone to replace my Audiovox 4500 (which I loved!) I have tried two other phones but returned them within a week but I think this is it. I have had about 6 cell phones in the last 2 years and I am picky. This phone is so small that I can almost wrap it in the palm of my hand. But when opened it is feels like a full sized phone. I have always like flip style phones but do not like to have to open phone to see who is calling (and by then you have answered). It is also very sturdy feeling for its small size The LCD screen on the inside is really large and easy to read. Menus are pretty intuitive as well. Verizon has a pretty limited phone selection so I was glad to find such a small, featured packed phone. Others that have more of a selection might find something they like better, but with Verizon I think this is a great choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87305 2000/3/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated dialing small size flip design battery life The Bottom LineIf you want a small phone with a lot of features, this is the one! Full Review My friend bought this phone last summer, and I had so much fun playing with it that I decided it was time to purchase one myself. (Actually, my husband and I bought two, since he liked the phone as much as I did.) The selling features were the size, flip-design and voice-activated dialing. I have always preferred flip phones because the numeric pads and displays are protected. This LG phone is also extremely small and lightweight, and is easy to carry via the belt clip or in a purse. This phone also has the neat feature of showing a mini caller ID display on the outside of the phone. I use the voice-activated dialing for almost every call, and I have come to depend on this feature. The only problem with voice dialing is that sometimes the phone won't recognize the name you are speaking, even after being trained. When that recurred numerous times with my husband's name, I just changed his voice name to an affectionate nickname, and it has worked fine ever since. I have to say that the biggest disadvantage of this phone is its battery life. If I keep the phone on all day, the battery discharges at an alarming rate. I usually only get about a day and a half of use before the battery is totally dead. On the other hand, if you're the type to only turn on the phone when you want to use it, the battery power is acceptable, with a charge needed only about once a week. The good news is that the battery seems to recharge pretty quickly -- usually within a couple of hours after being totally discharged. My calls have always been extremely clear, both within and outside my coverage area. I've used this phone in multiple states, and have never had a problem with the signal. That's probably equally a factor of Verizon's terrific coverage area, which they seem to be advertising quite heavily right now. Although we paid $200 for each phone -- we only wanted to sign up for one year contracts -- we still enjoy the phones immensely and are very satisfied with our purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87304 2000/7/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact great reception durable for the size owner s manual could be more detailed The Bottom LineIf you're a new user of a cell phone or a veteran, you have to try the LG-TM510. It's the future of design and quality for all cell phones. Full Review I upgraded from a StarTac 7868W just recently, after using many Motorola products, and I must say the LG-TM510 is a work-horse of a phone. It does everything and more than the Motorola StarTac's. I am impressed. The features on the LG-TM510 makes sense. The phone is very compact and durable. I have already dropped the phone (from 3-4 feet on concrete) and it stills works. I dropped my StarTac 7868W just recently and now the phone will not power-up. My StarTac was just sent off to Motorola Service for the 3rd time for repairs. If I would recommend a phone with many functional features, like: detailed phonebook, voice activation dialing, caller ID on the front of the unit, smart buttons and great keyboard layout. The reception is great. I had problems in certain areas in my area with my Motorola phone, but with the LG-TM510, I did not have the same problems. The reception was clear and reliable. I recommend this phone to anyone wanting features and performance. It's worth the buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 87303 2000/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 outer lcd screen small lots of options fits anyway easy to hear phonebook some of the default settings explained in my review The Bottom LineEasy phone to use and carry around. I am very pleased with its design and capabilities. Full Review I recently bought this phone and I have no real complaints. Its pro's outweight its con's. The phone has crystal clear reception, its light and very compact, easy to use options, and I love the outside LCD screen so that you know whose calling or can find the time or the date just with the glance of an eye. This phone features include, tri-mode capabilites, a date book and calendar, a calculator, country phone codes, vibrating battery, date, time, alarm clock, voice recorder, voice activated dialing, and others... The two things I don't like about the phone are the way the phone book is set up and that its default setting is words not letters. The phone allows you to view your last 10 phone calls for easy dialing. However if you want to find someone in your phonebook that you haven't called recently, it takes a whole mirage of buttons to finally find the person you want to call. The second foe is that its default settings is in words, not letters. So if you want to add someone to you list, you always have to remember to specify letters otherwise it will start typing in words. I like this phone, others like it too, its time for you to decide. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87302 2000/5/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features small size good quality ringer vibrator The Bottom LineHighly recommended due to the small size and bounty of features. Full Review I purchased this phone about two weeks ago, and so far I love it. It is a very nice, compact phone, packed with great features. I had to get used to the look of the inside (almost stopped me from buying it), but now I'm used to it and even like it. The voice activated dialing works decently: 100% of the time and about 50% of the time when there is background noise. The battery life is decent. I left it on for 3 days straight (nights also). It died on the 3rd day, quite sooner than I had hoped. But, this was when I first got it and was playing with it every 10 minutes. The battery charges from empty to full in 3 hours, and the included base charger has a red/green LED to tell you when it's done. The one gripe that I have is the call notification. The ringer seems not very loud, and the vibrator is hard to feel when in your pocket. I've been tossing this setting around for the past week, but I think the best option is escalating vibe/loudest ring. It does both when a call comes through. You can feel the vibrator just fine, so long as it is somehow in contact with your body, not just hanging in your pocket. I'm always worried that I'll miss a call if I set it to just ring (like in the car with the radio on), so I haven't tested that setting yet. Overall, this is a fantastic phone. I love it and highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87301 2000/7/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 manner mode external caller id voice dialing horrible phone book not alphabetized weak calendar scheduler The Bottom LineGreat phone in general. Very frustrating to find numbers though. Before buying, compare it with the much more expensive Motorola v60 and determine which you feel is a better "value". Full Review I do love this phone, however the User Interface is pretty weak in some areas. Specifically, the Phone Book is absolutely awful. If a name doesn't have a Voice Command Tag (you can have about 60) then you should expect about 14-20 button pushes to find a name and call (unless you want to type in an entire name to find). And it actually takes time to search (approx 4-5 seconds). The calendar/scheduler is also quite weak (but at least it has one). It is basically just an alarm feature. Voice dialing is by far it's best feature, and with room for about 60 Voice Tags, it comes close to making up for the horrible phone book. I got if for next to nothing from a dealer friend, so I really can't complain too much. After 3 weeks however, I have considered looking into the more expensive Motorola version. Play with it before you buy it. It is a good value for the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 87300 2000/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 outer lcd compact clear display records voice memos no auto answer unless using car kit alert beeps are watch likeeasy to miss The Bottom LineGet it, just realize that the manufacturer is striving to provide you a compact, light, phone. Rectangular style phones have more options and more versatile ways of using them. Full Review I'm writing this because of the critical downsides to this phone that might have made a difference to me at the outset of my purchase. The most important is the lack of volume to the alert notifications. These are different than the standard call rings which on this model are comparable to any cell phone. By contrast, the alert beeps, the beeps you receive to notify you of new e-mail or voice messages, are exactly like the low-scale tinny beep you get from your digital watch. You can't change the volume of these alerts so they're easy to miss. To get a more noticeable alert beep you can increase the beeps from one to four, but this just makes it sound like four watch beeps instead of one. There's virtually no chance of hearing it in any audio environment other than a perfectly quiet room. If message alerts are important to you you can opt to make alerts vibrate your phone, but one can speculate that the drain on the battery would be intolerable if one receives a lot of alerts. The second surprise was that this specific model will not auto-answer in the collapsed (closed) position. The manufacturer apparently assumes that you wouldn't be using auto-answer unless you were driving. You can walk around all day with a headphone and mic attached to your shirt if you want, but with the TM510 you need to physically open the phone in order to answer it. Aside from these very specific flags the phone is an excellent unit in that it meets it mission of remaining compact yet useful. It includes all the major features along with a few innovations such as a spot voice recorder for short memos, and a nifty way to link multiple telephone numbers with single directory entries. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87299 2001/6/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 excellent reception back lit lcd display vibration mode too small it is hard to push a button it is so small The Bottom LineA great looking full featured phone, but it may be too small for some users Full Review The LGIC LG-TM510, by most standards this is a great phone, it is packed with features, almost too many to use. It has a personal calendar, voice mail, a calculator, and various ring tones that you can make so loud you could never miss a call. The battery lasts forever, I couldn't count how long I've gone without charging it. This sounds like a great phone, but there is one problem, it is simply too small. What good are all its features if you can use them because the buttons are too small to touch? I almost need to get a pen out to dial a phone number, the buttons are that small!! I won't argue that this is a great looking phone, with numerous features and great styling; and if you are small enough to use it, by all means buy it. But be careful, if you are a big person, this is probably not the phone for you; you'll be better off buying a larger phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 145 87298 2000/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small tri mode scheduler email send receive voice dialing good clarity highly viewable day night answering machine manual is a bit hard to understand phonebook not alphabetized by the phone itself The Bottom LineThis is the best cell phone I've ever owned.... I can't wait for the TM-520. I've shown it off to all of my friends and also many of my clients! Full Review My wife and I both got LG TM-510 phones, and we both love 'em! Every feature we wanted and then some, in a small package, for a great price! Once we got the phones, we were surprised to find the "answering machine" feature of the phone, which will answer the phone for you and record a message ON THE PHONE (not in voicemail) and let you play it back later! No voicemail access charges, no number to dial! This is great for when I run into a store for a second and don't want to carry the phone in! And the voice memo / recording feature is also great!!! Every time someone wants to give me their phone number, email, or driving directions, I just say "hold on a sec" and hit "menu-3" and then say "go ahead" and it records it all, faithfully! The email send/receive is wonderful, too - T9 makes it viable, and the convenience can't be beat!! I can't tell you how many times I've taken a short note or written a memo to myself, having a reminder in my email when I get home or to work!!! What a great way to keep track of my busy schedule, or keep my wife up to date with my travel schedule - I even sent email just as I was getting on a plane in Chicago to let my wife know our actual departure time!! Bottom line, we both love our TM-510's. Good battery life -- I don't know what people expect in a small package, I've heard a few complaints but I can tell you I have none. The talk time is reasonable (realistically over 2.5 hours from a full charge), and if you throw it in a charger now and then, like in the car or when you get home, it's limitless. Standby time is several days. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87297 2000/8/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing price size use of features batter life The Bottom LineI would definately recommend this phone. Great size and price and while the features are hard to use you will get used to them. Full Review I got this phone about a week ago and so far I'm pretty happy with it. It was cheap, small, and I like the look of it. However, compared to the Nokia 8260 the features are extremly difficult to access. With the Nokia I felt like I was always '1-click' away from any feature I wanted. With the TM-510 it takes me a few seconds to access a common feature such as the phone book. The battery life appears to be pretty lousy too. Even w/o any use I will lose 2 out of 4 bars in just a day. That's not good. I haven't actually used the phone much so i'm not sure how much talk time it really gives you. Also, myself and one other person that I know of occassionaly hear an echo of themselves when using the phone. But nobody else i've spoken to has ever had this problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 87296 2000/6/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode sleek large inner display outside display address book The Bottom LinePortable, compact, best phone out there. Full Review I recently purchased this phone and am already impressed. The structure of the phone seems very sturdy because most of the weight (i.e. battery) is in the half that sits in your hand as not to stress the hinge joint. The joint itself looks fairly beefy as well which leads me to believe that this phone will last me for a while. I was drawn to this model of phone because of the outer display that conveniently shows who is calling before you open the phone to answer it. After purchasing the phone I realized that it has much more features than that. Little did I know that it has a web browser. I have yet to try it out because frankly I have little need to. The phone also contains a calendar, alarm, and scheduler. I do not use the scheduler because I use a Palm V to do that. Another plus is the cute graphics that are displayed when a call is made or received, and when the unit is turned on or off. The unit also comes with optional voice activated dialing. The reception and clarity of calls is excellent. I previously had Cingular (Cellular One) and was happy with the quality of service, just not the plan. I found what I was looking for with Verizon. The one drawback that I have to this phone is that the address book does not arrange in alphabetical order. This is a minor nuisance to me because the search feature allows you to find any entries that start with the same beginning letters. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.99 87295 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size sound quality support documentation menu interface The Bottom LineGood phone, frustrating to use. Why does it take 10 keystrokes to find the date and time of a missed call!?! Full Review Some of these reviews must have been written by LG... praising all of the features the TM-510 phone has. True, there are lots of features... too bad LG didn't weed out the poor choices and defaults before they put them into production! I wonder if these reviewers used the phone for more than a day! I have had no problems like some of the other reviewers mention. No dropped calls, good battery life, good sound quality, size is just right for pocket, buttons are much better size and feel than my old StarTAC, well put together and solid. My top TM510 minuses are 1) the menu user interface to the phones setup, features, and functions is poorly designed and tedious to use 2) Vibrate is too week to notice - I miss calls with the phone in my pocket! 3) TgEN data entry mode is more trouble than it is worth 4) Calendar and Phone Book features without a working computer link interface is useless. 5)Instruction book is hard to follow, poorly written, and incomplete 6)LG support response to e-mail is slow to non-existant and limited to one-line answers. LG's lack of commitment to support their promised data interface is worrysome. How can they honestly claim this as a feature when it cannot be used! In summary... this is a good phone, it's just frustrating to use. Why does it take 10 keystrokes to find the date and time of a missed call!?! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 87294 2002/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speech clarity connectivity voice dialing excellent backlight great display t9 text entry is painful the phonebook is a little clumsy very small when closed The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for those who need reliable and flexible communications while working on the road. Full Review I bought this as an upgrade phone for my Verizon service... finally getting rid of the Nokia 5185 that came free. The Nokia has some nice features (the phonebook) but was really not a very good phone. This TM510 is amazing: 1-bar on the signal strength meter and no problem in making calls and being understood... that was NOT the case with the 5185. The display is very easy to read (for these 55-year-old eyes) and the "Indiglo" backlighting is excellent in the dark. When closed, there is a display on the cover (which is also backlit) that shows date and time, signal and battery strength, and it is a CallerID when a call comes in. That's important because the phone answers when you open the cover. You can add a "voice tag" to 20 or so numbers which makes it easy to dial by just speaking a word or two. I also made the purchase of a "Connectivity Kit" for $40 which includes a cable and software that turns the phone into a wireless modem for my laptop... yes, on Verizon... no it's not GSM. I can Fax and check my email (slowly) and it only goes against my minutes! I also downloaded the LG-Desktop from their website (for $13) which allows phonebook synchronization to Outlook through the same serial cable. WOW! So far, I am VERY pleased. The only downside is the phonebook and the T9 text entry, but it is easy to switch to regular text entry with the press of 1 button. I also like the ability to record conversation. If someone is about to give me a phone number or address while I'm driving, I have them hold on a second, press a couple of buttons, record it and then play it back and write it down later, when I'm stopped. And, by the way, working with independent dealers is the way to go --- I got my TM510 for $75 with a 2-year contract extension. Seemed like a good deal to me. Yes? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87293 2000/3/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size vibrate mode outer lcd price clarity text messaging sometimes does not ring or vibrate when text message The Bottom LineGo out and get one. It will make your life simpler and after a month you will wonder how you ever got by without it. Full Review I am a physician and recently needed a new cellphone. It had been a while since I had looked at the service available and didn't realize that given text messaging,voicemail and vibrate mode one could get rid of the pager. I have had the tm-510 for one month with verizon and have been very happy. Most of the general benefits of the phone have been covered by other reviewers so I will comment on those aspects that are of interest to physicians. First, the size is the same as the standard beeper. Second, ones answering service can page you with text messages at 2 cents a page and by hitting send twice the phone will call the number paged too. This is great in the middle of the night so you dont have to try to read the numbers on a pager and then dial it on a phone. Third, with both pagers and cellphones it is possible to be in a building or room that does not receive the message-with a pager you will never get the page,but with the cellphone you will either get the text message when you are in range or the caller can leave a message in your voicemail that you will see when you are in range. Fourth, there is freeware on the internet that allows your office to page you with text messages on a computer using a modem without the need for internet access. Fifth, you can program the numbers that you get called from the most to have special identifiable rings so that if you are in the or and the office,wife,girlfriend call you can tell who it is by the ring without having to look at the caller id.Sixth, given the new lithium-ion batteries you can place the phone in the charger every night and dont have to worry about burning out the battery or the batteries dying as can happen with pagers The bottom line is that the whole reason for having a pager is to make you accessible and this phone with verizons service not only makes you more accessible but also makes your life simpler. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 87292 2001/7/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality appearance trimode size external caller id display poor user manual okay battery life semi intuitive user interface The Bottom LineOverall, this is a great value. The new Motorola V60c phone offers comparable features, but for a savings of $200-$300, you may want to think about buying this instead. Full Review Verizon (actually LG on behalf of Verizon) took the Sprint Touchpoint 1100, made it trimode and painted it black. Hence, a great phone on a great network. Its size (smaller than a Motorola StarTac, yet bigger than the Motorola V60c) is exceptional, as is its sound quality. I prefer its black exterior over that of its silver colored Touchpoint cousin, although it has a striking, silver Verizon emblem on the front. The external caller ID display is useful, and it has one-button web access (press "0" until the browser activates). This phone has voice activated dialing capability. Simply add a name to your phone book, and then scroll down the menu to "no voice", change it to "voice" (scroll to the right using your 4-way smart button), and follow the prompts to add voice capability. It has real PIM w/value, that includes an alarm and calendar. It's capable of 2-way text messaging, and permits storage of email addresses in its phone book. Two other things... It's vibration alert is the strongest I've ever felt on any cell phone. It will vibrate strong enough to wake you from a dead sleep in a business meeting. Also, it has an optional sound adjustment system, which automatically adjusts the sound level of your earpiece/mouthpiece according to the environment from which you're speaking. According to LGIC's technical spec. sheet on the internet, the standby time is 110 hours. Usage of the phone supports this. Also, its user interface is somewhat intuitive, yet not nearly as friendly as Nokia's, nor the newer Ericsson and Motorola models. Should you require technical assistance in utilizing its menu, LG's customer service telephone number is 1(800) 793-8896. The user manual accompanying the phone requires a better English translation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 87291 2000/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sharp compact tri mode phone loaded with goodies it is not as user friendly as other phones i have used The Bottom LineAll and all this a feature rich phone, with a reasonable price tag, comparable to others more than twice the price. Full Review I bought my LG TM510 about a week ago and am very pleased with my new toy. The other 2 phones I had were both Nokias. Both worked very well with Bell Atlantic ( now Verizon), and I did not want to switch from either Verizon or Nokia. The trouble was I could not find a digital phone that looked classy, had a good feel, and seems durable, until now. The TM510 has a great design. With its black mat finish, little scratches and nicks with not glare out at you. The silver Verizon logo is classy, not tactful at all. It has an outside LCD that will display date, time, signal and battery strength, if you have missed calls, and if you have voice mail. When you open the clamshell it feel smooth and tight, not like you have to worry about breaking it like other flip phones. With a large LCD on the opening half, you have a large keypad layout, which makes for easy dialing. Even when it is shut, the clamshell feels tight. As far as the antenna goes, if you were to carry it in a pocket or purse, it could get in the way. I use the belt clip and don't have a problem. Some of the features of this phone are: Dual LCD screens Caller ID Multiple caller alert choices Vibrate Voice mail SMS Alarm Scheduler Voice activated dialing Built in answering machine Voice memo recorder Assign Different alerts to different callers Easy access volume controls 199 name phone book (each holds up to 5 numbers) Call history A few things I don't like about my TM510 are: The manual is not as in depth as it should be. With all the features, the menu system takes time to get used to. When you notice you have missed a call, you have to go through the call history menu to find out whose call you missed. If someone left you a message on the built in answering machine, there is NO indication. You have to check through the menus. Some of the things I like about it are: Takes just 3 hours to charge a completely dead battery. Calls are clear. Outside LCD. And of course the earlier mentioned layout, design, features, and feel. This is a phone I think I will hang on to for a few years anyway. Even with the menus being cumbersome, it is understandable do to all that the phone has to offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 87290 2000/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great little phone with many more features then other phones with verizon the phone does not turn to ring only when a charger is conneected The Bottom LineIf you want a great phone for Verizon wireless, This is the best, and most feature rich Full Review I was looking for a phone to replace my Motorola p8767 Timeport phone I have connected to verizon wireless. Don't get me wrong, the Timeport is a good phone, it just does not have many features at all. NO two-way text messaging, and no voice activated dialing, and much more. The LGIC LG-TM510 is a really nice phone for the money. I paid $149.95 at the Verizon wireless store. It has some really neat features. One is that it has a built in answering machine. So, you don't have to waste your minutes listing to messages. Another great feature is the voice-activated dialing. It works very well. You can store all you numbers with your voice. Some other phones like the Samsung 850 only store 15. The calculator is very easy to use, it is better then nokia's Cons: The alarm and schedule are set up in 24-hour time. It is annoying. When you set up the wake up alarm, the phone will wake up to what you have your phone ringer set to. I have mine set up on vibrate so, I have to change it before setting an alarm so I can wake up. Odd shaped antenna. It sits bent on the phone. They should have tried an integrated antenna. The charger that is given is a stand up charger, and it is a little tricky to get the phone in. Overal a great Phone. Eveyrone will love it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 87289 2000/4/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing outer lcd display comfortable design tri mode compact inadequate manual for something with so many features The Bottom LineThis phone is very high quality and just as good if not better than other "name brand" phones! You'll love the outer LCD display, voice dialing, and the overall look! Full Review After enduring 7 grueling and incredibly frustrating months with VoiceStream and their constant array of problems (dropped calls at full signal strength, no signal at all, customer service), I knew I was in the market for a new cell phone and wireless carrier. I loved my Nokia 8290, but unfortunately it was only for use with VoiceStream. I researched a few other phones, but kept coming back to the LG TM510. I was a little apprehensive since it wasn't a "name brand" phone, but it seemed to have all of the features that I was looking for. Once I stopped by a Radio Shack and saw if for myself, I was sold! It is very sleek looking (had to have the silver!), comfortable to hold and to talk on. One of the features that attracted me the most was the outer LCD display, so that I don't have to flip the phone open each time to see who is calling. There is also a very generously sized LCD display inside, as well. I had considered the Startac 7868, which a friend of mine just bought, but after checking hers out I was glad I made the choice of going with the TM510. I also like the fact that the battery is on the bottom portion of the phone as opposed to the top, as is the case with the Startac. I was pleased that the LG TM510 didn't have 30 annoying rings to choose from as I just want to know when I'm getting a call! I know people enjoy choosing a ring to match their personality, but if you just want to know when you're receiving a call with a basic ring, this phone is for you. Another plus is the voice dialing... amazing! The manual didn't provide a lot of information but after playing with the phone for a while I finally got names and numbers programmed, and now only have to speak their names to dial their numbers! I love this feature, it is very convenient. While the phone book does not alphabetize, I highly recommend programming the phone as much as possible with the voice dialing, which makes it easier not to have to push a dozen buttons to look the numbers up! The wireless carrier I chose is Verizon, and the reception is great! My friends and family think I am speaking on a land line. I can even get great reception inside of my house, which was never the case with VoiceStream -- the signal would drop a few miles outside of my neighborhood. Over the years I have been with Sprint, AT&T, and VoiceStream, but Verizon was the choice I wish I'd made all along. With this phone and this wireless carrier, I finally feel as though I have found the winning combination! I feel as though I'm getting my money's worth, and I'm a very happy camper. I purchased this phone through 1800mobiles.com and paid only $89.99 for it with the activation of new service -- a bargain compared to the other prices I've seen it for. I highly recommend! With this combination, you just can't miss! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 87288 2000/3/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large keys for a small phone inexpensive compared to comparable models elegant design due to clamshell design menus can be cumbersome thick The Bottom LineUnbeatable price/value ratio. Getting this feature set in a phone this small and elegant otherwise costs twice as much. Full Review I've only had the LG TM-510 for a couple of days, so this is mostly a "first impression" review. A previous review did a good job of detailed this phones specs, so I'll focus on a critical review. The LG TM-510 is a remarkably full-featured and elegant phone for its price point and style. I purchased this phone with a plan upgrade from Verizon for $150. The comparable Motorola model is twice as expensive (though it is thinner). My favorite thing about this phone is that it does everything I need a cell phone to do. Benefits 1. Sound and signal quality have been very good, even in areas where my previous Verizon phone (Motorola v120c) had problems. 2. The ring options are excellent. I'm not talking here about ring tones. Frankly, the choices are a little weak but all I care about is that I get a sound letting me know that someone's calling. Ring volume has been adequate for me so far. The better part is the vibrate and lamp modes, that notify me of calls silently. 3. Voice calling. The voice dialing software in the TM-510 is MUCH better than the software in the Motorola. I was lucky to get the Motorola to work once out of every 5 times I tried to use the feature. The only drawback is that triggering the voice dial feature is a little more cumbersome that it was on the Motorola (see Drawbacks below). 4. "Extras" that are actually useful. The included scheduler and alarm features are nice options. It doesn't have any games, but I wouldn't want to waste battery life on little cell phone games anyway. 5. Fast charging - using the desktop charger, a dead battery charges to full in only 3 hours. 6. Big buttons - I have a hard time using many small cell phones because I have big fingers. The buttons on this phone are large and have good tactile feedback, making them much more comfortable to use than the Motorola buttons. Drawbacks - really only one: Cumbersome menus. I suspect that this will get less annoying as I get more used to this phone and its navigation method. It seems like too many features are buried too deep in the menu sequences, required excessive navigation to get to them. Overall, this is an excellent phone. It is very compact, without being so small that I constantly feel like my clumsy hands are about to drop it. The manufacturer has succeeded in packing a great feature set into a small form factor for 50% of the cost of the only really comparable phone (the Motorola v60). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87287 2000/3/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrate mode good reception belt wearable small good software outside led battery life could be a little longer The Bottom LineBuy it...a great phone. Full Review I'm a verizon wireless customer in the Washington DC area, and recently upgraded my phone to the LG-TM510. When I went shopping, I planned to look at the Motorola Startac, or similar products. When I shopped, I found that for there were a decent number of phones available, but the 'good' ones started at $150 (plus service agreement) and went up to the $400 range. This particular phone is in the $140 - $160 range, depending on the color you choose. They have a black, inexpensive model, and then a chrome like luxury model for about $30 more. The phone has good reception: better than the inexpensive phone it replaced. It also has pretty good software: easy to navigate and lots of options. There are tons of chimes, most of which are annoying. However, one of the best features is the ability to vibrate instead of ring, which is very useful. I wear mine on my belt, and I don't want it chiming in meetings, movie theatres, etc. I love this feature. I also like the outside led. This phone has two screens: on the outside, a mini screen...you can see who is calling (with caller ID), if you have voicemail, or just look at the time. The inside screen has the navigational menu and all functionality. The only problem I have with this phone is that the battery life could be a little longer, and that it doesn't come with a car charger (buy one separately), and no handsfree stuff. Overall, an excellent buy for the price...you could spend more and not have a better phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 87286 2000/8/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 external lcd compact flimsy battery life too short buttons too small expensive poor sound quality The Bottom LineLG's first cell phone in the U.S. frustrates you with its low quality. Full Review LG Electronics is a Korean company that is struggling to survive mountains of bad debt. It's long been a niche player in the shadow of the bigger Samsung company. This phone is perhaps its first entry into the U.S. market. It's a compact phone that shows promises but falls short in very important aspects. I'm not into fancy phones, I like phones that do best what they are supposed to do: a wireless voice conversation tool. The LG has the worst sound quality I've tested for my clients. Most of the time the voice sounds muffled and distant. The phone is also poorly built... I think Korean companies still have a long way to go to catch up with Japanese firms in quality control. The buttons are way too small for most men, although women should find the keys about the right size. However sometimes the keys don't respond well. The battery life is a little disappointing. Maybe it's because I'm used to the long life on Motorola phones in the States and Siemens in Europe. The external LCD is nice, but you can find more and more phones with this feature and much better quality. This phone is not cheap. There are better choices elsewhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87285 2000/3/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size poor at pulling in weak signals The Bottom LineI would avoid it based mostly on problems with signal strength. What is more important with a cellphone than a strong signal? Full Review My biggest problem with this phone has been poor signal strength. Many many times, I get no signal or a weak signal when someone next to me has a strong signal with an ATT Nokia phone. Even when people next to me have had Verizon phones (I use Verizon) their signal strength is better than mine. Verizon checked that my phone had the latest software. This phone is just poor at pulling in a weak signal, such as when indoors. The phone book is harder to use than necessary. Just getting into it is harder than on other phones. For example, on a Nokia phone pressing one button gets you into browsing the phone book. On this phone, it took me a long time to find a two button path to browse the phone book. Most of the time, I was using 3 or 4 button pushes. Also, the phone book is not automatically sorted in alphabetical sequence. This makes changing the order of entries in phone book a bit confusing. Great feature of the phone is the datebook/reminder. However, on my phone it does not always work. I was using it to remind me to take a pill at a certain time of day, but it is not reliable enough for an important function. Only consistent plus has been that it has a ring and vibrate mode which is very helpful in insuring that you don't miss an incoming call. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 195 87284 2000/4/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 smallnice display thickness detracts from its overall small size poor receptionnumerous dropped calls The Bottom LinePoor choice if the signal is less than optimal vs. competing phones. Full Review Reception was poor in extended side-by-side comparison with an Audiovox CDM 9100. With the LG TM510, I had numerous dropped calls while inside my home in the middle of a Verizon calling area in St Paul, MN. The Audiovox, by contrast, has never dropped a call in identical situations. I experienced similar dropped-call problems with a Motorola Timeport that I had owned prior to the LG TM510. After two weeks of testing, I have decided to replace the LG TM510 with the Audiovox. It is worth noting, that I had no problems with the LG TM510 anywhere in Boston when I visited there. I understand there are many Verizon towers there and the signal is strong. However, when I am roaming, especially in analog areas, I often noticed that I was prone to dropped calls or had too weak of a signal when friends with competing phones had no difficulty. My conclusion: If you are in a calling area with a strong signal, this phone may work for you. However, if you go to places where the signal isn't the best, you should look to other alternatives. I wonder if flip phones have weaker reception, in general, than non-flip phones based on my reception problems with the LG TM510 and a Motorola Timeport??? Reception with an Audiovox CDM 9100 is so much better. Alternately, maybe I just wasn't lucky and perhaps my LG TM510 and Motorola Timeport were lemons not representative of their respective lines. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 87283 2002/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speech clarity voice dialing excellent backlight connectivity great display the phonebook is a little clumsy t9 text confuses me The Bottom LineThis seems like a good phone for those needing reliable and flexible "connectivity" while working on the road. Full Review I bought this (actually, the black one) as an upgrade phone for my Verizon service... finally getting rid of the Nokia 5185 that came free. The Nokia has some nice features (the phonebook) but was really not a very good phone. This TM510 is amazing: 1-bar on the signal strength meter and no problem in making calls and being understood... that was NOT the case with the 5185. The display is very easy to read (for these 55-year-old eyes) and the "Indiglo" backlighting is excellent in the dark. When closed, there is a display on the cover (which is also backlit) that shows date and time, signal and battery strength, and it is a CallerID when a call comes in. That's important because the phone answers when you open the cover. You can add a "voice tag" to 20 or so numbers which makes it easy to dial by just speaking a word or two. I also made the purchase of a "Connectivity Kit" for $40 which includes a cable and software that turns the phone into a wireless modem for my laptop... yes, on Verizon... no, it's not GSM. I can Fax and check my email (slowly) and it only cost me minutes! I also downloaded the LG-Desktop from their website (for $13) which allows phonebook synchronization to Outlook through the same serial cable. WOW! So far, I am VERY pleased. The only downside is the phonebook and the T9 text entry, but it is easy to switch to regular text entry with the press of 1 button. I also like the ability to record conversation. If someone is about to give me a phone number or address while I'm driving, I have them hold on a second, press a couple of buttons, record it and then play it back and write it down later, when I'm stopped. And, by the way, working with independent dealers is the way to go --- I got my TM510 for $75 with a 2-year contract extension. Seemed like a good deal to me. Yes? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87282 2000/2/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable many features small large antenna battery life The Bottom LineIt is a less expensive Motorola with the same features. Best bang for your buck. Full Review I have had this phone for a month now and have learned to use almost all of the features. The most important feature to me is the voice dialing. This phone has great voice recognition. I have had previous phones with this feature and I had to say the name more than once to get it to dial the number. This phone usually gets the number in the first try. If not you can say yes or no and it will give you another possible name you said. I use this phone with Verizon service and have to say the service has been excellent. I used VoiceStream before and all I had were dropped calls. The phone book in this phone is not set up alphabetically, but numbers are not that difficult to find. You have to just spell a couple of letters in the name and then it comes up on the screen. With this phone you need to read the manual because there are so many little features that will make you life more simple. The things I don't like about the phone include- battery life when I go on the internet. It drains the battery very quickly. Another thing is the ring. They have a ring and vibrate feature but the phone vibrates first and 4 rings later it rings. By that time you have already missed the call. This phone also doesn't have a car kit as of yet. It has the ear pieces and car chargers and that is it. Other than these minor disadvantages this is a quality phone. It is constructed very well and doesn't seem flimsy. It should last for a long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87281 2000/3/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish feature rich good reception battery life after 6 months lacks some features available today The Bottom LineI have been satisfied with this phone and so I recommend it. Full Review I bought this phone in Aug. of 2001 so I'm going to write about how its lasted. The phone has held up well, there are no cosmetic problems it, although I'm not tough on my phones. Additionally, the connections inside the "flip" have held up so Ive never had an issues with the phone not answering when I open it etc. The main problem. After I had the phone for 6 months I noticed an immediate loss in battery life. The length of time between recharges went from about 5 days to 1-2 days. I talk about 600 minutes a month (including weekends) so its not from excessive use, and I always turn the phone off when I charge it. I took it back to the store and verizon nicely replaced the battery, which completely fixed the problem. HOWEVER, the problem returned after another 7 months, so I have concluded that there is an engineering flaw with LG's batteries. Feature wise, this phone has everything you need. Calendar with reminders, web access, text messaging and 200 name phone book with multiple numbers attached to each, voice dialing and voice memo (for notes or to record a conversation). It is missing the new features like the ability to download games, ringtones, wallpaper etc. I like the phone and its served me well so I'll end on a positive note. The reception has always been great, better in fact than some newer phones. I have never said, oh I wish I could do that with my phone. I think a lot of times the novelty of new "features" wares off, and you have to be satisfied simply by the phone's basic features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 87280 2000/11/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small great reception easy to use doesn t have an ignore call feature can t backup speed dial numbers to a pc The Bottom LineThe TM510 is a really neat and compact flip phone that functions well. Only a few drawbacks. Full Review The TM510 is a nice and compact, not much bigger than a pager. I found the belt clip easy to use (once you get the hang of it). It fits onto the sun visor in a car real easily allowing for convenient and secure location for hands free kits. Having the external display showing the number/person calling is a great feature. It also displays time of day. Time of day is automatically updated via the Verizon network requiring no programming. Some cell phones have an 'ignore call' feature. With the LG phone as soon as you open the phone up it answers the call, which is great if you want to answer it. The only way to ignore an unwanted call is to let it ring 5-6 times and let it go to voice mail. That's not always an appealing option. Call clarity is good, but how much that is a feature of the Verizon network or the phone I can't tell. The PC software option is disapointing, I had hoped you could save the speed dial list you enter to the PC hard drive, but you can't. There is a 3rd party company that offers speed dial backup for cell phones, but alas it's not available for the TM510. You can set the phone to vibrate only, handy if you want to be unobtrusive. Text messaging works well, though the phone defaults to a text entry mode that baffles me, it's easy enough to change but I often forget and have to redo a message or speed dial entry. I have had no trouble with the antenna, but several folks at work have snapped the antenna off the TM510. It can stick into you when on your belt. the replacement is very easy to fit, no tools required. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.00 87279 2000/7/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small useful outside mini display good call clarity so so battery quirky menus bad manual The Bottom LineGo for it. The menus are badly planned but voice dialing lets you get around that. The phone is small, cool looking, and has that really useful outside screen. Full Review This is very good phone with unfortunate flaws. The good stuff: It's small, one of the smallest phones out there. Although a trifle on the thick side and with a stubby antenna that sticks up, you could still forget you had it in a pocket. It has an easy to read screen: Bright and clear, even without backlighting, with all your info: date, time, battery, signal, voice/text mail etc. And the backlighting is a cool blue/greenish color that looks great at night. Very cool feature for a flip phone: It has an outside mini screen that gives you all the same info, including the caller ID of incoming calls so you don't have to open the phone to decide if you want to take a call. Call clarity has been excellent. I had one fuzzy call which I assume was caused by network issues. For the most part my calls have been crystal clear. I also find the phone very comfortable to put to my ear, it seems to fit naturally. Voice dialing works perfectly. I've programmed 22 voice dials into the phone without a hitch (it can have from 20-50 depending on size). It's great to be able to dial while on my bike and wearing a headset. The memo recording function is also nice. I've used it once to record a friends verbal notes to me over the phone. The bad stuff: The manual is awful. Nuff said. For info on the phone you're better off going to the Yahoo club devoted to it. LG has a FAQ which helps a little bit. The menus are not especially well designed. Particularly bad are the menus that lead to the phone book. They make you press more keys that you have to and have counterintuitive defaults that cannot be changed. Even on my old Ericcson, phonebook searches were easier. Battery life is so-so. I've used the Nokia 6100 so I'm a bit spoiled here, but it does bother me. I've gotten about 50 minutes of talk combined with 48 hours of standby. Not bad but not great either. Still, it'll do; and there is an extended battery you can buy. Other stuff: The phone seems tough enough, a bit more solid than the motorolas I've felt, but not as finely worked as the Nokia 6100 series. Still, quite satisfactory. People complain about a lack of accessories but this does not bother me. The belt clip that comes with the phone works fine for me and the phone works with standard 2.5mm plug-in headsets (I've tried 3, I'm a picky guy). Yes, you can email, and it works ok, (much better than my old ericsson), but it's still cumbersome. Once you've got your email addressed, the T9 predictive text input is quite useful. I have not tried the web browser. Hope this helps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 87278 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 hot keys features reception size none for the average user The Bottom LineThis is the phone for the user looking for advanced features in a small package. Full Review This phone is a great purchase for someone who needs the simple features of a phone/PDA. For more advanced stuff you should be looking at laptops, Palms, etc. The size is perfect for me. I'm 6 feet tall, 230 pounds with large hands and a big head! The buttons are easy to function (I haven't mispressed a number, unlike my wife's StarTac which was not for me!). The phone is comfortable and ergonomic. The four-way navigation button provides quick access to common features such as mail, calendar, phone book search and call list. The menu is very intuitive and you don't really need to use the manual to figure out most features! The phone book may be a drawback for some because it's not alphabetized, but with voice dialing,the call list and the "find" feature I just mentioned, you'll be okay. The voice recorder is another great feature to leave yourself reminders or to record a short conversation, maybe someone giving driving directions, etc. There are multiple melodies for ringer options to customize the way your phone rings and you can associate a specific ring to a specific entry in your phone book so you'll know who's calling without looking at the display. With the ring options (off, lamp, ring, vibrate, vibrate+ring), you can customize it to the environment in which it will be most practical. The ringer may not be as loud as some phones but you can overcome that too! Another thing I found great was with may earpiece in the jack, I could scroll through my phone book and hear the name labels I assigned to voice dial numbers without taking my eyes off the road! I suggest you get the leather holster also. It will protect your TM-510, it makes it easier to open and close with one hand and it has a swivel that makes it easy to sit without the antenna jabbing you! The desktop charger is a "snap". The battery life is adequate for me. I get a few days standby with moderate use and I recharge it when it goes below 3 bars, just in case (not unlike not waiting to refill your fuel tank before the idiot light comes on!). I think you'll enjoy the phone just as a phone, but if you're in to two-way messaging and web-browsing you'll be all set! I have Verizon Single Rate East. The reception is great, no dropped calls. I don't worry about minute counters and alerts. If you're concerned about how many minutes you have, you either need to adjust your phone usage or get a different calling plan. Get the phone, you'll be happy! Oh yeah, the web address for LG is: http://www.lginfocomm.com/Home/support.asp Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87277 2001/7/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception phonebook outer lcd color service plans size voice dial phonebook The Bottom LineOverall a great little phone. I think it's definitely a keeper! I'll hopefully turn my parents on to verizon. Full Review Ok, So i'm back with another opinion. I previously wrote one on the touchpoint 2200 phone with Sprint, well since then I have DISconnected with Sprint (Lamo company who tries to gip you). And switched over to Verizon. So far I'm very very happy with them. I was immediately attracted to this little cutie phone. Here are some of the reasons why: 1) It's size. It's small when it's clam shelled, but once opened it's very expandable and not too tiny at all. 2) This is kinda corny, but I really like that they had two very classy colors. I opted for the black (I'm kinda sick of the metalic that's been seen so much this year). Very classy though. 3) Outer LCD, a MUST!! I was so turned off by the Samsung 8500 because you had to open it all the time. 4) Voicedial on this sucker is excellent. You can program practically EVERY number to have a voice to it. and it works really well. 5) The phone book is great because it holds so many numbers. 6) Reception is totally awesome. I get very clear receptions where I stay. With Sprint I was having a little difficulty. I also just put my phone to the test. This morning I just went to the gym. With sprint, whenever you go into the lockerroom, you lose coverage and sometimes kick into roam mode, but with this little phone I got two notches and made a call and got great clarity. YAY!! 7) I really like the service plan that verizon offers. I live in Florida and I have no roaming as long as I am in florida! That's great. Cons: While the phonebook is a pro, it's also a con. As many have said. It's not very intuitive. You have to "search" for numbers. Which can get a little annoying, but I too have all my numbers with a voice tag, so it's really not a HUGE deal once you get used to it. 7/27/01 Well, it's been a week since I've had my phone along with Verizon service. And let me say, it's been great. I haven't had such great reception in a while. This is definitely a phone worth buying. Props to LG. PS If you guys are interested in looking at more LG cell phones and products go to www.lge.com The LG TM520 is awesome, hopefully verizon will come out with this phone. Ciao Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87276 2000/1/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity size battery life lcd features build quality manual is okay but confusing at times The Bottom LineThis phone has bang for the buck! I'm sure there's better but at what price? Everything is here in a very nicely designed flip phone. Full Review I sell cars at a huge dealership in So Cal. There are 50 salespeople on staff and 2/3rds of the sales force use the LG-TM510. For me, the main benefit is size and clarity. Purchase the leather case you get a handy belt clip that allows the LG-TM510 to be completely out of the way. A holster is provided with the purchase of the phone but doesn't allow the phone to be protected by the leather case. Voice activation calling is a great feature and usually always works. 20 phone #'s can be used for voice activation. My work day starts at a different time each day so the Scheduler is invaluable. Verizon allows for e-z setup of voice mail thru instructions on their website. (Verizonwireless.com) The LG's manual regarding voice mail was vague. The LG-TM510 also has an answering machine in case you miss the call and voice mail is not set up. Text via my home computer is e-z to transmit via the Verizon website but I find that most people I text to don't know how to retrieve on their handset. (no one reads instructions!!) If you're a computer geek and have friends that know how to retrieve text this feature can also be invaluable. I've read some reviews that mention clarity and dropped calls being a problem. I've never had a problem with dropped calls and my LG's antenna is never extended. Clarity is excellent and the true test is to call your own message machine at home to hear how good this little phone sounds. (maybe it's because I live in So Cal and there are cellular repeaters everywhere that make for excellent reception/transmissions and avoid the dropped call problem) The outer LCD display will be the standard for all flip cell phones in the future. Time, date, useful icons, and caller ID can be viewed through this screen without flipping the phone up to answer it. I find myself looking at the phone for the time more frequently than my watch. My phone is on at least ten hours a day and the battery life is superb. I could go possibly three days without a charge but I do charge the phone every night. The LG-TM510 is smartly designed. Materials used are durable and clean well. Fit and finish is superb. You don't feel like this is a cheap phone, and it's not. The keypad is backlit and has a sure 'click' when depressing the hard rubber keys. The 1"x 1" LCD screen inside the phone is big and easily seen at night. Nice blue color. The flip door is sturdy and as you close the phone you can hear how well built the LG-TM510 is. (like closing the door on a well built car and hearing how it thuds shut) Shopping for a good cell phone at a good price this could be the phone for you. I have no regrets and I'm completely satisfied. Toyota build quality made in Korea! Nicely done guys! And speaking of Toyota...;-)...New '03 Corolla coming out in Feb.'02, all-new Matrix is out Feb. '02, and the all-new V-8 4Runner (look out Ford!) will be out by the summer. Come see me!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87275 2001/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception outer lcd screen sturdy casing tri mode user manual menus take getting used to The Bottom LineThe LG-TM510 is constructed durably and provides excellent service. It's one of the top-line phones out now on the market for its price. Definitely give it a look. Full Review I've been researching cell phones and services for a while. When picking a provider for the greater Northeast area, I finally settled on Verizon. Verizon has a well-established network system, and their communications quality is usually decent. Voicestream, although offering double the weekday minutes for basically the same price (600 versus 300), has displayed troubles with weak reception and busy signals. I didn't want my friends getting "This phone is not in service" messages when calling me. That decided, I set off to pick out a phone at my local Verizon dealer. I hafta admit that I had my eye out for flip phones. My Verizon dealer offered an old StarTAC 7760 for free with service, tho the model is pretty outdated. The 7868 StarTAC would cost about 100 dollars with service. Although both the StarTAC models and the LGIC LG-TM510 are small and weigh about 4 oz, the StarTAC is larger in length and height but thinner in width. I have to admit I prefer the thinner widths of StarTACs, because they don't cause your clothing to protrude out as much when you have the phone on you. That said, The LG is a smaller phone, pager sized. It really is hardly noticeable when you carry it around. The main draw of the LGIC LG-TM510, is of course it's reception quality and clarity. When ordering a newer model phone, better clarity than older mobiles is what one expects. It's no wonder phone, as it is sorta hard for me to get reception inside my apartment (no one here does really..), but comparatively the LG-TM510 is pretty solid. My mom told me she didn't know I was speaking on a cell when I called her. The LGIC phone's unique attribute is the LCD on its outer casing. This way you can check the time and date, and more importantly see who is calling you. With most other flip phones, you have to physically open the phone to check for the phone number or messages such as missed calls, etc. A departure from the latest "Nokia craze", the LG-TM510 is really just a basic cell with the most important features such as address book and variable ring/vibrate. It has some things like voice dialing and wake up calls, but no games or anything. Not a major loss really. The address book is vast, but not alphabetized like my friend's Nokia. Once it gets large enough, you will probably have to type in a couple of letters of their first to "search" for numbers. The LG-TM510 menus are not as intuitive some other phones, and may take some getting used to. LG-TM510 is web-enabled, though the web-browser will cost you extra money after the first month under the Verizon plan. The phone retails for about 150-175 dollars at Verizon stores. You should be able to bargain it down to 125 at one retailer or another. The price is still pretty steep for me, being a student, but it is a good buy considering that the general market for cellular is so pricey. 8/23/01 Update: I've found out that Sprint and other servicers also offer this phone, so it should be readily available. However, I have been developing problems with the cell phone charger lately. It's functional, but a little iffy and takes some adjustment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 87274 2000/10/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent sound quality good value dual display good looking sturdy construction small size state of the art features questionable battery life poor mfg support clumsy inconsistent user interface somewhat weak reception The Bottom LineGreat value, great features in a slickly-packaged HW design. The UI is awful, but you can work with it (you'll have to). Full Review I've had this phone now for a couple of weeks, and I like it a lot. Features I especially like include: - Small size - Clamshell design - Dual displays - Voice dialing - Value - Durability - It's "pretty" My "Peeves" are: - Poor User Interface (UI) - Noisy/poor reception - While still small, it's a bit "fat" - LG support is lacking I've used a Nokia 6190 for the past few years, and it was a great phone, albeit, "bulky". I always knew it was with me. My previous StarTac was terrific, small, etc. So, when looking for a new phone I migrated to the new StarTacs, but a friend recommended the LG-TM510. I liked it immediately, although even in the short time I "played" with it before buying, I realized the UI was going to be a problem. More on that later. The size is excellent, not too large nor too small. I do wish it were a bit slimmer, however. That's a small nit-pick. The buttons, while slightly recessed, nonetheless are easy to use and precise (I have somewhat large hands so I'm "fussy" about button size). The "Menu" and "Book" (default screen) buttons, however, are a bit too small, especially since you'll be using them often to access the phone's many features. Likewise, the rocker "mouse" could be a bit larger (although, I realize making it larger in this form-factor and layout isn't feasible). The screen is wonderful, easy-to-read in all lighting, and informative. I like being able to customize the banner to display my name, or whatever you choose, on the main screen. I think the phone is simply very good looking (I have the silver version), and one drawback is that people see it and show interest -- want to see it, pick it up, talk about it, so on. While this isn't "extreme," it can be distracting. My own fault, though, because the phone's appearance was one of the reasons I bought it! The protruding antenna is odd, however. It seems out of place and unnecessary. Voice/connection quality is not as good as my previous Nokia (my StarTac was an older analog model, so I won't compare). The Nokia would give great sound quality until it disconnected. The TM510 tends to keep connected in areas the Nokia didn't, but the sound quality is significantly worse than the Nokia's was. Overall, I'm happy with the quality. I LOVE the voice-dialing! Some have complained that it doesn't work well. I differ, and my experience with the 510's voice dialing is that it is almost flawless. It DOES fail when I'm driving with the windows down and the radio on, but in any other circumstance it's been 100% accurate. I especially like the voice confirmation it speaks back to me (in your own recorded voice: Say "Voicemail" and it repeats back "Voicemail," as you'd previously recorded it, then says "Calling..."). Very nicely done. I can't comment much on battery life. It seems weak, going from full charge to 1/2 charge in a day with less than 20 minutes of calls. However, I haven't run it past that level to see if the battery indicator is non-linear: The last half charge may provide much more time than the first. The ring-tones are vast, and limited. This is a personal preference, and I don't like a phone that plays music for it's ring. I like a variety of ring-tones, and most of the provided tones are songs. I was unable to find any new ring-tones on the LG website, or any other site. But that's a moot point since LG sells the "connectivity kit" for this phone, consisting of a cable, some software for connecting, and ... that's it -- all for "just" $79.95". Huh? Oh yeah, they do promise that "soon" they'll provide software to sync with Outlook. However, from what I see this "soon" has been promised for 4-5 months, so I'm skeptical. I understand from other reviews that syncing SW was available in a beta form, but has been pulled. Some time spent searching the internet will probably pull it up, but that belies the issue that LG isn't knocking itself out to supply updates, nor reasonable prices and value for the simple ability to connect the 510 to a PC/Mac and update the phone's firmware, ring-tones, or "Themes" (the later is a display option on the phone that currently offers one called "Star Theme" that leaves only the current date/time, and adds a graphic of a scale, some "stars", and the word "Libra". No one I know understands why anyone would use this theme, however the potential to add new ones is intriguing. The high price of the connectivity kit might quell my interest in downloading new themes, but it doesn't matter since LG doesn't offer any new themes. This leads to the UI. Granted, this phone has a lot of features. But the UI is easily the worst I've seen in any consumer product outside of the (unnamed) heart-monitor watch I bought and gave up on. (It did everything you'd want an exercise watch that also monitored your heartbeat, but there was no obvious way to do most functions, and actually required a "chord hold" (hold two or more buttons down for a few seconds) for many, even basic, functions). The TM510 is like that. You can do a lot of things, but outside of making basic calls and changing the volume, it takes work. Examples: Miss a call and the display tells you "01 Missed" on the outside display. Open the phone and it tells you what time, but not the phone number of the missed party. There's an "Ok" button, and pushing that -- clears the message. You have to hit "Book" then menu to "Call History and "Missed" to get to the "Missed" menu, then to get call details you need to select the listed missed call, hit "Opt" and then "View". Whew. I just wanted to know who called! You can simplify this somewhat by remembering to hit [Book] 1 3. But you still have to navigate the missed list. The Nokia was simple, you saw you missed a message, pushed a button and it showed it to you, including time and who called. If you missed several, you'd just scroll through them. The TM510 breaks these obviously-connected operations and displays of information into discrete groups that you have to plug away to find. The use of the central navigation mouse is questionable. The defaults actions of the four-corners nav-button seem odd. Pushing down brings up the schedule/calendar screen. Perhaps because I rely on a Palm scheduler it seems odd to me that anyone would use this as their scheduler. Granted, the TM 510 allows you to schedule "events," but it'll take you a minute or more to simply set up an event for "Tuesday" for "Doctor appt" at "11:00". This seems like a wasted feature of this nav-button, something most people simply aren't going to use. Why not map it to display the recent list of missed calls instead? Going on, using the left-button of the nav brings up -- recent calls that YOU'VE made. Okay, there are some times I want to review the calls I've made, but how important is that? Pushing up on the button gives you a meaningful menu, where you can check left voicemail messages, send text messages, etc. I think the menu is overloaded, but it's useful. Last, pushing to the right on the nav button brings up the "[Find Name]" search feature. I don't use it, and with the Nokia I simply listed names I'd stored and pushed the T9 buttons (the standard "ABC" assigned to the "2" button) to jump name lists based on their first letter. I never had to use a "Search" function on the Nokia, and even though the TM510 holds 199 numbers, that certainly doesn't demand the need to "search" through them. There are other examples, but the UI is awful, to be blunt about it. Disorganized, emphasizing unimportant tasks, and wasting button real estate so valuable on a small product such as this. Okay, all this grumbling aside, I do like this phone and I don't believe there is anything equal or better for the price. Someday I may spring for the connectivity kit to update it, should LG ever produce an update to the FW (UI improvements!?), or to tones or themes. Until then, I'll just use it's many features and love the form and features it offers. (I don't expect this longer-term, stellar support from LG, they just don't seem of the sort. They seem like hardware vendors able only to focus on getting the lastest silicon out to the masses). Last, while it's only been two weeks, I can speak a bit about durability. I dropped it, onto concrete, from four feet. Yep, it fell (of course) on it's face, and scratched the case, but never blinked. I don't like the scratches on my new "toy," but it certainly came through solidly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 87273 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cost external display with battery signal cid size battery life lgi s reputation customer support The Bottom LineGood feature/price ratio. If you're trying to decide between this and the V60C, the 510 is my suggestion. Full Review Honestly my opinion in regards to this phone has changed over time. I started out thinking of it as the poor man's V60C. I was a Motorola fanatic, and this phone was crucial in drawing me from Motorola. In my normal way I'll start with the negatives first. First off, LGI's reputation (**In the U.S.**). If you look back on the 300, 330, and V111, LGI had absolutely nothing going for them (in the U.S. anyway) when they released the TM 510. Second, at first use this phone is a bit confusing. Use of the SMS features takes some getting used to, the voice dialing was a bit hard to understand, and so on... Just little things that take a week of normal usage to get over. Third, my complaint with almost any phone is the battery life. Who is going to make a batter that fits on the smaller newer phones that allows for an extremely high end user to get a full day's usage out of his battery??? And the very last bad thing about this phone is some very inside information. It has been relayed to me by some very reliable sources that Verizon Wireless does not have an agreement to set up A-Keys with LGI. What does this mean? Well, an akey is the term for key factor in the fraud protection feature called authentication. To put it simply, the phone is openly available to be cloned. This problem is easily fixed. When/if you purchase this phone, call Verizon and ask them about it. They will walk you through the process of putting this A-key in your phone and you will then be O.K. (this by the way goes for any LGI phone and Verizon wireless) So now on with the good. I love the external displays on these phones. I especially like the 2-line display allowing the user to see the signal, messages and battery strength... (LGI really got Motorola here) This phone held up well when it came to signal (holding/dropping calls in lower signal areas), and use of mobile web. It rated average or slightly below when it came to use of SMS features and overall use of the phone. Otherwise the clarity of the phone was a bit above average, but it looks good! Many people will ask you what kind of phone it is, how much, if they can play with it etc... After over coming issues with my previous beliefs I give this phone a thumbs up. Working for a major wireless company in a department that tests phones it should be noted that many of my coworkers have purchased this model phone and use it quite regularly. That goes a long way in a recommendation for a phone. Otherwise I don't have that much to say about it. For the price it's a good buy. Depending on what you're looking for from your cellular phone you may want to hold off on purchasing it though... there are many new things on the way that this phone will not be compatible with. It will not make your phone unusable if you have the 510, or plan on buying it, but you will not be able to take part in new features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87272 2000/7/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small lightweight voice recognition data capable external caller id the phone is a bit thicker than startac external caller id window gets scratched The Bottom LineAn excellent phone for a mobile professional. Full Review For years I was a Motorola StarTac bigot. But one day I was looking at Verizon's site and saw the LG TM-510 phone. Let's see... Small (more narrow than StarTac but a bit thicker), 199 phone book entries (with 5 phones + 1 email per book entry), voice recognition (you can tell it to dial a default number from the phone book by speaking the Voice Tag associated with that entry), PCS and data capable (AHA! this is a CDMA phone, unlike my TDMA StarTac, so I should be able to get 14.4kbps on it, as opposed to 4kbps on the StarTac). Plus, it's capable of sending and receiving SMS (short emails) and has a built-in web browser (not much use for it, but it does let you look up stock quotes, weather, and movie schedules, among other things, so I guess it's ok). To me that was the most import thing - a small phone that is data capable. All right, I go and buy it. $160 with a new 1-year contract with Verizon Wireless. What a thing of beauty. I used to get dropped connections with StarTac, with transfer rates of about 4kbps - a TDMA phone has to drop from digital to analog mode to make a data connection. The TM-510 flies at 14.4kbps, and the connection is very reliable. There is even a read-out showing your RX and TX on the phone's LCD, so you see what's going on. So, that was good. Now, a sidebar about the headphones for this phone available from LGIC (http://www.lge.com/). They have a headphone with a button built into the microphone. It allows you to answer and terminate calls without fiddling with the phone itself. It also acts as a re-dial button. The sound quality of the headphone is acceptable - you just to make sure to clip the mike to a spot on your shirt so that it is positioned near your mouth. Sound quality is superb, the battery life is more than adequate (it comes with a desktop charger, and the charger is designed in such a way as to let you use the phone while it's in the cradle). In fact, it's so good that I've canceled my home phone line today - don't need it (tons of minutes with free long distance from Verizon). Oh, another nicety - the phone clips into the belt holster (can be a pain but I've got used to it to remove it with one swift hand motion). This allows the phone to be hung upside down! Not only does it look pretty unusual, but it also allows you to open the phone and look at the clock, etc., without removing it from the holster (the clock synchronizes itself to whatever time zone you're in, btw). There is one bad thing about it - the outside caller id window can get scratched. But, you can buy a leather case, and it has a transparent plastic window, so it's not really a big deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 87271 2000/8/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight good amount of features big phonebook loudest ring may not be loud enough attenae tends to stab me in the side The Bottom LineThe LGIC LG-TM510 is lighter than it's entire name, and made my first experience with a flip-phone a pleasant one. Full Review The LGIC LG-TM510 phone is a "clamshell" or fold and flip kind of phone with an LCD display on the outside, for ease of use. The one I'm discussing is attached to Verizon Wireless service, not that that entirely matters, because while I don't particularly like them, I enjoy this phone. Features.. The phone includes a gigantic 199-entry phone book with 5 phone numbers allowed per name or entry. Wow. That's nearly a thousand numbers. It also includes the basic wake-up alarm, calendar, calculator, sound variance, display, scheduler, and voicemail that many phones today also have available. So what makes this phone such a bargain at $150? Not-so-standard features.. -Timed call backs - That's right. If you call something and it's busy, you can opt to re-ring this number at different intervals (10,20, 30 seconds). In college, I've found this is great for those 'register by phone' times when you call at the time you're assigned and the line is forever busy. I just set the phone to call back and get on with my day. -Auto Answer - You can even tell the phone how many rings to wait and then auto-answer. Never a big fan of this feature since sometimes I don't hear my phone ring and perhaps I really don't want to have my discussion heard by someone else, I don't use this. -Outside LCD screen - Okay, so you may not really think of this as an added feature, but this really comes in handy for checking Caller ID, time, date, signal strength, battery strength, what network you're currently on (Analog or Digital). I like this especially for the ease of checking caller ID. -Sound Assignment - You can assign a specific sound or ring to a person's name in your phonebook, so that if your caller ID registers the call as from that person's #, your phone will ring differently than normal. This is especially helpful for when you don't have time to answer the phone and chat, but you're waiting for a call from one particular person. -Size and Weight - I formerly owned a non-clamshell phone, and let me tell you, the size and weight difference truly makes this worth it's weight in gold. At 4.23 oz with the standard battery, and dimensions of 3.7" x 1.9" with a depth of 1.2", this phone is tiny but versatile. I'm never worried about losing it thanks to it's clip. (This is actually more like a pager case, but it clips to my belt, for ease of use). -Voice-Activate Dialing - This feature is both a godsend and a curse to me at times. I really enjoy the feature for added safety when I need to use my phone but really need to be paying attention to the road as well. Unfortunately, if I'm upset in any way, the phone sometimes won't recognize what I'm trying to say. So if you've broken both your hands and are laying at the bottom of a gulch, you may need to calm your voice down since your phone won't recognize when you say 'Call 911 you stupid piece of !@#*'. :) Some of the lesser features These are features that don't really whip me in to a frenzy or ones that I don't generally use. -PC Sync capabilities- With the purchase of the $70ish Data Kit, this model has the capability to be synced with your computer for # storage and other cool items. -Multi Language Support -Voice recording - I honestly can't remember the time interval but the phone allows for short (I want to say 10 seconds or 15) voice recordings. -Web Browser Feature - I never think these work well on phones, unless you have the combination Palm model or something. Plus since this is generally an added charge to use, it's a feature I don't really care about. -Messaging option - This is also another feature that you can tend to be charged for, but this allows for up to 160 character messages to be received. -10 number call history - This is useful for numbers you don't recognize and then want to add to your phonebook but if you get a lot of calls in one day, this feature won't last you too long. Battery, why have you forsaken me? We've all had it happen. You're in the middle of an important (or maybe just semi-important but engaging), call and then WHAM! Battery starts beeping and your phone dies. Here's the specs on the not-so-hot battery for this phone. They told me the phone's standard 7.5mm thick battery can have 3 hours talk-time, and 200 hours standby. Well, I talk a lot but I still don't think this baby could ever make it 200 hours. I'm generally recharging it every day or two. You can pick up the larger battery with more juice for about $80. Some battery-saving tips: -if you don't need the people in the next house to hear your phone ring, turn the volume down. A rep actually told me this sucks out a lot of the strength of your battery. -Turn your phone OFF when somewhere where you KNOW you're not going to answer it anyway. I turn mine off at night, and when at work, to save some extra juice. -When you first get your battery, charge it fully for the first 3-5 times, this always tends to make the batteries last a little bit longer for me. All in all.. I'm truly pleased with this phone. It's light-weight and versatile and with the exception of the wimpy battery time, I don't feel at all cheated with the features. Likely I'll just end up charging it up in the car when I'm on the go and adding some more time to that battery during the day. This is a reliable flip phone, and even though the attennae can be somewhat large and dangerous, I'd definitely recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87270 2000/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity size menu phonebook The Bottom LineThe LGIC LG-TM510 is THE phone for me. It will work when and where I need it, as well as function at a high performance level. Full Review I have owned various Nokias, Audiovoxes, Samsungs, StarTacs, Ericcsons, and Kyoceras. And this phone, the LG-TM510, is the best phone I've come across in my 5 years of owning a cell phone. The phone has many features including a calendar, phone book, voice-activated dialing, different ring types, and an external screen display. Clarity and reception is a huge factor for me in picking out a cell phone. This phone is unbelievably clear. To put it to the test, I was able to hear my friend perfectly while sitting in a crowded bar and she was able to hear me. It's almost comparable to using a landline. The size is great. It's small enough to fit in your pocket or carry nicely in a bag. My only fear is scratching the external display screen. It's light and doesn't feel bulky. I was so happy to see that this phone's battery is on the back of the phone as opposed to the StarTacs which hold the battery on the flip portion. I am confident that the flip won't snap off and when the phone is shut, I feel strong in that it will remain closed. I've had phones where it will get jostled about in my bag and the littlest contact will cause the flip to open. Also, the battery life is something to rave about. It lives up to it specifications. I charge it only when the battery completely discharges. I'm the kind of person who leaves their cell phone on for a greater portion of the day and I've only had to charge my phone every three days or so. I love everything about this phone. The user manual could use some major clarification. The manual does not have an index to make trouble shooting easier and the sections aren't broken up in logical parts; however, the few minutes extra I invested to figure out the manual pale in comparison to the awesome functionality of the phone. The only thing I am not completely satisfied with is the phonebook. I'm used to being able to hit a button to scroll through the phonebook on my previous phones. On the TM510, you have to go into the phonebook as if you are going to search for something specific and view it there. On top of that, the phonebook is not alphabetized which is unnerving. But again, I use my voice-activated dialing so I don't encounter that situation too often. Overall, this phone is amazing. I was wary at first because it didn't appear to be a "name brand" to me ... but I'm glad to have made the investment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 87269 2000/8/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 size external display menus volume size dropped calls phonebook The Bottom Linewait for a new model to come out. Full Review I am a long time Bell Atlantic/Verizon wireless customer and I purchased this phone after having problems with 4 of the new V60c phones. I purchased this phone because it was less than half the price of the motorola V60c, it feels more solid, and I had an LG phone a few years ago and the sound quality was excellent. I purchased this phone yesterday and returned it today. I received about 4 calls on this phone, all of which the phone dropped after about a minute. I had good signal strength during all except one of these calls. Looks: Overall this phone is nice looking, but i dont care so much for the very round edges of the casing. The clip also does not swivel is annoying. The buttons seem like cheap rubber. I only had the phone for about 24 hours but, i bet after a few months the numbers on the buttons would wear off. I have large hands(long, not fat) and I found it hard to dial the phone while keeping a good grasp on it. The phone is pretty thick and not that wide, so it seems a little off in size. As for the color, verizon offers both black and silver. The black phone is ugly, but the silver one will cost you an extra 20 bucks. Sound: The sound quality was pretty good but, even at the highest volume level it was hard to hear the other person and they complained about not being able to hear me. This is never a problem of the starTAC I am/have been using. Technology: The phone is tri-mode which is a plus, but the phones menu system seems out-dated and is hard to use. The phone books is not alphabetical, which makes it hard to locate numbers quickly. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 169 87268 2002/1/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of features quality for the money can t read display with sun glasses on absolutely stupid phone book The Bottom LineThe only reason I din't rate this as excellent is the phone book. Please read update. While this product seems good out of the box, it fades badly and fast! Full Review First and foremost call quality is VERY good, as good as a StarTac. Lots of information and features packed into a well thought out (ergonomically) design. Controls and buttons work well and have a quality feel. Having a screen on the outside is a great addition. Voice activated calling takes some getting used to but works quite well. The phone holds a call in even very tough conditions, i.e. in a building that would bring ANY Nokia phone to it's "no service" knees and even give a Motorola Star Tac fits this little guy remains crystal clear. MY office is an old bank and I even took it into the vault (solid steel) and it worked flawlessly Score Nokia 0 LG TM510 10. The screen issue is something I've noticed with all LCD display phones. In instances where you're in a car wearing sun glasses the screen(s) look totally black. I can't fault just this phone all are guilty. Only LED phones do not exhibit this but they don't give the information. The phone book is the most awful and least intuitive thing I think I've ever used. If it didn't have voice dialing I think it would be returned by now, and it still might but only for this. Feature?! The other menus while not as straight forward as a Motorola or Nokia are liveable. This product deperately needs a software upgrade to bring it in line with it's peers. Interface Motorola/Nokia 10 LG 0. It feels solidly built and the controls function with ease and have a feel of solid quality. Buttons are large well labeled, and well lit at night. This phone does not exhibit as much of that "gargling" sound digital phones are known for. I believe CDMA networks help alot here over TDMA. Also it seems there is less "delay" on a CDMA than TDMA. I believe the phone's quality helps here but again I think alot of credit goes to the Verizon network and it's use of CDMA technology. One big complaint too is lack of knowledge on the part of store reps. When I'd ask about features and accessories at Verizon stores and Radio Shack all I got was blank stares with the Sargent Shultz answer "I know NOTHING Col. Hogan NOTHING"! It took me going to Sprint PCS store to find information on a product I was going to buy from Verizon. Not good! I've seen mentioned here that battery life could be better but I don't seem to have any issues here. I get better life from it during use than my Nokia 6161 gave me and yet people rave about the NOkia battery life. I think the answer here is my Nokia will stay on standby for days on end with no appreciable drop, but use it and it goes down FAST. This product seems to make better use of it's talk time and not the standby. Given that I'll take better talk time performance over standby. All in all it's a nice prduct and one I would recommend but not without some VERY serious useability issues. Update 1/1/02 As time goes on I have become increasingly disappointed with this product. The promised sync. software is still vaporware, the buttons are beginning to fail and require multiple pushes to actuate, the voice recognition is gone to pot and rarely works, in spite of retraining it etc. LG does not seem to stand behind the product giving neither Verizon nor the end customer any support. The menu system is becoming more and more of an irritation. Overall I would have to give this product thumbs down. It still seems to have physically held up other than these major annoyances. On the balance this thing was not woth the money. A V60 would have been a better choice. A LOTS better choice. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179 87267 2002/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode vibrate ring sms voice activated dialing full featured small exterior lcd horrible user manual quirky menus The Bottom LineIt is a great flip phone with unique features. Full Review UPDATES on Price in 1st paragraph. UPDATES on Reliability in last paragraph. This phone has so many features I was looking for that I had to buy it even though I paid $180 for it with Verizon service. Where did those other people only pay $150 for it? UPDATE: You can now get it for $100 here (with service contract): http://www.1800mobiles.com/newlgtmverwi.html At Christmas I bought the same phone (in silver) for my wife for $100 at a local dealer. For a summary of the features, check out the vendor's website: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/TM-510_phone.asp Pros: - Tri-mode (PCS, CDMA, Analog) - Small but not too small like the Vader phone. - Exterior LCD showing a summary of phone, including caller-id. When I first wrote this review, this was the only phone with this feature. Now Motorola has a similar phone: the V. Series™ 60c Phone. - SMS (i.e. 2-way text messaging). T9 text input is very cool (see http://t9.com/) - Voice-activated dialing for every number; also has voice memo and the ability to record your conversations. Also has a built-in answering machine in case you don't have or don't want to use the carrier's voicemail. - Vibrate+ringing mode. I like this because if I'm wearing the phone I can answer it before it rings (to keep from annoying others), and if I'm not wearing it I won't miss a call because it will still ring. - Calendar with daily event notification. - Simple calculator. - Key layout and feel: you can feel them click when you press them! - The belt holster holds it securely. Cons: - The user manual is poorly translated from Korean, apparently. It needs a rewrite to make it understandable. See for yourself: http://www.lginfocomm.com/PDF/TM-510-English.pdf - I can't get it off the belt holster with only one hand. I don't know if it's worth spending $25 for the "swivel" holster. - Quirky menu. Examples: 1) Why are Scheduler and Wakeup on the right menu labeled "Book"? Not that it matters for scheduler since that has 1-button access anyway. 2) When you receive a text message, you can "save" the email address of the recipient or any phone # in the message to the phonebook....but there's 2 problems with the way it works: first, the phone number has to be in this format: 1234567890, i.e. it won't accept any punctuation like 123.456.7890 or 123-456-7890 or (123) 456-7890. Second, you can't save the email address or phone number to an existing phonebook entry, but only to a new one. This is retarded because if I have someone's phone # in an entry and then they text message me, I can't save their email address into the same entry! Other: - My phone is black, not silver like the photo on this website. But it does have an obnoxious silver Verizon logo on it - which is rapidly getting scratched. See the Verizon Wireless website for a picture of the one I have. - The website mentions syncing with PIM's but it's not mentioned in the manual at all, and on their website it says it's not available yet. If anyone finds more info, please write a review mentioning it (or add it to a review you already wrote). - Durability: I've (accidentally) dropped it 3 times so far onto hard surfaces from waist height and there's no negative effect. Time will tell how it holds up under repeated (ab)use, but it looks well made. UPDATE: I got the phone a little bit wet and after it dried out, it still worked except for the backlight and the battery wouldn't hold a charge for very long. I took it into the Verizon Wireless store where I purchased it and they replaced it for me! I've dropped the new one once and I generally don't treat things gently and it is still holding up fine. 7/8/02 update: I've had the new phone for 1 year now and it's doing great; a little scratched up of course but working great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 87266 2002/7/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear reception outside caller id display easy 1 touch dialing great battery life small phone book not alphabetical menus sometimes cumbersome manual not helpful The Bottom LineHighly recommended, compact, high sound quality. All-around great phone!! Full Review I had been using a Motorola StarTac phone for 2 years when I purchased the LG-TM510. The first thing I noticed was how small it is. I thought my StarTac was small, well the LG easily fits in the change pockets of my favorites overalls, while the StarTac just fit. The LG even fits in the regular pockets of my jeans and shorts! The compact size is also important for me because I have very small hands, so the ability to hold the phone and hit the menu or number buttons with the same hand is a BIG plus for me. My StarTac was just a little too wide for me to do that. The first thing that drew me to the LG was the Verizon salesperson's recommendation--she had been using one for quite a while and couldn't have been more enthusiastic about how wonderful it was. Though I was somewhat skeptical--she WAS trying to make a sale, after all--I figured with the choice of any phone in the store it had to count for something that she was using this one. One of the first things she pointed out to me was the external Caller ID display. I have found this to be a wonderful feature, it enables me to use the "Open to Answer" feature and still have the benefit of knowing who is calling. I figure, what's the point of having Caller ID if you can't use it effectively?! I have found the reception on the LG-TM510 to be crystal clear, even when the signal strength is low. I don't think any wireless phone is every as clear as a land line (nor is any cordless phone for that matter), however this is the 4th different wireless model I've owned in my life and it is by far the clearest. I also like the fact that the volume buttons are on the side of the phone--this allows me to increase or decrease the volume while I am talking without having to interrupt my call. The battery on the LG-TM510 holds a charge very well. I usually charge it every night (the directions specifically say you don't have to wait until the battery is drained before you charge it) but even if I don't, I've gone 2 or 3 days before it's down to half, even when I have used the phone quite a bit. The charger is very fast, and I like the fact that there is a light on the base that goes from red to green when the battery is fully charged. I don't have to take the phone out of the cradle to see if the battery is charged. It can be a little awkward to get the phone to sit right in the charger, but this is a minor issue. The phone book on the LG-TM510 is not alphabetical (unless you enter it that way), but if you can remember what memory location the number you want to call is in, you can just hold down that number and it will dial the number for you. I've found the search capabilities to be excellent, so this isn't a huge deal for me. The menus can sometimes be cumbersome but after a few uses I learned the shortcuts to the ones I use most frequently (i.e. Ring/Vibrate and Ringer Volume). The one thing I did not like about this phone is the leather case--first of all if you have the phone in the case it does not fit in the charging cradle, and the case has a piece of fabric that covers the inside display window. It comes with a plastic belt clip holster, and I have found this to be very easy to use, plus I was given a hand strap (which should be included but isn't), which makes the phone easier to handle when I don't have pockets or a belt. Additional features that I liked were the many, many ring tones available, the Web and text messaging capability, and the little extras like a calculator and country code list. The phone also has voice dialing capabilities but I haven't used these at all so I can't say how they work. I was able to get the phone at a reduced price by signing up for a 2-year service agreement (which was no big deal because I had been with Bell Atlantic Mobile/Verizon Wireless for 6 years already and have been very happy with their service), but in comparison to other phones I didn't find the LG to be outrageously priced. The manual is very poor, but if you've used any cell/wireless phone before you can probably figure out the important stuff on your own. One last thing I wanted to note, I have the black phone, it is also available in silver, but the salespeople all told me that they have had problems with the paint chipping on the silver ones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87265 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great display with indigo color innerouter decent reception terrible phone book if you re used to motorola bad manual dropped calls The Bottom Linemotorola users will HATE this phone. In fairness, it does well in some regards, but read review before you waste money! Full Review I felt obligated to write this review, because I've gone through so many cell phones and can tell you the pros and cons of all of them in an unbiased fashion. In between my Motorola Vader and 8160, I briefly used an LG 510 because I loved the outside display and the almost-as-small-as-my-vader size...not to mention the phone feels like a durable and strong piece of equipment, not a little flimsy toy like some of the phones out there. I used the phone for over a month - but basically knew I didn't particularly like it after only a few days. I gave it a fair chance and thought it might get better once I was used to it, however it didn't work out and ultimately I went for the 8160...Read on and hopefully I can give you perspective on why this may just be the right phone for you, or why it may not... LG is a real company - their technolgy is very respectable and if they continue to develop their products I guarentee they'll capture market share and become a major player like motorola and nokia in the states. I liked to reception and transmission I got with the phone, however what I hated was the fact that a little blip in the sky caused a dropped call. One of the best tell-tale tests about a good "reacher" of a phone is the good-old "in-the-tunnel" test on the long island rail road. I commute from long island to manhattan - and the tunnel in the east river is one of the best tests for a phone. despite the placement of transceivers in the tunnel, it is still tough for a phone to keep a call, and in some circumstances the LG did great - but in quite a few it dropped calls. Remembmer, not everyone travels in tunnels too frequently - so don't let this deter you so soon - I'll admit the LG's sound quality both receiving and transmitting was very strong when it had signal - and signal depends largely on your area as opposed to just the phone. one complaint I really have to tell you though is that if you are used to motorola phone books and love them (like i cetainly do , they are so much better then nokia or anyone else) you will HATE the phone book on the LG...first navigating through the phonebook sucks...One feature that is totally missing is the ability to use the number pads' letter to get you to different parts of the phone book - I personally think this is one of the smartest features of the motorola phones - I don't want to do a damned search everytime i use the phone book - NOR do i want to scroll through the whole friggin phone to find a name - i want to punch a few quick buttons and hit SEND! DONE. you will not be able to do this with the LG's book structure...sorry. lastly im not a big fan of the english-word logic on these phones...I don't want a phone to guess what im trying to type...for instance, I'm trying to type "mary" into the phone book and everytime i get to "MA" the phone assumes im trying to write "MAN" since thats a frequently used english word. then i have to delete the N and go back to "R" and then the phone may guess "MARS" so then i have to delete the "S" and type Y...it sucks. sorry - this feature and the navigation of the phone book nearly cost this poor phone its life as I almost had to throw is against a wall a few times. The other features of this phone are quite useful - calendar and event planner make this phone almost like a smal PDA in a cell phones body - these features i liked. actually I was surprised the phone didn't have a calling card feature though - I rather like that feature since i call europe alot and its much cheaper to use cards rather than cellular interantional long distance (usuallu anyway) thats another review in the making.... Battery life on the phone was above average but not by much - and I'll tell ya, the 8160 motorola dogs it with better reception, which is why i chose it. the LG does offer a cheaper wat to get a flip phone with frontal display PLUS its a good looking indigo color and its pretty tough feeling. overall, if you aren't married to any particular phone-book format and you don't travel underground much and your area gets good reception, the LG is a great choice since it is rather cheap and has front display in a flip-phone format, which was great. also its not flimsy even for a flip phone and the look and size are very cool. but don't be surprised if you end up returning it due to poorly thought out phone book navigation and dropped calls. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 95 87264 2001/7/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good clarity volume voice dialing small size good looks decent battery life users manual could be a little clearermore detailed The Bottom LineI guess by now you get idea that I really like this phone and would give it my highest recommendation. The reason, quality, clarity and features. Full Review I have had a number of cell phones over the past years. Including Qualcomm, 3 Motorola Startac's, Nokia, Audiovox and last a Kyocera 2035a (Qualcomm). Let me say that I love my new LGIC LG-TM510. With one small exception it does every thing I would like and does it well. What's the only feature lacking for me? It doesn't have a built in speaker phone. I guess It may be asking a little to much to expect a phone this tiny to have that feature. I had problems with the ribbon wire running through the hinge on my Startac's and the battery life left a lot to be desired. While my TM510 is still pretty new, it seems to be built a lot stronger then the Startac. The battery life is much better, and that's with the 950mah battery installed. I am planning to get the extended life battery soon. I like the fact that you can see the who is calling you on the small outer display before opening and answering the phone. The main display is very clear and easy to read with all important information showing. Signal strength, battery condition, Month, date, day, time and voice or text mail waiting. The phone is laid out nicely with room for you fingers and it looks very sharp opened or closed. The voice recognition seem to work perfectly. LG claims you can store 20 voice tags but I have found that you can store more. It has a voice memo recorder built in and also allows you to record up to two minutes of your phone conversation. Great for taking down directions, phone numbers and other data. I like the way the timers work. One for recent calls, one for roam calls and one for browser calls. Of course you get an all call timer as well. The phone book works very well and stores 199 locations with up to 6 numbers in each, such as Home, Office, Mobile, E-mail, Pager and Data/Fax. The phone lights up very nicely in dim light with the ability to control how long the screen and keys will stay lit or can be shut off completely. Yes you can do web-browsing, e-mail, and more. This phone even has it's own automatic Answering Machine, in case you don't have voice mail. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87263 2000/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception small size loaded with features ergonomic design price varies greatly less than stellar manual button placement could be awkward for lefties The Bottom LineWhat else could a person could ask for in a phone in this price range. Compact size, ergonomic design, and exceptional clarity make this phone a winner! Full Review My family and I recently decided to switch phone services and our old Nokia 5120's were not compatible with the Verizon service we chose so guess what...it's new phone time :) The dealer we chose had four phones that were available, the Audiovox CDM-9100, two Motorola's, the V60c and the V120c, and the LG TM510. The V60c was out of my price range and I wasn't impressed with the CDM-9100 or the V120c so by process of elimination, the LG-TM510 was the only choice. The price on the TM510 was $149.99, but we told the dealer that we had seen them on the web for much less and that since we were buying three phones plus three service contracts (one each for myself, my wife, and my parents) that he should give us a better deal. He said that was as low a price as I would ever find. I showed him a printed copy of the 1800mobiles web page where I could get the TM-510 for $99.99 and told him that if he couldn't match that price then I would just get my phones and service from them. Rather than lose three potential customers, he finally agreed to sell us the three phones for $300 and even threw in three car chargers. Who says it doesn't pay to surf the web :) Since Verizon was running a promotion with free activation we really got a bargain. Anyway, about the phone. The first thing that most people notice about the TM-510 is its size. This phone is actually smaller than my pager! Despite its small size, it is very ergonomically designed. My father and I both have large hands, yet the buttons are no harder for us to use than on the Nokia's we were used to. All of the controls are placed in very convenient locations and after a couple of days to familiarize myself with the phone I found that I was able to instinctively hit the right buttons without having to stop and hunt for the button I wanted. A co-worker of mine pointed out one characteristic of this phone that I had not considered. He is left-handed and while looking at my phone immediately noticed that the up and down buttons on the side of the phone for adjusting the volume were awkward for him to use. When holding the phone in your right hand the buttons are right where my index and middle finger rest so manipulating these controls is a snap. When he was holding the phone in his left hand he would have to use his thumb to operate these buttons and this was hard for him to do without losing his grip on the phone. While this is a non-issue for the majority of people, southpaws might want to think about this before purchasing a TM-510. The TM-510 is loaded with features, with my two favorites being the exterior LCD screen and voice dialing. The exterior LCD screen allows you to see who is calling without opening the phone. A handy convenience if you're like me and there are times when you really are not in the mood to talk to someone. Initially I thought that the voice dialing feature might be a little used gimmick, but I have found that I use it more than I would ever have imagined. It also has text messaging and a mini browser, though I personally have not found those very useful. I live in a very rural area and one of the main reasons we chose to switch phones and services was because of the difficulty we often had getting a decent signal. I no longer have a problem with that. While part of the increase in signal quality can be attributed to Verizon having more coverage in my area, I feel that the TM-510 should also be given credit. The computer room I work in is notorious for being a difficult place to get any kind of signal in, radios, cell phones, pagers, etc. all have problems here, but I have never been unable to place a call since I got this phone. The co-worker I mentioned earlier has Verizon service as well and he is often unable to get a signal on his Star Tac when I have at least a passable signal if not a good one. I have heard some people complain about the battery life of the TM-510, but compared to the Motorola's and Nokia's that I have owned in the past, the TM-510 is far and away the better phone in this category. I usually charge my phone every 3-5 days and I have never let it go completely dead. My Nokia seldom lasted longer than 3 and never longer than 4 before it was completely dead. While some other phones might last longer, I find this easily acceptable. My phone spends probably 20-30 hours on standby for each hour of use so I really can't guess how long the talk time would be, but it is more than adequate for me. To sum it all up, the LG TM-510 has been a very pleasant surprise for me. It's compact, easy to operate, and the reception is great. The manual could be written better, but with a little trial and error, it is easy enough to figure out the phone without the manual. One thing to watch for, prices vary greatly on this phone. Since purchasing my phone I have seen and heard of prices ranging from $79.00 to over $200 with service contracts. I've been told that this phone is in high demand so dealers are often reluctant to haggle on prices, but if you shop around I feel that you should be able to purchase one for around $100 like I did. For that price, I think this is one phone that will be hard to beat. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87262 2002/11/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small size lots of features buggy software manual no gps or time cost management capabilities The Bottom LineI'd buy it again but in another six months (in 2002) I'd be looking for something more refined, most likely with GPS and comprehensive time management functionality. Full Review This phone is an upgrade from my Qualcomm QCP-820 in order to switch to Verizon's single rate service plan in San Diego. I've had it for a week now. The LG-TM510 is only half the size of the QCP-820 yet it's packed with many more features, including a vibrating alarm, a 199 entry phone book, 2 way SMS, a fax/data modem and voice recognition. The second LCD screen, on the outside cover, is terrific. Don't buy a Motorola StarTAC, or you'll be sorry, as these phones lack this essential feature. I've given up on the voice recognition. It's far too stringent in its requirement for you to speak in exactly the same tone in which you recorded the name and the more it asks me to repeat the name the more the tone of my voice changes. It went something like this, "patsy" 'again' "p-a-t-s-y" 'again' "PATSY!" 'again' "P-A-T-S-Y, damn it!" It sometimes worked, but more often than not it didn't. The manual should have been proof-read by a native English speaker, e.g., on p 14, "Press: (clr) erase the existing the word of Imt." and on p29, "If you dial the numbers that you want added to the front." These sentences don't make any more sense in context than they do in isolation. Don't expect to get a whole lot out of the manual; you'll have to learn how to use the phone by trial and error. I called Verizon Wireless to complain about the manual and the "customer care" representative said that I was the only person she knew of who had complained (what a surprise!), but she said she could give me the 800 number for the manufacturer. I pointed out that since Verizon had their imprimatur on the manual then its poor quality reflects on them as much as on the manufacturer. Verizon should have had the manual proof-read by a native english speaker (never mind the incorrect instructions, which also abound) and corrected. There's no excuse for rubbish like this. The phone has a fax/data option, but I can't figure out why since you can connect to the Internet in regular, i.e., voice, mode. The Internet connection speed (when you buy the cable to connect your laptop to the phone) isn't all it's cracked up to be. Verizon/LG advertise speeds up to 14 kbps. However, I measured it running only half of that. Compared to my DSL connection this is pitifully slow but it does work, which is impressive in its own right. It's a minute eater though so it's pretty much only a viable option on weekends (2,000 included weekend minutes with Verizon). Five days is a long time to wait between checking e-mail but they're changing their specials all the time so I could always switch to a different plan. The phone book allows lots of entries, but it's dumb. It doesn't display the entries alphabetically and, much more importantly, it doesn't let you move entries in and out of the important first 9 entries, which are the speed dial entries. I wish I'd realized this before I had started entering numbers. When you search for a name you press SEND to place the call. Pressing the option button gives you two options, "save" and "erase". They should have added "send" too, since it isn't obvious (to me anyway) that you can hit SEND to place the call from this screen. The default text mode to enter any text, including searching the phone book, is TgEn. TgEn is heuristic text input that works by choosing the most common word to match single keystrokes, thus patsy would be entered as 72879 rather than 7287777999 in Eng mode. When there's no match you have to default to Eng mode and enter the name the tap-tap-tap tap tap-tap way. The phone is supposed to remember words you enter this way and add them to its dictionary (it adds them to the end, rather than to the beginning, of its list of potential matches). I have a friend named "Ced"; it really doesn't like this name so it runs through "Bed", "Add", "Bee", "Bef", "Aff" and "Ade" before it finally hits upon "Ced". Perhaps "Bef", "Aff" and "Ade" are common names in Korea, but I doubt it. LG advertises "Intelligent syncronization with your PC", but it's vapourware. This is disgraceful. I *hated* the fact that you can't permanently default to Eng multi tap text entry instead of TgEn single tap text entry until I tried writing an SMS message. At this point I started loving TgEn mode. Unlike the voice recognition, TgEn really does work to save you time and keystrokes writing messages. Very cool, but it should give higher priority to words that you have to enter the slow way. When you go to copy an e-mail address from the phone book to paste into the SMS addressee field, the phone book defaults to transferring the work phone number. You have to work overtime to transfer the e-mail address. They did a second rate job on the SMS part of the software. Another example of this is that my father's e-mail address is 33 characters long and the phone book stores this okay, but there's a bug in the phone's software. When I tried writing an SMS message to my father, copying his e-mail address from the phone book, the message was returned undeliverable. It turns out that the phone won't transfer more than 32 characters from a phone book e-mail address to the SMS addressee list and hence dropped the final "k" off "...co.uk". I didn't notice this at first and apparently it also slipped through LG's testing. Verizon Wireless noted that this is a new phone and few people have returned it. That's axiomatic, I would have thought! I'm not sure that I'll use SMS very much so the TgEn text entry mode is probably going to be more of a curse than a blessing, especially since it doesn't work as well as it might. There really should be an option to default to Eng mode for everything. Despite its many limitations, the more I use this phone, and figure out what it is capable of (by trial and error), the more impressive I find it. The scheduler, alarm clock and calculator features are all pretty handy. If they were just to fix the software, add time/cost management and GPS functionality equivalent to the Garmin eTrex it would be close to perfect. Adding GPS functionality isn't so far stretched as it might seem since carriers have been told by the FCC that they have to pinpoint a 911 caller's location within a radius of 300 meters by Oct 1, 2001 (I just looked this up) and cellular phones with GSP capability do already exist. Hmm, maybe I should have waited a few more months ... All in all it's a pretty amazing little phone, especially compared to the QCP-820, but it's not perfect. --- Addendum (Aug 10, 2001) One area in which this (and all) cellular phones could be much improved is in time management. Cellular plans typically offer (a) anytime minutes, (b) night and weekend minutes and (c) mobile to mobile minutes. This particular phone logs only local and roaming minutes, which is barely useful. I have only the vaguest idea how many anytime minutes I have remaining this month. Why haven't cellular phone manufacturers incorporated comprehensive time management features in their increasingly exhaustive list of software features? They should provide time management by allowing you to designate the starting time for your monthly billing cycle and entering your monthly allowance for each of the above three categories along with the start and end of the night and weekend times. They should also provide the ability to note which numbers in the phone book are on the same wireless network and whether calls are billed by the second or rounded up to the next minute. One touch of the rocker button should show you the summary of your monthly usage in minutes remaining in each category. This would be an enormously valuable feature. Could it be that the cellular carriers have instructed phone manufacturers not to include this seemingly obvious functionality? We're essentially playing the same game as returning the rental car with an empty tank of gas. You've probably got a bunch of remaining minutes to use up at the end of each month, but you don't know how many until you receive your monthly bill (by which time it's too late) and you're heavily penalised if you go over the limit so you end up throwing away those "free" minutes every month. Alternatively Verizon Wireless could show me this information on their website, updated in real time, or at least daily. But they don't. I once played the rental car gas game so close that I almost ran out and missed my flight. Now I always take the tank back full, the analogy of which would be to use prepaid phone service, but this gets to be disproportionately expensive if you use more than about 100 minutes a month. Addendum (Oct 9, 2001) The Oct. 1 2001 deadline for implementing the rollout of enhanced 911 capability has passed. The cellular companies lobbied for an extension. The FCC has given them more time to develop the initial phases of the system, but all of them must have full implementation by Dec. 31, 2005. I'm still very happy with this phone although "Intelligent syncronization with your PC" still isn't available. Addendum (Nov 22, 2002) This phone is still going strong on the original battery. I am very happy with it, my only really gripe being that it can't alphabetize the phone book. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87261 2002/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact toss the land line phone incredibly feature filled great sound manual could be better non alphabetized phonebook but this phone has voice activated dialing The Bottom LineThe phone of your dreams . . . at least in 2002! Full Review Improve your life . . . walk into Verizon Wireless and get a LG-TM510 for $150 (and a two year service contract). If you are an existing customer, ask for consideration of being a long-term customer and ask for a $99 price. If the rep doesn't give it to you, then call their 800 number and ask for the "loyalty management department." Yes, that really is the name of the department. Also, 1800mobiles.com has the TM510 listed for $99 with free shipping. You could also sign up for Verizons Wireless there too. If you want a headset, look into either Plantronics M170 or M175 . . . I also hear the Sybersay is outstanding. 1800mobiles.com also has these. Take two or three hours to learn this phone . . . it is well worth the time. Get extra help from the Yahoo discussion group at: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/lgtm510usersclub To get a great summary of hints and tips, read their forum notes first at: http://www.jitteryjim.com/tm510/forumnotes.htm You will particularly need to read it for setting up the voice dialing as the manual does not really cover this well. For the company FAQs, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/FAQ_TM-510.asp For the phone spec sheet, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/TM-510_phone.asp Imagine taking home a 4.3 oz. wonder that: - is a cell phone that sounds like a land line - has voice activated calling ("say the person's name and the call is dialed for you") WORKS GREAT! - voice recorder for memos as you think of them - easily record your conversation (great if you want to record directions someone is giving you) - calculator - database of country codes - send and receive e-mails (part of Verizon Wireless plans now) "SMS messaging" - scheduler - easy access calendar display - alarm clock - memo pad - internal answering machine - phonebook with cooool T9 dialing (no more extra keypad typing . . . to type the word "bill," you would type 2,4,5,5 and the phone figures out you mean "bill") - web browser (extra monthly fee with Verizon Wireless) - easy locking feature so others can't easily use your phone - great indigo screen inside AND outside the phone - durable unit, keypad is well-designed - belt holster that securely holds phone. Takes a little getting used to removing the phone though. - charger is quick with 3 hours recharge. Takes some practice getting the phone clicked in. Phone has great sound. My friends think I'm on a land line. The negatives . . . well, it is a short list. It does not have an alphabetized phonebook that you can bring up and scroll though. You scroll through the list as you put it in. But you click "Find Name" and with the T9 quick text input do a search for the first few letters and then dial your number. I love it, and it is easier than my old Nokia method. As to the manual, I found it sufficient. But it doesn't do a good job on voice dialing. Read the above web sites for info on that. Download the PDF version of the manual from www.lginfocomm.com if you want to see it before you buy the phone. Finally as to negatives, they say it has PC Sync software so that you can transfer your Outlook phone/e-mails . . . but the software is not out yet (as of 8/6/01) and you have to purchase a data connect kit. In October 2001, the TM520 was supposed to come out. It has an alphabetized phonebook. Look at the LG web site (http://www.lginfocomm.com) for more info on this. ENJOY!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87260 2002/3/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery stylish light compact durable sleek hi tech appearance feature full hard to open one handed calendar isn t large memory wise The Bottom LineThis phone is amazingly sleek and stylish yet it has many convenient features that aid it in keeping you connected while maintaining your privacy. Full Review My experience with the LG TM510 Silver: I've recently (January 2002) purchased the LG TM510 Silver model from Radio Shack with Verizon as my wireless service provider. I love this phone. It's small but doesn't get lost or fall out of your pockets. It's sleek looking. It serves me well. I haven't had any problems yet except for me going over my minutes on my plan. Why I bought it: This tri-mode phone is flashy and stylish, that's what made me want it; hence the reason I chose the silver model over the black. Its small flip mode design allows it to fit in the palm of your hand or the bottom of your pocket. It has a good amount of features. Everything from a multi-intensity vibrating ring to a wake up alarm that will persist until you wake up or at least lean over and stop it from ringing/vibrating (your choice in the options menu). What I like about it: NUMBER ONE!—I love the way this phone looks. Bottom line. My opinion- it looks like a million bucks! It just has that sleek executive/high tech look and feel to it. It has a vibrate feature (manner mode) which I love because I can know when people are calling me and those around me won't have a clue. I use "manner mode" it in class and at meetings mostly and the best part about it is you just have to hold down the * key for 3 seconds to toggle between "manner mode" and "normal mode" (normal mode is whichever ringer you have it set to use). The vibrate intensity is also changeable between low, medium, high, or escalating. It has a "Vibra-Ring" feature which will deliver three vibrations when a call is received, and then deliver three rings if the phone has not been picked up yet. This allows me to keep my calls private if I am in a private area, but will ensure I don't miss them if I happen to put my phone on the table in the other room. It has an external LCD screen that has a caller ID on it or the current time and date (the time and date yield to caller ID when a call is coming in), battery life, signal strength, roaming indicator and a few other displays. This is great so I can see who's calling before I answer the phone. Also, the LCD displays the time while I'm on the phone so I can look on the back of it real quickly while talking to someone to see what time it is as opposed to other phones I've had experience with that require you to flip through menus to get the time on the main screen during a call. The two volume buttons on the left of the phone allow you to silence an incoming call if you press them once simultaneously, and then to cancel the incoming call if you press them again simultaneously. I LOVE this feature because it gives me the option stop my phone from ringing if I accidentally had the audible ringer on in class or if I don't want my to know who is calling me (they like to see my LCD screen have someone's name or number appear on it that they're familiar with). The LCD on the inside (and outside) is bright and the keypad is well lit. What I dislike about it: It's hard to open with one hand. I sometimes hang up on callers because I'll attempt to flip the spring loaded lid open and it'll get about half way open (at which point it answers my call) and then my fingers will slip and it'll shut, thus hanging up on my caller. The phone book isn't in alphabetical order. My old phone (Sanyo 4500) had an alphabetical phone book. This phone book is numerical. It has 199 slots for numbers, and each number can store up to 5 locations and an email address or a website address. It does have a convenient "Find Name" option however that allows you to type in names that you have stored and it will return only them, but once again typing on a cell phones number pad is not easy. T9 technology helps, but it's still not easy. The carrying holster it came with is too big. When I first got my phone I would put it in the holster because I thought it was so small I would loose it (not true—haven't had a problem with it falling out of my pocket or anything). The holster stuck out from my belt/pocket so far that my arm would hit it and it would go into my side when I'd sit down. The calendar fills up quickly. I'm not sure how many appointments it will hold, but I use it to remind myself of meetings and whatnot and I'm very forgetful so I put a lot of info into it. I do like how the first 15 letters or so of what your calendar event is show up on the external LCD when the scheduled time has arrived (The phone will ring/vibrate according to your preference when the schedule calendar event time is reached, then if you hit the external volume buttons simultaneously the ring/vibrate will stop, but the event will remain flashing on the LCD without the LCD being lit until you open the phone or hit the two volume buttons again. This is great for when I say I'll do something in a minute and silence the alarm and the forget to do it because my phone still reminds me an hour later when I go to call someone). More Info: The device is a little smaller width and height wise than a pack of cigarettes (minus the 3/4 inch antenna when it is retracted) and it's only a little deeper than the pack of cigarettes when it is closed. When the phone is opened, it almost doubles in height. The phone flips open at about a 30 degree angle allowing a good fit when the phone is held up to the ear and mouth. It does not fall out of my pockets regardless of what I'm doing. I don't know why but I'm glad about this. It was just a concern of mine. I think the antenna helps it stay in. And no, the antenna is not flimsy when retracted. It bends a good bit when you have it pulled out but replacements aren't expensive if you happen to break it which I haven't done yet and I am an active person. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87259 2001/6/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode sms very small vibrate ring exterior lcd excellent reception broadcast horrible user manualinsulting manufacturer support The Bottom LineIn short, I love the TM510. I have been using it for a month now. Full Review I did it! I let my desire for toys and gadgets overcome my intentions to be conservative and enjoy the awesome StarTac 7868W. But it paid off. I'm in NY/NJ using Verizon Wireless. According to all my research so far, Verizon is the best you can do in the Tristate area. They are using triple band technology now. CDMA 800, 1900 (1.9 GHz PCS) and Analog. The quality of reception on this phone is unbelievable. When I started using my StarTac phone (also utilizes the three bands) people had no clue I was using a cell phone. This new LG TM510 is pretty much the same and fixes many shortcomings of the StarTac. The greatest shortcomings of the StarTac that I know of are: flimsy antenna, the phone not being so durable, and having to open the phone to see who is calling can be a pain. These are non existent with the 510. The antenna is solid and can be easily replaced if necessary (you need a special tool for the StarTac). The phone is very durable (a friend of mine dropped his on cement many times, it is still working fine) and it has a second screen on the outside casing to see who is calling, phone reception, type of message and date/time. Most importantly, the reception and sound quality are much better. Using the mouth piece on the phone can be a little tinny though. When I use my Plantronics headset, no one knows I am on a cell phone. However, it is very comfortable to talk into (unlike every other cell phone I have tried. Then it has all the cool features, it's own auto answer and it's answering machine, more than twice the memory capacity (199 names with 4 numbers and 1 e-mail to each), it is easier to navigate through menus and has voice activation capability. (Don't rely on the manual to help you set that feature up. It's not there. Each listing in the phone book has a voice option to set up and it is hidden at the very bottom of the setup options window. Initially it is off the screen and to have to scroll down to see it.)You can record phone conversations and create voice memos. Cons: in comparison are the volume doesn't get quite as loud as the StarTac. But the LG510 is loud enough. I hear the other caller fine even when on the train. The vibrator isn't quite as strong as the StarTac's either. The TM510 isn't bad in those departments, just not as good. I just appreciated how the StarTac can almost be used as a speaker phone and that it's vibration can wake up the dead. Another con is the customer support. I called the LG corp. to inquire about Syncing my phone book with my PC's Outlook contact list. The StarTac does that well and I couldn't find the software for the LG TM510. They answered very quickly, but the woman on the phone abruptly answered there is no synchronization for that phone. I told her it clearly says the phone is capable of that feature and repeated that I was talking about the TM510. She then said the synchronization software is not available for it yet. (That is a whole different story). I asked when it might become available. She said early next year. I then asked how I can keep informed of this software. She replied, check the website and hung up the phone. Just a warning. This is an awesome phone, but the support is nothing short of insulting. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 87258 2000/7/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated dialing long battery life light weight can t open easily with one hand slightly clunky interface The Bottom LineSmall, light, inexpensive, good voice quality, reasonable software, good battery life. Hard to see paying twice as much for the competition. Full Review I haven't had a flip style phone since the original Motorola flip phones, and for the past 3 years my phone of choice (via Primeco, now called Verizon) was my Nokia 6185 (or very similar models for my girlfriend and family). The 6185 was a great phone, way ahead of its time, especially with the super slim lithium ion vibrating battery. But when it finally died (I think it was that 400th drop on the pavement) the choices were more limited at the Verizon store. The similar Nokia replacement was $79, and the LG TM510 was $149 ($99 after a $50 rebate). I took the LG, as the one problem I did have with my Nokia was having the battery loosen because of the belt clip stud, and that design hadn't changed. Besides, I had 15 days to try it. So far it's been a pretty good phone. It doesn't FEEL as sturdy as the Nokia, but no flip phone will. And the interface is not as intuitive as the Nokia. It's not nearly as bad as the Motorola StarTacs were, but it's not as simple and intuitive. Nonetheless, the options are but a few short keystrokes to memorize, and the features are strong. Except the call list is not alphabetized. If that's important to you - DON'T BUY IT. If it's not, oh, well...I suppose the programmers at LG don't care about alphabetization? The battery life, contrary to some rumors, has been strong for me, at least it digital mode. However, I work in a hospital, and most digital phones don't work there. In fact, the Nokia I had exhibited the annoying "feature" of freaking out when it couldn't get it's signal and went into a high power broadcast mode to find towers...it would drain a fully charged battery in 8 hours, leaving me with a dead battery when I left work. So I had to remember to turn it off when I went in the building. This phone won't work in the building either, at least in digital mode. It roams to the AT&T analog network, and analog IS much more draining on the battery. A fully charged battery that will go days on digital standby will be half drained after 8-10 hours. So obviously, if you use a phone in analog mode quite a bit, this might not be for you, at least not without the optional larger capacity battery. Another drawback - it's hard to remove from the belt holster with one hand, and even harder to open with one hand. Why? Otherwise, I'd say the phone is probably a fine phone, with plenty of features, and the quirks I see are probably more my familiarity with all things Nokia. It's probably last a couple years, even with my abusing it, but after holding it, I did start paying the extra $4 a month for insurance. Hey, maybe that was a Verizon plan from the beginning... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87257 2001/8/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 outside caller id durability size signal strength clarity weight battery life The Bottom LineYou better get this phone. I have no regrets. But buy an extended battery. I did. Full Review 7/6/01 Oh lord, just when i thought i had the best (read my Samsung 6100 review), this lil gem comes along. And I couldn't resist. I really loved my Samsung 6100 but it was just a SINGLE BAND PHONE! Usually, that didn't bother me but since I am travelling more often now, I need at least a dual band. And this TM510 isn't just a dual band, it's a TRI BAND, if that matters any. But i guess it does since I have been able to use my phone regardless of where I am, on or off network. I was at the Verizon store here in South San Francisco. The guy who helped me was very knowledgeable. I saw this phone on the display and was drawn to it right away. I also saw the Motorola v120c (http://news.verizonwireless.com/images/wireless/phonehome.jpg) and was fascinated by it as well, maybe because of the fact that it has an FM radio capability. So I played with both. The screen and font on the v120c were soooo small, and the side buttons used to navigate around were very uncomfortable to use because they are rather painful to press. I also made test calls on the v120c and the other party said i was very muffled. Guess it was a bad unit. On to the TM510. Ooh, I loved it right when it powered up. The cool indigo backlight was soothing, instead of that greenish yellow light most other phones have. It is also so tiny, about as tiny as those Motorola 2 way pagers. I love closing the flip, it feels very secure. The phone is well engineered, it feels sturdy and durable, which surprised me. I am not too familiar with the brand LG (Lucky Goldstar) so I was kind of hesitant as to what i was getting into but I just went ahead and bought it. The guy said it was a very good phone and I should try it out. I am glad I did and am very pleased. Everyone around me wants to play with my phone! The keypad layout is very nice too, I like the "clicky" rubberized buttons. The menus are simple to navigate and understand. Forget about using the manual. I didn't use it at all because it is a piece of crap. You're better off playing around with the phone and learning that way. Although the phonebook does not list entries alphabetically (argh!), i guess that's just something minor i'll live with. As for reception, it does a good job of holding a signal, not quite as solid as my Samsung but it's pretty close. My boyfriend owns a Timeport and we were inside this bar. I looked at his phone and it had no service. I looked at mine and it had two bars. Good job! He's jealous! And he's still with Sprint. I now have Verizon and feel more secure with it since it is THE largest network in the country. Customer service is good and the plans are good too. I am on the Digital 450 plan w/free long distance & free roaming across 5 states. Pretty good deal. Another plus is the wireless web. With Sprint, they used to charge you like 15 or 30 cents PER MINUTE if you're not signed up for the service. With Verizon, there's NO CHARGE, you just use up minutes in your plan. Halleluiah! SMS or text messaging is also available on this phone, a new and fun feature I love to use. I can send & receive e-mails on this phone easily. It's so fun! The voice dial on this phone is very good too. I use it all the time since I don't have the patience to scroll through the UNALPHABETIZED phone book! The manual says there is a limit of the numbers you can store for voice dial (around 30 i think) but i'm sure it's more. You can store 198 entries, and 5 numbers per entry. That's PLENTY of storage! The phone also has Voice Memo Recorder for recording short messages or conversations (for the spies out there haha). There's a neat answering machine feature you can substitute for voicemail and you can listen to messages and not waste airtime. Wow! Ok so battery life sucks. What do you expect from such a small phone. I found this newsgroup online that gives instructions on how to program the phone to extend battery life. Too cool! I tried it and so far it seems to work. Join this yahoo club: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/lgtm510usersclub and discuss the phone, ask questions, get answers, etc. It is very helpful. The message number for programming the phone to extend batt. life is #44. Somehow, the phone's slot cycle is preset to 1, which apparently causes the phone to use up more power and thus drain the battery faster. Switching it to 2 will help it conserve energy but may cause calls to be directed to voicemail once so often. I think that happened to me once. Program the phone at your own risk! Read post 44 to find out more. Also, leaving the backlight off during the day will help. Another group you can find to get details on this phone is http://open-news.pacbell.net/drn-bin/wwwnews?alt.cellular.verizon. I suggest organizing the group by subject so it's easier to find the LG-TM510 topics. The outer LCD is THE BEST. That was my prob. when I tried out the Samsung 8500. I got annoyed having to keep opening the flip to screen calls. Not a problem with this phone. It also has many many ringtones, which beats my Samsung. But like the samsung, I can assign each caller a specific ring. I like that a LOT, sound caller ID. It also has a Vibrate/Ring option, which the Samsung did not have. Clarity is very good on this phone. As good as the Samsung so I don't really miss it. It is almost equivalent to a landline. I also am happy I can use my Plantronics handsfree with this phone; it has the standard 2.5mm jack. This phone has all the goodies the Samsung has plus more! Much more really. And I am happy with this purchase. No regrets. No dropped calls. By the way, the phone i have is BLACK with (ooh!) iniglo light, not silver like the one shown. Here's the picture: http://www.app.airtouch.com/images/shared/phones/phones_med_cream/lg_510_cream.jpg. 7.10 I was talking to my boyfriend on my cordless phone and he said he could barely hear me. So i switched to this phone. He said the difference was amazing and that I sounded clear as a bell on this phone!! Wow!! What a keeper! Also, I programmed the phone for auto AGC (audio gain control) and i notice the sound and clarity improved! 8.5 Had the phone for a month now. I am still crazy about it. Yeah, the phone book is just something awful but the T9 input works nicely. Here's a tip: i've noticed that all the names you store into the phone book are also stored into the T9 database, making it a lil faster to search for names. I tried it. It works. All you do is enter the first 3 letters and hit "0" to select the appropriate spelling (while in T9 mode of course) and it'll find what you're looking for. And when I'm really lazy, i just boss the maid inside the phone around and tell her to dial a call for me. Heheh, don't worry, we're buddies. =) Voice dialing still works like a charm. I also put in an order for the extended 1100mah battery (aftermarket $34.95) so I'm excited to get that, even if it'll add a tad more bulk to the phone. 8.10 Aha! Here's another tip that I got from the forum. To supposedly get increased bars, set the phone to be in CDMA mode instead of automatic which automatically switches over to analog mode and causes static and/or dropped calls. Setting to CDMA mode ensures a DIGITAL only mode. I found I got a few more bars after switching! I also bought an aftermarket extended 1100mah battery. We'll see how it compares to the original 900mah battery. 8.13 Ok, the extended batt. lasted me standby time of about 3 1/2 days. Not that great. Maybe I still have to condition it. Also, the new club to join for the TM510 is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TM510 I hope I was helpful. If so, please rate me! (^_^) thank you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87256 2002/5/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good voice quality high gadget factor for low price reception phone book access a bit cumbersome battery life so so The Bottom LineVery good bang for the buck. Not as refined as the Motorolla V60 but a lot cheaper in price. Full Review The LG TM510 is a pretty good tri-band phone for the price though I wouldn't rank it as highly as some of the other reviewers. The hardware is well built and the sound quality good but the supporting software isn't as well-designed as some of the other phones I've had or seen. On the plus side you get: -An LCD display on the outside so you can use the caller ID to screen calls without opening the phone -You also get text messaging capability and wireless web (with an extra monthly charge) -As well as digital and analog modes for those out of the way areas and compatibility with the latest calling plans -Multiple ring types (including vibration) -Calendar, scheduler and 198 number memory -Multiple language support! -Good sound quality and reception. On the negative I found the voice dialing to be a bit frustrating. It worked half the time (by half I mean voice recognition was weak). And this was not a problem exclusive to myself. My friends have the same phone. Voice dialing is important on this phone since it's not easy to access the phonebook quickly. The phonebook requires navigating a few extra menus to get to and is not alphabetizable. It's hard to do on the go and even harder when driving. Sidenote: the successor to this phone, the TM520, is supposed to have an improved phonebook. I also found the battery life to be disappointing. Granted it's a small phone with a small battery but I could not get much more than 2.5-3 hours of talk time on a single charge. My previous Motorola cheapie/freebie model got almost twice that. And remember, if you're in analog mode, you'll get considerably less talk and standby time. There are aftermarket accessories you can get including an extended life battery. But it also adds bulk. I'd suggest buying another standard battery which is cheaper and maintains the slimmer profile. Then you can alternate batteries on the charger. I also found this phone to be a little on the thick side, especially when compared to other similar flip type phones. Dimensionally, I've always preferred a thinner more pocketable phone. I guess if you wear it on your belt or put it in your purse this point is moot. I prefer to carry it incognito. Overall I'd say the TM510 is definitely worth the low price. And it's just going to get cheaper as time goes on. If you don't have service, you can get this phone for practically free (with a two year contract). If you've been a Verizon/Air Touch customer, then you could be eligible for some good rebates or call credit. I got both when I bought this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 87255 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 menus are intuitive sturdy construction small size stylish great battery life manual not especially helpful t9 text entry sometimes a pain cannot alphabetize phone book The Bottom LineAn excellent phone - costs a bit more than a base-model phone but definitely worth the extra expense. Full Review I recently switched from Sprint PCS to Verizon for service reasons and chose the LG-TM510 as my new phone. I must admit I bought the phone largely on looks, but also because it looked pretty solidly constructed. I paid $149 for it directly through the Verizon Wireless website, but I've heard that it can be found for $120 or so through various retailers. Calls come through very clearly through both the built-in earpiece and a hands-free device. The phone fortunately does not produce that digital "I'm-in-a-tunnel" sound that sometimes is a problem with wireless — though that may be more a function of the Verizon service than the phone itself. Perhaps the nicest thing about the LG-TM510 is that the menus and features are easy to figure out by yourself. This is a good thing because the manual that comes with the phone isn't especially helpful — at least I didn't find it so. But regardless, the menus are intuitive enough to make it easy to figure out how to perform most standard functions, like changing the ring tone and volume, key volume, voicemail and text message management, voice memo recording, auto call forwarding, and so on. All of these standard features are included, along with a few extras that are a nice touch. The built-in calendar and event scheduler is easy to access and use, and has come in handy already. They also threw in a calculator function and an international telephone country-code list, both of which are easy to use and very convenient. One feature I'm ambivalent about is the T9 text-entry system, which attempts to recognize words you enter on the keypad (e.g., if you want to enter the word "hello" you can do so merely by pressing 4-3-5-5-6, rather than the more cumbersome 44-33-555-555-666 you normally need to enter to cycle through the multiple letters assigned to each number key). Though I'm sure this feature can sometimes come in handy during text messaging, it's a little inconvenient because the phone often thinks it knows the word you're trying to enter but ends up guessing wrong (sort of like that annoying 'Office Assistant' feature in Microsoft Word, which hinders you more than it helps). The main problem is that you must disable T9 each time you enter text — maybe I'm just not used to the feature yet, but for now it would be nice to have a means to disable it more permanently. The phone book feature is easy to use, especially when entering new names. I especially like the feature that allows you to categorize each new entry as a home number, mobile number, office, fax, pager, etc. so you don't have to specify as such in the name of each entry (e.g., you don't need to waste space putting "Joe cell," "Joe home," "Joe work," etc.). The only thing I don't like about the phone book is that there's no way to sort the entries alphabetically. I'm not sure why that feature couldn't be included, but it would've been nice. These are really my only complaints with the phone - the important things, such as battery life (3+ hours of talk time, in my experience), call clarity, brightness of the screen, etc., are all fantastic. I especially like the placement of a mini LCD on the outside of the phone, so you can see who's calling you even when the phone is closed. The phone's small size and weight are great, as it's small enough to be convenient but not so small that you'll lose it easily. Overall, this is a great phone and in my opinion definitely worth the few extra dollars you'll pay if you choose this over a base model. It has most of the features you could want (aside from voice-activated dialing, which I could easily do without) in a small size and a sturdy package. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87254 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 games small front screen battery life calculator no voice dialing The Bottom LineA very well built phone, loaded with features and worth the money! Full Review I was desperately needing a new cell phone. My old one was held together with duck tape. Also it was a flip phone but the ear piece did not work anymore so I knew was not going to buy that particular model again. So I decided to buy the least expensive phone I could find. hence the LG-TM510. (Did I use the word HENCE correctly?) Anyway, I went to THE WHIZ and they had it on sale for 129 dollars. And I got a free back pack which by the way is really nice. I switched my services to the new phone and it was ready to go. The first thing I noticed was that the signal was much stronger than my previous phone. I live in Westchester county NY a bit far away from Manhattan. In Westchester, no matter what company you have, the signal is always fading depending on where you are. The reason is that Westchester has a bunch of towns that don't want the cell phone companies to put up repeater antennas in their precious little towns. They don't even want fast food restaurants!! That is why the signal is so weak throughout the county. But I was really impressed with the signal. Also, many of the phones I have had before I could never talk when the signal was at one notch. With the LG is no problem. I really appreciate that. The ear piece works great, good volume. The ringer is pretty much standard. You get all kinds of rings you can add to certain phone numbers if you wish. I really love the display in the front. Not only can you see who is calling but it displays the time and date! Now to tell you guys the features that puts the icing on the cake. The phone has BLACKJACK! and, a CALCULATOR! I am always in need of a calculator because of the nature of my work. The blackjack is excellent for times when you are bored. I am aware that other phones have way better games but for the price of the LG you really can't complain. The battery life is incredible. Sometimes I ask myself, Will this batter ever die? It feels like an ever lasting source of energy. I have never had the battery die on me, unless you really talk a long time, the battery can last all day. Last but not least the phone is incredibly durable. It has really blown my mind. I have dropped it so many times!!! And most of the time on the pavement! Every time I drop it not only does it make a horrible noise but I think.. OK this is it now the phone is really not going to work. But when I pick it up it looks like nothing happened to it. Simply amazing. Some times I think my hands are made of butter. Actually I believe I drop it so many times because of its very small size. The only true complaints that I have is that it does not have voice dialing. My last phone had that and I truly miss it, but don't let that stop you from buying this phone, all the other features more than make up for this small blemish. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 87253 2000/5/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri mode front lcd display certain options may seem limited to some The Bottom LineA geat wireless with lots of features which incorporates some logical enhancements to the popular clam-shell design. Full Review The LGIC LG-TM510 put out recently by the largest wireless service provider in the US, Verison, has the stuff to be a contender in the mobile phone marketplace. This phone has been designed true to the emerging trend of back to basics for cell phones. While not so much a stripped down phone, but a phone stripped of unnecessary novelties in favor of practical features which contribute to improved functionality and usability. Advanced Features The first thing that stands out about this phone is reflected in it's name, "TM" = Tri-Mode. A dual mode wireless phone has the ability to switch between CDMA Digital and Analog Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) depending on network availability. While a tri-mode cellular has Analog, and the ability to operate on two Digital CDMA frequencies, 800 Mhz and 1.9 Ghz, thus tri-mode. This allows the phone to take advantage of a greater range of cellular service availability and share in the current and future benefits of each. Size is another big factor in cell phone convenience and the LG-TM510 is built on the popular clam shell (or flip phone) idea and has dimensions of 3.7" x 1.9" with a depth of 1.2" and a weight of 4.23 ounces. So while it's not the smallest phone available in the market today, it's size still allows for a high level of portability and convenience. For those who have used a flip phone the LG-TM510 has taken the idea one logical step further by featuring 2 LCD displays. One which is on the main body of the phone underneath the closed flip keypad, and one which is placed conveniently on the outside of the flip shell allowing you to view CallerID and status information without having to flip open the unit. Having been a StarTAC user for a couple of years, this feature was on my wish list long before I saw it in a production wireless mobile phone. Standard Features Among the more standard cell phone features incorporated into the LG-TM150 are a 199 entry phone book with text and numeric capacity for 5 numbers in each entry. Calendaring, scheduling, calculator, alarm and audio schedule notification as well as PC synchronization capabilities make this phone suitable for Personal Information Management (PIM) purposes. For PC Synchronization the Data Kit accessory is required which retails for about $70. Ring options are pretty basic with ring, vibrate, ring and vibrate or lamp settings (4 vibrate levels). Choice of ring tones is fairly limited and I don't believe additional rings can be downloaded at this time. This might prove to be a drawback to some as finding a ring which is loud enough may prove elusive. I always had this problem with the StarTAC and found that using the vibrate generally solved the problem, although it of course eats up more battery power. Speaking of battery power, the standard lithium ion battery which is included is rated for 3 hours usage time in digital mode and 200 hours standby which is comparable to competing models. There is an extended battery pack available which I've seen for around $80. Keypad entry is facilitated by supporting the standard Tegic T9 Text Input System. Multi-language support is also built in and a 4-way navigation key highlights the keypad allowing for relatively easy menu navigation. Support for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a feature. Web browsing capability, and support for 2-way SMS which allows email message forwarding of messages up to 160 characters in length to and from your cell phone. Some other features of note are of course Caller ID, and Sound Caller ID in which a sound file can be associated with a known caller for a limited number of entries. Voice activated dialing which is a big plus while driving or being otherwise occupied to where dialing by hand is difficult. Voice recording is also possible. Accessories Including the accessories discussed above, the listing of accessories that I'm aware which are currently available for this phone are: Car Lighter Charger Travel Charger Desktop Charger Leather Case Additional Standard Battery Extended Battery PC Data Kit Conclusion At a price of $150 and with the features described above this is a cell phone which should provide one with all of the necessities of wireless communication for the present and for a while into the future. As mentioned above the trend for the better selling mobile units as of late has been to trim some of the novelty frills such as embarrassing musical ring tones and swappable casings in every color of the rainbow in favor of some very practical and useful additions such as the second LCD screen and voice dialing. Highly recommended. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87252 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact toss the land line phone incredibly feature filled great sound manual could be better non alphabetized phonebook but this phone has voice activated dialing The Bottom LineThe phone of your dreams . . . at least in 2002! Full Review Improve your life . . . walk into Verizon Wireless and get a LG-TM510 for $150 (and a two year service contract). If you are an existing customer, ask for consideration of being a long-term customer and ask for a $99 price. If the rep doesn't give it to you, then call their 800 number (800-922-0204) and ask for the "loyalty management department." Yes, that really is the name of the department. Also, 1800mobiles.com has the TM510 listed for $99 with free shipping. You could also sign up for Verizons Wireless there too. If you want a headset, look into either Plantronics M170 or M175 . . . I also hear the Sybersay is outstanding. 1800mobiles.com also has these. Take two or three hours to learn this phone . . . it is well worth the time. Get extra help from the Yahoo discussion group at: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/lgtm510usersclub To get a great summary of hints and tips, read their forum notes first at: http://www.jitteryjim.com/tm510/forumnotes.htm You will particularly need to read it for setting up the voice dialing as the manual does not really cover this well. For the company FAQs, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/FAQ_TM-510.asp For the phone spec sheet, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/TM-510_phone.asp Imagine taking home a 4.3 oz. wonder that: - is a cell phone that sounds like a land line - has voice activated calling ("say the person's name and the call is dialed for you") WORKS GREAT! - voice recorder for memos as you think of them - easily record your conversation (great if you want to record directions someone is giving you) - calculator - database of country codes - send and receive e-mails (part of Verizon Wireless plans now) "SMS messaging" - scheduler - easy access calendar display - alarm clock - memo pad - internal answering machine - phonebook with cooool T9 dialing (no more extra keypad typing . . . to type the word "bill," you would type 2,4,5,5 and the phone figures out you mean "bill") - web browser (extra monthly fee with Verizon Wireless) - easy locking feature so others can't easily use your phone - great indigo screen inside AND outside the phone (make sure you do not drop phone, as outside indigo screen may break) - durable unit, keypad is well-designed - belt holster that securely holds phone. Takes a little getting used to removing the phone though. - charger is quick with 3 hours recharge. Takes some practice getting the phone clicked in. Phone has great sound. My friends think I'm on a land line. The negatives . . . well, it is a short list. It does not have an alphabetized phonebook that you can bring up and scroll though. You scroll through the list as you put it in. But you click "Find Name" and with the T9 quick text input do a search for the first few letters and then dial your number. I love it, and it is easier than my old Nokia method. As to the manual, I found it sufficient. But it doesn't do a good job on voice dialing. Read the above web sites for info on that. Download the PDF version of the manual from www.lginfocomm.com if you want to see it before you buy the phone. Finally as to negatives, they say it has PC Sync software so that you can transfer your Outlook phone/e-mails . . . but the software is not out yet (as of 8/6/01) and you have to purchase a data connect kit. In October 2001, the TM520 was supposed to come out. It has an alphabetized phonebook. Look at the LG web site (http://www.lginfocomm.com) for more info on this. ENJOY!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87251 2000/8/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 front lcd display various features new technology hard to use for some dropped calls The Bottom LineA good phone and an advancement; however, there are more practical models out there. Full Review I have just recently moved to a new home for my law school work and my new roommate seems to like the Verizon Wireless Company. He has quite a few products from this up-and-comer, and this phone is one that I have been able to use in depth during my month long stay with him. Verizon is aiming to compete with Nokia for the largest share of the mobile phone market and thus far it seems as if they are doing a quality job. Thus far I have noticed that this phone has many advanced features and therefore I must state them as positives. First of all, this phone has tri-mode availability which allows the user to have a greater range of cellular service. Also, it is possible that in the future the two digital frequencies that the phone operates on may be able to be used for internet usage or other such advances that current users may only dream of. Furthermore, this phone is very light with a weight of only 4.2 ounces and can easily fit into a shirt pocket or the pocket of a sportjacket. I do not always find this minute size a plus though with phones, as I have heard of many people misplacing the phones and also have had some difficulty myself pressing the correct buttons because of the size of my hands. Further quality features of this phone which may be more standard include a caller ID feature, a calculator, an alarm clock, a 199 entry phone book, various ring tones, PIM (Personal Information Management) capabilities, and a vibrating ring function. This of course is a needed feature when important calls cannot be missed, but unwanted ringing noises are unnecessary or unwelcome. These positives with regard to this phone are indeed many; however, there are several negatives that I have noticed that need to be contended with. First of all, I have found that the phone may be hard to use for those who are unaccustomed to cell phone use. For example, my roommate had a hard time understanding the instruction manual and also stated that customer service was less than helpful. I also noticed that there may be a problem with dropped calls while using this device. My roommate has complained of calls being oddly dropped on rare occasion and I also had this trouble once for what seemed like no logical reason. All in all, I feel that this is a good phone with many technological advances that are both interesting and cool. The fact is, for practical purposes I have found that Samsung phones generally have performed the best for me, so therefore I cannot give this phone my full recommendation because of the dropped calls and unfriendliness of use. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 87250 2000/2/17 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 rings or vibrates good battery life great size manual inadequate The Bottom Lineoh oh tele-a-phone line... Full Review Granted,Al Pacino in the role of Tony " Scarface " Montana would be slightly less intimidating brandishing the LG-TM510 in some unfortunates face. But, I do believe he would be clearly understood. Sure, a switchblade or a snub nosed revolver can be great communication tools but I doubt if either can match the versatility of the modern cell phone. And the LG-TM510 is quite a versatile phone. This phone can be operated in three modes. You can use analog or two different frequencies of CDMA. Therefore your phone is compatible with a greater variety of cellular carriers. The " LG " does not stand for large. This is a small little phone. It's smaller than most of the cell phones that I'm familiar with and this worried me at first. But even with my ham fisted dialing ( push-buttoning ? ), the LG-TM510 performs well. The little buttons have a tactile rubbery feel and you can feel a positive click when dialing. This little phone from LGIC features many bells and whistles. Well, not really- but it has about everything else! It has a phone book in which you can keep 199 phone numbers. Once you figure it out you can use the voice activated calling feature. Just say the name you want to call and the phone will call them. Like I said, " Once you figure it out...". You can schedule tasks or use the alarm clock. With Verison Wireless you can browse the web for a small fee. This would probably be a great option for some people but I feel challenged enough trying successfully voice dial with my Tennessee twang. One thing to consider is the battery life between rechargings. The lithium battery is good for about three day max. Recharging takes about three hours, so it is good to get in the habit of recharging after work at night or whenever you have a sufficient block of time The sound is one of the main things that sold me on this particular phone. I had used other cell phones back when I was in business and their clarity left much to be desired. The sound quality of this cell phone is very clear. That's great when you are communicating with the grandchildren. Speaking of sound one neat feature that I like is the vibrating option. You can set the phone to vibrate or ring at different levels. The outside screen lets you see who is calling. The call history can store several recent calls so you never have to worry about missing a call if you are otherwise occupied. The phone features a multitude of other features into which I have yet to seriously delve. I find to accompanying manual confusing and have learned much about the operation of this marvel from my daughters and grandchildren. Thanks guys! I've really enjoyed my cell phone. It helps keep me in touch with friends and family. Now that I'm semi-retired I don't have a lot of need for some of the advanced features. But I'm sure that todays business people must look upon the LG-TM510 as a virtual office you can carry wherever you go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87249 2000/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 feature rich looks like motorola v60c inexpensive poorly written manual it s difficult to learn how to do things with this phone The Bottom LineVery good phone, but there are other good ones too. This review will get you started in choosing a phone, but you will still need to compare phones for yourself. Full Review I admit it. I am very vain about cell phones. I didn't start out this way. I originally had my Motorola Flip-Phone for emergencies. Then I had the original Startac for the "I'm running late" calls. Then the Nokia 51XX series phones which turned me into one of those "cell phone people." Then there was the Nokia 8290, which taught me to be vain about cell phones. Yes, there is always a better phone out there, and as soon as you buy your new phone, it is obsolete. My Nokia 8290 died this summer when I tried to change the LCD lights in it. Actually, I had a "professional" doing the work, but my cell phone died in the process. I had my service through Voicestream, and I could not get calls in my own home. Voicestream was a horrible service provider for me. I hoped to get out of my contract with them, but it was $200. It ended up being cheaper (just barely) to pay my monthly bill for a few months, even though I was sans phone, than to pay the cancellation fee. Or I could have bought a new phone, and rode out my contract with Voice Stream. Ack. No way! So now that my contract was almost up, I began shopping for my new phone. My friends still consider my 8290 to be the pinnacle of technologically advanced cell phones. It was great. It was very small, worked somewhat like a PDA, had lots of ring tones and ring settings, and, well, it looked and sounded cool. I needed to top that with something that looks equally cool (and Jetsons like), has a lot of PDA like features (since, I really have no need for a Palm in my every day life, but I could use some of its features), and a really big phone book. Ok, and being as vain as I am about my cells, I wanted one that looked like the newest thing on the market. My friend's cell phone (a Nokia 51XX) also just died. We went phone shopping together. We went around the mall from cellular store to cellular store talking to representatives and looking at phones. One of the stores we went into offered phones through a variety of providers (Nextell, Verizon, SNET, and Voicestream). We asked the rep. which one had the best service, and she revealed that Nextel was the best, but was pricey. Verizon, she said, was the one she would choose, because it has very good service for the least amount of money. Ok, but those reps get a kickback. How do I know that Verizon doesn't give the greatest kickback? Knowing this, I walked into the store featuring Voicestream. I knew I would not buy another phone through Voicestream, since I didn't get much reception anywhere I went in the state of Connecticut. However, I wanted to talk to the rep. I told her I had Voicestream, and I was unhappy with the reception. She admitted that "yes, in your area, I am not surprised you don't get any reception. You will probably do better with Verizon." Aha! There it was. The Voicestream rep actually sent me to Verizon! Went I went to Verizon I was already armed. I had figured out which phone I wanted. I had read the CNET reviews and Epinions, and came full of information and the desire to have the "coolest" phone possible. This, based on my research and in my humble opinion, was the Motorola V60c. I am going to talk a little about this phone first, and there is a reason for that. If you are only looking for info on the LG 510, scroll down and skip this. Motorolla V60c I wanted this phone, because, one more time for the record, I am vain. It was brushed aluminum, so it looked nice. It was small, but had large buttons. It had a large phone book. It had PDA like capabilities, and a web browser. It really looked "cool." It also had a $400 price tag. Ouch. Next to this $400 Motorola phone was its fraternal twin, the LG 510. Meeting the LG 510 Me: This looks a lot like the V60. What is the difference between the two phones, other than the fact that the V60 has a slightly prettier case, and costs $250 more? Rep: You figured out the biggest difference on your own. Me: Ok, tell me about this phone. Rep: Well, first I want you to look at all the Reps here. Most of them wear their phones on their belt clips. We all buy directly from the company [Verizon, is who I think he meant] and get big discounts. Look at what phone most of us are wearing. Me: I see you are wearing this phone. Rep: Yes, everyone owns this phone, except our newest employee, who bought this phone down here since it was the cheapest. Anyway, my point is that most of us had a choice. We all could have bought the V60c, but we chose this phone instead. This phone has a lot of features you will love. [He picked up on my vanity already.] Not only does it look cool, but it has a lot of features. You can program in 199 different names and each name can have up to five different numbers, such as home, mobile, office, fax, and email. You can also set it so that when different people call you, it rings differently. So, Mom can get one ring, and your boyfriend can get another, and your friends can have yet another ring. That way, if you are doing something important, you can decide whether or not to take the call. Beyond that, this phone has caller ID [what phone doesn't?]. On most of the Startacs, the caller ID is only inside the phone. Now, on this phone, it's on the outside too. So you don't need to open the phone to know who is calling. To my surprise, my friend who was looking for a relatively inexpensive phone on the other side of the store picked up the same phone and received a similar pitch. Ok, so that was the pitch, but there must be more Yes, there is so much more to this phone. The salesperson picked up on the fact that I have been getting new cell phones every year for the past three years. That screams vanity, and he also picked up on my age, so I got all the features based on that explained to me. He missed a few of the things that I found to be even more important. PDA like features The first thing I found on my phone once I got it home was the calendar setting. It keeps track of over 40 appointments and events for you. My 8290 had this feature, but I was not expecting it on my new phone. This phone also has web browser capabilities. You need to pay extra, I believe it is $6.95 a month through Verizon to get this service. I ordered it on my phone; however, I cannot get it to work, so I cannot comment on this feature. I will be calling to cancel it soon. Basic Set-up I got the phone "home" (well, to my friend's house, who bought the same phone) and plugged the puppy in. I began to charge it. By the time we were ready to go out that night it was fully charged. The charge was complete after less than three hours. When our phones were charged, we began customizing them. I changed my ringer to "Silver Bells" and set it to both ring, and vibrate. The ring and vibrate function threw me for a loop. My 8290 had this feature, and it would both ring and vibrate at the same time. I used this setting most of the time because if I am some place loud I won't hear my phone, but I will feel it vibrate. If the phone is not on me, I won't feel the vibrations, but I will hear it ring. I thought this setting was broken on my phone, because incoming call after incoming call, it only vibrated. I finally realized it needed to vibrate two times before it would ring. I find this annoying. I also changed this display of my phone from the Verizon logo to a star field with the horoscope sign for the month at hand displayed. It's nice, but I wish I could download logos. What I've enjoyed about my phone It looks nice. It has an adequate number of ring tones, and I can set different ring tones for important people in my life. Caller id is on the front and inside of the phone, and has a blue indiglo display. No dropped calls so far (and I've traveled through several counties since getting my phone without any problems anywhere). The phone book hold a lot of numbers -- 199 names with 4 numbers and one email address per name. That's almost 1000 entries! The calendar is readily available, and it is easy to leave entries on your calendar. What I don't like I couldn't get on the web, even though I paid the monthly fee so I could. Phone book is not readily available (unlike my Nokias), and it is not alphabetical. You can search for names by typing in part of the name, but this is a million times more work than my Nokia. Very distracting while driving, in fact, this phone in general isn't the best to drive with, unless you set up the voice dial features. It does not have an intuitive design at all. It's slightly better than the design of a Startac, but not much better. It doesn't even compare to the idiot-proof Nokias. Beyond its less than perfect design, the manual is horrible. You will probably learn things on the phone itself through trial and error. The battery life is not that good. It only gives you about 2-3 hours of talk time, so you will need to charge it daily. They made me pay $30 more to get the silver one than the ugly black one. I'd prefer a smaller phone. This one is about as large as a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes. If I could get a phone small enough to fit on my keychain, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Some people prefer the size of this phone, however, because it is small, but not so small that it is difficult to use the buttons. Predictive Text. They use this as a selling point, but honestly, it is the worst feature ever. Say you want to enter a person's name, such as Hollie. You type the "H" and it tries to guess the word you are spelling. If it gets it right, it saves you keystrokes. It rarely gets the word right. It tries "Hi, Hello, Home" etc. It's annoying, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. I can't find a way to permanently turn it off either, so every time I type something, I have to remember to turn this "feature" off first. Bottom Line This phone is of above average quality, but I wish I had a Nokia. Nokia would have definitely had my sale if they weren't still pushing last year's phones. In some ways, it's a step up from my 8290, but in others, it's a step down. It was worth its price, overall. However, it seems like a phone designed by engineers rather than by users. In every facet of its design, I'd rate it higher than a Startac. In the aspect of style and features, I'd rate it higher than a Nokia. As far as ease of use, however, it lags far behind a Nokia. So, my personal recommendation is that you get to a store, and check out a Nokia 82XX series, and this LG TM510. They are both high quality phones. Their performance will depend on how good your provider is, however, so make sure you are dealing with a company that comes in well in your area. I also recommend you find out if the company has a trial policy. Verizon will let you cancel your service within 15 days if you are not satisfied. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87248 2002/2/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact clear fancy excellent phone less features than cheaper phones not cheap The Bottom LineThe LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is Very Attractive, Compact, Clear Reception, Clam Shell design, Durable, Voice dialing is excellent. Great Phone. Little costly. Full Review Just like my Title says The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is a Fancy Compact Expensive Cell Phone. I will give you a full detail of The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone and my opinion on all. At this time I do not believe that The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is a very popular phone at this point. I have had mine for about 6 months. We have 2 Cell Phones in our house and I will be writing a review of both. One is this The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone and the other is a Nokia 5185i. You can see my review of the Nokia 5185i at this link. OK now on to The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone. Our LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone Kit it came with: 1. The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone itself....nice little fancy compact phone 2. Standard Li-lon Battery (950mAh)...normal battery. You can buy an extended life battery to go with this phone. But it charges up so quickly that we did not have to buy the extended life battery. 3. Desktop Charger.....this is a very nice charger. Phone sits upright to charge and the is a indicator light. Red Light tells you it is charging and when it turns green it is fully charged. Brand new battery or totally dead battery takes only 3 hours to charge. 4. Adaptor......this is the power cord for the charger. 5. User Guide.....User Manual to tell you everything about the phone and how it works and the features. 6. Simple Holster.....this is a great holster for the phone. It is plastic and the phone slips in alittle cup and hooks on the top of the phone and has a big clip on the back for hooking on to your purse or pants. With The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone we really did not need much extra to add on. We did add on these items: 1. Hands free kit.......ear piece with switch that allows you to use your phone and not have to hold it to your ear. 2. Car Charger.....plugs in to your cigarette lighter to charge phone. We use this for long trip. It takes 5 hours charging in the cigarette lighter for a new or totally dead battery to charge. There are also these Optional items you can purchase for your LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone: 1. Hands free adaptor that is permanently installed in your car. Or like us you can get the portable. 2. Data Cable Kit. This allows you to connect to your PC. 3. Hand Strap. You can use this instead of the clip style. The size of The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is 3 inches long and 1 3/4 inches wide. It is a nice compact phone. The Antenna 1 inches above the top of the phone and extends to a total of 3 1/2 inches high. The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone has alot of features but our Nokia 5185i has a few different or more features. Here are the major features of The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone: 1. Clam Shell Design This is the design of the phone and it is a great design. The phone opens and closes like a Clam Shell. When the phone rings just open it and when you want to disconnect just close the phone. 2. Lamp This is a red light located on the outside of the phone and will light up when you turn your phone on and when a have a call or message. Nice and bright. 3. LCD Screens This phone has 2 LCD Screens. It has one on the front of the clam shell case that displays the date and time, signal strength, computer, battery level and will display the phone number of your incoming call and then the time on phone. The second screen is located inside the clam shell and it displays all of the above plus you can change it to a theme such as your sign like pisces, leo, scorpio, etc. It also shows the day of the week. Also display Menu, email and Phone book for the buttons below it. Outside screen is 1/4 inch by 1 inch. Inside Screen is 1 1/4 inches by 1 1/2 inches. 4. Mouse Key This key allows for quick access to Text and voice messages, Calendar, Outgoing Call Log and Find a Name phonebook. 5. Side Volume Keys These keys are on the left side of the outside of the phone and allows you to adjust the volume of the phone. This phone has great volume. I have a hearing impairment and I can adjust the volume to where I can hear with no problems. 6. Manner Mode This is to mute your phone so it does not ring. It will display on the LCD screen and light will light up. Just no tone ringing. 7. Protected Key Pad The key pad is protected because it is located inside the clam shell case. You open it and there is your keys. So no more worrying about keys getting pushed while in your pocket or purse. 8. Lock Mode You do not need to lock your key to protect them from accidentally be pressed like in your purse because it is protected by the clam shell case. This feature allows you to program a code so that no one can place a call unless they have the code. Like if the kids get ahold of it and start pressing the buttons, nothing will happen. You can also lock the keys without a code and just turn your phone off and back on again to reset. 9. Call forwarding feature. You can have your calls from home or work or from another cell phone set up to go to your Cell phone. So you never have to miss a call again. This is an extra cost but most plans do include this 10. Call Waiting This may also be an extra cost depending on your plan. But if you have call waiting you just push the send button to retrieve your second call and than push again to get back to your other call. 11. Muting the Microphone feature. This helps when you are in a busy place and can't hear because the noise around you. You can mute the microphone and only hear the caller now. 12. Last Number Redial and Automatic redial features Helps if you get disconnected and quick reconnect. Your last 10 phone numbers are stored for easy re-dial. 13.Large Phone Book. You can store up to 198 phone numbers on this phone. 14.One-Touch Dialing This features enables you to store your most frequently used numbers. You can store up to 8 numbers. 1 to 8 on keypad. Then to make the call you just press the number down and then press send and it will dial number. This is very nice feature and easy. 15. Two-Touch Dialing This is like a speed dialing from your phone book. You program your phone numbers to a 2 digit number and than when you want to call you press first and second number and send to dial. You can store numbers from keys 10 to 99. This feature is OK but lots of numbers to remember. 16.Three-Touch Dialing. This allows you to store your numbers to a 3 digit number and to dial you push the first and second number and then hold the 3rd key down and it will dial. You can store numbers from 100 to 199. I don't really care for this feature. Again way to many numbers to try to remember. Easier just to go thru the phone book. 17. 911 feature. You can set you #9 number key on your phone to call 911 by just holding it down. This is a great feature for emergency situations. 18. Voice Dialing. This feature is the best feature they have come up with. You can program up to 20 numbers in voice dialing. Easy to program. And once it is program all you do is push the clear button and it will say "Name Please" and you say the name of the person and it will dial the number. I have mine programmed like "Work" "Home" "Mom". I love this feature. 19. Scheduler Feature. This feature allows you to maintain your agenda. You program your schedule and it will come up and let you know when you have something going on or you can check it daily yourself. 20. Clock and Alarm Clock feature. Can you display the time on you screen so you don't have to worry if you forget you watch and you can set the alarm clock to alert you to a time. 21. Ringer Feature You can select for your phone to ring only, light only, vibrate only, ring and light, light and vibrate or ring, vibrate and light altogether. 22. Ringer Type This let you pick the type of ring you want. This phone only has 27 different choices. 23. Area Code Feature. This feature is listed under Utility section on the menu and listed every country area codes. 24. Calculator Feature This feature is a calculator. 25. Mini Browser This feature allows you to connect to the web with ease. Just push a button and it will dial it up for you. This is an extra charge feature that you need to add on to your plan. You can send and receive emails and browse the web. Computer away from home. 26. Voice Message feature. Just like an answering machine, you leave a message for the caller that you are unavailable and to leave a message and it will record their message. You than can than retrieve your missed call messages. IMPORTANT.....Most people also don't know that when you use your Cell phone to call and retrieve your messages you are actually using your minutes so if you get alot of missed calls and have to call alot for your messages, you may want to do it from a regular phone unless you have alot of minutes to use up. 27. Text Message feature. You can send a text message if the person has this feature to accept text messages. 28. Language Settings feature. You can choose what language you want. You can only choose from English and Spanish. 29. Screen Banner You can change the letters of the banner on the LCD Screen. You can type you name or Hello or what ever you want you phone to say when you look at the screen. 30. Email Address feature. This allows you to save email addresses right on your phone. This feature is great when you are away from your own computer and what to use someone elses to email someone. 31. Checking Available Time feature. You can check how many minutes you have left to use on your phone so you don't go over and have to pay the sinful rates they charge for going over your minutes. What The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone does not have: 1. Games 2. Programmable Calling Card Feature 3. Can not change face plate 4. No snooze on alarm clock 5. Message alert feature. No separate tone for missed calls. 6. Ring not as loud as our Nokia 5185i The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone comes with complete instructions in the user guide. The guide is printed in English and Spanish. This user guide is more complex than our Nokia 5185i. It takes some time to figure out a few of the options with The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone. The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is a very lightweight. It weighs about 4 1/2 oz. It is very attractive looking. It is very compact and able to fit in small purses and in your pocket. Clam Shell design allows you to protect your keys and answer the phone by just opening it. Clam Shell design protects you inside LCD Screen. I get clear reception all the time with The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone. I get a strong signal and battery life time is great. I usually don't have to charge my battery for 3 days. Battery charges up faster than our Nokia 5185i phone. The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is another phone that I recommend for anyone with a hearing problems because the volume can be raised on the outside of the phone and the volume is very loud. I find that The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone is very durable. I have dropped mine a few times and not a scratch on it. I have used it for 6 months of daily use and it still looks like brand new from the box. I really enjoy The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone for the clam shell design and the voice dialing. This phone is not given away free with any plans. The phone is costly. We paid 199.99 for our phone and that is what seems to be the going rate on The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone Now when choosing a phone, you have to decide what you want your phone to do and the price you want to pay. Now that you have read this review on The LG Electronics/ Goldstar LG-TM510 Cell Phone ........you may want to read my review on our Nokia 5185i Cell Phone and you can find that review at this web address or look under my other reviews. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 87247 2001/7/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial indiglo blue lcd great reception browser outer id screen variable vibrate alert small it gets in the way oddly large antenna The Bottom LineTime will tell how good it really is. For now, I am very impressed with this phone. Many features, good quality, great phone! Full Review Introduction I have had three cell phones previous to this unit, all were Nokias. They were all good phones, but (previous to the 8200s and 8800s) they were all rather large and heavy. I had long stayed away from clamshells simply because they seemed to have a penchant for breaking. The TACs have been around a long time, and seem to be better than they have been in the past in regard to durability, but I still find the interface to be difficult and I didn't like the style. I wanted to leave Voicestream (EVIL!!!) in the dust and go with a new company and a new phone. Previously I had a Nokia 5190 and was looking for a 8200 series Nokia or small clamshell. I went with Verizon this time and got 2400 minutes for $40. They made it very easy, see my review for more on them. Of course I have locked myself into a one year contract, but if the service stays this good, I will be with them for much longer. I want to point out to those who may not be aware, LG is Kyocera (Korea), this is per the CSR at Verizon. FYI, my phone is not grey/silver w/ a green screen, its actually black with a very attractive indiglo blue screen color. Mine also has a inverted trianglular badge featuring the Verizon name just above the little outer screen. Features This phone is packed with them! It is a tri-mode phone and has all the obvious features a phone in this day should. Of course there is a 199 slot phonebook (5 entries each), which is a little harder to access than the 5190, but I am getting used to it. An alarm (wake up) is standard as is a calendar, calculator, easy to use voicemail, sound, and display section that are all very user friendly. It also features a useful scheduler with reminders, and a very well thought out nav button. The available ring options are comparable in quantity to Nokia, but without the ability to download new ones, so far. The loudest ring isn't nearly as loud as my Nokia, so I have missed calls, but its not a big deal, the screen on the outside makes it easy to check for calls without talking the phone out of its holster, much like a pager. The vibrate option is variable in strength and goes from subtle to fierce. I never used to be able to feel my pager when it was on vibrate. I have no problem feeling this phone, even in the holster, which is quite easy to use and secures the phone easily and firmly, similar to a pager holster. The alarm and schedule reminders are great features to have! I use the phone as an alarm clock now, though unlike the Nokia it doesn't have a nice little snooze feature, oh well. There are also special rings that you can assign to calls from people in your phonebook. This is useful because you can tell who it is without having to find a hidden phone in a panic, which is convenient if you hear the ring. This phone also features a myriad of call back and wait options. One has choices from how often (every 10, 20, 30 secs) to call back to how many rings to allow before an auto answer. Again, the screen on the front of the unit (when closed), comes in useful here by allowing the user to view the callers name (if in memory) to the number, signal strength, network, battery, time, and date. Wow! I haven't really touched on the browser features because I simply don't use it. I know how it works, and its not bad in theory, but I would be hard pressed to see a time when I couldn't just make a call to get whatever info I needed. Anyway, folks who really need a good browser that bad will be going for Palm units or combo PDA/phone units in my opinion. The call history has room for ten numbers, which is nice because occasionally you may not know whatever number it is by heart, but may have made a few calls since. The messaging isn't free, but it's easy to use if necessary. As mentioned, the voicemail is easy to use and the displays make it simple to go where you need to quickly. I don't like the fact I that I have to enter a code every time, but I'm getting used to it. The long and short is that there are more key stokes per action than my Nokias, in some cases. Battery and Accessories The battery is 7.5 mm thick and very light. I was very careful to open it and charge it fully for the first 3 charges. Since then I have had great performance. I charge about every day or so, usually while I sleep. It only takes three hours to charge fully. I get very good talk time for the most part. A day full of talking can do in the battery, but I usually get about two days. Its not so bad, but I will probably get a second battery, probably the larger style, just to have. The store where I bought this still doesn't have any LG accessories in yet and I just haven't made it to the Radio Shack yet, but I need a car charger. I also want a home slow charger, so I can talk when my battery goes dead at home. Unfortunately the handsfree kit I got with my Nokia does not fit my LG, so I will want to get one for the future. There are many kits available online that are far more comfy than the in-the-ear models and sound better too. I haven't decided if I will do that or run it through car stereo, hardwired. We'll see. Fit and Finish This phone seems a little flimsy, though I have had it a full two months and it hasn't broken, nor does it seem like it will break soon. Nokias, to me at least, instilled a sense of sturdiness...or maybe it because I abused them so severely and they still worked. It has a strong clamshell spring and closes easily. Opening it one handed takes some getting used to, and seems to put undue stress on the hinge. The lenses on the screens seem soft, but of good quality build and I haven't scratched them yet. I have consistently heard that clamshells break. I have had friends with TACs that have had them for years, problem free, I hope the same will prove true with this LG. I have no reason to think it won't, it is holding up well and I don't always baby it. Dislikes As mentioned, the ring could be louder. The alarm is also rather timid. I like riding with my windows down, even during the summer, with my stereo up, especially on the highway. When I am doing this I am virtually assured of missing a call unless the phone is ON me and on vibrate. It's a nuisance, but not too bad. For the most part it's never too much of a big deal unless the battery is almost dead, more reason to buy a second. The antenna is somewhat large for a phone of such diminutive stature. I am hoping I will be able to find an aftermarket antenna that is a little shorter and has a good bright LED, but all attempts so far have been fruitless. The aftermarket custom parts market is so large for some other phones (Nokia specifically), I am hoping this model will catch on, but at this price, it may take a while. Many Nokia 5190s were free w/ contract, talk about guaranteed market share! Other than these nags, I really like this phone and all its features. It's small, light, and easy to use and is still new enough to prompt a little conversation. What more could you ask for, it works. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $150 7689 LG Electronics/ Goldstar TM-510 87336 2004/5/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight still competitive with its ahead of its time battery life trimode inability to communicate with pc s I first bought this phone in 2001. The LG TM-510 does not have all the bells and whistles that seem to sell most modern phones, but it is still comparable to all of them with respect to battery life, size and weight. This phone was truly ahead of its time in 2001. And even though it doesn't take pictures, sport polyphonic/downloadable ringtones, offer games, or any other recent features, its Tri-mode capabilities STILL make it the best phone on the market. Even now, 3 years after I purchased it, it looks like a new phone. OH...and one more thing, as a working contractor, this phone takes an amazing amount of abuse...3 years...think about it. 87335 2004/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 extremely durable compact great reception external called id phonebook not alphabetized limited ring tones I am on my second LG510 (first one is at the bottom of our local lake) and considering I bought a replacement of the same phone when others were available says a lot for this little phone. I seldom have problem with reception on this phone and its menus and everyday use is easily navigable. The battery life is consistent and typical. My only complaints are that the phone book does not alphabetize (are they crazy) and the ringtones are limited (not too big of deal.) Overall the durability of this phone surpassed my expectations and has survived moisture, numerous drops, and mistreatment and still fully operational. 87334 2000/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small size only 1 real ring tone heavy weight for its size difficult to access names numbers The Bottom LineThis phone would be good if you did not need to access numbers in your phonebook often. It is relatively small and inexpensive, but not worth the headaches! Full Review I purchased this LG TM 510 because it was one of the 2 "small" phones that Verizon currently has to offer. The price for the other small phone offered (Motorola v60)was over $400. I chose to spend about $160 for the LG. It is very time consuming to find the name & number of the person you want to call. It takes on average, 10 different keypad strokes to find the number you want to call. This problem alone, causes me to not recommend the phone. The phone is very heavy for its small size. I had trouble with this because I was used to the lightweight Nokia 8290 (Cingular). There is only one ringtone that is useable. All other ring tones are "songs." However, the sound/call quality of the phone is excellent. The menu functions, other than the "PHONEBOOK" are easy to use. The backlight display is bright. This phone would be almost perfect if it were not for the headaches caused by the poor "PHONEBOOK" number access. For this reason, I would not recommend the LG-tm 510. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 87333 2002/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great display excellent backlight voice dialing speech clarity connectivity t9 confuses me the phonebook is a little clumsy very small when closed The Bottom LineThis is a good phone for people needing reliable and flexible communications while working on the road. Full Review I bought this as an upgrade phone for my Verizon service... finally getting rid of the Nokia 5185 that came free. The Nokia has some nice features (the phonebook) but was really not a very good phone. This TM510 is amazing: 1-bar on the signal strength meter and no problem in making calls and being understood... that was NOT the case with the 5185. The display is very easy to read (for these 55-year-old eyes) and the "Indiglo" backlighting is excellent in the dark. When closed, there is a display on the cover (which is also backlit) that shows date and time, signal and battery strength, and it is a CallerID when a call comes in. That's important because the phone answers when you open the cover. You can add a "voice tag" to 20 or so numbers which makes it easy to dial by just speaking a word or two. I also made the purchase of a "Connectivity Kit" for $40 which includes a cable and software that turns the phone into a wireless modem for my laptop... yes, on Verizon... no it's not GSM. I can Fax and check my email (slowly) and it only goes against my minutes! I also downloaded the LG-Desktop from their website (for $13) which allows phonebook synchronization to Outlook through the same serial cable. WOW! So far, I am VERY pleased. The only downside is the phonebook and the T9 text entry, but it is easy to switch to regular text entry with the press of 1 button. I also like the ability to record conversation. If someone is about to give me a phone number or address while I'm driving, I have them hold on a second, press a couple of buttons, record it and then play it back and write it down later, when I'm stopped. And, by the way, working with independent dealers is the way to go --- I got my TM510 for $75 with a 2-year contract extension. Seemed like a good deal to me. Yes? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87332 2000/2/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice recognition indiglo backlight display memory size 2 screens alarm must be set with 24hour clock phonebook can get used to it The Bottom LineI would totally recommend this phone. It is perfect! You can't get better quality for the price. Full Review The LG510 is by far the best phone that I have experienced. I have had everything from Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola but nothing compares to this phone. Initially, I was hesitant with a LG/Goldstar phone, not knowing much about the company but overall I am very happy with my purchase. The two indiglo screens are perfect! With the screen on the outside you can check who's calling without opening the phone (as I had to do with the Samsung 850). If it's a call you want to receive just open the phone, otherwise send the call to voicemail. Although the phone is slightly thicker than the Motorola, the overall size is very appealing. It fits perfectly in the hand. The voice recognition is very sweet. It doesn't make a mistake and being able to recognize 20 numbers is more than enough. Special rings - Wow are there ringtones. You can specify a special ring for incoming calls that are in your phonebook. 200 phone memory added to that you can have several numbers per location (even an email/notes section per location). The phone book takes a while to get used to but a shortcut (if you can call it that) to access the phone book is by pressing: menu 2, then 2, then menu 1, and menu 1 again. to display your phone book. Overall, I am very happy with the phone. The manufacturer made some very thoughtful (but slight) innovations. For instance, the plug for the headset is indented for easy removal or the buttons are slightly raised (to make it easier to dial). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87331 2002/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small good reception decent voice dial very sturdy light poor manual phone book does not alphabetize oem battery life a bit short The Bottom LineNo problems, but only use the manual in a pinch and buy an extra cheap battery. Full Review This phone is extremely sturdy. I have dropped it about half a dozen times (in a leather case) and not even a scratch. It is light, small, reliable and has very good reception (often almost as good as a land line). The volume is fine at the highest setting, but I would like the phone's ring to be a bit louder (not bad though). As long as two entries don't "sound" similar, the voice-dial is rather good. The phone book system is difficult at first (at least until you figure out to select the "English" option and not the default - where it tries to guess what you are trying to type). It does not alphabetize. The manual was certainly not written by native English speakers OR non engineers, but the phone is not hard to figure out (and a manual that makes sense is on-line). The battery the phone comes with tends to last only about two days (36 hours) per charge with moderate (20 min/day) usage in Manhattan (based on what seems to be a significantly higher power usage on stand-by working on a high floor). Figure an extra day when I am working from a lower floor. LG manufactured batteries are expensive (about $60), but the cheap ($15 with shipping) ones sold on www.newegg.com work fine. I have a 1200mAH one from them, and it lasts 3-4 days per charge with moderate usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 87330 2000/9/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated extremely compact standard jacks web enabled can set rings durable not bluetooth compatible can t download rings awkward to look up numbers by name The Bottom LineI would probably buy this phone again, but I'd take a look at new technology first. Full Review I bought this phone about a year ago when I moved. The two main things I wanted were compactness and long battery life. At first, I was leery of buying the phone because I wasn't familiar with the LG name (although I would have recognized Goldstar). The salesperson dissuaded me from going with some phones from several names I was more familiar with -- Nokia, Audiovox, and Motorola. I really wanted a small phone and because this one had an equivalent battery life to larger models, I bought it. I has much longer talk and standby time than that of the Qualcomm I used to own, and don't even talk about the Nokia brick I bought in the mid-1990s! Telephone technology has come a long way. I really like that it has standard input jacks. I've bought several headsets for it. Also, since the connection for recharging the battery is separate from the headphone adaptor, I can recharge while I have a headset on. I often will recharge the lithium ion battery in the car and use the headset for conversations. I've dropped the phone numerous times and while it's scratched up, it still runs perfectly well. I like the phone's voice activation, which may have been designed as a safety feature, but works more as a convenience or even just something jazzy to have. While it's easy to record a person's name and dial using the voice activation, it's not so easy to look up someone up by name. My previous phone had a much simpler interface. People who want to use the latest short distance wireless will be disappointed because it has neither Bluetooth nor even infrared. The former because of the phone's age and the latter probably to save space. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87329 2000/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 features size clarity goodbye message when shutting off phone headset jack inputting phone numbers The Bottom LineA phone with great clarity and portability, but a risky investment if you're planning to use a headset. Full Review I purchased my first LG 510 about a year and a half ago, and have been getting service through Verizon Wireless. That brand new phone lasted two whole days. What happened was, the phone froze when I was shutting it down - If you have this phone (or perhaps this phone with Verizon service) you know about the little smiley face icon that shows up before shutting down, complete with annoying music. Well, that unnecessary feature caused an unfixable error with the phone's chip, and I had it replaced with a new LG 510 immediately. I had the second LG 510 until last November. And had few complaints about the phone. The clarity of my phone conversations was excellent, the battery lasted a while, the phone was compact and easy to carry around in my pocket. But in November, I tried to use the phone with my headset plugged in one day, and the microphone wasn't working. I thought it was a problem with the headset, but when I tried to use the phone without it, I quickly discovered that I could only hear the person on the other end of the line, but she couldn't hear me. So I took the phone into Verizon, and got it replaced yet again, this time with a refurbished model (which LG stands by). That phone lasted until July, before the same problem occurred. According to the technical service rep at Verizon, the phone just couldn't handle everyday usage of a headset plugged into it - the jack was visibly corrupted (as was with the last phone), and I needed to replace it yet again. I was upset to learn that I actually had to pay $50 for another refurbished phone this time since it was out of warranty (that's a whole other issue), but reluctantly did pay because the cost of cell phones has gotten a bit out of hand. So far, this phone is working phone. Knock on wood. My time spent with this phone has been frustrating - having a phone with amazing reception is a rarity, but I am appalled by the fragility of the equipment - that such a minor thing as using a headset could cause the equipment to break down so quickly and easily. Other gripes about the phone... I can't stand trying to type something in, and having the default setting be on this weird feature called 'Tg Eng', where it attempts to automatically complete a word for you when you begin typing (i.e. typing in 'T-H' for 'Thomas' and it automatically types in 'The'). It's a very unnecessary feature, as most information being input into a phone is proper names, not sentences and phrases. It's cumbersome to have to switch to this feature every time. Also, since I've had the fourth phone, the battery has been running out a lot more quickly. Not sure why. But I'm sticking with this phone until my 'New-Every-Two' plan runs out, and then I can get a new phone that hopefully is a little less problematic than this one has been. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 87328 2000/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 value track record features reliability battery life The Bottom LineTake it from an insider - the 510 stacks up more than favorably against any Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson, or Kyocera out there! Full Review I should begin by mentioning that I am an accounts representative for Verizon Wireless and have been with the company for almost six years. I feel that this gives me a qualified position to comment on the track records of various phones that we sell with the LG TM-510 currently one of our hottest products. I personally carry the LG V-111 and the Motorola Startac myself, which both get between 5,000 and 10,000 minutes of use per month. From the feedback I've receieved from my customers combined with my own experience with the TM-510, I would love to get my hands on one of these phones for myself. Allow me to begin by saying that the 510 is one of the most trouble free phones I am currently selling. I have yet to sell one and hear complaints about it, which, given the volume of the phones that I sell, is more than just a run of good luck. Several of my customers have transitioned from the StarTac to the 510 and have been very pleased. The 510 adds the convenience of voice activated dialing, external caller id, user friendliness, and more memory storage locations. I hear mixed feedback regarding the battery life of the unit, which is why I mentioned that as a potential "con". Some claim that they go four days at a time with light usage between charges, while others voice the need to recharge daily. Either way, it really isn't anything different than what I hear about any model. I certainly wouldn't let it prevent you from purchasing the phone. What I personally like about the 510 is the combination of the small size and the included features. I have yet to see another phone compete with the 510 for the money. The going rate is anywhere between $135 and $150 in most cases. The phone provides very good signal strength, of course dependent on the area you're in and the availability of immediate towers, and performance. The interface of the phone to the various functions is user friendly and easy to navigate as well. The only "complaint" I've heard regarding the 510, if you can call it that, is one customer that didn't like that fact that he had to open the phone and hit "Send" to answer a call with his headset connected. The StarTac has a "smart button" that allows you to answer an incoming call even with the phone closed. Somewhat pointless in my opinion, given the fact that you can't see who's calling without opening the StarTac up! To each their own, I suppose. Aside from that one comment, as I mentioned previously, this has been a top performer in terms of customer feedback. Overall, anyone that is open to a phone in this price range, can't do better than the Logic TM-510. In comparison with the dozen or more models that we carry, I would highly recommend this unit to anyone interested in a small, feature rich, and high perfoming CDMA phone! Recommended: Yes 87327 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lcd on the frontvoice command pain in the tush to type in names The Bottom LineIts is a great phone to have. It is also software upgradeable. Full Review After analyzing various cellular companies (Verizon, AT&T, Voicesteam, etc...) I ended up going with Verizon because AT&T wanted a $200 deposit. However, regardless of the service I selected the LG 510 for a few reasons. One I already ruled out Audiovox (they make garbage), there are 3 different Motorola's 2 of which were cheap and ugly which left me with LG so I decided the 510. It is a nice little phone. While folded up it literally fits in the palm of my hand (and I have a small hand). After a 5 1/2 hr power up for the first time it lit up with a beautiful indigo backlight. It has an annoying greeting but what the hey. Features: It has a colander and date book. It's nice for those who don't have a PDA. Voice command is rather neat. It can store 192 names and about 10 with the voice command. It also has a calculator. Usage: The menus are easy to go through. The biggest problem is typing in name for your phone book. When typing it tries to form names for you and it is weird as to how to select the letters you want to use. You will be trying several times till you get the name you want. Hey it took me four times till I was able to write the word 'Mom'. After that it is all down hill. The voice command was a little difficult to set up. First you need to train it which is a snap. Here is the kicker to get the voice command to run you need to either A) select manual and press the clear button B) Auto and press the clear button in the voice setup menu. Ring Tones: It gives you a numerous amount of ring tones. Some are ok most are garbage (but that is me). Accessories: It comes with the plastic belt clip which is good because it is a good one. For hands free you will need a 2.5mm head set which is easy to get and they are cheaper than ones that are specifically made for a particular phone. I think I explained everything. If not I'm sorry. Have a good one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87326 2000/2/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use flip phone style battery life with the included battery The Bottom LineSo easy to use, I had my mom and grandma making calls the first try. Full Review Okay, I admit it -- our needs in a cell phone are way more basic than most. We bought 2 TM510s as part of a Verizon family plan. We needed phones to call each other, in place of pay phones, and occasionally to have someone we really wanted to reach us. We only use the basic features -- setting up the phone list for the #s you push and hold down to call, switching btwn ring & vibrate, customizing our rings, and returning calls using the call history menu - all easy to do without pulling out the manual. There are other features we've explored but don't commonly use, but navigation is easy enough to find things even if you've forgotten where. Why do we pull these 2 phones out and show them to all our friends? 1) Easy, easy, easy to use! We used to fumble for the cell phone when it rang, then fumble to find the talk button. Now we just fumble for the phone, flip it open and say "hello". Wow, does it make a difference! Remember when we all used to use phones at home? It would ring and we'd pick it up. Pushing buttons was reserved for when you had the luxury of time when dialing, not trying to answer. Now even on the road, a phone rings, we just flip it open. Better yet, to hang up - no buttons, just flip. Cool. 2) the buttons are covered by the flip phone when not in use. No more bumped buttons while in pockets, no more carrying cases needed. We keep laughing at the few times our brother's phone has been bumped and we listen to 5 minutes of random conversation from his pocket. 3) when it rings, the little viewscreen on the outside shows the number before we flip it open. If it's someone I don't want to talk to, or I forgot to turn off the ringer, I just push the bottom button on the outside without ever opening the phone. It stops ringing and sends the call to voicemail. When the phone's powered but not in use, the outer display shows the date and time (and battery life & a couple of other teeny icons). My husband's stopped wearing a watch and just looks at his phone :). Really. 4) nice navigation system. Getting around this phone's features is a piece of cake. Even for us VCR-challenged types. There's the keypad, send, end/power, clear, and a select button on the top left and top right. A four direction arrow-pad complements the select buttons. For text input, I simply could not figure out the T9 system on my own (i.e. without the manual), but somehow keep getting the right buttons to get it to "regular English" mode which makes putting text in slow but straightforward. I was happy to customize the banner that shows on the inside screen from "Verizon" to my name. 5) size. Yep, they're right, it's thick. While I don't have a ruler right in front of me, it looks to be a good inch & a quarter or so. But I'll take that because it's so short and compact otherwise. It fits okay in my pocket -- noticeably though. Oh well, can't have everything. At least it *fits* in my pocket and I don't have to wear it on my belt... 6) battery life. Now here's my gripe. I'm online right now ordering the bigger-charged battery. The one that came with the phone says "200 hrs of standby and 180 mins of talk." Wull now that's supposed to be three hours worth. My husband never runs out with his light usage. Most times it's fine for me, with moderate usage. But on my busy days there have been several times that my battery ran out and my phone cheerfully said "Good Bye" - and I *know* I'm not talking more than an hour & a half to two at the most, lots of calls under ten minutes. This is a very important point of having a cell phone! I suppose I could buy a second battery and switch midday, but I'd lose all my calling history and the ability to return calls when I don't know their #. But all and all, I think I've found the phone I'll keep. If they ever make it skinnier and longer-lived, I'll switch. ps - they had two flip models at Verizon, black and silver. I chose the black and am glad I did - the black hasn't shown any of its scratches or abuse... except on the silver Verizon logo Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159 87325 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact durable sharp looks easy of use thick size battery life The Bottom LineA great phone you can carry around in your pocket! Full Review I came across Verizon's LG510 while looking to switch prepay plan as I was unsatisfied with AT&T's change in its prepay plan. Having shopped around at various plans, I basically chose Verizon as it currently has the best prepay plan out there. But thats just the service and this review is about the phone... Having the compact Nokia 8260 already, I was looking for a Verizon phone that can match its compactability. In general, most of the phones have the same features like text messaging, different ring tones, vibrate feature, web browsing...etc., and I ended up narrowing it down to either the LG TM510 or the Motorola V60. Since the Motorola was much more expensive, it was a no brainer that I chose the LG510 instead. Here are the pros for the LG TM150: 1) Aesthetically pleasing. Simply put, it looks sharp! Especially with the extra LCD in the front of the phone. It also feels solid. 2) Large Display. The display is nice and big, and with its ice cool blue backlight display it makes it easy to read too. 3) Ease of use. With no special buttons/procedures to learn, navigating through the menus is easy. The buttons are nice, big and easy to read. 4) Extra features. Other than the basic features that comes with every phone, the LG510 comes with a special voice recognition feature where you can basically program your voice to make a call. -The phone also has a T9 text recognition when you're typing either a text message or recalling a name from the phone book. -It also has a web browser, but since I'm not inclined to use the service, I can't review it. Here are the cons I have with this phone: 1) Thickness. The size when folded, is surprisingly smaller than my Nokia 8260, but is evidently much thicker than my Nokia. I'm sure I'll get used to it bulging a little bit more in my pants than with the Nokia. 2) Battery life. The battery's standby/talktime life isn't as enduring. It has about 110 hours standby with about 2-3 talk time. It doesn't compare anywhere near my Nokia's but since this was the only choice of phone given my criteria in a phone, I'll have to deal with it. 3) T9 technology. Even though its text recognition is great, it can be cumbersome at times to put it in simple input mode when inputting a new phone number or word. 4)Phone book listing. The phone book has great organizational features, but it isn't capable of simplifying its list alphabetically. Rather, it lists the phone numbers into different numbered entries. Overall, this is a great phone to get. There are other phones out there that are cheaper, but if portability is your priority, it is well worth the money, especially in comparison the the Motorola V60. I highly recommend the LG TM510! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87324 2000/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 solid build external display voice dialing small size lacks dedicated mail button some features are buried The Bottom LineIf you need a solid, well constructed, and convenient little phone, you don't need to look any look further. It's one stout little road warrior! Full Review We picked up 2 Verizon enabled 510's to replace our Sprint service Startac and Samsung 3500. The phone is smaller than the Startac in every dimension except thickness and much smaller than the 3500. One thing that struck us was the solid feeling of this phone, the hinge feels like it could last a long while. This is a stark comparison the Startac that has a bit of sloppy hinge play and creaky plastic sounds as well as the 3500 hinge that broke (common problem). The software is somewhat similar to the Qualcomm based 3500, though some refinements have been made. The menu's fall between the techno geek complex Startac design and the cutesy icons of the 3500. It has tons of annoying ringers for those who like that sort of thing. Different "rings" can be associated with individual entries in your phone book, a useful feature for call screening. Another extremely useful feature is the additional external display, allowing you to see who's calling yet still open to answer, something sorely missing in the aging Startac design. I would like a few more multi press shortcuts to get to features ala Startac instead of having to wade through the menu's though. I do miss the dedicated mail button of the Startac, the soft buttons can get in the way a bit. The big bright display is great as is the generous for the phone size keypad. If I have any fault with the keys, it would be that their not raised enough for my big beefy fingers, some miss presses have ensued. My wife never used voice dialing with the 3500, mainly because it messed up a bit. I'm having a ball with the voice dialing on this phone, it seldom misses, even in noisy environments and it even knows that work and office can be the same thing. I names my brothers work number Scott office, when I used the voice dialing I said "Scott work" to which the phone said "do you mean Scott office"? I replied "yes" and ever since, both "Scott office" and "Scott work" work, neat! So far the reception and sound quality have been excellent, maybe as much a virtue of the NYC/LI Verizon service and in stark comparison to the poor Sprint quality I observed. Battery life seem to be on par with my Startac, which is to say good. I can't comment on the scheduler, calculator or alarm clock, we both carry PocketPC's that already cover these functions. I remember that "gee wiz" feeling I got when I bought my first Startac, that feeling is back. This is one cool phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87323 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 toss the land line phone great sound compact incredibly feature filled manual could be better non alphabetized phonebook but this phone has voice activated dialing The Bottom LineThe phone of your dreams . . . at least in 2002! Full Review Improve your life . . . walk into Verizon Wireless and get a LG-TM510 for $150 (and a two year service contract). If you are an existing customer, ask for consideration of being a long-term customer and ask for a $99 price. If the rep doesn't give it to you, then call their 800 number (800-922-0204) and ask for the "loyalty management department." Yes, that really is the name of the department. Also, 1800mobiles.com has the TM510 listed for $99 with free shipping. You could also sign up for Verizons Wireless there too. If you want a headset, look into either Plantronics M170 or M175 . . . I also hear the Sybersay is outstanding. 1800mobiles.com also has these. Take two or three hours to learn this phone . . . it is well worth the time. Get extra help from the Yahoo discussion group at: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/lgtm510usersclub To get a great summary of hints and tips, read their forum notes first at: http://www.jitteryjim.com/tm510/forumnotes.htm You will particularly need to read it for setting up the voice dialing as the manual does not really cover this well. For the company FAQs, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/FAQ_TM-510.asp For the phone spec sheet, go to: http://www.lginfocomm.com/home/TM-510_phone.asp Imagine taking home a 4.3 oz. wonder that: - is a cell phone that sounds like a land line - has voice activated calling ("say the person's name and the call is dialed for you") WORKS GREAT! - voice recorder for memos as you think of them - easily record your conversation (great if you want to record directions someone is giving you) - calculator - database of country codes - send and receive e-mails (part of Verizon Wireless plans now) "SMS messaging" - scheduler - easy access calendar display - alarm clock - memo pad - internal answering machine - phonebook with cooool T9 dialing (no more extra keypad typing . . . to type the word "bill," you would type 2,4,5,5 and the phone figures out you mean "bill") - web browser (extra monthly fee with Verizon Wireless) - easy locking feature so others can't easily use your phone - great indigo screen inside AND outside the phone (make sure you do not drop phone, as outside indigo screen may break) - durable unit, keypad is well-designed - belt holster that securely holds phone. Takes a little getting used to removing the phone though. - charger is quick with 3 hours recharge. Takes some practice getting the phone clicked in. Phone has great sound. My friends think I'm on a land line. The negatives . . . well, it is a short list. It does not have an alphabetized phonebook that you can bring up and scroll though. You scroll through the list as you put it in. But you click "Find Name" and with the T9 quick text input do a search for the first few letters and then dial your number. I love it, and it is easier than my old Nokia method. As to the manual, I found it sufficient. But it doesn't do a good job on voice dialing. Read the above web sites for info on that. Download the PDF version of the manual from www.lginfocomm.com if you want to see it before you buy the phone. Finally as to negatives, they say it has PC Sync software so that you can transfer your Outlook phone/e-mails . . . but the software is not out yet (as of 8/6/01) and you have to purchase a data connect kit. In October 2001, the TM520 was supposed to come out. It has an alphabetized phonebook. Look at the LG web site (http://www.lginfocomm.com) for more info on this. ENJOY!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87322 2000/3/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great display very compact looks cool good reception battery life rather bulky for the size phone book The Bottom LineCool little phone with only minor annoyances as long as you remember to plug it in every night. Full Review A glossary of terms: Analog network: A network comprised of towers that use a system similar to radio by modulating, or adjusting, the frequency of radio waves and broadcasting it to a phone where it is reconverted to sound. Most rural networks are analog and lack many of the perks of the popular PCS format like caller ID and text messages. Battery life is reduced in these networks due to the need to constantly demodulate the signal to ascertain whether a call is coming through. Digital Network: A network using the CDMA or Code Division Multiple Access, a method of spreading digital data on a single frequency over a broad bandwidth, or GSM, the international equivalent of CDMA. Digital service is found mostly in urban and suburban locations. Many carriers are switching to an all digital network, but the infrastructure for a complete worldwide network will not be complete for at least another 5 years. Battery life is much longer on these networks due to the phone to merely listen for a packet, or chunk of data, with the phone's specfic identity to come through. I picked up the LG TM-510 when I switched my service to Verizon in February. After a month of use I felt I can confidently write a review on its good and bad points. First of all the phone looks really cool...and that was honestly a large reason I bought it. Its small and fits easily in a shirt pocket. The phone includes a small display on the outside, so that you can easily see the caller ID without actually opening the phone. The main display is fabulous, with a bright backlight that just adds to the cool factor of the phone. The buttons are also big for those of us with big fingers that have trouble dialing with the small buttons on most of the phones within this class. Navigation within the menus is intuitive via the 4-way button that allows easy access to the phone book, calendar, and call log. Reception is great as well allowing me to talk in a steel framed building even within an analog network. Perhaps one of the biggest complaints that I have with the phone is in entering names into the phone book. The phone uses T9 Predictive text input technology that is honestly pretty annoying. When entering a name, it always tries to guess the word that you are trying to enter and when it guesses wrong, you must backspace and attempt to write the name again. The only fix is to select English mode instead and you must enter the name like you would any other phone by repetitively pressing the number buttons until the wanted letter appears. Battery life on the phone leaves something to be desired, running almost completely dead after about 2.5 days of standby. The battery is listed to have 110 hours of digital network standby time, but if you live in a predominantly analog network, this figure is reduced considerably. The extended battery options tack on about 70 more hours of digital time, making it competitive with other phones. And last, the phone, while dimensionally small has quite a bit of bulk, mostly due to the vibrator/battery combination that makes up about 60% of the weight. Without battery, the phone weighs about 10 ounces, but with battery tips the scales at a "hefty" 14 ounces. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 87321 2000/3/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 includes belt holster nice charger very smalleasy to hold while talking battery life phone book difficult to quickly navigate The Bottom LineHas everything I need, many things I don't need, and is very portable. Full Review I had Sprint PCS and an older Qualcomm phone which was feeling bigger and heavier as others around me got smaller phones. My wife has Verizon because of where she works (no Sprint coverage) and we realized we could pay less for more minutes if we shared them between two phones. The LG TM510 seemed to be the smallest phone with the most features for the price. I have had the phone for over a month and am happy with my choice. BASICS- This is a flip phone and is only slightly larger than my Motorola text pager. It has both an inner and outer display, which I have actually taken advantage of although I never thought I would. The outer display shows battery life, caller name (if it's programmed into your phonebook) or phone number, time/date, signal strength, and message status. The buttons are easy to press and use even with the phone's small size. The display's backlight makes it even easier to read. In general, the menu control is intuitive and easy to follow. There are more ringer tones than anyone would ever need, and individual tones can be assigned to specific incoming phone numbers so you can tell who's calling just by the tone. The "beep" whenever a button is pressed can be turned off, which I like because it tends to annoy me. There is voice-activated dialing which is nice, but can be a little quirky if names sound even remotely similar. The earpiece volume can sometimes make hearing in a noisy area somewhat difficult, even when it's all the way up and the person is yelling, but it's no worse than the numerous cordless phones I have owned. My old cellphone was almost always too loud, so I guess I'm not really complaining. Although the phone is small, it is comfortable and easy to hold while talking (but you can't do the "hold it between your ear and shoulder" thing). It comes with a belt holster which is incredibly convenient and saves you a few bucks if you need it (although my wife says I look like a geek when I'm wearing it). I pretty much have to take my phone everywhere I go because of my job, and this has been the best advantage over my old phone. PROS- As I said, I really like the small size and free holster. In addition, I have taken advantage of the voice-activated dialing. The included charger is a cradle unit which I think is better than just a free cord hanging out on my desk, and it charges very quickly (a dead battery charges in less than two hours in my experience). Also, there is a "Manner Mode" button which sets the ringer to vibrate and turns off all other noises it might make with the press of a single button. CONS- The phonebook is weird! If you try to search by letter, it brings up every single name with that letter in it, NOT just if it starts with that letter. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, because that makes absolutely no sense, but it's happening and the manual doesn't shed any light on why. It also doesn't alphabetize the names, so you have to kind of remember how far along on the scroll someone's name is so you don't pass it. Finally, the battery life is pretty bad...a call longer than 30 minutes with a fresh battery will result in a warning and then a shutdown...but when you turn the phone back on the display says that half the battery is left and it still works and makes calls. I think maybe the battery quality is poor and can't handle prolonged heavy drainage with talking, but recovers with a brief rest...I don't know. Overall, I'm happy with the phone...it meets or exceeds all my needs and is pretty cheap compared to other phones of it's size and with it's features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 7690 LG VX3100 Cellular Phone 87348 2006/6/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 simplicity compactnice for the pocket kills battery life always in analog no incoming calls I bought this phone for its simplicity. Great compact flip phone for protecting the display and keys. Could call out and receive calls. TWO MONTHS LATER, after buying my phone, it started slipping in to Analog 25-40 times per day. I asked Midwest Wireless about it and the guy said that he and his girlfriend had the same phone and it did the same thing: Worked great for 2 months and then always was in Analog. No help from them. I wouldn't buy this phone if you ever want to receive calls. If you only want to call out and turn your phone off when you're not using it in order to save the battery from the constant service search, then this is the phone for you. If you like to receive calls and not worry about resetting your phone every 5 minutes and want to receive the service you are paying for every month, then I'd steer very very clear of this little phone. Seems to be a manufacturer issue and it's HORRIBLE. 87347 2004/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to read display easy to use light weight battery life button size no external display no external speaker I highly recommend the LG3100 phone. It is the best all-around value in the cell phone industry to date. I have owned and used numerous phones over the years, most recently the Kyocera SE44 Slider, LG5550, and LG5450. While they have all the bells and whistles, I still prefer the simplicity and toughness of the LG3100. 87346 2004/7/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive small size poor reception in buildings This phone is really good if you just need to stay in touch with family and friends. The features are basic and pretty self explanatory. The reception is decent as long as I'm not inside a building with a lot of steel. But the "not working inside buildings" can cause a problem if you are trying to call home from the grocery to find out if I'm out of eggs. Basically I only got a cell phone because I work and go to school and need to stay in contact. 95% of the time I have absolutely no issues. Plus the "manner mode" really helps so I can turn on my phone without disturbing anyone in class. 87345 2004/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good value un cluttered by extras easy to use not recommended for feature seekers So many phones today are loaded with extra 'non-phone' features. Web surfing, picture/movie taking, song playing, etc. If you are looking for a good quality cell phone without all the extras I recommend this little LG. This thin flip phone offers an easy to type keypad and clear (B&W) LCD screen. The menu structure is very simple to navigate and although there are a few extras available (text messaging and mobile web) they are unobtrusive to basic use. It has good battery life and lasts (on stand-by) for several days. If you are a heavy cell user I always recommend using car and desk chargers - as well as keeping and extra battery handy. The phone offers vibrate/manner mode, several ring tones, and all silent mode. Each of these modes is available by holding down the * key until the next mode is set - very handy! We have Verizon service - which seems to work great with this phone. Reception is always good, as is sound quality. The phone was free with our plan. 87344 2005/12/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 just ask the concrete very durable no camera alarm feature compact size easy to work around kicked off towers easily always in analog no fun ringersnot a color screen I got this phone almost two years ago and it worked fine while I stayed in the Alltel area. The minute I moved to Cincinnati I did not have a good time with this phone at all. While being booted from towers I was lucky to get on my phone was constantly in analog. Slowly but surely my battery starts dying really fast now. I can make one phone call for 5 mins and it will be down a battery bar. If I make more than one call it's usually down all battery bars. While at home in the Alltel area I still have problems. I have massive problems with reception at home. My phone likes Analog mode way too much to be desired. I tried for 30 min before to make a call. 87343 2004/4/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 cheap small lousy reception I bought this phone because my old star tac had died, I broke the samsung that I got to replace it and this was the only one Verizon would sell me for less than a bundle. Positives: small, light, easy to use. The reception is lousy. Most areas where I could easily send and receive calls with my startac are radio silent with this phone. I would say 50-75% of my calls are dropped. The battery life is also lousy. Make more than 10 calls a day and you have to charge it. 87342 2005/8/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 compact easy to use inexpensive poor reception ringer is not loud enough hinge is not durable I live in a large suburb north of Seattle, where the service should be first rate. I'm using Verizon, the number one carrier in the area. Despite that, I can't make or receive calls in my own house. I never get more than two bars and calls are dropped after about 60 seconds, no exceptions. Reprogramming didn't help. My wife has a cheap Motorola that doesn't exactly excel in this same environment, but she can make a call without being dropped. She had the same LG at one time, but the hinge broke. It was replaced and broke again, hence the switch to the Motorola. I've had no hinge problems on mine. When I lived in the city limits, practically under a cell tower, the phone was great. Since I moved, I'm just riding out my contract, so that I can replace it. Beware if you do not live next to a tower. 87341 2006/11/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 inexpensive extremely intuitive a simple phone i nicknamed the tank the games suck I'm a skateboarder and i had this phone in my pocket since i started skating 3 years ago. Since then i've thrown it, fallen on it, dropped it in sand, exposed it to rain and soda. This is one tough phone! The original owner was my sister who decided it wasn't cute enough anymore so she got a new one the threw the VX3100 in the drawer. I'm so glad i found it. 87340 2000/6/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception under 200 no display to crack no antenna to break or bend no color screen no front side display these don t matter to me The Bottom LineIf you want a Basic all-around Flip phone and special features don't really matter (color screen) this is a great phone. Full Review This Phone retails out at $179.99. But with my 2-year service agreement from Midwest Wireless (a small Minnesota based Wireless provider), I got it for around $49.99. The only big difference I see between the LG LX4400 and the LG LX3100 that I can see is the LG LX3100 has a non-telescopic antenna, no front-side display and no color screen. Price difference was about $70 between them. And I find all these features that the LX3100 does not have, are actually quite a benefit to me and is not worth spending an extra $70 on a LX4400 to have. No antenna to break or bend, no display to crack or bash it into the car getting in and out, and the monocolor screen give you about 30% more battery life/time compared to the color screen on the VX4400. Another pro to this phone is unlike the VX4400, the "ok" key is not in the center, which would annoy me. The VX3100 is an all-around great value for those of you who would like a simple basic flip-phone. The games included with the phone are Mobile Hawk and BlackJack. It is said it is BREW Enabled so you can download games to the phone, but I have to get that through the service provider. It is a very simple phone to use and the battery life on a full charge is around 3 hours or 180 minutes of talk time. I would HIGHLY recommend this phone to anyone who just wants a basic flip phone. And for anyone who is not "technically inclined" this is a great phone for you as it is very easily to navigate around. I first thought that a flip phone at less than $200 = piece of junk. I was wrong. This is a great phone at a great price! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87339 2000/5/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reception durability ease of use size monochrome lcd screen lack of external lcd dustyall The Bottom LineThis phone will not disappoint you, if you are looking for a cheap phone, that would be durable and have a great reception. Full Review Well, I bashed my fancy shmancy Motorola E815 against the asphalt when I fell (long story), and broke both external and internal LCDs. The phone was in my pocket and it wasn't that big of a hit, but I guess the phone wasn't very durable. I paid $250 for it, since I got it after I signed up for Vireless service plan. First, I went to the nearest Verizon dealer and bought another one ($240!!!! Had to pay full retail price because, again, I already had a service contract), but then a few days later my brain finally kicked in, and I realized that it isn't worth paying $500 for two phones in less than 6 months, so I got this tiny (compared to Motorola E815) LG VX3100 off Craigslist for free (Thank you Rick!!!). When I got this LG VX3100, it was already over 2 years old, but it was in better cosmetic shape than my first E815. That should tell you something about the durability of this little puppy. The surface of this phone is hard to scratch, very easy to clean, no extra LCDs where dust tends to gather up underneath the glass (I hate dust underneath the LCD glass, still wonder how it gets there!!). The monochrome LCD display is very easy on the eyes, displays clear text, and doesn't eat up battery like the color display. I liked color display on my E815, but found that it wasn't as necessary as the fact that it looked cool. The display on this LG can fit more phones per page, than display on E815. I am not trying to compare these two phones, as there is no comparison; the E815 is hands down better phone. I am just trying to highlight the features and the good side of the LG VX3100. The phone has enough features to keep you busy. Two games come standard on it, it has a data connection jack, a very functional calendar, alarm, even an internet browser. The size and durability are the facts that made me love this phone, because I am pretty hard on my phones. And most importantly, the reception. The reception of this phone is nearly perfect. This phone is digital/analog phone, so where digital signal is lacking, it switches to analog mode. I didn't have this feature on my Motorola E815, and even though it had the best digital reception of any phone on the market, it was still dead in some areas, where analog reception was great (Olympic peninsula of WA state, Cascade mountains range, etc.). The only downside to this otherwise great phone, is the lack of the external LCD. Sometimes I like to see who's calling, so that I can decide whether to pick up or not. Otherwise, if you need a backup phone, or you can get one as a replacement for your broken expensive Bluetooth phone, this phone is great. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87338 2000/11/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 it does what it was made to do callget calls that s about all it does pretty uninteresting The Bottom LineIt is most definitely not TODAY'S cell phone. If you want a phone torn down to its very essence, this is the one. Full Review If I'd had a choice, and not been cheated and lied to by Cingular into getting a phone that didn't work in my area, I'd never have gotten this phone. But the point is that I was, and I was a student in college who was n a family share plan. And when we pulled out of Cingular, I didn't know what I was getting. Not until this came in the mail. Appearance-wise, I was slightly...disappointed with how basic it looked. The design isn't bad...it's not particularly large, it's a nice flip, which I like, but it's just so darned boring. A silver-gold in color (apparently, there's a different model of the exact same phone in black), nothing at all on the front or the back. I've never been the type to need a camera and a shaver and a nose-hair clipper on my phone, but a caller-id display or something would have been nice. The functions: a basic phone. It receives calls and dials out. Don't expect much more than that. There are some games. Blackjack is the only one I'll play, and I have to be really bored to do that. There are a couple of others, but since I don't particularly like the phone, I don't bother with them. There's an internet browser. I'm not sure how it works. But it's there. There is also an alarm, which I find to be very useful. It can be set to go off once, at the same time every day, once a week, etc. There's also a calendar. Handy when you need it, not that I use it. The ringtones are classic "old-phone" ringtones. Harsh, unyielding monotones of "Hokey-Pokey", "Happy Birthday" and other sounds that the person next to you with the exact same phone might have chosen. I just keep mine on vibrate. The vibrate is pretty powerful and has a nicely audible sound when it's not on you: a humming buzz that I can actually hear from another room. The screen, which boasts no fullscreen color is rather backlit the color of split-pea soup and features the name of your service provider, the time in huge, size 72 font letters and the date below. I like that. Other than the fact that the phone is horribly outdated and due to its simplicity: something my grandmother or aunt would carry (perhaps that's my hangup...because I've never had a nice phone in the seven years I've had a cell phone), my other main problem is that after talking on the phone for, say, thirty minutes, it gets hot. That's right. The earpiece gets searing hot, and I actually have to pull the phone back from my ear to avoid searing the side of my face. At first, I thought it was a glitch in that particular song. But after losing that one and getting my second through Verizon's crappy insurance (Asurion...that's another review for another time), that one did it, too. So watch out for the side of your face. Many a meaningful conversation has been cut short because of my red-hot phone. Would I recommend this phone? No. Because very few under the age of 50 would probably want it. If you want a very basic phone without all the hullabaloo, this is your phone. But I've found that people my age want hullabaloo. They want external caller ID, downloadable ringtones, cameras, internet, voice dialing, pretty lights and bells and whistles...and a phone that won't melt one side of your face. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87337 2000/4/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good connection good battery life not up to date very simple The Bottom LineA simple phone for simple needs. Don't buy this if you're looking for a trendy phone, buy it if you want something you can depend on. Full Review I got this phone two years ago for my birthday. At the time, mobile phones weren't as advanced as they are now and I was happy with it. First off, let me list all the pros. This phone is sturdy, but light. I've had it for two years and even though I dropped it a couple of times nothing is wrong with it and it still works perfectly. Another thing I like about this phone is the battery life. The battery can last for more than a day, and many new phones can't last as long. The reception with this phone is also very good, and I have never had any problems with it. The games included are alright, but if you're getting this phone games shouldn't be a priority. The one thing I don't like about this phone is it's simplicity. There is nothing high tech about this phone. The ring tones are all very simple, you can't make your own and you can't download any either. I also don't like the look of it. It is very boring, and has no color so it's not an eye-catcher. In general, it is a simple phone for simple needs, but is very reliable and you can depend on it. So if you're not into anything high tech and just want a phone just to talk you can depend on this phone. However, if you're looking for a phone with a camera, color, and other stuff you shouldn't buy this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7691 LG VX 4400B 87350 2005/1/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 everything but designlack of games design lack of games bought this phone after switching to verizon. no problems with clarity of phone, but i have missed countless phone calls as the button to switch the phone to vibrate or silence all is on the outside! crouch down or lean over and if the button is pressed by keys or anything else in pocket... presto! 7 missed calls the next time i look at it. also, NO FREE GAMES! you can use airtime and buy some games, but you are using airtime to play them too! come on. 87349 2004/4/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features good quality screen on front of phone color screen small sleek bright screen color display drains battery didn t come with travel charger The Bottom LineI needed a newer cell phone and absolutely love my LG VX 4400B! It is well designed, and is both fun and functional. Full Review After three years with AT&T, I moved to a different part of New York State and decided to go with a new cell phone carrier. After settling on Verizon, all I had to do was choose the appropriate phone. I chose the LG VX 4400B because I wanted a flip phone with both analog and digital modes, and because many people had recommended this phone. I actually had a hard time getting this phone, because the Verizon store I went to was out of them. They called another nearby store, and I was able to reserve one of the last few that were left. I was told that they are phasing out this phone, but that it has been an enormously popular, with lots of rave reviews. I personally know lots of people who have this phone and really like it. I would have gone for one of the newer models, but I wanted to keep the analog mode, which is not available in the more recent camera phones (including newer, more expensive LG phones). You are looking at about $100, but the price of this phone is dropping as newer models are coming out. You can also get rebates or other deals, depending on how long of a contract you choose and so on. Appearance The difference between this phone (the 4400B) and the 4400 is, well, nothing. Except for the dark blue faceplate, and that it was released later (in 2003). The rest of the phone is a buffed silver color. It is a cute, sleek, sophisticated little phone. The front of the phone has a little display, showing the time, date, signal strength, mode, battery level, and so on. It will flash all sorts of colors (unless you change the settings) when you get a call. So when I get a phone call, even if the phone is set on silent mode, the outer screen will flash orange, green, blue, purple, and so on! It will also light up bright green when charging. The phone has a bright color screen/display. You can choose among some of the backgrounds that come with the phone (like a tropical beach, balloons, etc). The LG VX 4400B has the "LG" logo on it, as well as the Verizon logo, since I am a Verizon user (they just can't resist, can they?). The LG VX 4400B - Features Talk time: 180 minutes Standby time: 110 hours Size: 1.07L x 1.89W x 3.46H inches Weight: 4.0 oz Technology: Tri-Mode 1XRTT/CDMA The phone comes with built in GPS capability, so that hopefully in the event of an emergency, you can be located by your phone's location. The antenna extends for better reception. I read that it is good to always extend it during a phone call, just because the phone operates at its best. My phone came with a charging cradle, which is nice and charges the phone quickly. The only problem with it is that you can't make a call while the phone is charging. I also got a car charger and a belt clip. I don't use the belt clip, maybe it's more of a guy thing, but I don't ever wear it. The clip holds the phone shut, which is a contention for some, but I heard that the manufacturer got a lot of input about people preferring not to accidentally flip the phone open. The menu has your typical features: - call history - phone book - stores up to 200 entries, including a person's home number, mobile number, e-mail, memo, ring tone when they call, and more. - messages - voice messages - mobile web - to get online, if you pay for the service! - "get it now" - stuff you can pay for! (Screen backgrounds, ring tones, etc.) - fun tools - tip calculator (how great is that?!), calculator, world clock - organizer - schedule, alarm clock, notepad, voice memo - settings - things like sounds (ring tones, volume, etc), display, etc. - phone info - icon glossary, your phone number, some other phone details Accessories & Get it Now I had no problem finding accessories with this phone. I needed things like a cell phone case and extra charger, so I did a quick search on eBay. In the Verizon store, you could buy a set of accessories for maybe $30, and I found a set on eBay for about $6. Apparently, the faceplate isn't supposed to be interchangeable, but on eBay, you'll find a variety faceplates. (I kept my original). As for the "Get it Now" feature, stay away from it unless you want to pay. Under this menu option, you browse through things like background photos and so on, which will all cost you. I think the phone comes with plenty of options, in terms of ring tones and backgrounds, with a good selection. My Thoughts I mostly use my phone for the basics, in terms of utilizing features. I have a whole bunch of phone numbers stored, especially since lots of people have multiple numbers (regular phone, cell phone, work phone, etc). Here and there I'll have some fun with the ring tones or settings, but that's about it. Among the more gimmicky features I like and use include the tip calculator, which is actually quite nice. Although it is pretty much a novelty (and not something I would base a phone purchase on!), I find that it really comes in handy! Also, my cousin lives in Anchorage, AK, so I always check the world clock on my phone before giving her a call (because of the time difference). The reception seems good with the LG VX 4400B. I never have a horrible signal when other people have a good signal. I have gone on trips and compared much more expensive phones with mine, and the signal strength is just about the same. I always extend the antenna when I can (or remember to), just to enhance call clarity. Since upgrading, (as well as changing to Verizon), my service is much improved, and I don't live in a major city like NYC. I used to have a Nokia 8265, with AT&T. When I got this phone and called home, my mom thought I was on a landline! The buttons have a rubbery feel to them and light up. The screen lights up as well for a timed period after opening the phone or pushing buttons, so it is easy to use and navigate the phone. When I first my LG VX 4400B, I just experimented with exploring the menus and so forth, and to-date, I still haven't broken the manual out of the shrink-wrap! If you have used a cell phone before, you probably won't have problems with this one, and I found that it was user friendly. I like the display on the front outside of the phone. That way, I can see with a glance who is calling, the remaining charge, and so on, without having to open up the phone. It will also tell me if I missed a phone call. This is great especially for work, because I just keep an eye on the phone. I also put it in manner mode when I'm at work (or anywhere else where obnoxious ringing is inappropriate!) just by holding down a button on the side, which is super handy, because I can do it really fast as I walk upstairs to my floor. One of the things that I don't like and that drives me crazy is the charger. I didn't get a wall charger with the phone - just a car and desktop charger. Although the desktop charger does a wonderful job of charging the phone super fast, you can't talk on the phone at the same time. There are times I would like to make a phone call, but I'm not sure how long I would be, and can't really chance it that my phone will run out of batteries. The batteries last a decent amount of time, considering the bright color screens. On standby, it lasts quite a few days. (They say about 4.5 days - I would say that's about right). Talking on the phone cuts down on the battery life (obviously), with about 3 hours of talk time. I make sure my phone is charged when I know I'm going to be on the phone for a while. (And as I mentioned earlier, the desk charger cradle does a stellar job of quickly charging the phone!) If you have a travel charger, you have nothing to worry about since you can charge the phone while you talk. There are tons of settings and you can reduce the amount of time the screen lights up after pressing a button, so if you're looking to save as much charge as possible, you might want to consider doing so. Overall This phone is a good balance of being both fun and functional. I can play around with a bunch of ring tones, flashing colors, screen backgrounds, and so on, all I want. But it is also important to me that I can make calls that are of good quality. I have lived in quite a number of different cities throughout the Northeast in the past few years, and have relied on cell phones pretty heavily for making long distance calls. I find that I am completely satisfied with this phone. I enjoy using the various features, and find that it suits me well. It is a cute little phone and has made my cell phone usage much more enjoyable! Websites LG: http://us.lge.com/index.do Verizon: http://www.verizonwireless.com A nifty site on LG phones: http://www.rogerbinns.com/vx4400/ My review Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7692 LG LX5350 87371 2003/10/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small attractive look many greatuseful options great ringers easy to use perfect screen easy to scratch no speakerphone volume slow start up battery life a little short I love this phone, it works great except for twice it has automatically shut itself off and restarted. It has tons of great features, Huge amount of pros, too many to list; few cons. Little pricey, but all sprint phones are. I highly recommend it to anyone. 87370 2004/8/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 typical color phone nothing fancy durability stinks operates hotdoes not start quickly I had this phone last year and had to replace it twice. The area where the phone flips began to crack and broke causing the phone to be inoperable. This same occurrence happened to both my new phone and my replacement phone. The phone has decent features, though it lacks the camera abilities of most phones today. The unit does get very hot after prolonged use, so unless you don't talk much you are in for a face burn. Out the box the phone starts up very fast but after a few downloads of goodies you will notice the phone NEVER starts up fast again even if you try deleting stuff. If you are being chased by a killer and need to dial 911 and your phone is off, your best bet is running to a pay phone cause by the time your phone turns completely on you will be mugged/killed. 87369 2003/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small reception lots of features external caller id nice screen no speaker nothing else I purchased this phone as a replacement for my Samsung A400, which I found clumsy and awkward to operate at times. This phone is small and packed with features....great reception and vision capabilities make it useful and fun. I don't like the idea of spending $5 to download a game from Sprint, but besides that, I really can't find many faults. The caller ID shows through the flip, so you can see who is calling without having to open it.....there is an outside ringer volume/vibration control, which is so much easier than having to go into a menu to adjust as so many Nokias make you do. I would have liked to have a speaker on the phone, but the benefits of this phone far outweigh the cons.....additionally, I find it to be extremely hardy; I have allowed my children to use it while out, and it does not show worse for wear. 87368 2004/9/12 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 you can set the buttons to make a sound like water drops funny didn t last me two years volumespeakers are bad I got this phone when color screens were first available, and camera phones weren't around yet, so it was great. After about 1.5 years, though, it started going through batteries really fast. On a full charge, I can now make about two calls before I have to recharge it. It also will start beeping the low battery while I am talking, but when I hang up, it will go back to 2 out of 4 bars. The batteries have been tested, so it's the phone. Some more problems: 1. Love polyphonic rings tones, but many of the ones I have downloaded sound harsh/blaring when turned up....AND the ringer doesn't go very loud. I absolutely HAVE to have the ringer set to something with a high-pitched beginning or I won't hear it. 2. The arrow buttons are difficult to get to - makes playing games nearly impossible. 3. The buttons have to be pressed hard to register. 4. On mine, when I enter someone's name into the address book, the screen gets very light (only when entering into the address book!) and it's hard to read. Volume and speakers are bad. 87367 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen external display voice dial capitalizes the first letter of everythingoccasionally will not call out The Bottom LineGreat phone, cool color display, look for it on sale and grab one today! Full Review I bought the LG-5350 in my quest to upgrade to a color phone with web access and acquire a better rate plan. I shopped several models and snagged the LG phone when Sprint ran a $49.99 special in the Atlanta market. I am sure anyone who has shopped color phones know that these phones average $200+ (the LG 5350 lists for $199.99) and can run as much as $400. The casing of the phone is nice. Most new phones today use the silver or chrome looking case, which I like, but the LG mixes a little bit of color into theirs - a neat feature. The keys are large enough to press easily and nicely illuminated even in the dark with the glowing blue backlight. Almost every feature of the phone is customizable and their are tons of downloadable ringers, games and wallpapers. I LOVE the content available for this phone. The clear screen is really good but can bleed some if the contrast is not set just right. It can also be difficult to view in direct sunlight. Although not a feature of the phone itself, the unlimited Vision (SprintPCS' wireless internet) in my plan was a big plus. I use it non-stop! Now, the most important thing... CALLS ARE CRYSTAL CLEAR! I have had several different phones and providers and by far the LG/Sprint combo is the best for voice calls. It also holds on tight to the call, even in a weak area calls are clear and I have yet to have a dropped call. A couple downfalls I have found are that the phone likes to capitalize the first letter and the lower-case all the rest in a string of words... this makes names like McCormick and titles in a memo (Lunch with Dan Stevens) tough to type in properly, I am easily annoyed by the technology age's fondness of typing everything in lower case!!! The phone I have also will occasionally not dial out, when I try to place a call it gives me the "you can't do that" ding. I have already swapped one phone because of this and it is now happening on a second phone. I have to turn the phone off and back on to correct the problem. It is only occasionally now so I tolerate it. All in all this is a very cool phone that I got at a great price. There are many package options available that should fit anyones needs and the media and accessories for this phone make it a winner in my epinion! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87366 2000/11/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many ringtones very customizable beautiful color display tendency to reboot itself awkward button locations The Bottom LineAll and all, this is an incredible phone. Full Review When Sprint came out with their new line of color phones, I totally ignored the LG because I was used to the old standard Sanyos and Samsungs. When I got the LG, I was not sorry. The phone has incredible features much more than the other Sprint phones color and non-color. Here are the positive and negatives: Positives (where do I begin?): ~ Absolutely beautiful 65K display ~ Blue backlit keypad and external caller ID ~ The battery life in standby is pretty good. I didn't use the phone for 2 days and the phone still indicated that the battery was full. ~ Why download ringtones with Sprint when you have an impressive 40 ringtones with the 5350. There's some standard ringers, some cute ringers, some strange ringers and some funny ringers. But there is a wide variety, something for everyone. ~ Totally customizable display: 1. You can change the color theme to match the various background images you choose. Much like you can do on a PC or Mac. (Very impressive) 2. You can change the menu style. 3. You can choose how the clock looks, either analog or digital. 4. You can control the color contrast. ~ In the phone book, you are not limited to the number of characters you can put per line like other phones that will remain nameless. Even the phone book is customizable. An entry put in can not only have its own ringer but its own picture. (Nice) ~ The 5350 has fun games, a tip calculator, a regular calculator, photo album, world clock etc. The feature list goes on and on. When you get this phone you'll see everything. Negatives (the quirks that kept this from getting 5 stars): ~ On occasion the phone has a tendency to restart itself, meaning, the phone would just shutoff then start back up. I asked the customer service reps at LG about this. Of course they were clueless. ~ The phone freezes up if your battery is almost dead for example if the bar on the battery is at one. So I make sure I keep this phone charged. ~ Once but only once, the background went out and I was left with a dark blue screen. I had to restart the phone. But don't worry it happened like I said just once. It was a fluke thing. ~ The buttons are placed awkwardly. More than a few times I accidentally pressed buttons that I did not mean to press because they were placed at weird locations and were too close together. ~ Accessories are hard to come by. I had to go to the LG website for a charger. . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 87365 2003/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 better than the samsung n400 small size great organizer schedule no speakerphone The Bottom LineThis is a great phone and I highly recommend it. If you are comparing it to the N400, please spend the extra money and get the 5350 Full Review My first vision phone was a Samsung SPH N400. This was a horrible phone. I have been a Sprint customer for more than three years and was very disappointed with this experience. After a month with the N400 I purchased the LG LX 5350. It is well made and a comfortable size. It is very easy to use and has many convenient feature when compared to the N400 The 5350 is a true flip phone and the N400 is a partial flip. The screen on the N400 is made of cheap plastic and cracks easily, but the screen on the 5350 is more durable and is protect when the flip is closed. Sprint did not take my phone back because of the cracked screen. Get insurance with the N400. I was not given a credit for the N400. I sent the phone back to Samsung with a letter of my poor experience with the phone. The N400 can only take 12 characters for a name, which means that mosts names are cut off, but the 5350 can handle the entire first and last name of individuals The N400 does give the type of phone (Cell, home , work, etc.) in the call history, while the 5350 does give this information. The N400 does not let you call a different phone for the same person from call history, while the 5350 does. The organizer for the 5350 is far superior to the N400 The 5350 does not have a speakerphone, but does have a monitor that you can use for voicemail. Overall I am enjoying my experience with the 5340 and do not plan to get a Samsung phone ever again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87364 2000/1/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 beautiful design amazing sound quality brilliant technology unsure about charges on internet connect downloads but that is all sprint phones The Bottom LineMy lengthy review says it all. GREAT PRODUCT!! Full Review As with anything good that comes with my life, Sprint's LG5350 did not get into my hands with the greatest of ease. In the end, it was well worth the post-purchase satisfaction & enjoyment that I have received from this particular phone. The technology that was put into this phone astounded me since my last cell-phone purchase was over a year and a half ago. My first & most important concern was of course function ability of this phone, compared to the others, under continuous use in my own city, on the Texas highways, & anywhere else in the U.S. That concern was satisfied by first phoning a friend of mine to look up customer reviews online, while I awaited acknowledgement from any member of Sprint PCS store staff. As my friend read positive review after review to me over the phone, I held the LG5350 phone in my hand, and tested it out for personal impression of quality & comfort. By the time one of the Sprint PCS sales associates finally approached me, I was already sold on buying this phone, thanks to the customer review information that my friend relayed earlier. Actually, maybe Sprint needs to cough up a commission check for my friend, followed by re-training their store staff on the proper way to treat all customers; from the time they enter the store until the time they leave. But, since the general imbalances of human society are becoming even more out of balance, I just took a deep breath and chalked it up to another typical day of my life. So, what did my friend say about the phone that made my purchase decision? Here is what I personally experienced from using this phone. My friend certainly supplied me with great information about the phone. But, it didnÕt hold a candle to personal use and repeated positive experiences. First off, the menu is very user-friendly & a piece of cake to maneuver through. Next, the function ability that I have experienced from this phone is actually better than the positive reviews that my friend found online. Third, tons of new options & aesthetic extras have been added to this phone. It definitely gives more variety that we all love, given our own personal preferences & unique, individual styles. Another feature is the overall design of the LG5350. ItÕs very compact, sleek, & also attractive with a silver & blue shell casing. If all of this were not enough, the gadgets, games, and sound quality were simply amazing. I never would have thought that I would be able to play arcade version of dozens of video games, and even more amazing was playing a game called ÒMonkeyball,Ó put out by the ÒGamecubeÓ video console. My only complaints about this phone are due to my own personal preferences. I first found the size of the screen to be very small, compared to other cell phones I had seen and used. However, given the compactness that the phone offers, it was not that big of an issue, especially with the high resolution and color quality that this cell has. Second, I did not find that there were enough 'normal' ring tones to choose from. In a way, I wish someone would spend more time coming up with more ÔappropriateÕ ring tones to choose from. This, of course is my personal issue with cell phones in general. But, I have yet to experience a public situation where a cell phone reverberates the theme to ÒHawaii 5-0,Ó for example, and at least one other person in the vicinity, besides myself, doesnÕtÕ have a look of confusion & utter disbelief, all in the same look. It just isnÕt right people! Sound tastes aside though, I will say that the sound quality and number of synonymous tones that make up each ringÕs theme, has improved 10-fold. Hats off to everyone involved in making this phone and maintaining the great service that I receive from it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $199.00 87363 2000/4/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size practical features reasonable price external display sprint coverage sprint sms no camera sprint service The Bottom LineFor the cash this has a lot of practical internet features and fun color polyphonic features without sacrificing portability Full Review I have had this phone for a year now. I bought it without much research, because I lost my previous phone. I have to say that for the price ($150) I would say it has all the features I could want. The color is great. I love being able to go to yahoo and msn. I can download applications, pictures and ringtones (3gupload.com for free) I'm not interested much in camera phones because the resolution is so low. All of my negatives have been issues with sprintpcs really. The only thing that concerns me is that it seems to freeze up and shut itself down for no reason occasionally. SMS is cumbersome because you have to be online to use it. When you upload a polyphonic ringtone, then the high volume + vibrate won't vibrate. This is a negative because ( and maybe I'm just deaf) I find that most of your uploaded ringtones won't cut through conversation. The ringtones installed with the 5350 are lame-- but that's to be expected. Sprint wants you to buy uploads. Maybe this problem only applies to free ring tones, I don't know because I can't be bothered to pay for a ring tone or a screen saver. There is a calender organizer feature but there is no easy way to sync this calender with your standard programs like outlook. Although maybe this is possible with a data cable PC/phone setup. The size is about perfect. The battery lasts pretty long if you just make phone calls. If you play games or go online a lot it gets hot and the battery runs down. This is a negative, but it is fairly easy to plan ahead for this. Mine came with this microscopic karate fighter game. It is way too hard to control the action with your phone. I can only last for 15 seconds before my character goes into a coma and dies. I play egg drop constantly on the subway, it is a mindless jewel drop knock off. It is very easy to read news stories on the openwave mobile web. My point is that I am pretty satisfied with my purchase. I just bought an extended battery, car charger, and mobile charger for cheap on ebay, so I feel that the accessories are very available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87362 2000/10/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice color screen great ringers small sprintpcs upload procedures there is a way around The Bottom LineCOLORFUL, SOUNDS GREAT, GOOD RECEPTION. MUST HAVE FOR YOU COLOR CELL PHONE PHREAKS! Full Review Well, my old cell phone was on its death bed so i decided that i needed a new phone. I wasn't sure if i needed a color one yet or not, but being the tech geek i am, I DID. I went with SprintPCS (due to their phone selection) and got the new LG 5350. I was gonig to get the Samsung A500 but didn't like the really steep price tag and its memory size (only 400k??). So far, i love my LG 5350. I've downloaded 10 pics or so to it and 6 or so ringers (which sounds great!). The web browser is one of the better, sure beats my text based verizon browser. The voice dialing is way more accurate than i anticipated and the fact that i can have over 6 phone numbers and an email address and notes for each of my addresses rules! THe downside: only downside is you have to go through sprintpcs to download stuff to it (however, if your resourceful enough, you can setup your own webserver and download directly from that your personal pics and sounds or you can find someone that made one that lets you upload your own pics to your phone, which i did) Conclusion: LOVE IT! BEATS OUT THE SAMSUNG ANYDAY. My phone says i have around 4MB of memory for rings and screensavers, but i don't know if that is accurate or not (most reviews and detail specs say only around 1MB, so maybe i got really lucky or something) -If you get this phone, find a website that lets you upload your own pics for free (minus the data that you use from your data plan with sprintpcs) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 87361 2003/5/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 attractive well designed intuitive breaks up a lot less than stellar battery life heats up The Bottom LineI like it. It may not be as flashy as the Samsung flips, but it is still very nice. I would not trade it at this time. Full Review I have found a lot of weak areas on this phone. That being said however, does not mean that I don't like it. I would not however buy one again. I will be comparing this phone to a Kyocera 3035. If you are not familiar with the 3000 series from Kyocera, then some parts of this review will be unclear to you. Brief Overview: The LG5350 is a compact, yet sturdy little unit. The controls are easy to figure out and use. The phone has 40 polyphonic ringers that come with it. Decent sound quality. Good reception. Sturdiness: First of all it's a flip phone, so when I say sturdy, I mean sturdy for a flip phone. My 3035 blew it away in that area. Controls: It uses a similar layout to the 3035, but is much easier to use. The center button on the LG phone is not nearly as finicky. But it also is not as quick. But the center button push is much more reliable. The 5350 has two extra navigation buttons that the 3035 did not have. These are very useful. The 5350 also has an 'ignore' button which shunts the caller off to voice mail. I like having this. Ringers: Some of these are really cool. Ring 1 sounds just like an old fashioned bell ringer. On the other hand some are lame, e.g. ringers 4, 5, and 6 are virtually identical, just played in a different key. A unique ring-tone can be assigned to every person in your phonebook. Sound Quality: is not bad. There is slight distortion at higher volumes. Both of my old Kyocera phones were clearly superior in this area. But for sound quality they were the best I have ever heard. Reception: Superior to the 3035. I can pick up a signal in basement rooms where my Kyocera dropped off. Transmission: My friends complain that I break up a lot. That NEVER happened with my old kyocera phones. Accessories: The phone is a little bit finicky going onto the charger. There is also no option to charge a second battery, as on Samsung chargers. The Kyocera 3035 plug in was much easier. One nice thing, is that it takes a standard headset. I use my old one from my 3035 and it works fine. One thing that bothers me is that the phone does not ring in the ear-piece, so I sometimes miss calls when there is background noise. Full Color Screen: This is kinda nice. But the screen is hard to see in daylight. You can assign a unique picture to everyone in your phone book. You can't do *that* with a 3035! Ergonomics: The 5350 flips open easily, and is easily pinned between one's face and shoulder. This is one area where it clearly outclasses the 3035. The ear-piece is also not screwy like on the 3035, so no special training is needed to hear the other party. I find that gripping this phone with the antenna between the index and middle finger makes it very easy to hold. Appearance: The 5350 comes in blue/silver or just silver. Open or closed the phone is very attractive. I like the bright blue back-light. What I absolutely do not like about the 5350 is that it heats up with constant use. This to me is a bad sign. It suggests to me that the phone does not have proper voltage regulation. Mind you I am no electrical engineer. But still, it shouldn't get hot, but it does. Battery life is also a little weak. Wouldn't surprise me if the two things are related. And again, this phone breaks up a lot when I am talking. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 87360 2002/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone with color screen awesome browser organizerconfigurability low battery power with backlight on The Bottom LineThis is a nice phone to have and it acts as an all in one organizer/phone/data connector. I would recommend people to buy it. Full Review I got the LG 5350 recently. I was pretty impressed by its features. Let me list the features first Voice is a standard these days and it is really clear. So I will talk about the additional goodies. The reason for which one would buy a color phone . If you are just concerned with voice then do not spend $$$ for this phone 1) web enabled:- The browser on this phone is really cool. It supports the new standards like CSS and xhtml. It has really cool graphics and layout. One thing i really liked about the browser is text input AUTOFILL. That rules the day. Every one knows how painful it is to enter text on that small keypad of the phone. I went to a website and entered my login name and password. the next time i entered the site it asks me to enter the login name again and the moment i enter the first character of my name my whole login name is displayed in a popup which can be use. I was totally impressed with that. The browser also is enriched and has a vivid colour display. The browser rocks over that of the samsung A500. The only thing I might complain about is that more content should be there. I am sure it will come up soon. 2)configurable ringtones and wallpapers:- this is also a cool feature. one can have separate ringtones for each phonebook entry and also a different wallpaper for each entry. isn't that cool to have your girlfriends picture flash up when you are dialling her or she gives you a call. the same goes for your kid/loved ones. I really liked that feature. With so many ringtones available it is cool. If you are entusiast enough one can set up a server for wallpapers. 3) organiser:- this really helps . now i do not need my PDA . I can store 300 entries in my digital organizer and set alarms and everything. This is everything in my pocket. 4) phonebook. this can store 6 numbers, email, url, photograph(wallpaper) for each entry. so now i have given up storing addresses on my PDA. 5) Downloadable java games make this phone an entertainment.the color screen along with audio makes it a nice toy to play games 6) airplane mode.:- turns of the communication channels but with the not so good battery life i dunno how long you can play games with the backlit LCD on. 7) backlit keys makes it nice for night time use. 8) data service speed. I think the netork is fast cause the speed with which i could download ringtones and wallpapers and view web pages was great. well after raving about the features I have some things to say which they can improve 1) they could allow users to save pictures from the browser and set them as wallpaper. that would be great. Sprint are you hearing me? 2) Battery life with backlight on lets you talk for only 1 hour on full charge. but i guess talking with backlight on is not a nice idea as the screen heats up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 87359 2000/3/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the pros little to no cons ringer isn t as loud as i would like that s it The Bottom LineGreat Phone, decent providers... Full Review To be honest the LG LX5350 is my second Sprint PCS Vision phone. The first one was the Samsung SPH-N400 phone, which was good, but had enough problems and faults that I exchanged it for the LG LX5350. I'll explain why in the review. The LG LX5350 is a great all around phone, and excellent performer. It isn't as thin as the Samsung SPH-A500, or the SPH-N400 but it has better battery life then those two and in many ways more features and is only a little bit more expensive then the Samsung SPH-N400. First off, if you plan on using the digital camera and the PCS Vision services you'd better look at the other two PCS Vision Phones (A500 & N400). Currently the LG LX5350 does not support the ability to send and receive pictures, but it does offer a lot stronger and better web browsing capabilities. With the OpenWave browser that the LG LX5350 comes with, web browsing a better experience then with the Samsung SPH-N400. You can view the content and go to other sites before the graphics are done loading, like with Internet Explorer on a desktop. With the WAP browser on the N400 and A500 you have to wait until the entire page is loaded before you can do anything. Also, OpenWave supports other website formats other than XHTML (WAP sites). I've been able to go to some HTML sites just fine, but if they have Javascript or Java on them expect some difficulties. Expect a normal web page, if it loads, to be truncated down to the small screen. It might be best to use the phone as a modem instead (when the cable is available). The biggest feature I disliked on the N400 was the address book and the PDA features. With the Samsung SPH-N400 (and I suspect the same for the SPH-A500), you only have a space for 12 characters for the title for an address entry where it appears to be about 22 for the space in the address book on the LG LX5350 (have not completely tested that out). The downside is for the address book on the LG LX5350, you only have a space for 200 entries. On the Samsung N400, there is room for 250. The PDA features on the LG LX5350 include a calendar, alarm clock, notepad and my favorite feature voice memo. All of the entry fields have room for up to 40 characters! The voice memo (voice recorder) has total space for about three minutes of recording total. The playback quality is very clear and easy to understand. Under the Fun Tools on the menu on the phone, there is also a Photo Album (which you can add pictures too when the desktop software and cable is available), two Java games (Egg Stack and Real Fighters), a tip calculator, a normal calculator and a world clock. Can you say feature loaded? I expect the LG LX5350 phone to be the choice for power users like myself. It offers strong and powerful features (like voice memo), and has the best battery life of the "flip" style PCS Vision phones. Highly recommended for power users. For basic cell phone user, the Samsung SPH-N400 might be a better choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 152.00 87358 2000/10/2 Product Rating5.0 see below see below The Bottom LineGet off of your computer, and head to SprintPCS to pick up this beauty immediately....you will NOT regret it. Full Review Amazing phone! I have owned the LG 5200 before this and the Samsung 3500; however, this phone by far takes the cake. PROS: 1.) I really like the crisp color screen, it's simply beautiful, very easy to read and is even viewable in the sun (unlike other Vision phones). 2.) Options Options Options....talk about customizable, you can change almost everything on this phone to meet your needs (Mac users would love this phone!). 3.) Blue light LED backlight is downright awesome...I've had the old greenish yellow color on my previous phones and it was hard to see at times...this new light is awesome for any time of the day. 4.) Multimedia capabilities.....it can do everything I want and was looking for. The Web Browser is great, very easy to manuever around and is simple to set-up and get going. 5.) Size: for the size of this phone, I am shocked at how nice and large the screen really is...it's great, I carry it in my pocket 24/7 and half the time I am not sure I am carrying anything at all. 6.) Battery life.....holy cow, it lasts forever! Energizer bunny eat your heart out. CONS: 1.) It's a SprintPCS Vision phone (sorry, had to get a cheap shot in at SprintPCS, because they blow half the time). 2.) Tiny navigational menu buttons....if you don't hit some of the keys with your finger nail, you'll end up hitting the other keys surrounding the button you really wanted to push. Kind of aggravating; however, you learn to adjust to it I guess after awhile. WRAPUP: Buy, seriously....this phone for the price (compared to the Samsung A500) is a direct steal. It truly is a great phone and LG is one awesome company with customer support as well. Highly reccommend. It's few cons are far out-weighed by it's pros. Thanks LG! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229.00 87357 2000/9/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 very portable polyphonic ringtones color screen not a good deal few features heats quickly no speakerphone no camera low battery The Bottom LineDo not waste money on this phone, Pay $50 more and get a SANYO 8100. Full Review I purchased this product in February of 2003, and i wish i never had. The phone has the "cababilities" that Sprint claims it has, though you might as well spend the money on a more practical item. As a first time color internet phone user, the first few weeks of having my phone seemed incredible. The sky is the limit with sprint's new bright and shiny network. I purchased my phone from Radio Shack for only $50, normally $100 but i got a $50 promotional instant rebate. After comparing my LG 5350 to the SANYO 8100 which only cost $50 more, i was shocked. I immediately upgraded to a SANYO 8100. The LG has poor reception. It has a minimal screen that is color but has many vision problems. Most websites will not load because the LG has an older, less compatible internet browser. Basically, you're paying extra money each month to have mobile internet and you can only go to the mobile sprint site, and maybe ebay if it's a good day. The phone heats up while in use also. The battery life is horrible, much less then the box tells you. After two hours standby max it is already half out of battery. There is no speakerphone, only an option on more classy cellular phones. There is also no camera to take pictures, and the other features are very limited. The camera is the whole reason itself to pay for Vision internet. If you cannot send pictures, why pay so much for internet? The phone is fine for maybe teenagers who want to be able to say they have a "color phone". For everyone else, pay the extra $50 and get a nice clean Sanyo 8100 with built in camera, i did it and it's by far the best phone i have ever had, and the internet speed is TONS faster, and it has a camera. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87356 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight clear screenhas an amazing amount of features bright some controls not for bigger fingers earpiece volume not as loud as i like The Bottom LineI love it. No built in camera, no speakerphone, but hey, its a CELLPHONE, not a computer. Go to your store, try it out. It truly is a great value. Full Review Purchased on Ebay with accesories for $149.99 I researched this phone extensively on this and other websites and it boiled down to being the best value for the money in my opinion. So, I took a chance on it. Overall I have been very happy with my purchase.. As I consistently upgrade Sprint phones I am amazed with the clarity improvement in my calls.. Yes, I am actually one of the Sprint customers happy with my service. Outgoing calls received on regular home based phones, now have no idea I am on a cellphone, I am crystal clear to them, at a great volume with a sound much crisper than a fuzzy cordless phone. On the other side, I truly do not get the slight digital phone garble that I experienced a lot with other Sprint phones. Volume levels for the earpiece have a few adjustments, but, in louder environments such as the city street or sporting events, the phone just does not reach a level I'm totally satisfied with. I notice myself trying to center my ear perfectly trying to get a louder result. The screen is great, incredibly bright and clear and can be adjusted for brightness and contrast. Screen is even great for me in sunlight.Keypad is lit up very well at night and has a very cool purple glow. Standard 12 buttons for dialing are a good size and spaced well and at the top are a grouping of five control buttons with a square at the top with an OK button in the middle of that... The square button is actually used for directional movement (up, down, left right) while navigating through the on screen menus as well as surfing the web, with the OK button serving an obvious purpose. These buttons are packed a little tight for me and I notice that if I don't use the tip of my finger, I'm accidentally hitting an extra key or two. Of course a close up view can be viewed on the Sprint PCS website. Has a large supply of ringers, ranging from loud and goofy to subtle and catchy. Techno beats, Tetris themes, grandfather clock chimes, and even Don Knots ( I think it is) are all an option. Ringers do not seem to reach a very loud level, but I have to honestly say that the sound and pitch of the ringers cuts through more noise than you think. Since its not the "standard" ring tones, I think its easier to focus on and distinguish when in a noisy setting. Options seem endless, you can change your background like a computer screen, download additional scenes and even set ones for phone start up and shut down. Ringers can also be downloaded and last time I checked Sprintpcs, there were well over 200 to chose from.. For a fee of course.. Fees change like the weather, so I won't include those here. There is a tip calculator, global time zone clock, regular calculator, a few included games ( I have Egg Stack and Real Fighters)which I've had no time to get into. A photo album where you can even download personal images for your phone as well a great web browser. Web browsing speed on my phone is as fast as my old 56K dial up connection.. The phone has a great OK button, as well as a back button to scroll through pages as well as the square four directional button I mentioned before. Screen is bright and clear here as well, not limiting you to only a few web pages, but letting you enter any web address that you can think of... I have not been to one yet that is not compatible at least with a home page to view. Voice dialing is the least frustrating one yet. Recognizes my voice on the 1st time every time and that is a BIG plus for me. "Speed Dial" where you hold down a programmed button to dial a number, does, as mentioned in other reviews, take a little longer than needed. Maybe if this wasn't a flip phone it would be needed, but on this phone, it's not really necessary since buttons are protected and I don't even use the option anymore. The case when closed protects all the buttons so no more accidental phone calls. Something I was notorious before with my other phones. Call ID, date and time are all on the outer screen when closed. Program a distinct ringer for every caller if you like, download pictures or just sit and stare at it, I truly can't steer you away from this phone. There is no speakerphone option, but thats not a deterrent in my opinion because if you need one, it would be pretty unintelligent to purchase this phone in the 1st place. You can digitally record the person you are talking with (NOT your voice) while on the phone, so, if you're getting directions, or a phone number and don't have a pen, its all right there for you when you hang up. WONDERFUL feature. Battery life has been great. 3 days without charging with a good amount of call time has been my average. Never had to charge in under 2 days and have gone up to 4 sometimes. Has a mini organizer with a calender scheduler, alarm clock and a notepad. This phone is truly a little assistant for me. Another little bonus, your sprintpcs email address will ring you phone if you choose to and you can receive emails there as well.. Pretty neat feature. All in all, I think you can see how amazed I am by this phone. I could not steer you away from it. Ahh yes, I have dropped it twice.. Good drops, on the pavement... Keeps on tickin... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87355 2003/2/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 wireless internet large color screen easy navigation voice dialing gps speakerphone costly downloads weak speakerphone small size The Bottom LineIf you don't require a speakerphone or direct connect but like internet access and want the latest model with the most features this is the one to buy. Full Review Originally $189 after rebates now $49, Wow! Although my wife and I have been a loyal Nextel customers for 6 years our i1000's were getting tired and the cool i95cl (internet w/full color screen) would have been $399 with discounts and too expensive. We love the handsfree speaker phone and Direct Connect features of the Nextel but decided to see if we could switch and survive, after all the 2000 shared anytime minutes plan offered by Sprint would save me $720 over 12 months. After searching around I found www.phonescoop.com where I could select what was important to me, thats when the LG LX5350 popped up. After going to LG's website to review the features I decided to purchase two of them from Best Buy for a net cost of $189 ea ($239.99-$50 rebate). With the 14 day trial period it seemed like a no-risk way to see if they were what we wanted. After the initial charge time (2 hours) I was activated in 30 minutes (did it online). The phone menus are easy to use and the keypad is backlit bright blue (great for nighttime use). This is a great phone for women because of its small size (great to toss in a purse or pocket). This is a flip-style which allows it to be thin when not in use of more substantial when opened. For those of us with large hands the navigation of the keys is a little tough to get used to but easier with the accessory belt clip. Voice activated dialing is great and voice mail is accessed by pressing the "1" key (Very useful). The speakerphone feature which was one of the reasons I considered this model was quiet though. If you need a phone with speakerphone capabilities buyer beware. This model only has a one-way speaker and when activated it mutes the handset's mic so you cant talk; its best use is for listening to voice mail. Internet access is simple and secure using the on-screen menus and the screen is very bright. Graphics are crystal clear just like the digital service provided by Sprint. Overall if you dont require a speakerphone but need to stay connected to the internet for news and e-mail this is the phone to purchase. Accessories included are minimal and only includes a desktop charger, manual and CD for more detailed review of telephone features. If you need the speakerphone get the Nextel. All of their phones have it and there is a version (i90) that is comparably prices to the LG LX5350 but it doesn't have a color screen. To review the i95cl that I decided to break my piggy bank for read my review on that one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 239.00 87354 2000/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small battery life light weight great ringers external caller id time display poor data interaction appears fragile toy likeincomplete The Bottom LineThough is does exhibit some flaws, it customizability gives it an edge over most phone until something better arrives. Full Review For once sales people now have something to talk about, the new LG phone; but for this one moment just allow me to express my own finding. It's a great phone but you have to read between the lines. One can not eat a cake and have it. Intro LG is finally recognized with the production of LG 5350. Considering the fact the new phones pop up every other day. Looking for a phone to replace my Time Port Motorola, I came across the LG. I was looking for something simple phone with the most features. I was also curious about the vision stuff too. I was surprise to find out that LG was the one of choice. I did not need a camera phone because I felt that it complicates things such are the battery life, the bulk and price, so I picket this. Beside I have a digital camera of my own. Anyways this phone screams out "Hello world" as it enters the map of cellular business. It's "affordable" and fast becoming "popular". As we all look to see what it has on board. I do not think anyone anticipated it to get this popular or attention. It's an attractive phone. I wondered how is sneaked into the shelf of Sprint PCS. It will become a first phone for many. Teenagers will love this. It's affordable. The phone shows LGs potential in the mobile world. Prior to this day, I had under estimated the LGs. because seemed too simple and the appearance of a toy. When I saw the 5350 reverse was the case, it seemed high tech and futuristic. It has almost everything voice memo, voice dial/tag, scroll keys, lots of ring tones, photo caller ID, voice/midi rings and four alarms (including a count down alarm). Before I knew to all boiled down to this catch all phone. I was a wow experience and wasted no time taking it home. It was charged up when I got it so I wasted no time putting it to use. I could only make out going calls until service kicked in after the first few hours. Price wise and cost After all I had a Time Port Motorola (Startek). I purchased the LG 5350 for $50 because I let them have my old phone. Sprint issued me a credit of $150 and that's how I was able to meet the price of $199.99. I know they also have rebates but it is not offered to existing customers only new customers, at least they did not let me have it for free but I still came out ahead anyways. So expect to pick one for about $50 - $150 price rage; If you are not lucky you might get it for the sticker price, which is current $199.99. I have had it for about four weeks now. Plans Starts as low as $35 a month for 300 minutes to $100 for 2000 mins. Web plans (vision) start at $45 Questions. Aside with all those numbers and sporty names (3G, vision, and PCS) lest take a close look at the phone. Though it has been around for a while my review is running late; Sorry about that. I am not new to the cell business. I know my products and take (things) how they affect me personal. So lets strip all the sporty names and what we have is the product itself. The strength of a phone lies in its basic function. Aside with the Vision, 3Gs, best phone and what have you. Is it worth your money? Nothings is free, nothing is cheap? Is it a PDA? Why are other phones of its kind more expressive? Is there a catch I wondered? To get or not to get it is the question. Would it live up to expectations; find out as I explain next. I often put up my new ones against the older phones and what help me to move on or drop it. Frankly speaking it started to shake my faith by the second day. I will try to answer some of the question not necessary in the order of the questions are presented. I'll put up against the best simple basic phone I can find and see if it hold up. The decision will be yours to make. I anticipate leaving you on the fence, as we venture skin deep into the phone. With the entire overhead buzz, it is not a Personal Digital Assistant; It's more of a phone (than a PDA )with some organizer function. Nice Calendar Schedule. I suggest assign this to the left arrow key. History Lesson. Well LG finally says Hello to world as they move up their way from toy to phone. It was a wow experience. I was looking for an affordable feel good phone when I came across the 5350 LG phone. First impression was not bad at all. May be because there is not a camera on board; did not need one really. LG entered at the low end of the market. If one could not afford any phone then you got an LG. They last a while before the hinge snaps. But this one was rather different. I wanted to go with either most expensive one or the simplest ones and again this LG phone fell in that category. It was great looking and affordable. I was surprise to find out that it was an LG phone. No one knew that the phone would be the center of attention. It's entry price remained constant, not bad at all. Okay enough with history. Terms Explained 3G stands for third generation services, suppose to handle larger and faster data on the network. VISION is simply a sporty name for enhanced wireless web. Tends to be over exaggerated at times. Signal Overall signal is okay. Not as strong as my x Motorola. First Impressions It appears small and stylish which is a plus. It also exhibits a hard to believe vibrant color screen. I had to take it home for that reason too. Phone is equipped with up to date advance functions, which include t9 entry, organizer functions, ringer and more. Phone seemed very promising.. Seems to have all one may need. Wow and disbelief at first. I did not notice this phone when did it come in. Built in global positioning and special number access. Cool Features (plus) Airplane mode lets tell the flight attendants that you phone is off while you browse through your contacts, calendar, alarms, photos and games. Able to ring like a speakerphone as a result you can customize the rings to even voice rings. One you find the right volume you will be amazed at the clarity or the sound. It has three clock modes, analog, digital and full modes. The ability to assign a key (left arrow key) to any menu function. Lacks (minus/dislikes) Ability to move files around restricted to none. Can not access the built in photo album without a camera. Key bad light cuts off too quickly, leaving one in the dark. Fairly new as such we can not jump to conclusions. Exhibits come feature that can not be used yet. The Lock feature is vulnerable to erase. Could use more memory for downloads since is has no expansion. The interface kit which comes as a separate package lacks the ability sync others tuff like folders and rings. It just backs up the phonebook. Can not browse phone features while in use. I find it very limiting. More Impressions Looks simple enough for me. (Comment) I like complicated stuff but I do not mind simple things. Well it has great menu animations and that's a seller too. I took it over the Sanyo and Samsung for that reason. Friendly and Impress I thought and best for it price also. Discoveries No camera available for it on the market yet. No big deal, I can always send to it right I though. I found that I had very little control over the data. I can not rename stuff on it or move things around. Cable does not allow for folder access, uploads or downloads. I see someone making money as a result. Could not access the photo album. Not the way I wanted to. It only meant that they where other ways to accomplish such tasks, so I did not panic. Last Impression. The phone has great features but at the same time it is unfinished. The phone may be over priced at $199.99 The phone is becoming popular too fast as everyone discovers it, it goes to be a first phone for many. In the end I classify this phone no more than a prototype. I think it's the closed to phone that LG has made yet. It will be a while before one finds the flaws of the 5350. Conclusion Big N for No it did not meet up to my expectations. In my overall rating,. I give a rate of three from a scale of five. It did not live up to my expectations; but that's me and I have my own reasons for that. Does not mean it can not meet yours. You decide! I am only at your service, I am not a sales person just a consumer. I welcome your comments and hope I have helped your decision. It has great feature and can only wait to see if it stays. I was grateful for it and like to see new companies come to live. However, it's a high maintenance phone and requires ones undivided attention and constant tweaking of the photo Ids, ring tones because they will not stay in place. I guess this could occupy ones free time and keep one from getting board. Policing a phone gets on my nerves if you ask me. Imagine getting a ring that is not the one you picked coupled with a different phone number. You can see how this can complicate stuff. What would you friend say if you called them by a different name? Well this is only a small fault could be fixed probably. I rather have a rest of mind. I expect more from the phone. I figured if one has to add extra features, they have to work or do not add it. I consider it a first phone (even though other have been made) as such it was built in a hurry. Most first time phone makers are guilty of this. Will see more complain as many become aware. Phone is generally unstable on the download managements; I think it's over priced. I expect the basic functions and ease of use because you do not want anything to come between you and the moment of an important phone call. Long startup time is another negative. Solutions Are to go through your phone number entries every time you delete a ring or photo from the device. It appears it only remembers the location as such its unable to makeup for materials that are delete. After you download stuff, delete it right away if you down want it. Do not pile up files. Routinely check you phone if make any changes, especially deletions. We have can only hope for LG Corporation to provide a patch or software update soon. Yes it can be ignored if you do not use the download features. What I wish for That LG will make and update for the software available soon, or give us to replace the phone entirely with a newer version. I see lots of complains if that does not happen soon. I wish that the phone came in other colors as well like in black color. I wish that it did not look fragile. I wish they consulted consumers before designing it : ) The voice button should act as an okay-key function when browsing functions So long viewers, it's me again at your service anytime, with breakthrough and thorough discoveries because I have followed most products through time. Stevenson N. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 87353 2002/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size airplane mode memory capacity screen price occasional sluggish response low ringer volume The Bottom LineExcellent phone with great color screen, fantastic sound, long battery life, small size, and good reception. Price- and feature-wise, a much better value than the Samsung A500 or N400. Full Review I purchased my Sprint PCS Vision LG 5350 phone in 8/02 and have been very pleased with its performance and functionality. I am a longtime SprintPCS user currently on my 4th SprintPCS phone. My previous two phones were by Nokia (yes Sprint sold Nokia back in the day) and Sanyo. I must say that out of all the Sprint phones that I have had the LG 5350 has been the best. When I was looking to purchase a new Sprint phone in August I considered the Samsung offerings (N400 and A500). The LG 5350 is rated as having longest talk time battery life of the three (3 hours) and even with frequent use during the day I have not had any problems with low power (I recharge every night). The LG5350's color screen is quite nice to look at and in my opinion holds its own againt the A500's TFT screen. The button backlight and screen backlight duration is user adjustable and provide excellent visibility in almost all conditions. However, the screen can get a bit washed out in extremely bright direct sunlight. One of the selling points of the new Sprint Vision service is the ability to download ringers, games, and images to your phone from the internet. Sprint charges fees to download many of these files from their servers but many 3rd party sites have popped up to allow you to download ringers and custom images for free. The LG 5350 ringers sound amazing thanks to a 40 chord sound generator versus 16 chord of the two Samsung models' . In addition the LG comes with 43 included ringers versus 20 in the Samsungs. Already I have added dozens of new ringers and images to my LG5350. Although some of the literature states that the phone has only 1MB of storage capacity the phone menu shows 3MB available (many times more than either of the Sanyos). The only weakness as far as the ringers are concerned are that they are a little faint even on the highest settings and can get drowned out in loud settings or if you keep your phone in your pocket. For me, one especially nice feature is the LG 5350's airplane mode which shuts off the wireless communications functions of the handset while allowing access to all the other functions (menus, phonebook, organizer, games). As I work in a hospital where wireless phone use is prohibited this function is very useful. Some of the less favorable qualities of the LG5350 are its occasional tendency to slow to a crawl especially when starting or stopping the vision browser. Also the speed dial buttons require the user to press and hold the chosen button for several seconds longer than what I was used to with my old Sanyo SCP-4500 phone making the speed dial not nearly as speedy. Furthermore it takes longer for the LG5350 to regain responsiveness after ending a call or exiting a menu than my old Sanyo. As an aside, if some of the extra features of the LG5350 are turned off (GPS, etc) the speed improves noticeably. Reception-wise I have found the LG5350 to be on par with my previous Sanyo phone. At a retailer display I observed the LG5350 to have better signal strength readings on screen than either the N400 or the A500. The Sanyo 4900 vision phone seemed to beat them all but it's sheer physical bulk kept me from considering it. The size and price of the LG5350 are hard to beat. It is slightly larger and much less expensive than the A500 but considerably smaller than the only slightly cheaper N400. The phone appears to be very solid and well made with good quality plastics (which cannot be said of the optional Sprint swivel belt clip, beware). I paid $229 for my LG5350 in 8/02 at a Sprint Store. Since that time the price has dropped quite a bit making the LG5350 an even better value. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 87352 2002/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 openwave web browser strong personal information management tools awesome battery life for color screen no pcs vision capabilities can t send receive pictures lacks speaker phone thickness of the phone The Bottom LineAn excellent phone, with awesome battery life for a phone with a color screen. If you want an all-around Sprint PCS Vision phone, this is the one for you. Full Review To be honest the LG LX5350 is my second Sprint PCS Vision phone. The first one was the Samsung SPH-N400 phone, which was good, but had enough problems and faults that I exchanged it for the LG LX5350. I'll explain why in the review. The LG LX5350 is a great all around phone, and excellent performer. It isn't as thin as the Samsung SPH-A500, or the SPH-N400 but it has better battery life then those two and in many ways more features and is only a little bit more expensive then the Samsung SPH-N400. First off, if you plan on using the digital camera and the PCS Vision services you'd better look at the other two PCS Vision Phones (A500 & N400). Currently the LG LX5350 does not support the ability to send and receive pictures, but it does offer a lot stronger and better web browsing capabilities. With the OpenWave browser that the LG LX5350 comes with, web browsing a better experience then with the Samsung SPH-N400. You can view the content and go to other sites before the graphics are done loading, like with Internet Explorer on a desktop. With the WAP browser on the N400 and A500 you have to wait until the entire page is loaded before you can do anything. Also, OpenWave supports other website formats other than XHTML (WAP sites). I've been able to go to some HTML sites just fine, but if they have Javascript or Java on them expect some difficulties. Expect a normal web page, if it loads, to be truncated down to the small screen. It might be best to use the phone as a modem instead (when the cable is available). The biggest feature I disliked on the N400 was the address book and the PDA features. With the Samsung SPH-N400 (and I suspect the same for the SPH-A500), you only have a space for 12 characters for the title for an address entry where it appears to be about 22 for the space in the address book on the LG LX5350 (have not completely tested that out). The downside is for the address book on the LG LX5350, you only have a space for 200 entries. On the Samsung N400, there is room for 250. The PDA features on the LG LX5350 include a calendar, alarm clock, notepad and my favorite feature voice memo. All of the entry fields have room for up to 40 characters! The voice memo (voice recorder) has total space for about three minutes of recording total. The playback quality is very clear and easy to understand. Under the Fun Tools on the menu on the phone, there is also a Photo Album (which you can add pictures too when the desktop software and cable is available), two Java games (Egg Stack and Real Fighters), a tip calculator, a normal calculator and a world clock. Can you say feature loaded? I expect the LG LX5350 phone to be the choice for power users like myself. It offers strong and powerful features (like voice memo), and has the best battery life of the "flip" style PCS Vision phones. Highly recommended for power users. For basic cell phone user, the Samsung SPH-N400 might be a better choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 87351 2003/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features calendar small size airplane mode small screen slow startup no photo capabilities The Bottom LineA cool little phone as long as you don't need the camera. I've uppded my rating now that SnapSync is available. Full Review This is my first PCS-Vision enabled phone, replacing my outdated 3 year old Qualcomm. In this review, I'll run down the top features and give my opinion on each: Size & Weight ( ) Dimensions: 3.54" x 1.81" x 1.06" Weight: 3.88 oz Overall, I like the small size of this phone. It's a bit thicker than I'd prefer, but it's workable. I like that it feels solid in your hand. Battery Life ( ) The Lithium Ion battery is listed as having approximately 3 hours of talk time or 8 hours of stand-by time in digital mode. So far, these numbers seem pretty accurate. Color Screen Display ( ) The 65 thousand color display is crisp and bright, although a bit smaller than some other phones I've seen (notably Motorola.) So far, the size hasn't been an issue, as I've been able to see the information I need, and scrolling is easy with the scroll keys on the side of the phone. Enhanced Ringer Sounds (-) The 40-chord polyphonic ring tones sound pretty good, but I've been somewhat disapointed with the dowloadable ringers. For one thing, it annoys me that they advertise downloadable ringers, but fail to mention they cost money. $1-$3 per ringer is a bit much, especially since most of them are so-so midi translations. To my knowledge, there's no way to upload your own custom sound clips, either. If that capability exists, I sure can't find it! I've seen phones that have been around for several years that can upload custom ringers and alerts. Why limit this phone to the pay-only downloads? (Added 4/5/03) I've since found some sites that offer free ringers for download to your phone, but they're still not that great. And I still haven't found a way to upload my own custom sound clips. www.3gscreensaver.com has an option where you can upload custom ringers and pictures, but you must subscribe for $5/month. Voice-Activated Dialing ( /-) This feature might cause a bit of confusion with the Voice Command feature that Sprint offers. Voice-activated dialing is built into the phone, and can be added to any entry in your phone book. Simply record the voice command, then confirm. To use, press a button on the side of the phone. You will be prompted to speak the name after the tone. The big difference between this feature and the Voice Command is that you must record the voice commands manually for each name you wish to use. It's a nice feature, but if you have a large phone book, it may take a while to set up. Voice Command ( /-) Voice Command is offered by Sprint for $5/month, with the first 2 months free. This feature allows you to add contacts via the website (I exported my entire Outlook contact list), then simply speak the name to dial once the service is activated. You can access any number in your online address book, including multiple numbers for each contact. For example, you could speak "call John Smith at work", or "call John Smith on the mobile phone", etc. The rub here is that your online contact list is NOT downloaded into your phone. So, none of the contacts show up in your phones address book. This is a problem for a couple reasons: let's say you're in an area where you can't get service (digital OR analog), but you'd like to get the number of someone so you can use a payphone. Unless you've also entered every contact into your phone's phonebook (thus duplicating your efforts), there's no way to retrieve the number. Also, all calls using this feature show up in your Call History as "Voice Command", without any indication of who you actually called. This feature is nice because you don't have to individually teach each and every voice command, but it's annoying because you can't actually "see" your contacts. It would have been better if they integrated the feature with your built-in phonebook. Airplane Mode ( ) Airplane mode allows you to turn off the phone portion, while allowing full access to the rest of your phone (games, address book, calendar, etc.) This is nice when you want to use some of the features but can't get a signal (on an airplane, in my concrete-bunker like office, etc.). This prevents the phone from continually searching for a signal and running down the battery. Internal Phone Book ( ) The internal phone book is nice. It allows multiple phone numbers per entry, address, email address, etc. I love having up to 5 numbers per entry, as it reduces clutter. Calendar ( /-) The Calendar feature is handy, as it lets you create appointments and set alarms. The downside is it doesn't sync with Outlook. (Perhaps this is a future enhancement?) Messaging I don't use messaging, but it's nice to know it's there if I want to. Caller ID Support ( ) Shows the number (and name if it exists in your phone book) of the person calling, and is viewable from the window on the outside of the flip-top. This is nice because you don't have to open the phone to see who's calling. Web Browser ( ) The built-in Openwave browser is, in my opinion, superior to the older WML based browsers that most phones have. Openwave uses XML/XHTML technology to attempt to view any website. Most sites work great, but if the site is loaded with javascript, Flash, etc., it probably won't work too well. The reason I feel this is better than WML is that with a WML based browser, you're limited to sites that have specifically created WML content. PCS Vision Capabilities ( /-) I'm on the fence on this one. PCS Vision gives you the Web (a plus), messaging (which I don't use), ringers (which you have to pay for), games (ditto), and screen savers (also a pay-feature.) So, other than the web, I don't see much value. Also, if you're looking for the photo capabilities they're pushing in the commercials, you can forget it with this phone. Aside from not having a built-in camera, there's also no way to plug in an external camera. Other Thoughts: My biggest complaint with this phone is the very slow startup. With the phone turned off, it takes a full 30 seconds to power up and get a signal. The book says to hold the END button for two seconds to turn on the phone. Actually, you must hold the button for a full 5 seconds before it will start to boot up. You then see the Sprint logo for another 15 seconds before your background image loads. It's another 10 seconds before everything loads and it's ready to use. Not a huge issue if you leave your phone on all the time, otherwise it's a pain. I had originally reported that the 5350 was not supported by FutureDial's SnapSync synchronization software. As of 3/28/03, they've added support! This is great news, since it allows you to synchronize your Outlook contact list. (Note: you *may* need to upgrade your phone's firmware. Take it to a Sprint PCS store if necessary.) Summary: Overall this is a nice little phone. The built-in features are nice, but the lack of external phonebook syncing and very slow startup time keeps it from being the perfect phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $149 7693 LG Electronics/ Goldstar LGC-330W 87404 2000/4/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small size not reliable Full Review A year ago I upgrade my cell phone package with Ameritech Cellular. I upgrade to their digital Clearpath package. With the package I had a choice of phones to choose from. After reviewing the phones, I chose the LGC 330W. What a disapointment and mistake this was. At first the phone worked ok. After about three months of having the phone I started to experience trouble with the phone. At first the phone would drop calls, at times the phone would ring once and then I would loose the person I called. I took the phone in to Ameritech and they sent it out for repair. It took three weeks to get the phone back, well I thought the problem had been fixed, guess what? I was wrong. Same problems after two months, however this time the backlight would not go off and the screen would freeze. Once again I took the phone in for repair. In the year that I have had this phone, I have sent it in at least four times to get repaired. The worst thing is that Ameritech will not replace the phone or let me change to another model. I have to pay an upgrade to do so. When the phone does work, it's great. But overall I would say this model is of poor quality. I would have to think twice if I was to purchase another phone from this company. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Came with package 87403 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life clarity cumbersome menus drops long calls Full Review The LGC-330W was my first cell phone. I've had it for about 18 months now and it's time to move on. I see all of the features the newer models have (voice dialing, web browsers, etc) and my once shiney phone now reminds me of an old rotary dial from childhood. I use my cell phone for all calls (no landline at home) and this phone WILL drop every single call that is more than 30 minutes or so. I don't know why, and I've come to expect it so it doesn't even bother me anymore (BTW - GTE Wireless Austin, TX is my service provider). I like the backlight and vibrate features (a must for movie theaters and restuarants), but the menus are cumbersome (compared to what else is out there). I absolutely HATE that this phone does not keep a record of date/time (except for last missed call) and my voicemail doesn't do it either (but that's a GTE complaint). I will say that this phone sounds great. The clarity is top notch (I work in an interior room with tons of computers and my calls are clear). The charge time is good and the battery lasts me all day. Don't bother with the car-charger, or any other accessories, they don't work well at all. I would recommend this phone for a moderate to light user. For me this phone isn't keeping up with my constant usage. I'm moving on to Sprint PCS with a Samsung-3500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 w/ 1yr srvc 87402 2000/7/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 size features electronics The Bottom LineHighly suggest people research purchasing LGproducts. Just because the price is right and it has all the features you want, doesn't mean it's going to be a good buy! Full Review In June of 2000 I went to purchase a new phone after 3 years of using the old Motorola wedge type phone I spotted the LG CDMA. It had everything I wanted and the price was right. This phone seemed to have it all caller I.D., vibrating battery, small size, flip phone, and all the other features that are pretty much standard with cell phones these days. All this for a reasonable price. To get these features in most other phones it would have cost a lot more. I regret the day I purchased this phone. I actually purchased two of these phones and I had nothing but problems with them. 2 months after purchasing these phones I had to stop using one of them. The phone got so hot sitting in my pocket that I would have to take it out. Once out of my pocket it continued to heat up even when off. It would only stop heating up when the battery was removed. I thought it must just be the battery, so I tried my wife's battery. Same thing happened. I tried to return the phone and the original store I got the phone in had changed hands and the people at the new store said that there were lots of problems with this type of phone. I continued to go to stores trying to return or exchange the phone and 5 local stores that sold that same exact phone told me that these phones have lots of problems. 3 months after purchasing these phones my wife's battery started to last no more than 3 hours. Did I do something wrong. NO. She and I would drain the battery all the way and then recharge it the first 4 times it was recharged (more than recommended), and from then on followed what the owners manual said. The manual says you recharge it anytime and it won't create a memory. Towards the end of one year of having these phones the one that still worked started to heat up just like the other one did. Besides all of those problems the reception was horrible. My friend had the same service provider as I and could receive and send calls in a million more places than I could. He did not have a LG phone. I highly suggest that people research purchasing any LG electronics products. I for one will NEVER purchase any LG product ever again. Just because the price is right and it has all the features you want, doesn't mean it is going to be a good buy! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87401 2000/8/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap price long talk time not the smallest phone Full Review If you have read my other epinions or talked to me you know I LOVE to talk. Therefore, this is the phone for me. Talk time - this phone as the longest talk time of any comparable phone I have seen. 210 talk minutes (3.5 HOURS) is longer than even I can talk without charging. It also runs for more than a week without charging. Size - One side effect of the tiny phones is that they are hard to dial, especially with one hand. This phone fits into your palm snugly, not too big, not too small. It feels like a phone, not a toy, but also would strain your hand or your hip. Features - Except for a web browser and programmable ring tones (they have 10 pre-programmed) this phone has all the features you would get in a phone at 5x the cost. It also uses buttons and an "up/down" rocker switch on the side. All are intuitive and with just the right amount of confirmation before you do something stupid. Flip Feature - If you like Star Trek, you'll love this little communicator. If you just clip it on to your belt or pocket, like me, you will love the fact that the buttons never get pressed accidentally. On my last phone I always had to lock it. This cover makes it much easier AND it helps to funnel your voice so callers hear you better. Beam this phone into your house, Scotty! Battery - While not the tiniest battery, it is L-Ion which means it charges within a few hours even if totally drained and usually recharges during your commute to work. The battery fits nicely into the phone so it does not stick out. It also has the vibration feature which is now a necessity. Compatability - This is a CDMA phone which works with Bell Atlantic, GTE in San Francisco and some other systems. Bottom line - great phone, reliable, super long talk time, very reasonable price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE (with rate plan) 87400 2000/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use size none Full Review I choose the phone because it was part of a package so no real thought went into the purchase but it has turned out to be a great little phone. The menus are easy to use, well organized, the LED is large enough to read comfortably and all buttons are back lit. Battery recharging is fast even if the unit is left on. Number and Name storage capacity (99)is more than I'll ever use and the reception is good most of the time. This phone flips open and one carrying case does not. You can answer a call but to make a call you have to take it out of the case. The manufacturer does sell a flip open case. Over all this is a good buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87399 2001/1/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 well built reasonably priced dual mode phone has lasted me nearly two years no resetable minute counter availability of accessories is limited The Bottom LineA great phone if you can live with the two minor flaws I noted. Now there are more sophisticated phones (more expensive) with features not everyone needs. Full Review I got this phone free after a $50.00 rebate in May of 1999. I purchased this model simply because of the limited availability of dual mode phones at the time. I never heard of this company prior to this purchase and have been generally impressed with the design, build quality, call clarity and reliability. There are a few negatives however. This phone lacks a resetable minute counter, a problem if you are trying to keep track of monthly minute plan. There also seems to limited accessories for this phone. I have yet to locate a hands free speaker phone which is designed specifically for this model. That could be a deal breaker if you are a road warrior prone to talking in the car. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 87398 2000/9/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery length clarity nothing Full Review Well I was in the line to buy a new cell phone the last one I had was an audiovox. It was what I like to call a piece of junk. It was the worst phone I could have gotten. It looked good but was not a good phone. Then I was in the cell phone place and the sales guy told me that he would do me a favor since I had such a bad experience with the other phone. So he walked me over to this phone and asked me to give it a try. So he gave me the phone for free with a catch. I could use it for one week on my old plan, and if I liked it I had to sign up for a year. So I took his challenge. The results were amazing. This phone was small, and it looked good. But more importantly it worked. The sound was clear, and it did not break up every five seconds like most phones. So I went back in and got the phone for good. I have had the phone for a good 5 or 6 months now and I have been very impressed with it. It is durable and the battery time is excellent. It seems to just last and last. Also the ring can go on vibrate so you don't have to be embarrassed when it rings in a public place. This phone it a great phone, and if you are in market for a new cell phone get it and you will be happy Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with years airtime 87397 2000/5/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 flip cover locks keys non alphabetized address book Full Review This phone is great. I've had it for about 2 weeks and every time I've talked on it the sound has been crystal clear. It's great to throw into a purse or bag because of the flip cover. None of the buttons are able to be pushed because they are covered and the ones that are not covered have a automatic key-lock when the cover is closed. I bought this product because it was on sale and also because the sales-man told me that it was a step above the Nokia I had. The sole negative aspect of this phone is that it does not have an alphabetized address book. When you program numbers they are just assigned a place in the order you program them. However, this is okay because it has a feature to recall numbers. When you type in for instance "SC" it will pull up all the numbers in your book that have a "SC" in them. Also, it has a vibrate feature which is great because you are able to turn off the sound but still keep the vibrate on. This is a great phone! Buy it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87396 2000/6/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life durability clunky design horrible accessories Full Review I bought this phone after hearing great reviews about it from a friend. I must say that the display and back light make viewing the phone at night extremely easy, and the flip pad keeps the phone very well protected at all times and prevents unwanted usage. The battery life is great, I only need to charge it once every 3 days with moderate use. One thing I am extremely impressed with is its durability. I have dropped it getting out of my car, from a good 4 feet up about 4 times already and the phone is still working perfectly. The only drawback to this phone is its horrendous accessories. The leather case is a monstrosity and the company does not make a belt clip. Also, the only portable handsfree kit you can use with the phone literally doubles its size. In the end, if you want a simple, easy to use phone for everyday calls, you cant go wrong with this one. However, if you use your phone frequently and rely on some of the higher end options and bells and whistles, consider something else. As for me, Im switching to the Zuma 200 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87395 2000/7/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 d digital service caller i vibrating alert calls drop on the power cord Full Review After suffering through three years of Southwestern Bell's analog service I finally looked into upgrading to digital phone. It's "Crystal Clear" that I made a good decision. Working with and around heavy, loud construction equipment, this phone has been a blessing. It is very easy to program different ring modes. You have the choice of 4 different ring sounds and 6 melodies. The one mode that is a must to me is the Vibrate/Ring mode. This mode allows me to feel the phone ring in the event I cannot hear the phone due to loud noises. This phone is very lightweight and easily fits into my shirt pocket. This phone has an "any key" to answer system, or you can just flip the bottom portion of the phone open. The feature I really enjoy is the capability to have digital service. If you are traveling and happen to leave a digital zone, the phone automatically reverts back to an analog mode until you re-enter a digital zone. It has an excellent backlight LCD, 18-button lighted keypad, and excellent storage capacity for frequently called numbers. You can enter text to identify the numbers in storage and with Caller I. D., you can easily see who is calling you before deciding to take the call. I have never run out of battery time and with the Lithium-Ion battery, I doubt I ever will. On the downside, I do miss having a phone that I can lodge between my shoulder and my ear when needing both hands. The sheer dimensions make this a virtual impossibility. The only other downside I have experienced with this phone is that you cannot use this phone reliably when it is plugged into the cigarette lighter/power point of an automobile. If you try to use it, your call will drop. Still, all in all, this is the best mobile phone I have ever used. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 87394 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features i have found none Full Review When I first opened my cellular account, I bought a Nokia 918 phone. At the time,I thought it was cute and that it fit my needs. Soon I realized that there were better phones on the market that did not have as much static, and had much better technology. I ended up buying a LGIC LGC-330W. At first, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to get it, because of the much higher price, but as the salesman pointed out, the phone paid for itself in the first week I used it. This being my first digital phone, I was amazed at the clearness that a cell phone could provide. It was also built with durability in mind. Since I am always on the go, my phone gets thrown around quite a bit. It has hit the pavement countless times, and still hardly shows a scratch. Overall, this phone is simply wonderful. It is difficult to provide an accurate description of all the great features that it holds because it holds so many. I would recommend that everyone who is considering a cellular phone go and look at this phone before any other. In the year that I have had this phone, I have found no faults in it at all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 190 87393 2009/12/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features good size easy to use weak vibrating alert Full Review I purchased this phone as part of a new digital service plan, replacing an analog Motorola StarTac phone. At first I thought I would be bothered by the LG being bigger than the StarTac, but I've come to love this phone much more than my StarTac. This phone is very user friendly. The features are intuitive and clearly definable in the LCD display. The phone book feature is the easiest to use that I've found, allowing 99 entries with text and easy searching and review. It has built-in vibrating alert that can be combined with audible alert at the same time, which is nice in situations where you go back and forth from quiet to loud environments. It comes with a Lithium-Ion battery that is fairly lightweight. It has been very durable, being dropped several times with no negative effects. The design of the phone allows you to hold it in one hand and flip open the phone with one finger. The clarity of calls using this phone with digital service is outstanding. The only complaint I have about it is that the vibrating alert is fairly weak, so if you have it in a coat pocket you might not feel it all of the time. Unless you want the absolutely smallest, lightest phone around, this would be a great choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39 87392 2001/1/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact inexpensive decent feature set strange rings no frills like wap The Bottom LineInexpensive, compact, light, easy-to-use, no-frills phone. Full Review I have used this phone at two different jobs and definitely like it. I make my calls, I get my calls, no frills. The dimensions are quite compact - I often carried it in my pants pocket. Not really light enough for the shirt pocket though. Because of the "flip", I didn't even use a cover, which would make it bulkier. It even has a vibrate function, but doesn't require an extra-large battery. The signal quality has been excellent. I live and work in New York City and have had just a few problems with static or dropping calls, although the Bell Atlantic service might be more of a factor. Sound quality/volume are excellent. The screen is very readable and the menu system is easy to navigate - no surprises or unwieldy procedures. The strangest thing about this phone are the rings - it is manufactured in Korea (I think) and so besides the variety of straight rings, it has a few ?Korean? tunes. The only one I recognize is "Swanee River". Other than that, this is a great "first phone" or replacement for the $300 Nokia that you left in the cab when you where drunk - both my mom (former) and my friend Jeff (later) are now using this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 87391 2000/10/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable great reception reliable looking a little largedated Full Review I bought this phone back in October of '99 for a long road trip. I had wanted one for months and the trip was excuse I needed to convince myself to spend the cash. I must say, after a year with the phone I am still quite happy with it and consider it one of my better purchases in recent history. That's right, purchase--I did something most people won't or can't and bought the phone out-right to avoid having a to sign a contract. So getting the best value was at the top of my list. And I really wanted a phone that would last since I would own it. I had looked at the StarTAC's that were out at the time and decided they were too flimsy and expensive. I also looked at some Nokia and Samsung phones before finally deciding on this one. It had the right balance of features and I really liked the look. Plus I rarely wear a belt and having a flip-phone meant I could stick it in my pocket and not have to worry about the buttons getting damaged, accidental calls, or arcane button combinations to turn it on. I really don't have anything bad to say about this phone after a year's worth of use, all of the problems I've had have been due to my provider (Verizon Wireless, for, GTE Wireless). It has been clear, gets great reception, and has worked in the middle of nowhere, and the battery life hasn't degraded with use much at all. Sure it's starting to look a little large and dated though with all the spiffy new phones coming out for Xmas, but it still gets the job done and looks almost brand new. I really can't find anything bad to say about this phone. And would recommend it to anyone looking for a durable, reliable phone for under $200-$250 retail range Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249.00 87390 2000/1/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to read face user friendly very clear reception none for my use maybe for use with pc Full Review I received the Lgc-330w from a local dealer within a plan. The Lgc-330w is a wonderful little phone. The screen is easy to read. The layout is simple ,easy, and functional. I have had nothing but good luck with this item. Recently I cracked the face and was sorry to hear the phone sales store I deal with no longer carries them. I went to a new Qualcomm 2035a which is a nice phone with many options,but I am already missing my LG. It was so easy to dial on the large key pads and also see the screen while driving. It had many dial tones to choose from. It disconnected automatically when you shut the face. The send and end buttons were much nicer than the rubber ones that stand out too much on the 2035a. This new Qualcomm seems a bit more high tech ,but I would take a new Lucky Gold LG over it any time for my use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with plan 87389 2000/10/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use fun durable none Full Review I am a pretty big cell phone user. I have been using them since bag phones.But this LGC-330W is great. I take it everywhere with me. it is compact, and durable. There are also many accesories available off of the LG web page. The Phone has 99 spaces in memory for your most often called numbers (the first nine are speed dial). It also has 11 rings, including about five songs. The phone is relatively inexpensive also, which is a major plus. I have had mine for a year now, and it is still going strong. I bought a hard case for it, which is jut a littles shell that clips on your belt, and the phone slides into it. The hardcase has the advantage of being able to take the phone out easily for charging. Overall I would suggest this phone to anyone. My family now has two. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87388 2000/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great receptionreceives all calls lack of caller id features Full Review I recently bought this phone about four months ago and I loved it. Until I started going through its features or lack there of. Its major down fall is on the caller ID feature, it just shows the number. Now this wouldn't be a problem until you go to scroll back down your caller ID list. It only holds ten numbers, received and placed calls are put together. You can never find out the time the called was placed or the day once you push the SEND button the first time. This was and still is a major pet peve of mine with this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free w/plan 87387 2000/10/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 drop in charging easy to use vibrate good reception no one button access to address book no voice dial Full Review This is a pretty good phone. Enough of it is easy to access. The menu buttons at the top make navigating things easy enough, and capturing phone numbers is simple. I also like the scratch pad option, which allows you to type in a separate phone number during a conversation for recall later. Reception is good. I like the drop in charging. The only problem is the address book. Instead of just opening the address book, it opens a menu. Considering how often a cell phone user uses the address book, one button access just makes sense. Talk time is decent, it's lightweight and attractive. It also have a vibrate option, which I consider essential for not being rude. I do wish it had voice dial though, and that it was wireless web ready. I would recommend it, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 87386 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 tons of features for the intermitant power off Full Review I was able to get the LG330 w for only 30.00 with a 1 year contract. The asking price was 79.00 with a 1 year contract and 59.00 w/ 2 year. The 330 has been a great phone with the exception of one problem. Once in awhile the phone will just shut off for no apparent reason. I think that the problem is the leather pouch/belt clip accessory. It seems to put stress on the battery pack, pulling the battery away from the phone. Performance and features of this phone cannot be beat, even at full retail price. It is very, very durable, as I have dropped it at least 25 times in the past four months, and have had no other problems. The size of the phone is perfect. If it were any smaller it would probably be to small. Another nice feature is the way that the function buttons are set up, you can completely use this phone using only one hand. Battery life is very good with the standard battery that comes with the unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 87385 2000/6/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small lots of features poor leather case design Full Review This was my first cell phone, and I don't regret buying it. The LCD screen is sharp, and the backlight is strong. The vibration feature was key for me, and there are more than enough ring tones to choose from. This phone also has the capability to receive wireless data. The talk and standby time is superb compared to many others. I can leave this phone on for three days before it needs a recharge. My only gripe is the case that is offered for it. The flip down portion won't go up all the way and the phone is therefore usually in the "open" position while it's in the case. Besides that, this is a great phone, even for a first time cell phone buyer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87384 2000/5/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek performs well compact doesn t do the advertised stand by time Full Review When I first signed up with Bell Atlantic, I purchased the Qualcomm phone which was on special. It was big and bulky but they told me it was the best phone out there. Getting the phone home, I found there was not enough signal for a sustained conversation so I brought it back. I asked if a more expensive phone like the LGIC 330W would work better in my area and was told it might so I returned the Qualcomm and got the LGIC 330W. Of course in my area it made no difference what so ever but I was still happier with this phone. First, the phone is compact. It is very thin. It's not too small to make it hard to use but its small enough to easily slip into a pocket. The screen is easy to read. Feature wise it has almost everything you could possibly want. It has a decent phone book, one button function for retrieving voice mail and it has a built in vibrator ring function. Voice quality is excellent too but so was the Qualcomm. A few months ago it was lost. I could have purchased the same phone again and should have but now that Bell Atlantic offered a cheaper Motorola (SC3160), I decided to try that phone instead. It was a mistake. The Motorola phone is fat & bulky and it is not user friendly at all but that's another review. The LGIC 330W is a great phone. The only minus is that it doesn't perform up to the advertised stand-by time but I have never seen a phone that does. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87383 2000/2/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything none Full Review I purchased my LGC-330W at my BAM dealer and it is great! Affordable, Digital, High tech. I do not agree with any opinions that put down this phone. It is great, and whoever is looking to buy a phone should get this one. The indiglo background is great in the dark. The phone can be set on vibra-ring. This means that the phone can vibrate when you receive a call, or really obnoxious, vibrate and ring when you receive a call. This phone is pretty fancy. It's a flip phone! The only thing I think the maker should do is have those cool pop-off faces just like the Nokias'. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 87382 2000/6/16 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 small size inconsistent Full Review I've heard nothing but grief from this phone. Customers threaten to throw it out their car window while driving over the bridge. The voicemail notification seems to have a mind of its own (I'm not sure if the tiny envelope that's supposed to appear on the screen didn't get a postage stamp and so got left in limbo) and the local dealers and technicians claim that reception problems is not the provider--but they say the phone just plain stinks. One of my co-workers has an LGC and hasn't seen a cute little envelope in months (too bad those messages can't be sent with insurance) Needless to say when customer's ask me what they should get I simply say--Anything is better than the LGC330W. So if you want peace of mind. . . .stay away from the LGC!! Best Wishes :) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 87381 2009/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 keeps numbers very accessible distorted voices occassionally Full Review I recently purchased the LGC 330W Digital Phone. I had wanted to get a much smaller phone than I had for the past 5 years. I was using a Motorola Tele Tac 200. I really like this new phone. It has the capability to store up to 99 phone numbers. Something I really like, since it lets me just take the phone without my day planner to get in touch of people I need to contact at various times. It is a digital phone that converts automatically to an analog phone when digital service is not available. Another great feature for me since I do travel to areas that do not have digital service. It also has a very long lasting battery. I do not have to charge it every night like I did with my older phone. I can leave this one off the charger for 3 days practically without charging it up. Very nice design and sleek enough to fit into a pants pocket and very easy to carry around. One thing that I do not like about my new phone is the digital service. We all keep hearing how digital service is so great and wonderful. I am not too impressed with it. It seems with my new digital phone that a lot of the time I have to ask the person I am speaking to, to repeat themselves. I keep hearing them speak in a warbled manner. Other times when you are dialing someone you can hear the ring being all distorted as well. My older phone that I gave up, granted it was analog, never was distorted or anything. I am not so sure digital service is the answer, but I have embraced it since analog service is getting much more expensive than digital service is. I have more free minutes included in my new digital service. I have nights and weekends free as well. All and all, I really do like my new LGC 330W Digital phone. We all have things that we must give up to get other good options. If I have to put up with distorted voices, then I must. I now have more free minutes that I can just ask the caller to just keep repeating themselves until I can clearly understand them better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 87380 2001/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very compact text messaging can operate as a non flip phone can t program different rings for diff callers not web enabled awkward vibrate mode The Bottom LineA light weight phone with good clarity and an average amount of features. Full Review Coming from an avid hater of flip-phones, I am very pleased with the LGC-330W. Functionally speaking, I have always found flip-phones to be flimsy, obstructive, and very inelegant. What sold me on this phone was the fact that when there is an incoming call, you don't have to flip it open to answer it, it can operate just like a non-flip phone. How does it do that? Well, unlike many flip phones that have the microphone in the flip portion, this phone's mic is exposed whether the flip is opened or not. Rather than serve as the mouthpiece, the flip on this phone serves more as a protector for the keypad, however, this also means that you have to open it if you want to make a call. Some of the LG features include caller ID, text messaging (which is great, because you now have a phone and an alpha-numeric pager in one unit),a large display, and vibrate mode. Also, the message-waiting indicator on this phone has different alert types and tones to distinguish from when the phone is ringing. However, you can't program different ring tones for different callers (a feature common to Nokia phones). If you like your phones to be decked-out with the latest features, this phone isn't web enabled (but you can receive e-mails), isn't voice activated, and there are no cute little games to play. What I like most about the phone is how compact it is; it's small enough to slip into the smallest purse or pocket; it's roughly 4 3/4 inches tall (5 1/2 if you count the antenna) and less than an inch thick. What I'm the least pleased with is the vibrate mode. The vibrate modes on my previous two phones were soft and silent; the vibe on this phone sounds and feels like a lawnmower (of course, it might just seem that bad in comparison). The clarity that I have experienced is very good, but that might only be because of my service provider. I only charge my phone about twice a week, and a drained battery charges in a few hours. I should note that in light of the "cell phones causing cancer" scare, if you want a phone with headset capability the LG 330W does have it, but you have to buy an expensive adapter for the bottom of the phone that the headset is attached to. Compare this to most other phones that have cheap earpieces that just plug right in. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free with plan 87379 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 phone size shape weight battery life lack of easy availability of parts Full Review I paid too much buying it from BAM directly, the first week it was on the shelves, but its small size and weight and long battery life are exactly what I wanted. It performs wonderfully, rarely runs down, charges quickly, has very nice sound. Any warbles or drop-outs are quite rare, (and those which do, I attribute to living in NYC, driving amongst so many steel framed buildings) It has it's faults though. I too would love to have the name pop up on Caller ID, and am very frustrated in attempting to get hands free parts for the phone (I do have to make some calls while driving, not a wonderful idea....) BAM does not carry any hands-free parts compatible, nor do any other stores or on-line sites. The leather case that is commonly sold for it allows the phone to slip out the bottom (thus I know that it does not easily suffer damage from falls!) Besides the hands free parts and a better carry case, I would love to see a MEMO or SCRATCHPAD built in. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109 87378 2000/6/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use inexpensive good features sturdy not exactly the most high tech of phones currently available Full Review The 330-W (or, "BAM 330D", as my service provider and former employer Bell Atlantic Mobile/Verizon wireless, has re-christened it), is a workhorse of a phone. Having dropped it, stepped on it, and gotten it wet, the fact that it still WORKS, let alone works well, is a feat in and of itself. The small size, vibrating battery, and decent call/programming features in an inexpensive package still make it the phone for me, one year after the fact. While working for Bell Atlantic last year, I had to know all there was to know about all the digital phones on the market, in order to stay current. The phone I originally lusted after back then was the Motorola Star-Tac CDMA digital model. However, when it first came out, it was over $500. FORGET ABOUT THAT! I had to console myself with the slightly larger 330D (the only other vibrating-battery CDMA phone available at the time), which was almost $450 cheaper. Boy, did I make the right choice. The phone's quiet, vibra-call feature is invaluable, and let people reach me in situations they normally would not have been able too (namely while in class and at dinner), and the sturdy body has withstood a number of near-death - for a cell phone, at least - experiences. As for call clarity, I would imagine the generally clear calls have as much to do with Bell Atlantic's wide and well-maintained CDMA digital network as much as it does with the phone itself. Regardless, calls sound good. The other features are passable too. The 99 number memory is only now starting to get over-full (good thing I wasn't any more of a socialite), and the battery, while it could always be longer, has never failed to get me through the day. While I wish the phone had some more advanced features (games, more calling options, a greater memory), it still suits all my needs at the moment. It doesn't pack the flash of some newer, more expensive models, but it does its job well. If you need the phone now, it's a fine choice, allowing you to save your $$$ for the "third generation" phone/Internet/PDA combos that will be going mainstream by years end. Looking for an inexpensive, easy-to-maintain phone? The 330 will not do you wrong. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 87377 2000/7/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 large readable buttons flip style easy to shut off easy to use durable voicemail can be tricky The Bottom LineGreat, durable phone. Consider it a Marine of phones. Full Review I'm pretty tough on all kinds of electronic devices and my cell phone is no exception. I told this to my cell phone guy and he hooked me up with this little jewel for free when I contracted with him 18 months ago (MCI service). Frankly, this little jewel has outdone itself. First off, I like flip style phones because you always know when they're off..you close the lid. I once had a phone I left inadvertently on for over 55 minutes of cell phone time so I KNOW to get flips from now on. The case is hard enough to survive many drops on tile and asphalt- trust me on this. I'm careless and drop the thing all the time. The buttons are large and well formed- easy to hit on the go. The number 5 button has little dents in the side too, so I can dial when I'm not looking at it- a major plus. Personally, I like a little larger phone buttons. I want some heft in my phones, and I want buttons easy to push and find in the dark. It has the standard 99 memory locations that use thumb through with the two large buttons on the face of the case. My only complaint is the voicemail feature. You have to cycle through a little envelope button first and then two more buttons to dial your voicemail service. Add to that, the infobot at the other end doesnt use the standard buttons that all my other voicemails use (i.e delete is button 7, FF is button 4) so I'm constantly hitting the wrong buttons to delete messages. If I wasn't such an idiot, this wouldn't be such an issue. After 18 months now, the little bugger is still going strong. My last phone (Audiovox) only lasted about 7 months in comparison. Frankly I'm afraid to buy one of those new Motorola or Nokia jobbies with the fun faceplates- they just look like they'd bust too easy. I have developed a wee crack in the LCD faceplate but thats to bee expected- I left it in my black car all day on a 117 degree Arizona summer day. That same day, coincidentally, I cracked my windshield too- I left the windows up. It also survived many long drops, a plunk under the faucet, two sittings (I sat on it with the antennae up)and one near drowning. As for the connection- well, that's good but that could be the service too. I've found its the provider more than anything else that determines your connection strength. I've never had a problem, except for some areas of Scottsdale. Those rich snobs don't allow cell phone towers in their neighborhoods, so I can hardly blame the phone for that. The battery is good too- about two-three days standby time. Calling time its never gone down on me and it recharges fully in about 3 hours. On my car charger a little longer. Recommended: Yes 87376 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 size durability gte s policies on replacement Full Review I have one of these phones, and it was ran over by a car! No kidding, ran over by a car, and still works! Besides that, it's a great phone, small size, but not too small. This phone has all the features that you would want, and some that you might not ever use. Easily navigatable menus are also a plus. I don't particularly like flip phones, due to the fact that I'm always worried that the little flipping piece of plastic will break, but my concerns for my cell phone are not in the area of construction! Even when being run over by a car, it detaches instead of breaking as would be expected. A large backlit LCD display allows you to see information with great ease. I did, however, have a friend who had an identical phone where the LCD broke before the contract was fufilled, and she had to buy a replacement phone from GTE. I thought that that was pretty unfair considering the price of the phone, and the fact that the likelyhood of any large LCD being used daily will most likely incur some damage is pretty high in any instance. Other than that, this phone is an excellent choice, especially considering your other options at GTE/Verizon. It really did get run over, and it really does still work perfectly! I just wonder what my friend did to break that LCD! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): low $100's 87375 2000/3/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrate ring mode clear lots of features long life none Full Review The LGIC 330W cell phone is great. This is my third phone (the first digital, let alone dual-band). My first phone was a Nokia analog, about four years ago. Boy, did it suck. Short battery life, no extra features, and the most egregious offense-horrible connectivity. About 25% of the time, the connection would get really static-y, and then cut off altogether, requiring a redial. Two years ago I upgraded to the Motorola Startac 3000. For the most part, I didn't and still don't have any real complaints about it save for its short battery life and lack of modern features. On to the 330W. I'm going to break it down by features, which is what I think we all care about anyhow. SIZE: very small. The thing I loved about my Startac was that I could always have it on me, in a front pants pocket even. The 330W is almost as small as the Startac-not quite, but almost. Size is definitely not a problem with this phone. CLARITY: the 330W is a dual-band digital phone. So, when it can receive a digital signal, it will. When it can't, it automatically flops to analog. The clarity using both modes is very good. I've heard some digital phones that sound so robotic & odd: this is not the case with the 330W BATTERY LIFE: long. Really long. Coming from my previous cell phone experience, anything would seem long, but this one really is. It's advertised as 80 hours of stand by time, and 210 minutes of talk. So far, it's lived up to that. It's as long a battery as I think anyone would need. Some batteries have a long stand by life, but only 90 minutes of actual talk time-needless to say, the 330W has an optimal combination of the two. FEATURES: it's got it all: multiple ring sounds, melodies, vibrate mode (works well), vibrate + audible, and totally silent mode where the light activates. Full voicemail, paging, caller ID, phone book, etc. The only feature this phone is lacking is web browsing. I happen to not care about that feature, but if you do, look for another phone. That's about it. I highly recommend this baby to anyone who can get a good deal on it (I got it through my GTE service for $69 as an upgrade). It's a solid phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 87374 2000/6/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable lightweight sleek reliable lost calls The Bottom LineThe LGIC LGC-330W CDMA Digital Cellular Phone is a solid, reliable phone than can take a beating and still deliver. Full Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OVERALL RATING 90% Recommended Based on 31 member opinions RATINGS SUMMARY DURABILITY: 4.5 CLARITY: 4.0 PORTABILITY: 4.0 BATTERY LIFE: 4.0 I never, ever wanted a cellular phone. I, one of the last of the Luddites, thought it was one more distracting, unnecessary luxury in necessity's clothing. However, when my wife became pregnant, I decided a cell phone was no longer a luxury. I did not want to spend big money on a phone. I received a promotional postcard from LGIC promoting their LGIC LGC-330W CDMA Digital Cellular Phone for only $40 with 1-year service contract (after tax, $33.16 monthly, provided you don't exceed the 180 "anytime" {free} minutes you receive monthly). I took a chance. I have nothing but praise for this phone. The LGIC LGC-330W CDMA Digital Cellular Phone is a dual band phone. Caller ID, call-waiting, three-way calling, and voice mail are included with the service contract. The phone itself is option-rich allowing you to customize everything about your phone from multiple ring options to how long the phone remains illuminated upon placing or receiving a call. The phone has four alert options for incoming calls: a ringer (obviously), a vibration setting, a vibration & ringer setting, and lamp only. There is another neat feature called a "Scratch Pad" which allows you to copy down and save a phone number or text message while on the phone. and though I've not mastered that particular art, it exists all the same! The phone itself is compact and does not impose itself on you. It is roughly 5 inches long and barely weighs 6 ounces. It does not have a belt clip, but does have a lanyard. Leather holsters are difficult to find because of the front flap (which must be open to place or receive calls) but, after much searching, I have found Radio Shack to carry them if such things are important to you. The battery on the LGIC LGC-330W CDMA Digital Cellular Phone is strong and holds its charge better than Billy Martin held his gin. The standby time of the battery is listed at 80 hours but I have found it closer to 90. The talk time is just beyond 3 hours. I have, furthermore, found the phone to be tremendously durable as I have dropped it numerous times from various heights with nary a scratch nor a flaw in its operation to be found. The customer service center representatives are friendly and responsive and do their job well in my epinion, though I've only had cause to contact them to ask questions about my service contract. The only problem I have found thus far, and I have owned this phone for a year now, is that the phone has an annoying tendency to echo whatever you say through the earpiece. I don't know why this happens, but I am told that many owners of the LGIC LGC-330W CDMA Digital Cellular Phone have had similar experiences. As a result, your call is ultimately lost. The good news is that such occurrences are few and far between. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 87373 2000/7/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight good talk time no web capability echo signal loss Full Review Overview: I bought this phone at my local GTE dealer along with a promotional rate plan about 6 months ago. I did not feel like spending $200+ on a Motorola StarTAC, and yet did not want something cheap and flimsy. There were not many choices, and the LGC-330W looked promising. I have for the most part not been disappointed. Likes: There were two features that I absolutely had to have in a cell phone... a vibrate alert, and it had to be a digital phone. I also liked how lightweight and compact this phone was. Like most current cell phones, there is an "any-key" call answering feature (which I use all the time). The LCD screen is fairly large (4 lines) and the back-light is quite strong. Battery life was also a concern, and this phone boasts 3.5 hours worth of talk time (210 minutes). The 80 hour standby life is a bit overrated, but not by much. I usually get 60-70 hours on a full charge. This phone is also capable of text messaging. The on-screen menu is also very intuitive, and easy to follow. Dislikes: I have been getting cut off from time to time in my car. I would understand if it was in a building, but getting cut off in my car does get a bit annoying. Once in a while I can also hear an echo of myself speaking. Though this is somewhat rare, it definitely counts as a distraction. The optional leather case is also very difficult to close due to the "flip-open" feature of the phone. I would have also liked to see some web capabilities in this phone, but it wasn't a must. Summary: Overall, I have been quite pleased with this phone. I'm pretty sure that most cell phones will lose their signal occasionally, but since this was my first cell phone, I can't really judge upon that. If you're looking to spend under $100 on a cell phone, this one is a solid choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87372 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 not having one The Bottom LineI had choose this cell phone for looks and very clear connection, and safety features. Full Review Welcome to the new world of communication. Everywhere we go now there is ringing of cell phones and people are talking. Life is going on no matter where we are. I have join in this world and love it. I don't leave home without my phone. I am in touch with family no matter where I am at. I don't need to stop and make a phone call at a telephone booth, and wonder if it works. I just push a button and send and connect. I had another brand, cell phone and now I had bought this CDMA LGC330W. Getting started was so easy. Basic functions as to turning the phone on and off, making calls, correcting dialing mistakes, receiving calls, call waiting, mute, re dialing last outgoing number,adjusting volume, signal strength, emergency dialing, viewing your telephone numbers. PHONE BOOK FEATURE: Two types of phone book,personal phone book memory, entering characters, recent call history list, retrieving numbers, changing the personal phone book, dialing numbers from your phone book, advanced phone book features. MENU FEATURE:Main menu, general guidelines to menu access and setting and menu item descriptions. MESSAGING FEATURE:New message alert, message ACK, reading newly received text messages,reading previously stored messages, deleting all the messages selection of alert and sound types, checking voice mailbox. CALLER I.D.: Using CALLER I.D., stored phone numbers with names, radio frequency (RF) energy, safety information. MENU TREE: volume, display, select ring, system, alerts, call info, security, all that is set up in numbers from 1-6 and just press to go too each feature. CHOICE of 4 ring sounds and 6 melodies 18 button lighted keypad and 99 memory locations. Paging, messaging, voice mail, and caller I.D. a lot in one small phone. Flip opening so keys are covered until opened. A great safety feature. Long battery talking 2+ hours per charge and charging time is very fast, comes with case,cigarette lighter adapter and you can buy hands-free car kit. I am happy with my choice of phone. I have 2 family members with the same phone too. I talk on my phone and friends and family don't believe that I am on my cell phone, because you get a clear connection. Try it out and you will be happy too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 7694 LG VXI 87418 2003/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple event planner small battery life long text messaging ring tone is not very loud With everyone now wanting flip phones, this is perfect, the battery lasts you a couple of days, it has internet, you can download tones, text messaging, call forwarding, and an event planner. Only thing is that the ring tones aren't very loud, so you might have to keep it on vibrate 87417 2000/1/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 design size clarity weak ringers The Bottom LineIt's a solid performer, with some of the best call quality out there. However, it does lack fun games and a color screen! Full Review I've been with Verizon for four years and have tried almost every phone. In fact I work at Radio Shack now and sell them. I recently upgraded from the LG-TM510, which was a great phone. PROS In my experience LG makes great phones. There usually not to feature rich, but are great quality. After testing this phone against the Motorola 270c, Samsung T300, Motorola v120, and Motorola 720, this phone takes the cake in call clarity. I get great reception everywhere: my home, on the road, in supermarkets, and even in the mall. The phone is small and sleek and slides into my pocket. But it's not small enough for me to drop. The hearing piece and microphone contour perfect to my mouth and ear. The caller id on the outside is a great bonus as well. Both screens are sharp and clean during the day and at night. The battery life is also pretty good on this phone. It is not as long as most motorolas, but it last almost a good 3 hours most of the time. Lastly, the phone is very durable. I've dropped it twice and suprisingly the outer screen didn't crack either time. The falls only resulted it a few hard to notice scratches. CONS The phone has a weak ringer, sometimes hard to hear in my pocket. This cuases me to lose calls in slightly loud places. The phone also is some what expensive for most people. However, your paying for the quality. The phone also lacks games and any funs oftware to play with when you are waiting for someone\thing. FINAL NOTE The phone is great. Some of the clearest reception I have ever experienced. It's also based a new technology called 3G (third generation). Which enhances call quality and speeds up internet services on the phone. Many phones currently out are still lacking the 3G chip, but this one has it incorporated into it's design very nicely. In areas where no phone would get a signal this phone got 4 out 5 bars in reception. However, other than increase clarity and being lighter this phone is not far from its mother model, the lg-tm 510. P.S. I got the phone so cheap because of employee discounts. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 87416 2002/10/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks neat verizon completely removed voice dialing on this supposedly upgraded phone The Bottom LineWith this new model LG, they tossed phone call related functionality, in order to add cheesy games and ring tones. What a let down. Full Review I have had the previous version of this phone, the TM-510, for over a year. Its by far the best cell phone I ever had. This new phone, the VX1, is supposed to be an "upgrade" to the TM-510, but instead they've actually reduced its functionality for the purpose of adding neat new ringtones and games: There is No voice dialing any longer. Verizon decided to sell an "upgraded" phone and completely dump the voice dialing feature. Instead, if you want the capability, you have to purchase a "Voice Dialing" service for $5 a month extra, which requires that you dial *84 (or something similar) just to access their "voice server", when you want to make a call. Not only did they drop the feature from the phone, but they're trying to make money off of it, and you have to dial three buttons just to initiate the call. This could not be any more inconvenient. I don't care much for the fact that there are "new ring tones" and "neat games". I use this phone to make calls, and now I have to manually dial everything, or pay extra and dial half a phone number just to use the voice service. The phone's phone book is now virtually useless, since they've duplicated it with their online phone service. I spoke with LG customer service and the phone rep was fully agreeing with me. She said she receives more calls about this issue every day than about any other topic right now. Glad Im not alone on this one. I had to get this phone because I need the Express Network mobile office for my laptop, and only a handful of phones are capable of the technology. I am going to return it and get the Kyocera for $45 and use that as my laptop data phone. Im going to also stick with my TM-510 as my regular cell phone. If you're getting the VX1 to help you connect to Mobile Web or the like, I suggest you get a cheap cell like the Kyocera and keep your older TM-510 model. The VX1 has migrated Verizon's LG Phones from one of the best cell phones on the market, to a potential new competitor for XBox instead. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87415 2000/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 style features reception size durability battery life ringer The Bottom LineLooking for a small, stylish, excellent working phone? Read this review and look no further! Great features, durable, and actually works!! Full Review I bought this phone about 10 months ago, right when it first came out. I bought it mainly for its size, and professional look. The phone has the best reception and works everywhere I've ever been. Battery life could be improved, I end up putting it on the charger every night now. The phone works absolutely perfect, and never misses calls, which I was used to with my old phone. The only complaint I have with this phone is the ringer, when the flip is closed the flip covers the ringer. The rubber pieces attatched to the top flip are worn down after a months use, that the ringer is not loud enough to hear. I took it back to Verizon and noticed that the new one they gave me had thicker and tougher rubber. Mine rings much better now! The belt clip that comes with it is great, I know that I can always count on this phone to be right on my side with my belt, and it can easily be grabbed and answered with one hand, without having to worry about it falling off or losing it (nearly impossible). I was going to get the Motorola V60i which came out not too long ago, but its features are nothing special, and its bigger. Also the button layout and menus were confusing, so I'm sticking with this one until the next LG phone comes out. Hopefully soon. The phone allows seperate ringers for different callers, 4 numbers per contact in address book. 2 Cool games, a calculator, a daily planner which is actually useful for day to day use. An alarm clock is also built in, and it works perfect on vacations, where you don't want to mess with the alarm clocks elsewhere. Overall this has been a great phone, one which has saved me several times, including an emergency call to AAA, and a few other major calls. It has always worked and never let me down. Go get one for yourself, and keep it forever! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87414 2000/8/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dialing easy to read lcd stylish wait there s more user selected ring volume works only when phone is open The Bottom LineUnless you like the idea of everyone in a half-block radius knowing that you have a call coming in on your cell phone, this phone isn't for you. Full Review I purchased this phone for my mother and played with it for a few weeks before finally (and sadly) deciding to take it back to the store. Read on to see why. PROS: I initially purchased the phone because it looked great and was small enough to fit nicely inside either mom's purse or pocket. As mom's eyesight isn't great, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the inside LCD had large lettering; however, if the phone had been for myself, I would have found this feature rather annoyingly child-like. The menu system is relatively easy to navigate and the buttons are large enough so as to not make too many dialing mistakes. The sad thing about returning this phone is that my mom probably won't find another phone with better call clarity - it was absolutely OUTSTANDING, as good as a land-line. The feature of having a second, smaller LCD on the outside of the clamshell was also a smart idea, so as to not make you open the phone to see who the caller was. CONS: When you adjust the ring volume, IT ONLY IS IN EFFECT WHEN THE CLAMSHELL PHONE IS OPEN!! As soon as the phone is closed (and who carries around a clamshell phone in the open position?), it ALWAYS rings at the loudest volume unless it is set to vibrate! And boy, do I mean annoyingly LOUD - it's one of the loudest cell phone rings I've ever heard. Couple this with an unpleasant selection of ring types and it it absolutely unacceptable. I called the store and they contacted LG; they told us it was a "KNOWN ISSUE" and there was no fix!?!? How LG could put a phone into mass production with this flaw is totally beyond me - features don't get any more basic than ring volume. Furthermore, you can only assign ONE phone number to each individual. (With other phones, like my Sanyo SCP-6000, you can assign a home, work, and mobile phone number to each name.) This means that if you have three numbers to enter for a person, you have to re-enter their name for each number, and each of these numbers shows up as a seperate entry in the phone book, making it unnecessarily large and cluttered. As always, the antenna is cheap and flimsy. Although I wanted it to be otherwise, the cons outweighed the pros for this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 87413 2002/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception manner mode button flexible sound stylish leather case comes off must remove case to charge hard to learn features The Bottom LineIt's not the smallest phone, nor was it our first choice, but we are quite pleased with it and would probably choose it again given the opportunity. Full Review We used our Motorola StarTACs for three years and were, for the most part, quite happy with them. It came to be that we wanted to get a better plan through Verizon but our old phones were not tri-mode phones and therefore didn't qualify for America's choice digital plan. Since we qualified for a 100.00 upgrade on a new phone we went looking. We always liked the flip-style and never cared for the "Nokia" style phone. We always found the flip phones more comfortable and felt more natural than the "Nokia" style which made you feel like you were talking to nothing so we wanted to stick with the flip-style phone. Our choices were Sharp, Motorola V60, LG VX1, and another brand I don't recall. We wanted the Motorola because we trusted the name and knew they made a good phone but we couldn't afford the 300.00 out of pocket it would cost us to upgrade. So we looked at another phone that was only 129.99 (or 60.00 for upgrading two phones) but it was more like the Nokia style with a small flap that came down. We didn't like that. So it came down to the LG VX1 and a Sharp (I believe it was). The Sharp had a color screen and was slightly bulkier with the antenna on the top part of the phone when flipped open. We liked it, but it ended up costing 100.00 extra after rebate than the VX1. So we decided to try the VX1. After rebate the phones cost us 100.00 total to upgrade which we feel wasn't bad at all. WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT THE VX1: First thing I fell in love with was the battery life. The old StarTAC only got about 3 days max stand-by time and this phone gets about a week (with some short calls). That's great for me who forgets to charge it all the time. Sound quality: better than the StarTAC and much louder and stronger as well. Remember we had the same server but we seem to pick up better signal and this phone can make and place a call on two line signal whereas the starTacs did not or didn't do it well (cut off or staticky) The charging cradle: although it makes you take the phone out of the case to charge, it allows for a convenient and quick charge, much faster than the old Motorola StarTAC. I think (not sure) that it takes about 2-3 hours from dead to full, but it doesn't seem like much time at all. The battery is slim and doesn't bulk out so the phone is light weight and comfortable to carry. The front display on the face of the phone makes it convenient to see who's calling so you don't need to flip it open (which is automatic answer on our phones) and it also makes easy access to read battery level and time. The red light on the face flashes when someone is calling so if you can't hear it you can see it (helps if you're searching for it). Phone book requires a few extra steps over the StarTAC to enter, like selecting home vs work or mobile number, but it does have an auto-number so you don't have to remember which slots you've used already. I find it easier to use regular letters but it also does a special text which is (I think) pager code. It has a scheduler and a calendar for convenient access to see what you're doing on a day if you can't remember. For those who use a simple Palm Pilot I think this works about as well but maybe entry not as easy. I still like using Grafiti on the Palms and some other features the phone doesn't use. The backlight for the screen is very clearly visible. Manner Mode is a wonderful thing. Push a button and all sounds are disabled and the phone goes on vibrate. That's a fabulous thing and I wish more people had phones with this feature! Makes being courteous a little easier while still being able to answer calls. Buttons are easy to push and volume easy to adjust (with side buttons). Rings are fun, although I only need a simple ring. My husband has his on "Take me out to the ball game". I like the styling, which is somewhat similar to the StarTAC. It is smaller and more light weight with a slim battery, but the antenna is in the same location on both phones which I like. I love the silver coloring which I think just makes the phone look more expensive. It has a jack for a headset on the side which is convenient and easy to use with good volume as well. I just don't like the headset as I find it hurts my ears. THINGS WE DON'T LIKE ABOUT THIS PHONE: There aren't many and the things we complain about are, in my opinion, relatively small. Must remove the phone from it's case to charge. The StarTAC never had to have the case removed unless changing the battery but this phone must be stripped of it's leather case any time we want to charge it on the cradle. Charing in the car is different, and does not require removal of the case. Rubber stoppers inside the car charging port are difficult to remove (only need to be removed once). I miss having a smart button and a function key but the phone makes up for it with the six keys up top it has. One on each side (typically for select and back) and then four arrow keys (up down left right) which can also be short cuts to the calendar, phone book, and voice mail. It took a little playing around with to learn how it works, but once I got used to it I found it pretty easy. I like having a power button. This phone uses the END button as the on/off button which means you have to hold it down for 2 seconds to get it to do either. I don't like that, but I think most or all phones do that now. Leather case offered at the Verizon store for this phone had a swivel clip which was bulky and uncomfortable. We bought another generic brand for this phone online which has the belt clip that fits much nicer but comes off the phone sometimes. OVERALL IMPRESSION Overall we're quite pleased with these phones and would recommend them to people looking to buy. NOTE: Price we paid is the price with a 2 year agreement with Verizon. They retail around 250-300 I BELIEVE. They did have 50.00 rebates on them and Verizon paid 100.00 for the upgrade so the phones cost us 50.00 each out of pocket all said and done. Ebay has lots of accessories on auction VERY CHEAP for this phone, and they do a decent job. Got a full set of accessories for each phone for 32.00 total. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 87412 2002/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clam shell web enabled 1xrtt capable midi sound polyphonic small call clarity marginal documentation support no color screen some bugs no ir or bluetooth The Bottom LineA very compact phone with lots of good and upper class features that also has a few ridiculous shortcomings. The VX-1 is not Get-It-Now capable. Full Review A one-does-it-all cell phone in a small package with functionality of big phones and a few new tweaks ... that's the LG VX-1 at least on paper and I fell for this created image after having my Motorola StarTac meeting it's ancestors (due to battery and mechanical failure). What should I say, I was in the market for a new cell phone and as an existing Verizon customer explored other options without being to serious about changing. I guess I didn't use my phone enough to get sickly annoyed with the marginal service close to my home (very low signal strength). Cell phones pretty much are a new status symbols of a technology savvy generation, regardless whether in Europe, Asia or America. (... but who didn't know that before.) And for me being very susceptible to such gadgets, the intent to "just replace" my old one turned into a choice of features and style. The VX-1 won and here is why ... A very small package indeed. Virtually identical to the LG TM-520, the VX-1 offers TriMode (CDMA 800/1900 MHz and AMPS) in a mere package of 3.3x1.8x1.0inch (84x46.4x24.8mm), weighing in at 3.8oz (108g). The main difference to the TM-520 is the integrated 1xRTT cabability in the VX-1. It is small and despite its size still comfortable to use. The clever use of the clam shell design (made famous by Motorola's Startac series) is the main reason to make this possible. The 120x100 pixels Gray LCD display is placed on the one half while the other bears the keys. Thanks to this popular arrangement it is possible to have relatively 'big' keys and a well sized screen in a tiny package. The size, however, is reflected in the battery life. While 190 minutes of talk time are very good ... especially in such a small phone ... the 110 hours standby (4.5 days) are only half of what the slightly bigger TM-510 has to offer. Either is equally bad in analog stand-by which significantly reduces the time between battery recharge. The antenna is typical for the form factor and is both a tribute to its size as well as FCC regulations. The latter is also a reason for the seemingly bulky belt clip that comes with the phone. Apparently designed to hold a distance of 20 mm (less than 1 inch) between body and phone, it addresses increased concerns regarding electro-smog. The antenna is retractable and while there is no gain visible in signal strength, the actual purpose is to reduce the perceived impact on a human's head. Mechanically sound dwarf. I didn't know the Korean manufacturer LG Electronics before and have been a little skeptical towards the phone. However, the clam shell is rugged and shows no sign of weakness despite the tiny dimensions (H:3.3in. x W:1.8in. x D:0.97in.). The styling is good and certainly fits the current trend. However, Silver is the only option. I would also expect the design to age quick due to it's use of flashy (but short lived) chrome trimmings. (Silver is also coming and going with each season.) Then again, in about 2 or 3 years new phones may be 'necessary' anyway. The number of buttons has been reduced to the bare minimum which allows fairly reasonable size and even normal sized (male) thumbs have no problem to find their target key. The navigation key combination excels in mechanical feedback and usability, as all keys have a very good tactile feel to them (plus audible feedback if need-be). The relatively small speaker is nestled right above the display and surprises with a relatively good quality. Though sort of standard, it still amazes me, how a smaller display fits on the other side of the slim lid to display time, caller ID, signal strength and more. Either display is Green backlit. The lid is designed to allow single handed opening and use of all features of the phone. This is very nice, since one may not have the other hand available all the time. The slim battery provides up to 180 minutes talk time and 110 hours standby in digital mode. The battery is a Standard Lithium Ion with 900mAH capacity. A good argument for a clam shell type phone is the full size phone it pretty much unfolds to from a very small form factor when stored. Call clarity and convenience are direct benefits from this design idea. (microphone close to mouth, small size when stored). Huge functionality, for the size. Even the VX-1 is foremost a phone. It does handle the spoken word very well and clarity in digital mode is very good. The buttons are easy to read and operate. The reception strength is average. Audio quality in reference to surrounding noise is improved via Automatic Audio Gain Control. This phone is on par with many other phones in this price range regarding phone book (199 names with up to 5 numbers per each). Unless you know a lot of people, this is getting to a point where it does not matter whether it stores 99, 199, or 1000 numbers for that matter. It also stores timed and hard pauses (to access mail boxes etc.) Everything here is pretty much standard. A nice addition is the ability to assign specific ring tones to special numbers (sort of a audible caller ID). It also stores the last 10 numbers dialed, last 10 received or last 10 missed for easier redialing. Europe experienced a huge SMS hype several years ago (late 1990's). Thanks to the worldwide quasi-standard GSM, it works everywhere and between any carrier. The US took a little bit of time to catch on (partly due to multiple 'standards'). I am glad to see SMS being an (though still exotic) option for mid to upper class phones. The VX-1 does good, though text entry has the same issues (cycling keys) as any other (normal) phone. (Having said that, E.M.S. is now widely finding it's way to users in Europe and Asia.) To address the text hassle, the "T9 Predictive Text input" for faster entry of text messages allows you to hit each key only once and the software guesses which character you actually meant. (Only works for programmed language.) For instance, simply typing the word "for" would require 9 taps normallysince all 3 letters are 3rd on it's respective button. With T9 you only push 3 buttons (3-6-9) and it guesses the right one. (You can add words to the database.) A major disadvantage of the SMS system in general: The target phone has to be on (standby) in order to receive and store the message. The VX-1 is web enabled and sports mobile internet with Openwave UP 4.1 Browser (WAP). Most navigation happens via multi navigation key and the two soft buttons. Some function (like home page and back and use internal browser instead of Verizon / MSN (default) are less obvious. Mainly due to the use of keys that are not specifically labeled for the browser (i.e. SEND or #). This makes it sort of cumbersome to navigate websites that don't sport soft button support for "back to previous page". The sound quality of the ring tones is impressive and 19 different MIDI (sampled) sounds are available. Alternatively, the integrated vibration (motor) or the LED can function as quiet alarms, which is good for meetings or the movie theater or any other public place. A one-button toggle is available to switch between normal (programmed) alarm mode to mannered mode (vibration only) and back. The 2 included games are somewhat annoying and especially the shooting game feels really slow. Both Comanche and Blackjack provide sound, but if you have a PDA you won't bother to play these games anyway. An included scheduler is nice to look up dates and in case you didn't see the necessity for a PDA yet, to store your appointments etc.. Having such a device already, I could not care less about the scheduler (besides the calendar). The calculator (basic function , -, /, x) may fall into the same category. Hearing impaired users find help since the VX-1 is TTY/TDD capable. It also allows to act as a modem for a laptop or PDA. For the high speed internet access via Express Network (1xRTT) the so-called Mobile Office Kit is necessary ($79) and a monthly subscription ($35/mo). Otherwise you will get standard (low) transmission rates (CDMA Data = 19kb/s). The high speed translates into average data transmission speeds between 40 and 60 kilobits per second with bursts up to 144 kbps. It's only available on one-third of Verizon's nationwide network and requires a digital voice calling plan of $35 and up. For enterprise customers, Verizon Wireless recently announced pricing based on mega byte usage for heavy data users with rate plans starting at $35 per month for 10 MB, $55 per month for 20 MB, with tiers up to 150 MB of data. On the $35 monthly rate plan, customers can download 10 MB of data. What's not to like? Alright, a probably minor thing for US only residents, but I still want to mention that the VX-1 offers virtually no option to customize the display of time, month or even special characters for foreign languages. Not a big issue but an annoyance for my German soul (or names of friends at home). Further, the phone offers one (1) alternative 'theme' that pretty much changes the digital display into an analog clock. Not necessarily pretty or original. There is no other option to probably customize or download new 'themes' to the full graphic capable screen. The GUI (graphical user interface) is plain and functional. Some might like to spiff it up a little ... but no can do here. While the ring tones are plentiful, a major flaw and a 'minor' inconvenience take away from the first good impression. The major thing first: Ring volume is adjustable but only works while the clamshell is open (usually not the mode it would be in when receiving a call). When closed, it's always at full volume. And this phone is very noticeable (read loud). Also, 'preview' of the ring tones is very muted and nowhere close to the 'actual' ring volume. The escalating sound and vibration option works well for the latter but not for the sound. I guess the good thing is that one doesn't jump when the phone starts vibrating at full strength. Though the phone is serviceable over the air (OTA capable), this seems to be limited to downloading area information used for recognizing your home area and consequently whether additional charges apply (Verizon: dial *228). Updating ring tones or downloading new games or additional functions seems to be Nokia's turf and no "threat" from LG in this regard. Further, Verizon just released it's 'Get-It-Now' service, pretty much after the European model where ring tones, games and other gimicks can be downloaded to your phone. Despite it's capable screen, the VX-1 does not take advantage of this (fee based) service for above reasons. Another moot point is the documentation and support. LG's newly designed website (www.lge.com) is everything but easy to navigate. Other information than (a few) actual product details is almost totally absent. FAQ's (i.e. the ring tone volume bug) are missing just like a glossary that would explain the acronyms OTA, 1xRTT, CMX MIDI, TTY/TDD. The latter, however, seems to be assumed to be common knowledge by most wireless companies. Verizon's default internet partner is MSN. The documentation is sort of set up to make you believe that this may be the only option available. Not so, if you read the phone's manual carefully. (When online press and hold # to type in any web address and use standard browser. Note: When accessing my.yahoo.com you need to actually use www.yahoo.com.) I encountered an annoying side effect when using the MSN menu to access Yahoo. It would lock my phone up and the only option left is to pull the battery in order to interrupt. (Using # did not have this issue.) Since this phone covers 3 US standards, which are incompatible to the quasi-standard of the rest of the world GSM, it will not work outside NAFTA either. In other words, frequent business travellers (who might pay ridiculous roaming charges) are out of luck and need another phone. Before I get too carried away, I want to close with one minor issue (bug?) that can be significant though. The VX-1 does not make a difference between charging in the base or being carried in the field, means if you set it to vibrate only it will just do that when residing in the base as well. Be in another room, and you will certainly miss all incoming calls. Something the 'old' StarTac managed much better by automatically switching to audible when charging. (Afterall, it can be assumed that you are not close to the phone when it's recharging anyway.) The final verdict. Is mostly positive and since this phone comes at a cost of $145.- (after $50 rebate, vendor Verizon) it certainly is one of the most powerful and feature rich devices on the market in this segment. Outstanding features like small size and high speed network capability, are countered by some oversights or flaws. The overall picture is good though, and one may live with the shortcoming. It could have been a great phone. Taking all factors into consideration, it's certainly a good phone for the money. A must for 'high speed' wireless internet junkies and a good choice when size matters. (Check out www.thesupplynet.com for cables and instructions to connect your PDA to this phone. The tool kit to connect you PC is about $79.- and available at Verizon.) There are better options out there regarding some other features. So it's the old verdict, that it heavily depends on what YOU need, and what you can live without. I hope this review helped to find the answer to both. th/th Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 145 87411 2002/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life design the ring tone controversy see belowunintuitive menus The Bottom LineThe VX1 is a great improvement over its previous models. It is a reliable phone that I would definitely recommend. Full Review The LG-VX1 is the updated model of the popular LG-TM510. It has the styling features of the TM510, the flip design and an outer LCD screen, with the same solid tri-mode reception and call quality. If you are searching for a flip phone now in the Verizon market, chances are you are looking at the Motorola V60, which EVERYONE has... or the LGs. Although my TM510 provided me a good year of service, I have to recommend getting the VX1, the upgrade is definitely worth the price. Better Compact Design The TM510 was compact, but the problem was it's bulky width which made it protrude out noticeably. The new VX1 is slimmer with a nice brushed finish and smooth, stylish curves. It is in my opinion, the optimal size for a cell phone. The outer LCD screen, once a innovative new feature, is now standard on flips and is present here as well. Excellent Battery Life The battery life of the VX1 is noticeably improved. My TM510 would have to be recharged every night. The VX1, depending on usage, can last a good 2-3 days! This is accomplished through a "power save" feature whereby the phone conserves energy when it's not being used. Don't worry, all your calls will still get through as the feature is quickly disabled upon any action. The battery life is one of the best features of this phone. Technologically Advanced The phone has a OpenWave 4.1 Web Browser and is Express Network (1xRTT) capable. This means fast, wireless web surfing on your phone. It also means it is possible to hook it up to a laptop and use it as a modem! Alphabetized Phone Book The old TM510 didn't have it, which was very annoying. The VX1 does. Problem solved. Unintuitive Interface The menus are similar to the TM510s, in other words you won't pick them up right away. In fact, they are switched around now so even if you were a TM510 user, you still have to take some time to learn the menus. This is not a big deal. Once you get used to the phone, it's a piece of cake. The Ring Tone Controversy If you read other opinions, you may have noticed a big point of contention about this phone seems to be its ring tone, which deserves some clearing up. 1)Yes it does have both ring, vibrate, and ring + vibrate features. 2)You can select ring volume using the phone's sound menu. On this selection menu all the ring tones sound soft. The ACTUAL tones will be louder. But this doesn't matter if the phone is closed, see next point. 3)The ring tone is indeed at a CONSTANT volume no matter what you set it to if the phone is closed (and users usually have it closed to receive incoming calls). This tone is relatively loud, but still does not seem as loud as the loudest ring in the old TM510. So in my opinion, the maximum ring tone could actually stand to be a little louder. I guess we all want different ring volumes to match different environments, but with this phone the ring tone is set to (in not so scientific terms) "medium-loud" all the time. SPECIFICATIONS -800MHz/1900MHz CDMA/AMPS Tri Mode -Size: 3.3" x 1.8" x 0.97" -Weight: 3.8 oz The phone retails for $199.99 under contract under the Verizon website. Longer contracts drop the price down more. I suggest, as always, to shop around and bargain the price. I got it for around 100 dollars from an authorized Verizon dealer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87410 2002/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size good reception light weight sturdy phone great call clarity menu design a bit confusing ringer vibrate are weak The Bottom LineFor it's price this phone will more than likely please you. Full Review I have had this phone for about a month using Verizon Wireless in New Jersey. So far I am very pleased with this phone. I have always wanted a flip-phone and so far I am pleased to have had such a good experience with this phone. I did some research on this phone and the LG TM-150 when I was looking to change from Cingular to Verizon, and the one thing that really turned me off to LG phones was the fact that the phonebook wasn't alphabetized. I took a lucky stab at this phone instead of the TM-510 at the last minute in the Verizon Wireless store, and I was pleased to find out the phonebook was alphabetized. As far as call clarity goes, I have yet to find another phone that has better clarity than this one… I was truly amazed. Even during low signal strength the call clarity and stability of the call is pretty strong. No dropped calls yet! The menu system that a lot of people seem to complain about isn't all that hard to figure out once get the concept of how it works. Granted it's not as good as most Nokia phone layouts, but I have no real issues either way. I do however see how this phone's menu layout can be confusing to those who don't pick-up on electronic devices very fast, but with some time anyone can figure it out. The phone is so incredibly small and light. Even at its small size it gets pretty good battery life. Compared to my old Nokia 5165 this thing is space-age. Call clarity is top notch, I don't think even Motorola v60 series phones have much better calling strength. So this will make a good buy for those who want the Motorola v60 series but want to save about 200 bucks. The LG-VX1 phone is a tri-mode phone and will automatically switch between Analog and Digital when you roam across the network. There are a few things that are screwy with this phone. For example, with this phone you can set the key pad volume and the ringer volume. However, when you set the key pad volume it applies, but when you set the ringer volume it does not change. It seems to stay at the loudest setting no matter how you set it. For me the ringer is too low, if I have music playing or I am driving I find that the phone's ringing volume to be weak. Thankfully it also lights up and has a bright red light on the phone's face that flashes when a call comes in. So if you think you hear something… look at the phone and you'll know you have a call coming in when you notice that its face plate lights up like a fireworks show. On the same page, the vibrate settings are pretty good, you can set it to vibrate up to 3 or 4 times before it rings, unfortunately the vibrator is too weak, you'll barely feel it. These are my biggest complaints; for the most part I can manage with them because of the good price, great look, and outstanding call quality. So far I have found this phone to be a good buy. If you're looking for a sleek phone with a decent set of options and great call reception / clarity or you want the Motorola v60 phone but don't want to shell out the big bucks for it, you can buy this phone for half the price and get as good or better call quality for your dollars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 87409 2002/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very sleek has what you will most likely use stylish yet professional look could have a game or two come standard no speakerphone The Bottom LineIf you want a phone which has exactly what you need and will most likely use then this is the phone for you! Full Review Well First off, I read all of the reviews for this phone and I can personally say it just depends on the person's preference. I found it odd when I saw in a lot of the reviews that the menu set up was hard to hardstand and I highly disagree. I've had an Audiovox 9000 before getting the LG VX1 and maybe it has prepared me for such a phone like this. I've also had a nokia and yes it's very simple to understand; very basic. But to me if a person has such a problem with the menu, don't be too prided and just pick up the manual and read how to work it. Every phone is different and will have different settings; it's expected. It was very simple for me to understand the menu, but most things now-a-days have made the mind lazy and very lax when it comes to using common sense. Ring Tones and Vibration: This is an issue definitely dependent upon a person's preference. The ringer I found to be just as loud as almost any other phone out there. Lets be real here. Who wants a phone that rings out so loud where it draws a lot of attention to it. Secondly, most of the time a person isn't paying attention to their phone ringing regardless of how loud it rings and no matter what they are doing. The nokia was pretty loud, I would say louder than any other phone out there, but when i'm walking down a busy street, or listening to music, i'm either thinking of something else not paying attention to any noises going on around me, or so much is going on where it just drowns out the phone. This happens with all phones. Yes there were some times where I could here the phone but there were other times where I couldn't. This happens the same way with the LG VX1. The best thing about the ringers on this phone is that they are actually sounds and not kiddy lil' cheap beeps put together. "take me out" is actually in song/music form and not beeps mimicing the song. When the face case is open on your phone the tones are really soft which is good in this case so when a person decides to change the ringer on thier phone in a public place..the whole world doesn't have to know about it. Just imagine: when you were somewhere, like on a bus and you fooled around with your phone (not a LGVx1) and decide to change a ringer..the bus is relatively quiet then all of a sudden you draw attention to yourself because your ringers are loud. That is embarrassing, it's like tryin to show off your phone when you're not! LG did a smart thing when making the ringers quiet when the face case is open. Vibration on this phone is another thing I saw complaints about. The vibration again is just like almost any other phone out there, but also not a nokia. I think people are so used to nokia that they don't know any other way. The vibration on the nokia, yes does vibrate really hard, but think about this, you could also say that it vibrates harder than most of the phones out there also. So it's not really the phone that has the condition, it's the people who have been conditioned by the phones they used to have. And again when I had the nokia on my body, I wouldn't notice the vibration from it because I was concentrating on something else. The vibration is not a crazy one, it has how should I say it, "class". Voice Dialing: Who needs it? The only time it works is when you sound exactly like you were and are speaking in the same environment that you were in when you first set it. With most phones ...actually all phones this feature is useless. I remember when I thought I was a bada** with this feature on my audiovox. I tried it outside when it was relatively quiet I ended up screaming at the phone 10 times before it actually dialed the number I wanted. Not to mention the 5 people walking by me staring at me yelling at my phone "sweetie! sweetie!!" oh yeah, and my friends just getting a kick out of me making a total retard out of myself. Cons: No Games or speaker phone I understand that the more mature phones have no games on them, I guess to catch those business type characters out there. But I think that the phone would be a great hit if it had a game or two come standard. It definitely wouldn't hurt the phone. Don't get me wrong, the "Get It Now" feature allows you to get games on your phone, only thing is you have to pay for them. I don't even think you get to keep the games because they are at limited use. (90 days for $3.99) something like that. Of all the feature this phone has on it, it does not come with a speaker phone. My mother has the audiovox CDM9155-GPX and it is a good phone, it is cheaper and not as updated as the LGVX1 yet it has a speakerphone. Not that those factors I've mentioned have anything to do with the reason why the LGVX1 should have a speaker phone, but it just confuses me as to why of all the features it does have, it left out one that could make this phone skyrocket in the market. My mom loves the fact that her phone has a speakerphone on it. The thing is so clear and picks up her voice so well, that she can set the phone down on the table and talk about 1-3 feet away from the phone and sound like she's holding the phone up to her face talking normally. She doesn't have to scream! It's amazing! I got this phone for $75 (tax included) because i've been with verizon for over 2 years and they have that "new every two" thing goin' on. It depends on where you live. This is a really good phone. To check out the other features that I haven't talked about in this review, you can just easily check out the verizon webpage and look up the phone. It will tell you more about it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87408 2002/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life fast internet reception sound clarity external display small light few no voice dialing expensive accessories a bit confusing menu The Bottom LineVery small and light clam-shell with exceptional reception and decent battery life. Small external screen is a nice touch. Some minor quirks. Full Review That's an updated review after I discovered that LG VX1 indeed allows to change ringer volume and to have upto 5 numbers and an email address per address. The lesson I've learned: Never rush to the conclusions after few days of usage! My only excuse: VX1's menu in these areas is really confusing even for the tech and gadget guy like me! As a result I've upgraded the rating of this phone. My only real complaint is the lack of voice dialing. Interesting enough this feature present on the VX1's twin (also CDMA) T-520 that's offered in Canada. Too bad Verizon decided to be cheap. Original review with wrong gripes thrown away: I've got LG VX1 from Verizon Wireless as a replacement for my trusty 3 year old Motorola StarTac. I hate big cell phones to carry around. So I looked for the smallest possible CDMA phone with reasonable price. In size/weight department LG VX1 really shines! And that's not at expense of battery life. It's much better than of StarTac with slim li-ion battery. Otherwise VX1 has a pretty standard, for modern phone, feature set - 19 ringers, 199 entry address book, vibrate, calendar with alarms, microbrowser and email, T9 input, few games, calculator, etc. Though people complained about menu organization I personally found it to be pretty intuitive and easy to use with 4 way rocker switch. Screen is large and very clear with legible fonts. Small external display is a godsend. In standby it doubles as a clock, when somebody calls you see the number without opening the shell. On Manhattan and tri-state area I found signal strength and voice clarity to be noticeably better than with StarTac and Nokia for the same Verizon coverage. People with whom I frequently talk via cell phone also noticed the difference even before I told them I have a new phone. With the skimpy package besides phone you also get a charging cradle with a small power brick and a holster. Both charging cradle and a holster are pretty nice. I wish they included a travel charger since LG accessories are hard to find and are quite expensive even online. Now to the bad things though they're relatively minor, imo. As I said for the most part menu system is pretty easy and navigation is greately aided by the 4 directional jog dial and 2 dedicated buttons for OK and Cancel. But some simple settings like ringer volume and multiple numbers per address are so confusing that at 1st I decided that the phone lacks these features! Another annoyance is that changing of any option kicks you out of menu no matter how deep you were inside so you need to navigate back to the next item from the very beginning. One thing lacking in overal functionality are profiles that store groups of settings for particular environments - car, office, home, etc. I like this feature on Nokia and Ericsson phones. Also when you set up the ring melody from the menu it sounds very soft. At first I even got scared that that's how the phone will sound when call arrives. In fact VX1 is one of the loudest phones I've had. All in all I'm happy with the phone. For me minuscule size/ weight and excellent reception and sound clarity outweigh lack of voice dialing as well as some menu quirks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87407 2002/10/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 variety of features style size sound quality price ring volume The Bottom LineA good, reliable phone with plenty of the latest features if you're willing to shell out a bit of extra cash. Full Review It's been forever since I've been here writing a review (sorry guys), but I figured what better way to start up again than with my new cell. I previously was with a cell company I was not satisfied with, and Nokia's phone were continually disappointing me. I have the unfortunate habit of continuously dropping my cell. After doing this once with my last Nokia, the thing completely broke down. I wanted something a little different, more durable, more reliable. Telus communications offered a variety of more high tech phones. And I must say that it was the style of the LG VXI that first caught my interest. Not only does the phone look stylish, but it's very light and compact, weighing at only 108 grams. Small, but not so much so that I felt as though I'd lose it, which was something I kept doing with my little Nokia. The salesman showed me all the features of this tiny phone, most of which I must say I didn't quite comprehend at the time. The Features If you're looking for a lot of the newest features this might just be the phone for you. 19 ring tones as well as the vibrating alert leave you with plenty of choices. Although, most of the tones are musical and can get quite annoying. There's really only one that suites a professional environment, which is what I have on most of the time. The sound quality is usually pretty good, however occasionally I'll get an echoing of my own voice which both gets irritating and makes it difficult to hear the other person talking. The ring volume is also way to low. If you're in an area with any people at all, it's very difficult to hear which requires that the vibrate be on at all times. I must say one of the things I love about this phone is the games. Comanche (helicopter SIM) I haven't quite figured out in all honesty... but the Blackjack I've become quite addicted to. The sound is rather loud on these games, and I usually find myself playing them in an office building or an airport when boredom strikes. Luckily there's a customizing option to either lower or turn the sound off. The Voice Activated Dialing ya gotta love. When I'm juggling with a bunch of things in my hands or in the car I end up dropping the phone... but with this option it's quite easy to just have my most frequently called numbers on voice activation so it isn't a worry at all. And compared to other's I've tried this phone offers the most reliable voice activation. PCS wireless Web I really haven't tried out. I haven't subscribed to the more advanced service from Telus but I have found it easy to navigate when looking up weather or movie listings. The External Caller ID LCD I love. When I receive a call, instead of having to open it up to see who's calling, I can just glance at the window to see. If it's someone I don't want to talk to I just let it ring. Once you flip the phone open, you've automatically accepted the call. The Multiple Entry Phone Book (199 entries x 6) offers more spots for entries than people I will probably ever know, but it's definetely not a feature I'm about to complain about. What I like most about this is that you can use the same person's name 6 different times and an icon representing mobile, home, office, pager, data/fax and email appears beside it. This is a lot more useful than having to use numbers after the name to differentiate them. The 4-Way Navigation Key is a nifty little feature. The upper and lower are for voice mail and wireless web, while the side to side are call history and phone book. T9 Text Input is the most annoying feature I have ever come across with any cell phone. It's a default service where when you're imputing something into your address book, it tries to finish to word for you. So, if you're trying to input a number you have to turn this feature off. I've never found it to be beneficial. Final Thoughts: Overall I find this phone to be one of the better ones I have come across. It's very durable, has a variety of very useful features. The battery lasts for close to 3 hours of talk time, which greatly exceeds any other I have tried. The phone is appears to be expensive, but not really for the technology it offers. I've found that similar phones by more established companies are $100-250 more expensive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87406 2003/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy to use lightweight external lcd display very stylish ring tonealerts could be louder The Bottom LineThe pros outweigh the cons with this phone. I have no serious complaints and it's a pleasure to use... plus it just looks so cool! Full Review For years now I've seen cell phones grow in popularity so much so that I was starting to feel out of place for not having one. Aside from not feeling the need to own one, there wasn't really ever an affordable one which I liked style-wise. That is until I came across this little number. When I first saw it I just loved that it was so compact and was a flip phone that had a cool external LCD display that showed the date and time, as well as incoming phone numbers. Seeing as how I had waited long enough, I decided to finally take the plunge and buy this phone. It's been over a year now, and I still love it! Sure it has its shortcomings, but nothing that really bothers me, and certainly nothing that would make me want to trade it in for a different one. Even though this is the first cell phone I've owned, I've used quite a few others over the years and this one has been the best experience I've had so far. I should note that this is a review of the Canadian version of the phone, the TM-250. From what I can tell, it's the same phone except for a small variation in the software. Features First lets talk about the keypad, which was an important feature for me, considering how you use it daily to interact with the phone. The buttons click distinctly when pressed, which I like a lot. Some other phones I've used tend to have keys that are difficult to press and without a click to tell if you've correctly pressed it or not. So no worries with that here. There is also a 4-way directional pad for quick access to your messages, the web, call history, and your phone book. To access the phone's other features, there are two 'soft keys'. The left one give you access to adjusting the phones sounds and display, as well as some system services and security features. The soft key on the right lets you access the phone book, call history, the scheduler, a wake up alarm, 2 games (black jack and Comanche (a helicopter shooting game), and a calculator. Also, the whole pad is nicely backlit for night dialing. This phone includes the standard ring with 19 other variations which include some familiar melodies, as well as a vibrate mode. There is a thin, long light on the front of the phone which lights up for incoming calls along with the ring/vibrate. There are some 'easy access' buttons on the side of the phone for convenience, along with a headphone jack with a rubber cover that flips open if you have a handless set you might want to use. There are two volume buttons and another that, when pressed if the phone is ringing, will send the call straight to your voice mail without having to wait for the ringing to finish first. This can be useful when you don't want to take any calls. The phone also has a rather flimsy antenna, but it does the trick and snaps nicely back into place when you're not using it. I actually find that I don't extend the antenna 95% of the time simply because the signal is strong without it. What I liked I love the look of this phone! It's slim, silver, and sleek, not to mention lightweight and durable. As I mentioned above, a great feature is the external LCD display. It clearly displays the date, time, battery level and signal strength, as well as an icon to indicate when it's in vibrate mode, an icon for the digital/analog signal, and another one when you have voice messages. I have the call display feature with my phone company, and incoming numbers are displayed when calls come in. If the person calling has an entry in your phonebook then their name will be displayed here instead of their number. The main screen when you open the phone is also very clear and easy to read, as well as nice and big which makes navigating the menus fairly easy. Like the external LCD, it also displays all the essential information. Another thing that impresses me with this phone is the battery life. I don't use my phone very frequently, but with occasional use I find I only have to charge it around once every 5 days or so. Charge time is approximately 3 hours, with a light on the base that's red when charging and turns to green when the phone is ready to go. Using this phone is also a pleasure. People can be heard loud and clear, and have told me that I come through the same way on my end. It's comfortable to hold and nice and light. Being a flip phone, it snaps open and shut on a spring. I found it easy to flip open with one hand and at the same time it stays tightly shut when you want it to. Included in the box was a belt clip which the phone snugly fits into and is easy to take out of once you get the hang of it. I use it all the time. And a neat little feature I discovered with the belt clip is that you can stand it upright on table tops with the phone in it so you can read the display of the phone easily. I should also mention that in the time I've had this phone, I can't even remember experiencing one dropped call. It's been very reliable through and through. It's not perfect Unfortunately this phone is not without its shortcomings. The main issue I found was with the ring volume. Even on the loudest setting, it's not enough to hear over a lot of background noise. I personally prefer my phone set to vibrate, so this isn't a big deal for me. The vibrate itself has 3 adjustable 'volumes' with the highest one being the one that vibrates the most. I find that the middle setting is just fine for me. The funny thing is, when the phone is sitting on a table, the sound it makes from bouncing around on the hard surface when vibrating is actually louder than the ring! To go along with the weak ring, is also a fairly quiet alert for waiting messages. I rarely get urgent messages so the alerts aren't really something I need to hear, but if you need to know that messages are waiting, this phone doesn't do the best job of letting you know. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 87405 2002/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small classic cool style 1xrtt ready voice dialing recording excellent bang for buck excellent screen text entry need refinement expensive accessories interface ringer message alerts The Bottom LineA few minor programming changes could have made this phone amazing, but unfortunately it's only 'very good.' If you like your late-model mobile phones, take a good look at this! Full Review It was inevitable -- My mother started commuting and she wanted a cell phone for safety and to keep in contact with the rest of the family. I decided to give her my faithful Sanyo SCP4000 and pick up a new model for myself. Knowing I wanted a flip phone, I checked the listings for Telus Mobility, my Canadian mobile phone service of choice, and saw my choices were the Sanyo SCP5000, the first phone in Canada with a colour display, the Motorola V60 - stylish, European and expensive, and the new LG TM-520 - technologically advanced from a largely unknown (in North America) Asian manufacturer. It's known in the USA as the LG VX1. A Small Update (2002/10/24): There was some confusion as to what exact phone this review talks about. I thought I made myself clear but some people were still confused. So here it is, plain and simple: This review examines the LG TM-520, which is the same as the VX1 except for some software differences (i.e. the software that allows for voice dialling.) These differences are described thoroughly below. A Quick Flashback Not too long ago, LG released the TM-510 flip-phone that received generally good reviews but was lambasted for its lack of an alphabetic phone book. It seems LG has listened to the criticism and released an improved model with an excellent technology upgrade: The LG VX1 / TM-520 supports 1xRTT! 1xRTT, you say? The term stands for 'Single Carrier Radio Transmission Technology.' Basically, that means that this phone can communicate at 144kbps (compare that to a 56kbps modem) and supposedly conserve more of its battery. The greater speed allegedly allows better web browsing and voice quality plus greater network capacity meaning fewer dropped calls. 1xRTT is the first step on the upgrade path to 3G networks that will allow 'videophone-level' quantities of data to go to and from your mobile phone. Style The LG VX1 / TM-520 looks cool. The casing is a lustrous silver hue that won't show ugly fingerprint marks. This goes for the back of the battery as well. When opened, the mechanism snaps the cover open at only 40 degrees which is much smaller than the Motorola V60 (about 100deg) and the Sanyo 5000 (about 150deg.) Whether this is good or bad is a matter of preference - I like it because it allows me to flip the unit open more easily with one hand, thus making easy to handle and more stylish at once. This is why I disqualified the Sanyo 5000 in my search - it was too hard to open the unit with one hand! The chrome coloured side-buttons do pick up fingerprints but they look classy all the same. The outer LCD also has a ring of chrome around it, adding to the 'classic-cool' feel. The phone and battery are made in Korea and are very sturdy - the same goes for the antenna which does not feel like it will break every time I open it. The keypad is backlit but only bright enough to see in the dark (which makes sense.) Turn It On When you turn the phone on, it greets you with a pleasant chime-melody that can't be disabled plus the Telus Mobility logo. If the phone's ringer involves vibrating, the phone will vibrate on power-up as well. (This can be avoided if you hit 'end' at the right instant.) The inner LCD shows the time (if you powered on in a digital coverage area) plus the signal quality, battery level, and if applicable, the vibrate-ringer icon, message-waiting icon, and signal strength icon. The outer LCD will also show those icons plus the clock or 'missed call' notice if applicable. Turning off the phone also plays a chime melody that can't be avoided. Human Interface Device If you buy a mobile phone, you'll obviously have to interact with it if you want to use it. I've been told that Nokia phones are renowned for being easy to use -- I've never owned one so I can't compare. But still I'm an unrepentant gear-head computer programmer and don't really care if one phone is a bit easier to use than the other. Basically, the phone has two 'soft keys,' a left and a right, used for selection. The left soft key brings up a configuration menu where you can configure ringers, voice recording / memos, security, system connection characteristics, automatic features (one-touch, auto-answer, etc.) and the display screen. The right key accesses the phone book, calculator, games, scheduler, alarm and call history. The two groupings do make sense, and I find myself often browsing the left-key menu most often to configure each feature. You can also get quick access to the SMS (text messaging), call history, phonebook and web browser features through the shortcuts on the 4-way button. I find myself using the internet-access button the most to browse news web sites and check the weather forecast. One very helpful feature (that many people truly hate) is the T9 text entry system. If you are entering a text message or typing in a web form, the T9 system uses the process of elimination to allow you to press one button stroke per key and finish the word for you. This prevents you from pressing 7 four times in a row to get an S. Some people complain that the T9 system usually gets the word wrong and they have to type everything in manually. By and large, I haven't experienced such troubles and say that the system almost always works as it's supposed to work, only getting a word wrong from time to time. One unfortunate shortcoming of the text entry is the way it works with different groups of characters. If you are trying a message with a sequence of numbers, you'll probably switch from letter to number mode by pressing soft key 2. But after that, you have to laboriously cycle through symbol mode, help mode, and T9 mode to get back to text mode to let you type normal text again. Furthermore, the text entry system defaults to all lower case letters after you type the first letter of a message. If you press space, the following letter is lowercase as opposed to upper case. It's only a minor annoyance, but it still bothers me. The last text entry problem is that when you are typing a password, it should not default to upper case as the first character. This makes it hard to type passwords where the first character is lower case and may introduce problems with people unknowingly entering an upper case letter hidden behind the *** of a password field, causing frustration because they don't know why they can't log into an online service. On the bright side, this phone was designed for easy web and messaging access. It takes only 2 keystrokes to launch the web browser or SMS messenger. The workings of the phone book was one major drawback of the LG-TM510 - the entries were not alphabetic and instead displayed in the order they were entered. A phone's phonebook, regardless of the phone's brand or model, is basically a database with each entry carrying a name, the various contact numbers plus an integer primary key that uniquely identifies each record. Well designed phonebooks will totally hide the existence of the primary key and be organised by user-recognisable features like the contact's name. The VX1 / TM-520 is a step in the right direction because the phone book is shown in order of alphabetical contact names. The system is still unpolished because it asks for you to enter a primary key when you are entering contacts. You can just hit OK and accept the default, but it should just assign one automatically without troubling the user. Similarly, if you want to send an SMS message to someone in your phonebook, you have to select the contact by entering the primary key - there is NO way to select the recipient of an SMS message by the contact's name in the phone book. Again, LG should have made the primary key transparent to the end user and made all selection dependent upon the contact name. Lastly, the primary key is what's used for the quick dial options. If you want a certain person to have quick dial #6, then you have to change the primary key of whatever number currently has key #006 and assign it an unused key, and then change the desired contact's key to #006. This is silly and LG should allow a more intuitive method of setting up quick-dialling. LG, are you listening?!? THE PRIMARY KEY OF THE PIM DATABASE MUST BE INVISIBLE AND 100% IGNORED BY THE END USER! Some other good things about the user interface: 1. The games are great. Commanche as excellent music and it is actually challenging. It's hard to master because you have to use little keys on a cellphone keypad. The blackjack game has good animation and you can bet variable amounts of money and keep a balance that carries from game to game ... but the dealer seems to get good hands suspiciously often. Both games do have high score listings. 2. You can choose an escalating intensity vibration ringer. 3. The restrict mode allows all incoming calls but prevents outgoing & SMS/internet except to emergency and phonebook numbers. 4. The manner mode is quickly accessible with one key-press. This prevents all audio rings/tones/alerts and switches everything to vibrate. Some final qualms about the interface: (again: LG, are you listening?) 1. The planner functions could be better - basically you can just add an event with a time/date (or specify that it recurs every day) and then you'll get the alarm you configured. I would have preferred to have seen something more elaborate with definable manner-mode times for each day. 2. The alerts for waiting messages are weak - I would have preferred some sort of beeper. All it does is give off some VERY quiet beeps - These beeps are SO quiet that I almost didn't hear them when I was testing the alerts (and thus listening for them) over the crickets on the quiet rural road where I was standing - plus it lights up the red light 'lamp' on the front and displays a 'new message' icon on the display. Suffice it to say, you have to look at the phone's display to see if you have a message. 3. The ringer is TOO QUIET! [note: see update below] The ring comes from the same speaker as the voice-earpiece and if I close the phone and cover it with my hands, you can't hear the ringer in a quiet room. In fact, I think the vibrate-alert on maximum strength is 'louder' than the ringer. Fortunately you can set it to ring & vibrate so you get the high and low frequencies plus the tactile sensation. I heard of one guy who added a small bit of rubber to the earpiece to keep the phone a crack open and make the ringer much louder. I would prefer to have a loud single-tone ringer like the Nokia 3390 as opposed to the CMX MIDI a quiet ringer with complex polyphonic classical pieces and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." [update: I found out that the ring when the flip is closed is louder than the ring when actually sampling the ring tones. It is still fairly quiet and probably too quiet to be easily heard in a very loud and busy shopping mall. Also, when the flip is closed, the ringer is ALWAYS on the highest volume regardless of the ring volume chosen, but it's not annoyingly loud.] 4. There is no setting for instantaneous ring + vibrate for an incoming call - you can set it to vibrate 1-3 times and then ring, but you can't get an instantaneous ring unless you turn vibrate off totally. I would have preferred that they allow you to specify that there should be n vibrations before a ring where n could be negative for 'ring-before-vibrate' or 0 for simultaneous instantaneous ring & vibrate. 5. You have to enter the phone's password not only to disable, but to enable the restricted mode! Audio Features It's time for the USA residents to listen up! There is one major difference between the Canadian LG TM-520 and the USA LG VX1. The Canadian version has voice dialling and voice memo recording. The USA version does not have it. Maybe it was a marketing decision and they thought the reduced price for less features would make more profit than a higher priced unit with more features. For people looking at the Canadian model, I'll say that the voice dialling is very reliable and has never failed to recognise my pre-programmed commands. The sound quality for the voice recordings is good enough for voice but not music. One great thing is this phone can do is record phone conversations; Two days ago someone was giving me complex directions over the phone for driving to a certain location. I hit the record key and it was all saved automatically for playback. Very handy indeed! The Hardware LG has built a gorgeous phone with respect to the physical hardware. I already talked about its excellent 'classic + futuristic' feel. Now hear this: The screen is excellent. On most phones, you can't see the screen when you're wearing sunglasses. On this one, the visibility is excellent with or without sun glasses, in the shade or in direct bright sunlight. At night the green backlight gives perfect visibility but it's no long-range headlight like many other candy-bar phones. Also, the display is BIG - you can get seven real lines of internet text display which dwarfs the Motorola V60. This, plus the high cost are why I did not buy the V60. I noticed something 'odd' - the vibrator in the phone is actually behind the screen! This isn't bad or good - just unexpected. When testing ringers, you'll have the phone open and they will sound deceptively weak because of this. If you've got the phone on a belt clip (which, by the way, was included in my phone's standard kit) the front of the phone is closest to your body for radiation-level compliance purposes. This helps you feel when it rings. The reception is excellent. On the train to work, there were some dead regions with my Sanyo 4000, but I never totally lost the digital network with the LG. Furthermore, the analogue quality is excellent as well - previosly, no phone I had seen could get a connection in the basement of my home. This one can pick up a shaky analog signal. Well done, LG! Furthermore, the call sound quality (in digital areas) is as good as a landline for the sender and receiver. Again, LG has done their homework with the hardware. The battery life is good but not great. I can get along for 3 days before charging. This with ~13 hours digital standby plus 30-40 minutes digital airtime per day. Remarks The way I see it, LG has done some excellent work with the hardware, with the exception of the ringer. A few software changes to the phone book, ringer configuration, text entry and menu would have made the phone MUCH better. It seems Telus has decided to work the way McDonald's does - they don't make much money on the burger but instead have huge margins on the fries and drink. The Telus salesperson really pushed me and tried to convince me to get the CAD$30 'deluxe' hydrofoam carrying pouch. Their headsets range from CAD$30 to $140 and the high capacity battery is $120. Ouch. I'll just take the burger, thanks. (Actually, I eventually caved in and bought the pouch because it offered better protection from scratches.) Conclusion This phone completely humiliates the Motorola V60 - that is, unless you absolutely need a loud ringer or strong audio message alerts. The LG offers better technology, better (in my opinion) looks, easier flip-open-ability, and a lower price than the V60. It's a great unit for people who like to keep up with mobile phone technology, but probably should be passed for less expensive and feature-rich models by people who just want to make a call or two. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 7695 LG Electronics/ Goldstar SP510/TP1100 87428 2000/12/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lcd on outside with caller id compact chicks dig it ease of use durable phone book not alphabetized no voice dialing single band drains power searching for service The Bottom Linesmall enough to put in your pocket, yet powerful enough for daily use, this phone is a crowd-pleaser with an average level of functionability. Full Review the tp1100 is a phone about looks. it's compact, aesthetically pleasing (chicks dig it), has an lcd screen with message/caller id/signal strength/battery power, and has big buttons for ease of use. entering phone numbers in the phone book is convenient - under one name, you can list several different phone numbers (i.e. mobile, home, office, other) and save phone book space. for a phone of this size, it is also very durable. the cover is not flimsy, and the spring holding the cover down is fairly strong. the directional 'mousepad' is useful in scrolling through menu options. move it up and down and it scrolls through the menu. moving it left will go to messages, and moving it right takes you to the phone book. the few disappointing aspects of this phone are pretty important if you're an avid mobile user. the single-band capability renders the phone useless in areas without service (can't make a call if you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere). also, if the phone continues to search for service it will drain the battery life significantly. the vibrate function on the phone is pretty weak as well. i was surprised that the phone doesn't have a vibrate/ring function - you can only set it to ring or only set it to vibrate. the phone book is my biggest concern, as the names are not listed alphabetically. you have to search for a name, or scroll through the entire phone book to find your number. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87427 2004/5/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 sleek small no alphabetized phone book The Bottom LineConsidering this phone is really old, I wouldn't recommend it. Buy something up to date, so you won't have to get a new phone for a while. Full Review I bought this phone from a friend after my old Sanyo SCP-4500 passed away. I had the Sprint service and decided to keep my phone number, so I had Sprint transfer my number over to his LG phone. I had a few problems in the transfer, but after going to the Sprint store to update the firmware, everything worked fine. I like the fact that this model is small enough to fit just about anywhere. It's pretty rugged and has held its own after being dropped, sat on, tossed, thrown at walls, grinded into pavement, etc. The layout is exactly the same as my old Sanyo, which is cool, considering the Sanyo was newer than this one. This phone is old, but it doesn't look like it, because of its sleekness. I don't have a problem leaving my phone on a table for people to look at, even when most everyone has camera phones these days. What I don't like is the plug in charger that came with this. You have to insert it just right or the led will blink red, meaning it isn't charging. After you get used to how it goes in, you'll still have to wait like 5 seconds to make sure it doesn't start blinking. Another thing I don't like about this phone is the phone book. This is like one of the most important parts in having an excellently functioning phone. It doesn't alphabetize any of the entries. I have a large amount of contacts in it, so I'll have to scroll through the entire thing which is completely time consuming. When you type in the first letter of a contact through the Find Entry feature, it will return the first 3 entries that contain that letter. For example if you type in C, it will return Voicemail and 2 other entries that contain the letter C in it. What it should return, is the first 3 entries that start with the letter C. Also, when adding an entry, the name can't be too long otherwise you'll only see part of the name in the listings. Another thing is the small phone book. It does allow multiple phone numbers in a single entry, but it only allows 99 separate entries. That isn't nearly enough for me or anyone else for that matter. The choice of ringers is also limited, but the variety isn't a concern for me. I just use the standard ring tone. The level of volume should be better though. In a very crowded club, you would either want to hear your phone or feel it vibrate. The high setting is normally really loud, but it's not loud enough to hear in that scenery. It would have been better if there was a higher setting. The vibrate mode vibrates but doesn't vibrate well enough especially if you wear loose fitting jeans. You'll never feel it if you're walking. It also lacks the ability to set the phone to vibrate and ring at the same time, which would have been good for notifying of appointments. The battery life is average. It doesn't take but an hour to fully charge, so that's definitely a plus. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87426 2000/2/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 external lcd excellent size bad service history with sprint The Bottom LineIf you are going with sprint, stay away from this phone, but if you go with anyone else, this is a phone, perfect for anyone who doesn't need many features. Full Review When I first saw the Touch Point 1100 I thought to myself, that phone looks perfect. At 3.4" x 1.9" x 1.0", the phone combines the size and looks of a pager, but is a fully functional cell phone. Features Single band digital reception and built-in wireless web for text only. Vibration alert or one of 17 rings to select from. This phone was sold to me with the statement that it also has custom ring tone capability, but after 2 years, it still has three empty custom ring tone slots. The phone has a calculator, calendar, two totally horrible games, text messaging, power save mode, and caller ID. The two best features of this phone are the phone itself. The small size of this phone makes the best place for it in your pocket, making a belt clip actually more of a hindrance, and saving you money. Second is the exterior LCD. As this is a flip phone its main display is usually not visible while the phone is not in use, so the exterior display is the perfect solution. The exterior display displays the signal strength, battery power, signal mode, vibration on/off and caller ID or the date and time. The beauty of the date and time display is that the first three letters of the month are spelled out, rather than the number being displayed, as this could be confusing on days and months below the 12th. One last feature of this screen is that it scrolls your reminder text, so if you type in a calendar event and add an alarm to it you will be notified with a ring/vibration and the message you typed scrolling across the screen. Accessories First, the leather case. Because the phone is small enough to fit in your pocket, you don't have to announce to the world that you have a cell phone by wearing it on your belt. The leather case actually makes the phone uglier and bulkier, so I opted to stay away from it. A big week point of this phone is the base charger. It is VERY difficult to slide the phone in and get it charging (it has to slide in "JUST RIGHT'. This problem can be eliminated by purchasing a travel charger, which slides into the bottom of the phone. I have had great success with my travel charger, until recently. After a year and a half it is starting to be difficult the get the flat plug into the slot, a minor inconvenience compared to the five minutes I used to spend cursing my base charger. I didn't feel the need to buy the extended battery, because it is expensive and noticeably larger. After several days away from home, and without my charger, I decided to buy a Car Cigarette Lighter Adapter. The car charger is excellent, it fixes my phone every time that leaving it on the charger over night doesn't. The Hands-Free Earpiece is actually quite nice with a very small microphone integrated onto the cord and a clip it to keep the wire from traveling too far from your shirt or mouth. Furthermore the connector is universal (looks like a headphone jack) so you can buy one for just about any phone. My Ordeal with Sprint First let me say that I don't have a land phone, why should I, I am already paying $50 a month for one phone. I bought my first TP 1100 from Radio Shack, it wouldn't accept the programming, so Radio Shack gave me a new one. It worked great for 6 months, and then the phone started to drop calls all the time, so I took it to the Sprint store. They claimed there was a software problem that couldn't be fixed, and that they would have to get me a reconditioned one. When it arrived I immediately activated it on to find that the microphone did not work! So I went back to sprint, and was promised a new Samsung. Big long story, I get another reconditioned TP1100. It works for two months and then has lots of software issues. I get another reconditioned TP 1100. It works for 4 months, then the alarm (for an event I had erased two months earlier) starts going off, no sooner do I shut it off does the alarm sound again. I lost every number and date in that phone. So I got another reconditioned phone, have had it for about 4 months now, and now have a backup cell phone, for the day in the near future when my current TP 1100 breaks. To answer any questions, no I didn't get my phone wet, use wireless web at all, connect it to anything, or even drop it. It is on 24/7 however, thus I miss some of the monthly sprint updates. The reason I got reconditioned phones is because Sprint won't give me anything else. Bottom line My sister has the Verizon version of the TP1100, and has had no problems. The phone is really nice, despite my horrific ordeal with sprint. I say that if you are going with sprint, stay away from this phone, (actually just stay away from Sprint) but if you go with anyone else, this is a nice phone with limited options, perfect for anyone who just wants a phone and doesn't need all the bells and whistles. I still like mine in spite of my many visits to Sprint to get a new one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 139 87425 2000/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small lightweight external caller id box single band The Bottom LineThere's no bottom line, just buy the darn phone!!!!!! :-) Full Review I was first turned on to the Touchpoint 1100 about a year ago or so, after I had purchased a Neopoint 1000 to replace a broken Samsung 2000. I was reading over the specs at the Sprint PCS website and was impressed. It only weighs about four ounces and was pocket sized, it has an external caller id box so you don't have to open the flip to see who's calling you, your batter and signal strength, calling mode (home system or digital roaming), and date and time. The battery life was no suprise to me, since all the PCS phones I've seen have the same specs (2.5 hour talk time/135 hours in standby mode). Other features include a relatively comprehensive calender/scheduler, a calculator, wireless web ready, standard headset jack, an enhanced call log, and two fun games (blackjack and 4 by 4, a puzzle game). First and foremost, I have to give LGE a big thumbs up for creating a pocket sized flip phone with an external caller id box. That's something I haven't seen until they released the Touchpoint 1100. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. The phone is small enough to put into my shirt pocket without causing an un-Godly like buldge. The scheduler (caldendar as it appears in the menu options) is great. You can plan events up to 100 years from now (if any of us reading this wil be around that long, but it's a fun fact to know). The scheduler has been so far 100% acurate in alerting me to appointments and meetings I have programmed into it. As with all PCS phones, the phone calls are loud, crips, and clear. The 1100's phone book is cool because it can store 99 names, and each name can have up to 5 different numbers in it's entry. You can even label a person's phone number as the following: home, office, mobile, pager, data, fax, or no label. The games are quite intertaining as well. The only downfall of purchasing the 1100 is that it's a single band phone, which means you can only use the 1100 while on the Sprint PCS digital network or in areas where Sprint PCS has digital roaming agreements with other PCS networks. But if you do not travel out of the Sprint PCS network as I, this phone (or any other single band phone) will do. Retail price (@ Sprint PCS stores and the Sprint PCS website) for the Touchpoint 1100 is $129.99 plus applicable sales tax. The package comes with the phone, standard battery, desktop charger, and AC adapter. But if you're interested in getting a nice package deal on this and other Sprint PCS phones, visit www.onehotcell.com. They have a package deal where you get the package mentioned above plus a car charger, basic hands free headset, and genuine leather case, all for $114.99 plus $5.00 shipping/handling via UPS Ground. Other shipping options are available for a higher price. So if you're looking for a small, smart phone, the Touchpoint 1100 is for you Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 114.99 87424 2002/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to carry full featured getting use to talk into the air the vibrator is more like a silence alarm The Bottom LineFor $19.99 the phone is unbeatable. I might still pick it even if all phones are free. Full Review The spec & features according to Sprint Dimensions: 3.4" x 1.9" x 1.0" Battery Life: Approximately 2.5 hours talk time or 135 hours of stand-by time in digital. Weight: 4.2 oz One of the shortest phones on the market. LCD: 6 lines, 16 characteristics/line, + 1 status line for icons. External LCD, 1 status line + 1 line for caller ID / time /date. About 12 characteristics. You can see the caller ID in the external LCD (and internal). If you want to answer, open the phone and talk. Close the phone to end call. Caller ID: See numbers of incoming calls in areas supported by Caller ID. If stored in your phone book you'll see the name, too. Area of Use: Operates anywhere on the Sprint PCS national CDMA network, or anywhere Sprint PCS has CDMA roaming agreements. Battery Type: Lithium Ion Power Save Mode: The phone goes into this mode automatically to preserve battery life when not in a service area. Security Lock: You can enter a private code to "lock" your phone so others can't make unauthorized calls or gain access with your phone. Standard feature. Tegic : Automatically matches your keystrokes with words in an internal word database to predict the word you are typing. It's sometimes annoying if you use a lot of short hand in your own diary and emails. VoiceMail: One-touch access to voicemail messages. Standard. Messaging: Receive numeric and text messages in areas that offer messaging services. Call Log Enhanced: Recalls most recent outgoing and incoming numbers, including missed calls. There are no missed call log on some previous phones. Text Storage: "Smart" filing system uses folders for organization and quick access of text messages. Personal Information Manager : Calendar provides the ability to schedule events and view for today, weekly and monthly. Also includes calculator. Phonebook Description: One entry in your Internal Phone Book can have multiple phone numbers. Store hundreds of phone numbers for easy access on the go. Standard feature. Packaged with a standard lithium-ion battery and desktop charger with AC adapter charger. Ringer Options: Seventeen distinctive ringer options, plus a silent vibrating ringer alert. Sprint PCS Wireless WebSMBrowser : View text versions of popular web sites to access information such as e-mail, news, weather, stock quotes, sports scores and more. Sprint PCS Wireless WebSMConnection : This phone is data ready, which allows customers circuit-switched data and fax connectivity (separate purchase is necessary for Wireless Web Connection Kit). The technology Sprint provides only one technology, digital CDMA at the PCS band - 1900 MHz. The cellular band at 800 MHz has a mixture of analog and digital service. I'll like to round them up to 1GHz for cellular and 2GHz for PCS. There are three types of digital technologies, CDMA, TDMA and GSM. All Sprint phones are 2GHz CDMA phones. For dual mode phones, somebody else provides the analog service, with agreements from Sprint. By `Sprint provides' I mean that the ground network is built and owned by Sprint. The TP1100 is a single mode phone, CDMA 2GHz. CDMA is a more advanced technology and it is tougher to build for higher frequency. So you can rest assured that this phone is more expensive than other technologies and band. Bear this in mind if you compare the size and weight of this phone to that of other technologies - TDMA and GSM. So is CDMA superior? It depends, but the technology itself is. For example, if CDMA has larger coverage and higher capacity, the operator just builds less base stations and save money. It also depends on how much they pay for the frequency spectrum - it is less crowded at 2 GHz. So in normal circumstances, you will not notice much difference in the voice quality. The difference will be in marginal cases at the edge of cell coverage, or in areas where a lot of people make calls.. CDMA do have some inherent advantages. The technology is so well proven that all 3G proposals are improved versions of CDMA. The CDMA technology is superior when the signal get reflected and refracted, hitting your phone at many directions. The situations arise when you are moving or indoor. Early GSM phones cannot get good receptions indoors - at the office I have to talk near the window, at home I have to get upstairs. Even now, I was told that some phones can't connect in buildings, malls and LAX. So if you are not lucky enough to have an office in your own garden or lay on the beach often, ask around about the performance. But the poorer indoor reception is not always true. A TDMA and GSM operator can built more tiny base stations around and within high traffic areas, like airports, to compensate for the technology. The bottom line is that, the performance of other technology drops very fast once indoors, whereas for CDMA the drop is less drastic. As a later player, CDMA has better voice Codec so you may notice the difference especially in tough environments. When the capacity is limited due to too many people calling, GSM/TDMA will simply not allow any more calls. CDMA allows a higher capacity by, amongst other things, allowing more calls at the expense of the call quality of all users in the cell. When the capacity is low, you expect a better signal than GSM/TDMA, but the signal strength doesn't translate directly to perceived call quality. CDMA also has advantages during hand-over, when you are moving from one cell to the other. I should not have started this, I was just cruising around. It's getting heavy to write. Some features come with the technology and some not. The operator can also have the option to provide it or not. For example, SMS (short text messages) are part of the GSM standard since a long time ago. You can send a text message from your phone to any other GSM phone numbers. CDMA does not have this in the standard. You cannot send text message from your phone, but you can always send and receive email via the internet connection. For SMS you need fewer keystokes to get into it. Composition is offline and you are not charged for the time. For web messages, you generally need a keystroke or more to get into the emails. You are being charged once you are connected to the web. However, you are not charged continuously. It looks like that you are charged for the time taken to receive web pages and the information you send. You are not charged when you are reading the web page. On top of that, you are charged a flat monthly fee for the web connection. Future proof ? At the moment, no phone is. 3G is coming. All GSM and TDMA (?) providers will upgrade to WCDMA. It would be easier for current CDMA providers to upgrade to CDMA2000, but you can go the other route if you make a big leap from 2G to 3G, instead of via 2.5G. GSM/TDMA and CDMA are lumped into 2G, which is not fair. CDMA is developed later and more advanced. There are two `compatible' 3G technologies - WCDMA and CDMA2000. This is also confusing. The networks and phones will have to be different. You cannot use a CDMA2000 phone on a WCDMA network. Even worse, CDMA2000 has a 1X mode that has similar bandwidth to current networks. So when you hear that 3G is coming, it is only CDMA2000 1X. It's a 3G standard but the advantage is only 2.5G at most. The 3X mode is comparable to WCDMA. For the GSM/TDMA camp, the upgrade will be enhanced GSM called EDGE, which is regarded as 2.5G. So if you use your phone for calls mostly, you don't need to worry about 3G and any phone will be usable later. If you want higher speed connection and more advanced features, don't tie yourself up with a 2-year contract. Easy to talk or easy to carry? This is the major decision to make. I think folding phones or clamshell phones are the way to go, if you carry the phone more than talking. By splitting the electronic components into 2 parts, an inch of length can be taken from the phone. The disadvantage is that it is more expensive to manufacturer, and an extra external LCD is necessary to make it more convenient to use. It is noticeable that Samsung do not have any more clam shell models. In general, flip phones are a bit longer because most of the electronics are in one piece. There is no need for a 2nd LCD as the LCD is always visible. Clam-shell models are a bit thicker. The TP1100 is not difficult to use and talk at all. Once opened, the distance between the ear piece and mic are similar to other flip phones, a little longer than non-flip phones. Fold phones and flip phones typically have a curve that is better matched to the ear and mouth positions than non-flip phones. The TP1100 is not too small in this department - the ear to mouth distance may be shorter than some larger clam shell phones but it is longer than typically non-flip phones. I don't see how the TP1100 is more difficult to talk for heavy users. Except that you have to open the phone to talk. But you can always leave the phone open. You cannot do this if you are on the move. But then the TP1100 is easier to carry. With the smaller size, the 1100 is easier to open and close by one hand. In a way, it's a surer thing to open the phone to talk rather than to hit the talk button, when you are on the move. The size At 3.4" long, it is one of the shortest phones. The weight is average at over 4 oz. So you might feel a little bit heavy, as all the weight is concentrated within your palm. Yes, the phone sits inside my palm with good margins. I had the non-flip CDM4000 before. The weight is about the same but the antenna sticks a little bit out of the shirt pocket. Because of the length, the CDM4000 tended to weight open my shirt pocket rather than weight it shut. For the pant pockets, the CDM4000 type phones gets in the way a bit. But the TP1100 is as transparent as your purse or keys, or any other things that go inside your pant pockets. I also had the SCH 8500 that the SprintPCS guy is still holding today. The style is similar but the 8500 adds a bit on all dimensions and weight, looked like the big brother of TP1100. The TP1100 is single mode only, which helps the size and the price. So don't go anywhere remote without a dual mode phone. I am impressed that the analog mode in the 8500 works deep within the Sierra mountain roads. The analog network is not going away any time soon. By the way, SprintPCS don't cover Needles, which is not that remote. If the Las Vegas to LA route is blocked, you may need a dual mode phone if you have to do an ultra long detour via Needles. The features I was surprised that for the price and size, the 1100 almost got all the features of the 8500 (except for the analog mode). Voice command, web browser, calendar, calculator and 3 games. I can't say much about these features except that they work. I didn't try the voice command yet even though I had the 8500 for a year now. My wife always gets the long straw and leaves me with the 4000. Web browsing is a bit painful for these small phones. If you are into these features, I recommend getting a combined organizer and phone, either closer to a phone or closer to an organizer. Though the web connection is ideal for connecting to things like your portfolio in yahoo, your yahoo address book, and check your emails. But it is painful to log in if your password is 32 characters long. One useful feature is that if you send yourself an email with a phone number in it, the phone can grape the number and put it in your phone book. It saves your typing and it's a poor way to mimic synchronizing your phone book with that on your computer, instead of using USB or Bluetooth. Actually the 1100 has better features. Now I understand the logic behind the external small LCD screen. When you see the caller ID, you may not want to answer. But if you want to answer, you can just open the phone and talk. Without the external LCD, you have to press the talk button in the 8500 to talk, after you opened the phone. For this reason, I think this is the way to go for two part phones. Two part phones, with substantial electronics in the base and cover, can take off 1 inch of length from the phone. The external LCD is so nice that I wouldn't do without it again. To open the phone and then press the talk button is excessive. However, the manufacturing cost is higher that means lower profit margins. This is the phone that I will send to my mother when she flies over next time. Last time I mail her the spare 4000 with all one-touch dialing set to my phone number, and almost all keys are set to answer. The danger is that she may press the rare buttons that cannot be used to answer calls, and that she may not remember to end the call with the end button and therefore run out of battery. She did managed to receive my call when she arrived at the airport. But then when she saw the INS officers, she said she had to go and hang-up on me! I was planning to be the remote translator. She didn't know any English. This 1100 will be much better for this purpose. There are the 10 standard numeric buttons in black without any other confusing buttons below them. There are only a minimal of 3 white keys and the 4-way navigation button at the top. Did you remember the first time that you are using a cell phone, you are trying to look at something to mimic the off hook function of the good old telephone, and find the dial tone? There's no such thing - you just dial first and then press the talk button. A fold phone or flip phone allows you to replace the off hook function with opening the phone. I love the navigation button on the 4000, beats the 8500 hands down. But the button on the 4000 looked ugly. It looked beautifully on the 1100 and feels better. This little phone is easier to open and close with one hand using the thumb. The standby time and talk time is neither exceptional good nor poor. For it's size it should not be too good. But minor differences will not change my habit of use. If I talk a lot, I charge it on my desktop stand every day or every other day. If I don't, I leave it on the stand anyway without charging for days. I seldom need a car charger and none is bundled. The external rocker switch is a very nice design to adjust either the speaker volume or the ring volume. But the switch is disabled when the phone is closed. It is enabled in the 8500, which is more convenient. The rumors I like the Eopinions' system of reviewing, as they are more believable. What I saw elsewhere was that the external LCD leaks! Well I never saw any LCD leaks before and it didn't leak on me this time. There are no scratches and it didn't fall off. The calls didn't drop dead on me also. The sound is pretty normal as with my other phones, but I am not a Hi-Fi enthusiast. The hinge didn't feel as solid and rigid as the 8500. But it may be that the design is like that, rather than that the reliability is poorer. It doesn't matter that much as long as it will last for two years, the end of my agreement. I normally go for 1-year agreement at most but this TP1100 is small enough for me to live with. I had enough cell phones for my collection. Though, I wouldn't always slam the two parts together like I did with the 8500. This pretty little lady deserves some sensitive treatment. For one hand operation, I sacrifice my fingers to absorb the impact before closing the phone all the way. I did slam the phone close from time to time and I dropped it on the floor. It survived as expected. Even if some of the rumors are true, I am happy to take some risk for the size, price and features. As I have said elsewhere, not all lots of 1100 are created equal. Don't expect too much for the first lots if LG just setup a new factory in China or Malaysia. But they should have plenty of time to fix many design and production problems in the later lots, as with other high-tech consumer products. It is true that the battery charge will be reduced a lot if you leave the phone somewhere without service. The phone has to do a lot of work to search for base stations in all possible channels. It is necessary for these attempts to be repeated in regular intervals indefinitely. In contrast, in standby mode the phone just need to receive a tiny bit of information for every, say, 5 seconds. But this is true for all phones, the only difference is the interval between searches. You want to find stations as soon as they are available but you also want to save power. You can't win them all. For CDMA phones, if the reception is normal otherwise, it's rather difficult to shield it from the base stations even if you put it under the mattress, or something like that. A dual mode phone works a bit different. The phone will go into analog mode without digital coverage. The power consumption is much worse, as bad as an analog phone. With an analog service, the phone will try to search for digital service less frequently than with service. The phone book is not as bad as it sounds. If you try to find Bob, all Bobs will come out in the order in which they appear on the book, not alphabetically sorted. Bob can be the first name or last name or something else. The advantage is that the search is super fast, as you can see the result changes as you types. And I don't see anything wrong with it, the hit rate that you find your Bob without scrolling is pretty much the same, sorted or not. All phone books I had are not sorted. The presentation of the search results is a little bit different. If you know 20 Bobs, type a bit more to filter out the other Bobs. There's no way you can manage a large phone list by scrolling around. The security There are two schools of philosophy regarding phone book security. The Verison (Airtouch) school protects part of the phone by a passcode. It is more natural but inconvenient sometimes. The Sprint school keeps you from seeing the secret number only. Anyone can do anything with the secret entry JH except reading the secret phone number. But you can always call JH to see that if he is John or if she is Joan. I still don't understand the reasons behind this except for convenience on top of a low-level secrecy. But you can always lock the whole phone. In the lock mode, the 1100 allows three programmed numbers to go through, in or out, plus emergency numbers. The service You cannot buy a phone without looking at the service provider or operator. The worse things that can happen is that you could end up with no reception in your favorite places. You lost your activation fee. This is a reasonable charge since they actually have to do something on it when you purchase the phone and service - entering the phones ID into the network, and take it back or reassign it to another person if you don't want it anymore. The job is not difficult but cannot be trivial because of security reasons. I think this fee is also used to discourage people from trying all the models of all operators before committing to any one. Then the low price cannot be maintained. So if coverage is important to you, wait for promotions that waive the activation fee. Then you have a week or two to test the coverage and phone. Otherwise you have to ask around and borrow somebody's phone to test first. It is rather easy to take a guess on the coverage. They will build enough base stations where the money is. Town center, commercial areas, office areas are best bet, even for tall large buildings. Residential areas are also good if the houses are spread evenly. Major freeways and commuter routes. In these areas, the service is likely to be capacity limited rather than coverage limited. That is, everybody has a good distance from base stations because there must be enough to handle the busy traffic. You always get a good signal, but you may not get a line when everybody else is talking. The opposite case is in rural areas where the chance of busy phone traffic is small, but the signal may not be good because of the distance from the base stations. So if you are living in a flat city, master planned residential area, you have no worries if your city is in the coverage map. If you live in a multi-million dollar home by a private beach in some remote areas, or up the hills, you are on your own. My out of state experience is better with Sprint, perhaps because that they claim to have a national coverage. When I am out of state, I can make calls and receive calls. (Although the person who call me is also using a sprint phone in the same area.) For Airtouch (Verison), I can make calls but I cannot receive. (Although the person who call me used a land line from out of state.) I guess it's easiest if you are in the same operator network. Otherwise, you may have to make some roaming agreement first, not automatic. Custom service is more or less the same for all operators, or any other large entities for that matter. Try to clear any doubt and questions in you mind before you go with any operator. You have to wait a bit for your calls to get through. Don't even thing about email and letters. They record your conversations so a call is as good as emails and letters. But it is just as bad in the sense that everything is on the record. If that's your first phone or you changed operator, it may be a good idea to get your phone from the stores instead of online. Most likely you will be able to make calls right at the stores. And if there are some unusual problems you can go back to the stores, without feeling irrelevant. But if I feel that if my problems will have the sympathy of most other customers, I will go in person to any place that represent the company, with a lot of customers and potential customers around, relevant or not. The Cons For such a small phone, you have to get use to speaking right into the air more. Bear in mind that the earpiece to mouthpiece distance is longer than some straight one-piece phones. Try the vibrator first and get use to it before you actually allow it to vibrate when you are not fully prepared. It is very powerful and makes a lot of noise on the hard desk. I can still hear the vibrating noise even if the phone is inside my pockets. But I think this is designed for putting in handbags! If your party dress have no place for a phone, you can still keep it close to you without losing touch. I think the handbag will shake with the phone even if you are only holding the bag handle. The price I paid is $129.99 minus $50 service credit and $60 rebate. Taxed on the $129.99. $34 activation fee. Free air shipping. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 87423 2002/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size useful external lcd great design odd address book not enough letters for lcd in addressbook menus a bit deep The Bottom LineA fine compact cell phone that does everything as advertised, with a few quirks that keep it out of the 5 star range! Full Review I had been using a Nokia 6185 for some time, and although I loved the menus on it, I found that it was getting to be too much of a beast compared to the tiny phones everyone was carrying around. I'm glad I picked the Touchpoint 1100. First of all the design of the phone is excellent. It's very compact, one of the smallest flip phones out there (only the Touchpoint 5250 is smaller currently) and it has an easy to read display, including a caller ID, signal strength, time on the outside display when closed. The display on the inside is very easy to read, and the backlight turns on automatically. The strengths of the phone include it's wide range of options for phonebook. You can have a single person with 3 different phone numbers instead of inputting them all individually under separate listings. There are custom ring settings, although you cannot compose your own ringtones or download new ringtones. The ringtones are nice, but are not as high quality as on the newer Touchpoint 5250. The Touchpoing 5250 includes the ability to play really nice MIDI tones. There is an included Calculator, Blackjack & puzzle games. There of course is a vibrate "ringtone", but unlike the Nokia phones, you cannot have the audio ringer AND the vibrate feature on together, which I would have preferred. The menus although full featured, and very intuitive are somewhat "deep". It may take 4-7 buttons pressed to find someone on your address book and call them. The Nokia menus are much easier to navigate thru (on the Nokia 6100 or 3360 series). On the phonebook, for example, if you want to find "Home", as you enter in the letters "H-O-M-E" you will first find "Mark Ho" or "Jim Home". Somehow the phonebook does not pick the first letter of the entering keys, and go straight only to the "H" section. And as you scroll thru the phonebook, it is kept in the order you ENTERED the names, not Alphabetical. Also, the LCD needs a few extra letters so you can fit long names into it. Signal strengh is better than I expected in this small phone, about the same as the Nokia 6185 that I had before. Voice quality is also very good, esp. when used without a headset. I had no problems connecting all over California on the SpintPCS network, and very few dropped calls. If you have a problem you can take the phone to Sprint and have them do a PRL upgrade that updates the Firmware in the phone to find more Antennas. The use of the headset is not quite as good as the Nokia one, but at least it includes a 2.5mm jack built in like most phones today. One thing, I wish they had left out the plastic/rubber seal thing to keep dust out, because I'm not worried about the dust, and it's a pain to peel that thing out of the way before using a headset. Battery life is good, needing to be charged about every 2.5 days with average use. The package includes a cradle style charger which I like, compared to most phones which include a plug in style charger. I wish they would have included the car charger and headset in the package though. Overall the phone is very easy to operate and I am very happy with it. Someday I may trade up to the 5250 or upcoming 5350, because of it's more compact size, better ringtones, and overall style. The Touchpoint 1100 is a solid value that is well worth the money! Final word of warning... If you decide to get a car charger, Avoid the temptation to get an el cheapo $1 charger thru semi-reputable sources on Ebay. I had one, and it was junk!! I just got a quality third party one from Belkin @ Best Buy. You can test your existing charger by disconnecting the battery, and simply plugging it into the car charger. If you can power the phone on, and the battery meter gives full charge indication, you have a good one!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 87422 2000/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight outer lcd display is awesome questionable build quality single band The Bottom LineI'd recommend this phone to anybody who wants a small phone at an affordable price. It's not perfect, but it's not very expensive, either. Full Review I've owned this phone for about 6 months now and have some mixed feelings about it. I'll go over some of the things I like and then tell you what bothers me about the phone. This is by no means a comprehensive review of all the features since you can just go and read the manufacturer's specs to get that information. Functionally, it's a great phone. It sounds great, battery life is good (approximately 2.5 hours talk time or 135 hours standby), it's small, the second display on the outside is awesome, receptions is decent, and the main LCD display is large and very readable. I only have to charge the phone once every few days and it fits in any pocket comfortably. I bought the holster as an accessory but find that I almost never use it because it's so easy to slip the phone into a pocket. My main gripe with clamshell phones before had been the inability to see the caller id information if I had the phone set up to auto answer a call when it was opened. The second LCD on the outside of this phone displays signal strength, battery status, time, date, ring mode, and caller id information. It's really an awesome feature and I'm not surprised that many other manufacturers are copying the idea. On the software side, it has a couple simple built-in games, a very usable calculator, a calendar, T9 text entry, and wireless web connectivity. I find that I never play the games, occasionally use the calculator, and use the calendar often enough that I wouldn't want a phone without this feature. The T9 text entry system seems to only function when entering information into the calendar and works like a charm. It would be great if it were active in the web browser, but so far I haven't been able to observe this. The main screen is large enough to make looking up simple information like stock quotes or reading short e-mails painless, but doing anything through the browser which requires inputting any amount of data is just not worth the effort in my opinion. Now I'll tell you what annoys me about this phone. My previous phone came with a travel charger and a base stand. The travel charger plugged into the base stand so that when you were at home you could have the convenience of a charging stand but when you were on the road you could leave the stand at home and just take the cord. The charger which came with this phone requires the base and Sprint doesn't sell a travel charger. Now everywhere I travel the whole setup has to go, too. About a month into owning the phone, dust started to creep into the outer LCD display. It's gotten bad enough now that under certain glare conditions I can't read the right portion of my display. This hasn't happened to my friend's phone which was purchased at the same time, though, so maybe it's just my phone. Another thing I dislike is that when scrolling though the phone book listings, the entries are not listed alphabetically like my last Touchpoint did. Instead, they are listed according to their entry slots. Also, when looking up an entry by entering the characters in a name this phone will return all entries which contain that string not just those entries which start with that string. For examples, if I wanted to find my friend Paul I would start by entering a 'P'. My last phone would bring 'Paul' up as on of the first options because it started with 'P'. This phone will instead bring up all entries which contain the letter 'P', sorted by their entry slot. I think this is a change many phones are now making, but, being used to the old method, I found this a little cumbersome. I'm not sure why these changes were made from the previous Touchpoint phones, but they're a couple things which annoy me. For a phone of it's size, it packs a lot of features and it's survived a recent drop onto asphalt with just a couple scratches on the case. Overall I think that the good things about this phone out weigh the short comings. If you are looking for a phone which is small and affordable this is probably the best option. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 87421 2000/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great looks solid overall build quality bass ackward phone book cheesy ringtones The Bottom Line I recommend this phone to anyone who is not a 'power user' and wants a sleek, stylish design. Full Review I've been using the touchpoint for over a year now and it still feels 'fresh.' Unlike most phones that were released over two years ago, it still has a very modern design and could easily pass as a new model. When shopping for a cell phone I do look for certain features, but bells and whistles pale in comparison when it comes to size. Being a man and therefore not having the luxury of a purse, I need a phone that does not weigh down my pants or produce unsightly bulks in my pocket. If I have to constantly be reminded that I am carrying it around, I am most likely to leave it at home. The TP 1100, while slightly thicker than some of the Motorolas and other clam phones, is so tiny that I often forget that it's there. I have had no problems with call quality aside from experiencing a few dropped calls in my living room. I blame this on the ancient construction of most New Orleans buildings rather than the phone, however. I seldom if ever miss incoming calls, even if the phone is smothered in a jeans pocket. There are a few shortcomings, notably in ringtones and the bizarre phone book system. I had grown accustomed having my entries automatically alphabetized, but the TP1100 arranges them by order of entry. Therefore, when searching the phone book, I have to think of when I first met the person and added them to my list, as opposed to the first letter of the first name. Old friends are at the beginning. Recent friends and associates are at the end. It is not something that would prevent me from purchasing this phone again, however. Also, there is no alarm! This DOES irritate me, as I travel quite often and find it necessary to lug along an extra alarm clock or beg someone to call me at a certain time. There have been a great deal of complaints regarding the TP1100's battery life. I am not a 'power user,' but I consistently get about three days of average use away from the charger. Again, I am not a habitual user...I keep the phone so that I can be contacted moreso than to make calls. But I imagine that if I were the type born with a phone stitched to my ear I would opt for a phone with a better reputation for battery life. The external caller ID is a godsend. I know that as technology progresses, we become unbelievably lazy. Ten years ago having a phone hardwired to your car's electrical system was considered a luxury. These days we're p*ssed if we have to flip a lid to see incoming caller information. :) It's the nature of the wireless business to convince us that these are features we absolutely cannot live without. That having been said, I can't live without it! The shell and overall design are, as I said earlier, still thoroughly modern. The fit and finish are quite good, and the phone has an overall solid feel to it. I've dropped it on more than one occasion and it has suffered nothing but minor cosmetic scratches. Like almost every other phone, it's equipped with a browser, which I do use during football season if I'm working and can't get near a tv, or to check my email for ebay bids and assorted information. However, Sprint treats wireless web minutes like plan-exceeding minutes, so beware. My last invoice showed a total of 24 web minutes (mostly from real-time playoff scores, natch), at a charge of roughly $10. That's approximately 50 cents a minute, and if it's important enough, I can live with it. And sports scores, to me at least, are worth ten clams a month. I don't view the lack of analog support as a con. You have to make that decision at the time of purchase. I live in a major metro area and most of SE Louisiana is covered by Sprint, as are the major interstates travelling to other states (though the coverage does not extend too far from the highways). The only time this has ever been an issue for me was when I went camping with friends somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere, MS. But I only brought the phone with me out of habit, and my girlfriend had a dual-band phone in the event of an emergency. Overall, this is a great phone. I took a peek at new phones while shopping for a new laptop at BestBuy, but none of them seemed to have made any major leaps in technology aside from having added a camera, which I really don't need. And they didn't seem any sleeker than the two year old phone I have now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 newRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87420 2001/6/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight tiny web access large display for its size calculator calendar may be useless in an emergency digital only single band phone no analog roaming The Bottom LineIt's one of the lightest, smallest phones anywhere, and crammed with useful goodies. Full Review I've owned the LG Electronics SP510, otherwise known as the Sprint Touchpoint 1100 in the US, for about three months now, and I've generally been very pleased with it. It's one of the smallest and lightest phones on the market (3.4 inches (86mm) long, 1.9" (48mm) wide, 1" (25mm) thick, and only 4.2 ounces (119gr)!), but it still packs a ton of features: Five line LCD display screen Second LCD on outside cover shows caller ID without having to answer the phone Calendar/alarm personal information manager 100 name contact list stores six numbers for each name (home, office, mobile, pager, data, fax) Web Access User-selectable rings and vibrate mode Backlit keypad for night dialing Calculator Games (Blackjack, Tile Puzzle) Data capable, functions as a wireless modem with optional access kit The sound quality and reception are quite good; in fact, it's better than my previous Sprint phone, the Samsung SCH-3500. In addition, the phone itself is well constructed, with a nice fit and finish. The clamshell hinge seems fairly sturdy, if not industrial strength. I've even dropped it a couple of times on concrete and hardwood, without any noticeable damage or scratches - although I wouldn't recommend doing this on purpose just to test its durability! All of the various settings and controls are logically placed and easy to figure out without referring to the manual. I especially like the big rocker switch on the left side for adjusting call volume - it's right where you want it during a call. Above the dial keypad is a large four-way "mouse" button, which makes skipping through the various menu items a breeze. The big screen ("big," of course, being relative on a surface less than five square inches) means that it can fit more information than many other comparable models; this definitely makes a difference in web browsing mode. In addition, the second LCD on the outside cover displays the date, time, signal strength, battery level and even caller ID without having to open the phone. Don't expect web access to be like your desktop computer, but for reading short e-mails and getting quick bits of data, like the weather or stock quotes, it's a handy feature. In theory, you can send e-mail as well, but it's a total pain trying to type with a 10-key number pad. The Touchpoint 1100 does not come with a belt clip, but Sprint does sell a leather case as an option. Of course, it's so small that it fits in any of my pockets without a problem. The only included "accessory" is the charging stand. The battery holds up pretty well, although it's not intended for heavy use (about 1.5 hours talk time/96 hours standby; as usual, the manufacturer's estimated times are a bit exaggerated). There are tradeoffs with a phone this tiny. If you need a small and incredibly portable phone and you don't expect to use it much outside of an area with Sprint PCS service, the Touchpoint 1100 is a good choice. However, it's a single-band, digital-only phone, with no analog roaming option. For example, I was on Cape Cod this weekend and in many areas, the phone could not get any signal. You wouldn't ever want to rely on a phone like this if you needed something for road emergencies. That caveat aside, for "urban warriors" like me, the Touchpoint is the last word in drop-dead techno-toy chic. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 87419 2000/11/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good sound quality reception well designed external lcd very convenient form factor digital only no alphabetical sorting of phone list The Bottom LineIts light, its small, and its convenient to use. If you don't require a dual band phone, consider the TP 1100. Full Review I am not a power cell phone user. I average around 180 minutes of cell phone use per month, a portion of which goes towards long-distance calls since my service plan with Sprint PCS provides "free" long distance. I own a cell phone primarily for the convenience it provides and in case of emergencies. So for me, the most important requirement on my cell phone is that it fits comfortably in my shirt or pant pocket. I simply have no patience for having to tote unwieldy and extraneous gadgets with me wherever I go. With this in mind, the TouchPoint 1100 fits my needs really well. Before I bought the TouchPoint, I had a Sanyo SCP-4000. Outside of the fact that it was one of the five worst phones in terms of excess cell phone radiation, I was very pleased with it. Unfortunately, I dropped it one too many times and since I didn't have phone insurance, I ended up having to get a new phone. One of the reasons I originally bought the SCP-4000 was because I didn't like clam phones. Though the clam design is really effective in compressing the overall form factor, I really disliked having to flip open the phone to see the display. It was bothersome to have to open the phone to see the caller ID information. But I also rely on my phone to tell time. The lack of an external display made checking the time more inconvenient than I preferred it to be. Before I dive into my thoughts on the TP1100, let me first list some of the key features: Dimensions: 3.4"x1.9"x1.0" Weight: 4.2 oz Battery Life: 2.5 hrs talk/135 hrs standby Wireless Internet Ready Standard Headset Jack When I saw the TP1100's external LCD, I was immediately intrigued. The external LCD displays all the necessary information - signal strength, battery level, network status, time and date. When receiving a call, the caller ID information replaces the time and date. You can answer the call simply by flipping open the phone. Closing the phone ends the call and flashes the call duration on the external LCD, an extremely simple but well executed and useful feature. I have been extremely pleased with the build quality of the phone. Though I have heard others complain of the workmanship, I have not found any outstanding flaws. At 4.2 ounces, the phone has a very solid feel. I have even dropped the phone a couple of times (I don't know why I keep doing that) but there are no visible dents or scratches. The only quibble that I have is that the outer shell of the earpiece has a glossy coat while the rest of the phone is matte silver. I think it is rather odd, but you really have to look carefully to notice the difference. I have also been very pleased with the overall reception and sound quality of the earpiece and the microphone. The earpiece is clear and provides a full sound as opposed to the muffled voice that you get from some phones. I've also asked the people I call about the sound quality and they have voiced no complaints. As for the reception, with the SCP-4000, I used to get a lot of dropped calls from signal fades. With the TP1100, I have distinctly noticed that dropped calls are far more infrequent. I may lose voice for a brief second occasionally, but the call very rarely drops. I don't know if this is due to network upgrades or due to the performance of the components inside the phone. Either way, I'm happy with having less dropped calls. One thing to note is that this is a digital only phone. There is no analog support. This is not a big deal for me, since Sprint's network covers all the areas where I generally use my phone. But some people prefer to have dual band phones for the added security that it provides. In my own experience, I have always set my phones to be digital only to avoid draining the battery and incurring unwanted additional costs. But not everything is rosy with the TP1100. My biggest complaint is with the phone list. As with many other phones, the TP1100's phone list allows you to enter multiple telephone numbers per entry, with up to 99 entries - or 98 if you leave the default setting of voicemail on the first entry. The big problem is that the TP1100 does not sort the phone list alphabetically. Rather it operates more like a traditional speed dial and sorts by entry number. With large phone lists, finding the person who you want can become a real nuisance. Unless you manually resort it, the phone list is essentially useless for those people who keep a large amount of numbers stored on their cell phone. Overall, however, with all of the TP1100's other good qualities, I am willing to overlook this particular shortcoming. It's an extremely solid performing product with a very convenient form factor. The addition of the external LCD has really raised the bar for all clam phones. And at a list price of $129.99, you won't have to break the bank to get all these features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 7696 LG Electronics/ Goldstar DB-520/TP5200 87435 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small phone big buttons good battery life can t hear the ringer even on the loudest setting The Bottom LineRecommended it if you want a cute phone with ringers and pictures, but you can't hear the ringers unless your life is a tame or use the vibrate option. Full Review Let me give you the highlights of what I like: 1. Expansive phone book: one person can have many numbers including fax or email. 2. Personalized ringers: you can assign a ringer to any individual plus download more. 3. Calender: Really not that useful, unless you really need to be reminded by your phone about dates or appointments. 4. Voice dialing: Don't need to pay extra to just push one button and say who you want to call. (Caveat: It sometimes does not recognized what you say if you are used to saying someones name somewhat differently all the time) 5. Download wallpapers: Fun, but not necessary. 6. Secret numbers: Not necessary, unless you are the cheating type. Meaning no one can see the secret number except you. 7. Semi-speaker phone: Can't talk with it only listen. Good only for Moviefone or voicemail. Now the things I don't like: 1. Ringer: I can not hear the darn ringer for the life of me when you are in a relatively noise place. E.g., In the car while listening to music. Even if the ringer is on full blast. 2. Download cost: You have to pay for the additional ringers and pay for the web downloading time. Estimated cost: $4 per month plus Web minutes about $.40 per minute. Each download takes about one minute. 3. You can choose any color you like, as long as its is blue and silver. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87434 2000/6/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small strong ear phone external led tons of useful features flip phone lack of color choices lack of ringers screen savers moderate battery life The Bottom LineThe pros that relate to functionally far outweight the aesthetics cons of it. Full Review First off this is my first mobile phone, I am 18 yr old male and use my phone for well keeping in touch with friends and family. Main reason I choose this phone was it was on sale at costco and I really liked the sprint plan. Anyways back to the phone, as mentioned earlier, its small, really small. I often find my self losing it due to its size and weight. Another reason I choose this phone was cuz it was a flip one. I liked the ability of it protecting its key and main LED preventing scratches. However some flip phones only have on LED thus unable to see whos calling w/o answering. Now the TP5250 which has an external LED so one can check the time, whos caling and battery life with out opening the phone and answering it. Phone also has lots of cool features such as games other then snake, a planner, calculator and voice activated calling. Unlike other phones the ear piece is really loud, making even the worse connections audible. Now onto some of the cons. First I really like the ability to customize my rings, with this phone I've yet to find how. I tired there wireless web option but it never worked. I also would like the ability for the phone to ring a tone and vibrate but you must choose either or not both. Along with the ringers, one has limited options on the screen savers, opening and shut down screens. All of which you can supposedly download but never worked for me. Also the battery life is moderate, not too short but it drains rather easily. Finally the whole silver and teal color scheme gives it a eminine tone to it in my opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 87433 2000/12/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 external caller id small big screen stylish scratches easily flimsy sprint pcs muffled speaker The Bottom LineOnly buy the phone if it's under $50. Full Review Last year I decided to purchase a new phone from Sprint to replace my Samsung SCH8500. Since I am partial to flip-phones, the LG-5200 was the top of the line, at $200. Before reading the rest of my review, you should know that I use my cell phone as my only phone, talking anywhere between 1 and 2 hours per day. I take it with me wherever I go, and carry it on a belt clip. What's good about this phone: The LG 5200 is the smallest phone I've ever owned. If the phone was any smaller, it would probably not be useable. When carrying the phone, I usually can't tell if it's on my belt or not, that's how light weight it is. I have average sized hands, and have no problems with the keypad. They keys themselves are spaced apart well enough for someone with larger hands to easily navigate. The phone has two displays. The external display is quite useful in that it will display the phone number (name if stored) of the person calling, so flipping the phone open is all you need to do to answer (though you can disable that if you wish). The larger screen is, well, large and I have never had any problems reading it. The backlight is bright enough that the phone is easily readable in any light. The menu is easy to navigate, and the way contacts are stored is intuitive. You can list multiple numbers for each entry, and accessing these is as easy as one push of a button. What's not good about this phone: The worst part about this phone is that it operates with Sprint PCS service, which has severe limitations in terms of coverage, even in major metropolitan areas. Due to this fact, I cannot say that this phone has even average reception. There are many times when I am in wide open spaces, and will only get one bar of service. This leads to dropped calls, fuzzy calls, and calls simply not connecting (or taking 30 seconds to do so). In terms of construction, I think that this phone is on the flimsy side. The displays (to my amazement) have not scratched at all, but the rest of the phone has, and rather quickly. Since the faceplate is not removable, these scars are permanent. The flip mechanism itself has become bent due to a drop (about 1m onto concrete), but this doesn't seem to affect performance. The phone is also starting to separate in half. Sound quality is below average. The speaker has always seemed somewhat muffled compared to Motorola's and Nokia's. When the phone was purchased, battery life was pretty much as advertized. After about 3-4 months of use, however, there was a noticeable drop in performance. After one year, and about 250 charges, the phone has about 1.5 hours of talk time (not sure about standby time, as I recharge every night now). Other comments: This phone does not suffer from any antenna breakage, though the antenna has managed to get stuck several times, which required about 5 minutes time to fix. The ringtones provided with the phone are decent, and you cannot add other ringtones via the internet. Some of them are quiet, and there are only about 5-6 truly useful rings. The vibrating feature is pretty strong, and I have never not felt it vibrating on my belt clip. The rings, on the other hand, cannot always be heared. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 87432 2000/1/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 simple user interface small size ringer types sound quality very fragile horrible reception lg accessories don t last battery life is a joke The Bottom LineThere are much better options for the money. This is basically a disposable phone that self destructs after a year of use. Full Review The LG 5250 is for Sprint carriers. This is my second phone and I suppose I was drawn to it for it's small size and aesthetics. The only quality of this phone is the interface is user friendly. However after owning the same phone for a year of course it becomes easy to use. For the first few months the phone worked great but that changed very quickly. My reception started to get worse and worse. Usually reception in my apartment is fine however within the last few months I'm having to stick my head out the window to talk on this mobile phone. Sometimes I'll get my voice-mails a day after it's been left and other times I won't get any of my calls. The materials they used to build this phone are terrible. The plastic is fragile and the paint starts to come off after some use. I have never dropped my phone on the ground but yesterday the screen cracked for no reason I can think of so the LED display is now a black blob. My phone is now completely useless. The battery life is the biggest joke of them all. If I were to charge my battery all night, I could use my phone for 20 minutes the following day and that would be it. I read in an article however that extensive use of a car charger will shorten the battery life. The charger that comes with the phone stopped working well after the first 3 months. The LG charger for the 5250 is a desktop plug-in charger. After you snap the phone in you have to constantly adjust it so that it will charge properly. After awhile I had to jam a golf tee in the back just so it would be in proper position. The charge indicator light was never accurate. Either it would start blinking non stop, turn green immediately even though the phone was dead, or not turn on at all. All in all this is the worst phone I have ever come across. Everyone I know who owns the same phone has nothing positive to say about it. For you Sprint customers stick with a Samsung or Sanyo. They are very durable and comparable in price. In my book, LG stands for Lousy Garbage. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 87431 2002/2/24 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fits right into your pocket very easy to use external caller id you can t change the face plates The Bottom LineIt's fun, easy to use and portable. Teens and adults will love the flexibility and style of this phone. Full Review How It Came Into My Life :) After about three months of my father and I begging my mom to get a cell phone for herself, she finally gave in. She always knew she wanted this phone, but was totally unsure of the service. She bought it with rebates and discounts, etc. at Best Buy for a good price, and she got a three-year warranty on it as well. My mom wanted to buy this phone because it was small and you could customize it as much as you wanted as with any Nokia, with the exception of the changeable face plate feature. Loves What I myself, love about this phone, is that it's small. As I said before, it fits right into any pant or jean pocket with ease. To put it simply, this phone is smaller than the average Nokia, and the buttons and the screen are larger. Meaning you can easily call someone with one hand. Another great feature was that the ringer selection was great. There's tons of ringers that are more complex sounding than any phone I've ever heard. Heck, it even has drums to it! It has a vibrate feature, which is very quiet and doesn't make your whole body vibrate. It's very sleek looking even without a face plate feature. The teal and silver cover make it look more modern than ever. Caller ID The caller ID on the external flip of the phone is great. You can see who's calling without even flipping up the phone. It also has a caller ID on the internal screen, so if your phone is already flipped up, it wouldn't matter. Phone Book The phone book holds MANY numbers and allows you to have multiple numbers per entry. It's simple to access your phone book too, and it's not very time-consuming. It also customizes your phone. If, for example, you have your friend Liz in your phone book as "Liz," every time she calls, it won't show her number on caller ID, it'll say "Liz." Pictures and Text-Messaging This phone also supports pictures and text-messaging. I have yet to try the text-messaging, but the picture capability is great! You can change your screen saver, your power off picture, and even your power on picture. You can also customize the message on your screen, so instead of it just saying Sprint PCS, it will say "Danielle," or "Sexy Mama," whatever you'd like! It says that it has a paging feature as well, but I haven't used the phone long enough to even use that particular feature. Quality And lastly, the sound quality is wonderful. Everyone tells me you can hear the speaker loud and clear, like they were on a regular phone. You can hear the person you're talking to just as if you were on a regular phone, maybe even better! The phone itself is quite durable as well, it's not flimsy at all. Dislikes Like I said before, you can't switch your face plates, which is something that could come in extremely handy, considering that you might not always have the same mood. Also, there is no ring-tone composer, so what you get is what you choose from. Also, on some phones, there is no antenna, which I'm sure is a great feature and this phone has an antenna. So far it has not bothered me, but it may break off. It doesn't seem flimsy, it's just I can be pretty hard on the usage of everything I have. Other than that, I can't think of anything else I don't like about this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87430 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 better earpiecegood customized ringer solid phone for the price speaker monitor color choice aesthiticsgeneral appearance of the phone The Bottom LineGreat phone for the middle of the road mobile on the run. Not overpriced like the Sanyo 5150 $400 or the high end Samsungs. Full Review The phone looks exactly like the 5200 except there are 2 differences. 1) On the back where the battery clips on, there's a round piece hidden in there that is probably the vibrate part. 2) On the outside of the phone the LG logo is displayed far below the Sprint logo. The phone functions very similarly to the 5200. The menus work the same - but when you make a selection, instead of kicking you back to the main menu, it takes you to the menu you came from - great idea! The sound quality of the phone is FIXED from the poor, flawed 5200. Conversations are clear with this one! The vibrating ringer is also MUCH stronger. Instead of a vibrating tone of the 5200, it seems like there's some type of vibrating motor in this phone itself. Signal strength is the same, but can be misleading because on the old 5200 phone there would be 4 bars of service, this only shoes 1 bar... but still get the same level of service - no biggie, all phones can display a varying meter. The new 5250 phone supports custom ringtones, graphics, and screen savers. Looks like they all need to be downloaded from the Ringers and More service. When the screen in inactive, a little screen saver pops up... this doesn't seem very useful because I don't know why anyone would leave the flip screen open when the phone is not in use. Looks like downloaded images can be customized to display while the phone is turning on, and off. Ringers: The manual says the phone can hold up to 5 custom ringtones at once. The ringer is played through the speaker, as was with the 5200. Some complained that the ringers were too quiet, even on the loudest setting. Unfortunately, this may still be the case for you. But IMHO, if I'm going to be in a loud crowd, it'll be too loud to hear the caller anyway. So just put it on vibe mode. Most of the ringers from the 5200 jumped along on the 5250. There are a couple new ones. But if you don't like them, grab different ones from the Ringers and More service. Another cool feature is the monitor mode, it's like a listen-only speakerphone. On hold for a while? Just put it on monitor mode. When someone comes back to the line, kick it out of monitor mode and talk again. Need to silence all sounds when in a meeting? Hold the "down volume" key and the phone goes into Silent Mode. Re-enable regular sounds and rings by holding the "up volume" key. The phonebook is sorted alphabetically, it has voice activated dialing, record your own voice memos, record phone conversations so you don't have to pull over to jot down that important phone number, surf the wireless web, and play Blackjack or Comanche with incredible sounds and graphics. This phone is truly what the 5200 should have been in the first place. It was worth the wait. If you liked the 5200 model (besides the weak vibrate function and the horrible speaker), look for the new 5250 in stores within the next couple of weeks. It's a great phone and is sure to be very popular among SprintPCS users. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87429 2000/11/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life weight price ring tones The Bottom Linevery good phone Full Review The LG TP5200 Cell phone has been one of the best phones I've used to date. In comparing this phone such others -- Motorola Startac, Nokia, and the Ericsson, this phone beats them out hands down; sound quality, size/weight, cell coverage are all rated above to excellent. Dual Band. The phone operates within the PCS CDMA frequency band of 1.9 GHz as well as the 800 MHz analog cellular. Good coverage - I've used this phone for the SprintPCS coverage area and have found reception to be very good - much better than teh NOkia and Motorola that I've used in the past. Usual dead spots now have decent reception - my calls do not drop. Light weight. The phone is light and has a flip top. Dimensions are small - 3.31" x 1.91" x 0.98". Weight measures in at 3.5oz. Voice Activated Dialing. This feature works very well and value add. External Caller Id. Phone number and time are listed in additioin to battery length on the cover of the phone. Battery Life Battery life is exceptional. Standby times range from one to three days. No need to charge the phone that often. Also, the charger is lightweight and very portahle - though, the charger is not like the lightweight Motorola ones. Backlight Monitor is bright and can be adjusted for length of time the blue screen stays on. Warranty. I suggest purchasing the 1 year warranty that the phone comes with from whichever store you purchase the phone from. I have returned this phone twice. Once when I was given a bad battery, which did not hold its charge. Price. This phone has a better price than the Motorola phone (the one which Verizon carries; priced at over $400) which is heavier. Ring Tones There are many tones and they can be set for each type of caller identification - those that are listed in your phone book, restricted numbers, non-caller IDs, etc. Calendar. Calendar is somewhat useful, but imputting the dates and events are quite hard and bit useless. I'd rather use my own PDA. Flimsy and breakable screen. I broke the screen on this phone twice as the LCD screen broke when the phone dropped. Flimsy Antenna OCERALL When considering this phone, note that it offers exceptional battery life, lightweight, good range. Negatives include flimsy, breakable screen. However, the phone can be replaced under a warranty policy, usually offered by most of the major electronics stores, such as Best Buy or Circuit City. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 7697 LG Electronics C1300 87452 2004/11/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight easy to use poor reception many disconnected calls We just got this phone a few months ago. This is definitely not the greatest phone, but it works decently. We've had many dropped/disconnected calls. The call quality isn't very good, either. Reception is poor. I guess it's just a weak antenna? 87451 2005/9/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 sturdy small good battery life inexpensive it simply fails as an operable cel phone connectivity is completely unacceptable Cingular pitched me on how great this phone was when I converted from AT&T to their service and convinced me to extend for another two years. It is a terrible phone and the worst by far of any of the six previous cels I've owned. I am amazed that it is actually recommended by a major cel service provider. I've compared it to several other brands of cel phones side by side when both were receiving the same Cingular signal in precisely the same exact location and have found that in every case my LG 1300 had the worst signal by far. In one instance another Cingular service phone had great service and my LG had absolutely "No service" ...yes, no bars. This is not just a bad phone, but is virtually worthless in my opinion. 87450 2005/8/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen the list goes on flimsy on bad reception ugly design I don't actually own this phone, but I have played with my friend's C1300 enough to know that this phone sucks. First off I will start by saying it is very ugly. I mean come on who would want a mirror on their cell phone. Nice attempt at not wanting to waste the money on an external screen. The phone is flemsy and made of cheap plastic that always feels like its going to break. This phones reception is awful. Where other phones get a full signal this phone gets hardly any. The only good feature about this phone is it's screen. The screen is very bright and vivid. 87449 2005/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it s small not durable home charger doesn t work bad reception This phone has never worked right. 3 months after i signed a 2 year contract with at&t my home charger stopped charging my phone. The car charger did fine. I took my phone in and they tried a new charger didn't work.A few people I know have this phone and have the same problems. I ALWAYS get very bad reception. The screen only comes on half the time. Only good thing is it is small enough to put in my jeans pocket, which being a young female you have to have something small enough to fit. 87448 2004/10/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 stylish but so are high heels signal too weak using it too frustrating I bought this phone as an AT&T GO Phone. I was in a hurry, going out of town and needed one for business. I didn't do my research then, so I am now. The phone worked fine while I was in another city, but here and at my home the signal is so weak it goes from a couple of bars to none in seconds without being moved an inch. Since we have two other cell phones in the house I know it's not our location. Because of the weak signal I was unable to use it from home even to retrieve or delete messages. And trying to put my out going message on it was impossible. I had to go back to the store to accomplish that. I am returning it for another brand. I don't see the point in having to take a drive just to use my cell. 87447 2006/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight great volume many features access to the internet cute tiny disconnected on lengthy calls but good for someone who isn t on all the time I got this phone from HSN. It's tiny, cute and has many great features. I couldn't beat the price and went with the GoPhone (Cingular) service. I am not one to be connected to the phone 24/7. 200 anytime minutes per month is fine for me. For what I use it for, it's an excellent little phone. I can see why people who use a phone a lot may not like it. I did notice on extended calls, we would get disconnected. 87446 2006/9/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small easy navagation easy volume control bad games bad reception poor sound quality mirror too small This phone is small and is easy to use, but has terrible reception. The volume contol is easy to use, but sound quality is horrible. Another bad thing about this phone the mirror, it is way too small, i can only see my eye! And the games are bad too, the only games that come with it are Black Jack and Poker. 87445 2005/8/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it is small great at cutting off light poor reception poor design this phone has terrible reception and constantly drops calls. Cingular was notified of this problem. They send another 1300. It did the same. What ever you have to do, upgrade from this phone. It is the single worse phone I have ever used. I have also used Nokia and Samsung. I never had the trouble I had with this phone. 87444 2005/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight decent screen small keypad difficult to use dropped calls I, too, have had a few dropped calls on this phone. The sound quality isn't too good, either. I bought it through Cingular, it's my first cell phone and I just carry it for emergencies and those times when I'm trying to meet up with a friend and we both know each other is not at home and "on the move." The keypad is quite difficult to use -- the keys are too small and too close together. The screen is vivid and you can download lots of cool graphics for it, but otherwise, I'm just biding my time until I can afford to upgrade to a better phone. 87443 2007/2/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 cheap cheap quality I perched this phone in early Octerber 2006. It did not last me to the end of the year. I know I'm hard on phones, but my old motarola lasted me a year and a half. The LG C1300 is just a cheap phone. I got it for free so I really should not be complaining, but I was really disipointed when only after a few drops the screen when dead and eventually I could not ever recieve call on it. 87442 2000/9/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cool feautures light weight cute small mirror blinds you when light hits it poor reception The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for anyone who is not going to talk for hours at a time, unless of course you have a great signal. Full Review I purchased my LG C1300 when I opened a new 2 year term with cingular, for $49.99. I thought it was very cute. It has a great color screen, easy navigation, very easy to take advantage of all it's great feautures like, it can store 255 contacts on the phone itself, with 7 predefined groups and 3 custom groups. Has great battery life. It also has great graphics and has the ability to have a moving picture as your wallpaper. It has realtones along with polyphonic tones. Has games too, mine only came with one, that I don't even really understand, but I can always download more to my phone. Now for the cons. My call seem to get dropped when there is no reason behind it. It seems that if you touch the antenna it cuts out really bad, and it is hard to hold the phone and not touch the antenna. I can't send or recieve pictures or ringtones from other numbers. If the sun hits the little mirror in the front of the phone, it really blinds you for a minute. The mirror make you look pudgy anyway. LoL Also you can control the ringtone volume while you aren't in a call by two small buttons on the side of the phone & everytime I put my phone in my purse, it bumps my wallet or whatever is in there and usually turns the volume down so when someone calls I barely hear it. You can also get accessories like, faceplates (although I haven't found a good selection of them yet) hands free kit, home charger, car charger (both available in rapid charge) data cables and light up antennas. For those accessories I recommend ebay.com. The accessories are kind of hard to find for this phone and can be pricy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87441 2005/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 sleek lightweight good ring volume sound quality is terrible The Bottom LineOnly consider if you're looking for a cheap, cute bit of technology. Full Review I got my LG phone for free when I re-upped my contract with Cingular. My ancient Nokia was dying, so why not, right? This phone just goes to show that old credo is true: You get what you pay for. While this LG model can take the abuse that I put it through - it's so slight in weight and width that I'm constantly dropping it - I almost wish it would break so I would have an excuse to get a newer model. The phone itself isn't too horrible. As I mentioned earlier, it's very light and thin and easily portable in a pocket or tiny purse. The battery holds a full charge for quite a while, however if it isn't consistently fully charged between uses it drains quite rapidly. The polyphonic ring has a tinny quality, and the selection of ring tones leaves much to be desired. The vibrate feature is quite strong, however, and the ring volume will jolt you out of a sound sleep, especially if you use an actual ring instead of a musical tune on the built-in alarm. The text writer has a built in dictionary, which is great, but will often default to a word that is nowhere near what you're trying to write, or will kick to the "spell" option when you're not done with the word! I have had problems sending text messages, even after double checking with my provider, so if you're a texting fiend this may not be the best phone for you. Overall, the quality is "eh" on this phone. If you don't have a ton of money to spend and are simply looking for something cute, this may be the product for you. However, if you're more discerning and would like a quality phone for your buck, look elsewhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87440 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 price size ease of use very basic in amenities The Bottom LineIf it's free, has a warranty, and all you want is a phone with no major bells and whistles, go for it. Full Review I want to write this review simply to offer a differing view on this phone. For what it clearly offers it does what it is supposed to do. We started our service on 4/17/05 and I have been using my phone since then with nary a problem. In fact, for the last several months, it has been my landline. Reception of course, will vary from state to state, so it is always hard to base a review on that. However, living in the middle of Louisiana, where many things are behind the times, we have good solid reception. 7 months ago some areas of the house were better then others, but maybe they erected new towers over the months, because I can get 5 bars about anywhere in the city and in my house. I also haven't had a dropped call in several months. Features are basic. This was the first time I had had cellular service since 1992 so I didn't know what I wanted except that I wanted a flip phone. It is small and not heavy, perfect for my female hands. I was able to download and create MIDI files (and pay a small fee from FREERINGERS.NET) to get customizable ringtones and pictures. The keys light up at night, the caller storage is ample, I was able to create 4 groups with distinct telltale ringtones. I have dropped this phone numerous times, some on concrete where the battery shot off, but all is well and it works fine. I am only now considering an upgrade because I would like speakerphone capability as well as caller ID on the outside, but overall, I have no reason to hate this phone. I have nothing bad to say about this phone right now. It has served me well considering what I put it though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87439 2000/3/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small light weight dropped calls no number view when phone is closed The Bottom LineGreat for kids or someone who doesn't use their cell phone a lot. Not recommended for business use or for those who use their phones more than average. Full Review I paid $100 for this phone through Cingular and realized very early I got ripped off. I use this phone for work and began to hope my clients didn't call me on it. 75% of my calls were dropped and I lost my service every time I turned around. One minute I had a full signal and the next (I did not move) it was gone. The volume button didn't lock on this phone and when I had it in my pocket, it would turn down on it's own. Once it went down all the way, I would miss calls because I didn't hear it ring. This phone does not have a display to show the number when it rings. You have to manually flip it open to see and then close it again if you choose not to answer it. Not a big deal really, but I found it annoying after a while. Overall, I don't recommend this phone to anyone who is going to be using it for business. I think it's great for a teenager or someone who won't be using it a lot. It is light weight and small, which makes it easy to carry around. Other than that, I wasn't thrilled with it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87438 2000/3/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 quality screen small nicely shaped awesome volume control very durable fantastic battery life excellent interface lots of memos but rather short in length no reminders The Bottom LineI would definitely recommend the LG c1300 due to its high durability, long battery life, ease of use, and good looks. Full Review I guess that my experience was different than the previous reviewers'. I've had mine for about half a year now and the only flaw was that it originally had sub-par reception. Around December of '04 LG replaced the antenna on the c1300 and they even sent a new one through the mail to me without it having been requested. Now the phone gets the best reception I've seen and I do a fair amount of traveling. The battery on this phone is absolutely amazing in its longevity. I went on vacation out of the country and left it on so that the battery would run out in order to prolong its life. I came back after 8 days and the thing was still on, albeit at zero battery bars. I've also dropped it on several occasions and the worst thing to happen was that it shut off after falling off a table. As for software: the interface is excellent and there is a huge amount of space for memos, but there aren't any reminders; only an alarm. The phone also has up and down volume buttons perfectly in reach of the fingers that hold it so you don't even have to pause the conversation to change it. An additional feature is that if the phone is closed and you hold one of the volume buttons for a few seconds the phone automatically goes on silent mode with vibration. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87437 2005/6/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 can makereceive calls usually without many problems ringer volume clock loses time dropped calls The Bottom LineGo ahead and pay for an upgraded phone instead. Full Review I resisted, fought it, claimed there were times I didn't want to be found, didn't want to be one of those people on the phone while driving, but despite my best efforts I had to get a cell phone. They're just too damn convenient and besides, do you realize how hard it is to find a pay phone now-a-days? The only one I know of has been run over by a moving truck. So after waiting for my wife and son to meet me at the ice rink...and waiting...and waiting only to figure out they had to go home for nap time instead, I took off my skates and headed to Cingular to get a cell phone. My wife (being the social butterfly chatterbox she is), already has a phone, so I didn't have to experience setting up a new account with Cingular. I went in and told them I really only needed a phone for local calls, probably no more than 100 minutes a month at MOST and they showed me the phones that were available...all of them FREE after a rebate. I wanted one of the flip phones, well because I thought they were pretty cool and would fit easily into my pocket. I chose the LG C1300, without considering anything past that. Well, there's a reason why they're free and why Cingular is more than happy to let you have a free phone. So happy, in fact, the girl who waited on me GAVE ME A TRADE IN PHONE for the rebate. Just gave me one! Then she copied the rebate form for me, told me where I could find the rebate status online and even gave me an envelope for all this...THEN hand wrote the address on the envelope. Wow, I thought...this pretty cool! So I got my phone, my $100 rebate check was on the way, I surprised my wife by calling her from my cell phone later, life is good, right? Well the features on the phone were pretty cool, especially from someone who had never had one before: Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) capable Mobile Instant Messaging using AOL® Instant MessengerTM FastForward capable MEdia Net capable Polyphonic speaker and downloadable ringtones, supertones, and full-audio ringtones Downloadable games and graphics 255 alphanumeric phone book with multiple entries Personal organizer: Calendar, calculator, alarm clock, and notepad Operates on 850/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS networks Color display There were a handful of ringtones and backgrounds to choose from, so those were good enough for me. At first I didn't give my number out to very many people, just my wife. The phone worked rather well as far as I knew, remember I had never had one before. There were times when in the middle of a call, suddenly we were disconnected. Not knowing any better, I just figured this was part of owning a cell phone...sometimes you just got disconnected, after all it's a WIRELESS connection. Fast forward a few months and I received a new antenna in the mail, "to give you the best possible reception". Weird. Then I noticed the voices on the other end of the phone (not in my head) would fade in and out frequently. Again, I just thought this was normal cell phone stuff, being a newbie. Moving forward a few more months, my wife's phone crapped out. Her's is a different model, but still one of Cingular's free phones. The next one? Same thing. Then another! Finally we make the decision to go ahead and BUY a phone from them and see if it's of a higher quality and will last. Bingo. Then I used her phone to make a call one day and I was amazed by how clear the sound was...then it all started making sense. Phones like this C1300 are free for a reason. They barely function at all, the sound is pretty bad and calls get dropped right and left. My commute home almost guarantees me one dropped call on the 30 minute ride. The ringer volume controls are on the outside of the phone, so many times while its in my pocket it will get turned down where I'll miss the call...or turned UP and panic me when it rings. It holds a charge for a decent amount of time, I think I only recharge it once a week using it from 7am to 6pm usually Monday through Friday. The clock included with the phone continually lost time, so if I was relying on the time on my phone I'd have to be sure to reset it before taking it anywhere. At one point I couldn't delete any of my voicemail messages, so I had to take that to the Cingular place to have something reset. But still...I could call people from anywhere, my car, the mall, the grocery story, the BATHROOM, convenience is everything now isn't it? Cell phone companies know you aren't going to go back to not having a cell phone after having one because they're so damn convenient. They get you hooked onto their service, (phone crack?) offer their free phones to get you started and allow you to get frustrated with their problems. So you finally figure it out and buy an upgraded model, which means more sales for them! I would not recommend this model to anyone other than a teenager, who can use it as their first phone. That way if they lose it, it isn't that big of a problem. Other than that, save yourself the frustration, go ahead and purchase an upgraded phone. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87436 2004/8/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 decent sized address book great price compact size weak signal dropped callsinconsistent connections The Bottom LineSmall stylish design, long list of features for everyday use, plenty of advanced features but too many dropped calls and broken transmissions forced me to return it. Full Review We all remember the story of the little engine that could, "I think I can... I think I can..." If you're considering the LG Electronics C1300, be advised that you may be about to purchase the little phone that couldn't. No matter how hard this little phone tried, it just couldn't get the job done for me. For the past two years we were using the for our personal use. Using the Nokia along with service through Cingular Wireless supplied us clear transmission and dropped calls were non-existent. Since our two-year service contract was about to expire and I had read ads offering a choice of sleek new phones with a new sign-up or extension I decided to "upgrade" our phone. If you were to ask me my main reason for selecting the LG Electronics C1300 cellular phone... my reason would be simple... Price. This LG phone is a full dual band device which operates on both GSM 850/1900MHz and GPRS for high capacity data transmission. This particular model is currently being offered as a free* choice(*After $100.00 rebate) through Cingular Wireless. Sometimes the old saying is true, you get what you pay for. For those that still may consider this option after reading this review, here's a list of some of the features offered: Compact and Stylish Design Full-Color Internal LCD Customizable Wallpaper, Caller ID 5-Way Navigation Key Integrated Headset Jack Manner Mode Web Browser WAP 2.0 with One-Touch Access Button JavaTM Support for Application and Game Downloads from Cingular† Mobile Instant Messaging using AOL Instant Messenger† Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) - send and receive text messages with photos and sound† Two-Way Short Messaging Service (SMS)† GPRS for High-Speed Data Transmission My Folder - store downloaded pictures, animations and sounds SMAF SMF for Polyphonic Ringer and Sound Capability Customize with 10 Ringtones or Download More Supports Voice Key Tones Personal Organizer: Calendar with Scheduler, Alarm Clock, Memo Tools: Calculator, World Clock, Unit Converter Address Book with 255 contacts - each stores multiple phone numbers and text entries Speed Dialing (9 Entries) †Cingular Service Required. Product features subject to change. Features based on carrier program availability. One look at this phone will tell you there's a lot to like. The compact 3.23" x 1.69" x 0.85" size and extremely light 2.84 oz. weight makes this device a convenient option. LG has placed the volume control on the side of the phone for easy access. The control buttons normally set ringing volume yet the same buttons also control call volume while calls are in progress. I also liked the fact that users can quickly switch the phone to vibrate mode by simply holding down these same side keys with the cover flipped closed. Once you've powered up the LG Electronics C1300 the first thing you notice is the high-resolution color display. The 128 x 128 pixel, 65,000 color LCD screen is of ample size. The display is sharp while indoors or in normal lighting conditions but a does tend to be a bit difficult to see in direct sunlight. The screen is capable of displaying 6 lines of text with 15 characters per line. LG also offers a couple of customizable options for wallpaper as well as message tones and key sounds. I found most of the wallpaper designs and tones a bit over the top and distracting. This model includes a 5-Way Navigation Key similar to many models on the market today which makes it fairly simple for customers with or without previous experience. The phone's navigation buttons are sufficiently backlit for use in poorly lit locations. On par with most phones, the C1300 keeps the last 20 sent and received calls in memory for quick one-button redial. The phone also keeps track of the last 10 missed calls as well. The LG Electronics C1300 is also capable of storing up to 9 speed dial numbers, a feature mobile users will appreciate if making a call is necessary while driving. The phone book function allows storage of up to 255 contacts. I liked the fact that text and multiple phone numbers could be saved for an individual contact. This feature is great for keeping track of personal, cellphone, pager and office numbers for each contact. I found this a nice addition with sufficient amount of storage for my needs. While I did not have the phone long enough to use it extensively, the personal organizer included with the phone is a valuable feature. The calendar, with both daily and monthly views are supplemented with a scheduler for either personal or business planning. The calendar feature is further enhanced with the availability to set an alarm clock or create short notes up to 30 characters each. The owner's manual did a pretty good job stepping me through the menus which were fairly intuitive and easy to get through on their own. Don't expect to solve complicated calculus problems but a calculator function is also available for basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Unfortunately, I don't subscribe to any of Cingular's advanced data services which allow users to use a number of features of this phone. This leaves me at a disadvantage in detailing personal experience but a good number of those features are enumerated above. The manufacturer's standard battery boasts of up to 3.4 hours of talk time and 240 hours of standby time. The talk time touted by LG is quite believable however the standby time suggested to be 240 hours seems to be an extreme example of marketing hype that this phone won't be able to live up to. The lithium ion battery charges quickly without the long overnight waits of it's predecessors. I no longer own the device and never specifically timed the charge but I would estimate charge time to be between one and two hours. One would assume after all this, I am recommending you run out and select this phone. Unfortunately, from the first day we encountered dropped calls and inconsistent transmissions. Sound cut out on nearly half the calls we made. At one point in time I would have pointed a finger at my service provider but Cingular Wireless has improved their service here in Michigan over the past several years. As I alluded to earlier, my never experienced any of these problems,even one day earlier. We did sincerely give this phone as much of a chance as possible. We held it for nearly two weeks, hoping our experience would improve. Just before the 15 day return period expired, it became apparent the service supplied by this phone was going to be unacceptable. The little phone that kept repeating "I think I can... I think I can" had to finally admit "I just can't... I just can't". I can't give the LG Electronics C1300 my recommendation but was glad Cingular offered a 15 day return window because despite the phone's trendy look and list of features, I ended up replacing it with the Samsung SGH-x427 as an even exchange. I would like to thank one of the Category Leads in electronics, , for getting this phone added to Epinions database. If you own a product and don't find it listed on Epinions, check with the respective Category Lead - there's a pretty good chance it can be added. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free*Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7698 Mitsubishi T250 MobileAccess 87473 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to operate good clarity lots of different options none The Bottom LineMany options, nice screen, easy to use, and its cool looks makes this phone the best on the market. Full Review This is the best cell phone of the three I have owned. The main thing I look for in one is the clarity. I have nothing bad to say about it. I can always here the person I'm talking to. Also, there are many options on this phone, even though I didn't get them all. You can get voice mail, internet, and e-mail on it. The giant screen makes everything easy to see and the menu makes it all easy to use too. I also like all the different options of the ring sound you can use. Some cell phones are so annoying. This one has a lot of different tunes like "Yellow Rose" and "London Bridge". I love this phone and think everyone should get one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $120 87472 2000/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 1 of only 2 internet phones supported by at t huge screen few features giant heavy turgid reception battery life The Bottom LineUnless you are for some reason compelled to cell phone web surfing, there's no excuse for buying this clunker. AT&T web-seekers: try the better (albeit ugly) Ericsson RX phone Full Review The screen on this phone is huge -- it spans 9 lines. Net navigation is easy, and there are plenty of nice rubbery buttons. The T9 word-guessing software is awesome. Unfortunately, the phone is mauled by its un-sleek size, heavy weight, awful reception (here in Tucson at least), and battery drainage that creeps up like grim death. In terms of features, the phone is equally impotent. The phonebook, for example, only holds 99 entries. To top it all off is having to buy a separate battery for vibrations, and another one still for long-life. The latter, in fact, makes the phone bigger, heavier and way uglier than it already is. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87471 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small phone displays graphics key pad easy to read big display oval cursor too recessed for easy operation can t control back light time on The Bottom LineBuy it if you need one now ...best for the intended use ..the InterNet Full Review The biggest screen for the size of phone. Bit mapped display for displaying graphics. Phone comes set to default at 16 characters x 10 lines. TIP: Preferences,Advanced,Font size ..select the SMALL font .. Now you will see twice as much on the screen and MORE graphics. Use's almost NO power in DATA mode for InterNet... Leave it on for days ...still on and connected ready to surf! Battery is less than 1/4" thick Key pad has EASY to read ALPHA character ...a MUST for typing on. Some other slightly SMALLER phones have VERY small ALPHA characters making it almost impossible to read! (Very Important) Phone is NOT big and clunky. Remember this a VOICE/DATA phone and one needs a LARGE easy to read display for surfing. PocketNet by AT&T is tops ...basic plan has NO charge for air time or access to the InterNet. They provide you with a personal web page you access on your PC. You can control the content sent to your phone in NEAR real time! I don't care for TRAVEL ...Checked don't send TRAVEL info to my phone ... Clicked submit...5 seconds later my phone showed the TRAVEL category was gone. You can CHANGE your calling plan on your My PocketNet home page! Happens in NEAR real time ..no calls to make! Customer service provided by AT&T is EXCELLENT Customer service provided by Mitsubishi is BELOW average ...reflected in Customer Service Category. Lee Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87470 2000/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 internet clear reception large screen expensive larger than most new cell phones Full Review I just received this phone as a birthday gift from my wife (See my opinion on the Diamond RIO 500 for a review of another gift from my wife!). I've had the phone for about a week and the WOW factor has yet to wear off on both myself and my co-workers. This phone is an upgrade from my Nokia 6162. The reason for making this switch (besides the gift) is I wanted an internet capable phone. I saw this phone for the first time when I ran into a college buddy on Memorial Day weekend. I immediately knew this was the phone for me. It has a HUGE 10 line by 16 character display and has a really cool "T9 Quick Type" text input feature. This feature allows you to enter text with just one keystroke per letter. It decodes each keystroke as you type and interprets words against some dictionary database. For example, if I wanted to type "net" I would enter 6-3-8. Whereas on traditional alpha entry like my Nokia 6162, I would have to enter 6-6-6, 3-3-3 8-8 (For example, the first 6 gives me the number 6, the second 6 gives me 'm' and the third 6 gives me 'n'). Besides shelling out 200 bucks for the phone, I also signed up for the premium PocketNet wireless internet service from AT&T. I'm not sure if I'm going to maintain the $15 per month fee for this service or drop down to the $7 per month plan. The premium service does give me the ability to enter any URL I want (not just the 20 or so AT&T content providers). I should also mention that AT&T offers a free wireless internet plan, but if you're spending this much money on a phone, you'd be wasting your money on features that you won't be able to use. The premium service plan also gives you access to an AT&T hosted contacts list, calendar and to do list. As for mobile internet access in general, it's kind of cumbersome - the telephone only downloads portions of a page at a time, so you have to page through each webpage. I've found that navigating through sites that were not designed for mobile access is very difficult and frustrating. For example, view pages on a site with the same header requires you to page through the header links every time you navigate to a new page. Two sites that seem to be ahead of the game in terms of design and ease of use are oraclemobile.com and mobile.yahoo.com (really just yahoo for mobile phones). Another drawback is the phone only operates in either data mode or voice mode. So, while browsing the web or composing email, I can not receive phone calls (they are redirected to voice mail). The same goes for my email messages. I do not receive notification of new email messages while in voice mode, I have to switch modes just to check for new email. I wouldn't recommend this phone for just regular cellular use as it is kind of expensive and big. I believe my Nokia was a better "plain" cell phone. As for who should buy this phone, I would say anyone willing to drop $200 on a phone that will give them cutting edge technology today, but could very well be extinct in 6 months. My next phone will be along the lines of the Qualcomm pdQ Smartphone (currently $799 from SprintPCS), which integrates the PalmOS right into the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87469 2000/6/14 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 large screen size web enabled does not ring loud enough huge size poor battery life The Bottom LineI wish I could rate this phone higher, but it was a pain to have to drag it around with me sometimes. Full Review I bought this phone after my Great Dane ate my Nokia phone. I was interested in the Pocket Net service from AT&T and wanted to try a web enabled phone. I loved the Pocket Net service since I use eBay all the time. I could check my account, place bids, etc. from this phone. That was the one thing that I really liked about the phone. There were several things that I didn't like. The battery had to be charged at least once a day and sometimes twice if I had to make a lot of calls. On my Nokia phone, I could make the ring loud enough to be able to hear it out on the construction site where I work, but not with this phone. Sometimes I couldn't even hear it ring from the bedroom if the phone was in the kitchen. The other thing that I didn't like was the massive size of the phone itself. I liked the big screen, which is one of the reasons it's so huge, but the rest of the phone didn't need to be so big in my opinion. I've since replaced this phone with a Motorola TalkAbout 8097 and I like the size and battery life better, but I do miss the web service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 87468 2000/9/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 feature rich size Full Review For anyone that is in the market for Wireless Web Access, I strongly recomend AT&T Wireless Services. They offer an UNLIMITED access account for $14.99 per month. I recently signed on with the Wireless Web option, and purchased a Mitsubishi T250 ($199.99) to use as my new wireless phone. My one and only complaint about the phone is it's size (slightly larger than my Nokia 6160), everything else about the phone is GREAT! The battery life is more than adequate (I get at least 1 day's worth of charge out of it, and I use it quite a bit), and the phone has all of the standard features (100 number memory, 1 touch dialling, voicemail retrieval). It's got a decent shape, fits in your hand pretty well, and the large display is quite easy to read. There is also a feature that will auto-complete words as you type them (essential for sending e-mails). I will admit, I have not used the phone for sending e-mail, as it just takes too much time. I do use the phone rather extensively, especially on portal sites, such as Yahoo and Excite. The connection speed is relatively fast (remember, this is still WAP that we are talking about here), and I've found the coverage area to be adequate (anywhere between Hartford, CT and central NJ so far). All in all, if you are in the market for a full-featured web phone, this should definitely be on your list, especially if you are an AT&T customer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 (Ebay) 87467 2000/11/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 big screen notifies when e mail arrives nice color poor audio big big poor microphone huge vibrating battery big Full Review Why buy one? It has a big screen! That's about it. No need to cover all the technical stuff here .. just a few experiences. The battery, as others say, doesn't last very long. I have a charger in the car, one at home and one at work. I travel with a charger, charge it on the train. Just in case, I carry a second battery. This unit IS huge. Try the vibrating battery and you will think you have a small brick attached to your belt. It is about 1.5 inches thick and make the whole darned thing larger than a can of coke! So big screen - big phone - huge vibrating battery!! OK - sound and heat is terrible. I use a Plantronics headset, which people I talk to say really improves the sound quality of conversations. The phone does get hot, so I try to use the headset all the time. As others have said, the switch from voice to data mode sometimes will take 2 to 5 minutes. If you are in areas of the country that have excellent AT&T WAP coverage, (like San Francisco) the speed of WAP use is much improved. I don't know if I will continue with this. It is so big, bad audio, etc. that I am think of upgrading my Handspring with some sort of device that will get me e-mail with a PC. Overall, buy this if you REALLY REALLY need a small device for e-mail and don't want to carry 2 devices. This is going away sometime soon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87466 2000/8/23 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 large screen auto complete slow connect to network no battery life no games too big no alarm heats up Full Review I eagerly awaited the arrival of this phone. I was most excited about the large screen and auto-complete software for typing words. Now, after 2 months of continual use, I now know why Scandinavian design always comes out on top. My style of review is straight and to the point so here's why i am not happy: 1) T250 is a brick. It actually hurts your palm to hold it for a long time. Fills out entire pant pocket. So heavy it fell 1 foot and broke antennae off. 2) NO ALARM! 3) NO SNAKE! no games whatsoever 4) NO BATTERY LIFE. You have to recharge this thing everyday by 5pm. 5) No typing in numbers on keypad while talking. 6) Takes too long to connect to network. 7) Wierd but I get the sense that this monster sized brick phone generates more waves to the brain than other phones. You'll see what i mean when you use it. I got headaches on long calls (phone hearts up bad). I am returning this baby. I am getting the new Motorola V. Series™ V8162 Phone. Will review that when i get it and use it well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 87465 2001/1/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 wap net enabled large screen wap net can be slow batteries The Bottom LineThe T250 is for you if you can get it for under $80, if you need the large display for WAP, and if you can deal with the constant recharging. Full Review I bought this phone in August 2000 off of eBay with the vibrating battery, the extended battery, and the car charger. There are some decent and thorough reviews of the features of the T250 and PocketNet (AT&T's wireless Internet service) already on ePinions, so I will just share my experiences with it: The phone itself: First off, the screen is LARGE. It also has a nice blue background (some might say inspired by Indiglo watches). The size makes reading phone lists and menus very easy, in addition to reading more info from WAP pages and e-mails. I miss being able to set the duration the display is backlit from my previous mobile. Sometimes it doesn't stay on long enough for a WAP page to load. No biggee- you just tap the multi-direction key and it comes back on. The other problem with no duration setting is that you can't turn it off in daylight when you don't need it, thereby saving on battery consumption. We'll get to battery life a little later. Overall, the phone is not very large or cumbersome, unless you add the vibrating or extended battery. Using either of these makes the phone 1/3 larger and probably doubles the weight. With the standard slim battery, one can fit it into an inner sportcoat pocket or pant pocket easily, as it is fairly small and lightweight like this. Add the large battery and I'd only carry it in an outer coat pocket- it feels that large. That said, this phone isn't going to win any beauty contests, but we're all above wow-ing people with our mobiles, aren't we? There are separate inputs for headset, data socket, and for the charging adapter. This is a good thing. The buttons are well backlit making typing a breeze in darkness, as well as making WAP menu selections easy (instead of "clicking" as on a desktop, most pages number selections so you don't have to scroll all the time). The buttons have an excellent feel to them, very tactile- but it may be a bit difficult to type if you have large fingers. All the keys make sense (menu key, soft keys...) and lead you to proper menus. Which brings us to: Menu interface (for telephone and Web) The GUI's for this phone are not very intuitive and therefore detract from the overall grade of the phone. You really have to know the menus before you can do anything with the phone, which is a shame. For example, if you want to change the ringer tone (8 of them, including 4 songs) you have to go through 3 or 4 menus, and some of the menus are similarly named like: Ringer Type, Immediate Alerts, Alert Mode or Msg Alert Type. There are other menu options that are harder, and some that are easier. An example of harder: NO DIRECT BUTTONS/ MENU CHOICE TO CREATE AN E-MAIL! This is a horrendous mistake by the designers. You have to go to Inbox, choose PocketNet(of the many Inboxes one can have on this phone: PocketNet, Yahoo, AOL...), hit the MENU soft key, and then choose "Compose", which to my further amazement is option 4. Composing an e-mail should be on the very first PocketNet menu. On this initial PocketNet menu, there are useless things like Calendar, To Do, Address Book... there should be option for PIM (personal Info manager) and then you should proceed from there. There is no way to customize the initial PocketNet menu. Phone service (Regional Advantage plan) I live in DC and I get a good signal 90% of the time, even indoors. However, there seems to be a lot of times (usually at night, out on the town) when there is no signal- just the usual fast busy signal. I have no idea what causes this (airwave congestion?) but it's darn annoying. That's right, I said darn... anyway... Phone clarity is good for me, no echoes or swirlies or static. Sometimes when I use the headset it doesn't sound clear but that could be the headset (I wear glasses which make headsets tough). As far as my plan is concerned, I have no complaints except maybe I don't use up all my minutes. For $29.99/ month, I get 120 minutes standard and 500 nights and weekends (through a promotion). More than enough minutes for personal use. Also Regional Advantage gives you free long distance and roaming in your Region- mine stretches from Upstate NY to NC. Perfect for me who travels and calls to these areas often. What I like about the phone (other phones probably do this) is that it automatically switches "modes" when you are roaming; my old phone didn't do this. The display will also tell you when you are roaming: standard (no warning), "ROAM" when you are roaming (unused minutes are free), and "EXTENDED AREA" which means you're in a pocket where there is no good signal- you pay for these calls; this message can pop up even in your calling area (especially when you come out from the subway). I just turn my phone off then on (or switch from phone to PocketNet then back) to "reset" the reception. Works 99% of the time. You can also point the phone's antenna in various directions and you get different reception levels. In any event, once you have all of your settings done (via those darn menus) this is a good phone for voice. You can't do WAP in phone mode, and accordingly, you can't talk in PocketNet mode PocketNet Service (Premium plan, $14.99/ month) I started with the Plus plan, but the offered sites were just not enough. I upgraded to Premium and am glad that I did. Go to www.attws.com to review the plans. Anyway, I get to access any WAP site that I want (there are a LOT of WAP sites out there) and some html sites too. I frequent soccer/football sites and thank goodness there are a lot of good ones out there. Many major resources are on the Wireless Web too like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon.com. If you visit cellmania.com or waply.com you can get a good idea of how many WAP sites are out there. It's worth the extra $8.00 to access any wireless site you want. Don't get me wrong, the included sites are helpful, but to really get the most out of the Wireless Internet you need to pay that extra $8 (good strategy AT&T). As far as e-mail is concerned, it's a very good tool for it. T9 text input is excellent and you can save words that are not in the preset dictionary. You can forward your e-mails to another address, as well as to a fax machine (to print it out- nice touch). Big problems: your Sent Messages are not saved, and your Saved Incoming Messages are saved for only 2 weeks. The only way to really save a message for a long time is to keep it in the Inbox, thereby nullifying the useful Delete All option for the Inbox. I know that no system is perfect, but this one is very far from it. I also use e-mail services to send me scores and news; this is fun and keeps you up to date when WAP sites do not update their pages as often as you'd like. PIM = USELESS. Aside from the Contact list, the PocketNet PIM features are worthless. Granted, I don't have the connection to my Outlook (cable and software cost extra) but I don't need yet another place to have a list if it can't be updated automatically on the fly, and also PocketNet reception is not great everywhere, so this would really peeve me if I needed my schedule and I couldn't get a good signal. And therein lies the problem with PocketNet PIM: it is on-line. Other mobiles (Nokias) have their PIM's in the phone itself, so it doesn't rely on wireless service for access. You'd think that all manufacturers would see how this makes a world of sense- but, alas, that is not the case. The only good thing about the PIM is that you can edit it online at your personal AT&T PocketNet site that can be accessed on any desktop. A word about PocketNet reception: I give it a B. I get a good signal just about anywhere outdoors unless I'm in a heavily tree'd area, or if it's really cloudy outside(understandable on both). I can get PocketNet from my apartment (I live on the top floor) and inside movie theaters as well as outdoors; but not in any malls, in restaurants with satellite TV's, or in the subway. PocketNet is great when it works, but is frustrating when you can't get a good signal. The T250 works on a reception bar scale of 1-7. When it's 1-3, PocketNet is slow and at times not even accessible. From 4-6, it's good, but not desktop. At 7 (which is rare) it's almost instantaneous. Reception for WAP pages is also dependent on the accessed server, so it's not always the phone's fault. Again, pointing the antenna in various directions will enable you to get better reception. The manual says that the less bars you have, the more energy from the battery is consumed, which brings us to... Battery Life In a word: AWFUL. These batteries are NiMH, not LIon. What's the diff between Nickel-Metal Hydride and Lithium Ion batteries you ask? Oh, a few hours to say the least. If you've read this far, I'm sure you've read other reviews about the deplorable battery life. All you've read is true. Among other things, NiMH is awful because the battery drains even if it's not connected. Therefore, if you have a battery lying around for a week, you lose about 30-40% battery life. Another note: there are only three bars on the battery level indicator, it really should be 4 to give you a better idea of battery strength. A run down of battery performance in my experience: Slim/standard = 60 min talk Vibrating = 60 min talk Extended = 120 min talk. PocketNet time is negligible because it doesn't sap as much energy as voice. Keep in mind that touted talk times (in brochures for example) is for a straight run of talking- no stand-by, no Internet, just talking. Unless you slap in a battery at the start of a phone convo and talk all the way through- you'll never get the reported talk times. Take this piece of advice now: DO NOT BUY THE VIBRATING BATTERY. It's too large, too heavy, power is too weak, vibration is too strong (you can hear the vibration rattle, and you can't adjust vibration strength) and from what I've seen too darn expensive. Get two standards or an extended, you'll be happy you did. Note that you can use the Adaptor and use the phone- the battery (which has to be attached for the phone to work with the adaptor) does not charge when you do this. One annoying thing about low-battery situations: the phone will go into a stand-by mode where the display will say "Low Battery" and you'll have to hit END or something to get back to the page you were on. Not annoying you say? This will occur every 30 seconds until the phone shuts off! This is especially rough when you're trying to access a WAP page that is loading too slow. OVERALL I was happy with this phone when I first got it, only because it had 'Net stuff, it had a huge display, and because my calling plan could conceivably allow me to shut off my home phone. Now, it's just another mobile. I do use the PocketNet on a daily basis to get soccer and financial news, as well as weather, directions, and airline flight statuses (statae?) and movie times (this is pretty important, trust me). I use a landline at work and home for local, but use my T250 for all long-distance within my region. It's a good phone, but since my purchase I see better things out there (from other phones now available to what I've read about upcoming 3G technology). I would buy this phone for $80 and not a penny more. If you want more T250 info, read the ePinion by pancreas, it's a good read and spot on, and really the reason why I bought the T250. The review is very accurate and says a lot of nice (and true) things about the phone. Pancreas may touch on things that I have overlooked, but if I remember them, I will update my review. Thanks for reading, sorry for any spelling and grammar errors. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 w/extras 87464 2000/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 all in one degsin lg led screen back lit handset earphone is hard to hear Full Review Mitsu's t-250 Has faired well on my field test. Since getting it in May I have trekked from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico and Have used in Areas where a cell phone should not even have service. I was able to get Cell service 5 miles off shore of Lake Charles LA. and as far up the Mississippi as Convent. I've dialed up off the La Keys and in Logan Airport. However The second day I had the phone In Logan I thought I'd got a Dud as when I dialed I could hear someone else talking on my circuit. I almost threw it away right there. But that seemed to be an Isolated incident. Generally it is a great tool and good to talk on. I did find my self getting the headphone and external mike as it is easier to talk on the phone with those and to hear with them. The Data cable work great to organize your Phone numbers but I have yet to get connected via the link to the internet and my cell and laptop. Not sure if it will ever happen but we'll see. The biggest feature of the phone is the kickin led screen which is almost big enough to read all of my moms email but not quite. If you have to stay in touch then the t-250 is the phone with 4 modes of communication you can not go wrong. Thumbs up from me. The digial network is not in all areas but the At&T plan I have the phone on works great and it has worked well in almost everywere so far. More to come Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87463 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 nice capabilities locks you in to at t Full Review OK, I won't go into detail on the features, since others here have already done that. I use my T-250 and accompanying AT&T service for wireless mapquest, yellow pages, hotmail and other services about five times a week. Text entry is good for a cellphone. Think twice before buying this phone, though -- some problems I have encountered: The tether kit, "FoneSync" is charged on a per-use basis and does not fall under your unlimited Internet access plan. AT&T also actively discourages people from using the tether kit (read their web site), which is strange, until you realize that it is so much nicer to just tether your PocketPC and browse the web that way. In addition to attempting to lock you into using their UI, the front menus for WAP browsing are not configurable. This means that I have to go down three levels deep into my menus to get to MSN Mobile. If I wanted to use yahoo or excite, those are earlier in the menu chain, and AT&T's crummy PocketNet service is at the front. So if you are a consumer who wants to let AT&T do what it is good at (being a network hook-up) and use other services that do other things better (like PocketPC and Hotmail) you will have alot of trouble with this phone. I must admit resenting some of the artificial barriers they put in to lock me into their services. Every other cellphone service I have evaluated or used is much better about tethering. Another caution: you do not get alerted when someone sends you mail to PocketNet. Instead I recommend having people send urgent stuff to your #@dpcs.att.net, which does alpha page instead. I have the extended life battery, which lasts forever, but the battery likes to fall out alot. Keep in mind my gripes are more to let potential owners evaluate the bad points of the phone, and not to rip on the phone or AT&T. One surprisingly good thing about the package is the customer service. And the phone is sure alot better than earlier phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87462 2000/9/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 superior reception nice lcd indiglo large screen not comfortable on ear much radiation Full Review After finally deciding on AT&T wireless as my service provider I was ready to start looking at phones. When looking for phones keep in mind what you are using it for. With my Digital250 plan PocketNet Basic came free. The only catch was that I needed to get a special phone to access the wireless web. No problem. The choices were the Ericsson R280LX or the Mitsubishi T250. I planned on using my phone equally for voice and web browsing. You will be surprised how many uses the wireless web has. I now surf the wireless web more than I talk on the phone. The Ericsson was nice. But it was a primarily voice phone. It's incentive.... it only cost $50. The down side, small LCD screen and bulky antenna. When looking at the T250 the first thing that strikes you is it's size. It appears large bulky and cumbersome. Hold it in your hand first before you judge it. Make no mistake, this is a well designed utilitarian phone. If you like Nokias because of the accessories and style then move on. This is not for those of you that want fashion accessories. This is for people who want the National White/Yellow pages in the palm of their hand, those who need to stay on top of their stocks, those who want directions to a bar from their phone, those who want to compare prices of any item by typing in the ISBN of a book or the brand and type of product, those who want sport scores, news, headlines, movie times, weather and stock quotes brought into the palm of their hand. Needless to say my girlfriend doesn't like it. No, the T250 is not as heavy as a brick. No it is not a brick. No, I've never left it behind because it was too heavy. It is the best integration of wireless web and phone out their. I get comments like that's a big phone, but then again I don't want a phone that is the same size as my computer mouse, or girlfriend's compact. The size of the phone obviously lets it have a big LCD screen. This is quite handy when surfing the web so i don't have to keep scrolling down. One of the reasons I didn't get the Ericsson. Believe me the extra $100 is well worth not having to view the same web page by scrolling down 5 times. The battery life is ok, remember it's a Ni-MH not a Li-ion. The battery completely dies after standby for 5 days. I charge the phone after every day, at night because when the battery goes down even one bar the signal strength noticeably decreases, and the web goes significantly slower. In addition, the T250 has a battery full feature which prevents overcharging. It has no extraordinary features and in my opinion T9 is overrated I turn the function off because it does a very poor job of word guessing. Beside I type faster in alpha lock. Overall the phone is an excellent buy because it allows you to view whole pages at a time and not split them up into different screens. It evens downloads the whole page so it does have too wait to scroll down. No the T250 is not slow, in fact it is faster than my dad's old Pentium 200. If you are going to use the wireless web as much, or more so than you plan on talking spend the extra $$ and buy this phone. If you are looking for a fashion accessory with the wireless web buy the Ericsson. Durability wise I've dropped it from my hand to the dirt 5 times and you can't even tell. Even on 1 signal line the reception is average, on 2 it is good, 3 it is above average, and 4-5 is superb. The T250 has never locked up, unlike the Ericsson. I'm writing this review because I was greatly satisfied with the phone and my PocketNet Basic service. So much so I'm actually recommending it to the general public. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87461 2000/9/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 quality text display poor features poor battery life huge size Full Review The Mitsubishi T250 Mobile phone is one of two phones that AT&T delivers with its Mobile Access Internet Service. At first glance, you'll realize how huge this phone really is. It looks like one of those older mid 90s phones, but with one exception: the display screen is huge too! Let me suffice it to say that the display on this phone is the only real reason you would want one. Text is easy to read, and the indigo-like backlighting is world class. You'll really appreciate it when you access web pages. The T250 sadly suffers a lot of problems, which is why I have no doubt it will take its place into history museums one day showing how "primitive" it really is. First off, the battery life on this phone is terrible. You can expect only 3 days of life without ever using it. For short use, expect 2 to 2.5 days. For mild, you better recharge it daily. For heavy use, well, you better have more than one battery. Usage includes switching the phone into internet mode (more on this later). Another irritating problem is the processing power on the phone. In short, this phone is SLOW. I don't know what kind of processor the phone uses, but clearly, it was a poor choice to use for the large text screen. Screen updates have noticeable pauses in them (even for native phonebook entries!). Some other problems: The volume ringer on the phone is not loud enough. Compounding the problem is how the ring speaker is on the underside of the phone -- making rings almost inaudible if you place the phone flat on a desk, or if you have it stuffed into your pocket in a mildy noisy area. This is a real problem, because I've missed many calls due to this issue. Quickly dialing up phone numbers from the phonebook is a pain: it uses an awkward interface, and once again, the speed is so slow you will twiddle your thumbs when scrolling through dozens of entries. As for phone operation, you must switch into "data" mode when you wish to use the internet. Connection to the net takes me up to a frustrating minute sometimes (even with high signal strength). For this reason, I often can't even do a "quick" email check when stopped at red lights. For text entry, there is a convenient quick entry mode, where the phone uses logic to determine which words you are trying to type with single keypresses. It works well, fortunately and a must use, because pecking out words the traditional way will take you forever. For those who think this phone can view any internet sight (with Plan C, the most expensive that AT&T offers), you are only partially correct. No, AT&T doesn't block any sites with Plan C, but the problem exists with the current wireless internet technology itself. Obviously, you cannot fit a regular webpage on the phone screen because it's physically incapable of doing so. Instead, a proxy server interpretes each web page using some sort of logic that translates each page you pull into WAP. WAP is merely a standard of displaying text web pages on handheld devices. Sadly, WAP has a long way to go. Individual web pages MUST be hand-coded for 100% WAP compatibility. Otherwise, the logic interpreter kicks in and does a horrible job translating each page. Links are often broken, inconsistently formatted, and actual content truncated. It sucks. Fortunately, AT&T took a clue and offers "featured" web sites that are 100% WAP native. They all work good, and this includes ebay. Hopefully as time passses by, more web developers will begin to code their pages into WAP so mobile users can truly view web pages from all over the place. With Plan C, you also have a PDA-like feature included with the service. Basically, the phone will pull off your calendar, and phonebook from a web site. Now, if you've read my article carefully you'll realize this "feature" is useless; it takes forever to switch into data mode, then you have to use the awfully slow phone to search for what you want to find. This phone ain't replacing no Palm anytime soon (hint: Palm 3 seconds; T250= 2 minutes). Wondering if the PDA phonebook is the same as the native phonebook? NOPE! They are completely different, making the whole deal seem very weird. Overall, the T250 is a first generation internet phone and it's clear we have a long way to go before these type of phones get taken seriously. Compare this with the first laptops ever made -- they were huge, clunky, and practically useless for any real work. The T250 is exactly where laptops were fifteen years ago. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87460 2000/10/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 screen size everything else Full Review For people looking for a large display on their WAP phone, the T250 works out pretty well. I've used this phone for nearly 6 months now and the display size is very nice. That's the only good thing I can say about this phone. Network - I have had excellent success with AT&T's network over the past 6-7 years. I've used the Nokia 6162, 2160 and other phones on this network with little to no problems. I get many dropped calls, audio blanking, clicks, hums and other distractions...things I never encountered with the Nokia phones. Data - Very slow switching between voice and data modes. Size - Too big and heavy. Battery - I use about 1200 minutes/month and end up recharging constantly. Usage - This phone gets very warm on long calls. I highly recommend a headset if you use this phone. Sound Quality - Once again, I would recommend a quality headset here. The speaker and microphone are not sufficient. Summary - I'm going back to a Nokia phone but keeping the T250 as a WAP device until Nokia introduces a TDMA/CDPD phone for wireless web access (I develop applications for WAP). If you use a high quality Nokia, Mitsubishi or Ericsson phone, you will be greatly disappointed with the "phone" side of this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 175.00 87459 2000/4/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large clear screen can share address book with ms outlook power pig in data mode battery is very low techunder powered The Bottom LineIf you're using AT&T Digital Pocketnet service, this is the best choice. Just get used to keeping a battery charger handy. Full Review First off. If you are considering this phone DO NOT buy it from AT&T. Check the 'net. AT&T was pushing a 'Big' discount of $50 off the $199.00 price. Yahoo Mobile had a little better deal $49.95 plus shipping. Ok, so what do you get for your clams? A lot really. The phone itself is huge compared to other WAP phones. But the pay off is in a display that is twice the size of the average phone's. And what a dsiplay it is. Crystal clear and capable of displaying text in a variety of font sizes for those who don't have eyes like a hawk. Also, the screen can do a fairly decent job with simple graphics. Logos mostly, but it beats pure text and adds a little something extra to the WAP experience. The WAP experience. Well, it's an experience. The first thing you need to do before you ever power up your WAP phone is get every idea you have about surfing the web on your phone, out of your head! Keep it down to a quick search for movie times and business addresses, maybe a few news headlines and you'll be ok. I've even managed to entertain a half dozen friends with a few of the WAP enabled trivia sites that AT&T includes under it's "surf lounge". Well, I entertained them for a brief while at any rate. At least until the battery bought the farm. The battery has got to be the weakest link here. It's old-tech Nickel Metal. Good for about an hour of real world hangin in the bar playing games use. Or maybe 90 minutes of talk time. After that, its done. No drop off, no weakening signal, just WHAM. Game over. You can get an oversized battery ( actually a double sized cell ) from AT&T for about $120. Same old tech, when it's done it's done NOW problems, but the talk and web times are about double. Oh, and so is the weight. Forget the belt hook if you go for this baby, it's backpack time. Which brings me to a SERIOUS omission on the part of Mitsubishi. No Vibration. Zip. You can GET vibration if you want to shell out $80 for a vibrating battery pack. Mind you, it's the same battery that ships with the unit, but with a little motor in it. Again, it weighs more than it should. Plus, lets face it, You're being asked to shell out $80 for a feature that might have added $5 to the cost of the phone had it been built in. Not good. Ok. So what's to love? Everything else really. Have several Email address you want to be able to check from anywhere? No sweat you can set the T250 up to check and use any Email account you want, local or national ISP, no problem, MSN, no problem. You can even check you ESPN, MyYahoo, and AOL accounts. Yes the T250 lets you log on to a subset of AOL and use the service and check mail as if you were logged on. Of course, all this, pro and con comes with what many may feel is a huge con. You can only use this phone with AT&T service. But if that isn't a problem for you ( or you don't really have a choice in your area) then there really isn't any other phone you want. The Ericsson phone that AT&T offers for it's pocketnet service just doesn't compete with the T250. If it weren't for the battery issues, this would be the perfect WAP phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 87458 2000/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stated elsewhere stated elsewhere Full Review If you don't already know, I am a Wireless Application Developer, I develop Internet Applications for cellular phones, palm pilots, etc, so I have a rather good working experience with wireless devices. The MT250 (for short) is big, it is big and blue. It is big, bad (in a good way), and blue. The phone runs very smoothly, and rarely needs to be charged. The phone screen is black and white, and rather large. The phone I have is 8 lines, and I develop on all eight lines. The font is a perfect font to read, and the graphics are pretty good. This phone runs a little slower downloading then the Nextel network, but the Nextel network does not support images. This phone receives signals in places you wouldn't think possible, and is just a terrific phone. I left the phone on for one week straight, without recharging it, in data mode. When I came back to the phone, the battery wasn't even half way affected. If I were to tell you about the bad things, the only thing I could think of is that there sill probably not be a nice leather case for this phone, and that the phone is big. You can't really make this phone smaller, unless it was a flip phone, so basically, take it how it is. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 87457 2000/6/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 clear lcd large poor reception cumbersome size software glitches The Bottom LineWireless web is neat, but if you're looking for portability and clarity, look elsewhere. Full Review Let me start off by saying, i bought this phone through AT&T for next to nothing after a few rebates... i needed a phone and since it was so cheap it seemed like a good idea at the time. I ordered it online which was a snap... the phone was on my desk at work the next day. I took it out of the box and charged it up as indicated in the directions. I was a little disappointed with the size, it is rather big... it's kind of like the old days of cellular when it was like carrying a brick around with you. I figured i would live with it though. The next day i fired it up, anxious to check out the "wireless web" feature. It didn't work... the software kept freezing up and made it impossible to shut off the phone without removing the battery. After a few minutes on the phone with AT&T, i was up and running again. I must admit, the wireless web deal is pretty cool... of course it is difficult to type, but what do you expect with only a numeric keypad? The technology is still in it's infancy, but it is very usable. It's great for checking sports scores, news, and stock quotes when you're on the go. It's much quicker than i thought it would be, and it is not too difficult to figure out the menu tree. If you're expecting Flash animation, wait a few years. Now, back to the phone side... this is where i had some issues. I've had a Nokia with AT&T for years now (it is now being used by my wife) and i guess i was spoiled with it's great reception. The Mitsubishi leaves a bit to be desired in that department. In my house, where my Nokia was crystal clear, the Mitsubishi struggled to hold onto the signal. It even disconnected me twice while testing it out. The address book is easy to use and program, but some of the other phone features (ringer preferences, etc...) can be a little tricky to get to. My other complaint is that even though i have followed the charging instructions to the letter, the battery life is very poor. Without being used, the battery requires a charge in a little over 2 days. The phone itself is solidly built and looks like it will take a beating. Mine probably won't have this problem since i don't carry it around with me very much. Try to find a case for it! I've looked everywhere and can't seem to find anybody who makes them! I'm going to have to steal that Nokia back from my wife....... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20 87456 2001/9/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 thin internet saavy great signal can do more than you will ever use large screen freezes like your computer ocassionally longer than most phones not as user friendly as nokia The Bottom LineThis phone has more function than you will need, and isn't that what is important? Full Review [UPDATED 9/8/01] Though my Nokia 5160 has been a loyal companion for the past year and some I decided recently I needed a change. The phone I had once loved was becoming "old hat" and I needed something new. I am often traveling or not able to be at my computer (god forbid!) and though an internet capable phone could ease that frustration. I also wanted a phone with more serious functions and less games, even though I did love the snake game on my Nokia. I decided to check out the phones that my cellular company were selling, since I knew changing the activation would be simpler that way. I was basically looking for either a tiny phone that would fit better in my pocket or a phone with lots of features. The tiny phones AT&T were offering were about $500 and didn't have any more features than my Nokia 5160. This made the decision for me to spend less money and get more out of my phone. The wireless internet phone AT&T were offering were this Mitsubishi T250 and the Erickson wireless internet phone. My mother had had lots of problems with her Erickson so I decided to think seriously about purchasing this T250. I called AT&T and a wonderful saleswoman told me all about it and spent about an hour on the phone selling me on the Mitsubishi. I gave in, but not as much as she did. I got the phone for about $50, after my contract renewal bonus and the AT&T discount of $100. The phone sells for about $200 otherwise. This was definitely worth it, especially since my Nokia was more expensive and did less. Features This phone has more features than I could ever learn to use, forget actually use. There are two modes, Voice (phone) and Data (wireless internet). Voice Mode The Voice mode offers an address book with more available space than people I will ever know. I believe you can enter about 100 people, it may be more though. You can also pick up text messages in voice mode. People can send them in an email or through the AT&T website. You can setup your voicemail account and never miss important messages. You can choose a ringer style for default, and pick a specific ring for when each person in your address book calls. There is a Keyguard to keep you from calling yourself. Apparently I forgot to activate it the other day when my pocket decided to call my father and let him listen in on me and my friends partying, then called myself and left a half hour message as well. You can choose to view dialed calls, received calls, and missed calls in this mode as well. There are plenty of other features I have just not figured out how to use them yet. Data Mode In Data Mode you can do more than you could ever imagine. I have chosen the full internet access plan for my data mode, which runs about $12-14/month. With this access I can go to any website, use their predesigned client (sort of like aol), check my AT&T email, AOL Email, Yahoo Email, or any other account you may have set up, go into actual AOL or Earthlink or a couple other programs, lookup phone numbers in phonebooks, and even get movie listings. With my full-access plan I have a contact list, favorite websites page, calendar, and more information actually in the palm of my hand than I know what to do with. Though it is not quite as simple as navigating through windows and IE6.0 I have had little problem using this as I do my home computer. The main difference being the phone simple views information on servers and can not actually download files or hold bits of info in itself. This has not been a problem so far. Size Obviously size is an important matter with cellphones if they can charge five times as much for one half the size. I would prefer this phone to be a bit shorter, but also appreciate how much this little thing can do. If they put the functions of this phone into that tiny $500 phone I would gladly pay it. Then again, I would miss this huge screen on my T250. This phone is 5 inches long (six including the antenna), which is a full inch or two larger than my old Nokia. It kind of sticks out of my pocket at the top. However with the width simply being .5 inch I don't have the pocket bulge I once did. Seeing as the majority of the size is due to the large display screen I can definitely deal with it. Downside There are three negatives to using this phone, besides getting brain cancer. One of them is that while in data mode you may miss a phone call. Since AT&T offers free voicemail this shouldn't cause concern though. The other problem is that since you spend more time on it your battery will run down faster. What can you do though? The other negative is that pages don't load in color and most graphics won't load. If you are browsing the internet for info, though, that won't be a problem. Problem Areas The only problem I have encountered is that on occasion the phone will freeze, as computers often do. It has only happened twice in the month or so that I have had this phone, so it is not a major problem. Basically it seems to stop loading a page and won't return to the previous one. I simply "reboot" by taking the battery out and back in. The second problem that I have encountered is with the battery. This is a problem I was also encountering with my Nokia so maybe it is just a universal one. The battery slides the slightest bit and the phone powers off a bit. I have requested a replacement phone from AT&T and should have it shortly. So I will soon be able to tell you if this is a problem with T250's or just with my last one. Conclusion All in all this is a great phone. I find that I actually use less of my minutes because I am on data mode so often. I have dazzled all of my friends with this phone and they are thinking of buying one too. If you have AT&T I recommend asking for them to send you one right away, and if not I recommend switching to AT&T. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87455 2000/10/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 internet friendly less nice to the walletear Full Review How To Be A Shameless Yuppie—And Let Everyone Know I admit it, I gave in and bought a cell phone. If it makes you feel any better, the process was agonizing, both because of the plethora of choices and for the fact that I was finally selling the last bit of real estate in my soul to Yuppieville Unlimited. If I was making a pact with the devil, however, I wanted to test-drive the big rig. So I convinced four friends at work to let me borrow their cell phones for a couple of days each (yes, I did pay for the time I used). The second phone I grabbed was from my co-worker Thomas, and it was an almost brand new Mitsubishi T250. Top of the line, he said with a wink. Was it the top of my line? Read and learn… The Downers 1.Price-You read that price on the Epinions cover page right folks, the T250 is going set you back a cool $200. That means you're already two clams in the whole before you even start to choose a phone plan, not to mention the supplemental charges just to THINK about accessing the wireless internet for which it was designed. That'll be another $35-70 a month, thank you very much. It's not the price or the general lack of discounts and rebates that bothers me, or at least that much, it's how relatively little you get over more reasonably priced models. You're paying for the New Factor here, not for the quality of the product, and that's just ridiculous. 2.Appearance-Admit it, part of the appeal of a cell phone is to be seen with it, to look like you're so busy and cosmopolitan that you need every second you can squeeze out of the day. Our phone choices, much like our fashion and decorating decisions, say a lot about us, and what the Mitsubishi T250 says isn't very good. It's faux futuristic and a bit tech-nerdy, perhaps a cross between a Next Generation communicator and the graphing calculators you used in high school, except you can't play Tetris on this baby. Looks aren't anything, but anyone who says they don't count is either ugly or blind… The bottom line is that the point of the cell phone is on some level to look cool, and a phone that can be easily mistaken for a TI-81 graphing calculator just isn't hip… 3.Battery Time-The standard talk time on the Mitsubishi T250, when equipped with the standard 880 mAh NiMH battery, is 1 hour analog and 3 hours digital. Standby time is 40 hours and 120 hours respectively. Now don't get me wrong, that's enough time for a lot of people. But for those of us who don't look forward to frequent charging and the occasional dead battery, the life on this baby just isn't enough. And the expensive battery upgrades don't even improve the talk time! The truth is that there are power-efficient and high feature phones, this baby just doesn't happen to be one of them. 4.Clarity-Maybe it's the way I hold me cell phone, but I find the miniscule speaker slot for T250 inadequate for me to clearly hear out of. A good hearing volume required me to turn it up to a distortion point, forcing me to choose between clarity and loudness. That didn't make me happy. The Upper 1.Screen Size-For those more interested in wireless web than wireless phone, and I know there are a couple of you out there, this is the perfect phone for anti-social mobile surfing. The LCD screen is extremely generous in size and clear to read, with a lighting system that you could read a book by (that's a good thing, trust me). But It Works With The Internet Big whoop. First of all, the wireless Internet costs, a lot. You pay for the premium service of having things like email access, and then often you pay every time you use it. Not to mention the fact that there are other web-enabled phones out there, like the Ericsson R-280LX, which cost me under $50 after the rebate. That savings equals almost a half year of phone service! The Final Verdict My final judgement is that this phone is lots of show and much less go. It's geared to the wireless web to the detriment of its regular communications usefulness, and is accompanied by a pricetag that would make even The Donald's tongue go dry for a second. You can't justify that kind of product, at least not at this juncture when the usefulness and stability of the wireless Internet is still in its infancy. It took me three days of test-driving to realize that this wasn't the phone for me, and I'm betting that it isn't right for you either… To let me know how if you're enjoying my series on cell phones, drop me a message on my Ericsson by writing a quick one to 2404603594@mobile.att.net Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87454 2000/7/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 best text entry i ve ever seen simply amazing design not outstanding battery life not bad either coverage is average again not bad either Full Review Being a geek, I only get passionate about something if it requires batteries or an operating system. Having both, the Mitsubishi T250 got me so worked up, I had to sit down and type up this review. First, a little background: I have owned almost every conceivable cell phone that doesn't cost over $500 in the 9 years that I have had cell phone service. I've hated some (the Sony that had the earpiece that you push up to receive a call and down to hang up) and loved others (every single Nokia or Motorola that I've ever owned). But always I've lamented this universal puzzler: We can flash-broil a buffalo in 4 minutes, yet we can't combine the functionality of a Palm Pilot with a Cell phone. Overview Now there are a number of highly integrated cell phone based organizers (or organizers with cell phones) available, with Handspring promising a cell phone add-on to their product (which I can't imagine looking very pretty). One such product is the T250, which takes a unique approach by relying completely on Internet applications to accomplish its job, which I'll touch on later. For me, cell phones have always been an agonizing combination of "holy moly, this is perfect!" and "this is the stupidest thing I've ever put to my ear!" The T250 is no different, but on the whole, it has amazed me like no other cell phone. The overall sense is that this thing is so absolutely packed with features that it is impossible call the phone user friendly. BUT, and this is important, considering the fact that this thing is as advanced as it is, you'll find yourself in a constant state of shock at how smart the phone is. In fact, I'd wager that the phone is smarter than most of the people trying to use it. I know it's smarter than me. One other major point that deserves attention here is that this phone is what the industry is calling a "Dual Mode" type. This is very confusing because dual mode use to mean TDMA 800/Analog, then tri-mode meant TDMA 1900/TDMA 800/Analog. The new Dual Mode refers to the fact that this phone is either in "Internet Mode" where it is in constant connection with the Internet or it is in "Phone Mode", where it acts like a regular cell phone. The key here is that never the twain shall meet. You cannot send or receive calls while in Internet Mode, nor can you get email while you are in phone mode. For some, me included, this is a huge drawback. I can imagine ways of hacking this limitation to lessen its effect (the Internet side pings the phone when a call comes through, PCS email on the phone side warns of new messages, etc.), but overall, it is a huge wart on an otherwise flawless package. By the way, the phone can take numbers you get from the Internet side and automatically dial them on the phone side, so all synergy is not lost. Given the nature of this phone, I've broken this review into three parts: the phone in general (covering features and use common to all parts of the phone), a section on the traditional cell phone side, and a section on the Internet Side (called PocketNet). The Phone In General The T250 displaces about as much water as the Nokia 6160 with an extended battery (I haven't tried that, but I'm guessing). It is significantly taller and wider, but it is quite a bit thinner. If you check AT&T's website, the first thing you'll notice is the huge display. No less than ten lines of text can be displayed with ample room for a large amount of information. If you've ever seen an Indiglo watch, you'll be able to visualize the backlight of this unit. It's a bright blue-green that nicely lights the display and keypad for nighttime typing. The one complaint I have in this regard is that the backlight turns off too quickly and there isn't a setting to adjust this. Of all the features of this phone however, there is one that deserves an award. It's called T9 and it's a method for entering text into a numeric keypad. You'll find yourself needing to enter text to type emails or enter the names of stored numbers in your phonebook. Picking a sample word, let's say "Book", on a regular phone you would hit a shift key (usually the * key) then hit the number 2 in quick succession, type the shift key again, hit the 6 key three times, wait, wait some more, then hit 6 again three times, then hit 5 twice. All this means "B", "o", "o", and "k" to the text entry system of most cell phones. While the T250 retains this system, it adds to it T9, or "quick" mode, which references a dictionary to guess at what you're trying to type. In our example, "Book" is translated to: * (shift key)-2-6-6-5. The phone looks in its dictionary and sees that 2-6-6-5 on the key pad links to "book" and displays that word. Looking at your nearest telephone, you'll see that this all makes sense. "But what if," you say, "I want to say the word `cool', which also has the key sequence 2-6-6-5?" No problem, the zero key cycles through the possible combinations. If you happen to have a friend named "Bonl", for which there is no dictionary entry, you simply enter it using the traditional method of older cell phones. The T250 stores your new word in a custom dictionary, and you use the T9 method for "Bonl" from then on. It is heaven. Using this system for entering text has been one pleasant surprise after another. First off, the dictionary has many common proper nouns that you wouldn't expect, like "Johnson" and "Lloyd". Also, and this is what made me realize the phone was smarter than me, it at almost every step predicts accurately what you are going to type next. For example, when you're in T9 mode, and you want to enter an apostrophe s, " `s ", simply hit the 1 key then the 7 key. The 1 key normally means ".", but the phone knows that if an "s" follows a punctuation mark, you probably mean " `s ", as in a possessive. I tell you this not because I think it will sway your buying decision, but because this typifies the entire phone. You'll find yourself getting to know the phone through a series experiences that end in your amazement at how smart the designers were. Cell Phone Side The cell phone side performs admirably, with a few unique features and pitfalls. Overall, it is a better package than the Nokia 6160, which I thought was near perfection, but the T250 could still use a few features that I desperately miss. For one, the phonebook has no easy method of jumping from one letter to the next. For example, hitting 2-2 on a Nokia 6160 would make the list jump to the start of the "B" section. With the T250, your only option is to hit the "Find" button, then hit 2-0-0, which in T9 mode means "B". Then you hit the find key again (which jumped buttons from the previous time you hit it) and that starts you off at the "B" section. What a pain. [update: Previously I said the phone only shows one entry at a time. This is the default, but in the phone book menu selection, you can set it to sort by location or alphabetically, and you can change the view to "list mode", which packs the display with numbers.] While I'm complaining, there is no "wait" mechanism either. You can't tell the phone, "dial these numbers, wait until I hit send, then dial these numbers," like you can on the Nokias. But then the phone turns around and forgives itself buy letting you associate different rings to different phone book entries! Now that's cool. That way, when my girlfriend calls, I can tell without even looking at the phone. Handy for when I'm with my wife (just kidding). It's one of those features every phone should have. Furthermore, you can set up multiple voice mailboxes. By hitting the voice mail key, you bring up a list of voice mail numbers, not just your cell phone's. I have mine set for my office, home, and wireless number. It's also smart enough to store not only the voice mail number, but the PIN as well. Again, it's an nice package overall, with one or two noticeable faults. PocketNet Side Now this is why you'd buy the phone. PocketNet is AT&T's mobile Internet service that works with either the Mitsubishi T250 or the Ericsson R280LX. Once you switch to PocketNet mode on the phone, you're logged into the network. There are three service levels available from AT&T. The basic level gets you basic access with no email (free). You can get directions, check news headlines, restaurants, etc. One step up gets you an email address, which I'll cover later ($8 or $9 a month). The highest-level service adds an online calendar, contact list (which you can sync to your organizer if you use Exchange Server or Lotus Notes), and to do list (14.99 a month). The thing to remember about PocketNet is that NOTHING is stored on the phone. That means if you are outside your coverage area, you cannot get to any of this information. But, it also means that as AT&T and other providers upgrade their software, you automatically benefit. When weighing this tradeoff, remember that you're with AT&T. Their network is truly pervasive. When they say they're in every major city, they mean it, unlike Sprint, which excludes places like Allentown and Chicago (this has probably changed since I had their service). There is a good chance that this won't be a major problem for most people, and even if it is, you can get access to all of your info from your personal AT&T PocketNet web page from a Real Computer. The email side of the phone is very cool. You cannot only send and receive emails, like you would expect, but you can fax them to the number of your choosing! As if this weren't cool enough, if you happen to have a Word file attached, this gets faxed right along with it. Imagine the usefulness of this feature when you're on the road. Again, another feature of the service that leaves you amazed. Apart from this, there are all the things you'd expect with a few additions. You can bid through Ebay, get directions from MapQuest, find the nearest ATM, and a bunch of other stuff you could do from a regular web browser. With the highest service level, you can view any web page on the web, with out graphics. Sometimes this is useful. Sometimes it's worthless. It all depends on how the website was coded. An especially nice service is from Excite!. Excite! has a mobile service that, when used with TrueSync (free), syncs with Outlook's contacts, notes, todo list, and calander. A very nice feature that works well. Odds and Ends, and Summary The battery life seems slightly below average. This could be because I find myself playing with this phone more than I would a plain-old-cell-phone, but who can say. The Nokia 6160 I just got done with could go 5 days on a charge. I find myself charging this phone every day. The plus side is that it only takes 2 hours to charge the standard battery, so this isn't really a problem. The accessories are of generally high quality. The Mitsubishi brand ear-bud is of good quality, though the microphone is a bit muffled. Beware that there are two choices in headsets, the Mitsubishi (good), and the AT&T (cheesy). The AT&T version shows up on spy satellites due to its size, and isn't designed specifically for the Mitsubishi, but for several models by way of the included adapter. The car cradle comes in two flavors. The version I got mounts via 4 screws (included), or by way of double-sided tape (not included). It seems a bit cheep, although it works fine for the most part. Neither version has provisions for power to the phone, so you'll need to purchase the car adapter as well. Mitsubishi offers a software package called FoneSync, which works with a serial cable (sold separately). The software synchronizes your contact manager's contact list with the T250's contact list. It's easy to get confused here, but realize that we're talking about the cell phone side contact list, not the PocketNet list, which is stored on the web. If you're a phone geek, I recommend it. If you're a healthy, normal person, don't bother. Another word must be said about AT&T's service, since that's what comes with the phone. I've been with Airtouch, Sprint, and AT&T twice (once in 1993, then I switched back about a year go). The landscape is changing daily, but from my experience, there is no reason to go with anyone but AT&T. Other services might be cheaper, but absolutely nobody has the coverage that AT&T does. Sprint, for example, might have "clearer" sound, handy for when you are listening to a concert through your cell phone, but that clearer sound comes at the price of spottier coverage. The technical reason for this is that Sprint, like Ariel (now someone else), like Airtouch (now Verizon), all use a higher frequency spectrum, which doesn't "see" around corners (buildings, etc.) as well as the older, standard cell phone service that AT&T uses. The result is that AT&T's service sounds marginally (I can't tell the difference) worse than Sprint's, but doesn't drop you as often. Also, because AT&T was first, their service is likely to be where you are, which is important when you are somewhere else, like in another city. Also, because AT&T's technology is based on the old system, this also means that your voice mail,caller ID, call-forwarding, and your PocketNet service works from almost everywhere. And, unlike Sprint, PocketNet service is billed at a flat rate, so you can use it as long as you like without worrying about a per-minute charge. So given the total package, I can whole-heartedly recommend this phone to anyone who needs it. If you like technology, or need Internet access on the road, or just like to have a better phone than your friends, the T250 is an excellent choice, that will daily amaze you with its capability. Of course, a year from now there will be something better, and this one won't be worth the box it came in. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87453 2001/1/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 power huge lcd display features way to many features to learn fast The Bottom LineIf you want a phone you can READ than this is the one! Full Review Mitsubishi's T250 MobileAccess Wireless Internet Phone gives you remarkable features. I retired my Motorola Cell Phone after less than 2 months of use because the LCD display was too small. The Mitsubishi has an LCD screen that is easy to read, easy to navigate and can be read even in sunlight! While wireless phones have been shrinking in size I preferred one that I could hold and read. The keypad is back lighted and easy to see. The function keys incorporate menu and what I call "fast buttons" allowing quick access to all the phones features. Typical of many top of the line phones the T250 gives you a phone and address book, accepts email, allows for access to the Internet, stores numbers dialed, calls missed and messages for later reading and allows you to set different ring patterns for different incoming information. Information, phone numbers and names can be stored in upper and lower case letters. Internet access is limited to certain areas within my service providers cell towers. I have ATT Wireless. The power of the phone is excellent. Many of the cellular "black holes" I experienced with my old Motorola have vanished with the T250. Regardless, this phone will ring back when a call doesn't go through the first time as soon as it gains a strong enough signal. Cost? I had to pay $129.00 for the phone with a promised $75.00 rebate! Good deal but quite frankly I haven't received the rebate yet! Oh well! Back to the features! I really like being able to get MSNBC email news and weather throughout the day! It is sometimes annoying when the phone rings but I can set it up to call within certain time frames. This is an MSNBC feature not a phone feature. What I enjoy the best is the large LCD characters! I can read them! I get calls and messages. I know who calls and I can read the messages without twisting and turning the phone to reflect the ambient light to see the display! My suggestion? If you want a great, high quality phone with more features than you will ever probability need than this is the one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 7699 Mitsubishi T200 87475 2000/4/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 cute affordable heavysort of complicated The Bottom LineIt's a good phone as it isn't very costly, but for today's rates and phone availability I wouldn't put it at the top of my purchasing possibility list. Full Review The T200 model can be found free of charge from AT&T, as long as you use their service. The offer several plans through the phone that make it quite a bargain, especially if you can locate the free offer. The phone is heavier than most cell phones, especially nowadays. The size of the phone is fair. It's durable, and the quality of voice clarity is commendable. As far as fashion, I'm not sure of the colors it is offered in, but the blue I have is very pretty. Where use is concerned, it's only fairly rated. A lot of the features, such as the voice mail direct dialing function is quite useful. Others, are a bit difficult, and you will find yourself needing the book. Cell phones are usually pretty self explanatory, and do not require the book after a few minutes of exploration. This one, on the other hand isn't so. So, if you get this model, do not throw the book away. Another con is the volume option. It isn't super quiet, but if you carry a pocket book and drop it in to go to the mall or for a Sunday drive, don't expect to hear it. (Listening to the radio on that drive is out of the question as well.) That's where the voice mail comes in. It has alerts for when you have a message (though that also suffers from low volume.) At the push of a button you can be connected to your voice mail, so easy access is not a question. The battery it comes with doesn't have a very long talk life, but it does charge quickly, and if not in heavy use can run for over 30 hours. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 00.00 87474 2000/4/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good clarity free with at t wireless service heavy confusing set up The Bottom LineIf a standard mobile phone, which gives a clear reception and functions as it is supposed to is the desire, I recommend this phone. Full Review I have always had previous mobile phone connections through AT&T Wireless, so when I came across the deal on the Mitsubishi T200 I could not resist. I am a single mother, so I needed something cheap, fast but reliable. Not only was the phone offered free, but they threw in the car charger and a $75 rebate (for money never spent) on top of it. I doubted that something so inexpensive would work well, but I was pleasantly surprised to find such clarity and durability, after I discovered how to set it up, that is. I am the type who rarely reads manuals, but I had to read this one to get it started. Now that I've had the Mitsubishi T200 for a while, I am able to figure out the functions without the manual, even though they are in strange places. If you are in the market for a high technology, user-friendly, pocket-sized phone, this is not my first recommendation. It weighs more than the average newer phones on the market, has no keypad cover, but thankfully does have a keypad lock function, and does not ring very loudly no matter how you adjust it. It can receive text messaging, you just cannot reply and it is web enabled, neither of these functions I have tested yet, however. I don't use my phone every single day so the battery lasts between two and three days. The plus side of this, if you do use your phone frequently, is that the battery charges relatively quickly so you will not be parted from it for long. Overall, the Mitsubishi T200 phone has surpassed my expectations and been a reliable help in my busy life. It is certainly worth more than the negative $75.00 I did not pay for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 7700 Mitsubishi T300 87479 2004/3/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to use lack of accessories poor quality mediocre reception My wife and I both had one of these phones for about two years, they were the 99 cent phone with our cellular plan at the time. The phones were incredibly easy to use, this was never a problem, but there were other issues. My phone had to be repaired once and after that was rather quirky.......it worked sometimes. My wifes phone had to be repaired twice and was due for a third repair when we elected to renew our contract and get new Nokia phones. The Nokia phones are smaller, more solid, and have better reception. Also, the Mitsubishi phones are IMPOSSIBLE to find accessories for, and the accessories available at our cellular dealer were of questionable quality. This is a phone I feel would be best avoided. 87478 2000/12/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sms 200 contact list tri mode doesn t switch from digital to analog well The Bottom LineIt's a great small low power tri-mode phone. Full Review The T300 is a nice small Tri-Mode phone that fits easy into your pocket. It has a 200 person contact list, ability to send and receive short e-mails and the menus are a peice of cake to work around. The phone has many alert tones and ringers for the different functions of the phone and like most pagers the phone has a vibrate feature to use in church, resturants, movies, etc. Only problem I've found so far is for the phone to switch off a digital tower to an analog tower you must lose all signal strenght which could leave you with our service in fringe areas. The quality of the audio on in comming and out going is very high. When my wife calls me on hers I have to ask if she is at work on the office phone or on the cell phone because the audio is so clear. The power is in my opinion a low power phone at 600 milliwatts (.6 watts) in rual areas that the tower coverage is not that good you may have trouble reaching out and making your call. Battery life is wonderful, you get about 2 1/2 hours talk time and Mitsubishi calms 200 hours in standby before you recharge which only takes about 2 hours and 15 mins. Which as it is charging you can talk on the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 87477 2002/9/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 loud voice volume comes with a vibrating battery easy graphic interface reception durability no web browser battery life The Bottom LineA good "free" phone with service plans. Nokia is much better. Full Review I have had this phone for about 1 year now. I bought this Mitsubishi T300 as an "upgrade" from my Nokia 5165. It was not an upgrade. Reception is slightly inferior and the quality is significantly less than the Nokia. I have had to replace it twice already. The buttons simply cannot take daily useage (I use about 600 minutes per month). The good news is that it came with a vibrating battery and the battery life was as long as the Nokia 5165. Phone is easy to use and resembles the Nokia 5165 to a large degree. Best thing about the phone is the contact list. You can add business, home, mobile, pager, etc under the same person's name instead of re-entering the same name for each. Volume is loud compared to the Nokia 5165. I can actually hear on this phone when there is noise around me. Ringer is also a lot louder than the Nokia 5165. Text messaging is easy to use. Lots of alert tones for incoming messages. However, it has fallen apart twice. So as a result, I cannot recommend this phone to anyone. Does not seem quite as well put together as the Nokia 5165. It does have a nice calculator and calendar/appointment book feature which is extremely useful. Now for the bad news: the battery life is about equivalent to a Nokia 5165 - 2.5 hour talk time and 7 days standby. I was hoping it would have about 4 hrs talk time and 10 days standby. Also, I have been very disappointed in the reception indoors. On numerous occasions I have been in a mall or a building and the phone does not ring - the caller gets thrown right into voice mail. I find this extremely annoying. Also it does not have a web browser. Summary: More of a feature upgrade from the Nokia 5165 than a technological upgrade. Don't spend any money on this phone. If they give it to you for free and you cannot get a Nokia, take it. It is certainly better than any of the cheap Ericson phones. But it will not last more than 6-9 months. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19 87476 2000/8/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 office tools text messenging very durable reception nice interface battery life big sensitive keys lack of advanced features The Bottom LineI wouldn't recomend this phone simply because you can do much better for the same price. I'd go with a cheap Motorola or Nokia phone. Full Review Form Factor When you first look at the Mitsubishi T300 Phone, you are inspired to blow you nose for something more interesting to look at. It looks like the kind of phone the average person would have in 1995. It's not that the T300 is ugly, it's just so boring. Durability I do have to say that this is one catagory in which the T300 excels. I have dropped this phone many times from waist hight onto hard cement, and the phone recieves major damage. The battery may dislodge, but when reconected both phone and battery work perfectly fine, and without loss of data. Text Messenging The text messenging on this feature is a nice touch, but you will find the same feature on nearly all new phones now, and other's do it a lot better. The T300 allows you to send to other phones, or e-mail addresses, and store addresses in it's contact list. Recieving messages only works in you local cell, so no text messenging on the road. And I've found that when you reply to a recieved message it doesn't work. You must instead open a new thread and re-enter the recipient's address. This may seem trivial, but can become a real pain. The maximum character limit on this phone is up to 3 times fewer than the maximum allowed by my cellular service provider. Which leaves you with bits and pieces of messeges, and having to cut things short. Battery Life Mitsubishi says that this phone will run for 8 days on stand-by, I've found that without making any calls it lasts for more like 4, which isn't that bad, unless you're somewhere where you're away from a charger for a week (camping for instance). And calls really drain the battery, I once made a long distance call with a full battery, talked for about 20 minutes, then noticed when I hung up that the battery was 2/3 empty. Overall There's not a whole lot wrong with the Mitsubishi T300, it's just that there's nothing right with it, and you're stuck with a phone that handles it's limited features poorly. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 7701 Motorola V60c 87573 2004/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cute compact light weak antenna Motorola's V60c is a great little flip-phone. Nevertheless, be careful with the phone antenna. My broke off a few days after purchase and thereafter I was able to get good reception only when I held the phone on a lateral plane. 87572 2004/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 size battery life cost Unlike other Motorola products I have worked with, this one was a let down. First phone lasted a week, totally unlike Motorola. Very possibly this could have just been a fluke unit and nothing to worry about. My cell phone vendor, Cingular, replaced the faulty unit right away so no problems there. Compared to my old Nokia, in the same usage are, the V60c has much better performance as far as connection quality. With this phone I can cover a much larger area without going into roaming, which helps keep the bills down. Also, the battery life is much better than the Nokia I used to use. About the color, sure the screen is cute, but is it worth the price? I doubt it, the monochrome version of the same phone is probably the hot deal. Unlike older models of this phone, the antenna does not extend, and seems to be much more durable. The voice recognition, well, everyone else that has one of these raves about it. It just might be that my southern accent is a touch strong, I can't seem to get it to work well. 87571 2004/11/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 you can get one for cheap now with a mail in rebate horrible reception hard to get use to doesn t have any settings really Hello, This was my third cell phone I've ever bought,I bought it threw verizon with a 1yr plan and paid 99.99 and got a 50.00 mail-in rebate.which for some odd reason never came.This phone has very bad reception and the menu is very plain and ordinary.You can not customize any features except the name on the front of the phone.I must say that the phone is very durable,When I used to skateboard I would drop that phone almost every time someone would call me and it never broke.The lithium ion battery at first would go for days and I wouldn't have to charge it but it seems the more wear on the battery the more I would have to charge the dang thing. 87570 2004/8/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 price into free fall a really good cell phone cheap if you can find one a discontinued model with verizon nla at verizon got mine at radio shack For the function and serviceability of a tri mode phone, it's about as good as it gets-kind of. VERY GOOD speakerphone function, clear voice transmission, acceptable range. Radio Shack: $10.00 ea. with Verizon contract. For the maximum accessible range, a cell phone STILL must comply with the analog format. Verizon is now putting 'digital only' phones into service. Hence, another reason for the TRI-MODE V60s. In my travels, I still find remote analog only areas that a person with CDMA (Verizon) service may only access with a tri-mode phone. Some day that'll doubtless change, but for now it's a fact. By today's standards, a 'bare bones' phone. If a person must take pictures, and play games on a color display, this one's not for you. Silly me! I use a camera to take pictures. Games? Read a book while you wait for the doctor. The second day I used it, I hooked the stubby antenna on a seat belt and broke it off. Ugh! My bad, though. Verizon 'warranteed" it, a real plus. 87569 2004/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice speakerphone antenna fixed solid construction lacks data services i don t care sound quality isn t excellent We just bought the v60s - first phone we've owned so I'll be brief. The salesman - at a Verizon Wireless agent - said that Verizon doesn't carry the v60s because they can't add on all the data services. He said that the previous v60 models had problems with the antennas, but they don't stock spare antennas for the v60s because none of them break. Apparently Motorola has fixed the v60 antenna problem with the v60s and v60p models. Also the speakerphone on the v60s is impressive. Most people I am talking to do not notice when I switch back and forth. 87568 2005/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 attractive great interface simplestraight forward extremely durable washing machine safe apparently small no calculator no games battery life short for today s standards Attractive and small Great interface (simple and straight forward) I had this phone for 2.5 years, and the only problem I had was the antenna that kept breaking off, but the only people to blame were the Verizon techs who took the short cut in fixing my phone each time. I finally took it in one last time to verizon, and the guy someone who told me he could fix my antenna by replacing the base of it, and that pretty much made the antenna breaking problem go away for good. Other than the antenna break problem, even though this phone is 2.5 years old, it looks and works (except with very minor scratches) just like the day I got it. I even put this phone through a full wash cycle in my laundry machine, and it didn't have a problem. At the time I bought it, the interface that came with this phone was a huge night and day improvement over any interface they had on any of the verizon phones. No games No calculator 87567 2007/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 external date incredibly sturdy alarm long battery life time caller id small size fat antenna spastic vibrate mode side buttons beep when anything hits them Stylish, sleek, compact, sturdy, fairly light but heavy enough in my hand so I don't feel like I'm going to crush it. I've had this phone for two years and haven't been disappointed yet. I actually ran this phone over with my car yesterday and there are no cracks or breaks anywhere, only a dent in the back where the leather case clip dug into it. Only the outside display doesn't work now after being run over. Extremely durable... A+++++!!! I hope my next phone will be this strong. I got this phone through Verizon Wireless for $100 with my two year contract. I've traveled quite a bit around the country and it was always reliable. 87566 2001/8/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 star trekky look puts you in the cool crowd your wardrobe suffers because you spent all your on phone The Bottom LineV60 one of the better phones I've used, faults considered. I believe V65 coming FALL 2001 will be BETTER hopefully without another price increase. Full Review This phone is GREAT is you're attending a Star Trek, Dick Tracy, etc. convention. It would be nice to see some more security within the phone book, ie. ability to hide credit card numbers, bank account numbers linked, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. The voice recognition system works sometimes, sometimes not. After turning power off and re-booting voice commands always worked until something unexplicable made voice commands unresponsive. The backlight is practically useless at night for elderly people with visual impairments who need more contrast to see the display. At certain angles during daylight the display sometimes can be difficult to read. You want small? This is the trade-off. The flip cover after only a couple of dozen uses appeared to become loose and wiggles left to right when closed. It makes the phone appear older and more used than what it really is. The plastic battery cover appears to be weak and offers the least amount of resistance in the event of a drop. The battery itself is weak and offers little in stand-by or talk time with features such as status light, and reminder beeps activated. With perhaps 30-45 minutes of talk time and 12 hours of stand-by the standard battery supplied is not enough unless you are prepared to stick it on a charger on a daily basis. If nothing else, it also is a great conversation piece and guys can pick up chicks with it. One other thought, at least with Verizon make CERTAIN that you turn OFF your old phone when using your new V60. Although your old phone may be deactivated at the switch, it will still attempt to capture incoming signals to your phone number. If you leave your old phone on for whatever reason, your V60 will NOT ring in digital mode. It will receive voice mail notification, text messaging, and Analog calls. It will also send Digital calls, but it will NOT receive digital calls if your old phone is on. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 87565 2000/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the phone to own can t program a distinctive ring for different callers The Bottom LineSomeone has finally gotten a cell phone right. I hope the platform is around for a long time because I plan to get most of the accessories. Full Review I have been a motorola cell phone fan since I first saw the startac nearly 10 years ago and they cost well over $1,000. Now you can get a startac for $29. Truth is, I gave up my startac to get a web enabled phone (ericsson) from AT&T. That was a major mistake. I had no problem with AT&T's service, but the phone was garbage and the web on any cell phone is pretty awful at this point. All that said, when I saw the 60c, I knew I'd found a replacement for the startac. This thing is an improvement over the startac in the following ways: 1. solid feel (metal vs. plastic case) 2. great buttons (raised for better feel) 3. caller id and text messaging on the outside 4. shorter, more sturdy antenna 5. voice activated features and dialing 6. datebook 7. size (smaller, but not too small) This thing is amazing. The look and feel of the phone is very solid, tight, and sleek. I do wish it had bluetooth capabilities, but you'll have to move to the larger, heavier 270c for that. The last piece of the communications puzzle would be for Motorola to come out with a PC synch kit for the phone. I have heard one will be out soon, but am still waiting. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $275 87564 2000/2/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish yet rugged compact innovative features ease of battery replacement short battery life The Bottom LineNot only does it look like the coolest phone in the office, it IS. Highly recommend. Full Review I pulled off a minor miracle and managed to purchase one of these before Christmas for my wife. I was very satisfied with my own Panasonic phone at the time but after a few weeks of checking out her V60 I had to get one as well. I've never owned a better phone. It's small and compact yet when opened up it fits comfortably against even the largest of faces (such as mine). I only see 3 drawbacks, and they are VERY minor: 1)Battery life: Considering the size and weight of the phone, it's acceptable. My provider included an extra battery and desk charger free when I ordered. 2)Battery replacement: Getting the back cover off to replace the battery is tough enough but with large hands can be a bit like peeling a grape. Luckily it's not something you will have to do very often. 3)Ringtone selection: Although the phone has a decent amount of tones available built-in, you cannot download any custom tones. It DOES have the ability for a user to write their own tones if they wish, but for the creatively challenged in the music area it might as well be a remote control for the Space Shuttle. One more thing concerning ringtones: For all the bells and whistles contained in this phone, it does NOT have the ability to assign specific ringtones to incoming calls from individual callers from your phone book. My Panasonic had this capability and I miss it. Motorola should have added this feature. It would have been easy enough with all the rest of the features you can assign a phone book entry, like voice dialing ( I LOVE that!) Motorola offers the phone in silver, blue and a tortoiseshell color that looks very interesting. Unfortunately my provider (who will remain nameless ATT this time) only had the foresight to offer the phone in silver. The FM stereo option is nice (I was wondering when someone would finally incorporate that into a cell phone) but the price of the headphone to listen to FM is a bit steep. However, the radio headphone doubles as a hands-free headset, so there's no frantic plugging or unplugging if you get a call while listening to Bach or Beck. In summary, I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with this phone. The excellence far outweighs the minor problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87563 2000/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice design small good sound quality ultra stylish reception front of phone scratches to easily battery life The Bottom LineI definitely recommend this phone if you can avoid paying the high price some are paying.... This phone definetly combines style with function and the features are very abundant.Awesome Phone Full Review I had recently decided I had it with my nokia 5185i-to big,no features, bad phone reception. At first I went with the v120 but the volume did not go up high enough. I went back to Verizon and exchanged the v120 for a v60. I haven't had much experience with motorolas but the phone was music to my ears compared to the other phones I had experienced.I especially liked the wide variety of features, especially the date book. The only thing that really bugs me is the fact that the front cover scratches so easily, although you can solve that problem by purchasing a leather phone cover.Another thing I was a bit unhappy about was the battery life.A little to short for my liking.I am very happy I made this purchase and the price of the phone dropped greatly-some companies are even offering mail in rebates!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87562 2000/3/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool easy to use solid small battery life opening case awkward to open til you figure it out The Bottom LineThis one's strictly for the looks, the size, the cool feeling. No better than any other, just styling! Full Review Had a startac, then a motorola 270 which I hated cause I was always making calls by accident (once resulting in a real doozy of a problem!). The 60 looks great, and is about as small a phone as you can possibly use---any smaller and I don't know how I'd hold it or talk with it! It took a few days to be able to open it with one hand, without accidentally tossing it! You'd think they would have made the notches a little deeper or somehow more helpful for opening. Battery life seems to improve with age, but still, an hour is about all you can rely on. I bought an extra battery (be careful cause the really extra-capacity ones require a new battery cover).....and honestly, I can't figure out how to get the cover off in the first place! Here's what's good beyond size and style: -voice recognition, although becoming common, works very well -exterior readout, also common, is great --buttons are easy to press --smart button when closed handles the job of changing from ring to vibrate...a really well conceived feature The antenna is kind of junky for such a cool phone. You'd think they could have come up with something a bit more cool, not this cheap flimsy thing. I haven't noticed a difference between pulling it out or leaving it closed. So---bottom line: it looks fabulous and is thinner than all the other "small flip phones". I paid $299 after agreeing to continue my contract for a year, no big deal. But I'll bet I get the next cool phone before the year is out, cause that's how life seems to go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 87561 2002/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 external display poor build quality battery life reception The Bottom LineThis phone is a mess, Motorola tried to get everything in one package and failed miserably. Full Review After owning this phone for 4 months, I finally feel qualified to review it. The initial glee of owning a $400 phone is gone, and as they say, "the honeymoon is over." The main reason I bought this phone was because I had to switch cell phone carriers. My old carrier had so many subscribers that the network was constantly overloaded, so I switched to Verizon and bought what looked like their best phone. The size was a major factor in the decision, as most of Verizon's phones are bulky and (in my humble opinion) very ugly. I also had read many good reviews of this phone, and the new software was supposed to set a standard in operating system configurability. I got the phone. Initially I was quite pleased. I could make calls without getting a network busy signal all the time, and email from the phone was a breeze. Over time however, my opinion of this phone has withered. First of all is the poor reception.Compared to other CDMA phones, this one gets terrible signal. Where other phones can receive and make calls in low signal areas, this one is marginal at best. Furthermore, when I have a signal, sometimes calls can't even connect. Analog roaming is constant on this phone, even when there is a full digital signal available. The build quality is also poor. My antenna has broken off once already, just from being in my pocket. I have since gotten a replacement (not covered under warranty) and I'm paranoid of breaking it. Another area in which the phone is faulted is the plastic cover on the front that covers the external LCD. Its stuck to the phone with a piece of double sided tape. The panel lets in small specks of dust that prevent vision of the external LCD in sunlight. For a phone that costs nearly half a thousand dollars, this is simply unacceptable. Battery life is also on the low end for a phone that was released last year. I get about 2 hours of talk time on the standard battery, alright, not great, I can live with it, but it's a compromise I have to make for a phone that is already sub-par. Otherwise, the features are alright, but every feature here is executed better on other phones. One of the most annoying features is Motorola's proprietary text entering feature called "iTap" compared to Tegic's T9 system, this one is a joke. The dictionary doesn't even memorize custom words. All in all, don't waste your money on this phone. thanks for reading! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399.00 87560 2000/4/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battert life styling reception low radiation voice activation sendend keys on wrong sides needs a belt clip no calculator The Bottom LineI wouldnt give up this phone for any other than the Ericsson t68 and it would still be hard Full Review I got the V60T for AT&T Wireless at Best Buy on a great sale. I have had quite a few phones previous to this including Nokia's, Ericsson's, and Motorola's. Replacing the 3360 i had been using earlier this phone is an immense improvement and has proven to be one of the best if not the best phone i have ever used. The reception has been great, i hardly ever get less than two bars, and standard reception is a solid 4 bars. I have found the battery life to be pretty accurate as it is quoted from Motorola with about 3.5-4 hours of talk time or 7-10 days of standby. The phone is ergonomically fantastic. It feels great holding it to your ear. It is also just the right weight, not as light as you would lose it, but not too heavy(much better than Nokia 8000's). The phone looks great too. I enjoy the menus and find them easy to use and have good features. The voice activated dialing is easy with a one touch button on the side of the phone. It also works better than most of the voice activated phones i have used. One thing that is missing is a calculator. Other complaints i have about the phone are that the send and end keys are on opposite sides of where they are on other phones. This can be confusing for a while. Also the antenna makes it difficult to carry this phone in your pocket(good thing for the included belt clip). My last gripe is the battery door is nearly impossible to get off, luckily i rarely have to take it off. One nice thing to know is that this phone has very little radiation output, so you can feel a little safer talking on the phone. I also find that the external Caller ID display is nice sometimes, especially when i need to know the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 87559 2000/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice blue display compact light awkward menus no games The Bottom Linethe best phone out there until nokia comes out with something new. Full Review after my little nokia died on me (coincidently right after my contract with at&t expired...hmmm!!!) i was in a rush to buy a new cell phone. as a lifelong nokia user i am partial to their phones...and still am. but seeing how nokia hasnt come out with anything cutting edge in over a year, i decided to get this sleek little number. its surely a nice phone though the menus arent as well put together as nokias. there are also no games in the phone...a big No-No and one which made me hessitant about buying it. but it does have some unique features, like being able to compose your own ring tunes and scrolling menus which look really nice. the reception so far has been superb...but then again all new at&t phones get great reception up until it comes time to extend your contract....at&t thinks no one notices this. and sending messages is really cool cause u get a read receipt when the other person reads your email/message...nice touch motorola. i could do without the voice activated dialing. and the antenna should have been built into the body (like nokia does), as the antenna is the only part that detracts from this phones good looks. overall, presently the best phone out there now. if it had games and a color display this would be the perfect phone. and FYI, if youre a new at&t customer, the store i bought this from was selling this phone for only $60!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87558 2001/6/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ergonomics aesthetically pleasing user interface reception sound quality trimode cdma non holographic display price The Bottom LineTHE phone in today's wireless market, but at a hefty price. Full Review Yup. I had to get this phone, and no, I don't regret it. Since there's only one real negative about this phone, let me state it up front -- the price. Otherwise, Motorola has hit the mark in almost every category. Sound quality? Outstanding, bar none. The clarity is as good as a landline. My wife's StarTAC 7868W, in comparison, sounds like a tin can on a string. Everyone who's heard me speaking from the V60c has asked if I was calling from home. Reception? Great. I'm able to pick up and hold a digital signal in remote, suburban areas of the DC Metro community. The analog reception isn't bad either. I'm normally running at full signal strength in DC's Metro (subway) system. Size? Somewhere between a StarTac and the V8160, which makes it ideal. It weighs only 3.6 ozs. Construction? Brushed aluminum housing, making it feel sturdy, while giving it a great appearance. According to CNET, it's actually scratch (under normal conditions) and fingerprint resistant. Also, the housing decreases the specific absorption rate (SAR, a.k.a. radiation level), when used at the ear. Its digital SAR rating is .42W/kg. (watts/kilogram) and its analog SAR rating is .397W/kg. (FYI: The FCC requires that cellular phones fall under 1.6W/kg.) This places it in the "top 10" lowest radiation emitting cellular phones on the market today. Features? It has PIM (a calendar and 400 number/email address phone book) capabilities, voice activated dialing, voice memo recorder, and a very intuitive user interface (much better than the older Motorolas). Let's not forget a web browser, 2-way text messaging capability, and an external caller ID display. The external caller ID display is something unique to this phone and only two other phones currently on the market: the LG-TM510 and its cousin, the Sprint Touchpoint 1100. For anyone who prefers a flip phone, this is a feature that adds real value. Appearance? Nothing comes close, including the Nokia 8860. I've got to admit that the aluminum housing truly dresses up the phone in a way that plastic never could. This is one sharp looking phone. Battery life? Okay. It's living up to Motorola's rating of 150 hours of standby and 150 minutes of talk time, w/the slim lithium ion battery. This battery is standard with the phone, when purchased from Verizon. Another battery is available for sale as an accessory, which would increase these times to 240 hours of standby and approximately 240 minutes of talk time. If the display was holographic and a speakerphone was added (probably impossible due to its size), this would be the perfect cell phone, in my opinion. To others, I'm sure it already is. Motorola looked the competition square in the eye, and came up w/a product you'd be proud to own. Its price is prohibitive, but if you intend to keep this phone for more than a year or two (an eternity in the wireless world), then consider buying it. Otherwise, there are more affordable alternatives to this phone, such as the LG-TM510, offered by Verizon, which offer similar features, but may be cheaper in build quality. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.00 87557 2000/5/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent sound quality reception small user friendly want to use it all the time price The Bottom LineThis phone, although expensive, is a one time deal, i.e., if you buy this phone, you wont want to change phones! It is powerful, small, and user-friendly. Full Review I have had many cell phones. Nokia has always been my choice, but because I changed to Verizon,I chose another brand because Nokia evidently hasnt caught up on the new technology. The first phone I got with this company was a Samsumg. I had extreme problems with reception and dropped calls. I then upgraded to the M60. This phone brings a smile to my face! It is so, so, so user-friendly, and the reception and sound is incredible. Im now getting reception in areas where I couldnt get it before, and I havent had a single dropped call yet. So yes, the phone DOES make a difference in reception. Sure, they all have the same power output, but the ability to provide good reception varies with phone make. If you can afford this phone, I highly recommed it. Some people have cried about battery life; I disagree! I havent noticed any difference in battery life with this phone relative to any of the others Ive had. These people must be talking from no-wheres-land, and must be using all the potential, uneeded options. By the way, the voice command is great, and the phone book is so efficient to use adding names).. i love it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 270 87556 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy functions great reception compact beautiful one touch dialing phone book The Bottom LineThis phone has different models the v60,v60g,v60t,v60c. I think their similar but providers offer different menu options which cause some models to work better than others . Full Review This is the best looking phone I have ever wasted my money on. Over the years I've had phones thru almost every cellular provider out there. I was a die-hard sprint pcs fan until Voicestream came out with the GODFATHER of all plans 3000 anytime minutes,an I do mean anytime.I canceled Sprint packed my bags and moved to Voicestream. My phone of choice was the t-28 world phone an you couldn't tell me jack cause I was the man. But after about 3 months all of that changed, that's when I realized this phone was a piece of crap.The menu was terrible and talking on this thing was like holding a brick against your head, but what was I to do I had the greatest plan with the worst phone you could buy.All over town other providers where introducing the v60 except Voicestream, I was steaming mad because the v60 was the phone to have and I was willing to cancel an move elsewhere to get it.Voicestream was still in last place as for adding this phone to there line up,and I had made up my mind to cancel. Well the GODS have answered my prayers , Voicestream finally added the v60 an ITS MINE NOW.This phone is hot all the way from the brush metal look to the well design menu. I think I will have this phone for a long time to come.The menu has everything you need to get the job done and the reception is great(where I live).The first day I took my phone to work I was walking on my toes because I am known to drop my phone at least 5 times a day,but this beauty has slowed me down an made me more careful in life(sounds like marriage right).With a space age looking phone like this you wouldn't expect any flaws,but these 2 problems keep this phone from being a perfect 10.The first problem is the phone book ,it would be nice if you could store home,cellular,pager,and email numbers under one entry. It really bothers me to scroll thru my phone book and see bob's name 5 different times,they could have done better design on this. The second problem is the one touch dialing,in which they give you the option to store a phone number under the number one key but when the 1 key is held down the phone calls you voicemail instead.If the phone comes programed with voicemail under key 1 then make the 1 touch dialing only available to keys 2 thru 0 duhhhh.These problems may not mean anything to a normal user but for a gadget freak such as myself its a pain. To sum up my story I still think this is a great phone, as for as looks,design,user friendly,its the King of all Kongs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249. 87555 2002/7/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception clarity low sar weight size headset functionality holster The Bottom LineThis phone does enough things well (size, dimensions, clarity) to make up for its short comings (holster, headset). Full Review Overall I really enjoy having my V60c. I've used a wide variety of phones (due to personal cell plans over the years and then work funded phones). I have ample experience with the Nokia 5160, 5180, 8260, 3360, and Motorola StarTac 7868W. I can honestly say I like the V60c more then all of the others. It has a wonderfully small footprint, however since it's a clam phone it opens up to adequately bridge the distance from your ear to your mouth. Its light enough to be comfortable in the holster, yet dense enough to feel like you bought something worthwhile. The clarity and reception of the phone is top-notch; head and heals over any of the other phones I've used. Most important to me, it has a very low SAR rating when talking. There is no definitive data on the medical affects of phones w/ low and high SARs, however I felt if I could get a phone w/ a low SAR there is certainly worse things to spend money on. On the downside, the holster is horrible. Granted, once the phone is in it you will not have it fall out, however don't plan on zipping the phone in and out of the holster like you would a StarTac or something similar. You have to really pay attention to how you put the phone in the holster or it will go in wrong. I find myself taking the phone, clip and all, to my ear when I get a call. I'll probably start using the leather case shortly. The headset functionality could have been executed better. There is no way to manually answer or hang up on a call w/ the phone closed (though I think you can 'hang up' once the caller disconnects by waiting a few seconds). The only way to answer a call w/ the headset w/o opening the phone is to set the phone to answer on the 2nd ring when a headset is plugged in. Hope this helps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87554 2000/4/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size pure simple feel of it style ease of use battery life price The Bottom LineBuy this phone if you can afford it, you won't be sorry! Full Review I have had this phone now for 5 days. I have to say, I can't quit touching it. I had never wanted a 'flip phone' before, but when I went into Verizon to buy it, I had already researched it, priced it, and I guess fallen in love with it. I went to the store, and the sales guy didn't even have to give me the pitch, I just simply pointed at it and said, "Let's Do It!" I am not sorry I bought this phone! This phone feels like a Porche. This is my second cell phone, and although I really did like my little Nokia 5190, when I used my new V60c for the first time, it was love at first touch. Even without reading the book, I figured out how to program it, to use it, and so on. It is very intuitive and easy to use. The buttons are large and easy to use. One thing I really like about it is its size. Although it comes with a belt "holster", I have yet to use it. I guess I am not much of a "holster" kind of person. The size of this phone really makes the holster useless. The phone fits in the change pocket of my Levi's! That's right the little useless pocket in my jeans. I can see where I could possibly bump the antennae to hard by carrying it there though. It has very easy to read display's, where you can make the text larger or smaller as you wish. Also, one feature I love about it is it has a Caller ID display on the outside of the phone when it is closed that lets you see who is calling before you answer the phone. When the caller ID is not in use, it shows the date and a clock. This phone comes with all the bells and whistles that you could ever want. The voice-activated dialing is great. You simply program the number in and record your voice. When you are ready to dial by voice activation, you push one button and say the name and it just dials the number. It also has voice notes, which I've already used instead of carrying Post-It notes with me everywhere. The case is a smooth brushed metal, and feels very sturdy. Surprisingly, when you open the phone to use it, it is quite big. It feels nice and solid in your hands. It is hard to believe such a little phone can be so large when opened. There is also an attachment you can buy for this, to turn it into a modem for your laptop. I plan on buying this, as I have already called and talked with a sales rep, and they assured me it would work on my ibook, which has OSX on it. I will review that when I get it. The reception on this phone is also very good. It works in places that my old cell phone died. The only 'con' I can really see is that the battery doesn't last quite as long as I would like, but from reading other reviews, that problem can be corrected by buying a longer life battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87553 2000/4/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 compact design sleeksexy great reception expensive The Bottom LineIf you like flip phones this one is great...although $350 is way too much to pay for a cell phone!!!! Full Review After having used Nokia cell phones for several years I decided to give the Motorola V60 a try. I was never real crazy about flip phones for three reasons. First of all the buttons are normally so small only a child could realistically dial without problems. Secondly, the there is a higher probability of something going wrong with a phone that "flips"...the wear and tear of opening and closing the phone cannot help the lifespan can it? And finally i like a phone that is a little bigger...I seem to have a tendency to drop tiny little things and the Motorola fits into the category of tiny little things. Well I was having problems with my Nokia 6160 which I loved for its size and performance. I owned the phone for several years and the buttons were just big enough that I did not have problems dialing, the phone was a good size not too small. The At&T service I had was great...that is until several months back where I was experiencing dropped calls as if I were a Sprint PCS customer...every couple of minutes my calls would drop. Friends and colleagues in the area using the same service and said the service was fine it must be the antenae. I called AT & T customer service and they offered to give me a discount on a phone if I extended for a year. Not being certain that it was actually my old phone and not AT&T service I was hesitant to commit to an additional year. I was told if the service was still unsatisfactory I can return the phone within thirty days and my calling plan would end on its original date. I decided to go into a local AT&T store and pick out a phone and have them bill me. I was intrigued by the V60 even though it is much smaller than what I prefer in cell phones. The build quality seemed good although it appears is not the work horse the 6160 had been. I was impressed with the size of the buttons they are a lot bigger than the ones found on the Nokia 8260. I figured I can try it out and if it does not work I would be able to return it within thirty days. Well so far so great...the reception has improved...I guess it really was the antenae on my 6160. I like the voice dialing feature although I would like to be able to have more than 20 numbers w/ voice activation. It is a great feature especailly when driving. Although I am uncomfortable w/ the wear and tear I decided to purchase the insurance for $4 a month...if the phone breaks, gets lost or stolen I can have it replaced with a new one. The best thing about this phone is I only paid $100 by extending my AT&T contract for a year. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87552 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great call qualitynice form factorvoice dialing works great few design flawsmenu system still not as intuitive as others on the market The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to anyone looking for reliability in a small well-designed and visually appealing phone. Full Review I've been using this phone for several months now and I am very impressed. First, the call and signal quality are superior to the other phones I've used during the past few years (Nokia 8260, Nokia 5 series). I spend a lot of time working in the basement of my home. With the Nokia 8260 I could not receive calls when working in the basement. When using the v60, I not only receive calls, I can actually answer them and hold a conversation. Also, known dead spots I used to dread with Nokia are not a problem with my v60. I can't describe how nice it is to know that I don't have to pull over to talk for fear of dropping an important call when heading into a deadzone (used to have to do that with the Nokia). The voice dialing works like a charm, even with significant background noise. I am very pleased with this feature that was not present on my other phones. With the headset in place I can make a call, just by pressing on button and saying a name and it gets it right 99% of the time. On the negative side, the antenna is quite large, but likely contributes to the call quality and reliability. Also, the external caller ID is nice, but what I would really like to see is a signal and battery strength on that external display when the phone is closed (right now it displays time and date). Also, the cheap plastic holder that comes with the phone is absolutely horrible. I ended up throwing mine away as it was too tough to get the phone out of and was just plain uncomforable. I think Motorola needs to re-evaluate this holder design. I am also anxious to try the data cable, but I haven't purchased on yet. I called AT&T and bargained my way into a great deal for this phone (I pay them over $150 a month) so they were pretty accommodating. In the end, I would up paying about $120 for this phone, which I think is a great deal for the quality. I am very happy with this phone and have recommended it to many friends. Several have bought it and are equally impressed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 87551 2000/5/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great phone use frequently horrible professional install car kit accessory cuts inout regularly The Bottom LineThe phone is super! The professional hands free car kit accessory performs poorly. Full Review (V60t model) As a realtor I made the decision to upgrade when my pager needed replacement. Because of the V60t's compact size I now use the phone as my pager in addition to a memo voice recorder, voice mail, and phone. I hardly notice it clipped to my belt. The display on the outside enables me to view the caller's number and allow unimportant calls to go immediately to voice mail. I am very disappointed with the professional hands free car kit, however. My Nokia worked flawlessly in speaker mode (full duplex which allows both parties to speak at once) and even had a handset that could be utilized in the middle of a call if necessary. Motorola doesn't provide a handset and even worse, as I have recently been informed, is only half duplex. When speaking hands free my words are constantly cut off and I have received numerous complaints from clients that I fade in and out. I have contacted the install tech. at Cingular Wireless and have been informed that many are having the same problem. At $150 for the hands free car kit, $140 installation, and $299 price for the phone the response is of little consolation. I am well satisfied with the actual phone. It is everything that was expected. I'd be very interested in others experiences with the professional hands free car kit accessory. Any tips to correct the problem would be appreciated. I cannot believe that it is performing this way by design. My email address is guidrykm@attbi.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 87550 2002/3/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 in all seriousness i cannot list a single positive attribute for this phone price verizon customer supportnever getting to use it quality The Bottom LineIn all honesty, my anger aside this phone really is an overpriced piece of junk. Read the other reviews and heed them better than I did! Full Review I ordered a V60c on a total impulse after a co-worker said she had seen one and spoke of it's glories. I read all of the reviews members wrote on the phone within epinions and read many more articles on the phone elsewhere. My impression was that it hadn't impressed everyone, but all in all I thought it looked like the phone for me. First Off let me thank all of you who tried to warn me about this and secondly let me hopefully keep some poor soul from making a $400 mistake. What made me go for this phone was it's handy size and rather cool appearance. When it arrived (within 2 days, which was impressive) and I opened the package, I was immediately let down. The phone looks like a toy, lightweight and flimsy with a very cheap looking tin body. I opened it up, turned it on and noticed the battery was low. I located the AC charger and hooked it up...the phone did not respond. I figured maybe you have to wait to charge it the first time until it dies or something to that extent. The next morning I took the phone to work, planning on activating it by calling the number supplied. I decided to try out the car charger I had ordered to see if I got the same response. When I plugged the phone in, the screen flashed "unable to charge" and then "charging". Right on I thought, we are underway and maybe I can get over the poor build quality if the clarity is good. When I arrived at work I found that I could not remove the charger's prong from the phone no matter what I tried. I was being very gentle because this phone really does look like it would break in half if you squeezed it. I removed the leather case to see if maybe that had gotten snagged - no luck. Finally I opened the top to get a better look and then I saw it, oh the sadness my fellow cellular users. My $400 phone had melted, yes melted where the charger plugged in! I was not a happy camper, I had needed the phone for a two week trip and in good faith had cancelled my existing phone service. I called Verizon and explained what happened and was immediately told to bring it to a store. I then explained my situation and how I would be away for two weeks and that the nearest store was an hour away. I also had this little thing called 'work' to attend to, come on the damn thing melted! They insisted, saying that I would be charged if a damaged phone was returned. I then calmly requested some empathy and explained everything again at which point I was told to hold. Another representative came on the phone saying to send it back, that was it. No apologies, no attempt to recover a horrendous situation for which they were responsible and apparently no grasp whatsoever of customer service. Right there and then I decided I would never do business with Verizon ever again. Now you can say it was more Motorola's fault, but Verizon sells the phone, supplies the service and is responsible for my satisfaction. Not that Motorola fares any better for impressing me with their products. The v60c is a piece of junk and for that reason I will never buy a Motorola phone, any company who stands behind such a lemon for which they charge $400 is lacking morals never mind quality products. They could come out with the highest rated phone and all I'll ever remember is opening my new phone to see the myth of the v60c melt into oblivion. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $400 87549 2000/2/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek functional sweet phone pricy The Bottom LineOverall, A++ to the engineers at Motorola for making this sweet phone! Buy it and you will love it!! Full Review After reading through the review from here, I finally decided to pick this beauty up. Even with a $300+ plus price tag, I still think this is one of the purchases I have ever made.... (Verizon Wireless) The phone has a sleek look, it feel solid in my hand. The sleek dual blue backlit really look sharp. Great reception, big lilted keys and the menu aren't hard to navigate at all, matter of fact you can customize the order within the menu. Ability in creating short cut to different menu item is also a plus. The 400 entries in your contact are very nice. Oh the original battery's life is good; you can purchase 2 different higher capacity batteries, each come with a bigger metal back case for the phone. The bigger back will add approx. 1/3" to 2/3" to the total depth of the phone. I also purchased the FM radio headset for the phone. FM reception is very good. The headset can be used as a regular hands free headset. Only thing I don't like is you can't plug in the power adapter into the phone while the FM headset is plugged in. Oh and the radio will mute itself when a call comes in. The optional Clip on hands-free speaker isn't bad. But it is kind of big. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 87548 2002/4/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 voice active ringtone composer wap shortcuts menus dual lcds doggy reception weak vibration one beep alarm reminder hard for one hand operation dim screen fair battery life The Bottom LineIf looks matter, go for it. Otherwise, there are many options to choose...probably with lesser price too! Full Review I love gadgets and own many phones in the past like Nokia 3360, 5160, 6160, 8260, 8290, 8390, 8890, Ericsson T28, T39, LG TM-510, motorola P7389, StarTac etc. I got to say my 3 weeks old V60T is good but not impressive, and it is expensive period! I have listed only disadvantages for potential buyers to consider. If you can handle the following, then V60 may be your choice! Batter life only lasted about 2 days standby + 1 1/2 hour of talk time. The flip is tighter to flip vs LG 510 or StarTac. Earpiece doesn't play the ringtone when receiving an income call (only the phone will ring). I missed a lot of calls because of this since I put the earpiece on my best hearing ear. Vibration is weak and ring volume is too low to hear when the phone in the pocket. Don't turn your music on too loud while driving since you can't hear the ring and can't feel the vibration. Why use the belt clip when you can't hear or feel incoming call. Just hold it!!! By the way, vibrate and ring don't come on together when receiving calls. It will vibrate first and then ring ONLY. This is a stupid feature for all Motorola Phones!!!! No games and calculator for this version (only V60G has them!) although web-browser remains only in V60C. Menu navigation is slow in respond. Shortcuts are useful but the menu settings for Softkeys are not consistent. The V60T automatically turns the phone OFF when signal is not available, and then turns it back-on again. This is a horrible feature and shorten battery-life especially for areas that is covered weaker signals within both the digital and analog mode. (Since Analog mode use more battery to power up the signal.) While low-battery warning sign is up, V60T will start to Beep every 30 seconds or so to warn the user to recharge the battery. Again, this is also a BAD Design since why wasting more battery on warning when it is already running LOW!!!! The flash status light is completely useless since it is so dim and never really noticeable. (The Flash Status light is designed to notify user when the phone is within home area, roaming, or low battery.) Reception is weaker then the Nokia 3360 since I tested this by putting the V60T and 3360 next to each other in a weaker area within San Francisco. The result shows the V60T has no signal bar vs 3360 has two-signal bar. (Both of this phones are active under the same carrier.) The screen is dim vs 3360, and V60 has no infrared except for V60G version. Also, the alarm and calendar reminder only would Beep or vibrate ONCE! Certainly, this is not a feature you wish to have to keep track of your busy schedules. Overall, V60 meet the expectations to compete as a 'Cell-Phone' in this market. If you own it to impress your peers, go for it! However, if you are looking for a solid performer instead of for looks, V60 may not be the solid choice especially for its design, features and its price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280.00 87547 2000/8/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reputable company lightweight decent battery life small loaded w features somewhat small display pricey The Bottom LineOverall, I am happy with this phone. It's small and it has lots of features. Full Review My phone contract was coming up, so I decided it was time to get something more updated than my LG-110 phone. I wasn't sure whether or not to stick with Verizon for the service plan, but I had my eye on the Motorola V60. The price was a little high for my tastes-$250-espcially since I needed 2 phones. So I called Verizon and told them I wanted to cancel, to see if they were willing to give me a deal to make me stay. Surely enough, they offered a $50 rebate per line ($100 total, since I had 2 lines on the family share plan). Plus I knew that they were offering a $50 rebate on the phone also. So I ended up paying $150 for the phone. The phone is great, it's small and fits right in my pocket. It hold a LOT of phone numbers, more than I will probably ever need. And I love the voice-dialing. I do have a complaint about the phonebook--you can't sort by speed #, and THEN alphabetically. It lets you choose from EITHER alpha, speed #, OR voice name. The phone has several different rings, and you can set it to vibrate without opening the phone by pressing the buttons on the side. The datebook and alarm come in very handy. And the voice memo is great too, for recording a quick note, or a phone number during a call. No more fumbling for a scrap of paper to jot it down. The phone is very small and light, but I think they should have designed it so that you could flip it open from the bottom of the phone, not just the sides. They put a small groove on either side of the phone, so you really have to use two hands to open it, one holding and one to grip both sides to open. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87546 2000/3/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small size good reception voice notes unbelievable inconvenient antenna very expensive very primitive phonebook poorly designed interface The Bottom LineIf you have money and do not care about visual interface, buy this Motorola and enjoy it! Full Review I bought this phone after struggling for few days with LG TM-510 phone. Actually, this is the only option for small phones that Verizon is offering at this time (besides LG). I really liked the way the phone is built technologically, how buttons feel, etc. Even though the phone is small, button are comfortable and conveniently located on a keypad. The only inconvenience is inability to open the phone with one hand only, but life is not easy... Reception is fairly good, signal is strong, not inside the buildings though. Verizon is the best service in New York City, so I do not think signal quality depends on the phone itself. Since I switched to Verizon from Sprint, difference is significant. Phone book in Motorola v60c can hold up to 399 numbers. It is really nice, I already filled half of it. But I have several comments about phone book. I would say $400 phone could have better functionality and interface in phone book. I would expect that phone numbers in this country can be input in the usual format: (212) 555-1212. Apparently, Motorola designs its phones on another planet, so numbers in phone book are stored in pleasing and 'extremely convenient' format 2125551212! When I saw for the first time, I could not believe my eyes! I do understand that this is minor issue though... Next, I do not understand why Motorola decided to take a path different from all other phone manufacturers and Motorola older phones. Why in 21st century I have to see 5 entries in phone book for the same person just with different symbols? It is supposed to be one entry per person and then you would choose a phone type you need. Motorola should take example from Sanyo that produces the best user interface! Another very minor thing: if I have phone set on vibrate and use headphone in the car, there is no way I would hear the incoming call, unless I connect power DC adapter! Antenna is also a big incovenience. I can see from all Motorola phones that antennas are not their specialty. You can easily break V60c antenna with one finger. It constantly slides out of its place. Anyway, enough complaining. It is a good phone, I am not really sure it should be priced at $400, but... I also realise that Motorola cannot release a perfect phone, it has to have some room for improvement. I still think that Sanyo makes the best phones, unfortunately, they sell it for Sprint only. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87545 2000/2/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use voice dial connects to computer size weight ear bud for hands free kit cost The Bottom LineIf you can afford a $200+ phone, this is it. The flip design, sleek style, voice-dial, clarity, battery life, and computer connectivity make it perfect phone. Full Review After owning a Nokia 8260 for a year, I got tired of using a non-flip phone. So, I went out and got the V60 from AT&T Wireless. I called customer support for AT&T (being a long time customer) and they gave me a great discount. I got the phone for $240 on Jan 15 2002. The phone came with a free accessory kit that included extra battery, desktop charger (with a place to charge the phone and extra battery at the same time!), and a hands-free unit that clips onto your belt. The phone also had an ear-bud hands free kit. and wall charger. What I like: Small and lightweight It's a flip phone Voice dial Connect to USB port on Windows machine and will synch with Outlook (this is so convenient - cost $45 extra) Cool looking Easy to use Caller-id on outside and inside of phone Number buttons big enough for a man with big fingers to use Smart keys on the side are handy What I dislike: The ear-bud is terrible and very uncomfortable Can not download ringtones like the Nokia 8260 Basically, this is a great phone and an excellent upgrade from my Nokia 8260. Flip phones are much easier to use while in the car, and the voice-dial helps that even more. The battery life is very good. Well done Motorola! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240 87544 2000/3/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 features compact size ease of use price weight flimsy antenna The Bottom LineDo not buy this unless you are certain that your daily routine does not require a sturdier model with a better antenna and weight distribution for safe and easy carrying. Full Review I recently purchased a V60c for use with my wireless provider because I thought I wanted a flip phone, and the V60c certainly had everything I thought I would need, including compact size. However, while this phone would be really nice for some, there are some things to consider. Problem 1. Weight distribution. This phone is tiny but quite heavy. If you shove it in a pocket, it's going to wind up on its side. This is problematic because of issue number 2. Problem 2. Antenna breaks or bends easily. I can't believe how cheezy this antenna is. I've never seen an antenna so easily bent or broken in my life. I managed to bend mine after a couple weeks of use. I had the phone in the leather case with belt clip, and my shirt snagged the antenna and managed to pull it up enough to bend it as I was performing some work. Later I looked at the phone and noticed what had happened. From what I have read, others have had broken or bent antennas with this phone as well. Problem 3. Related to problems 1 and 2. All of the belt-clip type cases I've found for this cause it to protrude enough from my side that the aforementioned poorly designed antenna is easily snagged. For someone sitting at a desk all day or not performing physical movements beyond walking, this would probably not be an issue. For me, I've had to resort to carrying the phone in my pants pocket, which has its own problems (see number 1). Also, because of the surprising weight of the phone, this is uncomfortable at times. Since so many people here have commented on the phones positive aspects (and it is a nice phone), I wanted to mention that there are some considerations when purchasing this phone. If you are tempted to buy one over the web from your provider's web site, I'd recommend first finding a store that carries this model and looking at it in person before you buy. It may or may not be what you are looking for. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399.00 87543 2002/10/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good screen flip open type dual screen diminute size metalized futuristic styling high priced a nokia has more features no built in games The Bottom LineOne of the most stylish phones in the cellular market out today! Full Review Motorola has been the leader in the ultimate style, futuristic style phones. Who has not seen a single action movie in which a featuring actor/actress reaches for this pocket and talks in a stylish Motorola StarTAC phone? Motorola has the grasp on trend-setting, distinctive styling phones. And the V60c is no exception. Style ------- This phone has so much cache. Flip open style, with a metalized, brushed aluminum (real aluminum, no cheap fake plastics) case. You can distinguish this phone from far away. You will definitely be distinguished by its oh-so-cool looks. An external screen on the outside will display the calling number (provided by your cellular service carrier) so you can even see who's calling without even opening the phone. Great feature. The blue, Electro Luminiscent display (ELD) will also light up the external screen when a call comes in. Flip it open in the dark, and the blue ELD screen lights up the phone's screen backlight. The screen and some of the function scroll and menu selection keys are metallic colored. The navigation keys are sized correctly for any sized fingers. The retractable, short length antenna looks and feels strong, it will not break easily (like a Startac phone antenna) Voice Quality ------------------ Needless to say, Motorola has always been a leader in radio frequency technology. This phone has crystal clear quality while in digital mode in favorable network conditions (though this may vary depending of what cellular carrier you are subscribed to). The speaker is very good quality, calls come out strong and clear. Functionality ----------------- This phone is based on the latest generation of phones made by Motorola. New software powers this phone, which menus are so much different from those from previous generations. Scrolling through menu functions is acheived by two metallic buttons (up and down) which will browse through its menus. A built in browser will also allow you to browse the web, in text mode only, of course. The speed of the microbrowser is quick enough, so you can get movie listings, weather, check e-mail in a snap. And, this phone has the capability to double itself as an FM radio when you attach the special (though optional) FM radio adapter, a cool and slick metallic gray capsule, that attaches to the phone's bottom port through a black cable interface. This module is FM radio only. Keys are readily accessible, and are easy to dial when at dark, and you can dial numbers when you can't see the phone. Two function keys at the top will help you access on screen functions, and they are customizable. You can program the left key to pop up your phone book, and the right one for changing settings. Or change it to launch the microbrowser. This phone comes with a belt clip, too. Overall, this phone is the most desired phone to be out in the market today. Style, style style! You must have the phone and really use it to know what I'm talking about. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 87542 2000/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very trendy very clear small durable pricey at initial roll out The Bottom LineI actually have a V60i, but have used both. The entire series is the best, just like Mercedes and BMW are to the auto industry. Full Review I come to you from much experience in cellular use. Over the years, I have used several providers and phones. My service provider experience started with Cellular One, during the merger/take over with Verizon, then Voice Stream, then AT&T, now Verizon Wireless. Of all of the carriers, I consider Verizon to be the best. I have reception everywhere (also credited to the phone) and do not get any missed or dropped calls. My phone experience includes a Qualcomm 8200, Audiovox 9100, Nokia 5160, Nokia 8290, Motorola V60c, Nokia 3360, Motorola StarTAC 7868, Audiovox 9155-GPX, Motorola T720, and finally the newest Motorola V60i. With all of this experience, please take my advice. I have had my V60i for a couple of months, since upgrading from the T720 which lost more calls than it held on to. I have yet to find anything about it that I don't like. I only wish that Motorola could make a phone that merged the quality and dependability of the V60 series with the color and polyphonic ringtones of the TT720. Anyhow, the V60i is topps. The quality of calls is outstanding, just like the StarTAC always was. The meuns take some getting used to, but you can change the order of many of the menus and personalize it to best suit your needs and desires. For that matter, certain buttons can be changed to perform different functions. In my experience, this phone gets great reception everywhere (I even get and maintain reception and calls in elevators!!). The antenna seems flimsy, but is pretty durable when not extended. The holster is odd but very durable. It was designed to keep the antenna away from the user's body, so as not to break it. The problem with this is that it leaves the phone open to get caught on something else. That is where leather cases and such come in. I also like that this phone has 3 built in games, top-notch clarity, good battery life (is charging your phone every evening that difficult?) very loud ringers and speaker, and anything else that you could need in a cell phone. I purchased my first one for around $300, but experienced buyer's remorse and promptly returned it for another Audiovox. Don't ask me why, but I used the Audiovox for 2 months and bought the T720 for $200. Promptly went through 4 handsets with software, and hardware problems. Next, I got the V60i for $200 and was given free accessories for all my trouble. This is the best phone on the market. Buy one before they're gone. PS: I was told by a salesman at Verizon that Motorola was coming out with a V60x shortly that has a stationary antenna and some other features that are new and should prove to be another great addition to this "New StarTAC" series that we know as the V60. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87541 2000/7/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fairly simple menus big buttons appearance voice dialing lightweight clarity small size screen could be brighter weak battery for talk time The Bottom LineDefinitely buy it if you can get it for less than $200. Full Review I upgraded from a broken Nokia 8260 phone. I really like this as a replacement. It is small, easy to carry, and has an exceedingly long battery life by my standards. If I don't use it much, I actually do get a week of standby time. I haven't measured the actual talk time, but since the 'marketing' standby time of eight days is pretty close to reality, the claimed four-hour talk time is probably also accurate. (note also that I am in a digital coverage area, which apparently extends battery life.) I have found the audio quality to be excellent. It sounds very nearly like a corded phone. I like the voice dialing feature very much -- press a button, say the name or phrase, and you'll be connected. It'd be nice if it responded just a tiny bit quicker. Huge range of accessories for this phone. I bought the FM radio headset and feel a bit foolish, as the earbuds are quite uncomfortable in my ears. They are shaped the same as the included earpiece, so I'd suggest you check out the one that comes with it before buying a replacement. And remember that [money] for an FM radio is more than a shade outrageous. :-) I also have the hands-free kit, which I have used in the car occasionally. It's not as nice as a true 'car kit', which is a permanent mount, but it's good enough to be quite useful, and is much, much cheaper. The plastic holder that comes with the phone works well, but it holds the phone at an awkward angle, and the antenna catches on things. I believe this is so that the antenna is at the recommended minimum of one inch from the body. The replacement leather carrier is very cleverly designed and much more comfortable. I am not sure of this, but I don't think it's an official AT&T product. (they may be trying to escape liability this way... ie, if you held the phone too close to your body and got cancer, it's not their fault, their plastic holder was just fine.) At any rate, I find the leather case far superior to the included holder, and would recommend picking it up. It also protects the phone against scratches, which the included carrier does not. I can say that the phone is well-designed and useful. If the feature set appeals to you, I suspect you'll like this phone a lot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 87540 2000/2/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very mobile lightweight fairly simple to use menu does provide relatively difficult learning cost in comparison with similar models cost The Bottom LineIf you want a durable, reliable means of mobile communication, this is the phone for you. Full Review I've completed a 6 month evaluation of the Motorola V60c, and am generally impressed. The phone is very small, and easy to use without sacrificing display size or other options. It has a standard green display, with black text which can be used either as standard text, or easier to use bold font. Clarity and reception are exceptional. At the time of purchase, this was the reported to be the clearest phone available in my area. I can now see why. Even with low reception, it provides rather clear conversation. One of my favorite features is the LED signal indicator, and external caller id. The LED can be set to flash according to provider status (ie. red for roam, green for home calling area, etc.). I found this much easier than trying to decipher a complicated display, one quick glance answers many questions. One of the largest drawbacks when purchasing this phone was the learning curve. Having previously owned a Nokia 7160 with large, simple, easy to use display, I found adapting to the v60 a bit more difficult. Once navigation is understood, use is fairly simple and to the point. Overall, this phone screams simplicity. One light indicates reception status, opening and closing answers or hangs up, and maybe most importantly this is a phone for those who desire a phone for communication rather than entertainment. It does not come with any games, although they can be added depending on provider. Ringtones may also be created in the included composer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $350.00 87539 2002/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life ease of use size comfort weight style have to open phone to answer it price The Bottom LineI find it to be everything I was looking for. Even though the price point is a little steep, $250.00. With rebates you could cut the price in half. Full Review Having had a cell phone since the late 80's, this one is going to be the best yet. I have tried Mitsubishi,Nokia and Ericsson. I have always wanted a Motorola flip-phone. The V60 fits the bill nicely. I have found it easy to use, the battery life is more than acceptable. The belt holster is designed nicely but it is a little cumbersome to use. You have to make sure that the bottom clicks in. The up-side is that it is very comfortable to wear. The weight makes it barely noticeable on your belt. The buttons are smartly placed. When using the supplied ear piece, you can make a call without opening the flip. All you have to do is hit the voice button and say the previously recorded name. The obvious benefit is that you can make a call easily from your car while driving. The ear piece is pretty comfortable. The only down side is that is does not appear possible to answer a call without opening the flip. That would make that phone a lot easier to use. The menus are straight forward. It is similar to working within Windows. It even gives you the option of making voice short-cuts to frequently used menu items. I found it useful to make one for the battery meter. It seems the buttons are reversed from the Nokia phones. I find myself hitting the opposite button. It also gives you the option for customizing the menu line-up. I find the clarity very good. I could not figure out what the background hum was until I realized it went out as soon as the back light goes off. The light is also adjustable to different time limits. The flip fits very comfortable next to your ear. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 95.00 rebate 87538 2000/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use improved reception very cool data capable great sound pricey weird belt clip short battery life The Bottom LineIf you can get past the minor functional shortcomings, it's worth the price for such a nice phone. Highly recommended. Full Review ** Note - I'm using the V.60t model for TDMA systems such as AT&T wireless ** Background I've been a somewhat dissatisfied customer of AT&T for a while. I've had several phone models ranging from the Nokia models to every Panasonic version they offer. Dropped calls, crappy sound quality, etc.. I had essentially settled on the Nokia 8260, which worked very well. Unfortunately my Nokia got crushed in the 9/11 disaster, and I needed a phone immediately. Well, after trying many different models from various companies, the V.60t came out. And I got it for half price because I complained to AT&T. First impressions The phone is solid, well crafted and feels very sexy in your hand. Easy to hold, large buttons (for this small phone), and easy to read display. Ongoing use The first thing I've noticed is that the phone is very sensitive and picks up signal very, very well. This almost erased the perception I had that AT&T had poor signal service in the NYC area. Secondly, the volume of the speaker is very crisp, clear and loud. As good, if not better than a land phone. Additionally, I like the USB data cable option ($19 on the web.. don't buy the overpriced Motorola version it's $70!!). By downloading the free Yahoo! Truesync software, I was able to sync my cell phone, my Compaq iPaq, MS Outlook 2002 and my Yahoo! address book all at once. And when I make a change in one, it updates all. Very very nice, especially when you go through phones as fast as I do. I nearly lost the use of my thumb after programming 350 numbers about 6 times!! Some down points are that there is only a 10 number history in the sent/received logs. You cannot assign individual rings to certain callers in your phone book. (I use a special ring for the psycho ex-girlfriends that still stalk me.. he he). I also have the FM headset option. This $50 headset functions as a hands free headset as well as an FM stereo. Press the button on the wire to switch back and forth. Nice idea, but I have some complaints. The Headset plugs into the bottom of the phone, with a large, clunky plug. Rather clumsy. The radio works well enough, but the volume on the ear piece is not very loud, and the calls are rather difficult to hear. I don't recommend the headset. Lastly, the battery does not last very long. Even with the extended battery, and all the power-draining features turned off, it still lasts no more than two days with normal use. Final thoughts Overall, the phone is a joy to use, and serves it's purpose well. It's very classy looking, doesn't feel like a toy, but rather like a fine instrument. The shortcomings are minor considering that it's not a big deal to plug the cord in every other day, etc. Another note, AT&T's system does not allow for WEB access on this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87537 2000/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 powerful antenna excellent sound clarity stylish inconvenient external antenna extremely fragile The Bottom LineIf you have the funds and aren't bothered by the antenna, then this phone is definately your best pick. Full Review After having a horrible experience with Sprint PCS, I finally broke away from their ever-extending contract and switched to Verizon Wireless. When switching over, I found that the Motorolla v60c had JUST come out. Being the techno-junkie that I am, I quickly purchased this item and waited the hour long activation to enjoy my newfound freedom from fuzzy calls and horrendous customer service. The first thing that I noticed about the phone was that it was extremely stylish compared to the other phones on the market at the time. It is small, lightweight, and although it is small, it is very comfortable to hold. The sound quality is excellent, but I did notice a bit of a delay in the reaction times when dialing or entering phone numbers to memory. The external antenna is another con, which bothered me a great deal, since this phone was purchased for convenience and size, and yet it had an ugly antenna that was half the size of the phone itself. I must have broken the antenna four or five times while using this phone over the course of four months, and after speaking with some customer service representatives in-store, I've found that this is not at all unusual. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 550.00 87536 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 overall nice looking phone caller id on outside size antenna belt clip price features cost flip hard to open The Bottom LineIf you're looking to spend $400 on a cell phone, get something else. At least buy one that is 1xRTT compatible. I wouldn't spend $400 on an average phone. Full Review Let me start off by saying that it took 3 trys to get a phone that was actually functioning properly. The first phone had a bad external display, and on the second, the display would go blank on outside and inside after being open for about 5 mins and I would have to turn the phone off then back on to continue using it. So, after spending all that money, a week later I finally had a working phone. 2 negatives jump right out at you... the flip is overly hard to open, and I feel like I'm going to rip the antenna off every time I try to extend it. Now, 5 months later (and 5 broken cheap belt clips later) here is how I feel about this phone. As a phone the V60 is not bad. I test different phones for a popular company, and the V60 does hold up well in many areas when compared to other phones... areas such as size, weight, signal (holding calls in low signal areas), SMS features, use of mobile web... But, with all this said there are many other phones out there that cost less and hold up just as well and possibly better. I really do want to say something exceptional about this phone but it just is not. Frankly it's a disappointment. I was a firm believer in Motorola since their analog days, and would proudly sell anybody a startac, but I feel now that if somebody asks me to recommend a good CDMA flip phone, I would recommend the LG 510, or the newer LG VX1 (or VX10). Both of these phones do as much if not more, and the 510 costs quite a lot less. As for positives with this phone... They are completely unrelated to cellular service... in fact I think the best thing about the phone is the recognition. People always ask questions, and at bars and parties it can be a conversation starter. People always want to see it and know how it works. The negative that goes along with this is that most people confuse it for a TM 510, and when you paid $399 for it, that tends to make you angry. At this point in the wireless industry, so many things are changing. Everybody is moving towards 1xRTT and eventually towards 3G. There is a big emphasis on handsfree headsets and Bluetooth is paving the way for the wireless headset... the V60C is not compatible with either of these. Also many phones are now coming out with speakerphones without having to buy a bulky add on for your phone. Again, the V60 falls flat in this category. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87535 2002/3/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 very light looks backlighting sound quality battery life belt holster phonebook The Bottom LineAvoid it!!! Save your money, and buy a Star-TAC Full Review I have been waiting for the V60c to drop from it's $400 price tag for some time, so when I walked into a Verizon store and saw it for $200, I plunked down my credit card and grabbed one...replacing my faithful StarTAC. Well, was I disappointed!! First and foremost was poor call quality...the phone has a low level hiss in the background on all calls, something the StarTAC never had. I found this very annoying when using the phone in a quiet environment. And the volume levels when using the handset were eratic. When using the phone in dark conditions, the backlight was almost non-existent. It was especially hard to read the display and locate the "Send" and "End" keys. Next issue was the slick looking aluminum shell, which for my large hands was quite slippery and hard to hold. making matters worse was the so called "400 name" phone directory; what a total scam. My StarTAC holds 100 names with 4 numbers for each, for a total of 400 entries. The V60 advertises that it holds 400 names with the ability to indicate up to 4 numbers for each entry(i.e. home, cell, office, etc). I assumed that meant it could hold 400 names with 4 numbers for each....Wrong!!! It holds 400 numbers total, exactly the same amount as my old StarTAC, but to make matters worse, the V60 displays ALL numbers when using the directory, as compared to the Star-TAC which displays each name in order, then you click to "drill down" into the various numbers for a name. If you have alot of multiple entries for individuals, the V60 forces you to scroll though each entry for each person...a real drag when you have multiple entries (numbers) for each contact. And finally the belt clip / holster. What a terrible design...it is very hard to properly clip the phone into the holster, and to get it out again. And, the phone is placed into the holster with the external display facing out, which on a NYC subway will just result in scrapes and scratches on the face of this very pretty, yet not so functional phone. It's no wonder the price of the v60 is dropping fast, and from what the VERY helpful folks at Verizon wireless (they took the V60 back, no questions asked) say, they are being returned at a record pace. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87534 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very durable easy to use stylish compact weak owners guide no web access The Bottom LineLight, durable, compact, stylish, crystal clear. All the things one looks for in a cellular phone. Full Review While recently changing plans and carriers, I was offered the V60 for a much lower price than the one on the label. I decided to go ahead spend the extra money, and get a taste of the good life. It was the best decision I could have made. While being very compact, the phone feels great in my my hand, and after some practice, can be easily opened with just one. It is very stylish, and yet simplistic in it's look and use. The metal case has proven to be a big plus for me as well. Being a contractor, my phone is subjected to bangs, bumps and drops, and the V60 still looks as good as it did the day it came out of the box. I don't use a case, as I feel it would cheapen the look of a high quality piece. The battery life is fine, as long as you condition the battery as per the instructions. I use my phone all day long, and have yet to hit the bottom line of power in one day. The clarity of the phone, even in hands free mode, is far superior of any phone I've owned in the past, and signal has never been a problem, even in basements ! I use all the features, and find them very useful, at least once you master how to use them. I found the book to be very basic, and not going into detail about the use of the features. It took several phone calls to Motorola (each one a good experience) before I finally figured it all out. The other thing that I miss is the web access, but that is more about my provider than the phone. I enjoy the radio, as dumb as it seems. Working all day, the radio makes it easier for me to work, without having a separate radio attached to me. All in all, the phone is simply the best on the market, and I would make a must have on everyone's list. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.00 87533 2000/7/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light wieght looks small good battery life durable sleek antenna The Bottom LineMy final recommendation would be if you want a phone with good battery life, durablitiy, looks and features this is the phone for you. Full Review Introduction This is the first and not last motorola phone i will have. Previously i have had a nokia the long stick one, a nokia 3360, and a samsung a310. This is an awsome phone looks features and its small and light weight. Signal This phone gets a great signal where ever i am and even places i didn't get on my previous phones. The sound quality is also excellent. Looks As far as looks go this is the best looking phone on the market by far. Its sleek metal exterior will make you feel like you own the world. Battery life The battery life on this phone is pretty good, on motorola's site it says it gets 120 hours standby (5 days) or 4 hours talktime which is pretty good. When you get a full charge it will be around that amount of time. Size The motorola v60c is a very small phone but not to small like a toy. It fits perfectly in your pocket. Even today its hard to find phones that are as small as this one. Screen The screen is a decent size i wish it was a little larger though but it dosnt matter to me. Antenna This one of the only problems of this phone but is a small one. When i just got the phone (4 days after)the phone was in my pocket and when i took it out to answer a call it had snapped off. The antenna a verizon are pricy but you always can purchase one off of ebay for pretty cheap. Conclusion This is a great phone with many features, light wieght, and small and sleek. All though it is pricy its well worth the money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87532 2000/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 pim style phone book password protection no caller groups sound quality t9 text entry is bothersome The Bottom LineThis is a great phone, and were it not for the 8890, it would be the best phone on the market. Full Review One of the things that are a given in life is that technology is continuously improving and that last year's best will usually be bettered in a short period of time. Given this absolute, I was eager to give the new Motorola V60 a try. I have used a Nokia 8890 for over a year now and it is the Best Cell Phone I have ever used, (Please see my opinion on it from last year.) Now don't get me wrong. If you have never used the Nokia 8890, then you will probably be very happy with the Motorola V60C. However, if you have had an 8890, and have learned to use some of it's more advanced features, you will turn the Motorola in and go back to the 8890. Key shortcomings of the Motorola. 1. Sound Quality. I use my Nokia 8890 anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 minutes a month. I would say it is safe to say that 99 percent of these were used with the hands-free headset that it is supplied with. The Nokia is the clearest sounding phone I have ever used. The sound Quality is better than any other Wireless phone on the market, including the best home cordless phones. Once you get used to use to the hands-free headset, it is very difficult to use a phone in the conventional way of holding the phone up to your ear. I tried the Motorola with an aftermarket headset and the quality was horrible. Do not get an aftermarket headset for this phone. I went back to the dealer and paid the extra money for an OEM headset, and the sound quality was significantly better but there was a problem that I couldn't get use to. I could hear my own voice, when I spoke, in the earpiece. The sound quality of the person that I was talking to was ALMOST as good as the Nokia, but the sound of my own voice in my ear was very annoying. 2. Ease of Operation. If you have ever used a Nokia 8890, or 8290, or 6190 you will know what I mean. These phones have the easiest, simplest interface out there. Using clever smart keys that change as the circumstances dictate, it is easy to navigate the many features of the Nokia. The Motorola has a good interface, much better than the Siemens S40, but a distant second to the Nokia. 3. Lack of Caller Groups. With the Nokia, you can assign names in your phone book to a group, and then assign a special ring tone to that group. IN other words, the phone will ring differently if your wife calls you, than if a business associate calls you, or an unknown number that is not in your phone book. The phone can be twenty feet away, and you could be busy doing something, and you will know who is calling you from the ring that is emitted. On top of that, the Nokia has a ring option that lets you choose which Group will allow the phone to ring. In other words, you can easily set the phone up, so that the phone will only ring if your wife calls, and all other calls will be silenced and sent to voice mail. 4. Inadequate Call Logs. The Nokia 8890 keeps track of the last ten Missed Calls Numbers, Dialed Calls Numbers, and Received Calls Numbers. The important difference is that the Nokia will keep a log of the phone numbers and not the calls. I know that is a little confusing, so let me get a little more in depth. If you look at the Motorola log, it will show you the last ten calls you dialed or received. Let's say that you received an important call from a client early in the morning and needed to retrieve that number to call later in the day. Unfortunately, you received 4 calls from your secretary, 3 from your wife, and 3 more from your buddy regarding tee time. With the Motorola, the call log will show Ten calls, and the client which was 11 calls ago will be gone. The Nokia will show you the last 10 Numbers that called you, and then you can look at the options and see the call times for up to 5 calls. In other words, the Nokia will hold information on the last 50 Missed Calls, Dialed Calls, and Received Calls. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the Missed Call log is available anytime from the menu, whereas the only time you can see missed calls on the Motorola is if you have just missed a call, and the Missed Call alert is on the display. 5. Battery Life. The Nokia will give you at least three hours of talk time. I was never able to get more than 2 hours with the Motorola. 6. Text Input. If you send a lot of text messages, the Motorola will drive you crazy. Both phones use the standard T9 Predictive Text Input. Before T9, you had to press buttons multiple times to get the letter to cycle. For example, to type the word "good", you had to press "4" once (G), "6" three times (O), pause for the cursor to shift, "6" three more times (O), and finally "3" once (D). that is, you had to press 4, 666, pause, 666, and 3 to type good. With T9, you never have to press a button more than once. To type "good", you press 4663. The phone will predict what word can be spelled from those number combinations. Generally, the phone will predict the word you want, but there are many possible words from certain combinations. For example, "good" and "home" both would require 4663. On the Nokia, during text entry, you would have to hit the asterisk button to cycle between the available choices. The Motorola will show you four or five choices on the bottom of the display. The annoying part is that 9 times out of ten, the word selected is the one you want. On the Nokia, you simply go on to the next word. With the Motorola, you have to confirm every entry and hit the OK button. If you send a lot of text messages, and have used the Nokia, you will never be happy with the Motorola's need to confirm every word. Advantages to the Motorola 1. Phone Book. The Motorola has a much superior phone book to the Nokia 8890. The Nokia is no slouch. The 8890 will store 250 numbers, and I can also store another 250 numbers on the SIM chip. The Motorola will store twice as many number (1000) and you can assign more than one number to a person. In other words, you can put an entry in for John Doe, and then assign a home, business, cellular and fax number for him. 2. Password Protection. The Motorola has a feature that some will use and some will not. You can password protect your phone book entries. While it is nice to secure your phone numbers from prying eyes, I don't know if it is worth the need to enter a password everytime you wanted to call a number from your phone book. They are stored for convenience, aren't they? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 87531 2000/12/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features intelligent design looks size heart stopping price if bought without service The Bottom LineWhile the price will scare many, you clearly get what you pay for. Full Review I bought the Motorola v.60t (same as the v.60c, except for use on TDMA networks) to replace my Startac 7797. Primary considerations for me were that it be a flip phone. I often receive unintended phone calls from my friends who have candy-bar style phones. I think the flip feature prevents this. This phone oozes sex appeal. The metal case is too cool. Also, this phone has voice dialing, a datebook that can be synchronized with PC PIMs, an FM tuner (okay, who needs that, but who needs to play Snake on their cell phone either?), 32 ring tones PLUS 32 programmable tones (if only I could read music to do the programming), caller-id display on the outside of the phone, programmable macro keys, customizable menus, blue-backlit display, longer battery life, and many other features I have yet to explore. One feature that did not make it from the Startac is the ability to assign a distinct ring tone to a number stored in memory. I suppose the outside caller-id takes care of that. Also, if you've already committed to using a hands-free earpiece for the Startac, the jack is the same so that's one piece of equipment you don't need to repurchase. Yes, the clip is a little bulky, but this phone is small enough to fit well into any pocket without the clip. The flip side of bulkiness is that at least it's sturdy. The other flaw with the holster is that the phone does not release from or seat into the clip very easily. Thus, if you're used to taking the phone out of the holster to answer it, get used to taking the whole unit out. Unlike the Startac, the phone loses no functionality with the clip on. When I had the Startac, I was startled at all the unused blank space on the earpiece side of the hinge. I always thought that this phone could be smaller if they moved the display onto the other side of the hinge and reduced the keypad side. Motorola heard my cries. This is now an intelligent design with virtually no wasted space. The voice dialing was a pleasant surprise. I have not been impressed with other applications because they never seemed to work and were too vulnerable to background noise. This function works well. It gets a better signal than my Startac. I had my last phone for nearly 3 years and I foresee keeping this one for at least as long. Granted, its very expensive, but at that price, you should be able to bargain for some freebies like a car charger, Plantronics earpiece, etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 549.00 87530 2000/2/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size external caller id sleek design features price flimsy antenna The Bottom LineI would definately reccomend this phone to anyone who is willing to shell out a little extra dough! It's worth it! Full Review After having my motorola v120c for about a year, I got bored with it and decided it was time to take things up a notch. I went searching for a new phone, and fell in love with the motorola v60c. The only thing that turned me away was the high cost. Sure, it was only about $150 at the verizon store if you signed up for a plan, but I already had a plan and just wanted the phone which was nearly $400 by itself! I came here, to epinions, and read just about every entry on this phone to see if it was really what I wanted. I decided it was, but I wasn't about to pay $400 for it. So I searched on ebay until I won a brand spankin' new one for about $150 which made me very happy. The day I received it in the mail was like Christmas! I immediately hooked it up to the charger to give it just enough juice so I could play around with it before I had to leave for work. The menu system was extremely easy for me to learn because it's almost exactly the same as the menu system on my old phone...so I had no problem there. One thing just about everyone mentioned, is the fact that the antenna is terrible, and this is true. I figured it would be much like my v120c, which is a bit flimsy but I never had any major problems with it. This antenna is much worse. It looks to be made almost entirely out of plastic! Luckily, I've found the reception to be fine with the antenna down so hopefully I shouldn't have too much of a problem with it. But that is definately one thing that all owners of the phone should beware of! I brought the phone to my verizon store to have them switch my phone number from the old phone to this one. Just like that, it was ready to go! The external caller ID is obviously one of the best features on this phone. Probably the reason many people buy it in the first place. It's wonderful not to have to open the flip to see who is calling! Another complaint I noticed is that the flip is hard to open. I have not had a problem with this at all. I suppose with some practice you could do it with one hand..but is it really that big of a deal to have to use two? The outside volume/vibrate buttons are nice too. It's easy to just hit a button and have it be on vibrate instead of having to scroll through menus for when you're in a movie theater. I have found the reception to be wonderful. Of course, that also depends on your area. I have been very happy with verizon wireless in my area and have always found the reception to be very clear! I have never once had a call dropped, or even had any major static on my end. Another common complaint is the short battery life. I also have not had a problem with this. But then again...I don't use my phone 24/7 as some business people need to. I find I can get about a week and a half of life out of the battery without charging it if I don't make/receive too many calls. One of my favorite things is the blue backlighting of the screen and external caller ID. It's definately a welcome change from the usual green lighting. The lighting on the keypad is not very good, however. It's quite hard to see which button is which in the dark. However, once you get familar with the button placement, it's not hard to figure out. I really like the weight of the phone, and how it feels when I'm talking on it. It's just heavy enough to feel like I'm actually holding something, yet not so heavy I feel like I'm talking into a brick. It's size is perfect to slip into your pocket or purse, however I suggest using the included holster, or a leather case of some sort. I rather like the holster (even though most people don't seem to like it at all) Yes, it takes a few seconds to get the phone in and out. But you're still saving time than if you had to fish it out of your pocket or purse. I couldn't count the number of times I've missed a call on my old phone because I couldn't find it in my purse. This way with it clipped to my belt/pants, I can always hear it ring and it's right there to grab. No the phone doesn't have a calculator or games...but honestly who needs those? I mean, how often are you going to be thinking "gee, I wonder how much 12 times 3858 is?? I better whip out my handy dandy phone!"? Or when are you really going to be so bored that you have to resort to playing snake on your cellphone?! Yes, I admit the games are kinda fun to play around with every now and then, but in my opinion they're just a useless waste of battery life. This phone has a lot of other features that I'm not going to mention because it would take forever. Just check out the motorola website for complete info on everything it can do! All in all...I love everything about this phone. (Except for the antenna!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87529 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 outside flip display size battery life large belt clip The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone, the Motorola V60 is a great choice. Full Review After almost a year and a half with my Motorola TalkAbout Cell Phone, it was time for a new phone. I wanted good battery life, flip styling and of course to look cool. The Motorola V60 was my choice after reading the reviews and seeing it around town. First off the prices have come down, I paid 120.00 { you can haggle with these phone guys, they make a commission on each phone }. __THE LOOK:__ It's little, it's cool, it's a flip with an outside display for caller ID, time and date. The inside display is large enough for easy viewing the buttons are small but not to small, never missed one yet. Fit and finish of phone is outstanding but removable belt clip almost seems to double size of phone. __The Features__ Visible caller Id on outside flip or inside if flip is open. Voice dialing for up two twenty names, very cool! The phone book can hold 400 entries and you can have different numbers for each person,home,work. There is about 32 different ring types plus you can program your own if you know how to read music. There is a date book that can be programed to alert you of events you program. The battery life so far has been outstanding, I'm charging it every forth day, of course depending on usage every person will have different results. All and all, I love this phone, the reception is great I'm able to make and get calls in places I was unable to with my Talkabout. I've had the phone for three weeks now without a problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 87528 2000/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very smalllightweight phone great features ease of use price antenna The Bottom LineBuy this phone. The customization and features are great and you will REALLY appreciate the size and wieght! Full Review I purchased this phone off of eBay to use with my Verizon wireless account. I chose the V60 because I wanted a phone that would fit in my pocket, but still had many features. I already knew it had to be a Motorola, so the V60 was the perfect fit. I just upgraded from the Motorola v120 (see my review on that one too) and I was extremely pleased. This phone has all of the luxuries, features, and options, but is contained inside sleek, silver, flip-style body. This phone as all the greatest features from customizable menus, many ring-tones (even downloadable ones from the web), external caller ID, etc. The phone was a breeze to use. The external caller ID is a feature you should not be without. When the phone rings you can see who it is before you answer it, and then employ the use of the active flip to answer it. With other flip phones with no external display, you either lose caller ID capability or active flip use. The open answer style of the phone is great for driving or any time you are slightly distracted. I was even able to open it with one hand. The menu system on this phone is second to none. The absolute greatest feature is the customizable menu. If there is an option you use more often, you can move it right up to the top and vice versa. This is a great phone, but nothing is perfect. The biggest problem I had was the antenna. When it broke, I could not just unscrew it and replace it. I had to go to the verizon dealer who charged me upwards of $50 to replace it. From that point on I was always worried about breaking it again! The only other complaint is the price. When I purchased it, the V60 was one of the most expensive phones on the market. But now you can get it for less than $200 which is a deal for any flip phone of this size and weight let alone this great model. I recommend this phone to everyone. If you need a business phone this is for you. If you just want one to keep around for convenience, this is the best choice too. Don't go with the lesser known models, choose Motorola and the V60 and you will be happy you did! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87527 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception sizeit just plain looks good voice clarity so so battery life The Bottom LineIf you can afford it, get it, this phone is the best thing going today! Full Review I have owned a few cell phones, Nokia 8260, 6162, Motorola Startac 7797 and Ericksson 677, and with out a doubt Motorola V60t outshines them all. First, and in my opinion, most importantly, the reception is great, better than the Nokia 8260, which in my opinion is an excellent phone in its own right, but the V60t captures and holds a signal better, there are certain areas in NYC where before I would have to step outside an establishment in order to make a call, not with the v60t, outstanding reception. Second, the voice clarity of the v60t is superb, for such a small phone it has a lot of range, not to deep, not to tinny. Third, It's feature set is outstanding. Voice recording, voice commands, shortcuts, scheduler are a few of its features. Last but no least, the phone just flat out looks good, when I first held it in my hands I knew it was a cut above all other cell phones, from its well-rounded curves to its anodized aluminum finish, this phone is very classy. The two down sides are battery life, even with a extra-capacity battery I get around four and a half to five hour talk time or about nine days standby. The other minus, its price, $400.00! But all in all in my opinion, this is the standard bar for which all cell phones are currently judged. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87526 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception quality look size none yet The Bottom LineNice! Full Review I just purchased the Motorola v60i (not the V60c, although they are very similar) and I couldn't be happier with a phone. My service is through Verizon in the Minneapolis, MN area. I had been using a Samsung through Sprint PCS, but in the last few months had been suffering from poor battery life and reception in part of the city. I believe it was a combination of Sprint PCS and the phone. The price tag on Motorola was $200 with a $50 mail in rebate. That is more than I would typically want to pay for a phone, but I am now a "power user" and was willing to pay for reception. I don't know the details (and am not going to copy and paste from their web site) but the sales person mentioned that this phone has a new chip technology that makes it the best sounding phone on the market. I believe it. Most people tell me that their aren't issues on either end of the line regardless of battery level. I also wanted a phone that was small enough to easily carry around. I am not big on the belt clip, so I found myself without my phone often because I didn't want to carry it. This thing is so tiny it easily fits in my pocket, yet is solid when opened. It has a good weight to it. As for the features--- it has them all. More rings than I need, a very easy to use navigation system, a web browser (addicting!), and I really like the external caller ID/clock. Battery life has been solid, I use it an hour or two a day and charge it every night. So far no problems with running out of juice. Take a look at this phone if you are shopping for a new one. They are always on display at the cellular stores. Its performance matches its look! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87525 2000/7/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 external display more ring tones status symbol very nice looking battery life display quality reception The Bottom LineIf you really want it, get it. I "really wanted it" and now I am really returning it. Full Review I called verizon wireless asking when they were getting this phone, I went to the store and talked to the sales guy about when the phone was coming in. And then, the day comes, I call.... "Are the V60's in?" - "Yes"! And I was off in a mad dash to the store. I get there, stand in line, shell out $440 including tax.... get home and play with my new toy for a bit. But then, I realize that i am getting very little signal. This is odd because with the Tri-Mode starTAC I have had for the past 2 year and a half this was never a problem. So, I hope in my car and take a drive with the phone, to see what kind of service is gets. Low and behold it did get good service is high service areas... But, my main observation was this, when a normally functioning phone would get 3 bars of signal strength, the V60 seems to fail. I got only one bar of signal and was unable to get calls, and calls i made sounded horrible. I did just yesterday take the phone back to the store. They said they would be glad to take it back or, I could wait until they got another shipment and try a new one... I do commend verizon for their help with this issue. I was sure I would have trouble in the return/exchange process. It is very possible I got a "lemon", but I am worried that all the V60's might perform this way. So, make sure you are aware of all return policies before you shell out the dough. Aside from the reception problem I had.... The phone is one of the coolest things I have ever played with. But, I do think motorola missed the mark on the holster clip. It can be a pain to snap the phone in, and the clip doubles the thickness of the phone... The Display is an older type display, but motorola seems to have made up for that by including some cool animations. The only drawback I see is the brightness of the backlight. When held next to eachother the StarTAC's backlight is much bighter than the V60's. I have a feeling they just include the older display so they can come out with a newer model with the better display... It's the same thing they did when the digital starTAC was first released. I hope this helped in your decision to purchase your phone. An extra note: For years the cell phone market has been just trying to produce the smallest most compact pieces of equipment possible. But these days, with the advent of high-powered slim PDA's, Two-way pagers, wireless email, etc... It seems to me that the focus should turn back to quality... A tiny phone shouldn't be put out on the market if it does not meet a high quality standard. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400 87524 2002/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 sleek design small screen plastic antenna price tag very confusing menu uncomfortable feel stiff buttons The Bottom LineWait for the next line of the Motorola V series. Don't pay more then $149.00 for this phone! Full Review Let me say that this is one of the sexiest looking phones on the market. Motorola had good intentions with this model, but it needs a little more help in the engineering department. My guess would be if the price tag was around $149.00 or so my opinion would be different. First off, I really can't see how anyone could justify such a hefty price tag. At $279.00, it's no steal! I do have to say that the phone has a very sleek sexy outer shell, but unfortunately that doesn't hold much weight for those of us that rely on a great full functioning phone. I found a lot to complain about in the short time I owned this phone -- so much in fact that I returned the phone for a complete refund. I like to think of myself as a fairly bright guy so why was the menu on this phone so hard to use? I'll tell you why. Most of the menu options that I commonly use (ringer change, phonebook, silence call, voicemail, call history and calendar) are hidden. It takes a lot of probing to find these options. Menus are setup to be a convenient way for people to get the most out of their phones. All of the common functions are there for you to easily access them with the push of a few buttons...but not with the V60. You will have to push a ton of buttons. Although the phone is very sleek, it leaves something to be desired ergonomically. The phone just didn't feel comfortable in my hands. I found the reception to be decent in my home coverage area but what's up with the antenna? It is a very hard plastic that can and will break easily. I think Motorola could have really stepped up to the plate with a better antenna. I had a really hard time with the internal screen. Being that the phone is an ultra small flip phone I understand that the screen has to be small, but Motorola could have made better use of the space. This was such a huge turn off for me being used to the large screen of the Sprint PCS Sanyo 5150. Viewing the screen at night or in direct sunlight also left something to be desired. My final gripe is that the buttons feel cheap. It's very hard to press all of the buttons on this phone. I live in Minnesota, and it gets extremely cold here. It would be a complete nightmare to use this phone with those buttons outside in the winter time. I guess in closing, if the price tag was lower it may be worth it. Compared to other phones the V60 has a long way to go. I hope this helps! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 279.00 87523 2000/6/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 many features compact sleek can give you shocks while charging poor antenna design The Bottom LineTry a Siemens or Nokia. Better range and now the features blow Motorola away. Full Review Though I got my phone on a discount it was still much more than the competition. However, it is a nice little phone at first glance. The features are really nice, and the voice option once you learn it can be nice while driving. The menu is easy to use, it has a brushed aluminum case that is classy looking. The reception is not always that good compared to my Nokia, which really surprised me. I had to get an aftermarket antenna to boost my range because that stubby little black one just didn't do the trick. The aftermarket one only improved it marginally. There are buttons on the side that you can change your ring tone with, and the thing I dislike about them is they can get pressed easily while sitting let's say...on a bar stool.. and change the vibrate to a soft ring, or off entirely. That alone has gotten me in the dog house with the wife as she tried to call me and until I looked at the screen and saw I missed her calls, I had no clue because the vibrate feature had turned to OFF by virtue of rubbing against my leg while in the holster. The other thing is when it is charging, it can give you a shock. Plug it into the house charger and hold onto the phone. Sometimes you can feel the juice just surrounding it like a Star Trek Force Field. After talking to one of the test engineers who designed this phone, he said he was not surprised as it was a known issue in the lab before it went to market. I would think a company like Motorola would have been more careful of the liability involved by marketing a phone they knew could shock their customers. But with a metal case and nothing to really ground the field, I suppose I am not surprised. But I would hate to fall in the water with this thing on my hip. Most likely not enough to do much damage, but I am sure you'd feel it. Motorola Customer Service leaves much to be desired as well. Every canned answer they have basically tries to push the problem off on the customer instead of their design. Like when the antenna broke off INSIDE the phone. I had to take it back to the store where I bought it and get a replacement as Motorola refused. I later found the broken antenna was the most common cause of returns on this phone. For the money? I would make another choice. Spend less or around the same and get better customer service, a better product, and no shocks when taking it off the charger. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87522 2000/7/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 great features very small easy to use amazing battery life the build quality isn t great bit short lived The Bottom LineSmall, convenient; very useful indeed; easy to forget, though! And the durability is a problem - after 8 months it seemed to have had its best days. Full Review I bought this phone on one of my periodic upgrades on a UK network (1-2-1). It didn't cost me anything, as I'm entitled to a free upgrade once a year anyway. The phone is very easy to use indeed. There's a convenient memory function for all your phone numbers, with a total of 250 spaces for them (100 on the SIM card, 150 on the phone itself). Text messaging is easy to do on the phone, and the general menu button is great to use and very convenient. When you have missed a call, or got a message, a separate icon comes up in a corner of the screen and clicking on the nearest button accesses whatever the item waiting is. There is a great voice activated service available. It takes a few minutes to set up, but once done it's great. If you want to access the function, you click a smart button on the side of the phone, and then talk to it, telling it what number to dial (by name, if stored.) The battery life is great on this phone. I use mine a lot for work, and it lasts 3-4 days even with lots of calls in and out. It lasted a week on holiday when I wasn't using it much. The buttons are very small, and I think it is a phone that would cause problems for people with large hands or fingers - I found it great to use, but my boyfriend found it too compact around the keypad. The one real problem is durability. It's not the best build quality. For my purposes, getting an upgrade as I do on the contract I'm on, this didn't matter so much, but it's worth bearing in mind. This phone is WAP enabled, and has an infra-red port for easy data connection. It is easy and convenient to print material out from this phone, and also easy to connect to the internet with. The ariel doesn't need to be pulled out, which I like as there is no danger of snapping it off when extended. The keys are covered by a flap which can either be pulled out, or can be flipped out by pressing a silver button in the reverse side of the phone. I like the flap idea. My first phone had one, and I found it very useful. My last-but-one phone didn't have the feature, and I found that keys got pressed in my bag, as I never remembered to lock the keyboard! Since then, I've made such a flap a priority. The flap also means that when you are using the phone, you have your ear and mouth against the speakers and microphone, which saves contortions of the face. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 87521 2000/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 external lcd display very sleek design accessories new gui not very user friendly battery price The Bottom LineGet it if you like a folding phone like Startack and want to external LCD. Full Review I used a Startac until last month when I bought this phone. The single most important reason for this purchase was the external LCD, which helps a lot to screen incoming calls without having to open the phone. In general, I value utility more than feature's coolness quotient. This is one feature that is very useful. The user interface for phone book is however disappointing. In the Startac, you could store multiple phone numbers for one person without having multiple entries per person, here you will need entries like wife-cell, wife-office etc. The problem with this of course is that you have enter wife three different times. There are also too many clicks before a phone number is stored. I believe twice as many as startac. The other problem with user interface is there aren't too many keyboard short cuts. So if you want to turn the phone ring to vib, you will need to find the menu to sub-menu and then select. It would be nice to just have two-key combination to turn phone to vib. I need to toggle back and forth a lot and use this feature heavily. I am told there are some secret short cuts on some website, but I have not found those yet. The battery is better than the phones I had before, but not as per specification. I bought the extended battery which says will last for 242 hours. That is around 10 days on hold and 240 minutes of talk time. I think they need to explain this spec a bit. Does it mean that if I speak of 20 minutes, then the hold time is reduced drastically to 100 hours? Also it would have been nice to have a battery charger so when I am using one battery the other is charging. I pretty much never turn off my phone. In general, the accessories are not there to use this phone to its max potential. The data kit, case and car charging adapter are not yet available or out of stock everywhere that I have seen. There is a radio in the phone, which helps but again the ear bugs are silly on the adapter chord which is another $60. They never stay, I thought I could use this for workouts when on business travel, but with those earbugs that is not going to be the case. Bottomline, great phone with one compelling feature. If you need that feature, buy it, if not don't bother. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 87520 2002/3/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice recognition feature size styling might be overkill fo those who only want a phone standard battery life The Bottom LineIt's a must have for all you gadget geeks out there! Full Review Well it came time for my wife and I to ditch our four year old Nokia 6160s. Four years ago they were state of the art, but with the advancements in technology, they were as technologically "chic" as a VCR. Not to mention that they were getting pretty beat up. Mine would go dead if it was jarred ever so slightly and the display on my wife's phone would periodically disappear. Why the V60? My brother purchased this phone in Nov '01 and paid over $300 for it. I was immediately drawn to it, but there was no way I was going to spend that much for a cell phone. Imagine my surprise when I walked into an AT&T store and saw the V60 selling for $125! I immediately snatched two of them up, one for me and one for my wife. Features: I thought that the "voice dial" was a gimmick, but have found it to be truly useful, especially when in the car and it's not safe to take your eyes off the road to dial a number. The text messaging works well and I appreciate the extra display on the outside of the phone that allows you to see who is calling without having to open it up. The phone book is straight forward and is as easy to navigate through as was my old Nokia. Ergonomics It feels very comfortable in your hand and while your talking. Since this is my first "flip" phone, I don't know if this is just exclusive of the V60 or just flip phones in general. The buttons are substantial, and you actually feel like your holding an expensive piece of electronics (which it is) and not a toy. The compact size makes it feel less intrusive when it's on my belt or in my pocket and my wife likes the fact that it doesn't take up a lot of space in her purse. The "smart" button and the volume controls are easy to reach and use. I have yet to fully utilize the calendar feature, so I'll refrain from commenting on that feature just yet. I'll update later. Functionality Calls are clear and it seems to be able to pull in a signal better in places that my old Nokia had difficulty. As I mentioned, the voice dial and speech recognition for shortcuts works as promised. Just keep your commands to one or two words, and speak clearly. As I mentioned before, text messaging and paging work flawlessly. Battery usage While it's still early, it seems as though battery runs down quicker or maybe it's just me. The battery icon on the phone only has only three LCD segments, so if you rely simply on that, you may not get an accurate depiction of the status. If you go into the PHONE STATUS feature, the battery meter there is broken down into five segments which gives a better representation of the state of the battery charge. Again, I'm still getting acclimated to this phone, so it's probably more of a trust issue at first. In summary While the price was somewhat prohibitive initially, it's getting more reasonable now. It's a must have for all you gadget geeks out there like me. If all you want is a phone to make calls and don't care about the "bells and whistles", there are cheaper (or free) phones out there. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 87519 2001/7/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 solid feel feature rich small large phone book light well built intuitive menus external lcd display stylish average battery life no holographic display expensive takes getting used to the small size The Bottom LineGreat tri-mode phone with every feature imaginable. Easy to use, light, small, slim. Currently one of the most advanced phones on the market. Full Review I bought this phone after returning the LG 510. Verizon offers a 15-day return policy and the store representative suggested I try both phones since I could not decide. I used the LG 510 (read my other review for this phone) for a few days before returning it for the Motorola V. 60. The V. 60 is very stylish with a metal finish that, somehow, keeps the radiation levels on this phone extremely low (read phone ratings). The phone has an external LCD display and side buttons that allow certain functions without opening the phone. For example, one can adjust the type of alert (ring, vibrate, silent, vibrate + alert) using buttons situated on the left side of the phone. You can adjust the ring volume, too, or view the time or incoming call data on the LCD display. The phone has a large 400 name phone book which I favor. Very importantly, there already is software out (TrueSync) that allows synchronization between the phone's phone book/calendar and other PIM managers such as Palm or Outlook. I am a large fan of this because of the amount of data entry one would have to do without it. All you need is to buy the optional Data connectivity kit for this phone that comes with software and cables. This phone has 4 alert modes, each with its own variations. I do not care about games, cute ring tones, etc, and I hardly use the huge number of ring alerts, etc. The phone has NO games offered. The web browser is efficient and loads quite fast. There are 3 lines of text offered, with a zoom reducing it to 2. I would have preferred 5. The menus are very clear, as is the manual. The phone is very ergonomical and fits well when cradelled. It offers 2 minutes of voice memo recordings, as well as voice-activated dialing. I have used the web browser to check my e-mail on AOL, as well as on another account, with no problems at all. I have gotten directions and directory assistance via the white pages with no problem. The casing is scratch resistant and I have had no problems banging it around thus far. There are a large number of accessories for this phone available. With an optional earpiece, one can even listen to the built in FM radio. The one gripe I have about this phone is that it takes some getting used to using it because of its dimunitive size. It is difficult to open the phone with one hand. It takes a few days to get use to the key placements, etc. Overall, having used both the Motorola V. 60 and the LG 510 for a few days each, I prefer the Motorola. However, the LG 510 is much cheaper at $149 and must, therefore, be considered. In my situation, i do not mind shelling out the extra money for a tool I use very often daily. I like being able to sync with my Palm. I like the small size and weight of the Motorola (smaller, lighter and slimmer than the LG). I like the low radiation level, one of the lowest in the industry. I like the metal finish as opposed to LG's plastic one. Both are good phones...the V. 60 is just a little better! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87518 2002/4/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable small sleek design has all the features price holster design The Bottom LineI'm quite happy with this phone. It's fun to use and it puts a smile on my face every time. Only thing is, the bill sure didn't. Full Review I got this phone to replace my Motorola Startac. The Startac served me quite well but I felt like I wanted a change so I went to see what else was out there. The v60c phone is great in virtually every way. My biggest complaint is with the high price I had to cough up. On the other hand, it was the best looking, most feature rich and smallest phone available on my carrier's network (Verizon). This cellphone does everything a modern day cellphone should do: it can browse WAP-enabled websites, it can do SMS text messaging, it can send and receive emails. It is tri-mode, including fallback to analog in remote areas where CDMA digital coverage is not present. This point is important because you want a phone that works practically everywhere in case there is an emergency. I'm a photographer and I have the security in knowing that if I'm in a remote area and only have analog coverage, I can still use the phone. I use Verizon's MobileWeb service a lot. I use a service called Phonefish http://www.phonefish.com which is a WAP Web site that enables me to check/send email from my home POP email ISP account using the phone. I could also use the email services that Verizon provides with MobileWeb, but I cannot send email out from my home email address with that. If someone needs to page me urgently, I have my account setup at http://www.vtext.com (Verizon's SMS gateway) so that someone can email directly to my phone and it will beep me with the message. It's handy to be able to check my email when I'm out and about. Yes, it's a bit of a hassle to read through a long email message on the phone's small (nicely backlit) display. It's also a hassle to have to use the phone's numeric keys to type in an email message. However, the utility of having this available outweighs the hassle. I can reply to an important and/or timely email with a short email back with no problem. I can use the phone to scan my email inbox just to see what new emails I have, only reading the ones that look important and saving the rest for when I get back home. I subscribe to a few text alerts, which page the phone directly every day at the time I specify. So I have the current weather forecast and a quote of the day on my phone every day. If you are mainly looking to do wireless email and web-browsing, check out the new Motorola v200. It's also a cellphone, but is a bit bulky and does not include a handset (it's a pager-like device with qwerty keyboard, headset and built-in speakerphone). There's also the Blackberry device http://www.blackberry.net/ The size of the phone is great! Very small, light and cool and modern looking. The menu system is quite easy to navigate and the 32 different ringtones and songs are an added plus. I use the phone with it's included holster so that it's with me all the time. The holster makes the phone stick out from my body a bit more than I'd like but since the phone is so small, it's not that big of a deal. I'd like to see a differently designed lower-profile holster that doesn't have the extra space for the extra capacity battery back. The slim battery that this phone came with seems to last long enough, I don't really see myself ever putting on a higher capacity battery that is a little bigger in size. One of the best things about this phone (aside from it's neat-ish metal case) is the fact that it has a small LCD screen on the outside of it's case in addition to the main screen on the flip up part of the earpiece on the inside. So, I don't have to flip open the phone to see who's calling me with the Caller ID. If a call comes in and I don't want to take it, I press one of the side buttons and the phone stops ringing immediately (or I can just let it ring through), allowing the caller to leave a voicemail message. When the phone is idle, it displays the current date and time-handy. If I have a headset earpiece attached to the phone, I can see who's calling and answer it without even having to flip the phone open! This makes it safer and easier to use in a car. Note that the screen on the inside of the phone tends to attract the oils from your skin. My recommendation is not to worry about it and just use the phone, wiping the screen periodically. It's quite scratch resistant but you still don't want to wipe it with something too abrasive like a paper towel. I've found that a liquid lens/ eyeglass cleaner like ClearSight http://www.clearsightusa.com in conjunction with a 100% cotton t-shirt or microfiber cloth does the trick very well. The outside screen tends to attract fingerprints and dust as well. I think because it's chrome and black, these things show up easier. I left the phone on a carpet floor overnight and the next morning the outside screen was covered with dust. Upon cleaning it, I noticed that some few specs of dust got under the screen. This is a bit annoying, but is bound to happen sooner or later with this phone so just be aware of it and don't worry too much when it happens to you. I feel like the front screen will get scratch up eventually as well since it is exposed to rubbing/bumping against things hen you wear the phone in a holster. Again, not too big a deal, just be aware that it is bound to happen-your phone will develop some 'war scars' over time as you use it and live with it day to day. This should not detract you from using the phone, after all, that's what it's meant for. I wish the antenna was a bit more sturdy. My Startac antenna kept breaking off and while the v60c's antenna seems more sturdy, I know over time it will probably end up breaking as well. Luckily, it's a simple and inexpensive replacement which I hope I will be able to do myself with a little antenna tool like I could on the Startac. Reception on this phone is better than it was on my Startac. At home, in my office with the Startac I could only get 3 bars on the reception meter. With the v60c, I can get 4. The v60c''s metal case is supposed to better shield from the cellphone's radio waves than a plastic case, an added bonus. The sound quality with the v60c is slightly worse than on the Startac. When I used to use my Startac, people would sometimes think I was on my home phone. When I make calls with the v60c, the people I call can kind of tell I'm on a cellphone. I tested this out extensively by leaving myself several voicemail messages, then calling in to listen to them with my home phone. The sound quality on the v60c is still much better than on the v8160, which totally sucks. The v60c's sound quality really isn't bad at all, it's just not as clear as my Startac was. In all, I'm quite happy with this phone. It's fun to use and it' puts a smile on my face every time. Only thing is, the bill sure didn't. If you are looking for a phone that's quite versatile, but not looking to spend this much money, consider the Startac or the Motorola Timeport (update to the Startac). If you don't mind spending the extra money, the Motorola v60c is the phone to get! UPDATE: The holster on this phone takes up too much room. It makes the phone stick out away from your belt too far such that it's a bit uncomfortable. It's probably ok if you are overweight but I'm a skinny guy and wearing the phone feels like a box on my side. I've taken advantage of the phone's small size by usually just placing it in a pocket instead, which works much better for me. It even fits fine into my front jeans pocket and since the phone is so small and light, I don't notice it that much. There is supposed to be an aftermarket holster that is slimmer and doesn't include the extra space in it for the larger XT battery. Also, the chrome part of the hinge scratches way too easily and will with time become dull and almost brushed-looking. Not a big deal since the phone still looks good and it this still fits in with the overall brushed-metal look of the phone, just something to be aware of. UPDATE 4/29/02: I cancelled my MobileWeb service on this phone since I now use the Palm i705. I found it frustrating to try to type in an email using the phone's keypad. It's ok just for checking what new emails you have, but if you have to reply, the phone proves trying. My complaint now is with the short battery life. It seems to last a while in standby, but then it drains quickly when using the phone. It's not too bad, but I just which it were slighly better. I know that there is a larger battery I could get for this phone, but I feel like that would defeat my purpose in having the smallest phone I can. Please vote below on whether or not this review was helpful to you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 87517 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light great performance you won t be disappointed small durable flip style phone requires 2 hands to answer dial limited battery life The Bottom LineCell phone only works if it's with you. Portability is top priority, and there is no more portable, durable, functional phone than the V60c Full Review I've been a Nokia / AT&T user for years, but got tired of constant dropped calls. When I saw a friend's V60c, I had to get one. Now I can depend on my cell phone...and I do! Battery Life: Unlike the Nokia's, you must re-charge this every day. I can honestly get 3 hours talk time and a work day's standby time on one charge, but not much more. Gets problematic when you're in an Analog only area as analog draws more juice on standby. The batteries are small, carrying a spare is easy. Shorter battery life is the price you pay for the tiny, lightweight phone. Motorola gives users options to turn off battery hogging features (backlight, vibrate, status light etc.) Features: large, easy to program phone book. The UI is not quite as nice as Nokia's, but the transition was not hard. You can program "shortcuts" to your favorite menu features so they're available quickly. The software to sync the phone book isn't available yet according to Verizon so I can't comment on that. Keying in is easy once you get the hang of it. INTERNET PHONE: The V60c supports web browsing. Verizon charges $7/mo for the service. Most handy part is 2-way messaging and "alerts" from the myvzw.com web site. You can program schedule alerts via your PC, and the phone beeps to remind you (like a Palm Pilot would) Browsing for news, sports scores or stock prices is very slow and burns your plan minutes in addition to the $7/mo web fee. For some users, these features will be very useful. FLIP PHONE: This is my first "flip" style phone and this is where I've had the most problems adjusting. I don't like having to use 2 hands to open the phone - driving, carrying a briefcase etc. usually has one hand busy. I have not mastered flipping the thing open with one hand, so when it rings, I literally have to "drop everything" to answer. Also, the phone is so small, I can't dial with one hand by holding the phone and "thumbing" the buttons like I could with my Nokia phones. As flip phones go, this one is tops. These comments are not V60c specific - I think they apply to most flip phones. The V60c has a display on outside so you can see who's calling without opening/answering. Very nice! DURABILITY: This is literally a "shirt pocket" phone. I've had mine slip out onto the ground a number of times and it doesn't phase the phone. The metal case protects it. Even survived a 6' drop onto concrete with no problem. SIGNAL / CLARITY: Excellent. With my Verizon service in Seattle area, the signal is clean and reliable. In limited time I've spent in analog areas, the same applies - the phone worked well -- tho the battery life was shortened a lot. Occasionally, I find I can't turn up the volume enough, but that's when I'm in a noisy place. SUMMARY: The price is high, but the phone is quality. For a real "easy to take anywhere" unit, the V60c is tops. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 379 87516 2002/3/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception comfortable to use small can sync contacts sound quality low battery life can be upgraded no message waiting led small screen no games The Bottom LineIf you like small, you can't go wrong with this phone. The price has dropped enough so that is no longer as much of a factor. Full Review A week ago I signed up with Verizon with the v60c as well as got a new phone (Samsung SPH-A400) from my existing carrier Sprint PCS, so that I could do a comparison both on phones and carriers. I keep my cell phones in my pocket, so I like them small. This was the only phone from Verizon that I would consider purchasing. Fortunately they had a nice price drop the day I decided to sign up and it was a done deal. The phone looks and feels great. It fits perfectly in the palm of my hand, yet is big enough to feel like a real phone when talking on it, with the earpiece being comfortable and easy to position in the "sweet spot." The antenna is kind of big compared to the phone, but as long as the reception was good I didn't care. The electro-luminescent lighting is a nice touch, and the text is very legible, although small. It is possible to increase the size of the text, but on a screen that small you hardly get two words across it. The keypad and controls are very nice for such a small phone, and the 5 is indented so that you know what buttons you are pressing without having to look. The outside casing is blemish-proof, and not as slippery as others mention unless, I suppose, you wear wool gloves. Having the voice dial button on the outside means that you don't have to open the phone to call if you are using a hands-free device. The menu is very useable, and better yet, it is possible to create menu shortcuts. Speed dialing is built in and very configurable. What's also nice about this phone is that you can assign voice dialing for a phonebook entry. On many other phones the numbers to correspond with the voice rec have to be entered manually in a separate, but smaller address book. There are only 20 slots for voice rec in most phones so not a big deal either way. The way the phonebook works is that each number is a separate entry. The advantage is that you can assign speed dial to each number (instead of a single phonebook entry), as well as see all numbers listed at once, instead of the two-step name/choose number combo. It can however be a little annoying to see the same name listed 4 times in the phonebook, but I don't think anyone has to worry much about that. It is possible to sync the address book with a palm or PC, which is real nice for those with lots of contacts. There are no games. Strengths Reception and sound quality should be first and foremost covered in all reviews, but it is really hard info to find. Reception with the phone is great. I am in the Tampa Bay area, and I tested it out along side the new Samsung and never had it drop a call, and heard very little static. Therefore I would give it very high ratings in that regard. Voice and sound quality is good, but still sounds like a cell phone. Make sure to buy a hands-free device that is rated for a Motorola phone. My existing ear-bud (cheapo for Samsung) seemed to magnify background noise making it difficult to hear or talk on a noisy road, although it worked perfect on my Samsung phones. I got a different one rated for Motorola, Samsung, and Audiovox phones and it works fine. I've seen reviews where people questioned the quality of the phone, especially initial quality, but the phone seems as solid as a rock as far as I can tell. Weaknesses One of the things I like is the ability for the phone to tell me if I have a new message waiting. I turned on the external LEDs to see if I could get it to tell me if I had a missed call or new voicemail but it doesn't really do a good job of notifying me. It seems it is configured to blink all the time to indicate whether the service is on, and does some fancy multi-colored flashing when a call comes in or is initially left, but relies on the outside display to show what has happened after the fact. The outside display is very nice to see the time, whether a message was left, and in fact allows you to view a text message or missed call info, but the text is so small the phone must be picked up to view at a good angle. The battery life is a bit lacking, but it is possible to get a bigger battery, growing the size of the phone a bit. It doesn't concern me at all. As good as the sound quality and reception is on the v60c, I was a little surprised to find out that the Samsung SPH-A400 on the Sprint PCS network had overall better sound quality and reception, for both the user and the caller. I have not heard anything but perfect reception on the A400 yet. I attribute it as much to the phone as to Sprint PCS which is all 1900mhz CDMA only, which is the highest quality in the industry. Next month (April) Motorola is releasing the v60c for the Sprint PCS network. In conclusion, the Samsung has better sound quality, an extremely nice 4 tone greyscale display, GPS, downloadable ring tones, and has 4 games to boot. Although it doesn't have the external display that the v60c does, I am still leaning toward keeping the Samsung. Really no one could go wrong with either phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87515 2000/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 style size features user interface The Bottom LineIf you want the most stylish phone available and don't want to wait for GPRS model to debut, the v60 is a perfect choice. Full Review For years I've avoided Motorola flip phones, particularly the StarTAC. Although I love the basic concept of flip phones, until recently Nokia -- which doesn't make a true flip model, aside from the "fake-flip" 6162 series -- has held a clear lead in the areas of style and ease of use. Even the last of the StarTAC models were stuck with small and aesthetically unappealing two-line displays and boring, out-of-fashion black plastic designs, and compared to any Nokia model from the past 3-4 years, they were incredibly difficult to use. All of this is why I was very happy to see Motorola start over with a tabula rosa on the v60. After suffering numerous headaches with my previous "fashion phone" model, a Nokia 8860 (including peeling fake chrome and inexplicably displaying 'No Service' even in the middle of a city, when my friends' phones on the same AT&T service were showing up as full-strength), I decided to give the Motorola version a try. Aside from a few quibbles, I've been very impressed overall. Aesthetically, the v60 is a vast improvement over previous Motorola designs. The brushed aluminum casing is both very attractive and a VAST improvement over the peel-happy fake chrome found on the Nokia 8890. The external caller ID feature (so you can see who's calling without opening the phone) is a superb why-didn't-they-think-of-it-sooner idea, as is the ability to switch the ringer into Vibrate or Silent mode (i.e. if you're going into a movie theater) from the outside. The five-line display is very easy to read, and even offers the ability to "zoom" in on text if desired. I can't say I use the FM radio or voice recorder functions at all -- I don't listen to radio in general, and I already have a tiny digital voice recorder with 90 minutes of recording time (much more than the v60 offers) -- but I like that they're available should I need them. Perhaps the thing I like most about the Motorola is its sound quality. Even in outlying areas of town, signal strength is strong and sound quality approaches land-line levels. All that said, the phone isn't perfect. Nokia still has Motorola (and every other mobile phone manufacturer, for that matter) beat in terms of ease of use. While certainly not StarTAC-caliber bad, performing various functions on the v60 -- including stuff as simple as entering a new phone number into memory -- is more difficult than on any late-model Nokia. Programming speed-dial numbers is particularly irritating. Also, the datebook feature is nice, but utterly useless if I can't sync it with my Palm -- it would be nice if some phone manufacturer could figure out a way to do this without incorporating a full-fledged Palm model! Finally, voice dialing is a cool feature, but in practice the phone has the irritating tendency of not being able to differentiate between even mildly similar-sounding names. Nevertheless, the v60 is what I would consider the best phone on the market today -- at least for those of us stuck with using CDMA or TDMA service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 279 87514 2002/4/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialingdigital recorder dial pad phonebook external display indiglo display menu belt clip is bulkyneeds to be wore in The Bottom LineThis phone is more of an investment in myself than an expense. It';s safer, more convenient and offers features that save me time. Full Review Mike S. Zafirovski, President of Motorola's Personal Communications Sector, stated that his primary goal was to take back the market share Nokia took from Motorola. (Numbers in parentheses refer to links at bottom) My Research I'm somewhat of a Cell phone junkie. I get a new phone every year because I wanted more out of the phone. I was skeptical to buy the V60 (1) when it first came out because of my terrible experience with the StarTac reception and menu. Because of my experience, I laggard before buying the phone. My research included reading about the facts of the phone on Motorola website and reading several epinions reviews. I also spoke with AT&T store representatives. They claim that the customers have nothing but Kudos for the phone. I tried the working phone in the store and immediately had a reception problem reminiscent of the StarTac. Two weeks later I discovered that the antenna technology is similar to my former Nokia 8160's internal antenna. Buying the Phone To help absorb the high price tag, I asked for a credit equivalent to the cost of my monthly service plan ($99). They gave this "Customer Loyalty" credit because I signed contract with them. I've been with them for 10 years and have no intention of leaving them. If you do it my way then avoid calling with this expectation. Be jovial and say something like "You know I'm getting approached by the competitor with some really good offers, do you have any specials you can offer me if I sign a new contract?" Of course they will probably tell you about new plans. If you have to ask for then do it. If I sign 1-year contract will you give one free month or a credit? I picked the salesman's brain a little more before making a few more calls with the working store display. The reception problem I had two weeks ago was a fluke. I shopped for the best price and when I finally got the phone I couldn't get it on the charger fast enough. I patiently waited overnight to make sure the battery's initial charge was sufficient. The Day after It's Sunday morning and I've got a full pot of coffee and nothing but time. I started navigating through the user interface (menu). This is very impressive and great for laymen. My first task at hand was the phone book. I hate filling it up via the phone pad so I researched the possibility of doing it via my computer. A kit for your computer or your Palm Pilot can purchased from Motorola (2) for $70, bundled with Starfish software called TrueSync Plus and an appropriate cable for your application. I chose to do it the old fashioned way so 3 ½ hours later I have 115 entries in the phone book and 285 open slots. I've assigned voice dialing to 8 of them. Wow! Voice dialing is working excellent. Driving is much different when I'm keeping my eyes on the road. All I do is hit the smart button and say "Ginko" and my friend Mike is being dialed. Turbo dial buttons 2-9 are cool (1 is meant for your voice mail.) Just press and hold the button until that phone book entry starts dialing. You can display the phone book alphabetically or in ascending speed dial location. You can assign each entry with a speed dial number or the phone will automatically give you the next available open space in the phonebook. When somebody calls you, the external display shows the number or the first name of the phonebook entry with an icon of which number he is calling from e.g. work, home, etc. When the phone is idle the external display shows the date (in the format of your choice) and time. The features that will keep me loyal Every time I go to the office supply store I would look at the digital recorders. I've always wanted one so I could record a thought while in the car. I never bought one, for fear I would lose it or leave it in the office. Motorola made me very happy with the "Voice Notes" feature. I'm driving and I think of a prospect I need to call but don't have their number. I hold down the smart button and record a reminder to call them. Has this ever happened to you? "Hold on let me pull over, find a pen and paper to take down your new phone number." You will never have to do that again with the voice recorder. While holding down the smart button, have her repeat her new number. That part of your conversation is stored in the voice notes section. The customizable main menu allows you to arrange the menu items or frequently used features the way you want. If you're left-handed you can change some of the menu items to be left-hand friendly. You can assign shortcut keys to the menu items you use most frequently. For example I use the voice notes often, so I hit Menu then 1 and then play. I'm listening to my first voice note. The ergonomics of the V60c versus the small Nokia 8160 are night and day. I got a big kick out of the scenes in the movie Zoolander where his cellular phone is about the size of a paperclip. Motorola has known for years that the Flip design offers a smaller size and when open gives the user something to hold onto. PLUS, the dial-pad isn't exposed so I'm not accidentally dialing people and I don't have to lock the dial pad. My Vexes: I've become accustomed to caller ID and wish the phone stored more than the last 10 received or missed and 10 dialed calls. Slim Li-Ion Battery life for the V60c (TDMA network e.g. AT&T) isn't what Motorola claims in the manual. I discovered the High Performance Battery in the accessory {2} section of the Motorola site. I bought the cigarette lighter charger so I won't consider buying this until my current battery wears out. The Nokia 8260 had a Vibrate & Ring option where the phone simultaneously vibrated and rang at the same time. I Wish the Motorola had that ring feature. The V60c Vibrates for 2 rings, then stop vibrating and rings for 2+ rings. I tried using the Headset auto-answer feature. I didn't like it because several times I would be conversing with someone in-person and the person calling me could hear us. If I were to leave the auto-answer feature on then my phone would have precedence. Into Tomorrow There are several things about the phone that I look forward to learning about: Voice activated commands, Date Book, FM Stereo with optional ear-buds, Two-way SMS messaging, which allows me to send, receive and store short alphanumeric text messages with another compatible wireless device or email address. I'm anxious to take advantage of the multitude of Accessories {2}. This summer Motorola is supposed to release a truly wireless head set. That means that we will wear an over-the-ear device that communicates with the phone via infrared. No more wires to get tangled in. Copy and paste Links (1) http://commerce.motorola.com/consumer/QWhtml/v60i.html (2) http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/CategoryDisplay?cgrfnbr=22&cgmenbr=126 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 254 87513 2000/3/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact design voice activated dialing scratch resistant case no downloadable ring tones price battery life The Bottom LineLike the new iMac, if you can afford the steep price, you won't be disappointed. Full Review As AT&T Wireless recently (3/2002) reduced the price of the TDMA version of the V60, I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and replace my Nokia 8260. This is my 3rd Motorola, but the first I've owned in a few years. For those of you on the fence, this review will highlight some of the differences between the V60t and the 8260. When closed, the length and width of the V60t is smaller than the 8260. The Nokia is, however, a bit "thinner" than the Motorola. There is a pleasant weight to the V60t—it feels much more substantial than the 8260, probably due to the aluminum casing of the V60t. The V60t's external antenna does stick out about 1.25" beyond the top of the phone. When open, the mic of the V60t is placed more closely to you mouth that (hopefully) allows callers to hear you better. I've never been pleased with the sound quality of the 8260. The V60t is a marked improvement. The reception seems to be much better than the 8260. Whereas I was constantly forced to call people back on a land line to be able to hear them inside my building, I've yet to have to do this with the V60t. Those of you with big fingers will be pleased to learn the V60t's keys are larger than the 8260. However the placement of the Send and End keys are the opposite that of the Nokia, which was a bit confusing at first. (I keep forgetting I can simply close the phone to hang up). In my opinion, PIM functionality in a cell phone is an oxymoron. As tedious as Graffiti can be in the Palm O/S, it is many times faster than "typing" on a cell phone keypad. However, I will admit to storing flight numbers, hotel and car reservation confirmation numbers in the phone when I travel. If you need a PIM get a PIM. (Plus you can play games)! Interesting features When the alert is set to "Vibe&Ring" the phone will vibrate for about 10 seconds before ringing audibly, presumably to give you the opportunity to answer without disturbing anyone You may read incoming SMS messages on the external display without having to open the phone You can record a phone call in progress by pressing the Voice softkey. (Your state may require you by law to notify the party whom you are recording!) Voice activated dialing is really cool! Disappointments There is no way to set ring tones for different incoming callers based Caller ID information (the Caller Group feature in the 8260). While there is a horrible ring tone composer built into the phone, you cannot download ringtones into the phone. The Motorola interface is a bit more difficult to maneuver than the Nokia. However, it is possible to create menu "Shortcuts" to navigate quickly to specific menu locations. These can also be assigned voice commands. Overall, there seems to be less menu choices in the V60t, which is a good thing. You must program in your voice mail number (and password if you're lazy like me) separately in two different places. The first is for dialing into voice mail from the "Message Center" menu. You may also program the "1" key to speed dial your voice mail. The supplied "holster" is a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it securely holds the phone away from your body—reducing the antenna-poking-your-love-handle factor. It's a curse because you cannot remove the phone from it with one hand. Interestingly, it "ratchets" or rotates up to 90 degrees in either direction, allowing you to holster the phone in an "east-west" fashion. Furthermore, you can't open the phone with one hand The included earbud headset does not have an answer/hang-up button No games! Conclusion You really can't go wrong with either the V60t or the 8260, it all comes down to personal preference. The new iMac vs. PC debate comes to mind. Both do the same thing, but in slightly different ways. Most people will agree the V60t is the more visually appealing of the two. The biggest obstacle to ownership for most people will be price—$250 is still a lot to pay for a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87512 2000/4/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 trust worthy name 400 name phone book lots of features great looking battery life is short fairly high cost The Bottom Line A great phone, but the cost brings the rating down. Good for people that will use it a lot, not for the average teenager. Great clarity and durability. Full Review In my humble opinion, this is the perfect phone. It is extremely clear, light weight, great looking, chock full of features and made by a name I trust. Too bad it's $150.00 more than it should be. I think that this phone is grossly overpriced, as nothing about it really stands above the rest of the phones on the market for a significantly less price. But, if you can afford it, it is an investment that will last for a long time and provide you with hours of clear talk time. Size/Weight/Comfort Level/Looks This is a very small phone. So small in fact, you might lose it. Personally, I really like small phones as they look cool and make you feel important (weird, I know). At about 87mm X 45mm X 25mm, it is significantly smaller than most phones. The weight of a phone also plays a large factor when I am deciding which phone to buy. Weighing in at a light 103 grams, it is barley noticable when you are talking on it. The Motorola V60 is also a very comfortable phone to use. I found it conforms to my face perfectly when I am talking on it, and it fits perfectly in my hand while I'm playing around in the phonebook. Motorola has always been known for it's very good looking phones and this one doesn't let me down. It is a flip phone with the screen on the top flap. The phone is silver (although it does come it black, I wanted to stand out) which helps it stand out from the rest of the crowd. Features The Motorola V60 features a LCD display that shows 96x64 pixels with 3 lines of text, 1 line of icons and 1 line of prompts all with EL backlighting, making it perfect even in total darkness. It also features a 400 name phonebook (not that I even fill 1/10 of it :/ ). My all time favoirte feature of this phone is the one line LCD display on the front of the closed phone that acts like a caller display on the outside of the phone. Perfect if you don't even feel like opening the phone to see whose calling you. The time and display are, well, displayed when the phone is not in use. The phone also comes internet ready, which is perfect for playing games, checking sports scores and checking your email on the go. Unlike the V120, this phone comes with pre-loaded games, such as paddle-ball, blackjack and Mind Blaster. It also comes with the usual features like a calculator and personalization settings. Clarity and Ease of Use On the road or in the house, this phone sounds the same. Crystal clear. Even going under bridges and in my basement, the phone still sounds perfect. This was a supprize to me as many people have told me that Motorola's suck for clarity. The phone is extremely easy to use, basically the same to use as all other phones, although you might have trouble if you are switching from a Nokia, as most of the buttons are backwards. My one main concern was the battery life, as I only got about 2 hours of talk time out of it. This is okay though, as I kept my car adaptor and home recharger handy. A small price to pay for a great phone. Overall Overall, this is a great phone. Everything about it is amazing, but it has a fairly steep price. I say "If you can afford it, GO FOR IT!" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275.95 87511 2000/7/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek design very durable many nice features compact size tri mode a bit pricey sub par voice recognition weak battery life The Bottom LineIf you can swallow the cost, I highly recommend it! Full Review At first the $399 price tag seemed a bit outrageous for a cell phone but after using the phone for just a few hours it all started making sense. This cell phone is an absolute winner! Packed with just about any feature imaginable it is great looking, has an incredible reception (hats off to Verizon), and a very user friendly interface. The manual is great, it took under an hour to figure out how to use 90% of the phone's main features. Storing numbers in the phonebook is extremely easy. You can store 6 numbers for each phonebook entry (work, home, main, mobile, fax, pager). Dialing a number is just as easy as storing it. You can either dial the number directly, use speed dialing (each number has a speed dial associated with it), search through the phone book for it, or my favorite, just say it. The phone can store up to 20 voice names which allow you to place a phone call by simply pressing the voice button and saying the name of the person you wish to call. For those who like different rings, this phone will not disappoint you. It is packed with about 30 different rings/melodies for you to choose from. It even has a few different vibration modes. The recording feature is another great feature which lets you record up to 2 minutes of talk time. You can either record a phone conversation or your own personal messages. This is great for taking down phone numbers or directions. The phone reception is superb. I've used the phone extensively in the Metro NY area and in the greater Philadelphia area. Both regions have excellent reception and clarity. The phone's tri-mode capabilities, which lets you to use the phone with a Verizon nationwide plan is what really separates this phone from it's predecessors which were only dual-mode. Last but not least is the phone's beautiful appearance. It has an aluminum casing which is light, finger print resistant, and scratch free. It has an outside display which shows the date and time as well as the caller ID when a call is received. The phone also includes a built-in web browser, an FM Radio, text messaging capabilities, and a datebook. I have yet to tap into any of these features and thus cannot comment on them. Besides the price tag, the phones battery life could be a bit longer. However, if you charge the phone every night you'll never have a problem with it. Motorola does make an extended-life battery which lasts a bit longer. The battery is slightly bigger and adds size and weight to the phone. Finally, the voice recognition system which lets you dial a number by saying it's associated recorded name could be a bit spotty. However, if you choose a distinct name for each of your voice recognized numbers and speak loud and clear into the microphone when recording, you should have no problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87510 2000/2/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features cool metallic finish super stylish depending on your provider price can get pretty steep The Bottom LineFeature packed and ultra stylish, this phone is available for AT&T, Verizon, and GSM providers. Full Review In my continuing romp through the world of portable communications, I have stumbled upon the Motorola V60. Mine was for use on GSM networks, so I just stuck my Sim card in and I was ready to use it. My best friend got the same phone by Verizon. Another friend of mine ended up with the one from AT&T. All the same phone? Heck no. I paid $500 for this phone on ebay. My friend paid $400 with a contract from Verizon. My other friend paid $120 with a contract from AT&T. And they're not even the same size. For some reason, the one from Verizon was the largest and the heaviest and the one from AT&T was the lightest and smallest. Mine for GSM was in the middle. Anyway...off to the performance. The reception on this phone was very good, although I have had phones that perform better. Calls were usually static free and I haven't experiences a dropped call. Battery life on this phone can be considered above average, but still, not terrific. Nokia's still have longer battery lives. The battery would usually last for a little over 2 hours of talk time before requiring a charge. The menu is the most notable change from Motorola's earlier phones. Before the Startacs and the previous V had terrible menus that were hard to navigate and offered poor features. The new menu offers several call menus (missed call, last dialed, last received, etc), and even a game. Too bad the game was boring as heck. The metal exterior looks cool as anything and the caller id is a useful feature to see who's calling before opening up the flip. Most people found the antenna annoying but I'm always a fan of the antenna that pulls out. I did notice though that with use the case became a little looser and lost that click feeling that a new phone has when you open it up. All the phones for the different networks performed exactly the same, however, AT&T has the most notably statickyest network. But then again, you save a lot of money by going with the AT&T phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 87509 2002/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easily fits in a pocket small lightweight outside case can damage too easily The Bottom LineAll in all it is a great portable phone, but be aware of what it can and can not do with your wireless carrier! Full Review I can't believe it myself! Here I am with yet another new cell phone! I seem to go through them way too quickly. The truth is, I used to have a Nokia 8260 but got rid of it. The 8260 was too small, had buttons that only Jimminy Cricket could push, and was way too high on your face. The 8260 when put next to your ear, was about 3" or so above your mouth. You felt like you were either talking to yourself or no one at all. At least the Motorola V60 opens up where the microphone fits right over your mouth, cutting out extraneous noise, and is a lot more comfortable. Right away let's cut to the chase and say the V60T is tiny. When the case is closed, the phone is about 3" long, and 1.5" wide. When the case is closed, you can view an LCD display on the cover, so you don't have to open the phone to see who is calling you. It is about time Motorola made better use of their flip phones and made them easier to use. They certainly have the experience. The display on the phone is located on the upper panel, opposite the keypad. The buttons are large enough to press with no problem, but the display in "normal"mode is small. If someone is vision impaired in the slightest, this phone is NOT for them. Even folks with average vision will find this display a little small. Motorola gives you a choice of character sizes to customize the phone, which helps a lot. They call it ZOOMING! I find that when zoomed, the font sizes are adequate and everything is quite legible. One of the MANY features of this phone is a built in internal FM radio. My question is why? You cannot listen through the speaker, you must work the radio with special earphones you have to purchase for an additional $50. Personally I find this a waste, but for anyone who has to have an FM radio with them, I guess it will be useful. The phone is also web enabled, but be aware, this does NOT mean you can access the web with any carrier. Forinstance, AT&T Wireless and this web enabled phone are not compatible. You can not surf the web utilizing AT&T. If web browsing is important to you, check with your carrier first to make sure this phone is web supported on their network. One of the interesting things this phone does is dial with your voice. I won't go through the entire process, but what you do is first store the name and numbers in the phonebook the usual way. After that is completed, you find the listing you want and train the phone. What this means is you have 2 seconds to speak the name, speak it again, and the phone is trained. Next time you speak that name and the phone is set for it, the phone number will be dialed with no hands. You still have to press a voice button on the side of the phone to use voice dial, so it is still not really push button free as yet! It is a start, and Motorola is trying for a phone with little intervention from the driver. The less distractions on the road while driving, the better off you are! You can go on and on about the various features, but you can go to the Motorola web site for all that. What you should be aware of are the things I mentioned, and the fact that the phone seems to hold up pretty well. The negative is the case has a silver metallic casing which seems to scratch too easily. Motorola includes a belt clip to hold the phone, but the face of the phone is out, and if you bump into anything, the phone will suffer minor damage. You are better off purchasing a case for the phone, when one becomes available. BE AWARE, there are two versions of this phone. The V60C and the V60T. They are SLIGHTLY different, so MAKE SURE if you are ordering a case from a 3rd party vendor, that the case is for the correct model number! The other thing is the list price of the phone, which is $399. You can usually deal with your carrier's upgrade department and tell them you want to upgrade your existing phone. They will most likely ask you to renew your contract for a year, but if you are happy with the service, what difference does it make anyway? They cut the price in half for me, and added additional credits as well. Don't be afraid to bargain with your cellular carrier. Remember they want your business and will usually bend a bit if it means losing you as a subscriber! To sum it all up, after owning the phone for a few months, I like it. The animation it uses on the display is nice and allows you to delete items, & delete all very easily! I have had no problems with the voice recognition or the size of the phone, or its clarity! If you want a small phone with good size buttons, a nice comfortable fit and good build quality, this is it. Believe me, you will not go wrong! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 87508 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great size reception costvolume in noisy areas The Bottom LineAn internal antena and the availability of PC Sync. software would make this phone perfect. If you can affort it buy it. Full Review Several months ago I began looking for new cellular carrier due to my unhappiness with Sprint PCS. After comparing Alltel, AT&T and Verizon I chose Verizon. I then bought an LG phone because the V60c wasn't in stock, and the price threw me off. After being extremely satisfied with the Verizon's coverage and service I went back to look for a phone for my wife. The V60c was back in stock and the rest is history. The V60c is a GREAT phone. Compared to the LG phone, who's external display is better, the Motorola gets better reception 9 out of 10 times. Where the LG phone will drop a call or switch to analog, the Motorola will hang on to a digital signal. Definitely the best phone I've had in this respect. The form factor of the Motorola is also better. The phones shape is thinner, smaller and less likely to catch on things than any phone I have carried. I can wear the phone all day and never notice it until it rings. The only 'bad' thing about the phone is the antenna, which sticks out too far and actually broke off today. It was fixed however, new Antenna, in less than 5 minutes at the Verizon store. The phone also has excellent features, including a very useable voice dial feature. Unlike some other phones, i.e. the LG, which use registers to store multiple numbers under a name -- the V60c allows you to have multiple voice dials for the same person. While 'Joe's' name will appear multiple times -- once for each entry -- in your phone book, this design choice is more useable than having multiple numbers under one entry. Unfortunately, Motorola still hasn't come out with the PC software that would make loading names & numbers via PC+Sync. Not sure when it will be out, if ever, but that would be nice. One time saver, though, is the ability to pick existing names out your phonebook versus having to retype them. The phone has a lot of other features, but phone book and ease of dialing are the most important in my mind. Both are excellent on this phone. Sound quality on this phone is generally very good -- except in very noisy environments. This may be due to the very thin ear piece, and resulting small speaker size. In very noisy industrial environments this phone can be unusable because you can't hear the other part. Larger phones don't have the problem but unless you work on a factory floor this shouldn't be an issue. In all other areas/normal use sound quality is excellent. Friends have commented on the clarity of the sound. The buttons are also very good/use able given the size of the phone. They give good feedback, are back lit and easy to read in the dark and feel like they will last a long time. So the $400 question is the V60c worth it's price? For me a very strong yes. The extra durability of the metal case, the excellent phonebook and reception vs. other phones make it worth the extra money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87507 2002/6/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use small size great features more expensive than many others The Bottom LineThis phone is for you if ease of use and size are more important than price to you. Full Review I had a motorola startac analog for the past few years but needed to upgrade to digital to change plans and improve my reception. I like the small size of flip phones, but looked at all of the standard phones offered at the local at&t store. The staff was very helpfull and showed their nokias and ericksons. I read the epinion reviews and handled every phone I could get my hands on. I finally decided on a v60t and haven't looked back. I bought it thru amazon.com for $150 with a plan that met my needs for emergency contacts (my old phone and provider had many missed calls). The v60 is smaller than the startac and has a case that seems to be more rugged. The startac board broke from the pressure of my seat belt which resulted in display and possible reception problems. In addition to a size that make this phone easy to carry in a pocket, it takes up less room on a belt than the startac or almost every other phone out there. The OEM leather case and belt clip are great to. The standard clip that comes with the phone is ok, but the optional case is even better. It protects the outside case and covers the metal case (I prefer to keep it low key). It holds the case to the belt clip well and has a button for easy release. The phone is very easy to hold and use with one hand. The display is fine without zoom, even for my legally blind eyes. One of the best features are the outside buttons. With most other phones, you have to push a button on the face plate and then raise the phone to your ear to speak the voice command for who you wish to call. With the v60, you can hold the phone up to your ear and then push the outside button. This becomes a big deal when you realize you only have 2 seconds to get the voice command done after pushing the button. The volume buttons are on the outside too, which allows you to adjust volume while on the phone. Although the pim datebook and phone book are great features, it isn't quite as handy as my palm pilot. The two together provide all of my needs, especially for those times when I don't have my Palm handy but need to look at my schedule. For people who don't have complicated schedules or more than 400 phone numbers, the pim feature is more than enough. I also like the ability to have the phone ring and vibrate at the same time. My old phone was either or. I frequently missed calls because I didn't hear the ring under a heavy leather jacket or didn't notice the vibration while riding in a vehicle (road vibrations). With the ring/vibrate option, I haven't missed a call yet. The other options I like but haven't had the opportunity to use yet are the text messaging and numeric page. Both are great in that you don't have to answer the phone or access voice mail, etc. AT&T doesn't charge for income messages, but you pay .10 per outgoing text message. Although not worth it every day, the text messaging is supposed to work better during heavy use periods like we had during 9/11. Although the battery life is supposedly less than larger cell phones, it is far superior than what I am used to with the startac. I tried to use the hands freed ear bud/mike unit that came with it. It was too much like work me. The phone doesnt have games, but my palm does so I will survive. I spent $50 more than the "special" offered by the carrier, but it is worth the extra money for my needs and desires. All in all, I love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87506 2000/4/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception sexy phone small sound quality lacks seemingly basic functions price questionable build quality The Bottom LineThe V60 is a terrific phone if you can get over the price and the down sides of the phone. Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase. Full Review My contract with local carrier nTelos ran up last week so I decided to renew it and get a new phone, too. Since I use my phone all the time I decided to go all out and take a big step up from my Kyocera QCP-2035. Over all I am extremely pleased with my purchase. The upsides of the V60: Size - I love the size of this phone! I can easily fit it in my shirt pocket or even that useless "third pocket" in my jeans. The small size is also nice for keeping it in any other pocket. Also, one thing people may not realize is that when the phone is opened it is actually longer than most phones. This may sound like a bad thing, but I think it actually makes it a lot easier to get comfortable with the phone and find the sweet spot of the ear piece. Reception - Speaking of the ear piece, it is of much, much better quality than I could imagine over my 2035. The reception is also unbelievably better. In open areas where I got spotty reception before, I get full reception and high quality calls with the V60. Wow factor - Even though the phone is hardly a new phone at all on the market, it is still an impressive phone. My friends were all amazed by the size and, like me, like the musical ring tones that come with the phone. The aluminum casing is very sleek, but does feel a little flimsy. External caller ID: It's nice not having to open the phone to see who's called, or to check the time. Date book: Easy to enter information into and set up reminders. Useful for keeping appointments or work schedules. The down sides of the phone: Questionable build quality - First, the antenna seems very, very cheap. The store model actually had a broken antenna which surprised me. The tolerances of the phone were disappointing, too. When closed, I can wiggle the top piece side to side more than I think it should be able to be moved. Battery life - It's OK, not too bad and not too good. I'm getting an extended life battery as a back up. Missing basic functions - My 2035 has simple tools that seem to have been overlooked by Motorola. A simple calculator would be welcome, especially a tip calculator. One thing that really bugs me is that I cannot set specific ringers to specific contacts, as I could the 2035. Some may not care, but I like to know who's calling by which ringer is ringing. No downloadable ring tones - The phone comes with some great ringers, but it would be nice to download additional ones. Again, a feature found in much cheaper phones. Useless features - At least to me, I don't see the point of having a service light on the phone. Also, the voice activated dialing is a great concept, BUT, it is too slow to call the number. Speed dialing makes more sense to me. It also takes a second to go to a short cut which is kind of annoying. I didn't think my shortcuts were working at first because of how long it takes (an example of a short cut would be if you have Menu + 2 set to take you to the battery meter.) Price - Duh. With the high price and broken store model, I opted to get the phone insured. I hope I won't have to use it, though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349 87505 2000/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light great reception small lots of features need two hands to answer too expensive no holographic display The Bottom LineIt's absolutely a great phone with lots of features and very easy to use. I'm sure anybody will love it, provided that they can afford it. Full Review The thing is wonderful, but a little too pricy, it takes away too much of your money, I mean at least $350. It's got some great features, like the 400 person address book, the backlight, voice recognition, a cool LCD, and multiple ring modes. The unit has an LCD screen on the front of the flip. The LCD shows caller ID, as well as time and date when the phone is not in use. There are three sets of keys on the outside. While the flip is closed, you use the outside keys to control ring modes (vibrate, loud ring) and when the flip is open, the keys change function depending on what the phone is doing. Mostly, they're used for adjusting the volume, but there's other things you'll soon learn. The voice recognition system works most of the time, but if you ever get that it's not working that great, just turn it off and reboot it. Mostly, it's because of the noise in the background, and it gets confused at what you're saying, and they say it's intelligent!!! At certain angles during daylight the display sometimes can be difficult to read, but if you want a small, sleek phone, that's the chance you have to take. If you have visual problems, the backlight won't help you too much because it reflects light, but if you play around with the angles, you can see it just fine. Replacing the battery is probably the biggest pain because you have to take the entire back off, and when you put it back in, you have to really try your first couple times. The battery life when you first get the phone is not great. Just let the battery run down and then recharge the phone. After the first month, the battery life is pretty good. Probably over two hours of talk. The battery life sucks if you have to roam so don't expect more than 4-5 hours of standby on roam. Something that I learned from a friend is that you need to turn your old phone off when using your new V60. Although your old phone may be deactivated when you switch over, the old one will still attempt to capture incoming signals to your phone number. If you leave your old phone on, the V60 won't ring in digital mode. It will receive voice mail notification, text messaging, and analog calls, but it won't ring. It will also send Digital calls so you won't know what's wrong with it until you find out that your old phone is still working. You can set up the phone to recognize up to 20 voice dial entries. It's real easy and i think anyone can do it. All you have to do is open the flip, hit the button on the right of the unit and just say the name. The phone has a serviceable browser, which works pretty well. If you're a business person, you might find some of the features on it pretty cool. It's pretty much like other wireless phones when it comes to the browser, but works a heck of a lot better. The phone has some other features, like a voice recorder and some quick dialing features and also has a built-in FM radio, but you need a special headset to use it. If you do not have the headset, the FM menus just don't show up on the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87504 2000/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very user friendly features durability size price The Bottom LineThis is an excellent lightweight phone and the possibilities are endless with personalizing this phone to meet your needs. Full Review I have been eyeing the Motorola V60 for a month or so before I finally purchased it. My previous phone was a Motorola StarTac ST7868W. The only complaint I had with that phone was the antenna. I probably went through four antennas in the two years I had my StarTac. That really was the only reason I was even looking at upgrading my phone, but I'm glad I did. The features of the V60 aren't even comparable to the StarTac. The V60 opens the door to unlimited possibilities. I like the Databook and the ability to add important events and set a reminder alert so I don't forget. The StarTac doesn't have the Databook capabilities. Another feature that I like is the Auto Answer feature. Like most other phones the StarTac has that feature as well but the difference with the V60 is when the phone is set to Auto Answer mode it will only automatically answer the call when a headset is plugged in, not all the time. When I used the Auto Answer feature with the StarTac I had to remember to turn off the Auto Answer option when I was no longer using the headset, if not then every call automatically be answered even if I wasn't there to answer it and the calls would never have a chance to go to voice mail. The voice activated dialing is a very convenient feature. This feature can be used with or without a headset. Once you have established a voice command for a phonebook entry all you have to do is press the voice button and tell the phone who to call. Within seconds the phone is dialing. Along with voice activated dialing there are also voice activated commands. For example, you can set a commonly used feature to activate by a voice command. Such as, changing the ringer from ring to vibe. All I do is press the menu button and then the voice button and say "ringer" (that is what I set myself as the command) and the ringer menu comes up so I can change from ring to vibe or vice versa. There are many more options available for the voice commands this is just an example. Besides voice commands you can also set up keypad commands. The StarTac has preset key pad commands (function 8, changed the phone from ring to vibe or vise versa, function 4 displayed a more detailed batter meter...) You can create your own key pad shortcuts by using the Menu button and associate specific functions with a number key. Other features are: turning the status light off (the light that blinks green to let you know your phone is on, or red when a call is coming through) to preserve battery life, turning the animation feature off to preserve battery life, and zoom in and zoom out which increases or decreases the font size on the LCD display. All in all this phone is extremely easy to use and very versatile. If you don't like the setting and what order they appear in the menu then change them. You can pretty much personalize this phone any way that you want. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 87503 2000/11/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 a well built professional tool reliable none yet i ll update if i find some The Bottom LineIf your a road warrior ....Motorola has just made you an awesome battle axe. Full Review Before buying the Motorola V60c, I scouted the rest of the field and for what I wanted this model filled the bill. The criteria were as follows in order of priority; 1) audio quality (incoming and outgoing) 2) Durability 3) Battery Life 4) Phone memory (Contact Lists) 5) Text Messaging and Web Access 6) Voice dialing and handsfree capability The results after a week of service and 200 mins use, bouncing around east coast of Canada/US; 1) Audio quality is exceptional, crystal clear in digital areas and quite good in analog areas. No dropped calls or screaming matches in "fringe" analog areas. Those I asked said they thought I was calling from a land line. 2) Durability is exceptional, I can't speak to build quality others have observed, my unit was very well put together and with the metal exterior it has no marking or scratching even though it gets bounced around the car a lot. I'm an electrical engineer if I want to babysit I'll adopt, not buy a new cell phone. The weak link was the antenna based on other reviews and what I've observed. It looks and feels much less robust than the rest of the unit. So I picked one up when I bought the phone ($8.00) If it breaks just unscrew the old one, screw in the new one, away you go. If and when I have to replace it, I'll update the review. 3) Battery life, this item was pre-empted as I bought an 1100 mah battery and the required back cover upgrade right off the mark, based on what I had read in other reviews in this section. But for normal to average use the 500 mah Lithium Ion battery thats standard should be more than enough if you charge it every second day. Lithium Ion doesn't have memory so the old cell battery charging hassles are a thing of the past. 4) This unit was the latest rev of Motorolas firmware and had a 500 name capacity (you can assign 1 number and 1 email to each entry). This is handy because you can assign 1 entry to a person's work info and one to thier home info. As well this version of the firmware allows sorting of the contact by speed dial # (the number the entry was assigned 1-500 when you entered it into the phone) or contact name, I suspect this was always the case and some of the negative reviews this unit has gotten are based on users not reading thier manuals. 5) Text messaging was great easy to send, even easier to reply to. The web browser was so/so but its unlikely I'd regularly browse the web on any device with a screen this small anyway. 6) Voice dialing was a breeze to setup, once I read the manual. It was intuitive enough to setup with out it. but I kept holding the voice button in. Once I realised, you simply press and release the button, then speak. It worked great. Handsfree was clear on both ends using a headset. The phone can be set to answer on opening or automatically if the headset is attached. This review just covers the basic issues I feel are essential to a cell phones usability. This unit has a great range of other standard functions. Built in alarm, memopad, voice note and conversation recording (2 mins max) Calendar and appointment log. All very well designed and easily usable if you invest the time read the manual. I think Motorola has nailed the road warrior niche, with an intelligently designed, durable little unit. Oh did I mention its got external call display, that will even display the name of the caller if you have thier name programmed in your contact list. Gives new meaning to "I'm not deaf....I'm ignoring you!" An awesome little unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179cd 109us 87502 2000/2/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 design keypad scratch resistant metal size antenna is too big out of place flip is not sturdy non scratch resistant display The Bottom LineI'm sure you have been thinking about it, but trying to justify the high cost. Life is short. Have a cool cell phone! Full Review I've had my eye on this phone for quite some time. When I saw that Verizon was selling it for $299.99, I jumped at it and renewed my contract. When it arrived via FedEx, I was taken by the size of the antenna! It's so out of place and belongs on the old analog flip phone that Motorola had eight years ago. So, I got over the antenna, no big deal. The flip, when closed, is a bit unsturdy. It shakes from left to right and I feel that it will just get worse. It's not something I did, just the design. The inside display has a tiny scratch on it. A normal person wouldn't even notice it, but I do, and I'm quite annoyed. The only way I can think of how it got there was that due to the unsturdy flip, the display scratched against the keypad, which caused the little knick. But, not sure. Funky holster. Not at all as easy to slide the phone into when on the run. Now to the pros: Great design, great size! And, has some weight to it, which is different from all the other phones I've had. Motorola products are superior in general and this phone definitely shows that. The earpiece volume seems to have a stereo sound effect when listening to the person on the other line. Not that many unique features though, except for the FM stereo. But when I find the required headset for this feature cheaper than $60.00, I'll consider it. Aside from the cons I listed, it's still a great phone. Verizon has had a horrible selection of phones, but finally negotiated something right with the V60. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.99 87501 2000/8/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 workhorse disguised as a cool techie toy envy factor The Bottom LineSexy, fun, sleek,and easy to use. Don't let its array of features scare you, use what you need and brag about the rest ... this phone rocks!! Full Review This phone was offered to employees of our company for $150.00 with a changeover or switch to AT&T .... need I say more. I switched from a Nokia 5160 which seemed adequate for my needs until I held the sleek tiny V60, felt its cool exterior, its tiny cleverness ... I was warned it could only be used after careful consultation with a phonebook sized users manual, a warning which almost caused me to bypass the phone entirely. I am not a manual reader. This review is written for those of you who are also MI (Manual Illiterate). First, because i had existing service, the V60 was shipped to me (within 4 days) but I had to call AT&T to get it set up ... Fear and loathing of AT&T was replaced by awe and gratitude at the kind operator who walked me through the initialization process with the V60. She patiently waited while I hunted for my glasses to read the teeeny tiny serial number, and then ever so gently dealt with my ineptness at following her simple instructions .... Within 15 minutes I was up and running with the V60. The first remarkable feature was ... miracle ... reception from my house. We live in a small hollow, previously known as the black hole, where my nokia became a useless paperweight. V60: All systems go. I can actually use my nationwide long distance without having to drive to the top of my street and create havoc with our neighborhood watch caption. In fact, I have found reception in the Seattle area to be almost uninterrupted with the exception of a few quirky spots. What I particularly like about the phone is the compact size in my purse juxtaposed against its relative comfort when flipped. I feels like talking on an actual phone rather than into a small raisin box. I do fret a bit about the outside buttons which control ring setting--I seem to hit those with the precise touch which sets the ring to silent, but that again is probably a symptom of not reading the manual. And that leads me to my final (or initial) point. I'm sure there are a gazillion features which would be more perfectly utilized if I would indeed open the manual. I fully intend to do that some day when I get the time. In the meantime, I've been able to access most of its features simply by using the menus. I've got all of my numbers programmed for voice commands, speed dial and voice mail access set up. I've found, as with most gadgets, we find a way to use what we need and the rest ... well, one day, if I get bored, maybe I'll download that special ring, or find a way to make the thing scrub my grout. Other than the "must read the manual warning" the only other negative thing I heard was that the phone doesn't have games. Frankly, I find that to be a brilliant strategy. Instead of playing inane silly games when I'm waiting in doctors offices, at stoplights, in DMV lines ... I'm now enthralled by discovering new features on the V60--again--WITHOUT the manual. And, as an extra PS, its doesn't hurt that whenever I pull out the phone I get the "where did you get it" "how much did you pay" and "let me see it" even from techies and cell phone know-it-alls. And I'll even admit with embarassment, that when I read People and US and other assorter tabloids, I can't help but notice the number of celebrities who carry the V60 .... I'm sure the Epinions police will sanction me for my failure to address technical aspects, but I must stand up for those of us who just want to hit buttons and make a thing work ... Let our voices be heard ... even an idiot can use the V60 .... Go forth and get yourself one!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87500 2000/3/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice the looks of the phone are stunning small no infra red or hscsd quiet expensive but we love are gadgets bluetooth The Bottom LineAn excellent phone with new features, a new but not perfect UI (or OS), and head turning looks. Full Review In a world of change, it is hard to keep up with technology and style. The V.60 is sure to keep you up-to-date with both of those. I bought my Motorola V.60 not long ago after walking down to my local cell phone provider store (Orange) and handing over my share of the 600$ for my new sleek'n'shiny V.60 . I love my gadgets, each and every one of them, but I think my gadget of the year would probably be my new silver V.60 . I am hope this review will be informative to you and useful to make a decision about you next mobile phone. The Looks To my enjoyment, after handing over my 600$ I received a yellow box, around half the size of a shoe box and on it a picture of the V.60. Getting home and opening up the box I found my new phone, a charger, an instructions manual and to my surprise, a headset! Unlike other companies which attempt to achieve a very expensive feel to the phone, Motorola has actually managed to do this and when using the phone you feel that it is not too light or too heavy, not to small and not too big, it is just right. If you are familiar with other V. Series phones, it's dimensions are between those of the V.50 and the StarTac. Holding up my new phone (which is incredibly comfortable to hold and grip) I saw a marvelous view: Front View The front of the phone contains the external screen, the phone's status light, the speaker for the ringer and the Motorola and V. Series logo. The phone is completely covered in brushed aluminum expect in the places where there is contact between the sides of the phone, and that area on the bottom edges, is covered with dark gray plastic. The new single-line display on the front cover of phone is the most exciting new feature of this phone, and a pretty ingenious feature at that. With this display you'll easily be able to check whether you've got any new messages or lost calls, and maybe most important of all, you don't have to open the phone to check who's calling. The look of the phone is stylish, but the annoying and long antenna doesn't fit in. Back View The back has a light engraved Motorola "M" symbol on the brushed aluminum which covers the whole back part of the phone and the battery. The top of the battery cover has a button to release the battery cover and reveal the battery and SIM card area. Top, Bottom, and Sides The top of the phone contains the antenna, in the same dark gray color, a headset jack, and a place for car hands free set to hold the phone. On the bottom is the accessory connector port to allow you to connect the charger and other data/voice accessories. The left side of the phone contains the volume buttons which can also be used to scroll up or down, a smart key which transfers to the phone book or voice dialing and on the right side is a button to any voice notes which might pop in your mind. Inside When you open the phone, the main screen and the keypad appear. The screen shows the standard 3 lines of text like many other phones from Motorola, while the keypad is perfectly shaped for easy text input and navigation. The navigation buttons are in fact extremely good compared to several other phones from different manufacturers. The Screens The external screen, when the phone flip is closed, shows the time and date and if someone is calling, you will see their number on the external screen too. If they are in your memory, you will see the person's name and from where he is calling. For example if you have the name Bob in your phonebook with his cellphone number and Bob calls you from his cellphone you will see on the external display the cellphone icon and "Bob Calling" . If you missed the call you will get X Missed Calls on the display as well. The internal display shows time, network coverage, battery, network name, menu options, and ringing status. Also if a person calls you will see their name on the internal display with the icon from the location which they are calling. A nice touch added by Motorola is when the flip is open and you can see the internal display, the is a Motorola Logo on the external display so a person looking at your phone while you are talking would not know the person who is calling. Functions and Features The V.60 is stuffed full of new features which are customizable in the main menu so you can put the most used functions up top. The menu system in the V.60 doesn't operate on the same high level as the menu system in i.e. the Motorola T191, so with its unstructured menu the V.60 lacks somewhat in terms of user friendliness. The phone also has some small problems reading from the SIM card when entering the SMS Inbox, but the large phone book capacity of 500 contacts is on the other hand positive. In the main menu you have the following options: Recent calls, Messages, Phonebook, Games, Calculator, Datebook, Fixed Dial, Quick Dial, Service Dial, Voice Notes, Shortcuts, Browser and Settings. A new feature which has been added is the ability to enter more then one piece of information to a person on the phonebook. You can enter Home, Main, Mobile, Work, Fax, and pager numbers and icons for people in your phonebook. You can also set up speed and voice dialing in a much easier way then in previous phones. The games contain blackjack, mindblaster, and paddleball. The datebook is a week based calendar which starts Sunday- Saturday and you can enter information for you to remember and to be alerted at different times. In messages, you can also write a written memo, and there is also a QuickNotes, Outbox, and Drafts folders for SMS messages. The browser (WAP) has an option for GPRS and is very easy to use. The V.60 is equipped with 1 uplink timeslot and 4 downlink timeslots. The WAP browser only supports WAP 1.1 though, and has obviously not been important to upgrade just like the rest of the OS. The V.60 has also received 40 ringtones and 3 types of vibrating alerts which each ringtone or alert can be customized for each person in your phonebook. A FM radio has also been added to the features of the V.60 but it requires a special headset for this function which is available by Motorola. The V.60's battery capacity is not among the greatest I've seen, and like some other phones in the V. series from Motorola I've reviewed previously, the battery is empty after a couple of days without too heavy usage. Specifications of the phone: · Tri-band (900/1800/1900 MHz) · Talktime: Up to 200 minutes · Standby time: Up to 130 hours · Size: 85 x 45 x 24 mm · Weight: 109 g · Display: 3 lines of text · Connectivity: RS232, USB · Phone book: Up to 500 contacts in the internal phone memory · Special Features Available: VoiceNotes, Voice Commands, FM Stereo Radio Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 750 87499 2000/6/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voicenote voice recorder fm stereo radio external caller id compactness voice dialing cannot think of one The Bottom LineI've used more than 7 different cellular phones in the past. And, I have never had so much satisfaction this phone gave me before. Overall, I recommend this phone 100%. Full Review Hello, cellular phone lovers! I've purchased Motorola V60C phone about two weeks ago. On Motorola website, this phone was already available, and after searching for this phone more than a month, I was finally able to find a store which sells this lovely phone. Well, first of all, this phone has an external caller ID. This means you will know who is calling you before you open up your phone. Other previous Startac phones from Motorola including V phones, did not have this external caller ID. Now, you don't have to worry about answering an unwanted call. In addition, you will immediately know how many calls you've missed. Another new feature is voice dialing. Phones from Samsung have already had this feature. And, now this V60C from Motorola has voice recognition. You can record your voice for each phone number up to 20, and you can dial someone by just saying his/her name instead of dialing. In addition, you can record conversations. Plus, it has a datebook. You can put plans/schedule for each day into the phone. And, you can even set an alarm for an important event! Moreover, if you buy an accessory kit from Motorola, you can even listen to the FM radio. If there is any incoming call while you are listeining to the radio, the radio will be automatically turned off and you can answer the call right away! In the phone book, you can put up to400 numbers! And, you can put up to 6 numbers per each person depending on the type of numbers, such as mobile, home, work, fax, main, and beeper! There are 32 alert tones with combination of ring and vibration types. And, there is a built-in minibrowser. This phone works with CDMA 800/1900 and Analog 800MHz networks. Currently, I am using MCI worldcom wireless service. Overall, I believe THIS PHONE IS THE BEST. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 87498 2002/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 outstanding sound very compact sleek metal case reception high price so so battery life sleazy motorola marketing small monochrome screen The Bottom LineIf small size, clamshell design or cool looks are important to you and you don't mind the price, then I highly recommend this phone. Full Review I've been using my new V60c for a few days now, and have compiled some observations that hopefully some people will find useful. I switched from a StarTac 7868, so any comparisons I make will be relative to that phone. LIKES I love the smooth, sleek metal case. It feels great in the hand, either open or closed. The external caller ID display means that I can finally answer by opening the phone--the way a clamshell phone should work, IMO. While I'm on the subject of opening the phone, I've seen more than one review stating that the phone can't be opened with one hand. It's true that you can't open it the way you would open a StarTac. I used to do so by holding the top half of the phone by the edges and pushing down on the protruding bottom end of the phone with something, e.g. my chin. Since the V60x has slippery edges and no protrusion on the bottom, that method doesn't work. It does however have indentations on the side that allow a thumb to wedge the phone a bit open. The thumb can then be slid toward the hinge until the phone opens. With a bit of practice this is actually pretty easy--at least I found it so; your mileage may vary. The internal display has much more resolution than a StarTac's and can show an entire phone book entry at once. Anyone who has tried to copy a 1-NNN-NNN-NNNN number out of their StarTac knows the pain of waiting for it to cycle back from showing "1-" to showing "NNN-NNN-NNNN". The call history, which was pathetic compared to most other brands of phone, is now much more reasonable. It stores 10 each of received and dialed calls. Each entry includes a check mark to indicate calls that were answered and the time and duration of the call as well as the number of course. The sound quality is vastly improved. I noticed a marked decrease in sound quality when I switched from Sprint to GTE (now Verizon). While I know that StarTacs have a bad reputation for sound quality, I always had a nagging suspicion that the switch from 1900MHz to 800MHz might have contributed to the bad sound. Now I know that the entire difference was due to switching from a Qualcomm Q-phone to a StarTac. My reception/reliability has also noticeably with the V60c. I've already used it (with perfect, crystal-clear sound) from a location where I've answered a call with my StarTac and not been able to hear the caller at all. The new key layout, with "Menu", soft, scroll and "Send" and "End" keys at the top of the keypad, is much better suited for one-hand operation than the old design ("Send" and "End" next to each other at bottom-right, no dedicated "Menu", scroll or soft keys). The V60's phone book retains the home/work/mobile/pager icons introduced in the later StarTacs but does away with the inefficient 4-numbers-per-entry structure. The rear mounted battery, in addition to making the phone sleeker, should eliminate accidental battery removal by all but the most determined novice users. In case you think I'm joking, this has happened to me! I was driving when the phone rang, so I handed it to my friend, who had never seen a StarTac before, and she said, "oh does this latch here open it?" The battery slid under a car seat and was not found until the following day. DISLIKES On my StarTac, the external buttons were arranged with the "Up" button on top, the "Down" button on the bottom and the "Select" button in the middle, which seems extremely logical and intuitive to me. On the V60x, the select button (now called the "Smart" button) has been moved to the bottom. IMO, this is a design blunder. The "Down" button is in the middle???! Rather than the huge plastic face for the 1-line external display (with "chrome" trim that will wear off and look like crap, I might add), I would have preferred more metal and the minimum amount of plastic. I have to admit though, the look is growing on me. Unlike other cell phone antennas I've used, the V60's antenna gives no satisfying click to indicate that it is fully extended. Worse yet, the outer telescoping section requires a very hard push to get it to retract. I suspect that a careless person pushing only on the tip could break an antenna by slipping sideways while collapsing it. CAVEATS As much as I love it, the smooth case is slippery compared to that of a StarTac. If you are prone to dropping things, you might want to handle one before deciding. Because the case is so sleek, it also lacks the StarTac's inelegant-yet-useful bulge at the hinge that can be so handy for pulling it out of a pocket or (I don't use the holster, so I'm guessing) the holster. The V60 also replaces the StarTac's grippy diagonal ridges on the sides with slippery metal. SLEAZE ALERT!!! If you are considering this phone because of the FM radio, think again. The radio is disabled until you plug in the optional, $75 Motorola headset (other headsets won't enable it). Motorola markets this phone as including a stereo FM radio. For all practical purposes, THIS IS A LIE. If you end up buying this phone, please don't reward those scumbags in Motorola marketing by forking out the additional $75 for the headset. Instead, spend $30 or so on one of the many excellent AM/FM Walkman-type radios. CONCLUSION Overall, I *love* this phone. Bear in mind that I'm an avid fan of the clamshell phone and would never even consider a phone that had an exposed keypad, nor one that couldn't survive (or would be uncomfortable) in my back pocket. I'm also a huge fan of metal in this age of plastic. The biggest reasons are the phone's small size, elegant appearance and feel and outstanding performance. I haven't really tested the battery life thoroughly, but it's looking better so far than my StarTac. Still, my "Battery Life" rating is just an educated guess. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87497 2000/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception small intuitive menus deceptively sturdy pricey expensive fm headset optional antenna still not sturdy The Bottom LinePortable, versatile and stylish, it's the trendy phone to own for 2001-2002. If you can deal with the hokey backlighting, it's the phone for you. Full Review Remember when mobile phones were brick-sized monstrosities you had to carry around in a bag? I sure remember. Since 9/11 my commute has significantly changed. Where I used to drive into manhattan, I now have to take public transportation. I hate this to no end. The bus line I take is the 161 from Paterson or Passaic, and I happen to be one of the LAST STOPS for this line before getting into the city. Needless to say, my bus is crowded, and I need to travel light. While I used to just be able to pack whatever I needed to into my car, I no longer have the drive to pack up a backpack and take it onto a crowded bus. If I can't carry it on my person, I won't carry it at all. This phone fits the bill quite nicely. First of all, the phone is small. Incredibly small. I'd say it's about the same size as your standard every day Juicy Fruit Plen-T-Pack of gum. If you're curious as to how large that is, head over to your local news stand and buy a pack. But for all that's holy, don't get caught talking into a pack of gum. The shell of the phone looks like a brushed aluminum sort of metal, with a small LCD display for showing off the Caller ID number. When inactive it shows the time/date. This LCD was a feature they really needed in the 8160 vader model. The phone just plain looks nice. Those of you who are worried about scratching it up: well, it's still a concern, but after a few months of owning it, i'm amazed it still looks as great as it does. It does NOT scratch easily. The rear cover of the phone can be replaced, depending on the type of battery you use. It comes with a slim Li-Ion battery, and you can buy an optional extended battery which increases the phone's thickness to a small degree. There's 3 buttons on the unit, a rocker up/down button on the left for scrolling along with a button for "selecting", and a button on the right for voice activation. When the phone is closed, you can use the scroll/select buttons to select the alert type (silent, vibrate, ring/vibrate, loud, soft, etc). Of course, when open the left buttons are used for menu navigation, volume controls, etc. Ok, first the good: The phone itself is small, that's always a plus unless you constantly lose stuff in your couch cushions. If you need something pocket-friendly, this phone is definitely it. It doesn't weigh much, but is substantial enough to not feel like a really cheap, cheesy phone. The menu system is pretty intuitive. Most of the front panel options can be changed, and you can configure "shortcuts". The 2 main "function" buttons on the top pad of the phone can be configured to perform just about any phone function. I configure mine to be "recent" and "message", the recent button taking you to the "recent inbound and outbound calls" menu, and the "message" button sending you to the Text/Voice messaging menu. The "recent" menu is simple, showing you the last 10 calls you've either dialed or received. You can also list Call times, another handy little feature for the paranoid folk who refuse to purchase the right plan for their habits. The "message" menu is also very nice, with your typical "inbox" style, showing inbound text messages, voice messages, browser alerts, quick notes, outbox and sent items. You can "drill down" into any of these to read the contents. If you're used to most email apps, you'll be right at home here. The phone can receive and send SMS messages, and you can configure "quick notes" to quickly recall full words or phrases like "Need Directions", "Call me", "Be home soon", or "Quick, Sell all my Enron stock and book me a one-way flight to Aruba." If you're a text messaging fan, you'll be fine here. Reception is excellent, without a doubt. This is usually the case with Verizon though, at least in the northeast. Calls are clear, volume is good, and I've rarely had a dropoff. I travel mostly between new york city and new jersey, so coverage is excellent; even in the lincoln tunnel. Oh, and the voice activation feature works. You have to train it for each number you want to use it with. If you hate fumbling with the tiny buttons on this phone, by all means, use it. It works rather well for the primary owner of the phone. For instance, if you train the phone to call "Bob" by training it to hear "Bob", it will work if YOU are the one who trained it and spoke into it. If you hand the phone to your wife, and have her hit the voice activation button and say "Bob", it won't. It only works for the person who trained it. Oh, there's also an FM headphone piece I purchased, and the reception is EXCELLENT. It basically plugs into the phone's bottom plug, and allows you to tune/store radio stations on the phone itself. While the earbuds aren't the most comfortable in the world, the excellent reception makes up for it for those hellish commutes. And now, The Bad: The antenna seems unnecessarily large. It protrudes from the phone around 1.5 inches. Oh, and it's not very sturdy. I've broken one already by just having it in my pocket. In motorola's defense, my 2nd antenna has taken a lot more abuse, and it's holding up just fine. That doesn't justify its size though. Also, the screen is perfectly readable in well-lit areas, but the backlighting stinks. It's just not bright enough at night, and even in complete darkness the contrast isn't good. The included holster seems flimsy, such that I don't use it anymore. I can't tell if my phone is in it properly, and i'm afraid my $399 wonderphone is going to fall off somewhere. It's better off in your pocket. Bottom line, this phone gets a 4. To be worthy of my 5 star rating, it would have to have a less protrusive antenna, and better backlighting/night readability. The cheesy belt clip I would let slide. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87496 2002/7/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good looks clamshell design easy to use menu system low sar score great reception screen hard to see no java apps no 1xrtt housing dents easily software bugs The Bottom LineAnother fine Motorola product. Also looks great on your belt. Full Review I bought my Verizon V60c a few months back. I've been a avid Mot phone fan for many years, enjoying the quality, design and durability of Mot phones since 1988. Well, on to business..... First off, the phone has software bugs that were not fixed until Mot released the new V60i this month. If buying new, get a V60i instead of the V60c. The V60i also includes a changeable faceplate, better antenna design and better battery for longer talk time. Don't get me wrong the V60c is a great phone even with the few glitches. The V60c software can be upgraded to the new V60i software, but it can be a TASK to find a Verizon store capable of doing the upgrade. I experienced true aggravation in South Florida. Otherwise, the phones strong suit is its great ergonomics and excellent reception. I find Mot phones will ring or be able to make calls in weak signal strength. I've used Sanyo, Samsung and LG phones that have much greater difficulty in weak conditions. This alone is worth it for me, since indoors digital 1.9Ghz service can often be a weak signal. Other likes: clamshell design prevents unwanted dialing typically excellent Mot construction quality well designed menu system SMS easy to use great accessories, check www.motorola.com dislikes: screen can be hard to read in certain light backlight a little on the dim side earpiece volume should get a little louder expect to break a fingernail when changing batteries some software bugs on very recently fixed (V 2200.x.x.x) not compatible with Verizon 1XRTT fast data connection no Java apps in CDMA version of V60 no HTML browser Overall the V60c is a great phone and anyone buying it will not be disappointed. Where the disappointment might come in to play is when the user decides they want some of the new data services and realize the V60c is not compatible with them. Mot will be releasing a new T720 shortly which will be about the size of a Startac and will have a full color screen, data compatibility, downloadable JAVA applications, and a full HTML webbrowser that will allow you to get calls while browsing the web. The wireless world mimics computers in the sense that whatever phone you buy today it will be outdated shortly after you buy it. If you want a V60c go for it, just never look back! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87495 2002/10/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 feels durable cool look size great sound weight hard to open high price a bit slippery to hold antenna breaks easily The Bottom LineA quality phone with features, size, and style. Protect that antenna! You won't be disappointed. However, the price is obscene! Full Review OCT'02 - UPDATE: The antenna broke off several more times and I decided this phone's design was unacceptable. I've switched to a Motorola C332. I believe Motorola has made the antenna sturdier in the v60t and v60i. Avoid this v60c unless you can be very careful. UPDATE: I just wanted to add a small update. This phone's antenna snaps and breaks easily. Mine broke after a few weeks. Admittedly, I carry the phone in my pocket but I think I should be able to do this. Getting a repair is possible but the phone must be sent to an authorized repair facility. My fix was to super glue the antenna to the phone. Luckily the antenna did remain attached to the phone (just hung there) so I was able to glue it. It still provides reasonable reception and seems more durable than before when glued in the down position. ------------------- This is my sixth cell phone over roughly six years. I switch for various reasons. I use this phone on the Qwest network. It sells for $400 which is simply outrageous. I was able to get it for significantly less due to a series of lucky breaks. THE OUTSIDE: This is really a small phone yet it feels substantial. It has some weight to it but it's not heavy. You feel like you're holding something which is nice when it comes to these tiny phones. It's shape feels right when you're using it. It has a real metal casing which looks very cool. However, it makes the phone's surfaces somewhat slippery - more so than any phone I've owned. EXTERNAL DISPLAY!!! One of the best features. You can see who's calling without opening the phone. You can also see the time and date, if you have voice mail, missed calls, etc. SIDE BUTTONS! This phone includes 3 buttons on either side of the case! A rocker for volume, a smart button for a host of features, and a voice button to dial by voice. Very handy! The charger plugs into the base of the phone immediately next to the data port. It's not a quick plug in because you have to line up the plug just right and it feels kind of delicate. There are two other physical/design issues: (1) The phone is kind of hard to open. There aren't any substantial gaps or protrusions to help out. The slippery metal doesn't help here. (2) The antenna protrudes solidly even when retracted. I know it needs one but it really gets in the way sometimes. THE INSIDE: The screen is large and easy to read. Its backlight is even. Sometimes there is too much on the screen but you learn to ignore the useless info. The buttons are larger than you'd expect making them easy to use. It even has a raised rocker button to navigate up and down the menus. That's typical in big phones but a welcome addition in a tiny phone like this. When open, dialing a number takes some getting used to because of the weight distribution of the open phone. The top half is a bit heavier. You might want to try it out before you buy for this and other reasons. THE SOFTWARE: The interface takes some getting used to. It is identical to that used in the 270c (a much bigger phone). It covers all the typical features and then some. It even lets you reorder some of the menus and assign some buttons yourself - this is handy if you're left handed! I have two major complaints about the software: (1) Each type of phone number is listed individually. In other words if "Bob" has a home number, office number, and mobile number, you will see three listed entries. Just more to scroll through. They should be combined. (2) The "remind" feature also reminds you of missed calls that don't leave a message. This can be irritating and there's no way to disable it unless you disable all reminders (i.e. voice mail). THIS AND THAT: The battery life is good. I'd guess most users will be able to go through a normal day without recharging. The ringer/vibrate set up is somewhat orthodox - it uses "profiles" (i.e. the "Soft Ring Profile" might have call ring softly and messages vibrate) but you get used to it. MY FINAL WORD? This phone is expensive! It is not worth the money. It's priced way outside the realm of other phones that would probably be just as satisfying. I can see paying $250 for it but $400 is silly. As I said, the only reason I bought it was the deal I got. If it was full price, I would not have bought it. Price aside, it's a great little phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 87494 2000/8/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size lots of features sleek design no speakerphone small display The Bottom LineMany feature, some useful, others stupid.....all in a compact and convenient package. Full Review Cell phones are called upon to do more and more things these days. In addition to serving the basic functions of a cell phone, they are also mini web browsers, play games, function as bare boned PDA's, voice recorders, etc. It is amazing how all these features can be fit into a phone as small as the Motorola v60. I have 2 wireless phone accounts with Verizon, with a total of 3 phones, one for me, one for my wife, and one for my mother-in-law. I recently streamlined all 3 phones into a single account, but to do this I needed to replace one of the phones with a tri-mode phone. I picked the v60 for it's size, because I can carry it unobstrusively in my pants pocket. For a flip-phone, it feels relatively sturdy, and at the same time it is fairly light in weight when used with the supplied wafer thin Li-ion battery. The phone's exterior design is very attractive. If you're so inclined, you can swap the face plate with different colored panels which are sold separately. The external display shows the time and date, and displays caller ID when a call comes in. Navigating the menu is very easy and most basic functions are self explanatory without extensive review of the manual. The only drawback is the internal display size. It only displays a few line of text. The fonts are small and hard to read, and if you zoom it up, it only displays 2 lines at a time. Navigating the menu is very similar to other v series phones. The most useful feature for me is the voice activated dialing. The manual doesn't specify how many numbers can be assigned a voice dial, but so far, I've been able to assign 15-20 numbers with this feature. It's as easy as pushing a button and saying the name....very convenient. It also has voice recording capabilities which I'll probably rarely use, but it may come in handy when you need to jot down a phone number or address. Web browsing on this phone is usually not worth the effort unless you desparately need web access for some reason or another. The main problem is the small screen size. Surfing the net at 3 text lines at a time is like eating rice one grain at a time. My advice for those who absolutely need web access on the go is to use a PDA...there are some out there that can pull double duty as a cell phone and PDA. The built in games on the phone serve only to act as energy sinks to drain battery life. There is no reason in the world to have included this. They are stupid and unengaging. The phone has all the other standard feature you find in most other phones nowadays, including variable tones, alerts, and vibralert features. It has a standard jack for headphones, an interface to hook up to your computer (to do basic sync with a PIM program), caller ID and call waiting features. One potentially useful feature is a calculator, which could come in handy from time to time. It also has a date book which you can use to store your schedule, and it can sync with most popular PIM program on a PC. My life is not that complicated now for me to use this function, but it's nice to know I have the option The supplied battery is about as thick as a stack of 3 credit cards. I can used to get about 2 or 3 days of standby time with that. Recently I bought the extended life battery which is almost twice as thick, but I can go about a week before I need to recharge. The drawback is that it adds moderate bulk and weight to the phone. The advertised battery life on many ads for this phone claims "up to 250 hours" standby.....no possible way with the supplied slim battery. They should clearly state that this applies to the extended life battery, which is not standard equipment with the phone. About the only thing I liked better about my previous phone is the speakerphone capability. You can buy an add-on device which provides speakerphone function, but then it becomes too clunky, and defeats the purpose of making such a small phone in the first place. Overall, the v60 is a great product, though it's on the pricey side. But as phones get better and smaller, the price should come down. Already there are phone out there which are about as big as the v60, but they come with a bigger screen, color LCD and speakerphone capabilities. Maybe next year. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87493 2001/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice features attract attention the best out there futuristic look price antenna The Bottom LinePhone that looks like a Ferrari and performs like one too, what are you waiting for? Full Review My Company just recently switched from AT&T to Verizon, so I had to say bye bye to my Nokia 8260, which I thought was the greatest phone out there....boy, was I wrong. When my Company gave me the phone for the Verizon service, it was the cheap StarTac flip phone. That phone was such garbage the I had to buy a better phone out of my own pocket. If you have read my reviews before, you know I want nothing but the best. So I researched the heck out of all the possible Verizon phones and I found the Motorola V60c is the one for me. When I received the phone from FedEx, I opened it and it looked like a Ferrari. It has a carbon fiber look in the front and it has aluminum metal casing all around. Even though it has metal on the outside, this phone is still one of the lightest out there, plus, it is scratch resistance. I immediately started programming it, which by the way, is very easy to do. The best feature I think is the external display, which tells you whom is calling before you answer it without opening the phone. Also, the voice activated dialing is awesome. Just push a button, say the name you had set for a particular person, and it will dial it for you automatically. Also, during a conversation, you can actually record the conversation, I believe up to 40 seconds. I used it already and it really works. I was driving and I need directions, so I had the person tell me the directions I recorded it. While I was close to the destination, I kept on playing the recorded message over and over and I did not get lost. There is also a Calendar/Appointment datebook. So for those of you who do not have a palm pilot yet, do not get one if you intend to buy this phone. I set all the birthdays I have, and it will emit an alarm note every year to remind me of someone's birthday. Also, you can set an appointment too, lets say for a Dr. Appointment for 2 weeks from today. You just program it into the phone and you can choose it to notify you one day ahead, one hour ahead, 5 minutes ahead or a custom setting which you can set the time. This feature is pretty useful. One other feature that I like is that you are able to set the ringer loud/soft/vibrate only/vibrate&ring without openeing the phone. There are smart keys on the side of the phone and the external display will scroll through them, very easy to do. There is a flashing light outside the phone which can be turned off/on. When it is flashing green, it is receiving signal, when is is flashing red, it is not receiving any signal. I find this useful because I do not have to open the phone to check if my phone can receive calls or not, all I have to do is look at that flashing light outside the phone. Did I tell you that external display shows the date/time when it is in standby mode and when it is flipped open, it will say Motorola but upside down since is flipped open? Very cool if you ask me. This phone also comes with all sorts of ringtones and different kinds of vibrate mode. You can also set different tones for regular incoming calls, text message, email message and/or voicemail. So you'll know what kind of messages you are receiving by the ringtones you had set. Did I tell you how sexy and cool this phone looks? When I was walking through the mall this past weekend using my phone, I swear alot of people were looking at my phone and was staring at it as I walked by. Remember I told you earlier that I had the StarTac phone? Well, that phone would never work inside my house. But guess what? The V60c works flawlessly inside my house, I can actually receive and call from inside my house now. Its sound quality and clarity is similar to my home phone. I guess you really get what you paid for. There are so many features on this phone that I am afraid I will run out of room to explain to you. It is alittle pricey and the antenna is kind of funky, but you know what, it is all worth it. It comes with a belt clip and a wall charger. The standard battery is 500mah, which gives you about 150 minutes of talk time and 150 hours of standby. You can actually buy a bigger battery from Motorola for about $55 and it is a 850 mah and gives you about 250 minutes of talk time and 250 hours of standby time. I really don't know what else to tell you people that are still deciding if you want to buy this phone or not. Take my advise, go buy the phone if you can find it (high in demand) and I can guarantee you that once you learned all the features on the phone, you will be glad you took my advise. ***Update*** I just found out another useful feature. When you receive a text message, you can actually read the whole message without openeing your phone. You can just scroll through the whole message from the external diplay, very cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 87492 2000/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 construction excellent voice quality function front cover is not replaceable The Bottom LineThe V60t is a great product that is well built and has a unique style. I really like it a lot. Full Review This review is written for AT&T (or TDMA network) users who are interested in purchasing a Motorola V60t TDMA wireless phone. Epinions seems to have neglected to include this model on the list. This is likely because the V60t is identical in appearance to the V60c CDMA wireless phone. In any event, I went ahead and published my opinion under this heading. Prior to the purchase of the V60t, I was using Nokia 3360 wireless phone on the AT&T network. The Nokia was pretty small and sported an internal antenna. But because it was so compact, the mouthpiece ended up halfway up the side of my head often causing my voice to sound muffled to the folks with whom I was talking. Signal strength was also poorer than I was expecting. Other than the size, I just wasn't really happy with its performance. So when I saw the Motorola V60t advertised at Circuit City, I decided to check it out. When I saw it, I thought, wow! This phone is really small. It has a sleek metal body, large backlit keys, dual displays, and a mouthpiece that is actually in front of my mouth. I went ahead and purchased it and then returned the Nokia to the AT&T Wireless Center. I am so glad I found this phone. Motorola really put some of their best engineering into it. The clarity is great, and I no longer receive complaints about my voice sounding muffled. The battery life is amazing too. I have had conversations lasting 2 to 3 hours straight and it didn't give out. And the recharge times are typically under 3 hours. Really nice. Motorola packed a lot of features into the V60. For starters, the external display shows the current time and date. The Caller ID from incoming calls is also displayed along with other messages that are associated with various alerts. The internal display shows standard information such as signal strength, battery strength, time, date, etc. Users can also choose to have to phone display small or large text. I chose the smaller fonts because more information is displayed. Next, 400 names and numbers can be stored into memory. To access, I can scroll through the list, but I prefer to use voice recognition to find and dial the number. Once programmed with my voice, the phone list can be accessed by pressing an external "voice key" then saying a name. For instance, I programmed in the name "Jackass." Once recognized, it plays back the name for confirmation then automatically dials the number to my boss. Other than the voice key, no additional buttons need to be pushed. Another feature I like a lot is VoiceNotes. By pressing the external voice key button and holding it down, I can speak into the receiver and the phone will record up to several minutes of verbal reminders into memory. A date and time stamp is then placed once I stop recording and makes retrieving it a snap. This feature sure beats writing reminders down. Especially while in traffic! Other features include Datebook that when opened, displays a weekly calendar. A day view or an event view can then be opened to add or modify information. But it is a bit of a pain to use the number keys to enter the text. Reminder alarms can also be attached to messages so I won't miss those important appointments. Motorola has also allowed users to fine tune how we want to organize the displays too. For instance, I can customize the "Main Menu" by rearranging the user functions on the list. I can reprogram the "soft keys" to quickly access the functions I want. I can also program in short cuts, different and distinct ring tones for the ringer, different vibrating options, voice mail alerts, text message alerts, etc. Motorola even when so far as to providing a My Tones feature that allows the creation of up to 32 custom alert tones. Ok, that is really more than I need, but it is nice to know it is there. As for games, there aren't any. But it does have an FM stereo! To listen requires a separate pair of proprietary ear buds sold by Motorola for around $50.00. Beyond all of these features, the rest is pretty standard. Features like Security, Key Locks, Caller ID, Call Waiting, Three Way Calling, Voice Mail Icons, Text Message Icons, Roaming Icons, etc, are all here. For those of you concerned about the metal body, yes, dents and scratches from drops are a concern. However, replacement rear metal backs are available and are sold by Motorola with replacement batteries. As far as I can tell though, the front cover does not come off. So try not to damage it. At over $399 was it worth the asking price? Absolutely. Good luck finding one though. A lot of places can't seem to keep the V60t in stock. Have fun with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87491 2002/11/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size sexy look great menus indiglo light is the best plastic part of face scratches easily stubby antenna not a nokia high price tag The Bottom LineGreat phone. Expensive phone. Buy it if you have the money to burn. Awesome quality. Downside? Not a Nokia, but it will do. Full Review UPDATE-NOVEMBER 7, 2002 I have gotten rid of my Motorola V60t. The reason is actually quite simple. I MISSED MY NOKIA!!! Even though I feel that I have mastered the Motorola V60t's operating functions, I felt like I had to go to school just to study the book. I was really impressed with the phone at first, but after a while, it just became a nuisance instead of a convenience. One word of advice-AT&T Wireless does not provide adequate support for the Motorola Phones that they carry. I had an issue with the security code on my phone. I never had a reason to change the security codes or the unlock codes, so you would think the default ones would work right? WRONG!!! I was trying to erase the phone book all at one and reset the phone so I could give it to a friend. Needless to say, the default security code that Motorola assigned to the phone did not work. Neither did the unlock code. Neither did the instructions that Motorola provided to AT&T Wireless to correct the problem. I called Customer Care and all they could tell me was to wait until Motorola was open again (which was 2 days later) and call them to see if they can figure it out. I took the phone to the AT&T Wireless Store. They couldn't figure it out either. I have 3 questions. Why would Motorola emphatically state in their manual that the default codes should work, but they don't? Why doesn't Motorola have weekend Customer Service hours? Why can't AT&T Wireless provide adequate support for all of the phones that they sell? They are excellent with Nokia support. So, I guess what I am saying is that if you go with the AT&T service, I would HIGHLY recommend that you buy a Nokia phone. The support is better-from AT&T Wireless and from Nokia directly. Another issue with the Motorola V60t was that I was not able to send text messages. I went back and forth with Customer Care, and we were still not able to get the text message sending feature working properly. I constantly got a SENT MESSAGE FAILED message on my phone. EXTREMELY ANNOYING. I was able to receive text messages, but replying to them? FORGET IT! This has caused a major jam more than once. I don't use the text messaging that often, but when I do, it's usually an emergency. Text Messaging never failed me with my Nokias. Ok. Here's my last issue. The alarm clock function. This function has almost caused the phone to get thrown out of th window. I would set the phone for reminder alarms all of the time. How about the phone would go off at all the wrong times? Like in the middle of the night, I would all of a sudden hear a high-pitched alarm! I would double-check the alarm, and it was set correctly. The phone was just crazy! This has happened one too many times for me. With all of that said and done, I have now switched to a Nokia 8265 and am very happy about it (REVIEW COMING SOON!!!). I still think the Motorola V60t is a sexy phone. It just got on my last nerve! (SMILE). If you are interested in buying this phone, continue to read the original review that I wrote. I do know quite a number of people who are happy with this phone. All I can say is, don't let the pretty package fool you. THIS IS MY ORIGINAL REVIEW THAT I POSTED BACK IN JUNE 2002. I have had this phone for about a month now. I have really put it through its paces, so now I feel like I can give an objective review. I wish they had a category for the V60t since the phone has different features according to the wireless provider you have. This review is for the V60t on the AT&T Wireless Network. For starters, this phone is a very sexy phone! The brushed aluminum casing is absolutely beautiful! Beware of the plastic covering on the screen. I have a teeny scratch on it, and even though it's not all that noticable, I noticed it. The best way to avoid this? Buy a leather cover. The leather cover protects it 100 times better than the holster that comes with it. Plus, if you get the case with the Nokia-style swivel clip, you can carry it better on your purse, briefcase or belt loop. I love the size and weight of the phone. I have always had candy bar-type phones. It feels very solid in my hand. Also, the flip style is more comfortable for me to hold for longer periods of time. The phone doesn't get hot like the other phones I have owned do. The idea of an external screen is one of the best I have seen in a long time! I was really mad when my friends who are all on Sprint had these cute little flip phones with external screens. I love the idea of looking at my phone and seeing who is calling and giving myself the option whether to flip the phone up to talk or let it roll into my voice mail. This is a great addition! This phone has awesome sound quality! It's almost like you're talking on a landline phone. It's quite refreshing to know that I don't have to keep repeating myself to people, and they don't have to keep repeating themselves to me. The menus are easy to learn once you devote some time to the manual. I am usually a person that will just jump in and start playing around on a new phone, but with this one, I found that I did actually have to refer to the manual for some functions. I actually carried the manual in my purse for about a week and read it during my lunch hour! I figure, if you are going to spend that much money, and depend on it for a lot, you might as well learn everything about the phone that you can. You can rearrange the order of the different menu functions according to the frequency you use them. I had to refer to the manual a number of times to program my voice dialing, but once I figured out what I was doing, it was very easy! The built-in datebook is wonderful! I no longer have to use my Palm Pilot! The only thing I don't like about the datebook is unless you happen to pick one of the ringtones for your reminder alarm that are particularly long, you just might miss your event reminder because you didn't hear it! The phonebook is pretty simple to use. I just wish that you could program like 5 different numbers under 1 name as opposed to seeing the same name 5 different times in your phone list. The way I have done it is to just designate in the name of the entry whose number it is, and which number is it. For example, one might say "Shannon-Home," and the other might say "Shannon-Cell." The little icons that are used to designate are cute, but I'm hardly ever paying attention to icons, so what I name the entries is more helpful. I have gotten over seeing people's names 4 and 5 times. I just have to live with it. It would also be nice if you could program ringtones for specific numbers. The voice dialing is very convenient in the car or when you're walking somewhere. Just push the little button on the side, repeat the name that you programmed in, and voila! It dials the number! The one thing they could improve is the response time between you saying the name, the phone repeating the name back to you and the dialing of the number. It's a great feature though. I haven't had an opportunity to used the voice recorder feature, but I'm sure it can be very handy repeating directions while your driving, or jotting down a quick note to remember for later. I use the headset that comes with the phone quite often. It has great sound, and surprisingly enough, it's more comfortable in my ear than my Nokia one. The Motorola one seems like it's not even there. I have two major gripes about this phone. One major gripe I have about this phone is the price. It is absolutely ridiculous! When I first saw this phone, it wasn't even for sale yet. They had a prototype of it on display at the AT&T Wireless store. I fell in love with it then, when the price tag was close to $500. I bought this phone at $249, extending my contract another year. That actually wasn't bad, because I had just extended my contract about 2 months ago, so in essence, I'm really just extending my contract by 2 months. Combined with an AT&T Service credit, along with another credit from my company's AT&T agreement, the final cost of the phone is averaging out to be about $150-which I think is a very justifiable cost for this phone. If you are willing to spend the money, go for it. The second major gripe I have is that this phone is not a Nokia. Over the past 8 years, I have owned close to 10 Nokia phones. Only getting rid of one to upgrade to the next best model. The only reason why I went with Motorola was because I was on #2 of the Nokia 3360. The phone kept shutting off on me for no reason, and there were some other issues involved with the phone. The replacement phone that was sent to me had its own separate set of issues, so I just decided to botch the phone (with tears in my eyes) and go with the Motorola. I wrote Nokia and told them about this, and I also told them the phone that I bought. I told them that if Nokia ever came out with a flip phone similar, if not better than the V60t, I would drop Motorola and go straight back to Nokia. Unfortunately, they wrote me back and told me that they don't have any plans for a similar phone in the U.S. market as of yet. That makes me very sad. I have been a staunch Nokia fan for some time now. Oh well. You can't have everything. The one thing that this phone has over my Nokia phones is that now I can actually hold a conversation in my house. I was never able to do that with any of my Nokias. Well, I've come to the end of my review. I hope it helps. This phone doesn't have all the fun stuff like Nokia phones do. This phone functions just as a phone, and a datebook, and that it perfectly fine by me. If you have $200 to burn, buy the phone. It's not a Nokia, but it will definitely do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249 87490 2000/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 metal case reception improving features stylish easily navigable menus pricey The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for anyone who is willing to spend money on features and will actually use all the wonderful features it has. Full Review The Motorola V60 is a fantastic little phone. It is the best phone on the market today and that is shown in the cost. It looks great and has tons of features but as always, cost versus features/usage should be carefully considered before purchase. This phone is the best phone out today. The only comparable phone is the Nokia 8260. The Nokia is the second best out there but is still a far cry from the Motorola. The Nokia lacks the beauty and sophistication of the Motorola and was not worth it for me even though I could have gotten it for free. Cost is a big issue when purchasing a phone. You can get different offers from different stores and rebates are almost always included from providers. I was actually able to purchase this phone for a mere 200 dollars minus a 40-dollar rebate. The phone would have been 500 dollars with Verizon, but I was able to switch to ATT and save the three hundred dollars. The features on this phone are too numerous to mention all of them. The phone comes with a 100-page book but all the functions are east to use and learn. The system is menu based with a hierarchy of options. One simple button allows you to select menus and one button moves you through them. All these menus are animated and easy to read and navigate. The looks of this phone are fabulous. It has an outside display, which tells you everything going on in the phone even when it is closed. The shell is immaculately crafted and has an ergonomic design that is easy on the eye as well as the touch. The phone came with a number of accessories when I got it. It has the executive package, which includes everything but the USB kit. It has a hands free set, a car charger, a desk charger, a car speakerphone, and a spare battery. All of these are useful and even more so when they come free with the phone. The phone is a wonderful improvement over previous phones I have owned but I would actually make some improvements to it myself. The scroll buttons are only two directions on top. The side-to-side buttons are on the bottom and can be cumbersome to switch to. On older phones the navigation button has been four-direction capable. Motorola does compensate for this though by making the side-to-side buttons largely unnecessary. This phone picks up signals better than any I have had before. My house is notorious for it's terrible service but the V60 is actually able to get two out five bars in most places. It has wonderful service just about everywhere else. This is largely in part to the wonderful abilities of the ATT towers, but something has to receive those signals - and these phones do just that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87489 2002/6/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 clarity side buttons front lcd price hard to flip open weight software not user friendly durability The Bottom LineMotorola V60 is not as good as older Nokias and even a StarTAC. It's flashy, but expensive, and not user friendly. Settle for a lesser model or a Nokia. Full Review I had been using Verizon Wireless aka. Bell Atlantic Mobile for four years, and for the first three, I had been using the Motorola StarTAC which had served me well. The StarTAC was getting really beat up, the antennae was always breaking, and even with new batteries, the phone was always dying. Time for a new phone. I wanted to keep my phone number and account with Verizon Wireless, and I was feeling greedy, so I purchased the Motorola V60 which was the top-of-the-line phone for Motorola at the time. I ordered it online with Verizon, and because I had been with them for so long, they decided to give me a $50 discount after I asked twice. The phone arrived, and I couldn't wait to input my phonebook numbers and start using it. However, I discovered that it wasn't really worth $350 afterall. My favorite part about the V60 is the frontal LCD screen that displays the caller ID number, the time, and date, even when the phone is closed. It is convenient compared to the StarTAC where I had to flip open the phone evertime I wanted to see who's calling or what the time was. However, this has also made the phone considerably heavier than similar Motorola models. This isn't a big deal since the phone is small to begin with. Personally, I liked to flip my StarTAC open with one hand, and that was easy to do. However, with the V60, it's very difficult to flip open with one hand due to its heavy head. As with the StarTAC, the V60 came with side buttoms to adjust volume and ring functions. This was convenient as usual. The other side comes with an extra fourth button that controls the voice notes function which is a neat added benefit if you like to record memos for yourself. I personally never use this function though. Compared to the StarTAC or other phones that I used (friends' phones), the V60 is very clear. When compared with other phones, the reception is much better than phones that are on the same network, as well as others (Verizon is known for its good reception where I live). The functions are what I hate the most about the V60. They are not at all user friendly. Users have to program their own shortcuts, and to me, that's ridiculous. The phonebook and setting functions are decent, but when compared to the Nokia phones, it's lacking greatly. Nokia phones have games, a calculator, more ring tones, and is much more user friendly. This is the first phone where I actually had to keep my user's manual handy even half a year after owning it. The Nokia functions were just easy to access and universal among Nokia phones. Durability can be a problem with the V60. I sometimes accidentally leave my phone in the car overnight. During wintertime, the phone will have to withstand subzero temperatures. The StarTAC always stood up to these cold temperatures, and in the morning it took a few seconds to warm up, but it always worked no problem. The first time I did this to the V60, the vibrating function stopped working. I took the phone to Verizon, and they had to give me a new one because they couldn't fix it. I was disappointed that the V60 couldn't withstand a few hours of cold weather while the StarTAC did that many times. Needless to say, I never put the V60 to the test ever again. The V60 is a nice phone to look at. All my friends commented on how nice it looked. Yet, I don't feel that it's worth even the current price of $270. Even my favorite function, the frontal LCD that displays caller ID is available on quite a few other flip phones now. This problem can also be easily remedied with a non-flip phone; just turn on the key lock function that every Nokia has. Overall, I'm not satisfied. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 350.00 87488 2000/11/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 voice notes external display attractive usre interface antenna form factor overall design battery life The Bottom LineCompared to the other phones on the market these days, this is NOT a practical choice. THere are far better options! Full Review I've owned a v.60c for a year now and was dissapointed with it from day one. I bought it for its looks and small size, but it has failed to prove itself as worthy of the price tag. I should note that I bought the phone when it was very new and still priced at $600 (with a 3 year plan). Since I purchased the phone, I upgraded it once due to faulty original firmware. The phone is definitely small and is quite durable. It fits nicely in my pocket or briefcase and has a lot os useful features. I find that the phonebook interface is poor compared to other phones. Browsing is fine (and similar to most other phone I've used), but the problem is the way multiple numbers are organized and how numbers are entered; this need a lot of work. The voice notes feature is very useful for me. I often record short reminders while walking or driving. The antenna is very awkward and has broken once (a C$20 replacement price tag). It extends, but is a large stubby when retracted. A shorter stub or a fully retractable antenna would be preferable. I have found the reception on this phone to be poor compared to other phones. Collegues on the same network often have better reception than I do and although I am on the major phone company network, I still miss many calls. More times than not, the phone doesn't start ringing until the second or third ring- by the time I find and answer the phone, they have already been sent to voicemail or have hung up. The phone also has mediocre sound quality compared to what's out there these days. I'm on a cdma network (the local phone company's network), and have had reasonable sound quality with other phones, but there is a definite deficit with this one. The browser is poorly designed and the interface is cumbersome on the small keypad with lack of special keys. THe softkeys at the bottom of the screen are the only plus here. There are a lot of custom features that make the phone more usable and practicle, but they don't compare to those available on the Nokia or Samsung phones. The vibrator is weaker than most and cannot be easily felt in a jacket pocket or pants pocket. The biggest problem with this phone is the poor battery life. I use my phone frequently (I'm not a heavy user but still depend on my phone) and find that unless i plug in my phone at every opportunity (office, home, car), then I'll run out of juice. the phone is lightweight and small and looks chique. Otherwise, there's not much else I can say that I really like about this phone. It's nice having the external display so I can screen calls and simply open to answer, but this isn't really a unique feature anymore- most flips out there have a comparable feature. Physically, the phone is fairly solid. It has a metallic exterior that scratches, but it holds up to drops. I've dropped my phone many times and the worst that has happened is that the back metal battery cover has popped off. THat being said, the antenna has broken in my pocket (but probably because I play with it). I would have a very hard time recommending this phone. THe price is a bit more reasonable than when I bought it, but I would rather a more user friendly phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 600 87487 2002/7/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speed good battery life small voice dialing stylish no games no custom ring tones The Bottom LineThis is an excellent phone. If I lost mine, I would buy the same one again. Full Review Moto Hip, Moto Hop I fell in love with this tiny phone the second I saw the commercials for it on TV. The phone was small, and sleek. Perfect size for my pocket and perfect style for my trendy tastes. Internet and E-mail Capabilities I haven't actually used it for surfing the web, but I have sent e-mail on it. Writing stuff on the keypad can be a pain in the butt. This phone offers a neat little iTap function, which attempts to guess the word you are trying to type, and when you press the next number, it will put first the letter it thinks you want. It can be handy, and save a bit of typing, but generally I found the function to not be very intelligent. The screen is somewhat small, and makes reading emails a bit tough, but I don't believe reading e-mail is easy on any cell phone. Ring Tones The phone comes with 32 of its own ring tones, and they're all fairly nice ring tones. Some are loud and annoying, and others are fairly soft. You can also change the volume of the ring tones. Unfortunately you can't download or create any of your own ring tones, which is something I was hoping to do. Battery The battery life on this phone is great. I can go over a week without having to recharge it. It also ships with a Lithium Ion battery, which is good because with a lithium ion battery you can plug it in to charge whenever you want to, and don't have to worry about ruining a battery, like you do with the nick Phonebook The phonebook is great. You can store up to 400 names and numbers. You can also do a speed dial feature with the numbers where you just hold a number down and it dials that number. You can also voice program the phonebook, so you say the persons name and it dials. Great for if you have to make calls while driving. Front display There is a one line display on the front of the phone which displays the time and date. When you get a phone call it displays the caller ID info. This is very convenient, but I wish it displayed the battery and signal indicators on the front too. Sturdiness The phone is fairly sturdy. I always carry it in my pocket, and haven't had any problems yet. When I first bought the phone the top was a tiny bit loose from the bottom half. It still is, but it hasn't worsened any. Games Unfortunately this phone doesn't come with any games. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87486 2002/7/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice array of features tiny size great battery life good clip antenna is flimsy menus are bulky The Bottom LineThis phone combines tiny size with a wide array of features. It's battery life is great and grabs a great signal. Full Review Introduction The first thing to note before I start this review is that I use this phone with Verizon Wireless, not AT&T. Also, I see that there is a browser icon in there, but I don't even know if it works or not because I don't like wireless web. I just thought I should clear that up first because those are two points people seem to be interested in. That aside, I can safely say that this phone is the best cell phone I've ever used. I've personally owned a Nokia 282 (Cingular, no real complaints), Samsung 3500 & 8500 (Sprint, they're atrocious), and an LG510 (Verizon). Signal For me, this is the biggest thing about a phone. If a phone can't get a signal, I don't care how small it is, or how many cool features it has, it just makes it worthless. The Samsungs I owned were pretty poor in this regard, but a lot of that has to do with the fact they were on the Sprint network. However, the LG510 I owned and used with Verizon for a year was very good as far as signal goes. Verizon also has great coverage, that helps. But having used that phone for a long time, I can compare it to what my V60 gets now. Where I used to have 1 bar (in the basement of my gym) I now have 4 or 5. Pretty much wherever I go I have great coverage, better than I had before. That alone satisfies my big concern. Sound Quality Heh, I only really put this in here because everyone else seemed to. Some people even complained about it. I guess I'll be the first to say I'm probably not qualified to judge this. To me the phone sounds just fine. I suppose it isn't stellar, but I'm not really discriminating in that regard anyway. Menus This is definitely a low part about the phone. The menus are small and hard to navigate. I mean, really the entire phone is small, so the screen is pretty small too. This hampers the menus a bit. Adding to that however is the fact that they don't seem laid out in that logical a fashion. For instance, changing the options on backlighting and such is found under "initial setup" which to me sounded more like something you would do when you're turning the phone onto a service. There are some highpoints in the menu arena however. By default the two function buttons (the ones closest to the screen) are assigned to phone book and message. However, you can change what these are assigned to. I've never actually seen that so I thought that was a pretty cool feature. Another high point in the realm of the menus was you can program shortcuts on the keyboard. For instance, you can assign that crazy "initial setup" screen to be "Menu + 1" or something. Also something I'd never seen before. Lastly, what actually contributes to the problem of the menus themselves, is that there are a lot of options that you can choose! For instance, there are several "Ring Styles" such as "Silent" "Loud" "Soft" etc. and you can change the volume and sounds for each event (phone call, text message, voicemail, etc) in that particular ring style. So actually, as far as menus go, they are definitely harder to navigate, but a lot of it is due in part to what you can do on them. Screens As you've no doubt noticed from the pictures, the V60 has two screen on it. They are very small, but as I stated before, that is out of necessity of the phone being small. Beginning with the main screen, it is tiny, but eeks out decent resolution for such a small screen. It displays three lines of text, in very nice looking font (plenty of pixels there, they don't look boxy at all). There are two other lines, top and bottom, for menu and signal/battery. What I do like about the other two lines is that they are of the same format as the main 3, same amount of pixels, rather than just being those burned in LCD icons. Therefore, they can display more than just signal/battery…I assume anyway, I've not seen that used. Either way, they look good! The second screen is actually a bit of a disappointment to me. I don't think it actually does enough. I'm comparing it to my old LG510 which showed date and time like the V60, but also battery life, signal strength, and signal type (analog or digital). One upside to this screen though is that like the main screen, it has plenty of pixels, resulting in crisp looking font, albeit small. The secondary screen does displaying incoming call names though, which is great for determining if you want to answer the call. I've also seen it display some pretty cool animation when sending text messages too. Rather neat feature there, if not exactly functional (like a battery meter would be). Antenna Hmm, I'm going to go with everyone else here and say the antenna on this phone stinks. It most certainly is flimsy, and I'm quite afraid I will break it. The upside is that I never put it up because it doesn't appear to need it (except maybe in analog) but the downside is that it actually sticks out enough such that it might break off anyway. I'd say that this is hands down the lowest point of the phone. Size To rebound from that low point, I'll point it possibly the phone's strongest suite…it's size. It is incredibly small. I'm not sure I've seen many phone smaller than it. But what's even better, is it's also very light. It's practically weightless. That makes it a great thing to carry around. Which, conveniently enough…leads me into my next point… Da Clip I love the clip that came with this phone. It's very solid, and very secure. Going back (yes, again) to my LG510, that clip broke within a month. It was probably a good thing too because it never held the phone that securely anyway! This clip is made of grey plastic metal that isn't very malleable. Which is good and bad, it does hold the phone securely, but sometimes can be a little difficult make it release the phone. Though honestly I'd prefer that over my phone falling off when I don't want it do. The stalwartness of it's hold is augmented further by the slot/tab mechanism on the phone and clip themselves. Battery Life According to Motorola's website, this phone is good for 120 hours standby (5 days) or 4 hours talktime. I suppose that isn't extraordinary in and of itself, but considering it's size, it truly is. I have phones that were twice the size of this that didn't last that long. One thing to note though, woe be it to you if you have to take out the battery, that's not an easy process. This is also a good point to mention of the coolest, and probably most insignificant things about the phone. I keep my phone in "Vibrate and Ring" mode where it Vibrates 3x and then Rings 3x (I think those numbers are right). But when you plug it into the charger, it switches the phone to "Loud" mode, then puts it back where you had it when you unplug it. I think that's great because "Vibrate" mode is pretty well wasted on your desk, right? Conculsion Well, I hope I was able to cover the major points of the phone. It truly is the best phone I've used to date. But of course, bear in mind, half of any phone is your service provider too. If you like your service provider (I believe this is only available for AT&T and VZ?) then you will love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $200 87485 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 so many features works well for me expensive The Bottom LineAn excellent phone although expensive. Contains so many cool features that the user will be amazed. Most importantly, all features seem to work well and are very easy to use. Full Review I have written a great deal of opinions on cell phones in the past and it seems as though I have been one of the biggest critics of these devices. I have had a hard time finding ones that I like and although I have used several expensive and inexpensive models alike, it had become clear to me that I might never find one that was worth the price. That was all before I tried the Motorola V60. With this device, it seems as if finally I have found a phone that is up to my high standards. First of all, this phone is of somewhat increased size from many other models I have used in the past. It actually has some noticeable size and weight to it, which I personally like. The display is easy to read and although the phone is still small enough to fit into most individuals pants pocket, it also has enough size that individuals such as myself with large hands have no problem dialing the right numbers or pressing the proper keys. In the past with many smaller models, I had found that I often pressed 2 digits at once inadvertently because of the size of my hands. There is even a zoom option for individuals who would like to see large characters when dialing or those who have poor eyesight. Of course all the basic features are included with this pricey model. These include caller ID, silent ringing, a variety of ring tones, etc.. The aforementioned are pretty standard on most of todays cell phones and certainly this Motorola is no different. The first cool feature that I noticed was the fact that the phone serves as a clock when not in use. Basically, if the user does not know the time all he/she would have to do is open the phone and check it out. This is a small feature but very usable and the time display is easy to set. The phone also boasts an easy to use 400 entry phone book and a date book. These are extremely usable advances and allow the owner to use their phone as both a day planner and a little black book so to speak. More extremely cool features on this phone include the fact that it can act as an FM radio. Furthermore, stations can be saved and programmed for later use. I have even noted that the reception is not bad and music can be enjoyed at various volume levels. Furthermore, there is a 2 way communication device enabled on the phone that allows users to type text messages to each other at times when typical telephone conversation might be too noisy. This is a cool feature and almost works like computer instant messanging. The text of the messages can be modified or zoomed upon based on how large the user would like the lettering. Finally, it is important to note that myself, nor anyone I know, has had any problems with the clarity of the phone or dropped calls. This has been a trouble to me in the past and with this device I have found it to be a non issue. Of course, what carrier the user has may make a difference, but this is up to personal choice and preference. All in all, this is a great phone with many advanced features that almost make it somewhat like a palm pilot with phone capabilities. Of course, the features are not totally alike, but the resemblance is there. If you can afford the expensive 399 dollar price tag then I would recommend the V60 to you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87484 2000/4/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great ergonomics packed with goodies sharp tiny priced a bit high but rebates make it well worth it The Bottom LineUncontestably one of the BEST feature packed, ergonomic, comfortable high quality phone on the market - and getting cheaper by the day! Full Review I've been a dedicated Motorola wireless customer for many years now --however it is not to say that I'm not open to other brands like Nokia.... As a matter of fact, when I got my first VADER - the original Digital V-phone (literally grey market in NY before it was officially released) I was in love. Shortly after I took notice of Nokia's 8190 and I'll admit I was jealous - I wished I could have gotten that phone for the service provider I chose (Verizon) because I just might have bought it, though tankfully I am still happy with my purchase. So a few weeks back that infamous Motorola antenna on my Vader takes a walk, and I decide "what the hell, time for a new phone - I'm sure Motorola has something even sicker than the last great Vader." So I take a trip to my dealer and sure enough the V60 is THE beast, the new flagship Motorola unit, and my God, it is certainly light years ahead of my Vader (which I thought was great) in terms of refinement of style, feel and features. This phone is worth every penny to a cell phone user who relies on their phone for flawless service, bettery life protability and durability (something that hoenstl, until now, was a little lacking in my past phones) The brushed aluminum case looks fantastic and feels like a tool - not like a toy. One compaint I've had for a long time is that when I went to Europe I always noticed great cell phones -- My fiance had a great Panasonic phone in Poland which was remarkable small for a non-filp PACKED with features and felt great. FYI, Europe has had 2-way SMS service for literally YEARS now, and somehow in our "high-tech" USA home, we still have BLACKBERRY PAGERS? what century are we in here!!?!?!? Finally we've begun to see 2 way SMS capable phones come into play - and thankfully Verizon is able to support that service ABOUT TIME guys. Even the antenna feels alot better on this phone - and the radiation factor is considerably lower than almost all other competitors' offerings. One slight downside to me was the size - Although still miniscule, I certainly welcomed any next reduction in size, provided the phone was big enough when open to actually TALK on. The Vader was just about perfect- it had ample size to reach from your ear to speaking range for the mic - UNLIKE many of Nokia's phones in the "little-guys" line-up. Despite being slightly larger than the original Vader, the V60 feels TONS better, and has been much more egonomically refined that the 8162. Tri-mode is another big plus for this phone - I thought dual mode was great, I mean I was able to talk while under the east river on the LIRR while commuting home - how cool is that...However with TRI-MODE my underground conversations are PERFECT - uninterupted and almost as clear as a good land-line connnection. The audio components of this phone are a large improvement over any prior offerings, nice job Motorola. The phone book is plenty big, at 400 entries with typical multi-number capability (nicer icons for fax, pager, mobile, home etc too - a nice touch really) The V60 has an added date book which I found great. Personnally I hate PDA's - I think it sucks to have to carry around so mch crap in this day and age - I see people carrying 1 cell phone, 2 pagers a PDA and laptop - I mean what's next, a Star-Trek inspired Enviro-suit to fit all your tech gadgets and a portable microwave?!?!?! The phone even has an FM radio feature in it! Although my use for this is limited, I'll admit, it's nice to have this especially when commuting on the train and trying to find out what subways are runnig better etc. again, great ideas brought forward into the actual product arena - Kudos Motorola for having the forward-thinking engineers to bring this stuff to life. Battery life is plenty at 3.0 hours talk-time. the browser is just fine for me - I mean how detailed can you want a browser in a cell phone - serves my purposes, and WAP software providers on the web are becoming more plentiful - check out the Motorola site for the best WAP services on the web to date - again, great service provided by Motorola here. I'dl ike to remind everyone that my cell phone IS my phone - I still refuse to have a land line - just like I stated in my past cell phone reviews. This phone is clearly the winner over everything else out there - looks, feel, quality, the whole package. I think the smartest move America can make is moving towards mobile phones which INCORPORATE PDA features, such as the date-book. Motorola has moved forward here and I am firmly convinced they're on the right track. I've been writing epinions opinions for some time now and like to look back on my past entries...Ironically perhaps not too far down the road I'll look back on thie V60 review and laugh because of how antiquted the phone is as compared with future stuff....However until then this phone is clearly the leader in features, size, clarity and comfort - you really can't ask for more in a cell phone as I see it. Let's also recall that when the Nokia 8190 came out it sold for over 800 bucks...it still costs over 350 and radiates the hell out of your brain, check latest rad. specs and see for yourself. Street price on this phone is at 250 (non inclusive of rebate) and falling - worth every last red cent. Do yourself a favor and upgrade today - you will not regret it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 w/ rebate 87483 2002/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks features size price but coming down steadilty The Bottom LineIf you want a no compromise phone and can justify the cost to your spouse, this is the phone for you. Full Review Just put up a 6 month update to the review Summary: Great phone. Full featured and it looks great. Small footprint but easy to hold and the buttons are surprisingly big. Uses the new Motorola interface which is light years better than the old one, but still not as slick as Nokia. Full range of rings and vibrate modes, SMS and web capable. The only downside is the price. [Anything is brackets is part of an update] The long version: I love this phone. I use about 2000 minutes a month, making my cell phone the single most important piece of electronic gear in my life. Who am I kidding? I use my computer more. Even still, I have not had a good cell phone since I gave me Samsung SCH-8500 to my girlfriend (my review is here ( (BTW, does anyone know how to embed a link in epinions?)) I was stuck with a rather large, work provided, Nokia 5160. I was constantly complaining about the size and its utter lack of coolness. Also, it was not a flip. I had to remember to lock the keypad otherwise the phone would randomly dial people in my phone. All of a sudden, I get an email from work saying that we were switching providers to Verizon and that we could choose our phone. Work was going to give us a hundred bucks toward a phone, and we could pay the difference if we wanted to upgrade. I knew I wanted a flip phone and also wanted something pretty small. I called Verizon and ordered the very reasonably priced LG-TM510. I figured "How could you go wrong with the highest rated epinions cell phone?" Then I made the "mistake" of going into the Verizon store. I immediately called up and changed my order to the Motorola V60c. The phone is a bit smaller and had all the features of the LG, but it just looked so much cooler. That was really what sent me over the edge. I just wanted something that made no compromises. The V60c is a no compromise phone. Well, almost. Lets talk about the outside of the phone. I am not really that stylish, but (as you can tell) I really love the way the phone looks. It is brushed aluminum and does not hold finger prints. Very slick. People at work stop me all the time to look at the phone. I also like well-engineered products. This phone qualifies as one of my all time best designed consumer products. [At 6 months, the phone is holding up ok. There are a fair number of scratches on the face plate and it does make the phone look a little ratty] I am not sure if the V60c is the smallest sized phone on the market, but it is not so small or light that anyone should complain. It fits comfortably into my hands and feels fairly solid. When the phone is not in use, I keep it in the supplied belt holster. I took a little bit of practice to get the hang of the holster, but it holds the phone securely. I will say that the holster does stick out a bit. Not the best design, but I think the Motorola engineers wanted to keep the antenna over an inch from skin. Can't fault'em. [A number of my friends have complained about the antenna breaking. Mine just broke two weeks ago. Breaking the antenna has two, related, effects on the phone. First, reception is worse. Second, the battery life goes down. The phone is designed to put out more juice when reception is bad, using more battery. I got the battery replaced in 10 minutes at a Verizon store for 10 bucks. My strong advice to you is that if you break the antenna, get it fixed.] The unit has an LCD screen on the front of the flip. I love this feature. The LCD shows caller ID, as well as time and date when the phone is not in use. There are three sets of keys on the outside of the unit. You use the outside keys to control ring modes (vibrate, loud ring, etc.) while the flip is closed. When the flip is open, the keys are "context dependant" meaning they change their function depending on what the phone is doing. For the most part, I use the keys to change the volume. One part of the phone that I find a little strange is changing the battery. In order to change the battery, you have to depress a little latch at the top of the phone. The whole back panel of the phone comes off. I guess I am a little afraid of losing the back panel. Really this is no different than changing a battery in a remote control, except that I change batteries much more often in the cell. Putting the cover back on is a little tricky and you will have to pay attention the first couple of times. Very minor point. Even still, I think I would have preferred a hinged back cover. The battery life when you first get the phone is not great. Just let the battery run down and then recharge the phone. After the first month, the battery life is pretty good. Probably over two hours of talk. [Update: the battery life sucks of you have to roam. You can almost watch the battery indicator go down. Don't expect more than 4-5 hours of standby on roam][6 month update: MOT offers two different extended life batteries. The big version, which comes with a deeper battery cover, is really good. If you are not happy with the battery times, go get the bigger battery] The antenna sticks up a bit, but has not gotten in my way. I would have preferred an integrated antenna like the Nokia 8k series. Also, not a big deal. Onto the inside. The keypad (used for dialing) is actually a little bigger than the LG. I haven't missed dialed a number yet. The interface has been revamped across all Motorola phones and is a big improvement. I keep my phone book in my phone and the ability to hold lots of numbers is a big deal for me. I was maxed out in the Nokia. This phone can hold 400 or so entries and can categorize by type of phone number (e.g., Mobile vs. Home) for each individual. You can set up the phone to recognize up to 20 voice dial entries. It is a very simple process and works very well. To use the voice dial, you open the flip, hit one of the external buttons (the one on the right of the unit) and just say the name. [I am using the voice dial a lot more. I have something like 30 names assigned to voice. This feature workes very well.] The phone has a serviceable browser. I have used it a couple of times and it worked well. You might have to call Verizon to turn on the browser. Several of my friends and I asked for web service but it was not enabled when we got our phones. Two minutes with Verizon customer service straightened it out. The datebook, like other phone based datebooks, is all but unusable. I still use my Palm. [I got rid of the web service. It was just not useful] I should note that if you use Outlook, you can export your address book to the Verizon website. You then have access to that date through the phone. I thought that you could then import the data into the phones memory, but I have not been able to work that bit out. If anyone knows if this can be done, can you please contact me? I will add it to the review.[Update: you can buy a kit from Motorola to do upload your address book data from your PC to your phone. I am going to try to hunt this down and see if I can make it work.][six month update. I never got this to work. I had to program all the numbers by hand] One cool feature of the phone is SMS. You can send short text messages to other Verizon customer. Even cooler, you can go to the Verizon website (myvzw.com) and set up alerts. Verizon will send you messages based on some criteria you set. For example, I get the weather sent to the phone every morning at 7:40 am. You can track stocks and news, etc. Go to the website and check it out. [This worked OK, but I turned it off. I was getting multiple versions of the same message. It got tedious and I never really got hooked] The phone has some other features, like a voice recorder and some quick dialing features, but I don't use them much. It also has a built-in FM radio, but you need a special headset to use it. If you do not have the headset, the FM menus do not show up on the phone. [On their web site, MOT also offers a MPG player. One of my friends has it and loves it.] The service with Verizon has been great in Chicago and Springfield, Il. I haven't traveled with the phone much, but that will change over the next couple of months. If I have any issues, I will update the review. [update: I traveled all over the Southwest and had no problems. Note that battery life sucks when you are in roam.] Overall, I love the phone. It has been dependable and not under delivered. I am still exploring its features, but so far, so good. In retrospect, would I have spent the extra 300 bucks for the phone. Uh, yea. Did I mention how cool it looks? Q&A. Periodically, I get emails about my epinions. I will put the questions and answers here: Q: Just wondering, can you store numbers and names alphabetically or does phone put them in order as you log them in? A: You can select how you want to see them. I have mine set up to go in alphabetically, but the speed dial number is assigned by the order you put them in. You can change a speed dial number, but only by erasing the phone number using the existing speeddial. Kind of dumb. When you are in the phone book you can use the key pad to type in the first letter of the name you are looking for. So, if I want to find Jeff Andrews, I just hit 5. If I want Ken Rona, I press 5 twice. Q. During an incoming call, does the external Caller ID LCD screen show just the phone number only, or does it show the Name of the caller (if you have programmed it into the phone directory), or does it show both name & number? A. If you have the name in the directory, it shows the name. Otherwise, you see the number. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): n/a 87482 2002/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a great looking feature filled phone the 400 00 cost will turn a lot of people off to this phone The Bottom LineEvery feature you would want in a wireless phone, all in a great looking package. Full Review I have been waiting nearly six months for Epinions to give me the opportunity to review my newest cellular phone; the Motorola V60 Phoenix. I received this phone in the latter trial stages, as my employer would be the first exclusive carrier of this phone on the market. Since I had previously been using a Motorola ST7868 I had very high expectations of Motorola's newest flagship. I am quite glad to say that I have yet to have a complaint about the V60, and I hope I will be able to keep this phone for a long time. Ergonomics and Style Although the V60 is the flagship among Motorola's Vader series digital phones, Motorola has fixed the problem of making their phones too small. The V60 is slightly larger than the other phones in the Vader series, but not as large as the Startac models. One major complaint I had with the Vader phones was that they were so light it made the user unsure of the security of their grip on the phone. The V60 gives the user the feel of having an actual tool in their hands, and not just a small plastic toy. Motorola accomplishes the feat of making this phone feel less flimsy by using a brushed aluminum case and carbon fiber inserts on the face of the phone. Not only does this give a better feel to this phone, but also it jumps up in a level of styling that Motorola has not reached before. Many other phone companies such as Samsung and Audiovox have attempted to make phones that had a brushed aluminum look, but only offered their customer's a plastic facade to resemble the cold metal feel that Motorola gives. In addition to the small increase in weight over other Vader models, the very small increase in size actually makes this phone comfortable to operate. Many times I will have conversations that last for an hour or more, and I have yet to need to stop a conversation because my hand is cramping from the phone being too small to hold comfortably. Motorola has improved upon their button layout in the V60, fixing many complaints I have had with previous models. One of the more noticeable differences is improving on the layout of the smart key and volume buttons on the side of the phone. Motorola also has added a separate scroll button on the middle of the face that makes WAP browsing easier. This display on the V60 is much easier to read than on previous models. The back lit LCD display is clearer and easier on the eyes than most other phones that I have used. There is even a zoom in/out option for those who would like the display characters a little larger. The V60 also has a small caller-id display located on the outside of the phone. Similar in size to a pager's display, this is a helpful function for seeing who is calling with out having to pick up and open the phone. When not receiving a call, the external display functions as a clock for those few times you are caught with out a watch. Features Motorola has done a lot in adding useable features to the V60. Unlike other companies, whose features are a couple of video games, Motorola takes into account what people will truly use. The most useful feature to me is the 400-entry phone book. What I personally like about the V60 phone book is that with each entry, you can have separate numbers for mobile, home, office, pager, fax, and main numbers; each with an indicator showing the category of each number. As with other Motorola phones, scrolling through the phone book is easy as the name and number category will be what you see by default instead of just a number. This is much easier than attempting to remember whom a number belongs too. Another feature that I am surprised I am finding useful is the date-book in the V60. Although I regularly carry a PDA with me, I have found many situations where it is just not convenient to carry a PDA. Using the date-book in my phone I am able to put a few important items that I will know I will need to reference back to when only carrying my phone. The date-book gives the user options of a weekly view, daily view, or event view, allowing the user the ability to see exactly what they want to see. I would like for Motorola to include a serial or USB cable with some sort of software program to utilize the date-book feature better. Entering appointments in the old numerical key style is quite tedious, as anyone who has ever tried to do text messaging or e-mail on their wireless phone can attest to. Kyocera does have this option on some of their phones, and I have found it the one thing I like about that brand. One unique feature on the V60 is the built in FM radio. Using the optional `ear-bud' you can tune in local FM radio stations with the scroll button, and even store up to 9 radio stations. I have found the reception quality is not bad, however, I wish that there also were an AM receiver on the phone. The V60 has the capability of two-way text messaging, similar to an IM system. While many companies advertise this service, few actually have a workable service for this feature. Do not count on this feature working until you check with the carrier in the area you are in. Many companies are in the process of rolling out test trials on this feature; currently, I know of only two cities in the country that have a two way messaging service that works, for wireless phones. Probably one of the most useful features on the V60 is the two minute digital voice recorder. I am quite surprised that other phone companies have not incorporated this feature into their phones. Using the voice recorder is quite easy. All one does is hold down the voice button on the right side of the phone. A small tone will sound letting you know it is recording, and a phone timer will display showing how long your recording is. When you are done recording, just release the voice button. To listen to your voice notes, all you would do is scroll through the menu to voice notes, and select the voice note you want to hear. I would like a longer recording memory available, but considering what all is included on this phone, and the size, the two-minute time limit is understandable. The WAP browser on the V60 works just as most other Motorola browsers work with the exception that the V60 has an easier to use scroll button on the face of the phone. The display on the V60 does not give one much room for a lot of text, but does proved the option to zoom in or out to adjust the text size to your own eyesight and reading comfort. Most features of WAP service will be based on what your carrier offers, and not the options on the phone. I use WAP services so little that I would be hard for me to give a very in depth comparison of the various services available. Most of what I do is check a couple of stocks each day, check the weather, and scroll through a few e-mails. The back lit LCD display is much easier on the eyes than the display on my 7868, and is a big improvement over almost any other brand's display. It seems that most people do not care as much about many of the useful features, and first see what the ringer of a phone sounds like. In this day and age when you will hear everything from Mozart to the Star Trek theme on a phone's ringer, the V60's ringer covers almost everyone's taste. There are 40 different ringer styles, and three vibrate modes. On the final release version of the V60c, you cannot customize the ringer style for each individual caller. Of course, with the caller-id unit on the phone, there is not much of a mystery of who is calling. I have only found this useful when my phone is on another side of the room, and I do not want to walk over and see who is on the caller id. Service and Reliability After six months of usage, I have yet to have any problems with the V60. This feels like one of the strongest phones that I have ever owned, even though it is one of the smallest. The brushed aluminum case has avoided having any noticeable scratches even though my phone is in constant use. This is a very durable phone. The battery on the V60 is quite strong, offering 2.5 hours of continuos talk time, and almost 3 days of standby time. Please note that these numbers will vary depending on if you are constantly receiving a digital signal or not. If your phone is picking up an analog signal, the battery will die quite quickly. The V60 is what is known as a tri-mode phone, operating in Analog, CDMA 800mhz, and CDMA 1900mhz. Tri-mode phones generally will provide the best service nationwide because of their compatibility with most carriers systems. On top of that service, the V60 uses a PRL (preferred roaming list) system that will direct the phone to pick up the correct carrier in the area. One disadvantage of having a phone that uses a PRL is that your carrier will need to update the software in the phone occasionally. This, however, will insure that you are picking up the best carrier in the area that you are traveling. The reception is not much different than most other Motorola digital phones and has far more to do with your wireless carrier than the equipment you are using. Currently only Alltel and Verizon sell the V60, however, I am not aware if Motorola is currently designing similar models for Sprint and AT&T. I would recommend that you consider one of the larger CDMA carriers such as Alltel or Verizon for your service as they have proven to have the highest quality service with the fewest gaps across the country. Wrap-Up For someone who uses their wireless phone as a vital tool in their daily lives, it is important that you choose a phone that will provide the best reliability and functionality. When there are so many `free' phones on the market, many people will not consider a phone that costs $400.00, however, just like when buying a car, it is important that one look at what they will need in the phone, and weigh the cost. In my opinion, $400.00 is a good value for something that I will use over 5000 minutes each month, and that my job relies on. The V60, in my opinion, provides the best looking, and functioning value for the dollar. Update 6-2002 Current software upgrades available at Alltel and Verizon now have games and a calculator available for the V60c (similar to the features on the V60i). If you own a V60c with out these features, check to see if your provider has this software update available. Most carriers do not charge for software updates of this sort. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $400.00 87481 2002/4/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish beautiful metal casing sexy great list of features expensive sub par battery performance The Bottom LineIn time, the price of this phone will come down. That's when sexy and stylish will also equate to affordable. Then, there'll be no reason not to have one... Full Review As is often the case, when electronics manufacturers can't significantly improve the performance of a particular item, they turn to the aesthetics of it. Such has been the case of late with cellular phones. After digital phones hit the airwaves some time back, and the wireless web followed suit, manufacturers essentially started running out of ideas for improving the phones. Sure, they've added on PDA features, jacked the price up into the stratosphere, but what else could they do to get the public to continue to upgrade and spend all of that money on new phones? Simple. Make them sexy. And Motorola has clearly succeeded with their V60c model. But as with other sexy phones on the market, the style comes with a price. This follow-up to the earlier Motorola model V8160 is cased in a rugged aluminum housing, has nice, extensive features and an external LCD, and matches up well against other stylishly elite phones. As indicated, instead of a plastic casing that encases most other phones, the V60c has an anodized aluminum casing that is seemingly scratch resistant. The phone also features a sturdy, retractable antenna and good-sized, well-positioned keys. Put it all together and the phone measures 4.5 by 3.42 by 1.77 inches and weighs 3.6 ounces. Pretty light weight for a phone containing so much metal and so little plastic. Of course, sleek looks won't help you much if this phone doesn't perform. Fortunately, when it came to talking, I had no complaints about the phone's ergonomics and had an easy time finding the earpiece's sweet spot. Using Verizon's service in New Jersey, I was generally satisfied with the sound quality, and signal strength was good, even when I roamed over to the western part of the state. Unfortunately, like several other similar Motorola phones like the V8160 and V8162, the V60c doesn't offer great battery life. Motorola says you'll get up to 150 minutes of talk time and 150 hours of standby time from its standard shipping battery. My results were a little short of those factory figures. Aside from that drawback and, of course, the phone's high price, there's much to like here, particularly if you're a fan of ultracompact phones. And it'll certainly look good on you. Of course, you'll have to decide the value of that pro. Full specifications listed below. Thanks, as always, for reading... Specifications * New Motorola User Interface designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with improved user navigation, and visual cues. * Display: 3 lines of text, 1 line of icons and 1 line of prompts all with Electro-Luminescent Backlighting. * Web Browser. * Mobile Originated SMS Capable. * External Caller ID Display - Identify your caller without even opening the phone! Also displays time, date when closed and in the idle state. * Last 10 Numbers Dialed, Last 10 calls received/dialed/missed. * 32 Standard Ring Tones. * VibraCallTM Alert. * Phone Book that holds 400 names and numbers. * Voice Dialing for up to 20 names in your Phone Book. * VoiceNoteTM voice recorder to record conversations, memos (up to two minutes recording time). * Date Book - Calendar, schedule and alarm clock. * Personalize your Features - Customize main menu, keys, greeting and banner. * FM Stereo Radio - accessible when used with optional headset accessory. * OTA Capable. * External Caller ID Display - Identify your caller without even opening the phone! * Microbrowser - Internet access for news, scores, stocks and more. * SMS messaging - allows you to send, receive and store short alphanumeric messages. * FM Stereo - listen to the integrated FM radio through optional headset accessory. * For use on CDMA 800/1900 and analog 800 MHz networks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 375 87480 2002/5/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 performance looks solid construction features size price The Bottom LineAlthough the V60c is not cheap, it features excellent performance and features. If you plan to use the cell phone a lot, the V60c is a good choice. Full Review The Motorola V60c is a tri-mode digital phone, which is currently offered by Verizon Wireless in LA area (as well as other providers). It can be bought for $200 with the plan (and a $50 rebate) or about $400 without. The phone is expensive for a reason... The phone is compact, looks nice and features performance and features that justify its price. It's a Tri-Mode Phone The phone can operate in three modes: analog (with high power consumption), CDMA 800 MHz and 1900 MHz. Size The phone is compact but not too small and feels solid with its case made with use of brushed aluminum and carbon fiber. Unlike some other phones that are too small and look like toys, the V60 gives you more confidence that the other party is able to hear you and that you speak in the microphone and not somewhere close to it (like in smaller models). LCD The LCD display is backlit and even has zoom to increase the size of letters/numbers. There is an additional smaller display on the phone (external caller ID display) that is visible before you flip the phone open - this display is used for caller ID functions (you can see who is calling before you flip the phone open and answer). During the time when the phone is not in use, this display shows the time. WAP Browsing The button layout seems to be better than on the previous models and there are some buttons that make WAP browsing more convenient. Unlike the older models, there is a WAP scroll button in the middle upper part of the phone. The zoom function helps adjust font size to find the right balance between fitting as much text on the screen as you can and being able to see it. PDA-Style Features I have always wanted to have only one device that combines a PDA and a cell phone, so there is no need to carry two devices and enter information twice. The V60c has some PDA features, which may be sufficient for you. The V60 has a calendar with schedule display and alarm clock that allows you enter appointments/events and see them in several ways. The phone features a 400-entry phone book (with voice dialing for 20 of them), which features PDA-style separate phone numbers for mobile, office, home, fax, etc. FM Radio The phone has an FM stereo radio with 9 presets with the use of its optional headset. The reception is quite good. Among other interesting features are two-way text messaging and VoiceNote two-minute voice recording. The phone has 32 standard ringer styles. What's Included Included are a 500 mAH Lithium-Ion battery with up to 120 hours standby time in digital mode and up to 180 minutes of talk time, AC charger, user manual, belt holster. Bottom Line Although the V60c is not cheap, it features excellent performance and features. If you plan to use the cell phone a lot, the V60c is a good choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 (rebate) 7702 Motorola V60t 87590 2004/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 etc reception voice dialing excellent sound quality loaded w features good battery life not compatible w high speed data networks no speaker phone internet accessibility or digi cam This is by far the best cell I've ever owned....its incredible and the best flip Motorola has ever made.They did a superb job in upgrading the already cool v60i,and made it into a masterpiece! 87589 2005/3/14 Product Rating1.0 practical nice battery this phone is great and very good phone really i had no problems with it but its battery made some troubles for me! 87588 2006/2/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great connection easy to use poor graphics great connection The best thing I can say about this phone is that it is easy to use. Great for car calling (not that I'm advocating talking while driving but to each their own). I'm sad that I've upgraded and now can't use my new phone as easily. 87587 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear controls ease of use small size three bar battery level display smallish buttons The Bottom LineI'd buy another one in a heartbeat; too bad they're no longer being made. Full Review I bought this phone after I dropped my 5-year-old Nokia 282 flip phone. It was $125 through TracFone, and was just about to go out of production when I got it in July of this year. What amazed me right off the bat was how much smaller it was than the Nokia; the second thing I noticed was how much more powerful it was. I can be in the interior of a department store and still get calls; couldn't do that with the Nokia. The time to charge the battery with the enclosed plug-in wall charger is less than a half hour, and the amount of time between charges is amazing; I've gotten as much as 5 days on standby. It would be nice if the charge indicator had more than three bars, though, to give a more accurate view of how much charge the batteries have left. The various keys might be too small for people with brawnier hands; I didn't have any trouble. The black-and-white display is clear and easy to read, and there are far more entries in this phone's electronic phonebook than I could ever use. If you're unhappy with this phone's platinum color, its faceplates are removeable, and there are a myriad of colors and designs available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87586 2000/9/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable ultra compact stylish service quirks phone glitch causes loss of voice to other side The Bottom LineI am happy to recommend this phone to anyone who desires a flip-top. It's the only one with AT&T. I just hope no one else experiences the problem I had. Full Review I purchased my V60t phone back at the end of June 2002. I was able to get the $250 dollar price for a renewed AT&T service contract. Anyway, the phone was working great for a while. It was able to work in my room which is located in our basement. No other service so far (Cingular, Sprint) have been able to function in my room. I need AT&T because I do alot of business duties for my computer job. As for the con I wrote, "loss of voice", lately, why attempting to use my phone in the basement, suddenly calls were no longer able to connect, and when they did, I started losing contact in the way where I can still hear the other party, but they could not hear me anymore. I was having to use my main home line to check my voicemail. I just received a refurbished model which AT&T has supposedly updated for TDMA and GSM, I believe. I'm still not sure what happened about the loss of voice, but I hope it does not happen again on this replacement. Right now this is the only flip-top phone available with AT&T service, and I paid good money so this should not be happening. It is still the best phone I have purchased so far. It seems to get better signal strength then my old Nokia 8260. And they're both AT&T phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $249.99 87585 2000/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish sophisticated small yet good size no alarm no games not for teenagers The Bottom LineGet the phone...if you're into a good sophisticated, stylish look... it makes you look []D[][]V[][]D but not recommended to teenagers...like me! but I'm []D[][]V[][]D so it fits my style! Full Review Pros: Well I got this phone because I wanted a flip-phone and this was the only one AT&T had...well I'd say this phone is pretty good, its really small, yet when unfolded its a good size phone. It's sophisticated in that it even comes with a belt clip. its stylish with the color and model. Well this phone has good features, text messaging, and nice phone book (500 entries) and also voice recognition. also it comes with a really nice headset. It comes with a datebook and the features are nice. you can also compose ringtones. this phone is really a grown up phone. Cons: This phone is not what you'd say "a phone for teens" this phone is too grown-up. it doesn't come with games, cool ringtones, and calculators. Comparing it with my friends that have nokia phones, my phone doesn't have the same features as them. Well going to a restaurant I don't have a calculator, which sucks! Also they can transfer ringtones to each other which I can't do. The ringtones are not what you would call cool, and composing them, they don't have such fast beat and high tone as the nokia ones. You can't "mod" up your phone, you know add lights and stuff like that. it doesn't have an alarm feature that would wake me up for class! This phone is not phone teenagers. Final Answer: Get the phone...if you're into a good sophisticated, stylish look... it makes you look []D[][]V[][]D Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00-free 87584 2000/9/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 clear calls stylish great reception convenient caller id screen small light scratchable case reported cost stubby antenna The Bottom LineSleek and stylish, the best phone I've owned but if you've got a tight pocketbook this one isn't for you. Full Review I recently picked up this phone when i switched calling plans but mainly because my other phone was...let me say damaged. I was a little careless with it. I was looking to buy something a lot smaller than the 6120 that I was previsously using and this phone seemed like the winner. Don't get me wrong, the Nokia is a very good phone but all of their newer smaller phones made me feel as though I was talking to my hand instead of into the phone. Pros: Stylish Design-The folks over at Motorola really have gotten it right with this design. The polished aluminum case adds a futuristic look to this phone, like something out of the movies. Size:-The small size of this phone allows it to go everywhere I do, whether it be in my pocket or clipped onto my belt. Recpetion-The reception I recieve using this phone is by far the best that I have used. I come from an area where cell phone coverage is decent but not spectacular. I have gotten reception everywhere my 6120 previously did not. I haven't dropped a call yet and people on the other end can here my perfectly. I use this phone with ATT so other carriers might be a little different. External Caller ID-This was a very, very smart addition to this phone on the part of Motorola. It is very convenient when answering calls but more importantly is displays easy access to the date and time when the phone is not open. Cons: Antenna-This antenna is a marked improvement on the antenna of the V60C (verizon) especially in the sense that the housing is built up and the antenna doesn't retract making it stronger but it is still too bulky. It can stab into your leg but i guess to have clear reception you gotta have a good antenna. Cost-This was the hardest thing to come by. Money is a concern to almost everyone and this phone does not really help you in that department. I can be bought anywhere from 199 to 399 and that can be a whole lot of money especially since providers are giving away free phones all the time. I have had wonderful experience with this phone and would not trade it for anything in the world. I've only had it now for about 2.5 weeks so I haven't had time to really test it out but so far its doing good. I've already logged almost 7 hours into it and everything seems to be as promised. I have heard a number of people tell me that the case is extremely scratchable so I would strongly advise you to get a case for the phone becasue no matter how careful we all are accidents do happen and with a phone like this an accident can be very expensive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229.00 87583 2000/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 best small phone since the nokia 262 average ring vibratesthen rings if set on both The Bottom LineIf you need a small phone with big phone performance check out the V60T Full Review I have only had this phone for a couple of days but I am extremely impressed with the clarity of the reception. I have had three phones in the last week and several more over the last year. This phone is by far the most enjoyable to talk on. It has a multitude of features that I will not use but among the ones I will use are a voice recorder or "Note book",voice dialing which is very handy once it is set up and an adequate manual to help you through the set up process. I was needing a small phone and have been unhappy with the "candy bar" style phones that always leave a little too much sticking out of a shirt pocket. I work construction and a clip or belt carrier do not work well for me because I am always dragging the phone off my hip or raking it against something. I am best suited with a phone that I can secure in a button up shirt pocket. I wish it had a little louder ring but it is average and comparable to most phones short of the Motorola 331 which has a very loud ring but much poorer performance. I hear people crystal clear and they hear me equally well on the V60T. I also drive to and from work in the dark often with the car radio on and between engine noise and the car radio it is difficult for me to hear any phone ring. The V60T has a flashing green light that blinks when standing by and changes to an alternating flashing red and green light when someone is calling. This is a good feature for those who are hard of hearing and in the dark like myself! It has an adequate F.M. receiver that displays in the menu when connected to an earphone. I doubt that I will use it much but if some news worthy event pops up and I am stuck at work I will depend on it to keep me informed. This feature shuts down in the event of an incoming call. All in all it is the clearest phone that I have had on both ends of the conversation. Battery life seems good but this has never been an issue for me with any phone. If size and clarity are issues for you I recommend that you take a look at the V60T. I had to buy mine outright because I already had a program and wrecked my last phone at work but it was $330.00 with a home and mobile charger and a hands free head set. I have seen them advertised for $200.00 with a two year program. Thanks Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 330.00 87582 2003/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 feature filled very small sturdy features may not make up for high price The Bottom LineGreat phone, but is it really worth the price? Full Review To start, THIS IS BY FAR THE BEST LOOKING AND FEELING PHONE I HAVE EVER HELD! Motorola's new V60t is the top of the line phone currently offered by At&t Wireless. As such, they are also charging a top of the line price. At $200, the V60t is priced at least $100 more than At&t's next best phone, the Nokia 8260. And for $100 more, everything about this phone should be twice as good as the 8260. Let's start off by looking at the features. First of all, the V60t is absolutely packed with features. For those of you familiar with the Nokia line of phones, you will find the Motorola menu and user interface quite similar, and very easy to navigate. Some of the features that are very similar between the 8260, and the V60t include; 1. A plethera of ring choices, customizable ring options, and various types of ring and vibrate settings. The V60t actually has 32 built in rings, as wells as 32 customizable rings. The Motorola also beats the 8260 in ease of switching between ring modes. No more pushing a tiny button on top of the phone, just push one of the easily reachable side buttons on the V60t to make your choice. One downside to the V60t is the ring and vibrate combo choice. With the 8260, you can get the phone to ring and vibrate simultaneously, with the Motorola, the same option has the phone vibrate for the first two rings with out sound. For the remaining rings, the phone sounds, but does not vibrate. This is something you may want to consider if you used this feature on the 8260 quite often. 2. Text messaging. Both phones have very similar text messaging capabilities. And both have the ability to guess what you are trying to type, in order to save time when searching for the letters on your keypad. Text messaging is a draw. 3. Phone book. The motorola has this one won, hands down. The V60t has finally given At&t a phone with voice recognition. A standard for most other wireless companies, the voice recognition is a feature I absolutely love. Once you have entered a name and number into the phone book, you just say the name twice and it is recorded. To call that person, simply push a button on the side of the phone and say the name. Two seconds later, the phone is ringing for the person you were calling. It's simple and great. A feature I can't reccommend enough. Both the 8260 and V60t have room for many phone numbers, but the voice activation gives the nod to the V60t. 4. Datebook. Both phones seem to have equal ability in helping you to keep track of your appointments. However, the V60t is able to connect to your computer through a USB port, in order to sync up with any other appointments from your PDA or computer. A great feature for the busy business type, or anyone who likes to keep track of there day electronically. Again, the V60t is the winner. That is basically where the similarity in features end, and the V60t starts to show what its really made of. The following features are unique to the V60t, and leaves the 8260 far behind 1. Shortcut keys. The Motorola gives it's user the ability to reallocate which buttons do what function. I know it sounds confusing, but I'll break it down to simplicity. Have you ever been using your phone and said "Jeez, I hate that I have to push all these buttons just to do a simple task" or "I don't like the way this button does this, it should have used this button instead" or my favorite, "If i made this phone, I would have changed it to act like this, instead of the way it is now". Well, the V60t gives its user the opportunity to redesignate any key they want. Now, instead of being stuck with how the manufacture set up the phone, you can design it your self. If you want the volume key to be the voicemail instead, you can easily change it to be that way. This is a great feature for those who like to set up their phone exactly how they want it. 2. Voice Notes. The V60t with it's voice recognition ability, allows users to record voice notes to them selves. Instead of writing notes on your PDA or phone, just push a simple button, and it will record all the notes you need. Another quick and easy feature. 3. Outside caller ID display. If you are worried that because this is a flip phone you won't be able to see who is calling ahead of time, don't worry. Motorola thought of that, and put a small two line display on the cover of the phone. Most of the time this shows the time and date, but when someone calls, it displays the caller's number and name. If you miss the call, it will let you know if you have a voicemail or text message waiting as well. 4. It's a flip Phone! Now not all people like flip phones, but I will never go back. This is my first flip phone, and I couldn't be happier. The flipablility protects the keys, the display, and makes answering calls as easy as possible. You'll no longer have to lock your keys, or worry about making inadvertent calls when your phone is being bumped around in a bag. The flip phone takes care of all of these problems. Trust me, once you change to a flip phone, you'll never want to go back. Now there are some features that the 8260 has, that the V60t doesn't. If these features are important to you, make sure you check them out. 1. A calculator 2. A currency converter 3. Business card 4. Group and profile settings 5. Games PERFORMANCE (Clarity/Battery Life): This will be a small section of this review, because the answer is so simple. The clarity of the V60t blows away any other Nokia I have ever used, especially the 8260. I thought the 8260 was great, until I heard this phone. No more light buzzing, no more choppy calls, just absolutely silent and amazing clarity at all times. The V60t wins this battle by a mile. As far as battery life goes, it is equal to the 8260, and probably better. I leave my phone on 24 hours a day, and talk quite often. With this pattern, I have been charging my phone about every 4th day. BUT, the V60t comes with a desktop charger as well as AN EXTRA BATTERY! So there is never any delay to my ability to use the phone. PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES. The V60t casing is made up of a highly durable metal. It has great looks and is scratch resistant. Comparing it to the 8260: The body of the V60t is shorter than the body of the 8260, but the antenna on the Motorola makes the length almost exactly equal. The V60t is about 3 mm thicker than the 8260, and weighs just a touch more. However, the V60t feels so incredibly sturdy in your hand, and talking on it is ten times more comfortable than the 8260. DURABILITY: The other morning, I through my coat over my should and the Motorola came flying out of my pocket. From 7 feet in the air onto a hardwood floor, the V60t showed not one single mark of the incident, and not one single impact on performance. It doesn't get much better than that. ACCESSORIES: The V60t comes with a multitude of accessories; 1. Extra battery 2. Desktop Charger, with slots for both the battery loaded phone, as well as the extra battery. 3. Hands-free head set 4. Belt Clip 5. Speaker phone adapter 6. Cord-Only charger PRICE: At&t is offering the phone for $199. If you agree to extend or sign up for a 1 year contract with At&t, you will get a $40 rebate. For two years extension or new contract, you should be able to get a $80 rebate. Final thoughts: The Motorola V60t is in an amazing phone. It beats AT&T's next best phone in almost every case. Unfortunately, this phone has the price tag that makes almost anyone cringe. One needs to decide whether or not this phone is worth it's excessive cost. It is an awesome phone, but for $100 less, the 8260 sure is nice too. In the end, it's a matter of preference. Hopefully the information in this review will help you to make a better decision. And you can always check out my review of the 8260, my previously great phone to compare how I felt (and still feel) about it. Either way, you'll end up with an amazing phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 87581 2000/8/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good buttons stylish external window great screen clarity compact earpiece volume could be louder ring vibrate feature unpredictable bad alarm The Bottom LineIf you get a good deal go for it; stylish, compact, features, quality! If you need to pay full price, shop around if a specific feature is really important. Full Review I have Cingular, and had been thinking of upgrading for a while, but couldn't bear the ~$300 price tag. Last week, however, I walked into Staples and couldn't resist the $29.99 sale price (with rebates and new activation; my contract ran out recently - making me month-to-month - so I was able to sign a new contract and keep my same phone number). There was an additional sale this week, so I ended up paying only about $10 for it. The $29.99 price at Staples is good until the end of August. There are a few little quirks with the phone that may have affected me in purchasing the phone at full price, but if you can get a pretty good deal, definitely go for it! The weight and feel of the phone is great. It's ultra compact, but SLIGHTLY bigger and heavier than some offered by other carriers, such as Sprint. I preferred the added heft (only about one ounce more), since it makes it feel much more comfortable and solid in quality - unlike the other compact flips that feel like plastic toys. The metal casing looks great, and feels nice. Looks like it will stand up well to scratches in a purse or pocket with keys, but would probably get pretty scratched up if dropped on pavement or hard floors versus phones with a durable plastic, like the StarTac - I'm not going to test this out, though. *See note towards end of post.* Even if it sustained the same amount of scratches as some plastic phones, the silver/gray color would show it more versus black. You can find the features all over the place, and I could go on about each, so most of the following observations are just my picky little Cons. Please note, however, that these would not alter my decision to buy the phone, but may be issues for other people. Most of my comparisons are made with the StarTac, since that was the phone I used for the past two years: 1. I used to have a StarTac, and loved how I could open the phone with one hand if the other is occupied or carrying something. The design of the v60, however, does not allow one to do this AS easily. This may change with practice. 2. The StarTac had a great ring/vibrate feature, but the v60's ring/vibrate feature is a bit quirky - the StarTac would actually ring and vibrate simultaneously, but the v60 is unpredictable. One time, I found that it vibrated a couple times, then rang later. Another time, it only rang. If you have it out of your pocket and it vibrates a couple times before ringing, you may miss your call. 3. Other cell phones I've used had much higher earpiece volume - including the StarTac. I haven't had any problems hearing people in normal situations, but have a feeling it could be problematic at a bar, ballgame, train or subway cars, etc. 4. Perhaps I just haven't figured it out yet, but it appears as though the alarm can only be accessed through the datebook - you have to schedule an event. I personally don't even use this feature, but my husband uses it to make sure he doesn't miss his stop on the commuter rail, and used to be able to set the alarm with 3 quick button presses on his Nokia. With the v60t, you have to schedule events and attach alarms to them. He's still getting the hang of it (he just purchased the v60t last week, too), but I've read in other posts that the alarm is very unpredictable, and goes off at the wrong time, and even on the wrong day! I can't substantiate this claim, but it does seem odd that there is no stand-alone alarm feature. 5. LOVE the voice-activated dialing. My only complaint is that I wish I could use it for all my phonebook entries, not just 20. 6. The new menu interface is awesome - so much friendlier than the StarTac. Other posts complain that it is too complicated and roundabout, but if you spend the time to really read through the manual and play with the phone a bit, you shouldn't have a problem. 7. This is a Cingular complaint - most other phone carriers allow you to change the greeting on your phone display when you turn it on or have it in the idle position. The v60t allows for this personalization, but Cingular has it unactivated, so you can't even get to the option in the menu. Not a huge deal, but since my husband and I got the same model phone, it would be nice to be able to open it up and see who's it is in case they got mixed up in the house. I tried to call Cingular to see if they could turn this feature back on, but didn't get a straight answer - the first person said she'd update it (as well as turn on my text messaging feature, since that wasn't activated either for some reason), but it never updated (the text messaging was activated within 10 minutes, though). I called back an hour later to let them know it didn't work, but the next operator said as politely as possible that I had a defective phone or didn't know what I was doing, so suggested I go to a Cingular branch and have them do it for me. I didn't appreciate his suggestions and asked to speak with someone else. That person didn't know what I was even talking about, so I may just go the Cingular branch in town anyhow just to explain in person and see if they can do something on the spot. 8. I'm supposed to see improved quality with this tri mode phone versus my StarTac dual mode phone, but have yet to notice a difference. Oh well! 9. Sound quality is great, so far, though I haven't really tested it in odd or remote locations. In places with a decent signal, however, the quality is perfect with little/no lag. 10. People reviewing the v60c complained about the antennas being flimsy. Before purchasing the phone, I read a CNET review that said the v60t improved the antenna. I don't know what the antenna of the v60c is like, but the v60t is VERY sturdy. I think the v60c had a pull up antenna, but the v60t's is stable. The only thing that is a bit odd is that it is quite large. It would be excellent if it was half the length or internal. The antenna is fatter than the StarTac's, but much more sturdy - probably because it is stable, not pull-up. 11. Would be nice if it had games or a larger screen. I find the screen size more than adequate, but know that other phones of a similar size definitely have larger displays. 12. Note: Motorola is coming out with a v60i this month (see the company's Web site for upcoming products). The new v60 will have games loaded on, as well as changeable face plates and backs for the phone. I don't really care about changing the color of my phone, but if it does end up getting scratched up, it would be nice to just pop on a new plate for about $10. The back of the v60t does come off, though, and you can purchase those separately for a low price. Changing the front would have been nice, too, though. Unfortunately, Cingular will not be offering this phone. Other TDMA carriers (as well as GSM carriers) like AT&T may however, so you may want to check it out before buying. There are no other big changes, so I'd assume pricing will be similar. That should be it! Hope this helps! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10.00 87580 2000/3/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything none The Bottom LineAll I can say is wow... The Motorola v60t rocks! Full Review Well, it was finally time to say goodbye to Sprint. I loved the selection of Sprint phones, but the price and reception simply weren't working for me anymore. I loved my Samsung, but it was time for a phone that I would be able to use almost anywhere. So I decided to find a plan that was cheaper and also fitted my lifestyle. I decided to go with Cingular, with the $29.99/mo plan with 250 anytime minutes and 5000 night and weekend minutes. I didn't like the Nokia selection and the other Motorolla phones. So for $139.97 and a $50 rebate I bought the Motorola v60t. And boy was I happy! -Price- *I technically paid only $80 for my Motorola v60t. That is just a steal! If you want to get a Motorola v60t cheap, then you should either buy the phone when you sign a contract, or try to do upgrades. I got my Motorola v60t cheap because I signed up with Cingular, but they also allow for upgrades, after one year of using an initial phone. AT&T also carries the Motorola v60t and does have some great values, but more people were MUCH happier with Cingular. When I was at Best Buy, the worker told me the phone retailed for $299. Is it worth it? Definitely. The phone has so much to offer. It performs much better than the Samsung SCH-8500 that I used to use, and also it works bettere than previous Nokia phones that I had and that my family uses now. You get a lot of phone for the price! -Reception- *Cingular is much better than Sprint in my opinion. When I was in areas of good reception, my old Samsung handled great. Other than that, when there was low reception, the Samsung was horrible. Cingular has great reception in the Chicago-land area. My family all use Nokias with Cingular, and I didn't like the reception from them. My Motorola v60t was another story. The Motorola v60t handles unbelievable well. It sounds just like a land-line! I haven't had such clear calls in my entire life! Everyone on the other line hears me loud and clear, and I hear them great. I'm very impressed with how my Motorola v60t handles. The Motorola v60t combined alongside Cingular will blow you away. The Motorola v60t is a tri-band phone. It uses analog, which drains out most of the battery. It also uses TDMA, which are digital. The Motorola v60t uses less battery when it is using digital bands. Another nice thing about the Motorola v60t which makes the reception better is the antenna. The antenna is large and solid. It looks pretty neat too. I like it much better than Nokia phones without external antennas, or phones that have the fragile antennas that you pull out. -Features- *The first thing that I love about the Motorola v60t is the fact that its built so incredibly well. The Motorola v60t has an alluminum body. It's much better looking and much more solid than phones built with cheap plastic bodies. Another great thing that I love about it is the external caller ID LED on the front. So if I don't want to pick up the phone, I'll never even have to open it! The external LED also shows the date and time, it's very handy! The menu on the Motorola v60t is fairly intuitive. Sure it's not as easy to use as a Nokia interface, but it's nothing impossible. I was able to get through the interface of the Motorola v60t without reading the instruction booklet. However if you want to, it's up to you. However, this phone is pretty good to use and faily easy to learn. It can fit the lifestyles of almost anyone. -Battery Life- *The Motorola v60t comes standard with a Lithium Ion battery. It has around three hours of talk-time, and also a whole lot of standby time! This thing will last you for a while without charging. However, the charger does come standard with the Motorola v60t. But the car charger doesn't, but you can always buy those. I like Nokia chargers more than the Motorola. With the Nokia, you just plug in the jack into the phone, while the Motorola v60t uses a more delicate type. But if you're careful, it should all be good. -It's Not Color... Oh Well!- *If I stayed with Sprint PCS, I could've had PCS vision. But I really don't need that. First off, the colored phones do use up more battery than phones that have traditional back-lit LEDs. Also, I use a colored PDA now to take care of all my hand-held needs, I really don't want to be using the more annoying interface of a phone. With the Motorola v60t, you're getting a phone that you can use for talking... Not just showing things off, and then not being able to hold a conversation with your call being dropped! -The Verdict- *The Motorola v60t is loaded with nice features, and it's also a really cool phone in general. It does exactly what it's supposed to do! It gives you great reception with a lot of talktime. It also looks really cool and stuff. The Motorola v60t is sure to get attention! It's also loaded with a pretty easy to use interface, and also other features like voice recording. It's relaly for you to decide if you want a Motorola v60t, or to instead spend a lot of money on a color LCD phone. I'd definitely take the Motorola v60t. Overall, this phone really kills out the competition. You just can't get better than the Motorola v60t! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 87579 2000/11/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life easy to use excellent size may be expensive without cell plan no color basic menus The Bottom LineEasy to use, great sound, and an overall good cell phone. It's very basic and I think that's what makes the V60 phone great. Full Review The Motorola V60t phone is offered through service with AT&T. The phone is tri-mode and has basic features. This may be a plus for many users since the interface is simple and useful. The phone has a silver covering and flips open. I guess many people will by this phone for a few reasons: tiny and cool looking, or it's free. I got this phone because it was free and it looked decent. I have had it for 1 month and am very pleased with it and the service on it. Antenna Believe it or not, this is one of the best features. The antenna is about half an inch and this provides better clarity. I have had Nokia phones before and I definitely notice the clarity difference with having an external antenna. LCD The LCD screen is backlit by an aqua blue light. It makes things very easy to read and see. Many will be turned off by this phone because it offers no color screen. This is a stylish and simple phone that does it's job. Size Tiny phone, fits in the palm of your hand. It's a flip phone with external caller ID. Sometimes it's hard to manage for the size but you get used to it quickly. It's about 4 quarters in length. Tri-Mode The phone has the ability to operate in: analog, TDMA 1800mhz and 1900mhz. This is specific to your area of service for the phones operation mode. User Interface Motorola has made this phone very easy to navigate. The menus are small but you can scroll quite easily. You have maybe 6 lines of text and can scroll one to two lines at a time. The LCD helps in the navigation process and the menus are very useful. Nothing flashy but your typical phone book, voice dialing, voice recorder, games, ring tones, and calculator. Personal Data This is not a phone if you are planning to use it as a PDA. There aren't enough functions and programs to run to make this phone useful as a personal assistant. This phone is strictly a cell phone. That's primarily the reason I like it, no extra flashy stuff. There is software and an external USB connector if you like to sync up with your PC but I'm not sure how useful this would be with this type of phone. Radio The phone also has an FM radio that has decent clarity. However this drains your battery quite fast. Conclusion The V60 is an excellent phone with long battery life (3 hr talk time) and excellent ergonomic features. The phone I bought only came with a Lithium-Ion battery, charger, and a manual. You definitely need the plastic holster, hands free mic, and car charger. Get these off of eBay for 7 bucks as opposed to 50 at the cell phone store. This phone serves it's purpose with clarity, usefulness, and looks. Very simple phone that gets the job done. Motorola has done an excellent job with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87578 2000/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small tough skinneda long lasting battery smart bulbous antenna not much of a pda hard to add ringtones The Bottom LineA small, stylish, easy to use, sturdy and reliable telephone. Not a pda, not a digital camcorder, not a gameboy. A good business-like piece of communications gear. Full Review Recently I managed to kill yet another mobile phone, most recently a Motorola v2397 (read my review of that phone for details); so once again I had to find a new phone. This time I had the luxury of some warning; so I was able to shop around for another phone compatible with my existing service. This little Motorola has a wealth of features (check out the excellent Motorola website for a full list); Most useful is the voice dial. --- Using it: With the phone closed the first thing you notice is the big bump of an antenna sticking out of the case. Yes, it looks vulnerable. But it is a simple screw-in and should be easy to replace if it snaps off. The second thing you notice is the metal case. It should last longer than the plastics used on other phones. Also there is a one line multi-function display, and several soft control buttons that allow you to adjust and use the phone even while it is closed. Flipping the phone open (with practice you should be able to open it one handed, too bad it doesn't make a 'chirp-chirp-chirp' sound like the Star Trek (TOS) communicators) you notice that the keyboard is well labeled, important keys have special shapes and are clearly marked. The top 3 function keys are smart, the perform different functions depending on what you are doing; the display screen indicates what functions are active, making it simple and non-surprising as you negotiate the many menus and options. And there are a lot of menus, because there are a lot of features. But don't worry, most are rarely used, and you can easily set up custom shortcut keys to the features you use the most. There is a good selection of built-in ring tones, and provision to add your own (sadly, I have only been able to add them by keying them in, downloading of ring tones is something that I have not tried to tackle yet. I'll let you know how it goes). You can set it to different volume levels, silence, vibrate and a handy vibrate and ring combination both on the ring control menu, and with a pair of external buttons while the case is closed. When the recharger cord is connected to the phone, it automatically switches from vibrate to ring. Rather clever of it to know that if you have the phone plugged into the wall, you are probably not wearing it. The Phone Book The V60's phonebook has the brains to know that many people have multiple phone numbers, like home, work, mobile, fax or pager. So you can associate as many phone numbers as you need with a person, and identify them with clever little icons. The phone book also lets you enter email addresses, in case you are ever desperate enough to want to key in an email using the iTap predictive text entry system. The call memory system lets you easily add to the phone book any call you have already dialed, or been called by (except if the caller ID has been blocked). And if someone in your phone book calls, their name shows up on the caller id display. Which is duplicated on a one-line data window on the outside of the case. Normally it shows the date and time, or the important news of 'no service'; Voice Dialing: There is voice dialing, a very useful tool. You set it up by recording a voice associated with a number in the phone book. It may take a couple of tries to get the recording right, but once you have it set up it works fine. Using it is especially cool since you can use it with the phone closed if you have a headset plugged in, making this the most hands-free phone I have ever used. Speaking of headset, it plugs into a simple, reliable standard 2.5mm 3 conductor socket. There is a separate 'multiplug' at the bottom of the phone for more sophisticated connections, including an optional USB interface cable to allow you to synch your phone with your PC phone book. I'll let you know if I ever get one. It also has a voice memo system, which is great for 'remember to pick up milk on the way home' messages, and sends and receives short text messages, the latter assisted by the quirky-but-worth-trying iTap 'predictive text entry' system. Date book Short text messages can also be entered into a little date book. If you have modest needs you can use this dinky little display to enter your appointments. If your needs are more elaborate, or if you have enough calendar entries to even consider synchronizing them with a pc, you'll probably be happier with a real PDA. We Got Game. After a fashion. Another thing that it is not: It is not a Gameboy. It does come with 3 lame little games, which might someday be useful to kill a few minutes while waiting in line at the DMV. BATTERY LIFE: I get 3-4 days of my average My Real World use on a single charge of the Lithium-Ion battery. I use my phone for 20-60 minutes a day; I recharge the battery before it becomes too flat to supply 60 minutes of talk time. This is not comparable to the typical published battery ratings, which are analogous to EPA MPG figures ("your mileage may vary"). What use is an '8 day battery' that only has 5 minutes of talk time after 7 days of standby? The 'travel charger' has a nifty fold-flat prongs for easy travel; It is the first travel charger I have seen that actually lives up to the name. It connects firmly to the multi-plug base of the phone, the phone remains usable while charging. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 87577 2003/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 strong reception nice features flip convenience antenna can break no web or gsm no useful keyboard lock hard to change rings The Bottom LineSolid phone, good reception, great for business use and dependability. Be gentle with the antenna! Full Review Like many users I came to the V60t after using a series of Nokia phones. IMO, Nokia still has an edge in menus and logic, but the V60t is close and offers great performance and convenience. First is the flip-phone design, which is the reason most users will choose it. Opening to answer and closing to hang up is a great convenience, and the voice dialing (20 numbers) feature is incredibly handy when walking or in the car. The hinge design is robust and holds up well, and the stainless case resists scratching. The flip feature means that the plastic screens are shielded from damage, and also results in a great fit to the average face. When the phone is open and in use, the earpiece and the microphone are both well-placed. Receiver volume can be controlled by a rocker switch during use, and the phone will generate more volume and is easier to hear than most. I've used a couple of the small Nokias, and they were both harder to hear with and harder to shield the mike from wind noise. Many users don't realize the Nokia mikes are on the bottom end of the phone, and cupping your hand under the end of the phone helps pick up your voice. This is not required with the V60 series, as the mike is well placed. Good marks to the V60t on this issue, which is something that affects every single call. Good marks to the Nokias for having more intuitive, easie to understand menus. Reception on the AT&T network in northern Colorado is strong. During the 60 mile drive from here to Denver, there is not one place where the signal will cut off. I've used the phone in a variety of buildings and other difficult reception areas, and the reception is as strong and dependable as any phone I've ever used. There is signal strength indicator on the phone face, with 5 increments of signal marks. The phone has a huge memory for phone numbers, and graphics can be used with each number (home, work, mobile) to help visually identify the number you're calling. The phone book is easy to use and intuitive, and you can save numbers you've called or received calls from. The menus and buttons on the phone can be customized to some extent, so you can make some choices about which buttons control functions. This makes it easier for the phone operation to be intuitive to you. The stainless case is mainly a plus, but if you have big hands, realize that it's a bit slippery and you may have trouble hanging onto it. Because the hinge remains tight after six months of use, the gap between the sections of the flip phone is tight, and I have to hold the phone with one hand and get a fingertip into the gap to open it. If I had really large hands I'd get a leather case which fits on the outside of the phone, adding some bulk and making it easier to hang onto and to open. I currently use a leather holster and just pull the phone out of the holster to use it. One unusual feature is the availability of the Motorola FM Stereo Radio Headset-98310/SYN8609 which turns the V60 series into an FM radio. You can store your favorite stations as presets and it works just fine. Be aware that the earpieces for the stereo radio headset are rather large and if you have small ears, they may be uncomfortable. The headset doubles as a phone earpiece/mike when you get an incoming call, and it mutes the phone's ringer, so if you have the stereo FM set plugged in, you need to keep the earpieces in or you won't hear incoming calls at all. Most accessories for the V60 series are available on eBay at huge discounts compared to retail, and I recommend buying them there. OEM accessories cost more than aftermarket units, but that's to be expected. I bought the OEM FM radio headset for $23 as opposed to $40 retail. I have the phone on about 10 hours a day and use it only 3-4 times a day, and I usually go 4 days or so between full charges. The battery charge indicator has only three marks, and when it drops to one mark I have one day of use left. There are limited PDA functions available, primarily a calendar interface. I haven't used it because I am not using MS Outlook for a calendar, and I'm not convinced it will interface to any other computer-based calendar. I'd really like to carry my calendar on this unit, but it hasn't worked out for me. Dislikes: The plastic holster/clip that comes with the phone is functional but sticks way out from your body, gets in the way and catches on things. Also, you'd better get the phone clipped in EVERY time you hang it up, or it will drop on the ground with possible damage. Bottom line is to hit Ebay and buy another holster or case immediately. Make sure to buy one which has cutaways at the bottom of the case for the many accessories and chargers which connect there. UPDATE: For months, I thought the phone only came with ONE ring tone. I found out that this is wrong - there are numerous ring tones, but you're not likely to find them on your own. Here's the path to take: Menu> Settings> Ring Styles> Then under the ring style you're using will be a line called (Ring Style) Detail. Select Change (right button) and cursor to Calls, then push Change (right button) again. You will then see the list of ring options, and can select from them. I NEVER would have found this without stopping at a service center to have them show me. Nokia's superior menus make this process easy and intuitive - why can't Motorola?? You can also manually program your own, but learning the process requires digging into the manual 114 pages deep and it's not intuitive at all. Another Update (7/03): I've discovered the weak point in this phone is the antenna. It seems to be solidly attached but in fact there's only about 3/8" of base below the 1 and 1/4" antenna. As a result, the antenna exerts too much leverage on the base, which simply snaps into a small clip on a circuit board. Mine broke off under very little stress (due to repeated stress, I'm sure) and I went to Sears to get a Torx screwdriver to open it up. Their comment when I brought the screwdriver to the counter was "Broke your antenna, right? Got a Motorola phone, right? That's who we sell all these Torx T-6 screwdrivers to...Motorola owners." I still like the phone, but later models have shorter antennas which should be less likely to break. I ended up having an AT&T service center fix it, as it was broken in a spot I couldn't fix. The cost was $40, which isn't excessive. However, the design of this part is poor and unless you handle the phone carefully you'll probably have the same experience. I have lowered my durability rating from 5 to 4 because of this design problem. There is no meaningful keyboard lock. Nokia has a keyboard lock which requires pressing only two keys and still lets you answer incoming calls without unlocking. Motorola's lock is four keys and won't answer an incoming call without unlocking the phone. The problem is that the ring style (Silent, Vibrate, Vide & Ring, etc.) is selected by keys on the exterior of the phone. These buttons can be pressed against a chair when sitting down. As a result, it's not hard to change the ring setup from one setting to another (say, from "Vibrate and Ring" to "Silent") without realizing it. This is an easy way to miss calls. This is much less an issue with a flip phone than an open-face phone, but it could have been avoided with a convenient keyboard lock. To be fair, this doesn't happen much and if you're aware of it, you can avoid it by handling the phone carefully...and why wouldn't you handle a $200 piece of equipment with some care?? A very minor issue is that there are no games built into the phone. I seldom use them, but when I'm waiting for someone and sitting in the car, I sometimes played the games on my Nokias. If you're a game addict, this could be more important for you than it is for me. UPDATE: As a side note, this phone is not GSM-capable or web capable. These are not a big deal to me, but the GSM issue is important to note if you travel internationally. OVERALL: This is a solid, dependable phone for business use. It's not set up to be a toy and play games, but to last a long time, look sharp and businesslike, and handle calls well. It does what it's designed to do very well, and I strongly recommend it if you want a dependable flip phone. there are many rebates available; I stacked two rebates to reduce the cost from $200 to $100 when I bought it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87576 2000/11/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sharp tiny packed with features great ergonomics better antenna lacks advanced pda features priced a bit high but now well within reason The Bottom LinePacked with features, sharp and attractive, a New & Improved antenna and software AND now for AT&T TDMA - the V60t is a winner Full Review Everyone who's ever read my Motorla wireless reviews has to realize that I'm a big fan of Motorola...While the wireless handset market has certainly gotten ultra competitive, (and hence, some incredibly capable little phones are being introduced to market) I belive that Motorola truly offers the most convenient balance of intuitive features, design, ergonomics and (quasi)-affordability...The V60T is yet another example of Motorola Excellence, built on the already proven platform of the V60C, now of course for AT&T TDMA network AND with a few more nice features and a welcomed software upgrade. When I first decided to get rid of my Vader, I looked at many phones, and since I'm a verizon user primarily, I made a great decision on purchasing a V60C... The V60's chassis was based on a stronger aluminum casing, had a much better antenna design (even FURTHER improved on the V60T- more on that later) and was packed with great features, a perfectly ample phonebook, datebook and other goodies - Needless to say the V60T is another winner, and while there's not too much that seperates them, the differences are important to cite (obviously NETWORK - you can now use a "V60" phone on AT&T's TDMA network (hence the "T" in V60t!!!!). However the software upgrade and antenna are also important differences and I'll discuss this later. The brushed aluminum case looks fantastic and feels like a tool - not like a toy. One compaint I've had for a long time is that when I went to Europe I always noticed great cell phones -- My fiance had a great Panasonic phone in Poland which was remarkable small for a non-filp PACKED with features and felt great. FYI, Europe has had 2-way SMS service for literally YEARS now, and somehow in our "high-tech" USA home, we still have BLACKBERRY PAGERS? what century are we in here!!?!?!? A while back we began to see 2 way SMS capable phones come into play - and thankfully Verizon has supported that service for quite some time now. The antenna feels alot better on this phone - and the radiation factor is considerably lower than almost all other competitors' offerings. One slight downside to me was the size - Although still miniscule, I certainly welcomed any next reduction in size, provided the phone was big enough when open to actually TALK on. The Vader was just about perfect- it had ample size to reach from your ear to speaking range for the mic - UNLIKE many of Nokia's phones in the "little-guys" line-up. Despite being slightly larger than the original Vader, the V60 feels TONS better, and has been much more egonomically refined that the 8162. The difference between the V60C and V60T is the beefiness of the Antenna Sleeve - Although the antenna height off the chassis from base-to-tip are identical, the base-foundation of the antenna is actually taller on the T - meaning the antenna's cylinder has more surface area to be supported by, since the inner tube (effectively the base) sticks further into the antenna's body (inner tube slides into outer tube). While the V60C's antenna was MUCH MUCH better than the Vader's, the V60T took it to the next level and really helped prevent those antennas from breaking. My fiancee uses AT&T and thus a V60T- her phone takes lots of abuse from jean pockets to handbag shuffling, in-car dropping etc and the antenna is still 100%. Tri-mode is another big plus for this phone - I thought dual mode was great, I mean I was able to talk while under the east river on the LIRR (long island rail road) while commuting home - how cool is that...However with TRI-MODE my underground conversations are PERFECT - uninterupted and almost as clear as a good land-line connnection. The audio components of this phone are a large improvement over any prior offerings, nice job Motorola. The phone book is plenty big, at 400 entries with typical multi-number capability (nicer icons for fax, pager, mobile, home etc too - a nice touch really) The V60 has an added date book which I found great. Personnally I hate PDA's - I think it sucks to have to carry around so mch crap in this day and age - I see people carrying 1 cell phone, 2 pagers a PDA and laptop - I mean what's next, a Star-Trek inspired Enviro-suit to fit all your tech gadgets and a portable microwave?!?!?! The phone even has an FM radio feature in it! Although my use for this is limited, I'll admit, it's nice to have this especially when commuting on the train and trying to find out what subways are runnig better etc. again, great ideas brought forward into the actual product arena - Kudos Motorola for having the forward-thinking engineers to bring this stuff to life. Battery life is plenty at 2.5 hours talk-time. the browser is just fine for me - I mean how detailed can you want a browser in a cell phone - serves my purposes, and WAP software providers on the web are becoming more plentiful - check out the Motorola site for the best WAP services on the web to date - again, great service provided by Motorola here. You can purchase extended-life battery packs for under 40 dollars now on Ebay (obviously more for Motorla brand). The generics are fine - nowadays handsets are a 2 or so year life cycle, so using a non-motorla batt. only saves you money and offers more talk time - WHY NOT? With a super-life battery you get 6.5 hours and 6 days of standby....DAMN- the only issue is the battery cover is replaced by an aftermarket cover about 1/8" an inch deeper. Finally the software update - My own current trooper (my V60C) has taken lots of abuse, continues to work like a champ BUT- sometimes has a slow initialization and occasionally has a network-grab brain fart and I don't get an actual connection. The V60T's software initializes much more quickly, picks up network with more consistency and still has the features of the "C" model... For me, I much prefer Verizon's network, so I'll stay with the C model - however AT&T fans MUST be thrilled to be able to use this great phone, because it aside from a few advanced PDA features that I don't care about on a phone anyway (that is what ACTUAL PDA's ARE FOR!!!) this phone satisfies all my wireless/communication needs. I'dl ike to remind everyone that my cell phone IS my phone - I still refuse to have a land line - just like I stated in my past cell phone reviews. This phone is clearly the winner over everything else out there - looks, feel, quality, the whole package. I think the smartest move America can make is moving towards mobile phones which INCORPORATE PDA features, such as the date-book. Motorola has moved forward here and I am firmly convinced they're on the right track. I've been writing epinions opinions for some time now and like to look back on my past entries...Ironically perhaps not too far down the road I'll look back on thie V60 review and laugh because of how antiquted the phone is as compared with future stuff....However until then this phone is clearly the leader in features, size, clarity and comfort - you really can't ask for more in a cell phone as I see it. Let's also recall that when the Nokia 8190 came out it sold for over 800 bucks...it still costs over 400 and radiates the hell out of your brain, check latest rad. specs and see for yourself. Street price on this phone is at 350 and falling - worth every last red cent. Do yourself a favor and upgrade today - you will not regret it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 87575 2000/6/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 loud ring attractive compact sleek vibrates so hard it is audible no color display no gsm support annoying menus The Bottom LineRecommended -- a solid non-color cell phone. Holds up well and fairly easy to use. Doesn't drop calls. Full Review I purchased the Motorola v60t in the spring of last year because I wanted a newer phone with some frills, and my Nokia 3360 (see on the 3360) just wasn't cutting it for me anymore. The first thing one notices about the Motorola v60t is its sleek, smooth design. With its silver-chrome finish and soft black accents, the v60t gets great ratings for aesthetics. The v60t also incorporates one of my favorite features in a flip-phone, that of a screen on the outside which displays time and date, as well as the caller ID when someone calls. Since the days when I carried around a pager, I have come to depend on my portable communications devices for the time and date. One of the biggest pet peeves I had about my prior phone was that it did not display the date anywhere, but the v60t displays it right on the front of the phone. The only downside to this feature is that the front display can be somewhat difficult to read, especially under low-light conditions; dust tends to collect behind the screen over time, so that the screen gradually becomes harder to read, even when the backlight is lit. The buttons are easy to press, both displays are fairly easy to read, and the menus are fairly intuitive. However, there are two somewhat annoying things about the menu system. First, the phonebook will not allow more than one phone number to be stored under a single name. That is, if you want to store two numbers for the same person, you will have to create two separate entries. For example, if you wanted to enter home and work numbers for your mother, then "Mom" would appear twice in a row in the phonebook. Motorola tried to alleviate this somewhat by allowing you to choose a small picture to appear next to each listing in the directory to indicate home, work, mobile, or main, but I personally found this to be of little help. Even when the phone acts like it will let you enter a second number for an existing person, it still stores and displays it as I described above. The second, and far more annoying feature of the Motorola v60t menu systems is that the selections for the soft buttons are often unintuitive. There are two "soft" buttons at the top of the phone, whose function change as you go through different features and functions. This is all well and fine, but I wish they were programmed better -- for example, sometimes one button will mean "Yes," and then on the following menu it will mean "Cancel." I found this quite annoying at times. This is a tri-band phone, which makes it far more versatile than cheaper, single- or dual-band phones. Among other things, it means that it can (at least potentially) be transferred from one network (or carrier) to another, although that all depends on what particular network your carrier of choice uses. If you're in an area where GSM is all the rage like it has recently become in the Atlanta, you might want to consider another phone, as this phone does NOT work on the GSM band. However, Motorola produces a sister version of the v60t called the Motorola v60g which is apparently exactly the same except that it works on GSM. I had little problem with dropped calls from the v60t, although it would occasionally power itself off and immediately power back on for no apparent reason, sometimes in the middle of calls. This was quite annoying, and was one of the reasons I eventually replaced my v60t with a Motorola T722i. The battery life is excellent -- if you don't use your phone much, you'll probably only have to recharge the battery every three days or so, and it charges in a matter of one to two hours. The v60t has a very loud ring that is audible even over loud music or other people's screaming children. If the phone is in vibrate mode, it vibrates so much that it can be felt no matter how much ambient bass there is around you; the flipside of this, though, is that if you're in a class or meeting the vibration can be heard a good distance away. Finally, one last pet peeve of mine about this phone was the fact that when the phone's battery got low, it would produce an audible warning tone every couple minutes, even though the phone was on vibrate. I went through every menu option I could find, and even consulted the owner's manual in depth, but could never find a way to change this. Overall, I would recommend the Motorola v60t, though, as long as the relatively small problems I've mentioned don't sound like a big deal to you -- after all, it does look pretty darn cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87574 2002/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 performance styling features external caller id price voice dialing for only 20 entries The Bottom LineThe V60t is not cheap, but has great feature set and performance. Full Review The Motorola V60t is offered by AT&T Wireless and is a tri-mode digital phone. The V60t is compact, looks nice and has performance and features that justify its price (you can get it for $250 with service contract). Size The V60t is quite compact but feels solid with its case made with use of brushed aluminum and carbon fiber. The phone gives you more confidence that the other party is able to hear you and that you speak in the microphone and not somewhere close to it, unlike some other phones that are too small and look like toys. Sturdy Antenna The antenna of V60t is fixed and quite sturdy, which is an improvement over other models that have flimsy pull-up antennas. LCD The internal LCD display is backlit and even has zoom to increase the size of letters/numbers. There is an additional smaller display on the phone (external caller ID display) that is visible before when the phone is closed - this display is used for caller ID functions (you can see who is calling before you flip the phone open). During the time when the phone is not in use, this display shows the time. SMS You can send and receive short SMS text messages as well as store them. It's a Tri-Mode Phone The phone can operate in three modes: analog (with high power consumption), TDMA 800 MHz and 1900 MHz. The letter "t" after the model number (V60t) indicates the digital technology used - TDMA. V60c uses CDMA and V60g uses GSM. UI The user interface/menu structure seem to be better than the previous models'. The zoom function helps adjust font size to find the right balance between fitting as much text on the screen as you can and being able to see it - you can switch between 2 or 3 lines of text on the screen. PDA Stuff It is more convenient to have one device that combines PDA and phone functions so there is no need to carry two devices and enter information twice. Although the V60t is not there yet, it is quite close. The V60t has some PDA features, which may be sufficient for your purposes. It has a calendar with schedule display and alarm clock that allows you enter appointments/events and see them in several ways. The phone features a 500-entry phone book (with voice dialing for up to 20 of them), which features PDA-style separate phone numbers for mobile, office, home, fax, etc. The USB connection and TrueSync software allows you synchronize your information (calendar, addresses, etc) with your computer. There are also voice activated shortcuts. There are 32 alert tones/ringers and up to 32 customizable. FM Radio The V60t features an FM stereo radio with quite good reception when using its optional headset. The VoiceNote two-minute voice recording is also present. What's Included Included are a Lithium-Ion battery with up to 3 hours of talk time, AC charger, user manual, belt holster. The high performance battery allows you to have up to 4 hours of talk time and up to 192 hours of standby time in digital mode. However, the times decrease rapidly if the analog mode is engaged (when digital coverage is unavailable). Bottom Line The V60t is not cheap, but has great feature set and performance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250+contract 7703 Motorola V8162 Phone 87605 2003/9/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size clarity durability size simplicity size no color screen but i am not interested not made anymore not too many features From the minute I saw this phone in the Sprint PCS store in December of 2000, I had to have it as my plunge into the "digital" world of cellular. I purchased it as a substitute for my business pager and the size was the most important to me as I don't carry a handbag with room for a bulky phone price was not as important. At the time I also had a very big bulky analog phone with AT& T that I did not use much and primarily left it in my car to return pages. For two years, I put the phone through all sorts of abuse, dropping on cement, getting it very wet, getting it dusty and it lived until finally the LCD had a problem. I had Motorola fix it for about $83.00 and when they returned it it was fine. For me, size is the most important, not features because what is the point of a cell phone if your not going to take it with you? I lost one, and purchased one on Ebay, and in the process of receiving another I just purchased. 87604 2000/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small too expenseive The Bottom LineGet the same phone for a lot less money Full Review The short of it all is that for what you get this phone is way over priced. If you are condsidering the following, I have some advice: Small phone Web Enabled (which you will probrably rarely use after the first 30 days of owning the phone) Easy dialing digital good display cool looking I have found that there are a lot of phones on the market that have all of these qualities and are $125 or less. Samsung is a great example. Their suite of phones are sleak, professional and light. They encompass all of the qualities I listed above and are at a significantly lower price. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 330 87603 2000/6/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small beautiful light easy to use antenna flimsy short battery life The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a sleek and eye catching phone, then look no further. Full Review I decided to buy this phone after several months of debating between the Nokia 8890 and the Motorola V.8162. Seeing that so many of my friends were getting the Nokia, I decided to be different and chose the Motorola. I don't regret it one bit. Menus are very easy to navigate once you get use to the controls on Motorola's, sound and reception is wonderful. It is very sleek looking and certainly does grab a lot of attention because of its size. The one main complaint is the short battery life, but what do you expect when you get a phone this size. There has to be some trade-off. I considered getting the extended battery pack, but that would add to the size and it didn't look that appealing. I love how you can store the numbers of people and then choose a icon for the number to let you know wether its a cell or house number. Manual is very easy to go through and after a few drops, there has been no problem with the phone at all. The antenna can get annoying at times when you are driving and try to take it out of the holster, it always get stuck. Otherwise this is a wonderful phone, that a excellent build quality. I can't wait till the new one comes out...it looks beautiful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 310 87602 2000/9/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 fairly durable can t see it unless using a microscope looks like a spaceship expensive for nothing poor reception no games flimsy antenna The Bottom LineBuy at your own risk. Full Review The main reason I bought this phone is because of its appearance and its size. The phone starts falling apart in 5 months. There would be dust in the LCD screen. Battery life decreases gradually. My antenna broke off because it was too flimsy. I just use it as a toothpick now. The phone started to become looser and looser. The features of the phone is not that great either. I can't play games anymore when I'm bored in class. Plus the phone can only store 99 person's info. Not a great selection of ring tones either. Since the phone is single band, it is the worst phone to use if you live in an area where digital signals are weak. My conversation often gets cut off. On the other hand, this little booger is super-duper durable. Like when my call gets cut-off, I launch my phone across the room or the street. I play hacky sack with it and it still doesn't break. In class, since the phone is loose, I play surgery on the phone and it still works! Overall, if you have poor reception in your area, DON'T get this phone. And this phone is not meant for students. Especially a violent impatient student. But is an excellent phone to abuse when you're frustrated. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300 87601 2000/11/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 internet voice dialing innovative easy to lose Full Review If you had 500 bucks for a cellphone, would you buy the Nokia 8860 or Motorola V8162? Okay, time's up. I knew you would get the V8162. Why? It's only 3 ounces, has the mobile internet and a great talktime!!! I just love the features on this magnificent phone and its very durable! on what nokia phone can you have one person have up to four phone numbers? can you make your 8860 a modem? no, but with the V8162 you can also, you can even change the contrast! Just try putting you Nokia 8860 in your pocket without having a scratch on it! And there's also no need to rub it every time! So the next time you want a cellphone, I recommend you get this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 469 87600 2001/5/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception very cool very small ridiculously expensive antennae sticks out looking sillybreakable The Bottom LineGreat phone, if you can afford it and don't need dual-band service. Full Review The Motorola V.8162 is expensive at $399.99. But what you get is a very small phone with fantastic clarity. Nokia has a phone that is around the same size and is much, much cheaper -- but it does not have the same clarity. In fact, this is probably close to the smallest a phone can get and still be usable. People will definitely stare in amazement as you flip open a pager-size phone and start talking. The V.8162 has a very cool looking, high quality build. I have read some reviews here that the phone doesn't close with a satisfying snap, but they must have fixed that since mine definitely snaps close. It has the same user interface as the StarTac. You can get around 2 hours of talk time (I think the 150-minute official specification is exaggerated, as they are with most phones.) For around $70 you can buy the extended battery that offers around 4 hours of talk time. My only complaint (besides the price): They should have either built the antennae into the phone or made it retract further, so it doesn't stick out so much. By the way, this phone has no analog mode, which I like since I won't switch over needlessly into analog like I did with the StarTac. If you travel a lot outside of major metropolitan areas, however, you may wish to consider a dual-band phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87599 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small stylish wireless web so so battery life The Bottom LineWorth the price of admission. Great for lovers of small, but may be too small for others. Full Review The first thing that you will notice about the Motorola v8162 is that it is very small. Except for the 3/4 inch antenna that sticks out, it looks like a really small pager. I've had some people ask me if its really a phone, and then I engage in a little show and tell. If good looks is one of your criteria for purchase, then you should definitely take a look at this Motorola. I chose this phone primarily because of size, and I normally hang it inside one of my pant pockets. I could imagine that this will be difficult to do with other phones, small as some of them already are. Once you get a hang of it, the three volume and function buttons on the side of the phone are very conveniently placed. You can change volume and select phone book entries and other options using the three buttons alone. There is also a one touch "message" button that you can press to dial up your voice mail automatically. Connections are clear, and only problems I've had with this are carrier issues, such as not getting any signal inside a tunnel. There is also a wireless web browser on the phone. I've only used it once, until I realized it wasn't part of my plan (there are extra fees once you "use" it). But this should come in handy if you like to read e-mail or news on the go. Sprint PCS has a web site where you can configure the menus using your computer instead of the phone. My only gripe really is battery life. Though some of my friends tell me that they had that type of problem with non-Motorola phones, I would still want to use the phone for a longer period of time without having to charge it every other day. Also, the pull-out antenna, once pulled out, feels a little delicate. This is something Motorola should improve in the next iteration. Given the size of this thing, it may be "too small" for some people. It is best to get a feel of it first in the store if this is your concern. Personally, the higher price tag is really for the size and web capabilities of this thing. So, I think you get what you pay for. But we always want a cheaper price don't we? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87598 2000/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great function smallest available basic features expensive Full Review Spellbound by this mesmerizing marvel of miniaturization, I am the owner of the new Motorola v.8162. Weighing in at around 2.9 oz and measuring 66% in size of the Startac, the Motorola v.8162's initial appeal may also be its deterrence for some. Having used a digital Startac ST7768W (see my review on this) for about 18 months, I was naturally looking out for a new upgrade. I have had my eye on this phone since it's initial release well over a year ago in its v.3160 Analog guise. I decided to wait for the digital version - much in frustration as it has been available in Europe, Asia and South Africa for quite some time, and with much upgraded firm/software. Ergonomics: The phone IS small! Seeing is believing, and is will be sure to get your attention (and others). The form factor though is surprisingly useable, and the buttons are only slightly smaller than those on a Startac. The buttons are taller, but narrower and have a more tactile feedback than those on the Startac, but not quite as good as the rubber buttons found on Nokia's etc. and occasionally I have to re-press the button(s) again a little harder (usually the bottom row) to get the response. Physical design of the phone is again like the Startacs; a closing clamshell that encloses the screen and buttons. Same goes for the software, with one useful addition, the phone has an alarm clock with a message. This can be set for daily alarm or a specific date. Useful but not an earth shattering addition. The screen occupies the top half of the shell, with the lower half occupying the buttons. Build quality is very good and has only a very slight amount of 'give' in the hinge (unlike the Startacs), allowing only a small amount of 'flex'. Metallic gray plastic and silver contrast looks classy. Having spent some time also eyeing the Samsung SCH-8500, you could feel that Motorola build quality does not quite measure up, especially for the high price. However, I personally felt that the solid `snap' of the Samsung felt a bit harsh, whereas the closure of this phone feels more svelte - I think it is a matter of preference. Despite its diminutive size, you can still hold it between your face and neck, a feature that I have found very difficult with my other phones, and invaluable when scrabbling for that PDA, pen/paper etc. The screen is green backlit, which when compared to the blue electro luminescent screen of some phones looks slightly less crisp, but does feature a `Holographic Optimax' display. I'll take the ad blurb for granted here, but I will say there are no problems reading the display under any conditions. The phone has the same number of buttons as the Startac and also has the dedicated message button and dual-purpose buttons for the mini-browser. The side of the phone has three buttons, volume up/down and a 'smart' button that primarily functions as a 'select' button and activates phone book and other functions, and this is my favorite function. I have heard criticisms of Motorola's general access to their phone's phonebooks - a crucial feature. I have owned the heralded Nokia 6190, and found its exposure to accidental button pressing, and in call menu features far fussier although admittedly more sophisticated. Flip open the phone, press the middle `smart' (side) button and the phone book opens displaying the last name that you accessed. Press the first letter to access the number, or twice to access `Paul' then `Peter' etc. usual fare. You than have the choice of dialing one of the four numbers that you may have programmed for that contact. Press talk, or hold in the `smart' button. Calls are terminated by closing the phone shut. One-handed use is harder due to the distance your thumb (holding phone in palm) has to move 'inwards' to press buttons, and a voice dial feature (Sprint are now Offering this service for $10.00 a month, or you can choose it as a free option with new service or 1 year agreement), but with a little use becomes second nature. Useful features I like are the programming ability of calling card etc. and although a feature available on most phones, I fine works exceptionally well. Performance is excellent. Although this phone is a single band only, I have not yet found this to be a problem in metro areas. To be honest, the analog `Roaming' feature I had on my Startac caused me to deter from using the phone due to the outlandish roaming fees. It would also switch over to analog when there was still a weak digital signal (such as airports etc) causing me to `lock' the phone into Digital anyway. This sounds like an excuse but it is simply my experience, and I am sure for some users this may be a critical disappointment. (The v.8160 model has the analog as well as digital bandwidth incidentally, but is not configured for sprint service). Reception is unquestionable, and the phone has the loudest earpiece I have ever heard, to the point where to listen to voicemail etc in a quiet environment I can set it on a desk and listen to it. Transmission is again excellent, and not once have I had people comment that I am on a cell phone, or `you are breaking up' etc. Having used the phone for about 2 months now, I am confident of its performance and abilities, and in the rare incident that I hear crackle, I know it is far more likely to be a household cordless phone on the other end that this user. I would suspect though that the transmission is not quite as good as my old Startac, if that was 95%, perhaps this is 93% by sometimes sounding slightly less crisp than I was used to, but still comparable to a landline. Battery life is again comparable to the digital Startacs; it is in fact the slim li-ion battery from the Startac used in this phone. You would be hard pushed to run it out in a day with 2-3 hours talk. If you are disciplined enough to charge it every night, it is unlikely that you would need a higher capacity battery which are available incidentally. Overall it is hard for me to fault this phone. I would like more features; voice dial, bigger phone book, higher resolution display etc., but realistically that is more to my fascination with gadgets (let's be honest that is most of us), and less due to actual need. I think I would prefer a stubby antenna as seen on the European newer models, and if it could be done a little more battery life. But for now, if you are like me in that the more transparent a phone or other life-simplifying gadget is, the more likely you are to have it with you and more often greatly enhancing its function and thus value. For me the price tag although not taken lightly, does justify the purchase, and if for no other reason; let's not deny it is a cool phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.00 87597 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small i still can t get a date with it Full Review I have found a new friend, and it is the vibrating function on my Motorola, but I am not quite ready to break up with my girlfriend yet. Ok, who am I kidding, like a guy that writes about a phone vibrating in his pants could get a girlfriend, well, maybe a really ugly one, but I am getting off the point, way off the point. Do you have 400 dollars to spend on a phone? If your answer is yes, this is the one to get. It has a nice long Lithium Ion Battery, functions out the butt (schedules, phone books, ringers, CD player, JK) and is smaller than my love organ, I don't know if you can really gather how small that is, but let me say you wont be getting any attention when this baby is in your pocket, trust me. It is a strictly digital phone, so no roaming, but digital service is pretty big now. The phone also has this holographic screen, that is easy to read, in any light. The reception is great for a phone as small as this one. It is usually is as clear as a home phone, which is handy for all the hot babes calling me, ok, once again you have caught me, it comes in handy for my mom calling me all the time. It truly is a great phone, and if you're like me, you are not wasting your money on countless dates, so you can afford it. So dare to be the coolest man around, or at least have the coolest phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87596 2000/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception size none Full Review I used to have the Star Tack and I had a terrible time with I, bad reception, calls would disconnect I hated my phone. About two years ago a changed to this little Motorola the first of this "v" series, they were not digital yet but there was no digital service in my area yet so who cared. All my friends warned me that such a small phone would get terrible reception and the battery would not last at all but they had not actually used it yet. I discovered it was a great phone, best reception I had experienced in a cell and actually the battery lasted much more than the Star Tac added to the size and some great features for the time like the answering machine, yes inside the phone not a service, it was the phone for me. About four months ago I had the opportunity to change my cell because my contract on the one I had was over, I could actually get whatever phone I wanted for a low cost because I have been with the same company for years. I looked around and saw what was new and I definitely had to get the new v series. Now with digital service in the area this new v8162 is perfect, better reception than before, my experience is that the battery will last me between one an one and a half days with a good amount of talking time the fast charging capability is also a great advantage you can plug it in for 15 minutes and it will last you a long time or leave it for two hours and it is fully charged. Of course very convertible to carry as the prior I had because of the small size, you can put it in your belt or in your jacket and will not feel it. The gadgets that it has are enough for my personal use, the ID, directory, answering, incoming call storage, security, alarms and other fun things like different rings and such stuff. Some people will say it is to small and they will lose it but for me it is comfortable and gives me a great service. Recommended: Yes 87595 2000/8/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small new display screen price single band Full Review Motorola is back to what makes their phones worth the extra money, size. Motorola has long been the leader in making the smallest phone, and long been the leader in making you pay for it. For the first time in a while, though, the price is worth it. The new V.8162 is their first model, since the original Startacs, to really stand out as a the premier, must have gadget phone. Its size rivals your average beeper. This phone also has the added features to compete with the Samsungs, Ericksons, and other phones that have caught up to Motorola recently. The one feature that sets it apart, more than any other, is the new "Optimax" display. This is a holographic display that makes the screen, which is very small, very easy to read. Other manufacturers will have to scramble to match this technology. Along with this new screen style, the phone has many other user friendly features, such as: Headset jack. Hold up 99 names, with four numbers per name, in the phone book. Alarm clock. Motorola's smart button (for easy menu navigation.) Data and internet ready. 2.5 hours talk time, 125 standby. Caller ID. Vibrating ringer. Sync capability available. The phone's smart button navigation takes a little time if you are not familiar with Motorola's features. Once mastered, though, you can easily and quickly find out any information needed. The phones menu makes recalling messages and numbers a lot easier than most model phones. Plus, more text can fit with each name in the phone book, than traditional phones. The phone is single band, as any phone this size would have to be. This means that it is 100% digital. This confines the phone's usage to CDMA digital areas. This also limits the phones ability to be used as an emergency phone, since there are many areas in which the phone won't work. The price also limits this phone from the everyday user. This single band feature does put the phone back on par with Motorola's first digital, single band phones as far as clarity. The phone has the sound quality that was missing from their last few models. The price is up there, but for those willing to pay for it, you will not be disappointed. So, if you love phones, and gadgets, and this one is within your budget, go for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87594 2000/2/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 comfortable feel small size cool design easy to use interface not many extra features expensive The Bottom LineThe best combination of looks and performance on the Sprint PCS system. A bit pricey ... but worth it. Full Review Ive always been a diehard fan of Nokia phones. Ive always liked the design and intuitive menu interface of Nokia phones. However, after experiencing the worst service I've ever had with Voicestream (see my review), I reluctantly had to part with my Nokia 8200 phone and switched back to Sprint PCS (Sprint PCS no longer uses any of the Nokia brand phones on its network). Now, let me begin by saying that I love gadgets and electronic toys. Therefore, when i switched to Sprint PCS, i searched long and hard for the "coolest" phone they had and decided on the V8162. Ive never really liked Motorola phones, especially the StarTac series. I think theyre clunky and ugly and before using the V8162, was always a little intimidated by the menu system found on most of their phones (pre-V60c). However, i have now owned the V8162 for about 6 months and i must say im pretty satisfied. From a design standpoint, the V8162 fits nicely in your hand and all the buttons are pretty easy to use, even with one hand. I will admit that Motorola did a pretty nice job of making the main features (phone book, call log, etc.) pretty easily accessible by pressing either one or two buttons. However, some of the other features of the phone are a pain in the a$$ access. You literally have to go through about 3 or 4 different menus to do certain things and they are somewhat difficult to find sometimes. Additionally, the phone is a little weak on its features as a whole. I dont particularly like Motorola's generic ringtones and there arent too many of them on the phone in the first place. No games either. Definitely not as fun to play with or customize as the Nokia phones. As for the actual performance of the phone, i really have no complaints. I know for a fact that this phone gets better reception than about 75% of the phones available for Sprint PCS. A lot of my friends use Sprint PCS and i always get better reception than they do, even when we're in the same exact place. The sound quality is fine and ive never had any dropped calls or connectivity problems that werent attributable to the Sprint PCS service itself. The battery life (for the battery it comes with) is about average, if not a little bit on the weak side, but if you talk on your cellphone that much, you probably want to buy an extra battery anyway. I wasnt too crazy about the look of this phone at first, but its definitely grown on me. I still think the buttons look a bit retarded, like something off of a toy, and their layout on the phone isnt too pretty either. But the outside of the phone looks pretty sleek and the fact that it was featured in the movie "Ocean's 11" definitely adds to its "coolness" factor. Even with all the new phones that have come out for the Sprint PCS system since I purchased this phone, i still believe this is the best phone on their system. Some of the newer phones have terrible reception problems, while others feature too many useless, gimmicky features (ie. a color screen?) I believe this phone is no longer available on the Sprint website, but im sure you can still find some leftovers at a Sprint retail store or on eBay. If you can afford it, go for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 87593 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size great reception internet capable price tag Full Review This is one of the greatest phones ever made. The size is incredible, just amazing. Cell phones have come a long way in such a short time. I only have one problem with this phone. The obvious is the price. $420. WOW! I am a wireless consultant and have had a chance to play around with this phone. The reception is really great, Its the size that I still can't get over. Truly an amazing phone. The phone also comes in 4 colors. The internet is easily accessible the display is nice, and for its size the key pad is large. You would think with a phone of this size the numbers would be smaller, but they are not. Amazing that this phone can access the internet, is so incredibly small, has lots of features and options, but is so expensive. Other than its large price tag, I would recommend this phone to anyone who can afford it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 420 87592 2000/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 very light very cool very small a bit too small feels flimsy a bit too light antenna juts out too much Full Review All right, if you're using this phone, then you better be driving a Mercedes or have really rich parents. It's ungodly to pay $400 for a cell phone, but I (and apparently a few other people) have done so for this teensie-weensie Motorola. It's an awesome phone. No doubt about it. Everyone looks at you when it rings and you pop it out of the holster. If you're looking for head-turning quotient, this is the phone for you. The metallic charcoal finish on the phone is so in-style and overused now that it makes me nauseous, but I'll deal. I can always take a can of Krylon to the sucker. The phone book is excellent. Straight off the dual-band Star-TAC, but that's just fine with me. I love being able to go to a particular name and see all the phone numbers under the same entry. Very convenient. Having been a Star-TAC user for a long time (all the way back to the analog 3000, boys!), I somehow can't get used to having the browser/function buttons on both sides of the number keypad, instead of all on the bottom. But overall this phone takes about 17 minutes to get used to. Everything seems to be right where you expect it to be, from buttons to menu sections. Signal strength is a bit iffy in my opinion, and I don't think it's the service. I have two phones from the same service provider, and when one has five bars of service, the V-series only has two. Still enough to make a call with decent clarity, but I want full service some time. I've never seen all the service bars filled in. It could be because it's a brand-new model - there are always glitches, and I'm sure Motorola will fix it if that's what this is. Of all the phones I've owned, this has been the coolest. Not the best, but the coolest. I can't help but think that it's a bit flimsy - it's got to be, at under 3 ounces. The V-series flip doesn't open and close with a solid feel (as Samsung's SCH-8500 does), and I feel like if I press the phone up against my ear too hard, I'll break the flip off. The antenna looks a bit silly, too. It's a tiny little phone, and it's got this big antenna sticking out of the top. Didn't Nokia develop an internal antenna for its small phones? Why hasn't Motorola followed suit? In general, I'd say this is a pretty good phone. But with my $400, I'd go for an L-series Timeport instead. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 87591 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very small very easy to use great features very clear lcd is not colored like some other phones The Bottom LineReadf my 'Verdict' Full Review Today, many of us live in a business world. A cellular phone and PDA is sometimes our best friend, but sometimes these devices are a bit too large, and simply don't cut it. I was able to get the chance to try out the Motorola V8162 for a week. After a whole week of usage, I was able to find out many things about this phone. Here's what I found with the Motorola V8162: Price: The Motorola V8162 isn't a very cheap phone. It comes in at a price of $399.99. But, the Motorola V8162 is the smallest phone in its class, is web-enabled, has great features, and has the best clarity in its class. I think that if you need a tiny but incredibly powerful phone, then this one is for you. This phone is ideal for very serious business people or for people who travel a lot, and can't carry around bulkier PDAs or larger phones with the same features. If you don't need such a small phone, etc... Then try out some Sanyo or Samsung phones, but if you really need this kind of power, the Motorola V8162 is your best choice. Plans: The Motorola V8162 is widely accepted with plans that use Motorola StarTac and Motorola in general phones. The Motorola V8162 is just like a StarTac, but much smaller. I'm very sure that you can use this phone with companies like Sprint or AT&T. Durability: In comparison to other 'flip-phones', the Motorola V8162 feels incredibly solid. The hinges don't have that cheap feel, and the phone doesn't make it feel like you're going to break it every time you open it up. It is definitly more solid than its Nokia counter-parts. It may not feel nearly as durable as the Samsung phones in its class, but believe me, this is the ideal travel mate, it will survive in extreme conditions. Quality: The Motorola V8162 has a very high quality build. Even though the quality doesn't come up to the quality of the Samsung counterparts, you can still say it's great. Overall, the phone is top notch, and not many competitors will get anything better than this. I personally think that Motorola could've made the LCD colored, most of its competitors already do so. A colored LCD gives a phone a great look and feel, but the Motorola V8162 unfortunately lacks it. But, the LCD on the Motorola V8162 is still of very high quality. Size: The Motorola V8162 is a very small phone. It is perfect for traveling with! Only 2.9 ounces, it's so easy to forget that it's there. The Motorola V8162 is smaller than the Samsungs or Sanyos. It's almost as small as the Nokia 8260, but it is much better. It has superior clarity, and also the buttons on the Motorola V8162 are not much smaller than those on the StarTacs, so there shouldn't be too many problems with dialing, etc... Battery Life: The Motorola V8162 is decent on this phone. You can get about two and a half hours of talk time on the Motorola V8162. Somer other phones in the same class have longer battery lives. If you need a phone with a longer battery life, then Samsungs or Sanyos would be the right phones for you. Navigation: Can it get better than this? I always used to think that Nokia had the best navigation, but now it is quite bad compared to the navigation/menus of the Motorola V8162. It features a very easy to use menu and phone book. The Motorola V8162 has a 'Smart' button which acts like a select button, and it makes navigation so easy and trouble free. Other phones, especially Nokia has very clumsy menus and all. The Motorola V8162 is also ideal for the people who don't know way too much about electronics. The Motorola V8162 overall is an incredibly easy to use cell phone. It beats all the rest. Clarity: The Motorola V8162 is remarkably very clear. It also has an amazing ear-piece. The ear-piece is very loud (You can always adjust the volume with the volume buttons!), and it can get much louder than most other ear-pieces such as the ones on Samsungs and Sanyos. Just as a 'wow' type statement, the ear-piece can get louder and clearer than the Bang & Olufsen ear-pieces on some Ericsson phones. The Motorola V8162 is much clearer than the Nokia 8260, this is just a size statement. Overall, you can expect very clear calls on this phone! The Verdict: The Motorola V8162 is an ideal travel mate. It's packed with features, and this web-enabled phone won't let you down. It's one tough and very powerful phone. I would have to say it's better than competition despite its steep price. If you need a phone that can take care of every affermentioned piece of information, then you should really consider buying the Motorola V8162. It's truly one great phone. I hated the StarTac phones, but this one just amazed me... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 7704 Motorola V60g 87616 2003/10/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great clarity phone numbers easy to access nice voice command numbers don t light up The Motorola V60g is a great phone. It is very light weight and has exceptional clarity. I have been using this phone for over a year now, and every aspect of it is wonderful. Phone numbers are very easy to access, and voice command is great. The phone slides into pockets without bulging and weighs very little. The backlight on the screen is very nice, except that the numbers don't light up. Please note that Motorola has come out with a new version of this phone, the V66. 87615 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks awesome light small no color screen After having the Motorola V60G for about four years now, it is still one of my favorite phones. I think it is one of the coolest looking phones ever made, even compared to newer Motorolas. It works very good as well, I have never had a problem with it. 87614 2006/10/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small pretty screen with large numbers nice sketchy service in areas without two or more bars Motorola V60g. All I wanted was a basic talk only flip phone. With one bar showing I can't use it with reliability. In one bar area I get long delayed network service. I know it should work because this is a replacement phone and we have four other cell phones in the same house. This phone will become a back up when I renew my two year contract with Cingular next February. I'm all thumbs scrolling to adjust volume, constantly mess up by partially depressing adjacent buttons and have to clear and start over. Sound quality on handset and speakerphone is very average. First Nokia in ten years plus that I would not repurchase. 87613 2000/1/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dropped over 30 times solid as a rock still works perfectly no frills like colors or pictures The Bottom LineIf you are on the go and drop your phone frequently, or throw it in your bag, this is perfect for you. It will last forever! Full Review The Motorola V60g cell phone is as solid as a rock. I have dropped it numerous times on the sidewalk and it keeps on ticking. Before I owned the updated V60g, I owned the V60i for nearly 3 years and never had a problem with it. The only reason I had to switch phones is because sadly, I lost the original, and had to upgrade to the newer version. The V60g is It has a metal case that although picks up some scratches, does a superb job of protecting the inner workings of the phone. The phone has external Caller ID which is absolutely necessary in a flip phone. Although the phone is not a color or camera phone, I will attest to the fact that it has outlasted every single one of my friends' fancy dancy color/picture phones. The battery life is excellent. The phone is slim enough to fit in the pocket of my tight jeans, or in my tiniest purses. Another plus is the ability to change the ringer status without even opening the phone. The phone can switch between Loud, Soft, Vibrate, Vibrate + Ring, and Silent with just the touch of a button! There is room for 500 phone book entries as well as one touch voice dialing. There are several different interchangeable phone covers, made by both Motorola, and sold at your favorite shopping mall pushcart! Motorola released the original V60 in 2001 and has kept updating versions of the phone. Most phone companies discontinue styles, so the reason for the updating and re-releasing of this phone is most definitely attributed to its stellar performance! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87612 2000/9/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 overall feel size coloured faceplates battery life lame games but easily over looked The Bottom LineTHIS PHONE IS HOT!!!! IF YOU CAN GET THE MODEL WITH THE CHANGEABLE FACE PLATES, THATS THE ONE TO GET. THE MENU IS ALSO UPGRADED. Full Review FINALLY!!! due the the fact that EVERYONE has the v60 series phones they have found a way to bring me back. I started with the v60 plain and simple, seen too many people with it and decided I'm more of a "dare to be different" kind of guy so I got rid of it and went to a Panasonic GD88 (camera phone) The whole "Camera Hype" had me be-dazzled for a whole 1 month. Then I seen her!! a new V60ig (interchangable GSM model) Mine eyes have seen the cell phone glory, the phone is perfect!! the way it hugs my face was a farmiliar feeling that I yearned for. This time with so much more!! Here's how it changed. Menu Options: Picture Viewer (screensaver) Java Applications (not sure yet) Java Tools (again not sure yet) Chat Feature (Text messaging back & forth with little effort on your part) Updated Browser 5 Games (sort of lame ones though) The battery life is still excellent, as well as the durability of the phone the definitely spared no expense with the v60 series phones. Now I wanted to briefly touch on the topic of call clarity, I have been reading alot of the reviews on all of the v60 models epinions has to offer and I have to say I was rather shocked to read people complaining about the clarity of their units. The v60 is a tri-mode phone which makes it far more superior to the phones they are coming from, perhaps it's not the phone but yet the service provider. I think that's something that should be looked into. Anyway back to the lecture at hand the v60ig has the best feature (to me that is) different colour face plates!!! it comes with a dark champagne colour but can easily be changed to...black,blue,red or even yellow in some stores depending on availability, now that gives me the freedom to "dare to be different". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 (cdn)Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87611 2003/3/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 ok reception fits in my pocket free world phone sleek aluminum casing non intuitive menus bad battery life rings not loud no search in phonebook The Bottom LineIf this is the best Motorola can muster, then I have no doubt i'll be back to Nokia next year. Full Review I've been using Nokia cell phones since 1996 (so for about 6 years now) and this is the first time I've even ever considered getting a Motorola. Well, it finally happened, I ended up getting a Motorola, the v60g to be specific. The reason I got this phone and not another Nokia is because T-mobile wasn't supporting any Nokia's except the 3390, which I don't care for due to size and lack of features. So this was the other choice. On the plus side: It's got a metal casing, looks and feels nice in my hand and doesn't burn my ear after pro-longed use. It seems to pull a slightly stronger signal then my last Nokia 8290, but that might be due to the clumsy antennae. The flip design took some getting used to, but I can appreciate the benefits now (answer when you open, hang up when you close, no need to lock keys) one excellent feature that my Nokia didn't have was the voice memo button, with this you can record short messages to yourself with the touch of a button... I've used this many times and have quickly adapted myself to making short voice memos rather then jotting things down on paper. On the downside: the answer and hang up keys are opposite than that of the rest of the cellular world, so I hung up on the first bunch of people when I tried to answer the phone with the flip already open. again, I've since gotten used to that, but it makes no sense why they are the only company that has it backwards. another downside for me is that the menu system is non-intuitive compared to Nokia, I had to fumble around through the menus to find what I was looking for most of the time. battery life is horrible compared to Nokia, the sad part is that this phone has some of the best battery life that Motorola has to offer at about 2 days standby and a few hours talk time. the games are abysmal... they are probably the worst things I've seen in phone gaming period. I think the original PONG would be more entertaining to play then this dreck. Can't download ringtones, must use the incomprehensible ringtone composer. I was quite happy with my Simpson's, Muppet movie theme, etc ringtones in the Nokia, to be forced to use the humdrum preset ringtones is torture. I tried to use the ringtone composer and completely failed. It might make sense if you can read/write music however, too bad for me I cannot. I am mostly peeved with the phone book however as there is no search function that I can find. I'm guessing that it's there and I just haven't been able to find it, but I'm doing a lot of assuming here... I would have no problem believing that Motorola didn't have the foresight to include a find/search function on a phone that has the potential of holding 500-750 names/numbers, retards. Another disadvantage is that there is no IR port on the phone! My last 2 Nokia's had them and that was from 3-4 years ago. If you don't own a Palm device or a laptop, then it might not be as big of a deal, but if you do, kiss wireless dial up and number transfers goodbye. Neither here nor there complaints: this phone has a lot of slots for voice activated dialing, which on the surface appears to be a good thing. The downside to this is that it often doesn't match the name I'm saying to the person I want to dial. so I find myself saying the name, then having to look at the phone to make sure I'm actually calling the right person. I'll say dad and it will dial Sam, or I'll say John and it will dial Rodney. Actually, a lot of names I say, (Sherman, Melissa, John, Liz etc.) all seem to want to dial Sam :P I have no idea why it can't recognize what I'm saying, but for whatever the reason, it's a hit or miss sort of feature. Included stuff: they provide you with a nice belt clip that swivels, a battery charger, a headset and battery with the phone. pretty much standard stuff with the exception of the beltclip. that's pretty nice quality, but too bad I don't wear a belt and it just prevents me from being able to shove it in my pocket. It's a popular phone and will most likely serve me well till my contract is up, but really loathe the idea of getting another one after this ones use has expired. Motorola is just not for me. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 87610 2002/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dual displays good feature set small worldwide compatibility metal case none The Bottom LineSmall, reliable, solidly built, great looking phone. Full Review The first thing you notice about this phone is that it's small. Really small. But because of the flip phone design, the V60 avoids the problem of some other really small phones; it's keys are sized for full-sized fingers, and its screen is readable. (A second LED readout shows who's calling when the phone is closed). In contrast to previous Motorola flip phones like the StarTac, this is a solidly built phone. The brushed metal case not only looks good, but it gives the phone a solidity and durability lacking in most other phones on the market. The feature set of the V60 is pretty good. The available memory for phone numbers is very large and is augmented by available number memory in the phone's "smart card" (this has the benefit of being transferable from phone to phone and programmed online through the T-Mobile website if that's your provider). There are several ring tones to choose from but it's not possible to download new one). The voice dialing features are also fairly good, though occasionally finicky. The phone's features are readily customizable as well so that you can access those features you need most, most easily. One nagging minor problem is that while using an earpiece you can voice-dial the phone without opening the case, but when you've finished the call, you have to open the phone and press end. The V60 makes no attempt to be a PDA. Perhaps it would be handy if you could easily sync the V60 with your PC address book and calendar. It that's what you want, look elsewhere (and at very expensive, large, clunky alternatives). the V60 is just a phone, but it accomplishes this task extremely well. As an added plus, with new service, you can get this phone for free or very nearly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87609 2000/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use clear reception antenna is vulnerable The Bottom LineIf you are looking for fancy stuff such as camera or games, stay away from this unit. Otherwise, this is a very nice communication equipment. Full Review I start using Motorola cellular phone since 10 years ago. I used to cost over $1,000 for a bulky Motorola Micro TAC. I see the whole evolution from Motorola. After MicroTAC era, it was StarTAC, then Vader/Vulcan. Those are all mile stone product. Then, it comes to V60 series. I bought a V60g few weeks ago from The Good Guys. After rebate, the out of pocket expense is $49.00 (1 year service contract). Service provider is T-Mobile. The phone comes with hands-free headset and a wall plug in charger. It also comes with a extended life battery. I fully charge the battery and start explore this new toy of mine. The phone looks durable to me. 90% of the external is metal. The phone fits perfectly on my palm. Keypad layout is good. The screen can display up to 4 lines of text. the navigation is user friendly. Pros Reception is good compare with my wife's Nokia 3390. Both phone run under GSM mode and V60g has significantly better reception. My wife lost signal entirely when she is shopping inside some shopping center, while my V60g still gives me 1-2 signal bar. Cons I am working for a online cell phone shop (www.88-cellular.com). 9 out of 10 complains I heard about a V60 series phone is antenna. The online shop sold over 2,000 antennas from the past 6 months. Maybe the price is right. Or mostly like it is the antenna design itself. Unlike Nokia's build in antenna, this V60g has a stubby antenna that sticks out around 1 inch. I do recommend this phone to serious cell phone user. It has all the function you need. You can download address book from your outlook. Battery life is average 3 days. It doesn't has those unnecessary functions. It is a flip phone so that you don't have to worry about accidentally dial out to someone you don't want to.... The price is right, etc.... So, check it out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 87608 2002/11/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size battery life no chrome cover custom menu style real metal cover display could be a bit brightermore visible adding rigntone antenna The Bottom LineIf you just want a durable mobile phone and nothing else like IM or Web surfing, this is an excellent phone for you. Full Review I used to own Motorola 8167. It was a silver Timport phone. I bought a phone that had a problem and never had a good experience, so first, I was hesitant to jump into Motorola phone again. Then, my NOKIA 3390 broke down. So, it was time for me to shop again. One of the main reason for choosing this phone is wide availability. I believe this is one of very few phone that are offered by the various wireless services. So, once I like the phone, I could choose various wireless services. Another reason for choosing this phone is the rebate. You will have to come up with at least $250 to begin, but after various rebates, you will eventually get this phone for free. Why This Phone? There are a lot of good phones out there with more features and also get one for free. Simple First, I like this phone's simplicity. I don't like to do too many things with a phone. I rather use a separate device to surf web not on my cell phone. This is just a great mobile phone. Nothing more and nothing less. Design I have seen many friends with NOKIA chrome cover. It looked nice, but it was very slippery, too. And it always looked dirty unless you wipe the surface after using it. This phone you don't need to worry about that. It uses brushed aluminum kinda cover. So, it won't slip off your finger. And this phone doesn't look like a toy. It looks like a real phone. So, I can use it without a problem at my work wearing suit or jeans. Battery Life My previous phone died after about an hour and half of talk. I had to keep charging my battery every day. This phone I don't have to do that anymore. I haven't exactly timed the phone's battery life, but it does seem to last several days and talk time is at least 3-4 hours. I only lost one bar of battery meter after talking about 2 hours. Custom Menu. Some phone has very awkward phone menu system. You sometimes have to go to several menus to get to where you want. You can customnize the whole menu system with this phone. You can even change what the button will do. I like to access things fast and hate to go through menus. if you are like me, you will love this phone. Accessories. I chose this phone because I can get more accessories for less. I could have bought other phone like Sony Ericsson T68i. I can get it at similar price, but since they are very new, not many accessories were available. When I say accessories, I guess what I mean is non-OEM items. I could just go to eBay to buy the entire accessories that i need such as Desktop Charger, Extra Battery, Car Charger, USB data cable and others for less than 20 or 30 dollars. My brother has a SANYO flip phone with a color screen. His desktop charger is around $70. If you want cheap accessories, this is a definitely a good phone to start with. Call Quality I guess I should have put this further up the list. This phone does have an excellent reception. I am using T-Mobile. I believe they use GSM or something. My previous phone was also from the same company, but I had much harder time when I am calling and receiving calls. Probably just better receiver speaker or better microphone, but I hear less static, and calls are loud and clear. I could even use the phone even inside the Holland Tunnel in NYC. But, I have heard that T-Mobile's service quality can vary significantly depending on where you live. Some have terrible time receiving and sending calls, so check with your friends who has the service before you get this phone. I live at the same location where I used my previous phone, so I know my reception is good. Anyway, I think I had no problem getting calls and sending calls. Voice quality was very good. **Something you may want to know** Cover. If you like changing cover of your phone, this is not the best phone for you. If you get V60i, you could change its cover, but unlike Nokia, Motorla phone doesn't have many covers. Actually, that's one of the reason why I bought it. Ring Tone. Unlike my previous Motorola Timeport 8167, I can add customized ring tone like Nokia phones, but it's really difficult to do this. Motorola give you about a ten different ring tones. They are great. But if you want more, you will have to find a software like I did. There are various softwares that will convert Nokia rington code into Motorola code. You just follow the number button that the software gives you. You just punch them in. You have to be determined to do this. Buying extra software and finding a ringtone can be annoying. Antenna Many cell phone manufacturers are trying to hide its antennas. I don't think Motorola is one of those companies. V60g has a big antenna. V60g's antenna is stuck. You cannot even pull up. Actually, that's better than the pull up. But still, it's a huge antenna. It can poke you when you have it in your pocket. It looks sturdier than the previous phone I have tried, but I still worry about breaking it. I did try to buy and install other antenna that are much shorter or one that looks like metal ball, but I couldn't take my antenna off. So, I couldn't do it. So, what I am trying to say is you probably will have to live with this antenna. Display. I think V60g's display could be a bit brighter. It's somewhat on a dim side. So, when I'm driving or out in the son, I often have hard time to read what's on the display. That's about it. I hope this help. and I will try to update the review. Thanks for readin up to this point Update 11/03/02 Recently, I have been experiencing some problems. First, I broke off my antenna, but that was totally my fault. It took about a month to get it back to me from T-Mobile Repair Center. There are more serious problems. I think this problem only apply to T-Mobile customers. I believe T-Mobile uses GSM signals to carry calls to all the customers. Recently, AT&T has started its own GSM service. Because of that, many customers will experience more than usual drop calls and sudden ups and downs of the signals. That's what I have heard when I called in to complain about my drop calls and sudden loss of signals. I cannot prove any of the above, but this is what T-Mobile customer service rep. told me. It lasted more than a month and never improved, so I complained again. and they sent me a replacement phone. It seemed to have gone away. So, the problems I experienced was caused by my supposedly fixed phone. I just want any T-Mobile customer to be aware of this signal problems. So, before you sign up, please ask your friend or neighbor using T-Mobile to make sure they are not experiencing what I just told you like drop calls and loss of signal. After all this, I still recommend Motorola V60g. It's still a bit hard to open, nevertheless a great phone. Recommended: Yes 87607 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 still cool looking small sturdy ok interface apparently motos used to stink small display somewhat dated interface just ok The Bottom LineFrom what I've seen that's available among GSM phones, esp. worldphones, this is still one of the best available, particularly if you don't need a camera or a color display. Full Review I got my V60ig about 1.5 years ago, shortly after it came out. If they didn't keep coming up with new gizmos and tweaks to seduce us into buying ever-newer phones (with ever-more-expensive feature plans!), this would be pretty much the perfect phone. WHAT I LOVE: - Size - I agree with others who say that the smaller line of Moto phones just before they released the V60 was too small. This is perfect for a non-smartphone. - Look & feel of the aluminum case - feels solid, looks sharp, and I've dropped it w/ no ill effects. - Durability & protectiveness of clamshell design - I hate worrying that an exposed display will get beaten up or cracked, or that exposed buttons will be pressed (even if the phone locks). - Great battery life (I don't know where you get 2 days standby time -- I get more like 5 days with moderate use). - Excellent reception and sound quality (assuming you're one who rarely ventures out of metro areas, and for whom GSM's limited nationwide reach is therefore OK). (Cell phone makers, a quick note to you - if you can't match the form factor, solid feel, reception/call quality and battery life of this phone, I'm not interested. These are the basic requirements that all phones should now be able to meet. I can't believe that you're still making phones where callers think they're talking to someone in a tunnel, or that lose the network regularly. Get with the program.) - Tri-band worldphone - I don't use it that much, but it's great to have. - Voice memos - ditto. - Voice & 1-touch dialing - use ALL THE TIME (although I realize they're totally standard by now). - External display. - Quick jog using the external buttons to lower the ring volume. - I really like having multiple phone numbers (home, business, mobile, etc.) for each contact and having them represented by a little icon next to the person's name - this is unique as far as I know. - The software that guesses what text you're writing is pretty remarkable, although (a) I don't enter text on it much (for reasons mentioned below) so it hasn't "learned" enough to be really useful for me and (b) entering things that aren't standard words (names, abbreviations) is quite a pain. WHAT'S INCLUDED, BUT A WASTE: - GPRS ("high-speed" internet access) & SMS ("texting") -- sorry, the display is way too small for this to be useful and I refuse to "text" on a numeric keypad. Maybe I've been spoiled by my Handspring Treo smartphone... - Games - very lame. - Changeable faceplates - if you like them, great, but I spent all of $50 for the phone, so I'm not going to blow another $25 to change it from silver to blue. - PIM - text entry on a numeric keypad is a pain, so if you're going to include a PIM on the phone, include a cable and some desktop software, preferably so that it will sync w/ Outlook. I do use it, but VERY occasionally, when I only have the phone w/ me and want to set a reminder. - The included earphone/mike. WHAT I'D CHANGE: - Display was small even for its time, and not as easily visible as I'd like, esp. in low light. By now it's positively antiquated. - True that the interface is significantly less intuitive than some (e.g., Nokia). - Why on earth are they still making phones w/ inch-long antennas sticking out of them? Why aren't all antennas internal now (or just little nubs)? I'm always worried it will break like the antenna on my VisorPhone did... - I find that I have to press the keys pretty hard for it to dial. WHAT I CRAVE FROM NEWER PHONES (but am too cheap to pony up for): - Bigger, color display. - Camera. - Quad band GSM roaming (850/900/1800/1900). - Polyphonic ringtones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 post-MIRRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87606 2002/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good signal reception easy to read screen small size stylish more expensive from cingular wireless isn t the antenna a bit big The Bottom LineAlthough pricey, this neat cell phone from Motorola is rock solid. A pleasure to use in just about every way. I have just minor quibbles with it overall. Full Review Unlike my usual cycles with other electronic equipment, I tend not to change cell phones very quickly. Over the 8 years I've had a cell phone, they have been all Nokia phones. I have one of the original bricks... the Nokia 100, I dropped that once and it dented the asphalt next to my car! My other two phones were a Nokia 2100 and a Nokia 5165. That's it... My cell service has bounced from Bell Atlantic (before it became Verizon) to AT&T to currently Cingular. The rest of my family held only a Motorola StarTac bought in 1993 and another 5165 and a 6100 Nokia. I've had poor reception with the Nokia 5165 in where I currently worked, so I decided to finally update the phone after over a year of using the Nokia 5165. Lo and behold, I went to Best Buy to buy a new phone for the Cingular Wireless service. That day, I could buy a cellular accessory and get 30% off any new phone with activation. I chose the V70 from Motorola... unfortunately, it was out of stock and for the meantime, I would get the V60G as a substitute until the V70 came back in. This is how I wound up with a Motorola V60G phone. The Short Take This is a small phone with excellent reception and clarity. The phone is stylish with a flip style opening to access the major features of the phone. The G suffix stands for GSM service capable so the V60G works on GSM compatible services like Cingular Wireless and T-Stream/VoiceStream (and soon on AT&T GSM network). There are many features that include an external one line LCD display that can show CallerID on incoming calls, message status from your voice mailbox, and minor settings without having to flip open your phone. The four external buttons make it easy to place calls from your phonebook especially if you set up voice dialing on the phone. The phone is very feature rich in every respect. The few downsides the phone may have is the rather long fixed antenna, the questional sound quality from headset attachments, and the somewhat more difficult to use interface over the Nokia phones I've had in the past. These are all minor quibbles for an otherwise great phone. 1) Small lightweight phone 2) External LCD display with backlighting 3) Excellent signal reception 4) Good speaker and microphone reception on the phone 5) Voice-activated calling on the phone 6) Some organizer functions 7) Calculator on phone 8) High capacity battery included in Cingular package 9) Solid construction 10) Belt clip/holster included 1) Somewhat long fixed antenna 2) A bit difficult to remove phone from belt holster quickly 3) Dimished sound quality on headset attachments (volume) 4) Slightly harder interface than Nokia phones Details... details The V60G is only 3.42 x 1.77 x 1.07 inches and weighs 4.3 oz with the included high capacity battery in my package. Noticably smaller and lighter than the Nokia 5165 I was using although heavier than the V70 I will be getting today. The phone is a flip phone... a design that Motorola has made famous from its old StarTac cell phone days. The design gives a small, lightweight phone that can open up to a more comfortable shape and size when in use. The phone fits into a small belt holster that is included in the package. The V60G only works on GSM capable networks so it works in selected Cingular areas and the soon to start AT&T GSM service... this phone is NOT capable of running the popular Cingular Nation plans! Opening the phone roughly doubles the length of the phone creating an approximate 150 degree angle between the two halves of the phone. There are external buttons... one on the right side of the phone and three on the left side. The one on the right accesses the voice dialing options on the phone. Two buttons on the left are primarily used for volume control and minor menu selections when the phone is closed. The last button is a multibutton that serves various purposes when the phone is flipped open and closed. The phone has a gray brushed metal appearance with black accents. The most notable thing is the one line LCD display with a soft blue backlight. This LCD is on the outside of the phone and is always viewable, especially when the phone is flipped closed. When not in use, it neatly displays the date and time as well as flashes the name of your cellular carrier every now and then. When using your phone, it displays the number of the person you're calling. When receiving a call, the caller ID will kick in and display the number of the person calling you on this one-line LCD. When you flip open the phone, you get a generous 5-line LCD (well, one line is used to display basic info while the bottom line is used to display what the three buttons just under the screen will access. You also get a full keypad with a call start button, a call end button, and a two way rocker switch. The power button is just below the keypad. The phone takes about 2-3 seconds to power on and off. The buttons on the phone are easy to access and press. You can access some menu options via voice command and even use voice command to call people with the phone flipped closed and a headset attached. You can store over 500 numbers into this phone with voice annotations for voice dialing them (up to 20 voice dial can be stored I believe). You can send messages with this phone and the iTAP software will try to guess the word you're typing it... it gets better as you use the feature more. There is a microbrowser if you get that kind of service on your cellular carrier (I don't so I can really say how well the phone handles this). The phone is GPRS compatible. You can set number keys 2-9 to be quick dial keys... i.e. hold down button two and it will dial the fixed number you associated with it. Holding down number 1 will access you own voice mail account (just set it up first on the phone). You can also customize the sounds on the phone to various tunes and vibrations... however, I did not find that you could add additional ones on top of what was in the phone already. I didn't experiment too far with that feature. You could type in quick notes via the keypad and even place voice notes into the V60! The voice annotations is a very nice feature! The voice annotation is for short notes... seconds in duration. Volume on the phone is generous and people I called did not hear any echos when I talked with them. I did not get any echo from my own voice while using the phone. Singal reception was exceptional. I was able to receive signals from areas my Nokia did not. Since it seems that Cingular and VoiceStream/T-Stream use the same network, My friends with VoiceStream service in NYC don't get the signal reception I'm able to get with the V60G. I have found difficulty with signals from Cingular in my own apartment on my Nokia phone but my friends with Motorola phones and the same cullar service did not have such problems! The phone maintains the last 10 phone numbers dialed and received through the phone logs. You can even set the phone to automatically forward calls to another number as well. Headsets utilize a 2.5mm jack so it shouldn't be difficult to find one that works with your phone. Battery life Battery life is decent with the high capacity battery. The phone would last at almost 3 hours of talk time with a fully charged battery and the factory settings for the backlight and screen contrast. They include a fairly quick travel charger with the V60G. Extras The phone has a built in datebook and calculator. The datebook is marginally useful and the calculator is nice but a bit difficult to use since there are no set keys for the plus, minus, multiply, and divide functions. Again, you have voice annotations available on this phone which is a very nice feature to have. There are three games on the phone. The only one worth playing was blackjack. The other two... paddleblaster and mindblaster were mindnumbing boring... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Problems? I still had a few problems with the antenna of the V60G. It is fairly large for a cell phone and I often hit it with my hand while the phone was in the belt holster. I even banged the antenna on surfaces because of it's generous length. On the other hand, the phone received signal from my carrier with few problems! The interface is still a bit difficult to use although much better than previous Motorola setups. Nokia is more user friendly than the Motorola interface... however, it may be that I need to just get used to the Motorola interface. The holster holds the phone very well... maybe too well! I found that it was sometimes difficult to remove the phone from the holster quickly and easily. At times, the holster didn't want to let go! Good for not losing the phone but bad for people you take the phone in and out of the holster often. You may want to invest in a case for the phone. The headset quality is a little poor. Now this may be a problem with the headset I used instead (I tried three headsets that were under $20). The volume of voices was low and echos occurred on the headset. It was a drastic difference from the volume on the phone's actual receiver that I had to take notice! I have to try some more expensive headsets and see if the problem continues... (My brother has an expensive cellular headset for 2.5 mm jacks. I'll see how that works then when I see him next time.) If you wanted another problem, two of the three games on the phone reek to high heaven. Lastly, since the V60G is fairly new (note that the V60 has numerous versions that have been out for up to a year now), you can only get it has a few locations. Most of these places sell it for $199! Now I know other places are selling similar phones like the V60c and the V60i for VoiceStream/T-Stream and AT&T for $100 and even as far as free after rebates! The G version of the phone is the only one that works on Cingular's and AT&T's GSM service... the V60i will work on AT&T's and Cingular's TDMA service! It seems that the phone will work on VoiceStream's service in NYC as well. Ask the cellular representative before you buy a phone on what will work and what won't. In the case of Cingular, the GSM and TDMA services have very different coverage areas! GSM is newer for Cingular (although it may be in conjunction with VoiceStream) and covers the NYC metro area much better for Cingular. TDMA for Cingular is based off AT&T Wireless TDMA service in the NTC Metro area and I found it generally acceptable to downright poor coverage! The V60G cannot run Cingular's Nation plan but runs the Cingular Nation Preferred Plan... there is a big difference between the two plans! Final thoughts The V60G is a great phone that in some ways I'll miss over the V70 I just got today. The V60G has some great features and I felt was more advanced in some catagories over Motorola's newest phone the V70. It's not quite as thin and light but it is a rock solid phone that is popular among the public and all the cellular carrier for very good reasons! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 151 7705 Motorola V120c 87677 2004/7/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it does have a loud ringer antenna breaks poor reception ear piece is to quiet Where I live we can't use this phone at all due to its poor service reception. It also has far to quiet of a ear speaker. I have other phones which work fine in the same area. I don't recommend this unit at all. Also the antenna will break off every 3 days unless you don't work and use it. Sorry but i got stuck in an 18 month contract with this junk and am not so impressed. 87676 2005/12/21 Product Rating3.0 inexpensive phone with some features refer a friendget 100 free minutes small screen can be difficult to read mixed reception in the country Hi all, My son and my wife have been using this phone for a couple of months. My wife for use on the road--emergency/business. My son mostly for use so he can be picked up at school. For these purposes the phone is useful. We're out in the boonies so reception is a mix. There are hills and valleys which affect reception. And coverage in our area is not rated by Tracfone as comprehensive. Considering these factors we do alright. Clear, non-stormy days certainly make for best quality. Of course, minutes can be expensive. But it's great that you're not stuck with a contract or minimum payments. You're best off taking the deals that you can find--Tracfone usually has something going on. Speaking of which, send me an email at paisnd@yahoo.com if you buy this phone. We can then take advantage of the Refer a Friend program and both receive a free 100 minutes. Enjoy, Gregory 87675 2004/4/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 small durable dropped it at least 23 timesstill kicking dropped calls bad antenna not pretty to the eye quiet Well, I got this phone as a free-bee because my parents bought a more expensive phone. For the purpose of it being a phone, it works fine. For the purpose of being something to show off or play with, it falls short. Within a week or two the antenna had fallen off, and the buttons had started to fade. I guess with all plans....there are "Dead-Zone" but i seemed to find many of them. The volume in all rings are very silent, and when driving or watching tv, they cannot be heard. I do not recommend this phone, But if boughten, it will work as needed. On the other hand, this phone has been dropped at least 23 times, and still works like new. The buttons have never jammed or not worked in any way. It is rather small, and not uncomfortable to have in your pocket. The options for this phone are: Free voice mail,caller ID,call waiting Stores 400 numbers plus, Voice activated dialing/recording 32 distinct ring tones Unit Weight: 4.5 oz. Size (in inches): 1.7 x 5.0 x 1.1 87674 2004/1/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 decent reception durable battery life lame ringtones don t like button arrangement While I like my Motorola v120, it doesn't seem to be as much better than the competition as the salesperson made it seem. Many of my friends have the newer Nokia phones of about the same price, and their ringtones sound better, I think. Also, things seem easier to access on the Nokia phones with more intuitive button choices. One thing to note, though, is that my Motorola has taken a few lickings, and is ticking right along. 87673 2000/8/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool phone battery life excellent user interface has lotslots of features pullup antenna looks fragile but rarely will you need to pull it up The Bottom LineIf your looking for a phone that reflects 2001 + then this is the phone to get. It will definetly stir up conversations, Full Review I love this phone. I've had other phones StarTacs, Blaupunkts, Motorola bag phones etc. but have never been as happy with those phones that I am with this V120C ("Tarpon") phone. I have the black model; my wife has the blue model. I live in what one could classify as a "fringe" area (about 45 miles North of Tampa, Florida). But the reception and transmission of Verizon and this phone is great! I love the voice recognition features of the phone. This alone makes it unique from other cellular phones. The user interface is excellent. Much better than my other phones. It is straightforward and I haven't gotten lost within all the submenus. It is logically laid out. This phone is definitely a 2001 type phone. It does everything under the sun. Messaging, voice recording, voice recognition, web browsing, 400 phone book, 30+ rings, vibrates, etc. Can you guess by reading that I would incline to recommend this phone? Oh yeah, did I mention the battery life? left it in standby for a few days after playing with it, dialing out, incoming etc and it STILL has a 3 Bar (indicating max charge) on the display. I love advances in technology! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 44.99 87672 2000/4/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 low cost compact size customizeable covers many features flimsy antenna The Bottom LineOverall, if you want a solid phone with plenty of features and a low price tag, get this model. Full Review When my last contract was up (1 year deal at Verizon Wirless with a free phone) I decided that I might as well get a decent phone to go along with my service. I was looking for something that was small, had a vibrate mode and was voice activated. Besides the $200+ phones, this one was the best that I had seen at the store. It has all the basic features that I was looking for as well as some nice extras, like the voice activation. There is also some little memo recording that you can do on it, but I have never bothered with it. Battery life has seemed to be a ton better than my last phone, as I can go 2-3 days without charging, although I am not a very heavy user of the phone. Now I paid about $80 with a two year plan, and about 3 months later, it went down to $49 with two year agreement (again, Verizon Wireless) and I believe that is still the going rate, so it is a deal. You can also buy some neat accessories, like personalized rubber covers, to give you a different look, or a little FM radio adapter that will let you listen to the radio through your phone. So far, the only negative for me has been the antenna. It broke after about 2-3 months. Basically, I carry the phone around in my pocket, but have since stopped that. Nice thing was, Verizon Wireless replaced it for free, and it looks like it is a little different, so I hope it will last longer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 87671 2000/11/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great featuresspecifications for price i ve had all kinds of hardware problems The Bottom LineGreat phone if it works. ;) Full Review I don't know if it is just my bad luck, but I've gone through three phones with various problems. The first one had it's display die within 6 days, but I could still use the phone if I could do it blind. The second one would say after only 15 days that it was charging for a second while off, then would reset itself and repeat the process. If I tried to turn it on, it would show the motorola logo, then beep and turn itself off. The third one, would not allow me to hear anyone on the handsfree unit (best sound quality unit I've ever used, you could put the phone down on the seat next to you, and the other party could hear you crystal clear) after 8 days. Now I'm waiting to see how number four works...If I didn't like the phones features and specifications, I wouldn't put up with it. For some reason it balances itself out compared with other units in the same price range. The FM radio feature if you buy the special headset is great. I like the flexible antenna, it prevents breaking it. Many other phones with rigid antennas, if you sit down just right with it in your pocket, it will break. I like this phone, but hate the technical problems I've had. Maybe Motorola will read this and tell me why I've had all these problems. Has anyone else had technical issues with their phone? Or am I the only one... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 + tax 87670 2000/10/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive for its size very durable cute design none really the color variety is a little odd but i still love it The Bottom LineBattery life and clarity of signal leave something to be desired, but the phone is gorgeous, easy to use, and quite portable. Full Review After being a devoted Nokia phone user, I was reluctant to surrender my 6100 series phone for anything else. When I saw the powder blue Motorola V120c, I was in love. For totally aesthetic reasons, the phone is amazing. it's small, light, fits well in any size pocket or purse, and is still large enough that you can prop it up against your ear with your shoulder. I have had my V120c for several months now, and have spent a lot of time playing with it. From a functionality standpoint, this phone works very well. The ringer is fairly loud and distinct, which makes it easy to be heard in a loud mall over everyone else's phone. The battery that comes with the phone lasts about three days on a full charge without excessive use. One thing I cannot stand about the phone is the default setting that when the battery is low, it beeps every several minutes. Then, if you have a missed call, the phone will sqwak at you repeatedly until you view the number. The menu system is a little more confusing than my Nokia, but not nearly as confusing as other Motorola phones I've played with. Overall, as one who likes style, I have to say that the few quirks of this phone are well outweighed by its appearance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 87669 2000/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use lots of features fits comfortably in hand fast connection not dummy proof not for me at least well The Bottom LineLike I said, great price but even better phone! Full Review This is my first cell phone I've ever owned and let me tell you, the thingy scared me at first. Personally I'm a dummy when it comes to cell phones. My friends used to let me borrow their's once (key word here is once). I kind of got lost on it and Uuumm, ucked up as usual. Like they'll tell me to dial the number and push the green button. Well I didn't push a green one, but my finger did land on a big button that had some word on it (I didn't have my gasses at that time)and it looked almost green. That's when a bunch of thingies (words) showed up and I pushed a few more buttons and before I knew it I was getting yelled at. Ooops. So, when I this phone (two days ago) I didn't want to push any buttons. Well curiousity got the best of me (about 3 seconds after I had the phone in my hand) and I had my phone book set, phone personalized, ringer set, adjusted the volume, and called my best friend with-in minutes with out even picking up the manual (I was also wearing my glasses). I love this phone!! It's so easy to use and operate. I don't know everything about this phone so far, I still haven't read that darn manual (and you thought not reading instructions was a guy thing). This cell has voice mail, 3-way calling, voice notes, caller ID, voice activated speed dial, browser, A LOT of different rings and some other stuff too. As I said earlier I found this phone 'not dummy proof'. so, far I did only one thing really stupid...I locked my key pad and couldn't figure out how to unlock it. I had to ask one of my managers who owns a cell phone to unlock it for me (I was at work), and she did it with no problem! Damn it! Why couldn't I figure out that the two buttons I pushed to lock it was the same two buttons to unlock it! Other than that, it's a great cell phone with a great price. For once I would have to say, you are getting much more than the price shows for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 87668 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activation internet ready great battery life perfect size tons of features sleek great value accessoriesphone are somewhat spendy The Bottom LineThis one has everything.... sleek, stylish, and any feature you could possibly want in a phone... and, it's easy to learn to use. Go with Verizon and get this phone! Full Review Well, I finally upgraded from my last cell phone plan, and this phone was my choice for the package. This phone has it all! First of all, I love the amount of information that is available on your LCD display. The features that come with this phone don't seem to end! I can use it as an FM tuner, internet connection, voice/text messaging, etc. With the internet enabled, you can even import and check your email from anywhere! For those interested in games, you can access plenty of them on the internet, so no worries there. As far as text messaging goes, the constant battle with any phone is learning how to type efficiently. This phone provides one of the best keypad interfaces that I've seen for typing quickly. Menus are easy to navigate and there's plenty of memory to store anything you need (names, numbers, etc). With the tri-band technology, you'll have the best coverage available anywhere you go (yes, better than AT&T!). One feature that is extremely nice is that you can change the volume of the conversation while talking by the volume buttons on the side of the phone. Yes, this one has it all.... sleek, stylish, and any feature you could possibly want in a cell phone. Features: -Tri-mode band (provides the most coverage..as does Verizon) -2way text messaging -Web browser (this is optional for around $6-7/mo.) -Voice recognition for quick-calling -Voice recorder (records up to 2 minutes of voice notes) -FM radio tuner (requires optional headset at $70) -Lithium/Ion Battery (4 hrs dig. usage/300 hrs dig. standby) -LCD Graphic Display (THE BEST display on the market!) -Phone book (holds 400 names/numbers/etc.) -32 ringer tones or vibration -CallerID, Call Waiting, Last Received, Last Dialed Dimensions: 5" x 1-7/8" x 1-1/8" Weight: 4.5 oz. (suprised at how light this phone is!) Warranty: 1-year limited warranty Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 87667 2001/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 ergonomics voice activated dialing appearance battery life shaky voice quality The Bottom LineAffordable, stylish and feature packed. It's call quality needs some serious improvement. Full Review I've written an opinion about the Motorola V60c, which applies, almost in total, to the V120c, except for a few items. First, the V120c really is the "big cousin" to the V60c. The only missing feature of value is the calendar, which may be important for those of you requiring full PIM capability. Unlike the V60c, the V120c is bigger, with respect to length. Not a surprise considering it's a candy bar styled phone, and it weighs about an ounce more. Let's face it, if you prefer a flip style phone, this is not the phone for you. The V120c is a solid phone, with an intuitive menu system. It's battery life is better than the V60c, and has provided me with about 5 days of usage, and about 20-30 minutes of talk time per day. That's not bad. The real difference between the V60c and the V120c is about $330.00. You're paying this difference to have the V60c's aluminum housing, styling, and size. If appearance means everything to you, then consider the V60c and the hefty price tag attached to it. Otherwise, for $330 less, you have the exact same phone on the inside (almost, minus the calendar). My primary qualm with the V120c phone is the occasional, choppy call quality. Every now and then I'll run into a phone conversation where the person on the other end has to ask me to repeat what I just said. For some reason, this didn't happen on the V60c. This annoyance is making me think twice about this phone, despite the fact that it has the requisite features I'm looking for. Update (10/12/2001): After having just purchased the Motorola Timeport 270c, I'm convinced the 270c is a better phone, especially w/respect to call quality and reception. I don't have the choppy sound quality w/the 270c as I did w/the V120c, and my reception is much better. The kinks Motorola had in the V120c are ironed out in the Timeport 270c. Althought the 270c is more costly, it's worth the extra investment if you want one of Motorola's signature quality phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 69.00 87666 2000/7/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 user interface size detailed timers logging for all calls battery life flimsy antenna maybe The Bottom LineSuperlative phone with only one potential downside; the antenna won't last forever. Full Review Over the past two years, I've lived with the Nokia 6185 (Sprint PCS), Motorola i1000plus (Nextel), Motorola Startac ST7868W (Verizon), and the Nokia 8260 (AT&T) mobile phones. My new phone of choice is the Motorola v120c. Read dncswknivs' excellent review for in-depth details; I just needed to correct his listed "con" of "no day/time stamp on caller ID". In fact, the v120c has the best date/time stamp functionality of all the phones I've used. For each of the last 20 calls (10 received + 10 dialed), you can view the number, date/time of call, and duration of call. (The Nokias don't list individual call duration, other than for the last call.) The "missed calls" menu option familiar to Nokia users doesn't exist here; instead, look under "received calls." This list of numbers includes a check mark for connected calls -- missed calls don't have the check mark, or a duration. Additionally, the v120c maintains separate, resettable call timers for sent calls, received calls, and total calls. Getting usage statistics out of this phone is a pleasure. The menu system / interface is the best I've seen. Borrowing from Nokia's dual "soft key" system and extending it with user-definable shortcuts and the ability to rearrange the top-level menu make the v120c's menu system extremely powerful, while remaining intuitive to the point where the user manual is relegated to use as a glossary. I found the Startac interface difficult to learn and unwieldy to use after learning it, and constantly cursed Motorola for not including a "back" key. They must have heard my cursing, for the v120c includes a "back" key and much more. Five stars for the interface! The voice dialing is a nifty frill that works well. Sound quality is excellent on both ends of the connection. Buttons are ergonomically sound, easy to use, and (unlike the Nokia 8260) easily seen when backlit. Charging time is low and battery life is very high. Ring tones are customizable down to the type of incoming call/data, but are not linked to caller ID (i.e., you can't set ringtones per individual incoming caller). The v120c has no flip-phone hinge to weaken or break (I like "no moving parts"), but the antenna is just asking to be replaced with a sturdy non-extendable type. Motorola produced an excellent cell phone in the v120c. Thumbs up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 87665 2002/7/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight easy to read menus detachable faceplate stylish The Bottom LineOverall I think that the Motorola v120 is a good quality cell phone that is inexpensive and durable. Full Review I have had the MOTOROLA V120t cellular phone for a few months now. It is great I really like it. The reception is clear and with the phone being able to switch seamlessly from PCS, Analog, and Digital signals, I have an easy keeping a good range. The V120 series phones have a great feature that makes them able to be personalized. The have the ability to change the face-plates. You can show support for your favorite sports team or just show your artistic, intelligent nature. Either way its an expression of you. The V120 phones are in the 49.99 - 79.99 range at most stores, but occasionally there a deals that you can get them free with a contract signing. This phone is internet capable and can receive/send text messages rather easily. It is good for people on the go that don't have time to sit and use a computer in an office all day. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87664 2002/2/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great phone book feature rich nice price good voice memo recorder poor sound quality poor ergonomics difficult not to scratch screen The Bottom LineFor recreational use, this is a great phone for the money. Full Review I was shopping for a new Verizon phone for heavy use as my primary business phone. Tri-mode, small size, and great sound were key criteria. I narrowed my choices to a couple of new Samsung phones, LG TM-510, or this V120C (the V60 was just too expensive). After reading other reviews I bought the V120c. The frustration began within 10 minutes. The sound quality was consistently poor, and people frequently complained that I was difficult to hear. To give the phone a fair chance, I used it heavily for two weeks. I contacted Verizon customer service regarding the poor voice quality. They suggested the LG or Samsung phones would likely sound better. After two weeks of hearing "oh, you must be on your cell phone" and "why don't you call me back from a land-line", I traded the phone in for the LG TM-510. Now I hear "you're not in your office? This doesn't sound like a cell phone". Ergonomics: This phone just feels awkward (maybe I simply don't like candy-bar phones). I didn't really notice how bad it was until I traded it for the TM-510. Dialing and navigating menus with one hand is awkward. The shape and size makes it fit poorly in a pocket. You have to add a bulky cover in order to use the belt clip. Features: The address book is well designed and the one-button voice memo recorder is great. I tend to think of things at inconvenient times. I enjoyed being able to easily record brief notes (the LG also has a memo recorder, but at least 5 keystrokes are required). Overall Motorola has done a good job of making menus intuitive and easy to navigate. You can program hot keys for frequently used options. Unfortunately the phone lacks of a quick way to put it in silent mode. A half-dozen keystrokes are required to switch from ring to vibrate (other phones have one button for this). Some menu items are confusing or unnecessary. For instance, why is there loud and quite ring mode? Doesn't the ring volume take care of this? Motorola could have done a better job of getting important info onto the screen. I found I frequently had to scroll down to see what I needed (ie the time stamp on missed calls). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 87663 2000/3/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated dialing small size antenna way too cheap flimsy fragile The Bottom LineExcellent features & value for the price, antenna's flimsy but overall a great buy. Full Review I upgraded to this phone about 1.5 weeks ago and it's a really nice phone. The feature I like the best is the voice-dialing for up to 20 stored numbers. Now I can use the phone hands-free while driving and never have to take my eyes off the road for a single second, I don't even have to look to dial with the voice numbers. It's a great size/weight, can be set to vibrate without the extra expense of a special battery, and sounds clear, both through the phone and hands-free devices. My only criticism of the phone so far would have to be the surprisingly cheap, flimsy antenna. In the week and a half that I've owned it so far, I've probably had it come right off in my hand 3-4 times while trying to extend it, and I'm not being rough with it either. Even when the antenna does properly come out to full extension, you don't feel good about it, looks and feels like it's going to snap off under it's own top-heavy weight. Miraculously, every time it's come off, it's snapped right back in and worked fine, but you have to wonder how many times you'll be that lucky before you're faced with a need for repair. Fortunately the reception's been so great in my area I've been able to leave the antenna down and still enjoy great signals (I try at all costs not to touch it if possible.) I know I've really slammed the antenna here but overall I'm really happy with the phone and glad I have it. I give the phone itself top marks and one star off for the antenna issues. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 87662 2000/1/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 vibration alert good display small enough to fit in your pocket the antenna is very flimsy menu is fairly hard to learn The Bottom LineThis is a great phone, it doesn't have any games, but I wasn't buying an arcade was I? Seriously, I'm very happy with this phone, get one! Full Review Ok, I've had a nokia the entire time I've had cell service. This time, I again was looking for a nokia until I ran across this little gem! First, the phone is compact enough to carry with you. Next, it doesn't matter where with the vibrating mode. The phone is packed full of special features, like the voice activated dialing, 36 different ring tones, the option to have large letters, or small ones on the display, an FM radio, web browser, text messaging, phone book holding 400 names, with the persons e-mail, pager, home, work, fax, or mobile phone numbers, and even has a small icon to distinguish which number is which. For the price, this is a truly excellent phone. There are only two problems I have.....The antenna is nothing what I'm used to, so I'm really going to have to be careful. Second, the dang phones menu was so hard to figure out! All in all, I really love the phone. Where else will you get all these features for the price? I went away from nokia, because I couldn't afford the Phone I wanted, Motorola has most of the same features for less! GET THIS PHONE!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 87661 2002/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great battery life seems well made lots of decent features low sound quality confusing menus poor reception The Bottom LineLots of bang for the buck but with disappointing sound quality. A good deal if it's free but I strongly recommend buying the handsfree kit. Full Review I find it hard to believe that this phone garnered so many good reviews. Especially since many of the people who recommend it cite problems that would merit lukewarm praise at best. But I think this must be a first phone for many of them. It fits that category since it's often given away free with service. On paper it seems to be a great deal. Long battery life (I got four days of standby), voice activated dialing, large phone directory. But what you don't see--or hear--in the store is the sound quality which is tinny and hollow. Kind of like what people expect cell phones to sound like. The ambient background noise seems amplified so if you're in a car, the person on the other side is going to hear all the wind noise. My old Qualcom was great and nobody ever knew I was on a cell. On this phone, everybody will know you are on a cell and hate it. "Call me when you get home" is what I got a lot of. I also noticed choppy reception, which some other reviewers also mentioned, but I found it to be pretty irritating. And this in areas I know my old phones have worked fine in. My new phone (I won't plug it so I don't get mistaken for a schill for Erickson or Kyocera) is so much better. And anybody who has this phone and uses a better phone will be amazed at the difference--though maybe you have to be on the receiving end to really appreciate this statement. Of course, all phones drop signals. You just can't cover every square inch of city space with cell phone towers. But there are definitely phones that receive better than others. This is something that is hard to test in stores. Nitpicking I found the menus to be a little confusing. Just turning off the keypad beeps (to save power) was daunting. Part of this is due to so many features being packed into phones these days. The antenna is cheap and will break if not careful. But it does help reception. The built in FM radio (with station presets) is an interesting feature that I kind of like. But you have to buy a $50 headset to use it. The music will pause when calls come in which is a nice feature. But I would have preferred Motorola built in more call volume. Even on the highest volume setting you won't be able to carry on a conversation in a moderately loud room or if you have your window open while driving. Radiation Scare Nobody seems to mention the radiation rating, which is one of the reasons besides sound quality that I returned this. This phone tops the charts and puts out one of the highest radiation levels of cell phones sold in the US in analog and digital mode. That may not bother many yet because the evidence linking cell phone radiation and brain cancer is "inconclusive." But inconclusive just means it has not been consistently proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true, i.e. the jury is still out. So you can draw your own conclusions until the long term test results come in. In the meantime manufacturers seem to be quietly upgrading phones, in the same way some monitor manufacturers adopted the European standards for reduced ELF radiation. It seems like a wise move. Make the change to limit future liability and claims but continue to downplay the "inconclusive" reports that inconclusively prove otherwise. And when the studies are finally accepted, the manufacturers can say "our products already meet or exceed the federal standard . . . " Sound familiar? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 87660 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 voice activation many features small not easy to read display loudness of earpiece The Bottom LineThis is a great phone unless you need very good sound quality because of background noise. Full Review I bought the Motorola 120c because I was switching from a dual-mode phone to a tri-mode. I only kept it for 6 days. At first I thought I would really like it. However, I noticed that the display wasn't the easiest to read, so I put it in zoom mode, which helped greatly. What made me realize that this phone would not meet my needs was when I got on the L.A. freeways. While I was traveling along at 75 mph (I mean 65), I immediately noticed that it was very difficult for me to hear the person I was talking to over the road noise. (My car has moderate road noise.) And this was with the volume turned to the highest level. I tried my handsfree headset & it wasn't any better. My previous phone was a Samsung SCH400 which had excellent sound qualities. I have a Verizon plan & I purchased the Motorola at one of their stores. I exchanged it for a LG TM510 which better meets my needs (I had to pay about $50 dollars extra). If you do a lot of phone conversation in your vehicle, the Motorla 120c may not be the phone for you. Otherwise, it's a great little phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99. 87659 2000/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 useful buttons around the top of the phone weight ease of use size features hard to hear inside w background noise reception is not always great The Bottom LineGood size, weight, and features. if motorola could improve the loudness of the person you are talking to, it would be a great phone. Full Review I am one of the last people in america to actually have a cell phone. During Christmas I got surprised with cell phone service. My mom got me the service (Verizon) and the phone she got was the free Audiovox CDM3000. Needless to say I no longer have this phone (see my review of that phone). When I returned the Audiovox, I originally wanted a clam shell-type phone, like the motorola star-tac phones. However, I would have to wait for 3 days to get the phone and pay an extra $40-50. That didn't cut it for me. I saw the 120c and thought that it had a pretty modern look, while being both light and small. It also felt good in my hand and was properly weighted. The buttons felt nice when pressed as well (as a german car afficianado, I appreciate the way things feel and how they are designed). It also had tons of features, like internet capability and being able to send and receive text messages. So I said what the heck, and bought it for $60. I quickly went home and checked on this sight to see what everyone else thought. Well, most people liked the phone and I was satisfied that I got a good product. As the phone was charging, I decided to start reading the manual to see what the specific features were. I didn't think the manual was organized as logically as the audiovox manual, but it still wasn't very hard to understand. You definitely don't need more than an hour to really get to know the phone, especially if you have owned other phones. After reading the manual I was excited to get this baby working. So eventually it was time to test it out. The phone worked very well inside my house. Easy to actually use and the sound quality was good. I then took the phone into the car and proceeded to make a call as I was moving. Clarity wasn't as good as it was inside my house, but still not bad. It is was little hard to hear people, but I could still easily have a conversation. However, there are two types of places where this phone is really bad. 1) inside where there is background noise. I was at an airport waiting for a flight and decided to make a call. I could barely hear the other person. 2) Inside hospitals. I work in a hospital and it is difficult to hear the person you are talking to. However, I haven't noticed any crackling and static. I am also not sure if the inability to hear people in the places I have mentioned is a trait of most cell phones. If there was a way to really amplify the sound coming out of the ear piece, then motorola would have a fantastic phone. The volume control doesn't do very much to alleviate the problem. Other things about the phone: I really like the voice recognition feature of the phone. However, in crowded places, it sometimes has problems recognizing what you are saying. I like the location of the volume control; it is easy to adjust the volume of the speaker when you are talking. The internet feature is a fun thing to play with, but I am not sure how useful it is. For me, it is not terribly useful, but it is cool. I also like the ability to send text messages and emails to people from the phone. Sweet! The display is of nice quality as well. Not a bad phone and I would recommend it to others, but if you use your phone in places where there is a lot of noisey people, then I would consider what I have mentioned above. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 87658 2000/8/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception relatively small lightweight none so far The Bottom LineI definitely recommend this phone to anybody looking for a reliable phone packed with features for an affordable price. Full Review I got this phone for free. In March 2002 I upgraded from the Nokia 5165 to a Nokia 3360 because i was in the market for a smaller phone. For a couple months, I loved the 3360. It fit nicely in my pocket or purse, had decent reception (I dont live in rural area), and came with nice features. In May the thing started screwing up, the computer would lock up and the phone would restart itself, on occasion it dropped several calls, sometimes it wouldn't ring if someone was calling me, the microphone wouldn't pick up my voice on occasion so the other end of the line couldn't hear me.. all of this while i was in areas with full reception. After much hassle, Cingular replaced the computer but i had the same problems. So they gave me this phone to try for free. And I LOVE THIS PHONE! it has voice activated dialing which is really easy to set up and use, and comes in handy if you need to make a call while driving. It's small but not so small its easy to lose, great reception (much better than 3360), useful features.. (and even some that are just fun), battery life is wonderful... i went 3 days after a full charge before i even lost one little battery line (i used it frequently during this time). just for fun there's a ringtone composer, which was kinda difficult to pick up at first but now i can transpose any music into a ringtone. the menus aren't really confusing to learn either. everything is really straightforward. i have also dropped this phone a few times and it is still scratch free, it's very durable, more than i can say for my nokia. overall this is a great phone!!! Recommended: Yes 87657 2002/4/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 shape especially voice notes features great size sometimes confusing menusdorky antenna The Bottom LineThe V120c is a great phone for those looking for lightness, portability and long battery life. Full Review I was buying a new phone for my wife to replace her aging Motorola TeleTac when I came across the 120c at the Verizon dealer. It fit the bill nicely for her, and I liked it so much, I got me one as well. One of the big advantages to the 120c is the great 400-hour standby time. (400 hours is the advertised time, and through our use, we get close to that amount.) In addition to the great ergonomics, I like the clear, easy-to-read backlit LCD. The phone is packed with features -- microbrowser, voice mail, text messaging, e-mail -- but I haven't used them much, due to the plan I am on with Verizon. Overall, though I can't think of a feature the 120c lacks (except for perhaps speakerphone.) I did find the menu system a little confusing, but it didn't take long to pick it up. I'm a big fan of the voice-activated dialing feature, which is very easy to train and to use. A great feature is the ability to record quick voice notes. Use this all the time for quick reminders. Since I usually have my phone with me, it's very handy. A lot of epinioneers complain about the phone's antennae but, to be honest, I rarely extend the antennae. It protrudes a bit, but not too much. One of the small critiques I have is the relatively hard time I'm having finding accessories. I found the belt clip easy enough, but the utility to connect the phone to a PC is not yet available. This is not a big deal to me, but just an observation for those who are interested in accessorizing their phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 87656 2000/7/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size features sound quality battery life reception menu voice dial analog drops antenna faceplate replacement battery door The Bottom LineNice phone which great features. If the Nokia flavor-of-the-month is not available with your cell phone plan, consider this one! Full Review THE GOOD - I've had this phone now for about 6 months. Overall, I'm very pleased. The sound quality is very good and I really like the voice activated dialing... I use it quite a bit and haven't had many problems recognizing what I'm saying. The address book is great - you can have multiple entries for each person in your address book with icons specifying cell, work and home. You can also store their email address for easy lookup. I've also been pleased with the battery life. I have to put back on the charger about every 3rd or 4th day, which is a lot better than my old Qualcomm phone. I do wish the V120c that I have from Verizon had custom ringtone capability, but it doesn't. :( However, they are now offering this phone with upgraded firmware which adds this functionality. This phone also seems very durable (see below). THE BAD - I really hate the battery door on this thing. I put a belt clip this phone and stuck it to the battery door. I can't tell you how many times the battery door unclipped itself and the phone and battery went flying onto the ground (this is how I know the phone is durable... it still works!). I now have a piece of black electrical tape on the back of the phone to keep the darn thing on there. The antenna is a bit flemsy, but I really never need to expand it out so it doesn't bother me much. Faceplate replacement is pretty cumbersome, but doable. There isn't as much selection out there as for Nokia phones, but I did find quite a few at a good price at www.cutepcs.com. They also have a tool which is required for faceplate replacement... you have to remove a bunch of tiny screws in order to replace the faceplate. When doing so, you also have to be careful not to break the little speaker in there. I had my in-laws get this phone and their biggest complaint was that Analog coverage was terrible for this phone. They get frequent drops. So if you're in an area, or will be traveeling to an area, which only has analog coverage, this phone may not be for you. One last thing, this phone is rated #1 on the list of high-radiation phones... whether or not this means anything to you (I think my brain cells are still intact). Recommended: Yes 87655 2000/7/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 all the features of a 100 cell phone for just 25 n a The Bottom LineBuy it, once formerly a $179 phone + service fees, now just $25, you can't wrong with all its features for its price... Full Review About two months ago, I decided it was time to get a cellular phone. I checked three dealers, Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wirelss, and ATT Wireless. Of those three only Verizon had both the best deal and the best phone. For $50 I got two Motorola 120c's. This phone has everything any normal person could possibly need. It included Digital Calling and also has: The 120c phone combines the best features in voice and messaging. You can also use voice-activated dialing. Or chat by sending and receiving text messages. Choose from 32 ringer tones. Definitely a phone with style and substance! The Motorola 120c included an improved user interface for simple navigation with enhanced talk and standby times. Or browse the internet with its Microbrowser. It holds up to 400 numbers in its phonebook to call everyone that matters. Plug in and rock on with optional FM stereo radio headset... GO buy yours today! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 87654 2000/7/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good sizebattery life easy to usefull featured antenna easy to bend The Bottom LineMotorola quality great size battery life feel and looks Full Review I purchased the V120C due to it's long battery life and size. I intended to use it to replace my home phone. poor reception in my apartment has caused me to reconsider. However the phone does work very well with a decent signal. Sound quality is excellent as good as a quality cordless. Battery life with occasional use and being on all the time is about 6 days! The voice dialing works well and it is very easy to store numbers. The display is helpful in what it tells you and the menus make sense. The signal strength meter however tends to be obscured unless you tilt the phone? One hand operation is easy for a man and the phone is narrow enough to fit a woman's hand. The buttons all have a firm feel so there is little chance of Phantom dialing! The phone does come as a bare bones phone with just the phone battery and charger no holster! Accessories for this phone are also scarce due to it's newness. Overall if you are looking for a small full featured phone with great sound quality and battery life you should buy this phone. Web browsing is also available but I don't have it so cannot comment but the display is a little smaller than some other web enabled phones! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 87653 2000/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap battery life long lots of toys small screen hard on the hands The Bottom LineThis phone is good for the money because it has all that is needed in a phone and a little more. Full Review Need a cheap phone? Well this is one of those cell phones that is priced for anyone in the market for one of them. They come cheap at less than $20 in most locations, and if you can find a deal, you can get it for even less than that. This is one of those phones for the "beginner" user of cell phones or for a user that does not like too many functions. The phone is inexpensive and that serves s one of its high-points. Another strong point for it, is that it has a long battery life. Instead of worrying about the battery always dieing, this one lasts much longer than the normal batteries. Its final pro, is that it has lots of accessories that can come with it including some cool covers, and an FM radio headset. The cons are that the phone has a small screen so it is sometimes hard to read both when typing text, and when entering a phone number. It is also a little difficult to handle with the smaller buttons. Some of the key accessories and features that come with the phone: • Weight in ounces: 4.5 oz. • Dimensions: 5.0x1.7x1.1 inches • Digital: Digital/analog • Standby time: 300 hours • Talk time: 4 hours 30 minutes • Wireless Web: Yes The overall review of this phone is that is does its job well. It is not here to impress, but rather to get the job done. Buy this phone if you are just getting into the cell-phone world, or if you do not want clutter in usage tasks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 87652 2000/9/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many more signal price menu interface motorola name style looks general features two leather cases both did not work somewhat larger than the flip phones antenna The Bottom LineIf money is a factor, get this phone! Great features and signal. For frequent use, get the v60c or something else. Full Review This is truly a great phone. The number of features packed into this phone are really handy, and the price does not really reflect the quality. The phone book is easy to use and access, the messages are easily viewed and composed, and the personalization is great. The personalization available might be one of the greatest things! You can program it (very easily) to say "Hi Joe" when it turns on or something and change the backround banner of the idle screen. So instead of advertising verizon or cingular, it says "my phone!" Also, the face plate is detachable, but you need a tool. There are many faceplates available, not like for Nokia, but really a good selection. Some people say that some functions are hard to get to and take a while, but if you know what your doing, you can set up shortcuts to get to commonly used functions (i.e. changing the ringer to silent or vibrating for quiet places) by programing a shortcut. Doing that is really easy, all you do is hold the "menu" button while on that part of the menu then chose a button. Once set up all you have to do is hit menu and that number right afterward and it takes you to that part of the menu. I also like the "soft keys" which are just like "smart button" and the "navi key" It predicts what command you want next and that is what the button does. The signal on the phone is excellent. It always had all of the bars or maybe just missing one. Even in buildings and other stuff where my old nokia always cut out. Even though the signal is really good. The sound quality is a little hollow. It really sounds like the speaker is way to far back in the phone. Also, when you change your ring to a song (there are about 30 fun rings and everyone has their favorite) then you can't hear it too well in a crowded place or something. Now some problems: the biggest problem is the antenna. At least on mine, it was so loose, that whenever I sat down, it would slide out and I would be worried that I would brea it. Also, it didn't slide up and down to well Like I mentioned, the sound quality is not as great as the Nokia or my new v60c which by the way is great! Also, the leather case I bought with it (not OEM because I don't like the swivel clip) did not accept the charger and the other one I tried was WAY too loose. So that wasn't good, especially since the phone screen gets scratched easily. Overall this is really a great phone, and when you buy it with a new plan, it can be very inexpensive, especially compared to the v60, which to many people is not worth $100 or $150 more. Unless you really really use your phone a lot lot lot, then this could be great. (Also, has a high radiation level, so don't use it too much!!!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87651 2000/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound reception os durability size style ever so small bugs in os antenna The Bottom LineWith its level of durability, clarity, and ease of use, for the price this phone is fantastic! Just take care of that flimsy antenna. Full Review I bought the Motorola V120c when it first came out about a year ago. It is nicely designed, small, light, very easy to carry. I've not had much displeasure with it. The reception and call quality with Verizon's network have been phenomenal. A bonus feature on this phone is a built-in radio if you use a specific hands-free headset. Frankly it's not big deal. The only detraction to this phone is its flimsy antenna which breaks easy. Everyone I know that has this phone has broken their antenna. At Verizon the repair and replacement of the antenna is relatively cheap at $10, but it is a bit irritating. The phone actually works just fine without the antenna as long as you're within good signal range. Enter an apartment or get deeper into a building, and you'll have a weak signal. The antenna really does make a difference but it can function without it. The OS which handles the phone book and setup is very easy to use. My only gripes: a slight bug in the system which sometimes (though quite infrequently) zooms in on the text (easy to fix), and the inability to easily change speed-dial settings. Other than that I feel the phone's OS works quite effeciently. The phone is quite durable. I've banged it around and dropped it some and still works just fine. I plan on using this phone until the newer technologies mature and become affordable (meaning: years). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 87650 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 ok starter phone cheap basic accessories antenna reception tracfone service The Bottom LineGet It if you want. But there are better ones out there for the same price. Full Review I want to say that I had to get this phone for an emergency phone for my grandfather. I have an Audiovox 8610 . This is my experience with the phone. Motorola v120c Reception The Reception on this phone is average. I can call in most places, but the phone sometimes has trouble picking up in rural areas. It also has problems switching from cell to cell. Also then you are talking on the phone, and it switches to roam mode, it disconnects you. I think that this is some type of mechanism that Tracfone embeded. Overall reception is average. Features This phone has a numerous amount of features for such a low priced phone. Voice- The Voice Dial on the phone is not as accurate as some, but it does the job. Since this is mainly an emergency phone, I haven't used this feature much. We use the Voice Memo's more and these work great. Games- The games on the phone are not very fun. The Falling Numbers Game, Blackjack, and Video Poker are simple games. I don't even want to play these games. Ringers- There are numerous ringer choices. You can compose rings or use on of the supplied ringers. He uses the contenental ringer, but I like the Funk. Antenna The antenna supplyed is flimsy. It has not broken, but I have not extended it offen. It can click down to make it more stable, but that can bend the top of the antenna while doing it. It does not seem to help reception much, so I do not think it is of much use. Accessories This phone is from Tracfone. I purchased the Motorola v120 starter pack. The car charger and headset work great. The leather case is kind of iffy. It does not seem to fit it well. It keeps it protected, but it makes it hard to plug the charger into. Overall- If you want a phone that is easy to use, for Tracfone, and cheap, go with it. But if you want a GREAT phone look elsewere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 39.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87649 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lasts for years extremely durable very long battery life not e911 capable hard to find a carrier for it antennas break easily The Bottom LineThis phone is absolutely great. It'll last you for so long, everyone says its the best phone they ever had. Full Review I figured it was about time I gave this old phone due credit. I can't remember the exact date, but it was about three months and three years ago that I got my first cell phone. It was none other than a "new" Verizon V120C. I was quite impressed with it, it was almost the newest thing out there at the time. I really don't remember much about having this phone a few years ago, except rarely having to charge it. But recently I've been talking on it for a few hours a night (being within the past year and a half or so), so of course it requires me to charge it more. Still, it's not dead right now, I've gone without charging it for two nights now and it's still got one bar of battery power left. Okay, so not everything is perfect. The phone's not under warranty, no longer E911 capable, but hell it's one of the few phones that can last that long. It's probably too late for this to be published, but it's the least I can do for a phone that's been so well to me over the years, to really let people know how great this phone was - and maybe get Motorola to make a few E911 capable ones for the rest of us that loved this phone. Mine has been dropped in a lake twice, been dropped hundreds of times now, gone through a few antennas, the speaker no longer works (the one to talk into), the headset barely makes a good connection anymore, but keep in mind I've had this phone for THREE YEARS (and talked on it for 730 hours...! Most phones can't make it to a hundred these days). Not that you can purchase this phone anymore (well, you could), but it would be worth it to somehow move your service to a used phone like this if you could. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87648 2002/7/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing battery life stores lots of numbers menu system is complicated The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a small phone that will fit in your pocket, the V120C is for you. If you want one with games, try a Nokia. Full Review I bought this phone on sale at the local Verizon store. My decision was based on the battery life for the price. This has the most. I believe it has 330 minutes standby time. LOOK AND FEEL This phone is sleek and slender. It has a sexy hourglass figure. Seriously, though, it is slim enough to fit into your pocket and it does look cool. The bulging battery compartment adds a lot of thickness to the unit though. MENU SYSTEM The menu system is really difficult to figure out. You'd think that the settings would be easy to get to, but some of them require a lot of downward scrolling to find. You can customize the order of the menu items so that your favorites are at the top, but I think they could have just done it alphabetically or something so that there was some logic to the arrangement of the menu items. DIALING The keys are difficult for even medium-sized fingers to press easily. I would not recommend this phone for people with large fingers. The small size of the phone makes dialing while holding the phone in the same hand a real strain on the thumb, making the speed dial feature that much more useful. SOUND QUALITY The sound quality on the V120C is superb. I can always hear the voice on the other end clearly, even in noisy environments. There is no static at all. The quality of the Voice Notes is also very clear. ANTENNA There is a small antenna on this phone, but I don't think it adds much in the way of reception. I wonder why they put it on there at all. Oh well, it looks cool. RING VOLUME The ringer is not very loud at all. I usually keep it on its loudest setting. If the phone is in my pocket, I won't hear it at all. This was never a problem with my old Audiovox phone. I could put that one under two layers of clothes and hear it just fine. Overall, this phone is an excellent value, especially with the long standby time. The only other gripe I have about it is that there are no games on it. Other than that, it's a great buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39 87647 2000/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight good ring tone small it was free listening is more difficult than it should be don t like extending antennas The Bottom LineIf you need a cheap phone, they're giving these away most of the time. I wouldn't buy one, though. Full Review I've had a series of Nokia 51xx phones from the last few contracts (everybody's got the best deal, and it's never who I'm with.) So I'm kind of used to that form factor and setup. So the V120 ought not be that big a jump, right? Sort of... To begin with, the V120 is lighter and seems smaller because of the rounded edges (kinda sexy, no?) That lightweight construction has not proven to be detrimental, since the holster I got for free (worth every penny paid) keeps discharging the phone from my belt to the floor with the slightest provocation (wind, door frames, my ten month old) - I swear a loud noise in the next room sends this thing flying. But for as many times as it's tumbled, nothing has ever broken off or even cracked. The case could NOT pass for new, nor could the little knobby-thingie at the top of the antenna, but it all still works. Speaking of the antenna, I have never and will not ever like antennas that extend. My son is fascinated with it, because it come out and bends and just seems so fun. But if it needs the antenna extended to get a good signal (and it does in my area - suburban Chicago on Verizon), then it needs a different and better antenna. My opinion... The buttons are large enough for me to use (I don't have very fat fingers), and I've gotten used to THIS configuration of keystrokes to make it work (as opposed to the Nokia's several layouts.) My biggest gripe is the darned earhole for the sound. Call me old school, but the old home Pricess phones could be anywhere in close proximity to your ear and you could hear. Even the Nokias were not that finicky about where you put them to listen. But this phone needs to be in EXACTLY the right place at EXACTLY the right angle (and with EXACTLY the right amount of ear wax removed) to hear, even with the volume up. Maybe it's a ploy to get people to buy ear-things - don't know. But I bought one, because I don't seem to have the ear pinna that was used when they designed this phone. Overall, worth every penny I paid for it. I'm looking for something a little easier to hear out of (don't send me your bag phones, please. Got several already here in the Island of Misfit Cellphones.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 000.00 87646 2000/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good sound quality plenty of features for the money inexpensive flimsy antenna The Bottom LineGreat Phone- Good sound quality- very reliable- low, low prices- VERY sturdy... There's no going wrong with these phones considering what they cost!!! Full Review When my Motorola Star-Tac died (and the warranty expired) while I was still in a two-year contract with Verizon Wireless, I had two choices: 1) Pay the full price at a Verizon Wireless store for a new phone. 2) Find my own phone somewhere else (like ebay.com) and have it connected so I could finish out my contract with Verizon. Well, folks, needless to say, I didn't consider option #1 very long. At minimum, I was looking at $200 for another decent phone new from Verizon Wireless. Economic times being what they are, that was not reasonable. So, what did I do? EBAY! That's right- after some quick searching on ebay.com for cell phones, I found someone selling used Motorola V120c's for $40.00! Even though it was already used, it was still sturdier than my Motorola Star-Tac had been when it was new. I've dropped it a couple of times and layed on it repeatedly in my front pocket. It never missed a beat. And then, this spring, while I was canoeing on a freshwater river here in Florida, I fell into the water with the phone in my pocket. I thought it was all over for my little V120c. But... it needed about 24 hours to dry out and everything worked again as though it had never gotten wet!!! The only drawback to the phone is the flimsy antenna. I broke one thus far, but it was only a $10 part at Radio Shack. They might say you need a special tool to unscrew the old antenna, but if you have a fork in your home- you can change it yourself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 87645 2000/10/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it makes a great doorstop hmmm oh i know it fits in your pocket dropped calls fragile antenna poor battery life need i go on fictional digital mode The Bottom LineIf your significant other is pestering you to buy a cell phone and you don't want one, get this phone...it's as good as not really having one! Full Review All I wanted was a no-frills phone. What I got was a lesson in false economy. I bought this phone for $10 CAD on a Telus plan, which seems like a bargain. It wasn't. The Honeymoon: Why I Liked this Phone For the first two weeks after I bought this phone, I thought I got a good deal. That's because I didn't rely on it. If you're considering this phone, perhaps you like it for the same reasons I did: 1) It's compact 2) It's simple 3) It's cheap 4) It has an FM radio (although you have to buy a special headphone from Motorola for it) 5) It has a certain sporty and masculine look to it, unlike many of the other super-slim phones out there 6) It's a cell phone. The Honeymoon is Over The phone was fine when I was using it to commute by car; that's because I made about 1 call per month. As soon as I started to rely on it on a daily basis, the phone's dark side exposed itself; and I don't mean its black backside. The problems: 1) A typical conversation: "Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? I can't hear you! I'll call you back..." Pause, while dialing. "Hello? Hello? Hello? Ahhhggg. Stupid phone!" 2) Another typical conversation: "I don't know what he wants... Wait, I'll give him a call. Oh crap, I can't...my cell phone's dead. Again." Battery life is not a strong suit of this phone - I'd get maybe 12 hours, tops before the battery would kick out. 3) I got a letter in the mail, telling me I can upgrade my firmware on the phone. "Great!" I think, "There's a few things that could be fixed on the firmware." But I can't download it because the phone is stuck in Analog mode...I can only download it in digital mode. I live in a digital area. All my friends and family have phones that transmit digitally from my house. Why not mine? Why? Because it sucks, that's why. 4) Every time I turn the phone on or off it tells me I have a message. I can't clear it. Ever. For the next four months I am reminded of why I hate this stupid phone every time I turn it on or off, because it keeps telling me with it's digital burps that I have a message that never existed, or which has long ago been purged from the Telus system. Not from my phone, though. 5) The antenna breaks off after I put the phone in my pocket. In my pocket! Grrr. Next day I see someone at a restaurant with the very same phone...with a broken antenna. I begin to sense a pattern here. 6) After getting irritated that I have never seen this phone get into digital mode, I surf the web and find out how to access the phone's deeper system menus...and set it so that it ONLY boots up in digital mode. Now it doesn't work at all. Ag! I resist the temptation to throw it against the wall in frustration. That about sums it up...6 reasons I thought I liked the phone and 6 reasons I ended up hating it. I have now switched to a Samsung a540...which does everything a cell phone should do: makes calls, allows you talk to and hear people, lasts more than one day, and transmits in digital mode. It does a lot more than that too, but that's about all I use it for. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 10Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87644 2002/7/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good size strong signal voice dialing vibrates huge phonebook fragile antenna The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to anyone who wants an inexpensive phone with a lot of cool features. Full Review After reading some negative reactions about this phone, I decided to share this opinion. I just got this phone through Verizon Wireless, I read the manual and played with the phone lot, I was surprised with lots of cool features for such an inexpensive phone. Signal is so strong, auto voice dialing etc. However, when I started using it in a crowded noisy room, I was disappointed initially because the earphone volume seems so low and the sound quality is choppy. I called customer service for assistance and found out that in order to increase the volume of the earphone, the phone must be in use or you have to be talking to somebody, using the same buttons as the ringer volume. I adjusted the volume to the max, the sound became loud and so clear. I am quite pleased with my new phone. I hope this will help anyone who encounter similar situation. The only remaining issue is the fragile pull-out antenna that you never really have to extend anyway because of the strong signal reception of this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 87643 2000/9/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight good quality tons of features sleek buggy battery meter buggy web browser The Bottom LineA high-quality, high-value phone manufactured in Mexico that puts to shame offerings from South Korea Full Review The Motorola 120c is a sleek-looking phone with lots of useful features. I bought it to use on the Verizon Wireless network (VZW), and it performs faithfully. Its biggest advantage is its value: with plan activation, it's less than 20 bucks at VZW. For this money you get a solid phone (unlike those cheap Korean brands) and a long list convenience features such as - voice dialing, voice memos, and voice menu shortcuts - 300-entry phone book with 10 speed-dials and e-mail capability - over 20 built-in ring tones and you can create an additional 32 of your own (not an easy task at first, but tons of fun once you get the hang of it), five user-definable distinct ring styles (including vibrate only and vibrate+ring) - calculator with exchange rate capability, 3 games (blackjack, falling numbers and video poker) - an optional radio kit is available which turns the phone into an FM radio with mike-equipped headset - exchangable faceplates: soft ones cost $7 each at Moto's website (cheaper than VZW) and hard ones are $10 each - etc. and all in a light-weight, 4.3 oz package, battery inclusive. The basic calling features are easy to learn, and the buttons feel responsive. The menu system looks complicated because the screen displays only 4 lines (2 if in the "zoomed in" mode), but is actually not too hard to figure out. The best thing is you can assign shortcuts, so for the most common tasks you use (e.g., lock the phone and start browser for yours truly), you can assign "Menu" + # to invoke that feature. Very convenient indeed. I wish every phone had this feature. The phone appears to excel at pulling in the signal. My other phone works on the Sprint PCS network and I truly hate it. My experience with Verizon has been positive so far, both because of its better network and because of this phone. I only wish I could use a cell in the subway... Two minor gripes with this phone are: first, the Openwave browser sometimes mysteriously resets the entire phone in the middle of a browsing session; second, the battery meter is not accurate, an unpleasant surprise given the accuracy of my old Moto Timeport 8167. Well, that phone cost me $250 and this one less than $20. Still, this could have been a perfect phone... maybe these are just production defects with my unit. In short, I highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 87642 2003/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 great value inexpensive cumbersome menu system bad earpeice ergonomics bad antennae design The Bottom LineThis phone might be the ideal choice for you teenage son or daughter except for the fact it is so fragile. I would avoid this phone. Full Review I liked this phone at first, but now I am beginning to hate it. Let's start with the antennae. Dumbest design in antennae history. The thing is designed to break off in a closed position. The phone begs to be slipped into your pocket because of its size and shape, but don't do it! THE ANTENNAE WILL BREAK OFF. I am very gentle with my phones, but I have had this antennae replaced twice now at $29.99 a pop. (more than I paid for the phone with the plan!) The reception is average to good with the antennae out, but performance is hampered with antennae missing! The menu system is cumbersome at best, there is no "quick" short-cut to turn off ringer or switch to vibrate mode for those moments when you need to do it quick (movie theatre, doctor's office, meeting, etc.) The menus are customizable, but you won't want to mess with it too much for fear of screwing the whole thing up. The earpiece/shape of the phone makes it difficult to find the "sweetspot" for hearing clearly. In fact, if you don't have it just right, it is difficult to hear at all. You will find yourself pressing the phone into your ear so it doesn't slide around on you, which causes a sore ear even on a short call. I have had the phone for 13 months and it still doesn't feel natural holding it to my ear. I have a 2 year plan with Verizon and I am stuck with this phone for another 11 months unless I want to pay full retail for a better phone (this phone retails for $179.00!!) which is not a pretty thought. It would be less expensive for me to cancel my plan, pay the termination fee, and sign-up for a new plan and get the phone I want. Crazy. Warlok Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 25 87641 2000/12/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small great battery life great reception buttons a little hard to push cheap antenna not a ton of features The Bottom LinePerfect phone for people on a budget, more of a business phone, no games and no cute icons. But perfect reception, voice and battery life. Full Review This phone is my first phone I got it a year ago because it was only $40 when you sign up with Verizon. I was skeptical to get this phone, and I was skeptical to get Verizon. I wanted to get sprint because they had better phones, but my mother had sprint and I knew sprint had horrible service. So when I got to radio shack the guy there talked me into buying this phone. When I got home even before I checked out the phone I already had it in my head that I would hate it because it wasn't as good as a sprint phone. I took it out and began to play with it, boy was I amazed. This phone had a ton more rings then my mothers sprint, and it just plain looked better! It was smaller then 90% of other phones that where currently out, and it had sleek design. It also got great reception (even though that may just have been the service.) After about a week of use I was absolutely amazed at the battery life, it lasted about 6 days in stand-by and that was with at least and hour of talk time. I figured like my moms sprint, eventually the battery life would slowly become less and less, but to this day its still the same. The only thing is my antenna broke off while the phone was in my pocket one day. One of my best friends also has this phone and he too has a broken antenna. The buttons are made of some weird kind of rubber and that made them sometimes uncomfortable to push. One thing I love about this phone is it doesn't mess up, even after I broke my antenna I still get great reception. Also I used to work in a bowling ally and one day when I was cleaning toilets the phone droped out of my shirt pocket and flew into the toilet. when I retrieved it the phone was off and would not go on, I thought for sure that it was dead forever, But a few days later BOOM! it came back on and has been working perfectly ever since! Now its December 2002 and this phone is selling for like 5 bucks, if your on a budget GET THIS PHONE! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 87640 2000/7/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life beautifully structured sleek easy to personalize light muffled tones may be just mine no proven track record The Bottom LineThe newest Motorola phone is a pure blend of style, sophistication, and features that leaves other mid-range phones in the dust! Full Review I have been a cellular user for a while now. I've used several phones casually for personal uses. Though I don't feel I put my cells to intense tests with perpetual talking or careless maintenance. I used the popular Nokia 5190 from the series that invented the customizable phone. Though I was extremely pleased with the features and clarity. To say the least, as content as I was with my Nokia, this phone blows it out of the water. First, the phone is beautifully shaped and styled. The Silver accents add a neo-flair that is not only sleek, but classy. I can compare it to a well-designed car, like a Mercedes or BMW with simplistic class and an original look. The buttons are also attractively situated and blend well with the phone. Though the "skins" for the phone currently pale in comparison to the Nokias, the phone just went public so I'm sure the library of wraps will expand once people discover what a great looking phone this is. The clarity of the phone obviously depends on your service. I am currently with Verizon, and the reception is crystal with a convenient volume control for those who want to adjust to the conversation. The biggest problem I have with this phone is the low key and ring volume, which is hardly audible if you're driving in your car. I'm not sure if it's just my phone (if you also have problems with this, I would appreciate a description sent to icynight1@aol.com), but it's terrible irritating when I miss a call. Though, the phone is equipped with an internal vibrating alert that can help conquer this problem. The features on the phone seem abundant compared to my other phones and, though there are no games, the phone is easy to navigate after a few minutes of tinkering and the menus are full of features very uncommon for the price-range. There are 32 ring tones, unlimited customizable qualities, internet access, optional FM radio, etc. that will keep you happy with your purchase long after you buy it. Though my other concern is it�fs unproven reliability and durability record, the phone is built and programmed to uphold countless accidental spills and drops. The architecture of the phone is modern, but not gaudy and will surely remain one of the chicest phones on the market. Good ahead and buy a Motorola W120c, it�fs well worth it to be part of a new wave of trendy technology. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 87639 2002/12/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great price good battery life cool blue backlight voice activated dialing doesn t come with a desktop charger display doesn t show minutes used while talking The Bottom LineFor the money the 120e is one of the best phones on the market. It has plenty of features and more than some of the newer, smaller phones. Full Review This review is to let folks know that Motorola nows offers this excellent phone in an improved model, the 120e, with no more broken antennas! The other main change is that the 120e comes with a calculator. The phonebook handles up to 500 names and retrieves them alphabetically when you type in the first letter of the the person you want to call. The 120e has a wide variety of rings (or you can customize the ring you select), two-way text messaging, a datebook with an alarm, a currency converter, FM radio reception (requires an optional FM radio headset), a micro-browser for web surfing, data and fax capability, text messages with 15 preset short messages, and five games, blackjack, mindblaster, a code guessing game, paddleball, falling numbers and video poker. The only games that I liked were blackjack and video poker, the others being too tedious and paddleball being too slow moving. The 120e's display features a tiny battery life indicator, but this can be greatly expanded into more detail by going to settings, phone status and then battery memory. The user can customize the amount of time that the blue backlight stays on, further saving batter power. By the way, the blue backlight makes the screen easily readable in the dark. I love the voice activated dialing! I find it highly accurate and very handy when dialing would be a pain in the neck. Voice can also be used to activate any shortcuts that you may want to program. Lastly, this phone has a handy voice memo feature, which allows you to record a voice message to yourself. It also allows you to record a conversation with another person, and sends the other party a message that lets them know that they are being recorded. There is also an expanded memory meter, which shows how much memory is being used. Speaking of memory, this phone not only keeps track of incoming and outgoing calls, but also keeps track of call that you dialed but did not make. This is the notepad feature, which is easily accessed by going to recent calls and then the notepad. The 120e can be linked with a PC, which requires the purchase of a 1X Mobile Office Kit, or a PDA to access Verizon's Express Network. You can synchronize your phonebook, and datebook information, but you need to buy Motorola's software, Starfish TrueSync to do this. Currently options are beyond this author's technical comfort zone. However, knowing that my phone has these capabilities may just push me further in this direction. You serious technogeeks will probably want to look at a phone that has bluetooth, which has become an industry standard for linking different types of devices. When I compared the 120e with some of the new, smaller phones, like the Motorola V60i, I found that Motorola has sacrificed form for function. The smaller phone is not capable of linking to a computer, or to a palm device. I extended my contract with Verizon for two years to get this phone. (I have an older plan, which kicks in the evening rate at 7:00pm, so there was a reason for my madness. By the way, all wireless carriers put spend a tremendous amount of money trying to attract new customers, so if you are not happy let them know. Chances are that they will do most anything to keep you as a customer.) For $29.99, this is definitely one of the best deals out there today. The 120e is small, without being too small and has enough features to satisfy most users. I find the 120e to be quite clear and free from static. This is an improvement over my old audiovox. I have always found the strength of Verizon's communication signals to be better than those of Sprint and other carriers. Verizon simply has more communication nodes. Many of those nodes are old analog nodes, like in my home state of California, but I have never encountered a dead communication spot in my state, and both of my phones always worked well inside houses, as well as outside. In California I strongly recommend against using Sprint because even though most Sprint phone are triphase, capable of analog, digital and PCS, Sprint charges the user roaming fees when they use non PCS links, while other carriers allow their phones to freely switch to the strongest signal, providing clearer communications. This forces users to leave their Sprint phones on PCS, and deal with the dead zones not covered by PCS, or change them to automatic and incur roaming charges. The 120e does not come with a desktop charger. I miss the convenience of just dropping my phone into the desktop charger, instead of having to fiddle with plugging it into a charger. The 120e's other shortcoming is that the display does not show the minutes that you have talked while talking. This was a feature that I liked on my old cell phone, and I found it very useful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 87638 2002/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small features battery life looks good voice memos voice activated dialing very low key volume no games antenna seems fragile small lcd screen The Bottom LineThe v120c seems like a good, compact, reliable phone with a small amount of features, but nothing spectacular. Full Review Well, I finally got my first cell phone...a little late in the game, but oh well - one less brain tumor for me :P I had my eye set on the Nokia 3360/3390 for a while, but I figured Verizon wouldn't have it. So after looking at a bunch of phones in the store, the Motorola v120c seemed to be the best choice for its price. It does seem like an attractive phone too. The other reason for picking this phone is that you get two phones with the deal. Since my dad needed a new one, we decided to go with that. Looks are(nt) everything(?): A big deciding factor on which cell phone to get is of course its appearance. They come in many different sizes, shapes and colors. The v120c is pretty small compared to most cell phones out there. When I first saw it, it looked like a 2-way radio. The phone, including the antenna is the length of my hand. The phone is about 4.75" tall, excluding the antenna, 0.75" in depth, and 1.50-1.75" wide (keypad-screen respectively). I think the phone looks cool - it even contains my fav color combo (red/blue/green/black) on the keys. I also knew that when you get a cell phone, there's usually tons of accessories you can get. After looking around, if I would have gotten the Nokia I could spend hundreds of dollars on accessories. Fewer accessories are made for the Motorola, but the coolness factor of the chrome faceplates make up for that. The box features soft plastic-wrap type faceplates you can buy, but websites also offer hard wraps as well hard faceplates. The hard wraps just wrap around the speakers, mic's, and keypad. I ordered myself a Blue Chrome Faceplate which is the whole phone casing. It's gonna look awesome. I have to actually open up the phone and switch the innards to the new casing which should be no problem. You can get accessories all over the web - I ordered mine from elite-wireless.com. Features: Here are some of the cool features on the v120c... - voice activated dialing. When you enter a person in your phonebook, you can record a voice name for the person. When you want to call that person, press the voice button on the right side of the phone, and say the voice entry. It goes to the entry, then calls it. - voice notes, which lets u record up to 2 minutes of voice message to play back like reminders and such. - 32 pre-programmed ring tones. Some of them are cool, but for now I am just sticking with the continental ring style. You can select Loud, Soft, Vibrate, Vibe&Ring, or Silent for the rings and customize the volume and ring styles for text messages, reminders, etc. - text messaging which is cool if you have the service enabled. At first, my address was mynumber@vtext.com, but if you go to vtext.com you can make up a name, go to a calendar to have reminders sent to your phone on certain days and times, block messages, and other stuff. - micro-browser, but I don't think I have that service enabled. - Programming ring tones in is very confusing, even when following instructions off the web...way too many keypresses. - your standard green backlight which I will be changing to bright blue soon if I can. ...and many other less important features that I am not going through. LCD screen When you first turn on the phone, the Motorola logo appears, it plays this little song/tone as it does an animation and reveals "Verizon." Then it tells you your phone number for a second, then it's done. Shutting down the phone is about the same, with the same song - just for the shut-off. The main screen will display: signal strength in the top left corner, battery meter in the top right, the ring style, time, service type (mine never changed from [D] - Digital?), under that it says service type ("Verizon Wireless" on mine), and on the bottom left and right - whatever you have programmed for the left and right buttons - default is "PH.BOOK" on left, "MESSAGE" on right. The screen seems pretty small and I've read about people complaining about its size. I do agree - you have to scroll a lot, but as long as there isn't a long list of reading, it shouldn't present a problem. Clarity: I haven't used the phone much yet - I've only had it a few days so far. With my friends calling me, the clarity sounds pretty good. I can't compare it with any other phone I've had. I'm sure it depends on the service and day. Volume: The volume of the ringer is definitely not a problem - I had to turn it down just to hear the ring styles at a comfortable level. The volume of the key volume is extremely low. I have it set to its highest setting and you still cannot hear the keypress tones unless the room is completely quiet, or it will be loud if you have your ear up to the phone. I really don't know what they were thinking here. Battery: I was surprised when I saw the battery on this thing. It is about the size of two saltine crackers stacked on top of each other. And on top of that, I was told that it has the best standby/talktime out of all the phones offered - I think. I know I was told that the battery will last a really long time without having to be recharged. It seems like the battery is really strong too...when playing with the phone on the factory charge, the battery indicator gradually notched down throughout the hours of playing with it. I put it on charge for about 10 minutes after realizing maybe I should run it completely down first, but once I unplugged it after the 10 minute charge, the battery was full and didn't go down one notch from playing with the phone all day. So I just charged it overnight and woke up to "charging complete" on the LCD screen. Altogether, I think it's a great first phone for me and it will be fun to have. The world keeps coming out with better cell phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 87637 2001/10/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size battery life two way text messaging light weight many features antenna could be better The Bottom LineA very good phone at any price. Many features found in phones costing many times more, great battery life. Low cost Motorola accessories. A winner! Full Review I upgraded my old Nokia 2180 on Verizon with the new Motorola v.120c (Tarpon) shortly after Verizon began selling them. Right away I was impressed with it's compact size (smaller then the Nokia 6100 series, which I felt feature-wise was the minimum I wanted) and light weight... Next to my sister's 6120, my v.120c looks like it's little brother. I was (am still) impressed with the fact that I can go several days without having to charge the Li-Ion battery, a vast improvement over my old 2180. Call quality is very clear, crystal clear in fact (people have thought I was calling from home). Feature-wise the voice-activated dialing really works very well. I've voice dialed driving down the road with my windows down and it recognized the command even with the background noise. The phonebook capacity is spectacular, the menu short cuts and menu navigation is top notch. Very intuitive for someone migrating from Nokias. The addition of vibra-alert and flexibility of environmental settings (similar to that on 6100 series Nokias) is a great feature too. Hands-free is not a problem either because the phone has a built in "universal" (2.5 mm) hands-free jack. The hands-free sets can be had for as little as $10, compared to Nokia sets which need an adapter for the bottom of the phone and cost $30 or more... Huge benefit there. An overall GREAT phone for the price. I paid about $70 for mine with a two year contract on Verizon. So far I've been very pleased and impressed with the phone and know I made the right choice over the other Verizon offerings at the time. For this phone to be "perfect"... I'd add a couple of little things (I'm really reaching and nit-picking here folks)... The antenna which looks like a "stubby" when down could be a little beefier, but with reasonable care should not be a problem. I recommend the belt clip rather than carrying in a pocket where the antenna is more likely to get broken. A calculator feature would be nice as would a game or two. I'd also like to see customizable ringtones and screens be added. Granted the last two can be seen as "kid stuff", but the ringtones do help identify whose phone is ringing, and the screens add a little personally to the phone... In terms of accessories, all the bases are pretty much covered with genuine Motorola stuff at very cheap prices. I'd recommend this phone to anyone. UPDATE: 10/18/01 I forgot to mention TWO-WAY TEXT MESSAGE CAPABLE!!! I recently got into it, and let me say it's GREAT!!! Especially with the predictive text input software from Motorola (iTap)... Very easy to use. Antenna turns out to be holding up VERY well, dispite my early concerns. I actially carry the phone in a jacket pocket and no problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 87636 2001/11/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrate awesome style customizable great feel good selection of ringtones small many features musical tones aren t super loud antenna seems fragile when extended The Bottom LineThis phone is definitely worth the money, in fact, I would have paid more for it had I known everything that it featured. The price is definitely right! Full Review This being my first cell phone, I went into it with "arms wide open" Well, perhaps my arms were open a little too wide, as I opted to pay $80 [quite hefty for a first phone!], but now I'm convinced I have one of the best phones out there. This phone has got it all, and then some! I'll start with the appearance. Looks-wise, this phone is stylin! I've had a few people come up to me and start complaining about their run-of-the-mill Nokia's and how they wanted a phone as cool looking as mine. I picked the black base color (as pictured above), can't go wrong with black! This phone also comes in a base color of a light shade of blue. There are also soft and hard faceplates available (called: PhoneWraps) which wrap around the perimeter of the phone to completely change the appearance. The buttons are placed in the perfect positions. Grouped together nicely, it's easy to tell which buttons compliment the others. (For example: The top 3 buttons all compliment each other, with a menu button in center, a button on the left to go back, and a button on the right to "Select") They have a nice, smooth plastic/rubber touch to them and look great with the green backlight. The buttons are all very sturdy as well. You can put it in your pocket without worrying about accidentally dialing some foreigner in China. Granted, if you slam your hand down on the place where you phone is sitting, you WILL hit some buttons, assuming you haven't turned the phone lock on. That's just a given for ANY non-flip phone though. It's just reassuring to know that I can swipe my fingers/cheek along the buttons while talking and I won't annoy the person on the other end with a BEEP and then SORRY. One of my gripes, however, would have to be with the antenna. Not that it doesn't still look sleek while it's extended, but it seems flimsy and so thin that it could snap off real easy. Fortunately, extending the antenna doesn't do much anyway, if anything... I haven't noticed a difference yet. The signal is quite strong with the antenna down, so this is a minor gripe. Just gotta be careful, not rugged, while taking the thing out of your pocket... I've had the antenna extend on me and I feared snapping it off! (Although storing in pocket antenna-first solves the problem for the most part.) This phone is feature packed, and of course STILL has all the standard options you'd come to expect from any cell phone, such as: Caller ID capability, Voice Mail alert, Signal Strength indicator, Battery Strength indicator, adjustable volume, etc. etc. It also comes with some things you might not expect to be standard, such as: Voice Activated Dialing, Re-Organizing Main Menu (put your most-used options at the top of the list!), Vibrate (no need for a special battery), Assigning functions to the two buttons at top, FM Radio Capability, 400 Phonebook entries, Internet browser, Individual Call Timers (Lifetime (this is permanent), All calls, Dialed Calls, Received calls, and Last Call), Voice Notes [Record a 2-minute conversation, or a note to yourself, "Hmm, now what parking lot, subsector, and parking space did I park in again?" can be eliminated]), Security (lock incoming and/or outgoing calls, lock the entire phone, lock just the keypad, lock specific features/options), Menu Option Shortcuts (I can press "Menu" "9" and be at the "Security" menu).... and I'm sure there are some other nice features I'm forgetting to mention as well. There is also a nice variety of 32 ringtones to choose from!! No, they don't sound alike with a chord or so difference, very unique stuff to choose from here! There are some very nice musical tones (such as "Play that funky music white boy" or "1812 Overture" If you don't recognize the title of the latter, you WILL when you hear it on this phone). Customizable ringtones would be nice, but hey, it's not really necessary... the selection here is pretty good anyway. I don't need to hear the theme to Friends everytime my phone rings. Another gripe of mine though is actually CONCERNING these ringtones: Only about 4 of them are audible from an upstairs bedroom w/ the door closed and music on downstairs (read: "Super Loud"). With my brother's Talkabout phone, you ALWAYS can find the phone when somebody is calling, and if you leave it around upstairs, it's easy to find. I'm not really into the loud ones at the moment, as my mood insists on some others I seem to prefer over them... but over time I'll probably switch to those tones. However, not having super loud tones ALL the time poses a bit of a problem at the moment. I blast my music in my car, and I've ended up nearly missing a call because of it! The sensible alternative I've come up with is to put it on "Ring & Vibrate" and store it in my pocket. When I feel the vibrations in my pants (ha!) I turn down the music, hear the ringing, and get the phone to take the call. I've read alot about Nokia's "Profiling" features while researching phones, and when I first heard about this phone I was disappointed at the fact that it doesn't have "profiling" It sounded so handy to me to be able to set a "Meeting" tone where it vibrates only, or a "At the park" setting where it's medium ring, or "In the car with loud music" profile where it would vibrate and ring at an ear-piercing level :-) Boy, was I surprised when I figured out Motorola's equivalent of profiling on THIS phone! Sure, you can't name them, but you can set em up, and if you know your phone... it won't matter WHAT the name is. There are 5 settings in the "Alert" menu. Loud Ring, Soft Ring, Vibrate, Ring & Vib, Silent. In each of these you can set the tone of the keys (you know, the tones your phone emits when you press a button... this phone has some nice tones to its buttons - the standard "0-9, * #" buttons aside), the volume of the ringtones, and the type of ringtone and/or vibrate "style" for regular phone calls, Text Messages, Voice Mail alerts, Data Calls, Fax Calls, and Reminders (such as when your phone goes into ROAMING or OUT OF SERVICE - depending on your service of course). Yes, there are styles of Vibrate, such as "Dot Dot" or "Dot Dash" or "Dash" or "Pulse" Just like morse code, they feel just like morse code sounds. It's really cool actually. Also really handy. You can differentiate between a ROAMING ALERT and INCOMING CALL or VOICEMAIL ALERT. Of course, you'll have to remember that (if you choose these options) a Pulsating vibrate is an incoming call and a brief "blast" of vibration is a reminder that something is going on with phone service. Nifty, eh? Voice Activation couldn't be simpler. I never thought it would replace speed dial, which I anticipated using alot when I got a cell phone, but it DID. Simply pressing the little button on the right side of the phone ONCE, I could say "Ashley" and it would then repeat my pre-recorded "Ashley" and proceed to dial her number. Just be sure not to sound COMPLETELY different from your initial recording (although you can change it). If you say the voice in an extremely high-pitched and enthusiastic voice the first time, and a low-pitched and depressed voice the next... it likely won't recognize it at all. The exception might be if you only have one voice recording, but I haven't tried that out. Don't even HAVE to go into much detail on battery life. I mean... just stating that "It won't die out on you" with a 100% lifetime guarantee should do the trick :) I've gotten 6 1/2 days Standby on this puppy, and that's WITH talking. The only reason it wasn't longer is probably because I entered an area my service decided was ROAMING so my phone kept blipping (though you can turn the option off, which it is by default) and switching between ROAMING and NO SERVICE modes. That and I like to play with the ringers :) Sometimes, it's just plain fun (and cruel) to show off in front of your other friends with cell phones all the cool ringtones you have. They instantly claim "Stop playing with your phone" and you can tell they're jealous :) Anyway, yeah, battery life is great, and had I not been playing with my ringtones, I'd have at least another day or so (I played around ALOT). Manufacturer's claim is around 12.5 days or so (300 hours), but of course, the phone has to be in Digital mode 24/7, no backlight, probably little to no use, etc. etc. That's how they (cell companies) get those times you know... which I completely understand. That way, they can claim the phone gets "UP TO ### hours standby" and not have to lie. (Few people understand that actually) The Mobile Web feature actually works well... if you like surfing at 14.4k (which is the mobile fastest apparently). Since I don't use it really at all, I can't say much about it... except if you get a free month with your service (like I did) try out some of the games. [This allowed me to tell one of my friends that my phone has games, aside from the fact you need to connect to the internet for it, heh) Another nice feature is the FM Radio. If you want to fork out $50 for the headset, which you NEED to be able to operate it, then have fun... I heard it's good. (I'm not willing to buy one just yet) Not outstanding, but not poor - apparently. The music will mute when you receive an incoming call, and come back on when the call ends... but so far, Motorola only has an option for an earbud, so you can't put the phone anywhere and listen to it from afar. Smart though, IMHO, because if you're REALLY going to use a cell phone radio as opposed to a real one, it'll most likely be while in the waiting room at a doctor's office, so you can "space out" and get away from the noisy kids climbing all over the seats around you and the generic tunes in the lobby. (Hmm, maybe I should buy that thing after all...) Overall, the Motorola 120c is a very wise investment. It's a Tri-Mode phone, so you don't have to worry about entering an analog or PCS Network and be unable to use your phone. In fact, if you have a Regional Plan (For example: I have free roaming in 12 Western States... including Hawaii) then this will be PERFECT for you. I very highly recommend this phone. Don't be fooled by the $80 price tag (with service agreement of course; it's normally around $200) this phone has ALOT going for it. Yes, even call quality, which I've forgotten to mention, is good (not landline quality, but it's good). I would suggest putting this phone in your Top 5 if you're looking for a phone, any phone. This has just about everything you could need. Update: As of November 1st, the antenna is officially "broken" Since I didn't invest in monthly cellular insurance, I'm stuck with it. So far it doesn't seem to be affecting call quality, but nonetheless, it looks, feels, and seems different. There's an emptiness in my heart... I grew to be so fond of this phone (even though I *did* drop it once and managed to make small scratch marks on the screen). My recommendation? Find some way to secure the antenna into place. I thought of doing this once, don't know why I didn't do it. Antenna never needs to be extended anyway, but if you manage to glue or STICK the antenna to it's base, then it shouldn't be able to pull out and snap off. This truly is a sad day. Update 2: I ended up replacing the antenna for $10 and now pay extra special attention to it. In fact, now that I've had it for over a month, I've gotten so used to it, that it's not a problem making sure the antenna won't snap off. I retract my statement about the phone not getting better reception with an extended antenna.. if you don't have an antenna booster. BUY ONE! They're cheap, like $5 or less, people buy em in bulk and use them as money makers. I just stuck mine behind the battery and when I extend the antenna it GREATLY improves reception on this baby. Gotta love it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 87635 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 same features as the v60c at a fraction of the cost annoying antennamushy keys make up short con list The Bottom LineNo other phone gives you this much in the same price range. Phone will compete with the Nokias at last. Full Review Motorola has come a long way in recent years to improve their phones. The V120 is a big step in the right direction. For once Motorola has gone out of its way to make their new phone easier to use. This means more screen area and easier to navigate menus. In fact, the V120 uses the same menus as the V60c (the small $500 flip phone). This phone comes jam packed with features, many of which cannot be found on any other phone out there. I have now owned the phone for about 30 days and I have no regrets about buying the phone. I currently have Verizon service and purchased the phone for about $150 WITHOUT extending my contract. By agreeing to another years service I could have gotten the phone for about $79. Being a Tri-Mode phone, you can use it anywhere in the country. Although I currently cannot use the phone in Africa (see profile). I think the easiest way to review the phone to list the Pros and Cons. As you will see I have many more Pros than Cons. If you have any more questions please do not hesitate to contact me. 1. Tri Mode - Being a Tri-Mode phone I can use in anywhere on Verizons network. This phone is perhaps the best choice if you need a tri-mode. 2. Voice Activated Dialing - To use this feature you record someone's name when entering his or her number in the phone book. When you want to dial that person you simply hold a designated (for voice dialing only) button on side of phone and say their name. I have found this feature to work pretty well, although sometime I need to repeat the person's name twice. I think it works best to have very different sounding recorded names for similar sounding names or people. For instance, "Joe Cell" and "Joe Home" might get confused when you try to use voice dial because they sound too similar. 3. Two Way Text Messaging - Most people are familiar with what this is. Mototola's iTAP software for simplified text entry anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes. This helps speed up text entry. Of course this feature can be turned off. 4. Wireless Web - While many people can live without this feature, I really enjoy it. It is great for checking movie times and getting sports scores. Browsing on this phone is fairly easy with the two nav buttons up top. People will find that browsing on this phone is much easier than it was with a startac. 5. Phonebook - Phone will store 400 names. Also allows you to select a little icon corresponding to the type of number you are entering (home, cell, fax). Curiously you cannot enter in more than one number per person, thus some people will be listed more than once if they have more than one number. Thankfully, Motorola has improved they way people can retrieve numbers in the phonebook. Now all names are automatically alphabetized. It used to be that you had to give each name a corresponding number slot in the book. This meant that when you would scroll through your phone you would see each name listed not by the alphabet but the random slot you gave it. 6. Vibrates - There is no need to purchase a special battery in order to make this phone vibrate. The vibrating feature is built in. I have never missed a call because I could not feel the vibration. 7. Sync - Easily sync the phone with Outlook and other contact applications. I have never used this and cannot comment on this function. Although it is nice to do I have the functionality available. 8. Size and Weight - The phone is surprising light. Although the phone is not as small as a Nokia 8860 it is roughly the same weight at 4.5 ounces. The phone is small enough where I have no problems carrying it my pocket all day long. I sometime have problems catching the antenna in my pocket. 9. Talk Time - The talk and standby times of this phone are great! Motorola states 270 minutes of talk time and I believe every minute of it. My experience has shown thus far that the phone lives up to its claims. Not only is there a battery meter on the display but you can also get a more detailed battery meter by clicking through the menu's. 10. Signal Strength - No problems here. I have had dozens of phones and this seems to work like the best of them. Very few drop calls, although a lot depends on your service and the area you are using the phone. 11. Customization - Now this is one feature I have been unable to find on any other phones. This phone allows you to rearrange how you view the menu. If there is a menu feature you use more than others than just stick it up top! It also allows you change the two navigation buttons at the bottom of the display to whatever you want. Also, this phone allows you to create shortcuts. These work in the same way as shortcuts in Microsoft Windows. A simple key stroke such as "Menu" "7" could bring you to your ring tones setting. 12. Voice Record - Nifty feature that allows you to record personal messages to yourself. I use to it record the location of my car in a parking garage. 13. Ring Tones - Over 30 original ring tones to choose from. 14. FM Tuner Option - No other phone has this feature (except for the V 60c). You must purchase an accessory for this feature to work. I have yet to try it out. Perhaps people who have used it can add more at the end of reading this review. 1. Extended Antenna - the antenna raises out of the body by about a half and inch. I see no use for this. Signal strength does not improve and I never raise it. Yet, by making the antenna come out it is more prone to get caught in things and be damaged. 2. Phonebook - Overall I like the phonebook. I just wish you could add more than one number for each person. 3. Screen - The screen has a high resolution which is a nice touch. Yet, why can't Motorola just make the screen a little bigger? Other manufacturers have caught on why not Motorola? This would make web browsing much easier. 4. Keys - No big complaint here, its just that the keys are kind of mushy. Sometime you are not sure if the phone registered what you typed. 5. Profiles - Nokia does a great job with there phones in the way you manage your profiles. By profiles I mean the settings in your phone that manage the type of ring you want. For example whether you want the phone to just vibrate or both ring and vibrate. Nokia allows you to create profiles such as "Meeting" that stores how you want the phone to ring. Changing your phone to "Meeting" is very easy. In the V120 it is not as easy. The best thing to do is create a shortcut to this feature. Overall I have been very satisfied with the phone. If you can afford it I recommend stepping up to the V 60c which is much smaller. Yet for the price this phone cannot be beat. I am glad to see Mototola is starting to improve the functionality of their phones. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the purchase of this phone. On a scale of 1-100 I give it this phone a 88. The reason it does not receive 100 is because of the overall size of the phone and its small screen. Now if they only made this phone for use in Africa.... Other Phones I like: Nokia 8260 (ATT) Motorola V60c (Verizon) NOTE: If you have still not bought service please stay away from Cingular, Sprint PCS, and Voicestream. It is my PERSONAL experience that these service providers are god awful. Don't let cheap service plans fool you. You get what you pay for. Cheap Plans = Poor or non-existent service and horrendous customer service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87634 2000/3/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 trimode voice dialing price feature a bit strange looking stock color choices are few The Bottom LineThis phone delivers good service for the price it is offered at... a definte thumbs up! I have already recommended this phone to friends who are satisfied. Full Review I have very few complaints about the Motorola V120C. This is the cheapest of the new V phones that Motorola has released with the new "user friendly" software. Motorola has completely changed the function of their phones now, so those of you who are used to the old (Startacs, 3160, V2260, etc.) will be in for a bit of a surprise and it will take some getting used to. The phone is relatively cheap, and is tri-mode, a big deal for Verizon customers... this will allow you to take part in their National Price plan as well as their new America's Choice Plans. Furthermore, this phone has software in it that allows for an extended roaming indicator which makes use of the America's Choice Plan foolproof... The extended roam indicator (dubbed ERI) states quite simply right on the phone if you are in an "Extended" are which is a Verizon wireless market but not the same market that your number is based out of, or "Roaming" completely off of the Verizon Wireless network. At this point, this indicator is exclusive to Motorola (also included on the V60C, V200, and 270C) As you can tell I feel that this is a great feature. It makes the phone very favorable for these plans that Verizon feels will be popular. The 120C held up well when I tested it. Signal was not an issue, actually a positive. The 120C was able to hold onto calls in areas that I would expect them to drop which truly impressed me. I found sending text messages to be rather simple, although I found the Itap mode to be a waste of time. This aside I found entering text in tap mode to be quick enough and efficient enough (I used the text messaging features quite a bit with this phone). The battery life was decent. Being a heavy user I can easily wear batteries out multiple times a day, but this phone held up well... I was sometimes charging in my car on the way home from work, and charging at night before going to bed, but this is relatively less than with other phones. For the normal user I believe you will be happy with the battery life. I found overall usage of the phone to be quite easy. One feature that I really liked is the fact that you can set up shortcuts to help you through the menu. If you are like me and have grown accustomed to pressing function 8 to change your ringer, or using any other key combination that was available on previous generation Motorola's, you will be happy to know that you can set these shortcuts to mimic the previous Motorola menu structure. After using the phone for some time, I believe that this will not be an issue any more. The menu is quite easy to go through, the phone has the 2 soft keys that correspond to the options in the bottom corners. It does take some time to figure out where Motorola has put some of settings in the menu (for example I wouldn't expect t find network settings hidden within the menu... to find it you must scroll to settings, select it, then scroll to other settings and select it. Unfortunately you cannot assign a shortcut to the * or key either). The only true complaint I have is the phonebook. You can store up to 199 entries in this phone book, and unlike the 7868 or 8767 you can only store 1 number per location... This means that if you have a lot of contacts you may be scrolling for quite some time to find the desired name. This can easily be resolved by using the convenient voice dialing. I may be off with the exact #, but I believe you can store 20 names with voice entries, so for most people this should be enough to cover your most frequently dialed numbers. I found that the voice recognition was great, but I do have to admit that some of my coworkers disagree. Well, that is about it for my testing summary. The only other complaint that I had about this phone is that the colors are not very appealing to all people. I myself do not mind the black model, but if I had been given the only other option in color, baby blue, I think I would have left the phone at home more times than not. Also, the phone's peanut shape is a bit strange, but it does fit well in your hand and is comfortable to use. Oh, one other point that some people may enjoy. The new Motorola software actually allows for you to zoom in and out on the display. This can be helpful for users who may have a hard time reading some displays of normal size. Also the blue backlight makes it a bit easier to read... very good display combination. The only thing about this is that when you are zoomed in you lose the date, and the menu only shows two lines at a time (as opposed to three). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): NA 87633 2000/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features size hard to read display The Bottom LineSmall, easy to use, and feature-rich. Voice recording/dialing capability is it's best feature. Full Review Losing a $250 cell phone is a painful experience, but that's exactly what happened to me (or more specifically my wife)a few weeks ago. To add insult to injury, we had to buy a new phone at full retail price since we were not initiating a new contract. The phone we lost was the Motorola Timeport, the new phone we got was the V120c. The V120 is a tri-mode digital/analog phone, which you need if you have a national calling plan. Sound quality is good, but I think this is more a function of the geographic coverage in my home area...Verizon wireless has particularly good coverage in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area. Battery charge time is fast and a full charge lasts about 3 or 4 days. The V120 is actually cheaper than the Timeport, but it has a few useful features that the Timeport didn't have, the most useful of which is the voice dialing feature. All you need to to do is push a button and say the name of the person or place you want to call. It also has a very useful voice recording feature...just press a button at any time and it records either your phone conversation, or you can talk into the phone and use it as a voice recorder....great for jotting down phone numbers and addresses. There is a total of 2 minutes of recording time...plenty for short reminders and notes. Other features are aplenty. It can receive email, use shortcut commands, easy to learn menu navigation, internet microbrowser, 32 alert tones, and other features I haven't even learned yet. You can get different colored skin casings, but who cares, I'll keep it black. Another advantage it has over the Timeport is it's feel. The phone feel solid and durable. The Timeport always felt somewhat flimsy and breakable....for me all flip top phones feel that way. In fact, the Timeport we lost was actually a replacement phone because our original Timeport started to develop a crack in the casing right where the hinge was. The only disadvantage over the Timeport is the legibility of the screen. The Timeport had bright, multicolored, lighted characters while the V120 has LCD display which is hard to see unless you make heavy use of the background screen lighting. The other feature this phone has is FM radio reception capabilities. With an optional headset, the phone can be used as an FM radio. Nice touch I guess, but I doubt I'll be spending any more money on a headset to use this feature. Overall, it is a well built, well thought out product which is feature-rich, and relatively easy to use. It's best features are it's small size, and voice activation capabilities. It's only shortcoming is a display screen that's hard to read, but this is a minor negative. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87632 2001/12/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 signal qualitylots of features for a low price good design durability weak antenna The Bottom Line The Motorola V120c is the perfect phone for a young person. It is very durable and very affordable. Full Review The Motorola V120c is a wonderful little phone with all the features of a more expensive cellphone, at about half the price. The V120c has many different features, including voice-activation, phonebook and a mobile browser. Last week I went out looking for my very first cell phone. I went to about ten stores before I phone the Motorola store. I wasn't about to shell out $300.00 for a phone, so I was on the hunt for a high quality phone at a good price. I found that with the Motorola V120c. And so far, I only have good things to say about this phone! Features The Motorola V120c has tonnes of features that more expensive models have. The major selling features Motorola uses is the voice-activation calling. This lets you call someone in your phonebook just by saying their name. You hold down a button on the side of the phone and say the person's name, and it will start to call them. This is perfect if you do a lot of traveling, as you won't have to take your hands of the wheel for long to make a call. The V120c also features a Mobile Browser. Where I live, it is $5.00 a month for unlimited internet minutes on the phone. Using the mobile browser, you can get all the latest news and sports scores, as well as check your mail! There are also many different games you can play using the mobile browser, including "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?", which is a pretty fun game. The V120c also features a phonebook capable of storing 400 names and phone numbers, speed dialing. 32 different ring tones and vibration alert. Design The Motorola V120c is, in my opinion, very well designed. It is molded to fit right into your palm, and has a good feeling when you are talking into it. The V120c is approx. 5 inches tall and weighs a tiny 4.5 ounces. All the buttons are within easy reach and the screen manages to reflect glare from the sun or lights exremely well. My only gripe about this phone is the antenna. It is a very flimsy, 2 inch telescopic peice of plastic. It is so flimsy, I lose my signal in the wind, as it is blowing all over the place! Durability So far, I have put my V120c through more hell than OJ Simpsons going to get when he dies. I have spilled water on it, dropped it in puddles, dropped it on my kitchen tiles and lost it when my nephew was playing with it in a McDonalds Playplace. And it still works. This phone is very durable and I dont think it will break any time in the near and forseeable future. Signal Quality The signal quality isn't the greatest on the Motorola V120c, but it isn't something to complain about either. With the antenna up, the signal comes in pretty clear, and my phone will even work in places like concrete basements. Battery Life The battery life on my Motorola V120c is decent. Nothing special, as I get about 3 and a half hours of talk time after charging it overnight (usually 10-12 hours). Overall Overall, the Motorola V120c is a good phone if you are on a budget. It has lots of neat features and is very durable. I recommend this phone for teenagers that go out a lot, as it will not break if you drop it or spill beer on it! (Not that I have spilled beer on it or anything ;)) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.99 87631 2000/7/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight but sturdy small price antenna just leave it down The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a new phone, this is the one. Packed with features and easy to use. Full Review I began shopping for a new phone and provider as my one-year agreement with VoiceStream was expiring (horrible, horrible customer service). I'd been noticing Verizon's rate plans and hoped that being as large as they are will also mean they have much more experience in fine-tuning customer service. But this review is about the phone. Cool. That's the first word that came to mind. Other phones, while they may have the same basic features, just looked klunky. This phone just looked sleeker and well-designed. Understand that I use a mobile phone for the most basic use. I get a plan only for my area, so I use the phone for a small amount of time and never to roam. If a phone causes me to spend too much time on it because of its lack of function, then I won't want that phone. My old phone took a long time to find a network, even though it was at its strongest signal. This Motorola fires up quickly. As well, my previous phone only had a one-line display, so this was a switch. The most convenient feature is the voice dialing. Easy to set up and easy to use. Related to that is the note-taking voice recording. Good for making note of where you last saw your keys. Now if I could remember where I left the phone... Others have noted the sometimes difficult-to-read display. While this is true, you can adjust the display to show larger text. Granted this takes up some screen real estate, but it's helpful. I also had difficulty reading the display in bright sunlight with sunglasses on. I really like the ability to personalize this phone. The greeting display can be changed, as well as the banner (main menu) display. There are A LOT (someone mentioned 32?) of different rings to use, AND it vibrates. No special battery is needed for the vibrate feature. I will say, though, that the vibrating is difficult to detect when I have the phone clipped to my hip. The antenna length begs the question, "Why is this even here?" Fully extended it adds less than an inch and a quarter to its length. And, curiously, when the antenna is extended and you are on the phone, your ear makes contact with it. Well, if you're like me and like to read the owner's manual cover to cover, you'll notice that it says that contact with a broken antenna can burn the skin. Bottom line: the reception is just fine without extending the antenna, so avoid breaking it and just leave it down. My only other complaint, a minor one, is that -- as with most other phones -- while on a call your face rests on the display. On these hot, Texas summer days that can get nasty. :-) Motorola has yet to release a data cable for this phone. That's what I'm waiting on to hook it up to my Palm to use for email. At $69 this phone is a great value. To me it has all the same features as much higher priced phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 87630 2001/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 most needed features improved interface for motorola programmable shortcuts good battery life no calculator not as many assesories as nokia The Bottom LineGood phone that covers all major bases that you'd expect in a mobile phone. Nice programmable shortcuts, and a definite improved interface over the Startacs. Full Review This is a great phone with high marks all around, but I'm hard pressed to think of any single feature to rave about. This is a "jack of all trades" kind of phone, and I'm quite happy with it. With Verizon service, I had to choose a phone that was under my $100 max budget, was a trusted brand, popular enough to have available accessories, good interface, Li ion battery. Between a Qualcomm (Kyocera) and a Nokia 7560 (?) model, I chose this one because according to the Verizon guy (a friend of a friend) it had the best effective battery life, and unlike the Nokia it had a vibrate alert. This phone has almost every feature I'd expect in a mobile phone: - Compact design - Multiple rings, music rings - Vibrate alert - 300 or so memory storage - Voice activated dialing - Text page (good) and browser ready (who cares) - Good reception - Li ion battery - Headset jack RECEPTION The phone works well with clear reception (has a lot to do with your carrier). The display has a five bar display granularity to let you know the signal strength. Reception is ever so slightly improved by extending the antenna. The antenna really doesn't extend very far at all (about 1 1/2") and I'm a little concerned that it might be prone to breaking off; hopefully I'm just paranoid. BATTERY The lithium ion battery has allowed me to have 5 full days of standby plus several phone calls of 1-5 minutes each. Battery live is subject to all kinds of variables, and in general my feel compared to other phones (like my wife's Startac) is that this one last a little bit longer. The display shows a little 3 bar display off battery strength. To get a better idea, you can use the menu to get a 6 bar battery strength display. The phone warns you pretty early that your battery is low. I was able to complete several minutes of conversation before the battery was shut down. I also like the fact that the phone doesn't constantly nag you about a low battery... since finishing your conversation is usually more important than shutting down the phone. INTERFACE Motorola has really improved the interface design over their other line of products, namely the Startac series. They've done away with the stupid RCL, STO, CMD buttons and simplified it into a more Nokia-ish interface where 2 buttons are context sensitively labelled by the display itself, and are complimented with an up/down pair of buttons for navigation. Probably the most useful interface feature is the ability to create custom short cuts. I probably would be complaining that changing the ring type or checking real battery charge are buried in the menu heirarchy if it weren't for the short cuts. With a short cut, you can assign almost any function to a quick two key press sequence (MENU, then a number). This customization is an excellent feature I haven't seen on many (if any) phones before. The only gripe is that the custom key takes about 3 seconds to execute. PHYSICAL DESIGN Phones here in america seem to be all be going to the shape of a long, skinny bar of soap. The 120 is no exception. The design is fairly solid and quite rounded. Aesthetically pleasing, it's also functional for holding to your head for talking comfortably. Cell phones are never good for the head to shoulder holding of the phone, but at least the "flatness" of the "bar of soap" allows you to do it. DISPLAY The small 1.5" x 1" display is a much higher resolution than the Startacs which allows for 3 lines of text plus icons and navigation labels on the boarder. You can choose 2 different font sizes and you can see both the phone book label and the number itself at the same time. I wish that the display auto hyphenated the numbers. The display also has a back light which makes use in dark areas no problem. VOICE ACTIVATED DIALING You can record voice phrases to automatically call people in your phone book. It works, except if using headset (usually too noisy) or if there is too much similarity between one voice entry and another. For example, it wasn't able to distinguish between something like "grandma and grandpa smith" and "grandma and grandpa birk". Because it is a recorded voice assignment, only the person who recorded it will be able to effectively utilize this feature. RINGS The phone has over a dozen ring types including some musical rings and a vibrate mode. I use the phone in the offical leather case with belt clip, and the vibrate is barely adequate for knowing it's there with the belt clip. OTHER COOL FEATURES The phone can also record voice memos, Mildly useful. The phone also acts as an FM radio with the headset. WISH LIST I really wish this phone had a calculator (for calculating tips, etc); and an alarm for keeping timed appointments. Overall, this is a good phone, and I'm satisfied with it. It's at a fair price point and it has most of the features I require. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 87629 2000/5/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek design can be completely personalized great price none The Bottom LineLight, inexpensive, stylish phone with more options than you'd expect at this price. It's the V60 for $350 less. Full Review I just got this phone as part of Verizon's America's Choice Family Share promotional plan. I paid $49.99 and it was buy one & get one free. This phone has far surpassed my expectations, even after reading all the good reviews it's received so far. I should say that my last phone was also a Motorola that I got over 2 years ago, don't even know the model # - they don't make it anymore. This phone is so much better!! Small, trim, light, and beautifully designed. It looks so much better in person than in a picture on a website. This phone can be completely personalized. You can add a name, banner, create your own ringtones, select different ringtones for different call types (fax, data, message received, regular call, etc.), add different contact info for each phonebook entry (fax #, email, etc.), and a lot of other neat things. The phone supports voice dialing for 20 numbers so you don't have to remember speed dial locations. (You get 400 speed dial numbers.) The keypad tones are a little lower in volume than other phones, but that's OK, I like dialing quietly. I don't need the whole world to know I'm making a call (and why can't companies make a cordless phone for the house that has a silent keypad - nothing like trying to order something over the phone for a surprise and having the phone scream out each key press, there should be a volume control - but now I'll use this cell phone). Anyway, it charges up in no time and stays charged practically forever. Talk clarity is superb. It sounds better than my in-home phone (which I may get rid of now!). All the buttons are placed at good locations. You don't have to fiddle around with adjusting your grip or moving it away from your ear to look at where the button is every time you want to do something. This applies to left- and right-handed people. The volume and voice activated dialing keys are just where your fingers are placed when you are talking. The menu button is right in the center, can't miss it. The number pad conforms to the curvy design of the phone with a little raised dot on the 5 so you can tell where you are without looking. The ringtones range from the generic phone sound to a single beep to pre-programmed songs. You can also compose your own song under My Tones. If you don't want it to ring, you can set it to vibrate (dot, dash, pulse, etc.). You can also set it to ring and vibrate together. The phone also allows you to record up to 2 minutes of a voice note - like a reminder message to pick up something from the store on your way home. Other items included: web browser, icons in the phone book for home, work, fax, email, etc. (not necessary, just cool), auto PIN entry, auto lock on shutoff, 2-way text messaging (with quick notes like Yes, No, On My Way, etc.), other things I'm probably forgetting. I've heard others say that the antenna is flimsy, and I see how they can say that. I spins around when it's down and when it's extended, doesn't seem like it can last very long, but here in NY, the coverage is great so I rarely need to extend it. Overall, a great phone, especially at $50 for 2. And the best part - I ordered it online at verizonwireless.com and it was sent (free) by fedex 2-day, and took less than 1 minute to be programmed over a single phone call. Ready to go immediately. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87628 2000/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 multiple rings good battery life sleek sometimes hard to hear The Bottom LineThere's a reason Motorola's so popular! Full Review I used to have the Samsung 3500 when I was with Sprint, but both companies left a bad taste in my mouth. So, I opted for the most well-known brand (alongside Nokia) and checked out the Motorola V120c. The looks are definitely what caught my attention first, along with the awesome price! Having spent almost $150 on my samsung and having to return it TWICE for defects, I wasn't willing to spend more than $100. Little did I know, with a simple 2-year contract from Verizon, I got the phone for $60. MUCH BETTER! :) The phone was very easy to use and the navigation bars are easy. Sometimes it's tedious and it seems you have to click on 4 screens before you get to your selection, but after the inital set-up, not much needs to be done. The phone has a great battery life and I can go 3-4 days, if necessary, without recharging. With a large selection of rings to choose from, I often find myself changing it depending on what mood I'm in. The following 2 negatives I have are because of features I see on other phones that I wish this one had. 1) The ease of switching the ring mode to vibrate. My last phone only required a couple presses of one button... however, this phone requires you to go through 4 menus before you get to the tones section. Now, I can choose from 5 different vibe modes (which I personally think is kinda useless), but it's too much of a hassle to get to this, so I end up never using the vibrate mode. 2) The inability to store multiple numbers under one name. My boyfriend has the Motorola Timeport P8767 and he can store my work number, cell phone AND home phone under one listing. With the V120c, I have to enter a listing for each phone number. So I end up with 3 entries such as John's Cell, John's Home & John's Work. So if I can't remember the person's quick dial number in the phonebook, I end up having to key through till I find it. Luckily you can press the button multiple times to scroll through the first letter of each name. It's no wonder some cities are wanting to ban cell phone usage while driving! It can be quite distracting! A recent negative is when I miss calls. Whether the person left a message or not, it logs them in twice as an incoming call. This isn't exactly a hassle, but it's confusing when it says I have 2 missed calls and only one person's name is listed.... it's just listed twice with the exact same time. And the main disappointment in this phone is the ear piece. I find that I sometimes have to wiggle the phone around until it hits my ear just right. It's almost as if a light switch were turned on. It will be quiet and then all of a sudden be loud. Fortunately, though, my phone's earpiece isn't as strong as the P8767. While sitting on the other side of the room, I can hear every word of my boyfriend's conversations if he doesn't have the volume turned down. This was the same case with his last phone, which was an Audiovox flip phone. But as is with the samsung 3500, the ear piece could be a little louder. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 87627 2002/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish feature rich long battery life light weight some features difficult to access The Bottom LineIf You're Searching For Motorola Reliability, Plenty Of Features, And An Affordable Price Point, Then The Motorola v120c Might Just Be For You! Full Review Allow me to begin by mentioning that I have worked for Verizon Wireless in the corporate accounts division for six years this month. I have had a great deal of exposure to various handsets, and now I have a perfect forum to share the feedback that I have gathered from a wide variety of clients. My reviews on cellular handsets do not focus on the features of the unit, but rather on the feedback that I receive from my customers, so that you can make a more informed decision when purchasing. I initially had reserved judgment about the new Motorola v120c. I had heard mixed comments about it and therefore did not feel comfortable writing a review until I gathered more information. Now I have sold this phone to enough customers to feel as though I have a solid backing for my opinion. As a matter of fact, a close friend of mine purchased this model, who previously had a Kyocera 2035. The Motorola v120c is a stylish handset with a large number of features, including voice activated dialing. The voice activated dialing actually works rather well and can distinguish between different people's voices. For example, the friend I mentioned has his voice recorded for half a dozen entries, while another family member has their voice recorded for yet another set of entries. The phone distinguishes between them well and makes dialing much easier. One of the features that the v120c has that curtails a great deal of complaint calls is long battery life. Rated at 7 days standby and 3 hours of talktime, it is definitely ahead of the pack. These estimates are not too far off of reality, unlike some manufacturer's ratings. My friend noticed a marked improvement going from the Kyocera to the Motorola. One complaint call I have received rather often is how to change the ringer. Many people are convinced there is only one ringer melody even after reading the manual at length. After having the phone in hand, I'll admit, it's a little tricky navigating to the selection menu, but it's definitely in there. 32 altogether. The different melodies play at different volume levels, so make sure the one you choose is adequate for the type of environment you'll be using it in. If anyone has a real problem finding this menu, go ahead and e-mail me and I'll send you more information. The phone books on today's phones are bordering on the ridiculous. This model holds up to 400 names and numbers. I have 132 stored in my personal phone and I thought that was a lot. Apparently not as many as some people out there are using! The text messaging feature of this phone is easy to use and access. If you have Verizon Wireless service, you can send a text message directly from the website, "www.verizonwireless.com", by selecting "Send a Text Message" on the left side of the screen and then entering the appropriate information. If the customer you're sending the message to has the "Pay as you go" feature on their account, it will cost them $.02 to receive and you $.10 to send. Higher packages incorporate bundled messages. The nice part about the website as opposed to sending messages via the phone directly is that you can click the "Update" button when finished and see the exact time the message was received by the handset! Technology is always moving forward. The one thing I will say regarding the v120c is that if you live in an area with very weak signal strength, you may notice slightly better reception than what you might experience with the Kyocera line, for example. Several of my customers that live in outskirt areas in terms of cell sites, have noticed the ability to at least get a mild signal with the v120c, where they received little or none previously. Something to take into consideration perhaps. I hear some people comment on the durability of the phone being in question, but as with most Motorola products, this one has proven to be tough. I have only had one problem regarding durability and that was due to the unit being in the hands of a careless customer. Overall, I would recommend the Motorola v120c as a good performer with a multitude of features. I do not hesitate selling it, as I know that I won't be getting complaint calls down the road. People find it easy to store in a pocket or a purse, which is important in these days of portability. If you're looking for an upgrade from this model, I'd highly recommend the LG TM-510, which I have also written a review on. Both models are top notch and should provide years of trouble free performance. Two thumbs up on this one! RECOMMENDATION I have personally been using the Plantronics M175 headset for over a year with Motorola phones and the increased clarity that is achieved over simply talking directly into the handset may interest many readers. To view my full review on this accessory please visit the link below or search for other reviews by "jonwes": Recommended: Yes 87626 2003/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 more features than ben jerry s flavors ergonomicallyaesthetically pleasing no day time stamp on caller id flimsy antenna The Bottom LineFew other phones offer as many features AND maintain an affordable price. Full Review Every once in a while a product comes along that sets the standard for that category. A perfect example among cell phones is the Motorola StarTac. Sleek, slim, light, stylish, and functional, it has not only been among the top cell phones sellers, but it has held this respectable and coveted position for a number of years--a feat when you consider how many different phones are on the market. But, Americans like change, and better yet, we like technology. Newer, faster, smaller, better. Interestingly enough, Motorola may be the one to set the new standard in cell phones by bringing to the market the 120c--a small ovalish phone that fits nicely in the palm of the hand. The features of the phone speak for themselves. Most importantly, the phone is easy to use. Features are worthless if you can't make sense of the menu. The menu is laid out in a sensible manner, and is easily navigable. What is really useful is the ability to change the functions of the two "soft" keys on the keypad so that you can access those items of the menu you use most frequently--the phone book for example. Also, it allows the order of the various menu selections to be changed so that you can access those most frequently used without having to scroll through others. The "soft" keys are two small buttons straddling the menu button whose function change depending on what menu screen is displayed. They are extremely useful because they allow you to do more than one thing in a menu. The phone has an excessive 32 alert tones, including all the annoying songs you hear erupt from people's pockets at deafening decibels. But the saving grace is that it also vibrates in place of ringing, and there is a setting in which the phone will vibrate, and if not answered will then ring--useful if you left it in your pocketbook on vibrate and forgot about it. The antenna is relatively small compared to most phones. It measures about 1 inch in the down position, and 2 1/4 inches when extended. It is the telescoping type so over time it's questionable how much abuse it can take--the more moving parts, the more likely they are to break. It requires a gentle touch to extract and store it. The phone is tri mode, dual band, operating with CDMA 800/1900 MHz and analog 800 MHz signals. It has a backlit display. Among the more "techy" and fun features of the phone, those that go beyond the call of duty, is the built in voice memo recorder that allows up to 2 minutes of recording time. Useful for things like small reminders and where you parked your car at the shopping mall. It also supports voice dialing--just say the name and it dials it. I like this feature because I don't have to go into my phone book and look for a name. However, it takes a while to program all your numbers in and record the voice. If you forget how you recorded a person's name you could dial the wrong number too. For example, if you have two friends named Rob. You might call one "Rob" and the other "Smith" in order to differentiate in the voice dialing. Soon to be released will be an AM/FM radio headset that uses the phone's lithium ion battery to power it. The phone can tune and store stations. This is a novel idea--especially for anyone who has to commute on the train or bus. And, if a phone call comes in while you're listening, it automatically switches you to the call. The battery life claim is rather astonishing. They say you get over 300 hours of standby and 4.5 hours of talk time. After using the phone for some weeks I'm assuming that when they calculated standby they had turned off every extraneous feature on the phone which could possibly suck up power like graphics (sorry no games on this phone) , sound, and backlit keypad options. But, with generous use it can still hold 4-5 days worth of power without a recharge (which only takes a couple of hours). On top of the regular calling functions, Motorola is following every other company with the seeming motto that "our products do everything." The 120c also supports Text Messaging and has an Internet Microbrowser. To make messaging and browsing easier they have added a predictive text entry program called iTap (how originally named) which predicts possible letter/word combinations as you type and presents you with choices in order to make the task of punching out a coherent thought on these small keys much easier. It works fairly well too. Aesthetically, the phone is easy to handle and pretty neat to look at. Even better, Motorola includes a free phone "wrap" (depending on where you buy it). It's sort of like a wet suit for a phone. Made out of a thin sheet of rubber, it hugs the outside of the phone as if it were a pair of spandex shorts. It makes the phone easier to grab and hold on to, and much less likely to break or scratch of dropped. It does make it harder to get in and out of pockets though. But in comparison to a clunky leather case, Motorola deserves a thumbs up for this neat little accessory--available in a profusion of colors of course. Most features about the 120c are positive. There are however, a few realistic complaints: The antenna seems a bit flimsy, and the telescoping feature does nothing to improve reception or stoutness over the single piece whip antennas of old. The closely spaced keypad buttons are sometimes difficult to use, but that's the sacrifice made for a smaller phone. Older people may find the small text size on the screen difficult to read--luckily they can change the view from three lines of text to two which increases size just a bit--not by much though. At the price of $69.99, the tri-band 120c is definitely a bargain. I would chose this as your next phone if it's time to upgrade--even in place of a StarTac. 1/27/03 Update: Having used the 120c for one and a half years I can now offer plenty of insight on some of the rather vague suppositions above. To keep it simple and brief: -battery life is actually what the manufacturer claims and is still the longest battery standby time on the market -the antenna is possibly the flimsiest style ever introduced by motorola and will break easily...even if properly cared for -while the phone has respectable signal strength, the newer version, the 120e, has even better reception -the price of the phone has since been lowered to the FREE status as Motorola introduces the 120c in its place. Expect to see the 120e discontinued and no longer offered within 6-10 months. It was one of the most frequently sold phones in the last two years, so if you were happy with it, consider the 120e as a possible upgrade. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87625 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to read display price customizeable sturdy high end features slim screen can be easily scratched antenna flimsy when fully extended The Bottom LineYou get a lot of phone (in terms of features) for a nice price. It has an excellent battery life so that you don't have to recharge very often. Full Review I bought this phone to be tagged onto my primary account for a Family-Share plan. I figure it was still cheaper to have one account, two phones instead of two completely different accounts. The V120c is a trimode CDMA phone that can operate throughout the United States, operating on 800/1900 MHz and 800 MHz analog. What this means is that you can easily roam throughout the country with little or no coverage problems. Having signed-up under Verizon, you have more calling options in that if there is no digital signal, the phone can automatically switch to an analog connection. List of features: * voice-activated dialing (up to 20 numbers) * 2-Way SMS messaging for sending and receiving alphanumeric messages that acts like an alphanumeric beeper or for "texting" use * WAP 1.1 Enabled Microbrowser to access the Internet * Phonebook, capable of up to 400 entries * 32 Ring tones with a vibrating "ring" * iTAP™: a feature that predicts what you type to make entering text easier * synchronization with PIM devices with optional software * Caller ID * Multi-Language Support - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French * Up to 300 hours standby/4 hours talk time What's in the box? The phone, with a choice of either black or Skye (a pastel/light blue color), standard battery, charger, and instruction manual. The physical specs: It's svelte appearance makes it a pleasure to carry in your jacket pocket and it only weighs a mere 4.5 ounces. It's dimensions (just the body) is approximately 5.0" x 1.7" x 1.1". The display: 96x64 high contrast LCD pixel display with a green backlighting. It can display 3 lines of text. The screen also has a dedicated line for icons and one line for prompts The body: Below the screen are three buttons used to navigate through the menu and below that are your END, UP, DOWN, SEND buttons, and below that is the numeric keypad. To the right of the screen are the volume keys, to the left is the voice key to record voice notes and to activate the voice dialing function. On the top left of the phone is the power key that is somewhat depressed and in order for the phone to be turned on, it must be pressed for at least 1 second (to prevent accidental power up and power downs). To its left is the headset jack for hands-free operation. On the base of the phone is the accessory connector port to insert the charger, an accessory FM Stereo radio and other accessories. Finally, on the back of the phone is the location of the battery which is accessed via a latch release button. Features Explained: Accessing the menu couldn't be easier, the menu button is located on the middle of the phone. It lists: Recent Calls, Phone Book, Messages, Shortcuts, Voice Notes, Browser, Settings. Recent Calls shows the received and dialed calls (both with time and date stamp), notepad (where you can type in alpha numeric messages for yourself), call times (the length of outgoing and incoming calls). The Phone Book shows the name of the contact with a little icon on the right hand sign which tells you if it's a work, home, main, mobile, fax or pager number. You even have an option of storing an email address. So, per contact, you can have up to 6 telephone numbers + 1 email address. If you have the number set for voice dialing, there will be a speaker icon and when it is highlighted, the phone actually speaks the recorded prompt to activate the voice dialing, just in case you forget how and what you said to activate that contact for voice dialing Messages when selected shows your the number of voicemails, text messages, browser alerts you have. There's also a quick note submenu for saved texting messages like: yes, no, need, directions, Where are you, etc...predefined phrases to make texting easier. When you press text messages, this is where you can actually send a text message to somebody. The shortcut menu is a way for you to program the phone to let you get to a specific feature. For example, if you like to change your ringtones, so instead of going to several submenus, you can go to the shortcut menu and program your phone to quickly access the ringtone menu with just a press of a button. Voice notes is where you store your voice notes that you have recorded pressing the button to the right of the screen. The phone is capable of a total of 2 minutes of voice recording. Browser is the menu to access the microbrowser on your phone. Before using this, you usually need to subscribe via your service provider, for a fee. Finally, the settings menu access your phone settings. The ring/vibrate access the different ring tones. You have an option for loud of soft rings depending on your location. For example, if you're in a busy place and you need to hear your phone ring, you customize your ring tones to be louder. On the other side of the spectrum if you need to have your phone ring quietly, you can choose ring tones that are quieter and softer in volume. So depending on where you are you phone is programmed to fit your needs. In addition, you can assign different ring tones for different functions. For example you can have a different ring tone for voice calls, text messaging, voicemail, data calls, reminders, and fax calls. Ring tones include: silent, continental, classic, attention (loud shrill), siren, snaggle, beep, ding dong, bits & bytes, charge, funk, boogie, Fibonacci, cosmic, uh-oh, bombs away, Rondo ala Turca, Bach Invention #1, Toccata & Fugue, Canon in D, 1812 Overture, Maple Leaf Rag, Nursery Rhyme, Cumparasita, Nessun Dorma, Hava Nagila, Chinese Melody. Vibrating tones are also included and they vary on the pattern and duration of the vibration. They include: vibe dot, vibe dash, vibe dot dot, vibe dot dash, and vibe pulse. The phone status menu tells you about your telephone number, battery meter (a more detailed meter with 6 bars), your electronic serial number, technology (i.e. Trimode CDMA phone), software version, PRL version, data, TrueSync, and browser status (if everything's working, it should display "Ready." Under the connections menu, you can specify if you only want to receive voice, data, or fax calls. In the In-Call Setup menu, you can specify if you want to visually see the length of time your're talking on the phone and to have the phone beep at a selected interval for those who are on a budget. Under this menu you can also choose if you want to answer the phone by pressing the send button or by pressing any button on the keypad. In the security menu you can personalize your phone to be locked when turned on, assign a pin number and to restrict calls. Other settings let you change the phone greeting and banner, time and date, automatically dial your PIN number, auto redial settings, duration of backlight, zoom levels (how magnified you want your text to be), scroll, language, contrast, and a master switch to reset and clear all your selections to revert back to the factory setting. Impressions This phone is fully loaded when it comes to features. It rivals its big brother, the newest vader, the V60c. What you're sacrificing is just the form factor for $300 less. What I would like included is to have different ring tones assigned to incoming calls to help identify who the caller is. You can visually see who it is through it's caller ID function. For those who have big fingers, you might have a problem dialing because the buttons are small to begin with and they're oval in shape lengthwise. However, the buttons are neatly arranged in that when dialing and accessing the menu options, you can easily do so with just one hand. I wish that the volume for the keypad could be louder. I like to have an audio feedback when I press the buttons and at the loudest setting (7), it's barely a whisper. The ring on this phone, however is opposite, especially if you choose the ring tones that register on the upper notes. The high pitched, shrilling ring tones can definitely be heard without a problem. Being that the phone is not a flip-phone the screen is very susceptible to scratches, so my advice is to keep the sticky plastic film that came with the phone until you buy a protective hologram sticker that can be placed directly on the screen. It adds more customization and it keeps the screen from being scratched. They can usually be purchased in malls where they sell cell phone accessories for less than $10. The reception and signal strength are both excellent. I don't have to extend the antenna all the way, although, Motorola suggest that you do so. But again, this varies with your service provider and the topography, but I'm happy with my Verizon Wireless serivce here in the Baltimore/Washington area. This is a good thing because when the antenna is extended, it's very flimsy and could be bent/damaged somewhat easily. I also like the fact that the standby time is long on this phone. It can be on standby for 3-5 days, depending of course, on how much talktime you've done: it's inversely proportionate...the more you talk, the less standby time. Motorola has also learned that people are individuals and they like to customize their phone to fit their personalities. I'm happy that Motorola has finally included ring tones similar to that of Nokia phones. However, you can't download additional ringtones as this is a feature of TDMA phones. I believe that additional ringtones can changed via software upgrades. In addition, you can purchase different color soft and hard wraps to customize the color of you phone. They simply snap or wrap around the front of the phone depening if you choose the soft or hard wrap. Other accessories that you can purchase are: headsets, holster, carrying case, desktop/car chargers, handsfree speakerphone adapter and other bundled accessories...all at Motorola's website @ http://www.motorola.com The voice-activated dialing is a lifesaver especially if you're driving. By pressing just one button you can dial a phone number without having to mess with your phone since we all need to concentrate on the road instead of our cell phones. To sum up this long review...I do like the phone. The price vs features keeps this phone accessible to the public and you get the same features as more expensive phones that are out there on the market. It's not the smallest but it's a true portable and its features alone can very well compensate for that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 87624 2000/5/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size good performance reception user friendly weight none to speak of The Bottom LineThe V120c is a feature-packed, small powerhouse of a phone that is customizable and pleasing to the average user. Sensible and flashy. Full Review OK, I switched again. As a previous Motorola wireless phone user (see my review on the StarTac 7868) I have come to depend on the reliability and quality of Motorola wireless. I bought the V120 for my wife, adding a second line to a Verizon wireless plan. As it turned out, she liked my StarTac better for some reason, and after playing around with the V120 for a while, I decided I liked the sleek, compact new phone better than the StarTac, so we switched. The V120 lives up to the high standard set by Motorola and offers all kinds of little extras not found in my StarTac. Let's get into them. The first and most superficial reason I like this phone (call me shallow) is the wide selection of ringtones. Also, there is a REALLY COOL power-up/power-down graphic with sound that really impressed me. There are 32 distinctive ring tones (really cool ones, versus 9 boring rings on the StarTac), and I am able to define a separate ring tone for calls, text messages, data calls, fax calls, voice mail alert, and reminders) which is a great improvement over the simple "beeps" on the StarTac. Also, there is a variety of vibrate patterns that can be chosen instead of just "vibrate". Also, the ability to program your own ringtones is available so you can program your favorite song as a ringtone. The size of the V120 is impressive...4.5 oz with battery. It's so light and small that it will easily fit in the front pocket of khakis or cargo pocket of denim shorts, without your constant awareness of its location. The one thing I loved about my StarTac was the secure holster, something that did not come with the V120. Initially I was very skeptical of this, as I always have my phone clipped to me and move around a lot. However, with the help of my local Verizon store, I selected a 9.99 clip that actually pops into a hole in the back of the phone (you must remove a rubber stopper before attempting this). The clip is very secure and it's very easy to remove the phone with one hand when you need to use the phone. The phone also swivels on the clip, unlike the StarTac, which remained in the same position (resulting in the antenna bending constantly). I am actually happier with the new clip than with the StarTac's bulky and inflexible holster. The V120's display is small (of course, given it's size) but there is never an issue with it being too small for what you're trying to do. Unlike the StarTac, I can fit large names on the screen (like speed dial names) without having to break it up into multiple screens when viewing it. It is visually pleasing and offers menu animation if you wish. This feature made me dizzy so I disabled it. During my inspection of the phone, I was delighted to discover Voice Activated Dialing. This is a WONDERFUL feature because you don't have to distract yourself from whatever you're doing... driving, walking, whatever... to dial the phone. It has proven to be very accurate and is simple to set up -- when defining a phone book entry, you are given the opportunity to set up a voice dial for that number. If you choose to do so, you are prompted to record the name twice, without pressing any buttons. I was particularly impressed with the simplicity of the voice dial setup. Text messaging is something I've gotten into lately, as my wife's StarTac is two-way messaging capable. An option for text messaging is iTAP, which is a system that guesses what you're trying to spell out and gives you several options. With iTAP enabled, your text entry is supposed to be assisted with this feature. I tried it, but promptly turned it back off -- none of the options I was given remotely matched the word I was trying to spell. Maybe I try to use too many personalized words? The V120 is microbrowser enabled and ready, but as I do not subscribe to the service, I am unable to give you a review on this feature. I can tell you that accessing the browser is not difficult. Speaking of accessing features, another thing I love is that you can customize the order of the main menu, so that the features you use most can be moved to the top of the list and the features you seldom used moved to the bottom. An English-speaker like me doesn't need to change the display to Spanish, Portuguese, or French, but the ability is there if you wish to do so. The V120 offers 180 hours of digital standby time (compared with 120 with the StarTac) and 180 minutes of talk time (same as the StarTac). The phonebook offers space to store 400 numbers (versus 99 on the StarTac), so it will be a very long time before I fill the phone book (if it ever happens). Reception is about the same as the StarTac, with clear reception and few dropped calls (depending on your area). I do not see a noticeable difference between the two phones in this area. I wasn't unhappy with my StarTac, but after seeing what I missed, I love having a solid, dependable phone that is also aesthetically pleasing and appeals to the "toy-lover" in me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87623 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 better looking than a nokia doesn t always get great reception The Bottom LineReliable & cheap, user friendly; good phone with enough functions, without a lot of frills. Full Review I have been a long time fan of Motorola, having one of those big Godzilla flip phones in the mid-90's and finally upgrading to a (now somewhat outdated) StarTac. When I had to buy a new phone for work, I went with the V120c, an apparently cheaper model than other phones my carrier had to offer, but with plenty of features that I needed. This web-enabled tri-band phone has been by my side for the past 7 months and has yet to (totally) let me down. I use over 2000 minutes a month and so far, has really put up with a beating from my purse, pocket and car floor. It has been dropped on concrete several times, been in cold and hot weather and as far as functionality goes, I have had no problems with it. To date, I have used over 205 hours of talk time and the phone is never turned off (although sometimes I'd like it to be). The Battery As I just mentioned, my phone has rarely been turned off for over half a year. I find that most of the time I charge the battery in my car. The charger that I have does not fit very well into the cigarette lighter and is constantly coming out, but nonetheless, the battery still maintains it's original life-span. It is on rare occasions that I remember to charge my phone overnight and let it completely charge. However, I am still able to get at least 3 hours of talk time before the battery completely dies, although I usually charge it for less than an hour at a time and have only had the battery die on me once. The standby time is great, I could not charge this phone all week and it would still be good. The only issue that I have with the charging/battery is when I plug the phone in, the battery icon goes down to one bar and when I unplug it, even if the phone was only charged for 15 minutes, the bars show completely charged. The battery meter is not totally reliable in this aspect, so be forewarned. Features Rings: Different rings can be set for different types of calls/messages: Incoming Calls Text Messages Voicemail Data Calls Fax Calls There are 25 different ring tones that can be chosen, including classic/regular rings as well as musical tunes. There are also different vibrate options- the length and frequency of vibrations. I am partial to the classic ring and thank my lucky stars that it does NOT have that irritating Nokia ring (which is the real reason that I can't stand Nokia phones, you know what I'm talking about) There is also a voice notes option to record quick "note to self" memos, as well as a voice-dial option, which I find very handy, being out on the road all the time. It is also easy to program and easy to use. There are no games on this phone, not that I would be able to figure out how to play them anyway, but I know that is a plus for some. Sorry. There are two shortcut keys that can be changed to suit your needs. I like to have my phone book and message center options handy, as I don't really use any other features too often, except to put my phone on Vib. or silent mode if necessary. The Cons There are a couple things that I don't like about this phone. First, is the battery meter, as I mentioned above. Second, is the list of the last ten calls made. By hitting the send key, it will pull up the last ten calls that I made. Not the last ten numbers like my StarTac. This is a problem if I call my mother and redial 10 times, only her number shows up, instead of a list of recently dialed numbers, which would be much more useful to me than to know how many times I called my mom. And thirdly, the reception. I had heard that there were issues sometimes with reception and instead of listening as I should have, I regretfully ignored all suggestions given to me to get a different phone (well kind of, I mean, I don't regret getting this phone, just at times of bad reception...) I live in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area and sometimes have trouble to get calls to go through when I am sitting at home. I can understand being out in the middle of nowhere, but I should have no problems where I live. I know this because my neighbor has the same cell phone company and never has any reception issues. But, to give the V120c a little credit, I have been able to use it in some elevators, go figure. Overall This phone is a tough bugger and has lived up to my expectations. A cell phone is a cell phone, we can't expect them to work all the time, everywhere and anywhere. Although I prefer a flip phone myself, this girl does the job. Considering I didn't spend a fortune on it, I am very satisfied with what it does have to offer, and it's cuter than a Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 87622 2005/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great size durable phone lightweight flimsy antenna which has already broken on mine The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to the active person. The antenna is flimsy and may break, but that didn't stop mine! Full Review Why I have one I purchased this phone 16 months ago for my own personal use. I bought this when I signed up with Verizon Wireless, and I really enjoyed this phone except for a few things which you will see below. Since this time, my company has bought me a cell and this has become my wife's cell. She absolutely loves it! The good Now that you know why I have one, I will tell you that I love this phone. There are so many neat features on it, I will try to list what all I like here. First and foremost, it feels like a sturdy little phone that you can knock around, leave in your pocket, etc. and not worry about breaking it. I wear painter or cargo type jeans frequently, and it fits very nicely into the side pocket on these. The only issue I have had with this durability and this phone is the antenna, which I will write more on later. If it were not for the antenna, I would have given it a 5 in durability. As I said, in comparison to the other phones I have had, this one is the most durable I have had! I really like the address book function. You can add contacts in fairly easily and text looks very appealing. It is easy to pull up a contact while distracted and call them on the fly! Also of note is the voice dialing. You can program in several numbers with voice recognition software, and then at a later time simply press the button on the side of the phone and speak the name. For instance, while driving home, I can push the button, say "home" and the phone will automatically dial. Other than while driving I do not see this as being very useful, as the menu system is not so hard to navigate that you couldn't very easily find the number. It is very handy while driving, however! The relative size and shape of the 120C is very attractive. It appears that Motorola recognized they were getting beat by Nokia for the non-flip phones and set out to make a better one. This is definitely it! My wife and I really like the size and feel of this phone! The battery lasts and lasts. This is a tri-mode phone which means that you can use either digital or analog. Warning: if you are in an analog area, the battery will not last very long! This is a problem with all cells, though, and not specific to this phone. With a full charge and digital service, I have anywhere from 2-3 hours of talk time. The phone retains a charge if left on all the time but not talked on much for up to five days. The bad I bought a leather carrying case with belt strap for ease of use. However, once I had this around the phone, my charger would not work. The leather case was thick enough that it would not allow the charger contacts to make contact. This makes it very inconvenient as you have to take it out of the leather case every time you need to charge it. Not the end of the world, but an inconvenience no less. The voice recognition has a hard time recognizing your inputs in loud cars. As I said above, I do not know why you would need this feature if not for the car, and in the car it has a hard time picking up what you are saying. This makes it limited in its usefulness. However, if your car is nice and quiet, you have no worries! The antenna, as I said before, is the only major downfall of this phone. I had mine broken within the first two months. This is not easy to fix as is the case with my new phone, the i-60C.(see review ) However, I have used this phone with no antenna for over 12 months since and have had no bad reception, etc. I have seen some that say this menu system is not easy to navigate. I must have had mine too long, because it is easy for me to use it now and I do not remember having difficulties with it at first. Maybe I have not had an 'easy' one yet to compare it to! The bottom line This is a very good, sturdy phone that I would recommend to almost anyone. I would utilize this with the family share plan, if I had a family reason to own one yet. I would recommend this for people of all ages, as I think it is relatively easy to setup and use, and with the handsfree add ons, you can utilize it safely while driving your own car. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 introRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87621 2001/8/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing small size many extra features long battery life antenna should be sturdier The Bottom LineThe convenient features of voice activated dialing, huge phonebook, and small size make this a great buy! Full Review I never dreamed a new cell phone could be so much fun! For years I had a car-installed LARGE Audiovox phone. It was powerful with 3 watts, and handy by my side, but when I needed to call I had to be IN my car...duh! With the phenomenal calling plans offered by cellular phone systems now, it is wiser to make long distance calls from a cell phone. Last winter however I got a little cold sitting in my driveway using my phone. I was waiting for a very good plan, and great little phone I could be happy with. In the Motorola 120c I have found myself a new toy. Half the fun was programming it. At $70.00 it is a very reasonably priced cell phone, considering it has many features. I actually got a discount by signing up for a new plan with VerizonWireless,and purchased the phone for $50.00. It is well-worth it. The package included a home charger. I have been amazed that the charge is lasting at least five days, and longer if not used as much. If you plug it up at night, you won't miss it anyway while it is on charge status. This little phone is a handy palm-size with a retractable antenna. I haven't had to even pull up the antenna much, as it works fine most of the time without using it in the extended mode. The best feature is the voice-activated dialing. You can store up to 20 names. You program the number in, and then record the person's name the way you will say it each time. You can even use nicknames. Just be sure you say the name the same way each time or it won't recognize your voice. Then to use that feature to dial for you, you just have to push the button on the right side of the phone and say the name into the mouthpiece. Voila! The phone repeats the name back to you, and then dials it. It is the greatest, especially if you are in a hurry to call someone on your list. This phone has a huge phonebook storage capability. It can store up to 400 entries! I don't know anyone who would take the time to put that many in there, but it is possible. I sure wouldn't want to remember 400 phone numbers, so in that regards it could be very handy. You can call any of those numbers by going to the phonebook from the menu button on the front of the phone, or you can dial #'s 2 through 9 using one-touch dialing. Another "cutesy" feature of this phone is the alert system for your calls. There are 32 possible alerts available ranging from just vibration to the funkiest music you ever heard. You can program different alerts for various events. I am using "Canon in D" as my call alert. It is really fun to hear it playing when a call comes in, while it vibrates at the same time. This phone is wireless browser capable. It came with three months free internet service, but Verizon doesn't have it available here yet. They said when they do, I will have the three months THEN. The screen is large enough to show a limited amount of information but certainly not enough to make internet service much of a value to me after the three months free. It will only show text information anyway. Motorola 120c also is capable of sending text messages to another such phone. It will cost on your monthly bill to send them, at 10 cents a pop, and I think 3 cents to receive. I wanted a leather case with mine. Since this is a relatively new model, the cases were later coming in. I am very pleased with the snug fit of the case. It has a clear plastic cover for the screen to protect it from smudges. The case has holes strategically placed for all the buttons that the phone has. I also bought a headset to use the phone in the car "hands free". I had a hands-free phone with my installed Audiovox, and would not feel safe holding my phone and driving at the same time. Available also are colorful phone wraps. They are soft rubbery plastic in neon colors. A package of three is $19.99 around here. I didn't not buy those. I paid $19.99 for my leather case, but it also came with a belt clip. When I got the phone I was told to let the battery run all the way down and then charge it. It was only partially charged from the factory. I let it go completely dead, then charged it all night. I have been very pleased with the length of the charges since then. The reception is exceptional. The lady in the cell phone store said she has had several different brands and she preferred Motorola, and this 120c in particular she really liked. The keyboard has a locking feature which I like when I carry it in my purse. The many features on this phone make it an outstanding bargain in a compact little package. I thought it would be hard to program all the little extras, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was! It was even fun to then test the phone numbers that I entered in the voice-activation and tell the people...."I just said your name and my phone dialed your number!" I continue to make my long distance calls from my cell phone, in fact I haven't had a long distance call on my land-line phone in months. I foresee sometime in the future not even having a land-line phone. These are just TOO much fun! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 87620 2003/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception small cool looking sturdy lightweight a confusing menu systeman antenna that is pretty flimsy The Bottom LineA great knock around phone that you will be able to bring anywhere and put anywhere, that gets great reception and has some cool features Full Review What can you say about the Motorola V120c without sounding like you are blabbering about it? The phone is quite small, sturdy and has good reception. The only drawbacks are the somewhat flimsy antenna and the confusing menu system. But the antenna problem can be solved by being careful (or using some well placed duct tape) and the menu system, once you figure out what is where, isn't all that hard to navigate. I have had this phone for almost a year now, as I got it when I renewed my cell phone contract with Verizon Wireless and signed up for their family share plan. As part of the deal, I paid $39.99 for the phone and received a second one for free, which my partner has. Thus we both have the same phone, but different colors. The phone comes in two different colors, black and blue. Black is pretty plain with a checkerboard type pattern on the faceplate and the blue, while blue, is quite light. When the salesperson asked what color I wanted, I immediately said blue thinking that it would be your basic blue, but it turned out to be this very light sky blue. So I ended up with the sky blue phone and my partner got the black one (I wish it has been the other way around). But color isn't everything. Neither of us has had much trouble with the phone. I find that it gets better reception than my older phone (check out my review of that phone here - ) and it is quite a bit sturdier than any phone I have had before. The basic design keeps everything on the phone together in one handset (no flip-ups here) and that is good for people who take their phone everywhere. I throw it in my carry-on bag ever morning on the way to work, toss it around my car all the time, and take it hiking by throwing it in my pack. Other than a few scratches, I haven't had any problems with it. For those of you putting it in your pocket or otherwise knocking it around, pressing the "menu" key and then the "*" puts the phone into key lock and prevents you accidentally dialing a number and calling. To get back out of key lock just press "menu" and "*" again. I won't go into too many technical specs, but the phone is a tri-mode phone, working on both digital and analog systems and offers caller ID, one touch dialing, voice activated dialing, a phone book feature, web browsing and more. Take a moment to flip through the manual to find out everything the phone can do. Which brings me to one problem that I have had with the phone. Other than the most basic functions (phone book access and voice mail calling), setting up other features on the phone can be quite confusing and frustrating as the menu system that the phone has is not all that user friendly. Most commands often take several keystrokes and are buried in sub-menus that you may not expect. Once you get a handle on what is where, you won't have so much trouble, but if you are somewhat distracted and trying to access a command, you might be quite frustrated. The voice activated dialing (once you set up your numbers) is activated by pressing a button on the right side of the phone and speaking the name of the number you want to call ("home" for example). This feature is quite handy when you are driving or have your hands tied up and don't want to bother dialing the number. The other minus on the phone is the antenna. When not in use, the antenna retracts and just the stub sticks out. When in use with the antenna extended, a thin stiff wire is exposed between the top stub and the phone itself. It's this thin wire that is fairly weak and prone to breakage. The Verizon salesperson actually told me this when I was looking at the phone and said that quite a few phones are returned because the antenna breaks. For me, I have found that the antenna does not need to be extended for most phone calls, unless you have poor reception. This helps in not breaking it. Otherwise, I have reinforced the antenna wire with a small amount of duct tape, just to be on the safe side. Talk time runs several hours on a single charge and if you don't use the phone, the charge will last about 2 and a half days (until you won't be able to have enough charge to make a call). The charger comes with the phone and plugs into the bottom. Plugging the charger into the phone can be a bit tough if you are rushing, as it is off to the side of an existing plug - so you make sure not to force the charger in, otherwise you could damage the phone and make the charger inoperable. After you plug it in, make sure that the phone says "charging" and that the little battery symbol is flashing, that means you are charging. Bottom line, would I recommend it? Yes. It's a great knock around cell phone that you won't have to worry about losing (because it's not that small), will be able to bring anywhere and put anywhere (because it's not that big), that gets great reception and has some cool features. Just watch the antenna and learn the menu system quickly. ---- Other cell phones that I have reviewed on Epinions: LG VX4400 - Nokia 5180 - Audiovox CDM135 - Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 (for2) 87619 2000/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small compact maybe a little too smallcompact The Bottom LineWhat you were actually expecting a legitimate brief concise electronics review from moi. Full Review I don't know about you but I love pay days. Every second Thursday the boss or one of her minions pops by my gerbil cubicle and deposits that little buff envelop like manna from heaven. It's not that there's a cheque in there. I'm on direct deposit, so I'm usually standing outside an ATM at midnight the night before to grab the funds the second they're deposited. It's what's in there, aside from the depressing information slip showing how much I was gouged in taxes that is what I wait for. Every now and then there's some sort of junk mail insert. These are a little break in the day. Somewhere in the faceless corporation someone has paid off the payroll staff to insert these little gems to make my day. There are ads for diet aids, travel deals, and most of all cell phones. It seems that for a period there all I was getting were ads on how my life was not complete without a cell phone and a great package deal on air time. I guess my life was deprived then because I never checked out one of those deals. The better half must have also got those inserts in her pay at her workplace too. Last December she began that oh so subtle hinting as to what I wanted for Christmas. Obviously she hadn't picked up on my less than subtle hints for an exclusive VIP club card at Hooters. Eventually she kept on and on about how good it would be if I had a cell phone. Come Christmas morning, surprise, surprise guess what "Santa" brought me. For those who haven't figured out that this is not a review of Hooters, yes it was a spanking new cell phone. Actually it wasn't the phone that was the real present. That was a two-year contract with Bell Mobility. The phone was an added "free bonus."The real cost of the "gift" became evident the next month. She'd had to give my credit card number to arrange for the activation. The plan of course stated that for $20.00 a month I would have 200 free minutes a month plus unlimited evening and weekend minutes. There were also the standard bells and whistles thrown in too like call display, and voice mail. Naturally I was shocked when the first bill showed up for more than $70.00 a month later. It appears that the insert she'd used to order it had neglected to mention the one time activation fee. No big deal, especially as the phone was in my name and therefore the bill came to guess who. Merry Christmas, well as they say it's the thought that counts right. Actually she was mortified by the bill and offered to pay it, well half anyway. Gallant idiot that I was I declined to take her up on her offer. Besides by then I was becoming used to the damn thing, and actually starting to like it. About the same time as the bill arrived, the real reason for her "buying" it for me became apparent. You've all heard of the booty call right. I never got any of those. Allow me to introduce you another similar type of call, the annoyance call. I swear she'd call, ask what I was doing and where I was and then hang up. Of course until I got used to the stupid thing it took a couple of seconds to respond. She even admitted that these calls were just to bug me. I considered "accidentally" leaving the phone off to avoid these, but after doing that once, I was strongly advised never to do so again. Besides the phone's design does not easily allow for that move. With that in mind I guess we should actually get to the phone in question. As the section suggests, this is/was the Motorola V120C. Now bear in mind this is the first, well first and second as you'll see, cell phone I've ever owned. Therefore bear with me as we go over the technical aspects. Actually go read another review if that's what you're looking for. Remember I'm one of the technical Amish. First of all this particular phone is literally loaded with gadgets and features. I know this because there was large detailed instruction book full of all the details on this. Some day when I graduate from NASA I'll actually be able to understand and program most of this stuff. Either that or I'll get one of my new 12 year old nephews to do it. After he fixes the clock on my VCR that is. Features that I actually understand and use includes the standard ones, such as voice mail, call display, and call memory. There is also speed dial, last call display, and a phone book to store important numbers. A security measure can be used for those who want to feel important or maybe have a legitimate reason to "lock" their phones Features that I do basically understand but have been too lazy to set up yet include personalised rings, including a silent mode that vibrates rather than rings. This I understand is great if you carry your phone in the front pocket of your jeans. One can also identify the various numbers one stores as either home or work numbers. A cute little picture of a house or some factory shows besides the number. I'm not quite clear what you're supposed to do if the person who's number you want to store doesn't work at a factory. There is even a voice activation feature for those too lazy to push the single key to dial a number. With this all you have to do is whisper the key word or name and the phone dials it for you. I can see certain advantages to this, but certain embarrassing social situations as well, so I have yet to venture there. Besides it looks too complicated to set up. The phone also has a browser feature that allows text messaging and Internet connection. You can even access certain radio stations. Naturally to access these features your ISP needs to be the same as your mobile phone service. Mine isn't, so I have no idea how well these features work. Although Bell can provide digital cell service to me, they haven't got around to providing high speed Internet service to my apartment building in the wilds of downtown Toronto. Incidentally even though I cannot access this feature there is nothing to prevent me from being billed for it. For some reason I have managed to accidentally hit the necessary combination of keys and buttons to activate my browser and more than once. It doesn't really do anything aside from add to my bill every month. On average this little design flaw is costing me between $5.00 and $8.00 per month. There is nothing I can do about it. The feature cannot be disabled, at least I'm not able to and the buttons are easily depressed by simply being brushed against. Incidentally these are the only buttons that can be hit by casual contact. The on/off button is recessed into the housing and requires considerable effort to depress. Remember I've tried to accidentally turn it off on more than one occasion. The phone itself is quite compact. A simple black plastic design barely 5 inches long, and an inch and a half wide. For those of you fashion conscious types, it is also available in electric blue and red. If that doesn't do it then one can always buy a whole series of designer face plates in various colours and designs. The phone is quite rugged too. I've dropped it enough times to confirm this. The control buttons are as I noted easy to use, perhaps too easy. The screen is tiny but sufficient to list most features and numbers. The scroll features are relatively simple to use and can even be mastered by someone like me without resorting to the instruction booklet. Both screen and buttons of course light up with an annoying fluorescent green light at night. It's enough to really draw attention to the phone but barely enough to use it. There is a small antenna. It extends about an inch from the top of the phone and telescopes out to about two inches. It is rather fragile aside from the one inch enclosed in plastic. There is of course a whole range of accessories available. The original package included a battery, easily installed, an AC charger and a belt clip. The charger is of course a useful item but the belt clip serves only one purpose. It makes you go back to the store and buy a custom leather phone case, as it is basically a useless piece of plastic. You really don't need a carrying case because as I said the damn thing is so tiny that it can easily fit in a pants or shirt pocket. This of course though ensures certain buttons are depressed. I soon realised that it was cheaper to shell out $20.00 for a leather carrying case than pay the browser fees each and every month. I did refrain from buying all the other gadgets available. One of these is of course the hand's free headset option. To be honest the first time I saw someone using one of these it threw me. All I saw was someone wandering down the street carrying on what appeared to be a very animated conversation with themselves. Naturally I presumed they were crazy as hell and crossed the street to avoid them. There are enough people that already think I'm crazy so I don't need to give them another excuse. The hand's free headset is not something I'll be getting soon. Like I said, the whole unit is tiny. Just how tiny became obvious last Easter. I'd returned from Panama and 30 degrees plus Celsius weather to Toronto and freezing rain. My first day back at work and I was already cold wet and miserable. After work I decide to splurge and grab a cab home instead of walking or taking the subway. I grabbed a cab and me, my briefcase, and trusty cell phone all jumped in. My trusty briefcase and I jumped out a few minutes later in front of my apartment building. It was only after I was upstairs and starting to dry off that I noticed something was missing. I'd reached for my phone to hook it up to the charger and . . . nothing, nada. It took me a couple of minutes of frantic searching among my sodden clothes before I realised it must have fallen off in the cab. The case was of course still attached to my belt. I was quickly reminded of a lesson I'd learned years ago. Velcro does not work when its wet.* Naturally I couldn't remember which cab company I'd used. Calling all of them and asking for the dark blue one by the way is an exercise in futility. I tried calling my cell number in the hope that the driver or whoever picked up the phone would answer and be honest enough to return it. It was nice to discover that the voice mail feature I was paying for worked. I was no left to rely on the honesty of my fellow Torontonians to return it. I'd put a return address label with my name and address on the back of the phone after I got it. I know my fellow citizens though so I seriously doubted I'd ever see it again. The next call I made was to bell mobility to advise them the phone was lost. They immediately disconnected the number. The last thing I needed was a series of long distance charges or 1-900 charges appearing on my bill next month. Bell Mobility also advised me that rather than completely cancel my number I could keep it and be only billed a mere $7.00 a month for the privilege of having it but not using it Considering this was cheaper than paying the penalty to get out of my two-year contract, and it may take some time to replace the phone, I went for this. Besides I'd just had a new series of business cards with my cell number on them. I checked with my apartment insurance and yes stupidly leaving my cell phone in a cab was actually covered. One of these days I really have to sit down and read that policy through cover to cover. Naturally though there was a $250.00 deductible on the policy. The phone it turns out retails for $140.00. My VISA Gold card is always claiming in there little inserts with the monthly bills how many extra services and privileges I enjoy because of the colour of the card and the annual fee. A quick call to their customer service department confirmed that I was in their terminology SOL. Technically I had not purchased the phone with my VISA, but the service contract. The phone was a free gift. Any ways it was more than ninety days since I had purchased that. Actually ninety-two days had gone by. Thanks VISA I'll remember that next year when it comes to time to renew my card and Master card starts sending me their offers again. I decided to give it a week or so before going out and getting another phone. Maybe some bugger would decide to turn it in, after trying to use it and realising it didn't work. Yeah right, about now it's probably being used by a free lance recreational pharmaceuticals salesman to discuss his "import" problems. Up until then it was not a necessity. Before getting one I used to look down at cell phone people as worthless yuppie scum. Then I became one of them. Annoyance calls aside it was just a convenience, a toy, and yes God help me a status symbol. One night in a bar I even took it out and laid it on the bar beside my cigar case and lighter. Then I looked down the bar and noticed all the other cell phones laying there. Sheepishly I shoved mine back into the case on my belt. About a week after this though I lost my main home phone service due to a mix up between Bell Canada and Sprint. While the two of those multi nationals spent a week playing "it's not my fault it's the other guys" I was without any phone service. I soon discovered just how essential a telephone is these days. (The full details of this sordid little tale may be found at for the literary masochists amongst you.) After one evening of this I was over at the Bell Mobility store VISA card in hand. My options I was advised were I could buy a new phone and have my service restored or cancel my old service and then start all over again. It would cost me $75.00 to cancel my old contract. Then of course I would have to pay the activation fees all over again and be assigned a new telephone number. I opted for plan B, and just bought a new phone. Naturally I bought the same model. At the cash counter my VISA became $140.00 plus lighter and after a few minutes of tooling around with her computer the perky sales rep told me my "new" phone was now activated. Then came the good news. My first bill would of course include the $7.00 fee for having my service held for the month, plus the normal $20.00 for service for that month as per the contract. I tried pointing out the apparent absurdity of that to the perky one, absurd obviously to everyone but Bell Canada and its employees. Then came the bad news. I was now on the hook for a reactivation and service improvement fee of $70.00. This would also appear on my next bill. Being the idiot I am I naturally asked what type of service improvement I would be seeing. None Ms. Perky advised me, that was just the name of the charge. On the bright side I now had a second charger, useless belt clip thingy and instruction book. Actually I now had four instruction books in total, two in English and two in French. Naturally I didn't want to go through all this again. Leaving the damn phone at home was an option but it kind of defeated the whole idea of a mobile phone. I began looking for a new case but to date gave yet to find anything that works. I have got a nice collection of useless cheap ones if anyone is interested. I tried carrying the phone in my waist belt pouch (fanny pack) but this really doesn't work. First of all I can't hear the ringer from inside the nylon pouch. Someone still finds the annoyance calls an amusing way to pass the day and gets upset if I don't pick up. Besides if I decide to shove something else in the pack, like my cigar case it inevitably pushes up against the phone and you guessed it pushes the buttons that activate the browser. On the plus side I'm down to less than $5,00 extra a month on average now. I tried duck taping it to my left hand. This however ensures that I get even more strange looks than if I was using the hands free head set. It is also rather hard to read the screen and push the buttons, those that activate the browser aside. Basically I've left it on my belt and just continually check it. I'm easy to spot walking around Toronto. I'm the one with one hand on his belt looking like I'm about to draw down on someone. I've got to meet a lot more of our local enforcement officers than I really wanted to lately. Last week I was running late and grabbed a cab into work. I jumped out in front of my office and just by reflex looked down. There on my belt was my phone case, empty. Fortunately the cab was stopped at the light. I dashed into traffic and yanked open the back door. There on the back seat was my phone. * In 1964 the Canadian Army designed new web gear for its soldiers, the first new design since the Korean War. The new design which stayed in the system until its replacement in 1988 used a lot of velcro. All the ammunition pouches, water bottles etc. were attached to the belt with velcro closures. The shoulder harness or yolk was also attached this way. The waist belt itself was also closed with velcro. This new modern design was of course designed to make easier for the poor soldier replacing the antiquated hook and eyelet design. Naturally the arm chair Generals and bureaucrats that designed it had never been in the field. The neat thing about velcro was that when it gets wet it stops working and becomes basically useless. Soldiers not being made of sugar are sometimes required to train and work when it is wet out. One of the joys of my earliest days in the Army circa 1977 was watching groups of soldiers running through the rain sodden fields. With each step another piece of our equipment would go flying off of our belts. Fortunately we soon discovered the most useful of a soldiers tools, duct tape. Mind it's kind of embarrassing showing up to play with the other NATO countries with all our gear held together with tape. Almost as bad as having the wrong kind of camouflage uniforms when you're sent to war I guess. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2x140.00Cdn 87618 2000/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 features no unexpected disconnects clear reception difficult menu system to figure out initially The Bottom LineThis phone is not likely to disappoint you. Full Review I have been shopping around for a new cellular service as I needed to add a couple of more phones to my plan and my current plan wasn't being terribly cooperative on letting me do that without me having to spend an exorbitant amount of money. I was watching television one night and happened to catch a Radio Shack commercial in which they were talking about the Verizon Family Share Plan. It sounded interesting, so the next day when I was running errands I pulled into the Radio Shack parking lot and went inside. I talked to the sales rep and after a few long moments of deliberation decided to go ahead with the program. It was reasonably priced at $35 a month for the first line and $20 a month for each additional line. I wanted three phones so that my significant other and I could keep in contact with my newly-licensed sixteen-year-old daughter, and this was the best plan I was able to find. That is another review, however, so I will move on to the Motorola Digital Wireless Telephone Model V.120c. I actually had a choice of several different phones, but I was drawn to the Motorola. Every experience I have ever had with a Motorola product has been a good one. We use Motorola Talk-About Radios to keep in touch on caravan car trips as well as on multiple boat fishing expeditions with friends and I have yet to have a negative experience. That fact in mind, the Motorola V.120c was the phone I selected. These weren't the "free" or 1 penny phones, but I figured that paying $29.95 a piece was not a bad deal considering the brand. Radio Shack did not have a "regular" price listed for these phones, so I am not sure if $29.95 is the standard going rate or not. Things I Like The Motorola V.120c has a nice variety of features to play with. These features are reached through the "menu" system, which does make sense after you play with it for a little while. Some of the features include text messages, changing the ring from silent to vibrate to sound, activating a micro-browser session, phonebook where you can input your favorite numbers, voice-activated calling (you program the person's name into the phone by saying it and then after that you can simply say the name and the phone will dial for you) and checking voicemail. My favorite feature? At this point it is being able to access my own phone number. Even after a little while I am still having trouble remembering my own phone number (does that mean I'm getting old?) and I can zip through the menu and find it in a couple of seconds if I need to give it to someone and can't remember it at the time. Display The display area of this phone is easy to read, which matters a great deal to me. My first phone was hard to figure out regarding the display, and I was never quite sure what I was looking at. Once I spent some time figuring out the Motorola, however, I was quite pleased. It is logically oriented with the amount of battery charge available and the signal strength visible and easy to see. The date is displayed in the center of the phone, another handy feature. Reception Having graduated from my Voicestream plan to this one, I am very pleased with the reception my Motorola phone gets. There is occasionally initial difficulty in getting the phone properly positioned in the ear, but on the whole the reception of this telephone is excellent. I have only experience a couple of situations where the phone faded in and out. This is very important to me, as I find few things more frustrating than talking on the phone and getting bad reception. I also have not found any areas thus far where I lost my service with this phone. Now, I have heard people say that the problem is the service and not the actual phone, but I know that when I upgraded my previous plan from my first phone to a higher quality one my service area improved. Manual The manual that came with my Motorola phone is very user-friendly. By this I mean that it is logically organized and easy to understand. It is small enough to fit in your purse if you want to keep it handy for those occasional times when you need to look something up yet packed with information at the same time. Negatives Even though I like this phone, there are some negative aspects. Primarily, I seriously dislike the charging system. Rather than a standard plug (like one would generally find on a small battery-operated appliance) it has the one with the small prongs. With my first phone I found that the small prongs bent easily, seriously impacting the charging ability of the phone. I am hoping that the Motorola is higher quality in this area, but I would rather have a standard charger plug. You also have to remember to push a button to release the charger from the phone, and I am guessing that one too many times of simply pulling it free without pushing the button could cause some serious damage to the charging unit. Not a good scenario. Charge for Accessories Now granted I was at Radio Shack, and their prices are often higher than other people's. Still, it amazed me that pretty much every accessory that could be purchased for this phone had the same standard price; $29.95. Considering that this is the same price the phone goes for, I was a bit irritated. Shouldn't the accessories be less expensive than the phone? Final Assessment I am quite pleased with the Motorola phone, and envision us using them for a long time to come. All things considered, I think I made a good financial decision by deciding to go with these phones; they are efficient and a lot of fun all at the same time. Check this phone out if you are considering changing your cellular plan; you might find you fall in love with it at first sight. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.95 87617 2003/6/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive lightweight stylish design digital easy to carry a bit difficult to plug charger into almost too small in size The Bottom LineOnce you decide its finally time to graduate to a much newer cell phone with up-to-date features, consider giving the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone a shot. Full Review Last May, my very LONG three year contract with Cellular One (now Verizon Wireless here in my area of the country) finally ran out, so I canceled my service ASAP. Since I used my old cell phone primarily for emergencies and to make an occasional call home when out of the house, I was in no hurry to replace my old service as I certainly did not use mine more than a few times a week if that. So once Cellular One became Verizon Wireless in late July 2002 here in East Tennessee, I decided it was time to sign up again as my 12 year old car wasn't getting any newer and driving home at midnight from work without a cell phone can be downright dangerous these days. I was definitely pressing my luck driving 70 plus miles per day round trip back and forth to work and my husband was getting nervous, so I finally gave in. My old Nokia 918 still worked great before I had my service canceled on it, but I could tell the clerk behind the desk was trying really hard to refrain from laughing at me when I plopped it down onto the counter and asked if it could be used so that I wouldn't have to purchase a new phone. I was informed that they no longer even made batteries for my old model and it was just plain out-of-date. (So now my 2 year old toddler plays with my old phone instead as a toy.) Trying not to feel insulted for my lack of current cell phone knowledge, I asked what types of models were available now that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. One of the more attractive yet less expensive choices was this Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone. It was still quite pricey to me though at $74.95, and that included signing a two year contract as well! But I took the deal and am so thankful I did now as I know its just a matter of time before my new phone gets me out of trouble one dark and late night when driving home from work. ~~~The Digital Wireless Telephone~~~ The Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone is currently a popular model used for Verizon Wireless customers (may also be located at Radio Shack) and can be purchased at a moderate price when signing a 1 to 2 year contract. Measuring a mere 5 inches in length and less than a tiny 2 inches in width, this lightweight phone are sold in two basic colors: black (what I have) and skye (a silver/white color). Many popular features such as Caller-ID, Text Messaging, Built-in Phonebook, Voice Dialing and Voice Mail, just to name a few, are featured on this attractive little phone (see full list of technical specs listed below). The tiny antenna raises and is replaced with ease and the keypad buttons are easy to read and to push. The battery charges quickly in just a few hours and will provide over 3 hours of talk time as well as several days of stand-by time when turned on. Many optional accessories, such as the Motorola Original FM Stereo Radio Headset used to listen to local FM radio stations as desired and colorful Phonewrap Covers (see end of review for full list of choices), may be purchased separately. Featuring a large digital screen and ergonomic design, the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone is certainly a more advanced and up-to-date choice than what I was used to in the past. ~~~Technical Specs~~~ Highlighted features found on the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone are as follows: ***CDMA 800/1900 and analog 800 MHz networks ***Voice Activated Dialing and Feature Recall ***Two-way SMS messaging - allows you to send, receive and store short alphanumeric text messages with another compatible wireless device or email address. ***WAP 1.1 Enabled Microbrowser - access stock prices, local news and sport scores, all wireless! ***Built-In Phonebook - store up to 400 entries to help you stay in touch with friends and contacts. ***32 Distinctive Ring Tones ***VibraCall. alert - to discreetly notify you of incoming calls. ***New Menu Navigation - travel effortlessly through your phone with enhanced visual queues and a list-based menu iTAP™ software for simplified text entry - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes. ***Multi-point Synchronization - using optional Starfish. True Sync. software you can perform multipoint synchronization with compatible PIM manager devices, desktop applications and web based services ***4.5 ounces with standard battery ***6.4 cubic inches ***Custom Styles Setting - allows you to adapt your phone to any environment; office, theater, meeting, automobile, or personal. ***Size of phone with standard battery - 5.0 x 1.7 x 1.1 ***Caller ID - with time and date stamp - allows you to view the phone number (or name, if stored in the user directory) of incoming calls before answering. ***Multi-Language Support - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French. ***Provides up to 270 minutes of talk time when used with high performance battery. ***Provides up to 300 hours of standby time when used with high performance battery. ***Optimax. High Contrast Display ***96 x 64 graphic LED backlit display; up to 3 lines of text, 1 line of icons, and 1 line of prompts. ***Voice Dialing ***Automatic Redial ***Multiple Key Answer ***Numeric Notepad ***One-Touch Dialing ***Speed Dial ***Last 10 Numbers Dialed ***Last 10 calls received or missed ***Phone Book - up to 400 entries ***Battery Meter ***Missed Call Indicator ***Roaming ***Text Message Waiting ***Voice Message Waiting ***Signal Strength Meter (always shown in display) ***Clock ***Menu Indicator ***Digital or Analog Signal Indicator ***Alert Setting Indicator ***Call Restrictions ***Keypad Lock ***Phone Lock ***Application Lock ***New Passwords This technical information was taken from: http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi- bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay? prrfnbr=239601&prmenbr=126&phone_cgrfnbr=1&zipcode= ~~~My Experience~~~ The Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone is definitely the smallest cell phone that I have ever owned. In some ways, it's almost too small as one handed use is always required. No longer can I do the "shoulder to ear" hold while talking so that my hands can be free to do other tasks. But I suppose this is the price we pay for advanced technology. One good thing about this phone's small, lightweight size is that it fits nicely into my purse and takes up minimal space. Only the down side of this would be that I sometimes have a difficult time locating my phone in a hurry inside my purse when its ringing because of the small size. I had to study the owners manual carefully in the beginning as I could not find the "answer" button the first time my new phone rang! With my old model, I could press any key to answer, but not with this one. The ringer's volume could be a bit louder too as I've missed calls while watching my 12 year old daughter cheer at football games as I just couldn't hear it ringing over the noise. My favorite features are the phonebook in which I can store frequently dialed numbers and the ability to change the ringer style when desired (and even produce my own if I were so musically inclined!). Many of the other more advanced features listed above I could truly do without though (and honestly have never even used so far), so perhaps the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone is too much phone for my simplified needs. But I love it, anyway! What can I say? It's a cute phone! Sorry, but no games are included. ~~~Cell Phone Safety Issues~~~ Please use common sense while using the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone as well as any other cell phone, not only in the name of basic courtesy and safety for others, but for your own as well. Always pull over the side of the road to dial a number and pay particular attention to everything going on around you while talking as any form of distraction can lead to an accident with injuries or even tragic fatalities. The safe use of cell phones while driving has become such a serious issue lately that some states are now considering banning their use altogether for this purpose. So talk smart and be considerate. Your fellow (wo)man will thank you. {Rant on} And please pay attention to those "No Cell Phones" signs when you enter the hospital to visit a sick relative or friend because they are there for a very legitimate reason and not for your inconvenience. The signals they transmit sometimes interfere with medical equipment, which could potentially place patients at a dangerous health risk. So compliance here would be greatly appreciated by both the patients and the hospital staff. {Rant off} ~~~Overall Recommendation~~~ If you are looking for a lightweight, attractive cell phone with many of the latest features available at a reasonable price, consider checking out the Motorola V120x Digital Wireless Telephone today. Since purchasing mine, I've seen several Verizon Wireless newspaper ads where customers can actually get two for the price of one now (and much cheaper at $49.99 for BOTH instead of the $74.95 I paid for mine.) Just my luck! But at any rate, great deals can be found out there if you check around and go with the best plan for your particular needs and coverage area. It's technical enough to contain all of the up-to-date added features such as text messaging and voice dialing that many consumers want these days, yet it is very user friendly so that even those of us lacking in many technical skills can operate this phone with ease. So for a super little phone with lots of useful features, check out the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone today. Chances are you will be just as satisfied with your purchase as I have been so far over the past two months. Good luck and remember to be a safe an courteous cell phone user! For more information on the Motorola V120c Digital Wireless Telephone and other similar models, check out their website online at: www.motorola.com Questions or comments? 1-800-331-6456 Or write: Motorola, Inc. 600 North U.S. Highway 45 Libertyville, IL 60048 USA ***Colorful PhoneWrap Covers are available for purchase separately to personalize your phone. Colors to choose from include: Racing Red, Tangerine, Limeade, Bottle Blue, Sea Blue, and Shaved Ice. ***Want to upgrade to a more current model? Check out the following review about the . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This review is part of the I am thankful for.... write-off hosted by remnjava. Here is a complete listing of participants, so please check out their great contributions as well: artbyjude azielinski d_fienberg Granniemose kld718 marytara melissasrn priyatha remnjava Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 74.95 7706 Motorola V600 87714 2005/4/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 metal faceplates expandable memory color external screen bluetooth camera w video edge great earpiece volume performance wise insurance won t cover it very few games or accessories available yet none EDGE Color External screen Camera w/Video Bluetooth Expandable Memory METAL faceplates Well I've only had the V635 for a little over 24hrs so far but it's been great. If you liked the V600 or any other Vxxx Series, you'll love the V635. Motorola has worked out all the quirks, and added a very good 1.2 megapixel camera w/video and Flash, TransFlash memory card slot(up 256mb so far)and a "Search" function to the phonebook, Finally!! I'm using it on Cingular(GSM 850)in the West Tennessee area. It's got great reception,so far I've never had less than 3bars and I live out in the boonies. It's too early to comment on the battery life, but so far it appears to be pretty good, considering I haven't hardly put it down since I got it :) It uses the same chargers, cables, etc as other Vxxx Series phones.(Holster for V400/500 series fits perfect) I DEFINATELY recommend it, especially if your a gadget freak. I go through phones rather fast, I get one, get bored with it, sell it and get another. I think I'll be keeping this one for while. Very few games or accessories available yet. Insurance won't cover it. 87713 2004/11/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid construction not easily broken clarity of calls mp3 ringtones synchronizing of outlook java games buttons on sides get pushed often when making calls or opening phone can t lock them I noticed that most of the things people complain about (phonebook, speakerphone, etc.) can be changed if they'd just read the manual. Yes, it's a novel, but well worth it if you are going to spend the money to purchase this phone with all it's options. I have never had more fun with a phone and people tell us that our phones sound much clearer than any other cell phones they have heard. Lots of fun features, MP3 ringtones, java games and you can even use Mobile Phonetools to synchronize your PC Outlook with your phone's datebook. This phone is also VERY sturdy, I'm not worried about breaking it if it drops. This is a solid phone. My only suggestion is READ THE MANUAL before you decide it's a piece of junk, you'll probably find a solution to the thing that's nagging you. 87712 2004/4/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent sound sharp color display great camera bluetooth useful organizer stylish simple menus battery life I own the 'unlocked' version of the Motorola V600, and so far I can't think of any serious flaws with this phone. It's truly an excellent combination of form & function. It's packed with just about every feature you can think of in a cell phone. I was very impressed by its clear color display. The menus were very intuitive, and easy to navigate. I have hardly ever needed to read the manual. The call quality is great too. Calls can easily be heard, even in a loud environment. Did I mention that it's a world phone too. Lots of hot ring tunes included. The built-in camera takes great photos, and I like the 4X digital zoom feature. The V600 has a compact and rugged construction. I particularly like the fact that it has changeable metal shell to change the phone's look. The Ring Lights are an attention grabber too. This bad-boy from Motorola is a real crowd pleaser!!!! 87711 2004/5/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 mp3 ringtones solid build camera quality good screen quality 5mb of memory price of headsetsother bluetooth equipment battery life This mobile is the best one i have every used. The build quality of the mobile itself if very high, altho the screen does catch on the buttons and mark it. The one thing it does not offer is a video record feature, but on the other hand the camera quality. and too top it off it even have bluetooth. This phone cost me and extra £30 on T-Mobiles contract deal, and i would suggest it too anyone. 87710 2005/2/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid design bluetooth cool ring lights great color display mp3 ringers front scratches easily slow interface reception not great gsm nokia way better Well I got a V600 back in October 2004 for $200 from T-Mobile and have been using it since. Overall I would give it a "average" rating. When it first came out I saw it and was like I HAVE TO GET ONE OF THESE! Of course the thrill has worn off. The phone is chalk full of features but the interface is SLOWWW like a computer running out of memory. Camera quality is good enough for a phone plus you can transfer the photos & ringers to your computer using bluetooth "unlike Verizon's moto v710" that has Bluetooth. I use this handset with T-Mobile and here is Phoenix, AZ they run a pretty solid network "only one or two calls dropped a month" on average "I use 1500 minutes or so a month" 87709 2004/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 there are absolutely no redeeming features about this phone where do i start cons I can't stand this phone! It is an expensive piece of junk. I have dropped calls constantly. I have been dropped 3 times while trying to talk to the same person. It is even more agonizing when I talk to my friend who has the same phone; we keep dropping each other. It has terrible reception; everyone always tells me I am breaking up. Occasionally I can hear myself with a one-second delay. The keys on the outside of the phone bump into things and make the phone beep like mad. The external screen scrambles itself and you have to turn the phone off to reset it. I am stuck with this stupid thing because I can't stand the thought of paying money to replace a phone I have only had for 6 months. Don’t make a mistake and buy this phone! 87708 2005/11/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy phone doesnt feel cheap speakerphone bluetooth great looking only vga camera weight Speakerphone Sturdy phone (doesnt FEEL cheap) Great looking A year and half later I still love this phone. Its got the same features as the high priced Razr and it was out 2 years ago. You can get them pretty cheap online now and it's still a great phone. Only VGA camera 87707 2005/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 good display camera good looks not worth the pain slow response time bad design bad reception I moved from a Nokia6200 to Motorola V600. There were many flaws. The phone book takes only one number & you'd have to make three entries for a person's home/work/cell. Also, the response time of the key bad is bad. Along with this, the display would go for a toss for no reason. In just one month, I had to exchange the phone twice. 87706 2004/4/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 motorola navigation philosophy quad band bluetooth good call performance external display bug build quality On balance I like it. I just got my V600 a month back and my carrier is still configuring the email and MMS settings. The phone works well, the audio is fine and it has the usual Motorola navigation. On the minus side, the included Bluetooth headset has poorer sound quality that a conventional wired solution (I see the latest bluetooth headset from Motorola is a different version of Bluetooth). The external display gets confused and becomes unreadable occasionally, you cure this by switching on and off. The keys can be a bit sticky and case and overall feel does not have the solidity of my V60 or V300. I am going to an area with GSM850 next week so I look forward to seeing how the performance works there. Zoom camera works well and when the carrier fixes their MMS settings this will be useful. 87705 2004/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color video clip playback camera java support can t record videos This step up from V400 has videoclip playback! Amazing This is a new phone that you got to get your hands on. Only bad thing is that you can't record videos. :( 87704 2005/7/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice recording melodic ringtones bluetooth camera can view video clips low resolution camera can t record video clips The body of the phone is blue/silver with a built in camera. The camera is low resolution, under 1 megapixel so don't expect great pictures. There's not flash for this camera and you can take pictures where there's good lighting. Great ringtones, easy to use, allows voice recording (even during a phone call). Easily connects to a bluetooth headset. Has ring lights on its cover allowing to divide your contacts into groups. So when your best friend calls your phone can flash green, and if your boss calls your phone can flash red. Also if it's in silent mode you'll have visual notification. 87703 2005/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it look nicesmall enough to carry around in pocket but has poor functionality no missed calls list in menu when in pocket ring tone settings are changed This is a poorly designed phone. It looks nice but looks are deceiving. Poor functionality in some areas. The phone pictured on epinion is incorrect (it is black/gray not blue/gray. The following are problems with the phone: 1. When the phone says you have missed calls, if you are not very very careful opening up the phone you will never know who called you. 2. There is no missed calls list in the menu so you can never check back. 3. Whenever you put the phone in your pocket the buttons on the side are pressed and it changes your ring tone options. I notice when it turns mine to silent. I miss calls because of it. Motorola designers did a poor job on this phone. Testing must have been neglected. I will never buy a Motorola product again. 87702 2005/7/29 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 stay away from this trash stay away from this trash Stay away from this trash Bad software. It is keep frizzing and but buttery life, for first 7 month it was 3-4 day, now I have to charge it every day. Motorola V600 - Very bad. I get already three times replacement for this trash and I still have problems. My provider offered to replace it again. I decide stay away from this phone and my provider in future. 87701 2006/4/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 not all the time but most the keypad works most of the time everything Oh the V600...let me tell you about the V600... I have had three of them in the past year...THREE.... The first two broke they would not stay on (which was really feature when I was stuck out in the desert with a flat tire), dropped calls, oh and it deletes numbers out of your phonebook for no reason. They lagg like non other and the screen on the outside of the phone that shows the time has major programming flaws and will blur all the pixels together so you cant read it at all. The one i have right turns off when anyone calls me, thats always just super cool. I hope some people got fired over this phone and I wish a very painful death to whoever programmed it. Enjoy!! 87700 2007/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 mp3 ringtones flashy lights java games not much memory little bulky My Experience: This was the 2nd phone I bought back in the day. It was a sweet phone in those times. I bought it because it had mp3 ringtones and that is a big thing with people. Also, the flashy lights are super cool! The speaker is pretty loud too, so you don't miss calls. There is not much internal memory on this phone, but if you don't care about an mp3 player or video player than what it has is fine for storing #s and photos. The v600 sports a vga camera. At times vga cameras can out perform 2mp and lower cameras. The quality was acceptable, not too blurry. This phone was a little on the bulky side. 87699 2004/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing voice memo camera video clips speaker phone looks sleek can t record videos didn t come with a holster or bluetooth headset I bought the Motorola v600 after selling my Samsung v206. This phone is almost perfect! The look is great, very sleek, looks expensive. It has all the features I wanted in a cell phone, voice dials, bluetooth, speakerphone. As an added bonus, it has a camera, voice records, it even can record phone calls! In addition, I can download video clips and watch them. I'm impressed with the real music voice tones. I recently purchased a bluetooth headset to use with this v600, it was easy to set up. I bought the motorola hs800, one of the cheaper bluetooth headsets. This cell phone is worth every penny, I love using this wireless headset with this v600. Not only does it turn heads, but I have friends & family asking how they can get bluetooth. 87698 2006/6/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 works great when outside does not work good in doors This phone works really well when you are in a full range area. But when you're not in a full range area, forget it. The minute I step into Walmart, (and this Walmart is not in the boonies either), the "bars" disappear and do not reappear until I go back outside. The speaker-phone has a lot to be desired. It comes and goes when you're trying to use it. The person you're talking to fades in and out. And you can't put a belt clip on it when you're using the speaker phone because the speaker is on the back where the belt clip attaches. Battery life is about a day and a half. The camera works pretty good for being on a phone. 87697 2006/5/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable flip phone which is easy to use poor charger connectionbad keypad design Purchased this phone brand new from T-Mobile and it has lasted three years before I had to have it replaced. Overall design is solid and it has lasted several drops and knocks. Think some of the design flaws are where the charger connects to the base of the phone and the rotary control on the keypad. The connection for the charger over time becomes worn so much so that I had to constantly adjust my phone to get it in an ideal position for it to charge. The rotary controller on the dial face of the phone also wore a ring on the phone's display. Features of the phone were very good, such as picture messaging and a well light keypad. Wish the phone would have allowed the user to receive or dial calls using the speakerphone feature, the phone would only allow this once the call was connected. I found the camera to be a neat feature however the sunken in lens accumulated dirt which decreased the already limited quality of the photos. 87696 2004/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 appearance build quality bluetooth bluetooth voice dial calling glitches address book is clunky to use belt clip not included The Bottom LineBuy it if you like its features but you don't expect perfection. Don't pay full price. Full Review I've had this phone for a few months now, and I like it a lot. Not that there aren't a lot of things that annoy me, but I'll do the good stuff first. Why I bought it: A terrific promo deal from Best Buy and Cingular, and a free bluetooth headset. Pros: Bluetooth. I have the Moto bluetooth headset, which is just great to use, and not only when driving. I'll never buy another phone without this. Appearance and quality: Good. The clamshell's a little loose when you first start to open it but otherwise I like the fit and finish. Voice Dial: A "must" when driving with the headset. Takes a bit of getting used to, but once it's set up it's great. Cons: Call glitches. I think there's an intermittent software problem with the phone that causes calls to die when they exceed a certain length. This seems to happen when the phone's been powered on for a few days. On many occasions I have had a call die after 10-15 minutes with no warning. The "fix": power cycle the phone religiously every day. Maybe re-flashing the phone with newer software would fix this, but I don't particularly want to chance it - maybe when my plan commitment is up, so if it kills the phone I don't have to spend the sticker price to replace it. Belt clips. On this level of phone it's ridiculous that a clip is not included. You have to go buy one, and so far I can't find a belt clip that actually fits properly. I've tried a Cingular-supplied open clip and a Body Glove Fusion "cell suit". Both SUCK. The clip is too deep, so the teeth miss the notches on the phone and prevent the phone from closing completely. The Body Glove has a thick foam piece across the bottom of the keypad that does the same. The result: when the phone rings it's really easy to slightly open and then close the phone as you get it off your belt. Bing - you drop the call! The address book is clumsy. I came from a Sanyo phone that allowed me to associate more than one number (cell, home, work etc) with the same name. The V600 allows only one-to-one. When adding names you have to punch in the same name again and again for each number, or use a quite laborious copy-entry-and-modify process. When searching you have to scroll through many more names than you should have to. In summary I like the phone a lot, but I can't recommend it without reservation. If it weren't for the software glitch and cheaping out on the belt clip, I'd give it 5 stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87695 2000/10/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks good proprietary bluetooth implementation horrible software interface design that lousy signal receptionpoor battery life The Bottom LineSave your money, this phone stinks. Full Review AT & T sold me a lemon I bought the Motorola V600 with a new AT&T 2-year service plan and an additional line. I bought the V600 for my wife after the AT&T sales rep told me it was the best phone in North America, and I got the Nokia 3595 for myself. After two weeks of use, my wife made me swap SIM cards with her because she couldn't stand the V600's inability to make a call without dropping. When she finally got a call through the volume was often so low you couldn't understand the other person. After a month of using it myself I called up AT&T customer service and demanded a new phone, but they would not refund me for the V600. My new phone is the Nokia 6010 and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a phone that just works without all the bells and whistles cell phones come with today. Part of the problem is AT&T's GSM -- let's put just enough towers as far apart as we can and still be able to call it a nationwide -- network, but the 3595 got signals and could make calls in places where the V600 showed no signal. Bad Bluetooth One of the reasons I bought the V600 was because it had Bluetooth. I have an Apple iMac and PowerBook and I was excited about syncing my AddressBook with iSync through Bluetooth. Unfortunately Bluetooth syncing the V600 is not supported by Apple and it probably never will be. A lot has been written on the net about why, but most agree that Motorola's implementation of bluetooth is so far from standard that it's almost not even bluetooth. The only way to sync through iSync is to buy a separate USB-to-phone data cable. Did Microsoft engineers design the software? Almost as annoying as the inability to pick up a signal is the inability to quickly make a phone call. The software that comes with the phone is so bad and so slow that it quickly becomes very annoying. For example, when I check my voicemail I like to put it on speakerphone so I can write down messages. When I call voicemail on the V600 a dialog box comes up saying "Calling .... Voicemail". When it connects, the dialog box goes away and a new box opens saying "Connected". This is where you can push the right select key to turn on speaker phone, but by the time it does Voicemail is already saying "I'm sorry I don't recognize that password." Also when you make a call, you can't stop it until it's already connected, so if you dial the wrong number you have to wait until it rings before you can disconnect. This is just one example of many where the software is so slow and clunky that I usually end up slamming the phone closed in disgust and saying Forget It. A lot of the cool features of the phone like the camera are essentially useless because having to use this software is so painful I would rather not deal with it. Short Battery Life Maybe I'm just spoiled by my Nokias, but the battery life on the V600 is extremely short. Minimum you must charge the phone every day, and that's if you hardly use it . If you talk a lot you may have to charge it up twice daily. To me, not acceptable. Conclusion While there are some nice features on this phone, most notably the excellent camera, I would rather have splinters rubbed in my eye than have to use it again. Signal reception is the most annoying problem, followed by software that makes DOS look good, shoddy bluetooth implementation, and short battery life. My two cents, save your money and buy another phone, a good one is the Nokia 6010. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87694 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good phone performance bluetooth lots of bugs horrible wired handsfee sound easy inadvertently change to silent mode The Bottom LineTry some other phone instead of this one. It's got quite a few maddening bugs. Full Review AUDIO QUALITY: Quite good when not using a handsfree kit. And the speakerphone is quite usable for a cell phone. MULTIMEDIA: The phone can play short video clips, but there's no way to record them, nor transfer them from the PC. The only way is to buy them from AT&T. Ringtones cannot be transferred from your PC to the phone. CAMERA: Takes decent pictures for a cell phone. WIRED HANDSFREE: The wired handsfree performance is just atrocious. I've tried the included motorola set, a Jabra, and several others that have worked fine on other phones. No matter what, my listeners hear a ridiculously muffled voice. So muffled in fact that it is 100% unintelligible. I can hear people ok, but I just can't talk. MOTOROLA PHONE TOOLS SOFTWARE: I bought the software to synch my Outlook contacts and calendar to my phone. Prone to crashing and locking up. I used the latest version and it was disappointing. About every month, the software updated itself via the web. Some versions were buggy, and others were stable. AGGREVATIONS: -too easy to change ring modes: Because some buttons are on the side of the phone, it's very easy to accidentally change the ring mode to something you might not expect (silent, vibrate, loud, soft). -lockups: About 10% of the time I open the phone, I am presented with a bright blank screen where none of the buttons can be activated. I have to close the phone and open it again. Sometimes, it's so bad that I have to pull the battery out of the phone. -mysterious silent calls: While makeing a call, if I accidently hit the side volume button immediately after pressing the Send button, the call goes through but there is NO sound coming from the earpiece. It's of course also very frustating for the person on the receiving end. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87693 2000/6/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect feel in hand beautiful screen bluetooth camera not perfect though sleek design no full screen on front color cannot change button backlight bad manual camera picture quality The Bottom LineBuy it!! Full Review Bestbuy had the deal I describe in the title: buy a v600 for $149 after rebates get v400 free and a bluetooth headset free. When sign up for Cigular just 1yr!! I could not resist! This phone is great, I did not expect to love the phone this much...but I do. If I were single...and this phone were a woman... I would marry it!(just kidding). Now Cingular does not have the best service in Fremont,Ca. I just came from ATT, Cingular is like taking them over. As part of the deal I guess ATT is able to use Cingular Antenas now. But it seems the visa versa is not true, Cingular does not yet have access to ATT antenas until after the deal is done. The net/net is that ATT had great coverage and Cingular is somewhat less than that, but still okay. Sometimes this makes the phone "look bad". However In the areas with good coverage, this phone rocks. And soon, It will be all good. Anyway you can look up the specs yourself, I want to talk about the information that is a little harder to find. 1. Bluetooth It's incredible! (Once you have it configured) Buy a bluetooth usb adapter. Load and configure it on your PC. One bad thing is that you have to buy "Phone Tools" from motorola, if you know were to look, you can download it free from the net. Unless your rich and can use mms all the time, you need usb or bluetooth to get cool stuff onto or off of this phone. I've used both, the bluetooth is way better, but I need usb for my wife's v400 anyway. My wife went through all of the pain of transfering her old phone book to her v400, the next day the usb cable came in, I used the backup feature in phone tools to save her work, then the restore feature to upload to my phone. 2. MP3 I'm lucky enough to have an Audigy soundblaster card. It has a tool called Creative Play Center. Here is what you do: *open it, go to "jukebox view" *select settings *select encoder/recorder *select MP3, mono, constant bitrate, move the slider to about 40(I tried 24 but the quality was to bad) *use the tool to play a song, stop on the song. *now you can click the record button and it will start to record the whole song from the beginning and it will play at the same time. Or, you could play the song untill the point you want to start recording and the hit record to get a snipit from the middle of a song. *when you click stop, it will let you save the portion of the song you just heard to a file at the bitrate you selected. *Voicemail will usually pick up at certain point, so I usually just create about a 25 second snipit of a song I want to use as a ringtone. So I'll do like the first 25sec of "In da Club" and it will come out as a 100k mp3 file. If you do this 5mb is plenty of space, if not, beware. 3. Camera Use the cable or bluetooth to get the pictures off with phone tools. The quality is better as the light it better. "normal indoor" light = so so quality. Outdoor sunlight is better. The less light the less quality. 4. v400 vs v600 I use the bluetooth all the time. The major difference between the phones is the bluetooth (and the ability to play video, who cares!) If usb only is okay with you, I would definately go v400. In fact I like the way the buttons look a lot better on the v400, the v600 buttons have like a glossy ceramic feel and they are right on top of each other. The v400 buttons are more brushed metal in feel and are spaced, for a nicer overall look (this is after all ePINIONS ;-) ). Also, the button backlighting on the v600 is a clear white light, the v400 has a nicer deep blue backlight. If I wasn't a bluetooth user, I'd covet my wifes v400 to the point of insanity. The v600 also has a neat multi-colored customizable circular Light thingy around the Moto symbol on the front. It's kinda cool and lights up when people call you (helps in my whole v400 envy issue). My Opinion: Two great phones!! treat yourself, you deserve it. You only live once. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87692 2000/9/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 beautiful earpiece sound great screen mp3 ringtones chic construction lid feels a little loose when fully opened not a big deal The Bottom LineMotorola is the master of the clam-shell phone and the v600 is no exception. Awesome feature-set! Full Review I just want to say that people often times rip on phones for no apparant reason. Well I am not going to do that, instead I would like to say that this phone is hands down the best cell-phone I have owned. I originally had a Motorola T722i which is a very nice phone (sound quality and basic functions) however it lacked an integrated camera and only had a 4096 color screen. When we switched to AT&T, I decided to try the NEC 525 and I have to say that that phone is way overhyped!!! The volume was far too weak to make it practical when there is any background noise present. So I ditched that phone and moved onto the V600. Now perhaps I am biased because I previously owned the T722i, but I found the v600 to be VERY easy to use and the functions are awesome! At first glance you will notice the case is aluminum rather than cheap plastic, tres chic! Also, the external screens companies are putting on phones now are basically useless. Why does anyone need a .75 inch 65K color screen with the caller's number and a clock on it??? You don't. Save your battery and have a simple LCD (like the v600.) This one is very functional, backlit blue LCD with a nice big clock for easy reading at a quick glance. On the inside the user is greeted with a gorgeous 65K color screen. Motorola has done a fantastic job of utilizing the small amount of real estate present on this screen. The fonts and colors look awesome and the camera is the hands down the best one I have used. Panning is smooth and the pictures actually look decent as far as cell phones go. The ringtones sound awesome (mp3's) and are very easy to hear. And probably the best feature of all is the earpiece. This phone is the only cell phone I have used that sounds almost exactly like a land-line phone. The speaker size is larger which allows more bass to be transmitted through (thus making the voice reproduction sound better) I have not played with the Bluetooth yet but will be trying that very soon. Overall this phone is awesome and with new models coming soon you should be able to find it fairly cheap now. Definitely consider this phone when shopping for a new one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87691 2000/1/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 size numerous features weight movement constraints camera malfunctions charging constraints The Bottom LineDon't buy the phone unless it is your only best option and you cannot wait until something better comes along. Full Review I've owned the Motorola V600 since the end of September 2004. I liked the look of the phone and the features (flip phone style, small, it weighed very little, and it could store many phone numbers). I'm not a fan of camera phones, but with technology today, most phones have them. So, for the phones available for purchase at the time, this one looked the best and had the features that I liked. I also like the fact that the outside of the phone seems scratch resistant. I often keep it in my coat pocket and I have minor scratches on the black part where the telephone numbers appear, but that's it. Besides the features mentioned, it is a BlueTooth phone, an international phone, it can connect to the Internet, it has AIM, voice recorder, an alarm, office tools, text messaging, maintains a record of calls received/calls made/total lifetime talk usage/last call time, photo maintenance, wallpapers, screen savers, and there are probably some features that I have not yet used. Some problems with the phone: When I first purchased the V600, I was warned by the authorized dealer, "when you're charging the battery only charge it for two hours at a time or else you'll suck up the battery." I found that strange, but I'd already made the purchase. Later that day when using the phone I thought it was wonderful, despite the battery comment. The battery life is excellent; however the dealer was correct. If you charge more than two hours (for example, if you go to sleep at night, connect the phone to charge, and do not disconnect after the two hour period, you will see a great change in the battery life and operation). If you drop the phone the camera lens becomes off balance and will not work properly. This happened with my phone. After contacting Motorola to find a place to have it fixed, a customer service person told me to reset the master setting on the phone and it would correct the problem. That worked the first time, however, after the first reset the problem only disappeared for a week, then resurfaced. In order to get the camera to work properly, I must open the phone, act as if I'm closing it, but don't shut it all the way, and then reopen it slowly - the camera then works. If you make a lot of movement with the phone on your person, the screen where the time is displayed becomes jumbled and cannot be read. In order to fix this problem, the phone must be turned off and back on. Another problem with the phone is that the charger and the phone work great together at first, but for some reason the phone does not always begin to charge when the charger is plugged in. The piece of the charger that is attached to the phone must be wiggled a little in order for charging to begin. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87690 2004/8/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 bluetooth technology sleekness color screen camera internet enabled no call restrictions no video The Bottom LineUsers who travel will find it very useful due to the fact that it is Quad-Band, stylish, and reliable. In plus, 6-9hrs talk time beats many other phones. Full Review Earlier this year I had Sprint, thank God my 2-year contract is over, but I did have the Sanyo 5500 (BLUE). The Sanyo 5500 is like one of the number one phones and I do miss it very deeply. I have Cingular for a wireless carrier now, which is probably the biggest mistake I will ever make in my life. However, the Motorola V600 calms my nerves. It's sleek, sexy and looks professional. I love the clear display, it is SO much better than the Sanyo 5500. However, at least with the Sanyo 5500 I was able to select who I wanted to accept calls from. For instance, I could block all Private Callers and/or only accept phone calls from members in my phonebook. And with my Sanyo 5500 I could record 15-second video clips, they weren't all that clear, but I still miss it. If the Motorola V600 had video and could be able to restrict calls, this would not be the top of the line phone, but the God of all phones. I love the fact that with the Motorola V600 you are able to change the outer display. I was with Sprint for 2 long years and just about all of their phones were silver/gray. How boring!!! The Motorola V600 gives you a chance to stand out, express yourself, stop living in the dull world!!! However, I must admit, the phone is still sexy without personalizing the outside. I love the Bluetooth Technology, yes I bought it and I don't regret. In plus, I had a Best Buy gift card. The Bluetooth Technology is great; it's very comfortable and the microphone is incredible. A lot of times I find myself in very noisy areas where I would have to tell my friend that I would call them back, but with the Bluetooth Tech., they are able to hear me, which is a plus because I hate yelling and repeating myself. I prefer the Bluetooth over the speakerphone not just because it's more personal, but because the speakerphone isn't all that loud. However, the speakerphone is louder than the Audiovox 8900. When I had the Sanyo 5500, it was quite loud but kind of squeaky, it was just horrible. In plus, no one could hardly hear me. With the V600, it's very clear and you could talk as low as a whisper and the caller would still be able to hear you. I was amazed and throughout my trials of testing speakerphones, I am still impressed by it. It may not be as loud as Nextel's Motorola IDEN phones, but guess what?!?! They are both made by Motorola, so they both have theat same great quality. I also like the ability the chat to other people. It's better than text messaging because you don't have to check your "new message", it almost seems as if you are really online. I like the fact that with the Motorola V600, you can make shortcuts and majority of these shortcuts are accessible while you are on the phone. This is a plus to me because when you are on the phone, you can't play games and etc. So sometimes when I'm on my headset or have the speakerphone on, I'll just use one of shortcuts to get me to the calculator, datebook or even Solitaire. I also like the ability to assign different ring tones to people and even pictures. I absolutely love this phone. *****I also wanted to say that T-Mobile has a deal going on right now until 8/31/04. It's the Motorola V600 and the Motorola HS810, wireless headset(that I strongly recommend), for $299 and a $50 rebate. WIth the wireless headset, you won't be able to tell that the handset's volume is kind of low.***** Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 380.61Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87689 2000/8/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great camera easy to use simplicity of features problems with battery charging slow processor poor reception in many areas The Bottom LineI suggest this phone if it will be used mainly for voice communication and its camera. Otherwise, the processor/internet connection is too slow to be of much use. Full Review This phone is with T-Mobile service. I received this phone from my dad before going off to college, and since then it has been my main source of voice communication. When I first started to use it, I was pleased by its simple design, rubberized blue grip, and simple to use picture and camera features. The layout is well designed, and there are programs such as alarm, phonebook, AIM, datebook, calculator, a song mixer, and some games. The color is nice, and I have no problems with the inside display. I have used the camera in the phone to take many pictures of school friends, vacations to foreign countries, and just of interesting things when I go on trips, and I can say the camera is very reliable. Its batter life is average, and it lasts me about four days before I have to fully recharge it again. I noticed this time is really depending on if you are active with the phone. I always carry it in my pockets, and although somewhat heavy, its small enough to fit comfortably. There are a wide assortment of ringtones. The ring is loud enough indoors, but outside I sometimes have trouble hearing the tones. As I started to use it more, I did notice a few problems. One of the main things that many other users of similar battery charging phones have experienced is that sometimes even when plugged in properly, the phone won't charge, or will instantly give a false impression of a full charge. This can currently only be resolved by wiggling the connector to the phone until something properly meets and starts to charge. This gets annoying sometimes, as often I have to apply some kind of weight to keep the connector in its proper place. Another thing is that some features are lacking without subscribing to their download service. For example, all the games included are demo versions, and require you to pay to purchase the full versions. Along with this, the web service is not very fast, and as many have mentioned, this phone has a slow processor (meaning long loading times and sometimes "hangs"). At one instance the phone's front digital clock display was scrambled, showing times like "00:00" and such. It was like that after a few months of use, for about several weeks. When I brought the phone back home however, the display is back to working fine again. I'm not sure if this is problem of the phone itself or some kind of interference from the surroundings (as I lived in the dorm houses). In terms of the quality of the service, it really depends. Some places have good reception, while many others do not, and hearing the caller is difficult. At my current location (back home) I have two bars inside, but outside it is higher, often the maximum reception. In the dorm rooms it was similar, with a weak reception indoors and much higher outside. For large buildings that go underground, I get no reception at all (my university has many buildings that go underground). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87688 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speaker phone many features good picture quality bluetooth price camera software voice recognition slow processor The Bottom LineRecommend this phone to anyone who is looking for feature rich flip phone at a great bargain. Full Review Recently, I had an unfortunate accident washing my Sony Ericsson 610. It was an excellent phone, but it was a bit odd to use with my big hands. So, I decided to try flip phone. I chose Motorola V600 mainly because it was only phone with Bluetooth feature. Once you are used to using wireless headset, it's hard to go back. Goods This Mot V600 is filled with features. Speaker phone. It's an excellent option when you are busy. Customizable buttons and menu. You can move any buttons with menu of your choice. If you are using your phone a lot, this comes in real handy. I have a shortcut button where AIM button used to be. I have all the frequently used feature in there. It just save me a lot of trouble. Bluetooth If you don't mind investing a bit of money, bluetooth is a good choice. When you are busy, you can actually leave your phone at your desk, walk 10 to 20 feet and still receive call. If you still use wired handfree device, you can still use it. New Motorola phone like Razor does not give you this option. Bad Slow Processor and Bad Programming Slow Processor If you are making lots of calls, you probably can make call and use feature of your phone without looking at it. You cannot do that with this phone. There is slight pause or lag in processing speed. You will need to wait until the menu changes. Bad Programming Camera program. Forget about taking multiple pictures. Everytime you take a picture, you have to tell your phone what to do. To either send in message or store it somewhere. You cannot take another picture without saving the previous one. This takes time. Speaker phone This feature is only available during the call. It's not such a big deal, but I wish this feature was available when I make a call. Voice Recognition It does not work so well. It often confuses my command with other command. Conclusion: Despite the short comings, I want to recommend this phone to anyone who is in the market for a flip phone. Most buyer can get this phone for free with various rebates. It's hard to beat a good deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87687 2000/12/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 will satisfy a motorola fan unique has most features that one expectsmore attractive razr is more desirable behind on features interface lacks polish high price The Bottom LineAn attractive phone that is about one year behind the curve. Full Review After my Sony T610's antenna went haywire and the phone met its demise, I was in little position to buy any phone other than a V600 from my friendly T-Mobile scalper (edit: dealer). I needed a phone that could take pictures and use bluetooth peripherals, so I was out $330 even with a 1-year swap and contract extension. The phone was very attractive so I went ahead with the deal. The V600 is best described as a businessman's phone, with a few perks. The exterior is a combination of shiny acrylic, chrome, and stainless steel panels. It has a small mirror for framing self portraits with the adjoining VGA camera, and a motorola badge that has circular status lights ringing it. There is an outer microphone and rear speaker for the complete speakerphone functionality. It has a small, fat stub antenna poking out of the top, and the phone opens up with a pleasing, heavy snap. The inner display is bright, if lacking in the resolution of a few competitors, weighing in at 220x172. It displays a wide range of colors, up to 16-bit in depth, and is perfect for taking the requisite tiny photos. The keypad has a shiny metallic gloss to its number keys, and there are aluminized, well lit multifunction keys to control the user interface. The phone feels durable and sleek. The technological features of this phone are too many to list, although the latest offerings from phone retailers will manage to trump it. With bluetooth wireless connectivity, a 640x480 resolution camera, video playback (READ: no capture ability), audio recording, quad-band multi-country service, mp3 ringtones, the full gamut of text/email abilities, a full-featured web browser, numerous colorful themes, extensive downloadable content, java gaming, instant messenger, and picture caller ID, there is little missing. Notable lackings of the phone include memory expandability (5mb is built in), the ability to have multiple numbers under one listing for a person (which makes scrolling through a person's numbers greatly laborious), an mp3 player, video capture, on-demand wireless video playing, or a higher pixel count digital camera. It's nowhere near as capable as a smartphone but it is not billed as one. It has the multimedia features to satisfy nearly anyone, but is not a convergence device by any means. The user interface is task based and contextual, so that the right options pop up while attempting each task. The phone has a great deal of customizability in terms of its interface, and every little detail can be changed. Motorola is no Nokia, but I am able to work quickly with the phone. There is a bit of lag when performing tasks sometimes, especially with the camera. It is based around a home screen with a pop up menu of 9 categories of tasks, and uses the 4-way navigation button to quickly access tasks such as calls and messaging more rapidly. Like other motorolas, if the phone is on high volume ring mode, it makes a few loud beeps when one wants to change the ring style with the phone closed using the side "smart buttons". It also bleeps when you turn down the volume with the phone open. This can be embarassing, as everyone has heard the motorola user tweaking his ring style at some point in time. Surely one must cover the performance of the phone. Reception with T-Mobile is fairly robust in metropolitan areas, smaller cities, most highways and roads, even a few surprises with coverage in rural spots. However, poor weather and cloud cover, as well as the materials in certain house roofs, hamper the phone's signal greatly. In cities without official T-Mobile service, good luck getting in a clean call, but the phone will still function with a bit of care. At its best, the phone has medium-high calling performance, but I expected a bit more clarity from GSM service. Ringtones sound clear and powerful but sometimes are hard to hear from one's pocket (the Vibe and Ring mode is most effective, which vibrates before the ring begins). With the right lighting conditions the digital camera can take acceptable photos, but 1.3 megapixel phones will shame it. This phone is not a bad option, but these days there are so many options and currently most providers have the even more option-packed, super slim RAZR V3 for the same price if not less. It is a nice phone, but a hard sell. If you can get it for free, then strongly consider it. For many, the solid option list and durable metal and glossy black exterior will be enough for them to make it their choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 330Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87686 2000/5/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 replaceable parts looks features nice screen price weight fragile build The Bottom LineDespite it's flaws, they are minor and I do recommend this phone. It's powerful and beautiful...just take care of it. Full Review First, the details: Provider: Rogers AT&T (Canada) (850 and 1900 MHZ GSM) Price: $510 (-$75 rebate) with a 2 year contract (upgrade price). Full price: $799. All in Canadian funds. I've been waiting a long time for this phone. Since October of last year. Roger's, my wireless provider, has been promising this phone since December but it kept getting delayed due to problems with the phones. I have to admit, Roger's took the extra precautions, pushed the date forward on release and got it right. I usually go through pros and cons, but this time, I'll just bullet out some points: 1) The black bezel cracking/Fragility. I've read many, MANY, complaints that the black bezel (the front part of the phone...specifically, just above the camera), is very susceptible to cracking when the flip is open and pressure is applied. It seems that the bezel hits the back edge of the bottom clam and can crack. Rogers fixed this by applying a rubber strip on the contact points where the bezel and phone contact. Good job Rogers. If your phone doesn't have this, you might want to improvise using some scotch tape or a PDA screen protector. Email me and I can send you some info on how to do this. The bezel also also picks up lots of finger prints. As if the screen isn't notorious enough for this, now the outside of the phone attracts grease as well. Also, the phone itself is quite fragile. If this thing were to drop, you can forget about it's pretty looks. The hinges looks like on contact, will crack and split. The bezel looks like it will shatter and the metal faceplate, back and front, look quite susceptible to scratching. THAT said, you CAN order new bezels and face place covers (back and front) from Motorola...so that's not bad. While the phone is fragile, it is well built and with proper care, should last a long time. 2) It's heavy. Yes, it's absolutely packed with features which probably accounts for some of the weight but if you compare it to the other VXXX series, it's heavier. I attribute this to the over all aesthetics of the phone. Comparing this to other flips...like Samsung's, this thing can double as an anchor. Total weight: 126 grams. The Samsung E715: 85 grams. 3) Battery life. I've had the phone for just over a week now and have had to charge it twice. That may seem excessive BUT I have been playing with it a lot. AND, it clearly states that the battery will take several full charges to reach peak performance. This is the case with the V300 battery which my fiancé has. So I'm not concerned with battery life...yet. 4) Video playback. Which is USELESS on this phone as it cannot capture video in the first place. So unless you can somehow transfer videos onto your phone, either using the USB data cable and Moto phone tools OR have someone send you a video clip via MMS, there's no point in the phone being able to play videos. 5) Default content. This phone comes PACKED with lots of Motorola default images, sounds, and even a video. All of which take up space. 95% of which I don't use. 100% undeletable. In other words, you can't get rid of them if you need more space on your phone (well, you can if you have a data cable, moto phone tools, and possess some technical savvy). Anyway...space...which leads me to: 6) 5MB of space. Which is quite a bit for you to download games, ring tones, pictures, etc. 7) Quad band. For those that travel around the world, this phone has ALL 4 bands 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz GSM supported networks built it. Good stuff...but very unnecessary for those that don't travel much. 8) Antenna. The antenna is the same antenna used on all VXXX model phones. I had hoped that for this price, the V600 would have a better looking/better performing antenna...but I guess not. 9) Speaker phone. The volume (playback) on the speaker phone COULD be louder but it's not a feature I use that much except for listening to my messages. 10) MP3 ringtones. Is supported. Again, you'll need to pay to have them downloaded onto your phone OR you could get a data cable and load them on. 11) Reception. The RF is great. Despite my gripes with the stock antenna, the reception is very good. 12) Sound. Not only is the reception good, the voice quality on BOTH ends of the conversation are clear and loud. The phone doesn't seem to pick up a lot of background noise which is a good thing while in the car. 13) Motorola software/hardware/flexware intuitiveness. Is poor. First of all, there is NO SIMULTANEOUS Vibrate and ring. There IS a vibe and ring option with makes the phone vibrate for about 2 seconds, then rings. But it's not the same as vibrating while ringing. It HAS to be a licensing/trademark/copyright patent issue rather than an oversight. Otherwise, the software is quite good. The menu has a relatively easy learning curve. Those used to Nokia's, Samsungs, really ANY phone out there will have a bit of an adjustment as the place call and end call buttons are reversed on Motorola's. The soft keys and smart buttons are re-programmable as are the onscreen icons. The iTAP word entry takes a bit of learning but after a while, it's quite intuitive and easy to use. It actually learns words you use, stores them and will suggest them if a similar entry is made again. The software DOES support multiple phone numbers per contact but it creates a new contact entry per number...so it's not that effective. 14) SHARP screen. Yeah, it's a beautiful screen. AND on the newer models, the ones manufactured AFTER October 2003 (I believe) have the new Sharp brand screens which are supposedly better performing in terms of battery power and display. I don't have anything to compare it to...just information from the net. Overall, I'm very happy with the phone. Yes, I seem to have listed off a lot of bad points with the phone but these days, no phone is perfect and the points I've listed are pretty much all I can think of. It really is a beautiful phone. It's a fragile phone but beautiful nonetheless. Should you get the phone? Well, if you don't mind the price tag ($700 Canadian with no contract, $435 with a 2 year contract), love gadgets or toys, want flip/clamshell phone with Bluetooth, MP3 ringer capability, full internet connectivity, camera, quad band, and stunning good looks, get this phone...but make sure you get one with the latest flexware and software...in other words, watch out for the ones available on EBay. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 325Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87685 2000/6/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 appearance battery life camera The Bottom LineWhat could have been an excellent phone, is let down by aspects such as battery life and camera. Full Review I noted that a number of previous reviewers for this mobile has mentioned how they were once a 'Nokia' person. I am in the same band of brothers. The allure of a 'flip phone' was what converted me to trying the Motorola, and due to it's acceptable market price, I was more than happy to give it a go. On first impressions, it's sleek, curvasceous casing is a positive, and through experience, it certainly has high levels of durability and robustness, especially considering the pounding I give it every day!!! However, from then on in, it fails to speed away from the likes of Nokia, or rather more like the Nokia over takes Motorola. For someone like myself, converting from one phone make to another can be somewhat confusing to begin with due to the variation in button placings, and this phone is no exception. But once fully 'trained' (which doesn't take too long!) the Motorola is simple enough to navigate around, with a concise and understandable menu page, that helps with the job of trying to find things! But other features of the phone are far less encouraging than it's appearance and navigation..... It's battery life leaves little to be desired, although a friend of mine says their model lasts for longer so I may just have a faulty battery pack. Apart from the Battery display on your main-screen, within the 'Settings' option on the Menu, there is a 'Battery Meter' inside 'Phone Settings', which ranges from 1 to 6 - this will decrease by two each every day, approximately, therefore meaning that you will need to recharge almost every 72 hours - hardly convenient for anyone going away from a week and without a charger. As well as that, the camera is hardly one from the catalogue of David Bailey. Yes, it's zoom feature is a handy accessory, but the quality of image is not as good as a lot of camera phones on the market these days, particularly when the lighting is bad, or even too bright! Dust and dirt gathers quite easily in the lens, which is hard to clean because of its size, and on more than one occasion when I have tried to take pictures, it has produced an error message such as 'Picture Capture Failed' - the reason for which, I have no idea. Finally, many people do judge a phone by its gameplay, Nokia having been immortalised by 'Snake' of course, but the Motorola has left a lot to either the imagination, or to the Internet download option. 'Stuntman' is a smart enough game, but rather sluggish and limited, and 'Monopoly', yes that's right, the game that can last for days on end, is also available to anyone who has lost all sanity! In conclusion, don't let my last couple of paragraphs deter you from it altogether. As a 'phone' it is more than acceptable due to it's look and navigational skills, as well as a relatively good reception quality. But if your seriously looking for your phone to take pictures and play games on a regular basis, it may be wise to steer clear, and opt for a newer model along the lines of the Motorola 'RZor' range, as what could have been a great phone in the v600 is nothing better than just, plain and simply, 'rather good'. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87684 2006/12/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 list of features sturdy sound clarity nice design well built ringing volume battery life lousy reception speakerphone bluetooth implementation phone book The Bottom LineAn opportunity lost to make a great phone. A half-baked collection of features that do not make a complete phone. Full Review I was a very happy user Sony Ericsson T39 for about 4 years. The main reason that I decided to look for a new phone is that T39 had an early implementation of Bluetooth technology and the phone reception was quite inconsistent, rather poor. Finally, I decided to look for a new phone. I must say that nothing available on the market at the time I bought the phone (about 3 months ago) appealed to me. From the design perspective, I much more preferred my old Sony Ericsson T39. However, after much research, I decided to buy Motorola V600. Below are the reasons why I bought this phone and my opinion on various aspects of its features and functionality. My requirements: 1. I was looking for a flip phone or covered dial-pad style phone (similar to T39.) I had too much negative experience with the so-called candy-bar phone designs. I would , from time to time, dial various entries in the phone book as I frequently forget to key-lock it after each call - this is another hassle I was not looking forward to. So, covered keypad was a must for me. 2. I needed a Bluetooth-enabled phone. Once you use it, you become a believer. I drive a car with a manual transmission, so that Bluetooth is one of the features I use the most. 3. As I travel world-wide, I preferred GSM and, in particular, a tri - quad-band phone. As you can see, Motorola V600, at least on paper, met these requirements quite well. My observations from using this phone: Design: V600 is a well manufactured phone. The phone appears very business like. The metal jacket dressing the V600 is quite stylish and relates a feeling of good quality. A great feature is that when the phone is closed, you can see incoming call information in the external window. When the call is idle, you can see the time. Nice. Also, you can customize the appearance of this phone by purchasing various cover phone covers. My favorite is Indigo blue. On the negative side, and these are not major factors for me, are: protruding external antenna stub. The phone looks very generic, which some people may see as advantage. The size is okay -could be thinner and smaller (like my T39). Interface: Mostly very nice, sometimes inconsistent. Motorola uses various nice animations. However, from my personal experience it appears to be less user friendly than Nokia or Sony Eriksson. Phone Book: It is quite ridiculous that Motorola does not allow configuration of multiple communication devices per phone book entry. People do have more than one device now! For example, V600 phone book would show 4 entries for a person who has mobile phone, home phone, work phone and email address. In my old Sony Ericsson T39 I could write all of these devices under one entry in the phone book. Also, I can not perform a search of an entry using more than one character. For example, I have 15 entries under M. On my old phone, I could type "Mo" to shortcut immediately to my mother entry. In this phone, no such useful feature. So I press N to go to my mother entry as there are fewer entries to skip to invoke "Mother" entry from N than from M. How do you like them bananas? Thanks Motorola for not implementing easy search functionality! Another glaring omission of the phonebook design is that one can not display separately SIM card entries and Phone entries. Therefore, if you keep your entries in both storages (as majority of GSM users would), you will end up with double amount of entries in your phone book. This is a dumb omission on the part of Motorola which, to my knowledge, has not been addressed in their latest Razr phone. I, typically, like to keep my SIM entries as a backup and phone book entries as Phone entries. Explanation: Phone entries, typically give you much more flexibility than SIM entries, but they are not transferable from one phone to another. Ringing Volume & Vibrate: - Way too low. I would say it is too low to be any useful in a crowded place, on a street with any amount of traffic, in a car playing music. This is a source of constant frustration and missed calls. Another aspect that bothers me is that when I configure the phone to vibrate and to ring simultaneously, it vibrates for first few seconds and only thereafter it rings! Here is a problem: The vibrate modulation on V600 is very disappointing - it is nowhere as vigorous as on the Nokia or Sony Ericsson T39. Therefore, quite often, I miss it. Then you only have few seconds to answer ringing melody - that is if you lucky enough to hear them, even in its highest volume setting. Given that your phone may be in your pocket while you are driving, you simply do not have enough time to get to it before call is transferred to the voicemail. Just these two issues of Ringing Volume and Vibrate are enough for me to start looking for a new phone, three months after I bought the Motorola V600! Bluetooth Operation: This is the most disappointing aspect of the phone and one of the key reasons I bought this phone in the first place! I am a heavy user of Bluetooth and pair quite a few devices with the phone: my HS820 Motorola headset (which I do not recommend), iPAQ4150 PDA, my Bluetooth enabled laptop. The pairing between these devices is rather awkward. Okay, the pairing between Motorola headset and the phone is quite straightforward. However, when I tried to pair iPAQ PDA with V600 in order to use my phone as a GPRS gateway access point for iPAQ PDA I was in for a ride! User manual was quite useless and Motorola support was even less useful. The engagement model for Motorola support seems to focused on getting you off the phone as soon as possible. I did try email support as well was generally pleased with the basic types of question. At any rate, it took me visiting AT&T wireless support site to establish this Bluetooth connection. From what I researched while looking for this information is that it appears that Motorola supports its own flavor of Bluetooth which may not necessarily be a true industry standard. Hence, you may have some problems, to put it mildly. Here are some problems with the Bluetooth usage on V600 • Basic headset operation - the connection is not reliable, quite often Bluetooth connection drops. Bummer! • It is not intuitive to switch between using Bluetooth headset and the phone - you have to go through a menu selection! This is very inconvenient while you are on a call. My old T39 had the same Bluetooth problems of keeping the call going, but at least the switch between the headset and the phone was available with a press of a button. • Connection sound when using Bluetooth is degraded. While I hear callers quite well, they hear me as muted, muffed or not at all. At best, I would say connection quality is sporadic. Quite often, I switch back to use the phone itself. • Pairing - I've noticed that, quite often, pairing that I created between the devices terminates on its own and, in order to re-pair them, I would need to go through a new pairing process. This is no fun, if you drive in a car in a heavy traffic when your phone rings and you find that your headset and the phone are disconnected. • When the phone is charging, the Bluetooth connection terminated! If you charge your phone in the desktop charger, forget about using your Bluetooth headset. An "interesting" design feature! • The best Motorola V600 Bluetooth quirk I left for last! This alone renders phone quite useless to me. When V600 is paired with the headset, on incoming call only headset rings! Therefore, unless you like to wear your Bluetooth headset on your ear all day long, you are bound to loose calls. Yeah, I forgot to mention that HS820 Motorola headset makes a subtle beeping sound from time to time, when idle! So I doubt that you enjoy this experience even if you have succumbed to looking dorky for sake of not loosing an important call! Hey Motorola, here is a design idea - on my old Sony Ericsson T39, both headset and the phone would ring and you can answer the phone using either, which would then become a default audio device for this particular call. Why would Motorola not implement Bluetooth in a way that it would make sense? Perhaps they are not ready for and do not yet "know" Bluetooth. I must say, that based on my communication with Motorola support, I received an email stating that their newest Razr phone actually allows you to set it up so that the phone and the headset ring simultaneously. How well it works, you will have to check with Razr owners. I doubt that I will buy another Motorola for a long time. Voice Dial: Excellent, way better than my old T39 in this regard. I, almost, never have a mismatch when I dial using voice dial, either directly using my phone or through my Bluetooth headset - HS820 Reception: fairly average, it is at least as good as my old T39, I may say even slighter better. However, v600 reception is definitely inferior to my wife's inexpensive Nokia 2260 or other Nokia that I owned. I constantly loose calls, particularly when I am driving. Clarity of Sound: When the reception is good, the clarity of sound is very good. The voices come natural and without static. No complaints here. Speaker phone: Speaker phone available via a soft-button, i.e, once the call is connected you can select on the screen an option to activate a Speaker Phone. Therefore you need to maintain your eyes on the screen in order to use it. This is not how most of us use speaker phone. I would much prefer to have button on the body of the phone which I can press when I want to use a speaker phone mode. The speaker phone volume is also not very loud. If you are walking down the street with another person and would like to share your conversation on the speaker phone, the volume will be too low for the city environment. So, forget about it! Camera: although not a replacement for your digital camera, the camera implementation is quite nice, the pictures come out okay. I was not initially a great believer in the need of having a camera in my phone but I am a believer now. It could be quite handy, from time to time, to snap a picture using your phone. Battery Life: real poor not much different than my old T39 but really bad compare to Nokia. Drop Test: Excellent, the phone is rugged, well built and few times that I dropped it did not impact it at all. Kudos to Motorola for assembling such a reliable phone! Value: at $399 from Singular (unlocked) this phone, IMO, does not deliver on the value factor. It is too expensive, looks generic and does not particular excels in any of its functionalities. Motorola did not even include the carrying case. Do they expect us to carry the phone in our shirt or pant pockets? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 350Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87683 2004/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 feature packed looks style quad band bluetooth changeable faceplates weight pricey battery scratches easily camera The Bottom LineThis phone is not worth what it is listed to be, try to get it as cheap as possible. It is feature packed but many downsides. Full Review I was first introduced to this phone last year, 2003. I was still currently using a nokia 8390 at the moment and had no intentions of buying a new phone just yet. But then around January 2004, I decided I needed to switch my phone, and my choice was the motorola v600. It was supposedly coming out spring of 2003 but it was pushed to summer 2003, then winter, and now it is released. Since I wanted it around January, my only way of obtaining this phone was through eBay, which I got a pretty good deal at the time, for about 560$ including shipping, but within 2 months, I sold it for 290$ because of price and overratedness of this phone. Nonetheless, I like the phone, but it doesn't live up to the hype that many consumers make it to be. I'll be talking about the Features that this phone possesses and the good and bad qualities of each feature. Messaging - Text messaging comes with all phones today but the enhanced messaging is what distinguishes each phone. The v600 has multimedia messaging and the regular text messaging. The multimedia messaging allows you to send pictures, screensavers, wallpapers and all of the related multimedia. This is a good feature to have if you like to send pictures to others, but.. think about it, how many of your friends, colleagues, or family have a phone that is capable of receiving such messages? Even if they do, they most likely cannot receive the messages because of the different formats or whatnot, so most likely, people with the same phone as you can probably only receive such attached messages. In class, I tried sending pictures to my friend Theresa, she uses a color phone that also has EMS, camera, and high integrated color, but could not receive any of my messages. She tried sending to my phone but no luck either. Also, my other friend Tabby, she used a SL56, we tried sending to each other and it did not work either, Theresa and Tabby also tried sending EMS to each other, also no luck. So, therefore, EMS is not a useful feature at all. About the regular text messaging, it is quite easy to use, you type the corresponding number for the letters and you have choices of what words to select, depending on what word you wanted to type. Text character limit is over 400, which is useful if you want to send long text messages. The bad thing about v600 text messaging is you can only have up to 20 messages in your inbox, which is very low, my nokia 8390 holds more than that, about 40 messages, and it was released well over 2 years before this phone. Another feature, Camera - Camera phones are the trendy thing going around right now, so phones with high integrated color, clear screen, crisp pictures are what a user might want. This phone offers the color, but not clear or crisp pictures at all. It's not too noticeable but when you take pictures, it is a little bit blurry, or more like you can see the pixel squares. Which is not good.. my friend Theresa, her phone, older than the v600 model has a better camera than the v600. Though the v600 can zoom up to 4x, it still has the blurry feel to it. A few good things about the camera in the v600 is that there are lighting qualities you can adjust and the resolutions. The camera is worse at night, everything is blurry, and pictures taken with light come out blurry too, its like taking pictures with a camera with no flash. Calling - Calling out and receiving calls is very formidable. Sound is very clear, no static whatsoever, plus the speakerphone is great, good volume and also very clear. In the v600, there are options where you can answer calls when you flip open the phone, and the most standard features, voice dialing, call records, missed calls, etc. but I wish phones nowadays have call logs that can store more names at one time, the motorola only stores up to 10 names in the call log. The v600 phonebook is quite simple, you can also add pictures to identify the caller, not that it is a useful feature, but a nice necessity. Games, ringtones, and graphics - There are 2 games included, classic monopoly and stuntman. Monopoly is quite fun but it does get boring after playing awhile, and it drains the battery very fast.. Monopoly, you can play with computer, and you can add more computer players but the thing is, turns take quite a long time, and the computer players seems to buy everything they land on. Nonetheless, still an entertaining game when you're on the bus or in the car. Stuntman, I didn't understand this game at all, you're driving a car.. and following the arrows.. I rarely played this game because it didn't appeal to me at all, I just followed the arrows the whole time... The ringtones included have the typical motorola ones, the ring ring, bee, etc etc. but they are now in polyphonic, there are new ones, but they don't sound all that appealing, and though you can download ringtones, it is very seldom you can find a ringtone fit for your liking and for your model. The graphics included, which are wallpapers and screensavers are downright ugly, there was only one I liked and that wasn't all that good either. Again, it is hard to find such downloadable items for your specific phone, and one to your liking. Next, I'll tell you about the little features of the v600, - backlight(blue) - alarm - there is also bluetooth for this phone - calculator with currency converter - calendar(great for recording birthdays and events) - changeable faceplates(the silver metal casing around the black area of the phone and the cover that covers the battery) - data capable - digital TTY/TDD - e-mail(Protocols Supported: POP3, SMTP, IMAP4) - headset jack - high-speed data(GPRS 4+2) - Java(Version: CLDC 1.0, MIDP 2.0 up to 100k per app / 5MB total memory (shared)) - MMS, you can also record few minute video clips - multiple languages - multiple numbers per name, up to 6 entries, example: home, cell, work, etc. - PC Sync - Picture ID - ringer ID - ringer profiles(vibe, vibe & ring, soft, etc) - syncML - text messaging templates(10) - USB - vibrate feature - voice dialing(up to 20 entries) - voice memo - wireless internet, WAP 2.0 On the left side of the phone, there are 3 buttons. One is for the voice dialing, the 2 others are volume buttons, and the ability to change ringer profiles. On the front, there is a screen that tells you the time, and below it is a motorola sign, around it is a circular pattern that lights up when there is a call, message, and all of the related. This phone is quad band, 4.4oz, 3.46" x 1.85" x 0.91", and has 6.5 hours of battery talk time. The quad band is the a good feature because there are only 4 networks in the whole world, and this phone allows you to be able to use it all over the world. The 4.4oz is a little bit too heavy, I was surprised it was that heavy when I bought it, I thought it would be as light as the v60. It's not too big, and not too small, good size. I'm not too sure about the battery life they give you.. I had to recharge every 2-3 days, that's the bad thing about motorola phones, battery is crap.. It was annoying and very inconvenient when the phone needed to recharge so soon. Overall, this is a good phone for a certain price. If you wish to buy this phone online, unlocked and without a plan, it is about 500$ and that is not a good deal, I don't even think 300$ is a good deal for this phone, though it looks nice, it has many downsides to this phone. I remember when I first got this phone, it already obtained scratches the first day, not a very durable phone in terms of scratches, I put it in my pocket and I notice scratches here and there later on. The keys inside are very nice though, the best I've seen, best I've touched too, hehe. To sum it up, only pay a certain price for this phone. Picture of the phone --> http://commerce.motorola.com/consumer/QWimages/v600.jpg The picture on epinions is the not the correct one =) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 560Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87682 2000/4/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 bluetooth global phone cool look moderately expensive could be lighter no video with camera The Bottom LineWhile not tiny and super-light, the V600 is a very cool global, Bluetooth phone. Full Review The V600 is Motorola's new flagship mobile phone. Is it the best camera phone ever? No. Is it a nice phone that will garner attention and looks? Yes. So the choice is up to you. The Phone The V600 was the Academy Award gift bag phone. It's small, but it's not significantly smaller than the competition. Motorola is not taking the track of trying to to make the tiniest phone possible with current technology. But phones are probably small enough as it is. But talking about weight, Motorola is certainly losing the game. The V600 is big since it has metal parts and exchangeable covers in it. All V-Series phones have significant mass, but it's impossible to say that their usage is uncomfortable even after some time. The size/weight ratio creates psychological confidence that these phones are durable. There is a certain category of people who definitely like this feeling. You can see the external display whenever the phone is closed. Unfortunately, it is monochrome only. The V600 can display the service icons and current time. Whenever there is an action going on the text line will be replaced with the appropriate text message. The screen is inversed, (white font is shown on the black background). The backlight is blue and very bright. Holes were made for the speaker on the upper part of the closed phone. They were incorporated so the ring tones will sound louder when the phone is closed. Since the speaker is located on the back side, there is a really impressive volume level. The "handsfree" connector is located on the top, as well as the hole for the strap. The usual interface connector is located on the bottom. You can connect the Data Cable in case Bluetooth is not enough for you. The volume switch is located on the left side, with the "smart key" located slightly lower. The smart key allows switching profiles during the standby mode. Another key is located on the right side, for accessing the phone's voice features and recording entries for the Dictaphone during the talk. Impressions Motorola recently decided to change their display supplier. It is impressive! For now, these models have some of the best displays available. The screen has 176 x 220 pixel resolution and is capable of showing up to 8 text lines combined with three lines for the service needs. The font size is average and easily readable. The TFT display can show up to 65000 colors. The information is still readable in sunlight. However the picture sometimes turned pale, but that's normal. Menu Users access the V600's Main Menu by pressing the Menu key which is located under the screen right in the middle. The main menu is presented with 9 icons; each of them uses service text line for definitions. You can switch the main menu's appearance to the list mode--then everything is presented with lists. Users can customize the order of the icons in the main menu (or the items in list view mode). The menu doesn't support fast number navigation, but you can setup shortcuts for almost every menu item or function. The navigational key can be assigned with various actions during the standby mode. Two soft-keys can be bound to various actions as well, apart from the default ones. With high menu personalization flexibility, the lack of the fast-number navigation is not so detrimental to the usage of the V600. Camera The display will act as the viewfinder. When you're moving the phone frequently the viewfinder will still act normally, the picture changes in real time. The ideal distance for taking quality pictures of peoples' faces is about 1 foot away. The camera has 640 x 480 resolution. Not bad. But the menu lacks an option to choose the resolution during the shooting. Though it does simplify the picture taking. The shutter sound can be also be disabled. Overall Motorola managed to produce a rather nice model with the V600. Their only disadvantage is the size and weight.The network quality is fine for the V600. It provides network connection everywhere where it's possible. The loudspeaker is loud enough, sometimes even too loud. The sound is synthesized into soft tones of high quality. People you call hear you clearly. The only real competition for Motorola v600 will be Panasonic X70. The V600 is targeted toward the image-conscious business user. It that regard, it is a home run. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87681 2004/8/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 must have for a geek gadget freak camera bluetooth good quad band world phone great connectivity cannot record video lack of external memory The Bottom LineGood world phone(except Japan). It is a must have for the Gadget Freaks/Geeks. Until the V1000 or the MPX220 comes out this is the Motorola phone to have. Full Review The V600 is a Quad 850/900/1800/1900 band GSM/GPRS phone. That means it can be used anywhere in the world except Japan. To avoid very expensive roaming charges overseas, it is best to get a local prepaid SIM and use it when you are traveling. However, some wireless companies SIM locked the phone so another phone company's SIM would not work in their SIM locked phone. Some Phone company will unlock the SIM lock when the customers request it to be done. Some would not but there are ways to unlock the SIM lock for a small fee (more on that later). There is an advantage of using 850/900 bands because of the lower frequency can penetrate walls better than the 1800/1900 bands. Lack of 900 spectrum in the States is the reason that FCC opened up this 850 band. I live in an area that has marginal receptions but since switching to this phone, my signal strength is much better (I am using AT & T Wireless). The sound quality on this V600 is good, I can hear it loud and clear, the speaker phone works. The color screen is beautiful. The key are large with good feel. The 5 way key pad is easy to use. The size is about average for a flip phone. It is slightly larger than my old Motorola 60g. While the V60 feels like an egg in my hand, the V600 feels like a bar of soap. The case is metal of matt silver color (by the way it looks very nice). The face plate in the center is transparent plastic which can be scratched easily. A second displace is on the outside that shows signal strength, time, battery and missed calls etc. It duplicate the first line (Icons) on the inside screen. It is visible under sunlight. Connectivity on this phone is good; it has blue tooth and an USB cable connection on the bottom. There is no Infrared connection though. There is a 2.5 mm ear phone plug on the top for those who do not use Bluetooth head phones. This phone plays MP3 files. Bluetooth Bluetooth is what sets this phone apart from other phones. It enables the phone to connect to a Pocket PC/PDA or Laptop (wirelessly) and acts as a modem for connection to the internet. However, the net speed is about the same as dial up. Verizon are running 1x on their CDMA system which is about twice the speed of what this phone can do. Verizon is activating their 1DO network gradually and that will run about 300kbps in real life. When AT & T activates its 3G network then the net speed would improve but then this V600 is not a 3G phone. It would not be running any faster. I am able to connect to my laptop, desktop and Toshiba e755 PPC using the Bluetooth connection. Pictures, MP3's and video can be transferred to the phone with no problem. I have a USB cable that can do the same thing and more. I'll explain the "more" part later. I do not have a Bluetooth headset yet, so I cannot test the Bluetooth connection. From all the reports and reviews that I've read that this Bluetooth headset connection is easy and without problem. Event Lights The V600 has a light on the flip cover which is called the event light. It is similar to the signal/service light on the top of some Samsung phones. This light can be set to light in different colors when the phone rings. When this event light is set on, it would flash every few seconds or so. I find the flashing light to be distracting and draw unnecessary attention. I turned it off. I set an audio alert when my phone gets disconnected or reconnected (when signal drops). This prevents me from chatting away without knowing that I was disconnected. Contacts and Calendar While this is not a smart phone, it has quite a lot of useful functions. With either a USB cable of Bluetooth, adding a Motorola Phone Tools (MPT) Software, both contacts and Calendar can be synchronized with your computer (much like a Pocket PC). Some people do not like the way Motorola's phone contact is set up as it does not allow multiple phone number under one name. However, this is not a bad thing if you use Voice dial. You can voice dial every contact on your contact list. It does not matter if it is a cell or work or home numbers as each of them is a separate entry. I do not sync my contact with my computer just the Calendar. As the contacts in my computer might not have a phone number. Data Backup (Important) If you do have this MPT, make sure you back up your contacts on your computer. I store all my phone numbers in the SIM not on the phone. The reason is that I switch phones from time to time. By putting all the numbers in the SIM card enables me to have all my phone numbers with me in any phone that I use. There is risk of doing this which I found out. I unlocked my phone and was testing the phone with different SIM cards from different phone companies. I asked my sons for his SIM card, he has a V300 from T-mobile. I dropped his SIM card into my V600 and everything works fine. While I was doing this, he dropped my SIM card into his phone. I had a SIM card password on my SIM card and told him not to play around with it. As usual he did not listen, he proceeded to unlock my SIM card not knowing that I had reset it, the Master Password no longer works. Before I knew what happened, he burned my SIM card. I had to go AT & T to get a new SIM card. Fortunately, I backed up my contacts on the laptop 3 days before. I was able to restore all the numbers back on to the new SIM card. Camera The V600 has a VGA camera that can capture JPG picture at 640x480. The camera is more of a gadget than a real camera. It is fixed focus and the image is not sharp, there is no flash also. That does not mean that it is not usable. It does take picture if the condition is right. It is not different than any fixed focus camera with no flash. It does take picture in dim light situation better than most camera that uses a film. There are 6 settings to adjust the "aperture". I find that most of the picture files are not big. It seems that the files are bigger when the picture is taken in bright sun light. The files are much smaller when the picture is taken in dim light. None of the file exceeds 50KB with about 40KB on the average. With 5MB of memory, I guess if could probably take about 100 pictures if you have nothing else (games/MP3's etc.) on the camera. Video The V600 can play Video but cannot record. This I do not understand as why would one want to watch a Video on a phone screen. Watching a Video on a Pocket PC is as small as I want to watch. Even if the V600 could record, the 5 MB internal shared memory would have enough room to store only one video clip. To made room for another video clip, the Java games and the camera would not have any storage left. Games Yes, this phone can play JAVA games. It comes with 2 games installed, Stuntman and Bejeweled. Bejeweled is a demo version which for a fee can be purchased via M-mode on AT & T network. I uninstalled the demo version and installed the full version using my laptop to upload the game. No, I did not have to pay for it. There are some many games out there and some many of them are located on the net, you can forever test and play them. Remember new ones are being added all the time. It does take some computer know-how and trail and error to do this but it sure is fun after you master the technique. I don't really like to play games that much but that is a challenge to be able to load the games. It took me about a week to figure how to do this. I also loaded Blackjack and Pac Man on my phone. One problem is that I was not able to selectively delete each game. If I delete, all JAVA Apps (games) would get deleted. Since I already know how to load games, I just have to reload the games that I want to keep. Corrections (08/20/04) The JAVA games can be individually deleted. Messaging This V600 support SMS and MMS. Depends on your phone service, it is possible to have AIM and other forms of Instant Message system on this phone. You do have to Flex and Flash the phone to add these features. This is not a easy process and I do not recommend this unless you are willing to spend hours and hours of your time to do the research and modify the phone's software. The point is that this phone can be tailored to suit your needs. The V600 uses iTap program to input words and I find it does help to make inputting words faster. AT & T Wireless Service / Email / Web connection I wanted a Motorola MPX220 but I read that AT & T will not be carrying that phone. I want to use AT & T because of their cheap international call service. Like most people that I have grown used to my cell phone and seldom use my land line. Using cell phone to dial overseas is very expensive. AT & T has an international call service that cost US$3.99 per month and the rates are very cheap. Calling Hong Kong is only $0.09 per minute, China is $0.13 per minute and Australia is $0.07 per minute. This is the best rate that I have found so far using a cell phone to call overseas in USA. After reading so much about the Motorola V600, I took the plunge and got one from AT & T. I know that AT & T locks their phones but I got one from AT & T for US$125.00 plus tax(50% off and a $25.00 Promotion got it down to $125.00). I get discount from AT & T because i worked for a company that has a contract with AT & T, I also got a discount (17% off)on monthly service. Using M-Mode on AT & T's data service is expensive compare to Tmobile's T-zone and unlimited data. However there is an Office Online service at AT & T that only cost US$9.99 per month (flat fee) that allows me to access email and Web. All I need is to have a computer on line acting as a server. I can probably use my company's server and I can always leave my desk top at home on and make it acts as my server. This seems to be a cheaper way than using the M-Mode. Since I just got my V600 2 weeks or so ago, I have not explored this yet. http://www.attwireless.com/personal/features/officeonline/index.jhtml I got information from reading HowardForum on how to unlock the Motorola V600. It only cost US$25.00 and it was not difficult to do. http://www.gsmphonesource.com/products/customer/home.php?cat=38 So, I now have an unlocked V600 that cost me about US 180.00 (including sale tax). I obtain a Motorola USB data cable and software to connect to my laptop. Everything seems to be fine. I am able to send and receive photo, MP3's and files. I was able to learn how to customize my ring tone using MP3 song. My V600 can read English, French and Spanish only. I need to enable it to read Chinese. The reason that I am interested is my friends in HK sometimes send me email in Chinese, and when I am in HK or China, people would send me SMS that are in Chinese. Motorola V600 is one of the phones that can be modified by changing the Software using a USB cable connected to the phone. The software is called Flash and Flex. This phone can be customized if you know how to. There are lots of free games and themes that can be loaded via USB or Bluetooth connections. As a phone, this Motorola V600 is solid. It is one of the better looking Flip phones around. Some people might not like the antenna; I have no problem with it. The metal case and battery cover can be replaced with different color OEM parts from Motorola. There are lots of after market covers and parts that one can used on this phone. Aston Martin (the car company) released 1000 limited edition of this phone and the going price of one of these is about US$1500.00. Aston Martin parts (not free) and software (free) are available on the net. Rating this V600 as a phone I would have rate it a 8.5. The reason is that it is not a 3G phone and the GSM/GPRS connecting speed is not as good as the CDMA system. Realistically speaking even if the phone is capable of running at a higher speed, there is no system running at a higher speed yet (where I live). It might be obsolete when (it might be still awhile) the higher speed net work is in place. As a gadget, this Motorola V600 would rate a 9.5. This phone can be customized both exteriorly (looks) and internally (software). I had spent hours working to get my Bluetooth USB connection set up (this includes laptop, desktop and Pocket PC). Normal folks would not have needed to spend so much time. I am trying to change software and customizing the phone. Hacking the software would free up about 2 MB of memory and bumped the internal memory to 7MB from 5MB. There are quite a few stuff that were installed in this phone, that cannot be deleted without going into the software. Last tips when you are buying this phone. Look directly at the camera lens and you want the red color ones not the white ones. The red ones are coated. Check the screen when the phone powers up. Just before the back light turns on, the screen should appear green for a brief moment. You want the green screen. Earlier screens were not as good quality as the later "green" ones. These green ones are made by Sharp. To save you all some time just look for the red lens and the green screen when you are buying one from the store. I have spent hours in researching and reading the Motorola boards on HowardForums. http://www.howardforums.com Get a screen protector just like the ones that are used on Pocket PC's. I got a precut one from eBay and it fitted the screen perfectly. It cost about US$4.50 delivered. The screen protector severs two functions. First it protects the screen from scratches, the second reason is actually more important. It reduces the glare under bright sunlight. This makes the screen more readable under the sun. Update on Bluetooth (07/20/04) I finally got a Bluetooth headset. It is not a Motorola headset but a Sony Ericsson HBH-65. I opted for a Sony Ericsson headset for the looks and lighter weight. I was a little apprehensive about this as I was not sure if this Sony Ericsson headset would work with the Motorola V600. I am happy to report that both of these devices work together as if they were made for each other. No problem what so ever. Once it was paired, turn on the headset, then the Bluetooth on the V600, select Handsfree on the V600 and the devices are connected. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87680 2005/12/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid build comeback of normal ringers great background noise cancellation feature self restart problem bad t9 itap selection marginal speakerphone The Bottom LineNicely priced and handsome, slightly dysfunctional but still worth it. Full Review Just for the record, the telephone pictured above is a V330 and not a V600. I got rid of T-Mobile's notoriously bad Sidekick II and sought sanctity in the Motorola V600. We won't get into all the nonsense that is the T-Mobile Sidekick II, but let's just say that it's not the best device to use if you're more on the business and/or professional side of life. This Motorola has Bluetooth, and I've not ever used another Bluetooth phone personally to comment on how well or bad the Bluetooth works on this phone... so I won't go there. I'm just happy that it works well and has a good range. When I use my Bluetooth headset, nobody can ever tell that I'm wearing my conversation on my ear... and getting strange looks from everyone on the street. When speaking on the V600 as a handset, the background noise cancellation feature is awesome. Now, I'm sure we've all had the horror of speaking to someone on a mobile phone while they're driving down the Interstate, right? Very loud. Lots of road noise. Blah! The V600 (and many other Motos) cancel background noise very well. Suddenly, that noisy Interstate car ride is silent. This may be a problem if you were out at a club, and you wanted your friend Sharon to hear the music in the background. The phone is designed quite well. The overall appearance is quite the classic. It's simple. Three circles of light surround the Motorola logo on the face. The lights have several color options for ringing, messages, and other "event" lights... like, "Hello, I'm charging." and "Hi dear, I'm connected via Bluetooth." The phone is a little heavier than your normal flipper. The V600 weighs about the same as 2.5 Samsung E715s. I don't necessarily think it's a bad feature personally, I just know that the phone is more durable and long lasting than some of it's lightweight sisters and brothers. Motorola loves to go wishy washy on the location of the send and end buttons. On most phones, send is on the left... end on the right. Not on this phone. There are some Motorolas that do follow the normal trend and have the send on the left. Who is designing these? If you're coming to the V600 from a conventional phone, it may be a little frustrating as you learn where the send and end keys are! On the ride side of the phone is a button used to dial by voice or to record voice memos. The voice memo feature is nice when you're on the road and can't find a blasted pen! Or if you're anywhere, and you find out that someone in your office has made off with your blue BIC. Calculator... nothing special here. It works well. Alarm clock... nothing special here either. The speakerphone isn't too great. If you're just getting a hot ear and you're alone at home, then it's great. I wouldn't try to use it where there's much background noise... as the background cancellation feature diminishes on speakerphone. The speakerphone starts to distort on high volume and sounds like an old public phone. The camera is slow, and is very sensitive to movement. In the picture quality department, it is right dead on average. Pictures taken with the camera can be used in messages, applied as caller identification images, or used as desktop images. And, no, there is no flash on this phone. The Welcome Comeback of Normal Ringers Some people are tired of all the crazy ringers we hear out and about. The Motorola V600 comes with about nine ringers that resemble the ringers of yesterday... just a little better sounding. For the musical fans, there are many musical and annoying ringers built-in. You can also assign ringers based on caller identification. Real World Drop Test Hi, I'm Nicholas... and I tend to drop phones from time to time. The Motorola V600 did quite well when I dropped it once outside of my local Nordstrom... and a second time inside of a Kohl's. The back cover is a thin metal plate that won't etch. The front U-clip is also metal... the rest is plastique. The drops produced no real damage to the phone itself. Superficial damage was minimum as well. SMS Nokia and Samsung phones are by far the easiest to SMS from. Motorola V600's iTap (aka T9) is terrible! On most phones you can cycle through the various options of words by hitting the zero or the star. good -> home -> gone -> goof -> hone -> hood -> hoof. On the V600, you must use the directional arrows and focus away from the body of your message towards a bar of words atop your message. If sending fails on an outbound SMS, you must resend manually for faster sending time, otherwise it may take ten minutes for the phone to send it again by itself. Phonebook Okay Motorola, this is 2004! People have more than one phone number! The V600 will not allow you to store more than one phone number in a person's single entry. If you have Smith, Carla in your phone book, and Smith, Carla has three phone numbers... then Smith, Carla is going to have three separate entries in your phone book. It's bad because you don't love Smith, Carla that much to want to see her name over and over. It's good, because Smith, Carla can have a different caller identification picture and ringer for her mobile, office, and home numbers. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 379Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87679 2004/7/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 bluetooth color screen camera voice dialing earpiece volume motorola technical support is worthless The Bottom LineLatest technology should last you three years. Hope that you don't have a problem though, because you won't find any support Full Review I have been using the v600 on the Cingular network in Chicago since the beginning of July 2004. [Note: I have updated this review at bottom to further explain defect in the phone, and to review motorola technical support] My main reason for selecting this phone was the bluetooth capability. Bluetooth allows you to connect two or more devises together without the use of wires. For example, I am able to use a headset (I use the Jabra Freespeak--read about it here: ) that is not physically connected to my phone. Furthermore, I can walk up to 30 feet away from my phone and still use the headset. This is great if you are walking around your house or leave, your phone in the backseat of your car, or in your purse. With the headset, you can answer calls or place calls (via voice dialing). I also selected this phone because I have had success with Motorola phones in the past, I wanted a color screen (updating from my old StarTac phone), and a camera. Instead of touching on every single use of the phone, I will focus on my experiences through my normal use of the phone. Look & Feel The Motorola v600 is a flip phone. The outside color is silver and is composed of metal. The front of the phone has an external LCD screen with blue letters and a camera lens. The antenna is very sturdy (I don't think it would easy break like it did with my old StarTac phone). When you open the phone, one half contains a full color display along with the earpiece. The other half contains all the keys and the microphone. The keys are positioned as on a regular phone. In addition, you have a send, end/power, left/right quick key, and menu button. Plus, you have a round button with up, down, left, right, and a center positions. The buttons are have a smooth feel and are well positioned for my 5'5" frame, meaning that I never have problems tapping an individual key. The left side of the phone has a volume up/down jog and a smart key which changes functions based on what you are doing with the phone. The right side contains another button which is used for voice dial or for recording voice memos. This phone is a little heavier than most, but I don't find it a problem. Data Entry When you enter in a phone number or any other type of data, a new window opens. I have noticed there is a short delay between the time you push a button and the windows opens. I do not text message, so I have never seen this as a problem. However, if you are part of the thumb generation, this may bother you. Phonebook I like the idea of storing numbers and e-mail addresses since a cell phone is a convenient way of collecting someone's information. The phonebook suits my needs. I believe it will store up to 1,000 numbers. Each number is stored individually, thus while you can have multiple numbers for a single person, the phone sees this as it's own number. I have decided to store my numbers on the phone instead of the SIM cards because this allows me the options of voice dialing and Picture ID. Earpiece Volume Under normal usage, the volume of the earpiece seemed fine. However, I noticed that even with turning the sound up all the way to 7 (the highest setting) it is still very difficult to hear if there is any noise. There have been many instances where I have been on public transportation or in wind when I am unable to hear the person on the other end (interestingly enough, this was never a problem with my StarTac). This is a HUGE drawback with the phone and I am not sure if there is a fix. Bluetooth This is great! But I already said that above. You have to learn how to pair the devices (make them "see" each other and remember that they "know" each other, but this wasn't a big problem). The default setting on the phone is to turn bluetooth off so that no one can access your phone without you knowing (called bluejacking). This is a good security feature, but I don't know if it can be bypassed. Voice Dialing I have found this to be a great feature. After training the phone through the phonebook, you push a voice button on the side and say the name. The phone will repeat the selection to you and then dial. This allows you to dial without having to look at the phone. Great for driving or even laziness. Battery Life I have been able to charge my phone every other night and still never get below two bars. I have found the battery life to be amazing as I can have several 2 hour conversations using bluetooth and still have enough battery power for three days. Camera It's a camera on a cell phone. What more do you expect? There is a nice little mirror next to the camera lens so you can take a picture of yourself and aim it properly. Ringtones I think the amount of standard ringtones are dependent on the carrier. With Cingular, you get about three cool ones, and of course there is the option to buy more. I'm satisfied with what is on the phone. Games I have this stuntman driving game and a very addictive puzzle game. The puzzle game is called Bejeweled. Office Tools You can a calendar which has been sufficient for my use (student), an alarm, and several tools that I have not used. Menu What great aspect on this phone is the ability to assign shortcuts to any menu item no matter how deep it is buried. Shortcuts can be assigned to a number or even voice prompts. I find this a great feature because I use it to quickly, turn on my bluetooth to connect to the headset. Speakerphone This works great. You can select this option while you are in the middle of the call. The speaker is on the back of the phone (weird location) so I usually turn the phone on its side when I use this option. Conclusion Even with the earpiece volume problem, I would still recommend this phone. The bluetooth alone satisfies me. I have read that there are software cracks on the internet to increase the volume by I am afraid to try this on my own. You can also find some pretty good deals on the internet for this phone right now. Please note that the picture used by epinions is incorrect. Also, another reviewer mentioned that they had a problem where the external screen became unreadable. I have experienced this problem once and was able to fix it by turning the phone off and on. Update July 22, 2004 I am now on my third new phone. I took the first one back due to the earpiece volume, however, with two additional phones, this problem has not been corrected. I'm starting to wonder if this is an issue with the Cingular network and not the phone? Jumbled External Display I only had this problem with the second phone (knock on wood). Basically what would happen is that you could not read the external screen. What exactly was this like? Imagine you took the external screen and divided it up into 5 lines 1 2 3 4 5 Each of those lines composed a larger picture, or in the case, the time. So if it is 12:00 PM, lines 1-5 would each print out a portion of the characters making up 12:00 PM. Line 1 would print the upper portion of the numbers, line 5 the bottom portion. Now, imagine if those lines are randomly re-ordered. You would not be able to read the screen. That's the best explanation I have. Dropped Calls/Unable to Dial My second phone also had a problem where I was experiencing dropped calls even with a full signal strength. In addition, I had problems where I was unable to dial out and if a person was trying to call me, the call would go directly to voicemail--my phone would not ring. I do not think this was a network issue, and instead I believe it was a defect with the phone. Update July 23, 2004 Motorola Techincal Support I'm am actualling going to decrease my rating of this product by one star due to motorola's technical support, or lack thereof. I believe that when you buy a product, you are also purchasing support for that product, especially with new technology when so much can go wrong. Motorola's support is completely worthless. They are not interested in helping to trouble-shoot your problem and instead are more interested in getting you off the phone. Let me provide an example. I called up the support number to ask about the earpiece volume. The support person told me that I should exchange my phone, so I exchanged my phone for a brand new one. There was no change in loudness. I called motorola back, and spoke to a Marial (#85327). Please, note I don't know how to spell her name because she would not spell it for me and I could not understand her. When I asked her to spell her name, she kept on saying, "What is your problem." I explained my problem and she said, "This is the first time Motorola is hearing about this problem." I then explained to her that it couldn't be the first time because I called about this same issue before, so it has to at least be the second time (this made me start thinking whether or not motorola is hiding something and won't admit a error in the product). This women would also not let me finish my sentence and kept on interrupting and saying "that will solve your problem is that it?" After trying to speak to this person for a little while, I requested to be transferred to a supervisor. She asked why, and I said, "you are not answering my questions and instead are trying to just get me to hang up." I was then transferred to Luke (#80029) who really wasn't any more helpful--he was still just trying to get me to hang up the phone. I have a feeling this is the way motorola trains its technical support people, and for all the money we pay for their phone, I think we really deserve more than this. I will continue to update this review if necessary. Update July 28, 2004 I'm on my third phone and the display has been jumbled twice already in less than a week. This is clearly a problem with the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87678 2006/1/29 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 can be used internationally small enough to fit in a pocket feature rich the antenna my apprehension about motorola calling via voice The Bottom LineDepending on your provider it works anywhere! This is a great phone. It seems they have worked out the kinks of the 300. Full Review UPDATE: 1/29/06 My phone has passed on. Although I can still call out and receive calls in I can't see the screen. This phone is not made anymore but can be found on eBay. For the right price I'd recommend it still. I enjoyed it very much. We bought the cell phone after returning the . Using our phone at the time was a modem a must for us. When we realized the Blackberry doesn't have that feature we went looking for one that did. After writing to twice and three V300s later T-Mobile and I negotiated a number of things. One was an upgrade to the Motorola V600 camera /modem phone which I am reviewing. This is being written by the "person on the street" in person on the street language. I will leave specifications at the bottom but I hope my review will help you decide in plain language if you want this phone. The software and cables that enable the modem capability have to be bought separately. This is called a Data Connectivity Kit. In addition there is an extra charge for this service. The phone is WEB enabled as well. Features of my Motorola V600: I had a distinct advantage since the V600 is more like the 300 than unlike it. I had the 300 down pat and was able to utilize all the functions and had including taking pictures and e-mailing them. However I wasn't always successful. There were times with the 300 that the recipients did not get my picture. I have e-mailed pictures from the 600 and have had success each time. There are 8 icons (which can be made into text rather than looking at pictures)- phonebook, messages, recent calls, multimedia, get more, games and applications, settings and office tools. I have them in text finding it much easier to use. If you get this phone make sure you figure out this option and in my opinion use the text rather than the icons. It will make your use of the phone a lot easier if you don't have to use the arrows to move from side to side or up and down to find the feature you want. You can order these in anyway you want. For example if you want to see your phonebook first you can do that. If you want games first you can do that. Each feature has operations within them. For example you can voice record the name you want to call. Note: the name has to be saved to the phone. It took me quite a while to figure this out on my 300 so I'll save you time. When you go to "store" the number and name it will automatically save it to the SIMS card. For those of you who have not owned a phone before the SIMS card is a tiny chip that is found under the battery. If the name is saved on the SIMS card you have to change it so that it is saved to the phone. You'll scroll to edit and then see "store to" and you'll select that and check phone. That is the only way you can record a voice. The only negative to this is that if you are just trying out the phone for two weeks don't record too many voices because you will lose the numbers. Since they aren't saved to the SIMS card that will go in another phone you'll have to put the numbers in again. Any feature you want to use says select, exit, edit, change or back. You will use keys on the phone to move from screen to screen. Messages allows you to create messages (text, picture, or send to an album); message box, access your voicemail (and change greetings), and quick notes which are already written on the screen from which to choose. You can make up your own. You can access recent calls made. Multimedia is where you can access the pictures taken and add the sound you want your phone to ring. This phone allows you to assign a ring to people. You will see a Get Moreicon which has a T. These are the t-zones and not accessible unless you pay extra. You will have to talk with your provider about the charge. Now that I am not using the phone as a modem (information in a moment) I am paying the additional money and have t zones so I can get e-mail, use the Instant Message feature and goodies like what movie is playing in the area I am in or what the weather may be. I don't play games on my phone, but you can! Two are already downloaded for you. You can download others - some for free; some will cost you money. Settings is a very important feature. This is where I have personalized my phone with a greeting, a color style, and wallpaper. In fact, I took a picture of Hanna, my almost 1-year old Pomeranian and she is my wallpaper. It didn't cost me anything to do this but it will cost you money to send pictures. Again, check with your provider on that. You will also be able to choose if you want your phone to ring, vibrate or do both and if you want it loud or soft. You have your call forward and caller id information here. Using the camera is a piece of cake and a lot of fun. You can store a picture and save it or discard it if you don't like it. It can be saved and sent later or even downloaded on your laptop. This really isn't necessary since you can send the picture from the phone. Having this camera with me is just "neat" - what else can I say- it's a great little toy. While I was waiting for it to come I had no phone. I found myself several times without my camera wishing I had my phone to take a picture. There is even a mirror on the front so you can take a picture of yourself. Let me talk a bit about the modem capability. This was crucial in our decision initially to buy the 300. The 300 failed us in this area. I was hesitant to go with Motorola again or even a modem phone but I did. I want a laptop. Having a modem phone and a laptop means I can go anywhere and get online as long as I have reception. The connectivity kit I mentioned above comes with software that is easy to install. Although we tested the 300 before we went on our summer trip, we had lots of problems. I have tested the V600 with my husband's laptop in all parts of this state since I've gotten the phone and so far so good. I've had no problem using it as a modem. I am truly hoping that either the problems I had with 3 phones were a fluke or that the 300 is just a lemon. The computer is slower with the modem phone but I can live with that. More about the phone: This is a very cute flip phone with a silver metallic finish. The picture you see is of the V300. The 300 had a rubber type feel (Called Soft Touch) to the top and back of it. I like the silver. It is very attractive though I am careful not to scratch it. I haven't gotten a cover yet but am using the holster that the V300 came with. A holster is just that. The phone fits into it and has a clip on the back. A small piece of material goes around the external antenna to hold it in place. The time shows up on the front cover. (You can set it for analog or digital.) It is a small phone - not the tiniest on the market but one I can put in my pocket easily. It weighs 4.4 ounces (.1 more than the 300) and is 3.5 x 1.87 x 0.83 inches which is a tad smaller than the 300. What I like and what I don't like - my experiences: I really like the camera ability. In spite of recently purchasing A href="/content_121868160644 it is a lot of fun to always have a camera on me. I like the ability to use the e-mail function, AIM services and other additional "cost" features. I like the fact I can record myself. I can record, for example, a note to myself to pick up milk at the grocery store if I am somewhere without a pen or paper. In general I like the features of the phone. My phone came with a charger (not a car charger, however and a hands-free headset so I can talk without holding the phone. It has a 128 x 128 pixel internal display - up to 65,000 Vivid Colors (CSTN). The screen is really clear and sharp. The screen is a good size measuring 1 1/2" in length and a little less than 1 1/4" in width. The design of it is identical to the 300 so there are still things I don't like. I don't like the antenna. I was so used to my old Samsung. Nothing could be as comfortable to hold as my old phone. There are warnings in the manual about the use of cell phones. One is to not touch the antenna while on a call. I hold the phone from the bottom, I hold it from the top and nothing is really feeling comfortable. I end up holding the entire phone, which makes sense, but inevitably I am going to be touching the antenna. I don't like the fact the first screen I see when I open the phone are the t-zones and camera screen. The time and date show up there but I would prefer the main menu to come up when I flip it open. In order to voice call a number in your phone book (I already told you that they have to be saved to the SIMS card) unlike my Samsung, which when I flipped it open I just said a name and it called, on the Motorola I have to push down the activation button on the right side of the phone in order to make the call by voice. You have to press it twice which I don't like if I'm driving. It isn't as user friendly as I would like. Perhaps they don't make a phone user friendly enough for me! The manual is very good but when I was learning on the 300 it wasn't good enough! The Motorola site was not helpful to me. Calling Motorola is useless because you get a recording and if your question isn't on the list of Frequently Asked Questions, then you are out of luck. You will get a bit more talk and standby time with the 600 than with the 300. The 300 got me 180-440 hours of talk time and up to 120-200 hours of standby time. The 600 provides up to 210 - 450 minutes of talk time and 135 - 240 hours of standby time using the 700 mAh Li-Ion battery . I don't find the clarity of sound as good as other phones, including the Blackberry and Samsung. I was hoping this would be fixed with the 600 but I have the same issue and it isn't T-Mobile's fault on this count. My husband's free after rebate Nokia has reception in rooms I don't. When I had asked T-Mobile about that I was told that fancier phones have more "guts" and sometimes the reception isn't as good. I don't buy that. I think it is a Motorola issue but I do get reception well enough in my house to be satisfied given all the other features the 600 has. One major difference in the 600 is "The V600's quad-band technology allows for voice calls in 125 countries and data activity in 30 countries where roaming agreements are in place." Just like you can assign people different rings you can assign different colors of lighting to the caller, voicemail or text message. The screen savers and backgrounds on all the screens are bright and easy to see. I can barely see my husband's Nokia screen. The phone has 5 MB internal storage memory. That is more than enough to store backgrounds, ring tones, games, emails, and text messages A complete list of the features and specifications I may not have mentioned will be below my final thoughts. Some of these I did mention but in plain terms such as not using the term Bluetooth for the modem capability. Features such as this will also be added below for those of you who like the technical terms. Jo's Final Thoughts: The cost of the phone varies so much depending on the plan and the rebate of the moment. It says that the retail price is $369. So far so good. A couple of times when I called customer service because of problems with my V300 I was told they had some problems with them. Other customer service reps disagreed. I do think they may have ironed out these problems because the phone has been problem free. It is pricey unless you sign up but considering it acts as a modem and a camera and is really feature rich, if you can get a good deal give it a try. I would use the 14 day trial period with this phone to make sure that it works for you in various parts of your state! Also note that this phone has to be shut off for at least 5 seconds each day to update. I found that out when the time didn't show up on the front cover. I called customer service and was told to shut off the phone and turn it on again. The time then showed up and I was told to make sure I do that each day. Please feel free to ask me a question, leave a comment or tell me what this non- expert has left out! Thanks. Taken from www.motorola.com Specifications · GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz · GPRS (2u/4d) AMR · 3.5 x 1.87 x 0.83 inches - size of phone with standard battery · 4.4 oz - weight of phone with standard battery Highlighted Features · Alerts - 21 Embedded MIDI Ring tones · 4 MP3 Ring Tones · 22 Khz Polyphonic Speaker with 22 Level Support · Embedded and Downloadable (01) J2ME Games - Stuntman, Bejeweled · User-customizable - Softkey functions, Main Menu and shortcuts · Video Clip - Download and playback with sound (01) (10 sec) · Integrated digital camera (VGA quality) with zoom and brightness adjustment · Situational Exterior Lighting · Caller Group Profiling - Ringer & Icon · Phone Book - Up to 1000 entries plus up to 250 on SIM card · Picture Phone Book - Up to 1000 entries · Voice Activated Dialing and Feature Recall · Handsfree Speaker · VibraCall® alert · Multimedia messaging - Picture / Photo + Text + Sound · EMS 5.0 · iTAP™ software for simplified text entry - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes · SMS - Chat one-to-one · Quick Messages - 10 user-definable SMS · Group SMS · Nokia Smart Message Receive · Instant Message Support - Wireless Village 1.1, Embedded Client · Email Support - STMP, POP3, IMAP4 · Calculator with currency converter · Date and Clock · Datebook with Reminder Alerts · PIM Functionality Talk Time Features · Provides up to 135 - 240 hours of standby time using standard battery (20) · Provides up to 210 - 450 minutes of talk time when used with standard battery (20) Display · 128 x 128 pixel internal display - Up to 65,000 Vivid Colors (CSTN) · Reads 7 lines of text, 1 line of icons · Blue backlight on external display Data Features · WAP Browser version 2.0 (01) · CE Bus (USB/Serial) · J2ME Programmability (01) · Synchronization with PC (Software and accessories sold separtly) · Internal Memory - 5MB Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 359Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7707 Motorola V70 87730 2003/10/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light lit key pad elegant easy to use trendy beat me if you can kinda model fragile way too small virtually irremovable battery I recently bought the motorola v70 at a promotional price of AU$199. It was a real bargain! The look is cooler than most phones (inc. Nokias and Samsungs). Though i must say the functions are limited, i still think having a v70 is, in layman's term, 'wicked' ! 87729 2000/10/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very stylish battery life overrated average quality The Bottom LineIf you have a choice, get this phone! Full Review I just bought this cell phone and found it to be the best one I've had, and by far Motorolla's best effort to date. I guess they were trying to find some other way to create a statement since clamshells (which they invented originally) were so dated. The phone fits well in the hand and the call quality is superb. I read an article recently that complained of the opposite, my advice is to check the reputation of the cell phone provider, as this problem would mainly rest on that end. The phone charges extremely quickly, something I had not read or heard about, it is good to go in about 25 minutes, about 95% charged, and the phone charger comes with a universal world voltage mini transformer. For only 15 bucks more you can get a kit off the net that will allow you to plug this into pretty much any outlet in the world. All in all, I would heartily recommend this cellular phone; it looks great, its got a great battery life, and seems to be of good and durable quality. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87728 2000/12/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 customizable ringtones games durable metal rubber accessories ebay really small confusing sim memory bezel wear recharge nightly The Bottom LineI love it, it's just like my other Motorolas were... but it could be more functional, and the bezel could be something more chip-resistant, like stainless steel. Full Review It's just like my other Motorola phones. Easy to get around, but I can't change the banner that says T-Mobile. Can get it for free, with rebates & a plan, on Amazon. I like the fact that I can play games when the face is closed. Showing it to phone geeks and getting a dropped jaw... METAL housing, for the most part, and rubbery insides. I like the chrome metal keypad. This is a really cute phone. It's the smallest, and thinnest one that I've handled, and it's really easy to use, since I had a Motorola, and the menu is around the same. I like how I can program my own ringtones. I dig the games, although if this is my first phone with games, I'm kind of disappointed in their play... My biggest problem is that it's the first week that I've owned this v70, with a midnight-colored background, from T-Mobile; and the silver bezel, the round thing on the front, is already peeling. Another thing that bothers me is that I can save numbers to both the SIM Card and the phone's memory. If I program the number to the Card, then I guess I can't voice dial. Also, I can't seem to press the button for a second or two and get the phone to dial the person in the "2" or any single-digit spot. I have to press 2# sign to get it. ...Also the thing is so small, I have to recharge it nightly, but I'm glad I got both a car and a regular charger out of my deal. Otherwise, I really like this phone. I've gotten a bunch of compliments, b/c nobody's really seen them yet. Everybody's trying to open it the clam-shell way, and I have to surprise them and rotate it open... fascinating... And... AWESOME clarity if I have the bars on my reception thing. The best clarity I've dealt with. - kris (www.anchorwomenrugby.com) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 87727 2000/10/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 blue backlight cool great sound speaker combo good battery time stylish lack of functions small screen itap messages menu system a mess The Bottom LineGreat design, but user interfaces from click hell. if you like to show off - get it, but using it is far too hard. Full Review Well I needed a new phone, my old Nokia 3210 was dieing on it's last battery juices. Now possible to get the V70 in the UK free, however I was told by Orange that Motorola have withdrawn it.. (true according to every shop I asked), but still decided to get one on Voda. Now I don't use my phone that much, just texting (sms) and making the old call. GPRS, WAP, Bluetooth etc not required so the fact the V70 is missing an IR port, isn't tri-band, and doesn't do bluetooth wasn't going to be a issue to me. I'm never going to be able to afford the cost (or have friends with compatiable handsets) to use picture messageing, so even the small (only 3 lines of text in zoom out mode) wasn't an issue. Looks are the reason I got this phone, style wise it rocks, cool blue lights, super light weight, and decent mic/speaker in the open position make it a nice phone to speak on. In the real world, all the different!! A couldn't ever get it to charge without been turned off!!, it wouldm't connect correctly, no voices heard at either end etc.. but the main problem is the user interface. As someone else said, this phone with a nokia UI would rock so badly there would be no question on buying it. People have mentioned one-handed opening, it's not possible with small hands, (maybe if you light a zippo one-hand, you might get the knack.. but learning that you throw the zippo on the ground a few times.. not good with a phone). Big hands it's possible, but the inputs are so small to make using it hard. The screen is nice, but small, and not standard size, 90% of people I know have nokia's. The V70 is without a 4 line display, you miss all the animated sms etc your mates send, even reading as you typing in is hard as by default it's only 2 lines of txt (about 5 words!). Text messagesing!! - what a nightmare, even selecting who you want to send a message to is about a 7 press journey around the pad, this wouldn't be that bad, but it's left, left, right, down, left, right, lower right to do it.. the normal every day option doesn't seem to be default. The ITap spell system is dire, I had to use the multi-tap classic way, getting :-) into a message is so hard. It doesn't know cut down txt spelling of words, eg ur, wd, trmw etc and the space button is on the 1 key arrgh! Now normally this isn't used if itap is guessing okay, but's not user friendly. Other points: it doesn't vibrate and ring at the same time, tunes suck, games are poor, it's slow getting into the inbox, auto saves to outbox.. doesn't use phone for txt's only sim (so make sure that's big). its slow everywhere really, just needs to be that little faster. People have mentioned shortcuts, I'ld like to create a shortcut to "txt bill" etc and just type in the message.. not allowed, shortcuts are 1 or 2 steps down the menu, that's it. Putting shortcuts, and voice dialing on the 1st was the best I could do, at least it's blind click, click, (no need to navigate to use that function). After 1 month of this phone, I replaced it with an nokia 8310, smaller, more functions and standard.. you can't beat it. Build in radio, picture messages, T9 txting (!!) voice dialing, decent layout and interface, plus it's go the option to a default txt reciever number (my girlfriend) - all very nice. The up/down button on the front don't do anything but bleep. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0000 87726 2000/10/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 hot collectors item stylish small fragile hard to hear The Bottom LineBottom line is that this phone is stylish - if you can afford to drop the cash on it then DO IT. Full Review I saw it in an ad, and I had to have it. That's the bottom line. In fact right now - I don't even use it. It just sits here... Collecting dust, but it still looks good sitting there. If I go out to a wedding or someplace nice - then I'll slip my SIM card in. The reception is horrible, it's only a single mode GSM. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? You get the idea. If the phone rings and it's in your pocket... Good luck hearing it, or even feeling it vibrate - the loud ringing volume is so low, can't even compare to a Nokia in that sense. If you're in a place where it's loud, good luck listening therough the handset - the speaker is junk. My antenna broke off - had to pay to have it repaired. The bezel came off, had to get a new one. Battery lasts one day at the most. The games are dissappointing, the browser isn't worth using and there really are no cool features to it. The display is nice and the way the keypad lights up is even cooler. Girls love the phone.. People always ask where I got it and what it does etc. Definintely an attention getter. Keep a charger in your car though, sliding it around and about turning those lights on will definitely drain your battery quite fast. I couldn't find an extended life battery for it anywhere. It's a collectors item - and that's why I'm keeping it. But if you want reliability and features you're buying the wrong phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87725 2000/7/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 gorgeous styling gets looks everywhere the price finally great os tiny buttons can t text with one hand The Bottom LineLooks a little fragile because its so sleek and sexy. But come on, I only have a 1-year contract anyway! I'll just get the v80 or v90 next year! Full Review I just got my v70 2 days ago and I love it! I read all the reviews saying it was too expensive and all, but my v70 was BETTER THAN FREE. What do I mean, you ask? I mean, I paid 50 bucks for it no tax, AND I get a $100 rebate from T-mobile! Basically they give me 50 bucks to get the phone--Suh-weet! I'm used to the OS, I had the v60 before this phone so I didn't have to re-learn anything. The screen is a bit small so I had to use the "zoom in" feature to increase the size of the text. But now, I have it on the standard "zoom out" text size cause I got used to it. The only gripe I have of this phone are the button sizes. The buttons on the keypads are tiny. I have to use the tips of my thumbs only, whereas on the v60 they were full-size buttons. The switchblade opening is a little weird too coming off the clamshell v60 but I got it down-pact in only 2 days. And another thing, the bezel gets scratched real easy. I went ahead and got the replacement bezels (3 pack) off ebay for 8 bucks. If you can score this phone for the advertised $99.99, that's with the $100.00 rebate, go for it. If you are resourceful and can find it for $50 plus the $100 rebate then you are good to go! Even with the few gripes I have I highly recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -50 87724 2002/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 new 360 swivel stylishadequate in any lighting pricey priced superior too small feels inferior The Bottom LineOn style and design tips, the Motorola V70 is what phone manuafcturers will be mimicking for a long time. Full Review I've been talking about it, you've been talking about it. We waited long enough, and now it's finally here. The most talked-about phone of the season is the V70 from Motorola. It was first featured by the stars in a promo on the Academy Awards (I'm sure you've seen that), then was shown as a sweepstakes prize on cingular.com (i don't know who won). In a nutshell, this tiny little phone can pack alot of punch. Its' intuitive design and features are what make Motorola the #1 supplier of phones, and return customers. I'm sure everybody has heard this already, but let me refresh everyone's minds: Motorola stunned the design industry with the world's first mobile flip phone, and has shocked it again with the world's first mobile "spin phone." Let's start first by talking features: The first, and the most important feature that should not go unnoticed is the very first phone to have its' front cover spin in a full 360 degree rotation. It also gets fun spinning the phone, but, after a while, can get VERY annoying. What accompanies this spinning cover is an interchangeable bezel (on all the pictures you've seen, the chrome piece on the front of the phone). You can change this depending on the mood you feel, as they have many different colored bezels. If you're a heavy-duty phone user, I would suggest that you change the bezel to a scratch-resistant brushed aluminum bezel. Everyone other than you is probably more delicate and can keep the chrome bezel. Next on the feature list is a black display screen, probably the same type like you've seen in the Timeport Tri-Color phone, except this phone only has white text on the background (no color). What accompanies this feature is the illuminiscent MotoGlo backlight for the entire phone. It's sort of a Midnight Blue tint, which adds flavor to the phone in the night, and jealousy from your friends, since they might have a standard green backlight (except the T68i). About this feature, i have heard complaints about the screen size being a bit too small. I could agree with them, but these are the same people who complained about the V60's screen being too small. Over time, you will get used to it. Now everything else on the phone, the more technical features, are almost identical in turn to the Motorola V60 phone, except with the addition of three games to the set: Blackjack, Mindblaster, and Paddleball. Here is a quick description of the games: Blackjack : Exactly what it says Mindblaster : A Motorola version of Memory Paddleball : One-sided Pong If you haven't owned the V60, the features you'll most likely encounter on the phone are: SMS / E-Mail Messaging Newly designed interface, a serious update from the Startac/V software Voice Dialing Nearly 498 entries for e-mail / phone numbers Text interface zooming (text small / large) 32 Available ringtone styles + downloadable ringtones Micro-sized Internet Browser (text sites, some pictures, if they're super small) Ability to listen to MP3's or the Radio through a proprietary headset. There are minor features i haven't mentioned, but most likely they will go unnoticed as i have on the phone. I've owned this phone for about a month already, and to this day it has never let me down. The reception is great, battery life is great, and the features are great. But not without its' good sides come bad ones. There are tiny, if anything at all, imperfections on this phone. First, the keypad is so small that you may be mistaken to press multiple buttons simultaneously. I guess this compensates for such a small form factor of a phone. Second, although the phone is very reliable, it feels cheap. I thought with the advent of the Motorola V60 their future phones would be made of aluminum, but only the back of the V70 is aluminum. The innards are made of rubberized plastic for durability, and Plastic for the front cover. It's not a biggie, but if I paid $500 for a phone, I would want it to feel like one. Motorola estimates anywhere between 135 - 215mins for the life of the phone for continuous talktime (no light - light times). I've gotten near that estimate, with about 2 hours with the automatic backlight, nearly 4 hours without a backlight running. I couldn't test the standby time, but i would say it would be just about right if they provided about 2-8 days of standby times, which are standards for Motorola phones. The type of service the V70 runs on is the GSM 1900 standard, which most of you are asking, "huh?" This could easily be said that it currently works only on Cingular, but you can go to any store and they might connect it to your provider of choice, whether it be Voicestream or AT&T or Cingular. I've had accounts with both Cingular and VoiceStream and both have the same reception of service and signal strength coverage, which is great where I live. Probably in suburbian areas it would be difficult to receive a strong signal. One thing I almost forgot to mention is the addition of GPRS service, an always-on connection to the internet from the V70. If you live in heavily-populated areas, GPRS services may be provided there. They offer you a "high-speed" (40-60 Kbps) connection to the Internet. Go to your local service provider and ask about this. For Cingular it's called My Wireless Window Express, and for VoiceStream it's called iStream. Expect to pay about $249 - $449 for this baby, depending on where you go. Here in NYC, everything's expensive, so you might even see it here for more than $449! I highly doubt it, though. Remember don't get "shot in the leg" with deals they give you. Try to negotiate, and if they won't budge, Manhattan alone has over 200 wireless shops. I do not recommend the provider shops, though. Cingular will do everything to charge you the $449, make you pay the "required" donation to the special olympics, and $35 activation fees. Mom-and-Pop stores would charge you less. This phones comes with: (1) Motorola V70 Phone, In Silver (1) Ultra-Slim battery with Case (1) Motorola Handsfree (1) Motorola Express Charger (1) Motorola Cover-all Leather Holster (1) Manual and Warranty Info If you've got the money to budge, flaunt it and get the hottest phone around: the Motorola V70. If you're looking for versatility, though, the Motorola V60 could be better. I am not saying I don't like the V70, though. I love the phone very much, but with the V60 also receiving style and technology points as well, I could say it would be a tie between the two. It's my opinion, you make the decision. Go to a store and see it yourself. No one opinion can solely judge your decisions. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449 87723 2000/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool factor easy user interface sound quality light weight may be too small for some gsm service may be spotty expensive The Bottom LineThe phone works great. If you understand that you give up some of the games and other "useless" features, you've got yourself a genuine winner here. Full Review Background I handle the cell phone contract negotiations for a major NYC financial institution, so I received first crack at evaluating this phone along with new player to the NYC market, Cingular Wireless. First impression The phone is very light weight, under 3 ounces. It feels properly balanced in your hand. With a little practice, it's very easy to open with one hand behind your back. The screen is easy to read both in bright sun and in darkness. I'm a tall man with large hands. Now while I am very agile, I believe the buttons may be a bit small. But the tactile feedback was quite satisfactory. For those used to the V60 series, the interface is essentially the same. One major improvement to the V60 is that the "up and down" arrow keys now directly access the phonebook, whereas you'd need to press another button prior to accessing. This to me was a very logical improvement. However, I believe this is where the similarities end. I don't believe any comparisons should be made to the V60 series, as this phone is in a class by itself. In addition, I am writing this review to purely speak about the general quality and functionality of the phone and service. Games & microbrowsing, in my opinion, do not belong on a phone, as they're "not ready for prime time". A phonebook is essential, along with good reception, battery life and ease of use are my prime factors when making these decisions. Strong points Yes, the phone is very cool, very unique. For those seeking the "wow" factor, then this, quite simply, is the phone for you. I received many compliments on the phone (and the ladies loved it). However, I believe this phone has merit beyond it's good looks. Contrary to what some others may believe, this phone has stupendous clarity both receiving and sending. Callers were surprised I was using a cellular phone. Callers also sounded deep and rich. I happen to think Cingular wireless has done a good job. Signal was very high 99% of the time in NYC and metro areas. My apartment in NJ was another story, but that's because I don't seem to get any signal from any provider. The phone has an acceptable ringer, with enough tones to suit the typical user. I actually found the calulator useful on more than one occasion. Battery life was nothing spectacular, but is expected for a phone of such minute size. Speaking of size, it wasn't as difficult to use as I expected. Like I said before, the buttons may be a bit small, but actually using the phone was just fine. Since it swivels open the phone is actually longer than a typical nokia or ericsson. It comes with a nice swivel case, which worked quite well. I didn't try the included headset, but I used the compatible FM tuner/headset that I use with my V60, and as usual, the sound was below par. I use the Motorola TrueSync software to link my MS Outlook, Yahoo! and telephone address books. It worked fine with the V70. The phone also has a SIM card which allows you to retain your phonebook in case you need to change phones or send this for repair. A major plus over services such as AT&T. As you may know the phone has interchangable bezels (black, gold and silver). And the whole keypad glows a sexy blue. Negatives I can't say much is wrong with this phone, but keep in mind, I'm not in this for games, internet, or anything other than making calls. Other than the small size, and prohibitive cost, there is nothing wrong with this phone. Conclusion Unfortunately, this unit is exclusive to Cingular until at least the end of the year. And since the FCC isn't allowing number portability (letting you take your phone number with you), you'd have to switch carriers, and let everyone know your new phone number. I don't find that to be a problem. On it's own merits, I give this phone a 5/5 star rating. It's well designed. I played with the swivel 100's of times a day for well over a month now, and I don't feel like it's even close to falling apart. I've dropped it several times, and it's still working like a charm. For once, a "gadgety" phone that actually exceeds the "cool but...." stigma, and is very well made and engineered. I recommend to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free loaner 87722 2000/12/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 new world standard for small size great reception very cool design keys menu learning curve can be pricey battery life display The Bottom LineIf style is your motive, then you cannot afford not to own! Full Review Form factor; The phone is very small and not to mention very cool. The most noticeable feature is of course the swivel action of the phone. Similar in concept to flip phones, the earpiece swings open to effectively double the size. Here, it rotates open instead of flipping open, and will actually rotate a full 360 degrees. Size is truly a diminutive 94 x 38 x 18.3 mm and weighs in with battery at 83 gr making this to my knowledge, the smallest phone on the market today, and one of the lightest. The rotating design makes it a practical function to open the phone to answer a call, as the call display is visible at all times, or to press a key or one of several keys (more on the operating system later). Rotating the phone closed will terminate the call. When the phone is closed, the phone buttons are also locked, but there is the option to press and hold an unlock button releasing the 'lock' of the (three) physical buttons on the bezel not covered when the phone is closed. (Function is limited with these buttons with the cover closed, but you can perform a few, say go 'online', check your email, today's weather and your text messages). The SIM card is placed underneath the back aluminum battery cover, above the battery. The screen is quite small, though is wider than the tiny body of the phone and contains 3 lines of text, and two lines of icons and system status indicators. Top row is signal, battery and message indicators. Bottom row are reserved for the menu key and the 'soft key indicators. The bezel (interchangeable) contains the menu and 'left' and 'right' keys, thought these are 'soft' keys and change function depending upon the function that the phone is operating in at that time. Bottom of the phone are the actual phone keys themselves; top row menu keys, yes/no keys, up down rocker navigation pad and then the numeric keys. They are not typical rubber or plastic backlit keys, on the V70, they are metal and the backlighting is provided from behind the surrounding facia. Display; is an usual 'inverted' backlit with black background and white text. Users can customize time that the backlight stays on, usually 20 seconds. Clarity is very good, but with the black background, not quite as immediately clear as a 'normal' screen, but this is due to the style aspect, some will find it to be very cool, others may feel uneccesary. As I said, clarity is very good, and the backlight is very sufficient. Handset Keys; are tactile but smallest yet seen on a phone, still offering good positive response, though your fingers may at times 'miss' the keys or slip off when pressing them. The 'up/down' rocker switch works in tandem with the bottom '*' and '#' keys at the bottom of the keypad that double as left and right. This setup offers four way navigation, but fingers have to jump between their two positions. The phone also has one (left) side key that operates the ring and call volume depending if the phone is in use or not. Pressing it in increments the volume up one increment at a time, there are seven stages. Pressing it in and holding will reduce. Text messaging on Motorola phones uses a proprietary iTap® method, different from the T9 system used by almost everyone else. On the V70, the keys are that little bit smaller and so will take a little bit more 'attention' itap® works very well, it makes better guesses at your word entry, but lacks the ability to add to the dictionary that T9 offers. If the two could be combined, it would be perfect. This will remain a matter of preference, and as text messaging has not yet caught on in the US, will not be an issue. Menu and operating system; The default menu out of the box is fairly straight forward. Personally, I have never had an issue with Motorola menus but would agree that they are not quite as intuitive as Nokia, but do offer more customization and are better than Ericsson in my opinion. Middle menu key will open the menu, but the side keys will offer quick access to the phone book and Tzones (T-mobile's WAP internet service). These can be changed to almost any function, say vice dial as a practical example. Pressing down on the rocker button will also access the phone book. Numbers are accessed by scrolling, or by pressing the first letter of the programmed name - pretty straightforward. Other settings; that would want to be accessed pretty easily are most likely the phone ring settings. These are initially accessed under menu/settings and are then the first option. Each ring 'setting' such as 'Ring', 'Vibrate', 'Ring/Vibrate' etc can then in turn have ring details set for them. For example you might want your phone to still beep for messages even though you have the phone set on vibrate. This offers a good level of customization, but can be a little fussy. A good solution with other manufacturers is the concept of 'profiles', although these also take some initial setup. The phones main features; • Calendar - this allows for user added items (meetings or reminders), with alarms, start times, repeating feature, duration etc. • Inbox - this handles browser messages, text messages, voicemail messages etc. • Games - Paddleball, Mindblaster and Blackjack. • Calculator - this also offers currency conversion. • Phone book - stores up to 500 entries, each storing name and up to six numbers with their own icon designation; Home, Work, Mobile, Fax, Pager and Main. SIM card will usually hold another 250 entries but no designation. • WAP - Internet (Wireless Access Protocol) access, with GPRS (fast data speed and 'always on') connectivity. Most of the phones features or settings areas can be reached by a user defined shortcut. This where the phone shows its hidden flexibility and is worth some user time and setup. Scrolling to the desired function, pressing and holding the menu key, you can then define the shortcut; for example the Inbox, can be defined as '11'. To shortcut to the Inbox, you would just press 'menu' and then '11'. Signal reception;is one of the best I have ever encountered, better than my previous reference point the v66, and certainly a notch above any non-antenna, or internal antenna phone. My only issue is that sometimes the signal bar is slightly over optimistic, sometimes showing one or two (of the five) bars and not actually offering much of a useable reception, this is true also of previous Motorolas that I have had, however most phones would not show any bars at all in the same vicinity and I frequently have cause to have two or more different brand phones next to each other. Voice quality on the V70 is far above and beyond anything else that is on the market that I have encountered. I consistently use Nokias, Ericsson and Samsungs, and none are in the league of this phone, again beating even my previous reference point the V66. With a good signal, people will not know that you are on a cell phone. Unlike the V66 though, this phone is single band only (not Triband) - US 1900Mhz GSM. This means it will not operate on Analog networks, and definitely not overseas, this model is (currently) strictly US only. Audio; As noted above, exceptional and with its extending design meaning the microphone is closer to your mouth than a lot of 'candy bar design' phones, it is also less prone to wind noise from open car window or A/C vents etc. Earphone volume seems to have been improved upon from my previous Motorolas, but does not compare to the very high volume of the v8162 (also reviewed) for example, but I would say is more than adequate in all but the noisiest places. Quality of the audio equipment and circuitry also reflects with the voice recognition, I have yet to find a better recognition rate on any phone. Most issues with voice recognition on any phone are derived (in my findings) from recording similar sounding names and single syllable recordings such as 'John' and 'Don' or such. Recording first and last names along with number type (home, office etc) will make voice retrieval almost 100%. Battery life; could definitely be better. The phone will most likely need to be charged daily, and a car charger would be highly recommended for day to day use. I have yet to completely run a charge out in one day, but if left overnight, it will expire probably late the next day. Battery indicator is three bars, but the detailed view in the menu will display a more detailed six bars. In a typical 16 hour 'operating' period, I would easily get 120mins talk time as well as the standby time. Compared to most newer Nokia's and Ericsson's that offer days of standby, this is a little poor, but if you have the presence of mind to charge each night, I doubt very much that this would be an issue. I think though that this is to be expected somewhat with the tiny size. Motorola use Lithium Ion batteries, and I think it is about time they moved to the more sophisticated Lithium Polymer. Overall; great phone, incredible features for it's size, will take a little 'user time' to grasp Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 87721 2002/7/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reverse black blue lit screen interchangeable bezels casing stylish looks rotating flip design lightweight difficult to flip phone with one hand pricey The Bottom LineThe V70 is for you if you don't mind the price and you value design, style, small size, lightweight despite the bland features and low technology Full Review I recently purchased the Motorola V70 with Rogers AT&T on a 1 year contract for $650CAD including GST. INFORMATION: Talktime 100-190 minutes Standby time 80-145 hours 94 X 38 X 18.3MM Weight 83g GSM 1900 MHz STYLE One of the major reasons for purchasing this phone was the looks and unique design of the Motorola v70. The v70 comes with a silver interchangeable bezel, silver metal (not plastic) casing with black plastic trim. The bezels are chrome. The Motorola v70 has an active rotating flip and the keypad comes in a variety of see-through colors such as dark blue and baby blue. Clear plastic is also lined underneath the top cover. All buttons are chrome and the rubber antenna is non-retractable (unlike the v60). There are a variety of interchangeable bezels available and Motorola offers a 3-pack of bezels (matte steel, black, gold color) for $40CAD. As well, there is a cubic zirconia and real diamond bezel. Not only are bezels interchangeable but the clear plastic and exterior housing can all be changed. This phone is beautiful and it looks expensive unlike most Nokias which all have plastic housing (exception Nokia 8890). The display of the v70 is grey font on a black background. Upon use or the push of a button, the grey characters light up blue. FEATURES Another reason I purchased this phone was because my Ericsson t68 was having major software problems. Compared with the bluetooth technology of the t68, the Motorola v70 is bland in features. Motorola is definitely falling behind Ericsson in technology. There are no outstanding features on the v70. However, the lack of features makes the phone hassle-free and user-friendly. On the main display, there are many icons which are neatly placed and non-crowding. This includes the amount of signal/reception, text message, voice message, battery life, answering mode (silent/loud), Operation mode (GPRS/analog), as well as the time, and the service provider. There are two menus on the home display of the phone: Phone Book and Browser. However, all buttons can be reprogrammable and these menus can be changed. This is a very handy feature of this phone. Pressing the middle button on the bezel gives access to the menu, and the menus can be scrolled through using the up and down scroll buttons on the keypad. Submenu's include: Recent calls, Fixed dial, Phonebook, Datebook, Messages, Shortcuts, Voice Dial, SIM Applications, Browser, Calculator, Games and Settings. These are normal features expected from a cellphone and none are worth noting. (the games are very bland) The v70 comes with 35 preprogrammed ringtones and new ringtones can be programmed into the phone. The V70 can store 1000 phone numbers. RELIABILITY The service provider I use has unreliable coverage and as a result I have poor reception. This is not a problem of the phone itself. Other friends of mine who have the V70 and use other service providers say that they have excellent reception. The voice quality is superior to Nokia's and Ericsson's. The voice quality is clear and undistorted. I never hear any echoes. As well, the phone reduces background noise considerably. TEXT MESSAGING The Motorola V70 has the most efficient automated text messaging as compared with Ericsson's T9 software and Nokia's software. When using quick typing, all possible word combinations are shown on a menu and the user selects which word he wishes to use. For example...when I am using the Nokia for text messaging and key in the word "Home" (4663), the word "Good" is keyed in instead. In order to change this, I have change the messaging mode to manual mode and input the word manually. However, with the Motorola V70 I can select from a list of possible word combinations. This is a great feature!! OVERALL I must admit that the rotating flip is hard to use. One must practice if he or she wishes to answer their phone with the use of one hand. In order to answer a call, the flip must be turned a complete 360 degrees and cannot be answered without flipping the cover or by pressing a button. However, it is possible to see who is calling before opening the cover and there is an active button to ignore the call. Despite the awkwardness of using the flip, it is also the coolest feature of the phone. This phone definitely turns heads and the design of the V70 is modern and futuristic. The style of the V70 is ahead of its time. The V70 is a high quality phone with good reliability (no problems to date)and attractive looks!! It is very light weight and very small and thin. If you value all these things, and are insensitive to price, then the V70 is the phone for you. I definitely felt like I got my money's worth with purchasing the V70. However, if you are looking for a phone with breakthrough technological features then the V70 is not right for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 650CAD 87720 2000/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 backlight small stylish light small buttons no downloadable ringtone facility small screen The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a phone that is stylish, light and upto date, then this is for you. Full Review After owning three mobile phones in five years, all of which resemble bricks, I have recently changed to a motorola v70. This is the first motorola phone I have owned. In the past I have had a Nokia, an Ericsson and a Philips Savvy. I am not one of these people that follow trends and I don't have to have the latest model, I just fancied having something that was smaller and lighter for a change. It was time for a little treat. ***********************SPECIFICATIONS*********************** Weight 2.9 oz Width 1.5 in Depth 0.8 in Height 3.7 in *********************PHONE DESCRIPTION********************** This mobile phone is chrome, with a round screen and a rotating cover. The rotating cover covers the keypad and rotates all the way around the phone in a full circle. It rotates around the screen and because it covers the keypad, you do not have a keypad lock. This rotating cover is used as a keypad protector, to answer and end a call and as the ear piece whilst on a call. The screen and keypad are lit by a soft, blue electro-illuminisent light. This light is activated when the rotating cover is moved. Under the screen there are three small, silver buttons. These buttons are not covered by the rotating cover. If you press them when the cover is over the keys, nothing will happen. They only work when the phone has been activated, which is done by moving the cover from over the other keys. These three buttons are the main menu buttons. On the top of the phone, on the right hand side is the ariel. It is black in colour and is about an inch long. Next to this is the port for the hands free kit and at the bottom of the phone is the port for the charger. On the side of the phone (left) there is a small silver button. This is the volume control. The keys on this phone are a rectangle shape and are very small and silver in colour. The back ground that they sit on looks black, until the light is activated and then it glows a nice soft blue, like the screen. **************************FEATURES************************** Phonebook- Here is where you store your names and numbers. You can add, delete or edit any of them from here. The phone has a seperate memory for storing names and numbers so you can leave your sim card free, if you want to. In total the phones memory will hold 500 names and numbers. Then of course there is the space on your sim card aswell. Messages- Here you can access your voicemail, text messages, quicknotes, outbox and drafts. You can record you voice mail greeting, change it and switch you voice mail on or off. When texting, you can choose between four options. There is itap, which is predictive messaging, tap, which is normal texting, one letter at a time, numeric, which is number texting and symbol, which is symbol texting. You choose your prefered option and the phone will save that setting until you change it. The quicknotes is for writing yourself little notes and saving them. Your outbox will store all sent messages, until you manually delete them. The drafts flder is for storing unfinished messages so that you can go back to them later and finish them. Recent calls- Here you can view all your recent calls, whether you recieved them, sent them or missed them. They will be stored here until you delete them. If you miss a call from a number that is not stored into your memory it will save the number in Notepad, so that you can see the number. If someone send s you a text with a phone number in it, it will also be stored in notepad sothat you can use it. Calltimes- every call that you have recieved will have the time it was recieved stored in this flder, until you manually delete it. Games- this phone has three games. Paddleball, blackjack and mindblaster. Settings-Here you can set your phone to silent, vibrate, loud or soft ringing. There are 25 ringtones in this section for you to choose from and the phone allows you to choose a ringtone for when you recieve a text message. You can have one ringtone for text messages and another for incoming calls. There is also a composer, which allows you to create upto 32 more ringtones. Call divert- this feature lets you divert a call, if you are unable to answer your mobile. When this option has been activated, anyone who calls your mobile will be diverted to another phone number, the one that you entered. Phone staus- In this section you can view your battery life and personal phone numbers. Datebook- This function allows you to set yourself reminders. It has an alarm so that you will never miss another birthday, meeting or appointment. Quickdial- here you can assign phone numbers to keys for speed dialling. It saves you having to enter the number or look up the name. You simply press one number and it will dial for you. Shortcuts- you can set any of the above functions to a key, for quick reference. Voicedail- this function allows you to set voicedail on or off. Once you have set it to on, you have to record the names by speaking clearly into the phone. From then on, all you have to do to ring someone is speak there name into the phone and it will dial for you. My services- this lets you view which network you are using. Browser- This lets you set your phone up for WAP. **************************EASE OF USE*********************** Flicking through this phones menus, when I first got it, was a little daunting. I hadn't owned a motorola before and they are very different to nokias, which was my last phone. There is so much to look through that it took me a while to familiarise myself with it's functions. Once I had mastered it though, it was simple to use. Entering names and numbers on this phone is simple. You just have to decide whether to store them on the phone,the sim or both. Texting on this phone was a little awkward to begin with, The keys are very small and quite close toegther. I have quite small hands but little chubby fingers, so I found it a little fiddely to start with. Now I have got use to it, but there are still times I find myself hitting the wrong keys. If you have big hands, then I'm afraid you will struggle. The composer is also a little tricky, or maybe it's just me. For some reason, none of the tunes I have entered sound like they should. I am not familiar with a composer though as I have never used one in the past, so this could be just me. If you have used one in the past, you will probably get on fine with it. *************************COMPARISONS************************ Compared to a Nokia 3110. The motorola is half the width and length of this phone and there is a big difference in the weight aswell. The motorola has a lot more features and it is a lot more stylish. Texting on the Nokia was easier though, due to bigger, more spaced out buttons. The screen on the Nokia is also bigger than on the motorola. Compared to the Ericsson GA628. The motorola is smaller and lighter than this phone and again, is a lot more stylish. The ariel is smaller on the Ericsson but the sreen is bigger on the motorola. If you hold the Ericsson in one hand and the motorola in the other it feels like a feather and a brick! Compared to the Philips Savvy C15. There isn't that much difference in the weight, but the motorola has the edge. Again it is smaller and more stylish than the Philips Savvy and the motorola has the bigger screen. The philips savvy did have icon messages though and the motorola doesn't. Texting on the Philips was also easier, again due to bigger more spaced out buttons. ****************************PRICE*************************** The price of this phone varies quite alot, depending on whether you buy it on a contract, pay as you go, with or with out sim and second hand or new. Prices start from around £79.99 through to around £149.99 It is well worth you spending a little time and having a good look around, as there are some places that are definately better on the price than others. *************************MY OPINION************************* Finally, I hear you all sigh, this opinion is coming to an end! I like my new phone, but there are features on my old phones that I miss and features on my new phone that I love. Like I said earlier, I have never owned a motorola before and so it was a big difference for me. It took some getting use to, but with a little time and patience I got use to it, in the end. There is a lot to look through when you first get it and it can seem a little daunting. I particularly like the games, as all the phones I have owned in the past haven't had any, but I miss my icon messaging that the Philips had. The menus are laid out differently and having three menu buttons threw me in the beginning. One is to access the menu, one is to choose an option and one is to go back a screen. In the beginning I kept getting muddle up, which was for what, but now I have it! Is it better than my old phones? Yes and no, is the answer. I like some of it's features but miss some from my old phones. Every phone is different and this is a good little phone. At the end of the day, it does what it is suppose to and it has a lot of extras. This phone also has a built in radio. I personally haven't used this feature yet, but if you like to listen to the radio whenyou are on the move, then this feature is for you. To listen to the radio, you have to plug the headset in, where the handsfree kit goes. It looks just like the handsfree kit, but it is for radio purposes only. **************************GOOD POINTS*********************** Stylish Small Lots of features Composer Large phone memory Radio Backlight Interchangable rings *************************BAD POINTS************************* Small buttons Naff ringtones No icons Price Sticking out ariel **********************THE CHOICE IS YOURS******************* A small, stylish, lightweight phone, packed with lots of features and is great compared to some. OR A small, lightweight phone, with small, close together buttons, vast menus and a sticking out ariel. The choice is yours! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): varies 87719 2002/8/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small the most uniquestylish mobile phone on the market lightweight battery life expensive to swivel one handed takes practice The Bottom LinePossibly the most unique and stylish phone available today. Now you can own the same mobile phone awarded to the Academy Awards presenters! Full Review Mobile phone design has progressed rapidly over the past couple of years, with them becoming progressively more stylish, small and light. However, in terms of aesthetics most new mobile phones are starting to look more and more alike with little to differentiate them. In particular, witness Nokia's offerings of the past year or so - the only thing separating their designs has been the changeable covers! Even Ericsson's new flagship phone, the T68/T68i looks very similar to the Nokia phones. This is precisely what makes the Motorola V70 an absolute winner. At no time in the past year or so has a mobile phone company taken such a giant leap forward in mobile phone design and styling. The new V70 features a rotating front cover that rotates a full 360 degrees around the circular display! If you are ever in need of attention, just pull this phone out of your pocket - you will attract numerous gasps and comments as you swivel the cover. The silver and chrome colour scheme with shiny chrome keys on a dark blue keypad is also very classy and elegant. The tiny size and light weight (94 x 38 x 18.3mm, 83g) are also part of one of the best mobile phone designs on the market. If you want proof of this phone's winning style, witness this year's Academy Awards - all the presenters were given a Motorola V70 as part of their gift basket! At least you can FEEL like a celebrity in some small way... Another striking feature is the LCD - which, instead of having a light background, is now black with white lettering. This looks great as it is not only unique, but also contrasts beautifully with the phone's silver casing. Expect to see more people take their Nokias, etc. to aftermarket modifiers to have their LCD screen inversed to imitate the Motorola effect. It can be a bit hard at certain angles to see what's on the screen, but it is not markedly different to the readability of a standard LCD screen. One issue is the small size of the screen. It is five lines in size, but the top row permanently displays reception, battery life, and other icons. The bottom row displays the "soft key" designated functions at the time. This leaves three lines of text, or two lines if you decide to apply the "zoom" function. This can be a little difficult when reading text messages or using the WAP browser, but it is not too much of an issue. The electro-luminescent blue backlight is a great-looking addition to this phone - this is a different type of backlight that provides a more even lighting effect which is a very pleasant blue. Motorola calls it "MotoGlo" and the keypad area looks stunning in the dark when the backlight comes on around the shiny chrome keys. The V70 also comes with the new standard for WAP access, called GPRS (General Packet Radio Services). This is like "broadband" for WAP, and browsing becomes greatly faster thanks to the availability of GPRS on the V70. A continuous connection to the Internet can also be maintained even when you are doing something else on the phone, and people can still ring you. Data charges are also charged by the kilobyte (ie. by download) rather than time, meaning you can take your time reading content. Other features include a comprehensive calls register, voice dialling, and iTAP predictive text input, which in my opinion is not quite as good as the normal T9 system, but is adequate nonetheless. It visually shows you a list of words to choose from as opposed to requiring you to randomly press the * key to cycle through choices. A huge 500-entry phonebook means you will never run out of space for contacts, and there is a calculator, date-book/calendar, and three quite average games (equivalents of Pong, Blackjack, and Mastermind). There is also a built-in stereo FM radio controlled through the phone menu; however this requires the purchase of an optional stereo handsfree set to utilise it. The menu system takes a little time to get used to, but within 24 hours everything becomes natural. The soft keys can be customised, as can the shortcuts and even the ordering of the main menu. This makes the V70 a very customisable phone, which the user can tailor to his/her individual needs. Talking on the phone was comfortable and easy, with the earpiece having enough volume and the reception being very clear. Lengthy conversations pose no problem with the phone remaining comfortable to hold and use. The swivel action acts in a similar way to a flip style to bring the microphone closer to the mouth. The battery lasted for around two days with average usage (three with minimal). It's a good idea to have a spare battery with you when you start seeing the battery meter falling. Luckily, Motorola supplies this high-end phone with a good range of standard Genuine Motorola accessories in the standard sales package. A spare Lithium-ion battery, a desktop charger, a leather case, and personal handsfree kit are all standard. PROBLEMS * The screen size is a bit of an issue, but in such a small and compact phone it is excusable. The circular display area is not able to be fully utilised as the actual LCD area is rectangular. * Using the phone is a little quirky in that the "pick up" and "hang up" keys are in opposite places to normal (answer on the right, hang up on the left), and the menu navigation has selection on the right and "back" on the left. Both these things become normal after a little while using the phone, and ceases to become an issue after a week or so. * I didn't particularly like the alerts available for ringing, vibrating, etc. The phone can't ring and vibrate at the same time; the closest option is vibrate THEN ring. There is space for 32 customisable ring tones but you can't download any and the composer is quite limited. * The swivel cover can be used one-handed, but it takes a little while to get used to, and takes some practice to become adept at it. * This phone is EXPENSIVE. Even on a two-year contract (US$20/month), it costs about US$250 upfront. Bear in mind this is in Australia so it may be cheaper in the US. SUMMARY In terms of design, the V70 is extremely stylish and very unique - especially with its 360-degree rotating form factor replacing the traditional flip design. It's very comfortable to hold and is very small and light, adding up to the near-perfect phone design. The phone's menu and functions aren't the easiest to use, but you get used to it after a short time. The inversed key layout (for example, the answer/reject keys and menu selection keys) and the lack of room on the phone's display are also minor inconveniences. However, there is an abundance of features in the Motorola, which is expected for such a high-priced phone. About the only things missing are a better ringtone manager (e.g. downloads please Motorola!) and lack of infra-red or Bluetooth. The V70 can be considered as being one of the most innovative phones in recent times. Get one and you will be the envy of all around you and feel satisfied that you have possibly the most unique and stylish phones available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87718 2000/9/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 elegant design clever swivelblade design modifiable interface compatibility with pc pda laptops no download capabilities small screen no built in or attachable camera no polyphonic ringtone The Bottom LineA great-looking phone with enough functions for the average user. But if you're a hardcore techie, then look for something else. Full Review Long been hailed as a phone that puts style over function, the Motorola V70 is the company's offering to the trendy crowd of the massive mobile phone market. Certainly the V70 is a handsome phone, but it also has a lot of merits that go beyond its looks. Here I will try to provide an unbiased view of this phone. Design To say that the V70 is a good looking phone is an understatement; from its chrome bezel and buttons, to the streamlined shape, to the inverted black screen, everything about the V70 reflects serious design aesthetics. Though the online pictures of this unit are not shabby at all, they do not truthfully reflect the beauty of this phone; hold one in the hand, and one immediately notices the sexy curves, the slick, shimmering metallic case, and the circular bezel, resembling something of a Swiss timepiece. When the phone is idle and in the closed position, a clock display actually comes onto the screen, which further emphasizes the elegant, circular face. There are many elements to the V70 that show Motorola's unconventional approach to designing this phone. For one, the screen is "inverted" (white letters against a black screen). The buttons are also quite unique; they are small, pez-shaped chrome buttons. (It is almost a throw back to a more classical modernist style.) As for lighting, the V70 uses the Moto-Glo system, which is essentially a very cool, neon blue that wraps around the metal buttons, certainly a departure from the light-up buttons that is typical of cell phones today. The neon blue is also the backlighting of the screen. But the most obvious feature of the V70 has to be the swivel blade, which swings clockwise and counterclockwise in 360 degrees. Fully extended, the phone measures to be just over 5 inches. In the closed position, the phone is a mere 3 inches long. The idea of the swivel blade might be interesting if it were only a design element. However, Motorola puts a twist to the idea by making the blade functional as the earpiece, which is downright clever; in effect, the phone can only be used in the open position since the closed position holds the earpiece and the microphone on top of each other. This design element makes the V70 easily the most ingenious form available in the US market as of yet; other than the flip phone (which was another Motorola invention) and possibly the limited edition Matrix phones (with the mouthpiece that snaps out), there has been little innovation in terms of aesthetics for mobile units. Size The V70 is one of the smallest, most lightweight cell phones on the market. The swivel action of the blade doubles the length of the phone for convenience of use, but when retracted resembles the size of a pager. This is the phone that will fit in a shirt pocket without weighing it down. Functions The V70 has been criticized for not having enough functions. But personally, I think such claims are completely unfounded; for a phone of such small size, the V70 packs a lot of tools. Included in the phone are voice dialing, SIM card capability, datebook/schedule (with alarm for each event), games, calculator, and a phonebook that can store up to 500 contacts. The phone is compatible with Motorola's TrueSync program (which allows you to synchronize your phone to MS Outlook) as well as acting as a modem for your laptop/PDA/desktop PC (although the cable and software must be purchased separately, and GPRS service is required. Note that you can also use this phone to dial-up to an existing ISP and log onto the Internet with a PDA or laptop, but the connection is a mere 10kbps). The phone can also be used as an FM radio, although the special FM radio headset is sold separately. The phone itself has Internet browsing capabilities, for which your mobile service provider will charge a fee. Also note that the phone can be used in both the open and closed positions (without reading the manual, one might think that the phone is completely useless in the closed position). Navigation is relatively easy and somewhat intuitive, though it is necessary to refer to the User's Manual for the more complicated actions. One of the neat features of the V70 is that you can directly create shortcuts within the menu, rearrange the menu items, and assign functions to the soft keys (the 2 keys on the bezel - particularly useful for an action such as "Voice Dial" for while driving). This modifiable interface is a very logical move on Motorola's part. Other functions include being able to answer the phone as soon as the switchblade opens (which can be turned off) and adjusting the volume for ringer and earpiece with an external button (which avoids having to wade through the menu items). All of these features make the V70 an extremely personal and versatile phone. Battery Life The battery life is not too bad, though nothing special. There are certain things that one could do to prolong battery life (i.e., turn off backlight, turn off animation, etc.), but in my experience, it is necessary to recharge about every 1.5 days or so. Of course, if you intend to talk on it for a long time (say, 2-3 hours everyday), then you will need to charge every night. One caveat is that once the battery meter goes down (from 3 bars to 2), the phone will rapidly lose charge if you continue to talk on it. Also, once the battery reaches a point of very low charge, the phone will start beeping every minute or so for the next 2 hours until the phone completely dies. It is, however, not advisable to let the phone completely drain since the phone will not let you connect to the network (even if you have plugged the phone to the charger); it is necessary to wait for the phone to have enough charge before you would be able to make calls again. Reception Reception is one of those tricky things that depend both on the phone and the service provider. Nonetheless, the V70 has easily one of the best receptions I have ever used in a cell phone. Indoors in a bad coverage area, I can usually get about two bars. Indoor in an area with great reception, five bars are quite feasible. Outdoors, I have never experienced reception problems. I find the reception power of the V70 to be superior even to pricier models such as the Samsung S105 and Motorola T720 series. Sound The sound of the V70 is also impressive; the voice is rich and warm, with little crackling or static. I recently loaned my phone to a friend, and I was amazed when he used it to call me; listening to him on the V70 (with me on a landline phone), his voice was very clear, completely resembling a regular phone line. The microphone is also quite powerful; there is never the need to scream into the phone for the other end to hear you. However, in busy streets or clubs, hearing can be difficult because the volume is a tad low. Flaws One of the most obvious "flaws" of the V70 is the screen. Even though it does have a very unique inverted screen (with a neon blue backlighting), it does not quite compare to the color LCD microbrowsers that are quickly becoming the standard today. While the face of the phone is circular (due to the bezel), the screen is actually rectangular in size and quite small; those with farsightedness surely will not be able to read the screen. Only 5 lines of text, with the top and bottom being assigned for phone functions, can be displayed, leaving only 3 lines (or 2 in the zoom-in display) for actual text. This can present certain problems when using the V70 as a text messaging or Internet browsing device (a lot of scrolling is required for reading the text). Considering that there were tremendous design innovations that went into the creation of the V70, it is a disappointment that the casing is not of a better material. The entire phone looks metallic, even though only the battery case is made of metal; the rest of the phone is a combination of silver plastic and blue rubber (for the key pad). The choice for the antenna for the phone is also a bit curious. It is bulky and unattractive, about 1 inch of black rubber. Alternately, a silver (and smaller) antenna would be much more suitable for the phone. Also, for such an expensive phone, polyphonic ring tones and downloading capabilities would be expected. However, the V70 has neither. This means that it is not possible to download new ring tones (polyphonic or not) or pictures even if you have the Internet access. In addition, there is no "silent button"; to change the phone to the silent mode; you have to either manually switch the ring tone to silent (which involves quite some navigation) or turn the phone off completely. Not really the biggest problem, but an annoyance if you are often in the situation where you need to turn off the ringer. The small size of the V70, while a definite advantage, can be a bit of a disadvantage as well. Mainly, the buttons on the keypad are so small that it can be difficult dialing new numbers. The scroll (up-down) button is particularly problematic; it is placed so close to the bezel that the only way to press it would be using the fingernail of the thumb. Dialing with one hand can also be infeasible; once again because of the small size, it is hard to balance the phone in the palm. Conclusion All in all, the Motorola V70 is a great phone; it performs as well as could be expected from a $300 unit. There are a lot of people that dislike the V70 for its limited functions of the "technological" variety. (Keep in mind that it is not unlike comparing apples and oranges; the V70 is an older unit, and obviously will pale in comparison to the newest phones.) For that, I think the problem is in the price; even though the price of the V70 has dropped in recent months (from what used to be about $500), it is still priced similarly to other more "fancy" phones such as the T720, Samsung S105, and the newer Sony Ericssons. Certainly, the high price tag is unjustified; based solely on the functions of the V70, it really should be in the $100-150 range. That plus the fact that the V70 was introduced right about the time when phones with color, LCD microbrowsers became available in the US market makes the price tag seem even more outrageous. But clearly, Motorola has decided to market this phone as a higher-end unit, which explains the inflated price. After owning and using this phone for about 2 months, I still really like this phone. But occasionally, the limitations of the phone does bother me, particularly because my close family members and friends all have phones that are more powerful; the things that I miss the most are camera tools, downloading capabilities (for pictures, ringtones, and games), and a color screen. In hindsight, I sometimes wonder if I would be happier with a Nokia 3650 or Sony Ericsson T610. Sure, these would probably be more fun phones and definitely more functional, but they certainly could not hold a candle to the V70's looks. Make no mistake, the V70 is a phone, a really good one, but at the end, that is also its limitation, that it strives only to be a phone (and not a combination camera/PDA/Gameboy /MP3 player). The bottom line is that there are always going to be "power-user" types that will tell you, that say, the Samsung S205 or Nokia 6800 is the better phone because of all the punches it packs. But if you never even use their integrated camera or their web browsing capabilities, then these high tech functions will not really matter. When it comes to selecting a cell phone (like all other electronic devices), what I can suggest is that you seriously think of your needs and wants. New models are coming out all the time, and there is no way of keeping up with the technology. Instead, you have to consider your current needs. If this phone suits your lifestyle at this moment in time, then most likely, you will still enjoy it 8 months down the line. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 w/ rebateRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87717 2002/9/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small good reception stylish sexy looking a bit too delicate not user friendly very expensive The Bottom LineA beatiful phone that will make you the star of the party, albeit a small one. Full Review I just recently purchased a Motorola V70 unlocked GSM phone. With the phone being unlocked, I was able to simply insert my old Voicestream SIM card, from my old SonyEricsson T68, into the new phone and turn it on. Here's my first impression and some features on the V70. • LOOKS - (4-stars) This phone is SEXY!! (and that's with a capital word). When I first opened the box, the looks simply WOWed me. The sleek brushed-metallic look with the chrome bezel makes the phone looks elegant. I think the designers at Motorola grew up watching Star Trek because both the older StarTac and the new V70 look like something out of a science fiction movie. When I hold the V70 in my hand, it almost feels like I am holding a piece of technology either in the future or out of this world. This is definitely "the phone to have" if you want people to stop, look and strike conversations when you take it out (you can tell that I'm definitely smitten by the look of this phone...). The dimension of the phone is about 4.6x1.5x.6 inches, this is really small; laying side-by side with the SonyEricsson T68, the T68 looks almost "giant" in comparison. I purchased the V70e model (which has a black/blue pad instead of the normal silver one) so there's a contrast of colors when I use the phone. The only reason why I didn't give it a five-star rating is because of the external antenna, the antenna is neither silver, nor metallic like the rest of the phone, it is a piece of black rubber and sticks out an inch (!!!) from the top right of the phone. However, I am afraid that this is a necessary evil since other phones (like the T68) with internal antenna get weak reception. There are companies out there (on the Web and on Ebay) that sell a stubby, metal replacement antenna that you can purchase but I can't tell how much reception will be affected by a shortened antenna. • FEEL - (4-stars) The phone has the right feel and weight to it. Construction of the phone seems solid enough when you have the top part closed and the buttons, albeit a bit small for larger hands, have a quality feel when pressed. The glass area is somewhat protected by the bezel but one must still be careful so that it will not be scratched; however there are a couple of things about the construction that I have reservation on and thus did not give it a full five-star rating. o For one, to activate the phone, you must swivel the top part around the bezel, this extends the length of the phone to double its current size. The swivel action is smooth and with enough practice, one can do that with just one hand (I use my thumb to move it); I am worried that this will be the first part to break on this phone since it will get more movements than any other part of the phone. o The second thing about the construction that worries me is the top part of the phone. When extended, you can see that the top part's interior is made of a translucent plastic and when pressed against your cheek to talk, the part feels like it could easily break if one is not too careful. • USE - (3-stars) After so many iterations of cell phones, Motorola still hasn't got it right. I would have to say that usage is probably the phone's Achilles' heel. I'll start with some of the features that I use most: o SMS messaging: This is probably the worst part of the phone. To use SMS, you must first navigate through the phone's menus to find it. Once there, the predictive input of this phone, though works well, expects you to select the word after it has figured out what you typed (???). In other words, after each time that I typed the word, the phone wants me to click an extra button to choose "select" before the word would appear in my text. What is up with that? I also have yet to figure out how to add new words into the phone's dictionary and probably must now resort to reading the manual - Who read manuals nowadays? In my opinion, if I have to read the manual to figure out how to use the phone then it has failed in its "user friendly" part. In addition, the phone's two lines of text is inadequate when you want to read the entire message or to review what you just typed. I guess being small has disadvantages too. o Ring/vibrate option: This is the other weak part on this phone. Almost every other manufacturer have figured out a way to make their phones both vibrate and ring at the same time, I guess they are keeping the technology a secret from Motorola because the V70 can only one or the other, not both. The other gripe I have is that you can't easily change the phone from one ring mode to another quickly (like when you go into the movie and want to switch to vibrate only), one must again navigate through the maze of options before getting there. o Phone profiles: There's no such thing on this phone. I just thought I'd put it here as part of my wish list. o Phone book: Unlike the T68, the V70 does not have the ability to tag multiple phone numbers to one name entry to reduce the clutter or the sheer number of clicks to get to a person's phone. If the people in your phone book have multiple phone numbers (who doesn't?) - cell, work, pager, home then you will have one entry in the phone book for each of those numbers so you'll end up with four entries for the same person. I think that this is just plain bad ergonomics. o Game: The phone has three games (Blackjack, Mindblaster, and Paddleball). So far, I've only played Blackjack and between you and me, I think the phone cheats!! o Infrared: An option NOT available on this $400+ phone. Another item on my wish list. o Voice activated dialling: The V70 gives you the option of adding voice tags to phone book entries. I haven't tried this on this phone yet but my experience with the T68 was that this is a good feature to have, especially when driving and your eyes should be on the road. o Backlight: Although the phone has an option for you to set the backlight, the light is really weak in the LCD display, sometimes I wonder if it's on at all. The lights on the keypad is another story, they are of the cool blue color and looks great! o LCD display: I think the LCD display is really too small for most people. Forget about showing your parents the numbers on the display, they won't be able to read it... o Other options: Don't get me wrong, this phone comes with a host of other options, like calendar, a currency converter, a calculator, caller ID, wireless Web access. You can also sync your contacts with your computer, however due to the lack of an infrared feature; you must provide (read: purchase) your own sync cable (which did not come with the phone). My main gripe about the usage of the phone is not really with the phone's menus, which I am sure Motorola has its own reasons and research backing it up, or the display. It is with the buttons on the bezel, side and the top part of the phone when it is in the closed position. I have yet to figure out what they do except beeping to tell me that they don't do anything. Again, WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? At the very least, I should be able to set the ringer volume, select vibrate option or just to turn on the backlight so that I can read the time (like when I am sitting in the movie theatre - you can tell I like watching movies too). The rocker-switch like button is especially useless, they only make a "beep" noise when closed - which is often since they beep whenever I tried to slide the phone inside the leather case - or nothing when the phone is open. Are these buttons for cosmetic purposes? I hope not since they detract from the sleek look that the phone is trying to achieve. • OVERALL: I like the phone for some very basic reasons: 1.Reception: This phone beats the T68 hands down for reception. I am able to make and receive phone calls, while inside my house, imagine that!! May be I'm being too ecstatic since there are many other phones that cost a whole lot less that will deliver the same results. Oh well, the price one must pay for vanity, which brings me to points 2, 3 and 4 below. 2.(also point 3 and 4) Looks, looks and looks: If I haven't made this clear earlier (and god knows, I've tried!), this phone is "tight"!!! Based on the four reasons above (Okay, two for those counting!), I'd recommend the phone. It does what a $400+ cell phone is supposed to do: allows you to make and receive phone calls, and turns heads when you whipped it out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 444 87716 2000/8/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the most stylish phone you can get that isn t a vertu very expensivelimited services that carry the model The Bottom LinePersonally, I love my V70. However, I don't think it's worth the full $300. Its exclusive nature is also a problem when selecting service. Full Review "How do you open this thing?" is a common question I get whenever I let someone use my cell phone. You see, unlike just about every other cellular phone on the market, the Motorola V70 opens sideways, in a swivel-like motion. While this feature is hardly practical, it is definitely unique, and that's all it realy took to make up my mind when I decided to invest in this phone. By the way, I did my research here and there (as all potential buyers should), but I'm not the most qualified person in this field. Read my review strictly as a consumer review, not as a professional recommendation. The Features and Specs I won't go too far into the meaningless numbers and jargon, since I assume that most who read this review aren't technology wizards but normal people who are looking for a decent cell phone to purchase. The most overwhelming feature of this phone is its size and weight (oh yeah, did I mention that it swivels?). it measures a mere 94 x 38 x 18 mm when in its closed position, which is roughly twice the size of a standard Zippo lighter. In terms of weight, the V70 rests at 4.3 ounces (roughly a quarter of a pound). In terms of performance, the V70 is as reliable as any other cellular phone on the market. Underneath the fancy case, it is essentially the same as the V60, one of the most common and popular cells today. While there is nothing wrong with the V60 (or the V70 for that matter), you won't be getting anything exceptionally spectacular despite the high price. Battery life is average. It isn't bad at all, but you can't really go more than a day or two without having to charge up. The features offered on the V70 can be found on almost any other standard cellular phone, such as wireless internet, multiple ringtones, calculator and games. Speaking of games, the V70 comes preloaded with three: blackjack, paddleball (think Pong), and Mindblaster, a trial and error, guess and check style puzzle game. Sorry folks, no Snake or Tetris. Why I Bought the Phone To be honest, I only bought the phone because it looked cool. I don't regret buying it, but at the same time it DID take a big bite out of my wallet. Why You Should or Shouldn't Do the Same If you want a unique phone that you don't see every 10 seconds on the streets, then the V70 is a pretty solid buy. I've only seen a handful of other V70 users other than myself since I purchased the phone last November. Unfortunately, due to its rarity, it is hard to find accessories to accomodate the V70. My cover became scratched up due to carelessness, and the only sources I can really find that sell replacement cases are some private sellers on eBay.com. The BIGGEST drawback to the V70 is the fact that limited services carry the model. I originlly wanted Verizon (afterall, they are generally reputed to be the best in cellular service) but was forced to go either T-Mobile (formerly VoiceStream) or Cingular because in my area, those were the only companies that had the V70 model. I went with T-Mobile despite a barrage of people recommending that I stick with Verizon. Luckily, T-Mobile works fine where I live, but others may not be so lucky. Heck, in other regions not even T-Mobile might carry the V70! Where to Buy If you're dead set on the V70, then the best place to buy it is probably online. Unless you know someone that works at a store, your best bet is probably an online merchant. Amazon.com usually has huge rebates that may lower your costs by as much as $150. That excludes any additional rebates you may receive from the service plans. In the end, you may only have to pay from $50-$100, which isn't too bad afterall. I paid about $80, but that was with a $40 plan. Last Words of Advice The most important thing for any cell phone is without doubt the reception. Remember, even though the V70 is a great phone, you may get stuck with inferior service. If the service is bad, no matter how great the phone is, it WON'T WORK WELL. Well then, with that said, happy cell-shopping! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 87715 2003/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 attention getter customizable light stylish small excellent signal reception small looks fragile headphone jack interference microphone quality The Bottom LineAbove average phone that doesn't beat out the V60 is several aspects... but wins in overall style, size, and weigh categories. Not worth it if you pay over $150 however. Full Review I now have the V70, the phone I was supposed to get with my cellular plan instead of the V60G. In some ways, the V70 is a superior cell phone... in other ways, the V60G was a better phone than the V70. I've got to say though, the V70 catches anyone attention. Just taking out the phone had people coming up to ask me about the phone. Everyone was impressed with the size and weight of this phone. The swivel motion of the phone instantly had eyes turn upon my phone. As for the price when I got the phone, it is exclusively available only to Cingular Wireless GSM cellular service for the immediate future. The phone costs $399 directly from Cingular with a $100 mail-in rebate. The phone cost me $299 from Best Buy with a 30% promotion and $30 mail-in rebate from Best Buy and the $100 mail-in rebate from Cingular. I got very lucky at that time! Update: 7/3/03. However, the phone was more widely available now... T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless GSM services also offer the phone. The phone is no longer carried by Cingular at this time. On top of all this, the phone costs much less... even free... and at times gives you back money on the deal. The Short Take Overall, this is an above average monochrome screen phone that isn't as feature rich as the V60G phone but wins in some important categories... mainly signal reception, size, weight, and style (and maybe the screen). There are definitely features that I miss from the V60G like the voice annotations, bigger screen, and easier to open flip design rather than the swivel design. Still, I hardly notice the phone in its diminutive leather (or leather like) belt case. There are several potential problems with this phone. People with large hands or those with difficulty with small objects and buttons will find quite a few problems on the V70. The buttons are also quite small to match the phone's small size. The design of the phone close up makes the phone look a bit cheap with the translucent plastic parts. The new design of a swivel front also brings into question the durability of the phone... it may be durable or a diaster, only time will tell. There is a major downside to this phone, use of a handsfree set is particularly disappointing. The closeness of the jack to the antenna sets up all types of interference problems in this phone! When I use the handsfree set, I get either an enormous amount of static or a high pitched whine that drowns out the person you're talking to. It doesn't affect the transmission of your voice to the person you'll calling however. This wasn't a problem with the headset since I tried three different headsets with the same results. I also tried the same headsets on a V60 Motorola with no problems! 1) Stylish phone 2) Extremely lightweight 3) Swivel cover to open phone 4) Can access functions with phone swivel closed and headset attached 5) Easy to read display even in daylight 6) Very small phone 7) LCD is always external to give you all the information on the phone without swiveling it open 8) Voice activated calling 9) Excellent signal reception 10) Very limited organizer functions 11) Limited datebook 12) Calculator built-in 13) Nice case included with package 1) Phone may be too small for some people 2) Buttons on phone are small as well 3) No high capacity battery available yet... but it may ruin the dimensions of the phone. 4) Occasional echo on internal microphone 5) Severely dimished sound quality through headset that makes using a handsfree set unusable! 6) User interface not as easy as Nokia phones 7) Some of the translucent plastic parts may ruin the look of the phone for some 8) Horrible games (the same ones on the V60G) 9) No voice annotation for notes feature like the V60G (You do have voice annotation for voice recognition dialup!) Details The actual dimensions of the phone are 3.7 x 1.5 x .72 in and 2.93 oz! This may be the smallest and lightest phones on the market today. Most people mistook the V70 for a MP3 player of watch until they saw me swivel open the phone. The key cover can be swiveled around the circular LCD screen a full 360 degrees... but you must swivel the cover by 180 degrees if you want to talk on the phone. At any other angle, the connections to the speaker on the cover to the appropriate areas on the base phone and you won't hear the caller without a headset attached to the system. You can access other features of the phone as long as you swivel the cover away from the keys. The phone is usable on GSM networks only. However, as I said before, only Cingular Wireless is selling this phone for use. I do not know how compatible it would be on other GSM run networks like VoiceStream/T-Stream but I suspect the phone would run under AT&T's GSM network (Can't verify that however). The phone consists of a 5 line black LCD screen with text and icons in an ivory white color that turns sky blue with the backlighting. It is easy to easy even in bright sunlight and is quite clear as well. The top line is for signal strength and battery life. The bottom line indicates which function that each of the three buttons below the screen (on the bezel) is for. The bezel itself can be changed to different color bezels (if you purchased additional bezels for the phone). When the phone is swiveled closed, the phone has only four buttons and a two way rocker accessible. There is one button on the left side of the phone for volume control of the ringer when the phone is not being used and of the headset volume when the phone is in use. The three buttons on the bezel access the menu and usually the phone book and voice activated calling (both buttons can be set to different functions however). The two way rocker actually just presses on the two way rocker on the keypad under the cover. When the phone is swiveled open, you don't add much to the length of the phone. You're only increasing the length of the phone by 50%. The phone swiveled open is easier to hold and jam between your head and shoulder. Now you also have access to the keypad, the call button, the stop call button, and the real two way rocker switch. There is no power button on this phone by the way! The buttons have a solid tactile feel but may be considered small by some users. It was quite comfortable to me however. The cover is actually quite thick and makes up 1/4 to a 1/3 of the thickness of the phone. The keys near the bezel of the phone can be difficult to press especially with the depression made from the bezel and swiveling the cover out of the way. The actual phone is made out of heavy duty translucent white plastic that allows a soft blue LED light to shine through to illuminate the labels for the buttons/keypad. The cover is plated with a magnesium casing (I think) on the outside and the inside (facing the keys when swivel closed) is the translucent plastic. The buttons are all chrome plated. The back of the unit is in two parts both composed of a magnesium plating. The top part is screwed on and contains a rubber plug to what I believe is a port for an external antenna. The bottom part is held by a spring loaded switch and covers the battery. The battery is a normal capacity battery... there is no high capacity battery for the V70 yet. If there was, you would need a new cover (like what Motorola did for the V60 series phones). You can access some menu options via voice command and even use voice command to call people with the phone flipped closed and a headset attached. You can store 500 numbers into this phone with voice annotations for voice dialing them (up to 20 voice dial registers). You can send messages with this phone and the iTAP software will try to guess the word you're typing it... the phone gets better at it as you use the feature more. There is also a microbrowser if you get that kind of service on your cellular carrier (I don't so I can really say how well the phone handles this). The phone is GPRS compatible. You can set number keys 2-9 to be quick dial keys... i.e. hold down button two and it will dial the fixed number you associated with it. Holding down number 1 will access you own voice mail account without you having to set it up on the phone. You can also customize the sounds on the phone to one of 32 tunes and a number of vibration ring modes... The manual states that you have an additional 32 registers for custom ring tones. I haven't experimented too far with this feature yet. You cannot type in quick notes via the keypad and place voice notes into the V70 unlike the V60 series! I actually miss this feature from the V60G. Volume on the phone is very generous on the internal speaker. The volume was louder than the V60G phone. People I called did not hear any echos when I talked with them. However, I did get an occassional echo from my own voice while using the phone... likely due to how the connections for the speaker on the cover to the base phone unit. Singal reception was outstanding. I was able to receive signals from areas my Nokia did not and I also received weaker signals better than the V60G did! I have found difficulty with signals from Cingular in my own apartment on my Nokia phone but my friends with Motorola phones and the same cullar service did not have such problems! Using headsets saw a considerable drop in sound reception quality and a slight drop in microphone transmission quality. The V60 had a slight drop in sound reception and microphone transmission as well... but the sound reception was not to this severe a degree! The headset jack is the standard 2.5 mm jack so you should be able to find one easily from a decent store. The phone maintains the last 10 phone numbers dialed and received through the phone logs. You can even set the phone to automatically forward calls to another number as well. For the most part, accessories that attach to the port on the V60 also work on the V70. Chargers and the such fit easily into the V70 phone. Battery life Battery life is decent with the included battery. The phone would last at almost 2 hours of talk time with a fully charged battery and the factory settings for the backlight and screen contrast. They include a standard travel charger with the V70. The battery takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to fully charge a drained battery. Motorola rates the standard battery at 135-215 minutes of talk time (what a wide range Motorola gives you) and 70-145 hours of standby time (another really wide range). I found on the standard backlight settings (10 secs) in signal strength areas of 3 bars and higher, I talked about 30 minutes and had 36 hours of standby before hitting the last bar out of three. Note that at this time, there is no high capacity battery available... although I don't think Motorola is planning one anyway. It is also difficult to see this phone with a bulkier battery than the 400mAh battery included in the package. Update. The phone barely gets me 1 1/2 of talk time now and won't last a day on standby. Extras The phone has a built in datebook and calculator. The datebook is marginally useful and the calculator is nice but a bit difficult to use since there are no set keys for the plus, minus, multiply, and divide functions. Looks like I'm not getting rid of my Palm anytime soon. There are three games on the phone. The only one worth playing was blackjack. The other two... paddleblaster and mindblaster were mindnumbing boring... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The leather or leather like case with belt clip is actually quite nice and compliments the phone well. It is very unobtrusive with a small magnetic closure. The case can be turned to 90, 180, 270 angles to the belt clip to make it less obtrusive on your belt. The phone has not dropped out of this case/holster. Problems? The antenna is still quite big on the V70 although not to the extent that of the V60G. The antenna is almost a 1/5 of the length of the phone! I haven't knocked it into anything... YET! The interface is still a bit difficult to use although much better than previous Motorola setups. Nokia is more user friendly than the Motorola interface... however, it may be that I need to just get used to the Motorola interface. The headset/handsfree use quality is poor. The volume of voices was low and echos occurred on the headset. It was a significant differencefrom the volume on the phone's actual receiver that I had to take notice! If you wanted another problem, two of the three games on the phone reek to high heaven. The major problem of this phone is the price. This phone is exclusive to Cingular Wireless for the near future. Cingular Wireless wants $399 buckaroos for the phone although there is a $100 mail-in rebate until 8/17/02. Best Buy sells the phone for $299 with a $100 mail-in rebate and whatever other Best Buy rebate/promotion is available. The V70 is a GSM only phone, so make sure you get GSM cellular service. Only VoiceStream/T-Stream and AT&T (to a limited area) offer GSM services other than Cingular Wireless (again only to a limited area). The V70 is not capable of the Cingular Nation plans but can run the more limited Cingular Nation Preferred plans. Final Thoughts The V70 is a decent phone that can't be beat in size, weight, and stylish good looks. However, it lacks a bit in features compared to older siblings like the V60. I will miss keyed notes and voice annotated notes. The signal reception of the V70 is one of the best I've seen for a cellular phone however, the poor quality reception when used with a handsfree headset is a major disappointment. It looks like Motorola is making a very strong comeback to try to retake the cellular phone crown. Check my homepage for other reviews I've written. I've reviewed the following: Motorola V60G www.cellphoneshop.net (a cheap place to get quality cell phone accessories) Nokia 5165 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80postrebate 7708 Motorola V120E 87738 2004/11/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 basic phone light weight durable signal strength varies not that many features battery life don t last as long I have owned my cell phone for about 2 years, while I lived in Virgina it was a great phone. Took it on trips across the states didn't have that much of a problem. Then I moved to Oklahoma. The phone was great coming down here but when arrived here it started going dead. Don't know what it was. I had to replace the battery twice and it still kept draining the battery fast. A full charge would only last about a half a day, if I was lucky. The service was alright but could barely get over 2 bars as signal. I had gotten another v120e for my wife and now that one is going down. Even though her phone differs from mine, like hers scrolls faster than mine, and hers has a different backlight than I do. This has been a good phone but right now there are better deals out there than this phone. 87737 2005/5/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cool blue light everything else about phone I hated this phone we got them free with our plan so we couldnt argue with the price we had lots of problems with calls dropping all over and needing upgrades all the times. they were pretty durable but they were acward for your pocket and not easy to dial. 87736 2004/11/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 inexpensive good battery life good backlight good reception none that i can think of We love it! The call quality has always been wonderful. We've never been disconnected, either. We're very pleased with this phone. I like the fact that it's simple to use, too. It has a pretty good battery life, good backlight, and good antenna. 87735 2004/3/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life customizable tons of housing cases available stores 500 contact numbers low price monophonic ringtones speaker needs to be louder The Bottom LineThis phone is affordable and meets all the needs of a person who uses their phone to talk. Full Review I have had over 20+ phones in the last 10 years. The Motorola v120e is a great phone if you are on a budget and still want a good amount of options to make use of. First of all this phones has the ability to hold 500 contact names and phone numbers. Each contact can have several numbers assigned to it for example: home, mobile, work, business and even email addresses. It also has voice activated dialing for user selected contacts. I found the voice recognition to work really well compared to other mobile phones. If you are looking for a phone that has the ability to have your own personal touch, look and personality this phone can do all that. From customizing the menus, to how the keys respond to your personal preferences(shortcut-keys). The housing case of the phone can be changed to your personal style and flair of your mood. Changing the housing does require a torx 6 screwdriver and is recommended to be done professionally. I was able to do mine easily enough. I prefer the screwed on housing opposed to snap on(Nokia models) because it makes your phone look more OEM. Battery life is excellent! I have never owned a phone that had this kind of talk life and standby life. You can easily get 3 hours talk time without a problem. I have also gone over a week without use and my phones battery was still over half full. Now that's battery life. One thing this phone does need is polyphonic ring tones. This phones has somewhat annoying ring tones. But...I was used to my Nextel i90 which had more realistic rings that made downloading ringtones a blast. Other than that this phone has all of the bells and whistles of most mobile without the huge price tag. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87734 2000/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish lightweight affordable easy to use good clarity good battery life limited features The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone for anyone who wants a good phone without dropping down a lot of a money. Full Review I recently bought this phone and couldn't be happier. I purchased it off Ebay. As soon as I received the phone I was thrilled with it's size and feel in my palm. Its lightweight compact design makes it comfortable but not so small you cant hang on to it like the tiny phones. I read all the reviews o Epinions.com before I purchased it and although I was skeptical I bought anyway. I got this phone to replace my Kyocera 2135 which has been a decent phone but I was ready for an upgrade. The features are fairly basic and the games are simple. I don't play games on my phone much anyway. I must admit the stylish appearance is what intially got my attention to the V120E. It's compact sleek design and silver body give the phone a modern and 'techy' look. I absolutely love the blue backlight, it is incredibly bright and a nice change from the typical yellow/green. I am in a long distance relationship and my cell is my main connection so it is used A LOT. So far the Motorola V120E has not given me any problems and my boyfriend said with this phone I sound clearer than I ever have. I have only found one place in which I couldnt get a signal, this is a big change from my previous phone. Although signal does have a lot to do with your carrier. I am with verizon. I enjoy the personalization features on the V120E such as creating your own welcome greeting as well as banner that is displayed on the phone. The ringtones are nothing fantastic but there are plenty to choose from (32). The battery life is very good and I only have to charge my phone once every couple days if I have not been talking heavily on it. Overall this is a great phone for the money. I am living on a budget and this phone has well served it's purpose and has been a wonderful phone. If you're looking for a phone with all the bells and whistles, I suggest you keep looking but if you're looking for a phone that is stylish, compact and easy to use I would recommend the Motorola V120E. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87733 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 great durability survived many falls voice dial good battery life some static small distance between microphonereceiver dropped calls The Bottom LineA very durable phone with some nice features, but occasionally had static and dropped calls. Great if the distance from your mouth to ear is small, otherwise skip. Full Review I got this phone almost 3 years ago and it was the best cell phone that I have had. I had one nokia phone and one samsung phone before this one. I currently have another motorola phone(you can see my review on the V180). But back to the V120E. This phone took a lot of abuse from me, I'm a clumsy person and I must have dropped this phone from a height of 3 feet or more at least a dozen times. It never broke and only once did I have to take it in because the battery jammed from a 4 foot drop. I liked the backlight on this phone and while the voicedial slowly lost its accuracy at identifying voices as the phone got older, it was still helpful to use the voice dialing the first 2 years. The battery did last the full 3 years, but it slowly lost stamina as all cell phone batteries do. At the end of 3 years I could only talk for about 20 mins before I had to recharge the battery and standby was only one day. But the battery was great the first two years, I just didn't want to buy a new one. Reception was good the first two years, but occasionally had dropped calls or lots of static. Not sure if it was the phone or the service company(Verizon). My two significant negatives of this phone are that the antenna degraded pretty fast from the phone being in my pockets and the distance between the microphone and the receiver. Maybe if I had kept it on a belt holder it would have been better, but by the third year I rarely got above 3 bars of reception, usually two and people started complaining about hearing me. This was made worse by the small distance between the microphone and the receiver. If you have a big distance between your mouth and ear, I would avoid this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87732 2004/4/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 blue backlight clarity battery life some of the features like the browservoice dialing cease to work at times The Bottom LineI would buy this phone again if I had it to do over again. It doesn't have that many bells and whistles, but it still gets the job done. Full Review Motorola v120e Cellular Phone Provider: Verizon Wireless I recently signed up for service with Verizon. With a twelve month contract, I received 400 anytime minutes and the free nights/weekend plan and a free phone with activation. I added a few accessories such as the hands-free earpiece and the car charger. Both were $29.99 from Verizon. When the salesman was showing me the Motorola v120e, I was excited. This would be my first cell phone, also. I was mesmerized by the neon blue glowing display window and keys. And the fact that it had mp3 capabilities and integrated voice dialing made it even cooler. I signed up for service and walked away with my new cell phone. The Motorola v120e. Ergonomics The v120e is a very slim and small phone. Holding the phone is very easy and won't give your hand cramps during long conversations. It can easily fit into your jeans pocket or shirt pocket (of course you might mash a few buttons unintentionally, the keypad lock is good for this.) Buttons are effortless to press and dial. Features v120e has several features but they come with a limit. Some are useful, some are not, some are silly and some are just plain stupid. - VoiceNotes - The v120e allows one to record a few (and yes, few is the key word here) memos and save them for later use. The handbook claims that you can record phone conversations while holding down the voicenote button, located on the right side of the phone. This only works if your overall conversation is roughly under three minutes after which it beeps at you telling you the memory is full, and does not record your voice, only the party you're speaking with. Another downfall to conversation recording is that it plays an audible tone both to you and the other person, so that they know you're recording. You can store a maximum of three one minute messages of phone conversations or memos. After your limit you must delete a few to make room for more or just do without the feature. During playback the screen tells you the name of the voicenote but does not give you the option to pause or the length of the file. -Voice Dialing- I have about 20 entries in my phonebook and all of them I have recorded the name so I can (or thought I could) easily call them up with just the sound of my voice. Doing this requires you to add entries into your phone book, adding your voice to the entry (via an option in the add entry screen) and saving it. I have found that this feature doesn't work all that well, unless you try and sound like Martha Stewart and talk without flaw or error. It's next to impossible to even use voice dialing when you're somewhere with background noise... birds chirping outside or moving vehicles. Pressing the voicenote button once and saying the name into the phone (when it works properly) makes the phone search in your phonebook for the closest sounding name, says it back to you, and dials after two seconds. Unfortunately this fails to work for me since after several tries in a row, the v120e apparently thought Pizza Hut was a suitable number to dial after I said "Dad's Work". Maybe it's just the way I talk and maybe it might work for you, however. - The phone also has a Recent Calls feature that tells you the last ten numbers you received or last ones you dialed. This is especially useful if you don't have a number programmed into your phonebook. -Browser- I have owned this phone seven months and I still have yet to see the built-in web browser function. I access the feature via the main menu, Browser, after that a screen tells me it's Connecting. Two seconds pass and it tells me that my security is not enabled, and to enable it will take several minutes. It forces me to enable this before it lets me connect, tells me it's Connecting again. After a few seconds of this, the phone turns off completely and turns back on and doesn't return to where I left off. I went into Security options myself and created a Security key (option to lock your phone and asks you for a password each time you power on, preventing unwanted users from racking up high phone bills), but that didn't seem to work. -Shortcuts- You can create several shortcuts to avoid going through several menu screens. Use Menu >> Up Button until you reach Shortcuts. This allows you to designate several Menu > # sequences to get you to where you want to go. (i.e. creating a phonebook shortcut would mean opening up Shortcuts, pressing the menu button, pressing new, and designating a number for your shortcut. Accessing this in the feature requires you from the idle screen to press Menu and the corresponding number to your shortcut in a quick manner.) -Datebook- The datebook allows you to enter times and dates of specific appointments you must make. You can store an unlimited amount of these and the phone will supposedly alert you when the time approaches. You can set several different time limits before your appointment for the phone to remind you from 5 minutes before to a week in advance. Your phone will alert you with an audible tone customizable via Ring Styles (again under the Menu screen, Settings) at your chosen time. I have used this feature several different times, it chooses when it wants to work. I wouldn't exactly trust the v120e to remind me of further dates and times. A few times it worked without problem and a few times a few months had past before it popped up a screen reminding me of it. -Calculator- My trusty portable calculator! I love this feature. It always works without problem and does basic equations (X, +, -, /, %) and gives you an option to change the exchange rate. This is accessible once again under the menu screen. -Radio Capability- This is an accessory-based feature which means you must have the Motorola v120e headset for this option to even appear on your phone. When plugged into the port in the phone gives you FM reception just like a Sony Walkman. As of now I don't have this device and I can't really comment on this one. -MP3 Capability- You can play MP3s on this phone and I really don't know how it works. I do know you have to have another device to connect to the phone (you can buy it from your service carrier) Features on the v120e include: Customizable Ringtones - [Gives you a list of several different ringtones preprogrammed into the phone, but does not give you the option to download any.] Calculator Phone Book - [Holds over 200 entries.] Web Browsing Capability Data In/Out Fax In/Out Shortcuts Games - (nothing too exciting) [Blackjack, Mindblaster, Paddleball, Falling Numbers, Video Poker] Text Messaging In/Out Vibrate Feature Reception I'm very happy to say that with this particular issue with the phone I have no absolute problem with. I live in a wooded neighborhood and my road goes deep into a forest-like area not remotely close to a cell tower. I still have (from looking at the phone now) three signal bars (goes up to 5, meaning highest reception.) Over the period of my usage of the phone (seven months), I can count on one hand how many times my the v120e has dropped a call or lost it's service. When it has is during understandable conditions... inside a hospital cafeteria with only a few windows, going through a long tunnel, driving through the Smokey Mountains [even though most of the trip it worked perfectly!] ---- Bottom line, I would buy this phone again if I had it to do over again. It doesn't have that many bells and whistles (not many that work properly anyway) but it still gets the job done. I've talked for two hours straight on the phone with no problems. Battery lasts off the charger under normal conditions about three days, considering how much you use the backlight and the phone itself. Charging only takes a little over an hour and gives you hours of talking time, days of standby time. I would suggest this phone to anyone in need of a reliable, easy to use, durable cell phone. So, yes. I in fact can, hear you now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/actvnRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87731 2004/2/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice backlight lightweight time auto redial date displays signal strength not great at times The Bottom LineA nice light weight phone packed with lots of features. Full Review It had been about 4 years since we gave up our Motorola brick phone. MY, how phones have changed in the meantime! I have a bed and breakfast. I need to keep in touch with my clientele calling me. A missed call could mean a missed booking. Add to that, when out shopping, it is handy to hand my phone to the plumbing clerk when my handyman needs a specific part. Let THEM talk about it, don't get me in the middle to muck up the translation. I went to Alltel, a provider I used before. With a one-year contract, I bought the phone for $49. My new phone has a bevy of features I never even considered a phone to have. Time, date, and signal strength are all displayed. Miss a call? Not to worry. All you have to go is access the menu, go to "missed calls." A list of telephone numbers will display, with the time received. If you want to call that party back, all you have to do is hit, "send" and that number is automatically dialed for you. Unfortunately, you need to supply the name of the caller. Do you want to have your phone act as an answering machine? Just program it to record your message, much like an answering machine. The consultant at Alltel helped me set it up. Remember to press the * key before you key in your access code. You don't like the way your phone sounds when it rings? You have 73 more ringer options. You can plug a headset in if you feel this helps you to drive safer or keep you safe from cancer. Voice activated calling can be a breeze once set up. Repeat the name of your caller, holding your phone about 2-3" from your mouth, while holding the button on the right. I used to have to charge the battery on my original phone every 3 days or so for a couple of hours. I've had the new phone for about 5 days now, and I still have 2 bars out of 3 bars of battery charge left. I haven't played games on this phone, nor accessed the internet with it, so I can't tell you about those features. Signal strength can vary. Sitting in the same position, my son, 1700 miles away, said I didn't sound very clear. I rearranged my seating position and he said I sounded better. Once I put my finger on the stubby antenna, he said I sounded much better. Infrequently do folks comment that my signal sounds bad. Conversely, I hear them well for the most part, with infrequent irregularities. When in a hospital, about 50' from a window, the reception was terrible. At work, a typical high-rise office building, it works well. I wasn't prepared the first time I missed a phone call. I forward my landline to my cell phone. That makes my cell phone ring. When I didn't pick up my call from my land line, the Motorola interpreted it as a missed call. Soon my cell phone, and my purse that my cell phone was in, started vibrating for about 3 seconds, every 15 minutes or so. You can also set it for a "chirp" feature to let you know you missed a call. The following information on the phone was taken from the following website: http://www.letstalk.com/product/product.htm?depId=1&pgId=100&prId=22165&to=5283 ************************************* Physical Characteristics Size Standard Dimensions (H x W x D) 5.0 x 1.7 x 1.1 in Weight (w/standard battery) 4.5 oz Design Open-faced Antenna Type Fixed-length Colors Silver Text keyboard No Wireless Network Capability Technology CDMA 800/1900 and Analog 800 Mode Tri Mode Battery Battery Type 1 x Lithium Ion battery Talk Time Up to 270 mins Standby Time up to 300 hrs Additional Features Digital Camera No Video Recorder No Bluetooth-Enabled No Standard 2.5mm Headset Jack Yes Phone Book Capacity 500 names and numbers Vibrating alert Yes Voice-Activated Dialing Yes Ring Tones Included 74 ring tones Color display No Lines Displayed 5 lines: 3 text, 1 icon, 1 prompt Language Options English, Spanish, French and Portuguese Wireless Web Browsing Capable Text Messaging Capable Yes mp3 player No Service / Support 1 year warranty **************************************** Would I buy it again? Well, I have, both through Ebay for about $41 and through Alltel for about $49. Why did I need a replacement? It got run over by my Ford F150! I had a leather case on it. The phone's plastic case got run over, leaving very little damage. Aside from a few scuffs, the LCD display had a crack in it that I couldn't catch with my fingernail, but it just wouldn't turn on again. Thanks to Lead Howard Creech for adding this item. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7709 Motorola Timeport P8767 Phone 87778 2003/10/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to use see review body This phone is expensive. Which would be fine if it had solid construction and fancy gadgets. It doesn't. It is flimsy, the paint comes off, the reception is dubious at best. I dropped it ~ 6" onto the carpeted floor of my car and now the power button works intermittently. The display washes out in bright lighting also. The "long list of features" are pretty much standard fare for any phone I've ever seen. On the upside, the menu and functionality are quite good. The lay out is good, although the buttons are a a bit small. I can't wait for my current contract to finish so I can get a new phone. 87777 2000/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 organic color display ease of use style durability of product The Bottom LineGreat Phone, very stylish. Look like a businessman without being One, but isn't the most durable thing. Full Review I've owned this phone for about 10 months now, and i'm writing a review to go over the long term vices and virtues of this phone. I don't use a case for it, just the click in semi-case that came with it, so these issues may not affect a normal user. Also my talk time runs about 1300-1400 minutes per month, so it may be more than most people. Physically: I've found that the rubber and plastic motorola logos are peeling off, the one on the outside being especially annoying as it pops up like a bubble. I have tried supergluing them back on, but they seem to slip off again in no time. The silver plastic is chipping off at the contact points with the case, which is understandable, but its not very much and i wouldn't complain. However, the silver along the rest of the phone is beginning to turn yellow from use. It could probably be cleaned with a citrus cleaner, taking care not to get it in the phone. The buttons are great, they never stick, the numbers are still perfect. Antennae is great, didn't break, though I rarely use it. Mechanically: The phone has never actually broken down on me, but I have 2 friends that have had them break on them. One of them actually have 2 break down and replaced. Something that DID happen was the phone would turn off momentarily and say "Searching..." when a call came in sometimes, but that has seemed to stop. I was thinking about bringing it in anyway, just in case. Battery: The battery is great. After 10 months, it still holds about 3 hours of talk time for me on Digital mode. (much less on analog of course) Luckily I purchased an extended warranty that spanned the length of my contract! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87776 2000/6/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity rather quick chargedisplay The Bottom LineI highly recommend the Motorola Timeport p8767 because of its functionality! Its light weight construction is also a benefit. Full Review For the last two years I had been looking for a cell phone to replace my land line. I have been through five cell phones prior to owning the Timeport. Of course I was immediately impressed by the colored display and the style of the phone. The size was also a benefit. It is slim and fits nicely in the palm of my hand. As I continued to play with the phone(I like to discover on my own before turning to the manual)I found the menu rather easy and fun to navigate. The Timeport offers numerous features, more than I may need, but would rather have more than less. What a joy to discover the ease of retrieving text alerts and voicemail messages! Eventually I turned to the manual to delve further into the features of the Timeport. I was worried that I would not be able to view the info of the incoming call until I flipped open the phone. By opening the phone the call would automatically be answered. The manual led me easily to changing that option. Now I can flip open the phone as it is ringing, view the call info and then hit "send" to answer the call! My only point of contention with the Timeport is its antennae. I really hate having to extend an antennae. This one seems rather flimsy. I will eventually purchase a stationary antennae for the Timeport. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 245.50 87775 2000/7/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrant color screen 150 improvement tri mode meny structure is difficultkey arrangement isn t great The Bottom LineA huge improvement over the predecesors! Full Review We were all excited about the Motorola Timeport 8767 (A.K.A. RAVEN) months before it came out. The color screen! Improvements with 1900MHz CDMA technology! Better network reception! We were also a little nervous, after the performance issues with the Startac, Talkabout, and TimePort 8167. Poor network reception with 1900MHz CDMA gave many customers poor signals, dropped calls, and no connections. Motorola said they'd improve on that. I'd say that qualifies for the understatement of the year! One technician I know went directly form the old Startac to the new Raven. The raven had on average 75% BETTER signal strength. That means less dropped calls, better clarity, and better battery life. And it didn't stop there. The new LED (Light emitting diode) display, similar to that of a Light-Brite (well, completely different technology, but similar result) allows you to easily see the display, even in darkness! The phone itself is stonger than the older TimePort, and now competes with the biggest sellers, the Sanyo 4500 and Samsung 8500. The phone also comes with a PC data connectivity kit (serial only) that allows you to synch your TimePort with the Motorola organizer software. This means, if for some reason, you need to get a new one, you don't have to re-program all your numbers! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87774 2000/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice design long battery life small features price painted case The Bottom LineYes, I would recommend the Timeport to someone that was a durable, easy to use, great reception and less dropped calls. Full Review I previously had the Motorola StarTac phone and hated it. My calls were constantly dropped or wouldn't come thru at all. I was so annoyed and fought with my cell phone company about the whole ordeal. They then promised me that the new Motorola Timeports where the fix to the drop calls/calls not coming thru. I was doubting what they said, they offered to let me try it for a couple weeks before purchasing the new phone to see if their claims were true. I feel in love with the phone. I no longer had dropped calls and my calls were always coming thru. I couldn't belive it a phone by the same maker and almost the exact same design could have such different results. I went back to the store and bought the phone a week later. Of course the phone is slightly larger than the StarTAC but worth it. The reception is clear, the features are wonderful...but the price wasn't more of a sticker shock. The exterior of the phone is a wonderful plantinum color however, I have a tendency to drop my phone on numerous occasions and I've started to notice the exterior is almost like a paint that is started to chip in the areas that it's been dropped. However, as many times as i have dropped in on pavement, tile floors and carpet, it hasn't skipped a beat and has yet to give me any problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280 87773 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 great signal strength eye catching display lightweight smallish screen bulkier than a startac The Bottom LineMotorola takes one step forward, two steps back. Full Review I upgraded to this phone as part of a special plan offer from Verizon if I extended my contract with them for a year. I had no choice, in order to take advantage of the plan, I had to buy a tri-mode phone. Not a big deal, with the money I saved monthly, this phone would pay for itself in eight months. That's the good news, here is some more. The phone has all of the features the older and outstanding StarTac does, but comes in a funky looking package with a great color display. The phone is very light, and has one of the best signals strengths of any phone I've owned - comes very much in handy when using the phone as a notebook modem. And yes, it has web browsing features as well! Now the bad news. The phone isn't really any improvement over my old much loved StarTac, in many ways, it's worse. The phone is a bit fatter, which makes it less comfortable to carry around clipped to a belt. I'm constantly taking mine off since I bang into stuff all the time with it (especially car doors!) The color display is beautiful and bright, but smaller than the StarTac's LCD - which also makes the phone next to useless for any serious or even light duty web browsing. Unfortunate. The entire unit seems longer than a StarTac and less well built. The ear section seems to high and I keep adjusting the phone up and down to hear better - finally stopped that by buying a Jabra handsfree earpiece for the phone. And finally, it ain't cheap - most places will set you back $250 for this unit. Bottom line, Motorola could have done much better. Keep the StarTac's near perfect form factor, add the color display, and you have a killer phone. This one takes one step forward and two steps back. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 87772 2000/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 vibrating lightweight readable display no voice dial i really miss that The Bottom LineI would recommend buying this phone, it's compact, light, feature rich and solid quality. Full Review I just bought this phone - my choice was primarily driven by the fact that I signed up for Verizon cellular service (for reasons outlined in another review) and this was the one I liked out of the choices I had. So far I'm very happy - it is very lightweight, so I don't mind hanging it off of my pocket at all and I like how compact it is. I find the display to be extremely readable (with the oft mentioned exception of bright sunlight) - and it is as easy to customize (change banner, language, etc.) as any cell phone display I've seen. One particular feature I really enjoy is pause dialing - I spent many moments trying to page friends and wishing I could simply store the whole pager sequence in my phone book so that I wouldn't have to enter so many numbers each time - with this phone I can do precisely that - only pressing "Send" each time to activate the next sequence of numbers. (really good for avoiding car accidents in concert with a headset) Battery life - also a major factor, is advertised to be very good on this phone - though I haven't had much time to test that out yet. So far it's been about 36 hours and it's still running strong, and I'm starting to think that the charge wasn't completely full - so I just might be impressed. Vibrating ring - very vital for me as I'm a doc in a hospital and I can't have the darn thing ringing out loud all the time (very annoying on rounds) - so I'm really glad this was an included feature. In fact, I would't have bought a phone that didn't have it. The only thing I miss (from my Samsung phone) as mentioned in the "Cons" is the voice dial option. That was a particularly neat feature, especially useful in the car. I think I'll learn to live without it quite well however. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87771 2000/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small trippy tir color display light excellent sound quality expensive display hard to see in bright sunlight antenna could be redesigned The Bottom LineGreat phone, already recommended it to a friend who was also upgrading his mobile. Full Review Ok, I'll admit, I can be easily impressed, but this phone has exceeded my expectations further than I could imagine. The dsiplay is what drew me to looking into the Timport, but after talking to others who enjoyed their P8767's I was sold. My first two phones where Nokia phones (6190 and 6185), so I was used to nifty toys like ringtones and games. I decided to switch to a Motorola phone after a few problems I had with my 6185. The first thing I liked about my Timport, as I said before is the tri-color, illuminated display. In 99% of the lighting conditions I've been in the display has been really clear and easy to read, I did however have problems in really sunny conditions, but I find simply turning around will solve this problem for me. Secondly I am thrilled about how small the phone is. I find it lightweight and comfortable to wear (although the holster is a little on the bulky side). Whit it in my pocket at work, I almost forget it's there. The sound quality of my Timeport is the best I've ever experienced, exceeding what I though was possible for a PCS phone. There where problems with sound quality in low signal areas, but this is to be expected with any mobile phone. The antenna is perhaps the greatest drawback. I constantly worry that I'm going to snap the thing off. Motorola could consider putting a solid sheath around the antenna as found in many other flip phones. The other problem is price. I had to buy the phone without the benefit of a service provider subsidy (see my Nokia 6185 review), so I ended up paying $450 (Canadian) and this was after a 33% discount from a promotion the dealer was holding (and I was told that this was below cost). This worked out to be about $300 US$. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $300 87770 2000/6/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 small size belt clip the oooh factor paint cost screen at times The Bottom LineI'd almost reccomend this phone. Almost. For the amount I paid, and taking Motorola's half-assed effort in designing this phone, I give the phone it's due half-assed rating. Full Review I'm starting to get older, and with age comes maturity. I tend to consider the days of buying things to impress my friends over with, but every great now and then I can't help but indulge myself. When my old LG phone finally bit the dust, I couldn't resist the Motorola Timeport. The phone looked nice on the outside, but the screen on the phone was like no other. I purchased the stylish phone, and with the Motorola name behind it, felt confident with my purchase. While somewhat expecting the response from friends and family to be the same as mine, I didn't expect everyone to like the phone, but it turns out that I almost always get some kind of comment about the phone. Why am I dwelling on this 'coolness factor' of the phone? Two reasons; the first to inform you about the phone, the second to chastize myself for making such a 'dumb' purchase. Don't get me wrong. The phone functions as would be expected, having the Motorola name. However, it's not at all worth the price I paid for it. The quality of the phone is somewhat lacking, and the options included in its design are less than optimal. Few ringer sounds, somewhat complicated operational menu (and I have an engineering degree), phone paint chips and nicks easily. Display is great at night, but not so great in the day, and my last major complaint, ringer volume is not adjustable. You have ring on, ring off, and vibrate. That's it. Like I said earlier, the phone works great as designed, but at the price paid, I would expect a bit more from Motorola, but at the same time, can't complain too much. After all, I was the idiot who paid for it! Bottom line: Learn from my mistake. If you absolutely love the phone, and you know what yo are getting, by all means buy it. However if you are considering the Timeport, pass it over for a more functional phone with more options and a slightly less "cool" screen. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): about 320 87769 2000/5/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 keyboard receiver good choice for elderly or handicapped excellent visual display lousy antenna set up see review for modification advice The Bottom LineIf you can find it new or in very good used condition, take it. Accessories and batteries are still very easy to find. Full Review For almost 10 years I used the Motorola Tele Tac 200/250 with no problems. The trusty brick phone worked just about everywhere, everytime and had a well-designed keypad and receiver. Then, without warning, Verizon pulled the plug on analog phones. It would have been nice if they informed us ahead of time. It would have been even nicer if they informed their tech staff too. Finally, I realized it was time for a new phone. I couldn't stand the clamshell phones. The candybar phones were just as bad. Tiny keys, lousy receivers and stupid options like cameras, blueteeth (what does food have to do with cellphones?) illegible text messages. All I wanted was a phone. I have fat fingers and lousy eyesight and after considerable research on the net, I came up with this number. What a fantastic phone! Anyone with visual/hearing difficulties will love the P8767. The keyboard is well thought out and best of all, closely parallels the Motorola TeleTac function setup. The screen is great as long as you don't try to read it in bright sunlite. Big deal, pull under a tree or step inside a lobby and you're fine. Another great thing about this phone is that it looks and feels like a real phone. The receiver will blast you out of your shoes if you want it that way. The 8 ring types supplied are loud enough to be heard easily just about anywhere and even if you can't hear the rings, just set it to vibrate. The vibrate unit feels like cardiac massage-it's that good. The phone has a 99 number memory. More than enough for the average bear and not that complex to learn how to enter the numbers. Still, be sure you get the manual either with the phone or on line. This url might help: http://www.cellphones.ca/cell-phones/phone/30/ Also, the antenna setup is poor. Replace the antenna as soon as possible with a button unit. Go to: www.Cell-Phone-Accessories.com and look for the Vogue Antenna unit. Looks best in Silver. Use a jeweler's screwdriver and some common sense and you should be fine. I would also recommend a case. You'll find that you may have to modify your case slightly to see the status indicator flashing. I just cut a hole with a good penknife in mine and noone can tell the difference. These units are hard to find. They were made around 2000-2002. Stay away from the BMW or Mercedes Benz units as I hear you have to own the car for the phone to operate. I got mine NEW off of Ebay. Be prepared to stockpile a 2nd unit just in case. Parts are probably no longer available. In closing, a fine unit that should work with most CDMA systems. Tri-mode. Also be aware some of the earlier Star Tac's are said to have good response. They have a monochrome display where the P8767 is a nice tri-color display. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87768 2000/10/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fool proof a crystal clear display i am not big on the silver cover The Bottom LineA really solid everyday phone that is easy to use. Full Review I must say I am really satisfied with my new Timeport. The thing that really sets this phone apart from any other is the display. Wow, you can clearly see the text in any lighting or at any angle. I can clearly see the display in direct sunlight and in pitch darkness. Secondly, the phone is very lightweight, compact and yet is very comfortable in your hand at your ear. I have had other phones that are not comfortable when you have them to your ear, or phones that are not comfortable to speak on because they are so small. The Timeport is none neither of those. Lastly, what I find most impressive about the Timeport is it's simplicity. There is nothing but the basics, if you need it you have it. When you scroll through the menu, you are not wasting time on features that most people don't know and or will never use. I have had other phone that were much cheaper and they had all these useless features. Once you get the hang of the menu and the shortcuts, using the phone is a breeze. I believe this is a great simple phone for the average person. I am sure if I were 17 again I would be foaming at the mouth for a phone with 15 different color snap-on covers and 200 different rings, but I am not and the Timeport suits my needs just fine. I am sure it would suit you as well, if you are in the market for a new cell phone, give the Timeport a try. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 87767 2000/9/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice looking good features poor battery performance The Bottom LineGood phone, but poor battery Full Review I used to love this phone. It was silver, it looked cool, and it was an upgrade from my old Motorola (those ubiquitous black ones). It has a web feature, and the phone book allows you to store names and several phone number for each name. After a little over a year, the battery started to die on me. Now, I am a very by-the-books person, so I read the literature carefully and would occasionally "condition" the battery by letting it run down and charge it back up again. However, it's gotten to the point where it'll only last two days if I use it (longer of course if it's on standby). It is extremely frustrating to have your battery monitor go down one bar if you use the phone for more than a minute. My husband has the Samsung 8500 (another silver wonder) and he never conditions his batteries but they last longer than mine (granted, his battery is larger, but not by that much). Also, this phone gets poorer reception compared to the 8500. We have held our phones side by side (we both subscribe to Sprint) and he would get a couple of bars and I would only get one. Worse still even with one bar he has a better chance of establishing a call. I almost never can with just one bar. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87766 2000/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great display with good battery life great features durable so far can t use earphone functionality to fullest extent The Bottom Linegood, solid, attractive phone for the technophile Full Review Boy, it's been a year since I've written a review on Epinions.com. Here goes.... I bought this phone purely because of the design. The clam-shell design appealed to my Trekkie side (you know those communicators in the original series/movies that flip up?). I really liked the silver color. The display was awesome. Instead of the LCD, it has like an LED display thing going. I'm not sure what the actual terminology for it is. I can read it clearly at night/darkness. Storing phone numbers is a breeze, and it has a feature where you can put in the home, cell, business, pager numbers all in one person's name, so that you don't have to come up with creative ways to spell out your friend's ten thousand different numbers on the cell phone. Calling is a breeze, also, from the stored numbers. It gets great reception from my calling area, which is the Washington, DC, area, on the Sprint service. I have dropped this phone several times on some hard surfaces in the bathroom and in my apartment building. I haven't done it on concrete yet, but the phone is still working. My only problem with this phone is that it doesn't work well with my earphone. My earphone thing has a small button on the side that I can push to answer/hang up without touching the phone. It's not compatible with this phone. I have to open the sucker up to answer the phone, which can be a pain while on the road. Other than that, it's a great phone, and I recommend it highly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 87765 2000/12/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 size flip feature a bit flimsy Full Review Besides the great standard mobile phone features and functions available on the Timeport 8767, the mobile web and data features are very nice too. I subscribed to mobile web and data through Verizon Wireless, and have been very impressed with the information available and the ease of use. The only negative is 1) Verizon (and most digital wireless cell providers) is limited to 14.4 kbps, which is a bit slow, and 2) a complaint with all cell phones - it is hard to input data into the phone going thru a numeric keypad. However, these are both gripes that are not specific to the Timeport. I can access the web directly on the phone, or plug the Timeport into my PC using a PC cable from Motorola, and access the web that way (again, at only 14.4 kbps, which is okay for email but slow for web browsing). Other than the web and data features, the phone is a solid performer; especially given its size. The color display is great, the battery life is fine (and backup batteries are easy to bring along), the reception through Verizon is very good. I highly recommend this phone, especially if you plan on using the web and data features to get stock quotes, weather, email, news headlines, etc. Only negative is that like other Motorola flipphones, it is a bit flimsy and you need to handle it lightly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87764 2000/2/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very good battery life small size reception color screen price display may be hard to read in bright sunlight The Bottom LineAll in all, the Timeport P8767 is a great performer and a great looker. Full Review I'll open this review with a bit of a disclaimer: I made the huge jump from a Motorola DPC-550 analog phone to the digital Timeport P8767. That said, bear with me if I gush about the improvements in mobile technology that I've been missing for the past six or so years. The Timeport P8767 is an excellent all-round performer. In my small coastal town (Cambria, CA), analog mobile operation is almost nonexistent due to a single cell site and hilly terrain. I can now use my P8767 in areas that never worked for me before. There are still some dead spots in town (especially at my house!), but we're promised a couple of new antennas this year. I've used the P8767 in mountainous terrain with virtually full coverage; it works as solidly as it does in high-density metro areas (Silicon Valley). This phone works so well with only a single "bar" of signal-strength in my fringe area, that seeing four or five bars of signal is almost a surprise to me. Use inside of buildings has never been a problem. Battery life is very good. My usage pattern is not typical, however. I spend one day per week in Silicon Valley, most of that time on the road getting there and back (3hrs each way). I wear the phone for the full day, but I don't make too many calls. Charging is a breeze with a car adapter; every other week or so I just plug it in during the drive and let it sit on the seat in standby mode. The display is beautiful and it provides all the information one would normally need to see. Because bright sunlight tends to wash out the display, it's usually necessary to shade the phone to see it. Others have compared the P8767 to different StarTac models, and on this score I'll plead ignorance. I'm sure there are huge similarities in the model line. I don't use the supplied holster, opting instead for a Body Glove neoprene (wet-suit) case/holster. I find this is easier to grip when driving. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87763 2000/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 comfortable small nice positioning of earpiecemike more features than i will likely use The Bottom LineI use my phone a lot. This phone is comfortable to have with me, quick to use and because of the size fits in my pocket or belt nicely. Full Review This phone is comfortable, sleek and attractive. The controls are easy to use (ie volume change while speaking, switching from ring to vibrating or silence). However, the menus for the more complex functions are not very clear. The memory functions are not intuitive and the manual could be more clearly written and better organized. It appears to have better than three hours of steady talk time and I have left it used it in standby and talk for a period of four days without running the battery flat. The display is a nicely done digital display that is very clear. Stands out well in just about every condition of light. I have rather small hands so the keypad size is not an issue but someone with bigger fingers might find it tiny. There is a web browsing function, however, it is unlikely that I will use it as I cannot bring myself to surf the net using a screen that is that tiny. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87762 2000/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 provides great service thin awesome display looks great phone belt holder is to big antenna stinks always breaking The Bottom LineVery good product-But very expensive product. I would definately recommend it though-Great Phone!! Full Review I recently purchased the Motorola Timeport Phone because I switched from ATT Wireless (which is the worst service in the world by the way) to Verizon. Verizon which is the largest wireless provider in the world was selling the phone for $299 when I bought it in January 2001. It is currently selling for $250 with a 2 year plan. Anyway-Lets talk a little about this little gray Phone! 1) The phone looks very sleek and cool-The black display is absolutely awesome. Thanks to the black display the phone omits very cool colors such as green, blue and red! 2) The phone strongly compliments Verizon's superb service. The reception is always great (whether you raise the antenna or not). 3) The Phone has an incredibly easy phone book feature which provides for 99 entries with four people each. So basically 99x4-That is very cool. See this is how it goes, you can put in four numbers for one person, and when the phone rings, a cool animation pops up-Showing a house, or pager, or cell phone, or work place. That is how you can distinguish where the person is. 4) The phone is very easy to use-Easy to learn and fun to play with! 5) The phone offers a million features that old Star-Tac's did not. The most important one for me is the features that allows you to open up the phone without answering a call. What I am trying to say is that (if the phone is ringing), you can view the caller ID. Older Star-Tac's didnt allow for that. 6) This phone has a feature where the phone beeps every 50 seconds. Good for me cause I am cheap. 7) The battery life is excellent on the phone-And the battery is so thin. 8) The blinking light features is very cool. If you want, you can turn this feature off, but I leave it on because the color of the lights tell you whether or not the phone is ringing, or if you have a voice mail etc. 9) The phone has an easy system for flipping the phone back and forth from ring to vibrate. It also has a feature that allows you to have the phone vibrate 3 Times than ring 2. Anyway-that is all I guess-This is a great phone and I would certainly recommend it... Well worth the price!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 87761 2002/6/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 price screen phone color size quality screen antenna phone color The Bottom LineA solid buy, best reception and voice clarity on any cell phone, ever. One of the coolest Motorola phones ever! A 21st century way to cell in style! Full Review Motorola has some great phones, but none of them are perfect. The Motorola Timeport P8767 is an ex-cell-ent example of this. Most people first see the phone on the phone on the outside, and are dazzled by the flawless platinum finish. Then, when they flip it open, they see 3 colors glowing back at them. They're spellbound and slap down the $250 for it. Bad idea. 1) Antenna. This is supposed to be an IMPROVEMENT on the StarTac's. But it still has that cheesy antenna that gets bent the first day you have your phone. Why can't Motorola get it through their stubby heads that the antenna has to be stiff, just like any other mobile? 99% of the new phones out there have the stiff plastic sheath with the retractable antenna tip. Also, it doesn't fit the phone; you see this beautiful phone, with this ugly, flimsy antenna. My suggestion to you is that you go on eBay and buy a cool, stiff, flashing antenna for five bucks. It'll save you a lot of frustration. 2) Screen. This is an awesome screen, don't get me wrong. But all of the newer flip phones, including the Motorolas, have the screen on the earpiece half, and the keypad on the other half. This offers twice the screen size, and much larger keys. Problem solved. As for the color part, I'd much rather have the tri-color display than the new 256-color display. It's just more "high-tech". 3) Phone Color. Tres bien. The only part Motorola slipped up on was the WAY it was colored. If they had made the phone solid metallic silver, scratches would be very hard to notice. But the coloring is just a plastic coating, or paint. So when you scratch it or nick it, you get this gross pale white color. Hmmmm... All in all, this is an AWESOME phone! The compliments outweigh the complaints, no competition. But if you can get this phone for $100 or less, you've got yourself a great deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59 87760 2003/2/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 screen appearance battery life quality layout ease of use ergonomics antenna The Bottom LineIf you want a professional and quality phone, buy the Timeport P8767. Full Review As you noticed...it is February 5th 2003...and I purchased a new Motorola Timeport P8767 on EBAY. Why would I do that you might ask...well because the Motorola Timeport P8767 is the best Sprint phone to date in my opinion. I have owned the Samsung SPH A460, the LG 5350, and I have used the N200, N400, Sanyo 4900, Sanyo 5000, and the Samsung A500. P8767 Specs: Weight in ounces 4 oz. Dimensions 6.2x3.6x1.0 inches Standby time 160 hours Wireless Web Yes Talk time 3 hours 30 minutes Digital Digital/analog Model first available December 2000 Style Flip Mode Tri-mode Technology CDMA 800/1900 AMPS 800 Phone Body: I really enjoy the ergonomics of this phone. The buttons are easy to press yet firm, and are a great size with perfect symmetrical spacing. I love the whole startac look with the batter on the cover of the phone. Some people say they find that the battery makes it top heavy or something like that, but I feel no difference in this phone and in any of the other phones I used. I won't go into reviewing the other phones I have owned or used, because I want to concentrate on the Timeport P8767. I like the placement of the screen on the body half of the phone above the keypad, because my face doesn't touch it and make it slightly greasy like with all other phones. Also, because the screen isn't on the top half of the phone, Motorola was able to make a higher quality ear piece and a concavity for your ear to fit into adequately. The phone isn't as small and sleek as the Samsung A500 or A460, but it is extremely portablee, light, and is quite slim. There is one problem with the phone, the antenna is somewhat flimsy when compared to other extendable antennas. The Timeport antenna is a stubby antenna, that can be extended. Although not very strong, I actually like the look of the antenna. Screen: The screen has no backlight. It is black with the text and letters lighting up in green, the time is shown in blue, and the no service and roaming indicators are orange. This allows for extreme visibility anywhere. It also gives the phone a professionally high-tech look to it. The for the screen is an organic electro-luminescent (OEL) screen that supports three colors: orange, blue, and green. Quality: This phone's overall structure is very sturdy and well built. The call quality is amazing. I hear people extremely clear, and to them I sound as if I am using a landline phone. You don't get that cellular feel when you're talking, and due to the build of the phone, you can talk for quite a long time comfortably. I get excellent reception. I often go inside an old building to do some work, and in that building, my Samsung phones would always switch to roaming...but the Timeport, with is about 1-2 years older than those phones, manages to stay in digital with excellent call quality. The battery life is amazing, the best I've come in counter with. The phone doesn't have an outward display to let you know who is calling, but you can just open the phone, and see clearly on the screen, and if you dont want to talk, you just close the phone, and the person calling doesn't know that you checked to see who it was. The menu system is very easy, and is the same as the startac. The phone charges pretty quickly in my opinion, and seems to be quicker than alot of other phones. This phone has a battery charging program, that enables you to get a detailed picture of your phone's battery charge along with the typical small battery picture at the top of the screen. The phone has three buttons on the left side that allow you to quite calls when your phone starts ringing or vibrating, and the phone has a ringer option so that the phone will vibrate three times, and then ring. The phone only has 9 ringers, but they are good for business environments, and I assume anyone reading this review is in the market for a real cellphone and not a cellphone/gameboy/radio/other useless features. When people see a person using a Timeport, they know that that person purchases quality products. Keep in mind, that I use this phone with Sprint...I'm not sure if the quality of speech would be the same on every carrier, BUT it will be one of the best for the simple reason that you're using a Timeport. Detailed Phone Details/Specs: Phone Name Timeport P8767 Manufacturer Motorola Analog Yes Digital Yes Mode Tri-Mode Stand-by Time 160 hrs. Talk Time 210 min. Technology AMPS, CDMA 800/1900MHz Memory Locations 99 SIM/Smart Card No Caller ID Yes Dual/Multiple NAMS 4 NAMs Voice Mail Indicator Yes Missed Call Indicator Yes Phone Lock Yes Call Restriction Yes Call Timers Individual and cumulative Mute Feature Yes Call Log 20 incoming, 20 outgoing Alphanumeric Memory Yes One-Touch Emergency Dialing Yes Speed Dialing Yes Any-Key Answer Yes Automatic Answer Yes or Can be turned off Flip Phone Yes Ringer Styles 9 ringer styles Vibration Alert Yes Headset Jack Yes Voice Mail Key Yes Antenna Retractable Speaker Phone Yes KeyPad Light Yes Back-lit Illumination Yes Battery Strength Meter Yes Signal Strength Meter Yes LCD Display 4 lines, 3 colours Clock Yes PC Synchronization Yes Web Browsing Yes Modem Function Yes Text/SMS Messaging Yes Battery Type Lithium Ion Size 9.4 x 5.6 x 2.8 cm Weight 124 g Colors Titanium SAR (analog) 1.53 w/kg SAR (digital) 0.84 w/kg Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 152.00 87759 2000/12/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ruggedness display price flimsy useless antenna The Bottom LineA great phone if you need a great display. But watch out for the antenna. Full Review I have trouble seeing the displays of most cell phones. The black on green, or black on light gray is almost impossible for me to see. So when I first saw the display on the Timeport, I was more than impressed and interested. In fact, I bought the phone on-the-spot. Finally, I had a cell phone that was easy to see in all types of light, and was easy for me to read. But, once I got past the display some time later, some things started to bother me and please me. First what pleased me. The size, though a little thick, is easy to put in one's coat pocket. Though it's slick surface does tend to allow the phone to slip out of my pocket fairly easily. This can be both a curse and a blessing. With the battery, it's not the slimmest phone around, but it isn't the thickest either. Adding on a holster does increase the depth of the phone quite a bit. The keys are average sized, and I found that even with my big fingers, I could easily manage punching in a telephone number, or navigating the menus. The menus for the phone are pretty straightforward, and I was able to set the phone up without much reference to the user's guide. However, the user's guide is another matter. It literally fell apart after a few uses. I now have the pages clipped together. Setting up the phonebook feature and entering in names and numbers did require reading that part of the guide, but all-in-all it was pretty easy to do. Battery life is OK, and could be better. I generally talk to my parents on the East Coast once a week for about 90 minutes. If I don't have the phone fully charged prior to that call, it will start to give out after about 45 minutes into the call. On a fully charged phone, I will go from 3 bars to 2 bars by the end of the call. A full recharge from a drained battery generally takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours to complete. Standby time without much use sees the battery lasting about 3 days before a recharge is necessary. The phone is quite rugged. I've accidentally dropped it several times since I bought it over a year ago. Some of those drops have been onto a concrete surface. The phone doesn't seem to be any worse for wear. And, outside of some minor scratches, it has taken the abuse very well. The single biggest fault I find with the phone is the antenna. Quite simply, it is flimsy. The top part of the antenna sticks out way too far from the top right of the phone and is very easy to bend and break off. When I bought the phone, the only warning I got from the salesman is to be very careful how I treated the antenna, or I would be back in for a replacement. Though I haven't broken my antenna since buying the phone, I have bent it several times. The antenna also does not clip down securely into the phone, but pops up on its own far too many times for my liking. This "pop-up" has contributed to the antenna stem getting bent. Another strange thing about the antenna is that there seems to be no electrical connection between the antenna and the phone that I can see. And, the antenna does not seem to help improve signal strength or reception when pulled out. For the life of me, I can't figure out what the antenna's for, or if it's even used. I find the phone in the holster to be uncomfortable when clipped to my pants belt. There are too many "sharp" edges on the holster for my liking, and they tend to stick into me when I bend or sit down. Unless you need this feature, don't use it. My final observation is one that I can not determine if it is a fault of the phone, or of the service provider I have with the phone. Since I got the phone, sometimes the phone will totally lose the service. It's as if the service completely went away. My wife has another phone on the same service, and side-by-side, she has at least 2 bars of signal when my phone is "Searching for Service". When I call the provider, I'm told that their service has been up. If I walk up the street a block or two, the service to my phone is restored, and I can go back to where I was and the signal is there matching the indicator on my wife's phone. All-in-all, I like this phone, and would buy it again if I had to simply for the great display. I wouldn't use the holster, and I would be a lot more careful with the antenna. But, other than that, it's been a great phone. Is it worth the $200 list price. Probably not. But, I got mine on sale for half that. If you need a phone, and can find this one deeply discounted, it's a good buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87758 2000/6/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight nice belt clip excellent battery clear display old base charger doesn t accept the phone batteries still charge The Bottom LineThis is a nice phone, not as durable as others, but quite convenient. Full Review This is a great phone. This is now my second StarTac. I have to say, over the older (black) StarTacs, this battery life kicks butt! I can go almost 2-3 days on the battery (if I have few phone calls), 1-2 is I use it moderately. The display is quite crisp and bright. I actually use it as a dim flashlight at night soas to not wake anyone else up. The menus are simple. The web features (Verizon Wireless) suck. Forget it. It's a waste. Honestly, even if I try to look something up, I find it useless, although YMMV. I find Vindago on my palm WAY better. Also, although the phone book holds multiple phone numbers per person, it's a little cumbersome to navigate while driving (sham on me) those little buttons on the side. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 (upgrade) 87757 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life great display it s tri mode great sound questionable quality not so great attena The Bottom LineDespite some build quality and design issues, this is a great phone. Full Review Having owned two samsungs and a qualcomm thin phone, and after hearing about Motorolas exceptional sound quality, I decided on this phone. I enjoyed the Samsung 8500, but the sound was not great, and the battery began to crap out. Unable to find a replacement, I got a good deal on this Timeport. SOUND Not disappointed at all. This is the BEST sounding cell phone I have ever used. The clarity, regardless of signal strength, is far better then any cordless landline BATTERY Great.I was a but worried about the battery placement, but it has not been any trouble. Powerwise, it lasts and lasts, charging only every three days or so, even with pretty heavy use. DISPLAY Nothing compares, period. The colors jump out at you. The absence of a backlight makes it more readable then any phone I've ever seen. I've heard complaints about being hard to read in the sun, but you shouldn't be in sun you can't see in anyhow, losers. BUILD The classic design cannot be questioned, but the phone is assembled so as to take away from the good points. Everything is a little loose. The two pieces feel like they could come apart. The edges of the plastic are a bit rough, too. I have dropped it a couple of times and it still works and looks fine, so I can't complain too much. ANTENNA After all of these years, I'm amazed that they never cam up with anything better then this long flimsy nub which everyone knows they will eventually have to replace. For some folks, it has seemed to become a sort of badge of honor to walk and talk with the end either broken off or dangling from the shaft. Whatever floats your boat. All in all, this is a great phone. Sure it's stylish, but this is just gravy. Functionwise, it may be hard to equal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 87756 2000/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use small excellent 3 color display light no calendar The Bottom LineThis phone has a ton of features, good battery life, a great screen, and great reception, AND it looks cool. What else is there? Full Review I suffer from a severe case of technology envy. In addition, I have symptoms which include jealousy of all things that come in a clean, but "pretty" package. Luckily, I also suffer from small-bank-accountitis. So I wait until prices drop, and then I get the cool gizmos. The Motorola TimePort P8767 is just downright cool. The display is an Organic Electro-Luminescent type, that is even easy to read in direct sunlight. Three colors are used to help separate the data on the screen. There isn't another phone that has this display. The menu system is quite intuitive, and I never read the manual. There is room for 99 phonebook entries, but you can associate up to 4 number with each person in the directory. You can even set small symbols which show what type of number it is; i.e. a building for Office, fax machine for Fax... The bottom line is that this phone does just about the same things that all other new cell phones do. It just has the quality of Motorola, a great screen, and a silver case. Now, the package is even sweeter, because it can be found for about $169.00 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.00 87755 2000/8/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 display weight style price interface feautures The Bottom LineInnovative display but interface and features need to catch up. Highly reccomended if you use your phone as a modem. Sleek, perfect size, great battery. Full Review About a month ago Sprint had its "semi annual sale." During this sale the intrueging Timeport 8767 was on sale for $100. I get board with gadgets quickly so I decided to switch over from my Touchpoint 2200. My experiences so far have been mostly positive. I have been a big fan of the clam shell design since its inception to the market however many years ago with the original analog Startac. Still the best design to actually talk on. The Timeport, which is the flagship of the Startac line, shares this design but unfortuneatly also brings along its faults. (I'm sure you don't need me to get into those)Overall I think it has been designed pretty well but is probably nearing the end of its long un-revised production run. The biggest problem I have with this phone is its "creakiness." The Startacs were built to significantly tighter tolerances and thereforeb have a much tighter feel. The Timeport seems to be just as durable which is good, but not as put together. For example, when the vibracall goes off the phone makes quite a bit of noise from its surfaces rubbing together. The Startacs on the other hand stay pretty silent. There is absolutely no excuse for this and it is a shame that Motorola allowed these phones to go out like this. While I am talking negatives, the phone is also overpriced. I got a pretty good deal on this phone, but it retails for $200 and that is too much. This phone lacks far too many features to be anywhere near the $200 mark. It does come with a wireless web connectivity kit which is nice, but it does not have any pda features, a relatively small screen, no t9, and the interface needs to be updated. If you can put all of that behind you, (like I can) than you will realize that we ARE dealing with a great phone overall. This phone is a clone of the older 8167 model with the exception of the screen. That is the 8767's biggest asset. It is called an organic electro-luminescent display, or at least something close. It will be hard to ever own another phone without it. Remember the old startacs that had the led screens? If you were to double or triple the resolution than you would have something close to the 8767. How about the new Sony mobile headunits with the ABP displays? The 8767's is a lot like those. Making it a pleasure to read and use. Motorola will try and tell you that it is a 3 color display (red, green, blue) but I would describe it as a green text display with blue voice/text message alert and time indicators with red roam and analog indicators. The text is always green, which is a dissapointment, but still this is a remarkable display. Far better than the standard monotone lcd. Other notables but not standout features are: 99 name phonebook with 4 numbers per name web browsing 9 ringers/ vibrate modes single event alarm with text reminder dual band tri-mode (analog with multiple digital modes, may come in handy but not applicable with good Sprint service) Sleek silver plasric case The timeport is a nice phone, the display and battery life a great. (The actual talk time is probably close to 2.5 hours, 3.8 is claimed by Motorola) The design is sleek and noticeable and it comes with a pricey wireless web connection kit. It is a very competative phone for $100 but for $200 you can get into something that is simply out of the 8767's league. I apologize for any spelling mistake but the edit feature would not even earn a 1/4 star! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87754 2000/7/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact easy to see display strong reception clarity lightweight irritating ringers menu system a little wierd The Bottom LineSolid solid phone. I think this phone offers the perfect combination in that it doesn't sacrifice performance for the "Oooohhhh" factor. Full Review I got this phone as a replacement for a fairly new multi-featured phone solely because I wanted a phone that focused on being a phone. This plus its compact size, good past experience with Motorola, and its cool multi-colored display made this the top choice for me among the Sprint PCS lineup. The Phone Itself: It looks like the earlier Timeport. Its sleek and silver, fits easily into the pocket (a big consideration since I hate having the phone hanging off of a belt - but if this is something you like they include a swiveling belt holster). The menu system is similar to earlier late model Startacs, its fairly easy to navigate once you get used to what keys actually do what. To make scrolling easier there are also menu controls along the side of the phone. I think the main differences between this Timeport model and the past are that the 8767 is Tri-mode meaning in theory you will have more of an opportunity to stay in contact (but unless you live in an area that will make use of this feature, I don't think its really a biggy). The other big (and noticeable) difference is the display. Motorola gave it a big fancy name, but its really different from anything out there (save for a full color screen). The display is bright and is very easy to read. One more thing that may prove helpful to those interested in this phone is that the newer shipments of this phone are being packaged with a data kit. I think in earlier packagings of this phone the data kit was not included. So if this is something you need (or want) make sure you double check. Why I Like It: I like the phone because its a phone first and all the other features are meant to compliment its use as a phone. As I mentioned I previously owned a phone that had games, a scheduler, a calculator, cool ring tones, and a whole bunch of other gimmicks, but it seemed like its main purpose of being a portable phone was a secondary focus. I think the two big things a cell phone should do is pick up a signal and provide clear communications. The Motorola does this better than most phones out there. Its signal reception are clarity are the best of any of the phones I have owned or tried. If you are looking for a phone that does what a phone is supposed to and does it very well then this may be something to consider. If you are looking for a bunch of frills (mp3 player, PDA, etc.) look elsewhere. What I Don't Like: Just a few things here. While the silver finish looks good, its paint not silver molded plastic. So I am waiting for the peeling that others here have mentioned. Secondly, it has this nasty creak when you open the phone up. And thirdly, I wished Motorola included a few less standard and irritating rings (while I don't want musical rings, I still want the phone to sound distinct). Other than these 3 small annoyances there is nothing else that I see as a problem with this phone. Oh, the price maybe a problem but many people are selling this on sale or reduced if you pickup a service contract. If you want a solid performing phone consider this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87753 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality love the display easy phonebook antenna no biggie no ring vibracall no calender pda The Bottom LineExcellent phone! Full Review I purchased this phone after having tried the Samsung N200. I liked the phone and it had alot of great features, but my ear just never got used to the flimsy uhhh, earpiece i guess I could call it. SO, i went looking for another phone and came upon this beauty in Best Buy. Right away it caught my eye, just from the aesthetics. It's kinda plain, but sleek and stylish at the same time. The silver/chrome finish gives it a classy touch that i really like. Let me explain all the likes: Reception: Absolutely great call quality. I never even have to use the antenna (which is one of my gripes). The sound comes in crystal clear and very strong. Display: I love the colors on the LCD display. Very eye catching. Letters and numbers are large and very readable whether your inputting something or when a call comes in. The numbers or name of the person is very clear to read (unlike many other phones with tiny, unreadable fonts). Phonebook: Very easy phonebook access. Yes, the button is on the side of the phone, but you really don't need to hands to use it as I've read other reviews say. Four numbers per person makes it very convenient for look up and storage. Signal light: This is a very small aspect of this phone, but I really enjoy. Since this phone is a flip with no outer display, you can see whether you are in your coverage by the color of the light. Green means digital, yellow means roaming, and red means no service. Excellent feature. Also, when your phone rings, it flashed from green to red until you pick up. Gripes......not many.... Antenna, just plain flimsy. The day I went to purchase my phone, someone came in with a broken antenna.....just GREAT! But like I said, I rarely even have to put it up, which can diminish the worry of breaking it. And finally....unfortunately, there's no calender or PDA on this badboy. Not that it's necessary. I mean really! A phone is a phone is a phone. Not a big deal, but it would be good for a future upgrade on the phone. And that's all. I've had this phone about a month now and I completely enjoy it. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.00 87752 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 integrates 100 with my car multi color good reception what is the point web browser The Bottom LineGood reception, nice display, good looking, not too heavy, not too big... I recommend it for others, especially the 2001 Mercedes C class buyers. Full Review To tell the truth, I didn't go out looking for this phone - it came as part of the 2001 Mercedes C-240 that my wife and I bought. It is the phone that is factory integrated into the car. It has worked wonderfully both in the car and out of it - recharging is relatively quick - seems to do fine for at least two days if taken off the charger. I've had a couple different startacs over the past 4 years and figured I'd fully understand all the features on the phone because I'm a gadget freak. Well, I got confused with the multiple phone numbers per person that this phone allows - it has the ability to associate home, work, cell, page, etc. with a single name entry - very cool feature but totally confused me at the time I got the phone and was getting it all set up for my wife. All features were well explained in the manual. I activated the web browser on the phone to give it a try... waste of time and money in my opinion... The screen is too small, the 'wireless web' is a technology that has over promised and under-delivered.... who wants to press a key 3 or 4 times per character you type and then read all of the information on a couple lines that you're constantly scrolling. If you want to cruise the web get a phone with a much bigger display - and an alternative input device... at least in my opinion. I've had good digital and analog reception with the phone indoors and outside. I've seen other epinions saying it was hard to read the display in the daylight - I personally don't have a hard time reading the display. I guess the biggest things about this phone I would improve if I could... make it even smaller, but give me a bigger display and a full QWERTY keyboard that I could use like a RIM Blackberry, and make the battery last a month per charge. But that is the same thing I say about all cell phones on the market today. Excellent integration with the Mercedes cars - I can pickup, hangup, and select who to call from the steering wheel and it auto mutes the stereo on call connect and radio kicks back on at hangup. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): came w/car 87751 2000/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy installation works first time display small for web browsing Full Review Having read the other opinions, I generally concur in that this is an excellent phone, full of features. I love the display and think it is super easy to see, far easier than others I have seen or used. So I'm going to write about the other features and accessories I purchased from Verizon. Data Connectivity I bought the data connectivity kit in order to load the phone with my Outlook contact database and also to enable me to connect to the web through my cell phone. The Outlook connectivity worked well after a couple of tweaks. Installation went smoothly. The kit comes with a cable that connects to a serial port of your PC on one side and the phone on the other. Synching proceeded quickly, though I got back an error message that said some phone numbers couldn't transfer. These were the numbers that had extensions where I had entered ext 211 or x 211. Apparently it doesn't like letters. So I simply removed the letters and then all my contacts were entered. They just about filled up the memory, and many have more than one phone number. When you search for a contact, an icon symbolizes whether you are looking at a home, office or mobile number. I have to say I was impressed to have all these numbers handy. What a time saver and much quicker than using palm to look them up. Only need one gadget for phone calls. Also this was so much quicker than trying to enter the numbers by hand. Using the cell phone as a modem The data connectivity kit also lets you use your sell phone as a modem or fax machine. Again, software installation to my Dell Inspiron running Windows NT 4.0 went smoothly. I sent my first fax in about 10 minutes and it worked flawlessly. In fact, data speed is the same as any fax machine at 14.400. Modem connection worked equally well. Headset I chose the M175 Plantronics headset which allows an over the headband or over the ear mode. This is an outstanding quality unit with sound indistinguishable from the phone itself. No one I have talked to can tell I'm on a headset. It is so comfortable that I forget I'm wearing it in the car. This is much safer than holding the phone with my hands and much more comfortable. I highly recommend this unit. It may be a bit more visible than the ear bud style, but my co workers who use those are constantly adjusting the mic or tilting their heads sideways to speak better into the mic. I can tell when they are handsfree. Web Browser. I decided to give the web browser a trial, but I wasn't sure how much I'd use it. I logged onto myvzw.com and set up an account using my cell phone number. This gives you a home page where you set up your preferences as to what content you want available through your cell connection. Keeping it simple, I chose a few stocks I own and the local weather. Set up is simple and the phone is easy to use. I can get stock info about 30 seconds after I start trying with the connection times. The display makes it easy to read, but the small screen size and number of lines of display is a bit of a hindrance. You have to scroll a bit. Overall, the jury's out on this. But if you need stock info, weather, sports scores or news while mobile, this does work. Hope this helps you decide on some of the accessories. I had looked everywhere for info on the data connectivity and couldn't find anything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.95 headset 87750 2001/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice compact design great sound quality screen impossible to see outdoors The Bottom LineThis is a great phone with its worst flaw screen viewability outdoors. It performs better that most and it's basic design features make it a worthwhile purchase. Full Review This is my fourth cell phone. I got very tired of the non-folding style phones. I can't tell you how many times I have accidentally made a call while the phone was in my pocket or scratched the screen because it was knocked against something when I put it down or away. I tried the leather cases but they never fit right and the earpiece or microphone gets covered and the phone becomes too bulky to fit comfortably in a pocket. I decided I wanted a folding phone. I wanted the screen to be protected and I wanted to be able to slip the phone into a pocket. The StarTac type phones seemed like a good choice except for their cost. Also the older models had buttons that were concave and hard to push. Come along the Timeport P8767. First, the buttons have been redesigned so that they are convex and they are quite easy to push. Indoors, the screen is brilliant. It is colorful and quite easy to read, especially for those of us now using reading glasses. I have read other reviews which seem to find the menu system Motorola uses on most of their phones confusing but I found it no harder than any other phone I have used. I don't really need most of the features other than the phone book and the only thing I found missing was voice activated dialing. The phone has a choice of a few different rings and their are no musical tunes. I got very tired very quickly of my phone playing music when it rang so this is one other feature I do not miss at all. One nice thing about the shape of this phone is that the earpiece is more like a land line phone. Maybe it is my imagination, but it makes it feel more like talking on a real phone than with phones that have a flat front. I find the sound quality on both ends of this phone to be excellent and sometimes it feels like you are talking on a land line phone. I have had no problems with dropped calls or reception in weak signal areas as well. Everything has it's good and bad points and this phone has two bad points. First is it's price. It is really hard to justify spending so much on a phone when you can practically get a phone for free when you sign up. Verizon wanted $299 for this phone when I bought mine if you signed up for a year and almost $400 for it otherwise. I waslucky enough to find a brand new one on Ebay for $220 and I didn't need to sign up for another year. The second bad point is the display outdoors. Indoors it is fantastic. It does dim after 15 seconds of non use but pushing any key with brighten it up. Outdoors, it is almost impossible to read. I find myself not opening the phone all the way or having to use my hands to shade the screen so I can see it. I don't know what they could have done to fix this other than use a different type of screen. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 87749 2000/9/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 great reception great screen very stylish technical problems poorly made rubber comes off The Bottom LineIf your phone and all the data in it are essential to your daily business, I would consider another phone. Full Review I originally bought this phone because the sales guy offered me the phone for $50 more than the startac I was going to purchase, which would be free under a contract. So I basically got the phone for $50. All the staff for the wireless company I was dealing with used this phone and swore by it. They said the phone had better reception than any other phone they carried (basically true), and the display was easy to view any time, day or night (don't believe reviews that tell you otherwise, this phone display is easier to read than any other phone). Oh, and it looked cool. I mean, how many silver flip phones are there out there? I wanted a flip phone because I already carry around a palm, so I wanted the smallest, most compact phone possible. Unfortunately after using the phone for a couple months, the reception started getting worse and worse. Eventually every 3rd call would get dropped! I would also have problems where I would dial in my password for voicemail and the phone would start jumping around in the menus instead of dialing. I also eventually realized that the phone would sometimes not ring at all and calls would get missed or go to voicemail. I talked to others on the same network as I was, and concluded that there had to be a problem with the phone. I took the phone to be repaired (I regret not making them swap the phone for a new one now) 10 days later, I got my phone back with a bunch of new parts in it. Since then, I haven't had any of the aformentioned problems, so they had obviously had to fix the phone. All the data was still in the phone which was a relief. I thought ok, I got a dud, but now I shouldn't have any other problems. Then last month, the rubber on top of the phone started peeling off! The glue holding it started weakening. Also, it seems to me that the battery life is overrated on the specs. It seems like I have to charge this phone way to often even after only a couple of short calls over a day or two. I figured for a $300 phone, this was an absolute joke. To make matters worse, there are some annoying features about the phone, like the inability to go back and add digits like an area code to a phone number in the phone book without first deleting and re entering the whole number! So basically this has the potential to be a great phone, but there are some serious design problems, and they must of manufactured a number of duds, like the one I got. So be careful before you spend a lot of money on this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 87748 2001/4/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen the screen dims considerably after a period of time making reading it a real chore The Bottom LineA solid unit with an excellent screen (not great in direct sunlight though). Verizon coverage in CT is good (Cinglular is the best). Full Review Many times I think our opinions of cellular phones are based not only on how good the phone is but how good the cellular carrier is at providing solid coverage. I am using Verizon in CT with this phone. I recently signed with them after not having used them for a period of about 2 years. The coverage area is spotty through CT at best. I have many clients in the Torrington area -- and unfortunately that represents one of the lesser covered spaces within CT. The 8767 is a nice phone because of the color screen and the distinctive shape - a little smoother than the Startac. Here are the things I don't like about it: a) The color display is not easy to read in direct sunlight. The screen automatically dims after a set period of time. When it is dim you can barely read it. Pressing any key returns the brightness to normal. b) My unit has paint which is peeling around the earpiece. I have read of at least one other reviewer with peeling paint on their 8767. c) The lookup of names in the phone book is a pain. On the Nokia models you can jump right into the search. The Motorola requires several keypresses. d) Storing numbers is too complicated. Again, Nokia makes it much easier to do. e) Battery life does not seem on par with the Startac. I haven't run down my battery 100% yet but the little bars start to reduce after a few phone calls. Here are the things I like: a) More updated look than Startac. b) Color screen makes for easier viewing (when at full brightness) Beyond this, the phone essentially carries over all the features of the regular Startac line with a little updating. UPDATE - 2/22/2001 - Honeymoon period is over. Still like this phone. Think battery life is short and quality of phone (paint peeling) are legitimate beefs. Would still recommend the phone as an excellent unit. UPDATE - 3/3/2001 - Exchanged first unit for a new one after I noticed paint peeling off. Have had replacement unit for about 2 months. I still like the phone and have gotten used to the dim display when viewed in direct sunlight. Battery life per the on-screen icon seems shorter than standard Startac but in practice I seem to get about the same amount of talk time. I've used it easily up to 3 hours per day in digital coverage and not run out of power. Verizon coverage is good throughout Connecticut with only a few annoying gaps (the Rt 8 corridor through Litchfield is one of them). UPDATE 4/2/2001 - Still using the phone as my primary. No other quality problems with paint flaking or peeling. Reception is good throughout CT except for the holes I've noted. Unit seems to lock onto and hold signals with above average ability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249 87747 2000/8/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight designa colorful display small weak antenna that is easily broken The Bottom LineThis 'upgraded' StarTac phone is a great little machine that pumps out a great deal of power and gives you good clarity. Full Review When upgrading to a new cellphone I wanted something that wasn't big and heavy, came with a belt clip, had a good display and long lasting battery power. I ended up with the Motorola Timeport P8767. One of the biggest reasons I bought this phone over others was it's amazing display. The display uses a bright color (blue, green, orange) scheme that is visible at any time of the day. The phone itself is a sleek looking silver color that also makes heads turn. I am always getting OOO'd or AHHH'd by people who see my phone for the first time. It's very appealing. The phone comes with a ton of available options that for an extra fee can be utilized such as checking your e-mail and surfing the web from your phone. Even though I don't use any of these features, I have heard that they work well and haven't heard of any complaints. The phone comes with 9 different ringing and vibrating patterns. The alerts are just your basic ones, minus the hardcore musical tones like the Nokias come with (wow-fancy). This phone had everything that my Nokia didn't (except for the games). The package came with the standard wall-charger, standard battery, belt-clip and instructions. I put the battery in the phone, plugged it into the wall, open the manual and within an hour I was programming my address book. By the way, the address book is BEST TOOL ON THIS PHONE! You can store upto 5 numbers per person listed in the address book, and upto 250 persons can be listed (I think). Browsing through your listing is done with a breeze by using the easy navigation buttons located on the left side of the phone. I got this phone 2-weeks after it was released and paid a whopping $250 for it. I've seen it advertised for $150 in the papers now. Oh well, so I paid some extra cash, but I got an excellent phone. Along with buying the phone, I went and bought the Navigator, which is a speaker-phone/charger for your car. Great product if you're constantly in your car, and also if cellphone usage while driving is illegal like it is over here in NY. The clarity on this phone is better than others, but it all really depends on your service provider and whether or not their good. I have a Verizon plan and i've never had any problems with this phone and clarity. It's a Digital/Analog phone with Digital as the default preference, meaning that it automatically switches from one to the other if it can't catch an available signal. Yet another cool feature. The only thing I dislike about this model is it antenna. It's only broken off once, but still it's a hassle to get fixed. It's $10 for a replacement from your local cellphone distributor. I wish that Motorola had made a hard-nubbing type antenna like most StarTac models have. I've been told that Timeports need the extending antenna for the Internet access. Go figure. Overall this is a great product and if you got the cash flow going on, pump up the extra dollars and spend it on this great phone. It won't let you down, and you might even meet someone when they complement you on your new, cool-looking phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 87746 2000/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size sleek design long list of features fantastic color screen clarity of reception silver paint uncomfortable belt clip silver paint covering screen tough to see in sunlight The Bottom LineAlthough it has minor flaws, the Motorola Timeport is an excellent choice for those who favor compact size, a clear reception, and the most recent technology. Full Review I must admit that the Motorola Timeport is my first cellular phone. It serves as both a graduation present and a means of communication with my family (they will be 400 miles from me as I attend college). HOW, you ask, will I be able to afford long distance charges???? Well, I purchased the phone for $69.99 at Radio Shack on condition that I adhere to a special national plan offered by Verizon. I'll go into further description of this plan as my review continues. But, first, the phone! THE SIZE After hearing about the revolutionary small size of the Motorola StarTak, I realized that small is indeed better. The Timeport IS small enough to carry in a pocket, granted it's in the folded position. This is not a bulky phone of yester-year, rather it is probably the smallest and most versatile on the market at the current time. RECEPTION Last week I decided to take my dad on a hike up a mountain in the White Mountain National Forest, NH. Upon reaching the summit, I decided to contact my mother in MA to report of our successful ascent. There were no cellular phone towers nearby. Altough the sun was shining (actully SEARING in the direct 90 degree heat) making the screen difficult to view, I was still able to reach my mother. The reception was clear and my mother's soft voice was audible. This is comforting to have a good reception handy in other situations as well--especially if one finds themselves stuck on a backcountry road with a broken-down car. LOADS OF FEATURES Caller ID, voice messaging, a web browser (is it really necessary for a smaller screen??), ninety-eight "categories" which store 4 phone numbers each, 9 different ring options, etc etc. This is all more than I intend to use. Who knows, it may prove helpful in the long-run. Yet, when it does for me, new technology will be availible. If you are looking for a phone with features and price is not an issue, the Motorola Timeport would be a strong contender for you. THE BELT-CLIP and SILVER PAINT - SMALL QUALMS The silver paint will slough off with prolonged wear and tear. It has in TINY areas already. Yet, this is cosmetic and whether or not the phone works well is my biggest concern. The belt-clip, although versatile in the way it rotates about, is large and actually makes the phone protrude even further from your body. I would stay at least one foot away from walls or any other barrier. It is necessary to be conscious of your space as you carry the phone on the belt-clip. OK...THE PLAN Radio Shack is offering a $30 rebate on this phone (off the already lower price of $99.99) with the purchase of a Verizon national-based plan. I was able to get the Northeast plan which includes points north to Maine and south to northern Virginia. I have 2000 minutes on weekends (which is when I make the bulk of my social calls to friends around the country) and 500 minutes per month on weekdays. This deal will benefit me as a college student when I want to call my family of faraway friends on a weekend and still have adequate minute amounts on weekdays in case of emergencies or other talking necessities. The plan costs $35 per month. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 87745 2001/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small footprint extended features lightweight complicated interface awkward The Bottom LineA small, lightweight phone with many advanced features, which all comes to naught when you actually try to use its complicated, clunky interface. Full Review As a technical professional with no land line at home, my cell phone has become the center of my gadget universe. When I recently upgraded to a new mobile service, I spent some time researching phones, and eventually settled on the Motorola TimePort P8767. Its thin profile and advanced features looked promising, and I especially liked the fact that it was small enough to fit into my shirt pocket (yes, even though I'm a tech, I refuse to wear a belt o' gadgets). That said, what I didn't pay much attention to in my research was the actual interface design. The menus on my previous three mobile phones were fast, simple, and very intuitive; therefore, I expected the same from a more expensive model. Bad move on my part. First off, this is very definitely a slow, two-handed phone. There are buttons on both the side and front of the casing, and most of them need to be pressed to get anything done. Needless to say, you don't want to make a call with this while you're driving, unless you can afford a hands-free speech module. Even when you're not driving, having to switch hands to wrangle the buttons is both awkward and frustrating. Secondly, the actual menu interface is extremely confusing. There are two main menus, both slightly different yet with enough similar features to leave me scratching my head as to their purpose. For instance, if you want to look up a number, you can do one of two things: 1) Press the side menu button twice, then press the side scroll buttons to reach the number. 2) Press FUNCTION and MENU on the number pad, scroll through the lookup options with the side scroll buttons, choose the lookup option with the side menu button, then enter the appropriate information using the keypad. Whew! I enjoy an occasional technical challenge, but this phone has me humbled. Don't expect to accomplish much without an in-depth study of the 150-page manual. As for the product design, it *is* sleek and impressive looking, but that doesn't make up for its inherent clunkiness. For those people for whom the look is a determining factor, here's a tip: that old "let-me-flip-out-my-expensive-cell-phone-to-impress-this-girl-walking-by" thing has never - not once in recorded history - actually resulted in a man being able to date the woman of his choice. Sorry. Although the phone comes with many advanced features (web browser, timers, etc.), and comes in a very small, lightweight package, the poor interface design really knocks it down a few notches, especially when you consider the high price. There is a saying amongst product designers, "The interface should make the product invisible", meaning that a product should be so intuitive and easy to use that the customer should never have to think about it. This phone definitely requires some heavy thought. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 219 87744 2000/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very clear voice quality nice display small comfortable to use very stylish expensive possible reception issues hinge is a little flimsy The Bottom LineVery nice phone, great voice quality and vibrant display. Could be put together a bit better but overall a wonderful toy. Full Review I've wanted a cellular phone for some time and decided that I might as well get one to see what it was like. I decided on the Motorola TimePort because I've always liked the design of their other flip phones (StarTACs, etc.). One of the really nice aspects of the flip-phone design is that the phone is very small when closed so it's easy to carry in your pocket and it's just as big as a full-size phone when it's opened. Also, the angle of the flip phone when opened matches the contour of the face pretty well so that the receiver is placed right near the mouth making for a very comfortable experience when using the phone. One of the nicest parts of this unit has got to be the display. It's very bright at night, but is somewhat hard to see when viewed in sunlight. There are basically two parts to the display; the top portion contains various fixed LCD glyphs for battery charge, signal strength, message waiting and time / date, and the bottom portion is an LCD dot matrix display which shows the date, phone numbers, service type, menus, etc. The time and message indicators appear in blue while the rest of the display is green. There is also a yellow/orange portion of the display, but so far I've only noticed the 'no-service' indicator in that part of the screen. Most of the user interface on the phone is fairly straightforward and it only takes an hour or two to become comfortable with most features of the device. This is due to the fact that most of the features are accessed through an interactive menu system that you traverse using the arrow keys on the side of the unit; a fairly intuitive approach. There are also shortcuts for some of the frequently-used features (ringer on/off, phonebook, voicemail, etc.) that are usually accessible with two keyclicks on the keypad. The feature that I like best about the software on the phone has got to be the phonebook. It allows you to associate up to 4 numbers with a single person, using icons to represent their home/work/cell/etc. numbers. Very nice. Another one of the cool features of the phone are the built-in timers. The phone keeps track to seconds the time used on your current call, records the minutes used on the phone since it was activated, and stores minutes used on another resettable timer so that you can keep track of your monthly usage, e.g. On the downside, the phone's build quality leaves a little to be desired. The hinge has a bit of play in it. This leads to a bit of creakiness when using the phone (varying the pressure against your ear, etc.) and when closed the pieces can shift around a little bit (only about 1mm or so, so not bad, but still kind of annoying for such a pricey phone). I'm also experiencing some signal strength problems -- I can't use the phone from the basement of my house even though the phone indicates 1 bar of signal strength. I know it means the signal is weak, but if you can't make a call / receive calls I would think that the 'no-service' light should come on. If I take the unit upstairs, the phone still shows 1 bar of signal strength yet I am able to place and receive calls. Of course, this probably has something to do with the location of the house and the service provider. My brother has a Fido cell phone and his signal strength drops to 1 or 0 when in the basement of the house as well, so it's probably not the phone. However, when the phone does work it works exceptionally well. The voice signal is very clear, even with 1-2 bars of signal strength. So clear in fact that a couple of people have remarked that they had no idea I was using a cell phone to call them until I told them I was using it. Overall, this phone is really a cool gadget and I'm quite happy with it. It has all the features I would find useful in a cell phone. If you can afford the unit and have good reception in your area, I'd suggest picking one up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87743 2000/3/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 more features features nice color display very lightweight painted silver housing The Bottom LineI recommend it to anyone wanting a nice, convenient phone. Full Review It has been a while that I had not taken time to write about a product. Though, this is one I have to make an exception for. I will begin by saying that it was about time Motorola stepped up to the plate. With all the competition going on and the whole internet thing, I was sure Motorola would stay way behind, or at least for a long time. One of the latest products know as the Timeport 8767, to my opinion, should be an industry standard. As most always wonder, the reception is great, still considering that it is a cellular and it will vary depending on where you may currently be located. Another thing to remember is the service provider, well that is a whole opinion on it's own. Practically, this phone can do anything you want it to do and I do mean anything. Now follow me closely, as I will explain............... 1) Phone Book memory is amazing. No longer do you need to use several memory location to store multiple number (pager, office, home, etc...) for the same person. Just select one location and you can store up to 4 number for that person, and each can be identified by an icon display. 2) The usual Built-In Mini-browser. Access Directions, Stock quotes, Airline information, and any non graphical data. So you saying, what's so different about that? How about getting it in color!!! 3) The Smart Button will simplify accessing feature menus, scrolling, selecting functions and placing calls. Also for when answering a call while using the hands-free kit. Great Idea! 4) Short Messaging Service, also know as SMS can receive and store short alphanumeric messages, email messages, etc. You get the point. There are many other nice features like, personalized banner, internal charging capabilities, vibra/ring call options or both at the same time, nice huh! How about an amazing 210 minutes of continuous talk time with about 160 HOURS of standby time. Plus a bunch of standard, everyday features. There is lots to say about this phone, but like everything, there is are some negatives. The phones' housing is painted silver which does not last very long and chips easily. The phone also feels kind of cheap, specially with the flip open. Always being careful not to break it in half. Also, When the antenna is retracted, it stick out like a sore thumb, not pleasant looking at all. Overall, regardless of the many nice features with some minor negatives, the phone is well over priced. Don't take me wrong, I love the phone and it's features, nice clarity and looks. Though, they should have done something for the more economical person. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350-400 87742 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 cool phone with laptop connectivity kit too fragile for everyday use The Bottom LineThe phone was great while it lasted, but I think a phone should last a lot longer than this one did. Full Review I got this phone on sale for $100 with a 1-year Sprint agreement. They claimed it normally sold for $200. The phone came with a laptop connectivity kit, which sold for a hundred dollars by itself. I like the flip-style phones and this one had the best balance of any I tried. It was also small enough to fit in my pocket so I didn't need to wear it on my belt. I see this phone all the time in movies and television shows, so it must be trendy. I have had the phone for over a year and a half. Reception Quality If the phone doesn't connect to the network it isn't of any use, so this SHOULD be one of the most important criteria for choosing a phone. This is a dual-band phone, so it can use both digital and analog signals. I use Sprint PCS service, which is roaming if you are on an analog signal. The phone normally chooses the strongest signal (analog or digital) for calls. This can drive up costs for PCS users and reduce call quality for everyone. Fortunately, there is an option to prevent the automatic switching and only use digital. If you spend most of your time in a digital coverage area, you should definitely use this option. I found the Timeport had coverage about as good as the Motorola StarTac. Inside big buildings, the digital signals aren't very strong and calls drop occasionally with the phone in digital only mode. Drops can be reduced by allowing the phone to use analog. Inside my house, I initially couldn't hold a call longer than 5 minutes in digital mode, but after a few days I only had occasional (every 2 hours of talk time) drops. I can't think of a technical explanation for this, so don't count on it happening to you. Battery Life Battery life is very important to me since I use my cell phone for all my long distance calls. My old phone only got about an hour on a battery, even in digital mode. This phone gets a little over 3 hours in digital mode, even with the fairly weak signal strength at my house (weaker signals use the battery faster). The phone can last three days if little to no talking is done and usually two days with my normal talk patterns. The phone charger allows the phone to operate while plugged into the wall. An hour of charge time (after a dead battery) easily lasts the day for me. Features The most obvious feature of this phone is its color screen. This was one of the first I had seen with a color screen that wasn't also a PDA. The screen isn't FULL color. Any place there is blue text will always be blue. Likewise with the orange and green. Most of the text is green. The screen background color is black. The display looks really keen inside. In bright sunlight, the display is impossible to read, though. You have to duck inside your car or a building if you need to be able to read what is on the screen. No games are provided on the phone. The way the screen is designed, games would look weird. Unless you need to waste time often, like at the airport, this probably won't be a problem. Only rings are available for this phone. You can choose between something like 9 different ring tones, but all sound pretty much like a normal telephone. You will never hear your school's fight song or a Christmas carol from this phone. This doesn't bother me, but if you miss the games you may miss the cute ring tones too. The phonebook with this phone is really good. I have multiple numbers for most of the people I know. With my old phone, each different number took up a place and you had to scroll through "Jon Home," "Jon Work," and "Jon Cell." This phonebook allows each name entry to have up to 4 numbers associated with it. Each number can have a little icon for it, so when you get to "Jon" you hit enter and then scroll between the house, building, and phone icons for the appropriate number. You can only use one number from each phonebook entry with speed dial, so you can't have "Jon Work" as #1 and "Jon Home" as #2. The phone keeps lists of 10 most recently dialed and received calls. This helps out so you don't have to look numbers up as often. Those are the features I use most often. Laptop Connectivity The software and wires for getting the phone ready to connect to the internet were easy to set up. You must use your phone service provider's internet service even if you have dial-up internet service. You _cannot_ just dial into a normal modem using a cellular phone. Of course, your phone service provider will charge you for this service ($5 a month for Sprint...at the time I tried it, I think you just used minutes. They may now charge for total bandwidth used, as with Vision). The phone interfered with my APC PowerChute software. Both the phone and the UPS use a serial port and my laptop only has one. A signal the phone frequently sends to the computer (synch, maybe) is the same as a UPS alert of some sort. This shouldn't be a problem for most people, since having UPS software on a laptop is unusual. Ease of Use The phone has great balance. Many flip-phones are top-heavy and try to fall out of your hand when open. With this phone, the battery is on the top and the guts on the bottom and it feels evenly balanced. The buttons are a little on the small side, but I haven't had any trouble using either a finger or thumb to push them. On the side is the main selection button and two scroll buttons. These can be used instead of some of the keypad buttons. I liked this features, but some people have trouble with it. It allows easier one-handed operation. Durability This is where I had problems. First, my data/charge port started to "float." This was after I had my phone for a month or two. Initially, I had to wiggle the charger connection to get it to stay in the port. The problem got progressively worse. I started having to wrap the charger cord around the phone to keep it in. Finally, the charger wouldn't connect no matter what I did. Fortunately, the phone was still under warranty so I sent it in for repair. The antenna broke shortly before I sent it in for the port problem. Unlike my last phone, you can't buy replacement antennas. You have to send the phone to Motorola to have it replaced. There was a recall on the antennas, so they replaced mine for free, even though the antennas are NOT normally covered under the warranty. The phone did well until it was about a year old. I dropped it on the kitchen floor and the screen _shattered_. It didn't crack in one or two places; it looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. It only fell from about three feet. I dropped my other phone (an Audiovox flip phone) multiple times without any problems. This was the first time I remember dropping it. My friends drop Nokias all the time and they never break. I can't see anything on the display now. My phonebook is a post-it note inside the leather case. I can't use caller-ID, tell if I have voice-mail, or change to use analog mode. The antenna broke again recently. I haven't yet noticed any reception difficulties or loss of battery life. The phone only has a 1-year warranty. Cosmetics The phone is silver, which I like. Unfortunately, the plastic isn't silver, but white. The paint chips/scratches off fairly easily. The phone starts to look awful very fast if you don't protect it. I use a leather case which has done a great job; however, it covers up all the silver. Summary The phone is still usable without the screen and with a broken antenna. I can't use most of the features that made it great, though. All I can do is dial and receive calls. I would rate the phone as 5-stars if it had not broken. I may have been extraordinarily unlucky about the screen, but the antenna problem is very widespread. Comes with laptop connectivity kit Battery life Phonebook design Acceptable reception quality Fragile screen Fragile antenna Lacks software features many other phones have Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87741 2000/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life sleek design small loads of goodies excellent reception price almost too many features Full Review I recently purchased a Motorola Timeport P8767 from Verizon. Truth be told, I didn't need it at all...but, after nearly two glorious years with my StarTAC 7760, I felt it had to be time to update. I sold my StarTAC to my buddy who was purchasing his first cell phone. I quickly realized that this phone was not a true step up from the StarTAC. Most of the features are identical with the exception of the mobile web browser which seems to be a prerequisite for every phone sold these days although I don't know anyone who uses it and I personally do not see any reason to pay the extra $7 per month for it. So, why should you pay $250 for the Timeport instead of around $170 for the newest StarTAC? Well...it's...hmm...it's subtly better. Build quality, for instance, is better than that of my StarTAC. It seems to be built of a heavier, tougher plastic. Another feature I particularly like is the new two color LED matrix display which features illuminated characters on a black background. It looks alot more "high tech" than the StarTAC's backlit LCD display although both are very easy to read. The Timeport's keypad, which looks pretty similar to that of the StarTAC, is actually much easier to use. The buttons on my StarTAC were difficult to press. They often double dialed when pressed and sometimes did not dial at all. The Timeport's keys make a definite "click" when pushed and they are raised so they are easy to feel; a definite advantage for the Timeport. The only qualm I have about the Timeport's buttons as compared to those of the StarTAC is that the "smart buttons" on the side of the Timeport are slightly more recessed than those on the StarTAC. It sometimes requires me to use the very tips of my slightly larger than average fingers to push them. I use these buttons alot because they are more convenient to use than the ones on the keypad so I was disappointed to find out that Motorola decided to recess them. As far as clarity is concerned, have no fear. The Timeport sounds even better than the StarTAC. I would attribute this more to a slight redesign of the ear-piece than anything else. The StarTAC's ear-piece speaker was housed underneath a piece of plastic which was attached to, but not part of, the ear-piece itself. This occasionally caused a slight buzzing sound, especially with the volume turned up. The Timeport's ear-piece is all one piece and I have noticed no buzzing at all. Both of these Motorola's get excellent reception. I can not remember a time using either of these phones (in digital mode) when I have heard annoying or even particularly noticeable static. The main draw of these phones is their portability. Both almost exactly the same size, they are easily two of lightest, most portable phones out there. I often use the included holster to clip the phone to my pants pocket. This was virtually the only area where the StarTAC held the definite advantage. The holster on the StarTAC was made of a sturdy plastic and it wrapped around the closed phone. It was very easy to slip the phone into and out of and it also provided a great deal of protection in case the clip ever slipped off my pocket and onto the ground. The holster for the Timeport isn't nearly as good as the StarTAC's. The phone still slides in in roughly the same fashion but this holster is designed to allow the phone to be opened while still clipped in. I don't know why Motorola would do this as it is definitely easier to slide the phone out of the holster than it is to unclip the whole assembly from your belt or pocket. Also, I don't see how having an open phone on your belt would be beneficial. The Timeport's holster provides virtually no protection against impact. It also takes a little more thought to line the phone up when sliding it in. I found removal simple though. The Timeport's holster can also be swiveled to change the angle of the clip. Both holsters allow you access to the smart buttons on the side of the phone so you can cancel the ringing of an incoming call. This is an excellent feature. One aspect of the Motorola phones that has been repeatedly criticized is their lack of "entertaining" features such as specialized rings and games. I say if you want these features, buy a Gameboy. Phones are not supposed to be particularly entertaining. Playing a game on a cell phone only uses up precious battery time. And, the next time I hear Beethoven's Fifth start playing through a crappy little electronic speaker while I'm in class or a meeting, I'm gonna scream! The Timeport's features are useful, convenient and plentiful. There are more timers, security features and phonebook features than I would ever need. The phonebook features 100 memory locations each of which contain sub-locations so that you can store multiple numbers for each entry. This is especially useful when your contacts have cell phones, work phones, home phones, etc. All features are accessible via the main menu. You'll definitely have to have patience when navigating through the abundance of directories. Motorola provides a wallet sized quick reference guide for utilizing some of the most common menu features specifically designed for those of us who are not electronically inclined. Several features that I find I use every day, including the vibra-call, are accessible via shortcut keys on the keypad itself, no navigation necessary. Overall, the Motorola Timeport is as good a phone as you can get your hands on. It's slick, user-friendly and loaded with little goodies that put it way ahead of your friend's Nokia. Perhaps the price would steer more potential customers toward the more affordable StarTAC but, if you're a gadget guru, a busy executive (did I mention you can link this phone to your PC to synchronize with your P.D.A. software?) or you just one who simply must have the best, this is definitely the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 259 87740 2001/6/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish sleek screen has awesome visibility small stature miniscule keyboard price will make your wallet bleed The Bottom LineIf you';ve got the cash, The Motorola Timeport P8767 has the flash. Talk in style. Full Review When it comes to the cell phone market, I'm beginning to believe that form is overtaking function. Today's phones are smaller, sleeker, and more stylish than they really need to be. This observation just serves to fuel my current hypothesis that the people who insist on constantly whipping out their phones in public, do so just to flaunt them. Well these phone phreaks are definitely going to be happy with The Motorola Timeport P8767. The eye-catching design and dazzling silver color will be sure to draw a crowd wherever it goes. Fortunately, the phone's functionality is no slouch either. The unit works very well, has a relatively easy to use web browser and several other useful utilities as well. It appears form and function have found a way to coexist in this phone. When you whip this phone out, the first thing most folks will notice is the shimmering silver paint job. It's a very attractive shell that helps to give the unit a more futuristic feel. That silver coating also apparently matches well with platinum jewelry, because I've already seen guys at the mall pull them out and pretend to talk on them so that young women passing by can see them accessorizing. Bling bling. Once the bezel is flipped open, the user is treated to the P8767's well-designed interface. The designers at Motorola finally learned how to get a screen right, and demonstrated that fact with this phone. They've created what Motorola calls an Organic Electro-Luminescent Display (doesn't that belong in Voyager's Astrometrics Lab? Seven?) and it's very impressive. The letters and numbers, compared to a lot of other phones I've seen, are frigging huge, and extraordinarily easy to read. In addition, Motorola gave the display the ability to show the alphanumeric characters in vibrant colors of red, blue, and green. Against the black background, these colors just jump out at you. Also, where a lot of other phone screens are virtually invisible in bright Texas daylight (yes, it is brighter out here than anywhere else in the world. It's a Texas thing…), this screen remains relatively easy to read, but it does look a lot better at night. The display also makes sure the full array of the phone's features are shown. They include: VibraCall alert, 6 call timers, a battery meter, a signal strength meter, and a variety of other goodies. None of these affect the lithium-ion battery life too greatly evidently, because the Motorola phone boasts an impressive 160-hour standby time and 3.5 hours of talk time. Unfortunately, tiny keyboards with small buttons are a staple in the mobile phone world, and The Motorola Timeport P8767 conforms here. People with large hands seriously need to form a lobby and present our case to the phone industries, because these keyboards just continue to get worse. With this phone, not only are the buttons small, but they're placed closely together, making it easy to hit multiple keys whenever the user is dialing. I can't even think about trying to `one-hand' this puppy. Luckily, Motorola side-mounted Smart buttons on the side of the unit to allow for easier menu shortcuts, scrolling and selecting. The Motorola Timeport P8767 has several great features like voice and text messaging, an enhanced phone book that stores up to 4 numbers for 99 separate listings, and data/fax connectivity. It even includes a built in web microbrowser that provides simple content supplied by Phone.com's Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) service. Do you have nightmares of important business associates getting that "client is unreachable" error when they're calling you to close that billion dollar deal? Then worry no more. Motorola has equipped the Timeport to operate perfectly in two different classes of digital Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks (800MHz and 1900MHz), as well as roam in places exclusively covered by the old but popular 800MHz analog carriers. The biggest drawback to this phone is the price. The $300 price tag will drive off many users completely. But for those who value flash over substance, the decision is easy. The Motorola Timeport P8767 is guaranteed to impress. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 87739 2000/3/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features lightweight clam shell style with color the screen is difficult to see on very bright sunny days The Bottom LineThis is a great and stylish phone, and highly recommended for its price. A recommended service plan would be using Verizon. Full Review It has a compact clam shell style and weighs about 5 ounces. You get standard features found in most phones, such as a built in mini browser, access directions, stock quotes, and airline information. The difference is they are in color with this Timeport phone. The neat feature about this phone, is that it comes with Organic Electro-Luminescent color screen. With this the display shows your numbers in vibrant colors, such as blue, green and red. Very visible in sunlight as well as the nighttime. Speaking of the sunlight, I found that with the brightest sunny of the day, you will have difficulty. Seems the visibility is for the average sunny day. You also great a great quality of sound. Several choices of styled rings, with no musical styled rings. I personally myself enjoyed the musical rings, but was a small toss for the quality of this phone. The screen works on a 160 hour stand-by time and talk time of 3.5 hours using standard lithium-ion batteries. Battery life is just about as equal to the average. You will get about the same amount of talk time compared to The screen will dim down, after some time of not using, therefore reading may be a little difficult. You will have to press the keys a number of times before you get the screen back up for good reading. One feature that I really felt was going to be a problem, is the keyboard itself. The buttons are Convex and are very easy to press, although the numbers are very small and close together. Could be a little difficult at times. They do offer side mounted buttons for help in this feature. Seems they were already aware of this when they made it. You can store up to 99 entries in your address book. You can store upto 4 numbers per person entered. They offer icons for easy identification. The Timeport can operate on two different types of digital CDMA networks (1,900 MHz and 800 MHz) and can roam in areas where only the (800 MHz) exists. Timeport is a little costly, right smack in the $300 area. But for a sleek, slick look, it is a sure pick. With their features, it is a very stylish phone. If that's what you base your purchase on. Now through Verizon, the phone is still available for around $279 and up, depending upon area. I have heard of some being able to purchase new ones on auctions on the web for about $200. Accessories: you can get yourself the data connectivity kit so that you can use your Outlook database. This kit will load the phone to the contact database and therefore you can connect to the web from your phone. With this kit, you can also use your phone as a modem or fax machine. With comparison to some other phones such as the Nikoa or StarTac, I find that on the Timeport you have to go through several key pressings to use your address book, where with Nikoa you do not. I found that the entering of your address to your address book could be on the difficult side, with Motorola, with Nikoa it was quite simple. This is a great and stylish phone, and highly recommended for its price. A recommended service plan would be using Verizon. www.motorola.com Schaumburg, IL 800-331-6456 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 279.00 7710 Motorola A388 87782 2004/2/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very easy to use set up no mp3 This phone is amazing!!! I have never had a phone that met all my needs. I will have it activated tomorrow so I will get to use it to it's fullest. LOVE IT!!! I like the screen and the functions, wanted color but this on will do. If you like TECH TOYS this is the one. dcd555 87781 2004/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 pda power without excessive geekiness no camera or mp3 I got the color version (A388C) from the local chinese stores (imported from hongkong). It's a great phone, but how does it compare to Sony P800? The screen on A388C has pretty low resolution. Especially when I use the virtual keyboard to edit notes, I can only see about 8 words of what I'm writing. P800 has a slightly larger screen and much higher res. A388 is bundled only with the basic functionalities such as messaging, browser, and phone book. (Sync is done with Starfish.) One can install Java programs, but there is really no Java program available. In contrast, you can even find MSOffice programs for the Symbian OS. Also, A388 is not configurable. You won't find personalized menu shortcuts or downloadable ringtones. You adapt to it. On the plus side, the phone is very robust. OS never crashes. The battery easily lasts 3 days with moderate talking. In some areas where Sony has no reception, A388 can still get calls. The sound quality would be crappy of course, but I can setup the 'busy' button to forward the call to a local phone. 87780 2000/11/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 simple to use menualmost never have to use stylus very small very low speaker volumeproprietary operating system The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone who doesn't need bells and whistles of a hybrid PDA and Phone and doesn't required a lot of addon software. Full Review I have been using Motorola A388 for 2 weeks and I must say that this device has the best black and white display that I have ever seen. I am a gadgets freak and I can never be satisfied with just any 'cell phone'. I am using this phone under Cingular in New York City and found that it has a very good RF performance, good reception, clear sound. The menu is very intuitive with 3 menu categories. These pros and cons are based on my daily usage and what I found about this phone and not because I wish that this phone will have the 'extra' features that I am wishing for. Pros: - Very small form factor (slightly larger than CDMA Startac) - Clear and Crisp black and white display with a cool soft white backlight (real back light that you can find on most LCD watch) - Nice and loud ring notification - Sync with outlook without any hitches - Very good RF performance (I can get signal on places where my other GSM phone can't) - You can control most phone functions with your finger - You can dial phone number with your finger through an on screen keypads - Excellent battery life - Very good texture on the touch screen which makes it easy to use your finger to navigate through menus - Still uses Startac type desk charger/car charger - Very easy to use for one had operation for dialing, punching number on virtual dial pads, navigate through menus and even typing with the virtual keyboard Cons - Speaker volume is a bit low. I am having a hard time hearing while I am in a conversation mode - You can't customize your screen icons or look and feel - Stylus is kid a easy to fall off - After you dialed a number and call is established it did not default itself back to the dialing pads and therefore if you need to enter your pin number or response to automated prompt you will have to click on the # in order to get back to dial pads screen - There is only 1 number for dialed number in the dial pads screen so if you want to see list of dialed number you have to go to launch an application I am overall really happy with this phone and can't get over of how small this phone is and how good the RF performance, how easy to use this phone and it did pass my 'Squeeze' test. I am almost never have to use a stylus for this phone and would recommended this phone for someone who has average size fingers as the screen real estate is kind a limited. Please keep in mind that the Operating System for this phone is Motorola's own OS and therefore there are not a whole lot of software out there that you can use to customizes your A388. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87779 2000/2/21 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 all in one phone pda combination poor voice quality The Bottom LineIdeal for those who want to avoid shlepping two different gadgets for data and communications. Full Review Motorola A388 GSM phone The phone has a good overall feeling of handling. The lid does not open as easy as the former clamshell models (StarTac), but it closes better and more definite. The provided clip attaches the phone firmly to whatever your needs. The 90° angle locks of the clip are good, but inexact sometimes. The lid of the carrying case has a magnetic "lock" which tends to open unpredictably and it is inexact in closing. The case is a bit too big, so the phone inside tends to wobble. Reception / transmission is very good and surpasses the former TDSM qualities by far. Sound is a bit tinny and, even at normal volume levels, sometimes distorted. Intelligibility of the voices is fair to good, but could be better. The battery capacity really surprises me! It holds out for ages and I can talk until my ears fall off. Three days - in normal operation - without recharging are wonderful, compared to 8 - 10 hours with my former model (Motorola 7790). The phone tends to warm up when charging. Most of the functions are readily accessible through the on-screen menus of the touch pad, but occasionally the on-screen interaction gets a bit confusing due to the many sub-menus. I was able to work my may through the initial setup without even consulting the manual once. The provided stylus is more exact to point to different options, but for normal "finger control" the touch pad has enough resolution and sensibility to accept index-finger commands. Readability of the screen is good and the chosen font makes it even better. On-screen messages are clear - at a set "medium contrast". SMS messages are a new feature to me (third world country?), and they make life so much easier. The SMS message option is easy to handle. The included StarTac synchronizing software is very straightforward to set up, but the imported data (mostly addresses and phone numbers from Outlook 2000) sometimes gets truncated. Annoying feature is, that letters contained in an original phone number are automatically "translated" into numbers on the phone's database. It makes the "manual re-editing" tedious and bothersome. The provided "data cable" is ridiculously short. Who wants to crawl behind the machine every time? I have not been able to test the Internet and e-mail features, since this service is not yet available in Costa Rica. Mañana? Typically American, it has a "Sound editor" which is a waste of memory and energy. Does everything I do have to click, clack, beep or chime? And who wants to punch in, note by note, Beethoven's Ninth?... anyway. Out of a possible 5 stars, the A388 gets a 4 rating. Haymo Henry Heyder Costa Rica Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 429 7711 Motorola V8160 Phone 87812 2000/7/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small size bad quality high price The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone to anyone, and on the basis of Motorola's customer service, I would not recommend them as a compny. Full Review I was seduced by the small size of this phone when it came out as the v3160 two years ago. But I wanted to wait until it had come out in the digital model. I should have realised that was going to be a bad phone by the fact that the release date for it kept being pushed back. And by the fact that the GSM StarTac I had was not very good either. But, foolish me, I had to have it. Well, it's just not worth it. The flimsy battery cover's emblem peeled off in about 10 minutes, the antenna is shockingly flimsy, and the vibrate feature died after one jiggle. Add in Motorola's "too bad, buster" customer service with Verizon's "If ya don't like it try two tin cans and a string" business model, and you have a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, Verizon has the best coverage, so they have you over a barrel. But other companies like LG and Nokia have phones that are only incrimentally larger, at far better prices, so why bother with Motorola? You would think that a company that had suffered massive layoffs and watched it's market share dip drastically would try to keep customers happy, but I guess not. I got fooled twice, shame on me. For your own good, I say don't be fooled, get a Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 5000 87811 2001/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice small form factor cool looking terrible microphone sound quality expensive The Bottom LineIf you care about sound quality at all-avoid this phone! Full Review This phone looks really neat. It's very small and modern. One thing that's neat about it is the fact that the display screen is on the flip up lid of the phone, rather than on the bottom base like it is on the Startac. I've always thought that the lid part of the Startac was wasted real estate and that the screen should be there instead. Some would say that the phone feels very light and flimsy. On the other hand, it's small and light-everything a cellular phone should be. It doesn't seem very flimsy even though it is light and small. In these respects, this phone is great! However where this phone fails is in it's high price and poor microphone sound quality. The phone sounds perfectly fine and loud to the person using it (ie. through the phone'e earpiece) but to the person on the other end of the line, you will sound very muffled. I tested this by leaving myself an extended message on my own voicemail, and then playing it back. If I talked into the phone with the phone up to my ear (like you normally would talk on a phone) I sounded very soft and muffled. But if I talked directly into the phone's mic by moving it away from my ear and down directly in front of my mouth, it sounded normal. Or, if I cupped my hand over the mic and spoke, it sounded normal as well. The mic on this phone is weak! I suppose you could hold the phone on the bottom in such a way as to use your hand to 'cup' the sound of your voice into the mic more, but who wants to do that all the time? This phone is certainly usable if you don't care much about how you will sound to people you talk to on it. But, I prefer the Startac, which has much much better mic quality, has most of the same features and costs less! UPDATE - 12/12/01: I have purchased and reviewd the Motorola v60c. Check out my review of that phone on Epinions as well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 350.00 87810 2000/4/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 best phone in the entire world none none at all The Bottom LineAbsolutely the lightest, most easy-to-carry phone with great reception and ease of use! No, it is NOT too small! Full Review It is no exaggeration that I can actually be quoted for having said, more than once, that "I *love* my phone." I truly do: I love the shape, the size, the negligible weight, the cool-as-steel silver color. I am in awe at the fact that I can comfortably carry this phone around my neck as a pendant without feeling any more encumbered than if I was wearing a strand of pearls. This very fact is what has made the Motorola V8160 phone an essential part of my wardrobe: as a woman, I don't wear slacks with tucked-in shirts every day, and therefore would have no place on which to clip a typical phone. If the pendant thing gets annoying ever, I can slip the phone into my pocket. The other wonderful thing about the size of the phone are that I can dial a number with only one (small) hand, leaving the other to carry bags, hail a taxi, etc. Now now, just because it's small does NOT mean that it's dangerously frail - that it is not! I don't treat my baby phone delicately: in fact, I tend to drop it a lot, slam the flip-cover a little too harshly. But my phone (now 9 months old) is still going strong. The true test perhaps is that my father, a generously-sized and generally clumsy man, has managed NOT to break any part of his identical phone, not even his antenna. Oh, did I mention that 3 members of my family carry the same model phone?!? Reception was great! *Great!* (until I made the vain mistake of swapping my original antenna for a perky light-up accent, which has cut my reception down drastically; note to self - buy new replacement antenna). Massive phone book memory, great side-buttons for scrolling up/down with one hand. When I moved into my apartment and had no land line, I effectively used my cell phone as my real phone, which tells you how comfortable the phone to talk on. No, it is NOT too small. I *love* my phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87809 2000/4/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small great phone book attractive horrid signal flimsy terrible lcd The Bottom LineBuyer beware! Full Review Prior to purchasing this phone, I owned a Samsung SCH-6000 (the absolute best phone I have ever owned in my life!) and a Motorola Star Tac. After switching from Sprint to Verizon, I had to part ways with my Samsung phone. I set my sights on the Motorola V8160. I previously owned a Motorola Star Tac and that was a great phone also. At first, I was impressed with the 8160. While programming my numbers in it, I felt that it would be very easy to use and although I was tired of the "flip phones" this one seemed to have some promise. The honeymoon ended very quickly. First let's talk about the signal. Terrible. This phone roams so much it is amazing Motorola was able to market this phone as digital. I got so many dropped calls that I tried my best not to use this phone so I wouldn't frustrate myself. I must admit, the Samsung phone I had really spoiled me. It was a single band (digital) phone that would work in places you'd swear it wouldn't. I could use that phone on the elevator at my office, and at home with no problems. But anyway, back to reality. I work in downtown Chicago, a place where any and everyone can get a digital signal, and my Motorla would roam to analog! Absolutely ridiculous. And after using the phone for only 8 months, the LCD began to malfunction. I was so completely disgusted I couldn't hold it in. I had to get on line and voice my frustrations. The only other good thing besides the phone book with this phone is the vibrating ringer. That thing is so strong you could feel it from the next room. Outside of that, don't waste your time. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 425.00 87808 2000/8/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 this is the coolest looking phone quality up to par The Bottom LineBuy it, but don't forget the retailer's extended service plan. Full Review I'll be honest with you, I bought this phone about a year ago after I saw it and fell in love with it. It was so small and so cool that I had to have. Although I think I paid a little too much and Verizon is one of the most expensive providers out there. The phone has held up relatively well. At about three months I have to get it replaced, but I had purchased the retailer's (Car Toys) extended service plan. I have got so many comments on this phone! Everyone wants to hold it! The belt clip is the best one I have ever had. Motorola did well here. It holds the phone securely, but if you can take the whole clip on and off of a belt without taking the belt itself off (This could be embarassing in some situations :)! As for the stick on logos: they look cool, but when the phone ages they the adhesive tends to loosen and they slide around, revealing an ugly goo underneath. This is a poor design and should be changed (the same thing happens to Cisco aironet pc cards, but that's another story). You can move the little guys back in place easily though and they don't seem to ever fall off. So it doesn't detract from the overall appeal of this great phone. Oh yeah, talk time seems above average and so does clarity, but remember that's not why I bought this one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 87807 2000/8/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality feel size can t send text messages antenna mini browser The Bottom LineFor under $200 now, this phone is a good deal. Buy it! Full Review I bought this phone last week and signed up with Verizon and I couldn't be happier so far. I bought the vader blue for $189.00 with a 2 yr contract. I wasn't about to shell out 400 plus dollars for the v60c. Here in New York City/Long Island, I have heard Verion is the best, and it seems to be after my first week. Here is why: Size/Design-This phone is the smallest phone on the market today. I think. 3 ounces, weighs less than the Nokia 8260 I just sold on Ebay. It's nice compact design, and clamshell protect the screen and keypad. Not crazy about the flimsy antenna, I feel like one day it's gonan break off. It fits comfortably in your ear when your talking and the buttons are easily to press. The screen is easy to read and I love the holographic screen. It lights up at perfect angles and can be read in any lighting condition. Battery Life-Not bad for a small phone like this. If you charge it once every 2 days you should not have a problem. If you talk on it all day, you might. Features-Menu's are pretty simple, I wish you can download ringtones, but have to admit, that get's annoying after awhile. I wish also there was a vibrate/ring option simontanely. There is an option to have it vibrate for it seems like 2 mins then ring. You can receive text messages, but can't send any unless you sign up for Internet access. The mini-browser is 2 small and it involves 2 many buttons to press and alot of scrolling. It got frustrating, so I cancelled it. These are all minor complaints. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 87806 2000/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good sound great size a lot of returns single band The Bottom LineIf you travel a lot (especially outside cities) go for a dual band. If you know you'll get great coverage, go for it. Full Review The Motorola "V-Phone" is one of the industry's leading in size and portability. The phone is tiny and very lightweight. So small, you might even lose it! The phone has wireless web access, allowing you access to news, email, AOL Instant Messenger, weather etc.. while you are on the go. Sound quality is pretty good on the unit itself, and does a fair job of picking up a signal. Motorola makes their phones out of the same grade of plastics that the NFL uses for football helmets, making them a very strong phone. Unfortunatly, Motorola is still behind in CDMA technology (which is the technology Sprint PCS uses) and Motorola phones have been known to not be able to pick up a good signal (if a signal at all) in buildings, and reception can be brought down quickly if a lot of electrical wiring is included in the building. This also is true if you hit a small "dead zone" (small area that has no coverage) while other phones may pass over it and you'll never know it. Motorola is working on the technology, trying to make thier phones "more compatable" with CDMA technology. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399 87805 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything antenna jabs into you on belt clip smartscroll buttons Full Review This is THE best phone I have ever seen. I don't have the internet enabled, so I cant tell you that, but everything else is top-of-the-line. The only thing that bothers me is the smart button and scroll button, which are at times annoying. Also, when the phone is on my belt, it jabs into me. That's kind of annoying, but everything else is great, and I love it. The service with Verizon is amazing. I even get a signal in the Holland Tunnel! I recommend this phone to anyone who wants the coolest, best phone, because this is simply the best phone to get. One other problem. Some accessories like the speakerphone are not available, when they are for other (bigger) phones like the StarTac. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87804 2000/9/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size reception weight features only dual mode price tag Full Review My title is a little misleading, this is one of the greatest phones ever made. The size is incredible, just amazing. Cell phones have come a long way in such a short time. I only have one problem with this phone. It is only dual mode. Dual mode is great, but tri mode is better. Tri mode gives an additional frequency on which the phone can receive (Allows you to roam on 1900 Mhz CDMA). With verizons' current nationwide and southeastern regional choice plans a tri mode phone is required. This phone would have to go on a more localized calling plan. Amazing that this phone can access the internet, is so incredibly small, has lots of features and options, but is only dual mode(only real downfall). Other than its large price tag, I would recommend this phone to anyone who can afford it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87803 2000/8/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 aesthetic qualities small size short battery life chrome scratches off easily Full Review A year ago, when I first saw the new "Vulcan," (the analog model was called the "Vader" since it was black) I was traveling in Asia. As most people know, Europe and Asia are quite far ahead of the US in mobile phone technology and miniaturization. I was instantly attracted to the Vulcan's small size and graceful curves. When I returned to the US, I waited eagerly to be able to purchase one of these tiny beauties. I ended up spending around $400 for one a few days after they came out in spring. It was an instant conversation piece, people would come up to me to ask me where I got the phone. Over time though, as the "niftyness" of the phone wore off, I began to realize the faults this product has. The most blaring of these problems was the extremely short battery life. On a good day, it would last about 20 hours with about 70 minutes of talking dispersed within. Other times, I would have to carry an extra battery if I wanted to make calls in the evening. This was an extreme departure from my previous phone, a Nokia 6190, which would routinely last over 3 days without a recharge. Another problem I had with this phone was the chrome accent on the edge of the top flip. After a few months of handling, the chrome began to wear off and chip, making the phone look cheap and plastic. In all, the experience I had with the phone was quite average. With the release of the Ericsson T28 and the Nokia 8890, both with talk times of 6 days on the standard battery, I am considering a change. If you can stand a short battery life, by all means go ahead and purchase the V8160, if you need a few days of charge before you plug in, or if you are not prompt about charging, I'd advise you to look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 87802 2000/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cute number storage small price went down a lot dual mode seems too toyish no fancy shmancies like nokia small non indiglo screen reception The Bottom LineThe v8160 has given me a bad first impression of Motorola phones. Full Review After the Audiovox-3300 that I had, I thought anything else would be a whole lot better. The v8160 was my first choice after my 3 week research on buying a new cell phone due to mostly its looks. I got a great deal on it for $100 which was cheaper than most of the other phones I was looking at. I realize now why the price had gone down so much in the last few months. It's worth exactly what I paid for...$100...nothing more. I've only had the phone for about 3 days so I will give an update a few weeks later. As I said, the number storage is great because it lets you store 4 numbers to a person which is something I didn't have with the Audiovox. The battery is pretty decent and lasted me about a day and a half. (no heavy usage since I just got the phone) The v8160 comes with a Minibrowser which lets you check your emails and surf the web a little bit. I can't comment on this feature because I am not signed up for the internet usage, but I guess it could come in handy to look at last minute movie times and stuff like that. I can't really think of anything else that I really like about this phone...but I have a few complaints. The reception so far has been horrible. I've been cut off more than 10 times because of the signal fading. It can't be the MCI service because it's the same service I had with Audiovox and that worked perfectly in my neighborhood. My friends have told me that I sound like I am screaming when I'm talking to them...I'm not sure whether that is a good thing. There aren't any unnecessary features on this phone, like games or nice melodic rings, which I like. It has just your 9 basic rings. Screen is non-indiglo...even the audiovox had that. The phone seems durable looking at it, but because it's so light and flimsy, I'm careful when I close the flip. The antenna is long compared to the length of the phone and it is also a bit flimsy. I have yet to bring it into Manhattan, where I will do most of my usage so I'll be back after that test. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87801 2000/3/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size weight keyboard size sound clarity The Bottom LineIf your want portability, go with this phone. If you care strongly about sound quality you may want to go with another model. Full Review I think my header sums up this phone quite succinctly. The size of this phone is unbelievable - you don't even feel you're carrying it. However, the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps it's my carrier (Verizon) but I find the sound quality to be quite poor. I don't think I'm alone on this. I was recently riding home in a taxi, and when the driver spotted my phone he told me that he used to have it but junked it because of the sound quality. In terms of durability, the phone seems extremely strong. I've dropped it a few times with no visible damage. Bottom line, if your main concern is portability and you want something very lightweight, go with this phone. If you care strongly about sound quality you may want to go with another model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275 87800 2000/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of options light durable distorted reception Full Review Previously, I had the V3620 Analog. You probably have read all the bells and whistles, so I want to give you some negative feedback for you people considering the phone. Drawbacks include: -Distorted reception since it's a digital phone. The reception is satisfactory though. This is my first digital phone; I've have analog service in the past. -The antenna is the same style as the old one. Easy to bend and remain bent. I had to change my antenna. At times, I would place the phone in my pocket rather than using the holster, and when I sit down, it would bend it. -The rings available are pretty un-appealing. Approx. 4 or 5 of them sound the same. None are from the previous version. -Annoying beep when you are in a non-digital area. It will beep to inform you that it is in analog mode. I have yet to find where to disable this. But, overall, the pros outweight the cons significantly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87799 2002/1/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 ease of use size reception battery life The Bottom LineMy service provider(IUSACELL in Mexico City) is out of Samsung phones right now. But as soon as they arrive I'm dumping my V8160 for a Samsung SCH-A105. Full Review Hey everyone.. I've been with my phone for 13 months and not feeling happy at the time. Let's start out with the good things. 99 contact phonebook with 4 numbers each Intuitive menus Feels good in hand and the keys are easy to push(they are laid out better than in the StarTac) Size and weight Looks good VERY loud ringer VibraCall vibrating alert Wireless internet SMS capable and now the down side... Before this I had a Samsung flip-phone(just for the record) Reception and sound clarity are great when you have all the signal bars on the display. Move indoors or behind a tall building and it's another story; reception quality drops, calls can't be completed easily and the phone drifts into analog mode all the time. My Samsung would hold on to Digital signal even on the most remote areas, but this phone switches into analog as soon as digital signal gets a little weak. This is very noticeable indoors or in the countryside. Many times my phones says that it's in digital mode, but as soon as I try to place a call it switches into analog mode. I find myself constantly turning the phone off and on again to switch it back into digital. This is a very big complaint from me because it diminishes battery life enormously. Sometimes in my house where I know digital signal is available I turn on my phone and it doesn't recognize it. It enters analog mode immediately and it doesn't search for digital. I have to do the on/off routine a couple of times for it to get digital signal. Another thing that this phone does is that it drops calls very easily. The message "Signal Faded, Call Lost" is very common; even on areas with strong signal. Standing in the exact same spot the phone can have 1 or 5 signal bars.....depends on what mood he's in. Another complaint is battery life. When the phone was new I would get a good 2 days stby time, which was just perfect for me. Now I'm lucky if I can get 12hrs of stby. One day the phone had an excellent battery life and the next it didn't. I'm a battery-minded guy and I always drain my battery at least once a week to improve its life. But it didn't work. At first I thought that maybe something was wrong with my battery, but I've read some reviews and heard some comments saying that the battery life on this phone is far from great. So I guess Motorola is the one to blame. The M(which stands for Motorola) sticker on the battery cover fell off after a couple of months of use. And the sticker that says V8160 at the bottom of the keypad is moving all over the place all the time. It's going to fall one of these days. The battery door gets knocked off very easily and doesn't close very well. Many people complain about the antenna. But that's an area that has been trouble free for me. Although the brag about its Optimax Display the truth is it's not that good. I've seen the display on the StarTac ST7860(it has a blue backlit display) and it's easier to read. The Optimax is easy to read in complete darkness, but if you have the sun on top of you some strange shades of red and green appear on the display, and it's not easy to read. My closing statement... If you want a phone for the looks....this is a good buy. If you want a good battery life, more features(PIM, world times) and a better phone all around....look elsewhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87798 2000/7/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent design clever phone book can t think of one Full Review I am a mobile phone lover. Whenever a new attractive mobile comes out, I go out to a store and check it out. If it really attracts me, I immediately buy it. I've had Nokia 6160,8860, Samsung SCH-850, Startac 7860. About a month ago, I heard that a new "V" phone came out from Motorola. However, I couldn't find the phone on the Motorola webpage, www.Motorola.com. Certainly, the phone was out on market though. So, I went to a store and saw this Motorola V8160. It was SO AWESOME. It is the smallest mobile phone on this earth. Its size is about half of that of Startac. If you see Startac phone after looking at this "V" phone, you will feel that the Startac is REALLY BIG and dull. The V8160 has a very clear, bright screen on the upper pad. On the bottom pad, it has numbers. With MCI wireless service, I have never lost any signal when I used this phone. Every person around me has said that this phone is so attractive! Battery life? Well, I am not a businessman. So, for me, its battery life is more than what I need. I also have a traverler's charger. So, if I feel my phone doesn't have enough battery, I just charge it when I drive. It takes less than 20 min to fully charge it. One more thing! You can input 4-5 different numbers for one person. You know these days a person might have a home phone number, an office phone number, a mobile phone number, a pager, etc. You can put all of them under the name of just one person. CHECK THIS OUT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275 87797 2000/12/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small size price reception battery life not tri mode Full Review I purchased this phone because of its small size, which is a tad larger than my pager. I wanted to do away with my pager altogether, and it has turned out to be pretty decent in that respect. The size and weight are essentially perfect for my needs. The phone is dual mode, not tri-mode, so it won't be the best if you travel out to the boonies alot. However, for myself, this shouldn't be of big concern. The phone itself is pretty pricey - at Verizon, the retail is $470, however, with rebates and 2 year contract discounts, it ended up costing me $310, which was a couple hundred dollars more than the Motorola Timeport I originally bought (which I returned because it was too big). Feature-wise, I'm happy with it. I don't really use anything on it except the address book. I've set my mode to vibrate only, set up my voicemail and that's about all I need to do with the phone. My retailer suggested against me buying the phone for sound quality and reception reasons. I was fairly adamant about getting this phone because of the size, so she allowed me to borrow hers for a day. I did not find any major problems with it that day, except that it sounded a bit tinny, but nothing of major concern. So I went ahead and purchased it. It was the next few days that I noticed what she was talking about. I did get more reception problems (I hardly ran into any with the Timeport), and got signal loss a couple of times. However, for the most part, it was still decent, and the problem was not recursive enough for major concern. I assume the problem is due to the short antenna, which I wish didn't stick out so much. I guess you can't have a perfect performing phone in a size as small as this. The belt clip included with it works pretty well, but I wish the phone fit in forward rather than backwards, so that you can flip it open without taking it out of the clip. Also, it would be nice to see an LCD display on the outside (Sprint PCS's Touchpoint 1100 has them), but I guess I'm being a little picky. Battery life is disappointing compared to the Timeport, but, again, the small size has something to do with this. In conclusion, this phone's best feature is its small size. For me, I guess that alone was worth sacrificing reception, battery life and a $200 premium. If this is not the case for other people, then they should look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 310 87796 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 attitude power size price Full Review Motorola's latest flip phone, the V8160 adds value in 3 ways: Small The most obvious characteristic of this phone is size. It is small, even compared to its predecessor, the Star Tac. This is a tremendous benefit to users on the go, users with too many electronic gizmos and not enough room to carry them all in a brief case, purse, back pack, or pocket. Power Although this phone does not offer the millenium-length talk times of Motorola's competitors' phones, the advertised 150 minutes is conservative (I've spent more than 180 minutes talking without a charge). Additionally, this phone gets a signal where other phones do not. Combined, longer talk times and available signal strength alone make this phone worth buying. Attitude This is the Lexus of wireless phones, more refined, more respected, and more expensive (although price may be a reason NOT to buy this phone). The V8160 attracts attention, begs the question, "How much." In doing so, the phone suggests of its owner a certain quality-savvy, an understanding of the finer points of wireless technology, beyond the technology itself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 325 87795 2000/11/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features size battery life style belt clip is weak Full Review For starters this is like my 4 cell phone, i have been with a Nokia 8860,8260, startac7860w. The Nokia's are very nice phones but the internal antenna does not get a good reception at all. So i went with the startac 7860 it was a good phone but when i seen the v8160 i could not pass it up, It has the size, and functions that everyone would want.And the brand name Motorola says it all. Plus the help of Verizon to get this small package going. First off this phone has great battery life for its size i get 3-4days stanbye and about 3 hours talk time. Not bad if u ask me. Second the size is awsome , its just perfect. Third is the functions it has all the great features as the startac's plus contrast control and alarm and language options plus a new technology screen display. To sum it up, this phone is the total package, with internet options,great features, great size ,great battery life, who can as for anything more. The only thing that i do not like is the belt clip its horrible, its a great way to LOOSE it. So if you want to upgrade like i did just go to motorola site and order the leather case which is nice because you can use the phone while in the case and it will not get damaged and still has the belt clip. My wish list would be that they come out with some type of software to DL on the v8160 that will add a nice calander option and maybe calc. or games. which is a nokia feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 425 87794 2000/11/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sizereception are awesome completely satisfied none Full Review I recently acquired my new 'Vulcan' and so far it is the best cell phone that I have had the pleasure to own...and that is saying a lot because I have been a hard core cell phone user for about 13 years now. I was initially attracted to the v-phone because of the size. I had had two star-tacs in the past and loved the way they were able to be strapped to my hip, under my suit coat, and not even feeling the weight of the phone much less having someone else notice that I am carrying a phone with me. In a moment of weakness I switched to a Nextel i1000 phone for the direct connect feature (see review in Nextel section) and the sheer weight and bulk of the phone were enough to turn me off on it in about 3 months of use...I was determined to get the smallest phone on the market. I went to the local Verizon store and they had the phone displayed right at the front door (that's merchandising) so that I saw it the second that I stepped in the door. I knew that I had to have this phone when I picked it up and felt the 3 ounce wonder in my hand. As I mentioned I bought the phone because of the size but it really is the clearest cell phone I have ever owned. I am impressed by the range that I get with the phone even driving through areas that are notorious for lousy cell phone reception. The ease of use on the phone was something that I was a little nervous about looking at the size of the phone, but I was really relieved to find that the buttons on the phone are arranged even better than they are on the Star-tac phone. The screen on the Star-tac is located on the button side of the clam shell where on the vulcan the screen is located on the part of the phone that contains the ear-piece making more room for the buttons...what a great idea!! All in all I am more than satisfied with my vulcan phone and have all my friends interested in buying one due to the size and the reception that I get with the cell phone and Verizon. I HIGHLY recommend this phone to anyone that has to have the latest-greatest technology and doesn't mind paying for it. To all those that complain about the short battery life I use my phone about 80 minutes a day 7 days a week and I get about a day and a half of use on a single charge...but do what I did and spend 20 bucks on a car charger cord...the phone charges in about 30 minutes if you turn it off so charge it on your lunch hour and then you will never have to worry about dropping conversations due to a low battery tone...or better yet get the nickle metal battery that is supposed to have 30 percent longer power!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 87793 2000/11/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 super small super cool web enabled lcd hard to read in bright sunlight crummy original antenna Full Review When my wife finally broke down and allowed me to get her a cell phone, I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade my V3620 "Vader" (which I've reviewed elsewhere) to a v.8160 "Vulcan". The Vader is a great phone, essentially a StarTac in a smaller form fact. The Vulcan, on the other hand is a whole different kinda thing. For starts, the capabilities of the built-in directory has been much expanded. Each entry can include multiple numbers, distinguished by tiny icons indicating whether the number is home, work, mobile, etc. Entering information into the directory has been somewhat streamlined as well. A new addition is the caller ID feature, which collects the number of the last ten calls, if available. You can redial a number directly from the caller ID list. Also new are the extensive messaging features, allowing you to manage voice mail, text pager messages and email (through your service provider: in my case, my provider is Verizon, and my phone's email goes through myvzw.com). The Vulcan is Internet-capable (again, an added-cost feature), and the browser, although limited pretty severely by the capabilities of WAP, works just fine. I can use Verizon's web page to set up a list of stocks to quote, news or sports items to report, etc. If you trade through a brokerage such as E*Trade, you can check your account or trade stock with the phone. The liquid crystal display is quite good, although it can be difficult to read in bright sunlight. The sound quality is excellent, and the phone is easy to use (very easy if you've already had a Vader or a StarTac). Battery life is pretty good, especially if you can stay away from analog-only zones. I constantly get remarks on my Vulcan, just as I did on my Vader. Even though the original came out more than two years ago, it's still the smallest and lightest thing around. I replaced Motorola's whippy and fragile antenna with a stub antenna from an aftermarket supplier, and I throw the whole thing into my pants pocket. Interestingly enough, the price point on the Vulcan is about the same as the cost of the Vader when I first got it. The functionality, however, is much higher. The Vulcan is a fabulous phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449 87792 2001/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 impresses people looks amazing works great expensive The Bottom LineThis phone will impress, is the smallest and lightest, and has great clarity and functions! Read my review for a great HINT!!! Full Review I have used the V8160 ever since it came out- about 9 months now. It is a great phone...I have service through Verizon in New York City and the reception is great. It is extremely lightweight and has a lot of functions. I have dropped it several times and it still works fine. Some people think it is too small to use but you get used to it quickly and also learn to appreciate that you can put it in your pocket or purse if you don't like using the belt clip (if you do use the belt clip it just looks like a beeper). The battery is also great - I haven't noticed any decrease in the talk/stand by time since I started using it. Some people believe that you don't get as good reception on it as you do with larger phones. Although there have been times when I've noticed that my friends Startacs have gotten a better signal, it isn't often and I get a great signal all over New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey. I think it matters more with the number of towers in the area then with the type of phone. But that is just my e-pionion! A lot of people are turned off by it because of the price... HINT: I bought this phone for $250 (I also had to sign up for 1 year of Verizon service. Most places sell this phone for $400 or more, even cell phone stores on the web and even on Ebay.com. So where did I get such a great deal??...go to this website because they are still offering it. They are extremely curteous and helpful and 100% honest. www.friendlycomm.com UPDATE 3/15/2001 I've been using the phone for quite a while now and it still is working perfectly. I think it gets great reception and I've had no problems. I've also really benefited from its small size and always have it with me, whether in my pocket or on the belt clip. I still HIGHLY recommend it :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87791 2000/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very good design looks cool great ui functionality extremely small but comfortable to grip yet not exceptional battery life is definitely sufficient The Bottom LineIf you want an all-around solid performer in a tiny, tight, and well-appointed package, buy this phone! Full Review When looking for a replacement for my StarTac, I scoured the Net and read everything I could on the latest generation of ultra-compact, dual-mode phones. Then I checked them out in-person. My decision was, hands-down, to go with the V8160. I've always been a fan of Motorola products, and this is a terrific successor to the StarTac (it seems like a behemoth now, when placed side-by-side with my V8160!) The buttons on the tiny V8160 are actually easier to dial, because they are more square-shaped rather than the narrower oblong shape found on the StarTac. It feels more solid than the StarTac, and has a nice heft/girth to it (it's fairly thick, but this makes it fit in the hand quite comfortably.) I have always been partial to the flip design, so I much prefer the V8160's form factor to the Nokia and other phones in this class. The same rubber menu/volume buttons from previous Motorola phones are also present on the V8160, and the menu interfaces are updated and improved. When adding memory numbers, it is now possible to have multiple numbers under one category heading (i.e. for the entry "Dan" there are little icons you can select that denote his home, cellular, pager, office, etc.) And the Web browser is a pretty cool feature, too! It's powered by phone.com and available for activation through your cellular provider (at extra charge, of course!). You can't realistically write lengthy e-mail, since using the letters from the number keys is tedious, nor can you surf the Web effectively, but it's a nice little feature. I find that it IS useful though, for reading e-mail and checking stocks. Battery life is plenty for about a day and a half of normal useage in digital mode. There are some phones that seem to get better battery life, but this one works fine for someone who charges it each night. Another nice thing is that many of the accessories from my StarTac are compatible with this phone, like the car power cord, plug-in AC charger, and headset. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240 87790 2000/8/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 holographic display good reception beautiful design thick no wap support non intuitive interface Full Review I just picked up my new phone a week ago, and signed on with Verizon (formerly Airtouch) for phone service. I am very satisfied with my choice. The phone is very cool, and reception so far has been great. I tested the phone all over LA - Santa Monica, Hollywood, Pasadena, the San Fernando Valley, South Bay (I happened to have friends visiting from out of town :) ), and sound quality was very clear. I only lost service once while driving through the Sepulveda overpass. I'm in Portland this week, and reception is still very good. The caveat I should add is that phone reception is going to be largely dictated by the wireless carrier. I've heard from people at PacBell that the Nokia has better reception. Functionally, the phone is just like a Star Tac, so has a lot of the same great features of the Star Tacs. However, I do have a few complaints and minor gripes. The phone is small, but thicker than the Star Tac, so the pictures can be a little deceptive. Just be forewarned - it's not THAT much smaller than a Star Tac. Also, I'm not crazy about the web features. This may be Verizon's fault as much as it is Motorola's, but navigation is definitely not easy. I was stuck on an MSN web page, and could not get to the home page. Exiting browser mode didn't work. When I returned, I was on the exact same page. The problem resolved itself only when I left LA and went into Roam mode (probably not always feasible). One major issue is that this phone does not appear to support WAP. I'm worried about what's going to happen in a year when many sites begin using it as their presentation protocol. While I'm complaining, I would also say that the phone book is not very elegant. In fact, this is an issue I had with the Star Tac. You're forced to place phone numbers in numbered "Locations", which makes some sense for the fast dial features, but is definitely not as intuitive as the Nokia phones, which are very basic and easy to understand. I do, however, really like the fact that I can associate multiple numbers with one person. I always hated how I had to devise my own organizational scheme with my Nokia. Oh, also while I'm comparing the Motorola to the Nokia, it would be nice to be able to upload new rings to the phone, something I can do with most Nokias. Take my gripes with a grain of salt though, they really are minor complaints about what is generally a fantastic phone. It's just that when you get something this cool, you think about how it could have been even better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 320 87789 2000/8/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 functional wireless web option small decent battery life with included battery pricey drifts into analog mode more than startacs Full Review "Wow, it's so... small." While a statement like that might ruin a particular mood, it certainly won't when it's said about this mobile phone (The V8160). My previous phone was a Motorola Startac ST7860 (reviewed previously by me and given very high marks). I saw this phone for $449 at a local Bell Atlantic/Verizon shop, and just *HAD* to have it. Unfortunately Verizon Wireless is a little iffy about giving good prices to people who have only had their phones a few months. Apparantly it's Verizon's policy to make you wait 11 months before letting you change phones. If you don't, you're subject to an early termination fee of $175 and you basically have to forfeit your number. The only other choice you had is to buy the phone outright at the non-promotional-hit-you-where-it-hurts price of $699. I wasn't prepared to do that, so I went looking on the web for a place that might have had it for near the promotional price. I found it at a place called "Cellpoint.net" for $469, close enough. BEWARE though, it's a grey market phone. They actually come from somewhere in South America, where apparantly they're using the same 800/800 Digital/Analog CDMA system that verizon uses here on the east coast. NOTE: THIS IS NOT A TRI-MODE PHONE, and is NOT compatible with the Singlerate USA no-roaming-ever plans. It is compatible with the SingleRate EAST and standard plans though, which is fine with me. I rarely travel. Cellpoint also has these phones in multiple colors, and have all the accessories you could ever need. Shipping rates are also reasonable, my entire order being shipped next-day for $25 fed-ex. They're located in Florida. Another minor caveat if you buy this phone from Cellpoint. Since the phone is grey-market and are destined for another country, the manual is in spanish. However, cellpoint allows you to download the english manual from their website in PDF format. Also, all the phone's controls are in english. The only hint that it's not a USA phone is the date format, which is DD/MM/YY instead of MM/DD/YY. I can live with that. The phone itself is TINY. A little thicker than my pager, but definitely more narrow. At first, you'll look at this phone and say "wow, that's really too small". Truth is, it's not. The phone opens up clamshell style, a-la the startac. The buttons are well-spaced, and easy to use. The "Smart Buttons" on the left hand side of the phone are also raised a bit more than on the startac, with the center button "nippled", making maneuvering through phone numbers or scroll functions easy. While talking on the phone, it does seem to fall a LITTLE bit short on my face, but hey, you've seen my picture. I have a big head. When my wife uses it, it's perfect as she has a normal sized head. Reception --------- The phone's performance is "very good" (not "excellent"). In digital mode with good signal, it's certainly crystal clear. Every bit as clear as the ST7860. One thing I HAVE noticed about the V8160 is that it tends to drift more into Analog mode a lot more than the ST7860. The 7860 seems to hang on to digital mode to the very last bit of signal. The V8160 seems to give up more easily, and switches over to Analog more more often. This is especially noticable indoors. Backlighting/Display -------------------- The phone's backlighting reminds me more of the ST7760 (which I had before the 7860 - same phone, but had an older qualcomm cdma chip and no wireless web options). The backlighting is weak. While it *IS* readable, I wish they would have kept the blue backlighting they had on the 7860. They get a ding for that. The menu options are totally Startac fare. In fact, they seem identical to the 7860. Everything is pretty much accessed by hitting the FCN key, then pressing 1 for menu (or the smart button on the left side). You scroll through with the leftmost scroll buttons and select your options. The Display is actually quite readable! The font is thinner than on my startacs, but it's still every bit as readable. For a display so small, you'd expect a little squinting to read, but with the tall and thin fonts on the V8160, reading is actually quite comfortable. Ringer/Notification ------------------- It's LOUD. If you set the ringer to maximum volume, expect to turn heads. I typically find it obnoxiously loud, so I usually use vibrate mode. They did a great job here. The vibrate mode on the V8160 is more powerful than the other phones i've owned (ST7860 included). Wireless Web ------------ Yep! It's in there! And navigation works rather well (when you haven't hit an indoors spot and floated into analog mode). The display holds the same amount of information/lines/characters as the startacs, so if you're used to those, you'll be just fine with the V8160. Quite frankly though, Verizon Wireless' new Wireless Web service (MyVZW.com) is terrible, but that's another e-pinion. Their older service (cellscape.net) was much better and would have required less work to make it a mobile powerhouse. Battery Life Very good! Not as good as the ST7860 though, since it comes with a full-size 4-day-standby battery. The Battery included with the V8160 lasts for 2 days standby (I'll vouch for that), and something on the order of 2 hours talk time (I'll vouch for that too). There's a battery cover on the back of the phone that you need to remove to place the battery. The battery cover/battery combo the phone comes with makes the back completely flush making the whole phone about 1.25" thick. When I ordered my phone from Cellpoint, I ordered the extended battery which makes the phone a bit thicker, but the battery life comparable to the ST7860 with the 4 days of standby. (NOTE: if you buy the extended battery, you need to purchase an additional battery door, since they aren't included with the battery.) Adding the extended battery adds about another quarter inch to the phone's thickness, but it doesn't significantly change its weight (about 4 ounces). Connectors and Lights --------------------- Yep, there's an 1/8th inch jack (standard fare) for a hands-free kit. There's also a flashing status light that tells you your reception quality or roaming status. The antenna protrudes about 1 inch when retracted. I wish they would have made the protrusion a little shorter. The charger connector is standard startac, so your car charger will work. That was a nice little bonus for me. It doesn't fit into my old aftermarket hands-free CCM cradle though, the front is too thick. They make a V-series compatible one anyway. I'll pick one up at some point. Summary ------- It's small, it's functional, and if you can tolerate a little analog drifting, the performance is very good. If small size is a must, this is your phone. Usability is very good, though the display will get smudged by your face during use. The antenna is a tad long when retracted, but you can live with it. Buttons are organized well, and are backlit (save for the smart buttons on the side). The display is "ok", not great and reminiscent of the older 7760 model, weak green in color. With no backlighting, the display is very readable with a black-on-high-contrast-green setting. Ringer is loud and obnoxious, vibrate is powerful. Battery life is good with the included battery, excellent with the optional extended battery (Don't forget to buy the battery door cover as well, it's not included with the battery). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 460 87788 2000/10/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light small expensive duh Full Review This is my second cell phone. For me, mobile devices are most useful when I have them with me all the time. Like most men, I don't always have a handbag (and don't have the purse option that women have) and carrying the phone with me meant clipping it to the belt or putting it into a pocket. With size and weight such an important factor, I decided the premium price ($350 with 1-year contract) of this phone was worthwhile. Having owned it for 3 months now, I can report that my judgement was sound. Since it is small and light, I almost never have to think twice about leaving it home. When jogging around the Central Park loop, I was inexplicably moved to visit a friend of mine. Soon, with phone in hand, I was planning to meet her at a outdoor cafe. To me, this is where the true value of mobile devices lies. Aside from being small, the device seems to actually work fairly well! I find reception and sound quality to be just fine. The holographic display is wonderfully easy to read in all light levels, and backlighting makes nighttime viewing no problem. I find the "clicking" of the keys to be satisfactory feedback that a number was registered. I have dropped the phone from approx. 3 feet (ont hardwood floor) with no consequence, and suspect that the flip / clamshell design and light weight are inherently protective to the delicate parts of the phone (such as the display). I applaud Motorola's decision to place the battery in the body and display in the lid (an improvement over StarTac). When open, the speaker and microphone align well with my ear and mouth, and the whole unit contours well to the head. The phone's operating system seems identical to that of the StarTac, so it's features and operation should be quite familiar to those (millions) who have used that phone in the past. As such, it lacks some features now found on other phones, such as the voice-activated dialing on my friend's Samsung. Navigating the various functions seemed complex to me at first, but became more natural with time. The downside? Only two I can think of. Others have complained about short battery life, and it's true that if I don't recharge nightly, I run out of juice late in the second day (I leave it on at all times). I've trained myself to charge it every night, and have since had no difficulties. Many of my friends have StarTacs, and I plug into their chargers when visiting (seems to use the same accessories). I haven't found the talk time to be limiting--once made a 2 hour continuous call which took the battery from full to only 2/3 power. I've heard that some of the Nokia's will last for days in standby mode, which is nice, but is at the expense of larger size. I suppose Motorola may eventually offer a larger battery option to users of V phones, though I have yet to hear of such a thing. Complaint #2 is trivial: When I bought the phone, it appeared to be an unofficially imported product--the instruction manual was in Spanish, and the repair centers listed on the warranty card were in Mexico! Also, though the packaging indicated it was available in different colors (I would have liked black) the only one available was gold. This means more people notice it and make comments / want to hold it, etc... So it was expensive and has a questionable warranty. Pity me if I break or loose it ;-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 87787 2000/9/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 small size light weight short battery life sensitive to signal strength Full Review Like many others who own this phone, I ended up buying it simply because of its small size, which is the specialty of Motorola. The thought of people wow-ing at it made my blood boil. I first learned of the existence of this phone back in April. Since then, I had made up my mind that this was the phone I wanted (as soon as my much dreaded AT&T contract ends). Like any other shopper, I tried to research and learn more about this phone as I could but came up empty. All that i learned came from the mouths of various sales persons. I ended up buying the phone a month before my AT&T service ended because I simply could not wait any longer to have this phone in my hand. As I expected, the phone was turning quite a few heads every time I made a call. "Is that the smallest phone I've ever seen?" "Awww......how cute!" were the type of comments one receives while holding this phone. On top of this, the phone actually feels quite sturdy. And with much damage to my heart, I tested (by accident) the built of the phone a week after I bought it. A stranger brushes pass me on the street, knocking the phone out of the holster on my belt. After recovering from the shock, I turned to look for it, only to find it almost 4 feet from where I was standing (might i mention this was in the rain). Praying that my baby was ok. Much to my surprise, the phone came out with a microscopic scratch that one can barely notice, and even thing was in working order. But as the novelty factor wear off, I began to see the flaws of this phone. Just as it had inherieted the small size which is a trademark of the Motorola family, it also inherieted its flaw - battery life. I often found myself having to turn off the phone around evening time in order to conserve some battery to last through the day. Even on a slow day, I often end with a low battery warning at the end of the day. However, the biggest problem I have with this phone is the fact that it tends to drop calls when the signal drops by a slightest bite. This biggest turn off for me. Bottom line, this is but an average phone, its size being the biggest draw. This is best suited for those who pride themselves in having the latest toy, myself being one of them. For those who value the convenience of a cell phone, look else where. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87786 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life tons of options great reception lightweight tiny included holster makes it succeptible to losing bat no calling card option cover Full Review Before I start with my review for this phone, let me just explain where I was at in this wonderful world of cellular.... I had been using a star-tac digital for upwards of a year, the battery had just about fell out of bed and the phone was shot from the wear and tear of walking with it in jeans pockets for the majority of its life. About this time I had decided it was time to get a new phone, I had also just seen ad's in GQ and such magazines about the new Nokia phones- very small and sans-antenna....Might I also add that I'm a very demanding cel-phone user since 1) I have ONLY a cel phone, I refuse to have a land line and 2) The phone is always ON, it just gets plugged into the charger nightly. Once in a while i power it down to give it a break. my average talk time per day is between 25 and 35 minutes minimum weekdays, 45-60 minutes daily on the weekends, sometimes much more. I had gone down to my local store to check out the inventory. I looked at everything, even the new nok's and decided that they were far too expensive at over 800 bucks. My dealer told me to come back the following tuesday, he had something I would love -- he said it was everything I needed "small, lightweight, durable and excellent reception" so I said, "I'm in - see ya tuesday." When I got back to the store the following week I was pleasantly surprised to see a new motorola product with sleek looks and a very low profile. Size wise and weight wise, smaller than the Nokia and the best part, less than HALF the price. The price of the phone was 550, 350 with a plan, and I needed a new plan - so this was a clear winner. Even better still, Worldcom had a FANTASTIC deal on service since they had run out of numbers in my area code. No big thing, I just changed the number once signed up. This was a win-win situation. The performance and value of the phone can be summed up as follows: Reception - Excellent, even better than the star-tac, and I was pleased with that. I seldom drop calls on my v phone. I can speak in the elevator of my building, which has proven lethal to almost all conversations on other phones that I've seen. I have even been able to carry a call walking into the NY subway and almost down to the platform - that is pretty impressive! Battery life - Considering the size of the phone, I am very happy with the battery life pf the phone - also consider that I am pretty demanding on my phones for the simple reason that my cel phone is my only phone. You also have the option of going for the larger battery- but honestly, despite the long-ish talk time that I use up, the regular battery has done me right since July when I got the phone. Yes, I am very happy. Also, unlike my old phone, the battery seems as good as new 5 months into using it - at that point with my star-tac, that battery was shownig definite signs of wear-and-tear. Size - You just cannot beat the size of this phone. It is tiny. so small indeed that it doesn't even seem to take on wear from walking with it in jeans pockets - my old phone got killed that way. It is light, attractive looking with a few color options (unlike the nearest and higher priced competition) You can also add a smaller antenna and motorola makes a really nice color-matched leather holster with a spring loaded retractable strap, well worth checking out. Options - Not to be repetitive, but the holster is a great option - and typical of motorola, there are plenty of options available for all aspects of this phone. I personally was not too thrilled with the plastic holster that comes with the phone because you can easily lose the battery cover. Display/Storage/Features - nice job motorola. Haven't we come a long way since the original star-tac (analog) with that "oh-so-advanced" numeric-only display. I quite like this one. PLenty of room in the phone book by the way - I love the 5 numbers per person option - one of the best features of this phone. The green display is nice looking, efficient and very visible at night. Buttons are laid out in a common-sensical way, so you don't have to fumble too much to figure anything out. I'm not one to complain about not having games on a cell phone - so I will not count this as a negative - if you want games, go buy a game-boy. The only lacking feature that I really would have liked is a calling-card setup option, like I've seen on some other phones - you basically speed dial into you calling card instead of walking through all those buttons. Especially if you are driving, that can be dangerous. In summary - Great phone, especially given the price - you can now get these guys for 250-300, maybe even cheaper with a plan. Reception is great. The only complaint is the typical motorola antenna problem, but I'm happy to say that even wearing it in jeans, has not broken or been damaged at all. So far, this phone has also held up perfectly to getting thrown around between the car, the apartment, and guys, let's not forget, it is my ONLY PHONE - it rarely gets rest, I just throw it on the charger and in the morning I GO. With the features, size, performance and value of this phone, I really don't think you can go wrong. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 87785 2000/9/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small it is a single band phone problems with its range Full Review The Good Don't let the title fool you, this phone does work great. Motorola is back to what makes their phones worth the extra money, size. Motorola has long been the leader in making the smallest phone, and long been the leader in making you pay for it. For the first time in a while, though, the price is worth it. The new V.8162 is their first model, since the original Startacs, to really stand out as a the premier, must have gadget phone. Its size rivals your average beeper. This phone also has the added features to compete with the Samsungs, Ericksons, and other phones that have caught up to Motorola recently. The one feature that sets it apart, more than any other, is the new "Optimax" display. This is a holographic display that makes the screen, which is very small, very easy to read. This screen makes reading the phone in no light, or too much light a breeze. Other manufacturers will have to scramble to match this technology, it is miles ahead of blue screen technology on many new phones. Along with this new screen style, the phone has many other user friendly features,while there are too many to name them all, here are the main ones: Headset jack. Hold up 99 names, with four numbers per name, in the phone book. Alarm clock. Motorola's smart button (for easy menu navigation.) Data and internet ready. 2.5 hours talk time, 125 standby. Caller ID. Vibrating ringer. Sync capability available. The phone's smart button navigation takes a little time if you are not familiar with Motorola's features. Once mastered, though, you can easily and quickly find out any information needed. The phones menu makes recalling messages and numbers a lot easier than most model phones. Plus, more text can fit with each name in the phone book, than traditional phones, this allows for putting more than just a name with the number, you can put a short description also. The Not So Good The phone is single band, as any phone this size would have to be. This means that it is 100% digital. This confines the phone's usage to digital areas. This also limits the phones ability to be used as an emergency phone, since there are many areas in which the phone won't work. The price also limits this phone from the everyday user. The Overall This single band feature does put the phone back on par with Motorola's first digital, single band phones as far as clarity. The phone has the sound quality that was missing from their last few models. The price is up there, but for those willing to pay for it, you will not be disappointed. So, if you love phones, and gadgets, and this one is within your budget, go for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 87784 2000/7/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the smallest so far no real ones Full Review I finally (Motorola was about one year late in shipping this product) got the new Motorola v.8160 ("Vulcan") phone a couple weeks ago. It's a CDMA 800mhz digital/analog phone with web browser. For residents of the northeastern U.S., that means it works with Verizon. It is also the smallest phone in North America (for the time being -- there is a Nokia that is supposed to come out that is even smaller but I don't think it has been released yet). Size is really the main reason to get this phone. It was a good enough reason for me. GOOD: FLIP: I like flips because you can't accidentally initiate a call. With phones without keypad covers, it's quite simple (if you don't lock the keypad) to hit the send key and (i) run through your plan minutes and (ii), even worse, let someone listen in to something they shouldn't be hearing. Flips are a matter of taste, but I like them and the Vulcan is a flip. SIZE: So small you can't believe it. It makes a StarTac look like a buffalo. One important point -- the Vulcan is actually kind of deep -- slightly deeper than a StarTac with the thin battery. See if you feel comfortable with the proportions before you buy it. For me, I rather like the almost cylindrical form factor. MATERIALS: The quality of the plastic on the Vulcan is really a step up from other phones and makes the phone that much nicer to hold. You feel like you are really getting something for your money. The chrome strip around the middle and the silicone-ish pads give it an additional sense of quality. Finally, the keypad buttons are miles ahead of those on a StarTac. Great buttons (As Levda points out, the buttons are actually larger than those of the StarTac in addition to having a much better feel). SCREEN: This is a really easy to read, high-contrast screen. USUAL MOTOROLA BENEFITS: Vibration, one-key message check, sleep modes, etc. Nothing that other phones don't have and this one has them too. Motorola has improved the address book feature from the system used in the 7760. BAD: BATTERY: It's fine with me (I get about two days with light usage) but if you're used to a Nokia (6 days easy on their higher end models), you'll probably be disappointed. I go to sleep every night and can't use the phone while I'm sleeping so I can live with any phone that lasts more than 24 hours (and this one lasts for over 48). Nevertheless, if you're used to going 6 days without a recharge, you'll be disappointed. BUILD: Notwithstanding my quality point above, the phone still doesn't feel as rock solid as I would like. Not bad, it just didn't blow me away. No phone has yet. [Note that another reviewer has found that the chrome strip around the circumference of the phone has started to come off. I haven't had this problem but thought I should note it.] ONE HAND: Tougher to open with one hand than a StarTac. Maybe I just need practice. FEATURES: Notwithstanding my above point on "usual Motorola benefits", I am surprised that Nokia-like features have not been incorporated (e.g., calculator, games, calendar, etc.). I don't really care about these things but apparently some people do and so you should be aware that Motorola still doesn't have this stuff. CONCLUSION: I'm very happy with this phone. The reason one buys a mobile phone is to have it around. The smaller the phone is, the more likely you are to have it with you. Therefore, smaller is generally better (so long as you aren't giving up features). If you like the StarTac form factor and are familiar with the StarTac's controls, you should like this phone. And everyone has been blown away by how small it is. You've still got time to be the first one on the block. Note: This review was originally posted as a review of Motorola because epinions was delaying the addition of new products to be reviewed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 87783 2000/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great combinations of features yet functional package small expensive not tri mode no indiglo display Full Review ... I bought a cell phone last year for the first time. I went out and bought a StarTac 7760 because it was the best phone at that time. It was a bit expensive, but I figured that there were a few benefits for having it. The first benefit is that it is the current industry standard. Secondly, it was a good quality phone. Third, I figured that buying a phone that I would be happy with 3-4 years later was better than spending half the $$$ and getting a knew phone every year. So how does this relate to the new v8160? I believe that this phone will be as popular in the decade as the StarTac was in the 1990's. What does it mean to be the "industry standard" and why is that important? Well, first of all, that means that a variety of manufacturers will probably make accessories for this product. That will give you more choice for what you want to buy. For example, if you own a Nokia 6160 or a StarTac, you will find many different types of hands-free operation systems, or different battery manufacturers. You won't be limited to what Motorola or Nokia wnats to sell to you. Additionally, you have to figure that these phones are the industry standard for a reason (i.e. battery life, size, display, combination of above features...), and chances are if the masses enjoy a product, you will also. Anyways, the V-phone is going to be the next industry standard because it is a great phone. The most obvious reason is the incredibly small size. The phone is as long as the Startac, but only 2/3 as wide. The Startac is still a bit flatter, but overall, the new phone is much smaller. This translates to a better fit in your pockets, which is what really matters. Many people have been skepitcal about the small size, thinking that the buttons would be too small and it would be too uncomfortable to hold. However, the new V-phone is actually easier to hold while talking. It's smaller width and greater depth make it easier to hold (like the Nokia 6160), and it is not as awkward as the StarTac. Additionally, the buttons are as easy to use as the StarTac's, a feat accomplished by making the buttons taller. The keypad as more space on this phone because the screen has moved to the top half of the phone. Other asthetic features of the phone are highly subjective. The most popular color I have seen is the brushed aluminum look. My dealer assures me that I can get it in a black or a bluish color, neither of which I have seen yet. This should cover the spectrum of your choice, unless you like the flashy covers that you will find for the Nokia 5160. I personally prefer the clamshell design because I like how it feels when I'm talking on the phone. However, others may be annoyed that like the StarTacs, they can not simply look at the phone to see who is calling. I also prefer the external antenna because supposedly internal ones cause more radiation hitting your head. I don't know how proven that is, but I don't want to take that chance. As with the StarTacs, more often than not, you won't even need to extend the antenna. Lastly, the new battery requires is placed in the phone with a cover, like a cordless, land-line, phone. I've heard that this is due to greater battery lives have decreased the amount of times people switch batteries. Given the relatively high battery life of the phone, I don't think that this would a be a problem for most people. Apparently a thicker, longer life battery is available, but I don't know anything about it. Motorola has done a great job with the Startacs, and incorporated most of the technology here. It has a good battery life (about 4 days standby and 300 minutes of talk time) for such a tiny phone. While this isn't as good as the the latest Startac 7868, it is better than most of us will need. Additionally, it retains the expanded phone book (99 names w/ 4 numbers per name). The display remains clear despite a smaller screen. Unfortunately, Motorola has not included the Indiglo display present in the 7868 here. The older screen looks a bit dated, and does not have the same brightness as the Indiglo screen. Another complaint is that this phone is not tri-mode, meaning that you can not get the SingleRate USA plan, so this may prevent you from buying this phone. (I'd expect that they offer a phone w/ greater battery life, new Indiglo display, and Tri-mode once the price on this phone drops and they need to offer new ways to get people to pay lots of money for a phone.) Motorola has tried to make the transition for people to move from the StarTac to the V phone as smooth as possible. I've heard that you can use existing battery chargers, car adapters, and hands-free accessories, which means that you don't have to fork over more cash to be on par with what you are using now. The high price of this phone has prevented it from becoming instantly popular. At the Verizon stores, they are selling it for $500. I went to an independent dealer who is offering to see it to me now for $275. She told me that other plans will be using the models in a few months, and then the price will drop down more, so I figured that I'd wait a few more months and "rough it" with my StarTac. Overall, this phone is offers everything that other Motorola phones do in a more attractive, sleeker package. It's still not incorporating other cutting-edge features like the Nokia has (i.e. calculator, games, calendar, etc...), but if you can live without those toys, then you should definitely consider buying this phone. As the price drops, this phone is well-positioned to take over the "industry standard" distinction from the current StarTac line. It's also a phone that will not become obsolete for quite a while, so you won't feel the need to go out and buy a new phone for quite some time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275 7712 Motorola V300 87850 2004/11/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 see above see above I am now waiting for my THIRD REPLACEMENT V300 from T-Mobile. The phone works fairly well as a flip phone, but I would sum it up as a buggy device that should be avoided. There are better cells out there. Nice color screen, reasonably small form factor, decent sized buttons, nice look to it, good voicedial. Buggy, sound from handset speaker fades over time, standard headset just marginal. Speakerphone lousy, no bluetooth. 87849 2004/9/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice screen camera worked well nice looking to many bad ones with software problems speakerphone after call too expensive Ok so I had the phone for 3 days, and already sent it back, i bought it new from T-Mobile. The phone was great enough i guess. But not worth 234.00! I did like the pre-installed ringers. The main problem i had with this phone is, when you downloaded a wallpaper from T-Mobile, it went into a file that you pictures you take with this phone go into as well, so if you took a lot of pictures and then choose the option to delete all, it would erase all of your wall-papers you PAID for! Lame! There is a folder in there for wall-papers BUT that is somehow linked to MY PICTURES folder. This is the response i got for Motorola directly! I guess is not such a big deal but it did bug me! :) Good luck! 87848 2004/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great camera reception is goodthe speaker phone works as it should screen the button layout is poor battery life isn t quite what is advertised I got this phone when I got TMobile service and so far its great. The reception is average and matches up with other phones that I have had. I wish that the antenna were a little less protrusive, which could be solved by making it retractable. Battery life is not what is promised but it is still very good. Of course using the camera and internet will shorten the battery life. The display is great. It is like watching a small TV. The camera takes better pictures than any other phone camera that I have seen. The zoom is a great feature that most other phones don't have. The speakerphone is a nice feature that works, as it should with no noticeable interference and good quality. The one real issue that I have had is with the design and menus. The buttons are horrible. I have misdialed a few times because the buttons are so small and close together. The menu screen is not the easiest thing to find what you want. Overall this is a great phone with a few problems that can be overlooked for the price. 87847 2004/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 camera 65k color wap aim intergrated step down from motorola v400 The Motorola V300 was released the before the Motorola V400. But, that doesn't mean that the V300 doesn't have stuff over V400. Well lets put it this way its not enough for you to go buy the V300 over the V400. One of the advantages is that V300 has aim intergrated all ready into it. V400 you have to download. But, take my word if you want a worthy camera phone get the V400. Cingular has a promotion for this phone for 59.99 with mail-in rebate. By ShinGouki9999 87846 2004/5/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has gprsmms good camera great external speaker plays mp3 ringtones ring tones not load enough software problem This phone has everything the average person would need it feels solid and comfortable and looks stylish , i love the features , its very user friendly ,it has no ports for downloading directly to computer but this can be done via emails but sadly i have to write something negative , this phone has software problems , say 50% of the time whenever i set the event alarm the phone will lock up and the only way to get the phone working is to remove the battery and reinstall. TIP - download your important files like your favorite mp3,s to your computer just encase your phone breaks down.. 87845 2005/3/21 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception cameravideo a plus buttons on the side hit accidentally make loud noise if sound is on I have to say overall I have been pretty pleased with this phone. I get reception pretty much anywhere and I love that I can download ringers that are actual songs rather than just tones. It is neat to be able to take pictures and video, but for the most part I stick with my digital camera because the quality is not the best (although in comparison with other phones with video/camera it is good - but I won't be trading in my digital camera anytime soon). I felt it was safe to pick this phone because the manager at the cingular store I went to had this phone, and I figure if he deals with the phones everyday and chooses this one for himself, then it's probably my best bet. I can say one thing for sure though - it is definitely better than any other phone I have bought, and I would purchase another Motorola phone in the future based on this purchase. 87844 2004/5/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 intuitive menus insideoutside screens good display weight size great feel buttons too small can t get photos off w o emailing them v400 better product failure Good display, inside and outside screens Intuitive menus We got several of these for my office. Of 5 units, we've had 3 total product failures in the first 60 days of use. In general, the good and bad on the features sort of even out. From the T-Mobile line up, I'd still buy this phone, EXCEPT that the quality (in terms of failure rate) is worse than I have ever seen for a cell phone. Buttons too small, V400 better Can't get photos off w/o emailing them 87843 2004/7/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception small battery life speaker phone is excellent sometimes phone freezes up have problems hearing through the phone when talking to someone I got the Motorola v300 and I really loved it. I was having problems trying to decide where to get my phone from but I really do enjoy this phone over all. the people at T-mobile are very friendly and ready to help. The T-mobile store had just opened up in our area and i wanted to give it a try. When i get the camera working right it takes wonderful pictures. 87842 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen cool design none I love this phone. I don't own one but my friend does and it is a great phone. I love the way it looks, and the color screen is great. Motorola sets up their menus in a way that is easy to understand. The Java game support is also awesome. I would definatley reccommend this phone to anyone. 87841 2004/9/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 wallpapers sleek excellent speakerphone mp3 ringtones plenty of memory efficient voice dial call quality is not the best none else I used to love my Sanyo flip-phone till I changed to T-Mobile and got this one on amazon on a very good deal: free. It's screen is so sharp and wallpapers looks so awesome. Has umpteen # of features and has a very good speakerphone as well. Plenty of speed-dial # available, also stores to phone and SIM card. Very sleek and small, yet solid enough for speaking comfortably for long time. Battery life is excellent. Very catchy phone with good voice quality 87840 2005/7/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features reliability stability keypad a little hard to use keys are close together This is an excelent phone... I have had it now for three months and would highly recommend it. It is a heavier weight phone with good batt life adn an excelent speakerphone. It has cool lights on the front as well as 640/480 camera. 87839 2005/5/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 pretty to look at a dream phone for the first month or so does not meet the minimum requirements of what entails any phone Within months, I could no longer hear any of my calls on this phone because the volume was so low. I went back to T-Mobile and they fixed the earpiece thing for $10. Within a week, the volume died completely again. T-Mobile fixed it for free, but it became a recurring problem. I have been taking all calls on speaker phone for nearly a year now because I am too busy to take the phone in to T-Mobile weekly or to do the proper research to actually buy a good phone. Speaker phone is not a good solution because you can't turn it on until about 5 seconds into any call resulting in confusion for the person on the other end of the line. Also, it means everyone around me can hear my calls. Do not purchase this phone. 87838 2005/4/17 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 worked ok for about 4 months of light use not worth the price for such a short lived phone In September 2004, I purchased a V300 for my Mom on her 80th birthday. One month later I purchased a V300 for myself. It's only April and neither phone will retain a charge even after replacing the batteries. My Mom and I are light users and both phones were in perfect condition without a single scratch on either one. After many trips to the T-Mobile store, they've agreed to replace the phones. I would not recommend purchasing this phone. 87837 2005/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 i like the speaker phone i like the colorthe features that it has i don t like the fact that i cannot access the web hardly anywhere I absolutely love my new phone. Its small and it has all of the latest features. But I cant get on the web unless i have full and complete service, and sometimes not even then, which sucks cause I'm paying for something I cant use. Also I love the color! 87836 2005/1/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 super cute exterior small size blue led poor camera callend buttons backwards very slow I really wanted to love this phone. The outer soft blue shell was really neat, the screen was large and clear, it was light weight, and small to carry. My husband and I both bought ours at the same time. Within one week we sent the phones back. We soon discovered that neither phone could send or receive messages, text nor photo. The camera on my phone had an odd defect of stretching out already taken photos, and distorting the image. The menu was slow and kind of clunky to get around. I much prefer the menu of a Samsung or Nokia to the Motorola. The camera quality was poor, even for a phone cam. Visually, its a great phone, 5 stars. Open it up though, it goes down to 2. 87835 2005/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 light weight small non reliable I purchased 2 of these, from Car Toys.com. They had an unbelievable sale 1/05, with great rebate incentives. One has usually worked great. We live in Denver and the satellite reception from T-Mobile is not always ideal. The other phone had issues from the start. The "9" button didn't function consistently. I called Car Toys and was told I couldn't return it to them because I had removed the UPC code on the box (to get the great rebate). I called T-Mobile and was told I couldn't return the phone because it hadn't been 30 days. After threatening to cancel service on both phones, T Mobile sent me another phone. This "new" phone is not as new the original. It didn't show any signs of use, but is an older model, even though they have the same model number. (Examination shows improvements were made to the design.) This phone regularly goes dead for no apparent reason. It then requires the removal, and reinstall, of the battery to get it to function again. I'll go back to Nokia again when possible. 87834 2004/6/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception size everything camera none Just got the V300, not one bad thing about it. It takes a little getting used to with all the features and what not, but sound quality, camera quality are fantastic! Reception is outstanding. Well worth it! 87833 2004/7/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great look loud speaker phone feel accurate voice dial quality color display features size cannot activate speakerphone until after call is placed no bluetooth This phone meet all the needs of the average mobile user and then more. We bought 2 of these 6 montha ago and the have performed beautifully. Great display, good battery life, nice appearance, soft touch material used in the body, great web browsing ability, nice loud speakerphone, etc. 87832 2006/6/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 looks color poor build quality speaker stopped working phone stopped working not the best reception We have two of these phones. They are both failing after a little over a year's use. Both phones have headset speakers that no longer work. The only way to use the phone now is with the geeky hands-free earpiece. One phone totally fails to recognize when you open the lid to answer the phone. I have to literally stick a pin in the little button that senses when the phone is open and wiggle it around to get the screen to light up and be able to use the thing. In short, Motorola failed big time on this phone. Don't waste your time or money. Get something else! 87831 2005/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen is great battery life is very good downloads are fun phone is light takes a long time to answer a call lose reception all the time I thought I would live this phone because it was blue (blue is my favorite color), overall it's a nice phone, but I've only had it for about 6 months now and I'm on my 2nd replacement phone. The funny thing is, I keep having the same problem with the phone. My husband had the same phone and he had the same problems I am having, he just got fed up and both a different phone. The problems I have with the phone is that many times when I try to answer a call the screen remains black and by the time I have the option to answer the phone, the call is in voicemail already. It's not a terrible phone, it does have it's perks. It's fairly light and it is easy to use. It already comes with a decent amount of ringtones and wallpapers included with the phone. 87830 2004/9/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 highly functional aesthetically pleasing some smaller issues such as better phonebook management The Bottom LineThis is a great phone which I think would work well for anyone. Full Review My past cell phone experience: Several years with the oldschool Nokia 3390, followed by two weeks with a Sony-Ericsson t610. I thought a bluetooth headset would be cool but decided it was more trouble than it's worth. Here are my comments after having the phone for several weeks. I have found a few additional annoyances since first writing this review, but on the whole I'm still very positive about it. Positive comments: * Nice exterior which sorta sticks to surfaces to prevent sliding * Very nice button layout -- I count 10 functional (non-number) buttons on the front plus another 4 on the sides, yet because of the way they lay them out it's intuitive to me and not confusing. The directional arrows are much better than the little t610 joystick. - I think the menu system is very intuitive - Has a camera which seems good, but I haven't used it too much - Speakerphone does seems to work pretty well, and came in handy for a 2-1 conference call at work. - Bright colorful LCD, and lit up buttons - Seems to have decent/good antenna. - Allows useful customizations, like what the buttons your buttons do, when you're on the homepage (I was able to get rid of the T-zones junk that I do not use) - Battery life seems better than previous phone - In my opinion it is a very pretty phone design, which I am proud to sport. :) Complaints so far: (mostly minor issues) - Several buttons on the outside of the clamshell which allow you to modify the ring mode - this seemed really cool at first because of the ease of changing the mode, but I find that the mode can change in my pocket - like from silent to loud. NOT cool!! This is not so much a problem with the buttons as what they're controlling. - Needs more powerful phonebook management options, like clear all numbers on SIM or in phone memory (accidentally copied all numbers resulting in duplicates, and now my current options are to clear all memory, painstakingly delete them one by one, or buy software). This is probably not a big deal for most people. - I thought the manual was lacking in much detail on various features (other than how to find that feature on/in the phone) - Most of the menu options may be traversed quickly, however when going up and down a long list of phone numbers, it can feel sluggish - Missed calls apparently go into the received calls list. What seems to make this confusing is that missed calls of unknown origin don't seem to be stored in any list, which makes you feel like you're missing information. I have not tested out any internet/AIM/email capabilities of this phone so I cannot speak to that aspect. Summary: This is a high quality phone, which is very nice looking and boasts some pretty solid features. You may take issue with a few smaller things like I have, but I imagine all of the current phones have some issues. And finally, the store that I found had it reasonably priced, especially after a $50 rebate. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87829 2004/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 cute lots of features good camera buttons on side can change settings accidently only available with one network The Bottom LineI have fallen in love with this phone, it's not perfect, but the little drawbacks are made up for by all the great features Full Review When I first got this phone the speaker wasn't working, and so I wasn't to happy with it, but when the people I got it from replaced it and even gave me some free airtime I was able to start to actually use the phone I fell in love. Firstly, it is really cute, and I love the 'softtouch' covers, which mean I can toss it onto a table or something and know it won't just slide off ontot the floor! And inside, a big plus for me was just how much you could customise the inside, you can change colour schemes, background, screensaver, ringtones, menu orders, pretty much anything I would want to. I also really love the photo phonebook, which shows a picture of the person when they call. The camera is really good for taking pictures, much better quality than all my friends phones, and with the different brightness settings you can take pictures in pretty much any setting apart from the really dark. Also, this phone holds a lot of pictures, I have currently got 60 photos stored, and this is only taking up 5% of memory, so I would imagine you could store quite a few before you ran out of room. Many people have said about poor signal in the UK, and this was a big worry for me before I got the phone, but I found that I have full signal most of the time, much better than my old o2 phone, but this could just be because there is good signal in my area. Another thing I was worried about when buying was that people had told me the battery didn't last very long, and so I got a second battery to allow me to swap without having to be constantly charging. I've found that my battery usually lasts me 3 days of regular use, or if I'm not using it so much it has lasted up to 5 days before. Now onto the negative sides, the first for me is that in the uk it is only available on T-mobile, whereas I would have preferred the option of a different network. Another drawback is that the although the photos can be shown in albums in slideshow format, the photo is still displayed in the main picture list, and I would prefer not to have to scroll through the entire list of photos to find one. An important thing for me is the ability to keep the phone stored on silent, however as you can change the profile using the side keys, I have found it has been changed twice without me knowing about it in my pocket. Overall, the things that annoy me about this phone are just some little details, it's not in anyway perfect, but as someone who is using their phone only for texting, playing games and taking pictures it is doing it's job for me really well and I love my phone to pieces! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87828 2000/4/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 lot s of fancy features that most people don t need very badly designed user interface hotkeys The Bottom LineLot's of little usability issues that you just would not see on other brands. Full Review I've owned several cell phones (Nokia + Siemens) before this Motorola one. I think it's generally a decent phone, but has some very bad user interface problems which actually made me revert to my slightly older Nokia phone. Here are the issues I found: 1. The side buttons for changing volume (which are always exposed) cannot be locked! It therefore happens quite frequently that the phone unintentionally switches from silent to loud in your pocket, which can be bad when you're at class/in a meeting etc... 2. When you switch through the volume levels using the keys mentioned above, the phone always makes an immediate sound to demonstrate the sound level. It is NOT POSSIBLE to switch the phone to silent-mode without making a fairly loud beep! This again is very annoying when you're e.g. at a meeting and just wanna make sure that the phone is in silent mode....you cannot do it quietly (there is no option either...i've tried everything...on a Nokia you can just use the keyboard shortcut to do this and it won't make a loud sound). 3. It seems like you cannot use it when the battery is dead even when it's connected to the charger! You have to wait for the battery to require some charge before you can actually use the phone. This again is annoying if you just wanna slap your totally dead phone on the charger and use it immediately (again Nokias and Siemens do this just fine). 4. I think the menus are generally not too clearly structured...way too many fancy but overall useless features which just seem to slow this phone down. 5. When you try to make a call and it fails and you then select "redial", the phone will ring on your end once it has dialed! I have no idea why they did this...first of all it will ring right into your ear...and second you might mistake it for an actual incoming call...what a dumb feature...again i found no way to turn this off! 6. The battery life is generally shorter than my 2 year old Nokia...well i guess it's because of a color screen and a bunch of cloggy software that the poor DSP processor has to run (my Nokia has a color screen too though...but it's smaller and only uses 256 colors). So if you want a phone with plenty of fancy but no usability...go grab this one! If you mainly use it to make calls and want to use it straightforward and quickly I would look at some different brands...my next phone will most likely be a Nokia again. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.0Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87827 2005/1/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 plays mp3 midi picture id 5 mb memory external blue light turns on for no reason The Bottom LineIf you want a pretty, functional phone with plenty of features this is one phone to consider. Full Review The V300 is simply beautiful with it's high contrast, blue and silver color-scheme, and that's one of the main reasons I chose this phone over other phones in the price range. I'll mainly mention the quirks of the phone. First off, the package doesn't come with a data cable. This would've been useful so I can transfer sound and picture files to and from my computer. Menu browsing noticeably lags on occasion. When the phone is off, the blue light of the external LCD would turn on for no reason and removal of the battery is the only way to get the phone to function normally again. This kills battery life quickly if you happen not to notice it right away. If you password protect the multimedia section of the phone and use the camera, some of the images you take will not save. One neat feature of the V300 is picture ID. When someone calls, the picture you set for the caller is displayed instead of the caller's phone number. Unfortunately, this feature is only available if you store your phone numbers in the phone's memory. This is quite frustrating as I prefer to store my numbers on the sim card itself. That way, when I do a master reset, my phone numbers are still intact. The phone's camera captures a max resolution of 640x480. The images are adequate for a camera phone. It's a nice feature to have when you're bored and want to take pictures. From my experience the phone lasts for approximately 5 days in standby mode. Of course the main factor to cellphone battery duration is the signal strength to the phone. If the phone is getting weak signals it amplifies it's receiver in order to compensate. This amplification uses up more power and thus, lower battery duration. If you want your cellphone to last longer in standby mode make sure you rest it in a place where it gets strong signal, like near a window with no obstructions. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87826 2005/4/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 style factor coolness exterior display size camera built speaker extremely low ear piece volume in to my second phone still the same problem The Bottom LineIf you want a clear sounding phone, look somewhere else. Full Review I just got my Motorola V300s(two of them) yesterday. From my short experience of one day, I have to say I am pretty impressed by this phone. Let me first write a few lines about my purchase experience. I just got out of an AT&T contract last month and after being their customer for over 2 years, I wanted to try a different carrier. After doing a lot of research on phones, carriers and the retailers, I settled for a T-mobile $69.99 family plan with two v300s. I got the phone from www.intelenetwireless.com. I paid $100 for each phone and I will actually make over $100 after all the rebates. The purchase experience was one of the best I had so far. I was very skeptical about buying a cell phone from these online retailers, but after I stumbled across their website address on epinions, I placed the order. From the minute I placed the order, I was quite amazed to see the continuous realtime updates on my order status. Long story short, within 4 hours my number was ported, new phones activated and shipped through Fedex. Impressive, huh! So I received the phone with all the accessories like handsfree kit, belt holster, charger neatly in place in addition to the deluxe handsfree and car chargers I bought from intelenet. The phone was already activated and ready to use. I have heard a lot of complaints about the low ear piece volume on this phone, so I decided to check it out first. It is indeed a little lower than other phones like Nokia, but definitely nothing to go complaining about. The speaker is awesome, sounds very loud and clear. I was up until 2 am last night configuring and playing with my phones. The screen is very bright and colorful with high resolution and you can easily personalize your home page to suit your style. I didnt get a chance to check out all the ring tones, but from what I did I noticed that they are much nicer than what I used to hear on my Nokia 3595 all these days. There is a small button on the left side of the phone with which you can change the ring style to Loud, Soft, Vibrate etc without actually opening the phone. This I think is a very useful feature when you need to quickly silence the ringer. There is also a button on the right side which you can hold down and record voice memos, a very useful feature when you dont have a pen and a paper handy. I think you can also record the phone conversation using this..but I haven't tried that yet. The phone book has space for 1000 entries and you can assign an email address also to the entries. The phone itself is small but sturdy and the rubbery feeling of the exterior is very nice. The blue color is very very cool and I am starting get many compliments from my friends already. The camera is good, but not great. Taking pictures is very simple and it has a 4x zoom. The quality of the pictures is ok. It can never replace a digital camera, but again you can't always carry a digital camera with you. T-mobile is giving me unlimited picture messaging for one year, so I already took plenty of pictures and sent them to my wife's phone as well as to the myalbum site provided by T-mobile. Just take the pictures and send them to any phone which can receive pictures...its as simple as that. Its pretty easy to browse the internet(wap URLs). WAP is free with T-mobile, I checked yahoo, signed in, used the messenger and sent messages to my buddies. There is also built in AIM which I haven't used yet. It has 3 games, I played the Persian Sultan game...and its very cool. All in all, I can say I am very happy with my phone, my service and my purchase experience. I will be even happier if I get all my rebates back. This is a tri band phone and can be used in over 100 countries. That is one of the main reasons I purchased this phone and selected T-mobile as they are the only company who happily unlock your phone after 3 months or so. So, all you have to do when you go abroad is buy a local prepaid SIM and start using the phone. I know my review is not very technical and detailed, but hey its been only one day since I got the phone. I will try to post further updates in a few days. 6/24/04: After two weeks of usage, I can say I am even more impressed by this phone. I am using the camera almost everyday and the picture quality is definitely above average. Text and picture messaging is a snap with this phone. So far, I have not experienced any difficulties with the reception quality nor had any dropped calls. One thing I want to emphasize on is, if you like the earpiece volume of your phone really loud then you can look for other phones. The earpiece volume is on the lower side, but the built in speaker more than compensates for it. Happy talking!! 2/15/05 - Quick update: After 8 months and about 117 hours of talk time, the ear piece is almost completely dead. Most of my conversations these days are on the speaker(which by the way, is excellent). Though I was and still am very impressed with several other features of this phone, I am extremely disappointed with the one that matters most, the earpiece. Without this, what's the use of the phone. T-mobile is sending me a replacement phone as the original one is still under warranty, and I have to see how that is going to fare. On a different note, I had received my mail in rebates from T-mobile but nothing from intelenet. Even after sending all the forms I never received any of my rebates. 4/1/05 - Update - I got a replacement phone from T-mobile, and its worse than the previous one(in terms of earpiece volume). Unfortunately I am changing my recommendation on this phone, and as far as earpiece volume is concerned(which, by the way, is the life of any phone) this is the worst phone I ever owned. Buy this if you want a cool looking camera, but not if you want a real phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87825 2005/11/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 size of the phone features fits my needs for business poor connector to the charger bad quality finish drops calls after 15 minutes The Bottom LineThe dropped calls is the deal breaker for me. The next phone will be from some other company. Full Review I like the over all features of the phone but I have had problems.... 1. Mine might be the only one this has happened to but the silver finish started to come off from the first week to the point now where it is completely gone. Moto and T-Mo states that it is normal wear and tear and refuse to replace it. I would have liked the phone better if it had been all metal like the V60. 2. After about 20 min. it drops the call no matter how strong the cell site is. (I had the same problem with my V60). 3. The connector pins Moto uses to charge the phone weakens and causes the phone not to charge (the V60 also had this problem since it is the same connector). Spreading the pins back out on the phone side with a needle repaired it. 4. Once the battery is low, the phone beeps until you charge it so you choices are charge it, or turn it off. 5. The belt holster that comes with it, falls off your belt easier than most. Since it drops calls like the last Moto phone I had, I think I will choose another manufacturer next time. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87824 2000/6/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 cute voice navigation works well unreliable buttons hard to feel The Bottom LineDo not buy this phone, there are better choices out there, even from motorola! Full Review I have owned three models of cell phone, with the V300 being the third. The other two gave me no cause for complaint, but like many people, when my contract expires (or a phone is stolen or lost after a contract is expired) I sign up with a different provider. This time, however, we had been so satisfied with T-Mobile's service combined with our Samsung phones, that when my wife's phone was stolen, we decided to stay with T-Mobile by quiting her contract and starting a new contract under my name. That way, we get two new phones. Otherwise, you have to pay T-Mobile a chunk of cash to replace the stolen phone. Well, now I wish we had done that. Instead, we let the salesman at Fry's convince us to sign up with two V300's. We have been dissatisfied ever since. The funky menus I can live with. Dropped calls, I cannot live with. These phones drop calls every now and then. Seems like when you are on a long, important call, you get dropped. My wife complains of the same thing. The service reps always ask, 'do you cycle your phone every day?' but come on, I don't recycle my computer every day! I think they are hinting that there is a firmware problem that you can diminish by rebooting. But, I just want a reliable utility device that will work at least as good as Windows (really, Windows is pretty reliable these days for me...) Ultimately, it doesn't matter what else is good about this phone. It is unacceptable as a phone in the most basic way: it is not reliable. I would not like to rely on it in a life and death situation. For some reason, if you complain enough, they will take the phone back and send you another.... that is what I am doing! For the second time! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87823 2000/4/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 mp3 ringtones java games battery life is long camera color screen no video recording on it The Bottom LineThis phone is a must for just about anyone it has the ability to have internet on it check your email and even can play java games on the go. Full Review I got this phone through T-mobile in August of 2004 and have been in love with it from the start. Its ability to hold 30 yes 30 java games on it is enough to win me over.Not to mention the ability to hold REAL TONES which are real mp3 quality ringtones with the real music as your ringtone. This phone also has a digital clock on the outer shell so you don't even have to open the phone to see the time!! This phone also has the ability to take photos.You can also visit a many of sites where you can find free wallpapers online through google to save money on your bill.Depending on which carrier you might have prices for the games and wallpapers may differ. This camera on the phone has a 4X VGA zoom which is so close to being a full megapixel its not even funny. The phone also has a recording button for personal use or for business use. My favorite part of all it is a flip phone.This way is very stylish and is very efficient in many ways. If you happen to be talking to someone on your Motorola v300 and you need to hangup don't waste your time fumbling through the buttons to find a red button when you can just simply close your phone, Its that easy!!! This phone has been the best out of all the phones I have used battery wise. It holds a charge for 2-3 days. I charged it one day and used it nonstop playing games the majority of the day and the charge didn't even drop one cell!! It took 2 full days of extreme use to get the phone to finally run out of a charge. But overall this phone is a must have and i will probably maintain this phone for another year or two maybe even 3 years!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87822 2000/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 i am amazed with everything this phone can do do well it does no bluetooth no stopwatch The Bottom LineThis is a GREAT phone. If you don't NEED bluetooth, get this phone! Hello, MOTO! Full Review I don't know. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but thus far, this is absolutely the GREATEST phone ever. The ONLY things it is missing, for me anyway, is bluetooth and a stopwatch. If you had bothered to read my other reviews, you will have read my scathing review of my previous cell phone I was pigeonholed into using for a year, the Sony T300. T-Mobile only gives you a discount on a new phone if you re-up for another year. After my Sony fiasco, my year was finally up, and it was time to get a new phone. I got it yesterday and have given it a great 24 hour run-through. This phone passes everything with flying colors. Internet, fast! Photos, GREAT and easy to use. Dropped calls, NONE. HiFi ring tones, speakerphone, intuitive menu, message recording, this phone has it ALL! I wanted to get the v600 with bluetooth really, really badly. The hands-free earpiece looks just so cool. Unfortunately, T-mobile couldn't give me the v600 with the earpiece for less than $400. With my one year re-up, the v300 cost me $130. I went down the options list, side by side, and the v300 has EVERYTHING that is good about the v600, except the bluetooth. I drive to work for about 15 minutes every day, along the same route, in town, and talk to my wife. With the Sony, our calls would get cut off at least twice, but more like 4 times on average every commute. Along the EXACT same route now, for 2 days in a row, I have made the same commute all on one call. I ONLY have this phone to thank. I doubt they moved a few cell towers for me. The pictures are just GREAT. Which amazed me. CLEAR. Now I can take pictures of my kids, and actually show folks what they look like. I could go on and on. I would have thought a stopwatch would have been included, but I guess they didn't think of EVERYTHING. For the price I paid, I would have to think this is the BEST cell phone on the market, dollar for dollar. I have YET to drop a call, or even have ANY static, and I'm using my phone in the EXACT same places I used my last one. I guess if you absolutely NEED to be cutting edge, and have all the bluetooth accessories, this phone isn't for you. Anyone else though, will be VERY satisfied with it. I just LOVE this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 87821 2000/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice look camera great feel faceplate scratches easily The Bottom LineI love the way this phone feels. The camera is also a nice bonus. Full Review When I lost my Motorola v70, I went to the T-Mobile retailer and checked out their selection. I use T-Mobile because it works fine in my area (Northern New Jersey), and because they offer the best plans with most minutes for the dollar. The two phones which caught my attention most were the Samsung E715 and the Motorola v300, particularly because these are both camera phones and also because they both feature sleek exteriors. While I originally wanted the E715, I got a killer deal for this phone (cost me -$50, yes, I got $50 on top of the free phone), and so now I use the v300. All the Essentials... This phone offers all the essentials that other cellular devices do, including: Caller ID - an essential feature on just about every cell phone sold today. Voicemail - works as well as any answering machine, plus you can record your personal greeting by dialing "123" and going through the step by step procedure. Speakerphone capability - perfect for business at home or when you need to chat with more than one friend. Color LCD display - bright and colorful, very few phones can beat the v300 in this category. Phonebook - can store... well, just about every number you need to. Vibration function - so silent that you can feel free to have it on during movies or during your kid's piano recitals. While other phones emit a loud buzz while vibrating, the v300 does it so silently that no one will notice, except for you. Sleek size - the phone isn't the smallest you can find, but it surely isn't large, by any means. It fits comfortably into your pocket or purse without a problem. External clock display - works great for me, since my watch was stolen last week. With my v300 handy, I don't even need to go buy another one. Games, calendar, text messaging, etc... - all the basics that you would expect are here, no surprise. ... and More On top of the basics, the v300 offers tons of other features you don't see on every phone. These include: Camera - the v300 features 4X digital zoom which works great forcapturing a quick photo. The downside is that you need to hold the camera very still to make the picture come out properly. The memory is capable of holding hundreds of images, which is more than enough space, as long as your phone isn't also your only camera. Many, many ringtones - these days, every cell has a multitude of ultra annoying ringtones. The v300 has more than enough ringtones to annoy the living hell out of everyone in the subway/office/restaurant. However, it does have sone traditional rings, which I prefer. If you want, you can even create your own ringtones, programming tunes and even jazzing them up with the phone's built-in functions. Nice texture - feels very good in your hand while you talk. Rather than cheap plastic, the v300 has more of a high quality rubber finish, which feels much better than other phones. Check out the phone for yourself at a store to see for yourself -- I guarantee you'll like it. If you don't like the faceplate, you can always change it. Check out eBay auctions for some good deals on cell phone accessories. Long-life battery - I use my phone very frequently, and I only have to recharge every other day. Sometimes I can go up to three days without charging. This is a big plus, since sometimes we do forget to charge out phones overnight, and then the next day we can't use our phones. Being without a cell in today's world is like being unarmed in a gladitorial arena. So much depends on mobile communication, that you simply can't afford to forget to charge your phone. Well, with the v300, it's alright to forget once in a while. A Killer Deal I did some research before buying a phone, which I recommend all of you to do, and I was rewarded with a killer deal. Many places offered this phone for free, once rebates were finished with. However, after combining a couple online discounts with the T-Mobile rebates, I ended up getting $50 ON TOP of the phone. While I cannot guarantee that you will all be able to luck out as much as I did, I can guarantee that finding this phone for free will not be very hard. Check Amazon.com for starters. Folks, this phone is close to the top of the line in the market today. It may not be the absolute best, but it is way better than average and good enough for any regular user. A camera phone for less than $100 is hard enough to find let alone one for free. Overall I won't waste your time with the technical mumbo jumbo, but if you would like to see the specs, check out Motorola's website (motorola.com). Overall, I highly recommend this phone. Whether you're a business person, a parent, or you're shopping for a phone for your teenager, I recommend that you at least check this phone out. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87820 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 internal external displays no bluetooth ir Takes decent pictures for a camera phone Phone should vibrate & ring at the same time! The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a sub-$200 T-Mobile phone and don't need Bluetooth/IR, this is it! Full Review I wanted to wait until megapixel camera phones came out before getting a camera phone, but after I lost my T68 and my Samsung quit, I decided to take the plunge. Actually, I had to get one since T-Mobile no longer offers a decent standalone phone (Nokia 6610 seems nice but it only has 4k colours, for $149.99 I better get 65k colours!). My choices came down to the SE T616 and the Moto V300. The T616 has Bluetooth and IR but takes terrible pictures; the V300 doesn't offer any wireless connectivity but the camera takes VGA pics. I've had bad experiences w/ Motorola in the past but decided to try this one out as I know I'll end up taking a bunch of pics. I've only had the phone for a couple days but it's been fine so far. A couple Motorola quirks I don't like: Talk/end buttons are on "wrong" sides compared to every other manufacturer...it takes a bit of getting used to (drove me nuts during the first day as I kept sending people to vm when I meant to answer the call, but I think I'm getting the hang of it). Vibra-call (Moto's vibrating alert) doesn't ring and vibrate at the same time. The phone vibrates first for a bit and then the phone rings. Kinda seems pointless to offer mp3/polyphonic ringtones and then make you wait to hear them. Other than that, the phone is fine. Some of the things I like: The new blue what's-it cover, it seems to be pretty durable and doesn't smudge/scratch like the old V60 (knock on wood). The external screen, it's not your typical b&w LCD, you can actually see the display in bright sunlight. And the main display is the brightest I've seen on a cell phone, the screen itself is worth the price! Good ringtone quality. Good messaging centre, I txt msg a lot and I picked it up w/in minutes on this phone. Let's see, the phone is compact (shorter than most clamshells but a bit thicker). Besides the fact that the talk/end buttons are on the "wrong" sides, I don't have a problem w/ the ergonomics. All the features work as advertised (except AIM, I haven't tried that out and prolly never will). I haven't tried the speakerphone either, but judging from the quality and loudness of the ringers, I can't imagine it being too bad. Calls come in loud and clear using the headset, no problems in that dept. The camera actually takes decent pictures, I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously you're not going to get anything you'd want to show in a picture album, but for on-the-fly candid photos, I can't imagine a better camera phone. One feature I miss from my T68 is setting the phonebook so it either reads from the SIM card or from the phone. On the V300, if you store a backup of your phonebook on your SIM card, you have to scroll through the phone memory AND the SIM memory, which gets pretty tedious. Guess I should stop making new friends. :) Overall, I'd say the V300 rates a B/B+. It falls short in connectivity (Bluetooth and IR should be standard by now), but the camera and displays make up for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87819 2000/3/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 bright display easy use menu good camera not too much else battery life durability reception speaker loudness or softness should i say The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone and would advise to go with Nokia. Too many problems for such a high priced phone. Full Review I purchased this product from my friend since I had a regular Nokia 3595 and wanted an upgrade. Who knew the Nokia would have done a lot better then this phone. When I first got the phone I was excited since I had a camera phone and was hip! But anyways, I set up the phone how I wanted it which wasn't too hard since the menu was pretty easy to use. So far so good, and it pretty much went downhill from there. I'll list each item by how you would typically look to buy a phone: Battery Life: The battery life is not good at all. I charge it at night everyday and by the end of the night it's about to die. Granted I am on the phone a lot, it should last at least a day. Volume: As I had the phone, the volume on the regular speaker, not the speaker phone, detiriorated eventually making the phone unusable unless it was on speaker phone. My buddy has the same phone and the same happened to him. The ringtones are decent if you're in a quiet room but anywhere else it's hard to hear so I always had it on vibrate even though the phone plays MP3 ring tones. I know, you might be thinking, raise the volume, but I always had it on the highest setting. Reception: I live in El Paso, TX which is a fairly big city and the reception was pretty bad. It might be that it was T-Mobile but I was always missing calls and could not talk more than 30 minutes without the line disconnecting. Even at my house I thought it was weird that downstairs I always had one bar. Durability: The phone started to drag like if it was a computer loading with a lot of programs. It wasn't to the point where it took minutes to work but 3-10 seconds does get annoying. The slot where the phone charges started to malfunction and I thought it was funny that the phone even recognized because sometimes I would plug it in and it would say Unable to charge. I had to find the perfect angle to put the cord at to make sure it was charging. Menu and usability: I did like this phone for it's simpleness to use and how everything was laid out. The text messages were a breeze to use and overall the phone was easy to use. It also had a big display screen which I liked since I use the internet on the phone a lot and it could show a lot of information at a time. Camera: The camera was awesome and it took great pictures however again the drag. If you took a picture and deleted it, it would take seconds to go back to the camera. I don't know if I'm expecting too much out of a cell phone but like I said, the Nokia worked a lot better and it was older. I would say stick with Nokia like I did. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87818 2004/9/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good phone at a great price that can be upgraded via software need usb cable to get pictures out not good for big fingers small keys The Bottom LineIf you or someone are looking for a cell phone, Why not give this a try. It cost nothing and you get $50.00 back. Full Review I am familiar with the Motorola V600 as I have been using one for about 4 months. I want to experiment with different flashes and flexes (OS and Software). Instead of using my V600 as my test bed, I obtained a T-mobile V300 for about $200.00 on eBay. I choose the V300 as it is the cheapest V series phone that I was able to obtain. I planned to give it to my friend in Hong Kong next time I visit. Since Hong Kong and China do not use 850MZh there is no reason to get a quad band phone. (I am not using this V300 to make calls; all I am doing is trying out different software on this phone. I am going to customized it prior to give it away). The current Motorola V series Phone consist of V300, V400 V500/V525 and V600. There are other V series phones that are being released but other than the V620 the other V series are more different. Some newer V series phones run on CDMA and GSM or the new EDGE and GPRS. These V series phones are flip phones. They are all GSM phones. V300 is a tri band (900, 1800 and 1900 MHz in US. Some with 850, 1800 and 1900 in Canada) world phone. V400, V500/V525, V600 and the coming V620 are quad band (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz) world phones. V300 and V400 do not have Bluetooth. V500/V525 and V600/V620 are very similar. V600/V620 phones have changeable cases and external Event lights. V500/V525 and V600/V620 have video play back. V620 has video recording. In the US, most of the V300 phones I have seen so far are T-Mobile branded, V400 phones are Cingular branded. V500 is an O2 branded phone and V525 is a Vodafone branded phone. V600 was available from AT & T, Cingular and T-Mobile. Cingular recently dropped V600 and only carries V400. The branding means that the phones have custom Flex (software) for the service provider. That does not mean the branded phones cannot be used with another service provider. All of these phones can be modified and customized with various flashes and flexes. All you need is a computer, an USB Motorola Cable and PST. PST is Motorola software that allows you to change and update the flash and flex on Motorola phones. Mobile Phone Tools (MPT). MPT is a software that connects your Motorola to your computer so you can sync Calendar or transfer sounds, video and update your software. The USB cable is available from Motorola or after market sources. This Software is floating all over the internet. If you visit HowardForums or V600.org, you will find what you need. Since most of the internal of these V series phones are the same, the V300 can be modified to function just like a V600, minus the Bluetooth and quad band. Motorola is going to release the V620 soon and that phone has the capability of recording Video. Since the hardware of that phone appears to be identical to the rest of the V series phones. It would be not be long when the necessary Flex, Flash to be available on the net. This V300 is very similar to the V600, please read my review on the V600. Unlike the V600 this V300 case is made of plastic in Blue color not metal. The case is covered with a spongy rubbery material which is very nice to touch. If you are into touchy and feely thingy, this is the phone to have. This is the phone to match your jean outfit. It is lighter than the V600 and the antenna is shorter(it is not really shorter but it more round at the tip and it appears to be shorter). The display is identical to the V600 which is very sharp and bright. The only one thing that I do not like about this V300 is the key pad. The numeral keys on this V300 have 2 shapes. They are shaped like Dots and Dashes. The 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 0 are shaped like Dots and the rest are shaped like Dashes. The advantage of this arrangement is that one can feel the keys without looking. The more you use it the easier it is to press the right keys. The bad thing is that the keys are rather small and set almost flush. So pressing the keys requires a more deliberate action. There is really nothing really bad about this V300. It does not have Bluetooth and is only tri band. These are the only differences that I would count. Yes, the V600 have changeable covers, it has Event Lights and have Video Play back. However, these are not really things that matter much. I turned off my Event Lights (it still turns on when the phone rings), both phone looks fine the way they are now. By the way the case of a V300 can be changed it is just not as easy as the V600 which can be replace the battery cover and slip off the metal case without any tools. Since the V600 cannot record, the video play back is just there and not useful. By the way, the V300 can be flexed or SEEMS edited (using the USB cable to edit the software on the phone) to enable this video play back. I am really having fun with these both of the V series phone. I have installed custom ring tones via the USB cable. The Speaker plays 21 polyphonic (24 chord) ring tones. It is Mono but it is surprising loud and clear. AT & T charges 99 cents to download per ring tone and $1.99 per polyphonic ring tones. I am able to make my own from CD's and convert the tones into MP3 format. I have also loaded about a dozen games in each of the phones. I never thought I would play games on my phone but most of these games I am familiar with. A lot of these games are similar to the old arcade and PC games. Even Pong is available. If you speak another language and would like to have this phone read that, it is possible as there are language packs out there that can be flash over the existing flash. This is not hard to do. If you get this phone, my suggestion is to get the USB cable so that you can extract the pictures that you take with this phone. The phone does take VGA (640x480) pictures. While it does not have a flash, it can take decent picture if the condition is right. Most V series are branded; it should not stop anyone to get the phone that he/she likes and go with a different service provider. The web browser and email setting can be set up easily as most service provider can to an Over The Air (OTA) push and load the settings to your phone. Most of these phones can be obtained at a cheap price from a Service Provider. You want an unlock phone. Unlock means that you phone is not locked on to use that service provider only. This would enable you to choose whatever service provider as you please. You can also get a prepaid phone card to use while in overseas. Cingular does not lock the phones. So V400 phones are most likely unlocked. T-Mobile locks their V300 but will provide 8 digits unlock code if you have been with them for 3 months and have a balance of less than $100.00. If you have a friend that is using T-Mobile, you could ask him to obtain an unlock code for you (you would save $25.00). AT & T locks their V600. T-Mobile also offers the V600 but T-Mobile disable the 850MHz band because T-Mobile does not operate the 850MHz band. The T-Mobile branded V600 can be made into a quad band phone simply by flashing and flexing. All V500 and V525 that I have seen are from UK. These are not locked but most likely branded O2 or Vodafone. Any locked phone can be unlocked for a fee of about $25.00 (Read my report on V600). This is really a good present to give to your kids or get it yourself if you need a new cell phone service. If they or you do not use Bluetooth, and there is good signal from T-Mobile, you should just get the V300. I paid about $200.00 for mine because I do not want the service contract. You can get a V300 with a service contact (some with one year and some with 2 years) for free. There is a promotion now and you can get $50.00 back. Use the $50.00 to get an USB cable from eBay or some other source. Download the drivers and software and you are all set to go. This is a camera phone, that does messages, sync to your Outlook Calendar, does email and web surfing. MP3 songs and JAVA games can be loaded using the USB cable and a computer. UPDATE (09/10/04) If you flash and flex this V300, it would make this into a Quad band phone. People in Hofo phone forums has reported that after this phone was flashed and flexed it operated in areas that only has 850 MHz band. So the difference between the V300 and V400 is only the looks and the keyboard. Just be aware that you might void the warrenty if you flex and flash the phone (you can alway reflash and reflex to make the phone appears to be stock). You can a Free phone plus $50.00 back. Is this a good deal or not? Hint to the above question, my son has a V300. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87817 2000/11/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great screen nice form factor tweakable softwarereliable signal some awkward menus shorter battery life than expected The Bottom LineWith the rebates available its great value for money, and if you can get around all the quirks has a lot of power available too! Full Review I bought this phone after switching from from Sprint to T-Mobile having been with the former for five years. My old Sprint phone was small and robust but very basic by 2004 standards, and besides it wouldn't work with the T-Mobile GSM network. The considerable rebates available on this very popular phone made it a no-brainer - in the end I got one for my girlfriend too and we paid $0 for mine, and -$100 for hers (yes, negative $100 - they were paying me to buy the phone). I've always been somewhat leary of Motorola phones - while I have respect for their non-consumer products its always seemed that their phones were clunky and not very user friendly. However I found that I very quickly decided I liked this phone a lot especially after I'd taken the time to explore all its options and go online to locate some tools for after market customization. Since my previous phone was a candybar format I wasn't sure I'd like a flip phone, its different but not bad. The worst part is the inevitable grease on the phones screen - even those with the cleanest skin and no sweat will end up having to wipe their screen reasonably often. I've only picked up one minor scratch on the screen in six months - otherwise the screen is very bright and has great clarity. None the less it is rather hard to read in bright sunlight, that's a problem for taking pictures. The exterior has a nice tactile rubberized coating on the front, but there are some silver plastic parts. The few times I've dropped it have done no damage so far. If I would change one thing about the exterior design it would be to add a retainer for the little rubber plug that protects the headphone jack when not in use - I've lost mine already. It took me a while to learn all the software features of the phone - it was defintely worthwhile taking a read through the manual even if it is a bit terse. Being a software engineer I was attracted to the browser, IMAP mail reader and Java MIDP2.0 features. The biggest problem is that T-Mobile has done their best to cripple all of these in several ways. You're not going to be able to do anything useful with the browser (actually a WAP browser) unless you cough up about $5 a month for unlimited T-Zones access. The builtin IMAP/POP mail reader appears to be disabled unless you cough up $10 a month for T-Zones Pro (see more below) and several of the J2ME MIDP 2.0 features are disabled unless your Java apps have been approved (signed) by T-Mobile. So I paid my $5 a month for unlimited T-Zones and then went out and downloaded various pieces of software that allowed me to enable many of the phones features. I'm not talking about unlocking of phone to use other SIMs - a T-Mobile direct store will do that for you after 30 days anyway - I'm talking about addings features that T-Mobile has hidden. Indeed this phone is a hackers dream since you can readily upgrade its firmware and personalilty files with software from the net (see HowardForums.com for pointers). Now I can use that IMAP browser instead of reading email via T-Mobiles site and a stunted WAP browser interface. I was also tweak many of the phone menus to reveal extra options, and display stuff like when a GPRS connection was active etc. Most rewardingly I was able to prevent the phone from beeping when the exterior volume up-down keys were pressed - something you have to do to put the phone into vibrate or silent mode. In a meeting you can always detect a Moto phone user by these star trek beeps! With the $5 a month T-Zones Unlimited service I was also able to configure this phone as a modem. It took a bit of research and the purchase of a data cable and the Moto software to do this, but in the end its a great deal. I have no idea what the $20 a month Internet connectivity service buys you over the $5 service - I think its bi-directional use of all TCP/IP ports. But for me I am able to hook up to my laptop via USB and surf plus check email via POP and IMAP. That's all I really need. Its slow - the modem connection says 115kbps but the reality is more like 33kbps down, and 6kbps up. That could be a limit imposed by T-Mobile but basically its good enough for casual browsing and emailing. If you hunt around you can find some great Java apps for this phone - I use the ReqWireless email and web clients apps. These give me a much better web browsing experience with a high degree of HTML and IMAP compatibility only limited by the amount of RAM available to Java apps. There are also quite a few good games out there that are not on T-Mobile's site. My biggest gripe about the V300 is that navigating through the phonebook is a huge pain. I synchronized mine with my Outlook phonebook that has about 200 names and numbers. You can jump to a particular letter of the alphabet by pressing the appropriate number key one, two or three times. But beyond that you have to start scrolling. If you have ten or twenty names for a particular letter then you're going to be cursing as you down, down, down,... to get to the name. It gets worse when you're sending and email or text to a name because then the phone expands all the numbers for each name too. You could end up with twenty, thirty or more entries to scroll through. Behind the phonebook navigation problem would be the lack of a notepad style app, the limit on voice memos at 1 minute of speech total (regardless of how much storage space is left), and the inability to drive the menu system by speech which is a shame when this unit clearly has great speech recognition that works a charm for dialing numbers (but nothing else). I've found this phone seems to fall a bit short on standby batter life giving me about 3 days between charges. It does pull in a good signal most of the time although accurate comparissons are hard to give since antenna performance is somewhat variable between units. The camera works okay for a VGA resolution device - its handy for quick snaps but with such a tiny lens don't expect any real keep sakes from it unless you're really lucky with lighting and focus. Sound is excellent - MP3 ringtones are readily available online or produced by yourself. The speakerphone is adequate but not great - its hard to make it really loud without distortion. If I upgrade from the V300 it will be to get bluetooth to connect and sync with my laptop without a cable (at hate cables), and get a better keypad. Even if my laptop is to become my major emailing platform then there are still times when I want to bang out a long text message or email message. Although the predictive text entry works great on the V300 I still find it too cumbersome. I'm now considering the Moto A630 which is basically a V300 with bluetooth, video and a thumbpad for text entry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87816 2005/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 tools accessories packed with features some minor usability issues shelf life of only a year The Bottom LineI can safely recommend this phone to anyone interested in upgrading to a more complex higher-end unit with more features and tools. Full Review *UPDATE BELOW* As the cell phone merges with the PC/PDA and all of the other electronic gadgets of the modern age, Motorola introduces the V300; a cell phone that is still solidly a cell phone, but which also incorporates a low-end digital camera and some bare-bones PDA features. Overall my review of the phone is very positive - as the title says, it's a flexible, highly-functional tool that has a lot of capabilities. On to the details. Overall the phone functions very well; the quality of the sound in the receiver as well as the microphone in the mouthpiece are excellent and produce clear audio. The color screen is rich and vibrant in color and displays the visual content very well. The menus are also easy to navigate and the display is laid out well. Another great positive about this phone is that the battery life is phenomenal; you'll have several hours of talk time, and it can go for days without being recharged during average use. Depending on your carrier, you have a plethora of options available to you in terms of Internet connectivity. You can access some online content (mostly news services, directory services, and online games), send e-mail, send instant messages, and receive alerts that you subscribe to. The phone has a 5mb memory, which so far has been sufficient (though I imagine it could become problematic if I upload more ringtones). On the lighter side, the phone allows you to plant "wallpaper" on your phone's display (which can be either pre-loaded photos, photos downloaded from a service for a fee, or the photos you take with the camera in the phone). In addition to midi file ringtones, the V300 also allows for high-quality ringtones that are MP3s of the actual recordings - all of which are available for purchase (or upload if you have the right accessories). The TMobile version of the V300 comes with nearly two dozen ringtones standard - so you have plenty to choose from. Also available are games; they can't compete with Playstation 2 - but the versions of "Tetris" and "Bejeweled" are full-color and completely functional. The phone can also serve as a cellular modem for your PC (which is explained further in the "Accessories" section). One of the downsides of having so much crammed into the phone is that it's often slow to respond when you press keys, which takes some getting used to. Another less-than-positive facet of the phone is its relative lack of ergonomic design; the keypad half of the phone is relatively thin and flat and doesn't fit comfortably in one's hand. In addition, the keypad and menu keys are somewhat difficult to reach when one is doing so one-handed. The camera built into the cell phone is quite weak, which is to be expected. The maximum size of the photos is 600 x 480 with a resolution of 300 pixels/inch. It also doesn't function well at all in either low or high light, and as you might expect from a cheap digital camera - the photos lack clarity, contrast and the colors are muted. Another disappointment is the zoom on the camera; it's a digital zoom - so instead of actually zooming in, the camera just takes a smaller-size photo that is of the same resolution. ACCESSORIES Perhaps the single best accessory you can get for this phone (or any other phone) is a data cable so that you can interface your phone with your PC and manage content that way. (The version I went with is by the manufacturer "Handset Manager" and was around $25) This way you can back up your office tools (phone book, calendar, etc.) as well as update content (which can be cumbersome trying to enter text using the phone keypad). Another facet of the data cables is that they allow you to download your photos from your phone (skipping paying your phone service provider the fees they charge to either e-mail the photos, or store them using a fee-based service), as well as upload your own ringtones. Another great feature of a data cable is being able to use your cell phone as a wireless modem for your PC; I had little difficulty loading the software and getting my computer to dial out to my OSP using my cell phone - and the connection appears to be quite stable (though it is slower). SPECIFICATIONS - Alerts: 21 Embedded MIDI ringtones, 4 MP3 Ringtones Polyphonic Ringtones, MP3 Ringtones - 22 Khz Polyphonic Speaker, 22 Chord support - Downloadable Themes1: animated screensavers, wallpapers and ringtones - J2ME™ Games:(Embedded & downloadable)1 - MotoMixer (Remixable MIDI ringer software) - User-customizable Softkey Functions, Main Menu and Shortcuts - Integrated Digital Camera - Soft Touch Cover - Caller Group Profiling (Ringer & Icon) - Phonebook: Up to 1000 entries on phone plus up to 250 on SIM card - Picture Phonebook - Time and Date Stamp - VibraCall® Alert - Voice-activated Dialling - Built-In Hands-Free Speakerphone MESSAGING FEATURES - MMS (Picture / photo + text + sound) - EMS 5.0 - SMS Chat one-to-one - Mobile Concatenation - Predictive Text (iTap™) - Quick Messages: 10 user-definable SMS - Nokia Smart Message Receive - Instant Messaging Support: (Wireless Village) 1.1 embedded client - Email: STMP, POP3, IMAP4 LIFESTYLE FEATURES - Calculator and Currency Converter - Date and Clock - Datebook with Reminder Alerts - PIM Functionality PERFORMANCE - Bands: Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz - Standard Battery: Li-Ion 650 mAh - Standby Time (hours)2: Up to 120 - 200 - Talk Time (mins)2: Up to 180 - 390 DATA FEATURES - GPRS: (2u/4d) AMR - WAP Browser version 2.01 - Connectivity: CE Bus (USB/Serial) - J2ME Programability1 - Synchronization with PC (Software and accessories not included) TECHNICAL FEATURES - Form Factor: Clam - Internal Memory 5MB - Color: Blue - Dimensions (h x w x d ): 3.5in. x 1.93 in.x 1 in. - Weight: 3.8 - Display: Internal: 65k TFT Color (176 x 220) - Display: External: 2 Line (96 x 32, with blue backlight) http://www.motorola.com/mdirect/hellomoto/experience/v300/flash/v300_full_specs.shtml? ------------------------------ *UPDATE - 8/11/05* I must revise downward the review that I gave this phone. Though it's still a fine phone in many respects, recently one of the two phones we purchased has begun to act up - it freezes in the middle of a process and will not turn off (unless the battery is removed). This has prevented the checking of voicemail and e-mail and general use of the phone. When we called tech support - we were told that these phones generally have a shelf life of about a year, and then they tend to stop working. I spoke to another tech who said that this wasn't necessarily the case - as he'd seen V300s that have lasted two years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87815 2005/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 excellent display good camera sound quality stylish lack of features very bad reception only in the uk some glitches to be ironed out The Bottom LineIf I was convinced the faults I've seen are limited to a few phones, I could recommend this, but I'm not convinced... Full Review The Motorola V300 phone is a very small, light, and stylish flip phone. It has several features that make it a good choice if your interest is geared more towards photography and game-playing than using it as an actual phone! (Well, this was when I finally managed to get my wife to let me have a proper look at her new toy so I could review it...) My first impressions of this phone were very good - it looked good, seemed to have a good menu system, and a very good display (176 x 222 pixels with exceptionally good colour definition (65K colours)). The camera worked fine (and has a resolution of 680x480, which is pretty good going!), and while the built-in games were okay, there are plenty of better ones to download (at a price, obviously). Everything was looking good. Before the phone was given some serious use, that is... The reception is pretty bad, at times even worse than my old Nokia 3210 / 5210, and certainly nowhere near as good as my 3200. For some unexplainable reason, when you're in an area that cannot get a signal, it refuses to let you access your messages... My sister-in-law also has this phone, and has had a lot of problems with it. Reception just dies completely at times for no reason (we're on the same network so I know it's not just the area we're in), and when she uses the zoom feature on the camera, lines appear and the whole image is generally distorted. Obviously these are only 2 phones out of who knows how many, but they were from different shops and it does suggest to me that there are at least a few serious glitches with this phone that need to be ironed out. If it weren't for these things it would be a really nice phone - the display is excellent, it has a whopping 5Mb memory, which even on the highest quality of JPG means you'll be able to store a lot of photos, and given that the Java (J2ME/MIDP 2.0) games you can download are rarely more than 50K in size, you won't run out of space for a long time. The battery life is slightly more than average but again inferior to that of the Nokia 3200. Unlike the Nokia range there is no infrared data transfer capability, though I doubt if most people would find that a particular problem. The Motorola V300 can handle text and multimedia messages, and has a voice recorder. It has all the normal options you would expect with regards to functionality, and is really no better or worse than most other phones for general use. Having been used the the feature-packed 3200 for a while now perhaps I've been spoilt in this regards, but there really aren't many extra features at all on this phone. Overall It's a classy phone but the problems mentioned, especially that with reception, prevent it from getting a good rating as they make it functionally deficient. With these problems sorted out it could be one of the better phones on the market. Ultimately, it's a case of nice aesthetics, shame about everything else. However... Judging from the other reviews, I would have to say that these could well be problems either specific to these phones or to the UK! Thus I have upped my rating to 3 instead of 2 stars, as it's a little unfair to rate it down for bad reception if most of you will not experience this problem. I still don't feel that it's particularly good value for money, although if you can get it on a free upgrade deal - as both my wife and sister-in-law have - it's not bad. I still prefer my 3200, but it depends mainly on what you want from a phone.) Many thanks to for correcting a couple of technical innacuracies that had crept into my review! Comparison to the Nokia 3200 Display - much better colour definition, similar resolution Sound - noticeably better Camera - more advanced Reception - much worse Battery - noticeably worse Features - restricted in comparison with the 3200's myriad features. Robustness - slightly worse Other Phone Reviews - packed full of features, excellent phone - outdated today, but still one of the most durable phones ever made (virtually bomb-proof!) - a pretty good business phone, but not the best in the Nokia range. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADERecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87814 2004/5/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception style built in camera many other great features price is a little bit not too bad though especially after the rebate The Bottom LineAnyone who is looking for a dependable, stylish, and easy to use phone with incredible features would like this. Full Review My first and only cell phone was a Mitsubishi that had the flip down by the talking part. I didn't even know that Mitsubishi made phones until I got this. How this phone came about was when I first went to get a plan on my own, but most places wanted so much deposit, so a friend recommended me to someone who would work with me. He suggested T-Mobile, which I feel was a good service until a mishap by them which I'll say in a review on T-Mobile. Being I was just starting out with really no credit at the time, I went on this 'Smart Access' plan and had to get a second hand phone, which was the Mitsubishi one. For the most part, it did fine for me, but it was so old and unknown. Couldn't even change the faceplate. So, after about a year and a half, I finally decided to look into getting another phone. I didn't just want to grab anyone. To me, it was almost like shopping for a car. Make sure I like the style, features, etc.. I've made a number of trips to my local T-Mobile and what scared me from getting one the first few times going was the prices. Quickly though, I was pretty much attracted to the Motorola V300. However, I soon found out that many other people were too, as there was a waiting list at all three stores I went to. So, I waited about another month or so. I finally got it about two months later and of course I paid about a 'arm and a leg' for it, $199.99 plus tax, which came to about $217.00. Features with the phone include: Built in camera - Store them in the phone or put them onto your computer. Phone book - Very useful and helpful feature. Vibrating alert - This is very helpful when you can't here the phone ring. Calendar - Always a helpful feature, especially for doctors appointments, making upcoming plans, etc. You can even set an alarm for it to go off so you won't forget it. Calculator - I use this all the time. Alarm Clock - I use this everyday to wake up to and it definitely works. Color Screen - Very colorful, full screen. Speaker phone - Useful when you unable to hold the phone or multiple people are talking. Voicemail - Always get my messages without a problem. Text messaging - Haven't used it much yet, but works great. Download games - My favorite is 'Bejeweled'. There are quite a few to choose from. Wallpaper - You can also download some if you don't like the ones already on the phone, me, I use pictures I take with the built in camera. Mega Tones - Download all kinds of music ring tones from popular artists of rock to hip hop to country and much more. AOL instant messaging - Instant message your buddies or even check your email, news, weather, etc.. Already included features also include Caller I.D., Call Waiting, Call Hold, and Emergency Calls. Plus, you can of course change the faceplate, which I also like since I couldn't on my old one. Trouble is, I can't seem to come across any Nascar or race car theme ones. If anyone that reads this knows where I can find any, please let me know. I make use of just about all features and so far so good haven't had any problems. The feature I'd have to say I love the most is the built in camera. I don't know how many times I forget to bring my camera to a special event or some 'all of a sudden' cute or goofy thing happens and never would have a chance to capture it. Now, there is no way I'm missing out on good moments again. The pictures come out very good. You can adjust the brightness and zoom in and out too. The Mega Tones feature is another thing I love. I'm always changing my ring tone since there are lots of my favorite songs made into ring tones. They sound really cool too. Now, some people do have problems with reception and sound often with cell phones. This phone hasn't given me any trouble as of yet. The sound comes in very well and it picks up really good on reception also. It depends mostly where you are at the time I guess, but no problems yet. There are some things I haven't tried yet on this phone, but I'm sure there won't be a problem with those since I've had a thumbs up with everything else so far. All in all, I love my Motorola V300. It's a cute and small flip phone with some amazing features that I am always using, especially the built in camera. My calls always come in very well and the reception is great also. My only complaint is the price, but after the rebate it's not too bad and I think I'll get my money's worth out of it. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a reliable, fun, and easy to use phone with some of the coolest features you can get. Give a look into it or talk to sales rep. at a T-Mobile retailer near you. Please take a look at my review on the service that I'm with, T-Mobile. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 taxRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87813 2004/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small records my voice cute nice features camera failed as a modem The Bottom LineThis did not do its job as a modem. I am changing my rating and recommendation. Full Review After using this phone very well for one month we started traveling. We have had nothing but problems with it. When I can access my Internet (I'm in the library) from home in 3 weeks I will fully update this review. In the meantime, T-Mobile sent me a new one which has crashed and would send me a third...but...well it is a long story. The short of it is this: DO NOT buy this phone if you intend to use it as a modem. I will be reviewing T-Mobile when I get home. jo Please refer to for complete details. Special thanks to Howard Creech. After quickly adding what was the wrong model number (my mistake) he then quickly, efficiently and kindly found the right home for this review. We bought the Motorola V300 cell phone after returning the . Using our phone as a modem is a must for us. When we realized the Blackberry doesn't have that feature we went looking for one that did. This is being written by the "person on the street" in person on the street language. I will leave specifications at the bottom but I hope my review will help you decide in plain language if you want this phone. It comes with a SIM card, a battery, travel charger (not a car charger), and a holster. (I bought a car charger and case on . The software and cables that enable the modem capability have to be bought separately. This is called a Data Connectivity Kit. In addition there is an extra charge for this service. The phone is WEB enabled as well. However- and this is important to know- you can either pay for modem capability or Internet access. When we travel we will add the modem capability (Which we've already done.) to my phone. When we come home we will take that off our plan and for $5.99 (prices may vary with plans and providers) I will add Internet access. Features of my Motorola V300: Since this is not a PDA like the Blackberry I had an easier time figuring out the features, though I wouldn't call it a piece of cake! There are 8 icons (which can be made into text rather than looking at pictures)- phonebook, messages, recent calls, multimedia, get more, games and applications, settings and office tools. Each feature has operations within them. For example you can voice record the name you want to call. Note: the name has to be saved to the phone. If the name is saved on the SIMS card you have to change it, which can easily done with the edit key though I found it a pain at first - in fact a major pain. Each screen will say select, exit, edit, change or back. You will use keys on the phone to move from screen to screen. Messages allows you to create messages (text, picture, or send to an album); message box, access your voicemail (and change greetings), and quick notes which are already written on the screen from which to choose. You can make up your own. You can access recent calls made with the 3rd icon. Multimedia is where you can access the pictures taken and add the sound you want your phone to ring. This phone allows you to assign a ring to people. For example my husband has bells, my daughters have chimes high and low, and my mom has harmonics. There are 37 ringtones and others can be downloaded. You will see a Get More icon which has a T. These are the t-zones and not accessible unless you pay $5.99 and do not have the phone used as a modem. I am looking forward to this feature because this is where I can get to my journal, my album, where I can store my picture messages and my e-mail. I don't play games on my phone, but you can! Two are already downloaded for you. Settings is a very important feature. This is where I have personalized my phone with a greeting, a color style, and wallpaper. You will also be able to choose if you want your phone to ring, vibrate or do both and if you want it loud or soft. You have your call forward and caller id information here. After the feature of the Motorola being able to be used as a modem the next best feature is the camera! This was the easiest part for me to figure out. In fact I took a picture in the store but deleted it. I could have stored and saved it to be sent later or even downloaded it on our laptop which isn't necessary since you can send the picture from the phone. Note that it will cost you $.30 per picture to send. This is a penny more than at our local drug and department store but with the cost of gas it probably ends up to be cheaper. We have also ordered photos online but having this camera with me is just "neat" - what else can I say- it's a great little toy. There is even a mirror on the front so you can take a picture of yourself. Let me talk a bit about the modem capability. In order to use the phone as such we had to buy a connectivity kit. This will cost about $30.00. It comes with software that is easy to install. We plugged my phone into our laptop and we were good to go. In fact the other day, just to try it out, we took the laptop in the car while doing errands. I connected my phone to the laptop with the cables and we were connected to the Internet. We didn't have to worry about hot spots. It does slow down the laptop a bit but how nice it will be for traveling. I can surf the web and look for the next campground we will stay in while my husband is driving. Although the Blackberry did that as well it did so as a computer with a small screen. When we are in one place, using a full sized screen and keyboard is a must, especially for my husband who does work while we travel. More about the phone: This is a very cute flip phone with a rubber type feel (Called Soft Touch) to the top and back of it. The time shows up on the front cover (You can set it for analog or digital.) It has an external antenna that screws off. It is a small phone - not the tiniest on the market but one I can put in my pocket easily. It weighs 4.3 ounces and is 3.5" x 1.3/4" x 1". What I like and what I don't like - my experiences: I really like the camera ability. In spite of recently purchasing it is a lot of fun to always have a camera on me. There are so many times I have said "I wish I had my camera" but didn't. I always have my phone. I like the ability to use the e-mail function, AIM services and other additional "cost" features that I will have fun with. I like the fact I can record myself. I can record, for example, a note to myself to pick up milk at the grocery store if I am somewhere without a pen or paper. In general I like the features of the phone. I like the holster this comes with. Unlike Blackberry's holster, which was a dysfunctional piece of plastic, this one is nice. It is made of the same rubbery type material as the phone, has stretchy material on the sides making it easy to slip the phone in it and the phone faces front. I do have to (and you will) have to take it out of the holster to use the phone. This is not a case. There is a nice clip on the back of it as well as a strip of Velcro to attach around the antenna for extra support so it can't fall out. I do have to pull it out by the antenna, that's the only downfall to this holster. The Motorola V300 is my first phone with an advanced 65K color display screen and it really does make a difference. The screen is a good size measuring 1 1/2" in length and a little less than 1 1/4" in width. The screen is really clear and sharp. Now I understood why the salesman asked me if I watch TV in black or white or in color when I asked him the advantages of a color screen. I have no problem in the sun - my husband's new phone's screen can't even be seen- it's black and white. I don't like a few things. I don't like the antenna. I am so used to my Samsung. Nothing could be as comfortable to hold as my old phone. There are warnings in the manual about the use of cell phones. One is to not touch the antenna while on a call. I hold the phone from the bottom, I hold it from the top and nothing is really feeling comfortable. I end up holding the entire phone, which makes sense, but inevitably I am going to be touching the antenna. I don't like the fact the first screen I see when I open the phone (Though pretty - I picked it) is the t-zones and camera screen. The date shows up there, which is nice. However at this point I can't use the t-zones and am not using the camera on a daily basis. I would much prefer to open it to the phonebook message. You can switch the icons around on the screen but you can't change your homepage. Perhaps the only real user-friendly phone for me would be one that talks to me while I have it in my hand. The manual is very good, but not good enough. The Motorola site has not been helpful to me. Calling Motorola is useless because you get a recording and if your question isn't on the list of Frequently Asked Questions, then you are out of luck. I called T-Mobile several days ago to help me with voice recognition calling. The woman was very nice but we just couldn't get it to work. Eventually she suggested that I go to a T-Mobile store and they will help me or replace it if there is something wrong with it. They were able to show me what I was doing wrong. In order to voice call a number in your phone book all numbers have to be saved to your phone. That means switching them or editing them from the SIMS card to the phone. I had tried that but not successfully. I can now use this feature. However, unlike my Samsung, which when I flipped it open I just said a name and it called, on the Motorola I have to push down the activation button on the right side of the phone in order to make the call by voice. It isn't as user friendly as I would like. Perhaps they don't make a phone user friendly enough for me! You will get 180-390 minutes of talk time and up to 120-200 hours of standby time on the battery. I don't find the clarity of sound as good as other phones, including the Blackberry and Samsung. Part of that might be my reception but I am using the same service and in the same room. It is hard for me to believe reception is different from one phone to another but that has been my experience. A complete list of the features and specifications I may not have mentioned will be below my final thoughts. Jo's Final Thoughts: I really would have liked and had fun with the Blackberry especially being able to surf the Internet wherever I am, but as I said the modem was key in our buying decision. The phone retails for $299, which is a lot of money! We got it for $199 minus a $50 rebate. That's not bad for a camera phone that has so many features, will allow me to take pictures, use e-mail, AIM, send and write messages and voice record my own memos. This person on the street will rate this 4 stars. There are a few flaws in design (the antenna) and the friendliness of it thus I won't give it 5 stars. It's a nice choice if you want a camera. Please feel free to ask me a question, leave a comment or tell me what this non- expert has left out! Thanks. _________________________________________ Highlighted Features (from www.motorola.com) · Stylish and Ergonomic design with Soft Touch Cover · Integrated digital camera (VGA quality) with zoom and brightness adjustment · Integrated speakerphone · 5MB of end-user memory - can be used to store pictures (taken with the camera), wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, games · 22KHz polyphonic speaker with 24 chord support · 2 pre-loaded games - Bejeweled and Prince of Persia · Personal Information Manager (PIM) functionality with Picture Caller ID · Multi-Media Messaging (MMS) · Short Message Service - send and receive messages with emotion, include sounds, pictures and animation · Email pictures wirelessly right from your phone to any e-mail address · Preloaded and Downloadable - Wallpapers and Screensavers, Themes, MP3 Ringtones and Games · Make the phone "sing" with quality sound - have different alerts for calls, messages, faxes, reminders, and friends in your phonebook · Built-In Microbrowser - access Directions, Stock quotes, and Airline information, all wireless! · Mobile Phone Tools Compatible - Create edit and synchronize datebook and phonebook entries with your PC. Software sold separately. · Speech Recognition - speak a stored name, number or function and your phone calls it up for you · iTAP™ software for simplified text entry - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes · TTY digital compatibility - for the hearing impaired Display · 176 x 220 pixel internal Vivid 65,000 Color TFT display provides an enormous viewing area · 96 x 32 pixel two line external display shows Caller ID, date & time, plus Status Icons at a glance · Blue backlight on external display Calling Features · Auto Redial Notification · Call Forwarding - unconditional, mobile subscriber busy, subscriber not reachable. · Call Waiting · Call Hold · Alternate Line/Dual Name · Turbo Dial® keys · Quick Access Menu · Ringer/Vibrate Suppress · Multiple Call Timers · Multiple Key Answer · VibraCall® alert Memory · Last Numbers Dialed · Last calls received · Phone Book - up to 1000 entries Indicators/ Alert Features · Battery Meter (always shown in display) · Roaming · Text Message Waiting · Voice Message Waiting · Signal Strength Indicator · Voice and Message Mail · Alert Setting Indicator Security Features · Call Restrictions · Keypad Lock · Phone Lock · Application Lock · New Passwords Other related review in which you might be interested: Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150-300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7713 Motorola Timeport 280 87862 2000/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 the usa tri band support allows you to use the phone in europe irda support in windows 2000 xp menu system is awkward The Bottom LineThe best tri-band phone, until Nokia releases a reasonably priced tri-band phone. Full Review While on a short-term assignment in Asia, I purchased Motorola's first attempt at a tri-band phone. That phone was a L7089, however this phone, the Timeport 280 is a good attempt to address the L7089's bugs. The 280 offers voice activated dialing (just press a button, say the name you recorded, and the phone will dial the number), a 500 phone number phone book, ability to store 500 calendar entries, a voice recorder to quickly record voice notes. The 280 is also very light, at about 4 ounces! It is a little larger than the newer 8000 series Nokia phones, but I have yet to see one of them available in a tri-band. One big disappointment about the L7089 was the complete lack of support by Motorola for IRda connection to Windows 2000 (and now Windows XP). This phone also does not support 2000/XP out of the box, but they claim you can buy additional software. I haven't tried that yet. I've also heard that the IRda support to other devices with this phone is poor. I don't understand why Motorola doesn't properly address this issue by making a phone that fully supports IRda with all typical operating systems. Support for Windows 2000 and the Palm OS should not be a afterthought! Overall, a good phone, if you need a tri-band. Otherwise, I personally prefer the Nokia models. The menu on those is much simpler, and they have much smaller models as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87861 2000/1/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 built in micro browser stylish design sluggish firmware compared to nokia signal reception not better than nokia The Bottom LineTry to get a Nokia or wait for Nokia to market a phone with a browser (for VoiceStream service). Full Review First, I have to admit that this is the first Motorola phone that I have used for VoiceStream service. Prior to this, I've had a great deal of experience with the Nokia 2190, 3390, 6190 and 8290 models. Other than the fact that the Motorola P280 has a built-in micro browser, there is not much that I like about this phone. Well, there is one thing.....the outside housing is a great color. If my 8290 were available in that color.....wow. So what don't I like about the Motorola P280? 1. The firmware/software that runs the phones' features/menus is slow and I find myself waiting for the screen to catch up. (My basis for comparison are Nokia phones). I understand that slower software means longer battery life. 2. I have noticed on several occasions, that when I move from an area of "No Service" into an area where there is service, the phone fails to come out of "No Service" mode. I can sit there with the phone for 1/2 hour and the phone will still display "No Service". All call attempts fail. The only way to get the phone to work again is to turn it off and on again. This is a serious software problem. 3. Battery life. For some reason, unknown to me, Motorola has never been able to match the power consumption/standby time that Nokia phones offer. Basically, battery life is poor relative to the size of the battery. 4. I frequently use the earpiece/headset to make calls. I have noticed that just before a call is connected, I hear a click and notice an elevated background noise that continues throughout the call. I doubt anything is wrong with the phone, it's just the design. For those technical folks out there, it's like hearing the carrier, but no audio. My Nokia doesn't have this annoyance. Overall, the phone serves its purpose. I've long been a fan of Motorola's two-way radio products so I do hold them to a high standard. This phone was disappointing though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87860 2002/6/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception nice design features adjustable volume clarity durability takes some getting used to The Bottom LineFor people seeking lots of features with a reasonable pricetag and great performance, this is hands-down the best phone available. Full Review In the last two weeks I have had the chance to try out three different models of cellular phone under my Rogers Cantel AT&T two year contract. The first was the Nokia 3360 (which ended up being a disaster), the second was the Siemens s40 (the worst phone ever), and the third is the Motorola 280. This phone has an external antenna, which a lot of phones have been getting rid of. I know that the external antenna can take away from the aesthetics and makes a phone a bit larger, but for the quality of reception you get out of it, its the only way to go. This phone is amazing for reception and there's no annoying static or feedback. Before this phone I was using Nokia phones for three years (the 8860 and 3360) and now that I've switched over, I'd never go back. Although, for people who have used Nokia phones, the interface of the 280 takes a little getting used to. One of the features I really enjoyed was the fact that the two "shortcut" buttons on the main screen were customizable. Do you do a lot of web-browsing from your phone? Put that on there. I was able to customize it to fit my needs exactly. It's extra features are the voice-activated dialing, the datebook, and the voicenotes for reminders. I don't have any problem with the backlight (which is a greenish hue), although some people prefer a blue one. After playing around with it for an hour or so I found and used all the features and this phone is an unbeatable deal for the money. I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87859 2000/3/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great sound many many features light weight poor reception has an antenna poor battery life The Bottom LineGreat phone for world travellers, but don't forget your charger because you will need to recharge frequently. Full Review I actually have the Motorala P7689, which is the asian version of the 280. The styling is similar, but not identical although the functions are basically the same. The p7689 has the blue indiglo backlight which looks nicer than the plain green stuff. The phones voice activated dialing works under quite surrounds. It has a hard time determining what you are saying when there is wind or background noise, even the slightest bit. The 3 minute voice memo recorder is a convenient feature to have, but I don't use it much. It is WAP 1.1 enabled and allows the storage of 500 numbers. To me, that's excessive, but probably not for others. It has a nice calender layout, but I prefer to use a PDA because entering data is quite a pain by using the buttons. Even though it is comparatively more complicated than pen and paper, it utilizes i-tap technology which predicts what you will be writing. It is amazingly accurate and it makes SMS messaging a breeze. Sending emails is also easy. It would be much more portable with the removal of the antenna. Motorola should learn that from Ericsson, Siemens, and Nokia. I believe they've got it with the new V70 from Asia, but that phone is $1000. The p7689 also has a calculator with a built in currency converter. That's a heady feature. It has 3 built in games, which are quite entertaining. Lastly, it rings and vibrates simultaneously if you choose to let it. My previous Motorola Talkabout either rang or vibrated, not both simultaneously. I have a hard time receiving signals inside of buildings. I don't know if that is due to this phone or voicestream. I previously had Cingular with the Talkabout and I had reception every minute of the entire time which I've had it. The battery life on the P7689 is terrible. It lasts on stand-by for one day, sometimes not even if I'm using it more frequently. That's something which needs to be improved, but all in all, this is a great multipurpose phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87858 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 wap batteryexceptional voicevery easy menu gprs 500 phonebook pim reception maybe backlight The Bottom LineYou can't get a better phone for the money! You can't get a better phone PERIOD !!! Full Review It really is the best phone yet! The ultimate mobile toy! You can see, feel and hear it! With GPRS and WAP, sleek and professional look, user friendly menu, crystal clear voice and big display there is no other phone like this one. First the FEATURES (it's unbelievable what you can get for $169 today): * Tri-band technology - GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz, the phone can be used in over 130 counties * GPRS - (General Packet Radio Service) - provides wireless data access that is always on, faster (~50kB), more cost effective (you pay per MB of data, not per minute) and allows for multi tasking between voice calls and data calls. * New Motorola MENU - Makes navigating simple (I didn't have to read the manual!). The customizable main menu allows you to reorder the menu items or frequently used features the way you want. * WAP Microbrowser - access stock prices, local news and sport scores, all wireless! * Up to 500 Name and Number Phone Book * Personal Information Manager (PIM) - 500 phonebook entries; 500 datebook entries with alarm * Voice activated dialing and menu (!!!) * Voice Recorder - record conversations, memos or other notes * iTAP™ (simplified text entry) - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes. * 32 preset and 32 customizable alert tones * VibraCall alert - to discreetly notify you of incoming calls. * Calculator and currency converter * IrDA Connectivity - no need for connector cables; with Infrared communication you can up and down load between your phone and your PC. * Two-way SMS messaging (as on all GSM phones) - allows you to send, receive and store short alphanumeric text messages with another compatible wireless device or email address * FM Stereo Radio (optional accessory) * Large, High Resolution 128 x 100 Graphical Display (6 lines of text!!!) What I like the most: * GPRS is the way to go for mobile Internet. It's like switching form a modem to DSL or cable! * Great menu, joystick and softkeys make it easy to use the phone without reading the manual * Long (over 400 minutes talk) battery life (is it a record?!) * Optional FM stereo handsfree kit ($40), a must have for all active, busy people (great in a gym, car) * Big display; 6 lines (vs. 4 on most phones) make a difference * Small, light and quality design * Optional modem kits for PALM, IPAQ. What could be improved: * reception: I'm not sure if GPRS makes any difference but it's not as sensitive as Ericsson T39 (the difference is pretty small). Until there are more GPRS phones on the market it's hard to compare. * variable (brighter) backlight (not as bright as some Nokias). For me it's OK, but my wife noticed the difference) The brightness should be adjustable just like volume. And finally how did I choose it (and compared to other): NOKIA: All phones pretty outdated, bad reception and only good voice quality (vs. Motorola), small screen, no GPRS, everyone has them and I'm not everyone! ERICSSON: small screen, dull, good reception but voice quality still pales in compare to Timeport 280, no GPRS, flip (and brake) design. SAMSUNG, LG: So, so voice quality, CDMA only. I wouldn't buy anything made (or design) in Korea (other than toys) as quality is just not there (yet?). You know Hunday ... SANYO: I have a Sanyo VCR. What a piece of junk!!! Buy Panasonic instead (if you have to buy Japanese). I'll stick with my American Beauty! P.S. Epinions has some incorrect info on the product: - Caller ID: no (YES! most phones have it) - Multiple Ring options: no (YES! 64 of them!!!) - Vibrating Ring: no (YES! it's called VibraCall) - Web Enabled: no (YES!!! it's a GPRS phone for God's sake!!!!!!) No wonder it's not on the Top 10 list (yet). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87857 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 europe long talk time gsm coverage in us text messaging africa defective phone book all numbers can be erased poor sound quality The Bottom LineAvoid the T280 unless you want poor reception/call quality and a phone book that DELETES all your stored phone numbers. Full Review The Timeport 280 (GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz) is a nice phone. It is very light and the buttons are easy to use. The problems I have experience with this phone in the two months I have used it are: 1) static during phone calls in strong signal areas 2) echoes during phone calls in strong signal areas 3) poor sound quality - even at maximum volume level 7 it is not as loud as a Nokia 4) the phone takes 15 to 30 seconds to access the phone book 5) unable to use the IR port to communicate with my PDA (Palm Pilot) However these problems are nothing compared to the defect with the phone book. I learned from the Technical team at VoiceStream that they have had many people report the same problem with the T280. The phone will DELETE ALL your phone book numbers! They found that doing a master reset of the phone would sometimes restore the phone book numbers. It did not work for me. Another related problem to the phone book issue is that when all the numbers are deleted, one cannot not reach customer service by dialing 611. Apparently, the phone contains the programing to direct the 611 call to the customer service center. I only hope that if I need to dial 911, I will not receive the same message that "the call cannot be completed as dialed." I had to dial the 800 number for VoiceStream in order to connect with a customer service representative. I used the phone book for all of my numbers called on the phone. The T280 has a great voice-dialing feature. For those frequently dialed numbers, I think the voice dialing is a true value added feature. I hope Motorola finds a fix for this phone book problem soon. I relied upon the reviews on this web site in making my decision to purchase the T280. If I had known about this problem, I would have purchased another phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 87856 2002/6/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy locking great sound nice looking some echo menu layout ringer volume screen brightness The Bottom LineGreat sound quality, minor glitches.. its worth it. Full Review This phone has already replaced my house phone. I don't get any calls on my normal phone anymore. The sound quality on the Motorolla Timeport is extremely good, I really wouldn't be able to tell it was a cell phone most of the time if it wasn't for the occasional echo. By "echo", I mean sometimes when I am talking to somebody, I could hear every word that I say. Apparently, the person that I'm talking to doesn't hear my echo, it's only me. And yes, while its annoying, it's acceptable. It doesn't happen very often, though. The menu system gets the job done. Some of it makes you question why the heck they'd set it up that way, but it works. The one thing I really wish was different is the volume of the ringer. Its loud, but not loud enough so that I can hear it when I'm in crowded places. And the vibrating ringer doesn't really alert me too much either, even if its in my pocket. But oh well... overall, great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 87855 2001/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri band reasonable price flexibility appearance irda does not work with palm vx The Bottom LineIf you dont need the IrDA then it is close to perfect. If Motorola listens and gives us a software upgrade, for free it will be perfect. Full Review Very nice phone. I like that it is not a flip phone. It has a solid feel to it unlike some popular phones. This a a phone for a professional and not kids. No disrespect to kids. No emphasis on games and different colors, etc. Negative. I have a Palm Vx and a Dell desktop computer, PII 350, etc. The iStream Manager does not recognize the phone when i connect it through my serial port. My Palm Vx cannot seem to connect by IrDA. I went to the store and was able to connect my Palm by infared by using another Motorola phone, the P7689, a phone that is not suppose to be available here in the States. I also tested my Palm with a Nokia and found that the Nokia was able to connect with the Palm by infared. I'm very frustrated by this but otherwise the phone is excellent. Hopefully Palm and Motorola will not leave their consumers hanging and will produce some software that makes it work. By the way I tried GSMtool (a IrComm program). That is the software that worked with the P7689. The ordinary beem option from the Palm address book only worked with the Nokia, I think it was a 8233 or something like that. I also tried with no avail the IRda Enhancer and some the other IrDA programs from the internet but was unsuccessful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150. 87854 2000/11/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tri band world phone gprs appearance voice activated dialing backlight display The Bottom LineThe Timeport 280 is a great business tool that enables global roaming and always on internet connectivity. Full Review The Timeport 280 represents a great step forward for Motorola as a marked improvement over recent StarTacs. In my opinion, the best features are: Appearance/Usability: The 280 has a stylish silver/grey look and feels great in the hand. The phone feels great in the hand and the buttons are easy to use. Also gone are all the creaks and groans when opening and closing the StarTac. The only downside is the antenna. It's virtually unbreakable (unlike StarTac models) but it is still there unlike Nokia models. Tri-Band World Phone: The 280 is tri-band GSM technology so it works anywhere in the world with GSM. I personally have used the phone in the UK and China with no problems. GPRS: Now that Voicestream has GPRS, you can use this capability to have always on internet connection. WAP browsing is a breeze and you don't pay for the airtime anymore. Voice Activated Dialing: This is my favorite feature. Simply record a voice name and store on the phone (not the SIM). Then all you need to do is push a button and speak the name to dial the number. This is a great tool for dialing in traffic. Other benefits are long battery life and a bunch of cool accessories available at Motorola.com. The only downside I have found on this phone is that the backlight display isn't overly bright. Also, the phone display can be difficult to read when outdoors. All in all, this is a great business phone and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87853 2001/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 appearance pim voice activated dialing wap gprs gsm world phone trimode non flip dim backlight The Bottom LineThe first GPRS phone of its kind. It shines in the data, voice, and appearance departments. Full Review It's finally here. A 2.5G phone that uses GPRS for data access. Hence, you pay only for the amount of data you access, not for the time spent on line. Voicestream has introduced a couple of Motorolas for their newly launched IStream network, which utilize GPRS. One of their choices is the Motorola P280. APPEARANCE The Motorola P280 is professional in apperance, sporting a silver, metallic finish, with well placed, rubberized buttons on the keypad. It's similar in appearance to the Motorola 270c (Verizon) and the I85 (Nextel), although it's thinner and shorter than these two models. It boasts an ample number of lines in the display for internet browsing. However, its backlight needs some work. Plain and simple, it's dim. The display is greyscale, making it easier to read in the daylight. Also, the font size can be adjusted for easier reading. FEATURES In short, it has the following features: WAP browser; GPRS ready; voice-activated dialing; 500 name/number phonebook; 3 games, including Blackjack; full PIM; world phone/trimode (800/1800/1900 MHz), which means you can use it in 120 countries; voice memo; soft keys; a joystick to access the menu; PC synching (including software and cable); IrDA; and international power adaptors. PERFORMANCE The sound is exceptional, as it is with any GSM phone. I would argue that this phone, coupled with Voicesream's service, equal the sound quality of a landline phone. Despite Voicestream's lack of rural and suburban coverage, their local coverage and sound quality is incomparable. Not one other carrier I've used can surpass the quality of call I've experienced on Voicestream's network. With respect to reception, however, the P280 seems to struggle. Where I've used Ericsson and Samsung GSM model phones and have had excellent reception, the Motorola's reception is not as good. I'm debating whether or not it's much of a difference to switch to another model phone, but so far, I'm inclined not to. OVERALL I do prefer a flip style phone, such as the Ericssson T39, which offers all of the features the P280 has. However, Voicestream only supports the P280 and one other Motorola phone, currently, on their IStream GPRS network. The P280 is professional in appearance, and is a classic example of Motorola's excellent craftsmanship. It's truly a worldphone and a high speed data connection tool. For anyone who can appreciate GSM, GPRS, Motorola and Voicestream, then seriously consider this phone. It's a winner! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87852 2001/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tri band gprs fastinfrared ideal phone for businesspeopletravelers to get use with the menu sometimes seems a little bit strange The Bottom LineMotorola Timeport 280 is the excellent evolution of the Timeport 260 for ambitious businesspeople and travelers with its multi-functional properties GPRS, FastInfraRed and Tri-band. Full Review First: I have a Motorola Timeport 260 Handy, which is the mainly identical european model of the Timeport 280 Handy and which functions because of its triband technology in Europe as well in US and many other countries (survey available on your GPRS-Providers' website). Last but not least: I got my Timeport 260 from my German provider Viag Interkom for free combined with a two-years contract as it is use in Germany. What is the special advantage of the Timeport 260 respective the 280? Before we compare them to the other Motorola Handys or handys from other manufacturers we claim modern features for modern people who are highly aware of the need for multifunctional properties, which determine the three essential properties: Number one: FastInfraRed ==================== This Win98 included standard is the actually available most comfortable way to establish easy communication between your handy and your MiniNotebook respective between your MiniNotebook and your GPRS-Internet-Provider. Note: GPRS is the actual way of wireless internet-access and it already works fantastic, that means fast and cheap (In Europe with the provider Viag Interkom: no monthly basic fees; 5 Eurocent per 10 Kilobyte download, 20 Eurocent per day when GPRS was in use; Velocity of data transfer: 32 Kilobit per second, as the newest testing-result from a well known periodical: www.connect.de ). Motorola Handys V66: failure; Talkabout193, Timeport 260 and 280 all have the FastInfraRed feature. Number two: GPRS ======================================== A must for modern businesspeople and travellors. As in the statements above already mentioned GPRS actually is the cheapest and fastest way before the UMTS-ERA has begun... The very difference to that era is that GPRS (Global Packet Radio Service) is not fictionally but very alive available at low cost all over the world. The first GPRS-Handy available in Germany was the Motorola Timeport 260. GPRS allows for multi-tasking between voice calls and data calls. That means you can receive a phone call while surfing online - you don't have to get offline! V66, Talkabout193, Timeport 260 and 280 all have the GPRS feature. Number three: Tri-band ===================================================== To use your mobile phone as well in US and in most European countries you need a so called tri-band technology handy with the frequencies 900/1800/1900 MHz for GSM networks. Talkabout193: failure; V66, Timeport 260 and 280 all have the tri-band feature. Result: The mobile phones Timeport 260 and 280 have all three properties which make them the ideal choice for businesspeople and travellors around the world: Tri-band + GPRS + FastInfraRed. With my Timeport 260 (and so does the 280) I feel free on traveling to do banking, brokerage, mailing, messaging without nameworth restrictions. However be careful: to do surfing in the internet via GPRS with an other than a only-text-based-browser may be very expensive because of the volume-based pricing while to be online without transfering data doesn't cost anything (for example: watching your mail, charts, texts which are already downloaded). At least you better put off picture- and grafics-loading to reduce your surfing-costs. Many of the new features which presents the new Timeport 280 you can easily install yourself on your MiniNotebook, such as microbrowser, phone book, calendar entries, voice recorder. I have an IPC low cost-MiniNote PD 1000 (the same you could get from Palmax) which is in use over 5 years now without any problems. I suggest therefore trying to get an used T 260 instead a new 280 except you get it for free from your GSM-network provider (which is also your GPRS-provider at the same time). Talk time and standby time of that phone is sufficient. The menu of the Timeport 260 is not as comfortable as in nokia phones a fact often mentioned in German boards but I find that difference not so important because it is more a matter of habit and to get used. For details of the menu of the Timeport 280 which seems to be better please look at the very good reviews from rzajac11 and karentonyjake, who have been posted just a few days before. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1 + contract 87851 2000/10/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lots of features gprs gsm only fixed antenna The Bottom LineVery nice phone; I doubt anybody would be unhappy with it unless you wanted something really tiny or needed analog / TDMA. Full Review I've had a few phones over the years.. the last one was a Motorola TimePort as well but one that flipped open. It's hard to believe these two phones are from the same company, they're so different. The biggest difference is features. The previous one was a P8767, and while it was a decent phone, it had very few features. I've never really wanted a lot of features in a cell phone - as long as I can talk to people on it, it's doing it's job. But my company gave me the Timeport 280 and now, well, I'm getting into it. Here are some of the features I find interesting: - IrDA. It's got an infrared port on it that you can use to talk to a computer without having to actually connect it physically. This would be good if you had a laptop that also had IrDA; most desktops don't have it. - USB synchronization. You can dump the address book from your computer into the phone through a USB cable. This is fast, and it works well - and it's a whole lot better than typing hundreds contacts in. - Good SMS messaging support. I'm signed up for a few incoming message notifications, and the phone handles them pretty well. I get a louder unique beep when a message first arrives, and then quick beeps about every half hour letting me know there are messages waiting. - Some built-in toys: Three games, and a calculator. - Something they call iTAP that makes it a lot less painful using the little phone keyboard to send messages. When you get an SMS message from someone (MSN Messenger lets you send messages to a contact's cell phone if the person isn't at their computer, for example) you can reply to it on the phone. When typing a message, you just type out the word you want to say and iTAP tries to complete it for you - so if you wanted to write "Hello" you'd tap 4 2 and hit Select because the cursor would be on the "Hello" button. Words that aren't in the dictionary you have to type in the old fashioned way. - High resolution display (128x100), well lit. You can set the text mode to small and get a fair bit of text on the screen - good for reading those SMS news alerts. - Voice dialing. It's a novelty, sure, but when you take the time to set it up it's impressive. :) The phone is small, lightweight, and feels sturdy. Sound quality is okay, but being GSM only I think the coverage is slightly less than the dual or tri mode phones; I haven't travelled with it yet so I don't know how it will do outside town. This depends on the area you're in. My one little beef is the fixed antenna stub. I know this is common to a lot of phones but I carry my phone in my front pocket and the phone and antenna is just big enough to poke a hole in my pocket. Overall a nice phone - it's not going to knock your socks off but you're probably not going to miss any features either. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $99 7714 Motorola V2397 AMPS / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 87864 2000/8/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 signal strength motorola durability needs more rings before going to voicemail not adjustable The Bottom LineYou can't go wrong with this phone. And AT&T TDMA coverage is great, if you can put up with "iffy" customer service. Full Review Excellent call quality. Good headset jack. Good physical coverage nationally through AT&T. I bought Motorola because of their fine rep, and haven't been sorry. After 18 months of use, I have only failed to get a roaming signal on two occasions -- once when I was off-signal by just a few inches.... and once when I was truly out in the boonies. I suspect that even in the worst possible area, I could have completed my call with the help of a cell phone signal booster. This phone is quite durable, and has survived being dropped on numerous occasions. However, I keep it in a leather PDA case, which helps a bit. The included AC charger works beautifully, and will never overcharge your phone. Phone does get a little warm sometimes while charging, no biggie. Watch out for the Motorola car charger. I left my phone in the car, plugged in -- accidentally overcharged it -- and it behaved erratically for weeks. Eventually, the phone just "fixed itself" and started purring along just fine again. But I rarely plug in the car charger anymore unless it's to actually make a phone call. Physically, the v2397 backlit lcd screen is adequate, but a little bit too small. The case sort of cuts off the very edges of the screen. Forget about all the lovely colored covers, as they will obstruct the lcd even more! As far as usability, the on-screen setup menus are a bit limited and bulky -- but the buttons themselves are very simple to use. There are "up" and "down" buttons on one side of the phone and an "enter" button on the other side, which makes navigating through menus a breeze. This phone could use a few more options -- especially the ability to control the actual number of rings. (I need more time to answer my calls.) Motorola does offer an optional "auto answer" mode (like pushing a button to answer an incoming call, but it's done automatically) -- and a "push any button to answer" mode, but I still think this is the phone's biggest limitation. There's a "go to voicemail" button and an on-screen text messaging service (if your carrier offers it) -- but these don't work while roaming. Built in phone book is nice, and it can dial automatically for you; just hit Send. All in all, a pretty simple, and durable phone -- cost efficient for me with AT&T's Free to Go Plan, which even includes free voicemail. AT&T Customer Service has been less than optimal, so you might also want to consider a TracFone prepaid solution. But the Motorola v2397 phone has certainly pulled its weight for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 87863 2003/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap durable reliable phone with two way sms messagingvoice mail doesn t have all the bellswhistles of fancier phones no games or web browsing The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a cheap digital cell phone that has two-way SMS text messaging and voice mail capability, this is it but don't expect lots of features Full Review It's been years since I've owned and used a phone. The last one was those old analog phones in the old days of analog cell phone lines. Since I tend to travel around periodically to Vancouver to visit friends and relatives, I wanted to be able to keep in touch when in Vancouver. I started by browsing around the different cell phone providers that were available: Fido, Telusmobility and Bell Mobility. Since I don't use the cell phone too much, I needed to find a plan that suits my limited calling preference but still provides me with the security of having a cell phone for emergencies. Most cell phone providers have a pre-paid plan where I purchase a cell phone and then purchase a pre-paid card which allows me a certain amount of airtime or credit which I must use within a specified time frame. But the main problem was that I had to shell out around C$170 or more for the phone package, which includes the phone, some airtime and maybe some accessories (if I'm lucky). Being someone who wasn't going to use the phone all that much, it seemed pricey to pay over $170 so that I have the security of a cell phone. So, I continued to look for an alternative and then stopped at a Radioshack which sold the services of Rogers AT&T Wireless. As luck would have it, they had a sale of the Rogers AT&T Wireless Pay As You Go package which included the Motorola V2397 digital cell phone, the NiMh AAA batteries, 2 cell phone "wraps", a belt clip, a travel charger, and a hands free headphone which is handy when driving. The regular price was C$199.99 or something like that and they were then on sale for $49.99, a $150.00 discount! Along with the accessories, it came with an automatic $20 credit upon activation of the cell phone and a mail in credit rebate for an additional $25 credit. So, that meant that I was really only paying $5 for the whole package! What a deal! So, after a bit of thinking, I got it, it being the last one that they had in stock. Let's not kid ourselves about this phone. Although its regular price is almost $200, it isn't a bells and whistles phone that most of my friends or relatives have. It is a digital phone that serves its purpose well and has a bit of features that other cheap digital phones might not have. So, if you're looking for the latest and greatest cell phone, this definitely is not it. But, if you're looking for a cheap but dependable cell phone, you might be interested in this. The Motorola v2397 is a TDMA dual band (operates on 800/1900 Mhz frequency bands), dual-mode (supports both digital TDMA 800/1900Mhz and analog 800Mhz networks) digital PCS phone, which means that it can seamlessly operate on both analog and digital networks while you're travelling. Here's a list of the features of this phone: -Two-way text messaging SMS capable which allows you to send and receive text messages to and from your SMS capable cell phone -Other SMS capable wireless device or computer via the internet can send email to your cell phone. Your cell phone's email address could be something like: 1234567890@pcs.cellularnetwork.com -use ICQ to send and receive instant messages to other ICQ users via their computers or SMS capable wireless device -email phone book which allows you to add email address to the phone book to allow for quick access to send out text messages -phone book which allows up to 99 entries of name and phone number -Quick notes scratchpad which stores text that you can create, edit, add, delete or send -pager mode which (if available by your provider) can allow you to suppress voice mail and phone calls to receive pages just a regular pager -voice mail (if available by your provider) can store up to 10 3 minute messages and can be set up to answer calls when the phone is off, unanswered or if you're currently on another call -caller id (if available by your provider) can allow you to view who's calling before you answer the call -up to 30 caller id received calls (if caller id available) can be retrieved from memory -up to 20 last number dialed can be retrieved from memory -multiple call timers with alerts which can be helpful in alerting you if the call is getting close to a minute, for those on the "billed by minute plans" or at other personally set times -9 different ring tones, which can be set for specific callers or numbers, to allow you to distinguish between who is calling -pause dialing for answering machines or phone card dialing -keypad lock to prevent accidental dialing -quiet keypad can be set if you don't wish phone to sound when pressing the keys -illuminated keypad and backlight for a few seconds when pressing the keypad to allow for better night use or in dark areas -large message button for one touch access to voice or text message -time and date can automatically be updated by the cellular provider -multiple language support - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Hebrew, Russian -hands free headset with clip on microphone allows for safe cell phone use while driving or otherwise occupied (of course, it's better to end the call quickly when driving) -up to 100 minutes of continuous talk time in digital mode and up to 60 minutes of talk-time in analog mode -up to 110 hours of standby time in digital mode and 24 hours of standby time on analog mode -low battery warning The best feature of this phone is the Two-way SMS (text messaging) feature, which allows you to send out text message of up to 125 characters to any SMS capable wireless device, an email address or an ICQ user. And, since it's two way, it means, you can also receive text messages back on your cell phone from any internet mailing program, from the cell phone provider's text messaging web site, or from a web based email web site. I find this handy when I can't get a hold of someone on their cell phone and I send them a text message to let them know where to meet me or call me. Depending on whether your cellular provider "blocks" your phone number from being displayed, if it's blocked, most times, the recipient of the call won't know who called. Having the SMS capability helps in such situations. I usually compose and create a few messages that I store in my phone that I use when I need to so that I won't have to spend the time to individually key in a message character by character when I need to. That's where the phone's Quicknotes or scratchpad comes in handy. I just recall the message I want to send and away it's sent. One other thing about having the two-way SMS capability is that I can now subscribe to free wireless SMS news updates and alerts from news providers such as www.cbc.ca, www.msn.com, my.yahoo.com and others. So, even though I don't have web access, I can still keep updated on news periodically according to specific times I've set at their web sites. That makes me feel a bit better because I always want to be updated on the latest news. Now I can, even without a web access phone. Since the Rogers AT&T Pay As You Go plan allows me to receive text messages for free, it won't cost me a thing. The disadvantages of this phone would be: -it doesn't vibrate like many other cell phones do (although once when I borrowed someone else's vibrating phone, I was uncomfortable with the vibration that I got a bit of a shock from it the first time) -it is not web enabled so I can't access the web to check for real time scores, weather, etc -it doesn't have much ringtones to choose from. 9 really isn't enough to choose from and I can't download additional ringtones that other fancier phones can -the phone book is quite a simple one. You can only input the name and the phone number. There is no expanded folders to sort the entries or allow notes for each entry -it doesn't have a calendar -it doesn't have an alarm -it can't play games (although I really don't want to play games on my cell phone anyways) -it isn't GSM capable so I can't travel around the world with it nor can I utilize the GSM networks available in North America -it doesn't have a voice activation dialing -it doesn't have a speakerphone -without the "wrap" on, the phone is a bit slippery and can easily be dropped -the wrap colors are ugly and don't serve much purpose except to make the phone easier to handle and sort of protect it As a budget priced phone, it provides pretty much what I wanted. The entire package includes the cell phone, hands free microphone clip on headset, belt clip, two phone "wraps" (blue & orange), battery charger. Considering that I was paying C$49.99 for a package that also included C$45 worth of airtime, I'm only paying $5 for the entire package. Of course, this was a special deal that I was lucky enough to take advantage of. The phone seemed durable, although without the wrap, can be quite slippery and could very easily be dropped onto the floor. The belt clip could be easily attached to the phone and seemed sturdy enough to hold the phone but due to my previous encounter with belt clips on my Motorola T5200 talkabout FRS radio dropping on me, I didn't want to take a chance. I was fortunate enough to get a free leather case with belt clip from a friend which fit the phone quite nicely. And so, now, the phone fits snugly in its leather case and I can feel comfortable knowing that it won't fall. The hands free headset is great and with it attached to the phone, I can feel much more at ease when driving or just outdoors without having to hold the phone. I might look a bit stupid talking to a microphone but I can hear the other end much better, even in very noisy environments. Even without the headset, the other party could always be heard clearly. I never had to adjust anything to improve the reception. The message button is a nice feature since many other phones don't have a "message" button but rather have you go through the menu button and scroll through the maze of options to get there. If I get a message or if I want to send a message, I just click on that message button and then select whether I want voice mail or text message and away I go. The phone is very lightweight, but then almost all phones are nowadays. I would have preferred more ring tones to choose from since many phones nowadays have those fancy tunes rather than a phone "ringer" tone. But then, this isn't a bells and whistles phone. The other thing I didn't like about the phone was that the Send and End buttons are reversed. Usually on most other phones, the Send is on the left and the End is on the right. It's been several weeks since I got the phone and I still keep getting confused. This being a TDMA phone, has both an advantage and a disadvantage. As Rogers AT&T is the only TDMA network provider in Canada, you're stuck with Rogers. Also, since Rogers AT&T is now more concentrating their efforts in expanding their GSM (850/1900mhz) network across Canada, TDMA is essentially stuck where it is and its network won't be expanded. Since GSM is the big hype and the "cool" thing nowadays, there is less emphasis on TDMA phones and network. But, let's not forget that you can roam on analog networks in areas where there is no digital TDMA coverage. That might be very useful for those who live and frequent rural areas where GSM is not available. With GSM, if there is no coverage, you're stuck. And, also with the flood of TDMA phone users going over to GSM, that also means that there is less traffic on the TDMA network and you are much less likely to experience busy signals and probably better reception which can occur with a congested GSM network. Personally, I obviously own both a TDMA phone (Motorola V2397)on Pay As You Go plan and a GSM phone (Nokia 3590) on monthly billing. So, when I'm travelling, I take both phones so that I can still have access to the phone network if I happen to travel to where there is no digital GSM coverage. So, I have the best of both worlds, in Canada, anyway, since neither of my phones are world phones. But then, if I travel overseas, I could very easily go rent a phone and not deal with the hassles of configuring the phone, getting SIM cards and prepaid airtime, etc. And with it being a Rogers AT&T phone, provided that you buy the phone from an official Rogers AT&T wireless store or a Rogers Video store, there is a 30 day return policy. Provided that you don't use more than 30 minutes of airtime and 150kbytes of wireless data (GPRS for GSM phones) and return the phone within 30 days, you can cancel out of the contract without any penalties. Just pay for whatever airtime, long distance and data usage during the time you owned it and you can walk away from the contract. Otherwise, you have to pay $20 for each month remaining in your contract to a maximum of $200. So, if you find out that you're not happy with the phone, the network coverage and reception, you can always get out. But remember that this is a Rogers AT&T wireless policy. If you purchase the phone from Radioshack, Futureshop, Staples, etc, they may have a different return policy in place. You may be subject to a re-stocking fee or other fees or maybe even not be able to return it. Please take the time to ask the dealer what their returns policy is before you buy the phone and sign the contract because you might be stuck with a 2 year contract and a phone you don't want. There's also a cell phone forum called Howards Forums which has a vast selection of handset reviews by Howard Chiu and also has forums devoted to cell phones and cell phone providers, including Rogers AT&T. Check it out at: http://www.howardforums.com The V2397 has a pair of buttons on the left side of the phone which toggles between menu selections as well as a "smart" button located on the right side, which is essentially a "select" button. That kind of makes it a bit different from other cell phones since they usually have all the buttons on the face. I would have really loved to have the web enable feature for this phone so that I could access real time info and maybe even use the phone as a modem for my laptop like many other fancier digitial phones, but then, this is almost a no-frills phone so I really can't complain. Maybe next phone I get, I'll go for one with the speakerphone, web access, downloadable ring tones, etc....Sigh. The phone comes with a one year warranty. Thanks as always for taking the time to read and rate my review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 31.50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7715 Motorola V70 GSM / EGSM Cellular Phone 87866 2003/9/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 innovative design screen too small This phone is absolutely great! The sleek style and design makes up for the lack of a color screen. The menu is easy to maneuver through and the circular motion of the swivel makes it easy to answer calls. The applications segment of the menu offers a number of features like checking the WEATHER of various places and much more! The phone is a bit small though and the screen could have been bigger. Motorola really did a good job this time! Go out and buy it, its GREAT! (PS The ultimate phone would be this same design with a color screen and a camera!). 87865 2005/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very small light weight flashy durable reliable battery starts to die after about a year but is easily replaced I have had my v70 for almost a year now and it is the best phone I have ever had! It gets a lot of attention from people because there are not very many people in my area that have v70s. I have never had a problem with my phone, but the battery is starting to loose some of it's charge. The only complaint I have heard from anyone is that the keys are too small to be used by someone with big fingers. 7716 Motorola V2297 Phone 87886 2000/1/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 it has a am fm radio that you can listen to with ear piece plus there s no games it s plain ugly can t always retrieve missed calls The Bottom LineThere are other phones out there that are more convenient this just isn't worth it unless you only use your cell phone sporadically. Full Review I originally bought a Nokia 5190 it was stolen I bought an Ericson It was stolen I bought a Nokia 5190 I lost it I bought A Motorola V2297 I misplaced it I bought a Nokia 5190. See a pattern here? At this point it is probably unnecessary to embellish but just for good measure I'll tell you why. The main reason why I have a cell phone is because I get frantic if I feel like people that need me can't reach me. But if my phone or ringer is off many times I can not retrieve who called me if I didn't actually answer the call. The conspicuous lack of phone calls led me to do my own experiments. The phone is small the reception was often down and the charge didn't seem to last long enough. I found the info in the found difficult to retrieve such as phone numbers which are not stored alphabetically but by the sequence you store them in which sucks except you can dial the persons position # and hit call and it will dial automatically if you can't remember the position number oh well you have to scroll through all of the numbers in their random sequence. Worst of all with this phone is THERE'S NO CLOCK and guess what? If there was a clock it was impossible to find how to display it. So I hardly get missed call #'s and when I do there is no time stamp. Not good guys. As you read above I am a undying fan of the Nokia phones so yes I'm partial to my original phone. The reason why I strayed from it in the first place is because when you lose a phone often you are unwilling to pay top dollar for another one so you opt for a cheaper phone for the convenience of having one at all. That is what happened here the phone was inexpensive but really wasn't not worth sacrificing quality for but I do miss the radio. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40 87885 2000/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size lightweight stylish unreliable voice mail alert The Bottom LineThis phone is great for a teenager who loves to be in fashion, keep in touch with their friends, and not have to lug around a huge phone! Full Review To start with, the phone is very light, and the size is compact enough to fit comfortably in a small purse. It won't fit into a pocket like some folding phones, but the size is commendable. It's stylish appearance and size is what initially drew my attention to the phone. It is unique to most cellular phones out there. Depending on the location and company the phone is purchased from, the price ranges from around 70 to 130. Voice-mail, caller id, text messaging, individual ring tone (an individual ring for a certain person), pager mode, and a phone book, are all available with this phone. There are no musical phone tones, such as Beethoven's Fur d'lise, but the tone options (9 choices)are good enough. The battery lasts a decent amount of time, when simply left on. Once calls are made repeatedly, the battery starts to run out quite quickly. One thing I do not like is when the battery goes to low after making a couple of phone calls. Although a plus is that when the phone is shut off, it rejuvenates itself quite quickly. The most unattractive feature of this phone, was the voice mail. True, it does have nice options with choice of number, saving messages, etc, but the alert of a voice-mail is highly unreliable. Half of the time, you have to check it when you turn it back on because it won't show the small envelope to alert of new messages. The message window itself is rather small compared to many wireless phones, but if that is not a problem this phone is great! The availability and service is quite clear, with the number of bars of service being shown much larger than most phones. Clarity of this phone is not overly wonderful; average for most phones. The amount of static heard on the phone is minimal, but the party on the other end often has a hard time hearing the speaker. The volume of the earpiece is not adjustable, although the volume of the ring is. Overall, this phone is a great buy for someone who wants a lot of options in a stylish phone. Especially recommended for teenagers who want to keep in touch with friends, or need to call their parents when they are going to be late! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 87884 2002/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 ease of use navigating the phone directory loud initial ringer volume saving numbers in the directory The Bottom LineNo-frills phone for the money. Full Review I upgraded from a ancient Nokia 2160 to this model a couple of months ago. I average probably about 70% business use and 30% personal use. It's an unfair comparison, but this phone just crushes the Nokia: voice quality, weight, menu layout, etc. Pros: I've found that the battery life of the three included NiMh batteries to be excellent both for talk-time and standby mode. Charging off of the supplied car cigarette lighter adapter keeps this phone charged very well. The supplied hands-free unit works well as well. Cons: When you get this phone, you'll need to adjust the ringer volume down. This isn't very intuitive to say the least (I've forgotten how to do this, or I would have imparted the trick). Also, when your phone directory gets kind of full, saving new entries can be a pain. It requires a numeric position for saving, and if that numeric position is already used up, you have to select another. Since the phone directory is sorted by name anyway, I'm not sure why the phone has a hangup with the numeric position. It should just take another number off the stack and assign it automatically. All in all, other posters are correct in knocking the screen size and the usefulness of this phone for business. I view this phone as a transition phone anyway until some of the new technology comes about. The current cell phones being offered are really not the end all be all in web access, PIM integration, etc. So I'll just wait this technology curve out until the vendors get through their current planned obsolesence cycle. If you can get this phone for cheap, or bundled with your calling plan, then this is a decent phone to have. UPDATE: 1/22/02 Just upgraded to the Kyocera QCP-6035 Palm phone. Granted, comparing this phone to the Motorola is like comparing a Porsche to a Chevette, but here goes: 1. I got the Kyocera for $80 after all of the rebates. I paid about the same for the Motorola. 2. The clarity of a Verizon's CDMA network is just leaps and bounds better than AT&T's TDMA. 3. Feature-set between the two phones? No comparison of course. I get all of my contacts from Outlook available in the palm phone, and if I need to change anything in the Palm, they sycnh back to my PC. The really cool things are the ability to voice-dial to your contacts and to change the startup graphics to whatever you desire. Replace the default Sprint or Verizon startup branding!! I'm downgrading the Motorola's clarity and at this point can only recommend it if the PAY YOU to own the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49 87883 2000/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 accessories easy to obtain features price availability hard to use some features The Bottom LineI'd reccomend this phone to anyone. Its great, and it was easy to find accessories for it. Just be careful with that manual! Full Review I bought this phone about 6 months ago when my nokia died (I wrote an opinion about that one too. I bought it from AT&T because I like their service plan (I hope to write an opinion about that). Its a great phone. It has every feature I wanted, except vibrate for when I'm in meetings, but the only way to get that is to spend 250+ which I wasn't willing to do. I can store tons of numbers and choose from lots of ring tones and it came with a faceplate which was pretty cool. (although it also came with a card to mail for a free faceplate and I still haven't gotten that). My main problem was learning how to use a lot of the features because the manual is almost impossible to understand. Now, bear in mind, I'm a techie. I read technical manuals everyday...and yet I still couldnt' get my voicemail to work without going back to the AT&T store where I bought it and accosting the sales person who sold it to me! All in all its a great phone, but I suggest having the sales person show you how everything works before you purchase it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 87882 2000/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 durable easy to find counter intuitive bad earpiece badly designed big no games The Bottom LineBig, clunky, and bad design hinder the Motorola from being a useful portable phone. Full Review I got my first cell phone as a graduation present, I was so happy, I couldn't wait for my brand new cell to arrive. Well it did, and I have to say I was disappointed. I usually never read manuals, and with most things electronic, I rarely have to, but with the Motorola, I had to read it four or fives times just to grasp the basic concepts. First of all, the whole design is counter-intuitive. The Nokia cellular phones have considerably less buttons than the Motorola, yet it is a lot more accessible and streamlined. The Nokia's controls are easy to learn, and they are very convenient. Motorola on the other hand seems to have a button for each function, except the ones that you want easy access to. You have to press various buttons around 9 times, just to input a number into your phone book. Some buttons are just used one time, when they could be used for other functions as well. The menu is clunky and rather confusing. And there are no games, and you can't even jot down quick notes on it. The phone is also pretty big for being a portable phone and the you have to have your ear in a certain position to hear the person on the other line clearly. All in all, not the greatest phone on the face of the earth, the buttons are easy to use, but other than that, forget it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 87881 2000/4/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice switching cover feature cool design buttons are not in the most convenient places The Bottom LineFree phone + no activation fee + 29.99 / month for 1200 minutes of talk time = a MUST buy deal. Full Review I recently got an offer from MCI WorldCom (like many other people) to get a cell phone. Since I have been hesitant to get a cell phone because of the pricing packages and cost, I agreed since this offer waived the activation fee and didn't cost anything other than around $30 each month. When I got the phone, I was surprised at how many features this free phone had. Including two different color covers (pink and blue) the phone had a nice style and many features to the extent I have not found use for some of them still. Once the novelty of having a cell phone finally wore off, I did notice that the buttons were arranged slightly inconveniently with the directional buttons for the menu also being either the volume control buttons or the * and # buttons...which could be slightly confusing. Also, the "Smart" button used is way off the face of the phone, which made it take a little time to get used to. Still, the phone had many good features, other than the lack of a vibrate mode; it could use digital or analog and generally had good reception. All in all I'm glad I got it and now I have a cheap cell phone with many uses and it's cool look is still commented on today. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87880 2000/8/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 web enabled affordable durable nice physical design decent battery life very bad phone menu bad software design bad options The Bottom LineI would only recommend this phone to someone looking for a reasonably priced phone with web ready features. Otherwise, I would suggest staying away from it. Full Review Being a Nokia fanatic, I had purchased several Nokia's in the past and loved them all. I switched to a new local provider and decided to take chance and go with their only available web enabled phone at the time. This seemed attractive and the price was right. Being the adventurous type I purchased this phone and it all went down hill from there. Getting used to the menus and features of the phone to this day, 6 months + after purchasing it, is still very cumbersome. The design of the phone software is very poor and not easily accessible. This may be due to the fact I was used to the Nokia type of interface, but then again i don't think it should require several menu prompts to simply see the number of the last missed caller etc... The only upsides I see on this phone would be the durability of the phone itself and the web ready features. I have dropped this phone so many times it is hard to even make remember, it even fell off my friends 2nd floor balcony on to cement and only the battery fell out of the phone, nothing broke. It was quite impressive to see that type of durability, and we all know how often cell phones fall on the ground! This phone is also web enabled, allowing you to access the internet and various internet-based services you're provider may be offering. The screen is small and makes for much clicking through menus to get to something, but I guess that is a limitation for most cell phones and their whole mobile physical aspect. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 87879 2001/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 phone book voice mail button ease of use style phone wraps none yet The Bottom LineAn overall great phone! Full Review I purchased this cellphone a couple days ago at a local 7-Eleven (yeah, keep laughing). I've always wanted a cellphone, but I can't handle the monthly bills, annual contracts, and the long commitments. This phone is geared to be used (in my case) with AT&T's Free-2-Go Prepaid Wireless service. You can buy $25, $50, $100, and $200 cards to refill the minutes on your phone. First of all, the phone looks cool. You can buy other "Phone Wraps" to change the colour accent. These flimsy pieces of plastic are liable to break when they are not on your phone, so be careful storing them. But when they are on the phone, they protect the corners and sides from bumps and scratches. If this one gets too banged up, I'll have no problem dropping another $10 for a wrap. At least I won't have to buy a new phone. This is really a basic cellphone for any teen (like me!) or young adult. The features are basic: Phone book, lock, 9 different rings, variable ring and earpiece volumes. You can even select which network you are using. Though, I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. In my short association with this phone, it has shown me good promise. The signal meter never drops below 3 of 5 squares, and the battery life is excellent. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87878 2000/12/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 style not overloaded with useless features external antenna accessories not available Full Review This phone fell into my lap due to some horrific problems dealing with a new nation wide plan from my provider(Southwestern Bell mobile systems). The company didn't have all their technology up to speed when they began this new no roaming no long distance plan. So I got stuck being the lab rat. The phone performs OUTSTANDING when used in very remote locations. It has the best reception and clarity of any dual band (800mhz analog and digital and 1900mhz digital) phone I have used. It doesn't have a bunch of features that I will never use like games (who cares the games on most phones are stupid anyway)and e-mail (which again I think is useless since I use a laptop on the road). I had no problems learning to use the menu, as a matter of fact I found the menu incredibly easy. Now, with all that said, I still think Motorola dropped the ball on this phone. They had a great design with the right amount of features and then made a battery charger for the car an afterthought (had to wait a month for a mobile cord). Also they STILL haven't made an external antenna adapter that fits their own jack, not to mention that the batteries ARE NOT AAA batteries, the AAA that i tried are not long enough so they wouldn't fit. You have to order the batteries through Motorola. Everything being said I am very pleased with this phone just disappointed with the availability of accessories. One last point that needs to be magnified, I drive a truck for a living, and am sometimes 100 or more miles from another human being (which has its advantages hehe) and I have been using this phone without an external antenna from the inside of my metal cab with little dropped calls and very little interference. I highly recommend this phone!!!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 87877 2001/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small stylish dependable no games does not display the current time no vibration ringer option The Bottom LineI've been very happy with this phone. It has been reliable and fun to use. Full Review I never thought I would get a compliment on my cell phone, but that is exactly what's happened with the V2297 from Motorola. For starters, my friends think it looks pretty cool with the blue rubber cover and the "peanut" shape. Also, I have had very few dropped calls (which, in my area, is a miracle) and the call clarity has been great. Plus, the batteries provide a good amount of talk time and standby time. The phone was free with my service agreement with Ameritech. I figured I'd get a cheaply made phone with the deal, but this phone has ended up providing me with everything I need. It is small enough for my purse, has easy-to-use options and menus, and is very lightweight. Selecting options is made easy with a "smart" button located on the right side of the phone. Voice mail is easily accessible with a button clearly marked with an envelope. Since this is my first cell phone, I was worried it would take me forever to figure out how to use the darn thing. But that hasn't been the case at all. The only limitations come with the absence of games (I don't need the distraction anyway) and a clock. Also, a vibration ringer would be a nice feature. Some of the great features include autodialing (just hold down a single button, from 01 to 09, to place a call to the phone number listed in that position of your phone book), a 99-number phone book, assigning an individual ringer style (nine different ringer choices) to a phone book entry, and both digital and analog capabilities. There is also a text messaging option, but that was not part of my service agreement. Just for kicks, you can even change the language setting, so that you can view the phone's menus in Russian (or 8 other languages). Who needs games with a feature like that? The bottomline: This is a great little phone that is affordable and often comes free with many contracts. It provides me with everything I really need, plus some "extras" that make it even more appealing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 87876 2001/1/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 functional design condom like covers to change its looks buttons are super small menus are like programming a vcr The Bottom LineIf you want a phone that you can change its looks just like a Barbie, buy this one. Full Review After my sister executed my Nokia by throwing it into my console cup holder that was filled with Coke from a Wendy's cup that had an explosion (ever notice Wendy's cups ALWAYS fall apart in your console?), I had to purchase a new cell phone. When I was in the local Ameritech (which is now Cingular and has the WORST service ever), I decided to try the funky new Motorola V series phone. Priced in line with the others (around $150), I decided to give it a whirl. Okay, I admit it I bought it because you can change it's casing with a condom like rubber appliance that just wraps around the exterior of the phone. It brings a whole new meaning to wrap that rascal!!! Anyways, after having a Qualcomm, Nokia and this Motorola I must say that this has been the best phone so far. Even considering Ameritech's (now Cingular)lousy service in my area. One of its coolest features is how you can set it up to ring in different tones when one of your saved numbers is calling. It comes in handy when your wife or husband is calling and you really don't feel like stopping at the store on the way home from work. The only complaint (besides the Orange condom that comes with it {why can't it be a cool color like purple?}) that I have is that this phone has super small buttons that are hard to navigate if your nails are long. Likewise, the menus to set up your options are designed for engineers. Also, there are no cutesie rings on it - just a variety of standard rings. I would say that it is a good value for the money but don't expect it to play the Mexican Hat dance when it rings! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87875 2000/3/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 digital capable color choice small design expanded phone book slim antenna angled to reduce radiation belt clip has tendency to put phone in awkard anglesplaces no vibe option The Bottom LineHighly recommended for young, broke business professionals, teenager, casual or full-time cellulor users. A wonderful first phone. Low price and high quality make it top pick for new cell phones. Full Review I recently had the interesting experience of trading up from my beloved Startac 6000, an analog cellular phone to the v2297. The change wasn't willingly, let me tell you. Anyone who has read my epinion on the StarTac knows the high regard in which I hold it. The only reason I changed at all is that my beautiful 10 month old son had gotten his hands on it and decided to see how it tasted. Failing to consume it, he used it as a tool...a hammer to be precise, pounding at the floor. When I took it to my friendly neighbourhood tech, he told me there was drool in the phone, and bent metal pieces inside. There was nothing he could do. After looking over my choices, I choose the motorola, partially out of brand loyalty, partially out of a dislike for the other options. The first thing that one noticed about this phone was it's rather aerodynamic design. Not a sharp corner anywhere on it. A fact I found appealing. It also came in a nice white colour, with two additional slip-on covers in orange and blue. Though I find the covers both cumbersome and a bit ugly, the option of having them is nice. Like the startac, this phone has its antenna angled AWAY from the head when in use, which reduces the radiation you are exposed to while talking. The antenna can be pulled out, but I've yet to need to, as the reception when it is in is exceptional. It expanded alot on the abilities of the Analog StarTac. The phone book, while still 99 entries, now had the ability to associate *4* phone numbers per entry. The display is far superior to anything else available around here. The phone itself, I've been told, is the loudest ringing phone to be found. A bonus for people like me who like loud music when driving. In comparison this phone is exactly like the StarTac Digital (the later models with the web browser) Except it does not have a vibrate option or flip. The web browser is quick for it's type and easy to use and navigate. The email system is the same. The screen displays the text at a good size. I've even sent a short email message from the phone with little difficulty. Sound clarity is excellent. Talking on digital is far superior to talking on analog. The only downsides are for people who are not on digital you are talking to. Depending on the system you are on (The cellular provider) they may experience time delay (about half a second), and they may hear a tiny sound the background that sounds like running water. It is slight however and far better than listening to the static of analog. The real selling point for me was partially the phone and partially my cellular provider. I was able to get it for $30 down and $5 a month (Canadian). For a man on a tight budget who needs his phone it was a god send. The StarTac Digital would have been ALOT more down for me. Additional points are the 'last ten numbers dialed' memory, making it easier to remember the number you dialed ten minutes ago. It also includes Caller ID. My service provider gives that to me free so I have been enjoying it. It includes the standard 9 rings most Motorola phones have. The NiMH batteries last about 3 times as long in the digital mode than any analog phone will (Though if in an analog area your batteries will drain just as fast as any other analog) The few cons of this phone include: The belt clip can rotate the phone to an awkard angle. I have made calls accidentally while driving because the clip left a button pressed into my seatbelt buckle. It doesn't flip, which is a nice idea, as it makes it easier to answer. And it doesn't Vibrate. Not a big deal for me, but some people like that option. In final analsis I would recommend this phone in general. It's small size makes it easy to carry, it's antenna makes it safe to use, and it's quality and price make it a bargain. I would suggest this phone for first time cell users or old hands. A teenager would get alot out of this. People with the right service provider can also get text messages between phones and voice mail. On a side note, the one time my son got his hands on this phone, it didn't even bleep. It is a strong little phone. Well constructed with a more solid housing than the StarTac (BTW: An hour after I got home, my StarTac came back to life. It is now the property of my thrilled wife) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 + $5/mth 87874 2001/1/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 power features functionality cost the display needs to be bigger The Bottom LineIf you have great eye sight and don't mind a tiny display this phone will perform for you! Full Review I am revising the following opinion to include these new facts. I returned this phone to the retailer because it was almost impossible to read the tiny LCD display. In the daylight it would be washed out by sunlight and at night it was to dark. In particular the edges would hide information and I would have to angle the phone to read each side of the display. Other than these changes the review remains essentially correct. The Motorola V2397 cell phone performs beyond my expectations. If you want power, functionality and a plethora of features then buy this unit! I wanted the best! A durable, dependable, high-powered cell phone that would eliminate all the cellular "black holes" I encounter in my neck of the woods. I also wanted to have complete email capabilities-send and receive. When I received my Motorola V2397 I was extremely pleased that this unit really filled the bill! It is jam packed with features: phone book, note pad, email capabilities both sending and receiving (up to about 1200 characters), message alert, and a re-dial feature that rings you when the phone finally exits a "dead" zone. I was extremely please with the ear volume control. I drive a soft-top Jeep and I need as much volume as possible. I was also extremely dis-satisfied with the LCD display and indicators. Every function is somewhat visible, albeit small! These features include signal strength, digital vs. analog reception, plus icons that stand for received voice or email receipts. The unit cost $79.00 with a $30.00 rebate from Motorola. The phone was offered as a promotion from my cellular carrier ATT. Good deal! It included three rechargeable batteries, a plug in re-charger and I bought an options auto cigarette lighter charging unit. I like the phone book feature. First it allows me to decide at what location I want to enter a phone number. For example, family and friends in the selection from 01 to 10, business number from 30 to 40 and so on. The phone book is also available simply by pushing a "diamond" button on the side of the phone. Finally, stand-by time is extremely good. I haven't had the opportunity to test the limits. I get way to many calls. I can say this. On one charge I can talk about 2 days for my volume of calls. You might be less. There is a problem with this phone. The display is way to small. Often times I find myself holding the phone up to catch the light to read what is happening. Rugged? This phone has already experienced a big bump and it didn't miss a beat! I dropped it on a hard surface and it survived! That's excellent for me! I hate dropping my cellular phone but it happens. Now I know the Motorola V2394 can survive! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 87873 2001/3/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 cheap not easy to use awful lcd display ugly The Bottom LineWhy would you want to buy this thing? Do you like antiques? Full Review Have you heard the news lately? Motorola will be forced to lay off thousands of workers due to financial problems. This may come as a shock for some, but given the fact they haven't really tried improving their products one least bit such news are very understandable. I've used this cell phone on many trips. It is the phone my employee "lends" me when I travel abroad as a courrier (which is once a week). The obvious reason why this phone was bought is that it came for free with the plan subscription. What I don't understand is why the heck they didn't select a Nokia phone, which also could have been obtained for free! My first complaint against this phone is that it's definitely not user-friendly. Unlike the Nokia interface, which is intuitive and can be figured out in 5 seconds, this one takes some time to get used to. Studying the manual is even necessary, even for those used to several kinds of cell phones! Then comes the display. The letters are extremely thin and hard to read. The screen contrast doesn't help either, since the characters look pale. Unless you're in ideal light conditions, you'll find it uncomfortable to read from the screen. The display actually reminds me of my old Nokia 8810 (which is so old, and it never even got to the States). One positive thing I can say about this phone is that its ruggedness has impressed me. I've dropped it tens of times (on these trips I'm always running from side to side... think about the Tom Hanks in Castaway before the crash - that's me doing my job) and it's never gotten a scratch. Funnily enough this phone is quite light, but then - surprise! - it's so bulky that it cancels out its weight. It's more than twice the size of the Nokia 8260 (my own private phone, which I love). Don't even start thinking it has anything so close to a vibrating ring tone. It would be simply useless since it hardly even fits in trousers pockets. Battery life is okay, but not spectacular. It's already better than the StarTacs 50h of standby, but still far from many of the current Nokias. The reception is okay, but then, I haven't been outside of densely populated areas with it, so I couldn't tell how it performs. There are some less relevant issues, but which come to play nonetheless. First, this phone is real ugly, and there aren't interchangeable covers. Second, there are not many ring tones, and most of them are sound pretty bad. All in all, a pretty mediocre phone. It's okay if you get it for free, but if you have the choice, go for something else! The only excusable reason to buy this phone would be out of solidarity for the poor workers which are being fired. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.99 87872 2000/2/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good price good sound versatile accessories heats up after about 15 minutes talk time The Bottom LineGreat shape, great look, great sound, great price, great phone. Full Review Yep, if you get the sales pitch on this phone the sales rep is likely to call it a peanut (because of its shape). I giggled in my head when the sales rep asked a technician to program the peanut for her. I bought this phone a couple of days ago and my one regret is that I don't live in an area that has digital "Pay as you go". I live in Sudbury, Nickel Capital of the world and they don't call it that for nothing. It is too darn Rocky up here and the entire city is inside a basin. Needless to say if I want to take advantage of the digital services I have to get a monthly plan, which as a student I can't afford. If I could this phone has everything, web access, email access, a large number storage, many different faces and soft rubber covers to change its look, and most importantly it really fits in the palm of your hand nicely. When I am in the car, I use the headset for this phone which works great and doesn't effect my attention to my driving. I have an analog Pay-as-you go service on the phone which isn't bad. When I take the phone to Toronto, I switch to digital pay-as-you-go and can access my email which I find is kind of neat, but not too practical for me. The sound on the analog service isn't the greatest but it is good enough to have a half decent phone conversation. The battery life on stand-by is about 10 hours and that is about a third more if you go on digital service. I wouldn't recommend a cell phone in general to anyone that lives in a mountainous region because you will find too many places where your phone is useless. I am currently on a 1 cent per minute plan on weekends with 35 cents a minute any other time. My main use for the phone during the week is for short message calls and emergencies. One problem I have found with this phone is that it gets rather hot after talking on it for 15 minutes or more. I have nothing to compare that to but I found it wierd, its no big deal though. All in all this is a great cell phone. Thank you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87871 2000/3/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight haven t found any yet The Bottom LineGreat phone, Light, Durable, Just Enough. Full Review My old cell phone finally died, it was a slow, painful death, and it sent me in search of a new cell phone. I didn't want to spend alot, and don't necessarily need alot of features. The minute I saw this phone before even knowing anything about it I loved the look of it !! It just has a "cool" look to it....very stylish I think. Then I picked it up and it felt so light I thought that surely it could not possibly have the battery on, when I was informed that in fact it did. This isn't your typical cell phone battery that essentially covers the entire back of your phone. Instead you have three Triple A size NmH batteries !!! They are fully chargeable and everything just like their counter parts. I can't tell you about replacement price obviously since I just purchased the phone, but hopefully it won't be anything too bad. The phone I had before this one did have a few more features, but they are ones that I really didn't use, and therefore didn't mind giving up. Yesterday morning I sat down and programmed my phone book in my phone and thought it went pretty smoothly. I at first had trouble finding the "Smart Button" that helps you pick your function and enter, but once I did it was smooth sailing (by the way, it's on the side of the phone) When setting up your phone book you can assign numeric positions for the names and numbers you enter or you can just set it to take up the next available space. The phone also had 9 different ring tones (not many), and the volume of the rings are excellent ! (Something I was never able to remedy with my other phone) It also has the usual call timers, cumulative timers, clock on the face to tell you the current time. It doesn't include a calendar or a vibrate mode, neither of which I ever use. The best part (well besides the weight), was the price !! This phone only set me back $80 !! Which is perfect considering I have 3 kids, we're always on the go, and frequent cell phone users. I figure at that price I won't be AS upset should something not so nice happen to my phone. Of course I'm not implying that $80 is a mere nothing, but compared to what you can spend on cell phones these days it's relatively inexpensive I think. The phone also came with a "holster", a "wrap" (a plastic covering for your phone, kind of like a faceplate), and a home charger. In addition I spent $24 and bought a car charger since I practically live in my car, and it seems that when I bring the phone in to charge it I almost always forget to take it with me when I leave (Mommy Brain LOL) I've used it so far for fairly "normal" calling type situations and have been very pleased. The reception has been fine, answering the phone/ending calls has been easy, the volume is easily controlled. I think if you don't need alot of options on your phone that this one gives you alot of bang for your buck....and looks cool too ! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $79.99 87870 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light great affordable none The Bottom LineThe Motorola V2297 will give the Nokia phones a run for their money. It's a great phone! Full Review I have just recently renewed my cellular phone contract and purchased a new phone. Of course there are numerous phones to choose from. I choose the Motorola Model # V2297. The Motorola is comparable in size to the Nokia 5160. There are a couple of differences though in the shape and size. The Motorola is a lighter phone and has a more curved shape to it. It really seems to fit in your hand and rests against your face much better. With a renewed contract, this Motorola cost $59.95, the same price I could have purchased the Nokia 5160. The phone comes with the standard recharger, but also comes with two protective rubber-type covers that can easily but put on the phone and easily removed. Various other colors of covers are available, but not quite as many covers that are available on the Nokia 5160. The phone came with a bright orange and a blue cover. Special Feature -Stores up to 99 names and numbers -9 numbers can be stored for quick recall -Turbo dial feature -Smart button (for quicker navigating) -Caller ID Features -Capable of assigning special rings to certain incoming numbers -Time and Date displays -Timing calls -Nine different ringing styles -Lock security Features -E-mail capabilities -Voice mail capabilities -Pager Mode -Complete Message Center Special Features I find particularly useful I really find the ability to change the ringer style to identify certain callers important. This makes it possible to identify who is calling by the sound of the ring. I find the quality of the sound on incoming calls to be much better than my previous Nokia 5160 phone. The Smart button makes navigation through the phone features so much more easier. It is easy to access and easy to use. The scroll buttons, placed on the side of the phone, are also much easier to use and access. The caller ID feature is wonderful . I can mute the sound on the phone when I should not be getting a call and then retrieve the numbers of those who have called and return their calls. Short Comings -There are no musical rings or styles of rings. -No games available on the phone (not that I ever used mine before) -Not as many choices to individualize your phone with different covers. Overall Opinion I would gladly make the same purchase choice if I had to again. I love this phone and I am very pleased with the options, features, and quality of the phone. The Motorola Model # V2297 is a wonderful phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.95 87869 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use light none The Bottom LineThis is a great phone! Full Review Actually, I purchased a mobile phone because I want to have it for emergencies. I don't really use it that frequently, but when I do use it, this phone is great!! I had a different mobile phone before I had this one and it was bulky and heavy. It also had a hard time keeping the battery charged. I am pleased to say that the Motorola V2297 does not have either of these problems. The Motorola V2297 is lightweight and compact. It has two batteries that look like regular AA batteries (unlike my previous phone that had a battery that looked like a large box, and I mean large,like almost bigger than the whole phone!) Anyway, I was convinced to get this phone when my old phone became virtually useless as it wouldn't hold a battery charge (I was told that the battery would cost more than the phone was worth). I received an offer in the mail to get the Motorola V2297 phone for free if I would sign a 1 year contract. In my household "FREE" is a good thing! Besides being free, the plan that I signed up for was no more expensive than the plan I was previously using plus it offered me 40 minutes free air time per month! WOW! For me this was great as I only planned to use it for emergencies! (My old phone plan offered no free minutes). Let me tell you about the phone itself: This phone is simple to use. You simply dial the number that you want to call and press "send" to make a call. When you are finished, you press "end". If your phone rings and you want to answer it, you press "send". Couldn't be any easier. When looking at the display on this phone, you will see several things. First off, you will see which wireless company you are using. You will see a signal strength symbol which tells you how strong the signal is where you are located. You may see a voicemail message indicator which lets you know that you have a message. You will see the battery strength signal which lets you know when how strong the batteries are and when it is time to recharge. This phone comes with a plug in charger. You simply plug it into a wall socket and into the phone and it will charge the batteries. It recommends charging for 14 hours for the first time and any time the battery strength gets down to nothing. FEATURES (there are so many, I will just tell you about the major ones and the ones I use) Memory--This phone stores 99 phone numbers for you. It will store names along with phone numbers that you program. It is fairly easy to program the phone directory in this phone. Caller ID--the phone stores numbers that have recently called you as well as numbers that you have recently called. Individual Ring style--you can assign a different ring style to each incoming call number in you phone book! You'll know who's calling before you answer the phone just by listening to the ring. Security Lock Feature--allows you to lock your phone so that only you can make calls. And there are so many more features on this phone! I have not used any of the other features as they are beyond my needs but you can do even more with this little phone if you want to. This phone comes with two different colored "covers" to change the look of you phone. You just slip them onto the phone. My problme with them is that they are made of a rubbery like material and when I try to slip this phone into my pocket, it is difficult to do so with the rubbery cover. I like this phone. I see no problems with it and I would recommend it to a friend! Recommended: Yes 87868 2000/4/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fits in pocket small bad reception The Bottom LineFuzzy reception, but a good basic phone for personal use only. Full Review I got this phone about three months ago. I had wanted a cell phone for a while, but after hours and hours of looking, I could never find one that I liked, mainly because they were all ugly. So far I have been impressed with this phone, but not with the service I have received. (I am not sure if it is the phone or the service). In certain places, the phone won't work, which makes it pointless to have a phone if it doesn't work. Most of the time the reception is really fuzzy (the antenna doesn't extend) and you can't hear the person on the other end of the phone. As for features, this phone has 9 different rings, but I only like the first one. The internet can be accessed from the phone, however, I am on analog service, so I have not experienced the phone-internet thing. For a first time user, the phone is really easy to figure out how to use. The phone has a call display screen, but I do not subscribe to that service. I find that the volume of the phone is a little quiet and sometimes it is hard to hear the person that I am talking to, and the phone can be muted. The ringer is extremely loud. I have been told by the sales person that the batteries last 8 hours on standby, but I have never kept it on for that long. They are easy to charge, and only take a couple of hours. There is a plug in for a headset (which I got free with the phone) which makes it very convenient for driving. A belt clip can also be put on the phone, but it is not the type of phone that looks good on a belt. The display screen on the phone displays the type of service (digital or analog), the strength of the signal, the time and date, the battery power, no service, in use, and roam functions. It also has indicators for short messages or voicemail. The phone has a memory for the airtime of the last call, the airtime accumulated during a time period which you set, and the total airtime ever used on the phone. When calling, if a wrong number is entered, the clear button can be pressed to erase the wrong digit. If a call is missed, a message comes on the phone saying "unanswered call." The length of the call is also displayed for those who have pay as you go service. The memory of the last ten numbers dialed are automatically stored. The phone can store up to 99 numbers. The phone has built in security features to prevent unauthorized use. The phone can be "locked" when turned off and a code would be entered the next time the phone is turned on to unlock the phone. When I got the phone, it came with two faces, orange and blue. Soft and hard faces can be bought, but they are only one colour, compared to the Nokia phones that have 1000's of different faces available, this only only has about 30 that I have seen. I would recommend this phone to someone who wants a phone for their personal use. I do not think it would make a good business phone. It is a small phone (very light) that can fit in almost any pocket or purse. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $100 87867 2000/4/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 comes with two different colorful covers easy to program according to my daughter no games The Bottom LineThis phone is durable enough to stand up to teenage activities, fits easily in a backpack or vest pocket, and it's reliable. Full Review My daughter has been wanting her own cell phone for quite some time -- mostly so she can call me even more often to demand an explanation if I keep her waiting for more than 3 minutes at school or anywhere else she goes without me. Since she has a part-time job and can easily pay the monthly bill, I took her to a local Verizon outlet and we signed her up for a reasonably-priced plan. This Motorola V2297 was one of the cell phone options offered, and at $29.99, one that she could afford. Picky, Picky. Colors Have to be Right One of the options my picky daughter liked about this model was the rubbery feeling phone covers that she can change on a whim. One is bright orange, the other a deep blue. Two or three other colors are available for purchase separately. These covers have a nice non-skid feel, unlike that of some cell phones I've had myself, like the Nokia, that are slicker than snot on a doorknob if you're trying to hold it between your shoulder and your ear. Easy To Use Features We like the large LED display, which has some icons that make it easy to identify the feature you want to use at a glance. The buttons on the key pad are slightly larger than usual, and other function buttons are even larger. The phone book permits 20 entries, and all numbers can be saved to dial at a glance. Caller ID shows up on this phone, and tell you the name and number of the caller on the other end. Considering that she has a limited minute monthly plan, she can decide if she wants to answer the call or wait until she gets home to return it. My daughter listened to all eight or nine ringing options and didn't really fall in love with any of them, so she changes them often. The battery charges quickly and lasts a long time (we haven't run it down yet). We Use These Phones as Pagers While we were in Chicago last weekend, sometimes many miles apart, my daughter and I signaled each other when one of us was preparing to leave one location and meet at another. She was with my sister and I was with my mother. Signals carried easily between our phones to other parts of the Chicago area. When we are talking to each other on our respective phones, the voice quality is excellent, almost like a land line. Track Your Minutes Several functions on this phone allow you to see how many minutes you have used for the month. There also is a lock function that keeps you from accidentally making calls if the phone is bounced around in your pocket or purse. For the functions, clarity, battery life, changeable covers, and sturdy little antenna, this phone is a bargain at less than $30, and it's "cool" enough to satisfy a teenager. The only feature my daughter misses is the ability to play games. My sister's Nokia phone has that, but I tell my daughter that it just wears down the battery that much faster. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 7717 Motorola StarTAC ST7868W Phone 87947 2004/9/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great size great reception easy to use features battery life isn t so hot antenna broke a couple times This was the 2nd cell phone i've ever owned. At the time, I had Verizon and everything about the Star Tac was awesome. Great reception, features, etc. It was small enough to fit into your pocket and was one of the first flip phones ever. 87946 2003/10/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lcd display clarity compact durability storage capacity features flat this phone is also expensive small hard plastic buttons on the keypad I can't express how much I enjoy my Motorola StarTAC phone. The durability of the phone alone, says a lot to me. This phone has been dropped time after time and it keeps going. I am being more careful now, since Motorola has discontinued my 7740 model. I see the palm sized phones, the Nokia, the phones by Samsung, Quallcomm, etc, and none of this new gadgets have impressed me. I like the compact flip design as well and the cradle, lets me carry it like a pager, when I am without my purse. Talk about convenience!!! I have put it away for months, only to bring it back out again, and have services placed on it. Never have I been disappointed! 87945 2005/8/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it looked nice was appealing sound was not so good As this was my 2nd phone I have ever had (from Cingular--first was Nokia 5165), it was a cool phone. It had all the bells and whistles, a good battery life, and a big phone book. It was the pimp phone of 2002, but it is classic for all the people. 87944 2000/9/6 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight timers helpful phone holster is easy to use small not bulky slim design a bit pricey very susceptible to water damage The Bottom LineI would highly recommend this phone WITH insurance for water damage (the rest of the phone is extremely durable so far); it's easy to use and an effective communication tool. Full Review I appreciate many of the StarTac's features. I had a bulkier cell phone before this one, and I really like the slimmed-down design and that it doesn't weigh much. I can handle it with one hand and drive with the other fairly easily. The reception is very clear as well. I also like the fact that it lies flat on a surface; doesn't roll around and I don't have to play Catch The Phone. My biggest complaint is that water damage can occur quite easily. Both my husband and I have had to replace our phones in the past month. And it doesn't appear to need much moisture to cause the water damage. If you buy this phone, get the insurance; I pay $4 a month so that the replacement cost is only $25, instead of $100-$200. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 87943 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ultra light portable slightly top heavy Full Review I purchased this phone in July of 2000 with a SingleRate plan from Verizon Wireless. I won't discuss the plan here, but I mentioned it because a national rate was required to purchase and activate the tri-mode phone. All of the technical data is available at this site, but I thought I would review my experience with its performance, reliability, and durability. First of all, this phone has never given me any trouble. It comes on and signs on to the network flawlessly every time. I use it predominantly in Washington, DC, so I have access to many cell towers to obtain a good signal. When I place a call, the phone connects almost instantly. It automatically defaults to the highest quality signal, which in my case is usually a PCS or digital signal. The phone book is easily and quickly accessed through the touch of one button. Messaging is conveniently accessible by a message key on the phone. When I get a voice-mail or text message, the phone alerts me right away, at which time I can decide to view it or leave it for later. If you subscribe to web access, it is easily viewable with the phone. The one feature that I like the most is the wearability of the phone. It folds up and snaps into a belt holster. This allows for the ultimate portability and concealment of the phone. For those of you who are concerned about radiation, the design of the phone keeps the antenna farther away from the head than most other phones. As for durability, I have dropped this phone several times, and not once has it been damaged or affected. Though I wouldn't recommend abusing it, the phone should survive day-to-day use quite well. Also, the closed position of the phone guards it against dust and debris. All-in-all, I highly recommend this phone. It is certainly more geared toward business professionals than teenagers due to its high price and web-browsing features. If you are looking for a web-enabled phone that is light, compact, durable, and wearable, this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87942 2001/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 lightweight belt clip is very handy small poor signals frequently prevent calls The Bottom LineThis cell phone is not dependable enough to recommend. Full Review My husband just received a new Motorola ST7868W through his employer. He uses it for work and for important personal calls. Very often the phone cannot get a signal or the signal strength is too weak to place a call. This happens in many different locations, not just one specific place (like at home). This cellular phone has a nice lightweight design that's small enough to fit in your pocket. The sound quality also seems to be clear, however these features do not make up for it's poor performance and reliability. God forbid you have an emergency and cannot get your call through because of a weak signal! Unfortunately from our experience, I cannot recommend this cellular phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87941 2000/11/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small nice features not to comfortable when used up to the ear Full Review I'm going to try to make this review as simple and to the point as possible. Here are the major points: THE GOOD: This phone is full of features. It basically has every feature I would want in a phone, yet is it is small and can fit in my front jeans pocket! I like how it also has analog, so if I go to a fringe area that is not covered by digital, I can still use the phone. The sound quality is the best I have ever heard in a cellular phone. When driving down the road with the windows down, I can turn the earpiece volume loud enough such that I don't even have to yell into the phone. And, there have been times when I was using the phone in a quiet area and the caller didn't even know I was on a cellular phone! I am now using the phone to check my email using a service at www.phonefish.com. I can also browse WAP-enabled web pages such as yahoo.com and amazon.com. Very cool! It's great to be able to have access to the internet and my email when out and about, or if I'm travelling on a road trip or something. THE BAD: The battery does not seem to last quite as long as my old Nokia 6190 bettery did. The plastic housing of the phone seems a bit gummy. It seems like it would get marred easily if dropped. This might turn out to be a good thing, since it probably does not crack very easily (rather, it would probably just give, like clay). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199. 87940 2001/11/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to program feature overload The Bottom LineOne of several models that will work with Vox2 base station, this phone may be the present ideal for combined cel/home use. Full Review We have two 7868W cellular phones which replaced much older analog only models. The principal purpose to the upgrade was to be able to use the phones with a Vox2 base station that connects cellular phones to "landline phones" (i.e. you can use your home phones to make and answer cel calls). The Vox2 works with several manufacturers phones, but our carrier (Verizon) was offering this model at a discount. I found the phone very easy to program and like the fact that it has both text and voice messaging, but it has many other features (fax capability, internet browser) I doubt we will ever use. The battery can become detached quite easily if the phone is dropped or jarred, but the memory remains intact, so you don't lose any stored information. Sound quality in digital is excellent and in analog is superior to the last three analog only phones we had. The lighted key pad is one of the best I have seen, the backlight being just right, not too dim or too bright (I could, and once did, use the keypad lights of my last cel phone as a flashlight). Vibration/Ring option is a good feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87939 2000/11/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flexible settings light small fragile antenna The Bottom LineA small, solid phone with many features. Full Review I bought this phone when I switched carriers. Reception and clarity are much better than with my previous (Ericsson) phone, but that might be a combination of carrier and phone. I have noticed clarity improvements when my wife has switched from our cordless (900 MHz) home phone to her StarTAC. For the price, I could not find a smaller and lighter phone. I've been very pleased with the features. I've been able to change the various settings to suit my needs. For example, the factory setting is to answer the phone when you open it. However, you must open the phone to see the caller ID. I just turned off the "open to answer" feature. I also like the fact that you don't need extra equipment to have a vibrating ringer. Accepts standard 2.5 mm headsets. The one drawback I've seen is the antenna seems to be pretty fragile if you wear the phone on your belt. I have not bent or broken mine, but I know others who have. I've dropped my phone numerous times with no ill effects. I do not use the browser features, so cannot comment on the web-enabled features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87938 2000/6/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small nice clip for attaching to your belt compact during a phone call loses the caller the transition from digital to analog The Bottom LineGet it, if you want to spend a little money, this is the best value! Full Review This is a very small, compact yet powerful little phone. It packs a lot of punch in a very small package. The first phone I had was installed by the cellular company and the "radio" had to be installed in the trunk, because it was so big and bulky and had to be protected. Now they have all that in this little bitty case. Amazing. I love the portability of this phone, so small and that sexy little case it fits into and slides onto your belt. It is convenient and you can carry it with you without even realizing its there. The vibrating function is nice as well and is what I use 99% of the time when I am carrying it. It is web-capable, although I do not have that function enabled. I will try that one of these days, but some things are just not be done on a phone...in my opinion. This is a tri-mode phone and coverage is great, however, when driving and talking on the phone, if you pass through an area where the digital signal turns to analog, 9 times out of 10, you will lose the caller. This is a pain in the butt and I hope they resolve this issue one of these days. This phone is a little pricey, at $180, even when you sign a one year commitment, however, it is, like I said, a lot of phone in a little package. Thanks for your time! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 87937 2000/12/12 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 little kind of pricy Full Review I recently switched cellular phone companies for the sole purpose of purchasing the new StarTac phone. My old carrier did not carry the StarTac's, so I decided that after 4 years I would switch companies so i could get a different phone. I knew a few people who had a StarTac phone, and they all really liked it a lot so that was a deciding factor in my purchase. The price of the phone is a little expensive I believe, but it is worth it. My favorite feature on the phone is that you can have as many numbers a you want listed for one person. On my old phone I would have to have one person's different numbers in different places in my address book, where as now I just go to that persons' name and pick the location to call, it is very easy. Recommended: Yes 87936 2000/12/10 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small battery sucks Full Review I chose this phone because it was free with a 3 year contract with my celular provider. Its a lot smaller than the motorola 650 i had for years before it. I was told that digital phones don't work as well in analogue areas as analogue phones do, but i was surprised to find out that it works just as well as my old 650. The only thing that bothers me is that in analogue, the battery does not last at all...i know its small, but it IS a lithium ion, and i was told it was supposed to last a long time. I charge it for 12-14 hours and it will be practically dead by that evening, and i do periodically run it dead from time to time. Other than the battery thing, it is a great phone..lots of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 87935 2002/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size descent size screen menus are a pain doesn t get your attention w ring or vibrate The Bottom LineNice phone, but you won't notice anyone is calling you! Full Review 12/02 added thoughts ... I still have the phone, it's still working. Been through at least 5 antenas that I remember so far. Other than that it's OK except for the weak ring sound. ==== A few months ago I got a new cell phone and choose the Startac. We had limited options since it was a corporate plan, and this was just shy of the "top of the line" Timeport. I was very happy with the size and easy carry case. It fits in a pocket or right on a belt. The antenna, however, doesn't seem overwhelmingly durable. We'll see in time, I haven't broken it just yet. Shortly after getting the phone we setup the paging services. It was then I decided this phone was not a well thought through design. It doesn't get your attention! The ringing itself is OK, but the page makes 1 to 3 itsy little weak chirps. How do you hear this? Answer? You don't ... it often is a 15-30 minute period before I notice I've been paged. As for the vibrate? Well, it barley vibrates. Those old huge motorola pagers had a fit, scared you half to death if you were taking a nap or something but it got your attention. I get calls and don't even notice all the time. Also there is no method of receiving pages or messages while on the phone. Getting through the menus can be tedious as well to retrieve them. Overall, the phone is average, but the lack of attention getting noises or vibrations points me in another direction for my next phone. Talk time is good, charge time is quick, and it seems to hold up pretty well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 87934 2000/1/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to use small lightweight poor reception antenna bends easily terrible battery life The Bottom LineGood small phone, poor sound quality, poor battery life. Wouldnt go back and make the same mistake twice. NO WAY! Full Review I have fancied the StarTac since it came out several years ago. This small lightweight phone is excellent for someone who doesn't want the bulk of most conventional phones. I wouldn't recommend the phone to someone who does not enjoy dropped conversations, easily breakable antennas, and wants to spend every waking moment on a charger. I would talk about the lightweight and the size of the phone, but there is nowhere to expand. I would like to talk about the down sides of this phone. Unless you get it for free, don't take it! I spend the majority of the time on the charger because the small battery just can't take it. The phone calls get dropped when you are driving because apparently the technology (in this phone) is not developed enough yet. At first, I thought it might be my carrier (Verizon), but after receiving another phone from the insurance company after my claim, I didn't rule them out yet... I later decided after using several other phones (on different carriers) and hearing similar complaints, that I was not alone. The battery life is something else that I want to talk about. I might be able to get 4 10 or 15 phone conversations in without the battery low indicator signal coming on. I have considered buying the aux battery for the back of the phone, but if I spend $60, I will just simply purchase another product that can hold up to my meager cellular standards. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87933 2000/9/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small lots of third party accessories dual band screen too small for web browsing jutting antenna The Bottom LineOne of the better choices for PCS service and a perfect fit for a pocket. Not a good choice if you want to browse web services. Full Review From the outside the StarTacs sold today look exactly like they have for years -- and that's generally good. They fit nicely into a pocket (even the ubiquitous Nokia 5100 series is significantly thicker), they can't accidentally dial in your pocket (also a flaw of the Nokias), and there are tons of accessories available since they've been on the market for so long. On the downside, their antennas jut out more than an inch from the top, making them sometimes awkward to remove quickly from a pocket when they ring. They also have a screen that's too small for browsing any kind of web content, but I've yet to find a real benefit to that anyway. Finally, they're lacking some of the non-phone extras that I'd enjoyed with my Nokia -- musical ringtones, games, a calculator, and an alarm clock. I'd used the latter three regularly on my Nokia and didn't realize I'd miss them until I switched to the StarTac. The flip also protects the buttons and makes accidental dialing impossible. More than once my Nokia dialed on its own while in my pocket, forcing me to get into the habit of locking and unlocking the keyboard via a two-button combination every time I started or stopped using it. For regular PCS phone use, though, I have no significant complaints. The volume is good, the lithium battery lasts for at least two days, and it hangs up/answers when you open and close it. It's such a simple thing, but once you've grown used to a flip-phone you realize how annoying it is to have to find a button just to answer or hang up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87932 2000/7/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 it s a cute little phone to fold upcarry around it always felt so cheapflimsy to me Full Review The StarTac phone was given to me when I switched from one cell phone company to another, as long as I traded in my Nokia 252. I was excited, cause I liked those little flip open phones and I thought it would be cute to clip on my pants or throw into my purse without worrying about it pushing buttons and calling people I didn't want to talk to. I had it for about a month before I had it stolen in the O'Hare airport in Chicago. I was glad to get rid of that phone, though. I had problems with that phone from the start. To me, it was a lot more confusing with the buttons, unlike the nice Menu button on the Nokia's. There was this function button that did something and this side button that did something else. The service was terrible, which I know wasn't the phone's fault, but more the provider's. Every time I opened it to get a call or make one, I felt like I was going to break it in half. Also, I wanted this phone for the vibrating accessory. So then, when I was at work or in school, I knew when I was getting a call and didn't have to alert everyone else around me. But, the vibrate function made as much noise as the ringing did. I just turned it off when I was in a place that I didn't want everyone to hear my phone go off. I wouldn't recommend buying this phone or even using it if you get it for a deal. I'd go with the Nokia version that is a lot sturdier and probably a lot more reliable. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ signing up 87931 2000/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 flip size cheap plastic which gives including the flip cheap build qaulity Full Review I purchased a Startac 7868 on July 17, 2000. The phone was a problem from the time I first turned it on. The display would dim constantly and the phones power would flicker off and on(this is because the battery and the phone itself had a huge gap when the battery is attached causing the battery not to click into place properly.) HORRIBLE WORKMANSHIP. I sent the phone back to GTE/Verizon for a replacement and received it one two days later. This phones display worked fine, however,the battery on this phone also, would not click completely so the battery contacts would touch the phone contacts meaning an occasional flicker of power off and on. I sent this phone back for another replacement. On the third phone, annoying, constant static came from the ear piece. The other phones had not done this. At this point, I decided to return the phone for a refund(Verizon gives you 30 days from the time of purchase to get a refund, without paying cancellation fees). I gave up on the Startac 7868 after having THREE phones with defects with caused the phone to be inoperable. I cannot believe the ridiculous quality of these phones, especially after paying an extremely high price($200). I did enjoy the small size and the flip, which prevented accidental calling when placed in a pocket. It amazes me how much a phone, such as the Startac 7868 costs, yet other phones, such as Nokia and Ericsson have much lower priced quality phones that will outlast the Startac 10 to 1. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87930 2001/6/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound size internet ready signal strength questionable durability flimsy antenna The Bottom LineA classic, solid performing cell phone on an outstanding wireless network Full Review Folks: As with my ISP service, I've been in a period of experimentation with cell phones and cellular providers over the past 2 years. I've ended up with Verizon Wireless after having tried Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless Service. I think Verizon's great, because of their CDMA interface and trimode capability (hence, solid, seamless national coverage). But that's another review... With respect to the phone, I think Motorola has done a fabulous job in creating an ergonomically, smart and compact phone. Since I've owned the Samsung 3500 and 8500, the Nokia 6100 series and the Qualcomm 8600, I've had some real hands-on experience. The Motorola and Samsung performed the best out of the bunch. As a matter of fact, Motorola and Audiovox are the only two phones that passed Verizon's quality assurance tests for their new Single Rate plans. This particular StarTac is internet ready, has a large phonebook (99 names x 4 entries each), and has a vibration alert. The only disadvantage to it is that it's costly compared to its Samsung counterparts. Price aside, it's great. The sound and signal retention are outstanding, and it's size makes it so appealing. I've thought about the Motorola "V" phone, but for the price I'll stick w/the StarTac. This phone, coupled with Verizon's service, makes it an unbeatable value and combination. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 219.00 w/rebate 87929 2000/11/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone has tons of features not the phone my web is broken for now but that is verizons fault Full Review I received this phone as a gift from a friend, with Verizon wireless as my carrier. At first i was intimidated by the phone, because of all of the hoo-ha's and doo dads this little puppy does. But after I read the product manual, i felt as if I was the keenest cell phone user on my block. Not only does it have caller ID, but when you program your phone book, the name you gave that person is displayed when they call. So , any nicknames (or bad names *wink*) that name what you see. My advice to anyone that uses this phone, Is to use it with a plantronics earset. That along with the phone, is the coolest combination of hands free talking and cellular coolness I have ever experienced. On top of it all, you can surf the web with this wonderful cellular wonder! I have also dropped this phone on a number of occasions, and it still keeps on going. Grab it as a gift for someone you care about. This one is a keeper. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87928 2000/7/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life lightweight easy to read display small very durable no alarm no calander appointment feature The Bottom LineIf you want a durable phone, buy a StarTac. If you want to nap at work, don't forget your alarm clock. Full Review After owning the StarTac for about a year now, I can honestly say that this is the best mobile phone that I have owned. Very comfortable and lightweight with easy to read display. The battery life on a phone this size is amazing. I use the phone a lot and I only have to charge it every 3-4 days. As far as durablility is concerned, it is a ROCK. Many of times I have dropped, kicked, flew, slammed, threw this phone and she still is ticking. Reception is awesome but I dont know if it is the phone itself or the server (Verizon). I have never been cut-off during a conversation. This phone works with full reception where I live where as my last phone (Nokia 6160/AT&T) didn't even work inside my house. How many times have I had to go outside in my underwear to just talk on the phone. There is a couple of things that this phone needs though. Calender/appointment book and especially an alarm for those days that I dose off at work. Hope my boss doesn't read this =) Overall, the StarTac is a good workhorse phone. It will get through any beating you subject it to. Very easy to hold and operate but don't ever fall asleep at work unless you have a little travel alarm clock around. aloha Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 87927 2000/6/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 readable display belt holster very handy long battery life discreet small well built antenna sticks out a bit when on your belt The Bottom LineYou can't go wrong on most of the StarTac line. If you want a tri-mode dual-bander, look for the ST7868W. Full Review I've always been impressed by Motorola's products. The StarTac 7868W is no exception. After using it for 4 months, I would not switch it for any other mobile (except maybe a StarTac that was Bluetooth-enabled, but that's another story). I was impressed by its quality--it just seems sturdy. I've dropped it a few times, and it's been ok. I was a little worried about the long-term reliability of the hinge mechanism, but so far so good. It's small size means I forget I have it on. And since it folds out, you don't have that switch between mouth and ear problem like you do with some of the really small phones. The built-in vibrating alert for calls, pages, and messages is very useful. I don't use the ringer, except when I have it sitting on a desk away from me. (This is partly out of consideration--I hate hearing other peoples cell phones ring in public, or even worse, play crappy versions of songs you never liked). Anyway, the battery life is good. I go about 4 days between charging (I don't talk too much, about 200 min a month). It charges very fast, which is good when I forget to charge it--I can pop it on the charger for 10 minutes or so and it gets up to 70% charge or so--enough for the day. I've bent the antenna, but that's because I let it ride on my belt all of the time, and it has an annoying habit of sticking under the bottom edge of a chair's backrest. I'm a skinny guy, and sit funny, so most people probably won't have this problem. The clarity, usage, and features are all great. I like the one-handed up/down/select button operation. You can dial a number in your phonebook with one hand. And the standard headset jack is a must. This isn't a phone for the Nokia-type bubblegum-chewing people that want a 'cute' phone with colors and useless features...this is a phone for people who want great functionality in a small package. All in all, it's certainly been worth it. My wife likes it too, and she's not as much of a technophile as I am. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87915 2000/10/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very sleek small loads of features i have yet to be disappointed in this cell phone Full Review I recently upgraded my last cell phone (The StarTac 6500) to the newer versions. The new StarTac cell phones are fantastic! I very rarely miss incoming phone calls, and outgoing calls are very clear. Size: The StarTacs are very small. Put them in your pocket while doing almost anything! I have carried my phone in my pocket while working, and it still recieves all phone calls! Clarity: The newer StarTacs are very clear. Where my last cell phone would not pick up, the StarTac picked up very clearly. This is the main reason I upgraded my phone. Features: The StarTac is LOADED with many features. Browse parts of the internet, advanced phone book, messaging, voice mail, vibration, last 10 dialed, you can even lock your telephone with a password! And best of all, all these features can be accessed by a small button on the side. This phone is amazing, I would suggest purchasing this cell if you are looking into buying one. And if you own a later model StarTac, I would highly suggest upgrading today! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87914 2000/9/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 pretty good reception long lasting battery very small features not as user friendly as could be The Bottom LineGood phone -- very compact and clarity is definately above-average (for the digital StarTac)! Full Review First let me emphasize that I got the digital one -- I have heard from many people that the analog StarTac is aweful. I have been in analog only areas, and my phone was pretty much useless there. I've been pretty happy with this little phone. It's VERY compact, which makes it great -- goes right into a jacket pocket! The reception is pretty good (see below). And I think my favorite thing is the battery. I can easily go two full days, usually three, without charging it. This is not the case when roaming -- the battery goes about twice as quickly when roaming, for some reason. The display is easy to read, and has all the pertinent information (signal strength, time, date, voice mail, etc.) without being too overcrowded. I have a feeling, though, that there are a lot of features on this phone that I don't know about, because the menus are not as user-friendly as they could be. For example, I have no idea if there is a way to see the caller-id for a number after the person has called (it will say "1 missed call" but I don't know from whom). I'm sure I could get someone to show me this, but it's not really worth a trip back to the store. Also, the ring options are all pretty bad. I don't like all those silly song ones, but something semi-pleasant would be nice. Also, sometimes the little envelope that shows up when you have a message doesn't go away after you delete the message. You have to go through several menu items to delete it, which can be sort of irritating. This only happens about half the time, so sometimes it's hard to tell if you really have a new message or not. One thing, which I did not know, is that you have to upgrade the software on your phone. I noticed that all of a sudden I was losing reception and getting cut off in the middle of town, for no apparent reason. I took it into the store, and they put new software on it, and now it works great again. The only other negative thing is that the volume control is right where your finger is when you're holding the phone. For the longest time, while I was talking to someone, their voice would suddenly get very quiet. It took me forever to figure out that I was actually changing the volume while holding the phone! But overall, this is a great little phone. It seems pretty durable (I've dropped in many a time!) and everything is still working perfectly after a year -- even the battery! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 87913 2000/7/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight menus are easy to navigate nice visual display bad design on the antenna constantly breaks fragile expensive The Bottom LineIf you want something more durable, look at the LG-TM510 cell phone. The StarTac is too expensive for what you get. Full Review I have had my share of cell phones with Verizon wireless, and I have tried numerous brands: Nokia, Samsung, Audiovox and Motorola. The Motorola StarTac phone is small, and has many nice features: nice phonebook layout, nice clear display, vibrate function and the keyboard layout makes a lot of sense. The biggest fault with this phone is the FRAGILE design. It's not made for anyone that might be active or rough with small packages. I have sent three phones off to Motorola repair to replace the hinge case because of constant cracks in the plastic. Since the phone flips open, the hinge becomes worn and the wear will cause a crack in the plastic. The compact design is very appealing, however, the flip hinge should be more durable to support active use. The other biggest problem that I have had using a StarTac phone is the antenna. The tip of the antenna will eventually break off, leaving a antenna that will retract back into the case. The antenna is thin and very delicate. Buy a few replacements if you try a StarTac series phone. Overall, the phone is really cool. It's looks very modern and it functions well with my service (Verizon). I have had very little dropped calls using the phone but don't DROP the phone unless you want to send it off for repairs. I am now using an LG-TM510 Trimode and love it. It's durable, has more features and the antenna is much more durable. If you like the "flip style" phones, try looking at the LG-TM510. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 190.00 87912 2000/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 quality size features sound sometimes Full Review I have had this phone for a number of months now. My previous phone was the StarTAC 7860W (see my review). I was sent this new model when mine was damaged. I have cell phone insurance so I got this new one for $35. I highly recommend subscribing to the phone insurance policy(usually about $3 extra per month). This phone has all the features of the 7860W plus it is Tri-Mode. This phone will operate on analog or two different digital frequencies. Here is an example. When I had my 7860W(the older model) i was in orlando, FL on vacation. It was very difficult for me to use my old phone down there because there is only one kind of digital coverage in orlando. With the 7868W you can make calls using either of the digital signals. This ability improves coverage greatly. You will now be able to use your phone in more areas that pervious starTAC models. The starTAC is overall a very well made phone. The antennas sometimes bend easily but, if you really bend it you can usually get a free replacement (at least with bell atlantic you can. The antenna on this model seems to be a little better than ones in the past though, which is good. The sound quality is very good but it can hard to hear when there is lots of background noise. Of course this problems occurs with most phones but it seems a little more noticeable with the starTAC. The redesigned phone book in the phone allows you to enter multiple numbers for each name. This is very helpful, you no longer have to each number as a different entry and give each a different name. Little icons are associated with each name in the phone book. Very easy to use. The phone also has a microbrowser, if you want to subscribe to the wireless web. Text Messaging is also a feature I use($5/month from BAM). The messages are easy to read on the phone's display. It is a great phone, that has never let me down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240 87911 2000/5/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 small size good features that star trek factor serious reliability problems bad battery life The Bottom LineGreat phone, if reliability isn't an issue for you. For me, a major disappointment. Full Review Note: this model has been discontinued, but consider this review when deciding whether to go with a newer Motorola flip phone. We wanted to replace our outdated phones - one was an old Motorola roughly the size of a brick, but a reliable workhorse just the same; the other one was a Qualcomm with good features but a wonky power-cable attachment. The StarTac looked cute and useful - and, yeah, there was a certain appeal to having something that looked like a Star Trek Communicator :-) So we replaced both our phones with the 7868. The battery-life disappointment started almost immediately. It was rated to last up to 160 or so hours in standby mode - we were lucky to get 48 without that annoying "feed-me" beeping starting up. That degraded over time so that it lasted less than 24 hours no matter how long we left it to recharge. The reliability problems weren't evident until several months later. We aren't heavy users, so we didn't have that many opportunities to miss calls. Then we went out of town and tried to use them to keep tabs on each other while chasing our young kids around various major theme parks. The phones never announced incoming calls - we had to rely on leaving messages for each other, and checking voice mail repeatedly. Then a month or two after that, the problems became very apparent - I missed several urgent (as in, "kid injured, call the doctor") phone calls because the phone never rang. Nor did the "voice-mail waiting" indicator appear, until I'd turned the phone off and back on. Outgoing calls are also occasionally a problem. The phone will say "calling xxxxxx number" but I'll never hear it ring. So I'll press "end", then try to call again - and the phone will flash the screen off and on, and display "Searching....". I have to turn it off and back on again to get it to work. I've updated the programming, and replaced the battery, but the reliability is still unacceptable - ditto the battery life. Both appeared to improve briefly when I first replaced the battery, but they're back to where they were with the old battery. The second phone was more reliable for a while, but it started displaying the same behavior a couple of months after the first one did. As it stands now, it's almost worse than having no phone at all. I can certainly manage to call out with the thing (even though I have to power it off and on sometimes) but it's useless for incoming calls, since I never know whether anyone will be able to get through to me. The whole experience has soured me on Motorola phones in general. Sure, our original ones were great - the "brick" lasted about 5.5 years - and another one was pretty decent until we had to upgrade to digital. But these two StarTacs have been so awful that I'll probably change brands. Oh yeah - that antenna is really poorly designed. Although we haven't had any trouble yet, I can see how it'd be quite easy for it to be snapped off by landing in the purse / pocket just the right (wrong?) way! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 87910 2000/11/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 compact size sound quality fragile antenna poor battery life terribly complex interface The Bottom LineIf you are able to bend your mind around the complex interface, it may be a good phone for you. Otherwise, try something else. Full Review I received the StarTAC 7868 as my first-ever cellular phone in October of 2001. My previous experience with cellphones was very limited, occasionally borrowing one from a friend to make a call. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the size of the manual - it is huge! And in this case, size equates to complexity. The phone is supposedly capable of performing all sorts of functions, but accessing that functionality is close to impossible for me. The menu-based user interface is inscrutable. There seems little logic to how you perform most functions, and even basic things like adjusting volume are difficult to do. I would give Motorola an "F" in the interface department. Aside from that I have had a few other troubles as well - the antenna broke and needed repair, and battery life is atrocious. At first I thought I had a bad external charger, so I had it replaced and got some new batteries, but nothing really changed. This is a real disappointment because a cellphone whose batteries are always dead is not a useful device. On the plus side, it does seem to have very good sound quality. Other people that I talk to who are using cellphones often are virtually unrecognizable. The StarTAC has no such problems. Sound quality is excellent both incoming and outgoing. Perhaps I'm being too harsh because I'm not someone who is into cellphone culture. I look on them as a barely necessary evil and I certainly don't want to be chained to one. Using one for web surfing, calendar functions, etc., is absolutely beyond my comprehension. But I was hoping my first would be one that was charming and useful enough that maybe I could begin to understand why the things are so popular. Unfortunately, after using the StarTAC, I am only even more baffled as to why people love them so much. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 87909 2002/6/23 Product Rating4.0 very tiny amazing call quality confusing menuslack of ringing choices sub par vibration mode The Bottom LineIt may have lemming tendencies, but unlike the lemmings, it survives falls. Full Review UPDATE 6/23/02 I broke the antenna on the phone yesterday at Disneyland. (I had it in my pocket in a ziplock bag with my credit card and driver's license). Motorola and Verizon do not sell replacements. Motorola suggests (a) shipping the phone to them with a check for $100. They then bill for the rest of the cost. Or (b) going to an authorized Motorola repair facility. Here's the stupid thing. The antenna simply screws out. I don't need to pay some guy $75 to do that for me. I have found aftermarket replacement antennas for less than $10. (I've found blinking antennas for less than $5, but they don't work well with the CDMA network phones, like this one.) Which leads me to another note... don't buy one of those phones that blinks when you get a call... they aren't typically compatible with the CDMA network, I'm now learning. (Wish I had learned that before I left all those hints around for that pen from Sharper Image before my birthday. It would only blink when another guy's AT&T phone rang nearby. I've also learned that there is no setting to completely silence the phone. You get the vibrate mode (which is more like the buzzing of an angry bee) or ring mode. The only way to completely silence is to turn off the phone, which is somewhat pointless. I miss my Nokia. (I'm reducing this from 5 stars to 4 stars.) UPDATE 8/25/01 I just updated my Verizon review, so I thought I would come back and do a quick update to this phone review as well. First, I've added a wireless headset for use in the car. The phone has some buttons on the side of the phone that are still accessible when the phone is closed. They control the headset volume, allow you to disconnect a call or redial the last number dialed. Pretty handy. The things I liked, I still like. Small/compact, good battery life. Things I didn't like, I still don't like. Confusing non-intuitive menus, no calculator or games, weird phonebook setup, lame vibration mode and too few choices of ringing options. I've found that the phone tends to jump out of my shirt pockets whenever I lean over to pick anything up or bend down to tie my shoe. It doesn't look any worse for the wear from the repeated droppings (unlike the Nokia which got scuffed up quickly) and the clamshell means that the faceplate has been protected from being dropped. But it's strong and robust. I originally reported that I thought it felt weak and flimsy. It still feels weak and flimsy, but it's really not. It's very strong and has held up to a lot of use. And I love its tiny size. So despite it's awful menus, it's a great phone. It works great, and the call quality is good. I know some of this is Verizon, but I also think that this phone is just a really good performer. ORIGINAL REVIEW After reading a number of reviews for this phone here on epinions, I selected decided to go with Verizon and to get this phone to replace my Nokia 6185, which I had service from SprintPCS through. (It was between this and the Audiovox CDM-9000 -- link at the bottom. I found the Audiovox to feel weird in my hand and not as cool looking.) This phone is really small. It fits easily into a shirt pocket or you can drop it into shorts pocket. Several times I've had it in a pocket and been looking for it on my desk, it's really tiny. The layout is slightly odd in that all the keys are down on the bottom half or bottom third meaning you will have to adopt a slightly different grip on this phone to dial one-handed than you had to do with a larger phone with the keys more centered on the device. I have heard some people complain about it being difficult to use. I could understand why they'd make this complaint, but I've not had any problems. We got two of these phones, to replace the two Sprint Nokia's. Mine makes an odd noise as you open and close it. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to return it to Verizon before the year's up. I hope not, but I don't like the noise it makes. My wife's does not make this noise. I think something inside mine is catching as it opens and closes. Otherwise, I think they are pretty sturdy. When I first got it, I opened it and closed it and though "This seems pretty flimsy, like people said. I'll break this in no time." The more I use the phone, the more I think that it's pretty darn sturdy. I haven't yet dropped it, but I think it will survive the fall with no problems. (I don't purposefully drop them, they just fall.) (Note: I took the phone back to Verizon and the guy pulled the one out of his pocket, his personal phone and showed me that it makes the same noise. He said some do, some don't, but they haven't had any problems yet with the ones that click. 11/26/00) Maybe I'm spoiled, but there are only 9 different ringers to choose from. It's not bad on the Nokia (30 some ringers) if a bunch of them are lame, but when you have only 9 to choose from and a lot of them are lame, well, that's not nearly as much fun. And the vibration mode? It's more of a loud hum or buzz. This is one of two areas that could really use work. It's not that unobtrusive from a shirt-pocket or a backpack. And I know I'm not spoiled when I compare the menuing system of the Motorola to the Nokia. Shame on you Motorola, your menu is so confusing. The phone book can store up to 99 names and 4 phone numbers per name. Pretty cool. However, when entering numbers, you are responsible for where you save your numbers. Each location in your phone directory is identified by a two-digit number 01 to 99 and you need to remember which ones you've used and which ones you haven't used. I had to make a little chart on paper to keep everything straight when moving numbers from one to another. All of the menus are confusing. I could do better menus. But none of this matters. Because all of the calls are crystal clear. The Motorola 7868 is one of only two phones that have passed Verizon's tests for their nationwide plan (150 anytime anywhere minutes for $35 a month... use the phone wherever you are, call anywhere you're not, no roaming or long-distance). Verizon, created by the combination of four to five regional companies can stand behind their claims of nationwide coverage. They offer analog, digital and pcs coverage and this phone flawlessly switches between the bands as needed. I participated in a conference call this morning while riding in an elevator to a parking garage, and then back up to my apartment. The Motorola 7868 is part of a very large family of StarTac phones. As such, Motorola offers a large variety of add-ons to make your phone easier to use, from headsets to car kits to chargers. On top of that, they've placed a mini-jack at the top of the phone allowing you to use any standard headset that uses the mini-jack, not some Motorola-only option. (The fact that it's on top is also a plus, in case you want to put the phone in a pocket -- Nokia's was on the bottom of the phone.) If you're looking for a nationwide plan and a high-quality phone, I recommend this phone. Once you get past the learning curve of its menus, you will really appreciate the quality and style of this phone. (Even though StarTacs have gone "in" and "out" more times than anyone can count, your friends and co-workers will still marvel at these miniature marvels of technology.) And lastly, battery life - it can apparently live for a week in standby, and it goes into powersave mode when no signal is present, allowing it to live even longer. I plug it in nearly every night and have not yet seen the battery bars drop below "full". (Sprint won't guarantee coverage in buildings, Verizon says you might experience problems in basements or valleys. Sprint uses Verizon's analog network, which is why you'll pay extra for analog roaming with Sprint.) See Also: Related Reviews: Verizon (Amazing!) http://tvjames.epinions.com/elec-review-2050-272A6FDB-3A21A8BC-prod5 SprintPCS (Evil, Evil, Evil!) http://tvjames.epinions.com/elec-review-5BFB-BED33AA-3985F823-prod1 Pacific Bell Pure Digital (why I didn't sign up) http://tvjames.epinions.com/elec-review-6D62-15B85FFD-399F0BC3-prod1 Nokia 6185 (SprintPCS) http://tvjames.epinions.com/elec-review-3D66-2BDA6EDA-399B341F-prod5 Other Reviews: * Audiovox CDM-9000 (the other Verizon tri-band phone) http://tvjames.epinions.com/elec-Comm-Mobile_Phones-Hardware-All-Audiovox_CDM-9000 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 (after $150 rebate) 87908 2001/7/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 motorola support good batterylife text messaging memory holds calls in some weak signal areas does only 1 way not 2 way fragile text messaging especially antenna The Bottom LineThe Startac 7868 has phone has many improvements over its digital predecessors. After several weeks of use, so far a happy user. Full Review I recently upgraded to a Startac 7868 several weeks ago from a Startac 7760 that I had for 2 1/2 years. I am pleased by the many improvements Motorola made in the 7868 over the 7760, but still just a few items need work. Some of these improvements from my mostly positive experience below with two digital Startacs you will not find in any manual. Also if you were a previous Startac owner, the navigation on the 7868 is similar to previous models like the 7760, with a few added features. I also could use all of my 7760 accessories on the 7868, with the exception of my auxiliary battery (see battery life comments below). Coverage: Unlike my 7760, my 7868 will connect most calls with only one of five signal bars in digital coverage. I have not dropped a call in mid conversation yet, but a few calls in very weak signal areas simply have not connected. I also have found a few places where my Startac 7868 will hold a call that my old 7760 would not. Good Vibrations: When I receive a call or a text message, the vibrator in my 7868 is much improved and have not missed a call yet when the phone is in the supplied holster, even when clipped to my pants without a belt. My 7760 vibrator was weak, and even from day 1, I missed a call here and there because I did feel the phone when a call or message come in. Either phone you can have ring, but I am in too many public places daily that a vibrating cell phone is less annoying than a ringing one which is one major reason I went with this phone besides its portability. Though the 7868 has 'good vibrations', sorry, one of its audible rings is not a Beach Boys song. Speed Dialing: As manual states for the Startac 7868, the phone has 99 memory locations where in one memory location you can store home, office, cellular, and fax/pager numbers for your contacts. The Startac 7760 you can only store one number per memory location. With both phones, you can store a string up to 32 numbers, important and easier if you use a calling card with your cell phone which I have done a few times while roaming to reduce charges. By default, the 7868 will dial the first number in a memory location when speed dialing, but you can easily change which number you have stored as the default. To override this default for a call and to dial one of the other numbers for your contact, it is only a couple of extra keystrokes. Record of Calls: Both Startacs will store the last 10 calls made and the last 16 calls received. Both phones will show date and time for calls received and who the call was from if the number and name is stored in your Startac phone book, but only the Startac 7868 will show date and time for calls placed. Also the Startac 7868 will show you, besides the person's name, which phone (home, office, etc.) they called you from. Call Timers: Though I have moderate number of minutes in my cell phone plan, I keep a tab on the cell phone minutes I use each month so not to run over with extra charges. Both my Startac 7868 and 7760 have a resettable timer where when you complete a call, it rounds the time up to the next minute which is way you are billed. Some other cell phone timers I have seen do not round and just accumulates the seconds. Now, I only wish had a cell phone which had timers separating your peak and off peak minutes. Text Messaging: If you use short text messaging and I use it a lot to receive emails, the Startac 7868 can store 85 to 90 messages with Verizon's 120 character Mobile Messenger service before running out of memory for this vs. only 30 to 35 messages with the Startac 7760. If you are looking for a phone that you can send emails from the phone, the Startac 7868 does not have it unless Motorola later releases an upgrade. For here, I use a free email by phone service (Onebox.com) where I can send emails as a voice/wav attachments which is a lot faster anyway than typing emails on other cell phones that you tediously type emails to send. Battery Life: Overall, I found my Startac 7868 has 75-100% better battery life vs. my old Startac 7760. Though some have iindicated in Epinions that they can get 4 days (96 hours) of standby battery life on the Startac 7868, no one I have heard gets the 185 hours standby in the ideal conditions Motorola and Verizon has advertised. Still I am not disappointed. Typically, at both home and office, I get two signal bars out of five in a digital coverage area. My standby time at best is 80-83 hours with no calls and a few text messages. Typically, I get 60-70 hours with 30-60 minutes of talking on the phone, and I commute daily 20-25 minutes (one way) in analog subway tunnels. With my old Startac 7760, I was only getting 40-45 hours standby if no calls were received or made on the phone. Phone build quality: My Startac 7868 is some better build quality than my old 7760, but if you handle phones roughly, the antenna especially will break. There is much less undesired 'play' in the hinge in the 7868 vs. the 7760. Product Support: If you are making a major product purchase, it is important to have good support for it. Once I had to turn in my old Startac for repair, I had it back from Motorola in 12 days. Also for questions, Motorola's manuals are easier to follow than I found for many other electronic products. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87907 2000/9/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life web browser built in small are there any Full Review I bought this phone to replace my AT&T plan, which should be tag lined 'Drops every 3 minutes'. The Motorola phone was a hard sell - I had a Nokia 6160 with a custom slide face, all the hands free goodies and a vibrating extra capacity slim battery. The Nokia would provide 2 1/2 hours of talk and days of standby. I was looking for a phone where I could get the better Verizon service and still get 2 1/2 to 3 hours of talk time - I travel regularly and typically can use that much talk time on a day out of the office. First, there really is a difference in service. I spent the better part of two weeks going around the country with my co-worker. His Nextel phone gave service in places where my AT&T would drop regularly, or not even have service. The Verizon service I chose, since it is supposed to be better than Nextel, IS far better than Nextel. There are buildings where the Nextel won't pick up that the Verizon service works in the elevators. The Verizon is consistently better everywhere. In a nutshell, the StarTac 7868W provided the equipment equivalent, if not better than the to the Nokia at about 1/2 the size. In addition, the phone provides the web browser (limiting, but great for reading important emails or finding the closest chinese restaurant) and allows you to use it as a 14.4 baud modem for your computer and/or handheld device by buying the Sprint cable kit for about $70 (Circuit City) or by buying the Motorola kit with software ($150 ish), but which provides the added feature of allowing you to populate the 7868W address book from your computer address book. I have NEVER run out of battery power during even the most heavily used day (unless I forgot to plug in the charger, duh!). The reception is great, the 400 number phone book is great, the size is great. I recommend the swivel clip, which moves out of the way of my fat belly and allows me to use and charge the phone without taking it out of the clip, and the Plantronics voice canceling headsets with volume and mute. The phone doesn't noise cancel the headset and you need the better headsets to talk to people from noisy places, the volume and mute allow you to use the headset with the phone closed. I even bought my wife a StarTac to get her the Verizon service (less expensive model, she didn't need the browser or the country wide service). Highly Recommended. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225 Approx 87906 2000/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size coolness factor big lcd screen feels a little flimsy be careful with it Full Review I've been in love with Motorola StarTACs since I was a freshman in high school (I'm a junior now) and my web-design teacher had one of those "sweet" phones with the little green blinking light. The best part was that it fit on his belt! How could it get much cooler than that? So, when I got a car this past summer, my parents talked about getting a cell phone. Then, when the car's battery died in my school parking lot, we KNEW we needed a cell phone. Well, we went to the Verizon outlet in my area and told the guy we wanted a phone, with about 100 minutes/month -- just in case it (my car dying) happened again. I also wanted a flip phone. I wanted to stay away from the Nokia 5100 series -- every person in my school who has a cell phone has one and they're too common. The guy recommended the StarTAC. He had one as his own personal cell phone. I looked at it, explored the features, and realized that it was definitely the one I wanted. The LCD screen is pretty large on a phone of its size -- big enough to see a lot of information at once. So, we got the service plan, and he explained the features to me, and we were off and running. I love the phone. All my friends think it's great how I can clip it on my belt wherever I am -- and I won't accidentally dial a number by accident. Plus, the coolness factor is there too -- the blinking green service light looks cool in a dark movie theater, and the vibrating ringer is another neat feature. I've had the phone for about 3 weeks, and I have only charged it once -- partly because it stays in my car at school all day turned off. I don't want to look like a drug dealer. I also discovered the pager functions of the phone -- when I or someone else goes to the Verizon website, they can page me on my phone and I'll get the message on the LCD screen. All they need to know is my phone number. I don't have a need for the wireless internet browser, however, so I haven't tried that out yet. I don't think I will in the near future, either. The 7868W looks fairly durable. The plastics seem a little bit cheap but I think that it will stand up to my "abuse" for as long as I own it. All in all, the phone is the coolest gadget I've ever gotten. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a small (extra small!) phone that they can show off to their friends. Plus, the price has really come down in the last several months. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80...or about that much 87905 2001/6/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features i only liked a couple ringer styles The Bottom LineGet this phone, it is so awesome and has so many features. Full Review I really don't know where to start with this phone. Well, first of all, this is my third cell phone. First, I had a big fat audiovox that was way outdated. Then, I traded phones with my mom. She gave me her audiovox, and it was smaller, but barely. I really wanted a small phone with lots of features like voicemail, caller id, call waiting, etc. First I considered the Motorola banana phones, but I realized they weren't that small. Then I wanted a nokia 8260, but it was too expensive. Finally, I settled on the Motorola Startac 7868. I got a verizon 2-year plan and the activation was free. I pay $4 a month towards the cost of the phone, which cost nothing at the store, but you can pay off your phone anytime within the service agreement. This phone has tons of features, and I will do my best to explain as many as possible. First of all, the size of this phone makes it a big winner. It is a flip phone that, when closed, is only about 3.5" h, 2" w, and .9" d. It fits easily in your pocket, so easily in fact, that it often slips too deep for my comfort because i am afraid that when i sit down, the antenna will break. The size is a big plus, though, cuz I'm not the purse type and keeping it in my pocket ensures that i won't lose it. Next, this phone has many capabilities. I have voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and three-way included with my plan. I also have the internet for the first three months free, so I got to test it out. This phone can also receive text messages. Web-capable: I can go online and send and receive email, read the news, play games, get movie times, check the weather, log on to yahoo instant messaging, and much much more. It is very simple to learn and takes only a couple seconds to log on. Me, being quite stupid however, did not know that using the internet on my phone used minutes and I've already gone over my weekday minutes for the month. Oh, well. Caller ID: This is a great feature. If the number of the person calling me is in my phone book, their name will show up on the screen. You can change that though, to have their number show up instead. Voicemail: I have basic voicemail so people can leave me a message when my phone is off or I'm not answering. Enhanced voicemail has an icon that shows up when you have mail, but I only have basic voicemail. Messaging: Anyone can email you phone, even if you aren't signed up for the internet. They just send the message to yournumber@msg.myvzw.com (that's only if you have verizon, I dunno about the other services). Also, someone can IM your phone from msn instant messenger. You can't write back though, unless you have the internet and email them back. Receiving messages does not take up any minutes, so it's really convenient when someone is online and wants to talk to you, but you aren't online. Phone Book: This phone allows you to store 99 names with 5 numbers per name. You can choose which icon to put a person's number under which include an office building, a house, a cell phone, a pager, and a question mark. Ringers: This phone has 9 different ringer styles and also a vibrating mode. You can change the volume of the ringers and you can silence all sounds on your phone and the vibrating mode will immediately be activated. I only like one ringer style that sounds kind of like a melody. The others are kind of annoying. Call timers: You can view time from your last call, cumulative time, and you can reset your time every month to keep track of how many minutes you use a month. All in all, this is a really great phone. I have heard people say it is very difficult to navigate around all the phone's features, but it only took me a couple days. The battery life lasts soooo long. I used the internet for about 45 minutes and the battery is still full. There are 5 reception bars on the phone's display and even at only two, the sound quality is great. You can put a personalized banner on the phone and even adjust the amount of time the bluish backlight stays on. The cool factor of this phone is way up there. All my friends like it and seemed surprised that the phone could actually fit in my pocket. If you need a compact phone with tons of features and great battery life, get this phone! Recommended: Yes 87904 2000/3/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very light lots of features compact protected keys screen w flip interface is horrible The Bottom LineThe best phone for your bucks if you carry one around all day. The interface leaves something to be desired. Full Review I've been the owner of a stone-age cell phone for the last two years (read: it weighs (gasp) 9 ounces and is larger than a thumbnail). My old qualcomm QCP 820 was a great filly in its day, but with the arrival of the newest generation of compact and featurefull phones, it just didn't cut it anymore. A phone that won't fit in a pants pocket? Ridiculous! I finally gave in and started shopping for a phone. I had two main requirements: #1, a flip phone or cover of some sort so that the keypad and screen are protected, and #2 light/compact. I am pretty clumsy and have accidentally dialed my husband on my old phone when it bumped around in my jacket pocket, so I really like flip phones. The startac 7868 weighs about 3.5 ounces, it's hardly noticeable and will fit anywhere. I currently wear it in the geeky holster (that came with) on my jeans pocket, but I could just as easily slip it into my pocket. Of course, if you're a woman, feminine clothes with decent pockets don't exist, so you'll have to put it somewhere else. The sound quality on the phone is great. My husband travels a lot and calls me from it, and I can't even tell when he's on the cell versus a land line. I currently have my phone configured to answer calls as soon as it's opened. You can make it so that it only picks up the call after you press a button. Along with caller ID, you can easily avoid those annoying calls from your insurance agent or ex boyfriend. Additionally, you can configure it so that closing the flip hangs up the phone or not, depending on your desires. The startac's very configurable.. You can switch between ring mode and vibrate mode with the press of two keys. Changing the volume on the ringer is also easily done via the controls on the side. I'm still discovering the options. Among the other features is the option to have a small LED on the outside of the phone tell you what type of service area you're in by changing colors - i.e. one color for analog, one color for digital local, etc. While this seems nifty at first, I found out that it's a serious drain on battery life, so I turned it off. The startac has a fairly large screen considering its size, and you can fit two lines of text to describe a number. This is different from my old phone, where I had to squeeze the description into 12 characters. The one problem with this is that you never see the phone number and the name on the screen at the same time. User Interface/Menu Navigation Yuck yuck yuck yuck YUCK. My old QCP 820 had a wonderful interface, I didn't even need to read the book to use it and add numbers to my phone book. Above, you'll notice I said "I'm still discovering the options".... that's because the interface is so horrible, it's taking me this long to figure out what menu the option I want is on. To access the menus, you click a button and then scroll up or down, clicking the button to go forward. You would think this would be easy, but somehow the startac manages to make it complex. Additionally, pushing the button on the side is fairly difficult and after entering 40 names, my hand hurt. A wheel would be much more useful here. Entering numbers into the phone book was one of the most unintuitive ways of doing something I've ever run across. I was expecting to go to phone book, then add, then type the number, name, etc. No, with the startac, you just open it up, type the number, press 'store', say which location to put it into, store, say if it's business/home/cell, store, and then it brings you to a screen that says "Enter Next Number". At this point, most normal people would say "Well when do I get to put that person's name in??". The answer: press store again, and then you can enter the name. It's actually asking for another number for this person, not another completely separate number to enter in your phone book. 99% of the numbers I enter are specific to a person and a place - "Bob home", "Bob cell", "Bob work.". I would much rather have these in separate locations rather than all under "Bob", forcing me to go through an extra step when I want to call bob. For people who have a lot of numbers to store, this might be considered a feature, but I, who uses about 50 numbers, call it annoying. In the end, however, I do recommend this phone. Entering numbers is painful but is not something you do every day. The day to day usage and the easy portability of this phone make it a good buy overall. As a side note, I have verizon wireless as my provider, and I bought the phone directly from a verizon store. They discounted this phone $50 from the retail price (from $250 to $200). You might be able to find a better deal at another shop, look around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225 87903 2000/10/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 vibrate mode compact sturdy squeaky hinge battery life few options unpredictable call quality The Bottom LineIf you must have a flip, it's an option. But it's outdated and doesn't have the latest features or personalization options. Full Review Having used this phone for over a year, as well as previously owning its predecessor StarTac model, I recently made the move to the Motorola v120c model, and here's why: 1.) Gremlin in the Speaker: Over the 14 months that I used the ST7868W, I found the call quality generally good on the Verizon service (their customer service is great, by the way). I can't remember ever having a dropped call. However, the volume of the calls often varied greatly and I spent **a lot** of time pressing the two volume keys up and down to be able to hear. I had the software upgraded and the phone was inspected for any loose wires, etc., but this did not fix the problem. 2.) Quickly Tired Batteries: The standard batteries would start draining very rapidly after about 6-7 months of regular use (at approx. 450 mins/month). The cost of buying new batteries adds up over time. 3.) It's Talking Back: The hinge tends to squeak - nothing you can do about it. 4.) Two Handed Operation Only: It takes two hands to use this phone. This is a nuisance as you must open the flip to check Caller ID. It wobbles if you leave it flipped open and lay it down on a desk or table. 5.) No fun ring tones 6.) No voice calling On the other hand, I found the phone sturdy, small enough to fit in a pocket or purse, and the backlight is excellent although it makes a noticeable humming sound. My main criteria for a phone is its portability, and when this phone was introduced it was one of the smallest ever. I was happy with it for a long time, but now there are many compact phones with more features and better technology. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 130 87902 2001/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size portability reception small display buttons The Bottom LineLight on the showy features but heavy on the good stuff -- reliable and durable. Full Review After a terrible experience with a Samsung SCH-411 phone, I switched to a StarTac because of its popularity and reputation. Guess what... every raving review I heard about this phone is entirely true. The StarTac is a small phone, very compact and lightweight. It opens at the center and the top part that flips up is where the speaker is located. The bottom part contains the display and the buttons. There are three buttons on the side to navigate menus and phone numbers. Also, a LED indicator on the outside of the phone indicates the power and roaming status of the phone without having to open it up. The battery is only about an inch by an inch and a half, and very thin. I was really surprised that a battery this small could have such a long talk time! The first thing that appealed to me about the StarTac was the belt clip/holder and compact design of the phone. I sometimes work in warehouses and am active in climbing and moving around, so I like the phone to stay with me. The StarTac is very secure in its (included!) clip-on holder. The only drawback is, the antenna gets bent when it is pressed against the back of a chair or car seat, because the phone doesn't swivel, it's always in an upright position. There is plenty of room for all your numbers -- you can store up to 99 separate entries in the phone book. For each person, only one entry is required and you can store multiple numbers for each person, including designating an icon for each number... cell, home, pager, fax, etc... so that I don't have to scroll through so many numbers to get to who I need... and then I try all the numbers until I reach them! The battery life is amazing for the tiny batteries it uses. I go for a week without charging mine. Plus its reception is unbeatable compared to the Samsung -- it is much clearer than what I was used to. I can get text messaging but unfortuately I cannot send it. I can also browse the internet (don't have the service though), or hook up my laptop to the phone for service (never tried that either). It is a durable and steady phone. I do wish the display was bigger to fit longer names for my speed dials - I can store larger names but it shows the first 12 characters for a few seconds, then the remaining ones, then the first twelve again, etc etc. The clarity on this phone is usually incredible. I spend most of my time in digital coverage but find myself in analog mode a few times a month, which eats up the battery much quicker but the difference in modes is not huge when it comes to the clarity of the caller's voice. The StarTac can have up to four different cell phone numbers programmed into it, so if you have multiple cell phone numbers you can switch the phone to a different number and use it. Because of its extremely slim design, the StarTac is not easily held between the ear and shoulder. I frequently use the hands-free headset option when driving or otherwise. The reception is still fine, and the phone can be closed while on a hands-free call which means it can still be clipped to my belt while I am talking. That is a nice feature. A message indicator on the display (and optionally, audio alert) lets me know if I have a voicemail, text message, or Internet browser alert waiting for me. I can also see the last 16 caller ID numbers received and the last 10 numbers I dialed. I like the phone for its simplicity and ease of use. It doesn't allow for a lot of fancy features (games, fancy rings) that I would never use, but it doesn't skimp out on the important things that I require from my cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 87901 2000/1/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 appearance quality of construction size durability features user friendliness The Bottom LineI work in this business, and I have myself, my parents, my sister, and my grandmother in the 7868 Full Review I should start this review by introducing myself. My name is Jon and I am a corporate sales representative for Verizon Wireless. Does this make me an expert? Not necessarily. Does it add some credibility to my review? I'd like to think so :). I carry two phones with me that have unlimited minutes (corporate phones). The StarTac 7868 is one of them, by choice. I use it to make all of my outbound calls throughout the month, totalling five to seven thousand minutes a month. Heavy usage by any standard. Motorola products have always carried with them a tradition of high quality and reliability, along with durability. The old 550 flip phones were almost indestructible. The StarTac isn't quite like that, but it holds up well against most normal wear. I've used a wide variety of cell phones over the last five years, and I'd have to say that the StarTac holds up very well against any of them. The signal strength is as good or better than the best phones I've used. The durability is above average. The one area I'd like to see Motorola put more emphasis on is the user friendliness factor. While other manufacturers make it extremely easy to navigate the phone, the 7868 feels a little antiquated. I know the phone like the back of my hand, but a new user might take some time getting adjusted to storing numbers and accessing certain features. Once a person learns the phone, it's tought to give it up. The ergonomics of the 7868 are great, simply put. It fits the head well and allows just the right amount of space between the ear speaker and the mic. Good design, Motorola. The phone is stylish, and despite it's unusually long life in the marketplace thusfar, it remains a top notch piece of equipment. Insider's tip - I'd avoid the Motorola V120C and the V60C. Attractive phones, but reliability has been poor. Perhaps next year's model will perform better. At least, that's been my experience selling those models. The StarTac has all of the basics - vibration, 100 memory locations w/4 contact numbers for each, different ringer styles, and good battery life. Unless you're in need of something more advanced, the 7868 should serve you well! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87900 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact lots of features expensive Full Review The Motorola StarTak is a great phone. I have been using mine for about 4 months now and have experienced very few problems. It's size makes for very easy handling but as with any product, I have experienced some problems. Because it is a very compact phone I find myself re-dialing phone numbers because I sometimes hit the wrong numbers when dialing. The keypad is just too small for those of us with fat stubby fingers. (Really a minor problem.) It can be especially annoying when I'm trying work on my laptop, eat a burger and change the radio station while driving my car. (That should tick off the "anti-cell phone while driving" bunch) The other problem I've noticed with my StarTak is the port into which you plug the charging cord. The end of the cord seems to wiggle around in the port which makes it seem sort of flimsy. It does charge very fast though. Mine fully charges in less than 2 hours when plugged into a 110 volt outlet in my house and it charges even faster when plugged into the cigarette lighter in your car. The features on this phone are fantastic. You can store up to 99 phone numbers and 9 one touch numbers. For instance, I have programmed mine to call my home number if I press and hold down the number 1 key. You can also check your voice mail with the touch of one key. Makes for very easy use. This is a great feature for all you knuckleheads who can't talk and drive at the same time. You can also plug a headset or speaker into the top of the phone which is another great feature for the aforementioned knuckleheads. I have an ear-piece with a microphone that clips onto your collar for hands-free operation. Makes it much easier to eat a burger, change the station and flip someone off while you steer with your knees. The Tri-Mode feature on this phone is a fantastic advantage. It will switch you between digital, analog and digital PCS depending upon where you are located. If you are in an analog area you can expect your batteries to run down much quicker. I think you get less than 2 hours of talk time when you are talking on analog. Digital is much better. Something like 8 or 9 hours. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 230 87899 2000/8/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool small lightweight pricey Full Review So you want a mobile phone do you? If you can justify the price, this one rocks. Some of the reasons I bought the StarTAC: #1 - Small, it is about the size of a text pager. #2 - Backlight, Activates as soon as you open the phone, or press a button #3 - Battery Life, something like 170 hours on Standby!!! #4 - Ease of use, at least with as many features as it gives you. - There are so many things you can do with this phone; internet browsing, voice mail, pager, callerID, phone book, mute, on-air timers, more more more. #5 - Reliablity I personally use Verizon's one-rate plan with this phone. This type(tri-mode) is required. National coverage plans(I think all) require your phone have the ability to switch between Digital PCS and analog. I have never lost a connection, I have never roamed and not found a carrier. I have also dropped this phone a couple of times. Believe me, after shelling out the bucks, my heart skipped as it bounced off the concrete. But all is well, a few minor scratches, no real harm. Even though there are more things on this phone than you need, the menu system(and hot keys) are easy to learn. Took me a couple days to figure out how to use everything. The StarTAC offers security features like power on security codes, or a PIN before dialing. I opted to set up only power on security. Forces me to input a numeric code to enable the phone as soon as you turn it on, or after enabling the security feature while it is on. This leaves only one pre-programmed number available without entering the security code. This number resides under the 1 button. This number is always available, and Motorola suggests using this as an emergency contact number. One of my favorite feature(toys) on this one is caller ID. Not only does the backlit display show you the incoming number; if the number is in your phonebook, it will display the name associated with the number instead. Also it logs the last 10 incoming calls in the caller ID feature. Great for making sure you don't miss that important call from your boss on Sunday! lol!!! Honestly, I could have spent much less on a phone. However, I would have something twice as big, and not as cool looking. I love electronic gadgets, it is important to me that things not only work perfectly, but are "cool". The StarTAC delivers on both fields. If you shop like me, get this phone..it rocks. Footnote - Verizon's service is OUTSTANDING. And I am not just saying that because I work for them. Jon Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 87898 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size good battery life data accesssync software somewhat expensive analog battery life not so hot cannot accept extra battery Full Review Two months ago, I accidently washed (in the washing machine) my Nokia 6162 cell phone. With the phone broken, and my ATT contract expired, I decided to look elsewhere for cell service. I decided to use Verzion Wireless because they have excellent service in the New York area (thats where I live). In order to use the new service, I had to buy a new phone. So, the stage was set. I lucked out as I had used a StarTac (it was an older model) at my job recently. After using the older analog model StarTac for 2 weeks, the choice was a no brainer for me. I really liked the small size and features of the StarTac. During my research, I found that Motorola sells a data cable that allows the phone to be used as a cell modem, and you can synchronize your contacts (I run Outlook 98 for e-mail and contacts on my desktop computer) to the phone (read: no typing phone numbers into the phone!). I was sold. So, I picked up the 7868W StarTac. I picked up the car charger($20), and got the data cable a week later ($149, there is a big demand for it). The data cable comes with Star Fish Trusync, and the appropriate modem drivers. I loaded up the software, connected the phone (through a serial port), and downloaded all of my phone numbers (it only holds 99 numbers). Done. It was great. I tested the dial up networking through my ISP, and that works well. It only gives you a 14.4 kbps connection, so it is a little slow. I did not have any dropped connections or other problems. It just worked. I was browsing the web and picking up e-mail while in my car!!! The phone itself is small, and it comes with a nice holster that clips on your belt. The battery life is good, especially in a digital area. I am able to get 3 to 5 days of standby, and over 3 hours talk time. Analog performance is not so good, I was only able to get about 10 hours standby, and less than an hour talk time. Other StarTacs can take an external battery, but this model cannot. There is a built in 'micro browser'. It only works with a specific set of sites, but is good for checking stocks and the weather. The phone can receive e-mail, which is handy. E-mail does not eat up phone minutes, so people can drop you a line, rather than call. Good for things like 'pick up milk on your way home' type of things. I don't recommend sending e-mail from the phone. It is VERY painful and time consuming to type out the simplest of messages on the key pad. I recommend picking up a spare battery if you plan on using the phone a lot and you are not in your car, or if you are in an analog area a bit. The phones performance is excellent, but that is Verizons doing. Very little dropped calls. I came from ATT, and used to have $20 month in dropped call credits. All of this functionality is not cheap. If you can use all of what this phone can offer, then this is an excellent device. I would recommend this phone to anyone that travels, uses a cell phone a lot, or that needs the data connectivity capabilities. This is not a phone for the occasional user. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249 87897 2000/7/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact lightweight annoying ringsit s flimsy Full Review After using a Nokia 6160 for two or so years, I switched mobile phone companies and purchased a Motorola Star Tac 7868W. The cost of this phone was exactly the same as what I paid for my Nokia, about $200.00. I have a lower opinion of the Star Tac than do many of the other reviews I have read, and perhaps that is because of my previous experience with my Nokia, a phone that I really, really liked and had no problems with. The Good Points: First and foremost are the size and weight of this phone. The phone easily fits in a number of places without being noticeable, and also fits on your belt well. The disadvantage to its size is that it's difficult to dial with one hand, and harnessing the phone with your shoulder is also somewhat cumbersome. Also, the battery, which is the bulk of the weight on this phone, is placed on the top half of the phone. Therefore, when the phone is open, it is awkward to try and dial with one hand and hold the phone at the same time. The battery life on the phone is great, especially considering that the battery is so small. This phone comes standard with a Lithium - Ion battery. Lithium - Ion batteries are great because they pack a lot of power in a small, relatively lightweight package, and they don't have the "memory" effect that the less expensive NiCad and NiMH batteries have. `Memory effect' is when a battery doesn't fully re-charge if it is not completely drained. The display on the Star Tac is awesome, probably the best I have ever seen on a Mobile Phone. The lettering is large and easy to read, and it is capable of displaying relatively detailed graphics. The best part of the display is that it is back-lit with an Indiglo light, making it very clear and easy to see, and it's easy on the eyes. The Star Tac has a "Smart Button" which is a button that allows you to easily navigate the phone's various functions, as well as provide easy access to your directory. It's located on the side of the phone, as are two up and down arrows you can use to scroll. This helps a lot with the problem I mentioned before of the phone being difficult to use with one hand. Finally, the Star Tac is equipped with a Vibra-Call Alert Function, which makes the phone vibrate instead of ring or beep. I love this feature, as I don't always want it to be obvious that I am getting a call. Bad Points: This phone is rich in features, but it lacks options. Options such as different styles of ring, and different modes such as "silent mode" or "pager mode." It lacks different schemes in which you can change these settings. All of the ringing styles it does have are mildly to extremely irritating, and for message notification, you have three choices: one, two, or three beeps. The call quality on this phone is poor. It's arguable as to whether this is due to the digital signaling format it uses, CDMA, or because of the phone itself. Also, it could be related to the network of the specific wireless company I use (Verizon Wireless, formerly known as Bell Atlantic Mobile). Lastly, since the day I purchased the phone, it's been plagued with operational problems. The first one being that it will shut off all by itself for no apparent reason. I took the phone into the store I bought it at, where an employee literally huffed, put her hands on her hips, and glared at me because I was in there so close to closing time (see my review of Verizon Wireless for more on that). They replaced the battery for me and that did nothing to help that problem. Also, the phone seems to get very poor reception on a consistent basis, consistent meaning that the poor reception occurs all over, regardless of location. Such consistent problems with reception that happen without correlation to certain locations tend to indicate a problem with the phone and not the Wireless company's coverage. I constantly experience dropped calls, poor reception, and one way audio (I can hear them but they can't hear me, a "hallmark" of digital service). All in all, I am relatively satisfied with this phone. But for the money, I would expect more. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 87896 2000/2/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable light weight 4 types of numbers stored per 99 entries easy to read display not the most intuitive to understand requiring some reading of the manual The Bottom LineRecommended to anyone that has the time to read the manual for 30 minutes. After doing so, you'll appreciate the features and get the most out of this phone. Full Review As long as you have the time to read over the manual for 30 minutes, this is an excellent phone. I like the ability to press a letter to quickly jump through the phone book to look up a number quickly. Some of the features I would have liked is the ability to keep the banner showing when it's in locked mode. On my old Qualcomm phone, I always put my phone number there in locked mode so someone could call me if it ever got lost. Another feature that's lacking is the ability to change the default to scroll by numeric order. The default is alphanumeric order and you need to press RCL-01 to start scrolling in order. On my Qualcomm phone the order defaulted by numeric order which I liked better. One other gripe I have (that I haven't figure out yet) is how to move a numeric entry to a different location. I may have to look in the manual some more for this one. Beyond this minor annoyances, this has been a great phone. The clarity has been excellent (I'm using Verizon), the buzzer mode works fine for me, the durability of the attena hasn't been a problem for me, the light-weight portability is a plus, and long battery life. All the important things I was looking for this phone has. One minor feature that may be important to others is the different ringer types. I think there are only 9 tones (of which I only like one of them). This wasn't a big deal to me since I prefer to keep the buzzer mode on most of the time. I get really annoyed at people that leave the ringer on during meetings, church, movies, etc. The buzzer mode should be on most of the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87895 2000/12/16 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 small lightweight un ergonomic battery weak fragile Full Review This is my SIXTH Motorola Startac. The first two were analog, and I was an early adopter of these phones. Since then, I've had the Analog/Digital Startacs exclusively. Here are some of the pros and cons: Pros: Small Light Good Sound Cons: Fragile Un-Ergonomic Battery doesn't last (a consistent problem with all Startacs) Let me elaborate. 2 of the 6 Startacs didn't survive a fall from my pants' pocket to the floor. They literally shattered. Another one's hinges failed. If you are hell bent on getting one of these phones, remember to get insurance. I would also ask the insurance people if you can opt to switch out the type of phone for an equal or lesser value. My service provider (Verizon) doesn't allow you to do that. So I'm stuck on getting replacements everytime they break. The phone is very un-ergonomic. I do say this with some sort of professionalism. I'm an industrial designer and design all sorts of items that people use everyday, and this phone is hardly easy to use in terms of user interface, and physical handling. There is something called things being too small to use. There are three major things that are bad ergonimically with this phone. First, the keypad is laid out towards the bottom of the phone. If you hold the phone, you have to make your fingers and thumb do all sorts of contorted manuvers in order to dial. Secondly, the END and the SEND button are on top of each other. So, you wind up sometimes having to redial the number. Secondly, the keypad is layed out flush with the surface of the phone. This makes it difficult to "feel" your way through the keypad. Third, the display, while easy to read, is hampered by the earpiece. If you have callerID enabled, you have to set up the phone not to answer when you open the phone. That's okay, but why in god's name should you open up the phone just to see who's calling. Motorola has worked out a couple of these problems with some of the other models of the phone (clear window to see through to the display, and moving the send/end buttons to the top in their other PCS model). My major pet peeve is that the batteries on these things develop a memory. Even though the battery is Lithium Ion, which is not supposed to build up a memory, for some reason, I can never get any more than a couple of days of not charging the phone. I also don't talk more than maybe a total of 15 minutes per day on this phone. Another minor issue I have with Motorola in general is their lack of handsfree integrated solutions for in-car wirirng. Nokia on the other hand has many adapters that integrate in with some of the mobile phone ready cars that come today. So, in review, skip this phone. Skip the novelty, and buy a phone that is easy to use, and to handle. When the Startac first came out, it was the only game in town. Today, there are plenty more solutions that match it for size and weight. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 87894 2000/10/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 web browser built in nice feel short life in analog mode poor reliability Full Review I got this phone through work in June. If I didn't need it for that, I would probably have pitched it a while ago. First, the good: it's a small phone that is fairly comfortable to use. The controls are fairly easy to use, and since the phone automatically switches between digital and analog, I haven't yet found myself without service, whether in major cities or in rural stretches of western North Dakota. The Internet browser is very handy and runs smoothly. It's nice to be able to connect up to Northwest Airlines' web site to check flight information from anywhere. You can only use the web when you have digital service (and where the web service is available). Power consumption in digital mode is fairly stingy. Recharging the batteries does not take a long time, whether on an AC or DC connection. Now for the bad: I have gone through three phones. The first just stopped working one day. Kaput-city. It couldn't connect to the cell, and repeatedly failed making calls. I talked to their customer service and later that day it mysteriously started working again. Three days later, same thing. I took the phone in and swapped it for another. That one was fine for a couple of months. Then the sound stopped working. You would place or receive a call and, while the party on the other end could hear you, you couldn't hear a thing (resulting in calls that consisted of me saying "Can you please call me back at XXX-XXXX!") Repeatedly pressing the volume up and down buttons sometimes woke the speaker up, but eventually that stopped working as well. So, now I'm on my third phone. I asked around the office, and we've gone through six or seven of these phones, with similar problems to those above. I've also gone through two earphone pieces -- the first one started generating static after a couple weeks of use. In analog mode, this thing sucks power like nobodies business. I think I'm lucky if I can use it for more than six hours standby without plugging it in. The signal strength is generally fairly strong, but if you are in a multi storied building or any building with lots of electronics (like an airport) strength drops rapidly. In the aggregate, I would not recommend this phone, particularly if you have a choice (which I don't). The poor reliability that we've seen here probably isn't an isolated case, so buyer beware! Recommended: No 87893 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 size clarity weight hard to use with one hand Full Review I have been a cell phone user for many years now and have owned five different models. A few years ago StarTac's were somewhat of a status symbol. They were very expensive and were sometimes hard to obtain. A lot has changed in the cell phone market and now some companies are giving them away with a one year service plan. I would first like to say that if you want a cell phone that you can hide in your pocket or wherever this is the phone for you. I have carried the larger phones and it is a joy to be able to stick it in your pants pocket and not have people think that you are really HAPPY to see them. This phone also has a variety of add-ons (leather case, hands-free system, ear piece, etc.) that you can pick up at places like ebay for a song! Being one of the most popular phones does have its advantages. The storage capacity in the phone is good, but navigation through its phone book can be kind of tricky at first. I highly recommend reading the owners manual before trying to even load a phone number. One handed use is also somewhat hazardous. If you are trying to hold the phone and dial a number it is very easy to drop it.:-( I have my service through GTE (verizon) which has a great web site that allows you customize text messages on everything from stocks to sports. This is a very handy feature and uses very little air time. The web browsing capability is somewhat limited, slow and uses a lot of air time. This technology is just starting and will gradually improve with time. In closing I would have to say that this is the best phone I have ever owned and would highly recommend it to anyone that needs a good small cell phone... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87892 2000/9/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight small strong versatile little pricey would like a bigger display Full Review After much horror with Sprint Wireless Internet and Cellular service, I moved over to Verizon (GTE) for essentially the same services. There is only one phone that they will supply with the Verizon service and that is the Motorola StarTAC 7868W. This is my second StarTAC phone, the first was its older Analog sibling that I really liked, so I was looking forward to having a StarTAC again. It has been great so far. The StarTAC is a perfectly sized phone - styled much like a clamshell; when open the top half of the clam holds the display and is held against the ear, the lower half has the dialing pad and you talk in to this as the microphone is mounted here (sorry if this sounds a bit like "Q" explaining the use of the BMW phone to James Bond in the scene where Bond replies "So that is what I have been doing wrong"). When the clamshell is closed, the phone will almost disappear in the palm of the hand. The phone weighs very little even with the larger Li-Ion battery. To sum up peoples unsolicited opinions on this device: "Now that is one small phone - wow". Good summary. The phone is STRONG. I was walking one day with the phone in my hand and I tripped - I put my hand out to save myself and smashed the phone on to the concrete with my full weight behind it. I was amazed that the phone was not reduced to little pieces of plastic, but all it had was an abrasion as a result of the fall (and so did I for that matter). It is amazingly strong for such a little thing. The phone comes with a single long-life Li-Ion battery, a belt holster and a single charger. The belt holster is really geeky - I recommend a leather carrying case for convenience and protection; also recommended is an additional charger for those of us who travel; just leave it in your suitcase for when you need it, it does not cost much. The phone arrives fully charged and ready to go - and it recharges quite quickly in my experience. Sound quality is pretty good; this is a digital phone and sometimes it does sound a little like a penguin talking underwater, but that it quite rare and not the fault of the phone itself. Since the antenna retracts, it is worth pulling it out when the signal strength it low as it adds about one more "block" (scale of signal strength) to the signal meter. To answer the phone when it is ringing, just open the clamshell and say "hello"; hanging up is as simple as closing the clamshell. You can use SEND and END, but the clamshell works in a more intuitive way to be honest. Many phone features are programmable; you can change the ring type (not many choices like the Nokia, but enough), the duration of the backlight, the key volume, the ring volume, the screen Greeting, etc. The phone book has some 99 entries for programming commonly dialed numbers. Sometimes I find the menu a bit difficult to navigate and setting up the phone book is overly obscure - I do think Motorola could have done a better job in these areas. The display is very bright and contrasty - no issues with seeing this in daylight. Battery life is excellent - I have yet to take it to zero even when roaming in analog territory. On the internet side, the display is a little small compared with, say, the Sprint Touchpoint, but it is adequate. There are two sets of web controls - 3 buttons on the side of the phone or 3 keys on the dialpad; they all do the same thing, but it can be comfortable to move between them for some operations. Of the side buttons, the center is a kind of mouse click, the top and bottom buttons navigate up and down on the display respectively. The CLR button on the keypad is the same as BACK on the browser - simple enough. Since Verizon has a dedicated web area that you can program for your personal phone, the web connection is very useful and the phone helps you navigate it quickly. Verizon web and the 7868 are a pretty good combo in fact. The Motorola 7868 cost about $200 with activation - not a cheap phone, but given its quality and reliability it is very good value. My guess is this phone will outlast all my older phones, except my analog StarTAC which is still going strong in my young ladies hands. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 87891 2002/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size features a few trivial problems The Bottom LineExcellent phone. Full Review The Motorola Startac 7868 is my cellular phone of choice. Even though there have been some minor problems with the phone, the size, features, and convenience have made these problems seem trivial. First Size and Ergonomics: The Motorola Startac 7868 is one of the smallest digital phones available. Weighing just under 4 ounces, it is much lighter than any analog or digital counterpart I have used prior (including the Nokia 282, and Motorola PC650.) The phone, by itself, is somewhat easy to hold, both for it's weight, but also the unique angle that the transceiver points. By itself, I do find that the gap between the back of the phone and your hand can create a small strain on extremely long calls. This can be remedied by attaching the optional auxiliary battery to the back of the phone. The auxiliary battery clips to the back of the phone and gives an extra ½ inch of mass that, for me, helps provide a comfortable support for the phone. Due to it's extremely small size, it is virtually impossible to hold the phone between your shoulder and ear, as so many of us are accustomed to doing with our home phones. This problem is remedied by the addition of a attached microphone which plugs into the top of the phone, and fits in your ear. This allows you to hold a conversation while keeping your hands free. The hands free microphone is also good for those who have jumped on the "Dangers of EM Radiation" bandwagon that has plagued the cellular phone industry. The hands free microphone keeps the transceiver away from your head, and limits the, so called, danger from this radiation. (A recent report on Dateline showed that the Startac models had the lowest EM Radiation emissions out of all phones tested, another positive point…) Features: The Motorola Startac 7868 has all the features expected in a digital phone. I am aware that most of the features have more to do with what my service provider offers, but from what I understand, the compatibility of the phone to work with these features is also a factor. My favorite feature is one called Digital Advisor, which allows my Startac to mimic the functions of a pager. Digital Advisor allows a caller to choose between leaving me a voice mail message, paging my phone just as if it were a pager, or having my phone paged with a alpha-numeric message. This way, instead of wasting the time with a phone conversation, the caller can just have the phone beep me saying "Call Office" or "Check E-Mail" (or any other message they see fit to see.) This feature also allows the caller the convenience of paging my phone via the internet, instead of making a phone call. The Motorola Startac 7868 is also equipped with Caller ID, so I can screen out all of those calls are less important. Screen out the boss, but answer the wife. The Motorola Startac 7868 also has multiple ringer styles, which for me is a trivial feature but for many people I know, seems vital (by the way they constantly change their ringer.) I also have the obvious features of Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, and Three Way Calling, all of which, should be self-explanatory. The phone also has a built in web browser, but, due to the fact that I use my Compaq I-Pac on the road for internet work, I have not had much of an opportunity to work with it. I do feel, however, that due to the small size of the screen, the internet browser is probably less than effective. Service: The Motorola Startac 7868 is, as good of quality, that one can expect from any digital phone. The advantages to the service on the Motorola Startac 7868 over some other phones is that it is what as known as a "Tri-Mode" phone. This means that the phone will work on, Analog, CDMA Digital, and CDMA-PCS Digital. To a consumer, what this means, is that, almost every where you go, you will find a good service signal. Please be advised, the quality of the service you receive plays more on the service provider than with the phone itself. Due to FCC guidelines, handheld cellular phones can only transmit a maximum of 6/10 of a watt, and most manufactures push this limit. I prefer the CDMA type digital service (Used by Virizon, Alltel, and most of the Bells) over TDMA digital service (used by AT&T), and GSM (used by Nextel.) CDMA digital service seems to have the largest coverage throughout the country, and provide a much higher quality service. (See my review on cellular phone service in which I explain the differences I found between these services.) Convenience: Other than the size of the Motorola Startac 7868, the most convenient part of this phone is the belt holster. (pretty lame huh?) The belt holster allows easy access to the phone, and a fast storage with out having to fumble with re-clipping the phone each time you are done talking. It is just a simple holster that clips to your belt, in which the phone slides in and out of, yet stays secure when not in use. There has to be some problems: …And yes, there are… Initially when I purchased the phone, I had to go back into the office 3 times to have something called a PRL (preferred roaming list) re-updated. If the service reps were not so nice an apologetic about it, this would have really upset me. Attention companies, quality customer service does make a difference in the impression of your service, even if one has experienced technical problems. My phone seems to be having another problem slowly come up, the antenna seems to be getting loose and I am afraid it will break soon. I will have this checked by a service technician as soon as I have time. My overall impression of the Motorola Startac 7868 is favorable, and the small problems that I have experienced have been outweighed by the features and convenience of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 87890 2002/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 packed with tons of features unreliable soundsignal strength could be better The Bottom LineLuxury-car features outweighed by Hugo-like reliability. Full Review Let me start by saying I share some of the same experiences of many who have owned this phone. That is to say, I am on my third replacement and first repair, only restrained from trying another model by the fact that Verizon would make me pay for it, as opposed to free replacements of my Startac for the life of the 1 year warranty. That warranty, by the way, could very well be the feature you'll make the most use of on this phone. Of course, that kind of opening statement can't have you very enthusiastic about the phone. And it shouldn't, at least in my opinion. No matter how incredible it seems, just remember the fact that you will not be reimbursed for time and gas money for repeated trips to your local Veriozon store for replacement phones. My first phone wouldn't stop buzzing constantly during calls and suffered from a lower than advertised battery life. With the replacement, once I turned on the vibrate function it was permanently on whether the vibrate function was switched on or off. Heck, it even vibrated continuously when the phone wasn't on, which as you can imagine, was very fun at parties and elicited the expected joking comments from my friends. "Hey, you don't even need a girlfriend when your cell phone doubles as a vibrator 24 hours a day, seven days a week!" I replaced that phone with yet another, which in turn had to be repaired yet again yesterday. Apparently, according to the service tech, it had bad software on it that sometimes made it impossible for it to find a signal for placing or receiving calls. After a five-minute download of a new program from his PC, I was on my way. So here I am, with my newly repaired third phone. When I asked the repair guy if he gets an awful lot of Startac ST78S8W's back, prompted by the fact that 3 other people were having theirs repaired at the same time that I was, his response was "Yeah but that's only 'cause we sell so many." Yeah, right. Call quality is only So-So. I've had a few dropped calls and I can sometimes hear static and echos. Overall, it's not as good as one might expect for such an expensive phone. I've seen much cheaper phones that had better sound quality. Lest you think I'm just a grumpy pessimist, I have to admit that the phone does have excellent features for its price, which was for me $49.99 with a new service plan. It includes built in text messaging, internet browsing, an integrated head phone jack, and fax capabilities. It can search for signals on both an analog and a digital band so that you're less likely to be unable to find a signal or have a call dropped. Technically, there are 99 slots in the phone book. However, if you consider the fact that each slot has four spaces for the subject's home and work number, email, and mobile phone number, then it's really 396. This feature of having specific slots for a person's different numbers is very convenient in that you don't have to waste time and multiple phone book spaces typing in Ben cell, Ben home, Ben mobile, etc...Simply scroll to their name in the phone book and find all their contact information under one heading. IF you ever need to download those numbers to an external source such as a PC, the phone will allow you to that too. The key to making use of this phone's features is the function key on the key pad and the three buttons on the side. The cool thing is that you can access the main menu and get to the functions using either of these ways, by pressing the middle of the three buttons on the side and then using the other two to scroll up and down or pressing function-1. Many of the options on the main menu can also be accessed by pressing the function button and other keys on the key pad. You can lock the phone, put it on vibrate, mute calls, switch to analog only, or do a number of other things in this way. So the features are easy to figure out if you use these two tips, and most of them can be accessed in 2 ways. If you like playing games such as snake, you'll have to go get a Nokia or something else. As the sales lady said when she was trying to stroke my ego when she initially pushed this phone to me, the Startacs are more serious phones marketed to important people more likely to use them for business. So you'll find no childish frills here. It really is a shame. This phone is such a marvel of technology in a tight, compact, easy to use package. But they can't seem to build one that can out last its warranty. If I had the choice to make again, I'd trade away some features and gizmos for a phone that isn't so trouble-prone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 87889 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small durable sleek price Full Review The Motorola Startac ST7868W is an excellent choice for those looking for a compact, lightweight cell that offers the basic features and a little more. I opted for this phone after the hinge on my Samsung 3500 came loose. Overall, I am highly satisfied with this phone despite paying about $250 for it. Specs This phone offers the same features as many of the others in its class. What differentiates this phone from the 3500 is the vibrate setting (there are around 9, rather than just 1 for the 2500) the phone book, and the voice-operated dialing (this feature does not exist on this phone). Other offerings: -Tri mode (dual digital CDMA and analog) -Webbrowser -Caller ID -Last ten dialed -Ring tones and Vibrate tones There are more ring tones offered on the Startac than the 3500. There are around nine different vibrate settings -Smart button Allows you to easily and automatically dial a number at the touch of a button. -Phone book Stores up to four numbers for 99 contacts. -Backlight setting -Optional data connectivity Allows for you to use this phone as a modem for your laptop to connect to the web. -Earpiece jack I highly recommend purchasing an ear-piece/headset for this phone. It uses the same jack as the 3500. -Size and weight (5.9 cubic inches and 4.4 oz) This phone matches rivals the ubiquitous Nokia 8260. It is small enough to fit in your pocket. And it also includes a belt clip. The flimsy antenna should be of some concern to those who carry the phone in their pocket. It may break. -Clarity The flip feature really helps in the sound quality on this phone. The ear piece is concaved inwards so you are better able to hear in noisy places. The clarity on this phone easily beats out the clarity on the 3500. -Battery Life and Recharger The battery on this phone is very good. The lithium-Ion Battery offers up to three hours digital talk time; five days standby. The recharger is a plug, rather than a base (the 3500 offers this) and the phone charges quickly. Price I paid around 250 for this phone with a 50 dollar rebate. This phone sells for around 110 with rebates for Sprint PCS (Circuit City). Unfortunately, I am on a national plan and this was the only phone, other than the cheesy Audiovox. -Usability. The usability on this phone is very bad. The phone is hard to use, as the digits and phone options/features are situated in all the wrong places. There also seem to be many unnecessary features. It took me more than average time to figure out how to use this phone. The 3500, on the other hand, is easy to use and very user-friendly. -Missed calls. I've missed a number of calls on this phone either because of the phone itself or the lousy Verizon service. -Flimsy Antenna -The vibrate setting too loud In quiet settings, the vibrate setting is a bit too loud; many can hear the phone vibrating even when it is inside a bag. Overall If you're willing to dish out the dough, I would opt for this phone over many others in its class. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 87888 2000/10/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 has internet capability small lightweight many useful functions can easily get lost small The Bottom LineA serious minded digital, diminutive cell phone with gigantic capabilities. Has caller Id, voice mail, text messaging, a mini-browser and data connectivity capability. Full Review For my birthday this year my husband purchased a Star TAC ST7868W cell phone for me. He has a Nokia 5160 provided to him by his company. There had been a number of times I was out shopping or running errands and he wanted to get in touch with me and couldn't, and I would sweetly tell him that if I had a cell phone we could always be in touch with each other. I had been wanting a cell phone for some time. Not only to be able to contact each other, but also for saftey and convenience while traveling. My brother has had a Star TAC phone for a couple of years, and he is very happy with it. I liked his phone better than the Nokia. My daughter likes her dads Nokia because she can play 3 different games on it (snake, memory & logic ) and she likes to change his 30 different ringing tones which range from jingle bells to Fur Elise. I wanted a serious cell phone. I figured if my phone had games and fun things on it my daughter would probably be playing with it a lot and that was not my purpose in having it. My Star TAC weighs only 4oz. and it is a clam style phone. When closed it is only 2" wide by 3 3/4" tall. It came with a battery, belt clip, a home charger and a fat little user's guide. I signed up with Verizon for my service provider. This diminutive phone really has gigantic capabilities. Here is a quick overview of the phone: PWR Turns the phone on and off. Icon of an envelope Opens messaging menus FCN Acts as a "shift" key to access the secondary functions of other keys. RCL recalls phone numbers from memory and acts as the left soft key for mini-browser navigation. STO Stores phone numbers into memory and acts as the right soft key for mini-browser navigation. CLR clears characters from the screen. END ends phone calls and exits the menu. SEND places or answers calls. * can be used to scroll through memory entries, # and menu features. Alphanumeric Display displays your input from the keypad, information from memory, and other messages. Microphone positioned for convenient conversation. Retractable Antenna Extend for best performance. Earpiece Ultra-compact phone speaker Headset Jack Connects an optional headset. Accessory Connector Provides the connection for an external power supply. Volume Keys Located left of the display and represented by up & down icons, these keys adjust the volume and scroll up and down through memory locations and main features. Smart Button in between the up & down volume keys, this handy button puts a variety of functions at your fingertips by opening the Quick Menu, Opening your phone book, Entering the menu system, Selecting items in the menu, Turning features on and off and placing and ending calls. There is a service light on the top of the phone which flashes green when your phone is on, red & green alternating with an incoming call or message. This is a nice feature since normally you could not tell if your phone is on or off when it is closed. This flashing light alerts you that the phone is on with just a glance. It takes just a quick glance in my purse to check if I have my phone on. I can easily see the little red flashing light in the dark recesses of my purse. The smallness of this phone is somewhat of a problem in that it likes to get lost down in my purse, but I usually can spot the flashing light. I am considering getting a purse with an outside pocket to eliminate feeling around for it. Every time you turn on the phone it performs a system self check and then connects to your service. It then displays signal strength, the time & date, battery strength and whether you are in digital or analog mode. IU appears when a call is in progress, RM when your phone accesses a wireless service outside of your home system, NS appears when calls cannot be placed or received from your location, an envelope icon appears when you have received a alphanumeric message or a mini-browser alert, an envelope icon with a speaker symbol appears to indicate that you have voice mail. There is a special symbol that appears if you have your phone set for vibrate only, a symbol which indicates if your phones tones are set to be silenced and another symbol which indicates if you have set both the ringer and vibra call alert to be on. You can dial numbers up to 32 digits, but only the last 24 digits will display. When the wireless system is too busy to handle a call you can use auto redial and this phone will repeat the call attempt for four minutes. Or, you can just press redial when ever you are ready to try connecting again. The Star TAC keeps track of the last ten numbers you have dialed. If you have subscribed to caller ID you can see who is calling before you answer otherwise, the display will show your callers name if it is in your phone book and if not it will show the callers number. The caller IDs for the last 16 callers are saved. If your phone is on but you are unable to answer for some reason, this phone keeps track of unanswered calls. If you subscribe to call waiting, you will hear a tone while on a call, indicating that you are receiving a second call. The earpiece, keypad and ringer volumes are all adjustable. You can store up to 99 numbers. Each memory location allows you to store up to 4 numbers. For example in one location you could store the home, mobile, fax and work number of a single individual. You have the option to recall by name or location. If you are on the phone and someone gives you a telephone number to call you can use the "scratchpad" to make a quick note of it. You just enter the number on the keypad and press STO. Then after you end your call, just press send and it will call this number, or you can press STO again and then proceed to store the number in your phone book. Additional features include pause dialing, memory linking, and storing calling card numbers. Call timers are a handy item included on this phone. There are three visual and three audible call timers. This allows you to monitor or record the length of individual calls, set a timer to track monthly usage, or have the phone alert you at intervals that you specify. In Tone controls you can choose from nine different ringer styles, activate and deactivate the vibra call alert, silence the keypad, silence all the phone's tones and set the message reminder. This phone transmits tones to communicate with automated calling systems like voicemail or bank by phone. These tones are set by default but you can choose to transmit the tones for a longer period. There is a secure options submenu Which allows you to choose a pin to lock your phone and also lets you program the phone so only numbers you have chosen may be dialed for the purpose of loaning your phone to your child or a friend. There are a whole slew of custom options you can program your phone for such as language, message banner display and customizing the backlight. You can choose to have your phone automatically answer when opened and automatically end the call when closed. (I like my Star TAC to end the call when I close the phone but I chose not to have it answer when I open it because I want to see who is calling first.) Auto hyphen will automatically put a hyphen between area codes, call prefixes and other numbers. Choose a 24 or 12 hour clock, decide if you want your service light on or off or Customize your mini browser. Accessory Options If you purchase the optional Motorola Data Connectivity kit you can transform the Star TAC into a portable fax modem. You can also exchange select information to your compatable desktop, laptop or handheld computer and vice versa. Hands Free Vehicle Kit Easy Install Hands-Free Car Kit Star TAC Clip-On Hands Free Speaker Star TAC Clip-on-Organizer I have had this cell phone for about a month now and I have to admit although it is pretty easy to send and receive calls it takes a bit of time studying and practicing to use all these features and set up all the custom options to my liking. I don't use the text messaging. I have no real need to. My daughter thought it was cool and sent me a text message just to see it work. But if I want to get in touch with someone I want to talk to them. After all that is the whole point in having the phone to begin with. This text messaging just happened to be an additional feature which might be important to some people, but not to me. The two features I really like the most are the address book and the voice mail. There is plenty of room to store phone numbers and I like how I can store my husbands (and others) mobile, work, fax or home numbers under one name with icons representing the different numbers ( house for home etc.). If I can't answer the phone for some reason, I can check the voice mail and get the message. The phone puts out a beep every 2 minutes to alert you to a voice mail message. If you don't like to hear this alert, you can turn it off. The sound quality is excellent. I can hear quite clearly and my friends always think I am calling them from my home phone the connections are so crisp and clear. As I mentioned before this phone being quite small could be easily lost, so care must be taken. Mine is usually lost in my purse lol, but at least it is lost in a contained area. The standby battery life is 185 hours and the talk time battery life is 225 minutes. I purchased a car charger so I could charge up the phone while I was away or on the road if I needed to. I also purchased a headset so I could talk hands free while in the car. This was the least expensive route to go. The hands free vehicle kit with installation would have been $200. That was a mite too pricey for me. I asked how much the kit would be if my husband installed it, but they would not sell it that way. The luminescent backlit display is very easy to see and read in bright light or in the dark. It holds 4 lines of text and 2 lines of icons and one time. It fits nicely in my hand and is so light weight takes no effort at all to hold up to my ear and talk. The antenna slides easily out and back in again. This phone reminds me of the communicators they used on the old Star Trek movies. I vividly remember them flipping them open and saying, "Beam me up Scotty". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $99 87887 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small lightweight easy to use with a headset internet browser this model has a loud buzzing sound coming from the ear piece The Bottom LineIf buying this phone please be careful and discuss the return policy and the exchange policy with the salesperson before your purchase. Full Review Well I must say that about five months ago I would have told you that Motorola would have been one of the best companies because of their reliability on their numerous StarTac models. I wrote a review back then recommending the 7867W which is a clone of this model for another company. I never had one single problem with that phone the whole time I had it. Problems Round One I received this phone(or should I say the first of three) to use as a demo phone to conduct business with my cellular company. The phone worked great for the first week until the display caused a loud buzzing sound to be generated from the ear piece. This sound was so loud and so annoying that the person on the other end of the line could not hear me. The sound would continue until the display turned off after about 30 seconds. Round Two The second phone that I received had the same problem. Not only that but this model also had a problem with the battery running low after about a 10 minute conversation. I went in asking the tech. about the ear piece noise and he informed me that he had no fix for the situation and that he had seen a lot of these problems. Round Three I do have to say though that by the third phone I have found one that works. The time and the effort that I was put through was hardly worth it. Battery Life The battery life of this phone is awesome compared to the much larger phones. The phone has around 135 minutes of talk time and up to about 100 hours worth of stand-by. Phone Book The internal phone book of this phone has to be my favorite feature of this phone. The phone book will allow you to store up to four phone numbers for one persons name. This is great because everyone knows someone with a cell number, a pager number, and a home phone number. Headset compatible For all who is wondering I do wear a headset while driving. The phone can be answered with a headset without even opening the phone. The middle "smart button" on the outside of the phone will answer the call and send it to the headset. This is a great phone to use hands free while driving. Smart Buttons The phone also does use three "smart buttons" on the side of the phone. These buttons are used for scrolling through the phones menus and the middle buttons is used to select an option. These buttons are located in an easy to use position. Internet Browser The phone has a built in internet browser so that you can surf some of the internet's sites on your phone. This may not work if your service provider does not support this option or it might be an additional fee per month. Tri-Mode This phone operates on the digital PCS frequency range and also on the 800 mhz digital frequency band. The phone will also pick up the analog signal for better coverage. Most features will not work when your phone is in analog mode. If you need to find out more about the features on this phone please check out m review of the 7867W. It is the same phone, with all of the same features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87926 2005/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good ergonomics durable construction efficient menus good performance small size clamshell design no loadable ringtones so verizon refuses to activate them now no e 911 support The Bottom LineIf you can find one of these and hack its ESN to get it activated, DO IT. Full Review History has shown that this was a great phone. I'm still using mine today, and if you troll the forums, you'll find plenty of people lamenting that Verizon now refuses to activate them because they don't support the "enhanced 911" features that the FCC and vendors are ramming down everyone's throats. Your only hope for activating one of these phones is to change its serial number to one that is already on a network or that belongs to a phone that's E-911 compliant. Changing the ESN is a hack that requires arcane software and, it seems, a home-built serial interface. I'll let you know how that goes, since I'm looking to replace my damaged StarTac with a more intact specimen. The Motorola V3 looked like a worthy successor to the StarTac, but it's widely despised for having a poor interface. Considering how bad phone interfaces are today, it's interesting to read the old reviews of this phone, where people actually complained about its ergonomics and I see that one person says it's hard to use with one hand. I find that particular criticism to be 100 percent wrong. Perhaps that reviewer was unfamiliar with the three buttons on the side of the phone, which are the key to its highly usable interface. Just about every phone out now depends on a multi-directional game-controller-like device on its keypad, which is pitifully cumbersome compared to the StarTac. What do you do most often? Dial a number from the phone's memory. Two presses of the StarTac's middle side button get you into the phone book, and then you can navigate through your numbers with the up/down side buttons. Press one key to jump to a letter of the alphabet, and then use the up/down side buttons from there. Using this thing with one hand could not be easier. The amazing thing is that the StarTac is just as thin as almost any phone on the market today, except the V3. Check it out side by side; I've done it many times. And the clamshell design is a must; it protects the keyboard and main display, and it puts the microphone where it needs to be: at your mouth. The non-clamshell capsule-sized phones leave the microphone up around your cheekbone. Umm, people, do you understand how a microphone works? You must speak into it. The current crop of phones look like cheap toys compared to the StarTac. This thing is a little brick of matte black plastic. No stupid blue shell, no tacky "metalized" paint on plastic trim. After five years of being in my pockets with keys and who knows what else, it looks pretty much the same as it always has (except for the inevitably broken-off antenna cap). If Motorola brought this exact shell back with E-911-compliant circuitry, the ability to sync contacts and appointment alarms with Outlook, and a USB port so we could load our own ringtones, people would pounce on it. But they're too busy making Playskool phones with color displays that look like a Nintendo's and present an unusable interface. Sad. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87925 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 backlit phone book vibrating few rings weak battery life Full Review The StarTAC phone is one of the most expensive mobile phones that you can purchase on most service providers. However, I have found that it is well worth the price, if you need all the features. It also is very compact, and comes with a holster. When worn on the holster, it is about the size and shape of a beeper. The Phone Book is very easy to use and can store up to four numbers per person, which is very useful, and saves a lot of space. It does not have as many distinctive rings as other phones like the Nokia, but it does have the vibrating feature, which can be activated quite easily-- and disabled just as easily. I did find that the battery runs out faster than my old Nokia, but I would suggest that if you are going to be using the phone only in your home area, and you know that you will not be roaming, you should set your network to "Home Only" which does not try to search for roaming carriers-- the Battery performance is much better then. The Web Browsing option is impractical, but I suppose there are some people who would find it useful-- I have never been put in a situation where I would need it. Overall, it has great features, and it looks great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 (with a rebate) 87924 2000/10/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loud ringer it vibrates folds up haven t found any problems yet Full Review I recently purchased this phone and use Alltel for service. My teenage son is on a traveling Soccer Team (all over FL) and my husband drives over the road & we can keep in touch with each other wherever we are. I am glad I purchased this phone. I can keep it in my pocketbook & because it folds over the dial pad I don't have to worry about any of the keys being pushed like I did with my husbands Nokia. I can put it in my jeans pocket & sit comfortably. My husband has AT&T service & he is not pleased at all with it & now he wants my phone! I have been able to use this phone in many more places then he can with his. My husband is hard of hearing & can barely hear the ringer on the Nokia. He can hear mine from across the room. I also like the fact that it can vibrate with or without the ringer. I have a feeling I know what I'll be getting him for Christmas. Nobody I've called even knows I'm on a cell phone because it is so clear. It's better then my home phone. A friend also has this phone & he leaves the antenna out all the time because then it bends & is less likely to break. He said he's had no problems since he started leaving it extended, like he had with his previous phone's antennas. The Nokia is a good phone but we definitely like the StarTac better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.49 w/service contract 87923 2002/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 feel functions make this phone superb size accessibility phone is expensive without purchase of a phone plan The Bottom LineThe real deal for anyone who wants a trustworthy, portable cell phone that can last more than a year. Full Review Let me start of by giving a little background. I signed up for a cell phone plan and received this phone for 49.99 with the plan. Thus, I cannot claim that it was pricy except for the fact that its going price w/o a plan was 129.99. Upon first receiving the phone and the next coming months, I was having so many problems calling and receiving calls. I could not seem to figure out whether my plan, my phone, or the server I was on was the problem. After having this problem continually occur, I took the phone back and was granted a brand new one at no charge. This time, the phone works beautifully. I have had this second phone for almost a year now, and have had ABSOLUTELY NO problems with it. I even changed phone numbers, area codes, and moved across the country with it. Still no problems. The thing I love about the Startac is its sleekness and size. It is not bulky like some of the Nokia's or Siemen's or etc. This fits perfectly without creating a bulge or sticking out the end of your pocket. It adds a sense of professionalism when it rings and you take it out to flip the cover. You can choose whether the phone answers or just displays caller id when you flip the cover also. The buttons are perfect size, unlike the new itty bitty Nokia's that I have seen. The user interface and display screen are easily accessible and options are navigable even without a manual. That's how easy this phone is to use. Also, the battery life and clarity of the phone is unmatched by competitors. This phone is the real deal. The only qualm I will say about this phone is that the antennae can be a bit fragile. I haven't had any problems with this, and I have a good recommendation about what to do. If you are getting 3-5 bars of service, there really is no need to use the antennae, but if the need arises, caution is needed. I mean, who doesn't use caution when using a cell phone anyways. So, if you are in the market to get a cell phone, I recommend this one right here: Motorola Startac. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 87922 2000/1/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability ease of use battery life Full Review In choosing a phone, there has been one that I have always loved for consistency and durability. I love the Motorola product line. This is a phone that lives up to the Timex adgae of it "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." This is a phone that is perfect for people with kids (hey, accidents do happen!!!) My phone has held up to being banged around routinely, dropped, thrown across the room, flushed (attempt by an inquisitive 2 year old.) It still sounds as good as the day I bought it from the store. There is a major downside about the phone. With the standard battery you do get about 75-90 minutes of talk time in a digital area, and about 35-40 minutes talktime in analog areas. So, you do have to either have a car power cord, or bring a home power cord with you. If you are a heavy talker that constantly goes in and out of digital and analog areas you will need to keep the charger with you. The features such as the web browser, and the 100 name/ 400 number phone book are wonderful. The web browser can pull up most text related websites with ease, and fairly quickly (a function of your service provider,)and the phone book can keep track of all numbers for a particular person with ease. All in all, a great phone that is in fact simple to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 87921 2000/7/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 classy durable small small size not good for rural areas Full Review Just when you thought you had the latest, the 7860 model, here comes the 7868. If you just upgraded to the 7860 I guess you'll have to wait until you fulfill that contract before upgrading to the new one! The 7860 model is a tri-mode-THAT'S CORRECT. TRI-MODE. It means it can function in analog, digital, and PCS markets. And guess what--if you want the best rate plans offered out there <example: Verizon's wonderful One Rate plan that is now available in all price ranges> you NEED this phone to get them. Not only will it offer you better quality audio, but you'll have the freedom to go from market to market without getting those annoying dropped calls <dropped calls WILL happen eventually but not as frequently>. On top of that the Motorola 7860 is small, durable, and a elegant. One of the pluses of having a flip phone is that it prevents you from hitting those "send" keys by accident and end up paying for airtime charges of nothing but dead air. Trust me--it happens. It also protects the screen from any potential damage. For those who want to be discreet you can set the phone on vibrate, it has wireless web available, and more features you'd probably never use but will sound tempting when you purchase the phone ;) Best Wishes!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249.99 87920 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life good features old can t send text messages The Bottom LineIt's old, but it'll work forever, and it has good battery life. Full Review It may be several years old at this point, but this phone still does everything I need it to do. The reception is pretty good, even in places where the towers are further between. If you lose digital service in a rural area, the analog reception is still pretty decent. The web access is useful, although I currently don't have it after switching from Verizon on the east coast to Verizon on the west coast because they want to charge me extra now. It stores a lot of text messages. My services doesn't allow me to send text messages, although apparently some people can do this, but it hasn't bothered me, given the price of sending them. Some people are annoyed by the ring of this phone, claiming it's too high pitched, but it hasn't bothered me too much, as I normally keep it on vibrate. The battery life is good, probably because it's older and thus larger than several newer phones. It's also tough; I've dropped it several times from various heights without any problems. Other stuff is as expected from basically any phone, decent-size directory, friendly indicator when there is a text message or voicemail, nice backlog of caller ID, stores the last few numbers dialed, etc. Overall, I felt bad that I paid so much for this phone when I got it over 3 years ago, but I have gotten so much use out of it that it seems worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87919 2000/2/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 small loads of features good reception poor design poor antenna The Bottom LineThis could have been an incredible phone but someone forgot how to design it functionally. Full Review I was issued a Motorla StarTac phone at work, so it was free. I do like this phone, but there are just too many things that annoy me about it. #1. The antenna : It's small, easily broken and gets in the way. How much of a difference can raising it up 6 inches make on reception? #2. Menu system : Who designed this? I'm about as literate with technology as anyone but I had to thumb thru the manual to do almost anything. In order to get to a main menu you have to hit the diamond once, scroll down and hit it again. Common sense dictates the main menu should be the first one that pops up. I'm not sure who designed this, but a Commodore 64 was easier to program than this thing. #3. Phone book : Yet again, in order to enter anyone successfully you need to look in the manual. It shouldnt be this difficult. This phone does have a ton of options. It can store 99 numbers, it text and web enabled and can do about anything short of playing MP3's. It's purely asthetical but I just dont like the design of it. Sure it's very small - but the lines should flow smoother. It definitely needs to be redesigned. On the plus side, the LED readout is easy enough to see. The phone is amazingly clear. The charge time is only 2 hours and it can last 40 hours on standby. I do like the Last 10 Dialed and Last 10 Incoming options. Like I said, this phone is high on options but short of design. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87918 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 comfortable sync ability easy to use unbreakable none The Bottom LineWe are only created with one brain, so why would you want to mess with a phone with an antenna so close to it? Go StarTAC! Full Review My first phone was an Ericsson. My second phone was a Nokia. Finally I purchased a StarTAC 7860. I owned it for 2 years. I am a technician and often found myself dropping my cell phone because a ladder or some other object would push the phone off my belt. After two years and several major drops the 7860 still worked great. I had a crack in one of the hinges, but it still worked. At one point I actually broke the clamshell apart. Took me a few minutes to get it back together, but it still worked. I also own the StarTAC Clip-on Organizer, a wonderful, small addition to the phone which is small enough to carry with me, unlike a handheld which can't even fit comfortably in a pocket. With a desire to move to Tri-band digital I decided to move up to the 7868W on the Verizon network. Having been on Verizon for two years previous with no problems I chose to stay with them. So far they have yet to disappoint. The service plans are fair and the reception is outstanding. The 7868 is the same basic phone as the 7860 but with CDMA 1900 capability. I look forward to having this phone for another two years and will be sad when the StarTAC is phased out. Hopefully Motorola can continue to make outstanding products like this. One last very nice feature is the Data Connectivity kit. With the ability to sync my phone book with my computer and also to use my cell phone as a modem it is well worth the cost. If anyone tells you the StarTAC can't hold up, they are dead wrong. Don't drop a Nokia, but man, the StarTAC can take a beating! It seems fragile, but I believe the delicate nature of it allows it to absorb energy better during falls. I gave it a 4 because sooner or later all the drops would render it broken, I assume. It doesn't have a "solid" feel, but it can definitely stand up to most any regular drops. Enjoy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.99 87917 2002/7/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use small boring cannot download more only 9 ringtones poor battery The Bottom LineAfter purchasing for $150, thought I was getting the top of the line cell phone...now, however, I discovered you can get a much better phone for a lesser price. Full Review The Startac is not a BAD phone, however I don't think I would recommend it purely due to the fact that you can get a better phone for a lower cost. It has good features, everything you need and nothing more. Caller ID, voicemail, text messaging, Internet capabilities, and a few other things that are nice to have. I do have excellent service and am rarely "out of range", which surprises me since I live in an extremely rural part of the United States (Southern Illinois). Of course that depends on how many towers are in your area and such. I do have better service than ANY other person (with different phones) in my area I know. One con I should mention is the battery. The Startac boasts a good battery life, but I experienced it BARELY making it a full day, with me only talking on it maybe an hour of that day, at the most. The phone does hold up really well, though. I've dropped it NUMEROUS times on concrete floors, roads, everywhere, and it fails to crack or break like most would. Even after being thrown some ways and landing on concrete, it still remains looking brand new. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 87916 2002/10/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use well designed some parts especially the antenna break often The Bottom LineThis is a good phone in many ways. I do think the designers at Motorola definitely need to look at redesigning the antenna however. Full Review All in all this is a great cell phone. It is very light and is generally easy to use, especially with one hand while doing something else simultaneously via the 3 buttons on the side of the phone. The menus are easy to navigate after the initial trial and error phase when you are first learning to use the phone. The phone also has a huge phone book capacity allowing you to store 4 numbers each for 99 diferent people or businesses. Signal strength and call clarity are close to the best I have ever seen. The only two problems I have with the phone is the antenna and the battery. You have two options with the antenna (depends on your service provider) the first a extendable antenna, this antenna provides for better signal and call clarity but it breaks easily and after broken, call quality diminishes until it is replaced (my service provider charges about $15 to replace a broken antenna). I have broken several antennas just by putting the phone in my pocket and as I walk the antenna gets bent, and after being bent a few times it breaks. The holster provided with the phone is convenient but doesn't help the antenna situation because the antenna is easily broken carrying the phone this way as well. The other antenna is a non-extendable stub antenna which although it doesn't break it doesn't offer the same level of call quality that the extendable antenna offers. The battery on the phone is light-weight but you pay for that lightness with reduced call time per charge and if you expect to get the advertised usage out of a battery you must purchase an extra battery ($80-$100) and let one of them run all the way down and then replace it with the spare while charging. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 7718 Motorola 120e 87958 2004/3/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use features voice activated dialing variety of ring tones easy to read screen to short for doing the ear to shoulder tuck without dropping the phone After about 3 years of being on the fence about a cell phone, I finally decided it was time to get rid of the pager and get cellular service. We've moved recently - to a rural area - and are much further away from the business areas than we used to be, so a cell phone was no longer a luxury, but more of a necessity. The plan that suited me best offered this phone for FREE! Can't beat that, right? Have had it for about 3 months now and have virtually no complaints. Reception is good, features are easy to use, and I love the voice activated dialing. However, I am not one to stop whatever I'm doing to take a phone call, so if I'm busy doing something that requires both hands: folding laundry, loading or unloading dishwasher, cooking dinner, (doesn't that just conjure up some wonderful domestic images.....) I'd like to have the phone tucked between my ear and my shoulder. It's almost impossible to do this with such a small phone. 87957 2004/11/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 blue buttons nice at night adequate phone book navigation backlit lots of cute rings no features awful recharging setup tiny font screenphone book bad signal low volume blue buttons nice at night. I just got this phone for free from good ole Qwest as part of their upgrade to a nationwide GSM network. Anybody looking for something attractive don't be fooled by still pics, the screen is blue, and harder to read than my 3-4 year old Qualcomm, with smaller text. It does have some good rings, that's it. The plastic sheath makes a lot of noise, and the transmitter is microscopic. I had to turn the internal volume up to max so that I could hear calls with surrounding outside ambient noise. My last phone had no problem charging and calling at the same time, this one does, meaning that you cant call if its recharging the first third of the battery...and now, tonight, it's decided to say 'unable to charge', and the charging connector is a 1/4" wide little fork, not a large chip style clasp, or a round one. This thing flat sucks, and Motorola should be ashamed for making it, and Qwest should be ashamed for trying to pawn it off on me. When will corporations learn their true masters, the consumer? 87956 2003/12/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice size clear low price i don t like too small phones none Outstanding clarity of sound, excellent performance,the whole family uses it and we all love it! The voice activated dialing was a real bonus for the price! 87955 2000/4/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features size ease of use none as of yet The Bottom LineGreat size, great features, easy to use and cosmetically nice. Full Review I got this phone from Verizon for $20 which was an awesome deal. I got a second one for a second line for free. This phone is a lot smaller than I expected which was a nice surprise. It fits into a jacket pocket and has the vibrate feature which is great if you are someplace where a ring would be disturbing. The features and menus are easy to use and the blue backlight is, at the risk of sounding girly, pretty. You can buy different cases (covers) for the phone or use a softwrap which you can use to tell phones apart when you have more than one in the house. The battery is enclosed in the back of the phone by a door which is a really nice feature for anyone who's ever owned a phone where the battery is just stuck on the back and then comes loose resulting in the phone shutting off if it's jarred. So that was a big plus for me. The voice dialing feature is very cool when you are driving and can't stare at your phone to look up a number. You can text message and for someone who had never done that before, it was incredibly easy to do. Very user friendly. The only thing that the phone has done since I got it which I thought was a little weird was how when you turn the phone on it plays a little tune. It doesn't play it anymore for some unknown reason, however it does not affect the functioning of the phone in any way. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $19.95 87954 2000/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use bright light up display loads of features none yet The Bottom LineA great phone at a great price. This should work well for anybody who needs a new/first phone. Full Review My fiance and I were looking for a cell-phone for each of us, and were told by a friend to check out Verizon. Turns out they had a pretty good deal on a share plan, and this was the least expensive phone they had. Despite its low cost, I was pleasantly surprised by its features and ease of use. And you couldn't beat the price (buy 1 phone at $19.99 and get the second one free). Although they did tack on tax of about $10 for each phone...kind of sneaky. The only problem I had (it's fixed now) was getting the leather case on it so all the buttons were accessible. Everything is pre-cut on the case, and it isn't too flexible, so it took some shifting and shaking to get the case perfectly lined up so everything was good to go. A minor inconvenience... Once we got our phones home, we took some time to set everything up. Adding names and numbers to the phonebook was easy and intuitive, and you can even program a particular ring tone for each person in your address book. That way, you'll know by the sound of the ring who's calling. (This isn't really necessary, because the phone also has a cool caller ID function - another big plus in my book.) Something else that I really like is the voice-activated dialing. For example, if you want to call your friend John, you would just enter his name and phone number in your phonebook, scroll down to voice dialing, press the voice button, say his name, and you're all set. From then on, anytime the phone is on, you just have to press the voice button, say "John", and your phone will automatically dial the number. I've done this for everyone in my phone book and I imagine it will come in very handy. We also purchased a package that includes a car charger and headset, so it's car-friendly. Anyone who's tried to hold a cell phone, turn a corner, and shift on a manual transmission car can benefit from this. Even if you have automatic transmission, it's much safer to go hands-free. Of course, there's a ton of features that I might not ever use. Web-page viewing and "voice notes" come to mind. Not for me, but it could certainly benefit some people, I imagine. The phone also has text messaging (which is cheap, but not free). This is handy if you don't want to waste your daytime minutes just to send a quick message. On my plan it costs 10 cents to send a message, and 2 cents to receive one. Cheap, but I think they should have included this in the monthly price. All in all, this is just a great phone. The sound is very clear, it's easy to use, and it's packed with features you wouldn't expect to find on an entry-level phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 87953 2000/5/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 slim design is comfortable to hold i love the blue backlighting some functions take lots of keypresses received audio is weak The Bottom LineI can't recommend the phone because of the audio quality. Otherwise, it's great. Full Review My wireless service provider was practically begging me to get rid of my old analog phone (also a Motorola). They gave me the V120E for free if I'd update to a digital plan. Off I went... Pros - I really like the slim contoured design of this phone. It fits well in your hand and feels quite natural to use. It has a decent display with incredible BLUE backlighting (I don't know why that's so appealing to me, but I love it; maybe it's just that it's different). The menu system is easy to navigate. I had no problem entering in new names and numbers for the "phone book" feature. I haven't even tried the voice dialling yet, but it has that feature, too. This phone goes almost too long on a charge. I find that I go a day or two without charging it up, it lasts so long. So by the third or fourth day, it's starting to get pretty low. Now, I don't rack up lots of air time, so that would likely be much less if you're putting on more talk time. Cons - the biggest one so far is the audio volume level. I have mine maxed out and I still have trouble hearing at times. It's pretty good if you're in a quiet setting; actually it's pretty clear then. But take it to a noisier environment, and you'll be trying to crank up the volume even though it's already maxed. I've had to pull off the road before because I couldn't hear over the road noise (and my car is fairly well insulated for sound). Maybe it's just this particular phone. I may try another to see if it's any better. But definitely try this out before your trial period is up. The other peeve is much more minor. I like to use the vibrate mode when at work, but you have to go down a couple of menu levels to turn it on and then repeat to turn it off. The manual says you can use the ringer volume buttons to set it to vibrate, but I have been unable to do that on mine. Recommended: No 87952 2000/3/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 snub antenna won t break everything the v120c has plus more only one color silver battery life The Bottom LineBest 120 model motorola phone. Go for the upgrade from the C model if you have the chance. More apps and games, much better antenna. Full Review I upgraded to the V120E several months ago after finding out that I could go back to Verizon Wireless after 6 months and do a phone upgrade. I really liked all the features I had with the C model except for the horrible antenna. It broke on me way too many times and was just a hassle. Granted, the phone worked well without it, but still, I didn't want to continue using a broken phone, in my opinion. Anyways, if you have the chance to upgrade from the C model, do it. You get all the same features, plus a calendar/datebook, some games and a new snub antenna. For me, the snub antenna was worth it to me. At the time, this phone (E model) with a new service agreement and Verizon Wireless was only $49. Tough to beat. I paid $30 dollars to change my service and ended up getting the phone for free. They didn't want any of my old equipment back, so I got a back-up better, charger and phone for free. Obviously, all the old C model accessories work perfectly with the E model. So, when all was said an done, $30 and I had a new, improved phone that I was already used to. The antenna no longer is a problem, so I can just carry it in my pocket without worrying about it breaking off. Plus, I get a few extra apps and some games! Not bad if you ask me. I like the compactness of the V120 models so this was a no-brainer for me to upgrade. The main concern I have had is with its battery. It does not seem to last as long as my C model based on its meter, but I have yet to run it down. I don't know if there is anything to worry about, but it was just a curious difference that I noticed. The meter seems to show the battery running down faster, but as yet, it hasn't ran out since I have used it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 87951 2000/9/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life silver color reception size portability echo volume range The Bottom LineAs long as they are not hearing impaired, I would recommend this phone to anyone wanting a reliable cell phone with long battery life. Full Review I had been using a Profile 300 Motorola analog cell phone for 6 years, and had been very happy with it except for battery life. But I had been wanting to get a smaller phone that would take up less room in my purse. I also wanted a phone that had a stub antenna, so I went to Alltel about a month ago and got the Motorola 120e with their 99 cent special (you actually pay more than 99 cents, but thats another story). When I first left with my new phone I made two calls and noticed a terrible echo. Two days later I went to Alltel and got a replacement (but kept my charged up battery). The echo seemed to be somewhat better, but its still there. My service representative told me that customers who are going from analog to digital are the only ones who complain about the echo. I guess that's why most reviews that give this phone low marks on clarity are from people who previously had analog phones. The reception is excellent with this phone. The volume could have a wider range. I would NOT recommend this phone to anyone who is hearing impaired. I have good hearing, but there have been a few times I wished I could have turned it up louder. I like how the power button is on the top left side and almost impossible to accidentally turn on (a problem I had with my old phone). One thing I don't like is that the display does not have lighted numbers and letters like my old phone did, though it does have pretty blue back lighting. I like the phone book to store important numbers. The voice activated dialing is fun. It has games, but I've never tried any of them. The thing that is most impressive to me about the Motorola 120e is the battery life. Wow, compared to my old Profile 300, the 120e battery lasts forever. I can leave it on for hours at a time and it is still fully charged. And I can repeat this for days on end. I am not a technology geek or a cell phone or computer expert. I don't care about playing games or text messaging. I just want a good, small size, portable cell phone that will make calls when I need to make them. This phone has delivered so far. As far as sound quality goes, I think my old analog phone was superior. But in every other respect the Motorola 120e is top notch. It seems to be a very sturdy phone and reliable; no quirks or bugs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87950 2000/9/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life great reception overall great phone the screen is not color phone does not look the best The Bottom LineExcellent reception and battery time. Stays on while idle for ages. Has text messages, games, browser, everything like that. The bad thing is the screen is not color. Full Review This may not be the most-featured mobile phone or the best looking, but it works great and definitely serves the purpose in every way that is or will ever be possible. It has caller display picture, with a neat little history of dialed calls, received calls and call time lengths, for dialed calls and received calls and total and even a lifetime one. Sometimes is amusing to find out how much time you really spend talking on the mobile phone, you'd never believe the amount. It has a text message system, In box, Outbox, Browser Notes, Drafts, Quick Notes and that type of thing. You can send and receive your own text messages to friends and family, just like any other standard up-to-date mobile phone these days. It has a Internet browser, the browser itself is completely text, so unfortunately it does not look great when browsing but it is good for general browsing. It starts off with a neat little menu for quick things like weather and news and sports and other things you would probably browse the Internet to find. Then you can go into a search engine and punch in your own custom web page you want to visit and everything. It has several games, including Black jack, ping pong, falling numbers (my personal favorite) and video poker. There is a neat feature called Voice Notes where you can leave very short voice notes on the mobile phone, and even hit the button the right and say the name of a person which you have entered into your Phone Book and it will call them, the same with voice shortcuts for various settings, options or games on the mobile phone itself. The control panel (settings) are very detailed, you can customize the start up screen with your own personal message, you can personalize everything else about the phone including the size of the text on screen. Those are just a few good things about this not so pretty looking mobile phone. It also has great reception, the battery life is unbelievable, I've never saw better in a cell phone. The downside is the screen is not color. The screen and buttons do light up in blue though, if you like that. That is about all I have to say about this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87949 2000/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 price simplicity too many sub menus battery life The Bottom LineIt is an average quality phone for a low price. Well worth 20-30 bucks. It is simple, use it for talking and not much else. Full Review This is a down to business item. I personally found it's looks to be average, nothing too fancy about it. Some people love the blue background. I get a lot of comments on it because I wear it on my belt. If a button is pushed, my shirt glows blue. Which is nice, I like blue. These phones are everywhere, easily obtained. My friend and I both have the same phone, as does my brother. Here is a good opportunity to mention that the antenna is fragile. Mine after 8 months is slightly loose while my brother's and my friend's have completely broken off, killing their reception. Starting off with SOUND QUALITY. It could stand to be a little louder. Shockingly, not all phones have decent volume control buttons. This one does, though I often find myself hitting the louder button over and over again only to realize that I was on the loudest setting. Others can hear you fine, but they will know you are on a cell phone. BATTERY LIFE is lacking. Even under infrequent use, it needs to be charged every 36 hours. And when the battery starts to fade, it does so very quickly. Once you get the battery warning, you have maybe 30 seconds of talk time and maybe 20 minutes of standby time left. The HEADSET JACK is very easily accessible. There are no covers that need to be removed and fumbled with to access it. It is easily accessible when driving and fingering for it to plug in your headset. RECEPTION is moderate. The antenna is fixed so there is nothing to adjust. I have a very common provider and I get comparable reception compared to friends with the same provider but different phones. It is nothing to complain about, yet nothing to brag about either as some phones seem to get perfect reception no matter where you go. RING TONES are few and un-orriginal. The phone again could stand to be a bit louder. It is easily muffled or will go unnoticed in a loud room. The VIBRATE option is also not very strong. I often don't feel it, but fortunately, it rings and vibrates at the same time so I will hopefully hear it if I don't feel it. The PHONE BOOK can be a bit of a pain. Only 3 names are displayed at a time. Whenever you push a button for any function, there is a half-second delay before the phone responds, especially if you have the animations turned on (truly a pointless feature). If your friend John has a home phone, cell, and work phone number, then you will see John's name 3 times. I would prefer if the phone found John, then scrolling left or right will chose which number you would like to call. VOICE DIALING is the feature I love the most about this phone. There is a separate button on the side. Simply push it and say the name. It rarely ever calls the wrong number and works quite well as long as you are not in a loud area. Programing is simple too, it is right below when you enter someone's name. The DISPLAY is a little on the small side, but it has a very clear picture. There are only 4 lines of text possible. But this is a simple phone, you won't be taking pictures or playing Mario World on it. GAMES, the only one of value is blackjack. The graphics are poor and the screen is simply too small too do anything with. Where is MISSED CALLS? If someone calls, but leaves a message, the caller ID does not list it as a "missed call". This is very frustrating when people do not leave a message. MENU FEATURES -The calculator comes in handy, but takes a long time to enter numbers and equations. -The datebook is good for an occasional alarm, but again entering anything takes so long that's it's not worth typing in appointments. -Making shortcuts is kind of silly, by the time you are done holding the key down, you could have found the item you wanted already. -Web, I have personally never tried to use this, I can't see doing anything web related with the tiny tiny screen. -Text Messaging is handy from time to time. However there are so many characters for each button (you can use all sorts of funky symbols) that it just adds to the amount of time it takes to write a message. On a final note, this seems to be a fair phone, I have been satisfied with it. I don't need too many fancy features nor do I need to play advanced games. It's just a simple phone that is perfect for every day usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 87948 2000/5/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features price no color display if that s important to you The Bottom Linefirst time cell buyer? this is awesome. looking to step down from the gadgets? this is awesome. Full Review After countless tug-of-war's sharing a cell phone with my husband, we decided the smart thing to do was just to bring me forward into the digital era and purchase a phone for me. Since I'm not all that big a fan of cell phones, I figured I would go with the cheapest thing I could get that let me make calls. That would be the Motorola 120e. Coming in at only $29.99 [with a 2 year service agreement with Verizon Wireless] - for the punch that the phone packs, I honestly couldn't have gotten a sweeter deal. Of course, as cell phones continue to get more advanced, smaller and better - aesthetics are important. The 120e is palm-sized silver phone [covers available in different colors] and doesn't have lots of bells and whistles. The screen is relatively small [ 5.0"H x 1.7"W x 1.1"D] but the screen is surprisingly sharp. It's standard LCD, nothing fancy or colorful. Of course, the display is fully customizable and you can even switch around how the main buttons operate which I thought was a nifty feature. Even though the screen is not the biggest of them on the market, I think it's plenty big enough to see and navigate the phone clearly. I also liked the size of the buttons off the bat. There is nothing to fumble over or mix the buttons up - which I can appreciate fully because I don't have small fingers. I mentioned that the 120e is big on features - this is very true. It comes with a calculator, fm radio, internet browser,mp3 player, text-messaging, a datebook, a message center and a phonebook that is capable of storing 500 names and numbers. Another great feature is that the phonebook allows for multiple entries per person so you don't have to keep typing in the name to add another communication source. If you like to waste your time on your cell - there are 5 games: blackjack, mindblaster, paddleball, falling numbers and video poker. If you're a sound junkie - you may now rejoice. The 120e has 37 ring sounds already programmed [it even has the sound of "play that funky music white boy"] and 5 different vibrating settings. You can also customize about to 32 different personal tones - so you can pretty much go nuts. The 120e also has voice activated dialing, a headset jack and an outlet for a speakerphone. The battery life on the 120e has been great. According to the manufacturer it has about 206 minutes of digital usage time, which is personally longer than I would ever be on a cell phone so that's fine with me. The sound of the phone is crisp and the dreaded cell phone breakup is minimal. The 120e also has a built in antenna - so no worrying about bending or breakage. Fooling around with the phone I was able to figure out most of its features on my own, which for me is important. I don't want to have to get a PhD. in cell phone technology in order to work my phone. And even though some of the features are a bit extensive, they can all be easily figured out [our consulted in the manual]. What It Comes With *One Motorola 120e phone *1 Battery charger *1 manual *1 1000mAh Li ion battery - Final Thoughts - The Motorola 120e is a great phone. It's great for a first cell phone or even for a seasoned veteran who's just looking for features and not fancy. If you're looking for fancy I would strongly suggest the Motorola T720 [review here: ] which is similar to the 120e in features but is basically on speed. All in all, the 120e is a solid and affordable purchase and does what it's supposed to do. And yes, I can hear you now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 7719 Motorola StarTAC ST7897 87962 2003/10/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 digital analog capability ample sized characters design flip design loaded with options bright lcd hard plastic buttons should be rubber buttons battery life Bright LCD Ample sized characters Loaded with options Digital/Analog capability Flip Design Hello, I have had my Motorola StarTAC since 1999, and I still have the SAME phone. I have since replaced the battery, only once, and I have not had any issues with the antennae, not yet. I do see where it is flimsy and can be bent easily, even when not extended. I have dropped this phone, yet is bounces back. No breaks. This phone comes with a bevy of options, anyone would love! I especially love the tower search the phone can perform, to give you access to the nearest courier's network. I also love the digital/analog capability. This phone is so light-weight and small, until this could aid in its getting lost, but I like that. The convenient holster holds snugs so while I am walking in the park, it stays in place. The LCD has a bright view, so no straining the eyes and the character sizes are quite ample. The cool flip design is just that, cool. Hard Plastic Buttons(should be rubber buttons) 87961 2003/10/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 ample features good reception nice looking phone not the quality level expected for motorola Phone was good for quite a few months, then it started falling apart. The exterior casing in the lower corner cracked off, along the side by the smart button cracked. Top cracked. I thought this odd seeings as the phone was never dropped or hit against anything. Even the threaded mount for the antenna inside the phone broke, those days of my custom made paper clip antenna were great. Eventually I came across a 7797 and put the innards of mine into it's casing and all has been good for over a year. The plastic of my 7897 was far more brittle than the 7797's. Of course exterior casing isn't covered under Motorola's warranty. More recent issue has been battery life, or lack of. Within an hour of taking phone off the charger the low battery indicator comes on. Cracking the phone open and going over the board with rubbing alcohol would give about 2 weeks worth of normal battery life. My guess is humidity causes some area of the phone to corrode? Only other low point to it is no downloadable ring tones. Has stylish looks and good reception. 87960 2000/10/7 Battery Life3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight compact design ease of use antenna suscepitble to breaking easily The Bottom LineThis is a good phone in many ways. I do think the designers at Motorola definitely need to look at redesigning the antenna however. Full Review All in all this is a great cell phone. It is very light and is generally easy to use, especially with one hand while doing something else simultaneously via the 3 buttons on the side of the phone. The menus are easy to navigate after the initial trial and error phase when you are first learning to use the phone. The phone also has a huge phone book capacity allowing you to store 4 numbers each for 99 diferent people or businesses. Signal strength and call clarity are close to the best I have ever seen. The only two problems I have with the phone is the antenna and the battery. You have two options with the antenna (depends on your service provider) the first a extendable antenna, this antenna provides for better signal and call clarity but it breaks easily and after broken, call quality diminishes until it is replaced (my service provider charges about $15 to replace a broken antenna). I have broken several antennas just by putting the phone in my pocket and as I walk the antenna gets bent, and after being bent a few times it breaks. The holster provided with the phone is convenient but doesn't help the antenna situation because the antenna is easily broken carrying the phone this way as well. The other antenna is a non-extendable stub antenna which although it doesn't break it doesn't offer the same level of call quality that the extendable antenna offers. The battery on the phone is light-weight but you pay for that lightness with reduced call time per charge and if you expect to get the advertised usage out of a battery you must purchase an extra battery ($80-$100) and let one of them run all the way down and then replace it with the spare while charging. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 87959 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great menus features easy to use small size a little pricey The Bottom LineThis Motorola shows why they are known as the premier cellular phone maker in America. Full Review Call me old-fashioned, but I have resisted getting a cellular telephone for several years. While I have recognized that it would be a nice thing to have, I have simply never taken the initiative to go out and get one. My wife has one, and really likes the convenience of having the phone with her at all times. Finally, I have been pulled into the world of cell phones, compliments of my work. The company decided that I needed to be available at all times, and bought me a cell phone. Luckily, they were not satisfied with just getting the cheapest phone on the market; they purchased a Motorola StarTAC ST 7897, one of the best phones on the market. Now that I have it…I don't know how I did without it! This StarTAC is really a cool phone to have, even now when cell phones have become commonplace. This flip model folds to a size of 4 inches high by 2 inches wide. It comes with a nifty holder that makes this phone easy to carry on your belt; it is not much larger than a text pager. Speaking of text paging, this phone has the ability to send and receive text messages. If you subscribe to the Mobile Originated Short Messaging Service (MO-SMS), you can use this phone to send quick notes to others. The features on this phone simply blow the competition away with the level of depth offered and the ease of use. You can store up to 99 names and numbers in your Address Book. It only takes a few minutes to enter the names, and then you are ready to call all of your friends or business contacts with the touch of a finger. And it is literally the touch of a finger. There are three menu buttons on the side of the phone: two buttons for scrolling up and down through the menus, and an enter button to access the menu chosen. This allows the user to quickly scroll through their numbers and select the one they are looking for without ever touching the keypad itself. There are several other great features on this phone that can be useful. You can use the Caller ID function to find out who has called you, or whom you have called. The phone has a Pager mode, where you can suppress calls while also being able to see who is trying to reach you. This is handy when you are in a meeting, on a golf course, or trying to avoid someone. You are also able to choose from any one of nine different ring styles. The battery on this phone will give you around three hours of talk time. I recharge my battery once a week, and find that that is plenty...and I use my phone several times a day. To me, the best feature is the ease of volume adjustment. While talking, we have all had experiences where the voice on the other end was either too soft or too loud. On this phone, you simply use the scroll up or scroll down buttons on the phone to adjust the volume immediately. You don't even have to stop your conversation to do so. This phone will work with either digital or analog service, which means that you can have a nice large calling area. Whether you need a cell phone for work or for personal use, this is a good one to have. The price is $125, which may seem a little high for a phone. To be honest, if someone else had not bought this phone for me, I would have taken the free one with activation. But if you can justify the cost, it is a great phone to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 7720 Motorola V2260 Phone 87980 2000/12/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features none Full Review I just got this phone a month ago and I am very satisfied with it. It has so many features and it is really easy to use. I bought it with the caller ID the web access and the voice mail features but I was amazed when I realized it also has email and both digital service as well as analogue its an amazing phone. It even has an alarm clock, it has many more features than similar phones made by nokia and qualcomm (which I have also tried and was displeased with). I am a college student and I needed a practical but cheap phone I never thought that a phone like this would be so affordable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 for phone and 34.00 a month 87979 2000/11/10 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it has the feature you would expect poorly placed mouse buttons poor reception The Bottom LineIt is poorly designed, and reception is unacceptable! Full Review The dealer I went to carried Motorola and Nokia. I asked which was the best quality. She said Motorola, so I bought the v2260. That was six months ago. I hardly used it the first three months, but now use it for work so I use it a lot. The reception is so bad, I call it useless. It cuts out every 15 seconds or so, and drops 4 out of 5 calls within 5 minutes. Have taken it back to the dealer a few times. The third time they sent it in to Motorola, and gave me a loaner V2260. It had the same problems. Took it back, and asked for a Nokia loaner. WONDERFUL! Clear reception, no cut-outs, no dropped calls. One other thing. To operated the menu you must push small buttons located on either side of the phone, so you are constantly rolling the phone in your hand. Frustrating and awkward. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 87978 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid feel easy operation bulk lack of ringer volume controlvibrate option The Bottom LineSolid, dependable phone in search of a little more sleekness. Full Review I purchased my V2260 about six months ago after my old StarTac was broken beyond repair. The V2260 was offered as a part of a Verizon Wireless plan that fit my needs. I really chose the plan, not the phone. Overall, I have been satisfied with the unit. Its keyboard is very finger friendly, with raised nicely sized keys. The display is clear and readable with ample room for short text messages. Sound quality is adequate, not spectacular. I have found that I really need to hold the ear speaker in just the right position to hear well. The signal is fine, but the speaker does not seem to be loud enough. There is no volume control for it. The phone features messaging capabilities, which I have never used (Verizon charges for incoming and outgoing messages). The phone also features caller ID, which is very convenient. Storing phone number is not too tough, once you get the hang of it. The instruction manual is a bit daunting, but makes sense. I especially enjoy the phone's ability to store a single number with several parts (i.e. a voice mail number, that includes a phone number and access code). This makes it so much easier to check my messages from the road. The phone also features its own voice mail capabilities. When a message is received a small envelope appears on the screen. For some reason, though, Verizon's voice mail system doesn not allow the phone to delete a message until it has been completely heard. Very annoying. Ringer choices are limited and not very inspiring. Ringer volume is not controllable and vibration is not available. Battery life is very good. I have had the phone off the charger for weekends at a time without any problems. My one big complaint with the V2260 is its size. While easy to carry and relatively light, the phone does not lend itself to pockets or waist holders. It is relatively long and there for awkward. I usually carry it on a belt holder and several times when driving in my car, I have leaned a certain way, unknowingly hit a button and sent myself a long voice mail with nothing but car sounds ... which I have to listen to in its entirety before I can erase it. Despite that complaint, I enjoy the feel of this phone very much. It's a solid, dependable unit Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 87977 2000/1/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 rugged quality construction compact comfortable to hold marginal receiver tone quality power button in awkward location The Bottom LineThe phone has a good track record; the manufacturer is competent and service is readily available; the price is realistic. Generally a good buy. Full Review I am a 50-year-old male who needs a phone for security while travelling, occasional calls back home, and voicemail availability. I want the security of CDMA digital service. I found that this phone, along with Verizon National Prepaid service, met all of those needs. The phone itself is a bit small, but packs a lot of features for its size. I personally find the buttons a bit squeezed, but they work credibly. The display is excellent. Battery-life and signal-strength indicators are excellent. In operation, the CDMA digital operation is great and it picks up on marginal signal strength. It switches to analog when needed without missing a beat; however, the battery drains much faster when that happens. Those I call tell me voice quality is excellent. I have a bit of quibble with the receiver tone quality; it is tinny and sometimes distorts at random -- but then again, it's small. Battery life is acceptable. The "send" and "end" buttons are really small but work fine. The power switch is almost masked by the optional vinyl cover. The antenna works just about as well fully down as fully up. Overall, the phone is competent and a good value. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 87976 2000/10/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small really cool looking functions hard to find battery life much shorter than advertised not enough ring tones The Bottom LineBut this phone only if your only other choice is a big, clunky, no function free phone. Full Review I picked this phone over a similar Nokia because it was cool looking. For the most part, I am satisfied with it. There are a couple of things I dislike though. 1. The easy access mute (fnct-mute) only works when the phone is ringing. Otherwise you have to scroll through all the menus to turn off the ringer. And then you have to turn off all the other notifications (text message, voice mail, etc) individually. I would like to have a simple *mute* that I could get to quickly when I go into a meeting. 2. The battery talk life is much shorter than advertised. It says "up to 190 mins". I get about 60. Thats much too little for me, given the 190 advertised. 3. I wish it had more, or downloadable, ring tones. Yeah, that may be a bit much for a cheap phone, but it would still be nice. 4. Sometimes dials in my purse. Again, no quick and easy keypad lock. Its there, just hard to find. I would only recommend this phone for someone on a low budget who would otherwise be getting the big, clunky "free" phone with their service. Otherwise, spend $10 or $20 more and get a nicer phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30 87975 2000/11/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 different choice of covers just about everything The Bottom LineThere are much better phones than this one. Don't make the same mistake I did. Full Review A few months ago I had a cell phone that broke and I had a choice... to buy a new phone or repair. It was cheaper to buy a new one, so I opted for that and got the Motorola V2260. Boy do I ever regret it. First off.. one thing that I really like is one of those melody rings. This phone has 9 different standard rings and none of them are catchy tunes. There is also no vibrate option. My old phone you could have programmed a different ring for each memory stored. One thing that is quite annoying is for myself, I always like to keep my phone on a lock. No problem right?? On this phone it is because if it is locked and you have a call.. you have to unlock it before you can answer the call and about 75% of the time even though the unlock code is right it won't unlock it. Even though it has caller ID instead, unlike all the phones I had in the past it won't say "Chris home calling" and the number additional.. it will only display the number. It's not a huge deal... just all the other phones have that feature. It's not as easy as some other phones to go through the options. There are only 5 catorgies. There are no special features such as a calender, calculator or games. Just the standard. The phone is quite ugly but very durable.. which is unfortunate because I wish I could break it so I can get a new phone because I am stuck with this phone for 2 more months. This is an average phone with average qualities. You are getting what you pay for. However this phone would be good for someone who is just going to use their phone for emergencies or if you use calling cards and not a bill a month. However, if you plan on using this phone a lot I recommend getting another phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20 87974 2000/6/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ping pong messaging cheap easy use still confused on how to write back using ping pong messaging The Bottom LineThis phone is great! It has everything from being light weight and durrable to having Ping Pong Messaging! Full Review This is the second cell phone I've ever had and I have to say I like it the best out of all of my friends'. It's stylish, dependable, easy to use, and has awesome features like Ping Pong Messaging. Another cute thing about this phone are the peal off covers, you don't know how many people I've had come up to me in one day saying they must take it off and put it back on, it's generally just really styl'n. The phone book can store so many numbers it's insane and the cute little pictures just make it all the more better. It's very handy also if you're going somewhere where you would think it would be out of the service limit, even in the subway in NYC I get use it! But I definately think that the coolest thing about it is the ping pong messaging system! From email, another phone, and a bunch of other places you can get little messages from people that keep me company during the day. What made this phone all the more better is that I got it for 19.99 along with another phone on the family plan! It's cute it's quaint, It's the Carson Daily Phone! (I know you've seen those commercials :) )I love this phone! I don't know what I'd do without it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 87973 2000/12/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cute light easy to set up fun durable the battery life sucks it can dial by itself The Bottom LineIf you're considering buying a phone- I would definitely check this one out, I love it. Full Review I've had this phone for a while now(about 6 months), my parents bought it for me, so I'm not exactly sure how much they paid for it..but I absolutely love it. Not only is it really cute, but you can buy those phone covers to change on it. I like the fact that I can send text messaging because if I don't have my phone on, I can use that and my voice messaging. It also makes it a lot easier for my parents to get ahold of me. One of the things I don't like about the phone is if I forget to turn the phone off, it always seems to die by the end of the day. I've also found that it will dial out by itself if you put it in your purse and something hits the button, but overall, it's still a really good product. TOTALLY DURABLE- I hit a phone pole while dialing out on my phone (don't talk and drive!) and the phone didn't have a scratch on it. In fact, we found it under the back seat of my car because it flew out of my hand-still turned on, antenna still up-but the battery was dead. I was shocked that the phone made it through. Recommended: Yes 87972 2000/11/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 belt clip included light weight affordable sleek design skins included no games not as simple as other phones dual mode only limited ringer tones The Bottom LineAll in all, if you want a good deal on a great phone to use for placing calls, the Motorola V2260 is a superb choice. Full Review I needed a phone that I could use for long distance to help lower my home phone long distance. I had decided that Verizon was the right choice for the provider, so I took a trip to the Verizon store. Being very low on money, I had decided that I would simply get whatever phone came with the current promotion for the lowest price. I was told that the V2260 was free with a new activation, and so I signed up. It was actually thirty dollars and came with a thirty dollar mail-in rebate. The first thing I noticed was the phones sleek, rounded design and white color. Much more appealing than the typical black, somewhat blocky Nokia. I, however, had a great deal of faith in Nokia (and still do) and I wondered if the Motorola could compare to a Nokia. I was Pleasently surprised. I was very pleased to see two skins, blue and orange, when I opened the box. I was also happy to see that the phone took simple NiMH AAA batteries, which can be replaced for only about twelve dollars, as opposed to the sixty to eighty dollar batteries that many phones require. This phone also comes with a belt clip, eliminating the need for an expensive leather case, at least in my situation. I found that the phone is not as simple as the Nokia phones I had used. I had to consult the owner's manual to figure out how to program it, something I normally don't have to do. Also, using the phone book requires a series of several buttons, unlike the one touch access of the Nokia. Three of the function buttons are on the side which, at first, I did not like, but have since come to appriciate. One of the few downsides I have found to this phone, is that there are no games. Personally, I don't need games, but I know that some people really like the games. Another downside, which bothered even me, was the fact that there are only nine choices of ringer style, none of them very catchy. No songs, just nine different, pretty standard rings. The V2260 performs extremely well. Static free, crystal-clear calls. From the inner city, to the far reaching suburbs, I have never lost a call, or had a static-filled conversation. The battery life is very very good if the batteries are treated properly when they are new. You must charge them a full fourteen hours and then discharge them until the phone is completely dead. do this about four times when it is new and they will last forever. I never turn my phone off and I do about an hour and a half of talking per day. My phone holds its charge for about fifty-two hours with that amount of use. The caller ID is a nice feature, the phone will display the name of the caller, only if it is programmed into your phone book. Otherwise, it only displays the number. The mini browser is handy and easy to use, if you choose to pay for the moble web service. The phone also has simple voice mail as well as one way text messaging. Recommended: Yes 87971 2001/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use none The Bottom LineAnyone can learn to use this phone. I would recommend it to anyone. I don't know how I ever got along without it. Full Review My husband recently purchased this phone for me. (Mine is actually the V2397 which is very similar.) I had always put off buying a cell phone telling myself "This is something I really don't need." However after setting up my phone, I can't get enough of it. The phone (at least for me) took a little getting used to. I tried to read the book which accompanied it before setting it up but the book just went over my head.For me, it was just easier to start playing with it. The phone is set up in a menu system.You can store up to 99 numbers. You can speed dial up to 9 numbers by simply holding down 1 key! You can check your voice mail messages simply by pressing the mail key(looks like an envelope).You select the type of ring you want. You can lock your phone if you want(so no one else can use it or to keep from accidentally dialing). The phone can be used as digital or analog. You can customize this phone to fit your needs. Also, for you you accessory freaks(like me) you can buy different colored/designs of covers for this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 87970 2001/5/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear web capable sleek shape easy to change color light only 9 ringing choicesmost of them are annoying cannot send text messages The Bottom LineConclusion: The Pros outweigh the Cons easily and in the end, I am satisfied with my new Motorola V2260. Full Review The Motorola V2260 digital phone has been good to me and has many positive points. First I'd like to go over the pros, then I'll give you the cons. Pros: First off, the V2260 has a very appealing shape to it and it allows you to easily change the color by slipping on a different color wrap. No tiny screwdriver or special tools are needed. This phone is web capable with the optional service from your provider. My provider charges $6.50 a month for this service. I do not subscribe to this service, so I am unable to give opinion of the quality of this service. You may store up to 4 different phone numbers for each name you enter. What I mean, is with each name you enter, you may have that persons home, office, cell and pager number all listed in that one location. Each number can be identified by a picture of a house, office building, cell phone or pager. You can also set which one of those numbers you would like to be on your speed dial or turbo speed dial. You may customize your the banner on your screen. Banner length is 12 characters. You may receive text messages and e-mails if service is available by your provider. Other users may send a text message by sending it to your phone number. Text messages may also be sent using e-mail. Your phones e-mail address would be your-phone-number@yourprovider.com. This phone is digital, but will automatically switch to an analog connection if the area is bad. This will help from getting dropped calls. Caller ID comes in handy, and this phone will let you know the number of the person calling before you pick up. If the number is someone in your Phone Book, the phone will display the name as well as the number. You have options of call timers. You can set different lengths if you'd like, in which, while you are in a conversation, a light tone, heard only on your side, will let you know of time spent. You can also just set the 1 minute timer, in which a tone will be heard 10 seconds before each full minute. This way you may disconnect the call before the end of the minute to conserve your monthly minutes. You may also lock your phone to keep others from making calls on your phone. Cons: The biggest con to me is, the fact that you may not send text messages, but you can receive them. This doesn't really make any sense to me. Unless I'm doing something wrong, in which I'd be grateful for someone to educate me on it. Most phones these days have quite a few ringer options. Like my sisters Nokia for instance, has about 40 choices, including musical tones. This Motorola however, only has 9 choices, and I must admit, they are kind of lame. One ring was so annoying, it made me answer the phone really fast, just so I can stop that ear stabbing sound. Recommended: Yes 87969 2000/3/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 phone wraps some useful features good sound quality cheap menu no vibrate or other necessary features not very durable dual mode The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone, as its features are few and far between,its Dual-mode signal doesn't work with the new verizon plans, and it's hard to use. Full Review I Purchased this phone in April of 2001 from Verizon wireless, it was free after a 50 dollar mail in rebate and a 2 year service agreement. The phone is Dual-Mode, which is now not compatible with Verizon's new service plans. If you do not already have a dual mode service plan, this phone will not work on the verizon network. Battery life is pretty sad, as it uses AAA long NiMH batteries. It gets about an hour to an hour and a half of talk time max. The phone has very good reception, and is very clear. However, it also has some pretty nasty drawbacks that explain its low cost. Ergonomics/Style The 2260 is very large and heavy to today's standards, and is somewhat ugly. This beast weighs in at 5.3 oz; I believe that is not including the 3 NiMH batteries, so the phone gets very heavy after a while. The button layout is hard to use in a hurry, the buttons that are used most are usually the furthest away from each other. The design of the phone is awkward, with menu, up, and down buttons on the side of the phone. These buttons are very hard to push if you have a hard phone wrap cover on, since they become flush with the cover. The included rubber phone wrap covers made the phone look rather ugly, as they were obnoxiously colored and made the phone look cheap. After I put a silver hard phone wrap on it made a dramatic increase in the phones style. Menu The menu is a bit confusing at first; it takes a long time to get used to. Instead of having a logical, list based menu, it displays one option on the screen at a time. For example, when you first push FCN+1 (for menu), Phone book appears on the screen with a little graphic. Then you press right (or down) to go to the next option (timers), which takes up the whole screen again. This can be very confusing as to which level of the menu you are on. A list based menu system is much easier to understand, since it shows you all of the options on that level. This issue is hard to explain with words, but you will notice it if you have ever used the phone. After you've created a hierarchy of the menu in your head, it is somewhat easy to navigate around, but still requires many keystrokes. Features This phone has few, but useful features, such as silent mode (Not vibrate, just silent), selectable backlight off time, 9 ringers, resettable and individual timers, an alarm, screen banner, and a few more but not many. This phone is out-dated in features compared to today's phones, and No Vibrate ringer can be quite a hassle at times. Durability The phone is made of a pretty durable plastic, but is still on the fragile side. The screen scratches fairly easily, which is not a good thing, and the silver paint on the back wears off very fast. The Phone wraps add a small amount of armor to the phone's fragile plastic, but not quite enough, as my phone is quite beat up after normal use. My antenna also broke off and recessed into the phone, making the phone look funny and it messed up the reception quite a bit. Between the screen, paint, and flimsy antenna, this phone is not very durable. Overall This phone was a good value, free after a mail-in rebate from Motorola (which was very prompt, by the way) and a service agreement with Verizon. However, this phone is now pretty much outdated, so I would not recommend buying it. It's bulky weight/size and its lack of features, make the phone just seem old and cheap to today's consumer, and I wouldn't recommend buying it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 87968 2000/3/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap clear sleek nice features web enabled nice display you can change colors none The Bottom LineThis phone is absolutly great for someone on a budget, or someone with $2 credit like myself. At least check it out before you buy a cell phone. Full Review An Intro... I had been looking for a cell phone for the last couple of months. I only really knew one thing - that I wanted a prepaid calling plan due to the fact that, a) I only have a check card, and b) I have about $2 credit to my name. I figured that at least with a prepaid if I didn't have the money for more minutes that I wouldn't have big fat scary invoices coming through the mail, or the ever fearing fat-butt-crack-exposing repo man coming to claim my house. I checked a whole bunch of prepaid places in our local mall, including TSR Wireless (which turned out to be too expensive), and RadioShack (too expensive, plus the salespeople are pushy). I finally wound up at Verizon, who offered the phone, 125 free minutes, two plastic casings (dark blue and traffic cone orange), charger, belt clip, and everything I would need to get started for $99. I thought this was a good deal, especially because I was just starting out with prepaid. The Phone OK, so now onto the phone itself. Coming into this experience I knew nothing about cellular phones, except that it seems like I was the only person on the face of the planet who didn't have one. This phone seemed rad from the display model. It was sleek, small and very modern and cool looking, but things only got better as I started to play with it when I got home that night. This phone is a great value as long as you don't pay over $100 for it. It has every basic feature that you would want in a phone. The outside of the phone itself is very cool, it has flexible plastic casings that you can peel off the phone and put back on, changing the phones highlight color. This puppy has a whole load of features. It has a phone book, which I personally enjoy because it gives me some place to organize all the numbers that I have. You can scroll through your phone book or search, and then when you find the name of whoever you want to call, you hit send and it dials automatically. No having to remember numbers. This phone also has a banner, which is the cool thing that allows messages like "BILL'S PHONE", or "LOSER" on the display of the phone when you are not dialing a number. I like this feature, although it isn't that useful. There are 9 different types of rings that you can choose from, however I find all but the ninth very annoying and incredibly loud. You can lock the phone up, causing it not to dial or anything without the password. This is a very good feature if you are carrying the phone in your pocket. It will prevent those situations where you sit down and your phone gets smushed accidentaly dialing SUDAN and charging you $3450 for the call. It's also good because no one else can use your phone without them knowing the password, which will prevent your Kenyan friends from calling "home" without your permission and using up all of your minutes and ringing up a skillion dollar charge. This phone is Web compatible, which means there is a browser that lets you go on and check email, sports, weather, and all that stuff right from your phone. There is also one touch access to your voice-mail, which is displayed on the front of the phone if you have any in your mailbox. Aside from that you get the time and date anytime that the phone is turned on, which is a very convienient feature as well. Finisher... OK - all in all if you are just looking for your first cell phone for cheap, this thing rocks. The calls are crystal clear, there are plenty of features and it is very durable. As long as you're not looking for a phone where you can download pictures and watch soccer games in Hungary, this is a great little phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 87967 2000/6/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear cool covers easy to use menus light cheap sometimes dials itself in your pocket The Bottom LineExcellent phone that impresses everyone and only for just $20. Clear and easy to use. Full Review For the past few months, I've been wanting a "cool" cell phone to show off in front of all my friends. I looked around on the web for a little while trying to see what the newest and best phone was. I already knew that about 99% of my friends had Nokia phones so I figured they must be good quality and fit in the "cool" category. After looking on the web, I went to Verizon dealer and said "I want a Nokia." The sales rep told me that they stopped selling all Nokia cell phones because there have been numerous complaints about them and how they function. This came as a shock to me because everyone in town has one of these. I asked the man what kind they do sell and he pointed me to the Motorola V2260 cell phone. I wasn't thinking of buying this phone until he started telling me about it. First of all, at this dealership, the phone was on sale for $20. Extremely cheap. After looking at the phone and holding it to feel the weight, I asked about the features. To begin with, out of the box it comes with 2 plastic peel away covers that you can put on and take off within seconds. There are several colors you can buy such as blue, orange, red, black, white, etc. Once you turn on the phone, you enter the world of features that this phone has inside. With access easy to the menu, you can take a quick look at everything you will need to know about this phone. The phone book -- Store up to 98 numbers in this phone along with the names of the people. You can search or recall the numbers by spot number or the first letter of the name. The timers -- These timers count how many minutes you have used so you always know how much you are over or under your allotted free time. Tone Control -- 9 different ringers, all nice sounding and unique. Also, you can turn the ringer off in case you are in a movie theatre and don't want to be an #$%@$^& and have your phone ring in the middle of a movie and have popcorn and ice thrown at your head. Lock Secure -- This is a must have. One time, I had my phone in my pocket and somehow it dialed my friends house. Luckily I wanted to check the time and I only wasted about 2 minutes. With this feature, you can lock the keypad so no one can use it without knowing the password to unlock it. Display Options -- When you are not using the phone, you can customize your very own "banner" to say whatever you want. Very personable. Other features include Caller ID. If someone who is in your phone book calls you, the screen will say "Call From: JOE SCHMOE" and you have the choice of answering or letting him reach your easy to use voicemail system. The voicemail is very easy to set up and you can always change your message. It takes maybe 2 minutes to check your messages but if you don't want to waste your precious minutes, you can always use a house phone or pay phone to check it. The phone also keeps track of the last 10 numbers you dialed in case you forgot an important number you just dialed and hung up. A feature I don't use is the web. For some people, this may be important, but I don't need to spend the extra money for this. However, if you want to use it, it's very cheap and already web enabled. Aside from all that, the battery life is one of the best out there and it runs on 3 AAA batteries that can be recharged hundreds of times. Charging usually takes a couple hours but it varies depending on when you charge it and how much battery is left. The signal that this phone can recieve is incredible. I've gotten signals inside buildings in the middle of nowhere and I can hear perfectly clear. I hope this review is helpful to everyone. I wish I thought about looking here before I bought my phone because I definitley would have bought this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 87966 2001/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice sleek style with good claritylots of features for the instruction manual is hard to use for the manually challenged The Bottom LineGood phone for the bucks, nice size, lots of features. Full Review While I am not a genius when it comes to electronics, I usually know what I want. Features are nice, but price and quality will really sell me. And I like to make up my mind quickly. So far, I have not been burned with this simple philosophy. So when I finally decided that my circa-1995 analog cell phone had had it, I did some research on epinions.com, asked my brother (who is a total geek when it comes to these things) his opinion, and then just went out shopping over my lunch hour. At the Verizon store, I told the sales person "I don't want to pay an arm and a leg for a phone or service." The Motorola v2260 was the least expensive, only $30 on the plan that I have. (It actually retails at the store for $150.) I also knew from some of my research that it had good ratings for the price range I was looking at. Set Up I like the fact that when I picked up the phone from the Verizon store, it was all set up by the sales person, battery charged, and ready to go. All I had to do was activate the FREE voice mail service, and that was a piece of cake. We have purchased all of our other wireless phones over the phone before, had to deal with all that garbage of setting it up ourselves, charging the batteries, etc., NEVER AGAIN. Make the drive to the store, you will save yourself incredible hassle. Size and Looks Compared to the dinosaur that I donated to a battered women's shelter (a cool service that the store offered), I didn't want my old phone, and they refurbish them and give them to shelters!), this phone is sleek, light, and nice eye-candy. It's got a brushed silver casing with grey cover that can be complimented with either the electric blue or safety orange rubber cover that comes with it. Personally, I don't think I will use the orange, it looks a little too much like those vests the convicts wear when they are cleaning up the side of I-80. Features I really like the lock feature on the phone. Since I did not buy the case for it, I am always a little nervous that it may accidentally dial some remote jungle location in my purse or pocket. While this never happened with the old phone, I think it will be a good thing. The only thing I DO NOT like about the lock feature is that by the time I've dug the phone out of my purse and unlock it, I usually miss the call. However, with the free voice mail (see below), my caller can leave a message. Voice mail is a nice touch. And it is free. I asked. The sales person laughed and said "Everyone asks that!" It's easy to use, the "voice mail lady" walks you through the steps when you are setting up or picking up mail. This way, if you miss a call for any reason (couldn't get it unlocked fast enough, turned the phone off during a concert, etc.,) you will have a message to pick up. Once you turn the phone back on (or find it in your purse!) you will be notified of messages with a repeating beep that stops once you pick up your messages. Clarity on both ends is good. I called my kids at home and my daughter didn't realize I was calling from my cell phone. Reception on the phone is good too; clear and loudness can be adjusted easily. My husband actually prefers using my v2260 to his Qualtec when he is on longer calls because the sound is so good. Size-wise, I love it! It's definitely better than the old clunker that I had...the only down side is that it's sooo tiny (comparatively) that you may have a hard time getting used to it. While I didn't buy the extra insurance Verizon offered in case the phone gets lost or stolen, I can see that it might be easy to lose this little puppy. There are nine choices of rings on the phone, and to be honest, I don't like any of them. But then again, what cell phone ring is NOT annoying. Especially when you are in a public place. The good thing is that you can turn off or adjust the sound level of the ringer easily, therefore I can turn it way down when attending my daughter's school play, or turn it WAY up when cheering my son on at a wrestling tourney. Tons of other features available, and perhaps I am impressed simply because of what I upgraded from! I know I will never use the mini-browser (I pay for Internet access at home and have it at work, and the screen is just too little for me to imagine using it to browse). There is a phone book so you can list all the phone numbers of your friends and family. Baaaa-d Manual Okay, there isn't much I don't like about the phone, but I give points off for the instruction manual. There isn't a picture of the phone that shows which button is which (you are supposed to figure it out from the little-bitty icons on the buttons), and I am instructionally-challenged when it comes to just READING this stuff. I had a hard time figuring out how to adjust the ringer tone level from the lousy instructions, but once I figured it out, it's simple. And I hate to admit it, but the print is REALLY tiny and I had a hard time reading it. God, I had to put on my glasses. So if you are vain, read the instructions in a locked room : ) If you are in the market for a new cell phone, I'd recommend the Motorola v2260 as a lightweight, inexpensive phone with lots of features. Thanks for reading! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 87965 2002/3/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 long lasting battery no big problems nice array of features no big frills not completely user friendly The Bottom LineIt's a nice little phone that will serve it's purpose for and give you a pretty good bang for your buck, but don't expect any perks. Full Review HISTORY I am on my dad's Verizon Wireless family plan and at the end of last year the 2 year contract on my first phone ended. We went in to look at what my next phone would be. One of my biggest concerns was getting something with a longer lasting battery as my last phone would die rather quickly. Of course money was a factor and the Motorola V2260 was one of their "free" phone deals. Free meaning it was $30 up front and came with a $30 rebate, of course that meant we were stuck with the tax on it, so it wasn't completely free, but they never talk about that part, now do they? There was another "free" phone available which I don't remember too well, but it might have had slightly better options, but honestly I kinda liked how this one looked better. The other was boxy and as my last phone hadn't been to jazzy I wanted something with a little more style and the possibility to change faceplates. So we got it of course and I've been pretty happy with it so far. I'll use the Manual layout as a guide here to help me keep on track. EASE OF USE At first some of the buttons confused me because it works differently from my last phone and I think I liked some of the last phone's options better, but after having used it a few months I have no problem navigating around my phone. My only complaint is that the way it works is there's a single button on one side that works like an "enter" key and two buttons on the opposite side that work as "scroll" keys and it's set up to work for a right handed person with your thumb on the "enter" key and your fingers on the "scroll" keys. Wouldn't you know it? I'm left handed, so it isn't as easy to manipulate, but I make do. THE MANUAL Honestly this is probably the second time I've looked at the manual. I needed it at first to help me figure a few things out, but otherwise it's sat in it's box for the last few months. SECURITY I don't worry about people getting into my phone so I don't use any of the "safety" measures…(should I be telling you this?) but it does indeed have them. You can lock your phone to only be usable with your code that you make up. It's fairly standard, but when I tried to activate it when bored I couldn't figure it out so you might want to have a look at the manual for this. THE BATTERY I've been very happy with how much longer this battery lasts. Recently I didn't plug it in for a couple of days it still registered about two thirds full. I also like the battery on this better than on my last phone. When I dropped my last phone (yeah I'm a klutz) the battery often came off. Every time I drop this one (shut up) the battery stays right where it belongs. I also like the charger better. It's just a simple little plug in that you stick into the side of the phone and one of those boxy plugs to go into the wall socket. My last phone required a cradle for the phone to sit in and didn't travel as well. The indicator on the phone is rather typical with a picture of a battery and it gets more empty as the battery wears down, but I do like that you can use the menu to find a more specific indicator. The main one on the face of the phone shows 3 stages, while the one you can find through the menu shows 5 stages. USING THE PHONE The on and off button is simple and I've never accidentally hit it. You had to really press down on the button on my last phone, but on this one it's pretty straight forward. To make a call you dial in the number and hit send to start and end to stop (duh) or you can use the phone book for stored calls, again, typical. To receive a call you just hit send. My last phone had a flip cover so I swear I missed more calls trying to flip it open so I like that this not covered and easy to activate. The only down fall here is that there's nothing preventing a button from getting pressed in your pocket or purse and my boyfriend has had many messages on his cell phone from when my phone mysteriously called his all of its own volition. If you happen to miss a call the face of the phone will boldly display 1 Call Unanswered (or 2 or however many.) You can then press the "mailbox" button to see who called (if the number wasn't caller ID blocked) and when they called. This will also tell you if they left a message in your mailbox (supposing you have a messaging service on your phone.) If the person left a message it'll beep at you every few minutes if the sound is on. THE FACE The face of the phone displays your greeting (see below under "other features"), the date, the time, how strong the signal is, how full the battery is (see above under "battery"), and whether or not the phone is in "digital" mode. I'd like to remind you that in digital mode the phone eats up the battery much faster than normal when it's NOT in digital mode, so remember to turn your phone off when it's not in digital to save the battery. Mine always dies quickly at my boyfriend's house, not to mention I never get a signal out there, so keep that in mind. The face also will display a picture of an envelope in the corner if you have messages, very convenient. THE MENU You can access the menu a couple of different ways. First off there's the "enter" key on the side of the phone that will take you directly to a list of possible menu items and you can scroll through it there, or you can hit "function" and "1" and go directly to the "main menu." Both menus allow you to access the Phone Book, but the "enter" menu specifically lets you access "messaging," the web "browser" if you have web access on your phone (it's at least capable of it), you can see the "last 10 dialed" (you can also access this through the "mailbox" feature), system modes, and the "main menu." The "main menu" that you can select here or through "function-1" lets you access the "phone book," "Timers" options, "Tone Control," "Lock Secure," and "Phone Options." This all can get a bit confusing, but they are at least trying to make things as accessible as possible. THE PHONE BOOK The Phone Book holds up to 99 phone numbers. This is plenty for me, but you might need more. The other phone I looked at that I chose this phone over had 200 slots available. I don't even have 50 programmed right now. The phone book might require a look at the manual, but once you figure it out is not TOO hard. You type in the number and hit "store" and then it gives you the option to select an "icon" to go with the phone. This is cute so you can indicate if this is a cell phone, a home number, a pager, a work number and so on. I go ahead and use it, but I still type in "Dad's Pager" anyways. If this feature didn't exist my life would not be any less fulfilling. The next step in the process is rather confusing as you want to type the person's name in, but it asks you to enter another number. This is rather stupid to me and you have to hit "clear" to be able to type in the number, but once you discover this (had to look in the manual) you probably will remember it for it's idiocy if nothing else. The process for typing a name in is similar to all other phones I've seen and pretty easy. Now you have a number stored in your phone and it gets a reference number assigned to it (starts at 1 of course). I'd suggest selecting the first 9 very carefully as these will be attached to the numbers on the key pad for easy calling use. Thus my phone likes to call my boyfriend's phone as his phone is "1" in my list. It never calls the other numbers for some weird reason. All you do is hold down the specific number and it calls the corresponding person. You can use this feature with any number in the phone book, but if it's above "9" you have to type in the location and hit send instead of just holding it down. Overall it works fine. You can also find numbers in your book several ways. I like that you can go directly to a number based on the fist letter of the person's name. Makes it easier than scrolling through all of them which you can also do, either alphabetically or by numbered location. TIMERS You can use the phone to keep track of how long your calls are by setting the individual timer to show you how long your current call has been in hours, minutes, and seconds. You can also keep track of how much time you've used over a certain period of time, like the odometer in your car that you can use to keep track of trips. Then there's another timer that keeps track of how much time has been put on your phone overall like the permanent odometer in your car that you go to prison for resetting. Sure you probably wouldn't go to prison for resetting this one, but you'd have to really know how to program the thing to do it (hackers of course). TONE CONTROL Through this feature you can set an alarm on your phone, something I'm always grateful for if I end up sleeping somewhere without an alarm when I need one. Here you can also set the phone for "silent mode" where it won't make any noise when you press buttons or sound any ring, it'll just blink the face light on and off. (Oh, yeah, it has a face light.) I use this feature all the time as I'm a student and often need to turn the sound off for class, but don't want to turn the phone off. Most phones have this feature (my last one did anyways), but it's worth noting. You can also turn the ringer on or off. I'm not sure what happens if you turn it off, presumable it doesn't make any noise, nor would it even blink, maybe it'll even send everything straight to voice mail, but I've never tried it so this is all speculation. You can also set the ringer style. This is a down fall of the phone. It has a few selections for ringers, but they all sound like phones and nothing helps to make it stick out in a crowd of people armed with cells. It has no catchy tunes and isn't as loud as I would like, but as I like the rest of the phone, I make do. You can also set whether or not you want different things to make noise and how loud, like the key pad, or whether you want it to beep at you when you have messages and stuff like that. OTHER NOTEABLE FEATURES I like the fact that you can put a greeting on the face of your phone. You get about 12 spaces to say whatever you want. I find this more interesting than a blank face, so use it as you like. The phone also has the ability to change faceplates, but even though this was something I wanted for my phone, I haven't done anything about it yet. The phone does come with 2 different colored rubber "protectors" that will cover part of the phone in bright neon yellow, pink, orange, or blue, but I didn't use that either because it didn't work with my phone pocket in my purse. I would also like to point out that the face isn't scratch resistant and I have a permanent annoying scratch on the face because of dropping it on the cement at Disneyland. (I already told you I'm clumsy.) I also would like to point out that it's not the most compact phone, but it's not so big as to not fit into my coat pocket or my purse well, but it's longer than my last phone. Overall this is a nice little phone and if you want a cheap one that doesn't have to do more than the basics, you'll probably be happy here. I hope this has helped, and please feel free to leave comments (good or bad) and email me with any questions if you would prefer to do that. I'm sorry it ended up being such a long review, but I like to give you ALL the info so you know what you're getting. Happy reading! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 87964 2000/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear lightweight small none at this time The Bottom LineThis phone is easy to use, attractive and lightweight as well! It would make a great gift for anyone on your list! Full Review It was time for a change! After 5 years, my old clunker of a phone was not only bulky, it was unreliable as well! I had originally acquired my phone in 1996 when a local newswoman was abducted out of her apartment building parking lot. My father became concerned about my son (then 3) and myself not being able to summon assistance in an emergency. Thus he gifted me on my Birthday with my previous cel phone. It was big, bulky and heavy to carry. My talk plan had but a few minutes...30 to begin with, which were later updated to 60. But still, as the times changed so did my needs...and it quickly dawned on me that things needed to change. So, when my husband and I began to examine my monthly bill, we came to the conclusion that I was paying far too much for far too little! Our search led us to Best Buy, Verizon and ultimately the Motorola Model V2260. I had originally had my eye on another phone but was told in no uncertain terms that there had been many problems with that particular phone and with that, several other models were shown in its place. Although, this was in fact, the least expensive model shown, at just $30.00, of the phones present, it seemed to fill my needs best with far more features than I probably will ever use. The batteries are included in the package, as is the charger which easily plugs into the phone for quick recharge, giving the user over 2 hours of talk time and over 10 hours of standby time on one charge. There is of course, a volume control and ringer on/off, both which are easily accessed and changed at the users discretion. It also has a phone book which has a space for 99 names. It can be accessed by name or by number (1 of 99) in case you prefer to arrange your book in order of most used numbers/names. If you subscribe to caller ID, your phone will automatically look up the callers number in the phone book and display their name on the screen for your viewing. This could be a real asset if you wanted to dodge any incoming callers or if you were in fact awaiting an important call! With three visual and three audible call timers, the individual; which times each call on its own, the resettable; which one can reset at the beginning of each billing cycle thus making it a snap to keep track of total minutes used, and the cumulative; keeping a running total of ALL calls made since the phone was activated, there is really no excuse to not know the total minutes used at any one time. If you do in fact, have to call a "chatterbox" and are worried about your call time, there is a call timer which will alert you with an audible beep 10 seconds before the end of every minute or it can be set to sound 10 seconds before the end of any preset amount of time from 1-999 seconds. I can see how this would definitely be a plus in keeping your total talk time to a reasonable number. An alarm can also be set on the phone to alert you that it is in fact time for an important appointment...a nice change from those "sticky notes" it seems we have to use more and more these days to remember! The phone offers nine ringer styles and though I must be honest and admit that most are definitely NOT for me...I can see how changing them "on a whim" might be fun just to keep things hopping! Remember, there is a volume control and with a few of these ringer styles, use of the volume will definitely be a plus! There is also a lock/security button which I can see using when on vacation to secure the phone against use in case of theft although I probably will not use it every day. Another feature that is pure "fun" is the message banner shown while the phone is idle. It can be programmed to accept up to 12 characters and although I have not used it yet, (I seem to be having a creative block) I will! If anyone has any ideas, let me know...I am always open to new and creative ideas, because after all, we're never too old for a bit of fun in our lives, now are we !?! Voice mail is another feature offered on this phone although it may not be available with all plans or in all locations. With a simple three step process, prompted by a banner stating "YOU HAVE VOICE MAIL" or "NO VOICE MAIL", you can quickly access your messages from the phone. Extras offered for the phone are either soft or hard colored covers. Mine came with "marlin" blue and "safety" orange, a color my 8 year old son proclaimed to be "way cool"! Although for the time being I have installed "marlin" blue on my phone. Not so cool maybe, but definitely easier on the eye! Although I must admit you could certainly find a phone with an orange cover at the bottom of your purse! According to the literature included with the phone, the soft covers come in Hyacinth blue, Marlin, electric lime, Honeydew, Safety, Vermillion, and Glowlight. The hard phone wrap comes in Canary, Saffron, Brick, Mango, Ruby, Quartz, Glass, Stone, Azure, and Wave. All wraps at this time have to be special ordered but the salesman assured me that they were readily available in a matter of days! Another feature is Internet capability which allows the user to access information on traffic reports, weather, sports, stock reports...any information the user deems important! In addition to clear crisp communication, easy set up and use, the phone fits neatly into the users hand with a slight curve to the design, thus earning the nickname "banana phone"...a term widely used I have been informed with the "younger set". All in all, though I have had this phone but for a short time, I am very satisfied with its performance. It is small and lightweight, taking up little space in pocket or purse. A plus for those of us with a closet full of small purses which have been gathering dust up to this point! It is easily used, programmable to individual specifications and fills every need from clarity, to variety, to size! So, in conclusion, if you are carrying around a dinosaur of a phone which no longer fits your needs....or your pocket....consider this phone! If you are looking for a phone that you don't need a PHD to operate...this may just be the phone for you! And if you are looking for a phone which will not break the bank to own, this one is inexpensive at between $30.00 and $50.00 and that is a positive for any pocketbook! It just might change the way you think about cel phones....and it definitely will brighten your day! Oh my....excuse me... I've got a call! :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 87963 2000/2/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 if you can get it to work it is phone small buttons bad connections bad battery The Bottom LineTry and buy at your own risk. I do not recommend it!! Full Review I am definitely not crazy about this phone. I guess my opinion is the phone will do if you have nothing else. We had this phone up until about a year ago. I have had better phones but the were also bulkier than this one. It will fit anywhere. It fits right in the palm of your hand. I can slip it my pocket because it is slim and lightweight. I couldn't to that with the last phone. It's bad when this is the only good thing about a phone. What can expect from a cheap phone? It was only 40.00 I should have known better. It would cut out in the middle of a conversation and would not pick up a signal in places that my old phone would work. It would just go dead while you were talking on it. You could be standing still and it would all of a sudden go from full signal to nothing. You can't drive anywhere near the trees because if you can get a signal it is weak one. It will start cracking and cutting out. It has a pathetic antenna. The antenna looks very fragile. You can not be rough it or pull on it too hard. This is definately not the phone that the "Can you hear me now?" verizion man uses in the commercial. Although it was a lot smaller than my old phone, it did not have all the features the old one had. My old phone was handy because it had all kinds of features. This phone was handy because it is so small. If they could have combined the two phones together and still have a compact phone it would be great. The phone itself is a light gray color which shows up dirt and grime. A good thing was that it came with a blue cover and an orange cover. It is good because of the orange cover, I am a Tennessee Vol fan (orange and white). One of the biggest cons is that the buttons are so very small. I have to use my fingertips to dial. My husband has large hands and he really hates the buttons. He would either have to use a pencil to dial or ask me to dial the phone number. The buttons on the phone are unbelieveably small. The battery was awful also. It wouldn't hold a charge for very long. If you took it off the charger around 8:00 in the morning, it would be going dead by 5:00 in the evening. It is not a good phone unless maybe you have never had one therefore you won't miss the features or know any different. You just wouldn't know any better. It is also good if you have very, very small hands. If you have large hands you might want to try it before you commit to it. If you live out in the country, you will NOT want this phone. It will not pick up in areas where there are lots of trees. I'll let you decide if you want to try it or not. I think it is an okay phone but not the best. It will all depend on the person using the phone. I would not give the phone a second chance because I have had better and have better now. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7721 Motorola V66 GSM Cellular Phone 87995 2003/9/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 light durable fashionable good reception not a polyphonic phone can not download ring tunes low ear piece volume I just got this phone, I had an older Samsung phone and when I compare the ear piece volume, the V66 is not nearly as laud. It is very light and fashionable with many features, and the only two things I could find wrong with it were the ear piece volume and the fact that I could not download ring tunes. 87994 2003/10/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small good battery life decent sound quality light weight complex menu no call groups cannot download ring tones I'm a sucker for small phones, and this one is hard to beat. I don't want a phone to track my calendar (my Palm does that for me) or to play games or to listen to mp3s (iPod!). I want a phone that's - small enough to fit in my pocket without a buldge - able to go a day without being charged - able to hear the caller without searching for the sweat spot The v66 does all this and more. What I don't like about this is the inability to tie a number or call group to a ringtone. Nokia offers this and when I had it, it was great. Without having to look at the caller ID I knew if it was my wife, my mother, my sister, or my job that was ringing. I also tend to miss calls. Don't know if it's the phone or T-Mobile. 87993 2004/7/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 affordable small tiny screen annoying menus quiet earpiece too small I made the mistake of purchasing the V66 online without seeing it in person first. It is very small, too small in my opinion. I can barely dial the numbers as they are so small for my big fingers. My real complaint is with the earpiece volume. I don't even bother trying to talk on my phone while driving, even with a hands-free device. I can barely hear people at times, which is frustrating. I end up pushing the earpiece into my ear, which results in a cracking sound where the phone "flips". I have hated this phone since I got it. I'm not sure if it's the phone or the wonderful T-Mobile service, but I drop calls all the time and rarely have a good signal. 87992 2005/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 accessible phone book understandable menu easy to enter phone numbers perfect small size the bezellittle flap on the front does not stick The Motorola V66 has been an excellent phone for me for over a year, because the V66 is pocket-size, has a clear window, is easy for entering and saving phone numbers, has menus for many important items such as how many minutes are left, who just called and where are my text messages. The V66 has a long battery life, numerous phone rings, easy to use side-buttons, easy access to phone book, a calculator that is frequently used, and a SIMS card that can be easily changed in Europe. While some may complain that the menu is confusing, I discovered the menu to look confusing but actually make sense and intuitive. For example, trying to change the ring to vibration is tough until one gets the hand of the menu. Now it is easy. Same with the other functions. 87991 2004/12/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small sleek phone phone shuts off when it wants to battery life diminishes I received 2 of these phones for free from T-mobile. I have returned 1 of them twice and am returning the same phone again. I keep having a problem with the phone shutting its self off for no reason. When you first get this phone the battery life is great you will get up to 4 days without charging if you don't use it too much, but after about 3 months the battery life diminishes down to having to charge it on a daily basis. This is coming from someone who use to work for Voicestream before they were bought out by t-mobile so I know how to maintain a cell phone and properly charge the phone when you first get it. I would not recommend this phone for the avid user. Phone also has an echo when calling into certain areas. 87990 2005/7/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 simple lightweight stylish portable great for the buisnessman woman incredibly durable quiet speaker in large crowds not many features hinge is kind of cheap quality wise If you've ever noticed, the phones now a days can do everything except- talking (cough moto v600 cough cough). This phone is the exact opposite. No camera, No color screen, basic games, no downloadables, just good for a regular phone. Very durable also, I carry my phone just about everywhere, on intense rollercoasters, I've dropped it on bike rides, in the rain, out a second story window (onto a soft suface, but still). VERY DURABLE. This phone is also great for buisness, because of it's simplicity, and affordability. Ther were a few problems, however, (but i havent come across a phone that there wasn't) the speaker is relitively quiet. For instance, I went to six flags, hurricane harbor, and it started raining, so everyone cleared the water and went into a single shop. My sister called me from home, and I couldn't hear her at all in the large crowd. Also, the hinge is a bit of a problem. I had it 2 weeks, and the hinge was already creaking and clicking. 87989 2000/8/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size large phonebook feature packed no sync cable few accesories for phone The Bottom LineThis phone is a great buy. Not for those who want the lates technology. Just for those wanting a small phone that WORKS. Full Review I purchased this phone a year ago from the local t-mobile store. So far i've been very pleased with it. The phone doesn't have all the bells, and whistles as the newer phones (vga camera/video messaging , etc), but i really don't use this phone for that anyway. In my honest opinion cameras on phones nowdays still render too poor a quality images to make it worthwhile to purchase them (1-1.2 megapixel). This phone is no chump either with a 500 number phonebook, it will more than accomodate anyone's call list, although i was a bit disappointed that the phone didn't come with a sync cable, nor software to load on my pc to update phone book etc. The flip action is very positive, without the play that plagues most flip phones. The keys are small, but never get stuck, and navigating the menu is pretty intuitive. Voice activated dialing (attaching a voice command to the phone book is a breeze ) in the future you just press the key on the side of the phone and say the name of the person you want to call...it's easier than one touch dialing... I am really pleased with this phone as it has good quality, i've driven down to miami , and other places and have always had a strong signal. battery life is really good, standby or talk time is above average in my opinion. No this phone isn't a treo 600, but if that's what you're looking for (spend an additional 450 dollars) then this phone isn't right for you. If you do want a reliable phone, in a really compact size then this will fit your budget, as well as your shirt pocket to a t. One gripe that i do have about this phone is that it doesn't have as many accesories as the v60 i.e. car handsfree kit, etc. Hopefully more accesories will become available in the future. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87988 2003/9/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 super small motorola product long battery life earpiece volume grayscale display not many additional features stubby antenna The Bottom LineOne of, if not the smallest phones out there! If you have a service that supports GSM and you prefer portability over functionality, the V66 is the phone to get! Full Review My friend is a comedian. He's funny, real funny! Give him about five years until he surpasses Ray Romano's per episode pay check. He doesn't have a show currently, but he will. You must listen to me when I tell you that this guy is some talent! Why would I think you care about this? Well, I really don't - I just want to set the stage (no pun intended). Anyway... I was sporting a Color Nextel the night I went to go see Michael Tsirklin at 'Comedy Works' in New York City's Time Square. Mike had the V66 with T-Mobile service. The moment I saw his phone, I loved it. I compared it to my phone and had instant heart-burn. The difference between the two phones was absolutely astonishing! It was like comparing a dime to a frisbee. I'm the guy who pays the termination fees on cell contracts because I am a freak and always sign up with other companies. All Nextel phones are the size of VCR's and I couldn't take it anymore! I felt like I was stuck in the 80's with this thing. I had to get the V66. Monday came around and I was at the store signing up with T-Mobile. I was reluctant to go with T-Mobile because I only heard bad things about their service. I did it. The phone was free and I even got a $50.00 rebate. I mean, I didn't get it yet. By the time I get my rebate, a hot dog will probably cost about fifty bucks. THE PHONE: The size is what did it for me (hey, you have a dirty mind!). I can put this phone in my pocket and not even know that it's there. I mention the stubby antenna as a con. It just looks kind of awkward on such a small phone, but it does the trick (much better than any other after-market antennas sold). I also mention the earpiece quality as a con. Even if the volume is up to its capacity, the sound remains very low. You get used to it, I guess. THE SERVICE: If you are using this phone for T-Mobile, it's not bad compared to other phones on their network. I also have a Nokia for T-Mobile and the reception isn't nearly as good as it is with the V66. I believe it has to do with the V66's external antenna. THE DETAILS: Voice activated dialing Internet ready with optional 32 different ringer options Phone Book holds up to 500 entries Includes phone, AC charger, and earbud Unit Weight: 2.8 oz. Size (in inches): 1.75 x 4.25 x 0.75 Shop around though - this phone can be obtained for free when signing a contract of at least a year. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87987 2003/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight very small custom keysmenu clear sound quality no back light at night very small keys no external caller id The Bottom LineFor the Price of the phone, Its an excellent product with lots of features. Easy menu navigation, custom keys, great sound quality.Nice phone body color. Full Review Motorola has produced an excellent product with lots of features loaded into a very small unit. It has got a big three lines screen - useful when reading text messages and writing text messages. Nice ring tones with three different setting - Soft,Medium, Loud.Even with those settings the ring volume can be increased/decreased with the buttons on the side of the phone. There are smart keys that can be programmed for instant access to any feature that you would like to access every time. The calls can be answered by the very small buttons in the top line of the keypad. Thats a little too small for the fingers. But Motorola compensated the problem by way of allowing the setting for "any key answer" feature. The menu order can be changed according to the user's needs - Great Feature not a lot of other cell phones offer this. Voice activated dialing is great. Works very well to the expectations. Of the phones I have seen and used Audiovox was the only phone that offered the feature of turning on the back-light at night. Motorola V66 does offer to change the back-light on up to a few seconds only. When you want to make a call at night while driving you really have to struggle to find the keys. - Very nice feature not offered. If the LCD Screen was turned upside down then it would have been a great product. No visible CALLER ID. Have to open the flip to do anything with the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 87986 2003/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small very attractive not heavy modern looking user friendly setting the time is difficult to figure out The Bottom LineI think that this is an excellent phone for the novice to the expert! Full Review This phone is perfect for any level of technology that you are comfortable with. Grandma to tech-wiz can be completely satisfied because it is so simple to use the basic features, but at the same time has the capability for more complex use such as web-surfing. Apparently, this phone has a microbrowser which is built-in. This can be used to access the web. I think it is called t-zones and is an additional $2.99 a month. While I do not currently use this function, I would rather own a phone with this capability than one without. I may not have use for it now, but who knows what the future may hold. My phone is sapphire blue with onyx bezel. It is very attractive and modern looking. It is not heavy and is of medium size. I received this phone for free when I signed a contract for one year of service with T-Mobile. (I was a prior customer of T-Mobil and had trouble with my old phone, which is a whole other story and this phone deal was their remedy for the situation.) This is why there is a zero listed under price paid. Anyway, the phone came with a headset which is really an ear-piece. I typically hate earpieces and would much prefer a headset with a headband. This one is not so bad. The phone also came with a charger, battery and user manual. The phone has a one year limited warranty. The phone has a date book, voice and text messaging, and lists of recent calls (received calls, dialed calls, notepad and call times). It has a phone book, voice-notes and a calculator, too. Of course, it has games as well. These are blackjack, mindblaster and paddleball. The Motorola v66 has global roaming capability as well. This is a fabulous phone for an executive because of its versatility. This phone is pretty durable. I don't use it as a hammer, but I am not exactly graceful, either and I tend to drop my phone all of the time. It is also one of my two-year-old's favorite toys and there is not a mark on it. (I do have the accessory carry case with belt clip which I highly recommend.) I don't know if the durability comes from the phone itself or the case. I think this phone is pretty cool and it sure beats my old Nokia! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87985 2003/5/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception tons of accessoriesuser replaceable parts sleek very portable no charge sync cradle in box nasty back light colors long antenna complex menu The Bottom LineDecent phone for basic use. Nothing more! No cameras, fancy net browsers, color menus, MP3 player here!! Full Review I replaced my beat-up Nokia 8890 with this silver GSM V66 phone. Because it took the now-universal GSM SIM card and it is a very light and small phone. First the positives: The phone has two things going for it in portability: size and weight. Unlike most other small phones this phone is very light in my pocket and doesn't double in weight once you put a battery in. The phone is also thinner than other Motorola V flip phones, which is a big plus. The phone has a tough plastic exterior that isn't squeaky when you squeeze it or have that cheap feel that plagues most other small phones. The reception is good and I had no problems with the handset pressed against my ear. The number keys also didn't give me problems, even though others complain that the keys are too flat. I also love the availability and variety of accessories for the v66. Compared to the Nokia 8890 the V66 has more for it from face plates to headsets to cases even different types of charge/sync cradles. You can also get a FM remote and a speaker set that hooks up to the V66. Now the nitty gritty: The Menu is annoying! If Nokia seems to have the best and simplest menu system then Motorola's V menus could be compared to an airplane's dash board. There are a bunch of buttons below the menu and on the side of the V66 that control the menu in the worse way. First, there are two on the sides I will mention: a "special" button and a "voice recorder" button that seems useless to me and only get in the way during phone calls. The menu itself has way too many layers of stuff to scroll thru to before getting to important things such as the battery meter, recent calls, clock/date settings, SIM card. Oh, The way the phone manages the SIM card is also awkward. The phone reserves speed dial from 1-500 for numbers stored only on the phone and 500-750 for numbers stored on the SIM card. My preference for storage is the SIM card (because it is more durable than the phone and carries info from phone to phone). So unless you like speed dialing numbers like 678 or 535 this sucks. Even trying move stored numbers from SIM card to phone or vice versa is a big headache. On my Nokia phone this was not even a problem. Also storing and deleting numbers is a bit of a headache. Motorola boasts what I think are useless features such as screen zoom, animator on/off and back light color change mode. Another thing the slime green back light color is outdated and very cheap looking for a phone that costs this much (the dark blue V66 has a white light LED menu screen back light that is much nicer). On this V66 you can change the menu back light color to orange (like Tang juice) or Red (like Kool-Aid). However, these colors are even further annoying but may be cool for the 15 and under crowd. Also the original antenna was too long, but I quickly replaced it with a shorter, more practical, and just as powerful, antenna. Which brings me back to the big positive of the V66; Almost everything on this phone is replaceable. On ebay alone you could buy tons of faceplates, buy an entire new outer shell for the phone (battery included) in other colors, find antennas in all shapes and colors, buy a new screen. You can even buy a new LED (white-light) keypad back light. Too bad you cant replace the menu. Other than the annoying menu this phone is cool if you only want a handset for making simple phone calls, storing a few numbers, and changing faceplates to match your outfit. Dont look for any cool games here-only two are offered that are too dull to mention. I'm not a ring tone person but I think it has a nice selection of ring tones- though it offers nothing new that you didn't already heard before. I ONLY RECOMMEND THIS PHONE BECAUSE OF IT'S SIZE AND IT DOES WHAT A BASIC PHONE DOES WELL AND NOTHING MORE. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150$ 87984 2000/2/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to access phonebook small light buttons can be better The Bottom LineIf you need a super small phone without a color screen and don't mind the super small buttons that come with it, your in luck! Full Review First off, try to separate call quality and service quality!!! Call quality on this phone is phenomenal, but that is when you get reception from TMobile. The phone itself is great. TMobile service, on the otherhand, is spotty. Sometimes with almost full reception, TMobile lines are full and you cannot make a call for a minute or .so. That I believe is TMobile and them overselling their capacity. But, it is the cheapest plans around. That's the reason for that. In NY metro area, it is great because they have many towers. Now, for the phone. After reading some reviews on various sites, I am not sure what people were expecting. If you want a very small, basic phone, this is the one. I need something I am not going to knock off my beltclip 10 times a day like my bigger nokias. I purchased a small stubby antenna off of EBAY to further shrink the length. Problem solved. Phone is very easy to use. Phonebook is accessible from single button inside the phone, and another button on the side of it. Can't get easier. Yes, phone is black and white, which is obvious if you've seen it before buying. No problem there. Design - well, it is small. I have really big hands. I've learned to dial even bigger cell phones using the corner of my thumbnail, and that method still works perfectly on this phone. No problem for me, but in all fairness, my wife is under 5 feet tall, and she has a problem dialing. Oh well. I guess its in how you dial. Battery life is fine so far. As it gets older and loses some capacity, just start charging it every day. By the time it cant last a full day, your plan should be up. If you want the battery to last longer, the phone will have to be bigger. I'll take the smaller phone. I just needed a super small phone for just making phone calls - no frills. This fits the bill perfectly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87983 2000/7/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 super light great battery tiny powerful programming pitiful hinge pitiful speaker The Bottom LineGreat tiny phone; poorly designed hinge. Great for summer when you have less pockets; in this case, less bulge the better! Full Review The v66 is one of the best phones motorola has made yet. Superior battery life, superlight, supertiny, and great reception. I got this GSM phone overseas before it came to the States, and I always got compliments on the phone. Understated in design and very light, the v66 has lots of features that help it stand out in the pre-colorscreen phone lineup, but overall has some drawbacks. First, the speaker is very weak. I would have to practically mash the phone to my ear to hear sometimes when there is a lot of background noise--this puts a lot of stress on the hinges, which are also very weak. If the v66 had aluminum hinges like the v60 it would really help in the build quality. Second, the buttons do not protrude from the phone, making it more difficult to press the numbers. I don't have shrek-like fingers, and it's still difficult to get to the buttons. On the flipside, there are several great features that you will not find on other phones. First, the interface is solid. Probably the most powerful feature of the phone is the "smart button" programming, allowing you to make shortcuts into the deep menus, for quick access to messaging, settings, contacts, etc. Second, the backlights are very nice. There are three settings for the backlight, orange, which is very bright, green which is also bright, and red-for you BMW enthusiasts, it looks killer and people will notice it from afar(if that's your thing). My v66 finally broke after 2 years and about 250 hours of talktime. The hinge shattered after it broke several times-i glued it back together probably about a dozen times, and through daily use, it will take a beating again and again, so be gentle! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 87982 2000/4/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception signal light weight small great battery life doesn t have external caller id can t download rings sim card too easily accessed The Bottom LineI wouldn't recommend the v66 for someone who has to have the latest and greatest technology. However, if you're not a technophile, this phone is great! Full Review The v66 isn't as "personalizable" as many other phones on the market - no polyphonic rings, doesn't have a color display, doesn't take photos, etc. However, when it really comes down to it, those aren't really the things I personally want MOST in a cell phone. What I want most in a phone is long battery life, ability to maintain signal, and for me, smaller is definitely better. The v66 delivers all of this. The battery life of the v66 is great. Granted, I'm not on my phone 24/7, so much of the time it's just idle, but it maintains charge for 3-4 days easily with normal talk-time. This was impressive to me, since my previous phone - the Motorola c332 - had huge issues maintaining its charge. I was plugging that sucker in day and night! The v66 maintains its signal very well. I haven't had a dropped call yet. In office buildings or basements, the charge can be weak - but this is to be expected. I haven't had any issues with reception or poor sound quality. And, yes, this phone really is small. It fits in the palm of your hand easily and weighs hardly anything. This can be a nuisance if you're someone who easily loses your phone in your purse :) Because the phone itself is so small, the antenna looks a little bulky and out of proportion, but it's no big deal. Because I have small fingers, most of the issues other users have complained about regarding the keys being to small and close together haven't been a problem for me. In fact, I think this phone is great for people with small fingers, though sometimes the buttons take some extra pressing to work properly. My biggest complaint about this phone is that the SIM card is located on the front of the phone, beneath that little cover thing with the "M" logo. That cover snaps out very easily, exposing the SIM card. It's easy to drop the phone and have the cover bust off. Luckily the SIM card locks into place, but I still think that was kind of poorly designed. I prefer the SIM card to be located behind the phone, near the battery. Like I said before, this phone doesn't have color display and the rings aren't all realistic and cool like with many phones out there, but if those are features that you don't care so much about (and battery life, reception, etc. are things you care about) than this phone would be great for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/planRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 87981 2003/1/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception world traveler executive features size battery life cons finish on silver euro model menu learning curve The Bottom LineOne of the very best if you value small and lightweight size - and can live with a daily recharge. Full Review The Motorola v66 has only been available in the US for about 6 months on the general market, but I purchased one from an European source over a year ago. This version is an 'unlocked' one, meaning that it is not programmed to work solely on one network such as T-mobile. I have both this Euro version, and a stock T-mobile US version. The Euro is silver, the US 'Galaxy blue'. Form factor; The phone is small, this should be immediately apparent and probably one of the main reasons that you would consider it. Size is 4.7 L x 1.8 W x 0.9 H inches and weighs in with battery at 4.13 oz's. The phone is a flip phone, and user can select if they wish opening the phone to answer a call, or to press a key or one of several keys (more on the operating system later). Unusual in design, the SIM card is placed on the front side of the phone, underneath the interchangeable cover, most phones have the SIM card under the battery. Opening the phone, the screen is located on the top of the phone along with the speaker. The screen is fairly large for its size and contains 3 lines of text, and two lines of icons and system status indicators. Top row is signal, battery and message indicators. Bottom row are reserved for the menu key and the 'soft keys. Bottom of the phone are the actual phone keys themselves; top row menu keys, yes/no keys, four-way navigation pad and then the numeric keys. On my Euro silver version, the silver paint has come of in areas of high use, such as where you would use a fingernail to flick it it open, I have not though seen any problems on my standard blue US one though. Display is the usual backlit with user customizable time that the backlight stays on, usually 20 seconds. Clarity is very good, and Motorola have dropped the previous 'Optimax' display from their previous series of phones that was supposedly holographic. As I said, clarity is very good, backlight is very sufficient. On this Euro version, you can set the backlighting to be the default blue, or set it to be red or orange. This feature is not available on the US 'Galaxy Blue' phones, but I can tell you is no loss and more of a gimmick. Handset Keys; are tactile and offer good positive response. Never are you in doubt if the key press has registered unlike some Ericsson/Sony Ericsson phones I have had. User can customize the key volume level also. The four way nav-pad is small though, and a little off putting a first glance, however works quite well, you put (usually) your thumb in the middle, and sort of tilt the pressure for the direction that you want, rather than switching your finger tip to the next key. The phone also has side 'smart keys', and these work very well. Three keys are located to the left side of the phone. Up and down reflect either ring volume when the phone is not is use, and listening volume when on a call. The bottom is actually the 'smart' key, and will offer a number of functions depending what function the phone is in at that moment, but typically would be to send a series of tones when using a phone card or phone banking etc. Right hand side has the 'record' button, and can be used to activate the voice dial, or used in call to record a portion of a conversation. Soft keys and the side keys can be reprogrammed by the user. Text messaging on Motorola phones uses a proprietary iTap® method, different from the T9 system used by almost everyone else. It works very well, it makes better guesses at your word entry, but lacks the ability to add to the dictionary that T9 offers. If the two could be combined, it would be perfect. This will remain a matter of preference, and as text messaging has not yet caught on in the US, will not be an issue. Menu and operating system; The default menu out of the box is fairly straight forward. Personally, I have never had an issue with Motorola menus but would agree that they are not quite as intuitive as Nokia, but do offer more customization and are better than Ericsson in my opinion. Middle menu key will open the menu, but the side keys will offer quick access to the phone book and Tzones (Tmobile's WAP internet service). These can be changed to almost any function. Pressing down on the navpad will also access the phone book. Numbers are accessed by scrolling, or by pressing the first letter of the programmed name - pretty straightforward. Other settings that would want to be accessed pretty easily are most likely the phone ring settings. These are initially accessed under menu/settings and are then the first option. Each ring 'setting' such as 'Ring', 'Vibrate', 'Ring/Vibrate' etc can then in turn have ring details set for them. For example you might want your phone to still beep for messages even though you have the phone set on vibrate. This offers a good level of customization, but can be a little fussy. A good solution with other manufacturers is the concept of 'profiles', although these also take some initial setup. The phones main features; • Calendar - this allows for user added items (meetings or reminders), with alarms, start times, repeating feature, duration etc. • Inbox - this handles browser messages, text messages, voicemail messages etc. • Games - Paddleball, Mindblaster and Blackjack. • Calculator - this also offers currency conversion. • Phone book - stores up to 500 entries, each storing name and up to six numbers with their own icon designation; Home, Work, Mobile, Fax, Pager and Main. SIM card will usually hold another 250 entries but no designation. • WAP - Internet (Wireless Access Protocol) access, with GPRS (fast data speed and 'always on') connectivity. Most of the phones features or settings areas can be reached by a user defined shortcut. This where the phone shows its hidden flexibility and is worth some user time. Scrolling to the desired function, by pressing and holding the menu key, you can then define the shortcut; for example the Inbox, can be defined as '11'. To return, you would just press 'menu' and then '11'. Signal reception;is very good with this phone, better than any non-antenna phone and at least as good as any phone that I have had or tested. My only issue is that sometimes the signal bar is over optimistic, sometimes showing two (of the five) bars and not actually offering much of a useable reception, this said, most phones would not show any bars at all. Voice quality is typical Motorola (with the exception of their low end models) and that is best in the market. I consistently use Nokias, Ericsson and Samsungs, and only on good days will they compare with the Motorola V66. With a good signal, people will not know that you are on a cell phone. The phone is also Tri-band, operating on 800/1800/1900 MHz GSM. This phone will operate almost anywhere in the world, you may have to reset the network options, but it work anywhere in Europe and almost anywhere in South America. Audio; exceptional and with its flip design meaning the microphone is closer to your mouth, it is also less prone to wind noise from open car window or A/C vents etc. Earphone volume could be a little louder for my taste on highest volume. Same also with the hands-free. Quality of the audio equipment and circuitry also reflects with the voice recognition, I have yet to find a better recognition rate on any phone. Most issues with voice recognition on any phone are derived (in my findings) from recording similar sounding names and single syllable recordings such as 'John' and 'Don' or such. Recording first and last names along with number type (home, office etc) will make voice retrieval almost 100%. Battery life could definitely be better. The phone will most likely need to be charged daily, and a car charger would be highly recommended. I have yet to completely run a charge out in one day, but of left overnight, it will expire the next day most likely. Battery indicator is three bars, but the detailed view in the menu will display a more detailed six bars. In a typical 16 hour 'operating' period, I would easily get 120mins talk time aswell as the standby time. Compared to most newer Nokia's and Ericsson's that offer days, this is poor, but to be expected somewhat with the diminutive size. Motorola use Lithium Ion batteries, and I think it is about time they moved to Lithium Polymer. Overall, great phone, incredible features for it's size, some of the features will not be appealing to the average user, but with it's small size, lightweight and robust signal and clarity, it should be a very good choice for almost anyone, highly recommended. For useability and depdendability, this phone beats my Ericsson T68, and has only been recently replaced (except when traveling) by my Motorola V70. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450/150 7722 Motorola v120t 88007 2004/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 gets the job done sound clarity battery life none so far I just replaced a Nokia 3560 with this phone, I know to a lot of people it may be a step down from technology, but I think it to be a better phone. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the newer phones, no color screen, monophonic ring tones, and it doesn't take pictures, but neither does my home phone. I like it because it is a plain ole phone, well as far a cell phones go. I do like the voice dial feature and find it very easy to use, and it recognizes your voice very easily ( so far), unlike one other voice dial phones I have had by nokia, the 6360. It looks good and gets the job done. 88006 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 made by motorola small screen I use to own this phone. It was cool for a while but got boring after a while. It is a really good quality phone, and the reception is great. If you want a phone just to talk on, this is a perfect phone for that. 88005 2004/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small light blue backlighting weird looking I had this phone for a short while with Verizon Wireless. It was free, so what the hey. I liked the soft keypad, its small size and feather-weight, cool blue backlighting, and it's web capabilities. I have dropped this phone dozens of times, but it has always worked great. I found some of it's features to be a bit annoying and sometimes difficult to use, like the calculator and phonebook, but that seems to be the same with every Moto. If you're just looking for an inexpensive, durable and reliable phone, the V120t would be a good bet. 88004 2004/1/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable ring tones durability battery life no alarm feature poor menu system The Bottom LineAs long as you don't need to set quick alarms, and call lots of touch tone menus, get this phone. Full Review I really like this phone. It is my second cell phone, the first being one of the early Nokias. I'll break it down to features. Let's start with the bad stuff. No Timer/Alarm feature- Theres nothing for setting it to go off in an Hour or anything like that. I have to set an appointment in the datebook and set a reminder. Yuck. Give me a timer/alarm. Buggy/poor menus- Tons of graphical bugs. Menu options hard to find. Buried where you would never think to look. Now the good stuff. Battery Life- I don't talk on my phone much, so I can go 3-5 days without charging it at all. Great battery Life. Durability- I've dropped the phone a lot. I left it on top of a car once and it got thrown off, smashed into the ground, and the battery flew out. Still works great. Sound quality- Easily changing incall volume with volume buttons is nice for those people who wont speak up or those that won't quit screaming into their cell phone (what is up with those people?). Ring Tones- BEST feature of this phone. Coding your own ring tones right in the phone. I love it. Not only do I get plenty of looks when Pac-Man starts ringing, but it gives me something to do when I have nothing else to do. Recent calls- It lists the last 10 calls you received or dialed, when you received or dialed them, how long you talked. If it's a received call it lets you know if whether you answered or hit the ignore button, or missed it. Nice. Datebook and Phonebook- Work great. Nothing spectacular though. Text messaging- Works fine. I don't use iTap though. To make dialing in calls for touch tone menus easier, you need to change the DTMF option under Settings->Other Settings->Initial Setup to Long or short. Not Off. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 donationRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88003 2000/1/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small light weight web ready lack of some options The Bottom LineWorks good, can take a beating, and last a long time Full Review I received this phone as a Christmas present about a year ago now. I have no major complaints. The phone itself is appealing to the eye, it is small and lightweight, so it rarely gets in the way. Although sometimes it does get lost at the bottom of my purse, but the besides, it's a good phone. There are numerous options for rings, and vibrations. There are also quite a few games that are standard with purchase. I like how it has good volume control as well. Also, the keypad does lock, which I know is rather common, but I would be calling people all of the time if it didn't lock. On another note, the phone is very strong. I can't even remember how many times I have dropped it on various surfaces such as concrete, wood, metal, etc. and except for a couple of scratches, the phone stills works fine even after all of the abuse. The only thing I caution is that it isn't ready for the latest technology, not picture taking or walkie talkie business here. But as far as I'm concerned it's a good phone, it has all of the necessary things need, it can fall on anything and still work. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): unknownRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88002 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight good reception long battery life speaker too quiet not enough features too easy to accidentally press buttons The Bottom LineThis phone has good enough reception but pretty much no features. You will probably want to pay a few dollars for more features on another newer phone. Full Review This is my first cell phone but it's been better than my brother's past two phones. The phone comes only with a standard plug in charger and no car charger but that shouldn't matter because the battery life is quite good. If you don't use the phone it will stay ready to go for around 2 weeks. If you do use it quite heavily, you will probably have to charge at least every 2 days. The V120T is very durable. I've dropped the thing many times and it still works and looks like I just bought it. I've found the battery meter to be misleading especially now that I've had the same battery for around 2 years. When the battery gets to around 2 bars it needs to be recharged or you'll find yourself talking to a dead phone in a number of minutes. There are very few features on this phone. There are 3 games, a calculator, and a voice recorder. New ringtones have to be programmed manually which isn't very fun. I wish there was a speakerphone option or an alarm clock like on other phones but they don't exist here either. The sound is usually too quiet even on the highest setting. Reception is great but that depends on what provider you use. My worst experience with this phone is that the keys are way to easy to accidentally press. I can hear it just pressing away sometimes in my pocket. It's unlocked itself twice now, accessed the phone book, and called people without me knowing. They should have at least packed this thing with a case. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88001 2003/7/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 voice activated dial high capacity phone book sleek design battery life menu navigation is poorly designed volume lcd display is weak at best The Bottom LineAt full price, there are better phones available. As part of a package deal I would recommend the 120t for its features and design. Full Review In searching for a suitable replacement for my malfunctioning and discontinued Nokia 6100, my cellular sales representative talked me into the Motorola v120t. The 120t possessed familiar features that I have come to rely on including a high-capacity phone book, calculator and calendar/date book. It also possessed some nifty new features including voice-activated dialing, voice notes and web browsing. The Good: As of this writing, I have been using the 120t for about 6 months. I have found it to be reliable, durable, and fairly easy to use. The battery life is acceptable. Motorola advertises 3.5 hours talk time and 7 days standby. My "Real World" numbers are just a little less - about 2 hours of talk time and 4-5 days standby. The phone book holds 500 entries, which, for me, is more than adequate. Ultimately, the phone is full of features. The Bad: The Navigation Menu is a MESS!!! Standard preference (contrast, back-light, time & date, etc.) options are 3 levels deep in the setting menu and under the title "initial setup." Changing the time and date has never been so confusing. Also, I have found the volume level weak compared to other phones, especially when using a hands-free ear bud. The Ugly: The LCD Display is weak. I must compliment my Cingular sales rep who warned me of this prior to my purchase. He wasn't kidding. The 1 pixel letters are difficult to see even in well lit conditions. There is a "zoom feature" (also buried deep in the settings menu) that increases the weight of the characters to a more respectable size, however, your screen is limited to two lines of text As a result you lose some text that flows off of the screen. Ugh! Motorola should have taken a lesson from Nokia - their display was MUCH better. That said, the 120t still fits the bill. I would be comfortable recommending the phone if you find an attractive deal. My phone was free with a $20 donation to the Special Olympics. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00 88000 2000/2/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 an affordable replacement that adds lacking features of previous 120 models some quirky performance issues The Bottom LineA relatively small inexpensive phone that is stylish and is chock full 'o features. Full Review To begin, it should be known that the new V120t is similar to its older brother, the V120c, a CDMA version. It may be helpful for you to read my review on the 120c before you read about the new model because it covers a lot of the basic features that are common to both models. The V120t is a tri-mode TDMA phone for use with AT&T and Cingular networks. Use this link to reach that review: So, if they so similar, what's the difference? Well, surprisingly, while the phones are the same shape and size, there are quite a few features besides the flashy silver color that put the 120t a step above its predecessors. Anyone who has owned the Motorola V60, or the 120c knows that the antenna is a shameless piece of engineering. It's actually a compliment to even call it that. The telescoping feature starts from where the antenna extends from the phone, instead of having a solid base from which to extend. This results in the purchase of a $10 replacement antenna every few months as well as the time and aggravation to bring it to a dealer to have it fixed. The new V120t has a fixed antenna, and even more surprisingly, gets far better signal strength than older 120 models. It regularly displays four or five bars of signal where the 120 series displayed two to three bars consistently. Calls are only marginally clearer though. Every other change to the 120 has been internal. For example, it supports high-speed data transfer from a palm computer or laptop, and also supports multiple phone numbers: two to be exact. This would be useful if the phone was used for business and personal calls. Motorola also manufactures a USB cable that really facilitates the transferring of contact information from a personal computer to phone (albeit with PC-native software--tough times for MAC users). The menu has some advanced features including a date book (which is virtually useless for anyone with a palm computer), a web browser, calculator, and games. I don't think a comment is necessary for a cell phone that lists games as a product feature. Perhaps the most prominent feature of the 120e is the bright blue backlighting. While there is a significant trade-off in battery life when using the backlight, it is extremely easy to see under low-light conditions and gives an ethereal glow to the phone. If nothing else, it attracts attention and looks cool. I'm tempted at night to wave it around while I'm driving to see if any other drivers get freaked out. One of the disadvantages I've experienced with the new 120t is a shortened battery standby time, probably due to the length of the backlighting I have set, and a relatively low-volume earpiece. Also, I've always thought that the screen on the 120 series is too small, and too far back in the phone causing shadowy viewing during the day. A good phone is of course limited by the service it has been designed for. People using the phone in suburban or rural areas on the AT&T network often experience signal problems, and dropped calls; more a drawback of the network than the phone. Other than that, I'm happy to say that Motorola has taken a good thing and improved it. *This review was originally posted January 27. I deleted it and re-edited it for clarity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 87999 2003/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sleek appearance battery life predictive text input voice dialing few shortcut keys clunkyillogical menus The Bottom LineNothing to write home to Mother about, but if you call to tell her, your Motorola v120t will do the job well. Full Review Tired of my old school Qualcomm Flip Phone from the stone age, I put my faithful friend to rest and decided to leap head-first into the new era of phones. I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars, nor did I want a cheap phone either. Accustomed to my flip phone but yearning for change in my life, I figured that this phone would be just the thing. Let me start off by saying that I'm unfamiliar with Motorola's interface. In hindsight, many of their phones share the same base system - but I was used to my numbered Qualcomm list that basically had everything where it belongs. Being fairly tech-savvy, I decided that maybe this was a welcome change and I looked forward to seeing what all of the 'HELLOMOTO' commercials were raving about. My phone was in 'Zoom In' mode to begin with, which is the epitome of obnoxiousness, and only after talking to friends with Motorola's did I learn that this Display option apparently didn't live in the Display menu with all of its friends and cousins, but rather under a "Personalize/First Time Setup" type menu. So, off I go -- adding my friends and family in the phone book (with it zoomed in). OK, so maybe I'm biased, but this also proved a chore... far too many steps for just adding a simple entry. But I'll admit, once all the facts are in there, it's relatively simple to access and manipulate the data and the 'Voice Dial' button is a handy touch for those among us who hate wading through menus to tell our friends we're stuck in traffic. The phone was durable, and for a 'full sized' non-flip phone is predictive sleek in appearance and offers a nice, less-expensive alternatives to its V60 and V720 (color) counterparts. One thing I didn't like was that there weren't any quick one or two button options that were plainly visible that could do such tasks as silence the ringer, lock the keypad, etc. What the phone had in appearance, battery life and extra features it lacked in user-friendliness and intuitiveness. The (not-so-)new T9 entry system also proved to be a pain with this phone. I was used to just typing in my options and cycling through what the computer found. In an effort to be friendly and list words as you go - Motorola made 'predictive text' input difficult to maneuver and understand. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was perpetually stuck in 'Zoom' at the time I had the phone, and didn't want to wade through instruction manuals to learn a few basic features of my phone, so I went to the cheerful Verizon clerk from whom I purchased the phone and returned it, shelling out the few extra bucks for a newer color fliphone, which I am quite happy with. Overall, this phone is a good value - however if you want a quick and easy interface with little or no fuss, this probably wouldn't be your best bet. The phone is chock-full of features (once you access them) and can prove quite useful once everything is set up, but I'd rather take the time to immaculately configure a better phone to my liking and have everything right in front of me. Overall PROs: - Talk Time: 5.5 Hrs, Standby Time: 300 Hrs - Big and intimidating phonebook system is saved by your not having to use it thanks to handy voice dialing and one-touch dialing. - For geeks like me, 2 way SMS (where applicable) is fairly easy to use. - Overall decent and comprehensive if you have the time to sit down and program everything. A good value for users who want an inexpensive no-fuss phone and who have the time to learn all the features. 'Zoom In' may be useful for buyers such as my dad who can't read small cell phone text without a magnifying glass. - For the young Bach's in the crowd - you can actually compose your own ringtones. Wow. Overall CONs: - Menu system isn't as organized as you'd expect. - Few user-friendly and easy-to-find shortcuts. - Reminds me of the MS Office assistant 'Clippit,' who tries to be too helpful and ends up getting in the way. (ala predictive text input) Overall: A good value that gets the job done with a little user-manual familiarity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 87998 2000/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good voice dial option light weight it was free display accidental button push volume The Bottom LineDurable, portable, and good battery life but navigation and volume need improvement. Over all a decent phone for less than $90. Full Review I recently changes mobile phone services from Sprint (expletive adjectives for SPRINT deleted to keep this a G or PG rated review) to ALLTEL and got this phone as part of the deal. I had a choice of this or a couple of Kyocera and had read nothing too great about them. I've had the phone for roughly a month and a half now and since there is no listing for a region within 4 hours drive from me will not go into the service, but here's what I've found out about the phone. Good traits I have large hands so a lot of the tiny model phones get lost in my hand. This one is long enough to not get lost. The phone book listing is larger than most and has places for Name, phone #, individual rings, e-mail, and voice dial. call logs for the 10 last in coming, out going, and missed calls. date book (you can keep a mini schedule in here) 5 games (Black jack, Mind Blaster, Paddleball, Falling numbers, Video Poker) Long battery life talking or stand by. (5 hours talk time on a full charge and with no use at all it can just be on and waiting for a call for a week or more) The voice dial actually works. My last phone had voice dial too but it was totally inflexible and a pain to use. With this one you still have to be close but not exactly the same intonation and inflection. This is certainly durable in construction. I have dropped it several times (and being just over 6'4" tall that's a fair drop) and it has remained intact and functional. My last phone would fly apart when dropped, the battery 1 way and the body another, this one has not had that problem. Bad traits In spite of the length being good for my large hands, it is a bit too narrow and thin for my liking. the speaker is under powered, the volume settings only go up to 7 and at that I still have trouble hearing well. I have found a fair work around by using my hands free set, which brings up the next item on this list. The port for the ear piece/hands free set is open and uncovered which would allow for dirt, water, and the likes of grime to get into it. The display is a flash back to the early days of computer monitors. backlighting is a sickly green and the characters are large black dots against a silver/grey background when not backlit. the menu is layer after layer and is a pain to navigate. The volume buttons are located on the left side of the phone and make it easy to accidentally turn down the conversation while talking. Final thoughts Even though I have found a lot of things that I dislike about this phone, it's actual performance (other than the volume)has been good. For a starter mobile for someone on the go it would be a good one. What it lacks in volume, it seems to make up for in clarity. If you are looking for a basic phone then this may not be the one for you. It has internet access and all sorts of bells and whistles but then again, these days it seems like it's harder to find one that just makes and receives calls than one with lots of extras. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 87997 2000/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life very clear all the sh t i got when i finally caved The Bottom LineThis is a solid phone for someone who just wants something basic. Full Review Do any of you know how much I absolutely despise cell phones? I mean, honestly, I find them to be perhaps the biggest downfall of simple politeness in recent memory. I have railed about how much these things suck for years on end now. I called every single one of my friends a "trendy b*tch" if they all of a sudden had a cell phone. But do you know what sucks even more than cell phones? Not having one when you get a flat tire on the highway. Back in November, I got a flat tire on the way to work. I remember feeling absolutely helpless at that point in time, you know, as if God had decided to mock me after 4 years of whining about cell phones. I could almost see him beckoning to me: "Now you see Matt, the dark side shall always triumph when it comes to new annoying technological gadgets that allow people to be even ruder." The next day I went out in search of a phone. I didn't need anything that wonderful or new or hyped up on technology. It's a phone, something meant to call people with. I found this phone on sale while I was in the Verizon Wireless store and despite my knowledge of "free phone" offers, I ended up purchasing this phone to go along with my calling plan. I really like the small design of the phone, mostly because it's not too small. You see some of these people walking around with what looks like a microchip in their hand, that just isn't for me. Not to mention I think the whole "flip phone" thing just tries way too hard to look important. So while it's not big and bulky, it's not so small you can very easily lose it either. The clarity on this phone is excellent. I've never had a problem hearing the other party, and while the clarity has varied depending on where I am, I have been able to hear everything just fine. This is helped by the fact that the battery seems to be very strong with this phone. It doesn't take anytime at all to charge it, and once charged, you can easily talk for 2-3 hours without needing to charge it in between. It comes with 5 games, although the only two that really interest me are poker and blackjack. The others just aren't very fun at all. But then again, if you want a cell phone with cool games, this is probably the last thing you would buy. In addition, there is a generous speed dial bank, and there is a voice dial option, which I have not attempted to use yet. There are some drawbacks to this phone. For one, it's small design and even smaller buttons doesn't favor someone like me with decent sized hands and fingers. And while one other reviewer mentioned that it's hard to hear, I find this phone to be either too loud or too soft, with no real happy medium. While this doesn't truly concern me (as I don't get many incoming calls, because I don't feel the need to have a phone plastered to my head 24 hours a day), it may be something to think about if you're in the market for a new phone. All in all though, I'm extremely satisfied with this phone. It's really everything I wanted (small, reliable, clear tone), which granted wasn't much. So for you cell phone junkies, this is probably not the phone for you. But if you're like me, and just want something to be able to make a quick phone call or for emergencies, then I highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 87996 2003/2/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light lots of features sturdy ergonomic design easy to usenavigate volume controls poorly placed speaker needs more volume The Bottom LineA great, easy to use phone jam-packed with features. Full Review Boy, it seems like just as soon as you get comfortable with some electronic device, it breaks down and you have to get a new one. I had finally gotten my set up just how I wanted it, when the display gave out in a sputtering luminescent orgy of death. Having been pleased overall with Motorola phones, I went back to the store in search of a better model and found the Motorola 120t. The Motorola 120t is a sleek, silver unit with dimensions of 5.0" x 1.7" x 1.1" and weighs only about 4.5 ounces. While some other phones are designed as flat rectangles, this phone is curved ergonomically to give the unit a natural balance that goes a long way in handling a phone with one hand as most folks do. At the top of the face of the unit is the 96 x 64 graphic LED backlit three-text-line display. The easy to read LED holds a wealth of information such as the battery meter, a missed call indicator, a roaming indicator, and a clock, in addition to text messages for two-way SMS, email, or browsing through the subscription-based wireless microbrowser. Just below the display are the menu navigation buttons and the number pad. The buttons on the number pad are somewhat small so it is easy to mash a wrong button accidentally when dialing, but this happens less with this phone than some other smaller models. On the left side of the unit are the rubber volume up/down buttons, and these are extremely poorly placed. For some reason Motorola chose to place them exactly where your fingers grip the phone during normal conversation, so accidentally changing the volume while talking happens frequently. It's a nitpicky problem, but one that most users will have to deal with constantly. One of the things that make this Motorola phone an impressive device is its wide array of features. It comes packed with goodies like Voice Activated Dialing, VibraCall, iTap software, 32 uber-lame preprogrammed ringtones, five games, a 500-entry phonebook, and a voice recorder. The majority of them work almost flawlessly as well; the Voice Activated Dialing is far more forgiving than on some other cell phones (me: "Call 'home.'" other phone display: "Calling: THE EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA'" ...what?!?), the voice recorder came in handy for meetings, and the phonebook was easy to update. The only feature I really had trouble with was the iTap application. The point of iTap is to help you write a text message by guessing the word you're trying to type after the first few letters. However, most of the stuff I type in is in shorthand and not proper English, so most of the time the iTap was just getting in the way. Still I can foresee that feature coming in handy one day. To help keep your sensitive information secure, the 120t comes with a few practical security features. Users have the ability to lock the keypad, phone, and applications in addition to placing restrictions on calling. Locking and unlocking the phone is very easy, so users should not be afraid to try out this feature to keep their phone information private and inaccessible to unauthorized users. All these abundant options are made available through the Motorola 120t's menu navigation system. The menus are a little tricky to navigate at first, but with some practice scrolling around and flipping through options, it will become second nature rather quickly. The key is to actually read the instruction manuals - it will help immensely as it details the most expeditious way to get to all the features and entries that you need. Surprisingly, with so many features and extras the Motorola 120t is not a battery guzzler. The phone supplies roughly 160-350 minutes of talk time and up to 170-300 hours of standby time depending on the battery. High performance batteries are recommended. On the strength of its numerous features, ease of use, and sleek and fun design, the Motorola 120t should definitely be considered for anyone looking for a new phone. The only significant problems users might have with this is the softness of the speaker volume (which is disappointing because the quality of the audio itself is sharp) and the poor location of the volume controls, but these are minor when considering the overall quality of the phone. Give this one a test drive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ plan 7723 Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone 88075 2009/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compactness ease of use battery life has tendency to come out of holder easily Full Review I have had over six different cell phones in the last three years and have found the StarTAC by far the best of those tried(Panasonic TP500, Nokia 252,Oki 5300,etc. The battery life has far exceeded what I thought it would be. If not left on, I can go three to four days without charging. If left on, I get about two days before charging. This is with the extended life battery, which is well worth the extra expense. As far as clarity and able to make calls, there have only been a few occasions that I could not get service, and then I was out in the boonies. All in all I think the StarTAC3000 is an excellent choice for those who do not need a lot of bells and whistles even though it has its share. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88074 2009/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small compact convenient expensive Full Review This phone is great it is so compact and convenient. This phone is the best the only down fall is that it is not bulky like other flip phone and you may have a greater chance of misplacing it or aleast I do. I used to have a larger flip phone with a large bulky battery and it was good but I like to carry my phone in my shirt pocket and it was too bulky to carry there so I would place it in my coat pocket which caused me to drop it quite often. I am not much into carring a phone on my belt it reminds me of a farmer and his pliers. I very much dislike carrying things on my belt. Overall this phone really meets my and my wife needs to the tee. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 88073 2009/11/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size durable size cannot find it Full Review This phone is a fantastic communicator. I use it all the time. It has great ability to connect when compared to other phones that I have used and it sounds great. However, the size is the real plus and minus. The plus is I just throw it in a pocket, neat and easy. It has been very durable, I have the insurance on it so I don't worry about breaking it, but I have not had a problem, even though I toss it everywhere. The minus is that I keep losing it, because it is so small. The batteries have lasted as expected so far. I usually just grab it after work and carry it around for the evening, and charge it over night, but when I've left it on, it has keep going for at least a day. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 88072 2000/1/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact size somewhat easy to use somewhat hard to use display battery life Full Review my mom has one of these phones with an analog airtouch service plan. the service is fine around here, but the phone can be very confusing sometimes. for example, i'm a 15 year old boy, and i know a lot about most electronics. yet it took about 20 minutes to properly enter our home phone number into the memory. i love the compact size of this little gizmo. if i go somewhere, it neatly fits into my baggy pockets without anyone knowing that it's there. the phone's memory system can be improved, because it uses a number system from 1-99 to enter numbers instead of names like other phones. this may not sound like much, but it can be frustrating to remember someone's number if you don't know where you put it. memory is for you to remember someone's phone number, and to get to it, you need to remember 2 more numbers... it features a headset jack that uses standard headsets. it also features 2 ring hands free answering, open to answer, any key answering, 9 different ring styles, but the most convenient is the 1-9 speed dial that remembers numbers 1-9 in the memory... the display is kind of hard to read, but soon it's easy to understand what it's saying. with some patience, you will soon like the startac 3000. just depends on your service plan. the battery is a complete joke compared to others. about 7 hours is all that is needed to drain out the battery. the box says 14 hours of standby, but even on the first day it took about 8 hours to drain it. would not recommend for emergency use, although that is exactly what my parents use it for. if this sounds good, get it! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20 88071 2000/12/19 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 it s very portable small have had many problems with it Full Review I'm sorry to say, but this phone is the worst my husband has ever owned. The first one worked great, but then he had to turn it in to get it updated. Ever since then it hasn't worked well at all. He has so many problems with it. It has a bad connection at most times, it pauses out in the middle of a conversation, when at work he can only talk on it in certain places, some of the features don't work, he has to keep recharging it throughout the day too, and sometimes it just dies on him. He's been a little lazy to go get a new one, but during the holidays he's going to. This phone he got through ameritech, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but he is going to get another phone. I own a nokia, and it was actually cheaper than his, and mine works so great. I have never had a problem with it at all. In fact, I only have to recharge mine about once a week, sometimes not even that often. Granted I don't use mine as much as he does, but mine lasts a lot longer, I even leave it on for long periods of time. I would not recommend the motorola phone at all, simply because of the problems we have had. His next phone will be a nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): around $200 88070 2000/1/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 always with you light small roaming distance is shorter than most Full Review What can I say, this is the best cell phone! It is so easy to carry with me no matter where I go. I love being able to fold it up and stick it in my purse. It is always with me. People that need to get a hold of me know where they can call because it is so easy to take with me anywhere. It is very easy to use while I am driving because I have important numbers that are stored in the turbo dial. I just take it out of it's holster and dial two numbers. When I'm done I can just close it back up. The price is very reasonable and very well worth it. The looks of it are so slim and very stylish. The sound is very clear and there is no need to yell into the phone. One thing bad about it is the roaming distance isn't the best, but I usually just use it while I'm in town. Overall this is a great investment if you want a cellular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39 88069 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very light hard to dial Full Review This is by far the lightest and most compact cell phone I have ever come into contact with. It fits almost anywhere making it very convenient to take along on a night out. The only word of warning I would have about this is to make sure that it does not fall out of a pocket. I have generally had good luck with getting reception however the signal does tend to fluctuate every once in a while. One good feature is that the phone will not dial unless you have at least 2 out of 5 bars worth of reception. This is some insurance that the person on the other end will be able to understand you when you speak. I would highly recommend this phone to parents with teenagers because it is a great tool to use to keep in touch and they might even think you cool for having one. Happy trails friends and good luck with your trials of miles and miles of trials! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88068 2000/3/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight compact never seems to work like it should The Bottom LineIt's light weight and compactness are not enough to be worth putting up with the connection and dialing problems. Full Review Totally Annoying Contraption! When we signed up for cellular service 6 months ago, this little dandy came highly recommended. Due to it's light weight, compact size, and vibration signal factors, we jumped at the chance to have one. Aside from those factors, it didn't take us long to start hating the thing. First of all, it just never seemed to work like it should. Half the time calls wouldn't go through, even when we had full signal strength. And the power cord was a constant source of cursing in our car. We tried three different cords, and none of them ever worked right. They would never fit securely in the phone jack, even though all three were purchased brand new, and because of this the stupid thing would cut out or lose power in the middle of almost every conversation we ever tried to have. And because the connection was never tight enough, the crazy thing was constantly beeping, including every time we hit a pebble in the road. So just remove the cord and let it go on battery power. Make it snappy, cause that battery aint gonna last long! Seemed like we couldn't keep that phone in our pocket for more than 2 or 3 hours before it started flashing the "Lo Bat" signal, making funny noises, and then shutting itself off. Dialing numbers was no picnic either. I always loved it when this happened: I would call a certain number, and get 1 full ring which immediately and mysteriously turned into a busy signal. It drove me nuts. Didn't matter how many times I tried to redial, the outcome was always the same whether I called day or night. These were always local numbers too- seemed to me like this phone had a mind of it's own, and simply flat refused to dial certain numbers. ????? Never did figure that one out. Two weeks ago we couldn't stand it any longer, and had to switch to another phone. Digital. No more beeping, no more loose cords, no more sending calls through whenever it feels like it instead of when we need it to. As far as compactness and light weight go, this is a great item. But we were so dissatisfied with it's overall performance that we would not recommend it- especially if cellular service is really important to you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $80 88067 2000/11/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 flip open to answer a call light small ugly old school lcd display Full Review So, I was moving, see. And I was too lazy to give the Amertiech people enough of a head's up, so my phone wouldn't be hooked up for a few days and I knew that I had to have a phone - lest my mom flip out. Off I go, nervously, to Cellular One and tell the nice man what I need: bottom of the line, rarely gonna use, not fancy at all. And he shows me the Star Tac - which was, at the time, free with a certain contractual obligation. Thus did I become a Cell Phone Owner. Oh the agony. It's a nice little phone - it's got a very, very, VERY short battery life - 14 hours on standby is an overestimate by 10 hours, if you charge it for a minimum of six hours. My friend told me the secret to happy Star Tac owning: charge the thing constantly. As I rarely use it, I can't speak to any of its fancy features. Only by accident did I discover the way to find the last number dialed - which came in handy in an emergency. I don't know how to store numbers or names, but the book says you can. The orange on black LCD display is so clunky when compared to the newer Star Tacs or Nokias - and is easily my least favorite feature of this phone. The pluses are that it's small and light and you can answer or hang up by opening or closing the phone. A very good entry level cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): it was free 88066 2000/4/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to carry around battery power Full Review I got this phone as a Christmas present from my parents and since then they have both gotten one. They are relatively inexpensive and very easy to carry around. They are lightweight and reception is very clear. There is a small negative...the battery power is not as good as some other phones. But it lasts long enough for me because it can charge in the car. It has not given me any problems thusfar. I haven't even taken great care of it. Motorola provides great accessories to go along with this product. It is also not as flashy as other phones because of it's color, but overall I would buy this phone because it is affordable and very easy to carry around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88065 2009/12/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight minimal features Full Review This is really a great phone for several reasons. First of all, it's a Motorola. If you want durability, always go with Motorola. The size is perfect, especially for those of us who carry a purse. But even more convenient, it is wearable like a pager. The design is ergonomically correct for comfort of use. However, for the die-hard mobile user, you will probably want to upgrade to another model for more features, especially for the option of digital and analog in one unit. Still my favorite. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88064 2000/1/19 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact easy to carry seems a little fragile Full Review I recently got a Motorola StarTAC 3000. I love it! It is so compact in size, I can bring it anywhere. I no longer have the burden that I've had with cellular phones in the past. I don't have to worry about where I'm going to put it, because I know that if worst comes to worst, I could just slip it in my pocket, or in the neat little carrying case it comes with. Also, if the battery goes dead while I'm talking to someone, I could simply replace it with a spare one, without being disconnected! What more can you ask for? So, far, I haven't received any complaints about how clear the phone is, and I know I haven't experienced any time when the phone was unclear. Therefore, I believe this phone is a very smart purchase and very worth it. Recommended: Yes 88063 2000/10/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 compact feels like a real phone in open position breaking antenna bad reception Full Review I've got two gripes with my StarTac. 1) Whoever coated that brittle wire with rubber and called it an antenna should be condemned to bad design prison. The StarTac's antenna breaks in a stiff wind making me wonder if Motorola did it on purpose to increase after-market revenue with replacement antenna sales. 2) The StarTac's got lousy reception. I find myself borrowing my friends' Nokias whenever I'm in the shadow of a large building or have somehow found myself in signal 'trough', places where reception dwindles without warning. On the plus side, the StarTac is compact, and its 'flip' design feels like an regular phone in the open position. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88062 2009/12/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight easy to carry small takes some time to program in extra programs Full Review I was introduced to this product via a promotion at RadioShack. My first inclination was to refuse the offer of a free phone even though the only initial costs were $25.00 activation and $25.00/month for 100 minutes because I am a senior citizen with only few people I would call locally and my local carrier is sufficient. Then I decided that, since I do travel a lot on the West Coast of Florida, it would be a good thing to have in case of emergencies. The phone is easy to use once you program in the most frequently used numbers. The clarity of tone is excellent and it is very easy to carry because of the belt clip on the carrying case. The main disadvantage I found was that it was difficult to program some of the features in the manual. However, my local provider, GTE Wireless, lists an 800 number and they were very patient and efficient in guiding me through my problems. Many additional plans expanding the service are available. I would recommend this product to any new cell phone user. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88061 2000/1/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight convenient features battery life Full Review The Star Tac 3000...so small so light, It's always with you. The Star Tac 3000 is a very light and convenient phone. I have found the internal phone book to be a very useful feature. The small size of the phone gives me the ability to take it just about everywhere I go. I can toss it in my shirt pocket or with the included holster clip it on my belt. i enjoy the call timers which can be audible or displayed. The Star Tac also supports caller ID which helps reduce unnecessary airtime use. My Star Tac so far has proven itself to be a very durable phone. I have dropped it, gotten it wet, and left it in the very hot car. After all this abuse the phone is still in great shape. The only downside i have noticed is the battery seems to have a short life. i feel I get less then the 60 mins talk time advertised. all in all i love this phone and would recommend it to anyone looking to purchase a cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88060 2009/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of options very light long battery life small sometimes you forget you have it Full Review This is one great cellular phone! It's small, light, has a long battery life, it has lots of different ways to change the way it works (like 10 different rings) and it is very durable. You can drop it (like I have) a bunch of times on the floor or sidewalk and just pick it up and keep talking! The battery lasts about 4 hours of talk time and a week of standby and it has lots of options you can use, like voicemail, caller ID, and call forwarding to another number. This is one phone that has it all and won't kill your bank account! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88059 2005/10/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything nothing The Bottom LineOld but still the best Full Review I bought my Motorola Star Tac Tri-mode phone from Verizon back in early '02, right before it was discontinued. Most people go through at least 2 phones a year, in the mean time I've kept my Star Tac for almost 4 years, and counting. I'm on my second battery, second belt holster, and 3rd or 4th antenna. The reception and sound quality is far superior to today's phones. Also, the user interface is better as it has dedicated "hard buttons" for storing and retreiving phone numbers, convenient menu system, and a nice monochrome LCD display that is FAR more readable in bright sunlight than the backlit color LCDs and the "indiglo" green backlight makes the display clearly readable at night, only rivaled by the OLED color display in the similarly vintage Motorola Timeport. The downside? If it breaks I'm out of luck because even if I purchase a new old stock one on ebay, Verizon won't activate it because it doesn't have the GPS for the 911 system, or my theory is, for the government to track your every move, but that's another story! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88058 2000/10/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a communication champ sometimes loses connection in weak coverage areas Full Review I bought the StarTac 3000 for two major reason one being it is small the other being I need to be in constant connection with those around me, The StarTac 3000 has been a perfect companion from the beginning and has been a selection not worth regreting I have found that the StarTac 3000 to meet all my communication needs and I do not need a land based phone. The phone has numerous features including 20 number recall, total air time, different rings and vibrator functions. The StarTac 3000 is the perfect phone for anybody no matter their profession in life. Get on it is a product worth having. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.01 88057 2009/9/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap lightweight reliable analog small perhaps too small for large hands to use buttons analog Full Review I bought the StarTAC 3000 at a Circuit City for $0.01. The required wireless service contacts were only available from Southwestern Bell. I chose the entry level 24-month service which came with 30 minutes per month of local airtime. Circuit City also gave at that time a $50 store gift certificate to buyers of any analog wireless phone. I have had excellent service from this phone: good, clear sound quality, very portable, relatively long standby/talk time and reliability. The display is bright and readable. The phone comes with a holster-type carrier that clips onto a belt or pants. The holster is very similar to those used for pagers. I bought a leather case from the online Motorola store that is an exact fit for the StarTAC and covers the buttons with clear plastic that you can still press through easily. I chose analog over digital because of the spotty and inconsistent digital service coverage in my area: Dallas/Fort Worth. Also, the equivalent digital StarTAC model was approximately $300 versus the $0.01 cost of the Model 3000. My main complaints are minor: the buttons are small because the overall small size of the phone and I would prefer that the send button be on the bottom right instead of up one from the bottom. That is an analog phone can be a pro or con depending on your needs and service availability in your area. This phone will make you think of the communicators from Star Trek, they are almost as cool as those. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.01 88056 2009/11/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Product Rating2.0 features battery power clarity Full Review After owning a startac 3000, I have found that another choice would have been more sufficient. The options that are given with the cell are many to choose from, but you better hope you live in a flat treeless area close to the tower, or you will have problems with the clarity. Another problem I found was the deals that come along with the phone. Being expensive, they give you a good deal but if you don't like the phone it costs twice as much to delete the service then to stick out your two year contract. It is good to have this type of phone because of the size and tote-ability. Another factor that made me want one is the simplicity of the options-in other words, no games. It just had your basic phone needs such as call waiting, voice mail, caller id, etc. Just do not expect to talk for long or in wooded areas. Recommended: No 88055 2000/5/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 economical rate plan not as flashy as some other phones Full Review If you are the parent of a child who drives a car (16 or older in most States), this is a great phone for the child to have. Motorola has a rate plan that is mainly an emergency only plan, where the monthly fee is not very high at all if the phone is only used for emergencies (about 3 free calls per month).Working in the area of criminal law, I have seen numerous young men & women lose their life when their car stalled out. Not having a phone & tending to panic, these desperate souls trusted some savage wolves in sheep clothing who pretended to be lending a helping own. All along, the wolves agenda was to harm the driver.Even new cars can break down. All parents should buy a phone for their young drives. If you can afford to have them on your insurance, you can afford a phone for them. It's a matter of life & death. Motorola to the rescue! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88054 2000/1/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cost efficient small some echoing when calling other cellular phones Full Review I bought this phone basically because it was small and I only needed it for emergency and quick calls; so, I did not need to purchase an outrageously expensive cellular phone. What I did not expect was the quality of this phone. It is great. The phone is surprisingly clear. Every once in a while I will catch an echo but nothing that I cannot hear through and that is only when I am on with another cellular phone. The phone is also durable. I leave it in my car all the time and have never had a problem with it. Although my favorite feature of this product is the price, there are many other great features. I love the clarity and the portability. It is so small it actually fits comfortably in one of the pockets of my jeans! I would recommend this product for anyone who is looking for a portable phone that is also very reliable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88053 2009/12/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 extremely dependable the holder is awkward Full Review I LOVE my StarTAC 3000! It's the perfect size to take everywhere, and tested as one of the best for radiation safety. Mine holds its charge well past the time mentioned in the specs and charges back up FAST. The number pad is easy to use and lights up well. There are plenty of features to store numbers, lock the phone, and many more. Sound quality is GREAT! It's a great little phone to throw in my purse and go! I'm not crazy about the little belt clip holder, it seems to me that the phone is in backwards and I can't get it out one-handed, so I don't use it much. It's just as easy to slip the StarTAC in my pocket. This phone is perfect for anyone looking for a small very convenient phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88052 2000/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great size clear reception easy to use may be awkward for some Full Review I commend Motorola on their Star-Tac series of phones. I personally own the Star-Tac 3000, and have been quite pleased with it. The size is perfect, not bulky, and not TOO small, like some phones are these days. The belt clip is a perfect addition for folks like me, who could use a few extra hands during the work day! Reception is very good, and the instructions are very clear, making the phone quite easy to use. About 6 months ago, I dropped the phone on the ground. The AUX battery was clipped to its back at the time, breaking the back cover of the phone when it fell. I took it to a Motorola dealer, who promptly fixed it, saying that this repair was quite common. The repair cost about $20.00, and I have been careful not to drop it since! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 88051 2009/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 free with service plan good clarity small short battery lifespan Full Review We got this phone free with one year service plan at Radio Shack. It works well and has good clarity. We decided on the analog phone because it has a very wide coverage area in Texas (digital was only in major cities and along major highways). It is very small and easy to carry around- almost unnoticable. We haven't had any problems with it. The battery that came with it has a relatively short active lifespan, but battery upgrades and car chargers are available. It charges to full capacity rather quickly. Recommended: Yes 88050 1999/10/10 Product Rating3.0 price well made easy to read understand manual auto answer end calls with flip very small low battery life not as many features as higher end analog feels funny in hand at first Full Review Motorola's slogan for the StarTac, the "Wearable Telephone" is not far from the truth. While it lacks the ability to change the color of its cover, like the Nokia 5190, it comes with a holder that has a clip on it, so you can attach it to your belt like a pager (and it ain't much bigger). you can slide it out of the holder, and place it in your pocket, on your pants or your shirt. Being an analog model, the battery life is not excellent. It also lacks the features of the digital model, or even the higher-end alalog model. Yet this is the most affordable phone of the whole StarTac line. It fits nicely to the ear, and because it is a flip-phone, the bend at the hinges positions the microphone next to your mouth, and keeps your calls more personal by keeping you from yelling to get the other person to hear. It does not fit as well into your hand as the Nokia 5190 does or the Ericsson v318 does, but does not feel out of place when you are holding it. As I mentioned above, it is a flip-phone, so it spends most of its time closed. A nice feature that springs from this fact is if you recieve an incoming call when the phone is closed, all you have to do to recieve a call if the phone is closed is to flip it open and place it next to your ear. No need to press "send" or anything else. And to end a call, if you do not want to place another one, you just flip the phone shut. Easy as pie. The StarTac 3000 is a basic phone. It is not great for somebody who wants an "interactive" phone. But if you just want a phone that is a small version (and I mean small) of your cordless telephone at home, then this phone is the one for you. It is easy to use, and the manual is very easy to read and understand, and motorola makes great, long-lasting products. <p> Recommended: Yes 88049 2000/1/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dependability size ease of use cost battery life Full Review This cell phone is marvelous. My local service provider was offering this StarTac 3000 as part of a promotion and I took the bait. With signing a two year contract I received the phone free of charge. The size of the StarTac 3000 is small enough to slip in my pocket when I go into the store. It has a clip that I can hook to my belt or strap of my purse. With the clip, it is easy to keep on my car visor while driving. It is so easy to use, not complicated at all. I have had several other cell phones, but this one is far the best for me. If you get the recharger that fits in your cigarette lighter, you can recharge for up to 2 hours. The other charger lets you charge overnight for 8 hours. This charge holds the longest. I have become so dependent on having a cell phone with me. It has become almost a phobia, like driving without wearing a seatbelt. I have the comfort of knowing that if I were to have car trouble, help is just a phone call away. Every time my husband passes me on the road, I am on this phone. He thinks it is GLUED TO MY EAR!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with contract 88048 2000/1/10 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight easy to carry small cheap easy to break small Full Review When I first received this cell phone, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread! The one that I had previously was large, bulky, and didn't have much talk time with the batteries. I had plenty of reasons to switch and plenty of expectations of the new phone. I learned quickly that if it looks small, cheap, and easy to break, it probably is. I wore out the flip portion of the phone in less than 5 months! In addition, every time that I power it up, I am lucky if it doesn't shut itself off. I turn it on in the morning and punch a few keys to make sure that it has decided to work today, and I usually end up restarting it about 7 times before I can get through enough keys to actually make a call. I realized after talking with other people at my work site that while this is not the experience of all of them, it does happen with a substantial number of star-tac's. I have no problem with the clarity of the phone or the range when it worked, but that was seldom. Finally, the amount of talk time is very little compared to the newer phones that they have out. The advertisements say 60 minutes of talk time and that may have been true when I first purchased the phone, but by the time I got rid of it, I was lucky to have a 20 minute conversation without that annoying LO BAT flashing and beeping at me. Oh yes, you can purchase a larger lithium battery for ONLY twice as much as the phone is worth, but since the key pad doesn't work and it shuts itself off all the time, I wouldn't waste my time! Needless to say, when the company offered digital Nokia's, I was one of the first ones to sign up. I wouldn't have a star-tac again if someone gave it to me, as they look small, cheap and easy to break and my experience has shown that they are just that! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): nil 88047 2000/8/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very small light you might forget you have it on Full Review I just got this StarTAC phone a few months ago and I really like it. In my job as a COP I am on the street allot and need access to a phone all the time. It comes with a clip and fit snugly onto my utility belt. As soon as I get in my vehicle I clip it to the visor. It clips to my belt ok but I wouldn't want to fight a guy with it hanging on there. It clips on not locks on .. OK you get the Picture. I use it every day and I have yet to have a clarity problem. Comes with a home recharger. You have to buy the car charger separate but it's worth it. It chargers fully from dead on the car charger in about 20 minutes. That's the trip home for me. It also has allot of options like caller ID and all the bell and whistles but I can't afford them yet. Besides I mainly use it for work so most of the calling is out going. The only complaint I have is the battery goes fast when talking allot but hey it's a really small phone with a really small battery and I take the car charger with me so it's not that much of an issue. Since I got the phone for free when I signed up with ATELL I can't really complain. I have dropped it numerous times and it holds up to the punishment. Overall I highly recommend this little phone!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 Sign up service plan 88046 2000/7/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 looks good reliable not user friendly lack of features short battery life Full Review If you are looking for an analog phone but want something sleek, this is a great phone. However, if you want anymore than that....there are other phones, analog included that you could spend your money on. This phone, although looking good, does not sport the ease of use that its analog competitors boast. It lacks a vibrating battery, where as the Nokia 282 (another flip phone) doesn't, it has an ugly display where the Nokia 282 or 252 have crisp, large displays. The phone book on this phone is embarassingly small, and the battery life is horrible. The two things this phone DOES have going for it are its sleek design, and reliability. Its fairly reliable and looks good to boot. So, if you are in the market for an analog flip phone, I would recommend the Nokia 282 over this model anyday. Now if you're in the market for a digital flip phone, the Startac's digital version rocks like no other..... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 88045 2000/8/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use compact batteries are pretty expensive Full Review In search of buying my second cellular telephone, I tried looking for one that was compact, easy to use, and had affordable plans. I found that particular phone in the Motorola StarTac 3000. If you look around hard enough, you can probably pick up this phone absolutely free with a one-year service plan like I did. Without being mind boggling and overly complicated, the Motorola StarTac has plenty of convenient features that will make your experience in using this phone a pleasant endeavor. This compact, flip phone is so small that it almost gets lost in the palm of your hand, sometimes giving you the feeling that you can flip it open, pull out the antenna and ask Scotty to beam you up, down, whatever be the case. For $39.95 a month you can receive 400 minutes of air time and you can call anywhere in the United States for free -- the time, of course, coming off of your 400 minutes, after which time you have to pay so much per minute. I would highly recommend purchasing the three year service plan upon getting this phone. It's $59.95, which may sound like a lot initially, but when you consider that this plan covers battery replacements (the batteries cost almost $50), it will probably pay for itself in about a year. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Zero for phone, $59.95 for service plan, $39.95 for monthly plan (400 minutes) 88044 2000/10/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 flip phone small bad reception cheap qualty ugly Full Review One day... I was at my aunt's house. I was staying there for the weekend and it was also a 1 week holiday from school. She had to go to work. My aunt was charging up the battery for her StarTAC phone. She needed it for work, and she forgot to charge the battery overnight. So I let her borrow my Nokia 5120 and she let me use the StarTAC for the day. A couple hours later, when the battery FINALLY was charged up, I took it out for the day. Here's what I found out with the cell phone: Size: It's a flip phone, it is very small and easy to carry around. It is light weight, though heavier than some of the other better Motorolla phones. Reception: Terrible. There is plenty of static and I did get disconnected a few times. that has NEVER happened with my Nokia. But what do you expect??? It's a pretty cheap phone. Quality: This phone is cheap and ugly. It can break quite easily and has a lot of static. Sometimes the hinges don't work too well nad the LCD is very cheap. Price: The price is just about right. It's a cell phone. It also gets the job done. YOu get what you pay for. Looks: The phone is ugly and it just looks terrible. It has a very old looking LCD and it is all black without many curves to give it a lively look. It's a flip-phone though, and a cell phone. It may give you some proffesional looks still ;) The Verdict: This is a terrible and cheap phone. It's not worth buying. Stick to Nokia. Nokia is a company that makes low-cost products, but not cheap products. $49 is still money, don't buy it. It's not worth it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): ??? 88043 2000/3/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it s small looks cool it s analoghas horrible battery The Bottom LineI would go for digital!! Full Review Yes..the Startrek phone is what we called it when we first got our little StarTAC. After almost a year of using it and bringing a digital phone into our house the "Startrek" has lost it's luster :-( Why you say? Well... Analog and Digital..no comparison! Digital is way worth the extra money it may cost you because it sounds like you are on a regular landline phone and you have service virtually anywhere. The battery on the StarTAC is horrible. It is impossible to leave the phone on all day and still have any battery left. If you just make one call on a full charge your battery is just about done. I would recommend first, anyone who is getting a new phone to get a digital phone and if you must get this StarTAC I would recommend a car charger or an extra battery to carry with you. The menu is hard to read with it's graffiti letters. A few good things about it is that it is great to carry on your belt with the included holster and the beeping reminder of a missed call. Again I would recommend digital service, but if you must get analog because of unavailability in your area or your just afraid to move ahead of the Jones's this is a good phone. Just beware of the battery, it'll get you every time! :-) Recommended: No 88042 2000/8/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound affordable small sturdy battery stays charges for 60 minutes when used Full Review The Motorala Star Tac 3000 reminds me of some gadget out of Star Trek. I laughed when my husband brought it home. I quit laughing when it told me he got it free with his cellular service. Then I started to think that maybe it was a piece of junk because they were giving them away. I was wrong. It's a great quality phone. The name says it all. It has great sound, small but strong, and easy to use. The sound is crisp and clear. Sometimes it sounds better than my regular phone service at home. It is small but very strong. I don't know if my husband's friend was lucky or was the phone strong. He was on his backhoe and drop his phone. Before he could stop the backhoe it ran over the phone. The phone still works and does not have a crack or scratch on it. Amazing but true. I also like the phone because it is small and compact. It doesn't take up a whole lot of room. My husband likes it because he can wear to work like a beeper. It folds down to that size. The parts for the phone are inexpensive too. We brought the car adapter for less than $20 at Wal-Mart. The only thing that I don't like about the phone is that the battery life is not very long. About 60 minutes per battery. This is not a big deal to me because we charge in our car. If you are looking for a phone but don't want to spend alot of money this is a great quality phone. Also if you are rough with your phone this might be a good phone to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE with cellular service 88041 2000/8/20 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 same great startac looks read the review too many Full Review For anyone looking to get a new cellular phone the StarTAC 3000 is one to overlook. I am a big fan of the StarTAC series, but this phone is the black sheep of the family. Reasons I hate it... 1. The battery life is terrible. One hour to talk, or 14 hours of standing by. Keeping in mind that if you've had it on for 7 hours and go to make a call you get about 20-30 minutes use before it goes dead. 2. Where are all the neat ringer options. This phone has 9 ringers and they all sound the same. 3. Durability is lacking. I had to have my phone replaced after about 3 months, and the salesman who helped me told me he saw many of these phones coming back with problems. 4. What is the deal with the display? Anyone who has seen the display on this phone knows that it is difficult, at best, to read. For example, the character M appears as a forward and backward 7, U's and V's are identical, S is a 5, and a K looks something like this |- Like I said; however, I am a fan of the StarTAC series. For a great phone look at the StarTAC ST7867, or a Timeport. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): .01 with year contract 88040 2009/11/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small light weight might loose it Full Review This phone is Way To Cool , look at It! The Motorola Startac 3000 Is on top of its class . 60 minutes talk time ,and 14 hours standby time . What more can you ask for . The price forty nine Dollars . not only that it only weighs three point eight ounces. It will fit almost anywhere and not even be a load . Its great because i don't have to get out of my car to use a pay phone to call people back . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49$$$ 88039 2000/1/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small very durable has the motorola toughness bad startac sta away from the tdma digital star tac Full Review hello there your cellular wizard here.nothing bothers me more than stuffy,i want this for free,i want that for free cellular customers.especially the ones that think there funny and ask for the star trek phone in a snotty tone.well nothing is free and it's called a startac. anyway enough of that.i just wanted to take a minute and give a high recommendation on the star tac line of phones except for (the tdma digital).the star tac is the best phone around for size & weight.the cdma digital model is probably one of the best if not the best phone around.the sprint pcs version of the startac (at 1900mhz) could be the best version if sprint had more coverage available.but for now i would recommend the cdma digital,the analog 6500 & 3000 models.and for those of you who may not know.the star tac 3000 now comes with vibra call.you should pay no more than 49.00 tops for this phone.if you do your doing business with the wrong cell phone shop.the digital cdma should cost anywhere from 179.00-250.00 depending any less and there is some kind of hidden charge.unfortunately i can not recommend the tdma version.it's bad very very bad.bad star tac! bad star tac!. one last thing before i go.a secret for all to share.did you know all cell phones are suppose to perform equal.your analog handhelds are 6/10 of a watt.your cdma digitals are 2/10 and your tdma is 6/10 of a watt.however when you compare the star tac tac 2/10 digital or 6/10 analog to there respective competition.startac wins with a little unknown fact.here is the secret.the antenna on a phone does not need to be pulled up.it's just a piece of plastic.touch it and try to bend it.it's just plastic.it's a marketing ploy.the antenna in all phones is at the bottom of the plastic antenna base.plastic does not draw signal.metal does,aluminum,cooper,hell even brass does.but guess what! the star tac has more antenna than any other cell phone.not only does it have the standard antenna tip at the plastic antenna base.motorola secretly put a sliver of antenna in the tip of the startac antenna.if you cut that fat tip in half you will see an extra antenna wire.that's why if someone say's they have little trouble with the reception of there cell phone now you know why it works so well.maybe other phone companies should get on the motorola startac wagon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49-250 depending on model 88038 2000/1/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 dependable small clear lcd inexpensive only bare bones features Full Review for those of you who want a dependable no frills phone for making and receiving calls and that's it, this is the phone for you. it is small enough to keep in you pants pocket without noticing it and the lcd screen is small but plenty easily readable and if all you want to do is make calls, it plenty. they phone is even better if you get a motorola lithium-ion battery that makes the phone smaller and sleeker but also gives it less weight and better battery life. if you get this phone, the battery upgrade is a must. that way, you also have an extra battery on hand if needed. and they're so small anyway that you don't notice extras. also, if you really need good life (longer than the day of charge you get on the small main batteries), then you can get a lithium backpack battery that hooks into the back of the phone and is almost as big as the phone itself. and yet the phone is still smaller than almost any other phone on the market even with it. this is a good dependable phone for those who want nothing but to talk on them. if you want paging, email, memo writing, calender and web access on your phone, look elsewhere. the clarity of the sound is about as good as you'll get on any analog phone which is for the most part good enough. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88037 2000/6/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 so small you can put it in your pocketforget about it it might end up in the washing machine if you forget about it Full Review Well, my parents got me this phone as a means to get a hold of me, since I am very frequently out of the house. (I'm supposed to keep it stapled to my hand, really... And no, I am not a spoiled yuppy brat who lives in Beverly Hills.) The nicest part about this phone is its size: it fits nicely in your pocket, in the belt-clip that comes with it (which can also hook onto your pocket rather easily) and the pouch that comes with it. One feature that this phone possesses that others do not is an interchangeable battery... You can keep a charged one on hand and replace the dead one. Not that you would necessarily need to do so, as my battery usually lasts for 24 hours (at least,) but just in case you are going to be somewhere where you can't plug in the AC adapter or a cigarette-lighter adapter, which is sold seperately, unfortunately. Although it is tiny, it has much better sound than any other cell that I have ever used. The extendable antenna, however, can get twisted and bent rather easily if one is not careful with it. Also- I think there is a wire in mine that gets disconnected sometimes when it is "flipped" open; instead of displaying a row of eights when it is turned on (ya know, where everything lights up?) it sometimes shows different numbers... And some parts of the numbers don't show up on the display. I think this is probably just because of rough treatment on my part. (This phone has been to hell and back, really.) I admire that it has lasted through all my rough treatment and still works as great as the day that I got it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 88036 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size durability Full Review I originally purchased my StarTAC because I was tired of carrying around a bulky cell phone. I like the size of the StarTAC because it fits anywhere. It is one of the best cell phones I have ever had. I have not had any problems with my StarTAC and have owned it for just a little over a year. The small compact size also helps because you can stick it in a pocket or your purse and do not have to worry about it falling off of a belt loop. I think anyone who is considering a cell phone should purchase the StarTAC because it is the perfect phone to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19-39 88035 2000/1/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 options weight size battery life is good but could be increased with an optional ion battery Full Review When I was out looking for a cellular phone, I knew exactly what I wanted... I was looking for something small enough that I could carry it anywhere. Most other phones wouldn't fit in my pocket let alone allowing me to sit down with it. The Startac is just about the size of a large pager which is both good and bad. I lost it once in between my car seat and couldn't find it for two days! Not a good thing! Other than that, it's got awesome clarity and it's extremely easy to use. It's one handed operation allows you to do more than one thing at once. It never gets too heavy and I'm actually able to balance it on my shoulder without much of a problem. The numbers are all backlit and the display is plenty large enough for anyone. It's the perfect phone for just about anyone... now considering the size of the buttons, it's perfect if you have small to normal sized fingers. Put on a pair of gloves and you can forget it. It even comes with a clip so you can have it either in your pocket like a pager or clip it on your pants/purse etc. My sales experience with them also helped in my decision. Motorola has yet to design a product that hasn't astonished me. I've dropped it several times and with the flexible antennae, nothing's going to stop this little guy. As far as the sound, no one can even tell if I'm calling from my cell phone or cordless phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88034 2000/1/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small takes abuse like nobody s business so small that using the button area can often be a pain Full Review I absolutely love my Star Tac. Like recently mentioned, Motorola continues to put out a fantastic product. Mind you, I'm no electronics genius, but after using a couple of different brands, Star Tac remains my favorite. Size and durability are the positives. It's so small it can fit in your shirt pocket, and as far as durability goes, my phone has been dropped more times then I can count, kicked and dropped into the shallow (15 feet) end of a freshwater lake. It takes a licking, and continues to work just as well as ever! The only negative I can see is on another hand a positive. As the unit is so small, it makes the button area a pain to sometimes use. I've programmed frequently called numbers into it, but sometimes you have to dial by hand, and it never fails, I always manage to miss a button. In the long run though, this is a great product and will give you tons of hours of talk time... Just keep recharging those batteries! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -0- 88033 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice small comfortable none Full Review I own this phone and i love it. Its nice and small, even smaller than my wallet. Its perfect to just stick in your pocket and wont disturb you while you walk around. Furthermore, it feels good while talking on it instead of being uncomfortable like many other phones. The Motorolla Startac is a vast improvement from the old classic 1980's cellular phones which were larger than my arms and worked worse than a walkie talkie on crack. Even though it is small and flimsy it is still solidly constructed and wont break even under the harshest conditions. This phone is definitly worth the money to pay for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 88032 2000/1/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size relatively easy functions low talk time antenna breaks easier than most Full Review I bought my StarTAC 3000 as an upgrade from another BULKY Motorola phone. I have no regrets about the purchase except for the following: 1. The light weight of the phone sometimes creates a problem for me because I have to double check that I still have it. (It doesn't pull much on the pocket or the waistband, so you second guess yourself often.) 2. The antenna sticks out too far and if you leave it on your waistband and you sit down and get up often, then the endpiece does break off. (I have had mine replaced once in 4 months.) 3. The battery doesn't hold charges well and is very susceptible to "charge memory" (when you charge it mid-drain, it doesn't charge fully). At that point, you have two options-get a new battery or a de-/recharger. For my purposes, the phone has been excellent aside from the points mentioned above. I carry a pager (unlimited calls/pages) and return important ones with my cell phone. This is good for two reasons, it keeps the conversations to a minimum (the battery only has 60 minutes of "talk time") and the cell bills are minimized. The other plus to having this phone is that it is small enough to fit almost anywhere, which could be a problem if you are the type of person who loses their keys often. Overall, the phone is worth the price, and I would recommend it to anyone as an emergency phone, but not for someone who uses their phone often, unless they purchase the car charger along with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88031 2000/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size great reception lightweight belt clip holder charges quickly because of size could be misplaced easily Full Review Recently I changed to a Motorola Startac phone. There are several things about it that I really like. The main thing is the size. It is small enough to go in my pocket with no bulge or problem; also it has a belt clip holder that is similar to that of a pager. The size in fact, is only a little larger than a pager. The phone is light weight; has excellent reception (even in the trees in isolated areas that I travel through) and best of all the battery charges fully in less than an hour either in the car or at home on the charger that came with it. The car charger did not come with it and my service provider charges $49.00 for it. Wal-mart and Kmart both have the identical charger for this phone for around $15.00. I bought another phone because the small flip phone I had been using was too bulky to put in a pocket or on a belt clip and the reception was not as clear as I prefer. Had I known the Startac was so much easier to use and better all round I would have changed phones when they first became available. I very strongly recommend the Motorola Startac cel phone. So far there hasn't been anything about it that I haven't liked and I use it all day long. Any cel phone user would enjoy this phone. About the only drawback is the fact that it is so small that it could easily be misplaced. However, with the clip holder it can be clipped inside my purse so I don't have to worry about it falling out when it isn't on my belt. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88030 2000/1/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use light good reception battery doesnt last long enough Full Review I always wanted a mobile phone of my own,because i always found myself out with no money and needing a phone,so i checked into the southwestern bell mobile and got a startac 3000,this little phone has come in handy so many times when i have had a flat or just broke down.the startac 3000 has excellent reception and you can carry it any where.it's light and easy to use.Even the elderly can use this phone.i just recently purchased one for my grandmother so she could always be in touch no matter where she is.If you want a phone that is light and easy to keep close check into one of these. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88029 2000/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight sleek design price Full Review This small phone is definatly worth every penny that it cost which is near 150 dollars. You can purchase these online, or at your local mall. All of Motorolla's products are high standards , when you hear Motorolla you know its good. If you buy one of these make sure to ask for a good deal sometimes you can get a package with like 100 hours of free minutes or something look into it. Its light weight , durability and design make it one of the best portable phones on the market today. WHen I use this i never hear any static or any other disrupting noises its always crystal clear. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88028 2009/12/16 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small clear reception many options small battery Full Review This little phone has so much more to offer than just a clear reception. It has voice-mail, caller id, and even more useful features. It is the best investment i have ever made. I have had a few problems with the weaker battery, but overall it has been an excellent buy. I was amazed at how much a phone so small could do. It is just like any other cell phone (maybe better) except you can take it anywhere because it fits in your pocket and the palm of your hand. Vibrate or ring options means that you can take a call anywhere, but if you miss the call, it will let you know by beeping. It is just like a beeper that you can talk to someone through, and I recommend it to anyone because of the great 6 month plan that Motorola offers with its purchase. It is a wonderful investment for anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 88027 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 price style motorola reputation size none Full Review Once I decided on purchasing a cell phone, my next task was choosing which model I wanted. Did I want a bag phone, installed car phone, something small and handy? So, I decided to go to the local cellular dealership and check out what they had to offer. Bag phone--no, too clunky and 80's. Installed car phone--Am I a traveling salesman?--No. Yeah, something small and handy would do nicely. Now, here is where I began to question the true practicality such a small phone. The two models I liked were the StarTAC 3000 and the Nokia...(the small one). But would the batteries on these models last long enough to be worth having? What kind of clarity would they have? The salesman assured me that both models were comparable and would last over 100 hours in talk time. Also, that I could upgrade my batteries in either and add more talk time and standby time. StarTAC--Nokia? StarTAC--Nokia? I went back and forth. Finally, in the grand style of the American shopaholic, I decided on the much more stylish StarTAC. Not to bad mouth the Nokia, but the StarTAC 3000 is smaller and can be attached to the hip without being too clunky. Also, at the time of purchase they only had the burlwood Nokia model. Being a clasic and simple guy, I knew I would want nothing other than black. So, okay when shopping comparable brands, I am shllow. But don't we all buy what we LIKE better. I must say I have been pleased with my decision--both in style and substance. The clarity is good, as is the talk and standby time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .01 88026 2000/1/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light small sounds clear rubber buttons sometimes stick Full Review I can't count the number of people who have commented about how cute my StarTAC phone is, but that's not why I love it so much. It's small and weighs just a few ounces, so you can actually "wear" it over a shirt pocket, slip it into a pair of jeans or put it into your purse. I had a larger, more bulkier phone before this one and I kept leaving it in my car, etc. No similar problems with my StarTAC - it's so small you don't even realize it's there. AND the sound is really clear. Usually I'll speak with my friends for several minutes before they say "Where are you??? You're on a cell phone? It sound so clear!" The only minor complaint I have is that sometimes the tiny rubber keys get caught when I dial. It's a minor inconvenience for such a wonderful product! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 plus one year GTE plan 88025 2000/1/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight portable weak antenne Full Review At first look, a few years ago, many people were skeptical about the StarTac, and how it's little size could outpower many other phones on the market. Today, that standard still lives, as being one of the smallest and one of the most portable phones that anyone could buy. I usually get stopped by alot of people, and they ask me, why does that pager got an attanne. I simply tell them its a cell phone, and they are impressed. If you would like to score some browie points in your office, this is the phone to get. One feature that is great is the one handed dialing. You can do everything with one hand, and still have another hand free for other things. One downside with this phone is that the attanne is weak, and will bend and most likely break off if you put it in your pants. Battery life is par for most phones from this generation, but its form and style is awesome. GO BUY IT. YOU WILL BE COOL! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88024 2000/4/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight durable portable low talk time Full Review I chose this phone from a number of "freebies" offered by my local cellular carrier. It is small and lightweight, perfectly sized to drop in your pocket or purse. The belt clip that comes with the package is practical, but wears out easily. The phone is perfect for anyone who wants the convenience of a cellular phone with them at all times, it is lighter than most wallets. I would not recommend it for people who "misplace" things, its small size makes it difficult to keep up with. The sound is clear, and the phone offers a number of handy convenience features. The only downfall is the short talk time given by the standard battery. The household charger performs more slowly than the optional car charger, I would recommend the extra $25 for this option. *Update* I recently purchased (from Wal-Mart) an aftermarket hands-free kit to go with my Star-Tac. While the price was reasonable, around $20 for an earphone, and cord-mounted microphone...I would recommend getting the Motorola version. Why? Because the el-cheapo one malfunctioned...causing the phone to turn on and off based on what the radio announcer said over the car speakers! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with contract 88023 2000/1/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great offers great size horrible batteries Full Review I originally got the StarTac 3000 phone because there was a good deal going on at the time. Buy a two year contract and get the phone for free. Well, I should have thought more about it. Nothing is free for no reason. The money I have spent having to replace batteries and purchasing car chargers has more than the surpassed the actual $49 purchase price. The phone is analog. This means you can't have Caller ID, or view when you have voice mail. I did get good benefits when I purchased the phone, like free call waiting and voice mail, but once again, I've spent close to $150 on batteries. They don't hold a charge on standby for more than a day. And if you actually use your phone for talk time, well it last less than an hour. You can't fully charge your phone unless you completely drain the battery, which is a pain. Plus, since I got the contract it is nearly impossible to switch the contract to a different phone. They want you to pay a cancellation fee and all this other garbage, when all I wanted to do was purchase a new phone with the capabilities of Caller ID (which would actually make them more money than what they are making off of me now) and switch my plan. So if you like the convenient size of the StarTac, which I admit is great, go with the upgraded version. Don't waste your time or money on the 3000. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free 88022 2000/6/1 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small good manual nice belt clip lightweight terrible battery life cheap antenna very top heavy hard to read display Full Review I admit, I wish I could give this phone a good review, but that would be lying. Here is my reasons why I can't recommend the phone. First the high points: *The phone is very small and light weight. *The phone is basic but not striped down. *The belt clip is a nice touch, and very comfortable to wear. *The phone can be used for both pre-paid and contract cell services. Now to the bad: *The phone is very top heavy, especially if you put the extended life battery on it. *The buttons are almost to small, I end up hit extra buttons when dialing. *The digital display is terrible on it. You can not hardly figure out what the phone is saying to you even with the manual in front of you. *The battery life is also terrible, I only get about 30 minute talk time. *The antenna is cheap and will easily break off.(At least it is easy to replace) *The power from the phone is weak. I could only use this phone if I was with-in a 5 mile area around the tower or in the city. Still even with 2-3bars of sngle strength the phone would cut in and out. *The lighted keypad flet like it would overheat if the phone was used to much. As you can see I was not to impressed with the phone. I know that some of the problem could have been my cellular service, considering I live in the country and not the city. But I found the phone never worked well in most situations. I really did try to like this phone. I thought the design was nice and compact, until i used it. It was the right size for me, but what good is a phone that you can't really trust when you need it. Oh, in case you are wondering, I bought a new Nokia 252 and I love it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free with contract 88021 2000/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good none Full Review I purchased my Startac cell phone a year ago and have been very satisfied with it. It has been helpful for me when I am in the car or out where I cannot get to a phone. It is a small one that folds up and can carry in pocket or purse without taking up a lot of room. Also I can use it for an extra phone when I am on the computer when an emergency arises. For a small phone it has all the features anyone could ask for. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is in need of keeping in touch with friends, family or a business. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .01 with activation 88020 2000/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact light poor reception Full Review The Analog StarTAC 3000 is the ideal choice if you plan to use your cell phone "every now & then." I use mine to check voicemail, as an emergency back-up and to make brief calls. The size, style and price make this phone almost-perfect for my use. My only complaint is that it could be better in regards to the reception. I live in the northeast and have trouble getting clear reception through New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine even when it is plugged into my car antenna. Overall, I would say it is the best phone for your money; compact and light. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.95 88019 2000/1/14 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 load of features small size short battery life Full Review My job requires me to be out on construction sites where there are no easy access to phones. Phone messages I get in the office are relayed to me via a two-way radio, but it still made me look for a public phone miles away to return urgent calls. This is what made me look for a cellular phone. First I asked friends who have cellular phones and decided on getting an analog phone which is said to be working better at remote areas away from cities. All others such as name brand, shape, size, etc. simply did not matter to me and I got my StarTAC 3000 solely based on it's price..FREE with a year's service contract. Since my phone was to be used for urgent phone calls only, I signed up for the minimum required 45 minutes per month contract at $20 per month. Forty five minutes do not seem much, but I rarely use the phone more than that. Now the phone.. it's small and light. It has lots of features such as keeping track of minutes of usage, resettable timer, several ringing sound options including vibrating mode, and so on. The problem is I don't use the phone often enough to memorize what combination of buttons to press to retrieve or activate certain features beyond my initial setting. What I ended up doing is to carry the user's manual in my car all the time just in case I want to do something different such as changing ringer type. I guess it's better to have more and not use it than not having at all, but I believe the phone could have been simplified for easier use. Phone sound quality is normally good unless I move out to a remote place where it starts to echo. Aside from that, I can pretty much receive signals anywhere I go within the plan (North & South Carolina for me). The real problem is its useable battery life. Over night charge lasts about 10 to 12 hours of stand-by (technically it has 14 hours stand-by time according to its manual). If I talk, then it dies much quicker (manual says 6 hours talk time but I seriously doubt that). I feel many people will find this inadequate. It suits me OK as I rarely receive but one or two calls a day, but I still bought a car charger just in case. The trick for long stand-by time is to let the battery die before recharging it. If you plug it in when battery has more than half of charges remaining, the phone will not last more than 5-6 hours as I found out. Likewise, if you are buying one to make lots of calls this is not the phone. If you want to use the phone for emergency use, this might be a perfect one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with one year service contract 88018 2000/1/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size clarity short talk time Full Review Being a petite person, I am drawn to small things & when I saw it advertised for free as part of a calling plan, I knew it was just what I had been waiting for. It fits in the palm of my hand, my pocket, and my small pocketbook perfectly. It is so small that I have to check to make sure it is really in my pocketbook. It is lightweight and unobtrusive. But don't let the small size fool you! It is just like me....small but mighty!(and cute) The reception is crystal clear, the buttons just the right size, it is loaded with features that everyone can use. I like the way it calls me back if the air waves are busy when I try to place a call. I also like the way you can program the phone to answer a call when you open it. No more looking for the on button! Even though I have my ring set to the traditional ring, there are several different rings available. Setting the phone to a distinct ring would definitely solve the problem of wondering which of the teachers' phone is ringing during a faculty meeting! The one thing that really disappointed me, though is what I consider a short battery life for talk time. It lasts for about 40 minutes of talk time. Being a teacher and former telephone operator, I have the gift to gab, and 40 minutes is nothing!!! Seems like I'm cut off in no time at all! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 88017 2000/1/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small everything else Full Review I recently bought this StarTAC phone from an electronics store offering the phone free w/2 yrs. airtime purchase. Soon after, I realized that this was the worst investment of a cell phone that I could have ever done! Reasons WHY it is so bad: There is NO talk time (and when I mean NO, I mean about 30-45 min...on a good day(hehe))! Standby time is like....ummmm..... about a couple hrs....if your lucky. You cannot understand the writing on it, it uses upside down and mixed up sideways numbers as letters in the menus!(Its pathetic)The money that you will have spent on an extra battery and a car adapter will exceed $50 easily. Bad personal experience: I was suppose to meet some friends at Disneyland one day, so I had the phone on me on standby with 1/2 power full, for about 3 hrs. As time went by, I wondered why the friends that I was suppose to meet, hadn't called me. I took out my phone, and it had shut off! I had to spend about 3 dollars in change trying to page my friends afterwards. Sucks huh???? Don't get this phone---get a Nokia or something else. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free with a 2 yr. contract to HELL. 88016 2000/12/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 relatively light compact good voice quality very poor battery life Full Review I've had this phone for about a year now. It was a free phone that came with a one-year service agreement with Worldcom Wireless starting 12/99. All I needed was a basic phone but I was shocked at how basic phones still were in the USA. The phone had an LED display (like calculators from the 70's) and, even worse, standby time of less than a full working-day (less than 14 hours when new and even less now a year later). And, if you actually use it to talk and also keep it on in standby mode then don't expect much use out of it at all. You might say, well what do you expect for free? Well I expected more. Admittedly, I am biased because most of my cell phone use has been overseas in Japan and my main reference for comparison were the super high-tech phones I used over there. The free phone that came with my service in Japan, was much smaller and lighter than the Startac and yet had standby time measured weeks, not hours. Not mention an LCD display, Internet-like capability, large phone book, calculator, programmable tones, vibrator, voice recording ability, etc etc. OK, OK, this isn't Japan. Now I know. That being said, this phone is practically useless unless there is a constant power source nearby or if you, like many people, carry a bunch of spare batteries. If you do these things, you will find that it does have decent quality sound. As other people have noted the display is cryptic but if you don't use any of the (minimal) features and only use it to receive & place calls you probably won't care. It is worth keeping around in the car (with a car power adapter) for somebody without a cellular phone to use as an emergency phone. You can get pre-paid phone card service or (in my market anyway) make calls via a credit card if you don't have a phone card. And it should allow you to at least contact 911 for free. My one year is just about up and I'm going to give Sprint PCS a try. One more piece of advice: Never, ever enter a service agreement over one year. The technology and the deals change too fast to make this worthwhile. Recommended: No 88015 2000/5/28 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 very small easy to operate basic functions battery doesn t last as long as promised messages are unreadable Full Review UNLESS YOU CAN READ UPSIDE DOWN BACKWARDS AND SIDEWAYS, KEEP THE MANUAL. I had to replace a lost Erickson phone recently. I lost it and I wanted to get a smaller one anyway. The day that I finally gave up looking for my old phone, I got a mailer telling me about this Motorlla phone that is small and has all these great features. I got the phone. I only had to sign up for 1 year of service to get the phone for free. I thought was reasonable enough. I received the phone and it was charged and ready to use right away. I didn't bother to read the manual because it seemed so easy to use. Then came the day that I got my first scrambled message. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was telling me. The letters seemed jumbled and upside down . So I dragged out the manual and found that my battery was low. Every time I have seen a message, I have had to check the manual because it prints with these strange letters, that I defy anyone to decode. I have found that the standby time and the actual use time is not near what they tell you. If you talk a lot on the phone you will get about 30 min continuous talk time before getting a low battery message. Standby gives you a realistic 8 hours max. I bought a car adapter which made any battery problems seem non existent. I generally use it in the car, so I just keep it plugged in. The sound and speech quality of the phone worked great. The size of the phone is fantastic. It is the first pocket sized phone that you can really carry around in your pocket. It also has a vibrate mode which is nice to have for meetings and when ringing phones are annoying.(which is most of the time) All in all for a person like me who just uses a cell phone for quick calls home, or to check on this and that, or the occasional business call, this phone is great. The basic functions are simple and straight forward. It is unlikely that you will be able to read the messages it gives, so DON'T THROW AWAY THAT MANUAL!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with 1 yr service 88014 2000/9/28 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 small lightweight short battery life Full Review I got the Star Tac 3000 because at the time the company that had them offered what I thought was a great deal. They offered the Star Tac 3000 free with free nights and weekends for the life of the contract which I chose 3 years. I am getting more then my money's worth but I had to go out and purchase 2 more batteries that cost about $40 each, a car adapter for $15 because this phones don't have over 30 minutes continued talk time. I use mine in the car often so the car adapter is nice but after awhile the connection where the cord plugs into the phone gets wore and it loses it's connection. So I went out and bought 2 more car adapters. If I am out of the car I have to make sure I have all 3 battery's fully charged which gives me 90 minutes total talk time on all 3 battery's, what if I was away longer and away from a car, then what. Some people use their's mainly outside the car so this is a disadvantage of this phone. The accessories I have found are very expensive also. I like the design, size and weight of the phone very much, it's easy to carry and durable, I even exposed it to moisture and it didn't effect it at all. The only thing I dislike about it is the life of the battery, so this is where I think they get people because of the talk time on the battery... unless you go out and buy extra batteries and a car adapter you will always be charging the battery and most people wouldn't get a lot of free talk time. I also got 200 minutes per month for $39.95 plus taxes, and after 10pm till 6am was free Monday through Friday, and Saturday and Sunday free a long with some holidays. But without these extra items I wouldn't get more then my money's worth because I would always be having to charge the battery 1-2 hours just to get 30 minutes talk time. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free with contract 88013 2000/1/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy to use some nice features you d need to mess around with the phone sometimes the signal is off Full Review Ever so handy, ever so small, the Motorola StarTac is on the ball. Wireless comes in all shapes and sizes, and this handy little number is one small machine that's great. With the StarTac, you have multiple features such as locking your phone whenever necessary. You wouldn't want anyone else to use the phone but yourself, would you? There's also another handy lock function where a pin number is required for entering when making a call. Both of these lock features are disabled by you, the user. Moving right along, you're given 9 options of different ringers to play around with. From digitalized, to sounding like a regular home phone. There's also a nifty option for programming the phone to receive all cell calls intercepted right to your home phone! This feature is best if you're on vacation, and you bring the cell with you just in case you need to make a call -- no so someone else can call you. The best part of this phone is that it's small. You can pretty much carry it anywhere. Your purse, your pocket, or even on your belt. You can go biking, jogging, and the phone will stay right with you along the way. There's a lot of benefits, but not too many if you're not looking for just a standard cell phone. If you're looking for just a cell, and want the phone that's easy to store, this would be it. The bad features about the phone are that sometimes it won't bring a signal up well at times. And to fix that, you need to either pull the antenna up for a better signal, or just shut the power off, and boot it up again. Another bad feature is that there's no web available for the phone. You can find a phone for the same price, and get about all the same features and more. But since this is one of the smallest, and nicest looking, you might not want to reconsider. So if this sounds like the phone for you, with caller ID available options, and a handy to carry phone, then I'd say get it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88012 2000/9/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size battery life ease of feature use lack thereof Full Review I won't re-hash the features of this phone, please see the other opinions on it for that information. Our company standardized on this phone as a replacement for the Oki 13xx series of phones that we had been using. We have since standardized on the digital version as well as an Audiovox phone, which I'm not familiar with. The absolute biggest advantage to the product is its size. With the belt holster that comes with it, I barely am aware that I have it with me. This had made a big difference in terms of my use of it; I'll actually forward my phone to it and carry it around with me on the floor, whereas I'd have left my old Oki on the desk for short trips. The other feature that makes it convenient to carry around is the ability with two key-presses to put it into "vibrate mode", e.g. it vibrates instead of an audible ring. I used to have it in this mode all of the time, but found that I was missing calls because of the way I was sitting, most often in a vehicle, so I only put in on vibrate when I'm in a meeting and expecting an important call. One word on battery life. The other reviews complain about it, but I am actually quite amazed by it. I've had the phone for about a year, and the batteries are still as good as new (NiMh, a fat and a skinny), which I've not found with other cell batteries after a year. Compared to my Oki, which I believe had the same power output, These batteries are less than a quarter the size, and last at least twice as long! (Power output can be set in the phone, mine is set on high because I travel in the rural areas occasionally, and have trouble with signal dropout, see below). Some of the downsides: Accessing the features through the keypad I've found very difficult. The key sequences I've found totally non-intuitive, and almost impossible to figure out without my manual. This in contrast to my Oki, which had a help menu in the phone to lead me through it all. This is likely because the phone only had a 7-character LED display versus a longer lcd one available on the oki, and the newer digital versions of the StarTAC. I find this frustrating when I've missed a call and want to recall the last number of someone who has phoned me, for example. If you are a long-time Motorola user, the keypad sequences might be second nature for you however. The next most noticeable difference from the Oki is the range. I travel a certain highway on a monthly basis, and never had a complete loss of signal with my Oki, but have several small dropouts with this phone. Voice quality: I notice a slight downgrade from the Oki, mainly because of the more delicate design (voice interacting with the plastic), but still quite acceptable. More on that delicate design: This is probably not a phone for someone in , say, construction. Its not very sturdy, and I don't believe it could stand being dropped very often. I've had to replace the antenna once, as it kept getting caught on the arm of my chair whenever I got up. There are tougher after-market antennas, but I'm told they void the warranty, so I've since learned to be more aware of it when I stand up. Overall summary: In my office and car environment, the size and holster advantages make it quite worthwhile to carry around, and therefore use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 88011 2000/4/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight compact clear reception battery life could use improvement display letters are odd Full Review When my husband and I upgraded our mobile phones, we were unsure of what to buy. We knew we each wanted a "flip" phone, but didn't know which one. We had it narrowed down to the StarTAC 3000 and the Nokia 282. We decided to get one of each! The StarTAC is small, measuring about 2 x 3-3/4 inches when folded up. It is thinner than the Nokia. It is lightweight and doesn't feel as solid as the Nokia, nor is it as sleek. It has a sort of "square" feeling when in hand and isn't the most comfortable to hold. The phone came with a battery, an AC wall charger and a plastic holster to clip onto your waistband. FEATURES There are 9 different ring settings to choose from. This phone does not come with the option of having the phone vibrate instead of ring, although I believe you can buy a special battery that allows that. The display screen shows indicators of battery level, signal strength, whether the phone is in use, and whether or not you are in a no service area or a roaming area. There is an internal phone book that can store up to 20 numbers. You can use the "scratchpad" feature to enter a phone number on your screen during a conversation, such as if you are asking your friend the phone number of another person. You will then have this number entered in and when you hang up from your first call, you are set to call the other party and the number is already in there instead of you having to scribble it down somewhere. There is a pause dialing feature that lets you enter number in a linked sequence, like bank account numbers or other numbers in an automated calling system. You can enter the series of numbers with pauses in the appropriate places. You store that and simply bring that up and send as needed. The phone is messaging ready. It has a caller ID feature and voice mail notification. However, these are things you have to subscribe to from your service provider. If you are trying to track your minutes of use, you have some options. You can set an audible timer that will alert you as every minute passes by during your call. You can view the air time of each phone call during the call and after the call. You can also set an elapsed time function that will show accumulated air time during any period of time until you clear the screen. Finally, the total air time during the lifetime of your phone is kept track of and is not able to be reset. You can "lock" your phone to prevent unauthorized use of it. WHAT DO I THINK OF THIS PHONE? The good - Clear reception. Keep in mind that some of this depends on your service provider's towers and service area. We get nice, clear calls and when my husband calls me, I usually can't tell he is even on a mobile phone. - Lightweight and compact size - Belt clip is included - Larger, easier to use buttons than the Nokia 282. They have a rubbery coating on them and make contact well. - Numbers and letters in display light up brightly, as do the indicators on the display. Easy to read in darkness. - The manual that is included was helpful and covered details well. The bad - Battery life. Standby time on the phone has proven to be about 12 hours maximum for us. We don't talk all that much in a day to test the talk time, and we just recharge it every night. We need to buy the optional vehicle charger to eliminate the need for some of this charging in the house. - The antenna seems very flimsy to me. It seems like it could break very easily. - The menus are not all that user friendly. You wouldn't want to be stranded without a user manual if you are trying to do something fancier than send or receive a call. You'll find yourself clueless trying to navigate through any sort of menu. The Nokia model had a much more user-friendly menu, in my opinion. … and the ugly! The letters on this display are downright ugly! The letters and numbers are the type that are made up of lines lighting up in certain places on a rectangular figure 8 background, such as you see commonly on calculators and such. That works fine for the numbers. For the letters, however, it is a different story. It makes for some weird looking gibberish that is a strange combination of upper and lower case and abbreviations that don't just jump out at you and tell you what they are for. That could use a definite improvement! RECOMMENDATION Due to the short battery life, this phone is good for those who make occasional calls. That is what we use it for and it is fine. If you are a chatty person who is using the phone every place you go during the day, you might be disappointed. The vehicle charger would help. The reception is clear, though, and it has a lot of features. If you can put up with the strange menu display and limited battery life, this is a nice choice! My husband, the primary user of it, has been pleased. (If you are debating between getting this phone or the Nokia 282, please read my review on the Nokia for more information to see what features that one has.) Recommended: Yes 88010 2000/4/19 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use inexpensive plenty of basic functions difficult to adjust to readout tiny buttons Full Review In Olden Times In the early 1990's my sister and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for a dinner at her house. Not surprisingly it was crowded Saturday in late spring. In the middle of the store my sister could not remember if she had enough rolls, so she whips out her cell phone and calls my brother-in-law to get him to check the pantry. I was so embarrassed I almost left her there. My sister and her husband are by far the biggest Jones' on the block and have always been the first to get the newest gadgets available. I bear her no resentment for this, but hey - the cookie and bread isle? There are little kids there for goodness' sake! Zoom to Modern Day Recently on my way to work I hit something hard. When I stopped to check the damage, I found that my tire was slashed in two places. Panic sets in until I remembered my little used, but very handy cell phone tucked away near the bottom of my purse. Okay, so I wasn't in a crowded subway talking to my broker or driving down Rodeo Drive chatting away with Bitsy about tomorrow's tennis game. But that's not why I bought the thing anyway. The Point Motorola's StarTac phone saved my butt. I was the last person in the world to finally break down and buy one (December 1999 - I just squeezed in before the clock). And although I am new to the world of cellular chat and can't compare what I have to tens of others, I am very satisfied. I have very basic needs when it comes to wireless phones. I just want something to be there in times of trouble (see tire flat as a pancake above). Since I use the phone very seldom I see no reason to recharge it every other night. In addition, with half my worldly belongings in my purse, I need something that will fit, easily. The StarTac does this and more. The StarTac is a small 3" x 2" when closed, 6" x 2" when 'flipped' open and is is about 1" thick when closed. It is extremely lightweight and feels comfortable to hold - not at all clumsy like many that I looked at before buying this one. The retractable antenna is a little over 3 1/2" long when fully extended (the protruding tip is made of dense rubber-like material, protecting it from being bent). A charge will last about 60 minutes talk time, 14 hours standby, and five days on off. Two hours will fully charge most batteries for this phone. The buttons are backlit for easier viewing in the dark. The screen is bright and clear. The letters are a bit confusing when you first begin using it (M looks like two candy canes facing one another), but once you used it a bit it comes together. Features available: ~ Number storage: for frequently used numbers ~ Recall: automatic redial ~ Scratchpad: to enter a number someone gives you while talking, can be recalled later ~ Timer: to track current call length, monthly time used and/or to alert you of each minute in use ~ Security Lock: Avoid unwanted use of your phone ~ Memory Hide: If lending your phone to another you can prevent them from having access to your stored numbers ~ Personal Ringer: select from up to nine different ringer sounds Optional features: ~ Caller ID ~ Voice Mail/Notification The Cons The buttons are tiny. But with a phone this size it would be difficult to get anything larger. If you have larger hands this may not be the phone for you, but with small or normal sized hands it's not bad. Additionally, during a long conversation it radiates a good bit of heat from the mouth piece. I was told this is not uncommon among cell phones. The phone is made of a hard plastic and I was worried it would get scratched up in my purse, so I purchased a leather cover for it (available from where you get the phone). It's gives the phone a nice feel and grips well. It is well worth the additional $14.99. Overall, I am *extremely* pleased that I with my 'new' gadget. So what if I'm 10 years behind the times? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88009 2000/3/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small not much static easy to use light antenna too flimsy outdated low battery life The Bottom LineThe StarTAC 3000 was great in it's day, but there are many better phones out there now. Full Review Way back during Christmas of 1999 I received my very first cell phone from my Grandfather. Being a teen in today's world, I've grown up with instant gratification and fast-paced technology, so I figured it was the right time to catch up with the times, join the club, and get a cell phone. I was ecstatic when I opened up a little box with a tiny little phone in it: a Motorola StarTAC 3000. My first impression was that it was the perfect size. All the purses I use for different occasions are microscopic, and this cell phone would go perfectly with any of them. It was also very lightweight and easily portable. Along with the phone came the battery, battery cover, A/C wall charger (I just call it the "recharger"), holster (a plastic holder that you can clip to your belt if you need your phone in reach), and a users guide. The users guide was easy to understand and I quickly caught on to how I could use the different functions of this phone. Some of the features of the StarTAC 3000 are: caller ID (if you have the service), redial, ringer settings, storing numbers, and call timers. If you read the users manual thoroughly, you'll find that most of these things are useful, but I rarely change the settings or mess around with any of the features anymore. In the manual, it says the charging time will take anywhere from 3 to 4 hours, but I find that it takes mine only 1 to 2 hours to become fully recharged. On the phones monitor there are three little "battery" icons that gradually light up when being recharged. When all three "batteries" are lit, your phone is ready to go. While your phone is being charged, you can still leave it on and receive or make calls, but the charging time will take a little longer. Once your battery is charged you'll have (approximately) 14 hours of standby time, and 60 minutes of talk time. But if you leave your phone on standby for a while, you will have very little talk time left. I found this out the hard way ("Mom, I need a ride home, I'm at the ma--Mom? Mom?!"). About 90% of the time the reception is pretty clear, I only get static when in some buildings or under a tunnel. Even when the signal is "roaming" I can still hear the person I'm talking to very well. The antenna is not very long but very flimsy. A friend of mine had the same phone as me and accidentally snapped the antenna in half while on the phone. But it can extend and then retract back into the phone for safe storage. This phone is a flip phone, and when folded up it will fit roughly in the palm of my hand. When I flip it open it is slightly larger than my hand. The buttons are easy to push, but are relatively small and might be hard for some people to see. While your phone is on you will see a little green light flashing: that is your phone telling you how much of a signal you're getting. If you're out of the "calling area" the screen will tell you it's "roaming". Even though I'm saying mostly good things about this phone, it was quickly surpassed by bigger and better technology, and quite frankly as of now I'm embarrassed to have such a dinosaur of a phone. The monitor (screen) is very "robotic" looking (that's how I like to describe it), with florescent-colored digital-looking numbers. The only thing my cell has going for it now is its size. I still love that it's small enough to fit in any purse, or in my pocket if I'm in a hurry. I also know that the price is very inexpensive, but since I received it as a gift, I can't give you exact numbers (it's below $70, I know that). Overall, this is a good phone for someone who's looking only to use it for emergencies or very short phone calls. But I would not recommend it to business-type people who need a reliable phone to receive important calls. Because this phone is definitely not reliable in that category. But, as I said, if you need a phone to use just to call for help when you blow a tire, or make a quick call home, this is for you. But now there are about a million better phones out there. So sorry, little StarTAC, you will be replaced soon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): was a gift 88008 2004/7/12 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 lightweight mine was free would never stay charged see review The Bottom LineDo not go near this phone! Full Review We always knew I needed a cell phone, but were never pressed to get me one. Once I became pregnant, my husband grew worried about the 40 minute one way commute I had to work and back. We went to our local US Cellular store, and got a package deal. Included in the deal was a choice between 4 different phones. The Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone was one of the 4, and not my initial choice - but the guy working there suggested it as the best of the 4. If the Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone was the best of the 4, I'd hate to see how really crappy the other 3 were. First impressions - I felt this would be a nice phone to have - heck, it was my first phone, I was just grateful to finally have one! It was a lightweight flip-type phone (meaning you have to flip to open and use) and came with a battery and cover, a wall charger, and a guide. For 10 additional dollars we also purchased the car charger (thank god we did, because that car charger saved my life!). At first I thought I'd like the flip feature, but it was a pain to try and flip the thing open, especially when driving. True to form, I immediately lost the users guide, and so much of how I learned to use the phone (or didn't leave to use) came from what I read that first day, and what I played around with. I didn't really "play around" with the features much from what I initially used it for - making and receiving calls. My Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone was black and as stated had the flip up ear piece. A small rectangular display showed the number I was dialing in old looking block numerals. This display also showed me how strong my signal was (noted by the "radio band" looking markings that were to the right of the little "signal tower" picture - mine showed up to 3 bands, 3 being the strongest signal - I never could place or receive a call off of 1 band). Additionally the display showed how much the battery had left by icons of a small battery - again, 3 being totally charged, and 1 being about to die out. When the battery was depleted my phone would say "Battery Lo" and shut itself off. The display area did light up when I used it (a faint alien type green), making it somewhat easier to see. My Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone could be programmed to choose between a few basic soft and loud rings, or to vibrate instead. If there was a feature to combine the 2, I never was able to figure it out. There was the feature that showed the last number you dialed which I used often. Also, there was a feature to allow you to see how many minutes you've used - which initially was helpful - but since my calling plan starts over each month and I couldn't find a way to reset this tally every month, after the first month this feature became useless to me. It had a small antenna that pulled up into a fairly flimsy thin stick. This antenna mostly stayed up on its own, though did not always. Most of the time I just kept it down and didn't bother with it. Using my Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone was mostly a nightmare. "Honey, I'll be home in ...... " -- that was about the extent of my phone conversations on this horrible thing. Ok, at times I could get more - if I used my phone first thing in the morning after it had charged all night. Ideally, the guy at the store said I should have use for it during the day, and let it charge back up at night. I would turn my phone on at 7 in the morning, and often my husband didn't call me until 2 or 3 pm to let me know the evening plans. More often than not my phone would be cutting out on our conversation, or just die after we talked for a few minutes. And watch out for the days I actually get a call in the morning - this phone couldn't handle 1-2 calls and still be ready to receive my husband's 3 pm call! Though the reception was fine I never did get to use this phone like I intended - to make a few phone calls during the day and still have it remain somewhat charged and ready to go. I was told I was "charging it too long" - so I tried everything I could think of. Then I noticed that my wall adapter didn't always seem to work - the connection where it met to the phone to charge would wiggle around, and often the phone wouldn't even be charging! As I started to use the car charger more (after all, since it was often dead before 3 pm I would attempt to charge it while driving home in case my husband called). One day the car charged busted in 2 as I pulled it out of the car adapter. So much for that option. For about 3 months I complained daily about this phone until finally, a month ago, my husband went back to US Cellular and bought my a cute little Nokia - so far my dream phone. Having the Nokia and realizing much much better it works, looks, feels, and is advanced than the Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone has further proved to me that the Motorola phone was a piece of junk. The Motorola StarTAC 3000 Phone did not meet my needs, and after the initial excitement of having a cell phone wore off, I counted down the days until I got a different one. I would never recommend this exact phone to anyone - there are way too many other, more advanced, more useful cellular phones on the market. Mine - it went to a Battered Woman's shelter to be programmed for them to dial 911 if needed - at least it will finally, hopefully be doing some good. My new phone is the and I adore it! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7724 Motorola V400 88119 2006/3/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 stylish silver flip phone camera voice activated calling ring too soft ear speaker I have had the Motorola V400 phone for about 1 1/2 years. I absolutely loved the phone, the features and ease of use. My only complaints surround the loudness of the ring. On high volume, I frequently did not hear the ring unless I was in a quiet office. About 2 months ago, I noticed I had trouble hearing the person I called. I might have to disconnect and call back. Last week the earpiece broke for good. The only way I can hear the person I called is to put them on the speaker. But that can't be done until the connection is made. This is a real inconvenience. When I called the Cingular Tech, they said this is common for Motorola phones. I need another phone and am very skeptical about getting a Motorola. 88118 2004/8/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good to have a camera with you all the times able to send photos ringer to low not many options of rings or games battery time not enough Takes good pictures also has alot of memory space. the size is perfect to handle. I have had Motorola Phones in the past and the experience was not the best i ended turning them back in and buying other models that offer better signal and options. 88117 2005/1/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small clear screen people cant hear you irritating buttons crappy pictures Ive had the v400 for about 4 months and totally hate it. My biggest complaint is people have a hard time hearing me when I am talking to them. I have to scream into the phone if I want them to hear what I am saying. Also the button on the side that changes the profile setting is irritating.. It beeps all the time when u have it in your pocket. The pictures are not very good quality at all.. looks like you are in a sauna all the time. They are very cloudy looking. they look ok on the phones screen but if you send them to a computer they look worse than a picture taken on a webcam. Phone is not worth the money and I would never recommend it to anyone. 88116 2004/5/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 its pretty takes nice pictures piece of crap yes it is pretty and takes nice pictures. BUT!... bad battery life. will turn it self off in your pocket. no ring and vibrate at the same time. can't hear ringer when in your pocket and speaker is turned to your leg. I went to the doctors office and had to wait, so i played one of the two games. Stuntman was cool but killed my battery. Bejeweled was fun but was only a demo which they wanted me to buy after 2 mins. of playing. Hard to understand instructions. Doesn't like being dropped. Not slammed on the ground, just dropped. Basicly this phone is for the "bling bling" generation. For the working who spends time using their phones for business find a better phone. If you use your phone and want one that 88115 2004/9/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks pretty wretched voice volume I've seen good reviews on this phone, but my experience with it is that it's terrible. The voice volume on this phone is non-existent. Perhaps it's just the model I received in February. I am about to get a replacement phone. If the voice volume doesn't improve than I will throw this phone in the trash and start from scratch. The ability to hear the caller is so poor on this phone that I've actually ended the call on the Motorola V400 and called the person back on a 2 year old Nokia so that I could hear the person talk. Wretched! No matter how pretty it looks and feels, if you can't hear the caller it's a terrible phone. 88114 2005/1/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone has a good camers good screen ringtone speaker is clear slightly slowseems big This is an OK phone. The camers is really good. The speaker phone is pretty good even though sometimes its hard to hear. The screen is extremely good. One bad thing is that the phone is slow. Takes time to get through the menus and is kinda laggy. Overall this is a good, solid phone except for the fact that it's slow. 88113 2005/10/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 features I've had the Motorola V400 for exactly one year. At first I thought it was a decent phone, but the longer I used it the less I liked it. Yes it has a lot of bells and whistles, but I mainly used it for make and receiving calls and storing a few numbers. For these functions, I preferred my Nokia I had previously. The handset speaker volume is terrible sometime I would have to use the speakerphone option just to hear someone while sitting in an airport. Many time people would call and the phone would ring, then a few minutes later a missed call message would appear. Also, the low battery beep is very annoying. I can't tell you how many times it start going off in the middle of the night and I would have to fumble around in a dark hotel room just to shut it up. I've had a number of different cell phones and this has to be my least favorite of them all. Motorola should be ashamed of themselves for producing this one. 88112 2005/8/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good signal nice overall phone battery life lack of bluetooth bulky I like this phone, it has a good picture, somewhat good memory, and also looks good. The battery life is kinda poor, the sound quality in the ringtones are terrible, and it lacks bluetooth. The signal is good and the quality of the speakerphone is good. It is a halfway good phone. 88111 2005/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 decent camera small size good battery life external caller id crisp screen flimsy construction on the earpiece speaker Overall, the phone is great, but the build quality is terrible. I've had the phone just over a year (no more warranty), and now the earpiece speaker decides to take a dump. This seems to be a very common problem, and now I either have to use the speakerphone only or chalk up money for a new phone. The most important function of a phone is the one they decided to cut corners on. Thanks Motorola! You've lost another customer... The battery is starting to go now, too. Other than that, I like the small size, crisp screen, external caller ID, and battery life. It is a very functional phone, but unfortunately it isn't built to last. If you change phones like you change underwear, this would be a good pick. If you hang on to phones for a long time, make sure you get the insurance. 88110 2004/11/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cool factor poor battery charge design buggy software repair department overwhelmed Have had the v400 for 6 months. At 1st the "cool" features gave me a positive feeling about this phone. Then constant nagging basic problems started me not to recommend this phone to friends. Battery charging is very slow (4+ hours) and often the charger connection fails half way thru the charge cycle. The phone software is buggy with many features (including basic telephony) suddenly failing to work unless you shut the phone off and then restart the phone. No fun......Last straw was phone charging contact became totally unreliable so I sent the phone to Moto. After 3 weeks Moto tells me yes the phone is defective, but they have so many returns that they have no idea when they will send me a repaired phone back! I have had 3 Nokia's over the past 6 years and while they did not have the "cool" factor of the V400 they were rock solid, never had any problems. Next time I will go for reliability. 88109 2004/10/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 budget price lots of camera features camera phone not really any cons for this phone When I first saw this phone. I was like dang, I got to get my hands on this. This is the phone for yall who want a budget camera phone. Cingular has this phone for 49.99 online offer only. As long as you have a 2-year contract. If, I was other people doing this and I had a job to get a 2 year plan. I would cause this is a deal that you can't turn down. 88108 2004/5/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 sound quality the screen buggy software awful battery life poor motorola menu structure It looks great, but .... In using this phone, I haven't been really thrilled. There are several shortcomings that overshadow the benefits. The battery life is the worst aspect of this phone. I need two batteries to get through three days. Not only is the battery life too short, but the battery meter seems to stay on full for 90% of the time and then drop to nothing within 20 minutes of talking. It doesn't leave you much time to get it charged. Additionally, the phone has a wonderful habit of turning itself off. I'll pull it out of my pocket and discover that is why I haven't had the call I was waiting for. Over the past 6 months this has happened at least 5 times. On 6 other occasions the phone has locked up (screen fails, keys don't respond,etc.) The screen quality is the best part of this phone - when it works. 88107 2005/5/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 ok camera will turn you into a raving lunatic obsessed with how crappy your phone is Simply mind baffling how poor this phone is. It appears they just skipped the testing phase for this particular phone and went straight to selling it to uninformed customers. Drops calls, infuriating limit on speaker volume (I still find myself trying to hit the volume up button even though, alas, it never works), poor compatibility with sync software (DO NOT BUY SMAPMEDIA FOR THIS PHONE!!), screen goes blank, missed calls don't show up for hours or days, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.......sigh. 88106 2005/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 i had good coverage with cingular battery last long nice screen got refurbish same model in two weeks died 1 year it didn t turn on again sound problems Nice screen Battery last long Looks good, that is pretty much it. It has a camera and small screen in the front and inside has nice color screen. You can play games, I didn't. Order sounds, long address book, for being a cell phone it's a great game toy. That's it got refurbish-same-model, sound problems, in two weeks died 88105 2004/12/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 camera speakerphone games mp3 ringtones screen speakerphone battery Motorola v400 came to my market late November. I bought it early january with the money i recieved from santa claus. As soon as i got the phone i was playing with the zoom fromt the camera, i downloaded some games, and played bejeweled. The first thing that caught my eye was that in two to three hours the phone was already drained with the batteries, but ohh what a phone it was. now, i dont know who would come up with the idea to save money by using the same slim ion battery from the black and white screen v60. The screen at the time was the best screen ever at the time, and the VGA camera with 4x zoom was the ultimate advantage from all the regular camera phones. The firmware was easy to understand and the speakerphone was loud and clear for me to speak in the car with. 88104 2004/12/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 design easy to operate a flip phone some what heavy The Motorola V400 is a good flip phone, and is also a quad band world phone for a GSM network. Quad Band means the phone supports all of the known GSM WORLD bands such as 850/1900 (Canada/USA) and 900/1800(the rest of the world). The phone is stylish and slick in looks, but it isn't a light phone as it is slightly on the heavy side. Also the ring volume is not loud enough so you miss a lot of calls when at a party or walking outside unless your in a quiet outdoor spot. This phone was released for Cingular Wireless, but because it is GSM based you can use the phone on any GSM network worldwide. 88103 2005/10/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 loud ringtones vivid screen when working sleek design quickly dying speaker numerous failed calls screen malfunctions Just today I had to replace my second V400 in 15 months because of the same major problem, which was a dying speaker. What it boils down to is that the V400 could be a fantastic phone; it has a decent camera, a nice large color screen, a loud speakerphone, and when using mp3 ringtones they have great quality. But a phone isn't really much of a phone if you can't hear what the party on the other end of the phone is saying. It worked great at first, the volume was loud enough that you didn't even have to have the phone touching your ear to hear the conversation. But at the point of switching, I had to not only crush it up against my ear, but also find the EXACT right spot on my ear to hear correctly. All in all it made a great mp3 player, and miniature graphic storage device..but that's not what I purchased it for, I purchased it to make phone calls. 88102 2006/2/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 some of the pros include looks screen battery life price camera features screen goes blank cannot hold settings reverts back to motorola pre sets poor reception I have been through my 5th phone in 12 months. I think this model is a lemon. i'm not saying that that Motorola is bad -- My wife's Motorla (an older model) is perfectly reliable. 88101 2005/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great color decent pictures awesome battery life sleek style great picture capacity for the camera little ringers to choose from cannot turn on speaker phone until other party picks up The most alluring V400 feature for me is the speaker. Normally a Cingular phone, I was happy to see (on ebay) that this particular V400 was "unlocked" to work with T-Mobile service. It was also at a reasonable/comparable price of $280.00. Ebay enabled me to obtain a new phone without buying directly from T-Mobile and extending my contract. Since this phone was originally for Cingular, a lot of the features wouldn't work with T-Mobile. For example, the Web wouldn't connect and I couldn't email pictures from the phone. I did research online and found out how to program the phone to use T-Zones, not yet email. I purchased a data cable from ebay for about $6.00. The purpose of this purchase was to experiment on transferring the pictures from the V400 to my computer. I downloaded a program from motclub.com and in conjuction with the data cable, it worked. Now, I can take hundreds of pictures, download to my computer and email. T-Mobile's service can be shaky in some suburbs. When I switched to this phone from other T-Mobile phones, I noticed that the cellular service with this phone was much better. Good deal = go for it! 88100 2000/2/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 sharp screen loud speaker camera games selection recording function time caller id on cover very few ring tones retarded keypad heavy annoying low batt sound poor reception randomly disconnects The Bottom LineRecommend to buy other models. This phone has more problems than advantages. Problems with reception, disturbing low batt sounds, disconnections, software bugs. Full Review Motorola should have labeled this phone a Beta model and did not charge people for using it as an experiment. I have more problems with Motorola V 400 than I ever had with a phone. True, it has some nice features, such as high resolution bright display. However, it also has some serious problems with basic features, such as losing connection often and having weak reception. Unfortunately the defects became apparent only after I have used the phone for over a month and I now have to suffer it for one more year.The main problem is bad reception. The signal faints in the most public areas and the connection cuts off. This was never a problem with Nokia phone. Remarkably that Cingular and other service providers claim that all phone makers have the same reception capability - not true. I used Nokia and Motorola with the same plan with Cingular and can say for sure - Nokia has a better reception. Then the key pad is retarded. The keys keep lagging after you press them. It becomes a problem when you are dialing a calling card number and have to dial a lot of digits. Some calling card operators do not understand the signal. Some people reviewing this model already said that the phone disconnects often and unexpectedly. Especially during international calls I sometimes have to call back three or four times throughout one hour conversation. Important glitch in software - YOU CANNOT EMAIL PICS FROM YOUR PHONE to E_MAIL. So the function of camera is limited to viewing the images on the screen. Also, the sound of low batteries is annoyingly disturning. It was embarassing a couple of times when I put the phone on low volume and it started making these loud signals in the middle of the high level presentation. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88099 2000/1/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 mp3 ringtones camera good reception wap access quality issues quality issues The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone to anyone because of the glaring quality issues I've witnessed with my V400s, friends' V400s, and other Motorola phones. Full Review I originally got this phone as an insurance replacement when I lost my Motorola V600 (Cingular had discontinued that model and hadn't come out with the replacement yet). Overall, I have really come to hate this phone. Theoretically, this is a cool phone. It can play mp3 ringtones, has a camera, albeit a crappy camera, and it has WAP access. It also seems to have really good reception, as I very rarely get dropped calls. However, it doesn't have bluetooth like my V600 did. Personally, I don't like the styling cues with the middle panel with the odd-looking dimples, but whatever... In reality, this phone (both that I've had now) quickly disappoints. The ringer on the first one I had stopped working after about four months, and since my cell is my ONLY phone, missing calls because the phone won't ring is utterly unacceptable. So, I got a replacement from Cingular. This one made it about six months before the earpiece started to flake out and simply not work sometimes. Now after a year, it does it on a pretty regular basis, and bad enough that I sometimes HAVE to use the speakerphone to even use the phone. This is on top of the mind-numbingly slow interface that crashes more than a slow computer running Windows ME does. I don't have enough fingers to count how many times I've seen the white screen of death on this phone. I've never had any problems with dropped calls, thankfully, but not being able to hear them is just as bad. Add to all of that the fact that the horribly designed wall charger will only charge the phone if I connect it just right, and then pray, meditate, and do a voodoo dance over it, only to then back away slowly as to avoid disturbing the cord, which WILL break the connection, and you have a phone that I'd just as soon throw into a brick wall as continue to own. Currently, I am saving money to buy a new phone. I am out of contract with Cingular, and to avoid getting into a new contract, I am going to buy a new phone outright, and rest assured that it will NOT be a Motorola. Overall, I would not recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88098 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 speakerphone color screen phonebook text messaging alarm over sensitive buttons bulky voice quality is horrible The Bottom LineNice phone, but voice quality makes if frustrating to have a conversation. Full Review The most important feature of a cell phone is the ability to hear the person you are speaking with. No matter how many gadgets, cameras and neat features a phone has, if you can't hear the person you are speaking to, it makes the phone useless. This phone started out fine with the speaking feature, but after a while the voice quality was starting to dissipate. It got so bad that I had to resort to using the speaker phone to carry on a conversation. I was able to get the voice problem fixed and thought all was well, until it started doing it again! Apparently there is a plastic piece by the earpiece that causes the problem, the earpiece can be repaired, but the problem will occur again. This phone is also kinda bulky and has over-sensitive buttons, particularly the one on the side that beeps when you put it in your pocket or when in your purse. The phone also does not have very many ring tone choices. Camera is nice to have, but somewhat blurry. Battery life is better than my previous Motorola T720i, I usually have to charge every other night. I lost my previous phone and decided to purchase an upgrade, but this phone has not been an upgrade, more like a headache. I will be purchasing a new phone soon and retiring this one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $175Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88097 2000/9/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 long battery life at first now has second generation stylish semi durable scratches easily automatic disconnects charger problems no zoom or flash on camera The Bottom LineI would not buy another Motorola cell phone. Not worth my time, money and energy. I would go back to Nokia's where I had no problems. Full Review Overall Experience Last June, when the V400 first came out, I decided to switch phone companies and get what I thought was a great new phone. Since that time I have been given 3 "new" V400s because of consistent problems. My main issues with the phone were/are, automatic disconnects, inability to charge on a home charger (but not a broken charger), automatic turn off during calls plus many more. The problem with a lot of cell phones and their carriers are that when it comes to "lemon" phones, they say they will send you a "new" phone, but really send you a refurbished one. Be sure to ask what kind of phone you are getting. Sometimes these work, sometimes they don't. Again, some of these problems depend on the carrier you have. I have Cingular, which has actually improved since its merger with AT&T. Prior to my Motorola V400, I had multiple Nokia's, which never had any problems. The thing to remember with new technology is that it might be best to wait until a second generation of the phone comes out to purchase one (there is a new V400 available now). All in all, this phone was not worth the hours I spent trying to fix it, on the phone with customer service and mailing the bad phones back and forth. By now, I refuse to use a lot of the cool features I bought the V400 for in the first place such as, personalized ring tones, personalized pictures for friends calling, and voice dialing. It seems like every time I set these features, the phone breaks again and all the settings are gone when I receive a refurbished phone. Most of your settings will not transfer on your SIM card. I hope this was a helpful review! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88096 2000/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 good pictures beautiful outside awesome user interface good features beautiful inside reception can be spotty chincey construction in earpiece housing causes no earpiece speaker volume The Bottom LineI'd get this phone, as long as it had a good warranty. My provider's warranty is very much a hassle, and other than durability issues, I love this phone. Full Review I like this phone a lot. That is, until the ear piece speaker starting cutting out on me. It apparently has poor construction in the earpiece, because the top plastic seam along the ear piece speaker housing has cracked. Now, the speaker shell creaks and cracks when you squeeze it and has little to no volume when using it. In order to even hear people on the other end, I have to forcefully mash the earpiece of the phone against my ear. When I mash it against my ear hard enough, the plastic creaks and cracks and gets caught to certain sticking point on itself where the speaker volume comes through. Awful design on this part. And the screen will have corrupt display patterns if you open or shut the flip lip too quickly. And it has reception problems time to time, even when I have 5 bars of signal showing. But other than these problems, this is a superb phone with a wonderful OS (operating system) designed by Motorola. So it's similar in many ways to using a Mac computer (Motorola has made most of their chips over the years), and is very intuitive & user-friendly. It's a good buy for 100 or 150 bucks, but you better make sure you baby that thing once you get it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88095 2000/5/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great camera great sound great game support camera is crap in the dark The Bottom LineThis phone is great for anyone who likes reliability, and trendy features! Full Review It was a major step on my part to upgrade from a no-tech black and white phone to this one, especially at the cost, but as soon as I had the phone in my hand I was in love. It has great speaker quality. I can put 64kbs mp3s on it, and they sound bueatiful, it plays midis, it plays java2me games, surfs the web, saves voice tones. I even went and purchased motorola phone tools and a data wire on ebay for 5 bucks and i can send pictures and music to my phone, using midway i can send java games (only legal versions of course). The camera has great quality if theres light, in the dark it kinda sucks, like any camera without a flash. The sound quality is better than any other phone I've had, I'm sure you can find better, but not for a batter price. Its also very small and not heavy, unless you get the belt clip, it makes it seem a lot bulkier.. As for durability, I've dropped it on the ground, had it kicked, stomped thrown around (have 2 little brothers) it has a couple scratches from hitting rocky pavement but it works just like new still. I would recommend this phone to anyone. Heck I'm now a motorola fan, and looking into developing games for the v series ^_^. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 (2yr c)Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88094 2004/10/12 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 trendy super cool handy sleek light calls are randomly disconnected screen flickers doesn t work The Bottom LineYou take your chances when you purchase this phone. Yes, the camera phone is nice to have, but a phone that actually works would be even better. Full Review A couple of years ago, my husband and I decided to forego the seemingly required "home phone" and use only our cell phones for communication. This has worked well for us, but I recently decided that, because I depend solely on my cell phone, I should purchase a new model. Until a few months ago, I was still carrying around an old clunky Nokia that I'd used for years (which by the way worked great), but I finally decided to move into the modern age of cellular communication. My husband - a self-proclaimed computer geek who happens to work with a major cellular service provider - suggested that I'd be happier with a smaller, lighter, cooler cell phone, and I agreed. We went shopping, and well, in today's market there's nothing cooler than a camera phone, so I ended up purchasing a Motorola V400. In the beginning, I thought I was the coolest thing ever. I took pictures of my child, and used them to create new wallpaper designs for my menu screen. I was able to take pictures of items I was thinking of buying and then send them to my husband for his review. And I looked very cool doing so in the stores. I was IN! I was finally COOL! Then it happened. I left my phone by the pool, and a little splash of water landed on it. Not a lot of water. It didn't land at the bottom of the pool or anything like that. Just a small drop of water - and poof - no more phone. So I took it back to the store and paid my $50 insurance deductible to purchase a new phone. This time, I also purchased a leather carrying case to protect the phone from errant drops of moisture. I brought the new phone home, and... Three days later the screen began to flicker on and off. It was a minor annoyance because the coolness of the camera phone had begun to wear off. I'm not a teenager or a hip on-the-go single person. I'm a stay-at-home mom with a 2-year-old child. I slowly began to realize that the camera really didn't come into play that much in my daily life, so I didn't worry too much about the flickering. And I was relatively happy until... The phone began to shut itself off during extended conversations. Any call longer than 15 minutes was subject to being abruptly ended, and I'd have to call the other person back. It wasn't that upsetting the first, or fourth, or even the ninth time, but after it happened about twenty times, I was ready to throw the phone against the wall. Ah, the joy of seeing its inner workings protruding from the...sorry, I digress. My husband agreed to return the phone to the store for me because I was irate and didn't want me to hurt any salespeople. He came back a few hours later with a brand new phone, the same model of course because it's against company policy to issue a different model without charging a fee. It worked fine for a couple of weeks. But then... It too started shutting itself off during conversations. This time, I am beyond words to describe how frustrating this is. To begin with, the phone would shut off calls that were more than 15-20 minutes in length. However, now it shuts itself off randomly. I have no warning and have no way to warn the other person in advance. Beyond the frustration, it makes me nervous to think that in an emergency situation my phone might not work at all. After all, when I'm at home, I have no other means of communication with the outside world. So... I'm going to personally take this phone back to the store and gently let the salesperson know that I've had numerous problems with this particular model. I won't try to throw him or her against the wall. But I might show these people just how scary a stay-at-home mom who's been robbed of her connection with the outside world - and the illusion that she's super cool - can be. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88093 2000/4/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 decent camera phone user friendly format slow to respond The Bottom LineThis phone is for a laid back person who's life does not revolve around or depend on their cell phone. If it does, you should get a pricier version. Full Review I got my V400 used for $80 from a coworker/friend. For that amount of money, I got a deal. But for those people out there who spent a couple hundred on it, I feel bad. They should have splurged a bit more and gotten the V551. The V400 is nice enough, with it's fairly decent camera and plenty of space to store ringtones/games/pictures (5012kb), however, I noticed almost immediatly how long it takes to connect to a call. It can take nearly 5 seconds to answer, which may not seem like a lot but look at a clock and pretend you have hit the connect button and are holding your phone to your ear waiting to say hello and count those 5 seconds... pretty long, huh? But then, I guess that gives you 5 more seconds to listen to that awsome mp3 ringtone... The V400 is, however, very durable and can withstand quite a bit of rolling around in the purse/pocket, but then again, the speaker is very easy to block, therefore, you wont hear the phone ring and I do miss calls righ and left. I recently bought a holster for it, and that seems the best idea for this phone as far as hearing it goes. The format is simple, and it has a lot of nice features on it with none of the over the top junk you don't really need or want on a phone. However, with the affordability of the phone, it seems weighed down by the pressure of it's features and can drag quite a bit while trying to perform simple functions. I guess I would reccomend this phone for a laid back person who's life does not revolve around or depend on their cell phone. If it does, you should get a pricier version. My boyfriend has the V551 and loves it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88092 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 takes good pictures too many flaws to list stay away extremely poor design The Bottom Linelook for another phone. look for a phone with features you'll use and a design that works for your use. Full Review This is a very poorly designed phone. I am sorry I ever left 5 years with Sprint. We've had these phones for 7 months. They've sucked since day one. 1. I bought it thinking the hard cover would prevent my phone from dialing randomly when tossed in my purse. Good feature, except the ring type button is on the side (not protected by the hard cover) and now, when tossed in my purse, the ring style changes. Sometimes to "silent" when I didn't want it to. 2. Voice recorder on the other side. Hello? Where does your right thumb naturally land when you grab the phone? Every time I answer, I accidentally hit that stupid voice record button. Bad design. 3. Volume too low. Even on the highest volume, talking with the windows down, radio on, or in a crowded room, forget hearing the other person. 4. "Close" button in bad spot and too small. The extremely small clear rubber button on the inside near the spring pivot some times does not fully depress when the phone is closed. Therefore, the phone never really shuts off, it won't ring, the display is blank or off and my husbands phone is so bad, he has to keep the flip phone in the open position to even receive a call. 5. Too many scroll options. To lock the phone, you have to choose about 4 different options and scroll through too many menus. Also, how stupid is it to make you unlock your phone to answer a call!! Who has time for that? 6. Too small. I can't hold this phone between my shoulder and ear- it falls. 7. Phone numbers stored in the speed dial spots don't store in the sim card. 8. LCD display doesn't read at all outside during the day- screen too small and graphics to poor. 9. Generally poor reception, busy network and dropped calls. Phone never rings, but all of a sudden, I have a voice-mail; phone notifies me of a voice mail days after it was left. We got the insurance on these piece of crap phones. I'll pay the $50 deductible, but give me a different $150 phone! I don't want the same phone with the same design flaws, have to reprogram a new one, lose all my pictures and phone numbers just for another piece of crap I'll have to trade out in another 6 months! Sprint, save me!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88091 2000/3/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 usb port for uploading downloading mp3 ringtones low end cameraphone mediocre speakerphone 65k color display slow call answering can t hear ringer call dropping slow media response poor motorola support The Bottom LineResponds slowly to answer button, other inputs; drops calls; ringer hard to hear (from my front pants pocket). Many gadgets, but if you need a good phone foremost, keep looking. Full Review Wouldn't it be nice if your cell phone stopped your cutesy ring tone when you pushed the "answer" button, and answered the darn call? My V400 doesn't, sometimes not for 4-5 seconds. I bought this phone for all the features it had - camera phone, speaker phone, MP3 ring tones, 65K color images, Java applications, and the usual convenience utilities (calculator, alarm, etc.) - and, unfortunately, it seems to suffer under the load of trying to implement them. Of course, I'm guessing as to why it takes so long to answer, so long to scroll down my phone number list, so long to respond to most button clicks. But despite all the bells and whistles that I do, in fact, enjoy, I'm saddened to say that the response time has really taken the convenience out of using this phone. Also, when I purchased the separately available "Mobile Phone Tools" to connect the phone directly to my computer, one of the automatic updates screwed up the software, and Motorola support was non-existent; excuses, ignorant suggestions, and in the end, total disclaimer for responsibility; I ended up getting "pity" support from the OEM for the software when they heard my Moto story. Very sad experience, indeed. That said, there are the positives: USB port to avoid costly MultiMedia charges by Cingular, decent battery life, and a quickie (and as expected with most camera phones) low-end camera for those off-the-cuff photo opportunities. However, there are other negatives, ones that other users confirm, too: dropped calls for no apparent reason (the bars just mysteriously lower to nothing), mediocre speaker phone quality (I tried out an $80 LG that had a much better-sounding speaker phone), and - for me - too easy to block the ringing speaker (I keep this phone in my front pants pocket), which means I miss quite a few calls. All in all, let's just say that it took several months for all the shortcomings to come to light; had they within the first 30 days, I would have chosen another phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88090 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 flip phone external display large color screen doesn t function properly too much money for a phone that does not work The Bottom LineDo not purchase, bound to stop functioning. Full Review My previous phone was a Motorola V60i, which worked fine and good so I chose another Motorola as my new phone. I have been increasingly unhappy with my Motorola V400 and do not recommend the phone. My first V400 was plagued with problems. (1) Twice the 'call end' button stopped working and would not function properly until I removed and replaced the battery. (2) Within a year, the phone would no longer make or receive calls. When dialing out, it would always be: Call Failed, (hit retry), Call Failed, (hit retry), etc. If I were to ever get a hold of someone, or vica versa, the phone was highly prone to dropping calls. It was normal to call a person back 3 to 4 times within a conversation. Needless to say I have acrued countless Cingular rollover minutes. My second V400 replacement phone is no better. I've had it for less than 2 months. (3) Like another reviewer, I too am having trouble with the volume (which was not a problem with my first V400). With the volume cranked up as high as it can go, it is still impossible to hear anyone on the other end if I am outside or elsewhere with background noise. You'd have to be somewhere the equivalent of a library in order to have a decent conversation and not continually be asking, What? What did you say? Can you repeat that? (4) Also, people have been telling me that my voice will cut out for a couple seconds of dead silence. The V400 works well when it's working, but whenever is that?!? Can't wait to get another phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88089 2000/5/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great volume more easy to navigate good size attractive touchy side buttons included ringtones are limited The Bottom LineI have loved this phone since I got it and after being so disappointed with Motorola previously, I am happy I braved it and gave Motorola a second chance. Full Review After being very leery of getting another Motorola after owning the Motorola C331 (see my review of that one) I have been pleasantly surprised with the V400. I read many reviews on this phone before purchasing it and most of the reviews I read were positive so here's my take on it. ~Style~ The V400 is just the right dimensions to fit snugly anywhere you need it too. The back pocket of your jeans may not be the greatest, but not many phones are great in that spot (I admit that at times I do put the phone in my back pocket, but a holster is much better for your comfort and the phone's safety). The design of the phone is attractive with a screen on the front to display incoming phone calls, time, and message indicators (voice mail, game in play, battery life, service signal etc...) that illuminates in blue. ~Faceplates~ There are faceplates available for this phone, but you do need a special tool, the Torx #6 screwdriver. The faceplates are available in two pieces, the front cover and the battery cover. I personally have not changed my faceplate yet, I enjoy the look of the phone so until I'm bored with it I won't change it. ~Side Touch Buttons~ On the left side of the phone there are two buttons. The top one selects your ring detail (loud, soft, vibrate, silent, etc...) the button below this one is used to scroll through your ring detail options, you once again hit the top button to select your choice. On the right side of the phone there is a button that is used to illuminate your external display screen. CON ALERT~~~One of the cons I have with this phone is that the upper left button tends to be sensitive. When the phone is in my purse and gets jostled at times I hear a short "ring" or "beep" (however you hear it) indicating that the button had been activated, I then have to pull my phone out and push the button again to deactivate it (from what I've seen it's doesn't disappear after time, it does have to be deactivated). Even though this is a con, it's not that big of a deal, this goes to show you how miniscule the cons I have with this phone are. ~Interior Display Screen~ Once the phone is flipped open you are welcomed with a colorful display screen which you can change the background with any of the included pictures or snap your own picture and put it on the phone as your background. There is a clock on this screen which can be either digital or analog, you choose. ~Phonebook~ This phone stores many numbers, 1000 to be exact (more than I'd ever need). You can save these numbers on your phone or your SIM card. Pro for the phone is that you can add more options to the number, such as a picture to display on the internal display screen when that person is calling. Pro for the SIM card is if you ever change phones you just switch the SIM card and your numbers have been switched as easy as that. There is voice dialing on this phone, which seems to work well, although I have chosen not to use it hardly at all, just personal preference. ~Answering Options~ You can set the phone to answer once the phone is flipped open or answer after flipped open and answer call button is pressed. If you have it selected to answer upon opening you won't get to take advantage of some of the cute animated cartoons you can use to identify your phonebook entries with. I find it more handy to answer upon opening. ~Ringtones~ This phone is limited in ringtones I have to admit. There are 18 different selections consisting of: silent, vibe dash, vibe dot dash, continental, siren, cingular tune, chimes high, chimes low, chord high, chord low, claps, ding, drum, fanfare, notify, tada, high impact, explosive motion, and moto. Most of these are dull, short tones, the exception being high impact, explosive motion, and cingular tune (if you don't mind hearing this tune). The saving grace I have found with the ringtones is that you have a lot of customization freedom. I have a USB cable and the Phonetools program which allows me to create my own mp3 ringtones on my computer (you need a program for this as well) and download them to my phone. This can be tricky to figure out, so if your not a "computer person" you may get frustrated, if so you can just pay for ringtones (although you will need internet connection with your phone, which I don't have and don't want...another reason why the USB cable option was great for me). I have Britney's Toxic song on my phone now and it sounds exactly like it does on the radio. ~Camera~ This phone takes good pictures, not great, but I haven't seen any phones that take great pictures. That's what I have a digital camera for. I basically use the camera to take pictures for my background display, which look really good on the phone. I used my previously mentioned USB cable and uploaded a photo to my computer and it is not half bad, I have kept it on my computer, but I would never pay to have it printed. I have four pictures on my phone and the memory indicator tells me that I have used 8%, so it seems like quite a few photos could fit on here. ~Speakerphone~ I agree with other reviewers that it is a bit of a con that the speakerphone doesn't work until after the person you are calling has answered. It would be nice to call and put the call on speaker while it's still ringing. The quality of the call while on speaker is great though. I have been on both ends of a speaker call with a V400 and it's great. ~Volume~ I have seen some complaints on volume being low with this phone, I have not encountered this problem. As far as ringtones, I have my phone on soft ring level 4 and it still gets a whole room looking at me when it rings, I couldn't imagine loud ring level 7. Call volume is just as good, I've been talking on this phone quite a bit since I got it and I haven't had any problems hearing people, unless it's people I always have a hard time hearing because they are soft talkers. ~Games~ You get Bejeweled and Prince of Persia. Warning: Bejeweled can be addictive :-) I had read complaints on Bejeweled getting screwy if your score goes over 10,000, I have tested this and my Bejeweled still acts fine. Prince of Persia is more of a Nintendo type game, for me playing this game on a phone keypad is difficult, but I didn't buy the phone for the games, even if I had I'd be happy enough with just Bejeweled. ~Controls~ I found navigating through the options on this phone to be very easy. The main menu screen takes you to a display that shows nine icons which are pretty self explanatory in themselves (the phone settings icon is a screwdriver and wrench, the phonebook icon is a phone and pad of paper, the games icon is a joystick, etc...) it also tells you at the top of the display what you scroll over. Once you've selected the icon you want to go further into it is still easy as a breeze. ~Battery Life~ I've seen complaints on battery life as well, but I haven't had any unhappy moments (could be the horrible battery life I had gotten used to with my previous phone). I probably have to recharge every fifth day or so, where my previous phone was being recharged every second or third day and I hardly used it since I disliked it so much. The display screen shows a battery life indicator with three bars, but if you go into the phone menu, select settings, then phone status, you will see a selection for battery meter, at this screen you get a more detailed view with 6 bars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88088 2004/7/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 colorful display screen speaker phone stylish expensive low ring volume uneven keypad lighting limited ringtones The Bottom LineIf you like to personalization with style and technology, this is the phone to take you there. Full Review I have never had a Motorola cell phone before, but I have heard great things about the brand so, I wasn't too anxious when I decided to trade in my ancient Nokia 5000 series (you know, the one everyone had about 5 years ago with all the different faceplates) and splurge on the Motorola v400. In doing this I have made one of the best technological decisions in my life! What I Like: Flip Phone Design: Okay, I have to admit I am a little vain and it took me this long to buy into the flip phone trend, but I am glad I did because the v400 is small and light weight and very high tech looking with an attractive silver casing. It has a screen on the outside so you can view the time, battery life, and signal, and if you want to view any of these items in the dark, simply press any of the side of the phone and the screen will be illuminated in blue. There is no dinky, annoying antenna either. On the inside you'll find a color LCD display screen and a flat keypad. In the center is the highly effective 5 point scroll menu button. Speaker Phone: The speaker phone on the v400 is extremely clear and easy to enable and disable. When I use this feature, the party on the other end of the phone can be heard at an ideal volume and they can hear me as well. Most don't even know when I enable the speaker phone. Voice-Activated Dialing: I love this feature. With a convenient tap of the side button, I say the name of whomever I am calling and the phone automatically pulls up my phonebook, confirms the number, and dials. Within seconds the cell is ringing. It is great! You don't have to say the name perfectly either; on several occasions I have said the name really quickly or delayed a second before saying it. Phone Usage and Sound: The Motorola v400 isn't difficult to use at all. The phone operates as any other cell does; the menu has scroll through features from which you can reach very easily. You can access the internet to download ringtones, games, pictures and other multimedia. The sound is almost as clear as a ground line. I am extremely happy with the clarity of this phone. Camera: This is one of the best cameras I have ever seen inputed on a cell phone. The picture is quite clear even in dim rooms. It has an auto-timed capture feature which is nice if you want to set the phone up and have it snap the photo a certain amount of time later. The storage space is impressive as well. You can also zoom in to as much as 4x too. The results of pictures in motion isn't that great but stills are rather impressive. Extras: The charger is compact and very lightweight. The earpiece I have is very clear and ideal for hands-free phone usage. There are loads of other extras that are available for the Motorola v400 both name brand and other; as always, the off-brand merchandise isn't nearly as expensive. Miscellaneous: The phone includes a screensaver feature that can be set to switch on after a period of time, displaying whatever picture you set (downloaded or a photo you took yourself with the integrated camera) and then off (to save battery life). I also love the game Bejeweled which is programmed into the phone (Prince of Persia is also available). There is a "Moto Mix" feature where you can compose your own ringtone as well. The manual included is huge! It helps out a ton in learning how to maneuver through the phone. What I Don't Like: Volume: I use my cell phone as a house phone (I am a college student and don't have a line in the dorms). Whenever the phone rings, it is hard to hear. I have the ringer volume turned to the highest level so this is one flaw I found with the phone. Keys: The keys are difficult to see in the dark because of the uneven lighting. They are also small. I have no trouble using the keys personally but someone who doesnt have petite hands and fingers would have trouble punching the buttons. The buttons on the side are also very sensitive. Limited Extras: The extra I miss most is the amount of ringtones. You can download more standard and Mp3 ringtones online, but for a fee. There are only two games but you can download more of those online as well, but again, for a fee. There are lots of things that this phone lacks in "vanity" extras but all are available if so desired, for a fee and those add up every month. Specs and Features: Modes: GSM 800 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 Weight: 4.34 oz (123g) Dimensions: 3.50" x 1.90" x 1.00" (89mm x 48mm x 25mm) Form Factor: Clamshell, Stub Antenna Battery Life: Talk: 5.25 hours, Standby: 175 hours (7.3 days) Battery Type: LiIon Display Type: LCD (Color), size: 176x220 pixels 65,000 colors / transmissive TFT Platform / OS: (N/A) Phone Book Capacity: 1000 FCC ID: IHDT56DR1 (Approved Oct 14, 2003) 2nd Display: Location: Front, reverse blue LCD / 96 x 32 pixels Alarm: Yes Calculator: with currency converter Calendar Yes Camera Type: Built-In - Still, VGA resolution: (640 x 480 pixels) / 5 MB of memory / self-timer feature Custom Graphics: Yes Custom Ringtones: supports MIDI and MP3 formats / built-in MotoMixer ringtone composer Data-Capable: Yes Digital TTY/TDD: Yes E-Mail Client Protocols Supported: POP3, IMAP4, SMTP EMS / Picture Messaging: Yes Games Number of games: 2, Bejeweled and Prince of Persia, plus downloadable Java games Headset Jack (2.5 mm): Yes High-Speed Data Technology: GPRS, 2+4 Java (J2ME) Version: MIDP 2.0 MMS: Yes Multiple Languages: Yes Multiple Numbers per Name: Yes Picture ID: Yes Polyphonic Ringtones Chords: 24 Predictive Text Entry Technology: iTAP Ringer ID: Yes Ringer Profiles: Yes Side Keys: Yes Soft Keys: Number of keys: 2 Speaker Phone: Yes Text Messaging: 2-Way: Yes, plus chat Text Messaging Templates: Yes Vibrate: Yes Voice Dialing Number of entries: 20, plus up to 3 voice commands for menus Voice Memo: Yes Wireless Internet: Supports WAP 2.0 (xHTML over TCP/IP), WTLS security To Sum Things Up: A great phone for people who want to be trendy. The phone is easy to personalize and easy to use but a lot of the things cost extra money. If you are a person who plans to download a lot of extras, you should ask your provider about special multimedia monthly packages. First-timers to cell phones may take some practice using this particular phone, but as for innovative and being on the cutting edge of cell phones, the Motorola v400 is right there at the top. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88087 2004/7/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great price polyphonic sound speakerphone sim card camera outside display long battery life good volume annoying frequent sound when battery is low buttons on the outside confusing at first The Bottom LineHighly recommended, this is the best phone for the best price. Makes an excellent gift for any teenager or thrill-seeker who needs pictures of everything and on-the-go speakerphone. Full Review This phone has so much to offer, where do I start?! There's no feature that I want to leave un-reviewed. You should probably only read this if you are seriously interested in one of these phones, because by the time you're done, you'll have everything but the actual phone crammed into your brain. I hated this phone at first. I was so intimidated by the choices, the buttons, just everything about it. Read the manual! Dedicate an entire day, read it in a serene place with lots of sunlight, and play with your phone. I can't emphasize that enough. I highly reccomend the v400 for the teenager in your life, mine made a great graduation gift. I don't know if it's exactly for the business dad or mom, though. It's more of a fun and flashy toy for a fun and flashy kind of person, rather than a "You're fired!" business suit-type deal. This phone was a STEAL at just $100 [after $50 rebate and 2-year agreement]. Compared to the Samsung camera phone that Cingular has [which was $50 more], it had the speakerphone, more battery life and more storage space. You just can't go wrong. Style. And boy, does it ever have that. It may not be "Oh my god that's a tiny phone!" small, but it's small for the amount it has to offer. It's not girly at all [I actually went through a little period of sexual insecurity after I got it, until I found out that 2 of my girl friends had it as well]. Mine is no more than an inch thick when closed, even with my corney leather cover on. And when it's open, I'd have to say it's just a little over 6 inches long. You get the idea. Typical silver, blah blah. No big geeky pull-out antenna, just a little grey nub of a thing. There are 2 buttons on the left side of the phone that serve as a convenience when you want to change the ring style quickly while the phone is shut- Loud, Soft, Vibrate, Silent, etc., and that also double as quick select/enter buttons on the menu [when the phone is open]. Also, there's a single button on the right side that only operates when the phone is open- hold it down to make a voice record, or press & release to activate voice-dialing. I love that it displays battery status, service bars, caller ID, missed calls, and a digital clock on the outside, although it's a little hard to read at a quick glance due to the darkness of it. It lights up whenever you hit a button on either of the sides, though. There's also the camera [just a small lens with a mirrored circle next to it so you can take "self portraits"], and most of the front cover is perforated for the speaker phone. Open the phone up, you have a 1.5 x 1.25 inch color screen and blue back-lit buttons. This is where I first got a little intimidated. There are separate buttons for "Menu" and "Enter," a 4-arrow navigation circle, and a plain button with a dot on it on either side of the phone, which correspond with whatever command is directly above them on the screen ["back," cancel," etc.]. And then obviously your normal red and green phones, hang up/place call. Yeah yeah. The charger plug is located on the bottom of the phone, headset jack on the top, basic stuff. Moving on.. The guts. Okay, let me just tell you that the last phone I had was like, the first Nokia model ever. Or atleast that's the way it felt- ANCIENT. It was my boyfriend's old phone that I got when my nice Nokia died. No color screen, not a flip phone, and none of this fancy stuff. It was basically good for nothing but calling & answering [sometimes], and a shotty version of Snake II. But the menu was insultingly simple- phonebook, messaging, alarm clock, personal settings, games. Not even a calendar or calculator. So obviously, when I was handed this $250 [before rebates and 2-year contract] piece of equipment, my mind exploded. I literally cried the first night I had it, I couldn't figure anything out and I was so regretful. But really, I gave it a few days and skimmed through the manual [which was probably shorter than this review], and now I have everything down pat, hardly a week after owning the phone. The main menu displays as follows [* means feature requires signing up for some kind of additional plan, which costs more monthly]: -Multimedia Camera, stored pictures, phone themes, ringtone composer, ring tones -Messages Text messaging*, picture messaging*, voice messaging, voice mailbox, e-mails*, quicknotes [pre-written messages such as "I need directions," "Call me."] -WebAccess Internet.* -Games & Apps Buy games* or play Bejeweled or Prince of Persia -Cingular mall* Shop games, ringtones, applications, etc. -Recent Calls Missed, dialed, recieved, call times. -Office Tools SIM Applications, Calculator, Datebook, Shortcuts, Voice Records, Alarm Clock, Chat*, Dialing Services Phonebook Everyone in your phonebook; cool because you can take pictures to go with the names, and can choose to make the pictures show up when the person calls. Or, you can pick different ringtones for different people [makes it easier to avoid "those" people without looking rude] -Settings Ringstyles, incoming call setup, initial Setup, colors, screensavers, wallpaper, phone status, headset, car settings, network, security The Extras. The MotoMixer Take a base ringtone, default is "Spooky," and play around with the piano, strings, drums, bass and tempo of it to make a unique ring. Composer Create unique rings called iMelodies by manually inputting notes. Voice dialing Always a plus, although I have to repeat it atleast twice sometimes.. I talk too fast for the computer to understand. Go figure. Speakerphone Great for terrible drivers [cough*me*cough] who don't need yet another distraction, and it works pretty well too. The only thing I don't like is you can't hit activate speakerphone until the other party picks up. It operates whether the phone is open or shut, and sounds alot like the 2-way phones people blab on, only not "BEEP BEEP :enter slurred and scratchy screaming here: BEEP BEEP" obnoxious. Camera The pictures are pretty good for a camera phone, and it has up to 2x zoom ability. Memory 5210 Kb of storage. Just to give you an idea, I have probably near 15 pictures stored, maybe more- and I still have 4585 Kb left. SIM card God's little gift to those of us who have the worst of luck with cellphones. A SIM card is a removable memory card that stores the imoprtant stuff from your phone, such as a phonebook. A SIM card is what I should have had when my second phone decided to call the quits on me. I don't use my card, however.. and for a very good reason. In order to assign personal pictures to people calling my phone, I need to store their entry to the phone memory. Yeah. You should use the SIM card. I don't think they've yet made a belt-holster for this phone, but I have a leather case that stays on all the time that I bought for $15 at a cheap kiosk in the mall. It came with a removable wrist strap and a non-optional belt clip. Complaints. The lack of ringtones that come with it, it's semi-bulkiness, and the fact that I hit those side buttons all the time by accident. Also, the battery seems to drain quite quickly when I use the camera for a long period of time. But what do you expect? But all in all, this Motorola has a nice display screen, great sound, and I also found that I seem to recieve better service with this phone than my old Nokia [I use Cingular, which is usually crap within itself]. I'll admit, this phone can be quite intimidating for first-time user, but in the end it's so worth getting to know. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $99.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88086 2005/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 mp3 ringtones sharp display quad band gsm sturdy feel speakerphone good quality 5mb memory acceptable camera low sounding through ear bud poor phonebook design The Bottom LineWhile this phone isn't without it's flaws, so far it is the best phone I've ever owned. Full Review I'm a techno geek. There I said it. What's worse is that I'm a geek who had a old monotone Motorola V60 cell phone. No color display, no polymorphic ringtones, no way to synch my contact data. I was looking for a change. A change with MP3 abilities and a camera to boot... Details: * Size: 3.5 x 1.9 x 1.0 * Weight: 4.3 Ounces * Digital Talk Time: 7 Hrs * Digital Standby Time: 9 Days Highlighted Features: * Integrated digital camera (VGA quality) with zoom and brightness adjustment * Integrated speakerphone * 5MB of end-user memory - can be used to store pictures (taken with the camera), wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, games * 22KHz polyphonic speaker with 24 chord support * 2 pre-loaded games - Bejeweled and Prince of Persia * Personal Information Manager (PIM) functionality with Picture Caller ID * Multi-Media Messaging (MMS) * Short Message Service - send and receive messages with emotion, include sounds, pictures and animation * Email pictures wirelessly right from your phone to any e-mail address * Preloaded and Downloadable - Wallpapers and Screensavers, Themes, MP3 Ringtones and Games * Make the phone "sing" with quality sound - have different alerts for calls, messages, faxes, reminders, and friends in your phonebook * Built-In Microbrowser - access Directions, Stock quotes, and Airline information, all wireless! * Mobile Phone Tools Compatible - Create edit and synchronize date book and phonebook entries with your PC. Software sold separately. * Speech Recognition - speak a stored name, number or function and your phone calls it up for you * iTAP™ software for simplified text entry - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes * TTY digital compatibility - for the hearing impaired * Operates on 850/1900 MHz North America and 900/1800 MHz world GSM/GPRS networks * FastForward capable* NOTE: details shown are directly listed as from the vendor. The Skinny Ok, let me put my bias right up front... I like Motorola phones. I've owned Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola and by far the quality on the Motorola's have always been superior. Of course we're comparing different company's products in different years (technology changes) and with different carries (Verizon, Sprint and Cingular), but that's all I have to compare to. Now my horrible experience with Sprint's coverage may also have swayed my opinion away from my Samsung. Oh well. So I was in the market for a new service plan (as my Verizon plan is nearly up and they've been KILLING me with charges). And while I'm getting a new plan I'd be getting a new phone too. I had priorities though: 1. It had to be a clamshell design w/ external display. Personal preference here. 2. It had to have the ability to synchronize data. I have a ton of contacts and was not looking forward to re-entering them all. 3. It had to have the ability to play MP3 ringtones. Hey, I'm a gadget guy and love that sort of thing. 4. While a built-in camera wasn't necessarily a high priority, it was a "nice-to-have" that has since become a priority. More on that later. 5. Nice color display. Ok, is it important? Not really, but when you're looking at computers all day and to have to look at this monotone display on the phone becomes boring. The Goods So I signed up for Cingular's family plan (my wife got the LG L1400): 850 Minutes/month free nights & weekends rollover minutes. We'll do just fine. I also got the FastForward cradle since I work from home. Definately a plus if you receive alot of calls. While in the cradle the phone charges and all calls are immediately forwarded to whatever number you preset (like your home #). You don't pay for any minutes. BONUS! I also invested in a USB Data Cable. Do yourself a favor and search eBay for one. They were running for about $35 through Cingular, but $7 through ebay (.99 for the cable and $6 for S/H). That combined with Motorola's Mobile Phone Tools allowed me to synch my Outlook contacts to the phone. NOTE - There are other, cheaper (and free) alternatives out there to the MPT package. Look around first. First impressions So after reading the quickstart guide and then realizing that I had to let it charge for a number of hours until it registered as Charge Complete. Ok, so I resigned to reading the F%@&ing manual. I had just previously had a Motorola V60. Like most cell phone companies, Motorola uses a similar Operating System on all it's phones. The layout is pretty much the same... so adjusting to it was easy. (I still feel lost on my wife's LG). It was all the extras that I needed to learn. And being fairly technical... I figured them all out pretty quickly. First thoughts? It has a good feel to it. Meaning it doesn't feel like a flimsy piece of plastic like some other models (no offense to LG and the V400's younger brother: V220). That's important. And Oooh... it's Blue!!! The keypad backlighting is blue. How cool is that? Ok, so it's a geek thing. Accept it. The included sounds, while boring, did sound fine. And the "Hello Moto" sound was .. well.. catchy. The included games? Prince of Persia and Bejeweled. I'd rather play PoP on the PC and Bejeweled is a silly game where you have to align 3 colors (gems?) or more in a row... ok, so it's addicting. And I just had to try out this camera. Surprisingly enough... it was pretty good. Took some quick and easy pics that could be stored, used as Wallpaper or set as a ringer ID. Not bad. For something that was a "nice-to-have"... It's certainly a useful feature. I've since used it to snap pics of the kids, the neighborhood. No, I'll probably never email them out, but since I have the USB Data cable I can easily transfer them to my PC. How's the quality? Well it's so-so, but then again it's a Cell Phone people. Had I expected professional quality pictures, I would have bought a Nikon. Synching with the USB Data cable (once the drivers are properly installed) is a piece of cake. Contacts are now done. While I was waiting for the phone to charge I also took the liberty of organizing my contacts in Outlook and cropping out snippets of MP3's to be used as ringtones (Back in Black from ACDC, Jumping Jack Flash from the Stones, Vertigo from U2 and quite a few more). And those pics? No problem. Ok, so at best we're talking about 640x480, but it' comes in very handy. The MP3 's on the Moto V400 sound fantastic. Not as good as my iPod, but it's a phone, not an MP3 player. Set the default ring to an MP3, set your friend's up to their own personal ringer ID, whaterver. Works great. Of course you can download ringtones, wallpaper and games from the provider, but they can get costly and quick. Same goes for Text Messaging. But if you do have ringtones (either downloaded or transfered from PC), here's another cool way to use them. Use your phone as an alarm when out and about or when traveling. The Office Tools included with the V400 are pretty good: Calculator, Datebook, Voice Records, Alarm Clock, etc. While they don't compare to a PDA, they will do the trick. I've often set the Alarm so I don't miss meetings and such. Works quite well. So far the battery life has been good. I'd say great, but I've only had this phone for a month and it does spend a good part of the week in the fast forward cradle during the day. Sound clarity has been pretty good, but I only chalk half of that up to the phone. The other half is the provider and in this case Cingular has done pretty well for themselves. I live in Southern California and the service has been pretty solid from San Marcos up to Disneyland in Anaheim. A little spotty in the house, but much better than I ever got with Sprint . Now for my complaints. I'm glad to see the capability of 1,000 alphanumeric phone book entries as a feature, but I really have to complain about how lousy Motorola lays out its Contact database. If I have an entry for my friend Al and he has a work number, a home number and a cell phone number, then WHY must there be 3 seperate entries for him? It makes it a bit of a pain to have to scroll through Al@Home, Al@Work and Al's Cell entries. Why not just be able to scroll to Al and then, once selected, choose which number? That would make your contact list more of a database and less of a flat list. All of your PIMs are like that. That's how I synched it from Outlook. Come on Motorola, wake up. Whew.. Glad that's off my chest. My other gripe although miniimal, is that when connecting an earphone to the phone, the volume seems a bit low. Certainly not a killer, but I found it quirky. Conclusion The bottom line is that I really like this phone. It's another solid performer from Motorola. While it's not without it's flaws, it looks, sounds and performs very well. It's sleek and stylish. Doesn't feel cheap. Oh and did I mention the blue backlight? UPDATE: Feb 2, 2005 One thing that I've noticed is that reviews are like everything else in life. People get very excited by something new and give it a glowing review. The real test of a product should come after that "new car smell" wears off. Does it stand the test of time? I've had my Motorola v400 cell phone for a few months now. The "newness" has worn off. I've even managed to accidentally drop it in the garbage. That wouldn't be a problem, but it ended up landing on the remains of my son's breakfast. Needless to say that maple syrup and cell phones don't mix. I ended up being able to clean nearly all of it off with a toothpick, a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol. Some still remains in the earpiece which slightly hinders how I hear on the phone and until yesterday, some still clogged the Accessory Connector Port preventing me from being able to use the USB data sync (one of the major reasons I went with this phone). Luckily I was able to open the housing of the phone and get better access to clean the rest of the data port. Quirks you say? Yes, well what bothers me about this phone is that the volume key (on the side of the phone) controls the ringer style (loud/soft/vibrate/etc). This is good, except if you have your phone on loud and want to go somewhere quiet (meeting, library, movie, etc) it first makes a loud beep before you can change it to something quieter. Is it a big deal? No. Is it a minor annoyance? Yes. And what about the contacts database on the phone? Well it STILL annoys me. I still don't see why Motorola can't combine multiple numbers for the same contact. It bugs me that I need to keep 3 separate entries for my boss, coworkers, etc for their Work, Mobile and Cell numbers. Update on the battery life: So far so good. The battery life is pretty damn good when I'm not busy playing games on it. A few days on standby is certainly not a stretch. Update on ringtones: My Motorola v400 doesn't have that "new car" smell anymore... ok, it smells more like Mrs. Buttersworth's maple syrup, but the fact is that its still a great phone. And with that... I'm now happy in my geek-dom. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88085 2004/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 several great features good signal good sound phone turns off randomly battery metercharging unreliable The Bottom LineIf they fix the battery charging issue, I would definitely recommend it--I really like the extra features. Full Review 9/24/04: Update Well, it's been another month, and I have discovered a few additional small items about the V400. They are relatively minor, but unfortunately most fall into the "annoying" category for me. Since I am stuck with the phone on a contract, I still like the phone, but Motorola has some work to do if they plan on staying competitive in this crazy cell phone market. My latest observations: 1) Since I originally wrote this review, I have not had the charging issues or random power-off problem. I have been super careful when charging to make sure that the phone says that it is charging. I have also observed that the poorly designed charging plug is quite unreliable. If I simply touch the plug when the phone is charging, it loses contact, and the phone stops charging. So I now have to very carefully position the phone, slowly remove my hands from the cord and watch the display as I back away. To a spectator, I'm sure it must look like I'm doing some bizarre ritual, but so far, it seems to do the trick. Unfortunately, this problem also exists for my car charger, where it is alot more difficult to position the phone and keep the plug from moving. (Category = Very Annoying) 2) The voice-dial feature has a limited number of entries--I think around 10. Not a huge deal, since I only voice dial a handful of people, but a potential limitation for some people. (Category = Minor) 3) The phonebook lookup process only allows you to enter the first character of the name. So if you have 15 entries that begin with "S", you can jump to the first "S" in the list, but you must then manually scroll down through the list to find the entry you want. This is annoying to me, since I was used to my old Nokia phone that allowed me to search by entering multiple characters--and 2-3 characters always produced the match I wanted. It was much safer for me to lookup an entry while driving by typing--now it is alot more tedious to lookup an entry. (Category = Moderately Annoying) 4) The "Messages" feature of the phone has surprisingly limited memory capacity. It appears that although they gave the phone a decent amount of memory, each feature has a fixed amount of memory, which puts hard limits on the number of entries you can have for any particular feature (photos, voice memos, voice dial, SMS messages, etc.). In the case of Messages, I got a low memory warning when I had 15 short messages in my inbox, and 8 short messages in my outbox. Since these are simple text messages, it seems that there is very little memory allocated to message storage. (Category = Minor) 5) So far, I have dropped this phone at least 3 times. Twice the belt-clip holster fell off of my belt and the phone dropped onto a hard tile floor. To my surprise, the phone still works fine, and doesn't have any physical damage. I think there is an intermittent crunching sound on the keypad, but everything works fine. The phone did stay in the holster during the fall, so it was somewhat protected, but I am still impressed that it survived two of my clutz events. (Category = Praise!) ------------------------ Original Review: I've had the V400 for two months now, and am regretting that I purchased a Motorola. I've had three Nokias with Cingular in the past with only minor issues (primarily software hangs requiring a 'reboot'), so I'm not very tolerant of the problems I'm experiencing with the V400. Before I get to the problems, I'll say that I do basically like the phone. It took me a while to switch from the Nokia interface to the rather different Motorola software interface, but now that I'm familiar with its features, shortcuts and quirks, I am enjoying it. I chose the V400 over other brands and models because it had voice dial that works. My old Nokia 8390 claimed to have voicedial, but was so poor and unreliable as to be useless. So I love the voicedial feature when driving, and the voicedial can be activated with the handsfree headset. Although I didn't think I would want it or use it, the voice recorder feature has been surprisingly handy. I record notes about books, movies, songs, etc. that I hear about on the radio while driving. This feature can also be controlled by the handsfree headset, but it takes some practice to figure it out. As for the camera, well, I still think it's relatively useless, but can understand that there may be people that find a poor quality low-resolution image handy for certain things. Unfortunately, even after two hours on the phone with 3 of Cingular's grossly incompetent customer support reps, I am still unable to get Multi-media messaging setup on the phone, so have been unable to send any of the photos to my e-mail address to view them on a computer screen. (It seems that my phone did not come configured to do any messaging or internet operations--I had to dig into all of the arcane setup menus) On a related note, there doesn't seem to be anyone with Cingular or the retail resellers that knows how to use the V400. The manual that comes with the phone is basically useless. It identifies physical buttons, but does not explain how to use any of the software features or how to configure the phone for additional services. The handsfree button seems to be able to perform quite a few features, but there is no documentation of these features, and nobody seems to know about them (clicking twice on the button will redial your last number, etc.) The calendar feature is decent. I have used that frequently for reminders and appointments and like its graphical view of a month. The installed ring tones are minimal and a bit disappointing (only two or three that I would consider ring tones, the rest are more alerts or voicemail notification type tones), but I suppose they do that intentionally to drive sales of add-on ring tones. Reception and signal strength seems to be better than my Nokia 8390, which I am happy about. Oh, one feature that I have been very pleasantly surprised with is the built in speaker phone. I've done a few business conference calls now on the speakerphone, and it seems to work great. It's very cool to be able to plop the phone down on a desk and turn the conversation into a conference call with co-workers, and apparently the sound quality at the other end is pretty good. It's also handy when you don't have the handsfree headset and need to type or write, as the phone is very difficult to cradle between your ear and shoulder. Just pop it on speaker, and set it on your desk. As for the quality issues though, I am very unhappy with the phone's battery and/or charging circuitry. As at least one other reviewer has pointed out, this phone does have serious issues with the battery and charging. The battery meter will show 3 out of 3 bars, but then the phone will all of a sudden turn off. When you attempt to turn the phone on, sometimes it will come on okay, other times it will simply die immediately due to low battery--suddenly flashing a red/dead battery when it comes on, which it definitely did not have prior to shutting off. I've been on calls twice when this happened, and it has happened once or twice when I was not on a call. At first I thought I was losing my mind, but after two months, I am pretty sure that the phone is not charging properly. This week, I have charged my phone three nights in a row, and each morning, the phone still shows that the charge is not complete (the battery symbol is still blinking with 1 of 3 charge bars). (It normally says "Charge Complete" on the screen after a few hours) So even though it is plugged in, and the phone says Charging on the screen, the battery is apparently not being charged. The guys at the Cingular store where I bought the phone think I'm making this up, and when they plug it in, it says "Charging", so they say there is nothing wrong with the phone. So if this happens to you, don't expect anyone to believe you or do anything about it. The only other minor complaint is with the phone software, which has some poor design elements and apparent bugs. For example, when I save a calendar entry, I some times get error messages like "Busy, try again later", even though the entry saved fine. This is trivial, but seems to indicate that their software QA could be improved. Finally, the Motorola handsfree headsets are terrible in terms of build quality. They work great and sound great, but after a week or two of use, the segment of wire between the microphone and the earbud develops some type of issue that causes the audio to cut out. I'm on my third replacement, and it is developing exact the same problem. If you twist the cable one direction, it works, if you twist the other direction, sound cuts out, as if the wire is so fragile that it breaks after a week of use. I've given up and stopped bothering to replace it, despite the money wasted. I recently bought a Plantronics MX153-M1 instead and am giving that a try. (The Plantronics has pros and cons as well, but seems to be working fine for the time being) Overall, I do like the phone, and would recommend it except for the battery / charging issue, which I consider a huge flaw for a cell phone. I now know that I cannot rely on the phone to work when I need it, and have yet to figure out how to get it to charge reliably. Perhaps Motorola has issued a software / firmware patch for this issue, but I have not yet checked, and am very reluctant to deal with the untrained reps at Cingular to even ask. After several hours of being useless trying to help me get Multi-media messaging working, the Cingular rep did eventually give me the supposed customer support number for Motorola, so I'll give them a try when I have another hour or two to waste. In case anyone else is interested, the Motorola support number is: 1-800-331-6456 If I get any info on a firmware upgrade that fixes the battery charging issue, I'll post a follow up to this review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 w/rebateRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88084 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 flip design loud speaker phone clear display large screen useless camera sticky keys hard to figure out sporadic reception The Bottom LineCheck out some of the other phones currently in the market. The technology has improved greatly since early 2004. Full Review Motorola makes great products and picking a phone from the Motorola line was a no brainer for me. After using several phones from Nokia with monochrome displays and a previous Motorola colored phone, it was clear what my next choice would be when the time came. (Yes, I am aware that Nokia now makes color phones.) I didn't actually need a new phone when I switched to the V400. However, since Cingular was buying out AT&T and I kept going over my AT&T minutes, I decided that I would switch my service to Cingular (with rollover minutes) and to hopefully take advantage of the antennas from both networks once the merge is complete. Unfortunately this switch required me to buy a new phone as the two companies did not consider themselves as one at the time of purchase. After having owned both flip phones and regular phones, I wanted to stick with a flip phone because I can easily carry it in my pocket without having to worry about lint, dust and locking the numeric key pad. When I first got the phone, it was great. This is my first camera phone and it was cool to be able to take pictures randomly and save them as my background and to maybe email my friends spur-of-the-moment pictures. (My previous motorola phone could not save random pictures as backgrounds, or maybe I just couldn't figure it out.) However, as time moved on and my demand for quality increased, I started realizing that the pictures the camera takes are pretty much all crap. Motorola claims that the picture V400 takes are 640x480 resolution. While this may or may not be true, I have yet to figure out how to send these messages via MMS or email to myself to get the pictures off of the phone. Repeated phone calls to Cingular warranted wasted minutes and no results. I have also tried using Cingular's default settings as well as adding my own email login and server in the phone to try to get the phone to send the pictures; both of these attempts proved pointless. 8 months later, I have given up. It's a shame that the phone (or service) can not do what it intended the phone to do. I guess when this phone dies, so will all the blurry memories that are saved on it. Another thing that annoys me about the pictures is how grainy everything is. Somewhere between taking the picture, seeing the preview and doing the actual SAVE function, the phone seems to add a speckle filter to the picture so everything ends up looking grainy. I'm not looking for magazine quality pictures on this phone, but at least have the decency not to degrade the quality when saving the pictures. The phone itself for the most part works alright. However, when it cuts off in mid conversation, the phone does not produce a noise or warning of any kind to let you know the signal is lost. I have often found myself holding the phone against my ear getting into deep conversations with friends only to have the phone ring (loudly and hurting my ears) cause apparently my friend was cut off some time ago. It may be funny the first time when you realize you have been talking to yourself for the last 4 minutes; but doing so 2 or 3 times within one conversation gets annoying. Two other things bug me about this phone: When I check my voicemail and put in my pass code, the keys seem to get sticky. I whiz through the six numbers + # sign only to see that the phone is still processing the first couple of numbers and slowly catching up to the rest. While it doesn't affect it's functionality, it really shouldn't be happening. Also, the phone sports a removeable piece of plastic where the ear-phone plugs in. I'm not sure who designed this but no cellphones should have removeable anything. While it's great that it's protecting the socket from dust, it's annoying to have to keep track of such a piece. As for all the buttons and displays on the outside, it can sometimes be confusing to figure out what all the buttons are supposed to do. Also, the phone will repeatedly notify you of previous and old missed calls that happened hours or days ago even if you have used the phone since the last few missed calls. I always think I have some new missed calls when in fact, no one has called me. I have only used the speaker phone option a couple of times and the speaker phone works great. One of the things I DO like about the phone is that it is loud enough so you can answer calls in "da club" if needed. The other cool thing is that you can close the flip phone when your earphones are plugged in, but I guess that is a pretty standard feature found on most phones. At this point, with all the new technologies coming out for phones, (Bluetooth, email, SMS, MMS, etc.) I probably would not recommend this phone unless you just want to take pictures for the phone's private use. Since the pictures can not be downloaded or uploaded off the phone, the camera portion of the phone is pretty much useless to me. (I'll stick with taking pictures with my Canon S400 thanks.) Battery wise, the phone does an okay job of staying alive. I have gone three days without charging and it still had some battery in it. I have noticed that short charges (5-10 minutes) will result in the display saying 3 bars giving the illusion that the battery is full. While I do believe it is the nature of these batteries to loosely charge 80% of the battery before slowly and fully charging the remaining 20%, the display sometimes does give a false indication that the phone is fully charged. (It's just something you have to get used to and to know to look out for.) For all its worth, I am glad I upgraded to this phone. However, I am currently looking for a new phone and can't wait till that day comes. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 w/ rebateRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88083 2000/2/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 comfortable feel world phone stylish design awesome ringtones inaccurate battery indicator dropped calls camera takes distorted photos you need nail to open it The Bottom LineThe only thing separated me from a No to Yes is the poor digital camera. This phone would of been better off without one. Full Review Introduction First I would like to thank you for your time reading this review. I am in no means a gadget guru, but love wireless communication and anything that runs with a screen on it. I've been using this Motorola V-400 Camera, flip-phone for the second week now. We have the office phone transferred to this, so I can keep in touch with clients even when we are out of the office. The service provider is Microcell Communications (FIDO) now they are merged with Rogers Communications. First look & feel When I first held this phone, it was weird, but I got used to it in a short period of time, given the opportunity. The phone feels kind of heavy, compared to my Siemens A-56, but we can't compare the two phones on one page. You have to know this Motorola is not mine. Just using it while the boss is out of town. I know he paid big money for it and had to sign a two years contract with Microcell Communications to get some sort of discount on this handset. My first observation is answering the phone. First phone call: Phone rings, I open it. Trying to anyways. I do care about personal hygiene and grooming myself on a regular basis. Meaning my nails is cut short. I think you can see now where I am getting at. Yes, you are right. I had a very hard time opening this phone without nails and still do. Even with two hands. Holding the phone in one hand, and trying to open it with the other. You need grown nails to open this phone. Maybe this is the reason why I prefer candy bar style phones, to flip-flop-phones. When you open the phone, you are presented with a bright and rather large, color screen. This is good news and Motorola shines here above the rest. When the phone is opened the conversation is activated. The sound is clear and loud. I had to re-adjust the volume on the earpiece, so it wouldn't hurt my ear. The speakerphone is also very loud. This can be adjusted by pressing the controls on the outside of the phone, up or down. The menu system is easy to use and understand. I was very pleased with the available ring tones that are polyphonic. The unit also features a Moto-Mixer, which is almost like a ring tone composer. There are many options and features on this phone I am not going to detail in my review. I rather write about it as a simple, easy to understand review. Some basic features include the GSM signal capability in four different frequencies. This makes the phone, so called: "World Phone" Useful when traveling to other countries and your provider has roaming agreements with the local companies. Built in digital camera, Ring tone download, Hands free speaker, Calendar, Alarm clock, Games, Phone book, AIM (AOL Instant messenger) GPRS Handset for data transfer. Supports SMS = Short Messaging System, MMS = Multimedia Messaging, Notebook calendar. Also Personal Information Manager (PIM) (contacts, calendar, notes and e-mail client and Web Browser) These are just basic features. There is a lot more, detailed option list to this phone available at Motorola's site. Likes What I like in this flip-phone is the large color screen, The strong, durable design and materials. The MP3 quality, polyphonic ring tones, The phonebook, the ease of use, the menu system and options. I also like the phone's design. The speaker phone is nice too. I like the second screen on the outside shell. This smaller screen is lit up and blue in color when closing the phone or when the phone rings. It shows you the name and number of the caller, time and battery, plus signal strength. Dislikes This phone has a built in digital camera, which takes distorted images. I find this completely useless. The AOL messenger is also useless. I know a few friends who own this set and nobody uses the AIM program on it. I really dislike the way this phone opens. You will need grown nails to open this handset. This can be rather inconvenient while driving or busy with other things. You will require both of your hands and nails to open it. My other observation is the call waiting. When talking on the phone and there is another incoming call. You switch and the phone drops the initial call. This is annoying. The phone is also heavy and the travel battery charger requires special skill to plug into the phone. Another observation is the battery indicator icon. When you only have two lines left, go and charge your phone immediately. Don't wait for the second line to disappear. I did once and the phone was dead next morning. This indicator icon only displays three (3) lines. When one line is gone, the battery still supposed to have two third of the power left in it. Well, it doesn't! Conclusion I recommend this phone to business people who want a durable flip-phone. Make sure you have nails and a battery charger with you all the time. Use the convenient speakerphone in the car while driving (It's safer that way) and forget about the camera all together. Hope I could help. Cheers! :) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88082 2005/5/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good crisp color screen junk bad speakers junk not intuitive lousy phone avoid this phone poor functionality The Bottom LineAvoid this phone. There are many better models available, and Motorola definitely missed the mark with this one. It has a lot of bugs and poorly designed features. Full Review This phone is an unmitigated piece of junk! I am on my FOURTH Motorola V400 in six months, and we are ready to do another exchange, moving us up to FIVE! When I switched to Cingular, I bought two of this phone, one for myself, one for my husband. I'll preface this by saying that my husband is not a geek like I am. I bought him a camera phone mainly because he is a truck driver, and I wanted him to be able to SEE what I was telling him about, as well as share pictures with me for the same reason (When I SAY the basement has SIX inches of water, I MEAN it has SIX inches of water...SEE!?!) He had a difficult time using the phone, since many of the menus are absolutely not intuitive. Besides the menus being difficult, the buttons are on the small side as well. One of the biggest complaints he had was that he could not hear the phone. I concur, sound on this phone is definitely a problem and 2 of the phones went back for that reason. The speaker is a problem, and Motorola is aware of it, but has to date failed to resolve it. He ended abandoning this phone altogether, since he also had problems with seeing the screen in bright light. My phone has been more of a problem for me than my husband's was for him, probably because I am still trying to use it. As I said, the speaker is a problem. You often cannot hear the person you are calling and have to disconnect, sometimes even reboot the phone and hope that it works. I have also had problems with the phone rebooting itself while I was using it. This is a problem particularly during text messaging. Sometimes the button that indicates to the phone that it is closed can stick, and then it doesn't know you've closed it. So basically, sometimes it shuts off when you don't want it to, and other times it won't shut off when you DO want it to...pretty contrary if you ask me! Text messaging is difficult at times. It is hard to save a message as a draft if you are interrupted during writing. If you close the phone, the message is gone. Also, if you select a person to send the message to, and then want to add something else to the message before you send it, you cannot go back. Another problem area are the external buttons on this phone--they are a major nuisance. It is inevitable that you press the buttons simply by handling the phone. I personally have yet to go through one day without resetting the ring profile from in my pocket or purse at least once during the day. Also, another one of the buttons often gets pressed while you are opening the phone. If you are trying to place a call, that is a nuisance, since it thinks you are trying to voice dial. Speaking of voice dialing, I found it to be so bad that it is not worth using. I know a lot of people have said that about voice dialing in general, however I found my old Nokia to be pretty good in that area. If you do have a ton of problems and have to send the phone back, you will lose any photos you have taken and any ringtones you have downloaded. Perhaps I am missing the point of the SIMM card somewhere, but I thought it was so that you could keep your settings as you move from phone to phone. The only way around losing your photos is to email them to a computer (and pay the data fees to your phone provider) and then email them back to your phone when you get your new one (and pay the data fees to your phone provider again.) There is no way to keep your ringtones, since your provider would not want you to transfer them from one phone to another (why would you pay for them if you could just bum them from your friends?!) Yes it has a camera, and yes, the camera has a zoom feature, but quite frankly, unless all you hope to do with the photos is use them on your phone, the quality is pretty poor. The ringtones, wallpaper/screensavers, and games that come on the phone are pretty pathetic. The ringtones are the worst. I figured that I would just settle for one, and not be too picky about it, but they were just lousy and I ended up buying a few just so that it was tolerable. Speaking of the ringtones, if you put the phone on "Vibrate and Ring" it does not do both at the same time. First it vibrates a few times, and then it rings. It's pretty easy to miss either or both. The volume of the ringtones is limited and I would say that if you work in a loud environment, this would definitely become a problem. You will miss more calls than you catch. I personally did not have a problem with the color screen on my phone. I compared it to some others and the color and picture seemed clearer and more vivid than most I saw. I was impressed with the screen. Overall, I consider this phone the worst that I have ever owned. To compound matters, it wasn't even a free phone! I actually paid for this piece of trash! The only reason that I have continued to exchange it for the same model is because I have become so disgruntled with Cingular for selling such a piece of junk that I refuse to put another dollar in their pocket to buy an "upgrade" phone from them. ("Upgrade" as they call it still costs you money, PLUS you have to renew your contract with them in order to do it!) My replacement phone will be a private purchase, and definitely NOT a Motorola. UPDATE: The last Motorola V400 lasted exactly ONE WEEK before the screen died on me! Interestingly, Cingular is no longer carrying the V400 as one of their phones, and offered to send me another model, but not another make (meaning it had to be a Motorola) they said I could have the Motorola V551, which I received yesterday. Hopefully this one will be better than the V400! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $59.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88081 2004/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy build sleek design nice display able to use mp3 as ringtone non intuitive speakerphone can t rename profiles volume sometimes not loud enough The Bottom LineA great little phone that's chock full of features, some of which are tons more difficult to activate than others. But overall I'd recommend it. Full Review Motorola phones used to be clunky, ugly phones with only one annoying ring. I've been a Nokia user up until the last phone upgrade. I just didn't like any of the new phones that Nokia put out. They were just plain ugly and bulky with displays that didn't impress me much. It took me a long time to decide because I liked the simplicity and ease of use with Nokia menus, but I didn't want to end up having to carry around a brick either. There were several Motorola look-alikes, but I had no experience with the off-brands and therefore did not trust them. I decided to take a chance and try Motorola, and I'm glad I did. LIKES Looks - This is a good-looking phone. I hate to be shallow, but if I have to carry something around with me all the time and look at it every day, I want it to look good! I'm a sucker for sleek styling. Display - I think the display is nice and crisp, with beautiful color and a decently large screen. Games look like a tiny arcade in your phone. Sturdy - I've dropped and scuffed this phone a few times and the case shows it, but I've seen no decline in performance. No random quirks and no cracks either. I used to be wary of flip phones because I had an Ericsson with a flimsy flip that soon started to crack from normal use. But this one feel sturdy when you open it. It doesn't feel like it might pop off if you handled it a little roughly. Games - This phone comes with Bejeweled! I love this game and was thrilled when I found the full version installed on the phone. It also came with Prince of Persia, however I suck at this one so I don't play it much. It looks like the original Nintendo version. I was really happy that it didn't come with weird and boring games like on my friend's Nokia. (Bowling? *yawn*) Can Connect to Computer - It was tricky to figure out, but after much research I finally got the right data cable and the right software to hook my v400 up to my PC. Now I can freely download pictures from my phone, making the camera a much more useful feature than before. I can also transfer sound clips and music to the phone for use as ringtones. MP3 Ringtone Capability - It's awesome to be able to use MP3s as ringtones! Especially considering how few ringtones come with the phone. It gives you the chance to really make your phone sound different from everyone else's. The phone is able to hold 5MB of data, whether it be pictures or sounds. The trick to putting lots of MP3 ringtones on your phone is to put song clips in, not the entire thing. When your phone rings it only plays around 19 seconds, the rest goes to waste. An average song is around 4MB, so you'd be filling up your phone with just one song! Size - The size seems just right. Not too big and clunky, and not too tiny that it gets lost easily. ANNOYANCES Volume - It's very easy to not hear this phone, especially with most of the polyphonic music I've tried on it. When set to one of these tones, even at full volume I usually won't hear it if I'm outside and it's a little noisy. There are some really annoying ringtones you can use that sound like a siren or some irritating phone, but I'd hate to resort to doing that especially when it's capable of so much more. Lucky for me I learned how to crop MP3s so I can take a piece of a song, make it nice and loud, and then transfer that to the phone for use as a ringtone. I miss fewer calls since I've started doing that, however I still do wish there was a louder volume available for when you're in a noisy setting. Wireless Internet - This is supposed to be a bonus of the phone as it is capable of wireless internet access. However, thanks mostly to Cingular, it is so expensive that it isn't worth it at all. Speaker - This is supposed to be a bonus too. I can see myself using the speakerphone in many situations. However I have only used it once since I've owned it because you can't turn on the speakerphone until after your call is connected. This means you have to hold it to your ear to hear the call ringing, then the speaker option becomes available only after the other person picks up. And how many people are going to tell the person they just called, "Hold on, let me switch to speakerphone"? It's inconvenient, non-intuitive and stupid. Tricky to Connect to Computer - I've listed the ability to connect the v400 to a computer as a benefit, but this benefit only comes about if you are able to figure out how to do it in the first place! When you're shopping for the phone they make it sound like all you have to do is hook up the data cable (which you have to buy separately) to your phone and PC, and everything will be wonderful. Not true. You need to have the right software, and that in itself is tricky because there are various versions of phone synching and phone tool software for various similar Motorola cell phones. Then even when I had the right software installed I still had to do some research as to why it wasn't working right. I can't remember exactly anymore, but I had to delete some driver files from someplace and replace it with a different Motorola driver. I find it unbelievable that the drivers that come with the software don't work for the v400! I can't recall exactly what the name of the driver is now (which will bite me in the butt later if I ever need to reinstall!) Some useful how-to guides might be of some use: http://snow.prohosting.com/gman1025/v400/beginners.htm and http://xlr8.us/hofo/ Now if you want to transfer GAMES to your phone that's a whole other story! You have to install a completely different set of software! This is an entirely whole new ordeal that isn't as smooth as any of the directions say it is. I spent all day trying to get it to work by combing through various articles and downloads. I eventually scraped together what I needed and got it to work. So now I'm able to download games to my phone too! I was able to muddle through it with the help of this guide: http://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/forum/archive/index.php/t-2730.html It doesn't tell you where to find the files you need, but considering all the different (non-working) driver versions I tried unsuccessfully, I decided to put them all into one place. I've assembled them here: http://www.alapuchica.com/downloads/v400JavaTransfer.zip Be sure to read the readme.txt file before you start. Limited Profiles On Nokia phones you can create new profiles if the built-in ones don't suit you. However with the Motorola you are stuck with the five built-in profiles, and you cannot rename them to something that makes sense to you. For example, I like to have Loud when I'm someplace noisy, and Soft when I'm inside someplace quiet, but there's no Normal for regular use. I find the Silent profile to be useless (no ring or vibrate), but I can't rename it to something more useful to me. There's a Vibrate & Ring profile, but I find it annoying that it vibrates first, then starts ringing. I prefer it to vibrate and ring at the same time. Or at least give me a choice of which I prefer! OTHER NOTES Other people have noted battery life as a gripe. However I think the battery life is actually decent considering it's a a fairly large, backlit, color LCD screen! If you play games on it all day then of course you're going to drain the battery. It was designed to be a phone, not a Gameboy. I've also set my screen to go dark after 20 seconds of inactivity (the default is longer). The less the screen is on, the longer the battery will last. You don't need to have the screen on when you're talking to someone. I didn't list the camera feature as a like or a dislike because I'm kind of indifferent to it. I originally wanted the phone because it had the camera and I wanted to be able to send pictures to my sweetheart when I'm shopping for something. However I was disappointed that her phone wasn't capable of accepting photos even though it was a color Nokia. Oh well, I would have had to pay extra for the service anyway. I can at least download the photos from my phone to the computer, but the picture quality isn't that great (very compressed in order to reduce file size). Still it's better than nothing for those times you need a spur-of-the-moment photo. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88080 2004/6/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 camera speakerphone downloadable ring tones flip design bit confusing to use poor written manual poor image quality on phone The Bottom LineFilled to the brim with special features that may eventually become more of a novelty than a necessity. Buy it for its Quad band technology for good cell reception. Full Review It was either a problem with the phone or the service, but after 2 years of suffering with my Sanyo 4900 with Sprint PCS service and getting no reception at home or at work I hunkered down to buy a new phone and a new service to go along with it. I chose to buy the Motorola v400 for two main reasons. The first reason; it is a world phone. A world phone can operate on international networks unlike most phones that will cease to work the minute the plane flies over the US border. But, I bought it not because I planned to use it internationally but because and this is my own personal belief - the phone gets better reception for it looks to work on four bands of cell technology (Quad band) unlike most typical cell phones which mostly work on only two and sometimes three. I figured the more bands it is designed to work on the better chance I have at getting good reception. The second reason I bought the phone is it came with the Cingular service which some family and friends use and they have had no problems with it. Plus with only a one year contract and $100 rebate on the phone I couldn't pass up the offer. Here are a few other reasons I bought this phone: Flip Phone: I used to be against flip phones, but now I love them. For one, they are smaller and take up less space in your pocket/purse or are less obtrusive when anchored to your hip. Plus, the buttons are protected and there is less wear on the buttons and the main screen. You can also configure the phone to automatically answer when you flip the phone open and likewise disconnect from a call when you close it. Camera: Integrated into the face plate of the camera is a 4x digital VGA camera (no flash). To give you an idea of the quality of pictures it takes, the computer monitor you are using to read this review is probably using SVGA technology (Super VGA). In other words, a VGA camera is not going to take very good pictures. They will be blurry, some colors will bleed together, and you may get red lines and dots throughout the image. Plus the camera is not easy to operate outside in bright sunlight for the color screen of the phone is not bright enough and there's a huge glare due to the screen's shiny surface. I have not yet tried to send a picture from the phone to an email address but I have heard it is not an easy process. Download MP3 Ring Tones: I'll admit that I was "more inclined" to buy this phone because of this feature although it may turn out to be more of a wasted novelty. Basically, you can connect to an online site and purchase ring tones in MP3 quality for use on your phone. Each download takes a few minutes to complete and costs about $2.95. Selection is bit scarce unless you like a lot of Hip-Hop (I don't). I downloaded a song from Coldplay so it makes it pretty easy to tell when my phone is ringing when standing in a crowded room. However, the phone is a bit buggy when downloading a new ringer. Once after it finished downloading it just sat there and looked like it was doing nothing (which was costing me online air time) when in fact it was done. A simple close of the phone and re-open resets the download and brought me back to the main menu. Speakerphone: I do not like to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time. So I will only look to buy a phone with a built in speaker phone. (My Sanyo 4900 had the same feature). With a speakerphone I can hear and talk out loud on the phone without having to take a hand off the steering wheel. The speakerphone also acts as a loud ringer and for its size is not bad when it plays the downloaded MP3's. The only problem though, is you cannot activate the speakerphone until you have already connected with a caller. Unlike my Sanyo 4900 where you could dial and then connect using the speakerphone (you would hear the ringing through the speakerphone) you have to connect to your call first (or answer your call first) and then place the person on speakerphone. Here is something important, Call Clarity is a step way up from my old Sprint phone. I hear people's voices loud and clear and that is with the volume mid way up. So far I haven't had a single drop call or a voice distortion although I should point out that on at least two occasions so far I have heard an echo when talking on the phone. The echo sounds like my own voice coming back slightly through the ear piece. I don't know if it has continued to work or if I have just learned to ignore it. As for the Ease of Use the Motorola v400 won't win any design awards. Controlling the menu can be a bit cumbersome primarily because the "navigational" button on the phone (the up/down left/right circular pad) only functions as up/down and left/right and not enter or select even though the center point of the button can be pressed down. Instead you have to click one of the bigger buttons that corresponds to a selection displayed on the main screen. Plus, so far the phone has confused me when I try to add in a second phone number for an existing phone book entry, I've had trouble associating pictures to a phone number to utilize the picture caller ID feature, and the phone has "themes" which don't seem to make much sense for I can't figure out to add new themes or to even create my own. I spent about 30 minutes looking over the manual for this phone, but I will probably have to look over it again and spend some more time reading the manual and then trying it out on my phone. As for the Manual it is detailed, but very simple and it lacks some features. I noticed that my phone has a Moto-mixer which is a mixer that allows you to create your own ring tones. Certain keys act as bass, tempo, strings, etc., and you press them to create your own mix. The manual didn't cover this feature at all so I had to learn how to use it just by playing around with it. As for Other Features there is a built in calculator, a calendar, voice memo pad, voice activated dialing (if you activate the service with your service provider), date book, online chat, text messaging, and web access. Overall I'm happy with my purchase only because after my mail in rebate the phone will come to $29.99. I passed up buying the phone when it was being offered for $129.00 and waiting again when it came down to $79.99. When it went down to $29.99 for Memorial Day I raced to Best Buy and bought it. In other words, I wouldn't spend more for it and I certainly wouldn't buy it at full price. Although it has great features, the phone is a bit cumbersome to use and most of its "special features" will eventually be "unused novelties". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88079 2000/2/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 see review see review The Bottom LineThe negatives are not enough to dissuade me from recommending the V400 Camera Phone from Motorola, but I am not shouting it praises to the masses either. Full Review Unlike my sixteen year old daughter whose cell phone is practically glued to her ear, or my 26 year old daughter, who has downloaded every ring-tone know to man, my cell phone needs are more modest. I am on the road a lot; it's an hour one way between my primary client and my home, and I drive it everyday, so I spend a lot of time on the road. And I just picked up another client in downtown Chicago, working at night twice a week for the next four months. Jobs come and go, but the one constant is the road, and the need to stay connected. As long as I can make a call, locally or long distance, without a hassle (read dropped calls), I am good to go. But I have to admit, rather sheepishly in light of the aforementioned, that I also like new technology, so when cell phone went color I just had to have one. Beside my old cell phone was dying a slow death, the victim of one too many falls to the pavement, and just plain old wear and tear. It was time to toss out the old, and usher in the new. The new in this case was a Motorola V400 Camera Phone offered by Cingular Wireless, where I have been a customer for several years. The Phone I have been a loyal Motorola cell phone buyer since my first cell phone some seven years ago. This despite the fact that I used to work for Motorola and was laid off by the company; I just can't seem to pull myself a way from their phones. But after having owned the V400 Camera Phone for just a short while, I believe my next phone will be manufactured by some other cell phone vendor. I have a love hate relationship the with V400 Camera Phone. I love the slick contemporary styling, but I hate the hard to hear and understand speaker phone. I love the bright colorful display, but I hate the less then clear earpiece. I love the size of the phone and the way it feels in my hand, but I hate the rather limited included ring-tones that Motorola shipped with the phone. I know, I know I said that I do not by-and-large care about those features but I would like my phone to at least sound like a phone; as it is Motorola's attempt at cool ring-tone needs an infusion of hip! I love the I can store multiple numbers under the same persons name, but I hate the fact that the address book makes you queue in a separate entry for each one, instead of having multiple number lines under the same name. I love the fact that I can call someone via voice-activated dialing, but I hate the fact that it rarely works, and sometimes calls the wrong number (how does that happen?). I love the fact that the phone has a standard headphone jack, but I hate the sound quality; I can't seem to find a mediocre headset to use with the phone, let alone the perfect set. Camera I have no need for a camera in my phone, and frankly I don't understand the craze. The digital camera is imbedded in the front side of the lid of the V400 Camera Phone. The camera itself is tiny, almost none-existent, and there an equally small shiny round metal plate next to it. I believe that serves to brighten the image(?). The camera in this phone will not overwhelm you with high resolution images, but it might come in handy for taking shots of your damaged car, the one you wreaked while taking on the phone. Taking a picture is a rather straight forward affair: open the phone press the camera button. The screen acts as a viewfinder, when you see the image you want press the capture key; done. The image displayed in the viewfinder can be enhanced (brightened), which should allow you to take good clear shots in less than favorable lighting conditions. You can also zoom in on your subject; up to 4x, but as far as I can tell there in way to focus an image that is hopelessly out of focus. An indicator on the bottom of the viewfinder screen indicates how much storage space--in percentage--is left for image storage. Images can be stored as wallpaper, send them to other wireless phones, email them to others, create a slide show, or just store them on the phone. Speakerphone As I stated above the built-in speakerphone on the V400 Camera Phone leaves a lot to be desired. The actual speaker is located on the back of the unit and is of fair size, but the sound quality is poor on most calls I have conducted. And while it does give you a hands-free capability, there is a short 3-5 second delay to activate after you place a call, and then you have to push the quick-access Speaker button under the word on the screen. In that time you could miss vital information. And if you are required to enter a number into the phone before you activate the speaker, you will no longer be able to do so because the quick-access button selection would have changed to Store because you pushed a number! Voice-dial Another love-hate relationship. Let's all hear it for hands-free voice-dial, when it works. Each address entry can be programmed with a voice-dial signature. That signature can then be used to dial that person's number by pushing a button on the side of the V400 Camera Phone. You are allowed two tries. This would a great thing, if it worked as advertised, which 50% of the time it does not. Yes, I have reprogrammed the numbers, still the same performance, so more often then not, I just dial the person's number. Other Features The V400 Camera Phone is Internet ready, but I have not activated the service through my cell phone provider. I had Internet access on a phone a while ago and frankly found it less then useful. Same with text messaging and multimedia downloads, though the later is good for downloading new ring-tones to the phone for an average cost of $2.00. Like I said at the outset my needs are modest. Battery Life I am by no means a power talker, meaning I do not spend hours and hours talking on the phone; I just don't have the time. So despite the fact that I leave my phone on 24/7, I have never even come close to exhausting the battery. Does this make me an a-typical users? Probably, and therefore I a am not the best person to speak to the battery life of the V400 Camera Phone. I do know that when I need to make a call, I can. Reception When signal strength is strong, I have no problems placing and or receiving calls on the V400 Camera Phone. The earpiece is loud and clear, and the other party has no problems hearing me. However, within the city of Chicago I have noticed splotchy service and tenuous reception depending on where I am. And when signal strength drops markedly, maintaining a call is a problem. In all fairness to the phone, this is probably due more the service then it does the phone. Conclusion Overall my love hate relationship with the V400 Camera Phone has cured me of my buy Motorola syndrome. When it comes time to purchase a new phone is two years time, I will give other brands serious consideration. After all Bluetooth is finally beginning to take off making the sharing of information between computer and cell phone less problematic. But the negatives are not enough to dissuade me from recommending the V400 Camera Phone from Motorola, but I am not shouting it praises to the masses either. Motorola V400 Features & Specifications (From Motorola Product Literature): • Weight: 4.3 oz with slim battery • Size: 3.5 x 1.93 x 1 in. with slim battery • Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz • Integrated digital camera (VGA quality) with zoom and brightness adjustment • Integrated speakerphone • 5MB of end-user memory - can be used to store pictures (taken with the camera), wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, games • 22KHz polyphonic speaker with 24 chord support • 2 pre-loaded games - Bejeweled and Prince of Persia • Personal Information Manager (PIM) functionality with Picture Caller ID (01) • Multi-Media Messaging (MMS) • Short Message Service - send and receive messages with emotion, include sounds, pictures and animation (01) • Email pictures wirelessly right from your phone to any e-mail address (01) • Preloaded and Downloadable(01) - Wallpapers and Screensavers, Themes, MP3 Ringtones and Games • Built-In Microbrowser - access Directions, Stock quotes, and Airline information, all wireless! (01) • Mobile Phone Tools Compatible (02) - Create edit and synchronize datebook and phonebook entries with your PC. Software sold seperately. • Speech Recognition - speak a stored name, number or function and your phone calls it up for you • TTY digital compatibility - for the hearing impaired • Provides up to Up to 210-420 minutes of talk time when used with slim battery (20) • Provides up to Up to 130-220 hours of standby time when used with slim battery (20) • 176 x 220 pixel internal Vivid 65,000 Color TFT display provides an enormous viewing area • 96 x 32 pixel two line external display shows Caller ID, date & time, plus Status Icons at a glance • Blue backlight on external display • Auto Redial Notification • Call Forwarding - unconditional, mobile subscriber busy, subscriber not reachable. (01) • Call Waiting • Call Hold • Alternate Line/Dual Name(01) • Turbo Dial(r) keys 2-9 • Quick Access Menu • Ringer/Vibrate Suppress • Multiple Call Timers • Multiple Key Answer • VibraCall alert • Last Numbers Dialed • Last calls received • Phone Book - up to 1000 entries • Battery Meter (always shown in display) • Roaming (01) • Text Message Waiting (01) • Voice Message Waiting (01) • Signal Strength Indicator • Voice and Message Mail (01) • Alert Setting Indicator Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88078 2004/5/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great display speakerphone camera a plus uneven lighting on keypad The Bottom LineThis phone is a buy! Careful attention will have to be made to keep the flip from breaking. Other than that..No worries! Full Review Isn't technology fascinating? To think of the strides we have made in the last 15 years is mind numbing. The one time throughout our daily lives we are all reminded of this fact is making or receiving a call on our cell phones. I remember having a cell phone installed in my car with a large receiver the size of a VCR placed in the trunk with under carpet wiring and a large antenna placed on your trunk lid; be mindful that these phones simply offered a call feature...that's it. Today, cell phones with a plethora of features fit handily in a shirt pocket and it gets better everyday! One such example of modern cell technology comes from an old hand at the game: Motorola and their model V400. AT FIRST GLANCE The Motorola V400 is a flip phone whose size, feel, weight and appearance are consistent with any phone from the V series, which are generally larger than the offerings from companies like Samsung, LG, Sony Erickson and a host of others. That is not to insinuate this phone to be inferior in any way however. It is however, quite a quite different offering from Motorola. Some of the noteworthy features include: Hands free Speakerphone capability Camera Multimedia Messaging (send & receive) Voice-dial Camera This camera phone will not dazzle you with high resolution but it certainly will come in handy when you run into an old friend and either want to capture the moment or perhaps share a slideshow of your family to share on the fly. in on a shot? Not a problem with the Motorola V400. Image Bright adjustment will allow you to take good clear shots in less than favorable twilight or dimly lit rooms. The Camera Lens is strategically placed on the upper outer lid of the flip necessitating opening the phone to preview your shot on the 1½ by 1¼ inch color screen. An indicator on the bottom of the camera screen will keep you abreast of storage space left for pictures. There is also a timer onboard so you can get into the picture as well! You can assign your better shots as your wallpaper or send them to other wireless phones or email addresses as individual or slide presentations along with text if you choose. Sending pictures is a 22-step process though; a technology that no doubt will be finessed over time. Opening a Multimedia (picture or sound) message is much easier though requiring the user to simply open the file. Speakerphone The hands free capability of the Motorola's V400 speakerphone is but another plus on this feature rich model. While there is a short 3-5 second delay to activate, it will conform to the growing list of municipalities and states that are forbidding multitasking your driving and cell usage and will appease those who have a need for calling on the go. While the quality is not 100%, the quality is certainly usable and certainly another tool in the 400's arsenal. Voice-dial Voice-dial represents a haven for users who don't want to reach for glasses to make an outgoing call. As a safety feature on the road it adds yet another layer of security to assure your undivided attention to traffic. Setting it up by recording the names of the entries you wish to voice-dial is a two step process and activating the feature is simply a quick press of the voice-key on the side of the phones body, and speaking into the phone; a connection is made within 5-10 seconds. Multimedia By subscribing to your providers Multimedia messaging you can send or receive sound and picture files on the Motorola V400. Subscriber fees will vary but will average 20 transmits for $2.99 monthly. Here is where the menu becomes a little daunting. There are about 22 steps to send MM files, because of the extra steps involved in the actual creation and saving of the file. Among the other features, the Motorola V400 includes: CALL FEATURES Automatic Redial Voice Call Forwarding Call Alert Call Lists, recent Unanswered call list Speed Dial 1 Touch Dial Voicemail Call Waiting/ Hold Conference call Call Forwarding Call Barring TTY Calls Text messaging/ store PHONE FEATURES Chat Email Send/receive Phonebook Phone Book/Group Mail List/Voice Dial Number Distinctive Ringer ID, category, picture for entry Sort Phone Book List Set Primary Number One Touch Dial Personalization Features Ring Style Ringer Id's Ring Volume Keypad Volume Clock View Menu View Main Menu Hide/ Show Menu options Change Soft Menu Keys And Menu Icons Shortcuts Menu Features Language Master reset Master Clear Fixed Dial Service Dial Quick Dial DTMF Tones Call Monitoring Call Times In Call Timer Call Cost Hands Free Features Speaker Phone Auto answer (Headset or car kit) Voice Dial (Headset or car kit) Auto hands free (car kit) Power Off Delay (car kit) Charger Time (car kit) Data And Fax Calls Send / Receive Data or fax Talk The Fax Network Features Network Settings Personal Organizer Add, View Date book Event Event Reminder Set Alarm/off Create, Play Voice Record Calculator Currency Converter The personal Organizing Feature is actually quite simple, but good nonetheless. Entry into the event reminder is simple with intelligent text entry elimination keystrokes on common phrases. The calculator is quick and makes efficient use of the 5 way navigational buttons doubling for arithmetic functions. Security SIM Pin Lock Application News And Entertainment Launch Micro-browser Download Objects Web Sessions Apply Phone Theme Download, Launch Game Application Manage Pictures, Manage, edit Sounds with Motomixer Create Ring Tones DISPLAY The Home screen Opens to display your wallpaper or any of the manufacturer supplied pieces of art (which are, in my opinion useless), the time, date and mode the phone is in. A 5 position navigation key take to ring styles, games & applications, phonebook, call lists or hitting the center button to access: Messages Web Access Recent Calls Cingular Mall - My provider offers ring tones, graphics, games, multimedia messaging Games and Apps Office Tools, Phone Book Settings Multimedia Like many interactive devices, the screen is an integral liaison to the many functions and monitoring of those features. The V400's screen keeps you abreast of Data transmission, GPRS indicator, Signal Strength, a Java midlet to apprise you of active Java applications, message indicator Battery level indicator and ring style indicator. I found the display to be quite useful, especially the battery level indicator. Practical Considerations For the most part, you can access all menus to access phone features by way of the 5 point navigational system. Thereupon you embark on a series of menus to get to your destined option. Could it be a less traveled procedure? Certainly, but once you consider the many functions that are available on the Motorola V400, it becomes apparent that 1, 4 or 5 step process is easily tolerated for the result. Yes it would be more convenient and a time saver to reduce the tired menus but for the meantime it is simply as good as it gets, which is no consolation but simply a procedure that you will have to judge on its merit. Size may be a issue for some users considering the diminutive footprint of many phones today. That is simply the state of flip phones and I dare say a point that will not change for the convenience of a flip display. Ring selection is a weak point here. There are a few that I find useable but for the most part not. You can, for those midi-capable users create your own and download it via messenger, but other than that you can personalize your phone by downloading any number of rings from your service provider. Ring volume, as well as the vibrating function, are both good. Battery Life I have been on both sides of this argument with Motorola phones. There is a fair amount of content on the net indicating the less desirable battery life with this phone. I cannot disagree more. The key here is to fully charge and discharge your batter on a plug-in charger, Not a car unit, at least half a dozen times to break in the battery. I can get 4 days of complete use without ever having to charge; and that includes using the display, speakerphone and a lot of curious scrolling. You really cannot expect more from this phone. GSM technology is what the doctor prescribed for good reception. I have had fewer dropouts and better reception in know weak areas. This alone is a major step forward! CONCERNS Perhaps my only concerns at this point are the uneven lighting on keypad. The keyboard is backlit in blue but seems brighter in the middle of the keyboard leaving the lower left and right of the pad a bit dimmer, though it is still quite visible in total darkness. While this is a minor concern it should not dissuade a prospective buyer especially in light of the items in the plus column. Simply for the sake of picking, I would have to say the center button on the 5 way navigational buttons is a little small for many users and a deliberate and pointed movement is necessary to make your selection. Here again, it is a minor hiccup. Is the Motorola V 400 a homerun? The answer is yes. The Motorola V400 certainly would have mass appeal to a variety of users and it's reputation as a performer is solid though yet to be fully unveiled. Time has a strange way of making us change our first impressions in the realm of electronics. I will keep you apprised on what time tells. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88077 2000/6/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 built in digital camera internet ready speakerphone plus much more resets display backgroundring tones automatically disconnects automatically The Bottom LineThe Motorola V400 has a lot to offer, but I recommend to buy another Motorola model! Full Review The Motorola V400 seems to be a phone that has it all except Bluetooth, which can be added with the Motorola Bluetooth adapter. There is a built-in digital camera of two resolution settings and a 4x zoom; the lower resolution is only recommended for photos kept on the phone to the save memory space, any photos transferred to a PC with optional accessories are best in the better resolution. The V400 has a beautiful silver finish with an outside display (when the phone is closed) that shows the signal strength, battery level, time of the day and who is calling when the phone is ringing. The display also lights up beautifully when someone calls for easy viewing. Opening up the flip phone reveals a nice large size color screen; one of the feature I love about the phone because a large screen displays more information that is easier to see. When you first open it up, the screen is back lighted for easy viewing; you can make different back light time settings in the setup. Also when you open it up all the buttons illuminate in a pretty blue which is a nice eye catcher and easy to see. The phone has many features like polyphonic and MP3 ring tones, a picture phonebook, custom phonebook, calendar appointment keeper plus many more nice features. The phone can be used as a speakerphone; this feature works well as long as you are within a couple of feet from the phone; if you go across the room the listener cannot hear you, though you can hear them clearly. There are many setup features so you can customize the phone to your preferences. Other Features! Here is a list of many features that I haven't mentioned earlier. The Display ->Internal: 65k TFT Color (176 x 220) 4 Lines of Text and 1 Line of Icons ->External: 2 Line (96 x 32) Games ->Bejeweled ->Prince of Persia ->Plus you can download new games Downloadable ->Themes ->Animated screensavers ->Ringtones ->Games ->Wallpaper Alerts ->21 Embedded Midi ringtones ->4 MP3 Ringtones ->Polyphonic Ringtones Phone Book ->1000 entries on the phone ->250 on SIM card Picture Phonebook More! Calculator and Currency Converter ~ Date and Clock ~ Date-book with Reminder Alerts ~ 22 KHz Polyphonic Speaker, 24 level support ~ MotoMixer (Remixable MIDI ringer software) ~ User-customizable Softkey Functions, Main Menu and Shortcuts ~ Caller Group Profiling (Ringer & Icon) ~ Time and Date Stamp ~ VibraCall Alert ~ Voice-activated dialing ~ Multimedia messaging (Picture/photo + text + sound) ~ EMS 5.0 ~ SMS Chat one-to-one ~ Quick Messages: 10 user-definable SMS ~ Instant Messaging Support: (Wireless Village 1.1) Embedded client ~ Email: STMP, POP3, IMAP4 ~ PIM Functionality ~ GPRS (2u/4d) AMR ~ WAP Browser version 2.01 ~ Connectivity CE Bus (USB/Serial) ~ Synchronization with PC (Software and accessories "OPTIONAL") ~ Bands: Quad-Band GSM3 850/900/1800/1900 MHz ~ Standard Battery: Li-Ion 700 mAh ~ Talk Time: Up to 210-420 minutes ~ Standby Time: Up to 130-220 hours ~ Internal Memory 5MB My Final Thoughts! The Motorola V400 seemed to have everything I needed in a cellular phone, plus some! My wife and I have had two Motorola V400 phones since November 2004; at first they were like a new toy to both of us with the color display and the built-in camera. The display is a rich color that brightens up the phone; especially with using a photo of my grandchildren for the background of the display. The camera is fair with the maximum resolution of 640 x 480; a decent digital camera with a resolution of 640 x 480 is much better than what the V400 produces. The camera on the phone is nice when you need to take a photo and your digital camera is not around, but a digital camera is the best way to go for digital photos. I printed a few 4 x 6 inch prints from the 640 x 480 resolution photos; they aren't bad, but they are nothing to brag about. There are many ring tones to pick from; I also purchased the CD and PC-to-V400 connector where I can load on any ring tone, MP3 file or photo I wish. I got the software to download any photos that I may want to print up or save and to upload photos and ringtones. This phone actually has so many features that more than half of them will never be used by my wife and I. The problems with the phones were first small and we didn't think much about them; problems like ring tones would reset back to factory settings and the background photos would also do it once in a while. After about the first month my wife's phone started disconnecting while she was talking on the phone. The disconnecting would start after about 15 minutes of talking on the phone, then before long, 10 minutes on the phone and then every five minutes on the phone. It was time to take hers back to get it fixed; well the technician said it just needed the newer software loaded on it, so he done that to both phones. Everything was working fine after that, then about 3 weeks later my wife's phone started disconnecting again; this time her phone was sent to a factory repair service center where they said they had to solder a wire. As of today hers seem to be doing fine; mine has not been sent off yet, but I guess I will have to because it did disconnect on me once. The bad part was my phone provider "Cellular One," has no service technicians any more, so we have to send the phone off to get repaired; it came back in about a week. I had to pay to ship it out, but it is covered by warranty and the shipping back is free. Another bad thing is after November of this year the warranty runs out and I have a 2 year contract with Cellular One; so if there are any problems I will have to pay out of my pocket for repair or buy a new expensive phone. If we had one phone with problems I would say it is a small manufacturing defect, but we have two V400 phones that have given us both trouble. I have a friend that also has a V400 for about a year now; it was working great, but now it won't keep a charge for more than a day even after replacing the battery, he is planning on getting a new phone. So I feel like the Motorola V400 is a "LEMON;" I have read a few reviews here at Epinions where others have had problems with their V400 phone. Now as far as keeping charge it hasn't given us any trouble and the times to charge it up are lot less than the Motorola V60 we had before. The talk time on the V60 was about one and half hours, with the V400 my wife has talked to our daughter up to two and half hours with power to spare. Now charging time is about 3 hours and we only charge the phones once or twice a week, depending on usage. As far as reception, the V400 does an excellent job with a good sound clarity; sound clarity is important for me since I have a hearing loss in both ears. Don't get discouraged by a Motorola phone just because the V400 seems to be a lemon; my wife and I have used Motorola phones for years without any problems what so ever. Next time I get a new phone, it will probably be a Motorola again, but I will get a model that has been out for a while so I can check out several reviews to see if there have been any problems with the phone. I just hope these two lemons don't get any sourer than what they are! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88076 2004/5/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice applications integrated camera integrated speakerphone stylish flip phonedesign somewhat lower volume on headsetearpiece lack of ring tones included on phone The Bottom LineOverall excellent phone with a mild quirk on earpiece and headset volume settings. Good for World Travelers since can it can accept all 4 GSM frequencies. Full Review My Motorola V70 was showing its age from the 200 hours of talk time I've put on it over the past 18 months of use as a Cingular customer. Thankfully, I puchased the v70 for $249 plus another $40 for the 2 year extended warranty from Best Buy (this is before taxes and the numerous mail-in rebates I received with the unit totaling $180 in rebates). My V70 had problems with sending and receiving calls... mostly due to due signal reception. Also, the V70's 2.5 mm hands free jack had been unusable (all static when calling and receiving calls from others) for nearly 8 months now. In February 2004, I walked into Best Buy hoping to find a phone I would like... the only phone I found in the last few months was a new tiny Samsung phone that I didn't find to my liking. However, today was my lucky day, Best Buy just received the brand new Motorola V400 for Cingular cellular service. At least I can keep most of my cellular phones accessories for the V70 (only the battery was incompatible between the V70 and V400). Overall, I earned $10 for updating the V70 to the V400 (paid $40 to renew the 2 year service contract but got $50 mail-in rebate from Cingular). About my cellular use I have two cellular phones... which were both from Cingular. One on Cingular's GSM service and one on Cingular's TDMA service. I typically make my calls in the tri-state area and run anywhere from 700 to 2000 minutes of talk time a month. I switched my Cingular TDMA cell service to Verizon wireless in early March 2004. I have owned various cellular phones including the early Nokia 100, 2160, 5160, and 6160. I've owned (or other members of my family) several Motorola models including a really old StarTac, V60, and V70. Currently, I am using the V400 from Motorola and the . My family still have active Cingular service while using a Motorola V60 and a Nokia 6160. Short Take The V400 is a solid phone that is attractive looking if you don't cover it with a leather case. The V400 is stuffed with features and is functionally similar to the V300 used with T-Mobile's service and the V600 (not offered in the Us yet?). As with most Motorola flip phones, it is solidly built and comfortable in your hands or cradled between your head and shoulder. The V400 also adds numerous features such as a built-in speakerphone, VGA camera, external caller ID/time display, polyphonic speaker, built-in games, personal information management features, and your standard text and picture messaging... oh if you want, there is limited web browsing abilities if you pay your service carrier the appropriate fees. Otherwise, the phone has some features that are weaker than phones from other makers. For example, the earpiece volume is lower than my and this also translates to the headphone jack. Overall, I love the V400 although I wished that the earpiece and hands free volume could be louder (like on my ). The features and the speakerphone in particular are major pluses for this phone. 1) Nice casing, flip design with color LCD internal display and external monochrome display (for caller ID and time). 2) Integrated speakerphone 3) Integrated VGA camera (no flash and no optical zoom) 4) World Phone... operates on all four GSM frequencies used in the world (850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands) 5) Large buttons 6) Lighted keypad 7) Fairly easy to use menus with custom user settings 8) Long battery life. 210-420 minutes talk time. 130-220 hours of standby. 9) Two games included! Bejeweled and Prince of Persia! 10) Useful and fairly easy to use Personal Information Management software/programs. 11) Accepts most of the accessories from the V60 and V70 series phone 12) V300 and V600 phones are almost identical to this phone with a few cosmetic changes and addition/loss of minor features. 1) Volume of earpiece and hands free 2.5mm is average for cellular phones but significantly lower than my LG VX6000. 2) Phonebook not as flexible as the ones from other manufacturers 3) VGA camera has no optical zoom or flash. It also takes so-so pictures (common with cell phones and PDAs with built-in phones). 4) Speakerphone quirks First and Foremost, Let's Talk! The V400 offered improved reception over my V70. I rarely had less than 3 bars of signal strength where my V70 often had 2 bars. Calls to other cell phones and landlines resulted with clear calls unless the signal strength fell below two bars. I felt calls were overall clear and I could understand what the other person was saying... although the maximum volume of the earpiece is somewhat low. The volume using a handsfree set was also somewhat low as well. I gotten up to 3 1/2 hours of talk time with a full charge on the included slim battery. Typically, I get 2 1/2 hours of talk time over two days with roaming through areas of no signal strength (within the hospital) to full strength. Not bad... supposedly, there is an extended battery unit available (which includes a new battery cover to fit the extended bulk of the extended battery). The external 96x32 pixel display shows you all the status icons (battery indicator, message waiting, signal indicator, java indicator, time or caller ID). If the number is in your phonebook, the entry will show up on the external display if the phone is flip closed. If the phone is open, the external display only shows the word Cingular. The internal display shows the caller ID instead. The speakerphone is loud and quite clear but you can only use it after you initiate the call through the earpiece or the handsfree set. You cannot answer the phone through the speakerphone directly. It takes up to 5 seconds for the speakerphone to connect after you place or answer the call from the phone. The only other problem with the speakerphone is that the people I called have some difficulty hearing me since the microphone seems to pick up the ambient noise in the area I'm in. Otherwise, the speaker is very loud and can be easily heard and understood from 5 feet away. Specs? The phone is 3.5 x 1.93 x 1 inches in size (flipped closed). The phone extends to about 6 inches when flipped open. The phone weighs about 4.3 oz. with the included slim battery. The internal display is a 176x220 pixel LCD screen capable of 65,000 colors. The phone powers off the internal screen when the keypad is not pressed for a few seconds to conserve power. The external display is a two line LCD display of 96x32 pixels. The text and symbols are displayed in light blue with a bright blue backlight for the text and symbols (not the entire screen). The display never turns off as long as the phone is on. You have your standard 12 key dialpad with large nicely spaced buttons. There is a five way circular navigator with call start and end buttons to either side of the navigator. Above the navigator are three buttons for accessing options and menus even when you are in the middle of a call. On the left side of the phone (you're looking at the front of the phone), you have the volume control and a user definable button below that. The right side of the phone has a button to activate voice calling/voice memo recording/call recording (yes you can record your calls to the internal memory!). The speakerphone speaker is on the back of the phone. There is a eyelet for a strap on the top of the closed phone near the antenna. The 2.5 mm handsfree jack on the top panel on the left side of the phone. The display is quite clear and even the orange color scheme of cingular looks good on the screen and matches the style of the phone. The pictures installed into the phone look very nice with vivid colors. The screen is one of the easiest screen I've seen to read in sunlight as well. Best of all, the bright screen doesn't affect the battery life too much with the way the V400 executes its power saving features. The speaker on this unit is quite loud and rings can still be heard even when in the folds of a heavy winter jacket. Alarms and other audio cues issue clearly and crisply. The speaker and audio system on the phone is polyphonic so it can create quite pleasing melodies if you download/buy them from Cingular. Otherwise, the selection of tones already on the phone is a bit anemic overall. Kodak Moments? Personally, I think the camera is one of the better implementation of a camera on a cellular phone... but still, the quality is still quite lacking. Pictures are 640x480 at maximal resolution but you can take smaller 320x240 and 160x120 sized photos as well. The number of pictures you can take is limited only by the amount of free memory on the phone. It seemed that you have up to 5.5 MB of memory on the phone but it is shared between all the applications on the phone. The camera has brightness settings and up to a 4x digital zoom but still the camera is extremely limited. You have no optical zoom or a flash. To have a chance of getting a good picture, you need moderate to bright lighting. Otherwise, the pictures had the occassional thin orange lines that marred an otherwise decent picture. Forget about capturing any swift movement with the higher resolution settings... they tend to come out as a blur. The camera is more of a toy than anything serious but it is good enough for picture messaging and for memo shots. An upside is that you can use the photos you take and attach them to your phonebook entries. The picture will pop up with the caller ID if the phone is flipped open. A nice touch yes? Software The V400 has quite a bit of software installed on it. This includes an easy to use calculator, alarm clock, datebook, text messaging, and voice memos. This calculator is one of the better implementations of a calculator that I've seen to date... making good use of the 5-way navigator. The calculator also can also calculate percentage functions and currency conversions (after inputing a conversion rate). The alarm clock is easy to set and can be set to a fairly loud volume... louder than any of my Palm PDAs at least. The datebook is decent with the only drawback of using a telephone keypad to input the necessary information into the V400. Voice memos can be quite useful... and you can record your telephone conversations as well! I will not comment on the standard phone features like text messaging and voice mail access. I haven't tried the web browsing software so I can't comment on that. How about the Phonebook? Overall, the phonebook application is quite robust. You can store one phone number with a picture of the person, a voice name for handsfree calling, email address, a second phone number, and even a special ring tone for that person. All entries can be saved to the phone memory or the SIM card... although only the number and phonebook ID entry and description are saving onto the SIM card. All entries can be organized into catagories for easier sorting as well. Games? You get two cool games on the V400. The ever popular Bejeweled puzzle game... which started and stormed the Palm OS PDAs first is as addictive as ever. The other is the Prince of Persia... not based on the current 3D version available on XBox, PS2, and PCs now but the version that shipped with the 1980s that ran on the Apple II systems... specifically, the Apple IIc since that what I had at that time. Quite a blast from the past. My Final Word It's a great phone overall with the only significant issue of earpiece volume and handsfree volume being a bit on the lower side. Otherwise, the phone is sold only by Cingular normally for $99-$199 depending on the mail-in rebate promotion being offered. You can get "unlocked" phones that can work with other GSM services like AT&T (soon to be part of Cingular) and T-Mobile. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -10Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7725 Motorola 120e Mobile Phone 88132 2003/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 gorgeous body unbendable antenna cheap with promotions new features antenna doesn t extend b w screen not too easy to find faceplates best place is inkatomi net I bought the 120e from Verizon with a promotional plan. I got the first phone for $20 and the second one free. I chose the 120-series after seeing a friends' 120c. I think the e is the most beautiful one yet. The silver casing is smooth and shiny, accented by silver buttons and backlight that glow a lovely shade of blue. The voice recognition and headset jack make this a breeze to use in the car - just say the name of the person you want to call, and it autodials. The e brings new features to the 120 series: a calendar/datebook, unbendable antenna, new games, new ringtones, and a great body! I would definitely recommend this item to anyone looking for a nice-looking, cheap phone. 88131 2004/2/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 very attractive design blue screen terrible reception This was my very first cell phone and I was so frustrated with it I felt like canceling service and giving up on the idea of having a cell phone. The reception was HORRIBLE!! People I called could not even hear me over the static. It was totally useless. I must say though I liked the features and attractive design and loved the blue screen,but those things don't matter when you can't even use the phone to call anyone. 88130 2004/5/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 holster connector display nice design backlighting poor reception insufficient volume recharge jack design no alarm clock My provider (Alltel) offers a choice of two bare-bones phone models for free: this one and the Nokia 3585i. Attracted by the stylish design and nice display backlighting, I chose the Motorola - bad move. My main issue with it is that the reception was poor compared to my old Nokia (which had recently died). Additionally, the speaker volume was insufficient even at its loudest setting. Finally, the recharge jack uses a poor flimsy design that I anticipated would have trouble connecting; I was correct and as expected, it just got worse with time. Finally, the thing just died this past weekend, less than one year since I got it. This time went with the (you guessed it) Nokia. In addition to the nice design and backlighting, the Motorola gets bonus points for the swivel belt clip holster connector in the back of the phone: one of the few holster designs I've ever seen that was durable and functional. 88129 2003/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice feel in hand great reception nice blue backlight antenna doesn t break no games I used the Motorola v120c cellphone for a long time. I really liked it because it got great reception (when it had an antenna) and I loved the text messaging system it uses. The major thing I hated about it was that the antenna broke ALL THE TIME! I would sometimes just take it out of my pocket and then SNAP! I found myself getting it fixed every few months or even weeks. With the 120e, it has a non-adjustable antenna so it DOESN'T BREAK! This was a big plus. It gets great reception, is small, has ALL the features of the old 120c and more. This time around it has a nice datebook, a calculator and a few other things. A few obvious changes are the fact that it has a blue (rather than green) backlight, and a silver (rather than black) cover. This is a great phone for people who find cellphones confusing, or people with a lot of experience. 88128 2004/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life price locking features appearance features no color display games are a little boring Great phone, the only cons are minimal things that don't matter to me personally - i.e. color screen. Amazing battery life! 88127 2003/11/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to learn how to use great reception more difficult to change faceplate but i haven t wanted to yet anyway I love this phone! I am able to pick up a signal anywhere. My mom just got a cell phone this past weekend, and in fact after using a Nokia model for 2 days, she took it back and got one just like mine. I can hear the person on the other line just as clearly as if they were standing by me. This phone was easy for me to learn how to use and it is my first cell phone. 88126 2004/5/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 background light is cool way to hard to charge I am on my 3rd Motorola 120e!! I would love to get a different phone, but since I am still under warranty Verizon just keeps giving me a new one. After about 3 months the phone becomes VERY, VERY hard to charge. I have to set something heavy on the antenna, and then something heavy on the charger just to get the right "connection" so it will charge. It is very frustrating. I can't wait to get a different phone!! 88125 2005/6/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 free works good uncomfortable basic ugly no color screen I got this phone free when I signed up for service with my provider. it's just that a free phone. Being my first cell phone, I thought it was pretty cool for awhile. This phone is tough, I dropped it so many times and it being a non flip phone is alot of the reason it was so tough. The phone kept on working and working through days and hours of use and like I said being knocked around and dropped from time to time. I used this phone for a little over a year, and it kept on working flawless. The battery life isn't the greatest, I could talk on it fully charged for a little over 2 hours and it went dead without much warning. This is a digital phone which is good it helped the overall quality of the clearness of the conversation, but is far from the best. I didn't like the little tiny matrix screen (No Color) and it doesn't have many ringtones or really any real options, besides voice recorder, which I never used. This phone is outdated time to upgrade to something better. 88124 2000/6/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to navigate backlighting makes it easy to see poor call quality fades inout when it shouldn t The Bottom LineOnly if you know this phone works well in your area should you invest in it. Full Review Something about this particular handset just isn't right. It works well for some, but for most it doesn't. Something is wrong with a few of them internally according to what I heard from an Alltel Representative friend of mine. The phone retails from $167-$169, but instant rebate specials make the phone a penny or free. I have experience with this phone and it tends to fade in and out or not reach out in places where other handsets from the same carrier can. I am not sure if it is an antenna problem or what it is, but for the Ohio Valley, the phone has proven to be a cell phone owner's nightmare. As for ease of use, the phone is relatively easy to use. It is just like your typical cellular phone with your basics such as call timers, etc. The blue backlighting also makes it easy to see. Some elderly users enjoy the fact that they can see it well. Again, some are very happy with this phone, but my personal experience with it has caused me to give it a thumbs down. Also, the fact that my Alltel friend says many customers have returned them tells me that there is an ongoing problem. Quite strange for such a prominent company such as Motorola who invented the oh so popular StarTac. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88123 2000/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 battery life reception looks lots of features for the price volume small monochrome display menu navigation excessive side buttons are easy to hit accidentally charger The Bottom LinePass on this phone, there are better choices. Has potential, but basic functionality problems outweigh the good. Full Review I got this phone for free, with my plan renewal. The thing that attracted me to this phone was the styling, and the blue back-light. Let's start off with the good things. It has a ton of features, many of which I'll never use. Reception is good, and the price is good. Above all, the styling. Unfortunately, there is more bad than good. The phone uses a goofy, flimsy plug for battery charging, that is prone to all sorts of problems. Many times I'll plug the charger in, and it won't charge the phone because of a bad connection. It's not in the charger either, because my work phone is also a Motorola, different model, and it uses the same charger. Using either charger makes no difference; the charger connection was simply a bad engineering idea. The other really annoying thing is that the volume will not turn up loud enough. My hearing is perfect, yet the slightest background noise makes it almost impossible to hear your conversation. Other minor annoying things: Too many buttons on the sides, that are prone to being bumped all the time. Often, I have recorded voice notes or changed the volume unknowingly. The display is a bit too small, and lacks color. Sending text messages takes a long time, and menu navigation could be better. My phone keeps developing static in the speaker, and has been serviced twice in the past year. The phone overall is a nice phone, but what good is it if you can hardly hear the other party, and the battery can't be charged at times? Maybe I just got a lemon? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88122 2003/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception nice blue silver combo awesome battery life lots of features typing text messages can be tricky long menus to scroll thru The Bottom LineThis phone is great for people who want lots of features and function, while still having a great looking phone! Full Review My Nokia phone isn't too old, but it's been dropped a few times, and the battery life was beyond pathetic. I would fully charge it, and get about a days use out of it. This happened even when it was brand new, and after two years, my mom and I decided we needed/wanted new phones. So off to Verizon we went, and got our plan changed, and with that, new phones. My mom actually is the one who picked this phone out, and was absolutely shocked that I wanted something that she did. I guess she thought it wasn't cool..I don't really know. But, we are both really happy with how the phones are working so far. I was attracted to the Motorola 120e, like most people, because of its looks. It has a small curvy silver body, with neat translucent silver buttons. Best of all is the blue led backlight. Not only is it blindingly bright to the point where it hurts my eyes to look at sometimes, it's BLUE. Blue and very pretty. So what exactly are the features this phone has, you ask? There are games, the ability to browse the internet, the ability to activate/buy an MP3 player that works with the phone, a phonebook, a datebook that can be set up to sound an alarm when the time comes for whatever you put as an event, text messaging, and voice key codes. I don't have the web browsing because you have to pay extra for that, and since I have a perfectly good computer at home, I see no point. I'm already a net' addict, I don't need to carry that ability around with me. The MP3 player is also a feature I don't have. Text messaging works beautifully on this phone. It even tells you when the person has read your message, which is nice. Punching in all the letters can take a looonngg time though, and don't mess up and hit the wrong key that accidently deletes your message! But, again, the main thing is that this is a phone, not a PDA, so of course it's going to be hard to type on! Reception on my phone is great. My BF remarked that my voice is much clearer and louder on this phone than on my old one. I do get slight echo/static sometimes, but as far as I know, that happens with most phones. The battery life of the phone is awesome. It not only charges super fast, it is smart and switches to Loud ringer if you have it set on Vibrate. That way it won't sit there vibrating off your table to fall off onto the floor, while you think it's charging. Smart feature! In the phone stats, it says that battery life is about 150-260 mins or 85-400 hrs for each charge, and I believe it! The antenna is a snub, so no more snagging it on clothing, or accidently bending it, which is nice. The screen doesn't have any protection, and does scratch, so if you care about that, buy a holder for it. It tells you if there were missed calls, and displays it on the screen. Also, there is caller ID, so you can see who is calling you before answering [or choosing not to answer] your phone. The rings are LOUD. I have mine set for the lowest volume and it still is loud. There are also "42 Preset 32 Customizable Ringers" in the phone, so you have a selection. The only qaulm I have is that the motorola site has nothing for one to download to thier phone in the way of customizing the ringers. I was sad when I realized that I couldn't do that. The instruction manual, should you need to use it, is very simple to follow. There are step by step instructions for every feature in the phone, and an index so you can easily find what you want. The voice key feature is another one I haven't taken advantage of. It's free, and good for people who like to talk on the phone while driving, regardless of how dangerous that could be. This eliminates fumbling with the buttons on the phone, because you record the name of say, Jim, into the phonebook with Jim's number, and when you say Jim, it dials the phone for you. I have no idea if this actually works well or not, since I have yet to use it, but it seems handy. The phone also has a special setting for driving. It can route the call directly to your car kit, or do hands free with a headset, which makes it MUCH Safer to talk! I love all the features, but it sort of sucks that you have to buy the FM radio accessory, the MP3 accesory, the ringers, and the adapter cables just to take advantage of them. But at least they are there for those who can afford to do so! All in all this phone has totally met the expectations we had of it, and gone beyond in some. It's easy to use, has nice features, and looks cool too! If you want a great phone, I recommend this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 63Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88121 2003/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features battery life styling price relatively small display earpiece volume low compared to other models The Bottom LineAffordable Handset That Offers A Wide Feature Set Along With Durability And Attractive Styling. One Of The Best In Its Price Range. Full Review I'd like to begin by mentioning that I have been a Verizon Wireless corporate accounts representative for almost seven years now. Needless to say, I've seen a GREAT deal of handsets come and go during that time period. Some good, some bad, and everything in between. I've enjoyed seeing the evolution of the wireless phone over the past few years, as every new generation builds upon itself and offers more to the consumer. The newer Motorola v120e offers a lot of bang for the buck. Read on to see what makes this phone a worthwhile purchase! Specs 1X - Tri-Mode - CDMA With Optional Accessories Interchangeable SoftWraps Voice dialing and feature recall Speed dial and one touch dialing Internet browser E911 capable Full Two-way text messaging Predictive text Personal Information Manager calculator, date book, message center and phonebook Phonebook stores up to 500 names and numbers with multiple listings per name 37 preprogrammed and 32 customizable alerts plus 5 vibracall alerts 5 new games (New feature from previous v120c) 2.5mm headset jack Supports TTY and HATIS 1 year limited warranty Meets FCC SAR limit. Manufacturer's highest FCC reported SAR 1.59 at ear, 0.69 on body. Actual SAR may vary. Dimensions: 5.0" High x 1.7" Wide x 1.1" Deep Battery Life: Standby Time - Up to 250 Hours Talk Time - Roughly 3 1/2 Hours Weight - 4.5 Ounces The size and weight of the v120e is relatively average in the marketplace. It's a good size for those that don't want a phone that is too big or too small; I'd say just about right for most. For those that are unfamiliar, the "1X" capability within this handset allows for high speed data connectivity (specific pricing plan and mobile office kit required). Appearance The styling of the v120e is very similar to its predecessor, the v120c. The most noticable difference being the silver housing and the blue backlighting on the "e" model. It has an attractive appearance that most will find to be appealing. The antenna on this newer handset is what is referred to as "non-retractable". This is a big advantage for those who have broken their antennas on previous Motorola models. This was a common problem with the StarTac, v60i, v60c, and the v120c. The caveat to the shorter antenna length can potentially be slightly diminished signal strength in weak areas, but the pluses outweigh the minuses here for those that are hard on their phones (construction workers, etc.) Some may find the display to be a little too small for readability while driving or taking a quick glance at the handset. This is one of the primary complaints I receive from my customers regarding this model. For those whose eyes are a farcry from 20/20, you may want to look into the LG VX-4400, which I have also written a review on. It has some of the largest digits on its screen of any phone out there and with plenty of contrast (white background with black numerals). For everyone else, the v120e should be fine. Some refer to this phone as the "peanut" phone, due to its shape. It has minor indentations on each side of the housing, which allows for a better grip. A definite plus for those who might be wearing work gloves while using the phone or those who are just plain accident prone. Performance I have, for the most part, been a big fan of Motorola products ever since I entered the industry seven years ago. They tend to be durable, stylish, and good performers. The v120e would fit this profile in just about every respect. I usually recommend this phone to my business customers who want a low cost option with a full feature set and a phone that is durable enough to withstand the punishment that their field employees will be putting them through. With voice activated dialing, a 500 name phone book, mobile web capability, text messaging capability, vibra-call, 37 different ringers, and 5 included games (previously not included on the v120c); this phone has all of the essentials. Okay, games aren't really essential, but they're a great way to pass time while waiting for a take-out order! Given how many people ask the question, "Will playing games on my phone run up my bill?"; I'd like to let everyone know that they do not use airtime minutes. Some phones differ in this respect, but with the five included with the v120e, you're fine. After being in the business sales department for seven years, I feel more confident putting a Motorola or Samsung in the hands of people that are going to be hard on their phones than just about any other model we offer. If durability is of the utmost concern to you, then I would steer you in the above mentioned direction. You should also recognize that as phones get smaller, the propensity for damage upon impact increases greatly. For example, the v60i would have less chance of surviving a significant drop in my opinion than the v120e. The v60i was a compact flip phone we offered for a couple of years. The v120e does well in terms of signal strength. I switched a good friend of mine from an early Kyocera model to the v120, and he was then able to make calls from his house, where he wasn't able to previously. I should forewarn that if you are going to be going into weak areas on any type of regular basis, and your phone is extremely important to you, then you may want to consider a handset with a retractable antenna, such as the Kyocera 2325. The average user should be fine either way, so I wouldn't allow this attribute to dictate your decision. The battery life rates rather well on the v120e, particularly when it comes to standby time. At up to 250 hours, this handset clocks in quite a bit higher than most others in the marketplace. This can be a real asset for those that leave their phones on 24/7, as I do. You never want to be caught in a precarious situation with a dead battery, such as sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire. A cell phone with a dead battery will be about as much use to you as a brick at that point. I'd like to mention one additional complaint that I hear relatively often about the v120 series, which is the volume of the earpiece. I have received a number of complaints from users that they have a hard time hearing while driving. Again, this will vary from individual to individual, so you should really try the phone out for yourself before making any decisions. Quite a few Verizon Wireless retail stores have active handsets that allow you to make a test call prior to purchase. If not, you always have the 15 day "Worry Free Guarantee" to bring the phone back in the event that you don't like it and subsequently switch to another model. Conclusion I like the Motorola v120e and encourage people to purchase it on a regular basis. It is priced well, particularly for the number of features included. I don't know that it is necessarily worth upgrading to if you have the former v120c, but it would definitely be a good contender for anyone looking at the v120 series for the first time. I would strongly recommend that you decide what features/attributes are most important to you in a wireless phone and then use this review to help you determine if the v120e is a good match to meet your needs! Headsets Although some states already restrict drivers from using their phones while on the road, most do not. Regardless of the law, it just makes sense to be smart. I use a headset for 90% of my calling due to convenience, safety, and to minimize my exposure to RF radiation, since I am on the phone 5-6 hours per day (I'm not the average user by any means!). I personally use the Plantronics M175 headset, which is about the best headset I've used yet. You can read my review by clicking on the following link:. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88120 2000/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception attractive in appearance user friendly very expensive if purchased at full price The Bottom LineIf you are looking for an attractive yet user friendly mobile phone, then this Motorola 120e is a great choice! Full Review Last summer, I purchased the from my local Verizon Wireless dealer as part of my new plan. It's been a great little phone and I couldn't be happier with it. Only a few months ago, my husband changed jobs and no longer had access to the company cell phone as he had before. Borrowing my phone from time to time wasn't good enough for him, so off we went to get him a new phone and add him to my service, the Family Share Plan. For just $29.95 for the new Motorola 120e Digital Wireless Phone and an extra $20 a month, we are now a two wireless phone family. And in the few months he's owned this phone, I've had plenty of chances to play around with my manly man's new favorite "toy." Read on to find out more about this attractive yet user friendly wireless choice. ~~~The Wireless Phone~~~ Specially created for Verizon Wireless customers, the Motorola 120e is the newest edition in the 120 model line. Silver in color yet otherwise quite similar to my black Motorola 120c, this wireless phone features a cool blue lighted background on both the display window and the keys when it's turned on. The lithium ion battery included keeps its charge for days on end. You'll get a mid-rate charger along with this phone, but other accessories must be purchased separately as desired. The Motorola website advertises the list price of this wireless phone to be $179.00, but there's NO WAY I would pay that much myself!! $29.95 along with our contract was plenty. The phone itself is less than 5 inches in length, which is a bit bigger than many tiny phones on the market today. But it's definitely small enough to fit inside a purse or clipped on a belt. The lightweight yet durable Motorola 120e offers a one year limited warranty ~~~Detailed Specs~~~ ***4.5 oz. - weight of phone with standard battery ***5.0 x 1.7 x 1.1 in. - size of phone with standard battery ***For use on CDMA 800/1900 MHz and analog 800 MHz networks ***Voice Activated Dialing and Feature Recall ***Two-way SMS messaging - allows you to send, receive and store short alphanumeric text messages with another compatible wireless device or email address ***WAP 1.1 Enabled Microbrowser - access stock prices, local news and sport scores, all wireless! ***Built-In Phonebook - store up to 500 entries to help you stay in touch with friends and contacts ***74 distinctive ring tones including 32 customizable tones through MyTones™ feature ***VibraCall® alert - to discreetly notify you of incoming calls. ***New Menu Navigation - travel effortlessly through your phone with enhanced visual queues and a list-based menu iTAP™ software for simplified text entry - anticipates the word you are trying to spell when entering text in email, short messages or other edit modes. ***Multi-point Synchronization - using optional Starfish® True Sync® software you can perform multipoint synchronization with compatible PIM manager devices, desktop applications and web based services ***FM Stereo Headset and MP3 player compatibility - both sold separately ***Caller ID (01) - with time and date stamp - allows you to view the phone number (or name, if stored in the user directory) of incoming calls before answering. ***Multi-Language Support - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French ***Provides up to 150-260 minutes of talk time when used with high performance battery ***Provides up to 85-400 hours of standby time when used with high performance battery ***Optimax® High Contrast Display ***96 x 64 graphic LED backlit display; up to 3 lines of text, 1 line of icons, and 1 line of prompts ***Voice Dialing ***Automatic Redial ***Multiple Key Answer ***Numeric Notepad ***One-Touch Dialing ***Speed Dial ***Memory--Last 10 Numbers Dialed ***Memory--Last 10 calls received ***Phone Book - up to 500 entries ***Battery Meter ***Missed Call Indicator ***Roaming ***Text Message Waiting ***Voice Message Waiting ***Signal Strength Meter (always shown in display) ***Clock ***Menu Indicator ***Digital or Analog Signal Indicator ***Alert Setting Indicator ***Automatic Location Information Icon ***Call Restrictions ***Keypad Lock ***Phone Lock ***Application Lock ***New Passwords ***This technical information was taken directly from the Motorola website. ~~~Our Experience~~~ My husband has owned his Motorola 120e for several months now and it always seems to be glued to his hip! He actually enjoys flaunting the fact that his phone looks much cooler than mine does with its silver color and blue lighted display. He enjoys using the Voice Activated Dialing feature although I'd much rather push a few buttons myself. I try not to appear jealous since his new phone has 5 different "embedded" games that can actually be played: Blackjack, Video Poker, Mindblaster, Falling Numbers and Paddleball. His stub antenna cannot be pulled out as mine can, which is a good thing as it is less likely to be accidentally broken off. And his ringer is MUCH louder than mine!! Even on high volume, I have a hard time hearing my phone ring at times, especially if I'm driving or in a public place. In contrast, I can always hear this Motorola 120e ringing from anywhere in the house! It keeps a long lasting charge and usually provides clear reception, providing no "dead spots" are entered when talking while on the road. ~~~Cell Phone Safety Issues~~~ Please use common sense while using the Motorola 120e Digital Wireless Telephone as well as any other cell phone, not only in the name of basic courtesy and safety for others, but for your own as well. Always pull over the side of the road to dial a number and pay particular attention to everything going on around you while talking as any form of distraction can lead to an accident with injuries or even tragic fatalities. The safe use of cell phones while driving has become such a serious issue lately that some states are now considering banning their use altogether for this purpose. So talk smart and be considerate. Your fellow (wo)man will thank you. {Rant on} And please pay attention to those "No Cell Phones" signs when you enter the hospital to visit a sick relative or friend because they are there for a very legitimate reason and not for your inconvenience. The signals they transmit sometimes interfere with medical equipment, which could potentially place patients at a dangerous health risk. So compliance here would be greatly appreciated by both the patients and the hospital staff. {Rant off} ~~~Overall Recommendation~~~ I suppose if I had my choice, I'd secretly trade my Motorola 120c in for the more stylish Motorola 120e. Many of the features are the same although this newer model has things like the games, stub antenna, and 500 number phone book that my model does not have. Yet there are also many other standard features that come in handy as well: the Caller-ID, Missed Call Indicator, and the Built-in Phonebook, just to name a few. But for me, I'd just be happy with a phone that has something simple like a loud ringer as this one does! Yeah, I know it doesn't take much to make me happy :-) But in conclusion, we've received excellent service from Verizon Wireless so far, and this Motorola 120e is just icing on the cake. Good luck and happy wireless phone shopping!! (Stay safe) ***For more information on this Motorola 120e and other great wireless choices, check out their website online at: www.motorola.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This has been my entry to the Manly Write-off. Happy 3rd Epinions Anniversary to our manly hosts: and . Check out the following website for more fine participants!! http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/mypageontheweb/page9.html ***And Happy Anniversary to my own Manly Man!! Married 16 years today :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.95 7726 Motorola V60 88175 2004/3/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 looks cool pretty simple to use build quality not for the long haul scratches easily Pretty simple to use The Motorola v60 is the kind of phone you pop out and your mom says "ooooh" and thinks you're a big-shot lawyer. It's very aesthetically pleasing and shiny with its plastic covers and black inside panels. But after 7 months of use, it really shows the signs of wear and tear. The body scratches easily and the joint between the two upper and lower units starts to see some horizontal flex after a few months of use. So I wouldn't trust it for a two-year contract or beyond. Volume and controls are simple, the setup menu could be better orchestrated, but overall it's a decent basic phone. Compared to what's out there now, with full color displays, games and such, you might be better off looking for new and improved technology. Scratches easily 88174 2004/4/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 display screen sleek looking simple lightweight no alarm clock on this phone I currently am the owner of one of these phones and i find that it's lightweight and easy to use. Lots of good ring tones and sleek looking! Don't delay go and pay for one of these, you won't regret it! 88173 2003/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing antenna I really loved this phone. The reception was always clear and the options were great. The voice recognition was even good. However, the antenna is poorly designed. I've had a V60i for about 10 months. This week, I noticed the antenna was loose. Today, it broke in my pocket. I took it back to Best Buy, and the Mobile Phone employee told me that 4 people had brought in the same phone with a broken antenna that day. If you're rough on things (like me) or are going to keep the phone in your pocket, I do not recommend the Motorola v60 series. 88172 2004/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 good reception easy to learn lcd clearwell laid out antenna fragilepoorly designed other potential hardware issues Purchased the phone through an AT&T Wireless store in August 03. The features are nice, and lcd is clear and well laid-out. User interface for features are straight-forward and easy to learn. Reception is equivalent to Nokias that I've had the 3 years prior to purchasing this phone. By October however the display started fading which the AT&TWS rep told me was caused by a wire separation. I promptly got a refurbished phone free of charge, but the antenna cracked and separated a little after a month. Without the antenna you get little or no service and it makes this phone worthless. I went back to AT&TWS and was told that they have had numerous people return for the same reason. The problem is that the antenna is a screw-in type with a metal post threading into plastic. It is completely inflexible and easy to break if it gets caught, or dropped and happens to land on the antenna. Other manufacturers account for this by making the antennas solid(molded with the body), flexible, or getting rid of them all together. It's a nice phone, but this antenna design flaw prevents me from recommending this product. 88171 2003/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception throughout usa battery life sturdy great look feel no color screen I'm currently looking at the T720 and I'm not sure I want to get rid of this great phone yet just for color screen! I'm contemplating not trading in for the color T720 because this phone is awesome! Highly recommend to anyone! Better than any other cell phone I've ever owned! Motorola has the absolute best reception and never cut off of a call. 88170 2005/3/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small looks cool external caller id major really really bad antenna should not buy b c of this Small External Caller Id When I first got this phone I was very satisfied. I had a V60i; I can't really tell the differences between the different V60's, I believe some are gsm and some are other networks. The problem is the antennas are not designed well. Both mine and many of my friends's v60's have resulted in broken antennas. This is a big problem and motorola knows about it. They gave me some hassle when I called them up for warranty service. At first they said that was not covered, then they asked me who was my provider. After I told the ATT they proceeded to fix the phone. I lost use of it for two weeks which was a bummer paying $40/month. 88169 2005/10/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 simple solid no whiz bang junk to break or malfunction limited stock battery life I've had the Motorola V60s for about a year now. Great phone with no real problems... I originally liked the phone for its simplicity. No camera, no color screen, nothing to go wrong! The phone (and Verizon) have given me solid service throughout the country. This is a great phone for those looking for simplicity and quality. 88168 2005/10/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy small light it doesn t do the dishes I've had this phone for about 9 months. Its been great. its sturdy,small and light. has great volume and battery life. lasts about 1 week. Tracfone has service agreements with many carriers which means that I have signal in more places than any phone I've had before. When I first bought the phone, someone sent me a promo from tracfone which gave me 100 extra minutes for a new activation. sunnyryanj is my address at yahoo if your thinking of going prepaid, I can send you the promo(it only works if sent before the phone is activated). I don't use my phone alot and thats why I use prepaid. Tracfone allows me to keep my minutes for a full year or more and thats another reason why I go with them because my minutes don't get erased after a month or two. Its a great phone for the money no matter what service you use. If you are thinking prepaid, I would check out tracfone is I was u. 88167 2004/5/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip phone silent speakerphone small vibrate battery life multiple rings lightweight downloadable rings not sure why i have to assign a speed dial number to every phonebook entry I have had this phone for over a month now, and I am very pleased with it. From what I can tell it is just like the other v60 models except it has a speakerphone built-in. The speakerphone works great. This phone has plenty of features and it is easy to navigate through them once you get used to the interface. I've been pleased with the battery life as well. I am a casual to moderate cell phone user which is to say I use it daily, but I'd say I average 4-5 minutes daily (0 minutes some days, 20-30 on a single long distance call on other days). Phone ring is plenty loud enough, but has vibrate and silent modes as well. I highly recommend this phone. 88166 2004/6/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cool gadgets what good are gadgets if you can t keep a call connected My wife and I were very disappointed with this phone. It looked great and had lots of cool features, but dropped many many calls. When we switched to a Nokia, the problems stopped for both of us. Don't get this phone. 88165 2004/5/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none in our case caused further damage motorola will not honor warranty Hello, I would not recommend this item. My husband had one, even had the expensive leather case Motorola sells. The screen developed a tiny crack, and stopped functioning. Cingular and Motorola both claimed abuse, though the phone had not been dropped and was always in its case, and refused to repair it under the warranty. To make the situation worse, Motorola returned the phone with two scratches that had not been there before shipping to Motorola. 88164 2005/10/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cool snap sound when closing large phonebook volume durable small fragile antenna that awful low battery signal The V60 is a perfectly acceptable phone for 2 years ago. The battery on mine had been fairly long lasting until about the two year mark. Here's the problem: It's two in the morning. You're just getting to that really good REM sleep that will get you through tomorrow, and then you hear it. Be-Boop! You open your eyes. What was that? You drift back to sleep. Two minutes later: Be-Boop! Yes, it's the low battery signal on your v60. There's no way I've found to turn it off, even with the phone on "silent". I guess "silent" is subjective. I'm soon to replace my v60 with Verizon's two year switchout, and despite the relative happiness I've had with the phone, this little quirk will enhance my enjoyment when I smash it into a million pieces! Ha Ha! 88163 2000/10/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great quality sturdy great features compact understating the user guide The Bottom LineI've used Nokias & other Motorolas. I've never had a phone that has the quality that this one does. Full Review I recently acquired this phone after destroying my v120c (my fault...another story). I had done much research on cell phones & found this phone had all the features I wanted & worked well on my cell plan (Verizon). Here's what I like: *The size-it's compact and light *The study feel of the phone as you flip it open. The hinge doesn't feel like it's going to break *The "smart key" which allows you to complete functions with the phone closed *Voice recognition for the phone book *Large phonebook capacity *Keys are easy to utilize *Multiple ringtones already included *When using a headset, there is an "auto answer" feature which automatically answers the phone without me having to physically touch the unit...GREAT feature when driving!!! *Sound quality-never had a phone with better quality *Ringer-nice and loud! My v120c was impossible to hear in my purse...no problems with this phone! *Datebook-great for reminders with the alarm *Carries good reception-while in part this is also the carrier, I've yet to extend the antenna for ANY call. So if the antenna is flimsy, as in other reviews, I wouldn't know it *Voice notes-great way to record messages, reminders, and memos *Backlight isn't hard to read *Also has features like games, calculator & browser capacities, but I won't be using these features often The only con I can find at the moment is the "User guide." I think it's written in another language. I found it confusing at best. Because I'd already had a Motorola phone, many of the set-up features were similar, so I could forego the book for the basics. If I have to refer later on, I'll go to another source to get my questions answered! Forget the use guide! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88162 2000/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 attractive bad reception not user friendly too pricey The Bottom LineDont buy Motorola products-Nokia is better! Full Review I bought this product because I wanted a small triband flip phone and have seen many others using it so decided to give it a go. Long story short-I HATE this phone! Its very sleek and small which is a plus, but also has a very slippery tin like metal exterior and VERY easy to drop (luckilly it IS durable)The buttons on the keypad are small and indented so not so easy to press, and the phone is not very user-friendly, what you think should make sense and what you think should happen when you press a button doesnt necessarily follow any rhyme or reason. The internet connection is very slow, and the phone doesnt provide good reception and drops calls. I know it was the phone not my service because I tested it out in a few places and compared it up against my Nokia 3390, which came FREE with my service, and it worked fine! I wouldnt purchase another Motorola product again. I have always had good luck with Nokias in the past and will continue to buy them in the future. My friend has a V60 with a totally different service provider and hates his too. Not worth the money!! I have come to realize that Consumer Reports is right: You dont need to spend more than $100 for a good phone. The more bells and whistles a phone has, the more you sacrifice on the basics: which is the phones ability to make a receive calls! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 260Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88161 2000/11/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 looks cool short battery life bulky antenna impossible to flip w one hand The Bottom LineDon't but it unless you get it for free because it won't last very long and it's not very comfortable to use. Full Review I bought the v60i version of this phone because I was curious as to how it compares to my old Nokia 8260. Both phones were serviced by AT&T. I've had it for less than a week before I realized that my Nokia was better. I made my decision based on the following logic: 1. The battery life is worse is the Motorola than in the Nokia. After starting the phone off as full charged, it lasted barely 3 days before the battery indicator went down to 1 bar. 2. The external antenna makes the phone much larger than my Nokia and it looks like it was added as an afterthought, subtracting from the phone's overall design. 3. I talk on the phone while driving and I found it impossible to open the flip with one hand and had to steer with my knees while I used both hands to open the phone to talk. 4. The only good thing about this phone is the way it looks. Mine was silver all over, instead of having a black insert and I liked it better that way. In all other respects, I like my Nokia better. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 88160 2000/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip phone lots of features compact stylish excelent sound quality external antena can break lousy games black white screen The Bottom LineOne of the best cell phones on the market! Full Review I would recomend the motorolla v60i to anyone who wants a small, stylish phone with lots of features. Design: flip phone silver casing external display which shows the date and time and caller id when a call is recieved. very compact Features: good batary life external display backlit keypad and screen keys on side for easy scrolling voice dialing 500 listing phone book datebook text messaging voice notes built in web browser calculator 3 games: blackjack, poker, and falling numbers Review: I have had this phone for several months now, and it is the first cell phone I have owned which I truly like. It is small enough to fit in my pockets, comfortable when talking, and is loud enough that I can talk on it in a crowded area. Its menu is very intuitive and it is easy to use the features. The phone book is easy to use and can be searched by both name and speed number. The voice dialing on it is very good, in a crowded area it works about 70 percent of the time, and in a quiet area about 99 percent of the time. The datebook is pretty good for a cell phone. It can be set to remind you of your appointments and alert you before them. The sound quality on this phone ranges from good to excellent. Most of the time people can't tell I'm on a cell phone. I can use this phone in places where most other phones don't work. For example an elevator and most of the time, even on a subway. The only problems I have with it are minor, the games get boring quickly, and the screen is black and white, not color. But for the price I paid, just $50 dollars at Verizon Wireless w/ activation and one year service agreement, I am very satisfied. The cover is even pretty scratch resistent, and if your keys scratch it, like mine did, replacement covers are available, I got a black onyx cover and, in my humble opinion,it makes it look even better. If you want to learn more about the cover, please read my review of it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88159 2000/4/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 good display flip phone is compact second display visible when closed fragile bulky The Bottom LineI don't recommend. Drop it and you may be shoving quarters into a pay phone again. Full Review My wife used this phone . . . till it broke. It lasted about 7 months. It cracked by the hinges in the front and then the antenna broke off, rendering it useless. I tried epoxying it back on but that only worked for a day. I am and engineer and can usually fix things like this but . . . there is simply inadequate support for a rigid antenna on this phone. Now as far as the functionality of this phone goes, it was adequate. Ours was on the AT&T TDMA network. We heard some buzzing when we used it in our home but it worked fine elsewhere. We never had dropped calls. I had no problem navigating the menus and setting the ring tone and setting up the voice dialing. But remember, I said I was an engineer. My wife was a bit confused by the menus. I do like the displays on this phone. They are black and white but are clearly visible in sunlight. The color displays I have seen on Nokia phones are horrible outdoors. The second display shows who is calling before you flip open the phone, a nice feature, but it makes it extra thick. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88158 2000/3/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek durable small expensive no color other similar models are out now The Bottom LineGreat phone for the price and there are no frills. It's a phone, it's small, and it's got aluminum casing to make it look futuristic. Full Review The most important aspect of a cell phone that any buyer should be concerned with is the plan that the provider is offering and the quality of coverage in an area. I switched from Sprint to T-Mobile and this phone just jumped out at me because of its size and its apparent durability. (+) Size - Compared to the SCH-8000 from Samsung, this phone is tiny and I love it. There are other varieties that are slimmer but I'm very satistifed with this one. It's less than 3/4ths of an inch thick and 2.5 inches long. It fits in my pocket without any discomfort. (+) Durability - The antenna doesn't pull out so there isn't an antenna to break. I've dropped the phone a few times, accidentally of course, but no visible damage. (-) BW LCD Screen - With all the fancy colors LCDs and colored backlighting, this phone does look a bit plain. But considering its age and other features, I don't really care if it doesn't have fancy ring tones or blue lights. Overall, I'm incredibly satisfied with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88157 2000/1/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 everything but the antenna etc reception do not buy this phone the antenna will break the antenna The Bottom LineDo not buy this phone. The antenna breaks and Motorola isn't much help. Don't just take my word, try this search string at Google: motorola V60i antenna problem Full Review I don't even know if this phone is still available, but I'll share a cautionary tale, anyway. The V60i is a great phone in most aspects. It's small, easy to use, etc. But there's a very serious problem with the antenna. Whether by design defect or manufacturing defect, the antennas break off during normal use. I've owned mine for four months. The other day I took it out of my shirt pocket and the antenna fell off after gently brushing against the corner of the shirt pocket. It barely took any pressure to break the antenna at its base. Without the antenna, there is no service. The phone is unusable. So, I took it to an AT&T store. They said they see the V60i antenna problem on a regular basis, but do not repair phones. So I called AT&T customer service. There was conflicting info. from a couple of different reps. regarding whether the antenna would be covered under Motorola's warranty. But both basically said, "Yes, that problem happens all the time, but we didn't make that phone. Call Motorola." One AT&T rep. said they don't offer the V60i anymore because of all the problems. I looked around the Web and saw dozens of people writing reviews like this one, all complaining about the antenna and what a hassle it is. It breaks, they get it fixed. It breaks again. They get it fixed again. So I contacted Motorola (mind you, I've spent four hours dealing with this problem now). They said I could take it in to a authorized repair store, which may or may not have to mail it to another repair store, or I could mail it in myself, after which there would be a 10 to 14 day turnaround when they received it. I asked if they had a phone swap program for the people with V60is to get off the antenna repair cycle. They said no. All they'll do is fix the one I have. And what am I going to do when it breaks after the one-year warranty expires? I find it unconscieable that they would sell phone that has displayed such a pattern of defectiveness and then just tell people they're stuck with it. Motorola really came out with a lemon on this one. I just wish they'd own up to it instead of sticking it to the people who bought the V60i. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88156 2000/6/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek styling solid build excellent sound quality little thick awkward antenna pressing keysound of button don t sync The Bottom LineExcellent phone. the selling point is it's sound quality and super long battery life Full Review I have had the Motorola v60i for almost one year now. It is an excellent cell phone. I'm just pointing some of the pros and cons. 1. I used to have a Nokia 8260 which was a great full-featured phone, but would get hot and sound quality was staticky. This phone is the complete opposite. It has absolutely crystal clear sound - the best sound i've heard on ANY cell phone. It also does not get hot near the earpiece. Motorola has designed it as a flip so that those pieces that warm up are on the bottom half of the flip and not the earpiece. This means less heat near the ear. Trust me, it definitely does not make you feel nauseous. 2. It is a very solid phone. The plastics are not cheap and the casing is metal. The only annoyance i have is that the metal case gets very cold in the winter time - esp if you're talking and walking on a cold chicago winter day. 3. Excellent reception. A lot has to do with your service provider. I have AT&T and it has excellent service. However, if your phone has a weak antenna, you won't get your phonecalls. That's what makes this phone great. Although the antenna is bulky and not built-in, it gives you many bars of strength. About the bulk, the antenna is short and stocky and looks out of place when compared to the rest of the sleek look. It also portrudes a little too much. It's annoying in the pocket. 4. External Caller ID. For those who've had flip phones, it is a huge annoyance to flip open your phone to see who's calling and then pressing talk. With the external caller id, you can see the number on the external display and just flip open to talk. 5. Changeable cover. On the v60i, the cover is interchangable. I really don't care to change covers since they cost $20 per piece, but for those cell phone users who keep their phone in their pocket and have dust trapped inside the screen, this is a great feature. Just take the cover off, wash it, and put it back on. 6. Very loud tones. You will hear it even around a bunch of people talking. On the downside, you can't just download rings, but you need to program rings in. This is just plain annoying. Basically, you're stuck with the 32 ringtones they give you. 7. The coolest thing about this phone is that you can customize several keys to make it easier for you to navigate. You can also chang e the order of the main menu. So if you play games often, keep that as your first option. If you utilize the calendar feature, then set that as the first item in your menu list. It really saves time. 8. Kinda bulky. it's not bad lengthwise, but it's a little thick. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88155 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable all the right features included belt clip hands free is not so hands free The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a good hands free phone, this is not it, but it is great otherwise. Full Review Like everyone else, I have been through a myriad of phones. From the boat anchor days to the T20 World Phone (almost as thin as a credit card). I picked up the v60i as I had friends with the v60 that loved it, and I admired their phones. Initially I was extrememly pleased with the phone, and the things that made me happy initially are the things I continue to enjoy today: Good battery life, good call quality, compact phone, voice dialing, large memory, duarble phone. The only things I initially disliked still bug me: the belt clip it comes with is a pain in the neck. The phone sticks out oddly from the clip, the antenna is easily caught on things if it is in any position other than straight up and down and it is difficult to remove the phone from. Here are the things that I discovered later that really bother me: 1) Head set usage - I use the headset quite a bit. The phone will dial using the voice activation without having to open the phone, but when the call is ended, unless it is to another mobile phone, you have to pick the phone up, open it and disconnect the call by hitting end, otherwise the phone will just hang on to the call. It kind of kills the point of 'hands free'. 2) The menu locks when there is a missed call. When there is a missed call, the screen calls this out, and will not let you move forward until you disposition this alert. If you are trying to make a quick call, you have to get through this alert first. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88154 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life clarity quality ease of usage color screen antenna is a tad big small screen no polyphonic ringers The Bottom LineMuch better than the regular V60i. Great looking phone with the technology to back it up. Full Review I had gone though a lot of phones (a Qualcomm, a Kyocera, and two Nokias) and this V60i color is my favorite out of all of them. I was actually going to get the Nokia 3595, but AT&T had such a great deal going that I couldn't pass it up. Plus I would be the first to have a V60i Color! This phone is built very well. I have dropped it several times already and besides a few scratches, nothing has gone wrong. Also, Motorola knew about their antennas were breaking off so for the Color, they reinforced it and made it stronger. I have had the phone in my pockets several times and have bumped into things, but the antenna has not broken off. Also, the opening mechanism and overall feel of plastic and buttons feel better than a regular V60i. The screen part of the phone seem to move a lot sideways on a regular one while on the Color is was minimal. The color screen is very nice. It is on the small size compared to the regular V60i, so if you have bad eye sight, steer clear. The menu was a change from the Nokia but the fact that you can rearrange where you want items in your menu is a plus. So is the Shortcut feature, which allows number association with any menu application. The Voice Dial is great. You press the button and you can dial a number from the internal phone book or you can even say a phone number into the phone and it will dial it for you. This is especially nice when driving and you have to dial a number. This can also be done through the handsfree piece. Reception is great, even when in roaming mode. Sound is clear and people on the other end can understand me clearly. Battery life is pretty good, but as with all rechargable batteries, their life span is questionable over time. There are a few things I would change. One would be polyphonic ring tones. I mean, they updated the phone with a lot of new features, why not put that in since it's becoming the norm? Also, the screen needs to be a lot bigger. It is maybe 1/3 the size of the non-colored one. Overall, I am extremely happy with the phone. I hope it gives me a long and pleasurable life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88153 2000/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good user interface durable strong antenna voice dialing excellent reception none for me The Bottom LineAn excellent choice if your main use for a cellphone is to make and receive calls. Full Review For me the purpose of a cellphone is to make and receive phone calls. I have no interest in running down my battery by playing Tetris, using my phone as a digital camera, listening to MP3's, or trying to surf the web with a 1 inch screen. I want a phone that is small, durable, has good signal reception and an intuitive user interface. After 7 months of ownership I am happy to say that this is an accurate description of the v60i. The v60i is a clamshell (flips open) phone in an attractive anodized aluminum case. The case can be replaced and is available in a number of different colors. The phone is small enough that I don't notice it in my jeans pocket, and the flip case protects the keypad and screen from keys and coins. This is a tough phone. In 7 months I have never needed a new antenna (this is a great improvement compared to its predecessor, the v60c. I previously owned a v60c whose antenna broke off 5 times in 8 months!) I have also dropped the phone (accidentally!) onto a concrete surface on 3 occasions, with no ill effects. (By the way, I never use any kind of extra protective case). The signal reception is excellent. In marginal reception spots I frequently notice that I can use my v60i while other people with other models have "No Service". (The only problem is that often they end up borrowing my v60i!) One feature I have come to depend upon is voice dialing; the v60i has this and it works fine. You just press one button on the side of the phone, say (for example) "Home", and it connects the call. Naturally there is also a stored phone directory, and you can do text messaging, which is kind of fun at first but for me the novelty wore off pretty quickly. (The phone has an "iTap" system that speeds up the process of entering words with the numeric keypad; for example if you enter "843" as a word it smartly defaults to "The"). Another nice feature is the ability to record voice memos. To do this you press the same button as for voice dialing, but hold it down. The phone will record you for as long as you keep pressing the button. The main LCD screen is inside the phone (you have to flip open the phone to see it) and has several lines so you can easily scroll through the menus. There is also a single-line LCD display on the outside of the phone which you can see without opening the case. This is very useful as you can see Caller ID info without opening the phone. Another great feature is that using this external display and two external buttons you can switch to "vibrate" (silent) mode (and also to "quiet" mode and back to normal again) without opening up the phone. Both displays have backlights and are easy to read in the dark. There is a choice of ringtones. I opted for "Nursery Rhyme" which is the theme for Barney the Dinosaur. The advantage of this is that absolutely nobody else uses this same tune- I always know when it's my phone that is ringing! Battery life is excellent. Typically I need to charge my v60i every 2-3 weeks. I assume that this is a big advantage of having a monochrome LCD display as opposed to a garish bright color screen. While I mentioned my lack of interest in superfluous (to me) features, I think this phone does have a couple of games and the capability to listen to FM radio (with headphones). Naturally I have not tried either of these. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88152 2000/4/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent voice quality in standard handsfreea terrfic speakerphone mode small display size makes a loud chip noise when changing from ring mode The Bottom LineA basic yet highly functional monochrome phone with outstanding speakerphone capability. Full Review I got my V60S phone as an exchange from my LG4400 phone at my Verizon Wireless store. I had had a Motorola Star Tac for years but when it stopped recharging the battery, I got the LG. It didn't take long for me to know that I didn't like the LG, so I returned to the Verizon store and got the V60s. I was a little worried at first because my V60S was "confused" when I first got it. It would ring "Loud" when set to soft and ring "Soft" when set to Loud. Worse, when I set it not to answer when I opened the flip but to only answer when I pressed a key, it would still answer when I opened the Flip! A visit to my Verizon Wireless store's tech support people made things right. I bought this product because I needed a phone that I could use as a phone and as a handsfree phone that would have excellent voice quality both with as a "phone" and with a "handsfree" device. The V60s excels at both. But it also excels as a "speakerphone". It has one built in which has excellent voice quality bother in receiving and transmitting. If you don't mind other people hearing your conversation, this built in speakerphone is the ultimate in "handsfree" communication in my opinion. I love the excellent voice quality in regular phone mode, with a handsfree headset, and as a speakerphone. I also like the fact that the monochrome display is easy to read in bright sunlight and the phone seems very well made. What do I hate about the product... 1 If I have the phone set to ring there is no way to change it to vibrate or silent mode without having the phone let out a loud "chip" sound first. This is annoying in meetings, etc, when I realize that I hadn't set the phone to vibrate or silent before the meeting. 2 The phone gets very warm after several minutes of use. 3. In several instances, the display only displays part of a phone number followed by "...", eg. "516 634 ...." and it takes several steps to have the phone display the entire number. 4. The outside monochrome display is small and difficult to read at times. 4. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88151 2003/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 nice feelbetter user interface for motorola poor reception operating system is flaky phone directory searching sucks antenna breaks easily The Bottom LineLook at other cell phone manufacturers unless the newer V.60i has solved all the problems I had with my V.60. Full Review Originally, I was pretty impressed with this phone. I purchased my V.60 (Note: not the updated V.60i) about a year ago. The size, features, and User Interface seemed a big step up from my previous Motorola phones. The feel of the aluminum case is one of the most solid I have run across. The phone flips open solidly, but is a little awkward to open with one hand. The afterglow faded quickly, though. I had to swap out the phone three times because of keyboards that didn't operate reliably. OK, I let that one slide - the last phone had a good keyboard that has worked fine ever since. One of my first complaints was with the Phone Directory search. On the older Motorola phone, you could type in the first character of someone's last name and then scroll sideways through their Cell Phone, Home Phone, Fax, etc. You could have up to 4 phone numbers for each of 100 entries (400 numbers max, but usually a lot less - you're limited to 100 names). The plus here is you can quickly scroll through "people". The V.60 changed that to 400 independent phone numbers, which gives you true 400 numbers of storage. There is a price to be paid, though. Say that you have 20 friends with a last name starting with "M". You hit the "6" button once to get to the "M"s. If your friends average about 2.5 phone numbers apiece, you have to scroll through 50 names to get to the last "M" entry. Sometimes, I've resorted to going to the "N"s and scrolling backward. This really sucks! Also, I found out that the OS used on the phone is flaky. At first I thought it was just a hardware problem, but I have seen this on 2 of the 4 V.60s that I owned (and some I only owned for about a week or two). The OS problems are random and far apart, but they exist. Sometimes, I can't turn off the phone (it freezes during shutoff) and I have to pull the battery. The phone has gone into infinite loops while ringing (Annoying!) where I have to pull the battery to get it cleared. The Datebook was a great idea - except when it forgot to notify me of events until after I turned off and then turned on the phone. I don't know if these problems have been solved on the newer V.60i. I sure hope so. Lastly, I broke the antenna off about 2 weeks ago for the first time. That was upsetting, but not traumatic. Until two days ago, when the new antenna broke off, too. The next phone I get will have a better antenna design. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 88150 2000/10/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 changeable covers flip style nice size reception better alarm than the t720 antenna is a bit long The Bottom LineGreat phone overall, don't believe the hype about the antenna breaking, it could only break if you are trying to break it. It has a nice metal feel to it. Full Review I recently bought the Motorola T720; but after buying it I decided to do some reviewing since I had 15 days to change the phone if I didn't like it. I was attracted to the T720 because of the look, feel, and that is was in color. Realizing that I didn't need a color phone, and that a friend of mine that works for T-Mobile uses the V60 and recommends it, I came to my conclusion to trade in my T720 for the V60. I had read a lot of bad reviews of the T720 and found them out on my own. My only real problem was that at work, I put my phone in a locker, and when I go to use it, it would never get any reception causing me to have to turn the phone off, and then back on to get my reception back to make calls[phone booting on the 720 takes forever]. So I gave the V60 the "locker test" and had no problems with reception at all. My only dislikes are the antenna, and since it's still new to me, just roaming around the menus. I'm used to the Nokia 3390 menu that is simple and never had any problems. I've read a lot about the antenna breaking off, but how do you do that? Take better care of your phones, and that probably wont happen, so no fear. People also complain about the battery life, but what do you expect. It's a cell phone, you're going to have to charge it sooner or later, that is what the car charger is for. So if you're looking for a good flip phone with good reception this is the one. All in all a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88149 2004/5/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 capability to assign different ring tones to numbers lots of static very fragile antenna unimpressive battery life The Bottom LineThe worst phone I've ever used. It's beyond me how Motorola stays in business. Full Review Just a little update! I am sooo happy to report that Mercedes must've heard me whine about them putting Bose in their cars. Their latest models come with new Harman Kardon sound and navigation systems, and one of the 2 dark points on the image of my Favorite car is gone. Now if they would just get rid of the stupid Motorola phones the picture will be perfect again. I've become addicted to my cell phone like most people probably. The problem with that addiction is that new models come out every couple of months and you kind of always want to have the latest one. That's why I seem to change cell phones faster than I change my wardrobe. I remember when the Motorola V60 phone first came out, it was the coolest looking phone on the market. I never really bought one, but a friend of mine gave me hers after a couple of months when she got a different one. After having it for about a week, I went back to using my old Panasonic Versio phone, which was an ok phone, but its battery wasn't lasting very long anymore. I don't think I've ever had a worse phone and I've had a lot of phones. I also had 4 friends with the same model and everyone had the same problems like me. I admit the phone looks cool and all, and it has more features than you could probably use. But even with all that it cannot compensate for its poor performance. First of all of the phones - mine and all my friends - at some point had the antenna broken. The antenna is a big fat ugly piece sticking on the top of the phone, and apparently it's really poorly designed. Once the antenna is broken, there's no reception at all. Mine was fixed probably 100 times (mostly while my friend had it because I could only take it for a week). A friend had gotten tired of running to the store every time the antenna broke off, so she had started super gluing hers. Imagine how stable that is. Even with the antenna on, the reception on this phone is just pathetic. There is way too much static and the signal strength is always low. The other thing I didn't like was that even though the screen seems pretty big, it only had 3 or 4 lines of text capability, which was the same as my Panasonic's display, which appeared much smaller. I didn't care much for the old-fashioned black on green color scheme either. The feature I did like on the phone was the capability to assign different ringer melodies for different people. This is pretty cool but is already available on any decent phone out there so it's not so important anymore. The other cool feature, also widely available these days, was answering the phone by simply opening it. While for a period a thought flip phones looked cool, I am so over them. This was my first and last flip phone. Regular phones are just so much more convenient, and seem sturdier to me too. Those hinges on the flip phones always tend to get loose with time, and the phone starts looking misaligned and pretty ugly. Plus opening and closing it all the time becomes a real drag. After my week with the V60 I gave up Motorola and Flip phones for good. I wasn't expecting much from Motorola anyway, my brother and my mom had other models before, and they were also pretty bad, but this one was just beyond any reasonable comprehension. What puzzles me the most is that Mercedes actually uses this model for their built in phones and charges something like $2200 for the option. If I were buying a Mercedes I'd pay that much not to have that phone in my car. The same goes for their Bose sound systems. But that's another story. Recommended: No Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88148 2000/1/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small size expensive antennas break constantly The Bottom LineAverage phone at best, very expensive, flimsy antenna built to break. Full Review Bought a V60i about 15 months ago, to replace both my cell phone and one of those gawdawful Motorola Flex pagers. I spent way too much (about $199), but I liked its small size. Plus I often work call for my hospital and I need a reliable phone that I can always have with me. Well, the first couple days I had the phone, I noticed the battery died very quickly. The third day, I was stuck in the kind of situation we all buy cellphones for. My car broke down at 1AM on a freezing night in a bad neighborhood--and of course the darn battery had died and my new phone was useless. Luckily, I was cursing so loudly a nearby cop came over and lent me her cellphone. Not a good start. Took the phone back to Verizon, and some little jerk acted like I was an idiot and that I was too dumb to charge a battery. Informed jerk that I build my own computers and rewired my own house, I think I can plug in a battery charger. He could tell I was really angry, so I got a new battery. But the phone was never really that great. My reception--even on Verizon's outstanding network--wasn't that good. The battery life wasn't particularly impressive either. But what really ticks me off is the design of the antenna. A very thin plastic stalk leads from the phone to the antenna, a 1-inch plastic cylinder with about the same diameter as a Sharpie pen. This is a flimsy arrangement that's seems built to fail. Over the past 15 months, I have snapped off approximately a dozen of these antennas. Each time, I have to take it to the local Verizon outlet to get fixed. They agree with me that its a poor design, but are still more than happy to charge me $11 every time for a flimsy piece of plastic. I have spent almost as much on replacement antennas as I have on the phone itself. Recently I managed to snap the entire base of the antenna off as well. Verizon won't let me upgrade, so I have to go through cell-insurance and get another V60. Thing is, I hate this phone so much I'm thinking of just paying full price for another phone. Apparently Motorola has improved the design of the antenna in subsequent V60 models, but I still don't think this phone is worth the money Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88147 2004/3/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 look sleek small battery life antenna The Bottom LineGive this phone a try. It is becoming cheaper every day. Full Review RECEPTION The V60 rates its own reception by using 5 bars (five being the best and one the worst). I live in Massachusetts and get around 3 to 4 bars mostly and 5 when I'm around a tower (of course!). When I do get the occasional 2 bars I can still make calls fine. I have even done calls with zero bars. When calling with 2 or more bars, the call is very clear. Less than 2 bars is when the reception gets dicey. You might get some static and the occasional break up but still have an understandable conversation. COOL FEATURES My last phone was one like those from the 80's: huge, huge, huge. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it didn't have any of the features this phone has. Text messaging capability is the first thing that I wanted and got with this phone. It is very easy to use. I have since realized text messaging is useless and costly (why not just call?). Also the phone is a flip phone. This is not that special or cool to many but I found it cool. The phone has caller id on the outside and is lit by the indiglo light. I wish the outside panel had the battery life too. That would have been nice. You can also record voice notes and it has a mini calendar where you can remind yourself of events. The games are decent. Poker, Falling Numbers, and Blackjack aren't exactly groundbreaking but they are better than nothing. THE ACTUAL PHONE The phone is very small and fits nicely in my pocket. It leaves room for more and doesn't bulge out. The exterior is very shiny and looks very sleek and cool. Cool is the only word I can use to describe the looks of the phone. It is cool. There is a status light on the outside that blinks red for no service, orange for roaming, and green for normal. On the left side are two buttons. One is an up down button for volume of ringer and to change the phone's status (vibrate, loud, silent, soft, ring and vibrate). The other is called the smart button. It is used to jump to a different feature of the phone that you can program. For instance you can make it jump you to a game or to the phonebook. On the right side is the voice button. This is used to record voice notes and to use the voice recognition system. When you press it and say the name you programmed, the phone calls the name. This is handy when driving. You don't have to fiddle and fumble your way through the phonebook. The antenna is on the upper right side. When you flip it open the classic 0-9, *, and # appear down low as well as the power switch. Above it are two buttons, "send" and "end". These are used for calling and ending your calls. Four buttons are also next to them. There's an up and own switch, menu button, and two buttons used for bringing up your phonebook, games, browser, message center, or whatever you program it to be. The screen is not color but can be fully lit by the greenish blue indiglo light. The screen is roughly two inches across and is clear to read. It can be difficult to read in direct sunlight though. The screen displays the time, date, battery life, reception, and what whether it is on ring, vibrate etc. The ring tones are actually not too annoying. Ring tones are synonymous with annoying but in this case there are some respectable ones that won't bug anyone in earshot of your cell. WHAT I HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT IT The antenna stinks. It broke a couple of months after I bought it. I knew it would. The antenna is made out of the flimsiest material ever and was asking to be broken. The belt clip is not helpful. When you clip in your phone you have to clip it in upside down and it is tough to clip the phone into. The battery life is superb. My friend's phone goes low after half a day. My phone could go two days or more it seems. When I charge it is no problem. The port to charge it is on the bottom and the phone tells you on the front panel screen when it is done. One bad thing is that it changes the ringer to Loud automatically when you charge it. Then sometimes you have to change it back and other times you don't. CLOSING COMMENTS I have not used tons of cellular phones but I would have to think that this one is a better than average one. The phone has some great features and has good overall performance (battery, reception, clarity). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 w/rebatesRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88146 2003/8/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use interface clear reception durable charger issues talk time difficulty of opening The Bottom LineGreat for anyone who needs an affordable reliable phone but doesn't need lots of hours of talk time. Full Review I recently got my license and I realized that with my new found mobility I was going to need a phone. After looking around at a few different phones I decided to go with the Motorola V60. It had a lot of features that I liked with very few things that I didn't like about it. The clarity while talking is almost always perfect. The only time I ever have difficulty is when I'm in the inside of a very dense building. Other then that I usually have better reception then most of my friends. The only thing is that I cant say whether that is a function of my phone service or of the phone. The battery and charger on this phone are unfortunately its only real drawbacks. The battery works for about 3 days if you don't talk about about 2 1/2 hours while your talking. Within a few days of use my charger, and a few of my friends chargers did not work with much ease. They have to be wiggled for a few seconds and any movement of the phone could upset it and it will immediately stop charging. Also you can almost forget about talking on the phone while its charging because you will probably move the phone in a way in which it wont be charging. Durability is deffinetly a plus on this phone. I drop it, chew on it, sit on it, and pretty much any kind of abuse you can think of with almost no problems. The outside of the phone is a little scratched but that is only because of how it is when I'm around it. Also Ive noticed this and so have my friends that the "ear half" of the phone tends to get a little loose after a while of owning the phone. It hasn't led to any negative effect as of yet but it does make me a little bit nervous. The interface is decent, but nothing incredibly impressive. Its easy to use, with no standout features, but all of the usual date book, phone book, etc... The voice button is one of the most useful things about the phone. If you spend a lot of time in the car and occasionally have to talk on the phone while you are in your car this is a very nice feature. You can preprogram your voice to dial a number matched with a certain name. This way you can dial with one hand without ever looking away from the road. The only issue I ever have with this is that the phone fails to recognize my voice in crowded places with lots of background noise. Overall Id say the phone is a good buy and worth the money. Great for anyone who needs an affordable reliable phone but doesn't need lots of hours of talk time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88145 2000/12/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good clarity excellent standby reception dimly lit keyboard small dimly lit display hard to open poor ergonomic design slippery The Bottom LineGreat phone if you don't mind the poor ergonomic design. Full Review Several weeks ago I needed a new phone, and my daughter had recently gotten a V60i from AT&T. She was happy with it, it looked and sounded good, and Verizon (my provider) had it on sale for $49.99 after rebate. So, I got one. Within a few days, I knew I was going to have problems with this phone. It's size, shape, and ergonomic design are terrible. The first thing I found annoying was the sexy metal case. It's slippery to handle. I found myself almost dropping it several times and it was hard to get out of my pocket once it turned sideways. It's impossible to open with one hand, and even with two it was still a task. There is nothing rough along the edge to catch your fingers and assist in the opening. The second problem I didn't notice until I went to use it after dark. The small dimly lit displays were absolutely impossible for me to read. I had a hard time finding entries in the phone book since I couldn't see them. Yes, the voice activated dialing helped, but I need to be able to read the display too. The keyboard lighting is another problem. Almost no light comes through the keys making them hard to find. Granted we shouldn't be driving and dialing, but Motorola doesn't have to make this task even more dangerous. Next on the list of design problems was the way it felt when using it for long periods of time. The three buttons on the side take up much of the left edge, leaving little room for a good grip. I was constantly changing the volume when I was using it because the buttons were where my fingers wanted to be. It was very uncomfortable to hold. Then there was the antenna design. I found that when I was using the phone, one of my fingers would occasionally come in contact with either the antenna 'stub' (when down) or the small whip section when it was extended (which on this phone is only about 1 inch). When this happened, the other caller could no longer hear me, or the call would immediately drop. Poor radio design is to blame here. The case is metal, and most likely at 'ground' potential to the transmitter. When you hold the phone and touch the whip, you short out the antenna and less signal is radiated (perhaps no signal). The result was the dropped calls or loss of audio. This is less of a problem with phones that have plastic cases. After a week I returned the phone to Verizon and swapped it for a Motorola T720 (which I'm also unhappy with for other reasons, and you can read my review of it here on ePinions). To sum up, the phone IS very nice. Clarity was great, navigation through the menus was very easy (as long as you can read the display). Lots of nice features. Good battery life. Excellent reception in standby (and in use as long as you didn't touch the antenna). I would recommend this one for features alone. The ergonomics stink. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88144 2003/11/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very compact good phone antenna stupid belt clip price The Bottom LineI like the phone. It serves its purpose, has great clarity, and it's compact. Despite the dumb nub of an antenna, this phone is excellent and I would recommend it. Full Review I never owned a cellular phone before and this is my first. I checked out a variety of phones before deciding on the V60c. I wanted to get the smallest phone possible but it had to have a decent battery life as well. The V60c was what I liked the most. WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT: - It folds in half and is still thinner than other folding phones but, when it's opened up it is also longer (from ear to mouth) than all the folding phones I looked at (at that time). I personally dont like the small phones that when you hold it to your ear only goes halfway down your cheek. This phone doesn't have that problem at all. - It has a 180 minute battery life. The only time I've had trouble w/ battery life is the long talks w/ my Girlfriend. - The clarity on this phone is awsome. I've used other cell phones before and mine is superb. Thats obviously going to have a lot to do w/ the service provider and coverage area as well. WHAT I DONT LIKE: - First and foremost, I dont like the antenna for the phone. I have the V60c which has an antenna that you can pull out and is very flexible too. BUT, I dont like the belt clip(next on the list) so I just keep the phone in my side pockets all the time. Well, The whole phone is very solid in its construction but, that little nub of an antenna takes sum wear & tear in my pocket and being pulled out every now and again. The first antenna snapped off after about 2 months. What bothered me about it was that verizon tells me that the antenna wasn't covered under the warranty (or the extra insurance I have) for the phone. I could not believe that but, ended up forking over about $10 for a new antenna. It's been about 4 months since then and this one hasn't broke but, most likely because I'm much more careful w/ the antenna and dont bother to pull it out for phone calls. I've seen newer models that dont have an antenna that pulls out but, it's still in the same spot. I dont see why motorola didn't just mount the antenna sideways or something instead of having it stick out of the top to be bent or broken. - The belt clip sucks (in my opinion). It could just be me being picky but, the way the belt clip holds the phone, it's angled with the top leaning outward rather than flush against my side. This makes it feel bulky. I tried it for a day and just haven't bothered w/ it since. It is more conveniant and comfortable for me to keep it in my side pockets. - The phone is pricey but, I like to have the newest thing available so I forked up the cash. It was $250 after a $50 mail in rebate at the time. I dont know what most phone these days are going for but, this phone is worth the bucks in my opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $250.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88143 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 calculator battery life easy to use unpredictable ring tones dropped calls static The Bottom LineIf you're a light user, you can get by with this one; if you're a professional or a heavy user, you better pass this one up. Full Review I purchased the Motorola V60S in October 2004 after using the same Nokia for four years. I also switched my plan from AT&T to Verizon. My brother was with Verizon and had the Motorola V60 and kept saying how great of a phone it was. When making the AT&T to Verizon switch, the salesman asked me which was more important to me in a phone: a colorful phone with lots of bells and whistles, or a dependable phone with good reception and good battery life. I chose the latter and he recommended the V60. The first call I tried to make I discovered a lot of static. I still don't know who to blame: Motorola or Verizon. I dropped more calls in that first month than in the last two years I had the Nokia with AT&T. The number of dropped calls decreased after that first month, although they've increased in the last week. Another downside is the ring tones. I set the phone to ring a particular way, but it only rings that way occasionally. I can't figure out what the problem is. If I considered the ring tone an important feature, then I would probably seek help. Another problem I discovered is with the lock. I can't get the password to work. According to the user manual, there is a code to use when setting the lock for the first time. I tried that code and I get a response saying that it not the right code. Again, this is not an important feature to me so I've never sought assistance. There are some nice features the phone. It looks nice. The battery has been good. I almost always leave the phone on and I charge it on average about once a week. Of course I don't use a lot of minutes, so that helps extend the length of charge. The phone is somewhat easy to use. One feature that I've never had on a phone before is the calculator. There are many more keystrokes involved than with a traditional calculator, but I've used this one many times for simple math problems. This phone is also fairly durable. I've dropped it a number of times and it continues to work. I don't use my phone a lot, so I'm able to put up with the problems. If I were a heavy user or used this unit for business, then I would be upset. Some of the problems I've experienced could be fixed if I sought assistance; however, I'm the kind of person that puts up with the problems until it's time for a change, then I go in a different direction. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88142 2000/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to learn small stylish feature packed use no one hand opening slippery antenna is bulky The Bottom LineA great phone, especially if you are a professional or a frequent phone user. Many features, easy to use, but too expensive for casual users. Nokia user friendly. Full Review After years of Nokia 8290 love, I finally was forced (by Nokia, no less) to switch to a Motorola v60i with AT&T. Why, you ask? Becuase my boss ponied up for my cell service, phone included, and insisted that I have a full car kit (meaning a professionally installed one, not a cheap-o cigarette lighter version). Woe is me. Unfortunately, the only phones that Nokia makes a full car kit for are the 8890, which gets lousy reception in my area (GSM phone no good in rural areas) and the 8260. But here's the punchline with the 8260: They still make the car kit, but they don't make that phone anymore! WHAT? So, I gave Nokia the finger and dove head first into Motorola land for the first time, buying a v60i for AT&T with a car kit. Needless to say, I was worried. I have read all sorts of stories about Nokia people hating the Motorola operating systems and about how user-unfriendly they are. Well, I shouldn't have worried. The v60i has a great user interface, extremely easy to understand. I found that there are several really cool features it has that if you don't read the manual you may never figure out on your own, so READ THE MANUAL. For instance, many features that I didn't think this phone had (voice dialing, call specific ring tones) it actually does have, but you have to know how to use them. I was very worried about not having call specific ring tones, as this was something that my Nokia 8290 had that I loved. This way, when my wife calls I know it's her by the ring, and I don't even have to get the phone out if I am in the middle of a meeting and can't answer her call. Very useful. Also, the voice dialing on the v60i is a quantum improvement over the 8290. The Nokia had pitiful (bordering on useless) voice dialing. Any background noise, such as your car window being down, and it didn't work. The motorola is much better, it works under many varying situations, including my recent chest cold where my voice was totally different from normal. Unfortunatly, now that my most important numbers are a word away I don't actually have many of them memorized, so without my Moto I can't call people. Oops. As for features, this phone's got 'em. Let me preface this by saying that I use my phone to make phone calls, not surf the net for the most recent Tracy Lords download, so I can't tell you anything about web access or text messaging or any of that hocum. I think this phone has those abilities (dowloadable software, ring tones, email, text messaging etc.), but really, who wants to surf the net on a screen half the size of a saltine cracker? And I have two computers for email, so forget it. But this phone has several very useful phone-type features, too. It has three keys, two inside and one on the side of the phone, that are "soft" keys, meaning you can program them to perform functions. Mine are programmed to 1) access the phone book, 2) access my recent call lists, and 3) access my voice notes. Another great feature is that you can reorganize the main menu items so that when you press "menu" the items you use most often are right at the top of the menu. No more scrolling and thinking "!&@*$@ why did they put the !)#*#& at the (&@%# bottom of the &@%&@ menu!!!!" Other features include: virtually unlimited speed dial numbers (but you have to do a special key combo to access double digits), phone book can organize multiple numbers under one heading (so you don't have to have Jim Home, Jim Work and Jim Cell as 3 separate entries, it can all go under Jim and then you can change numbers via a cute icon indicationg which number you are on), you can store email addresses with phone book entries, a datebook that can remind you of upcoming events (if you want to take the time to predictive text in reminders), there's a really irritating calculator function that is way too hard to use, and some totally lame games that you'll play once and then put on the bottom of your menu list. There is one other function this phone has that is invaluable to ex-pot heads: voice notes. You can press and hold the button on the right side of the phone, and the phone will record whatever you say into it. For me, this is beyond helpful. As soon as someone says "Hey, can you pick up the framistat at the toglydite recon outlet?" I just voice note myself "Pick up the framistat at the troglydite recon outlet", and next morning I check my voicenotes in the car and bingo! One framistat, served to order. The only drawback to voicenotes is that you look pretty goofy talking into your phone to remind yourself to do something. But believe me, when people see how you always get everything done and don't forget anything, they'll shut up quick about it. Of course, it's not all hugs and kisses with this phone. My personal pet peeve about it is that when the phone is closed the buttons on the outside of the phone still function. So virtually every time I put the phone in my pocket it changes the ring tone (one of the outer key funtions). Annoying, but not that big of a deal. And when it comes to ringing this phone has the most pathetic, anaemic ring I have ever heard. Even at full volume it's barely above a whisper. And the vibration feature SUCKS. Unless your practically naked with the phone laying on your stomach (don't ask), you can't feel it vibrate. And you can't set it to vibrate and ring at the same time, only to vibrate and THEN ring. Sounds minor, but it is a constant source of irritation to me. The antenna really ruins the good looks and compactness of the phone by sticking up half-again the length of the phone, and don't bother with the stainless steel stub antennas, it cuts your reception in half. If you really want one, email me, I have one I will sell you cheap. However, in the antennas defense, I have not had any problems with the breakage that others have experienced on previous models of this phone: It seems the upgraded antenna on the i model really is better. As for battery life, I put a slim battery and back on the phone, and haven't had a single problem with the battery life. To be fair, though, my car kit charges the battery automatically, and I use the car kit every day, so my phone never goes more than two days without a charge. As for talk time, it seems normal, not overly long or short. This phone has great clarity, as good if not better than the Nokia 8290. My service is marginal where I live, so frequently my call quality deteriorates through no fault of the phone. I can hear callers clearly, and they can hear me. It is tough to find the sweet spot on the ear piece until you get used to the design, and ifyou miss the sweet spot you can barely hear the caller. Overall, though, the phone feels very ergonomic in the hand, very comfortable and natural. You just have to get used to where on you ear to seat the phone for best sound. Construction of this phone is very solid, no creaks or cracks as you talk into it (unlike some of the lower level Nokias), very solid feeling. When you close it it makes a satisfying snap. I have never had a flip phone before, so I can't tell if the flip lid will eventually break or wear out, but I doubt it. I imagine if you dropped it while it was open you might bust the lid off, making the phone useless. Overall I prefer the single unit "candybar" style phone, but the flip has some advantages, most notably you just open it to answer and close it to end a call, and you don't have to do that annoying "lock keypad" thing that Nokias require to prevent accidental dialing. And the car kit? Get one. If you use your phone in your car (and who doesn't), get the professional car kit. It's expensive ($250 for the kit, $300 to install it), but if you can afford it, it RULES. You put the phone in a dash-mounted cradle, and it automatically switches to ring only (no vibrate), turns on the car kit speaker and microphone and starts charging. When calls come in, you just touch a button (or set the phone to auto answer) and the persons voice comes through a speaker mounted under you dash, and when you talk a microphone by your rear view mirror picks up your voice. Truly hands free, no ear piece or microphone boom or wires or any of that rubbish. All you see is the phone and cradle and the tiny microphone. People have told me it sounds like I have the phone to my head, so the quality is good. My bosses Nokia car kit has lousy volume, but the Moto one is too loud when set on 4 (out of 5), so volume is great. When you take the phone out of the cradle it automatically switches back to the ring setting you previously had. Very expensive, but very cool. And the voice dialing means you never have to dial a frequently called number while you drive, just press a button and holler it out. Overall, this phone has been a big improvement over my Nokia 8290, which was a phone that I dreaded giving up. This phone is different, no doubt about it, than the Nokias, but not in a bad way, just in a...well...different way. Make any sense? Don't be afraid of switching, if you are even marginally intelligent and have a shred of patience, you'll be able to master the Moto in no time. Don't be afraid, this little motorola will treat you well and make you look cool, too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88141 2005/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 fairly inexpensive for a flip phone lots of ringtones included transmission clarity not sturdy reception difficult to open The Bottom LineThere are better models than this one. Shop around! Full Review My mom fell and broke her hip last year, and I had to move in with my parents (far from my home) to help with household upkeep. Not knowing how long I would need to stay, I was reluctant to change my phone plan and/or number; but roaming charges were exhorbitant on my plan, and mom couldn't make long-distance phone calls from the nursing rehab facility, so she had no way to call me on my phone anyway. So I did the non-committal thing (or so I thought) by signing up for TracFone service. I chose the v60i as my phone because my mother had been talking about getting a flip phone to replace her old Qualcomm (not Kyocera, but Qualcomm... tells you how old it is!), and I figured I could give her the phone, along with its significantly lower bill, when I got done with it. At first, I was in love! My existing phone was a Nokia 5165 (which has since been replaced, as you'll read below) -- too small to feel like a "real" phone, yet a bit too heavy to carry around comfortably -- with plenty of ringtones, but no way to attach them to a caller like you can with the v60i. If you've set up individualized ringtones for frequent callers, when the phone rings while you're driving, you usually don't even have to look to see who is calling -- a great safety feature. (The ringtones are more interesting than the ones on my old phone, too... not just "classics", but some modern music as well.) However, if the melody you hear indicates someone you want to talk to, you have to use BOTH hands to open the phone! Even using both hands, it is too easy to stick your finger(nail) in the charger/handsfree connector area, which has a lip between it and the flip-top... leaving you yanking and grumbling, with no results! Definitely a dangerous distraction. A handy exterior display shows the date and time, but I often found myself flipping open the phone to see how the battery charge was holding up. (My new Motorola v551 -- which I have submitted for addition, and hope to review soon hint, hint -- has corrected this problem.) The v60i holds a charge quite well -- even better than my Nokia, which usually lasted a week or more. (No, I don't talk much!) Speaking of the battery life indicator, I don't care for the way Motorola does theirs. I don't like to let my phone get down to 1 bar (especially since the cigarette lighter outlet in my truck is dead!). The Nokia had a 4-bar battery indicator, which made it a no-brainer for me to charge up when I got to 2 bars. Motorola, however, uses a 3-bar indicator. So, do I charge up at 2 bars, and risk developing "memory"? or do I let it get down to 1 bar, and risk the phone going dead when I need it?? When I first made a call on the phone, I was delighted with the reception. My Nokia often "sounded like a cell phone", with interference and dropped syllables; but I could hear my "callee" loud and clear on the v60i. (For the record, TracFone operates off the AT&T network -- now Cingular -- which was also the carrier for my Nokia phone, and remains the carrier for my new v551.) Unfortunately, the experience was not as good for the callee... which made no sense to me, as the "connection" sounded great at my end. I got a better grasp of the situation when I used the v60i while setting up my voice mail. When I listened to my greeting, I sounded like I was talking from the bottom of an aquarium! I guess something is wrong with the microphone? By the time I figured this out, it was too late to return the phone... and I don't care enough about the phone to invest $$$ in repairs. I don't know whether this can be counted against the phone, but the earpiece that came with the accessory kit (separate purchase) didn't work. I discovered this early enough to return the accessory kit, but never tried another earpiece, so I don't know if the problem was the phone or the earpiece itself. The great reception (incoming, at least) on the v60i raised my hopes that I would be able to call out from the supermarket, which I had not usually been able to do with the Nokia (and which is very useful when you're doing your mother's grocery shopping!). Alas, it was at best difficult to hear and be heard, and at worst, calls failed or got dropped. I am sure this is a function of the phone rather than the service, as the v551 makes beautiful calls from places where the v60i wimps out. Another advantage of the v60i over the Nokia is built-in vibration mode. The Nokia required a specialized (read: expensive) battery to use this feature. I do agree with other Epinioners that the v60i's display is easy to read, and the menus are straightforward. I wish the backlight stayed on longer though. Square old fart that I am, I never had any desire to use some features, such as games... and having no life, I have no need for the datebook ;o). The calculator would probably come in handy, but I keep forgetting it's there! I also have little interest in alternative faceplates (I guess they still call them that on flip phones?), but for those of you who are into that kind of thing, they are available for this model. The phonebook setup was annoying; it demanded info that only a power-user would care about. For example, every entry had to have a speed-dial number assigned to it. I don't use speed dial, and quickly got tired of having to appease the phone by putting something in that spot! It lets you skip the voice ID for callers, why can't it let you skip the speed dial as well? (Yes, it has optional voice ID, another feature that won't be reviewed by this square old fart. LOL) Also, the phonebook is geared toward multiple entries under the same name, which I found confusing. I want to be able to scroll down ONE list and "click" the number I want to dial! Others may find it to be a pain to make a separate entry for Billy-Bob's home, office, and mobile numbers... a matter of personal preference, I guess. One last beef about the phonebook -- it lists the entries alphabetically by FIRST name, with no other sorting options. If you want to sort by last name, you have to enter them in the phonebook as "Last, First". I found sending text messages to be a pain on this phone; I never could figure out how to manually change upper and lower case. "Omg" looks like a carb measurement from an Atkins label... it just doesn't quite have the same impact as "OMG"... KWIM? The keys have good feedback, both audibly and the way they feel. My fingernails are a bit long, and I don't have trouble hitting the right buttons on this phone. Not having had a flip phone before, I didn't notice the "play" in this phone til I got the sturdier-built v551. The flip-top on the v60i wiggles a bit, after only a few months of light use. I find the phone to be a bit narrow to hold comfortably, and a bit short to talk on comfortably. I end up holding it too tightly, which is not only tiring for my hand, but I end up pushing these rubberized, unlabeled buttons on the outside of the phone that do goodness-knows-what. Well, OK, I just sat here and pushed them in the interest of journalistic integrity. One of them is volume up/down, one brings up the phonebook, and one is for the voice ID function. But when you're trying to carry on a conversation, all you know is that they BLOOP-BLOOP at you! I'm currently carrying this phone and the v551. I still have over 200 minutes ($30ish worth) on the v60i that I hate to throw away... but at some point, I need to just eat my losses and retire it. I won't be giving the phone to mom as I had planned -- it's too much of a PITB to keep up with the service, and the connection is not reliable enough. In hindsight, it probably would have been cheaper and easier to change my permanent phone number and service. But, what the heck, the experience gave me an appreciation for the benefits of my new permanent phone! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 89Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88140 2000/7/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small good battery life sturdy fragile antenna discomfort after extended use monophonic ringtones The Bottom LineIt's an excellent phone. Small and sturdy. Not top of the line, but very nice... It's for someone who wants their phone to work well and "look cool." Full Review This has been the six-shooter on my belt for many a-month. I quite like it, actually. It's a nice phone. It's small and sturdy -- made of a pleasing, steel material. My previous phone was a Motorola 120. I prefer this phone. It looks much cooler. I like the way it folds up and fits nicely in my pocket. First, lets concentrate on the positive aspects of the phone. As mentioned before, it is small, and even though it's made of steel, remains fairly lightweight. It's certainly not as feather-light as many of the other models on the market, but doesn't pull your pants down if you're not wearing a belt (this is a good thing). The interface is pretty standard to other Motorola phones of this time period. I'm not familiar as to what type of OS it runs, but it's easy to navigate around. The phone has a small, text-based browser that can be used to actually browse the web if you opt for the monthly fee, which I think can be upwards of $20 a month. Mind you, you're not going to be able to surf very easily, since it's text-based, displaying about two sentences from a webpage on the screen at a time, but if you're really needing it, it WILL accommodate it. One of my favorite features of this phone is the ability to TXT message someone on their mobile phone. This is fun and addictive. Some services run specials, but otherwise I think it's $.10 a message outgoing and $.05 a message incoming. The sound quality is very good. Clear and crisp. I never have any problems hearing who I'm talking to. Nicely accessible thumb buttons on the side of the phone make it easy to adjust the volume of the earpiece as I talk to them. Conversely, the phone gets good reception, so I don't have much of a problem with "breaking up" unless I'm in an elevator... Battery life is good. I only have to charge it once every 4 or 5 days. It's best to let your battery run completely out (or close to it) before you give it another full charge. Those who get into the habit of charging it whenever they're sitting at the desk are actually hurting the extended life of their battery. Batteries have a memory. If they get used to only having to wait a day or two for another charge, they will not keep their charge as quickly. Think of it as taking good, deep breaths with your lungs. It's good for your lungs to breathe in deeply, and breathe out deeply. Concentrating on the cons, there are a couple of things... Mostly just technological limitations, but I guess they should be mentioned. The rings are all monotonic, so in contrast to phones on the market today that sound all pretty when they ring, these still beep and buzz. Oh well. The antenna retracts on this phone and can be a little flimsy... I've had one break on me already and had to order a replacement. Not too bad. $10 or so gets you a new antenna and you're back in business, but it's certainly not something you want to deal with. On many cell phones, the antenna does not retract. It's position is fixed, and this makes it a bit more sturdy. Another con is the fact that this phone, without any padding on the earpiece, can get quite uncomfortable after 10 minutes of use. You can only switch ears a couple of times before you're ready to get off the phone. It starts to hurt after awhile. That's pretty much it. It's an excellent phone. Small, sturdy, and just good for everyday use for someone who wants their phone to "look cool." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 88139 2000/7/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish compact reasonably sturdy lightweight flimsy antenna short battery life prone to random malfunctions The Bottom LineIt's a great, sleek, functional little phone, and though it can have its quirks, it has all the features one really needs and outperforms many other phones on the market. Full Review All in all, I will say this for this phone, and its counterpart with replaceable faceplates, the V60i, they are cute, wonderful, mostly functional phones that do just about everything you need from a cell phone. Now, when I say this, I mean it does all the basics and a few other nifty things, and are by no means as feature packed as some other phones out there now, as they do not have a colour screen, do not have ringers that sound like you are carrying a twelve piece orchestra with you, and do not say things to you aloud, such as, "You have an incoming call." For this, I am grateful, as I like a phone that does what I need it to do. I need it to make calls. Plain and simple. I want an easy to navigate menu system, which this phone has, I want a small, light weight phone, which this is, and I want to experience few if any problems, and, well.... I'm not sure if it was just my bad luck with the V60, but it is entirely possible that I am cursed will cell phones, which is entirely possible after my experience with other phones such as the Nokia 5160 and the Motorola 120c. I began experiencing problems with this phone immediately. At first, as is the general experience with many of the newer Motorolla phones, the antenna that comes with the phone is a flimsy piece of garbage. It will snap off, without a doubt, if it is stuffed into a tight pocket, a crammed purse, or if the antenna is yanked up just a bit too much. Luckily, though, unlike the 120c, this problem is covered under warranty, so particularly if you are using a Verizon phone, you can take it back to the repair center and they will replace it for you, free of charge, with a sturdier antenna. Ahh, but where to begin with the rest of my troubles with this phone? Well, for starters, the first battery I had was awful. Most people who I have encountered who have this phone say they get a good two to three days out of the battery with moderate use on a full charge. Not me. After a couple of months, I was getting about five hours without any use at all before the battery would kick down to two thirds or one third power, according to the meter on the phone's screen. After they replaced the battery, however, the problem persisted, and they decided it was perhaps the charger in the phone, so they replaced that. For a little while, this sufficed, until I got my next strange problem, which was when I put the phone's ringer on silent, it still rang. You can imagine this was embarassing in movie theatres and other situations where phone discretion is advised. After they fixed this, I started getting this odd problem where every fourth call or so, it would sound like the person with whom I was speaking was standing on the other side of a jet propeller. Well, I had had enough after all of this, and went to the Verizon at the local suburban mall (instead of the one where I live in the city, where, quite understandably, they have much less patience) where they decided to finally exchange my V60 for a V60i. Since this replacement, the only problem I have had is the short battery life, but I believe this is just because my battery is almost a year old, and I do use my phone quite a bit, though it is a little irritating. I don't know if all my problems are because the phone itself is delicate, though I treat my phones very well, or if I just have awful luck. Overall, the phone is excellent, if you ignore these problems. It has a few games on it for when you are bored, particularly falling numbers, which is quite enjoyable. Also, in general it gets very good reception, has very easy to use menus, which is something I value, since many phones I have seen such as Audiovox and LG phones seem to require an act of Congress to add someone to your phone book. The voice activation feature is also nice if, like me, you have many numbers stored in the phone and require an easier way to access them. You have to be careful, however, to always use the exact same intonation in your voice to recall the number you want, or you may end up accidentally calling your boyfriend's home in your sultry voice instead of his cell phone. The ringer on its loudest setting is a sufficient volume to hear it in a loud room, but even louder is the irritating sqwak it lets out every minute or so when you have missed a call. As far as durability in general, aside from the antenna, this phone does take quite a bit of abuse. I have accidentally dropped it a few times, both open and closed, on hard surfaces, and none of these drops ever damaged the screen or were related to any of its many malfunctions. The biggest downside I experienced, again, aside from the malfunctions, was the price I paid for the phone, as I managed to buy it right before the newer models were released and the cost, despite the mail-in rebate of $50, was still a little steep, and my credit card felt the pinch. All in all, though I often wanted to smash this phone to smithereens, I have liked it the best of all the phones I have had thus far, and though it doesn't sing and dance and wash my dishes like many of the newer phones seem to, I think the ease of use and multiple features such as text messaging, games, and internet use if you have the service, make it a very versatile little phone that you can carry with you with ease just about anywhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 88138 2000/11/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 high quality construction solid features performance high price not entirely justified absence of ninjas The Bottom LineGreat phone - without the 'fluff.' A bit pricey, wait for a sale so you'll have some cash left for the pajamas and knives. Full Review If you watch much television, you have probably noticed the growing prevalence of cellular phone commercials. Among these commercials, an emerging theme seems to be the notion that one's wireless purchase should be based upon the gimmicks provided by each model. Indeed, full color LCD's, mp3 playback, and most recently, games with ninjas, do carry a certain appeal. Don't get me wrong, I like ninjas as much as the next guy, I really do. However, the thrill of ancient stealth assasaination seems short lived when compared to say, the long lasting benefits of superior clarity, sturdy build quality, and an intuitive interface. Motorola's v60i contains these lasting benefits, though for $200 USD, I find myself wondering if ninjas of some sort ought to be included. The first virtue of the v60 which becomes apparent is the phone's construction. While small and relatively light, it features a tough plastic display and keypad, encased in an anodized aluminum shell. This shell looks nice, is scratch/fingerprint resistant, and is also fully replaceable. Stress points are well reinforced, a key example is the heavy metal used for the hinge mechanism. The antannae is sturdy- I believe it has been revised due to problems with earlier releases. The Ninja-Proof construction of the v60 is appreciated, as the small, smooth phone has a tendency to slip out of my hands and pockets at regular intervals. Ergonomically, the v60 is about as good as it gets for a clamshell (flip-open) type phone. When closed, the phone fits loosely in the palm of my hand. When flipped open, the phone is long enough to span the distance from ear to mouth, a welcome improvement over previous Motorola Startac models. As such, the v60 provides good audio transfer in and out, as well as a reasonable degree of comfort during long talks. However, the comfort and easy grip of a well made single-piece design remains unbeaten by the v60 or any other clamshell model. If you run around a lot and limit most conversations to 30 minutes or less as I do, the v60 will nonetheless provide adequate comfort, and save a considerable amount of space. More importantly than any of this, the v60 performs. Transmitting and receiving clarity are excellent, potentially as good as any hard-wired phone. I say potentially, because reception is only as good as your provider's service in the area. Although I'm sure this goes without saying, the service provider you choose is more important than the phone itself, and varies in quality from city to city. Ask friends who live in your area about their experience, try different services if possible- the provider offering the most minutes is not always the best choice. I have seen so many 'bad reception' reviews for decent phones, I feel it is important to stress this point. Personally, I use Verizon, no complaints thus far. Battery life is above average, the slim unit provides about 3 hours of solid talking time. I use the phone intermittently for short calls, and usually go about 3 or 4 days in between charges. The main LCD, while on the small side, is sharp, easy to read, and brightly lit by a blue-ish backlight. The secondary one-line LCD is located on the outside of the phone and provides quick caller ID/ message notification. There are plenty of ring-tones/ vibe patterns, so if you must look like a complete moron when your phone starts playing 'Hava Neguila' in a quiet lobby, the v60 will not stop you. The phonebook stores 500 names, and the voice activated dialing feature works surprisingly well. Menus are easily navigated, and unlike so many phones I've used, make sense. Some other features included on this phone are a mini-calender, a 90 second voice recorder, a calculator, a web browser, text messaging, and some weak games. Text messaging is novel for a few minutes, but to me most of these features seem superfluous at best, like a pencil with a built in digital clock. There are more efficient dedicated devices for these tasks. All business, no frills- the v60 is a great phone for business, pleasure, etc. It does not feature ninjas. It does not sharpen pencils. Is it worth $200? Yes, I say, but it receives only 4 stars because I hesitated for a few seconds before saying so. In short, if you want a a phone that sounds great and performs reliably, the v60 is a great choice. If you are in the market for ninjas, go to Value Village and buy a pair of black pajamas and some rusty knives instead. You will save 190 bucks and have a better time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88137 2003/7/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very well designed feature packed reliable advanced technology scroll key scratches display when closed can t flip open with one hand The Bottom LineThis phone is hard to beat at any price. It has a great many excellent features, astonishing reliability and impressive performance. Full Review Introduction I had to buy a new phone; my Nokia 282 wasn't able to keep me connected, as digital service was better suited to the area where I had moved. I was immediately impressed by the bevy of features the phone provides. I was also pleased by the ruggedness of the metal body and the massive steel hinge. Features Massive internal memory, voice recognition, web browser, sms, datebook, voicenotes, dual display, and even an FM tuner! It seemed like too much to fit into such a small package. The unit is tri-mode, two digital bands and also analog operation. I don't think the designers expected this phone to spend much time in fringe areas, because the phone can get hot to the touch when talking on analog with weak signal strength for more than a few minutes. I had to plug in the charger after a few minutes to keep the battery from becoming depleted, but I had to cut the call short a few minutes later as I could smell the unit getting very hot inside. This does however, speak to the tenacity of this little unit to perform well in fringe areas, it keeps boosting the power until it makes a connection. The phone has a variety of battery options available, some are quite large, and create quite a hump-back to the phone, defeating the purpose of buying this little phone. I found the next size up from the standard battery to be more than adequate. I can get up to 3 days out of a battery charge where I live. The design is very well-thought out, from the secondary display on the outside, to the ease of entry of names and numbers on the keypad. I really don't think you could make this phone any smaller without making it much harder to use. Connectivity was very easy to my laptop (HP N5310, read review). Just a single cord and simple setup, its provides me good internet access when I'm on the road. It's nice to be able to plug in the charger into the modem cord through a well-designed side-port on the main plug. This prevents the phone from going dead while you are using it for a modem. Sound quality and other performance factors were never lacking. The phone is easy to figure out with the menu, and requires very little training or reading the manual beforehand. Problems A few things about the phone were a bit disappointing. It's very hard to open the flip with one hand. There's no place to dig in a finger to get a grip. Also, the phone is a bit like a bar of soap, and I was always afraid of dropping it. Getting a leather case for it is a must, unless you want to keep it in your shirt pocket and have a good grip. Another problem was the up-down scroll key, it rubbed on the plastic display when the the flip was closed, and it wore some ugly marks on the display. I have not found a way to buff them out without making it worse. I broke off the antenna a few times, but I don't see any way around this problem, I'll have to be more careful. I don't like the way I can't shut it off and on quickly, it has to go through a musical routine each time. There's no way to turn this annoying feature off. The FM tuner works OK, but only works with the special Motorola headset, which is awkward and expensive. Another annoying feature is the way it turns the phone off when you plug in the base charger. It was a bugbear for almost everyone I knew who had a Motorola Microtac flip-phone years ago. I was chagrined to see this feature return on the new phone. Motorola tech support suggested I plug the charger directly into the phone, not through the charger base. It works. Incidentally, the charger base has little metal hooks in the connector, but no button to release them, so it requires you to force it out of the cradle, possibly doing damage to the connector on the phone. Conclusion Overall, the Motorola v60 is a great engineering accomplishment, which works very well, albeit with a few small annoying quirks. I guess that's to be expected with something that has so many bells and whistles. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 88136 2004/1/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 unsurpassed build quality features price performance everything else might be reaching the end of it s life span The Bottom LineThe Motorola v60 series are some of the greatest phones ever built. Full Review I'm sure that is's pretty safe to say that the Motorola v60 series phones were some of the greatest cell phones ever built. Today, it's the future, the time of hi-resolution color displays on phones. But, phones are far from perfect. Time maybe running out for the Motorola v60, but here's what you should know. -Unsurpassed Construction- *When you hold a lot of phones on the market, they often feel like cheap plastic. Some feel brittle. And some are downright poor quality. However, the Motorola v60 series phones sport an attractive and durable alluminum case. Compared to plastic, it holds out a lot better towards abuse. Also, the external LED does a great job of showing you the current date and time, and the Caller ID. It's a very easy to read text display. It's also durable since it's heavily integrated into the casing, which gives it more protection (Or so it feels) than some of today's phones with external LED/LCD displays. If you need a phone which you can give it a lot of abuse, and that it will continue to keep working, the Motorola v60 series is a pretty good option. -v60 Throughout The Ages- *The Motorola v60 is by no means a new phone. It came out a few years ago with its first model, and then gradually moved on by adding more features and improving the phone to perform better and keep up with today's standards. The Motorola v60 was a tri-band phone through many different series including the v60c, v60t, and v60i in recent time. Apart from the v60t, the v60i which came after made use of the web. The Motorola v60i allowed for downloads to the phone which was a big step for the Motorola v60 series. Today's current Motorola v60 phones are the v60s and the v60p, the latter being equiped with Verizon's walkie talkie feature. Both of these phones are web-enabled, perform just as well as any phone today, and still retain the Motorola v60 series quality and design which makes it one of the best phones ever built. -The Drawback For Some...- *A drawback to the Motorola v60 today is the fact that it lacks a color LCD which is found on almost every cell phone produced today. Color phones were expensive when they first came out, but with major plans today, you can get many color phones for free. This may lead people away from the Motorola v60s for example since it's a fairly cheap phone but isn't color. Sometimes people forget what the main function of a phone is, to provide talk! -The v60 Performance- *The Motorola v60 series phones are some of the best performers on the market. I personally find them to perform much better than the Motorola T7## series phones. The Motorola v60 series phones first off have loud ear pieces which makes hearing easy in loud areas. If you have a good plan, you can take advantage of excellent clarity in areas with good reception. The Motorola v60p features a walkie talkie option on the Verizon Wireless Network, which you don't find in any other v60 phone. Both the v60s and v60p feature speaker phone which wasn't available on earlier models. Speaker phone is very convenient to have. The main features of the Motorola v60 series phones such as voice-activated dialing and adjusting the ringer on the Motorola v60 series phones are very easy to do. The Motorola v60 series also has a very easy to use interface. This is great phone for people who aren't good with complex electronics. -In Conclusion- *Motorola was able to build the some of the best phones in the world with the v60 series. Products become very popular for a reason, usually because of their quality. The Motorola v60 series deserves the acclaim that it receives. They are excellent performers and surpass many cheaper (Color phones) on the market today. If you want a cheap durable high-performance phone, then the Motorola v60. It may not have that really cool color screen or some of those other features, but it does everything else it needs to. So it's a pretty damn good phone! With non-color phones getting phased out of inventories, the future looks very uncertain for the Motorola v60 series. It's had an incredible few years of service, and continues to serve loyaly to this day with models still available. Even when it's gone, this would be one of the best buys that you can get on eBay. For years to come, this phone should serve you well! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): DependsRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88135 2000/4/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 just about ergonomically perfect good features great performance great construction no polyphonic ringer display a bit utilitarian The Bottom LineA durable, attractive, good performing phone for the money. Full Review I've gone through many cell phones in my time. I've busted 'em, lost 'em, fought with the service companies and canceled my contract, you name it. But that's okay, because I get bored of them and want new ones every so often anyway. But I don't think I'll get bored of my Motorola v60i (with AT&T wireless service) anytime soon. It's simply a great phone. The ergonomics on this thing are fantastic. It's a very small flip-type phone; when closed, it's only about 3 inches tall, including the non-extendable antenna. When open, it fits comfortably at your ear and extends its microphone right to an excellent position, right by your mouth. The only ergonomic complaint I might reasonably lodge is with the physical placement of the antenna itself: Sometimes my hand comes in contact with it and slightly disrupts the reception while in use. The construction of the phone is equally good. Its casing is of anodized aluminum, which has an attractive brushed look and is quite durable. I've dropped the phone once on asphalt from waist height, and after cursing loudly, I discovered nary a scratch on it. The hinge mechanism seems very sturdy, and when you close the phone, it has a satisfying, secure feel. Opening the phone with one hand while driving might be problematic for some, however. As for the performance, I've never had better. I used to have an AT&T cellphone, and their coverage was always good. I switched to Sprint some time later, and their coverage (at least in the suburban Philly area) was abysmal. Now I've switched back to AT&T, and I'm not disappointed. I was never, ever able to get non-roaming reception in my apartment with my Sprint phone. With the v60i, I get immaculate reception everywhere. I've never had a dropped call. I might encounter slight occasional interference, but I find that's usually due to the proximity of my hand to the antenna. Battery life, an important consideration for me, is good to excellent. Since the wireless coverage I have is good, it means I'm nearly always in the digital area, which allows for maximum battery life. I use my phone quite a lot, and I charge it about every four days, and have never had a low battery warning. That's pretty good performance for such small phone. The features on the phone are adequate, if unspectacular. There is no WAP access (boo hoo), which means you can't access the cellphone version of the web. That's mostly a good thing for me, because I used to get outrageous bills from Sprint when I broke down and accessed the web on my old phone. There is a datebook function which I do not use, but it seems okay. There is the standard cellphone stuff, calculator, voice-dialing, etc. There is a voicenote function which works fairly well. The games are pretty pedestrian, but should serve to divert you during a 15-minute wait in line at the grocery store, or whatever. One thing I miss is a polyphonic ringer. Even some of the cheaper Sprint phones have that, which is the much-less-offensive MIDI-type ringer. The v60i just has the plain old cellphone ringer, which is much less fun. My old phone played the Liberty Bell March pretty convincingly, which was a definite plus for a Monty Python fan like me. The price on this phone has been high, around $200. AT&T is now offering a 50% discount if you activate a new account, which I'd say is a relative bargain. For the most part, the high price of the phone reflects its physical quality and workmanship, which is quite good. This is a phone you'll have, and will enjoy having, for a long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88134 2002/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size motorola reputation features battery life somewhat difficult to open with one hand The Bottom LineWhether it be the v60i or the v60c, this handset offers plenty of features, durability, and style! Full Review I'd like to preface this review by mentioning that I have worked in the corporate accounts department of Verizon Wireless for over six years and in that period of time I have seen a great deal of equipment come and go. I had written a review of the v60c previously, but it was based substantially on feedback I had received from my customers. I have been personally using the v60c for several months now, so I feel like I owe it to my Epinions fans to write an entirely new review incorporating my experience with the handset. Now, on to the review! Features The v60 is a feature rich phone with all of the extras, including: external caller id, microbrowser, text messaging, miniature datebook with reminder, vibration, voice activated dialing, voice notes, 400 name and number phone book, 32 ringers, FM stereo w/optional headset, and extended battery life. The dual LCD is very useful in a flip style phone, allowing you to see who is calling before picking up. Unfortunately, the v60 display isn't quite as informative as other models utilizing a similar layout. Only the date, time, caller id, and new message indication appear on the screen. Other models often include battery life, signal strength, and digital signal status. This model incorporates "tri-mode" technology, which encompasses three bands of service: analog, 800 Mhz CDMA, and 1.7 Ghz CDMA. This is, of course, referring to the Verizon Wireless handset offering. The phone is relatively small, with dimensions of 3.4" x 1.8" x 1" and a weight of 3.9 ounces. The phone utilizes a new Motorla enhanced menu interface that is easier to use than previous models, and quite frankly, leaps and bounds ahead of the StarTac 7868. Not quite up to the ease of use of other manufacturers' phones, such as Kyocera, but much easier nonetheless. Performance Prior to using the v60, I had been using an LG phone that had problems initiating calls in weak areas, such as where I live near the mountains in Southern California. I would miss the majority of my calls while at home and dialing out became a chore. Although not perfect, the v60 dramatically increased my ability to make and receive calls in these weaker areas. It will make a solid attempt at putting the call through in digital before resorting to analog mode. This is a must have for me, given that analog consumes the battery much more quickly (roughly three times as much) and the clarity is significantly worse. I should take a minute to mention that I am rather impressed with the analog in the v60. Many digital phones these days are sorely lacking in the analog department with terrible cross talk and static, but the v60 has surprised me on many occasions. I was just on a call earlier this week that I would have sworn was digital without looking at the display, but after about a minute of checking voicemail, I picked up a hint of static and realized I was in analog. Motorola must have made some definite advancements in the analog capabilities of their phones, because even the StarTac 7868 is quite inferior in this respect. Given that analog is a necessary evil if you want the best coverage, kudos to Motorola for implementing a good design in this handset. The feedback I have received from my customers has been positive as of late. I'm hearing very few complaints, particularly given the incredible promotion we're currently running ($99 minus a $50 mail in rebate). Definitely a great bargain at this price point. Some of the early v60's had some reliability issues, but it appears that they've been ironed out, because the track record has improved tremendously. As I've stated in several other Motorola reviews previously, the v60 suffers from the same affliction as its siblings in terms of microphone quality. I've never been terribly impressed with the "muffled" sound generated by the microphone of Motorola handsets, but like anything else, you take the good with the bad. Fortunately, there's more good here than bad, but this is one area Motorola needs to put some work into in my opinion. The Kyocera and Nokia lines are significantly better in this one respect. Fortunately, there is a work around for this issue given that there is a 2.5 mm jack on the handset allowing you to use an external headset with its own microphone. I've been personally using the Plantronics M175 headset for over a year now and have been very impressed. You can read my review of this unit at: The v60 uses what Motorola coins "iTap" text entry as opposed to the more popular "T9" structure. The two systems are very similar with the primary difference being that iTap requires you to physically select the word you've spelled upon completion, while T9 automatically produces the predicted word. Either method is much preferred over the standard text entry format. I really like the voice notes feature that allows the user to record short messages or an actual conversation (with a periodic beep). This can be useful if you don't have a pen and paper available and need to remember something for later, whether it be a price on an item you're considering buying or someone's phone number and address. My experience with the voice activated dialing has been a good one overall. The recognition tends to be very accurate and only on occasion do I need to repeat myself a second time, which the handset allows you two attempts before it defaults out of the voice activated mode. The phone book is functional and easier to use than the recent LG TM-510, but I still prefer the more simplistic approach of the 7868 when it comes to recalling names and numbers. If you store a home, work, and fax number for an individual, the phone roster will show each number in a vertical fashion as you scroll through the roster. I personally prefer finding the name and then scrolling horizontally to the type of number I want to dial for that person. As I mentioned above, the v60 can be opened with one hand, but it takes some getting used to and isn't as easy as some other models. Some of my customers have complained about this as one of their grievances. One gripe I feel the need to express is the difficulty in changing batteries. I use the dual port desktop charger with two batteries, given the high amount of usage I have, and it is rather cumbersome to switch batteries with the v60. First, you have to remove the backing of the handset itself which can take some getting used to. Second, you have to wedge the battery out of its compartment, which can literally require a Swiss Army knife or some other pointed device. The advantage of this situation is the added stability which will prevent the battery from falling off or losing contact. The drawback is that switching batteries is nowhere near as easy as the old StarTac model. Another note I should add is that quite a few people have commented, and I would have to attest to the fact that the display on the v60 is somewhat dim in its appearance. A few customers have commented that in a bright room it didn't even appear that any backlighting was coming on when keys were pressed. I assured them that it was, but it's difficult to see until you're in a darker environment. Those of you that have become accustomed to brighter displays that are easy on the eyes might find yourselves holding the v60 inches from your face to see who you're calling. Fortunately, you can switch the display between larger and smaller text settings in order to alleviate this problem. It's worth mentioning that the "End" button is on the left side of the keypad and the "Send" is on the right. This may take some getting used to as well. I know it did for me. It's a virtual flip-flop of most handsets. I'm sure Motorola had some ergonomic backing for their decision, but it takes some conditioning to get used to. The battery life of the v60 series is rather impressive, particularly in the newer v60i model. The "c" offers two and a half hours of talk time and six days of standby time, while the "i" offers over four hours of talk time and about nine days of standby. Quite an improvement over the StarTac regardless of the model. Conclusion I have grown attached to the v60 over the last few months and would have to say that I'd prefer it over most handsets available at this time. As I mentioned, the price point is unusually good for the time being, which makes an attractive phone even more so. The appearance of the phone, like a black leather sofa, won't be going out of style any time soon. Owners of the v60 have it all in terms of features, durability, reliability, and performance. Some may prefer the T720 due to its multi-color display, but caveat empor of the decreased battery life! For those who can sacrifice the latest trend of color, the v60 is the perfect compromise between style and functionality. Recommended: Yes 88133 2004/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use ease of data entry size accessories easy to lose because of size The Bottom LineIf you are on the go, this is the one for yo.It's good. Full Review When I moved from an urban area to a rural area, I had to give up my Sprint wireless service, which had been very good where I had been living. I had a Handspring Treo 300 PDA/phone there in the city, and I was very happy with it, but I had to stop using it when I moved to the small rural town. Why? The Treo is a wonder of the modern electronic age, but it operates strictly within the confines of a digital network limited largely to urban and high-traffic areas. The border of the digital zone nearest the small town I was in stopped ten (measly$$##@@!!!) miles away, so I could not resume using my Treo, and I had to terminate my Sprint contract and go to a completely new wireless service and get a new phone. I still use the Treo as a PDA, but I sure wish Sprint covered more territory with their vaunted digital service. They were nice about the whole thing, but the experience was a reminder to me that technology in our time still has its limits. The new wireless service I went to is Cingular, and the new phone is the Motorola v60i. While I have mainly good things to say about the phone, I must say that in the rural town, I have been less than satisfied with the Cingular service. There are dead spots all over the town and when you can't make a call from your own house in the same town of 8,000 people with a Cingular office and Cingular communication towers in it, it's pathetic. I must admit that I could use my Cingular phone if I (a) went outside my house, (b) the electrical currents were sweeping my way, and (c) the solar prominences weren't throwing too much electronic radiation into Earth's atmosphere that day, and (d) I didn't mind having most of my calls dropped after about 3 minutes trying to talk to someone. Ironically, I have a "rollover minutes" plan with Cingular, and I have a TON of "rollover" minutes because they have cut off so many of my phone conversations after about 3 minutes that there were PLENTY of leftover "rollover" minutes. But since they and another similar service were the "only games in town" it was better to go with inferior service than no service at all. So I have grudgingly stuck with them . But I ought to be talking here about the phone instead of the service, right? Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. I will say this: when I go to a town of about 100,000 people 40 miles away, my Cingular service works fine with the phone. I just wish it would do what they lead you to believe it will do in rural areas, unless the town I am referring to is an exception. And I cannot fault the folks in the Cingular office in that town--they were great; it was just the wireless service itself that was less than wonderful there, and it was beyond their control. But onward, to the phone. The Motorola v60i (with Cingular wireless service) is, overall, a good little phone. I have owned two other Motorola wireless phones and a Motorola Walkie-Talkie across the years, and the company makes high-quality products. The ergonomics on the phone are nice, except that it is so tiny that if you have big hands like mine it can be a bit tricky to work with. It's a very small flip-type phone, and when closed, it's only about 3 inches long, along with the hard plastic antenna. When you open it, it (surprisingly) fits your ear and mouth quite well though. Like a lot of other small electronic items of this nature, the convenience of the "smallness" also makes them easy to get lost or stolen, though. But until Motorola or somebody else comes out with a decent and affordable Cell Phone built into a wristwatch, we'll just have to be careful with phones like the v60i. I do like the mainly-metal case of the phone. The whole outer package, excluding the antenna, is of anodized aluminum, and is quite durable. I loved my Handspring Treo 300, but I often wished its outer casing were of something like aluminum, rather than breakable plastic. Because of this armored protection, the little Motorola can take a lickin' and it keeps on tickin', (to coin an advertising phrase, heh-heh.) The hinge is very tough, and when you close the phone, you feel like it's going to be okay. It slips easily into my jeans pocket or coat pocket if I'm going to the office. It would fit easily in a gal's purse. The one complaint I have about the case is getting to the battery. You practically have to take the phone to a watch repairman to get the back case off to get to the battery. But other than that negative, I like the rest of the way the unit is put together. It performs well when you are in an (active) wireless zone. I loved Sprint with its digital service combined with the Handspring Treo 300, but when I am in a workable Cingular wireless zone the little Motorola v60i does a fine job, and I can't tell a whole lot of difference from digital. And, as wireless consumers know, the analog signals may be moofy at times, but they are much more widely accessible today than digital signals over broad spaces of geography. I guess a sat phone would be the best in coverage, but since sat phones and their service charges are still just a little pricey (!) in the early 21st century, a little phone like the Motorola v60i is as good as it (reasonably) gets for people out on the road to places like Podunk as well as Gotham. Battery life is fine. But The charging hardware is a little weird compared to some other units I've used, including earlier-model Motorolas, which seemed more user-friendly, but you get used to it. The strangest part of the charging hardware is a little charging stand with a clock built into it. I honestly don't understand what in all creation that little clock is all about, but it's there, like a curio add-on, on the stand. Maybe you're supposed to use it to tell how long the phone has been on charge, but a normal red-to-green LED charging timer light would have been better. And then there is a crude little clear plastic backing plate that slips off and can get lost very easily, too. Strange stuff. The earphone is equally weird, compared to earlier Motorola products I've used, too. It's the plugs I guess. It's like technology is going in reverse gear or something on this end of the product ensemble. But you get used to those little things. I wish all these phones had neat little snap-in plugs like modern telephone jacks do. The features on the actual phone are competently user-friendly. There is a calendar function which I do not use, but it's there if you want it. There is the standard cell phone array: calculator, voice-dialing, speed-dials, etc. The games are pretty lame, but most of us don't buy a phone like this for games, so It's no big deal. Today camera cell phones are being hyped a lot, but you don't get a camera. My feeling is, if you want a camera, go out and get a good 4-10 pixel camera, but then I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to photography anyway. The real plus I liked about the Motorola v60i in the feature department is that data entry and access is simple. That's a real plus to me and is the meat-and-potatoes of a cell phone anyway. Motorola's got that one down pat. The newer phones all have a lot of bells and whistles on them today, and, to tell you the truth, if I had the money and it had the capability to effectively access telephone numbers cheaply in truly remote areas, I'd probably spring (pun intended) for a new Handspring Treo 600 or something like that. But since I am in the reality that I am in, I am satisfied with the Motorola v60i. It's a real road-warrior for the times. Now, if Cingular would just get its coverage in rural areas straightened out... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7727 Motorola Timeport 270c Phone 88187 2000/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features size weight ratio durability lack of alarm timer The Bottom LineI recommend it to anyone who needs a phone for all their communication needs. It is practical and comfortable for long conversations and has a nice feature set. Full Review I recently sent my V60c back to Qwest and told them I was not satisfied with it. My choice for replacement? The Timeport 270c, and I have not been disappointed in my decision. One might think it odd that I "downgrade" from the V60c, but as I noted in my review of the V60c, while it is a fine phone, it is less convenient for my own personal needs than the 270c is already proving to be. The 270c is a "traditional" shape phone, larger than the V60c, but it actually feels lighter. It has a superior weight distribution, so that hooking it onto the belt clip does not result in it constantly tilting out and away from the body as happens with the V60c. The antenna is vastly superior. This thing will not get bent or broken while wearing it on a belt clip with the antenna retracted, as happened with my V60c. It seems odd given the size difference, but I notice this phone much less when it is clipped onto my side than I did with the V60c, which I had wound up carrying in a pants pocket (also uncomfortable). The V60c was a little brick. So... why the 270c, and what are my impressions? I like the speakerphone feature! Someone else commented it was not loud enough... Okay, whatever. I have found it nice and loud and the people on the other end seem to have no problems hearing me at all. I typically sit and type on the computer while I am on the phone in speakerphone mode, and it works very well. Clacking on the keyboard inches from the phone does not seem to cause any problems. I have yet to try this function while driving, but I plan to try that out soon. I like the size, personally. I have long fingers and phones that are too small tend to be hard for me to hold comfortably during a long conversation. I use my wireless phone for everything... I do not have home phone service. Therefore comfort of use is very important as this is my means of voice communications (outside of the occasional voice chat using computer messenger software). The features and menus are otherwise identical to the V60c, which I found to be a good thing. I find it easier to navigate and find things than I did with my StarTac (ST7800W series, don't recall the exact model). The large screen of the 270c help in making use of this phone very comfortable and convenient. I personally give the interface a high mark. A couple things I would like would be for Motorola to include the PIM sync software with the phone rather than as an extra, and to have an alarm and timer function. I rarely carry my PDA anymore and would find these features useful on occasion. If you need a phone that will be used for everything, and you like the newer motorola interfaces, this phone just may be for you. It does not have the glamorous appeal of the smaller but heavier feeling V60c, but it also may be more practical for you. As with all purchases in this price range, I would highly recommend considering your own needs, and then viewing potential phones in person at a store before buying. I bought the V60c over the web on my provider's web site and, as you see, decided I had made the wrong choice for myself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88186 2001/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life full featured sharp display outstanding duplex speakerphone bluetooth technology pim size slow battery charger The Bottom LineA full featured phone in an almost full size, light weight chassis. Full Review Having owned a Motorola Iden I85, using Nextel, I wasn't a stranger to this type of phone. I loved the I85, and hoped that something like it would be available on Verizon's network. Also, it resembles the Sanyo 4500/4700, on Sprint PCS's network, w/respect to its features, battery life, and even, to some extent, in appearance. First of all, if a unibody phone that's on the bulky side doesn't appeal to you, then don't consider purchasing this phone. The LG-TM510 would be a comparable alternative w/respect to features. This is the type of phone you purchase if you see yourself substituting it for a landline phone. It has every imaginable, practical feature, except for Java-based software. In a nutshell, it has: a speakerphone (full duplex and truly functional); PIM (calendar, alarm); voice-activated dialing; an easy to use joystick for its user interface; Bluetooth capable (this allows your handset to communicate w/other devices w/o a cable -- e.g., transmitting data to your laptop wirelessly, working with a car's speakerphone wirelessly, etc.); FM stereo headset capable. It doesn't, however, have extras like games or MP3. This is a business-centric phone. It's reception is outstanding, providing me with a connection in those areas that have proven to be historically weak in my neighborhood. Clarity, on the receiving end, is crystal, and fully acceptable to those listening to you on the other end. I disagree w/another opinion made on this website about the quality of the speakerphone. The speakerphone on this phone is exceptional. It is full duplex, and sounds loud and clear. For conferences, driving (in quiet environments), and voicemail access, it works very well, and as good as any landline speakerphone I've used. Battery life is stellar, and I no longer need to charge a phone every night, as I did w/the LG-TM510. Make no mistake, I like both the 510 and this phone, but for different reasons. If you prefer a flip, then consider the 510. The 270c is designed w/durability and functionality in mind. If that's what you want, then consider this phone for purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88185 2000/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good reception in most areas good speakerphone poor placement of some buttons screen fonts are too small The Bottom LineIf it is your only choice, go ahead but otherwise choose something else. Full Review I bought this phone because I wanted to get on a cheaper plan and my old Startac wasn't a tri-band phone. I was told by the Alltel rep that I would "love" this phone. She said that she and others in the office all had it and found it to be the best phone they ever had. I guess I fell for the pitch 'cause I own it now. The only thing I really like about the phone is the speakerphone. It works great! I even used it for a conference call during a sales pitch I was making to one of my customers and we had no trouble hearing the person on the other end and he could hear us very well also. I am at the stage in life where I need glasses for reading, but not for most other things. The screen font on this phone is so small, that I need my reading glasses to see it. This makes it tough to see who is calling when I am driving or doing other things like shopping, since I don't use my glasses for those things. Also, I wear polarized sunglasses and there is something about the coating on the screen that makes the text nearly impossible to read while wearing the polarized lenses. What a pain! This phone has the capability of voice activated dialing, which I guess is pretty cool, although I have only used it once or twice in four months. This feature causes a bad problem however. The button you have to press to voice dial is located on the right side of the top of the phone. This button also happens to be the one you use to activate another feature, which is recording a message, much like a personal tape recorder. This position of the button just happens to be directly opposite the place you have to put your thumb to release the phone from the belt clip. The result is that I am continually activating the voice calling feature when I try to release the phone from the belt clip. The only way around this is to lock the keypad by pressing "menu *". Then you have to press the same keys to unlock the keypad to make a call. Again, what a pain! I am also disappointed with the phone book. The only way I can see to get to the number I want is to scroll through the whole phone book. On my old Star Tac, I could press the first letter of the persons name and that would take me to that portion of the alphabet so that I would only have to scroll through a couple of numbers to find the one I wanted. This phone doesn't appear to have that feature, or if it does, I can't figure out how to use it. Which brings up another issue, the manual. I am a pretty literate guy and even have been called a computer geek by more than one person. This manual, however is more complicated than most. Maybe they just need to take some of the features off the phone. I don't need or want most of the stuff they put on there. Overall, I can't say that I could recommend this phone to someone who is not a total phone feature geek. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 88184 2000/11/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 a great speaker phone moe than enough features display fonts too small The Bottom LineIf you need handsfree speaker phone - this is the one. Buy it Full Review Motorola 270C is an outstanding speaker phone. I love the fact I can clip it to my sun visor in the car and talk hands-free with no wires to get in the way or hang a mike in your ear, etc. It's my very own poor man's "On Star" I am told the sound is very clear and I can talk back and forth, just like the person is sitting right next to me. In my state, it is important, as driving with a cellphone in your hand is a big fine / ticket - waiting to happen. Now some important things to consider. First the battery life is short. Well its a speaker phone and that takes more juice from the battery. So in a car, get a auto plug - charger. Also take a look at the 1850 ma battery. yea it's going to cost you 60-70 bucks, for the battery and a new back cover. But it is more than worth it. I charge it and get almost triple time. I get almost 4 full days no need to charge and about 7 hours of talk time. (This is when it is nice to have a unlimited plan mine is with Alltel) Let's talk easy of use. I give it five stars. First it is a handful size. You are not going to lose this phone in your pocket. I like a solid feel phone and this is it. It's big and feels like a normal phone. I like that fact you can single button 9 phone numbers - aka speed dial. I don't have to take my eyes off the road. a quick glance press the number one key and the phone dials my wife at home. You can even voice dial. meaning you say the name and it dial's the number linked to it. As far as switching between loud ring and vibrate. read the manual !! it's so easy to create a short cut and switch back and forth -with the press of one or two buttons. You can lock the keyboard by pressing Menu and "Star", then the phone won't start to dial a speed number. And if you do get a incoming call. just press any key and talk. the phone re-locks when the call is done. This phone has lot's more feature. all of them easy to master and use. Faults- The display uses small fonts. You almost need reading glasses. Sadly it's that bad. It doesn't make any sense either, as it has a large LCD display. Just wish I could use bigger fonts. I will say, after using the phone I am now use to dialing, answering, and general operation without having to look at the display. Finally - side notes: Keep in mind a long talk life in a battery does no good, if you have a limited (100-200) minutes a month phone plan. Also how good you and the other person sound depends on your cell company and how many towers, quality of the signal, etc.. Mine is Alltel - and they do a good job of providing service. As I said I have a unlimited plan so a long battery talk time is important for me maybe not so important for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 88183 2000/11/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 incredibly strong case good speaker phone carrying cradle does not securely hold phone paint flakes off faceplate The Bottom LineI can recommend this phone - it is a SOLID performer, though the peeling paint is somewhat disappointing cosmetically. Full Review This summer, I dropped my Motorola 270c. Not unusual, except I was on an amusement park ride about 50 feet in the air at the time. It fell down and hit concrete, lower left corner first. After putting the battery and battery cover back on (these jar loose with even a moderate fall sometimes), my phone fired up just fine. The case was scratched but not broken. Kudo's to Motorola! However, the scratches were hardly noticeable...not because they weren't big or deep, but because at that time I had had the phone for about 6 months, and the silver paint on the faceplate was falling off in bits and drabs all over, so the scratches blended in. This was disappointing, and there are no replaceable faceplate features for this phone. I knew about the battery coming loose in short falls, not because my fingers are exceedingly slippery, but because the cradle that comes with the phone allows the phone to slip out VERY easily. Any upward pressure at all, such as the sleeve on your arm brushing against the phone in the cradle, or bushing the phone and cradle against a seatbelt or chair arm, results in the phone flying out of the cradle. This is an easy cradle to get the phone out of when you want it out, but it is not a practical way to carry the phone. I threw my carrying cradle away, and got a leather case with an integral spring clip to hook onto my belt. Unfortunately, the leather case covers some of the buttons on the sides of the phone (on/off, volume up/down, and "voice input" buttons). Additionally, the speaker phone button is so far down on the faceplate, it is covered by the leather also. Fortunately, these buttons can all be easily manipulated through the thin leather. I just had my phone software updated this month (Nov. 2002) and I now have a few GAMES available on the phone - though they are pretty simple ones: Falling Numbers, Reversi, and Video Poker. Not to worry though...there were plenty of games available through the browser function, together with a lot of news, weather, etc. Finally, I also want to report that about 4 days after my 1 year warranty ran out, I had a problem with the phone intermittently indicating it was "unable to charge" when I plugged in my charger. I took it to the Alltel store, and they soldered a bit of the PC board where the charger plug was connected...fixing the phone at no cost to me. Kudos to Alltel. In retrospect, I worry that the technician knew just where to look for the problem...like this was a common problem with these phones? However, I didn't think to ask him at the time. I don't think the fall at the amusement park 6 months earlier was a factor, but it might have been since the charger plugs in the lower left corner. In any case, it was a quick and easy fix. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160?? 88182 2000/2/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 screen doesn t scratch easily outlook sync sound quality volume signal strength verizon voice notes price interface is weak joystick feels cheap antenna nub pain battery life a joke The Bottom LineIf you need Verizon service and Outlook's Contacts and Calendar in your phone- and you can't wait for a Pocket PC addon- this is your only choice. Full Review This phone isn't a complete loser, but it falls short even in the things it is supposed to do. To put this in perspective, know that my last phone was a Sendo unit badged as the Sprint Touchpoint 2200. This phone was an ergonomic gem. In addition, the menu-ing was intuitive, and everything (just about) but the speakerphone worked flawlessly. The Motorola falls far short of the quality of the Sendo on almost every front, except that the Motorola actually has Outlook sync capability- flawed as it is- which Sendo alluded to offering but couldn't deliver. First, the Motorola's joystick feels cheap- like a GM turn signal- where the joystick on the Sendo was akin that of a Lexus. Second, the Motorola is light, but the plastic is quite brittle, leading me to believe it will break if given the chance. As for the display, even under the magnified mode the text is somewhat difficult to decipher. It seems that this is due to the font choice more than anything else. Speaking of choice, the menu-ing system on this phone is nothing but pain. Everything seems to be buried deep, and you can't build shortcuts to the sub-menu functions. Bad juju. Also bad is the fact that you can only use the speakerphone during a call. The Sendo let you fire up the speaker for Voice Notes, too- nice. The Sendo also had nice rubber insets along each side of the phone, rendering it easier to grip. I ended up purchasing an additional standard battery and the dual charger (phone and battery at once). This is because I'd smoke through a battery faster than expected. In all fairness, I try and run the battery dry, so if I do get a call when it's low it doesn't take long to kill it. Still, I had to shell out an additional $80 on top of the $179, and the $179 was obtained at the price of a 2 year commitment to Verizon (which "saved me" $60...?). In Motorola's defense, after cycling the batteries about 6-10 times the battery life increased about 50%, making the situation at least tolerable. The battery probably now has about 70% of the stamina of the Sendo battery. The other problem is that the Starfish Truesync software often messes up the Calendar (and sometimes even the phonebook). I often get duplicates in both my Calendar and my Contacts, on both the phone and my Exchange server mailbox. This becomes an even greater hassle if I fail to notice it and then sync up my Visor. It seems that you can avoid the dups if you choose the Delete and Write New option when sync-ing, but this means that none of your recurring appointments will transfer. You must choose between the two pains. Lastly, I don't like the fact that the phone often times pokes into my "HoHo rolls." Yeah, getting rid of them would be a better idea than dropping reception on the phone, but the Sendo's nub never "rubbed me the wrong way," and had Sprint been able to generate a signal w/any degree of power I'd probably still be with them. In case you hadn't guessed, I'm a LAN Flunky/PC Monkey. The drive (pardon the pun) behind obtaining a phone w/reminder capability was fueled both by my aversion to strapping on a PDA AND a phone, and also my absence from my desk (and of course, my computer). While the Motorola stumbles with sync-ing appointments and phonebook entries at times, it is a boon to have the reminder remind me when I'm out and about, and the phone numbers have come in handy often. While the Motorola suffers from what I can only assume are "Design by a Unix UI Programmer" foibles, at least it DOES work. You end up having to work around the design, but at least you have the chance of getting done what you need to get done. The screen is scratch-free, unlike my Sendo, and although the Voice Notes function is a bit more difficult to use, it is usable. I only wish they had included the ability to map a Voice Note to a reminder, but since the reminders sync w/Outlook, this feature is understandably absent. The signal and voice quality are top notch. Obviously the signal strength has more to do w/Verizon than Motorola, but after suffering w/Sprint for 12 months it's a welcome respite. I can get calls in a basement parking garage surrounded by live power cables and bundles of live telco wires. Nice. Of course, Verizon has to pump a lot of signal strength through EVERYONES' brains to offer that type of quality, so it's a mixed blessing. The sound quality can probably be attributed to the Motorola, at least in part, and it is phenom. I spent about an hour or so on the phone tonight helping a rookie through the "batch on call" support routine and the sound was great. I wouldn't necessarily steer anyone away from this phone, because I didn't see any other Verizon hardware alternatives when I purchased the phone, nor did I see any on the horizon. If Verizon bedded hardware vendors as well as Sprint, Verizon would become a mobile phone monopoly in no time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 88181 2000/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 solid functionalilty wonderful voice features friendly excellent display great speaker phone lacks features far less expensive phones have expensive internet slow bulky The Bottom LineBuy the 270c for its speakerphone. However, its overpriced for the features and so are the accesories. This phone can't justify its TOP DOLLAR PRICE! Full Review When I walked into the Verizon Store and saw the 270c, visions of the I85 came to mind. My main goal in my new cell phone (since Nextel didn't have coverage near my house and I wanted ONE phone number for people to reach me) was a speaker phone. I had asked about several different phones, and most people told me that if I liked the I85 speakerphone, I would be disappointed with any other phone. I figured the 270c had to be ok, it almost looked like the I85!! Well, the speakerphone IS great. Not quite as loud as the Nextel, but they have that built in walkie talkie radio so they HAVE to be loud. Was it worth $200? No. For starters, it really lacks in a lot of little features other far cheaper phones have had for a long time. Alarm clock, calculators, currency converters, games. I know most people can do without the games, but I've already had several occasions where I could have used the calculator and alarm clock, and seriously miss those items. Even the very business and cheaper I85 had a game. The phone is bulky. What you say? So it the I85? True it is. But somehow this phone feels bigger. Especially since I have been forced to store the phone in my pocket, the included holster is pathetic. I tried using it at first, but just walking along with normal movements would cause the phone to pop out and fall. When it finally managed to pop off, slide down my leg and get kicked across a parking lot, I stopped using the holster. About the only thing the holster is good for (VERY GOOD in fact) is using the speaker phone in the car or on the desk. It holds it very nicely in the car and the clip acts as a kickstand so the phone sits upright on the desk. Too bad it can keep it on my hip. The long antenna stub doesn't help matters either. They should be able to get that thing shorter. But bulky means tough i suppose. The internet also isn't as good as some phones. Its slower than other phones I've used with Verizon (and Nextel). What the heck is iTAP anyway? Why couldn't they just use T9? T9 was great, it could remember things I previously typed (like my email addy) and was generally just far more fluiid to use. iTAP is stupid, literally. Its dictionary is limited, and it doesn't learn new words. It can't spell very well either. If I'm tapping a long word thats not so common, it will usually give me a bunch of constanats that make no sense, but nothing that could possibly spell a word. Its cumbersome to use. Often I just revert back to the mutliple tap method. Its also slow to switch modes. I could really fly along with T9, but I really slowed down with iTAP. Other quirks? -Turning the volume down to 0 doesn't turn off the ringer as one would think. -Also you can't turn the speaker phone on right away, you have to wait for it to "Connect". So I usually end up having to take my eyes off the road so I can see if it connected. -The Call lists will wipe out numbers. If you call the same number 4 times, it will list it 4 times instead of moving it to the most recently called number. 99% of other phones I've used, just juggle around the numbers. So if you've called 10 different numbers 20 times it will still show you the 10 different numbers, not just the last 10 you dialed. -You can have several numbers for one contact name, but unlike the I85 and Kyocera I've used recently, it doesn't group them together under one name. If you have 5 numbers for 1 person it will list the name 5 times instead of once and being able to select which number under the 1 name you want. -Touch tones are slow. If you have a number to enter (like a credit card to check a balance) don't listen to the tones. Sometimes they won't even sound and it will mess you up (but they will still go through to the other end). You just have to keep on pressing regardless of what it sounds like its doing. Its especially bad with the speaker on. -Accesories are expensive. I thought that with the little IR looking lens on the end of the phone Bluetooth was built in. But no, it requires a $300.00 module to work. -No shoulder-ability. Usually when i try to shoulder the phone, the other end can't hear me. I guess my cheek covers the microphone. Well I guess I've made it sound pretty bad. But there are some things I really LIKE about the 270c. The voice dial and voice memo are very easy to use. ALL phones should be this way. For voice dial, you press the button on the side once and say the name. For a voice memo you hold the same button and speak your memo. No searching through menus for the voice memo feature. To me it does no good to have to search through a menu for something thats meant to be a quick note taker. You can also record a conversation. I found this VERY convienient when I need to get a long number but had no pen and paper handy. However, when you replay a memo, you can't do it through the speaker, you have to hit "Play" and quickly put it up to your ear. REMINDER BEEP! This is great, but not annoying. If there is a missed call the phone will emit a quite beep every 5 or so minutes. I used to have to check my phone all the time because I won't always hear it or have it right with me. Now I can just listen for the beep. After a while the beep will stop to keep from annoying co workers if you are away for a long time. Battery life is GREAT. I can usually go a couple of days without recharging. (but i'm also talking less since I seem to rack up alot more minutes with Verizon) Speed dialing is easy. Just hold down the last number of the contact you want to call. I have 5 or 6 numbers I'm constantly calling and this allows me to just hold the 1 number for a second and it will dial. There is also a notepad feature. If you type in numbers, either while on a call or not, it will save it in the notepad. So you can type in a phone number, then clear the screen and it will remember later. (too bad it can't remember words) The screen is also very nice. It uses the irridecent green background that many of Motorola's pagers use. This is great. Sometimes you will catch a bad reflection with other phones in daylight and not be able to see the screen. With this phone, it will light up bright green under almost any condition, allowing you to always see the screen. Its clear and informative. Many options are customizable. You can also create shortcuts to commonly used menu items that comes in very handy. You get two quick access buttons, and the general menu button. Some phones have none or only one, so you end up having to go through a menu system. You can program the quick acess buttons, but I prefer the factory settings for the Phonebook and Messages. THe ring tones and beeps are also friendly and clear. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 88180 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid easy to use phone with speakerphone feature huge antenna strut back cover is separate from battery The Bottom LineSolid, feature packed phone with speakerphone capability. Full Review This is my fourth cell phone in the last two years. However, one was because my wife lost a phone, and this last purchase was because we decided to give my mother in law a phone to use in emergencies. The Timeport 270c is about the same size as most small, non-flip top phone out there. The one annoying design feature is that the strut that houses the antenna sticks out about an inch and a half when the antenna is fully retracted. It has a fairly large display screen that can display 6 full lines of text, or 4 lines in zoom mode. Navigating through its menus is very convenient with small joystick device on the front panel. I actually figured out most of the phones features without having to read the manual. Setting features on the phone is a simple matter of highlighting the item you want with the joystick, and then selecting with the select button. Reception is also good. I don't know whether the quality of the reception depends on the phone at all, or if it's solely a function of the carrier network, but I seem to have the best reception with this phone compared to the others that I've had. Some of the specific features of the phone I like are below. The best feature for me is the speakerphone mode. I do fair amount of travelling to NYC, where cell phone use in cars have now become prohibited, unless you are using a hands free device. The Timeport 270c has speakerphone capability which works great, eliminating the need for me to buy a separate has free device to attach to the car. The voice dialing feature is also useful. Unfortunately, you can only assign 20 numbers for voice dialing, although you can store several hundred numbers on the phone. Stored numbers have speed dialing capabilities, but you have to remember what slot you stored them in. The one issue I have with the phone book feature is that when you look for a number, you need to scroll through the list until you find it, one at a time. This could take a while, if the number you're looking for is in slot 45. I don't think the phone has search capabilities. Even a paging function would be good so that you could page through the listings 4 or 5 at a time. The phone also acts as a barebone digital voice recorder. To record something, like a phone number or address, all it takes is a push of the button on the side of the phone and speaking into the microphone. It can hold up to 2 minutes of verbal speech. The phone is also a barebones scheduling book. It has a calendar function where you can select a specific time and date to jot down little memos for you. You can also set an alarm to go off at a certain time so that it can also function as a travelling alarm clock or reminder. It won't replace a Palm Pilot, but it could come in handy sometimes. Other features include web browsing abilities, personalized call tones (more than you could want), caller ID ability, text messaging, and full featured phone set-up menus to configure such items as answer mode, redial mode, data/fax transmission and receiving, and a bunch of other features which I don't even know how to use. Battery life is advertised as up to 10 days standby. I'll have to use it some more to see if this is true. Speaking of the battery, the phone has one annoying design feature. Many phones use batteries that are actually designed into the back panel. This phone has a separate back panel which you have to remove to access the battery, thus having one more piece that can get lost, damaged, or worn. A picky complaint I know. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88179 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large screen speaker phone voice commands long battery life fm radio feature clarity no calculator no games The Bottom LineHighly recommended. Spend the few extra bucks for the 270c instead of the v120. A must for heavy cell phone users. Fits comfortable in your hand and on your ear. Full Review I just wanted to give my two cents worth of opinions to this phone. I've read quite a few reviews that were in earlier threads but after using it for the past few days i thought i have garnered enough time to offer up a reliable review. The specs are all available on various pages on the Motorola site so I won't bore you with those details. First off I'll make a mention to the signal quality. For those of you that are buying your first phone, hopefully you've heard that the signal quality that you receive is as good as the service provider's coverage. Serious, no coverage, no signal simple as that. Even if you had the best phone in the world, no coverage, no signal, no call. Any questions? For those of you that have those tiny phones, this is slightly bigger. I personally do not find it overly large. Sure compared to ones that you could stick in a shirt pocket, its large, but size is all relative. I find its best to check it out yourself before purchasing--especially if you're buying it online! Most store will be willing to show you a demo or working model (check a working model if you can) so you'll have the best idea on the size of this phone. Dimensions aren't the same as seeing and picking one up in your hand. Personally, I do not really notice much of a weight issue, and it's probably due the the fact that the phone is nicely balanced. It does have a wonderful large screen to see lots of information, and it has the green reflective backing. If you own a Timex digital watch with the reflective screen, that's basically the same thing on the phone too. Personally i find the menu fairly straight forward to use. If you ever find it too complicated to go to a particular menu, you can always make a shortcut. It does not come with a calculator or games, but the daytime and address book i find is superb for a phone. No need to purchase a PDA if you have a computer at home, get the USB or serial cable and download your agenda onto your phone. One thing that i like is that the phone records times for EVERY call you make in addition to you total calls. It can help you balance your monthly minutes pretty accurately. For those of you that don't have a lot of minutes in your phone plan, you'll find this to be a blessing. You'll find when you first get the phone you might need to re-plug the charger into the phone a few times to fully charge the phone completely and then away you go. Today i talked for 2 hours and the phone still had 2 bars on it (out of 3). Did i mention i also listened to the radio for an hour commuting to work too? The sound quality of this phone is phenomenal. I was making a long distance call to a friend and was waiting for the bus outside in the rain on a major street and the entire time (i asked my friend a few times whenever a big vehicle came rumbling by) my friend couldn't hear any vehicles at all! Now this is when you use the phone normally. Switching into the FM headset, it was a little more difficult to hear my friend outside on the noisy street and she could hear a lot more background noise, to the point that i took the headset off again. I've tested the headset in an office building and it works really well in that type of a setting but not outside in the rain with cars whizzing by. The speakerphone is really good. Your party will notice that your voice will sound a little distant, but that's to be expected in a speaker phone mode. It performs better than the speaker phone on my old Sanyo 4500 so i'm quite pleased with it. The phone does have the standard headset plug so you don't necessarily need to purchase a Motorola headset for the phone unless you want to listen to the FM radio. I found the ear buds to be pretty good, not as comfortable as my Sony ear buds, but considering its a headset too it's acceptable. Sound quality is slightly muddy for the bass when listening to the radio, but again it's adequate for my needs. at least i don't need to carry a walkman with me along with my cell phone. If you're an avid music lover, you might be disappoint with the sound quality, but for others you might find it acceptable. Voice notes are pretty cool, came in handy getting phone numbers while talking on the phone with the person. Just hold down the voice button, and there'll be a beep that both parties can hear. I found my voice to be slightly louder than the person on the phone who seemed a little bit fuzzy, but when you don't have a pen around, it does come in handy. I've been using this phone for about a month now, and thought it doesn't turn people's heads when i'm talking on it, it certainly gets the people I'm on the phone with completely stunned when they realize that I'm using my cell phone and not a land line. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170.00 88178 2001/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 other nice ideas a speaker phone for alltel customers quirks bugs quality degrades over time speaker phone not the best The Bottom LineOverall, a true disappointment. Full Review On the market for less than a month, the Motorola Timeport 270c is a nice phone to have around much of the time, but read on before you make your final decision. I "upgraded" from a digital Startac (7868W), and can say there are several, immediately noticeable pros and cons about the 270c (also known as the "Panther" among Alltel employees). The main attractions include: a speaker phone (until now, not a feature available in phones offered to Alltel subscribers), voice recognition dialing, large 128x100 display (for 6, yes 6 lines of text), 400-entry calendar with alarms (also capable of being sync'd with popular PIM software, if you buy the optional $300.00 Bluetooth PC kit), memo recorder, 32 ring tones - all things I never had on the Startac. You will also find a WAP micro web browser, vibrate, headphone jack, and CDMA 800/1900 + 800 MHz analog service support - all features Startac and many other cell phone users are familiar with. In a nutshell, the speaker phone is a nice thought. And unlike many other cell phones, it appears to be "duplex", which in layman's terms means you can both be interrupting each other and neither of you will miss a word that is said. However, the highest volume level isn't nearly loud enough (though when I am in a quiet room people sound very clear). The speaker phone also gets confused if typical background noise (like car AC) interferes, cutting off your words, etc. And even though I'm usually within 15 or so inches of the mic, people always tell me I sound "far away." I end up finding myself driving down the road with the phone in one hand, speaking into it like a walkie-talkie - so it's still not a practical hands-free solution. But it's better than driving with a phone hanging from your ear... As for the regular earphone and microphone inside the 270c, I've not had anyone tell me they can't hear me clearly, but I have had trouble hearing them (and I have no hearing problems at my young, healthy age). Motorola tried to accommodate many different head sizes and ear-to-mouth distances, but there is only 4 1/4 inches between earphone and microphone, so you will experience mixed results if your ear is not lined up correctly with the speaker holes - especially when resting the phone on your shoulder (you know, the old fashioned hands free method :-). The voice recognition works great, and relies on your own voice (not an internal voice that's trying to adapt to you) to trigger address book listings. You can store up to 400 phone entries, plus unlike a Startac, you can use up to 25 whoppin' characters to label each entry! Nice! However, keep in mind only a few of those 400 can be triggered by voice recognition... The screen is big, and offers a 6-line or 4-line display. The 4-line is a zoom for bigger letters. I prefer the 4-line display even though I don't have any eye problems, as the 6-line display makes the letters too darn small. It is back-lit, and also has a reflective background, making daytime use a breeze. The contrast can be adjusted, but unfortunately I have to turn mine all the way up to see clearly. Speaking of the screen, be prepared to wipe, and wipe, and wipe the oils from your skin off the viewing window after every call - it sits right against your cheek and is terrible about smudging and getting "dirty". This is one of the worst things about the 270c, though wiping may be common with a lot of cell phones (not with the Startac though). I don't subscribe to data services, so I can't rate the browser or email services, but if they're anything like the rest of the menus on the phone, you will be extremely satisfied. The menus are super-easy to navigate, and I've only had to look at the 186-page manual twice. You can customize the menu screens, create your own short-cuts, and personalize practically everything. The phone even has a tiny joystick that helps with most of your movements! I was anxious to purchase the optional "Starfish TrueSync" software, and sync the phone with alarms from Microsoft Outlook. Until I found out it runs $300.00! Maybe they have something else in mind for the future? The variety of ring tones are wonderful, and not nearly as "cheesy" as many phones I've heard. You can also select different tones for different events - like incoming call, email, reminder, alarm, etc, so your phone reminds you of each type of event in a unique manner. Perfect if you use your phone to its fullest potential. The battery is supposed to provide up to 235 wonderful minutes of talk time. And sometimes I can go a full day without the need to find the charger. But other times it seems to last only 5-6 hours. In addition, the battery takes several hours to reach "completely charged" on the AC adapter. So if you're low, don't expect any quick results. There is an optional car charger available ($20.00), so that should help keep you going as well. I was pleasantly surprised to find the phone comes stock with 2 different clips - one small one that locks onto a swivel, and another that is more of a hard cradle with a belt clips that doubles as a table-top speaker phone stand. Nice if you remember to take it with you. But I prefer the smaller swivel clip for use with my attire. It's sturdy and my phone has only tried to sneak off of me once. I clip the hard cradle to my visor and use it to try to achieve better speaker phone performance while driving. It seems to help. One of my fav's on the phone is the "IGNORE" button. When a call comes in, you can either hit "ANSWER" or "IGNORE", and I use the IGNORE button often when I can't take calls. Instead of it ringing 5 times and shaking up everyone around me before going to voice mail, the IGNORE button pushes them right over there! The phone supports Bluetooth brand wireless devices, though I'm not sure what this means to us as Motorola has yet to release any of these devices for the 270c. A few other weird quirks: You can't see the time while on a call. Disappointing. There is only one volume control that controls the entire phone, so if you use the phone half the time like a speaker phone and the other half against your ear (like I do), you will find yourself constantly turning the volume up and down. Annoying. You cannot activate the speaker phone until after a call is connected. Also annoying. You have to dial touch tones EXTREMELY SLOW when in speaker phone mode. Aggrevating. UPDATE: My first phone conked out after a month and a half in operation. I now have a new one and still find the annoyances described above are design-related, not because I had a bad phone. But I take great care of my phones, and am amazed that my first phone has already died. Hope this review helps with your decision. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 225 88177 2002/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri mode good reception text messaging voice memos web access bluetooth voice dialing speaker phone monochrome screen software glitches inconsistent navigation phone book limited The Bottom LineA proven cell phone if you don't need all of the latest goodies (color, etc). Worth a long look! Full Review Background: I am hard on cell phones. I use my phone for hours everyday. It goes wherever I do and unfortunately, I'm not as careful as I should be.. Features: Other than the lack of a color screen and the lack of things like a digital camera, the Timeport 270c is a full-featured phone. Here are some of the things that I use daily and find to be very useful: Voice Dialing - you can assign voice labels to a certain number (15 I think) of phone book entries -- touch one button, say the name and shazam! Text Messaging (Receive) - With Verizon you can register for a free "@vtext.com" email address for your phone. That makes it a snap for people to zip you a quick email while you are on the run. It only displays the first 160 chars but you can say a lot in 160 chars if you try... Text Messaging (Send) - The text entry scheme isn't the easiest in the world, but you can compose short emails/sms messages on the fly. I've found it to be invaluable! Text Messaging (Quicknotes) - The 270c allows you to store pre-written SMS messages (emails). So you can zip out a quick message in no time like -- "are you on the way..." "where are we meeting" "when will you arrive" ... etc. Speakerphone - Not all speakerphones are useable. The 270c is one of the better implementations that I've ever used. I use it regularly and it works... what else can I say. Unless you are in an extremely noisy environment, the volume is sufficient. Caller-ID - It may seem like old school, but not every phone implements Caller-ID perfectly. One of the nicest features of the 270c is how the Text Messaging is linked to the Caller-ID. If you have one of the many programs installed on your Home/Work PC that will email you Caller-ID information (Winfax, Identify, etc), the 270c "recognizes" that part of the text message is a phone number. The value of this is that you can hit the send key twice to call the person back instead of having to remember and dial their phone number. It's slick and useful! Shortcuts/Soft Keys - The 270c allows you to customize the phone -- first you can change the function of the two soft keys under the screen. Secondly you can assign shortcuts to keys -- example: You can make the 9 key jump to quicknotes. You would hit "menu 9" and you'd be there instantly. Phone Book Icons - Motorola has come up with a nice approach to the problem of each person having multiple phone numbers (cell, home, work, pager, etc...). In addition to assigning the name to a phone book entry, you also specify what type of number it is (cell, home, work, pager, etc...) and each has their own icon. Then if you you receive a call from "Dan Jones" it the phone will tell you which number he was calling from.. Good Battery Life - I thought that I'd probably need to purchase the extended battery due to my heavy usage, but I have found that I haven't needed the extended battery at all. I'm impressed with the battery life and longevity. Bluetooth - The 270c has bluetooth connectivity with the addition of a "access card". I haven't tried it yet, but it looks tempting. Reliability: The Motorola Timeport 270c has stood the test of time and abuse. I've dropped it, I've sat on it, I've left it in the car overnight to freeze, etc... and it just keeps working. Disadvantages: No Downloadable Ring Tones - You can "compose" your own ringtones, but who wants to mess with that when other phones allow you do DL them... Weak Phone Book Navigation - One of the most irritating bugs in the 270c is how you navigate the phone book. If you have ten "Dave xxxx's" in your phone book, before three "Donald yyy's", you can't get to the Donald's without scrolling through all of the Dave's... You cannot enter "DO" for example -- the 270c only accepts the first character of the name... Stupid feature. Software Glitches - The 270c will occassionally lockup and have to be reset (powered off/powered on). If you are reading a text message when another one comes in, about 50% of the time it will lock up the phone... Annoying but not deadly. Inconsistent Navigation - When you are trying to send a message, you have to jump from one soft-key to the other several times. It means you can't send a message without really looking at the screen. Physical Size: The 270c isn't a "tiny" cell phone but I think it's the perfect size. It fits in my hand nicely, and it fits in my pants pocket. Others will complain that it's too big. It's personal preference issue. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88176 2002/4/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good speakerphone sound is clear in digital land almost all of the time tri mode can t fix phone at local verizon store software problems battery life maybe short at times The Bottom LineThis phone had its share of software problems but it has been a much improved phone. I hope Verizon makes it available in all the markets soon. Full Review I have always had Verizon Service since April of 2001 and saw that this phone was coming out in CDMA mode for Alltel in June and always thought you could use the Alltel phones with Verizon. And I saw this phone had a speakerphone and I really wanted this phone. So I drove from Kansas City to Springfield and walked into an Alltel store and purchased this phone for $299 off contract. I also like to be different because I don't know a whole lot of people that have this phone and every time I walk into a Verizon store in a city they always want to look at my phone. Really in reality, it is the big brother of the V60c and V120c. This phone has some great features that my previous phone Audiovox 9000 did not have. It of course has the speakerphone. My old software that I had in the phone wouldn't let you turn on your speakerphone unless your call was connected. Since I had new software put into my phone, you can now turn on the speakerphone before you make your call which is a neat software upgrade. The current software version that I have now with Verizon is 2101.03.28.05. I had a different one with Alltel and the phone would occasionally miss a call or drop a call even in the home service area. I just recently got this software version of this phone and so far it has worked great even though there were some features changed with this phone. The menu is essentially the same in both versions. I was also hearing that there maybe even a newer version of the software coming out soon to show if you are in the Verizon Home Network, the Verizon Extended Network or Roaming (Enhanced Roaming Indicator). This is particularly useful if you are on Verizon's America Choice Plans to know what's going on if you are roaming or not. But even if you have this current software version, if the triangle at the top of your phone is not on, you are in the home Verizon area, flashing means you are in the extended area which means you are roaming on Alltel, US Cellular (certain states) or Sprint-(except NY LA or San Diego) and solid means you are roaming on a totally different carrier. This is with PRL 50028 or 50029 if you have the enhanced roaming indicator. If you have a different plan such as the single rate plan, you will have a different PRL number. The speakerphone has worked well with this phone and now I am so spoiled that I will not get another phone without one. My other favorite feature is the ignore button when a call comes in. If you want to not answer the call after seeing who it is (like my parents who call 5 times a day), then just hit the ignore button. The party calling you will still hear ringing and go to voice mail as before, but you won't. Many different customizable rings with this phone, however you cannot associate a ring with a certain phone number like you can on some of the other phones. Some rings are louder than others and some are more stupid than others. With this new software version you can create your own rings too even though it is a pain. Consult Motorola on how to do this since this was not part of the original software version. I miss "Hava Nagila" from the old software version, they took it off and put America the Beautiful and the Star Spangled Banner and Battle Hymn of the Republic. This must have been in commemoration of 9/11 like everything else it seems. Never the less I usually leave on the conventional ring since it is nice and loud and if I am in a loud bar or have the phone in my jacket, I can hear the phone ring. The phone has a large phonebook of 400 numbers and will alphabetize them and you can use 20 of them for voice activation. With voice activation, press the button on the right, say the name and the phone will dial it for you. Battery time is fair; I still have the original one and think I can get about 2-3 hours with one charge. The speakerphone I believe uses more of the battery power and also if you are in an analog area, it will use more as well. The accessory I have with this phone is the car speaker/charger that you can attach with this phone. It is fair in my opinion. The person on the other end might have to ask me to repeat something, but it is nice that I can have hands free capabilities when I drive. The sound that comes out on my end is fine. Keep your windows closed for the best sound. The Motorolas I am convinced give the best reception. It beats my Audiovox 9000 hands down. It's done amazingly well in some of the more remote areas as well. Since I have had the new software version put in I have not dropped a call with it yet. I will keep a watch on this and update as appropriate. This phone also has voice notes where you can record the caller's conversation if you don't have a pen to write it down at the moment. Holding the button while talking is a bit of a nuisance but it is better than nothing. Phone also has mobile web and Bluetooth technology capabilities which I have not yet used and probably won't. Motorola has been great with Warranty Service. They have replaced two clips that broke and they are sending me a new carrying case for the phone. I also had to send the phone out to them when the local Verizon here in Topeka didn't carry this particular phone to get the updated software. This phone was originally only available in certain markets such as the east and west coasts. I had the phone back in about a week. A lot of cellular companies seem to be discontinuing their in house repairs. If you go with Verizon I don't think you would be disappointed with this phone even though it maybe a little tricky to get use to at first with the menu toggle switch. But after awhile I got use to it. The phone was 179 I believe on line with the one year contract and 149 with a 2 year contract. With the exception of the software problems which maybe happened, since I brought the phone through Alltel and activated it through Verizon, I have been content with this phone. Even though Cingular has the cheap national rate promos out right now, I do not like their selection of phones at all and none of them have a speakerphone option. The buttons and the numbers are easy to read and easy to press even though I have big hands. It's a great phone, I only wish they kept the Hava Nagila tune that they had on the original Alltel software. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 7728 Motorola C350 88194 2005/1/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tough consruction compact easy text entry lightweight small not the brightest colour screen not the best reception i've had this phone for i'd say a year and half now. i don't use ringtones since i set my phone to vibrate, so i can't comment on the ringtone issues others have noted. reception is alright, but where this phone excels is compactness and durability. i've dropped my phone probably 10 or 12 times since recieving it, and in every case it has simply shut off. powering it up again brought it back to life. lots of battle scars on the case but the screen is just fine. maybe a little dark, but it has been like that since i got it. some people complain the buttons are small and hard to press - but i have never had this problem. i must say the iTap text entry method is a GREAT thing for text messaging and entering names for your address book. i wish every phone would adopt this. in general the phone is compact and easy to carry around, and you will not be asked "is that a cell phone in your pocket or...?" 88193 2005/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy text entry lightweight tough consruction compact not the best reception not the brightest colour screen i've had this phone for i'd say a year and half now. i don't use ringtones since i set my phone to vibrate, so i can't comment on the ringtone issues others have noted. reception is alright, but where this phone excels is compactness and durability. i've dropped my phone probably 10 or 12 times since recieving it, and in every case it has simply shut off. powering it up again brought it back to life. lots of battle scars on the case but the screen is just fine. maybe a little dark, but it has been like that since i got it. some people complain the buttons are small and hard to press - but i have never had this problem. i must say the iTap text entry method is a GREAT thing for text messaging and entering names for your address book. i wish every phone would adopt this. in general the phone is compact and easy to carry around, and you will not be asked "is that a cell phone in your pocket or...?" 88192 2004/6/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cheap pretty small screen sound quality are regular This phone has polyphonic sound, color display and many functions. Screen are small, very dark without light, sound are acceptable. The speed of menu and functions are slow, hardware phone are insufficient to sustain operating system. Some bugs are present in phone because ring tones and melody are erratic in some calls. 88191 2000/11/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 decent service does all the basics well durable attacks other electronics awkward size phone looks stupid The Bottom LineDon't pay much for one, but if you can get one cheap or free take it. Full Review I recieved a motorola C370 when I started my rogers plan. The C370 which is in fact just an updated 350 was overall a great phone that took a beating. This phone was thrown many times, across rooms, streets, directly into floors. The thing would not break. The case gradually got scratched with this constant abuse and the number 6 button broke. This however was expected with the abuse I put it through. Often when this phone was thrown hard enough the back case would come off and the battery would fall out, but the phone was easily be reassembled. Even more bizzare is I had the front case fall off several times after a good throw and the phone worked perfectly fine. Eventually however the phone missed the abuse and decided to quite randomly have the speaker and microphone click in and out alhtough it had not had any recent trama. Finally this phone was destroyed when I threw it against a road as hard as I could. I then picked the sections of the phone and threw them all again and then jumped and stomped on the entire collage of parts until I discovered this phones secret to durability. Inside, there are in fact tiny metal plates over vital chips on the circuit board. GOOD THINKING!! Now it is time to talk about the negatives of this phone. This phone is awkward in size. Enough so that I replaced mine with a V3 because a flip phone is just bigger. Often too this phone would ATTACK other electronics, like I have noticed many Motorola phones do. However, this one did it in an extra special way, it created a loud buzzing not only on nearby electronics that were on but also on some that were off AND unpluged. Another problem with this phone, after alot of the hard use I gave it, it would do weird buggy partial resets on its self. Oh and last off, for what it matters, I think this phone looks stupid, kinda like the fat nerdy kid of cell phones, still not as bad as the nokia ones. Overall I must say this phone was worth the 0$ I spent on it, as rogers has treated me good the 2 years I've been with them and therefore have had no reason to change. Leaving that I'll just say I would never pay full price for this phone but if its free or very cheap take it. Also I must add the durability has been approved by 2 others I know who also love to throw phones like me. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88190 2000/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small great sound when listening to the other party caller personalize your ring tones must do hard reset mine has been dropping calls phone works best if fully charged The Bottom LineOverall good buy. Personalization is key for some. Size is a huge plus. Full Review I have had this cell phone for about 1 year. I paid $89 for it. It has quiet a bit of features. It fits in your hand and easily goes into your pocket, jeans/coat. Features/Pros * Colored screen * Key-Pad Lock (what a GREAT invention - this eliminates accidental phone calls caused by either kids or by you running into the keypad) * Voice Dialing - You can set up to 20 phone numbers to dial via your voice (I have yet to set up this feature, but would be good for when you are driving w/a hands-free device) * Phone book - I am not sure how many phone numbers you can store, but I know it is alot. The only downfall is when typing a name to go w/the number it can be quiet cumbersome * Recent Calls - Allows you to view the last 10 Dialed and Received phone calls, which is great if you forgot to add a phone number to your phone book. Under this menu you can also view the amount of time spent on your calls, which would be useful if you have a certain alloted amount of minutes. You can also reset the times whenever you like, which w/alloted minutes you might do this on a monthly cycle * Chat - I can't give you any information as I have not used this feature, just letting you know that it is available * Alert Styles - This is where you can set your ringing volume. This phone comes standard w/vibrating tone, vibrating & sound, loud, soft, and silent * Media Center - It comes preloaded to choose themes, sounds, pictures, and a Moto Mixer. I have not used the Moto Mixer but once, you can set up a short tune with this feature * Games - Comes preloaded w/3 games to play. I love this for when I am trying to kill time. * Web Access - I have not used this feature as my Cellular Carrier does charge for this feature * Office Tools - Date Book/Calendar, Calculator (one of my most used features - I don't have to lug around a calculator to the stores) * More - Alarm Clock, Settings, MyMenu (allows you to reprogram the way your menus are set up), Messages (Voicemail, Text messages, Create a Message, Quick Note (similar to a note pad), Quick Dial (you can preprogram a single digit number to automatically call a phone number) Recommendations for accessories - Case/Cover as the keypad rubs off over time, Car Charger, and a Hands-Free set. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88189 2004/5/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 has much needed alarmremovable battery very dark display w o backlight possible memory conflicts cause erractic ringtone behavior The Bottom LineMuch too buggy to be useful. Avoid at any cost (even free) Full Review Like the previous reviewer, I received plenty of arm-twisting from T-Mobile to "upgrade" my old phone (a C332) to the C350. I inquired about the compatibility of my data cable/software, but could not get a definitive answer from T-Mobile. Motorola consistently ignores all customer service/technical support inquiries. [UPDATE: I finally received an e-mail a few days later from Motorola with a link to download updated software] Given that, I declined to upgrade when I received the mailer with the offer. Last week, I received a telemarketing call from T-Mobile with the same offer. (At least they gave me 75 bonus minutes for the intrusion) Between the claim given that "all the bugs of the C332 have been worked out" and reading the previous review here that an alarm clock was now included, I decided to go ahead and order the "free" upgrade. (new 1 year service agreement now applies) For background, I posted a review of the C332 on amazon.com last year. It may be hard to find as the phone is discontinued. In a nutshell, The C332's weaknesses for me are in the more esoteric customization features: A very convoluted ringtone editor, phone numbers need to be stored on the phone's main memory rather than the SIM in order to use different ringtones (audible caller ID) voice dial, or any other of the bells & whistles touted. Unfortunately, if you assign a voice command to a number and then A) move the number onto the SIM or B) try to reassign the voice command to a new number, it won't work. The voice command is forever in limbo, it cannot be reassigned to the original number, and when you try to re-record the command, the phone tells you it already exists. The only solution is to do a master reset of the phone, losing all custom ringtones, menu customization, voice prompts, numbers you didn't move to the SIM first, etc. Guess what? Those exact same flaws are still ever present with the C350! So much for working out all the bugs. My C332 did have a background beeping noise during calls sort of like a semi honking its horn repeatedly from about a half mile down the road. The C350 eliminates that though there is a persistent faint background hiss. The hiss is a minor improvement over the beeping. [Update] Was told it was "user error" for not deleting the voice command prior to reassigning a number or moving a number from phone memory to SIM. Was also advised that its recommended that you store all your numbers on the SIM to avoid this problem. When I explained that the voice dial, custom ringtones, etc. aren't accessible from a number stored on SIM, the rep assured me that it works just fine on his (Nokia) "6610" I repeated that it doesn't work on the C332 or C350. He dismissively stated "I guess I'm a liar then." Two new very irritating bugs have been discovered on the C350 (and I've had the new phone less than 24 hours now): The voice dial feature that I found so indispensable on the C332 that I reprogrammed the right Soft Key to, is rendered all but useless on the C350. On the old phone, you'd select voice dial (in my case pressing the Soft Key) speak the name, and it would echo back the name a second before placing the call. That made it perfect for handsfree calling. Press the button, say the name, and you'd only have to intervene by hitting the End key if the name echoed back as "Joan" instead of "Home" for instance. I could safely operate the handsfree without ever looking at the phone, it was that intuitive. Apparently, Motorola interpreted that as a bug, so they instead decided that when you say the name, it should just open the phonebook to the name, if then you actually want to call the number, you'll have to then press the Talk button. That would have still been annoying, but doable with the C332 due to the difference in the keypad layout, the talk button is immediately beneath the right Soft Key. You'd still have to hope it recognized the voice command properly, but I'm sure Joan would eventually forgive you for waking her up at 3AM. With the layout of the C350 the right arrow navigation key is sandwiched between the right Soft Key and talk button, making it very difficult to press the correct button without looking at the phone, so having to look at the phone to confirm the name and to then press the talk button renders voice dialing all but useless on the "debugged upgrade." [UPDATE] This bug seems to have worked itself out. Voice Dial still brings up the phonebook, then echos the name and dials. Unsure how it corrected itself. My second beef is that despite what the sales rep told me, it appeared there was no way to send my custom ringtones from the C332 to the C350 as a text message. I was going to have to reprogram them. True this is a bit esoteric, but I do like making this a form of "audible caller ID" I know whether it's my boss calling or the friend who will talk until I and the battery completely gives out, and I can again choose to answer as appropriate. The ringtone editor is pretty convoluted, but I've gotten fairly good at working with it. The first tune I reprogrammed plays fine in the editor, but when selected in the "My Tones" menu, one note is VERY off. re-editing the notes, it appears to again play correctly, though the notes have "AlertFile038.mid" appended to them. This is not explained in the manual nor does a Google search return any results (maybe it will now) Perhaps this is an RIAA anti-piracy addition? Maybe I can prevent the off note and the cryptic "AlertFile038" by arranging with ASCAP to pay them royalties whenever my boss calls me causing "Inspector Gadget" to play? [Update] Contacted T-Mobile Customer Service who offered to exchange the C350 for another one to see if it would correct this problem. Advising the rep that all things being equal, I'd rather use the old phone, I was informed (with supervisor confirmation) that I don't have to return the old phone despite the dire warnings of being charged $100 if I don't within a week. By "downgrading" back to the C332, I can fix this bug. The C350 meanwhile still has the off note bug, the "AlertFile038.mid" has been replaced by several solid black boxes on the end of the notes, and at the end of one song it often jumps into the next custom ringtone instead of repeating itself. My guess is that the memory space allocated for custom features overlaps that for other functions causing unpredictable results. The previous reviewer is also correct on one point, the display is absolutely unreadable when the backlight is out unless, perhaps, you want to point a flashlight at it. I stopped wearing a watch once I always had a cellphone with a clock on the display. I might need to start once again. Keeping the keypad locked is essential on this (and all candy bar sized phones) when you have the phone in your purse or pocket and even advisable in a belt clip. Unfortunately, that requires you to unlock the phone to activate the backlight so you can see what time it is. I don't know if this is the case with all color displays, but I'm longing for a plain monochromatic LCD which is easily read in ambient light without the backlight. [Update] Rep assured me that I wasn't configuring the phone properly, that I can program the screensaver with the time on it and it will clearly display the time. (I haven't figured out how to put the time on top of the screensaver) needless to say, regardless whether the time is on a screensaver, wallpaper or just a plain white screen (my preference) it's still nearly impossible to read if the backlight is out. One other quirk slightly improved with the C350 over the C332 involving the keypad lock is that despite being locked, it will respond to the '9' (The C332 responded to the 9 and 1) I notice with either phone you can quickly push 911 before the screen will show instructions on how to unlock the keypad. (unreadable again on the C350 as the backlight is never on for this message) I haven't tested (for obvious reasons) if you can press "Talk" to complete a 911 call with the keypad lock on, but this is something I wouldn't want to be able to do. I'm certain many numbers of 911 operators agree with me there. I have unwittingly made a number of interesting calls to people whether in my phonebook or not when I forgot to lock the keypad. That's not a call I want to accidentally make. [Update] Both the 9 and 1 can be pressed as with the C332. The rep to whom I spoke to today assured me that any key I press will bring up the instructions on how to unlock and the backlight. I had to play him extended DTMF bursts of the 9 and 1 with the keylock on to indicate otherwise. All told, I was less than pleased with the C332. Unfortunately the C350 for the most part has proven to have more, not fewer, bugs than its predecessors. I'm hoping I can return the new phone rather than the old. With luck, I might be able to escape the new 1 year agreement (not bloody likely I'm sure) I can always claim breach of contract since I was promised that the bugs were worked out. Maybe if all else fails, I can convince them to give me a Nokia 3595 instead. (The first go around when I asked, they said I could have one for $149--three times the retail price!) [Update] Rep claims that when my initial contract ends in July (I thought the new contract was already set in place and wouldn't expire until May 2005) I could then choose a free upgrade to the Nokia if I want. Also was told that the $49 "retail" price for a Nokia 3595 is only with signing a new contract (Hmm, what did I just do in getting this buggy phone?) And that the true retail price is actually $149. [Update] Now having had the phone for several days, finding features working inconsistently, or bugs manifesting themselves in different ways; I've decided that I'm putting the SIM back into the C332 and living without the alarm clock. Not that that's any strong endorsement for the C332, only that it's definitely less buggy than its "upgrade." Given the often surly comments from the customer service rep in trying to work through these issues. I do hope it's an isolated incident and that T-Mobile will take proactive steps in training its reps, or I will be shopping for a new service provider next year as well. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88188 2006/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 almost a mini computer the latest technology really hard to see without the back light dark screen to save the battery The Bottom LineThis has the latest technology for free. I probably won't use most of it, but like the longer talk time and battery charge. Full Review Every year I write a review on my new phone. It is funny, this time because I loved my Motorola C330 so much I had planned on keeping it a little longer. Well my one year contract had run out, and I think T-Mobile and Motorola thought I might take my business elsewhere. I received a letter from them offering me a new phone, the Motorola C350, for free. I would continue for a further year with my contract with T-Mobile. $19.95 a month for 60 weekday minutes and 500 weekend minutes. Nationwide and roaming included. They gave me a 1-800 number to call. Within a couple of minutes I was told that my phone would be with me within 5-7 days. There would be a pre-paid envelope to return my old phone. I could keep all the accessories. If I did not return this phone I would be charged $100. My new phone arrived 5 days later. It came with a charger and ear piece. Also instructions to transfer my SIM card from the old phone to the new one. This card contains my number, phonebook addresses, recent calls, etc. So what is different with this phone? My last phone was contoured to my hand. This one is not. It is the same size as my last one. It is silver gray. I really don't think it is as pretty, but only a women would say that. To me it is functional. It does fit into my leather case, so I didn't have to buy another one. With any new phone it has to be fully charged up. Older phones have taken hours to do this, but the Motorola C350 battery was fully charged in no time at all. To switch on press the red telephone key on the left side. Hold it for a couple of seconds. Then the M comes on. The screen has the signal strength in the left top corner. Right hand the battery level. If I had any messages they would show between these. There are 2 different ones, for text and voice. In the middle of the screen is the time of day, T-Mobile, and at the bottom, 2 quick (called soft keys) menu items. I chose recent and phonebook, but any of the menu's can be switched into these places. On my old Motorola I also had the date. I read the 84 pages of instructions and still couldn't get the date on my phone. I headed up to the Mall, where we have a T-Mobile store. The people working there hadn't seen this new phone. The guy who was helping me took about 10 minutes to finally get the date in for me. My time and T-Mobile were large. He zoomed out of them, and was able to put in a third row, hence the date. This is really important for me, because I don't carry a diary or calendar with me. From this screen you can receive a call by pressing the green telephone button, on the right side of the phone. When finished press the red telephone on the left. You can press the number buttons to make a call and then the green phone key, or better still, put them in the phonebook. The person you are calling is high lighted in the color of your choice, so you are less likely to make a mistake. Between the 2 quick menu keys as I call them, in the main menu. Press the center to bring up the first one. Mine is messages, which is self explanatory, then scroll up or down to read the rest. They are: Recent Calls: Goes into received, dialed, notepad, call times. I use this each month to delete the amount of minutes. Starting fresh on the cycle date of my month. Ring Styles: Mine is vibrate and ring. I had a normal ringing tone, but the guy at the store put music in for me. Now after I finish a call, or go out of a function, I get dancing animation too. Cool. Media Center: Is themes, my tones, picture viewer, motomixer. Allows you to play with downloads to create you own pictures, sounds etc. Datebook. Give you a calendar where you can enter an event. T-zones. I have not been into. Web Access. Haven't used this function either. Phonebook The phone book was a lot of fun. With my old phones I had to key in the whole thing. Pressing a key several times if it was the last letter on that button. This phone likes to do the work for you. It guesses the name, and puts several on the bottom of the screen for you. I found this to be of help with easy names, but when it cames to doctors etc., then I had to key it in myself. You can enter 100 numbers and names. Alarm Clock. Calculator Games: Astromash, MotoGP. Snood21. Haven't had time to try any of these out. Voice Dial. You have to add these via the phonebook. Fixed Dial My Menu: MegaTones, Wallpapers, Screensavers, Settings: A very important function. Call forward, phone status, In-call setup, security, other settings. Other setting also goes into personalize, initial setup, network, car settings, headset. In personalize you can change the 2 keys (pads) to your favorites. Change the color too. Initial setup, changes time and date, touch dial, back light length of time, zooming, scroll, animation, language, contrast. AIM. You need to go on-line to use this. I just wanted a phone. The one thing I really like about this phone is that I have a colored screen. Multi-colored. At the left side of each of these functions is a picture of the function. The one thing I really hate, and I do mean hate about the C350 is that when the back light goes out, the screen can hardly be seen. In the house with the lights on I can just about make it out, but living in the Sunshine State, forget seeing anything when I am outside or in the car. The answer is "No I don't drive and look at the phone", I only pick it up when Len is driving. I asked the gentleman in the store why this was, and he told me it was to save the life of the battery. Progress? I don't think so. Standby Time is up to 215 hours. Battery Talk Time is up to 290 minutes. During the week I do not have to charge the battery. I switch off at night. During the weekend I use my phone for say 100 minutes, so Sunday night it gets a charge. Another good point with this phone is that I can lock it. It can be done 2 ways. Either by pressing the menu key and then straight after the * key, or you can put in your own code, so that no one else can use it. For any youngsters out there. The phone lets you change covers and keypads. There is a section on this in the manual. Dimensions of the phone: 98 x 43 x 17 m.m. Weight 84.5 g. Volume 72 cc. If you purchase this phone and any pay plan, charges apply for text messaging, alerts, and each MegaTone, and Wallpaper purchase. (Taken from the box) If you are interested in this phone, you can see if they now have it at your local phone store, or contact: Personal Communications Sector 600 North U.S. Highway 45 Libertyville, Illinois 60048. 1-800-331-6456 or www.motorola.com. The clarity is wonderful, and I can use it anywhere, without losing the signal. This is a must. I am not going to bore you with detailing all of the information, as the 114 page manual does a pretty good job. If there is anything you really want to know, or if you think I missed it out, please leave a comment, or e-mail me. While waiting to get this review submitted, I was out eating with friends. My phone case was attached to my purse. I hit the side of my chair with it. The phone fell out, and landed on the floor. The back came off and the battery came out. This is a sleek, shiny, phone. Not always a good point though. Glad to say it still works. Thanks for reading. Susie. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7729 Motorola Talkabout 191 GSM Cellular Phone 88196 2004/7/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 gets the job done simple to use phone basic small seems to break easily limited features sms deleted automatically if send fails Gets the job done Small My parents bought me this phone for Christmas 2002. I have only just bought a new phone. The motorola wouldn't charge anymore and I don't know if it was the battery, but it is likely. The battery has a design fault it seems, because many (most actually) of the phones of these that I have seen have the battery cracked on the back. It would charge if you put a rubber band tightly to the charger thing, but it was getting ridiculous as it was losing its charge every day. The phone had very little features, but they are cheap as anything. It did the job, I could sms people and receive important calls. You could/can get ringtones for these if you looked around and knew what you were doing. I liked the auto lock feature. It was basic, and useful, nothing flashy, but you only need a mobile to work as a phone and for you to be able to distinguish the ringtone in my opinion. So basically an alright phone. Limited features SMS deleted automatically if send fails 88195 2000/4/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 not heavy reasonably priced stylish sturdy sleek i haven t had trouble with it ring not loud enough scratches easily small keys erasure of text messages The Bottom LineI recommend this to people who will not use it very often and just want a simple, small and stylish phone that they can easily slip in their pocket. Full Review I bought a silver Motorola t191 in September 2002 and I especially liked it in the shop because it is a very stylish little phone and is light and sturdy (compared to other phones within its price range). Of course, at Au$200 or about US$90 it is also quite cheap. Great things about it:- - I have not had any trouble with it, it has always worked fine for me so far. - It has most modern extras: vibrator alert, WAP, animated screensaver. - It is small and fits perfectly in your pocket. - Battery life is okay and the indicator is reliable. - The menu is quick and easy to navigate. - Clear reception anywhere and everywhere! Bad Points: - The phone scratches easily and paint wears off in places. - The games are limited. - Users can't add their own words to predictive text dictionary. - When I type a text message and the message doesn't get sent, then the message gets erased and I have to type it over again. - The small, hard keys are more difficult to use for messaging than the Nokia 3315 or similar. - The loudest ringtone setting is not loud enough for my purposes... - It does not allow logos (on screen), (this is really not a big deal, unless you have a demanding teenager). It has quite a few faults but they may not bother you depending on how fussy you are, how much you will use it and what you are looking for. I give the the t191 a 4/5 rating because it has served me quite well and satisfies my purposes reasonably well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 7730 Motorola MPx200 88206 2005/4/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything about it after you upgrade had to upgrade when I first got it it was freezing up and hardly wanted to work at all. I bought an upgrade off of ebay and now it is the best phone i ever had it has microsoft windows 2k2(but i upgraded to 2k3 wich is the newest version of windows mobile). it comes preinstalled with microsoft outlook, windows media player, windows messenger, and just about anything you would ever need. it also syncs with your computer very easily. all in all you can never go rong with this phone as long as you know how to handle it. 88205 2005/9/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 easy sync to outlook etc no blue tooth phones freezes for minutes The product looks great and seems to have all the functionality one would need. the problem is getting to work. The MSFT software is incredibly clunky and often puts the phone in a frozen state for minutes at a time. It does have all the right features (outlook syn, contacts, internet, etc.) and is only missing blue-tooth, but I will never buy another MSFT software phone and actually might stay away from Motos all together after this experience. 88204 2005/5/17 Portability3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 seamlessly synchs with microsoft outlook large easy to read display makes navigation a breeze would not recommend this phone On paper this a great phone. However, several drawbacks are making me consider a new phone after only one year of use. Operating system locks up periodically. Power button poorly located causing phone to power down if not careful. Bad reception with many dropped calls. Can't accept incoming calls while in use. 88203 2004/7/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 good applications stylish nice display screen poor battery life poor signal strength I have owned and used this phone for the past eight months. I am extremely disappointed. At this point it is simply used as an expensive PDA or calculator. I get horrible signal strength and I live in metro Washington DC! (Other cellphones seem to work fine.) When I bought the phone I was told that I would be able to update the phone to Smartphone 2003. Not true. AT&T does not plan to support. The battery life is horrible. So in the end I have some stylish JUNK that elicits ooohs and aahhs by the unsuspecting masses. Don't walk away from this phone but run! Sorry mpx200.org 88202 2000/3/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 attractive clamshell external speaker countless dropped calls very slow os crashes alot The Bottom LineI cannot recommend this phone because of all it's shortcomings, Slow OS and numerous dropped calls being the main reason Full Review The Motorola MPx200 started some of the craze of smartphones that are currently on the market today. It was one of the first non-PDA phones to use the windows mobile operating system. Looks: Looking at the phone it comes in a very understated black finish with a blue face and an external display that displays the basics, time and battery life. The phone itself is a very attractive clamshell, however, the black finish does tend to attract a lot of smudges and gets dirty very often. The phone also is a bit on the heavy side and people that carry their phones in their pockets will notice the weight. Performance: Being one of the first clamshell smart phones on the market one would expect the Motorola MPx200 to have some shortcomings. While having Windows Mobile on your phone is great, you use activesync to sync your contacts and email can be imported via Outlook, transfer times can be a bit slow. Unfortunetly, transfer times aren't the only thing that are slow. The Windows Mobile OS can be very slow at times and after extended periods of use, it crashed alot. Not only did the OS crash but sometimes hard resets were required. The hard resets came as a major inconvience because contacts had to be reimported. Also, I was using an unlocked version of the phone on Cingular's network in Pittsburgh, PA. My phone signal would never be at full strength, the phone also missed a plethora of calls along with dropping calls and not being able to hear users on the other end. Multimedia: The phone itself is not a multimedia powerhouse but is serviceable. The phone comes with an SD/MMC slot and using a 512 MB memory card was no problem. Using activesync it was easy to drag and drop mp3 files onto the phone although like mentioned above, it was very slow. Overall, I cannot recommend the Motorola MPx200, while it is an attractive phone and does have some redeemable qualities it is a pain to deal with on a day to day basis and is something you worry more about than enjoy. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88201 2005/2/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 all the pda features in one small phone elegant looks requires a gray market upgrade not supported by at t The Bottom LineSmarthpones are great for anyone who would otherwise carry a Palm or iPaq as well as a phone. Full Review I bought this phone over a year ago and used it heavily day to day. I found the size to be just about perfect: not too heavy to carry about but not too light so I can never tell if I've still got it on me. I like the flip phone style because I shove my phone into my pants pocket and I don't like errant dialing. Also, when the phone closes, you know you've hung up. You don't have to look at the screen to confirm. This is a potentially life-saving feature when you're driving. I hated this phone for at least six months because its features were not well-implemented. I synched the phone to Outlook where I had hundreds of phone numbers and addresses. That synchronization was far slower than using a Palm and it sometimes would refuse to work. But far worse, the caller ID feature did not work right. The programmers for this phone did a very poor job. They thought it would be cool if, when the phone rings, the phone were to take the number and look it up in your phone book and then display your "friendly" Outlook name rather than the caller ID tag. Not a bad idea but they might have considered first displaying the number, then searching for the name. Instead, it displays "ring". When the phone searches through the database, it crawls. You can almost hear it scraping its knees over the A's, B's into the high C's before it goes to voicemail. And all the time it searches, it displays a very unhelpful message "ring". I reduced my phone list to 80 names and it was then possible for the phone to search, not find, then display the number before the voicemail switchover occurred, but this is not a good solution to a problem. So I called AT&T and talked to Clueless. As anyone who has had AT&T service knows, Clueless works long hours but amazes us all by not improving over time despite long experience. I had already read where the problem with caller ID was a technical issue with the phone and could be fixed with an upgrade. Clueless, however, did not know that and offered only to send me another phone if I wanted to send this one in. My own solution was to buy the Windows Mobile upgrade from the gray market. I installed the software, re-synched and reloaded my entire phone book. Then I called myself and caller ID displayed almost instantly. It was a miraculous fix. Since the upgrade, I've found the phone works about as advertised: good battery life, mediocre reception, mediocre sound quality. On the plus side, synchronization now works flawlessly every time, I carry my complete phone book plus calendar and to do notes. There are still some issues with poor design that remain: If, at the end of a conversation, you flip the phone shut to hang up, you are putting the speaker and microphone together before the hangup signal and a feedback screeches into the caller's ears. Not good. I had to train myself to punch the hangup button before closing the phone. The speakerphone feature works only in a quiet environment (i.e. a parked car). My feeling is that the phone was rushed to market. The list of things-still-to-do was probably on someone's desk when the model was grabbed and put into production. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88200 2000/12/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 looks great feels great solid finger prints The Bottom LineOver all I love this phone. It feels great, it looks great, it seems to have been designed and built well. Full Review The more I use this phone, I think that the MPx200 is the best phone I have ever used. One of the first thing that makes an impression about a phone is the feel, to steal a phrase from the auto manufacturers, the fit and finish. The MPx200 is bound to draw some strong opinions on this front but here is an overview from this reviewer. The first thing you have to notice bout this little baby is the look of the exterior. It's shinny, really, really shiny. This I would say at first was a real draw but the more I use it, it is more and more of a detractor. I am constantly wiping smudgy fingerprints off the surface of the phone because any little mark from a greasy finger stands out like a sore thumb. I find the same thing with the screen, it show signs of being handled more that any other phone I have ever seen. With that said however, when it is fully polished up it sure is "perdy". The screen on the exterior of the phone is of ample size and is fairly easy to read in any light and is quite clear with the front light illuminated. The ports around the phone, headset, SDIO slot, and mini USB al have protective covers over them. The first two of these are useful, I like not having to worry about something getting in the card slot or the headphone port but the cover over the USB port on the bottom of the phone is a nuisance that I lost within ten minutes of ownership. The USB port gets used all the time and there is no way that I will be removing and replacing this plug on a 10 times a day basis. Unlike many flip phones and flat phones for that matter of the past, the battery door is simple to remove and replace. This will come in handy if you have to change batteries in and out during the course of your day. The other features on the outside of the phone of note are the volume control and the power button. I find myself moving the volume jog dial by mistake more often that not. It seem that every time I take it out of the case, the dial has been clicked down a notch. The power button is just as I sounds, a button. It too is shinny, but this time chrome plated. Now it is time to flip the phone open. This is a very bright spot on this phone. It has a very solid feel, it is reminiscent of the old Motorola V60i phones but even a bit more hefty feeling. My previous phone to this was the Motorola T721, this one had a flimsy feel. The MPx200 is a very nice change to that one. As this phone opens and closed there is a click sound when it gets fully extended or retracted and it gives the phone the feel that you have accomplished something once opened. When the phone is opened, it feels rigid and solid, not flimsy like the T721. The inside screen is for another review but it is beautiful for a phone and I love the holographic Motorola at the top of the unit. The buttons are quite good but maybe a bit small for a fat fingered guy like me. The jog dial has a very nice feel and is covered with what looks like a non-slip grip material. This gives it a high performance look even if it adds now functional value. My only gripe with the buttons is that they are not illuminated well at all. In the dark you had better remember where the send and end buttons are because the light will do you almost no good at all. This may be due in part, by the overpowering brightness of the screen. Over all I love this phone. It feels great, it looks great, it seems to have been designed and built well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88199 2004/7/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 tons of functionality great display sleek looks battery life reception at t wireless The Bottom LineDon't bother with this phone. The newer MPx220 should be out soon and should address many of the problems found in the MPx200 Full Review This is the first Microsoft powered Smartphone offered by Motorola and is currently only available through AT&T Wireless Services. Its sleek black looking, featuring a 320x240 16bit color LCD. It is difficult to separate the good and bad points of a cellphone with the good and bad points of the carrier, but I will try. Unlike the Treo, this is a Phone first, and a PDA second. The primary interface to the phone is an alpha-numeric key pad--no mini qwerty keyboard or stylus touch screen. The phone is powered by Microsofts Smartphone 2002 operating system which is designed such that operation with one hand is possible, and generally easy enough to do. The phone easily synchronizes with Microsoft Outlook using Activesync. By default your inbox, contacts, calender are all synchronized, though these can settings can be changed inside Activesync. In a weird quirk, Office Notes cannot be synchronized, however there are 3rd party applications that will allow you to synch Outlook notes to your phone. Contact synchronization is by far the handiest--no more having to strain your thumbs entering in information. Don't have Outlook? AT&T's phone ships with a copy of Outlook 2000. The power of this phone is its ability to run 3rd party software. Free applications range from various games to managers that customize the look of the phones home screen, to a nintendo emulator (yes you can play NES games on your this phone) to a Divx movie player. The phone features 32MB of FlashROM and 32MB of RAM, with 20MB of that reserved for the OS. The phone does have an SD expansion slot to add flash memory, or a SD device, such as a camera, or 802.11 wireless adapter. The phone connects to a computer via USB1.1 device connection found on the bottom of the unit. The phone draws power from the USB line to recharge itself. Because the phone features PDA capabilities, it has lots of capabilities. I will highlight a few of the standout features. This phone has some of the standard features--polyphonic ringtones, Caller ID, voice mail, text messaging, ability to assign custom rings for your contacts, etc. Additionally this phone has a few extra capabilities, such as Picture Caller ID, .wav based ringtone (no longer cheesy sounding midis thank you very much!) and the ability to auto synchronize your ring profile with your calender. If you have a meeting scheduled in your calender, your phone will automatically switch to silent mode during the duration of the meeting. The phone also features "Airplane" mode where the cell transceiver is shut off, allowing you to still use the phone. However I doubt many people will be able to convince a flight attendant to allow them to continue to use the phone. So while this phone has a lot of functionality, it does have its significant drawbacks. This phone suffers from reception problems. There is no external antenna, and with a signal less than 3 bars, the phone becomes useless. This phone is GSM based, so coverage outside of large cities is weak, and in rural areas, non existent. If you are a frequent road traveler, think twice before picking up this phone. Where I live, I have poor reception, but my nokia phone (also GSM) has a much better time dealing with lower signal quality. When you get 3 bars or higher, this phone is awesome to use, and the voice quality is top rate. Battery life is also a major problem. With active use, the phone doesn't last more than 1-2 days without needing a recharge. With sporadic use, it can last as long as 4-5 days before recharging. Because AT&T charges $TEXAS for internet packages, I cannot comment on the phones internet capabilities. However the phone does have Pocket Internet Explorer, and several other 3rd party internet applications are available. As mentioned earlier, the phone runs MS Smartphone 2002, though Microsoft has released Smartphone 2003 which adds support for their .NET framework. It is known that the MPx200 is capable of running Sp2003, but what is not know is if AT&T will be distributing it to users. Finally, the jog dial was originally spec'd out to give one handed access to contacts, however its functionality has been reduced to controlling the earpiece volume. What's in the box. MPx200 SIM Card USB Cable Cradle Install Disk with Activesync, Outlook, and various Utilities Hands free cable Earphones (for music playback) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88198 2000/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sleek internet explorer instant messenger flip phone windows media player all in one device no longer supported poor battery life no bluetooth bad signal strength The Bottom LineI wouldn't recommend this phone because of the poor battery life and signal strength, and since it is now unsupported by AT&T due to new technology. Full Review I have had the the Motorola MPx200 since the first day it hit the United States, and had thoroughly researched the phone several months before acquiring it. I knew it was going to be the first US Smartphone and would have some quirks to it, but I'm more interested in having the most up to date gadgets instead of something that's going to last me for a long time. The MPx200 has definately met my expectations, but has in no way exceeded them. The Motorola MPx200 is available only through AT&T Wireless, which has been my carrier for 6 years and I haven't had a problem with them yet. It is available for use on GSM 1800/1900 MHz GPRS networks, which means if you are on AT&T's latest network, phone switching is a breeze, you just take your SIM card out of one phone and put it in this one. I bought the phone because my Ericsson T68i (one of the first phones in the US with a color screen) was on it's last leg, and I was looking for something that I could show off but at the same time had some functionality, and the MPx200 has proven to do both. It is a flip phone with a glossy black finish and blue accents (blue is my favorite color) that when closed fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. It has an easy to use interface - numerous control buttons, 4-way navigation key, soft keys and jog dial, which allow for easy programming and navigation. It also uses Microsoft Smartphone 2002, which allows you to syncronize information from Microsoft Outlook with the MPx200 and do even more. Microsoft Pocket Outlook (which is already installed on the MPx200) allows you to control your email, contacts, calendar, and tasks from the palm of your hand while Microsoft ActiveSync (which will need to be installed to your computer) synchronizes your Pocket Outlook email, calendar, contacts and tasks between PC and phone so your PIM system is always synched up. It also comes with pocket internet explorer for browsing the web for news, business and entertainment - even paying bills securely with SSL support. Instant messaging can be achieved with built-in IM / MSN Messenger which helps you keep in touch with friends and associates. Windows Media Player delivers high-impact audio and video files in a familiar format. Supports WMA and MP3 audio files and WMV video files, including streaming media. Games can be downloaded directly to the phone through wireless connection or installed via the cradle and most of the phone can be customized, including the wallpaper, menus, etc. This phone uses digital memory, which allows you to take files with you with 32MB Flash ROM or 32MB SD RAM + SD MMC card (expandable up to 1GB). The phone also allows multiple connectivity options via the mini-USB, IrDA port or wireless Internet Service. The phone has built-in speech recognition and allows you to speak a stored name, number or function and your phone calls it up for you. The MPx200 has a 176 x 220 pixel internal vivid color TFT display which provides an enormous viewing area and also sports a 96 x 32 pixel two line external display which shows caller ID, date & time, plus status icons at a glance. The phone has many calling features, including: call forwarding, multiple call timers, multiple key answer, quick access menu, ringer/vibrate suppress, turbo dial® keys 2-9, call hold, call waiting, alternate line/dual name, and VibraCall® alert. It also has memory features like last numbers dialed, last calls received, and up to 500 entries in the phonebook. Since I already had a HP iPAQ 5555 Pocket PC which requires ActiveSync, getting this phone ready was a snap. The phone contains a cradle and a mini USB cord that connects one end to the USB port of your computer and the other end to the charging/syncing cradle. All I had to do next was place the phone on the cradle and after telling ActiveSync that I wanted it to always sync with my computer it promptly downloaded all my email, contacts, tasks, and appointments to my phone. I was very happy with this feature because in all my previous cell phones I had to manually enter my contact information. After syncing the phone I decided to test it out, and as others have mentioned, signal quality was not as good as my Ericsson, but the phone still performs well in most areas of coverage. One of my favorite features of the phone is the ability to customize it. I recently downloaded a MSN theme that changes not only the background but the entire layout of the main screen, and changes the background of all screens and even replaces some of the default ones. This creates a unique environment which makes the phone look like a mini-computer. Since I also like to impress, I went ahead and edited some of my favorite songs and saved them to WAVs and easily transferred them to my phone using ActiveSync, and a few short minutes later had my phone programmed to play Weezer - Islands in the Sun when my friends called, Blackstreet - No Diggity when work called, Fastball - Out of My Head when my wife called, and then Blues Traveler - The Hook when anyone else called. But I didn't stop there. I soon edited an episode of SouthPark I have and was able to mess with some settings until I got a 25 minute episode down to 30 megs and again easily transferred it through ActiveSync. Windows Media Player had no problems playing it, and the episode looked so great with no dropped frames and surprising sound quality out of a monophonic speaker. If there was a phone that impressed, this would be the one. So although it seems this phone has been perfect so far, there are many shortcomings. First off is the horrible battery life. Even with minimal use (meaning the phone just stays in standby mode and no calls are made or received) I am lucky to get 3 days on a single charge. With normal use you better make sure to charge this phone at least once every 2 days, and that is cutting it close. It also seems this phone suffers from the same thing that all my other devices with Microsoft operating systems do when multiple programs are installed, and that is performance. But even with a few (I mean 3) third party software installed on the phone it seemed to take forever just to load up contacts and finally would start locking up. With my other devices I have always been able to reset and this takes care of the problem, but with this phone after powering down and even removing the battery nothing seemed to fix this problem. I finally decided to just hard reset my phone (clear the entire memory and all my programs) and everything seems to be working great now. I even reinstalled my cool MSN theme and haven't experienced a slowdown, but I will probably not install any more programs as the phone just can't handle it. The phone also lacks bluetooth, which is almost a must with wireless data access. Since there are no cords that can connect this phone to my Pocket PC I must rely on infrared to transfer data, and trying to align the devices long enough to transfer data just isn't worth it. The phone supports SD memory, but doesn't support SDIO (which means add-ons like bluetooth, WiFi, cameras, etc.) and since AT&T isn't going to support the Windows Mobile 2003 upgrade (which could allow this phone to be SDIO) this phone is a sitting duck. I would like to say that I have enjoyed my purchase and still love my phone. It allows me to keep my Outlook information on the go and also allows me to have some eye candy which I can show to others. I have fallen in love with Smartphones but as I expected this device has several problems, including signal strength, battery life, and processor and/or software limitations and has already become unsupported by AT&T. I will continue to use this device until AT&T releases a newer smartphone that has a better processor and supports Bluetooth and has an upgraded operating system. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88197 2004/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 neat gsm webphone with beautiful display at t no longer sells them horrible customer service numerous problems with ours The Bottom Line2 months ago, I would have highly recommended it. Now, I say avoid it like the plague. Full Review make sure to see my update When my wife and I went to buy a new cell phone for me, I was supposed to be the sole purchaser. I found my fairly quickly, but it turned out that my wife found something, too - a new toy in the form of a cell phone. She had discovered the Motorola MPx200 web-enables GSM phone and was immediately smitten (yes, she's almost as much of a techno-geek as I am). Email, web connectivity, Windows ... she had to have it. "For business," she said, "I have to stay in touch, you know.". So the odyssey began... [ • phone SPECIFICATIONS •] » Weight: 4 oz., including slim battery » Size (l x w x h): 3.5 x 1.9 x 1.06 inches » GSM: functions on GSM 1800/1900 MHz GPRS Networks » Memory: 32MB Flash ROM or 32MB SD RAM card expandable to 1GB » Software: Includes Microsoft Windows Mobile and Microsoft Pocket Outlook, Windows Media Player » Speech Recognition: Yes » Battery Life - Talking: 210 - 310 minutes (3.5 - 5 hours) » Battery Life - Standby: 70 - 100 hours » Display (Inner): 176 x 220 pixel Vivid Color TFT display » Display (Outer): 96 x 32, 2-line In Box Accessories - Mini USB cradle and cable, One-touch Stereo headset, mono headset, Mini USB Travel Charger and external Battery. [ • phone FEATURES •] Operating System » The MPx200 is a web-enabled phone, giving you access to the web, although at a much slower rate and with more limited browsing ability. My Samsung also has it, but the browsing on this phone was quicker and better than mine, and gives better interactivity through the Microsoft Windows Mobile technology. It also includes a copy of Micrsoft Office Mobile, a mini-version of Office that will actually read most PC-version Office documents (although the formatting is limited). The best of the lot is the included Outlook which gives the user access to their email and attachments via their SmartPhone. Using a connection to your provider's POP3/IMAP4 servers, you can download your emails right into your phone to keep you in touch when you are out of the office. When using your phone remotely, you can set up your email to be auto-synced or manually collect it when you want. My wife found that the former was problematic because her phone got overloaded by filtered emails (she gets upward of 1,000 emails a day, mostly spam). By manually collecting them at set intervals, she can make sure she is clearing unwanted ones and keeping her memory free. The Pocket Internet Explorer (IEp, as I call it), gives you a better web browsing experience than on most 'web-enabled' phones. Instead of a 1991 web experience with text and limited graphics, you get a decent browsing experience. The sites are still more limited by the screen size, but definitely better than my phone. And to keep your PC and your phone in line, use ActiveSync, the software that lets you to sync up with your computer to match the two with email, calender, tasks, etc. Reception » The reception of the phone is superior to our previous phones, in part because of the GSM technology. GSM is the Global System for Mobile Technology, or a worldwide digital standard that phones across the world use to connect. With a GSM phone, you can actually use your phone in 60 countries all over the world - previously, you would have to buy or rent a phone for individual countries. GSM operates at the 900 and 1800MHz ranges, giving you better quality and quicker data transfer in addition to the normal 'cellular' aspects. For one thing, you aren't as reliant on the number of 'bars' your reception is showing - GSM can often operate just as well at 1 bar as 3 bars in voice mode (although data transfer will suffer). External Display » Your external display will let you know who is calling before you answer, and will show you combinations of 17 different icons (such as signal strength, call in progress, missed calls, roaming, etc.) without you ever opening the phone. The jog dial on the side lets you mute the ring or even reject the call before you open the phone (it also allows you to control the volume and record voice notes when the phone is open). Memory Card Slot » Allows you to store games, applications, music, photos or data onto portable memory to switch in and out as needed - no longer are you tied solely to the onboard memory of your phone. Manage your memory cards and online files with the Inline File Management. You can manage files on your phones memory and the memory card(s) with the inline file management system. Similar to the PC's file manager, it allows you to move files around or delete them, as necessary. Phone Functions » This phone comes with normal 'land line' features like call-waiting, call-waiting ID and call-switching, and features 99 Speed Dial settings (although #1 is for voicemail) which can also store web bookmarks. Great for keeping your commonly used numbers and sites at your fingertips. Other Functions » This phone has a lot of other great features, like a calculator, Voice Dialing via voice tags which are inherent to the phone (no online service like the Samsung required). [ • making it GO •] Using the Phone » The screen captures your attention with the great color and excellent resolution, and you start looking for the mouse. However, you are relegated to the buttons on phone - 2 soft buttons which control the menus on the screen, the 'talk' and 'hang up' buttons, a HOME button to get you to the home screen, and a BACK button for menu scrolling. Most of your navigation will be done from the HOME screen, which gives you a summary of info, depending on your configuration. The standard set-up has your functional icons (30 of them representing everything from a new email to voice mail to the battery level and roaming status). Your action buttons are just below those, giving you access to mMode, email, contact list, calender and the pocket Internet Explorer. From there, different info is presented line by line: • Line 1: Service provider and time • Line 2: Call log (number of missed calls) • Line 3: Unread Messages (SMS and email) • Line 4: Appointments and To Do items • Line 5: Current Profile (your presets) At the bottom are two menus controlled by the soft keys, Programs and Contacts. Programs allows you to access the software on your phone and Contacts opens your address book. Navigating through this phones menus is fairly simple once you get used to it - but it can take some time because there are a lot of options and places to go. Once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder how you did without. • Call Quality» Once my wife was done playing with the features, we got down to actually using the phone. Aside from the later problems we had, this phone seemed like a winner. The sound quality - both from her phone and on her calls was excellent. If I was in a good cell area, the call was almost land-line quality. She has said that she gets much better reception and quality on almost all of her calls. • Battery Life» This phone's battery life was exceptional (notice WAS). My wife would go almost a 2 or 3 days between charges with moderate-to-heavy use. Data use was definitely more of a battery drag than the regular phone use, and since that was one of the main reasons she bought the phone, we were impressed with how long a charge lasted. • GSM Quality» The GSM quality, in both terms of data and voice transmission, has been great. Areas that often gave us trouble with our old phones no longer pose much difficulty in getting a signal and making a call. The transmission of data is several factors quicker, and the enhanced ability of GSM allows my wife to check email, send SMS messages and even surf with relative ease. • Customization» The phone has quite a bit of customization available. The Settings part of the phone allows you to control: » Telephony - everything related to calls, including forwarding, call-waiting, call blocking, etc. » Sounds - customize your ringtones, alarms and reminders. You can actually upload .WAV and .MID (MIDI) files from your computer via the AutoSync. » Profiles - configure how the phone notifies you of events: calls, messages, appointments, etc. Set it to vibrate or have a different volume based on which caller is trying to reach you. » Home Screen - configure what you want to display on your HOME screen - including being able to upload your own .GIF, .JPG and .BMP images as wallpaper. » About - Info about the operating system. » Accessibility - set the font size, button press times, confirmation delays, alert volumes and other usability features. » Data Connections - enable phone for dial-up, virtual private network (VPN) proxy or General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) data transmission. » Date & Time - set your date and time. » Other - other features such as the Owner Info, Power Management options, Regional Settings, Security and Phone Settings (flip answer on/off, display). • Security» Like most phones, there are the basic security measures - keyboard and phone lock. This phone adds a SIM chip lock that prevents the phone from being used without your SIM chip in it - a great piece of security if you take it with you all over the country or world. • Other Stuff» The MPx200 has a host of other features to it. You can buy any of a number of ringtones to use on its quadriphonic rings, if you want to supplement the two dozen or so that come with it. Of those, perhaps only half aren't really common or annoying, but you can always find a ton of better ones at AT&T's site or other ringtone sites throughout the web. Like my Samsung, the MPx200 helps you send text (SMS) messages by offering preset messages, but you get the added ability to include voice messages to email/SMS messages - a nice bonus if you want to send a quite comment. The MPx200 tries to be more than just a phone by adding digital entertainment in the form of the Windows Media Player, which allows you to listen to music (MP3's, for example) or watch videos, while MSN Messenger gives you instant messaging ability from the phone. The quality isn't what I would call great for MP3's, and your videos will be rather small, although the 65k screen will present them in a decent format aside from the size. And there was only one included game - Solitaire, although other games are available for download via the mMode service. [ • big PROBLEMS •] The first problem was when she tried to sync the phone up with her computer through the phone port/jack. The system hung up and she couldn't get it to do anything. The phone locked and wouldn't power down. Finally, we had to remove the battery to get it to shut off. The second attempt worked fine, so we put it down to a typical Windows glitch. And then it happened again during normal use. Again the phone locked, and nothing worked, nor could we shut it off. AGAIN we had to remove the battery to unlock the phone for use. This time, some of the functionality - including syncing up to get email wirelessly - had to be reconfigured, since the settings disappeared. Strike 2. The final straw came when the battery went - or so we thought. The phone went from a full charge to nothing in a matter of hours, and when she went to charge it up again, it wouldn't charge. Nothing - in fact, instead of charging, it locked the whole phone. We removed the battery (we were getting quite good at it), and then tried again. Still nothing. The phone went dead and we couldn't get it to charge. Worse, even with the charger plugged in, the phone wouldn't turn on. So, off to AT&T to get a new battery - but that didn't fix the problem. My wife called AT&T to get some help, and they agreed to send a new phone. The fact that they didn't even question her made me a little nervous, but she was just happy to get a new phone (well, refurbished). Luckily, since most of the settings for the phone are on the SIM chip, it was easy to move her phonebook and other personal settings. Then the second phone started doing the same thing. Locking up. Unable to charge. We called AT&T again, and again they sent us a another phone. We got it, and it lasted all of 1 day before it too stopped working. 3 phones in less than a week. She was furious. [ • customer SERVICE •] It didn't get any better once we called again to AT&T. We asked that instead of refurbished models if it would be possible to get a new phone because this was, after all, our third phone. Well, obviously, there must have been a problem since AT&T no longer sells this model of phone. Unofficially, they had too many problems with them and have discontinued selling them. Officially, they couldn't give us a new phone because we were out of the 90-day warranty (our phones are less than 5 months old). So, what about a credit toward another model for the value of the MPx200? Sorry, couldn't do it - again because of the warranty issue. Then the conversation REALLY got fun: WIFE: So, in other words, even though this is the THIRD phone of this type, if I want a new phone, you expect me to pay another $450 for the PalmOne Treo 600, and eat the $300 I already spent? AT&T Operator: Well, no. WIFE: Good. AT&T Operator: That price is only for new subscibers. You would have to pay $550. True story - not direct quotes, but close enough. Eventually, we contacted Motorola directly, and THEY are sending out a new phone. Meanwhile, if this doesn't work, we're going to have to raise heck with AT&T because this is inexcusable. We changed our plan to accommodate this phone, and while the service has been good, this phone has been a nightmare. The Treo 600 (which my wife went out and got under the AT&T 30-day Risk Free Trial) has been great - my guess is that she'll move to that soon. Meanwhile, we have 2 broken phones in the house, and one (hopefully) working phone on the way. [ • final THOUGHTS •] When she first got this phone, I was a little jealous of the functionality it had. It seemed to work very well at first - great connectivity, the ability to remotely get email, better than average clarity. All these things would have gotten me to give this phone a high rating. But the problems we've had in the last couple of weeks have completely soured me on the phone. If AT&T thought that the problems were severe enough to stop selling it, why are we stuck with a sub-standard product? In the end, we're soured on Motorola phones, and especially soured on AT&T Mobile - given the chance to change our minds, we'd dump both. **** UPDATE 10/28/2004: This has gone beyond ridiculous with this phone. After numerous delays, story changes and outright mistakes, she's done. But I'll let my wife's record speak for itself, in part of her letter to the CEO of Motorola: "...On or about 7/11/04, began my involvement with Motorola. The following is the history of this involvement to date. Receipt, and shipping documentation is attached. 7-12-04 Sent 3rd MPx200 phone to Motorola for warranty repair/exchange. 7-26-04 Motorola shipped 4th phone 7/26/04. 8-3-04 Received 4th refurbished phone. Phone did not work. Had to purchase another SmartPhone for $582 because I was leaving for 3 week trip that week. 9-23-04 Called Motorola and spoke with a representative that recommended I send back the entire phone and to send the battery to an alternative address. I was told to keep the cradle and cables, software, etc. I was also told to document the entire situation in a letter and to request an new phone be sent. It did seem reasonable to both of us, that that would happen. See attached letter, dated 9/23/04. Phone was shipped back same day. 10-8-04 Called Motorola and was given new work order #*DELETED*. Was told that they received phone 10-6-04 and to allow 10-14 days for return. 10-25-04 Called Moto re. non-receipt of phone and was told that it had not shipped yet, but that it was to be shipped out that very day. They also stated that they would email the tracking number for me. Rep unable to tell from records if replacement phone was new or refurbished. 10-26-04 I did not get email or phone sent. Called Moto again. Was told by rep that it would be shipped in 1-2 days. No further explanation was offered because the notes were not showing anything else. 10/29/04 No phone. No email. Called Moto again and was told by Mark, a Supervisor, that on the 27th the system was updated and the part was unavailable. 'Therefore a new phone was approved but because there was no tracking number in the system yet,' he could not give that to me. I stated that I did not want another refurbished phone and was then informed that a new model, MPX220 was to be sent to me and that I should receive an "email within the hour with tracking number and new IMEI#." He also assigned me a case No. #*DELETED*. 11-01-04 Online system said phone was shipped carrier unknown. I called Moto Rep and was told it had not yet shipped. I was however told that the phone would go out that day and when she checked the #s, she determined that the phone was also a refurbished MPX200. I told her that that was unacceptable and given the circumstances, I'd like to speak with a supervisor again. I was disconnected. I called back, repeated scenario to another rep and again asked to speak to a supervisor. I gave Case # and was transferred to Martin, #1404. I explained that I had been as patient as I could be but at this point, I would not accept another refurbished mpx200. I wanted the NEW MPX220 with 1 year warranty that I was promised. He stated that the MPX220 was not open for use with AT&T and that a brand new MPX200, with brand new 1 year warranty would be sent out. I asked him to repeat this several times, because my understanding was that it was 1 year from time of original purchase. He said he would even make a note of that on the same case ID# within your system. I accepted this, with a promise that if I had another problem that Motorola would not send another refurbished phone. 11-2-04 Received 5th MPX200 phone via UPS. No battery and no back cover. I called Moto to see if they could find out when I'd get my battery (sent to Moto on 9/23/04) and to get the back cover shipped. I was told the battery should arrive tomorrow. I was also told the back cover would take 5 days to process, then be shipped. I was not happy with this, since I was told to ship it back (given I was getting a different phone back anyway). I asked her to check on the Serial # again for me to verify that this is a new MPX200. I was told it was refurbished. I asked to speak with a Supervisor right away. I was transferred to Diane, #2098, in the Consumer Resolution Dept. She stated she'll do everything she can to expedite the back cover, explained that I was misinformed regarding the warranty and she also verified that the phone I have now is a refurbished phone. I told her that I did not want this phone. She promised me an internal investigation (not sure if that's the word she used) and would find out why I was told what I was and yet no mention of the conversations verified what I was told. I told her that at this point, I felt I had no alternative but to take this to the CEO. She seemed truly concerned that my experience be documented, but nonetheless, I was losing my trust. Approximately 1 hour later I received a phone call on my home number at lunch time. It was from Martin (2nd Supervisor) who called to apologize for giving me the wrong information. He stated that he must have made a mistake when looking up the numbers. Given the fact that the MPX200 was discontinued, all exchanges were refurbished, and the fact that he did not make a single reference to that promise in the system notes, I find everything that Martin said, suspect. I accepted his disingenuous apology for what it was. So here, I am having spent money on 2 SmartPhones, one (the 5th) from Motorola that does not work. As much as I believe in letting customer representatives do what they can to make it right with the customer, most would agree that Motorola fell short this time. I have owned the phone 9 months and for 4 of those months, I have been dealing with returns, exchanges, and non-working phones. I am left with little choice but to contact you. Please accept this letter as a request from you and your company to make this right..." _____________________________________ My wife's comment to all of this - don't even bother with AT&T/Cingular. Go straight to Motorola and get help. Their customer service number is 800-331-6456. [ • more INFORMATION •] http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=253227&prmenbr=126&phone_cgrfnbr=1&zipcode Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7731 Motorola T720i 88217 2004/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 battery life reception camera flip phone I received this phone for free when signing up. I thought it was a good deal. This is my first flip phone, and I do not like the flip phone at all. I don't blame this on the phone, it's me. The camera however is a joke. I took a picture of my son from 3 feet away and you can't distinguish him from the background. Phone reception is Great as is battery life. 88216 2004/8/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 fast charge nice features easy ear positioning compact awkward menus unreliable side buttons My family bought two of these phones. When they work, overall they are decent little phones with nice features. However, both phones have had serious software problems and were replaced. One was replaced twice. The replacements aren't problem-free, doing things like randomly shutting off so you miss calls, and sometimes you can't turn them back on for days. In the nit-picking category, I find the menus are a bit clumsy and the side buttons (for volume and ringer) are awkwardly placed. I am often going into a different menu than I thought I'd selected, and often hit the volume/ringer buttons without meaning to. Your mileage may vary in this regard. However, the phone salespeople I've talked to say that this phone is known to have serious problems, and they recommend the model's replacement, the 730. 88215 2003/10/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 small size nice screen slow to navigate poor construction unreliable In the interest of brevity, I am going to keep this review short. I purchased this phone through T-mobile in November/2003 when it was initially released. I upgraded from a Nokia 8290, which was not a color phone, but was very easy to use. In my own experience, I dislike this phone. It is extremely slow to navigate through menus or to dial a number. The controls are not easy to use. I have gone through two of these phones so far, and am currently using an older nokia, as I have had too many problems with the motorola t720i phones not working. Upon conferring with other people who own this phone, I discovered that one guy was on his third t720i, and was still having problems. In the very near future, I intend on going back to a Nokia. I would not recommend the 720i, as everyone I know has had alot of problems with it and had to send it in for repair multiple times. 88214 2005/8/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks cool great sound quality nice menu system screen is dull washed out scratches easily Though this phone has been discontinued, it is still one of my favorite phones. I love the way it looks, I think it is one of the coolest looking flip phones to date. It is good at keeping a signal, and the sound quality is great. The screen is probably the worst feature of the phone, though it is color, it has lines through it and looks kind of dim and dull. Overall the phone is a good phone for someone looking just for the basics. Most likely you wont be dissapointed if you get this phone. 88213 2005/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 light portable great signal strength not durable vibrate feature is too weak light and portable The phone itself cannot sustain the great Canadian winter. That is to say that it is not very durable. The reception however is remarkable, I have never gone into an area yet where I did not have service. vibrate feature is too weak 88212 2003/5/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent screen backlit buttons voice tag feature menu a bit difficult to navigate ringer volume please read review The Bottom LineThis phone is well designed. Kudos to the Motorola development team. Full Review I bought this unit a few days ago to replace my Nokia 3390. I was first impressed by the color screen. It is well lit and can be seen well in the daylight. I also have to say that the size and the weight of the phone is impressive compared to the Nokia 3390. The voice tag feature is also an added plus to the phone. Now these are the things that I did not care for very much. First, the menus are not that user friendly. I also feel that the manual does not give you all the details of the phones features. As an example, I had to call T-mobile to find out exactly how to save a different ring tone for different people in my phonebook. (By the way, save the information to the phone, not the sim card in order to assign a different ring tones to each person.) Update 5/28/2003: It has been 2 weeks and I have gotten some time to get acquainted with this unit. I have noticed that there is a slight 'popping' noise when talking. It happens on occasion and it sounds like someone wearing an earring and it is tapping on a phones receiver. That is the best way that I can describe it. This phone is still great. I suggest that you get a carry case with this one. Also get a car charger for this unit. I have seen complaints about the ringer volume being a little low. If you use the standard rings you will find that the ringer volume is quite loud. The polyphonic tones are mediocre at best. Overall, this phone has much more pro's than cons. I know I will be satisfied with this unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88211 2000/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 big color screen nice form factor terribly slow clumsy keypad poor service The Bottom LinePick up anything else and you'll be happier; I have very little positive to say about this phone. Full Review When I picked up the t720i in the AT&T store after using an old Nokia 6160 for the past 3 years, I was really excited to have a new, fancy phone with great features. After a few weeks of using it, I wished I could have my 3-year old phone back. I suppose part of my gripe is with AT&T (whose service I use). First, their store rep (among other misinformation/lies he told me) informed me that the phone, since it was GSM, would work in Europe. This would be a big plus for me, as I travel to Europe a fair amount and would love to have a good phone there. The phone, of course, does not work in Europe. Secondly, the service is far worse than the regular AT&T PCS network, so I've essentially taken a step down on this fancy new phone. The voice quality is no better than a regular cell phone, and while the Internet features are nice, they're not something I use very often. However, the phone itself is fairly crummy. The menus are *horribly* slow. Just bringing up the address book takes about three seconds (3-year old Nokia: instantly). Scrolling through the address book or keying in numbers also has a delay in the screen updating, making it very difficult to use the phone while you are driving or doing anything else that does not allow your full attention to be on the phone. The polyphonic ring tones were another reason I bought the phone. However, since it can't vibrate and ring at the same time, that is already a strike again it (3-year old Nokia can do this). Also, the selection of tones for the phone is extremely poor, and while once again this is more of an AT&T gripe, there's no way I'm giving them $1 more of my money for a fancy ringer. The T720i is nice and small, and the color screen is bright, so it isn't a complete dead loss. But I'd stay away at all costs and get another phone that isn't so filled with fancy, but useless, features, while skipping all of the important stuff. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250 88210 2000/2/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 camera attachment color screen voice dial features fast gprs data transfer weight memo recorder cannot ringvibrate simultaneously soft ringer The Bottom LineI would recommend the Motorola T720i if you plan on wearing it on your belt because you can feel it vibrate. Otherwise, you will miss a lot of calls. Full Review I originally bought the Motorola T720i for several reasons. I upgraded from the Ericsson T28. I was impressed with the color screen, t-zones (WAP), MegaTones (RingTones that sound like real music), but most of all for its camera attachment. The camera was free with the phone. Originally, the information that I received stated that the camera would come in the mail after I filled out a rebate form. I was surprised that the camera came in the box. Upon receiving the phone, I immediately started to download MegaTones from the Internet. I had a different ring set for different groups of callers. The MegaTones are great songs. This would have been great, if only I could hear the ringer. I don't have a hearing problem, but I definitely had a hearing problem with this phone. I missed at least half of my calls because I did not hear it ring. I tried different MegaTones and I even tried a different phone from the T-mobile store. The loudest ringer is not that loud. In addition, the phone cannot vibrate and ring at the same time. If I wanted it to vibrate and ring, it would vibrate a few times and then ring. I did not have any problems setting up the phone, but I am very techno-savvy. I did not even read the manual until I started having trouble with the ringer. The camera attachment works very well if there is sufficient light. It just snaps on and you can take pictures right away. You can even send the pictures to any e-mail address. One downfall is that phone number and web address for one contact are separate entries in phone book. It would have been better if there were a place to put an e-mail address under someone's contact information. I also enjoyed having a slide show of all the pictures that I took. The quality of the pictures as displayed on the camera was not as good as the quality of the pictures that are received as an e-mail. It would have been nice if the phone allows you to have picture caller id. You can download pictures from the Internet, but you cannot use pictures that you have taken. The voice dial is great, but there is only room for 5 voice dial entries. I would have liked at least 10. The memory dial makes up for this flaw, if you can remember which contact is at which speed dial number. I have no complaints about any other feature of this phone. I would have kept it and really enjoyed it if only I could hear the phone ring. I ended up selling the phone and getting a Samsung S105. I decided that hearing the ringer was more important than having the camera attachment. I have to say that the color screen on the Samsung S105 is more vivid than the T720i. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88209 2000/12/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish appearance personalized ringtones voice dial simplistic phone book weak ring vibration questionable headset noise reduction no one touch answer while folded The Bottom LineGood phone when comes free, but not worth money out of pocket. Full Review I got a T720i from T-Mobile's promotion ($75 purchase with $75 rebate after activation), believing that I'm getting a free flip camera phone. After a year, I complained that the idle battery life is terribly short. T-Mobile could not determine why, so they shipped a new unit - a T722i (which, by the way, doesn't solve the short idle battery life mystery - talk time is fine). OK. T720i/722i is a flip phone. I like flip phone design, and these two models are quite stylish. It comes with a camera. And it comes free (after rebate). It performs these basic functions. The voice quality is quite fine when signal is good. However, where I live, T-Mobile has marginal signal level, and T720i/722i does not have high sensitivity. One useful feature is voice dial. You can save up to 10 voice dial numbers, so you don't have to lay your hand on the dial pad. For one thing, this improves safety if you must make a call while driving. T720i/722i comes with a basic calendar, which can be useful. Supposingly one can synchronize data with a PC. But that requires a $20 cable and I'm not into it. It comes with a WAP browser, which does its job - but I'm not a fan of reading news (or whatever) over a matchbox-sized screen. You can also send and receive E-mails. Typing over a numeric dial pad isn't anyone's entertainment. But you may use this for alerts/reminders that some online services provide. Attached camera is kind of out dated. But I don't complain when it comes free. The picture quality is OK considering its low resolution. One fun application of the camera is to create your own background. My good words for T720i/722i stop here. In this model, Motorola shows ultimate ignorance in man-machine interface design. First of all, there is no way you can answer a call with the phone folded. T720i/722i has three side buttons, but none could be used for this purpose? It's 2.5mm head set jack doesn't perform on/off switch, either. If you consider voice dial a safety feature, what do you say to Motorola engineers in regard to one-touch answer? As basilisk4 noted, the overly simplistic phone book that does not allow true multiple phone numbers for the same contact is annoying. I can add that whereas the iTap intelligent typing system is helpful (but not impressive), the association of default typing method with context (whether the entry is more likely numeric, random lettering, or words) seems random and illogic. It does not allow user to save preference in this regard. Another annoying problem comes from after-market head sets. After the original Motorola head set wore out, I bought some popular head sets at deep discount, but found them useless with this phone due to noise. For a long time I thought it was the quality of the head sets. But I recently tested them on a Blackberry 7510, and they work perfectly. No noise. Weak ring and vibration - need I say more? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88208 2000/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 camera colour screen flip phone not as nifty as it may believe The Bottom LineIt is a bottom end of the scale trendy phone with attachable camera. If you want something a bit trendy, try something newer! Full Review I have had my Motorola T720i for about three months now. I wanted a phone that had a flip front and a camera so I was pleased when I was offered it free with my monthly tariff upgrade. I got mine from O2 website but I have seen them available for all types of prices, from £50 - £180, all over the place. Ebay seems to be a good place to look! When it arrived my pleasure became a delight. The small shiny little phone with colour screen and flip cover. It also has a screen on the top of the phone, for when it is closed. This shows the date, time and battery charge.There is a flashing light in the top right hand corner of the phone which tells you whether or not you have a signal or not - green for yes, red for no. The phone itself is two inches wide by six and a half inches long, fully opened. It is half an inch thick or three quarters of an inch when closed! As this phone has the ability to send photos, there is a special satellite link within the phone. A special little jigsaw piece style emblem shows on the screen when this is enabled. If you are in a poor signal area, it is difficult to get the satellite link, as it takes anything from thirty seconds to ten minutes to send a file!! I havent bothered much! On the side of the phone is a volume controller, up and down so it is quite easy if you are in a quiet place to adjust volume. There is another button too which says it is for storing voice tags. If anyone has a clue what these are for and how to do them, then let me know because I havent been able to work it out! It was nt long before the disappointment set in. I had wanted a camera phone so that I could have pics of my son as a screensaver. After a few hours of frustrating play I realised this wasnt possible with the T720i. You can only have what is on the phone. The camera is detachable so you get a separate little case for this to be kept. The camera is quite big too, two inches by an inch added to the bottom of your phone! Quite a brick to be honest! The lens of the camera does rotate a full 180 degrees with ease. I tried to take some pics at Toddler group one day but before I could get the focus on the camera the children had moved. My friend whipped out her Nokia camera phone. No detachable camera and the pic was instant. She set hers to be a screensaver. She said, ' Oh lets have a look at your new phone.' I reluctantly showed her but just got remarks such as ' Wow, thats a brick!! Cool though' but then 'Oh doesnt it do this or that or the other' ' Oh, it only has one game!'. My camera didnt get any pics because I had to stay still for that long the kids got bored ( and the adults!) It is true that the phone does only have one game, Grand Prix Motorbike Racing. It is very good graphics for a phone but it would have been nice to have something else too. Games from be downloaded quite readily from the internet but they cost you from £1.50 per minute as with tones and logos. The phone itself takes some getting used to but isnt that hard to use. The keys do sound a bit tinny but again you get used to it. The keys are metallic looking in silver, as are the dials. The keys do up like on some phones but rather than a green ring around the key, it is the whole key that is illuminated from behind. The screen measures one and half by three inches. Not very big compared to the actual size of the phone. When you turn the phone on, the screen shows a motorola sign on a checkered background then a girl holding up a motorola. The menu screen has the network scrolled across the top. There is a clock face and also a digital clock and date is also shown. There is an option of four quick keys on the menu page. These options are controlled by a round key at the centre of your keypad. It has four arrows, rather like a dial seen on some nokias.You have the chance to change these to what you wish. I usually have the calendar, redial, calculator and messages. Obviously it is up to the individual. There are also the hot keys, left and right as on most phones. For these I use Phone book and settings. In the main menu, there is a media centre ;- This controls 'My tones', if you have the patience to work them out, and 'Picture Viewer. These are pictures which are built into the phone. They are nothing brilliant ; a sunset, a beach, a bird, a sunflower! Exciting stuff!! Shortcuts:- This is a section for all of the web address shortcuts which O2 recommend, such as 'Chat', 'Mail'. To be honest, I havent really used this function, as it costs too much money. Chat:- I havent used this either so I am not sure how this works. I assume it would connect to a chat network. I have seen the function available on Nokias. Games and Apps :- This is Java Powered. You can use the camera or play Grand Prix in this setting. The camera uses 157k of data space and 169k of prgramme space. Hope this means something to you it means nothing to me! Webacess :- This can connect you to O2, stored chosen pages, and other web shortcuts. More:- Picture messages: send photos you have taken to other compatible phones. Recent calls list, Ring styles : These are polyphonic but the variety isnt very good. If I could afford it I could download some corkers! The phone has the regular ringtones such as sirens, bells, Baccanale, Badineri,El Choclo, Funkadellic. All very tinny and nothing like some you hear! The phone book and messaging service are pretty simple to use. They have standard controls as with most mobiles. Its just a case of getting used to it! There is a dictionary option too for those of you who are used to predictive text. My overall opinion of this phone is that it is generally okay, it was free and it was the phone I asked so I shouldnt complain! I wouldnt recommend for youngsters. They are better off with a Nokia I think. More games and groovy gadgets. And they are a bit more robust. The charger comes in two pieces. It has a kind of plug which fits into the charger and then into the phone! Very peculiar but it works so what the hell! The phone usually charges in about four to six hours and a fully charged battery, depending on use of course, usually lasts me a week! I must contradict myself slightly because I have got slightly attached to my phone now but next time I think I will go for practicality rather than coolness!! When asked if I would recommend this phone I have said no but you really must just go have and have a try with it. It has its attractions! If Ive missed something, let me know, and Ill add it asap!! Thanks for reading this review. Kerry xxxx Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): unknownRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88207 2004/7/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life customizable looks cool internet ready ringer too soft some annoying design features vibrate too low The Bottom LineRecommended if the price is right ($100-150 or less) and you're not too concerned about the negatives I've listed. Full Review Introduction The Motorola t720i and related model t722i are among the cell phone giant's latest offerings. The t722i is apparently the second-generation version of the t720i, and is essentially the same but with some minor updates. Because they are so similar and because Epinions does not have a separate listing for the t722i, I will discuss both in this review. They have all the latest features, including the ability to take, send, and receive pictures (of very poor quality), connect to the internet, and customize the appearance and sound of your phone. At just 3.5 inches high, about an inch and a quarter across, a little over half an inch deep, and weighing in at just 3.56 ounces, the Motorola t720i and t722i are extremely portable and barely noticeable in your pocket. I bought my Motorola t722i from an online retailer for $100 with a $100 mail-in rebate after the first month of service. Major Benefits Color Screen - Both the t720i and t722i feature a big, bright, attractive, and easy-to-read color screen which served as one of my primary motivations for purchasing the t722i. Customizable Wallpaper - This is an unnecessary, but somewhat fun feature which is new to me. It allows the user to add a custom image as a background on the color screen. Like all other phone customizations, these images cost money. It enabled me to get an Atlanta Braves logo on my phone, though, so I'm happy. Front Display - The small screen on the front normally displays time, date, signal strength, and battery meter. The first two are quite important for me, as I have come to rely on my cell phone as a timepiece. When you are in the process of receiving a call, the display changes to show the phone number or name (if the number is stored in your Phone Book) of the caller. The front display is clear and easy to read, especially when the Indiglo-esque backlight is activated. Customizable Ringtones - This is one of the really neat things about the newer cell phones, in my opinion. Of course, each ringtone costs money (unless your phone has an infrared port, which neither of these does), but it's still a fun waste of time. Not only can you download custom ringtones and assign them to different events (e.g., incoming calls, alarms, text messages, etc.), but you can also assign specific ringtones to particular callers (but see my caveat on this below). This ability adds a nice bit of customization and fun to your phone. Excellent Battery Life - The battery life of the t720i and t722i is simply spectacular. I have a plan which affords me 800 anytime minutes a month along with unlimited night and weekend minutes, as well as 500 text messages monthly. I use most of my allotted minutes each month, and I probably only charge my phone about every third day. What's more, if you have the available car charger, you can get your battery to near full life within an hour. Durability - Long gone are the days where "flip phone" was synonymous with "flimsy" (see: Motorola StarTAC). The Motorola t720i and t722i are both sturdy and durable enough to survive moderate falls and drops, often not even sustaining so much as a scratch in the process. However, my friend did have to exchange his t720i for a new one after about a year when the connector to which a charger is connected stopped working properly. Major Downsides Customizable Ringtone Issue - One of the most annoying things about the t720i and t722i relates to its customizable ringtones. The good news is that you can set a specific ringtone for each person in your Phone Book. The bad news is that once you do so, the phone will play that ringtone not only for calls from that particular person (phone number), but also to text messages originating from that number. This is irritating to no end since most people do not respond with the same amount of urgency to text messages as they do to a phone call. I am much happier with a short, relatively low-volume sound to indicate text messages, since I receive many more of those than I do phone calls. If you don't even plan to use text messages, this probably doesn't matter; if you do, though, this will be more annoying that you would imagine. Ringer Volume - Even when set on "Loud Ring" and turned up to the maximum volume setting, I often miss calls because I am unable to hear the ringer, especially when in my car (due to the combination of stereo and road noise). Vibrates Too Lightly - My had the problem of vibrating so furiously that it was audible across the room. The t720i and t722i have the opposite problem -- if there is any ambient movement in the room at all, I can't feel the vibration emanating from the phone when someone calls while I have the phone set to Vibrate. Multiple Listings in Phone Book - The t720i and t722i incorporate the same annoying phone book issue I mentioned in -- namely, while you can create multiple Phone Book listings under the same name (each with a different phone number or e-mail address), each will appear as a separate entry in the Phone Book. This makes it quite irritating to scroll through the Phone Book, since many of the people I know have multiple phone numbers which I want to store in my cell phone. Inability to Change Ring Mode Without Opening Phone - On every prior flip-phone I have had (a total of 3, including one made by Motorola), there has been a way to change the ring mode on the phone (e.g., from Loud Ring to Silent) without opening the phone. There is no such option on this phone, and I find it quite annoying. Conclusion Despite their flaws, the t720i and t722i are solid performers and a good value for $100 or so. If you're thinking about paying much more than that, though, it may be worth your while to see what else is out there. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7732 Motorola Talkabout T2282 88222 2000/7/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good signal small low battery life The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for free with your plan. It is small and very functional. Full Review My hubby and I just got our new phones, the Motorolla Talkabout. He is a truck driver and needed a small, durable phone that would clip on his belt. The phone has proven to be durable. However, the $20 clip broke within a month. Most importantly, he needed to be able to get a good signal wherever he may be. His old phone would cut out and had alot of static. This one is very clear. The only real complaint we have is that the battery goes dead too fast. We were told that this phone would last up to 100 hours, seems more like a day if you're lucky. I do like the many features it has. Caller ID, speed dial, are just a few. Recommended: Yes 88221 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 calls do not fade i can talk clear does not vibrate The Bottom LineI believe that everyone should get this phone because the calls are crystal clear. I can even be in malls and not have to worry about the calls being disconnected. Full Review After dealing with Cellular One I had a basic Nokia phone and was not happy with them at all. So, I gave that phone to my dad and I went with Alltel and received the Motorola Talkabout T2282. I have to say that I am very pleased with this phone. It is a step up from the one I had. I have voicemail on it, caller ID, call forwarding and call waiting. It all comes with the deal from Alltel. I have only had one problem when my phone could not receive calls and I called the company and the fixed it right away. I have not to receive to web service but am thinking about it. I can put the phone on silent, which is nice since it will tell me how many calls I have missed and who they were. I can also choose from I think 7 different ringers, not many but they satisfy me. All in all, I believe that it is a great phone to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88220 2000/5/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good battery life large screen to many to list chiefly difficulty with programming phone bookreception The Bottom LineRecommended if you want a cheap phone, have incredible patience for programming, and need stellar battery life. This phone isn't for me, I doubt it's for you. Full Review This Motorola Talkabout T2282 is not my ideal cell phone. Previously I was the owner of a Sony ZM-200 cell phone (the one Tom Cruise used in Jerry Maguire). Initially I based my cell phone purchase on battery life. Fortunately, switching to the Motorola Talkabout has allowed me to go at least 48 hours without charging my phone and still receive battery power. The phone is quite pretty and presents a nice piece of of technological equiptment. One negative to many other phones on the market is that they are so minute that dialing numbers and navigating through procedures can be very difficult. The Motorola does do a nice job of keeping the keypad large, however navigation is not as simple as it appears. Although the man who sold me the phone said it was incredibly user friendly, I beg to differ. Being a teenager of the 21st century, keeping in touch with friends is necessary to an avid social life. I have now owned the phone for three months, and still don't have the time or patience to accomplish the tedious task of programming friends into my cell phone. I do however have my parents name in there so I can identify their incoming calls. Reception on this phone for me is sub-par, but I guess that is also in part due to my carrier service. All in all- there are better choices for cell phones. I recommend a product by Nokia or Sony. Bottom Line- this pohne is low priced for a reason. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 88219 2000/6/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 all the standard features inexpensive if not free durable short battery life nothing fancy here no vibrating feature The Bottom LineGood phone for folks who want to make an occasional call; not suitable for daily cell phone users. Full Review I never really wanted a cell phone. In fact, I have long considered cell phones to be the primary vehicle for social rudeness in the modern world. However, living in the Los Angeles Area, I spend much of my daily time commuting. After two "blown out" tires on highways this year, I decided to cave in and join the rest of my metropolis in looking for a cell phone and service plan. Though I assured sales representatives that I only intended to use the phone for emergencies, I was offered all kinds of fancy phones with bells and whistles; many of these phones ran around $100 with the purchase of extensive service plans and 1-year contracts. Sticking to my guns, I chose a plan with relatively limited minutes, and a Free Cell Phone. Voila...the Motorola Talkabout T2282. Coming free with many Verizon service plans, this is a simple little phone that is well-suited for infrequent users. The Make The Talkabout T2282 is a small and well-contoured phone that is especially comfortable for people with smaller hands. It fits nicely into a backpack, purse, or jacket pocket, but would be a little awkward in a pants pocket. The phone is lightweight yet not flimsy, and it seems quite durable: made of sturdy materials, mine has withstood a few drops without problems. The make of the phone is the standard style; it is not a "flip top". On the top of the phone is a small antenna which should be extracted before calling. The keypad is comfortable with large buttons and features a neon yellow-green illumination when activated. The screen is also illuminated, and the text is large enough to be read without discomfort. Operation Features The phone comes with a battery, a charger, and a car kit. Motorola states that the phone allows up to 135 minutes of stand-by time and 210 continuous calling minutes. However, be aware that the phrase "up to" to is operative here: my battery must be recharged quite frequently. I would say I get about 90 minutes of stand-by time, which runs out quickly if you are awaiting a call. I will say, however, that the battery does recharge very quickly. To protect your finances, the phone comes with an auto lock feature. Calling Features All the standard features one would expect with a free phone are here. You get the speed dial, programmed with your nine favorite numbers. You also get voice mail and a message service that can transmit short-text messages. Of course, there is a phone book. I am so lazy about programming this, so I make good use of the feature which allows you to view the last 10 numbers you dialed as well as the last 10 numbers of incoming calls that were either answered or ignored. Caller ID allows you to be picky about which calls you pick up. You can choose one of 11 ringers...be warned that these rings are boring and even obnoxious. Of course, one might choose politeness and turn the phone onto a silent option. A mini-internet browser permits you to check on stock quotes and news. I told you it was simple Yes, this is a basic phone, and there are some bells and whistles I wish it had but does not. Most notable is the lack of a vibrating option, which would allow one to be aware of incoming calls without disturbing others. Though this does not come with the phone, you can purchase a vibrating device as an accessory. The ringing options are lame, and you can forget about the music clips that many of the phones are coming with these days-too bad, because I wanted to amuse myself answering to the tune of Camptown Ladies. There are no game add-ons, which is unfortunate because a portable Tetris game would have spared me hours of boredom on the Santa Ana Freeway. Just kidding. The internet browser that comes with this phone is more limited than most internet features on the market today, and I never use mine. Bottom Line: This phone provides decent reception when used in combination with my Verizon Plan. It has allowed me to make the few phone calls I need to make with ease. And, lets face it, it was the right price for my needs. However, for those wanting snazzy phones with state-of-the-art features and long battery life, you will need to look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes 88218 2000/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it was free from voicestream as long as i signed a 1 year contract it has an ok button for send end almost everything else The Bottom LineWith a years contract, you can get a free phone every year. With a deal like this why pay for one. Full Review My contract on my Qualcomm phone will be up in a couple of months. I purchased the original one from PrimCo 4 years ago, and signed a 2 year contract with them. After the contract was up, I had the option to get a free phone with a further 2 year contract. This I did. Verizon took over PrimCo, so I called them to check the date I have to continue paying for this service. 7th April, 2002. Okay, so what promotions do they have. None whatsoever. I asked them if they still wanted my custom as I had been loyal to them. They could do nothing. My husband and I went to our local mall. Cell station had a huge sign. Free phone, free leather case, free car charger, and free ear piece, just for signing a 1 year contract with VoiceStream. I purchased immediately, so now have 2 phones activated. Onto the most important part of this review Motorola Talkabout Model T2282. I had gone with my girlfriend a couple of months back and she got the same phone. I spent a week showing her how to use it, set up phone numbers etc. so I was aware of the features. The guy at the store was extremely helpful. Within 15 minutes I had my phone plus all the extras. Paid nothing and signed up for just 1 year. I had my new telephone number and was all set. All I had to do was charge the phone for 12 hours. Features that I like It is in black, with a black leather case. For ladies, this goes with most handbags/purses. I don't think that is a guy thing. The display area is large and well lit when in use. I love the choice of ringing sounds. Choose from: Standard. Single. British. French. German. Bravo. Three Ring. Siren. Quick. High. Music. Anyone that knows me doesn't have to ask. Of course I choose the British sound. Glad to say it doesn't make me homesick. The buttons for numbers and letter are a good size. The numbers nice and large. Not so for the letters though. Out come the glasses. This phone is much clearer than my old one, and I can actually use it downstairs in my two story home. I have always had to leave the Qualcomm upstairs to get a signal. Features that are okay. It has internet access. I chose not to use this feature, so am unable to comment on it. It has call forwarding, call waiting, caller i.d., and messages. These can either be voice or text. This comes pretty much standard with all phones. I have been charging the phone every 48 days during the week. This is when I have less minutes. Depending how long I talk at the weekends, I have to charge each night. The great thing is if we go on trips I have the car charger too. Features that are either frustrating or could be improved. Operating the phone. As with every phone, the power button on the lower left side is pressed to use it. This brings up the VStream logo, the signal strength, bell, and the battery charge left. To get past this screen the middle menu button has to be used, to use all features apart from making a phone call by punching in the numbers. The menu when pressed once gives 'Access Internet'. Then by pressing the 'ok' button you can get into the different sections of the internet. Below the menu button are up and down scrolling signs. These give you, 'Call Meters', 'Network Selection', 'Phone Setup', 'Messages', 'Call related features', and 'Phone Book'. To use any of these you have to use the 'ok' button. This is where I get frustrated. To make a call press the 'ok' button. To end a call press the 'ok' button. When you go into phone book and pull up a number it says, view options. When you press 'ok' it says call number. If you press the 'ok' button it will dial it for you. If you are just checking on a number, do not press 'ok'. You have to hold down the 'C' button to go back. My girlfriend kept forgetting to do this with her phone. Pressed okay while she was 'playing with her new toy', and each time it used up a minute of her allotted time. The Motorola Talkabout Model T2282 comes with a 88 page user manual. Therefore no one should have a problem with this phone. I tend to read what I think is necessary and then only go back to it when I screw up. Also included with the manual are 5 separate pages. 1. Wireless phone safely tips. 2. SIM replacement procedure for your Motorola Internet capable mobile phone. 3. Seting up the internet menu. 4. New Features. 5. Motorola limited warranty card. This card states that the warranty period depends on the serial number of the phone. They are either 1, 2, or 3 years depending on the number. It also gives the address to contact them. Motorola Inc. Cellular Subscriber Services Department, 630 North U.S. Highway 45, Libertyville, Il 60048. Final thoughts. I have 88 pages of information I could bore you with. Hopefully from my experience with this phone and previous ones, I have given you information that will help to decide if this product is for you. Thank you for reading. ~Susan~ Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7733 Motorola T720 88324 2004/1/5 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 game good graphics loud enough battery life stinks always broken bad belt clip The worst cell phone I have had to date. It is in the shop for repair more than on my belt.Of course that because the belt clip has never made it thru a full day without falling apart. The screen goes dim and locks up at will, several times a month. The preferences change at will,and the battery life stinks. The phone has been replaced 3 times in as many months and it still stinks. Stay away 88323 2004/4/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 nice looking design nice interface comfortable to hold voice quality is poor ring quality is poor I am coming off of my free Nokia phone with Voicestream and decided to pick this phone with my new Cingular service. Big mistake. The phone is very comfortable to hold, but the interface is poor and the sound quality is worse. My first tipoff should have been the fact that to hear the phone ring in my pocket on the street I needed to turn it up to the highest volume. From there it was downhill. I couldn't receive or make calls at peak hours from most of my house (I live right in the city). I started getting dropped calls and garbled speech during conversations. Because I only have a cell phone I stopped wanting to call people and people didn't want to call me. I should have bought the same as my husband - a Sony Ericsson. Ring quality is poor. 88322 2003/12/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 open with one hand big display ringers poor menu keys low battery life low earpiece volume fragile I bought this phone from Verizon last December, wanting to upgrade from my Motorola StarTAC. I kept this phone for about 5 months before the thing completely died and wouldn't come back on. I went to Verizon, and in the past 4 months, have gone through 4 different cell phones, (all Motorola T720's). This is by far, one of the worst phones that I have ever owned, it is fragile, can't handle impacts, and flat out stinks. I would strongly recommend getting either a StarTAC or another type of color screen phone. I was very dissatisfied with this phone and will not purchase it ever again. I cannot believe Motorola would make such a phone with such a bad reputation and problems. 88321 2004/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 about the only advantage is it s small size expensive difficult to turn onoff display glitches poor reception This phone is small which is nice, but it's got a lot of problems such as difficult to turn on and off and reception is not as good as many cheaper phones. The battery and signal meters are aweful, not detailed enough. The internet feature is a JOKE. 88320 2003/12/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cool options sleek bad service reception poor backlight poor battery life garbled audio I have two T-720C CDMA phones with transceiver numbers of "SUG3388AE" they both have the same problems: 1. Poor antenna Reception. 2. Short Battery Life (8 to 10 hours before low battery warning even with no calls) 3. Switches from D to A in a Digital service area. 4. Garbled audio reception. 5. missed calls and no voice mail notification even after service is restored. I found out from my Wireless ISP Tech support that the T-720C transceiver's with the following numbers: "SUG3388AE" (like mine) have been recalled by Motorola for replacement! Hummmm .... Now I know why my phones are unreliable! 88319 2003/10/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size large easily accessably keypad nice display nice display on outside of clamshell ergonomic needs a larger display more ear volume Cingular baited me in with a $49.00 upgrade with a 2 year contract extension. I liked the looks of this phone & read the reviews... boy there's some harsh people out there! I figured I would try it out in spite of some scathing reviews because if it was a dog, I would return it within the trial period. I have not been dissapointed by this phone. Battery life is good(1 week on standby) good sound quality & clear functions. 88318 2004/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size easy navigation color display external display leather case is junk with the plastic window over key pad belt clip is bulky I have had no problems yet with this phone, great size easy navigation.Not sure about battery life yet as I have had it for a week and only have charged it once since I got it. I am not sure what some are talking about retractable antenna because mine is fixed. everything is great otherwise On a 2 year plan I paid $50.00 Canadian for this phone and so far I love it. 88317 2003/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to carry great screen small battery could last longer but hey 4 days ain t bad I had read all the other reviews of this phone and had some doubt if it would suit my needs. I tried Nokia 6340i and 3595 before I got this one and I was extremely disappointed by the quality and performance of those phones. The T720 has a signal where the Nokia's were not(I had many, many complaints of not being able to be understood while using the Nokia's). The sound is crystal clear, something very lacking with the Nokia. Battery on the T720 is a bit shorter than I would like but hey thats what they make chargers for! Everytime I have bought a new cell phone I have tried other manufacturers and always end up coming back to Motorola simply due to the sound quality. 88316 2004/5/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small color screen changeable outer body graphics sleek flip phone the keypad isn t the best the phone can get laggy The graphics are good with the color screen. I also like that its a flip phone. I prefer those rather than the open keypad phones, because the keypad always has to be locked. The phone is, however, laggy. For example, when flipping through the phone book, it can get really slow. The battery life is pretty good. I only charge it two or three times a week. Its definitely not the best phone out there, but it came free with service, so it's not bad. 88315 2004/1/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features voice dialing polyphonic ring tones color screen no camera not multi country useable no pre loaded games I received the Motorola T720 as a gift and I was shocked at all the features it had. I can access games, ring tones, information, tools, you name it, and it can do it. I have only had a few complaints. It does not have a camera, it does not come with any pre-loaded games, and it is not multi-country useable. Other than that I love it. It has a date book and a 500 person phonebook! You can text message, check voice mail, e-mail, you can receive faxes! The color screen is awesome for the size. I thought when you have a color screen on a phone that it would be low quality. Not this one it is a top of the line phone. I would recommend it to anyone, even the electronically challenged!! It is a great phone, at a great price, at a great size! It is also a solid piece of equipment. I have dropped it several times and it keeps trucking! 88314 2003/12/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 low price big screen features features none i will let you know if any come up Low price features features What a bunch of Knit Picking Bastards this phone is great, large colour screen, voice activated calls, organizer, lightweight, silver colourful changeable covers options and on and on but noooooooooooo it s not enough for you people at the cheap price you can get this phone the decision is easy ...but in the end some people are never happy and will end up phoneless or with a great phone and out of $$$$$$ for stupid knit picking reasons. 88313 2004/5/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice screen intuitive menu navigation freezes locks up poor battery life Motorola greatly disappointed me. The first T720 started getting a "Dark-blue screen", requiring me to remove and replace the battery to get it working again. Very annoying as you can imagine. Got a replacement within a week. The second one lasted a little over a month before the turning off thing started again. First time I was getting the replacement, there were several folks in line at the Verizon store with the same exact problem. BAD PHONE with nice features... when they work. 88312 2004/9/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen stylish reception is amazing like any phone its easy to drop While keeping a stylish look, this phone has an amazing-to-work-with keypad outlay. The reception you will get on this phone will amaze you. Easy to understand how to customize, and is the perfect size for a flip phone. Usually comes equipped with a belt clip. 88311 2003/10/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 compact durable nice color display vibrate mode antenna sticks outtoo far poor battery life ringer weak speaker flimsly recharger connection Great flip phone. Nice and compact, cool color display and lots of features. My friend's wife accidently washed his phone he left in his pants. Amazingly it still worked after he layed it out to dry. Battery life really sucks! I can't go 2 days without having the phone die. I wouldn't pay more than $50 for this phone. 88310 2004/12/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 nice design easy to use light weight great features exterior caller id switching on off whenever it feels like Your phone is magically turning on/off and screen becoming a purple-blue and then saying 'No service'?That's motorola T720.I had mine repaired twice and finally replaced for another T720 which is having the same problem:turning on/off whenever it feels like it.At the repair center,I saw at least 10 people come in 15min. with the same problem and same phone,it wasn't their first time there either! If you people have that problem,please contact me at :tequilasip@hotmail.com,I'm planning to send your comments and mine to Motorola's General director in order that they find a solution for us. Overall,the features are great and the phone itself is really cool,easy to operate.I really wish it would work properly though. 88309 2004/5/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 this phone is fragiletends toward software glitchesfailures the operating system is attractiveuser friendly I've had this phone for a little over a year now. Yes, it has a great operating system with easy to navigate bright color menus and a very user-friendly nature. Sadly, it regularly freezes (only fixable by removing the batteries), it occasionally has really bizarre failures and glitches, and the construction is far from sturdy. The screen is now coming off and the hinges can hyper-extend almost completely off. I'm simply waiting for the piece of junk to die. 88308 2003/11/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of features navigating thru the menus is slow Based on every one elses reviews, I must have gotten a lemon. Mine cannot hold a call for more than a few minutes and has problems establishing connections. It often takes numerous redials to get a call to go through. This is calling from the 9th floor of a building in Houston, so there should not be a problem finding a tower nearby. And my nokia that I had before this "upgrade" worked flawlessly for over 2 years. This reminds me why I was glad to get rid of the StarTac phone. As far as the battery life goes, I have no complaint. 88307 2004/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy phone clarity of in call sound solid battery life ring tones are plenty loud enough but sound distorted on the highest setting I purchased this phone in December and have been very pleased. I have owned 6 different phones in the past and until now the Startac was my favorite. I use my phone for about 700 - 800 minutes a month and the battery lasts 4 to 5 days with turning it off at night. The other thing I like about this phone it that it feels very durable not chintzy like my V60 felt. Features are excellent, even though I probably will never use half of them. The sound quality is excellent with plenty of volume. I never have a hard time hearing people. Super easy to navigate. The more I am writing the more I am loving this phone!!! 88306 2003/12/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen flip top screen lightweight looks cool no alarm cock call volume bad Small, cool looking, and color. But does it work well? Volume quality is terrible. The highest setting (7) should be the volume for 3. Use mine with Alltel and never have reception or call problems, save for a few bad areas. Call clarity is fine, the volume is just too low. No games come installed, kinda bogus. No feature to put photos on the phone without subscribing to a service. Same goes for ringtones. Installed ringtones kinda lame, most don't take advantage of the polyphonic speaker. And they sound like they were designed to appeal to 12 year old girls. Screen is decent, plenty bright enough. The called ID screen on front is a must for a flip phone. This oone has a cool light blue lamp in it. No alarm clock! It has a clock, a day planner, but no alarm clock. Weird. Seems fairly sturdy, and pretty light for all the features. 88305 2005/3/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good reception 4 monthsit died I never had a problem with the Motorola T720 during its short life. I only had this phone for all of 4 months before the Hinge on it broke and my phone became a two piece phone. Luckily I had an extended warranty that I was talked into buying from Wireless Wave. Unlucky for me they said I must have abused it, which I did not as I never even dropped it once. Not satisfied I went to Rogers where they guy there showed me about 8 of the T720 that had been brought in that week alone, all with the same problem as mine. Point of the story is do not bother buying an extended warranty, do not deal with Wirless Wave in Canada and DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE!!!!! 88304 2005/4/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen analog roaming was expensive frustration low max volume ugh low battery life This phone has horrible battery life. Secondly reception is not great, with frequent slips to analog for no apparent reason. Speaker is too quiet. Get something else. 88303 2004/4/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 very colorful pretty terrible reception too complicated sound unreliable I renewed my Verizon plan and got this phone for $50. The reception is the worse than my 4 year old Nokia. I used this phone in L.A., San Francisco and Seattle and even if the phone had full reception bars, it would cut out mid-conversation. Also there was a persistent popping sound. The Get-It-Now would never work. I know that this is not caused by the Verizon plan because I had a Nokia and a Samsung that worked great and the sound was clear. 88302 2004/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 light slick small if it only works I got two of these phone from AT&T. The first one shuts itself off while I was entering phone numbers into the address book. The second one can't be turned off when I made the first phone call from it. I had to finally take the battery out in order to disconnect from the phone call. Neither one live to celebrate their first 24 hours of existence. 88301 2006/6/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 awesome display loud ring tones can t download personal photos to screen saver phone display freezesgoes blank I was amazed when i saw this phone! the display grabbed my attention. the colors are bright and clear! I had to buy one! I find the phone excellent except after 7 months of use the screen would freeze up so i would reinsert the battery and that would fix the problem, 2 months later the screen goes suddenly goes blank and i cant get it resolved..its now sent for repair or replacement..it will take 10 - 15 days..luckily i have my older phone reinstated until my phone returns.. hope this is an isolated incident.. 88300 2005/12/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it folds in half too numerous to mention Drops calls all the time. Bad reception in Large Buildings. Drops calls frequently. In the Battery charger 6 of every 24 hours out of necessity. Drops calls often. Warranty excludes corrosion due to humidity or sweat (come on Motorola, can't we use the phone while working out, or while in New Orleans or Houston?) Drops many more calls than my old Motorola phone. Gadgetry and software come at the expense of reliability and durability. I wish I had my old phone back, then I could complete a conversation in only 1 call. Voicemail notification worked for 3 months, then Verizon said that the on screen notification was no longer supported on their system. Oops, dropped another call. I'm done with Motorola until I see an overwhelming majority of reviews that are positive. I would rather have a durable and reliable phone without all the gee whiz. 88299 2004/3/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 looks phonebook lcd flip phone calendar overall sound battery life upgradability I got this as my first LCD phone and was so psyched. Truth is that the sound quality is extremely poor. I can never find a comfortable position in order to hear well. The battery life is poor as well. But there are some plus sides to this phone. The calendar feature is extremely cool and holds a lot of data. The phone book as well. Bottom line is that if you want a phone for looks, then this is the one. If you want a phone to actually talk on, then you may want to look elsewhere. ***Make sure your provider will let you opt out for a new phone in your cell contract. I couldn't and have to wait until later this year*** 88298 2005/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 none etc large screen excellent sound quality I recentally bought this phone and now I love it. I was at first a bit worried, as I have heard that the sound quality was not that great. But when I recieved the phone the sound quality was excellent. Other people have also complained about how long the battery lasts, well I charge mine each Friday night and my battery lasts me about a week. The screen is a great size and works excellent outside in bright light conditions. I have not found anything bad about this phone, except for one thing. When you change the faceplates and then look from the side you see the two outside colors and then the silver inside. In my opinion I think this does not look the best but I never change the face plates anyway. 88297 2003/12/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tough reliability calendar high quality of sound great reception speaker volume ringer volume battery time The phone has many great features, such as the calendar with reminders, excellent voice quality (dependent upon service coverage), polyphonic ringtones, WAP access, 500 phone book entry capacity, voice dial, and voice notes. My GSM coverage area is great, so I'm getting great voice quality on this phone. What some don't realize is that voice quality is dependent upon your coverage area. So, if GSM is well concentrated in your area, you will be getting great coverage. I'm currently with AT&T Wireless who provides the majority of GSM access in my area. This phone is a reliable piece of equipment, for the most part. The ringer is not too loud though. That, and the fact that it's hard to hear things on the phone with a lot of background noise. So, in short, there are only two things that I'd want changed about this phone: -Higher Ringer Volume -Higher Speaker volume for calls -Extended Battery time I'd recommend this phone to an intermediate user, who wants more features, but not too many. The T721 has fixed at least the ringer volume issue, but not sure of any others it has fixed. 88296 2004/12/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 thought actual calls sounded better than lgs extendable antenna nice color screen few ring tones very slow startup the way it charges sucks batteries over priced When I first got my T720, I was thrilled. The computer looking screen was great. Nice shiny and new. Now, after having it for barely 2 years, in a protective leather case, I have to call Verizon and advance my phone update because this one isn't going to make it. I know a few other people that have this phone and they're problems are starting just like mine. The battery is fine. I've charged it in other people's phones with other chargers. I've bought a second charger thinking that was the problem. It started a few months ago. Use to be, you plug it in, starts charing in 3 seconds no problem. Then it was 10 seconds. Then you could count to 15 and maybe or maybe not it would start. Half the time you get unable to charge on the display. Now I can't get it to charge at all. Oh, by the way, if your battery goes bad...70 dollars for a new one. 88295 2003/9/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish compact some inconvenient menus slow keypad response The Motorola T720 is an adequate cell phone, but nothing to rave about. I use my phone a few times per day, and even though I often transfer it between bags and am not so gentle when I flip it open, nothing has broken yet. I like it's compact size; it fits easily into my pocket. On the downside, the battery life is OK, but not great. My main gripes are that keypad response is slow, menu navigation is occasionally annoying and the color screen really doesn't seem worth it. Also, the phone gets really hot when I talk on it for longer than 30 minutes, and sometimes the ring volume is not loud enough and I miss calls. The Motorola T720 is adequate for my needs, but I don't think I'd choose it myself (it was a gift). There must be something better out there. 88294 2000/9/16 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 i like the color screenoverall appearance of the phone number of miscellaneous problems with phone short battery life The Bottom LineI won't recommend the T720. Quality is lacking. For the money you spend on a T720, you can find a better phone. Full Review First let me say I was very excited about purchasing my Motorola T720. I have maintained a cell phone contract for over 10 years now and always look forward to upgrading my phone with the next renewal. Generally I take the "free" phone or choose a low cost phone to purchase, but this time I decided to treat myself to a real upgrade by purchasing the T720 for $100 (after rebate). And not only did I get one for myself, but I talked my husband into getting the same phone. He gave up an old well used Audiovox phone, which as it turns out was a much better phone than the T720. Within a month of purchasing the two T720 phones mine was already being exchanged because the microphone quit working. I would call out but no one could hear me, although I could hear the other person just fine. We also both notice more interference/static when using these phones versus our old phones (my old one was a Nokia through Cingular) and we lose a lot more calls than we used to as well. Recently I have started having problems with my battery not holding a charge and/or not charging when it is plugged in. We are also having problems with the buttons on the phone. You can scroll down and not go anywhere then hit a number and go to a different screen. It is very frustrating. I would not recommend this phone to anyone. For the money, there are much better choices out there. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88293 2000/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 it does it all throw away your pda battery The Bottom LineGet this phone if you want a phone that also acts as a PDA. It really does it all! hope this helps and God Bless You! Full Review I bought this phone due to the color screen and teh fact my old Star-Tac was not as fancy. I got it home read through the manuel while charging the battery and soon found I got more than I thought. This phone does it all. It has a calander, 500 entire phone book, internet capable and get it now, if you are a verizon customer. I love the ease of use and the bright screen, you can change the contrast. This is another thing about this phone, you can change nearly every aspect about this phone, even make your own ring if you so desire. Walpaper, screen saver, banner message it is all there. It also has a voice recorder to take dictation and you can store a # in the phone book record the name of the person, push a button on the side of the phone and speak that person's name and it dials it for you. I did this driving down the road and it heard me just fine and if it does not it will ask you to repeat. Overall this phone does it all the only negative comment is the battery life, but the color screen and all the extras, you should expect that. Get a car charger and extra battery and it is no problem. I really love this phone. Hope this helps; God Bless You! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 88292 2000/10/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features gps device loud ring get it now color screen holster battery life The Bottom LineGreat phone. The poor battery life has given it a bad rap. It's a nice product that should be a nice addition to your history of phones. Full Review The initial excitement of this phone has worn down, but overall, I still really like it. Number one concern is the battery life. But that is easy enough to upgrade. It's not enough to skip this phone. The color screen is very nice, with customizable background, a great polyphonic speaker for some loud rings (of which there are some nice choices). The Get It Now and web features are very useful as well. The battery dies in about a day and half with basic use. This phone should be supplied by an extended battery as it's standard. Size and weight of the phone are pretty standard. Nothing special about it in this way. However, the GPS device that spots your location is great. For now, unfortunatley, it's only used for 911 calls. But soon you can be standing on a street somewhere and ask it to give you all the coffee shops in a 500 foot radius based on your location - nice! The potential is there, and I am willing to stick with this snazzy phone even though the battery life is pretty poor. That's what you get with a color screen, hmm. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 88291 2000/2/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 voice activated dialing downloadable rings eats batteries like mad The Bottom LineIt's a neat phone but its power management is terrible. Full Review INTRO This is the second Motorola phone I've owned. I would say I'm very computer/electronic savvy and have no problem figuring things without a manual. THE GOOD It's a great phone, what can I say. It's neat, small, weighs very little and gets a lot of attention. I like all the little gadgets on it and have had fun customizing it. THE BAD It eats batteries breakfast lunch and dinner. Just turning it on probably eats batteries. I don't make many phone calls during the week but if I forget to charge it overnight it will inevitably die halfway through the next day. On the weekends, however, is my major talk time. I call everyone and we talk for long periods of time. But the battery only allows me about 2 hours of talk time before dying. It's a pain in the butt. The bigger battery for this model costs 60 bucks. THE UGLY It's plain looking and it seems like all the accessories for this phone are overpriced. If I had known how much it ate batteries I wouldn't have bought it. I was talked into buying it by the sales lady and am in the process of downgrading to a Nokia 5185i because it costs less and has longer talk time. Motorola should have thought this phone through a little more. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88290 2000/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 large color screen polyphonic ring tones need 2 hands to answer fragile handset lousy reception teensy side buttons The Bottom LineIf you have about $300 to gamble, go for it. Otherwise, I can't recommend this phone. Full Review I returned this phone after about 10 days. Returned it and went with the Sony Ericcson T68i, which is one of the few that AT&T Wireless offers on the GSM/GPRS network, and with a color screen (that I found hard to give up after having the T720). T720 phone reception was great while in the car, but not inside ANY residence (I live in Silicon Valley). For some reason, any time I tried to answer a call while at home or at someone's house, I'd immediately be disconnected. Not worth putting up with. I thought it could've been a network issue (AT&T is still building their new network) but the other phone (Sony Ericcson) is on the same network and has no problems. Side buttons too small and very hard to press. When I went to push the button on the right for voice dialing I thought I'd squeeze the phone and bust it in two. The design itself is very fragile (lots of creaking noises) and I couldn't get used to the "clam shell" opening and closing... not being able to answer a call with one hand was very annoying. I have some friends who have this phone via Verizon, and they have had no problems. One thing I noticed about their phones is that they have a "pull-up" antenna rather than the little "nubbin" style antenna on the AT&T version. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 88289 2003/1/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 flip compact design color size battery The Bottom LineConsider this phone if you want a lightweight and compact device. Get a car charger if you are concerned about the battery. Full Review I read the reviews on the 720 for over 2 months before taking the plunge into it and then decided to get one. Verizon put it down for $50 before the rebate. They did give me the rebate information and told me to send the old phone although I haven't done that yet and I'm not sure if I will get $100 back (it surely would be nice though :-). Before buying the phone I was really concerned about the battery issue that has become so publicly known with this phone. I decided to buy it simply because for $50 bucks you just can't go wrong - almost. Ok, so let me revisit the main concerns I've heard about this device: Battery: It's been 2 weeks and a trip to Florida since I got my 720. I have had no issues with the battery life. Well, duh, if I do nothing but surf the menus for an hour then of course I would expect the battery to cry out for juice. So far I have had to charge the battery about every 3rd days or so, with regular talking and the more than occasional showing-off of the color display to the curious. This is not too concerning considering the amount of display brightness and button illumination this little phone emits. I had a StarTac for almost 4 years and yes the Startac was much better with battery life but the display was archaic in comparison. I am very happy with recharging my phone every 3 days considering the color and other features this device has. In any case, I ordered on-line the car-adapter for the 720 (like $10 for the Motorola brand - shop around!) in case I ever need it. Signal: I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is well established Verizon zone. I have had 0 problems with reception. In fact, I drove down to Tampa, Floriday last week and nowhere during my trip I had problems with reception. The phone did go into analog mode once but only for a short period of time. Other than that the reception was excellent. Holster: Yes, it sucks. I bought a leather holster for less than $10 bucks online (again, shop around!) and my fears of losing and/or scratching the phone are gone. The T720 has some massive improvements over the StarTac. For example, the antenna. Do I need to explain? If you every owned a StarTac you know by now Motorola designed the antenna so that it would purposely break about twice a year so that they can perpetually charge you $10 bucks for the replacement. The antenna on the 720 is almost indestructible when retracted. Also, I have read a couple of reviews where the user complains about the quality of the construction. I totally disagree with this assessment. The 720 is more robust than the StarTack. I think that the silver color gives a look of flimsiness when compared to a black finish but this is just a false impression. In summary, the T720 is a very good phone you can count on as long as you get it for a good price. To me, the most important thing when looking for a replacement for the T720 was to stay with a compact device and good reception. the T720 has both. I was not interested in walkie-talkie like features or built-in speaker phones (cellphones are obnoxious in public places as they are so why add more to the problem?) and the T720 was a clear step-up from the Startac with the same portability advantage and added features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 88288 2000/3/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 excellent features good menu setup great screen very poor earpiece volume poor battery life The Bottom LineWould not purchasd until the earpiece volume problem is recognized by Motorola and resolved. Full Review I have used Motorola cellular phones for more than 15 yrs and this is my first disappointing experience. The screen and feature set of the phone is excellent and a major step forward, as is the very fast data access through Verizon when connected to my laptop. Unfortunately, there are major shortcomings of the product. The major problem is the very poor volume from the earpiece. It is literally impossible to use the phone in a moderately noisy environment, and one cannot hold the earpiece away from the ear as recommended to limit RF exposure. I returned the phone to Verizon for servicing and obtained loaner of the same model that had the same problems. The phone was returned by Motorola service with the statement that there was nothing wrong with the phone. I asked 6 friends to use the phone, and they all noticed the same problem with earpiece volume. I have subsequently purchased an LG V4400 phone, which has a similar feature set, but with excellent earpiece volume, longer battery life, and much better reception (I compared the phones side by side in making this analysis). If Motorola fixes the earpiece volume problem, I would then consider the phone again, despite the battery life problem (which I hope can also be solved). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 88287 2000/12/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 verizon service shape size tech support battery life fragile antenna slow software very few perks The Bottom LineLike I said, its an aight fone. I wouldn't buy it again, but I'm glad it gave me as good service as it did. Full Review I've had the T720 (Verizon service) for a year now and its given me pretty good service in the Columbus, Ohio area. I bought it as a replacement for my V60i (which broke after being dropped). If you're reading this, I'm sure you've read quite a bit more about the phone and know its basic pro's and con's. I'm going to outline some experiences I've had with the phone so future-users can have an idea about from the words of a 23 year old grad student who's part techno-geek and part perfectionist. The T720 has a small clam-shell design and its great for carrying around because it weighs very little. My only complaint is the antenna - which is very fragile sticks out rather idiotically. I've broken antenna's twice now, and both times they've snapped in my jean's pockets when I've sat down. I bought a replacement "mini antenna" from Ebay for it to avoid this problem, but it gave me horrid reception. Speaking of reception, the T720 has moderately to decent network reception. I rarely get a signal inside a store in malls or in the first level of a parking garage or in closed buildings. I have to move to a window, extend the antenna and keep moving to keep the signal. It switches to the analog network often and I've had quite a few dropped calls. This, with the OEM antenna fully extended; so when I say horrid reception with the mini antenna you can just imagine... The external screen of the T720 is a huge improvement from the v60i - both phones displayed the date, time, and message status but the T720 also displays signal strength, battery level, and other miscellaneous information. It's fairly large and backlit with a bluish-white light. It's hard to read though when the sun is shining on the LCD. I have to press one of the outer keys to illuminate the LCD in order to read the time etc. The inside display is pretty nice. A nice touch is when you flip open the phone, the outer LCD still works and the writing on it flips around so you can still read it with the top open without having to turn the phone upside down. Back to inside display: after seeing some of the new phones with their huge displays and color displaying capabilities, I'm not so impressed with the T720's ability anymore. But when I first got the phone, I was in love with it. The keypad is nice and soft - often too soft, and I keep clicking without anything happening. I love the directional keys working as shortcuts to various features of the phone (which can be customized). My biggest complaint for the phone is the software - its too darn slow. I click the phone book button and often wait almost 5 seconds before it actually opens on the screen. Scrolling down the list is even more tedious - it takes forever. I've regularly updated the software through Verizon, but I guess its just designed like that. Before I'd bought the phone, I'd read a lot of complaints about its battery time. Although it does offer less time than the V60i, it was good enough for me. I usually charge once every day and a half and for the amount I used the phone (quite a bit - at least ten 10-minute calls a day plus a lot of playing around etc.) Recently though, the battery's started to be quirky. It gives out randomly within 30 minutes of usage and often the phone becomes REALLY hot. I don't know what thats about, but its there and theres nothing anyone can tell me about what causes this. My favorite feature about the phone is its datebook feature. Sure its not the greatest, but just having an organizer in the phone that can give you alarms you can customize is really cool (and important) for my lifestyle. I've almost given up using a planner because its so easy to use. It's been really reliable...till the last few weeks when the phone's just NOT given an alarm to remind me of an appointment - I found that out the hard way. The next time I switched it on, it would sound the alarms for all the various appointments it had previously forgotten. Quite strange and annoying. SO those are some reasons I've come to believe that I've outgrown the T720 - or rather, it's become too old. I've been researching a phone with a good organizer/datebook/alarm and dependability/durability for almost a month now and I'm looking to pay absolutely the lowest amount possible. Thats why I'm going to switch to a Nokia 3650 with T-Mobile service bought via Amazon for -$50 (amazing deal). Check back for my 3650 review soon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $175Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88286 2000/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 customization good phone book sounds are static like especially during calls phone shuts off unexpectedly The Bottom LineDo not buy this phone. It is unreliable and consistently fails in important areas. Full Review This phone, despite a few feature oversights, could be a good phone. But there is one BIG problem. First the good stuff. The strongest features of this phone are how easy it is to navigate and customize and how it can be a great mini-organizer. First of all menus are customizable to be reordered how you like. The four home keys at the main screen can be whatever feature you would like. Making your own themes is an easy process as well. Choosing a color theme, background, screensaver all easy to do. The calendar is great as well. Keep notes, appointments and even reminder alarms when an event comes up (But this is the only way for you to set an alarm. So you have to enter all the information as if it were an appointment; date, duration, repeat, time, and remind how far ahead.) It would be nice if there was a separate alarm. But that is just a small inconvenience. The phone book is really strong in this phone as well. You can store, up to (I believe) 500 numbers. So if a person has say a work, mobile and home phone all can be stored under that person. A phone type can be assigned so it is easy to remember. It works pretty well. Scrolling through can be a little slow, but one could always press the letter on the number pad that coincides with the first letter of the name. Ringtones can be assigned to specific people as well. Say you have a friend that is a big metallica fan, just download the tone and assign it to that person. Now every time that person calls you can hear that specific tone. This makes it nice for organizing groups. Just assign certain ringtones to certain groups so you can know if business, a friend, or someone you don't want to talk to is calling. There is also "callerID" on the outside display of the phone. As long as you have the phone number, it will display the name of the person. But all this good does not oversight the bad. First of all one small thing that I thought was annoying was that the ring style (vibrate, Ring and Vibrate, silent) could not be changed by the scroll buttons on the outside. You have to flip open the phone select ring styles and change it there. Small inconvenience but after a while you'll wish it did it. The phone is also pretty quiet. It's hard to hear a lot of people, even when the volume is all the way up. This also applies to the ringtones; a lot of them are far too quiet. The phone needs to be able to be louder. And of course the biggest problem of all is how it works. I know, and you can see, that I am not the only one to have these problems. It will work for a couple weeks just fine, but then the phone will start shutting off all by itself, a lot of the times in the middle of a phone call. Second, sound will just cut out and you will not be able to hear the person on the other side. Remind you there is no consistent cause or reason to this happening. It pretty random when it happens. Also the sounds and keytones of the phone will start to sound like static instead of the proper sound. These are major problems that can't be looked over. The service on this phone is also pretty bad. Before the T720 I had a Nokia 3360. Not a fancy phone but it had FAR better reception than the T720 and a GSM phone is supposed to have better reception than a TDMA phone. Especially when you compare the price Nokia=free Motorola=200 bucks. I spent the money to have my phone replaced. I thought everything was going to be okay and that I happened to get a lemon phone. I have now had the replacement phone for 3 weeks and it is starting to do the same thing as my previous phone. I can not recommend this phone, despite how good a phone it could be there is just something wrong with its function so it is by default a bad phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88285 2000/9/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 size design ergonomics battery life menu navigation The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone if you use it beyond 60 minutes of talk time. Keep a charger nearby because you'll need it every day. Full Review Well, I was really looking forward to this phone. My Timeport 8767 died and I needed a replacement. With great excitment I purchased the T720. With great disappointment I returned it to my service provider in exchange for the Motorola V60i. My number one complaint about this phone is battery life. In a word, HORRIBLE. Initially, I charged the battery for 6 hours. Within one day the battery needed another charge. I was surprised because I use it for phone calls. No internet, no text messages, no games. Basic telephone usage. After four days of use I exchanged the battery thinking it was defective. I charged the new one for 8 hours and let it sit closed in standby mode to see how long the charge would last. Another disappointment, 36 hours. Perhaps the electronics were at fault. Besides, Verizon has an excellent 15-day exchange policy. I charged the new phone for 18 hours. After 8 hours in operation the battery died. Maybe 70 minutes of digital talk time. All power drain options, except backlight (see complaint #3), were disabled. I spoke with Motorola customer service and Verizon customer service; both admitted the projected standby/talk time were not accurate. Verizon stated that the color screen really hammers the battery. Once people experience the short battery life this phone will expire. Motorola has a dog phone. Until it provides an extended life battery stay away. The second complaint is the complexity of basic telephone use, such as switching from ring to silent or vibrate. On the 8767 it was a simple two-step process. The T720 is cumbersome with too many steps navigating the menu. My third complaint is the screen. Very difficult to read except when backlight or in bright sun. Bottom line: buyer beware! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 88284 2000/10/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 ringer volume sound quality durability color screen poor phone mechanics software glitches pricey battery life The Bottom LineThere are software bugs, but this phone will make and receive calls. If that is what you want, this phone will work for you. Full Review I purchased this product from my local Verizon Wireless store. At that time (January 2003) it was top of the line. I paid a pretty good price for it, but I liked the Motorola name, and I am one that likes a flashy phone appearance, so this phone fit the bill for me. The first thing to notice about this phone is the bright color display. At the time that this phone came out it was the best color display on the market. I have since moved onto the Motorola V710 and it has much more vibrant color, but that's for another review. This phone also has a pretty external caller ID indicator so you can see who is calling even when the phone is closed. This phone is user-friendly IF you are familiar with the Motorola's features. If you are going to be moving from a Nokia phone, this COULD be difficult. With this color screen, the battery life is pretty short. If you like to talk on your phone a lot, and aren't always around a charger, consider purchasing the extended battery. I purchased the extended battery and although it made the phone thicker and heavier, the battery life was never a problem anymore. My main problem with this phone was the SOFTWARE BUGS. The software for the phone book lagged behind. Moving through the phonebook was a slow and painful process. I cannot stress how irritating this was. Also, this phone would shut off at random times. Another problem I ran into was that the phone would not close properly. You would flip it shut, but the phone would still think it was open, and display "Verizon Wireless" as if a call were in progress. As time went by, the phone became more and more sensitive to movement and would even pick up and answer by itself. The phone has loud polyphonic ringers. You can download ringers (for a small fee, of course) if you have the "Get It Now" service that is offered by Verizon Wireless. You can also download games, if that is of interest to you. You can set personalized ringers for people in your phone book, and I liked that feature. This phone also has a calendar, but I found that a little tough to maneuver. The sound quality on this phone was excellent. I could always hear people clearly, loud enough, and almost never had any complaints about the sound coming from me. I kept this phone for 18 months, and that's a long time for a cell phone these days. I would not recommend getting this phone, but if you get an opportunity to get it for FREE, I would take it. You can make it work, it just isn't smooth sailing. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88283 2000/1/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 functionality excellent screen reception standard battery runs out fast speaker could use more power The Bottom LineThis is for people who like trendy funtions and looks with their mobile phone. Full Review This phone overall is incredibly functional and I love the features that come along with it. The big color LCD screen, the huge phone book and the polyphonic ringtones make for an excellent experience overall. You can download tons of games and ringtones from Verizon's Get It Now service, (or the equivalent for other carriers) and the OpenWave Browser provides the user with very fast access to news, stocks, email, whatever on the mobile web. There are also tons of very attractive faceplates available for the t720 and now the t730. the white backlighting is very attractive behind the keys and in the mini-LCD on the outside, which is also very funtional. as far as style is concerned, the t720 makes the grade. Now as far as in-call performance, the t720 speaker is somewhat quiet and you have to press you ear against the speaker if you are in a crowded room. Since the phone is a tri-mode phone (meaning it can also use tradtional analog networks modes), reception is always solid and you can trust your phone to have service. The battery life is one main thing that really torqued me off about this phone. If you are going somewhere with this phone, you darn well better make sure you have a full charge and bring along your car charger just in case. The t720 guzzles down your battery life. Overall, this phone is good for high schoolers or casual talkers who want a functional and stylish phone. but if you are a big time yacker, like I am, the t720 might not be the BEST fit for you. If you really like this phone, like me, you can make it happen though. I would recommend purchasing one of the extended life batteries. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 105.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88282 2000/10/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 not much else you can play games reception battery life just about everything function call consistency The Bottom LineDO NOT BUY THIS PHONE. I can feel its cheapness more and more day by day. It would be like buying a car that only works 4 days a week. Full Review First, to make one thing clear, by marvel I mean its pretty amazing, but not in a good way. It doesn't make sense to me how it seems to have a mind of its own. When I plug the phone in to charge the display on the front changes from the date and time to "Alarm:Loud". The funny thing is that I dont have the alarm set, and when the phone rings caller ID doesnt pop up, I just get told the alarm is loud. I have to open the phone and close it to get the proper display. When I change the ring style, the song continues to play through pressing end and closing the phone. However, this only happens about half the time, but I have to wonder why an electronic device would have good days and bad days. Sometimes the screen won't come on and the buttons won't work even when the phone is on and the front display is lit up. I have to remove the battery to get the phone to work again. So, the phone is a bit quirky, and reception and battery life are what really count. So how are the T720's vital functions? Well, I like to think I bought the T720 beeper because I get lots of voicemail and missed calls, but the phone never rings. I would honestly say that even when my phone says I have a full digital signal, it rings maybe 1 out of 4 calls. In addition to this most of my conversations (even with full signal) get cut off at some point. The battery is another downfall, lasting between 5 hours and 2 days on standby if I'm lucky. I have always had Verizon, and I can say for sure that my T720 has missed more calls than all of my previous 3 cell phones combined. Way to go Motorola, you sold me a product that doesn't work right and you still get to keep my money. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88281 2000/2/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 gadgets gizmos galore ringtone composer gsm color display internet games battery life The Bottom LineI love this phone :-) Full Review I have the GSM version of this phone, and I use ATT's GSM wireless service. See my review of ATT if you want. This phone is awesome. It has all the gizmo's you could ask for. And if it doesn't have all the gizmo's you want write some JAVA code and upload them. There is a built in ringtone composer. If you're good at music you can compose whatever ringtone you feel like. My girlfriend put in "You are my sunshine" so when she calls it plays that. Setting up wallpaper pictures and screensavers is also a lot of fun. The display is bright, vivid and clear. The GUI (its modifiable too) takes a little while to get used to but once you play with it for a week you wonder what you did without it. The buttons controls make surfing websites easy. There are three action buttons with a 4 directional movement button along with the standard telephone numbers. One of my favorite features is the fact you can add locks to individual features. For example I can lock the browser. Very important because I pay for all of the downloaded bits. I could also have it prompt for a password to get into the settings, or to make a call etc, etc. The outside display window is even graphical. It shows you icons of mail, or telephone's to show weather you have a phone call or a text message with the caller ID. It also indicates battery life and signal strength. When folded up, it is tiny. The front plate and battery cover is replaceable so you can different colors and such. Quick volume buttons on the side can turn it from ring to vibrate to silent in seconds. The voice activation button on the right is also easy to access. The whole voice system its self is idiot proof too. When putting someone in your phone book, you say the name twice and it works every time from then on. The earpiece that comes with the phone is comfortable and works extremely well. Between the earpiece and the quality of the GSM service I can make people think that I'm actually in their house on the same phoneline as them. There are so many features that I can't fit them all in right here. The one downside to this phone is that if you're expecting super-long battery life then this is not the phone. If you charge it everyday when you go to bed you won't have a problem. If you don't have a strong signal it will suck battery down a bit faster as well. With moderate use of applications and phone calls I can last like 2 or 3 days without having to charge it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88280 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use weight color screen reliability none price depending on what you paid The Bottom LineLove the phone, if you are worried about talk time get the longer battery. Full Review When it comes to cell phones, I try all of them. I can say, without hesitation this is one of the best. I had the old v.60 and had some problems with it. Namely, the date and time would not work properly. One Verizon employee tried to get me to buy this phone when it first came out, luckily another told me to wait a month until a service update was made. The one complaint he had was the poor talk time. When I purchased the phone I also purchased the extended battery (with a 15% discount from Verizon for registering online with them). Also to be fair about the battery life I charge the phone every night. I have loved the phone for the 1 month that I have it. The screen is really clear, the color is very cool and the ring tones are great too. I have not played the games yet. This phone has been everything as advertised. I use my phone often, and have yet to have any problems. There are numerous features on this phone, including an excellent address book (which Verizon was able to beam for me from my last phone). The ring tones that come with the phone are all clear and if you are not in a business setting can be really fun too. While it may not be the phone, as much as the service provider (verizon) the range and quality I get are tremendous. I have yet to have a call drop on the phone. I travelled with the phone the other day, and as soon as I got off the plane and powered up, the phone recognized the new time zone, all my voicemails came up immed and I was able to access them right away. Over all the phone is great. One other cool feature is the ability to view digital pictures on it. Using a webservice (first 30 pictures are free) is very useful, especially if you do not carry a wallet with room for pictures. I highly recommend the phone and I have never said that about a cell phone before. Lastly, the belt clip is vastly improved over the last one, I love it too Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 88279 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent phone for the price lots of features i ve never had before i m a network administratoreven i found the phones menus to be confusing The Bottom LineI would higher recommend the T720 for those who are stepping up to a better phone. There is definitely the cool factor without the wallet flattening price. Full Review Motorola T720 I just got two Motorola T720's for christmas for myself and my wife. These phones are awesome! After rebate we paid $50 per phone for color screen, voice activated dialing, and cool functions and features. Perhaps I am biased because every phone I have had previously has been a standard issue phone. I have owned at least a couple Nokia 3190's?, a Kyocera 2135, an Audiovox CDM100 to name a few. All low level phones to be sure with few added features. Prior to getting the T720's I read all the reviews on epinions.com. So I knew up front what I was getting into. Many of the reviews were negative due to short battery life, bad holster, no downloadable pictures, poor signal strength, etc. Because my requirements for a phone are not that intense I decided to try the Motorola out anyway. I was very pleasantly suprised. As I had some unlimited minutes over the holiday to use I made two and a half hours worth of long distance calls to relatives. The phones battery had only gone down about halfway. That is great for me, especially since under normal circustances I would use the phone at most a few minutes per day. My signal strength has been great so far. Of course southern california / Orange County, CA is probably one of the largest (and therefore strongest) cellular networks in the country so I would expect a clear signal from Verizon here. Yes it would be nice to personalize the phone with some family photos but get real here..... as fun as that might be it is not useful in the final analysis. I am reminded of what one of my friends said when I was looking for a faceplate for my old Nokia. He said: "Is that new faceplate going to improve your reception, or add any new features?" Of course not, and to that end I am not going to lose any sleep over fluff features that have nothing to do with what the phone was designed to do - make and take calls. With regards to the holster, I am in agreement that under the wrong circumstances you could have the phone accidently drop from the holster. However in my opinion it fits fairly snug in the cradle. All the same I will probably pick up a wrap-around leather case for the phone as I am uncomfortable with snap-off holsters like the one supplied with the phone. Although I cannot speak to overall reliability down the road, the phone is working perfectly for now. In terms of build quality, I do notice that its construction could have been a bit better. My bullet proof standard issue Nokias could be dropped from a second story window and survive (as long as they were in the leather case). This phone is nowhere near that sturdy, but I would expect flip phones to be somewhat more flimsy. I have seen and held Motorolas V60 and it is a much more rugged flip phone and a higher build quality I will agree. However for the same price I would rather have the T720. Voice dialing is a snap! I love that feature. Just say the name and the phone automatically dials that person. I love that! The phone also has a cool polyphonic speaker system so you get real music and sounds, and real voices as opposed to the usual beeps and blips of a standard digital phone. My only negative point are the menus. Very difficult to master. Even after reading the manual I was still baffled. Most phones have an alarm. Usually a child of 6 could set most of those. I had to read the manual to do that, and it was very complicated once I figured out how. This is coming from a network administrator! After one day I was able to navigate the menus but there are so many steps to take to get to your desired function I never remember how to get back. Bottom line, this is a great phone if you are stepping up from lesser devices. If you are a power user who already has a phone with 'mega' features like color screen and rich functions I might steer clear because it will probably be a step down for you. For instance if you have a V60 and want to switch to a T720 - keep the V60. My advice is to go for it, take your time so you can understand the complicated menus... and you should be fine. My call quality is excellent, and as stated earlier cell phones have one primary purpose - to make and take calls. Everything else is fluff. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88278 2003/6/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 etc customizable menus feature set very fragile learned the hard way The Bottom LineWhile the features are nice, lack of real world durability will have me looking at alternatives. Full Review I purchased this phone about six weeks ago with a contract for Verizon service. I had read numerous reviews (both here and at CNET) about this model, and believed the pros outweighed the cons. One of the first things I did upon getting the phone was purchase a different holster - I got a "Cellsuit" that I believed would offer more protection for the phone. As some have stated here, the standard plastic holster is laughable...the phone could be easily knocked out. Four weeks into a relatively pain free ownership experience (I had none of the lock up or 'blue screen' problems), I accidentally knocked the phone (in the nice padded case) off my belt and onto the floor in my office (carpeted, I should add). This has happened many times to previous phones so I thought nothing of it. I simply put the phone (still in the case) back on my belt and went about my day. A short while later I grabbed the phone out of the holster to make a call, flipped up the cover and...the entire LCD was cracked -'spidered' from the center of the display to all sides!!! It appeared as though the liquid had seeped out into the display area and had completely obscured the screen. AAHHRGG! I then closed the phone and realized that the external LCD was completely dark - it too had suffered a 'catastrophic failure'. Strange thing is that the phone still functioned. I was able to dial and receive calls (but could not use any feature or see who was calling via CID). I promptly called Motorola and was told in no uncertain terms that a drop is physical damage and would NOT be covered under warranty. They requested I send it back to them and they would evaluate. This course of action would leave me without a phone for who knew how long...so I took it back to Radio Shack where I purchased it..they were great. They gave me a loaner phone (a brand new 120) and sent the phone to their repair shop. Today I got the estimate back form RS...$186 parts and labor. Good grief. RS is now sending the phone to Motorola to see if they will cover this or replace it. I called Motorola again to pre-log the repair order...but again was told that any damage caused by a drop of any kind will not be covered. Motorola will charge me $75 plus tax to replace the LCD. If the LCD cannot be replaced...$175 for a replacement phone (most likely a refurbished unit). Good grief, again. Moral of the story....if you really must have this phone...don't let it drop..EVER! It WILL BREAK...and you won't get any satisfaction from Motorola. I would strongly suggest you opt for the extra insurance that most resellers will offer...RS offered it to me for $4 per month. Naturally I didn't take it because I believed the phone would be fine and be able to withstand typical use (including the occasional minor impact). Once I receive the phone back it is my intention to try to exchange it for something more substantial and durable. Updated on 6/13/03 - I received a comment suggesting that I write what I liked about the phone. My experience with Motorola and the durability notwithstanding, there are things I like about this phone...so here goes: - The size and weight are just right, IMHO - I love the color screen - I consider it to be bright and clear (although I wish the screen was a bit more readable when not lit up) - The feature set is very good - you can customize the main menu (order of selections), the operation of the 4-way rocker, both control buttons under the screen, create shortcuts to frequently accessed options..the list goes on. (but you need to read the manual!) - The calendar/planner function is ok - it's easy to enter an appointment, but if you live and die by your PDA that synchronizes with your e-mail - you may not find this phone feature as useful - voice activated calling - easy to train and use - voice note taking Update 6/25/2003: Just received a call from Radio Shack - Motorola gave me a brand new phone! I'm very surprised at this turn of events, considering the response I got when I called this in to their customer service line. So I stand corrected on Motorola as a company that appears to want to do the 'right thing'. However, I think I've decided to sell my new T720 as my brother-in-law has offered to give me his Kyocera 3035 - not a flip phone, but it's feature packed. When I get it and use it for a while, I'll post a review. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 80 w/rebate 88277 2000/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full featured stylish intuitive no realistic cons The Bottom LineDon't believe the (bad) hype. This is a great phone! Full Review This phone has not been receiving great reviews, but after owning one for 2 weeks I have no idea why. First complaint is always the battery life. Ok, so it doesn't last as long as my Nokia 3210 did in it's prime... but why would it? the T720 is a full colour, backlit phone, it also has enough features that I am almost always using it for something, standby time for me lasts between 2 and 4 days (left on 24-7), I think this is perfectly acceptable considering the heavy usage, sticking my phone on charge every 2-4 days really isn't a hardship. Second complaint I have heard is about build quality. My phone is finished to a quality that is better or at least as good as any other phone I have ever seen. Yes it is plastic but so are about 98% of phones. Front and rear covers are also replaceable if you happen to scratch it up.having looked very closely at colour flip phones from Samsung and Panasonic I'd have to say that the hardware is much more stylish on the motorola. Everything from the surface finishes, uncluttered lines and simple/functional/tactile buttons on the T720 are just plain nice. I'm not sure if they were the only complaints about this phone, but I am tired of addressing peoples complaints for the minute. Other plusses I noticed straight away with this phone were how customiseable it is. This is not just about daggy ringtones and wallpapers, the entire menu system is changeable. On the main menu, the 4 way D-pad can be made to shortcut into any item you happen to use often, as can the two softkeys. This is also a very full featured phone, after 2 weeks I am still being pleastly surprised. GPRS service is better/more usefull than I thought it would be. The ability to send/receive email is also very cool. The biggest surprise so far has been the surprisingly full featured calendar/scheduler. I had been thinking about getting a Palm, but was thinking I didn't want ANOTHER thing in my pocket (and that TREO thing is just plain gumby) I am pleased to say that this phone does everything that I'd buy a Palm to do. I find the predictive text entry to be faster than that goofy grafitti system on Palms too. I am fully aware that a Palm can probably do some more things in this regard, but nothing I feel deprived of not having. I have already stated how well I feel the hardware is designed and am happy to report that the software is very much up to scratch. having only used Nokias previously, I was worried that this phone would be an excercise in irritation. Having used old Ericssons, Siemens and Motorolas I was well aware of how frustrating a bad interface could be. I have already praised how customiseable this phone is, but that would mean nothing if the underlying structure was not well thought out. Thankfully it is, suffice to say that if you are remotely comfortable with operating a computer (everyone reading this review) you will have no dramas with this phone. NOTE: I put $0 in Amount paid. This phone was $0 on a $30 monthly plan through OPTUS, over the course of the contract I will pay $720 Australian Dollars. Recommended: Yes 88276 2000/3/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of options flashy design excellent reception poor performance poor battery life poor software The Bottom LineBuy this phone if all you care about is looks. If you want a quality, functional phone, look elsewhere. Full Review I am reviewing the verizon edition of this phone, not the newer AT&T version. Unfortunately, I bought this phone immediately when it came out because I thought it was a high quality color phone. It surely is a color phone, but it's not even close to being a high quality cellular phone. There are a variety of reasons for my disliking of this phone. First of all, the battery life is pretty much non existent. I can't go through a whole day without having to worry about the battery life on my phone. Second of all, the software on this phone is horrible. The first batch of phones had version 17 of the software. My phone consistently locked up randomly when receiving calls. I would just hear the ring over and over, much like a computer crash. You are forced to take out the battery to reset the phone and reboot it. Verizon realized this and then offered a free trade in for the same phone with an updated software version (version 19). Why they released a new version...I have no idea. The phone had the same problems, so the trade in was pointless. Lastly, aside from the phone crashes, the navigation of menus proceeds extremely slow. There is a lot of lag between the onset of a button press and the output on the screen. Scrolling through the phone book takes too long. Overall, don't buy this phone, its flashiness seems to take away from its functionality. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 88275 2000/5/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 user friendly ease of use light weight volume clarity charging connection holster size standby reception durability The Bottom LineI do not recommend this phone. It may be a pretty phone with a cute color display but it has no durability. Bubble wrap required! Full Review I've always been a Motorola fan and told my friends that if you don't have a Motorola, you don't have the best. Finally retired my trusty old StarTac 7868 digital flip for a new T720 and was very excited about it. I was disappointed almost immediately. I could not get a solid signal at home where I've had one for the last 15 years. Had to travel away from the house 1/4 mile and *228 program the phone. This had no effect. Verizon gave me another T720 and this did the same. Also noted that the phone feels cheap in general. Very small, lightweight, and slippery. A man with average to large hands can easily fumble this phone and I can assure you that it's not designed to be dropped! I found that the small display is hard to read while driving. The holster design is terrible. The phone barely clamps into the holster and will come out with the smallest bump. Voice quality is not good even with the best signal. Voice volume is too quiet even at the loudest setting. Charger cord connector fits poorly and loose. The phone software is user friendly but runs slow like an old computer. An average service guy who wears this phone on his belt will destroy it in no time. After 6 days of frustration, Verizon gave me an LG VX4400. The LG resolved all issues. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 88274 2003/4/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 2 way text msgs dual lcd screen light weight great sound slippery easy to drop feels somewhat flimsy menus are slow The Bottom LineIt's not a bad phone. Lots of features, and it's fun. Full Review When my wife and I finally decided to upgrade our phones, Verizon was offering a special on the T720 phones. They had almost all of the gadgets I wanted, and at $79 with a free Jabra headset, it was a great deal. The phone is great. Sound quality is really good on both of our phones. The features are above average, although if you are true gadget geek, you will want something with either bluetooth or an IR port to sync with your PDA. Best Feature: Two way text messaging. You still have to type in using the phone's keypad or use preformatted messages, but it's a great feature. Biggest Problem: Fortunately it's not that big. The phone tend to have problems charging. Occasionally when we plug them in at night, in the morning, they will be either turned off, or locked up and not charged, or they will have a message on the screen that they couldn't charge. If it's locked up you have to take out the battery and replace it to get it working again. Nothing serious, no data loss, but it's a hassle. Frustration: You can't plug in (or unplug) a headset during a call and have it work. Recommendation: Get an extra battery and a desk charger. Helpful hint: We just purchased a number of accessories, including the data cable, faceplates, desk charger, and batteries on Ebay at exceptional prices, (faceplates $1.75 + s/h). My next purchase will be the FM radio headset connection. If you have a tendency to drop your cell phone you might want to consider a different model, or at least put on the wrist strap, and then keep it on your wrist. They are slippery, and almost jump out of your hand. The menu system on the phone is kind of slow. If you have LOTS of phone numbers in your phone book, even jumping to a letter takes a second or two. (ok, maybe I am a little impatient). We initially played with the games, ring tones, color screen, pictures, and wireless web and found that the novelty wore off quickly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $79.00 88273 2000/6/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great display good sound quality all around good phone drains batteries reception is spotty locks up from time to time The Bottom LineI would recommend it as it is a great deal and gives more than it takes. Full Review I received this when I upgraded a little over a year ago. I was very impressed, at first, but first impressions can be deceiving. Not that this is a bad phone but it's flaws took some time to stand out. First thing you will notice is the great display. It is bright and has fairly good resolution. Games and the like are available from Get It Now through Verizon but there are none on the phone itself. There are quite a few ring tones already loaded on the phone itself and you can download more for a price. You can also program ring tones but they sound pretty cheesy and you have the codes just right. They are available on the internet with some searching. As far as sound quality this is one of the best phones I have had; as long as you have a signal. This brings me to one of the big problems. This phone has the worst range of any phone I have ever had. In several buildings it gets little to no reception where other phones are working fine. I finally bought a metal antenna from E-bay which helps out a lot. Another thing is that due to the display and constant loss of signal it eats battery power. I am lucky to get 14 hours of standby time on some days. I ended this problem by purchasing a second battery and simply switch them out. The most troubling problem did not occur until I started filling up on ring tones. When I got over a certain level (granted I have a lot of them) the phone started rebooting on it's own. Usually right when I am getting a text message. A friend tells me that this phone uses a Microsoft operating system that has a hard time assigning memory and as a result it confuses itself and the solution is to shut down and reboot to clear the memory. This only happens occasionally. Overall I am still happy with the phone. Although the problems may seem big they are easy to deal with and I feel the pro's far outweigh them. I would recommend this phone provided you do not pay to much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88272 2003/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durability features does nearly everything color screen possibly price nothing really the owners manual The Bottom LineIf all you need is a good phone, the T720 is OVERKILL. If you're a TECH-JUNKIE like me and want all the latest trends, you WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!!!! Full Review I did alot of research before breaking down and getting my latest toy. (I wanted it the 1st time I saw it) All the complaints about battery life had me kinda worried. But the more I read, I realized that nearly all the complaints were from VERIZON (CDMA version) customers. I'm with CINGULAR(GSM version). Apparently the CDMA version's gulp alot more power than the GSM versions because I have NO complaints about power. While not quite as good as my V60t(about 5 days between charges), it can be expected considering the color screen and the fact that i'm allmost constantly playing games (TETRIS is HIGHLY addictive) or on the WEB. CINGULAR just recently introduced GSM service in TN, so were just starting to get the COOL phones. They are offering early upgrades(must have had contract for at least 6 month's) to speed up the process of getting everyone switched over to the GSM network. I had not complaints with the V60(another GREAT phone), but the COLOR screen just kept calling to me(Go play with the phone, you'll hear it too!!) All the PRO's have pretty much been covered in the other reviews: Great personalization features, color schemes, wallpaper, and screensavers(though why you need one on a clamshell phone is beyond me?!?!??!) The GPRS connection is awesome for getting new polyphonic tones,wallpaper and of course games. The only possible CON's are Price: $249.00 tax with 2-year contract. You do get a $50.00 rebate from CINGULAR. I sold my V60 to a buddy for $75.00 (to replace is buggy, sucky Ericsson T61) so my final cost is only $125.00. The other CON is the Owner's manual. It basically just skims over MOST of the feature's. It doesn't detail any of them. The T720 has a standalone POP3 E-mail client for checking your ISP based email. It's not even mentioned in the manual and I've yet to get it setup correctly. I've read where several people dislike the OEM holster. The T720 holster is great compared to the horrid contraption that comes with the V60. It didn't have a quik-release from the beltclip, and it took two hands to get the phone out of the holster itself. If you allready own a T720 GSM (Verizon customers, need not apply) check out http://wap.spruce.com/jp/ They have alot of cool downloadable JAVA based games and an ALARM clock. Best of all they are all free!!!!! (UPDATE) Just thought I'd let everyone know, my T720 is still working great. I've bought a couple sets of faceplates from www.eforcity.com for $7.00 a set. Excellent fit & finish,(Black and Smoke) totally changes the look of the phone. My buddy who bought the V60, has allready told me he ants it when I get bored and want something new:') I'm looking for a CarbonFiber set, if anyone knows where to get it E-mail me please. Only bad I can say is I still haven't got the E-mail Client setup correctly!?!??! Also if you're with CINGULAR don't be in a hurry for your $50.00 rebate, I still haven't got mine yet, (It's been 2 1/2 month's!!!) Well that about it, but I'm anxiously awaiting the MOTOROLA V600 (My next Phone), it's due out 4th Quarter 2003. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 Final 88271 2002/10/16 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 3g enabled size ease of holster use adjustable display weight battery capacity can t open when holstered can t adjust ringer mode with flip closed The Bottom LineIf you want a new 3G-enabled phone, and you like Verizon, I'd wait. This is a poor first effort. Full Review The T-720 is an outstanding phone for the $, if you can put up with the quirks you'll always have with something first generation. Display is clear, adjustable in color and contrast, and easy to navigate, especially with icons. Most of the V60 functionality is present in a lighter package and the switchable front covers are now available. but the ringer doesn't act like you'd expect it to and I have missed more calls than I have picked up. Not good. One convenience drawback compared to V60, which I also use, is that you can't open the phone while it is in the holster. Motorola is coming out with a new holster before year-end that will permit this. However, if the new holster makes seating the phone in the holster as difficult as with the V60 with standard battery and back cover, that will be a step backwards. It also will not be a freebie upgrade; you'll have to pay if you want the new design. Motorola doesn't have their head on straight with this one; maybe not with this phone after 2 weeks' use! Everyone complains about "plastic" vs the V60 being metal, but if it lasts, who cares? If it scratches, you can replace the faceplate. V60c you can't (although you can with the V60i). Given the much better display, the same navigation, and the much enhanced 3G enabled functions, this looks like a superior unit for less $ than the V60. But not so fast. I say "looks" because of several things.(1) I'm told by Motorola that an extended battery will NOT be forthcoming. That is troublesome because as others have written, this phone does suck up the juice quickly, even with a conditioned battery. No two ways about it. (2) While voice clarity is excellent, if you can't hear the ringer (regardless of style/tone chosen), who cares? (3) As battery life wanes, reaction to key inputs slows to a crawl. These 3 issues are enough for me to return it and wait for a later generation when Motorola gets its act together. The icing on the cake was when after fully charged/discharged about 5 times, I only got 6 hours of standby and about 10 minutes of talk time before I lost a battery indicator bar. Based on experience, full exhaustion is less than another 6-8 hours' standby time. I live and work in a fully digital area. The problem is the circuitry. It is simply a power glutton. Most folks who don't like new phones don't study the manual and play with the phone. Do so and you'll soon find you'll love how intuitively this unit ends up working. But it does you no good if in the end you can't hear your phone calling you to answer it, or it dies after a very short time on standby or in digital talk. Time usage estimates are horribly exaggerated. My other big complaints after some time using it are that I experienced dropped calls where my V60 consistently works, and setting ring tones is both awkward and confusing. If the V60 had GPS capabilities, I'd stay with it hands down. Even without GPS, it is better for someone who just wants a phone more than a traveling entertainment center. When the V60 has a successor that is 3G and GPS capable, that's when to move up. Not now. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88270 2000/1/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 a very attractive phone a fun phone beautiful color display bright horrible signal quality very delicate slow moving thru the menus The Bottom LineThe Motorola T720- an attractive and fun phone that is not durable or reliable. Recommend the extended battery if you must get this phone Full Review After several years of loyalty to Verizon wireless, and the use of my very reliable Star TAC phone, I decided to try something new and different. Compared to Verizon's competitors, Verizon has a smaller line of 'exciting' and fun phones, so when they came out with the Motorola T720, I took one look at it and all of the exciting things you can do with a cell phone and decided I had to have it. Nice looking phone- interchangable face plates, beautiful color display, totally customizable menus and a fairly user friendly set of options... after the initial charm wore off, I quickly realized that I couldn't help but compare it to my Star Tac. I know that's not fair because they are two different phones but, my Star TAC was reliable and made from a plastic that could withstand a massive drop to the ground. The T-720, well, I wouldn't test it myself, but one drop and the phone would be in pieces. Very disappointing signal quality, even outdoors. I have literally placed it in my shirt pocket and lost the signal once or twice. The quality sounded like I was under water to my friends most of the time, unless I plugged in my Plantronics headset. By the way, if you answer the phone and then want to plug in the headset, you can hear them but they suddenly can't hear you- so you have to hang up and call them back to make the headset work correctly. The phone has voice dialing but on more than one occasion it had self-deleted my commands and I had to re-record them. The external display was useful but sometimes read garbled messages. Turning the phone on and off feels like booting up an old computer and the menus make you feel like you are using a very slow computer- press the same button too many times and you go past what you were looking for. Downloaded ringers sound GREAT- games are awesome and the customizability of the phone goes on an on- You can make it as unique as you are- Bottom line is it is a great looking phone and a ton of fun to play with. But as far as reliability, it is a major disappointment for the name Motorola which I have trusted over many years. I can't honestly say if I was in an emergency situation when I REALLY NEEDED a reliable phone to work well, that this one would be it. If you buy the phone, treat it like a baby. I ended up taking it back and trying the Audiovox CDM9500. It seems like a much better phone so far and offers almost everything the T720 had including a bigger color screen. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 after reb 88269 2000/8/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 small light flip phone with color lcd polyphonic ringtones easy to scratch low battery life very slow The Bottom LineDoes what it's supposed to do, but there are better phones on the market for a lower price. Full Review The Motorola T720 is pretty much just like every other phone, it seems, just cooler-looking. It rings when somebody calls you. Yes, it has a color LCD screen and polyphonic ringtones, which look and sound good to friends, but are of no real benefit. The polyphonic ringtones (essentially condensed MIDI files) are a nice change compared to traditional ones, but are quieter and there is a far smaller selection of them. The address book is pretty huge, which is nice. Among the phone's many features is voice-recognized dialing, although I have yet to use it. With Verizon, the reception has always been spectacular, in my experience. However, with their service, this phone comes with no games, and very little ringtones - they have to be purchased. The good news is that this thing allows you to create your own ringtones, which was entertaining and fun - as long as it was plugged into the charger while the tones were being created. It sucked the juice out of my phone in about fifteen minutes. While battery life could be much better and suffers because of the color LCD, it charges relatively quickly and is decent enough that I really never run out of juice. My main complaint is how this thing gets beat-up so easily. Between the nice color LCD and the plastic clear screen protector, a significant amount of dust has collected, and I can see no way of taking the thing apart to clean it all out - for me to see the screen clearly now requires either very bright sunlight or very dark conditions. The whole thing scratches very easily, just from being in my pocket. The thing is crazily slow, too - the transitions between menus and options is very long. Overall, the Motorola T720 is just a phone. It does what it's supposed to do, and looks good. There are certainly better phones on the market, however. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88268 2000/4/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 nice features color screen brew apps battery life build quality reception earpiece volume The Bottom LineOverall I wouldn't recommend the T720. If you want good reception, clarity, and battery life look elsewhere. Full Review Well a friend of mine had purchased a T720 through Verizon a few months ago. I've checked his out several times and really liked the features. He did comment on battery life not being the best, but I figured I can charge at my desk when at work so that's not a big deal. I decided to go ahead and get one with my Alltel service. PROS I was excited about all the features when I got the phone. The ability to eliminate my Sony Clie for the most part was exciting. I could store all my address book info and just have the phone with me. This was nice. I downloaded a couple of games and that was fun. The color screen was a hit with all my friends. I used the phone for wireless web to check movie times and other info. The large screen was a pleasure. CONS Well the excitement soon ended. The more I used the phone to make calls, the more I became dissatisfied. The battery life wasn't poor, it was terrible. Within 10 hours of standby on a combo of digital and analog signal the phone was down to 1 bar of battery life. If I didn't have a charger handy there was little chance of making a call before the battery began to show "low batt" on the screen. After a couple of weeks I got the extended life battery. This helped as I was able to get 15 or so hours of standby before I was down to the magical 1 bar of battery life. I bought a couple of cheap car and home chargers on ebay and had to have them handy during the day to make my phone useful. The battery life wasn't the only problem with the phone. The reception wasn't nearly as good as my old Star Tac. I would have very little signal in areas that I always had good service with the Star Tac. The earpiece volume was not good either. I had to keep the volume on max and position the earpiece in an exact location just to be able to hear the other person talking. Sometimes even that wouldn't work. The hands free was a little better, but I don't carry that in my pocket at all times. All in all I was surprised that one of the high end Motorola phones was such a bad experience. I've owned 6 Motorola phones in my life and this was the first one that was sub par. CONCLUSION Well after owning the T720 for about 3 weeks I lost it while four wheeling in the mountains near my house. I had the product protection plan so went to my local Alltel outlet to get a replacement. The service rep said I could possibly get a Motorola v60i instead of the T720. After checking he said that wasn't allowed under their policy. So I ended up taking the new T720 as my replacement and promptly selling it to a third party. I used the money to buy a v60i. That was the best decision I could've made. The v60i has been rock solid and the reception is great. The only thing I miss is the color screen, but being able to use my phone whenever I want is far nicer than any color screen. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 88267 2000/4/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 external display window flip design color display sleek look battery life low earpiece sound charging problems The Bottom LineOut of all of the phones out presently, this is in the top five even with it's cons. If you need a good phone, you can count on this one. Full Review Like many other people I know, I was sucked in by the "Trade your old phone in and get this phone (T720) for free!" deal. It wasn't a bad idea at the time because I had the ST7868 and I was overdue for an upgrade. The 7868 was a solid performer, but the T720 just has too many flaws. Which is why I'm now wishing that I would've held onto it in anticipation for the next new Motorola phone. Some of the problems with the T720 are as follows: 1) Extremely low battery life (5 phone calls depending on duration and you are back to the charger, which is why the car charger is a necessity). 2) Low earpiece volume and it is just as bad with a headset. (And it could just be my phone, but I have to start a phone call with the headset in, in order for it to register; I can not insert the headset during a phone conversation and operate the phone with it.) 3) Charging problems - it seems that the battery/charger have minds of their own. Whenever I plug the charger in, it seems to decrease the amount of charge that is present. For example, if I have 4 out of 6 bars presently charged and then I insert the charger, it will knock me down to 2 out of 6 for some strange reason.) 4) No speakerphone! Once you get used to this feature (I have it on my other phone) there is no turning back. Don't get me wrong folks, the T720 has some awesome features as well... 1) Flip design. 2) External display, which can pretty much dub as a watch. 3) Color internal display, which is a huge advancement for anyone using monochrome out there. 4) In-call timer and call logging which both come in handy naturally. 5) Tons of features including numerous ring tones, calculator, date book, text messaging, voice notes, online capabilities, etc. (Remember it's only a phone so there is limited functionality because the unit is so small.) After all is said and done, it really is only a cell phone. It does perfectly what it is produced to do; provide you with great mobile connectivity. The only main problem is the battery life. Nothing is perfect and there are more than enough pros to outweigh the cons. If you can wait, let's see what Motorola brings to the table in the near future and see if some of these flaws are ironed out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88266 2000/11/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dialing color display web enabled horrible car kit people can t hear me drops calls The Bottom LineGo for the LG VX6000 if you're using Verizon Wireless. It's their most reliable phone. Forget the Motorola T720, it's not worth the money and headaches. Full Review I've had the Motorola T720 (Verizon Wireless is the service provider) for the past 11 months and it's merely an adequate phone. It can switch between digital and analog service. Nice color screen that is large enough to be able to browse through the web with. As mentioned above, web-enabled, making it nice to check e-mail, news articles, sports scores, etc. It has voice dialing and is very convienient when you are using the hands-free car kit. Decent amount of memory to store telephone numbers. Has a basic date book to store meetings, important dates or appointments. It also has an alarm that goes off for these dates. You can accessorize the phone with different face plates, add an MP3 player or digital camera to the phone. I've never used any of these items, so I cannot comment on how useful they are. Relatively easy to use. Offers a professionally installed car kit for the phone, so you do not have to fumble with a headset, wires and speakers for hands-free use in the car. Just stick the phone in the cradle. Has SMS text messaging capability. Verizon Wireless offers a kit where you can convert the cell phone into a wireless modem for your laptop. If you travel occasionally, this could be useful. Hard to see the screen under direct sunlight. Has a tendancy to drop calls, even with the phone programming upgrades. People have a hard time hearing me when I use this phone. The volume can be inadvertently changed to silent if something bumps into it while in your bag or in your pocket. You would never know you had a call until you use the phone. Hard to dial because the buttons are stiff and slippery. Tricky voice-dialing recognition: it does not recognize your programmed voice dialing unless you say it the exact same way as recorded. So, any variation tone or inflection in voice is unacceptable to the phone. Forget letting someone else use the phone -- the voice recognition never worked for anyone else who borrowed my phone. Horrid car kit: you have to keep putting it in and pulling it out of the cradle until the speakerphone engages. Otherwise, it just sits in the cradle and charges the battery. For this, I could've paid $30 for a car charger rather than $180 car kit (not including installation!) CONCLUSION It's only an adequate phone that I'm waiting for the contract to run out so I can get another one without penalty or paying full price for a new phone. I also have an LG VX6000 (color picture phone), which is a MUCH BETTER and more reliable phone than this one. It just doesn't have a professionally installed car kit. Otherwise, I would have dumped the T720 for this one a while ago. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88265 2000/5/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 color downloadable applications polyphonic ringtones battery life poor voice quality downloaded ringers much quieter than embedded ringers The Bottom LineGet the Motorola V60i, you will be much happier with its superior clarity, quality, and size. Full Review I purchased this phone just before Christmas 2002, and by March of 2003, I had replaced it with the Motorola V60i. Once the T720 was first introduced, I thought it was a great idea and it was about time for Motorola to come out with a color phone. I had a friend with the same phone and same service provider (Verizon Wireless) and he said it is just great. I purchased one a few months later. At first I loved it, but once the initial awe wore off (which was faster with this phone than any other I have owned) I began to notice the immense problems. Pros: this phone has a large color screen in which using mobile web is very nice with the extra lines of text to see more before moving to the next page, polyphonic ringtones that sound great, it is light and compact, and all important information is on the outside caller ID display (reception strength, battery indicator, digital status, time and date). I also really like the downloadable games that are available, along with the new ringers. Cons: this phone has a large color screen which eats battery, which is to be expected and if you don't mind charging your phone every night (if you are a very frequent user), than this is not too big of a deal. Next, the ringers that you download are significantly quieter than the ones that come on the phone, and some apps of ringers are louder than others. The reception is ok, nothing to phone home about (especially because you can't connect the call...), but after receiving a call, many immediately get dropped, as the phone does not have the ability to sustain a call in a fully serviced area. I also experienced many missed calls, completely alltogether. Other gripes are that many voicemail messages were not displayed until hours later. The holster that this phone comes with is virtually worthless, and I'm not that fond of pocket bulges or leather cases, but this holster was not thought out very well. I would conclude that if you are looking for a good deal on a phone to use a little, this is the one, as the prices are coming down. However, if you are in business, or for whatever reason dependent on your phone as a means of survival, I would not suggest this phone. With more frequent use, it is easier to notice the shortcomings of the T720. I would suggest getting the V60i instead. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88264 2000/12/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ring tones sound voice activated dialing solid big display light battery life expensive non standard accessories signal strength steep learning curve The Bottom LineIf you just want a basic phone, this is not for you unless you get a good price. If you're a power-user with email and web needs, get it. Full Review My wife bought us two of these a couple years ago to replace my 'brick' Nokia and her aging Nokia 8930. She used it for less than a month before going back. I continued to use mine but I noticed a lot of negative things about it that her Nokia didn't have. The annimation make quick transisions from screen to screen impossible. This was bad, especially while driving. The screen is hard to see in daylight (as all color screens). The features are difficult to figure out and use (I'm no dummy) and most of them are a waste or require expensive accessories. There's no infrared port to sync with a computer so you have to buy the expensive data-link. With the leather case on it, it would easily 'flip-up' or open if you brushed up against something, put on your coat, sat in a chair, put your seatbelt on, etc. Reception was worse than the Nokia from the same location. But on the good side, it is small, light, has a convenient screen on the outside so you don't have to open it up to see who's calling. It's well constructed and solid. I used it for 6 months and it looks like new. Battery life is awful. Sound quality, ring tone selection, voice activation...all excellent! Also, it has a lot of web, email related features that I didn't need or care for. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88263 2000/2/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size polymorphic ringtones wide selection of games web browser color scree good call quality expensive games low ring volume unless you manually change it through programming menu no speakerphone The Bottom LineA great phone, had a few kinks but they seem to be all worked out now. Full Review I've had my t720 for about a year now. In the time that i have had it I've become a moderator at a Verizon IRC channel. There are quite a few people who say that they have experienced problems with this phone. I'll admit that this was true for the phones running the earlier version of the firmware. The Verizon t720's are running pretty smoothly now. Verizon has a new phone on the shelves (t730) it is essentially a t720 with a different face plate and new software. One of the most frequent issues seems to be odd errors when the phone is plugged in to charge, sometimes it doesn't charge at all or turns off for no apparent reason. The 720 is able to play polymorphic ringtones, this means it is able to play midi files. These ringtones sound much more like the real songs than the average ringtone (not just a series of beeps). The phone can recognize recorded names for easy voice dialing. The Verizon phones come running brew. It is costly to become a brew developer, therefore there are basicly no free games available for the phone. There are however a ton of developers setting their games through the phones downloading application GIN(Get It Now). The phone comes ready to access the web through the web browser that comes with the phone. It is initially set up to use Verizons WAP to conenct to the web, but doing a google search will allow you to change the wap address that the phone connects through so that you can browse the web using only minutes and not have to pay any additional web service fees. Connecting the phone to your computer can be done easily (so you can load your own images, games, ringtones or to back up your phonebook and such) by either purchasing Verizon's data kit, or by purchasing a data link usb cable off the net for about $14. With the data cable, the phone can also be used as a high speed modem (if used with the express network option from verizon) (much faster than 56k!! - free nights and weekends :) ). The Cingular phone, although i do not own one, comes running java. Java is a very popular programming language, and it is easy to find free games and applications. As with most Cingular phones, the t720 comes ready for a simcard (stores phone # information on a removeable media). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ~100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88262 2005/2/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear sendreceive light weight very small loud ringer more features than i need The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone for anyone that needs good talk time and clarity in a tiny package! Full Review I purchased this phone for one reason only, it is small enough to fit in my shirt pocket, everything else is a bonus. I work in a noisy shop doing hands on dirty, physical work and all my past phones were either too large to carry comfortably or impossible to carry in a pocket. This phone fits nicely in my shirt and does not interfere with my work. One nice thing about it being a "flip phone" is that if I lean against it it does not dial a phone number like my last two phones. The company that we have our plan with has a cell tower less than a mile from where I am 90% of the time, so signal is seldom a problem. This phone has very good voice quality both sending and receiving, it is loud enough that I can hear a call in the shop with all the noise we have. There is no echo but I would think that has more to do with the service provider. The ringer is very loud which is what I need, but the vibrate alert does not seem to be very powerful. Battery life is not a real issue for me because I can plug it in every night if I had to, but it will last between 4 and 6 days with 15 to 20 minutes of calls per day. The longest time of use before needing to be charged are on weekends when we make a large number of long distance calls, up to 350 minutes on a weekend. I don't have any real need for most of the additional features except the phonebook and the voice dial is handy for my most used numbers. I have tried the calculator and it is easier to find one in the shop to use, but I have used it a few times when I was away from a regular calculator, navigation is very difficult with multiple key presses for a single function, ie: +-=. The holster that came with it is not real good as it makes the phone twice as thick which defeats the purpose of having a small phone like this. The one real problem that I have had with this phone is I have "lost" it a couple of times, I set it down and forgot where I put it, but that is more personal than a problem with the phone. One thing I would like to see changed is the antenna, the pull out antenna seems to me a worthless feature. If I happen to be in an area with poor coverage, pulling the antenna out does nothing but make me feel like I am doing something, never helps the signal. I think it should be a simple solid antenna. Update: 2/18/2005 We have had these phones for about a year and a half now and I have couple of new comments for this phone. First is the clear plastic cover over the inside screen is scratched on all three of our phones, this comes from the dirt that is trapped between the screen and the buttons when you close the cover. Second is that we had to replace the screen on my sons phone after it was hit by a piece of wood when he was splitting logs for the fireplace. Even with the screen broken he was able to use the phone for a couple of weeks while I ordered a screen. I found one on eBay for about $40, our service provider wanted about $150 to replace it, more than we paid for the whole phone. This phone still suits my needs as well or better than any other that I have owned in the past. One of the biggest complaints about this phone is the battery life, of the three phones we have none of us have any complaints about the battery life. It will last a couple of days even when we make a large number of calls, but the towers for the company we use are within 1 mile of where all three of us live. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88261 2000/3/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 customizable ring tones many features attractive styling screen quality reception battery life volume The Bottom LineMotorola makes some other great phones-- go buy one of them! All the features and beauty in the world don't make any difference if it won't give even MINIMUM performance. Full Review I've been a devoted fan of Motorola products since I got my first cell phone years ago. I get a new phone every year or so, and I always choose a Motorola. My last phone from them (a Timeport) fell into a freezer drawer filled with ice water and was actually ringing with an incoming call when I pulled it out! (This particular phone also survived a below zero night sitting under a pine tree in the snow when it fell out of my pocket.) And it's still going strong! So I had high hopes when I was seduced by the T720's gorgeous design and color display. Unfortunately, the disappointments started right away. The first T720 I got couldn't hold a charge for more than an hour, even in stand-by mode. I realize that some of it's "cuter" features, like wallpaper and screensavers, will eat batteries in a hurry. But even with all non-essential features turned off (including the exterior light that blinks to show you the phone is on) I still couldn't keep the phone charged. It dropped 18 of the first 20 calls I made on it, and got a "no service" message in MOST areas, indoor or out. On the two calls I did successfully make, the volume (turned to it's highest level) was way too low to hear over regular car engine noise or background office noise. After about a week of such terrible performance, I returned it to the store where I bought it. They ran several tests on the phone and said it was functioning normally, but they offered me a brand-new T720 to try. The second T720 held a charge for about 8 hours of stand-by time, much less if I used it for any talking AT ALL. While it didn't cut off nearly as many calls as the first, it still dropped over 50% of the calls I made. The volume was still too low to hear unless I was standing perfectly still, away from even the SLIGHTEST background noise. In addition, over half of the time the phone was on, it still had a "no service" message. I had had the phone less than a week when it began to loose pixels in the color display. It dropped a pixel in the "warm-up" screen 48 hours after I got it. The phone has dozens of interesting features, I was having fun with the customizable ring tones, and it's small, light, and attractive-looking. However, all the cute features and battery life in the world make no difference if I can't make or answer phone calls on it... and that is, after all, what I bought a cell phone for. I took the second T720 back as well. The store manager said "But it's our best phone!" I'm not sure what he bases that on, but it certainly wasn't the best phone for me. I bought another phone (another Motorola) that I have been very pleased with. I suspect that soon Motorola's technology will catch up with the T720 and it will be functional as well as pretty. For now, though, I wouldn't judge a book by it's cover-- or it's maker. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 88260 2002/12/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 excellent readability nice features many no service reports where service exists standby reception is awful The Bottom LineGood phone for ease of use, clarity, features & size. VERY POOR standby (antenna down) signal reception. Full Review It was time to get a new phone and Verizon had some good deals going. I originally started with a V60i, but returned it within a week after I didn't like the 'feel' of it, and it's night usability was very poor (small, dim display, almost no light on keys). I've reviewed my impressions of the V60i separately. When I swapped it, the T720 was on sale for $49.99 after a $100 rebate. Having seen the T720 owned by a co-worker, I decided to go with this one. Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice phone and it has excellent night time readability, a well lit keyboard, good clarity, and wonderful features. In normal signal areas it works very well, but, and this is a MAJOR flaw, in fringe areas, and even in some areas of strong reception or inside buildings, the phone goes "No Service" when the retractable antenna is down. In order to make sure you always have a signal, you need to keep this phone's antenna extended all the time, even when it's in your pocket. I find this to be a major disappointment and real pain. I've already exchanged one T720 for another to make sure it wasn't the phone, and the replacement is just as poor as the first one. A look at the antenna system reveals the problem. The antenna whip is only in contact with the transmitter when extended. When down, there is only a small ring of metal for the transmitter/receiver to work against. A little re-design in this area would make a world of difference. As a comparison, the V60i I started with had reception that was second to none. I had full signal bars in areas where the T720 is saying no service with the antenna down. I can only speak for the CDMA model of this phone that is offered by Verizon, the GSM version may work better. Motorola needs to put some more work into the radio aspects of this phone as this problem is quite annoying. Antenna up, works great, antenna down, works poorly. This seems ripe for some after market antenna that is all metal and 'in contact' with the transmitter even when retracted into the body. Unfortunately there aren't any other models that I can switch too. I wanted a flip model, the choices are limited with Verizon, and I need a phone that can go online with my laptop, further limiting my choices. I will stay with this phone for my commitment of at least a year, and hopefully some antenna changes will occur in that time. Others have complained about battery life on this model. I find this to be fine for my use. I don't sit there and play games on it all day, and my daily talk time is an average of 15 minutes a day. I recharge daily and have a car cord. Battery life WILL be a problem if you keep that back light for the color display on all the time, such as game playing or lots of keypad messaging. Oh yes, the co-worker's T720? He is seeing the same problems too. He just never gave them any thought. He wishes I never brought it to his attention. Now they bother him. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88259 2002/10/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use loud rings size secure holster display hard to see w o back light battery good but could be better The Bottom LineIf you want the latest, coolest gadget and don't expect perfection, buy this phone. Full Review UPDATE: Motorola has quietly started to recall the T720s which have an older (probably full of glitches) version of the software. A guy in an Internet forum mentioned that they were doing software upgrades on the phone to fix a problem with the Get It Now games. (To see if you need it go to Settings/Phone Status/Other Information/S/W Version..if it ends in .17 you need the upgrade). I went in and the Verizon sales rep was shocked that I knew about it. But he said it wasn't an upgrade..it was a recall. So, take your phone back and they will give you a brand new one with the new software (they'll upload your phone numbers to the new phone and they will give you credits for any games or ringers you already purchased). You'll notice that you now have access to a lot more than four games....and hopefully some other minor annoyances will be fixed. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I was really excited when I first saw this phone online. After reading a review on mobileburn.com, I had to have it. I upgraded from a StarTac 7868 on Verizon (and a Nokia 8260 from another provider.) Anyway, the phone is fantastic. It's packed with all of the next-generation features (voice dialing, voice recording, downloadable rings and games, access to faster Web service, and a datebook that I think is one of the best, though it would be better if it had a monthly view in addition to weekly). The emergency 911 location feature would be great, too, if New York actually had an operational system....but it doesn't. With such a great display, it would also be cool if you could view and send photos the way you can with some new Sprint phones. And like most others here, I would love to be able to change the ringer without opening the phone....oh well. I can't compare it to the v60, but still I think it holds its own with any phone out there. Great bargain for the price. As for the much maligned battery life, I've had it for about a week and haven't experienced any problems. I've gotten as much as 2 1/2 hours of talk time, more than the 2 hours, 10 minutes they promise, which I think is great for a color phone. But I always properly condition the battery (first charge is overnight up to 24 hours then let it fully drain three or four times and charging it fully each time). And you'll probably be able to upgrade to a better battery soon that could rival v60 talk time. Standby time could be better, though. The phone drained in less than a day with standard use. To be fair, that was on the first day before conditioning the battery. If that persists, I'll post it here. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88258 2002/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 generally easy to navigate bright color screen looks very nice battery life buggy software The Bottom LineIts a good phone but it needs another OS update. Still, i would recommend it. Full Review I could not let the $100 verizon rebate pass me by so i traded in my old Kyocera phone for the T-720. The phone is certainly a looker and i received nice compliments about it .........before i bought a leather case for it essentially hiding its good looks. The phone is very customizable and that is a definite plus. Calls are very clear and reception seems to be as good as my old Kyocera. Now for the bad news. This OS on this phone still has some bugs in it. I have the "19c" OS. I have had it for 2 weeks and so far i have had the following happen; (a) Twice while charging, the phone switched itself off (b) Today i tried to use the phone only to discover that it was not responding. I would dial a number and it would go through but i was unable to hear anything. I also was not able to hear any "beeps" when i pressed the buttons on the phone (and before you ask, no i was not in silent mode). I had to turn off the phone and then turn it back on before it resumed normal functionality. (c) If you press the side volume buttons with the phone closed and having NOT selected a silent or a vibrate mode, the phone should beep and show you what ringer stlye you have. This does not always work. It will always show you the style but the beep sometimes does not occur. I knew about the battery problem before i purchased it but as i am not a heavy phone user, i can deal with having to charge it every 2 or so days. Also the ringer on the phone is not that loud (even at the highest volume) and wrapping it in a leather case has not helped at all. Unless the phone is right next to me, i simply dont hear it ring. The Get It Now (GIN) features offered by verizon are really cool but they are also pricey. Within the next year i fully expect some crack software expert to begin offering a host of games and features for free on the internet. As far as accessories go, EBAY is the place to go. I was able to get a nice leather case and a car charger shipped to my door....for under $10!! The Verizon store price would have been over $50!! 12/19/02 UPDATE: The buggy software has finally caught the attention of Verizon. I took my phone in today and they upgraded me to the "19D" OS. If you have this phone, take it in to Verizon to get the updated OS. Also Verizon has dropped the price on the phone to $49 after rebate. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88257 2000/10/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 verizon s get it now service polyphonic ringtones excellent color screen personal information mangager inablity to change alert profiles with phone closed color screen eats battery life The Bottom LineIf you are in the market for an excellent color phone full of features then get this phone. Make sure it has the latest software preloaded. Full Review Motorola has done it again (as long as you have the newest software update)! Since I am a lover of new technology I decided to purchase a Motorola T720 through Verizon Wireless and it has proven to be an excellent phone. Many people were complaining about bad voice quality and poor reception but Motorola seems to have solved these problems with a recent software upgrade. Pros: The phone has an incredibly clear color screen which I think rivals my "Visor Prism's" screen which is excellent. Unfortunately it does require the use of the backlight most in most conditions, which does use the battery allot, but under a bright light or outside in the sun the phone seems to perform very well without it. The reception seems to be as good as if not better then my old Motorola v60c which got excellent coverage compared to other cdma phones. The phone has a polyphonic ringer which means that when it rings it you can hear each instrument in a song vs. a monophonic ringer which is just beeps in different tones. The phone also has the capability to download ring tones in the .midi formant either by an option cable or over the air with Verizon's "Get it now". I have downloaded both rings and games with "Get it now" with no problem, unfortunately ring tones and games all cost money. The phone also features an screen on the outside of the flip like the Motorola v60c, allowing you to see who is calling before answering, but the T720 also displays information on the outside screen such as signal strength, analog or digital signal etc. The phone also has the capability of using 3g services so you can use the phone as a modem and browse the internet at speeds of up to 155k. The phone also has a picture viewer and pictures and be set as a background or a screen saver. Cons: You can not change alert profiles on the outside of the screen like you could on the Motorola V60c. Battery is comparable to V60c but less due to color screen so I recommend buying an extended battery if you are a heavy user. IMPORTANT, PROSPECTIVE BUYERS READ THIS: Motorola recently released a new version of the phones software called .19c the older version was called .17p. 19c has been reported by many people to have solved the problems which many of the other people have experienced with earlier models of the phone. If you buy the phone make sure it says "S/W Ver. 19c" on the side of the box. This means it was preloaded with the newest software and should not have all of the bugs that many people reported. So don't let other reviews discourage you they probably have the older software version. I cannot stress how important it is to have the newest software, if u don't the phone will hate the phone, but with the newest software it will perform beautifully. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 330 88256 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 large colour display predictitative text messaging poor reception looks aren t that great either battery life The Bottom LineIf you can avoid buying this phone do it, especially if you need a phone that can maintain good signal strength. Full Review As I said in the title this was the worst phone that I have owned to date. If I had have paid money for it when I signed up for the 3 year contract that I am in I probably would be even more disappointed. I don't know why I decided to get this phone in the first place, I never liked the look of it. I wanted to get a new phone and upgrade from my v60i, the only thing I found that I had upgraded to was a colour screen. I am not impressed with the T720 at all. The only thing that I liked about it was the price when I signed up for the contract, the colour screen and the fact that it came with a 2 year warranty. I found this phone to have poor reception where other phones that operated on the same GSM bands were getting much better reception. If I had full reception and made a call my service meter would drop down to 1 or 2 bars. I have had several complaints from nearly everyone that I talked to on the phone that they could barely hear me and my phone kept cutting out. To top it all off the hinge cracked on it and started to break off the phone which would have left my phone in 2 separate pieces if I hadn't have sent it away to motorola to get fixed when I did. I find the t720 to be too big and bulky, but I'm just fussy about cell phones I guess, I like flip phones to be a bit more compact like the v220 or the v60. the t720 has turned me off of motorola phones for the time being, I won't be buying another motorola for a long time. I purchased the t720 in Oct of 2004 and it was far too long for me to have the phone, I bought a Nokia 3590 off a friend of mine a few weeks back to have a phone to use while my t720 is off for repair but when I get it back I'm not going to be using it again. I'm so much more happy with the 3590, it puts the t720 to shame as far as reception goes. I've owned 2 motorola phones and both of them didn't have really good reception. It'll be a long time before Motorola gets another dime from me for one of their phones. I should have stayed with Nokia from the start. Recommended: No Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88255 2003/1/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 very good reception no dropped calls secured antenna compact exterior display featuressetup options galore flimsy holster slow navigation in some windows software hang ups The Bottom LineRecommendable only if you can find it for $100 or less, otherwise, there's other fish in the sea. Full Review I've had this phone for about 3 weeks, and I thought it was about time to contribute a review considering this place is my on-line source for consumer electronics opinions. I'll skip the general review of the phone features as that has already been well covered. The experience is more important. Although my overall experience is positive, I do have a mixed opnion on the phone. So first, the cons, and first on the list - this thing is slow when navigating through windows with lots of text/items. I thought this phone might replace my PDA for general reminders when I'm out and about (I hate lugging the PDA around). However, when I fill a day with calendar entries, there's a momentary pause when cycling through each event. Hence, I use it in conjunction with my PDA. Second, there's a software glitch where the tones will die (reminder tones, button tones, etc.). Exiting to the desktop usually fixes it, but sometimes only a "cold boot" will restore the tones. Third, I've experienced a lock-up where I completely had to remove the battery. One might think that the software was coded by Microsoft. A friend at work who also owns this phone has confirmed the same glitches. The default wallpapers also stink. The phone has generally a decent resolution, but if I place a wallpaper on the desktop, icons become less visible. The contrast adjustment is handy but still not very useful with the default wallpaper activated. The holster is definitely flimsy and the phone doesn't seat very securely. Although the holster has held the phone so far, I do intend to replace it. Also, in direct sunlight, the display is hard to view. So now, the good stuff. First the price - I paid $50 for the phone after rebates ($50 instant rebate $100 phone trade-in upgrade). The reception is excellent, and I can use the phone in areas where my Startac used to drop signals at the office. The audio clarity is also a step up from my old Startac. I also love the assignable ring tones for each phone book entry. The exterior display is nice, but it's a simple convenience to know who's calling by recognizing the ring tone without having to un-holster the phone to view the display. I also love the size - noticeably smaller than my old Startac, and the phone fits in my pocket easily when the holster starts to get in the way. The antenna has a secured housing when retracted so I don't have to worry about relatively expensive replacement antennas unlike my old Startac. There's tons of software features, but honestly I don't use them. I would think as an IT person I would spend more time playing with the features, but in all honesty I spend enough time tinkering at work that it's the last thing I want to do when I leave work for the day. Hence, the only other feature handy to me is the calendar - most people would probably find it cumbersome to use as data entry is limited to "tap"/"itap" methods, but it's a minor inconvenience considering I started with command prompts and they're still my preference when it comes to computing. I've read some negatives about build quality, but my old Startac was also made of plastic and was just as flimsy, but it endured more than 2 years of my dropping it and banging it around here and there. I trust Motorola's workmanship. I mentioned I had a mixed opinion, but I'll give the phone 4 Stars only because my final price paid is $50. At full retail price of $199 this phone would not be worth it. I'd prefer the V60 at that price - yes, the V60 lacks a color display, but at least it's clearly viewable in sunlight. But even the T720's color display would prove to be more of a novelty had I paid full retail price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88254 2000/11/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen easy interface great voice dialing unable to download wallpaper The Bottom LineI recommend this phone very highly. A few limitations (download applications only) but all in all a great phone! Full Review It took 5 tries but the 5th was the winner. I bought this phone with the original software and it was extremely buggy. I would return one and the next one would have a different problem (constant ringing, screen blacking out, etc.) I waited patiently for the flash, but finally exchanged the phone for the 19c software. This is a great phone! The interface is very user friendly, reception has been extremely good. Friends tell me it sounds like I am talking on a landline phone. The browser boots up fairly quickly and there is little lag time (although I really don't use a cell phone much to browse the internet, it is nice if I'm bored). The polyphonic ringers are fun and nice and loud (although the GET IT NOW ring tones are geared heavily towards the younger set). I have the extended battery and I can talk very heavily throughout the day, leaving the phone on all the time, and still have 3 to 4 bars of battery strength by 12 at night. I do charge every night just to be sure I don't run out, although now I don't think that will happen. The resolution on the screen pictures is great, especially with the GET IT NOW Exego pictures, but it is terribly disappointing that you can only look at them and not hit something to save them as wallpaper or screensavers. Hopefully, that option may come in the future. I can't speak much to games because the only one I use is Solitaire, but all in all, I think this is a really nice phone. Up till now, I had the V60i and loved it, but although it's a gorgeous phone with great reception and battery strength, I was ready for something a little more fun and this fits the bill exactly. The interchangeable face plates make the phone look great and people are always asking to play with my phone, so I'm very happy with my purchase. I think it, so far, has been worth my money. Although I would love to be able to download more applications, I still think $199.00 for such a fun phone is well worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88253 2000/1/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small form factor active color downloadable stuff polyphonic ringtones reception unreliable battery life The Bottom LineDo not buy this phone. Battery life, features, reliability, and audio are all terrible...what else could possibly go wrong with something that was potentially so cool? Full Review I was in love with this phone when I laid eyes on it and read some positive reviews. Let me tell you: I don't know who makes the positive reviews, but it seems they haven't had the phone longer than 3 days. Here's the deal: I got the phone from Verizon (don't bother with them, Get It Now is a joke...but that's another story), and had problems with the phone from the very get-go. EARPIECE: The first problem I noticed was that the earpiece was so badly designed that unless you had it in a VERY specific spot on your ear, you can't hear anything. The speaker buzzed loudly when the person on the other end spoke loudly. So I brought the phone back. The replacement phone I got did the same thing. The volume is VERY low. Even if you have it on the highest setting, many times you can't hear anything. RECEPTION: I thought the reception was OK, but this phone drops calls all of the time. My brick StarTAC, a 3 year old phone, blew the t720 away in terms of reception. The antenna up helps, but not really much. Sometimes it "catches" an analog tower somehow and gets "stuck" on it and won't revert to a digital tower until I "reboot" the phone. REBOOT: Oh speaking of rebooting, this part sucks as well. Turning the phone on and off takes forever. Not to mention the random "freeze" and "reboot" problems there are with charging. CHARGING: Often the phone will freeze for no reason during charging, requiring complete removal of the battery. I have had 3 t720's since I bought from Verizon, and all of them had this problem. I talked to someone in the store, she had the same problem. Sometimes when a charge is complete, the phone turns itself off. This also happened with all three phones. SCREEN: At last I can say something good about this phone. The screen is very nice. But even this nice color feature has issues. Of the three people I know who own a t720, all complain about the screen's placement. I can't think of where else they'd place it, but it gets greasy whenever you talk on it. No, I don't just have a greasy head ;) Additionally, there are these weird miscolored streaks whenever you bring a graphic up on the screen...they run vertically the entire length of the screen. This happened with all three phones. DESIGN: The design of the phone is very nice...buttons are well spaced, it's small, and seems relatively durable. But there are so many flaws in the "operating system" that many of the "conveniences" are far more annoying than convenient. BATTERY: The worst feature of many horrible features with this phone. I fully charged the phone one day, let it sit unplugged for one night, brought it to work the next day, talked on it for a total of 5 minutes talk time, and the battery died. Standby time of this phone is atrocious. Forget about using this thing analog, it'll probably run out in a few minutes. Bottom line: this phone is awful. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88252 2003/5/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 downloadable software polyphonic ring good signal retention light weight color screen some rings are hard to hear but that s not a big deal at all The Bottom LineFeatures, durability, and so many extras. Even functions as a PDA. A great phone even it you don't get it for free. Full Review When I was first thinking about getting this phone, I did research on it on epinions, and at various places around the web. The main complaint everyone seemed to have was that the battery life wasn't so great. But being somewhat of a gadget boy, I simply couldn't resist. And I've found that the battery life is really not that bad. Especially for a phone with a color screen. If I never turn it off, I have to charge once every two days. Sometimes three days. The other thing that surprised me about this phone was how well it holds on to a signal. My previous phone, a Motorola 7868, was a workhorse. Not pretty, but bluntly effective. It never let go of a signal, so I never had a dropped call. Except for this one stretch of highway by my house. When I first got the T720, I figured that its emphasis was on buttons and features, with such simple things as signal retention being relegated to an afterthought. So when I came to that particular stretch of dead space, I was alarmed to find that the conversation wasn't interrupted. The T720 actually outperformed the 7868 in signal retention. I really like the voice activated dialing, too. It makes one-handed operation very easy for either right or left handers. As I mentioned above, some of the ringtones are hard to hear. The more musical it is, the more it tends to blend in with the background. However, this really isn't that much of an issue because the T720 comes with so many different ringtones, you can easily find one that's easy for you to hear. I carry this phone every day, and it's holding up to the abuse very well. You'd think it would be fragile, but it's really not. If you're a Verizon member, you can get this phone for less than 80 bucks. And if you time it right, you can get it for free with rebates and in-store specials. UPDATE: Now that I've used this phone for quite a while, I still stand behind my original review. But now my understanding of this phone is much better. It does amazing things I didn't really detail in my first review. First of all, if you purchase the optional data cable, and if you own a PC, you can synchronize your phone with Microsoft Outlook. It synchronizes contacts, and calendar events. So your T720 becomes a basic PDA as well. It will ring to remind you of upcoming or imminent events. You can even set a customized ring to your calendar reminder. Which is another great feature of this phone that I didn't touch on before. You can customize rings to specific people, sort of like having an audio caller ID. In other words, my phone rings one way if my wife calls, and another way if work calls, and another if my Mom calls. It's pretty darn cool. It still holds the signal very well, too. I have very few dropped calls, and those are only in very remote areas. Battery life is okay. If I don't do much calling, I have to recharge it every two days. If I call a lot, I have to recharge it every night. Bear in mind, though, that I'm only using the standard regular-capacity battery that came with it, not one of the superpowered aftermarket batteries. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1 88251 2003/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 get it now games tools sharp looks voice quality bad holster low quality for motorola awkward menus The Bottom LineSteer clear: basic usability problems and bad design mean that this phone is a pain to use on a daily basis. Full Review I'm a gadget freak who's used Motorola's phones for the last ten years, and this phone seems to have been designed & manufactured by a completely different company. It looks & feels cheap like the Samsungs and LG's did about 2-3 years ago. Anybody can tell you why you want the phone - I'm going to tell you why you don't, after spending a month with it. The menus are very awkward. It feels like it takes forever to get to any specific function. To go into vibrate mode when you're in the movie theater, it takes 6 keypresses by default, although if you customize the menus you can get it down to 4. Still too many, especially when you have to be watching the screen the entire time. There are up/down buttons on the left side of the phone that simply don't do anything when the phone is closed - hey, Motorola, wouldn't that be a great way for us to change ring styles? Simply push the arrows and scroll through a list of styles without having to open the phone and navigate through a bunch of menus? Other phones do this. The holster is uncomfortable and overengineered. The holster seems great at first - it can hold the phone vertically or horizontally, it's easy to get the phone out, and the phone is fairly secure. However, the holster is just plain bigger than it needs to be, and the tall plastic clip jabs into your waist whenever you bend over. Really, Motorola, why on Earth are the tops of the holster clip SHARP POINTS? What rocket scientist decided that the clip should be sharp anywhere it might poke into you, but soft and rounded everywhere else? I'm constantly moving it around trying to find a comfortable spot, but I'm just really waiting for the first aftermarket one I can find. Bugs plague the initial set of phones. Mine changes ring styles randomly every day or two, somehow managing to set itself into "silent" mode. People will call and leave messages, and I'll look down at my phone to see that I've missed half a dozen calls before I realize anything's wrong. The web browser didn't work out of the box, and my Verizon office hasn't been able to get it to work yet. The screen gets oily fast. When you hold the phone to your face, most phones are designed so the screen is tilted away from your skin. The T720's screen, on the other hand, goes flush up against your cheek at all times, and the cheap clear plastic cover over the screen instantly shows oily streaks, no matter how clean your skin is. I know it sounds picky, but it really becomes a problem given the low quality of the screen. Which brings me to.... The screen is unusable without the backlight. It's very dim, and even in sunlight you can't really see what's going on. A backlight comes on automatically whenever you touch a key, and stays on for 20 seconds (you can customize that time) but if you leave the phone open next to you while you're working, you can't see the time or anything on the screen. Having said all that, if you read back through it you can see that all of these could be fixed by Motorola in a second revision of the phone. As I write this (in Oct 2002) the phone is brand new on the market, and so there's still hope for later releases of the phone or similar models. UPDATE: I returned the phone to Verizon, and the sales rep said they'd had a fairly high return rate for these phones. The other T720's in the store seemed to have the same flimsy build quality, so I ended up switching to an LG VX-10 instead. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88250 2000/11/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 cool looks lots of features screen very poor reception especially compared to v60c v60i poor battery life The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone. The reception and battery life are very poor. Consider the Motorola v60i instead. Full Review When I first signed up with Verizon 8 months ago I went with what seemed to be the nicest phone available, the v60c. This was a good phone with one exception-- a poorly designed antenna which broke off 4 times while I had the phone in my pocket. When this happened the fifth time I had had enough and went back to the store not to get the antenna fixed but to look for a new phone with a better antenna. The T720 immediately caught my attention; it was being heavily promoted, it has a very cool looking color screen and features such as downloadable games and graphics. It also has voice recognition dialing, which is on the v60c and which I have come to depend on. Most importantly, the antenna seemed much better than the v60c; it is rigid (until extended) and seemed to be pretty much unbreakable. Since I had only had service for 8 months, I had to pay the full retail price for a new phone, but I love to have the latest gadgets and I loved even more the idea of having an antenna that would not break every few weeks. So I bought one. The good news was that everyone loved my new phone's looks, especially the color screen. And the antenna really was good. However, there was a huge problem: the reception. Driving to work the first time with the T720 (in suburban Connecticut) I was shocked to see "No Service" frequently appearing in the display. My v60c NEVER displayed "No Service" on my entire drive to work. (And there really was "No Service", I tried to make a call, just to be sure). I was shocked that the reception on a new model phone was significantly worse than on the older model. I called the Verizon store and they told me how to update the phone's software, to ensure that I was using all the available towers, but this did not help at all. I even did a scientific test by borrowing a colleague's v60c and roaming around with the two phones together: while the T720 had very spotty reception, the v60c NEVER displayed "No Service". The other big problem was the battery life. I don't use my cellphone very much and with the v60c would typically go 2-3 weeks between charges. With the T720 I was appalled to get a "Low Battery" indicator after 3 days! I assume that this is the cost of the snazzy screen. So I took advantage of the 15 day return policy and exchanged the phone for the Motorola v60i, which is basically the same as the v60c except that it has a stronger antenna (which has not broken yet!) and an interchangeable faceplate so you can change the phone's color. It is great once again to be able to use my phone anytime on my drive to work. And I haven't charged the battery in 2 weeks and still have 2 bars! I can only conclude that the games, color, etc. come at the cost of battery life and the cost of being able to make phone calls. This is a terrible trade-off and I cannot recommend the T720. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 350 88249 2003/12/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great features lightweight compact frustrating to navigate through menu s buttons are small battery life no games come with it The Bottom LineGreat for the average user because you don't need much else. Compact, reliable, and durable. Full Review Overview This is a good cell phone, no question about it. It has all the features that the average cell phone user would want. Voice capability, Internet, Get it now, ring tones, games, massive phone book, wallpapers, etc. The only thing I didn't like was the battery life. My dad has the same phone and he says it only lasts 1 day with it fully charged up. I have noticed the same but don't use it as much. Other than that, this cell phone is great. Sometimes, it takes a while for the phone to connect to the network to dial a call, and that can be annoying. But overall, I'm satisfied with this cell phone. It is a little pricey, at around $150, so you also have to consider that. Analysis It is very compact, you could put it in your back pocket. It is also very light. Sometimes, I don't even realize that it's in my back pocket. My phone came with a belt clip, which was very cool. The screen is color. The buttons are a little small and can get frustrating navigating menus. The menus are very detailed, however. You can hook up and headset to this phone also. There is a button on the side of the phone that acts as a quick dial button. It is very cool because it is VOICE ACTIVATED!! That's right, all you have to do is press the button, and say the name that you recorded to a person's number, and it dials the number. So, for instance, if I push the button, and say, "mom", it will call my mom's cell phone. Before I got this phone, I didn't even know Motorola made phones. But, so far this phone has given me no problems and has been reliable. There are many accessories you can buy for this phone, the most notable being the car kit. Car kit add-ons are very expensive and in my opinion, are way over-priced. They almost cost as much as the phone, around $100!!!! This phone also has a web browser, if you're into that sort of thing. Remember, there ARE NO GAMES that come with this phone. You have to download them using the 'Get it Now' feature on the phone. That kind of sucks because I had to wait like 5 months in order to use 'get it now' because they were working on the network in my area. So be sure you ask that the network is up and running in your neighborhood before you get a phone and service. I have Verizon Wireless service, which has also been great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88248 2000/9/19 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 cool games color ring tones battery software durability The Bottom LineI would never recommend this phone. Nothing went right with it except for the color and games. Full Review I purchased this phone from Verizon when I was told that I could not upgrade my old Ericsson to the new "America's Choice" plan. I got it right before Christmas, so the price was pretty affordable, $149.00 with a $100.00 rebate. I played with the phone before I bought it and fell in love with the color and the games. I walked out of the store and the trouble began.... Less than 30 minutes later, I was talking to my mother and the sound went out. All of it. The speaker in the earpiece just fried. After 30 minutes of use. This should have been my first warning sign. So I turned around and went back to the store, where they promptly replaced my phone. This one did much better; though as mentioned by nearly everyone else the battery life is terrible. My boyfriend needed a new cell phone and company, and we decided to put him on my account with a second line. He purchased this phone as well. Enter stage two of the drama. Three days after he got his phone the outer LCD cracked. It was not dropped or left out in the cold or knocked in to something. It was sitting on his end table charging, and cracked. We took it in to Verizon to have it fixed and were told that they had seen the same thing earlier that day. Apparently, the charger gets hot and causes the LCD to overheat and crack. Nice feature. We both experienced freeze-ups and to resolve them, had to remove the battery. This is a tad bit annoying to say the least. The voice-activated dialing only worked part of the time due to low battery power or background noise. Another big issue for me was the scratching. I carried me phone in a cloth-lined case and it still ended up with scratches all over it! It looked absolutely terrible after just a month. To sum up, we both hated these phones and sold them on Ebay two months later. I now own an Audiovox, which I absolutely love, and he has a Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $149.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88247 2003/9/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 good for basic calling functions too many bugs not worth it too expensive The Bottom LineBuy if you only use to make calls. Do not bother synchronizing with PC. Full Review I bought this phone in 12/02 for $148 from Verizon. Initially I loved the phone and had no problems with sound and call quality mentioned by some others. I did notice that the phone would lock up at times, or just reboot itself, but did not have to reset by removing the batteries. I was impressed enough by the phone to go and buy a bigger battery from Verizon and TrueSync software from Motorola. Well, that was the beginning of the end. TrueSync 3.1 is ok and easy to use. I noticed that it was mysteriously deleting some telephone numbers and could not figure out why. TrueSync has a good feature that allows user to 'delete and overwrite' during the next synchronization. I began using that feature. The worst thing about this software and/or phone is that it stores 500 numbers and not names, so a person with three phone numbers occupies three spots in the phone and not one as in Outlook or PDA. It seemed to me that I was hitting the max 500 limit on the phone when synchronizing contacts and the phone would act up right after sync. For a few minutes, it would be on, but no keys would respond as if it was indexing the contact entries (very similar to a Windows PC that needs a hard reboot). And then one day after a sync operation, it just died. I could neither power it on or off, without removing the battery. On the screen, there would be backlight, but nothing else. Even closing the flip, the backlights would remain on. This happened on 8/26/03. Since Verizon only swaps out for a refurbished unit and consider yourself lucky if you can make a phone call with that, I decided to not take that course. I am annoyed that I spent money on the phone, bigger battery and TrueSync and phone does not even last through the warranty period. To add insult to injury, I was told by two Verizon reps (in different stores) that there is no such thing as durable phones, they only last about a year anyways and that is why you need to buy insurance. I have written letters to the CEOs of both Verizon and Motorola and for making and selling products that do not survive their warranty period. It is not ethical for either companies to expect consumers to shell out over $200 in phones and accessories and not tell them that the phone they are buying may last for a year or so. I heard today - 9/10/03 - from a Verizon rep from NYC (where I had mailed the letter to) that he was looking into it. 9/19/03 - I received the phone back from Motorola. They "reprogrammed" it. I am stressing it as best as I can. The OS version was updated to 1.2.22.44.5P. I think this is the same version as in T730. So far, so good. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88246 2000/12/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use size good screen battery life The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a quality color screen phone, you can't go wrong with this model, just get an extra charger (desk or car) or battery. Full Review I was holding out on getting this phone. I was waiting for a Kyocera model that is slated to come out early next year, but when the price of this model was reduced to $50 after a mail in rebate from Verizon Wireless, I had to pull the trigger. Let me start with what I like about this model. It is a small compact phone, yet it has a large color screen that is easy to read. The color schemes are changeable (with 6 colors to chose from, plus several pre-loaded backgrounds). The menu is easy to navigate, and you can personalize it for the features that you use more frequently. With the short cut features on the main screen (also customizable) make it easy to get to the messaging menu (both text and voice) as well as VZW's BREW (they call it Get It Now) and the mobile web. The Get It Now (GIN) applications available are nice. (you do have to purchase them, but most have a free demo, so you can try it before you buy it to see if you like it) there aren't as many games as on other GIN enabled phones (like the Kyocera 3035e or Z800 marketed by Audiovox) but more are added each week. The controls vary by the game, but are generally easy. I haven't tried any of the other applications, including a curency converter, expense tracker etc.. you can also download your favorite songs as ringers (i haven't done that yet either, the standard tunes/ringers on phones have always been fine for me..) This phone does have Motorola's ringtone composer, which I haven't taken the time to figure out, (for 1, I have never been that talented musically, and see the last sentence of the previous paragraph) I have gotten a face plate, so it looks a little different than everyone else that has this phone (several people I work with have this model phone) the plates come in 2 packs, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to put it on. (it just pops off and snaps on..) Now, the most important part of a cell phone, the actual phone calls... I have to say that this phone has the best voice clarity of any cell phone I have tried.. (and having worked in the cellular industry, I have tried several phones) The phone book is easy enough, I do miss the quick look up feature that my Kyocera had, but it is easy enough to find a number from the phone book. You can set specific ringers to specific numbers. (the number has to be programed in exactly the way it is displayed in caller-id or it won't work) Date book/scheduler is nice, but almost more work than it is worth.. it is not a palm pilot, but you can put in reminders, which can be helpful. With the side buttons, it is quick and easy to put the phone on vibrate or silent in situations when the phone shouldn't ring. The main draw back to this phone is the battery life, I knew that going in to this phone, and it isn't as bad as I expected. With the phone being as small as it is, and the sharp color scree, the battery needs to be charged at least every other day (maybe more depending on usage..) I have noticed that after I have cycled the battery a few times, it works better (completely drain, then charge the battery) I have a car charger for when I need it, and may be purchasing the extended life battery in the future. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88245 2002/12/30 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 sleek nice color screen ring tones get it now very light battery holster screen can t download pics The Bottom LineLuckily for me I am still within the 15 day grace period. I will be returning my T720 as soon as I am done typing this review. Full Review To start off with, I am a geek. I love getting the latest gadgets and have received numerous complaints from my girlfriend about my, as she puts it, need to have it all at any costs attitude. So here's my review of the T720. I've been looking to upgrade to a 3G phone ever since they've been made available in the US market and been dying to do so. The only thing hampering me not to was a previous commitment and waiting for that to expire seemed like an eternity. And finally, it does. After extensively researching for just the right phone with just the right features, I narrowed it down to Verizon's T720 and AT&T's T68i. The only downside to the latter was it being limited to only GPRS, and that coverage right now in the states is very much new. So, since I've been with Verizon for over 2 years, I figured on negotiating a deal for the T720. After speaking with different reps on different occasions, I decided to take the leap and purchase the phone. They were able to offer the phone to me for $79.99 after rebates but also mentioned possibly coming to a better price at a local Verizon store. So, in the end, I was able to purchase the phone for $49.99 after a mail-in rebate with trade in. Not too bad I figured. Great phone at a great price. Now let me rush home so I can play with this thing! =) Okay, here's where all my great expectations and hopes fall flat. I previously had an LG510 and a StarTac, both with Verizon. I really loved those because of their quality and the fact that I can literally drop them without fear of breaking them. They're that good. I should know since I've dropped the LG on more then several occasions. In any case, the T720 looked great. And very sexy. A lot of friends raved about how nice it looked (from the outside) and about the color screen and "white-lit" LCD and keys. Great points there. However, I can honestly say those are the only things I too liked about this phone. On paper, the T720 looks like a winner, but after playing with it for a few days, I couldn't help but feel that the engineers were so busy wondering if they couldn't, that they didn't stop to consider if they should. Here's the ugly: 1) After 3 days my holster broke. It's very flimsy and poorly designed. One would assume a holster to be very rugged and the one supplied with the T720 is not. 2) Battery life is bad. Well, I expected this anyways since this has a color LCD which demands a lot from the 750 mH battery. So that is not a gripe, more like a question, "If Motorola knew this, why not just supply an 1100 mH one so that everyone can be happy?" 3) Color screen. I know, 4096 color shades over 256 should make for a nice screen, but it doesn't. There's just something wrong with the display. I tried to adjust the contrast to at least improve it but nothing helps. It still looks "strange" and blurry compared to others. 4) Menus are awkward. Shortcut this, shortcut that. I think I had to add over 10 shortcuts alone in the sub-menu. If Motorola did decent job on the access programming, one wouldn't have to do this. It takes me 3 steps to change my phone from manner (vibrating) to normal mode and that is just an absolute inconvenience. 5) Muffled sound. People that I talk to comment on how strange and "unnatural" my voice sounds, almost like an echoing effect. I don't really have any first hand experience as to what they are talking about and am just relaying this information back to you guys. I suppose cheap microphones are to blame, at least that's what I extracted from other reviewers. 6) I CAN'T DOWNLOAD PICTURES! This has got to be my largest gripe. Downloading user pictures was a big motivating factor from the start to purchase a color screen phone not to mention a GSM phone. And I am unable to do this with the T720. From the Get It Now feature, you are able to download the applications Pictavision and Exego and pull up pictures that you've uploaded from "must register first" accounts such as Dotphoto.com. That's fine and dandy. However, you CANNOT save them to your phone. This translates to not being able to use them as wallpaper nor being able to assign pictures to people in your phonebook like some other phones. I called Verizon about this and the only thing they informed me was that Exego should be able to do this but however, at this time, it can't. What is up with that? Okay, I've been ranting enough. The only reason I wanted to check Epinions was to find a replacement quickly for the T720. And I figured since I had enough complaints about it, why not warn others of it. I've really liked Verizon and have been dedicated to them for so long. But I question now there decision of phones when other providers are offering more superior ones. //UPDATE - 30 December 2002 As I have said before, right after writing the article, I returned the phone to the Verizon store I purchased it from and the rep took the phone back without any complications. This is one thing I will sorely miss from Verizon: number one customer support and not to mention the best cellular reception. So my replacement? Samsung S105 through TMobile (will be writing a review for this one soon). All I can say is this: 5 out of 5 stars. I'm warning you guys, don't look at this model. You will definitely regret buying the T720. Some enticing specs: 65,000 shades of color, animated wallpaper, 2 included lithium batteries, worldwide GSM networking with SIM card, battery life true to spec (talk time up to 4 hours and standby up to 100), great sturdy design (feels great in your hand), downloadable EVERYTHING, IR port, and a dizzy array of other features I can't think of right now. Only problem with it is no voice dialing (which I don't use anyways) and less the stellar TMobile reception. Oh well, it's a tradeoff I guess. Oh, did I fail to mention that Amazon.com is offering the phone for FREE after $300 worth of mail-in-rebates? Act now, because December 31, 2002 is the last day of the promotion. Overall, very content with this phone after knowing what to look for from a bad phone such as, yeap, you guessed it, Motorola T720. Wow, I'm usually not this cruel. =) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88244 2000/12/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen size embedded ringtones speaker features ease of use if anything battery life The Bottom LineThe phone to get! Well worth the money!! Full Review As cell phone service providers would have it, my wife and I received a notice from Verizon that our contract was about to end. Since my wife would need a new tri-mode phone, and the antenna just broke off my Motorola v120c, we were in the market for new phones as well as a nation-wide calling plan. I researched some phones that our local Verizon store carries, and thought I was all set. That was, until we actually went to the store. We saw this model and were amazed at all the features you can get! The options abound for any user of this phone: web access (extra fee), text messaging, Get it Now enabled, E911 (with GPS), beautiful full-color screen, different colored covers, etc. It is fully customizable, meaning you can choose what important functions the "D" key performs, you can choose what 'wallpaper' you want, etc. The Motorola interface is VERY intuitive, and usage is a blast. You'll wonder why you didn't get this one sooner! The only prohibitive part was the cost: $200 each up front, so I was looking at just over $400 w/tax! What sweetened the deal, however, is that Motorola is offering, for a limited time, a $100 rebate for each T720 purchased when you send them your old WORKING cell phone. What a great incentive! Now I don't have to find somewhere that'll take my old phone, plus I'll get $200 back when both checks come in! If you don't like the 30 or so embedded ringtones the phone comes with, you can go online at home, and for about $2 each, have new tones sent to your phone! There are great ones available, from the James Bond theme to Gilligans' Island to Minnie the Moocher! The ringtones sound great, too, because the speaker is 'polyphonic', meaning that it can emit many tones at once, giving a very life-like sound to any call! You can even hear ocean waves in the "Island" ringtone. Cool!! You'll also enjoy the clarity on this phone, and so will those you call. It sounds like you're on a regular phone, not a cellphone! As you may have read, some other reviewers have loudly complained of the battery life. Initially, it may seem like you don't get much use out of it before the 'low battery' notice comes on. However, what other reviewers don't recommed is 'conditioning' the battery; in other words, let the battery run completely out, then recharge it fully. Do this cycle a few times and you'll be surprised with the life you get. I opted the day after I purchased the phone to buy the extended life battery for about $60. This is one powerhouse! To extend battery life, one should extend the antenna where ever possible, thus making it easier for the phone to 'communicate' with the local cell tower. Also, downloading games, tones, using the web, or writing text messages will all use up valuable battery life, so keep this in mind. Overall, I would recomend the Motorola T720 over all other cellphones. It's very easy to use, feature-packed, and with a $100 rebate from Motorola, very affordable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88243 2003/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 crisp great signal in nyc area clear sound great color screen holster must have been designed by a 13 yr old cover is an engineering afterthought The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a color GSM G3 flip phone, get it. I'd have to recommend this phone for the large display. Full Review I've owned many phones in the past. Nokia 6120 : crap Motorola V8160 : Worst piece of junk I've ever owned Nokia 8260 : One of the best phones I've owned Panasonic (forget model) : Slightly bettern than display dummy phones. Motorola V60T : Best phone I've ever owned. I owned a V60T from AT&T. I've had TDMA service before, and swore off it due to their lack of signal. After going to verizon, I came back to AT&T with the Nokia 8260, which I upgraded to the V60T (which I later replaced with the casings of a V60i). If you are looking for a no color cell phone, the V60 series is a great phone. Everything is great, except the menu is organized in a very strange way. So strange that after using the phone for 6 months, and using a certain feature over and over, I still was hitting a wrong key when it came to the "soft keys". But it's built like a tank and it's a better successor to the Startac than the whimpy v8160 three of which had displays go dead on me. As for the T720, I wanted to upgrade to the GSM before TDMA was phased down. I was choosing between this phone and the Sony Ericsson T68. I went for the Motorola, because of the strengths of the V60. Screen is great, I am not sure what everyone is complaining about. The ringtones are cool too, except the ones that are on the phone are bit cheesy. The menu has gotten better, but it is still suffering from the same problems of the v60's. The same menu button sometimes is used to go to the next submenu, and sometimes, it is the "cancel" or the "back" button. As for the signal, in the NYC/North NJ area, this phone has been getting the best signal out of all the phones I've ever owned. The sound is clear as well. So I am satisfied. Now for the cons... The holster design is absolutely horrible. They made it so that it is now a two-piece design. This is similar to those aftermarket "swivel" belt clip holsters. however, the person who decided to include this must have been a 13 year old, because he/she did not understand the idea behind the usage of the swivel holster. Swivel holster makes it easy to remove the phone from your belt (I guess depending on who you ask. I for one disagree). But what one soon finds out is that the holster is also designed so that the phone CANNOT open to answer incoming calls when it is snapped into the holster. Why design a holster so that it quick-detaches, if you are going to make the person remove the holster from the phone to open it for answering??? Now you have a person holding the phone in the hand and an empty holster in the other hand! Not to mention, if your phone is in the holster and it rings, you have to press the button, pull the phone up its holster off the clip, and then pop the holster off the phone, and then open it to answer the call... And we won wars?!?!? The swivel design is also childish in that it is based on 1st generation swivel designs. The "ring" that is on the back of the holster (the part that slides down the belt clip and locks into place) is circular. Most 2nd generation swivel designs have the "ring" in an oval design, so that when the phone is 90degrees (or parallel to the belt), the "ring" has a larger diameter, so it cannot accidentally fall out of the clip assembly. Speaking of this, it is really easy to have the phone pop off the clip. I am not a fat person at all, but even so, when I bend down to pick up something, my "skin" (or belly fat, whatever way you want to describe it) will push the clip button down, at the same time my thigh is pushing up at the phone holster assembly (which is what you need to do to remove the phone). As I stand up, the holster (still in the clip, but loose) pops off (or slides up and off) the clip and falls to the ground with the phone attached to it. This is something that the 2nd generation swivel designs prevent. Sadly, 2nd generation swivel designs have been seen in aftermarket holsters for over 2 years. But why put a removable-swivel design when you cannot use the phone unless it is completely out of the holster? I have no idea. Personally, I would have preferred the V60's holsters. It swivels, but does not detach (you have to pop the phone off the holster). Or if it was detachable, I would have not minded if the phone was able to open afterwards. With such a blatant design errors, I wonder if the T720 was rushed by motorola simply to get a G3 color phone on the market... As for the snap on color covers, they almost look like an afterthought. Looking closely at the phone case, one can only see that the case was designed first and then engineers tried to figure out how to make the covers removable, rather than designing the removable covers as an integral part of the original phone casing design. Even after replacing the covers, one is only removing a small front panel of the flip and the small battery lid. The flip hinge top, and top of front and back, and the sides of the phones are still silver! Great if you like 2 tone everything. V60i was a re-engineering to give the 60's replaceable covers, but it is cleaverly done so. I have a feeling that the same folks DID NOT design the two phones. Another benefit of being able to replace covers is so that you can give a worn out phone a fresh case. As for the T720, the caller ID lens and the major portion of the top (both front and back) of the phone are NOT replaced with the new covers. As for the V60i, replacing covers replaces almost all external surfaces (including the caller ID lens), except for the chrome flip hinge, which is forged metal, and nearly indestructable. Not so in the T720... As for the flip hinge. I thouht the design of the V60 hinges were great. I've had the Motorola V.8160, whose hinges suffered stress hairline cracks after few months of usage. The V60 hinges were metal, and they were not integral part of the phone. As for the T720, these hinges look awfully lot like those of the v.8160 series. Now to ringtones and downloads. The ringtones that accompany the phone are awful. They are monotone midi files at most. I went to hellomoto.com, and they wanted over $2 per download!!! I played with the phone bit, and realized that I can post a midi file on my website, and then connect to the file using my phone and it will download the midi file and give me the option to make it a ringtone. Some midi files don't seem to work however. Download free program like "Anvil Studio", and you can truncate your favorite midis and download them to the phone as ringtones. Same goes for pictures. one can take a photo or any other picture, scale it to 120¡¿160 pixel size, and then save as .gif format. Upload it to your website, and connect to it using the phone (i.e. http://blah.blah.com/username/filename.gif). This sort of makes up for the lack of phone design. As for the service. I'd get the AT&T GSM over the Verizon service, because the Verzion T720 uses "BREW" (I won't pretend to know what the acronym stands for) to develop the software for applications. "BREW" compilers are rather expensive (in the thousand$ for a complier supposedly) and you will not see too many hobby programmers making applets for the Verizon T720. AT&T T720 on the other hand uses Sun microsystems J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition). The compliers are free, and it's basically java language, which means there should be cornucopia of applets for this phone in the future. Update Feb. 12, 2003. I have used the phone for 2 days now, and I've done some internet usage (meaning alot of key presses). I have to say that the body of the phone is now making squeaking noises when I press keys. This was the same cheap squeaky sound that the V.8160 phones made... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88242 2004/4/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 colorful superior battery life easy to read display good sound quality some common functions hard to access The Bottom LinePlenty of powerful features, Makes a good land-line replacement. Also, it's really "cute" and fits easily in purses. Full Review Update at end of review OK, I've been required to carry Motorola cell phones in the past, for business use. Without exception, I have hated them with a passion. My experience with Motorola cell phones is that they are extremely difficult to use and have poor reception in areas where other brands on the same network have (better than average) reception. I've also found the audio quality of Motorola cell phones (both ways) to be barely adequate. My wife's best friend bought a T720 several weeks ago. I was laughing until my wife insisted SHE had to have one, and wanted me to buy it for her. At first I was thinking NO WAY!!! But I used one to make a couple of phone calls and it didn't seem to be as evil as most Motorola cell phones. So I read the specs. and read some reviews. Based mostly on reviews, I grilled my wife's friend about battery life of her T720. She reported NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. I wanted to change cell phone providers recently, decided to go with Cingular GSM this time around. I picked up a T720 for my wife and a Nokia 3595 for myself. I figured at worst, we'd have ONE decent cell phone on our shared minutes plan. (!) But I wasn't going to let my wife carry her new phone until it was properly programmed, and had the battery properly conditioned. So the first few weeks, the T720 was MY TOY. I wanted to keep it. It is an AWESOME phone!!! I think I figured out why so many users are reporting battery problems. All cell phone batteries need to be charged a full 24 hours and then need to be used until the battery completely dies. This needs to be repeated a few times to condition the battery. The T720 manual just says to charge the battery until full. Well it's going to show full in less than three hours (sometimes as little as 15 minutes). So if users are going by the manual and what the phone indicates, the battery is not receiving a full charge during it's initial conditioning period. After a few 24 hour charges on a completely dead battery, I turned it on and left it on. I also turned all energy saving features off. For example, I maxed out the backlight ON time, and turned on the (blinking LED) status indicator, etc. Any option that indicated it would drain the battery faster, I deliberately set to maximum battery drain setting to give this phone (and battery) a hard test. Making several phone calls a day, I still had a FULL charge showing THREE DAYS LATER!!! Continuing to make several phone calls a day and never turning the phone off, it took just over a week to get a low battery warning on a full charge. This is the first cell phone I've carried (of any brand, at any price, on any network) that would go longer than three days without needing to be charged. (I'm a heavy user) For that reason, I'm calling battery life SUPERIOR. Sound quality (both ways) of the T720 is pretty good. It's not as good as any Nokia model I've used, but SIGNIFICANTLY better than all of the other Motorola cell phones I've used. The sound quality of this T720 is also better than any non-Nokia brand cell phone I've used. Overall, it is very clear and easy to understand. If I'm not overly enthusiastic about the sound quality, it's because Nokia has spoiled me. (!) Reception on this phone is above average. It will pull in weak signals better than most cell phones. All three of my Nokia models have slightly better reception in the same areas, but this is not a negative reflection on the T720. I believe most users will be quite happy with the reception quality of the GSM version of the T720. I love the internal color display. I've compared it to just about every model on the market currently. In terms of color, brightness and *contrast*, I believe it is the best color display on the market at any price. It is extremely easy to read. This phone also has a good mix of useful features like datebook, calculator and polyphonic ringtones. It came with enough ringtones built in to satisfy just about any taste. What don't I like about it? Well, every Motorola phone I've used in the past has been EXTREMELY difficult to use. Even simple functions like adding a name to your phone book require you to memorize a four digit combination like *#20 or something really bizarre like that. So you'll be forced to read the manual EVERY SINGLE TIME. This Motorola phone has a VASTLY improved user interface compared to the Motorola cell phones I'm used to. Most functions of this phone are easy to use and intuitive. With the main menu displayed, you have four graphical icons that actually make sense. Push UP for messages, RIGHT for datebook, DOWN for phone book and LEFT for web access. Hit the Menu key in the middle to do just about anything else. What could be easier than that? Well, some common functions are hidden, unfortunately. For a good example, try setting the alarm clock, which you will likely want to do if you travel a lot. (we do) If you don't remember that it's on a sub-menu under the datebook, it might take you a while to locate it. There is no menu or icon for the alarm clock, so you'll need to memorize where it is. But compared to the Motorola cell phones I'm used to, this thing is a breeze to use!!! I own a Nokia 3595 now and LOVE IT, but I'm still tempted to steal my wife's T720. If Motorola keeps producing gems like this one, I might be tempted to (gasp!) purchase a Motorola brand cell phone for MYSELF next time around. (begin update 4/3/04) EXCELLENT LITTLE ROAD WARRIOR Well, I couldn't wait for my next upgrade. Since I wrote the above review, I've had plenty of opportunities to use this thing. I absolutely love it. I decided to buy one for myself. Cingular wouldn't offer me any kind of deal at all, they wanted $250 for it. I just bought one off Ebay for half price, brand new, still in the unopened Cingular box. I'm going to replace my Nokia 3595 with it. There is nothing wrong with the Nokia 3595, by the way. The Nokia actually has slightly better audio quality (both ways) than the T720 does. But the T720 is easier to use than the Nokia. The T720 has much better display quality than the Nokia. And the T720 is just so darned CUTE that it's irresistible. We still have no problems at all with the battery. The battery is the original, model SNN5588 (750mAh), that came in the Cingular box with the phone. My wife is very chatty and has frequently gone several days without charging it, leaving it on 24 hours a day, without any battery problems. We got a car kit for her. It's actually a Motorola brand speakerphone with microphone, powered speaker and charger. It works incredibly well. We've taken long road trips with the T720 hooked up to this speakerphone. The audio quality (both ways) is AMAZING, considering it is totally hands-free, doesn't need to attach to a person at all, and is being used in a noisy car at highway speeds. My wife wanted a handsfree kit, and I couldn't stand the thought of anything hanging off my head (or anywhere else) while driving, so I went that route. I like that it charges the phone while hooked up, also. Anyway, I've had the ultimate test trial with this phone, as it's actually my wife's phone. I'm totally sold on it, enough to fork out over a hundred bucks to replace a perfectly good Nokia 3595 with it!!! I couldn't recommend this thing enough. Just be sure to get on the Cingular Nation GSM plan, as opposed to one of the regional plans which SEEM less expensive (but are actually more expensive). GSM has pretty good coverage all over the U.S., but you need the NATION plan to have reasonably priced access to ALL of that coverage. I've read reviews of Cingular from people who chose the wrong plan, and regret it. Remember, you want Cingular NATION GSM. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88241 2002/10/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen battery life speaker not loud enough cheap built The Bottom LineIf you like Get It Now, BREW, cool ringers, color screen, you cannot go wrong with this phone! Full Review I recently switched to Verizon, I started off with the v60c, I liked that phone quite a bit, it's the most solidly built phone out there! A bit heavy, but the for built quality it was worth the weight. I was going to switch to the v60i because it has a newer software and better antenna design. I found out from WirelessAdvisor and PhoneScoop that the T720 was out, so I went to my local Verizon store to check it out. I was at first disappointed how cheap it looked, it's terrible compared to the v60 phones. It's plastic, and with the Verizon logo it looks bad. And then I opened it and powered it up, and after playing with it for 15 minutes or so, I decided to get it. It costs pretty much the same as the v60i, and it is their latest and greatest phone at the moment. $200 for their best phone is a pretty good deal, the v60c was at a $400 price point when it was introduced. I guess Verizon finally figured out they have to lower their prices on phones to compete with Sprint PCS. Stuff I like about the T720: - BREW, that's really cool, I signed up as a developer and I can write my own apps - GPS/E911 capability, this might be useful some day, and all new phones will have it - color screen, I almost signed up with Sprint just because of this - ringer, and the ability to download them via Get It Now - it has 1xrrt data capability - wallpaper and screensavers, and I think I'd be able download my own pictures later - it's lighter than the v60i - can change faceplates when they become available Stuff I don't like about the T720: - the built quality, it's terrible compared to the v60i - it's slightly bigger - response time is slow - battery isn't as good - speaker isn't loud enough - can't to switch to different ringer styles without going through the menu (or setting a shortcut), v60 can do that without opening the phone - the plastic casing is very easy to scratch I've had 3 Nokia phones before, my last phone was the Nokia 8290 which I used for over a year. The Motorola phones are highly customizable, but the Nokia's are a lot easier to use. I still really miss the ability to switch to "headset" profile when you plug in your headset to the 8290. With the v60c/v60i or the T720, I have to switch from vibrate" to "loud" ringer styles everytime i get in my car and plug in my headset. The T720 doesn't have a "smart button", so to change ringer styles u must go through the menu, or at least make a "shortcut" for it. With Nokia phones u can simply press the power button. The T720 is a cool phone overall, I like it quite a bit so far. You can definitely see the cost saving in material they use on the T720 vs. the v60's, kindda like the Porsche 996 vs the 993 or older 911's. =) --Andrew Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88240 2000/8/31 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 integrated datebook that works nice crisp color screen fragile beltclip non existent battery life buggy software The Bottom LineThis phone looks great, and has features many business user would love. Miserable battery life and buggy software mean this is a toy not a productivity tool. Full Review I purchased this phone because of the features - very readable, detailed screen and integrated datebook with ability to synchronize with Palm Desktop or Outlook. I got it from Verizon who were pushing this model hard, and my price reflects a two year contract and sending my old (AT&T/Nokia8650) phone in for a rebate. What I love about the phone is the screen, and that the synchronization really does work. I do have my datebook in my pocket, so get reminded of this important meetings I set reminders for. To synchronize I purchased a desktop charger and USB cable with Starfish software. Synchronization is relatively easy - click the Starfish icon in the System Tray, and less than 30secs later the datebook and phone list have been made the same in both the phone or my Palm Desktop software on my PC. The voice quality is slightly better than I got with my Nokia 8650 / AT&T. The phone has an extendable antenna which does make a little difference to quality, but has no visible effect on the signal strength meter. I travel quite a bit and get the impression that the dropouts and poor quality are more a function of service quality. However, overall this phone has been a disappointment. The key issues are battery life and software. When new the battery life never even reached two days (when I made few to no calls). Six months later standby has fallen below 24hours. Letting the battery run dry before charging is a regular event so I know I haven't deconditioned the battery. This performance falls so far short of the 200+hours standby advertised that I feel deceived, and am unlikely to buy a Motorola phone again. Verizon perpetrated this misleading information. The phone's software is very slow, but you get used to this. However, about 1 in 10 times that I remove it from the cradle the phone locks up. It will not even respond to the power key. I must remove the battery to proceed. This is a hassle as with the non-existent battery life it now spends most of it's life on the charger in the hope it will have some charge left when I go home. The synchronization software was easy to set up, but after some time I realized some phone numbers were not getting from the Palm Desktop to my phone. Motorola have a good phone helpline, and helped me work this out promptly. A second sync. issue remains unresolved. Some kinds of recurring appointments will not be synchronized. The software reports "type not supported". Motorola responded to my email reporting this with a denial that it happened and closed the issue. I'm sure this keeps their internal support statistics looking good but did not resolve my problem. During a support phone call Motorola indicated the firmware in my phone is old and recommended I visit an outlet to get it updated. Unfortunately not all outlets selling the phone can do this. The place I have to go to is inconvenient, so I haven't tried it yet. I am hoping some of the shortcomings will be resolved by this upgrade and will do it when I can. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $99 88239 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of gimmicks games color display small lightweight occasional hiccups encourages using network bandwidth battery life The Bottom LineIf you want a fancy-schmancy "do everything" phone but not a PDA, the T721 will do the job and a bit more. Full Review Well, that's what they want you to think anyway. It's definitely a lot more than a cellphone, and much of it is "toy" rather than "phone". That's OK, though. History I previously used a Nokia 5165, which is about as basic a phone as you can get. There's advantages to this; it has a very hefty battery lifetime (2 weeks on standby) and there isn't much to go wrong. I've had it for 3-4 years now, and previously I used a Nokia 5160. In May I tried to find someone with better cell coverage of my area than AT&T. The service has always been a bit spotty here, and the Nokia was unusable inside the house--excessive fading and dropped calls. I tried 3-4 other providers, and none of them worked significantly better than the Nokia... but it gave me a chance to play with some fancier phones. I then decided to give one of AT&T's fancy phones a try just to see what it was like. Because I'd been a customer with them for a long time (I was with Cellular One before they were locally acquired) and had kept the same phone for so long, they offered me a T721 at no charge with a 1-year contract. Why not? Overall features It totally blows away the 5165, of course. Flip-out phone, large color LCD with good backlighting, calendar/email/Java/webbrowser. It's significantly lighter and smaller than an older phone such as the 5165 and it can easily be kept in a pocket. The external LCD display is also a nice feature, as it displays the number of an incoming call. (There's also a distinctive ring feature that's selectable for numbers stored in the address book.) The flipout design is great. I finally feel like I'm talking into a phone instead of holding this rectangular box next to my head. (Now, if they could only add a bit of sidetone...) I find the phone easy to use. Everything I want on a daily basis is on the front display, and I found entering initially entering phone numbers and such to be quick and painless. The calendar also seems pretty intuitive. In general I don't really have any complaints about the UI design. I thought the "voice dial" feature (push a button on the side of the phone and say a name, and it pulls up the number for you) would be a gimmick, but it's not. It's significantly faster and easier to use than navigating the number list, and I've recorded names for all the numbers I use on a regular basis. It seems to be reliable (hasn't gotten a wrong number yet). Battery lifetime All that fancy stuff comes at a price--it eats through batteries pretty quickly. I get just about a week's worth of standby on the extended battery. A few years ago that would've been impressive, but nowdays that's almost substandard. I suggest buying the dual-port charging station and two extended batteries; keep one on charge and swap it with the one in the phone as needed. Much easier than trying to remember to plug the phone in. Call clarity It works significantly better than my 5165 did. I was very, very surprised by this, but it's reasonably usable inside the house where the 5165 absolutely wasn't. And even when the signal gets very weak, it tends to get fuzzy rather than cuttng out entirely as the 5165 did. I'm also happier with the call quality going out--my voice sounds a lot more natural on the T721 than it ever did on the Nokia. The improvement in call quality alone is enough justification for me to have upgraded the phone, and makes it a lot more useful for me as well. Before I always had to remember to forward my cell phone to the house, but now it's not a big deal if I forget. I can't speak to coverage because I don't travel much, but I seem to find good GSM coverage in my usual orbit around the SF Bay area. Web browsing and network access While it's a bit unfair to include provider-specific aspects as part of a phone review, I think it's really a package deal. A large part of the reason to buy a phone such as the T720/T721 is to use web browsing and other features, and this depends to a large extent on the quality of the provider. My provider is AT&T, so I'm using their GSM service (mMode). They charge by the amount of data transferred, which isn't so great but isn't as bad as it seems either. As long as you're not downloading games every day it's not a big issue--and they do have an unlimited usage plan available. The email client is simple, and again I found it reasonably easy to use. The voice recognition thing also works for email addresses, something I haven't found a particular use for but could be handy someday. One really nice feature is Motorola's "iTap" system, which tries to guess at the word you're typing in as you're entering it on the keypad. It makes it reasonably quick to type a letter, far faster than the usual method of pressing keys multiple times to choose the correct letter. I've entered a few emails with it (probably a total of 30-40 sentences) and I rarely had to go back and make major changes because it guessed incorrectly. Web browsing, as you might guess, isn't quite like using a laptop--thanks to the small screen and limited abilities of the built-in web browser to deal with the "real Web". I find I mostly stay within the mMode area as few external websites are set up to handle wireless devices. Fortunately, there are gateways that allow access to any website for those times when I do want to look something up via Google or whatever. Direct URLs are painful to enter, but there's simply no way around this short of a full keyboard. One AT&T feature I've been very unimpressed with is the ability to download games. It works sporadically at best, even for games that cost money--many times I get "download failed" or other sorts of errors. Annoying to say the least; they've been very generous about giving refunds, however. Crashes? Yup. One of the worst aspects has to be the occasional "dark blue screen of death". Basically it's akin to your PC crashing--the phone's software crashes, the phone goes dark and resets itself. This seems to happen most often while browsing on the network, and I haven't ever had a call interrupted by it, but it still worries me. The horror stories are finally coming true--pretty soon our toasters, dishwashers, ovens, etc. will crash on a periodic basis. It isn't surprising given the high complexity of the software in the phone, but it just shouldn't happen. Which brings us to.... Sturdiness It's a very light phone. That also means it isn't the most sturdy thing on the planet, as it's made almost entirely out of lightweight plastics. I've seen several complaints about dust getting behind the glass display and issues with the flip portion of the phone becoming loose. I've had mine about a month and so far it seems ok. But that's only a month, and it's not like I use it more than once a day or so. That's going to have to be a "wait and see" thing. I've given it "average" for durability mainly beacuse of the rather wimpy construction. Summary ("Finally?" you're probably saying.) I like it, and I'm going to keep it. It's more of a fun toy than anything else, but I find the calendar to be a useful addition to my life, and many of the additional features are more than just show. The network browsing and other features can be useful at times, and few people are going to complain about being able to download some fun games to their phone. I chose it mainly because it looked to me like the most featureful phone available from AT&T that wasn't a PDA. I think it was a good choice, and so far I am happy both with the phone and AT&T's mMode/mLife package. Recommended: Yes 88238 2000/10/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full of features wonderful resolution color options small lightweight uhhh i suppose the screen does eat battery The Bottom LineA great full-featured phone that is stylish and easy to use. Full Review I was a little worried about getting another Motorola phone after my experiences with the v120. But my husband also had a v120 and his worked very well, so I suppose I just got a lemon. The salewoman at Verizon showed me her T720 and talked about how much she loved it. So I took the plunge and bought one. Luckily, I qualified for the $100 rebate since I was not yet able to trade phones under my plan.. .but I HAD to get rid of that v120. After replacing two v120 antennas, one of the main things I wanted from my new phone was a sturdier antenna. This is the reason I opted for the T720 and not a v60. Instead of having the big antenna supported by the floppy little plastic "straw", the T720 has a solid antenna base with the thin retractable antenna reminiscent of the earlier Nokia 5100 series phones. But we forewarned.. while the new antenna is sturdier than the v120's, they are not indesctructable. I managed to snap the plastic base off the phone.. but the antenna remained on and held the part in place until I noticed and fixed it. (Ahh the wonders of superglue!) I've read other reviews here about the battery life. I personally have had no problems with it. I ran the phone through three discharge cycles when I first got it. Other than a few times when I had it hooked to the laptop and didn't have the charger/data cable hooked up right, it has never died on me. But I also keep a car charger with me most of the time to give it an extra boost from time to time. Although I have left the phone off charge for several days at a time and had no problems with it. Being a big fan of digital photography I absolutely love the ability to download my photos onto the phone and show them off to friends and family. This is made possible through Verizon's "Get it Now" and the available dotPhoto membership. For $2.95 a month you can get unlimited use of dotPhoto and transfer all your photos to your phone. Of course the Get it Now does use up your minutes... but with Verizon offering unlimited night and weekends, you have ample time to use the features and not incur and undue charges. As for the holster... ummm.. don't use it. Not only is it awkward to wear, but it offers no protection for the phone. The outside screen is open to the elements (and all kinds of scratchy things that can damage the phone). Instead I use a pocket-type holder with a belt clip that the phone slips into. It offers padding and protection that the phone holster does not. I was also nervous about the holster because I had a similar swivel clip on the v120 that kept opening and coming unhooked from my pocket causing the phone to take a dive at unfortunate times. The data cable and software available from Verizon allows you to hook the phone up to a USB port and use it as a modem to connect to the Internet. I never tried the actual Express Network connection though.. I just couldn't part with the $80 a month for it.. but without any extra charges you can get a 14400 connection with the cable. I used to drive over the road and used the phone and laptop to check email and surf the net.. not the fastest connection available but the price (Free) wasn't bad. Once again, just make use of those unlimited night and weekend minutes and Presto! Free Internet! Overall, I'm very happy with my phone, and my husband, who is still using his old v120, wants one now. There is lots to do with it and the interchangable covers offer ways to personalize it. You can purchase them from Motorola or a third-party supplier (much cheaper). I found a neat chameleon colored one that changes colors for about $10 at Target. Here's a list of some of the T720's features and "toys". Ability to set separate ring tones for people in your phone book. Know who's calling without even looking at the phone. Ability to download games, ringtones, pictures, screen savers and more through Get it Now! Organization features including 500 entry address book allowing multiple entries per name, calender and scheduler that allows you to set alarms for upcoming events way in advance, calculator and currency converter. Lots of ringtones to choose from (polyphonic) as well as vibration rings and the ability to create your own ringtones with a little practice. Beautiful color screen. Completely customizable menus - lets you put things where you want them if you don't like the current setup. And it's easy to set shortcuts to make your most used features easier to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88237 2002/12/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 its bright fun its light the battery life The Bottom LineThe phone will make you one happy camper. It looks great, and it sounds even better! Full Review The Motorola T720 is amazing. The clarity of the screen is unreal. I bought it because Verizon was having a promotion offer where I sent back my old phone, and received $100 rebate. How could I resist? I was one of those people who refused to get a new phone because I was waiting for the perfect phone to arrive. Being a loyal Verizon wireless customer, that was pretty difficult. The phone selection is quite limited. Then came along the T720. Get It Now technology and service allows you to download applications from the network to your phone. You can get ring tones that actually sound like music, and not tinny versions of songs. The phone can be personalized with colors, backgrounds, and even screen savers. The T720 features an embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chip necessary for utilizing the E911 emergency location safety feature as well as other location-based services. That is an excellent feature, especially in today's uncertain world. The phone also has a LCD display on the front of the phone, which allows you to see who is calling you, before you answer. The bulk of the features are: · Get It Now · 2.5mm headset jack to accept universal hands-free headsets · Internal and external LCD display · Multiple color front and rear covers · Directional Navigation Key · Voice notes and voice tags · Internet browser · E911 capable · Two-way text messaging · iTAP assisted text entry software · Built-in Personal Information Manager (provides datebook with alarm, calculator and currency converter) · 500 number phonebook allowing multiple entries per name · 40 level MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) · 33 embedded ringer tones and 32 customizable ringer tones plus 5 vibrating alerts · FM stereo radio headset capable (w/ optional accessory) · Express Network compatible with Motorola Original Kit (sold separately) · Downloadable graphics and games · Supports TTY and HATIS I can't believe how this phone fits in my purse. It's so small I no longer feel like I am lugging around a ton of bricks. For the ladies, if fits in my tiny Coach purse. Which is KEY!!! I am also in love with the idea that I can text message. Sometimes you just don't want to answer the phone, or talk. So you can text message!!! Its perfect for trying to locate friends in crowded/loud places where you can't talk. Or just sending your sweetie a quick message to say hello! The downside is that the battery really doesn't last long. Especially if you are playing around with the games, and downloading ringtones. The menu is also difficult to work. After a while, I managed to put the items I use the most in the main section. Voice dialing comes in handy when in the car. Its hard enough to find your phone when you are looking to make a call, but to be able to hit one button, say the name and the call goes through is priceless. Just make sure your radio is turned down. I find that my voice dialing doesn't go through if there is a lot of background noise. (Makes sense if you think of it) My favorite features are the Text Messaging, the size of the phone and the LCD panel on the front. It's a good buy, but I wouldn't spend more than 100 on it. Also, I got most of my accessories on EBAY, which are much less expensive compared to the Verizon store The T720 is a great phone, with lots of accessories to keep you busy. Go for it! You will be impressed, and you won't be able to go back to a plain old boring phone. AND you will be the envy of your friends. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88236 2002/12/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sharp screen good looks polyphonic ringer dual display easy to use menus slow menus screen unreadable with backlight off buggy software The Bottom LineTruckloads of features. Good design. Motorola reliable. Thumbs up! Full Review I've got to pick up this phone among other Motorola phones in the Verizon store. The first thing that I noticed was it's shiny, silvery body panels, reminiscent of other Korean phones that have been already out there (e.g. LG, Samsung). However, don't judge a book by its cover (flip it open to reveal its inner magic!) OK, I will try and make this review as unbiased as possible, and I will describe the most important features of the phone: General looks and size and ergonomics(8 out of 10) One of the most eye-catching features of this phone is it's silvery metal color as I have stated before. Personally, I like these silvery looking artifacts as they look much better than the boring black ones. I cannot tell if the silvery paint will scrape off the phone's body panels, as I have only used it for a couple of weeks. The first thing I did not like about the phone is the holster. Reclining on your side will make your belly trigger the release button, and your phone will drop to the floor. It has happened to me three times already. Also, its rotating function is too light, and the phone swirls around your waist, and most of the time you will find it upside down, or with the antenna pointing the wrong direction. It should click firmly in place, or have a rotating lock function. I am looking for a leather holster, or some aftermarket holster. The quality of the phone's body work and paint job seems OK and pretty well done, I'm comparing it to other silvery-shined artifacts that I already own (Compaq iPAQ) and the T720's quality surely matches up. The phone is diminute when folded up, it can fit up in your hand easily. It has an external rectangular, backlit LCD screen built in the top phone cover from which you can quickly look at the phone status without opening its cover (signal strength, digital/analog service indicator, roaming status, battery status, date and time, and CallerID of course). It is easy to flip open with one hand as it has got indents in the sides of the body to accomplish that. When opened, the most notorious feature of the phone will knock you off - its LCD color screen (especially if you are only used to standard phones). It is located in the upper side of the phone's clamshell, and occupies 75% of it, surrounded by a mirror like frame bearing Motorola on the top. It is certainly a big screen to look at. I will go into the screen's details later on this review. The keys look familiar, with three function buttons at the top of the keypad. Below is the familiar red, tri-functional 'END CALL/POWER ON/POWER OFF' button, the 4-way D-pad (Directional pad), and the SEND button. Buttons are solid to the touch, with adequate tactile feedback response. Keys are surrounded by a mirror-like material, matching the overall phone's looks. Key spacing is adequate, and doesn't have a cramped feel. The D-pad's feel however, is not very good. It is easy to click up when you THINK that you are clicking right. One feature that I would like, though, is that it was a 5-way pad, pushing the middle of the pad will allow you to choose a menu option. I sometimes find myself doing that, and a wrong keystroke will occur. In the dark, the external LCD lights up with a whiteish backlight. When opened up, the keys light up with a fluorescent white light. Features (9 out of 10) I personally like the clamshell type phones, with dual (internal and external LCD screens). It is a nice feature to see who is calling you without having to open the phone. The external screen is excellent, and will allow you to check on the phone's status. Names and numbers will display in this screen whenever there is an incoming call and you are able to identify the caller's ID (network permitting, of course). When using a hands-free, and having the phone closed, it displays the airtime usage for the call. The menus and human interface interaction are consistent with all Motorola's newer phone: the top three function buttons on the phone's keypad will allow you to perform the familiar back-up/options/select functions. The bad thing is that the color interface makes the phone painfully slow to use, either to scroll down/up in the phonebook, or navigating through any menu. I found a bug in the phone's software: changing the analog clock display and time background to phone status (showing a larger battery icon) only worked once. I have tried several methods to change it, without luck. I have made the phone reset itself several times, while using the browser and trying to return to the main menu. The D-pad allows you to execute your most commonly accessed functions. One thing I did not like was that you cannot adjust the ringer's volume when the phone is closed and tucked in its holster. It does allow you to mute the ringer when a call comes through (clicking the VOLUME UP or VOLUME DOWN buttons on the left side of the phone's body). You can store up to 400 contacts in its versatile phone book. It can let you store multiple numbers for a single contact (work,home,mobile,fax,pager). They will appear as FOUR different entries in the phonebook, which I clearly don't like. I would rather have a single entry, and multiple icons indicating a multi-number contact/entry. Clicking on it will show up all four numbers. So, for example, If you have John Doe's mobile and home number (which you regularly call), the phonebook will show two John Doe entries, but differentiated by the icon. Somewhat confusing, especially when you need to dial in a hurry, you will definitely need to get used to the icons. One nice feature, though, is that when John Doe calls your from his mobile, the caller id will show as 'John Doe - Mobile'.I like that. You can also associate a particular ring tone to a contact - neat feature. This phone will allow you to download ringtones, pictures and screensavers from your service provider (in Verizon Wireless, it is called Get It Now!). You get a free downloadable ringtone, by using an applet called ModTones. You can download hundreds of ringtones in MIDI format. They sound great! With a special accessory, you will be able to play MP3s though this phone (64MB of memory built in on the T720! Whoa!) The Short Message (SMS) interface is very easy to use. It will allow you to pick your destination number either from the phonebook list, as from the 'received calls' and 'sent calls' menus. Very handy, indeed. Inbox and Outbox will cleanup automatically after a preset time, as well. Typing in the body of the message is extremely easily, and consistent with other Motorola phones, it has predictive typing (called iTap, by Motorola), in which words can be autocompleted from the phone's most used words. Cool feature, but I rarely use it. I prefer typing the whole word myself, as you have to be conscious enough of what word will iTap suggest. Ringtones are a pleasure to hear. Robotic tones from older cellphones will sound dreadful compared to the T720's polyphonic speaker, similar to a computer synthesizer. The T720 will include cheerful musical ringtones, as well as loud ones, as to satisfy each user's preferences. You will be able to play rich tones through your T720. The default ringer is pretty cool, and it will certainly surprise you the first time you receive your first call (try the T720 to find out!) :-) It would certainly be handy to have shortcuts associated to set up ringer modes, that is, for example, press and hold '#' to set up vibrating mode, and not having to navigate through 3 menus and 4 keystrokes to accomplish that. Battery life (6 out of 10): I think I will need more time to make an opinion on the phone's battery, but I have never run out of it as of yet. You will surely need to charge the phone every two days at least, as the color screen will eat up precious battery minutes. So make sure you bring your charger to work, if you do a lot of talking. Anyway, I will be constantly updating this review as I progress with my experience with the T720, which for the last two weeks, has been very enjoyable! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 88235 2000/12/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 decent battery life super cool small color competition displayfeatures The Bottom LineNot perfect, but what is? The combination of price, make, service, and features, is outstanding. Full Review I tend to get a cell phone every year, because I'm a gadget guy. I also tend to get phones, and after a few weeks leave them at home because quite honestly I don't want people calling me (even when I carry it I seldomly keep it on). So, to make me carry something around permanently, it really has to have alot of features (I've had it 2 weeks now, and so far I've taken it every day). First and foremose, how is it as a phone? My Verizon service combined with the phone is great. I've even got a signal in the tunnels of Penn Station (LIRR trains) in NY, and once in a while in a subway station (not in the tunnels). My main reason for getting a new phone was that I work part time at Columbia University on 116th Street and Broadway and both my Sprint and Nextel phones had poor or no service there, even in wide open outdoor areas. Verizon works great. If I had to nitpick the service/phone, I would say that sometimes the audio on the phone is slightly garbled, not perfectly clear. Though the people I am talking to say that I sound like I'm on a standard land line. Not a show stopper, but still there. The next ultra-cool thing is the color screen. It's a very bright 4,096-color display. It goes dim after 20 seconds of inactivity (configurable to go off sooner, but not later). Pressing any button will make it go bright again. When the backlight isn't on, it is kind of hard to read both indoors and out (I just always keep the light on). Now, I have to admit that a day after buying this phone, a friend baught and showed me his Audiovox CDM9500 phone, also with Verizon service. The Audiovox has a 65,000-color display, which made for a slightly noticably better appearance. The Audiovox had a speaker phone built in which is very nice when you deal with voice menus ("Press 1 to find theaters near you, press 2 to find a new movie..."). But, it had a smaller memory area for downloading programs and tones, and it wasn't a Motorola, so I'm still happy. It comes with a small set of basic programs, such as the phone book, a calculator, picrure viewer, etc. You can add more programs through the Get It Now service of Verizon. I've downloaded a couple games, and I'm pretty impressed with them. Most of the downloadable programs are billed on either a monthly basis or an outright permanent purchase (in roughly the $5 to $9 range), and some offer a 1-day free demo. I was disappointed that I couldn't find a way to download images permantly. I even tried out the two image services, where you can build up a 'photo album' by uploading images to a web site, and then browse those images on the phone. The only problem is that you must connect to view the images, and if you are in a place without phone service you can't see your pictures (this also means you can't make any image you want a 'wallpaper'). I tried the emails and message alerts with the phone, and within a day of my purchase I could send emails to my phone, and respond to them from the phone. Nice way for me to remind myself of things. So, it has a calendar with scheduled alerts, sends and receives text messages and emails. I would have liked a 'Notepad' application, but there isn't one, though you can record voices notes to yourself and replay them later. You can select several different color schemes for the display, and select from several pre-installed wall papers for the display (I haven't found out how to add new ones, so I'm not sure its possible). There are also several pre-installed tones, but you can download new tones for a fee from two services, and then configure various alerts and tones on your phone, as well as associate a specific tone with a specfic caller. All in all, technically, and feature wise, it is fantastic. I've read alot about battery life. And quite honestly, I wind up killing the battery more by playing the games during my commute, or reading the news from the web, then by actually using it as a phone. But, I did use the phone on my 1/2 hour commute two and from work,, and made about 30 minutes worth of calls, then left it on for 3 days and the battery indicated about 66% full capacity. So, I can't complain about the battery, though I am sure the color display kills it faster than a monchrome display. I had wanted to get the Sanyo SCP-5300. This phone looks amazing, with a decent-quality color camera built-in and an external color display. But, I couldn't find it for sale, and it was also Sprint PCS which I already knew wouldn't cover the service areas I needed. Bummer. The phone is very small. In fact, it's almost too small. If you have large hands, you might find it a pain. I'm about average, and I think if it were any smaller, I would have a hard time finding buttons (the side buttons are a little tough to find if you aren't looking at the phone). Given the price, make, features, and Verizon service, I'm really happy. Please Note: I base my Durability rating on previous Motorola phones, which I have actually destructed in testing when I upgrade to a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88234 2003/11/21 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 simplicity poor rf performance The Bottom LineDecent entry-level phone. Full Review Background I'm a college student, as well as a gadget geek. For a long time I've wanted a cellphone, but like many other college students, I'm unemployed and bumming off my parents. So now that I'm in college and finally developing something vaguely resembling a social life, my parents and I agreed that it would be best if I had a cellphone. So they got me one. The T720 is a GSM/GPRS 850/1900 phone. Its dimensions are 3.6x1.87x0.83", and it weighs 3.9oz (these dimensions and weights are from Motorola's site, with the extended battery). The internal display is a 4096-color 120x160 pixel CSTN screen, and can display up to 7-9 lines of text depending on font size; the external caller ID display is 96x32. Motorola claims up to 390 minutes of talk time and up to 230 hours of standby with the high performance battery. The phone has fairly standard features for a modern phone -- polyphonic MIDI ringers, a vibrating ringer, a built-in microbrowser, a minimal datebook feature, a 500-entry phonebook, Java games/applications, predictive input (iTAP, rather than the more popular T9), voice recording, and voice dialing. We purchased the phone at the Cingular corporate store here in our town. We converted my dad's old plan into a family plan and added my phone on (but this is outside the scope of this review). Going into the store, I was set on getting a flip phone. I didn't want a candybar phone that could potentially dial out while in my pocket (and yes, I have heard of key locks -- and I've had phones unlock themselves in my pockets as well). I would've liked a camera phone as well (I'm aware of the camera attachment for the T720, but I've seen pictures from it, and they leave a lot to be desired), but at the time the only camera phone Cingular offered that I knew of that had an acceptable resolution was the Nokia 3600, which is not a flip phone and, worse, has a badly-designed keypad. So, the T720 it was. My Experience First off, let me say that I'm not a heavy user of the phone by any means. In the three months I've had the phone I've logged just under nine hours of use -- that averages out to barely six and a quarter minutes of use a day. I think the longest I've ever talked on this phone at one go was a couple of hours, but that's extremely unusual for me. I do send a lot of text messages, but I'll address that later. I've found battery life to be sufficient, but again, my phone spends most of its time in standby, and when I'm at home it's always charging. So I have no idea of how Motorola's claims jibe with reality. The phone's voice quality is quite good -- my dad, who in my experience seems to be much more sensitive to these things, says it sounds almost as good as a landline. I've never bothered to get someone to call me from my phone, so I can't say how it sounds myself. The microphone, as in other flip phones, directly faces the user's mouth, so it doesn't pick up nearly as much background noise as candybar phones. The screen is acceptable. The CSTN screen is like the passive-matrix displays of laptops past. It's a little difficult to see in sunlight, but it's still usable. Ghosting is minimal. There's not really much else to say about it. It's perfectly suited as a phone screen. As I said earlier, I send a lot of text messages. The T720, as stated earlier, uses Motorola's own iTAP predictive input system rather than the more popular T9 from Tegic, seen in most other phones on the market. I personally prefer iTAP, because it displays a list of possible matches across the bottom of the screen rather than automatically assuming the first one and forcing you to navigate the phone's menus to see a list of different matches (note: my comments about T9 are based on experience with Nokia phones; other phones' implementations may be different). As far as I can tell, aside from this, there are few differences between T9 and iTAP; both allow you to add your own words to the phone's dictionary. Unfortunately, in my experience, iTAP only seems to learn preferred matches when it feels like it -- even after months of messaging and text entry, it still prefers "H&o" over "I'm". Which brings me, in a sort of roundabout way, to my next complaint about the phone: the user interface. There's nothing wrong with the UI's design, per se, but the responsiveness leaves a lot to be desired. When scrolling through long lists (such as a phonebook), response time goes way down. Rather than scrolling smoothly, it jumps three or four entries at a time. The lagginess of the UI is greatly exacerbated if you have the "Animate" option on. The voice dialing is acceptable. Sometimes it has trouble recognizing names if you don't pronounce them closely enough to how they were initially recorded, but that's to be expected since the phone doesn't have a whole lot of processing power. The voice recording is also acceptable in terms of quality, but I haven't found much use for it. If in a call it will record both sides of the conversation. The phone supports Java, as mentioned earlier. The phone game with two games preinstalled: MotoGP and Astrosmash. Neither was particularly entertaining. MotoGP was a generic motorcycle racing game and Astrosmash was a bad port of an equally bad Intellivision game. I deleted them and installed Tetris. It's the only Java applet I have on my phone. I've found that the phone's RF performance leaves a bit to be desired. Cingular's network in my area (formerly BellSouth Mobility DCS) is 1900MHz only, so this may be part of the reason (and obviously, as a result, I can't speak to the phone's performance on 850MHz or mixed 850/1900 networks). There are two locations that I mainly use my phone: school, and my house. At school reception is acceptable if I'm outside, but in most buildings it drops off significantly, if not entirely. Of course, the construction of the buildings at school is largely brick and metal, so this isn't really terribly surprising. At home reception is also bad, depending on where I sit -- but this could be because I have two computers with covers removed that are probably belching out untold amounts of RF interference. On the other hand, many others have had this complaint, and their circumstances can't all be similar to mine. I've also noted some instabilities in the phone's operating system; it reboots on me frequently (the screen goes blank, stays blank for a few seconds, and then the phone acts as though it was just turned on). Fortunately, it's never done this while on a call, but it's inconvenient nonetheless. This and the menu sluggishness may have been fixed in a new firmware version since I got my phone, but I don't know. I've dropped my phone several times, most of them onto concrete, a few onto my carpeted floor. Other than the obvious cosmetic damage from falls on concrete, I've noticed no ill effects (I doubt the reboots are related to the dropping). However, the phone's housing does seem to 'creak' a great deal, which may be due to the dropping. I've considered replacing the phone's housing because of this, but I don't think I'm quite that daring yet, especially since it could render the phone entirely useless. Bottom Line The T720 is a decent, albeit slightly unstable, entry-level color flip phone. It doesn't take pictures, it doesn't play MP3s, but it does have a color screen, polyphonic ringtones, and custom background images. If you want a camera in your phone, or if you want to listen to music on it, look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): about $100Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88233 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 can be used as a flashlight cool color screen many features great sound blue screen of death lockup s requiring removal of battery operating system software glitches The Bottom LineIf software glitches are fixed, this will be a good phone. Could make it nicer for the user by letting them download their own polyphonic ring tones and pictures. Full Review I signed up with Verizon and promptly purchased the T720, with the extended battery, car charger and leather case. I loved it.....until..... I noticed some weird glitches. When managing the phone book, it would stop functioning, the display would go a dark blue with speckles at the bottom (similar to when you tell the phone to do a full reset), the display would come back, at the top it would say "No Service", and a few seconds later it would reconnect. Also, the sound/ring tones would quit working unless you shut the phone off and turned it back on. And if it was on the charger around 6:00am and a message came in, it would signal there was a message, but when you opened the phone, no lights would come on, none of the buttons would work and the phone would NOT shut off. You have to pull the battery and replace it, just to get the message or even use the phone. Also, the background to the icons, goes a light teal color, instead of white. When I see the teal color, I know the phone is being weird, so I shut it off and back on. Things return to normal. I know what you thinking, he just got a bad phone. Well, my phone had software version 1.2.22.19C. I called Verizon and they said I had a bad phone, and since it was within the first 15 day, sent me a brand new one. It had the same software version and the exact same problems. Called them again and they said I had another bad one and sent me a 3rd NEW phone. Same software version, same problems. Called again, they said I had another bad phone and sent me a 4th one. I also asked them if Motorola had a number I could call and ask them about this phone. When I called Motorola, the nice lady I talked to, said that they had a new software version out for this phone and that all I needed to do was go to my local store and have them flash the phone and it would be fixed. She said the version I needed was 19D. I asked her what the nearest Motorola service center was that could do this, if Verizon couldn't, and she gave me the name and phone number of a Motorola Service center in SLC, UT, about 1 hour south of me. So I contacted Verizon and they said they couldn't do it and were not aware of a new software version for the phone. I called several stores and none of them had the ability to flash the phone. I then called the Motorola service center in SLC and they said they didn't have the equipment to flash the phone and didn't have the software either. Motorola offered to flash the phone for me with a 10 day turn around time. Very disappointing that there wasn't any place in Utah I could take the phone to get it updated. Well, I let the 4th phone get delivered. This time I got a refurbished one. It had software 1.2.22.19D. Well, by just grabbing the phone off my belt clip, it would register that I had opened it and closed it again, thus hanging up on the caller. So I called Verizon again. They said I had another bad phone and sent me another one. This time I requested I get a new one, since they hadn't been able to send me a good one yet. The guy said he couldn't, but after I explained what I had gone through so far, he said he would send a new one. Well, I got another refurbished one. It also had 19D on it. I hasn't lost it's sound yet, but I have still experienced the Blue-Screen-Of-Death (maybe they had Microsoft write the Operating System for this phone?!?!?!), and it has locked up when a message came in, while it was plugged into the charger at 6:00am. Had to pull the battery. I talked to Verizon again. They charged me $10.00/ea for shipping out the refurbished phones, which ticked me off, since it was their problem not mine, that the phones didn't work right. The guy I talked to this time, said they had a report from Motorola that there were now software versions 19C, 19D and 19E. And they just received a notice from Motorola that described my problems and that they were working the issue. So my Verizon rep suggested I hold on to the 5th phone for a month or so and then try and get another one that had the newer software on it. Did get them to refund 1 of the 2 $10.00 charges. Well, this is a great phone, when it is working! Wish I could download my own polyphonic ring tones or send them as an attachment to text messages. I don't like that I have to pay to down load ring tones or pictures. And if I could get a manual so I could program other applications, that would be a total turn on! But they want their money and won't give me that info! Major bummer! But I hate the glitches even more. It's a pain to pull off the leather case, pull the battery, reinsert the battery, reinstall the leather case and then turn on the phone, just to read a message about the weather. The Blue-Screen-Of-Death is annoying as well. Happens all too frequently! You can download Polyphonic ring tones (after you pay a way over-priced amount, sometimes half what a CD costs and you only get around 35 seconds of polyphonic sound) and you can download pictures (after you pay for them as well). You can't create your own Polyphonic ring tones from a MIDI instrument and expect to download them. And you can't expect to put any pictures of your own, on the phone (at least I haven't figured out how yet). Not having this ability, kills the whole sales point of having Polyphonic ring tones and pictures. The display of the pictures is of very poor quality. It look like you are running a monitor at too slow of a refresh speed. You can see shimmering in the picture and an electrical wave pattern cycling from the center of the picture, out to both sides. Also, if you receive a text message and try to start typing a response, without hitting the "reply" button, the phone gets lost in it's menu system. You have to hit the off button, to start over on the menu system, and go into the text messaging, find the message you were trying to reply to, open it and then press the reply button and start typing again. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79 88232 2000/1/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great features set good battery life excellent sound quality no hierarchy in contact list sync software hard to set up The Bottom LineGreat feature set, usable internet and email, syncs with Outlook but difficult to set up. Full Review My Nokia 5165's were 2 years old and getting battle-worn. It was time for an upgrade, so I did a fair amount of research before settling on the T720 from Cingular (In fact, we test-drove some NEC phones from AT&T, they kept roaming to the Cingular network when used at my house in rural Indiana). Let me start by saying that I have absolutely no complaints with the sound quality or the battery life of the T720. 99.9% of the complaints people have about call quality are NOT the fault of the phone, they are the fault of spotty carrier coverage. Cingular is by far the leader in quality coverage here in central Indiana, and they also have the only package deals that eliminate roaming charges. Don't know what I was thinking when we strayed to AT&T... As for battery life, I use the phone on average 20 to 30 minutes per day, and I use the data & messaging on average about 5 minutes per day. With that amount of usage, this phone will run about 4 days without a charge. I have not let it fully discharge, but it was sitting on one "bar" of battery life remaining for an entire day. When we were shopping for new phones, we had a fairly short list of "have-to-have" features, and a longer list of "would-be-nice" features. Have-to-haves were: 1. Small enough to fit comfortably in my front pants pocket (and my wife's purse) 2. Feature-rich phone book 3. Calendar/appointment reminders 4. The ability to "sync" with Microsoft Outlook On the "would be nice" list: 1. Flip-phone (I hated locking and unlocking the keypad on the Nokia all the time). If we settled on a flip phone, it had to have an external display (so I can see who's calling without opening the phone). 2. Web-enabled (to access remote POP email while on the road) 3. Open to answer and close to hang up (The NEC phones didn't support this) The T720 satisfies both lists, and then some: It stays in my front pants pocket, and most of the time I don't even realize that it is there. The phone book holds 750 entries (500 on the phone and 250 on the SIM card). I use about 200 of them, and for each contact I store up to 4 phone numbers (work, home, cell, pager) and an email address. *** GRIPE #1 *** Unfortunately, the only display mode for the phone book lists all of them in a single list. I would much rather show a single name, select it, then pick the number from a shorter list. Instead, it shows the same contact name in the long list several times with an icon at the right to indicate which number (or email address) will be selected when you press the select or dial button. This means that I have about 450 entries in the long list of contacts, and getting to the one that you want is a bit cumbersome. You can quickly index to the start of the first initial using the number keys (i.e. press 5 twice to get to the top of the "K" list), but if you have 30 "K's", you still have to key down many, many times to get to the one you want, and you have to pay pretty close attention to the small icons to make sure you are selecting the one you intend (home, work, cell or email). As I indicated above, another of my "have-to-have" requirements was the ability to sync with Outlook for contacts and calendar appointments. While shopping on the Cingular site, they indicated (somewhere, although for the life of me I can't find it now) that the "Data Connect Kit" provided the ability to sync with Outlook. When I bought the phones, I bought the data connect kit for $60. When I got it home, I found that the data connect kit is for connecting the phone to a computer so that the phone can act as a cellular modem. *** GRIPE $2 *** The sync software was not included in that package. I was pretty bummed until I did some more research and found that you have to buy that software (TrueSync) from Motorola for $60. I took the data connect kit back to Cingular (no questions on the return), and found the Motorola package including the cable and software on eBay for $20. I'm used to syncing with a Palm OS device, and I guess I expected a similar experience. Getting the software installed and communicating with the phone was very easy (I'm on XP Pro). Figuring out the software was not easy. I am an engineer, and I've owned Windows PCs for over 15 years. This software is not at all intuitive. The documentation that came with the software was absolutely useless, and there was nothing on the CD to help, either. I basically had to figure it out by trial and error. Pretty painful, considering it took about 20 minutes to transfer my contact list to the phone during each attempt. Rather than go into the details here, anyone requiring assistance is welcome to email me for some tips. One thing for sure, do the online software update before trying to use it...there were some pretty severe problems with it right out of the box. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the sync support now, except as noted above regarding the long contact list. It handles the calendar quite well; recurring events, reminders and all. I no longer carry a Palm OS device, just this phone. Other nice features supported by the T720: * Voice-dialing * 1-touch dialing (you can assign up to 9 1-touch numbers, press and hold the number to dial) * Auto redial * Downloadable ringtones, graphics and games (gimmicky) * Customizable quick-access menu on the "default" screen. You can assign the 4 arrow keys and the two "soft" keys to any main menu function. * Any combination of vibrate/ring alerts. When both are enabled, it vibrates for about 5 seconds before ringing (so you can answer or shut the ringer off before it makes any noise). * You can assign different ringtones for each phone book entry. When that person calls, that ringtone plays. For $7 a month extra, I decided to try the web stuff, so that I could have access to my POP email accounts. At first I thought the web stuff was useless, but I've found it very handy a couple of times. A few days ago my wife and I were out and wanted to go to a movie. I was impressed at how quickly and easily I was able to call up local movie listings, start times, reviews, theaters and addresses. Another time I was away from home and needed to find an office supply store. I was able to find the store by name, get its address and I was able to get concise driving directions from my starting point to the store. The interface is a little slow but very usable and useful. I paid $150 for two of these phones, with a $100 mail-in rebate (two for $50). We went on the Cingular "Family talk" plan with these two phones and a new Nokia. Even with the addition of the web stuff, text messaging and insurance, we're paying much less than we were on our old plan with 3 phones. Thank you Cingular! One more thing...my experience with AT&T customer service was absolutely horrible. The ordering process started on 12/12 and was more painful than having my wisdom teeth pulled. I initially tried to order over the web, got no response after a week, ordered by phone and was told the new phones would be delivered next day. For my trouble, they said they'd give me a free leather case. I waited another week...was told that the order was sitting in the warehouse awaiting a backordered item...you guessed it...the leather case. They sent the phones without the case, I got them on 12/31. I charged them up and turned them on...they displayed "Cingular" network. I called to return them (by the way, each call was a minimum of 30 minutes on hold, with handoffs several times to other departments), to their credit, the return process was fairly smooth. I would have gone to a local AT&T store to buy the phones, but they didn't have near as good a deal as they did online or by phone (I checked). Cingular, on the other hand, had much BETTER deals in the local store. All in all, the Cingular customer service experience was very positive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 for 2Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88231 2000/12/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent reception great voice quality full of features color screen some of the extras cost extra to use The Bottom LineExcellent phone with great clarity. Just don't forget to buy the extended life battery! Full Review My very first mobile phone ever was a Motorola, and from the looks of it, the last mobile phone I ever own may also be a Motorola. Remember the first flip-phones from yesteryear? They were big, bulky, and the battery life was about an hour. But they were COOL! Well, that's how I remembered Motorola, but they've come a long way since then. First of all, let me clarify that I liked my first Motorola phone. For the time, it was pretty cutting-edge technology and design. However, mine moved on to the cellular graveyard when I left it on the bumper of a friend's SUV and he slammed the rear door on it. I can still hear the sickening crunch of plastic as it shattered. Anyway, when I went to buy a replacement, I was seduced by the line of Nokia phones gaining in popularity at the time. I believe that's when I ended up with the 2160, the dinosaur relative of the Nokias on the market today. From there I went through several varieties of Nokia phones, the most recent being the 8260. However, in the past year, I've had a lot of difficulty with my carrier and decided to make a change. About a month ago, I finally switched from AT&T to Verizon and acquired the Motorola T720 in the process. Reception/Voice Quality: Although I haven't owned it for that long, I've been very happy with the Motorola T720. I travel A LOT and my mobile phone is often my only link with the rest of the world. The issue with my Nokia 8260 was that over the last year or so, I noticed a steady degradation of service. In New Mexico it was virtually impossible to get or keep a connection. Service in other states and major cities was not much better, including large cities like San Diego, Dallas, or New Orleans. I couldn't figure out if it was AT&T, my phone, or both, but finally I switched to Verizon and a new Motorola phone. Since then I've had crystal clear connections, without dropped signals, in all of the cities I've visited in the past month. This includes Sacramento, Phoenix, Omaha, and a few others. Most notably, I've received comments from people thinking I was on a regular telephone rather than a cellular phone due to the clear reception. I've been very impressed by the sound quality of the Motorola T720. It's extremely clear and has none of that echo or tinny sound prevalent in so many mobile phones. Signal strenth/reception has been fantastic compared to what I had before with my Nokia/AT&T. I attribute this mostly to Verizon, but the phone seems to play a major part as well. Depending on your location, availability of service is going to vary, but I'm impressed with Verizon so far. Features: The Motorola T720 is packed with features, although I'll probably never use about half of them. Some of the features are going to vary between service providers. I'll comment about some of those available through Verizon, since that's my carrier now. I won't spend much time on the physical phone itself, as you can quickly look up the statistics on Verizon's Web site or any other service provider that has this phone. Suffice it to say that the small, flip-phone design is great for anyone that wants a compact design that's easy to use. It's small enough to carry easily, while being big enough when opened to make for easy usage. I feel much more comfortable using this phone than with my former Nokia 8260. It's just a better fit when I hold it up to my ear. There are two displays on the Motorola T720, one large color LCD screen inside and a small two-line display on the outside. The one on the outside displays signal strength, battery charge remaining, date & time while the phone is not in use. When it rings, this display shows the caller ID information for the incoming call. It's very handy for quickly seeing who is calling. The internal color display is large and very easy to view. The display settings are even adjustable, enabling the viewer to change contrast or color levels for better readability. The length of time that the backlight stays on can also be adjusted for battery conservation. The only issue I have with the internal display is keeping is smudge-free, as this sits next to your check when the phone is in use. However, it easily wipes clean and seems pretty durable. The keypad and navigation controls are nicely sized and easy to use. There's a four-way pad in the upper middle of the handset, kind of like a small joystick, for going through the various menus. Also, there are three keys above it for selecting different options in the menus. Overall, it takes a little getting used to, but in the end the controls are fairly intuitive and easy enough to learn. My biggest challenge was learning that the large key on the left of the pad ENDS calls, while the large key on th right of the pad SENDS or STARTS calls. Fortunately, they are color coded (red/green respectively) to make it easier to identify them quickly. My problem is that they seem reversed compared to the location of the corresponding buttons on the Nokia phones, but I'm slowly getting better about hitting the right keys. This phone includes a web browser (extra fee for Internet/Data access), a phone book with multiple fields for entry (kind of like Outlook or any other actual phone book application), datebook, calculator, media center (for customizing tones & displaying photos on the phone), voice notes (for recording voice memos/notes), and functions for customizing call & ringer settings. There's also a menu item for "Get it Now", a Verizon feature that lets you download tones, applications, and other new features. Connecting to "Get it Now" uses up call minutes, and many of the downloadable items have an additional cost associated with them. For example, I did get one free downloadable ring tone with my purchase, but additional ring tones cost about $1.99 each. There are several "demo" applications available for free, but most real applications must be paid for in order to use. Some even have recurring monthly charges to use the application once installed, like a search function for locating nearby area restaurants, complete with reviews. I tried the demo, and it's really pretty sharp. The phone has built-in GPS, which it uses to search for restaurants (or other attractions) nearest to your location, then even provides directions on how to get there. I used it in Phoenix and found several options for dinner one evening, and the directions were dead on for each place. For a business traveler, this just one application that may be worth having. The phone does have a limited amount of memory space, but allows one to essentially archive unused applications in order to conserve space. They can also be deleted completely, but then must be repurchased to be used again in the future. Installation/uninstallation of applications is very easy. In fact, everything on the phone is pretty well menu-driven, providing detailed instructions as it walks you through how to do different things. Ultimately, it's very easy to use. Battery Life: Before deciding to get the Motorola T720, I read a lot of reviews and noticed one thing that seemed very consistent. Everything I read indicated that battery life is not very good. So, I made the decision to get the extended life battery with my purchase. In retrospect, I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone getting the Motorola T720. The color display seems to quickly drain the regular battery, but the extended life one makes a huge difference. On standby, my phone has gone several days without recharging. Talk time also increases dramatically, giving me about twice as much time as on the regular battery. Typically, with heavy usage, it seems like I can use the phone for about 3-4 hours before recharging. This is more in line with the specifications advertised by Motorola and the cellular service providers. If battery life is a concern, definitely get the extended life battery. It should cost about $60.00, but I know Verizon gives discounts on accessories purchased at the time service is set up. Also, they gave me $10.00 off any accessory purchase when I set up my billing options via their Internet Web site. Do yourself a big favor and get the longer life battery. It adds only a little bulk to the phone, but not nearly enough to make it very noticeable. It's only about a quarter of an inch thicker than the original battery and still enables the phone to sit tightly in the included holster. Other: The Motorola T720 has a standard headset jack. This a welcome feature, coming from the Nokia 8260 with it's own proprietary headset jack. I've only used a couple of times, but my experience has been that the jack could use some enhancement. The maximum volume level seems very low, making it difficult to hear while using a headset. I have a Plantronics headset, so maybe the Motorola-made headset works better, but I can't speak to that. Also, since the phone must be open to use, and the phone can't be opened while in the holster, the headset can't be used with the phone resting on your hip in it's holster. This took a little getting used to for me, as I would often talk on my headset while walking through the airport or other such place. Not a big deal, but something to take into consideration for power headset users. The Motorola T720 has a polyphonic ringer, providing it with a much richer sounding ring tone. Volume can be adjusted up and down easily by two buttons on the side of the phone. By adjusting the ring volume all the way down, it automatically switches to vibrate mode with no ringer. This is great for the times when you step into a meeting or someplace that you don't want a ringing phone to cause a disruption. Construction of this phone is solid. It has a small external antenna that can be extended to improve reception. Also, the faceplate is removable and can be swapped out with the various "stylish" ones available in the marketplace. I haven't dropped mine (yet), so I'm not sure about it's resistance to damage, but I'm guessing it wouldn't do too well. The exterior is plastic, but seems like it will hold up just as well as about any other phone out there presently. I did like the stainless steel feel of the Motorola V60, but preferred the functionality of the T720. However, I'm not sure either phone would survive a fall, regardless of the construction material of it's casing. Personally, I think the small additional monthly fee for damage insurance is a good option and should be available from whatever service provider you decide to use. This phone has built-in GPS service, which can be turned on/off, or set for 911 only. With global positioning satellite technology, this phone can be located in case of emergency. It's probably nothing I'll ever need, but it's nice knowing it's there anyway. Also, this enables the use of some additional applications as I mentioned earlier, like locating nearby restaurants, theaters, etc. I think this will likely be standard on all future mobile phones, and I'm glad to see Motorola implementing it already. Overall: So far, I've been impressed with the Motorola T720. It has excellent voice clarity and reception has been exceptional. The many features and upgradeability of this phone major factors in my decision to get it, and I think I'll probably have this one for a long time. It's not perfect, but I like it a lot more than any of my previous Nokia phones. I bought mine during a promotion by Verizon & Motorola. The phone was $149 with a $100 rebate for sending in an old, working mobile phone, making the end price $49.00. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88230 2002/12/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 brilliant color display perfect size weight great feature set battery life The Bottom LineI still want a color LCD, 3G, do-everything phone, but I'll wait another year and give Motorola (or someone else) a chance to get it right. Full Review I am a BIG fan of Motorola phones. Some years ago I switched from an Ericsson, and never looked back. I've had my StarTac 7868 for 2 years now, and up until recently, was not tempted by the new gadgetry, because the phone just worked so darn well. No bells and whistles, but great reception/coverage, clarity, reliability, and battery life. At the end of the day, those really are the three most important factors for me. Everything else is just icing on the cake. After all, it IS a phone first, and an organizer, melody player, game player, etc., after. Companies have been scrambling to get their 3G color LCD phones to market, but it wasn't until Motorola came out with the 720, that I was willing to make the leap, on little more than faith. I assumed (incorrectly) that all the great attributes of their past phones would be embodied in this new one. Let me briefly point out some niceties. The phone is lightweight, compact, and despite its plastic casing, seems fairly durable. Reception appears to be good (like my 7868) though I never really got a chance to take it to any remote areas, and call clarity is good, but not as wonderful as their marketing might have you believe. The phone is packed with features, some useful, some nice-to-have, some not necessary at all, but fun diversions nonetheless. And the ability to download software opens up all kinds of possibilities, especially once the GPS features can be taken advantage of. The menus are not especially simple to navigate, but this is a complex, feature-filled phone, so that's understandable. And most people figure out navigation after a brief learning curve, so I really don't consider this to be a problem. Here's the problem. And its a big one. The battery life on this phone is HORRIBLE!. I originally read some reviews and thought, 'well, I'll just buy an extra battery, it'll be worth it'. Well, its not. This phone battery dies in a day, with moderate use (maybe 30-45 minutes of talk time). Its so bad, I found myself hesitating to make calls, wondering if the resulting battery drain was worth the value of the call (remember when we used to do that, when airtime rates were $.75 per minute?) True, an extra battery helps, IF you have it with you. But even so, the battery on my 7868 lasts longer than 2 batteries on the 720, and that, quite frankly, is completely unacceptable. I want my phone to be there for me when I need it. I just can't be sure with this one. And though the battery may last for an 'average' days-worth, you never know when you're going to have one of 'those days' where you need to be on the phone for a couple hours. The three attributes I mentioned above (reception, clarity, and battery life) are MINIMUM criteria for any phone I own. This one fails, and, short of coming out with a higher capacity battery that doesn't take up any more space, I don't think there's much Motorola can do about that. (BTW, please don't send me comments about 'conditioning' my battery. First of all, you shouldn't have to condition a lithium ion battery. Second, I did it anyway, and really doesn't make a difference.). Here's the end of the story. I returned this phone and got a Motorola v60i. The 60i is an evolutionary (not revolutionary) advance over my ST7868, but so far, I am thrilled with it. Update 12/13/02: I've had my v60i for about a month now. Here's the quick summary. Battery life is great; other features are adequate; programmable shortcuts are a good feature; voice-activated dialing is a great feature, but not as precise as it could be; speaker volume is adequate, but not as good as my old StarTac (ring volume as well); belt clip is difficult to use, so i replaced it with a better holster; btw, in the last two months, two of my friends ignored my advice and bought the T720. One has returned it already, the other kept it too long and wishes he had. Cheers! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 88229 2002/10/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 nice color screen no drivers bad voice quality by default no bluetooth pathetic battery life The Bottom LinePoor battery life, poor voice quality and lack of critical features truly overshadow its nice color screen, the only decent quality this phone has. Full Review Ok, I got fed up with the charges for Voicestream's iStream service, and wanted to move to Verizon's express network. That was my original motivating factor for switching back to Verizon. I headed down to my local shop, and saw this little gem. Advertised at $199 (after a $100 rebate with the exchange of any working digital phone) with a 4096 color screen, E911 service, 270 hours of standby time and Express Network capability, I thought I found my phone. The phone comes with the usual suspects in the box. The phone, the battery, a battery cover (snaps on), a belt clip, a mid-grade charger, and a manual. What I like: The phone itself is quite light and comfortable to use. The buttons are large enough for my big fingers, and the control of menus are on par with most motorola phones. Ergonomically, the phone gets high marks. The screen is very bright when backlit, but somewhat readable in bright daylight with no backlighting. The 4096 color display truly sets it apart from competitors like the Ericsson T68 which have only a 256 color display. The higher quality of the motorola is immediately apparent. A secondary display is on the outside "flip" portion of the unit for viewing battery details and Caller ID before opening the phone to answer. Something all clam-like phones should have. The phone has removable top faceplates that are (literally) a snap to change, although the priviledge will cost you $20 for 2 additional faceplates. What I don't like: First and foremost, the battery life *stinks*. I don't know where Motorola pulled out the "270 hours standby" number, but it'll be apparent that it won't last that long. I performed several charge/discharge cycles with this phone, and the battery never made it halfway through its advertised standby time, with no calls in or out. If you are expecting this phone to be a mobile warrior only requiring sparse charging, it's time to find a different phone. Now. I mean it. Secondly, the default voice quality of the phone is absolutely terrible. Voices sound muffled and almost unrecognizable to me. While the general RECEPTION of this phone is fine, its voice quality is simply unacceptable. I've had to repeat the word "What?" more times on this phone than any other phone I have owned. However, this CAN be remedied by putting the phone in service mode and changing the vocoder to 12k. While this increases the voice quality dramatically, it does seem to cause more voice dropouts. Note: I will not tell you how to do this configuration change, as changing items in the service menu can render your phone inoperable. If you would like to persue doing this for your T720, look through http://groups.google.com in alt.cellular.verizon or alt.cellular.motorola. Don't email me asking for directions, I will promptly ignore your request. My next biggest gripe is the "Mobile Office" software. Look at Motorola's webpage, look at Verizon's webpage, and both will tell you that they are 1xRTT data capable. That's only partly true. Motorola's website even says the Data cable for the V60/V120/etc is compatible. Another half truth. The truth is, as of this writing there are NO drivers that will allow you to do any data functions on this phone. No 1xRTT express network. No truesync syncrhonization. Nothing. The drivers simply don't exist. A call to the Express Network folks called Motorola and said that the drivers should be here "in around 2 to 3 months". You want this phone for express network you say? Don't bother. It won't work not matter how hard you try. You can get the phone to be recognized by your PC using various driver tricks, but you will never establish a 1xRTT connection. Another gripe: No bluetooth? C'mon. Get with it, motorola. My last minor gripe is the belt clip. It stinks. The phone fell off of it twice while I used it, which prompted me to stop using it immediately. However, this gripe is very minor because the size of the phone makes it very pocket friendly. Bottom line: Avoid this phone. Even if you MUST have a phone that's color, e911, and express network capable, look at the new Samsung. This phone is just not worth the hassle with its poor battery life, high price, and lack of drivers. Motorola dropped the ball on this one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88228 2003/10/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 color screen big nice just about everything else readdiscover The Bottom LineNot the greatest phone, but probably one of the worst... Check it out for yourself and read this... Full Review We've all seen the TV commercials for this "stupendous" and "tech-worthy" phone of all hones, right? Ones showing all of the GREAT features and the famous Verizon phrase "Can you still hear me?" bla bla bla! It's allllll mumbo jumbo. And here's how it all started. Surely the commercials caught my eye and my Cingular plan was running out, so I had to be the first one to have this phone. Everyone was talking about it, "WOW! IT'S SO COOL!" Well... That's what they thought. After I got it with my America's Choice Plan (No roaming, 500 mins, free nights and weekends) everything was grand, GREAT even. Quickly, my phone began to instigate me. It almost was trying to get on my nerves. -Often my phone would cut out and it would say "call ended" and it would show me a phone hanging up on my screen. Now, how irritating would it be to you if you were in the middle of a big business deal and it cuts out 4 TIMES! That person isn't going to want to deal with you anymore and you can kiss your money down the drain as well as a portion of your project area. Thank you Moto... - Right in the middle of important phone calls with business associates as well as my baby, which were fuzzy almost everytime to the point of nonrecognition, the phone would shut off and ceased to turn back on. I returned the phone and they gave me a refurbished T720 with a broken antenna (you know, the phone with the wondrous retractable feature). I thought nothing of the antenna, but then a couple of weeks later, my phone stopped working, yet again. This time, I took action into my own hands and let aggression take over (my phone is in a hundred pieces, WHOOPS! :) ) Those are only a couple of the things that happened, if I were to continue with all of them I would be here all night, then probably most of the next day, seriously. Before I go on, you probably would like to hear about some of the features that this glorious phone has to offer: -Large, 4096 color screen -Bright backlight -Cool poly and mono musical and cartoonish ringtones (the phone comes with 32 preset ringtones, and there's room for another 32 that you can download with the next feature) -Get it Now! (so you can download the ringtones, trivia, restaurant info, weather programs, pictures, and much more, but it downloads pretty slow, so don't plan on calling anyone for a couple of minutes) -Voice recognition (however, it tells you to repeat the name more times than solicitors call my house, and that's around a hundred billion times a day *slight exaggeration) -iTap software that tries to predict what you're typing in and lets you select from the rest of the letters instead of typing in your whole message. Sometimes it's a pain so I just turn it off and type it in regularly, I think it's quicker that way anyways. -TTY digital capability for the hearing impaired. I, obviously, don't know how this works, but I know that my phone's got it along with tons of other phones, so it's really nothing special. -Retractable antenna, OOOOO! AHHHH! whoopity doo... -Caller ID, awesome feature that every phone made right now has. It's easily blocked with *67, which makes the person's number come up as "PRIVATE". So calling back that prank caller isn't as easy as C I D. SPECS -Average weighted phone of 4 ounces. Feels lightweight, but if you hit someone with it, wow, it hurts (I have a girlfriend who likes to throw stuff and thinks that it's funny, haha hehe owie... NOT FUNNY LADIES! :) ) -Talk Time of up to 90-225 minutes, but it's more like 60-100 minutes... Did I mention that it has a lithium ion battery! WORKS MAGNIFICENT, CAN YOU TELL! :-p -A supposed standby time of 69-343 HOURS! YEAH RIGHT! I'm lucky if I get only a few couple minute phone calls and the phone lasts me one day! Well... not even one day, like 17 hours! WOW! Sorry about my being so positive about this phone, but I think you understand why. Well, here's what the Main Screen shows pretty basic stuff: -An analog and/ or digital clock -Date (month/day/year) -Pitiful Battery, I mean, Battery Meter -Message/Voice Mail -Signal Strength meter -But the Icons that you can use are pretty neat and do a little dance for you when you select them. When you purchase your phone You will be supplied with -A T720 POS phone :) (obviously) -"High performance lithium battery" (notice the quotes...) -Car charger, well at least I got one because the lady forgot to ring it up :) SHEESH! I'm such a swindler, haha, j/k -As well as a nifty little 360 degree swivel holster with belt for you Clint Eastwood,"Make my day..." addicts. Quick draw your phone into a night by yourself... TIP:DO NOT clip your phone onto your car's visor, it will cut and deform it because it holds on so tight. Take my word for it, mine's all messed up now. Thanks phone... I paid around a hundred bucks for this phone because of the $100 rebate that I was able to connect with because I turned in my other phone. That was a neat idea, take my broken phone that's better than the phone you're selling me away... I wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone. I know that the T722 and T730 are now available, I'm not sure how those are, but if they're anything like this, which the main screen's basically the same, so I don't know how much they changed about it, stay away from the phone. Thanks for reading my Epinion! Have fun Epinioning! and check more of me out at Thanks again! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88227 2003/4/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen feature rich e911 gps motorola reputation voice quality battery life The Bottom LineA Good Wireless Handset With Plenty Of Features And Only A Few Shortcomings Full Review I'll preface this review by mentioning that I have worked in the corporate accounts department for Verizon Wireless for six years now. In this amount of time, I have seen a tremendous amount of handsets come and go. The wireless industry is definitely one where today's hot ticket item is soon to be yesterday's news. Unfortunate, but true. It ends up being a plus for manufacturers, as people are always upgrading and being forced to buy new accessories. I was initially drawn to the Epinions forum as a method to share with all of you the feedback that I receive from my large accounts on the various phones that we offer. When you begin to hear the same feedback multiple times, you know that there's validity to it. I have been partial to Motorola products over the years, dating back to the old analog 550 flip phones. I'm sure that model brings a smile to some of your faces. Inferior sound quality by today's standards, but certainly a near indestructable unit. Now, let's see what there is to the new T720. . . Features The T720 is a feature rich phone with plenty of extras. Color screen, E911 GPS capability for locating the position of the phone, 1X technology, dual caller ID displays, 500 number phone book, 33 embedded ringer tones, downloadable graphics and games, etc. Some of these have been seen before, while others are relatively new in the marketplace. The color display sets itself apart from the competition by offering a 4,096 color palette. Certainly a notch up from the standard 256 color displays out there. It looks good, no question about it. Contrast is rather nice with good color rendition. The phone is rather small when closed at 3.6" x 1.9" x 1" and a mere 4 ounces. Certainly a managable size for most anyone. There's a dual LCD display, offering the convenience of seeing who's calling before opening the phone. Once open, the internal display offers 9 lines of text in addition to icons. Much like a computer, you can change the wallpaper and screensavers to suit your liking. It should be apparent to just about everyone by now that this is the direction that cell phones are taking - a merger with computers. As time passes, you'll see more and more similarities between computers and wireless handsets. All of the more recent standards are here, such as: voice activated dialing, voice notes, 2.5mm jack for easy headset connection, web browser, vibration, etc. Definitely a feature rich phone, which nobody can deny! Performance I have not sold as many of these as I have the v60 series or the other more recent Motorola offerings, simply due to the recent release of the unit. The units that I have sold seem to keep giving me the same feedback, which remain consistent. The number one complaint I hear from everyone is the limited battery life they experience. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, the talk times and standby times have always been "lab specs". What this means to the layperson is that you can't expect to get this kind of performance on your phone. I'm definitely not supporting the trend that's occurred in the industry, just explaining it. I've found that most handsets experience at best 80% of the specified talk/standby times, while worst case scenario would be 50%. The T720 is rated at 11 days of standy time and over two hours of talk time. Well, nobody that I've spoken with has experienced this. As a matter of fact, I receive a great deal of orders for the extended life (1100ma) battery, which produces 40% more time than the standard battery that's included. The color display is inherently going to utilize more battery power than a conventional black and white LCD. The old adage, "You don't get something for nothing" applies here. One day the technology will iron itself out to the point that color displays won't suck the life out of a battery, but we're not there yet. If you're going to purchase the T720 and use it as a primary communication tool, do yourself a favor and purchase the extended life battery at the same time. You may want to buy the dual port desktop charger ($49.99 retail), which allows you to charge the phone and the additional battery at the same time. I seem to receive consistent feedback regarding the voice quality of not just the T720 model, but almost every Motorola phone we carry. I experience it myself with the Motorola that I use, which is what many refer to as a "muffled" sound. It must be inherent to the microphones that Motorola chooses to use in their equipment, given how widespread it is. I have a very deep voice, which might help the situation, but I've never had anyone complain that they can't hear me. The comments I do hear occur when I take someone off of handsfree, which is very clear, and talk directly into the phone. To be honest, I'm not terribly frustrated with the issue, because it gives me encouragement to use the headset, which I'm a big advocate of to begin with. My previous phone, which was an LG model, had the exact opposite problem: it sounded great talking into it, but rather muffled and distant while using the handsfree headset. I would recommend purchasing such a device, if you don't already own one; not only to improve the voice clarity of the T720, but also to keep your hands where they ought to be. While using my Plantronics headset on my Motorola handset, almost everyone I speak with has to turn down the volume on their end to compensate for the loud volume. I can adjust the sensitivity of the microphone down on the headset, but better to be too loud than not loud enough. Most of my customers really like the T720 overall. Once you get past the battery life issues, there's not much to dislike about the unit. I have heard from companies that have multiple types of handsets that the T720 doesn't have quite as good of a signal as the v60, for example. In a very weak area with minimal signal strength, the T720 will not be able to connect as many calls as other phones may. I would say that it is still average to above average in this respect, but certain phones seem to do a little better. I'm currently testing out a v60c and the signal strength and ability to make and receive calls is some of the best I've experienced. My home is located near the mountains in Southern California, where reception is very poor. The v60 has provided very good performance where others have failed. Conclusion You should weigh the pluses and the minuses of the T720 and decide if it's right for you. As I mentioned, if you're a heavy user, be sure you have the extended battery and either a car kit or a cig adapter to charge the phone while driving. This should be adequate enough to get through even heavy volume days, but you're most likely going to have to charge the battery every night. I make a practice out of this, regardless of capacity. It's a good habit to form. Overall, the T720 represents the next generation of phones that are introducing features that we've never seen before and should make a nice transition for many people in the market for a feature rich wireless phone. *UPDATE* There has been a software update to the Motorola T720 from version 1.02.22.17P to version 1.2.22.19C. This upgrade corrects a problem obtaining "Get It Now" applications on the handset. You can check the version on your handset by selecting: Menu > Settings > Phone Status > Other Information > S/W Version. Upgraded versions will display 1.2.22.19C. If you do not have the current software installed, visit your local Verizon Wireless retail store for either a flash upgrade or a swap out of the handset, preferrably by January 15, 2003. Unfortunately, phone book transfers are unavailable at this time. If a swap out is necessary, the stores are making an effort to be as accomodating and generous as possible. Anyone that found this review helpful and would like to sign up for Verizon service through me can send me an e-mail and I will either return the message or give you a call, whichever you prefer. RECOMMENDATION I have personally been using the Plantronics M175 headset for over a year with Motorola phones and the increased clarity that is achieved over simply talking directly into the handset may interest many readers. To view my full review on this accessory please visit the link below or search for other reviews by "jonwes": Recommended: Yes 88226 2007/1/10 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Product Rating4.0 awesome features great reception color screen lots of extras battery life o er The Bottom LineTerrific phone. Sucks for all the big-time yappers like me. Great sound quality, easy to use, durable, great extras. All around great phone! :o) Full Review Well, it seemed like life couldn't get any worse. 3 women in the house and 1 cellphone. We has the Cingular Wireless plan, and a Nokia - let me tell you, a DINOSAUR. All of those crazy nights where we'd have to fight about how we all needed the cell, and the discussions on who would be coming home the latest, who needed to check-in the most, and whose friends had cellphones so that they could use theres. That's why my sister and I got brand new cellphones for Christmas. My mother and father went to the Verison Wireless store, and got the Verizon wireless plan, 2 phones, for $500. That';s not that bad of a deal. My sister recieved the Motorola 120e, where I happily got the Motorola T720 silver flip phone. Dispite the issues about how jealous she is, it isn't that bad of a phone. Features The phone isn't that bad of a size. It's a little bulky then what I'm used to, because the Nokia was lengthy. The Motorola T720 is wide and lengthy. The measurements are 3.6 x 1.9 x 1 and it weighs about 4 ounces. Since I bought the leather case for $9.99, it's a little heavier. It's small enough to carry in a medium size purse, but it is big enough to hold up to your ear. I don't know how people can hear with those tiny little phones. I need something bigger. The phone seems pretty durable. I don't have insurance because it would be $5 a month, $60 a year, and that would buy me a pair of Z. Cavaricci's - and I'm pretty responsible. Anyway, I dropped this phone about 3 times already..hardwood floor, rug and outside in snow. I wiped it off with a papertowel and it was fine. (Get a leather case...or suck it up for insurance.) On the outside of the phone, their is a tiny screen where you can see who's calling, the battery life, what area you are in (roam,home,etc.) and a service indicator. This is very helpful. Sometimes certain parts of houses don't recieve any service, and it is a simple way to see if you have it or not. I also love how you can see who is calling or not. (Eh - let them leave a voicemail.) :o) When you open the phone you see a nice bright color screen. It's a nice size. You have selections of things to choose from - Settings - You can personalize your backgroung, colors, screen saver, how long the blacklight should be on, status light, etc. Ring Settings About 32 different ringers, 5 Vibrate options. Their is also 5 different ring settings to choose from. They are Silent, Vibrate, Vibrate and Ring, Loud or Soft. You can also download ringtone's on Get It Now. Get it now This is where you can use your airtime minutes and get games, ringtones, pictures, and fun features. Games & other fun activities are cool to use as demos, but I really can't afford the $4-8 dollars to actually buy them. I bought a ringtone for $1.99 off of Modtones, but I'm a broke teenager, and if I buy any extras, I pay for it. Message Center Easy way to access how many voicemails, text messages, anything else that you have. Media Center View pictures you have on the phone and view the ring tones you have downloaded. You can also make your own MIDI files. Voicenotes Forgetful? Press the button on the side of your phone and leave yourself a voicenote. Good voice quality and this feature has helped me out many times. Calculator Hmm..I wonder.. Datebook Plan dates, very easy to access and to put in information. It's so quick and easy to use that I use it very frequently. My life is on a phone. Web Browser Waste money by going on the Internet. I've used this before - I've wasted money and airtime, and it's just pointless to me. Go on a computer. Phonebook Lucky you, if you have friends, you can store up to 500 numbers. They have a "ringer IDs" where you can set a ringtone to a person to know who is calling. I seperated mine into boys, girls, and adults. Keypad Features The size and places of the keys are really good. It took me a little getting used to because I was so used to the simplistic Nokia dinosaur. They have a little joystick like keypad and 3 buttons above it. One is like the "menu" button and the two other navigate around (usually to press Select or Back) Then, on the right there is a green button to start/answer calls. On the left is a green button to end the call. Voice Quality Going from Cingular Wireless, ANYTHING is better. On Cingular, I could never hear anything, the reception was horrible, and it didn't even sound like the person's voice. The antenna comes out easily, the voice quality is great, and the reception is great. As I told you above, you can see how it is going to be by looking at the service indicator. Even when my service indicator was very low, I still got fantastic quality and sound. Also, I have called to Florida, it works wonderfully. A in this department. I'm impressed. Battery Life This feature SUCKS. Let me tell you, the dinosaur won this event. I talk A LOT. I'm ALWAYS on the phone. Since I have free nights and weekends, this is my life. Standby time also sucks. If I don't make any calls, my battery is down by one level (there is three) in about six hours. My phone is dead in double. If I make phone calls, it's even worse. I really need to get the extended battery pack, but can someone please tell me why they didn't put that in there in the first place? I don't want to buy insurance, and I don't feel like buying a battery! It takes forever to charge. This is the only drawback of this phone! Accessories Their are many accessories. I have a leather case, I have a phone cover underneath (just incase if the leather happens to come off) and a car jack. The leather case was $9.99 on sale, the phone covers were a gift - they usually are 2 covers for $20.00 and the car jack was $10.99 on sale. They have clock chargers, battery doors, and headsets, but I am not interested, so I'm not going to tell you about them. Overall I'm i m p r e s s e d. I love this phone. I hate the battery, but I love the phone. No more war zone battles, the reception is great, the size is decent, the battery sucks but in the end... it's worth the money. * The amount below - $500- is for 2 phones. Mine and the Motorola 120e. We got a deal. * Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500.000Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88225 2003/7/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality appearance lightweight ring tones screen smudges The Bottom LineThis sleek little unit offers the quality of the Motorola name and allows for calls to be heard by all involved Full Review While this review is listed under the Motorola 720, mine has grown a ONE and the phone that I love is the Motorola T721. First and foremost, the T721, which just recently became available from AT&T is a cosmetic upgrade from the T720 and contains no major changes to the phones integrity and quite simply is a T720. Start Here ! The T721 is like the T720 and is primarily serviced by AT&T and operates under the Next Generation Service or GSM. Over the past few weeks of handling this unit, I have found it to be a superior choice and has met all of my expectations. Specifications: Weight: 3.56 ounces Dimensions: 3.54 inches tall x 1.87 inches wide x .98 inches thick Battery: mAh lithium-ion Digital Talk Time: up to 6.5 hours Digital Standby Time: up to 230 hours Warranty: 1 year on phone and accessories (limited to defects in material and workmanship) Technology: GSM/GPRS 850/1900 MHz Java support for application downloads Large color display External display Changeable color covers Animated/customizable icon menu Polyphonic ring tones - 32 pre-set and up to 32 downloadable ring tones in midi or imelody format Voice dialing - up to 15 tags Voice command - up to 15 tags (pulls from same 15 as voice dialing EMS and SMS Pre-set games Vibracall vibrating alert ITAP™ Predictive text Wallpapers, screensavers and color palettes for personalization Zoom feature for screen Phonebook - up to 500 entries Currency converter Calculator Calendar EOTD TTY compatible Ready, Get Set....Call Upon opening the box you will find a little more than just the phone itself. Included, is a wall charger, headphone, and belt clip. The earpiece and headphone are quite comfortable and perfect for allowing the phone to ride on the seat next to you while driving down the highway. Overall the clarity and reception do not suffer while using the headphone and was also confirmed by persons who I have been speaking with. The belt clip is a flimsy plastic swivel clip which is not the most secure method for the phone to travel. I have found that the phone is easily knocked out of the clip and can be difficult to answer when carried in this manner. I would suggest that if you prefer to carry your phone on your belt that you search for a more secure body glove type carrier to both protect the phone and ensure that it stays in place. Setting up the phone is quite easy, but should you need assistance the box contains a 218-page manual. The factory cover is a brushed sliver both front and back, but several convertible covers are available to allow you to personalize your phone. Clarity has been perfect and without failure to date, and recipients of my calls have made similar comments to the overall quality of the call. Up and Running Once the phone is fully personalized with the myriad of your friends and families home phone numbers, email addresses, and cell numbers you will find a bright and colorful display containing the current date and time, battery strength, signal strength, and the four primary menu options. Tapping the large scroll button found on the phone allows you to quickly access your phone book, message center, calendar, or games. Also, this main screen allows for quick changes to your phones style or jumping right into all the mMode features offered by AT&T. Each of the buttons on this unit is large and offers absolute assurance that by tone and the all-important actual feel of the depression of the key you wanted to push. Setting up your phone book is as simple as typing in the name and phone number, and if you prefer voice activation for speed dialing. The fun part is selecting the type of ringer for each of the contacts that you have entered, and the ringer selection installed on the phone is quite extensive. The unit also contains a fairly extensive calendar function, which allows you to set appointments and reminders or simply use it as an alarm clock. You also have options to set the zoom, contrast, color and timing of the backlight to meet your preference for the viewing of the screen. Sending a text message by means of the ITAP system allows for quick and simple typing or inserting a picture or ring tone. Battery life has been excellent for my usage, the current cycle has been a full charge twice a week (about four hours) and Im in great shape. In order to better clarify, I utilize the phone for approximately 125 minutes a week, several visits to my calendar functions, and between two to three hits on the e-mail and/or text functions. The unit come installed with two games, Motocross and Breakout, neither game is much to speak about, but I have found myself wasting a few moments while sitting in traffic. Nothing is perfect.... Well the truth is very clear and yes this little unit does have a few minor concerns. If you're into true polyphonic ringers, this unit comes up a little short. The pre-loaded tones are enjoyable and downloadable versions are not much better. I carry my phone in either a suit pocket and pants pocket and even at the loudest setting can at times be difficult to hear. The vibrating ringer does not compare to other phones I have used which give you a little jolt during those private times, this unit is more of a slight buzz. The biggest issue I have is the screen after using the phone. YES I do clean my ears, but no matter what, the screen and surrounding area become smudged and require minor polishing. Maybe this is simply a personal issue, but nonetheless it is annoying. Lastly, the phone is very light and appears to be made of low impact plastics, while I have yet to drop this unit, I am not thinking it will handle the spill quite well. Hanging UP... While it is time to hang up this review, I am a true fan of this unit and proud to say that I made the correct choice from the myriad of phones that one could select. It is lightweight and simple to carry, but most of all a phone is meant to enjoy a conversation with another, and this phone is a perfect companion. Feel free to call me anytime ! AT&T Review Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 88224 2003/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 aesthetics gadgets battery life The Bottom LineHello Moto - I think I love you. Full Review After having a multitude of problems with the Gestapo of cell phone companies - Sprint. My boyfriend and I cancelled our service and headed over to Verizon to see what they could offer. There were a few things my boyfriend definitely knew he wanted to have - a scheduler, a calculator, and the ability to have multiple listings for one person. He got all that and more in the Motorola T720. From what I understand, Motorola has always been an innovator in cell phone technology and offer what is the newest, coolest and hopefully the best products on the market. My first thoughts upon seeing the sleek little T720 is that it was "cute" but not so cute that a man wouldn't want to carry it. It looks high tech with the standard silver casing (the face place can be swapped out for 5 other color choices) and I liked the fact that it also had an external caller id. For some reason, when I felt the phone - it felt like it was a bit heavier than other phones we had used in the past. At 4.0 ounces - it's not a heavyweight by any means, but it does have some substance to it. Opening the phone I was immediately impressed by the sharp color display and size of the buttons. It seems that as time progresses and cell phones get smaller and smaller, you have to be 4 years old to press the buttons and not make mistakes - not so with the T720. The color screen is fairly large, very crisp and easy to read. OoooOOo Gadgets Moto You know when you get a new gadget and you just want to play with it and figure out all the cool things that it's capable of doing? You can't really do that with the T720. It is imperative that you read the manual because the features on this phone are mind-boggling. While you can follow the basic navigation looking at the screen - because there are a myriad of navigational buttons, you need to read the manual to figure everything out. In addition to your standard navigation button there are a few other buttons that require time and patience to sort through. Once you've taken the time to figure it all out - everything seems logical and efficient. The T720 is also capable of accessing the internet and is able to download games as well. Those functions will probably cost an additional fee - so check with your provider. - Go Go Gadget Features The T720 has a whole host of features and you still have to read the book. Amongst the cool things it has the ability to do are two-way text messaging, fm radio, and internet browser. Within your phone there is a personal information manager where you can use the date book and alarm, calculator, and currency converter - if you need that type of thing. One of the coolest features of the T720 is the GPS or Global Positioning System. This allows your cell phone service providers to track you in the event that you or lost or need a little help and direction. It could also help you if you were an international spy of some sort. Within your personal phonebook you have the ability to put 500 numbers which allows for multiple entries for each persons home phone, cell phone, fax, pager and email address. We all know how fun it is to hear the sounds a phone makes and the T720 is no exception. It has 33 embedded ringer tones, 32 customizable ringer tones as well as 5 vibrating alerts. In addition to that the T720 has 40 level Midi that allows you to create your own ring types if you so desire. Because the T720 has such a crisp color screen - viewing photos and images are really nice. You hvae the ability to change the screen that you view on your phone as well changing the greeting. The trendy little phone also has screensavers that you can change to suit your taste. The phone also comes with a lame holster that I would recommend that not use just for the lame factor that it possesses. Downsides While the T720 is a powerhouse of a cell phone - the color display (and perhaps all of the specs) suck the battery life dry. You can buy the car charger ( we got ours for about $30), which features a rapid charge function that allows you to charge the phone to capacity in about 45 minutes. Other than that and the tricky navigation the T720 is a dream. It's sleek, pretty and fun to use as long as you don't use the devil corporation (also known as Sprint) you should be good to go. Boring Specs -3.6" x 1.9" x 1" - The size of the T720 -4.0 ounces - total weight of the phone. -130 minutes - the amount of "talk time" -Mode Type - Tri-Mode Digital -Battery - Standard Lithium Ion (750 mAH) -Standby Time - Up to 287 hours (Digital) (specs taking from www.verizonwireless.com) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 88223 2000/11/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size features etc cool factor color screen holster problems menu navigation short battery life The Bottom LineYou must see it to believe it... Full Review After owning and promptly getting rid of an Ericsson T19LX, I settled on the newer and sleeker StarTAC ST7868. That phone lasted an amazing two years...just long enough to allow for a new plan and new, free phone. Yes, I did say free. The day my plan was renewed and I purchased a new phone seven individuals in my group were doing the same thing. As a result of this group endeavor, we were given the privilege of choosing any Verizon phone free of change. I was already accustomed to pithy amounts of battery life, and when asking about the Motorola T720 I discovered that despite the many complaints about talk time that it was indeed better than my StarTAC. Therefore, I wouldn't be disappointed with that part of the phone. The rest of the specs looked kosher, I liked the looks of the screen and the phone, and it was free. So the Motorola T720 is now a part of my purse arsenal. Initial Impression Without question, the main draw of this cell phone is the large-ish color display. It's easy to see with crisp details and 4096 colors. It is likely to catch any onlooker's eye. The sleek silver casing and miniscule dimensions also are appealing. The screen holds up to 9 lines of text and a single line of icons. Users may personalize phones in multiple ways from changing the color scheme to relating specific ringtones to certain callers. In addition, for an extra charge ($25 for two) owners can have different faceplates in colors ranging from green, blue, and red (my personal favorite) to tie-dye. The size is minimal at just 3.6" x 1.9" x 1" when folded, smaller than my StarTAC. This is a flip phone, but a LCD screen on the outside of the unit will alert you to any incoming calls with the built-in caller ID feature. In addition, the small size also allows for it to be just 4 ounces. There are smaller phones on the market, but this one is about the smallest one with a color display. Battery Life As far as that aforementioned battery life issue, the manufacturer specs allow for 130 minutes digital talk time and 287 hours of standby. In using the phone, I've found these numbers to be accurate though I'm not the most avid of cell users. With that said, the phone comes complete with a 750mAh lithium-ion battery. For a mere $59.99 more, extra active talkers can pick up a larger battery for an additional 4 hours of talk time. The box comes complete with a wall charger, but a rapid-charging car charger (which I purchased) cost an additional $29.99...though this was no big issue because of the price of the phone. Features The Motorola T720 has a number of additional features. Of course, it includes voice mail capability and two-way text messaging. Also featured are Internet browsing, voice activated dialing, text-entry software, PIM software (alarm, calculator, datebook), 500 number phonebook with multiple entries per name, 33 ringer tones and five vibrating alerts. For an extra few dollars (I'm cheap so I don't have the service), uses may actually use that Internet browser, download new ring tones, download wallpapers and screensavers, and download games. Included in the box are the wall charger, holster, manual, and actual phone. In the case of emergency, the T720 has an embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chip that allows for the E911 location safety feature and for added location features. That E911 will assist vehicles and rescue workers in finding you in emergency situations. The Downside(s) While I adore my Motorola T720, there are a few issues that need to be address. The menu system was difficult to master. Without referencing the users manual, it took about a half an hour to figure out how to add phone numbers, change my wallpaper, change ringtones, and various other basic tasks. It took nearly as long to re-locate the options on the second time around. Then there is the issue of the battery. Personally, this is a non-issue considering the shoddy life of my StarTAC. But there are more robustly powered phones out there like Motorola V60i. Then again, there are phones out there with even worse battery life. The holster could have also used some extra thought. I'm sure that they changed it so that it didn't open up so easily to prevent accidental calls and the like. But in doing so, it's become necessary to actually remove the phone from its resting place to make a call. This makes my husband none-too-happy. I, on the other hand, do not use the holster. And then there is the price...Since mine was free, I can't complain. For $250, it is reasonable, but not within my means. For $250 plus the $100 mail-in rebate, it's a must-buy. In a few months, it will probably be even less expensive. Final Notes As a cell phone user, I recommend the Motorola T720. It's a beautiful, easy to carry, and fun phone. While there are issues with battery life and usability, it's difficult to complain much... Rating: 4/5 stars Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 7734 Motorola C332 88361 2003/10/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 decent reception size cheap frame cover technical issues ring tones cannot be heard extremely poor battery life This phone is the biggest piece of junk that I have ever used. After having owned three of them (T-Mobile kept mailing me a new one after the old one would not charge) I experienced the same problems with each phone. I would charge the phone for over 24 hours, attempt to make a quick, 5 minute phone call, and the phone would start beeping "Low Battery". Other problems involved the screen freezing, ring tones that cannot be heard, and you can forget about using vibrate. Even attempting to use it and the battery would die immediately. I am completely unhappy with this phone and would not recommend it to anyone! 88360 2003/10/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 cheap cool ring tones low battery cheap quality too small bad reception My boyfriend and I switched to this phone from Nokia. I have always heard good things about Motorola phones so we tried it. This phone is awful! It worked for about the first two months and that was about it. I have had both phones for less than a year and had to exchange both and they still do not work. I can charge the thing all night, turn it on in the morning, make one call and it says I have a low battery. This phone has an internal battery so you can't do anything about it. Also, it doesn't work in a lot of places and the ring is too low. It is a flimsy phone and the case comes off to easy! 88359 2003/10/20 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none fragile bad software 4 out of 4 phones defective within 6 months I bought this phone for my son 6 months ago. The phone looks cute and packed with features. Beware - it is A BAD CHOICE! It broke 4 times in 6 months - faulty battery (twice), did not read from the SIM card and would not respond to keyboard. T-Mobile replaced it three times promising a better version every time but never delivered anything different. I am writing to T-Mobile to replace the phone with another make and model. I'll never buy a Motorola in my life again! 88358 2004/1/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it was free too many to list This is my 5th phone over the last 4/5 years, and this is the worst I've had. You would think that technology would get better, but not with this phone. Battery life allows for 2 calls before dying after a full charge. Forget standby life, there is none. Got this phone free from a family plan that my wife and I share. Problems persist with BOTH phones, so its not an isolated case. Reception is deplorable and the thing is downright ugly. Stay away from this phone - pay a bit more for convenience and reliability. 88357 2004/3/9 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 that s it free poor battery life cheap software issues Remember this old proverb, "nothing is for free." Well it's true. This was a free phone and it became very apparent why is was free. Cheap construction, software issues, EXTREMELY poor battery life, and bad reception all plague this piece of garbage. Think twice before you turn your tastes to "free." 88356 2004/1/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 a few cool screen savers that s all memory problems lost phone s frequently loses power charging problems fragile A perfect example of "you get what you pay for." The is a lower priced phone offered by T-Mobile. Within two months erratic power problems. After recharging all night, phone would lose power after one or two phone calls. Other times it was fine. Now seven, months later, all stored phone numbers have disappeared and been lost, and the phone does not ring. Retailer refused to replace but T-Mobile is replacing. Makes me want to stay away from all Motorola products despite their rep. A family member also had same phone and had to have replaced. Buyer beware! 88355 2003/11/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 okay sound quality it s generally free flimsy quality horrendous battery life A bit of background: I work for a major mobile provider. I've used just about every phone we support. When your phone breaks, I'm the one you call to have it replaced under warranty. And I think I've spoken with more C332 users than those of any other phone. There are so many things that go wrong with this phone. First and foremost, the battery. I've never heard of another phone's battery completely dying after three months. Three months, and the handset is perpetually banished to the end of a charger cord. In terms of features, it would've been a great phone three years ago. The technology has gone so much further that you can get a phone with a color screen for free with many providers. The physical quality of the phone is terrible. It feels like if you push a button too hard, it'll snap off. Definitely not a quality piece of equipment. Heaven forbid you drop the thing. In terms of sound quality, it's not that bad. I've certainly heard better, but I've also heard worse. In summation - Run. Stay as far away from this phone as you possibly can. 88354 2003/12/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size good features no antenna battery life ringer volume I got my C332 about a year ago and it is still working very well. To note, there are a few things about the phone that I wasn't too happy about. The battery life isn't great. I can charge it fully and have it turned on all day, but it needed to be recharged that evening. Another problem is that the ringer is not very loud. I had to listen to the selection of ring tones to find the one that rang the loudest. I found that the classic ring tone works the best. Overall, however, I have been satisfied with the phone. The keypad lock feature works well. Reception is not bad at all, and the earpiece volume is loud enough even with the windows of my car rolled down. After reading the reviews, I feel that I must have got the gem of the group, since my phone is still working well after a year. Would I recommend this phone? Well, since my phone has worked well, I am happy. However, the norm for this phone seems to be negative, so I guess my answer to this question would be NO, I do not recommend it. 88353 2004/8/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 etc rubber side grips calendar small size large phone book capacity 400 no alarm clock I am tired of everyone talking so bad about this phone. It's a great little phone PACKED full of cool menus and options! I've had mine for about 1 1/2 years and only paid about $20.00 for it through Cingular. 88352 2004/8/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 pocketable small small bad battery I got this phone because I wanted something small that would fit in my pocket, and it was free. I've had no significant problem with sound quality or the buttons. My problems are in other areas. 1. Too darned small for talking without headset. The "mouth piece" hits me mid cheek and rubs funny. Plus I can't just cock between my ear and shoulder like I could with some of my older, bigger phones. 2. Sometimes is too quiet. Maybe it's the hands free or it's the phone, but I sometimes have trouble hearing people on it, even with the volume cranked up. 3. Battery, battery, battery. Can get the charge complete message, use it for 1 30 minute call, and it says it has 1/3 power left. I'm not sure if it's a read out problem or what. I got 2 hours of usage out of it once, but now anything more than an hour and I'm risking dropped call. I've heard there's a problem with the software that causes it to overcharge and kill the battery life, but that doesn't really help me. 88351 2003/10/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 features i really love the phone looks volume on custom rings is poor battery life is shorter than your pinky Free C332 from T-Mobile with known battery problems, although they don't tell you that as you are buying into your 1yr contract. This thing has NO battery life. I went through 4 before I finally got one that held about 2 minutes longer than the last 3. I have to admit though, I LOVE this phone and its features. Even after I complained and they sent me a completely different phone (nokia), I loved this one so much, I put up with the bad battery life! I just keep it on the charger, and can do that since I'm home so much. 88350 2003/11/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 has a lot of crap you wont use cute small bad reception ring volume batteries short life span cheap plastic junk This phone was really "neat" when I first got it. Then it started to drop calls constantly, the keys would either stick or wouldnt work. The phone would only function when it really felt like it, calls often missed completely. The ring tone is cool, but its not loud enough to hear. The vibrate feature worked on and off. Overall this phone stinks. So I called T-mobile to get a replacement. No problem, they send out another C332. Within one month, the phone wont work with the car charger, won't charge completely, wont hold a call, starts making funny noises when it dials. I am not hard on phones, I had a Nokia for almost 2 years and it lasted forever and was still running perfect when I had stopped using it and switched to T-Mobile. So called T-Mobile again, and they suggest replacing the phone with a V66. So far no problems with the new phone. Crossing my fingers... Throw away the C332 88349 2004/7/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 small cute small buttons drops calls non stop problems bad reception I have stood by Motorola products for 10 years until this phone! Both my mother and I purchased this same phone and with both had problem after problem. The phone looks cute and that probably has to be the ONLY plus for the phone. When I had this phone it dropped more calls than probably all of the phones I have had over the last 10 years combined. Half of the time with the volume all of the way up you could not hear the person you were talking to without strain. The buttons are tiny making dialing a wrong number a common problem. When I was 16 I became a part of the cell phone industry from the retail and wholesale ends so I know how phones are supposed to work and when there is a real problem with a product as opposed to getting a lemon. This MODEL of Motorola is a lemon, not just the phone I had. I am posting this for one reason only... I hope if you are reading this you will not purchase this model phone and I hope that this can keep you from wasting your time, energy, money, and patience. 88348 2004/5/14 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it s free pretty much everything else well This phone seems to good to be true... and it is. The truth about this phone is, well, that it sucks and blows at the same time. The battery life is terrible, reception is awful, and I'm surprised if and when I can actually hear my phone ringing! Please beware, do not get this phone, it may be free, but you get what you pay for. 88347 2000/8/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 blue bg color nice compact size buttons can be a bit tricky battery easily overcharged The Bottom LineFor people who don't use their cell phone often and do not need to constantly run the battery down, excellent choice! Full Review I got this phone with T-mobile under a family plan. The phone came free, which was a definite plus. I liked the fact that the screen backlighting wasn't the standard green that comes on most free phones. However, I had one major problem:whenever I used a hands free earpiece I got so much buzzing feedback that at times I had to hang up and call back to try and make it better. The buzzing was so loud that sometimes I couldn't even hear what the other person was saying. The person I was speaking to also heard the buzzing. This phone, while nicely compact and easily navigable, has a serious battery issue as well. For people who use their cell phone a lot, THIS IS NOT THE CHOICE FOR YOU. After 2 months, during which I used the phone for many hours (also as a modem for my laptop), the battery overcharged to the point where I could get about 15 seconds of a connected call in before the phone turned off. For people who talk a lot and don't want to have to plug and unplug the phone every so often, this can be a real problem. One of the best things about this phone is the ability to use it as a modem. Drivers can be found online (not at the motorola website though). The most difficult art of setting this phone up as a modem is finding the correct usb wire. I was lucky and found that the usb cable i had for my canon powershot s40 was the correct size for the phone. I am able to go online through my phone while in the car, using it as a wireless modem. Another nice feature of this phone is the simplicity of the composer. Many people want to have a ringtone that they are able to identify as their own unique ring. Many places charge to give you a ring tone. However, for anyone who is able to read music or has any musical knowlege and can follow the provided directions can write any ringtone that comes to mind. I've written about 20 ringtones, from famous melodies to current radio songs. Recommended: Yes 88346 2002/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small polyphonic ring tones sleek style musical rings not loud enough The Bottom LinePrice, and size. Clarity is excellent, and best no stupid antenna sticking out. Full Review My phone looks like the first one in the graphic, square with no antenna. Upgrading from a TDMA Ericsson KF 788. The phone is the smallest and lightest I've had yet. The trim around the outside is metal and if you are the type with dry hands be careful it's easy to drop. They should have made it rubber. Polyphonic ring tones are sooooo cool, but many are to quiet to be heard. On busy streets you'll be lucky to hear them, so keep the vibrate mode on as-well. sometimes just the standard ring is best. Probably the two most notable features of this phone are the ability to access the Internet and the built in 3 games. First the games, can you say joke, these look like first generation prototype game-boy. Unless your at the coffee shop and your friend is like 3 hours late these games are boring and lame. Second the Internet, well if you like all text based browsing, and since I don't travel I am hardly ever stuck to find a restaurant, nor do I need to know the weather when I'm standing at a bus stop, or need to access my horoscope. A bunch of other things can be done such as stock market updates and banking services, but your thumb quickly gets tired of pressing these small buttons and I feel I can wait till I get home and use my computer there. In my opinion these 2 features are a waste, and since internet acess is like $20 extra a month to have a decent amount of download ability once my 2 months of free trial are up I will opt out. Messages are separated into easy to manage categories. Ring tones can be customized to each person stored in your phone book and entries can be sorted into categories such as general, personal, business, etc.. The phone has a USB jack on the bottom for downloading graphics, ring tones and other data, but you have to buy a USB cable separately. This can also be done with the phones built in browser, but subscribing to that feature may be costly. Buttons are easy to press unless your browsing the web, then the small buttons become tiresome quickly, and like some other reviews stated I needed to press some twice before it responded. Text is easy to read and the back light works well, in a dark room it makes a surprising amount of light. The back-light can be adjusted to stay on for up to 20 seconds. Battery charging is quick and you get a solid days use, I don't mind the battery being built in because by the time the battery shows signs of not holding a charge there will be a whole new slew of even cooler phone to jazz me. From my understanding and reading this phone leans to the entry level. No color screen and some others have a more MS Windows like look to the display. I did some sound tests also. I set the phone face down on a desk surface and used my radio shack sound level meter and placed it 1 meter away from the phone slightly higher than the desk surface pointing directly at the phone and 1 by 1 went through the rings and recorded the readings and came up with this. Chimes hi and classic were about equal at 69db. The rest decrease from mid 60's down to 54db. For a fully detailed chart in PDF format email blackgtz@shaw.ca Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 63 88345 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 cheep price etc animated menus pretty light whitish blue backlight color clear sound keypad internal battery slow response in menus low speakerring sounds etc The Bottom LineIt is overally a good phone, I'm the kind of person who cares a lot about everything about a phone.. But it is at least a pretty good entry-level phone. Full Review Hey u all, first I'm gonna give u instructions on how to turn the greeting and shutdown sounds off (when u turn it on/off). The only way i found was to do the following: Go to Main Menu --> Ring Styles --> Change the alert mode to Silent --> Go to Silent Detail (there u can change the items to ur favourite alerts) so it'll be as if u have it on LOUD RING... (eg. change the RING VOL, CALLS RINGTONE, TXTMSG, etc.) Now if u turn it on or off, u'll not hear any annoying sounds! :D ***************** Here's wut i think about this phone: I don't actually have much to say, i just wanted to teach u how to turn those sounds off, besides its only 2 days i've got the phone. So anyways: Pros: I think as an upgrade from Motorola T-193 (such a creepy phone) to this phone, menus are so much better, the price was good so I wouldn't really bother going thru the phone's details. The phone is pretty light, and I just love the backlight colour (i think its quite similiar to Nokia 8390). I think Motorola could do better, but overall its a good choice and I WOULD recommend it to ppl who ain't looking for a VERY pro phone. Cons: Like many other people said, there is a bit of slow response seen in the menus when u go thru them. However, i think its not a big deal, and u'll gradually get used to it. Keypad is sometimes a bit hard to work with, but thats also something u'll eventually get used to. The only considerable thing is that the ringtones are mostly low and u wont hear them in a CROWDED place. But if u put the ringtone to a standard one, u WILL be sort of OK. The other thing was the earpiece volume which is just a bit lower than what i was expecting. But its all good! My other concern was "Why would Motorola make an internal battery which is built-in?" I mean the whole point in having an EXTERNAL battery is if it gets damaged u can change it w/ a new one. Anyways, because the battery is internal, I think if u care a lot about battery life, the most u can get out of this phone is 1 year to 1 year and a half (?)... THATS JUST MY OPINION, it might be wrong! Anyways, hope this gives u some good clues about the phone (don't worry so much about the cons, every single phone out there has a few cons!). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): around $30 88344 2000/11/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 size screen gprs data reception usb connection battery life kinda cheap feel single band The Bottom Lineif you are on a budget, this is the phone for you. it is feature rich and has very nice design! Full Review i destroyed my samsung n105. i have secretly wanted to for some time, but it met with it's final accident. so, time to get a new phone. however, due to limited resources i had to find one for under a hundred dollars. i am not mr. belvedere you know. i went into my local friendly t-mobile store to look at new phones. i told them what i needed."a small, user friendly phone with good games, gprs and more that 2 hours talk time. oh and it has to be under a hundred bucks". i paused and waited for the laughter. but there was none. instead the saleswoman pointed me to the motorola c332. i cringed somewhat. it was cool looking enough. simple clean design. however, the thoughts of motorola's nasty, cruddy user interface was almost enough to make me say, nevermind. but i was desperate for a phone that fit my budget so i took it. i am oh so glad that i did. motorola has much improved their user interface, making it almost as dreamy as any nokia. this was a major hurdle for them in my book. the screen is clear and crisp. the backlight has even been improved since those v120 days. the shape of the phone is very ergonomical, with the earpeice having a nice comfortable convexness that is like a little pillow on your ear. i find talking for an hour our so is alright and does not cause the pain of a nokia 3390, even thought the c332 is slightly smaller in size. the reception is just as good as my samsung n105 (which was also held signal very well) and the battery so far seems to last about 4.5 hours, which is really nice too. it may not ahve a color screen or a camera, but it has some cool games to help you occupy some downtime. overall, t-mobile has picked another great entry level phone and if you do not mind me saying, they are the best cellular company round. having had , literally, all other companies services i am most happy with t-mo's customer care, call quality and data plans. oh and if you have $300 to drop on a new phone the samsung s105 with the color screen are awesome! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88343 2000/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to customize easy menu setup gprs enabled short battery life long run performance The Bottom LineWith its variety of colors and fun features, it is a great handset for the younger consumer. Full Review Motorola launched the C332 with T-Mobile in September as a new youth oriented model to replace the now outdated T193 handset. With a new focus on improving their product line's quality and style, this lower-tier handset shows a marked improvement on its earlier releases in the same price range. Design and Appearance The C332 is formed in a peanut shape, coming with a white body and a blue wrap surrounding its edge. Personally, when I received my handset, I was not impressed with the initial appearance. But, not to fear, I did find that the C332 has a wide variety of faceplates available for it, making it easy to customize however you may like. This is something that has not been common for most Motorola phones, an I feel it is a definite plus. The handset has an average sized display, which is backlit with a whitish blue background. The phone is all plastic, which does make it very light and easy to carry, but it is so lightweight, it almost feels fragile, and I think there maybe some concerns with durability if you are rough on your handset. Features and Interface If you have ever used any other recent Motorolas such as the V60 or V66, you will find that the C332 is identical in its menus and navigation. This made me feel like the C332 was a great value in the fact that it plays like one of those higher priced models, but at a much lower price. The C332 is also GPRS enabled, allowing the user to utilize T-Mobile's T-Zones wireless internet service, which is definitely fun to play with. The phone also has a vibrating battery, and voice activated dialing, which are both good features to have. Battery and Performance The most interesting characteristic of the C332 that I have seen is its internal battery. When speaking to a representative from Motorola, he said that the C332 was designed to be a phone that will last the user about a year before they replace the handset. Most batteries, be it internal or external, will have a one year lifespan, depending on the owner's charging habits. I personally go through several phones, so this does not effect me, but if you are looking for a phone that will last you for a while, this might not be the handset for you. The battery meter is definitely different from the your usual phone, as the meter will move down at a much faster pace, but don't panic, its battery should give you about 2.5 to 3 hours of talk time. The C332 has an internal antenna, which does perform admirably, but for those who will be using their phone in enclosed areas and large buildings, I highly recommend looking to a handset that offers an external antenna instead. The C332 is a nice starter phone for a younger user who enjoys customizing their phone, but for those looking for a longterm wireless phone, I would recommend looking at a different model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 88342 2000/10/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 free small nice looking poor reception ring tonescheap casing battery life The Bottom LineSTAY AWAY FROM THIS PHONE AT ALL COST! Full Review I have had a number of cell phones and this phone is by far the worst ever. First of all, the Battery life is horrible. Usually I talk less than an hour and 10 mins before the phone is completely dead. Also the battery meter does not work. After I fully charge the battery, within the first few mins of using it the battery meter shows its only 1/3 charged. Sometimes the battery will not fully charge when you leave it on the charger and just stops charging at 2/3's full. In addition, the ring tones are very soft even at max volume and I often miss calls. And never drop this phone because it will shatter into pieces! The casing for this phone is very cheap. The plastic is so thin the back light for the keys shines through the plastic. Also I get very poor reception with this phone. I have service with T-mobile and they agree this is not a good phone and there are major problems with the battery life and battery meter yet they refuse to replace the phone with a different one. They just keep sending the same model. I am now on my 3rd Motorola C332 and the only thing I can say about the phone is its very consistant it the many problems it has! Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88341 2000/3/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 voice activated dialing confusing usability poor battery life The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone. You can find a hip and trendy phone with better battery life Full Review I have had two Nokia phones before purchasing the Motorola C332 with my T-Mobile Service, and have come to expect a minimal level of cell phone performance. Both my husband and I have the C332, and both of our phones have major battery problems. We are lucky if the charge holds for one day with moderate use (2 15-minute calls). A decent battery life is, in my opinion, one of the key features of a decent cell phone, so we were really disappointed to have such poor performance in that area. The usability of the phone is also something that I'm not really that pleased with. First, the select buttons on the left and right of the screen protrude enough to become easily depressed if the phone is inside a purse or laid face down. As a result, my phone often tries to "connect to the t-mobile network" until I realize that it's doing so. Of course, this drains my battery right down to nothing, so I have to recharge the phone to use it. Secondly, if you want to turn the phone on, you have to depress and hold the hang up button, which seem really counter-intuitive. Also, either turning the phone on or off involves depressing the "Hang up" button just the right number of seconds. Sometimes, when turning the phone on, I end up turning it off again because I depress the button for too long! It's really frustrating. I have also repeatedly tried to set the time on this phone, but it never seems to hold the correct time, and is off by hours. On the pro side, I like the voice activated dialing, but this is also available with many other cell phone models. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88340 2000/7/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 compact design light great sound quality long battery life small buttons typing messages with itap is not smart enough The Bottom LineSpend a few extra bucks and get a better phone, there is so much technology out there. Don't get this phone unless it is free for signing up. Full Review I got this phone (included in the package from T-Mobile.) because it cost me nothing. I love the Ringtones included with the phone. There are so many ringtones to choose from and you can set up each person to have a specific ring tone to alert you of who is the caller. Menu buttons are a bit annoying as you have a circular button with the up/down/left/right functions on it, but in the center of this round button you have a special button which pulls up the main menu. I feel that this button should be the button to select things as it is right in the middle and is convenient to navigate the menus with, but no, the select button is on the far right of the phone. Lucky for some the buttons are small and close together, unlucky for me, the tip of my index finger easily covers 2-3 buttons at a time. I'm glad to see voice-dialing on a phone of this class. You must train the phone to recognize the assigned voice name of the person you want to call. It is a bit frustrating to actually record the name that you'll be saying to automatically dial the number, but once you do, you'll just say: George's Office rather than have to dial his office number! 3 Demo versions of games are included. They have 1-2 levels each, the advanced levels are available as an upgrade from a website. They're not really great, one is a Grand PRIX motorcycle racing game, another is a blurry rendition of the played-out classic: break away, the last is a confusing version of black-jack. The included earpiece is very clear and the microphone's pick-up is comparable to that of the handset (excellent). The construction is very flimsy. Don't try to drop it, the plastic will break. You can tell once this phone is in your hand that it is meant for kids, no adult can be taken seriously with this little toy. (it is too small to use comfortably) The message writing support is bad. Nokia's T9 entry method works better than this phone's iTAP. iTap proposes you words on the bottom of the screen as you type, then you must choose one of the words it thinks you are typing. With T9 from NOKIA, the word changes as you type the word ... the software choosing the right letter for you as you press the groupings of the alphabet on the 8 digits. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88339 2003/3/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight polyphonic rings durable small small small buttons big big hands battery life aol for phone is impossible to use The Bottom LineBad Battery, Small Buttons, Terrible UI. No. Full Review Although I despise cell phones, and hate it when I hear one ringing in public, I found it necessary to get one. Let's face it: these things are getting cheap. Cheaper than my local phone bill (and I get free long distance with the cell). I recently purchased a T-mobile plan, to which I had the opportunity of getting a free phone. I decided to go with the Motorola over the Nokia because it seemed to have more features (backlit, AOL, polyphonic sound). I am quite disappointed. The first thing I noticed is that the phone is SMALL. This day in age, smaller usually equals better. However, the buttons on this phone (notably the number keys) are so small I have to pace myself when dialing a number. I often hit two numbers at once. This lack of control also hinders the use of this phones AOL Instant Messenger feature. Not to mention, it is incredibly painful trying to hold a conversation with someone when there is 26 letters in the alphabet and only 9 keys to type with (you have to keep hitting a key until you get the right letter ex. c = the one key pressed three times). I also read some reviews stating the battery on this unit was just silly. I found these claims unbelievable and thought: "I don't talk on the phone much AT ALL, that'll never happen to me!" I was wrong. The battery on this unit needs constant charging. One day for example, I made 1 call for 45 minutes and had 3 text messages come in. The phone was close to dying after only 11 hours. That is just terrible for anyone who actually depends on this phone for business or emergencies. Being a computer / techie I found the UI in the phone to be utterly terrible. Simple functionality I thought would be taken for granted is just not here. A good example: someone calls you, you want to store their number in your book. Can you do it? Nope. My sister has a Samsung phone and you can do this in the matter of 2 clicks. This phone is not a complete waste. It does seem to get pretty decent reception, and is nice in the fact that it doesn't have an ugly protruding antenna to break off. If you're considering a phone that you know you'll have a chance to recharge every 8 hours or so, and you have small hands, this is a great pick. Otherwise, I'd steer clear. Recommended: No 88338 2003/10/27 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 low weight cheap er cute small size buttons stick out too far cheap construction sometimes bad reception known problems with battery life The Bottom LineSteer clear of the C332! There are other phones out there that are a good value, but this one is not. Full Review This phone has recognized problems with battery life and reception. I went through three C332 phones before giving up on it. When I first decided to get the phone, I was not as smart as you are to check reviews first... I was attracted to the small size, light weight, and visual attractiveness of the phone. Plus, T-Mobile offered what was a good deal at the time - a reduced price of $50 for the phone (originally $99) with a year contract. As I understand they are either free or $0.01 now with the same year contract. Upon receipt of the phone, I enjoyed the customizability of the quick-access menus, the graphical quality considering the current technology level we are at with cell phones, and the way it feels in your hand. After a short period of time (a few months) I started experiencing some of the problems that a lot of people have described. Below is a sort of timeline of experiences I had with this phone: Phone #1: The battery was actually not that bad, but not that good either. First of all it is internal, which makes it impossible to replace if there is a problem. With this phone, it would last about two days of regular use (2-3 10 minute calls) before complaining about a low battery, which is lower than usual for any phone. But my text messages would sometimes not leave my phone until the next day! When this first started happening, I noticed that in the "Sent Messages" menu, the message I sent would have two arrows next to it, which means it is still in the process of sending. I would have to power off the phone and turn it back on and re-send the message several times before it would go through. Reception problem? Not with T-Mobile in the Denver area - I had a Nokia 3390 before this phone and I had great reception. I would also periodically miss some calls, which I discovered because several people were asking why I never answered my phone, though I always do! I would rather not use a product that causes tension in my personal life! Luckily T-Mobile was good enough to replace the Motorola for free. Phone #2: Definite battery life problem - I would charge it overnight and the battery would run out within a few hours of unplugging it. I even tried the normal suggestion of letting the battery run completely down to no avail. Plus, still had the same problems with sending text messages and receiving phone calls. The representative at T-mobile said that I should turn my phone off and back on periodically throughout the day as a "maintenance" measure - I've never had to do this with any of the other phones I've owned! They replaced it again. Phone #3: Same problems with reception and battery life (although battery life not as bad as phone #2). It's just not worth the hassle of replacing it again only to get yet another bad phone. After three phones, I have concluded that it is simply a poorly engineered and/or manufactured product. One other thing - these phones all have poor sound volume and not-so-great sound quality. If I'm anywhere near someone who is talking, I can't hear who I'm talking to, even on the highest volume level. A phone should be blasting in your ear at the highest setting! I have gone with a Nokia 3595, which is louder than the Motorola's highest volume level even on the halfway setting - that's how it's supposed to be. On the Motorola, the person on the other line tends to sound like they are in a tunnel, and the speaker is quite picky about where you place it on your ear. No more complaints from people about me not answering the phone, and all my text messages arrive at their destination within seconds. Plus, the fact that it has a color screen for the price of a B&W definitely helps. All I have to say is that hopefully not all of Motorola's phones are this bad, because otherwise they had better reconsider their position in the cell phone market! ---------------------------------------------------------- Update: 10/27/03 I have had my Nokia 3595 for some time now, and have experienced no problems like the ones I had with the Motorola. All of my text messages have gone through (I know because I get replies very quickly), I have not had major problems with reception, and I can hear the person on the other line! I have not once had to turn my phone off and back on for "maintenance" purposes. Also I would like to add something that I seem to have left out before about the C332. When I mention "cheap construction" in the cons, I am referring mainly to the casing of the product. The plastic used appears to be very fragile - I never dropped the phone but I imagine if I did it would surely crack. Also the rubber-like band in the middle would always move around, causing gaps which allow dirt to get inside - resulting in the fact that I had to open it up and clean it constantly. Is that something you should have to worry about? I don't think so. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88337 2000/5/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight cool design lots of features small keypad battery capability sound quality The Bottom LineThe features of this phone are great. The size and weight are convenient. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a new phone. Full Review I had an old Nokia phone that I was looking to replace. The model was heavy and big. Out of all of the available phones I looked at, the Motorola C332 captured my attention and held it. The size and weight of the Motorola C332 is astounding. When other people see my phone and feel how light is it, they are amazed. The phone fits great into pants pockets and small purses. Its sides are easy to grip and the outside cover is pretty durable. My phone has been dropped a few times and I always cringe, but the darn thing takes a licking well. The phone's display is very easy to read. It displays the time, battery level, signal strength as well as listing the internet, menu button, and phone book. When you press the middle menu button, it takes you directly to your menu options. From this point, you can easily select an option or exit the menu system. The phone's menu has all the standard options (ring styles, recent calls, messages, calculator, games, and settings), though it also has a few options I never had seen on a phone until now. The Media Center option allows you to mix your ring tones any way you like. You can create your own tone in MotoMixer by tweaking things like the tempo and sound. The Picture Viewer option has a ton of clip art and animated gifs that you can make your wallpaper on your phone display. It even has animated screensavers just like a computer. Another cool option is the voice dial. I have to admit that I don't use it that often, but when you enter a person's phone number into your phone directory, you can record the person's name. Next time you want to call them, you go to Voice Dial and say their name and the phone automatically dials. I believe the phone only recognizes your voice because my boyfriend tried my voice dial and it didn't do anything. One last option that is worth mentioning is the Datebook. I bought a Palm Pilot to set all my appointments and important dates. After buying this phone, I never use my palm anymore. The Datebook lets you set alarms on a daily, weekly, monthly, or a single event. I use it everyday as my alarm to wake up. You can set your alarm to use one of your cool ringtones to wake up to. It's much better than waking up to an annoying alarm clock beep. The only negatives I can list about this phone is that the keypad is very small. I have small hands, so it's not a problem for me. My boyfriend is a big guy and I always have to dial for him. Also, the battery tends to be eaten up very fast the longer you own it. I feel like I'm always charging it up now. Also, the phone is a bit quirky. The sound volume likes to lower by itself or sound static like. I find turning the phone off, and then back on, helps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 w/plan 88336 2004/1/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size lightweight reception could be better poor battery life The Bottom LineIn short, if you're looking for a small light phone on a GSM network, you should consider this, but beware of the battery life. Full Review Like many people, I got this phone when I signed up with T-Mobile. The first thing I noticed was its size and weight. In terms of size, it's about as thick as my wallet (which unfortunately isn't very thick at all), about the same length, and maybe half the width. The weight is really light, it's a little heavier than my wallet. With a size this small, I hardly notice it. It also has a tendency to sink to the bottom of my pockets since it's so small, making it somewhat hard to pull out in a hurry. Feature wise, this is fairly similar to most of Motorola's other phones. Besides the typical phonebook and text messaging, it also supports WAP and has a date book. The phonebook lets you choose to store to either the SIM card or to the phone; if storing to the phone, it gives you more options - the ability to associate a specific ring tone with a number, a sound sample for voice dialing, and you can associate a picture with it (thought I'm at a loss to explain how you'd get a picture, or why you'd want one). As for the ergonomics of the phone, they're pretty good. It's a fairly comfortable size to hold. The display is fairly good, though the text is rather thin. It is hard to see in daylight because of the horrible glare, but with the backlight it's bearable. The backlight is a cool white color that also lights the buttons. The battery life is pretty good. The battery indicator on the phone is ultra conservative; it rarely stays at 3 bars, stays at 2 for maybe an hour of talk time. At 1 bar, I've talked on the phone for around an hour before having the phone die. So you could probably get about 2 - 2.5 hours of talk time on a full battery. The reception is pretty good, except that I noticed that sometimes it will randomly drop to nothing, then come back up to two or three bars. Otherwise, it has better reception in most places than my old Nokia 5120. This phone supports polyphonic ring tones, meaning it can play several notes simultaneously. It's really cool the first few times you hear it, but then, after missing calls because they're too quiet, I set it back to a more normal ringtone. I also make good use of the vibrate mode too. Update: (01/04) After having this phone for a year, I've changed my opinion of it for the worse. The battery life is rather poor; it lasts only about a day before the low battery warning starts beeping, and I don't make that many calls. In addition, the reception, while alright, pales in comparison to my new Nokia 3595. It is pretty durable however, having survived numerous drops on the floor. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88335 2000/2/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 low weight looks cute low battery life menus software unorganized badly manufactured feels fragile The Bottom LineMotorola tried to produce a fancy-looking phone but they did a pathetic job. It has far too many annoying flaws compared to other phones. Just don't buy it! Full Review To summarize: Don't buy it. My arguments against it are not based on bad experiences with this one specific phone - it is generally badly produce and its concept has not been thought through! We bought this phone over the internet, and we mainly fell for its looks and its price. It is one of the very few that somewhat resembles the style of European mobile phones (like the Siemens or Nokias that you get Europe (but sadly not here)). !!But the phone was a disappointment!! It is badly manufactured: - It does not feel compact; when touching it squeaks. It feels fragile. - The software is very unorganized. For instance, for a simple task like changing the time one needs to go through several submenus. Motorola had better spend more time thinking the product through rather than designing fancy icons. - Overall, the software is not logic and unintuitive. - I tried to change the melody several times, but it always went back to the default melody. - Fancy stuff like voice dial is hard to set up, it never works, and to initiate a voice-dial, one needs to go through sub-menu after sub-menu, so what's the point? - The keys do not react well. - The battery life is very low: Although we followed the instructions (eg. discharging in full before charging), the phone is dead after two days on standby; if you talk, you will have to recharge right afterwards. - The ringer is not good. - It is very inconvenient while talking: If you move it just a little bit away from the center of your ear, you won't hear anything - there is only one position that works. - The headpiece is very quiet, and its microphone does not work well. - The receiving end of the phone heats up when calling. Overall Motorola brought this phone to the market without having thought it through. It better not be the case that this is as good as they can do. My basis for comparison: Before I had a Siemens S25 for 3.5 years (this model you can only get in Europe, sorry), and it was a much better phone - despite the Motorola being soo much newer!!! Eg: The battery lasts longer, the menus are intuitive (you will know where to look for things without having to read the manual!), ringer and keys are better, it feels more compact and not as fragile. !!I think it is quite pathetic that Motorola brings a phone to the market that cannot match up with a 3.5 year old phone!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 88334 2000/5/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small sexy light poor battery performance terrible reception The Bottom LineDon't buy it unless you enjoy dropped calls and a dead battery. Full Review I got this phone in November 2002. By January 2003, I was ready to throw it off my balcony. My local wireless phone service provider wasn't very sympathetic to the problems I was having, so I had no choice but to stick with the phone. In the store, the phone immediately caught my eye because of the stylish, sleek look. I liked the fact that it was lightweight, small, and had no protruding antenna. It made my 1-year-old Ericsson phone look like a brick. the price was right, so I bought it. I paid full price at the time, because I wasn't due for an upgrade through my service provider. My Ericsson phone had died outside of the warranty period, and I was essentially forced to buy a new phone at full price. Inside the box are the usual suspects: Sim card, phone, charger, and instructions. I bought a car charger and an earpiece to go with it. I'll start with the good points about this phone. It's small and light. That's what sold me on this particular phone. It's easy to carry around, and I can't even tell it's in my pocket. It's got a vibe feature (which I know all phones have now, but my old Ericsson phone didn't). The polyphonic ring tones are pretty cool, but I just stick to the standard ring tone, or vibe if needed. This is where the good points about the phone end. It's all downhill from here. After a few days of use, I quickly realized that I was charging the phone overnight, every night. And I'm not a heavy user of my cell phone. The battery life shouldn't be this bad for a new phone. This could have been forgiven if the phone had redeeming qualities to make up for it. However, the reception was just as bad as battery life. In my apartment, I can only use it if I'm sitting on the end of the couch closest to the window. And even then, just barely. Outdoors, the phone only works occaisionally. I have been in situations where my friends have full signal strength, and I have no service whatsoever, on the same wireless phone network. Wireless phone companies need to realize that small, light, sexy phones will not sell based on these merits alone. The two most important features in a cell phone are battery life and signal strength. If a phone fails to deliver on either of these criteria, it's not worth buying. This phone fails to deliver on both of these criteria. Stay away. I plan to upgrade mine as soon as I'm eligible. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88333 2000/3/31 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 very bright backlight very stylish please refer to the review too many to list The Bottom LineEven if you are willing to take dirt-poor cell phones just to have a cell phone around, don't contemplate this one. Full Review Motorola has been one of the top players in the cell phone industry since the advent of cellular networks. From brick phones to razor sharp camera devices, Motorola has done it all. However, it is good to note the flaws and fallacies that they have committed in the past that has helped them in their progression in future ventures. This, unfortunately, was one of them. I bought the Motorola C332 as an introductory phone, since it was my first personal phone. T-Mobile was offering it for free, so I knew that I couldn't lose. It was very small, very popular, and had some features that weren't present on competiting phones of the era (Polyphonic ringtones, WAP browser, AIM, etc.). It was a great showoff to the little friend base that I had back then, and stylistically, it helped alleviate my bad taste in clothing at the time (somewhat). However, being very knowledgeable in cellular phone technology, I had to note the apparent flaws of the phone. The most evident flaw in this phone, even during its first days of use, was the battery. The battery was a very small, very low-powered Lithium Ion cell. The bigger problem with it was that it was an internal battery and could not be removed by ordinary means. It was a great idea to save space, however it did not have a very successful result, as the talk time quickly reduced to an approximate 15 minutes, with the standby time not being any more productive. The battery meter was severely flawed, causing incorrect battery readings and frequent outages, even during calls. Charging could never truly complete, meaning that the problem could never be truly resolved. I had replaced the phone three times before finally deciding to purchase a V66, which alleviated the battery problem, but was harnessed with problems of its own. Another selling point of the phone was its polyphonic ringtones. Even though 4-voice polyphonic tones are quite dated in comparison to 64-voice and MP3-capable ringtones, that was still a very impressive feature for a greyscale phone. Unfortunately, that feature was also another one too good to be true. The ringtones were extremely low, even at its highest volume, and I frequently missed calls because of my failure to hear the phone ringing. What was funny about the phone was that the vibrator, when placed on a hard surface, was much louder than the ringtones! The preset ringtones did not match the purpose for the phone, as most of them were very similar to its monophonic series. An important factor when choosing the "right" cellular phone is its RF, or signal, reception and its quality of calls/voice. Many GSM phones during that period were not that good in this field when compared to its CDMA/TDMA counterparts, however the C332 is a grand understatement of disfunctionality in a phone. The RF reception capability of this phone is far less than poor, since it was nearly impossible to retrieve a signal anywhere around my house. Even my dad's V66, which was notorious for having horrid RF reception, could pick up signal in areas that the C332 simply couldn't. The quality of the calls were mediocre at best, and it was hard for callers on the other line to hear my voice. Supplement this with many dropped calls for various reasons (most of which were battery-related), and you could probably define a terrible cell phone experience. I had never purposefully tried to destroy a phone, but the C332 led me to that point many times. I have had more than ten cellular phones in my lifetime, and I have never been more deceived, deprived, and angry with a phone as I have been with the C332. It was a waste of free offering and a waste of plastic. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88332 2000/2/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight size design features display battery meter buttons The Bottom LineIf you want a tiny phone that's affordable, packed with features, and extremely customizable, you want the C332. Full Review This review is for the Motorola C332 Peanut, which is the one displayed in the middle of the three phones shown above this review. My service provider is T-Mobile, formerly known as VoiceStream. Previous to this phone I would switch between using the Nokia 3390 and Motorola T193 because together they made the perfect phone, but when I read about the Motorola C332 on T-mobile I saw that it had everything I was looking for in one little, itty-bitty phone. I went to the T-mobile store to check it out and they gave me a great deal on the price...$50!!! It's a great phone that is worth every penny I spent plus more. Misleading battery meter: Please folks! If you get this phone, do not rely on the battery meter to tell you how much power your phone has. It is very unreliable. For example I had two bars in the meter but when I turned the phone off and then back on it was back to three. Also a couple times the phone was at one bar and I thought the phone was about to go dead but after about 20 minutes of talking and a hour of playing around on the phone it was still holding. So if your batt. meter goes down to one bar and you have no charger around don't panic, because odds are you have more power than you think. The Buttons: Now, if you have big fingers like me you may have a problem with this phone because the buttons are very tiny. Sometimes I end up even pressing more than one button at a time which can be very annoying. Now, I found myself pressing the buttons with the tip of my fingers. Try out the phone before you buy it to see how it feels in your hands, but in my opinion the wonderful features on this phone outweigh the annoyance of small buttons. Font: The font on this phone is a little below average size, which at times can be hard to read especially on the main screen when you don't pick the right background. Looks and feels cheap: Now, when you get this phone it's gonna feel like if you drop it it'll break to pieces because it's so light. Plus the casing looks like it's made out of that cheap plastic thats used to make Happy Meal toys. Phonebook: The one thing I hate about the phonebook is that if you add multiple numbers to one name it lists all those numbers as seperate entries. For example, say you have a friend who has a work, home, and mobile phone number and you put all those numbers under your friend's name, when you scroll through the phone book the friends's name will appear three times with an icon by each specifying what number it is. This is extremely annoying when your trying to skim through the phonebook quickly to fine a number and have to go through the same name multiple times. Now even though this phone has a few cons the pros outweigh them by far! Affordable: I only paid $50 dollars for this phone and I've seen places where it is free with a new T-mobile account. Personalization: The most wonderful thing about this phone is that your able to change the casing and the rubber-gripping alongside the phone to fit your liking. BUT GET THIS! You can also change the shape of the phone so that it looks similar to the first phone pictured in the graphic above. So, if you are tired of the peanut shape of your phone you can change it to a square shape. This is the first phone I've seen with that capability! You can also personalize the display of the phone with wallpaper and screensavers, and with the 4-level grayscale, the graphics look more detailed than Nokia 3390's and Motorola T193's average LCD display. Plus don't forget to sign up for T-zones so that you can download more graphics. Another great capability is you can re-order the menu to your liking and there is also a feature called My Menu where you can put your most-visited main menu, and sub-menu items for quicker access. Ringtones: The ringtones on this phone are amazing. Since the phone has a 16-chord polyphonic speaker, the rings sound very close to real music, but you also have your classic "ring-ring" ringtones for those of you who are not to fond of or impressed with the polyphonic ringers. I was also very impressed with the number of ringtones that this little phone can hold. It's pre-loaded with a little over thirty rings and has space for a little over thirty more rings. This includes rings you download, rings you create with the Tone Maker, or rings you personalize with the Motomixer, which is a program on the C332 that let's you change the way a Groovetone sounds. Note: A Groovetone is a special ring that allows you to change the way the instruments sound in it and how long the ring is. Great features: Besides the con above this phone has an excellent phone book! You can add multiple numbers, e-mail addresses, and voicetags to one entry. It also allows you to specify how the phone should ring when a certain person calls and you can choose icons that appear on the display to let you know if the person calling is your buddy, your family member, your sweetie etc., and if they are calling from their cell, home, work, etc. Plus it's easy to access, just press either of the up and down arrow keys. The phone also has a datebook equipped with an alarm to remind you of important events you just can't miss. A wonderful option is the Media Center! This is where you can create tones of your own, view graphics, and choose the pictures for your wallpaper and screensaver. The SMS feature is very nice too. Not only can you send text messages with it but you can attach pictures and sounds too your text message. Now, other features include a recent call list, three games, and a calculator. Voice and reception: It's hard to review this since it mostly depends on your geographical location, but I am in Washington D.C. and I have had no problems. The reception and voice clarity on this phone is astonishing! The only time I have had voice and reception problems is when I am in my basement (which is almost literally underground), or when I am in a room with no windows. Other than that, 95% of the time it sounds like I'm talking on a wired phone. Wonderful design: I love the little peanut shape and so does everyone else who has seen it. Plenty of people have come up too me to tell me how cute my phone is. One person even said it looks like a little candy bar and they could just eat it up. Plus I love the rubber-gripping on the phone. With my Nokia 3390 and Moto T193 sometimes if I snatched the phone out my pocket or pulled it to quickly from the clip it would slip right outta my hands, but not with this phone! Very user-friendly: This phone is a lot easier to use and understand than previous Motorola Products. You don't have to read a huge manual to understand how to use basic features such as the phonebook, the calender, picking a ring tone, etc. Once you start going through the menus, things began to become self-explanatory. Feels fragile but it isn't: This phone is not as fragile as it feels. I've dropped it a few times on my hardwood floors and once on the side walk and the worst that has happened was the casing completely came off and the display became distorted and frozen, but once I just reset the display and snap the casing back on, the phone was find. Plus, since this phone has a built-in battery you never have to worry about you dropping your phone and the battery falling and scurrying to some place where you can't find it. Now, there are a few things about this phone that I left out, because I didn't want to spoil all the surprises you will find when you buy this wonderful phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88331 2000/11/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 white light background light small headset low some rings low can t turn off greetingexit sound The Bottom LineDecent phone, decent price. Does the most important thing, allows you to communicate. Full Review I have had this phone for about 3 weeks now. My previous phone was a Nokia 3390. Just like the 3390, this has changeable cases. Those will probably be showing up in a few months. This is a pretty decent phone. I have it with T-Mobile service in New York and I drive to Connecticut with it often. I don't want to give the phone undue praise, but there were areas where my Nokia 3390 used to disconnect that it has not disconnected with this phone. The bars lower, even had had muddled reception for a short period at the "disconnect spots", but does not cut me off. When it comes to adding phone numbers and viewing numbers, I rate this phone very high up there. With my 3390, I couldn't simply view a number without going into the phonebook from the menu. On this phone, you can simply press the down or up button surrounding the menu button and you will see the phoneboook list and the option to view the info associated with the name. I have not tried it, but it appears you will also be able to assign multiple numbers to one name as well. I save all entries to my SIM so I have not assigned icons or special rings, but the capability is there if you save to the phones memory. The strange thing about this phone is that it will have only one bar show up, but when you turn the phone off and back on, it will show two. But, never fear, this phone along with the standard meter found on most phones display, you can also go into a menu and call up a expanded Battery Meter which I presume is a little more accurate. I can say the battery does seem to last a good while. I've been on it for 2 or so hours, played a game or two, and surfed through the menu on one charge. It also seems to last longer, the more you charge it. Thats justs my impression so far. If you like a lot of ringtones, this phone has got a good amount that come with the phone. The polyphonic ringtones make regular phone tones sound childish. You can manually add your own tones if you choose to do so. Or you can also download tones to it from sites or from the T-mobile T-Zone. The only problem I have with the tones is some of them are low. If I have the radio on in my car, I just slightly hear the ring and I have it set to 7(the highest level). Also, the headset that comes with it is pretty low. I think you have to be in perfect silence to hear well with the provided headset. I'm going to attempt to switch it and see if this improves. Because the handset itself sounds pretty loud enough. Overall this is a decent phone. I have heard no complaints of people not being able to hear me. I just wish you could turn off that greeting/exit sound. This may not bother most people, but its a little annoying when you don't want everyone looking at you when you turn the phone on and off. You can get around this if you plug in the headset. Then the sound comes through the headset, so it is low as a result. Motorola has not made any way for you to turn this feature off. I'm positive on this because I called them to find out... it seems they made a way for the V66 but not this phone. Decent phone. A decent price if you are a new customer. I paid $160, but that is only because I'm already under contract. I've seen ads for it as low as $39.99. Maybe I could have got it for less if I had talked to a customer service rep, but thats life. And before I forget, like someone else mentioned, if you get this phone change the left key to something other than T-Zones. I chose to make mine Recent Calls. I will update if I think of more to add or discover something new. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 88330 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear voice small light weight easy to navigate excellent reception occasional light buzz The Bottom LineI would defiantly recommend this phone to anyone. It is small lightweight with excellent voice quality. I got 4 months free airtime with Rogers when I bought mine. Full Review Intro - This is a review of the Motorola C332 on Rogers AT&T Network. I've had it for a week now, its been working extremely well, especially considering the fact that gsm isn't suppose to be that great. Compared to my old phone(nokia 5125)this phone is amazing. The first call that I made on it, the other end thought that I was on a landline phone. The pros - - small and light weight - When it comes to size and being able to carry this phone around with you, this is an excellent choice. It's dimensions are 3.09 inches long x 1.70 inches wide x 0.75 inches thick. It weighs only 2.82 ounces or 80 grams. Its about the same size as a Nokia 8390. - easy to navigate - This is the first Motorola that I've ever owned, except for like one of the first startacs that didn't really have any navigation. I picked this phone up and could look through the menus without using and manual. - wap enabled - When I bought the phone I didn't think that I would ever find a use for the wap browser. I've been using it quite a bit to download ringtones. It works extremely well and is really easy to use. - extremely clear voice on both ends - The voice quality on this phone is one of the best that I've ever heard. I never have to worry about the other end not being able to hear me. It has an occasional buzz which is just a little distracting, it doesn't last very long so it isn't much of a problem. I can ignore it now. Compared to the other gsm phones that I've used this defiantly has the best voice quality. - excellent reception - No matter where I've went I've always been able to pickup a single, even with just one bar on the reception meter I could make a call just fine. I can't really compare its reception to anything, but it is good. - fun games - The games on this phone are also nice, I miss snake from my old Nokia, but this phone comes bundled with 3 great games, astromash, snood21 and motoGP. I haven't decided which my favourite is, there all great. You can also pay to have the games upgraded, I paid $5 this was a great value --- Astromash --- In this game you are a little gun at the bottom of the screen. You can move "left" or "right" with either the 4 way navigation thing or the "4" and "6" keys. You can shoot using either the "up" or "2" keys. Things fall the objective is to shoot them before they hit the ground, you die when you get hit. --- MotoGP --- Not much to say about this game, you race motorcycles, with the optional upgrade of the game you can even do time trials or a championship. --- Snood21 --- This game is addicting. It is a simple card game, you have 4 open spaces, the object is to get rid of all the cards by making piles of 21. When you get a pile of 21 the cards disapear, if you go over 21 you lose that space to pile cards. - nice design - This phone not only has features, it also looks great. It has removable faceplates, you can even change the entire shape of the phone, although I like the c332 style the best. - polyphonic ringtones - I love these. It makes the older phone ringtones sound pathetic. This phone also has a loud enough volume that you will almost always hear it even if the background is loud. - extremely good voice dialing - The voice dialing is surprisingly amazing. I recorded it in my voice, my dad can use the voice activated dialing, I have it set so I just press one button and say the name. - customizable menus - The menus on this phone can be cuztomized in many ways. When you are on the idle screen, you can choose what the 2 soft keys do. I have mine set for v. dial(voice dial) and styles, the menu that you go to to change between, silent, loud ring, softring and the different profiles. - leds - I love the leds on this phone. They are a whitish blue with green for the send button and red for the end button. The leds seem to change to a darker blue? I don'y know if it was just my imagination or what but it was kool. The Cons - - occasional buzz when talking - This is a little annoying I think it happens when you touch the top of the phone when talking since its an attena. Its not horrible, its just a little buzzing noise that only you can hear. - only decent battery life - That battery life isn't that great, its not horrible but its defiantly not great, I only get about 3 days of battery life with mild talking and quite a bit of playing with the menus. ;) On the other hand the battery charges pretty fast. So you only need to make a quick stop at lunch or sometime if you get low and you'll easily make it through the rest of the day. - internal battery - I don't like the idea of an internal battery, it doesn't give you the option to buy a higher capacity one which isn't all that bad. Overall this phone is great, it does everything that I want and more. I'd defiantly recommend it too anyone who wants a small, stylish and easy to use phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 88329 2004/1/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 cost style features pros size multiple battery issues The Bottom LineI would only recommend this phone if you don't mind walking around the house talking on a phone attached to an extension cord. Full Review The Motorola C332 is definitely an appealing phone when you first see it. With the small size it can easily fit into a pocket or purse without being bulky, however, make sure to lock the keypad to avoid making unwanted calls and wasting minutes. The phone has an overall pleasant appearance with its unique "peanut" shape. Some people find the keys too small to use easily. This phone can easily be personalized with changeable faceplates, downloadable wallpapers and polyphonic ringtones (rings that sound like real music). When looking into the features of the Motorola C332, one might be equally impressed. Features include the basics such as conference calling, vibrating alert, calendar and text messaging to name just a few. It also includes more advanced features such as a built in modem and browser making it possible to access the internet. AOL Instant Messaging (AIM) is a fun feature included with the Motorola C332. The AIM feature is a little difficult to start using but quite fun once you figure it out. Make sure you are aware of how you will be billed for this service and remember to log off after each session. If these qualities inspire you to purchase, or accept this phone free with activation, you may then start noticing some not so pleasant features about the battery. The Motorola C332 has several different issues that go along with the battery. Depending on when it was manufactured you will more than likely experience one of these four major problems. First of all, this phone has a small switch on the left side of the phone that if it is switched off the phone will not power on or take a charge; this problem is simple to resolve by taking off the front and back covers and using a small utensil to switch it on. The second issue, is that because this phone has a built in battery, if it is defective for any reason you will have to replace the whole phone. Third, the software in some of these phones does not allow the battery meter to register correctly; this means your phone will indicate the battery runs down quickly, however, once it shows that the battery has only one third left it will really last for quite a while. Turning the phone off and on again allows the battery to be reread and a correct indication of how much life the battery has remaining to be displayed. If this is too much of an inconvenience, you may decide to try your luck with a replacement. Finally, most of the phones have a battery that does not take a complete charge. What happens is, when the phone is plugged in to charge, it will say that it is charging and after a few hours will say that the charge is complete. The problem is that after the first hour of charging the phone no longer accepts a charge even though it says that it is still charging. After you unplug the phone it shows that there is a full charge, then after just a few minutes of talking you will start hearing the beep indicating that the battery is going dead then it will completely shut off. One inconvenient solution that sometimes works is to let the phone charge for one hour, unplug it and connect it again, repeating every hour until the charge is complete. Another solution that does not guarantee that you will not have the same problem is replacing the phone. Overall I would not recommend purchasing the Motorola C332. The problems with the battery are worth giving up the size and style that might be harder to find with a different model. Most of the features are easy enough to find in different models that it won't be hard to replace the "peanut" with something more reliable. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88328 2002/11/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small internet access no external antenna light ringerspeaker not as loud slow response in menus display hard to read The Bottom LineIf you like 'em small, light, and inexpensive, this may be the phone for you! If you want it to double as a PDA, look elsewhere. Full Review I replaced my Nokia 8290 with the new Motorola C332 last week, so this review is only based on about a weeks worth of use. Most of my con entries below are just nit-pick things that probably won't be a problem after I get used to the phone, but I hope Motorola addresses a couple of them in the future. Pro - This phone is slightly larger than the 8290, but it feels much better. The shape of the rubber ring around the edge makes it a joy to hold onto. Pro - The rings that come with it sound cool. The standard rings are much louder than the really neat sounding ones, but that's probably OK. Con - When turning the phone on there's no way (that I've found) to disable the music that it plays if you turned it off last time with the sound on. This isn't too great in meetings, etc. where you want to turn it on and quickly disable the ringer. Pro - The buttons and menus, while different, are usable and reasonably well thought out. It's nice to be able to customize the menus and create my own menu for features I use regularly. One change everyone should make right away however, is to switch the left soft key to something other than T-Zones. If I forget to lock the keypad, and put the phone in my pocket, that is the button that gets hit and the phone goes into data mode which drains the battery relatively quickly. Con - Sometimes (not always) the buttons don't seem to respond to the 1st press. Every time this has happened, and I pressed it again, it worked, so I don't know yet if it's just me not pressing the button hard enough or if the phone is ignoring me once in a while. Pro - Messages handling is nicer than on the 8290. They are organized into different groups and managing them is fairly easy. I like that it saves my outgoing messages. Con - To see the date/time an incoming message was sent, you have to scroll to the bottom of the message. Depending on how you set up the phone (scroll or up/down), it can be a pain on long messages. Pro - The phonebook can handle e-mail addresses, voice tags (around 20 max), icons, special rings for certain numbers or groups of people. However, most of these features are are only available when the entry is stored on the phone instead of on the SIM card. Con - Transferring complete entries off of the phone onto another phone is impossible (at least without the data cable - which I haven't been able to get information about yet) because the SIM card can only handle names and numbers. It seems like stores used to have a setup that let them do it but the T-Mobile place where I went said that they don't have theirs anymore. Con - Reorganizing numbers to work with 1-Touch Dialing is a real hassle if you have lots of entries on your phone. For example, to put "Home" as 1-Touch Dial entry #2, you have to go to the entry for Home, edit it, change the speed dial # to 2 and save it. But if there's already an entry for #2 (likely since it starts entering new entries at the lowest empty slot), you can either overwrite it or cancel. If you overwrite it, what was there before is erased and replaced. OK, so you go to entry number #2 because you don't want to lose it and you try to move it somewhere else, but all you can do is the same thing, copy it somewhere else overwriting what was in that entry. If you know of an empty entry, it's not so bad but finding an empty entry might be a chore because they may be scattered all over the place. On my phone after transferring my nearly full SIM Card from my previous phone, it wasn't a pleasant task to move all of my entries around. It probably would have been easier to write down the 9 numbers and reprogram them from scratch. Con - No way to delete multiple entries. After I transferred many of my old entries from my SIM card to the phone, I needed to delete them off of the SIM card. This is probably a one time thing, but I had to delete 100 entries one at a time--twice (I later upgraded my SIM card to one that holds 250 numbers instead of only 110 like my old one). Con - At the end of a call, there's no audible indication that the connection is closed by the person on the other end of the call. I've noticed this more when using a headset in the car than anything else. I have to look down and make sure that the phone really did hang up. Pro - Voice quality reports have been great! Other people sound great! The volume (on the headset or on the normal speaker) is somewhat lower than my 8290, but not unacceptable. Pro - I love the Vibe&Ring option that vibrates first and then starts ringing audibly after a few seconds. Unfortunately, the Vibe stops after the first ring and then it just rings. I wish it would keep vibrating as well, especially if I've turned the volume down while inside and then went outside and forgot to turn it back up. Con - The confirmation messages stay on the screen too long and I can't bypass them after I've read them. Things like deleting a text message or editing names and numbers seem to take twice as long because of the extra time for those unnecessary (to me) messages. Update 1 Nov - I have found that you can bypass the confirmation prompts if you press another key while they are displaying (I use the up or down button so I don't accidentally do something else if I wait too long and miss the prompt). I don't know why it wasn't working when I tried it before - maybe I didn't hit the button hard enough... (see above :) Overall, I'd buy another one. In fact, I did, my son now has one on the account also. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88327 2002/10/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size low price light weight pocketable displaybuttons hard to read without backlight small buttons slightly cheap feel The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a small, lightweight, inexpensive phone and you like what you read here, the C332 is a great choice! Full Review NOTE: eOpinions may display a graphic of three Motorola phones with this review. This review is about the C332 which is the rounded phone with no protruding antenna. I got this phone when I switched to T-Mobile. Previously, I used a Motorola v60c which I grew to hate because the antenna kept breaking off. SIZE MATTERS: I want a phone I can put IN my pocket. I don't like wearing my phone on my belt. I've had some phones that do that well, and others that don't (v60c!). This phone is very small and very light. It has absolutely no protruding antenna either. With no antenna, it can't get caught in your pocket or break off. However, you must lock the keypad since it's exposed and easily pressed in your pocket. FEATURES: The phone has the standard Motorola feature set similar to other current Motorola phones. It does just about everything your carrier supports including web, messaging, fancy ringers, graphics, etc. It also uses a SIM card for storage. DISPLAY: The display is average size. Without the backlight, it's hard to read. The text is just okay. The backlight is nearly white and lights the screen and buttons. It looks cool. I've noticed that the battery indicator on the display may be misleading. It starts at 3 bars. It soon drops to 2 bars where it stays most of the day. Then it drops to 1 bar and keeps working. It seems to report battery drain faster than it's actually happening. Not a major problem though. DESIGN: I like the figure eight shape. It's easy to hold and the rubberized ring around the exterior of the phone giving you a solid grip. It has customizeable faceplates and buttons - however, I haven't seen any for sale yet. The buttons are SMALL. Operating the directional "disc" button just under the screen can be a little difficult - especially pushing the down-arrow. If you consider your fingers larger than average, this phone may not work for you. Make sure you try it in the store. Oddly, I have noticed that the buttons don't always respond on first press. It happens about 10% of the time. This may just be my particular phone. There are three ports at the base of the phone: power, data, and headset. The ports are not covered so be careful if you work around a lot of sand. BATTERY: This phone's battery is permanent! I have never had a permanent battery in a phone. It can't be removed by the user. It powers the phone for at least a solid day of use - no complaints there. I'm not sure what you do when the battery wears out. The battery charger is just a cord and transformer plug. MATERIALS: This phone is mostly plastic and it feels that way. It is VERY light. In fact, I don't think I've ever experienced a lighter phone. Given the price, I am satisfied with the material quality of this phone. It's worth its retail price. VOICE QUALITY: Although not as good as my v60c, this phone delivers good incoming voice quality. Given its small size, I was worried about its microphone. I've asked several of the people I call and they have no complaints. RECEPTION: This is hard to evaluate because it varies so widely from place to place and carrier to carrier. This phone does not have a protruding antenna which can affect its reception. Based on my experiences, I find the reception acceptable and only slightly worse than my previous phones. VALUE: This phone is a great deal. Having paid approx. $250 for my v60c, this one cost me $99. Then there was a $50 rebate bringing the net price to $49. I don't need insurance and I don't have to worry about it all the time. If it lasts one year, I'll be more than satisfied but I anticipate it will keep going far beyond that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88326 2000/4/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features good sound quality for local calls small buttons on the dialing pad not too good sound quality for roaming calls The Bottom LineIf you like small, light-weight, cute cell phones, this should be a first pick! Full Review Motorola is known for manufacturing some of the highest-quality electronic products in the industry. Maker of the hip and new V70 phone, this company makes two types of phones: wireless and cordless. What's the difference? Wireless if basically considered a cell phone, and a cordless is basically considered a phone with no cord used at home. One of Motorola's newest models is the C332 models, also one of the smallest and 'cutest'. However, it is only available for T-Mobile users, one of the largest phone companies in the U.S. I was offered this phone for $20 if I signed up for a plan for $29.99 a month. If you are going to get this phone, you have to use T-Mobile as your service provider. Body ~ The Motorola C332 can fit in the palm of an adult's hand. ~ The Motorola C332 is in the shape of a soap bar. ~ This wireless phone is very light in weight. ~ The cell phone has a white body with a gray band going around it. However, different colors can be bought. ~ The battery charger is located on the bottom of the phone. ~ The Motorola C332 has no antenna. ~ The sound speakers are located at the top near the dial screen. ~ The speaking speaker (that you speak into!) is located in a small hole on the bottom of the phone. Dial Screen The dial screen is about 1" by 1 1/2". Yes, that's pretty small but is fine if your eyes don't have any type of problem seeing. The screen is in black and white, but does allow you to select the features you want to use. The dial screen lights up with white back lighting when an incoming call comes or whenever you press any button on the dial pad. 96x64 pixel display 96x64 pixel grayscale graphic LCD Reads four lines of text - one line of icons Four-level grayscale Iconic Main Menu with animation feature Dial Pad The dial pad is located right below the dial screen. It has small silver buttons that are a bit hard to dial with your finger. I would recommend dialing with your finger nails so you don't hit a bunch of other buttons. Sound Quality Cell phones never have the best sound quality. On domestic calls, this phone seems to be clear with just a bit of static in the background. For domestic calls, there are hardly any blotches and usually I can hear the person on the other side clearly. For roaming calls, there is more "blotchiness" and static. Sometimes the person will get cut off for a few seconds then come back on, but this happens frequently with most cell phones when it's a roaming call. Specifications ~ Weight of phone with built-in battery: 2.82 ~ Size of phone with built-in battery: 4.2 x 1.8 x 0.9 in. ~ Use on GSM 850/1900 MHz networks Features One of my favorite features is making your own wallpaper. You can find different designs to apply to the background of the screen on your phone. You can also have screensavers to put on when you're not using your phone - the screensaver would show up when the phone hasn't been touched within a couple of minutes yet is still on. Another nice feature is V.Dial ~ Voice Dial. You can clearly say a name of someone in your phone book and the phone will automatically dial that number. Also, you can make your own ring tone. The phone gives you a list of instruments to use to play different notes. When you put a nice arrangement of notes together, you can select this song to be your ring tone. However, this doesn't have to be your ring tone and you can just make songs on the phone just to listen to them. You can choose how you want your ring tone to operate. You can put it on silent mode, vibrate, or volume #1-6. I would suggest that you use vibrate when in a movie or a hospital. Remember that you need to be in a lounge or lobby to use your cell phone in a hospital. AOL Instant Messaging is a great feature. Like the usual AOL Instant Messenger, you can view your buddy list and send instant messages to people who are logged on. It costs about 1-5 cents a message depending on the length of it. You need to use the number keys to send messages. This takes up time and you must be very patient with this feature if you want to use it. There is also a built-in calendar. Here you can include information on appointments, meeting, etc. The phone will also make a sound to remind you of something that is on the calendar. Called I.D is another feature. Here you get the first and last name of the person calling, phone number, date and phone number of the person calling. If you are in a different country, the currency calculator will come in handy. Also, the currency calculator acts as a regular calculator. Other features include: ~ Redial ~ Notepad ~ One-touch Dialing ~ Speed Dial Games There are three games that the Motorola C332 has: ~ Astromash ~ MotoGP ~ Snood2 With all games, you use the arrow keys next to the menu button to operate the game. I would recommend using your finger tips to press the buttons since you don't want to accidentally hit other buttons. You can pause all games or record your name if you achieve a high score. Astromash is where you're a little gun-type of machine that has to shoot at these asteroids coming toward you. MotoGP is a motorcycle racing game where you race against four opponents. You can see how fast you're going and what rank you're in. You can also see how long it takes you to finish the race - there are two laps per race. Snood2 is a confusing card game that I'm still trying to figure out - maybe I'm just dumb? No, that's probably not the case. I think it's just that people come up with hard games on purpose just to make me confused... You can upgrade all these games by logging onto a upgrading website. However, I'm not willing to pay the extra monthly fee that they are asking for. Memory ~ Last ten numbers dialed and received ~ 100 phone numbers and names phone book ~ SIM Card phone book with 250 phone numbers and names Security Phone security is important. Therefore, the Motorola C332 offers call restrictions. There is also a keypad lock, phone lock, application lock and password to use the phone. You can make your own password to get in and can change it. Battery The C332 uses an Li Ion Rechargeable Battery - it doesn't take forever to recharge the battery like it does with other cell phones. The phone offers 180-300 minutes of talk time on one single battery. Conclusion The Motorola C332 is a good phone. First of all, the sound quality is a lot better than a lot of other cell phones. I rarely get disconnected and usually can hear the person very well with no blurriness or "blotchiness"...or something like that. This applies mostly for only roaming calls. I have just one complaint. The buttons on the dial pad are small and are easy to hit by accident. Perhaps if the phone were a bit bigger, the buttons would be a lot bigger and there wouldn't be anymore hitting of extra buttons. Would I recommend the phone? Yes! If you are in the market for a new cell phone, I really think you'll be impressed with the Motorola C332 wireless cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 88325 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use cute little phone maybe a little small for hubbies bigger fingers The Bottom LineFind a deal on this phone, and go for it. Perfect for any age group. Full Review Well, it is over a year since I got my free Motorola Talkabout phone. At the beginning it was great. Smaller than my previous one, and the charge stayed good. With all mobile phones, after a few months they begin to look large against others, and that charge just doesn't stay. Just prior to my contract running out I went to the same shop that gave me the great free offer last year. I also took my girlfriend with me, telling her it was about time she replaced her phone too. They had another great deal on, sign up for a one year contract and get a free phone plus the accessories. My friend opted for this offer. The phone was still a little on the bulky side for me. The guy showed me several and I choose the Motorola C332. It cost me only $30 for the phone, if I signed a one year contract with T Mobile. I also got the box of goodies too. So why did I go for this phone in particular. The one my friend got still had an external antenna. With the last phone, mine fell off, and I ended up paying $19.95 for a new one. This has an internal one, which I think is marvelous. It is small and contoured to the shape of my hand. They come in different colors, but mine is silver gray with a darker gray at the sides. The free leather case is black. When I first got it I charged it up overnight and that ensured that the battery was fully used up. This is supposed to prolong the life of the battery. To switch on press the red telephone key on the left side. Hold it for a couple of seconds. Then the M comes on. The next screen shows my name, which I typed in. Then music and the phone is ready. The screen has the signal strength in the left top corner. Right hand the battery level. If I had any messages they would show between these. There are 2 different ones, for text and voice. In the middle of the screen is the time of day, T-Mobile, the date, and at the bottom, 2 quick menu items. I chose recent and phone book, but any of the menu's can be switched into these places. From this screen you can receive a call by pressing the green telephone button, on the right side of the phone. When finished press the red telephone on the left. You can press the number buttons to make a call and then the green phone key, or better still, put them in the phone book. These numbers are really large, which is great for me. The phone book was a lot of fun. With my old phones I had to key in the whole thing. Pressing a key several times if it was the last letter on that button. This phone likes to do the work for you. It guesses the name, and puts several on the bottom of the screen for you. I found this to be of help with easy names, but when it cames to doctors etc., then I had to key it in myself. The message and voice mail was really simple. I just used the prompts to put my personal message in. The first time my phone rang, I was in Busch Gardens and it was really crowded. I heard this music and didn't take any notice. Then every minute or two I heard it. Yes, it was my phone telling me I had a message. Then I had to remember how to retrieve one. Again the screen prompted me, so I was able to listen to the message, and it asked me if I wanted to reply. It dialed it for me. I just love this world we live in. Between the 2 quick menu keys as I call them, in the main menu. Press the center to bring up the first one. Mine is messages, then scroll up or down to read the rest. They are: Recent Calls Ring Styles Media Center Datebook T-Zones Phonebook Calculator Games Voice Dial Fixed Dial My Menu Settings AIM Then each of these menus has sub-menus. I can honestly say I haven't been in all of them yet, and probably won't need to. Another good point with this phone is that I can lock it. It can be done 2 ways. Either by pressing the menu key and then straight after the * key, or you can put in your own code, so that no one else can use it. For any youngsters out there. The phone lets you change covers and keypads. There is a section on this in the 96 page manual. I am not going to bore you with pages from the manual. If you are interested in this cute phone, you can ask for it at your local phone store, or contact: Personal Communications Sector 600 North U.S. Highway 45 Libertyville, Illinois 60048. 1-800-331-6456 or www.motorola.com Final thoughts. Just love this little phone of mine. During the week I only use it occasionally so the charge stays 3 days. Saturday and Sundays, when I get loads of minutes, I charge it both nights. The clarity is wonderful, and I can use it anywhere, without losing the signal. This one is a must. I am not going to bore you with the 96 pages of information just to pad out this review. If there is anything you really want to know, or if you think I missed it out, please leave a comment, or e-mail me. Thanks as always, Susie. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 contrac 7735 Motorola Talkabout T8097 Phone 88364 2000/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 compact long battery life easy access voicemail poor reception The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone if you actually want to be able to hear what the other person is saying! Full Review About 6 months into a 2-year cell phone plan, my husband wanted a cell phone that would be smaller so it could clip on his belt. We spotted this phone on ebay--Motorola was selling a lot of refurbished ones and they were going like hotcakes! We had heard a lot about how great the StarTacs were, so we thought this one would be a good choice. After staying up until 1am to outbid another ebayer, we got the phone for $120. We were thrilled that we were getting it directly from Motorola with a warranty. The phone now sells for not even $20 and I can tell you why. The reception is TERRIBLE! It is not my service provider, (Cingular) as some will believe because the previous phone we had was perfect. Beautiful clarity on every call. This phone, however, breaks up, cuts out, and sometimes doesn't even ring, forcing the caller to leave a voice mail message. We are not even able to make a call inside a building. It is ridiculous. The convenience of a cell phone is null & void with this one! I will say that we rarely have to recharge it, and I liked being able to access voicemail by just pushing the little envelope button. Other than that, I would not recommend this phone. We are currently shopping for a new one after only 6 months or so. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 120 88363 2000/2/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable easy to use phone book top heavy awkward at times The Bottom LineIf you're not looking for all the frills, just a durable, reliable phone I would recommend this one. Full Review This was my very first cell-phone & I am still using it 2 years later. I am planning to soon move to a Motorola V60 phone, but for now I am still using the Talkabout. Being my first cell phone, I don't have much to compare it to. And I know your service provider has some to do with the experience, I am using Verizon & am very happy with them. They don't seem to offer as many minutes as some companies, but the reliability & clear sound are worth it to me. The choice of rings are limited to 9 rings. No music or anything fancy. There is a vibra-ring feature, & a Silent mode that puts it on vibrate & silences the keypad, but I longed for a true silent mode with no rings & no vibrating. I do like the way the phone book works. You can enter 99 names, but each name can have a designated home #, cell #, work #, fax #, pager #, etc. It has some very nice timers, including a resettable one that I was resetting at the beginning of each pay period to make sure I didn't go over my minutes limit in the beginning of having the phone. It will also receive text messages, but is unable to send them. It has keypad locking & even a setting where if you loan the phone to someone they can only dial the numbers stored between 1-9, like if you loaned it to your teenager so they could call you, but you don't want them calling all their friends too. Overall it is very durable, I've dropped it & hit it on things over & over. The battery life is very decent. It also has audible alerts (you can turn them off too) to let you know if you are in digital or analog mode. I am very impressed with the option of analog & digital mode. The phone will do it's best to stay in digital, but if not possible it will convert to analog & keep on working. I recently went up to the mountains to the snow & I was the only one with a functioning cell phone up there, it was in analog, but it was working. You can also change your banner display & change lots of things. I recommend going through the owner's manual, the phone has a lot of features you may not find on your own. One feature I don't care for is the fact that the battery is on the front part of the phone, which makes that part heavier & sometimes it is awkward holing the phone in your hand. When the phone is opened you are holding it by the bottom & sometimes it is too top heavy. They do offer a slim battery, but I never tried it. I don't see this phone offered anywhere now, & it looks old-fashioned now, big & bulky, but I'm glad I had a good experience with my first cell phone, it doesn't have some of the fancy features that most cell phones have, but it is a good basic phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88362 2000/11/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 intuitive menus cool timers phone book good battery life joint for flip creaks on mine not a lot of features The Bottom LineIf you don't need all the bells and whistles (literally!), this is a great, reliable phone. Get one off eBay while you can. Full Review I got this phone off eBay to replace a dead Ericsson R289LX with AT&T service. I believe the creaking flip is due to the previous owner's abuse, but this Talkabout definitely feels more cheaply made than its StarTAC cousins. The features and keypad layout are *identical* to the StarTAC 7797, and the Talkabout is almost the same size (slightly thicker) as a StarTAC. When in digital service areas, I could leave my phone on for nearly three days before it needed a recharge (using standard Li-ion battery). The phone will receive SMS and has all the standard features of a basic phone--and nothing else. No clock (the CDMA versions of this phone *do* have a clock). The best feature of this phone, which I wish some other manufacturers would copy--although Motorola seems to have taken them out on the V series--is the timer. The phone has a one-minute timer, which beeps 50 seconds into every minute. Some other phones have that, but I've never seen another one with a round-up resettable timer. The 'resettable' timer records time in hours and minutes--only. A 5 second call adds a minute to the timer, which is great for figuring airtime. It's not exact because it will count busy and no answer calls, but it beats a minute and second timer like most phones have where 4 10-second calls are recorded as 40 seconds even though you got charged for 4 minutes. For ringtones, you have your choice of annoying rings 1 thru 9 (same 9 as all old Motorolas back through analog phones) plus vibrate. I paid $40 for this phone, outright, and it was worth every penny. That timer saved me a fortune with my 60-minute per month plan. If you have a plan with lots of minutes, this may not matter, but if you don't, make every effort possible to get a StarTAC or Talkabout/Timeport. One last thing: the phone is very durable, as proven by the crappy holster. I probably dropped it onto pavement from my belt at least once a day for 4 months. (anyone who read my review of AT&T service is wondering... what happened to it? Water is bad.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 7736 Motorola T721 88370 2005/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 loud ringer flip phone external caller id sometimes turns off by itself I got this phone about a year ago and have had it replaced once under warranty. It works pretty well and the Mmode feature, games, and ringtones are easily downloaded. The menu and finding the features takes a little while to navigate and the book is pretty vague. The sound and clarity are decent and I have never had a problem with the battery life. The hands-free headphone is nice too. Mine has a fair amount of nicks and scratches but still works fine. The biggest problem is that sometimes the screen fades out of the phone turns off (but the battery is still charged) without reason. AT&T (Cingular now) tells me it is because of water damage but I have never had it in or near water and never spilled anything on it. Otherwise it has a nice screen with easy to see colors and has worked well for my mobile needs. I paid $150 but was a new subscriber so I ended up getting it free so it really was a good deal! 88369 2004/8/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 external caller id flip phone gsm america no real tones no loudspeaker I upgraded my AT&T Wireless Nokia 6200 for a brand-new Motorola T721 and it's a great phone! The screen is slightly bigger but with the same 4,096 color screen. The ringtones sound better, but not as great as a Sony Ericsson phone. The phone is pretty light and the external caller ID is crystal clear with its blue backlighting. 88368 2004/10/20 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks good thats it the color display is dull very bad reception needs hrs of charging Overall : Do not try the phone unless it is just for show off ( and not for real use ) . I tried this phone with a new verizon service . The first day it was charged for a whole night ..next day when I started to use it ..I got a beep for low battery just within a few hours . I got the phone replaced thinking it could be a unit problem ...but the second one came up with worst problems . It woudln't get charged at all !!!!!!! 88367 2004/9/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception sleek light weight good display charging time navigation Hey all, This phone...no doubt is stylish..and thats y I got it. Of course, I had other phones, so didn't have to worry about this phone not functioning properly (and I got it free with plan renewal). Anyways...I would say this is a good phone..except that the navigation is not that easy. It was a bit irritating at first to use this phone, but once I got used to it..it became tolerable. Remember.. this is only about navigation. Other stuff...good display, loud and nice ring tones, sleek, light weight, good reception, charging takes a bit longer. 88366 2004/5/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small form factor inexpensive with a plan unreliable os hardware I've had two of these, I'm on the second now, and there are two noticeable problems. 1) Malfunctioning with VoiceNotes (silence during playback). 2) "Static", which is bizarre for a GSM "digital" phone. 3) The Operating System is just not as good or easy to use and configure as others, (Samsung for example). 88365 2005/6/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size calendar color screen external caller id flip phone internet capability can t get new ringtones graphics without mmode display not as vibrant as other phones The Bottom LineCall-wise: does what exactly what I want it to. Extra-feature-wise: Calendar, contacts, and alarm keep me organized. Full Review Two things to take into account when reading this review: 1. The was my previous phone, so maybe I have lower expectations than some others when it comes to getting a new cell phone. 2. The area I live in (Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area) has very excellent GSM service with AT&T (#2 service in this region according to a Washington Post survey, Verizon, #1, is the only company that serves the subway system). In most cases the service I get on my new phone is the same or better than what I got on AT&T's TDMA network. The only time I would ever dream of leaving this area is to travel to another large city. So most likely don't look to this phone or service if you don't live in a big city. I won't complain much about AT&T here because this isn't a review for AT&T. Alright having said that... I took my cell phone number off my parents' plan and started my own new account with the same phone number. They allowed me to change my plan and phone since essentially it was like a new account. Sure why not. After much comparison, I went with the T721 over the Samsung x426 and the NEC 515. It was more expensive in the end, but since the others were all mail in rebates and the T721 carried only instant rebates I went with that. In addition AT&T gave me an additional $20 off. Also there was a very bizarre glitch that happened when I separated my account and it was 4 days before I got cell service back, but AT&T credited my account for that. During those 4 days I learned a lot about the features of the phone aside from making calls. Startup: Often irritatingly slow. There is a picture of a girl holding the same model phone. Would be nice if she wasn't there. Also there is an annoying loud startup sound, which to my knowledge you can't turn off. Thus, I avoid turning off my phone except on airplanes. Key pad: Nice large keys. The green call button and the red hang up button are opposite the Nokias I was used to, but I got that figured out. There is a navigational arrow pad, which I find easy to use. There are also 3 function type keys across the top (see Menus). The Menus: Took a bit of getting used to after years of Nokia use. There are 4 main icons on the screen that allow me to quickly navigate to certain features. I could set what I wanted these icons to be, so I chose message center, phone book, calendar, and recent calls. There are also two keys that allow me to select ring styles (soft, loud, vibrate, etc) or mMode. You can change the ring style button to be something else. mMode you cannot change. Anyways this menu made it easy to get to the features I use the most from the main screen. There is another key in between the mMode and ring style keys that takes you to the full main menu (you can have it display icons or a list). I like how the submenus are organized. Particularly with the message center which breaks it down into voicemail, text messages, email messages etc. All in all pretty easy to figure out the menus. Address book: Much much better than my previous phone. Makes it easy to store more than one number for a person. When you navigate to the contact list it automatically lists all the names in the address book (alphabetical by default). You can quick jump to letters of the alphabet by using the keypad. Also the phone lets you set a ring tone, speed dial, and voice tag for the person (haven't used voice dialing yet, will report on this if I ever get around to it). Also you can store an email address. No place to store mailing addresses, which would be convienent since I don't have an address book outside of my laptop computer. However I can text message myself important addresses through the AT&T website and save them if I know I will need them when on a trip. Call quality: No different from my Nokia phones of the past. Clear sounding calls, like a regular telephone in my house. There are volume adjustment keys on the side of the phone which make it easy to tone the call volume up or down mid conversation. Again, any problems with static or dropped calls almost always had to do with being in poorer reception areas. Battery: Talk-time wise, it is hard to judge. Since I use it as my main phone, usually I am at home or in the car plugged into a charger anyways when talking. Standby time wise, I had a period where it was not plugged in for about 3 days, during which time I did use the phone a bit to talk and to look at my calendar, check voice mail etc. The battery indicator still says the battery is full. There are some power saving features of this phone, such as screen illumination time etc. I have mine set very low, which gets annoying when I want to look at something, but the screen has gone dim from a few seconds of inactivity. But I figure I am saving power. The phone charges very quickly, much quicker than my old Nokias. I like that the charger "hooks" into the phone a bit, so if I'm at home or driving and on the phone, the charger cord doesn't pull out (as it did all the time on aforementioned Nokias). You press a little release button on the cord and it lets go of the phone. Now for the fun stuff: This is my first flip phone and I like it rather much. I feel like I can hear better and people can hear me better since the mic is near my mouth. The keys are much larger (good for when wearing gloves). I had the strange problem of never being able to find my much larger Nokia 1260 in my small handbags because of the dark color, but I can find my silver T721 with no problem. It also allows for changeable faceplates (I think I will go with pink!). Though I have heard some complaints about polyphonic ring tones being too soft, I find them to be just fine. There are 7 levels of ring volume, and I never put it on 7 because I actually find it too loud. The polyphonic ring tones are also much more pleasant when I am sleeping and I set the phone to a soft tune at a low volume so as not to scare me awake. Also the T721 comes with something you can't find on a lot of phones these days. Ring tones that sound like a phone ringing. The external caller ID displays the date, time, signal strength, battery power. The main screen of the phone does the same. The display on the outside is plain LCD with blue backlighting (no need to waste battery power on a fancy color caller ID here). The main screen is nice and large and in color. You can even pick a color scheme (I went with green). The colors are not as vibrant as some other phones I have seen but they are good enough to make things look nice. There are wallpapers as well (sunflowers for me). I rather enjoy having the calendar, since as I said before, everything is on my laptop, and you can't exactly carry that with you everywhere. I usually program in my work schedule, which changes from week to week, and then have the phone sound an alarm one hour before work, so I never have to think about what time to set my actual alarm clock to in order to wake up each day. There is an optional USB/software kit you can get that lets you sync with Outlook. I hope to get that sometime in the future and will report back. There are some games that came with it, racing and Breakout. I erased the racing game because I don't like racing games. I don't particularly like Breakout either because I am very bad at it, but for now it stays. You can also download more java games if you want, but for some reason the really good ones, like Bejewelled claim they will work on the T720, but not the T721. Complaints: I am annoyed that you can't get ringtones, wallpapers, or games without signing up with mMode. I plan to do mMode when I have a steadier job, but in the meantime, I am missing out on some fun customization things. The phone has a lot of really shiny parts that get fingerprints etc. all over it pretty easily. I find that I am constantly wiping it on my shirt to remove fingerprints. Because this does not seem to be posted on the epinions site, specs (from AT&T Wireless): Weight: 3.56 ounces Dimensions: 3.54 inches tall x 1.87 inches wide x .98 inches thick Battery: 750 mAh lithium-ion Digital Talk Time: up to 6.5 hours Digital Standby Time: up to 230 hours Warranty: 1 year on phone and accessories (limited to defects in material and workmanship) Technology: GSM/GPRS 850/1900 MHz *All talk, data, and standby times are approximate and depend on network configuration. Included Accessories: 750 mAh lithium-Ion Battery Travel Charger Belt Clip Holster w/spring Headset Update: Did end up getting mMode and am enjoying ringtones and access to CNN when on travel. I've had this phone now for well over a year and it works just as well as when I first got it. Since AT&T became Cingular I have considered taking advantage of getting a new phone and "new" plan, but I continue to hold off as this phone has lots of extra features AND doesn't have a camera, which is important as I need my phone at work, but can't have a camera phone at work. I did install a few games on the phone, such as Snood, but I discovered that the phone really only has room for one "really fun" game at a time. I also discovered that by turning the phone to "silent", start up and and shut down sounds went to silent as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7737 Motorola V60x 88373 2004/11/2 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 size durability can t believe it s a motorola battery life poor reception Granted, it was less expensive than the others when I purchased a new contract. I expected a better product from Motorola. My biggest issue with this phone is reception. I travel the same highway everyday and compared to my previous provider (and phone), this device is simply unreliable. I've tried an external magnet mount antenna, and extendable antenna without a notible improvement. Previous phone was a Siemens S46 using AT&T service. Battery life is unusually short as well. I can go an entire day without making or receiving calls and still have to charge it overnight. Not charging everyday almost always results in a dead battery. She's fragile too! Don't take this one on a construction site... it's better suited for a lady's purse. I also get frustrated with the buttons located on the side of the phone. A strong wind turns the ringer volume up and down. The worst part - I bought two, including accessories. Now I'm stuck with them. 88372 2004/7/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small flip phone 1 line screen on outside everything else The Bottom LineI can't wait for my contract to expire. Full Review I recently replaced my Motorola StarTac 7868W phone with its successor: the Motorola V60x. The Startac was a brilliant design that served me well: it was small, compact, easy to use, the reception was awesome, and the battery lasted forever. The V60x, on the other hand, sucks really, really badly! Reception I'm still with the same phone company, but reception is WORSE than with the Startac! This is presumably due to the absence of an extendable antenna. Size The V60 is smaller than the Startac. However, the standard holster makes it stick out an extra inch from your waistband. Worse, the click-in system is so inadequate and hard to use that you are almost guaranteed to drop it. A cheapo leather phone holster from Wal-Mart fixed these problems. Ringtones I always wear this phone in vibrate mode in a holster on my belt. The only time I hear the ringtone is when the phone is charging and automatically switches from "Vibrate" to "Loud". You can change the ringtone, but the standard one suits me fine. Even in the supposedly discreet "Vibrate" mode the phone will emit an annoying beep every few minutes when it starts to runs out of juice, which happens a lot. Battery life Right out of the box, the battery life is an absolutely, totally, horribly inadequate 12 hours on standby! According to the manual, the battery life gets longer with each complete discharge. In the meantime, be prepared to get cut off in mid-sentence a lot. Charging To make the battery life problem worse, this phone is not capable of charging its battery while you are talking. So you might be talking in your car, or at home with the phone plugged in, and still get cut off! In addition, inserting the charger plug and actually having the phone realize it and start charging, takes about half a dozen tries each time. One of the three "teeth" on the plug is shorter than the others, which might explain this phenomenon. Screens There is a monochrome screen on the inside of this flip-phone, and a one-line monochrome screen on the outside. This is actually an improvement over the Startac, because you can see what time it is or who is calling without having to open the phone. Menus The V60 has a new phone-number menu compared to the Startac (much like old Nokias, in fact), which is not an improvement, because you now have to scroll much more than before. The buttons on the side are used to change the ringer tones, among other things. However, this means that the ringer will change randomly, depending on which side-buttons you accidentally happen to mash. I'm scared to take this thing to a theater in case it suddenly starts to ring instead of vibrate. Worse, when it accidentally goes to "silent" mode, I miss incoming calls. Voicemail Because of the horrible reception and problems with the ringer, I was forced to get voicemail. However, actually getting a "new message" notification without switching the phone on and off will take anywhere from hours to days. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the phone or the network since I didn't have voicemail with my Startac. Extras In lieu of a good antenna, this phone is packed with electronic extras. It can be used as a calculator, knows the Greek alphabet, has games, has interchangeable custom front and back covers, can receive and send text messages and pictures, be used for data transmissions, use different ring tones, has a screen-saver, has a calendar, has voice-dial, is an FM-radio (with optional handset) and God knows what else. Bottom line None of the "improvements" in this phone do anything to relieve my frustration when I can't talk to people because of its poor reception or dead battery. It is, after all, a phone, not a replacement for a Nintendo, calculator or PDA, and the primary function of a phone is to let you TALK to other people, something the designers of this technological leap backward seem to have forgotten. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88371 2000/1/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact ringtones light good reception nice looking inexpensive some hard to figure out features outside ringer control problem no color screen The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone looking for an inexpensive and compact cell phone. Despite some negatives, it is fairly reliable. Full Review After a two year battle with a lousy and undependable cellular phone I decided to throw in the towel and buy a phone that actually worked. I was looking for something compact, durable, and reliable. I didn't need the most expensive phone with the most gadgets. My search led me to my local Alltel store where I selected the Motorola v60x, mostly due to its low cost and nice looks. Despite the poor reviews this phone has received, I have found it to be well suited to my needs. It may have its share of drawbacks, which I will describe below, along with its good points, but I feel it is a decent little phone. What I Like About You, Motorola v60x: __________________________________________________________ Size: The Motorola v60x is a compact little phone that can easily fit into a pocket or a purse. It is light, weighing only slightly more than 4.5 ounces. It fits nicely into the hand, and is quite convenient. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?: The reception has been a major gripe with other reviewers, but I have not found it to be a problem. I use it to make long distance calls three or more times a week and I can usually always hear the other caller clearly. The sound is fairly crisp, and there is only static on rare occasions. Received calls have been equally as clear. I have not had a problem whatsoever with reception in my current location. I recently relocated from Eastern North Carolina, where there were some rural areas (okay, lots) where reception was sketchy. When traveling through Tick Bite (yes, that is a real town) my reception was not as dandy. I believe that was due more so to a lack of service towers in the area, rather than the phone itself. ___________________________________________________________ Ring-A-Ling: There are a wide variety of both standard and downloadable ringtones available for this phone. Imbedded ringtones include standard tones such as Continental,Siren,Pulse, Pulse, and Beep. Songs such as "Canon in D" and "1812 Overture" are also available for selection. In the Axcess Apps menu you can download the greatest hits of yesteryear and today (with an elevator-music like quality) for the low, low price of around ninety-nine cents. Songs can be downloaded through services such as Ringster, Ringtone Jukebox, Modtones, and Xringer. I do not use this much, as it can be costly. I received a free Ringster download, from which I selected "The Pink Panther". Pretty snazzy, huh? Ha ha. Charge...the Battery! Another major gripe of the other reviewers was battery life. I have honestly not had a problem with the battery in my v60x, but perhaps that's because I had such an awful phone before. It has 148 hours, or two hours and twenty eight minutes, of talk time. That may not seem like much to some, but it is suitable for my needs as an average person. I talked last night for about an hour each to two different people and left my phone off the charger all night. My battery is not dead yet! The battery seems to last just fine with average use, but may not be suitable for those always on the phone for business or other reasons. I would say it lasts for around two hours, maybe a smidgen more. Unlike other batteries of the past, you cannot overcharge and ruin the battery in the v60x. You just plug it into the wall charger and go! What's On The Menu? The menu is easy to access via the menu button at the top of the phone and it contains a variety of selections including: Recent calls: Tells you the telephone number and time of your ten most recent incoming or outgoing calls. Phonebook: I am not sure how many numbers can be store, but there are plenty, for which speed dialing is available. Datebook: A calendar that comes in handy when you need it. Axcess Apps: You can Axcess games, ringtones, and more through Axcess at a small fee. I do not use this much. One caveat: You may have trouble connecting. I have experienced this once before. Browser: I have never used this feature, so I am not aware of its capabilities. I am not sure if the service to use Mobile Web is even available in my area. Shortcuts: I have not used this feature myself. Ring Styles: Menu from which you can select or change the ring style or volume of your phone. There are many varieties from which to chose. A vibrate feature is available. Messages: The v60x is text messaging capable. You can read, send, and save text messages here. This is a nice feature which I use frequently. It is easy to use. It tells you when your message is sent and notifies you when messages are received. Voice record: The v60x has voice dialing. I still have yet to figure out how to figure it out. I also feel silly talking to my phone. Picture viewer: The v60x is NOT a camera phone. This is where you can view and select cute screen savers such as a frog on a lily pad. How cute. Calculator: Need I explain? It is handy. Settings: You can adjust the settings on your phone here, including ring styles and phone status. Screens: The Motorola v60x has two screens. There is an external one-line screen and an inner screen. Both are easy to read. The outer screen has an external caller ID for when weirdos come a callin' and you don't wanna answer. This is very handy. Voicemail: Like most phones in the known world today voicemail is available. Apparently, I am the only one in the world who does not have it, so I cannot tell you how well it works. Looks: In my opinion, this is a nice looking little phone. It may not have all the latest features, but it is shiny and sleek. It has a chrome casing, which is also available in colors. DISLIKES: Moans and Groans...Okay, I did not say this phone was perfect. Here is what I do not like about it: It's All Right There In Black and White: Gasp! There is no color screen. I would have loved a color screen, but at the time I purchased this over a year ago, they were too costly for me. Behind the Times: Right up there with the fact that there is no color screen is the fact that this phone was introduced in 2003 and is being far surpassed by other phones that knock it out of the solar system in terms of features, etc. There are not a lot of bells and whistles, but I really don't need them. Dagnabit! I Have Turned The Volume Down Again! There are two little buttons on the left side of the phone that control the volume. It is easy to accidentally turn the volume down when it is in your purse or pocket. Due to this fact, I have missed many a call because I could not hear the phone ring! How in the World Do I Use Voice Dialing? I mentioned this before, but the voice dialing thing is hard to figure out on this phone. Of course, I could consult the manual for that, but I do not know where it is. I have successfully recorded my voice under a few numbers, but I practically have to yell at the phone for it to recognize me. I feel pretty stupid doing that. Not Bad: Overall I would say this is not a bad little phone. It is not as bad as they say it is, at least. It looks nice, its compact, and it has held up for me thus far. It may not be the newest or trendiest phone out there and is somewhat average as far as cell phones go, but it is not nearly the anomaly it is said to be. If you are just an average cell phone user who talks only a moderate amount of time, I would say to take a look at it. How Much is It? A big plus, that I forgot to mention is the price. I got my Motorola v60x for only $29.99...in other words, thirty bucks. That will not put you out if you decide you hate it and want to upgrade. It can be found online or at various retail locations, including Alltel. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7738 Motorola V2282 Wireless Phone 88388 2003/10/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 still searching connection bad radio no clock bad menu screens those rubber covers I had never had a cell phone before and this was my first phone. i got it with the Voicestream prepay kit and for a while it was nice. It worked well and rang but after about two months all that could go wrong went wrong. It disconnected constantly, i was sick of having to go out and buy minute cards every month, no clock, those stupid rubber covers and it had no games and an awful setup. Despite the box reading "100% digital, i knew it was not. i was also constantly asked by my friends why i had a toy phone because the rubber covers made it look fake. So i dumped it and got a Kyocera 2325 phone and it was the best choice i ever made. 88387 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it works not the best of the best The Bottom LineI would recommended it if you're looking for a simple phone that would do the job. Otherwise, don't get it if you are expecting more from a phone. Full Review Unlike many of my colleagues and friends, I didn't purchase my Motorola V2282 phone. About two months ago, I decided to head to the mall to find a new cell phone. Being a broke college student, I was not about to pay a 100 bucks for the phone I really wanted. So, I set off to find something more reasonable and somehow stumbled across the "free cell phone" offer at one of the booths. At any rate, for what it is worth, I've been pretty pleased with this phone. There isn't anything fancy, so don't expect a whole lot from this phone. This model doesn't include the time nor does it include any "different" rings/ring options. Basically, it's just a straight-forward phone. If your service includes these options then you can: receive and send out text messages, access the internet, get call waiting, receive call forwarding, etc. I receive all my calls and get pretty reasonable reception, which has a lot to do with the service I subscribe to. The battery lasts for about 2-3 days straight, if you never turn your phone off. And also, if you are like me and don't read manuals, then you definitely won't run yourself into any difficulties here. The phone also includes a hands-free connector and a FM radio connection too. I know, I know, its pretty crazy stuff! But hey, it's pretty unique in a sense and proves to be somewhat useful if you travel a lot. Recommended: Yes 88386 2000/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 has a radio relatively inexpensive looks good lightweight good battery life no clock what were they thinking The Bottom LineGood phone with useful extra options: text messaging, internet. And it looks cute. Full Review UPDATE, August 2002: After around two years this phone has slowly started to give out. The connection from the phome to the recharge is now so poor I need to jam the plugged in phone between several books to hold the charger in place and keep it active. Other functions are still good, although after about 18 months the rubber slipcovers, in new condition a great way to spot the plain, grey phone, became too loose to be of use--the phone + cover started catching on things all the time! So much for looking cute. I bought this phone with a Pac Bell Wireless plan when it was new on the market. There may be other Motorola phones that are better now but this phone has been great--and easy--to use. Problems with the service provider are another matter; below I've commented on the functionality of the phone. The phone is lightweight and comes with slipcovers that provide a good grip. They are available in at least five colors (blue, bright orange, lime green, yellow, and red. I've also seen pink covers on this phone overseas) and cost around $10 each; the phone comes with two covers. The covers help prevent the phone getting dirty though the buttons are nicely designed and the phone face stays clean and is easy to wipe down. The phone also comes with a belt clip and hands-free set. The hands-free set is only okay--unless the speaker is right at your mouth it's difficult for people you call to hear your voice clearly. The display panel is easy to read and the backlight powerful--good enough to read on a dark street at night. Volume control is good, although in crowds or louder places I'd be happy with a little more range. The ring tones are all variations of phone ring-tones from around the world. There aren't as many as with, e.g., Nokia phones. If you use the internet connection service it's possible you could download additional tones--but I don't subscribe so I cannot guarantee this. The battery life is good if you are not using this phone for long periods. I use the phone between 5 and 25 minutes a day and find that recharging it every three days (even with the phone switched on overnight) is sufficient. Longer calls do eat up battery life a little more but the phone does seem to survive recharging only every second day with 1-2 hours of conversation each day. The radio seemed like a gimmicky extra but it works and is great for jogging or travel, etc. When I bought the phone I was told it was a "world-phone" and worked outside the U.S. However, this is not the case. The phone does have text messaging and internet access capability. One disadvantage--though this may be a service provider problem--is the consistency of the voicemail. It sometimes takes over an hour before I receive a voicemail message alert. Another problem, also more likely to be with the service provider or at least not specific to this phone, is the inconsistent range in hilly parts of SF. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 70 w/ plan 88385 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ring tones are loud cool look lite who cares no clock get a watch The Bottom LineStop crying so much, it's AWESOME! Full Review Listen folks, (it's me again, the Store Manager of that local cell phone store) stop whining. Do half of you guys even own this phone???? Judging buy some of your reviews, I think not!! I know that my Title and the first paragraph are somwhat strong but it is a phone, not a car. If you do not like it, don't buy it. My gosh, oh no, NO CLOCK, OH MY GOSH, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITHOUT A CLOCK....IT IS NOT A QUARTZ, IT'S A DARN CELL PHONE..LET'S GET REAL...BOO HOO! Anyway, it just makes me sick when people give such horrible reviews just because it has no clock. It's like I have said before, if you want the downloadable ringtones, get the Nokia 5165 and go about your business but don't diss a phone just because of that. This phone is perfect for those customers who have difficulty hearing because the ringers are very loud, you will love this because everytime my Assistant Manager's phone rings it scares the crap out of me because it is so loud. The batteries are three separate Nickel Metal Hydrate and that is bad. As long as you discharge the batteries first before you charge, you'll be fine. Also the talk time isn't all that bad. The other thing is the navigation is very simple. Why do people think it is so difficult. Most motorola phones have that Function key that you have to push so what is so different about this one. Folks, this is a good phone, easy to operate and navigate. It has a built-in radio and OH NO, IT HAS NO CLOCK.....SOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! There are many different types of wraps you can get for this phone, even ones that glow in the dark, now that is cool. Bottom line.... a terrific phone that is sleak, convenient, loud, and clear. Take it from me...you will like this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88384 2000/3/8 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 wide selection of hardrubber covers nice curvy design durable radio only available through hands free kit no clock function quite large The Bottom LineA decent all round phone, but try something different if you are looking for something a bit more upmarket, with special features, or with easily-navigatable menus. Full Review I wanted a V2282 from the minute I saw it advertised. The curvy design and choice of hard or soft rubber covers in a variety of colours appealed to me, as I suppose I'm somewhat a poser, and would never choose an "ugly" phone. When I finally got the phone (a feat in itself; every shop I tried had sold out) I was quite surprised by the size. Compared to other phones now on the market, the V2282 is slightly on the big side. In fact, it's largely on the big side. I worked out extremely quickly how to use the phone, although the menus are sometimes quite difficult to navigate. The phone number memory stores only 90 numbers, and I expected more, as a lot of phones today can easily store more than 200. I was also quite disappointed by the ringtone selection - instead of the great variety I expected to go along with the "v. sexy" appearance, here I was, with a choice of only 11 tones, and no option to download or input any others. Neither is there an option to download logos. The message memory only stores up to 10 text messages, which includes ingoing and outgoing messages you may have saved. Also, the phone does not display the name of the message sender, even if the number is stored in the phone book. The radio is only accessible while wearing the hands-free headset, which I find quite awkward to use. However, the phone does have a useful function whereby if you do receive a message or phone call while listening to the radio, it will cut out and the phone will ring or beep as normal. In spite of all this, I was quite please with the internet access. I found the phone browser simple to understand and use. Another feature is the soft rubber covers - they are very durable and protect the phone quite well from drops, bumps, and scratches. All in all, if you are used to the usual Motorola standard, you will not be surprised by this phone. Apart from the appearance, radio and internet access, this phone functions no differently to the standard Motorola. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 88383 2000/7/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 fm tuner several accessories included loud ringer egronomic shape inexpensive horrible keypad subpar audio quality pointless phone wraps no clock The Bottom LineIn the best case scenario, I can only be neutral with this phone. It has its own thing, but it's missing some others. Full Review I myself do not own this phone, but I have had access to this model from several of my friends and can make a pretty sound opinion about the v2282. Phone: Well in Canada, this model is offered by Fido, and at this time, there is a rebate on this model. The v2282 comes with a plethora of accessories, from a headset to v2282's unique "phone wraps". The rest is pretty much standard for all cellular phones. Build: The immediate feeling of this phone is cheap. Most, if not all, the exterior is made of plastic. The phone feels very egronomic as it molds to the hand better with its peanut shaped curves. There are no creaks or loose fittings when placed in a tight jean pocket or when grasped. However, due to its plastic exterior, a several falls here and there may dent the phone a little easier than other makes. Overall, I like the design, although it took some time getting use to. Screen/Display: With whatever usage I was able to accumulate with the v2282, my feelings with the display is a rather mixed one. The resolution is very good, however, I had a hard time reading the display in sunlight as the actual screen inside sits so far back from the plastic screen outside, the glare of the sun made it tough for glancing. The backlight is below average. The screen is lit unevenly. Some spots have a high concentration of light, others have little. It may provide some problems at night, but should still be good enough to be read. The font used on the v2282 is very nice. It is not a fixed display font so the font size adjusts accordingly. At best, the display on the v2282 is adequate. A big downer was the lack of a clock. Something like this should be standard on all phones, however, Motorola decided to disable this feature. From what I've heard, there are hidden features in the v2282. With the help of either some data cable and software, or a "cloning card" that I've heard about, you can enable the clock, as well as other features which I forget. These features should'nt have been disabled in the first place, so I don't know what the deal was with that. Keypad: The keypad on the v2282 is similar to the keypad on the Nokia 5100 series. They are below average. The v2282's keypad does sit high up, but, the keys in no way offer alot of tactile feel to it. Little clicking is known when pressing the keys; feeling more mushy than anything else. It requires more pressure than usual to activate a key because many times, I found that I pressed a key, but nothing responded. I can't offer anything much higher than average for the keypad. Battery: The v2282 comes with a 700MaH NiMH battery. At first, I thought it was your basic AAA batteries, but on closer inspection, they were longer than the AAA batteries. It offers about 130hrs of talk time and about 200hrs of standby. Phonebook: The phonebook on the v2282 is similar in operation as the Nokia phonebooks. However, like all GSM phones, or phones with SIM cards, the capacity of your phonebook is limited to the amount that can be stored on the SIM. Unless you have collected strangers' phone numbers, the phonebook should offer more than enough storage. Ringers: I can't remember how many ringers the v2282 has, I think it was about 11 or 12. These ringers are very loud and is on par with the other makes in terms of ringer volume. There are several oscillating ringers to choose from, although I found it peculiar to identify a ringer with a country (ie: british tone). Nonetheless, very nice ringers. Network: This phone works via 1900 GSM digital. However, as with many Fido phones, no analog is available. There is no analog module that I know of for this model. So, expect to use this phone in the city or be prepared for fashionable paperweight. FM Tuner: This feature I like very much. I wish this was implemented with many other phones rather than purchasing an adaptor. Anyways, the built-in radio tuner offers FM frequency. I was a little disappointed that AM was not added to it as well. Nonetheless, the FM tuner was very easy to use. Although tuning stations took a little longer because it would only change in 0.1 increments, however, the audio quality was very good, as good as your radio tuner at home. Since the v2282 does not have a speakerphone, the FM tuner is listenable only through the included headset piece. The tuner also allows you to preset your favourite stations for quick tracking. Overall, a very nice extra. Audio Quality: Whatever the v2282 looses in physical characteristics, it somewhat gains it back with audio quality. Incoming audio was very good, very natural sounding, comparable to the Nokia 5190. However, I found the volume to be a little lacking. A high on the motorola would be about a medium on other handsets. It may pose a problem when used in noisy situations. Background hiss is not really noticable since the volume is rather low. Outgoing audio was something else. People I have talked to with the phone confessed to choppy audio, and very noticable background noise. I have heard the outgoing audio myself, and it frustrated me even when I was at home in a quiet room. When using the headset, volume was the same as the receiver, not very loud. In terms of signal strength, the v2282 does a good job at hanging on to that digital signal. Some underground parking lots do posess a problem for the v2282, but this is moreso likely a network thing. SIM Card: Since this phone requires a SIM card, there are 2 opinions about it, you either like it or hate it. It provides simplicity and convenience as it stores all the important info, such as your settings, phonebook, and account info. If this phone suddenly dies, simply remove the SIM and put the card into another GSM phone with SIM card. The same phone number is kept as well. However, it works against you just as easily, anyone can use this phone. Theives can easily steal one, and replace it with a their own SIM card and the phone is working for them. Your call here. Conclusion: As mentioned in the title, a complete mixed bag. On one hand, you're getting all these extras, 2 phone wraps, headset, FM tuner, belt clip, etc. On the other hand, many physical aspects hurt the phone and the audio quality is rather disappointing for a GSM phone. Is this a buy or what? It's up to you to decide. I'm not really sure that you get what you're paying for, because of some omitted features and some pointless ones included (minibrowser). However, I would say it is a good buy namely because the price for the v2282 has dropped to under $100, and with Fido, you can get it rebated to $0. The prepaid bundle is also cheaper at around $125. If you were deciding between the Mitsubishi G310 or the Motorola V2282, I would be hard pressed to choose either of the two; both do not have a clock! However, is audio quality is important to you, opt for the G310. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 w/rebate 88382 2000/9/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool shape radio different face plates multiple ring tones no clock The Bottom LineI recommend because it is lightweight and portable, and you'll get your moneys worth. Full Review The motorola v2282 is a great phone, i can't say to many bad things about it. Although theres one thing the thing doesn't have a CLOCK! Guess what they put in there instead,a radio. I not saying the F.M. radio is bad or anything, it has really good sound and it's crystal clear, but i would rather have a clock instead. I purchased my phone from voicestream. I got mines as a pre-paid kit. The pre-paid kit is really good in value. I purchased mines for $100. It includes the phone,$50 worth of minutes, a travel charger, belt clip, and hands free set. The v2282 differs from other phones instead of using a battery pack, it uses three alkaline type rechargeble batteries. It has all the features of any digital phone, (caller id, 3 way calls, text message, voice mail, call forward, etc., etc. All in all the v2282 is another great digital phone from motorola. It has everything a consumer is looking for,(value, reliability, durability). If your looking for all of the above do what I did and go and purchase the motorola v2282.The motorola v2282 is a great phone, i can't say to many bad things about it. Although theres one thing the thing doesn't have a CLOCK! Guess what they put in there instead,a radio. I not saying the F.M. radio is bad or anything, it has really good sound and it's crystal clear, but i would rather have a clock instead. I purchased my phone from voicestream. I got mines as a pre-paid kit. The pre-paid kit is really good in value. I purchased mines for $100. It includes the phone,$50 worth of minutes, a travel charger, belt clip, and hands free set. The v2282 differs from other phones instead of using a battery pack, it uses three alkaline type rechargeble batteries. It has all the features of any digital phone, (caller id, 3 way calls, text message, voice mail, call forward, etc., etc. All in all the v2282 is another great digital phone from motorola. It has everything a consumer is looking for,(value, reliability, durability). If your looking for all of the above do what I did and go and purchase the motorola v2282.The motorola v2282 is a great phone, i can't say to many bad things about it. Although theres one thing the thing doesn't have a CLOCK! Guess what they put in there instead,a radio. I not saying the F.M. radio is bad or anything, it has really good sound and it's crystal clear, but i would rather have a clock instead. I purchased my phone from voicestream. I got mines as a pre-paid kit. The pre-paid kit is really good in value. I purchased mines for $100. It includes the phone,$50 worth of minutes, a travel charger, belt clip, and hands free set. The v2282 differs from other phones instead of using a battery pack, it uses three alkaline type rechargeble batteries. It has all the features of any digital phone, (caller id, 3 way calls, text message, voice mail, call forward, etc., etc. All in all the v2282 is another great digital phone from motorola. It has everything a consumer is looking for,(value, reliability, durability). If your looking for all of the above do what I did and go and purchase the motorola v2282. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88381 2002/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 included headset belt clip fm radio built in no clock sim card displaces easily large size The Bottom LineUnless you really need an FM radio on a cell phone, avoid this model. Full Review The Motorola V2292 was my first cell phone through the (at the time) Voicestream service. I was excited to get it, and excited about the prospects of a GSM phone. After using the phone for over a year, and switching to others, I ended up coming back to it. I'll tell you why later. The V2282 by today's cell phone standards is huge. Coming from using an Ericsson T28 and a Nokia 8290 this is very true. The phone easily is over five inches long (almost six), and about an inch and a half thick (roughly). Yes, it is a brick. For actual phone features, the V2282 doesn't offer much. It is centered around the idea (gimmick, really) of having an FM radio. The catch is in order to really use the FM radio, you need to be in an area with cell phone coverage. Odd? That is what I thought. I've compared the reception of the phone to that on my RioVolt SP250 MP3 player and I've noticed it isn't very good. And, to use the FM radio you need to use the included earbud earphones, which double as a headset as well. One thing I was stunned by is the fact for a phone that comes with Voicestream's pre-paid services it lacks a call timer, or clock. The call timers that are included are life timers, like for total time and that. Voicestream made a very poor choice selecting this phone for their pre-paid services. Also, why include a phone with a web browser, when you have no data capabilities with the pre-paid services? Stupid idea if you ask me, but they made the call. As for the included headset with the phone, there are some limitations. When you use it to listen to the FM radio, you get stereo sound. But, when used as a headset during a call sound is only through the right speaker. What is up with that? The included belt clip is a nice thing, and great for using with the headset. I do applaud Voicestream on that move. It is probably the best thing about the entire package. The worst problem I've had with the cell phone is how the SIM card is held in place. I've had it just suddenly dislodge for no reason, and I had to open the phone, remove the batteries and put the SIM card back in place in order to fix the problem. Honestly, I cannot recommend this phone. It is based on a poorly executed gimmick that doesn't even work right. Only recommended to those who want an FM radio on their phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 88380 2001/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good signal strength cheap price phonewrap compatible fm radio great design no logos picture messages awful wap browser sensitive screen slow processor no vibration short battery life The Bottom LineWon't disappoint you, but misses small essential features. I'd like to exchange it for a better one, but considering the price I don't feel sorry about buying it at all. Full Review My handset has an upgraded software system, so it has a clock and some other features not available in older handsets. You can easily upgrade yours at your service provider without any hardware upgrades. This phone has a distinguished design, but its functionality is average. You get all the basic features you'd expect, in addition to some extras like WAP access, 3 games, calculator, tone composer and FM radio. It also comes with two soft PhoneWraps that provide considerable protection in addition to a better look. Battery life is a big disappointment. This phone works on 3 NiMH batteries that look like standard AA batteries, but slightly longer. Motorola claims they last up to 2.5 hours of talk. I could barely get 110 minutes. Usually, you'll need to charge it overnight every two or three days. The screen plate is the worst I've seen ever. It must be the most sensitive in the world. It can be scratched by the slightest contact, and it collects dust particles as a vacuum. Also, the screen itself is located deeper by a few millimeters, so it cannot be seen well outdoors. You might consider buying a protective case for it, as before long, the screen plate will be full of scars. The processor is kind of slow. It takes a comparatively long time to open SMS messages or display images. I discovered also that the phone can freeze up just like a computer! I don't know how this happened, but I had to power it off by taking out the batteries. CTRL+ALT+DEL would be a great addition if there was enough space! The WAP browser provided by Phone.com is horrible. It is difficult to use and can be somehow tricky. It insists on going to MyMotorola.com every time I start a session. Also, it doesn't allow accessing the setup menu without actually being online. 60% of what my phone cost in the first month was the cost of wasted time I spent online while fighting the browser. It just doesn't respond as you want. I would not recommend using WAP with this phone unless it is free, or you're really used to that browser. One of the missing features that could be a nice addition is VibraCall. The ringtone composer makes it up for it, especially that most of the pre-set tones are boring. It has a useful silent mode too. The signal is good at most times, and the sound is clear. The FM radio is a very nice feature. Its sound is clearer than big radios, and it has 9 easily-programmable channels. The earphones supplied with it are good, but they might not fit everybody well. Their microphone piece is far from the mouth. The size and weight are suitable enough to carry it on your waist or in your pocket. Perhaps you'll feel envious about the much smaller handsets, but I think that if it was smaller, that would be on account of your comfort. I don't like that it doesn't support operator logos or picture messages as some Nokia and Sagem handsets do. Therefore, don't buy it if all of your friends own Nokia's! Support of such graphics is a small feature, but it is nice for personalizing your handset and adding a personal touch. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85 88379 2000/6/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life relatively inexpensive lightweight looks good has a radio no clock what were they thinking The Bottom LineGood, above average phone with useful extra options: text messaging, internet. And it looks cute. Full Review I bought this phone with a Pac Bell Wireless plan when it was new on the market. There may be other Motorola phones that are better now but this phone has been great--and easy--to use. Problems with the service provider are another matter; below I've commented on the functionality of the phone. The phone is lightweight and comes with slipcovers that provide a good grip. They are available in at least five colors (blue, bright orange, lime green, yellow, and red. I've also seen pink covers on this phone overseas) and cost around $10 each; the phone comes with two covers. The covers help prevent the phone getting dirty though the buttons are nicely designed and the phone face stays clean and is easy to wipe down. The phone also comes with a belt clip and hands-free set. The hands-free set is only okay--unless the speaker is right at your mouth it's difficult for people you call to hear your voice clearly. The display panel is easy to read and the backlight powerful--good enough to read on a dark street at night. Volume control is good, although in crowds or louder places I'd be happy with a little more range. The ring tones are pretty boring--all variations of phone ring-tones from around the world. There aren't as many as with, e.g., Nokia phones. If you use the internet connection service it's possible you could download additional tones--but I don't subscribe so I could not guarantee this. The battery life is excellent if you aren't using this phone for long periods each day. I use the phone between 5 and 25 minutes a day and find that recharging it every three days (even with the phone switched on overnight) is sufficient. Longer calls do eat up battery life a little more but the phone does seem to survive recharging only every second day with 1-2 hours of conversation each day. The radio seemed like a gimmicky extra but it has great reception and is great for jogging or travel, etc. When I bought the phone I was told it was a "world-phone" and worked outside the U.S. However, this is not the case. But...the phone does have text messaging and internet access capability. One disadvantage--though this may be a service provider problem--is the consistency of the voicemail. It sometimes takes over an hour before I receive a voicemail message alert. Another problem, also more likely to be with the service provider or at least not specific to this phone, is the inconsistent range in hilly parts of SF. My final gripe is the lack of a clock. To be honest, I didn't notice this at first, but now it's a regular annoyance--Why, why, why Motorola?! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 w/ plan 88378 2001/2/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice design comfortable wireless internet built in radio inaccurate gauges cannot download rings or logos no clock no vibrate convuluted menus The Bottom LineThere are better substitutes out there. This phone is sufficient, but only get it if you HAVE to. Full Review Reluctantly, I'm going to recommend this phone because it really isn't that bad. The thing is, it really isn't that great either. But it suits to purpose will sufficient enough that I'd have to recommend it. There are just other phones, in the same price range, that are much better than this phone. Like I said, this phone is sufficient enough for the needs of most people. The phone is as small and as light as the Nokia 6000 series phones. It includes text messaging, caller ID, 11 built in rings, storing up to 99 names numbers and locations. Some of the other things that are unique to this phone are a built-in radio and the ability to access the internet. Battery life and reception are sufficient enough as well. For the most part, it is good at doing all of the aforementioned traits. However, getting to them is quite a hassel. The menus are extremely convuluted. The phone has so many submenus that it's pretty hard to know what option you picked in the first place. For such a complicated menu system, I would hope that Motorola would include some type of tree diagram to show exactly what submenu you're currently in. Moreover, the menu system asks if it's okay to proceed a little too much! I guess if you're clumsy and hit the wrong buttons it's good, but Motorola has included what I think to be an excessively paranoid menus system. The primary purpose of a phone is to call people. One of the most annoying things about the phone's operating system is how you use it to call people. With the Nokia's you just press the up and down buttons and you're already in your address book. With this phone, pressing the up and down buttons do nothing. First, you must get into your address book. But even then, you cannot scroll through the people listed. First you must search for them and then it will let you scroll. This method adds too many steps to use the phone for its primary purpose. It's nice that it has a find feature, but Motorola should have also incorporated the scroll up and down through your address book without having to get into the address book first. The battery gauge is extremely inaccurate. It's inaccurate because it's so small that you it cannot give a precise reading with only three ticks. Three ticks would be full, two would be half, and one would be a forth. At one tick left on the battery, you might panic because you're almost out of power. However, a closer look at the more accurate gauge (you have to get into it through menus), you can see that you still have almost half. It showed you one tick because its below half, but in actuality you probably have more. I'm guessing the reception is pretty much the same since it's also small, but there is not precise reception gauge option. One of the most popular things about having a phone, nowadays is customization. You can customize your rings and logos on your phone. Right now, you cannot download new rings or logos from the internet. However, there is a site called mymotorola.com that I'm hoping will include customization features. However, the site still has a big coming soon, so you'll have to wait a while. Hopefully, they'll have updates to their awful menus system as well. The other bad things are a lack of a clock and there is no vibrate feature. Some extras that came with this phone are two softcovers. I don't really recommend using them because they're pretty ugly. It also includes a belt clip and handless system. I guess it includes these to sucker you into getting this phone. So overall, this phone is good enough if you need a phone. But there are so much better substitutes out there. Maybe when mymotorola.com comes out and they have features to update the menus, this phone will be a nice option. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 88377 2002/6/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 styling comfort talk time when you can stay connected consistent dropped calls no clock no vibrate menus are a pain The Bottom LineBecause of continuous dropped calls and ridiculously difficult phone book accessibility, I can't recommend this phone. Full Review After 6 months with the v2282, I've updated (or should I say "downgraded") this review from 4 stars to 2 stars. I'm leaving the basic introduction paragraph, afterwhich my review is quite different from the original. After many years of doing just fine without a cell phone, I finally decided the convenience would be worth giving it a try...especially considering the "wireless wars" going on right now producing low-cost, feature-packed plans. So I've spent the last month looking over carrier plans online, calling carriers directly and getting a feel for how they conduct business and treat customers, and talked to every friend and acquaintance I know with a cell phone about their carriers, phones, etc. For my needs, I finally went with VoiceStream, who provides the Motorola v2282 free with their plans. Since I've never had a cell phone, I have nothing to compare it to, but I'm somewhat of a cordless phone aficionado and at least know good sound quality, build quality, useful features, etc. and I'll do my best to provide a useful review. I've seen enough cell phones to realize the v2282 certainly isn't the best phone on the market, and after 6 months of use, even considering I got this phone free with the service activation, it's not worth messing with. My first v2282 had to be replaced and the replacement has the same problems which I'll cover later. To its credit, the v2282 is a very comfortable, stylish phone with good sound & clarity (when a connection can be maintained long enough to HAVE a conversation) and battery life. I got a cell phone for emergency situations, driving trips, to let people know if I'll be arriving late, etc, so it serves my basic needs. The physical size of 5.25 x 1.875 x 1 fits easily into any small hiding or storage spot. The fixed antenna extends the total length another inch. The first V2282 I got with the activation had a nicely finished black face with easily-readable, backlit silver buttons and a bright, contrasty display that can be adjusted to the user's liking via the menus. The replacement has a light gray/silver face. Volume for both incoming calls and the fm radio (yes, an fm radio) are easily controlled by 2 buttons on the left side of the phone (viewing from front). The fm radio is activated when in standby mode by a single button on the right side of the phone. If you're listening to the radio and a call comes in, an alert tone is sounded. You can then accept the call by pressing "OK", or if you don't want to take the call, you can either press a volume button to stop the alert and ignore the call, or press the "C" (clear) button. By the way, the fm radio quality is actually quite good and reception seems to be excellent. Construction quality is excellent and is obvious when handling the phone. Nothing rattles or feels loose....very tight. My phone came with a horribly ugly blue cover, a double ear pod headset, 120V charger, belt clip, user manual, and various other printed info. I recently got a car charger for it at Target for $12.99. The V2282 uses three AAA-L NiMH batteries that are longer than standard batteries, so locating replacements in your local department stores will be extremely difficult. I tried to find batteries with a higher mAh rating to increase performance and talk time, but had no luck due to the longer required length. Initial charging is the same process as with cordless phones, requiring at least 14 hours. It's then a good idea to go through a few cycles of completely discharging (until the phone turns itself off) and recharging the batteries to "form" them and attain the best performance and longevity. After the initial 14+ hour charge, recharge until "Charging Complete" appears in the display. With proper initial charging and recharging, the V2282 provides commendable talk time and performance. Advertised talk time is "up to 210 min" with 135 hours of standby time, and I'm getting pretty close to those figures. Naturally, extreme temperatures, not properly maintaining the batteries, using the radio, operating in an area of variable coverage, etc will affect performance. As far as menu features, there are just too many to cover or even list here. It's easier to go to the following interactive web site that covers the basic menus and operation of the V2282. It's a cool site where you can click on buttons and the corresponding info appears in the display, etc. Much can be learned about the V2282 at: http://209.184.201.39/handset_simulator/motorola_2282.html. As I said, one of my biggest complaints is the ridiculous menu system. You have to go through several button presses to get into the phone book to find an entry by location or name. Ridiculous!! I only have 5 numbers that I'd ever routinely call, and I've programmed them into the 1-touch dialing, so I don't need to get into the phone book. But for people with a long list of contacts, the menu system will quickly become a chore. It would seem to me any cell phone should immediately access the phone book by pushing one button, then using up/down arrows to scroll. Instead, the V2282 has a dedicated button to call in to check messages....but no dedicated button to get you directly into the phone book. The V2282's processor seems a bit slow, but not objectionable. Sometimes after powering up, when I press a number key for 1-touch dialing, I'll get "Busy....try later" a couple times. Apparently it takes the system a while to set itself. Once set, it's fine. Now....about the serious problems I've had since using the v2282. Ever since I've had the 2282, I've experienced the frustration of consistent dropped calls. I live in a major area with two VoiceStream towers in the area, so usually have a strong signal, but still had call after call dropped with freshly charged batteries and a strong signal. At first I chalked it up to "typical cell service", but after finding out my friends who have the same carrier never have this problem, I began to question VoiceStream customer service and received a myriad of different reasons for the dropped calls. They checked the towers in the area and there were no problems, so they suggested it may be the phone and did a handset swap. Unfortunately, the replacement v2282 didn't solve the problem. I still got consistent dropped calls and a noticeable electronic pulsing background noise that was driving me nuts, which existed in both v2282s. We tried a new sim card, which didn't help. Finally, after being dropped several times within a few minutes while trying to contact a family member recently, I contacted customer service for what seemed like the hundredth time and said, "That's it!!!...I want out of the contract and I'm not paying the early cancellation fee. I haven't been able to maintain a call without being dropped since I've had the v2282" and blamed it on VoiceStream. Thankfully, I got a very cool customer service rep who said he'd do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of the problem, and if all further attempts fail with no other possibilities, he'd personally assist me in getting out of the contract. He checked everything he could from his end and determined it had to be the phone itself since he hadn't received any reports of similar problems in the four years he'd been with VoiceStream. Sure...there will always be certain areas where service will be interrupted by terrain and other situations, but where I am, dropped calls shouldn't happen with a strong signal and full battery power. He suggested trying another phone, so I told him I wished there were a way I could try a completely different brand without having to buy one....like a loaner. So he called a couple VoiceStream stores in my area to see if they'd give me a loaner for a couple days just to see if it'd make any difference, and if so, I'd buy the loaner. But neither store would go for it, which actually shocked the customer service rep...and myself. So as a last effort and wanting to keep me as a customer, he said he'd utilize VoiceStream's free handset replacement policy (for damage or loss), consider my v2282 damaged and just send me another phone for free with a choice between a Motorola T193 or Nokia 3390. There's no way I wanted another Motorola, so didn't hesitate to go with the Nokia. I received it within two days and it's been trouble free with no dropped calls and no annoying electronic pulsing background noise. Just clear, uninterrupted connections. Thank God! The Nokia is also light years simpler to use and very user-friendly. Plus it has many more useful features than the v2282 like direct phone book accessibility, vibrating answer, clock, and voice dialing. The 3390's processor is much more responsive than the 2282 and is just a better product overall. No more Motorolas for me, at least with VoiceStream. As a final thought, I must say that as with any cell provider, VoiceStream's service isn't perfect but now with the Nokia 3390, it's fine and customer service has always been excellent. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Nothing-Free 88376 2000/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 design lack of clock everything navigation battery life Full Review The Motorola V2282 is most likely the worst phone I've owned to date. I won't refer to the service quality, because it is likely to vary from place to place however, the phone itself leaves much to be desired. Firstly, Motorola thought that including an FM radio was more important than including a clock. I had to read through the manual three times because I couldn't believe that this phone didn't have a time display. People didn't believe me at first when I mentioned this fact, as it is such and easy and common feature to implement. The rest can be inferred from the fact that the product developers thought the radio took precedent. The navigation is absolutely horrible, and what should take one or two button pushes takes five. I've been reluctant to enter my phone numbers because a) I'd rather eat the cancellation fee than keep this phone and b) It takes an incredible amount of time and button pushes to accomplish this. You can't even view the address book once entered, you have to search for a name, and then you can scroll through all the entries. I just don't understand how one could make the navigation so bad. It seems like it would take more effort. Another blow are the batteries. Actually, when I opened the phone I was surprised to see AA looking batteries, but found them to be proprietary Motorola batteries. This means you can't charge a second battery and switch it out, you can only charge this phone by plugging the cord directly into it. Firstly, the battery life leaves much to be desired. Secondly my battery indicator shows 1 bar after two calls, even though theres more than half the battery life left. I can never judge whether I just charged my phone, or it's about to die on me. Other than that the volume doesn't turn up to nearly what you need in some minimally noisy situations, the buttons are sticky and hard to press, and the whole phone feels cheap. I wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone, and, like I said, am more willing to suffer the $150 loss than use this phone for another week. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 88375 2000/4/1 Portability3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it rings umm pathetic fm radio requiring headphones everything The Bottom LineDon't get this. Nothing about it is good, works properly, or is thorough. If i had a ringing brick, i would substitute it for this. Full Review This is the most pathetic, pitiful excuses for a phone i've seen for a long while. Do NOT buy it unless you enjoy being constantly frustrated, let down, and annoyed. First of all, this phone does not have a clock. I am not joking - this phone has no clock. A clock is one of the most essential, basic requirements that a phone has. Well, that's what i thought anyway. You've gotta remember to wear a watch everywhere instead. How frustrating. One of the *good* things about this phone is the FM Radio. But i have only ever used it once. To use the FM Radio, you must have the *special motorola handsfree headset* with you.. No, ordinary headphones will not work. You must have the ones that came with the phone (which dont fit into walkmans, and are cheap and crappy). Also, only one of the headphones works that i was sent, and often the FM radio just refuses to work. I gave up. If someone rings you while your phone is off, and you don't have messagebank - That's it. You'll never know unless they tell you. It doesn't tell you you received a call or anything. And, if the phone is on, it simply says "Unanswered Call".. Well, DUH. And no, it doesn't tell you WHO called.. Just that you have an unanswered call. To go through your phonebook, y ou first have to search for someone... You can't just browse without first typing in someone and then browsing from there.. And to edit numbers, names, etc, and to delete them.. You can't use the shortcut menu's phonebook feature.. You have to go through the numberous proper menus to get into the proper phonebook, and then do it from there. The phone is ugly without the colours rubbery covers that come with it.. But it is actually more ugly with these flimsy, bad fitting covers on.. Although they are in attractive colours. It's also really difficult, because the buttons are sticky, and difficult to press.. The side volume buttons don't work that well either, and you have to press them damn hard to get a slight effect. The battery meter. It is *so* inaccurate. It only has 3 little bar thingoes to tell you. You're either on 3, 2, 1, or none. That's not exactly a marvellous indication. And also, if you charge your phone for five minutes after its been flat, the phone will read as Full, for about half a day. The charger doesn't fit into it's socket well, and the slightest knock can make it not charge... So annoying. None of the plugs or things seem to fit in well at all. There are no special features or anything. You can't get logos, you can't get ringtones, and you can't send OR receive picture messages. It's got no games either. I'm not saying this is a requirement, but you'd think for the lack of everything else they supplied, they could at least include one game. I'm sorry i bought this phone. If you have a choice, and want more than a phone you can make and receive calls from, Don't buy this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 88374 2000/4/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light good features sturdy stylish battery life no clock difficult navigation The Bottom LineThe Motorola V2282 Wireless phone takes mutifuntion to a different level. Not a higher level; just kind of adjacent. Full Review It seems that nowadays every electronic device must be designed so that it has a secondary function that replaces another device. We have MP3 players that double as voice recorders, watches that double as MP3 players, and Palm Pilots that double as pretty much everything else. I can foresee the day where I'll be surfing the web, calling a friend, organizing my schedule, downloading software, typing up a presentation, and making coffee and toast with my watch. And that day just got a little closer. Motorola's V2282 Cell Phone combines three devices into one: a cell phone, a web browser, and an FM radio. It may not be able to make my breakfast, but this device has some tricks that most folks will definitely find extremely handy. The unit itself is small and light (5.3 oz), with a sleek, streamlined design. In order to allow users to personalize the phone, Motorola has made faceplates available in stylish colors for a modest fee, naturally. The keypad is recessed, to help keep the user from pushing keys accidentally. Buttons on the phone are pretty small, so people with big hands like me may have a little trouble dialing. It wasn't a huge problem though. One of the issues I have with this phone is the battery life. It seems I was charging it a great deal more than I was using it. The batteries retain their charge for about 4 hours, which is apparently is adequate for most folks. I guess I just need to get with the program. So what about the triple threat of functions this phone possesses? In order to make things easier I discussed each function separately. The Web Browser - This function is definitely a natural progression for the cell phone. In fact, it's a common function of many medium-range to high-end cell phones already. You've basically got an extremely scaled-down PC anyway. If you can just add a good browser to it, you've got yourself a nice little web-surfing device. For the web browsing function, the Motorola V2282 utilizes a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for grabbing information off the `net. Some of the information available includes weather forecasts, entertainment events and schedules, stock quotes, and news headlines. You can even receive and send Short Message Service messages (kind of like Instant Messaging) using this handy gizmo. Keep in mind that a lot of providers charge extra for these features, so you may want to take the time to decide for yourself if that five-day forecast is worth your left arm. One downside to this function is that even though you can access a wealth of information online, since the V2282's small display only holds 6 lines and 16 characters, you're going to have trouble reading it. I often had to stare and concentrate in order to decipher whatever miniature hieroglyphics were being printed on the screen. And for those of you who like to use your cell phone while driving, don't even think about it! . Trying to read this screen while driving will get you into an accident. Pull over and save a life. The FM Radio - Adding a radio to a cell phone is a cool idea, but I don't know how useful it is. Then again, I'm sure several years ago, some guy asked, "A radio and an alarm clock together? What would be the point?" On the Motorola V2282 the FM radio function is very easy to use. When you're ready to listen to some tunes, you just activate the radio by pressing a button on the side. The primary functions of the unit then change, allowing you to scan through available stations using the up and down buttons, then set and access presets using buttons on the keypad. Volume is adjusted using another button on the side of the phone. I found that even inside my office building, most of the stations in my area came through loud and clear. Reception was not a problem at all. Motorola also saw fit to include a standard headset with the unit. The headset itself is light and sturdy, just nothing special. Music sounds adequate with only a little distortion. I haven't tried any other headphones with the unit, but I'm sure you could use some better ones, if you wanted to. The Cell Phone - Of course, the most important function of a cell phone should be the phone itself. When I took calls, I found that the voices were crisp and clear (provided my area was well covered, of course) and the people I was speaking to had no trouble understanding me. Motorola chose to give this unit more than 10 ring tones, which is good for those who just have to be different. The V2282 also has all the standard phone features, such as caller ID, multilingual support, multiple phone line capability, number recall, and a Rolodex. The search feature of the Rolodex is a little difficult to navigate, but it's easy to get used to. I didn't have any dropped calls with this phone, but then again I didn't do a lot of roaming or use it much inside of buildings though. Your experience may vary depending on how often and where you use your phone. So, what's my final verdict? Even though the Motorola V2282 is not the best on the market, it is a very solid cell phone. It's got all the standard features that a cell phone should have, and the FM radio and web browser bring additional functionality to the device. It's relatively easy to use, and I had very few problems with the phone. If you're looking for a fun, sturdy phone, I recommend giving this one a try. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7739 Motorola AT&T Prepaid Free2Go Wireless Phone Kit 88394 2004/12/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 none contracts are written for the company not the buyer AT&T is now also Cingular, while I have had no experience with AT&T, I can say I have had a terrible experience with Cingular and their plans. I would never do business with any company connected to Cingular. I had my phone stolen at work three months before my contract ended. I offered to pay off the contract, but after they collected a month more of the monthly service, (leaving only two months left to the contract), they ended the contract and charged their $150, cancellation fee! Their contracts allow them to do that, and FCC is no help. I paid the fees and would never buy another plan. My husband has a Virgin mobile and loves it. I notice most Europeans do not use plans as we have in our country. Perhaps that is wise. 88393 2000/4/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 no credit checks nice nokia 5165 phone no monthly bills dishonest practices tactics The Bottom LineThis was the AT&T free to go wireless package with the Nokia 5165 Cellular phone...The phone was great, but the service from AT&T was absolutely horrible.... Full Review I purchased this service because after my divorce, my credit is a little rough, and I didn't want to leave a huge deposit for a post paid cellular plan, that I only intend on using in an emergency situation; IE: vehicle break down, stuck in traffic etc. I purchased this pre-paid package from my local BestBuy and I was on my way... I live in Central New Jersey, and travel daily to southern New Jersey...The LOCAL option for this package included this area (South/Central NJ)and was between 30-35 cents per minute pending the amount you send to activate or renew. When I called to initiate the service, I explained my situation to the extremely courteous activation representative, who tried to persuade me to take the (more expensive)second option for this package, which is called the NATIONAL option. He stated with the National option, I would pay one flat fee of 65 cents per minute and never incur any roaming or long distance fees...I declined the National package, because the LOCAL option supposedly covered the areas I travel in, and again would only cost at a maxium 35 cents a minute, which was the entire reason I purchased this package...The rep. agreed and gave me my cell phone number and I was ready to go... From that point on every single phone call I made or accepted would go on to cost me 85 cents a minute which is a roaming charge from within my "LOCAL" area... When I called to inquire as to why Im roaming at my house, or in South Jersey I was told they would look into it....A few days later I called back, still having the same problem and was told that my package had been set up with the New York area to be my local (home)area and that was why every single call was a roaming call...When I asked them to fix this mistake and resolve this issue, the AT&T Rep. fumbled for a moment, he then blurted out quickly that I would first need to use all the remaining minutes on my plan (approx $45.00 total) at 85 cents per minute before AT&T could "consider" correcting the problem... Simply put, this was not the deal or package I bought in on, and in my book there is a huge difference between the 35 cent per minute they promised me and the 85 cent per minute rate they gave me...I found it most frustrating that after AT&T realized their mistake, they expected me to pay for it...Luckily for me, I only had the phone for 8 days, so I simply returned it to Bestbuys for a full refund.... My advice stay away from these shiesters.... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 105.00 88392 2000/10/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great starter deal no contract rollover minutes no monthly fees requires diligence to buyrefill minutes regularly The Bottom LinePrepaid is great for a person who doesn't like monthly, recurring bills regardless of use. AT&T has done it right with this product. Full Review + No contract, no monthly fees. This is a prepaid phone, and so there is no monthly bill and no 1- or 2- year contract that you are locked into. This is great since you know how much you are spending (and no taxes or hidden charges), and it gives you flexibility in canceling (doesn't tie you down). + Rollover minutes. If you refill your card with a minimum of $10 every 45 days, your previous minute balance rolls over. This is great for me where I sometimes talk 20 minutes a month, and sometime 200 minutes a month. So for infrequent cell phone users like my wife, we get by with $10 every 45 days ($6.67/month)! + Cheap minutes. I generally get the $25 card that provides 71 local minutes (35 cents/min). But even better, I buy the free2go refill cards at eBay (don't bid against me :)!) where you can generally get a $25 card for $20 (28 cents/min). + Great starter deal. I got the new user package from phoneshark.com. It included a Nokia 5165 phone and $25 card for $99. This deal also came with a $30 Nokia rebate and a AT&T rebate for a $25 refill card. + Free voicemail. The important advantage here over Cingular was that Cingular required you to use your cell phone to retrieve your voicemail. AT&T voicemail can be retrieved from any phone, thereby saving precious cell minutes. + Good area coverage. I've had very good coverage with AT&T in the Bay Area, especially in the Peninsula and SF. Compared to my previous Cingular coverage, AT&T's works better in more places. I've also taken the phone to Toronto and LA, and used it successfully there, but not enough to speak about the area coverage. - Requires some diligence to remember to refill your minutes regularly to qualify for rollover minutes. Also, it requires more work to buy phone refill cards. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88391 2002/7/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voicemail included cheap good coverage issues with customer service The Bottom LineGet this phone if you need it only for the most basic of needs. Not an option for you serious phone talkers =) Full Review After reading the reviews on AT&T's Free2go plan, I must say that I have never experienced the problems other reviewers have had. I purchased the phone in early April for my girlfriend since her Verizon bill was coming in at over $50 a month, which was WAY too much since she never used it. On top of that, Ii have heard horror stories of $300 phone bills. Enter prepaid calling services. I was hooked from the start. I bought the phone and it came with a $50 rebate, making my total cost for a Nokia 5165 negative $6.45. That's right, they gave me $6.45 to take the phone plus it came with one free $25 card and a rebate for a second card. I quickly filled out both rebates and within 4 weeks I had a check for $50 in my hands. Unfortunately, the $25 card rebate came back to me as not being filled out properly. I filled it again, more legibly, and re-sent it. The nicest thing about prepaid is that I do not have to worry about bills. When I am low on minutes, I go to a website that sells the cards online, buy one, and recharge my phone, all while sitting on my butt. The cards are sent electronically through email and are also displayed when you purchase it online.One card lasts 45 days and the cheapest one is $25. This ends up working out to $16.67 dollars a month on the phone, if we only use a single card in the month and a half we are given. Normally, $25 is roughly 71 minutes of local talk time. They also sell national talk time, which ends up being 38 minutes. Whenever points are about to expire or run out, a text message will be received notifying you. The phone itself is your average Nokia 5165 that everyone has, but looks really did not matter to us. The phone gives us the ability to play games or use text messaging, neither of which gets used very often. Also offered is free voicemail, another nice feature. On to customer service, this is AT&T's downfall. I called them up a few months ago because the phone would not accept a card I had bought. It took too long for them to figure out the problem, over an hour. I kept being put on hold and transferred back and forth between departments. After this experience, I decided to try to deal with all the issues that come up with the phone, just so I do not have to get lost in their customer service department. This phone package is perfect for those of us who do not want to deal with high phone bills nor do we want to constantly talk on the phone. If you plan on using this phone to call everyone and their mother to gab, keep on looking, this isn't for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -6.45 88390 2002/3/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 no monthly contracts terms of service change without warning The Bottom LineGood idea, shuysters running the game. It might be good for awhile but you'll probably be screwed in the end. Full Review I have had the wireless to go plan since October of 2001. When I first got the phone the plan was minutes were good for 90 days so if you never used the phone you would only need to add $25.00 to the phone every 90 days and so long as you did so you would never lose any of your accrued minutes. Up until now, I found the service I got from AT&T acceptable and I "used" to recommend it to my friends, I even had a fairly good experience when using it in the wilds of Illinois and Pennsylvania during a train trip to those areas. (Yes, it worked fairly well on the train unless we were going through a tunnel or between mountains.) The service is a good idea, AT&T is NOT A GOOD IDEA. AT&T has been fined repeatedly in my State (and others apparently) for Slamming (changing people's long distance carriers without their permission), If you ask me, the company has little respect for its customers. What upset me is that apparently in December they sent out a letter, that I never received, that changed the terms of service to 45 days from 90; thus making the phone a whole lot more expensive. The Nokia 5165 phone that I have has text messaging capabilities, a logical, honest person would expect that a text message would be sent out as well as this letter that may never arrive, (especially around the Christmas mailing season) however no text message was sent. I could swear that the last time I put money on the phone in Mid December their automated systems said that my minutes would not expire until the End of March 2002, I most certainly would have questioned something if I heard February 4th instead of the expected March date. Yesterday I got a surprise when I tried to use my phone and got a text message that my account was zero. I had 140 accrued minutes (worth $50.00+) on my account and it was all gone with no apparent explanation. I was in the area of the store where I purchased the phone so I went there to attempt to resolve the problem. The stores are unable to deal with problems on the prepaid service (was that any big surprise?) and they referred me to a customer service phone. On the phone I was told that a letter "was supposed" to have been sent to everyone notifying them of the change and they would not make credits for expired minutes, period. I asked the women on the phone if I was simply expected to bend over and accept the loss of fifty dollars worth of accrued phone time because I never received their letter and had absolutely no clue that there was a problem. Needless to say the call ended with me making a suggestion of just where they could put their cell phone. Later that evening after I'd calmed down, I tried once more to resolve my complaint. The person I spoke to the second time was at least willing to go to a supervisor to ask if I could be credited with any of my lost minutes. It would seem that there were others caught in the same issue and at least some people were given credits, but apparently not for me. I was told that since my minutes had been expired for two weeks it was just too bad so sad. I rarely make phone calls, I didn't discover the problem until I went to use my phone, at that point I told her to shut off the stupid phone. I WILL NEVER, EVER DEAL WITH THIS PACK OF JERKS AGAIN FOR ANYTHING. FOR WHATEVER REASON, IN MOST STATES, INCLUDING FLORIDA, CELLULAR SERVICES DO NOT COME UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE AUTHORITIES THAT REGULATE REGULAR PHONE SERVICES (IN FLORIDA THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION) AND THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FEAR OF SCREWING THEIR CUSTOMERS WITH APPARENT IMPUNITY. I personally believe that they handled this in exactly the way they did for the express purpose of stealing a whole lot of people's accrued air time so that we'd have to put more money on our phones. This was a coldly calculated effort to defraud their prepaid customers and I can only hope that enough people in my State and others will complain so that our authorities will take action. I've had two cell phones now and both ended in a very unsatisfactory experience. If you check Amazon.com you'll see bad comment after bad comment about this service (of 40+ over a third are right along these lines). If you want prepaid, get a Tracfone, the pricing is comparable, minutes last 30,60,90 days or even a whole year depending upon the card you purchase. Every time you turn on the phone it tells you how many minutes you have and when it expires--they are constantly running promotions that give you lots of extra minutes. If you accidently miss a date to put more time on it, your accrued minutes don't die if you reactivate within 120 days. Setup is a breeze, you get the phone at Walmart, Bestbuy, Eckerds, Lowe's or a huge number of other very accessible locations and if you've got internet you can activate it online using step by step simple instructions. Tracfone offers about 6 different phones and I was able to get a similar model to my old Nokia so that I didn't lose my investment in batteries, cases, handsfree mic's etc. Screw AT&T, buy the Tracfone. UPDATE MARCH 2002: Well surprise, surprise, the complaint I made on the FCC website actually made it back to AT&T Wireless and they called me. They tried to offer me my phone back with a free $25.00 card; I told them I didn't want it. The guy tried to make me feel like I should have known since there was no contract, they can change things as they like. I told him "just because no one says you can't do something doesn't make it right to do it." I told him to go look on Amazon.com at all the bad posts about their service. The man I spoke to was nice, he claims that AT&T wireless is not affiliated with the AT&T that runs the long distance services. I got my annoyance out, I told him I felt they mishandled the entire matter and they did things the way they did to take peoples accrued minutes from them. He claims they listen to their customers (yeah right). I'm still hoping that there are enough complaints for the FCC or some state entity to do something about this but I guess I'd better not hold my breath. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 15.00 88389 2000/3/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to get connected no credit needed no customer service to speak of The Bottom LineIf you gotta have a phone...and, can't do anything else...this is a good way to go. Full Review In 2003 Mrs. Royalcrowncola and I did a four month rotation in the USA that was going to include extensive travel and lecture assignments. One of our first things to get accomplished was purchasing a cellphone. Now, in Uganda purchasing a cellphone is very easy to do and getting connected means going to the local Shell filling station and purchasing a Sim-Pac and a scratch card for air-time. You insert the sim card in the phone...enter the scratch card numbers...and, you are in business. If you find another phone company with a better rate deal...buy their SIM card and enter their scratch card..and, you are in business with a new phone company. Surely, in the USA it would be as simple to get a cell phone. Our first big surprise came when we entered the "cell phone shop" and asked about cellphones and SIM cards. The technobabe running the shop listened to our request for a "pay-as-you-go" GSM cellphone and looked at us as though we might have just dropped in from Venus. It turned out that in 2003 the GSM system was hardly up and running in the USA. After running all the wonderful two year contract plans down to us, with me continuing to insist that there must be something like "pay-as-you-go" he finally relented and pointed out the Free2Go brochure on a dusty rack in the corner. Evidently, actually explaining Free2Go would have exhausted his energies of the moment, so I was forced to piece the story together from information contained in the brochure. The Deal After reading over the Free2Go brochure and understanding that this was about the only pay-as-you-go deal I was going to get, I managed to engage the Technobabe just long enough to grudgingly fill out the paperwork and get us connected. The initial "deal" with AT&T was simply horrible. We had to purchase a US$25 scratch card (you scratch the coating off the card numbers and enter the numbers into your phone) which allowed us to make a few phone calls at 85 cents a minute, and the balance simply expired in 90 days. "Refilling" another $25 card allowed the balance of the first to "roll over" for another 90 days. We chose the National Calling Plan which actually worked fairly well for us. The minimum cost for calls were 22 cents per minute if we purchased the $100 scratch card. In 2003 the scratch cards were not too readily available outside of the AT&T wireless shops. Now, they are very common in the marketplace, and you can get them very easily at many convenience stores and that is a real big plus. On that trip we traveled in our van over about 2/3 of the United States and on only a few extreme occasions were we without cellphone coverage. That was the good part. The other part...the part that the Technobabes at AT&T don't explain to you is this: All the big selling point features like call forwarding, text messaging, extended battery life, and voice mail don't work unless you are actually in an AT&T service area. Even making a telephone call while roaming outside of the AT&T service area--while possible--is a bit complicated and requires holding the phone number in your head while you go through a mulitple step menu system to finally make your phone call. Quite often I would step off an airplane after a cross-country flight from L.A. and discover that my phone would fail to "register" even on the AT&T network...thus making phone services a bit dicey at best. I discovered all of this while in Washington State. We stayed for one week of vacation on the coast near Grayland, Washington. Funny thing ... the phone never rang for an entire week of vacation! We were a bit surprised, but felt good about a week of rest. On leaving the Washington coast and driving towards Olympia, Washington the cellphone suddenly began to vibrate like mad, receiving 75 voice mail messages that had come during the past week...but, never to our phone because we were out of the AT&T area. When I was able to contact AT&T "customer service" they explained that those features don't work when off the AT&T network ... which, when you travel across country occurs very frequently. The Number Drops To 45 Sometime after I left the USA, the 90 day service period apparently dropped to 45 days. Since AT&T doesn't really care if their customers stay with them or not that apparently happened with little or no notice. Unfortunately, by the time I returned to the USA for another set of lectures--my phone number was long gone. Getting connected again isn't a huge problem, and I found a small vendor at a kiosk in the Glendale Galleria Mall that reconnected me with a brand new number. That time I bought the Nokia phone they were offering with Free2Go. That phone was such a piece of junk! I was constantly siezed by a re-occuring fantasy--that of laying the phone in the street and backing the car over it until it was reduced to nothing but powder--a fantasy so real it required a sweaty grip on the steering wheel to keep from acting it out. Apparently, my new phone number had recently been used by either an Amway salesperson or a drug dealer, because for the first two weeks I got many late night phone calls asking if I could deliver "product". Then The Number Went Back To 90 Currently, I am still signed up on the old National Calling plan; however, AT&T has a NEW calling plan for people just signing up. On the new plan all calls are charged at 25 cents per minute regardless of the amount put into the account and the phone service is covered again for 90 days...up to one year if you buy the $100 card. Be careful though, there is a huge bombshell in that new calling plan: Under the old National Calling Plan, roaming was covered for the 22 cents per minute as well--ON the AT&T network and OFF the AT&T network. Under the NEW plan, roaming--if you are roaming on the AT&T network--is covered for the 25 cents per minute ... BUT if you are roaming "off network" the cost skyrockets to 65 cents per minute. Well...on a typical trip across Los Angeles to San Diego County I am roaming "off network" in a number of places. That would make receiving a phone call on my way to San Diego a spendy deal. I'm staying with my old plan... Customer Service My favorite oxymoron in the English Language is "AT&T" and "Customer Service". It just simply doesn't exist. If you have a problem with Free2Go wireless you will most likely find yourself at the mercy of some very rude individuals. The AT&T wireless shops are best avoided...unless you simply like being patronized by individuals who speak to you as though you are the village idiot. My best advice is: Try not to have a problem. If you do, try not to expect any customer service...that way you won't be disappointed. The website for Free2Go--where theoretically you could add money to your phone via the web--is one of the most arcane websites known to man. While in South Africa I realized that it was time to add $10 to my Free2Go phone to keep my number active in the USA for another 45 or 90 days...depending on what AT&T was offering at the moment. "No problem" I told my wife, "we can add money on the website". I went to the website and followed all the instructions. After submitting my credit card number the website asked me for phone number where I could be contacted in the next 30 minutes. Entering the South African phone number was not possible...since the mighty AT&T evidently can't program their website to recognize international dialing codes. Trying to add funds over the phone from outside of the USA is yet another adventure in complete frustration. Take my advice: Just DON'T do it. Bottom Line Look, the phones they offer in these deals are your typical phones that you can walk in off the street and buy any where in the world for about a hundred bucks. So, there is no big savings in buying the phone or the Free2Go phone plan. If you are traveling into the USA and simply want/need a cellphone for a short visit ... the GSM phones that are available for rent are a better deal. If you are like me--in and out on business on a very frequent schedule--then AT&T Free2Go is a "ok" deal...but, shop around because the market is competitive and I think you can find better. If you are a person living the USA and have bad credit...no credit...or other money problems and can't get any other kind of phone, then this deal offers you the wonderful opportunity to be further abused and exploited by a major USA corporation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7740 Motorola C331 88411 2004/10/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small wap browser crap battery life small screen My motorola c330 was really cool bit now it doesn't work. i can barely call anyne and when i can after 1 minute the battery practilly dies. I would be luvcky if could call anyone. 88410 2004/7/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 fits easily in the pocket compact size loud ring very poor battery life after full charging horrible reception dies out after one call This cell phones has many negative points. very few positive. Avoid it if possible. The biggest problem is battery life. The battery is so bad that the cell phone dies out after one call, after a 8 hours of charging. Lots of dropped calls and very poor reception. 88409 2003/11/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dialing sim card wap browser size bad battery life dropped calls While it seems as though many people own the C331t, I own the GSM version, the C331g. I must say that this phone has caused me nothing but grief during the past year. The phone drops calls like a bad habit and the battery life is horrible. I have wasted a ridiculous amount of airtime redialing numbers because the phone has dropped a call. I have encountered several people that have the same model (the "g" not the "t") and they also have the same problems. If it weren't for the dropped calls and the battery life, it might be a decent phone. After all, the web browser, the polyphonic ringer, voice dialing and a sim card that can hold 200 contacts make for some pretty cool feature, not to mention its petite size. 88408 2003/11/29 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice ring tones nice looking small too quiet menus are slow serious design defect with battery I received the Moto C331 as part of a two year contract with Rogers AT&T. It's been a terrible time since. This model phone has recurring problems with reception and, especially, with the built-in battery. I say it this way because it isn't just me; the problem is very widespread. What happens is after a couple of months, usually, the phone will not hold a charge and dies after a call or two. Truly an annoying problem. My own Moto has been refurbished twice and still the problem occurs. The only thing Motorola will do for you is give you a new one, which isn't really a solution. Luckily for me, I had purchased an extended warranty with the phone that contains a "no lemons" clause if the phone has two refurbs and is still screwy. So I get to trade it for another phone. I could tell you about the neat ring tones, etc, but it's all overshadowed by the phone's dealbreaking design flaws. Don't get this phone. 88407 2004/1/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it was free i don t know where to start This phone was free with Cingular plan and after using it for a while I know why. The reception is very poor. I thought purchasing a headset may help, but it was worse. I have been begging and pleading with Cingular for about 6 months now to get a new phone, but I do not qualify for another 4 to 5 months. I had always had Nokia phones before this and I was really happy with there performance. This was free, but still not worth all the headaches. Do not buy this phone!!!!!! 88406 2000/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great reception limited features The Bottom LineBefore you buy, shop around. This is an average phone with hyped up features. I suggest the other phones in the c330 series, they can offer you more. Full Review It's voice activated! When the salesman informed me of that feature at the Cingular Wireless store I flipped! I imagined myself walking through the halls of unknown buildings like some type of secret agent, whipping out my tiny phone and whispering, "Home," and automatically I would get a family member. It wasn't until after I paid one-hundred and sixty two dollars plus an additional twenty for an orange faceplate that I realized I had been duped. The main reason I bought the phone was the "voice activated" feature. I thought if I was on the road and couldn't pull over in heavy traffic, it would be useful to just pick up my phone, say a name, and have the number automatically be dialed. That is not the case. You still have to press buttons in order to get to the "voice activation" feature and that is also with a "shortcut". It's easier to use speed dial or to scroll down the list of names in my phonebook. My biggest complaint however is the fact that I cannot download midi tones or polyphonic ringtones. The phone does have polyphonic speakers, you just can't download those types of rings for this particular phone. For those of you who are not familiar with these types of rings they sound like music clips and play more than one sound at a time, they aren't your "run of the mill monotone, barely sounds like the song it's supposed to be" ringtones. The other phones in the c330 series (including the c331 that is not the "tdma") do allow you to download midi tones. Also, you cannot get screensavers and other fun features that you can with the other phones in this series. It's a little misleading when you go the Motorola website and you pull up the product reviews. It states that the phones have so much to offer...and they do, they just fail to mention that the c331 tdma will only download imelody or jade ringtones nor can you download graphics. You have to actually look into the product's features to find that tidy bit of information. My mistake, but if you look at the picture of the three phones, the last one does not have a screen saver because it does not have that feature. I do have some positive things to say about this phone. It is lightweight and can fit into almost any pocket, but I have seen smaller phones. This one just happens to be thin as well. When I took my phone to work, everyone was just amazed at how "tiny" it was. The battery does last a good while which is wonderful for me since it takes me a day or two to find my charger. I always seem to lose my battery charger in between charges. Anyway, it does have the "voice activation" feature, but you already know how I feel about that. There are some really cute accessories at "elite wireless products" for those of you who have bought this phone and hate the boring colors in faceplates that they offer you since this is a fairly new phone. So far that has been the only website that had accessories for this particular phone. I'm going to make the most of this phone that cost me $182.00. Unfortunately, the accessories that will make me enjoy my phone will probably cost me another fifty dollars. Writing this is actually therapy for me because I feel so gyped. I wish I could return this phone but I lost my receipt. I guess I'm just upset because my sister said, "For a hundred and eighty-two dollars that phone should walk around and ask you if you feel like calling someone." This is an average phone with hyped up average features. It does have good reception but that's only when I'm standing in a good spot. Before you shell out the hundred and some odd dollars, shop around. My friend bought a phone that can do more than mine plus it lights up and she only paid a hundred, and that was not with a new phone connection. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 182.00 88405 2003/6/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 stylish nice little extras small low earpiece volume annoying synch issues with vibratering faulty signal issues The Bottom LineA nice looking phone but not one for the person who needs to rely on a cell phone. You WILL miss that one important call. Full Review This review will be as short as the time I owned the phone. Today makes the second day but the issues are evident already. The Negatives - Having owned a line of cell phone for many years and experienced the range of Brands from Ericsson through Nokia and even Motorola, I am shocked at this phone. With time I thought quality of phones should improve. This phone is a few steps backward in the wrong direction in terms of usability at least. In terms of keeping up with the Jones's for games and clever little features,its spot on. Lovely fun. But I need a functional Cell phone and its not with the C331. The phone feels cheap.My last phone was (and will be again from tomorrow!) a Nokia 8260. Compared to that phone, the C331 is certainly not a cell phone. Whereas my Nokia was capable of obtaining a signal and receiving calls in most environments, I have lost so many calls in the last 48 hours its ridiculous. I have tried calling the phone from many land lines to make sure I wasn't crazy and as far as THAT test is concerned, I'm not. The phone is useless if you tend to keep a phone in your shirt or pants pocket. If the phone is lying on a desk or the like, you may receive a call. Every time I lost a call (that I myself was making to the phone to test it) it was in my pocket. The service provider tried it and said i should'nt keep it in my pocket. If you are one of the few who walk around with a cell phone holding up in the air, waiting for a signal, then this is the phone for you. All others, stay away. There always lies the possibility that this is the one of the batch that had the issues, but since I need reliability, I cannot recommend this phone. A nice gadget for a teenager in school but not for the serious professional. I think I will stick to my old Nokia. I do not claim to be a cell phone physicist but I believe the cause of the poor signal strenght to be linked to the fact that the phone is 800Mhz strength TDMA as opposes to 900Mhz or 1200Mhz that even older phones possess. I leave that bit of research to you before you choose. The ring styles include a Vibrate + Ring feature. Most phones allow this but with the C331, the phones vibrates for three rings before the audio ring sarts. This is supposed to happen and is not a fault, but i prefer a phone which does both simultaneously, in case i cant feel the vibration, the caller may hang up. Of course, since i cant get a good signal, they may have hung up already anyway. Some of you may like this feature, but I cannot say I do and term it a 'negative'. Finally, I find that the volume on the earpiece does not go up as high as one would like. I am not deaf and have never had this problem on any phone I can remember. In very quiet surroundings it is not a problem but dont expect to hear much in a crowded mall. The Positives - If you are fortunate enough to NOT have any of the signal problems, then this phone is quite nice. There are a variety of rings to choose from, you can create your own and as is the norm these days, you can download them. Also, the phone is voice activated for quick dialing numbers. I wish this feature was on most phones. However, the fact is that it may not always recognize the name you call. I have had issues with that as well. The phone, for it price, is small enough. A little too "fat" for my liking but is still a good size. I cannot really say there are many more positives because the phone does not really compare to what I have used in the past. It is a nice enough phone for a first time user, once you don't have signal issues. Summary Nice small phone but with a major issue which makes usability a serious problem. If that can be fixed, I could then recommend the phone quite easily. Until then, stay away from this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75 88404 2003/3/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 compact size weight good reception stylish looks the ringer is waaaay too soft even at its loudest settings The Bottom LineWould've rated the phone above average. Cannot recommend due to soft ringer volume. "Average" is a compromise. Other than the ringer volume issue, the 331's a good basic phone. Full Review We looked forward to getting a new phone about four months ago. When we finally decided upon a plan and it was time to choose a "free" phone (from a special promotion), we were shown a Kyocera, an Ericsson and this Motorola 331. My wife immediately set her heart on this little phone. It's stylish silver case, squarish shape and compact size were an instant sell. The grey LCD (with a whitish backlight) was also a nice departure from our old Nokia's green LCD. (Nonetheless, the 331 does not have a color screen.) Generally, we're very happy with the phone. We wanted something with strong reception and this phone (nor Cingular, our carrier) have not let us down in that regard. The phone feels well built, but seems delicate. (We always keep it in their leather cases.) The 331 also comes with voice activated dial of stored numbers specifically set for voice dialing. (For example, you hit the voice dial button and say "Mom". The phone then confirms your selection and dials it automatically.) The phone comes with what I call "standard features" found in most phones today: calendar, alarm, calculator, a few games, a phonebook function and other customizable options. It comes programmed with a variety of polyphonic (sounds a bit more "realistic" than your usual beeps and blips) ringtones. My phone is able to browse the Internet but I never tried. I suppose that the little screen would make it very frustrating. I also appreciate the fact that the antenna is hidden, so there are no protrusions from the neat design. The biggest disappointment we have with the 331 is its super soft ringer. Even on its loudest setting, it's likely to be dismissed in a room where conversation is happening at regular volume. My wife and I have missed many calls because we haven't heard the phone. We try to keep it on "vibrate" so that at least we can feel the phone ring, but even then it's a bit of an inconvenience. If you are planning on buying this model, make sure you get a demo of the loudness of the ringer at the store or hear it from a friend first. If you can live with it, it may just be a nice little phone to have. Battery life does not match our old Nokia 3390's, but it's not too bad if you remember to keep it charging overnight. The charge time is rather quick for our purposes (two to three hours for a full charge of a half-depleted battery.) A great little phone as it may be, we'll be shopping for a different make and model once our contract is up. If we keep missing calls, it kindda defeats the purpose of having a cell phone, doesn't it? If you found this review helpful, please scroll down and rate it. Thank you! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 Promotion 88403 2000/10/2 Product Rating5.0 lots of features small average battery life small keys The Bottom LineThis is a very good phone with it's only drawback being average or slightly below average talk time. I am very pleased with this phone. Full Review Why would you want a Motorola 331? It does everything pretty well: It gets good reception from most locations. It has features like voice dialing,web browser, PIM It has very good audio quality It is rugged and reliable It is very compact If you are like me, these are the things that count the most in a cell phone. The other features that seem to be more and more popular (color screens, sending a receiving pictures) just don't cut it with me. If the phone doesn't do its primary job well (voice communication), it isn't worth my time. If you're going to be paying the monthly bill, you need to know that the phone is going to work. Are you going to be able to make calls from most locations. Will the battery get you through the day. Is the quality of the audio good enough to allow you to hear and understand the person you're talking to in less than perfect conditions. Is the menu easy to use. The Motorola 331 performs well in these areas. What isn't perfect is the battery life. If you're looking for your first cell phone, forget about quoted talk times and standby times for cell phones. They are both probably less than the specifications would lead you to believe. Motorola says that standby time is about 160 hours for this phone; I think I come close to this figure. Talk time is a different matter. The specs say 2 1/2 hours but I would say you will get more like 45 to 60 minutes. In some instances I've gotten as little as 30 minutes. Am I sour on the battery time; no not at all. I've yet to find the 5 hour cell phone. You become realistic after a while. I am very satisfied with the 331, and would buy one again. Now, all of the manufacturers should work on increasing the battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Durability: Good; so 88402 2000/5/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 stylish lots of features for the price small size permanent battery poor battery life poor reception range single band The Bottom LineIf you are a light user with good coverage, the phone is fine for the price. If you are a heavy user who travels, get something else. Full Review I am not going to bore you will of the the phone's features, you can find them on Motorola's website. I am a relatively heavy user who uses the phone most when I travel. I upgrade my phones every 18 months when my phone company permits me to do so for free. I have two phones, one for personal use and one for business. When my Nokia came up for an upgrade 6 months ago, I went to a company store. I told the guy, who I know relatively well that I want a light phone, small enough to fit in my breast pocket easily, I do not use the phone for surfing and I don't need lots of features. The guy handed me the Motorola 332 as an replacement option. He told me that he is using the identical phone right now. The phone is small, light and stylish, I liked the look. The phone was free, the price was right so I took it. That was a big mistake. I deal with a company store in the downtown core of a major city. When I tried the phone there, the phone was surprisingly clear. It has the two main features which I wanted: voicedial and one touch dialing. After I took the phone I drove home to the suburbs, as I get further away from the city core, the sound quality deteriated. It got to a point where I can no longer carry on a good conversation with the phone. I picked up my second phone which is a Panasonic, no problem at all the whole way home. At home in the suburbs, my Motorola 332 is useless. The signal meter shows two bars of signal strength but it will drop two out of three calls. I have worked through two Nokias, one Panasonic, one Audiovox and two Motorola Startacs, I have never had a problem with making a call form my home. I took the 332 on the road, it worked great in certain spots of each city, but you may be walking in the middle of downtown, having a nice clear conversation once second; and walked under a bridge or into a building and the call will be dropped instantly. The phone does not work well in a concrete jungle either. I took the phone back to the store for an exchange but unfortunately I have exceeded my minute allowance. I guess you are permitted 30 minutes of usage before the phone can no longer be returned as new. The sales guy added an antenna booster to the phone for me which does improve the phone's performance. I am using it as my personal phone now. In summary, the phone will work fine if you live in a city with good coverage and does not go in/out of buildings a lot. It will not work well if you drive or travel and need a phone with good range. Even at airports, if you happen to stand behind a concrete pillar, the sound quality deteriorate instantly. Until now, I have never had to find pockets of good signals, I guess I have been spoiled. PS, after six months, the paint on the cover is worn out on all four corners, I don't expect the cover to last much longer Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free 88401 2003/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 good battery life voice dial difficult to find accessories drops calls case comes apart to easily tiny keypad low volume The Bottom LineIf you want to make a phone call, you will be better off with 2 tin cans and some string. Full Review I have been a Cingular customer for about 6 years (going back to the days of Cellular One). I have been very happy with their service and call clarity/reliability on both analog and digital phones. I upgraded to the Motorola C331 from phones that were 3.5 years old...I want my old clunky phone back... In my entire 6 years with Cingular, I have probably lost 2 or 3 connections (less than one per year!) I have had the Motorola C331 for 3 months, and I would estimate that I have lost about 25-30 connections. In both situations I am comparing it to the same geographical area, so I know the problem is not in Cingular's Network as I have a long standing history with them. I think that the most annoying part is the fact that the signal bar on the display always shows excellent signal strength right after it drops the call, so who knows why the call was dropped. Ergonomics of the phone also leave something to be desired. You will notice from the photos that there are three holes for the speaker, except these holes are so far apart that you can only get 1 hole reliably over your ear to hear. You can hear fine when you are in a quiet location, but outdoors, in a car or public place, forget it. If this were the only thing wrong with the phone, I could live with it, especially since I could use a hands free headset for my calls. The keypad has buttons that are rather small. This is complicated by the fact that the only belt clip you can buy for the phone is a leather pouch with a plastic keypad overlay. Considering that I was having difficulty with the keypad outside of the pouch, I opted for a generic clip that stuck to the back of the case w/ adhesive. This worked well except for the fact that if you catch the phone on something it comes apart, the keypad goes one way, the battery another, and the back side of the enclosure is stuck securely to your belt. The phone has some nice features, such as voice dialing (which is a must with the small keypad), customizable shortcut keys (which allow you to get to your most commonly used features, such as phonebook, ring styles, voice dialing etc. This is very useful to quickly access functions which are buried in sub-sub menus, and data/internet capabilities, but most of these features are available on other phones. Battery life is pretty good. I use my phone very little, but I do leave it on about 12 hours/day, and average about 10-15 minutes of talk time per day. I can easily get 3-4 days out of the battery before I need to recharge. I would give my phone number and have you call me if you wanted more details, but I am afraid we would simply be disconnected :-) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 88400 2000/10/20 Portability5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 features very loud ring size terrible reception transmission The Bottom LineCool features and poor performance,Might be better in the city than a rural area, really a poor choice for me. Great ringer,very loud,very small! Full Review My experience was a poor one. Right out of the gate I had to wait to be waited on while the fellow at the booth at the mall finished his computer basketball game before asking "what do you want?" My old phone had expired due to submersion and I already had a plan and was unavailable for an upgrade. I had been to three affiliate Cingular store and not a one of them was any where near the internet advertised prices for a retail purchase of a phone. I needed a phone and could not wait for one to be delivered from an internet purchase and all three affiliates told me that no one would honor the internet prices. Well? I needed one bad and payed up with little or no complaint. The 331 was $387.00 with a mobile charger. It was raining and ugly as I left the mall and when I called home the wife told me that I sounded terrible. I noticed that I could hear myself and I sounded like I was listening to a radio with a broken speaker. Every word ended with a buzz. I declared the weather responsible for the problem and went on home. The next day everyone I called commented on the poor quality of our conversations. Echos, buzzing and garbled words. One person even hung up on me declaring they were unable to understand me. Now, I guess I got a bad one. I returned it the next day. I can't begin to tell you what a episode the return effort was. My money has still not been returned to me but I hope to get it sometime. And the computer basketball champ and I exchanged words that I can't list here after he told me that I had three days to return the phone but the manager was off on vacation and he was the only one who could do it for me and might not be available before my three days were up. I was informed that it was not his problem. Where is this all going? Well? I left with my newly purchased non functional phone and took it to a Cingular company store (not an affiliate)Who helped me get this straightened out and had all of their phones on display at internet advertised prices. They were great. I left with a Motorola V60 T and am happy with it's performance. Now, this phone was quoted to me at four locations in about a two mile square area and prices varied from $600.00 to under $300.00. The three affiliate stores had it at 5 to 6 hundred dollars and the company store for under three hundred dollars. The 331 was $200.00 outright at the company store and was $387.00 to $500.00 at the affiliates. I hope that this will help someone. Take the time and get to a company store, you will be glad you did and if you get a 331 try it before you get to far away from the store. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 387.00 88399 2002/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception handsome small light battery life how does the polyphonic speaker work not a very good user s manual The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone to anyone wanting a small, modern and light phone with the reception of a giant. Full Review Recently, I had the good fortune to receive my new Motorola C331t mobile phone from Cingular in the mail. My clunky old Ericsson R278d cell phone died on me. In fact, this was my second Ericsson. The original one that came with my Cingular plan stopped working in 1 month. I was getting tired of these low-end default come-with-your-plan phones that I wanted something a little less clunky, smaller and easier on the eyes. I saw the C331t on the Cingular site and I knew this is the phone for me. I ordered it online as an upgrade and paid $100 for the phone. Although my phone is a Cingular co-branded phone that operates on the TDMA network, I know the C331 comes in 3 flavors. So if you are not on a TDMA network, you may still be in luck. The C331t is the TDMA's version of the Motorola C331 styled phones and it is the one with the external antenna. The 't' suffix designates that it operates on TDMA which Cingular uses. This is one handsome little phone. It is all silver in color, except for the nice violet Cingular-patterned grip pads on the sides of the phone which give it good contrast. BTW, it seems that you can probably purchase different colored face-plates as you can detach the entire shell and grip pads. Having said that, I'm not aware that Motorola sells any designer plates but it definitely seems like it would be a popular thing to do. The design is very modern and the layout is simple and ergonomic. It is also very small. It measures 4.2" x 1.9" x 0.9" in dimension and weighs in at only 3.5 ounces. To be quite honest, the gargantuan clip-on battery of my old Ericsson feels just as heavy and is larger! You would think that such a small phone would be hard to operate but I have found that the buttons are very cleanly laid out and has enough separation between them that you'll be able to operate them without much fuss. This little unit is also packed with features. To start off, it has a backlit greyscale screen with a 96 x 64 resolution. I've found it easy to read in all types of lighting conditions. It is also capable of displaying graphics, although I have not figured out how to change the splash screen that comes with the phone. It also has predictive text entry called i-TAP. This helps the user in entering text by predicting what the user will type. It has voice dialing that allows you to train the phone to vocally call anyone in your phone book. The phone book is large, allowing 400 entries, including a place for email. The standard features also include a calendar, a browser, a calculator, games (3 games which I really do not care for) and ring styles. It is MP3 and data capable and it can also synch with a computer via a USB connection, sold separately. Lastly, it has a polyphonic speaker that seems useful but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to use it. If anyone knows how this feature works, let me know. The most important thing for me is not all the nice features that it has, although I do like the voice dialing feature and the large phone book. I buy a phone for what it will ultimately be used for -- talking. What gets me going is the reception I get with this little phone. It picks up signals well for such a small phone. In fact, it is better than the much larger Ericsson phone that I had and much better than the Motorola StarTac flip phones that I had once owned as well. Another important feature that most everyone looks for is the battery life. Although, there are phones out there that have longer battery lives, this little unit can hold its own. Cingular publishes that you can get 3 hours of talk time and 165 hours of standby time on a full charge. Although I haven't timed how long the battery lasts, I can say for sure it lasts a lot longer than my previous phones. Also, if you actually see the size of the battery (it's tiny), you'll be amazed at how long it lasts. The Motorola C331t phone is sleek, tiny, light and handsome. It is packed with features, has good reception and good battery life. To top it off, it can be had for $100 or less. If you're in the market for a small modern cell phone that does what it's suppose to do in life, you need to look no further. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88398 2004/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 small wireless internet capable stores lots of numbers charging issues can t find accessories keypad lock is a joke ringer not loud enough The Bottom LineThe few pros don't outweigh the cons. I couldn't wait until I got a different phone, and I finally did - went back to the old one. Full Review I got my Motorola C331t as a "free" phone when I renewed my service with Cingular Wireless in March 2003. I hadn't done any research on phone models, so I had no idea which phone would be a good one. I chose this one because of the Motorola name; also, I thought it looked cool, and it had a vibrate mode, which I wanted. Unfortunately, it hasn't lived up to expectations. The signal reception is good for a small phone, as good as any cell phone I've ever used. Call volume is fairly good, but then again, due to its small size, it has to be. It is so small that it effectively cannot be placed next to the ear, as the mouthpiece would be several inches from the user's mouth. (It's the size of a flip phone, but it's not a flip phone.) It just feels awkward to use. The phone has plenty of phonebook storage, and also has voice dial, which works surprisingly well, except in noisy areas. It has three games, none of which are great, but that's not a major issue with me (if I want to play games, I'll borrow my son's Game Boy Advance). It is also wireless Internet capable. Although it's tedious to use, it can come in handy for weather forecasts, movie showtimes, etc. Text messaging capability is also nice, although I've used it rarely. The display is clear, and the backlight works well. The keys are tiny, as you might expect, but easy enough to use nonetheless. Menus are fairly intuitive, but reading the manual is a good idea. There are plenty of ringtones stored in the phone, and you can download others, or compose your own, if you're musically inclined. One of the first problems that I noticed was that, half the time, I ended up missing calls because I could not hear the ring. It's just not loud enough, and if it's placed inside a pocket, the problem is even worse. Secondly, the vibrate feature doesn't vibrate strongly enough to be effective, also causing me to miss calls. What I've found to be the biggest issue, to me, is that when I lock the keypad, which I do to keep from accidentally pressing keys when it is in my pocket, on my belt clip, etc., the backlight STILL comes on when a key is pressed! Seeing as the backlight runs down the battery faster than about anything, this is a major problem. Also, when the "1" key is pressed, it generates a tone - even with the keypad locked! Battery life was pretty good, and I had no issues until last month, after I had the phone about 10 months. All of a sudden, the AC charger would not charge the battery. I and my wife both have Motorola cell phones that use the same charger, and I tried both AC chargers, and neither would work (although they worked on my wife's phone still). Strangely enough, the 12v DC car charger would charge the battery on my phone. Thinking maybe the battery was the problem, I replaced it. It worked fine for about two weeks, then started doing the same thing. Another issue is accessory availability. Previous to getting this phone, I had a Nokia 5120i, and I could find faceplates, accessories, etc. almost anywhere (still can). However, about the only accessory I can find for the C331t is a charger, and of course I already have one. Even the cell phone stands in the mall don't carry the faceplates. Neither does Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. This phone has no place for a carrying strap or a belt clip, unless the leather pouch is used, which makes it rather unattractive. Long story short, I can't wait until my plan runs out and I can get another phone. Next time, I'll do some research on phone models before I renew my plan. Update: On Wednesday, February 18, 2004, the phone accidentally fell from my belt clip at work, and landed on the carpet. It appeared dead, for all intents and purposes. I could not get it to power up. Just for grins, when I got out to my vehicle, I plugged it in to the 12v charger, and voila! It came back on. Still, I was at the point where I didn't care any more. I called up Cingular and asked them to transfer my service back to my old Nokia 5165 - a MUCH better phone. My wife, who has a Motorola t120, is very jealous. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88397 2003/6/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 highly functional compact sound acceptable most of the time reception good battery life sleek some menu functions are annoyingcumbersome slow boot up The Bottom LineA good basic buy for the money. Gets the job done, has everything you need and nothing you don't. Not for frill-seekers. Full Review So am I describing the phone or myself? I hope both! The C331t is one of the C33x series. Phones of this series are being offered by several cellular providers, and the C331t is the one I've seen on the most websites. As far as I know, nearly every major service offers some version of this phone. There are already several very good reviews on this phone, but I had a few comments that hadn't been made yet, so here's my contribution. I've had this phone about two months. This is the first cell phone I've ever had-- I resisted the cellular revolution strongly-- so unfortunately I don't have a point of reference to compare it to, and some of the things I comment on might sound stupid. First, be sure you understand both a phone's technology and your cellular plan before you make a purchase decision. There are two major types of cellular network in the US right now-- the TDMA network (a.k.a "digital" or "second-generation"), which for most companies has pretty complete coverage of most urban areas, and the GSM (a.k.a "next-generation") network, which has the bandwidth to allow high-speed data transmission that will let you download boatloads of crud off the internet. The GSM network is still being constructed and doesn't have as complete coverage yet, but it is coming. Most cellular providers distinguish these as "digital" and "next generation," so look for a phone that matches your plan. If you're not sure, you probably need a digital phone. A very few phones are compatible with both technologies (actually just one that I've seen), allowing you to get both the coverage and the functionality. They are referred to as "multi-network" or sometimes "multi-band." BTW, the first generation was the old analog network. Features this phone has: TDMA technology Predictive text entry with iTAP software (or you can do it the old way) Voice Dial Datebook with reminder function Calculator (handy if you're bad at figuring tips) Internet connectivity and data receiving (with the proper accessory- I haven't used this) Text messaging 3 very basic games to help you pass the time in a waiting room. The ability to set ringer IDs so you know who's calling the instant the phone rings. Features this phone does NOT have: GSM technology (but I hear some services offer a GSM version, dubbed C331g) A color screen A camera Fancy games with graphics Video e-mail Goofy screensavers MIDI ringtones (it only has regular polyphonic) Or any of that other expensive crud nobody really needs. The good: It looks cool. This is the phone with the blunt antenna you see in the picture. The pictures of the phone on the websites make it look much larger and wider than it really is. You have to see it in the flesh, so to speak, to see how small and sleek it is. It's got an overall blunt square shape, but everything on it is rounded in a way that gives it a certain organic, yet hi-tech sex appeal. Everyone at work wanted to hold it and admire it when I played show and tell with my new gadget. It's compact but functional. It should fit easily in all but the smallest pockets or purses. I would guesstimate it's one of the smallest of the non-folding models. As on most cell phones, the buttons are pretty small, but they are well spaced and click nicely when you press them. They should be easy for all but the largest fingers to use. It has good battery life. I made sure it was fully depleted for the first few charges to prolong the charge. I can get about 6 days of charge out it, leaving it on 24 hours a day, but not using much airtime. It takes about 2-4 hours to fully recharge. But bear in mind I'm not a heavy talker and I don't use that much air time. I'm more of a just-in-case-something-goes-wrong user than a gab-all-the-time user. Voice dial is one of my favorite functions, and I have voice commands for everyone in my phone book. Now keep in mind I only have three friends, so I don't have that many entries, but I found it easy to record the voice command and I haven't had any trouble using it. I programmed one of my "soft keys" to activate the voice command, and now I just press a single button and say the name. Works every time-- so far. Reception has been great for me. I haven't had it that long, and I haven't had to travel out of town with it yet, but I haven't had any trouble anywhere in Houston I've tried to make or receive a call. One of the things I hear a lot is that it's nearly impossible to get cell phone reception in a hospital. I was in the middle of a hospital testing area, and I asked the nurse if I was allowed to use my phone. She shot me a dubious look and said, "If you can get a signal, feel free." Well, I had no problem, and my signal was loud and clear. My SO did report a dead zone in our grocery store, but that could be Cingular's towers and not the phone. UPDATE- I recently also had an episode where my mom and I were trying to call from inside a parking garage. She couldn't get any signal at all on her phone and gave up, but again I had no problem. Mine was loud and clear. You can change the side grips to different colors. This may not sound like much, but my SO and I both got the same phone and we needed some way to tell them apart. They sell faceplates, but they cost $20 and they're mostly goofy-looking things meant for kids. I like the sedate silver color and didn't want to change it to sparkling purple or make it look like a basketball. A set of three side grips is only $10 and allows you to customize the phone and add a touch of color without totally overdoing it. So now I have black side grips and he has white. No more phone confusion! The so-so: Most of the time, the sound during a call isn't quite as good as having a good connection on a land line, but I don't have to shout or repeat myself. It's just a bit tinny when the signal's weak and occasionally there's a slight echo. But when there's a strong signal, you can't tell you're not on a land line. Even with a so-so-signal, I've used it on a busy city sidewalk with no problem. I really don't know how this stacks up to other cell phones. The menu system can be cumbersome to use, but I suspect this is a common problem with all cell phones. You can customize the menu and the function keys to make the features you use most more accessible. You can also set up shortcuts to go directly to a function you use a lot. For example, I'm terrible at remembering my new cell number. There is a function that will display your number, but it's buried in several layers of menus. I set up a shortcut so I just hit Menu and 1, and my number instantly pops up. The bad: It's slow to boot up. One of the main reasons I resisted getting a cell phone was that I didn't like the idea of being at the beck and call of other people all the time. So I usually keep it off unless I need to make a call or I actually want to hear from someone. I don't know if all cell phones take this long, but it seems like an interminable wait for it to show the little Cingular icon flip-flopping around, then show my number, then be ready to make a call. The speed dial menu insists on keeping your voicemail number as speed dial 1. That's all well and good, but they don't tell you that anywhere in the manual, and when you start putting entries in your phone book, the first entry still defaults to speed dial 1, which won't work. It shouldn't be a problem as long as you know about it in advance, and are careful to start at speed dial 2 as you set up your phone book, but it gave me several days of grief because I wanted to put my home number at the top of the speed dial list, but I wound up having to redo it and put it at the bottom. I couldn't insert it at number 2 without reprogramming every entry in the phone book. BUT, I should note that it became a non-issue after I got hooked on voice dial. Now I just hit the soft key and say "home." The startup/shutdown music is very annoying. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I can't think of anything more embarrassing than being in a place where a cell phone would be a major intrusion, have your cell phone ring, and then have it continue making loud noise as you try to turn it off. Thanks to another helpful reviewer whose name I can't find at the moment, I now know a way to turn these sounds off-- you just set the Ring Style to silent, and then go into the Silent Detail menu and put back all of your regular sounds. However, this means you no longer have a true silent mode, so it's not a perfect fix. I'll also note the phone claims it's "MP3-ready," but I can't figure out what that means or how to actually play MP3's on it. For my first foray into cellular technology, I'm very pleased with this phone. It's compact, sleekly sexy, and gets the job done without a lot of fancy frills you don't need. I personally see no need to pay $$$ for a phone that can play Tetris in full color or take pictures. I paid $29.99, but Cingular claims it's a $129.99 value with a $100 rebate. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $29.99 88396 2000/8/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 it fits in my pocket voice activated dial battery indicator keypad lock features horrible speakers The Bottom LineDon't buy it, the bad outways the good by leaps and bounds. Full Review I bought the Motorola c331 almost a year ago and have been unhappy ever since. Currently my phone is broken for the second time and I will be venturing out to the cell phone shop to hopefully get it fixed without it being sent out for six weeks. RINGING SPEAKER~~~~~~ The problem I am having is with my ringing speaker. The first time it broke it sounded like a dying duck instead of my polyphonic ringtones (just imagine how embarrassing this is walking through a store with horrid looks glancing your way as your purse makes noises that should only be heard in a haunted house). Now it has just stopped working all together with no warning. Two days ago it worked fine and all of a sudden I was puzzled when I looked at my phone and realized that I had three missed calls. I had not dropped my phone, I had been at work and it had been delicately nuzzled inside of my purse on my desk all day (a call earlier in the morning worked fine). Absolutely nothing has happened to my phone, either times, to make it not work because of my fault. I have a friend who has this identical phone and her speaker has also just instantaneously stopped working twice, so it's not just me. LISTENING SPEAKER~~~~~~ Other people have mentioned this in their reviews and it is true. If you have any background noise and you are trying to listen to the person on the other end, good luck. I have to turn the radio in my car off to hear the person on the other end, not just turning the radio down, but off. I, like the other reviewers, am not deaf and have no hearing deficiencies. I think the speaker I talk into isn't that great either because I have heard "what?" "can you repeat that?" "did you say something?" far too much on this phone. BATTERY INDICATOR~~~~~ Now moving onto things other than the speakers. Even though I'm am about as perturbed as I can get over the speaker there is more about this phone that makes my blood boil. The battery life is good on this phone but the indicator is horrible. The indicator is a little battery in the upper right corner with three bars. Three bars obviously means that it is full. I feel that the indicator should go to two bars when you have two/thirds of your battery life remaining. Unfortunately it doesn't do this. I have watched this closely (having had it almost a year has given me plenty of opportunities to watch this) when the indicator goes down to two bars you have about half an hour if your lucky to get your phone into a charger before it dies, if your talking on it you have about five minutes. The battery will last maybe three days before I charge it, but I don't keep this on my calendar and do rely on the indicator to give me advance warning to when I need to charge it, this indicator does not give me enough of a warning, it has died on me at numerous occasions where I didn't have either of my chargers on me. KEYPAD LOCK~~~~ Another thing that irritates me is the keypad lock. I understand when you have an incoming phone call you want to be able to answer it without unlocking the keypad but this phone is way too sensitive. I have answered my phone before just because when I picked my purse up and my lipstick bumped against the phone. Too late!! Already talking to that person I didn't want to talk to because my purse answered it for me. What bothers me more about the keypad lock is that when you get a missed call that button is no longer locked. If I have a missed call I don't mind unlocking my keypad to look at who called me. What I do mind is having that button activated and while the phone is in my purse and something gets jostled against the phone the missed call comes up and stays there for about ten seconds then disappears, now all the buttons are locked and the missed call indicator is gone, all of this happening inside of my purse while I am unknowing to what happened. I have to routinely unlock my phone, scroll through the menu to recent calls, select received calls, and see if I had any recent calls with no check marks (a check mark means you picked up that call). It would be much easier to just have the keypad locked and I have to unlock it to see who called. The other thing is that while your purse has brought up the missed call all buttons are activated and I have even called a person back without knowing it. Thanks for that locked keypad guys!!! It really works (ha ha, sarcasm). If you tell everyone who calls you to leave a message you will at least have the little letter next to the lovely battery indicator, that doesn't go away until you listen to the message. When you have a voice message it works the same as your missed call where the button is activated and you can accidentally call it, but I doubt you will ever accidentally call, then accidentally enter your password, and accidentally listen to the whole message resulting in the little letter icon disappearing. So I have had to waste many minutes checking my voice mail just to hear "hey it's so-and-so call me." VOICE-ACTIVATED DIAL~~~~ As if my complaints on this phone haven't gone long enough, there is lastly voice-activated dialing. Cute little feature if you didn't look like a speech reject when you tried to use it. I have played around with this and no matter how slow and enunciated or normal sounding I try to sound the phone will only recognize what you say 1 out of 10 times. I have decided that I would rather quietly scroll through my numbers instead of walking in public trying not to sound like E.T. when I say "home" ten times to my phone. GOOD THINGS~~~~ ~~The phone is attractive looking and small enough that I don't notice when it is my purse. I have left home with it still on the charger because it doesn't change the weight of my purse. Bad thing for me forgetting, but definitely not the phones fault. ~~The phone lights up well so that I can see it in dark places...when I had my Nokia there were some keys that didn't seem to light up well and I had to struggle to see what they were, not a problem with the Motorola. Although I think newer models of Nokia have gotten better. ~~Easy to use, I haven't had a problem figuring out any of the features. ~~The games are cute (Blackjack, Falling Numbers, Video Poker) but they do use up the battery if you don't watch how long you play. DROPPED CALLS~~~~ I really don't have a problem with dropped calls like other people have seemed to have, but I'm in a pretty well covered area. There is a mall I don't have service in, but I haven't found any phone that does. If I go under a bridge, or if weather is bad, or in my house (which is very close to an airport) my service is really choppy, but everyone else's service/phones aren't great in these situations either. My mom's Nokia doesn't work great in our house and I know Nextel is almost hopeless all because of the airport being so close. OVERALL~~~~ I am counting the days to when I can get a new phone and it will most likely be a Nokia. I am afraid to even by a land line phone made my Motorola after the fiasco with this phone. Although I have found that the Motorola's that are supplied to Nextel don't seem to be bad. My boyfriend has dropped, kicked, thrown, and soaked his phone in rain and it still kicks like it was brand-new...maybe Motorola should just stick with two-way radios... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 88395 2000/7/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 powerful battery voice active dialing small size black white bad games antiquate backdrop light The Bottom LineThe laymen's phone, maybe not cool enough for the hipster, but definitely accessible for the practical person. Full Review The Motorolla C331t isn't the flashiest or tiniest or most powerful phone. It doesn't have the most cutting edge games, the smallest built in camera or the cutting edge in color technology. What it does have is the pure essentials that a cell phone needs, with a solid infrastructure at a reasonable price. Display ************************************* The phone's display isn't the greatest in the world. It is a dotmatrix backdrop, with a green light on black text. The resolution is nice, so it can handle some nifty pictures, but the green backdrop reminds me of a tandy phone from 1991. Text-characters are crisp and do not bleed over time. The lights can be quite bright, holding for 20 seconds without dying. By changing the LCD bulb, you can vary the color from the old green to a more vibrant blue or red. But that's an extra feature and is not offered through the company. Menu The menu is basic, but well organized. The left access button will take you to your phone entries, while the right access button lets you access text messaging, voicemail, a notepad and the inbox/outbox. The menu also has a list button at the center of the scroll circle, which has the call list, datebook, ring settings, internet browser and voice dialing configurations. What's nice about the menu is that each peace is easily interchangeable. If you like using your internet a lot, you can take out either the phonebook or the messaging from the main view and add the browser etc etc, allowing for great flexibility and time saving shortcuts. Shortcuts ***************************************** Some of the great shortcuts in the C331 are the voice activated dialing and the speed dial settings. The phone can hold up to 10 voice activated numbers, which require the recording of your voice. It is a simple process, not difficult to set up. Also, speed dialing is an option on the phone, it can hold up to 20 out of its 400 available numeric numbers as speed dialed. Each number entry includes a name of the number, type of number (work, home, cell) and a spot for a personal note. Quite handy for the quick to forget. Intangibles The phone's size is from modestly small to quite small. It is great for pockets, although sometimes the keyboards accidentally get mashed while being held in a pocket. It fits comfortably on the face and can be used for a long time without having ear pains. The battery is quite nice, it offers 165 hours of digital standby time, with 5 hours of digital talk time. Utilizing an ultra lightweight Lithium battery, the phone weights a breezy 3.50 ounces. Accessorizing ****************************************** Accessorizing this phone is quite easy. The faceplates and sidings can be removed for customizable coloring (offered through Motorolla or other companies). The phone, which offers 35 polyphonic ringtones, has internet access to over 32 databased polyphonic ringtones. Ringing settings can be adjusted to either ring, vibrate or ring and vibrate. To summate this phone, it doesn't have the most dazzling technology, in terms of color display, cameras or fancies parts; what it is is a simple phone that handles every necessary category that a cell phone needs to handle, at a modest price (29.99 from cingular with a phone plan). I thought it was the right choice for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 7741 Motorola T193 88416 2000/10/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 attractive small stylish complicated menu vibra call faint poor sound quality poor battery life The Bottom LineAttractive looking phone, but don't be fooled. The sound quality is horrible, and the battery life is even worse. Full Review The Motorola T193, has got to be by far the worst phone ever made. I truly believe that the engineers (if we can call them that) who designed this phone had a good laugh. Despite its impressive sleek and sexy design, Motorola T193, is pure garbage. The sound quality on this phone is poor to none existent. Attempting to use this phone outdoors, or even worse on a crowded bus (heaven forbid) is pointless. The sound is so faint, that you literally have to dig the phone into your ear, and still you can barely hear the other party. The vibrating call feature (Vibra-Call), is yet another waste of time. This pitiful excuse for a silent alert is so faint you can hardly feel it. And as for the battery life, it would be amazing if you were able to place 3 short calls without needing to recharge. Oh, and did I forget the menu navigation system...talk about complicated. I think landing the space shuttle would be easier than this. Perhaps it is not so much so that it is complicated, but try and call a number in under 2 minutes...good luck. After seeing all these shortcomings, I sent the phone in to Motorola for servicing. Imaging that...sending in a bran new phone for servicing. At any rate, when the fine folks at Motorola were finally able to locate my phone in their warehouse, all they did was send it back to be with a new faceplate...thanks guys! So forget the Motorola warranty, it's almost as useless as their product. I am writing this review as an experienced cell phone user, and trust me Motorola has greatly damaged their name with this poor and cheap excuse they call a cell phone. Speaking of price, in Canada, this phone cost me a pretty penny. I had no intention of purchasing a new cell phone, but my previous one suddenly died. I was unable to get a loner, and my service provider...well, lets not even go there. The sales rep at the store recommended the T193...wow, how I wish I could see him now. My best and only advice is, "Stay away from this phone." Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88415 2000/8/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 nice physical design very solid construction cheap interface battery life durability poor reception clarity The Bottom LineThis "free" phone cost over $150 in replacement batteries and chargers. It's pretty much useless except maybe as a 911 phone (assuming that you can get a signal with it) Full Review Ok, let me start by saying that I got this phone for my wife because of her love of her old Motorola Startac. After the first few days, she started complaining about how horrible the phone was. I attributed it to her lack of techno-savvy and essentially ignored her complaints. After all, it was a Motorola....how bad could it be. The first time she left it out in the van on a hot day (not even on the dash, in the sundry bin under the dash), the battery was history. It went from the poor 8-9 hours of standby on a charge down to under 30 minutes. Ok...replaced the battery pack. Strike one. Two months later, the car charger went kaput. Strike two. A couple of weeks after that, my wife left the phone in the car overnight on a very cold winter night and *poof* another battery toasted. This time, down to under 5 minutes on a charge. Strike three. Replaced the battery and another few months go by. This time the phone simply won't stay powered on. It keeps resetting after just a few seconds of power-on time. Even on the charger, it keeps resetting. Ok...so I'm sick of what I think is my wife killing the phones and when the replacement arrives, I swap the SIM from my nice reliable Siemens M46 into the Motorola and give her the M46. Ok...it feels really nice in my hand. It's easy to carry and it's relatively small and light. I make my first call and I feel like I'm back in 1990. "Can you hear me?...What?...I can't understand you.....What?..." Between the low volume (even maxed out), poor fidelity and absolutely abysmal reception, I can't understand how this phone ever made it to the market. I had 6 different no-service areas on a 15 mile run that I use my Siemens on without an interruption. The menus are about as intuitive as analytical calculus is to a pre-schooler. I actually had to read the manual for a cell phone for the first time in my life. The iTap interface is also pretty hideous. Why they couldn't adopt T9 or something similar is beyond me. After apologizing to my wife profusely, I bought a new Ericsson and gave the T193 to my 3-year old to use as a hammer. At least someone is getting some use out of it. Recommended: No 88414 2000/8/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many functions versatile small maybe too many functions not as versatile as some small The Bottom LineFor a free phone, you can't go wrong, great clarity, good versatility, sleek, small and stylish with no external antenna. Full Review I guess I must come to the rescue of the T193 and say it's not bad, it might not be the best phone out there, but it's certainly not the worst. Most everyone gets this phone for free, check with Voicestream or priceline.com for discounts. Features: I think the T193 has some great features, it has 2 screen saver modes, about a dozen ring tones, including 2 spots for tones you can download to the phone to customize it. The menu can be configured in different ways to suit your taste. All the features are customizable, the volume, the contrast, the backlighting time. This phone is equipped with the SIM card, so you can download your entire phone book to the card, and quickly change phones, or use someone else's phone with your minutes by switching the cards. It has no external antenna to catch on things, and easily fits in the palm of your hand. The volume and clarity are very good, even in my rural area where the service is not very good. I found many customizable faces and keypad for this phone on ebay and other online places so customizing it from it's standard silver is quite easy and inexpensive. Sure, it's not as cool as most Nokia's, it doesn't have a gazillion rings, and it doesn't have a ton of games, it only has 1, but it does have most of the other features that Nokia phones have. High Points: Of course because most people get the phone for free, makes it very attractive, but even if it was purchased, it can still hold it's own against other phones. The features are extensive, it's a phone for crying out loud, not a PDA, it shouldn't have the kitchen sink in it. It's small and attractive, and is quite durable, the battery securely fits on the phone, unlike other phones that feel like the battery will fall of at any second. The display is large compared to the phone, and is easy to read. I was very impressed with the quality and range of the phone, which I can really vouch for in my less than perfect service territory. Low Points: It's not as versatile as some phones, but it's free, it's not as attractive as some phones, but it's still pretty cool, I specifically picked this phone over some Nokia's because of it's new design and sleek look. The standard color is rather plain, but can easily be updated or customized. Some people will find the lack of many games and a plethora of ring tones to be unacceptable. In my rural service area, the battery does only last on standby for about 4 days. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 88413 2000/6/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy inexpensive sort of ugly The Bottom LineIf you don't need the highest in cell phone technology, or if it's free, go ahead and get one. It's cheap (or free), lightweight, and sturdy. Full Review I got the T193 when I upgraded from my last Motorola phone. It was about $45-50, and I've now had it for about a year and a half. All in all I'm pretty pleased. I've never had a problem with reception or battery life, but this may be because I live in a fairly large city, and I actually charged it for the recommended 24 hours when I first got it. I like that I could download ring tones from the internet (the Beatles' Daytripper), that I can access a quick menu by just holding the menu button down, instead of scrolling through endless menus and submenus. I also like that I can call my voicemail by just pressing and holding the 1 button. I've found these features very quick and easy to learn and use. The best thing about this phone, though, is how sturdy the little thing is. I must have dropped this thing at least a couple of dozen time, on wooden floors, tile floors, asphalt, etc. The worst that's ever happened is the battery cover came off, but it popped back on just fine, and the phone has never been damaged. There are a few things that I don't like about the T193. First off, I think it's ugly - it's weird and square, and I'm sure that the silver and grey faceplate is supposed to look stylish and space-age, but it looks bland and industrial instead. Also, and this kind of gross, there are two layers of clear plastic in front of the display and there is no way to clean in between them, so I've got little flecks of dust, tobacco, and who knows what else floating around on top of the display. Lastly, I have found that a few of the features are either difficult to master, or something's just wrong with them. The voice tag system has never worked for me, but I haven't spent a whole lot of time trying either. Overall, I like the T193. Keep in mind though, that I'm not the kind of person that needs a phone that is a phone and a computer and a planner and a game system and a camera all in one. Although my cell phone is my primary phone, I'm perfectly happy leaving the thing at home once in a while. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 88412 2002/7/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small free everything else The Bottom LineThe Motorola T193 is the worst phone made. Avoid it even if it is free. Full Review In this day and age I would have expected something more from Motorola. Something that does more than rival a pair of cups and a piece of string (picture the phones you played with as a kid, not a bra). Perhaps something that worked like it was supposed to. I have been let down and the only positive is that the T193 was free. I came upon the T193 when complaining about my cell phone service. Imagine this: The provider turned off my service and when I called to find out why I was told that my account was showing as closed over a year ago. Hmmm, makes you wonder who I have been paying the past 12 months and where the money went. I liked the coverage the company provided so I stuck with them when they promised they would provide me a detailed report of where my cash was going. Before I left with my "new and improved" contract the company offered me a a free Motorola T193. Sure, why not. I got the thing home and charged and was ready to be chatting away on the T193. Oops. This is where the problems began. THE CONNECTION: After using my old phone (three years old) everywhere in my double wide, I suddenly could not use the new one anywhere. The connection would drop or would never pick up in the first place. Now this is a problem as I use my cell phone as my primary phone. On the road, I was getting calls dropped in places from which I could actually see a cell phone tower. Seriously. Keep in mind that I never changed my service provider- simply my phone. Additionally, the phone is fuzzy when talking and will go in and out frequently. You will be mid- sentence and the person will suddenly not know what you said. THE BATTERY: Perhaps part of the problem with the connection was that the battery stayed fully charged for all of about 38 seconds. Ok, on a good day you could stretch it to 43 seconds. I constantly had to recharge and recharge and- in all seriousness- could never talk more than an hour a day without getting the annoying battery low beep. THE PHONE: The phone is so darn cute (Kidding). What I mean is that it is small enough that you can put in a shirt pocket, the pocket within a pocket in a pair of Jordache jeans, and just about anywhere else. The phone weighs half what my other phone does and is about three inches long and am inch wide. The only problem is that the phone is so small that those of us with fat finger have a tough time dialing. Motorola chose to try to alieviate this problem by using a scroll bar for much of your commands. This works, but is odd. Think of using a mouse on a laptop vs. a normal mouse. Yeah, it takes a while to get used to. THE EXTRAS: The T193 is loaded with various extras that you will never use. You can play games! Woooo hooooo! This would be cool if the games had progressed past the silliness of connect the dots and pong. For my purposes, the games icon simply clogs up an already clogged up screen. Try surfing the internet if you want. My phone seemed to think we were back in 1986 and the only people who could get onto the net were Government big wigs. I tried and tried and tried, but never actually made it onto the internet. Granted, it would have been a slimmed down internet, but slimmed down would have still allowed me to converse with my darling Rosanne Barr anywhere and everywhere. Again, a wasted feature. How about Ping Pong? Ping Pong is essentially an instant messenger service that works on your phone. Now I do not know about you, but this seems similar to sending a FedEx package to the person in the cube beside you. If someone "pongs" you I can see the use of sending back a quick response of a word or two, but for the most part I would expect that it would be easier to just pick up the phone and call the person. Heck, anything would be better than trying to type on a screen the size of a small bug while using a number pad. Yes, Pong is useful in boring meetings, weddings, and the like. VOICE MAIL: Hey, believe it or not, the voice mail feature is normal. It is just as annoying as all others in that you get a text message and a voice message so you have to delete two time to remove the message. THE VERDICT: Imagine saying that you would rather drive your 1976 Pinto than your Porsche. Well, this is exactly what I am doing. I have gone back to my three year old phone- the one without all of the options- because it is better in virtually every manner. The T193 sits in my desk waiting to be used should I lose the "Pinto". Should the "Pinto" get lost, the T193 will have a day in which to prove itself unworthy and then will be replaced by a phone that I actually need to purchase. I realize that the phones that are given away are typically not top of the line, but Motorola has basically unloaded junk on the consumer. I would think the company would be smart enough to realize that by putting this garbage into the marketplace they are forever damaging their credibility and causing a number of consumers to sour on the Motorola name. I, for one, refuse to purchase another Motorola phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 7742 Motorola T730 88429 2004/9/1 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 digitalanalog capable small size hard to see display flimsy charger receptacle extremely short battery life A big thumbs down on this phone. If you like re-charging a phone after every 1 or 2 calls then you maybe this is the phone for you. I have never had a phone drain a battery so incredibly fast. It's like I am charging it constantly. It is a nice small phone so I realize the battery can't be as big, but I have had smallish phones that lasted a lot longer. Another big drawback is when plugging the phone in to be charged, many times the connection to the receptacle doesn't seem to work, so you have to play with it and push it in just perfectly to get it to work. Also the display is colorful, but almost impossible to see in any light unless it is lit up. Overall, I would am very disappointed with the Motorola T730 and I would say stay away from it. 88428 2004/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good price good ringtones decent display not the best reception So far I like this phone, it was a good value for the price (although what's inexpensive for a phone is pretty relative these days). It doesn't seem to get the best reception, I don't know if this is just Verizon or the phone. It has a good selection of ringers. What annoys me is the volume buttons on the side. When you want to turn the ringer volume down or off, pressing the buttons still makes a loud noise. I've had other phones that didn't make any noise when adjusting the volume. This can be annoying when you're in a quiet place and you want to turn the ringer off quickly. You can go into the menus and adjust the volume silently from there, but the side buttons are faster. I like the datebook and alarms features. It would be nice if the datebook showed a monthly calendar, rather than by the week. The alarms aren't very reliable, they don't always go off when they're supposed to, sometimes not at all. But other than that you can store a lot of items. 88427 2005/4/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 color screen ringtones too many to mention here I got my T730 in March of 2004 from Verizon and was thrilled with it at first. The main reason I got it was because it was a fairly nice upgrade from the phone I had at the time, and it was cheap. However, I quickly developed a love-hate relationship with it. Since that time, I have been anxiously awaiting the day my 'New Every Two' period kicks in. The phone is just awfully slow to respond. The form factor is good, but the keys are too far recessed, making it difficult to dial numbers. On top of that, it is slow to respond to key-presses. I talked to a Verizon rep and he mentioned the phone's processor is very slow. This makes things such as redialing and voice dialing painfully slow. Not to mention using the Mobile Web is a pain in the butt. New Every Two is a good idea, but not for phones that barely last a year. When I upgrade, I will just bite the bullet and buy a phone I won't hate in a year. 88426 2005/9/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 phone has been dropped several timesit still works in a leather case poor static filled reception short battery life I have owned a Motorola T730 for two years. I work for the city schools and travel building to building. This phone was one that was recommended by Verizon with our two year plan and I didn't need anything fancy, just decent reception and durability. I had lived with poor and static-filled reception inside almost every school building, no reception in a partial basements or an interior office areas. I often have to find a door or window to stand by to talk on this phone. Quite often I am unable to hear/understand and have to ask my caller to repeat something. The charger has to be plugged in just right to get it to charge. If this phone goes to analog mode, the battery will go down to one bar in a very short time. 88425 2005/6/19 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 bellswhistles nice looking too long of a list poor quality poor reception clarity is horrible both ends This was the worse phone that I ever owned. It performed so poorly that Verizon replaced it three times for me under the misunderstanding that the phone had a malfunction. The phone itself was a malfunction. Clarity was poor, Charger plug was flimsy, volume was never loud enough, the list goes on and on. This phone had a lot of bells and whistles but all I really wanted was a phone that worked. Finally got rid of this piece of crap and Verizon gave me an LG vx3200 -- love it. 88424 2006/3/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 good looking phone trimode poor body casing durability poor reception Nice looking phone, but beware of this. The body of mine cracked after a year, and only works thanks to duct tape and epoxy. Reception is not that great. It is tri-mode, which is helpful, but these days, a good bi-mode is better. The buttons are hard to feel, and I've lost several calls in major metropolitan areas. 88423 2000/5/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception lots of features even when dropped fancy looking phone very durable easy to use the battery life is lacking no other real problems The Bottom LineExcellent phone you will love it, if you make a lot of calls getting a better battery is a must! Full Review I Just purchased the Motorola T730 a few months ago and I am loving it! I got it on the Verizon Wireless network and its a awesome phone. First off the phone looks real fancy with a external caller ID that has a chrome look. The regular face plate it has is real nice and you can customize your face plates as well. It has a extendable antenna that is nothing special but helps get you better reception when its fully extended during calls. When you open the phone you will notice that the screen is a good size and everything is laid out nice and simple. The keys look nice and there is nothing to complain about. The phone features a ionic user interface to guide you through the different menus with ease. You can customize the colors of your phone and do all kinds of different things. It comes with 32 ring tones and you can download up to 32 more. Verizon offers a "Get it Now" service where you can go right into an area where you can download ringtones, games, graphics and many other programs. They do cost you but it is a nice feature. For an additional fee each you month of $5-$7 bucks you can go on the web and check you mail, read news, entertainment and much more. The phone book can store 250 entries on the SIM and 250 entries on the phone, so that totals 500 phone book entries.. NICE. This phone is not compatible with any camera but its okay because I have learned that cell cameras usually suck pretty bad. But you can play games and send text messages. The text messaging is the best I have used on a cell phone. It has a option call "I-Tap" that allows you to push the buttons and it knows most normal words for you. It saves time and actually works real well, it does not know all words but most common words. The phone offers Ringer IDs that allow you to set ringtones to specific people. When you hear that ring you know who is calling. There is also Voice Dial that I use a lot because its easy to use and if your to busy to dial (like driving) then there you go. All in all this phone offers a lot of options that are easy to find and use. I can't go through all of them but a couple others that are kinda neat include: composing your own ring tones, Voice Notes and a date planner My only real negative is the battery life, it just did not last that long. But I ended up buying a better battery for cheap (on the net) and it lasts a very long time now. I highly recommend this phone to anyone out there, although similar to the T720 it has corrected a lot of the problems and is much better in my opinion. Also the ringtones sound awesome and are loud and clear. There are also 5 different kind of vibrations as well. A+ Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88422 2000/5/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 works well with an inexpensive plantronics headset m110 ui reception irritating gamey features The Bottom LineGet a real phone instead of this toy. Full Review If you're extremely bored and want to be entertained by mindless animations...if you're paid by the hour and actually like waiting for your phone to do what you've told it to do...then I guess this phone is for you. I've never been so irritated by a phone in my life. Every little task--from menu selections to incoming text messages--makes you wait while some inane little graphical animation plays itself out. And you can't key ahead and ignore it. There's no way to tell it to NOT interrupt you. If you're on the phone and there are incoming calls or text messages, it will interrupt your call. If you're in the middle of dialing and there's an incoming message or call, it will interrupt your dialing and make you start over. If you choose to ignore an incoming call, after pushing the key to ignore it, it still interrupts you once more before stopping the ringing. Then, when you have voicemail it interrupts you for about a second with a stutter. I've had a number of Motorola phones and liked them, but this one just drives me nuts. It's like the UI was programmed by a game writer. The reception isn't too hot. The Verizon rep told me the LG phones are much better, and that's what I'm going to switch to. I get a LOT of dropped calls, and failed dialing. Michael. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88421 2000/6/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size phone book horrible accessory charger noisy bootup shutdown The Bottom LineMotorola seems to be living on its past reputation - there must be better phones out there. Full Review I've had this T730 for about 9 months now, an upgrade from a 3 year old StarTac that gave up the ghost. I never could bond with the StarTac due to its unintelligible menus and command structure, and hoped this new generation would be better. It is, but not by much. I remain a person who is unmoved by all the poorly-implemented functionality in cellphones, and cannot understand why so many people love them so much. To me, they are a constant irritant. The improvements over the Startac in this T730 for me were the phone book, the ability to see who's calling while the phone is shut, and the battery life -- unlike some other reviewers, I find the battery life to be quite good. But among the irritants are spotty charging of the battery -- sometimes the phone will say it is charging, but after an overnight charge it will remain with a dead battery. I also hate the boot-up/shutdown sequence. Both take far too long and I have not yet figured out a way to make the thing do either of those functions silently without playing incredibly annoying music while it does so - just what you want in a serious environment when you realize you forgot to turn the thing off. I made the mistake of buying the accessory charger (the Motorola product, not an aftermarket one) and cannot believe how awful and cheap the thing is. It has a useless analog clock in the front that I cannot set, but don't care about anymore anyway because its battery is apparently now dead. The charger supposedly will take a spare battery and the phone itself, but it does not do both simultaneously. Useless. Plus, instead of just having an AC adapter to plug it into a wall outlet, you need to use the phone's travel charger! So forget about having one charger at home and another at work -- you need to buy a second travel charger to use the accessory charger. Inexcusable, and a triumph of awful engineering. So I remain disappointed in cellphones and await the next upgrade window to ditch this one and try to find one that actually thinks the way I think. So far, no luck. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88420 2000/6/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 gets good signal compared to other phones in the same geographic area great sound power connector doesn t always set right interface awkward in places sometimes crashes The Bottom LineA decent phone, you might be able to find something better though. Full Review When I first go this phone, I was in love with it. Both the sound and the coverage where better than my previous phone. Although the coverage improvement might be due to my having changed providers more than due to the phone. I love the voicenote feature, I use it all the time. The calendar/datebook function isn't exactly feature-filled, but it is useful and the fact that it's integrated into a device I'm carrying with me anyway makes up for it's lack of bells and whistles. I also liked the ability to program the function of several of the buttons. When on the main screen, I can program 7 different keys to take me to different functions in the phone. First, some minor peeves. On previous phones, I could program in several phone numbers for one person, and throughout the interface, they would always be linked together. That is, there would only be one listing for them when I displayed my phone book. Not so with this phone. If I have 4 numbers for Jane Doe, then Jane Doe is listed 4 times in the phone book listing. There is a mode where it will only display the "primary" number (which you can set) for each person. But this makes the non-primary numbers inaccessible. After a few months, the honeymoon was over. The first sign of trouble was when I was waiting for a bus on a cold Wisconsin winters day. Once I got on the bus I found that the cold weather had caused the phone to lock up. After letting the phone warm up and removing and replacing the battery, it came back to normal. This was just the first of several situations where the phone locks up. The times this happens seem to be random. It doesn't happen often, but just often enough to be annoying. The charger. My old phone had the same problem. The charger plug doesn't seem to fit snugly into the socket on the phone. Although there seems to be some other flaw at work. Sometimes, the phone will indicate it is being charged, but the next day, it's still not charged. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's a pain to wake up in the morning to a near-dead phone. Motorola offers a cable as an accessory for the phone that allows it to be plugged in to a USB port on a PC. This is both really cool, and poorly engineered. On the occasions when my cable modem is down, it's a life-saver to be able to dial in though my cell (I don't have a landline). It's also convenient to be able to program speeddials and the phone book from my PC. My complain is that sometimes when I plug it in, there will be some kind of USB error and it won't recognize the device. I haven't figured out what the real solution is but a reboot of either the phone or the PC or both seems to fix it. Overall, a decent phone, but with a few annoyances. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88419 2005/6/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 clear buttons easy for big fingers lightweight readable screen many accessories interchangeable parts available extended battery makes unit very thick not very rugged battery life could be better The Bottom LineGreat phone for the value conscious people that do not need all of the latest high tech features like Bluetooth. Full Review The T730 has gotten some bad press due to some of the firmware problems in the earlier models (T720, T721, T722) and Verizon reception problems in some areas. But it really is a decent phone for the going prices these days ($50 to $75 in new condition). Note that the T720 can be upgraded to a T730 by updating the firmware and replacing the outer faceplate. The main advantage with the T730 is a relatively small form factor with a wide range of available accessories. There are tons of face plates that you can get for it, in addition to new styled antennas, inexpensive replacement batteries (standard and extended), different case styles, many headphone choices (including the Jawbone!), an external speaker, and even an externally mounted camera. I find the voice quality is good, both speaker and microphone. The volume level could be a little louder, but if you use a hands-free headset it is no problem. Also, in extremely bright light the screen is a little hard to read, but otherwise it works well. As for features, it does have the ability to compose or load ring tones and assign them to specific people, plus it has a decent working voice command capability. You can attach an optional camera, but you need to activate image hosting service with your carrier to use it (I thought I could just take pictures and data transfer them off my phone, but the phone rejects the camera without the service). There is no speaker phone, but you can buy an attachment for this--not many other phones offer that! Note that 3rd party software is also available that allows you to hack into the phone and do all kinds of things to it. If you don't really care about playing games and taking photos, this phone is a very good deal. I was going to renew my Verizon contract, but I was not going to gain much (only 50 minutes more per month) and I'd have to pay a lot more than $70 for a new phone. Getting the T730 on "The Bay" and having Verizon program it to replace my older phone was a snap (talking with a tech rep, it took just 15 minutes). Now I'm still "month to month" and I can easily decide to switch to another carrier if I wish at any time without costly penalties. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88418 2005/3/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice colors pretty display cheap crashes 1 day battery life unintuitive gui breaks when you drop The Bottom LineIf you understand engineering and know what good engineering means, this phone is not it. Full Review I'm an engineer. I program software backends and have done extensive GUI work in the past, and now I'm involved in compiler backend for embedded devices. I have no affiliation with any cell phone company, and this is a review of the engineering quality of Motorola T720i/T730i from a perspective of an another engineer. I've had many many phones in my life, starting with the huge 2 pound phone to the big/thick Motorola flip phones to the Qualcomm/Sony CDMA phones. For the past 4 years however I used Nokia 61xx and Nokia 81xx phones and was pretty happy with it, but both of them lacked cool features that the newer phones had (color display, polyphonic tunes, internet, etc), so I decided to upgrade. I switched to Motorola T720i (and then later on switched to a T730) not because I liked Motorola, but because it's the only phone offered by Verizon that was under $100 and seemed decent. I didn't want to go with Samsung and other Korean brands because my friends had them, and even though they look really sleek and have fancy features, they break easily-- one drop and it's gone. I've dropped my old Nokia 6100/8100 phones many times and they still worked perfectly, and I expected the same tolerance on my brand new shiny T720i phone. I've used many embedded devices in my life, and the T720i is one of the rare devices that actually crashed on me. In 8 months, I've had 6 crashes. They don't display the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death, but instead just shutdown in the middle of an operation. I'd expect something like this with Windows 98, but not with this phone because it's suppose to be one of the finest Motorola products! And after the crash, you need to take out the battery for a while, then put it back in, and restart the phone. But the startup time for the phone is long long long. More than 10 seconds! As an engineer, I know that boot up time becomes longer as you add more memory requirement to the device, but going from a 2 second boot up time in my Nokia phone to over 10 seconds in a newer phone, is just unbearble especially when the device crashes so often. The battery lifetime for the phone is short. In fact phone standby time and talk time is one of the things I overlooked when I switched phones. I was given a 950mAh battery and even though I don't talk everyday, I need to charge it every single day! The standby for this phone is simply too short for normal use. Compare this to my old Nokia 8200 TDMA phone-- it is 4 day standby and 4 hour talk time!! An older technology is actually better in this respect. Sure, they use different frequencies than the Motorola CDMA phone and the newer phone has a bigger power hogging display and bigger power hogging processor to process fancy features, but still, having to charge every single day is a pain. Speaking of charging, Nokia's charger is round so you can plug it into your phone even when you're blind. With Motorola, you have to look at the polarity, aim, and plug it in. I'm a clumsy guy and I drop my phone frequency. I have dropped my Nokia 6100 and 8100 phones many times and they stood up to the test. But when I dropped my T720i... it was totally gone. Broken. No more. Adios. I was actually happy about it and thought I'd get a totally different phone covered by the warranty. Unfortunately they (Verizon) gave me the next series phone, the T730i. The 720i and 730is are identical, but the newer T730i hasn't crashed yet. However I've only had it for about 2 weeks so it doesn't mean anything. I'm not so optimistic that the T730i is better because from my experience as an engineer, if a product has a broken platform/base to build on, its successor products, whatever incremental number you add (T740, T750, etc), will reflect the similar quality. It's like building a tower on top of a soft soil; if the foundation is bad, it makes very little difference if you rebuild it on the same site. At any rate, the next part of the evaluation is the GUI, or graphical User Interface. I've done a lot of GUI work myself in the past and while there are a few rules to follow, the most basic rules are 1) consistence 2) letting users know where you are 3) easy to get from one place to another. Let's take the Nokia series for example; you have a top level menu, followed by more specific menu, so on and so forth, all accessible using either the up/down buttons or quick numerical keys. Yes, the Nokia people really understand GUI engineering. However with the T730i, there is an annoying 250-750ms delay between what you press and what shows up. And when you traverse the menus, it's all in the up/down keys, no quick numeric keys unless you make a special effort to program it. Since there is a lot more features, you have to spend more time traversing the options on the up/down keys... it's quite a pain... literally, to the thumb! As for the email GUI, it is awkward. The DELETEALL and DELETE options are right next to each other, and since there is a 250ms delay between pressing the up/down keys, I've mistakenly pressed DELETEALL option and wiped out all of my emails... and I've done that more than once. As an engineer, I know that the lag (delay) in the GUI is totally unacceptible. 250-750ms, that's almost 1 second in the worst case from what you press and what you see. What the heck were they thinking when they designed it (hint: they didn't). And the send/done button layout-- for the most part, "send/select" actions are performed on the right side (green and soft select). But for email, done is on the LEFT soft button, then "YES to send" is again on the LEFT soft button. It's like having TWO return keys on your keyboard and having to press the right one at the right time. On the Nokias, all the YES/DONE/OK buttons are on the left side, and all the NO/Options/etc buttons are on the right side. Remember the 3 points I mentioned earlier? Consistency, knowing where the gui is, and easy to traverse? Motorola GUI design gets 0 points. Nokia designs get all 3. Applications-- there is no alarm on this phone. Sure there's a cool calendar, but it doesn't have a snooze feature. How in the world could they miss such a simple but commonly used feature??? Even my old 4 year old 6100 phone had such a feature. And the calculator, I don't even know how to begin... On the Nokia, I can simply press * and it'll go from plus to minus/mult/div, but on my new Motorola phone, I have scroll scroll scroll options just to select a simple minus/multiply/divide/dot operation. Sure it 'looks' intuitive (oh my, the pretty big LCD), but the menus and options are not easy to get around. It's extra work for consumers, and extra thumb pain. Other features: Downloading fancy applications-- none of them are free. Internet is not free either (on Verizon). Then there's the actual physical size of the phone. It's actually ***bigger*** than my 2 year old Nokia 8100 phone. The voice recognition, compared to the newer, more technically advanced Nokia GSM phones I played with, is really really primitive. It can't recognize the difference between "Michael home" and "Michael work". I think the algorithm only hashes or favors the first syllbles and ignores the rest. The voice recognition component is accurate to about 75% in controlled, quite environment, and more like 40% in real environment when you're in the car, office, etc. Seriously, the software recognition module needs to be rewritten, or be taken out completely because it simply doesn't work well. There are a lot of minor things too. When you dial a number with "P" pause it (advanced feature) and while this is happening, if you press the volume key, it'll actually interrupt it. This feature, or should I say bug, doesn't exist on Nokia phones. In summary, this is a pretty phone with a pretty [power hogging] display and lots and lots and lots of features that I will most likely never use. I'll actually be happy with my my old 81xx Nokia phone, and be happier if I could just go back to my old carrier and get those brand new advanced Nokia GSM phones. It's got the 81xx features and BETTER... if only it weren't for the 2 year contract that I signed up for. Lastly, as an engineer who has worked on many consumer products in my lifetime, if I had taken any part in designing/QAing Motorola phones, I'd be ashamed for the rest of my life. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88417 2000/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features easy to use good voice quality average battery life tiny icons The Bottom LineYou can go just about anywhere with your T730 and keep in touch via voice, text, or web, but make certain you've packed a battery charger and your reading glasses! Full Review Some people change their wireless plans about as often as they change their sheets, though for confirmed bachelors I guess that's not really very often. I, on the other hand, had stuck with my first wireless provider through thick and thin. After getting off to a, I ironed out my disappointment with Sprint and kept the service - it didn't hurt that my monthly charges were pretty cheap, since I'd refused to upgrade to PCS Vision. The Ms, too, had stayed with from the get-go - about seven years in all. A recent move, though, left us in a quandary: though my Sprint coverage was quite good in our new area, AT&T's coverage was even worse than what she'd been complaining about in Austin. She couldn't even pick up a signal in her office... We were both on month-to-month contracts by this point, so why not switch? Our employer gives us a discount, so we pulled the plug on both accounts and switched to Verizon. Irritating "Can you hear me now?" advertising or not, so far we're pretty satisfied. One reason is the phones - we sprung for a matched pair of Motorola T730s. Out of The Box The T730 (which operates on the CDMA band) comes packaged with its battery and not one but three owner's manuals: a 20-page quick-reference guide (specific to Verizon), a CD-ROM version, and Motorola's 200-page user's guide, replete with troubleshooting instructions and more information than this graying head can hold. An AC wall "travel" charger (it's quite small) and a hard plastic holster-style belt clip are also included. Headset (standard 2.5mm plug), leather case, and travel charger are available accessories, as is a data cable and spare battery. Does Size Matter? Strenuously opposed to carrying a large purse, the Ms required a small phone to replace a minuscule Nokia 8625. The T730 - a flip phone as opposed to the Nokia's solid body - measures in slightly larger than the Nokia at 3.6 x 1.9 inches (66mm x 48mm) and one inch (25mm) thick. It's still pretty small. At a paltry 4 oz (120g) weight, it's not going to be confused for a brick, either. Do Features Matter? A confirmed networker, the Ms required that her phone have a capacious phone book and text message capability. The T730 can store 500 different entries in its phone book, an entry being a number, email address, or website - not a name and all associated information. Entry of names and numbers is simple - simpler than with either the Nokia or my now-retired Sanyo 4900. The "1" key on the keypad lets you enter common punctuation marks (period, comma. @ sign) without having to "shift" into symbol mode. There is a symbol mode, though, for smileys and the like when you're text-messaging. Another feature of the keypad is "intelligent" software (iTAP), which uses predictive technology to guess which word you're attempting to tap out on your keypad. It's intended for text-messaging, and can't be engaged for making entries to your phone book. Unless everyone you know is named Smith or Jones, it probably wouldn't work, anyway. ITAP seems pretty smart on short words, but it has a vocabulary that would give the Grammar Curmudgeon a fit of the giggles. The phone has dual displays, the same as the Motorola T720, to which it is identical (you can tell them apart because the 720 has a solid-color faceplate and the 730 has a two-tone faceplate). The external display (visible when the face is closed) has two lines to display time and date or, when a call comes in, caller ID. The upper line displays icons for signal strength, battery status, voicemail, roaming, and the like. The main display - visible when the phone is open - is 120x160 pixels of full color. The keypad is back-lit (with a power-save shutoff), and makes heavy use of onscreen menus. You navigate the menus with a four-way disk and three selection buttons, one of which calls up the next menu level on many screens.. An odd feature of the phone book is that every entry is assigned a speed dial, which defaults to the lowest available number. Personally, I question that logic - if you can't remember someone's phone number, what makes you think you'll remember their speed dial code? Plus, unlike other phones I've had, voicemail isn't automatically assigned to speed dial 1, though that might be Verizon's doing instead of Motorola's. Now for the fancy stuff that supposedly differentiates one phone from the next: * The T730 has a polyphonic speaker for high(er) fidelity - you can use it to show off those ring tones you downloaded (at a fee). * There are 32 different assignable ringers. You can navigate the menu screen to change volume or simply use the volume controls on the left side of the phone, including shifting the phone to vibrate only. * The T730 is "Get It Now" enabled. Verizon's program allows you to buy and download ringers, games, and other applications. Get It Now access requires but one push of a button - since you pay for everything you "get now," of course it's easy to get to! * The T730 is web-enabled, with a built-in micro-browser. It also includes a calendar/datebook, with an alarm clock and also event alarms. This datebook can be synched with your personal computer using the accessory data cable and Motorola software. * You can record short voice notes with a one-button feature. * For an extra charge from Verizon, you can get voice dialing. I'm either too cheap to do this or not lazy enough - or perhaps both. Push-to-talk is not available, nor is this phone available with a camera (the T720, with identical features, is available). You can receive and view pictures, though. Everyday Usage The life of the lithium-ion battery is rated at 90-225 minutes talk time and 69-343 hours of standby. Those wide number ranges are pretty weaselly, if you ask me, and so far my battery performance seems to be on the low end of the scale. This may be a function of signal strength in my area or the fact that I'm prone to playing around with the phone. Entering numbers in the phone book and composing text messages both seem to wear down the battery quickly. So far I haven't gone anywhere that's off the grid, though the Ms called last night from the wilds of the Wabash River Valley and broke up quite badly. That might have been because she's prone to forgetting to extend the antenna, since her series of Nokias have never forced her to remember this trick (unlike my Sanyos). Voice quality is very good, on par with the Sanyo and considerably better than the Nokia she retired. The keypad, which is large enough to read even without my specs, takes a little getting used to. Luckily, I make so few calls that just about anyone important enough to be in my phone book is on the first ten speed dials - hold down one number, and we're chatting. The menuing system is intuitive for the most part, though it also takes some getting used to. One problem I see is the identification of numbers in the phone book - multiple entries for a particular person are identified by little icons, and I do mean little. Is It a Keeper? This isn't a phone for the phone-atic among us: it's not Bluetooth enabled (not that I give a rat's patootie) and doesn't have a camera (ditto). On the other hand, it has a decent-sized display in a small phone, holds plenty of entries in the phone book and calendar, is web-enabled, and can send and receive text messages. For a few extra bucks, you can send enhanced text messages, with pictures (though the need to do so seems unlikely without a camera). It has reasonable battery life and isn't so complicated that I get lost all the time. The quirks it does have are livable, so all-in-all I think I'll keep it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7743 NEC N515 88436 2004/11/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 color screen lite weight unable to be unlocked reception I had the phone for a day in the Bay Area before I couldn't stand it and returned it. The phone is longer than most other camera phones out there, but is quite lite. There is no way of knowing if you missed a call without opening the clamshell. In fact on cannot even tell if one had reception with doing that and with mMode it was really bad. Reception was bad enough on the mMode and this phone made it even worst. The phone couldn't be unlocked so it can be only used on At&t unlike other phones that can and thus can use other providers. 88435 2004/8/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it s a phone everything else about this phone My first NEC n515 just stopped working after two months. My replacement phone died after 3 months. The phone is difficult to use and the number of available acessories are few. I don't recommend this expensive and poorly made phone. 88434 2005/10/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 worked well while it worked froze up quite a lot broke after 2 months I brought this phone about 4 months ago , after reading a review on a previous site about it being good. it broke after 2 months and during them two months i had a few problems with it: such as it froze up quite a lot, Although i thought it was a nice looking flip phone , i learnt it's not always about what the phone looks like:P 88433 2005/4/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 selectable ring tones for different people low voice volume phone locks updrops calls terrible camera I bought this phone just over a year ago. What a mistake. It was the only one AT&T had at the store that was a flip and camera phone. Big mistake, first the camera is not worth a dime. The pictures are grainy and people come out looking like you've taken a bad hallucinogen. Nest is the voice volume, if I'm driving I have to roll my windows up, turn off the radio and turn off the air conditioner just in order to hear what the other person is saying. Also sometimes when I am attempting to make a call it will drop the call four or five times in a row over a two minute period and to add to this on several occasions during a call it will drop the call I will close the phone and then 40 minutes later I will open the phone and it will be locked on active to there person that the call dropped and I am unable to get it to unfreeze unless I power it down. This has drained my battery on more than 3 occasions in the last month. 88432 2004/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 decent navigation syncs with outlook weight size dropped calls headset port scheduler interface I'm not sure if it's the AT&T GSM service or the phone itself, but I've had a terrible time with this phone. While I really like the features, the sheer volume of dropped calls, frozen functions, and random shutting down leads me to not recommend the phone. Despite a fairly robust scheduler application, I find that I still carry around my Palm Pilot for its calendar function. I appreciate that the NEC515 syncs with Outlook, but if the interface is difficult to navigate, then I just won't use that feature. The screen is nice, the games are fine, but having my phone freeze on me while I'm talking to someone (and not moving around) makes me crazy. 88431 2000/11/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the absolute best of quality in all aspects blue button lights would looks better than green also silver buttons do not light up The Bottom LineIf you want solid quality, fast internet and email connection, this phone cant be beat! Full Review One word can easily describe this phone... INCREDIBLE! I have had several phones before this such as a v60t, T720 (my last phone)... and now the NEC 515. My T720 broke and I was leery about spending $300 on a new phone, but I went to the store, compared and bought it. I love every aspect of this phone... I cant believe what I was missing! I have heard others complain about its reception, but I have had 0 problems. The color screen is just fantastic, all the apps work fast and smoothly, including games. Not only this, but the phone looks good to... I get questions and compliments on it just about daily. One thing I didn't care for when I bought it was the fact that it did not have any normal ring tones, but I just downloaded some. Yamaha ring tones have the best, and you can try them before you buy. Do you like games? Well the NEC web site (nechdm.com) has the best I can find for it... but it gets better... they are free! Unfortunately I dropped the phone a few times... this was before there was a case for it... it was so new when I got it, but they are available now. When it dropped on both occasions, it went sailing across the asphalt parking lot. Any of my other phones would have been busted to kingdom-come... the NEC came through unscathed... in fact the phone only received a very minor knick... practically unnoticeable, and the phone still performs as new... oh and uh... what about rain getting on the phone? Again, not a problem... this happened also... I thought that would be the end of the phone... not so... didn't even phase it... I dried it off and was on my way. It is a phenomenal phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88430 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 software reception large screen if only it werent at t The Bottom LineThe NEC N515 never failed to impress... With AT&T, this is much better than Nokia or anything for the price. Full Review The NEC N515 is probably one of the hottest phones that you can get with AT&T. With the rebates, you can get it for under $100, and one of my close friends just got one. He had been struggling with a junk Nokia 5100 series phone for a few years on a plan with no minutes, and finally his family signed a contract with AT&T for a family plan, so he got the NEC N515 for only $75. He was excited to get this phone, and I was excited to finally use an NEC product again after all these years, and especially a phone. Well, here's what I found with the NEC N515. -Price- *With the amount of savings you get with activation, this is quite a phone piece of equipment that you can get for under $100. If you're looking into AT&T, then I'd highly recommend taking the NEC over a Nokia or already aging Motorola v60 phone. I'm not the biggest fan of the AT&T network, around here, it seems to perform worse than Cingular and Sprint PCS. However, most of the phones that I used on the AT&T Chicago-land network were Nokias, which perform worse than other brands such as Samsung, Motorola, and now the NEC N515. Compared to Nokia phones that most people tend to buy, the $75 spent on the NEC N515 will go much further than a Nokia regarding phone performance and overall quality. It might not have a camera, but it does exactly what it's supposed to do, it performs excellently as a phone. -Dimensions- *The NEC N515 is a nicely sized phone. It's a bit larger than my Sanyo SCP-8100. However, it's not too large to make it uncomfortable to carry around. It's a fairly light phone at around 3.5 ounces. Overall, the NEC N515 shouldn't pose any problems with portability. -Features- *The NEC N515 is abundant with nice features. It proves to be an excellent phone to surf the web with and write text messages and e-mails with. It isn't difficult to access the features or to use the menu. The interface is nicely done. A nice point to the NEC N515 is the fact that it runs on dual-processors which one is meant to just run the Java programs, so you can play games with exceptional speed. The also has 1MB of internal memory which can be used to store images, ring tones, etc... This is quite feature-packed for the price, indeed. This phone features just about everything you'd expect from a high-end phone, the NEC N515 doesn't fail at all to impress. -Ease of Use- *The NEC N515 proves to be quite easy to use. The menu has a good interface and the web is easy to browse with this phone. The NEC N515 is also easy to customize, and the 1MB of memory makes it all the more fun to get plenty of ring tones and images. If you're looking for a feature-packed yet user-friendly phone, then the NEC N515 is an excellent choice. -Clarity & Performance- *I'm not a fan of AT&T in the Chicago-land area, but the NEC N515 makes most of the reception that it can get. The NEC N515 provided clear calls and dropped very few calls. I found it to perform better than the Nokia cell phones that I used on the AT&T network. Over AT&T, I'd recommend Sprint PCS or Cingular, but as for making most of the AT&T network, the NEC N515 will definitely do a nice job of getting clear calls through without dropping them where you can get reception. -Battery Life- *The NEC N515 does have a fairly long battery life, and should last you about 4.5 hours of talk-time. This phone lasts, and that's definitely an important thing. Like just about any other phone these days, the NEC N515 uses a Lithium-Ion battery, and those last. The standby time should last you around a week, wow, that's great! -The Verdict- *Through the moments in which I used the NEC N515, it never failed to impress. Now I can see why Paul was so excited to have this phone. For a more serious person who doesn't just use a cell phone for recreation, the NEC N515 is capable of sending e-mails and surfing the web. Combined with its exceptional clarity and longevity, the NEC N515 alongside a low price with activation of contract, this phone should prove to be excellent from a teenager to a businessman. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 74.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7744 Nextel i305 88439 2005/6/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life rugged easy to use good audio built in speaker phone black only I have had many phone with several providers and this is by far a better phone than any other currently offered. I have broken many phones in the last 10 years and this one last. The only phone that I have had that is tougher is the i700plus and they no longer make it. If you are looking for a rugged phone that does what a phone is meant to do then this is the phone for you. It is loud and clear tough. It is a little balky but it makes up for it in toughness. The only problem I have with it is that it dosen't come in yellow (it makes it easy to find). I would suggest this phone to anyone who needs a rugged phone and not alot of fancy junk. 88438 2005/12/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable good battery life great phone when it works nextel customer service on line customer service is a joke This phone is durable, easy to use, with an exceptional battery life. Nextel (a.k.a. Sprint) Customer service leaves ALOT to be desired. Given my line of work as a firefighter/paramedic it held up fairly well, its stock holder wasn't beefy enough, and the after market swivel clip holder exposed the key pad and unless the key pad was locked you had problems. Phone began to develop very irritating problems, by dropping calls, and re-setting itself. Standard cell phone fix by provider was replace battery with no changes. Phone was sent in for repair ending in replacement with no answer of what was wrong given. Getting a loaner for a week was almost impossible. The same problem redeveloped less than three months later, not willing to deal with customer service again went to upgrade instead with i560. Nextel(SPRINT) customer service was even more irritating than the phone issue, with NO! answer using the on-line customer service feature. Given this is suppose to be a rugged phone meeting military spec.; that Nextel would stand behind the phone more. Guess its easier to stand behind guys making left hand turns all day than your products and service. 88437 2000/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life very durable good stock ring tones flimsy antennae overpriced for what you get The Bottom LineGreat phone for people who need a durable phone and are willing to pay quite a bit for a good one. Full Review I had owned the I55sr as my first Nextel phone. It was a very durable phone and had no issues until the battery started to act up. This being my second phone was not a bad replacement. It was pricey and I had to extend my contact for another 2 years to get a decent price on it. My husband was provided with this model through his employer so I had seen it in action. I am still not sure I like the speaker being on the back of the phone. Sometimes in a direct connect conversation it will blow you out and other times you are trying to figure out the exact best way to hold it so you can hear. I have enabled the web access and it is cumbersome to use but it does come in handy. The battery life on this phone is very good. Much better then my previous cell phone. The battery charger is also much easier to connect. This phone does take being dropped very well also. It is very comfortable in your hand and comes equipped with some nice interesting ring tones. The antennae is very easily bent and I suspect could be broken fairly easily. The button configuration takes some getting used after using my previous phone, but I am pretty that would have been the case with any new phone. If you can get this one on special it's much better then the phones Nextel offers for .99 with a new contract. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7745 Nextel i530 88452 2007/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very good phone best phone yet Great phone!!!I just upgraded for a i275 and this is a lot better. I love this phone. Great for outdoors. 88451 2005/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ptt capability rubber grips on side rugged casing flip breaks easier color This is a very well made flip phone for the construction and heavy working industry like trucking. The phone itself is the most durable flip phone on the market, it has been tested through Army testing and resists just about everything from water to heat. Although it is a flip phone which increases its chances of breaking, this phone seems to not follow those rules as it does not break very often even if it gets wet. 88450 2005/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 external speaker stylish lightweight done direct connect non color screen no external screen I have enjoyed using my i530 phone. It is affordable and has a variety of functions that will come in handy. It is compact and lightweight. I purchased this phone because of the handiness of the Direct Connect feature offered on the phone. It also features an external speaker which is not included in the cheaper models. If i would change anything about this phone I would give it an external LCD screen for caller id and so-forth. A color display would be nice as well. U can download ring tones and play games. All-in-all its a very nice phone that combines style, functionality, and durability. 88449 2005/8/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 rugged not reliable Im picking up my 3rd i530 in the morning, my first i530 lasted about 3 days because it was not taking a charge at all, Now Im dealing with the same issue but it took about 3 months for it to happen, now I need to pay $35 to exchange for a new phone in the morning. Im hearing more and more issues with this phone as I speak to dealers and Corporate Nextel Sales reps. 88448 2006/4/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 you can throw it againts a wallit still works kind of you cant hear well with the small speaker This is the worst phone that I had with nextel plus the coverage stinks too you cant understand someone without telling them to repeat them selfs I would not reconmend this phone to my worst enemy. 88447 2005/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 nice phone feels durable not a long term phone The Bottom LineIf you need the I530 just beware that it may turn into a Lemon! The case is durable but the electronics are not. Full Review The company I work for uses only Nextel. We use aprox. 25 of the I730's, 25 I710's, 50 I530's and about 100 of the I58sr. Out of all the phones we use, the I530 seems to have the most problems. First off, it has no features to it. No calculator, no games, no voice record, no alarm, no data store, however; it does have MEMO that seems to only use numbers and no alpha. Also, since it does not have a second screen, you have to open the phone to see who's calling or beeping. Same as the I710 with the screen. So with that loss of screen you need to set the phone up in the setting menu to turn off the flip answer. This way if its someone you don't want to talk to yet, you don't hang up on them. That is a minor thing, but it gets old after awhile. Second problem we are having with this model is that after about 3 months the phone shuts off when your on a call. I'm not talking about the cell drop, but the phone will power off. This always happens when your talking to a client or placing a service call. Third problem is that, out of all the phones we have, the I530 also loses its signal more often then others. There are many times the I530 will have no service were the I710 will have a full signal. We have taken the phones to Nextel and they told us it is not the battery (witch was the first thing we changed) but it was the phone. They are offering to exchange the phones for $30 each with a refurbished phone. Those phones also will power off after one month. Fourth problem would be the buttons on the phone. They have a tendency to stick or not work. Sometimes you have to keep pressing the button to get it to work and other times you press it and the button will give you 3 or 4 numbers instead of one. As far as Nextels service, well, its not "BEEP BEEP DONE" like they say on the T.V. It's more like "BEEP" error "BEEP" error "BEEP" error then "BEEP BEEP, Done!" But they do have the best 2 ways on the market. Bottom line is, it is a nice phone and it feels very durable. However, if you must have it, I would get the model up or the model down. However, if you are looking for phone to kick around and drop all the time. This phone will handle the crashing and kicking. Don't get me wrong, I like the phone for it's simple use, I just don't like the reliability of the electronics. Because of those problems I can not recommend the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88446 2000/9/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 motorola always produces solid well built products but poor garbled muffled sound quality not a coverage issue both ways due to nextels 6 1 network The Bottom LineDo not purchase this phone because of the 6-1 technology that Nextel uses on their networks...unless you don't care about the quality of sound. Full Review I am in the telecommunication business selling business telephone systems. We have four full-time techs/installers and have been using the Nextel wireless service for many years. Up until now, we have been reasonably satisfied with the Nextel Service in our area. As the older Nextel Phones began to age we have been replacing them with the Motorola i530s. Now three of our four techs have the i530's. All three of the telephones have a huge problem...they all sound garbled, both to the user of the i530 and to the person they are talking to...which in most cases is our customers. Keep in mind we are in the telecommunication business selling high quality telephone systems, yet when our techs are calling our customers the sound quality is very poor. Not a very good image for our business or your business either. For several months we have been getting the run-around from both Nextel and Motorola about this problem. I should mention that the older Nextel Phone (i60) that my fourth tech is still using works fine and sounds fine. Nextel says they checked their network and found no problems. Motorola says we could send the three i530s in for repair. Both Nextel and Motorola have told us when we asked "have you heard of this problem before?" they respond "no this is the first we are hearing about it." I finally talked once again to a representative at Motorola who explained the problem...she said that the older i60 uses 3-1 technology and the newer i530s use 6-1 technology...Not being an engineer but around this business long enough, my understanding is that the newer 6-1 technology allows Nextel to have 6 people on the same node or channel (or whatever they technically would call it) at the same time, compared to the older 3-1 that only allows 3 people on the same node/channel...thus what happens is on the 6-1 technology the voice transmission signals are compressed and therefore a major degradation in the sound quality. When I learned about this from Motorola and confronted a supervisor named Matt at Nextel he said that they are well aware of the situation and claimed that this was a coverage issue and they have no guarantees about coverage. He said there is nothing they could do about this. In other words they are selling and promoting this model Motorola i530 Nextel Telephone in my area (which is in a major city)knowing that the i530 with the 6-1 technology will have a poorer sound quality than the older technology and they are doing nothing about it. To add insult to injury, we have two year agreements with Nextel for the service on these telephones and according to Matt the Nextel surpervisor..."there is nothing they will do." So..."Caveat Emptor" Let the BUYER BEWARE! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 180.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88445 2005/5/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it s more capable than some cheaper phones but the durability is the major selling point this phone isn t feature rich in the era of colorscreen phonesdownloadable ringtones The Bottom LineIf you need to buy a durable phone and are not a slave to features, it's a wise choice. If you care more about flash than substance, choose another model. Full Review When I went in to sign up for a new plan, I had two goals: I wanted an affordable plan and I wanted a durable phone. After my experiences with the flimsy i85s, this time around I selected the i530. As a professional, I chose the black-on-black rather than the yellow two-tone. This phone doesn't have the advanced features of its more expensive siblings. The feature list is relatively short by comparison: - Meets Military Standard 810F for Durability - Speakerphone - SIM Card Operation - GPS - Assignable Ring Tones - Push-to-Talk (PTT) 2-way - Downloadable MIDI ringtones - Internet browser - Built in Modem (for laptops using optional data cable) - 3-way calling - Call Waiting This phone is not a "pocket-phone". The belt clip is probably the best way to carry it, but you'll have to deal with a rather bulky appendage on your hip. Ladies will probably want to carry it in their purses. You can set ringtones on a per-contact basis. This is handy because it allows me to know when the call is from home or the office before I look down. The speakerphone feature works well. The clarity is good for both callers. The only issue I have noticed is that the microphone, which is voice-activated, is so sensitive that it sometimes picks up road noise and turns off the speaker while the other caller is talking. On smooth roads however, it's really easy to hear and understand. I live in an area where cellular service is spotty at best. Rarely do I have "no signal", although this phone does seem to have trouble realizing a weak signal has become available after losing one. For durability's sake, there is no external display, so you'll have to open the clamshell to see who's calling. For that reason, you'll probably want to disable the Auto Answer feature, otherwise you lose call-screening capability. Battery life is not terrific. When new, it would hold a charge in standby mode for less than 3 days. After one year, mine is down to about 36-40 hours. One thing that is rather annoying for me is the side-mounted volume toggle. When the phone is closed, it is rather easy to bump the buttons and change your ring volume. This can be helpful, but more often than not I do it by accident and either set it to vibrate or turn it up all the way. Because it actually PLAYS the ringtone while adjusting the volume (when closed), you will disturb others with this feature. The phone I purchased did not include a car-charger, but had I realized that before the sale, I probably could have negotiated a free one from the salesman. Ringtones are MIDI only, so your ringtones probably won't be the envy of your friends. All-in-all, if you need a durable, PTT-enabled cell phone, this is the best I've seen. While it's short on bells and whistles, it's long on lifespan, and that's why you'll be buying this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88444 2005/11/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable standard features walkie talkie color battery life The Bottom LineWorth the purchase for durability and service, walkie-talkie use in a group or team. Full Review I thought I'd write a comment about this phone. I have so many friends who use this phone and have very little negative to say about it. There are many standard features to it, but a few worth mentioning. Specs Durable, walkie talkie style, address book, internet use, GPS Top Negatives About Phone I can name only a handful. 1. For starters, the battery life is terrible. I've owned my i530 for about a year now. The battery life is lucky to last through the entire day. Typically, I have to put it in the charger at some point during the day to charge the battery. Though, you can buy a different battery that offers greater active time. Though, I've found that battery not to give much more than the standard battery. If you do buy the larger battery, you also have to buy a new back cover because the other battery I am referring to is a larger battery. Is it worth buying all these parts to get more active time/use out of the phone or is it worth while to purchase just another spare battery and a portable charger. Buy the same battery and portable charger. 2. The display is not in color. However, this isn't exactly a bad thing. I have another cell phone with Verizon. That has color and I hate it. I spend a lot of time outdoors and when using the color display outside, I often cannot read the screen. The display this Nextel has works better in most times during the day. Though, at night, it can be a pain, but the display does lite up. 3. Phone software is limited. The software, which is downloadable free from Motorola's website, is very limited to what you can do with the phone. You can manage your address book, that's about it. Not like my Verizon phone where I can change my password, do a master reset, etc.. but the Nextel has limited features with the software. I do recommend the software though. All you'll need to do is purchase a usb cable to connect to the phone and computer for connectivity. That cable will run you between $15 to $30, depending on where you buy it. If you go on ebay, you may be able to get it cheaper. Positives about the Phone: Now onto the fun stuff. 1. The phone is very durable. I don't know how many times I've dropped it and it still stays in one piece. I had an older phone with Verizon or Cellular One, dropped it, and it broke into a million pieces. Well, I was out for about $200 bucks because it accidentally fell out of my truck. The Nextel phone (i530) has a durable exterior. You'll like it.. you can also purchase the yellow exterior to jazz things up, but most often the phone comes in black. 2. The software is easy to use with the phone. Like I said before, the software is limited to use. You can only manage your address book with it. I've got hundreds of numbers in my phone. I've got numbers for my kids' teachers, hockey coach, dance leader, band leader, any possible number for any number of teachers is in there.. even the two principal's numbers are in there.. just in case. The ER for hospital and also the new ICE code is in there. On top of all the family members, relatives, and friends, I still have plenty more space for numbers. 3. With the i530, you can connect via walkie-talkie mode. This is very handy if your on a team or in a group that uses this form of commo. I use it to talk to my cop and fire buddy's. I also have a group to connect to my wife and my son's phone. What a great concept, although, it hasn't much changed either. Pretty simple to use, press the button and wait for the other person to pick up. All you need is their direct id number and you can connect to the other Nextel person. 4. Ringers. The phone has several different ringers to choose from. I have a few setup for certain people who call me, but most of my contacts use the walkie-talkie. You can also put it in vibrate mode, in case you go to a meeting and need it quiet. If you're a busy person who spends half their life on the phone, it's certainly worth the time. 5. Nextel service. Since I've had the phone, the only places I've lost service (in dead zones) has been near the eastern coast up in New England and way up there in northen Main and Vermont. I don't think Nextel has service in Canada. Though, since they've expanded with Sprint, that may have changed. I live in New England, so service seems to do pretty well up here, for the most part. That's about all I have for now. It's a great phone with pretty standard features. Durable and worth the purchase. You should be able to get this phone cheap now, since it's Motorola's older technology for walkie-talkie phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88443 2005/9/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good am radio quality solid phone excellent coverage large size compared to most units in the market The Bottom LineI recommend the Nextel service but you really want to shop in person for the unit of your liking. Full Review Intro I got the i530 as part of the Nextel service. I chose a free phone from an internet promotion from Buy.com and the cheapest/slowest shipping possible. Even though the vendor said 9-16 days I got the phone within 5 days. It appears that as soon as Nextel knew they had a "live one" they wanted me to start using the phone as soon as possible. So it is OK to choose the cheapest way to send you the phone. I got the phone for free and, on top of that, a $25 mail-in rebate which I have yet to use. Looks and Handling The black version of the phone looks chunky compared to most other cell phones, but it looks rugged, with hi-tech looking ribbing and somewhat retro-cool. It is easy to handle and it does not slip out of your hand easily due to the rubber coating. I have not dropped the phone yet, but I am sure I will at some point. Being chunky makes it hard to get out of a pant pocket where I keep my phone. I have lost two calls trying to get the phone out before the call went to voice mail. I am probably going to get a belt attachment (and add to the Batman look). Features The phone has multiple ringtones included and it also has ring+vibrate which is very important for me. It also has a vibrate-only mode which can be easily set-up by lowering the outside volume to zero. One feature it does not have is ring+vibrate when assigning ringtones to entries in your phone book, only the ring part can be attached. I tried to send text messages but I could not with the base phone, perhaps it is a download. I wish text messaging was available even if I had to sign-up for it. I am talking about messaging supported in the standard software for the phone and then a nice little prompt saying if I want to add the service. The screen is the most basic LCD that you can probably find today. It is easy to read but, in this age of wonder cameras and MP3 players the phone is really spartan. Be ready to live with a really, really basic phone if you get it with no additional downloads/services. Sound quality The phone does not sound as crystal-clear as other recent phones from Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, Nokia, Samsung, etc. (if you combine provider network plus phone unit), but the sound is like very good AM radio. I don't mind since the call is very steady with no voice dropouts aside from two dropped calls in a week of use. The speakerphone is excellent! Loud and clear. Coverage This is where I thought Nextel would beat Cingular/AT&T and I was right. On freeways such as California 87 and 85 I always have a signal and so do I at home, work and every place where I have been. I am finally connected all the time (if the phone is on, of course). Don't believe AT&T/Cingular ads, though they have better coverage than most providers, they are beaten by Nextel so far. Battery life Here is a low point, the battery seems to not last a full day of use. I have not exhausted it to the point of shutting down in the middle of a call but I have had much better displayed battery charge in Nokia or Siemens phones. Summary I am happy with the Nextel service and mostly happy with the free phone. Nextel customer service representatives have been available and helpful. I am happy to see that I already have accessories for the phone (which only comes with a wall charger) since I got, by mistake, two head pieces that I thought were for Nokia but I was short one ring in the connector. 2.5mm three-way plugs work perfectly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88442 2000/5/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good phone reliable speakerphone is not a great quality The Bottom LineA phone I will keep for life! Full Review I have had a many cell phones in my day. I might have had my first one in the early 90's (a bag phone) and I thought I was so cool. Even though I have mostly always had a cell phone in case of an emergency and I also think it is rude to use a cell phone in certain public places, I also want a cell phone that I like and trust. My husband's company uses Nextel/Sprint and has for several years and not long after they switched to the company I did too. I guess in the spring of 2003 I got my Nextel i530. I selected this phone because it was rugged looking and I couldn't beat or bang it up and it was also a little beefier those little shiny, cute phones. I have come to understand that Nextel doesn't change their phone styles every other day and they don't make you think you are so outdated with all of the new styles. This i530 is still available. It comes in solid black and that bright, ugly Nextel yellow that is somehow cool on this rough looking phone. I own the black and this basic, well made phone is now only $29.99. Planning it Out... My plan is GREAT. I work for a state University, so I get a discount - 50% off of phones and 10% off of my plan. With my taxes, etc. my $59.00 plan includes 1,000 minutes, unlimited direct connect and 15 cents a minute long distance. Nextel's long distance range is so large for me that this works fine and I have probably called long distance three times. And I think I have gone over 1,000 minutes twice, both of which were during really busy times for me. The Features... The i530 military-grade flip phone has the following options: Call preview Speaker phone Walkie Talkie Service Ring Tones Web and Email Capable Back light when flipped open Like I said the phone is a little bulkier and beefier than the usual "new" sleek looking shiny phones, but I just don't like those little phones. I want a phone to fit on my face from my ear to my mouth and not feel like I have to listen and then put it to my mouth to talk because the phone is too small. The i530 does the trick. It fits in my hand well, fits in my sons stroller storage compartment and in most of my pockets (unless my pants are too tight!). It has an extendable antenna, a door to hide where you charge the battery, with a rubber case that is built onto the phone. There are also volume controls for the Push to Talk on the left and the top of the phone houses the speakerphone button. There is (my favorite) also a light that comes on when you flip the phone to answer it or call out. And there is a small light by the speakerphone that blinks green when you have service and red when you don't have it. The menu is very self explanatory. I, like I said, have had many phones and this is the first one that I can truly say I know how to do many things; add a contact, delete a contact, access the internet (I don't have it but I know how if I did), text messaging, adjusting the options like -lighting, ring tones, volume. The keypad is very easy to navigate and it is very easy to make calls. Other Options on the phone... Phone can store 600 contacts (I am only over 120) On each contact you can put several options (home #, cell #, DC #, Work #) Memo pad Vibrate Mode (Which I use all of the time) Call Waiting USB Connectivity Several Download Options Full Specs... Modes: iDEN 800 Weight: 5.50 oz (156 g) Dimensions: 3.70" x 2.13" x 1.26" (94 x 54 x 32 mm) Form Factor: Clamshell Stub / Extendable Antenna Battery Life Talk: 3.42 hours (205 minutes) Standby: 75 hours (3.1 days) Battery Type: LiIon Display Type: LCD (monochrome) Phone Book Capacity: 600 names and numbers Mobile Web Browsing: Yes Messaging: Text/Voice/Data/Fax/Mobile Email External Display: No Speakerphone: Yes Multiple Numbers per Name: Yes Sound and Quality of Calls and Life of Battery... I am very pleased with the volume of my calls. The one downfall of this phone for me is the speakerphone. I used it a whole lot when I first got the phone and after about six months there is a little short in that and I cut out a lot and the person I talk to cuts out as well. This is a small thing that I could get fixed, but it is not that big of a deal to me, so I don't know if you got it fixed if it would do the same thing over again. I have not bought a new battery and I am probably about to have to do that for the first time. I use to use it for almost five days and now after three years I can only use it for about three days. I have a wall charger and a car charger and both work exceptionally. For Me... There is no other phone or cell company. I love them both and will not ever change unless I have to...The i530 is a very well built phone and even though my husband makes fun of me because it is big and bulky and old...I will keep it until I need another i530! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88441 2005/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact tough ease of use styling no outer display The Bottom LineThe i530 by Motorola is stout, sturdy, and stylish. Perfect for construction and tough environment or for those who spend a lot of time outside. Full Review I am a full blown idiot with cell phones. I mean it. In the last year I have gone through three. I need something idiot proof. I need something tough enough to stand up to my stupidity. I have found the answer, the i530 by Motorola. Do you doubt my stupidity? To fully understand why I chose the i530 you must first understand what I put my phones through. I work in the transportation field and I am often found moving equipment, forklifts and helping on the dock when needed. My phone gets banged around and dropped a lot. Those are tough environments for any dainty phone. I am also an idiot at times, or did I mention that already? I snowblowed my i530 two weeks ago. Totally by mistake, I launched my poor phone nearly 20 yards after dropping in front of snowblower. Is that dumb enough for you? The i530 has stood up to this and more of my abuse. My fearless little communication devise still works! It is none the worse for wear less a slight cut to the rubber coated shell. That is cool! The stats My Motorola i530 is connected to the Nextel network.. This allows me to direct connect any other Nextel phone. If you have not before, direct connect is pretty darn cool. I am a transportation manager at a trucking company and this allows me to talk to my drivers quickly. The phone itself is one tough son-of-gun. It is made to resist shock and impact, vibrations and dust. It is even moisture resistant. I have dropped this phone on docks, dropped the phone in the sink while doing dishes, and it is with me when I ever I need to get back in a truck for the day, taking the beating right along with me. The i530 is designed to military specs to withstand these abuses. The shell of the phone has a rubber coating. You also have your choice of a black or yellow phone. The i530 is a flip phone. You can answer the phone by just flipping it open and hitting a button and hang up by closing the phone. This makes it fun to play Star Trek communicator when no one is looking. It also makes the phone compact, just a little over three and half inches tall and two inches wide. And the i530 is pretty light weight too, only 5.2 ounces with the standard battery. It fits in your hand very nicely and is small enough not to clog a snowblower. Another cool feature is that the Motorola i530 is GPS enabled. Meaning you can use your phone as global positioning system. You can get turn by turn directions from your phone via the internet. Nextel charges a monthly service charge for this. You can also opt for a tracking feature that will allow you to see where your phone is. Beneficial for the parent of a teenager or the manager of a truck fleet. Just look your phone up on the internet and you will be able to see where it is at any given time. I am not sure of the costs for these optional services but you can find out more at www.nextel.com. Other optional items that this phone is capable of are downloadable ring tones, voice record, and voice activation. The ring tones range from the usual classical and funny noises to the latest music releases. You can also select to download the voice recorder which will allow you to keep voice memos on the phone as well as record phone calls. The optional voice activation feature allows you to say a name and the phone will dial it for you. That will come in handy when you are trying to page through your closest 600 friends in your i530's phone book. Using the phone When you flip open the i530 you will be displayed on a non-color screen, the date and current time wherever you are (it automatically changes when you fly). You will also be able to screen calls by previewing your inbound calls on your caller id. The display will show you if your speaker is turned off, signal strength, and battery level as well. You can access you most recent 20 calls by simply scrolling down on the four direction menu button (located on the face of the phone). Pressing up on the four direction menu button will access the menu. Your menu will get you into all the settings, GPS location, phone book, internet, and the phones own information (its phone number, sim number, etc). The directional button will allow you to scroll through text messages and your contact list with ease. There are also two smaller buttons, one on either side of the directional pad, that allow you to accept or cancel choices. You will also find you power button and the accept/ make call button on the face of the phone as well as the alpha numeric key pad. On the underside of the phone you will find its all in-one-port. It is protected by a rubber cover that keeps moisture and dust out of the connection. This is where you will plug in the included home charger, portable charger, ear piece, or any other of several available accessories. All the devices that plug into the i530 have clips that lock them into the phone. Along the side you will find the direct connect button which allows the phone to be used like a walkie talkie to any other Nextel phone. Above that is the up and down key which can be used as ring volume control before a call is made and a speaker/ ear piece volume control during your call. On the top you will find speaker switch that can turn the speaker switch off to keep your conversation quiet. You will also see what I call the "blinking light of happiness". It is actually a simple green or red light telling you if you have a signal or not. This is great when your phone is closed and up on the dash. A solid red light means the phone is upset that it can not find a friendly tower. A blinking green light means the i530 is happy, it found a tower and can receive calls, text messages and the internet. Thus the nick name. Aside from the blinking light of happiness you will see the antenna. It is a short, stubby, rigid plastic mount that protects the wire held inside. You can extend the antenna out if its base about four inches in a vane attempt to suck the last semblance of a cellular signal in rural Nebraska. The backside of the phone holds the speaker and the microphone when using the direct connect and speaker phone feature. You will also find the battery which holds 75 hours of stand by time and 165 minutes of gabbing power. Larger batteries are available but you will also need a larger battery cover. These are available on Nextel's site. Just a mention of accessories I mention these for the simple fact that it is a factor in some buying one phone over another. I have not used nor am I reviewing these items, I just want you to know just a few of what is available for the i530. You can find wireless and wired head sets that will still allow you to use the walkie talkie feature, a keyboard, car antenna, and a myriad of chargers and holsters. You can not change face plates though. Personal Impressions I have started a little electrical grave yard in one of my drawers in my office. I lay to rest my fallen cellular friends there. The first lain waste by an ill guided steel toe boot. Not two months later followed by its successor, mortally wounded in a misfortunate drop from a counter. I am an idiot, this is not news to me. I can handle that. But to have these poor little communication devices suffer by me, it is almost a crime. I needed something tougher than I am dumb. The Motorola i530 has made me look smarter. I will hand it to this phone, it is tough. The only signs of distress it has shown is a slight notch taken from its rubber coating by a deranged snowblower. This thing just keeps taking calls, no matter what. I am sure the people from Motorola would want me to tell you that the i530 was not designed to take that kind of extreme treatment. I am sure luck had a lot to do with it surviving my carelessness. But I am still impressed. The quality if sound is very good by the ear piece and the speaker. You can hear with clarity in all but the noisiest of environments. People will pick up on a lot of background noise if you use the speaker phone in a noisy area. The microphone grabs all the sound. But if you switch over to the regular mode the microphone is much more distinct and little noise comes across. My only wish besides being more careful is a display on the outside of the lid of the phone. This would allow you to see who is calling without flipping open the phone. And if I am wishing, maybe a color display. I understand a color display would not hold up nearly as well as the black LCD installed on the i530 but I am wishing here. But these are minor points to an otherwise outstanding phone. I do enjoy the styling of the phone and it is what drew me to it at first. Mine looks like a fancy yellow clam. But not in a bad way. I like that is a flip phone and it keeps junk from getting on the mouth and ear pieces when I am out on the docks. It is very simple to use. The speaker can be turned up load enough to be heard over forklifts and idling trucks. I just like this phone. It is rugged, compact and easy to use. I highly recommend it, even if you are not an idiot. REVIEW. Done. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88440 2000/2/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 solid reliable cheap great sound quality non color small lcd overall huge phone The Bottom LineA cheap phone for all your business needs. Full Review My company recently gave me this Nextel i530 cell phone to keep in touch with me. Although I would have preferred a better phone (with color screen, camera, and other nifty features), I am happy with this for business needs. We usually purchase these phones from the local Nextel store and right now we can get them for about $50.00 a piece after a $200.00 instant rebate. So the company was happy that I was in touch and it did not cost them a lot of money. THE PLAN : They gave me the $45.99 plan that includes 500 anytime, unlimited nights and weekends, included nationwide long distance, and unlimited walkie-talkie minutes. This plan also has free call hold and waiting, 3-way calling, and voicemail. Since it is a company phone, I do not know about the contract term. THE PHONE AND FEATURES : The i530 is built with military-grade resistance to shock and dust, but it also very ugly, bulky, and ideal for users who spend more time on the road than in the office. Although this phone does not have many features, it includes Web and e-mail access; it is mostly intended for users who need a tough phone for use in any kind of condition. This phone has lots of features and protection; it will not win any beauty contest because of its dreadful looks. It is about 3.5 inches in height, 2 inches in width, and about 1.1 inches in depth; it weighs about 5.2 ounces, which makes it huge and heavy, unlike most other newer phones available today. Basically, this phone is more likely to be worn on a belt clip than slipped into a pocket. It is available in basic black and bright yellow (and black combination). Even though it is big, it will fit easily in your hand and its skin will give it a very solid look. Nextel says that this phone meets military standards for resistance to dust, shock, and vibration. The rubber casing also protects the extendable antenna, battery door, accessory connections, and the speaker. As usual on Nextel phones, there are volume controls and a Push To Talk (PTT) buttons on the left side, while the top has the speakerphone button and a button that makes calls when the flip is closed. There is also a small LED (Light Emitting Diode) light that alerts you of incoming calls. The buttons on the keypad are pretty small for my needs, but it is not too small. You can make calls quickly and easily with this phone. If you are used to buttons on Samsung, Sony, LG, or other personal mobile phones, than you will need to get used to the button layout of this phone. They are in places you would never expect them to be; like the speaker phone button is on the top of the phone next to the antenna. There is a backlit monochrome LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens that will show you everything you need to; it is about 1.5 inches diagonally. Although the screen is easy enough to read in most lighting environments, it is too small when you use the Web or e-mail features. Navigating through the menus on this i530 is pretty tough with the crowded arrangement of a four-way toggle, two soft keys, and a dedicated Menu button. While the buttons are easy to use after you get the hang of them, the text-driven menus are dry and unappealing. On the other hand, the backlit keypad buttons are well designed and spaced. This i530 has a reasonable assortment of features, regardless of the downsides. The phonebook can store 600 contacts with up to seven entries for each. You can also set distinct ring tones (4 polyphonic and 12 monophonic) for your contacts. There is also a built-in speakerphone, a memo pad, a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser, vibrate mode, text messaging, USB connectivity, and call waiting available on this low-end phone. The phone also supports voice activation if you download additional software (you will need to sign up for Nextel iDEN Update service); with iDEN you will be able to choose from hundreds of ring tones from an online service. The Web services include access to news, weather, entertainment, and other Mobile Net-enabled sites. FULL SPECIFICATIONS : Modes: iDEN 800 Weight: 5.50 oz (156 g) Dimensions: 3.70" x 2.13" x 1.26" (94 x 54 x 32 mm) Form Factor: Clamshell Stub / Extendable Antenna Battery Life Talk: 3.42 hours (205 minutes) Standby: 75 hours (3.1 days) Battery Type: LiIon Display Type: LCD (monochrome) Phone Book Capacity: 600 names and numbers Mobile Web Browsing: Yes Messaging: Text/Voice/Data/Fax/Mobile Email External Display: No Speakerphone: Yes Multiple Numbers per Name: Yes RECEPTION AND QUALITY : I tested this single-band (iDEN 800MHz) i530 in the South San Francisco area using Nextel service. All our employees and managers are happy with the signal and sound quality. The sound quality was good both inside buildings and out on the field. Speakerphone quality also was solid, although the speaker should have been on the front or sides of the phone so you do not have to flip is when you lay it on a table or some or something. BATTERY LIFE : I usually run about 4 days of standby time; talk time was about 2.5 to 2.75 hours which is a little disappointing. I usually have to charge the phone every other day or so as I use it quiet a lot during the day. I never had an incident where the phone was out of juice in the middle of the day with my normal use and recharging. MY EXPERIENCE : I have used this phone for about a month now and I am very satisfied with it so far. It is not my first choice for a cell phone, but since the company was giving it to me for free--cannot argue with free. This phone is solid and reliable; it does not look and feel cheap like my older Samsung E105. This phone gives me long talk and standby times too. The signal strength of this phone is great compared to other older phones I have used in the past. I have noticed clear call quality and louder too; the speaker phone is excellent. The menus are somewhat easy to navigate through without getting lost, but you always have the manual that explains everything but without much detail. If you really need detailed information I suggest researching on the Internet. FINAL THOUGHTS : This Nextel i530 cellular phone is one of the best work phones I have used because it is built for the field and you will be happy with the signal strength and reliability. So if you have a company and want to give your employees phones to keep them in touch--I suggest you get these cheap and reliable phones that will last you for a long time. SOME OF MY RELATED REVIEWS : Copyright © vchand 2006. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7746 Nextel i710 Cellular Phone 88457 2005/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 ringtone downloading capabilities 600 contact list gps enabled walkie talkie service not very durable 600 contact list gps enabled ringtone downloading capabilities The i710 is a fairly reliable phone with the exception that it is not very durable. The service area is excellent, drops very few calls even in remote areas. The ability to download ringtones is always a bonus, this phone has a huge storage list capacity of up to 600 contacts which is a great perk for business personnel who wish to store their business and personal contacts in the same list. 88456 2005/8/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it s a flip phone big deal what doesn t stink about it very unreliable Had a nextel i88s that I upgraded to the I710. I've had it maybe 2 months now. It is by far the worst phone I have ever owned. I even went and swapped the sim chip with my old 88s to compare signal strengths since I was getting nowhere with tech support. The 710 would show 2 bars or no signal and the old phone would have full signal. It went into voicemail today in the middle of a phone conversation, that was when I was lucky enough to be able to dial out at all. I'm going home tonight and reactivating my old 88s until the next 2 yrs are up. UGH 88455 2000/12/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 pretty good looks internet enabled speaker phone keypad backlight sometimes delayed when opening The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for anyone, i would not recomend it to someone who works around water or construction just so you dont end up killing your phone. Full Review I recieved this phone about two years ago after my i530 quit working because of water damage. when i recieved the phone, it was great, a lot better than my i530, a color screen, a calender, calculator, and my dad even downloaded tetris deluxe which was a real life saver during long waiting periods. Durability: When i first recieved this phone it had some scratches on the case (because of my father, he had the phone for about two years) but very well put together. the phone feels very sturdy and strong, for me this phone has taken quite a few drops from about 4 feet or so and has held up great, ive never had a single problem with my phone. The buttons feel strong and stuck on versus other phones ive seen where the buttons feel very cheap. after about four years of use every button works the way it did when it came out of the package. also, the little spring that keeps the phone open when its open and closed when its closed has not worn down a bit. i almost wish it would have to open by a flick of the wrist. Also the panel that holds the battery is very well made, it has never dented, or come loose from the phone when i didn't want it to. Function: At first, it seems a little overwhelming with all the options listed or a little chaotic with the icons in the menu (you can choose whichever you prefer) but you soon ger used to your options. you can also order which options go where if there are certain features you use all the time. after you start to explore the phone it becomes very user friendly. it is very easy to change the background or ring tone which is a plus for anyone that isn't exactly tech savvy. The speaker phone is also a great feature. Its extremly useful if the conversation needs to be heard by a group of people versus repeating everything the person on the line says. also great if you are driving or if the regular earpiece isn't loud enough for you to hear. speakerphone can be accessed when "spkr" apears on your screen underneath a button, or by pressing the convex button on the top of your phone that has a picture of a speaker. The only con that i have is that the keypad backlight would sometimes be delayed when the phone is opened. it would usually come on in about 5 seconds or so. All in all i would say an excellent phone to get in general. deffenatly a great phone for your son or daughters first phone because of its durability and somewhat good looks. If you have the money, I would suggest to buy a newer phone, even the i730 which is basicly the same phone except for the silver case and front screen. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 5.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88454 2005/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen speaker phone sound clarity gps no display when flip is closed antenna protrudes a bit far for my liking The Bottom LineI absolutely recommend this phone. It is a phone for today, and tomorrow. Full Review I upgraded to this phone from my 1 year old, $99 ( 99 cents today) i205 piece of junk. Nextel emailed me they had a Presidents Day Sale on phones and this phone, with the $50 off, was only $39.99 + .99 for the holster. By far, this is the best Nextel Motorola phone I have owned. This phone has more features than I will ever use, so I will cover only the features I normally use. Phone: When closed, this phone fits in the palm of my hand. It is a little heavier than it looks but not enough to be concerned with. The weight does make it feel sturdy, which is good because I am kinda rough on my cell phones. The unit only comes in black, with silver trim around the speakers, and a silver stripe down the middle bearing the i710 logo. On the top of the phone is the Speaker Phone button to have phone conversations with the phone closed. Another button next to it acts as the hang up button. On the side there are the standard volume up/down and Direct Connect buttons. There is also a jack to plug a headset into. The bottom is the charging/download port that has a small rubber plug as a cover. In comparison to my i205 rubber plug, this one stays closed and is easy to open without the use of an object to get it open. Good job Motorola! The back contains the units Speaker Phone and Direct Connect speaker. Antenna: This phone seems to work equally well with the antenna extended or fully retracted. It is a whip type antenna that when extended, stays extended. You cannot place the antenna half way up or down, it will just fall down. It must be fully extended to lock in place or fully retracted to lock in position. Flip Operation: The flip operation has been smooth and firm. No excess play. The flip can be programmed to either end a call when closed or to leave the call connected for use with the Speaker Phone. It can also be programmed to answer incoming calls. When programmed not to answer, you can preview who is calling via the caller ID feature. The Direct Connect feature also works with the flip closed, a big plus for the way I use the radio. Color Screen: This screen is EXCELLENT! Bright, detailed, 65,000 color LCD screen is easy to read and navigate when compared to the old LCD black text on a green background screens. You can download wallpaper (background) pictures and the phone has the ability to change the screen wallpaper at a user predetermined period of time (5 mins, 10 mins, etc...). There are 3 size fonts to choose from and the background palette color can also be changed. All graphics are crisp and clear. Key Pad: The key pad is a standard Nextel Motorola configuration. The neat thing about this key pad though, is the arrow keys has an "OK" (Enter) button, which makes getting through the phones programs easy and effortless. The arrow keys can also be programmed as a shortcut to just about whatever function you want to assign to that key. Very cool IMO. The keys are spaced well and function properly, even with clumsy fingers pushing them. Speaker Phone: With the flip open or closed, the speaker phone sounds VERY good. Clear and distinct is the only way to describe the quality. People I have spoken to over the speaker phone have not been able to tell they were on speaker phone. Battery: The battery that comes with this unit is the standard 750 mAh` lithium-ion battery pack that seems to be the norm for Motorola phones. Reported talk time is just over 2 hours with a 75 hr stand-by capability. I can typically get about 2 hours talk time, but only maybe 48 hours standby. But that time is with using the phone/radio occasionally so it is not the most accurate, but my average. This phone also comes with JAVA enabled games, download ring tones/wall paper, 600 contact phone book, GPS, Voice Recorder, Date book, Airplane mode, and a host of other features that are just too numerous (and unused) for me to comment on it all. This phone as a phone and radio does its job very well with a few nice luxury features thrown in to give a hum drum device some professionalism. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88453 2006/3/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fairly well built interface raw features poor coverage battery life in my area The Bottom LineIt's there when needed, but it could've been better executed. In the future, I'm going to buy a cell phone without a carrier, so I can switch if I choose. Full Review I got this phone when my dad got Nextel's family plan about a year ago. We have 4 of these phones, so we've seen the best and worst of them. My absolute biggest concern with this phone is the battery life and service coverage. Battery life is absolutely too short. Now, I think this has more to do with the area I live rather than a design flaw, but it is very important to mention. Let me explain: when you're in an area with weak service, the phone will automatically adjust the power output in order to maintain contact with the tower. If it's not in service, it'll spend all the time it's not in service looking for a tower (all the time using precious battery power). When it's in an area that's well covered, it doesn't have to put as much juice into contacting base, and will in turn use less battery power. Coverage is pretty poor in my area of Northern New Jersey. I get zero coverage in places where verizon users can get enough power to carry a clear call. I find that unacceptable, especially since most of the places where I need to use it are places that I don't have coverage. An important point here- it's not just roaming calls, it's no coverage. Nextel doesn't use or support GSM with its phones, so you won't find coverage in areas where other cells would find roaming coverage. Just so that I'm not speaking in generalities, I'll give some estimates. I'd say that this phone gives me maybe 10 hours standby. This seems pretty decent, except that if I put it on the top of my dresser at night and leave it there, it'll be dead in the morning. And since I don't have time to wait a half hour for it to charge, I have to leave for school without it. Since I never spend more than a minute or so on any given time, I cannot comment on talk time, other than to say that the battery has died when talking in someone's basement. In terms of raw features, I am fairly satisfied with this phone. It's java compatible, and web enabled, and in fact it's possible to connect to WAP-enabled web sites for free using a Net Alert hack. One such site that allows you to do this is http://www.teknidude.com/wap/alert.asp. I've used it to get free AIM, news, directions, etc. right on my phone. VERY convenient, and if you're savvy enough to figure all of it out, it can save you a lot of money in services that you don't have to pay for but are not technically a violation because the feature you're exploiting is built into the phone. It's not a guarantee that this'll continue to work in the future, but I'm guessing it's a safe bet, since it's been published for a while now, and I guess Nextel doesn't see it as a threat because it still works. Direct Connect- it's a mixed bag. Most, if not all of my friends use a carrier other than Nextel, so it's kind of useless to me; I don't use it. That may change pretty soon, as Sprint has just merged with Nextel, and I would expect that sprint will come out with a comparable and probably compatible service in the near future, if they haven't already. Sound Quality: Sound quality in good reception areas, like New York City, is pretty good. I've definitely heard better, and it seems that either it works, or it doesn't- there's really no middle ground like there was with analog phones; this thing will either stop sending data for a few seconds while it regains its bearings, or drop your call. It is rather frustrating to have to repeat things four or five times, but I don't really attribute that to this particular model- just cell phones in general. To sum it up, when it has service, the calls are of decent quality and I can get my message through without much grief. On a similar subject, the built-in speaker phone functions surprisingly well- you would think that it would have trouble with the variances in the volume of one's voice, but it doesn't. I think it adjusts based on the distance your mouth is to the phone and how loud you're speaking. The speaker itself isn't perfect, and it tends to crackle under high volumes, but it's generally understandable and works well if you're in a police state like New Jersey where they don't let you hold a cell phone to your ear while you're in the car. You won't really appreciate its support for java programs unless you have a PC interface cable for it. Downloading programs from nextel is expensive, and you'll quickly find yourself getting bored with what you download. GPS is still rudimentary and is not included with the basic plan. If you do choose to get the subscription plan for it, make absolutely sure that the GPS can get coordinates from the satellite (you can find this in the settings) by taking it outside and seeing if it can connect. If it can't (in my case), you'll be wasting time and money by investing in that service. Physically, the phone has held up quite well. The screen isn't as nice as comparable phones that you'd get with verizon, cingular, etc., but it does the trick. Colors aren't exaggerated like those phones, but the screen isn't really bright, which isn't a problem unless you're using it as a flashlight. You may want to be gentle with the charger dongle connector thing- it seems a little fragile. Hasn't broken on mine, but I could see it breaking pretty easily if you put vertical pressure on it. One last disappointment with nextel and other carriers in general- It's a real shame that I can't unlock and take this phone to another carrier. Proprietary phones are just a waste of our money and the natural resources that it takes to make all these phones wholesale. It makes so much more sense to buy a quality built phone that is made to last and be able to take it to whichever provider I choose, and switch if I'm unhappy. In foresight, this is probably what I'll do when it comes time for me to pay for my own cell coverage. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): N/A- w/planRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7747 Nextel Motorola i90c 88479 2004/7/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 durable phone great service battery life electronic interference I had my i90 for over 1 year before I dropped it in a puddle of water and noticed it 15 minutes later. Before that I had dropped the phone may times (on accident) and it worked perfectly. I was able to call from almost anywhere, except near electronics. I would be talking on my cell in my apartment but the second I turn on my TV, computer or speakers my reception went down the drain and I would get massive interference. In fact I would keep my phone on vibrate in my apartment because when someone did call my TV, speakers, and monitor would start making loud clicking sounds, louder then the actual ring of the phone. My friend had the same problem with the head unit in his car and his i90. Nextel has great service, which I'm planning on going with again, but with a different phone. 88478 2004/9/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 phone dealing with nextel poor service The I-90 phone is very nice. Easy to use features. Very rugged. Many accesories available. However, the Nextel service itself is the worst cellular service I have ever used. Constantly losing calls. The 2-way radio feature works when it wants to. Would highly not recommend Nextel overall. 88477 2004/5/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 i love everything about it except i wish i could download real songs not midis no cons at all really I have the Bloomingdale's version & it is great. It's not heavy, it's not big & it's cool looking. I'm going to also try to pick up the i95 baby phat phone if I can as soon as possible. 88476 2003/12/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 looks good durable strong can t wear it out bat life voice dial not accurate screen a bit dark I have owned my I90 for 2 years now and It just won't wear out.. I have dropped it many times onto the hard floor and even off ladders ... I like just about everything this phone has to offer, however, there are a few things I don't like, the screen can be dark at times and the voice dial feature is not as usable as the lg510 i had with verizon. also the battery life wouldn't quite make it a full 9 hour day, although i did use the phone alot..besides that I would strongly recommend this model to anyone looking for style and durability... 88475 2004/7/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice size tons of cool advace features battery life isnt the greatest kind of small size screen The Nextel i90 is one of the best phones ever created. It is loaded with features, very similar to the i95cl. It is pretty small, and has a decent size screen. The battery life is not the greatest, but that is becuase it has so many features. The i90 is certainly not the smallest flip phone on the market, but is pretty close compared to other nextel flips. Many people complain about Nextel phone size but that is because it has the two-way recivers inside. Overall, the i90 is a great phone, and even tho is is discontiued, you can still find them at stores. 88474 2003/9/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good phone classy durable all are a little high in cost but then again This phone has all the cool features like internet, calender, etc. Along with the features of standard phones like different rings, phonebook, and all the other features that we have grown to expect over the last few years. I have the clear casing around mine, yes you can change the casing, and the phone looks really cool, especially at night time. 88473 2004/1/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good service good beltclip blue lightshott customablity small walkie talkie battery when the flip is slammed closed it makes a oval mark on the screen This is a great phone, Out of all of the Nextel flip phones this is probably the best because there is nothing that is too much on it like a camera. I had the i60 before this and the i90 is much better. The blue lights seem brighter, and they look better plus the LCD screen is a little bigger, and there is a small LCD screen on the back side of the flip. this is a great up grade from most any other Nextel. Too bad they dont make them anymore, Im trading mine in for a i95 which is color But the i90 is still an awesome phone. 88472 2003/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality quality i d probably have to sum it up to quality nothing Had an i90c for less than a year and husband bought me the i730 and I passed the i90c down to him (and he loves it). The i90c is a great phone. Since there was no posting on the new i730, I'll give my opinion regarding it. It's WONDERFUL! The speaker system is the all time best! The colors are vibrant and consistent. I have people actually see my phone and stop to look at it! And if they're with Nextel...their mouths water! We love Nextel and think our i90c and i730 are the best! 88471 2003/12/31 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 two way feature slick look durable expensive not many custom features battery life sucks Good phone if you require the Nextel two - way feature. Direct connect is great. Good look and feel. Durable. I have dropped it a bunch of times. It is expensive and the battery life is really bad. 1.5 days standby. If you talk at all you are going to be hard pressed to have the battery last the whole day. Really, really bad. If you don't need the Nextel two-way, get a different plan and a different phone. 88470 2000/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large lcd easy 2way acess easy use great look reception not always best kinda heavy The Bottom LineI do feel this is one of Motorola best phone they have created specially for the price. Full Review I really do love this phone i chose it over the i95 mostly because of the 250$ price diffrence. I have owned this phone for over 4 months now and im pretty satisified with it. I enjoy how i can screen calls before i pick it up the the caller i.d i also love the option to send people directly to voice mail i think thats a great bonus. Another great thing about this phone is the 2way which is probally the best thing that nextel has going for it but what makes the 2way is the speaker phone. I love being able to use that because i hate holding to the phone to my ear while laying on my bed talking to my girlfriend say a hour later while on the phone my hand starts to hurt, so its great being able to turn the speaker phone on and just leaving the phone on my side and just being able to hear people talk while not holding the phone and its so easy to use with the i90. The preloaded games are also fun on the fun gotta love while in class just playing some games and its so easy to use only a couple clicks and your their. The phone is also very duruable ive droped the thing over a dozen times and i have had any problems. I also like how the phone has easy acess with only a few clicks for instance if i want to get to my phone book can just push one button. I can also edit around my desktop on the phone by moving around groups in a certain order and also changing the size of the text i really think Motorola put alot of time into making this phone for the people that use it. I see alot of people with this phone and it really is a great buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 88469 2000/9/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent features great service leaves very little to be desired small size compared to some phones available larger than one would want The Bottom LineAll in all, the I90C is an excellent phone. With second to none features, it makes a great buy for anyone interested in a small lightweight phone with great service. Full Review Being a teenager I would know the importance of having a cell phone with me wherever I go. Whether I would use it for an emergency call, or more often for social reasons,I needed a cell phone. Therefore, I purchased a Nokia phone with Verizon service. I loved the service, but the phone was too big for me. I also began to realize how many people were walking around with Nextels. But most of them at the time were big and lunky, so i was discouraged. But finally, a friend introduced me to the I90C, and I was amazed. The phone had so many features, such as web browsing, an address book, musical ring tones, and much much more. The design of the phone itself was extremely good looking. It was sleek, small, and lightweight. I also loved the fact that there was speakerphone. However, the real thing that convinced me to buy was the direct connect service. I just loved the idea of two way radio. So, with all factors in consideration I bought my I90C and let me say, I am not disappointed one bit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 88468 2002/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the phone is small sleek has great receptiongreat features not cheap to replace if you lose it The Bottom LineI changed just to get a new plan and new service and I ended up finding a service that far beat any expectations that I had. Full Review I just recently bought a Motorola i90c on the Nextel phone network. The phone is absolutely amazing, it is like the Rolls Royce of cell phones. The phone has an endless amount of features including; a speakerphone which allows for hands-free dialing, voice-activated dialing which also aids in hands-free and convenience, vibrating alerts, room for 250 names in the phonebook, internet ready, and caller ID. The phone is nice and small and comes with a belt clip for easy carrying and a home charger besides the phone and battery. It also comes with a SIM card which stores all of your numbers and settings so that if you ever get a different Nextel phone you can take them all with you, very convenient. The phone is very easy to navigate and has amazing sound quality. The service that you buy for the phone is rated far better by me than the AT&T service which I just got rid of. I get service with the the Nextel more places than I ever did with AT&T. The plans are relatively compatible in price, in fact I am paying less now than I did with AT&T. The two-way Direct Connect or walkie talkie built into the phone is crystal clear and with certain plans like mine unlimited so I talk to my friends with Nextels non-stop. If you are in the market for a cell phone or want to change plans I would highly recommend Nextel. If you are in the market for a cell phone or want to change plans I would highly recommend Nextel. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 88467 2000/8/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality speakerphone nice size form factor phonebook menus could be better The Bottom LineBuy it. Speakerphone is GREAT, phone is large enough to be comfortable to hold and use, but small enough to take with you easily. I like it and the service. Full Review My previous experience with Motorola phones has included the StarTac ST7867W and the Timeport 270c. The i90c has the flip phone convenience of the StarTac and the high quality speakerphone and added features of the Timeport in a package that is a great compromise between size and comfort. Personally, some people's complaints about the i90c not being smaller make me wonder. I hate phones that are too small. The StarTac 7867 was actually a little too thin and small for comfortable extended use. Add the battery onto the flip portion of the phone, and the weight distribution was strange. I find the i90c, in contrast, to be the right blend of small and light, yet comfortable and large enough to hold for extended periods of time. The fact that the keys are large enough and have adequate spacing for my fingers is nice as well, unlike a lot of smaller phones. So how about that speakerphone, anyway? It works as I hoped it would based on my experience with the timeport. Set it on the desk beside you and talk while you use the computer, or on the car set beside you as you drive along. Under the first circumstance, one of the parties I spoke to yesterday had no idea I was on a speakerphone. He was able to tell that I was not using my At&t wireless phone, because he could understand me and it did not hang up on him. I use the speakerphone almost exclusively whenever I am in the house or car, it's that good and it's nice not to have to hold the phone up to my ear all the time. The other feature Nextel and the Motorola IDEN phones are famous for is the direct connect feature, and it works as advertised. The sound quality seems very good and it is a definite bonus. Those unlimited direct connect minutes are a large part of choosing Nextel, and so far that feature has proven to be as good as anticipated. I have not conducted any long-range trials with direct connect yet (like across state lines, etc). The menus could be better organized, and the phonebook can seem a little kludgy, but it's not bad. I do like the ability to store multiple numbers per name and cycle through them with the navigation button's left and right functions. One thing about Nextel that can be a definite negative depending on your coverage area is no analog roaming. Wireless phones are sometimes purchased with safety and emergency use in mind. Some research into your coverage area and where you intend to use it are in order. Personally, I spend the majority of my time in the metro area. I have not yet tested the boundries of my coverage area. I highly recommend this phone, and would recommend it even more highly with greater battery life (you can never have too much battery life) and perhaps improved menu interface. That's a minor nitpick however. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 88466 2000/10/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 direct connect etc voice recording internet capable download games expensive two sms is horribly integrated service The Bottom LineIf you want multiple business phones & your willing to give up the options other phones offer, then this is the phone for you. If you are not-look elsewhere Full Review The Nextel i90c phone get's a GOOD rating. Nextel and Motorola had a good start, and they should of kept going - this phone has some excellent features such as: - direct connect (walkie - talkie) - voice recording - record phone conversations - Java Apps (download games, and small softwares) - Internet Capable (read, shop, and play online) - A LARGE phone book (being able to add multiple numbers under one name and easily choose between them) - Call Forwarding - Talk Group settings If you have the upgrade you can: (you have to go to Nextel Store and get the software/firmware upgrade) - additional ringtones - scroll recent calls when your phone is closed - being able to vibrate just by using your volume button on the side of your phone - light detector - so your battery will last longer - SMS capability (through the internet) However, they could of done a lot more. The way the SMS messing was done was horrible. They didn't integrate in the phone, you have to use it via the internet. Unless you register online you can't use any type of phonebook - meaning you have to remember the phone number of the person you want to send a message to before you go to the internet and send your message. Ringtones are not EASILY downloadable. There is a workaround in which you can download ringtones to your PC convert them and then email them to your phone - but there isn't an easy way to do this. For personal use the nextel isn't as good as a Nokia - however for business uses it is the best. I used Direct Connect a lot - and with most business plans, you can get unlimited direct connection minutes, free nights and weekend plans as well. This phone is NOT GMS capable - meaning you can only use it within the United States. Also the service isn't always the best - walking into a Mall might mean you migh miss that important phone call because it just won't work. There are a lot of dead zones with Nextel as well, however, it still is the clear winner when buying multiple phones for a business. There customer service is lacking, however there really isn't anyone else with their capabilities and their prices. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 390 88465 2000/3/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone easy to use sturdy compared to some phones now it may be bigit doesn t have color screen The Bottom LineIt is outdated - but I still love this phone! Full Review I am sad I no longer have this phone. (Long story) Here is another somewhat long story.... I had Nextel who offered minimal options for "girly" phones. By this, I mean ones that will fit in my purse. When this came out, I bit my lip and paid $400 or so for it. WHOOOOO a nice chunk of change. But, it was the best phone that I ever had. Built like a rock. Lots of options, but not so many that you got lost. Nice clear sound. Easy to use buttons that don't get punched accidentally. SPEAKERPHONE! I was in love. So in love, that when I went with my nephew to Disneyland and tried to answer the phone while eating on the deck above the bear-time-jamboree and my phone flew out of my hands 40 feet down into the Rivers of America while playing my ring-tone "Flight of the Bumblebee" that I went and bought a new one (with insurance for water damage this time) after the old one finally stopped working 3 months later from eventual water corrosion. This phone has been kicked across highways - on accident! Dropped uncountable times, sat on, shut in doors, stepped on and even ran over and it still worked perfectly with very minor body damage. So easy to use, such great features, built so solid and still small. I am still in love! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 & 350Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88464 2000/9/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 mixed vibrate ring mode durable features size java enabled speakerphone must turn off occasionally randomly turns off battery life low battery warning The Bottom LineHad I known about the quirks prior, I would have went for a different model. Next time I will be more cautious, particularly with Motorola phones. Full Review I've been using the i90c for about a year now, and there are a lot of great things about the phone, as well as several problems. Size - Seems to be perfect. Fits easily in your pocket, when opened, comfortable to speak into. Features - Has all the common features except ringtones. Can customize the menues to the order you use it in. However, one feature missing common on other phones - There is no way to add a phone number from the incoming calls list to an existing phone entry (ie add someone's cell phone number to their home number) unless you manually add it. Speakerphone - Ability to use without opening the phone is very convienent. Ring/Vibrate - You can set the phone to vibrate and then ring if not answered. Battery Life - Stand-by time will last through the day without problems, but if you use the features or talk on the phone, you will get less than 1 hour of time. However, the phone does charge quickly. Low Battery Warning - The phone provides little warning to when it is going to run out of power. Frequently I will be talking and then the phone beeps it is low on power and then shuts off almost immediately. Randomly Turns Off/Software problems - The phone appears to have some software problems with it. It will occassionlly turn off for no reason. Sometimes while it is sitting on my desk, it will be at the startup screen and nothing has happened to it. When this occurs (once a week usually), it has to re-read the memory card. Must turn off occasionally - If you never turn your phone off (I usually just charge it, and leave it always on), you will experience problems. After a couple weeks of the phone being on continously, the phone appeared to be working, with full signal, but refused to call out. Turning the phone off and on resolves the problem. This seems to happen sometime after a week of being on, and aside from not being able to make/recieve calls you can't tell it happened. Overall the phone has a lot of things going for it. Once you realize the quirks in the way it works, they are fairly easy to work around. However, had I known about them prior, I would have went for a different model. Next time I purchase a cell phone I will be more cautious, particularly with Motorola phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 249Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88463 2000/8/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 smaller than any other nextel gets same signal for its size more fragile then any other nextel not as small as conventional cell phones The Bottom LineOverall there isn't any other phone I'd rather have, I just wish Motorola would have spent a little longer perfecting the phone for abuse. Full Review I've had 6 different cell phones within the last 5 years so I've experienced many different phones and styles with 4 different phone companies so I may be more critical than other phone users may be. I've come to this phone from a Motorola Digital StarTAC 7768 but had to find another company because I moved and the only service available through my last provider was Analog. I owned a Nextel phone only 2 years previous and decided that they're coverage and plans would best fit my needs. I hadn't looked at the phone options since the i1000 came out (before the plus phones) so I was quite excited when I saw the i90c. It was a bit more pricy than my original i1000 but it considerably smaller. Service and Signal: With or without the antenna up it almost always has great signal. The only time I have trouble is when I travel up north here in Michigan where there are some dead spots where coverage hasn't been manicured yet. The antenna seems to have little effect on the signal level at all but this is very similar to most modern digital cell phones including my i1000. Durability: Frankly I'm pretty rough on everything I own. My last Nextel was dropped countless times and was baked in the heat and in my car many times and kept going. I actually drove a previous Nokia cell phone to random errors and uncontrolled random calling because it was dropped so many times. So from the prospective of a heavy phone abuser I found the i90c rather fragile. Comparing the phone to most of Motorola's line this phone is not very strong. I would still put it ahead of Nokia or Ericson however. The problems I experience first off were the amount of clear plastic that scratches very easy. The whole face of the phone is a very supple plastic which is very unnecessary being it only protecting a small screen on the outside which encompasses only 10% of its space. Another problem I experience was the hinges on the phone that make it flip open and closed. Recently I dropped the phone from about 2 feet as I got out of my car onto pavement and it cracked one of the two hinges all of the way through from front to back. I don't believe the screen and the speaker which are in the flip part of the phone are in any danger of falling off yet but I've only had to phone for 8 months and I doubt it will last longer than 18 or 24 months. Battery Life: The life is very similar to my i1000 as it gets about 40 hours life with regular use of 700 - 800 minutes per month. My usage is higher than a typical customer user but for an average business phone that is only a small dent in the usage a construction company would put on one. The battery has changed a bit also; they've put the battery pack within a removable compartment. I can see this being a big problem with anything from lost backs to breaking the tabs off of the cover. No problems yet however, though I don't change the battery regularly, if I were to I think I'd find it rather tedious. Design: Besides my problems with the battery I really like the design. The speaker phone is very loud and the headset jack has been nicely located. All of the buttons are easy to read and use in all light conditions. The menus are very simple compared to the design used in the i1000. There is a huge array of features from the built in Java and web functions that I won't explore in this review but they add a lot of functionality to the phone. The ring is very loud if desired, can be heard in the loudest conditions and also has a vibrate option. The screen has 3 different text sizes which make it very easy to read for people who have bad eyes and those who have good eyes can see almost an entire text message on its smallest setting. Overall there isn't any other phone I'd rather have, I just wish Motorola would have spent a little longer perfecting the phone for abuse. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 219 88462 2000/7/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features battery size tons of capabilities only one i can think of price for average joe like youme The Bottom LineA feature loaded, professional looking phone that can do just about anything you would want your phone to do. Full Review The i90c is Nextel's second "professional" looking flip phone to come out. It's predeccesor (the i1000) had it's good points and bad points ... see my review on it if you'd like. The i90c is more feature loaded than the i1000. I work a great deal with Nextel and it's products. The problems that I have seen with the i1000 seem non-existent with the i90. Being a flip phone, there is always a chance of stretching/pulling/bending that flip a little too far and breaking it, but in the time I have worked with them since they came out (8 months or so) we have only had 1 customer break the flip. It was a landscaping contractor who ran over it (no wonder it broke). The flip is tons more stable than the i1000 flip was. The sound is very clear in both the earpiece (in the flip) and the external speaker (located behind the keypad) used for Direct Connect and speakerphone. The phone has all the capabilities you need in a professional style phone. See below: - Phonebook .. the phonebook holds 250 entries ... for one name you can enter up to seven numbers and distinguish it from a list of possibilities including Main, Private, Home, Work, Mobile, Fax, Pager, Talkgroup, IP, Other. - Voice-activated dialing .. there are 20 voice activated dialing slots which are available and the experience I have had is they are easier to use than people make out. I hardly ever have problems with the phone not recognized what I am looking for. - Messages .. this area on the menu will give you your voicemails, text messages, and net mail (also called Two-Way messages) - Java Apps .. these are cool! You can add applications to have handy on your phone. There are tons of apps out there to choose from. Everything from Solitare and Poker to a Calculator Suite which will calculate the slope and help in building stairs. You can even download the apps from the phone. - Datebook .. what a handy feature this is. You can enter an event on a certain day (if it is a recurring task ... for instance, a weekly meeting) it will show up every week. Put in the time it starts and ends and you can have the phone ring, beep, or vibrate at a specific time to remind you. GREAT IDEA! The times you can have it notify are very broad, and you also have the option to put your own time limit in. - Net .. Nextel has many different Online options which can be purchased. The options are very broad here. You can check email with hotmail or even now with AOL. You can use the phone for AOL Instant Messenger. You can get directions, use the yellow pages, check movie times, make purchases, check the weather, calculate sales tax, bid on eBay, etc, etc, etc ... I personally love this feature! - Voicenotes .. this is basically a voice recorder. You can record mental notes, ideas, etc in this feature to be played back later at your convenience. Great alternative for if you are driving and have to write something down (unless you live in New York ... you do have to push a button or two)1. - Styles .. this is a good feature as well. Styles are preset groups of phone settings. For instance, the "Meeting" style puts all calls and notifications to vibrate. The "Car" style put all calls straight to voice mail. All the styles can be edited and you can even make your own styles up. So if you want to only accept Direct Connect (two-way/walkie talkie) calls and not phone calls it will be that way. If you want voicemails to ring but text messages to vibrate it will do that. - Other options include call timers (so you can reset and not go over your monthly minutes), shortcut keys, call forward capabilities, various phone settings, a memo pad where you can type something in quickly, and a recent call list showing the last twenty calls made (whether voice or Direct Connect) The standard battery lasts all day even with moderate to heavy usage. The slim battery will not last all day with moderate to heavy usage, but will with light usage. All of the information to this phone is stored on a SIM card. If you remove the SIM card, the phone will not be able to be used. This is not really an anti-theft device, but will at least stop people from racking up charges if they would somehow end up with your phone. Motorola makes an iBoard that is a foldable keyboard for this model and a few others. It works great, especially if you use the Net mode. It makes typing emails and so forth tons easier. The phone does have T9 technology which means you can type words using just the letters ... for instance ... press 843 and the word "the" appears instead of having to press 8 once for the "t" and then 4 twice for the "h" and then 3 twice for the "e". But the iBoard is great ... the keys are really close to a regular keyboard size key and everyone would probably have a fairly easy time typing away on it. There is easy access to a headset plug on the top of the phone for those people who like using headset with the phone. The volume keys are on the side as well as the PTT (Push-to-talk) Direct Connect button. One weird thing is you have to open the phone to power it on, but at least that way you can't turn it off on accident. In my opinion this is a great phone. It is definitely the best with the exception of the i95 which just came out. Just can't compare to the color screen. Oh yeah, there are several different ring tones to choose from and I believe you can even download some for a small fee. This a great phone! The cost is anywhere from $200 - $300 normally. You might be able to find a better deal on one on eBay or someplace else, but this is the standard pricing for one ... unless you purchase one of the clear phones or pearl colored then it is more around $400. If you are looking for a phone to do everything from, this is it! Thanks for reading, and have a great day! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 88461 2002/8/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable customizable small sleek user friendly don t leave the interstate can t download ringtones horrid battery life The Bottom LinePerfect for the traveler (or anyone) who doesn't veer far from the interstate and carries a car charger or a spare battery. Full Review I ordered the Nextel service in January after a few years with AT&T. Nextel is not the least expensive cellular company, but they do offer a lot for the price like free roaming, long distance, direct connect and the web, all of which would come in handy for my husband and I since he is in the military and travels a lot. I went to Buy.com and ordered 2 i1000plus phones and was very disappointed when they came in, I thought I had made a big mistake. It was so hard to navigate that phone and remember codes to change the simplest item, or have to sit there and scroll through dozens of settings before getting to the right one. On the third day my screen stopped lighting up and I had an opportunity to start over and choose again. My husband was happy with his phone and still has it, but I jumped at the chance to trade my phone in. I was a little upset that the only clamshell phone cost so much more than than the i1000. Why did it have to be a flip phone you ask? Well if you're a woman with a purse, you've probably pulled your cell phone out on more than one occasion realizing that something in your purse either dialed a number, turned it off, changed a setting, etc. Even with a leather cover. Anyways, I bit the bullet and ordered it, praying it would be even slightly better than the i1000. Saying that I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. When I got that phone and started playing with it, I was elated. The voice commands, configurable menus, great ring tones, java games... I thought I was in cell phone heaven. I like something that I can customize to my tastes. Unlike the i1000 which traps you with it's 9 ugly rings, this phone has 10 or so midi ring tones which play full versions of songs, and play more than one note at a time to form chords and all. The speakerphone and voice commands make it easy to make a call while driving down the road, you can use it like a walkie talkie, never having to hold the thing up to your ear. Bored at the airport? No more. Not only are there great games loaded on the phone (including a word scramble game you can play with other Nextel users), you can purchase and download other games right to your phone! And it's very easy....no cords needed. You can also choose what default buttons you would like on your phone, and what order the menu displays in. I also love the blue glow of the screen and keypad, very attractive and not blinding in the dark. The service works very well, but be wary if you are far from an interstate. Hopefully this will change as more towers get put up, but if you aren't near a tower your sort of SOL because you can't travel on to other networks and you can't go analog. But when you are on the network your calls are so clear that people won't even know you're calling from a cell phone. Occasionally it isn't perfect if you don't have all your "bars" but I haven't found a cell phone yet that doesn't do that. It's a lot better compared to my experience with AT&T, Voicestream and Verizon. My only other large complaint is the horrid battery life which seems to be common on all Nextel phones after talking to other people. I take my phone off the charger on Monday morning for instance. By Tuesday afternoon I'm down to one bar if I've used the phone at all during that time period. And then if I try using it on one bar it beeps at me every minute before it finally gives out. I'm used to my AT&T phone lasting for days on standby, and actually several days even if I used it a lot. Once I get a car charger this will be less of an issue. Also in a perfect world, I could download other midi ringtones, they are too cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88460 2000/1/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone feature works great good size great design battery life holster clip could be easier to use screen could be brighter The Bottom LineA great phone with lots of pluses, and some minuses that can be worked around. Great sound quality and features can be upgraded via the Net. Full Review When my wife and I decided on Nextel service, I came to Epinions.com to check out the facts about the phones being offered. After looking over the reviews and prices, I initially decided on the Motorola i60c for both of us. At the store however, I decided I needed a phone with a little better screen than the i60c had. After looking at several other phones, I decided to get the i90c. And, I'm glad I did. I did get my wife a i60c, and the i90c is the big brother to that phone. That means we can share accessories! The handsfree unit, extra battery, data cable, phone clip, phone stand, etc. are all usable on both units. This is a real cost saver. The size of the i90c is perfect for me. It fits comfortably in the palm of my hand, and is light and easy to carry. I have a coat with a small upper pocket. The phone fits there perfectly and is easy to reach. The sound quality of the phone is excellent, and easy to hear. The keys on the keypad are a little bigger than average, which is perfect for my big fingers. The menu is easy to use, and I like the ability to customize its order to fit my own needs. The antenna is housed in a sturdy cover, so no need to worry about breaking it off. I like the front cover display. Just enough information, though I find the characters to be a bit small and difficult to see when not looking straight on to the window. The quick answer button on the top is great, since the speakerphone capability is loud and clear. I also like the button to send someone you don't want to talk to right now directly on to your voicemail. Probably the best part about the phone, at least for me, is the ability it has to interface with the serial port on my computer, and then on to the Internet. I downloaded the iDen update program from Nextel, installed it on my XP system, and got the data cable. Since then, I have been able to update the firmware on my phone. As a result, I have obtained better overall performance, as well as some new features. I also got the iDen companion program, and have been able to set up features on the phone directly by using the program rather than fiddling with the menu options. The other great thing about these programs is that they allow you to also make a backup image of your phone. If you ever had to reset the phone, or replace the SIM card, you can do a restore, and get your settings back easily. Security on the phone is good. You can choose between two levels of passwords, SIM and/or phone startup. I chose the SIM option, since this password protects all of my private information. It's also great that the information stored on the SIM card is transferable to other compatible phones by simply moving the card to the other phone. Overall construction seems rugged, though I haven't yet given it an opportunity to prove itself by hitting a hard object. There are some downsides to this great phone though. The main display could be brighter and have more contrast to it. In good light, or poor light, the display is good. However, in in-between lighting conditions, the display can be hard to see. The holster clip that comes with the phone is odd in that you clip the phone face-in to the holster, rather than face-out. That means you have to unclip the phone from the holster to use it, except when using it with the hands free accessory. Battery life is also another grip I have about this phone. It's too short. If I leave the phone on for 10 hours a day, the battery goes low after about a couple of days. If I only turn the phone on when I need it, then I can extend its charge life by many days. I ended up getting a second battery for my phone to keep charged and have on hand. Another sore point is that there doesn't seem to be an extended battery offered for either the i90c or i60c. This would be the answer to the short battery life. My wife and I got Nextel so that we could use the Direct Connect option. It works great on both our phones, and we love it. However, as a side note, make sure you understand how this option is billed, and how to use it and the Alert feature offered on the phone. I finally had to call Nextel Customer Service to get the correct answers. All in all, the i90c is a great phone that has met all of my needs since getting it. If I had to do it over, I'd still buy it. As a final note, I decided not to buy the Special Edition version. It had no extra features I needed, and cost an extra $30 for "neat looks". Also, I did look at the color version of this phone, but didn't like the display as much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88459 2002/12/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 more features size features buzzing near tvphoneslong stubby antenna battery life The Bottom LineYou will get to love all the features that this phone and service has to offer and this one is a keeper. Full Review This phone and service will be what will keep me from service provider hopping for a long long time to come. Mfg Specs and features on the I90c Voice Recorder † Speakerphone** Voice Activation Multi-Language Support Time & Date Display* SIM Card Operation Custom Styles Setting* Pre-Installed Software Applications Java™ 2 Micro Edition Capable** Voice Activated Dialing 250 Entry Phonebook Quickstore Phone Numbers Last 20 Recent Call List* Turbo Dial® one-touch dialing VibraCal® Alert One-touch Private & Group Call Quickstore Private IDs Built-in Speaker Consolidated Inbox Storage Voice & Message Mail Indicators Time & Date Stamp* Software Download Capability Internet Access Services T9 Text Input for fast entry Dimensions: 90mm x 50mm x 32mm with High Performance Battery Weight: 151g with High Performance Battery Power: 600mW (typical) Frequency Range: Tx 806 - 825 Mhz/Rx 851-870 Mhz Channel Spacing: 25 kHz Channel Access: TDMA Operating Temperature: -20°C to 60°C Storage Temperature (Radio Only): -40°C to 85°C * Network & subscription dependent. Not available in all areas. ** Visit www.motorola.com/idenupdate for a list of available software applications. † Recording of phone calls is subject to varying State and Federal laws regarding privacy and recording of phone conversations. Now for my opinions on the I90c The first thing you will notice on the phone when you look at it is hmmm, its a bit fat. But don't let the porky look of this phone fool you since this thing is packed full of features! With all the features that this phone has to offer it is no wonder why some business can't live without it. The Direct Connect feature is a God send for people in the construction business, Delivery, Cab Dispatch, etc. Instant communications with a fast punch of some numbers or if you have it on voice record then you can access them without even opening the flip. With only 20 voice records this is limited but I highly doubt you will need much more than this unless you are some type of mass communications manager. The style of this tried design will never go out of style and is comfortable in the hand as well as next to your ear. For people with large hands like me I prefer the larger thicker phones than the small tinny ones Nokia and Ericsson to name a few offers. The Keyboard glows a nice blue color as well as the indiglo backlit display on the inside of the phone as well as the outside where you can view status and incoming phone numbers or names instead of opening the flip. The net browser is fast but is only good as the service provider and in this case with Nextel they do a great job with the speed. I have tried AT&T GSM/GPRS phones and the Nextel phones are much faster to connect and send/receive data. The pre-installed Polyphonic ringtones are very nice and other ringtones can be found on the net for free or for a small price. The screen is not the largest but it does it's job very nicely. Not as big as the I95cl but you can see everything fine. There are 3 view modes. Zoom, Standard, and Compressed. Standard is the default view but I prefer the compressed since I can see more per page but if your eyes are not the greatest then I would suggest staying with the standard or even zoomed. The speakerphone works great and all calls can be heard crisp and clear as long as you have good signal strength. I use my speakerphone about 75% of the time and love it when I am driving. I don't have to open the flip (usually need two hands to open) to talk so placing it on the dash or on my lap while driving is great. Remember that some states prohibit you from placing or receiving a call while driving a vehicle. The only bad things that I can think of on the phone is the thickness for some people, The long stubby antenna, battery life, and buzzing you get from certain electronics when near the phone. The battery life is not like regular digital phones because of all the features that this phone has plus it seems like it gives out much more power than other phones not using the iDen GSM service. Aftermarket or OEM batteries are commonly available from slim which lasts a very short time (will beed a slim battery door unless bought together with battery, Standard (comes with phone) which will last a full day and a half with normal usuage, High Performance which lasts a bit longer than standard and can be used with the stock cover, and finally extended battery which adds to the thickness and weight of the phone. The Extended battery in my opinion is only needed if you are unable to get to a powersource for recharging on a regular basis or if your "living" on your phone. I have used the extended battery for a week but went back to the standard since for my needs I found it sufficient. Nextel iDen service penatrates buildings much better since they use a lower freq. range and 800 mhz are known to work better inside buildings. The Vibra alert can be activated without opening the flip by turning the ringer volume down all the way to the lowest point. You will get a vibrate notification when vibrate is activated. As far as the buzzing goes, I kinda think its irritating but I could live with it and probably would get use to it the more I use it but I might purchase better speakers that are shielded from interference. The great thing about this phone is that you can get tons of accessories that you can personalize to your tastes like flashing antenna's to even flashing batteries. ************************** Added 12/05/02 Aftermarket accessories. I purchased some aftermarket items for my phone and here is what I have found out for people who are interested in customizing. Antenna's I purchased 2 aftermarket ones. Flashing retractable. For looks the flashing antenna's look awesome or geeky but its in the eyes of the beholder. The reception indoors have degraded using the aftermarket flashing antenna but not to the point where I can't use the phone. Outside it has made no difference still great signal. XL Metal extending antenna. I actually got two kinds. one that is retractable only at the metal end kind of like the antenna found on portable radios and the one that retracts like the stock and also at the metal end. The "double" retractable actually made the reception worse than the stock. After placing the metal retractable only one on I got better reception indoors and boosted the signal enough to use anywhere and have not had a lost connection signal as of yet. Aftermarket batteries: I would suggest sticking with Motorola brand batteries since I have had problems with my Extended battery and my slim battery non OEM. (Org. equipment Mfg.) For example my extended aftermarket battery would say low battery even when I have a full charge on irregular times. This has happened a few times and the phone would shut down and you will need to restart your phone several times. Aftermarket Chargers: Wow, what a difference the cheap aftermarket ones are compared to the OEM ones. My cheap desktop charger cost me $5.99 and it hasn't flashed a green signal notifying me if the battery is fully charged even after leaving the battery on for 12 straight hours. Bottom line, spend a little bit more money on OEM accessories so you don't have problems with your phone and service in case the battery decides to quit on you when you need it the most. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88458 2003/6/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone size features battery life dim in some conditions little customization pricey The Bottom LineA great phone that makes day-to-day communication possible without even flipping your phone open. Bigger than most, more fragile than some; but still a solid buy. Full Review With my previous service provider, I shelled out the $400 for a full color camera phone with built in zoom and flash. Great. I had a sub-standard quality digital camera and paid an arm and a leg for it. When I made my switch to Nextel, I decided that I wanted a solid buy; a phone to use for -- talking. Something that I could use with a few button pushes and move on with my life. And it was a toss up between the i60, this phone and the i95cl. The phone won; hands-down. I couldn't see myself paying the money they wanted for the i95cl, with seemingly only moderate feature improvements, and enjoyed the external caller ID capability of this phone without the unnecessary flair the 95cl offered. So, while this phone was moderatley expensive, it was a better alternative than the other Motorla flip phones out there, so I gave it a try. Wow. I loved it! I'll start with the exterior. A very good place to start. Or is that "at the very beginning?" I can never remember. In any case, I personally don't like phones so small they get lost in your pocket. I also don't like phones that can double as a projectile that can do permanent damage if thrown at somebody. This phone is a great combination between the two. It easily fits in your pocket and does so without making you have to buy new sized pants with larger pockets. The caller ID display is great, and using the buttons on the top, you can automatically activate the speakerphone (which works great and with only moderate quality loss) while the phone is closed, accessing numbers from the "Recent callers" list. You can adjust the volume and activate direct connect from the large (but not overpowering) buttons on the side. The phone has an option to blink a pleasant green chrip when you're in service on the upper right hand corner; a nifty feature for showing off your phone. If you're in to the tiny phones some competitors offer (for example the v60), you may not find this phone to suit your needs. Oh, just be careful. You can tell by the material that dropping this bad boy may quite possibly result in a new phone purchase against your will... :-/ When you open the flip, you're greeted with a spiffy looking blue backlight and key pad light. This works great in no-light or sunlight conditions however if the room is slightly dim, it can be a hassle at times to read the screen. The keys are big and easy to use in navigating through the menus. Speaking of menus, this phone has lots of them. And it even allows you to rearrange the main menu (as well as shortcut keys) to your liking. I find the voice activated dialing feature useful, just say the name and you're set. Again, the speakerphone is infintley useful, especially when driving. You have seemingly endless personalization options, allowing you to customize (and download new) ringtones for each phone line, instantly toggle vibrate mode and speaker volume, and have several different ring styles that are readily customizable. The phonebook feature allows for 250 entries and pages of phone numbers for each entry. I've yet to find a feature that allows custom ringers for each entry, but its a small price to pay for the other features offered. Unfortunatley, for a Motorola phone, you'd expect better battery life. This offers about 200 minutes talk time and 75 hours standby, though with constant use, these figures can decrease dramatically. Since I charge my phone every night, I have no issues, however can see where not having ready access to a charger might pose a problem. The direct connect feature is a breeze to use, highlight the name and use the magical PTT (push to talk) button and you're on your way. Speaker can be adjusted to annoyingly loud to politley quiet to fit your situation (and or mood ;)). Overall, I'm very pleased with the quality of my phone; I've had no problems and it seems to offer great reception even with relativley low signal strength (not that I get that often from Nextel). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 7748 Nextel i50sx 88484 2004/1/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 not to expensive has worked pretty much flawlessly had the phone 2 years so what do i expect up button doesnt work sometimes I have had this phone for two years now and it is still ticking away. It has been a great phone, I have never had any problems with it. I had the i1000 before this phone and that was a good phone too. Nextel phones are some of the best on the market. I like my i50sx, its been good to me. Even though i really prefer flip phones. 88483 2002/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reasonable display sturdy effective a bit on the bulky side plastic keys The Bottom LineIf you like Nextel, and you want an effective and sturdy phone, I am certain you will find it at a bargain price. Full Review Yes - Until I lost mine - I loved my i50sx..... To be honest I didn't buy this phone, I was lucky enough to get it for free... I cannot give advice on HOW you might get one of these for free, except to say that some employers are very nice and have good relationships with Nextel... EFFECTIVE: Yes - I found that the connection was usually very good, with relatively few dropped calls. And when I did not have a signal, I found the two-way radio to still be effective (I live in Southern California). STURDY: Yes - sturdy as a brick... Anyway, the best part about this phone is that it is both effective and sturdy... by sturdy I mean the ability to give the phone to a 1 year old and it not to be eaten or destroyed. FEATURES: Yes - it has all the usual features, most of which we never ever use, the best features are: Menu Navigation The simplicity of the e-mail browsing (POP3) The Nextel Two-way Radio Anyway - you can now (I am certain) get this phone for practically nothing... so if you like Nextel and you want a bargain - give it a go! Best regards... Rob. (one of the Original Reviewers from the OLD DAYS!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.01 88482 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 web enabled good sound quality handy size feature packed for the money none The Bottom LineThis is a really great phone, and you'll be amazed at the great features you get for your money! Full Review My husband and I recently switched from Worldcom (not a moment too soon!) and signed up with Nextel. We were shopping for 2 phones to use with their Direct Connect feature that wouldn't be too expensive. We settled on the i50sx after reading other reviews, and have been very satisfied with our decision. This phone has a lot of features, including wireless web and text messaging with a new "smart" technology that can fill in the rest of the word (saves on typing with those tiny keys!) Phonebook entries can be accessed by voice command, which comes in handy when driving. Nextel's Direct Connect feature has saved us many airtime minutes contacting each other. People we have called have remarked on the clarity of our voices. As for durability, I can vouch for that. I have dropped the phone twice on parking lot pavement, and it doesn't even have a scratch, let alone any internal damage. The phone comes with a retractable rubber antenna that can be stored internally if not needed. The keypad and display are backlit, and you have the option of setting the amount of time it stays lit between actions (I chose 30 seconds, which is more than enough time.) The phone comes with a security feature that requires you to punch in your PIN code before it can be used. This feature can be disabled if desired, but I keep it on to avoid unauthorized use in case I ever lose it. You won't go wrong with this phone, and you can't believe all the extras. I think it has many features of some more expensive phones, and the quality and value can't be beat. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 88481 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use lots of features great way to keep in touch takes too much time to turn off The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone for today's busy people. It's small enough to fit in a pocket and packs a lot of power into a little phone. Full Review I have had my Nextel I50sx for about 2 months now. I chose this phone based on it's features and price. There were not too many phones offered at this lower price category, and none of those offered as many available features. The first thing I noticed about the phone was it was the only nextel phone available with a changeable face plate. I really didn't care for the 2 face plates included with the phone but I managed to talk my phone dealer into trading with me. I gave him the silver face plate included with the phone and I got a really cool purple one. The other one that comes with it is blue. It also comes with 2 choices for number colors, black or white. The phone itself is a compact size and came with a leather case. My husband felt that it's size may not make the phone as durable as the other ones in it's price range but I didn't care this was the phone I wanted. I have now dropped my phone about 10 times and have not had a single problem with it, although I wouldn't recommend dropping it. This phone has all the bells and whistles, from caller ID to call waiting. My favorite is the 2 way messaging, this is a cheap, conveinant way for my husband and I to keep in touch all the time. Our friends and other family members have now purchased Nextel's as well and we all hardly ever use the regular phone any more. This cuts down on the phone bill, as well as the amount of cellular minutes needed. The other features include: wireless web, text messaging, voice mail, calculator, games like reversi and checkers, an address book which you can use voice commands to dial with and more. The phone came with a CD you can just pop into your computer and get directions for any feature you don't understand how to use. The information is presented in an easy to understand format and it's right there any time you need it. There are also manuals and Nextel's great customer service if your really stuck. It has a lithum battery that you can't possibly over charge. The battery has a long life and my husband and I clocked over 1000 hours last month of 2 way talk and never had a problem with having enough battery to get through a day. The phone comes with it's own in home charger that you can plug in any house hold outlet. To wrap this up I really love my phone and am very pleased with my choice. The games make great time killers while waiting for kids to get out of school or at appointments, and it's a great way to keep in touch. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88480 2000/10/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color faceplates wireless web easy to use fairly small upgrade features belt clip takes a little time to turn on off The Bottom LineWith its small size, belt clip, direct-connect, faceplates and ability to add more features, it is an excellent phone that will do just about everything. Full Review I admit that I was skeptical when my parents were telling me that they were looking into Nextel/Motorola cellular phones. I already owned one of the Motorola Startac phones, which I loved because I could easily clip it to my belt, it was ultra-portable, had vibrating ring, and did what I wanted. However, after learning about all the features of the i50sx our family decided to get a set, and it has been an excellent phone so far. Features Standard: * a little over 5 inches, weighs 5 oz. * direct-connect: basically this allows you to use your phone like a walkie-talkie when connecting with another nextel phone. really neat feature. * lithium ion battery: lasts several days, and averages 2-3 hrs talk time. * voice-mail, messaging, etc. * wireless web for e-mail, etc.(you can get it as part of one of their plans) * java-enabled apps: it includes a calculator, two java games (reversi and another sega game) * vibrating ring, different ring tones * voice-activated dialing * phonebook that stores up to 250 names/numbers * memo and datebook for recording short notes and events * colored faceplates: change your faceplate color to green, black, slate, brown, or other colors. * belt-clip for attaching phone onto the belt optional features: * speakerphone * styles: allows you to customize fonts, size, placement of things on display * voice recording: allows you to record short messages As you can see, it has a wide variety of features that makes it a very functional phone. The i50sx is basically a stripped down i85s phone, but you can add most of the extra features of the i85s to the i50sx if you go to a Nextel service place that can add on the features for you. From my understanding the speakerphone costs $30, styles are $10, and voice recording is $30. If you add all three to the phone price of $49 it adds up to $119, which is still less than the i85s price of $169. Obviously this isn't too shabby of a deal. Whoo... now that all of the features are done, let's go on to how the phone operates. Phone Operation Basic phone operation is very easy. The power button is located on the top of the phone, you press it for a second or two, and the phone comes to life. It is a java-enabled phone so it takes about 15-30 seconds for the phone to finish starting up. This is a bit annoying, and is my major peeve against this phone. Once you get used to it however, it's not such of a big deal. Keypad is normal, with green button for send, red button to end a call. There is a main menu betton, as well as two button for quick access to the phonebook and message center (voice mail, text messages, and internet mail. You can store up to 250 numbers in the phonebook which is nice. 20 can be speed dialed, and you can also add a voice-activation to the name if you wish to use this feature. After you let it record the name, you can say the name into the phone after letting it know you want to voice-dial. The included belt-clip is nice as all you have to do is slide the back of the phone into the belt-clip. To release the phone you hit a button on the top of the belt-clip, pull the phone up and it comes out easily. Direct Connect One of the cool features with the Nextel phones is the ability to use it like a walkie-talkie if you know another person with a nextel phone. Once you alert the person using their specific nextel id number, all they have to do is confirm the alert and you can use them like walkie-talkies, with a large button on the left-side of the phone which you use when you talk. The speakerphone is very loud and clear, and you can hear the person perfectly without any distortion. Its basically a built-in FRS feature that is nice to have. Sound Quality/Battery Life The sound quality on the nextel is very good... it sounds extremely clear, with very little to no static. Voices are loud, and I usually put the volume level near the middle so that my ear doesn't get blown out by the phone. My parents have the optional speakerphone feature, and they say it is excellent and the sound quality is similar to the direct-connect speakerphone. They can leave it on one side of a room, go to the other side and talk and hear without any problems. As for battery life, it has adequate battery life. I can usually leave it on for several days, and talk with it for a couple hours (somewhere between 2-3) before I have to recharge. Recharges take approximately 4-5 hrs, so if you just plug it in and leave it overnight that should give it a full charge. Optional Features The speakerphone feature for $30 is probably an excellent idea to have, especially if you use a cell phone often while driving. As I stated above, the quality is very good, and you can speak from far away and the phone will still pick up the voice. Styles are a nice feature if you want to customize your phone with smaller text or a different font, and at $10 it is not too costly. The voice-memo feature is the least useful feature in my opinion, as if you really wanted to record messages I'd probably suggest having a separate digital voice-recorder for that. However, if you really need it, for $30 it's not too bad of a deal. Though I don't have it, Nextel Wireless Web allows you to check web sites, e-mail, news, and other things. Depending on what plan you pick, you may get it included or it'll be an optional feature for $5 or $10 depending on what web features you want. Conclusion The Nextel i50sx is an excellent value for a cellular phone, as it has a wide variety of features included, as well as upgrade options which you can get anytime you want. If you get all the upgrade options you'll basically have the same feature set as the i85s, which is pretty cool. It is not a very expensive phone, and since it has all the main features, including voice mail, phonebook, vibrating ring, datebook/memo, in addition to other things such as java apps, wireless web, faceplates, it becomes a very good choice for just about anyone. It is not too big or heavy, and the belt-clip helps as you don't have a phone in the pocket. Overall it is an excellent phone, and I'm glad that I switched from my startac to this phone. Motorola has always made solid phones, and this is yet another example of the high quality of their phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 7749 Nextel i85s 88497 2000/8/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tons of great features with stylish look to boot not as slender or compact as some of the competition The Bottom LineUnless you want to wait for the next technological breakthrough, I definitely recommend buying this phone. Full Review Wonder when the Jetsons age would ever get here? Well, with the Nextel i85s, it almost has! You can surf the net, play video games, or store your daily schedule just like you would in a palm computer. It also has a voice recorder which allows you to record notes to yourself (or record phone conversations you don't want to forget about). While surfing the net you are able to pull up some graphics which is a step above the i1000. If you are worried about clarity, worry no more. With the Nextel i85s you get the same clarity as a land line phone (as long as you are in your coverage area, of course). The coverage area leaves a little to be desired, but as long as you live in a larger city you won't have to worry about that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88496 2000/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 able to direct connect without selecting a mode lightweight sometimes sluggish to respond to keypresses can t make shortcuts to every item The Bottom LineIf you are going with Nextel - get this phone! Full Review Moving from the i1000 plus I found that the i85 was a pleasant change. The i1000 plus requires that you constantly change "modes" when you want to get into Direct Connect. With the i85 you enter the Direct Connect ID of the person you are attempting to communicate with and you are able to instantly connect (Assuming that person is within your home area. Nationwide direct connect is supposed to be coming 2002). The unit is small and lightweight. I find the battery life to be about a full day of use. The screen contrast is very good with easy readability in all types of lighting. Sometimes your keypresses on this unit seem to have a delay. I don't know why this is but think maybe they went a little overboard with the software programming of this phone. I know they were hyping the use of the Java programming language (which I still haven't found a use for) and don't know if they tried to integrate that into the phone's operations. Nextel is a cool service that has several features that competitors don't. You can use the phone as if it were a walkie talkie and depending on your plan get unlimited connect time. Their wireless internet plans are unlimited and do not eat into your wireless time as do all competitors. They offer unlimited incoming calling plans which makes their monthly rate cheaper than competitors for heavy users. Hopefully the i85 is just a glimpse of the cool phones that could be coming for Nextel. It would be nice if the phones were made by someone other than just Motorola though. A little competiton never hurt! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88495 2000/12/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich phone what a price ease of use good screen size icon displays are too bunched up together bad leather case design limited phone customization The Bottom LineAfter three days of use, my wife and I are very satisfied with the phone,features and yes even Nextel customer service. Full Review I paid a total of $139.00 for TWO phones. That is correct, I am not making this up. I shopped around several different Wireless Nextel retailers in my neighborhood and this one shop quoted me $75 for one i85s so I asked how much for two and he said, "if new customer, buy with plan, I sell it for $140". I also paid an additional $60 for the following items: 2 car adapters, 2 Jarba ear boom earpieces, 1 leather case, and 1 swivel carry clip. I asked the proprietor, after purchasing the phone, how he was able to give me such a deep discount on the phones and accessories and he told me that he gets a commission from Nextel, for every new activation so he was able to share with me some of the commission. I am going back to the retailer and work a deal on an extra battery!. My point here is that you Must shop around and you Should haggle for the best price. Some early complaints that I have found is that the antenna icon and the Mobile IP icon are mesh together. Separation would have been good for the eyes. With other wireless phones (I previously used a Motorola StarTac) you can personalize the phone, like having you name appear when the phone turns on. You can not do this with the i85s. I am quite sure that Motorola could easily write code to include an option for personal information display. Now it did take 3 days for the phones to be completely activated and I was getting upset about Nextel's activation process but this was separate from Nextel's general customer service which I found surprisingly responsive and very informative, courteous and helpful. After receiving the phones I realized the proprietor accepted the phones with a 516 area code and that would mean that people calling my mobile phone would incur a long distance charge if they were calling outside the 516 area code. So I called Nextel and requested the number change and within minutes both my phones had a new area code and number. I will update or add a new review once I start using the phone on a regular bases. I hope this helps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 88494 2000/8/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 java direct contect gps very large screen none The Bottom LineThis one is the best Nextel phone I have ever used! Full Review I bought my Nextel i88s phone in January from a Nextel retail store in Concord, CA. This Nextel phone was a replacement for a Nokia 3395 that was on the Cingular Wireless network. The Nokia had very poor service. I paid $120.00 for the i88s along with signing a one year contract. The phone features Voice activated dialing Speakerphone Phonebook-Hold up to 250 entries which are stored on the SIM card.This allows you to just take the card out and put it in another phone without having to re-enter your phonebook entries on the new phone. Datebook Messages Nextel Direct Connect- This feature is the saleing point for Nextel. It lets you use the phone as a two-way radio to communicate directly to others without dialing a phone number. GPS- This feature uses information from Global Positioning satellites orbiting the earth to determine the approximate geographical location of your phone, given as latitude and longitude. This information will be used someday when you place a call for a emergency. This phone is just like the i80. The only difference is, that it has GPS. I think both i80 and the i80s are both very good phones. The screens are very big and bright. The buttons are very large and easy to use along with the four way disk that you use to move around the menus. The sound quality on these phones are far superior to my Nokia phone I had. The only problem I had was with the service. I was given a phone number that was used by someone before. I was getting allot of calls from people that thought I was someone else. I made many calls to Nextel customer service number and I had no luck on making them change my number. So I switched to AT&T wireless service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 88493 2000/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear display long battery life voice activated dialing speakerphone no infrared 20 digit max entries in phonebook bulky antenna lag time in keys The Bottom LineGood current generation motorola phone. I find Nokia products easier to use and lighter. So if I'm asked for a recommendation, I'd say Nokia. Full Review I got this phone because our company is on the Nextel system and the phone seemed to have good options. It does have many more features that I probably won't use. It would be an EXCELLENT phone if it had infrared capability to transmit information to/from PDAs. The keys are also not very comfortable. If you're using the vibrate & ring mode, the phone vibrates first (3 times) then starts ringing which is different than most other phones that vibrate and ring simultaneously. The voice activated dialing is great while driving. The speakerphone works VERY WELL. The phonebook is put together nicely but would be great if you could use infrared and not have to keystroke in each entry. Nextel has a killer website and online tutorial for their products. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 with plan 88492 2000/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many options settings tough battery java exposed buttons The Bottom LineMany features make this phone attractive because of all the functions and its value. Full Review I work with a Nextel Representative and have seen every model Motorola Nextel phone out there (except for the dinosaurs), and this phone is solid. It does not seem to be one that is prone to problems such as antenna's breaking or button's being corroded and eventually wearing out or charging plugs being pushed in. It holds up very well. The features are extraordinary for a phone. If you have the data cable for the phone you can do just about everything. With Nextels wireless web, you can shop from your phone, get directions, look up the weather, trade your stocks, bid on eBay, etc, etc, etc The screen has three different settings so if your eyes get tired you can make the print bigger. There are many different options to where you can screen calls coming in on the phone but not the radio and vice versa. The phone book holds up to 250 entries and gives you 7 different ways to specify them. Voice activated dialing, voice notes, and java applications all make this phone very attractive. It is compact and lightweight, while not the smallest phone out there. There is over 3 days of standby time in the battery and about 2 3/4 hours of talk time off of a charger on a fully charged battery. The phone also includes speakerphone capabilities and a datebook. The datebook you can use to set an appointment and then have the phone remind you so you are not late or do not forget to take your files or information with you. It is all around a good phone. The only complaint I have heard is the open keypad. Friends, family and strangers have probably received calls from hitting buttons. However, with pressing three simple buttons the keypad will lock. It's a nice phone for the value. Thanks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 124.99 88491 2000/10/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 really cool features customize able menus voice dialing better games too delicate The Bottom LineDirect Connect is free with most plans. All digital network. Great customer relations. Full Review I've been using Nextel for years, and the phone always worked, I've had other models that were so tough you could tune somebody up with them and then call the police. When the i85 came out I jumped on it, but the sales agent warned me that the phone was somewhat designed with business people in mind. The other Nextels were pretty much made for construction and the like. Well, I'm paramedic, so I don't have the most delicate job in the world. The phone is clear as a bell, all the little gadgets and internet programs work great, except when it fell off my hip (it doesnt come with a holster which i am used to) and fell to the ground at only a height of maybe 4 feet, the screen decided to explode all over the pavement. Don't get me wrong, I was a little careless with the phone, and I am alot more careful with it now. The main thing to remember about Nextels is that if no one else that you know owns one, the "Direct Connect" two-way radio feature is useless. I'd suggest you and a COUPLE of friends go in on it together, otherwise you'll be so sick of talking to the same person over and over it'll defeat the purpose of direct connect in the first place. In addition, don't get one alone with a girlfriend.... hello electronic leash. Just a warning.... ask anyone who's done it. Nextel is a very reliable service. I've barely had any trouble with the coverage and their customer service is open 24 hours a day. And Nextel OWNS thier own repeater towers (those things on the side of the highways that look like metal trees, they make the phone's range go farther), so there wont be any interferance with competing companies that rent the towers from a general contractor. My overall rating is 5 out of 5 stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 190 88490 2000/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 longer battery life larger display than the other nextel phones better sound quality java enabled games no good holster leather case designed yet The Bottom LineIf you're on the nextel network and use the web, this is the phone to have. It beats any other web enabled phone out there. Full Review I traded in my i1000 plus, which i was using for over 3 years. i used the nextel cellular service very little, because i was unhappy with it. i also didnt like the i1000's receiver, the flip. It was very uncomfortable, and was difficult to hear the other party. The change in phones was amazing! The i85 is geared like the nokia cell phone series, with everything in user menus. I use the web a lot, and the larger screen on the i85 makes the web so much more convenient. Not to mention they market the iboard, a full size collapsible keyboard that attaches onto the i85, and you can type to your heart's content! The sound quality of the i85 is greatly improved as well. I have used the phone a lot more often now, and have stopped carrying around my verizon phone (gotta love those star tac's). The two way feature works exactly the same on both phones, however the i85 keeps a running list of all past calls, with the date and time, where on the i1000's you can only see the last 10 cellular calls received. The i85 will give you any of the last calls, and their time, so you can see how many two way calls you have missed as well. The i85 is a definite plus. I would never go back to any of the other nextel phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169. 88489 2004/1/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 service durability ergonomics battery The Bottom LineIt's a five star phone, zero star battery life. Full Review The company I started with required me to get a Nextel phone for the Direct Connect feature and I've used this phone now daily for the past two years. The phone itself has been very sturdy and reliable, even surviving a couple substantial falls and a car wreck. I did have a problem with the charging "plate" on the bottom that came loose after a year, I took it to a local Nextel shop and they replaced the phone with a new one for free. I've never had any complaints with their service and the coverage on the phone has been great even in many of the backwoods sections of West Florida I have to work in. I have also enjoyed the wireless web features and make good use of many of them every day. My two complaints - 1. The Battery - I can charge this phone all night, I'm up and out the door by 6 am, and if I receive absolutely no calls during the day (a rarity) the phone MIGHT make it through one five minute call at about 3pm without dying. Usually the battery life bar will show two or a full three bars, I'll receive a call and three minutes in, the phone drops to low battery and will disconnect. I can almost always immediately turn the phone back on, let it connect with the network, and show two bars again, only to have the phone drop again the moment I try to make another call. I've purchased multiple batteries, bigger batteries, and am forced currently to run the thing off a car charger all day if I know I will be making any lengthy calls and still want to have any charge when I get home. This is really amazing to me as I have had cell phones with other companies that will sit idle for DAYS and I can still pick them up and make a call. If I were to leave this phone at home on my desk it would be dead by the next morning. 2. Pricing - not so much on the basic service, as Nextel offers many plans that are wonderful for regular service. But to add a second phone for my wife, or upgrade web services, or be able to SEND a text message (I can only receive them)the fees addded on become ridiculous. The basic web service available when I bought the phone two years ago was great, but over the past two years the features I found most useful have almost all been removed from my availability and added into a pricier tier structure. The newer version of this phone, the i88s is basically the same phone with added GPS technology. I considered getting it until I heard tales of similar battery trauma, so I will stay with this one for now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88488 2000/11/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 great layout good speakerphone nice included apps two failed in a year not durable The Bottom LineFind a more durable phone. This phone can't handle the rigors of daily life. Full Review The i85s has a number of features that experienced and new cell phone users alike will appreciate. In addition to a well-proportioned keypad and a highly visible LCD panel, the i85s has a powerful speakerphone, a scheduler, a calculator, alarm clock, and voice-activated dialing, among other helpful bells and whistles. Unfortunately, the phone is not as durable as many users will want. Consider that this is a cellular phone. These phones are likely to be - left in car seats and exposed to jarring when the driver slams on the brakes to avoid a collision - jarred loose from their belt clip upon entering or exiting a vehicle, especially when seat belts are used - dropped when the user fails to seat the phone in the clip completely before releasing his/her grip on the phone. That being said, I feel that a cell phone should be able to withstand some minor use-related abuse and continue functioning. I've never used my phone as a hammer, or throw it from my vehicle, or anything outrageous such as that. The i85s just doesn't hold up to daily life. My first unit had to be replaced mere weeks after activation because the 4 key stopped functioning. You could softly depress the other buttons and enter data, but the "4" had to be deliberately pressed and held, and it would often repeat the character once it recognized the key press. The second unit lasted about 6 months. It too developed a key press problem, this time with the "8" key. Also, the ear speaker stopped functioning completely. The phone would work in speakerphone mode, but no when holding the phone normally to your ear or when using the headset. Tech support at first thought I had inadvertently turned down the volume, but when confronted with the facts about the volume settings, this phone too wound up being replaced. I finally convinced my company to upgrade to an i530 and that phone has made all the difference. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88487 2000/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 new phone book voice notes weight java address book none The Bottom LineThis is hands down the greatest phone Nextel/Motorola has ever marketed. Full Review Well I have been "connected" with Nextel for years and I have owned EVERY phone that they have placed on the market. I use my Nextel phone about 2,000-5,000 minutes every month, so I can give an honest review of its ups and downs. Last week I had the opportunity to get one of these new high-tech phones. I being the "technology junkie" that I am, I jumped all over it. Well the first thing I noticed the i85 was its weight. This baby is nice and light in comparison to all previous Nextel models with the exception of the i2000. Once I had the phone all charged up I was ready to see what it could do. I was amazed at the phones features. Let me start by talking about the address book feature. The address book is great in this phone because you can store multiple numbers with the same name, and an icon shows you what type of number it is. For example if I program my friend Tom in my phone I can use a icon to show his pager number, home number, direct connect id, ect. This is great because you find his name on the list and by pressing the right scroll you can cycle through the different icons, and simply press send. I also want to add that this phone has "Voice Dialing". This feature is great if you are driving. When you program in the persons phone number you can add your voice to it, so when you want to dial that number you just say the name, the phone finds the number and dials. This allows you to keep an eye on the road and dial at the same time. Now that was just the address book! This phone is loaded with other goodies too such as an event calendar, so you can throw away that bulky palm pilot. This phone will keep all of your appointments and remind you when one is coming up. The last regular feature I will discuss (I can go on forever) is the "Voice Notes" feature. I love this feature soooooo much. I tend to think of things and never have a pen and paper to write them down, so I use this feature a lot. It records what you say like a tape recorder, so if you need to make a note of something just select the voice notes and record away. Lastly I would like to talk about what makes this phone very special. It was the first phone in North America to have J2ME or Java technology built into it. This allows you to download programs from the Motorola website. The phone comes with different calculators built into it. There are calculators for figuring out such things as tips, converting length, weight, area, volume and more. Another program that the phone has that I find useful because I travel a lot is the Expense Pad. This feature rocks if you wish to keep track of what you are spending your money on. Then the phone will spit out reports as to when and where you spent your money. Great for business trips. Lastly what would a Java phone be without games. The phone comes with a game called "Borkov", which is an addictive block game that can entertain you while riding a plane, bus, or long car ride. Now that I have discussed several of the features that the phone has let me take a moment to talk about the clarity and reception. I have never owned a phone that provided such clarity. I feel sometimes that I am on a landline phone because it is so clear. The reception on this phone is great, and probably the best in the Nextel family of phones. This is due to the software in the phone that makes "hand-off's" to cell towers smoother and you will experience fewer dropped calls with this baby. I hope that I have shed some light on this new phone. I would recommend to everyone who is considering a new Nextel phone to get this one. I don't think I will ever give this one up! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88486 2001/7/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features lithium ion battery lightweight improved menus improved display not as compact as other contemporary phones buttons are exposed The Bottom LineThe i85s is simply the best Nextel phone on the market. It's got the best display, the easiest menus, plenty of great features, and uses a lithium battery. Full Review I've seen and tried several Nextel phones, and this is the one to get. It's not as compact as the i1000, but it's a much better phone in several areas. Display The display on the i85s is the most apparent improvement over previous Nextel phones. The i85s has a higher resolution display that is capable of up to 7 lines of small text (on the Compressed display setting). This makes reading text messages, e-mails, and web sites a lot easier. If you want larger text, there is the standard display, with 5 lines of larger text, and the zoom display, with 4 lines of huge text. Older Nextel phones provide 3 lines of text on the screen, at a single resolution. Menus The menus on the i85s are also a vast improvement over the older Nextel phones. Because of the limited display, previous phones had a single menu button, which cycled through two menu options per screen, and once inside the menu, you could see a single entry at a time. The i85s uses a more intuitive interface to its menus. You start with a list of menu items that you move through by using a 4-way button (like on handheld games). You highlight the entry you want, select it, and then you see a list of entries inside that menu. With a compressed display, you can see 7 menus, or 7 entries at a time. Even with little knowledge of how to navigate the menus, it is relatively easy to figure it out. Battery The battery life on the i85s is quite good. On stand by, the battery lasts about 2-3 days (on 24 hours), and can handle several hours of talk time. I usually go through about 36 hours with about five 10-20 minute conversations before I find myself needing to charge the battery. The phone comes with a rapid charger that will charge the phone up to just about full capacity in a couple of hours. The best part is that the phone takes a lithium ion battery, which does not need to be discharged before you charge it again. This makes charging the phone very convenient. I simply charge it every other night, or while I'm at work. SIM Card The i85s uses a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) Card, which is a tiny chip embedded in a tiny plastic card that sits behind a panel under the battery. If you are leaving the phone unattended, you can remove the SIM and no one can use the phone. You do this, of course, at the risk of losing the SIM (which is about as big as a thumbnail), and thus rendering the phone useless. Another method of security is to use a PIN to activate the phone. When the phone is turned on, you must enter a PIN to use the phone. Also, if your phone breaks and someone else has one, you can put your SIM in their phone and use it as though it were yours - calls get billed to you, etc. This is an interesting technology, but other than the PIN, you probably won't use it much. Note: You can disable the PIN if you so choose. Features There are so many features available on the i85s, that it's best if I talk about them one at a time: Phonebook The phonebook on the i85s is very nice. You can store up to 250 numbers, and the i85s has a very nice organization system for its phonebook. For each name, you can store several numbers, each with its own icon. When you pull up a name, you can cycle through the icons to dial the various numbers. This makes the phone list very compact when you have friends or colleagues with several numbers. Each number is assigned a 1-3 digit speed dial number, and you can store a voice key for each number as well. Digital cellular vs. Direct Connect Each Nextel phone has two methods of communication - Digital cellular, which works the way that you expect a cellular phone to work, and direct connect, which is a little more like a long range walkie talkie. To use Direct Connect, you hold a button on the side of your phone while you speak, then remove it when you are finished. The other person then does the same, in turn. You can have one-on-one or group calls this way. The i85s handles these very much like older Nextel phones, with the exception that you do not need to put your phone into a separate mode to initiate Direct Connect calls. The phone automatically switches into the appropriate mode. This is nice, since it means that you store direct connect entries alongside your other phone numbers in your phonebook. Older Nextel phones stored direct connect numbers independently of cellular numbers. The sound quality of both the digital cellular and the direct connect is excellent. I find very little significant difference between a call on my Nextel phone and a call on my phone at home. Also, one nice thing about all Nextel phones is that after a minute, all calls are rounded to the second, not to the minute. Keypad Lock This is a simple feature, that is more designed to accommodate the fact that the keys don't have a cover (more on that later) than as a security feature. It's easy to enable and disable, and is an important feature to get to know. Speakerphone The i85s has a speakerphone feature which works a lot better than I would have expected. I can sit the phone on a table or in a cup holder in my car, and maintain a conversation with someone. I've never listened to what it sounds like, but I've asked whether they've had any difficulty hearing me, and no one ever has. Messages screen If you subscribe to voicemail and/or text messaging, you can use the i85s' messages screen to see how many new vs. old messages you have for each type of message. The text messages can be retrieved and displayed on the phone, and the screen provides a button to autodial your voicemail number from this screen. Datebook The i85s comes with a datebook, that is moderately useful. Although I wouldn't use it for everything that I put in a datebook, it is very handy for storing alarms for appointments. Set up an appointment and you can have the phone ring 0 or more minutes, hours, days or weeks before the scheduled appointment. Recent Calls This is one of the features I use the most on my phone. The i85s stores a list of the 20 most recent incoming, outgoing, or missed calls. This comes in very handy if you call the same person frequently, miss a call, keep getting a busy signal, or just want to grab a phone number of someone who called you recently. You can dial any of the numbers in the list with a single button, and you can store any number from the recent call list directly into your phonebook. Voicenotes You can use your i85s as a digital recorder, and store up to 20 voice notes (total time up to about 3 minutes). You can even record from phone conversations, though keep in mind that there are legal restrictions to doing this. Wireless Web One of the things I love about the i85s is how well it works with the wireless web. One of the reasons I chose Nextel service is that all wireless web usage is unlimited and does not contribute towards your usage of minutes. I spend the extra $10 per month to get the Nextel Online Plus, which gives me access to any web site (keep in mind that most web sites are not compatible with web phones, and that some services are restricted to specific web phone vendors), and to e-mail of my choice (as opposed to the hotmail only option that comes with Nextel Online basic service). There are three sites that I regularly visit using my phone - WeatherBug, which provides real-time weather from a nearby weather station; my e-mail, which interfaces nicely with my yahoo e-mail account; and news. Also, Amazon has a very nice site for the web phone. The 4-way button is used to scroll through a page, and pages are broken up for quick load times. Links are displayed in square brackets, and are highlighted as you scroll past them. Once highlighted, you can select them to activate the link. The phone has a back button, which takes you to the previous page, and a home button which takes you to the initial page. Most pages can be marked with a bookmark, and most lists of links can also be selected by pressing a number associated to the link. T9 Text entry I want to make special mention of the T9 text entry system on the i85s. This is a very nice means of entering text via a phonepad. You can either choose alphabet entry, by which you cycle through the letters associated with a number by repeatedly pressing the number (not very efficient), numeric entry, which works as expected, symbol entry, which pulls up a map of symbols associated with each number, and word entry, which is particularly brilliant. The way it works is that in order to type a word, you just type the sequence of numbers that are associated with the letters in the word, one number per letter (you don't cycle through the numbers for each letter). Since each number is associated with up to 4 letters, the phone has to guess which letter you intend to use for each number you put in. As you type each number, it goes through an internal dictionary and determines which word you are most likely typing and displays that. If the word is long enough, there will be only one choice. Shorter words have more possibilities, and if the wrong word is selected by default, the 0 acts as a next button, which cycles through other possible words. The dictionary is quite extensive, and I usually only have to resort to using alphabet entry when typing proper names. Once a word is typed using the alphabet entry, the phone will remember it for future use in word mode. I've used this many times to compose quick e-mails, and it works very well. It's no substitute for a regular keyboard, but when you don't have access to the internet except through your phone, it's great. I have to note here that I would not want to try reading e-mail or browsing wireless web on a 3-line, chunky text display. I would find that incredibly frustrating. 7 lines isn't the bees knees, but it certainly suffices. Java Apps Just to be thorough, I have to make some mention of the Java Apps, because if you've encountered any ads about the phone, they've mentioned that the phone can run Java Apps. To be brief, they're nothing to write home about. There are some calculators, an expense pad, and an *extremely* dull and pointless game. The calculators are ok (there's even one that will calculate number and length of risers from height and depth of stairs... if you need that sort of thing). The expense pad is nothing special. Overall, I never use these, and while there is the possibility of someone writing a cool Java app for my phone, I'm not running out to purchase the data transmission cable necessary to download Java apps anytime soon. Complaints Also to be thorough, I have to mention a few peeves about the phone. First, the keys are exposed. There is nothing to cover the keys, and so they are easily bumped. Because of this, it is very important to use the Keypad Lock feature. This becomes all the more crucial, since the first 9 speed-dial entries in your phone book (those assigned the speed-dial numbers 1-9) can be dialed by pressing and holding the corresponding number. True story: I plugged in all my work contacts into the first 9 speed dial entries, and one day my phone rang. It was one of my contacts calling me, asking if I just called. Turns out, I had leaned my phone against something and called them inadvertently. Not a good thing. Consequently, I use the Keypad Lock as much as possible, and just to be safe, I do *not* use the first nine speed dial entries. This leads me to my next peeve. When you enter a phone number into the phone book, it automatically grabs the first available speed dial number. ARGH! Finally, the phone is not as compact or sexy as some of the other phones on the market. That's not to say that it's bulky by any means, and it is certainly light. However, it is not a phone you can slip into your pocket comfortably, so you need to use a belt-clip or some other means of holding the phone. Those things are rather trivial, though, and I am extremely pleased with my phone nonetheless. Caveats I should note that the Nextel service is rather pricey. I think that it's worth it, but it may be more than some want to pay. I also cannot speak for the service coverage, since I don't travel much, and have only used the phones in metropolitan areas. I have had some problems with cut-outs, but mostly only on the train, which is not surprising to me. To sum up, the Nextel i85s is simply the best Nextel phone on the market. It's got the best display, the easiest menus, its got plenty of great features, and uses a lithium battery that is quick to charge, lasts a long time, and can be charged at any time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88485 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice notes speaker phone battery life java quick charge time could use more memory for java apps only 3 minutes for voice recording The Bottom LineA VERY GOOD phone. TONS of features. Great battery life Full Review BATTERY The battery life is excellent. I don't have to worry about being stuck with a dead battery. And, it charges pretty quick. DISPLAY The display is clear. You can even choose from three different fonts ranging from big letters to smaller letter so the screen can display more. I think this is a great feature. I use the larger font when I am in the car. DURABILITY The phone is very strong and well made. I dropped it a few times and it barely got a scratch on it. And, in each case, the phone worked just fine. Never cutoff or had to be fixed, parts didn't go flying every. A very strong, well made phone that can take the abuse. FEATURES The phone has tons of features. The voice dial is good for driving. So is the speaker phone. You also get a Datebook, which you can use to schedule appointments, anniversary and birthdays, or set the alarm. NEXTEL Online is a very cool Wireless Web feature that allows you to send/receive email and text messages. And, you can even get a portable fold-up keyboard for use on a plane, bus, train, etc..., to type out your messages.You can also use the phone as a modem. And, if you get Nextel Online Plus, you can search the entire web, not just the wireless part, though you are still limited to the graphic capabilities of the phone. JAVA This is the first phone to use Java. With this feature, you can download many features from online or even directly to your phone, in some cases. You can get games as well as a lot of other useful features and most are free. The ones that you do pay for are very cheap, about $4.99 or so. The only bad thing is that you have to spend an extra $29.99 for the cable needed to download the Java apps from your pc (for the ones you can't download directly to your phone). The phone already comes installed with a very useful calculator, an expense pad, and a SEGA game called "Borkov". You can download other games like Checkers, Snake, Minesweep, etc... from online. SIM CARD The SIM card is a cool chip that hides under the battery and stores all of your information, numbers, settings, etc. If you have to replace your i85s, you just take the SIM card and put it in the new phone, and all of the numbers, information, etc. are restored. SOUND The sound is good. Sometimes it is kinda hard to make out what the other person is saying, but there is no static from the phone at all. The speaker phone sounded really good when I first got the phone, but after awhile, it seemed to fade in and out when I used it. Seems like the signal strength gets weaker when you put the phone on speaker. OVERALL Overall, this is an excellent phone by Motorola for Nextel customers. It has a lot of useful features and you can even install more features with the new JAVA system. I have had the phone since July and I am very happy with it and the service provided by Nextel. ***NOTE*** If you prefer a flip style phone, you should look into the i90c. It is basically the i85s with a couple of revamped features, just in a flip style. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 7750 Nextel i95cl 88507 2004/7/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features large color display big bulky bad battery life The nextel i95 is a great phone,With a large color display. It includes many features such as voice notes, voiceactive calling and much much more. The i95 is very stylish, though bulky. The i95cl is discontiued but it was the first nextel color flip, and will live on. 88506 2003/9/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large color screen sharp appearance customizable wallpaper ring tones low battery life kind of bulky i have found much pricier phones slightly pricey I have had this phone for about a little over a month, and I couldn't be happier. It took a bit of convincing due to the price but I stand firm by the saying "you get what you pay for" and I enjoy having the best of the best. I love the clear, crisp, and large color display. The blue front panel display is also very nice and convienent. You can customize just about everything on this phone, to make it totally your own. From ring-tones to wallpaper, to programming certain keys and voice dialing. Volume and clarity is great, and no problems with speaker phone, the conversation is heard great on both ends. I am very satisfied with this phone. However there are two things I wish were alittle different. The battery life well is not satisfactory, never seems to stay charged for more than a day, I had a previous phone that stayed charged for 2-3 days atleast. Second is how thick this phone is, now maybe flip phones are normally this thick but I've seen slimmer ones and this one could slim down some. 88505 2004/3/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color options bulky Nextel's I95cl is a good phone however it is pricey. I have had mine for a year and a half. The only thing I wish were different is the thickness of the phone. This phone offers so many options to it. The internet is amazing on this phone. The games are a lot of fun and have great graphics. This phone is a small computer in itself. 88504 2000/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 capabilitiesquestions asked about the phoneservice look looks you get battery life cost The Bottom LineIf you don't need all the bells and whistles, buy the i60c, if you need portability, get this phone. For your own sake! Full Review Let me start out by retracting my previous statement of the i1000 Plus being the sexiest mobile phone on the planet. I stand corrected. Although the i90c was/is a great phone, it was quickly outshadowed by the unveiling of the i95cl. Ok, you can stop drooling for a minute, please. Once you get over the initial oohs and aahs of this phone, you gasp at the price. I have had mine since August, right after it came out and there are no major concerns or problems, yet. Aside from an occasional software upgrade, there really isn't too much maintnance to go along with this phone. Yeah, you only get about a day of stand-by and talk time on one charge, but if you are like me, you are on the run all the time, so while in the car: 'Plug it in, plug it in.' While the basic function of Motorola/Nextel phones remains the same, the 95 lets you decide a whole slue of options to make the phone better fit your lifestyle. They call it 'ergonomics' I call it re-organising. Anyway, The awesome look of the phone begins before you even open it. The nifty purplish-blue of the display on front lets you see more clearly than ever before and is actually quite bright. There have been a few times where the phone has doubled as a low beam flash light, rather than a phone. Once opened, you are amazed at the size of the 1.5" screen and the choice of backgrounds. Although it is hoped that 'Moto' will wise up and pop a small software upgrade that lets you upload your own pic to the phone... Hint, hint, hint. The ease of use and functionality is still there, but in a prettier package. If you use your Nextel phone to Text-message or write email with their MSN/AOL affiliations, you have much more space with which to both send and receive these messages. They have the ability to be pretty long, so purchase the keyboard; you'll love it. If not, I'll eat a bug. The phone is the flag-ship of Nextel's line and shouldn't be over looked. If you need a PDA, Phone, Pager, Memo Pad, Two-way Radio and an email account, don't pass this one up!!! Happy Talking, Chatting, Emailing, etc. ; ) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 88503 2003/3/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large color screen backlit buttons external caller id superb speakerphone button feedback could be improved recessed buttons hard to dial quickly slightly bulky The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a full-featured phone and money is no object, then get the i95cl. It's the creme de la creme of the business-class cell phone world. Full Review Okay, so this phone is a little pricey, but it's intended for business customers who demand the latest and greatest. The i95cl by Motorola is indeed the latest and greatest. The large color screen is easy to read and makes the display a pleasure to look at under most any lighting condition. Adding to the readability of the large color screen is the ability to zoom in or out. Zoom comes in one of three ways: Zoom, Standard, and Compressed. Zoom and Standard are ideal for situations where you can only look at your phone with quick glances--such as times when you're in a car or at a meeting--while compressed allows for much more text to fill the screen--such as when you're viewing a Web page. One of the features that could be changed is the recessed buttons, and the almost lack of feedback they provide. Unlike the i95cl's older relative, the i50sx--which had raised buttons and excellent feedback--the i95cl comes up a bit short. This is due to design regards, since the flip style of the phone forces the buttons to be flush with the surface. If anything, Motorola could have made the button feedback just a little more "clicky" so dialing can be done while walking down the sidewalk, rather than having to stop everything you're doing in order to place a call. One of the greatest assets to this phone is its speakerphone feature. If you're familiar with Nextel phones, then you already understand. However, the speakerphone on this model is unparalleled. Voice quality coming out of the speaker is outrageous! It shouts your caller's voice loud and proud. The microphone quality is top-notch, as I have asked many of my callers whether or not they knew I was on speakerphone. Their response? "It sounds like you're on a regular phone." Some even report it sounds like I'm on a land line. (Just depends on how strong of a signal you've got, of course.) External Caller ID provides all you need to know, including (from left to right) (1) signal strength indicator, (2) time, (3) date, (4) and battery meter. Additionally, if you're using an earpiece or speakerphone to place a call, you can use the external caller ID to scroll through the last 20 calls you've placed, and place the call with the cover closed. While we're on the subject, you can take calls with the cover closed, too--either by putting your caller on speaker, or using a hands free earpiece. While Motorola's menuing system has been improved, it is my personal opinion that it is not as user-friendly and intuitive as, say, the Nokia menu. This is to be expected, however, because this is not a consumer but a business-oriented phone, and therefore it contains many other features and settings that consumer models have no need for. The new menuing system allows you to customize not only the order of items on the main menus, but also lets you to create your own Shortcut section, allowing you to create shortcuts (imagine that)--similar to how you create a shortcut on your desktop--so that you may easily and quickly navigate to frequently used menu items that are sometimes deeply buried within other menus. One last comment is that, while this phone is light for as many things as it can do, it is slightly cumbersome in terms of thickness. This is due mostly to the great built-in speakerphone (gotta have room for a speaker, right?) This extra-thickness for a clamshell-style phone might make you think twice about putting it in your pocket. I know I did. Instead, you might opt to wear it on a belt clip of some kind, and for those of us new to the whole bely clip thing, it can feel pretty weird in the beginning. Rest assured, though, you'll get used to it in a couple weeks and actually enjoy the fact that you don't have to go digging through your pockets to get the phone, because it's conveniently sitting at your side. The belt clips that came with the phone (both the leather case and the regular belt clip) are solid in design, and will not fall apart. BOTTOM LINE: I think this is a great phone. The i95cl and the accessories that came with it are solid & sturdy, built to last, has all the features you could ask for (well, almost!), and surprisingly stylish, too, for a business phone. You can probably find a great deal on this phone, too, so don't let the price scare you. I paid $299 with a $50 mail-in rebate and I'd say this phone's worth the money even if I didn't have a rebate coming back to me. I think you'll be happy with your purchase, but your mileage may vary. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 88502 2003/10/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great coverage amazing features nice color screen good battery life sturdy no graphical web browsing nextel will nickledime you it s pretty large The Bottom LineI really like this phone, not only for the great coverage and features, but because it's fun to play with, too. If you don't mind the size, I recommend it. Full Review What do you want from your phone? I'm a bit of a gadget geek, so I wanted it all. I wanted text messaging, a large color screen, web access, AOL AIM access, Java-based games, you name it. So, I was willing to shell out the big bucks when it came to getting a phone. I got the i95cl about a year ago, and I've been very satisfied with the phone's performance. I'm not as satisfied with Nextel, though, who you have to get service from to get this phone. All the features you could ever want are there, but you're going to pay for them. Web access costs money, text messaging costs money, caller ID costs money... they nickle and dime you for all the features on their network. They have package deals, which is what I use, where it's $15 a month for all their internet access features, which makes it reasonably affordable, but if you're looking for a cheap phone and a cheap monthly bill, you won't get it with this phone, and with Nextel. Now, back to the phone. Here are the pros: - Pretty good battery life (I charge every 2 to 3 days). - Very sturdy design, unlike several phones I've owned before. The antenna is tough, and so is the case. Dropping it won't break it. - Loud and clear sound, and a built in speakerphone. - Color screen, which is nice for looking at web sites, or playing the Java games... which leads us to... - Built in Java engine which allows you to download applications from Nextel right onto the phone. Games, business applications, notepads, there are lots of fun java tools to play with. Some are free, and some you have to pay for. - Nextel Direct Connect, which you can only use to talk to other Nextel customers, but the phone functions as a walkie-talkie, and it's very convenient. - Internet access, allowing you to text message, instant message, receive emails, and browse the web (text only). - Voice activated dialing, which is convenient. - Amazing coverage. I have service inside buildings when no one else does. The antenna picks up signals well, and Nextel has great coverage. This is all well and good, you say, but what are the drawbacks? There are a few cons to this phone: - Size. Man, is this a big phone. I have a holster on my belt, it really isn't "pocket sized". To get a nice big screen, and durability, you have to sacrifice size. - Cost. As I said before, the phone is expensive, and so are all the cool little extras. You probably will be paying $50/mo for this phone. - Web access is text only, which is unfortunate, as some new phones are entering the market with real graphical web browsing. So, like I said at the beginning of this review, what do you want from your phone? For business applications, this phone is fantastic. And for personal use, if you're willing to pay for it, this phone has it all. It's a little big, and a little costy, but I've been in love with it for a year now, and I don't think I'll be trading phones any time soon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88501 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color big screen for flip phone very cool features drains your wallet but would you expect it too be cheap The Bottom LineA definite must for any professional or individual looking for the innovative edge on their customers and colleagues, or if you are looking for a feature packed phone. Full Review Wow, what a phone! When you get your i95 box, there is color all over it ... for good reason. It is the first color phone produced and distributed for the Nextel iDen network. While the phone carries a hefty price tag (retail price of $499.99), you can pick it up for around $400 if you are just activating a phone. BUT IT'S JUST A PHONE! (you might think or say anyways) OH BOY! I thought the i90c was nice. The phone is silver in color and is for all practical purposes the same size as the i90c. It is a little more than .5 oz heavier, but I think you could sacrifice that small amount of weight for a screen with color. TELL ME ABOUT THE FEATURES !!!! # 1 - You guessed it COLOR!!! The screen is 1.9 inches and is setup as a 256 color LCD screen. It is really quite nice looking. It allows for either 6, 8, or 10 line of text depending on what setting you have it on. # 2 - Wallpaper - yes ... wallpaper ... no sticky mess, but the phone is loaded with three different screen "backgrounds", known in the computer world as wallpaper. There is an American flag ... a summer scene of a beach ... and a winter scene of skiing. My guess is, it is only a matter of time before they might come out with a software upgrade to the phone which would allow you to upload a picture to use as your wallpaper. This is really very cool. # 3 - Games & Applications - this phone (like the i90c) is Java enabled so it can handled certain applications. It comes installed with a calculator, a Tyger Woods golf demo, MotoGP (a motorcycle race game) demo, and a few others. To purchase the Tyger Woods golf is $6.99 if you like it. It is not bad to play. Certainly can help you kill time if you are in the process of being stood up for a meeting or waiting for class to start. There is 8mb of space for the java apps! # 4 - Voice activated dialing - like I said with the i90, this is a pretty nice feature. The times I have used it, I have not had a problem getting the voice to recognize ... no, not even once. All you have to do is hold down one button and then say the name you programmed and release the button and it dials the number for you (in the case of a phone call), or brings up the member id (in the case of a Direct Connect walkie-talkie call). # 5 - Vibrate/Speakerphone - these are two standard options on just about any professional phone these days. Allowing you to use the phone without having to have it up to your ear and also enabling you to have the phone silently alert you that someone is calling by vibrating. Two very handy features to have. # 6 - Phonebook - 250 entries to put lots of contacts in your phonebook. Up to 7 entries per person and several "types" of numbers to choose from (main, mobile, private, fax, home, etc). # 7 - Datebook - this is a quite a handy feature. It enables you to put events in throughout the day to keep track of your schedule. You can enter the start and stop time of the event ... put a description in of the event ... make it a weekly recurring event ... and then have the phone notify you at a set time before the event starts. Really handy to have on your phone. # 8 - Voice notes - the i95cl has 5 minutes worth of voice notes which you can leave on the phone. This will let you record notes down, such as a to do list, measurements, or other information so you can have it on hand later and do not have to stop what you are doing to find a pen and paper. # 9 - Downloadable ring tones - tired of hearing a phone ringing and wondering whether it was yours or the guys next to you. Now you can choose from several songs, tv themes, movie themes, and others for when your phone receives a call. # 10 - Browser/Net - this phone, as with all the newer Nextel phones is internet capable. This phone will just look better when you are navigating the web while using your phone. You will be able to retrieve email, send email, check weather, get directions, shop, look up movie times, look up yellow pages, and much, much more. You can even bid on eBay if you want (just regular bid ... haven't figure out how to use the Buy It Now yet). There are tons more features on this phone: keypad lock (very easy to use), customizable main menu order, multi-language, 3-way calling, call list of last 20 sent/received, auto answer after second ring, etc. There is a "smart button" on top of the phone which gives you a lot of options ... such as access to the recent call list, placing various calls through the speakerphone, answering and ending calls coming in, sending them to voice mail, and also clearing the display, all of these features with one button and without opening the flip. The phone comes in the box with a manual, quickstart guide, cdrom, holster which swivel (phone sits facing in so you do not scratch up the front), and a home charger. The SIM card is included in the box too, which holds your information (phone number, phonebook). The approximate standby time for the battery is 75 hours and the talk time is 200 minutes. The battery is a Lithium Ion so you do not have to worry about battery "memory" problems. This phone is very slick and will wow everyone you come into contact with. It is loaded with features as seems very solid. You are able to use the iBoard keyboard with it so that you can type into the phone. This is especially handy when using the phone to read through and respond to emails. Also if you need to make changes to the phone lists. If you can afford it, this phone is well worth it. It is just in the start of the color wave. Well, thanks for reading and as always, have a great day! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 88500 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 largest color screen speaker phone direct connect easy to navigate customizable menus slightly larger than other flips hard to see in daylight tiny voice dialing button The Bottom LineE-mail, Speaker phone, Direct Connect, internet access, Huge color screen (1.5"x 1.25"), AOL AIM, cool silver & Blue case and custom menus. Buy this phone. Full Review As Nextel owners for the past 6 years with our i1000s getting worn and tired it was time to look for new technology but we didn't want to spend $399 apiece for the i95cl when there were other phones out there for much less. For 11 days I tired the LG LX5350 see review on LG LX5350) offered by Sprint because of the annual savings of $720 over 12 months but decided to plunk down $800 for two of the i95cl. We love direct connect and the Nextel speaker phones beat all others hands down, these are too good to not have. While my checkbook is $800 lighter the phone on my hip is the coolest out there. Features: Largest color screen on the market, direct connect (allows you immediate contact with any other Nextel subscriber in your area via digital 2-way radio feature), Best speaker phone I've tested. Great clarity in a busy convention hall or sitting on the dash in my car, you dont even have to have the phone open to use the speaker phone feature. Internet? With JAVA and micro-browser you can access almost any website in full color and its fast too. If you are tied to your office Nextel has an overlay program for your desktop PC that ties into Microsoft Exchange server to provide updated corporate e-mail similar to the functionality of the Blackberry (crackberry) my wife has. This phone is great for sending and receiving e-mails, has an internal phonebook for 250 contacts and if you tie into Outlook you can access up to 2000 more. The internal phonebook has space for 10 different numbers for the 250 entries so you shouldnt have any problem with space. Contacts and personal information are stored on a SIM card in the phone that you can take out to lock it or transfer to another phone. If you need more space for downloaded games and JAVA applications larger capacity SIM cards will be available soon. Usefulness: Nextel changed the way you access direct connect on this model and its actually a pain until you figure out the shortcut but once you do its like old times and seems to connect with less frequent "user in data" or "user not available" errors. While the phone is a little thicker than the LG LX5350 (.25") and weighs 5 ounces versus the 4 from Sprint you can tell why when it sits in yor hand. This is a rugged flip-phone with solid features and custom display options. Yes you can download games and ringtones but this is a phone for the professional on the go and Nextel hit the mark with this one. Battery Life: I've read some other reviews elsewhere (www.phonescoop.com)that have indicated a fast discharge but that hasn't been my experience or my wifes and we each have our phones on 12-14 hours. While she talks on it more than I do I'm constantly on the internet which activates the large backlit LCD and I haven't died yet. If you are concerned about battery life purchase an additional battery as a backup or get the high capacity one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.00 88499 2004/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple easy to use great features very durable rather bigbulky compared to other phones on the market The Bottom LineThis phone is recommended to anyone who is looking to get a nice Nextel phone and spend a small amount of money. Full Review With the FCC now allowing you to keep your previous cellular number, and switch to any provider you wish, I took this opportunity to get rid of my AT&T service of 4 years. I was and still am skeptical about leaving AT&T. And although im not sure if I made the right decision by switching service carriers, the one thing that I know I did right is pick the I95CL as my phone. The I95CL with the cover closed looks very simple, professional, and somewhat bulky. It looks like an "I-Mean-Business" phone with a touch of class. The blue reflective plastic with the chrome Motorola emblems and outlines enhance the look of the phone while keeping it very subtle. Once held, one would realize how solid of a phone it actually is, the phone has a strong feel to it, and even the flip opens and closes with minimal play and flimsiness. One thing I like about this phone is the fact that you can do a few things with the cover closed, using the Nextel's 2-way direct connect feature is a given, but there are numerous other things you could do without even opening the phone. You can call people on speaker-phone by simply scrolling through your recent call list [stop button][scroll buttons] and then make the call by pressing the [speaker button], when calling a person, you can adjust the volume of the speaker by pressing the [scroll buttons]. Small simple features such as this make this phone very easy and user friendly to use, I find this specific feature useful when driving. Once the flip phone is opened, it does not look so subtle anymore. A large color 256color screen is revealed that rivals some older computer monitors in quality, and when dark, the automatic light sensor on the keypad will illuminate the keypad in a nice, bright, eye pleasing aqua-blue color. Note that during the daytime such as in direct sunlight, the keypad will not light, as the phone features a sensor to detect darkness, this is another great option that while very small, helps in things such as saving battery, hence improving battery life. The Motorola interface is pretty easy to navigate, although I found that it is more complicated and not as user-friendly as Nokia phones, I think it comes close, you can even customize the initial menu to display features you most commonly use, this is one thing that I do not use, but I realize how great of a feature this is for some people, if you want, you can have all games displayed in the initial menu, it would be foolish for some, but who knows- maybe there are some people who sit around and play games on their phone all day. Volume is easily adjusted on demand by the scroll buttons on the side of the phone, when on a call, the scroll buttons will adjust the speaker volume (voice), when on a direct connect, it will adjust the direct connect volume, when cover is closed and there is no connection made, it adjust the ringtone volume, etc. etc. Despite all these features it is still a very solid and durable phone and can withstand a small beating. Many flip phones are easily hurt or broken when dropped due to the fragile flip mechanism, but the I95CL (along with the other Nextel flip phones like the I60 and I90) can truly be considered tough. I have dropped my I95CL many, many times during the small duration of owning it and it still looks and works just as good as the day I bought it (minus the scratches on the cover). Although im not sure if im happy with Nextel, I can sure say that im happy with my I95CL, and that for the price I paid for it, I could not justify paying nearly $400 for the I730 which seems to only be marginally better and has a smaller screen. If you have an older Nextel phone, and are looking to upgrade, I strong suggest that you look into an I95CL, you can find one for a good price now that Nextel is releasing a new line of color phones. On a final note, I see many fancy covers for sale to replace the factory cover, but beware, these covers are not as high quality as the factory one and breaks very easily, buyer beware! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88498 2000/10/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 as advanced a phone as you will find a ton of different features mediocre battery life expensive The Bottom LineFor the amount they charge, I would expect the i95cl to do my laundry, change my oil, and delivery me to work. A great phone, but not at this cost. Full Review How much is too much when it comes to a cell phone? Well, it depends what you are discussing. I would usually say that $400 is way to much to pay for any phone and, well, this is no exception despite the i95cl being a wonderful phone. I recently wrote about the Ericsson "next generation" cell phone and since my wonderful girlfriend just purchased a similar phone- the Nextel/Motorola i95cl- I thought it made sense to write a review on her choice. The thought being that both phones aim to do the same things; boggle the mind with features. THE FEATURES: * A 1.9 inch color screen that displays up to 10 lines of text. The screen can also be set up with "wallpaper" to make the background more attractive. * A plethora of dialing features that include voice activated. The feature works by simply holding down a pre- programmed button and saying the name you programmed. My feeling is that this is an option that will continue to grow and become more and more a part of our daily lives (I am waiting for the day when voice activated typing allows us to put together epinions without typing). * The i95cl contains a number of features that you would find in a PDA. The calendar and phonebook functions are easy to use and a must in this day and age. The phonebook allows you to input up to 250 names and numbers. The calendar function operates much like the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. For many, this is a huge bonus as so many people use Outlook and are familiar with how it works. * The phone is very internet capable. The i95cl allows you to perform a number of functions that are connected to the internet. For one, you can download different ring tones- movie or TV themes or your favorite songs. You also have the ability to play games since the phone is Java enabled. Though the games are somewhat limited, we are talking much more advanced than the days of Pong. Finally, you are able to browse the net with the i95cl. You are able to send/receive email, check weather, get directions, shop, check sports scores, etc. The speed is not exactly T1, but it is not bad at all. Of the internet enabled phones I have spent any amount of time with, the i95cl is probably the best. * The phone has a "Smart Button" that literally puts everything at the touch of your finger. While a lot of phone manufacturers have tried to get the one touch thing down and failed (think the fly wheel design on Motorola phones), the i95cl gets it right. The button provides access to recently called lists, speaker phone, voice mail, and call forwarding. A nice feature that is very easy to use. I will be the first to admit that the features on the i95cl are simply amazing. The phone is loaded and quite a head- turner. So, what is missing? Why am I destined to rate it as an average phone at best? First of all, the battery is listed as 75 hours while on standby and 200 talk minutes. I do not know about you, but to me these numbers should be a lot higher for a $400 phone. Now I understand that the battery is greatly limited because of the battery manufacturer, rather than the phone manufacturer. However, I still feel that if I am paying that kind of money that I should get a top of the line battery. I am also not a fan of the contract that you are tied into by Nextel. Now the contract I am talking about lowers(!!!) the cost of this phone to $400. Yes, the original price is $500. The contract requires new activation and a one year service agreement. In addition, there is a $200 early termination fee and a $35 fee to set up the account. Call me crazy (and it happens all the time), but Nextel has done a wonderful job of tying the consumer into the phone and the plan. The thing that amazes me is that they add the extra fees in order to increase profits (No kidding!!) and that charging $500 for the phone does not allow them to make the margins that they need and want. Which leads me to the final problem I have with the i95cl. I just cannot justify spending $400 on a cell phone. Sorry, but I cannot do it. Not now and especially with the prices of these things falling every day. Add in the fact that the Ericsson phone I wrote about a week ago costs $150 (Not a perfect phone, but a much better deal) and the $400 serves to boggle my mind. I love the phone and all of the options, but I cannot recommend it to anyone at these prices. Wait a while and watch the price fall- as happens with all technology innovations. And yes, the wonderful girlfriend and I will be having a discussion on ridiculous spending habits. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400 7751 Nexel i730 88539 2004/4/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice size weight beautiful screen none that i can find I really like this phone, I've been with Nextel for a long time and have had an i700,i1000,i55,i90,i95 and now this i730 - my point is these phones just keep getting better. This phone has everything I want in a phone - bright color display (smaller than the i90 but much nicer) and GPS. But, the universal complaint seems to be battery life - until now - Motorola has finally released the battery door so you can use the slightly thicker, high capacity 1350 mAhr battery - this door is hard to find, but available, I got mine right from Motorola - part number NNTN5404A - cool huh?? Good luck and enjoy!! 88538 2006/10/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 has mortgage calculator built in unlimited free incoming calls nextel reception no notes awful battery life This is the worst battery life i've seen on a mobile phone in my life. If i miss ONE day of charging it's dead the next day, this was with a brand new battery too.... i use a verizon phone at work that can go about 5 days without a charge. This one does have a mortgage calculator built in, which is kinda cool. But then again, it does not have a "snooze" feature for the alarm. Nor does it have an easy way to store information on your contacts, such as address, website, notes, etc. Oh, yeah, you can store ONE "memo"... Gee, thanks Nextel. For the price i paid a year ago for this phone ($150) i feel truly underwhelmed. I was better off with the FREE phone i got when i was with cingular! Stay away from this phone. Cheers! Dan Rock 88537 2004/7/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great design ton of hi tech features great color display ok batery life little too big small screen The i 730 is a great new phone with a 64k color display. it is one of the most advanced color displays on the market. It is one of nextels new phones, and takes the place of the i95. Dont worry, you can still buy the i95 from boost mobile. The i 730 is loaded with cool features such as airplane mode. When you fly on an airplane, you are required to turn of you cell phone. Nextel's solution is airplane mode with disconnects you from the service, yet you can still access all the features. 88536 2004/8/15 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 another solid body phone by nextel with a brilliant color display horrible battery life requires charging every single day I have found over the last few months that the i730 is a VERY user friendly phone that is extremely customizable. You can make any button access a specific feature which can be a big help if you are not happy with the factory presets. The clarity of my calls has increased greatly since my upgrade to this phone. It is very durable - like all nextel phones - and will certainly stand the test of time. 88535 2004/5/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice small little phone need more battery life battery usage is not on part this is a pretty nice cell phone.. everything seems as it said.. except for the software part... it need better java software... so consumers like us can take advantage of the GPS and recording .. etc... battery life is a bit short.. wish there is a better battery out there... and it would be nice to have a longer antenna... 88534 2004/6/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to read screen good reception navigation good bat life assignable ringtones no camera function This flip phone has much improved reception and way less dropped calls than the i90. Was unable to use the i90 and had to downgrade to the i85. When I lost the i85 I tried the improved i730 Nextel offered. Nextel said they had improved the reception quality through software upgrades. Apparently this is true. Screen is way easier to read. Program easy ring tones, easy navigation. Way better than any other phone I have used from Nextel. 88533 2005/2/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 walkie talkie ease of use looks batery life great phone easy to use battery life sucks. walkie talkie works great. I have dropped it several times with body glove on it and it has never faltered. 88532 2005/5/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 visually appealing powerful color screen poor reception screen turns white pricey for what it is I purchased this phone a week before the i830 came out, and I have to say I thought the i830 was the ugliest phone in the world compared to my i730. The i730 has many useful features such as Java Apps, GPS (subscription required), customizable ringtones, wallpapers, color screen etc. The only issues that I have had with this phone is sometimes when you open the flip, the screen stays white for about 5 seconds before displaying anything; also the signal reception is poor compared to my previous Nextel phone, the i90 which had excellent reception. 88531 2006/4/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to use menus color display nextel service has been poor in 06 heavy small screen I have had this phone for 2 years and I couldn't wait to replace it. The phone large and bulky and the display is small compared to the rest of the phone. Nextel's service has gone done the toilet in the past 3 months, more drops calls, several loss of service and expensive plans. I am sure that this is Sprint's plan to phase out Nextel. After over 8 years of Nextel service, I am making a switch to a new carrier. 88530 2006/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 color disco light when ringing voice recorder expensive slow big The Motorola i730 has not met my standards. It never has service. Compared to the i95cl which was the first color phone, the i730 isn't much better in my opinion. My phone has collected so much dust in the screen just from being in my pocket everyday. I can almost not see my screen. 88529 2005/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 you can download mp3 ringtones it has web access it s a flip phone it breaks its gets worse reception than most other nnextel phones it has web access you can download mp3 ringtones I have witnessed more problems with the i730 phone in my experience working for Nextel, that i wouldn't recomend purchasing this particular model. its gets worse reception than most other nNextel phones 88528 2005/6/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice looking phone bad reception horrable customer care software issues I purchased a Nextel i730 in June just a couple of months ago. Nextel has replaced my phone 5 times from June. It started out in June when i bought it and than it would randomly shut off. Nextel replaced it with a new one and the next 3 did the same. Than they told me it was a software issue and it was to be fixed now so i got the new one and it still does the same thing. Now im on my 5th phone and this one ive had for 2 days and it dosent shut off but it dosent ever get service. Im goin to take something up agenced nextel becoase of there Poor Customer Service and care. They have failed to Please the customer. If your are thinking of buying a i730 dont buy it becoase of software issues and poor construction, bad reception and horrable customer care. 88527 2005/6/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 you get to go to the nextel store every four months to get it fix speaker keeps falling off phone is to hot numbers keep falling off I have never been so disappointed in a phone in my life. Every time I use my phone I come off it with numbers stuck to my face..The phone gets so hot the glue that holds the numbers down melts. I have had it repair three times in one year and for the price I paid for it the quality was not there. When calling Motorola I got no help. Nextel should look for a company with quality phones. 88526 2005/2/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 provider service is good ptt is great not reliable needs more ringer choices I have had (4) different i730's now in 6 months, it hangs up on its own. I took it back and they updated the software. It got worse, took it back, got another. It was OK, then the same ! I took it back and the last one is OK (for now). I have had a couple problems, but nothing too bad. If you get this phone, get insurance too ! I think Nextel needs to find a new company for there phones. I turn it off every now and then just to re-set it, so it will dial out. I had another cell phone and it was much better, but no direct connect. That is very nice as my wife has one thru work. If she ever if she ever lost the service thru work, mine will be gone too ! Battery life is fair, size is good if you have big hands. I hate the compact phones selling now. 88525 2004/2/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to navigate clear speakerphone loud bright screen classy looking sturdy small screen good gps functions require additional fee battery cover squirms when keys pressed The i730 is a great phone. It's a little larger than some flip-phones, and the inside screen is a little smaller than most, but its features more than make up for it. 88524 2005/6/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good looks design unsupportive customer service very poor reception It is four years since I am using nextel and thought of upgrading from my old i1000 handsets to i730. Phone has a lot of cool features like voice recording, java applications, however found hard to get good reception in bay area. Nextel customer service simply to refuse to accept this. Never had problems with old i1000. 88523 2000/3/29 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 not sure it will be a waste of timemoney if you are upgrading from i90 The Bottom LineI might have been unlucky of having two out of the box phones going bad on me even before activating them Full Review I intended to replace both mine and my wife's aging i90c phones with i730. Purchasing and delivery was OK directly from Nextel but then the fun began. First impression: Cheap looking flimsy construction. Battery cover thin sheet of Al, difficult to open and close, data/charger socket covered with a rubber piece which is difficult to open and gets on the way of the plug. Very annoying... Initial Setup: This is where it start getting awkward. I charged both phones overnight and unplugged both of them next morning. They were both fully charged. During the charge, they display "Device Attached" sign. When it was first turned on, searched for the service but since they were not activated, couldn't find the service but dismissing the tab shaped logo covering entire display took some effort to figure out to be able to change settings etc. One of the phones completely drained in less than six hours with no use what so ever. I plugged in to recharge but phone starting it's funky light dance and finally after several plug/unplugs recognized the charger. Called the tech support, they said it was faulty. In order to get the replacement, I had to be charged for the replacement, call the finance office of Nextel to dispute the charge once I send in the non-working one. Otherwise it takes two months credit to be given back to my account. That's more than annoying!!! Then next day, when I was ready to activate my wife's phone (once she came back from out of town), I discovered that that phone went crazy as well. Dancing lights and turnig on/off by itself and finally "Incompatible device" sign for the charger. That was it for me. I decided to return both and be over with it. It is going to be a painful experience to sort out billing problems I fear. Overall, i730 fells like, looks like and acts like a cheap version of i90c with color screen and shinny skin! I pass.... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88522 2004/1/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 sturdy gps enabled color screen bulky in size weight expensive for what you actually get The Bottom LineRock solid business phone, not really aimed at consumer market. Full Review I had the i90c for two years and it kept dying on me (Incompatible Charger error messages). After 5 trips to the shop and many replacement phones and chargers, I finally screamed to Nextel (very loudly BTW) and got the new i730c at a discounted price ($100) rather than the list of $299. At 3.6''x 2''x 1.1'' and 5.1 oz, the i730 is much like the rest of the Motorolla phones in terms of not being as slim and lightweight as many of the other slim and flip phones on the market. When you clip this on your hip you can definately feel the weight of it as you walk. WHATS NEW: Whats new in the i730 is a 65K color screen (which is also larger than in previous Motorolla models). Once you have color you'll never go back to the B&W screen. There are more Java apps on this phone, but sadly they all require a fee to use from Nextel. The i730 is now GPS enabled. As far as I could see, the only benefit this has (without incurring more fees) is that you can send your GPS location to authorities in case of emergency. There is a Java application called TeleNav that uses the GPS and is pretty neat. It's just like the NeverLost systems in Hertz rental cars where you put in your destination address and it reads the satellites to give you turn by turn directions on the fly. TeleNav is also voice enabled (it will read the directions and turns aloud as you drive). However, the TeleNav services costs $7/month, as well as another $10/month to Nextel to enable an IP address for it to work. If you have a business need for this service it's well worth the extra $$, but I can't imagine many end users paying extra for it. Also new in the i730 is "Airplane Mode". This shuts down the phones ability to send and recieve data. By shutting down the transmit capabilities on the phone you don't have the alleged risk of your phone interfering with the planes equipment. You can still use local applications on the phone like games while in Airplane Mode, but your phone won't communicate with any other devices. The i730 is the first phone on the market with this feature so don't expect the flight attendants to understand this concept right away. I squared off with a Flight Attendant on a recent flight when she asked me to turn it off. I explained to her about the Airplane Mode and she was in awe. She took my phone and showed it to the pilots and flight crew! But I still had to shut it off to make her happy! WHATS THE SAME: The i730 has all the standard things that most/all Motorolla phones for Nextel has including: *Walkie Talkie/Direct Connect *Speaker Phone (new in the i730 is a separate speaker in the back of the phone rather than using the ear speaker in earlier models) *Ring Tones *Vibrate *Datebook *contact list (600 names) *wallpapers (4 included, many more available for a fee) *java applications *voice activated dialing *voice notes *Full wireless web compatibility *Voice mail *call waiting *caller ID *text messaging *multiple profiles for different settings (office, outdoors, etc..) Similar to the earlier Motorolla phones, the i730 has full wireless web which gets you hotmail, news sites, stock/financial brokerage sites, etc.. There are quite a few sites pre programmed in the menus for you, although I didnt see any new sites than were available with my old model. IN SUMMARY: The i730 (in typical fashion of most Motorolla phones) is not loaded with every latest gizmo (blue tooth, digital camera, etc.) but it's a very sturdy, durable unit that is best suited for business users rather than personal consumers. I personally don't think it's worth paying the high cost as an upgrade from an i90c or i88. Outside of the GPS and color screen there is nothing really in the i730 that can be used on a day to day basis over the existing Motorolla phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $499Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88521 2000/10/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone for phone calls headset enabled durable easily personalized not many physical personalize options face plates voicemail rings 3 only slow on off time antennas etc The Bottom LineAfter using other phones, I highly recommend this phone, for its easy use, good reception, and general overall performance. Full Review In short, I love my phone. I am biased. It offers many, many options. Working from the outside going in... I love that I don't have to open my phone to take a call or not take a call. I can just switch it onto speaker phone. Very clear, and readable outside display screen. The disco lights that turn on when my phone rings helps when I am in a loud setting. Fits well in hand but also has nice belt clip that doesn't come lose. Stylish casing, however, scratches kind of easily. For the most part it is VERY durable however. All the scratches are probably because I drop it all the time. Opening it up! The color display screen is very easily readable and able to be personalized with different wallpapers(for a small fee though of course).I don't like, however, that the screen light doesn't remain on when the phone is opened. You have to press a button to get it to come back on after a certain amount of time. Screen, hinges, and upper portion can get dirty easily(especially if you wear make-up like me). I like that you can personalize the keypad meaning if you press one button a menu will pop up, if you press another, another will come on..so on and so forth. And you can determine which menu you want(or don't want) to show up. Keys are for the most part level with the flat face which helps prevent damage. Keys are not rubber so they will not crumble off. Barely need to touch the button in order for it to work. It does take a long time to turn on and off however. Game enabled, GPS enabled, Net access(for additional fee again), voicemail, etc. I don't like however that you cannot change how many rings until your voicemail picks up(it is three(or at least I have not been able to figure out how to change it)). My battery lasts forever, talking or just on stand by. If I don't use it, I can usually go three to four days without charging it. If I use it, obviously depending how much, it will usually last 2 to three days. However, I do charge mine regularly. The i730 gets a better reception than some of the other phones. My sister has an i530 and sometimes I can get a reception when hers does not. However, Nextel's overall coverage area is still in a growing process as it sometimes does not work in areas you would expect it too(known areas of "spottiness" are in SE Wisconsin and upper lower peninsula of Michigan) however, does work in areas that most other companies do not. However, after reviewing several other companies, Nextel worked in more areas than any other company. Also, if you are a computer person, this phone interferes with computer audio and sometimes the monitor when on a call. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88520 2000/5/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent durability clear screen display niceloud ring tonescall volume price antenna signal strength battery life when text messages talking The Bottom LineThe i730 is a good business related phone and now they have e-mail and text, but the signal strength & battery life hold them back from shining through. Full Review I recently purchased the i730 from a friend brand new. I've been waiting for this phone for the longest, since I already own an i30, i90, i205, and i95. Since I've received this phone I have been using it ever since. It has a few downsides to it, but the Nextel service itself compensates for it. Let me explain... The bad side about the phone is the battery life. I do a lot of text messaging, & talking so I know that its a heavy drain on the battery, but I didn't think it would go so quickly. My monthly bill shows I do around 850 text messages, and 4300 minutes incoming and outgoing. I find myself putting the phone on the charger every night or even before night falls to prevent my battery from going dead. Talking on the phone doesn't seem to drain the battery as much, but the text messaging does. The stand-by time is great I can leave the phone untouched for around 3.5 - 4 days without have to recharge. The antenna on the phone seems to be badly made, its all bent out of place (but still holding together). Sometimes it seems that I have to purposely raise my antenna to get 2 bars on my signal, but then it's some times where if I drop my antenna i get a better signal that raising it. The durability of Nextel phones is unbelievable in my experience. I move around a lot and they seem to hold together. My i730 has been through it all from bouncing down a long set of concrete steps to being thrown at myself by an upset girlfriend and still functions without any problems. Here is something Nextel could work on though, is the speaker phone. Sometimes it seems as if the speakerphone doesn't work. I get calls that seem to fade in and out when the speakerphone is on, but when I turn it off it works flawlessly. Apart from that the phone is great, just those minor things needs to be worked on in my opinion Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 135Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88519 2000/7/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ultimately versatile customizable chock full of power features learning curve may be more to manage set up than some users care for pricey The Bottom LineBusy executives, entrepreneurs and small-biz big timers: buy it. Teens, technophobes: try something less complex. Full Review I recently switched to my i730 (and Nextel) from a Nokia (Cingular), after previously leaving Sprint (Samsung phone). I have to say this is the best cell phone I've ever used, hands down. Without reciting the litany of features (too many to go through them all), I'm glad to have settled on a phone that has all the capabilities I need today, with room to grow. The basics: clarity and reception is excellent. Easy to program, once you take a little time to get acquainted with the phone's menus (there are so many features, each of which can be tweaked to your preferences, that it can be a little overwhelming at first). Menus can be re-ordered and viewed in list or icon form. The phone is easy to operate. An external display gives you a heads-up with caller id and basic functions (signal strength, battery life). Flipping it open puts you in the driver's seat. Favorite feature: speakerphone. Like many others, this phone comes internet-ready, GPS enabled (but controllable, to your privacy preferences), and ring-tone/wallpapers are only a download away. There's the obligatory PIM/calendar/memo/reminder options, and voice-recording/voice dialing for those who like it. What's the room to grow? Since the phone OS is java-based, you can download java apps (games, business tools, handy programs) and turn the phone into a cellular power-tool. Direct-connect feature is definitely business-user oriented (walkie-talkie to one person, or a whole group - and you can create and manage multiple groups). Add a second phone line if you like; the phone's call-forwarding and voicemail options allow you to selectively answer, forward, or send to voicemail incoming calls in so many permutations I can't begin to catalog them all. The price of the phone alone ($150 w/2 year contract) can be prohibitive for some (I managed to find a local dealer who was able to sell me one for half that), but based on the phone's flexibility alone it was well worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88518 2000/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 vibrate feature speaker phone front screen phone can be complicated at times disco lights only work with pre installed ringtones The Bottom Linean excellent phone with great features, can be complicated at times but all in all a great investment Full Review This is my third phone, inharited from my father after my mothers phone died (i gave up my awsome nextel i710) for the improved version, the Nextel i730!!! again like my last phone i recieved it with minor scratches to the case but again in great working condition. Body and Durability: When i first recieved this phone i said "sweet!!!" i love this phone because of its small size and its small screen in the front which displays time, date, signal strength, and whos calling you. when i first picked up the phone i was pretty impressed with how it felt, the phone feels extremly durable. the back panel is made of some type of metal and feels as if it can be dropped off the Empire State and survive (do not attempt) the front is made of plastic with a coat of silver paint. after about a year and a half of use the paint has chipped off in areas where the phone clip rubs which isn't that big of a deal to me but if it is to you than i'd suggest investing in a nice case for it. when you open the phone you notice the bright backlit screen and welcoming blue glow of the keypad. the buttons feel pretty sturdy to me, but not exactly forfilling, its kind of like typing on a laptop keyboard for the first time, they feel somewhat shallow but they work and thats whats important. this phone has been in use for probably 3 years now and every button, light, bell, and whistle works like the day it was made. If your a person looking for a phone on just how the case looks, nextel features "disco lights" which is a little ring around the silver motorola grille that flash a varity of colors when there is a phone call. the only drawback that i have found is that it only works with the ringtones that have already been installed. Its whats inside that counts: The phone is pretty user friendly. Im a pretty adaptable and up to date kinda guy and found no trouble figuring anything out, adding contacts is a breeze, changing ring tones or backgrounds can be done without even thinking about it after youve done it once. when i first pressed the menu button i noticed about eight icons staring back at me. im not a fan of the icon style so i switched it over to a list style which can show more in less space. everythings laid out pretty simple i myself found the icons somewhat annoying searching for "java apps" for example but thats just me. the phone came with a couple of demo games, a gps feature, a navigation feature, a calculator and a couple of other nifty programs, the game demos are good to pass the time every once in a while, my old phone had tetris deluxe installed and was great for passing time. One thing i noticed with this phone was the profiles, which is a pretty cool feature, there are several profiles which change the text size, letterbox color, call filters, volume, wallpaper, ringtones, and notifications. example profiles are: driving(big letters, easy to see), office(vibrate is turned on), meeting(vibe. on, big text size), outdoors( high volume), headset, private only, and finally contacts only, you can set them to automaticly change in the calender. One feature that i love is the calender. you can set it to show days, weeks, or months. it sometimes takes a while to key in what you need to put in for a reminder but it has some pretty nice features. i can set a location, set a start time, set a duration, when to repeat, a reminder and even change the profile. This phone even has call forwarding. Ive never used it, and i have no plans on using, it. but if your looking for a phone with it, the 730 has it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 5.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88517 2000/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very bright clear display sturdy design free gps compass i have had problems with devices that attach to the charge data port The Bottom LineI liked this phone so much, now my wife has one. Full Review I have had my i730 for about three months now and am very happy with it. This is the first flip style phone that I have used and the design is solid enough for me. I have dropped my i730 several times from several feet high onto concrete (by accident of course) and the phone has not shown any signs of degradation except for a few minor scratches on the case. I work in a environment that is sometimes hot and steamy and sometimes cold and damp (a beer cooler). I keep the i730 in my jeans pocket and have not had any problems with its performance; in fact, I was surprised that it did not lose the signal in the cooler. All of my previous cell phones lost the signal in the cooler. Even though I do not travel much, I really like the free basic GPS compass. At first it was a hassle to pick up any satellites at all but after the software was upgraded, it found them with little problem. I was also able to easily connect the i730 to MS Streets on my laptop. I have not any problems with any features on the phone except the data/charging port. I have a desktop charger and find it difficult to connect the i730 to it. The dust cover on the data/charger port gets in the way. It is nice that Motorola added a dust cover but I seem to get more "pocket fuzz" trapped inside the connector then when I did with a phone that did not have a dust cover. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88516 2004/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen speaker phone great reception sturdy holster loud rings cannot fit in pocket text messaging is inferior to other carriers bulky antenna battery life The Bottom LineFor Nextel's service - this is a must have! Sell your old phone on ebay and buy an i730. Another solid Motorola product. Go for it! Full Review The title of this review may sound like I'm not happy with the i730, when in fact I really am. For Nextel, the i730 is light-years ahead of their earlier models (it's actually considered a slim phone - huh?). Compared to other phones out there, this phone, along with the rest of Nextel's fleet, seems to be a bit on the hefty side. It has a heavy feel to it - a good, durable heavy feel! The phone is durable and solid. The speaker phone is great along with the reception! I originally inquired about the new i830, simply because of its size. The Nextel salesperson turned me off to it because of its poor battery life and poor reception. "Listen, the only difference between the i730 and the i830 is the size. The battery life is horrible and since its smaller, the reception isn't as good as the i730. Plus, you save over $200!!" They must have had an overstock of the i730's. I bought the i730. When I brought it home, I saw that the flip (display part) was a bit wobbly, more wobbly than other i730 models. I brought it back the next day and exchanged it for a new one. Much better! Look out for this. I have seen that Nextel phones often lose the display screen after a lot of use. Nextel is now offering some great deals. A two-year contract waived my activation fee, and I paid $100.00 for the phone. Plus, they were offering 100 monthly bonus minutes for the first year (in addition to free n&W, unlimited direct connect and free incoming calls). Back to the phone... If you love to use text messaging, this phone isn't really meant for that. Each time a message is received or sent, you have to use their online service. It really delays things and can be quite annoying. All in all - if you're a fan of Nextel, I'm sure you'll be happy with the i730. I recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88515 2000/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size clamshape design very small speakerphone inconsistent signal pricey battery life The Bottom LineI recommend this phone,it has the features I need in a working day. it is reliable and the push to talk is extremely convenient. Full Review I go through phones like some go through water. New phones develop all the time and the phones I purchase seem like the perfect phones at the time until the next best things come along. The perfect phone to me would have bluetooth or wifi, speaker, full color, clamshell design and extremely portable. That phone dosent exist. I had used T-Mobile for 1 1/2 years and they had some pretty good phones and decent service in the NJ/NY Metro area. My company decided to go to Nextel, and offered to pay my penalty if I moved everything over. I agreed went on the unlimited everything plan, and paid a little extra to get the best phone available that Nextel offers, and that got me the Motorola i730. This phone has everything I wanted in a cell except for the Bluetooth. If Nextel ever offers a phone of this type and offers the bluetooth or Wifi, I will purchase it that day. The i730 is a great looking clamshell phone and everything on it is very easy to access. I personally prefer clamshell because sometimes I had forgotten to lock the keypad on non clamshells I had owned and dialed numbers at the most inconvenenient times without knowing it, That dosent happen with clamshells. On top is the extendable antenna, a speaker button and a function/end call button. The left side sports the volume up/down buttons below that the push to talk button, and on the lower left you have the hands free jack covered by a rubber piece. On the bottom is the adapter for charging or accessories also covered by a rubber protector. The exterior display is located on the front with a decorative disco light below the display. The speaker and battery cover are located on the back of the phone. Some people complain about the speaker location, I havene't found it to be inconvenient at all. Open the clamshell flip, and the brillian color display is on top top section, and keypad and function buttons are on the bottom section very easily located and the buttons show a great response when pressed. The color is fantastic, the best I have seen so far, and it shows great in bright sunlight and better in the darker environments. Wallpaper shows up beautifully if you choose to use it, and your menus are easily readable and very functional. I found it easy to program my most used functions on the main menu so I can easily access my recent calls, address book, internet, shortcuts, settings, and info at the touch of 1 button. The exterior display shows me who is calling through caller ID and displays the time, date, signal and battery strength when the phone is closed. The exterior backlight is blue, and also very readable. I am rididulously good at learning my electronic products quickly, so where most I know that have this phone struggle to figure it out, I learned every function and feature in less than 2 days. If I need to silence the phone quickly to vibrate, the volume down button brings it there quickly by holding it down until you feel the phone vibrate, whether the phone is open or closed. I can also go into my profiles and select what environment I am in, meeting vibrates it all, silent silences everything, car and outside makes everything louder, and hands free send everything to the hands free so nobody around me gets bothered. My favorite feature on the i730 is the loudspeaker. I normally keep my phone holstered on my car visor, and if I receive a call I can just press the speaker button on the top and hold a conversation as if I had a professionally installed hands free speaker setup, and there are no complaints from callers about outside noise or interference. The noise cancelling is the best I have seen. and the volume is great....sometimes almost too loud. The distortion is minimal. The push to talk is a fantastic feature that I can't beleive I didn't go with this feature sooner. I am in sales, and when I need to get in touch with someone immediately, the Walkie Talkie makes that possible. If someone is out of range or on the phone it lets out 2 long tones and lets me know to try again, or if they are available it send an alert that sounds like a chirp incoming and outgoing so you know they got what you said. if the phone is on and available but you didn't get a response when trying to connect, you can send an alert so they know you are trying to reach them, and they can beep in when they get it., or on my side I get the alert when someone tries to reach me...the alert simply send a tone every few seconds until I cancel it or try reaching that person. Now the downside. I feared going to Nextel because of their bad reputation with service reception. Although it isn't as bad as I feared, it is inconsistent. I will be sitting at one location for an extended time and watch the bars go from full to low very sporadically occasionally displaying no service for a few seconds. That also occasionally cuts me off while in the middle of a conversation. Nextel service tells me it shouldn't happen because I am in a good location. I have a service center local, but it the technician is rarely there.....I am really hoping the inconsistencies can be fixed. Other than that service really isn't too bad for me....some others disagree, some agree, I guess it depends on where you reside. Battery life is a little below average, but I use speaker a lot so that could be the reason. I usually end up almost empty at the end of a work day when heavily used, so keep a charger handy. Overall I would recommend this phone for any Nextel customer. It has the features you need for a professional, and some more. Some complain about lack of a camera, but please keep in mind, some offices do not like employees or visitors to have cameras on them due to security, privacy, or materials they don't want photographed, so I think it may had been strategic not to have one. Thats just my opinion....having had it in a phone I used it at first out of novelty and never used it when the novelty wore off. I hope you find this review helpful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88514 2000/8/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality appearance battery level small buttons The Bottom LineThe i730 is a reliable phone, that will provide quality service. Full Review I am a very happy Nextel customer, as their service is outstanding. They have excellent coverage where I live, and they have customer service reps who are friendly and helpful.(611 from your Nextel phone) Due to my satisfaction with Nextel, I am pleased to recommend them to anyone looking for a decent carrier. They have many rate plans and phones, and the model I carry with me is the i730. The i730 is manufactured by Motorola, and it is a good looking phone. It is silver in color, and has a sharp look to it. If you are a working professional and are concerned about appearances, you will be pleased with this phone. When it is in the unopened position, it gives off a pleasant blue tint in the LCD window, which shows the battery level and coverage bars. When you get a phone call, it displays the phone number if you paid for the caller identification feature.(Nextel offers voicemail and caller i.d. for $1 each in addition to their price rates)It also displays the date and time, which is a useful feature if in a dark environment. This is not a small flip phone, but it is not as cumbersome as some of Nextel's other phones.(The i355 comes to mind-its almost like carrying a full sized walkie talkie!) Although it is not compact, it will fit without taking too much room on the supplied belt clip. The i730 is a very well built flip phone, and it feels very durable. I have dropped it twice, and it has not skipped a beat. The charger is attached to the bottom of the phone, where a piece of rubber stripping protects the outlet when not in use. The best part about this phone is the speaker feature. It is a necessity in direct connect, but it is great for hands free driving capability. All you have to do when making or receiving a call, is to push the button corresponding with speaker on the screen. The sound quality is amazing, and no one ever knows you have it on speaker when talking to them with it. The only drawback to that of course, is the battery life expectancy. This phone averages 2 1/2 hours of talktime with normal phone use, but it drops drastically with the speakerphone/direct connect. I always laugh as the battery icon shows draining quickly when using these options, so do bring a portable charger if using the speakerphone. In addition, the battery drains quickly when downloading ring tones and games as well. I played football on my phone the other day, and it needed a recharge within a 1/2 hour. The phone is easy to use, except for its small buttons. This can be a problem for people with clutzy fingers or Arthritis. However, most can manage with a little bit of patience. The color screen offers outstanding color imagery, and it is very easy to read. However, the address book can be a pain to use. I also don't like how you can't press the call button and bring up numbers you have previously dialed. You also can't hit the Okay button in the middle as well for this, as you need to hit the small down arrow key. The i730 is a good phone, however these annoyances do take it down a notch. I would still recommend it as a buy, especially if you consider sound quality important. In areas where reception is limited, you can extend the antenna higher to bring better service in. The sound quality and this feature were two important factors in my purchasing decision, which is why I picked the i730. The other consideration was overall reliability of the phone, and the i730 is above average. A lot of my friends and colleagues have this phone, and all have never had any kind of technical problem with it. The i730 is a very good phone, and it looks good to boot! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 105.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88513 2005/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity excellent speaker reasonably durable ergonomics functionality volume adult sized smallish display case hard to find not small by today s standards battery life The Bottom LineVery pleased with the i730 and would recommend it. It is reasonably durable and reliable, and everything is adult sized so its actually made to be USED. Full Review (Updated 7/5/05 to clarify battery life) Having owned the Nextel i730 now for over 18 months, I feel plenty confident in reporting my personal experiences with this phone. I have been thoroughly pleased with the reception and audio performance of this phone. Of course, the direct connect walkie-talkie function is a Nextel signature. But what if you just want to use your phone as a speakerphone during regular cell calls? You need real VOLUME when using this feature, not the kind that comes with most (non-Nextel) cell phones that brag about a "speakerphone" option you can barely hear! If you've ever been disappointed with the glaring deficiency of competitor's phones in this regard, I guarantee you'll love using your i730 (or other Nextel unit) as a speakerphone. Unfortunately, these qualities are not without their price. As one of Nextel's previously "smaller" units (since been replaced with even smaller i830 / i836 etc.) it gets only fair performance in the battery department. The standard battery will last me a full day (usually), though I may need an extra boost now and then from a mobile charger to keep going. My days can go as long as 16 hours long with airtime and standbys combined. Airtime is around 75 minutes a day. Battery life can vary significantly because using the speaker of course uses more juice (and I use it alot). I've probably averaged about 2000 minutes plus a month on just cell calls, and a very small amount of walkie talkie use, and I would say always have a charger on hand. Never a day goes by without charging this phone overnight to be sure. An optional higher capacity battery with cover (genuine Motorola) can be had on the web for around $40 at http://store.bizshopr.com/nextel.html which is significantly cheaper than at Nextel. Be careful with cheap aftermarket versions of this, I've had them 'pop' before and ruin previous phones. Just be aware that if you do this it will make your ability to find a case that fits well even more challenging. The standard holster that comes with this phone is functional, except the external display faces inward and is impossible to read it or open the flip until you dismount it, and the rear plate is exposed to scratches (an intentional design to face the rear-facing speaker out where you can best hear it). I have always preferred the fitted leather case because I like my phone looking new as long as possible. Many a time I have dropped this phone on its head on concrete, etc. This isn't your father's Nextel phone, it will show the beating it has taken. Having been through six cases (Nextel/'no names'/Body Glove) already, I much prefer the "snakeskin" version available only through Nextel for a steep $30. It is by far the best fitting model. I just wish the belt clips were more durable. In other areas, the $10 cheap external earbud/mic set Motorola makes for this phone works flawlessly. Both parties never have problems hearing each other. I just don't care for wearing these, so I don't use it much. I've been through one repair of this phone. A random power-off and reset issue, and then it quit working. I was concerned since I've read about others experiencing the same issue on the web, attributing it to a inherent design flaw. However, Nextel said it was a bad sim card and replaced it, and it has worked perfectly since. It's a good idea to backup your contacts if you can't live without them (like me, learn the hard way). If this occurs, you'll lose your contacts/datebook/voice recordings, but keep all your ringers and phone settings. The smart function buttons on top of the phone allows you to quickly access your recent contacts, start/end calls, toggle speaker on/off, etc., and is implemented well. The only negative is you can't send a direct connect call alert without opening the flip. Another pet peeve is the charger/accessory connection at the bottom of the phone. I know Motorola is trying to protect the phone down here, but can they possibly make this connection any more difficult to make (and on a phone that always needs charging)? To this day the tight little rubber cover makes it difficult to connect a charger (especially in the dark), more so than the larger/easier i205/i530 connector covers I've also worked with. You do get the hang of it eventually, but nothing short of tearing off the cover will make this easier, if you dare. Short of any wireless network's limitations on coverage, reception has never been a problem. The earpiece volume is plenty loud for even the most hard to hear caller. The color display is easy to read in most situations, if a little small. The keypad is backlit cool blue with slightly larger than average recessed buttons. At first I thought I wasn't going to like this since I'm all about ease of use, but after trying them out for the first few days you get the hang of it, as they feel and work a lot better than you initially expect. This is simply a great phone to use while on the road trying to drive. If shopping, you should know that in comparison, I know there are two models out there newer than the i730 that are very similar. The i710 is basically the same phone, except for case color scheme and lack of an external display. The i830 is also essentially the same but smaller ergonomics, which will make battery life an even greater issue since it too is also slimmer. Overall, I'm very pleased with my i730 and would recommend it to you. It is reasonably durable and reliable, and everything is adult sized so its actually meant to be used regularly without fighting it. In typical quirky Nextel fashion, it's a pleasure to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88512 2004/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish keeps to the nextel roots speaker on back is located in a horrible spot that is easy to block The Bottom LineI would reccoment this, as well as Nextel, to anyone looking for a good, solid Nextel phone. Full Review Introduction: For the past few years I had been a loyal Sprint customer. Sprint had many advantages if you wanted neat little useless features on your equipment. What I was looking for was a solid carrier that used reliable technology. A friend of mine who runs a business has always used Nextel for his cell services, so I took a look at them. Nextel had significant advantages for people who just require minutes to talk, not take pictures or send video. While camera phones etc were neat, they were utterly useless after the nostalgia wore off. After looking at cell plans and phones, I decided to make the switch to Nextel. Being partial to flip phones and this being the newest one out, I bought the Nextel i30 manufactured by Motorola. Looks/Dimensions: The phone's dimensions are 3.7" x 2.0" x 1.0 which makes it a little bigger then my old Samsung camera phone (3.5 x 1.9 x 1.0) from Sprint, but nothing major. The phones rated weight is 5.1 ounces, which again is heavier then my old Samsung (4.5 ounces), but nothing that is worrisome. If you want phones that will fit in your shirt pocket, don't consider Nextel. The overall look of the phone is quite stylish. It has the standard clamshell flip design with a screen on the front and the microphone for the speakerphone and push to talk (PTT) system. On the back is the speakerphone speaker, conveniently placed to be covered by your hand when holding it. There have been numerous times where I have been beeped for PTT and can't hear the initial message as the speaker was covered up. On the left margin of the phone there are your PTT button and volume control. On the top are your speaker switch and recent call button, which will be explained later. This phone fits very nicely in your hand. Other then the speaker issue on the back, which hasn't been a major problem yet, there aren't any external design issues. After flipping it open, there isn't anything special about the phone itself, as this is a Nextel phone. There is your standard keypad, menu arrows above it, and buttons to guide you through menus or activate shortcuts. The screen is a tad small, but it is of excellent color quality. Features/Performance: One thing I really like about the phone is the speaker phone feature. You can make and answer phone calls with the clam shell closed. You just push the button on the top part (denoted by a little square) and you can scroll through your recent calls menu. If you want to call them, just press the speaker button and it automatically makes the call on speakerphone. If they call in, just simply hit the button with the speaker icon and it will answer. This is nice, as it leaves a hands free option if you get a critical phone in the car, as I hated to talk with my old flip phones when driving since it would my hand off the wheel to hold the phone. After dealing with this excellent speakerphone feature, I would take it over some low resolution built in camera any day. The phone as with all Nextel phones is enabled for a feature called direct connect. It is really nice for business operators, as they can connect instantly like a walkie talkie. While this feature is really psychological, it's a nice feature to use. I remember reading that direct connect is becoming popular with the college crowd, so this isn't a purely business application too much anymore. On the i30, direct connect works really well. The only issue I have is that I don't have more people to utilize that feature. The phone has a GPS chip embedded in it that allows it to work with the e911 system. This in the case of a roadside emergency for example, will allow 911 operators to pinpoint your exact position rather then play hide and seek. Privacy worriers may not like this feature, as it might mean the government has another tool to track you. However, if I were in a unfamiliar area bleeding from the head in the middle of the night, I would rather have that chip. The GPS system can also be used in other navigation packages that are available for an extra cost. The phone has your standard phone book features and wireless internet features. The phone book is massive with a 600 number database. The speed dial feature is a tad annoying in some respects. Before on my old Samsungs, if I wanted to make a call to speed dial preset #2, I would just press 2 then send. However, now I have to hold down the number 2 for 2 seconds before it will dial. A tad annoying, but I guess I will have to live with it. One neat thing these Motorola IDEN phones have is a feature called the SIM chip. This is a little chip that stores your billing information, contacts and other storable information that is related to you. If I say wanted to change to another phone since mine was dead, I would simply get the chip under the battery cover, switch it into the other IDEN phone and I am set to go. Battery life is fine on this phone. The battery is rated for 58 hours of standby time and 150-220 minutes of talk time. My buddy, who uses his phone a lot more then I do, would always have battery life problems on his old phone, the i85. Ever since switching to this one, he can talk all day at his heavy usage and go on for most of the next day without recharging it. The charger, which is included, doesn't take very long to charge the phone. If you are at a decent battery level, 20 minutes will let you talk for the entire day. The only complaint I have is that the little cover the is over the charging port doesn't quite close right. Conclusion: Like stated before, this is a stylish phone that sticks to the Nextel roots of rock solid equipment and no nonsense cellular service. If one is looking for a camera phone or a super slim phone that will fit in your pocket without noticing when you sit down, this isn't the phone or service for you. I would recommend this, as well as Nextel, to anyone who is considering this model or service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88511 2000/1/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 better signal strength with decent battery life lots of features for a relatively good price not many lol still want that camera phone The Bottom LineThis phone would work for anyone. Lots of features in a slick package that can still take a beating. Full Review Having left Verizon (let's not go into that, OK), we decided to join our techno buddies on the path to Nextel ownership. We were first introduced to Nextel several years ago when my husband got into the wrecker industry. Nextels were still pretty new at the time and we were amazed a cell phone could have such a long range radio capability. Several wrecker companies have since dropped the old police style Motorola radios and switched to Nextels. As a result he has several buddies who carry Nextels instead of conventional cell phones. Nextel has several plans to choose from based on your needs. We opted for the National Free Incoming Plans which allow us to use the phones everywhere Nextel offers service (there are a few more dead spots in remote places than say Verizon, but not enought to severely limit usage). All our incoming calls are free and we have unlimited Direct Connect (2-way walkie talkie) usage as well as unlimited night and weekends and free long distance. There are no roaming charges either. So basically the only thing we get charged for (provided we don't go over our plan minutes) is Nationwide Direct Connect. If you DC someone who is outside your "local" area you are charged $.10 a minute. But they bill by the second so it doesn't add up to much unless you wear it out on a daily basis. Now for the phone itself. So far I have been very happy with my phone. My husband opted for the tougher i530 flip. His is made to withstand shocks and drops... it's outside is partially covered with rubber so it sort of bounces when it's dropped. My i730 is not supposed to be a tough phone, but it's seen it's fair share of air-time and hasn't shown any signs of damage or distress. The nifty little holster (available separately - the i530 comes with one but they make you pay extra for the i730's) holds the phone backwards to protect the external screen. After seeing mysterious scratches pop up on my T730 from carrying it on it's holster I really like this feature. Not only does it protect my phone's screen, but it also faces the phone's external speaker outward so it's easier to hear without having to remove it from the holster. I clip mine on my sun visor in the car and can hold a hands-free conversation with no problems just by using the speaker phone. Speaking of speaker phone... that's another feature I love about my Nextel. I can make and receive phone calls without ever opening the phone or removing it from the holster. Two buttons on the top allow you to answer or ignore incoming calls. When you want to place a call you push the button with the square and use the volume up and down buttons on the side to select a number from your recent calls list. Once you find who you want you either press the speaker button to place a phone call or press the PTT button to make a Direct Connect call. Volume is easily controlled by using the volume buttons on the side. And to avoid making calls on accident, you can easily lock the keypad. The i730 seems to be a little stronger in terms of signal strength than my husbands i530. When we travel into an area where we lose our signal, my phone is always the last to lose it and the first to get it back. It beeps to let you know it's regained signal. Although it could use a signal light such as the red/green LED on the i530. I've been told there's a mod program you can download to make the "disco light" on the front act as a signal light, but that seems like it would use alot of battery power. What's a disco light you ask? Well, on the front of the phone there's a thing that looks like another speaker (it's not) surrounded by a little ring that resembles a neon tube. When you have a musical ringtone set, the light flashes different colors in time with the music when the phone rings. Nice for finding it in the dark. I will warn you ahead of time though. IF your one of those people who like to have lots of ringtones to choose from.. prepare to spend some money. Nextel phones don't come with lots of tunes (3 on the phone itself and one free tone available for download), and downloading costs an average of $1.99 a ringtone. I have yet to locate a web site where you can get Nextel rings, but I have been told an optional USB cable makes transferring them from the PC easier. I'm waiting to get one of these to see if it's true... supposed to be able to use any .WAV file as a ringtone. If you like downloading things, this phone will give you plenty to do. Although you don't get any built-in games there are several demos you can download and additional games and utilities available for purchase through Nextel and Motorola's iDEN service. The phone's built-in GPS receiver can be used to track the phone (useful for businesses who need to keep track of their employees) and provide you with directions. Of course, this requires a monthly fee. The phone is easy to use, especially after using my T720 - the menus are pretty much set up the same. And you can easilys rearrange your menu selections and reprogram the shortcut selections that are shown on the main screen to whatever you want. The ability to create multiple profiles allow you to change your phone's appearance and ring very quickly. I set one for silent with vibrating rings and no keypad sounds for meetings, one for indoors and one for outdoors and noisy areas. It has several profiles preset on the phone which you can change to your liking and rename or delete if you want to make your own. Battery life isn't bad. It's better than my T720 and seems to last about as long as the hubby's i530. Considering the i530 doesn't have an external display OR color screen OR disco lights... I'd say that's pretty good. The included charger will fully charge a dead phone in about 1.5 hours, so it's easy to keep it juiced up. I picked up a car charger (Belkin brand) at Wal-Mart for around $7 and since then have never had my phone die on me unless I was away from a charger for a couple days at a time. I'm not a heavy talker but it does get daily use. All-in-all I think this is probably one of the best Nextel phones I've seen. It was the top-of-the-line when I bought it and even though Nextel has since rolled out a couple newer models, it still remains a good seller for Nextel and a very popular phone among Nextel users who don't want to carry bricks on their hips. Some additional features: Built-In GPS allows phone to be located during 911 calls speakerphone function, mute, 600 memory contacts list, call forwarding, vibrate mode. It also provides text messaging, a datebook, and the ability to download and run Java applications. This phone is also equipped with a voice recorder and office phone-like functions such as call waiting, switching between calls, putting calls on hold, and conference calling. You can program a variety of shortcut keys to make dialing easier, and create profiles. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88510 2004/3/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 wav audio color screen chirp walkie takie capability poor battery life a little heavy The Bottom LineIf you want walkie-talkie and if you love gadgets, this is your phone. Full Review First I would like to repeat that I love this phone. I haven't had Nextel in a very long time, but since Boost came along even my poor/cheap/bad credit having friends can get cellular service and most of them choose Boost Mobile because of the walkie-talkie feature. As time went on, I found that more and more people were telling me not to call their phones because they pre-pay their minutes. But if I had Nextel or Boost I could "chirp" them (this is what a lot of people use to refer to the walkie-talkie feature on the phone). I was currently with AT&T when I decided to switch. Since I was sending a lot of text messages to my friends who use Boost Mobile, I had bought the Nokia 6800 (which is also a great phone). I mainly decided to switch to Nextel so that I can talk to my cheap friends *smile*. The first thing right off that bat that I like about this phone is that the color screen is phenomenal. You have never seen color like this on your cellular phone (trust me!). A lot of people seem to complain that it does not make much sense to have such a great color phone with no camera, but those things take horrible pictures anyway. You should stick to a real digital camera. I searched around on the internet and found a great website (http://www.howardforums.com) where you can get tips on how to make your pictures the exact perfect size to fit on your i730. Buy yourself a $20 data cable, and you are in wallpaper heaven. Another thing that I like about this phone is it's ability to play .wav files. This means that not only can you hear the music of your favorite songs playing as your ring tone (Polyphonic (MIDI)), but you can actually hear your favorite artist singing. Talk about wowing your friends and family members! Another advantage of this is that you can make your own .wav files, or find them easily online so that you don't have to spend $1.99 every time your preference changes. If you like to customize your phone (like I do) this is a big plus. This phone also has all the regular capabilities of a Motorolla phone: Advanced User Interface • Phone use is quick and easy with one-touch shortcuts to phone features, icon-driven menu and 4-way navigation with OK selection key. This is sometimes a little intuitive. It seems like they needed a few more keys on this phone. You will HAVE to read the manual to get the hang of the menu Speakerphone • Hands-free cellular conversations are always available with the built-in speakerphone. I use the included belt clip to clip my phone to the visor and use it as a speaker phone in the car. The speaker is pretty good. *Update* (3-11-04) I recently bought the Jabra earwave boom headset to use with this phone while i'm in the car. It has a little button on the line you can use for the "chirp" and noise cancellation on the speaker. This just adds another level of comfort to this phone. They work great together. Voice Recorder • Capture memos or phone conversations for future playback of phone numbers, tasks, or driving directions Voice Activated Dialing • Press a button and speak to dial numbers or access features Datebook • Book meetings, plan events, and set alarms that will automatically turn-on the phone if needed. Store a phone number or Direct Connect ID and initiate a call from a Datebook entry. Profiles • Instantly adjust more than 10 settings for different surroundings. Vibracall Alert • Discrete vibrating call notifications in quiet or noisy environments. 600 Contact Entries • Store up to seven numbers for each contact (up to 600 entries) Internet • If you need to check email while you are out and about, this little phone is great. The screen is a little small, but you are able to read messages and it's pretty easy to log into your accounts. Some new things included on this phone: Airplane Mode • Turn off network connection and use programs, games, voice record, and datebook. Phone will display "Airplane Mode" while in use and display "Service Restricted Airplane Mode On". This means you can keep your phone on to play games, but you won't interfere with the plane stuff *smile*. Java Applications • This phone comes with a lot of pre-installed programs, but many of them are demo's or require and additional fee. Useful is you need GPS driving directions, but I would rather pre-record driving directions before I leave and then listen to that for free. One thing I don't like about this phone is the amount of privacy you use with the "chirp" feature. Maybe I just haven't read enough of the manual, but there doesn't seem to be a way to use this feature without using speakerphone. *Update* (3-11-04) My sister showed me how to turn off the speaker phone yesterday. This way you can use the "chirp" feature just like you would on a regular call. The only problem is that if you have the phone up to your ear when the other person pushes their direct connect button you hear a very loud "chirp" in your ear. This is not pleasant. I reccommend buying the headset. I've heard a headset should be coming out soon by Jabra which will allow you to use the "chirp", but I haven't seen it in stores yet. I also think they should be able to put a battery in there that doesn't die out so quickly. I used to charge my Nokia 6800 about every 2 or 3 days, I find that I have to charge this phone every night. Overall, I think this is a great phone. Sure, other cellular phone carriers are coming out with Push To Talk technology, but none of them have been at this game as long as Nextel. I know a friend who used the Verizon version of this service and had nothing but bad things to say. You might have noticed yourself how Verizon stopped advertising for this as heavily as they once were. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88509 2000/9/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent durability many really cool features more than adequate memory too trivial to even be worth mentioning here The Bottom LineThis phone has made me believe no other phone will satisfy me after owning this one. Full Review My review consists of over a year of experience using this phone on a daily basis. Upon first purchasing this phone, I was taken back by a few trivial things. First and foremost being that Nextel finally got it right; "Talk" button on the left, "End" button on the right. I was happy with this recent transition, but after owning 3 other Nextel phones with the buttons reversed, it took a little getting used to. Once the initial shock wore off, I found it much more efficient. The color screen was a great change from the green and black display of their older models, making it much easier to identify the icons at the top of the screen. I find that the screen size is ideal for my needs, despite what other reviews have stated. Unless you are utilizing the web feature daily, I don't see the need for a screen any bigger than what the i730 offers. What sets this phone apart from others available is its capability to change your ringtones to whatever you choose. Using software you can purchase through several different providers, you can set this phone to reflect your exact personality. Not only does it allow you to download your very own ringtones, but it allows you to in many different forms. MIDI, WAV, or MP3 can be added to this phone with ease. It also allows you to download wallpapers of whatever you choose. Being an avid football fan, I have chosen to use an Eagles wallpaper, which adds to my satisfaction with this phone. Another feature you will find on this phone is "Voice Record." Not only does it let you record just like a little tape recorder, but you can also record phone conversations. There is no set time limit for either use, it simply goes by how much memory you have left on your phone. And unless you have several WAV ringtones or several wallpapers, it takes quite a lot to fill up this phone's memory. Now, let's get to the really cool stuff. You want a different ringtone for certain people? No problem. Each and every ringtone can not only be assigned to one specific contact, but you can set them to alerts, voice messages, text messages, and reminders. This is also the first Nextel I have come across that allows you to have it Ring and Vibrate simultaneously which is a great feature if you're in a loud environment. With this versatile phone, you can store up to 600 contacts, each contact alloted 7 numbers making it a snap to add the contact's home, office, cell, and pager numbers. (Who has pagers nowadays anyway? *shrugs* Well, you can add it if they have one.) I have noticed a lot of reviews stating the low battery power as their con. Personally, I have yet to experience a low battery power problem on this one, and I have been using the same battery since I purchased the phone. One tip I learned over the years is not to plug in the phone unless it's low on battery power. By plugging it in every day, even if it doesn't need to be charged, the battery will begin to "think" it has less charge than it actually does, therefore showing a low battery too soon. By plugging it in only when it needs to be adds many many months to the life of the battery. Another really neat feature this phone has is when using a MIDI ringtone, you can choose to have what they call the "Disco Light" blink while the phone is ringing. It's a small circular light on the front of the phone that will blink several colors in an almost psychedelic fashion. Unfortunately, this feature can only be used with the MIDI ringtones, not WAV or MP3 ringtones. It's a completely frivolous feature, but seems to keep us "easily amused" folk happy. Want a durable phone? Check this out. I'm not the most careful of folk, and tend to be a bit clumsy at times. My phone has dropped more times than I can count, many occasions it has been dropped on concrete. The best part is, I have no major scratches or dents to speak of. Simplistic cosmetic scratches that would only bother those of the highly obsessive complusive variety. Try doing that with these razor thin phones. I can almost bet you wouldn't have much of a phone left. The only problems I have with the phone are these. The Voice Record feature, when used to record while not in the middle of a call, tends to have an almost tin-can result. The few times I have used it to record idle conversation between me and friends as though it was a tape recorder seemed to have a very robotic sound to it, as though we were speaking directly into a microphone loudly, causing the equalizer to peak. Another very petty problem I had was with the ear piece "grill." Not really sure what else to call the cosmetic screen covering the earpiece. Within months of having the phone, my 2 year old niece was able to remove it with ease. I came to find out that it is simply glued on, and some i730's I guess weren't given as much care as others. I am the only one in my household that has had this problem though, 3 other i730 users accompanying me in this house. So I don't know if it was just my phone, or if it's a cosmetic defect on all. Other than that, I have no complaints to speak of. This phone has been the best investment to date. I highly recommend this phone to anyone not interested in being able to take useless photos of random things while out, or someone who uses their cell phone as their only way to connect to the internet, simply because of the smaller screen. Nextel definitely has a winner with this model. Even without the camera feature that everyone is raving about these days, this phone stands alone, and is well worth the money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88508 2000/1/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 durable flip phone reasonable price stylish loud ringtone some limited features The Bottom LineThis is a really nice phone, though it could use a few extra features. Full Review I had been with T-mobile for three years and I finally made the decision to move to Nextel for a few reasons. 1.T-mobile did'nt have towers locations everywhere.(hence no reception at all!) 2.My boyfriend has Nextel,he told me it was a better deal. 3.Nextel has very good plans and rates etc. 4.They also have direct connect enabled phones. I went to the Nextel dealer and, we talked about plans and,rates before I decided to look at the phones. I did'nt want an expensive phone (I already have 3 cell phones). But I wanted a durable phone,that would last me.I decided on the i730I liked the way it looked as well as being inexpensive.The phone is silver & rather oval-egg shaped and fits nicely in my hand.The i730is not to heavy and, the casing not to thin, that it gets lost in your hand. The i730has many features. Just A few: .Speaker phone .Walkie Talkie .Color screen .Loud ringer / vibrate .Airplane mode .Voice record .Web / Internet enabled .Caller ID/call waiting/call forwarding .Voice I've had my i730for almost a year.I really like the phone,though I miss some of the features my other phones have.The i730screens are bright & colorful and easy to navigate.All the icons are labeled when you click on them.The phone has great reception wherever I go.I never seem to get much static or interference problems. The phone has a cute little disco light which lights up when the phone rings.The i730comes with it's own musical ringtones.If you want other ringtones of your choice,you need to sign up for the web services,this will cost a little extra on your bill each month.You will then have access to anything you want.You can access the ringtones from your phone.I suggest you go to the Nextel site, where you will be able to listen before buying a ringtone.They have mono and polyphonic tones as well as voice tones.You can also get ringtones online just about anywhere. You can also get screensavers and games to download to your phone. The prices varies for these. I have yahtzee & bowling on my phone. I love playing games on my phone.I also have a really nice white tiger screensaver.It's really hard for me not to buy all these games,screensavers and ringtones.My phone is like my computer,I love to customize everything.The colors on the screen are viberent & crystal clear. There are many features with thei730.The call waiting is a nice feature and always comes in handy as well as the call forwarding feature.You can get GPS it will cost you a little extra.You can also assign ringtones to peoples names and, can assign a ringtone for your messages.I love the speakerphone & walkie talkie features.Now I can drive & talk without getting a ticket ~smile~~.You can also get internet service on your phone to check your email.I know at least at Yahoo they have this. There is also a datebook,memo,call timers & shortcut options and java applications. I don't however like the fact(though I've been through the manual a lot)I can't find out if there is an alarm clock and,how to text message people back,these are two things that are important to me. The one feature I don't care for is the airplane mode.I once got stuck in that mode and really needed to make a call.It took me forever to get out of it as I did'nt have my manual handy.I can't even remember how I got out of it. I did try the voice record feature though and it was cool.You can record phone conversations,that could come in handy some day (~smile~)Oh and before I forget, the ringtone is nice and loud. All in all it's a great phone. I would recommend the i730 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7752 Nextel i1000plus 88562 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 low radiation low cost on phone difficult to use high rate plans Full Review This phone is very deceiving. At first it looks small and practical and you think the speaker device at the bottom makes it a very efficient phone. The price is right but, everything else is wrong. First of all, there are no plans offered where I live under $59.95, and for that price you only get 300 minutes, which most other cell phone service providers can beat. Second of all, the phone is so difficult to use, I've had so many people read the instructions, experiment with the phone, and I can't figure out a thing. It is not very light for its size. It was the worst choice I had ever made, and I have been through a few cell phones. Don't let the low cost on the phone fool you. This phone is a nightmare, if you get it you will be lucky if you are able to receive and make calls. Don't make the mistake I did. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129 88561 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 i can always get through to my husband using the private ready not always readibly accessible when on train going to officereturning home The Bottom LineIt is definitely the answer to the working parents daily routine. You can ALWAYS find the person on the other end using Private Ready! Full Review Let me first define my Review's title, I am a working mom of a 4-year old. My husband, too, works very weird hours and we can always "communicate" with each other using the Private Ready feature. A push of a button and we are talking. There are no numbers to remember, just a click and we can find one another instantly. There is not "music" you can set your ringer to, however, you can put it on vibrate if you do not want other people to hear your personal phone ringing. We have had our Nextel phones for at least 6 months now, and I find it to be just as good, if not better, than their competitors, ie. Sprint, etc. You can program up to 30 separate phone numbers to have them "at your fingertips" when needed. You can even retrieve your e-mail using Net Nextel. Thank you for reading my review and let's keep Nextel proud and start chatting! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 88560 2000/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip top speakerphone sturdy design battery life flimsy antenna The Bottom LineThis is a great phone because of its features and service. I would definitely recommend it to anyone! Full Review I just purchased this phone and I am VERY pleased with it and the carrier. I have been trying in vain to find a cellular carrier that serves Golden Gate Estates (area 20 miles inland from the coast). and was just about gave up when a friend recommend Nextel. This carrier is wonderful!!! NO dropped calls, static, or SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE messages! Nextel has almost blanket coverage in this area. Well, enough about the provider, on to the phone. I previously owned a StarTac and there is just no comparison to the I1000+. The program function is a straight forward menu, unlike the StarTac. You just scroll though it or, if you know what you want, just enter the number. Example: if I want to adjust the ringer volume, I go to the program menu and enter 30. No scrolling through endless other features just turn the volume down! This phone supports Caller-ID, Call Waiting, 3-way Calling, Call Hold and even has the option for another line! You won't miss any calls because there is a Missed Call reminder and the phone stores the last 10 numbers called/received. The built-in phone book stores up to 100 entries with fields for name, number, and Direct Connect ID. Direct Connect is a 2-way radio function that lets you talk with anyone else that has a Nextel phone at a fraction of the cost of cellular minutes. You could also send numeric or text message to the phone if you don't want to disturb the person with a phone call. One feature I particularly like is the option to silence all alerts and switch to a vibrating alert. Great for when you're in a meeting or movie theater. The only thing that I think needs improvement is battery life. However, when you take into account the multitude of features in this phone, the battery life is more acceptable. The I1000plus also offers web access, but I didn't subscribe to this function, so I really can't rate it. For those of you interested, this phone has a SAR rating of 0.43. This is the amount of radiation you are exposed to when the phone is transmitting. This is an excellent rating, as most phone are rated at 1.25 to 1.75. If you want to minimize your exposure, use the speakerphone whenever possible. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.99 88559 2000/12/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 two way radio service a lot of dead air time Full Review I bought this phone for the two-way radio feature. Unfortunately, my service has not been that great. Features on this phone are pretty good compared to some of the others on the market. The one thing I hate the most about this phone is the service area they provide. I have many places my phone goes dead in. It's very aggravating driving down the road and having you phone cut off. The pricing plan they have for this phone isn't the best either. I am paying twice as much for talk time for half the minutes some of my friends have for other companies. If you don't need a phone with the two-way radio feature I would not recommend you purchase this phone. If you do need the two-way radio feature, it is one of the better phones on the market. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 88558 2001/2/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 direct connect very innovative great service service can be expensive somewhat bulky The Bottom LineIf you want the newest technology, this is the phone for you. Very useful. Full Review I have had my i1000 plus since September of 2000 and I absolutely love it. Prior to have the Nextel, I had a Motorola StarTAC 7760. Compared to the StarTAC, the i1000 takes some getting use to. You will need to refer to the owner's guide when you first get the phone, but after a week or so it becomes easier to operate. You can also dial "611" from your phone to contact Nextel customer service, who I found to be helpful and knowledgeable. The phone itself is larger than most new "flip" style phones, and definitely bigger than my StarTAC. Although I wouldn't recommend throwing it around, the i1000 does feel pretty durable. I have dropped it twice in the parking lot at work. It still works fine and looks brand new. The phone comes with a pager-style case that clips to a belt, similar to the StarTAC. However, it is noticeably harder to get the Nextel out of the case without pushing on the antenna with your thumb. Also, as others have said, the lithium-ion battery sticks out on the back of the phone, making it rather bulky. But the battery provides plenty of talk and stand-by time, and recharges in under 3 hours. I live in New York, north of the city, and my service is great. I have only found a few dead spots, but most of the time and have a full signal. In addition, Nextel seems to be adding more cell sites every week, so I'm sure the coverage will only get better. The Direct Connect is the best feature of this phone, and was the main reason that I bought it. It lets you talk to other Nextel users (as long as they're on the same 'band') using your phone like a two-way radio. The plan that I have includes unlimited two-way, and I find that I use this feature more than the regular phone. The other nice feature is the speaker phone, which really works well, especially while driving. Also, you can read the display without flipping the front of the phone up. My only complaint is that Nextel's service is pricey compared to many cellular plans. But the Direct Connect feature is almost worth the cost by itself. And there is no roaming on the Nextel network which also helps to make up for the price. Also, many of the promotions out right now include the phone for free, which saves even more money. Overall, this is a great service that will probably grow even more popular as more people get turned on to Nextel, and as people begin seeing all of the people around them getting Nextels. You'll pay a little more for the service, but it's definitely worth it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88557 2000/3/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features looks great not very user friendly The Bottom LineA good phone for the value. Full Review We switched from a standard one-piece phone to this flip phone. At first, I thought the ear piece (the part that flips up) might be fragile, but it fits to your ear comfortably. You can't really talk on this phone by resting it on your shoulder; you really need to be holding it. However, there is a speaker-phone feature for all your calls. I especially like the direct-connect feature (walkie-talkie). The speaker phone is nice, however it is hard for the person on the other end to hear you unless you have the phone within arms' reach. Reception is also much worse with speaker phone or direct connect. The menu features are nice and plentiful, but the interface leaves much to be desired. This is not something you can just pick up and figure out. You definitely need to read the manual for some of the features. It's not very easy to figure out right away how to store numbers, how to retrieve them, or how to dial, etc. I still don't know how to use lower-case letters or punctuation, if you can at all. After a couple of days, you should be able to pick up using most of the features without too much difficulty. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88556 2000/9/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very durable lightweight dependable needs more ringer tunes Full Review I purchased this off the internet a few weeks ago, and already i've put it through trials. First off the battery life is very reliable. You don't have to worry about recharging the battery every chance you get. The audio quality is superb! Nextel has done a great job on the clarity of this product, just becareful about the fact that the speakerphone button is near the "send" button. The reason I wouldn't give this product a perfect score is the fact that the alerts that it has - very basic. I previously has a nokia 6185 phone and it had over 25 alerts and all of them had some sort of tune to them. Nextel lacked in this area, their tunes are all "executive-ish". The internet access isn't all that its cracked up to be. I've tried it on my laptop and the speed is comparable to a slow 28.8 connection. The final and test (and the most dangerous) was the durablilty test. I dropped the phone from different heights and nothing chipped off loosed, still stayed all together. The one problem that I found was with the holster.Other than the alerts this is a excellect product. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 88555 2002/7/7 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 almost everything earpiece volume cost of service The Bottom LineExcellent phone - me likes a'plenty. Full Review Just yesterday, my wife and I received our i1000 Plus phones. We got them for $30 apiece, with a one year contractural agreement. This is the fourth cell-phone that we have had, and I can honestly say that it is by far the absolute best. I have heard of many complaints registered against the flip-lids which had been broken off from the body of the phone. Now, I have seen many flip-phone owners answer (and close) their phones in a manner best befitting Captain James T. Kirk (remember him? the Enterprise's head honcho?), and - though I don't dare suggest that this has always been the case - it could very well be that such handling of these phones may have been what caused breakage of those already flimsy lids. I never give my lid a thumbshot but, rather, will use both hands when opening and closing the lid. If breakage is to be the case with mine also, at least I will know that it wasn't brought on by anything that I did - or shouldn't have done. I know that the cost of service, on the Nextel setup, is indeed high, but this phone (to my wife and I) is worth it. The two-way radio, direct connect, and speakerphone features - coupled to the fact that these phones are reputed to have a far lower RFA rating than most cell phones - are what drove us to them. The earpiece volume could be stepped up a few decibels, at least to the point where you don't have to oftentimes ask the party on the other end to repeat what was said. All in all, though, this is truly a VERY nice phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 88554 2000/10/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 built to last great reception no good features little talk standby time The Bottom LineIf you can get it for a good price and you're not obsessed with features, grab it and you'll love it! Full Review I got this phone after my horrible experiences with AT&T Wireless because all of my friends had it, and I found Nextel to have a very cheap plan that had generous anytime, off-peak, and Direct Connect time. I do like this phone because it is a flip phone, it's been dropped about 100 times and still works and looks new, and the reception is great. I live in NYC and sometimes I'd see a few reception bars on my phone and a flashing green light underground at some subway stations! I did formerly use the Nokia 3360 and the Panasonic TX320, all phones with great features, and maybe if they were used on a better wireless provider, they'd have great reception. This phone is not very good with the extras. There is wireless access that can be purchased at a monthly charge. But not much else. The phone book isn't alphabetical. So if you're the person who likes to just scroll to look for your numbers, make sure you write out all your contacts first then put them in because the order they are in the phone book is the order you put them in. There is a name search you can do, but by scrolling the menu it's chronological, not alphabetical. Also, if you use the standard battery that comes with this phone, don't expect a lot of time. Standby time is about 2-3 days, with talktime at a supposed 100 minutes. The phone isn't feather-weight, but it's not like carrying a brick in your hand. Some internet stores like Buy.com and Amazon usually offer a good price on this phone if you buy it with a plan. I do suggest buying this if you get it at a good price. Nextel is starting to make better models and hopefully in time they will become cheaper. This is the perfect phone to start with, and if you're one who's into features, a perfect temp phone until Nextel's better phones and lower prices come our way! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88553 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 price the only phone you will ever want everything size features none so far Full Review I received my new Nextel i1000 plus last week and have been thoroughly impressed! I have been a Nextel user for over 4 years and kept the i500 model since that time. When my battery finally died on me this month, I decided it was time to upgrade. I inquired about upgrading when the i1000's came out but it would have cost me over $400 for the new phone. I am a real estate developer in Charlotte and need to contact sub-contractors (who all use Nextel) so I did not have the option of switching to another service. I had heard favorable reviews of the i100 plus from other Nextel users and decided to give it a shot. Although most of the people I work with do not use the web capabilities, I am a gadget nut and love to play around with the browser on this phone. It does take some practice to find exactly what you are looking for but once you get the hang of it you can personalize the options through MSN. Two other web features that I love are the calendar and e-mail functions. I have started to use the calendar on MSN as my primary task manager and you can access and manage it through the phone. I have since changed my e-mail address and can read and send e-mail on the phone. I absolutely LOVE the speakerphone feature as I am in my car most of the time working. I purchased the phone holder for my car that sits on my dash and can use the phone and radio functions (as well as web but it is harder to navigate) with the cover closed. I have found the phone very durable as I have already dropped it twice (pretty clumsy huh?) and not even a scratch! The reception that I receive seems alot better than my previous model. The i500 I had before would go in and out inside my house (I live about 15 miles from downtown) but the i1000 has had full strength reception from the start. The only problem with Nextel is that it is the sole provider of service and it is a relatively new carrier, therefore the coverage areas are limited compared to other providers. They are achieving greater coverage every day and most of the major thoroughfares and cities are covered which suits my needs fine. One other thing that was mentioned in a previous post was the interference with your radio or other electronic devices. My i500 was awful when it came to this! With the new i1000, I do not get any interference with anything. In fact, when I plug the charger into my car cigarette lighter, I can even listen to AM radio now!!! I LOVE everything about this phone and service! It serves my needs perfectly and acts as my complete connection to the outside world when I am on the road. Buy it and you will love it too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88552 2001/6/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great sound quality 4 different usage options semi small size flimsy flip top uncomfortable against the ear elaborate programming methods are confusing The Bottom Linegreat if you are going to take advantage of at least the majority of the functionality, if not I'd look into something else Full Review I got the opportunity to use the Motorola i1000plus (also known as the Nextel i1000plus through a small business setting. Preparing myself to possibly sell and promote these contraptions, I threw myself into getting to know everything about them. Unfortunately, there is absolutely so much to know and figure out about this mobile device, that even I was at times confused and baffled at the possibilities. First things first, this phone was made specifically for service with Nextel. Therefore, I can't hardly explain many aspects of the phone without at least touching in on the service end of things... you won't be able to use the phone with any other service, so this added information shouldn't distract you from the review of the phone itself. Featuring such technological innovations and depth, this phone comes in a nifty welcome pack. Inside this pack you'll find a manual similar to those you may remember from your high school or college scientific calculator (so big you don't even want to go there.) Also important is an introduction video... although somewhat slow and simple, I'd seriously encourage anyone with this phone to give it a whirl at least once, especially if you refuse to look at the manual. Don't forget that you get a wall charger, and hard plastic click case with belt-clip (not to handy for quick answering, but it does the job if you don't want to buy another one. Phone: Here you have the capability of storing up to 100 phone numbers, including 10 for one touch dialing (holding down the specified number for a moment. This feature is actually a longer, more cumbersome hold-down then my Nokia 5190) Unlike many phones, names are stored in all caps, no upper and lower case allowed, plus the name length is considerably shorter than some. If you take the time to read through a bit of the manual, you can figure out how to, and take advantage of, the last 10 calls made and received feature as well. This makes for quick redial capabilities, and storing of frequently used or received numbers. Caller ID ties into your phone book, as usual. If you have a named stored in, it will tell you that name of the caller, otherwise it will simply post the number calling. Direct Connect: This is the best feature of this phone that I can see. Here you can directly connect with fellow co-workers, friends, family, and business associates who are using the Nextel service in your local area (wide coverage areas) and are connected with your same network. Depending on the service that you have, these calls are unlimited, or at the least at a much lower rate than your actual phone minutes. These calls are made in a ham radio/walkie-talkie type fashion. You hold down a button, wait for the beep, then talk, letting go when done to hear the other person. If the two of you happen to try to talk at the same time you'll get a louder tone telling you they are already talking. This service is especially helpful in a work or family setting, where almost constant communication is necessary, even for small amounts of time, quick questions, etc. Direct connect can happen with the flip cover closed, and using the speaker phone on (this is especially fun to do with other people around, everyone wants to know what's going on) or in private mode, where you have the phone open and up to your ear. Either way, your conversation in secure through the airwaves due to the scrambling circuit that Nextel sends the signals through. Group Calling: Not to be confused with three-way calling (which is available with the standard phone end of things,) this is where a business owner, manager, etc. can program in a number of people they may need to contact with a message or a meeting. We never actually used this feature, so I can't tell you any more than what it's supposed to do for you. Wireless Web: I found this part of the phone especially nice while waiting for a friend during her hospital check-up appointment. Bored with all the magazines around, I flipped open my phone, looked into buying flowers from FTD, checked up on my latest amazon.com order, read through some headlines, and checked my hotmail account. At this point you can only reach MSN information, and selected sites they've chosen. However, you can go online to personalize what you see on your phone. I was especially impressed with the news area. When the Seattle area recently had an earthquake, information was available almost immediately, not just at the end of the day. As I mentioned before, there is a substantial speaker phone inside of this somewhat small phone. I find this especially nice for driving and talking on the phone, or checking my messages. With the exception of bad reception areas, I had no one complain of the lack of ability to hear me any different through the speaker phone, plus others can easily join into the conversation. Unfortunately, many of the functions of the phone cannot be accessed without actually opening the flip-cover of the phone. A few of the simple actions can be done with it all closed, but I found myself needing to open it more often than I'd have liked. Unlike many of the cell phone out right now, this one has simple digital rings, no songs, nothing special, so don't look for that sort of flashy bell or whistle. It does come with internal vibrate, making the need for a vibrating (read: expensive) battery nil. Placing the entire phone on silent (web, direct connect, group, and phone) and to vibrate is easy (press *#9.) My biggest complaint is the battery life and size. The packaged battery is bulky making the phone an odd cumbersome shape. Yet this big battery is lucky to last you 2 days if not only 1 1/2 with out some sort of boost in charge. If you are constantly in communication (as anyone with this phone should be,) this can be a problem. A car charger would be highly recommended... and don't plan on long wilderness trips and still stay in contact... Plus, worst of it is that if you're battery is low, even if everything is set to silent/vibrate, your phone will begin to incessantly chirp. This will cause you to need to actually turn the phone off at this point if in a movie, play, etc. With the right mix of contacts using this same service, a great deal of patience and technical know-how, and the right plan... this can be a real plus to a road-warrior, construction business, large family, small business, and more! Epinions Note: This phone is listed twice here at Epinions (once simply as the "i1000", once as the "i1000plus, I have contacted them in this regards. Once the two areas are merged, I will remove one of my duplicate reviews (each placed only once under each title) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): - 88551 2000/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 with superb speakerphone lightweight skyscrapers cause signal drop outs Full Review When my first Nextel phone bit the dust, I determined that my satisfaction level with Nextel merited the purchase of an upgrade. Going to the Nextel store, I looked at the various models, and considered the one that works overseas, since I travel a bit. In the end, however, the possibility of internet access sold me on the "i1000 plus." I took it home, charged the battery like I was supposed to, and received a couple of surprises when I took my phone out on the road for the first time. My first surprise was a pleasant one. Even though this battery is a third the size of my old battery, the charge lasts longer, whether I am talking my head off, or just leaving it on standby. Not only that, but the battery is so small and reliable that I decided to purchase a back-up battery that I keep charged and stashed in my glove compartment, just in case. Now for the unpleasant surprises: First, I spent the first week getting unceremoniously dumped off the system in the middle of LOTS of phone calls! I hit redial so many times, and so angrily, that I am surprised that the button is still there! At one point, I had to redial my secretary six times to complete some short instructions to her! Just as I was getting ready to read Nextel the riot act, I remembered that my saleswoman had warned me that they were adding towers, or adjusting something that week, and that I should wait a week or so to see how much I liked it. Well, believe it or not, the next week was better, and by the third week, everything was fine. I have had virtually ZERO dropped calls ever since! It seems unbelievable that a salesperson told me the truth, but the facts speak for themselves. The only other unpleasant surprise was that I get a lot more weak-signal problems when I am downtown (I live in a large city) than I did with my older, larger model of Nextel phone. The sound in general is clearer, but when among skyscrapers, I occasionally get that annoying and bizarre sound that is digital screw-up. But 99% of the time, I am not in a place where this annoyance occurs. Overall, I am exceptionally happy that I upgraded to this phone, and I use it much more frequently than I did the old one. The speakerphone option is fantastic, when I have a couple of people in the car, and we have to converse with someone back at the office. I can set the phone on the front seat between us, and everyone in the car can hear the office people perfectly clearly, and vice-versa. I love how light it is, and I love how "cool" it is, and I love the speakerphone feature. The phone is sweet in every way, but can be frustrating downtown, where I sometimes have to apologize for the sound. Now if I can only remember to watch my driving while using it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88550 2003/5/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life well built internet ease of operation can use w flap closed 2way radio low radiation speakerphone no way to turn off answer on flip open some deadspots in suburbs The Bottom LineIf you want to get irradiated and have musical rings, get a Nokia. If you want a great phone with great features get Nextel. Full Review I got my Nextel because several co-workers had them and loved the two-way radio feature. I have not regretted it since. The phone comes complete with a standard battery, belt clip, charger, manual and Instructional Video. Yes, they made a little 10-minute movie that gives you the basics. The charger is the 'travel charger', basically a plug with a cord that goes in the phone. A pocket charger that sits on your desk can be ordered from Motorola. Setting up the phone is pretty easy, unlike my previous phone, a GSM StarTac 7000, which had level after level of nested menus with options that confused even me, the neighborhood gadget-head. There is only one base menu, which can be accessed by pressing *#. Options on it range from displaying your own phone number and private ID to changing ringers and programming your speed dials. While there are alot of options on this menu (sorted by number, so if you press *#20 you would get the add entry to autodial), I find having them all in one place helps. Unlike the StarTac, I dont have to look through 3 level nested menus to find what I want. One other useful feature is you can use their website to program your phone's speed dials and then download it to the phone. The phone is a breeze to use. You just press MODE to select phone, private (direct connect person to person), group (direct connect talk to lotsa people), or net (surfing). The one thing that will confuse some people is that theres no send or end buttons, just a call button which you press once to send, again to end. A few times I would get a call, open the flip (answering the call) and then press the button (hanging up). I would like a way to turn off 'answer on open'. I guess that isnt necessary because you can see thru the flip to see whos calling. The phone has excellent caller ID, and if the person calling is in your speed dial it will display the name instead of the number. One option available is a second line, so you can give friends/family one number and clients another. It will say '1235551212 is calling on line 2'. Another advantage is the see thru flip... you can use many features without opening it. You can dial anyone on your contact list (speakerphone), use direct connect or surf the web without opening it. The flip is quite sturdy and is not going to be breaking off. My only complaint is that if you start a call with it open, then go to speaker, you cannot close the flip without ending the call. Direct Connect is a great feature. It works like a two way radio, punch up who you want to call (private) or what group of people (group), hold the button on the side, and when you hear the chirp start talking. Update: Nextel has finally done away with 'business networks'. You can direct connect to anybody whos phone is registered in your region. Soon it will work nationwide. Net browsing is another great feature. You can easily call up content from Nextel's partners, and configure some of it on their web portal site (mynextel.com). The phone can also access any WAP-compliant site. One other extra feature is two way messaging, so you can send and recieve text messages. Every phone can recieve messages or emails (IE 1234567890@page.nextel.com) but you need the extra service to send them. In my area (suburbs) coverage is OK but not great, there are dead spots and 'almost dead' areas. I am told this could be because I use a aftermarket antenna, one that lights up so I can see when its transmitting. However, the voice mail is great so I dont complain. Another advantage is the radiation... it has a SAR of 0.43. (in the CNET survey where I got that number, the lowest was 0.24 and the highest was 1.49.) The only bad things I can find with this phone are: 1. no way to turn off 'answer on open flip' 2. no headset plug builtin, with the adapter it doesnt come out of the case easily Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88549 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable a little awkward Full Review I used this phone for two months in NY City in a public art project, I picked this model phone for one reason: The speaker part is LOUD...originally when I was looking for a good phone to use, because I would be interacting with the public, I had thought about wiring in a speaker and small amp to a speaker in the phone itself, but this was way louder than I expected even in the middle of the sidewalk in NYC during the day. Basically I mounted this phone into the side of a cow for Cow Parade NYC 2000 and with little or no waterproofing it sat there protected only by a speaker grill drilled into the side...I mounted a couple of buttons on it to speed dial a number in the phone I carried around with me and the first night I put it on the street I turned it on and thought it needed to charge first but I it was still charged from when I finished the piece a month earlier so people were calling me right away...I recorded many of the conversations at: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~featuringjason/ So many rainy nights I was worried it was just going to get soaked and give up, not that that many people called in the rain, but I wanted to keep the piece going. I really welded it in there good, expecting never to get it out again and if it survived, physically, it wouldn't ever work again, after what I put it through. Needless to say two months later at the end of the summer, I pulled the phone out and the only casualty was the wall charger which must have gotten damaged by the elements, much to my surprise when I tried to charge it in the car it worked again fine and I kept the phone and the service. The phone looks all messed up now, but it's been through everything NY could offer and came out fine...I will definately get another nextel if I decide to get rid of this road warrior phone.... I never used the internet option only because it's probably fairly expensive, but the range was great, very clear calls and a charge lasts quite a while. The flip up style is cool and the front is clear you can see who is calling without even opening it and that turns it on anyway, but you could easily use it hands free in a car and while it is charging. It's very small and I could carry it around with me everywhere, these days its surviving my bag which isn't much nicer than the mean streets... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100& 88548 2000/12/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sturdy speakerphone awkward complicated short battery life Full Review This phone is actually my company-issued phone. If the choice were up to me I don't think I would buy one although it's not a bad phone. I have to admit I was a bit leery because of the flip form factor, but the phone seems rather sturdy. There's an odd click when you flip it open or closed. I guess that's a switch as nothing has broken yet. When closed, the phone is not a bad size. It fits in my hand and isn't too heavy. The standard battery does have a bulge as others have indicated so the phone ends up being hunchbacked. The menus are a bit awkward especially when compared to other brands, but most of your standard functionality is available through them. It seems best to memorize the shortcuts for menu options you commonly use (i.e. *#9 takes me to the vibrating ringer toggle which I use often). Voice quality is quite good provided that Nextel coverage is decent. There is an issue with all Nextel phones -- you'll hear an annoying ticking/buzzing noise on any speakers nearby when your phone is sending to or receiving from the network. This can be handy though. There have been times where I can anticipate an incoming call before the phone even rings because of this speaker interference. One really nice feature is the built-in speakerphone. I haven't actually talked to anyone on it. I mostly use it muted to check voicemail or while on hold, etc. Battery life isn't all that great. Even the "hunchback" battery doesn't last me much more than a day and I don't really place all that many calls on it (although I do tend to leave it on the vibrate setting). Overall, the phone works well and is quite durable. It's a bit more complicated than most users will probably like and is probably missing features that users today expect. It's not quite as small as the newer flip phones and the plastic holster can be uncomfortable to wear. I prefer a leather case with a nub on the back that allows me to lock it into a swivel clip on my belt. It's a good phone for use as Nextel intended, but I wouldn't really recommend it to the typical consumer. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): NA 88547 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 everything none Full Review I have been using the Nextel phone for well over a year, had the bigger one, the one that they first came out with it was good, but it was a little too big to be put in a purse. I now have the 1000 model and it works just as well as the bigger one and it definitely fits in a purse, pocket, including a shirt pocket. Having the radio feature on your telephone is really good when family members need to get ahold of you at any time. The phone has a good distant range and you are less likely to drop calls while talking to someone. The phone has the feature of being able to just talk on the radio where other people can hear your conversation or you can use it just like a regular telephone. This is a good phone to get and use for a business because you are not having to remember or dial a whole lot of numbers when you use the radio feature. We used the phone while in Canada and it worked the same as if we were in the state that we live in which is several thousand miles away. I have not found anything yet about the phone that I do not like, I recommend it completely. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 88546 2000/12/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 seemingly unbreakable housing two way radio sudden call drops sudden phone shutoff battery life Full Review My company uses these phones/radios for techs in the field. I find the two-way radio feature to be the most useful for the type of work I do. When I need immediate assistance from a colleague, I can simply pick a name from the list and beep him. The radio is probably the hardiest gadget I've used. I've dropped this thing a million times and have NEVER had a problem, which cannot be said for other gadgets I've owned. The volume level has not been a problem, the backlighting feature is adequate, and letter/font quality is legible. I have recieved emails but due to size limitations you cannot send much text to these phones. My main complaints about the phone are: 1. Sometimes the phone will shut off without warning. I am not the only one who has occasionally looked at the phone and noticed that it has shut itself off. Not a good thing when you need to be contacted at any time. 2. Voice quality for radio is garbled at times (My group is in northeast/central Ohio) and cell phone quality varies. Sometimes a call from 150 miles away is scrisp, loud and clear while a caller from the next city is difficult to understand. 3. Sometimes a phone call is dropped without warning. 4. Why can't the phone detect that you are placing a phone call and automatically switch to phone mode rather than requiring you to shift to phone mode and then enter your number? Just a rant. 5. I wish there were a key lock feature that would prevent one from accidentally radio-ing someone. 6. Sometimes a call will go straight to voicemail without the phone even ringing to signal an incoming call 7. The battery has to be recharged every night and sometimes during the day as well. (Reconditioning the battery hasn't worked). Others have mentioned that they must recharge the phone nightly as well whether they've actually used the phone or just had it on standby all day. Despite my long list of quibbles, I still like this phone more than the other cell phones I've had, mainly due to its almost indestructable casing and the radio feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): unknown 88545 2000/11/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 durable great battery life lousy service in the detroit area Full Review I bought this phone as a group of phones for my business. I am in a business where I need to stay in touch with my employees and also need the convienence of a cellular telephone...I thought that this phone would be Utopia for me. Now 6 months later I am completely disappointed with these phones. Now I may be attacking the phone unjustly because it may just be the service provider in the Detroit area that has problems. I frequently drop calls, get little or no service inside of buildings, and from time to time can not use the direct connect feature because of lack of service in the area that I am at. The people at Nextel are telling me that they know that there is a problem in the area that I am in and that they are trying to remedy the problem but they have been telling me this for the six months that I have had the phones. In general the phone is a GREAT idea with tons of useful features of which I like the clear 'window' on the phone the best because you have the protection of a flip and can still see the caller ID before you pick it up. Battery life is excellent I often go more than three days between charges. The phone is a brute as far as ruggedness goes I have dropped it several times and still works (and looks) the same. In general talk to others in the area that have these phones before you go out and spend the 100 dollars to see if they are satisfied with the service provided locally. If you get good response then go and buy it if they are a little leary then look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88544 2000/10/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small range features attachments durability plan charges sound quality antenna price Full Review I've had my nextel phone for over three months. My boyfriend has had his for eight. I love having a cel phone and this is the first one I bought. If you want a reliable phone with great coverage get the i100 plus. It does have some drawbacks though, so make sure you get what you want. I've dropped my phone at least three times and it still works great. I find it to be very durable. Also I never lose service unless I am out of the area. Another great thing is the size and other features. You can clip it to your belt or pants. If you have big pants pockets, it will fit right inside. It is not heavy and you can get the leather case Like I have to protect you phone from scratches or wear. (I can't tell how long that will last though, some wear is already showing on the case) a few drawbacks to keep in mind. Nextel is one of the most expensive phones as well as getting plans for it too. I spend almost 100 dollars per month for about 600 minutes of time. I do have free direct connect, if you know someone with a nextel and you can get on their plan. Another drawback is the sound and antenna. I find that sometimes the sound isn't great and my friends and family can't always hear me. I find that in a car I have to yell over the background noise. Also the antenna does not seem to help at all with reception or range. I put it up, nothing happens, down it is the same thing. Also if you have little ones or find your self accident prone I can see how the antenna could become bent or broken easily. It is flimsy. Then again, I'm not convinced that the antenna does anything. It might not be a big deal. I find that I can go almost anywhere in my state and get service. Lansing, Mount Pleasant, Detroit, Ann Arbor all over Michigan I can call friends for the same rate and all in my range. Expensive but compared to what others say about their phones. I'm happy Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129-159 88543 2000/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 mic close to voice battery enclosed keypad stylish some design flaws misc semi common problems The Bottom LineBuy it if you want a sleek phone and two-way radio but don't want to shell out hundreds. Full Review The i1000plus is one of the original "professional" phones marketed to Nextel users. It is a "flip" phone which is a little larger than a StarTac but still small enough that you do not look or feel like you have another appendage strapped to your belt. The phone is about 5 1/2" long (antenna extends another 3" or so) 2 1/4" wide and 1 - 1 1/2" thick depending on whether you have the slim battery or not. It is a pretty light weight phone at approximately 6 oz with a standard battery. The phone is easy to use as soon as you get the hang of where buttons are, etc. ... which truly is the same with any other phone no matter what make or model. The phone comes standard with features such as: -Time and date -Speakerphone -9 Ring styles -2 line capability -Vibrate feature -Auto answer -3Way calling -Last 10 Numbers Sent/Received List -100 Phone Number memory -100 Direct Connect (radio) memory -others There are many battery options, however, Motorola provides the batteries in either a standard 900mah Li (which comes with the phone, manual, and carry case) or a slim 500mah Li battery. The i1000plus is a pretty good phone for the money, but the newer (I call them "menu driven") phones are easier to use with more features that will wow your friends and family. Such as java applications and voice activated dialing and more memory. However, to get a flip style phone with the new features you have to purchase the i90c which is easily a good $100 more than the i1000. The phone is capable of being used just the way it is in Canada and Mexico (where service is available). It can have many different features which are added to the rate plan from Nextel .... such as : Voice mail, Caller Id, Call Waiting, Online service, etc. There has been a few problems with these phones though: 1. The flips on the old designed i1000 style (picture shown on the epinions site) were relatively easy to break. The redesigned model reinforced the flip by making it attach from the inside of the phone body instead of the outside (which adds more stability). 2. The battery contacts can become worn and either break or be bent which will create battery contact problems and result in the phone powering off when bumped. 3. Some units have problems holding the LCD screen cable in the correct position on the board inside the phone which causes the screen to go blank. This is a rare occurence but does happen. I have seen one phone do this and was sent in for repair only to come back and a few months later repeat the problem (it was at Motorola repair). 4. Some units have problem with calls either dropping off or cutting in and out (where you can hear the other person talk but they cannot hear you). This is not a coverage or service issue but a problems with some units (line rejects?). 5. Some i1000's will periodically power off. Motorola was aware of this problem and made a software patch which was to fix it. However, I have seen some units receive the software patch and obtain a new battery but still have this problem. Once again, a rare case but does happen. 6. Very rare is a problem which happens with other models as well. This is a problem where a particular unit will not pick up as good of a signal as other units. Once again maybe a line reject? I used this particular phone for several months and enjoyed using it ... you can feel the flimsiness (I made that word up as if you couldn't guess) of the phone, but it was easy to use and people can hear you a lot clearer since the flip design puts the mic a lot closer to your mouth. With the Lithium batteries you don't have to worry about have battery memory problems. Motorola does have a one year warranty with the phone. However, if you have to send it in to them it may take a little while (a few weeks) to get back. There are other repair options, but my suggestion is to pursue getting a new unit since most which have been "fixed" eventually show the same signs. Overall, as long as you don't get the line rejects, the phone is a very handy phone to use, just be careful with the flip. Thanks for reading and have a great day! PS - I am writing reviews on other models as well (i500, i550, i700, i85, i90 when available) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 88542 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small surprisingly durable better for business The Bottom Line2 words. Get it! Full Review Cool! One of the most feature-rich phone just got richer. Motorola has souped up the already-popular i1000, its highest-quality iDEN phone, and given us the i1000plus. The i1000plus is my favorite phone on the market. Its styling is a bit dated, but it will be one of the best in terms of functionality when the sole US service provider, Nextel Communications, can support the new data feature (called "Net Mode"). Nextel plans to provide data service nationwide to match its competitors that are already providing similar services. So no matter where you are, before you rush out and buy one, I suggest you check with Nextel about the availability of the data service in your area. Look and Feel The i1000plus looks basically the same as the i1000. It only comes in one style: black plastic. The i1000plus is small enough - about the size of a deck of cards. It fits in a shirt pocket and only makes you look slightly ridiculous. The antenna is telescoping, and the flip has a window so you can see the display while it is closed (cool for checking your Caller ID before answering the phone in hands-free mode). The holster is made of black plastic, has a clip for belt attachment, and is well designed for quick draw and no-look reholstering. The display screen is too small (1x1.25 inches) for a data phone. The chassis of the phone is based on cell phone design, not PDA design (like other cutting-edge data models). Data was an afterthought for this model, something the folks in the lab slapped on in a last-minute attempt to catch up with the competition. Features Let me start with the data features, which I could only read about. These include a microbrowser, e-mail, personal organizer, and personal web page. The lamest thing about the iDEN data features is the microbrowser. It doesn't actually let you browse the Internet. The surfable content is limited to a carrier-provided Intranet consisting of sports, financial and stock reports, phone company directories, travel and entertainment news, and weather reports. Motorola's iDEN is one of the few cell phone protocols that does not use the Phone.com browser for complete web access. The e-mail feature looks standard and uses the T9 Text Input protocol for easing the pain of crafting e-mail without a full keyboard. The personal organizer stores addresses, your schedule, and a to-do list. The personal web page is provided by the carrier and lets you share data between your i1000plus and your PC without any wired syncing. The other nondata features of this phone are what make it stand out (in spite of its weak data features). While other cell phones are just that - phones - the i1000plus is a phone and walkie-talkie on steroids. It has four modes: phone, net (data features), group, and private. The phone mode has everything other cell phones do: good sound quality, a vibration option like a pager (or several ring noises), lithium ion battery, emergency dial, automatic redial (keeps calling a busy number and then calls you back when it gets a ring), last-number redial, speed dial, call forwarding, call waiting, call hold, three-way calling, second phone line, voice mail, caller ID, text messages, auto call back (when someone pages your phone with a text message that contains a number, you can call back with the push of one button), and speakerphone mode. (You can leave the phone on the passenger seat or dash and have a normal, intelligible conversation, as long as the windows are rolled up, and you're not driving a muscle car.) The group mode lets you use the large button on the side of the phone to broadcast your words to everyone else in your group. Groups can consist of your coworkers, your friends, your family, or anyone you want. The catch is they also have to be Nextel customers and be in the same market as you. The private mode works just like the group mode, but you only speak to one person. "Why not just call them?" you're wondering. Well, because there is no call setup time or protocol. Just scroll to the name of the person you want to talk to, press the button, and start speaking. There is no need to introduce yourself, as your name appears on their screen, making communication much faster and follow-up easier. The private mode is addicting. Trust me, after you get used to the private function with your friends and coworkers, making phone calls feels arduous and archaic. And better yet, the private mode is cheaper. Summary The features of the i1000plus make it one of the best all-around cell phones available, despite its faults. The data features are a welcome addition but lack the flexibility of competing products. The group and private modes will change the way you communicate. If you are deciding what kind of cell phones to buy your company, department, family, or crew, I strongly recommend the i1000plus and other iDEN phones. However, if you are looking for something for yourself only, then there are better options out there for you, like the PDA-enabled cell phones such as Qualcomm's pdQ or the Neopoint or less expensive data-enabled phones such as Samsung's SCH-3500. The i1000plus will run you about $199 and requires Nextel service Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88541 2001/4/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 radio speaker phone a lot more virtually unbreakable flimsy antenna a few others The Bottom LineBest powerful cell phone for the buck, but not for novice cell phone users. Full Review Intro... I am a loyal customer of Nextel and this phone (i1000 & i1000plus) for over 2 years. I have nothing but great things to say about Nextel's Service and the especially the phone! Pros (Things that I actually use and I am very pleased with...) _______________________________________________________________ 1. Speaker Phone This is the Number 2 distinction between this phone and the rest. I have yet seen a cell phone with the speaker phone feature. (By the time this epinion is posted, there probably will be one.) At any rate... for the past 2 years, I have enjoyed this feature a lot especially when I need to have my family and friends listening and chatting at the same time. It is also extremely useful while driving (although discourage). :) 2. Direct Connect a.k.a. Radio & Alert This is the Number 1 distinction between this phone and the rest of non-Nextel phones. You will be surprised as to how efficient it is to coordinate meeting time and place with just radio. I am also very impressed with the coverage. (I know that I'm not writing about the service, but I still have to point it out anyway.) A buddy of mind was radioing me from Mammoth Lakes, CA (at a ski resort) to me in San Diego, CA (395 miles / 10 hrs) away. Wow, that's coverage!!! I also find it very useful in grocery stores, malls, etc. By the way, Radio can be used in 2 modes. You can either talk on the radio just like a walkie-talkie by hearing out loud, or you can listen to it all to yourself like a phone. I prefer holding it like a phone for more privacy. In addition, you can just send the other phone an Alert. This feature is FREE. This way you can send a short alert to the other phone without intruding. It is also useful when your wife tries to tell you that she's outside your office waiting to have lunch with you. :) 3. Word Completion When you use the browser or 2-way messaging, you can punch in 4-3-5-7 for the word H-E-L-P, instead of punching 44-33-555-7 in regular mode. It intelligently looks up the the most frequently used words from the key combos. You can scroll for more words if key combo creates more than one choice. 4. Caller ID I am quite impressed with the Caller ID. Most of my buddies live on the East Coast, and their numbers / names still show up. My home Caller ID usually says, "Unknown Caller" from my East Coast buddies because of the different phone companies. 5. Missed Calls When you miss a call, it actually flashes a text message, "1 Rcvd Call". You can then lookup the call(s) you missed. I actually find this quite handy especially when I am in a middle of a business meeting, and the caller didn't leave a message. 6. Memo There is quick Memo section for you to input numbers while you are on the phone. I use this a lot! (i.e. Confirmation number, temporary phone numbers, ...) 7. Web Browser Very good. It defaults to MSN sites, but you are also able to access any WAP sites. I was able to access my Yahoo! Mail, Instant Messenger, Calendar, Address Book, Yellow Pages, Movies, etc. with ease. Furthermore, after you log into My Yahoo, it remembers you. The next time you access it, you don't have to enter your password again. Additional tip: When you bookmark your first 9 sites, you can access the bookmark by holding down the corresponding number. For example, My Yahoo is my first bookmark, so I simply press and hold the number 1 to access it anywhere, anytime in my browser. 8. Virtually Unbreakable! I dropped this phone as many as 30 times on asphalt, and it keeps on ticking. (BTW, you may not want to buy my used cell phones.) 9. Vibrate Mode I do not like to disturb others, so I place everything in Vibrate Mode. Most phones have this feature now, but I just want to emphasize that I use this a lot. 10. Turbo Dial The first 8 phone numbers stored on the cell phone can be dialed by simply pressing and holding the corresponding number. This comes in handy while driving. 11. Nextel Service Very cordial. Very easy to get through. One of the best customer service departments. Never had a bad experience yet. 12. Other Self Explanatory and Standard Cell Phone Features Speed Dial, Voicemail, Battery Strengh Meter, Signal Strength Meter, etc. Features that I rarely use, but I can see useful for others... 1. Text & Numeric Paging Good feature. You can email or use Nextel.com site to send a message to the phone. I don't personally use it much, but it definitely makes your day when you get a lovey text message from your spouse. :) In addition, when someone reaches your voicemail, in the greeting you can instruct the caller to press 1 to leave a numeric message. My friends actually do this to leave me their callback number. Also... if there is a phone number in the text or numeric page, it will dial the number when you press the dial key. 2. 2-Way Messaging Like Text Paging, except you can send text messages between phones and/or send an email to a regular email address. I also haven't used this feature too much. 3. Group Direct Connect a.k.a. Group Radio You can group radio a bunch of people at the same time, but it charges you individually. In other words, if there are 5 people in your group, it charges you 5 times. 4. Second Line You can have a second line to separate your personal and business usage. However, the 2nd line cannot utilize all features of the phone. 5. Battery Life Very satisfied. It uses a Lithium Ion battery (the ones that you don't have to discharge fully before recharging). My talk time varies from 30 mins to 3 hours daily. I just charge it everyday when I get home with no worries. I don't intend to ever need a spare battery. Cons (Things I wouldn't brag about...) 1. Antenna It's flimsy. I never need it raised for extra signal strength, so it doesn't bother me. 2. Cannot Lock and Receive Phone Calls You cannot lock the unit and receive phone calls at the same time. I find this annoying. I am very security conscious, and I would hate for someone to find my phone on the street and start having a field day. However, you can either manually lock it or turn on the autolock feature. (Autolock asks for the password every time the phone is turned off and on.) But once the phone is in ANY locked mode, you cannot make or even receive phone calls. 3. Direct Connect a.k.a. Radio -- Cannot Cross Fleet You can only radio with the following phones: a. Same account / bill b. Same fleet In order for you and a buddy to radio each other, you have to be either on the same account / bill or join the same fleet. If you set it up at the very beginning, it's a piece of cake. Otherwise, one of you will have a high risk of losing your existing phone number in order to change fleet. There may even be a chance for a $5 or so monthly charge. (I haven't heard of anyone actually being charged of the fee.) 4. Direct Connect a.k.a. Radio -- Cannot Across Zones You cannot radio another person in another zone. (i.e. I cannot radio Atlanta, GA from San Diego, CA). Rumors said that they are beta testing this feature. I am hoping that this will be available by the end of 2001. *** This is the Number 1 feature that I am waiting for next from Nextel. *** 5. No Games Sorry, no games. The end. Surf the web instead. :) Miscellaneous... Sorry... There are so many features on this phone that I'm sure I've missed some. I just want to point out the ones that I actually use or at least caught my attention. Please feel free to visit Nextel.com to find more info. I include the direct link below to the phone's detail page. Pricing... $100-199 each (There is a promotional offer right now for $199 - Buy one get one free). Service Plans... Nextel first targets Businesses, but now they are offering more consumer pricing. Check plan pricing monthly. Most plans do not require a contract. ***Occasionally, there are deals that are out of this world on both phones and service plans. Keep your eyes open*** Sound Quality a. Sound quality is very good to excellent. b. Speakerphone is still half-duplex (like most speaker phones, only 1 person can talk at a time). *Note* All the road noise may also be transmitted via speakerphone and can make the other person hard to hear. Nextel Pampers You Since this phone is feature packed, a video tape is enclosed. It does get you started right away. Resource http://www.nextel.com/products/productcatalog/i1000plus.shtml Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 - 199 88540 2000/11/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 offers a lot of today s latest technology at the tips of your fingers it s not for the casual cell phone user because it provides so much Full Review Recently I changed service providers to Nextel with the Motorola i1000 plus. I was very excited about this upgrade because I was upgrading from a very old model of the Motorola StarTAC which was not web ready. So far I have been enjoying my phone a lot and honestly, I can't stop playing around with the internet on my phone. My mom and dad who have the same phone as I do will tell you a completely different story. They find the phone very confusing and not as user friendly as the StarTAC. Basically this phone is not for everyone and now that I have one I completely understand why. Most of the horror stories about this phone come from people that don't really need all the features in this phone. Choosing a cell phone is not an easy task anymore because of the wide variety of phones out there on the market. Below I will touch on the features this phone has to offer you and hopefully help you decide whether this phone might or might not be the one for you. Price The price for this phone listed from Nextel is $199.95, but right now they are having a buy one get one free promotion (I'm not sure when it ends), so I got this phone for $99.95 which isn't a bad price to pay for a phone that is capable of so much. Size Do not be deceived by the picture of the Motorola i1000 plus. This phone is not as small as it looks in the picture. The phone measures out to be 4.5"x2.2"x1.2". Basically if you have normal size hands the phone fills up your hand. The phone would be a really nice size if the battery didn't stick out like a sore thumb on the back of the phone (the part you don't see in the picture). Weight The phone weighs a total of 6 ounces. It's not the lightest of phones especially for someone who used to own a StarTAC. The battery is where all the weight is. The phone itself is not that heavy. You can purchase the slim battery through their accessory department which is supposed to be smaller, lighter and provides less talk time. Battery Life To make up for the battery being so heavy, it offers great standby and talk time. I like to keep my phone on 24/7 so a good battery is very important to me. This phone has not let me down so far. I charge it about once every other day. The battery provides you with 3 hours of talk time and 50 hours of standby. It takes 3 hours to charge your battery up fully. I use my phone to surf the web a lot, so my battery runs out faster than most people's would. Radiation Level For those of you who are concerned about the radiation level like I am, you won't have to worry too much about that with this phone. The Motorola StarTAC 7860 is rated the lowest radiation cell phone with a level of .24 which makes the phone very attractive. The Motorola i1000 plus is rated 7th on the list of the lowest radiation cell phones with a level of .43 which is not bad at all for a cell phone that is capable of doing so much. For comparison reasons, the Nokia 5160 has a radiation level of 1.45 almost four times greater than the Motorola i1000plus, so I hope that helps you out in deciding whether this phone is safer or not. Durability A big thing that I didn't like about this phone was that the flip looked so flimsy compared to the StarTAC that I thought I was going to break it right away. I have heard bad stories of people saying that the flip to this phone really sucks and can break easy, but my friend has had this phone for a little over a year and it's still going. So I think I'm going to trust my friend because the phone doesn't appear to be that flimsy at all. In fact since the phone feels heavy it gives it more of a solid feel. I would not recommend throwing the phone around and handling it roughly though. The flip could break if you drop the phone when the flip is open. As with any other phone, you have to take special care of it. Features There are tons of features to the phone so I'm not going to bore you and list the ones that most cell phones have already. To get a full list of features just go to Nextel.com. Speakerphone: Talk on your phone without having to use the ear piece at all! Finally a hands free phone that works. Now you will never have to worry about getting a ticket while you are driving and talking on the cell phone. I love this feature and use it often and the amazing part is that it actually works better than the speaker phone on my cordless phone at home. Multiple Languages: Want to learn a new language? Customize your phone to display menus in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Turbo Dialing: You can program up to 8 numbers in your phone for this feature which allows you to dial a number at the touch of one button. It's a step better than speed dial because you only have to hold down the number on your keypad. Web Ready: Use your phone to surf the net. I currently have this service on my phone and it is wonderful. The web service from Nextel only allows you to surf the MSN network, but luckily it offers a wide variety of things for you to do such as checking your e-mail, shopping for the latest deals around your area, getting the latest news headlines, checking movie times at theaters, get directions to a location in case you get lost, and so on... Alternate Line: This feature allows you to have two phone numbers for your phone. Great for the business user who wants to separate work and personal calls. See-through Display: I love this feature because it allows me to use my phone without opening the flip at all. You can do almost everything on your phone without opening the flip including making calls. Direct Connect: This is the "walkie talkie" feature of the phone. Since my mom and dad both got Nextel phones I have tried this feature out and it's awesome! You get a 5 digit ID number along with your phone number which allows you to connect to virtually any Nextel user. You can program these numbers into your phone so you don't have to memorize them and at the push of one button on the side of your phone, you will be connected to them automatically. The minutes you spend using Direct Connect are a lot cheaper than normal airtime minutes too. Voicemail, E-mail, Text Messages: These features allow people to leave messages for you anytime and in a variety of ways. Text and e-mail messages can be sent to you through the computer and etc. Date/Time: This is a fairly new feature on Nextel phones. Phones awhile back had the capability of showing the date and time, but for some reason Nextel did not have the time and date on their phones. Well, this problem is fixed now and there are now time and date displays on the phones. So if this was one of the cons on your list you can take it off. And the list goes on and on..... Ease of Use This Motorola i1000plus appears not to be very user friendly at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's a breeze. There are a lot of things you can program into your phone through the programming menu. My mom and dad are finding a hard time learning how to use the phone since they are not very tech literate, but I am teaching them both how to use the phone and slowly they are getting the hang of it. The phone comes with a 15 minute video that shows you how to use your phone. This was a good introduction to the phone, but it doesn't touch on a lot of the other features that you have to learn yourself using your manual. If you have an open mind that are willing to learn new things or catch on quickly to new things, this phone could be a perfect gadget. I got the hang of this phone in about two days from reading through the user manual and experimenting with the phone. The user manual will become your friend the first week you have the phone since the menus on the phone are not very user-friendly. Also, if you ever need help with your phone simply just call 1-800-NEXTEL9 and a customer care representative will help you out right away. I have had no problems so far with their customer service. Who should get this phone? I recommend this phone for Business users who are on the go constantly and for those workers that have to talk to their associates frequently. The features that the phone come with are very helpful on the job. It's even a better phone for you if you have co-workers that use Nextel too. Check into this phone if you are a very techy person and like to have the latest technological advances. While this phone probably isn't the most advanced out there (I admit), I personally think that it's very high tech. If you don't feel comfortable using Palm Pilots and etc., this phone is not for you. The phone is basically a little mini computer with a phone if you get the plan with web service. You can send data to your phone and even use your phone as a modem. I do not recommend this phone for people who just want a cell phone for personal reasons or emergency use either. If you just want a cell with a cheap plan, get the StarTAC or something that is easier to use and go with Sprint. You will find yourself wasting money on an i1000plus because it has so many features that a normal cell phone user would not even use making the phone very inefficient. I think this is why my mom and dad both do not like this phone. Conclusion Before you decide on a cell phone make sure that you do your research so that you will not get stuck with a phone that you will end up hating. Nextel's main target is the business users out there who need to be connected with their work at all times, but I think you will see them trying to target the more normal cell phone user soon. I do not use my phone for business reasons, but I am more than satisfied with this phone because of all that I'm capable of doing from it. I really can't stop playing with the web service on it because it is unlimited. I think in about a month when I start really getting the hang of the phone it will be my favorite cell phone that I've ever owned. I hope that I helped you in some way in deciding whether or not this phone is for you. If you need help about or have questions about Nextel please feel free to leave me a comment. I made sure I did my research before I bought this phone so I know quite a lot about this phone and about Nextel's service plans. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! It feels so good to find free time to write reviews again. =) I will be writing a review soon about the service plans and customer service at Nextel so be sure to look out for that review soon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 7753 Nextel i55sr 88564 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 signal quality better than i700 less no dead zones got this phone w o realizing the i58 newer model has gps technology but big deal The Bottom Lineit's probably not a woman's phone unless you're my kind of woman. it's a good phone. anything smaller begs to be called a child's toy. Full Review i have this phone now after using the i700 for two years. i like a phone that feels like a phone and not one of my wife's tampons (sorry if that's offensive).i like not having to talk up to my ear as with all these other tiny phones. this i55sr is a comfortable hold. it's got a comfortable weight but not heavy on the belt pouch. i use the direct connect a lot. signal strength is much better than the i700 as i get through much easier. dead spots on the i700 are not founded with the i55sr. i've yet to use the data cable but i read that the serial db9 end vs. the usb end that connects to the computer/laptop is better to stick with (especially for windows95/98). i don't know yet because i have windowsXP and only usb ports (so i have a usb/db9 adapter to try it with). so far the battery charge has lasted over 36 hours and the charge shows full bars. the speaker phone feature is completely spectacular. it is very loud on the highest volume and i find it ear piercing. i keep the setting down on 7/10 usually. saving multiple numbers (direct connect, phone-home, phone-office) to one name is nice. in the phonebook, you look up the name and scroll left/right through different numbers to contact that name accordingly - very very very nice. i don't use the two games that are listed because the click to use says, "INSTALL" and not "SELECT" so i'm guessing i'd have to pay to use.. but i'll have to check that out more thoroughly.. i'm very satisified with the phone. the phone and nextel (not so much nextel as is the actual direct connect feature) is the only way for me to communicate. i tried other carriers with nokia,siemens,sony ericsson phones and although siemens s46 is a nice phone, it doesn't come close to quality and clarity of the i55sr - and you just can't beat direct connect. i paid $0.00 (yup) as it was free with a new service connection. you just can't beat that either. i can't say it's an indestructable phone because anything can get crunched with a sledge hammer. but it's very durable (thus far) as far as a computer chip and a plastic/rubber phone can go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88563 2000/4/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 not too bulky good features rugged design battery not a flip phone The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a rugged phone then just buy it. Full Review The i55sr (now deemed the i58sr) is the replacement phone for Nextel of the i700plus. The i700plus was known as the "rugged" or "construction" Nextel by some Nextel users. It was the yellow phone you would see advertised in the hands of construction workers, landscape artists, etc. The i55 turned into the i58 and did not really change anything except the fact that the 58 is GPS enabled. This is I believe due to the e911 laws/legislature out there. RUGGED What makes the phone rugged is the rubber molding around the outside of it, and other various designs. It meets Military standards for dust, shock and vibration testing. The rubber outside also helps you keep grip on the phone (of course, you lose this is you put the phone in a leather or other type of case covering it). The antenna stem is also reinforced helping to keep the antenna from breaking easily. All of this along with the rubberized battery door help the phone stay problem free (as long as you don't take it in the pool with you). FEATURES The i55/i58 has some great features to ... they are: - Speakerphone: Enabling you to talk just like a regular desk speakerphone ... you don't have to try to hold it between your ear and shoulder. Possibly saves trip to the chiropractor I guess? - Vibrate: In case you need to keep a low profile. - Phone book: 250 entries with the ability to keep 7 entries for one individual - Internet/Data capable: You can surf the net or hook up your computer ... usually an extra monthly fee associated with this service, but it could be handy depending on how much you would use it. - Call list: Last 20 calls either received or made. You can even go in and view the detail of when the call took place and how long it was. - GPS enabled: So your boss can know exactly where you are ... great huh? - Datebook: Have the phone notify you of various appointments you can set for a specific length of time. Kind of handy. Or just use it as an alarm clock. - Java apps: Ability to use various java apps on the phone. Standard install of calculator and a game demo or two. - Keypad lock: you can let your kid play with it without calling China. And some other features as well ... ie- Various ring tones, etc. SPECS The phone comes in two color combinations. It comes standard in yellow and black, also comes in black and grey. It is about 5" x 2" x 1.5" so it is not even close to the bricks everyone was carrying several years back, but there are also smaller phones on the market. I would say it is average size or slightly (by a hair) smaller. It weighs with the battery about 6.5 ounces. The great thing is the battery life. It will last 5 hours or a hair more on the battery for talk time. It will last over 5 days on standby (without talking). The battery is also a Lithium-ion battery so you do not have to worry about the battery getting a "memory". Like every Nextel it has the Direct Connect feature (soon to be Nationwide). You can choose between 4, 6, or 8 lines of texts to appear on the screen. It is an overall good phone to use. My one con which I gave the phone is that it is not a flip phone. This means unless you make a practice of occasionally wiping the phone (and case if you have one) off then it will eventually become scratched and can become hard to read after enough scratches on it. Flip phones do not have the face exposed so this is not generally a problem. If you need a phone that takes a beating and you want an excellent communication tool ... then this is the phone for you! Happy hunting. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 7754 Nextel i1000 88686 2000/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great customer servicerecieption alittle high but worth it cost Full Review I have had every cell phone made I believe.....from almost every carrier.....Nextel so far is the best i have had signal wise. I bought my NextelI1000 flip phone about 3 months ago and I cant believe the signal I get where the others i had couldnt even get one. Nextel cell phones are a great purchase.....the signal is great ,, the recieption is good and the styles are limited but are respectful. With all the good does come some bad.........the rates are a little high on cost.......but if you know what you need you can work your way around this some. Just buy the package you need and limit your talk time.. and if you have a family wait for there specials like I did. The package i got was buy one phone and get one free........then payed for the lowest package they have and got the 2-way radio add on..........you pay one cost for this extra and can use it 24-7 with out paying any extra.....in my case its payed for its self with this extra. Also its worth the extra couple bucks for the insurance on the phone....I dropped my phone off a forklift a month ago and ran over it......it was my own dump fault but cause of the insurance Nextel replaced my phone ($199) for free........no questions.....minimum waiting period. Have a nice day.............good luck on your search........mike Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88685 2000/3/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent web browsing the speaker phone is amazing in reachclarity the battery life is very short ring selection is very limited The Bottom LineClear, portable, functional, attractive, I would definetly suggest you buy one. All my friends want one. Full Review I've owned my Nextel for about 3 months. In comparison to phones my friends and co-workers have this blows them away. I love the 2-way radio,you can put anyone with any Nextel on your network and talk to them for free anytime! The clarity on the 2-way is awesome with the exception of low signal areas. Web browsing is a must have. It has a "word" function when on the web. So instead of repeatedly pressing one number to get a letter you just press the buttons with the letters you need once. It then searches its massive library for the combination of keys you are pressing to find the word you are trying to spell. The probability of it guessing the word you are going for is about 97%. It has speaker phone, which I use often. Just yesterday I was with a group of friends on a cliff that we hang out at when it's nice out. One of my friends called and I put him on speaker. It was as if he was there with us. No lie, one of my friends was 20 feet away from me and he was talking to my friend on the phone with perfect clarity. It blew are minds away. Also it has a vibrate feature, which is best for when you need your phone on but don't want to disturb you surroundings. The only draw back is I need to charge my phone every night or else... All in all I love my Nextel and wouldn't trade it for anything, unless it could compare with all the great features of my phone. It's great for businesses when you need to stay in touch at a moments notice without even dialing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88684 2000/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 two way messaging great clarity fragile earpiece Full Review This has got to be the best phone on the market. I bought the phone for a combination of uses, from home to work. It was very convenient for work because my boss and many co-workers have the Nextel service and can make great use out of this phones two way capabilities. I have had the phone for approximately 8 months and loved it from the very minute I used it. The only thing that I do not like about the phone is the fact that when talking I feel like I'm going to break the earpiece off. Anyone who wants to keep in touch with their family and friends, or any business man who would need to keep in constant touch with people. All you need to do is be in a Nextel coverage area which is all around now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65.50 88683 2000/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 quick charging battery handsfree speakerphone long standby time digital only capability nextel service Full Review Blood pressure too low? Nextel to the rescue! This product has almost ended up on the freeway several times. Although the phone is not as bad as the service, for the price this phone lacks many features present on many other cell phones. You can expect limited service in rural areas due to being digital only. The i1000 can't hold caller I.D. numbers, won't tell you missed calls and can't even tell you the time of day. It is light weight and has an easy to read display screen with good standby time but the flip up ear piece won't hold up for the extremely frequent user. The speakerphone feature sounds great for a while but then becomes garbled with more use and you won't find yourself using that feature as much as you thought. The two way radio function is great for the business user but the service plan that includes that function does not include free long distance or roaming. Nextel's service is horrible, with dropped calls happening more often than a zit on your face when you were sixteen. The customer service might as well be a brick wall with a speaker attached to it saying "we'll be putting up more towers in that area soon". Mainly because of the service, the only person who should buy this phone are the masochists. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88682 2009/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a lot of features small antennae nub Full Review The Nextel i1000 is by far the best cell phone that I have ever used, and it fits in my coat pocket. The phone has a database for important numbers and in the nex years you will be able to access the web on it. The phone itself is stylish and is one of the first phones that I have ever seen that is loud enough to be heard even in a noisy place such as a mall. The display on it is easy to read and easy to use. The only complaint that I have about it is that the antennae nub pokes me when I walk quickly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 88681 2000/5/4 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 cheaper rates larger range not user friendly poor battery life Full Review The first contact I had with this product was on a trial basis. It was introduced to the company I work for as a easier, cheaper, and more versitile phone for our aplication. I am in the transport refrigeration business which involves mobile repairs on everything from logging equiptment to refrigerated trucks and so on. We have (aprox) 25 service vans. We cover a very large area. The benifits I have experienced with this product are as follows; - Two way radio feature is not only cheaper but allows for a much larger range of reception area. - Volume button on side is easily accesable and helps aviod those ear piercing calls. -Vibrate mode is very handy when working on machinery and I am unable to hear. - In my experience this phone is very durable (I use the yellow army style) Down-falls; -Difficult to learn how to use, and who will ever use all the options? -Supplyers name on screen (un-changeable) makes it difficult to determan which one is mine when there are more than one on the chargers -Two way feature is definately not private! (speaker on phone ) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 + or - 88680 2000/11/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight features call clarity nothing major Full Review I have been with Sprint PCS for the past 2 years and the phone call quality was anything other than "clear" here in a major metro area right on the interstate. The i1000plus has loud, clear volume. The speaker phone is better than many office speaker phones I have used. My cellular calls are clear and loud. The size is great as well. The only negatives that I see are: 1. I wish the buttons were raised just a hair more. I have big fingers and would like a better feel. 2. The backlight comes on with a minimal opening of the case. When you put a leather case on the phone this is even more critical. In other words, be sure the case fits right or your backlight can go on and off as the lid shifts and will run your battery down faster. 3. I may be missing this somewhere but I can't find how to find out how many direct connect minutes you have used. I am on the unlimited plan but for someone trying to keep track this could be a bit of a problem. If your cell phone gets a lot of abuse you may want to consider the i700 with the rubber cushions. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99,00 88679 2000/7/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 mail walkie talkie in one voice mail phone battery life Full Review I use this little device daily to keep in touch with family, friends, and coworkers. I can receive email, paging, voicemail, regular phone, and private walkie-talkie, all in one device. It has various types of rings, and vibration for all of the above communication mechainism. It also has speaker and microphone so when I am driving and my hands are busy I just switch to speaker phone. Also in walkie-talkie mode, it beeps you first and show in the display to let you know who is on the other side so you can accept it or reject the call. Just about the only thing I hate about this device is the battery life. If I use it continuously for 3-4 hours, the phone needs recharging. Recommended: Yes 88678 2000/5/15 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 its free if you use the walky talky feature other person needs to have the same phone to get the free part of it bad reception too many controls Full Review My husband recently got this phone, we have been using cell phones for over 3 years now. I think we have had 4 different kinds, I liked all of them alot, but hubby is always looking for "new features" so we continue to upgrade. I DO NOT like this phone at all. I could care less about the walky talky aspect of it, you are only able to use it if the other person has it as well, and IF you do end up using it, the reception stinks worse than feta cheese. Its staticy and just a pain in the butt. And using it as a "normal" cell, I still find the reception to be low grade. There are two many controls on it, and it does get overwhelming to the average user. If you do not need the walky talk feature of it I would suggest that you stick to a regular cell phone, as this one just isnt stacked up as it was portrayed. Recommended: No 88677 2009/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 commercial quality communication at excellent pricing none Full Review The i1000 and new i1000 Plus offers cell phone, digital 2-way radio and nationwide text numeric pager all in one compact unit. Cell phone also includes built-in hands free speaker. For the $199.00 tag price of this high quality, commercial quality communication phone, its hard to understand how other Manufacturers of cell phone can charge 200 - 800 dollars for their cellular phones. Motorola leads the way in wireless communication and the Nextel line of cell/radios have no equal. With the Nextel rate plans and Motorola cell/radios, companies are sure to increase their productivity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88676 2000/4/9 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 2 way radio poor soundquality terrible ui expensive Full Review I gotta tell you, this phone really sucks. I got it for the "squawkbox" two-way group radio feature, which is relatively cool when it works. As a phone, it's pretty awful. Lousy coverage in Silicon Valley, overall poor sound quality, and badly designed. With its service plans (which tend to be very costly), you'd think a $200 phone would at least have a *clock*. Nope, not the i1000. I can't believe Motorola put their name on this thing, most of their comms equipment is really nice. This isn't up to par. The UI is difficult to use and manage, and the exterior buttons have "unexpected" effects (for example, when the phone is ringing, one of the buttons HANGS UP on the person. Not sends them to voicemail, DROPS the call. Nice.) Oh, and did I forget that it chews through batteries like a puppy through slippers? Ridiculous. I got rid of mine within 2 weeks. Glad the company paid for it and not me! My trusty Nokia 6190 might not have a 2-way radio, but the UI is superb! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 88675 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 it is both a 2 way radioa phone limited service coverage area The Bottom LineIt is very much a time saver having both phone service, and two-way radio communication in the same piece of equipment. Full Review The Nextel i1000 plus, is both an excellent phone, and two-way radio. It is truly the best of both worlds. The company that I work for, changed from regular cellular service to Nextel, and it reduced the company-wide phone bill by a very large amount. The Nextel is also very useful in our line of work, because it allows communication between our truck drivers, and our customers. It allows the pinpoint and accurate placement of deliveries, so therefore it also keeps our customers happy. The only real downside to Nextel, is that if you cross state lines, you still have phone service, but you don't have radio service. I would like to see Nextel go to both nationwide phone, and radio coverage. This would be very useful. The i1000 plus is very useful also, because it also allows you to access the internet, while traveling. It is also a good value, because the i1000 plus is cheaper than comparable cellular phones, with the same features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88674 2000/8/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 it works size cost menu Full Review I hate this phone and I'll tell you why. 1. It's huge. Well compared to my old flip phone. I was forced to change for my new job. 2. It has to have the most confusing menu system ever dreamed up. 3. I , personally, don't care for the top style flip. I prefer the bottom flip (nokia) or half & half (star tac). It doesn't set well in my hand. 4. I personally think this whole radio thing is kind of silly. I have done computer consulting for some time now and I have had to use it in several shops and unless you are trying to broadcast to a large amount of people, a cell phone on speed dial is just as fast. Now in a large environment, the cost of airtime my make it worth it, but in medium to small shops it doesn't make as much sense. 5. It's fairly expensive at $200 dollars if purchased outright. (ie. no rebates) Ok, so I wish it was as small as a Star Tac, the top flip design really bothers me and the whole Nextel thing is a huge marketing ploy. But let's talk about it's real limitation. The interface. To me it makes the phone almost unusable. It doesn't show the time (that feature is not yet available in my area). I can't tell who called. Well maybe I can, but can't figure it out. I can program a Cisco router, a Microsoft server and even my VCR but this phone defies me. The phone is functional, but little more then that. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88673 2000/3/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything rate is a little high Full Review The nextel i1000 is a blessing from the lord. You think I'm being a little wierd by saying this? Well, I'm not, so there. This phone has helped me so much with my day to day life, as well as my buisness life. I am an actor, and therefor need to be in touch with people. No problem, you can call, leave a voice mail, email, or page me at any time. Plus caller id and speaker phone. And now onto the best feature of all, the two way radio. My friends and buisness associates use it constantly. It is easier than calling and getting kicked to voice mail, wich you can do with the touch of a button on the phone, and it's great for the communications that are'nt going to take a full minute to say. Such as "Hey, I'm outside." or the ever popular "Dude, where are you?" As you can see this is the phone for me, and you. If your smart you will go down and buy one right now. Before they run out of phones, hurry. Just kidding. Ha ha, I'm funny. Seriously though, it is a great phone at a good price. Bottom line. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88672 2000/5/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity cost Full Review We use this system at our office. It is easy to use and has a very clear sound. Some people even remarked that I sounded like I was calling from a regular phone not a cell phone. The radio part is a great feature if you have others in your group you always call. I love the feature that you just close up the phone to hang up - no pushing buttons to hang up while driving. It also has a loud ringer and the volume for the ear piece is excellent. With other phones I tend to have problems hearing, but not with this one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 210 88671 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features clear reception battery time some durability issues Full Review These phones arrived to my office three months ago based mainly on the recommendation of a technology specialist who our president trusts. They where met glee by all the sales people due to the abundance of features and cool factor. Three months later.... their still great. The phone comes with several features beyond the standard voice mail and call display. Text messages are available as well as the most used feature the "walkie-talkie". This feature allowed our office to considerably decrease our usage time. Calls that where being billed as 3 and 4 minutes in the past where cut to less than a minute due to this feature. We eventually gave one to the receptionist so that people can use walkie talkie mode to call in to get their messages instead of just using the cell phone. One persistent problem we have had is that three of our six car chargers have needed to be replaced. They were not charging properly. All were replaced promptly an under warranty, but still kind of a hassle. More seriously is that one of the phones is exhibiting cracking at the joint where the flip lid is connected. My phone is problem free but others have reported that their phone is showing some of the same signs. Overall, I really like this phone. Battery time is great 3-5 days standby and talk time of >3 hrs (per my usage). Its got a bit of a learning curve but well worth the effort. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88670 2001/8/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 internet surfing abilitypeople think you are captain kirk the phone is non intuitive The Bottom LineGet this phone if you have friends who also have Nextel; new i85 phone challenges NOKIA; Direct Connect feature is ADDICTIVE. This phone/service gets better with time. Full Review The i1000 Plus is the first phone where I actually had to read the manual, PAGE by PAGE(and I consider myself pretty savvy). The video that comes with the phone is worthless. You really have to practice using this phone with the manual at hand, I carried it around for a week! Once you know how to use this phone, it becomes your best friend. This phone is a veritable communications machine. You can use digital cell calls, direct connect, two-way messaging, and internet email. This phone allows me to really keep in touch with EVERYONE (I don't know if this is a good thing...). The problem is that my wife, who has no patience for gadgets, has not figured out how to use the phone. I suspect that most people are like her and I can see why so many people hate this phone. But like any sophisticated product, in order to get the best usage, one must spend the time to figure it out. I have spoken to several users and they complain about dropped calls even in areas where they have full signal. But I personally have had only one dropped call in two months of service; though I hope I don't get any more. Through a special deal I got the phones for FREE, though I know the phones go for $169/pair. The phone is designed for the technical-savvy, not the average user. Motorola really screwed up by not creating a more user-friendly phone. When I got the phones out of the box I had some problems with the two phones: one had problems with the Direct Connect and they both had caller-id problems. I called service and it took a weekend to get them fixed. My experience with customer service has been good, so far. I even tried their online service and they responded in one business day. Some quirks about the phones: it's hard to see the buttons at night (the light doesn't show the outer buttons very well); the flip-open ear piece is not loud enough for Direct Connect and is flimsy; in order to use an ear piece, you have to purchase an adapter (audio adapter) for $20; it's time-consuming to program in phone numbers (though I've heard there is a way to do it via the internet). Things I love: internet surfing ability (though there aren't that many good sites, I can still surf any website and get text info); getting email on my phone; Direct Connect convenience; Two-way messaging; ability to access voice mail on a regular phone (Pacific Bell wireless charges air-time); digital cell calls are very clear; people think I'm Captain Kirk. This was my first Epinion review and I laugh as I realize it's not a great review. Anyway, here is another update: So far the phone is in good physical shape (I've dropped it a few times). I purchased two ear-sets for handsfree calling and was disappointed with their quality: on one of them, the cable is fraying (the quality of NOKIA ear-sets are better). I've had more dropped calls but not enough for complaints. I've come to depend on the internet access, using it for directions, movie times, and locating stores; it is extremely handy-my favorite function on this phone. I also use the email ability and especially the news/sports. My bathroom breaks have become very productive... I've been getting signals in areas where my old NOKIA/CINGULAR phone had none; elevators, basements, and high-rises. This could be viewed as both a good and bad thing: good-more signal, bad-more radiation... I have had some of my friends complain about headaches on the ear where they use their i1000 the most; and when they switch ears, the headaches follow! I had another friend who says that whenever he passes a computer terminal with his Nextel phone, the screen flashes and buzzes! (this was an older Nextel phone) My Nextel friend/rep swears that Nextel has addressed the radiation problem; he points out that his headaches have gone down dramatically. What's the big deal? I carry extra Tylenol in my pocket. I haven't put phone numbers in my wife's phone, yet. It takes a long time to do this; something Nextel addressed with their new phones (they STILL look like bricks). I contacted Motorola on why they can't make sleeker phones. The rep said that the new phones (i85s) were much lighter and sleeker than their older MOTOROLA phones. I told him why he was comparing phones with older MOTOROLA phones and not phones made by NOKIA or ERICKSON, which sell probably 5 times as many phones as Nextel/Motorola. This is one of my pet peeves: MOTOROLA could not design a good phone even if NOKIA gave them the blueprints for one. My experience with the battery has been a bit negative. I've found that I can only talk about 2 hours without the phone beeping; thus the lowered rating on the battery life. UPDATE: (August 6, 2001) After six months with this phone, I am relying on it more than ever. Here are the reasons: 1. More of my friends have gotten Nextel and so my Direct Connect Directory has increased. Being able to radio a call to my friends using this method is very convenient and fast (it's also addictive); no other company has this feature. But it's only a benefit if you have friends who also use Nextel. I just found out that Nextel is going to allow Direct Connect calls nationwide! This is incredible! It basically means free long distance communication, assuming they don't charge extra-which they probably will... 2. I rely on the internet connection for driving directions, e-mail, movie showtimes, restaurant finders and reviews, and a host of other features. Outside of my desktop, this phone is the way to go for internet access. Wireless notebooks: bankrupt (Riccochet), or too expensive. 3. The speaker phone is very convenient as well: I use it while driving (makes earphones obsolete) and I use it during a Direct Connect call. 4. This phone has become a integral part of me and what I do; it is unobstrusive and clearly simplifies my life. What more can a cell phone / carrier do? My respect for this sturdy workhorse phone and Nextel has increased, tremendously. Final Recommendation: With their new phone (i85) Nextel finally has a viable phone to compete with NOKIA phones. If you have friends who also have Nextel, I would definitely recommend getting it; it is superior to all other phones / carriers. The more time I spend with this phone and carrier (Nextel) the more satisfied I've become; I'm increasing my rating to 5 stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 88669 2000/4/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 speaker phone everything else Full Review I started a new job, and was lucky enough to be put on call, and given one of these phones so that my company could reach me anytime. At the time, I had a Nokia 6190 from PacBell and I was looking forward to getting rid of it, and using the company phone. It's been three months, and I still have the Nokia because the Nextel phone sucks! The phone is bad enough that the executives at my company have been switching to Sprint... and this is after buying nearly a hundred of these phones! First the positives. There are only two, actually. The walkie-talkie feature is useful, and the speaker phone is very, very nice. It's the only thing I would miss. The negatives 1. The walkie-talkie feature: My brother also has a Nextel phone for his company. You would think that we could set up the walkie-talkie feature so that he and I could talk to each other... NO WAY! It's not possible to share those privileges at all. 2. Coverage: I'm in the middle of Los Angeles sitting in my office right now. I get "No Service" when I try to use my phone. I go outside, and I get one bar of signal and it is very likely that anyone I talk to will get cut off. I can't drive down the freeway from the beach to downtown without dropouts. This kills me! 3. Ergonomics: Nextel claims this phone won some design award somewhere. Whomever gave this phone an award didn't use it. 90% of the phones people use have raised buttons. This allows you to dial the phone without looking at the buttons. This phone not only has flush buttons, but they've also modified the standard phone layout! This is a dangerous phone to dial while you drive. 4. Battery life: 16 hours standby. The Nokia is 3+ days! 5. The phone book: After watching the video, and looking at the manual, I still have not figured out how to add and change phone book entries. The Nokia didn't require this level of study. I'm not impressed with the phone or Nextel's service. The best testament of my level of disappointment is that I'm willing (and am!) to pay PacBell $50 a month while having Nextel service for free. Recommended: No 88668 2009/12/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 features battery life overall design all the pros of the phone become moot without service Full Review I have both a Startac analog phone (using Alltel service) and a Nextel i1000 (using Nextel's service). The Nextel Phone is very well designed, has great features (caller ID, easy to use, etc.) and has all the battery life I need. I am on a plan that gives me 1200 minutes per month for under $70. Out of the past 10 months, I average about 1000 minutes per month. I am a one man consulting firm and use this phone and service plan as my only business phone. I get free long distance and no roaming charges with my plan, so my bill is under $100 every month. However, no matter how nice the phone is, and how attractive the service plan is, I cannot give this phone a great review because the coverage area is not there yet, and can be very spotty in the areas with "complete coverage". For example, my office is in my home inside a coverage area. If I want to increase my level of confidence that I won't be disconnected in mid sentence, I go outside to make the call. The service is just not reliable inside my house. (Winter is coming to northern Ohio, too!) Good thing that I spend 95% of my time away from my office. The Startac is a nice phone, but has battery life is too limited, and the service plan is too costly for my purposes. If I had to choose between the Startac and the i1000, I would pick the i1000, even with the drawbacks listed above. Hopefully Nextel will be putting up more towers in the areas I travel and will improve the strength of signals in current areas. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 88667 2000/1/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 powerful hands free small size a lot of features to learn Full Review As the CFO of a small company we had about a dozen different cell phones with a variety of carriers and plans. What a mess. I switched everyone to the Motorola i1000 and we are very excited. We have free radio contact between all employees in So.Cal. and Las Vegas. The small size can fool you. It is a very powerful tool. Besides the radio the phone can receive email, voice and numerical pages. The feature that I love and we all use constantly, is the hands free speaker capability built into the phone itself. It is the best phone any of us has ever had. My sales people, who travel the entire U.S. report excellent coverage wherever they go. Nextel provides excellent free training. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88666 2000/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 2 way radio speaker phone flip up speaker that allows phone to become full size great reception voice mail very portable long lasting battery none Full Review I bought this product because a lot of freinds had gotten the same phone. It has voice mail, speaker phone, 2-way radio, etc. This is a product worth buying because it has great reception. The cell areas are always in the right places. I have tried Nokia phones but they don't have the reception quality that this one does. I have never been cut off! I love everything about this product and I don't really think improvement is needed. The product is for business and personal users. It is good for business because it has a special 2-way radio that allows you to talk with anyone with the touch of a button. No dialing needed! It also has a wonderful speaker phone that can be very loud if needed. This might come in handy for confrences. This phone is good for personal use because of the 2-way radio feature once again. This feature allows to people in the same family to contact eachother instantly. I use this product for both business and personal use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 88665 2009/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nextels service features dead spotsdropped calls Full Review I love my Nextel i1000. I was worried about using Nextel as my cellular service for my business, but the radio to radio feature is invaluable. I have about 25 phones set up for phone service and radio to radio service. The radio quality is awesome, and the phone quality is as good or better than any other cell phone service I have used (AT&T, Bell Atlantic). There are some problems with dead spots, and your cell phone calls may get dropped. Nextel's service Dept. is very cooperative, and after reporting some dead spots, the signal soon improved in those areas.The phone itself has every feature you will ever need, 100 speed dials, and a bunch of different rings. When I got my phones, Nextel rebated me the full purchase price of all 25 phones, I don;t know if I cut a good deal with them, or they do this often. My advice, check it for yourself Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88664 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy interface incredible browsing none yet Full Review I love this phone. It is intuitive to learn (a few hours and I was able to browse the Internet and reply to email). The phone (voice) features are very straight forward, and even though there are the extra features available, this would not be a negative for getting the phone. I really like the speaker phone option. It is clearer than many land line speakerphones I have seen. The video included in the box was informative on the general features, but not the technical details of online browsing. Many of the online parts are easier to setup at your computer via the Internet, and then access and use the feature by using the i1000 + phone. Very well put together, and current promotion in my area for $99.00 from a local Nextel dealer. I really like it! Hope you like yours as well. Darryl Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88663 2000/7/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable durable small in size no timedate in our area Full Review Working for a moving company, communication if of the essence. When we finally switched over to the Nextel phones, we wondered why we waited so long. The 2-way portion of this phone works in 2 states and some 500 miles away. If that was not enough, the cell portion works crystal clear. Some of the best features of this phone include the speaker phone option, the battery life, and the ease of use. All of the necessary buttons allow you to not even take the phone out of it's "holster" to use if effectively. The display is large and easily navigated. As far as battery life goes, the i1000 regular battery will last all day with ease. If the use is high, it will last all day. If the use is less than that it will last 2 days. This phone has been flawless in it's reliability and durability. Mine has been dropped numerous times and still functions properly. I would recommend this product for any company who has many employees in various places at once that need to communicate. The ease of use is a definite bonus too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 88662 2000/2/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 2way radio is great small easy to read bad battery digital only The Bottom LineWeird crackles near speakers, bad battery, odd ear piece, but the 2 way radio makes it all worth while! Full Review This phone has all the bells and whistles. Voice mail, pager built in, many ringers, signal strength, battery strength, etc. That's what you get for $200. It has a good clear sound, but it is digital only which can be bad in certain areas. You have your choice of ringers/vibrate, and they can be very soft and very loud. There is a speaker phone as well. You will need to get a special adapter to use an ear piece. What is silly is when using the belt clip, the ear piece adapter does not fit, so you end up carrying the ear piece and adapter in your pocket. Overall though, the what makes the phone AWESOME is the 2 way radio. I never thought I would use it, but once you try it, your hooked. It's free and has a range of over 50 miles. One thing I don't like about the cell phone is when it is in use, near a speaker, the speaker (like your car radio) will make this terrible popping crackle noise. I have no idea what causes this, but for the 2 way radio feature, I will happily put up with it. The battery is also very bad, I must charge it every 2 or 3 days, but it only takes an hour or so. Still, that 2 way radio has me! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88661 2000/10/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 from the most remote places the reception is always clear the casing is easily scratched only 9 rings Full Review Well I'm going to start off by saying I love this phone. If I knew about this phone sooner I guarantee I would've got this. Why you asked? Well before I had this phone I had The Ericsson T18Z, Nokia 5190 (My second fave phone), The Nokia 6190, Nokia 6188, Sanyo 4000 and finally the "cream of the crop" The Nokia 8190. This phone would kill them all combined. My experience of this phone was incredible; the reception bars never came down to 3 bars! The clarity was awesome. Theres a ton of features that a new comer will only have to get used to at around 2-3 days but if you know this phone as well as I do, well I could call this phone bigger than basketball (I love basketball). I bought this phone because I was getting sick and tired of not getting reception in my basement(like Nokia). It was more affordable (and better) than 8190. I consider my self a pro at cell phones and trust me, this phone has got it all, from web browsing to speaker phones to vibration alerts. Motorola did a really great job at this. Nut now lets get in the "negative side". I mean let's be realistic, Nothing in the world is perfect. The plastic casing is easily scratched, the battery is heavy and the transparent screen is easily scratched. It isn't as user friendly as 5190. It only has 9 ringtones and Parts cost too much. But all in all, if you're looking for a near-perfect phone this would be the 'mustbuy' phone. Thank you for reading my advise. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88660 2000/1/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very nice looking clear small numbers are too small Full Review It was just last month that I decided to go ahead and purchase a cellular phone for my everyday needs. I found that my household phone plans were costing me an arm and a leg and that the new service plans offered by nextel and sprint were very well priced. I decided to go ahead and purchase the Nextel i1000 telephone. Let me first tell you that I absolutely love this phone. I find it unbelievably convenient and very well made. The phone is clear 95% of the time I talk on it and it has a great battery attachment, which lasts for many hours upon a single charge. I also find myself getting a ton of compliments on the phone and many people asking me how and where to get one. The i1000 goes for 200 dollars but I received a 30 dollar rebate so I only payed 170. I chose to get the 2400 minute plan per month, which costs me only 99 dollars, but that goes for free long distance, so I simply use my cell phone when making all my calls. The only down side to the phone would have to be that the numbers are too small and at times hard to dial when in a car or walking. Other than that I love it and would recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 88659 2000/4/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small with nice 2 way radio very hard to hold with your shoulder while driving cough The Bottom LineGreat if you want a small phone with free radio use. Full Review It is nice and small and fits easily in a pocket, small handbag, or motorcycle "trunk". The unlimited free use of the 2-way radio is a great option. It is a bit difficult to learn the functions, but once you do, you will enjoy being able to program your friends/associates radio codes and talk to them for free. On top of that, you can push a "private" button so the person speaking to you can only be heard if you put the phone up to your ear. You still have to click the button to talk, but it will be private radio use. I like the built in caller ID. It even works when someone "beeps" you on the radio. The reception is pretty clear, and has a much better range than cell phones I have used in the past. Nextel customer service is friendly and easy to deal with. They will replace your leather phone case for free should the belt clip eventually tear out. I do not like the antennae. It breaks and comes loose. I also hate the fact that you can't hold the phone with your face/shoulder, because it is just a little too short and will slip away. All in all, it is a good phone, but if you are driving all the time, it would not be good for you unless you have the handsfree earpiece setup. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88658 2000/7/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none everything about the phone Full Review I am extremely dissapointed in Motorolas Nextel i100 plus phone. Yes it seems light and compact, but will it really live up to its name? Obviously not. I am on my 5th i1000 phone in only a little over a year, and no I'm not a construction worker who is in the elements all day, I am an office-bound person whose phone rarely leaves the office. The flip on the phone is constructed poorly. It has broken off 2 times. The buttons that are used as the "arrow" prompts on the outside of the phone rarely work. The "arrow" buttons on the inside of the phone rarely work. At first it seemed that I just had a "lemon" of a phone, it happens to everyone now and then, but one the 5th i1000 phone that I have owned is doing the same thing, It must be a bad model all together. My suggestion is to go with the I500/I700 models-They seem to be MUCH better. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 88657 2000/2/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact easy to use no web services yet Full Review I got on board with Nextel's latest deal - free incoming calls through 2000 on a National Business Plan. My girlfriend has an i700plus, so we use the radio feature often. It's great for quick messages, or when we are going somewhere and get separated. Reception isn't good in my office, but I can send her e-mail pages easily. The phone itself is great - compact, easy to use, and good battery life. The speakerphone is useful for conference calls, and clear. The phone is sturdy enough, although it lacks the 700's ruggedized features. Biggest drawback is the lack of Web services on the phone. That will come eventually... Nextel is always slow rolling out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88656 2000/9/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size durability regular phone features 2way radio none really sorry Full Review Way cool ..I can set it to call me up to 90 days in advance. Way cool! But wait.. there's more: I had worked for another computer company and was in charge of the tech- nical and communications side. I scoured the industry for leading technology that would give us the edge, be looked on as innovative, yet provide a real cost-saving as well. Heard on radio about Nextel. Saw their product, reviewed the 2-way radio benefit (unlimited talk-time was our choice) and took the plunge. We later actually purchased more phones for our families with the 2-way radio in mind. This 2-way radio is a blessing. Whether using it for business. Or listening to detailed events of the day from my spouse and kids. You'll be shocked over the radio range. From 200-300 miles or more. Now I work for me, my own computer company. Again I need the service and advantages that ONLY nextel has. Phone clarity is good. Coverage is great. 2-way radio service (again the 2-way radio is unlimited, ask for it!) Actually signed up to use it in Mexico for times when I travel there as well. That phone also has 2 line capability. So I have 2 phone #s. One for regular usage, the second for special customers needing emergency service. They love knowing I think that much of them. And I can use it as an alarm with voice mail to call me and as I preset it to deliver in advance whatever msg I need reminded of. I can set it to call me up to 90 days in advance.Like I said, Way cool! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 88655 2000/10/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 see above see above Full Review Please note, the subject has nothing to do with my review, I just couldn't think of anything slick to say. Let me start off by telling you that I am a Wireless Application Developer (WAD, yes I know...), and that I have worked with several internet-enabled cellular phones. Out of all the phones I have worked with, the Motorola i1000plus (Nextel service) is one one of my favorites. I love the two way radio feature of the phone, and the internet option is EXTREMELY fast. One big problem with the phone is that it does not support images, and that it does not have a large screen. This phone is extremely quick, and the sound quality is excellent, this truley is how business gets done. THE GOOD: Clear communication Two way radio Fast wireless internet access Small, compact design Lightweight When font is made small, good screen coverage THE BAD: Cradle is hard to get used to Large fonts (CAN BE CHANGED, IF YOU CHANGED YOUR FONT SIZE, GOOD FOR YOU, THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY HARD TASK!) Options hidden deeply within application Annoying beep in the middle of the night when boss is trying to make you wake up..... argh! Other then that, I don't really have much else to say, this phone is great, light weight, compact, portable, clear sounding, and pretty darn good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 88654 2000/2/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great clarity when in service direct connect great new improvement some dead zones low battery life at times The Bottom LineGreat phone! Full Review Okay, so my title sounds like an advertisement yea, but I must say that after a month of usage, I'm very happy with my Nextel service. I previously had Sprint and Verizon. Sprint, I don't even need to go there with, and Verizon was good, but at the time there roaming plans were too expensive. So I opted to go for Nextel. Let me start of by saying that Nextel has come along way in making more affordable improvements for cellular service. They have implemented several new plans. I have the National Starter Plan which is so great. It comes with 300 anytime minutes, 3500 Night and Weekend Minutes, and 200 direct connect, all with LD included! Amazing! Now, about the i1000. I really like this phone (I have the improved version though (with the new face). It's really not a spectacular looking phone, but it gets the job done. The call clarity is great when you have service available. The programming menu takes a little memorization, but nothing out of the ordinary. Direct connect is really great because you can "get right through" (unless someone is on the phone, then you can't.....just a little bit of info). Overall, I'm very happy with the i1000plus, but more so with Nextel service. If you have a little extra change on you, I would suggest buying the new models....i80, i85, and especially the new i90c flip. I've heard rave reviews. Back on subject, I read the previous review and it really didn't do nextel any justice. Before you go doing something like getting a cell phone, make sure you do your research no matter what. Go online and CALL people before you just walk into a store to buy. Get people reviews, etc. I went looking around for about a month before I decided to go with Nextel. Be smart consumers people. It's what it's all about. Hope this helps you all out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110.00 88653 2000/3/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 web enabled poor provider poor battery life poor reception The Bottom LineIf your employer provides this phone, it's fine. But if you're buying it for yourself, look elsewhere. Full Review This phone was provided to me by my employer. It replaced the Nextel i610, which was a sturdy but bulky phone. The phone was supposed to arrive pre-programmed, but that was not the case. I ended spending a total of six hours, yes six, on the phone with Nextel customer service trying to activate the phone. About five of those six hours was spent on hold. The signal meter on this phone is all over the place. Sitting at my desk, it varies from full strength to no service. And every time the it goes from no signal to regaining a signal, the phone makes an annoying beep. Most my co-workers do not have company phones, and they are very annoyed at listening to mine beep all the time. Depending on your point of view, the Nextel radio can be a blessing or a curse. Most likely, if you are a manager, you will love this feature. If you are a worker, you'll probably hate it. Especially when your boss feels like he can call you at any time, day or night. Unlike a phone, you don't "answer" the radio when it rings. It's like a walkie-talkie, people can start talking right away -- even when you don't want them to. The web-enabled features are nice, and the one thing I really like about the phone is that you can program the phone book over the web. Just enter your numbers at Nextel's website, and click "transmit." Voila, your phone book is updated. If your company provides you this phone, it's certainly not a bad phone. But if I were purchasing a new phone, I'd look elsewhere. For my personal phones, I've been an AT&T customer for nearly six years now. If they had provided me with the atrocious customer support that Nextel had, I would have switched carriers long ago. I know this is supposed to be a review of the phone and not the carrier, but with Nextel you can't easily separate the two. Recommended: No 88652 2000/1/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 direct connects compact speaker phone small programming hard to understand phones plans are expensive The Bottom LinePhone has good clarity, battery life is poor and cellular plans are pricing. If you want a good phone, are willing to pay for it, then this is the phone. Full Review My husband and I purchased the twin pack of the Motorola i1000 Plus from Office Depot in Florida. They were about $150. The salesperson called Nextel to see if we could get the phones turned on from there. One of our major decisions to choose Nextel (or so the salesperson stated) was that ALL NEXTELS have FREE long distance to anywhere in the USA. We waited for about 15 minutes and the salesperson said that the phones would be turned on by 5pm that same day. We then proceeded to go home to charge our batteries, my husband then chose the grey phone and I got the black phone. When came back, after shopping, at about 6:30, the phones didn't seem to work at all. We promptly called Nextel and the customer service person said oh well I see that the phones were turned on and that we apparently got a Wisconsin phone number (we live in Florida) we promptly told them that was erroneous and please assign us a phone number for our area. That was all straightened out and then my husband proceed to verify that NEXTEL does not have free long distance, but you can call inside of state lines in whichever state you are in? (Weird we thought) We then waited for 3 more hours. I called a land line that had called ID to see if the phones were working they sure where just for a city which was 4 hours away. Great we both thought more incompetence. We then called again and hopefully finally fixed the problem. My husband asked another customer service person if it was true if you can call inside state lines in the particular state you are in and not be charged extra and of course that wasn't true. So we were quite upset by this time. We finally got the correct local telephone numbers on your two phones after two days of fighting with Nextel's customer service representatives. Everything worked fine. Reception on the phone appeared to be above average. I do recommend that anyone that has or is planning on buying any of they Motorola Flip phone, please buy some type of case. I have heard that they break frequently. So the first bill comes, OH MY GOSH $263.00. (We were supposed to be billed $49.99 per phone, $50 for a set up fee we were not told about and my direct connect minutes (the two way radio between the phones) were 3 hours longer than my husbands. We were also charged for the 2 days that the phones weren't working. Once again we called the customer service number and spoke to someone and they removed the whole first month's prorated bill for all the trouble, which amounted to $86.00. We were really impressed. So the next two bills have come and my direct connect minutes are 2 -3 hours longer than my husbands. (I don't talk to anyone else) Every month, we explain that to the customer service people and they can't understand. Just the excuse that oh maybe she talks more than you. Finally we told someone about it and they should be checking on the problem. My husband and I pay $49.99 a piece for (400 anytime minutes, 2500 night and weekend, voice mail, call waiting and caller id, and 2500 direct connect minutes per phone) A piece of advice, if you are any type of salesperson, like my husband, I highly recommend the FREE incoming minutes that plan starts at $79.99 per month. I think you get 300 minutes, 2500 nights and weekends and unlimited direct connect. I just got our last bill, my husband had an extra $65 in additional phone calls. You have to take out a loan just to pay your monthly cell phone bills. And oh, by the way if you want detailed billing, you will be charged $2.50 per month, per phone. Anything extra they can charge, they will charge. I think that the quality of the phone is above average and the pricing of the plans are rather high. The cheapest plan you can get is $29.99 with 200 minutes. Also another flaw of the phone is the standard battery does not hold a very long charge, we have to recharge the batteries at least twice a day. Overall we are happy with the phones, if you can figure out the programming features (the instruction manual is like an unabridged dictionary). The plans are rather high for the amount of minutes you get. I would say if you want a quality phone, I would recommend getting this phone, just beware the plans are high. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 88651 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome features great sound quality flip cover seems a bit flimsy The Bottom LineIf you are given a choice on a mobile phone to purchase, this is the one for you! Especially if anyone you know is on the Nextel network! Full Review Right out of the box, I knew this was going to be a great phone. The call clarity is simply amazing. I have had no problem hearing an thing on this phone. Only a few times that I can remember that a call became 'fuzzy' (and all of those times I was talking to someone on another cell phone, mostly Verizon). An awesome feature is the integrated speakerphone! This thing is unreal. It operates much like the speakerphone on an normal 'land line' phone. Just push the speaker phone button, set the phone down and talk! The person you are talking to doesn't even know you have them on the speaker! Add to the phone the excellent Nextel service and you are doing well. For more on the Nextel Service, read my epinion on that! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 88650 2000/10/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very good product 2000 is already on the market Full Review Most of the cellular phones that you have been used up until now are very heavy and bulky to carry around either in your shirt pocket or your coat packet or your genes. everytime you had to get your email you had to sign up with internet service provider,buy a pc, buy a modem hustle and bustle with the telephone company and the repairman and some how after a lot of struggle and burning a few modems you some how miraculously get your email running. Every time you have voicemail you have to call some other number to retrieve it.The dual mode operation of maintaining two seperate communication modalities of telephone and internet gets to be too taxing,unwieldy and does not serve true purpose to improve efficiency and reduce casualties because of missed dates,and appointments and cause a lot of heartache to friends family and business associates and customers. So motorola saw this as excellent opportunity to address this issue and make a lot of money by designing a product which takes away the burden of 2 seperate communication sytems as a too much overhead for anybody who just wants to say hello to someone. The motorola i1000Plus is next generation very advanced digital wireless phone with national and international coverage without having to worry about zones and roaming areas and all that nonsense that you have to deal with regular cellular phone companies. Also motorola has implemented a internet technology into the handheld wireless phone and is also called microbrowser equivalent of a netscape navigator or microsoft explorer for a handheld phone. Which makes it a convenient tool to have your phone messages and internet mail messages come to one single place that is your pocket phone.The built-in microbrowser gives 2way radio and paging power and you literally have a mobile office. The 1000 plus is very light and weights only 5.4 ounces and very beautiful piece to look at aesthetically and very convenient to hold in your hand and ears and mouth.You can have access to yellow and white pages via the internet.You can use the services without opening the cover most of the times.It has rich set of accessories for a experienced pro on the road from wires to pins,to jacks to latest batteries and chargers. The time and date is always displayed on the phone which is very rare in a phone don,t you think?.It has a vibracall alert system which gives a little jingle to alert you of an incoming call. It indicates voice and test messages in your mail box. For international and global market you have choice of several languaes like english,spanish,french or portuguese. IT has a battery charge capacity to support 180 minutes of continuous talk time,and 60 hours of stand-by time.There are battery indicators on the front panel.Its security features of fraud or cloning protection so you don't get billed for somebody elses calls or somebody making calls by stealing your phone.It has private call directory for 100 members.Receives upto 16 text or numeric pages.it also has 3way calling. The i2000 is already on the market with global access.But it could be a overkill. It is better to train on i1000plus and then move on to 2000. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88649 2000/10/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great features flip style is a bit more complicated than necessary Full Review Well, I'll admit that I don't own one of these puppies but I wish I did. I have about six friends who all use these with Nextel service and I've gotten a chance to play around with them quite a bit. Overall the phone is easy to use and the buttons are well-spaced and well-sized and satisfying to click. It's easy enough to program in all your favorite numbers and voicemail is accessible with one button press. The coolest thing about Nextel service and this Motorola phone is the ability to "direct connect" to other Nextel users. You can pick your contact and then have an essentially two-way radio type conversation with them. Just press the button and talk then wait for them to respond. You're only charged for the time you are actually talking so it's a great way to save. The interface is really easy to use as well. Finally, the internet and email features are very easy to use, and typing is about as easy as it's going to get on a 12-button keypad. If you're shopping for a cellphone with lots of features that's easy to use, the Motorola i1000 plus can't be beat! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88648 2000/4/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features features great support very durable small easy to program short battery life dropped calls frequently The Bottom LineOverall, the Motorola i1000plus for Nextel has all the features to get your stuff done easily everyday. Full Review The Nextel i1000plus is definitely the best all-around cell phone that it offered for the 'always expanding' cell phone provider. This phone offers more features that you can imagine on a phone. You press a button and you're talking on a walkie-talkie type of device. Push the "mode" button again & you're surfing the internet or making a telephone call to the UK from Los Angeles. This thing is cool & a 'must have' item if you are into gadgets. I'm on my 7th Nextel i1000plus phone now. Whoa, whoa there. Don't worry... I like the phone. Motorola is the actual manufacturer of the phone & in mid 2000, they were distributing poor quality phones back to all of the Nextel consumers. But I've had this current phone for over 5 months now & not a single problem has occurred. The battery life on the phone is a real let-down. Unlike some of the Nokia phones that last as long as a week, you can barely hope for more than a day with the "long life" battery. I guess the constant internet, radio usage, & a couple of phone calls wears it down pretty fast though. It sure seems as though they could have engineered the power consumption of the device a little better like the new Mac Powerbook G4. As far as the Nextel service, the phone picks up the signal nominally. If you extend the antenna, you can get another bar of signal strength if you're lucky. Overall, the Motorola i1000plus for Nextel is a real hit for now. As for tomorrow... who knows? color displays on phones? pda phones? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 88647 2009/11/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone no roaming fees lightweight 200 cost of phone Full Review The Nextel i1000 Plus is the best cell phone I've owned or used. The phone is very lightweight and portable and reception is very good. It also has a built-in speaker phone, which is useful when driving, in work meetings or just walking in a noisy downtown area. The phone is also capable of receiving text or numeric pages and email, and it can be set to notify you visually and/or audibly that you have messages waiting in your voicemail. Finally, the phone is Internet access ready. Nextel will make this service available early next year. While the phone is a bit more expensive than other digitals (about $200), Nextel has very affordable calling plans,which include flat rate long distance and no roaming fees within the U.S. This phone is great for the frequent traveler and/or high volume business user. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88646 2009/12/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 data support light weight speakerphone customer service Full Review I'll prefix this note by the fact that I have worked on the insides of several iDEN (the core Motorola technology behind the Nextel network) installations, and so my perspective is from the switching side of the network as well as using the phone. In general, like the Bell Atlantic advertisement states, a cell phone is only as good as the network it's on. The Nextel network has grown by several orders of magnitude since it's inception, and is (as far as I know) the largest iDEN network in the world. Heavily populated areas such as LA or NYC walk the very edge of the design criteria for the technology, with more than 1000 cell sites, and hundreds of thousands of phones in a single installation. Phones in iDEN technology are assigned individual cellular and "private call" IDs, which can be grouped into "fleets". Fleets form the basis of the 2-way radio technology -- to use the 2-way radio features of the Nextel phones, the phones must be in the same fleet. The cellular calling features are an implementation of the European GSM phone standard over a different frequency band. Fleets cannot span multiple switching complexes, so private calling is limited to the service area where the phone is originally provisioned. Nextel evolved from a division of Motorola offering 2-way radio services to taxi companies, trucking fleets, etc, and so coverage in most areas is oriented towards serving these types of customers -- close to highways and major roads. The i1000d (the data capable i1000) uses the iDEN network to provide a number of useful services, especially in a environment where a company can standardize it's mobile service, and has a significant amount of intra-company traffic between phones (such as security guards, wiring closet teams, helpdesks, etc). The phone offers standard cellular calling (with separate limits on long distance use and international calls), the 2-way radio function for a specific phone in the same fleet, groups of phones in a fleet or all phones in a fleet (broadcast), digital modem service, and (on the i1000d, i590, and later i600s), IP data service. The i1000 is hand-sized, and comes with a plastic belt clip that attaches to the phone. As other reviewers have mentioned, the i1000 also offers a speakerphone option that (in my opinion) is actually the best feature of the phone. It's as good as my desk phone in terms of quality, and I actually even use the speakerphone function in preference to the earphone functionality, as my hearing is a bit impaired. One dumb feature about the speakerphone functionality is that closing the phone (it's a clamshell) hangs up the call if you dial the call with the phone open. If you receive the call with the phone closed, you can leave the phone closed and conduct a speakerphone call... In general, I like the phone. The interface isn't that hard to learn, and it comes with a 5 minute videotape that runs you through the basics. Their voicemail system is very simple to use, and I've found I prefer it to my office voicemail system (there is a dialup number 1-xxx-yyy-MAIL to access voicemail from any phone to avoid airtime charges for voicemail). I differ with other reviews in that I've found Nextel coverage to be quite good in my area, and very cost competitive (the next cheapest phone service in my area is Bell Atlantic, and they offer almost no services in the same price range). Also, the basic messaging and voicemail services work reliably everywhere there is service (the only thing that doesn't travel is 2-way radio function, due to the fleet provisioning limitation I mentioned above). There is a good range of accessories, including headsets and handsfree operation available from stores like Office Depot or via Nextel's WWW site. The downside is Nextel's customer service. Billing and customer service problems can be a nightmare if you're not extremely persistent and know exactly what you want accomplished (and are willing to escalate to a service manager if you're not getting it). Moving a phone from New Jersey to Washington DC was a major undertaking for the Nextel CSR, but we had no trouble once we got a technician on the line and explained what we wanted to do. Billing problems are always a nightmare. So, it's an affordable solution for companies buying multiple phones. If all you want to do is get mobile service, the i1000 is probably not the best choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88645 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 convenient size unavailability of service in areas Full Review What a cute little gadget this phone is. I still do not know if it is a walkie talkie or a phone. There are times when it is certainly convenient to utilize the two way radio feature of this phone rather than the phone service. It is actually cheaper to operate as a walkie talkie. Do not be confused and think you have to be in someone's backyard to be heard on the two way. It works very well from across town. In fact, you can use it for quite some distance, maybe not cross country or anything like that. But you can certainly utilize it throughout a metropolitan area. I think the thing that perplexes me the most with this is the inavailability of service throughout consistent areas. Right in front of my house is a very bad area for service on this phone. There are many spots that you become accustomed to being "bad areas" and try to stay off the phone during those parts of the commute. This can be tricky as I traveled about an hour to work each day and a good 40 minutes of the trip had no service. When entering buildings and while driving through these "bad areas" I routinely see other people talking on a cell phone. I check mine and there is definitively no service. And when service is out in one of these areas, two way radio is out as well. The phone also has some difficulty with the holders that are made for it. As far as I know there is a leather one with a clip to attach to the belt. My husband has this one. It is very attractive looking, although he complains of the flap coming open on it when he is walking. He also complains that it sometimes comes off his belt without him taking it off. I have the plastic holster type of thing. This is rather awkward and tricky to use. If it is not clipped in securely, it can very easily fall out. Sometimes it sticks so well it is hard to get out when getting a phone call. This fear of losing the phone has caused me to not use the holster at all. They also tell me the holster does wear out with usage. So, I put the phone in my pocket. It is tiny and fits wonderfully. It is a rather nice phone, but it would be nice to be able to use it anywhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 88644 2000/9/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 nice concept but rarely works see above no service no coverage Full Review My company purchased 15 phone/radios 7years ago.We are a contractor, wno needed the direct connect portion of the units mainly, and would use the cell phones on a less frequent basis. There was not even an i1000 model yet. The original unit was called the "unicator". In the last 7 years, and as the manager of our equipment and service, I have experienced every possible thing with Nextel. I have had to exchange out defective units, audit billings, deal with coverage issues and worst of all, deal with their "Customer Care". In my opinion this company has a monopoly on the two way (direct connect) portion of their service. There are no other radios out there to purchase and use for two way communications. Even if a company uses UHF radios, Nextel has purchased these frequencies and so there is no way around using Nextel. If this part of it is not a monopoly, I am not sure what defines one then. Because of this situation, they have basically no competition for the radio system, they simply do not care about their customers. If any one has ever had any coverage problems and you call customer care, you are on hold forever, then you get someone who is clueless (usually there less than 6 months, and you may even wonder if they have even seen the unit before), and then they make a "trouble ticket", and tell you that they will call you back. In the last 7 years, I have personally called in, at least 500 trouble tickets due to mainly coverage issues, and I have NEVER gotten a call back on one of them. As another epinion stated, they basically have NO customer service. Forget getting issues resolved on your billing in one phone call. It is usually a minimum of 3 months of billings before all the problems are resolved on any given issue on the billing. I have had it take up to 6 months of billings to resolve a problem. They have evolved over time in changing out the phones, when they are defective and this has improved some, but over the course of the last 7 years, I have replaced at least 60 units. This experience has been everything from smooth (very rarely) to my worst nightmare. There is nothing positive I can say about Nextel. If I could, I would, but there is nothing. As far as I am concerned, there is no worse company and product than this. I consider myself an expert on their phones/radios, their service (if you want to call it that),and their billings. I have dealt with everyone from the newest person in customer care to the president of the local regional office. I have even tried to complain to the CEO of Nextel in order to get some kind of help, because I was having so many problems. So my epinion covers Nextel as a company, and my recommendation to anyone is to run the opposite way or stick with the regular cell phone by ATT or whoever, but no one should have to be subject to what I have been thru with this company. NO ONE! As far as the units themselves, we have used everything from the original model to the most current and all are bad for the above reasons. Nice concept, but bad company! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 1000 originally to $150 for current style 88643 2009/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 ability to hold a charge durability Full Review I work in the MIS department of a manufacturing plant. The members of the department rely on these phones constantly for immediate feedback and information. Convenience and Reliability For this reason, these phones are great. On the other hand, we might as well have purchased walkie talkies. When making a call on the i1000, it is comparable to any other phone on the market now. The clarity is no different and the problems are no worse. Durability This is where I feel the phone is lacking tremendously. The flip up portion of the phone breaks very easily. When it does, it needs to be fixed by a trained Nextel representative...so, that means you lose your phone for 2-3 days. The display on the face of the phone is protected, but always seems to get scratched somehow. Also, it's easy to knock it out of the 'holster' on my belt...the phone needs a clip instead of a holster. If that's available, get it instead. Features There are many features on this phone and I tend to use the ones that make the phone more discreet. I don't like to 'show' everyone that I have a cellular phone, so it's easily hidden. One excellent point to this phone is it's ability to hold a charge. I occasionally forget to charge it....20 minutes and I have all the juice I need for a day. Anyone can send a page to a user with the mail feature. From the internet, Nextel has set up a page button that allows anyone with access to the internet to send a numeric or alphanumeric page to the nextel subscriber of their choice....big deal...why don't you just call them. I only use this feature to irritate my co-workers. In summation, the cellular world is getting ridiculous....C'mon, it's a walkie talkie as far as I'm concerned. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88642 2000/1/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 walkie talkie cheap small none Full Review This phone is the neatest thing. I love the way that it is so small, Also that if you use the walkie talkie it is free, then I don't have to use up all of the time for phone calls. All of my family has this and we all love it. It also has a long range of distance to use the walkie talkie. My family went to SC and could use it and we live VA, that is a good 6 hours away. This is a great thing for a family or business to have. It also is very cheap for all that it does. I would recommend this to any body. Also I have noticed that alot of people are getting this phone, so now I can talk to anyone. You would think that you can only talk to the people on one account but you can talk to who ever has Nextel. This also has lasted great by all of the drops that is has had. This is the Greatest phone that we have yet to buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 on sale 88641 2009/12/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything short battery life but quickly recharges Full Review This is what we all wait for. A moment in technological advance that not only reflects our advancing genius, but our ability to search our hearts and give each other something we truly need. The Nextel product i1000 that I have is such a product. It has all the features that I can possibly think of. Voicemail, speakerphone, message alert, lighted keypad, link to a powerful network that rarely drops calls. All this including number storage, redial, and to push me completely over the edge two-way radio technology. I am telling you right now after having all the other competitors from L A Cellular to AT&T this is by far the best product and service I have had. Any executives that run a Service oriented business must have this product. Any parents who want to be able to communicate with their child instantly must have this product. Anyone on the planet who wants to communicate in real time and not get lost in the voicemail jungle must have this product. I cannot say anymore except that is a rare exception in this world to find something that is more than you expected, in fact more than you thought possible. I will guarantee you this product and Nextel support is beyond amazing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88640 2009/12/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great features cool design battery not flush Full Review This is one of Motorola's newer digital cell phones, but this phone is so much more than just a phone. It also does alphanumeric paging. It receives e-mail (number@phone.skytel.com). Software is available that lets you browse the web (I don't have this installed, tho). The coolest feature, though, is something called Direct Connect. This harkens back to the days of walkie-talkie radios. Basically, if you have a coworker (or a family member) on the same system, you can reach them with a push-to-talk radio call. Nextel charges a lot less for this, and it's really good for anyone who has a team of people that need to communicate often. It's also really small (4.5 tall by 2.2 wide and only 1.2 inches thick, about 6 ounces with the standard battery)and it looks way cool on your belt. I've found that Motorola's specs on the standby life is a little high. Their web page says you get 60 hours. I rarely get more than 48, so I also have a recharger in the car. On the down side, I would have to say that there is one glaring design flaw. The battery, which is about the size of three AAA's, sticks out from the back. I've seen some Nokia phones where they've made their battery flatter and longer so that it parallels a large part of the phone. To have the battery flush like that would make more sense. It may be Nextel's good coverage, but I almost never have problems getting a dial tone. The phone works great! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88639 2009/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact great features two way radio expensive service plans Full Review I recently bought Nextel's new i1000plus phone for approximately $200. Its features and service are superior to any cellular phone I have used. For instance, as a regular cellular phone, it has excellent clarity and durability because it can be used both as a regular phone and a hands-free speakerphone. This feature is useful in situations such as being in a car or during a business meeting/conference call. The most unique feature that puts this phone above all others is the two way radio. This phone can be used as a walkie-talkie to anyone who has a nextel phone and the sound is superb. This is a good way of communicating with co-workers, friends, and other associates right away and avoiding the use of voice mail. This phone does have voice mail capability, numeric page, text pages, e-mailing directly to the phone, and many other convenient features. The two-way radio can be used to communicate to up to 100 people at the same time. By the first quarter of next year, Nextel is going to introduce its internet service which will allow the power and tools of the internet (stock prices, weather, sports, etc.) to be available directly from the phone. The i1000plus has this capability already, we are just waiting for the service to be turned on. The phone is also very sleek and compact. Unlike many of the other "epinions" this phone is far superior in style and in features to the StarTac or any Nokia model currently available. Motorola won several accolades for this phone model. There are many other great features. The only downside to Nextel and the i100plus is the pricey service plans and the lack of a time/date stamp. However, nextel has assured me this will be available by spring 2000. Overall, a great phone as long as others you normally talk to have the same phone or similar nextel product. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88638 2000/1/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good features excellent sound send end button combined Full Review Having sold and used many brands of cellular phones, I am very impressed with the sound quality of Motorola phones, the Nextel i1000+ in particular. I always had a problem with most other phones because the earpiece was designed in such a manner that, if I didn't hold the phone directly over my ear canal, I couldn't hear. Moving the phone just a bit sometimes caused the fleshy part of my ear to block the hole where the sound comes out of the phone. Not a problem with the i1000+. It fits comfortably against the ear and sounds like a land-line phone. Another plus to this phone is the fact that it doesn't get hot if you're on a long conversation. Many of the other phones I've used would get so hot that it actually hurt my ear. The "flip" on the i1000+ doesn't get warm at all. There are a lot of other features I like about this phone - the speaker phone feature, for example. It's great to be able to put the phone down while you're getting your voice mail and just listen. Or, have another person join in the conversation instead of being a relay between 2 people. On the down side - Motorola should have made separate send and end buttons. If you disconnect from 1 call and go to make another, you need to be careful to push the button only once. A second push reconnects you to your first caller. Overall, I have to say that this is one of the best phones I've used. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88637 2000/3/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good features breaks down more often than an 88 hyundai Full Review I got my 1st nextel i1000 phone back in September, and I thought it was the greatest cell-phone ever. I even posted an opinion on it singing its praises, but I have since had a quick change of heart. The features on the i1000 can't be beat, as I said in my other opinion, but the phone is about as durable as a fine china set with an angry bull in the store. I have had the phone replaced 4 times already for the same problem. It constantly shuts itself off. I turn it on, 3 minutes later it is off. I thought it was me, but 3 of my employess, and numerous customers have the same problem. In nextel's defense, they have been great, and have taken care of the problem each time. I am sick of this piece of garbage phone now, and would not recommend it to anyone. If you have similar problems with your Nextel Motorola I1000 phone, post a reply to this opinion, as the people at Nextel have been e-mailed a copy, and have promised to check on it to see how wide spread the problem is. Recommended: No 88636 2000/3/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 absolutly none every thing that deals with this phone Full Review Could it get any worse. The i1000 is a great phone when your in a decent coverage area. This phone has all the bells and whistles. More importantly be aware that once you sign on the dotted line and agree to be a Nextel customer you can forget about being treated like a valued customer. Nextel's attitude seems to be we will work to get your business but once we have you we will do absolutely nothing to help you when you have a problem. Go with any other cellular provider, I had been with AT&T for 6 years and only went with Nextel because of the two way radio feature which would enable my trucking business to save some money, what a MISTAKE. The amount of aggravation I've been subjected to by far out weighs any savings. So overall after having problems from day 1 the dropped calls, interference with other electrical equipment, improperly configured out of the box, voice-mail alerts that don't work, changed default settings that do not stay changed, vibrate mode that sometimes doesn't work at all, and an occasional amber display instead of Indigo green, the worst customer service on the planet. So as you can see this phone is simply great. Do not buy this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 180 88635 2000/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap gets reception everywhere small not good for one person use Full Review This phone has been the greatest cell phone i ever used. With a built in walkey talkey, that is easy to use, and it reaches EVERYWHERE! There is no charge for using the walkey talkey. It is so easy to use, and it ahs reception almost everywhere you go. You can talk to each other using the walkey talkey from different states. It is very small and personal so it can fit in your purse, or in your pocket very comfortably. It has email that you can retrieve from it, you have voice mail, and caller ID. you can store numbers in it, and its half the size of the other phone that nextel amkes. It is mainly great for businesses rather than a single person buying it, because then the walkey talkey is a waste. Businesses can use it to reach each other all around their buildings, for workmen, etc.. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 88634 2001/8/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 web capable etc speakerphone e connections text pages two way radio conversation delays rf interference with other electronics connection drops short battery life when used often The Bottom LineOverall, I think that Motorola got this phone right, if only it were a little smaller and the battery lasted longer... Full Review We purchased several of the Nextel i1000plus units for my department. In our evaluation we looked at Sprint PCS and Nextel. We chose the i1000's because of the two-way feature which PCS did not offer at the time. Prices were similar between the two. The i1000plus has so many features, most of which we'll never use. In adding these features it appears that they've traded out the quality of some basic operations - such as quality telephone "connections". I cannot say whether the fault is in Nextel's cellular network or the phone itself. 1. So many features, including Internet access, so you have a lot of room to "grow". 2. Motorola reliability. 3. Ease of use for basic operation. 4. Built-in speakerphone works great. 1. Causes havok with radios and some other electronic devices; having a conversation on the phone standing 15 feet away from a radio causes the radio to "tick" with the cell packets being transmitted. This makes me wonder how good the phone's RF signals are for me. 2. There is a good 1/2 second delay between the talker and listener when using the Nextel network. This took some getting used to. 3. Great coverage in the popular areas, but not outside the beaten paths. Unexpected dips & dropouts in coverage when traveling on major thruways (spotty coverage). 4. Battery life is short when frequently using the phone. The battery will go for hours from fully-charged to half-recharged, and then will drop from half-charged to discharged rather quickly. Again - I must say that cons #2 and 3 may have to do with Nextel's cell network and may not be the phone's "fault" per-se. Overall, I think that Motorola got this phone right, if only it were a little smaller... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 88633 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very portable easy to use compact clear communication may be difficult to figure out Full Review I bought this product because needed a good cell phone that had it all. This cell phone has connection to the internet, e-mail, and voice mail. All services work great, and the voice mail is excellent. The battery life is great and the communication is clear most of the time. It is also very compact and easy to carry around. Although when you first get it all the buttons and little gadgets seem overwhelming, but after using it several times you get the hang of it. Also if you know another person with a Nextel phone, you can use it as a walkie talkie, and there are virtually no fees to pay. This phone also offers a lot of room to store phone numbers into the memory with the names of the people the numbers represent. This phone is very convenient to have around. Anyone who needs a phone that is reliable and easy to use, this is the one you should buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 88632 2000/5/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery time very reliable service lightweight too many features to list too many features to list fragile earpiece Full Review Almost two years ago, when prices came down for most cellular phones and services, I joined the bandwagon with a Nokia. Coupled with AT&T, I thought that I had all I could ever need in mobile communication. I soon encountered many of the horrors of cellular (and digital) technology. Dead zones, static, dropped calls and other annoyances had me calling AT&T customer support regularly only to get the runaround and a refusal to offer any reimbursement. The year 2000 came and went without the promised armageddon and I was in need of a new cell phone and service. I had heard a lot about NexTel service, and for all of the good features, I just liked the styling of phone. It was small, lightweight and had a great display. After signing up for a year, I soon found the speakerphone a delight, especially when driving or for conference calls. This was the first time I had ever had a speakerphone on a cellular, and I wondered what took so long? Other nice features beside the typical digital services (callerID, voice mail, etc) is two lines. You can have two people on the phone at the same time from different numbers, similar to call waiting, only better. I spend a lot of time traveling, and I find that the signal is strong everywhere I have been thus far. From Minnesota, New York, Maryland and Virginia, the service has always been available, unlike AT&T's network. Also, I haven't had any roaming charges nor have I found my service switching between carriers. NexTel also offers an interface with PC's to manage, download/upload, and save telephone lists. Sometimes there are so many features with the NexTel, that I am confused with what they all do. I have read that there is internet browsing and e-mail available; however, I am only a computer programmer, so I have no hopes of figuring out how they work. Unfortunately, the book does not offer enough information on how to use these features. Another feature of their service that surprised me was their customer service. I called them for some minor problem and within a minute or so I had a living, breathing human being on the other line who has helpful and courteous. Of all the great features, I haven't had much of a chance to use the two way radio (it only works in the home area), so I cannot comment on that functionality. All in all, I have been extremely pleased with the service and features of the NexTel and I would highly recommend it to anyone who travels, or wants a reliable (that means you can actually place and receive a call when you want to) cellular phone. The service is more expensive than some other carriers, but I feel that the added cost is well worth it. Recommended: Yes 88631 2000/3/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 free walky talky system price Full Review This phone is great. I couldnt belive it when i saw it. It has so many features, its unbaliveable. The first thing i was suprised at was that it had a two phones or more walky talky sytem. Then i was really surprised when i heard it was free. The walky talky system works in a two mile radius. The phone it self is also great. You can hear ur phone call perfectly and theres is hardly any time when teres no service avalible. It comes also with a good plan of five hundred free minutes. The only problem with this phone is price. it cost to much for a cell-phone. It costs up to two hundred dollors. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88630 2009/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great features expensive Full Review I bought 2 NEXTEL i1000 plus last month, and I have to say that this is the ULTIMATE phone. It has a speaker phone built in, which for those of you who believe driving and talking on the phone is extremely dangerous, would find it EXTREMELY helpful. Furthermore, the phone's text messaging system is just really great, the font sizes are small, but extremely clear. The 2-way radio, everyone just loves, unfortunately, NEXTEL turns out to be the most expensive carrier. So, I guess it's just as what you always hear, you get what you pay for. Thank you for reading. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88629 2009/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent clarity reasonable rates great coverage no hands free kit Full Review I used to have the cell phone from hell (Airtouch) - I had a thirty minute commute to and from work along Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles and the damn phone wouldn't stay connected for more than a couple of minutes - it was infuriating and the clarity was terrible. I was about to cancel the phone and listen to the radio in the car when I got a cold call from Nextel. I threatened them that they should forget me as a potential customer unless they would lend me a phone to test out - I told them I didn't care what the coverage maps said - I wanted to be sure about the coverage myself. They did lend me the phone and now five people in my office have one and three sets of friends. All the menu options and stuff is useless unless you can talk on the phone and with Nextel you can. The coverage in LA is great - yes there are some minor areas with problems but I have yet to find an area that Nextel has a problem where a competitor doesn't have a bigger one. The sound and clarity is brilliant - people have no idea if I am talking from the car or the office. And I use the two way radio a lot both with other people in the office and with my wife. Also one of the best features is an email to phone facility where anyone can email direct to the phone with a text message that is over 100 characters. This is great when i'm travelling as urgent messages and email is sent to the phone and copied to my laptop. I have noticed lately that sometimes the messages take a while to come through but this hasn't been the normal situation. And a couple of other things - I talked from Newark Airport until I was half way through the Lincoln Tunnel on a trip to New York!! I thought that was impressive. I have also used the phone without any problems in places like Yellow Springs Ohio and Greenville South Carolina. The rates are reasonable and I like their credit when you are cut off and have to redial the number. The only other gripe is that there is no hands free kit available - a major pain and one that should be fixed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88628 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 radio everything Full Review The Nextel i1000 is a great phone, dont get me wrong, but compared to it's competitors' products, it comes in dead last. For every part of the nextel phone, there is a Nokia parallel, and then one on top of it. From the Nextel Web Site, you see: Turbo Dial is one touch dialing-just press and hold a numeric button on the keypad that corresponds to one of the first 8 programmed numbers in your phone list. Last 10 Numbers Received/Sent Call List* lets you view, dial and store the last 10 numbers received and sent from your phone. Quickstore instantly adds phone numbers and Private IDs to your personal directory. Missed Call Indicator-alerts you to missed calls Data Capable and Internet Ready for the Nextel OnlineSM services to come.** Funny how all those are on Nokias, and what's not on there, is something that ISNT EVEN AVAILABLE! "Data Capable and Internet Ready for the Nextel Online services to come" Yeah, whatever Nextel, not working now, the technology is moving on later, not gonna need your phone later, when you "Decide" to get it "Internet Ready." There are two things, though, that do impress me about this phone. The first is the speakerphone. Hands-free talking without an extra addon clip (which Nokia offers) is very impressive and makes it look a lot better. The other thing is a radio. This radio can hook up to a few people at once and you can talk to them just like a walkie talkie. Those two things are the most impressive things on the phone, and to me that's not worth the 200 bucks when you can get a nokia for the same... - MoHNeY - Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88627 2000/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 two way radio speakerphone ack the keypad is horrible The Bottom LineGREAT features, slightly annoying interface and keypad, but overall a perfect blend of cell phone, pager, two-way radio and speakerphone!! Full Review I have owned several Nokia and Motorola cell phones for personal use over the last several years, and was recently issued a Motorola i1000 at work. My first impression was.. "I HATE this phone!" I almost wrote my opinion then, but decided to wait and give it a chance. It's been a couple of months now, and.. I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND! Despite a few annoying flaws in design, this phone meets or exceeds the quality and functionality of my Nokia 51xx and 61xx phones. I am a computer consultant, and use this phone while on the road - in my "mobile office", and also on site. Pros: Speakerphone This is GREAT! I love this feature. Initially, I bought headsets for both this phone and my Nokia. Now, I use the speakerphone on the Motorola almost exclusively. (I even find myself annoyed that the Nokia doesn't have this feature natively.) The sound is excellent, and the volume level can be controlled by two buttons on the side of the phone. It operates with the cover open or closed, and can pickup my voice with excellent clarity, even when placed in the console cubby on my Ford Explorer. Even with the engine and road noise, people say I am coming across loud and clear. Also, this feature is great if the call involves participation with several people around you, or when you find it awkward to hold the phone. Put the phone in the middle of the desk, and everyone can speak to and hear the person at the other end of the call. Two-way radio Another great feature. Everyone where I work at is on the same "two-way radio network", so we can all talk to each other whenever we want, without calling them on the cell. You can beep one person, or a group. (I haven't had the need to use the group function yet.) We call these the "beepy phones", and they are exactly that. Like a walkie-talkie, you press and hold a button on the side of the radio to talk. To just beep someone, (in case they are busy and you don't want your voice to interrupt something), just press the button once. Beep! Then, the recipient can look at the display and see who it was, and then return the beep. Although you can only beep someone within your own "network", I've heard that Nextel is working on expanding this feature so you can beep someone outside of your network. Now, THAT would be great. See-though flip cover To be honest, I was initially annoyed with the see-through display flip cover. The buttons that "work through" the cover didn't make sense initially. Like most everyone, I hate reading manuals, or having to mess around with something to figure it out. After spending some time playing with it, I have found that you can do everything with the cover closed as you can with the cover open, except dial a unique number. Under the see-through display, there are two buttons whose functionality changes depending on what mode you are in. (Modes = phone, radio, net.) You can peruse your phone list with the help of the buttons that normally function as volume controls, and then dial and use the speakerphone feature. One word of advice, tho - I took a couple pieces of clear tape and put them over the outer display. I've dropped the phone several times, and have put a couple scratches in the display. Hopefully the tape will keep it from getting worse. Cons: Keypad buttons What I like about the Nokia over the Motorola is that the buttons are raised, and are easy to push when holding the phone with one hand. The Motorola's keypad buttons are very flush to the face, and I find them difficult to push without pushing directly downward with the tip of my finger, or the edge of the fingernail. Workaround: I try to program often-dialed numbers into the phone book, therefore I don't need to manually enter them when making a call. Holster The holster clips to your belt, and the phone slides into the holster, with the display against the back of the holster. Personally, I'd rather have the phone facing outward, but with a few battery choices which vary in depth, I can understand Motorola's design decision. I find it also awkward to remove the phone from the holster, as you have to push against the antenna to release it. (I've been told by another Motorola i1000 owner than the area around the antenna cracks easily, so I have been careful with the pressure exerted when removing it from the holster.) Workaround: I picked up a $4.99 adhesive button and belt clip from Best Buy. The button sticks to the back of the battery, which then allows the phone to be clipped into the belt clip. The belt portion has a button that allows you to release it, meanwhile keeping it secure and safe from falling out. I like this MUCH better than the holster. Reception quality I find that my Nokia has better reception in buildings than the Motorola. Standing closer to an outside wall or standing up rather than sitting down sometimes helps the reception. This is apparent in both cellular and radio modes. Sometimes, in radio mode, voices come across garbled if the reception is poor. The coverage area is much better on my Nokia through US Cellular then the Motorola/Nextel. If this is concern of yours, you may want to check Nextel's coverage maps to see if it will fit your lifestyle. User Interface This took some time to get used to. Not as intuitive as the Nokia, wading through the menus to find functions takes a little more patience. Also, a friend of mine noted that you cannot erase individual calls from the history: you have the erase the whole thing. Ok, maybe he has something to hide. :) Other features worthy of mentioning: Paging Using Nextel's web site, you can send a text page to the phone. Or, you can send a page to it directly by email. The phone beeps when a page is received, and several lines are viewable at once on the screen. Volume controls On the side of the phone, above the "walkie-talkie" button, are two buttons that control the volume. If you are viewing a phone list, you can use these buttons to scroll through the list. They are placed very well on the phone. Size Although not one of the smallest phones on the market, it's size is comfortable and is actually smaller than the Nokia 51xx and 61xx series. I've found that holding a Nokia makes you feel like you need to hold it down a little on your cheek, but the Motorola is designed with the perfect design, and I don't feel like I need to fidget with the positioning. Net Since I am not subscribed to any of the Net features, I cannot comment on them fully. We do have one person in the office that does have the service, and he uses it to check his stocks. His comment is that it is text-based, and limited, but inexpensive as compared to services available on other devices, such as a Palm VII. Personally, I use a Palm VIIx for the web needs on the road, so I have no use for this feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88626 2000/8/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use small internet capable light weight lack of coverage in some less populated areas Full Review Let me start off by telling you that I was employed by NEXTEL so I'd pretty much say I'm an expert on all of their (Motorola's) product line. Motorola's i1000+ is not a overly bulky phone, unlike some reviewers claim...the fact of the matter is: for most people, if the unit was any smaller, it would make the unit more of a burden to use. This phone is amazingly simple to use. It has a "MODE" button to easily change from cellular mode to two-way radio mode to an internet-capable phone (when that feature becomes available). The unit has an easy to use menu system...there is one button that says "MENU" and two buttons that correspond to the on-screen options, if the options aren't what you need, then all you have to do is keep pressing MENU until you see the option you needed. Programming the phone is very easy, press * then # and any of the corresponding options from 1 through 99 will allow you to change the way the features on your phone can be utilized. The unit is programmed for use in four languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. There are plenty of options on the unit, the 10-call memory for incoming and outgoing calls received/made allows you to add each phone # into memory at the touch of a button--very simple. The unit has an onboard timer, *#12(which would need to be reset at the beginning of your designated billing cycle date each month if you want to use the feature) which counts how many cellular minutes you've used since you reset it last. The unit can be put on a silent-vibrate mode (*#9) very similar to how most pagers vibrate. The cell-phone uses different tones to distinguish from an incoming page, phone-call or voicemail. You can store up to 100 speed-dial numbers on the cellular side of things and you can store 100 two-way radio identification numbers. Calls can be forwarded from your cellular phone to any phone number, and you can get basically any optional services that most phone companies have (such as caller id, call waiting, etc.) added. Getting away from features, NEXTEL's digital coverage is still being expanded. Most major cities and interstates are extremely well covered, but if you go to an "out of the way place" where there are very few people, then you'll probably end up being out of the coverage area. The type of technology that NEXTEL uses isn't compatible with many other companies(in fact, there is only one other competitor out there who utilizes this particular kind of cellular-technology), so roaming usually isn't an option. As far as "spotty coverage" in major cities is concerned, all of the Motorola units have a "NETWORK ID" setting (*#51) which may sometimes be out of date and therefore would cause users to drop an unusually large amount of calls until the appropriate settings are programmed into their unit. For most people, this phone would be an excellent buy, the audio quality of this phone is usually pretty impressive and at times seems to be clearer than standard telephone service. The two-way radio is an excellent feature which makes talking to your friends/coworkers very simple. Most of the NEXTEL rate plans are finally starting to come down in price to comparable levels with standard cellular companies, and most markets currently covered have a national long distance plan (for an additional $10.00 per month, you get unlimited long distance calling anywhere in the United States, including calls made to Hawaii and Alaska). One other point I'd like to say is: NEXTEL bills a month in advance, similar to if you were renting an apartment, most people don't seem to realize this and seem shocked when they receive their first billing statements. I would highly recommend buying the phone unless you live in a non-coverage area (you can call (800) 639-6111 to find out). Just about anybody can handle this phone and would be impressed by it at the same time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Varies...usually around $150. 88625 2001/6/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great sound quality semi small size 4 different usage options elaborate programming methods are confusing uncomfortable against the ear flimsy flip top The Bottom Linegreat if you are going to take advantage of at least the majority of the functionality, if not I'd look into something else Full Review I got the opportunity to use the Motorola i1000plus (also known as the Nextel i1000plus through a small business setting. Preparing myself to possibly sell and promote these contraptions, I threw myself into getting to know everything about them. Unfortunately, there is absolutely so much to know and figure out about this mobile device, that even I was at times confused and baffled at the possibilities. First things first, this phone was made specifically for service with Nextel. Therefore, I can't hardly explain many aspects of the phone without at least touching in on the service end of things... you won't be able to use the phone with any other service, so this added information shouldn't distract you from the review of the phone itself. Featuring such technological innovations and depth, this phone comes in a nifty welcome pack. Inside this pack you'll find a manual similar to those you may remember from your high school or college scientific calculator (so big you don't even want to go there.) Also important is an introduction video... although somewhat slow and simple, I'd seriously encourage anyone with this phone to give it a whirl at least once, especially if you refuse to look at the manual. Don't forget that you get a wall charger, and hard plastic click case with belt-clip (not to handy for quick answering, but it does the job if you don't want to buy another one. Phone: Here you have the capability of storing up to 100 phone numbers, including 10 for one touch dialing (holding down the specified number for a moment. This feature is actually a longer, more cumbersome hold-down then my Nokia 5190) Unlike many phones, names are stored in all caps, no upper and lower case allowed, plus the name length is considerably shorter than some. If you take the time to read through a bit of the manual, you can figure out how to, and take advantage of, the last 10 calls made and received feature as well. This makes for quick redial capabilities, and storing of frequently used or received numbers. Caller ID ties into your phone book, as usual. If you have a named stored in, it will tell you that name of the caller, otherwise it will simply post the number calling. Direct Connect: This is the best feature of this phone that I can see. Here you can directly connect with fellow co-workers, friends, family, and business associates who are using the Nextel service in your local area (wide coverage areas) and are connected with your same network. Depending on the service that you have, these calls are unlimited, or at the least at a much lower rate than your actual phone minutes. These calls are made in a ham radio/walkie-talkie type fashion. You hold down a button, wait for the beep, then talk, letting go when done to hear the other person. If the two of you happen to try to talk at the same time you'll get a louder tone telling you they are already talking. This service is especially helpful in a work or family setting, where almost constant communication is necessary, even for small amounts of time, quick questions, etc. Direct connect can happen with the flip cover closed, and using the speaker phone on (this is especially fun to do with other people around, everyone wants to know what's going on) or in private mode, where you have the phone open and up to your ear. Either way, your conversation in secure through the airwaves due to the scrambling circuit that Nextel sends the signals through. Group Calling: Not to be confused with three-way calling (which is available with the standard phone end of things,) this is where a business owner, manager, etc. can program in a number of people they may need to contact with a message or a meeting. We never actually used this feature, so I can't tell you any more than what it's supposed to do for you. Wireless Web: I found this part of the phone especially nice while waiting for a friend during her hospital check-up appointment. Bored with all the magazines around, I flipped open my phone, looked into buying flowers from FTD, checked up on my latest amazon.com order, read through some headlines, and checked my hotmail account. At this point you can only reach MSN information, and selected sites they've chosen. However, you can go online to personalize what you see on your phone. I was especially impressed with the news area. When the Seattle area recently had an earthquake, information was available almost immediately, not just at the end of the day. As I mentioned before, there is a substantial speaker phone inside of this somewhat small phone. I find this especially nice for driving and talking on the phone, or checking my messages. With the exception of bad reception areas, I had no one complain of the lack of ability to hear me any different through the speaker phone, plus others can easily join into the conversation. Unfortunately, many of the functions of the phone cannot be accessed without actually opening the flip-cover of the phone. A few of the simple actions can be done with it all closed, but I found myself needing to open it more often than I'd have liked. Unlike many of the cell phone out right now, this one has simple digital rings, no songs, nothing special, so don't look for that sort of flashy bell or whistle. It does come with internal vibrate, making the need for a vibrating (read: expensive) battery nil. Placing the entire phone on silent (web, direct connect, group, and phone) and to vibrate is easy (press *#9.) My biggest complaint is the battery life and size. The packaged battery is bulky making the phone an odd cumbersome shape. Yet this big battery is lucky to last you 2 days if not only 1 1/2 with out some sort of boost in charge. If you are constantly in communication (as anyone with this phone should be,) this can be a problem. A car charger would be highly recommended... and don't plan on long wilderness trips and still stay in contact... Plus, worst of it is that if you're battery is low, even if everything is set to silent/vibrate, your phone will begin to incessantly chirp. This will cause you to need to actually turn the phone off at this point if in a movie, play, etc. With the right mix of contacts using this same service, a great deal of patience and technical know-how, and the right plan... this can be a real plus to a road-warrior, construction business, large family, small business, and more! Epinions Note: This phone is listed twice here at Epinions (once simply as the "i1000", once as the "i1000plus, I have contacted them in this regards. Once the two areas are merged, I will remove one of my duplicate reviews (each placed only once under each title) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): - 88624 2000/5/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 radio function compact plastic holster speakerphone is great difficult to handle counter intuitive menus hi interference emitted Full Review If you own one, your probably a little afraid of it. That clicking noise you hear when you're near speakers - that's coming from the phone. You're probably wondering how much power this phone is using to emit *that* much interference to a speaker ten feet away. I'm hesitant in clipping this phone by my pelvic region, a la belt. I'm not knocking the phone, its functional and versatile. There can be improvements that should be made, but I'll concentrate on the good points first. As you will probably already know, this phone has a split personality - its a phone! No, its a two-way radio! Its both! As a phone, you have the option of using the earpiece or the speakerphone. The speakerphone feature is excellent - I wish everybody could adopt this technology on their mobile phones. It's full duplex, so no choppy conversations, and is most useful when you're driving. The best part is, activating the speakerphone is unnoticeable to your caller - they can't tell. The radio function is just the same - earpiece or speaker. This functions in the equivalent of a walkie-talkie. Using Nextel's phone network, you are able to use the radio function anywhere in your home service area. For example, I can be driving towards Los Angeles and be in Grapevine (on Highway 5), while I radio and chat with my coworker in Lake Tahoe. This radio function is what most people buy these phones for. The styling of the phone is pretty good - it has an interesting look to it, as it almost looks like an overgrown StarTac. There is a clear window on the flip, so you can see who's calling before answering - an inexpensive, yet much need design that you don't usually see on other mobile phones. It has the holster similar to the StarTac - something I'm always looking for. The battery life is decent, unless you use the radio heavily (about 15-20 minutes a day @ 10-15 seconds bursts), and use the phone often (about 30-45 minutes a day). At that usage level, the battery will last for about a day and a half (Lithium Ion). The dual port charging stand is nice to have, as it will stand your phone up while charging/conditioning, and has the rear port for your extra battery. The cable that attaches to the charging stand can be disconnected and plugged directly into the phone for charging. This is very useful for travelers - no need to lug the entire stand. Included hardware configurations may differ. Although this is a very useful phone/radio, there are some pretty serious design flaws. The programming menus are difficult to access (* then #, then scroll or enter the menu number), and take a while to get use to. You either remember the menu number of the function you adjust most often, or just scroll through the entire list. Adding new phone numbers or radio IDs is counter-intuitive as well, as it must be accessed through the menu, or you have the other person call or radio you first to get their number. The number programming can be handled through a software and cable connected to your PC, but who wants to spend the extra $100 to get it? Also, there is no option that I know of to turn the backlighting off completely to save power. There are user-selectable telephone ringer tones, but there aren't any available for the radio's call alert. We refer to it as beep-beeping, or pinging the phone. What happens is that if more than one of you with these phones are in the same room or area, and one of you gets a radio call - everybody reaches for their radio. There is distinct tone to seperate your radio call from everyone else's. While the phone does have that interesting look, it is actually not made ergonomically correct. Scrunching a cellular phone on your shoulder and ear to get your hands free is challenging enough, but this phone has that slippery feeling, and will drop without warning. The culprit is the battery pack, as it becomes the only surface that you are able to balance the phone on. The phone is balanced on your should like a see-saw, and the protruding battery pack is the fulcrum. Handling the phone can be challenging too. Most of us who gets a call will grab it from the holster, and swing it around to the upright position between your fingers - the hump on the front of the phone can cause it to slip out of your hands flying for a crash landing. I've dropped mine numerous time - take care in answering your calls. My major gripe with this phone is that it emits A LOT of interference (EMI). If you're near speakers, you'll hear pop-pop noises coming from them. That's coming from this phone, and this phone is next to your brain when you are talking on it. Kinda raises my suspicion that this phone might be cooking gray-matter. There seems to be quite a bit of power emitted from the antenna, as covering it with your hands will block its interference to the speakers. When doing that, you may hear a pop-pop feedback during your call - its now causing radio interference with ITSELF! This is a must-have for businesses, or project groups that needs instant contact. The double-feature of this phone, and its compact size will fit the bill for most shoppers. Also note that this phone has mini-web browser capabilities, although it is not available in my area yet. This phone is industrial, yet makes the attempt to be stylish. It does look better than its counterparts, but its nice styling dwindles when you start to interface with its cryptic menus. The speakerphone feature almost makes it worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88623 2000/3/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone only 100 slots for name nbr Full Review I wrote this EPINION back in December after having had almost a year's of use with the Motorola i1000 made for Nextel. I had already upgraded to the i1000+ but had only gotten it for a couple weeks then and didn't feel comfortable making opinions about it just yet. So far it's been about 6 months since I've had the i1000+ and now have some comments. Those comments will be in ITALICS when added to any part of my original EPINION. Motorola (MOT) comes to mind when I imagine which group is THE pre-eminent mobile phone-making organization out there. But while I believe MOT still makes great phones, it seems their R&D and marketing departments have not been sharing thoughts of late. Some progress has been made toward these concerns, and they are welcome. The mobile phone market has diversified, but MOT has lost touch with providing phones that satisfy the interests and needs of its original business-oriented users in addition to the growing group of household-type users. The Nextel i1000 is no exception. Many of the features original i1000 users wanted are addressed with the i1000+. When mobile phones first became a business option, the selling point was that they would free business people from having to answer calls from their desks. The i1000 has done just the opposite. With its lack of a missed call log, and its inability to allow users to designate the number of rings before voicemail will answer, it seems MOT (and consequently Nextel since it is the only provider who was engineered as yet for this phone's architecture) assumes all users are phone slaves and are always happy to receive calls and take them in person. The i1000+ is equipped with BOTH a "Received Calls" Log as well as a "Sent Calls" Log. The logs can not be cleared by the user completely or individually, and if you're obsessive-compulsive, that might be a problem; otherwise, I've learned to live without being able to clear them. Here's what I like: 1) COMPACT, STURDY -In comparison to the StarTac, the i1000 feels more solid, has a bit more heft, and has survived numerous falls from hip height or my car roof height to solid pavement. I've noticed the spring-loaded clamshell design acts as somewhat of a shock absorber (whether on purpose with its design or not) by always springing open when it lands on pavement. 2) SPEAKERPHONE -The ability to make and receive calls without having to open the clamshell or use the number pad is great. Listening to voicemail in the car without having a phone attached to my ear is even better. 3) CALL CLARITY -I'm unsure if this measurement is one of the signal provisions where I am (in Hawaii) or if the phone itself makes calls "sound" much better. In any event, calls made from the Nokia or Ericsson models I've owned seem to have always sounded less clear than with the i1000. Everyone I talk to when I'm using the i1000 assume I'm in the office. Regardless of if I'm in the car with the windows down, or on a busy downtown street, they all seem to make comment of how clear my voice is compared to phones I've had; The i1000+ is no different. It continues to perform as great as my i1000 did. 4) DIRECT-CONNECT (2-Way Radio feature) -In weighing whether this would be a "pro" or a "con," I decided the irritation of only being able to DirectConnect with other Nextel users was less significant than having a coverage area for DirectConnect the same size as my cellular call coverage area; in other words, being able to DirectConnect with users who are in my service area even though they are outside the range of a conventional two-way radio is IMMEASURABLE. That ability is directly related to the gripe that most bring up about not being able to toggle between digital/call usage and compatibility with MOT's TalkAbout walkie-talkies. I believe the PLUS about being able to DirectConnect with any user in my coverage area far outweighs the phone's inability to interface with, say, my nephew's TalkAbout. 5) VIBRACALL -Without using after-market features, the Nokia or Ericsson I used only flashed if a call came in when in silent mode; and that's disappointing if you're standing and talking to someone or in a convention hall with your phone in your pocket. The VibraCall makes life easier in settings where it's makes no sense to have your phone ring outloud. 6) RING OPTIONS -For most people, this would be a dislike; however, I believe the limited number of ringing (alert) options keeps this phone simple. The i1000 is a business phone. Any option for "Jingle Bells" or "The Entertainer" on it, and I'd have to opt-up for a more stodgy model. SEE ALSO "Ring Options" in my 'Dislikes' for other reasons. Here's what I don't like: 1) LACKS "MISSED CALL" LIST/INDICATOR -It's interesting to me to see who's called but hasn't left a message/page and while Nextel doesn't believe so, I think that's a valuable tool in my business. I might be able to show more interest in a client by returning their call regardless of if they've had time to leave me a message to ask me to do so. This has changed. The newer i1000+ comes equipped with a list to track received calls as well as calls made. It remains an irritation because I am not able to clear the list, however, that is a VERY SMALL sideaffect of having this very long-in-waiting feature. 2) PHONE BOOK TOO SMALL -My more primitive Ericsson could store 200 names with numbers. Similarly, my Nokia 61xx series could hold 300 entries, and have a calendar, calculator, and a bezillion ring alerts. So why is the i1000 so tight on memory space? More importantly, not being able to enter a DirectConnect ID separately from a phone number is frustrating. Has MOT every wondered that since I DirectConnect with a comrade more freely, I might not need to store his 10-digit mobile number as well? This hasn't changed with the i1000+. It definitely still has only 100 slots for numbers/names and the lists are intertwined. The upgrade with this is that numbers either on the Received or Sent Logs can be "Quick Stores" into the list. 3) DISPLAY IS PRIMITIVE! -I like the crispness of the font, but can I get that while I look at a less kindergarteney one? It's too large. Seems to me someone designed the display font with an Etch-a-Sketch. The i1000 Plus is said to have a "scalable" font option, but that is only allowed when in the web browser mode --BUMMER! The i1000+ is equipped with a "scalable" font but only in two options (original and one almost 1/3 smaller) and those two options only apply to information being viewed via the yet-to-be-released Internet link or the Mail menu (containing Voice Mail, Pages, or Internet Mail). I still believe a font more user-friendly is necessary. Perhaps one in between the original size, and the additional option available with the Plus. 4) BATTERY INDICATOR VAGUE -The signal display sports SIX bars while the battery display uses ONLY THREE. Imagine knowing that seeing only one bar of battery power could represent between zero to 33%. I think increments of 4 or 5 divisions would serve users better in gauging when the battery might need a recharge. The battery display has not changed with the i1000+. 5) EARPIECE TOO FLAT -While everyone can hear me loud and clear, I am sometimes not able to hear them. The earpiece portion of the clamshell is designed such that it does not sit flat enough on my ear to allow me to hear callers when I'm driving with the windows down, or in a short gust. I have learned to deal with this and either my original i1000 model was shoddy, or they have increased clarity on the earpiece, but my i1000+ is much better at this. 6) NECESSARY CLAMSHELL WINDOW? -Who said it has to be there? Couldn't a hole through the earpiece portion of the clamshell be there instead of a second plastic window? Just the sandwich of the two windows creates scratches from particles and dust. The next design should take cues from Samsung's clamshell phone. The i1000+ remains unchanged in appearance from the original i1000. I still believe the plastic window sandwiches particles between it and the glass display and creates unnecessary scratches. 7) NO AFTERMARKET COVERS! -The leather slip covers that are available for this phone either BLOCK usage of the window buttons while the clamshell is closed, or make the phone more bulky than it should be. Seems there aren't enough i1000s out there to warrant a huge after-market like the Nokia 61xx series has enjoyed and MOT should address that. I have yet to find a suitable leather cover for the phone. It's durable enough to be naked, though. 8) SUNKEN BUTTONS -Seems the i1000 was meant for petite hands. I end up having to use the corners of my fingers or tips to depress the buttons. The buttons are designed well and their illumination of the perimeter rather than the entire button is great; but I think for them to be exposed even 1/16" higher would make my life easier. That might change the way the clamshell closes, but MOT should integrate it so that the buttons are designed to sit higher. The buttons haven't been "upped" and that's fine. After 20,000 minutes of usage later, I'm adjusting. 9) PROGRAMMING MENU IS PRIMITIVE! -With their "modular" buttons, MOT should try to make their programming menu more accessible intuitively rather than numerically. OF PARTICULAR NOTE: MOT has grouped a number of programming options which are hands-off for users alongside options the user is encouraged to alter. Imagine accidentally selecting <OK> or <CLEAR> on an option to change the unit's internal ID or NAM and not knowing what you have done wrong! The fact that Nextel has devoted only a page to this group of "DO NOT TOUCH" options even while they are presented just a button click next to other user-intended options is CRUEL. As well, in another less-intuitive function, the menu command to turn on and off the VibraCall feature is too indirect. The Programming Menu continues in its original form. Keep in mind, Quick Command Menu buttons are SEPARATELY operated from these Programming functions, and while the Quick Command "modular" buttons are GREAT, the Programming Menu continues to be "Access + Code Number" driven and is a pain. 10) RING OPTIONS -If I were to deduce all the ringer options that come with the i1000, they are all the same; save a different pitch or tempo. I would appreciate better ringing patterns so that my i1000 doesn't necessarily sound exactly like my Meridian office system. In a similar note, unless I have spent 10 months looking unsuccessfully, I have not found a way to alter the ringer pattern for my E-Mail/Page alert. I have only found a command to increase or decrease its volume. I have had my Motorola i1000 for nearly a year now. While I still believe MOT makes world-friendly phones, I can't say I would recommend the i1000 unless a user's need for the features that I like far outweigh those that are fairly cumbersome. The i1000 has met my needs and that's what counts. My list of real life likes and dislikes I think is useful enough to steer potential users from buying one or finding something else. It is unfortunate that MOT is just not in touch with the needs of users who will inevitably use their mobile phones for business as well as personal use. That MOT has integrated 2-line capability (which they sell as "able to be used for business and personal needs") says they think it's possible, but apparently their breakthroughs haven't caught up with their desires. This is a review of the phone itself, and not of the Nextel service, so I'll save my (raving) opinion about their services and my other (not-so-nice) opinion about their customer service for another EPinion. In Wall Street terms, today's i1000 is a "neutral" while what I believe to be a possibly better redesign some time down the road to be an "acquire". I have changed my mind and in keeping with my terminology of 3 months ago (above), I say the i1000+ is an "acquire" from a "neutral." The key options left out in the original i1000 (Call Logs) has been added to the i1000+ and that's a gain of almost 50% of the people who turned down Nextel phones at the outset. After 20,000 minutes of usage, the i1000 and my 6 month old i1000+ ARE STILL KICKING and show no signs of wear. MOT still makes great phones. I believe that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85 (introduct. price) 88622 2009/10/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 nice looking good battery life featuresclarity are lacking Full Review Ok, it looks really cool but the Nextel motorolla i1000 is more hype than substance. Of course this is just my epinion but it really doesn't impress me. I have had the phone for over 6 months and it hasn't been any better than any other cell phone I have owned. It is an eye-catcher and I have received plenty of compliments on it but those compliments and 50 cents should buy me a cup of coffee. Now I will just blame Nextel because I don't know if it is the phone itself or the service but the chances of me renewing my contract are about as good as the Broncos repeating as Super Bowl champs. Countless times I have been cut off mid-conversation for no apparent reason at times when I was clearly within the range of my calling area. The two way radio feature is cute but useless unless you know someone with the same phone and even then it costs extra. The manual that I got with the phone tells of a lot of features that aren't even available yet. The darn thing doesn't even display the time ( but that is coming by year's end). Overall I was expecting a steak and I got a sloppy Joe. It's still food but it is not what I wanted. You get me? Save your money and get a less expensive phone (I paid $200) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88621 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 less need to use telephone air time gets some stray work groups from time to time Full Review The walkie talkie feature of this phone is remarkable. Between my 3 daughters and I, we do a lot of close range communication. Our regular phone communication was costing way too much. With this phone we hardly ever use the telephone service. I have no need to purchase a lot of air time as a result of this. I keep the minimum and are saving. The travel distance of these phones walkie talkie feature is far greater than the expensive ones, except for maybe the police radios. I have talked to people at ranges of over 60 miles. I recommend the business package, with the free incoming calls. I do not know how I survived without this little gadget. It takes the place of my beeper, voice mail service. When the service gets up and going it will be my watch also. It was purchased for my small business and I do not miss a call. It makes me look more professional at what I am doing. I intend to get a few more.I even get my internet phone messages, which is really great. If you are using this service in the area, I do not think it can be beat.There are so many using this phone that it is not hard to connect up with another to my surprise. All I got it for was for its local service but its' free long distance has had no problems with me at all. Sounds like they are in the next room. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88620 2000/2/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cost effective especially if you use 2 way nationwide service lots of dropped callsdead spots poor customer service Full Review The Nextel stockholder in my begs that I keep my mouth shut but I have to tell the truth. think carefully about putting you entire business in the hands of Nextel. As an owner of a security company I have experienced both the best and the worst of Nextel. We (in hind sight foolishly) abandoned our former two-way communications system for Nextel. We were excited about the multiple uses the units offered and thought it would be an efficient and cost effective way to maintain communications with our security officers. Yes we are able to get optimal use out of the radio feature but with all of the downsides I regularly wonder if it is worth it. First the customer service leaves a great deal to be desired. I have literally spent hours on the phone with their representatives pouring over my phone bill for the usual parade of mistakes. Because I have so many units my bill is usually 150+ pages so having to police their accounting is no small task. I also feel they have grown more quickly than they were prepared for and their customer service has suffered. Also I have had mixed reviews about their insurance plan to replace lost or stolen phones. Since my fleet is large I have had to replace several phones from time to time. I have found that replacing a single unit is simple. Replacing several units is a nightmare! Second,the reception and coverage areas leave a great deal to be desired. I travel quite a bit and am frustrated and concerned about the lack of coverage I have seen even in the most metropolitan of areas. I would like the comfort of knowing that I will be able to expect to get a signal when I may need it not when they choose to give it to me. So between the dropped calls, weak signals and dead spots I am always on a cell phone adventure never knowing what I will get. On the upside, the product is certainly cost effective especially in a business like ours where the radios are invaluable. I am also impressed with the large range of coverage the two-way feature has. I live in Chicago and have been able to use the radio on an over four state radius. Because our plan includes the two-way coverage at no additional cost, we tend to use this feature quite a bit. The moral of the story? They have basically a good product but it needs lots of work. I was so impressed with their growth that I even bought stock in the company. However the truth is simple but sad....carry a calling card "just in case". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88619 1999/10/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 address book direct connect feature battery life weight size Full Review When my company switched us to a fleet of i1000s, I was sad to see my Nokia 6160 go. The 6160 was a great phone, with a well-thought out operating system with advanced features and great battery life. The i1000 has pretty mediocre battery life -- you really need to recharge it every-other day, and it behooves the owner to have an extra batter and charger. The i1000 also has no clock or date function which no cell phone should be without. It's a bit pudgy, so I don't like carrying it in my pocket so much, and the belt clip it comes with is sort of a joke -- I had to buy the leather belt clip - a $30 extra. But on the positive side, this is a fantastic fleet phone. If you have a team that needs to stay connected, you will be amazed that you ever got by without the direct-connect (walkie-talkie-like) function of the phone. There is optional software for maintaining the direct-connect information for a fleet as it grows and changes, so you can plug your phone into a PC and upload the new fleet information. The address book is pretty good, and there is nice built in security. Our mission critical applications benefit from this phone, because you can always track down the application manager, at all times. It would be a great family phone too, for the same reason. Also, nextel coverage has been remarkably good in the following cities I have visited with my phone: Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Madison, NYC, and Los Angeles. I imagine that it holds true for any major city in the US. All in all, this is a good, durable cell phone, with a cool-space agey feel. If you don't need the direct connect feature, I would buy a 6160 or another Nokia phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 88618 2000/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 long battery life dropped calls weird sounds Full Review The i1000 phone has not proved to be very reliable and it certainly isn't durable. I have had to have it replaced three times. OK, OK. Once was my fault. I ran over it with the car but the other times it had fallen out of its cumbersome holder or it just quit working. As far as features, well, it barely has any. No clock. No missed call ID. No last call ID. No memory. Anyone who has been blessed with owning one of these phones will tell you about the mysterious ghost sounds it makes. Just turn it on and set it within 5 feet of a TV or stereo and every 30 seconds or so you will hear (from your TV or stereo speakers) some very obnoxious sounds. And for god's sake don't put it next to your computer monitor. It will make your screen look like Y2K gone bad! The reception is so spotty you can have it in one hand and have no service, switch to the other hand and have 5 bars. I spoke with our Nextel rep regarding both the weird sounds and reception problems. He said that the phone works on a different frequency than normal cell phones and that the frequency was "very line of sight" meaning, don't go in a building with one of these phones because you may drop the call. On a positive note, the radio function of the phone is quite convenient and the battery life is excellent. I use about 600 minutes a month and usually have to charge the phone once or twice a week. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 88617 2000/5/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 unlimited two way calls expensive cell timesometimes no signal Full Review Nextel phones have been the biggest craze this past year, among working men and teenagers. Every teenager in my city owns one. There are definately positive and negitive aspects of the nextel. First off, for basic two-way radio, NO cell phone feature, it is much cheaper than a cellular phone and you have unlimited radio minutes. This is a way for people that cannot afford cell phones to still have a way to get in touch with someone in case of a wreck or other emergency. That is about the end of the positive aspects. Now, lets discuss the negitive aspects. First off, if you are in an area without a tower, you rarely have a signal. Sometimes I see my friends running around the yard trying to get a signal. Unfortunately, there are many areas with no tower or signal. This is a problem. The next bad thing is the cell phone feature. You pick a package with an allowed set of minutes. When those pre-paid minutes run out, the un-paid minutes you use are VERY expensive. So, before you buy one consider the amount of cell time you will be using and if you have a tower in your area. Don't be stuck with a nextel that has no signal saying to yourself, "What's Next?" Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 88616 2000/4/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 talk without holding phone a little bigger than startac Full Review I've used every cell phone out there, made calls on the best of them, and this phone is where I finally wound up after testing the so called cellular waters for the past few years. It does everything I need, and the extra special tantalizing features unique to Nextel sealed the deal. The Nextel i1000 is replacing my StarTac and it is a welcome change. This phone has a battery that lasts. The extra 4 or 5 cubic inches that I have to lug around really haven't changed my life. It still fits in a pocket. It's still one of the smallest phones around. But I haven't gotten to the good part yet. You don't have to have it open to have a conversation. You can simply put it on speaker mode (which happens to work extremely well) and have your conversation. The people on the other end rarely know that they are on speaker. Background noise is drowned out. This is an especially useful, not to mention safe, feature to have when you are in the car. You can just place the phone in a cradle and talk. You don't need to have just one hand on the steering wheel, which has been proven to be a leading cause of accidents. I still haven't gotten to the best part though, and that's Nextel's Direct Connect Service. It allows you to put the people closest to you in an inner network so that they are always just a click away. Simply click the speaker button on the side of the phone, and talk. It works just like a walkie talkie but much more clear and lucid, and you can do it from across the country. On the National Rate plans, this feature is FREE!!! You you can talk endlessly with people. The only catch here is that these conversations are not private unless you have a special ear cord which is easy enough to get. And of course, it makes having group conversations very easy and enjoyable. Also, as an aside, if you sign up for two phones, which makes the most sense if you want to take advantage of the Direct Connect, you get one free. Recommended: Yes 88615 2000/4/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone well designed no internet features yet Full Review I had no intention of buying a cell phone anytime soon but when Nextel offered free incoming calls for all of 2000 I finally nit the bullet and bought the i1000 plus ($199) with the Small Business 600 plan. Having tooled around with the phone for about a month now I figured I'd write a review. Standard features can be grabbed off the Nextel web site at http://www.nextel.com/products/productcatalog/i1000plus.shtml Important ones are speakerphone, one-touch turbo-dial on the first 8 programmed numbers, and a see-through display that lets you see caller ID without having to open up the phone (unlike Star-Tacs). Also, for a small fee you can use the phone as a walkie talkie (still waiting for my friend to sign up so I can test this feature out). The phone itself is very ergonomically pleasing. The LCD screen is nice and large and can display 4 or 5 lines of text which makes reading email's pretty easy. The numberpad keys are placed far enough apart to prevent frequent misdialing. Also, all of the programming menus are easy to navigate thanks to two buttons that line up with the choices shown on the LCD screen. Up to 100 phone numbers and 100 private ID numbers can be stored in memory. The last 10 received or sent calls are also stored for easy re-dialing or quickstore into memory. Battery life is listed at 50 hours of standby or 180 minutes of talk time with the standard battery. Personally I've been getting about 30 hours of standby with 30 minutes of talk or about 36 hours of standby with no talk and a few email messages. Full charging of an empty battery takes about 3-4 hours. I have a few gripes with nextel about this phone and their service. The monthly minute counter has to be reset by the user at the end of the billing cycle each month. Also, the counter totals both incoming and outgoing minutes which makes it impossible to keep track of usage time if you're getting free incoming calls. While the phone includes a Nextel Net Mode for internet services, Nextel has been painfully slow in developing these (nonexistent at last check). Overall, I am pleased with the phone. I would recommend it over the Star-Tac as long as the slightly larger size won't bother you but haven't had the chance to compare it to some of the newer Samsung and Nokia phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88614 2000/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small with many many features nothing out of the ordinary Full Review I received this phone as part of my job and have had it for quite some time now. The size of this phone is one of the first things you'll notice and really enjoy. It can fit into a shirt pocket or attach to your belt or pocket using one of the many fancy little leather cases that are available. (I've used several of them once the plastic one it comes with wore out). It's just simply amazing at how many features are packed into this pint size product. The most obvious one, is the two way direct connect. Since I use this at work I probably use this feature 70% of the time talking to others the way you would talk on a walkie-talkie. The range is very good with this feature but you will run into some dead zones. Even within the building where I work there are dead zones, but it's minimal. Other features I use quite often are the speed dial, speaker phone (can you believe it!), voice mail and email. You can actually go to the Nextel web page and leave someone an email on their nextel phone. Very handy feature. This is my second i1000. The first one had problems with the direct connect button. After about the first 6 months of use, the button wasn't functioning properly, making it difficult to hold a conversation. I've had my second one for some time now with no problem. At times, just like any other cell phone you hit dead zones around town, but the minor inconveniences are just that when you look at the convenience this phone gives you. The speaker phone is a wonderful addition to anyone who drives and talks at the same time. You can set the phone on the seat next to you and still hold a conversation with someone. Excellent product!!! Recommended: Yes 88613 2000/1/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything nothing Full Review I got a nextel 1000 last summer. I think it is the best cell that I have ever had and I have had four of them. I enjoy the instant message beeper button. It is very useful. Especially because all of my friends have them. So no matter where i am and they are I can contact with no charge. I have shut off my phone at home because I dont even use it anymore. I have the plan where I get 1200 minutes a month and it only cost me $100.00. for each month. It is great. I am on it all day everyday. I also enjoy the fact that it is so small. I has no bulk. And with by belt clip for it I dont even notice it is there. I have also bought one of those blinking antennas for it so when it is on my bed stand while I am asleep if it rings it is easy for me to see it in the dark. As I close this I will say nothing except that it is the best phone I have ever had. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 88612 2000/5/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone see thru cover compact not a consumer phone confusing to program best for a power user The Bottom LineThumbs up to the phone and Nextel! Full Review For years I snickered at anybody who used Nextel. They'd long been dismissed as a wireless company that only caters to larger businesses. Recently I found the Nextel i1000plus for $19 at Buy_dot_com and couldn't resist giving both the phone and the Nextel service a try. I've been using the phone about a month and here is what I don't like and what I do like. DON'T LIKE: a) Everything is programmed through keypresses instead of menu selections as most other consumer phones allow you to. For example, to turn off the ringer you have to press "*", "#", "9". b) I find setting the earpiece, ringer and speakerphone volume to be more difficult than they should be. This phone would definitely benefit from a menu based interface instead of the "*", "#" method of programming. c) On my unit the phone battery seems to have a problem either coming loose or communicating with the phone. I occassionaly get an "Invalid Battery" message which means I have to power the phone down and remove and reinsert the battery. LIKE: a) Sturdy - the unit feels very sturdy. I haven't felt that the cover was going to come off like some other reviewers have indicated. b) Speaker phone - the unit has a loud built-in speaker phone which works very well and is simple to operate. c) The phone can be programmed over the air -- for example if you sign up for online-plus with Nextel you can set up your own version of web sites to compliment those can come pre-installed on Nextel (visit yahoo_dot_com - mobile for a list of a ton of phone-viewable sites). d) Direct connect - I have not tried this yet but think that it is going to be a handy feature. This is a way that Nextel uses their Cell towers for one phone user to talk with another (Beware though- you generally can ONLY talk to people within your company -- there are LOTS of caveats about using direct connect outside your region or company -- basically it does NOT work. Nextel is always rumored to be making this even more widespread - ie. Nationwide.) OVERALL I've been pleasantly surprised by Nextel. A large majority of my happiness is because I signed up on the free incoming calls plan and call forwarded both business and personal lines to my phones. I am often out of the office and so far have gotten very solid coverage on my phone. When I am home I keep the phone with me and use it as if it was a fancy cordless phone. If you receive a lot of incoming cellular calls then the Nextel free incoming calls plan makes Nextel one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) plans available. I think you are going to see Nextel expanding into the consumer market a little more. Sprint PCS is also rumored to be beta testing their own version of the Direct Connect feature. This is supposed to happen when Sprint PCS goes to one of the more advanced 3rd generation CDMA services sometime in 2002 or 2003. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19 88611 2000/11/2 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 many features two way radio poor battery life kind of balky Full Review Looks cool, sounds good, HELL to operate If it didn't hurt so much, I would rather pull my hair out than use this phone. About a month ago, the company I work for decided to get everyone in my department the Nextel i1000. My first impressions based on looks were that this was a neat phone. The design was pretty stylish, the direct connect feature was unique, and hey … it was made by Motorola which I had heard good things about. Ok, maybe first impressions aren't everything. Strengths: 1. I was one of the many unfortunate souls who did not get cell-phone service with my phone. It was given to me primarily for the purpose of being an expensive beeper. To this end, it functions quite nicely. The phone can be paged either by calling its number and selecting the page option or by going to Nextel's website at www.nextel.com. There, you can type a message and/or a number and send a page to the phone. You can even send an alert from the phone itself. 2. The Coolest feature of the phone, of course, is the `direct connect'. In a sense, it is a like a walkie-talkie with a very large range. You simply select/enter a number and pressed the direct connect button on the side and wha-la, instant chatting. That is of course if the person has their phone on and is not using it, if so, you will get a beep and a message telling you that the user is unavailable. 3. The sound quality is pretty good also. The phone has two speakers. One is for private use and is located in the underside of the phones flip component. This lets you listen the call without everyone around you hearing. The other is located at the bottom and is more of a speakerphone. It is more convenient to use than the internal speaker because you don't have to keep flipping open and close the phone, however the people around you will hear every word of your conversation. Weaknesses: 1. First thing is when trying to call someone, you either type in a number or select it from the phones' phonebook. Trying to find an entry from the phonebook is a chore because someone decided to save a penny and not add in an alphabetizer into the phonebook. The entries are stored in the exact order in which they were entered. 2. The belt clip that comes with the phone (free) is large and awkward. The phone sits in the belt clip with the faceplate on the inside so it is not easy to look at. On top of that, getting the phone out of the belt clip is a hassle. There is no release mechanism for retrieving your phone from the clip but there is a little trick, pull it out of the clip by the antenna. It may not be the best option but it is the easiest. 3. The battery is another issue. They say it is supposed to last about 2 days, but on the weekends when I (fortunately) have not used it, I don't seem to get past about 1 to 1.5 days. If used, the battery goes pretty quickly. Overall, if it wasn't for my company purchasing these unit for the IT department, I would never own one for personal use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Provided by Company 88610 2000/5/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 service speakerphone see through display size one second billing non intuitive menus lackluster standby time The Bottom LineA solid, Nextel phone. This is their smallest flip phone available. The limitations of the phone will be made up w/Nextel's excellent service. Full Review For any of you who've read my other cellular reviews, here's a surprise... I switched from Verizon to Nextel because of: 1) Sound quality; 2) I wanted the Motorola i1000 plus phone; 3) speakerphone capability and 4) one second billing after the first minute. I've got to say, Nextel has provided excellent coverage for me in the DC metro area, including the remote suburban areas. The sound quality is so good, that everyone I've spoken with using the Nextel phone honestly thinks I'm on a landline. The phone? It was affordable at $99.95. Ergonomically, it's extremely comfortable to hold in your hand -- not too big, and not too small. It's designed similarly to the StarTac, but it has a see through earpiece, allowing me to see the display. The speakerphone is exceptional, with loud, crisp, clear sound that's handy in the car. It is bigger than the StarTac, and will look like a giant compared to the Motorola V60c phone. Why isn't it the perfect phone? It needs a longer standby time, although for me 2-3 days between charges isn't bad, and its menuing system is not very intuitive. Motorola owns 14% of the shares of Nextel. They obviously want to provide the best phones to a service in which they have a vested interest. I've owned StarTacs and Timeports, and the i1000plus exceeds them in almost every respect, with the exception of the limitations mentioned above. Am I pleased with Nextel and the Motorola i1000plus? You bet! If you really need coverage in the outlying, rural areas, consider another carrier like Verizon, AT&T, and even Sprint PCS. If urban, suburban and limited rural coverage is Ok, consider Nextel. Their rates have become more competitive to the other big players. Their phone selection, however, is limited to Motorola. Also remember that Nextel's target community is the business community. This doesn't preclude Nextel, however, from providing an excellent product to you and me -- the American consumer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88609 2001/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small voicemail net capable 2 way radio caller id flip design battery life no roaming The Bottom LineIn short... If you want a quality phone with a quality company... Nextel is your best bet. Full Review My wife and I purchased matching Nextel's 6 months ago after using them at my job for the past 4 or 5 years. One of the reasons we went with them is the 2 way radio(Direct Connect). Since then we have saved lots of minutes and money using the 2 way radio vs. using the cellular to talk back and forth. I also like that the phone has its own email address and can have email sent directly to the phone. I like the fact that the phone is light and small enough to be clipped to my belt and the holster holds it in very tight. I am a police officer and have it clipped onto my duty belt and have never had the phone "pop" out of the holster yet, no matter what I was doing. The phone has a large phone book and is equipped with caller ID. Plus with the flip I never have to worry about accidentally hitting the send button and making calls you don't want made. Another reason we got the phone is because of the wide coverage that Nextel has here in the Chicagoland area. I work in Suburban Chicago and live 45 miles in a rural area and have never found a dead spot yet, even when I'm in the basement of my work, which is a bomb shelter, I still receive a signal.... not strong but strong enough to make or receive a call. I once made a road trip from Chicago to Springfield, approx 350 miles, and had coverage the whole way down and back and even when 350 miles away, I was able to talk to my my at home with the 2 way radio and it sounded like she was standing next to me. My wife made a trip to the Western Portion of Illinois and I had no trouble getting a hold of her either. Not to mention that when I just need to talk to my wife for a second or tell her something simple, I don't have to waste cellular minutes calling her, I just call her on the 2 way. I have read other reviews about there coverage lacking in some areas... I don't know where that is but in Chicagoland area the coverage is excellent. Everyone at my work who has them also has nothing but good things to say about these phones as well. The phone itself I haven't had one problem with it, not to mention we have about 50-60 of the same ones at work and still have not heard of a problem to this day. I use my phone all day, every day and have even dropped it many times and have unintentionally abused it and it stills works really well. I have heard complaints about the flip breaking or wearing out but have yet to have any problems with mine or had any with the phones at work. The speakerphone option is a great bonus but doesn't work well in loud areas. Another nice feature is the Vibra Call, which means instead of ringing, it vibrates when you get a call. The pricing plans are comparible with other cellular services in our area especially if you are going to have more than one phone. I wish I would have gotten a Nextel a long time ago, but was told it was expensive... Boy were they wrong about that, I'm paying less for my 2 phones through Nextel than I was with 2 phones through 2 different carriers. In short... if you want a quality phone with a quality company... Nextel is your best bet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 (each) 88608 2000/1/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone carrying clip Full Review I think that this phone is great. My husband and I both work for the same company. We both have Nextel phones through the company along with the other employees. He has the i300 (hahaha) and I have the i1000(the better one). It has low rate and free long distance if it is within your minute plan. It makes it so much easier to get in contact with the people on your loop. Which my husband is. If i have to get ahold of them, I just push a button and say "hey", no phone call, no minutes taken up, just a button. I don't even use my home phone much anymore. But most people I call are long distance anyhow. The only one problem is that even when I'm not at work my husband can still get ahold of me. No getting away from him. I also like how the i1000 is a flip phone,pager with voice mail and e-mail.This phone does so much. I love it. Nextel has a new one coming out the i700plus that is going to be great for people who work outside. It's rubber on the outside and waterproof. For those of you who have drop yours in a puddle or snow and it didn't work properly for a while, that is going to be great. I recommend this for anyone who has an other person in their life that likes to keep in contact ALL the time and for anyone else for that matter. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 88607 2001/1/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 two way radio feature vibration alert dismal battery life user interface awkward keypad The Bottom LineA business phone at best. Nextel is the only service provider for these iDen phones and is expensive. Direct connect works only with a strong signal. Full Review When I first got this phone at work, I said "Eww." I had a Nokia 6190 as my personal phone at that time, and I loved it. The i1000 plus was hands down ugly. I will not cover the internet features of this phone since my company does not subscribe to it. PROS ---- The i1000 plus is very durable, especially if you are out in the field all the time. I've lost track of how many times I've dropped it onto solid concrete or asphalt, saw it bounce and flip, yet it still works and no physical damage on the outside. Reception is generally excellent, until you walk into solid steel and concrete buildings. Then it drops off completely. Of course this may be due to the service provider and not the phone itself. Motorola has a reputation for making phones/radios with good reception. Sound quality for phone calls is very good, and is louder and clearer than my 6190. The sound quality for the Direct Connect feature is anything but understandable, unless the signal strength is strong (see below). The direct connect feature is a wonderful and a can't-live-without feature especially in the computer networking field or construction. You're out in the field so much it helps to have instant and constant contact with your co-workers. It doesn't chew up airtime either (you pay a flat fee). The flip is very easy to open and you can do so with one hand. Since it is spring loaded you only have to flip it open partially and the spring will do the rest for you. The power button being on top of the phone means you won't need to take the phone out of the holster in order to turn it off. More of a luxury then a necessity. However you have to push down with your fingernail to activate the power button The antenna is a vast improvment over the StarTAC's flimsy one. This one extends out of a hard sturdy stub, you can also talk without it extended. Speakerphone is a great help when listening to voicemails (in private) and when using the Direct Connect feature. My Nokia lacked a vibration alert option, which the i1000 plus has and works very well. My friend (who also owned a 6190), tried the optional vibrating battery, but he said the vibrations subsided after a month. CONS At first I did not like the touch of the keys. They felt mushy and were hard to tell if you actually entered a number without looking at the screen. Battery life was good when the phone was new, but now it diminishes very quickly, especially when you use the direct connect feature all day at work. I have a charger at home, work, and in my car so when I'm not using my phone I just leave plug it up, not too much to ask for. The flip cover has a see through part so you can see the LCD w/o opening the phone (works good for callerID!!), however this clear part gets scratched very easily and at this moment, I have to open the LCD to see who's calling (which answers the call anyway so I guess it's pointless). The Direct Connect feature is dependent on the reception of the phone. If there is no signal, then direct connect will not work. Additionally, when a signal is weak, the sound quality of the direct connect feature is horrific. If you've ever heard mp3's with "hiccups", you know what I mean; only multiply that effect by 10. Big and small hiccups all over the place. This phone seems to cause interference with speakers and monitors when nearby. My speakers will make "tsh tsh tsh" sounds and my monitor picture will distort. However this phone was rated with low radiation. No missed calls log!! The phone will tell you that you missed a call, but won't record the number. That was one nice feature I liked about my Nokia. IN THE END ---------- This phone grows on you. It still has a long way to go in terms of refinement, but once you get used to the awkward buttons, shape and how everything (including the address book) is sandwiched in the same "programming menu" , it's a phone you'll come to like. I wouldn't recommend this phone to a friend unless they were shopping for their business. If you're going to spend good money on a personal phone, there are much more refined phones out there. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): MSRP 88606 2000/7/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 speakerphone neat design like a classic trek communicator bad menu design interface fewer niceties than on comparable fones weak coverage by nextel in non metro areasspotty coverage in metro areas poor battery life Full Review I've been carrying a Nokia 6150 for about a year and a half now on AT&T's network. I've enjoyed the phone, it fits my lifestyle and work habits (traveling instructor, gone less than home) and AT&T's One Rate plan (1000 minute version) is just about right. I joined a new company and I'm going to be working out of their office in the Chicago area. Having said that as background, let me give my initial 2-week impression of the i1000plus and Nextel's service. I a nutshell, for me, they both suck. First the phone. I'm used to the Nokia -- I'll admit that. I thought it would be only fair to give it a little time and see if it grows on me. Not yet. Feature for feature, the Nokia blows the i1000plus away in all but two categories: speakerphone and wireless messaging/internet access. For ease of use you can't beat the 6150. The menu system on the i1000plus is awkward and confusing. I often find myself wondering which button I'm supposed to use to scroll through options and how to select them when I find them. No built-in help facility as in the Nokia. The only way to turn off the audible ringer is to either set it in vibrate mode (which drains the battery faster) or manually reduce the volume to 'silent' on all three ringers (phone call, mail and data) by going through the programming menus. A set of profiles, as on the Nokia, would have been more helpful. Speaking of draining the battery... Nextel doesn't offer a larger battery than the standard one. This purports to give you 180 minutes of talk time. I tried using it the same way I use my 6150: 3 or 4 10-15 minute calls during the day and leave it in the charger whenever I'm in my home or office. The i1000plus couldn't manage that and if I didn't plug it into the charger religiously, it would die by the start of the next day. The 6150 could go two days and sometimes into a third without dying on me. Speaking of dying, the coverage area offered is great if you never leave a big city, but I do. And sometimes I actually get in a car and drive (or take the train). I have to forget that if I use the Nextel service as their service corridors are very narrow and provide limited coverage in major metropolitan areas. Welcome to the 1980's. I've had calls dropped when the signal strength is full which is starting to make me think that it's more for looks than anything else. Since I mentioned time, I might as well add that the i1000plus doesn't have a clock/calendar function and for some reason Nextel doesn't provide this service in Chicago. Or San Jose. It makes it a little useful to know when that call that you missed came in as it gives you a sense of urgency and you can tell how long ago it was. Like the Nokia, if you have the name and number programmed in the i1000plus, called-ID will display the name of the caller. I've always liked this. Too bad I can only put in 11 characters for a name (including spaces) and only in UPPERCASE. No punctuations, or things like !@#$%^&*() available. The documentation talks about having 12 characters or 20 but I can't seem to get it to do it. While I'm on the topic of things I can't get it to do, the one thing that I do like in a cell phone is handsfree capability. On the i1000plus, you can get a widget that plugs into the bottom giving you a standard 2.5mm plug for a headphone. That is nice. Too bad the widget also takes up the space where the power adapter plugs in. This means that thanks to that weak-life battery I can go hands-free with privacy for only a short time before having to stick that radiation emitting device next to my head and have it plugged into to AC. Did I mention that once you open the phone to dial a call, you are pretty much stuck with having the phone open the whole call. I can't seem to figure any other way to get it closed and not hangup on the call -- not even hold helps. Why would I want to do that? Picture dialing a call, then putting it back on you belt and walking around or doing other things with both hands while wearing a headset. The speakerphone works great, but this is not used that often by me. The internet access might be nice if I could get it turned on, but the rate plans make it look pretty steep. Besides, since it's not really a WAP phone I suppose I'd have to replace it next year anyhow. Speaking of rate plans, Nextel's 1000 minute plan is $10 more than AT&T's in price. CallerID and Voicemail add another $6. If someone emails to my phonenumber@mobile.att.net it costs me NOTHING. If someone does that to my phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com it depends on my plan. Anywhere from $0.10/page and then it goes 100 pages @ $3/month, 300 pages @ $5/month or 1000 pages @ $9/month. 300 would be more than enough for me. Of course, they also claim a text page can be 280 characters and if it's more than 140 it will be sent as two pages. So how can a text page be 280 characters if they break it up? I thought this would be a neat feature, but they are less than accurate (I'm not calling them outright liars...yet) as I only seem to get about 118 characters and they don't send the rest as another page. The Direct Connect is nice but not really practical for me. Only two of the people I work with in Chicago are just about guaranteed to be in Chicago. For the other 4 or 5 of us, we all travel. The odds of anyone I might want to talk to on this CB-thingy actually being in Chicago -- or my being in Chicago for that matter -- is pretty much nil. I've also noticed that I get a voice mail and the phone has never rang. So I'm missing calls because the phone never rings or Nextel is automatically piping callers into voicemail. So, the bottom line, for my use, is that I can pay about $20 a month more for a fone that I can't use as much as or conveniently as the 6150 with AT&T. But atleast it looks cool like a classic Star Trek communicator, right? These are, of course, just my initial observations. However I am already missing my 6150 and will probably tell my company thanks but no thanks and they can give the fone to someone else. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): (direct bill to company -- don't know) 88605 2000/8/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 walkie talkie feature plus speakerphone static near speakers weak battery Full Review The i1000 is a feature rich phone provided in my area through Nextel cellular service. I believe its target market is aimed at businesses, since certainly my own company has standardized on it as the 'company phone'. The best thing about the phone is its 'walkie-talkie' feature which allows you to press a button located on the side, and speak to anyone on your same 'net'. Unfortunately you cannot use this feature outside of the company with someone who has the same phone - they will not be on the same net. Additionally the walkie-talkie feature is not available if you are in a different city. The phone has add-on software accessories where you can use your pc to program names and numbers into it. The software itself is fairly easy to use and far more efficient than using the phone for data entry (a quite cumbersome process.) Standard features such as caller-id are enhanced by having a call history log of everyone who has called recently, as well as a call history of everyone you have called. One touch dialing is available, as well as internet access (although on the small screen it is not useful). The 'killer app' for this phone is that it doubles as a speaker phone. This enables you and your associates to arrange an on the spot conference call, or simply drive in your car hands-free. Problems with the phone primarily stem from a weak battery. A 40minute conversation will generally deplete a fully charged battery, battery life is even shorter when using the speaker phone. Additionally the RF frequency of the phones interferes with/is interfered by computer speakers, so much so that usually static will come from the speakers before the phone rings as well as all throughout the call. Overall I find this phone disappointing, its very feature rich but its drawbacks leave you wishing for a StarTac. Recommended: No 88604 2000/9/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features works well indoors spotty coverage not cool looking hard to program Full Review This is my current cell phone, the Motorola i1000 Cell Phone. Our local provider is Nextel, but I'm unsure as to whether they are the exclusive service provider for Motorola or not. Maybe some of you out there with this phone can tell me. I have been satisfied with this phone for business purposes. It is a smaller, flip-phone styled unit with several nice features. The system has a built in speaker system that actually has better reception and transmitting capabilities than it does in regular mode. I have placed several people on speaker for conference calls and to a person they have all been amazed at the quality of sound for such a small speaker unit. One of the other great features of this phone is the "two-way radio" feature, as we call it here at work. The phone has the ability to instantaneously connect to any other (Nextel served) phone in your calling plan by means of a 5-digit number. This works much like a "walkie-talkie" did in my youth... only at much longer ranges. I have been in contact with co-workers as far as 35 miles away with no problems. This particular service is only available locally, but it is a great feature which allows instantaneous communication. This is also a great indoor phone. The design of this particular phone allows it to work inside buildings without interference. I sometimes have to work in our plant facility and can get a good signal in the middle of our warehouse. This was never the case with other models and service plans, so if you're indoors a lot and need a good signal, this phone is for you. A few problems exist with this particular phone. The service provider we use is good but currently has a limited calling area. Our plant is serviced fine, but nearby exist several areas of "dead space" where we can't receive signals at all, but other phones can. This isn't truly a problem with the phone as much as it is with the service provider. However, there are a few other things I don't like about this phone. Programming the phone is not intuitive. Although the phone comes with documentation and even an instructional video, it was not easy to set up such things as ring style, volume, adding phone numbers and other features available on this phone. Nokia has done a much better job of making the phone for "tweakers" like me, people who like to figure the device out for themselves. If you have patience and don't mind wading through a manual, this won't bee to bad. Aesthetically pleasing this phone ain't. (How's *that* for bad grammar?) It's matte black with some silver accents, but where Palm devices can get away with that look and still be cool, the i1000 model can't. There's no problem with the form or function, it just doesn't look as cool as some of the other models out there, even the lesser siblings in Motorola's family, the i500 and i750 look cooler. If you're looking for a solid business phone, especially in metropolitan areas, the i1000 is definitely for you. Trendy it's not, but functionality and dependability can't be beat. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 88603 2000/8/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 makes a great door stop too heavy to throw into the ocean Full Review DID YOU SAY DROP? If you did, you surely must be talking about Nextel's network...because just like a lead balloon, you're sure to drop calls using their phones! We got these phones for work. In an attempt to cut the cellular phone bills, we got a corporate discount. lol. Let's not even talk about the BILL. I wish I could SCAN a copy of my bill, and show you how DISORGANIZED and CONFUSING it is to read. I mean, I have had cellular service since 1992, so I am no dummy when it comes to reading a cellular bill, but I think Nextel got their billing software from the IRS or something. Anyway...let me tell you about the service... Nextel service uses a proprietary technology (made by Motorola) called IDEN. It acutally is a form of TDMA. This is supposed to be a rival technology to (Qualcomm) CDMA, which Verizon, AirTouch, PrimeCo, Bell South, and others use. CDMA is FARRRRR more superior to Nextel's TDMA. With Nextel, you can be standing completely still, and watch your signal go from full bars to no bars. What happens is when someone needs to use the network, they automatically take up the bandwidth that you are using (even while idle) and dedicate that time slot to that user. Hence TDMA (Time Domain allocations). Nextel service, not to mention when you're NOT in their service areas (more than you think), your phone is not capable of using a competitors towers or system! That is because NOBODY ELSE uses TDMA-IDEN!!! So...when you're "roaming out of network", you're dead in the water. Don't you love how they advertise "no roaming!" Yea...it's no roaming because you CAN'T USE the thing out of their coverage area! lol... Oh yea...another thing---all cellular carriers transmit the time and date (it's transmitted via satellite) on their networks. NOT NEXTEL. They don't have the time and date on Nextel because they are hurting for BANDWIDTH. What about their 2-way walkie-talky style feature? Again...it's somewhat handy when you're in coverage area, and if not of people are accessing the system at the same time, but then again, you have to put the person ON SPEAKERPHONE! The speakerphone sounds like aluminum foil stretched over a hole. The sound clarity is worse than a weather-beaten front door speaker from a 77 Chevy Nova! Lol...I swear. Let's talk voicemail. It takes 30 mins. to understand how to set it up. Speedials? Takes about 20 mins to understand how to program. Placing calls? Why (only with Nextel) do they make you dial the AREA CODE? I never used to have to do that with any OTHER cellular phone I had!? I could go on and on and on...but I think you get the point. Still, the most ANNOYING THING is standing COMPLETELY STILL, and watching your signal fade from FULL BARS to NO BARS. And if you were on a call at that time, guess what just happened to the call? Can you say DROP? I will say this...the battery life is somewhat higher than average. It just makes using this piece of junk that more aggravating, because I can't say to the boss, "The battery ran out!" lol... Anyway...I highly recommend you DO NOT purchase a Nextel phone, unless you like selling used things on EBAY! Good luck! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88602 2000/7/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small compact annoying features very confusing Full Review This phone had lots of potential when I first saw it. We received it free from my husband's company for buisiness and personal use. I was excited because I had read so many good reviews of Nextel and their service. Boy, was I in for a disapointment. Over the three months that we had the product and service through his company, we had nothing but problems. The first thing I found problems with was the phone. It took forever to get everything figured out and compared with some of the other phones I've used, this one was just plain bothersome. First off, its great that you have a speaker phone feature, but if you hit the wrong button, it turns itself off and unless you know exactly what you did, you're stuck with it! The other annoying thing is the walkie talkie feature. I would out shopping with the phone on for emergencies and his work buddies would "walkie talkie" the phone and it would start vibrating and talking from my purse! Unless you turned the phone off, there was no way around this. The service from Nextel was horrible too. Thankfully we were covered by his company but everymonth they found something extra to charge us for that we had not done and shouldn't have had to pay for. Our company settled all the squables and eventually smartened up and switched to Sprint. Now there is service. Over all , this phone tries too hard to be more than it is worth. It also broke every time I opened and closed the phone! That little speaker part is very fragile. If its going to be used often, its worthless! Definately don't recommend this phone to anyone.. Thumbs down! Thanks for reading. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 88601 2000/7/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 laden with useful features good performance flimsy antenna Full Review After surviving the analog experience, (phone cost 99 cents but its the size of a brick and phone bills were $300+), I have been to several digital companies and have finally, years later, settled, for good, I think, on Nextel and the i1000 plus. I paid $199, the same I paid for my Nokia 6190, so price is not an issue. The phone is easy to use though there might be a longer learning curve than some are used to as there are so many features. And they keep adding features: time and date is rolling out across the country as we speak, and my salesman is beta testing connecting online via his pda and link to his Nextel phone. I love the speaker phone and direct connect. I was surprized at how many of my friends and business acquaintances already have Nextel, so I use the direct connect feature more every day. Speakerphone feature is useful, allowing you to answer the phone while driving with the touch of a button and nary any other handling of the phone - much safer than holding the phone and zoning out, as we users are becoming increasingly aware of. With 1000 outgoing minutes and unlimited incoming as part of my service, (your price plan will undoubtedly vary), I use the phone a LOT, often choosing it over my desk phone. Sound and operation are great, with ample battery time for me to get to my office charger or car charger. The flip cover is good and functional, both answering and hanging up the phone and eliminating the necessity of locking the keys while not in use. So as not to sound 100% brainwashed over this phone, I will say that I wish the antenna were either fixed or internal. It is annoying to have to extend it and it is as flimsy as wire, I have bent, though not kinked mine. I can imagine having to replace the antanna in the future. Business people will definitely benefit from this phone. Even families will save money, (after the intitial purchase price), using the direct connect feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88600 2000/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great clarity easy to use small size dial back feature available only on the i1000plus Full Review I have had an i1000 phone for about one year now and what a pleasure it is to use. It is compact and lightweight. The flip up cover is convenient and helps to prevent accidental dialing. The phone has excellent range and clarity. Even the battery is excellent. It holds a charge for a couple days, if left on continuously. Recharge time is quick, less than an hour for a complete charge. The buttons are easy to press and the controls are well organized and logical. I especially liked the list and scroll features for phone numbers, very handy! The direct connect function is easy to use. You simply push a button on the side of the phone and talk. Just like a walkie-talkie. If you don't want your conversations heard, you can choose to mute the speaker and open the phone to use the direct connect. The video and instruction booklet that came with the phone are easy to understand. It is simple to pick and choose what features are necessary for you and read about operating them quickly. Very little learning time needed with this phone. Additional nice features are 3-Way calling, call forwarding, caller id and call waiting. All are easy to use. The only flaw is that there is no dial back feature on this phone. The newer model the i1000 plus does have this feature, as well as wireless web capability. Sounds like a winner to me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249 ( it's cheaper now) 88599 2000/4/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 durable speakerphone battery is awkward no seperate snd end buttons hard to navigate Full Review There are several things about my i1000 that i hate and love, besides the service which I wrote about seperately. (See my review of Performance 250 washington DC area. There are several things I really love about this phone. The first is the built in speaker phone. This comes in handy when driving or just trying to relax. For the most part the sound quality is excellent besides a few interruptions. The battery life also seems to be better then advertised. The phone can usually last about 3 days with moderate usage on a single charge. Another thing is that the phone is fairly durable. The clamshell design has survived several falls on to the garage floor. Now some of the things I dont like. The biggest problem with this phone and all Motorola phones is that they are basically difficult to navigate. To access the main menu you have to press * and then # which is difficult. This is required to access the most recently called numbers as well as time and date setting and the phones memory. Another thing i dislike is the fact the the phone stays illuminated while charging, even when it is off, this makes it difficult to use. The most confusing thing about this phone is that it does not have a seperate button for send and end. Many times I have began to place a call and thought I had not placed it, so i press the button again and it hangs up. The phone is also difficult to switch between two way radio and phone mode. For most people this phone will do just fine, but before you buy one be sure that you demo one while it is on so you can experience its difficult navigation. Beware: This phone is not dual band so you can only use it on the Nextel network which only covers major metro areas! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88598 2000/7/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 contains three services in one customer service lacks Full Review I would have to say that Nextel's i1000 plus is the most versatile mobile phone of any that I've seen. Not only is it a cellular phone, but a two-way radio and pager. It even has the ability to alert you with incoming email and internet capabilities. We had been looking for something like this for a long time at the company I currently work for. We tried several different types of pagers, but we could never find a good enough service and we found we were constantly losing pages. Because of the horrible paging situation, we had to use cell phones as a backup. So we were incurring ridiculous monthly costs for cell phones and pagers. That is, until we found the i1000. It is so great to have all the capabilities we need in one piece of equipment. The two-way radios are more handy then we ever thought they could be. The radios will range anywhere in your state of service. Unfortunately, at this time, you cannot radio someone in a different state, but I'm sure that will be an upcoming feature. There is also no roaming charges with the Nextel i1000, which tremendously cuts down on your monthly costs. I've had the phone for almost a year now and I've yet to miss a page which is awesome. As far as customer service goes with Nextel, I'd have to say their seriously lacking in this department. Since we've purchased the phones and service, our personal account rep. has changed about 4 times and we're never notified of this change until we call and ask for our rep. We're then told they are not handling our acct. anymore. It's also very difficult to get help from them when we do experience issues with the service. Overall, I would definitely recommend the Nextel i1000 phone not only to businesses, but also for personal use as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 88597 2000/7/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 walkie talkie battery life speaker phone accidental squawks Full Review Looking for a new cell phone like I was?...here are some comments regarding the Nextel i1000 plus. I previously owned a Motorola Startac digital phone but my new job offered me a Nextel i1000 plus. The following features of the Nextel are superior to the Startac : 1) Walkie Talkie feature - Of course this it the best feature of this phone. No need to call, just scroll though the list of names you had previously inputed into memory and press the button. The distance of this feature is unbelievable. Our company uses it between states with no problem. 2) Speaker phone - Really nice speaker phone which can be used with the phone closed. This is an awesome feature while driving your car. You can get the cradle which holds your phone so you have hands free operation while driving. While this is safer, other drivers might think you are talking to yourself! 3) Battery Life - With heavy use, I can go a full day easily without worrying about the phone losing charge. With light/average use I can go 2 full days without recharging. Negatives: 1) Walkie Talkie feature - There are "dead spots" where you just dont have any signal strength. Seems that Nextel has been working on this because the problem does not seem as bad as a year ago. Also, the last person you (called) remains on your display and there is no way to clear it from memory unless you receive or make another call. The phone defaults to the walkie talkie feature and last person called/received. This is a problem because you are constantly pressing the button by accident and calling someones attention by mistake. This really stinks when you are taking off your phone in the middle of the night and you squawk your boss! 2)Though it has not happened to me, the flip of the phone is made poorly and a few of my coworkers had it break. Nextel customer service had repaired/replaced the phone with no problems (good customer service). 3) Dropped calls - Unfortunately this happens more often than not. Hopefully the nextel service is working on this. I think this is a service issue rather than the phone itself. Overall, I would recommend this phone. Once you have it....its hard to live without!!! Recommended: Yes 88596 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 light weight good features great battery flimsy construction Full Review My companies live and die by our Nextel phone service. With a good number of people carrying the range of Nextel Phones, we have seen and heard everything about them. The i1000+ is a compact, easy to use phone. The buttons are easy to press and there are few wrong presses. The speakerphone < I adore this feature> is clear and has great microphone range. The belt clip carrying case is ok, but with a lot of use it gets worn out fairly quickly. When talking privately, the flip is comfortable on the ear, and the reception and transmission of the conversation is on par with most other phones we have used. Over all it is a good piece of equipment, with some severe durability issues. Motorola has long been known as putting out bullet proof equipment. Not so with the i1000. It is a great phone for someone that carry it in a briefcase or a purse. Not so good if you are constantly in and out of vehicles or climbing ladders or other construction type work. The flips are very fragile, and expensive to fix! I broke 3 in one year. The i1000 does not handle moisture very well either, so keep it covered if you are caught in a rain shower. If you are a heavy duty user, in not so friendly environments, I would take a serious look at the i700. Much more durable. For the everyday, business type user <sales, medical, other professional> it is a great phone. Battery life is superb on this phone, we never had issues with them, but make the investment in a car charger. The lithium Ion battery is awesome. Sometimes the signal can get weak, and the i1000 is bad about dropping out when others <i700, i2000> are still receiving a strong signal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88595 2000/3/18 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability look direct connect size service availability battery The Bottom LineIf you only travel the highway and fly to major cities and suburbs; GET ONE. Full Review Motorola i1000 plus is about the sexiest phone I have ever used or seen. It is becoming a sort of status symbol to have a Nextel phone now! It is said that only the elite and ultra-fabulous and stylish have the i1000 plus and everyone else has the regular non-flip phones. There is a sort of symbolism with the phone, I guess. I love the look, features and durability of the phone. You would not believe the amount of times I have dropped that damned phone. Getting out of the car, walking to the car, etc. I have left the antenna up and the cats have chewed on it; although not anymore that I already do! I can't help it, when I am driving down the highway and using the hands free kit I purchased, I STILL HOLD THE PHONE! I know is sounds stupid, but I have to do something other than drive and the radio is off so I can hear the caller. Anyway, the features far surpass any phone I have ever used. There just so happens to be 71 menu options, albeit a few that you will not use. 100 storage locations for name and number with one touch access with the cover down! Name the last phone that did that!! Additionally, you have 100 Direct ConnectÒ storage locations, again with name. There is Web access, too. Although not as good as your pc or laptop, this phone can hold its own. The only drawback is that you have to learn the letters' places on the number pad when trying to send a two-way message via the net or Nextel's website. Yep, anyone in the world can send you a message. They can either go to the website and follow the instructions or simply compose a new email message in their own service and address it to 1234567890@messaging.nextel.com and the number will automatically send to your phone. Beware that you get the extra service added or you are charged a nominal fee every time someone does the instant message. The look of the phone is that is the original Star Trek communication devices. Who would've thought it? It is handy and comes with a wide array of accessories, too. They are fairly pricey and I would suggest the car adapter and hands free kit. The phone is very easily navigable day or night and doesn't drain the battery when on vibrate. Which brings me to my next point and negative comment. The Motorola name has stood for quality for over 60 years. The company has manufactured many phones over the years and the only one that beats the i1000 plus is the Prizm for durability. The company has been (in my opinion) the leader in the mobile telecommunications field for years; however, they cannot make a battery worth poo. I do not like the life of any Motorola battery. Sanyo phones are not the most attractive, but the battery lasts a week…easily! It is very frustrating to have to charge the phone every day! In closing, remember that form follows function and the Motorola i1000 plus certainly lives up to both standards. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88594 2009/9/8 Product Rating5.0 internet access starting 01 2000 no roaming charges works everywhere does noty display min talked while still talking no date time stamp display Full Review The Nextel i1000 Plus is the best Motorola Cellular Wireless Phone made yet! Don't let the StarTac fool you! While the StarTac is an excellent phone too, the i1000 Plus is amazing! I recently switched to the Nextel plan, while significantly more expensive up-front (monthly cost $90 instead of $50) I am saving tons of money! My savings stem from the fact that with Nextel there are NO roaming charges, NO long distance fees, NO carrier access charges, anywhere in the continental United States. If you travel while talking on your cell phone, this phone is a must. My monthly bill decreased by about $40/month because of the saving on roaming and long distance fees! Now, let me tell you about some of the great features! My favorite is the Speaker Phone! Yes, you read it correctly, Speaker Phone! This nifty feature is extremely useful and surprising works perfectly. The voices are crystal clear and I have not had one caller complain that they could not understand what I was saying while on speaker phone (unlike most regular household speaker phones which are impossible to understand.) Additionally, the flip-top has a see-through cover so that you can see who is calling on Caller-ID without having to open the phone. (With the StarTac you have to turn off the open-to-answer feature if you want to look at the caller ID, to know who is calling before you speak.) The Operating System is much more advanced than the StarTac and you can easily control every volume setting from ring volume, speaker volume, and keypad volume, to mail volume. (With the StarTac the different volume settings are especially hard to set.) The Program settings menu is all one-level so you can easily scroll through each function's setting without having to go up and down multi-level tiered menus as with the StarTac. You can receive VoiceMail, MessageMail/Email, and NetMail. Email can be sent through the Nextel Website or directly from your email program. And you can even return the call if they send you a phone number in the text message just by hitting the dail key- the phone automatically picks up the phone number from the email message! The phone will function as a pager if you hit "1" while the VoiceMail message is playing, and if anyone leaves you a VoiceMail message it is conveniently Time&Date Stamped! Soon, Nextel will be offering Internet Access through the i1000 Plus. Though I dont know exactly how that will work, it sounds like it will be great! Just imagine being able to check you stock quotes throughout the day without being at your computer and getting the latest headline news! Add-ons include a headphone adapter so you can talk on the phone "hands-free," a laptop adapter to connect the phone to your laptop, and a slim-battery from decreased weight and bulk. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88593 2009/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 looks cool everything Full Review Ok, So here is my most scathing review ever... I knew it would happen, I was hoping to keep all of my reviews professional and "neat". BUT, Motorola really let this one get away from them.. What a great product this could (I say again, could) have been. What a failure it is. Think about it: A mobile phone that's also a walkie-talkie. How great for road trips, bike trips, ski trips! Motorola could've sold every family one or two of these phones and a TalkAbout radio for each kid. But wait. The walkie-talkie section is incompatible with Motorola's own walkie-talkies (the TalkAbouts), and is dependent on some proprietary service. Talk about defeating the whole purpose. Oh, and forget about versatility. Motorola made this phone incompatible with two-thirds of the systems out there by blowing off analog and CDMA support. Drive out west into some areas that haven't bothered with digital service (no big loss), and you get NOTHING. And if that is not all, try this out: 1) Dropping calls at random even in strong signal areas. 2) Lost voice mail messages. 3) Lousy Customer Service. (non existant really) 4) Half the time thePhone does not ring on an incoming call then does not alert you when someone leaves a voice mail message! What else could we expect from a company that is still trying to sell regular cellular phones for $600? Bottom Line: The worst piece of junk I have ever had the displeasure to test out. Recommended: No 88592 2000/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light is pager walkie talkie phone none so far Full Review Hello. Recently my company provided me with a new cell-phone to replace our old Motorola Cell-Phones and Pagers. So far I have not had any problems with this phone. In fact, I feel completely opposite to the way others feel about this phone. This phone is very light, has more than enough stand-by time, and online time. Other great features are that it can also be a walkie-talkie instead of phone, it is also a pager/beeper, I also heard that I can go on the internet with this but I dont really think I can. Oh yeah, it also sends me stock quotes and sport scores. I am very pleased with this and do not see why this phone is considered bad. Naturally this is my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88591 2000/8/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nextel rounds to nearest second speakerphone phone timer rounds up to the next minute Full Review First, let me tell you about the deal I got on the phone plan: I normally wouldn't have considered getting Nextel, since it really is meant for business people. The walkie talkie, 2-way paging, wireless web, 2nd line option... those are all gimmicks that interest business people, but not a grad student like me living on a paltry stipend. Still, my normal phone bill was coming out to about $80+ a month, since I was making a lot of long distance phone calls. Along comes Nextel. There $70 for 400 minutes doesn't really interest me, until the sales guy tells me he can combine two deals they're running. One, he can add 200 bonus minutes a month, then add another promotion where they give me 1000 minutes a month on the weekend. With tax, and accessory functions (text paging, voicemail, caller ID), that comes out to a little over $80 for 1600 minutes, or about 5 cents a minute. I was sold. My point in telling you that story is just to let you know that the dealers for the phone plans have some flexibility in the rates they can give you, and so it always helps to shop around. As far a connection goes, I've haven't experienced bad connections in many places. I'm a Cambridge, MA resident, so I do spend a lot of time around the city. However, I have gone into some buildings where my friend with a CDMA phone has experienced bad connections, yet I heard a crystal clear connection. I'm sure every person's experience is a little different though. The speakerphone is a nice touch. Even though its only half duplex (meaning only one person can talk at a time), its convenient when you want to call someone wall you're cooking, fixing something, driving, etc. Another feature that isn't well advertised is that you can program it to pick up automatically (and go to speaker phone). This is helpful when you're driving; you just program your phone, and don't have to endanger the road with reckless driving. The text mail feature is also helpful. You can have friends/colleagues send you email pages either by going to the nextel webpage, or by sending it to yournumber@email.nextel.com. As a student, most of my friends are always around a computer, while its hard to find a phone, so this feature helps out a lot. There are some things about Nextel you should be aware of: 1) I haven't used the webmail feature, but you should notice that you can only check hotmail accounts with it. 2) After the first minute, Nextel rounds to the nearest second on the bill. However, the phone's timer rounds up to the next minute. Basically, that means that, unless you diligently account for each second you use the phone, you're basically guessing how many actual minutes you have. 3) Nextel has recently changed their policy on dropped phone calls. Basically, if they notice that you've redialed the number you were connected to within the same minute, they'll credit you 1 minute (ie they assume that you've had a dropped call and are reimbursing you for the reconnection.) 4) Not every area is covered by satellites that send out the time/date stamp. For instance, I don't have the time/date show up in New England. If you go out to an area that does have time/date (Philly, for instance), that time display does stay when you make the transition to non stamped areas; however, that clock slows down (I assume it's waiting for a sat signal), and it goes away if you turn off your phone and turn it back on. 5) This phone made the top 10 in lowest SAR ratings, according to cnet.com. Don't know why one dealer called this phone a cancer machine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88590 2000/6/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone excellent all around good sound bulkier than samsung available only through nextel Full Review The Motorola i1000 Plus is almost the best Motorola Cellular Wireless Phone made! Don't let the StarTac fool you! While the StarTac is an excellent phone too, the i1000 Plus is amazing! However, last month Motorola released the NextGen Digital Vader 3688 available only through import! I will be discussing this unique, tiny phone very soon in an upcoming reveiw! Now, let me tell you about some of the great features of the i1000+! My favorite is the Speaker Phone! Yes, you read it correctly, Speaker Phone! This nifty feature is extremely useful and surprising works perfectly. The voices are crystal clear and I have not had one caller complain that they could not understand what I was saying while on speaker phone (unlike most regular household speaker phones which are impossible to understand.) Additionally, the flip-top has a see-through cover so that you can see who is calling on Caller-ID without having to open the phone. (With the StarTac you have to turn off the open-to-answer feature if you want to look at the caller ID, to know who is calling before you speak.) Unfortunately, the flip top scratches up very easily. It will be scratched just from putting it in your empty pocket on the first day after purchase. However, the scratches max-out and the LCD panel is still perfectly legible. The Operating System is much more advanced than the StarTac and you can easily control every volume setting from ring volume, speaker volume, and keypad volume, to mail volume. (With the StarTac the different volume settings are especially hard to set.) The Program settings menu is all one-level so you can easily scroll through each function's setting without having to go up and down multi-level tiered menus as with the StarTac. Unfortunately, it is very hard to automatically enter callers/phone numbers into the phonebook. And it only records the last incoming calls identifiable by the caller-id. No id on the phone number then its not in the received calls history. Another drawback, there is no history of recently called numbers. You can receive VoiceMail, MessageMail/Email, and NetMail. Email can be sent through the Nextel Website or directly from your email program. And you can even return the call if they send you a phone number in the text message just by hitting the dail key- the phone automatically picks up the phone number from the email message! The phone will function as a pager if you hit "1" while the VoiceMail message is playing, and if anyone leaves you a VoiceMail message it is conveniently Time&Date Stamped! Internet access is available with Nextel and includes MSN Mobile. I tried it for a day and it is slow and stinks. Dont bother with mobile phone web access until they create some real products. Its still in the early stages and just isnt worth the cost at the moment. Go with a Blackberry from SkyTel or Wireless Palm V through Omnisky for internet access. Add-ons to the i1000+ include a headphone adapter so you can talk on the phone "hands-free," a laptop adapter to connect the phone to your laptop, and a slim-battery for decreased weight and bulk. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88589 2000/3/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 two way radio static in speakers in caralso bothers the computer monitor The Bottom LineNextel are really great for the local traveler. The two way radio cannot be beat! That in itself makes it the best phone. Full Review My husband is a truck driver so we always had huge long distance bills or had to buy the pre paid phone cards. Which can also get expensive but are also a pain in the butt for a truck driver who doesn't always have time to stop and use the pay phone. So, we got a Nextel. It was the best thing we ever did! Nextels have a two way radio in them that works like a walkie talkie. It is not national, but we live in Michigan and I can talk to my husband for FREE while he is here in Michigan on the two way. We also can reach each other in parts of Ohio too! This saves tremendously on our monthly phone bills. My whole family has Nextel now, so we use this feature A LOT to talk to all of our family. Nextels are very easy to figure out and they give you a very easy to read handbook. It has voice mail, caller ID and the web. I have never used it for the web, so I cannot comment on that feature. I have used the voice mail and it is very easy to set up and get your messages. It is a clear sounding phone even when you call long distance. It does make a static noise in your speakers sometimes if you are talking on the phone while the radio is on. I also noticed it will make your monitor wiggle if you are on the phone near the computer. They have great packages at very reasonable prices and they are always running some really good specials. We purchased our phones at Staples Office Supply Store. They were only $99.00 and you also got a $50.00 in store rebate! So, we only paid $49.00 for our phones. They have really cool covers for the phones to protect them from getting damaged. They are durable, with little kids who like to talk to their Dad on the two way...mine has been dropped a *few* times. If you are shopping around for a cell phone, check out the Nextels. If you travel for your job, they are excellent. Your phone company may not like you though. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88588 2000/7/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good sounding audio super features web access occasional poor reception breakable The Bottom LineGood combination of rate plan, features, and access. Two thumbs up! Full Review For the past few years, I have been an AT&T customer. They were the only wireless carrier offering a Nationwide Rate Plan which didn't tack on roaming, long-distance, etc. Being in a business that has me travelling all over the country, I wanted just such a plan. I had heard Nextel advertised for several years, but all the ads were aimed as business, not at an individual consumer. When I first heard the Nextel ads, I called their sales number to inquire about rates, phone costs, etc., but was always told to leave a name and number and someone would get back to me. I don't like to be put off (I WANT IT ***NOW*** DAMMIT!!), so I stayed with AT&T's Digital One-Rate. My Nokia 6160 finally began showing signs of age in April. The display began to flicker, the phone body was cracked around the antenna, and the screen was getting scratched. Nothing uncommon or unexpected after 4 years of road use, mind you, but it was clearly time to shop for a new phone. I took that opportunity to check in on Nextel again, and was glad I did. I finally was able to learn about the rate plans, the phones, and the overall system. I found out that I could get two I-1000+ phones for $120, and put each of the phones on a 400-minute rate plan and pool the minutes, making 800 total available, and do it all for what ONE AT&T plan with 600 minutes was costing me. This way, my wife could enjoy the same phone I had, and we could take advantage of Nextel's "direct connect" feature without eroding our monthly minutes. I signed us each up for their Nationwide plan, which includes free long-distance, NO roaming, 400 minutes of anytime talk time, unlimited "direct connect", basic web access, and purchased the I-1000+ phones at the 2 for 1 package rate. I have enjoyed all of AT&T's service at a reduced rate with greater features and flexibility! Now, as to the phones themselves... (this IS an opinion on the phones, but I had to expound on my pleasure with the rate plan). I am NOT one to buy a flip phone just for the "Star Trek communicator" appeal. Flip phones break easier than the one-piece kind, and the earpiece makes an awkward angle with the main body, so when you hold it to your ear, you are almost hyper-extending the hinge. BUT, since the I-1000+ was available for such a cheap price and 2 to a package, I decided the flip phone standard could be overlooked in this case. I've come to adapt my head to the awkward angle, but I still have to take great care not to break the earpiece off. There is a saving grace to the flip-phone problem. The I-1000+ includes a speaker-phone feature, which I use anytime I'm driving or need to keep both hands free. I'm not generally a fan of speaker-phones either, but this one seems to work pretty well. Occasionally I will miss something that the party on the other end says due to speaker-phone simplex operation. Maybe this will make me a better listener and I won't talk so much. NAH! The web access is nice, if a bit elementary. I have never hand a phone that would access the wireless web before. I used this feature a lot in the first weeks, but have since tapered off to using it only if I'm bored and sitting in an airport waiting on a plane. The I-1000+'s microbrowser is a bit clumsy to use, but you can navigate the pre-packages sites pretty quickly after a little practice. I upgraded to the full-web access package ($10 extra a month), and typing in a web address on the phone takes even MORE practice, but if you need that feature, it's there. As for my favorite feature, DIRECT CONNECT: When I was 7, my parents bought me my first set of walkie-talkies. I think that was my favorite birthday present of all time. From that present, I learned to love being able to talk to another person with the simple press of ONE button. Now, with the Nextel phones that my wife and I possess, I can get that thrill again. Well, at least until my wife reciprocates and contacts me when I'm in the middle of a poker game, but I digress. I love the feature. It works from anywhere in my state (Texas) or surrounding states, so unless I travel a great distance from home, we can chat without having to dial the other's number or burning minutes off our rate plans. On the whole, I love the phone, love the rate plans, and have even gone to anger management to deal with having my poker game interrupted! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 88587 2000/12/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cellphonehandsfree kit in one short battery life Full Review I fell in love with this product right away. It's like bringing the speaker phone functionality into the cellular phone, something that has never been done before. You just select speaker and presto, no need to put the handset near your ear--you can really hear the caller loud and clear, especially since you can adjust the volume. And you can talk back to the other party without even holding the phone since the caller can hear you within a room's or within a car's distance. This is perfect when you're out on the road, better than a handsfree kit in many respects, since you only have to buy the phone. It's also great if you're a conference call guy or gal. In fact, I strongly recommend this gadget to Charlie's Angels. It's about time they retire that old speaker phone and go for Motorola stuff. Drew Barrymore what do you say? And if you don't want the speaker functionality, all you have to do is lift the flap and talk like cellphone usual. Cool! It just takes a little getting used to that flap. At first you wonder what that bulging half-ball is, until you realize that when you lift it, there goes your earpiece. Motorola should diagram this in the manual for the sake of new users. The only drawback is the battery. It seems not to last very long, I guess only two days of regular use and that's it. Now Motorola may want to work on that. Other cellphones I tried last for at least three days of regular use--but not this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88586 2001/8/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 2 way radio text paging speaker phone accessories from motorola are expensive low battery life interferes with tvscomputer monitors The Bottom LineThis is one of the few items I give 5 stars to!!! A very powerful phone for it's size. Full Review I have had cell phones for some years now, but they have always been bulky and were never really comfortable. Originally, I have 2 bag phones, then a Motorola Slim TacII flip (not the small Star Tac, and finally a Qualcomm. I have always wanted to try Nextel, but their phones were bigger than my Qualcomm. Recently, I retired from a local police department. One thing I missed was my department issued text pager. My Qualcomm had the availability but the cost was extra. So I started looking at other phones and services. Although The StarTac, and the Sprint PCS flip offer text paging capabilities, they lacked the one thing that the i1000 offered. Two-way radio capability. This was the deciding factor. I bought two phones, one for me and one for my wife. Since I retired, I plan on travelling and starting my own business. My phone is the basic black, but hers is the red burlwood. Both are very comfortable to hold. I use the factory hard plastic belt holder that keeps the display protected by having it facing you. It took some practice, but the phone comes out very easy, while being well secured in the holder. I tried the leather holder that clips on your belt, but took it back! It maintains good sound through it's digital circuitry and offers many settings. Ring tones are not the "playful" Nokia tunes, but you can set different tones for incoming phone calls, incoming voice mail, and incoming Net Mail. AND unlike the ePinions description it DOES have a vibrating mode if you are in a place where people are offended by cell phones ringing. Phone calls, both incoming and outgoing, as well as two-way radio conversations can be accomplished without even having to flip the lid by utilizing the i1000 speakerphone feature. The volume is fully adjustable. If you want these to be private, both phone calls and two-way can be done by using the flip phone in open mode without the speaker phone. Setup of the i1000 is very easy, and programming can be done with software or online (with Nextel) so you do not have to use the keypad to program your calling lists. The menus are only one level selections and very straight forward. It holds 100 phone numbers, and 100 private call IDs for the two-way radio. The phone also prorts a back light on the display for the easy viewing in the dark. NOW.....let me get to the negatives. Although there are some, they should not be a deterant from trying this phone. 1. This thing is powerful! Thus, it will eat up a battery charge. I fully charged it on a trip, and unplugged it at 7am on a Sunday. I made about 30 minutes in calls, and by 3pm the next day the battery was dead. The good thing is that it charged in less than an hour. The Lithium Ion battery does not hold memory, so if you don't get it fully charged, no big deal. While on the topic of it's power...It will distort TVs and computer monitors that are in close proximity to the phone. I can always tell when my phone is about to ring, I hear a ticking noise on my monitor and it gets distorted. 2. Accessories from Motorola are expensive! -- Desk Charger $ 50 -- Car Charger $ 30 -- Battery $ 70 You can get around this by looking at aftermarket stuff on eBay. There you can get a charger for the car for $3-$5, a desk charger for $ 20 and a 1400 Mah battery (the standard is a 900) for $ 30. Like I said....both disadvantages should be overlooked for this EXCELLENT PHONE!!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $ 119 88585 2000/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool looks phone pager radio all in one only 9 melody rings to choose from noisy while in high interference areas interface Full Review I've got an i1000 Plus and use it primarily for work purposes. I've have a CDMA StarTAC 7760 ever since. I use the radio dispatch to keep in contact with co-workers immediately, as I work for a customer support center at Motorola. I had my doubts about changing to and iDEN phone, as I have been used so much to my StarTAC phone. There are significant differences between these two phones, though, and it takes a little while getting used to the features in the i1000. Features for the i1000plus: - 800MHz iDEN digital technology (similar to GSM) - Cellular phone, One and Two way Pager, and digital radio, all in one - Flip-fold style, similar to StarTAC - Retractable antenna - Handsfree operation, both in radio as in phone modes - Memory for storing 99 phone numbers + 99 digital radio numbers - LCD display, with backlighting These are the pros I found in the i1000: - 3 services built into one compact unit: It's great to have a digital radio, cellular phone and pager, all in one. No need to carry three different devices. - Digital Radio Dispatch: Radio dispatch feature is excellent, for quick, instant communications. Great for emergencies, and notifications. No need to wait for the other party to ring and answer. This is the one feature no other cellular digital phone can offer, so I think this is a big plus for the i1000. - Size: Flip-fold style is great, either for looks and for functionality. No need to carry a clunk-sized-looks-like-my-TV-remote type of cellular phone. Nicely attaches to your waist with its built in belt-clip. Use it with the slim Li-Ion battery, and it gets very thin and lightweight (but you get reduced battery life). - Good battery life: Lasts about 2 days, heavily using it in radio or phone modes. That's enough for me. - Handsfree operation: You can operate the i1000 plus in phone or radio dispatch mode handsfree, using the built-in speaker. - Vibra-Call Alert: Gently vibrates to notify you of incoming phone calls, pages, and radio dispatch calls. These are the cons I've found myself after 6 months using my i1000: - You cannot see the "who-called-me" list while talking. Not like the StarTAC, in which you can press the 'envelope' icon and get access to all caller information. Thumbs down on this feature. - Very noisy while in high-interference areas: Not like CDMA technology. Conversations get really distorted, with very bad audio, when interferences is high. - Cannot change the banner display. - Only 9 ringer styles. Not like all Nokia phones, which have at least 30 different melodies or sounds to choose from. - A bit clunky with the standard Li-Ion extra-capacity battery. The veredict: I will sure recommend you the i1000 for your business communication needs. It's a trustworthy communications tool, that will help you keep in touch with your colleagues in a matter of seconds. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 236 88584 2000/6/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 can get 2 for 1 deal compact good antenna two way radio great for babysitting cuts out phone just turns off lots of dead spot The Bottom LineBattery needs some work, great for babysitter/grandparents/ wide phone usage, lots of options Full Review Back in January, we opted to get a cellular phone. We chose this particular phone because alot of my husband's friends had it and they all loved the two way feature. We were also able to get a two-for-one special so we only had to pay for 1 phone. Our boxes for the phones came with the phone itself, a recharger, book, video tape. We were also able to get a car charger for free but were told we would have to pay for another one if we wanted it. It took about 12 hours for the initial charge but the next day we were ready to go. After reviewing the manual, we figured out how to configure our phones for the two way feature (which is like a walkie-talkie and enables you to contact another person without having to dial their number.). This two way feature only works for the same people in your business group so you need to make sure this will work with your friends/family's system. We could also program the phones to dial someone's telephone number automatically by scrolling through a phone book that you set up. You can enter a person's name and their number be it home phone, cell phone, work number, etc. If you so desire, you can also have access to the internet but this is limited as to what you can see on the tiny screen. You can check the weather, news, sports scores, travel intinerary, etc. For me, this feature is only good when I was stuck in line at the bank and it gave me something to do. I recently deleted that service from my phone to save some money. The two way feature is really nice although it is limited. We can do this with someone in Pennsylvania while the other is in New Jersey but it doesn't work when my husband was in New York or Maryland. I had to directly dial his number. You can also have voice mail set up on this phone as well as have the capability to receive text messages that someone else can send as an email via the web. You can create a voice message, save or delete your messages and you must set up a password upon using this feature for the first time. There are many shortcut keys but I don't know all of them. I know you can press *#1 for your phone's own number, *#2 for your phone's personal access number (used for 2 way) and somehow you can find out how many minutes you have used in a month but I can't recall that now. The phone itself is light and tiny (about 5 inches in length). We have belt clips that the phone slides into and hooks onto your pants or belt but I just drop the thing in my purse. The antenna is remarkably durable as I can attest with a 3 year old bending it. So far it hasn't broken. The battery is a problem. After the initial charge, it takes only about 2-3 hours to recharge it. It is recommended to use the phone until the battery level is low but not completely used. However, even with a full charge, the phone chooses random times to just shut itself off even while in the middle of a phone call. The phone will also not work in some areas of our house but I supposed this could happen with any cell phone. Our bill is slated at $75 a month for each phone or $150 total. Initially we had 300 minutes a month with internet usage, voice messaging and two way feature but in reality, it usually runs about $250-$300 a month. The one really good feature is the two way especially if you are using a babysitter. We leave one phone with her and keep the other one with us. If she needs us for any questions or emergencies, all she needs to do is press the button, hold it in and talk. We immediately see my name come up on my husband's phone and know it's her. Very convenient because she doesn't have to remember another phone number. This is a decent phone despite the battery being temperamental at times. Nextel has many plans right now so I recommend that you choose one with higher minutes than you feel you'll actually need and review your usage after a few months. You can always bump down/ or up the number of minutes you use. Be prepared to shell out some money at the beginning as you have to pay for the phones and the first month of use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 88583 2000/8/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity size battery life antenna Full Review I just got a Nextel i1000 Plus phone for work. I had been using an older phone made by Sony and under Sprint PCS service plan. I had no problems with that phone or the service. The Nextel i1000 Plus really works well. Below are some of the PROS of the phone: PROS CLARITY: This phone is super crisp. I have only run into problems with clarity if I am in a region that the signal isn't that strong. Usually no other cellphones work that well in those regions either. SIZE: I truly enjoy the compact size of this phone. Granted it is not a StarTec, but it is still small enough to wear on the side of your hip and it isn't much larger then the pager I wear. BATTERY LIFE: The battery on the Nextel seems to last for a good amount of time. I don't have the exact numbers, but I have the phone on from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM and there are 2 out of 3 bars remaining on the phone. This is with the phone being in standby and on the average of 30 minutes on the phone. It also charges surprisingly fast. SPEAKERPHONE: Cool feature! As many of the other epinions pointed out this is great for checking your voicemail in the car, but overall handsfree operation really makes driving safer. WALKIE TALKIE FEATURE: Since I use this with work I am usually on the road or at a client's site. If I need to contact any other employee that has a Nextel I can do so with ease. It really works well when troubleshooting a problem and you are trying to contact that employee on a separate floor or location in general. The following is a list of CONS: CONS ANTENNA: Like the StarTec the antenna sticks out of the phone. I have seen plenty of instances where this breaks off. It is to bad that the phone's antenna isn't like the compact Samsung phone, where nothing sticks out of the top of the phone. That is all, nothing else comes to mind as a CON. So overall I have been very happy with the phone and the service that Nextel has provided. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Not sure 88582 2009/11/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 display icons ease of use lightweight none yet Full Review This is probably one of the best and easiest to use phones I have used to date. This unit is small and lightweight. The setup instructions are easy to read and to follow. I especially like the quick reference card that comes in the package for you to carry in your wallet or purse. If you can't remember a function just refer to the card and you have the information at your finger tips. The display is clear and and easy to read. Number dialing is a breeze due to the size of the keys. I have fat fingers and I don't have any problems with dialing. This really is the top of the line. It has the following features; - Speed dial and name search functions for easy cellular calling - Easy-to-use menu driven operation - Large 4-line display screen plus icons - "Vibracall" (Phone vibrates instead of ringing) - Call waiting - Call forwarding - Last number redial - Keypad lock for security - Caller ID (not available all areas) - 1 yr. limited manufacturer's warranty - Data capable (Internet ready) Phone comes with carrying clip, travel recharger cord, user's guide, Battery, and a video instruction tape. This phone really rates high!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 88581 2000/4/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 direct connect feature speaker phone battery life The Bottom LineA cool phone with good features, despite short battery life. Full Review I haven't had a cell phone in a long time. I had one when they were new, and they had to be carried around in a large console-type thing. I also had one of the old 'brick-phones' that you couldn't even hope to get into your pocket. This phone: The Good: What sold me on the i1000+? The two way radio (Direct Connect) feature, and also the speakerphone. I am a total sucker for a speakerphone. I love talking to the phone while it's on my desk, and hearing someone talk back to me. I hate holding a phone up to me ear; my are gets tired, or my neck gets cramped. With the Direct Connect, you have to keep pushing the talk button, and you get this little chirp before you can talk, but it just seems so damn cool, who cares. I also love just making a regular call, putting the phone down and talking out loud. The phone has all the usual features like programmable numbers. I signed up for voice mail and free long distance. It also has three way calling and caller ID. One of the things I think is especially cool about this phone is that it can be also used as a beeper. If someone calls and gets your voice mail, they can hit the # button and then #1, and input their phone number, which is displayed on the i1000. So, it takes the place of your beeper. The phone is remarkably easy to set up and program. I bought the phones at CompUSA, and called NEXTEL myself to set up the phone. They give you a package with the phone telling you the number to call and all the info you will need. The hardest thing is deciding on a plan. Some plans allow unlimited Direct Connect, but are more expensive. It's a tough choice. The instruction book is very well documented, and even though it looks hard at first glance, it really is intuitive. The Bad: The phone is just not comfortable (for me) to hold up against my ear. This surprised me because the ear piece looks big and comfortable and ergonomic, but it just annoys my ear. I am pretty sure I will be staying with the speaker phone most of the time, unless I have an urgent need for privacy. Besides, I just love a speaker phone. If you program your phone numbers, you never even need to open the phone. The Ugly: Battery life is ridiculous. If you keep the phone on all day, you will have to charge it every night. The battery has no memory, so you can just charge it all you want, even if you just charged it. The battery takes about 2.5 hours to charge. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 88580 2000/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 many partnerships many broken links login troubles Full Review Disclaimer: Since this particular phone appears elsewhere and this is a webphone section, I will use this review to describe only the web based functions. The Nextel i1000 plus has 4 basic operating modes. These are Phone, Private, Group-Silent, and Net. Selecting net mode produces a quick plug for phone.com and T9 based text input then proceeds to the main Net mode menu. Like most web-enabled phones, this one uses a series of cascaded vertical menus to allow browsing. Those of you expecting a miniature browser full of annoying banner ads and nifty graphics will be quickly disappointed. This is a text only web (for now anyway) but can be quite powerful once one becomes acquainted with it. The main net menu is as follows: 1) Sites 2) Shopping 3) MSN mobile 4) Nextel Services 5) Bookmarks 6) Enter Site 7) Search Sites Sites is subdivided into Portals, News, Finance, Office, Travel, Weather, and Leisure. Each subgroup contains a somewhat random assortment of options loosely associated with that group heading. For example, selecting News gives you a choice between CNET news.com, MSNBC, and smartRay. Some of the choices are redundant but many are useful. Under Office, an eCompare shipping cost calculator calculates the cost of shipping a package from one zip code to another by FedEx, UPS, and USPS provided you know its weight. A package tracker is also available for these same companies if you know the shipping number. A trimmed down Zagat restaurant review is available for 38 cities including New York, Houston, and Chicago. In addition to the review, the restaurant can be called automatically by pressing a single button. Other links include Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lifeminders, and Etrade. Shopping This category provides links to Amazon, DealTime, mySimon, Brandfinder, B&N, FTD.com, ShopNow, eCompare!, Edmunds.com, and the Go2Shopping network. Shopping by embedded scroll down menus can be particularly tedious and the one time I tried to order a CD from Amazon, my username and password would not work. My guess is unless you know exactly what you are looking for and trust the security of your credit card being beamed around you won't use these too often. Personally I'm waiting for that IBM commercial where you can order sodas from vending machines with your cell phone to become a reality in the US. MSN Mobile If you haven't guessed it by now, Nextel seems to be in bed with Microsoft when it comes to the wireless web. Under this category you can send and read your Hotmail, rifle through MSN Money, check News and Entertainment info etc..Logging on to the regular web version of MSN allows you to create a personal account and customize info that carries over to your cell phone. For example you could enter your stock portfolio into MSN Money and then follow it on your phone with MSN Mobile. Somewhat Nifty. Nextel Services An address book and account manager. Here you can manage your contact information and phone number lists. Personally I don't use it because the phone itself stores 100 phone numbers without using the web functions. If you're particularly anal or need mailing addresses at your fingertips than these can be input online and managed/referenced from your phone. If you carry around a palm pilot you probably won't use this part either. Bookmarks This is where you store commonly visited or personal sites. Increasing numbers of web sites have adopted WAP versions of their full scale web pages so you'd be surprised what you can find out there. Enter Site If you haven't entered a site in your bookmarks you can manually type it in here. Be warned though, T9 won't help you much here and sites with numbers or symbols in their names are particularly painful to enter. Thankfully the www and .com are assume so to get to www.Yahoo.com one would simply have to enter 'Yahoo'. Search Google, Go2Online, and CitySearch. I haven't compared a search here with a full web search but a recent search for 'arse' turned up well over 20 choices. They are however displayed in groups of 5 so you may give up on the more obscure searches. I first signed up for unlimited web services about 4 months ago for $19.95/month. Since then Nextel has reorganized its offerings and increased the number of options and partnerships available. That being said many of the options don't work. For instance I am after 4 months still unable to login to Etrade. While I have no intentions of trading on my cell phone (yet), it is quite frustrating to receive login error after login error. And frankly, Nextel service plans aren't cheap so dumping an extra $20 a month for malfunction is added salt in an open wound. There are cheaper plans that provide a limited number of page views and then charge per page after that. I would not suggest these as phone-browsing will quickly eat up your allotted pages and there is no counter to warn you. Overall, I would have to say unless you have the money to waste, you might want to wait another few months while Nextel irons out the rest of the kinks. They have definitely improved over the past 4 months but still have quite a ways to go. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20/month, $150 for the phone 88579 2000/5/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 2 way radio voicemail small net capable caller id flip design battery life no roaming The Bottom LineThe phone is a dependable phone with great features. If you have a business this is a must have. Full Review My wife and I purchased matching Nextel's 6 months ago after using them at my job for the past 4 or 5 years. One of the reasons we went with them is the 2 way radio(Direct Connect). Since then we have saved lots of minutes and money using the 2 way radio vs. using the cellular to talk back and forth. I also like that the phone has its own email address and can have email sent directly to the phone. I like the fact that the phone is light and small enough to be clipped to my belt and the holster holds it in very tight. I am a police officer and have it clipped onto my duty belt and have never had the phone "pop" out of the holster yet, no matter what I was doing. The phone has a large phone book and is equipped with caller ID. Plus with the flip I never have to worry about accidentally hitting the send button and making calls you don't want made. Another reason we got the phone is because of the wide coverage that Nextel has here in the Chicagoland area. I work in Suburban Chicago and live 45 miles in a rural area and have never found a dead spot yet, even when I'm in the basement of my work, which is a bomb shelter, I still receive a signal.... not strong but strong enough to make or receive a call. I once made a road trip from Chicago to Springfield, approx 350 miles, and had coverage the whole way down and back and even when 350 miles away, I was able to talk to my my at home with the 2 way radio and it sounded like she was standing next to me. Not to mention that when I just need to talk to my wife for a second or tell her something simple, I don't have to waste cellular minutes calling her, I just call her on the 2 way. I have read other reviews about there coverage lacking in some areas... I don't know where that is but in Chicagoland area the coverage is excellent. The phone itself I haven't had one problem with it, not to mention we have about 50-60 of the same ones at work and still have not heard of a problem to this day. I use my phone all day, every day and have even dropped it many times and have unintentionally abused it and it stills works really well. I have heard complaints about the flip breaking or wearing out but have yet to have any problems with mine or had any with the phones at work. The speakerphone option is a great bonus but doesn't work well in loud areas. Another nice feature is the Vibra Call, which means instead of ringing, it vibrates when you get a call. The pricing plans are comparible with other cellular services in our area especially if you are going to have more than one phone. I wish I would have gotten a Nextel a long time ago, but was told it was expensive... Boy were they wrong about that, I'm paying less for my 2 phones through Nextel than I was with 2 phones through 2 different carriers. In short... if you want a quality phone with a quality company... Nextel is your best bet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 (each) 88578 2000/9/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 two way talk system pagingvoice mail awkward Full Review I work for the federal government and my agency just bought Nextel i1000 phones for all of the agents. The majority of federal law enforcement agencies have moved to the Nextel system. The Nextel system has been an excellent investment for our agency. The manufacturer lists the i1000 at about $199. We were lucky to find them on sale for about $99 each. It pays to shop around and look for good deals. The Nextel system is great. In addition to clear digital technology, the i1000 has two way (walkie talkie) technology, paging, voice mail, text messaging, and internet access on a limited basis. The two way system is excellent and our agency uses this more than anything. You can call an individual using the private system, or a whole pre designated group. This has come in very handy during operations in the field. It is also more reliable and has better range than our old radios we were using. We can even be in a different part of the state and still reach another officer immediately. Above anything else, this was the big selling point for our agency. We can also reach anyone in the Nextel system if we know their ID number. This comes in handy during operations involving several different agencies. You may think you wouldn't use the two way system that much, but you will. It is also cheaper than using the cell phone to call someone and Nextel provides a "bucket" of minutes for each month using the two way system. For an example, my agency has 750 minutes of talk time per month using the two way system. A few agencies have found the paging and voice mail system to be awkward and not always timely. For this reason we have kept our pagers. Hopefully Nextel works out the bugs in this area. But for the most part, it is an excellent system. I'm surprised they don't have more competition with this technology. I believe you will find Nextel and their line of phones to be very helpful in whatever kind of work you do. It is most practical for work and groups of people who need to stay in contact. Law enforcement agencies are some of Nextel's best customers and is a large part of their clientele. It has allowed us to keep in touch better and coordinate our duties in the field. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88577 2000/7/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 loads of features superb speaker phone battery life dropped calls screen size small for internet Full Review After owning an analog Startec through Cellular One, I opted for a more robust phone through the Nextel service. Although Nextel's service is geared more for businesses, I was interested in the i1000. The i1000 is loaded with features. All your standard stuff, phone lists, caller id and caller waiting id (is subscribed to), vibrate, etc. Pretty much anything you'd ever need. One of the best features by far has to be the speaker phone. You'd think that a phone this small wouldn't produce a useful speakerphone, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Forget the earpieces or expensive car speaker adapters. You can literally dial the number and toss the phone in the seat next to you and talk away, it's that good. Battery life is also very good. I've gotten through 2-3 days of normal average use when turning the unit off at night. I've had a fair share of dropped calls, but this is more due to the service then the phone and since you can only use Nextel services with this phone, that kind of applies. The i1000 is also Internet ready. I've used the phone with Internet, and while the feature is a nice extra, the phone really doesn't have the screen size to make it the useful extra it needs to be. The phone also can double as a modem with an extra accessory that plugs into a laptop. I would imagine the next version of the phone will address this issue. All in all the i1000 is a superb phone for those looking for a feature packed heavy duty reliable phone and not so much for Internet usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88576 2000/4/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 built in speakerphone direct connect walkie talkie functionality a bit on the bigger side but still pocket friendly confusing menus The Bottom LineThis is the phone for you if you like the idea of Direct Connect. There's no other reason to buy this phone however. I find direct connect very liberating. Full Review I've said it before, and I'll say it again. A mobile phone is ONLY as good as the network it's on. That being said, the i1000plus is a very good phone, believe it or not... I purchased mine through a local retailer for $99 (I purchased 2, one for myself and one for my wife). I wanted these phones mainly for the direct-connect functionality. Since 90% of the mobile phone bill is calls to my wife, I figured the Direct Connect would save us a bit of money. In case you're wondering, the Direct Connect feature is a walkie-talkie type of feature you can use to talk to co-workers or friends that are on the same "group" network. Now be careful with this. If you are planning to buy one of these because a friend or family member owns one, make sure you know which group network they are on, since that will restrict the amount of people who you can direct connect with. If you have 2 friends that are on 2 different direct connect networks, you will only be able to talk to one of them. It's not easy changing networks (requires a phone call to customer service), so make sure you can get all your friends to agree to be on the same network. The phone itself is a bit on the larger side when compared to what I'm used to (Star Tacs and more recently the V8160 Vulcan), but I have to say i'm okay with its size. It's still pocket-friendly without a doubt. The menus are confusing at first. Accessing features is different on the i1000+ if you're used to startacs. However, once you get the hang of it, it's really no big deal. There's 10 ringer options, a vibrate mode (which is kinda weak, but it gets the job done), and the usual fare of phone features. The unit is a flipopen model that allows you to see through a clear window who's calling via the display (Caller-ID has to be enabled by Nextel, and it's only free with some plans). The display is standard-fare LCD on a green backlit background. The buttons are spaced out nicely, and the phone itself is comfortable, albeit a tiny bit heavier than what i'm used to. The speakerphone is nice. That's not a feature you're normally used to on a cellphone, but it already eliminates the need for a hands-free kit in your car. I like that. The voicemail menus are really nice, definitely a step above the Star-tac menus for accessing voicemail and messaging. It's a lot less confusing. Just open the lid on the phone, and hit "Mail", and you have 3 mail options: Voice mail, Mesg mail (usable via yourphonenumber@page.nextel.com), and Net mail (internet Email). How sweet is that? It's all right there, no bouncing through menus, perfectly organized in one place. The phone itself has 4 communication modes. There's Phone mode, which is self explanatory. There's "Private" mode for direct-connecting to another nextel subscriber in your current group, there's "group talk" mode, which allows you to talk with a group of people, and there's "Net" mode, which is Nextel's wireless web mode. I don't use "Net" or "Group" modes, so I will have to pass on talking about those. The direct connect (private) functionality is something I am so impressed with. Hit a button, say what you want to say (Usually "Honey? Are you there?" for me), and wait for a response. It's half-duplex (only one person can talk to each other at a time, and you have to hit a button walkie-talkie style), but it's a great way to save a couple of minutes of phone charges since you already have the unlimited direct connect time in your plan. You *DID* decide on the unlimited direct connect option, right? RIGHT? Using Direct Connect is downright infectious. It's so easy to just communicate with your wife or buddies and not have to worry about incurring normal cellphone charges. While there's tons of instances you WILL want to use normal phone mode, I must say that the bulk of my usage on this phone is direct-connect. The direct connect feature makes a beep when a direct connection is coming in. You can use the vibrate function for this. Also, you don't HAVE to use the speakerphone for direct connect usage. You can toggle between using the earphone or the speakerphone for direct connect calls. That'll keep you out of embarrassing yourself in a crowded meeting, and still be able to see who's trying to reach you by glancing through the LCD window. Battery life is adequate. For my purposes, the battery lasts 2 days, but I typically keep it charging in my car when i'm driving. It includes a lithium ion battery that SUPPOSEDLY has 100 hours of standby time. I don't buy THAT, but the battery life is adequate enough for me. I doubt it'd last a whole weekend with regular use, but it'll certainly make it through most of it and die out sunday afternoon. Standard phone service is digital-only, which means in fringe areas you won't be able to revert to an analog signal. While I used to think this was important, i'm less harsh about it now since a lot of areas have finally gone digital. Coverage in Manhattan is adequate, though forget about using the phone in the tunnels (Lincoln/Holland). Both phone service and direct connect don't work there. Reception in buildings is also a bit iffy. I was walking around Home Depot the other day talking with my wife on direct connect, and the signal meter was pretty much nothing. At work though, it's fine no matter where I go. I guess it depends on the type of building you're in and whether there's a tower nearby. So, is this phone for you? Maybe... If you spend a lot of time talking to a small group of people and you can convince them to get nextel phones for direct connect purposes, absolutely. It's a great way to not pay outlandish fees for all the calls you're making and have the freedom to talk to them anytime you want. This is a truly liberating feature that you will really enjoy. I know I do. If you have no use for Direct connect however, then the phone service is really only mediocre. You can't use it in tunnels in the NYC/Metro area. It tends to not like buildings too much, and the phone itself is a bit on the bulkier side. Do NOT buy this phone if you have no use for the direct connect feature. You're better off with Verizon and a Startac. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88575 2000/4/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features in a relatively compact package somewhat difficult to learn to program The Bottom LineIf you need a good, durable business phone with Internet access and speakerphone - the i1000 is your best bet. Full Review I've been through many cellphones since I first bought a mobile phone, and I must say that I'm quite happy with the Motorola i1000 so far. I switched to Nextel after using AT&T with my Nokia 6162 - primarily for the wireless web. The i1000 has a 4 line WAP browser, which is more than enough for the features that I use (occasional checking of e-mail, stock quotes, and to login to my Yahoo Address Book when I'm travelling). I did try the Mitsubishi T250 (with it's 12 line display) but it was just too cumbersome to carry around with me. The belt clip for the i1000 keeps it out of my way, yet always accessible. The phone comes with memory to store 100 telephone numbers and 100 private ID's (for Nextel's 2-way radio feature) - the volume and clarity of the phone are quite good - as well as the built in speakerphone. The speakerphone is invaluable for traveling in the car, and it also comes in handy if you are in a group setting (such as a meeting) - and you'd like to conference someone in. The phone does have capability to do 3-way calls, and has call waiting and caller ID built it. One of the more impressive features of the wireless web browser is the T9 technology. This allows you to spell words using the keypad - and it will try to guess the word that you are typing - rather than hitting a number multiple times to get a letter to show up. Several WAP phones have this feature - but Nextel does one better: The T9 can be 'taught' words that you frequently use, so that when you try to spell them again, they are already stored in the T9's memory. If you ever try to send e-mails from the phone (not something I would recommend doing on a regular basis) - you will certainly appreciate this feature. The one drawback that I find in the phone is that it was a bit difficult to learn to program at first - but the documentation that comes with the phone explains everything in great detail. The menu structure isn't as intuitive as my Nokia was, but I did get the hang of it rather quickly. Overall - the phone has a LOT of useful features, is reasonably durable and is sufficiently compact. It's bigger than the StarTac - but not by much. If you are in the market for a good all around business phone, the i1000 should definitely be on your list. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 88574 2000/7/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery direct connect light small cell range falls out of hip holster Full Review My company has deployed over 120 of the Nextel radio/phones to our field staff. We service customer's computer equipment, and this device allows us instant access to them. We did the pager senario, and it was a pain to get return calls from the field staff. We have been using the Nextel products for the last 3+ years. Our current stock includes i1000's, i900's, and older models. They all work beautifully together, and the costs are completely outweighed by the saved time and effort. I personally have an i1000, and have beat on it pretty hard. It is fairly rugged, and dependable. Here is a brief list of the pros: Solid unit feel with more features than you can use. Battery life is extended over previous models. With average use, I get about 36 hours of life prior to needing recharge. The direct-connect feature is great, with the alpha or key number searching options. Small, light, and it recharges fast. They also offer chargers with additional batteries, car chargers, and hip-holster. Private and speaker options, alert and vibrate options are useful. Now the cons: The unit slips easily out of the hip-holster The antenna is flimsy, and requires manual extension The cell phone aspect does not have the greatest coverage It drives the dog crazy when it beeps (my wife made me put that in!) I think that if you or your company could take advantage of the direct-connect feature, that this is the best choice. Some in the company carry a different cell-phone to supplement this one, because of the cell-range issues. Oh, and watch out for the auto-answer option. I had it go off when at a Red Sox game (had the ringer volume low, so did not hear it ring), and it auto-answered. Luckily for me, my wife could not pick out my voice from the crowd's. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ??? 88573 2000/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great features lightweight durability coverage area Full Review I have been using the i1000 for about a year now and have very few complaints. The direct connect feature is what makes this phone stand out from any normal cell phone. I love the ability to talk to any of our techs at the touch of a button. Should they be away from their phone, Nextel gives me the ability to "alert" them and cause their phone to beep annoyingly until they answer me. And if that should fail I can send a short e-mail to their phone. But these are more Nextel features than phone features The phone itself is lightweight and very compact. I easily carry it in a jacket pocket when hanging it on my belt is inappropriate. The reception is outstanding for such a small phone and it comes with a good range of headsets or car speakers for working in any environment. It also stores 99 phone numbers and 99 radio ID numbers. I use mine as my phonebook. But the big plus is its speakerphone feature. More than a few times I have been out of the office with coworkers that decided a conference call was in order. With the push of a few buttons I had a three-way call going and after one more simple push the phone was sitting on the lunch table as we all blabbered into it. One of the major drawbacks is the durability of the phone. Even a drop from ear height can snap the earflap off or damage the internal workings of the phone. The window over the display is also easily scratched, making using the radio options difficult to see at first glance. However the worst part of the phone is its coverage. Nextel has great coverage in most metropolitan areas, but shortly after you leave the city or a major freeway, you end up with a $200.00 paperweight. Nextel does not yet work with other cell providers to provide a wider coverage area, and from what my sales rep. tells me, they have no plans to. If you stick to populated areas and don't abuse your personal electronics, you couldn't make a finer choice in a phone Recommended: Yes 88572 2000/7/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 fun to use easily manageable compact light phone is a little hard to program Full Review This telephone concept is too cool! My husband was issued one from his company for the two-way communications. The company was nice enough to allow the spouses join in on the fun. My husband uses his phone to contact his office and other co-workers throughout the day, every day. This has been a blessing, because he no longer has high cellular bills to pay. Before, he was using his personal cellular phone for business calls, and not getting reimbursed. Now, the company pays for a portion of the service, and he can communicate with his job, at no charge. This is because his company communicates through the two-way feature, which is unlimited and not counted on minutes used. He still pays a portion of his cellular bill, but some is always better than all! His best friend is the office manager where he works. These two guys really have fun with this phone. They contact each other constantly through the two-way feature for personal chats, "various sound effects", etc. My husband and myself can also communicate now. I have one of these phones, and we can talk to and from work, etc. without being charged for each call. I can even talk to his buddy if I want to. The only drawback is the fact that the phone is a little hard to program. I yet to program it with phone numbers and such, and by now I usually have done so. I love the phone and the service. It is compact, light, and easily manageable. If only the program buttons were easier! Everyone should have a phone like this to communicate with co-workers, family, friends, etc. The only thing is, is that you have to be on one account together. It is a great tool to keep in touch with spouses (i.e. who is picking up the kids, where traffic troubles are, etc.)without having to worry about paying an arm and a leg for the usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88571 2000/3/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 walkie talkie function is very handy menu navigation battery life The Bottom LineShop around some more, unless you definitely need the walkie-talkie feature of this phone. Full Review This is one of the few phones that I actually have been very disappointed with... Here is a basic comparison of the i1000 to the StarTAC series of phones which Motorola also puts out. If there is anybody that would like a simple comparison between any of the phones listed in my reveiw of the T28w, please e-mail me and I will get back to you as soon as I can =) Ok, now for the lowdown... When the i1000 first came out I quickly rushed out and traded in my Nokia 6188 for one right away =) I will admit that initially I found it to be quite fun (as most people do with their new toys) but after using it for a few weeks, I started to realize that the phone had a few shortcomings. Size and Body Construction This thing is not exactly tiny, as most of you will already know this phone can also be used in a similar fashion to a walkie talkie and pretty much is the same size as one. This also translates into it being pretty bulky and heavy. When used with the provided beltclip it's not bad at all and hardly gets in your way, but if you were to try to stick this thing in your pocket some people might think that you are just a little too happy to see them... As with most Motorola phones that I have owned I have found almost all of them to be extremely sturdy, particularly the StarTACs. When I had a StarTAC 6000, 6500, 7790 I dropped all of them on a daily basis over the course of a few years and the phone hardly got a scratch and functioned just as well as when I had first bought it. With the i1000, Motorola continues to put together a sturdy product, but the i1000 certainly seemed to be more prone to getting beat up a lot quicker then the StarTAC series. Daily wear and tear became quite visible after a month or two. Menu Layout and Navigation This is where I had the biggest problem with the phone. Through their line of cellular phones Motorola has maintained a pretty consistent setup with their navigation systems thus making it easy for people who move from one phone to another to quickly familiarize themselves with their new purchase (even more so with Nokia phones). The instruction manual that comes with the i1000 is approximately twice that the size of the StarTAC manual and unless you designed the phone yourself you WILL need it. I found myself often looking back to the manual just to figure out how to do simple functions. As with the remark in another review that the phone did not display current call length, it certainly does, so they may have just missed a page in their manual. Like all the other Motorola phones they have call timers that can show you the length of your current call while speaking on the phone, and the timer can also be shut off and referenced only when one is curious as to how many minutes or how much time they have used. Battery Life On average, I found that the battery was good to last me about two days ( the included lithium ion standard battery ). I didn't use the phone excessively but for those who believe that the i1000 has the specifications that they are looking for and find the walkie-talkie function an essential part of everyday business I would definitely recommed purchasing another battery and perhaps a cigarette lighter adapter as it doesn't take much (phone calls and constant use of the walkie talkie function) to drain the battery. As for entering e-mail and text messages with this phone, it lacks the predictive text messaging that is starting to become so common on cellular phones nowadays. This does slow down things a fair bit but I do have to admit that one can hook up the phone to their computer and program everything from there. The only drawback to that is the additional cost incurred from purchasing the data cable and software. This program can also be used to enter in the phone numbers and whatever else you may want to save in the phones memory. All in all, this phone was a well designed idea giving us what phones in the future will be like (hopefully much better improved) but for those just looking for a cell phone, and think the idea of having the radio function on your phone might be neat. Just give it a second thought before running out to go and grab an i1000. There are many other suitable mobile phones out there which I would recommend before this one. As with all of my reviews, should you have any questions or suggestions as to how I may improve it please e-mail me ! I WILL write back ! Cheers ! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 88570 2000/1/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 two way radio speakerphonealphanumeric paging poor control layout hard to program Full Review My department bought 6 Nextel/Motorola i1000 digital phones in December for the big Y2K fiasco. The plan was for everyone having immediate access to any member on the project team in case there were any emergencies. Like most company, we were well prepared and there was little use of the phones. Now my department owns them and the 69.95 dollars a month service plan that went with it. The plan is expensive because we have the two-way radio feature that allows us to communicate within our workgroup from anywhere in the US. I have used the phone over the last two weeks and the following is my assessment. Positives: Two-way radio - Great for a work group environment. One touch feature will instantly connect you to one or all of your co-workers that have been preprogrammed to receive you calls. The phone looks like this was the original design intent and then a cell phone was added, instead of visa-vera. One touch dialing and speaker phone option. The speakerphone is loud and clear. This is very useful feature if you in the car doing other tasks while your talking. The lid can be open or shut to use the speakerphone option. It's also an alphanumeric pager. - You can set the unit to give you a vibrated alert when receiving a page. The phone is also Web enabled, but Nextel does not have the service available yet. Negatives: The phone is trying to be all things to all users, but it comes up short in many areas. Because of all the features the programming and button choices are very overwhelming. Without the manual or the included cheat sheet card, it is almost impossible to program this devices. It uses touch-pad shortcut to program this device. This phone uses Nextel's proprietary digital network (IDEN). This service is not compatible with any other provider out there. Therefore, on Nextel customer can use this phone. Also Nextel service is very spotting and there are a lot of dead spots even within our complex. We will have to resort to the expensive option of getting a signal repeater in the areas were service is needed most. The unit is not that light with the Li-Ion battery pack. Many other phones today are lighter. The manual states you should get 180 minutes of talk time, but I found it is probably half that amount. The Standby charge however is understated. I was able to get about 2 days without a charge. Conclusion: This phone is a decent phone for works group environment and has may useful features. If the programming and controls were better, I would have given the Nextel i1000 phone a higher rating. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88569 2000/10/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 direct connect phone is bulky cover will break Full Review I have my window open and am very tempted to toss.. no.. hurl this piece of junk at great velocity towards the pavement. I bought the i1000+ after much due diligence. The reasons I found it attractive were Direct Connect feature- (walkie talkie style, the Form Factor was relatively small at the time, and the Speaker Phone allowed you to work without the use of a headset. Additionally, the service plan included a feature that charged to the nearest second. This means that for a 1-minute, 12-second called you don't get billed for 2 minutes like most other wireless plans which round to the nearest minute. The Direct Connect feature was great and I wish every phone had this feature. The speaker phone feature worked very well from my end, but it usually was difficult for the other end of the call to hear clearly so I hardly ever used it. The form factor seemed small when I purchased the phone and the flip plate had a clear cover so you could screen the incoming calls. The size of this phone is decievingly LARGE. It is heavy and awkward. You will have to use a holster to carry it with you as it is much too large to keep in your pocket. My main concern is the price I paid for a phone that literally FELL APART within six months of ownership. Stress fractures in the hinge appeared and then a few weeks later, the entire front cover broke off taking the wires with it. As luck would have it, it was under warranty. The warranty repair was harmless, though it COST ME $40. One of my biggest surprises was the really short battery life. Having had a Nokia 6100, the phone would last me 4-6 days on one charge with the slim battery. The i1K+ only lasts 3 days max with the BIG battery. I would expect more from a phone that claims to be the road warrior's best friend. Additionally, check my post regarding the nextel coverage of service, which I don't mind saying, "Stinks" in virtually all the cities I travel to nationwide. (SF, LA, Dallas, NY, Austin, DC, Boston, Minneapolis, and San Diego) If you are a business minded road warrior, stay away from this phone. I will either switch to CellOne w/ Nokia 8260 (I have had great luck with Nokias) or switch to Verizon, and picking up the new Motorola V-phone (tiny, web-access, good reception) and test that out. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88568 2000/7/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 instant silent mode speakerphone 2 way radio hard to program bulky short battery time Full Review This is a business Cell Phone System! The best feature of this phone is the 2-way Private Radio that does not count against your monthly paid minutes. My company chose the Nextel i1000 plus as its new solution for internal communication. We tried a variety of different internal paging systems that allowed you to communicate by typing on tiny devices and then sending the message to either individuals or to groups. The draw back they saw in these other devices is you were not always sure the other person(s) received your message. With the Nextel, you are able to reply back immediately if you received and understood the message. Nice Features: A nice feature is during the initial setup when you enter a persons name and than are prompted for their phone number. While still entering the same person, you are prompted for their "Radio ID" if they have one. This is helpful so you do not have to re-add their name again if they also have a Nextel. Private Radio - This is the only reason to buy a Nextel. The Private Radio is setup so each group of phones you order can communicate with each other without charging minutes to your monthly limit. Why is this so convenient? Any team member can now simply reach another team member with out having to go through the trouble of looking up a phone number or sending a page and waiting for a response. Simply dial the Private ID number which can be stored in memory and you can find out what you need to know either instantly or you will know if that person is simply unavailable. Speaker Phone - I have found this feature very convenient so I can drive with both hand and not have to worry about balancing the phone between my neck and shoulder. 3-Way - This feature I nice so you can include others into your conversation with the hassle of ending one call to start another. Speaker/Home/Back button Normally, when your associates try to reach you through the Private Radio option, a loud beep signifies someone is trying to reach you. If the person starts talking immediately, everyone around you can hear them. This can be embarrassing in the middle of important meetings. By pressing the S/H/B button, the main speaker is deactivated and message is sent to the earphone speaker. This button is located at the top of the phone so you can find it easily without scrolling though menus. It is also nice in case you forget and you need to press it very quickly! AlphaNumeric E-mail Not only can I receive alphanumeric pages, I can also receive e-mails sent to: (my phone number)@page.nextel.com. A nice touch is the 5 lines with 16 characters of text so I can easily read my mail. This may be hard to read for some people, so ask for a demo before you decide to buy. While there are more features that make the Nextel easier to use, these were the most prominent ones I use most that were worth mentioning. Unlike most other cellular phones, the Nextel does come with a belt-clip carry case. While I have bumped the phone out of the belt case, the i1000 plus does sit well inside it for the most part. A friend informed me a $5.00 kit could be purchased from Radio Shack so you can glue a circular knob on the battery. This lets you use the Nokia style belt holders. The kit also provides a hook so you can attach it to you car dashboard. Battery: Average battery life is suppose to be 2 day, but I have found I can not make it that long before my battery indicator shows empty. The average battery life should state 1½ days instead. If you use the i1000 a lot during the day, then you need to recharge the battery every night. What I didn't like: What I didn't like is the features Nextel offers exclusively, but don't provide for. Internet Access - Nextel is the only ISP capable of providing Internet Access, but the service is not available in all areas. Organizational Layout The worst part is the way it was organized. I have to scroll through useless features within its menu system to finally find the option I'm looking for. If they wanted to improve the slightest thing, they would re-organize the order the features are displayed in the programming menu. When you enter names into memory, it stores the names in that order. The only way to have the list sorted alphabetically is to either enter all the names in alphabetic order or purchase software called IDen Organizer 01.05. This program will allow you to download your address book and then using copy and paste method, reorganize all your names and Private Radio listings. Time and Date: - This is suppose to show up automatically if it's available in your area. It's not available in South Florida and spent 15 minutes looking through the manual to find that out. Why can't the time and date be stored on the phone like all the other cellular phones? This may not seem like a big deal, but calls that are missed are not time and date stamped so you don't know when the call came in. Service Overall - I have been using the Nextel for almost three months now and have experienced 2 major outages. The last one was blamed on Bell South for cutting two fiber cables that linked all the Nextel cell towers together. They said it was the first time that has ever happened. Phone Overall - This is a good phone for companies and I have seen more Nextel's during the "business Hour" Lunch time than any other phone. The main reason would be for the "Private Radio" feature. Our IT department has found this the most useful. (It's also great for organizing our daily lunch outing) Would I buy another one? Well that's easy, no. My company paid for this one and I really feel it is only good for the radio feature. My personal favorite use for the Private Radio is when a group of us go on road trips to either off-site classes or seminars, we use the Private Radio in case someone is lost or needs directions. It's unbelievable how helpful it is to have everyone in your company at your fingertips for help. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Company Paid 88567 2009/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 two way radio speaker phone battery life bigger than the startac digital Full Review I used the following phones and service providers here in Nashville, TN: Motorola StarTac Digital - Bell South Motorola i1000 - Nextel It's important to distinguish between the phones and the service provider. Bell South's coverage here in Nashville is crappy at best. Both phones are however of good quality. To chose one you have to examine your individual needs: StarTac Digital has better: Size - Smaller and lighter than the i1000 if space/size is a concern go with the StarTac. Definitely wearable (about the size of a pager). i1000 has better: Speaker phone ability - great for hands free calling in the car! Two way radio (walkie-talkie) - Fantastic if you know someone else with the phone. Ideal for business customers who get many phones at once. If you don't know anyone else with a i1000 (or i600, etc.) the radio feature is useless. Easy one handed dialing - if you ever try to dial the StarTac with one hand while driving, you'll probably wreck (very hard). Email - maybe available on both (not sure). The i1000 allows you to receive alphanumeric pages and email direct to your phone. Battery Life & charge time - using similar batteries on both phones, the i1000 has a far greater battery life and quicker charge time. I think once you examine all the features, the i1000 is a far better phone even though it's considerably larger in size. A great phone especially if a friend already has it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88566 2000/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 web enabled light weight small size large display screen faxes sendreceive email none come to mind humm Full Review There I sat in a boring business luncheon, in a so-so restaurant waiting for lunch to be delivered. As I waited I was half listening to the colleague on my right go on and on about his current paramour, while half listening to the other conversations going on around the table. As I stared past the adorable colleague on my left with the big blue eyes, to the fish half hanging out of the ceiling, I was wondering how my latest stock purchase is performing. It had rallied a day before after Greenspan and the Federal Reserve came through with an under-the-table interest rate hike and I thought about selling, but decided to wait the market out. Still I did not want to take a loss on the stock and wanted to actively track it, but my trusty computer with its access to near instant stock and bonds quotes via the Internet was miles away. So I did what any self-respecting market watcher would do, I picked up my cell phone and accessed the Internet via Nextel's Net Ready Internet access feature build into my Motorola i1000 Plus digital phone with service by Nextel. Inside of a minute I had the stock quotes I wanted, and the movie schedule for the movies the spouse and I would go see this weekend! I stumbled across my latest cell phone quite by chance this past Christmas season. The company I work for is a major manufacture of cellular phones and pagers and teamed up with Nextel to offer employees a deal I could not refuse. The phone was free as were many of the services, including the aforementioned unlimited Internet access. There were a number of different phones to choose from but I choose the Motorola i1000 Plus because it is small (it fits in the palm of my hand), light weight, is web enabled, offers two way radio like communications, and offers several more features my last phone through PrimeCo did not. So far I am in love with my new phone! Though it can be daunting to the user that is not a slave to gadgets and has no need for Internet access, or any of the other advanced features the phone offers, the Motorola i1000 Plus is a sweet phone indeed. The ringer is strong and clear, which for me is important because I spend a fair amount of time in a rather noisy lab environment and need to be able to hear the ringer over the constant hum and server cooling fans and air-cooling units. The display is large and very well lit, and the pictograms used to relay information to the user are well thought out and easy to decipher; for instance the pictogram for voice mail is two circles connected by a line, denoting a cassette. The speakerphone is the best I have ever heard on ANY phone period! And it can be utilized with the cover closed or shut. I often find myself utilizing the speakerphone when I am driving or otherwise engage and cannot, or do not want to handle the phone. The speakerphone is that good! Many of the reviewer's on the this site expressed concern about the flip cover, and I must admit that I too had my misgivings at first, but I have gotten used to the way it hits my ear, and my comfort level has risen considerable. There was also concern about the battery life, which for me, has not been a concern to date. I generally plug my phone back into the charger at the end of the day and leave it there until I go out again, and so far I have suffered no power outages despite the fact I use the Motorola i1000 Plus to access the Internet often during the day and talk quite a bit. For those concerned about the battery's size, the battery on the Motorola i1000 Plus can be replaced by a smaller battery; the one currently used on the Motorola Startac will for this model, but the standby time goes down to 30 hours vice 60. I have no plans to switch because I do not find the size of the battery a major or even minor concern. The speaker is cleverly hidden under the flip cover and the volume is more than adequate for my needs, and can be easily adjusted via controls on the side of the phone. All-n-all, this phone is a hit with me, and I have not regretted for a minute changing services. If you want a phone that is lightweight and offers the connivance of access to the Internet from anywhere, then you can't do better than the Motorola i1000 Plus. By the way, if so inclined you can use the Motorola i1000 Plus to send and receive email, faxes, and provide modem connectivity to your PDA and laptop if need be. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88565 2001/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small two way radio excellent features light weight battery life is short The Bottom LineThis is a super phone, along with the service has made my job so much easier. I would recommend it to everyone. Full Review Have you ever found yourself working on a tough problem and you really need to call someone who you know has the answer, but the nearest phone is 20 ft away or worse yet the two-way radio is out in your truck. I found myself in this situation way to many times. I work for a computer service company and the machines I work on usually are in a computer room and the phones and not within reach. Our manager back in the office was tasked with finding a solution to this communication problem. He seemed to find the perfect solution for us and I think it would work for just about any company that does similar field service work. Can you imagine being up a pole working on a cable line and you need help, you can't just get down and run to your truck and call on the radio for help. The solution my boss came up with was, this new mobile phone from Nextel and I tell you it has been a god sent. The phone is actually a Motorola i1000 plus, but it is only available from Nextel . This phone has a lot of great features which I will get to later, but the best feature by far is the two-way radio feature or Direct Connect as it is called by Nextel. Direct Connect This is a unique feature to the Motorola i-series phones. This feature allows two-way communications between two or more phones on a network. The limitation is only two can be connected at one time, no three way calling. This is accomplished by pre-programing the phone numbers of all the phones on the network into each phone, and once this is done, it is simple as selecting the two-way mode and using the arrow to select the persons name and push the talk button on the side of the phone. The phone sends an alert to the person you are calling and the respond by pushing their button on the side and speak into the phone. If this sounds a lot like a toy you used to play with when you were a kid, you would be correct, it is just like a walkie-talkie except this phone uses digital technology, so there is not much limitation on distance between phones. Digital Cellular This is another great feature of the Motorola i 1000plus phone. The phone along with Nextels service, has Nationwide calling capabilities. I can call from Dallas/Ft Worth area and call my office in Oklahoma City, and the clarity is the same as if I was at the office. The Nationwide capability also works with Direct Connect feature, as long as there is Nextel phone service in the area you are in all the features of the will work. When we were testing the phones before the company decided to go with Nextel, we had one of our technicians attending a service school in Dallas, Texas. He brought one of the other i series phones(i 550) and he tested the distance and clarity of the phone and service. Both passed with flying colors. With all the testing done, the only thing left was to choosing which model phones to purchase. The managers and sales force and the owner all got the i 1000 and the service technicians and our dispatcher got the i 700. There is only one negative thing I can say about the i 1000 plus, the stand by battery life. It doesn't seem to be long enough, I'm am having to recharge it every morning when I get into work. Details and Spec's The i 1000 plus is a small compact flip phone, that means that the cover flips up to reveal all the buttons and also the ear piece is built in to the cover, the cover also acts a protection against accidentally pushing buttons when not using the phone. The cover also has a clear plastic opening so you can see the LCD screen, which has all the functions and icons on it. List of features Two-way calling Voice mail Text Messaging/numeric paging Web capable Call waiting Call forwarding 3-way calling Vibration alert Speaker phone On screen Icons Vibration setting private/group speaker call forwarded Signal strength Voice mail alert batter strength Text and page alert The phone comes with a simple carrying case that clips to your belt and it comes with a instruction book and a video tape. Between the video tape and the book it was fairly easy to figure out how all the features work. Optional accessories available for the phone a leather carrying case, a cigarette lighter adapter and a hands free kit for your car. In conclusion, I am so happy with the Nextel phone and service, I would recommend it to everyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/serv. 7755 Nextel i60c 88693 2003/10/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none no sense of responsibility by nextel or motorola defective merchandise I purchased this phone at a Nextel service center along with a service package. After literally 4 months the phone has completely stopped working, and the problem is not the battery (I came back from vacation and the phone simply did not work). The expectation by Nextel (and Motorola, who actually manufactured the phone) is that I must send it away for at least 10 days (my expense) and either be without a phone or get a loaner for $35 (non refundable) plus deposit. In the meantime Nextel will not put my account on standby without a $5.95 charge(also nonrefundable). Nextel's attitude is that I didn't purchase insurance, so they do not have to stand behind any ideals of customer service except lip service. Needless to say, I advise people to go anywhere else. 88692 2000/10/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 voice activated dialing nifty blue backlighting smaller than most other nextel phones inferior reception when compared to the older nextel phones high price no longer justified The Bottom LineKeep your i1000 if you can tolerate an older phone. The performance of the i60c negates the positive aspects of the Nextel network and makes paying the higher rates unattractive. Full Review I purchased the Nextel i60c as a replacement for my old but reliable i1000 plus. The size of the phone is a major improvement for Nextel, although still much bulkier than other providers' phone choices. Nonetheless, it is a sturdy unit. Compared to my i1000 plus (which has to be the dorkiest looking phone ever made), the i60c takes a back seat in the performance area. It does have a plethora of nifty features such as voice activated dialing and built-in speakerphone, but lacks in the reception department. With my i1000 plus, I used to keep a call connection while riding my office building elevator from the lobby to the 7th floor. With the i60c, I'm lucky if I'm still connected after the door slides shut. The reduced reception with the i60c is a real disappointment to me because superior connectivity (few dropped calls) is the reason I chose Nextel over 2 years ago. Sprint and Verizon couldn't hold a candle to Nextel's coverage in my area. With that advantage all but eliminated with my i60c, I'm inclined to investigate less expensive providers who GIVE me a smaller, more feature-laden phone just for signing up. I bought my i1000 plus and I bought the i60c. Wish I had my $200 back! Once cell phone number portability goes into effect later this year, I will be very tempted. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88691 2000/3/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great design walke talkie cheap long battery life most normal features nice size expensive plans does not have some standard features such as alarm clock The Bottom LineThis is the best Nextel Phone on the market. It is great for the price and is incredibly durable. Compared to it's counterparts battery life, it is amazing. Full Review There are many different Nextel phones on the market. The newest being the Nextel i95c. It is a great phone, but the battery life on that phone is horrible. You have to carry an extra battery with you at all times incase it runs out. (The dealer will even tell you this but make it sound like a good thing). This is not the case with Nextel i60. I have had this phone for almost half a year now and I love it do death. The battery life is remarkable. Even people that I know with the i95 complain about their battery life. This problem is not even conceivable with the i60. It lasts for about two days straight without being charged. Aside from the battery life, this phone is very durable. It does not have the caller id display on the front like its other Nextel competitors but I take that as a good thing. I have seen people shatter the glass on the caller id due to the phone dropping. The i60 has sort of a rubber pad on the face to protect it from accidental drops. The Nextel i60 has decent features. One thing that really gets me is that it does not have an alarm clock. I used this feature on my old phone all the time. Nextel should consider adding an alarm clock to this phone. Aside from the alarm clock, another feature it does not have is that you cannot write text messages unless your internet is activated on the phone. However, you can still receive text messages. In addition, this phone does not have any games. Other then that, the i60 offers all other basic features found on almost all cell phones like 250 phonebook entry, ring tones, vibration, etc. The design of the phone is exactly like its counterparts i95 and i90. Its body is exactly like the i90 but without the caller id display on the front. Other differences between the two phones include, advanced features on the i90 and the blue backlight display. The i60 offers a dull green display. If you are me however, I could care less about the backlight. For those that are familiar with Nextel, it was mainly designed for the business person. With that in mind, the Nextel plans are expensive compared to other providers on the market. The Nextel i60 has great reception in the city area as long as you don't break or lose your antenna. I accidentally unscrewed my antenna and lost it. After this happened, I barely had any reception anywhere until I got a new antenna. In the Suburban areas however, this phone has only decent connection. I occasionally have dropped calls when I am out of the city. Finally, we get to the price. At this time, this phone is CHEAP. You can find it in the New York City area for $50 with a $50 mail in rebate, so you basically get it for free. You just have to pay activation charges and things like that. If you get this phone instead of the i90, which is almost exactly the same thing, you will save a lot of money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88690 2000/2/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact size two way plus cellular basic features flip design no case or holder included no view screen on outside of cover The Bottom LineThis is a nice cell phone that also has the two way radio capability. It is light and compact. If you get one, I suggest getting the leather case. Full Review Nextel I-60C I am the Nextel coordinator for a public school district and I currently manage 89 Nextel phones. We recently started upgrading older phones to the new I-60c and we love it. First off the size is perfect. We have a lot of the old I-1000 flip phones which are very bulky compared to the new I-60c. I've been working with this model phone for about 3 months now and haven't had any complaints about it. All my users love the compact size and the basic features to the phone. Menus are pretty straight forward and easy to follow. You don't have to read the manual front to back to learn how to program this phone. I suggest downloading the Companion Pro software for free from http://idenphones.motorola.com/iden/support/software/pcsftw_applications.jsp Design - The I-60c is well made and very sturdy as well as compact. It does lack the convenience of a small screen on the outside of the phone to identify incoming calls as on the I-90c version. Once the cover is open, it has a nice sized display with an easy to read font. Navigation through menus is accomplished by a four way arrow pad above the numbers. One drawback is the lack of a carrying device. The I-60c ships with out the plastic snap in holder that used to be standard. Nextel is however, now offering a leather case with belt clip as an option to the plastic holder. There are now many cases available for the I-60c from after market vendors. Battery - The battery on the I-60c although small, holds a good charge. After 14 hours of charging, the phone holds a charge for a good 5 to 7 days in standby mode. Functions - This phone has all the common features that you would expect in a phone, (phone book, customizable styles, different ring tones and more) One nice thing about the phone book is that you enter a persons name only once then you can assign different phone numbers for work, home, mobile, and direct connect instead of having to reenter the name for each different number. You can also download different ring tones from http://www.nextel.com. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 64.00 88689 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 versitile reliable affordable chicks dig it durable walkie talkie losses signal speaker functions poorly at times The Bottom LineA great phone that surpasses the usefulness of other cells. Who doesn't want a intercontinental walkie talkie? Full Review My father purchased two Nextel i60s for my sister and I last Christmas. After his divorce from my mother, it was all he could do to keep in touch without having to call the house. I thought it was cool at the moment, in fact, the i60 is still cool, but the little alerts from my father never seem to stop. Anyway as you can tell from the con section above, there are very few actual problems with this phone. The only things that have a few glitches are the speaker phone option and some walkie talkie problems that simply cut you off time to time. Both of these functions are really cutting-edge for cell phones. I think I'm the only person I've ever seen using a cell phone that isnt up against my ear. If you've ever used a speaker phone, you've probably notice that only one person can talk at a time. Like voice actuation on a tape recorder, the speaker phone only records noise and mutes the line when no audible noise is available. This however, ends up cutting off some words or fluctuations in a voice. The phone buttons and controls are very easy to use, you have a PHBK (phonebook) where you can list the names of your friends and their phone numbers, all of them, work, home, cell, etc, and correspond a phone type to them. For instance, my friend Tom has a office number: 488-797-8877 listed under work, and a home number: 488-676-8743 listed under home. Very simple. It also has a neat message system where you call in to your voice box. Turn the phone off and the messages are not deleted. The Settings function is pretty elementary, you can check recent calls and alerts, etc. etc. The walkie talkie is the easiest to operate. Simple go to the PHBK, scroll through the list of names until you find another Nextel using buddy of yours, press the button on the side and they will be alerted. Then if they press their button you can hold a conversation. In this way, they wont be interrupted by your voice, booming like God at 2:00 at night. I mentioned that the phone is easy to add on to. Let me explain. If you've ever seen a Honda go down the road with lights where the washer fluid ejectors are placed, or neon lights under the body, the same can be done to your Nextel. You can buy mega batteries that light up when it rings. Replacement antennas can do the same thing. All in all a great phone whose implications are endless. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88688 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of options overall good phone small design no display on front only one size text The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a good quality phone but doesn't need all the special applications which can be gained by a higher end unit. Full Review Here is one of the newer "flip" phones which has come out from Motorola and Nextel. Of course, the i60c has the Direct Connect capability which pushes Nextel past other wireless carriers. However, the i60c has many other options on it as well. It is an overall good phone and has a better design for durability than the old i1000 models which Motorola produced. SIZE - The size is great. It is a relatively small phone, but not one which you will lose because it is too small to find. It measures just 3.6" x 2" x 1.1", so it is a good size even if you want to carry it in a purse or pocket. It weighs in at a rather light 5.36 oz with the battery on it, so it will be no means strain you carrying or lifting it. BATTERY - The battery is a Lithium Ion battery which does not create "memory problems" and can be charged whenever you need to charge it. Remember to give it that long first initial charge though. The talk time is around 165 minutes which will give you a crick in your neck if you actually talk that long continuously. The standby time is approximately 75 hours on a full charge, so it will last quite a long time if not used much ... but then again why pay for a cell phone and not use it. FEATURES- One thing about the i60c which is kind of a bummer is the fact that there is only one setting for lines of text. There are 4 lines of text and it cannot be changed. For instance, on the i90 where you have options of 4, 6, or even 8. This does mean however Motorola gave the largest setting so you don't have to strain to read the screen. Direct Connect and speakerphone are on this model. Direct Connect is the digital two-way walkie talkie feature that enables the Nextel users to "radio" each other hundreds of miles away ... and probably farther in the future. It is a real saver if you can utilize it. The speakerphone gives you capabilities to not have to try the lean your head against your shoulder to keep the phone in a position to hear. It is helpful with hands-free operation and also if more than one person needs to hear the call or speak on the call. Vibrate features allow the phone to notify you of incoming calls or messages via vibration instead of beeping loudly and distrubing people around you. Flip options allow you to open the flip without answering the call and then deciding whether you want to answer the call or not once you see who is calling (caller id required for this option to be complete of course). Internet ready. This phone has capabilities to receive internet data. For instance, you can check your hotmail account or look at weather forecasts or directions ... or many other things. This will need Nextel Online which is a service that can range from around $5 - $15 but may be beneficial to you. You can even bid on eBay if you want to. Recent calls list enables you to see the last 20 calls either incoming or outgoing which lets you keep track of the activity of your phone. It is easily accessible by simply pressing down on the keypad and then you can easily call the numbers in the list by either pressing the send key or PTT (push-to-talk) button. Making getting back in touch with someone rather easy. Phone book. The i60c, like many of the newer Nextel phones, holds 250 entries and can hold up to 7 entries for one individual. This gives you great capabilities to put all your contacts in your phone. Plus you have 7 entries for one person and all you have to do is press the arrow keys to scroll through the types of entries (home, work, radio, fax, etc) instead of having 7 separate entries for the same person and having to remember which is which. It is all recognized by icons. Other features include the options to lock the keypad for security purposes, alternate ring styles in case you like to change tones every once in a while, auto answer which picks up the call after 2 rings (careful could get you in trouble), 3-way calling so you can conference people in, and many more. The only other bummer is that the i60c does not come with a carry holster, so that must be purchased separate. However, in the box is included a wall charger, user manual, and a credit card size tool to hold your sim card. The sim card is what stores all the data for your phone. Without the sim card the phone is non-functional ... another security feature but could become troublesome having to take it out and insert. Overall, the i60c phone is a good choice for its value and price. It has many options and is a great size for the average mobile phone user. The phone is available currently in black. I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a good quality phone but doesn't need all the special applications which can be gained by a higher end unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88687 2004/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 smaller user friendly phone with direct connect have to open to see who is calling no outside display The Bottom LineThis is a nice phone with good features, although if I had bought the phone I would have gone for an upgrade from the i60C. Full Review Why I have one Just to put it on the record, I did not buy this phone. My job requires me to carry a cell phone, and the plant that I work at has approximately 300 people with cells. Due to the high amount of internal 'burning' of minutes, we negotiated a deal with Nextel to install a tower by the plant and lock us into a deal where we would guarantee them service for 3 years. Due to this, I recently had to switch from a nice Kyocera(I will write a review on this soon) to the Motorola i60C. The Good This phone has a very good battery. In my case, it has two very good batteries. The package deal that my company bought into was the phone, two batteries, one car charger cord, one wall charger cord and the belt clip. In any case, each charged battery will last you approximately 160 minutes of continuous talk, and without continuous talking I have had them last 4 days. The phone is very eye appealing. The Motorola belt clip allows you to carry the phone with you, and it looks good. Also, the belt clip is very sturdy, and I have not had the problem of this phone catching on things and falling off at odd places. This is a big plus over the previous Kyocera I had. The i-60C has a large phone book. It can hold up to 250 entries with up to 7 entries under each individual. The one downside to the phone book I have seen is that it does not allow me to plug in whole names. There is only 11 characters for the names; other phones I have had in the past have much more spaces than this, and most of my friends names do as well. The i-60C has large buttons that are easy to manipulate while driving. What I mean to say is that the keys are large enough that you know where you are at without looking. This can be very handy while driving or in a crowd. Along the same lines, the speakerphone option is very good. Just think, you don't have to buy that expensive hands free system to use this phone safely! The speaker is very loud, and the reception is also very good. I have not had problems with the speaker dropping out or the other person not being able to hear me while driving 70 miles an hour in a loud car. The antenna is also a very nice feature, as any of you that have broken antenna's in the past will know. The antenna on the i-60C is easy to remove and replace in case of breakage. I had a Motorola 120C that this was definitely not the case with! Finally, the SIM is a nice feature. I have only had my phone for one month and I have already had to replace it. I was working at the plant and it was dropped into a pool of liquid, which of course sent the display on the fritz. I took it in to our local rep, and she took the SIM card out, put it in a new phone, and away I went. I had all of my own contacts and everything already programmed in, as they go with the SIM. The Bad I have already mentioned some of the things that I do not like about the phone. Here are just a few more. This feels to me like a cheap phone. Nothing in comparison to the star-tacs of old, but still not as sturdy as the Kyocera and 120C that I have owned in the past. The plastic seems flimsy, and it feels like it would break if dropped. I have dropped it several times and not had any issues, but it still feels flimsy to me. The flip phone is not easy to manipulate with one hand. I have had several calls that I try to open the flip while driving and it opens partially and then closes again. This of course sends the person to voice mail right away, and then you get the annoying tone letting you know that you have a voice mail. This is not a huge deal, but it is something that has happened enough to where I have noticed it. There are not as many 'flashy' things as there were on the Kyocera and 120C. The ring alternatives are very minor, and the on phone display is not intuitively easy. I have not had the time to set down and read the book to get all of the information, but I didn't have to with the other two phones. The best The main reason to buy this phone is obviously for the Nextel Direct Connect. If it were not for this feature, I would have stuck it out with my Kyocera. I do like this phone, and I like the features of it, but after having several other more user friendly and attractive phones, I would like to have something with a little more pizazz! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0, companyRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7756 Nextel i500plus 88722 2000/5/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 two radio horrible customer service you can t check on the numbers that called you The Bottom LineDo not buy a Nextel unless you're ready for lots of aggravasion Full Review Let me start off by saying, I've now oficially had my Nextel for approx. 5 months, previously I owned a Nokia under At&T. I was first attracted to Nextel by the two way radio, I thought it was rather cool you can walkie talkie someone who lived many many miles away. After these past five months I can safely say..NEVER AGAIN. Nextel offers these great options but doesn't stand up to them. For example, you could have full bars (full range) and be on two way with someone and then all of a sudden you can't page them because it'll give you a message saying "User unavailable" and they'll get the same message. (Note:both parties are in full range) This whole process could go on for a good 5 minutes. Another thing is, they have the worst customer service imaginable. Nobody wants to help you and it seems you're bill is always getting messed up. Trying calling there 1800-Nextel number anytime of the day, and you could possible wait up to an hour plus..even when you get someone on the line, it'll be a circle which will lead to disconnection of some sort. I strongly suggest anyone wanting to get a nextel look past all the "cool" features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60 88721 2009/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use slightly larger than some phones Full Review If you have a business, small or large, Nextel and the i-500plus are for you! Combined with great cellular service you also get a radio built into the phone. Keep in touch with the office or with other business associates. If you go out of the calling area the i-500 lets you forward the phone to any number. Our business uses these phones for our customer support line. Six employees have the phone with them at all times and can forward the phones to any other person. The battery life is great and the features are easy to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88720 2000/8/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it looks like a southern link radio it doesn t perform like a southern link radio The Bottom LineI would go with a cheaper company if dealing with just the radio part of it! Full Review I have considered changeing numerous times from Southernlink to Nextel, but I could not find a good or beter deal than what I was already getting with Slink. I liked Ntl phones they are very clear and there service is good, and the price is right. I found a deal on Ntl radios and went for it. I went for the radio option only and was disappointed. The main reason why I went for the radios was that they were supposed to have better reception, and clear as a bell communication. To say the least they are just like Slink. I needed a radio that did not break up as much, and they break up more. The radios sound just the same as the next. There is no more quality to them than the next. They are Identical in everyway to the next radio handset.EXAMPLE: 1.Programable Names/numbers memory 2.Battery indicator 3.Antenna Indicator 4.Rechargeable battery 5.Collapseable antenna The Ntl company is expensive for how much they lack in feasability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350.00 88719 2000/7/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good sound short battery life feels awkward Full Review I use a mobile phone for basics: travelling and some communication outside of running from work to school to home. This is a corporate account, not private. I don't like this phone. Its too heavy and very bulky. Its an awkward feel. The sound is good, but the battery doesn't seem to last very long(over an hour, but not much more than 90 minutes). There also seems to be more of a problem when people call; I've had people tell me they only received a message saying the "We are trying to locate the Nextel customer" or something like that...and then will go directly into the voicemail, maybe. I know I've left messages for people and they never received them. I also do not like the radio feature of the phone, I feel it is intrusive and that most people don't want to hear someone else's conversation. I don't use it, except in a few cases; it would be a decent feature for work communication, but it is used more widely in everyday life. I would not recommend this phone for private use. Recommended: No 88718 2000/6/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 great service great customer service low cost phone big heavy The Bottom LineNextel needs to look into making lighter and smaller phones. But there servie and customer service is the best in the business!! Full Review I bought the Nextel I500 Plus twin pack about a couple of months ago. There was plan for $69.00 a month. You share 300 minuets of cellular service with each of the phones and 400 minuets of direct connect minuets. I then bought a desktop charger and another battery for the phones. Good things 1. Coverage area for both the direct connect feature and cellular is very good were I live. 2. Good customer service, answered all my email questions I had about the service and the phones. Bad things 1. Price, You can find something better then the $69.00 for two cellular phones. 2. This phone is very HEAVY and big,Nextel needs to find a way to make smaller phones and make them a little lighter. I thought I was carrying a brick but is was my phone. 3. I had one problem with one of the phones were I would put in a new battery and if someone tried to direct connect me it wouldn't work. I have closed my account has of today 1/3/01 and I was told that there was a contract for one year and that I would have to pay $200.00 to close my account. I guess I will have to eat the money to get out of the deal since I have found a better deal. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 69.00 88717 2009/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good planno roaming cost doesn t work in some small communities Full Review I bought the Nextel because the phone had both phone service and two way Radio and it was a great way to keep in touch with both employees and family without having a huge Phone bill Nextel offers great plans for a great value. the phone and two way radio is great to use from all over the country without ever having a roaming charge you can get in touch with someone one your account with two way radio with just a push of the button.I love that you can use the phone and the two way radio all over the country without a roaming charge and a good price. I hate that in some small communities that the phone doesn't work.anyone with a business or that wants to keep in touch with their family should buy this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88716 2000/7/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 smalldoes it all for less maybe a little on the heavy side with the standard battery Full Review Welcome to the next generation in wireless communications. This phone has every thing you want and more in a budget model phone. Now lets get to the features of the phone. This phone has all the standard Nextel features such as cell phone, 2-way messaging, paging, voicemail. Well this phone is a "Plus" model phone which means that it is able to "surf" the internet, send/receive 2-way pages, and many more future applications that are on the horizon. It is also software upgradeable to the new 550+ (when it comes to market). This means that is will be able to also have speakerphone, and a couple of other neat features in the near future. This phone is a must have for anyone who is looking for a do-it-all phone that won't break you with a price of only $99. So if your in the market for a great phone look no further than the i500+. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88715 2009/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 rugged user friendly clarity durable small none found yet Full Review Amazing how the "Experts" flow out of the woodwork with opinions but are never heard of in the real world. I use the i500 in western Colorado to supplement our Emergency Communication in Search and Rescue, Wild Fires, etc. This little phone is rugged and has met all demands placed on it. It has taken abuse by getting banged around, exposure to fine dust and extreme weather conditions. If it didn't hold up it would be back in the salesman's lap. I bought this product as a special package when I signed on with NEXTEL. I had originally purchased the i1000 but the sales rep sent the i500 by mistake. Best mistake he ever made. I have not found anything that I dislike about this unit (yet). Of course, I look for the positive of what I need; not its faults. I would suggest this product to a novice for it's user friendly features. If I can understand and use it, anyone can. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 special 88714 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 two way radio good phone service clarity the i1000 model is a little complicated Full Review A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about his new Nextel cell phone. What he told me didn't even begin to describe how great this phone really is, so I thought I would give it a shot. Every model of Nextel phones has a two-way radio feature. Its great - its free. You can contact anyone else you have stored into your phones memory within a range. I've used this for business, and just for fun trying to meet up with people. All you have to do is highlight the name of the person, and hit the button on the side and talk. It doesnt count against your phone minutes, and you can use it as much as you want. The actual phone service i get is great too. I never have a problem with clarity or weak signals. I think this is an overall great product, with a good design on every model of phone they make. Anyone who is looking for a cell phone, and also would like the two-way radio feature all in one should pick the Nextel line of phones, no question. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88713 2000/3/3 Product Rating2.0 low price lack of detail poor customer service Full Review Our company has grown a great deal. So much so, that our radio channel needed relief from all of the traffic. My boss had this marvelous idea of setting all of our foremen up on Nextel telephones. Yeah! Great idea! Getting the phones in was no problem. Great! I get a ticket for the phones and I had a question. I pay the bills for all of our products and materials. So, I call the number on the ticket to ask my question. Our phones were not in the system yet, so the girl on the other end could tell me NOTHING! Hello? Nothing? They sent the phones, and they could tell me nothing. She said, "wait for your first bill." I'm a little miffed, but I can do nothing. Here comes the first bill. The bill does not clarify anything. Our company works mostly in invoice numbers. Have you ever seen a bill that had NO INVOICE NUMBER? They show the invoice as "service to such and such a date." It shows somewhat of what was ordered, but no specifics. I call the company again. This time, the girl can answer my questions, somewhat. I feel a little more informed. My PERSONAL mobile bill shows more than what THEY do. I was also put on hold for longer than what I deemed necessary. Needless to say, I would NOT recommend this service to anyone who is establishing a mobile service with their company. Recommended: No 88712 2000/1/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use bad keypad layout Full Review My husband loves this phone! He suggested to his boss that the Nextel phone would be a good idea to keep in contact with the 10 vans they have own the road. After he told his boss all the good things the phones could do, his boss figured there must be a down side & they have yet to find it. The direct connect feature is very convenient. It's range is very good also! My husband has found less dead spots with this phone than others he has used! I love it because it also works like a walkie-talkie! When he is at work (which is normally a long distance call) the phone has a button (direct connect) to push & talk to him. There are no charges that accumulate during this! Also, he has a feature that I can e-mail him (a small note - grocery list) and there is a minimal charge for this! Oh yeah, it has caller ID. This is definitely the wave of the future. Recommended: Yes 88711 2000/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life direct connect very durable buttons can wear out hard to find one in great shape now The Bottom LineA great phone for hands-on type workers, still a bit bulky for average consumer ... but very durable. Full Review Hello again, I just got done writing a review for the i550plus (the sister phone to the i500plus). Basically they are very, very similar with a few redesign changes made by Motorola. The first thing every one notices is the i500 does not have the date and time ... big deal to field personnel. It is every bit as durable as the i550 though. This phone is the original phone the construction company I work for purchased for field workers when getting started with Nextel. I will first mention a few problems that can occur with these. - It seems as though the antenna can be broken ... while it seems to me to take some effort it can be done - The keypad will sometimes wear out ... especially in a dusty environment (this is because of the way the keypad board is constructed with a few holes that let dust and dirt in ... it gets under the plastic and corroded the tabs) - The speaker can get metal shavings in it and cause it to be hard to hear - On a few of the phones the charge pin's solder can break loose causing a problem with not charging Most of these problems can be repaired easily, and are not very common problems, but they do happen. Anyway, I have seen these phones go through thick and thin, rain and sun, etc They have the common Nextel features of: direct connect, phone, paging capabilities, group talk, web browsing, 100 phone list, 100 direct connect list, caller id, call waiting, etc. They, too, can have speakerphone added to them for a mere $20 (see i550plus review on how to do this). The battery life is great at 85 hrs standby and 5.5 hrs talk time (who could ever talk that whole time). These phones will hold up to being dropped, kicked, and a good deal of other problems ... (as long as it isn't dropped on the antenna, it will break the receptacle attached to the board inside and you will need a new phone). It is a tough little phone which isn't as bulky as the i550, but still isn't the common consumer size these days. These phones have been discontinued for well over a year and are hard to find in great shape, but if you find one at a good price in good shape it will probably be worth your while. Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88710 2000/7/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 2 way walkie reception fuzzy at times goes inout Full Review I got this phone for the 2 way radio feature and the plan has no roaming charges which is great for myself because i travel quite a bit! Well on the minus side with the phone-No clock?what is this even the first cell i had 3 years ago had a clock and for ehat you pay for them you would expect a clock,the second thing that bugs me is that it is too heavy it is a very bulky phone i feel like i have my home phone on my belt clip!!!Also the reception can be really bad in some areas but i find more bad than good areas i guess.Alot of times when i am on the phone it just hangs up.Now I do not know if anyone else has this prob but i know 4 other people with this phone and they have never had a prob with reception!OOHHH lucky me right! On the plus side you can get the net mail,you can send messages right from their web page which i like.Also the plans are good i get a lot of minutes for a reasonable amount of money.Now of course the 2 way radio is a plus I love it it has a huge range of about 120-125 miles!!That is unreal!!My whole family has these and we do love them because we can communicate without running up our minutes! In conclusion I would reccomend these phones to anyone they are great but I would spend the extra cash to get the I700 model it is more compact and easy to hold Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88709 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quick radio communications cannot receive two radio signals at once Full Review I intern at the US Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, Fl and the main source for secondery communications is the Nextels. We use this model, the i500plus which so happens to be the same phone that I have. They dont use the phone capability but instead just use the two way radio feature. It is issued to the CO (Commanding Officer, in charge of all operations), the OOD (Officer of the Day, in charge of station on particular days), the watch standard(radio dispatcher), the coxswains (operators of the CG vessels), and others. The nextels are important to us because it keeps an open line of communication between all these people who will respond to emergency calls on almost a daily basis. Usually the watchstandard will use the nextel to quickly advise the OOD that there is an emergency, in turn the OOD will come to assess the problem and once the Coast Guard Rescue boats are dispatched they keep constant radio communication through the nextel, allowing the radio watchstandard to assist the vessel in distress through the normal boat radio. Maybe the manufactureres of Nextel do not know it, but there phones have helped save many people's lives by allowing the Coast Guard to respond quickly to an emergency. And although you may never use this to go save a sinking vessel out in the Atlantic, it offers a quick form of communication when phones are busy or when you are in an emergency. Recommended: Yes 88708 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 they are portable they are bulky The Bottom LineFor a demanding work life they are good to keep an eye on workers. Battery life is good. Full Review I work for a repo company in Florida and we use the !500 two-way radios for our agents. If we need to find out where they are in the field, we need to contact them quickly, so we find their name in the list, press a button and they are notified that we are trying to reach them. I like tech gadgets like this anyway, so I would find these radios cool. I am thinking about buying them for personal use, but the way the monthly fees are, I don't think it will be anytime soon. The unit itself is a bit bulky and really isn't small enough to put in your purse unless it's big enough to put a kitchen sink in. It may be just the right size for the belt loop. I'm sure there are smaller ones out there. The buttons on the unit are good to see and the screen is clear to see print. I use it at work just for the two-way radio function, so I don't even know what other features work on it good. It has a phone and a pager that work like all the others I would assume. But, the two way radio works like a cell phone anyway. Just ring the person and they talk just like a phone. This way is better though since you speak into the unit instead of putting it to the ear. The voices are clear and has adjustable volume on it so it can be raised to hear voices. If the volume is too loud don't hold the unit up to your ear unless you want to lose your hearing. They have great range for two way radios. We use ours between Clearwater and Fort Meyers Florida which are a couple hours from each other. Our office is in a remote area, so when towers go down, it's hard to reach anyone. If the other unit you're trying to contact is busy, it will just let you know. From what I understand, there is a set up fee to set up the units to program whoever you want to have in your phone. The fee is extra and I'm not sure how much it would be, but I always thought it would be the owner who was able to program in the other people. I would assume the other person has to have the same unit. So, if you go to price these make sure the dealer tells you ALL the FEES UPFRONT and ask for any hidden costs. I went to see how much they were and a deal in a Florida Mall was 2 for $84.00. I don't know if that is the dealer deal or a Nextel deal. However, I will say that the monthly rate for these things are a bit dumb. Nice and high. This deal went by minutes per phone and was like $70/ monthly. It was for two of these units for my husband and I, but I have a pager that is just as good and lots cheaper. So, if you are willing to pay a hefty fee per month for these units, go nuts. I would assume these plans are among competition for other two way radios, but think before you buy. The units are good though and if I had a REAL need for them I would buy them. They are reliable units, we use them in the office the whole day and never runs low on battery, they are charged over nite and are good to keep track of important people that may do a lot of errands. I would recommend them for anyone who can put them to good use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2/$84 88707 2000/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 two way awasome cell phone service The Bottom LineTwo way is great.. Free..And talk anywhere. Keep in touch with friends with nextel's for free on two way. Full Review Well it all started off that my husband got a nextel.. Everyone at his work got one..well I had a prepaid..Man it was bad. I had to use it everyday or lose money and on my phone. did not want to come in most of the time. Soooo. me and my husband were talking and he went out and got me one also.It is wonderful. Lots of features. I can also talk to him on what is called a two way.. which is free to use. as long as someone else had a nextel and your code they can talk to you..Saves us money too.. I also have a email on it.. I do not use. Because I have my computer. :-) There is some bad. like service. but actally I have seen worse.. so it is not all that bad. believe me this little phone has come in handy many of times.. It also has voice mail. which is wonderful. so I do not miss anything at all. I can keep track of how many hours I am on it. have memory in it to store all my phone numbers.. so much to say. It is very useful and the two way is GREAT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88706 2000/1/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 radio phone Full Review At work, we use this Nextel phone/radio. I also deal with a lot of customers who use this product. I'll start with what I do like about it. The radio. The 2 way radio is the greatest thing you could ever put on a gadget like this. It has excellent reception, you can always hear the person your talking to very clear, and it has some great Alert features. For instance I can alert someone who may not have the volume turned up loud enough, and it will beep at them every 20 seconds until they answer it! It's so helpful! Now here's what I don't like: the phone. The coverage area is terrible, and so is the reception! First of all there is a constant echo in the background every time you talk! It gets very annoying. And on top of that, there seems to be a 1 1/2 second delay to whatever you say. The delay is the biggest problem when you're trying to give someone directions or a phone number. You end up talking over each other because of the long pauses. There is the option to only hook up the radio when you purchase this phone, and that is what I recommend...scrap the phone, you can't hear good on it anyway! Get a Motorolla, or Nokia they work much better! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88705 2009/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 direct connect small a little heavy signal loss sometimes thick Full Review I recently purchased the Nextel i500Plus, a phone made by Motorola. As far as I have noticed in the month and a half I have had the phone, it works very well. The battery lasts a couple of days, even if you talk on it periodically. The phone is small, but it is a little heavy and thick. However, it is not bad at all. The best feature of this phone has to be Nextel Direct Connect. Using this feature, you can talk to any other member of the network that has a nextel phone free of charge, so long as you are in your home calling area. I have saved tons of money using this feature to talk to my friends and co-workers, instead of having to dial them and pay the charges. As far as signal goes, I have found it to be pretty good. There are a select few places where signal drops to nothing, but this is very rare. When the signal is strong, the other person can be heard very clearly, often even better than a home phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88704 2000/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 ergonomic shape it can be abused bulky compared to most cellular phone Full Review Let me start off by telling you that I was employed by NEXTEL so I'd pretty much say I'm an expert on all of their (Motorola's) product line. The i500+ is a durable phone. This unit can take your abuse and shouldn't malfunction. It is essentially and i390 in a newly designed hardware package...it has all the same features as the i390 plus a couple meager improvements that won't be beneficial for most people. The unit has the selection of some additional languages--is that really a big improvement for most Americans? I'd say not. The menus are easy to use, but that's how all of the NEXTEL/MOTOROLA units are, so its pretty easy to program. This phone, like the i390, lacks a vibrate/silent ring mode and lacks the caller ID features that most consumers would expect to see (actually, it has silent ring mode, but without the vibrate option, what's the point?). The radio feature is an added incentive, but all of MOTOROLA's line of phones for NEXTEL have that built in. This phone looks nice but really doesn't have what it takes to satisfy most people. It's pretty bulky, similar to the i390, but is slightly more streamlined for ergonomical purposes and it weighs a little bit more than a common cellular phone. This may be a good entry-level phone, but I would recommend the i1000+ for most consumers' needs and purposes. The sound quality is great near most populated areas, but if you go to an out of the way place, you'll probably lose service/coverage...you can call (800) 639-6111 to get information on the NEXTEL coverage area, among other things. I would recommend this model phone to anybody who seeks a no-frills cellular phone that can be abused. It is ideal for anybody who works in an abusive environment, such as: construction workers, lawn care/maintenance employees or even firefighters, etc. If you are looking for a phone with all the enhanced features that seem to be standard on most cellular phones today, avoid the i500+ and get the i1000+. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 88703 2000/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small perfect clarity compact wide range of plans available the phone is a bit heavy Full Review The Nextel i500plus is great. First you can use it as a two way radio. It is crystal clear with no static at all. I have an unlimited plan so we really use the two way. It has an alert button so you can contact someone even if they have the volume turned down and it will page them every 20 seconds until they answer. The phone itself seems to be quite clear as well and its small sleek design is perfect for carrying around. There are plenty of accessories available as well as a carrying case and belt clip. I have an extensive coverage area and can call from practically anywhere. Also Nextell does not charge roaming fees if you leave your calling area. This is the perfect phone for my family. We can stay in contact with each other using the two way and we have cellular service for contacting others. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 for two 88702 2001/1/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 two way radio heavy no call history The Bottom LineBottom line, I would highly recommend the Nextel service. However, I would pass on the i500 plus and step up to a better model. Full Review We currently use the Motorola i500 plus at work with our Nextel service. Overall, the Nextel service is great and I would recommend it to any business that uses mobile phones. The two-way radio feature is a major advantage when communicating with co-workers. It can save a lot of time and expenses. The clarity of most phone calls seems to be pretty good. Every once in a while you will hear an echo of everything that you say. The echo does tend to be a little annoying and distracting. I'm not sure if the echo is from the i500 or from the Nextel service. As far as the Motorola i500 plus phone goes, if practical, I would recommend upgrading to a better model (i.e. i1000 plus). The i500 is a very big and very heavy phone compared to the average mobile phone these days. It weighs in at about half a pound, mostly because of the battery. Most phones these days are only a few ounces. The only other thing that I do not like about this phone is the lack of an incoming and outgoing call history. This does not sound like that big of a deal, but it a very convenient feature. There have been several times that my phone was ringing and I was not able to answer it before it rolled over to my voice mail. Well without a call history, if the caller does not leave a message, I have no idea who was trying to reach me. Also, a call history is convenient when you want to save the phone number of someone who has recently called. With the i500 you, have to take the time to write it down instead of it already being stored in the call history. From the information that I have, all the models above the i500 have call histories. Overall, I would highly recommend the Nextel service, but make sure you upgrade to one of the nicer model phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 69 88701 2000/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact fun comfortable antenna seems easy to break but can be retracted Full Review My father received this phone from work, and me being the technical one in the family, I think it's a very handy, cool phone. The nice things about it is you can get rid of your pager, because this thing has it as another feature. It's a cellular phone, pager, and also has voice mail. It also has "walkie talkie" capabilities, where you can program up to 100 co-workers that also have the i500, and communicate with them at the touch of a button. You can take this phone fun anywhere. And i can't get over the clarity. My father owned a Ericson cellular phone at one point of time, and I couldn't understand by dad from 30 miles away. I called my dad on the phone last week from 150 miles away, and it was crystal clear clarity. I'm not sure how much it costs, but i do know there's no roaming and incoming calls are free. It also has a very nice line of useful accessories, too. Recommended: Yes 88700 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything then some dropped calls not often Full Review For 49.00 you can get a good cellular phone that has a 2way radio that you can use to keep in touch with family, business or friends without using your airtime. It's small enough and fashionable enough to be worn in full view. The rates with Nextel are really business rates, because the company was really set up for corporations and business use. But for 69.95 you can get 600 minutes and unlimited 2way radio, for 6.00 extra you get voicemail, paging(text & numeric) and caller id. They also have a good plan for weekend use 1000 minutes a month for 10.00 (which roughly comes out to 250 minutes per weekend). They also have an insurance program for 3.95 a month per phone, it has 35.00 deductible so your total bill each month as long as you stay within your airtime use would be 89.90 not including taxes. The cons about the Nextel phones is the dropped calls, because there is no roaming (and therefore no roaming fees) calls tend to drop if the signal strength isnt stronger enough, but the system recognizes a dropped call and immediately credits your account for each call dropped. Other than that, I havent had any problems with my phone or service with Nextel and the operators at the 800 number are extremely helpful with questions and technical problems, like setting up voicemail, if I get a error message, or if I mistakenly switch my line from 1-2(the phone has 2 lines). I'm planning on getting more cell phones in the future for family members and I recommend this product for everyone who travels alot within their state and need to stay in touch with family and friends without stopping their travel plans to use a regular phone. give it a try I believe Nextel, their products, new and old will surprise you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 88699 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features size Full Review When I first walked into the electronics store, I was surrounded by cellular phones. They were all shapes and sizes, even different colors. Of course, me being me, I hadn't done any research beforehand to see what I needed. I did need the phone right away so I decided to buy one and then return it if it wasn't satisfactory. Luckily, Iknew to look for a Nextel because both of my parents' have a Nextel phone and apparently Nextel offered some sort of free service between phone owners. I picked out the Nextel i500 plus. The phone comes in a jet black finish, with both white and black buttons. There is a viewable LCD on the phone that is backlit. The phone also has volume buttons, and a button that makes the phone into a "walkie-talkie" (more on this later). It is not as small as some of the newer phones, but it makes up it's size with a relatively large assortment of easy-to-use features. As I mentioned earlier, Nextel offers free "walkie-talkie" services to it;s customers. Thus if I need to get in contact with my Dad, I simply scroll to his nam eon the LCD screen, and press the "Walkie-Talkie" button. This service is totally free and sounds just as good as a normal phone. If you are looking for a good phone for business use, or for a family cell phone, get this phone. If you want something smaller, this might not be for you, but I'm sure there is another great Nextel product that would suit your needs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88698 2001/1/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 clear durable 2 way radio menu options are a bit clumsy bulkybattery life isn t very high The Bottom LineNeed a durable phone with clear quality? Great choice. 2-way a great feature! Full Review I work in a retail store, and I can tell you from experience (although not my intention), that these phones can take a hefty fall, and still work. (Kids, remember, this is not intended to be done at home to test this theory). Sometimes my job in retail requires me to climb a ladder and get product for customers. In doing so, this phone has taken 3 falls from 10+ feet, hit the ground, and never even quit, broke, chipped, etc. Countless times it has been dropped down the stairs, fell off my belt and went rolling, etc. Never once has it failed to work. I do not condone purposely dropping, throwing, or abusing your phone in anyway, but unfortunately my phone receives this type of abuse almost daily. Other phones that people I work with have taken the fall, and at minimum have separated the batteries (anyone have a Nokia 5100 or 6100 series phone, I'm sure can relate to this). Other phones have shattered, broke the antenna, etc. This phone has been very clear on the cellular portion of the phone. In areas where other customers have not been able to get a strong signal, my phone has been crystal clear. The major issue with this is check to make sure the area you plan to use your phone in is supported by Nextel. Although you get great quality in areas where Nextel is available, there are still (getting better) areas where Nextel is not available. Nextel does not borrow towers (which is also the reason for clearer calls, and no roaming fees), so when you have signal it's great, but when you don't, they don't at all... The two-way radio is fantastic. While I'm at work, my fiance is over 30 miles away, and that too is clear as talking on hand-held two-way radios in the next room. Only downside to this feature is the half-duplex, 'walky-talky' style operation (in other words, if someone is talking to you, you can't interrupt). The few minor downsides to the phone would have to be the size, battery life, and the clumsy menus: Size: The phone is very bulky by todays phone standards. This doesn't bother me so much, but to quite a few of the customers I have talked to, it's an issue. Battery Life: The battery life on this phone with my normal usage only lasts about 2 days on a full charge. Most phones will last about 5 days on a full charge. Clumsy Menus: I sometimes wonder when I see things like this, if the programmers actually use the product(s)? To me, it seems most programmers of any electronic piece of equipment (be it software, such as computer software, or hardware such as a cellular phone) aren't forced to use the product. The menus on this phone are laid out by pushing the two buttons at the top. Most of the time this is simple, but when you get to the alert feature for instance, you have to alert, then scroll through who you want to alert, and then push the 'key' button. If you first scroll through the people, then, wait, nope, no alert feature...you have to cancel and push alert first (I know, a minor programming thing, but it is annoying nonetheless). Also, the star-pound menu is almost scary for most users, aside from the fact that they can change things, and re-program their phone by accident, leaving it useless without a tech-support call. Aside from these 3 minor things that could be improved upon, I have to say that it's an excellent phone. If I had the chance to do it again (and am still considering it) I would purchase the i1000+ instead. Only downside there is the battery life on the i1000+ is actually shorter, but that's another topic... SUMMARY - Excellent phone, has been very reliable, and extremely durable. Few quirks, but can be overlooked for the most part. Nextel as a service is a bit pricey, and if you don't know anyone who has it, or don't purchase 2 or more phones, it's not a good choice (the two-way radio feature is a major advantage to this service, but as a cellular service alone, it's a bit pricey). If you fit into the category of knowing someone with Nextel, or you plan to purchase 2 or more phones, it's an excellent choice! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88697 2000/9/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 availability the are updated way to fast Full Review Chirp, chirp that's the sound of the Nextel !500 phone when someone is using the two way radio to reach you. It's actually in my opinion sort of an annoying sound. Especially when your in the middle of a restaurant and the darn thing chirps at you. I'm caught with my feelings about the Nextel phones. My boyfriend and I purchased our Nextel phone's back in March of this year. Our point was to save on our cellular charges. This was a two way radio. How cool, I thought.He works out of town and seems to call me all the time. We always have something to talk about and this would just make it easier. So he thought. The price is right though. The phones itself were on special for $49.00 a piece. Our service plan for one month was 150 minutes of airtime and unlimited two-way time for only $54.95 per month per phone. For us this wasn't bad considering we were spending almost $300.00 a month just for his cell phone. You can purchase several optional features for these phone. Caller ID, voice mail, call forwarding and several others which were also included in our monthly fee. We ordered the phones on a Saturday and by Tuesday we had received our phones and I was already annoyed. Where we live we can usually reach each other all over the state with the Nextel phone verses his cell phone that would usually cut out. The two way is sometimes choppy. The strange thing is when we are using the two way is sort of changes the tone of our voices and when using the cellular feature we sound normal. I'm still trying to figure that one out.(I still think it's all in his head though.) So I guess this opinion is sort of maybe unclear. I think the Nextel phones are wonderful for business use. Easier to reach the office, fellow employees and even emergency positions. Don't get me wrong please, the inventor of this service is probably sitting pretty nice right now. It's a great invention. My favorite feature about these phones are the durability. I've dropped my phone several times (on accident of course) on some pretty expensive ceramic tile, dropped it on the sidewalk and still, no damage. And after all that I've even thought about putting it through the ultimate test. Driving over it with the car. That would only come with him calling me WAY to much. I would recommend this phone to any professional on the road or just the need to stay in contact with the office. However I would not recommend this phone to any couple for personal use. It's way to annoying when they call you in the middle of the day for the most ridiculous reason. And about the time you don't have your phone on and they try to reach you and they see "unavailable", well, let's just say take a deep breath and just count to ten and tell them "well, I thought it was on. I don't know what happened." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 per phone 88696 2000/11/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use lots of accessories battery stays charges for long periods can be hard to get a signal sometimes Full Review I had been wanting a new cellular phone for some time. I just had the bag phone (the kind that plugs into your cigarette lighter in your car) and had a lot of problems with it. With the bag phones if your battery goes dead you can't use them. My husband brought me home a Nextel i500 plus for my birthday. It was the best gift I had gotten in a long time. Since our daughter was born we needed something for fast communication. Right away I liked the looks of the Nextel i500 plus. You don't have to open anything to talk, so with carrying our daughter around a lot I don't have to worry about anything being broke. The Nextel i500 plus also has some other nice features about it. It has what is called a two way . With the two way you just push the mode button, find the person you want with your arrows, and push the button on the left side of the phone. This sends a chirp to the other person and it chirps back at you to let you know the other person got it. If that person isn't available it'll tell you they are unavailable. If the person you are trying to two way is a lot of times busy when you two way them you can follow the above instructions, or you can push the little button on the top left corner to alert them. This sends a few beeps together and will keep beeping until they answer. Again it'll let you know if the other person is unavailable. With the Nextel i500 plus it has the caller id with it. This works great in case there is someone you don't really care to talk to at the time. If you don't answer your phone it'll take the person calling to your voice mail. Once they leave a message you will get a beep and it'll tell you (in the window of your phone) that you have a voice mail message waiting for you. Not just anyone can grab your phone and get your voice mail, either. You have to choose a passcode for the phone, and you have to enter this to get your voice mail. Once you have heard your voice mail it'll give you a list of options you can do with that message. Another great feature with the Nextel i500 plus is that you can receive regular pages with it, or someone can email you. You just have to give them you email address for your phone. They type out the message and send it to your phone, and it will let you know when you receive it. It will beep at you. This particular phone isn't heavy at all. As a matter of fact I often forget I have it hooked onto me at times. The battery will last you a long time, but it varies on how much you use your phone. My battery will sometimes last me 3 days. You get a plug for it in your home. This will charge the battery back up. There is a little bar on the right hand corner of your window to let you know how the battery is. It has three lines. When there are three lines it is fully charged, when there are two the battery is going just a little, when there is one line you don't have too much battery left. Once the bar is blinking (and it'll be beeping at you) you should plug it in. If you don't plug it in it will automatically shut off. You can also buy a cord that plugs into your cigarette lighter of your vehicle. There is a little spot on the bottom of the phone to plug it into the phone, and the other end plugs into your cigarette lighter. This works great for people who are on the road and/or away from home a lot. The phone glows when you are using the phone which works great for at night. You can see which buttons to push to dial, to answer the phone, or to see who is calling. As soon as someone alerts you or calls it'll light up. There is a volume button on the left side for you to choose how high you want it. This is great for people who talk too loud or too soft. You can buy a leather case to go over top of your phone. It has a plastic window to go over the top of your window and buttons, so it protects it a lot. It especially protects it a lot if you drop your phone. The only thing I can say I don't like about the Nextel i500 plus is that sometimes it is hard to get a signal. This does have a lot to do with there not being any towers where we are. Sometimes we just have to walk around to get a signal. In order to know you have a good signal there is a spot on the left top of the window that has an antenna looking thing on it. There are bars next to it. (like five of them) The more bars that are there the better signal you have. It does work wonderfully in the vehicles, though. The Nextel i500 plus is also great out of state. We live in Michigan and recently went to Georgia and Tennessee. We could use our two way as far as the middle of Ohio, which is quite a ways for us. As for the phone itself we used while we were in both Georgia and Tennessee, and the signal was very clear. It sounded like we were standing next to that person. I would say that this was the best thing we have gotten for awhile....If you are looking at getting a cellular phone I'd say to at least look at this phone.</i></i> Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88695 2000/9/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to useread display well made very versatile dependable heavy so so battery life big Full Review My i500 plus Nextel phone is company issue hardware and boy do I use this thing hard!!! I am a commercial salesman (Office and Industrial moves) for the largest moving and storage company in Tulsa Oklahoma. We switched to Nextel service several months ago for a couple of reasons, price and the "two way radio" feature. The i500 plus is a solid phone. All of our Project Managers and Supervisors as well as myself were issued the i500. These P.M.'s and Supervisors use these phones out in field on moves and their phones REALLY take a beating!! To my knowledge we have not had one mechanical failure with these phones, and these guys are moving furniture with the phone on their hip! I have dropped it several times getting out of the car and still works like a champ! When we had the Nokia's they were going down every week! The features on the phone are really nice. Major Features: The phone is fully digital, with call security, great reception in the phone mode, no problems there! The phone is equipped to handle the Nextel Direct Connect feature which is basically using the phone as a two way radio or CB. Scroll to the person you need to talk to, push the large button on the side and you are connected, just talk! No dialing! Occasionally the words back and forth get garbled but that is due to the service not the phone. You can get internet access with the this phone if you sign up for it through Nextel. I really like the display on this phone. The numbers are large so you can see what you are dialing and who is calling. The LED display is also lighted which is nice at night. The signal strength display is also very easy to read and seems to be very accurate. The battery display is also very easy to see and accurate as well. There are a TON of menus and options with this phone, everything from earpiece volume, speaker volume, mail functions, different rings, storing phone lists, redial, speed dial, etc. etc.! I use the Voice Mail option everyday, many times and it works real well. I am not a big fan of voice mail period, but the voice mail through Nextel is superb. I also get Message Mail on the phone, for example I get the final of every Chicago Cubs score on the darn phone! Internet e-mail is also an option on the phone as well. The call waiting option, works great on this phone as well, I have never accidentally hung up on someone like I have with other phones. Battery Life: The battery life on the phone is a little weak. From a full charge, if you talked constantly on it, the battery would go dead in about 3.0 hours, the battery life on standby will last about 24 hours. Keep in mind that the battery drains off of normal phone calls and off of the two way option (which I use ALOT!). Three hours seems like a long time but for me it isn't, especially when I am using the two way feature all the time. I have the normal battery on the back nothing special. On the flip side, this phone charges up like you would not believe!! I can have the phone down to 25% remaining, plug it in my car and it will be fully charged in 30 minutes! Now that is nice! If there are any downsides to the phone, one would be the size! It is a larger phone and it is a little heavy compared to these mini might phones that are out there from Motorola. Because it is so big, I tend to bang it around alot when it is on my hip and it gets caught in chairs when I sit down or stand up. This thing is so big, one of my customers calls it a "brick of cheese."! Get the picture??!! The battery life can be a drag especially if you are not in a place where it can be charged. You sort of have to plan ahead if you go on trips like I do so that your battery doesn't go dead! This really is a good phone with features that are helpful in everyday life, both business and personal. The phone is real versatile as well with the phone and two way option available at any time. If you don't mind the size of this phone, I would say go for it, you will find the Nextel i500 plus very dependable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88694 2000/7/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fairly small easy to use pager all in one piece of equipment cell phone two way radio some would consider it a con that you must have great credit to be able to get the nextel service Full Review My husband is a Commercial Heat and Air Conditioning Service Technician and with the type of work he does using a Nextel is the ideal method of communication. The company my husband works for uses the i500 Nextel models and there have been no complaints. Nextel offers more than just cellular service. They are known for the two-way radio. As long as the other person you want to talk to also has a Nextel you can program their information into your radio and can speak with them with the touch of a button (much like a CB radio). The Nextel i500 that my husband and his co.-workers use features: ** Cellular Phone (digital) ** Pager service with notification (text and numeric are available) ** Voice mail with notification ** Two Way Radio (can be private with one to one, or can be done as a group call) ** Easy to read lighted keypad with lock to prevent unwanted charges ** Battery indicator to let you know how much life you have left before you must re-charge ** Internet Ready and can receive e-mail messages ** Variety of ring styles allowing you to customize the ring for the person The above characteristics is why a i500 Nextel would be a worthy choice when deciding to buy a new means of communication for your company or even you and your spouse. I knew that my husbands Nextel accepted email messages but we had never really explored the "how to" factor. Recently, I went online to the Nextel website and it is right there for you. You simply punch in the Nextel number you would like to email and hit the send button. The message is sent and within moments you can also check to verify the message was received. You can also just email them with using their Nextel number (area code+seven digits) followed with @page.nextel.com and they will receive the email message that way. The only drawback to sending your employee, friend or relative a message this way instead of through the web site is that you cannot check to make sure they did receive the message. In the opinion of a wife whose husband works quiet a bit of overtime in which I need and have to speak to him before he arrives home, this i500 is now part of our life. No more collect calls. No more having to keep change on hand for pay phones. There are no more leaving job sites that are not equipped with phones yet to return a page. At my husbands work only the service technicians are allowed the cellular service. The other employees (installation guys) are only allowed the two-way radio. The reasoning behind this is obvious since the service guys are on the road going from job to job to do service repair and the phones are a necessity. The installation guys should not need to communicate with anyone but the supervisor who can be reached with the two ways. If you are an employer considering buying the Nextel service this phone gets an A plus but you may want to consider only allowing the phone service for those that really need it for the job. We all know some are just not responsible enough just as my husbands company found out when a former employee ran up the bill over $500. Needless to say, that was one of the factors that caused him to be terminated. This phone can be great for a company or even the individuals of your family but there is a good credit requirement. When you apply to get the service a credit check is run and if you do not meet the standards they have set, then you will be required to put down a $500 deposit before they will allow you to have Nextel service. Since my husband has one through work we checked into purchasing one for me so that we could cut out expenses on the phone bill. I could call him on the two way when I needed him. An individual can purchase this phone for $99. and during a special promotion this phone can even be bought for $49. which is a great bargain. The phone has remarkable range in this area (Eastern North Carolina). It comes only in black and it is the average size of most cellular phones. Nextel is far from next when it comes to communication. Firstel would be a more appropriate and well deserved name. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Husbands bought through company but they can be purchased for $99. and I recently saw them on sale for $49. 7757 Nextel i830 88735 2004/9/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 extra thought put into phonecharger solid small none so far Smallest Nextel phone on the market. Has all the features you would ever want and more. Solid feel with some little extras; - rubber flap stays on the phone when open for charger - a little extra corner on the right side of the flip part of the phone, for easier opening 88734 2004/10/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool bronze design women dig it easiest nextel user interface yet small size a bit overpriced poor battery life This is the smallest Nextel phone I've ever owned, and I've been a Nextel user since the late 90's. Overall, I'd have to say I really like the Nextel i830 a lot and it's the phone I'd recommend if you're looking to buy Nextel service. 88733 2005/12/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 midi ringtones pretty everything else there is nothing good to say about this phone except you can put your own MIDIs on it and BMP wallpapers. Whoopty-Doo. It doesn't make up for the fact it gets HORRIBLE signals and drops calls and signal strength at any given time for no reason. I hate this phone. 88732 2005/4/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 cute nice size nice color screen pretty easy to carry cuts inout bad sound noone can hear you Ive read the previous reviews of the i830. It must be from another planet. Ive been using nextel for 9 yrs. Its a great communication device and have had about 5 phones with no trouble until this one. My business partner, his son in law, and myself, all users of the i830 are having a contest to see who can throw this piece of junk the farthest. We all love the size and color display. Its a pretty piece of junk I must say. Looks good to carry around but horrible sound quality and signal cuts in and out all the time. You have to listen to your messages about four times in order to get all your facts and numbers written down. I first thought it was just mine, but everyone who I have come into contact hates it and my dealer says it has not been a reliable phone and he wishes my company had not bought them. Does anyone else have good success with a smaller phone and get some quality. Would like to get a recommendation for a replacement. Thanks 88731 2005/6/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 color screen sleek phone sucky customer support horrable battery life sucky service Nextel is Crap!! I have had Nextel so far for 6 months and have had problems from the beginning! It started out it was just my phone dropped calls all the time and wouldn't make calls out! I called and they are like we appreciate your service that's bull they told me all the bull about they were going to fix it! After my contract went into effect they stopped serving me! They do mean Done! Now my phone randomly shuts off and the service is horrible! They say my phone is defective but they wont replace it even though it's under warranty! They tell me I have to pay 60 bucks to get it fixed! I'm fed up with them lying to me and am going to cancel my service this month (There not getting the Cancellation Fee Either). I'm Done. I'm switching to Verizon Wireless for better customer support and Better Service! 88730 2005/3/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 simplicity of user interface compact durable small battery life scratches easily This is the best Nextel phone I have ever owned. It is a whole lot nicer than my i730 was. 88729 2006/1/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 as seen on nbc s las vegaslaw order from the price to the calls everything about the phone Bought this phone a year ago.... the i830 absolutely sucks. In the beginning, it was fine; 5 months passed, the phone dropped calls. Or, people would be calling me and the phone simply didn't ring. The phone would say "Ready" instead of "Telus." I also had same complaints of fellow reviewers regarding short battery life, poor reception, etc. Took it in, as it was covered under a 1 yr warranty from Motorola...they give me the crappy, clunky i55 as a loaner. A month later, Telus calls, says Motorola couldn't fix it, so they gave me a new phone. All's well until 6 months later...... and of course the one-year warranty just ended a week prior. so i call them several times... each time they tell me to do a master reset. I TELL THEM I'VE DONE IT SO MANY TIMES, THEY DON'T NEED TO WALK ME THROUGH IT...and it clearly isn't solving the problem. are these people for real? they call this customer service? i wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy. NEVER sign up with Telus......and don't get a Motorola i830 88728 2005/12/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 looks good horrible reception I've been with Nextel for 5 years now and owned 4 phones. This is by far the worst one yet most expensive one I've had. The i830 is known as the nextel phone with the worst reception hands down. I can't count the number of times that my phone has been out of service while my husband and son both have at least 3 bars. The phone is less than a year old and I'm starting to get "bleeding" on both screens and the phone has never been dropped. The phone doesn't just drop calls, it cuts off completely. While talking to someone for 10 minutes while I had 5 bars showing, it dropped the call 3 times and totally cut off twice. Half the time when I power up the phone, I get "insert sim card" even though the sim was never removed. 88727 2005/10/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 none that compel me to write about very unreliable service very low battery life Since the company footed the bill for this phone, I can't complain about the amount of money it costs. However, I can tell you about the functionality of First of all, I've never had a cell phone with such a low battery life. I MUST charge this phone every night or it is dead before noon the next day. This is with VERY limited use. I've put less than 350 minutes a month since I had this phone. In the world of cell phone, that is nothing. My second complaint about this phone is the unreliable reception. I can sit on my couch, never move and have my service go from full strength to no service in a matter of 5 minutes. Sometime I will just receive a voice mail alert when the phone hasn't even rang. This is not something you want to have on a business phone. I would only recommend this phone to one group of people. My competitors. Very unreliable service. 88726 2005/8/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 very small does it all might be too small for some fragile I got my i830 as a replacement for a shattered (and aging) i90. The functions and features are similar and the phone is much smaller and thinner than anything else on the market. Maybe too small and thin... I find it difficult to open and to navigate the menu with the center toggle button. Battery life is fine and I have no issues with the overall function. There is lots of memory for games, wallpaper, and ringtones. The display is clear and bright and the sound quality is at least as good as my old i90. The speakerphone is nice and clear. Within 1 month I noticed that the case was cracked near the antenna. I had the phone replaced under my insurance plan. Two months later the "Vibe" function failed. Another replacement. Just last week the phone got caught on a seatbelt and the stock holster ripped in half causing the phone to crash to the pavement, badly denting the battery cover to the point where I am afraid to open it. Get the phone, but pay the extra couple of bucks for the insurance. You won't be sorry. 88725 2000/4/29 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 looks size design battery life is absolutely horrible camera would be nice The Bottom LineGood for making a fashion statement. Tough to live with because of its non-existent battery life and poor reception indoors. Full Review Got this phone because my wife is with Telus and they offer the Mike system (walkie talkie at the press of a button). So I switched to them and with the switch came this phone. I like the looks of it, the small size, other than that I haven't had a chance to test any other features. However! I have had a chance to experience the EXTREMELY POOR AND UNBELIEVABLY SHORT BATTERY LIFE!!!! By that I mean that in standby (without ANY use, after a full charge) the phone will last barely a day (as in 16 hours). That is on brand new battery that came with the phone. When I make two 10 minute phone calls, I might as well put the phone on the charger again. It is pathetic. Oddly enough, the LCD screen will only stay on for the first few seconds of use and shut off to save energy, and STILL the battery life is crap. My previous phone was a Sony Ericsson T616 and I could have that phone in standby for a week easy, or use it for 60 minutes a day, three days in a row, without having to charge it. Additionally, the reception seems bad too - people can't hear me and vice versa. Overall I am disappointed, as the main function of this phone is to be a MOBILE phone, and I wouldn't consider a phone that: dies on you halfway through a phone call, and a phone with which you must walk around to find good signal, a mobile phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 CDNRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88724 2005/10/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small light compact scratches easily poor battery life The Bottom LineDon't turn away from this phone entirely. Just consider your options before deciding on the i830. Full Review *Note, this phone has been replaced by the i836 Introduction Whem most people hear the name Nextel, the first thing that comes to mind is the chirping of it's direct connect service. Nextel, now part of Sprint, has built its whole network around that instantaneous technology that other companies now are catching up to. It's catering ot the business community had some issues when the general public started to creep into the Nextel network. Nextel's technology assortment contained "brick" like phones, which were bulky, unstylish and heavy. They started to modify some of their IDEN phones to be a tad more pleasing astheticly such as the i730, but they were still big and bulky. I'm sure business professionals and the general public wanted a small, compact, stylish phone for their needs. Nextel decided to first hastily roll out a solution by issuing the Nextel i830. I started with Nextel, ironically nowadays to get away from Sprint. Now Sprint and Nextel are one company. My first phone was the i730. I loved the i730 and Direct Connect service but wanted something smaller. This being the smallest phone at the time, I purchased this unit and decided to give it a try. Features/Use The i830 is the smallest and lightest Nextel phone of its day. It's dimensions are 3" x 1" x .7" and weighs just 4 ounces. You have a choice between a grey and bronze for color. The outside of the phone features the following: - Retractable Antenna - Caller ID display - Direct Connect Buttons (side) - Speaker Phone controls (top) - Scroll buttons (side) - External Speaker (back) Overall, there is nothing spactular about this unit from the outside other than the color. It operates exactly like the i730. You have the ability to scroll through recent calls and take calls with the clamshell closed, which is nice. The speaker doesn't fail and is nice and loud when ringing and in Direct Connect. Inside the phone features the following: -Color Display - Keypad - Buttons for menu functions and making calls Again, this is the same platform as the i730, only smaller. The software interface is the same too with a couple modifications that are insignificant. I think they just shrunk the i730 down, slapped a bronze skin, made it prettier and called it new. The Nextel (IDEN) line features something called a SIM chip. Essentially it is a little white chip that contains billing information, address book and other settings. When you buy a new phone, you simply swap the chips and you are good to go. No activation needed! The phone features a battery that is reported to have 2.25 hrs of talk time and 60 hrs of standby time. In practice the standby time is more like 40 hours and the talk time more like 90 minutes (1.5). I'm sure they get the stats when the signal is 4 bars and the phone doesn't have to spend so much power either searching for a signal or compensating for a weak one in the first place. Signal quality is still horrible, but I blame that more on Nextel than the phone. People with other Nextel models whom I associate with have signal problems in the same area I am in. Hopefully in the next few eyars when Nextel and Sprint fully integrate, this will improve. Durability This is something that caused me to think less of this phone real quick. I am the type who never beats up on equipment. I don't know if the bronze coloring makes things susceptible to scratching and wear but I have found that this phone is in the worst shape aesthetically after 6 month. The outside of the unit looks like I dropped it all the time (I dropped the unit maybe once) and finish is wearing off all over the place. I guess you can call me anal, but that is something that really bugged me. If you spend $200 on a phone, it should last a long time and look nice if you don't beat it up. One other issue I had is that the flip part of the headset wiggles on the hinges a bit, which bothers me for the above stated reasons. Conclusion This phone was a disappointment. I shelled out $180 for a shrunk i730 that scratches easily and has horrendous battery life. The technology is solid though and Nextel is still a decent service despite this phone which negates much of my gripe. Recently, Nextel axed this phone and replaced it with the i836. Hopefully that phone is built better and will lead to more satisfied customers. I am sadly ditching this piece of equipment and going for the i860 now that the prices have dropped. I felt that should have been my first choice after all. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 175Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88723 2005/8/3 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 easily read color display plenty of cool features good quality size easy carry bright speakerphone audio quality somewhat lacking reception reduced compared to other phones stock battery too weak The Bottom LineA small phone with a lot of features, but in need of some improvement. Great compact size, but its reception is sometimes lacking over other units, and reliability is questionable. Full Review I've been a Nextel customer for a long time, and I've had a whole collection of phones. In comparing my i830 to my previous phones, I must say that there are some disappointments there, sure, but there are some good things about this compact Motorola flip-phone. For one, its size is great; compact enough to fit anywhere, but just large enough to be comfortably held in the average-sized human hand for the most part. For some, it may take some "getting used to", but certainly not much. Size & Usability The i830's size is great, as everyone seems to agree upon. However, it would seem that this great compact size comes at a price; reception ability seeming to be part of it. In comparing my i830 to my other Nextel phones, it appears that this phone has the least amount of gain. In other words, this phone's ability to stay connected with the tower is limited compared to the other phones. Areas where other phones of mine have somewhat weak signals (as in 1 or 2 bars signal strength showing out of a total of 4), the i830 either shows the signal as being extremely weak (no bars showing), or absent entirely ("No Service" shown on the display). In urban areas where towers are plentiful, this phone should do well. However, if you live out in the sticks or any area where the towers are sparsely located, you may notice signal problems. I also find the navigational controls (the "OK" button and associated directional pad) a bit cumbersome to use sometimes. This especially holds true when I'm looking through and reading news articles in net mode, for example. Due to its size and placement, it becomes uncomfortable for me after using it for a while. My hands are not huge, but average sized, and I think that some may find the way this part of the phone is laid out to be less than ideal. Battery Life: Lack Thereof? As is clear from the other reviews, the battery supplied with this phone is terribly small in capacity. The battery, called the "Motorola Slim Battery" (Item# NNTN4930) by Nextel, is very small indeed; advertised as providing 120 minutes worth of talk time from a full charge, and a standby time of 55 hours. In my own experience, I did not manage to squeeze 120 minutes of talk time out of the slim battery from a full charge at all. I seemed to get around 90 minutes of talk time, with a standby time of more like 45 to 50 hours. The real world performance of this slim batter is just that; slim. For about $60.00, Nextel offers a larger battery for this phone which they refer to as the "Motorola Standard Battery" (Item# NNTN5195). This battery is advertised as being capable of supplying 200 minutes of talk time, and 75 hours of standby time. In my experience with this battery, it seemed to provide about 160 to 180 minutes of talk time, and about 70 hours of standby time. The phone is certainly better to use with this larger battery, but due to its size, a new battery cover referred to as the "Standard Battery Door" (Item# NTN2105ANEX, costs about $10) is required for the phone. This, of course, increases the size and weight of the phone, but not by much. I have found that at least for me, the larger battery did not make the phone bigger or heavier enough to be any sort of problem. As a side note, both the slim and standard batteries can be used in the i836 phone as well. Durability & Reliability The i830 that I have right now is a replacement. My first i830 crashed in a manner of speaking. It had never been dropped, exposed to moisture, handled roughly, or abused in any way. I hadn't even put any custom ring tones/backgrounds on it. However, one morning when I powered the phone on, I was greeted by a message stating my code plug had failed along with some error code. Nextel determined that the phone was dead of course, and replaced it with a new i830. The people I had spoken to did not have any answers on what had caused the problem, thus I couldn't even guess how it happened. The phone had great timing; it failed on me on Thanksgiving Day. Although somewhat amusing I suppose, I have to say I am disappointed that a phone which is less than a year old, has never been abused or screwed with, would fail on me for no logical reason. Nextel promptly sent me the replacement phone, and I am currently using it now. The phone (the replacement) is now about 2 years old, and works okay with the exception of a problem that started 3 months ago where the vibration feature no longer works. The phone will no longer vibrate with "Vibe All" mode selected, or vibrate in any profile that has the phone vibrate for incoming calls, etc. Instead of vibrating, the phone is just completely silent. (I plan on buying a new phone soon, thus I have not bothered to replace it yet.) In general, I would say that this phone is not incredibly reliable. It seems to have a lot of silly little problems that, in my opinion, just shouldn't be happening with a relatively new phone. This is the only newer Nextel phone I've had a problem with. My i95cl had a few problems, but this was after I had it for some 4 years if I recall correctly. Thus, I'd expect it to get a little quirky as 4 years is descent amount of time indeed. However, within the first year of owning my first i830, and within the first year of having the second (the free replacement for the first) one, they both had problems. Currently, aside from the problem with the vibration no longer working on the replacement i830 I have, it sometimes freezes up while in net mode, requiring me to remove the battery and power the phone back on to correct it. I find this very irritating, but it doesn't happen too often. I would say that this phone is good if you absolutely need to have a small phone, and/or if you're an occasional caller; not making many phone calls or at least not making any lengthy calls. However, even the i730 for example is a reasonable size and doesn't seem to have all the issues that I've had with my i830. Thus, you may want to check out some of Nextel's other compact flip-phones first as you may find they not only have all the features you need/want, but last longer without having so many issues. I also wanted to point out that although the earpiece's audio quality is good, the speakerphone's audio quality is "shallow", so to speak, and is not as clear as the speaker on my other Nextel phones. I'm sure there are some who have this phone, and have had it for a long time and haven't had a single problem with it at all. In this case, I'm glad for them, but I have to say that my experience with the i830 has been mostly negative with a lot of reliability issues, and lost phone calls due to the phone's reduced reception abilities compared to the others, and the slim battery's meager capacity. In my considered opinion, the phone should work much better, last longer, and be much more reliable to justify the price tag. References & Helpful Additions So that viewers of my review may have the ability to find out all the information in regards to this phone easily, I am providing the link below. This link will take you to a location where you can download a PDF document; the user's guide to the i830. I will also provide a link to get Adobe's Acrobat Reader in case someone doesn't have it and still wishes to view the PDF document. Motorola/Nextel i830 User's Guide: http://nextelonline.nextel.com/assets/pdfs/en/support/guides/phones/i830/ug.pdf Adobe Acrobat Reader (WinXP): http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html I hope that this information is helpful to everyone! Also, note that on the Adobe Acrobat Reader site, there are links there to obtain the software for different operating systems. Enjoy! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $350.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7758 Nextel i700plus 88742 2000/11/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 screen features weight look user interface feel Full Review I just got this phone as our 24/7 support phone for the internet company i'm working for. and for the last 20 minutes i've been looking for a place where i can blow off some steam about it. this is the ugliest, heaviest, least user friendly phone i've ever seen. maybe for military purposes ... you won't press the keys accidentally, but even pressing them on purpose is difficult. forget about single hand operation. The screen is nice. but the phone is very slow to react to any key presses. It is not user friendly, or doG-beware intuitive. how can these people even exist besides nokia, erricson, siemens, etc. don't buy it. we can do way better than this. no home i go, schlepping this ugly monster around with me. great. - Blahman Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): don't know 88741 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 functions features clarity durability size weight The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a stylish phone, with slimline features, games, an array of ring styles, and a large assortment of accessories, this is definitely not the phone you want. Full Review I purchased the i700plus online, so when I received the phone in the mail, I was taken back by its size and weight. The phone itself isn't all that big, it's the super-size standard battery that comes with it. So, after a couple days, I opted for the "slim battery" which made a huge difference. It's still bulky, but it's not like carrying a brick around anymore. (It's an inch and a half at its thickest point with the slim battery.) The durability of the phone has been tested several times. This added feature is really the main reason I bought the phone. I get in and out of a car all day long with stuff under my arms, and between answering spur of the moment calls and juggling keys, it gets dropped about once a week. So far, it hasn't had any effect on the phone at all. The phone comes with most of the features on the market, but the one thing it has that others don't is the direct-connect, which is essentially a built-in two-way radio, but better. If you're looking for a phone that performs well, has a lot of functions, and works as hard as you do, give it a try. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 88740 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 strong phone good sound weak belt clip heavy Full Review Having had a number of different Nextel Phones, all with Direct Connect feature enabled, by far this brute is the backbone of their line. If you need heavy duty, tough phones, this one is for you. Yes, it is bulky and feels like a brick hanging on your belt, but the durability makes it worth it. What I love about this phone: Toughness. Mine has survived a 15 foot fall onto concrete and never missed a beat. Clarity. The earpiece is good and clear, and the mic has good range. The speakerphone for the Direct Connect is loud and clear. Features. I do not have it web enabled, but use text messaging quite a bit. For a 4 line screen, messages are readable. The buttons are easy to hit and the backlight feature is nice. Battery. GREAT BATTERY LIFE!!!!! What I dislike: Keypad. Sometimes it is easy to hit a button more than once without knowing you did it. No speakerphone for regular calls!!!! Yes, the banana yellow is ugly, but at least I can tell my phone apart from the other bland little black cubes out there. Overall this is a superb piece of equipment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109.00 88739 2000/9/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability speaker volume weight Full Review I have been with so many different cell phone companies and so many different phones that I can now call myself an expert. The whole Nextel idea is incredible as well as teaming up with Motorola to make their phones. This phone is probably the most durable phone I have ever seen. It has been dropped, sat on, you name it. I never have a problem with an accidental call while I am driving or in the bathroom (what a relief). The 2way is easy to use and the buttons don't wear off easily. The only negative thing about the phone is the weight, but you need to look past that when you realize how much the phone does. I am a Director of Sales for a communications company that competes against Motorola every day and this phone is far better than any Qualcomm, or Nokia that I have ever owned. The person that purchases this product should be an active person with a group of individuals that are called all the time to put in the same plan. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88738 2000/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 direct connect a little heavy just get the swivel clip Full Review Now here is something to get excited about. I bought the exact phone you see pictured, the yellow one. Not only does it look exactly like the picture, it will impress you far more than you expected and your friends too. My husband drives a truck mainly in California and is gone quite a bit. He has a Nextel too and it keeps us close and happy. We are able to use the direct connect feature to chat for free anytime we want to day or night with no charges. There is a handy timer where you can keep track of your cell phone minutes so you don't go over and if you do, it only costs 25 cents a minute. Pretty cheap. We have a plan that costs $69.95 per month per phone and then we get 600 minutes of cell phone air time which covers long distance as well. So the $69.95 is all we pay per month per phone. His company covers the monthly fee for his phone so we only pay for mine. This phone gives me the peace of mind I need. I always have a way to call for help or assistance right on my hip. It has a great accessory belt clip that swivels and never comes loose or unhooked. If broken or lost it is only $10.00 to replace. It comes with the AC adaptor to recharge the phone, not that it needs it very much. It holds a charge for two days. It has so many features and cool stuff that I would have to write a book. Well, Nextel already did that for you, but they do better than that. You also get a video to help you get familiar with your new phone. You can get a car adapter for charging it on the road and a leather cover if you need that. This phone has all the good stuff like voice mail, paging, web access, direct connect, which I believe is an exclusive feature, your choice of ringing styles, time and date, super easy programming and my favorite, you friends can email you real easy by logging into the website at www.nextel.com and you receive it on your phone immediately. Very cool. If you are a business professional, this phone will keep your company all connected to each other with the direct connect features. It keeps every employee who has one a click away. If you want a phone and you have someone you talk with or want to talk with a lot, get the Nextel. Nothing compares to this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 118.00 with tax 88737 2000/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable tough easy to use too big some menus a pain to use The Bottom LineOverall, the i700plus is a great phone. For the outdoorsy, this phone is ideal. But if you stay indoors, stick with a slimmer model. Full Review This is a review of the Nextel i700plus cellular telephone/two-way radio. I will soon be writing a review of Nextel's customer service, price plans, and reception, so check back for that review. The Nextel i700plus has several pros and cons that should be understood before making such a large investment in a phone, especially if you have to buy several of them for business or family. Durability The Nextel i700plus is the most durable phones I have ever seen. About six people working at our family farm use the i700plus, and the phones endure a lot of torture from these guys every day. I have read several other reviews complaining that the screen gets scratched easily, but we've never experienced this problem as we all have covers for our phones. It's a pretty simple remedy and only costs $15- $35. I have seen these phones dropped, soaked in water, stepped on, and completely filthy, and we have yet to send a single phone to be serviced. Anyone who expects to be working outside in rough conditions should consider this phone. Convenience The two-way radio is a very convenient means of communication, and again, makes any Nextel ideal for a business whose employees are spread out over a certain area. Ease of Use This phone is not THE easiest I have ever used (I recommend Nokia phones for complete cellular dummies), but it is fairly easy to figure out if you use the manual and the easy to follow reference card provided with the phone. Battery Life The best thing about this phone is that the battery lasts forever. As long as you leave it on the charger overnight, you can talk virtually all day long (at least on the two-way) Bulkiness The bulkiness of the phone is both good and bad, I suppose. The good side of it is that when you reach for it, you'll definately find it right away. The bad side is that if you work in non-ideal conditions, you find that it is always bumping into everything and getting knocked around. This gets kind of annoying after awhile. Also, it just LOOKS goofy. :) Menus Ok, I know I said this phone was easy to use, but there are a few things I think they could improve about the menus. First, when you have a lot of names programmed into your two-way menu, its hard to get to one specific person without scrolling through everyone or pressing a bunch of buttons first. That can be bad in a situation when you need to talk to someone immediately. Hope this helps everyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 88736 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 direct connect long battery life display scratches easily size weight Full Review My husband works for a 24-hour towing & recovery service. Until recently, they used standard 2-way radios and pagers for dispatch and communications. Then his boss was introduced to the Nextel phone pictured here. At first, it seemed like the perfect solution to avoid repeater charges, pager service fees, and busy phones. They tried them out for a week and decided to buy a couple. The i700plus was chosen for it's rugged exterior (the sides of the phone have a rubber coating to absorb shock) and the 2-way radio feature called Nextel Direct Connect. The rubber sides are a great idea for a phone that's being worn by someone who crawls around under cars for a living, but as we soon found out, the sides aren't what really matters. My husband's phone is still in good working order, but has some nasty scratches on it's screen that not only look bad, but can affect the ability to see the screen at night. The battery life is excellent, but not without cost. This thing is huge (close to 2 inches thick), and the swivel belt clip doesn't make it any easier to carry around. You just end up with this big, yellow lump swinging from your hip... better carry your keys in your other pocket. It's not light either, of course my husband never notices... he's got a big keychain full of keys hanging on his other side so they sort of balance each other out (just makes it a little hard to keep his pants up). Remember I said these phones were going to replace the radios and pagers?? Well, the pagers are gone, but the trucks kept their radios. When the Nextel has a good signal, it's much clearer than the radio, but some places these Nextels just will not go. Even in the local area there are several dead spots that make Direct Connect transmissions either way to hard to understand (robot-sounding voice) or just plain impossible. On the plus side, they do have a larger coverage area. We made a trip to Chattanooga and were still able to communicate with the boss in Knoxville via Direct Connect. While I wouldn't recommend this as a replacement for your regular cell phone, the Direct Connect feature is good for businesses who need to keep track of their employees. There are several pricing plans available to suit the needs of small and large businesses alike. But these are definitely business phones and not personal phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 for two (with business service contract) 7759 Nextel i2000plus 88749 2000/8/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 worldwide roaming style weight battery life could be better The Bottom LineThis phone is a must have for the world traveler. Full Review Well if you have seen any of my other Nextel product/service reviews you know that I am well "connected" with Nextel. I have owned and used every Nextel phone ever marketed, and some that have never made it to market. Now let me tell you about the i2000 which I used for 3 months and had an approx talk time with it of 20,000 minutes. The first time I ever saw the phone I liked the style of it. The phone reminded me of a Nokia type phone. I knew that this phone would be a hit the minute I picked it up. The phone only weighs 6.6 ounces with the slim battery, so at the time it was a feather compared to my i700+. I immediately turned the phone on to see what this baby could do. I was happy to have the i2000+, because there was also an i2000 on the market for a while. The difference between the two is that the one with the "+" after it means that the phone is Internet Ready. Now that I told you about the look and feel of the phone lets get to the "meat and potatoes" of how it works. The phone pretty much functions like any other Nextel phone. It has call forwarding, voice mail, text paging, phone book, direct connect, 3-way, etc.. Now the feature that makes this baby special is that it not only works on Iden Networks (Nextel Networks), but it works on GSM Networks as well. This is a great feature if you are a world traveler. This phone will work in anywhere there is a Iden/GSM network! I unfortunately don't get the opportunity to go overseas, but I did use this phone in Mexico, and it worked like a charm. Now there is no difference in placing a call in New York or in Berlin. Oh did I mention that this phone also has the ability to "surf the web". Which is a nice feature. I love to read the latest sports scores and world news, so it is a feature I love. Lastly let me talk about the reception. This phone had great reception, and I hardly ever drop calls. I wish that the talk time of my slim battery was longer about 100 minutes of talk time, but if I put the standard battery back on it would jump up to 180 minutes of talk time. In closing I wanted to let you know that this is a great phone that can be used all over the world. The cost is about 199.00, and I feel that it is well worth the price. If you are considering a Nextel phone and travel a lot, this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 88748 2000/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 direct connect great features reasonable size battery limited motorola carry options The Bottom LineA great communication tool for a traveler who needs to be in touch. Full Review The i2000plus Motorola phone works great on both the iDen and GSM networks. This phone was used by the company I work for during a conference over in Italy. It traveled through Italy, Germany, Greece, and the Mediterranean. Calls were placed on it while sailing in the Mediterranean. It worked out great! The phone has a Lithium Ion battery which is good since it won't create a "memory" problem, but it isn't a very long battery life. It only has a 45 hr standby time and 180 minutes of talk time. That is probably a good thing if you are overseas though because it can get expensive if you talk long. The phone is just over 6.5 ounces so it is fairly lightweight. There are not very many carry options though (at least from Motorola). They have a leather case with a swivel clip, but the clip can wear out fairly fast. The 0+ dialing makes it easy to dial out when overseas. All you do is hold down the 0 button and it will automatically figure what country you are calling from and then you dial the number. It is really user friendly. Various features include: - Choice between 4 and 6 lines of text on screen - Speakerphone (great for talking when you need movement of your hands) - Vibrate (good for meetings, and silent alerts) - Web browsing and data capabilities - Call list (sent and received ... last ten of each) - 100 Phone book entries - 100 "radio" Direct Connect entries - Keypad lock - Alternate Ring Styles - Automatic Answer after two rings - Mulitple Language on screen - 3-way calling Other features can be added to your Nextel service plan, such as caller id, call waiting, extra line, etc. One thing about the battery, is that it is the same setup as the i1000. Those batteries and contacts will get corroded, bent, and worn fairly easily. The less you take the battery on and off, the better. If you have problems with the phone powering off by itself. Check to make sure there are not any black marks on the battery contacts (on both the phone and the battery). If there are, use a pencil eraser to remove the "corrosion" and it should help eliminate the problems. Probably the best thing about this phone is that you can get calls, messages, etc both in the US and overseas and your number does not change. You do not have to switch anything or make a call everytime you leave the country. As long as the programming in Nextel's system is set for "worldwide" you are ready to use the phone. Once you get back in the States, you are ready to use the Direct Connect in your home market. What a tool! Make sure you remember your SIM pin code unless you just decide to turn it off, because it can be a real hassle to get it functional again if you lock yourself out by entering the wrong SIM pin in three times in a row. This phone is great for someone on the go and needing a simple, easy to use, communication tool in the good ole USA and abroad. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88747 2000/8/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life if you aren t compulsive about talking a lot international capability not a lot of cool presence clunky which is also a plus The Bottom LineIf you're a US-only user, look elsewhere. If there's even a chance you may be going overseas, you should definitely give it a look. Full Review I've been using the i2000 for about 18 months now. First, in international capabilities are tremendous. On a trip to Russia and Ukraine last year, my group thought I was nuts to bring a cell phone along. They changed their minds once we got delayed in landing at Amsterdam. We were supposed to connect to Helsinki and then take an overnight train to St. Petersburg. After a three hour delay in landing at Amsterdam, though, everyone thought that our plans were about to go to waste, until I pulled out the i2000 . I called a friend of mine who worked in the US embassy in Helsinki, who got us hotel reservations, then called our contact in St. Petersburg, who helped work out any visa problems we might have had. Once in Helsinki, I called my wife and parents back here in the US, and the i2000 never missed a beat. After that, the trip leader (this was a US government trip) decided that every trip from here on out would go with an international-capable phone. So much for being nuts. The i2000 does not instantly connect to a local service when traveling overseas. You can set how the phone roams (and even the experienced user would probably do well to bring the manual along), but connecting in a new country takes a couple of minutes. The phone has to figure out that it left its previous location and then find something it can lock into. An indicator light will flash red while this is transpiring, and then comes along the beep that tells you that you've been beamed up. Keep in mind that accessing your voice mail overseas is treated like an overseas call. Considering that connecting from Russia costs $6 a minute, you may want to tell people to e-mail your phone instead of leaving a voice message. E-mail instructions are included. You can have two separate lines coming into one i2000+. You may, for example, use one as a personal line and one for business. There are no personal information manager functions, but you can set up a wireless web account and access similar functions through the MSN portal. The i2000 tends to feel like a brick. Its technology is based in the year 2000, and present-day phones are smaller and lighter. That brick-like feel, though, also means that it can survive rough treatment and not lose any functioning capability. The i2000 is definitely not a "hip" phone, like many of the offerings from T-Mobile are. I have told Nextel that they need to get in line with consumer preferences if they expect to do a better job in the consumer market, instead of marketing business-like phones to consumer users. I am told that newer international phones from Nextel are coming by the end of the year. All in all, I highly recommend it. I have also read the battery life comments from other reviewers, and I use the i2000 only when I have to (e.g., emergency circumstances). I will leave it on when commuting in case someone is trying to reach me, but because I'm not a chatterbox with it, my battery life is pretty good. Normally, one charge will last 3-4 days with no problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 88746 2000/12/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheaphas lots of bellswhistles battery life isn t as advertised Full Review Recently, my wife and I elected to move from the cave and join the 21st century and buy cell phones. We had survived up to that point without one, but our jobs were beginning to dictate that we adapt to changing work demands. My initial research focused on service providers: VoiceStream, in particular, as GSM and international functionality appealed to me. As it turned out, however, the phone dictated the service and not the other way around. My first trip to cellular stores brought me to the Nextel folks. They were more than happy to mention that the i2000 had the international GSM chip (there are two flavors of GSM, domestic and international...I'll leave the details to more knowledgable folks) when I asked them to compare/contrast NexTel with VoiceStream's GSM. As my wife and I would would be sharing the account, they were also giddy to point out the oh so nifty walkie-talkie feature (additional allocation of minutes that can be used in the home calling area). Combine this with a nice, loud speaker phone, Lithium ion battery, wireless messaging (receive at 96 kbps), and a price tag of only $99/each (sale) and it became a no brainer. Even though this is my first phone, I'm not too sure about the clarity. My wife and I can understand each other but everything sounds "tinny"...like cheap laptop speakers. Is this normal? Also, as mentioned in another review, the battery life is not as advertised. The gauge reaches empty after only one day of stand-by time and I'm not tempted to push it any longer without recharging. It is supposed to be able to standby for up to three days. Finally, the phone is a bit bulky, especially when compared to pure GSM phones. At the end of the day,though, I'm happy with the i2000 and would recommend it to any NexTel customer. I won't address NexTel service, however, as that is separate from the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88745 2000/5/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 worldwide phone number gsm roaming just works large clunky compared to pure gsm phones no built in headset jack etc The Bottom LineGood basic concept, but marred by some stupid design decisions. Full Review When I started traveling heavily in Europe and Asia, I needed a phone that worked both in the US and in GSM-supported areas (most of the rest of the world). After trying the rent-a-phone thing and trying to deal with switching phones between trips, I finally decided that it would be worth a try to see how the Nextel i2000 and their worldwide service worked. The phone is typically Motorola styling -- a bit large and heavy for it's function, but the buttons and display are larger and more easily read/used than the Nokia or Ericsson GSM models. The phone is about 4-5" long, has an extensible antenna, and a snap-on battery that is compatible with other Nextel and Motorola hand-sized phones (most accessories for the i1000 and some StarTac accessories are plug-compatible). The phone operates on either the Motorola/Nextel specific iDEN network or on GSM networks that Nextel has inter-carrier roaming agreements with, and switches automatically between networks as needed. Mechanically, the phone is good for larger fingers and can be operated with one hand without too much trouble if you know where the buttons are. The GSM SIM card that holds all of your user identity and stored numbers is located behind the battery in a standard clip (should be very familiar if you've ever used a GSM phone before). The software functions in the phone support normal cellular calling, the Motorola/Nextel specific Direct Connect phone-to-phone and phone-to-group two-way radio functions, and has a built-in HDML WWW browser function that provides some limited Internet connectivity (see later on for more info). Voicemail and text paging indicators are clear and easy to see and have distinct audible rings that identify what type of message is pending. In GSM mode, only the cellular calling, text page and voicemail functions are enabled (the other functions require iDEN-specific infrastructure to work, and thus don't work in GSM-land). I had a problem with call completion with the first phone I received (I bought direct from Nextel) but a call to Nextel customer care got me a replacement phone via next day air. The speakerphone is good (in a reasonably quiet room), and microphone sensitivity is almost too good in most cases -- you pick up a lot of background noise along with the voice if you have the sensitivity turned up. On the positive side, I've taken the phone to over 35 countries and with the exception of Japan and Korea (where GSM service is rare), the phone has worked flawlessly -- in some cases, too well when friends and family call during the middle of their day and it's 2 AM in Beijing...8-). Nextel has service agreements with dozens of GSM providers, and the switch between iDEN and GSM has been pretty seamless; often without even noticing it's done it. It's mechanically rugged, and has taken knocks, been dropped, gotten wet, and suffered all kinds of abuse -- and kept working. Nextel international customer care is pretty sharp, and is better trained than the usual run of the mill Nextel phone support -- a real plus. The support of plus-code dialing (holding down the 0 key produces a "plus" in the display which represents the correct international access code for your current service provider) and the ability to directly dial international calls is a real time-saver when you don't have to look up what the current access code is, especially when you don't speak the local language. Nextel also supports a very nifty data modem service -- attach a serial data cable to the phone and your laptop, install a modem driver that makes the phone look like a Hayes modem, and you've got dialup access anywhere you have cell service. Serious win for the traveler. On the minus side, there are a lot of things that I'd change if I were designing this phone again. First, I don't see why it has to be as large as it is -- Motorola makes GSM phones in a StarTac form factor, why is this one so large and clunky? They obviously can make a iDEN phone in a smaller package (see the i1000 plus -- please, guys, make the GSM/iDEN package in the i1000 form factor!). Second, there is no headphone jack in the phone. To get a standard 2.5mm headset adapter you have to buy a $45 audio adapter that makes the phone almost 1" longer. When this phone is priced at ~$150 US, buying a $45 adapter, and then still having to buy the handsfree headset is just dumb. Third, you can't plug in the charger and the headset at the same time. If you travel or drive in a car for extended periods, you want the phone plugged in and charging AND the ability to use a headset or handsfree device. Motorola sells a Y-adapter -- but it only works for power and the data cable, not a headset, AND it's a $55 accessory. It's one of those things that you just scratch your head and wonder what they were smoking that day when they were designing this stuff. It's not that the phone doesn't have all the signals on the external accessory connector to do this Y-connector right -- the "built-in" car kit has both power and audio on the same plug -- they just didn't do it. Fourth, it has a mixed "feature/bug" that will dial one of the first 9 speed-dial numbers if you press and hold the number keys from 1 to 9. This is ostensibly a Good Idea -- except that the phone is large, and if you put it in your pocket and accidentally lean against it, you can place calls without really trying. They also at one point preprogrammed the 9 key to dial 911 (since fixed, and there's a free update to the phone at any Nextel dealer, but if you get a refurb phone, check speeddial # 9 to make sure you don't accidentally dial 911 without meaning to). You can lock the keyboard, but then you have to do a 3-key sequence to make a call that's just a pain. Fifth, Nextel has no GSM roaming agreements in the US. Although Nextel has a extensive iDEN network in the US and Latin America, there are spots where there is no iDEN coverage in the US, but there is GSM coverage. Voicestream has the largest GSM network in the US, and it would be really nice to take advantage of that where there is no iDEN service. Last, they ship the phone with SIM PIN protection turned on. Normally, this is a good idea for a GSM phone -- if someone steals your SIM card, they can do anything they want if they have a GSM phone shell handy -- but there are 3 separate passwords if you have the SIM lock on, the keyboard lock on, and the call lock on. This is *way* too complicated for most mortals -- most of us just turn all this stuff off and hope for the best. So, in summary, it's a sturdy device, but it has some remarkably stupid design and marketing decisions that mar the sheen of respectibility. If Nextel can convince Motorola to fix some of the really stupid things like the lack of a headphone jack and the thing about the power supply/headset adapter, then it will be a really nice phone. Until that point, as a GSM phone it's clunky and poorly thought out compared to similar Nokia and Ericsson GSM phones -- if you need iDEN support and GSM, though, it's the only game in town. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88744 2000/5/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 multi line speaker phone direct connect limited accessories poor battery life The Bottom LineIf you don't need a slim mobile phone, the options on the i2000 make it worth while. Full Review My company decided to provide Nextel phones to international travelers, so along with the service came an i2000 phone. I had been using a Nokia phone, and I must admit that I was put off by the size and weight of the new phone, but it was nice to have something that would work in almost any country. The first problem that I had was trying to figure out how to program and of the features. Compared to the Nokia, it was a nightmare, and I actually had to, and still have to, go to the manual to do anything but the most elementary procedures. The second problem that I had was trying to find accessories for the phone. I had a holster for my Startac and wanted to find something similar for the i2000. I finally managed to find something on line after several searches, which fell apart after a few months. I'm now back to the leather pouch that came with the phone. I was also used to using the Nokia with an earpiece and microphone while driving. These were available on the Nextel website, but an extra piece for the phone was required, at an additional cost. The phone does have speaker phone built in, and that is what I use for driving, but it seems to limit the already limited battery life, and can be annoying to others in the car. Despite the problems, I have come to accept my new phone. I was able to use it in Bosnia, Germany, and Argentina without problems, something that I would not have been able to do with the Nokia. The speaker phone is a positive while driving or conducting conference calls, and the direct connect option will reduce billable air time if others in the office have the Nextel system. Another interesting thing about the phone is the charger. Someone actually took to the time to think that an international traveler might use it, and included a modular AC adaptor and a dual voltage AC/DC converter. It was nice to have one less appliance that needed a voltage adapter while overseas. If you are going to use the Nextel system, and don't mind a slightly bulky phone, I would recommend the i2000. The available features outweigh some of the problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88743 2000/11/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 single global phone number gsm roaming works almost anywhere phone is hard to programclunky international service is extremely expensive The Bottom LineThe only reason you'd want this phone is if you travel internationally, have very deep pockets, and don't mind that it's bulky, ugly and difficult to use. Full Review I was traveling to Europe 6 to 8 times a year at one point, sometimes for a week or so at a time. After about two days there, I would find myself constantly checking my jacket pocket for my cell phone. I felt completely disconnected from my friends, family and work without a phone. I could use payphones or the hotel phone, but that meant I had to find time to stop and make a call. The time difference often made that awkward. It also didn't help that everyone in London, Frankfurt and Paris had cool little Nokia or Ericcson phones glued to their ear. I had a bad case of cell-phone ennui, and I needed to do something about it. My friend works for a cell phone store, so I signed up for Nextel and bought the i2000plus in August 2001 (see my review on Nextel service for that part of the story). I tried out the phone here at home right away, and took it to the UK a month later. Form Factor The i2000plus is not a bad phone. It's smaller than the first Motorola brick phone I owned, and about the same size as the Nokia I had about 4 years ago. But the i2000 is probably one the largest, heaviest phones on the market today. That also may make it a bit more durable - I dropped mine several times with nary a scratch on it. It doesn't win points in the phone beauty, contest, though. When I took it out on the streets of London to make a call, I looked around and realized that everyone but me had a slick, shiny, uber-cool phone. I found myself slinking off to dark corners just to make calls. You can fit it in a small bag, which is good - that way it rarely sees the light of day. User-Friendliness Call clarity is relatively good, even when signal strength is at one bar. However, the phone is otherwise not all that user-friendly. The i2000plus has an awful user interface (there ought to be a category for this on Epinions). The phone is difficult to navigate and even harder to program. The menus simply aren't intuitive, and in some cases, you have to enter confusing codes to change settings. The address book also leaves much to be desired. It limits you to one name/one entry, rather than one name/multiple entries. This means you need to enter each person's work, cell, home and Direct Connect numbers individually, so you end up with a string of entries: "John-W, John-C, John-H, John-DC." The following week, a fellow named John Walters joins your company, sending you spiraling in to phonebook hell. The phone doesn't have Web access, but that's not a worthwhile feature anyway. The overall user interface leaves much to be desired. International Roaming This is an important feature of the i2000. Indeed, it would be a significant plus if it wasn't insanely expensive. The phone has a GSM mode, so you can use it just about anywhere where there is cell phone service these days. International rates and coverage maps are posted on Nextel site, so you can find out ahead of time just how poor you'll be after your trip. It's also amusing to browse maps of Azerbaijan or other relatively obscure places with a handful of tiny blue dots indicating coverage. Rates vary by country. In some cases, satellite phones are probably a cheaper alternative. When I first signed up, the standard rate in the UK and Western Europe was $0.99/minute. Nextel immediately raised it to $1.29. This charge is for incoming and outgoing calls. To add to the pain, the minutes also get deducted from your monthly calling plan. Traveling to Russia? You'll have to promise your first-born child to Nextel - it's $5.99/minute. I could almost love the international calling capability. I was actually in Europe last year on September 11th, and my family was able to reach me right away (via text messaging at first) to let me know that they were ok. But the prohibitively high costs and clunky phone turned me off to it. If you need a phone internationally, this is not a good way to do it unless you don't care about the cost, the phone's appearance or it's size. If money is no object, Nextel offers two GSM-only phones - the slick V60 flip phone, and the slightly larger P280. Since you can transfer the SIM card from any other Nextel phone, your phone number and address book come with you. My i2000plus has gathered dust for nearly a year now. I took it to Europe a second time, but my manager raised his eyebrows at my $300 cell phone expense. I couldn't bear the thought of using it on personal trips. Since then, the economy has turned even further south and I haven't traveled nearly as much. I have an i90c that I'm much happier with. If I do end up needed a phone in Europe again, I plan to pick up a pre-paid in the UK. The phones are under $100, and per-minute charges are between $0.03 and $0.30 for outgoing only (incoming is free). Even calls to the U.S. only run about $0.10 to $0.15/minute extra, and roaming charges throughout Europe are very reasonable. For now, I'll have to live with that queasy, disconnected feeling when I travel overseas. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 7760 Nextel i80s 88751 2004/2/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 except for the proprietary charging plug reliable proprietary charging plug poor speaker phone no clock while in call Motorola has decided to reinvent the wheel and has FAILED miserably. The proprietary end on the charger plug is more than just a miserable failure, it's actually quite destructive. It's so flimsy and poorly engineered that it will shut the off if the slightest bit of pressure is applied. What this means is, don't plan on ever talking on the phone when you have it plugged in to a charger. Make certain that if the phone is connected to a car or wall charger that you don't bump it or it will shut off. If you want a phone that you can count on, don't buy this one. Watch for the same plug on other models! 88750 2000/8/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life thin small good overall design antenna is cheap when laid flat the screen can be scratched easily The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone. I use this phone for everything, no complaints. Full Review I actually thought I'd give this phone a try for a short while because my girl friend was getting a nextel also and I gave her my i90c so I could check out the i80. I ended up deciding I like the i80 better than the i90! The phones design is simple which makes it very durable. It can easily fit inot your pocket because of it's slim shape and has almost all of the functionality of any other Nextel phone. Speakerphone and the headset jack for brilliantly. I think the software version was newer than my i90 but I found quite a few features that my last phone didn't have that I really liked, again these are probably on the new i90's though. I actually was getting sick of the flip design because I was planning on replacing all of my ordinary land line phones with a cell phone but the flip design didn't make it very comfortable to talk on. Also, I use a headset, and with the i90 I couldn't shut the phone without it hanging up when I wanted to put it in my pocket for my frequent pacing about the room. I would dare say this phone may actually be smaller than the i90. It's so thin that you never head know it's in your pocket. Some of my complaints about the design of the i90 aren't in this model either. I realy didn't like the way the battery door was designed in the i90. It seemed very cheap to me, sub-Motorla quality. On the i80 the battery is built into the removable casing. It makes for a much stronger design, and if the door ever breaks, I can just buy a new battery rather than having to buy a new phone or resort to duct tape like I would on the i90. Reception is exactly the same as my i90, and the battery like is similar if not a little better. I was smart enough to get the Motorola car charger this time rather than the off brand and I really like it. (yes, most of the assesories are the same for the i80 and the i90) The desktop charger was something I really wanted though, and BE WARNED, Nextel didn't send the right model and still hasn't replaced it with the right one. I'm going to have to not pay the bill next month when I get it because Nextel parts express didn't fulfill my order correctly. You might want to wait on getting accessories from your local dealer if you order from Nextel over the phone. The screen wasn't design the best. When you sit the phone down on the screen it is the only place that the upper part of the phone rests on. So there is wear and a few scratches down the middle. It doesn't really stop anyone from reading the LCD, but did anoy me because a simple design change could have remedied the problem. Otherwise, I've been very happy with it so far. The screen scratched a bit as I mentioned but I think I'll be fine, not really different than most ordinary cell phones with the screen design. (obviously better than nokia or erisson, I mean, it is a motorola afterall). I highly recommend this phone, the only landline I have left now is just my business line that my office reachs me at, all of my calls and my other business run completely off of nextel. No complaints. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 7761 Nextel i550plus 88757 2000/4/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 direct connect cheap plans service sucks feelssounds like a walkie talkie size ugly The Bottom LineIt's big and ugly, but it's only a phone, it will do the job. If you are the boss buy yourself a i90 and give this to the lowly pion! Full Review I've worked with Nextel phones for a long time. The i550 is a decent subordinate phone (the one that the boss gives to her underlings!:)) The cellphone mode of the phone is decent at the most, the digital Nextel service is ok but that is all it is. The signal flactuates even if you move a few feet in another direction. It is almost humurous, until you are on a very important phone call. Even on cell mode it feels like you are holding a Motorola 2-way radio. As cellular phones nowadays have shrank to the size of match books, these giants are cumbersome. They would literally make you feel lighter as you remove it off your belt. Not much to say about the aesthetics of this phone, but ugggly. This is one of the ugliest phones available today, not jsut of the size but the phone itself is an eye sore. But who cares, its only a phone. The batteries are Nickel-Metal Hydride (who still uses these nowadays?) NIMH so they suck when charging and talk time is very limited along with its standby time. Direct connect is Nextel speak for the private 2-way radio feature that Nextel offers. The convenience of havinf to hit one button and get hold of someone is a godsend. But remember that this is a 2-way radio, meaning that only one person can be heard at one time, (half duplex). Which is a blessing in some instances. In the beginning you would feel that the 2-way feature is hard to master, but don't worry, you'll soon learn to love it. Just remember to push the PTT (push to talk) button, hold it, wait for the beep and then talk. To listen to what the other party wants to say, release and listen. Unlike cell phones, Direct connect will give you the pleasure of privacy while talking to someone because they only hear you when you press the PTT. Imagine the possibilities! :) Nextel also offers a group 2-way radio feature which I believe is a disaster waiting to happen, unless you are a CB veteran. But if you want to use it in lieu of a regular telephone conference, then forget it. It is hard enough to get two people on the 2-way, imagine having a group of people anxiously waiting for their turn to speak out their ideas. Nextel is a good alternate to the regular cell phones that are currently out PCS, GSM, etc, though it won't win any awards for design and would make you feel like a radioman, Nextel and the i550 is worth the $50 to buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 88756 2000/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable features battery life clarity connectivity The Bottom LineThis is a great product because of various modes available to the phone not to mention excellent battery life. Full Review The Nextel i550 is a good phone, and the service provided by Nextel is good. There are a LOT of things that make thing phone worth having and just a few that might be annoying. The phone features several different modes, such as Internet, and Private modes. The Internet is self explanatory, whereas the Private mode is used for two way radio communications between two phones. This feature is the reason I have this phone. This any time feature works OK over long distances, and the signal can be lost but speedily reconnected. That feature alone fleshed out a $20 long distance bill...the range on the thing is unbelievable. For FL, it ranges the entire state...so if your buddy has a nextel, hey hey, no long distance. I would recommend this phone to any business professional who stays on the road, and also for home use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88755 2001/8/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 jack of all trades reliable heavy duty a bit too heavy bulky not for a lady s bag obviously The Bottom LineDEPENDING UPON YOUR USE FOR IT...GET IT BY ALL MEANS. (Not recommended for lady's bags though) Full Review My obvious lack of information on this product will probably be self-evident HOWEVER! I will give it a try. (I suspect that I must be 1/4 Amish for a "techie" I am not.) ;^) I didn't buy this new fangeled device. I have no personal need of either a cell phone nor a radio but here I now sit with TWO not one Nextel i500Plus apparati in my living room - in a box. Waiting for it's owner to pick it up. I just recently worked for an electronics firm and as the newest employee I was handed over this device from Motorola. Wow! Neat! Although the job was short-lived, I did however get to use this Nextel for a few weeks and was I impressed! Although having full Internet capabilities and cellular phone setups which I never got to use or take advantage of, it was the two-way radio system with which I was really impressed with. Living in an already congested area such as Miami and growing rapidly more congested, there is difficulty frequently with accessing phone lines. It's not too bad now but I have been observing a gradual decline within the last few months. Faxes don't transmit well from all areas; dial up internet services are constantly being disconnected and inaccessible during some times of the day; and cell phones don't always work. Not so with this baby. RANGE: It's range is unbelievable. No delay at all in contacting workers out in the field on just plain driving around. Believe me this Miami-Dade County area is L-A-R-G-E. Bigger than the size of some states. Sound quality always constantly good. No problem at all for the Nextel i500Plus. Communication is better than good. No matter if you are in a high rise office building or driving around in the Everglades in an air boat(I wouldn't get on one of these things though - alligators and sharks are biting like crazy right now!) Both reception and transmission are fantastic. TECH SUPPORT: Tech Support and Customer Service is EXCEPTIONAL. They are fast in their response.They are also serious about doing business. ONLY DOWN SIZE: However,this particular model while great for men in general and outdoor girls, I wouldn't personally carry it with me or in my purse. Just too bulky and heavy for my personal use. Almost one half pound in weight, I wish that the company would trim it down just a bit! THIS ONE IS TRULY STURDY AND RELIABLE: If you drop it, not to worry. It's too tough, study build. Sometimes, very infrequently, the words may come back a bit garbled but the connection is tremendous and so is the battery charging capabilities - I'd just re-charge it because I knew eventually it had to run out - otherwise, it just kept going. And going. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88754 2000/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable direct connect options can be added a bit bulky The Bottom LineGreat for a hands-on worker needs reliable communication, but a bit bulky for your average consumer. Full Review Hello all, I work for a construction company and we use these phones like mad. In fact, just yesterday Nextel announced the phone were not being sold anymore and we are trying to gather a plan as to what to do. These phones are perfect for the construction industry. They are very durable. We had one unit run over with a bulldozer which we took the internal parts out of and put into a new "body"/casing and it worked just fine. There are some problems which happen to these phones but it is not often ... ie - the charge pin can get pushed in (the solder breaks loose), but you can open and solder back together ... also the speaker can collect metal shavings or little metal pieces and if enough are there it can cause the external speaker to rattle and be raspy (not sure how this happens, but it can be cleaned out) The phones have great features: #1 - Direct connect There are 100 phone memory slots and 100 direct connect memory slots. It is capable of two lines, caller id, call waiting, web browsing, time and date on the screen, calls sent/received lists, keypad lock, different ring styles, auto answer, capable of transmitting data, and more. It weighs in as one of the heaviest Motorola iDen phones at just over 8.5 ounces. It measures approximately 5"x2"x1.5". It does almost have the longest battery (which comes standard with the phone) lasting 85 hrs standby and 330 mins talk time. It is a NiMH battery though which you have to drain down all way before recharging to extend battery life. The phone does not have vibrate feature, but it is the base model phone, so you can't really expect that. You can however, add speakerphone to the unit by updating it using some Motorola software on the web and paying them $20 plus tax. Go to motorola's website and follow the tabs for consumer products and look for iDen phones. You will want to download "iDen Update". We have had these phones for almost 3 years now and we have been pleased with the durability and variety of features these phones offer. They are perfect for field workers in the construction industry, but I can see how as a consumer product this might be compared to the old "brick" phones because of it's size even though it is smaller. You can purchase a slim battery to size it down, but it will lessen your battery life of course. These phones have worked great for us and we are going to be sad to see them go. PS - We have a couple hundred of them so I have a great deal of experience with them. Thanks for reading, and have a great day! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88753 2000/2/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 affordable versitile connects when i need itworks great for buisnesses looses connection in michigan dunes The Bottom LineI would reccomend this phone to virtually anyone with the need to communicate in a working or personal environment. Full Review This affordable Phone was the first NexTel Model Phone to include a Date and Time stamp, which while I was Working for a Nameless Cable company, became an invaluable function. There are a countless Number of Pluses to this phone. The 2 way CB Function, this allows you to contact anyone with a NewTel Phone without having to Dial out and Use the ever valuable Cellualar Minutes. By scrolling to the Prvate Ready Function and selecting the Name of the person on you list or by punching in their ID number you can immediatly convers with them in a Digital CB simulation Via the NexTel Satalites and If you wish to Use it within you Buisness This can save you a fortune in contacting Mobile Field Technitions. ( NO USING CELL MINUTES ). I Used This Function to Call in Jobs as I completed them to the Cable company as well as recieve support for in field Questions I might have and to pick up extra work if I completed Mine in advance instead of having to drive to and from the shop which at times was a good hour away. Cellular Long Distance, This Idea is that while you are in the local subscriber area ( NOT NEAR AS SMALL AS THE OCAL DIALING ARE FOR YOUR HOME PHONE ) in michigan this covers 75% of the state you can Mkae Local calls to anyone in that area. MS Messenger Compatable, While I am at work for those of whom who did not have a NexTel Phone and wanted to get a message to me they were able to Use the MS messenger to send me a message that I would instantly recive in the LED display of My phone compliments of MSN Mobile. WireLess Web, This allows you to surf a few web sites over the internet as well as check and send email through the Medium of your cell phone and does not use Cellular minutes to connect. These are the primary functions I found to be of most value and at the low cost of the phone I think you will agree tha tthe phone is a working mans Necessity. Tell your Boss abou ti. I am sure that he will agree that this phone is something tha tthe whole company can benifit from. Ease of Use. The phone comes with a training video to instruct anyone interested in learning in how to use the phone that is easy to follow as well as an instructoin booklet. The only real draw back is that i found tha twhile working in the Dunes of western Michigan I lost My signal. If this is where you work perhaps you should try another medium of communication first. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 88752 2000/7/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 looks neat phone email all in one sms internet bad reception lacking of important features the unit is huge The Bottom LineIf you can live with the bad things I mentioned, I guess you could make SOME use of this phone. Full Review Ok, you've heard that a lot of big, important enterprises use nextel as their method of workplace communication. Nextel has the Motorola I550 Plus as part of their model line. It looks tempting, but don't touch it! It lacks A BUNCH of features. Stay tuned! The silver frame around the screen makes it look sharp. But pick it up... OOPS! I dropped it. This Phone weighs a whopping (literally) 8.5 Ounces! The keys are spaced out well though. When you press it, it comes with a nice little "Click." The antenna is a bit of an annoyance. On the side, there are volume keys, making adjusting volume easier. The screen and keypad are generously back-lit. Once you turn the phone on, you'll see the "Welcome to Nextel" banner. Chances are, you'll get a terrible signal, especially indoors. Navigation of the different menus is confusing, impractical, and annoying. The text is quite comfortably large. Accessing the basic, useless features are somewhat easy, just press a button. Some of the better features are literally "buried in there". Some of the features offered though, might not be of use to you. So decide carefully if you want this phone. The battery is pretty bad. A good thing is that there is a built in speaker phone! I noticed that this lacks a lot of my favorite features. These include: pc synchronization, alarm clock, calendar, calculator, games, as well as customization. All but one of these features, which is pc syncing, is included in the nokia 8260. But, the 8260 doesn't have internet, and 2way. The nokia 8260 is for at&t, not nextel. Plus this phone weighs only 3.2 ounces. The I550 weighs about 2 1/2 time more! I'll let you choose if you want this so-called phone. Read the other reviews. Maybe they'll tell you more things. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 7762 Nextel i30sx 88764 2003/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 service is great in certain areas bulky The service on this phone seems to be better than on even the newer phones from Nextel. I got better service with the i30 than I ever got with my i95cl that I purchased for five times the price. 88763 2004/8/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 web browser instant messaging aimyahoo 500 character messages antenna that sticks out lack of ring tones battery life 500 character messages Nextel phones and their network are good. They have OK coverage (in DC) the walkie talkie feature is nice but I would give it an average mark because of the poor sound quality and unreliability. The cellphone sound quality/reliabilty is way better than the talkie walkie's. My biggest gripe is that the battery will last you about 1.5 days. Do not leave your phone overnight and expect to make 20 min of calls the next day. If you really want a Nextel set aside $50-$100 to buy spare batteries, spare chargers, car chargers, etc. Lack of ring tones Battery life Antenna that sticks out 88762 2004/3/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 its a cell phone at least horrible reception not enough light unexciting ugly faceplates no games ugly bulky antenna This was my first cell phone ever and it was is the worst cell phone i had ever had. Ugliest phone ive seen in a while, when you talk on it, it gets fuzzy and when you go into an area with trees you get disconnected. 88761 2000/9/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 joystick control cheap entry phone poor sound quality cheap not all of features The Bottom LineGood entry level phone for the Nextel service. Phone doesn't have allot of features. Full Review I bought my Nextel i30sx phone at a local Nextel retail store for $40.00 after signing up for two years worth of service. Phone features Phonebook- Holds up to 250 entries and allows you to store multiple numbers for each person. SIM Card- The SIM card holds all your phonebook entries. So when you change to a different phone all you will need to do is remove the SIM card from the i30sx and install the SIM card in the new phone and all your phone book entries will be on the new phone. Messages- Allows you to manage and access your voice mail,text messages and two-way messages. Direct Connect- All of the phones that Nextel sales offer this service. This allows you to use the phone as a digital two-way radio at the fraction of the cost of making a celluar call. This service only works in your home calling area. But you can get Nationwide direct connect service and be able to direct connect someone anyone in the USA for additional cost. Wireless Web- Using the built-in web microbrowser, you can are able to view special websites on the phone screen. Faceplates- You can order additional faceplates for this phone. I like this phone becuase of the 4-way joystick. This makes it moving around the menus allot easier. I also like the fact that you can change the faceplates on the phone. The sound quality on the phone is very poor. I also had to exchange the phone twice within a six month period because the phone won't pick up any signal. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88760 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 awesome call quality ugly CheapMini BrowserGood Battery No JavaNo GamesNo Vibrate The Bottom LineIf all you really want is a phone to talk on, which will last you awhile, this is the phone for you. Full Review After begging my mom for months to get me a Nextel phone, she finally agreed. She got me this phone because it was so cheap. Only 35 dollars! ~'Details'~ Battery: Talk Time: Up to 165 Minutes Standby Time: Up to 75 HoursPhonebook:250 entries, you can store Cell Phone, Main Phone, Home Phone, Work Phone, Pager, Fax, and IP Address all for one person!Speed DialingMultiple Ring Styles & Silent Mode (NO Vibrate)Web Browser (NO Java)Weight: 5.4 oz.Changeable FaceplatesRetractable Antenna~'Call Quality'~My call quality with this phone was excellent! Rarely did i have to struggle to get a good signal. Really, the only times it didn't work was in basements (which is kind of expected). And also in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but there's absolutely no phone service up there at all. I only had a few dropped calls. I would say the overall quality of calls was excellent. ~'Accessories'~When I got the cell phone, I also got a red Motorola faceplate. It went on and off with ease and I had absolutely no trouble with it. But I switched with one of my friends, and she had a generic faceplate, and once i put it on my phone, it would not come off. I eventually got it off, with only a slight crack in her faceplate, but it took me forever, and i practically had to rip it off. So don't use generic faceplates on this phone. I also got a medium-rate and high-rate charger. (The medium-rate came w/the phone and I bought the high-rate) The medium-rate charger charges the battery semi-quickly, all you really need for this phone, and the high-rate charger charges it very quickly, like within an hour. I really think a high-rate charger is unecessary, given that this phone has an AWESOME battery! I also bought a Motorola holster for this phone, which i never used because it made the phone stick out too far and was practically impossible to get off the phone. This is one of the few nextel phones with faceplates, and other than that, the accesories available for this phone are basically the same as any other.~'Wireless Internet'~Nextel's wireless internet homepage is awesome. From there you can access AIM, Aol mail, and many other websites with ease! It also offers a search engine so you can find other WAP websites. Although typing on a cell phone is difficult and slow at first, it becomes easier quickly. I think Nextel has a better wireless homepage than others. Without java on this phone, though, the stuff you can do on the wireless internet is limited. I also had problems with them and MSN Messenger. On the nextel website, it says they offer MSN Messenger but they really don't. It didn't work for me and i called them and they said they dont' offer it any more. So if you really want to get the most out of your WAP experience, get a java handset.~'Customer Service'~ service with nextel varies greatly. I have gotten hung up on because they could not solve my problem, but others are extremely helpful, friendly, and nice. And it usually doesn't take that long to get through. Overall, Nextel's customer service is fair.~'Complaints'~My only complaints with this phone is that it's not the pretty, and there are no games to play. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88759 2002/10/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 call list internet price storage not all bellswhistles The Bottom LineGreat phone at great price for someone looking for a basic cellular phone (and two-way radio) with a few additional features. Full Review I work for a construction company who is also a Nextel authorized dealer. We were in love with the i550plus Nextel phone because of its durability and price. It was the standard phone which we gave to our guys who would use and abuse the phones. When we heard they were going to discontinue it, we were a little disappointed. However, the i30sx is a good fit for a replacement. It adds a little bit more than what the i550 had. While the i30 may not be as "rugged", it has been proven for about 6 months now out on the jobsite with not many problems. The features add quite a bit more. The i30sx has a SIM card in it which holds all the information on the phone. It has 250 entries which can be put in the phonebook. You can enter up to 7 numbers for one individual an when you go through the phone book, they will all appear under one name as you scrool through them instead of having to enter 7 different names (eg. - joe mobile, joe home, joe work, joe pager, etc) ... it is just Joe and then you use the "joystick" to toggle through the types of numbers. The phonebook is setup so you can press the corresponding number on the keypad to skip to that letter instead of having to scroll all the way down through the names. For example, press 8 and you will get the first name starting with a 'T' ... press it again and it will give you the 'U' ... and so on. The i30sx, as every Motorola Nextel phone, has the Direct Connect "walkie talkie" feature. The two-way radio which has a range of hundreds of miles is a great feature which saves both time and money. It is easy to use and very efficient. Plus you get to feel kinda nice saying radio lingo such as "Go ahead" and "10-4". This phone has a variety of settings on it. It is your basic phone though. It does not have vibrate or speakerphone, but if you are looking for a cell phone it will do everything and more. It is capable of browsing the internet, retrieving email, looking up weather forecasts, etc. (Nextel online required) or being used to dial out as a modem (cable required and it uses phone minutes). There is a handy call list which gives you the last 20 calls. It gives all the detail of when the call took place and how long it was. This list is very easily accessed by simply pressing down on the joystick. Some of the phone features are: 3way calling, keypad lock, auto answer, alternate ring styles, and multi-language. The battery which comes with the phone is a lithium-ion so you don't have to worry about battery "memory" problems. It will last approximately 75 hours standby time and 165 minutes talk time. The phone is a decent size. It is approximately 5x2 inches and just more than an inch thick and only weighs a little more than 5 oz. This phone is a really good value for the money and will do all your basic features and then some. I would recommend for someone who doesn't need to play games and have their phone keep track of their appointments for them. UPDATED - One problem we have, is some of the i30's we have gotten have had bad speakers within the first month or so. To fix this we had to replace the whole back casing (this holds the speaker as well). We have access to do this since we have an account with Motorola because we are a dealer. You could call Motorola and see if they could send you the part and swap it out since it should be under warranty. I would have your dealer or whoever you got the phone through do this though ... and try to get them not to charge you because Motorola won't charge for the shipping of the warrantied item. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 88758 2003/4/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight clear sound walkie talkie feature does not have full features The Bottom LineI don't know how I got along without it... Full Review Motorolas' i30sx phone was the determining factor last fall when Bobby and I decided we needed a change in our phone service and in our equipment. One of the many rate plans that is available through the Nextel All Digital National Network offered the purchase of the i30sx phone for only $9.95 when you sign up for service. The Motorola name has always inferred a good, dependable, quality product in my book. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Details~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The i30sx phone contains a 250-entry Phonebook. We store not only family, friends and work numbers in ours, we also include numbers of the vet, the doctor, the bank, and the dry-cleaner, just to name a few. It is so much easier than lugging out that heavy phone book every time you need to make a call. The i30sx phone also stores your last 20 calls, both sent and received. This is real handy for making calls back to someone or to store their number to the phonebook. For the numbers that you call most frequently (spouse, kids, parents, boss) the i30sx phone boasts the "TurboDial" one-touch dialing. All you need to do is press one number and you're connected. The i30sx comes internet-ready. Just add Nextel Online to access your email, shop online, or simply browse different web sites. The i30sx phone comes with a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card for a built-in level of security. This card stores all of the information that you've entered into your phone, as well as your account identification information, and stores it. Should you buy another Nextel phone, you can simply remove the SIM card from your existing phone and insert it into your new phone. The i30sx phone has a wonderful 4-way navigation joystick to enable you to access the menus and lists that you've stored. It moves easily and smoothly. The i30sx phone comes with a 176 page users' Guide that covers everything you will need to know in order to use this phone. It is easy to read, very detailed, and includes a Quick Reference Card at the back which can be removed and kept with your phone at all times. The i30sx phone also comes with a Lithium Ion battery and charger. Recharging is simple, you just plug the chargers' connector into the bottom left hand corner of the phone, and the other end into an electrical outlet. The screens' backlight will stay lit while it's charging. I plug mine in every night and it holds the charge the entire next day with no problem. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Thoughts~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The thought of using a cellular phone really frightened me at first. Now that I've had my i30sx for several months, I don't know how I got by without it before. This wonderful little phone (it's about 5 1/2" x 2") has been much tougher than I thought possible (Bobby has even sat on it a few times...by accident, of course!). It's been dropped, tossed around and rides around in the side pocket of my purse which gets regularly squished into small places. It's so light (about 5 oz) that I don't even notice that it's there. The first time that I truly appreciated it's value is when I flew to Wisconsin over the Christmas holidays. I had a layover in Chicago and called Bobby as soon as we landed to let him know that I had made it safely that far. While we were talking, he mentioned that he thought it was great that my connecting flight had re-scheduled it's time of departure. Whoaaaa!! He had gone online and checked out the flight schedules. I was expecting the flight to leave about 30 minutes later and was getting ready to stroll through the halls of O'Hare. If I had, then I would have missed my flight. That little phone with the great Nextel service and with the fantastic clarity that it has, saved me from one major headache. Since I talked at length about Direct Connect (the walkie-talkie feature) in my review of the wonderful Nextel service in another review (which you can read , if you'd like), I'm not going to go into it's many uses in this review....but I did realize that there was one thing that I had not mentioned. When Bobby is trying to reach me, using the Direct Connect feature, I don't hear a phone ringing, I just hear his deep rich voice calling...he says "Hey, Baby" and I run to the phone. Of course, when he is calling Skeeter he just says "Skeeter...you hungry?" and Skeeter runs to the kitchen. Poor little gullible Puppy falls for it every time. Do you think I can have Bobby charged with "puppy torture"???? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.95 promo 7763 Nokia 3589i 88772 2004/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 i can go on reception on battery life downloadable features color screen backlight goes out a little too quickly I absolutely love this phone! I did my research on it before I bought it because I wanted to choose just the right phone. I wasn't looking for a camera phone right now, but with this Nokia it doesn't matter. It has all the features that you need in a phone. I live in an area where reception is poor, so this phone's dual antennas works great in my area. Battery life is excellent. I love all of the features that this phone has and I guess I'm a little bias because I've always been fond of the Nokia brand. 88771 2004/5/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Product Rating5.0 fine reception with weak signalssurprising durability physically larger heavier than some nokia dku 5 computer link software has bugs I have three Nokia 3589i's on Verizon family plan. I have been very favorably impressed by the quality of the reception at off-the-beaten-path places such as north shore of Kauai, south shore of Maui, and deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. I attribute the good reception to the 3589i's three band capability. I have been surprised by the durability of the Nokia 3589i. One phone continued working after being dropped into a sink and being submerged under water for about ten seconds. We merely immediately removed the battery, dried it out with hair drier on cool, and then reassembled unit. Another time, my handyman dropped his 3589i so hard that the case partially came apart; we merely snapped it back together and it continues to work. Available from Nokia and others is the DKU-5 cable and PC_suite software for transferring telephone numbers between the Nokia 3589i and a PC computer. I could not get the software to run on my Win98SE machine even with lots of technical support; it does work on my WinXP-pro machine, but the interface is not consistently intuitively obvious. 88770 2007/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it has a wonderful signal reception efficiency which makes it better well it does lacks in some of the modern day features that other phones have The 3589i is just about perfect phone for a working professional. 3589i gets the best reception ..It works perfectly.I only wish nokia still made them..It does not have a lot of bells and whistle but it does what it was designed to do. 88769 2005/1/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 receptiondurability make this nokia 3589i the best that nokia has made to date i wish that there were some games already pre loaded battery life can be better This phone is the best yet for the cheap end Nokia's! This is a very tough and durable phone. It takes a lickin and it just keeps on tickin. I dont know how many times I have dropped this phone and it still works great!! Reception is very crystal clear. I am able to get a signal anywhere that I have been. The battery life lasts me a 2-3 days with light usage. When I use it a lot, battery lasts for a day and a half. I love all the ringtones that the phone has and I like the Profiles feature where I can set up my phone in different settings depending on my location. 88768 2000/6/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome reception a great phone for anyone extra features phone illuminates no speaker phone The Bottom LineThis phone is perfect for almost anyone. So skip the expensive Camera-Phones and Buy a Nokia 3589i. You wont regret it. Full Review I live in the Seattle Eastside Area and bought this phone from my provider Verizon Wireless. We previously had AT&T- and we had TERRIBLE reception in the hilly region in which we live. This phone pleasantly surprised us with its excellent reception. Phone Itself The phone is a pretty good size. It's not like those small, compact flip phones, but its not big and bulky either. It's a perfect size. It is 4.6 inches x 1.92 inches. The phone is awesome for using at night or in dark places. The entire phone illuminates. The keys, all the way up the sides and the back all shine white. I even used it during a blackout once when I couldn't find a flashlight, and it was able to safely guide me down the stairs. The phone has a 1.5-inch COLOR display. The screen also glows VERY brightly. SO you can read it perfectly in the dark. The screen has a desktop, which you get to choose (more are available for purchase) All of the phones options are labeled very clearly and the icon are easy to read and understand. Battery Life This phone has a very good battery. Fully charged (about 8 hours) the phone allows you 3 hours of talk time and over 12 days of standby time! This is pretty good for a phone on his price level. Contacts This phone can store up to 500 contact numbers. I don't know anyone that has 500. But hey, it can't hurt. You can also place "name tags" on certain numbers, so that you can tell your phone to call a number and it will automatically. Very handy. Voice Options Besides being able to place voice tags on certain callers, you also can record memos on the phone up to a minute long. After you record the memo, you can name it and save it to a memory file. This is a very convenient option that I have used to help remember names, dates, etc. Text Messaging This phone can be used for text messaging and it works quite well. The messages save to your "Text Message Inbox", which is clearly labeled and easy to read. Mobile Internet This phone does have Internet capability, but honestly I have never used it because it is not included in my plan, so I couldn't tell you much about it. Organization The phone has a handy calendar that is easy to enter dates and times into. The phone stores up to 100 date entries total. The phone also has a calculator and stopwatch that I have used on many occasions. The stopwatch works very well and is simple to use. The calculator also works quite well. The phone also has an alarm clock. GET IT NOW! Feature GET IT NOW! is a feature that allows you to purchase ring tones, games, music, screensavers, news alerts, etc. Some of these options are a little bit pricey. But they are pretty cool. I have purchases desktop designs and ring tones for about $7 (that includes 10 ring tone purchases). GET IT NOW! is a convenient feature for cellular users. This phone is awesome! I don't think I would every trade it. Even for a camera phone. Take my advice and buy this produc Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88767 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 listed in review listed in review The Bottom LineIt has a handful of minor quirks, as well as some major ones, but for the most part is a pretty decent phone with good reception. Full Review My experience with the Nokia 3589i has been mixed. I can't say that I hate the phone, and I can't say that I love it either. - good reception. I seem to get a signal on this phone where many other Verizon users get none. This is, perhaps, the biggest asset for this phone. I'm assuming this can be attributed to both dual antennae (internal and external), and tri-mode service. -good battery life. I've talked on this phone for close to three hours without the battery dying. not to mention that I've had it with me for several days in the woods-- with it intermittently turned on and off-- before the battery died. -decent volume. Not loud enough that I can hear when a bus is driving past, but loud enough for most anything else. -ease of use. While I don't ever do much on my phone other than make and receive calls-- and text messaging on occasion-- I do find the menus to be more or less intuitive. This is my first cell phone, so there was the natural period of learning to use the phone, but after that relatively short time was over I don't think I've had much problem doing what I've wanted on my phone. I have used the calculator, timer, alarm clock and calendar, as well as done text messaging. All with, more or less, equal efficiency. I do have a beef or two with the calculator and calendar functions, but I'll save those for the cons list. Also, when the phone rings there is the option of silencing the phone, which is nice when I am either working or don't want to talk to certain people. -simplicity. This phone doesn't have any of the fancy technological doodads that a lot of phones have. No camera, no camcorder, no MP3 player, no games. All of which is just fine with me. It does have internet access, though I've never used it (intentionally... I'll mention that later, too). -durability. I've dropped this phone a number of times (sometimes quite hard) and it still works (more or less) as it always has. -lights up when ringing. Makes it easy to find in a dark room. -Missed calls. This happens with some regularity, though I'm not sure if it's more the fault of Verizon or the phone. -dead ringer. The ringer seems to go in and out. Sometimes it rings regularly, other times it'll only vibrate. This has been a problem with the phone since I first bought it and has been one of the main reasons that I've wanted to replace it. -dropped calls. Not really a regular occurance, but it happens enough that I should mention it. Calls seem to be dropped even when I am getting seven bars of reception. Again, I don't know if this is more the fault of the carrier or the phone. -echo. Strangely, this only happens when I call certain people and only when I innitiate the calls. I've never received a call that echoes. This can be a big time annoyance, distracting to the point of forgetting what I'm talking about. It's like hearing myself, at almost full volume, repeating everything that I've just said half a second after I've said it. Ugh. Another reason for wanting another phone. This could be the connection (since it's only between me and certain other people), or it could be the phone, either way I'm willing to try to rectify the problem by getting a new phone. -lame calendar. While having a calendar is nice if I have something that I need to remember once, it is useless for trying to remember something that's scheduled more than once. At first appearance, it seemed as though I would be able to both enter multiple entries simultaneously (e.g., a Monday appointment repeated for the next millenium), and have an alarm go off for it each week at the appointed time. However, the alarm would go off the first time, but never again. Kind of a disappointment, but only a minor one. -awkward calculator. A bit awkward having to search menus in order to find multiplication and division functions, not to mention whatever other modest mathematical operations this phone can handle. -attempting to automatically connect to the internet. Fortunately I don't have a calling plan that allows such things, other wise my phone would be racking up quite a bill while all alone in my pocket. I don't know how many times this has happened. A lot. If I did have a calling plan that allowed such things, this would be a major problem. -very small speaker. This is a complaint that I've never heard before. I find that the speaker on the phone is too small. I sometimes will think that I am losing reception or that for some other reason I can't hear the person on the other end of the line, when in reality I have shifted the phone a fraction of an inch down my face and away from my ear. And seeing as how the phone is more or less shaped like a very small brick, it's hard to tell at first that you're not holding it in exactly the right spot. Anyway, a relatively small complaint. I guess that's all I can think of for the time being. Again, not a bad phone, and not a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88766 2004/5/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nokia support reception two antennas reception data capabilities minor features wish had The Bottom LineReception outperforms other Verizon phones in weak signal areas. Has basics covered including data plus a few extra features. Nokia build quality and helpful tech support. Full Review When the display of my old Startac 7868 gave way, it was time for a new phone from Verizon Wireless. First on list of priorities for new phone was reception in fringe areas such as my office building and having analog/AMPS backup for travel into rural areas, not something not all new phones have. If a flip phone, camera phone, push-to-talk, games, or a radio are important to you, this is not the phone to have. This is my third Nokia phone (other two were prepaid with another carrier as backup in the office). The Nokia 3589i outperforms receptionwise any other Verizon Wireless phone have had including my old Startac 7868. It has both an internal and external antenna (and a GPS antenna location which you activate at your choosing except 911 calls will always activate). Am in an office 75 feet from nearest window on ground floor, and this phone does pick up a minimal digital signal and in this weak signal area 75%+ of calls ring through and the rest to voicemail, whereas other Verizon phones will not ring in this area or go into analog much of the time draining the battery. In stronger signal areas, call clarity nearly as good as a landline. BTW am using this phone in place of my landline at home. There is a variety of ring tunes as with other Nokia phones. I use the vibrating ring which is sufficient if phone on holster on belt (holster sold through aftermarket Internet retailers) though not as strong as other phones had. Also when calls or text alerts come through, the keypad and sides of the phone also light up like Christmas tree clear white flashing lights (may be good or bad depending on your tastes) besides any ring or vibrating options you have set. The all plastic body construction of this phone, except the keypad cover is metal, may be OK with you or not. The keypad is fairly solid. The actual phone I purchased from VZW store is much better build quality than the store display model which initially led me to another phone model which returned after a day due to battery issues. Battery life in my experience with the Nokia 3589i phone has been two hours of talk time or better or at least 72 hours standby with low usage. The phone does have a color display that is a pastel color display which you may like but may want something brighter. When keys are pushed, the lighted display turns on for only for 15 seconds, but have not found any settings in the phone to adjust this which would be nice using the phone at night (checked with Nokia support which indicated this cannot be changed to save phone battery life). You should note color displays do have some drain on the battery. The Nokia display is easier to read for someone with less than 20/20 vision than other non-Nokia phones. You can also change the phone color themes and background displays as options, but not something I have not done. Another feature wish phone had when you are on a call is a call timer display (checked with Nokia support who suggested this is not a feature many of its customers use, but suggested instead accessing Menu-Organizer-Stopwatch on the phone during a call if want to measure length of call). It is not always obvious when you are on a call once connected if you are just looking at the display. Also when you a complete a call where had to select menu options on the 800 number you called, the menu selection numbers you typed in you have to manually clear at the end of the call (checked with Nokia Support who said pushing the End/Phone Hang Up key twice instead of once will clear typing and end call). A good feature though like another Nokia phone had, you can set incoming and outgoing call restrictions on the phone (if you get annoying calls from a number, you can block that number from ringing your phone but it will not stop it from going to voicemail). Another nice feature is a menu option on the phone to clear the voicemail icon on the display if you not have time at the moment to listen to your voicemail messages which not seen on another Nokia phones had. You can send and receive text SMS messages with this phone. With messages received, once get to the message, it would be good if not had to go through two screens to get the message and the message header (call time, callback no, etc.). My testing showed phone had room to store about 80 incoming text messages before deleting any. Like other newer phones, this phone has quick T9 technology for typing text messages you send. The address book on this phone allows for 500 entries with multiple numbers per entry including email addresses. BTW If you are upgrading this phone from another Verizon Wireless phone, their service centers will transfer your phone book for you. You can assign quick dial 1-touch numbers to 9 phone numbers. It would be good if phone had 2-touch dialing for 99 frequently called numbers so not have to search the address book for your phone number entries, but it does not. The phone does have a minibrowser for limited Internet browsing and also Get It Now enabled for downloading applications, ring tunes, etc. which have not experimented with yet. Also the phone does work on the Verizon 1x Enhanced data network if connected to a laptop or PC (speeds up to 60 kbps though typically around 28.8 kbps for here though your experience may vary) which got USB data cable from Nokia. Setup for this was not user friendly, as though data cable came with data software CD, needed modem drivers had to get on Nokia's website (why not put it on the CD?). Besides the data cable issue, support from Nokia with any questions had has been outstanding. Phone wait time has been minimal, technical reps have been helpful and knowledgeable on the first call, and responsive to emails. First company have seen, which on its email contact section website asking what mood you are in about your comment, question, issue, whether happy, neutral, annoyed, or mad so they can word their email response appropriately. I wish Nokia ran the tech support of many other electronics companies have had to deal with. This phone has the basics covered plus then some including data capabilities. As noted above, there is some minor features wish the phone had. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88765 2004/5/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 contact list tri mode reception lack of business like ring tones The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3589I is a good phone for those that desire a simple to use, yet feature rich non-flip style, non-camera, tri-mode phone. Full Review Occasionally my husband resists change... His Nokia 5185I was still working, it was programmed like he preferred and he still liked it. Yet we were changing our calling plan, I was upgrading my phone, we were purchasing a phone for our teen daughter and I felt it was time to upgrade his phone also. He didn't want a flip phone, didn't like how the Kyocera KX414 felt in his hand, and wanted a tri-mode phone (analog and digital capabilities). The sales representative recommended the Nokia 3589i - a Get It Now Color Phone, stating that other customers (who previously owned Nokia cell phones) were satisfied with the performance of this phone. Change is good... Thus far he has been pleased with the performance from the Nokia 3589i. He is pleased with the similarities that this phone has in relationship to his old Nokia 5185I, yet more readily impressed with the improvements on the new phone. Most notably he appreciates the color screen, enhanced ring options, increased contact list capabilities. I have used this phone several times now and feel that if is easy to use, offers great reception sound quality. In fact this phone has retained calls in an area that previously was notorious for dropping calls. Overall we are pleased with this cellular phone and recommend it. This phone will best serve the needs of those that don't want a flip phone and don't need camera capabilities. If you currently own Nokia - and like it - this phone is worth looking at. Details... Unlike the Nokia 5185I, the Nokia 3589I has a color screen, a built in vibration mode and a longer lasting battery. The contact list is so much nicer in this phone, allowing you to enter up to 500 contacts. You can enter several phone numbers for each contact and other pertinent information. Although this phone is definitely an upgrade from the Nokia 5185I the phone remains simplistic to use. My spouse is pleased with how easy it is to navigate the menus, program the phone and use the features. His phone change apprehension was quickly replaced with awe over the improvements. There are multiple options for personalization including graphical Caller-ID icons, wallpaper, color schemes, screen savers and optional Xpress-on front and back color covers. All of the features on this phone are easy to use, including the 25 name voice dialing and the voice memo recorder. Have a question? No problem, as there is built-in help text. Also, from what my spouse states, it is easy to use the full-screen calendar with notes. However to fully benefit from certain features you will need to purchase a DKU-5 data cable (ie: to synchronize PIM calendar with phone calendar). This phone has a retractable antenna at the top of the phone and an internal antenna in the back of the phone. Although my husband automatically extends the antenna, I don't - nor do I feel that it makes a difference. Currently he is completing externship in a medical facility and although some employees have a difficult time getting a proper signal on their cell phones, his Nokia 3589i works every time. As mentioned earlier, this phone works in regions that our old phones didn't. We have successfully used this phone indoors and outdoors and in numerous regions. Speaking of antennas... this phone also has GPS - Location Information Sharing which can be activated via calling 911 or by turning the feature on. We haven't used this feature. I am unsure of the precise amount of time that this phone takes to charge; my spouse habitually plugs it in at night and unplugs it in the morning. The manufacturer states that this phone offers Digital Talk Time up to 3 hours and Digital Standby Time up to 8 days. This phone is comfortable for my husband to hold and use; it measures 4.68" x 1.96" x 0.92" and weighs 4.1 ounces. He states that it is easy to hold and that the buttons are simple to maneuver. He likes the appearance of this phone - it arrives with a blue cover and translucent sides, but he looks forward to customizing it via purchase of front and back color covers. The sides and the keypad light up with incoming calls. I should also mention that he is pleased with the large font that is on the LCD; even though he wears glasses, he can read the display without them, which is a real plus when the phone rings early in the morning. Although there are 45 musical ring tones included in the Nokia 3589I, my husband was disappointed with the lack of what he considers to be normal business like ring tones. In addition to the included ring tones, you can download polyphonic ring tones via Verizon Get It Now ** service (extra charge). Conclusion... After using the phone several times I can state that I like the Nokia 3589I because it is easy to use, offers good reception and it is slightly smaller and less heavy than the Nokia 5185I. But I prefer the compact size of the Audiovox CDM8900 and the sleek design of the Kyocera KX414. As mentioned, it is my view that the Nokia 3589I is a good phone for those that desire a simple to use, yet feature rich non-flip style phone. My spouse is glad that I nudged him to upgrade, and sees now what he was missing. Beside the 'ring' choice grumble, my husband is pleased with this phone. Overall we are pleased with all three phones and we are enjoying the freedom of talking to each other as often as we want via our call plan that includes Verizon Family Share National in-Networking plan. We are "IN!" ==========****====****====****====****========== Included With Purchase: Nokia 3589i Lithium Ion Battery Travel Charger User Manual Quick Reference Guide Welcome CD SPECIFICATIONS (As per website product specification listing.) Features: Voice Voice dialing for up to 25 numbers Voice commands for up to 8 menu items Record memos for up to 1 minute Mobile Messaging Write and send text messages Predictive text entry Connectivity cdma2000® 1X technology for high-speed data transmission1 Send and receive data between phone and PC via data cable DKU-5 (sold separately) Access the mobile Internet with the built-in browser - Openwave 4.1 browser1,2,12 Internal wireless modem capability TTY/TDD (Telecommunication Device for the Deaf) compatibility Hearing Aid support with the LPS-4 Loopset Organization Phone book with up to 500 contacts, with multiple numbers and text entries per contact† Full calendar lets you save up to 100 entries, including meetings, birthdays or any type of reminder† Synchronize your phone book, calendar and to-do list with your PC using Nokia 3589i PC Suite.4 via data cable DKU-5 (sold separately) Alarm clock with snooze Personalization & Fun Xpress-on™ color covers (front and back) sold separately Download applications over-the-air Enjoy 45 enhanced musical ring tones (MIDI) included on the phone or download ring tones over-the-air Specifications Internal and external antenna Vibrating alert Large, high-resolution color display Weight: 4.1 ounces Dimensions:4.68 inches long x 1.96 inches wide x 0.92 inch thick Service CDMA 800/1900 MHz, AMPS 3589i Battery Life Extended Li-Ion Battery 1000 mAh -- Digital Talk Time up to 3 hours -- Digital Standby Time up to 8 days **"Get It Now from Verizon Wireless puts a virtual software store inside a wireless phone. Customers with Get It Now-capable phones can download applications over the air and purchase them from their phones. getTXT, getIM and getEMAIL help customers stay in touch and communicate with others. getGAMES keeps customers entertained, while getGOING applications, made for today's mobile lifestyle, offers restaurant location services with maps, directions and more. View and share digital photos with getPIX, check out Web cams with getFLIX or identify incoming callers by assigning a unique ring with getTONES. getALERTS keeps customers informed while getBROWSING lets them access the Web from their wireless phone." Additional Information: http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/3589i Family Affair Other Phones Wireless Provider Thank you for reading! ©2004 Lisa_J Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7764 Nokia 3100 88784 2004/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 some nice feature awful reception awful This phone is very light and small which is a plus. However, the volume level is to low. If you are around a moderate amount of noise, don't expect to be able to hear the person who you are talking to. Also, the worst thing about this phone is the absolutely HORRIBLE. I previously used a Nokia 3390 and I was able to get reception inside of buildings. With this phone, whenever I went under a roof, I was in danger of losing signal. More often then not, it would drop down to 1 bar and it would cut out while talking to people. My brother has the 3595 and I am constantly having to borrow his phone (which gets perfect reception) to call people back. I am so unhappy with the 3100 that I switched back to my 4-5 year old 6290. Maybe it doesn't have all the features, but at least I don't have to sit outside my house to talk on the phone anymore. 88783 2005/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life it s a nokia good reception excelent speakerphone the 3120 looks better but u can put the 3120 face plates on your 3100 Incredible Phone, so small!!! Has All the features u need and much more... I don t like cell cameras, so i don t care if my nokia doesn t have one... 88782 2005/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 menus are very well designed durable small great color screen speakerphone no camera only polyphonic ringtones no music tones I purchased this phone from Cingular about a month ago and it is the best phone I have ever used as far as durability and reception goes. It is really a basic phone that is very easy to use, the menus are very well setup and simple. The phone picks up a signal like no other and has signal when other phones don't. If you are looking for advanced features like a camera or mp3 player than this isn't you're phone, but if you want something that works and works well this may be the phone for you. 88781 2004/10/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good reception aim color not enough features This phone is for the average person user that don't need all the bells and whistles. It has color and has a small amount of features. 88780 2005/12/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 size antenna This phone has the worst antenna out of all Nokia phones. I am not able to receive service anywhere in the Cingular network (this is when all my peers have a signal). Highly recommend against buying this phone. 88779 2006/12/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception small simple very little handsfree attatchment is weak Nokia 3120. I replaced my lousy Motorola V220 with this simple phone by just changing the SIM card. Excellent reception indoors and out. IM is good. I don't need/want a camera so that is not a need for me as this phone has no camera. On the down side, there is no volume control on the headset so the volume is not adjustable. It is fine 95% of the time. The handsfree attatchment has very low earpiece volume is is not very useful. 88778 2000/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good speakerphone reception good battery lifetime not really an update ugly headset plug The Bottom LineThe 3100 is just a plain old Nokia with a new faceplate. This ''update'' doesn't come close to what it's competition has to offer. Full Review Nokia has recently released the 3100, a smaller and updated version of the popular 3595. As with many of Nokia's products, this cellular phone is aimed at the teenage crowd. So, what exactly does this phone have to offer more than any of its precedent models? Well, unfortunately, not much. The thing that bugs me the most with Nokia's products is that no matter how many updates they release, they all end up looking alike. Rarely does Nokia ever come out with a phone that stands out from the others. And the 3100 is no exception. I would classify this phone as a medium sized handset. Larger than the 8390, but smaller than the 3595. It fits easily in a pocket or purse. The 3100 has exactly the same dimensions and roughly the same weight as the Sony Ericsson T237. The unit is entirely made of plastics. A lot of cracking noises are made from the platics when pressing on the keys. Nokia claims that the 3100 can give you up to 6 hours of continous talk time and 4 days of standby time. I've never really timed how much communication time I could get out of the 3100, but I am usually able to stretch its standby time to 5 days. The color screen on the 3100 is a big improvement from the 3595. The screen displays 4 096 color, 128 x 128 pixels. It's a big improvement from the big and ugly screen found on the 3595, but still not even close to a 65K Samsung color screen. Of course, this phone has the standard features you would expect a cellular phone to have, such as vibrating alert, calendar, a few games and a calculator. A nice feature found on every Nokia is the possibility of customizing ''Profiles''. For example, you may decide to have a Normal profile with Alarm & Vibration alert, and have a ''At Work'' profile with only Vibration alert. You may switch profiles by simply pressing the key located on the top of the phone. This makes it possible for you to switch options rapidly without having to go into menus. The 3100 is supposedly an update of the first generation of color Nokias. So, what exactly does the 3100 offer than the 3595... well three things: 1) A smaller and lighter unit. Witht the 3100, you save exactly 16 mm in legnth and 11 grams of weight. 2) An updated Web browser (XHTML with high speed data transmission. 3) A speakerphone I am suprised with the performance of the speakerphone on the 3100. As long as the volume level is kept low to medium, the sound emitted by the speaker is pretty clear. But as soon as you put it too high.. it becomes all distorted. Gone are the days where you could go from one Nokia to another without having to buy new accessories since they were all compatible. The 3100 uses a new plug, which is very bulky and ugly, for its headset. So, Nokia owners who wish to update, prepare to buy new accessories! Once thing that won't dissapoint you with the 3100 is reception and sound quality. The earpiece emits clear sound with a wide range of volume. I am able to get signal with the 3100 at places where it was impossible with many other mobiles. So, basically, the 3100 is just an ordinary Nokia with a speakerphone added to it. Although it does perform quite well, it's still missing lots of features such as an integrated camera. Therefore, if your looking for a phone with state of the art technology, look elsewhere, the 3100 is nothing close. However, if you are satisfied with a phone that basically "does the job" at a decent price, you should consider the 3100. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88777 2000/9/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 weighs 3 5 ounces lightweight equipped with aol instant messaging easy to use keys volume too low for me flat headset plug that comes off easily The Bottom LineFor the rookie like me a small, lightweight phone, that is durable and has the features I truly use is great. Getting my 3 Nokia 3100's free sealed the deal. Full Review I am a cell phone rookie. In my job I am a Reservation Sales Agent, who is paid to be on the phone 40 hours a week, speaking with 75-130 passengers a day. I have never ever wanted a cell phone. Never say never. I wandered into Best Buy one day for no particular reason. I saw that they had the Nokia 3100 free with 1 year activation. You could also add up to 3 lines at $9.99 per month each with Cingular Family Talk plan. Well guess what? I jumped for it. I have 3 phones and plan on adding a fourth one when my other daughter returns from Europe in 3 months. Phone Specifications: The Nokia 3100 comes with a 2 piece reflective blue cover, which is easily removed to change or replace the cover and or the lithium ion battery. The antenna is inside the phone itself. The power button is on the top of the phone. This model weighs just 3.5 ounces (with the lithium ION battery attached). It has GSM/GPRS/850/1800/1900 mhz. The standard battery provides up to 6 hours talk time, plus up to 17 days standby time. Phone Features: Integrated speakerphone Use the GO TO menu to access the features you use the most. Caller ID and Call Waiting One button call back for returning pages, responding to text messages and checking voice mail. On button speed dialing for up to 8 numbers. It supports multiple languages. Answer calls by pressing any key (except the End key and the Power key). Calculator Calendar Alarm Clock with snooze Stopwatch and countdown timer Display Features: 128x128 pixel, 4,096 color display with white lights Battery power and signal strength indicators 8 different color schemes to personalize display Animated Screen Savers Memory Features: Easy last 20 number redial Stores up to 300 contacts with up to 5 numbers and 3 text entries per contact Safety and Security Features: Pesonal security code Keypad lock Port for optional handsfree headset Advanced Feature Capabilities: Mobile instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger Text Messaging: Send and Receive text, email and instant messages Wireless Internet Express High speed data transmission via GRPS MMS - send and receive messages with image, sound and text Xpress-on glow-in-the-dark covers Phone lights up in tune with polyphonic ringtones Preloaded Java and Java games (bowling, darts, football) Record up to 1 minute of voice or music to use as your own personalized ringtone Optional camera available thru Nokia Attach a personal photo to a phone book contact to see who is calling Downloadable ringtones, graphics, screen savers and wallpaper Synchronize your phonebook and calendar with your PC My likes: There is a menu. The menu has 2 options: list or grid. The list function displays one at a time on your screen as follows: Messages, Call Log, Contacts, Profile, Settings, Alarm Clock, Gallery, Calendar, Games, Applications, Extras, Services, AOL instant message (AIM) and Go To. The grid lists a miniature grid of all selections on the same screen. I use the directional key to access each menu feature. I have used the alarm clock feature to awaken me for work set with my favorite ringtone, Hello Goodbye. It comes with standard Nokia ringtones. I have learned how fast I can write a text message. It is especially convenient for my daughter away at college to text me. I respond at my convenience. I have the special keypad that comes with the Xpress-on cover. I lock my phone when it will be idle. I choose the silent setting, with vibrating message alert turned on while at work. I am not able to have my ringer on while on the work floor so this is especially convenient for me. I use the speakerphone feature so I can talk while surfing on the internet on my PC, while doing dishes, cooking etc. The voice mail is especially easy to use. I set up my own mailbox number, and then recorded a 30 second sound bite followed by my personal message before the message tone sounds. In fact my voice mail number got reset to the default mailbox number. I had four 1 week old messages in there I did not know I had. I easily reset it to the mailbox number I wanted. I went to settings to set my screen saver, downloaded a free flag graphic for my wallpaper, even set my background color to blue. The blue matches my Blue Xpress-On cover with special keypad. It glows in the dark, and flashes when my phone rings. It personalizes my phone, so it does not look like either of the other 3100's we have. My college age daughter has the Orange Xpress-On cover. My youngest daughter the regular Nokia blue. We can each tell whose is whose just by looking at them. I have 34 numbers now in my contacts list, at the touch of a button. As far as the battery, I only need recharge it about every 2 days. The more use the more often you might have to recharge. My dislikes: I ordered an over the ear HDB-4 headset through Nokia. I had to send it back since it had the 2.5 mm plug, not the flat plug. I then ordered the earbud headset. I found that it unplugs more easily from the phone than I would like. I have found the sound volume is not loud enough. I still have difficulty hearing while wearing it so I gave it to my daughter. When on speakerphone, if I am outside, it sometimes does not seem loud enough. It have found it to be somewhat slow trying to access AOL Instant Messaging. I stopped using the Internet service as I get charged for the kbs. That can really add up on your bill. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88776 2000/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size clarity reception speakerphone nokia menu system limited features mediocre display The Bottom LineRecommended -- this is a low-cost, no-frills phone that packs great reception and functionality into a tiny package. Full Review The Nokia 3100 is a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone that is available in Canada through Fido, and in the US through Cingular. The 3100b version, which I have, operates on 850, 1800 and 1900 MHz. Thus it will only work overseas in countries that support 1800 MHz, but this includes most of Western Europe and many other countries. For North America, 850/1900 capability is a must, as upgrading of the GSM networks to the older TDMA/analog coverage areas is still very much a work in progress. Fido users in Canada can, with some plans, roam on the Rogers GSM network, which is a huge bonus as Rogers is nationwide and supports GSM 850/1900, while Fido is 1900 MHz only. The 3100 is identical in size, specs and features to the more urban professional-oriented Nokia 3120 (they have the same manual). The 3120 is sold by Rogers as well as Cingular. This is an incredibly small and light phone. However the color display is still a decent size. The display is very difficult to see in bright sunlight, and goes dark much too quickly (15 sec), with no way to change this (I guess Nokia wants to claim a longer battery life...). The large digital clock display on the "dark screen" mode is nice and would be really nice if it was easier to see. The keys are designed to look good rather than be well-placed for rapid-fire keymanship, and are probably far closer together than they need to be. That aside, the keys depress with a solid-feeling 'click'. Incidentally, my hands and fingers are quite large, so someone with smaller fingers would find the keypad no problem at all, and if you have super-big, meaty fingers, what the heck are you doing looking for a phone this small anyways? Where this phone really shines in where it counts: its reception is very good, and it holds onto calls better with marginal signal than any mobile phone I have ever used. This includes the Motorola Timeport P280 and the Siemens A56, two GSM phones with justly fine reputations for reception and/or clarity. In several of my local haunts with traditionally awful cellular reception (including my own basement), the 3100 not only displayed consistently higher signal levels, but could hold onto calls and provide good clarity and volume when only 1-2 bars were showing. The 3100 is not perfect and WILL drop calls, but this so far has occurred only in areas where with my previous phones, I would struggle just to place the call in the first place. Several reviewers have complained about the 3100's sound quality in terms of earpiece volume and background hiss. I never had a problem with hearing any calls, as long as I kept the volume cranked up (the volume control is the horizontal scroll on the 4-way navigation key on the front of the phone and therefore is awkward to use when in a call). I DID notice a fair amount of hiss on SOME calls (especially outgoing?!), but I could hear the call just fine regardless. Overall, I'd have to rate the voice quality as very good. In this age of cells phones with cameras, camcorders, mp3 players, etc. etc., the 3100 is pretty basic and is not a phone for gear freaks. GPRS and the nice-sounding speakerphone are about it as far as nifty features go. Business users will like the Calendar (with reminders) and the great Nokia menu system, but there is no Bluetooth or infrared. The alarm clock is a great feature (no need to take an alarm clock on trips!) -- why all cell phones don't have this feature I have no idea. It would be nice if the voice recorder was a bit easer to access via the menu system (the Timeport, for example, has "one-touch" recording via a button on the side of the phone) - like with my former Nokia 6360, I had to memorize the specific keypad numerical "shortcut" when I needed to record a voice note on the fly (is there any other situation where one would need to record a voice note??). Speaking of shortcuts, Nokia has finally decided to include a user-customized shortcuts (or GoTo) soft key function accessible from the standby screen. So, along with the Menu (left) softkey, you can switch the familiar Contacts (or Names) right softkey to "GoTo", for which you can specify several commonly-accessed functions, such as Inbox, Missed calls, Calculator, Select Game, etc. Unfortunately, your choice of functions within the "GoTo" menu is limited to either selecting or deselecting items from Nokia's preloaded list. The Timeport, for example, allows you to move a whole lot more functions into its "Shortcuts" softkey menu. If you want a basic phone for making calls and/or texting, the Nokia 3100 is a solid, no-b.s. choice, especially if you want a small, light handset. Any shortcomings in terms of the feature set is more than made up for by the fine reception and performance of the phone itself. Throw in better-than-ever Nokia functionality, and a simple yet handsome design, and you've got a winner. The 3100 is simply the finest of the 7 cell phones I have owned. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88775 2005/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durability size cost quality weight volume not that loud The Bottom LineA great phone that is durable, small, lightweight, portable, and has great features. Full Review I am a student. I am writing this review for my project in my senior English class. Please review and rate my review. N3100 Review The Functions: The N3100 is a cell phone. Its functions are to call, text message, voice mail, games, screen savers, alarm clock, calendar, speakerphone, volume, profile, polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones, gallery, and GPRS (internet). How The Functions Work: Calling: When I use this phone for calling, the call is clear. Sometimes when I use the speakerphone, the voice that comes out is somewhat blurry if the volume is high and that is difficult to understand. Text Messaging: When I use the phone for text messaging, the keypad helps me a lot by making me type faster because of the keypad style. The keypad style is small and they are somewhat connected within one another which makes it easier to type. The N3100 has 160 characters per text message and you can keep about 100 messages in the inbox. Games and Screen Savers: The games are cool and you can download other games, but it will cost you. The phone comes with 3 games; Snake Ex2, Beach Rally and Bowling. I deleted all the normal games that come with the phone and replaced them with new ones. My games are like Siberian Strike, Splinter Cell, and Cross Fire. The cost of each game depends on what type of line you have. I downloaded my games for 70 cents per game. The screen savers are excellent because you can have animated screensaver clips. The examples of what types of screensaver are: picture and animated clips. The screen saver picture just displays on what time you want the screensaver to show on the screen. The animated clip screensaver is a picture that moves. Alarm Clock and Calendar: The alarm clock is good; I use it every morning for school to back up my normal alarm clock. You can choose whatever ring tone you want for your alarm clock. The calendar is useful if you're a person who is forgetful because you can go to specific dates and years to put a reminder. Then you can set up a specific time and when that reminder comes, it will sound on alarm and remind you of your obligation. You can also set up birthday reminders. To set up the alarm clock in the phone is easy. You have to just go to the alarm menu and turn on the alarm clock and just set up what time you want the alarm to ring. When setting up a specific or special date you want, just go to the calendar menu and choose what date you want. Then choose the options button, you have 3 options to choose. First is the Day note, second is the Make a note, and third is the Go to date. Volume: The volume is all right but if you're in loud places, like parties or clubs, you won't be able to hear it. That's why when I go to those kinds of places I have to turn on the vibration. Profile and Service: The profile is where you can customize what things you want your phone to use. In this section you can choose what ring tone you want, what wallpaper you like, what color schemes you like (8 different color schemes) and etc. I use the color blue scheme because my casing is blue and so it would match. This phone ring tones are polyphonic which is cool and way better than monophonic. The difference between polyphonic and monophonic is that in polyphonic the tunes seem nicer and much closer to the real music and while monophonic is not. The gallery is where your pictures, ring tones, and screen savers are located. The service option is where you go to if you want to connect to the Internet (via GPRS). Qualities: It's durable, a great size (4.00 inches long x 1.68 inches wide x 0.77 inch thick), nice weight (3.5 ounces), long battery life, 4-way scroll for easy navigation, and large color display with bright white lights (128x128 pixels, up to 4.096). The size is great because it is small, easy to handle, and is lightweight. The battery life is ok; it takes about 6 days for the battery to get low (for me, not sure with other people's N3100). I say it's durable because my phone dropped a few times on the ground and it is still in a good condition. The color display screen is ok, but sometimes if sun shines on the screen, it is hard to see. Difficulties: There are really no steps in the process that are difficult because the phone is simple and self-explanatory. Likes: I like the N3100 because of its size, durability, the fact that it's lightweight, and its capabilities. I chose this product because at the time I bought it, it was the latest model and I loved its functions. When I bought this phone, it came with a 1-year warranty. The best features that I liked about this phone are that it is colored, its size is cool, it's durable, and its cover has a glitterish, like thing around it because it is where it glows (glow in the dark). Problems: There's not much that I don't like about this phone. There might be one problem for other people that the size of the phone is small and it might be difficult for them to look for it if they misplaced it. If its dark, the phone glows in the dark so it might help when finding the phone in the dark. The other problem might be the small keypads, for people with big fingers. The other feature that didn't work well is the Internet. The Internet has some problems connecting to some specific sites (I guess its just with my line). Overall Evaluation: My overall evaluation for this phone is that it's a great phone for me. It's cool and wonderful. This phone has other extra accessories that you can use with the phone. The examples of the accessories are detachable camera, earphones, and etc. This phone doesn't have infrared or blue tooth. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88774 2000/4/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size functionality well lit display ring volume long battery life clear call volume insufficient in noisy environments alarm function quit working The Bottom LineDespite a couple of shortcomings, this has been a fairly reliable phone. I can receive and place calls reliably, almost always. That's what is important to me in a phone. Full Review After switching to a new Cingular plan in October 2004, and having been talked out of a particular Sony Erickson phone by our Cingular representative, he suggested the Nokia 3100. My wife got this for me out of state, so I hadn't seen the phone until I got the box in the FedEx envelope a couple of days later. The box was fairly decent sized; imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a phone that was 4" long, 1.68" wide, and 0.76" deep, and weighed 87.4 grams! Honestly, they could have gotten at least 10 of these phones in that box, and still had room for a charger and accessories! I have to admit, I had reservations about this phone from the beginning. The keypad numbers are arranged so that the 1-2-3 keys all share one long button - push on the left side for 1, the middle for 2, and the right side for 3. The same is true for the 4-5-6 keys, 7-8-9, and *-0-#. However, I was surprised to find that the keypad functions quite well this way, and it was easy to get used to it. The key feel is good, giving a positive click feedback plus a beep each time a key is pressed. I have had very little problems pressing the wrong key, or having to press a key twice. The menus are fairly easy to navigate, although the placement of settings is not always intuitive - some things, such as the ring tone, can be set in more than one menu. One of the more important things for me is the ability to store numbers and information - I have a lot of contacts, both business and personal. The Nokia 3100 allows you to store up to 300 names, with multiple numbers and text notes for each name. Each contact entry can contain one or more of the following types of information: General phone number, mobile phone number, home phone number, work phone number, fax number, e-mail address, Web address, street address, and a text note (I wish they had also included a pager number, as I would be much more likely to call that from my mobile phone, vs. the fax number). Any one of the numbers can be designated as the primary (default) number for the contact. Each contact can be assigned to a caller group (family, friends, VIP, other, or a customized group name), which allows you to set up custom rings, etc. Also, each contact can be set up for one-touch dialing. I found this more than adequate for all my needs, and it is very easy to enter and retrieve the information. Text entry can either be done using predictive text, or by simple key entry, and it is easy to switch between modes. I find that the predictive text mode works fairly well for this phone, especially compared to some others which I have used. This comes in handy when text messaging - something I don't do very often (text messages are not included in my package, so I have to pay 10 cents for each one), but still necessary from time to time, especially with a teenage daughter. Although it is fairly easy to send a text message, I find that I have to go through several menu steps to exit the text editor - a minor drawback. There are a few choices for ring tones on the Nokia 3100 - not as many as most phones that I've owned, however. There is also a gallery that contains other tones (polyphonic MIDI). The ring volume can be set to be fairly loud, unlike some phones that I've owned, and the vibrate feature is very good also, along with a rhythmic backlight alert. Call volume, on the other hand, is not loud enough to be heard with moderate to high background noise. Using a hands-free earpiece does not improve the volume situation. The phone does have speakerphone capability, which works well in a quiet setting, but again, not so well with background noise. There are several extra applications and extras included with the Nokia 3100. One of them I use most often is the Calendar, which allows for reminders, appointments, etc. to be entered. Separate alarms can be set for each, and the reminders can be set to be recurring - great for birthdays and anniversaries. There are is also a stopwatch, countdown timer, currency converter, along with a few games. The games are somewhat entertaining, but have limited plays before one has to download (and purchase) a full version. One game, NCAA Football, actually accesses the Web upon starting - which can be a problem if you pay for Web access per use. It would have been nice to have a warning up front about this. The Alarm function can be set to sound at a given time of the day. I used to use this as a backup to my regular alarm clock - I don't trust myself not to sleep through my alarm, or keep hitting the snooze bar, so I set my phone on a dresser several steps away. It worked great the first few months, then, all of a sudden, the alarm stopped working. You could set it, but it wouldn't sound - and then, you couldn't turn the alarm off. Removing the battery and reinserting it allowed the alarm to be turned off, but when turned on again, it either didn't sound at all - or sounded at a time different from what was set (sometimes, a previously set time). I've given up on this. Signal strength is about as good on this phone as any I have ever owned. I live on the fringe of my reception area, so it's not often that I have a full strength signal. However, the phone usually maintains a good, consistent connection. The display and keypad are brightly lit for night usage - bright enough, in fact, to use as a light to locate keys, etc. Battery life is excellent. In standby, this phone can go several days between charges. However, I talk a lot on this phone, and it is not unheard of for me to have conversations an hour or two long. Therefore, I find myself charging the phone every two to three days. A full charge only takes an hour and a half or so. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88773 2004/9/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nokia reputation cost quality weight feel look ease of use gui versatility shortish talk time earpeice volume a wee bit low The Bottom LineA great phone with great features/GUI that looks great and will work on most of the planet. Full Review A Little Background The Nokia 3100 is a relatively new phone and is currently carried by Cingular wireless in the southwest market. Of course, AT&T could carry this phone as the two use the same network, but as AT&T will be Cingular come October, what's the point. This currently the smallest new phone available from Nokia, but fortunately I still have my 8390 which was slightly smaller and just had it unlocked a few weeks ago, so if the 3100 ever conks out then at least I will have another GSM unit to toss the SIM card into. I chose to go with Cingular after a tremendously irritating 6 months going back to Verizon which is who I had switched to previous to my time with AT&T. I had switched to Verizon because of the unbelievably bad CS with AT&T, only to find that Verizon was that much worse. I guess things can change that much in 3 years. Cingular has been fantastic and I am thrilled to be back on a GSM network which is of course what AT&T is/was. Just for reference, the term candy bar has become a popular way of describing almost any phone that is not a clam shell (flip phone). I spose if units like the 101 still existed we'd call those soda cans, but who knows. Fit and Finish Cell phones are not, nor have they been for some time, these great big, heavy monsters anymore. They are, for the most part, relatively small and made almost entirely of lightweight plastics. The "weighty" feel of this type of electronic device is no longer needed or desired by the market as a whole and thank god, I can't imagine still using something the size or weight of a Nokia 101, though it was an excellent phone back in 1994's analog networks. Although some phones still employ metals, like the Moto V series, it's really only for aesthetics. The 3100 is no different. It has an attractive 2 piece plastic cover with a metallic blue/purple look and a marginally larger screen than many of the current Nokias out there. The keys and directional pad have a solid titanium look to them, but when the backlight is activated they show that that they are in fact translucent, which is a neat little effect in and of itself. The rear cover is easily removed for access to the fully enclosed and microscopic lithium battery. The antenna is internal with no little nubs to break off and replace, often at great cost. Although the entire body is light plastic, the phone does feel strong and well put together. The keys have a sure feel and activation and the power button is located on the top of the phone as were the 8300's and many lines of currently available units. There are no side keys for volume or other in call needs, but such things are easily navigated and performed through the directional pad on the face of the phone. The back plate is easily removed which is a good thing because I have seen several larger candy bar style phones that are just this side of Rubik's Cube when it comes to opening them. Ultimately this should never be needed unless the battery is removed for some reason. Features and Use I chose this phone primarily due to size. I wanted the smallest unit available for a GSM network and this was it, based on the provider options I have where I live. Nokia has been very good about maintaining the same GUI as they had 10 years ago. Sure, it has expanded with all the new features coming down the pike as cell tech has progressed, but all the basics are still there and the tremendously intuitive nature of that very GUI has also improved with time. Regardless of what function needs to be executed, it is easy to find said function and perform it. The GUI is set up in this order: Messages, Call Log, Contacts, Profiles, Settings, Alarm Clock, Gallery, Calendar, Games, Applications, Extras, Services, IM (AOL), and Go To. Anyone who has used a cell phone for even a short period of time should be able to deduce almost immediately where to go to get a job done based on those options, in my opinion. It is pretty clear Nokia did quite a bit of research as to order of operations most consumers will follow to do a certain task. Whatever you need to do is already lined up for single keystrokes from a single key, not dashing all over the face of the phone to get the most basic functions completed as many Samsungs and NECs do. Messaging is very easy with this phone. The one thing I really like about messaging with this phone is that the time elapsed between keystrokes on the same key are very short, so when typing the word (for example) "made" there is a very, very short wait between writing the D and E. The intuitive texting still needs some work so I don't use it, but for the most basic yes/no type conversations, some may get more out of it than I. Also, occasionally more than one way to get to get to options, so it becomes a situation of the customer choosing the best way as opposed to having to follow some random menu of operations. There are several time and style options for locking the keys, which is absolutely essential. I have mine set for ten seconds, though there a couple of functions depending on use that will keep the key pad open, so always be sure to finish your texting and voicemail totally. The directional pad will give you direct access to either the calendar (and notepad/scheduler), text messaging, or your phone book with one touch. This very convenient and I appreciate the uncluttered look of it too. One thing I really hated about the Samsungs I have had is all the little amorphous icons that are inconsistent with anything really. I think the average consumer is smart enough to remember that a right push will get the calendar and a left push will yield texting, etc etc. Retrieving voice mail is very quick and easy too. There are multiple shortcuts in the mail system to allow you to fly through even ten or more messages very quickly, deleting, saving, and marking as you go. Recording multiple purpose specific messages is also easy, but that starts to spill into provider options rather than the phone, but there you are. The contact lists are very easy to set up and offer everything from multiple numbers, to random notes to yourself, to email addresses, to you name it. I was able to manually transfer about 100 names, numbers, and other info in less than an hour. I spose I could have had the folks at the Cingular place simply hook up my old phone to the new one, but after you have had one of these lackies erase all your numbers, whether 50 or 380, and NOT transfer them as a blank look creeps across their face. . . . well, you get the idea, so I did it myself. The screen is color and is quite vibrant compared to some other color screens out there. Refresh seems slow, but c'mon, how important is that on a cheapo phone. The backlight is VERY bright and as I have read in many reviews about my previous 8390 which was about as bright, you can virtually use it as a little flashlight in some situations. The numeric keys are set up in four rows of three. One, two, and three for example, are just one little block. At purchase I was wondering how much of a fatkey issue this would pose, but it is extremely rare, so more kudos to Nokia for that. On the four, five, and six row, there are two little locating bumps, like one might have on a keyboard, so even when you are not looking directly at the keypad, it is easy to, in a purely tactile fashion, dial. Of course all the basic phone functions are present, I just wanted to point out some of the features I use most often. You can access the web very quickly and easily, but the charges on more basic plans make it prohibitive, however being the geek that I fancy myself to be, I have hopped on a few times to check CNN and a few other basic sites and the interface is very simple and easy to use. I don't use the AOL IM feature simply because texting is easy enough and I really don't need to keep a window open to have a text convo. The charges for the AOL service are very reasonable though, so if I ever got a wild hair, it would hit my wallet that hard. Games have never been a big selling point for me, but the ones included on this phone are very cool. Between the bowling and darts and racing, it's actually a lot of fun if you are waiting someplace, bored on a commute etc. There is actually a fairly large database of games that one can acquire, but there are charges for them, some worth it (like darts) some not so much. I suppose to some degree this all depends on how much of a gamer you are. The way I figure, if I want to play a game, I have a PS2, XBOX, and Game Cube for that. Battery life is fairly good I don't know if there are any higher capacity batteries available for this model but I somewhat doubt it as that might require a new rear panel, but anything is possible. As it stands though, talk time is decent at about 3hrs of nonstop yammering. With average usage (I run about 900-1300 a month) I get 2 days out of it between charges, sometimes less. The really beautiful thing is the charge time, 75 minutes. Yep, a little more than an hour and its back to 100%. For those of us that remember the days of 6hr charge times for Ni-Cads, this is a thing to rejoice. I remember reading in the manual about 2 something hours and thinking, yeah that will be more like three, but nope, it's a little more than an hour. Fantastic! I could go on all day about features, but the fact of the matter is that it would just be a rehash of all the obvious things one would expect to see on a mobile device at this point. The bottom line is this though, it is immensely easy to use and is so little and light you will forget you have it on. I would as a last point like to mention the vibrate feature is so strong, it's almost enough to get it reclassified as a . . . hmmm. . . toy (wink wink). It will scuttle across my desk when it goes off in silent mode. Also, a lot like the 8390, it has flashing lights that go along with any of the ring options you might choose, and that is in addition to the vibrate feature. Pretty cool. The Good It is extremely light and seems quite durable. The charge time is excellent. The screen is bright and easy to read and all the functions are immensely easy to perform. The direction manual is easy to understand and well laid out. There are many rings to choose from and you can even download rings, though this phone isn't a true polyphonic. That is actually fine with me though, I find all the "popular" ring tones, ie, the latest hot pop hit, to be exceedingly annoying. I just want it to ring, and it does. The phone looks great and is a good conversation piece for someone with a much larger unit. There is a little ring around the face of the unit which is glow in the dark and lasts a long time, again, doesn't serve too much of a purpose, but helps trying to find it in a dark room I spose. The Bad There is not a whole lot I don't like about this phone. I am not a fan of the plug for the hands free piece simply because it is no just a standard mini or micro plug. Instead it is a larger flat style plug you might expect to see as a charger style interface on a phone like a Motorola. The volume could be a little better too. Even at max, it can be easy to shift the phone such that you can't hear anything or simply being in a loud room or place can make it hard to carry on a decent conversation. I don't mean the ringer though, that's plenty loud. In this respect I wouldn't mind having a little set of buttons on the side for this, but as it stands, it's a minor irritation. Final Thoughts GSM is the future for the American cell market, this is fact. Within ten years the entire US will be GSM, possibly sooner. The reception on this phone is very good and overall it is quite easy to use. As I have said more than once, it is very light to the point where when you hear it ring you may look around to find it before you realize it is simply in your pocket. The phone is good looking and has a lot of little bling features that set it apart from the mass of clamshells out there that all seem to be a little too similar for my tastes. I love the fact that antenna is internal, not only from an aesthetic standpoint, but from the view that it can't get caught on things and break. A lot of how much a person likes their mobile communication depends on the service. Potentially, you could have the sleekest, most advanced, most bling phone on the market regardless of price, but if the service sucks, then it tends to detract from any love one could possibly have for the device regardless of whose fault it is that it doesn't work well. GSM is pretty well set up in most major corridors in Texas and whether I am in Austin, Dallas, Houston (EXCELLENT reception), San Antonio or even El Paso (ugh), I have virtually crystal clear calls, sending or receiving. So far I am very happy with Cingular, but that's another review! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7765 Nokia 6100 88795 2003/12/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable easy to use lightweight grahic clarity fair the phone offers the standard features common to all nokia cell phone products. text messaging, call register, profiles, settings, setting etc. are just part of the standards. this is great phone for it's weight and durability. depending on the services your network provides you can send pictures to cell phones or email them with fair picture quality. i tried it last night and i was quite surprised how clear the pic i sent when i viewed it in my email as compared to the picture preview on the phone. So the downside is that it's not the best in resolution but good enough. for battery life and charging, lithium battery says it all. with average use my cellphone lasts 2 to 3 days. the fast charger fully charges the phone in less than 3 hours very critical for people like me who are always on the go. in terms of calls, i like the quality of the speaker. clarity is great. 88794 2005/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 slim good quality simple good battery life good features it doesnt have bluetoothi would prefer a better quality perhaps metal casing All the things I want in a phone Quality, Simplicity and Beauty - I dont want more! Now let me say I am gadget obsessed, I love toys but im also a minimalist - Contradiction I know but it works for me. Therefore I want a phone that: - Is of good Quality - Thin, small and light. - Nice to look at and ergonomic. Great Phone, its easy to use, good quality, good features, nice large colour screen. Ive had it for a year now and it is still great, I replaced the covers once to refurbish it. 88793 2004/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 i smoke weed out of it color screen lots of cool features nothing i liked this phone lots of great features and extras email web and it is very light weight and is small and cute it fits right in my pocket yeah right in my pocket my overall rating for this phone is nine thumbs up 88792 2004/6/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery life good quality cheep no bluetooth I have always liked nokia phones, they are one of the oldest mobile companies around so they should know how to get things right! I like the use of any nokia's menu, and this 6100 phone is no different. I 'brought' the phone for free on an orange Contract costing around £30 a month, and after three months i can drop it down to £15 a month so therefore i think it's a very cheep way to get such a good phone! The phone has a nice large colour screen, WAP (which has slightly more point in colour, and is free for the first three months you have a contract at the moment!!), predictive text, support for downloadable games and applications (although you have to pay for most of these), polyphonic ringtones. I think the 6100 is a nice phone, solidly built, small, thin, good battery life, and it looks pretty good!! I would definatly recomend this phone, the only thing that is missing is Bluetooth! 88791 2003/6/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 really small sexy seems abit flimsy The Bottom Lineoverall i would recommend this phone, i think the good points just outway the bad points. Full Review I bought this phone just over 2 weeks ago off the o2 website and it cost me £69.99 on a contract of £25 ($35.50). This contract includes 750 off peak mins free, 500 wap minutes, 500 texts and 125 media messages. minimum contact is the usual 12 months. I think i got a really good deal with all the freebies i get, It is really cost effective. I was going to buy the nokia 7250, infact i ordered it, but it sold out before i got mine, so i ordered the nokia 6100 instead, and im glad i did because this phone is much smaller, ive heard it is the smallest that nokia have built, it is very light weight and it is sexy and "business like" unlike the 7250 which is big and bulky. The nokia 6100 does not have a radio, but that was not a big priority for me. The preloaded pictures are of a really good quality but when i take pictures on my camera they dont come out as clear, the lighting has to be prefect because the phone can only display 4509 colours which is standard for most phones now. Some times also when i am writing a text message it turns itself off, then on again, which looses the message i was writing, i dont know why it does this, but it did it with my old nokia 8310 as well, maybe its a general nokia fault. If you are looking for picture quality this phone is not for you. but however if you are looking for excellent sound quality, good size, storage of hundreds of text messages and hundreds of good java games to download then this is the phone for you. The loud speaker is also a very clever device on this phone as well, i have found it very useful. This phone has easy to use buttons including a scroll button, i find that all nokia phones are easy to use because everyone is set out in the same way. The phonebook can store multiple details, such as addresses and email addresses, but it cannot store a picture. It only comes with one built in game (chess) but there are so many out there to download. Spy girl is a good game to download for it if you like platform games. All games and ringtones seem to be really expensive for phones at the moment but i have found a really good website for ringtones and logos, go to www.cbfmobile.com The menu functions display really good pictures under each one which i found quite cute, but they do not move like the 8310 ones do. Under display settings you can change the colour schemes to turquoise, pink, blue, voilet, red, orange, gray, green. This phone has wap and gprs but it lacks bluetooth. You can assign people into caller groups and give them colour graphics with appear when they call. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88790 2000/4/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight battery life no bluetooth The Bottom LineIf you can afford it, this world tri band (GSM 900/1800/1900) phone is very sleek and a great phone. Full Review Breakdown: Reception/Clarity - The handset is super clear even with only 2/7 bars. It suffers a little when down to 1 or 0 bars (but which phone doesn't). The speaker phone is very clear, even works well in a car on the seat next to you. Features/Menu - A sizeable set of features for a Nokia phone. As usual, an easy to navigate menu and some nice shortcuts to text messaging and the calendar from the standby screen. The phone/name list is very nice as you can add multiple numbers to each persons name (general, home, mobile, office, fax), and other bits of info like email, postal address. A whole bunch of other menu features and expandablity with applications and games. The data cable or IR port allow for synchronization with Nokia Data Suite.. allows you to manage almost every aspect of the phone. Size/Weight - Approximately the same weight as a Nokia 8290 (officially maybe .1 or .2 ounces heavier). It's a lot thinner than the 8290 or the 8260. It is very nice looking and very sleek. The keypad can be a little slippery but overall is very easy to use and very good response from the quad-directional arrow pad. Screen - The 128 x 128 screen is vibrant, large and very crisp when lit up. The built-in screensaver with a digital clock kind of sucks because you can't read the screen when it is not illuminated. When the screen lights up everything is bright and crisp. Very nice. Ringtones - Donwloadable (via WAP or IR/DKU-5) 4-tone polyphonic ringtones. The ones included are pretty nice (missing the polyphonic Groovy Blue though!). The nokia sound converter (Nokia PC Suite) is very easy to use.. you can convert any MIDI file into a nice ringtone just by playing with the different instruments you want on your ringtone. Compared to some of the 16-tone polyphonic phones, not nearly as good, but it is sufficient for high quality and low-key ringtones. Known Bugs (as of 4/03) - If you have different ringtones for each caller group the screen does not light up when a phone rings with something other than the Default ringtone. If you have caller groups and they use the Default ringtone, the callergroup graphic pops up and the screen illuminates though. The rumor is that this will be fixed with future firmware upgrades. The newest firmare upgrade should fix the bad screensaver (I have read, but have not experienced firsthand) mentioned above. Overall - Very professional looking, yet eye-catching but in a low-key manner (unlike the 7210 or 3650 for instance). Easy to use, and so far my favorite phone. Very solid feel, no creaking (like some other nokia phones), light and compact. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 375 88789 2000/6/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great signal great display infrared port gprs java nice design no radio no voice memo just one game included The Bottom LineIt's a great phone and works like a phone, but with some useful and nice extra stuff! Small, light, nice and strong! Buy it! Full Review (First of all, sorry for my English, but I'm Italian, then not mother tongue!) Well, I got this phone two weeks ago because I broke my Nokia 8310 (*sigh!*) and I liked it from the first glimpse. Compact, light, nice and... well, it's a Nokia, that's a guarantee! The phone has a big color display, very bright and clear to read. You can adjust the brightness, however, to match your own preference. You can choose your custom wallpaper and a set of colors for menus, etc... The keyboard is easy to use, it's difficult to push the wrong key. It seem less slack than other Nokias. The phone support polyphonic ringtones, with up to 4 polyphonic notes simultaneously. There are some presets you can customize and easily access by clicking the power key. Ringtone volume is sufficient for almost all situations, however, if it's not enough, the good vibracall will alert you. There's a bit of memory to save ringtones, pictures and some Java games and applications, unfortunately only one game and two poor applications are included. You can't store so much, but hey, it's just a phone, not a notebook! The quality of voice is good, the signal is great... I got it everywhere, even when my friends don't have it (with the same operator)... The phone has a nice organizer, enough for people who like to have a reminder along. You can store meetings, calls, birthdays, notes... and choose to set an alarm for them or not. Easy and useful! Obviously, the clock got the alarm, that's loud enough to wake from my deep sleep... well, if it wake ME up, it can surely wake up you too! There are also some utilities, like chronometer, timer, calculator... quite useful. The phone can access Internet and other services by WAP and by GPRS. It has an integrated modem, so you can link it with your notebook (by optional Nokia cable or by infrared port) and access the Internet with your notebook by GPRS without a GPRS modem. Nice! ;) And, as I mentioned, it has also infrared port (IrDA), so you can manage your phone by a pc. There's Nokia software included in the package, that allows you to upload pictures and ringtones, synchronize data, backup phone book, save sms... you can also write sms by pc and then send it by phone. Well, I think I said almost everything about this phone... I reccomend it to everyone who wants a small, light, easy to use and great phone, I just regret the look of my broken 8310... this 6100 is nice, but the 8310 was nicer! Oh, well, I was forgetting other two things... the battery last for 320 hours in standby (or at least Nokia affirm so), but it last actually quite less (and less than my old 8310, gosh!)... well, you it have a color display, polyphonic ringtones, Java games... a lot of battery-exhausting stuff! Anyway, it last for some days... and included there's a fast charger, so you can get full charge in 1h30! It's a short time, don't you think? The phone can also receive and send MMS, but remember that it hasn't a camera included. You can buy optional accessories like camera and radio to use with your Nokia 6100. Well, that's enough I think. One advice? If you need a good phone and you don't care for radio and camera, BUY IT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88788 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality extremely small full featured light bright color screen battery life expensive no fm radio or bluetooth The Bottom LineA great phone for anyone looking for a tri-band color phone that is ultra-compact. Full Review If you're in the market for a Nokia 6100, you're probably looking at a few world phones. In this review, I'm going to be comparing the Nokia 6100 to the larger Nokia 7210 and the old standard the Sony Ericsson t68i. Design: In this department the 6100 follows Nokia's latest design language. Using a design aimed towards business people, Nokia goes for a more subdued, smooth look over the 7210's flashy youth-oriented appeal. The t68i is a modernized, smoothed version of the Ericsson's t68 design, and it is quite appealing all the same. In this department, it all comes down to your personal taste. Interface/Software: The 6100 and 7210 have the same software, so I will write about them together. Nokia is legendary in this department for its simple, yet full featured phone interfaces. Ericsson has an interesting approach to the general interface of the phone with its joystick. Nokia's menus are very responsive and beautifully designed and adapted to the color screen. The t68i's menu presents you with all it's options on a menu screen, which you navigate to with the stick. The stick is novel, but not as elegant as the 4way scroll from Nokia. Features/Technology: The 6100 is an excellent performer in this category. For it's size, as the smallest Nokia phone ever made, it has an amazing array of features. With it's 4096 color screen, tri-band operation, MMS, GPRS, IR, an internal modem, HSCSD, Nokia's Wallet software, an excellent speakerphone, Nokia's pop-port, and polyphonic ringtones, this phone has almost everything you would need. The 7210 has all the previous features except the wallet software, and adds an FM radio. The t68i has a smaller 256 color screen, tri-band, MMS, GPRS, IR, an internal modem, HSCSD, and Bluetooth. Personally, the lack of Bluetooth is not a problem for me, as I never use it anyways. The screen on the 6100/7210 is absolutely gorgeous and makes the screen on the t68i look dark and pale by comparison. Reception/Call Quality: All three phones have internal antennas, but the antennas in the Nokia phones work much better than that in the Sony Ericsson. The 6100 and 7210 get great reception, better than any phone I have owned previously. The t68's internal antenna gets passable reception, but in poor service areas, it doesn't get reception where the Nokias do. Call quality is also clearer on the Nokia phones, as signal is often better handled. Battery life: One of the biggest factors of cell phone use is the battery. The Nokia phones get great battery life. The 6100 often lasts for 5 days with average use for me, and the 7210 lasts about the same. The t68i gets excellent battery life and can spend 7 or 8 days without a charge. Ericsson is excellent in this category, and the inclusion of a meter that estimates remaining call and standby time is a useful feature. Overall impressions: These three phones are all solid, fully featured phones that would make a great option for anyone looking for a new phone. The Nokias have an advantage that they are more recent and take advantage of the latest screen technology. The t68i is beginning to look dated, with its small 256 color screen, which was all the rage when it was the first color phone in 2001. For me, the 6100 is a great performer because of it's tiny size, great style and long list of features. The 7210 is a great phone for the young crowd, as it has a very cutting edge style and a convenient FM Radio. In all, the 6100 combines all the most useful features of a cell phone into a tiny and sleek package. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 88787 2000/9/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 styling infra red communication user interface battery life integrated speaker price memory possible weak reception on gsm1900 The Bottom LineNokia's most stylish phone. Perfect to travel around the world. Full Review I bought the Nokia 6100 back in June 03 and I was using Nokia 8260 AT&T TDMA service for last 2 years. Their service is in fact great and I seldom had problem with my calls. However, I believe the future is the world of GSM and need to say goodbye to obsolete TDMA technology. The downside of GSM, at least in Bay Area, California, was the reception and I believe that¡¦s the case in general for whole country. GSM service is offered by Cingular and T-Mobile in my area and I picked the former solely because they have Nokia 6100. I only consider Nokia phones. Yes, I¡¦m biased. I briefly used Motorola and Ericsson phones before and their user interfaces were awful, and their stylings were dull comparing with Nokia and Panasonic. I believe they are improved dramatically after years but I already used to Nokia interface. Under Nokia nameplate, I was considering Nokia 6610 and 7210 as well, which shared the same platform as 6100. Only tri-band phones were on my list because I want to use my phone when travel to Asia. GSM has been very popular specification in Europe and Asia. Dimension: (Obtained from Nokia USA web) Length: 4.02 inches Width: 1.73 inches Thickness: 0.68 inch Weight: 2.75 ounces Memory: 300KB (shared) Exterior: The exterior styling is awesome and attractive. In fact, the exterior firstly attracted me to look into it among all other phones. It¡¦s thin, light, and even lighter than the legendary Nokia 82xx series. The phone looks intelligent, aims towards young professional people. Keypad is nicely placed and so far I don¡¦t mistype often. Display: Nokia 6100 features a 128x128 pixel 4096 colors LCD, provides enough line/space to view the phone book and details. Though 4096 colors are good enough to display clipart or menu item, it does not have enough color depth to display good wallpaper. I tried several pictures but they were all screwed up after downgrade to 12-bits color. Reception: The call quality is reasonably well, even only have 1/7 or 2/7 signal strength indicator. However, the reception is constantly stayed below average. When I first purchased the phone, the phone shows only 1-2 out of 7 signal strength constantly in my office and home. Later, my home signal got improved and now receives full signal strength. It¡¦s a known issue that Cingular wireless has weak signaling in Bay Area and some reviews also mentioned Nokia 6100 has bad reception on GSM1900. Thus, not sure which contribute more towards the weak signaling on my phone. Battery life: Normally I talked around 1100 minutes every month, which accounts for 35 minutes on average per day. I usually need to recharge once every 4 days (around 3 hrs talk time). It should have been better because weak signaling in my office consumes more power. User Interface: Nokia user interface is a big factor for me to pick them. The menu items are easy to navigate and the options are organized such that there is no need to read the manual. You can simply pick up the phone and get used to it in 15mins or so. The phonebook can be easily accessed by press UP/DOWN key. Current software supports multiple phone numbers per entry. I am not sure the limit, but at least 4 phone numbers allowed. My only 2 complaints are: 1) Only 4 caller group are defined and don¡¦t find any way to add more; 2) Ring tone can only be tied with particular caller group but not to individual entry. Ring tone: There are whole bunch of polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones came with the phone but surprisingly, I can¡¦t find a ¡§normal¡¨ (ring-ring) tone pre-set. Other features: I didn¡¦t really dig into other features, such as GPRS, SMS, etc, nor download any java application because there¡¦s no data transmission included in my plan. Some common features that I used most are: 1) Integrated speaker ¡V which keeps conference easier. 2) Infra-red transmission - when used with Nokia software you can sync with Microsoft Outlook contact list. It can also allow you to edit the phonebook, pictures, and ring tones on-the-fly so that you don¡¦t need to press 20+ key to enter a name from the keypad. Since I¡¦m using a laptop with integrated infra-red port, I really take advantage on this functionality. The software also let the phone to act as modem communication. Accessories: The only accessory I purchased with the phone is the Boom Headset (HDB-4). It nicely fit in your ear with talk button integrated. There¡¦s no need to press the phone button to answer incoming calls. You can also set the phone to answer call automatically when headset is plugged in, good during driving. Nokia 6100 has been a popular and successful model in Asian countries when it was released back in November 2002 (I wait 7+ months till it reach the US). It had pretty good ratings, suppressing 6610 and 7210 and it is sold at a higher price, despite it lacks features such as FM radio. However, 6100 doesn¡¦t seem to be well received here in the US. Only Cingular sells this phone and it has been discontinued after 2 months, probably the rumor is true that GSM1900 reception is weak on this phone. In conclusion, I love using this phone. I would recommend that phone to anyone who lives in a city which should have better coverage and reception. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 178Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88786 2000/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use ultra lightweight compact awesome clarity what the heck is that no bluetooth The Bottom LineTri band, email and internet is not enough? Then small size, beautiful color display, and unsurpassed functionality my appeal to you. Full Review What can I say? First time I´ve ever been a GSM user, and the desicion was not easy, believe me. Im impressed to see how many things run parallel between the US and Mexico´s GSM market, and yet the debate is far from over yet. Why am I pointing out this things instead of focusing on the product, you may ask? Well, because I´ve been reading you guys, and seems like very few can actually concentrate on the product, in this case a cell phone, without wandering into "service providers" territory. It seems true: we cannot provide an objective and/or unbiased product review without whining about the carriers. Well, Im going to skip all that rap that deals about the service, and just jump into one of the most interesting, satisfying and easy to use gadgets available today: the NOKIA 6100. What a phone. LOOKS and BUMPS. Regardless if you have never been in touch with Nokia phones (something I feel it is highly unlikely...) you will encounter a stunning, compact, lightweight and high tech looking piece of engineering. Some may say it looks exactly as a slimmer and smaller 6590 structurewise, but it is a bit more refined and firmer feeling. FUNCTIONS and FEATURES - The always simple and efficient menu system is there, so getting aquainted with the 6100 takes no time at all. - The screen is very bright and easy to read, color definition and image quality is top notch, rivaling Samsungs and outperforming Sony Ericsson´s already good display characteristics. It comes with a pre-loaded collection of screens to make the visual appeal even more attractive, and you can download lots of images and animations from various websites. But in all, the display is always easy to read under all conditions, a big plus in my book. - Ringtones come also in a wide variety of choices, and now MIDI files can be played, something that makes personalization more fun than ever. The poliphonic capabilities of this phone are great, so this feature may appeal towards those who look for a trendy, highly customizable phone. - The IR port. I transferred my whole contact list from my Palm in less than 1 hour (over 97 records) including email addresses, phones and everything. The data loads directly into this phone from a Palm just by beaming, a feature that left some of my peers severely impressed. It is easy, useful and fast. - GPRS: Im new to this kind of technology, but after 2 hours in my hands, I was visiting websites and downloading emails. It is so simple with this phone! The cost, however, is a big issue money wise, but in my case, TELCEL charges by time and not by bytes transferred. Not sure whether this is good or bad, but I like it. - Agenda. This is so useful and easy to use! I can program my whole schedule and the phone keeps track of them with ease, making it a very handy tool for people like me. I wont make you forget your PDA, but sure helps to have both your phone and PDA coordinated. SOUND QUALITY? Compared to other people´s GSM phones around the office (mostly Sony, Motorola and other Nokias), the reception qualities of the 6100 are above average. Perhaps TDMA is more powerful, but in terms of cleanliness, GSM is far superior. Signal strength is decisive in this matter, but the 6100 evidently has better reception than most GSM available down here. Its been only 3 days since I have this phone, and so far, I am not missing my Panasonic TX310 TDMA. Text input is easy with the pre-installed T9 predictive text input system, saving you valuable time pushing buttons. There are LOTS of other features inside, but so far I think that this is the best phone Nokia has to offer, or at least, one of the best ever in their lineup. The sales execs. at TELCEL are really impressed with it, and this is a very good sign when you are looking for a new phone down here in Mexico. Move over, Sony and Motorola. The Nokia 6100 is one heck of a strong contender. Battery life is over 5 hour talk time, and perhaps 8 days on stdby mode. Mine came with a hands free device that is both functional and effective, not to mention how sleek and futuristic it looks while wearing it. Kep your eyes on this one, I bet this will sweep the GSM arena in no time. It can also send multi media messages, use a digital camera (not sure why I could need it, though...) and accomodate several phone numbers for each entry in your contact list. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 270Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88785 2000/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 polyphonic ringtones only one game The Bottom LineAn ideal phone for anyone - easy to use with a good range of features and, above all, light and attractive. Full Review FEATURES 1. Messages As always, Nokia have hit the nail bang on the head in this department. The predictive text is very easy to use - use the * to cycle through the options for the combination of letters you have selected and # to toggle the predictive text on or off. If a word isn't recognised you can add it to the dictionary for the next time you want to use it. The buttons are nicely spread and easy to press making speed texting pretty easy. The capacity is also pretty impressive - you can store up to 150 messages at once (50 picture messages). One thing I quite like is the ability to delete your text messages in blocks i.e. delete all, all sent or all received. This saves a lot of time if, like me, you let your messages clog up. 2. Call Register The normal stuff here. You can see your missed calls, received calls, calls made along with call durations. One thing I particularly like is the way the phone shows you all calls from each caller in each menu - if someone has called you three or four times it will show the time of each call. The call durations is as usual - last call, received calls, calls made and total of all calls. Within this menu you will also find counters relating to GPRS. 3. Profiles This is where you can create profiles for certain situations. You can set the ring tone, volume, vibrating alert, message tone, keypad tones and warning tones. Pretty handy if you are in an important meeting - rather than have to turn your phone off you can just set it to silent with vibrating alerts on so you know when someone is trying to contact you. In contrast, if you are in a rather more noisy environment you can set your phone to 'loud' mode so you still hear it. There are five slots for different profiles. That's more than enough for me. 4. Settings Time and date settings - straightforward enough. Call settings - call divert, any key answer, automatic redial, speed dialling, call waiting, summary after call and whether or not to withhold your number. Phone settings - language, automatic key guard, cell info display, welcome note, network selection, confirm SIM service actions, help text activation and start-up tone. Display settings - wallpaper, colour schemes, operator logo, screen saver timeout and brightness. Tone settings - the same as profiles. Accessory settings - the only one listed is for the headset although I'm sure you can add more depending on what you buy for the phone. Security settings - PIN code request, call barring services, closed user group, security level and access codes. 5. Alarm Clock You can set absolutely loads of alarms but none of them of them seem to wake me up anymore. On the older Nokia phones the alarms are really loud and on some you can even set a ring tone as your alarm, but the phone I have works on polyphonic ring tones and they just aren't as loud. 6. Gallery There are two default galleries where you can store ring tones or images. There is a fair selection to choose from in both but I have been most impressed with the ring tones. It is nice to see Nokia adding a few more standard tones. Some of the images are quite impressive too. At the moment I have a pretty sunset as my wallpaper and it looks a bit like an oil painting - not bad for a phone, eh? 7. Organiser Inside this menu you will find a calendar where you can set reminders that can be viewed altogether rather than having to scroll through each one as in the alarm clock section. Another handy little feature is the ability to compile a to-do list. Anything that saves the rainforests must be good!! 8. Games I was quite disappointed not to find snake on this phone, but equally impressed with the chess game included as standard instead. There are four different game modes available. Mate in 1 As the title suggests, you have to get the opposition in check mate in one move. You are presented with a variety of scenarios depending on the difficulty you have set it at. Mate in 2 A bit like the last one, only this time you have to do it in two moves. Avoid mate In this scenario the tables are turned. You are put in a situation where only one move will save you. Unguarded. In this option there are a variety of pieces that you can take and one of them is unguarded by any other pieces. You have to find that piece. You can also change the game mode so that instead of simply finding the correct moves at your leisure you have to find six of each type of move in as little time as possible. An added stipulation is that every wrong selection means a ten second penalty. It can be quite addictive if you like chess. The only thing I was disappointed with was that you couldn't simply have a proper game. Ah well, what can you expect from a phone? Although there is only one default game, there is the option to download other JAVA games. I haven't tried it yet but, judging from games I have seen on other Nokia phones, it would be well worthwhile. 9. Applications These are things I have not had to use yet - a converter and a world clock. I have had a look at both though and they seem pretty handy to me. The converter can be set to convert your money from one currency to another as you have the option to set the exchange rate. The world clock is a bit more graphically pleasing. By opening the world clock you are presented with the time where you are and your location and then you move on to a map of the world. You can move across or up and down to see what the time is in different places around the globe. I reckon this would be handy if you had family abroad or you were travelling and needed to set a schedule. 10. Extras This menu contains a calculator, countdown timer, stopwatch and wallet. The calculator is, obviously, to do some sums when you're on the move. It helps me out most Fridays when I'm seeing if my wages are right - I work different hours most weeks. The countdown timer is a bit like Ronseal - it does exactly what it says on the tin. It counts down time. Pretty handy if you are putting something in the oven and are a bit busy. Beware, though, the countdown works in minutes not seconds - I got caught out with a pizza the first time I used it, my own fault though as I was a bit wrecked at the time! The stopwatch is pretty handy if you want to time how quickly your car gets from 0-60. As for the wallet, what's all that about? I've got one in my back pocket thanks very much! 11. Connectivity You can select whether you want to connect by infra-red or GPRS. I have not used either of these functions so don't actually understand what they entail (please feel free to fill me in and I will make sure I add it). 12. Services This is where you can go online and check your emails, see how you're doing on Ciao, etc. You can set bookmarks and change various setting include server, display options and cookie options. There is also an option for you to go straight to an address you type in. 13. My Services This is basically a list of standard services provided by your server. I am on O2 and my menu includes things such as 1471, customer care, traffic line, UK directory, answer phone, international directory, dictation line, talking pages and RAC and AA breakdown. As you can see, this phone is jam packed with features and extras. That's more than enough about the features though, I think. It's time to move on to the other aspects of this phone. Phone book The phone book is like many other phone books - simple to navigate and has a pretty good storage capacity of up to 300 phone numbers. Along with the facility to add phone numbers for people you can also add email addresses. Like most modern phones you can create a menu for a single person containing their home, mobile, business, fax numbers and even their postal address! Another cool feature of the phone book is the ability to set caller groups. These can range from the standard family, friends and work to any category you desire to create. You can also assign specific ring tones to certain people. APPEARANCE The phone fits very nicely into the palm of my hand. In height, the phone is just a little bit bigger than a packet of cigarettes. It is not very wide either, as not much space is wasted. The buttons are grouped relatively closely with just a small space on either side. It is also a very thin phone, possibly two centimetres at its widest. My phone has a silver frontage and a combination of silver and white on the back. This colour scheme came as standard but many different covers are available both from official retailers and street market sellers. A feature I haven't noticed on Nokia phones before is a left/right/up/down d-pad. The older Nokias I had owned featured an up and down, but no side to side option. By pressing left on the d-pad you are automatically taken to a blank message - very handy for those speed texters. By pushing right you are taken straight to the calendar - handy for people with busy schedules who need quick access to their organisers. COVERAGE So far I have not had one problem with coverage in the six months I have had the phone. I have never been cut off mid conversation and have never experienced a disappearing message. Obviously, this isn't all down to the phone as some of it is down to the network, but the signs are very good. THE BATTERY The battery is possibly one of the most astounding things I have ever seen - it is just tiny!! It is the same height as an AA battery but is about five centimetres across and maybe as little as a millimetre in thickness. Upon seeing this battery I assumed that the phone would need more frequent charging but, if anything, I have needed to charge it less often. Amazing!! That's all I have to say about it! PRICE If you get the phone on contract a lot of places will offer it for free but if you decide to go for the pay as you go option then prices will vary depending on the company you choose to go for. I was quite lucky to get my phone for free so had to look up the prices on this phone. I looked on Amazon and found a yellow one for £169.99 so it seems I was quite lucky!! SOME COOL THINGS You now have the option to silence the ring tone when somebody is calling you. How many times have you been in a public place when someone has called who you don't want to speak to? You don't want to answer the phone but it's embarrassing to leave it ringing as everyone looks at you. Problem solved, you can now silence it! After two minutes of your phone being inactive the display automatically changes from the colour image you have selected to a blank screen with the time alternating between the top, middle and bottom thirds of the screen. It is possible to change this time limit. BRIEF RECAP A nicely shaped mobile with the facility for a camera add-on along that incorporates an advanced game system. Easy to use for sending texts, with a decent amount of memory for storage of messages, games, ring tones and images. The ring tones are all polyphonic and GPRS, WAP and JAVA technology is available to use. Also handy for the business minded. All in all, a good solid all rounder but what else would we expect from Nokia? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7766 Nokia 3560 88822 2005/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 have not really found any i could say poor sound quality bad design on the keypad bad reception Got it from ATT wireless, which has now been sold to Cingular. Buttons are hard to push individually, Sound quality is very poor, reception in fringe areas is poor at best. I live in Rural South Georgia and it just is not the place for a play phone. The best phone I have ever had and am still using it with Nextel is the Motorola R750. OK it is big and bulky but it sounds like you are on a wired connection. 88821 2004/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 pictures downloadable content wap games no features that stand out When I first saw this phone I was like wow this has to be one of the best phones out. As time went by, I thought what are some of the features of the phone. A man at Cingular showed me a working model of the phone. I took a look at the features. It had WAP, Pictures, Games, able to download these things. There was really no featuers that stood out for this phone. I mean to an average person they might think hey I got to get this phone. But, I'm kind of not that average person. I look at stuff more deeply. I mean its a good phone no doubt about that but. Its only for those people that just use the phone for talking and don't do anything else. I grade this a average for average features. 88820 2004/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception intuitive not ugly good voice quality built in equalizer easy to use bulky nice looking candy bar style phone but not as cool as a flip phone I have researched a number of cell phones and felt this was the best of the bunch. But because I have AT&T and want TDMA, there is not much of a selection anymore. Fortunately the 3560 is one of them. 88819 2003/9/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing price reception firmware bugs lack of standard rings clarity of sound I like everything about this phone, but there is definitely a bug in the firmware. Every one in a while when you pick up a call, the phone goes on constant vibrate. The call still stays connected, but you are unable to talk due to the vibration. The only way to stop the vibration is to power down the phone. This is the second unit that has done this in about two months. 88818 2005/4/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good features when it worked no durability at all This phone is about 7 months old. It randomly shuts off on its own, and now the 5 doesn't work. My 4th Nokia, and probably my last: they have been getting steadily less durable. 88817 2004/3/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 battery life call quality keypad can t get wallpaper or tones buttons stick or hard to push I had this phone for about 6 months, thought I was getting a cool phone to download polyphonic ring tones and wallpapers to. You can't download them though, you can get ring tones, but only monophonic. I quit using the preprogrammed wallpapers about 2 months in, realized that you could see the screen better and besides the pictures on the phone were not my style(come on a guitar with some guys hand on it), the preprogrammed ring tones got old too. Then the buttons started sticking and got hard to push. The battery life is great and call quality is good, and the design looks good, but practical its not. 88816 2004/12/9 Battery Life5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reception easy to use without book voice dialing none Excellent reception (better than the V60i) , excellent battery life , good color display , about the right size and weight , best voice dialing system I have ever used. At 20 dollars after rebate its a great purchase. TDMA coverage in Tallahassee Area is good and this phone takes advantage of that. 88815 2005/2/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight excellent reception sturdy battery after a long while I love this thing...I would not trade it again. I recently thought to upgrade to a new Nokia model, which turned out to be a big mistake. I went back to my 3560 within 30 days. I am with AT&T and was sucked into the upgrade with Cingular thing...Boy was I wrong to try and do that. I actually paid for the upgrade to get another "new" model with camera and web access. I am a simple girl with basic needs. I missed my 3560 and its simplicity. The Nokia 3560 is one of the best phones and even new models don't compare. I recommend this phone to anyone looking for a simple phone with basic features; this will be your best friend. 88814 2003/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good service easy to use cool features background pictures make it hard to see the writing the pixels are still big I've had this phone for a while now, and it's awesome. The ringtones are awesome, the games are fun, and it's really easy to use. I got the phone through AT&T Wireless, and this phone is with their digital network. Usually digital networks are horrible where I live, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but everywhere around here I always have more than 4 bars of reception which is perfect. Everyone says they can hear me nice and clear. There's a huge clock that comes up as a screen saver, which is really helpful. There's color schemes, which helps a lot with the background pictures. This is an awesome phone, and I would definitely recommend it for everyone. It's not so high tech, so if you're one of those "I need tons of high tech features and will pay anything to get them" people, this wouldn't be very ideal. It's great for people that just want a simple cool phone. 88813 2000/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 polyphonic ring tones battery life color screen cheap limited selection on ringtonesgraphics no web access The Bottom LineThis is another solid entry into Nokia's product line. Dont' pass it up when looking for a new phone. Much better than my Samsung R225M! Full Review This is my second mobile phone. I like it a LOT more than my previous Samsung R225M on T-Mobile's service. I am now using this phone on the AT&T TDMA service. Since this is a review of the Nokia 3560 and not the carrier, I'll try to narrow my review to only the phone. Reception: Since this has a lot to do with the carrier, I'll just say that the reception on this phone is above average. I was skeptical of the internal antenna on all of teh new Nokias, but I'm impressed. There's also an equalizer on the phone in case you want to filter highs or lows out. Battery Life: Excellent! I can leave this phone uncharged for several days and it doesn't run out on me. Nokia claims the phone has 6.5 hours of talk time and 228 hours of standby time. I haven't measured exactly, but I would definitely say it meets or exceeds that. Screen/Interface: This phone is much like ever other Nokia phone I've ever used in terms of interface. Almost all of the commands are the same on the menus. I've always admired this from Nokia. Everything is simple to use. One gripe: In my opinion, the alarm clock should be located in the "Organizer" menu, not under Settings-->Time Settings. The color screen is a nice touch. It's of good size and easy to read. In the bright sun, the screen can be somewhat hard to read of you're using one of the pictures supplied as a background. This is my only complaint about the screen. Tones/Graphics: This is one area that falls mainly under the responsibility of the phone carrier (AT&T in my case). The included ringtones are for the most part, cheesy. I use the standard nokia tune. There are 12 graphics included on the phone. As of the date of this review, I've had the phone for about a month and a half. I STILL can't get any polyphonic ring tones downloaded through the AT&T website and I also cannot get any color graphics. This, I know is not Nokia's fault, but since the phone is only available through AT&T or Cingular, it seemed important to mention. Accessories: The phone comes with the usual wall charger and an earpiece. I can't complain too much about the charger (it charges, what else do you want?), but the earpiece could use some work. The earbud is on the verge of painful. I plan on buying a Jabra to replace the one included. Other: -There are covers availble for this phone as with several other models. One thing I like about the covers for this particular model is that they're interchangeable with the covers for the 3595 and 3590. You just have to keep your keypad. There are many covers available online, but I've yet to see any in retail stores around my area. -The games included are fun once or twice and boring after that. I haven't found a phone for which this isn't true though. Could we please bring "Snake" back? -The organizer is cumbersone to use, but I didn't get the phone to organize my life, I got it to make calls. This leads me to the most important feature of this phone... It's FREE! AT&T is offering the phone for $99.99 with a $99.99 instant rebate. I personally didn't get it online, I got at the AT&T wireless store. I simply told the representative about the offer and he price-matched it. I'm not saying this is certain to work, but I'd give it a shot. In my opinion, the fact that the phone is free nullifies any minor gripes about ringtones and menus. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88812 2000/11/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 camera convenience other organizational tools different the circular keypad is a little etc zoom wish for more features auto focus The Bottom LineI've enjoyed this phone quite a bit. I'm using it as a camera as often as I am a phone. Full Review I've had the 3650 phone for 6 weeks or more now. Long enough to receive my first bill at least :) Overall, I'm plenty happy with it. It has been 2 years since I've upgraded my cell phone, so this one is a definite improvement. The camera was what sold me on the camera, to be honest, and it is still the main non-phone function that I have made the most use of. I was showing off the phone this weekend in a bar and a couple of us were trying to figure out how to change the default contrast or contrast settings on the phone, but gave up. I'm not sure that there is a way to do that. Funny enough, I seem to take most of my photos when I'm out at night, and I've wished for a flash a time or two. Or an auto focus feature. Maybe it is because we were out at a bar, but none of us stumbled across the phone's 'Night' setting. That will teach me not to read instructions, I guess. (No. It won't.) But overall, I'm pleased with the phone. Still get a thrill out of the fact that my phone can take pictures. And I'm already wishing for additional features: auto-focus, flash, etc. I got used to the circular keypad pretty quickly too. And while I'm busy prattling away, I'll cut-and-paste this URL for a Nokia-sponsored sweepstakes I just came across: https://www.nokiaconnections.com/PickAPhoneSweeps/PickAPhoneSweeps.aspx Winners of this contest will be able to pick from 10 phones, and they'll get 3 months of service, and the chance to win some cash... I think the cash grand prize is $1000. There are pretty good deals on most of these phones through carriers, I think, but still ... a free phone and one thousand bucks is a free phone and one thousand bucks. Here are the phones included in the sweepstakes: 2285, 3300, 3560, 3586i, 3595, 3600, 3650, 6800, 6610, 7210. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88811 2000/6/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen e mail capabilities polyphonic ring tones not web enabled The Bottom LineGet the next model up, the Nokia 3595 and pay a little more for your calling plan to have a Fully Internet capable unit. Full Review After several years of putting it off, I finally took the jump and subscribed to Wireless service. I wanted an Inexpensive Plan for mainly Occasional and Emergency use. Not wanting to spend $40/mo. I shopped around for something cheaper only to find that most Basic services at the $19.99 level provided very little "Anytime Minutes". The next level at $29.99 opened more options with 200-300 "anytime minutes" from several providers. In my area, I judged the best offer came from AT&T, 350 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends and a more advanced phone, the Nokia 3560. Not having any experience with cell phones before, I was looking forward to what features AT&T outlined with this phone. Setup was hassle free, it took only a short time to scroll through the various menus and get the hang of how this phone works. The Color Screen and the Wallpaper photos are a nice touch, much more sophisticated looking than many other units but the Most Amazing are the Polyphonic Ring Tones! Other people in my office couldn't get over the sounds this phone makes, once you hear these tones, there are probably about 2 dozen in total, you laugh at how the other older phones sound! This phone also has E-mail capabilities, that was a surprise to me! 1-Touch dialing can be set up for 8 numbers and there is a "Voice Tag" feature that lets you call someone just by telling the phone to do so! There are more features that I'm sure most other phones have too like a simple Calendar/Organizer, Voice Recorder, Text Messaging and the like, I'm sure I'll find out what to do with these other features but I really just wanted a Phone. Being New to all this, I was surprised that these things are so much more! Now for the Down Side. Once you start getting in to it, you find some things that you wish you had that are of course available on units with more features. Although this unit Does have E-mail, it has no WAP Browser or Internet capabilities. Imagine getting all worked up about the Wallpaper and the Fancy Ring Tones only to find out that you can't get on-line to download More! This also applies to the few Games and Applications that are loaded onto the phone. In any case the Games aren't that great and I've found so far impossible to play well. The Portfolio and Conversions Apps. have little use for me. It would be nice to get a few simple Casino type games and some useful Applications but you can't. Otherwise I find the Nokia 3560 to be a Great piece of Electronic Wizardry which only serves to wet your desire for more! Maybe after my first year is over I'll Upgrade whether I need to or not! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88810 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 endless features color screen excellent battery life picture messaging does not mean camera phone The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone. Despite being a TDMA phone, voice quality is comparable to the 3595; TDMA also has the best digital coverage area in the United States. Full Review I had been a customer of a service provider that utilized Alltel for wireless in my area for about two years. My Nokia 918 analog phone seemed to be showing it's age, mostly in battery life, compared to current phones. I decided to search around for a service provider that offered high-end phones, but more importantly cheaper service. After looking over several service providers, one of which was AT&T Wireless, I found Cingular to have what I was looking for. By the time I made it to our local Cingular Wireless store, I already had my heart set on the Nokia 3560. It has been everything I've ever wanted in a phone. (With one exception noted below) To this day, I love my 3560. It's 96x65 pixel display is the best display I've seen on a mobile phone to date. The keypad is somewhat odd-looking, I would have preferred the non-Cingular keypad, but it doesn't bother me that much. Unlike the keypad, though, the power button is in a location that is very convenient to turn the phone on in your pocket, yet preventing it from being pressed accidentally. The polyphonic ringtones are one of the features that I found to be beyond expectations. I would have never expected the quality of sound that I heard from this phone. However, be cautious of picture messaging if you aren't paying attention. The phone was advertised as supporting "picture messaging." My guess would be that most people would assume that this meant you could send, or at least receive pictures from a camera phone. In fact, I found it stupid of myself not to catch that before I purchased it. However, it's not a big deal, a camera phone is just something else to break, anyway. The battery life of my 3560 was better than Nokia's ratings. The 9.5 days of standby time is the minimum you will get from this phone. The only big battery drainers are calls (obviously!) and Games. I was impressed with the ability to download ringtones, graphics and games over the air with a TDMA phone, however I found that Cingular does not support this at the current time. For anyone else who is using this phone with Cingular, I did find that you can download monophonic ringtones from www.cingularextras.com by specifying the Nokia 2260 or 3360. I think the 2260 option allowed graphics downloads too. The phone has an integrated antenna, which is now becoming very popular. I was, at first, skeptical of the reception I'd get without a visible antenna, however I appear to be wrong, as it can rival (and sometimes surpass) the reception of antenna phones I've used before. I wasn't very happy about the "finger grip" that indicates where you are supposed to put your index finger while using the phone to avoid interfering with reception. Actually, it was a good idea, however the "Nokia" branding has easily worn off (as expected) in my pocket, making my phone look old already. The phone also includes a PDA, text messaging with e-mail support, Java applications, voice recorder, voice tags (voice-activated dialing), and an equilizer. All in all, I've found this phone to be my best decision in wireless. I got cheaper rates and a great phone. That's why Cingular Fits Me Best! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88809 2000/6/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stereophonic rings color screen nice phone has lots of features but there could be more The Bottom LineI recommend this phone. For a phone you get free with the cellular service, this one has most of the features that I would want and its easy to use. Full Review I recently got the Nokia 3560 as part of a package from Cingular at Best Buy. The phone was free with my plan--they charged $50 but there is a $50 rebate. Of the phones offered by Cingular, this one was the newest and neatest. Here are some of the highlights of this gem: This is a trimode technology telephone. This means that in theory you'll have fewer dropped calls because the phone is cabably of service in CDMA digital PCS, CDMA digital cellular and analog networks. The battery life is more than all the other choices. Something like 350 minutes of talk time. The phone has great built-in ringtones and more can be downloaded. They are stereophonic. The modernized/stereoized Nokia ring tone brings tears to your eyes. It will also vibrate to the beat of the ring tones. It has a slick numberpad layout. It takes some getting used to, but not much...and now I really like it. The color screen is clear and large. Great for getting text messages. It has voice tags so that you can just say someone's name to get it to dial that number. It also has speed dials--just assign a number a speed dial slot, and then hold down that number for 2 seconds to dial. For instance, if you set someone to be speed dial 3, just turn on your phone, and then hold down 3 for a couple of seconds... You can record up to 180 seconds of sound. Even record from an active phone call. All in all this is a terrific phone that's comfortable to use. I am very happy with it. Recommended: Yes 88808 2004/4/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception excellent battery life sound quality internal antenna difficult to see screen in sunlight The Bottom LineGreat phone. Gets the call through, if you dial the right number. "Can you see that, is that a 5 or an 8? I think I pushed 5." Full Review I got this phone because my old Nokia 8260 was beat to pieces (but still working). When I shopped for a new phone, I asked the AT&T dealer which phone had the best reception far from a cell tower. I was guessing the Motorola V60i with the external antenna would be recommended. Wrong. He recommended the 3560. He said it has much better circuitry than the older phones. And, had much better battery life. He was right on both accounts. This phone even works well when I am high in the Uintah Mountains, at least 25 miles from a tower! I used to have to get out on a ridge to get a call through. With this phone I can get a call out about anywhere on the mountain. I believe the claims of 5 hours talk time and 9 days standby time. I charge it out of habit more often than out of necessity. This is a TDMA network phone not the newer GSM. The GSM phones don't have a limit on the local calling area. They advertise "If your phone works its in your calling area." I also believe the GSM phones will work better inside buildings. The TDMA network is more extensive, available in rural areas. This is why I stay with the TDMA service. It is very durable. It seems to be well put together. I keep it in a body glove case, I think that really helps. The buttons are easy to use and the menus are fairly easy to navigate. I think the phone is a good size. It weighs 3.8 oz. (about average for cell phones.) Smaller phones for me are too hard to hold and too easy to lose. The only gripe I have is with the color screen. You can not read it in the sun. I wish they made this phone with the plain old black display. If I want to play games or view pretty pictures I can use my PDA or my computer. I just bought 2 more of these phones a couple of days ago. One to replace the one I left on the roof of my car the other to replace my wifes broken Motorola (that stupid external antenna sticking out did not like being dropped). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88807 2004/2/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap colorful faceplates color screen lots of features customization small sleek size none so far The Bottom LineThis phone is so durable, stylish, and has so many functions that it is perfect for everyone! Full Review Why? The reason I got this phone was because: 1. My friend had one and I admit I was jealous. 2. My old phone was going to die. 3. The price was extremely reasonable. First Impression I loved the phone the second I saw it. The color screen, wallpapers, polyphonic ringtones, sleek design, and fun features were all appealing to me. Features There are many features including a calendar, to-do list, stopwatch, contacts, custom profiles (silent, buzz, loud, etc), e-mail capabilities, text messaging, chat with other phones, text message templates, call log (missed calls, dialed calls, received calls), voice commands, gallery (pictures and ringtones), games, java games, java applications, plus more! The wallpapers are vibrant and clear, with pictures like: an apple tree, sunflower, city scape, planets, flowers, a color spectrum and the ocean. You can even customize the power and reception indicators to the colors: violet, blue, red, pink, grey, and green. The polyphonic ringtones don't only sound cool, but they are loud enough to hear in large groups of people. The ringtones range from space age to a spin on the "Nokia Tune" to a beach tune. As well as being cool, the ringtones aren't annoying like the earlier models of the Nokia's with the monophonic (loud and ear-shattering) ringtones. Compared to the monophonic, the polyphonic sound soft and smooth. You can also choose the vibration to alert you when you get a call. As you can see there are many features that you may or may not use every day, but you will definitely use sometime. The calendar is easy to use, the to-do list is straight forward, the applications can be opened and used very easily, and the games are non-traditional and very fun to play. There is a backlight on the phone that can practically light up a dark room. It makes the numbers extremely easy to read, in the light and dark, and makes the screen very bright. After a minute or two, the screen turns off and goes into clock mode. The clock takes up half of the screen and is very easy to read, although it doesn't light up. This also conserves battery energy. An optional feature is mMode, which is AT&T's answer to mobile phone internet. From mMode, you can download pictures, ringtones, and applications from the internet. You can also check your email, chat on AOL instant messenger, or check your stocks. This would be very helpful if you are on the move a lot. The reception on this phone is amazing. The calls are crystal clear and you can hear the person on the other line almost better than a regular telephone. It's a great service. Overall Overall, I am EXTREMELY satisfied with this phone. It is reliable, stylish, feature-laden, and very useful. I definitely recommend this phone! Update (2/29/04) Well, I have had this phone for 4-5 months now, and it is still as spunky and exciting as when I first got it. Even after having it for so long, I still find that occasional cool feature (currency converter!!) and I am amazed on the battery life! I keep it on for weeks at a time, using it everyday. It's also very durable. I have dropped it numerous times and it still keeps on trucking! I love this phone and will probably keep it for months to come (until the next awesome Nokia phone comes out!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $30 (approx)Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88806 2000/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 changeable faceplate color screen easy to use inexpensive voice dialing for only 10 numbers wallpaperscolor schemes lame no camera The Bottom LineA good, solid phone that's also stylish but not expensive. Full Review I received the Nokia 3560 as an upgrade to an older Nokia candy bar-style cell phone. Those who are familiar with the popular cell phones won't be disappointed, as all the features one comes to expect from Nokia are included. The unit itself fits nicely in the palm of the hand. Its internal antenna allows the phone to be compact and fit well in most pockets. Its gray case is an interchangable shell that users can swap out and upgrade to different colors and patterns, if they wish. The case is an improvement over the Nokia 8260, which was very popular about two years ago. The color on the 8260 tended to wear off in areas where they were held, as well as chipped due to wear and tear. The 3560, however, does not suffer from that problem due to the fact that the case is not painted. Also a nice touch is the fingerprint-sized piece of rubber on the back of the phone to prevent a user's finger from sliding, as well as the phone sliding off of a table or other smooth surface. The color display is very nice, and the backlit keys make dialing in the dark very easy. When the phone is in active use, its sides will also light up through its translucent case. If the phone isn't in use, it goes to a screensaver function that flashes the time, using black and white LCD. The only downside with the screensaver is that the time can't be seen in low-light conditions, so in order to see what time it is, a user will need to activate the phone to get the backlight on. The provided wallpapers for the screen are neat, but most make reading the screen text very difficult. Users can also have eight color schemes, but it seems that the factory settings are the most legible. The 3560's applications are standard Nokia fare, with messaging menus, call logs, multiple profiles, settings, voice applications, image gallery, organizer, games, and applications. There is an alarm clock, to-do list, currency converter, and calendar. Anyone who is familiar with a Nokia cell phone should have no problem transitioning to this model. Although the 3560 allows users to change most settings, I found it frustrating when I could not locate a setting to lower the volume indicating an incoming text message (though I could change what the sound was). For an extra fee, users may download pictures, ringtones, and wallpapers. Also unimpressive are the five games (Air Glide, Racket, Sky Diver, Backgammon and Bowling) included with the phone. I found myself missing some of the games from older Nokias. The 3560 has one of the stronger antennas available, and the phone was able to get a signal in a neighborhood known for its poor signal strength. The phone also has a very long battery life, with a standby time of more than nine days. Finally, the 3560 is an extremely durable machine. After dropping mine numerous time, it continues to operate just like the day I first received it. The only indications of damage are some minor scuffing on the plastic back. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88805 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wap browser color screen games polyphonic ring tones price not much The Bottom LineGreat for people who want a stylish, color screen phone for half the cost. Full Review I ordered this phone online at www.attwireless.com and received it a day later from FedEx. (Yes, people, that fast!) I used to own the Nokia 3590 but decided to upgrade to a color screen phone with more features. At first, I wasn't big on Nokia phones since it seemed like everyone had one but the Nokia 3560 sure impressed me! Special Features The Nokia 3560 is jampacked with text messaging, email, an Internet browser (if you sign up for mMode), a calendar, a to-do list, cute color screen, photo gallery, polyphonic ringtones, instant messaging, voice-dialing, and much more. No one is expecting you to use all of the features, of course, but it's nice to know that they're there in case you need them. Games My phone came with four games which were Sky Diver, Bowling, Air Gliding, and Backgammon. I deleted Backgammon since I've never really liked it and downloaded Bejeweled from mMode, which was free. All the games are pretty entertaining and can help to make time pass by during that hideously boring meeting, class, or movie! Having a color screen enhances the gaming experience. mMode mMode is AT&T's internet browser. You can check your email, look for the nearest restaurant, check out movie times, personalize your phone with new ringtones, pictures and games and do much more. Sometimes, there might be special offers such as free games or pictures. mMode uses e-Wallet, which lets you buy things with a major credit/debit card. Unlike most phone companies, AT&T doesn't charge you based on how long you've surfed the net. (You know you have friends who say they'll kill you if you connect to the web on their phone!) You're charged based on the amount you download in Kb (kilobytes). Reading your email is about 25 Kb. 1Kb=$0.01 so you pay $0.25. You can't find a better deal anywhere! The Nokia 3560: Physically The phone is pretty sleek and petite. I hate phones that are huge and bulky and I'm not a huge fan of flip phones. You can buy Xpress covers to decorate your phone. The keypad shape is cute and the backlight practically turns the phone into a flashlight if you're in the dark or in a dark area. The only bad thing about the phone is that when this light is not on, the screen looks kind of dark and tinted and could be hard to read in the sunlight. The on/off button is on the top of the phone and is pretty small so you have to apply a good amount of pressure when you press it. The antennae is covered by a grip where your index finger goes when you talk to protect the antennae. The Nokia 3560 is so adorable! It fits into your back pocket so snug, kind of like a glove on your hand. What's your phone plan? I have GoPhone plan, which is kind of like a plan without a contract. When you sign up for it, there's no annual contract, activation fee, credit check, or age requirement. You can cancel anytime without paying any ridiculous cancellation fees. This plan is great for young adults in high school and college or people with bad credit. You get text messages when your balance gets below $10, $7, and $5. You can get all these amazing features with mMode for as low as $23.98 a month! All you need is a credit/debit card for automatic payments. I got a $50 instant rebate on the phone for ordering it online with the GoPhone plan so I only paid $79 for it. Conclusion I've had two other phones (Kyocera 3125 and Nokia 3590) and the Nokia 3560 easily blows them away. I really feel like the phone was made for people who couldn't or didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars for a phone with the same features. It's a cute phone that is great for first-time cell phone users who want a phone that is attractive and user-friendly. The Nokia 3560 is the second best-seller on the AT&T website behind the Nokia 3595 which is almost the same so it shows how popular it is. It's easy to see why Nokia is one of the most popular phone companies out there. Nokia really outdid themselves with this one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88804 2004/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy small lightweight dependable games tend to eat up battery life The Bottom LineIt doesn't have all the fancy new bells and whistles, but it will do well for you if you don't need the camera, radio, etc. etc! I love the phone! Full Review NOKIA 3560 I recently upgraded my contract with AT&T and this is the phone they talked me into buying. It cost me about $20 out of pocket, because I have had a contract with them previously,and was just upgrading and adding to my contract to get a better phone. Normally, this is one of the free phones that AT&T gives away to new customers. I have to say I am much happier with this phone than with my old Nokia 1260 that I have had previously. That phone had absolutely no bells and whistles! I do wish this phone had a few other features, that I had thought were on it, and found out after I received it that they were not. I hope to clarify this, so someone else doesn't make the same mistakes I did. Now, I'm locked into my contract, and unless I pay outright for a new phone, or find a second hand phone, I'm stuck with this one for at least another year or so. It's not a bad phone actually, but I did want to get the feature where I could download extra games for my phone and get the games of my choice. I like the games, they pass the time when I'm out and about, waiting for my daughter to get out of school, or my mom to get out of a doctor appointment, etc. The games really wear down the battery, but I have a car adapter that I use when I am in the car, and whenever I am driving, I just charge it up. The phone also came with an electric charger that you can charge the phone up inside. The nice thing that this phone features, and my old one hasn't got, is a color screen. It is much easier to read it. I don't like that the phone charges down really fast, however, and the light goes out if you don't touch the keypad. I like to pull my phone out of my purse, (I have the keys locked in my purse so I don't dial China while its in my purse!) and when I pull it out, it's very hard to see the screen unless I touch the pad to get the light to go on. The phone comes with a one year warranty. I have found it to be a very sturdy little phone, however, so unless there is a manufacturer's default, I doubt you'll need to use the warranty. Point to note: with my old Nokia phone, I had a bad problem with the on/off button at the top of the phone. It constantly broke down on me and I think I went through about 3 phones in a year, because I would shut the phone off one day, and it would never turn back on. I was leary of getting another Nokia at first, but I have had no problems with this phone. I guess it was just a quirk of the older phone. I do want to mention though, that you have to hold the button down on the phone for quite a few seconds, up to about 20 seconds, for the phone to finally turn on. It freaked me out the first time I turned it on, and tried to just push the button and let go of it, and nothing happened. I guess I should have read the directions first! The keys are quite a bit larger than on my old phone, or at least they feel like they are. I think it is easier to hit the buttons on this phone. If I am busy or have my mind on something else, however, I still have a problem with hitting the wrong key at times. I guess its the disadvantage of having a small phone, there is just so big the keys can be before the phone becomes big and bulky! The phone comes pre packed with several pictures that are wall paper, so you don't have to look at a blank screen. Some of the wallpapers make the screen hard to read, however, so beware. The more colorful the paper is, the harder it is to distinguish words, and numbers on your screen. You can also download extra pictures and phone rings. I have "I love Lucy" on my phone. I got sick of everyone having the same ring tone as I did, and not knowing whose phone it was ringing, so I figured I'd get something really original! Up to this date, I have yet to come across anyone else who has this ring tone on their phone! Now I can tell when it's my phone ringing, and it's also a big conversation starter when people hear the ring tone and can't figure out what song it is...they know they've heard it before...! Battery life is pretty good on this phone. The color display and the games do take more juice than my old phone did, however, so you will most likely find you need to charge it about once a week or so. It all depends on how often you use the phone. I use mine on a daily basis, maybe less than an hour a day and more on the weekends, since I have free unlimited weekends and nights after 9. I make use of that time and use it more at those times. If you talk on the phone for 2 hours, you'll find the battery running low, but if you only use it for a few minutes at a time, you won't find it draining very fast at all. If you do like I do, when you are driving to work or school, just plug the thing into your lighter for a half hour, you'll find you never run low on battery power. It keeps going and going and going.... I have dropped my phone several times, and in fact almost dropped it into the toilet once! It doesn't break easily, I can tell you that. It's really sturdy, and unless you try to run over the phone with your car or something, it isn't going to break too easily. After dropping it several times, (its small and easily slips out of your hand) I bought a leather case to protect it somewhat if I do drop it. I had problems with my older model phone, I was out in the rain one night and got wet. It was in my pocket, and the phone shorted out. So, I'm leary about that happening again. I think the leather case helps a lot when it rains. I was using my phone just the other day in the rain, and quite thankful for the case that kept it from getting damp. Oh, I forgot to mention that the phone comes with a calendar, a calculator, a stop watch, and the alarm clock is a life saver for me! I use this all the time in the mornings, because a regular alarm clock doesn't wake me up. This alarm is really annoying, it keeps getting louder and louder till you finally wake up and shut it off. There is no ignoring this little bugger! If you are somewhere and you don't want to alert everyone you have a phone call, you can turn off the ringer and put the phone on vibrate. I find it still makes an annoying sound that tends to turn heads, but its not as loud as the phone chirping out "I love lucy and she loves me..."! Most of the time, when I'm in class, I just set the phone to silent, so that it won't ring if I get a call, and then I just check it periodically to see if anyone has called. It will show on the screen if someone has called, and it will say you have a missed call, and you can check to see what the number is this way. In this way, I don't have to leave my seat to see who called. If it's my mom (who is my babysitter) I know to get out of the class and call her to see what is wrong that way and it doesn't disturb the class. My teacher has been known to take a cell phone till the end of class if we leave it on accidentally. (Some people just don't know what rules are and repeatedly ignore the request to turn OFF cell phones during lecture time!) One of the nicest things I liked about this phone, was the size of it. It fits very nicely in the palm of my hand, and when I'm outdoors at night, walking to my car, I have my keys in my right hand and my phone in my left, so that I can make a quick phone call in an emergency. It's so small you can hardly tell I'm carrying a phone in my hand. Trying to think if I've forgotten any features....oh, the phone also comes with a phone book built in. You can add numbers and save them. So "Mom" will come up when she calls me instead of her phone number. Of course, when a stranger calls, who is not in your phone book the number still comes up on the screen, so far, the phone isn't equipped with caller id name. (At least mine isn't). I like that I only have to hit the up and down button to locate a phone number that is in my phone book. It also has one touch dial, and you can set it to voice activate. I am not crazy about this feature however, so I don't use it. I guess it's all a personal choice. I like the one touch dial, and the ability to just scroll for my number I'm dialing. Oh, and also, if you dial a number frequently, a nice feature is that you only have to push the talk button (the green phone icon) and the last called numbers will be listed. If you are dialing the last number you called just push the green button again to dial it, or scroll down to the one you want to dial and hit the button. It's the lazy person's way to dial! I love it! The only problem I have found with the phone, was that they told me it was internet ready and I could access the internet with this phone. I don't know if it is my phone company (AT&T wireless) or if they misinterpreted themselves, but I DO NOT have access to the web on this phone. I have to upgrade to a better phone if I want this feature. I guess it's for the best, as the added internet feature would cost me more money every month! I also wanted to download extra games, and that wasn't an option either, with this phone. One of these days, I'll go to a pawn shop or something, and upgrade to a better phone. Right now, having added games or internet isn't a good reason to exchange phones. I'll keep this one for a few years till they come out with some new ones and/or my contract is up! Adding some tidbits, if you have AT&T like I do, I heard from them that they have merged with Cingular Wireless. I am anxiously awaiting the Rollover Minutes feature, so hopefully we'll have all the same features available to us in the near future! We'll have more phones available to choose from, also. But then, that is a different review! Overall, this phone is a great little phone. It's sturdy and dependable, and it does what I want it to do. If you are looking for a cheap phone, with a few bells and whistles, but not fancy, this is the phone for you. Below is a little more information I gathered from the instruction booklet: TDMA 800/1900 MHz, AMPS 800 MHz High-resolution color display: 96 x 65 pixels Ergonomic design with a unique keypad 2-way scroll for easy navigation Phone book with up to 250 contacts, with up to 5 numbers and 4 text entries per contact Calendar with up to 250 entries 8 color schemes Voice dialing for up to 10 numbers Voice commands for up to 5 available menu items Xpress-on™ color covers (front and back) sold separately 30 polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones and 5 picture messages1 Memory available for downloadable ring tones and picture messages Personalize caller ID with graphic icons Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88803 2000/3/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great color screensfeature packed non downloadable tonesno internet The Bottom LineGreat phone for everyone however my price was with a plan yours may vary Full Review I live in a mobile home that is a curse to cell phone use. I have gone through five or six brands and types including the new phones which use the SIM cards. In a fit of desperation I replaced my last phone with the Nokia 3560 and aside from some minor annoyances this phone works better in my home then all the other phones combined. Let's take a look at the phone, it's features and documentation.(Features may vary depending on your wireless service provider, mine is based on AT&T wireless)also in the interest of space I will be including the major features that most users would be interested in as well as the unique ones that were a surprise to me. The Phone's physical features: The phone is light weight (3.75oz with battery) with an adequate sized keypad, the scroll key is large and centered however the keys designed for select and exit located on either side of the scroll key can be hard to press in low light environments. I like the fact that the antenna is built in and not protruding out to get broken. The screen is a color type that is fully customizable with a array of choices for wallpaper as well as color schemes that is a snap to change. However the ability to add to the graphics is not possible. The on and off switch is on the phones top and kind of hard to press, they could have done a better job on this essential feature. The battery claims to give you 6.5 hours of digital talk time and up to 9.5 digital stand by time, 42 hours analog stand by time but they are pushing it. Non phone features The phone has a number of convience features that are not related to phone calls that are quite nice. The games are top notch and have moved away from the useless snake or hangman game. This phone's games include bowling, backgammon my two favorites as well as Skydiver and racket all in color. The phone also sports a calender, to do list, conversion application, stop watch and alarm. Features relating to phone or phone use Along with the usual caller ID, call log and timers this phone also has profile settings for different environments, vibrate and an interesting audio setting called equalizer which I honestly cannot figure out it's use compared to volume. It is SMS capable as well as Email ready depending on your provider.The message system includes T9 typing which predicts the word you are trying to input and it's great after you get used to it. The documentation claims it can connect to the net however my provider states it does not have that ability. The ring tones are awesome with a wide choice sadly though I cannot add to the collection. The built in phone book allows for multiple numbers and holds a total of 250 contacts, plenty for most users. It does have voice dialing however it is so hard to use I stopped trying as this feature needs work You can group your contacts by type as well as assign custom rings to any contact you may have. The key lock feature is a pain to unlock but saves me from calling out when in my pocket. Again I have omitted the features that most if not all phones have and tried to touch on the major selling points of this phone. The included documentation is complete and quite easy to understand. Also included is a simple head set which is cheesy and a charger. There are upgrades available for the afore mentioned extras. I wish: I wish it had down loadable tones and wallpaper and was Internet capable. Bottom Line Great phone, great features and if available don't pass this model up Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88802 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 attractive design satisfying features the backlight seems everyone has one The Bottom LineI love this phone. I'll use it until it dies, or until I'm offered the next step in mobile technology for free. Full Review As cell phones become cheaper, smaller, and increasingly capable of doing everything for you, I hang on to the frugal end of the bandwagon, getting a free, yet cooler-than-anything-I've-had-thus-far, device. As is probably true for a lot of people, I can't.. and won't.. burn three hundred dollars on the latest breaking technology. Rather, I bide my time and wait for the Superphone of today to become a deal in twelve months. The 3560 sort of fell into my hands under these circumstances. It was free. It had the features I needed. It looked sharp. Plus, Nokia has a great reputation for durability and long life. My girlfriend's Nokia is at least five years old, and it's neither had any problems nor needed a battery swap. Thus far, my 3560 has been a true performer. Its 6.5 hour talk time and 9.5 day standby time has carried me through weekend excursions where I forgot to pack the charger. I prefer to carry in pockets rather than in belt clips, and its size and weight are perfect for that. It does have internet browsing and download capabilities, but I never need those features. The true heart-stopper for me was the backlight. I was used to the old-fashioned dull yellow backlight, which necessitated second glances and some guesswork, so to behold for the first time the wondrous white energy bursting forth from the entire screen and from each button with equal intensity was quite an experience for me. Even the tiny alpha characters under the numbers on the keypad are perfectly clear. And the colors are great. Did I mention this phone was free? The call quality with this phone has been just fine. Especially for a device without an external antenna, 99% of my conversations have been excellent. The only drawback with sound quality is something that (I think) is supposed to be inherent to TDMA systems. Sometimes the sound isn't mutually fluent ... that is, if the person on the other line is still talking and I begin to talk, I don't hear the other person anymore. It's as if the system can't handle completely fluent two-way traffic. I realize this sounds pretty undesirable, but it doesn't happen all the time, and I've gotten used to it. So it's not a problem worth striking the 3560 from your list. Besides, my knowledge of mobile technology goes no further than using my phone, so there could be other factors influencing the problem. Aside from a PDA and a built-in camera, I can't think of any important feature lacking in this phone. Other reviewers have covered this device with flying colors, so I won't mention every feature here. I love the customizing options, including color schemes, profiles (meaning how you want the phone to ring/vibrate, ring volume, etc.), and wallpaper. My personal favorite is the Bach E major Partita found in the "Gallery" section of the phone, a folder full of ring tones and wallpapers. The phone book is also pretty efficient, with a "Find name" feature that's the best I've used so far. And if you're hands are tied, the voice-activated dialing function is simple to use... all one needs to do is press and hold the "Contacts" button for a second. Tiny complaints not worth considering as CONS: Though the calendar gives me a lot of options, I find that actually navigating through dates on the calendar can be tedious. Some cell phones have a four-way scroll button, allowing up, down, and side-to-side movement. The 3560 is a bit restricting in that way, allowing (at least, in the calendar) only side-to-side movement. So if you want to get to a date three weeks away, you either have to spastically press the scroll button repeatedly and go through each date through each week, or you have to manually enter the date you want to skip to. Not a big deal. Just a small annoyance. The alarm clock is great... it's sufficiently obnoxious to wake you up, but not so much that you hate the phone for a while. However, the 3560 doesn't give you the option to choose a ring tone for the alarm sound. If the default alarm sound happens to be entirely ineffective at waking a particular heavy sleeper, that person can't tune that option to find a louder and more obnoxious sound. The alarm works for me...I mention this only because my previous phone had some great GET-OUT-OF-BED ring tones I could use, since I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. IN SUMMARY: I love this phone. I'll use it until it dies, or until I'm offered the next step in mobile technology for free. Its positive traits far outshine any small quirks it may have. Since everyone seems to have the 3560 these days, I suppose you could get a unique faceplate. But why lose that gorgeous silver face? I, for one, am perfectly content. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88801 2000/6/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent sound quality lots of useful features fun games battery life speaker phone no wap browser power button hard to use or dedicated volume keys The Bottom LineExcellent voice quality and battery life make this the best phone I've ever used. Love the metric converter. Full Review By now I've completely lost count on how many Nokia phones I've had or used, but one think I know - until this one, I had never been happy with a Nokia phone. Besides the really long battery life that most Nokias seem to have, there has never been much about those phones that appealed to me. The 3560 on the other hand, turned things around completely, and I can certainly say it is the best phone of any brand I've ever had. Normally when I choose a new phone I look for several things: I hate flip phones, so it must not be that; I like a little bigger phones, because they're easier to hold and harder to lose; I prefer built in antennas - I've had really bad experience with the antenna constantly breaking off on a Motorola V60 phone. These are the most important features I look for, and the Nokia 3560 has them all. I know that the bigger size is a turn off for most people, but in my book this is a great thing. Plus despite its size this model is still really light. There are a lot of features on this phone - way more than I care to list on here, if you're looking for the features go to Nokia's web site and read. I guess the main selling point of the phone for a lot of people would be the color screen. I find it cool and all, but besides while playing the games (two of which I am addicted to), I don't think it makes that much of a difference. This phone doesn't have a camera, and the color screen has a pretty low resolution. Actually unless you put a background picture or something you can hardly tell it is a color screen. I found though that the background pictures built into the phone are really dark and the text remains black on all backgrounds, making it really hard if not impossible to see. For that reason I've left my phone with just a regular white background. Supposedly you should be able to download additional images and/or games, but I have yet to figure out how that works. I suspect this might be some provider dependable feature and I really have very little desire to figure it out. My biggest complain of the phone is the discrepancy between the manual and the phone itself. It clearly says in the manual that there is a built in web browser, but my phone does not. I am guessing this might depend on the model for the specific provider too, but I don't know - I mean this is a TDMA phone and I think the mobile internet is only available on GSM networks. I know it's quite tedious using the mobile browser anyways, but one of my previous phones had it, and I liked it a lot. I do miss my mobile internet. Actually the Nokia 3595 or something like that looks a lot like this phone, but is a GSM model and does have the WAP browser. Another feature I kind of miss is a built in speaker phone. It would be very helpful if I had it while driving. Now to my favorite features. First and foremost the reception is really good. I receive a signal in areas where no other phones have any. And the sound quality is almost as good as a regular phone. Again reception is provider dependable, but with the same provider this phone beats all their other models. Also the battery life is amazing. If I turn it off at night the phone lasts about a week on one charge. Other favorite features are: the built in alarm with snooze button - I only wish I could chose a different melody, because it only makes really loud beeping noises, but it's very effective; I love the metric converter - I grew up in Europe and still have a lot of troubles with all the gallons, and yards, and all that good stuff, so that converter comes in handy quite a lot; the automatic keypad lock - unlike any other phone I've used, you can set the keypad lock to either automatic or manual, and when in automatic mode you can select the time delay before the pad locks itself - thumbs up for this feature; and last but not least - the built in games, of course they're nothing elaborate, but I am totally addicted to the tennis and the bowling games. Now features I don't like: you can't assign different melodies for different phone numbers; there are only polyphonic melodies and no regular rings... I really miss those; there are no dedicated volume keys - it is hard to adjust the volume during calls, especially if you have to punch in extra numbers, like making a selection or something. To change the volume you have to first delete all numbers from the screen, and then you can use the scroll keys to adjust. Some times this is very frustrating; to delete the call times after you end a call you've received, you first have to deactivate the keypad lock, this is a minor annoyance but still I don't like it; and finally I am not a big fun of the power button located on top of the phone - it's kind of small and difficult to push, and you have to hold it a really long time before the phone switches on. Not so much when you want to turn it off. Well it is my experience that no mobile phone is perfect. But despite its several minor annoying quirks and the lack of some features, this is a really cool and reliable phone that I would recommend to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88800 2000/8/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good sound quality great battery life small size all features not avaliable everywhere screen hard to see in sunlight lacks good security The Bottom LineIt's a great little phone for people who don't want to worry about battery life. Full Review I recently upgraded from another Nokia phone, and I must say this 3560 is much better than the old Nokia. It features a color screen which you can customize with different color schemes and images, and you can download more, as long as your cell provider is compatible for downloads, which unfortunately mine is NOT. You can set a screen saver to show only the time while the phone is in standby. I have noticed that in sunlight, the color screen is somewhat difficult to view, especially if there is a heavily detailed background image. I keep a darker background with brighter numbers and this works well for me. You can choose from several built in ringtones or download more, again IF your provider is compatible, which mine is NOT! The phone also features a built in vibrating feature if you want to use silent mode. There's the usual date planner, phone book, games and assorted features that I normally have no use for. The phone book, however is quite handy. I've set all my most used numbers and all I need to do is scroll to the name or number and press the call button. This is a very small phone, probably not the smallest, but for what I paid ($0.99 with a 2 year contract) I can't complain. With my cellular service, I can still upgrade phones or service plans during the 2 years, but unless the phone dies or breaks I'll probably be keeping this one as long as the last one... about 5 years. The main thing I like about this phone is the battery life... the first day I got the phone, I charged it for a few hours until it was fully charged, and I didn't need to charge it again for over 3 WEEKS, under my normal use of about 30 to 45 minutes a week talk time with several hours of standby time. My old phone had to be charged every day, regardless of standby or talk time. Now, I usually charge this phone once a month, even though the battery level is still above half way full. I bought a car charger, but I don't think I'll even need it. If you're lucky enough to be in a market that offers web access, downloads, text messaging, etc. features, you'll really be able to use all of the features of the phone. One feature I miss from my old phone is the ability to block or unblock all calls with a simple 4 or 5 digit code. This phone requires NUMEROUS (maybe 25) steps to block calls. I like to leave my phone on all day, and block calls in case someone steals the phone, this way they can't make calls without my code. With this phone, it takes an average of 15 minutes to navigate through all the menus to block or unblock calls, this is a BIG inconvienence especially if you need to make a call in a hurry. You do have the ability to lock the keypad from speed dialing numbers if the keypad is pressed accidentally. Ok, but not a great security feature, anybody that presses any key sees the message "press (whatever) key then (whatever) key to unlock. There may be a simple method to block & unblock calls, but I can't find anything in the manual or on line that has less than 10 steps. I almost forgot to mention, this phone has NO external antenna to get snagged on something! It doesn't seem to harm reception either (at least for me) I have no problem keeping all the reception bars lit right up to the top around here. The sound quality, both incoming & outgoing is better than the old Nokia I replaced. The only complaint I have is the placement of the power button... on the top of the phone, heavily recessed and sometimes hart to use. I know the engineers who design these things don't have much space to put a lot of stuff, but they could have put a little more effort into the power button. If you have the phone in a case as I do, you need to open the top flap just to turn it on, and HOPE you're pressing the button for exactly 3 seconds to turn it on. Included in the box is: the phone, hands free kit (basic), wall charger & manual. Overall, a big improvement to older phones, but not quite perfect. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88799 2004/1/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 modestly priced very sturdy good battery life colorfulnice ringtones you can dial a wrong number very easily the buttons are hard to push individually The Bottom LineBuy this phone! It is economical, durable, and trendy! Full Review It was time again for that annual crisis I experience... the renewal of my AT&T Wireless contract. I have just decided to stick with this company, since I have been with them for 3 years and they serve my needs. Similar to every year, I called and told them to give me a deal or I would transfer my number to another carrier (idle threat, I know). This year, I was offered this Nokia, and I went to pick it up from the AT&T Wireless dealer the following day. Needless to say, I am impressed. This is my second Nokia phone, and I have found they are small, sturdy, and well-designed. This phone is no different. It is very thin, about an inch, and weighs almost nothing. The battery lasts about 5 days without charging, and talk time is about 2 hours (so far, I will be perfectly honest, I haven't talked until the battery has died, but it has lasted at least this long from a full charge). The color screen is large, and easy to view, even if the graphics seem a little pixellated. The menu icons are also large and colorful, and aid in viewing the contents of the menus, even if they are not overly descriptive about what each menu's purpose is. The sound quality of this phone is also very clear, and I have found that reception is top-notch, and doesn't fade. This phone also offers voice recognition, and like every phone I have experienced with this technology, you want to set it up in a quiet area, and speak clearly. Likewise, when retrieving your phone directory (or with this phone, you can also program certain menu functions to voice recognition, like putting your phone on "Silent" and vibrate) you want to enunciate and make sure there is not a lot of background noise. Like many Nokia phones, this one has interchangeable faceplates, which are easy to get on and off with a click of a plate. Other features that this phone boasts are polyphonic ("musical", they don't sound like a bad videogame) ringtones and background graphics. You can customize the display with different color schemes, similar to changing your window colors in Windows. These color schemes are preset, and range from garish to rather nice and pleasing. The pre-programmed backgrounds are also reminiscent of Windows, with a beach, lake, river, and other pictures. Finally, this phone is durable, and to date has withstood the abuse of being chucked in my backpack and whacked against chairs, the floor, me, etc. In short, I recommend this phone for anyone who wants a trendy phone with cool features, on a modest price range. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88798 2000/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great features for the money dwindling battery life The Bottom LineWell worth the dough. Full Review If you are looking for a cheap alternative to get into the next generation of cell phones, look no further. My previous Nokia (a 3360) started to feel a bit outdated, and I wanted to get the "cool new features" that many phones have been advertising. This includes polyphonic ringtones, WAP and color display. However, when I did some research these phones cost upwards of $200. That was a bit pricey for my budget, so I checked out Nokia's website. The 3560 is a rather new model, yet it has some standard features that no other phones in the price range can match. The first thing you'll notice once you turn the phone on, is the brilliantly colored display. This inexpensive Nokia (about $100) has the ability to display a full colored background image. There are a handful of photos included, yet you can download more (usually at a small price) from the internet or your cell phone provider. The 3560 also sports eight different color schemes. While that concept seems great, the effect seems a bit washed out for my liking. In essence, the contrast between the eight colors isn't as dramatic as I anticipated. Regardless, it's a quick and fun way to customize your phone. Being a kid at heart, the biggest lure for me was the use of polyphonic ringtones. For those of you not familiar with polyphonic ringtones, the difference is amazing. Instead of the bland monotone rings, polyphonic is based off of MIDI technology (technology?). Nevertheless, the end results are awesome. The Nokia includes 30 of these ringtones, but you can "download" more just like the backgrounds. Aside from having the nice color display and cool ringtones, the Nokia is quite practical as well. It has a great calendar option that you can set to remind you of events. Most cell providers provide an interactive website that allows you to communicate from the website to the phone nicely. Cingular has a great set up for members. You can synchronize your email (Outlook) calendar with the website, and then in turn with your phone. This keeps me quite organized, including keeping me up to date with my contacts. Setting up reminders and alerts is also easily done. You can customize these alerts to remind you of important tasks as well as a host of personal items. This includes weather, sports and stock updates that match your criteria. The 3560 also sports a nice text messaging feature that can also support picture messages that are sent from other compliant phones. Responding and creating messages has also never been easier. With "predictive text input" makes typing messages (including emails) much easier than before. If you choose to pay extra for mobile internet (WAP), navigation and display looks fabulous and browsing is much easier than in the past. Other features include a well laid out voice command center. This allows you to add contacts (up to 250) and add a voice tag command to that listing. By pressing and holding a button you are prompted to "speak", so simply speak the name you assigned and it will automatically dial the number. The last "big feature" this low-priced phone offers is the ability to hold java games that can be downloaded. I rarely play these games even though five are included. Still, this is just another feature that many phones twice the price include. Once you get past all of the great features and functionalities, the phone still just oozes with Nokia quality. I've always chosen Nokia over any other brand, simply because their quality is top-notch. Weighing in at under four ounces, the lightweight phone has a solid, well constructed feel about it. Fitting comfortably in your hands, the 3560 still has a great weighty feel to it. The performance has also increased slightly over my 3360, giving me on average an extra bar at most places. This was my biggest complaint with the 3360 and it just didn't have the range that other phones had. This was solved with the 3560, and was impressed with the sound quality and reception that it introduced. A small "feature" that I also noticed was a small rubber "logo" on the back of the phone. Sure it looks cool, but it serves a purpose as well. When holding the phone, it rests comfortably (and securely) on your index figure. This not only makes using the phone more comfortable, but it also keeps the phone securely resting while you are talking. In regards to battery life, I noticed little difference from the 3360 to the 3560. At first, however, I thought it was amazing. The first weekend I had the phone I was out of town and had it on for the entire weekend, and used about five hours of talk time. When returning home, I still had a bar or two left on the battery. But after a few weeks of use, I noticed the battery life dwindled as time went on. Now, I get a good two days before it needs charging with only maybe an hours worth of talk time and the rest standby. Overall I am quite satisified with the phone, especially at the price. Cingular now is offering the phone for $30 if you sign up with them. And Nokia is running a special where you can return any cell phone and they will send you a check for $50. The Nokia 3560 is without a doubt, the best phone for the money. The reason being, is because no other phone in this price range can match the features that the 3560 offers. Tying that in with the quality of Nokia makes this a sure thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88797 2000/9/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light long lasting battery durable not much The Bottom LineA sweet little phone. Full Review Where I Got It: AT&T Wireless The Nokia 3560 was one of about 3 phones offered to me as an equipment upgrade through AT&T Wireless. Why I Got It I decided to retire my old clunky Ericsson because it had to be charged every single night, whether I used it or not. Needless to say, I wasn't too ambivalent about its retirement. I have long avoided getting a Nokia, for fear that someone would actually think that I was trendy or stylish. Not to mention the fact that I always get the $20 phone, because nobody ever calls me anyway. This time, I decided that I would spend a few extra bucks to get a phone that would last. For $99 ($79 after mail-in rebate) from AT&T Wireless, the Nokia 3560 is a spectacular deal. Display: Ooh, Pretty Colors The full-color display is attractive, although not particularly useful. You can select from a random assortment of natural and psychedelic wall-papers, or engage in a single-player version of pong. Without the ability to take pictures or surf the internet, the display is more of a status symbol than anything else. One feature that is useful is the large clock displayed while the phone is in idle mode. This makes checking the time very easy (and discrete). Keypad: No More Accidents! My favorite feature of the Nokia 3560 is that the on/off switch is a stiff button on top of the phone, and needs to be depressed for several seconds to be activated. This means that you can't accidentally turn it on while you're fidgeting through a really boring seminar. Otherwise, it's your pretty typical keypad. 10 numbers, * and #. The keypad lock can be set for any time increment that you wish, which is another great feature. The fact that the display light doesn't come on until the phone is unlocked is a minor nuisance. Navigation: KISS The menu is extremely easy to navigate. One button is reserved for editing contacts and one button brings up the settings and features menu. The contact list can be immediately accessed by using the up or down scroll buttons, depending on whether you want to start at the beginning or the end of the alphabet. The menu navigation is intuitive, making it simple to locate the features that you wish to change or access. The large icons are another one of the few uses for the full-color screen. Talking: Yap, Yap, Yap The phone has a powerful, well-hidden speaker. I can generally hold a conversation on the lower volume settings when I have decent signal strength. I just wish that they would kick the bass up on the ringer a little. The ring tones would sound a whole lot cooler. Battery Life: It keeps going, and going... After the first charge, my Nokia 3560 went for 8 full days without charging. This only included about an hour of total talk time, but I am still impressed. Charging generally takes 2-3 hours. The battery life has remained stable over the last month, requiring a charging once or twice a week. The battery indicator is similar to a car, since you can go quite a ways on Empty. Finally, a phone that understands how people think. Durability: Takes a licking and keeps on ringing In the short time that I've owned my Nokia 3560, I've dropped it about 4 or 5 times on a variety of surfaces from pavement to ceramic tile (I no longer include soft surfaces like carpet in my tally). Well, the display is still in mint condition and there isn't a scratch to be found. I don't know how they do it, but it must be some sort of space-age polymer. The Antenna: How can I work with something so...small? The antenna is completely invisible, but the phone still gets excellent range. I'd say it's better, or at least on par, with any previous phone that I've purchased. It does appear to deal better with low signal strength than previous phones, as there is less static and fewer disruptions. Special Features: Back to basics There's nothing spectacular about the Nokia 3560's bonus features. You get your basic alarm clock, calculator, calendar, stop-watch, etc. If I really needed this stuff, I would have gotten a Palm. Email, Messaging, Chat Yup, it's all here, provided your service supports these features. Mine only gets text messaging, but I hardly use it. The Nokia 3560 supports predictive text entry, making things easier or more difficult depending on what you're sending. I'm not even really sure why they call these things phones anymore... Ring Tones and Graphics: Spend more $$$! The ring tones are somewhat expensive, but when you've just have to have Nena's 99 Luftaballoons, you've got to have it. The phone also has a built-in vibrate alert that sucks down battery power like I do pudding paks. There are several profiles available, to make switching between silent and normal modes simple. Games: Pong Enters the 21st Century The Nokia 3560 comes with 5 standard games: Racket, Sky Diver, Backgammon, Bowling and Air Glide. The color screen makes playing Racket -- a reincarnation of Pong -- more enjoyable, but it's still no fun without the ability to play with others. I'm sure that feature will come soon, but this is a cell phone and not a gaming system. Bottom Line If you're not a flip-phone person (I haven't yet attained that level of coolness), then the Nokia 3560 is a great phone. It's tough, long-lasting and hip. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88796 2004/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 built in wallpaper with customization available cool key pad design color screen none so far The Bottom LineFun phone with outstanding battery life--plenty of games to keep you busy and more to download. Full Review I admit it, I have cell phone envy. Yep, I was the girl who always said all she needed was a phone to make calls on; she didn't need those fancy bells and whistles. That was true, until my son got his new Nokia 3560. My phone is just a few weeks old () and it's nice, however, now that I've seen my son's color screen and cool key pad layout, I wish I'd shopped around before choosing mine. We get special rates and because of that the phones are usually free or for a small fee. Since I didn't think I cared, I usually went with whatever the free phone was that month (I did that for my younger son and he got a which doesn't vibrate .) When it came time to get my son a new phone I called the regular service line, not the special rate line, and they talked me into buying this phone for $49.00. I should have gotten the free phone but hey, this is the last phone we'll hopefully have to provide him with so I might as well get him a good one. We have AT&T service which FedEx's the phone already configured and activated. Charging took no time at all and I started playing with it within 3 hours of receiving it. The quick charge is truly fast--more about that later. The first thing I enjoyed was the colored screen and the lighted key pad. My keypad is backlit with cutouts for the numbers. I didn't realize how hard it was to see until I used my sons. The backlighting is bright and the key cutouts crisp so it was extremely easy to use in dark conditions. The antenna is built-in (a must-have feature as he needed a new phone because he broke the antenna off the old one). You should avoid touching the area where the antenna is housed because you can interfere with the transmission. To keep you safely away from it, they've added a tiny finger hold area so that you'll be sure to use it properly. The tiny battery was easy to install and intuitive--no problems putting it in and snapping on the cover. That was the extent of the assembly necessary. Charging is done easily with the included AC adapter--plugged into the bottom of the phone, it begins charging immediately. They do ask that for the first three charging cycles that you charge for a full 3 hours and then discharge fully--do this and your battery will be in tip top condition. Fail to do so and you'll end up with a battery that won't hold a charge. After the initial battery conditioning you'll be able to fully charge it in an hour or less. The battery indicator light is a set of bars on the right side of the screen--the taller the bars the stronger the battery. You're able to customize the color of the bars (gray is default) which comes in handy when you start using wallpaper--otherwise the bars fade into the wallpaper. Switching on the phone is done by pressing the TINY power key at the top of the phone. I suppose it's small so that you don't accidentally turn it on/off when you don't mean to, and thankfully there's a small indent in it that's just the size of a fingernail to help you grasp it. The Start Screen pops up after you've powered it up and the first indicator on the left is the signal strength. Any other options are programmed by the user. This phone has a lot of great features--you can adjust the screen contrast making the screen brighter or darker for easier viewing; there's an audio equalizer so you can customize the audio properties; the lock keypad (keyguard) which allows you to lock the keypad to prevent accidental dialing (an important feature for my son--he's activated the phone in his pocket many times and called home--as a parent I really don't want to hear what he's up to :); customizable phone book (add names, numbers, street addresses, notes, etc. with predictive text or not)--you can set custom ring tones for selected phone book entries or for entire calling groups such as friends or family; call timers, call history, missed calls, and all the other entries that let you know who you've called, who's called you, who you missed, etc.; voice tagging--allows you to auto call numbers by pre-recording tags that are associated with numbers, great for when you're driving; up to 180 seconds of voice recording--store your grocery list or record the call you're on--don't worry, the caller will hear a tone letting them know you're recording them; profiles which allow you to preset certain characteristics for your phone--for example while at work you may want your phone only to buzz so you set up a profile called work, customize it, and once at work set it with two key strokes; it is TTY/TDD capable for hearing impaired users; it's a PDA with a calendar, to-do-list, notes, calculator, currency exchanger, and stopwatch; it's text messaging capable (dependant on your service plan)--with it you can chat, send pictures, and use templates for e-mailing; you can use some Java applications (such as games), transmit a business card, download ring tones from the Internet (if your service allows), and set the alarm clock as well. The feature that I enjoyed most was the gallery. This is where you find the default photos that can be used as wallpaper. Tones are stored here as well in a folder system. If you download additional tones or photos they'll be stored here as well. Downloading requires you to be WAP enabled which means you can access the internet from your telephone. Detailed instructions are included and with my plan we're charged by the minute. Connecting to the Internet is done through the Services screen and is very easy to do--bookmarking and browsing can be customized. It comes pre-installed with 5 games: Air Glide, Bowling, Backgammon, Sky Diver, and Racket. I'm not a game player, but my son really enjoys the Sky Diver game. I would have loved solitaire myself and may download it onto my own phone. Playing the games is easy but they do require a lot of battery use. Accessories are available--you can replace the key pad with one that blinks, lights and carries on; you can change the cover to something more personalized; or you can put in into a body glove to protect it. There are a slew of other items available--add a car charger, headset for hands-free talking, or a desktop charging stand. We didn't need any of these because he doesn't drive and he's able to figure the battery life close enough to anticipate when it'll need to be charged. Our experience with the new phone has been great. The clarity has been wonderful and the range impressive. He can now get a signal in areas his old Ericsson couldn't pick up. The phone is lightweight (3.75oz) and compact (4.65 inches long x 1.97 inches wide x 0.91 inches thick), easy to customize, fun to play with, and has enough ring tones and pictures to keep my son busy. The Li-Ion battery has been performing perfectly--we've done the 3 charging cycles and we find that the phone is performing at the standards listed by Nokia for it--even with every feature turned on, including the screensaver, wallpaper, lights and anything else you can do. Average talk time is 6 hours and standby time up to 42 hours--great in our book! It's easy to change the Nokia 3560s faceplate--push the small button on the back and press down while pushing towards the top of the phone (towards the on/off button). Use caution as there are two small hooks in the plastic that can be broken off. It comes with a 1-year limited warranty--we declined AT&T's extended warranty because all of the other Nokia's we have had have lasted for years and were replaced because they were out-of-date, not because they were defective. ADDITIONAL SPECS Service TDMA 800/1900 MHz, AMPS 800 MHz High-resolution color display: 96 x 65 pixels Ergonomic design with a unique keypad 2-way scroll for easy navigation Phone book with up to 250 contacts, with up to 5 numbers and 4 text entries per contact Calendar with up to 250 entries 8 color schemes Voice dialing for up to 10 numbers Voice commands for up to 5 available menu items Xpress-on™ color covers (front and back) sold separately 30 polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones and 5 picture messages1 Memory available for downloadable ring tones and picture messages Personalize caller ID with graphic icons Note: "*Battery talk and standby times are estimates only and depend on network configuration, signal strength, features used, battery age and condition, charging practices, temperatures to which battery is exposed, whether use is in digital mode (or analog mode, if any), and many other factors. Please note that the amount of time a phone is used for calls will affect its standby time. Likewise, the amount of time that the phone is turned on and in standby mode will affect its talk time. For further information, please refer to the phone's user guide." From the Nokia website UPDATE: I bought accessories for this phone--great experience! Read the review at UPDATE 02/19/04: My son no longer has this phone--he's moved on to a different model. When I needed to choose a new phone for my husband this was the one I picked. Mostly the ease of use, large size buttons (necessary for those manly fingers!), and the larger size font on the screen were the reasons. It also has the color screen which is an added bonus as it's easier for him to read the screen than his old monochrome screen. My son's phone lasted beautifully and would still be in use if we hadn't switched cell service and got a new "free" phone that had some different features he was looking for (and he just wanted to try a new phone). He does miss the Profile feature the most (preset the type of ringing necessary for meetings, school, etc., and a few keystrokes later your phone is set for you). If my son had his way, he'd switch back to this one. For now, my husband is loving his new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7767 Nokia 8890 GSM Cellular Phone 88874 2004/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 elegant small long battery life housing wears out easy costly tiny buttons I owned this phone, still works till now but there are some things I do/don't like about this phone. Good:- - light/small - elegant metallic housing(i have a thing for metallic) - Fact that when your battery goes low, you're not able to make/receive calls but its still ok to text message. Bad:- - buttons maybe too tiny - sliding cover wears out fast if you're a text messaging maniac - expensive to replace housing 88873 2006/4/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 this nokia retains the user friendly set up plus the convenience of a worldwide phone yes but worth it pricey The Nokia 8890 phone is awesome. It is small and handy, and yet it has every feature a pragmatic cellphone user can have. First, it is GSM which means that it can be used "worldwide", usually most cellphones in the USA are not GSM, but cdma, which means you are tied to your service provider and you are contrained to pay US rates for international inbound and outband calls. The Nokia 8890 cuts the "red-tape" allowing you to personalize your phone. If you are a traveler, you can use this phone anywhere.You can have it "unlocked" in any mall in Asia or Europe and use prepaid SIM cards which would means cutting your cell phone expense for almost 75 percent. The advantage of a Nokia, is that it can be "unlocked" almost anywhere. It is user-friendly, and can be used for text messaging, emails, your yahoo or msn messenger. It is convenient.You can even download your polyphonic ringtones on the internet and it does have a huge directory memory. 88872 2006/8/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great audio simple design great reception high fashion design metal build none I just purchased one of these brand new from Overstock.com. Who knows where they got them as this is a pretty old phone. Seems to be a European packaging. Anyway, this phone is a true classic in style and design. It has good reception ( RF ) and solid audio. Very solid metal build, not plastic like all the new phones out there. These folks were using metal 6 years before the Moto RAZR. Works great, looks wonderful, and does not have all the unneeded crap like new phones do. I highly recommend it. A timeless, head-turning, solid built classic of a phone. Great job Nokia ! 88871 2000/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of range money Full Review Voice dialing is perfict for all of you people who try and dial while driving. I see so many people trying to dial and drive I even use to do this but thanks to this amazing product by Nokia never again. When I was looking for a new cell phone this one just stood out at me as being sweet. I mean all of the features are great. But I'm not a big fan of the wireless internet though. When the sales man was showing it to me you can only go to a couple sites and only look at a couple different things. Its not like you can go to yahoo and search for what ever you want. Nokia's phones are superior to any other brand out right now. This was a good investment for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 899 88870 2001/11/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy too use small stylish sleek well worth the money a price with looks that can kill can be easily scratcheddented The Bottom LineI can only recommend this phone if you can shell out the money for it. It is wicked expensive but you pay for what you get. Full Review This is the ultimate phone of phones. All the functions you ever need. Great reception everywhere and I do mean world wide. Of course I have no complaints but I know alot of people do. Mostly do to a certain batch that have this problem with screen fading or completely faded and needs to be replaced. I have absolutely no problems with this phone. Its light enough that I won't have to worry thinking that I have extra baggage. My previous carrier was sprint pcs and they were horrible. I get cut off too many times. With this phone I never get cut off and when I travel I can use it anywhere because its a world phone. Then there's that handy part where my phone is unlocked. This means that I'm not restricted to being on one carrier and I can also use prepaid sim cards if I travel. Wouldn't want to rack up on the bill. This is probably not for everybody considering that its peak price is at $800 and if you get lucky about $300. I'm a very busy person and I travel alot so this is the perfect phone for me. You'll find that it's exceptional in almost everyway. Sorry to all those people that my review isn't that good but this is my first one and it can only get better. Also since I bought this phone alot of my friends, coworkers, and my girlfriend immediately switched carriers just because we all travel alot. Here is something for those that own this phone already. If your warranty has expired and you need to replace the screen because it fades, then I have the perfect site for you. //www.awswireless.com This site has the necessary means to repair your phone if you scratched, dented or just replace the screen. The parts are not too expensive and it is recommended that you bring it too a pro to fix. If you want you can do yourself but highly not recommended. Also you can contact me and I can help out to repair if needed. I'm not sure if you can send it there but I do have all the equipment to do so. Better save then sorry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 88869 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks size classic interface none The Bottom LineWant to get noticed? Buy it. Full Review I used to have a Nokia 8260 but got this one to replace it. The Nokia 8890 is smaller than the 8260, and is about the same size as the Nokia 8290. I'll spare you all the technical reviews since you can read about them on other people's reviews. Instead I will give you a look at how the phone has server me for my lifestyle. SHOCK FACTOR TO WOW OTHER PEOPLE First off, this phone gets a lot of attention. Everytime I whip it out to answer a call it captures someone's attention. I was shopping for a new BMW and even the salesperson there (drives a 70k M roadster) asked to see my phone and was impressed. The backlight is also very nice. My old 8260 was 'souped' up before with custom superwhite lights. When people see the white lights in my 8890, they think I changed them too and are very surprised when I tell them they are stock and came with the phone. DAILY USE The menu and interface is alright, you can store numbers on the phone's own memory and the SIM card. I find that very handy because you can transfer information from phone to phone. It is also 'classic' Nokia, so if you have owned a Nokia phone before you will know how to use this phone. This little Nokia is also fairly durable. I put it in the Nokia leather case even though everyone says it looks like a makeup case (i'm a guy too) so that keeps it well. I just don't like how dust gets inside the screen behind the glass and I can't clean it like the 8260 where I can just take it apart. I only have two little scratches on the back where they probably came from friction when I placed my phone on the table during dinners and such. Battery life is great as other Nokias. Reception really depends on your provider, but because of the silver case, it is a tad bit worse than the plastic 8-series. I also like how I can use this GSM phone almost anywhere in the world. CONCLUSION Buy this phone if you like to get noticed. If not, just get the 82xx series. They will serve you just as well and honestly are more practical and you will save a lot of money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 600 88868 2000/3/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 can use in 120 countries lightweight voice activated na The Bottom LineFun, cute, but expensive. Full Review This is a wonderful phone for the world traveler, and if you dont mind spending the money for one a nice toy for anyone who isnt planning on traveling as well. This handset his the newest in the nokia line for the US and is a wonderful addition, when using it in the US anyway i had no problem with clairty and had excellent reception. this phone is very lightweight, weighing only 3.2 ounces. you can use text messaging and in fact it has predictive text t yping when comes in quite handy when using the text messaging feature. this handset is voice activated once you program the phone book and the voice "tags". You have a calender, the ability to store and send business "cards" and you can schedule up to 30 appointmets. All in all a very user friendly phone with all the toys you could want, and yes, being a nokia there are games as well. so have fun.. But only if ya like to blow money this one is costly folks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449.95 88867 2000/5/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features world wide access small size no wap high price The Bottom LineBuy this phone if you need a world phone & you love great design. If you are a gadget freak, you will not regret this purchase. Full Review You might think the Nokia 8890 is dead in the water. Who wants to spend $400 plus on a phone without WAP in 2001? Here are some reasons you might consider the 8890 despite the lack of web access. Size WAP phones tend to be big; they have to be because the need a big screen. The 8890 is marvelously tiny. The Palm Factor The 8890 actually is a WAP phone, if used in conjunction with your PDA with an infrared port. If you have a Palm V or similar PDA, you can access WAP, email, etc., using your 8890. Design The 8890 has a truly elegant design. If you love beautiful design, you will love this phone. It produces a very substantial oo and ah factor! World Phone Last but not least, the 8890 is a world phone. This accounts for a significant part of its price. If you travel internationally, you can rent a phone from several vendors for $50 to $100 per trip, or you can buy a world phone. As I see it, this means that if you make 3-4 international trips per year, world phones look like a very good deal financially. But, beware the roaming charges which can really add up! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 88866 2000/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 professional comfortable small stylish fragile expensive The Bottom LineIf you have the funds to spare on a phone, this is certainly a GREAT choice. Full Review After tearing away from a horrendous encounter with Verizon Wireless, I decided to look for a new cellular phone company. After viewing the phones and service plans from Sprint PCS and Cingular Wireless, I decided to go with Cingular Wireless due to their reliance on this "new to the US" technology (GSM). Since my old Motorolla v60c phone was not GSM compatible, I would have to choose a new phone from their wide variety here in Southern California. Since I have an unexplained tendency to go for the "Best and Brightest" from any range of products, I quickly looked at the most expensive phone, the Nokia 8890. I have expensive taste, but i'm no fool. After doing a fair bit of research on the Nokia 8890, I decided to take a leap of faith. The first thing that would be noticed is how the phone itself is packaged. The Nokia 8890 World Phone is very professionaly packaged and presented. Although it would be very difficult to attempt to explain the details here, to put it quite bluntly, anyone who has purchased phones in the past would notice an enormous difference in the presentation of this phone. The phone itself is small and comfortable. There is no inconveniently-placed external antenna. The sliding faceplace it sure to attract some attention. Everything about this phone is very professional. The sound quality is superb, compared to every other phone on the market. While conveniently sized, the phone itself is very fragile. There have been numerous instances, including mine, where the faceplace was damaged and needed to be replaced. Also, the speaker itself is very easily damaged. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550.00 88865 2000/5/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features antenna durable size design cost for features look reception The Bottom LineFor an unknown reason, all GSM phones are expensive. Especially the Nokia 8890, but the features really covers much of the cost. Full Review Nokia, the brand I trusted since the first day I started using mobile phone. Nokia 8890, the most expensive Nokia GSM phone sold by PacBell Wireless of San Francisco (by this time now, it should be called Cingular Wireless). The phone is nearly perfect in everyway. Clarity is no big deal to hassle about this phone because this is a GSM phone. The only downslide about this phone is reception. Cingular/PacBell Wireless is well known in servicing poor reception anywhere out of downtown San Francisco, therefore, it is no big surprise. The reason why I bought this phone is because of its stylish look and the world feature. Claiming to be a world phone, many people mistaken this phone as a tri-band (as of 900/1800/1900MHz) phone, while its not. This is simply a dual band (900/1900MHz) phone operating on single-band single mode in the US. Since GSM 1800 is being introduced in European countries and around the world, this phone will be useless in those regions. Foreign language selections are also very wide; the most lovable part of this feature is that it includes two type of Chinese layout, both Traditional and Simplified. The hidden retractable antenna is probably the enhancement made due to massive complaints regarding the Nokia 8290¡¦s reception. However, I find that this antenna does nothing besides the look. After the release of the Nokia 8250, this is the second Nokia phone to have different color LED, this time however Nokia utilized the super-white LED. The LCD is so visible that it¡¦s like a headlight of a car. The authentic brushed aluminum housing is extremely durable; it is still alive after enduring a fall over 50 steps of stairs (yes, I dropped my phone down the stairs at CCSF¡¦s library.). Minor scratches are made, but no cracks appeared, not like the Nokia 8290 I use to have, fallen apart like a LEGO spacecraft after the same fall. The Voice Tag feature is also very nice, able to call anyone by shouting his or her name to the phone, like using a walkie-talkie. GSM phones has the ability to download ring tones for several years already, yet this have not changed, yet, Nokia added an additional four ring tone slot the phone, making it more stylish. Due to new management, Cingular/PacBell decided to charges users based on per-message-received-and-send, therefore, text-messaging service is no longer included. No more physical data cables are needed anymore because this phone is packed with an IR connector, able to transmit data via the IR port. Also, you will be able to play snakes with someone else via the IR port. Which is nice, just like a game boy. The only thing I hate about this product is reception. I can barely get any signal on the street I live on. The signal meter starts dropping like the stock market did when the bus starts going up the hill, what a shame. Besides reception, this is a perfect phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88864 2001/4/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 light weightsexyrareglows nicely wow 6 bills brakes easily The Bottom LineIt's the phone of the elite Full Review The Nokia 8890 has more bells and whistles than people know what to do with. The light weight metallic phone is the mother ship of the Nokia line. With voice activation, Nokia steps up it's technology. Plus, with the IR built in, the phone can communicate with my Jornada (PocketPC). Beaming my numbers between outlook and the cell is definitely next level pimp stuff. This phone also has one of the nicest backgrounds that glows a beautiful white. Plus, the cell phone icons are animated and the phone can send and receive pictures. Truly, this phone has it all. But there's a couple of things that I think would make the phone even better. First, they need to get Tetris on the phone. Snake isn't cutting it on a six hundred dollar phone. Plus, downloadable software for the phone to directly connect to outlook would be cool. Hopefully the phone can connect through my USB slot. Also, the back of the phone easily slides off because I dropped it once. This phone is definitely not tough. They should have made it bullet proof. But all in all it's a great phone. Blows the rest of the line out of the water. Just remember to get a warranty!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 599.00 88863 2000/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight buttons back cover loose Full Review Nokia 8890 is probably one of the smallest cell phones out there in the market. The pros are the size obviously and the menu which is easy to understand and operate. The cons are the number buttons which are too small for people with a bit big fingers and bad eye sights. The back cover for the battery also seems loose all the time which results in noises when the phone vibrates. Overall I really enjoy this product with good reception (my service provider is Voicestream New England). I had nokia 6120 with Cellular one a year ago and I have experienced a lot of no receptions and miss a lot of calls which my friends made but the phone did not ring. I was deciding between this product and Ericcson T28 before I made a purchase, the reason was that I really like Nokia products for their performance and durability. Also I am more accustomed to Nokia menus and features. I recommend this product to everyone. Try it and you'll love it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 469.95 88862 2000/8/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality aesthetic quality signal strength small size none Full Review The Nokia 8890 is a statement of quality and strength in itself. As with any top of the line product from an electronics company, this phone has all the bells and whistles, is made of premium materials, and is the most elegantly designed product available. In a word, this phone is perfect. Compared to the top of the line phones from Ericsson and Motorola, this phone leads the pack in battery life, call quality, and signal strength. While a Motorola V Series will last about 2 days on its slim standard battery and a T28 will last about 3, this phone regularly lasts 4-5 days on its battery with normal use. Call quality on this beauty is also tops. Even though its antenna is internal, with a small extendible antenna in case you need a boost, the 8890 receives calls better than any other phone. The craftsmanship of this phone is superior to any other phone available as well. Crafted from an aluminum magnesium alloy, this phone is beautifully shaped, while also being nearly unscratchable. The screen is a work of art in itself and anyone who views the bright backlight will be awed. To sum it up, this phone is a must for anyone who loves quality. It is a premium piece of art that also happens to be an extremely capable world phone. I urge anyone considering a phone to take a serious look at the Nokia 8890. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449.00 88861 2000/9/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size battery life looks user interface voice dialing global roaming ir modem no tdma roaming expensive no wap Full Review I purchased the Nokia 8890 to replace my Nokia 6190. I loved the Nokia reliability, user interface, and battery life but wanted a smaller phone and, after renting an Ericsson worldphone from Cellhire for use in Bali, Indonesia, and the UK, I wanted to have a phone that could travel. I have now owned it for a month and I love it. The small size is very welcome. I bought the belt case but rarely use it, preferring to just slip the phone into a pants pocket. The keypad looked alarmingly small at first glance but the keys are raised which makes dialing actually quite easy. I might not be so happy if the ends of my fingers were very large in diameter. Battery life is a bit less than the 6190. I go about three days between charges with perhaps 40 minutes of talk time per day. Since the phone is supplied with a rapid charger and a nice looking stand, I don't mind the reduction a bit. If I find the phone is nearly out of juice I can make through the day with a ten minute touch-up charge. To eliminate all worrying about battery life I recommend a charger in the office, one at home, and one in the car - no matter which phone you buy. Sound quality is excellent as expected. I believe that my reception is not quite as good as with the (excellent) 6190 but darn close. The build-in IR modem is extremely useful. I used to carry a Ricochet modem in order to get email when on the road or in a cafe. With the 8890 I have shelved the Ricochet for this purpose. Cellular access to the net is slow (too slow to browse) but, with the IR modem and a 3lb laptop, extremely convenient for email and calendaring. Voice dialing is very useful when driving and using the headset. Otherwise it is just a toy. If I could change anything it would be to add a WAP browser. Its biggest limitation? It works around the world BUT.. in the United States you will not be able to roam on the very popular analog and TDMA networks. I use PacBell as my provider, travel fairly often to major cities, and have no complaints. You might not be so lucky. If you live in the US and are looking for the widest possible coverage then you need a different phone. The similar looking (though a bit larger) Nokia 8860 fits the bill for this purpose but the tiny new 8260 is an even better choice. Both of these dual-band/tri-mode phones will give you fantastic US coverage but you will of course completely lose the ability to use your phone outside of the US. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 700 88860 2000/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 attractive brushed aluminum casing ultracompact size infrared modem worldwide gsm not web enabled battery tricky to remove expensive The Bottom LineSure, It's price tag would send most in to orbit, but the reception quality and massive amount of features truly make it worth it! Full Review The 8890 is the smallest, lightest world phone on the market today. I have previously owned the 8290, the 6190, and the 5190 - however the 8890 wins the style and functionality contest hands down. The battery life is extremely long - talk times last up to 3.5 hours with standby times up to a week. Unlike the TDMA/AMPS phone the 8890 can roam worldwide on the GSM system. VoiceStream digital coverage in New York is equal to or better than the competition- and I have roamed all over the US using this phone. Infrared port allows wireless data connection with your laptop on the road - with a new high speed offering soon to be offered. And finally, the sleek gun-metal gray casing turns heads anytime you bring the phone out in public. A must have phone for the individual who wants the best in wireless technology. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 88859 2003/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything portability it has class style durability function replaced lcd screen in november 2001 accessories hard to find The Bottom LineThe 8890 is still popular and expensive even after 3 years on the shelves for a good reason!!!It's that Great!!!! Full Review NEW JULY 2003 REVIEW: ***UPDATE: I just replaced the back cover last month and I've tossed my newer Motorola v66 phone aside and went back to my 8890. Nokia phones have a better menu system and far better reception than motorola and sprint (the samsung family) phone. This winter will be about four years since I've took home my 8890. This was my first cell phone and I think it will be my last. Serious. I only wish it had a 65k color screen, but hey that would be asking too much. Pro's- Titanium, Replace parts easily and cheap off of ebay, Very formal yet very rugged at the same time, simple and fun to use menu, solid build quality inside and out(no cheap plastic parts), nice cradle, GSM, long battery life Con's- Still expensive after 3 years (even used ones on ebay go for 200$), No color screen or bluetooth tech, no flashy camera gimmicks that most new phones come with (like we really use these toys), Not many accessories and the few out there are hard to find (cases, etc...) OLD REVIEW: This is a great titanium phone that has been around since late 2000 when I got it for 400$ wholesale price and the 8890 still surpasses almost every other phone that comes out today. It also still cost almost the same price today as it did in 2000 whiles other "top class" phones enter the market each year with similar 500$-700$ retail price tags and then a few months later these "top class" phones end up at every corner shop in America for $0 (with some plan) to $100 !! Personally The 8890 has lasted me three summers through many drops, extreme conditions, and good care. What amazes me is that the phone still looks good. I got an aftermarket leather carrying case for it and it scratched the battery cover on the back (update: I just replaced the back cover for 9$ on ebay during june 2003, now my 8890 is in flawless condition). This was the only damage to the phone in three years and it was my fault. What wasn't my fault was the LCD was messed up during Autumn of 2001 and Nokia admitted to the phone having this problem back then and offered to replace the LCD for free. Nokia as a company came through and within two weeks I got my phone back with a new screen. Since then, 2 years ago, I've had no problems. Lately I felt eager to get a new GSM phone and I got the v66 for it's lightness and slimmer size compared to the 8890. I don't go for the flashy camera/internet/video game/entertainment center/color screen phones that are dominating the market this year. They all lack what the 8890 has: CLASS! I've had my v66 for a month and I'm now considering returning to my 8890 because nokia's menus are far superior to motorola's V series menus. (Update: I've ditch my V66 phone after too many sour experiences and I've returned to my 8890 since June 2003-hey whats one more summer together!) Also the 8890 felt right at home in my hands. It is a very dependable phone that gives the best reception and service (T-mobile) all the time. Also the GSM SIM card is really cool. It stores everything about your phone and cell phone plan and you can switch phones anytime by switching the card in and out and all your information will go from one phone to the next. I love this the most about the 8890. I don't like that Nokia has no accessories available for this phone. You may find a bunch of after market stuff that may ruin your phone but that's about it. Don't expect to change the shell to fancier colors or any of that here. This phone ain't a toy, it's an innovation of class and function and that is what you get!!! No complains. After three years of good times and bad times I highly recommend this phone!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 88858 2000/11/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 slick small easy to carry operates oversea kind of expensive small dial pad Full Review This is one of the best looking phone on the market, and also it works on all 5 continents and 120 countries. I came across this phone because I wanted to a phone that i can show off to my friends and brag to them about. When I first saw this phone, I fell in love with it, it's so small and slick looking. Although the price is kind of high, it took me a while to get all the money I needed for this phone but it's worth it!! Now where ever I go people always says to me "Nice phone." Although I know that this phone doesn't really suit me as a college student but I still love it (it cost me a whole month of work at a coffee shop). This phone is actually designed for business people who travel a lot, because this phone works almost all over the world. The sound quality is also really good. Normally this phone only need 30 minutes to be fully charged, and can last about 2 hours of talk time and 5 days of standby time. This phone is definately one of the best on the market right now, so for those who is willing to pay some more cash, this is your choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 600 88857 2000/5/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks way too good pricyover powered signal strength Full Review I used this phone while I was in Hong Kong this January. Well, it's either you LOVE this phone or you LOVE the Nokia 8860. The difference of course is the color of its cover, but on top of that, this phone (Nokia 8890) has blue back-lit lights, which really stands out during the night, if you're into hip colors. On top of that, it's actually a world phone where you will be able to use this in Europe and Asia by using its 900 frequency. The ones sold in Asia are 900/1800 while the ones in states would be 900/1900. Good points: Definitely stylish and catchy with the ability to use while you're out of the country. Bad points: Same as the 8860, if you hold the phone close to your ears, you can actually hear the phone making weird "signal noises", with research reports saying that too much use of cell phones might cause brain tumor, it makes you wonder if this phone's signal strength is just a bit too powerful with the hidden antenna. Currently, the only phone company that can activate this phone would be Pac Bell (in CA), with its SIM card. Nokia 8860 can be activated through CellOne or AT&T. The only place right now as of 5/25/00 that you can get this phone would be through private parties from www.ebay.com, and they're selling them to as high as 1K/each. Definitely want to wait for at least a month when it will drop to around 600 or 700... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1200 88856 2000/10/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 world phone solid body feel elegant design expensive lacks durability lacks triband The Bottom LineIf you are a world traveler, and want an elegant looking phone and don't mind pampering things that you like then this phone should definitely be on your shopping list~ Full Review ok by now you must have read all the specs on this phone so i'm going to focus on my own personal experience with this phone, which I hope will help you decide whether or not this phone is for you. (mental note: I'm not a heavy phone user, I value the appearance of things a lot and I enjoy playing with gadgets~) Pros First impression lasts and this is no exception. The moment you hold this phone in your hand you can immediately feel where all the money is going to. It's fantastically small, yet not too small that you'll have trouble holding it. It's metallic body communicates extreme solidity to your hands, unlike most of the plastic phones out there. It's elegant looking - the contrast between darkly brushed aluminum, chrome trimmings and a ridiculously bright white screen simply echos brilliance in your head. Now looking good is kool, but after using for a while, you'll really it's also very versatile. For a world traveler like me, I find it really convenient to have an elegant looking phone wherever I go - and this phone does just that. Arriving in Hong Kong, I simply put in my Hong Kong SIM card and instantly, I can call my friends there, in style~ Back to the U.S., pop in the Cingular SIM card, and there I go again~ Think about it, it's like getting two elegant looking phone for the price of one~ well like I said, that's only the case if you are a world traveler like me. Managing phone numbers is a bliss too, with the build in infra-red port. I no longer have to fiddle around with ugly looking cables fumble around the tiny keypad and all. Just place my (elegant looking) phone next to my laptop, and the way I go in editing all the phone numbers in there to the way I want them to be. Plus, now that this phone has been discontinued, it'll only become more and more valuable because of its timeless design and it's significance in Nokia's history. I intend to pamper it and keep it for a long time to come~ Cons ok this is not personal experience (not yet) but after reading most of the discussions out there, it seems that this is not a very durable phone at all. Despite the ridiculous amount of care I take, I do foresee a few problems with this phone somewhere down the line. Namely: 1. The screen will fail, in many different ways (e.g. fade out, all messed up etc). 2. The battery cover will become loose and squeaky. 3. The cover will suffer significant and evident scratches if dropped on ground. Now I heard that I can fix (1) in Hong Kong pretty cheap say around US$10). (2) is not a major concern for me because I don't think it'll be that evident if I don't squeeze the phone while talking~ (3) is really out of my circle of control - accidents do happen - but I'd try my best to not have that happen to me~ Conclusion That said, I have been generally very satisfied with the phone so far. The bright white screen the elegant design is still something very unique even now, some years after its initial debut. With a bit of pampering, this phone should give you great company for the years to come... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 88855 2000/1/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool blue lights extremely easy to use sleek design nice charger battery life nice size missing features of newer phones display issue The Bottom LineGreat phone, can be had cheap now if you don't want all of the new jazzy phone features (camera and such). Great looks, small... it just works! Full Review I bought this phone in 2000 right around when it was first available in the States. I paid roughly $500 for it at the time. The service was Voicestream, which changed to T-Mobile, and then in '03 I moved to Bermuda and switched the service to AT&T here. It is a beautiful phone and is very easy to use. I am not much of a power user in terms of phones, so it served its purpose for the years that I have had it. The main thing to watch out for is that the display is known to come detached on the inside. The phone can and will still function, but it does so without the user being able to see the screen. The reason this happens is due to a foam pad inside of the device that connects the electrical leads from the display to the circuitboard. When the phone is jostled quite hard, put under odd pressure (over time in your pants pocket is enough), or under cold conditions (every winter in Boston I would have the problem - rarely have it here in Bermuda). If you go to http://www.awswireless.com/ (I am in no way affiliated with them), under the Nokia section they have pretty much every part you could want for this phone. Get the special screwdriver to open the case and then you can take the phone apart and reposition the interior display. I also found that the sliding back battery cover will deform over time which lessons the rigidity of the phone and makes the problem worse. You can buy a new cover from AWS for less than $20 and it works great (but eventually over time will get bad again - but it is over a year at least). The battery life has been great for me, but I don't tend to talk for all that long at a time and I also tend to put it on the charger when I am home. If you have large fingers, then the buttons on this phone will likely feel too small. I am used to it now, so I don't even notice it. They have a nice feel to them and are very nice once you are used to pressing with your nail instead of the meat of your finger (I usually use my thumbnail if the person isn't in the contacts list). If you like having phones that people recognize as being nice - this phone certainly fits the bill. It and the 8860 are the usual go-to phone in movies and TV shows. As of today, I finally decided to get the Sony Ericsson T616 and that is the only reason I will stop using the Nokia 8890, it was a good phone, but is getting old now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88854 2000/10/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 global access no internet access price Full Review The first thing you notice about this phone is how small it is and how light. Weighing in at only 91grams this really is the bambino of the mobile world, but does this mean that it has limited functionality? Not a bit of it! Nokia claim that the phone can be used in 120 countries across 5 continents through the use of their new GSM chip but this will obviously have to be taken on face value. Perhaps someone who has taken it abroad often could leave a comment attached to this opinion as I have no idea of the quality of reception received when challenging them on this. This phone runs on a lithium battery and has 200 minutes of talk time/144 minutes on standby which is impressive compared with the competition. There are a few decent functions here but sadly no internet access which is a real let down especially when we consider that the price comes in at around $700. Overall, a good phone for business users who are abroad a lot, but the rest of us will probably settle for something cheaper. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 700 88853 2003/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 the best looking phone i ve seen technical difficulties price gsm only does not work well indoors The Bottom LineThis phone only receives a below average rating because it looks so good. For almost $500 I would expect more out of a phone with less problems. Full Review I am a fairly new cell phone owner. I have had one for less than a year. When I started searching for a phone, I wanted the best one I could find. Money was no object. The 8890 had received above average reviews and I loved the way it looked. Unfortunately, the best thing about this phone is the way it looked. The 8890 is a GSM phone. It can only be used with certain carriers and on certain networks. I live in Central Ohio and Voicestream is the only service provider. Outside of Central Ohio I don't get any service. Since it is all digital, the phone will not work outside its service area. This severely limits the mobility of the phone. GSM is not as widespread as other networks. Also, with Voicestream as the only service provider, there were not many service plans to choose from. It was take it or leave it. The 8890 does not work well indoors. Other phones have an easier time getting reception indoors. The tiny antenna helps but not much. Often standing outside is the only option. This phone has technical flaws. I have contacted Nokia and they insist that it is not a design issue. I am certain that there are issues with this phone. If not, I would never have had to send the phone in for repairs(2 times so far). Problems I have had are as follows: 1. The display freezes - Numerous times my display had frozen and did not respond to any buttons. The only way to get around this was to take the battery out and put it back in to restart the phone. 2. The display fades out - Pixels on the display would disappear. At times, the entire screen would be missing. Calls could still be made but nothing showed on the screen. 3. The back cover is loose - It wiggles which is annoying. 4. The microphone does not work at times - More often when making calls, I (the caller) can hear the other person but the other person cannot hear me. This seems to occur at random. So I never know when my phone will work. This problem makes the phone unreliable and renders the phone useless when it occurs. I had sent my phone in for problems 1-3 the first time. I was relieved when I got it back in pretty good shape. Currently I have problem 4 which is the worst because I never know when I can actually use my phone. This will be the second time I will have to send my phone in. It is still under warranty and all I have to pay is shipping. I just hope that this will be the final time I have to send the phone in. The warranty is only for a year and mine is almost up. So at a starting price of $460, this phone had been more trouble than it's worth. The actual cost of this phone will soon exceed $500 when considering shipping for repairs and lost minutes(during repairs and while being broken). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 460.00 taxRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88852 2002/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 nice design infrared features nice class nice ergonomics delicate sub par reception poor sound below average functions pricey The Bottom LineThe 8890 is a phone of fashion and trends, not a phone of practicality. Its actually a higher grade 3390 with a $200 price tag. Full Review This phone has great class. The 8890 has a sophisticated and modern design enhanced with its external antenna, which gives it somewhat of a boost in reception. The titanium alloy casing fits comfortably in your hand giving it an good ergonomic factor. I'm a stocky 6 foot tall guy with big hands, and while the phone is slim, small and portable, it still fits comfortably in my hand. However, theres something else to be said about its performance; it does not perform anywhere near what a $200 phone should be. Reception is rather poor for such an expensive phone. In comparison to my old 3390, the 8890 gains as much signal if not lower than the 3390, even with the external antenna raised. The 8890 also does not react well with antenna boosters. The so called "4-foot antenna", that antenna boosters boast about, has negligible effects on the 8890. In fact, antenna boosters causes the phone to overheat because of its metal casing, which I might conjecture, causes some difficulty for the phone. The white back light is a novel feature, but it is dimmer than what is shown in the Nokia website. In actuality, the screen is harder to read in the dark with the white light than with a green light. However, it is trendy and very fashionable now for the younger generation which always looks for ways to stand out of the crowd. The phone's infrared capabilities is a nice addition, but unfortunately I do not have other utilities that have the same feature, so I did not get a chance to test it out. Some of the smaller but nicer features that separate the 8890 from the 3390 include the volume button, which is given its own place on the side of the phone, the number buttons have nicely distinguished chrome buttons, and the sliding gate is a nice way to pick up and hang up on calls. Overall, this is a phone of style and fashion, but it does have some downfalls which prevent me from giving it a better review. The phone is very delicate and expensive to repair. Parts and accessories are not only expensive but hard to find. Although the phone has a good ergonomic feel to it, it is also easily damaged. The sliding gate could easily break, the buttons become sticky, the screen gets scratched easily and dents, although not apparent at first glance, can accumulate. The chrome trimming is made of plastic which further weakens the phone. Reception is poor and there are not as many options as you would like on the 8890. In fact, there are slightly more features on a regular, old 3390. The 8890 sports the exact same amount and types of rings, the games are old and antiquated, but everything else pretty much matches the 3390. In conclusion, I cannot recommend this phone. I am a person of utility, and this is a phone of fashion. It pretty much mirrors the 3390, except for its design, infrared capability and small differences described above. Without a doubt, if you want to impress your friends, this is the phone for you. But if you want a phone that matches performance to looks, then this is not where you want to look Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 212 88851 2000/7/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks sleek against my cheek small number buttons The Bottom LineNokia technology is awesome, the phone is great but is mainly made for looks. Full Review I've gone through so many different cell phones, it's unbelievable! I have to say that this has to be one of my favorite. The phone is just so sleek and nice that you just love it regardless of it's flaws, well at least that's how I feel. I guess the way the phone looks and the size is what really impresses me. Technology these days, I wonder what they will come up with next. The Nokia 8260 does have better features, creating your own ring tone, more games, etc. The number button on the cell is also very small, I am a female with tiny fingers yet I find that I still have a hard time. However, having features like voice activation and main buttons makes up for the key pad. The main button acts as a central control in which you do not need the key pad to dial out (this is if you have stored people's number in your directory). I honestly only use my key pad when I am paging someone. The way the phone is made, it makes it hard to have a nice carrying case. I have one but I find that it is useless since I need to take it out of the case every time I need my phone or when it rings. The case is only good if I am not using my phone for a long period of time and I am tucking it away in my purse. As for durability, I have dropped my phone a few times on the cement. I won't lie, it has not broken but it is scuffed up. The parts in are not cheap either. I had to buy a new back casing and that cost me $40 CDN. Reception is great, however I feel that has a lot to do with who your service provider is. Overall the phone is great, but it really is more for looks. There are better phones in the market but there are no other phones that look as great as this one. Recommended if you like to have nice objects against your face..LOL Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 950.00 CDN 88850 2000/9/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 the ultimate lifestyle phone easy to use smart no car kit fragile The Bottom LineClassy phone, an excellent and reliable companion. Full Review Having worn out my 8810, I've now owned my 8890 for a year, and here's my thoughts: In general it's an excellent phone. As will all Nokia's I've ever used, the software is intuitive and very easy to use. Anyone that's owned a Nokia before will instantly feel familiar with it. Over here (in the UK), these are becoming relatively cheap, which is good, but obviously makes them more of a mass-market phone, and reduces the 'prestige' of the phone. The build quality is reasonable, however it's not as robust as the 'business' phones. I do use it for business, maybe having to charge it 2 or 3 times a day, but if you drop it or keep it on the same pocket as a bunch of keys don't expect it to look good for long. Even compared to its predecessor (the 8810), it seems less sturdy. The keypad is quite small, but it's still perfectly useable for all but the fattest-fingered amongst us. It holds a signal reasonably well (especially for a phone with an integrated aerial), and battery life is around 3.5 hrs talk time. After a year, and around 600 charges, the battery performance is still good. My main beef with this and other 'lifestyle' phones from Nokia is that there's no car kit. I spend about 6hrs a day in the car, and considering this is aimed at business users, Nokia really should acknowledge that car kits are essential for any of their phones. It's taken me a long time to even find a decent looking holder. Overall, I really like this phone - car kit aside, it's a doddle to live with, has been absolutely reliable, and still looks good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 88849 2000/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice tag activated slide white backlit price Full Review I went from using Motorola all my life to buying my first Nokia 8890. I bought a new phone because my 'V' was letting me down on reception. I have to say I am amazed by all these digital features, picture & text messaging, voice activation, caller groups, and moving graphics. The coolest part is the bluish-white backlit. PROBLEMS: The reason why I didn't give a 5-star rating is because of the price. The other Nokias, and especially the 8260 and the 8290 are of similar size and have the majority of functions of the 8890 at a much lower price. If I wanted to send picture messages, somebody would have to have an 8890 as well. Voice activation is not perfect either. Sometimes it takes many repititions to put a tag on your voice. This phone is also somewhat ackward to hold when driving because it is thin in width and does not "fill" up your hand. Also, the brushed metal material makes the phone slippery and I have scratched the phone many times from dropping it on concrete. As for reception, it is comparable to other Nokia phones. It has cut out on me before. COMPARISON WITH THE NOKIA 5190: Let me give you an explanation between the features of the 8890 and the much less expensive Nokia 5190 so you can better decide for yourselves: There are some name changes for the menus. The "Tones" menu on the 5190 has been changed and named "Profiles" instead. There are a few new features such as "Normal mode, Silent Mode, Meeting Mode, Pager Mode, and a Personalized Mode" on the 8890. These modes have different settings which accomodate your different needs. For instance, Silent Mode lets your phone vibrate and flash instead of ring. It is less cumbersome to choose different modes instead of adjusting the settings individually. This way you can switch back and forth more easily between settings. As for menu's there are 9 for both phones but the "Phone Book" menu on the 5190 is replaced by the "Infrared" menu in which infrared signals can be received. For example, wireless internet access with a labtop through your cell phone. Because either phone's phone book can be obtained by scrolling up and down, there is no need for a phone book menu which is why there isn't one in the 8890. The 8890 is slightly more user-friendly because the first menu selection is the "Messages" menu which I use most frequently. People are most likely to check their messages more frequently than adjusting and using other menu's. In the "Messages" menu of the 8890 there are about 3 more submenu's. Do not be fooled by the extra choices of the 8890 because these are just created for user-friendliness and are the same options as the ones on the 6190 except for the "Picture Messages" sub-menu. As for the "Call Log, Calculator and Forwarding" menu there are no differences between phones. You should note though there are moving graphics in all the 8890 menus. Nothing too interesting though! There is no "Clock" Menu in the 8890 because it is combined in the "Settings" Menu. In the "Games" Menu, the Dice game which is in the 5190 has been taken away. On the opening screen there is one added option in the 8890. On the 5190 there is only a "Menu" option but in the 8890 there is a "Menu" and "Names" option. In the "Names" option there is the choice of "1-touch dialing, Voice tags, Caller Groups, and the regular/standard Search, add entry, erase,and copy" sub-menu's. The Caller Groups are very useful and are not available in the 6190. The same goes for the Voice tag feature. IS IT REALLY WORTH IT? Overall, I cannot justify paying $850 for a phone that doesn't have any exciting new and functional features except for the Caller Groups and Voice Tag. Because I've had troubles with the Voice Tag feature I do not use this option anymore and instead use the 1-touch dialing. Voice tag takes too long and is not instantaneous. (about 9 seconds to reach the other side) UPDATES: (DEC 25/00) **You should note that there is a major problem with this phone. Because there is no second layer of plastic covering the screen there is no protective covering making it vulnerable to display damage. For instance, the screen goes blank and the words and graphics appear "mixed up" after about one month's use. If you do not remedy this problem the screen goes blank more frequently. Instead of "blanking out" once in a few days, the screen will go blank every second time you press a button. Two other people I know that have the same phone have had the same problem. They had to have their phone serviced. If you choose to buy this phone it is wise to get an extended warranty. I gave a 4-star rating though because the Nokia 8890 is user-friendly and is exclusive and classy-looking. It is not worth the money if you are looking for exciting new features that other Nokia's cannot offer. The Nokia 8890 is a phone for someone that doesn't mind paying the extra-cash and wants the best of everything. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 850 CAD 88848 2000/4/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 honestly the best phone i have owned voice dialing only 8 entries can have voice tags gsm coverage in the usa is not complete The Bottom LineI am a big fan of this phone and cannot wait to see how they improve on this almost perfect phone! Full Review I have owned old Nokia 121, Motorola bag phones, Motorola l708 GSM, Motorola Flip st7977, Motorola I550, and Ericsson KF788... Of all these phones, the Nokia 8890 is the best I have owned! The Nokia 8890 has excellent menu's, it's small enough to fit in you hand, whether you are large or small. One of the selling points for this GSM phone over the others is size, it's tiny, it can fit and a pocket, or a purse or you can use the belt case. If it didn't ring I wouldn't know it was there! Reception is crystal clear, compared to my Motorola L708, I can hear clearly and the people on the other end hear me very clear. Battery life is fantastic, last for several days on a charge whether you're on the phone or just waiting for calls. I bought a spare battery, just in case, and I have not used it. I spend most of my days on the telephone and I need to be available via phone and my battery has never gone dead. I went away for a weekend and left my charger home, I spent 2 hours on the phone and it still lasted til I got home. The 8890 also has a "palm-like" calender...with it's IR port, I can sync outlook to the phone or sync my palm pilot to the phone as well, and back to the palm too. SMS message is easy to use, and once you get used to the "predictive text" it's really easy and quick to write messages. Built in Vibrate alert, Many ringtones. I am a big fan of this phone and cannot wait to see how they improve on this almost perfect phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 569.00 88847 2002/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 superior performance incredibly small feature packed classy styling pricey phone gets warm quick defective display buttons are very small The Bottom LineThis is the best Wireless Phone available on the market today. Period! Full Review This is the best Wireless Phone I have ever had. If a phone does not deliver performance, it does not matter how small it is, or how many "bells and whistles" it has. This phone delivers it all. Superior Performance, Incredibly Small and lightweight, and enough features that I no longer carry my Palm Pilot. First the performance. Voices on this phone are as clear as on a landline phone. It is superior to ANY landline Cordless phone. Reception is also very good. Although the carrier plays a major role in this factor, there is a difference between handsets. The 8890 has reception equal to my Nokia 6190 (my benchmark in phone reception) and Superior to the Nokia 8290! ( I will publish an opinion on the 8290 in the future) Size Matters: Picture an invisible phone. That's what this phone is. OK, it is 4 inches tall, and weighs 3 ounces, but the beauty of this phone is that it comes with a Hands Free Headset. USE IT, you will NEVER, EVER go back. I tried to use a Hands Free Headset with my 6190, for Convenience, but could never get used to it. Then I became concerned about all the reports about cell phones causing cancer. I stopped and realized that I was using my cell phone 3000 minutes a month, minimum! That's 50 Hours!, That is over 2 solid days a month. I forced myself to use the Hands Free Headset, and like I said earlier, I will never go back. The Hands Free is always plugged in whether it is sitting on my desk in my office, or sitting on the console of my car, or in my POCKET! (Hence, the invisible phone) There is a button next to the Mic that you use to answer or end calls. This is the utmost in convenience whether you are driving or just walking around. (You have to get used to people looking at you because it looks like you're carrying a conversation with yourself) Feature Packed: 1. The phone stores 250 numbers on the chip and in the phone itself. 2.This is the best travel alarm clock you will ever find. It works whether the phone is on or off, starts out quiet and gets really loud, and has SNOOZE! 3.It has a calendar and you can set "alarmed" appointments. 4.Press Menu 7, and you have a 4 function calculator. OK, it doesn't perform Advanced Calculus, but how many times have you wished you had a calculator with you? 5. Predictive Text. I send myself emails when I'm on the road. The 6190 required you to hit buttons several times to enter a letter. The 8890 will "guess" which word you want based on the buttons you press. For example, if you press 4(ghi) 6(mno) 6 (mno) 3(def), the phone will display "good", if you wanted to say "home" though, you just hit the asterisk button and it will scroll through other words that can be made from this sequence of buttons. If the word is not in it's rather large dictionary, just enter it the old fashioned way, and it will then show up using Predictive Text Input. 6. Infrared Port. The 6190 had an infrared "lens" but no guts behind it. The 8890 includes full Infrared capability between it and another IR-Phone or IR-Computer. This makes uploading and downloading messages, memory locations a snap. 7. Custom Profiles. The phone will ring differently when your wife calls, or if a business partner calls, or if an unknown number calls. This is great when the phone is in your pocket. Hear a ring, press a button next to your collar. The negatives: This phone is expensive. I paid $350 AFTER signing a contract. When everything else out there is free when you make the commitment, this seems like a large price to pay. IT'S WORTH IT This phone gets warm. If you don't use the Hands Free Headset, your ear will become warm after about 8 minutes! The Buttons are very small, this phone is not for the dexterity challenged. If you are looking for the most advanced phone available, give this phone a try. Updated February 12, 2002 Nokia has a problem with their displays. I first noticed this problem with their 6190. It didn't seem to affect the 5190. The display on 6190's and 8890's will become erratic. One minute you can see the display, and the next, it will disappear. After a while, you will not have a display at all, unless you squeeze the phone at the top. I have had to replace my phone because of this, and now the replacement is having the same problem. Because this is a chronic problem (Two of my friends have had the same problem) I have lowered the phones durability and overall ratings. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 88846 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 the best looking phone out there need to take real good care of it price The Bottom LineThis is a great phone to have. But this phone can also be a expensive nightmare if your not careful. Full Review This is the phone to get if you love to show off. In my opinion this beats the Motorola v60. I went to the nokia 8890 because I broke too many of my phone. I needed a phone that didn't need any aftermarket product to improve the looks. I your the person that like to throw your phone in your pocket this is not the phone for you! The body I only aluminum brushed. In other word the paint will come off. The screen I think is the greatest problem I see with it. Once you drop this phone too much your screen will go! I been in this cell business for a while so I know my stuff. To fix the problem yourself is pretty simple. You first need a T6 screwdriver. Right behind the battery there is 2 screws to take off. the last screw is located under the antenna. Looking right under the there you will see a a little slot. To get to the next set pry the antenna up. Don't worry the antenna is a snap on. On top is the screws. Once you set all the screw off you'll see the phone LCD. (if the mic falls out just put it back with the 2 prongs up) On the right side of the phone is a little opening. Stick a toothpick in it to release the clip that hold the phone. There are many cause to make the LCD fade so try it all just in case. In the back of the LCD is a lil rubber connection. Pull it out then put it back in. Sometime it's mashed to in and not making contact with the board. Next clean the connection on the board where the screen connects to. What I usually do is wipe the connection with a damp towel with Windex. Next use something soft like thin phone piece. To make it easier you need to apply something on the top on screen in the front to make sure that the LCD is touching the boards. You want something soft because if you drop it the screen won't break under the pressure of what you put in it. At the same time will still push against the screen for contact. I don't know if I help or confuse the crap out of you but e mail me if you have any question. To answer the problem of the shaking battery cover just squeeze the cover gently an it would hold better. If that don't work put paper under between the battery and the cover. Rings tones. There are 5 ring tone you can download on the phone. I you live in the US have fun finding a site that's free. Voicestream want $1 per tone I think. WWW.CELLPHONEART.COm offer 2 ringtone free. After that there is a charge. There's three color light that I saw for this phone blue, white, and purplish. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 88845 2000/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 need i say more that flip Full Review Incredible, this phone is absolutely brilliant; tiny, robust not to mention sexy but then if you're paying out about £300 then you expect something special. This phone is absolutely brilliant; it has vibration alert, infrared, voice dialling as well as all the usual features that Nokia phones offer. It is sleek and slim line, weighs next to nothing and yet still has all these great functions. I haven't got the phone but god am I jealous of my friend who has. The only slight problem with the phone is that the active flip has to be manually pulled down, there is no button that releases it so it feels like your going to break it at first. The blue lighting on the screen and keypad really show the phones class, it looks and functions superbly, if you've got the money, get one. Here are all its stats: Weight: 91 g (Lithium Battery) Dimensions: 100 x 44x17mm, 70 cc Talktime / standby time: 2 h - 3 h 20 min / 50 - 150 h Key features: slim & light, voice dialling, picture messaging , smart messaging, predictive text input, matte aluminium covers Display: illuminated high-contrast, full graphics display, 5 lines for text and graphics Data capability: built-in infrared link and modem; supports data transmission 9.6 kpbs Dual-band GSM 900 / GSM 1800, supports Extended GSM 900 band (ESGM) Recommended: Yes 88844 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life supported in over 123 countries great reception just wish it has wap The Bottom LineThis product is great in all ways, amlost everything you can name, but just that it doesn't have WAP, but that can't bother you. Full Review In my search for a new cellular phone, I wanted to find something most unique, something that will get the ooh's and aah's out of all my friends. Then I went to get the Nokia 8890. It had everything you needed in a cellular phone--great talk time, standby time, reception, and is stylish. The only thing it didn't have is WAP. But anyway, it was the best phone I had of its time (about 3 weeks). Let's Talk design: It has a very small phone body, almost smaller than the Nokia 8290. Finished with Brushed Aluminum. I had thought you couldn't smear this baby anywhere, like its sister, the Nokia 8860. But you can, if you open the battery door. The inside is pure chrome. But overall, the sliding case is nice, and the design is sleek. Great to match all of your outfits and makes you look very professional. Even more than the startac. Let's Talk Reception: This phone has great reception, and a great range. But once you put your fingers over it, your phone call might drop (just kidding). But if you do find that your reception is weak, you can extend the retractable antenna. It enhances atenna reception by about 20%, but that's where I live. It may be different in your area. Let's Talk Features: 2-6 days Standby Time 2-3.5 Hours Talk time 250 Memory locations in phone + More in SIM (up to 500 total) GSM 900 Technology (Europe, Africa, and some parts of Asia) EGSM 900 Technology (same locations, but Enhanced reception) GSM 1900 Technology (USA, Canada, West Indies) Predictive Text Input (Saves alot of time when writing messages) Voice Dialing (But only space for 8 Numbers, is fine for those important people) Can function in 23 different languages Space for 5 downloadable ringtones IR Port--can transfer data, and be used as a modem. Let's Talk what you get when you buy: This phone comes in two different packages: Standard and Extended Products that come with the Extended only are in (*). Nokia 8890 Phone Battery (BLB-2 LiIon) Battery Door Handsfree Earset (*) Desktop Charging Stand (*) Standard Charger (Standard) Rapid Express Charger (*) Manuals, and one year warranty. Price you expect to pay if unactiviated:: Well, here in New York City everything is expensive. But you may expcet to pay either less or more, depending on where you live. $550 for Standard Set $625 for Extended Set So spend your money wisely and make sure you have made a great investment on a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 625 88843 2000/5/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek small simply cool costly little bugger Full Review I simply love this phone!! The first time I seen this phone was when I was in Hong Kong. They were selling it for about $500. Boy was I tempted to buy it and use it in the US. However, the voltage was not US standard so I did not buy it. I came across my cousin who had the phone and she let me "play" with it while she went on vacation. Wow!! It was compact and full of features. The reception was also clear. However, I must say that there were times when the reception was not as clear because I was in the car driving around. The text messaging feature is one of the best features of today's phones and Nokia 8890 did not disappoint. The sleek design made me feel like I was James Bond. HA HA! When I came to the US, they did not carry it yet. I was shocked that the US, a global economy leader did not carry the phone. I was disappointed that I had to wait for one year for the phone to be introduced in the U.S. and the price skyrocketed as when I saw it in HK. But, I ended up getting it. I could not resist. It is like they say, when you have the taste of something good, you want more of it. It is a nice investment. However, if I were you, I would buy insurance just in case you do lose the phone. It is a big investment and the insurance gives you peace of mind. Like any phone, you get what you pay for. I do not regret investing in this phone. Happy calling! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 900 88842 2000/7/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek small fragile expensive to replace parts The Bottom Line8890 - NOTHING BUT LOOKS. Full Review Nokia 8890 is probably the talk of the town right now. every cell phones owners are probably looking for a NOKIA 8890 at cheaper price. I have to admit that the phone looks real GOOD! in fact, the best ever done by NOKIA so far (in terms of exterior though) i had used quite a few nokia phones such as 3210, 8210, 8810, 7110 and an ericson 337 (about 6-7 years ago), T18 and a panasonic GD92. those models is state above are the asian version of cellphones model which probably has different names and product number in the US. i have to admit NOKIA is the best cell phone makers. easy to use menu and navigation can be done by an 8 year old. NOKIA doesn't change the way it navigates through the menu. the 8890 has features that are exactly the same as the earlier model such as 8210, 8810. the only add ons are prob the GSM band that can be used in the US and other parts of the world and the new feature that they overlooked in the earlier model of 8810 and 8850. when the handsfree are plucked into the 8890, ur conversation goes on as normal even if u close the lid during the call, whereas for the 8810 n 8850, the call is ended once the lid is closed. the sad thing that NOKIA didn't do on the 8890 is to combine all the good quality of other models such as the 7100 series - holds up to 1000 names n numbers, WAP enabled, SCroll button. the 8210 (8290 in the US) - interchangeable face plate for easy customization, or easy replacement should there be scratches or dents due to unwanted accidents. 3310 (3390 in the US) - screen saver, snake II, edit of ringtones and mIRC style interactive message chat. and the worst part of the phone is the desktop charger that comes with it. first, why would u need a dektop charger? most probably u have an extra battery that u want to charge when not in use so it'll be ready should the other batt goes dead. but nokia only provides a desktop charger which has only a single slot. so u need to have ur phone in the charger if u want to charge the battery. other than the matching titanium color there's no real good use of the desktop charger. But then, if u get all the good qualities of the other phones packed into one phone, u'll probably has to pay twice the price. in conclusion, the phone LOOKS GOOD, but that's about it. if are the kind that goes for the features instead of looks, this is not for u. if looks is all that matters to you, the 8890 is highly recommended. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 88841 2000/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing small size ease of use predictive text input no wap somewhat flimsy Full Review I bought my 8890 in late July 2000 at the Walnut Creek, CA Pacific Bell Wireless store. I wanted a new phone as my previous StarTAC 7000g was beginning to die and I was never really that satisfied with that phone from the beginning. I paid $499 for the Nokia. I already had a contract with PacBell and as I'm told it doesn't matter whether you're a new subscriber or have an existing contract, PacBell isn't giving any discounts whatsoever on this phone. The phone came with one Li-Ion battery, the wall charger, a charging stand, and a headset. After bringing it home and leaving it in the charger for a day, I turned it off, pulled the SIM card out of my StarTAC and slipped it into the 8890, stuck the battery back in and fired it up. What I like about this phone is that the battery is internal, different than most Nokia phones. What you do to access the battery is slide the back panel of the phone off and pull out the battery. Doing this also gives you access to the SIM card. After turning the phone on, the first thing I noticed was the backlight. It's very bright, much brighter than the other Nokia's I've used (6190, 8860). Also, the keypad buttons are better illuminated. Oh and one last thing about the backlight. In the product pictures and advertisements, the screen looks blue. The screen is actually the same old greenish LCD color but the backlight is a purplish-blue, kind of black light color. The next thing I immediately noticed was the ease of operating the phone in terms of using the buttons. The scroll, menu, name, talk, end, buttons are extremely easy to operate despite their diminutive size. They are raised above the plane of the phone somewhat so they are easy to use, much easier than the 8860 where you had to use your fingernails. Also, the keypad is fairly easy to use. It's not as great as a 6100 series phone but not bad considering the keys are the size of rice grains. The voice dialing feature works very well. What you do is record a voice "tag" for a number and when you wish to dial you hold the NAME key and speak the tag, in a few moments the phone will dial that number. The phone also vibrates, and has picture messaging, which I haven't yet tried. Also, all of the menu graphics are animated, a nice touch. Finally, the phone offers predictive text input so entering text messages is alot easier. Other than that, the rest of the menu's should be familiar to anyone who's used a 6100 series phone. The phone also has a working IR port (the PacBell 6190's don't). You can even play Snake in two player mode using the IR connection! Pretty cool. I really like the compact size of this phone. It's a tad smaller than the 8860 and noticeably lighter. Also I like having the option of pulling out a standard antenna when the external one won't do. I rarely have to do this unless I'm on campus deep inside a building or something as PacBell's service is quite good around Berkeley. I think the idea of an internal battery is good also. It's a sure thing that aftermarket cases will appear for this phone and in case anyone ever tires of the beautiful matte finish they can swap cases without having to buy a new battery. The battery life is sufficient for me. I don't know what Nokia quotes in terms of the 8890's battery life, but I can go three days on a full charge with moderate use before I have to recharge the phone. I also like the fact that the phone comes with a headset and charging base. The charging base only charges the phone (no extra slot for another battery) so I basically use it to hold the phone when I'm not using it. While I really like this phone, there are some things I could do without. The build quality of the new Nokia models (8860, 8890) seems to have gone down in quality when compared to the 5100 and 6100 series phones. Those phones were rock solid when held in your hand. The 8890 although it has more moving parts, seems flimsy in your hand. The antenna doesn't look like it takes hard pulls very well, a light touch is required. Also, the back plate of the phone is somewhat loose. You can move it around when it's attached to the back of the phone. Also, as of right now, I haven't found a way to lock the keys without actually pulling the slide down and then pushing it back up and hitting 'lock keys.' This is kind of annoying since the other Nokia's allowed you to do it in the menu or by holding END. Also, you can't change the slide setting on this phone like you could on the 8860. So the phone is permanently set (as far as I know) to answer if you pull down the slide and hang up when you slide it back up. I carry my phone in an 8860 case and when I pull it out, I sometimes accidentally hang up because the slide is deployed. Overall, I am quite happy with this phone, as it is lightyears ahead of my previous StarTAC. It was rather costly, and there are great phones that are cheaper, but I was sold on the look of this phone. It's really awesome. This phone really is for the gadget lover or fashion conscious. If you're a power user, executive, or someone that lives on their mobile phone I'd suggest another phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 + Tax 88840 2001/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 very stylish voice dialing really compact global support beautiful backlight really compact only 8 voice dialing memories price tiny dial pad The Bottom LineThe 8890 works flawlessly and is very stylin'. You can't go wrong if you don't mind paying for the high price of entry (or get it as a gift). Full Review I got this phone as a Christmas present to replace my trusty and reliable Nokia 6190 that I had been using for the last couple years. So I slide out my SIM card from the 6190 and slide it into the 8890, turned it on and, voila, business as usual. Until I went outside of my service provider's area, that is. I went to Seattle, Washington for a weekend and couldn't for the life of me figure out why my phone would not get any service in that area (no reception, no 611, nada, zilch), since VoiceStream operates a GSM network there that is the roaming provider for PacBell Wireless (my provider). My girlfriend's 5190 worked fine. I didn't at the time think of swapping out her SIM card with mine to see if it was the SIM card, but after much troubleshooting and hairpulling (and the recurring thought that my "world" phone not working *INSIDE* the U.S., but outside of my provider's service area), I heard from a friend that his colleague had a similar problem when they were in New York. He had an old 8k SIM from several years back that had to be replaced with the newer 32k SIM to get roaming to work, since those early cards (in my case, 1997) had roaming locked out of them for whatever reason. Lucky him, lucky me we both learned the hard way. No the phone's fault per se, but hopefully someone else out there with an 8k SIM card reads this and won't have to learn the hard way like we did (since going to that pay phone is oh so hard to do heh heh). :-) That incident aside, this phone has been growing on me. At this point I still like the larger size of the 6190 more since it fits in my hand better. The 8890 seems to have reception and sound quality on par with that of my 6190. I seem to be dropping more calls with the 8890 when the reception is bad, though. Not scientific by any means, but it seems like the 6190 holds onto calls better when the reception is poor. The 8890 is too slim for me to comfortably rest it between my shoulder and cheek when talking (cuz I love to talk on the phone and drive my car like a mad man..no just kidding). And the dialing pad buttons are tiny...the bottom row of buttons (the * 0 # ) are really hard to press due to their proximity to the dialpad cover when it's slid down, and my fingers aren't really monstrous in anyone's book except maybe a newborn's. The brushed aluminum case is pretty and sleek, but I worry that it'll dent easy. As high tech (and high priced) this phone is, it's also high(er) maintanance it seems (compared to the 6190). Gripes aside, I love the way the 8890 looks. It's very stylish and people always give ooo's, ahhhh's, and wow's when they see it. You will instantly become popular by purchasing this phone. ;-) The blue backlight is awesome...it's even bright enough to serve as a dim flashlight in the dark. Talk and standby time is a little less than the 6190, but that's not a problem since I charge the phone with the included charging stand nightly. The voice dialing function is great..you record a sound bite and associate it with a stored number and the phone will dial it for you. It even works from the included headset which is nice. Too bad the phone only holds up to 8 sound bites (even though the phone book can hold up to 500 numbers- 250 on the phone and 250 on the 32k SIM card). The vibrating alert is nice to have, but is only useful if the phone's close enough to your body for you to feel it (essentially pressed against it)- I can't feel it when it's in my jacket pocket and can barely feel it when the phone's in my back pocket. The infrared (IrDA) port on the side of the phone is useful for wireless communication with your computer or PDA, but I don't think I will really put it to much use. The 8890 works flawlessly and is very styling. You can't go wrong if you don't mind paying for the high price of entry (or get it as a gift). It's probably most functional for world travelers, but my guess is that most people will buy it for it's coolness factor. Either way you can't go wrong, as long as you're willing to pay the high price of entry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): GIFT 88839 2000/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very cool very light very small very convenient very very very very expensive Full Review OK, before we get started, I just have one short announcement to make: Because I own this phone, I'm now the coolest man in the world. There's no two ways about it; no-one can compare. I bought this phone a week ago from a wireless store in Rockville, MD, and I'm totally happy with it. Eventually, it'll hit me that I paid just over $700 for my new Nokia 8890, but until then, it's bliss. I was at Blockbuster Video this afternoon and the phone happened to ring, and when I took it out of my pocket and slid the faceplate open to answer it, there was a chorus of 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the high-school kids all around me. If you're looking for head-turning quotient, this is the phone for you. After you buy this, put a down payment on a Bentley. That is, if you have money left over. The 8890 is the latest in the long list of Nokia phones - both good and bad - that I've owned over the past two years. First it was a 6185 (on Sprint), and then a 6190 (on Voicestream), both of which I was very pleased with. Then the chrome 8860 came out, and I was practically the first in line to buy it. What a horrid little phone. Was Nokia really going for that 'grease-smudged' look, or was it just me? I had to cover the polished faceplate with electrical tape to keep it from sliding off my cheek. (I'm not kidding.) I have to be honest - after my experience with that 8860, I bought a series of Motorola phones because I was so disenchanted by Nokia. But then the 8890 came out, and I was once again reeled in by that neat little sliding faceplate. I bought the phone after researching it on several websites, including Nokia's own, and after reading some favorable Epinions. The price - $699.99 - was a bit of a shocker, but I figured that if this was a good phone, then it was just the kind of phone that I could probably keep for a long time. And, lo and behold!, it is a good phone. No, actually - it's a great phone. It's awesome, it's perfection embodied. The battery life is spectacular - I've had it on, talking on it off and on, for 4 days, and it still has charge. The signal strength is impressive, even out here in the wooded suburbs of Washington D.C.; the little retractable antenna is a good idea, but I think it's only meant for use in the boonies. When I use the phone, pulling the antenna out doesn't make much of a difference. One thing different about the 8860 and the 8890 - they have the internal antennae in the same place, right behind the earpiece; but with my 8860, every time I touched the antenna (or the area around it, anyway), my signal would fade. With the 8890, touching the antenna doesn't harm it at all. That's a great thing, because I have big hands - there's no way I can hold the phone in my hand without touching the antenna. The sliding faceplate is cool, but I have this horrible feeling that one day I'm going to break it off, so I keep it closed as much as possible. Overall the phone feels pretty solid. Surprisingly, the keypad is fairly easy to use, even with big fingers like mine; the little buttons are well-spaced, so I don't hit three or four keys with one keystroke, as I used to on my Motorola V-series. The best thing about this phone, though, and I think a lot of the people who own it will agree, is the blue backlight. It's amazing. Not that it's any clearer than the green backlight that the other Nokias use, but it's just so unusual. The screen itself could stand to be a bit brighter and clearer, but the keys are illuminated so well that I can use the phone as a little booklight when I'm trying to read in the dark. Most of the other features are pretty standard for Nokia - the phone book can store massive quantities of names/numbers, there are ample ring tones to choose from (most of them a little annoying, though), the vibrating alert actually vibrates enough for me to feel it in my pocket. Text messaging is very easy, especially with the T9 predictive-text-input feature. Makes sending text messages so much easier. My thumb doesn't cramp up anymore. The picture messaging feature is neat too, but how many people have phones that can receive them? Having the calendar (which is practically a Day-Runner in itself) and alarm clock is very convenient. Overall, I'm very happy with this phone. If you've got $700 to spare, buy this phone. Who cares about the water and electric bills? Everyone's got water and electricity - but you'll be one of the few, the proud, who own the Nokia 8890. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 735.00 88838 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 awesome features great technology nice look phones aren t all the same needs better quality control sometimes has software crashes a bit pricey Full Review Nokia has always made quality phones. This review will show you why this is both true and false. For a $500-600 phone the 8890 is surely feature packed. The sound quality, talk time, and other standard features are at Nokia's signature easy-to-use level. The menus are easy to navigate, the voice recognition works well, and the predictive text messaging for PCS emails is a wonder of a time-saver. I won't go into the gruesome details like other reviewers like to do, but I'll just write about what I think makes and breaks the 8890. First of all this phone is a world GSM phone and can operate in 110 countries. I use Pacbell, but with a simple unlock code, I can use any SIM card in my phone around the world, or I could use Pacbell's world wide roaming and pay a fortune. Next, I like the optional pull-out antenna which I find very useful when using the included handsfree kit in the car. I never have to worry about a weak signal in most cases. The pull-out antenna offers much more stable and steady reception. Nokia in included a lot of expensive accessories in the package such as the charging cradle and a handsfree kit. The phone feels very comfortable and light in my hands versus the 8290 which feels very cheap and square. I also use the leather holster with the magnet clasp. The active slide on the phone makes locking and unlocking the keypad easy I think. When you slide it up, it will ask you if you want to lock the key pad. When you slide it down, it automatically unlocks. But by far my favorite thing to do is use the Nokia 8890 software Pc suite and 3rd party operator logo editor to transfer images, logos, and rings with my IR port on my computer. However, my biggest problem with this phone, or problems, are the power button and the LEDs on the screen. The power button is not consistently placed on each of the phones in that they are difficult to press on some phones meaning you have to press your entire finger tip over the button very hard to make it work while on other phones it is easy to press even with a light pressure with your finger nail. The LEDs are supplied to Nokia by a few different manufacturers so there are different shades of blue up to purple on some phones. The worst thing is that Nokia mixes all the LEDs up and then puts them on the phones so you may get a phone with 2 bluish LEDs on the screen and 2 purple ones. I have only seen a few phones with even lighting on the screen. Very poor quality control on Nokia's part. However, I have also noticed that my phone has frozen once and needed the battery to be removed before operation could be continued. My friend had a similar problem but happened all the time and had to have the phone repaired. Other than that, I feel that the 8890 is well built and works great. The color of the screen, if you get a good one, looks very high tech and professional. The keys are a bit small but easy to press. The case may get scratched up or dented because of the brushed aluminum housing and cannot be replaced like the other Nokias. I think the phone is a bit pricey, but I have grown to use a lot of its features and like the look and feel. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 88837 2001/8/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small well made light very stylish global 900 1900 international roaming isn t cheap not tri band 900 1800 1900 The Bottom LineExcellent phone, full-featured and stylish, convenient for the world traveler. Full Review After lugging a Nokia 6160 around for 18 months, I decided I just had to have a GSM phone. The promise of roaming in Europe simply by taking my SIM card (the little card that plugs into the phone) with me and renting a phone when I got there was pretty cool, since I travel to Europe at least a few times a year on the average. This review assumes superficial familiarity with GSM features, such as international roaming, SIM card, and bidirectional messaging (SMS). I signed up for a decent rate plan (with PacBell Wireless) and accepted the 'free' Nokia 5190. Not a bad phone, not by a long shot, but rather pedestrian. It *did* give excellent talk-time with the big BP-4 battery. However, I'm a tech weenie and I work with even bigger weenies; the pedestrian 5190 wasn't cutting it. That's when I saw the 8890. A little silver gem, the 8890 really does weigh less than a quarter-pounder hamburger patty (before cooking), and it's awfully pretty. I *still* get positive comments every time someone else sees it for the first time. With 1900MHz coverage, the 8890 will find GSM service if it is available in your area in the USA; 900MHz buys you coverage in much of the rest of the urban world, certainly throughout Europe and much of Asia. Unfortunately, new GSM deployment tends to be at 1800MHz outside the USA, so it's possible the 8890 won't find service in an area that's 1800MHz-only, or you won't be able to find all the service providers that are available. The 8890 is solidly built, and the sliding keypad cover seems quite rugged despite my initial suspicion otherwise. The retractable antenna is flexible, and improves signals slightly when extended. Overall, someone familiar with a 6100-series or 8200-series will immediately feel right at home with the 8890. Despite being very small, the keypad is not difficult to operate with my grown-man sized fingers, once you master the trick of using the edge of your thumb. Did I mention the keypad buttons are chromed? Very flashy. The display is backlit by distinctive blue LEDs, very stylish and functional. I think the blue light might be more eye-catching than I give it credit for. A "universal" rapid battery charger is provided with the phone, and it works on voltages from 110V to 240V, with only a plug-adapter required for non-USA style plugs. The charger is quite rapid, usually recharging the battery in less than one hour. The charger module is quite light, certainly lighter than the 110V-only charger provided with the 6100/5100 phones, and packs easily. A very stylish desk-stand is provided, which can be used to charge the phone (the charger plugs into the desk-stand and the phone drops into the stand). This is useful for setting the phone on a desk where you can see the caller-ID display on incoming calls. All of the phone functions work as expected so far; the phone-book is stored in the SIM card and follows the SIM when moved to other phones. The built-in IrDA port (infrared interface) works very well to 'beam' contact and phone-book information to other IrDA devices such as Palm Pilots and other 8890s. Further, the IrDA port can be used to print contacts though I've never tried this. If you go to the Nokia home page for the 8890, you can freely download the Nokia PC Data Suite for the 8890, which works via IrDA (and requires no expensive cable or software like the 5100/6100 series). With the 8890 Data Suite, the phone book can be edited, updated, saved to disk and exported easily. Sending and receiving SMS messages via the IrDA port is trivial with the 8890 Data Suite. The 8890 Data Suite also gives most of the GSM modem functionality, such as data calls and SMS management. In meetings, I'll frequently leave the 8890 laying next to my computer so I can silently send/receive SMS messages ;-) When composing SMS messages with the keypad, the 8890 seems to have a very good English dictionary, rarely requiring me to manually spell words. Most messages require something like 1.2 keystrokes per character, which is quite good. The hand-free earphone and microphone kit provided with the 8890 works very well and enables 'voice tagging' of a limited quantity of numbers. The voice tagging works reasonably well, though you might need to pick nick-names for people with similar sounding names when voice-tagging. Audio quality is very good as provided by GSM; the phone supports the 'Enhanced Full-Rate Codec' as mentioned in many Nokia hacking pages and gives even better audio. When in a quiet room with decent signal strength, many people do not realize I am calling from a wireless phone. Four custom ringing-tones are supported; I've downloaded a few via the web from http://www.yourmobile.com/. Besides that, the full set of Nokia ring-tones are provided. As a trivia note, the 'long and loud' message tone is 'CONNECTING PEOPLE' sent in Morse Code. A vibrator is inside the phone and works very well; I often leave the phone in silent mode and just use the vibrator. Received audio quality is very good, and excellent with the hands-free earphone. Transmitted audio is excellent with the built-in microphone and very good to excellent with the hands-free kit. As a short summary, I'd suggest reading the Nokia product page for a full listing of features, and then say that every feature I've tested, most of them, work at least as well as documented and expected. This telephone is well-made, fully-featured, and highly-functional. It is just small enough without being so small as to lose it ;-). While the battery is internal and not easily swapped in the field, it charges rapidly and gives good battery life, up to 3 hours talk time. After showing the 8890 around the office, several people immediately went out and got one for themselves! We all tend to travel internationally, and the phone works well, finding service everywhere we go in Europe, as well as in much of urban Asia. It's a little novel to get off a jet in London and get SMS messages from a friend in Israel. At a non-subsidized price of around US $500 here in the SF Bay Area, and a subsidized price of around US $340, the 8890 is certainly very expensive. It contains a plethora of features that are optional in less expensive models, though, and the styling stands alone. If you're prone to losing phones, don't buy the 8890. It's small and expensive. If you just want to talk and don't care about a feature-rich phone, never travel internationally, or don't manage a lot of phone-book entries, the 5190 is usually free or very inexpensive with service sign-up. If you're a power-user, or just need to have the coolest gadget on the block, the 8890 is all that and more. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 88836 2001/5/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek design small size gsm world phone see text below The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a truly pocket sized phone that can be used in 100+ countries, this is the best on the market...at least in the United States. Full Review Background I used to carry a Startac when they first arrived on the U.S. market, and in our area that meant analog. Regardless, I loved the size of that phone. When we moved overseas, I could not believe the advances in telephony! We entered a sea of small digital (GSM) phones with text messaging and multiband performance. Amazing! Returning after several years to America was/is a disappointment in terms of phones. While significantly more people are carrying mobile phones today than even three years ago, it is still a disappointing market in terms of technologies and selection of handsets. There are at least three or four (maybe more) competing technologies here in the States, with all but one (GSM) rendering your handset useless if you travel overseas. In addition, most of the handsets in America are big and clunky. If you have a belt and don't mind strapping it to your side like large tool (yeah, that's attractive and comfortable), the clunky handsets might be OK. Ignorance may be bliss, but having seen what is on the international market, I wanted a modern handset. Why the 8890? I wanted a small phone that I could use around town as well as travel with on business or on holiday overseas without switching SIM cards or renting handsets (what pain). That meant GSM. I searched the American market and found that Voicestream used GSM and it had gobbled up OmniPoint and other U.S. regional GSM operators. Voicestream offered only a couple of world phones, and the 8890 was the smallest of the two, by far. I considered the Ericsson T-28 (available from PacBell) and understood that it was to be offered by Voicestream, but it has yet to become available. Best/Most Appreciated Features GSM Technology: It allows you to travel to most places (100+ countries) seamlessly and text message others. Size and Design: The phone is clearly one of the most sleekly designed phones on the market today! Small, at about 2/3 the width of a deck of playing cards and slimmer. If you have massive hands or sausage fingers, you might find the buttons too small (I have heard that from some friends), but I think the small size is one of the best features of the phone! The brushed case is an improvement over the earlier 8850 that was chrome/polished and highlighted every fingerprint......and seemed a bit too girly. No Antenna: The antenna remains hidden (completely) unless you desire to withdraw it from the body of the phone. You can use the phone with the antenna totally hidden, which means no bending or breaking of antennas. This is a common problem I had with Ericssons, even the stubby antennas would bend or snap off the handsets. You can slip the phone in your front pocket and sit down without worry of jabbing yourself or ruining the antenna. Battery-Talk Time: The web site will give you the official stats. My experience is that you can leave it on overnight for a few (3-4) days w/o recharging and still use it from time-to-time....no problems. If I use the talk time heavily, it is still good for a couple of days, left on overnight. Great battery life from a slim phone! Downsides Cost: As everyone will tell you, it is fairly expensive. If you are going to treat this phone roughly (toss it under the car seat, drop it on the cement, etc.), perhaps you should invest in a US$30 brick of a handset instead of the 8890, because you won't feel so bad if you break it. No Web: Others complain that for this price you should be getting a web enabled phone. Hell, in America no one even knows (exaggerating here) that web enabled phones exist, and the ones that do exist are pitifully slow in surfing the web. So slow and cumbersome, that I don't miss this feature at all. Complaints Battery Cover: The battery cover tends to loosen over time (it took me a few months of use before I noticed this). Not terrible or worth complaining about really, but it is a slight engineering problem. It manifests itself in a very slight wiggle of the aluminum battery cover on the back of the phone. Again, a minor flaw in a phone that otherwise has good fit and finish. Infrared: The infrared/Nokia PC Suite seems like a good feature, but I have yet to get it to communicate with my IBM Thinkpad running Win95. Let me know if you can help me with this! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 88835 2000/10/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 extremely sleek cool small size hi tech small size jiggly battery cover less than great reception Full Review The first time I saw this fantastic phone was when a friend of mine, Alex had purchased it due to a great deal that he had acquired through another friend. Being a previous owner of the Nokia 6190, I was very impressed with the large LCD screen that it possessed over the Pac Bell StarTAC that Alex previously had. Yet as my 6190 entered its mid-life crisis, new Nokias began to be released. My impression of these new-generation phones was not very good due to the look of the Nokia 8860, the similar looking one with an all chrome housing which turned me off. The phone exuded too much of a 'bling-bling' statement due to its 'mad chrome.' Yet when I laid eyes on the bigger brother, the 8890, I knew I had to get my hands on one. The Looks The first thing anyone will notice is the sheer size of the phone. It is so small that it will slip into any pocket without any bulge. Many of my friends are awed of the size and compare it a small electric razor. The next thing that you will notice is the light-purplish LED that light up the LCD screen. These lights are so sleek looking that it will remind you of the High-Intensity Discharge headlights found on Mercedes and Lexus cars. The pictures of the phone are somewhat misleading in that it gives off a indiglo blue light, it is rather a more classy light purple. The next thing of notice is the more flat display over the 6190's curved screen, which makes it easy to read. Another thing I noticed is that there are more horizontal pixels on the 8890 so that more characters can fit onto the same screen. The chrome accents along the brushed metal housing are excellent and really give it a classy feel. The Feel As stated before, the size of this phone is so small, I don't think that phones should get any smaller or else you might not be able to even use them on a human sized head. The phone has a sliding keypad cover so that you can answer the phone simply by sliding down the cover, which will put the mic closer to your mouth, or by pressing the talk button. When you're done with your call, you can slide the cover back up and it will hang up for you. Sliding down the keypad will reveal very small chrome buttons that might be a bit hard to accurately press if you have Homer Simpson fingers, but are necessary to keep the phone small. If I could change one thing about this phone, it would probably be the sliding cover. I have always regarded flip phones and flip covers as somewhat of a nuisance and a extra piece of cheap plastic, but somehow it works for the 8890. I'm not sure how it'd look but it might feel more sturdier if there was no sliding plastic cover. Also, something that many people have complained about is the jiggliness of the back battery cover. Since it is a metal housing, the battery cover slides to a lock on chrome railings, which causes a slight bit of looseness. I don't really find this bothersome because it's not really noticable on my phone, but I have seen others that have a much worse problem. I may be incorrect but on the inside of the battery cover there is a serial number which I believe may possibly state the revision number that the 8890's go through. When the 6190's first came out, a slim curved battery was offered with the phone. Later on, when the phone became more popular, a flat battery was introduced which made the phone even more sleek. This is an example of revision upgrading. My friend Alex who bought the phone first, we noticed, had a 10001 serial number printed on the inside, while mine had a 10002. My battery cover was significantly tighter than his. Not a big deal, but just a bit of info that might be useful to make sure that your phone is the newest and not some old re-sale. I have heard that Nokia has put a production halt to try and fix this problem and will be resuming sales very soon, that's why Pac Bell stores have been out of stock for a few months now. The Performance This phone performs great, looks great, and feels great. The only qualm I have with this phone is the antenna. Nokia had reception problems before with internal antennas that they have tried to fix with this phone. The 8890 now has a discreet retractable antenna that can boost reception, yet in my experience the reception on my older 6190 is much better than the 8890. I suppose that's a sacrifice for extreme coolness. The 8890 boasts tidbits such as voice activated dialing, world reception and use, animated menu icons, more games, but IS essentially the same phone as the 6190, but much more sleek and smaller. Regardless, the phone's quality is still above average and I highly recommend it to anyone. Although the price may be quite steep right now ($400-$550 in California, and up to 800 on eBay), the phone might be well worth it for anything around $350. This phone would be great for the international businessman or world traveller, but might be a bit on the unneccessary side for people who sit at home writing epinions! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 88834 2000/10/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 world wide coverage tiny size great menu system smspicture messaging a bit too small feels a little flimsy Full Review Just bought this phone two days ago after having waited over 7 months. I had read every review in existence before buying, so I knew what to expect. So far it has lived up to all my expectations. First of all it has all the amazing features that nokia phones are known for. Menu navigation is the easiest and has the most flexibility. This particular model can also receive up to 5 custom ringtones. Considering it is a dual band 900/1900, which means it works more or less all over the world, its amazing that it comes in such a small casing. Most previous global phones such as the motorola timeport, Ericsson I888, and the hideous Bosch were all very large phones. This one is truely tiny. In fact this phone is a little bit too tiny for my liking. It feels a bit flimsy, and unlike the previous nokias this phone would probably break if dropped from 6 feet. So far it has worked flawlessly. Reception is impeccable, especially when you consider that it has a completely internal antenna. It also has its own internal memory for 250 names, beyond the 250 names that you can fit in the SIM (500 names total). And its very easy to move names from the internal phonebook to the SIM card and vice-versa. I paid $900 for the phone (Which is way too steep in my opinion) as it was from a cell phone store and not from a Telco provider. I imagine that if you bought it with service it would have been at least $200-$300 cheaper. So far so good. I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 900 88833 2002/4/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 dualband gsm for world wide use stylish small not triband price gsm network coverage The Bottom LineBeautiful phone, but GSM network only. Buy it if you have the extra cash, and need international coverage. Full Review If looks could kill, the nokia 8890 is undoubtedly the king of all cell phones. It is small, the size of a credit card, light (less than 4oz), and extremely stylish. The slide cover and blue/white back light gives it a futuristic look that is bound to turn heads. I have been wanting a GSM phone for a long time. Mine Nokia 8890 was purchased for me from Asia, where cell phones are THE status symbol, where people will not hesitate to spend 600 dollars on the coolest phone, and no one carries anything more than half a year old. Only there can one find such a terrific deal on a nokia 8890, for 200 dollars only. Currently 8890 can be purchased in the USA for $450 in a variety of voicestream stores. Other places have slightly better price on the phone, but I have not seen it going for under $350, except maybe ebay. Therefore, the 8890 is still a very expensive phone, even if it's been around for a while. For me, the most attractive aspect of the 8890 is that it is GSM, and dualband GSM for that matter. Being able to support GSM 900 means that the phone can be used outside of the USA, particularly for me, Europe and Asia. There are two ways to use this phone outside of USA, first is to do international roaming through your provide (either voicestream or cigular, depending on where you are), which is very expensive. The second way, and in my opinion, the only way, is to use pre-paid SIM cards. In Asia and Europe, pre-paid SIM cards are much more popular than they are here, and it is the default way for many people to use their cell phones, instead of signing up for monthly services. All one has to do is to purchase a SIM card in one's destination foreign country, which are available everywhere in places like post offices and cigarette stands. The card comes with a certain amount of pre-paid minutes(counted in units), and once the card is empty, it can be reloaded with cash. Thus, one can have a permanent european number, an asian number, in addition to one's USA number. And because of the difference in the cell phone billing systems, one does not pay for incoming calls in Europe or Asia, which makes it quite cheap talking to home. The 8890 is in design quite a typical Nokia, with much of the same features as others such as phone book, calendar, voice-dialing, etc. But because it's GSM, it also supports the changing of ring-tones, group pictures, and operator logos. By operator logo I mean the vstream or the name of whichever provider you have, that is being displayed on top of the screen between the reception bar and the battery bar. Although it did take me a while to figure out how to change the operator logo. The problem is that voicestream has 13 different networks now, and one must make sure that the right combination of MCC and MNC is entered. The MCC for voicestream is always 310, but MNC changes depending on which net work one is on. I live in center city Philadelphia, and my MNC is 16. If you find that your phone can receive operator logo and display it, but you are unable to save it, you probably got the wrong MNC. The battery holds its charge quite well, I'm able to get through 5-6 days of normal use without charging, I normally talk about 20 minutes on the cell phone a day. Now comes the cons. The 8890 is a GSM phone, that means if you purchase it, you have no choice in your cell phone provider. It has to be voicestream on the east coast and cingular on the west coast. I only have experience with voicestream, so I will talk about that. Voicestream has relative cheap plans with a lot of minutes, plus free weekends and no long distance no roaming. Although the no roaming part is really not much to boast about, because they are the only GSM provider on the east coast and there is no other network for them to roam on. The coverage is excellent in Philadelphia and New Jersey. I am inside a concrete building, where both sprint and AT&T phones have problems. The 8890 constantly displays 3-4 bars for reception! But beware that voicestream only has good coverage around major cities and I am told that the coverage is quite spotty once out of the major North East corridors, that is, north of Boston and South of DC. So this is probably not a road-side emergency phone if you drive across country. Also, the 8890 is only dual-band GSM, it does NOT support the popular GSM 1800, which is used widely in Europe and also somewhat in Asia. That means one can only use SIM cards made by some providers and not others. As it turns out, they seem to be the more expensive providers. For example, in Germany, the 8890 can only use D1 and D2 cards, and not E-plus or Viag. Finally, the 8890 is still a very expensive phone, given that it's been released for one and a half year already. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88832 2000/9/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small lightweight predictive text input voice dial ability cool pricey no analog ability Full Review I saw this phone at my GSM provider (Powertel) last week. I knew it was time to upgrade from my 6190. I picked up my 8890 4 days later, swapped the SIM from my old phone to my new and powered it up... Let me back-track just a bit, first, I didn't know how to slide the back cover off the 8890 to insert the SIM card. The sales clerk showed me the concealed release button. With this design, it appears that it would be difficult to accidentally release the back cover. Removing the battery was the next challenge. A small cut-out in the housing around the battery compartment allows you to get a fingernail in there to lift the battery out, or so I thought. There was no notch in the battery for my nail! I then just flipped the phone over, cupped my free hand and pretty much dumped the battery into my palm. I could then slide the SIM card into place. I replaced the battery and secured the back cover. Powering up the phone, I saw the my provider's familiar logo and then was prompted for my security code. "Great! It's reading my SIM card!" I got right into the phone and saw that my phonebook entries were intact. All of this went off without a hitch, everything was there. Nokia's user interface was familiar to me so I had no trouble navigating the menus. The newer features of the phone such as voice dialing and predictive text input do require a quick read of the user's manual to figure out, ESPECIALLY the predictive text input. If you do not read the manual, you will think something is not working correctly! Believe me, it is. How does it sound? Very good. As good or better than my 6190. The earpiece volume control is on the side in the same position as the 6190 as well although instead of being a pair of rubber-covered buttons, you have a slim, chrome rocker-switch of sorts. As a 2+ year veteran of 6190 use, I did have several accessories on hand. Out of them, I could use the cigarette lighter adapter... I thought I could use the rapid travel charger I had, but in looking at the labels on both the rapid charger that came included with my 8890 and the one that I had for my 6190 (genuine Nokia) the 6190's had a higher output rating! I didn't want to take the chance of smoking my new phone so I did not try the old charger with it. I also had a Plantronics earphone/mic combination that I plugged into the jack on the bottom of the 8890 that I had used with an adapter on the 6190. It didn't work... The 8890 came with an earset as well and I plugged it in only to find it working properly. I compared the connectors on the ends of the adapters. The new earset has 3 divisions on the connector while the Plantronics only has two. Grrr... I really liked my Plantronics... The 8890 comes with one battery. The charging stand that comes with it accommodates the phone only, nothing extra. I have seen aftermarket stands with a slot for a spare battery, but the Nokia-supplied one does not. The phone also comes with a IR port of which I have not tried as of yet. I will try uploading some group graphics and ringtones soon to see how well that works. I WISH they had software for this that runs on the Palm platform since it's easier to find someone with a Palm (which has an IR port) than a PC or laptop with an IR port. Minor gripe. I hope that with an IR connection, I can edit the entries in my phonebook as well. Nokia has the software for this available for free on their website. All in all, I really like this phone. It was quite expensive in my opinion, but I look back and remember how much I paid for my StarTAC 8500 (analog) when it first became available. In that light, the 8890 was a bargain! Voice quality is great, talktime is adequate with the included 650mah LiIon battery, and its compact size makes for a very portable communications device. You can really carry this phone in your pocket since it's so small and there's no exposed antenna. I wouldn't put anything else in my pocket though for fear of scratching the phone up. For me though, I bought the Nokia hard case for it which holds the phone horizontally on your belt. The only thing I will really miss on my 6190 is the fact I could use my analog module to access a cellular system in non-GSM areas. My travel lately has been to GSM covered areas so my need for analog access is greatly diminished. The last thing... you have the "WoW" factor of the phone. Yes, it IS cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 470 88831 2001/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish with many features nokia sacrificed durability for style The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8890 is a cool phone if you're willing to sacrifice a little reliability and durability for its designer looks. Full Review I have a love-hate relationship with my Nokia 8890. Fortunately, I received it as a gift, otherwise I would be hating myself right now for purchasing such an expensive toy for what it's worth. Style I have to say that the best feature of this phone is its appearance. Very streamlined and professional, with it's brushed aluminum case. It's about 4 x 1 1/2 inches, and I love the way it easily fits into my small purse. I used to carry the Nokia 6190 or 3390, and size does make a difference. I barely notice the 8890 Functions Reception One of my neighbors turned on his car stereo and I ended up dropping a call. Overall Thoughts Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 88830 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery lasts simple menus lasts tiny size backlight is kinda weird relatively small keypad the fact that i have to give it back boo hoo hoo Full Review Sometimes a company finds a groove, and frankly I think Nokia is one of those companies. It was purely a hunch that my friend would loan me his shiny new toy. It was pure joy when he actually did. Not that my phone is so huge (I have a Timeport L7089), but what compares to the miniscule size of this little guy? The striking brushed aluminum style case, black and chrome trim and chrome buttons bely the actual functionality of this little phone by stuffing in more style than I've ever seen in a mobile phone (and from anyone who's read my reviews can tell, I've owned a lot of them). Once you pick your jaw up off the floor after seeing its size, you start to notice the features. An active keypad cover slide can be used to answer or hang up a call. Thank goodness, because finding the keys can be a bit rough. Not to say they're poorly located, it's just that it can be difficult to actually put your fingers in the right place until you're completely used to a mini-keypad. The battery life, while not Nokia 6190,6160,6120 great is still pretty amazing. 2 days without charging and talking a half hour or so a day proves the general durability of the battery. I can hardly run the battery down to half its capacity, which in my opinion is the best measure of a phone's usefulness. As usual Nokia is smart enough to include a Lithium Ion battery on its higher end phones, and that's the true sign of a company that knows the score. It does have a tiny little antenna (unlike it's cousin the 8860 which has none), but in reality it does very little to help reception and you'll find that you'd do just fine if you leave it down altogether. The phone features Nokia's brilliantly simple pseudo GUI menu system, which is so easy to navigate you'll be setting the phone up exactly to your liking immediately. Common sense headers include Messages, Settings, Games, Clock, Calendar, Infrared, etc. If you don't know what options a menu contains, just leave the menu name on the screen. In 7 seconds, the menu's description will appear on the screen to describe the functions contained within. The backlight is a little weird... The screen turns purple and the lighting is almost blue. It's hard to describe, but when you see it you'll either love it or hate it, but I don't imagine there's any in between with it. A vibrating call alert means you won't disturb others, although there are so many ringer options built in you can probably find a ringer that won't offend as well. I've always found that vibrators can be a little hard to feel in cellular phones, but your opinion on them may vary. Signal acquisition is more than adequate, however I attribute that to the overall superior quality of VoiceStream Wireless' network in NYC. Dropped calls are few and far between and people are always confusing my calls from my mobile phone as calls from my home phone (I kid you not). Finally, this phone won't leave you stranded. It's support for GSM 900 and 1900 mean you should be pretty well covered should you travel to a country that has GSM Mobile Phone Service, but no guarantees. You're always going to be at the mercy of the standards of other countries. A piece of advice, though, is that if you are going to trek to Europe, buy a SIM card there and put it in your phone (make sure your phone isn't locked only to your provider first, of course) and I promise you'll save a ton of money. I could go on and on and in depth about each little feature of this phone but I don't want to dominate the entire site with one review. Suffice it to say that the road to excess is paved with Nokia 8890's. A fabulous phone, a luxury-item price, and more features than you'll ever need make this phone a definite keeper. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Loaner 88829 2001/3/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use menus navigation gorgeous backlighting battery cover seems rather loose The Bottom LineIf you're a world traveller I would definitely recommend this phone but if not I would save your money so you can buy yourself other phones as new technology develops. Full Review If I was rich I would want one of these phones, no way around it =) The Nokia 8890 is a very nice world phone which Nokia first put out last year. Two other similar phones which I have had some experience with are also the Nokia 8260 and the Nokia 3390. There are a few differences between these phones the main ones being size and price. To sum up the 8890... here goes. Like all the other Nokia phones out there, the Nokia 8890 shares a similar navigation system which is extremely easy to use. If any of you have used a Nokia 5100, 6100, or 8000 series phone you will be more then able to pick this phone up and use it. The only discernible difference that I can really find between the operating system of the phones is that the 8890 has animated icons, and the ability to use IR to transmit phone entries and to sync with other PDA's, laptops, and any other computer that are running the proper software (barring the IR option almost any Nokia phone out there can be hooked up to a PC now). You can also play two player snake using the 8890, although I doubt that there are many people out there that do this. I should also mention that this phone is unlocked so you can use any SIM card in it that you have obtained from any service provider around the world. Here are the general specifications of the phone... -500 phone number memory (250 on the SIM card and 250 numbers on the phone itself) -Operates on 900 and 1900 GSM frequencies globally ( Nokia claims it can be used on five continents) -Built in calendar with alarms and reminders. -Profiles which can be customized according to user preferences. -VibraAlert -Four games -8 Voice dialing slots -The ability to display 23 languages The Tegic predictive text input on the 8890 is the same that is used in all of the Nokia phones out today and uses the exact same keys to edit and update words. As compared to the Ericsson system for text messaging in my T28W review, I still find the Nokia system much more efficient for people who send a fair amount of e-mail and text messages through their phones. The larger screen on the Nokia 8890 also helps quite a bit as the T28W has a fairly small screen. From what I've read in the other reviews one person has complained that there is no way to lock the keys when the keypad is closed. To get around this all one has to do is slide the cover open, close it and then choose the lock keys option. It doesn't take more then half a second and isn't much trouble to do at all. To address another concern about the retractable antenna that it does not help the phone achieve greater signal strength, the antenna was designed to be used in Europe along the 900GSM frequency so if used in areas where you are operating on a 1900MHZ frequency it won't help you much at all. You should hardly ever need it since it has such all around good reception anyways. Oh, just a note about the backlighting. Like described in other reviews it is sort of a purple-blue color and is very bright. When in a dim room it is very eye-catching and does a terrific job of illuminating the phone. It would be nice if Nokia would give one the option of adjusting the contrast on the 8890 since it is a rather expensive phone. This is just a brief summary of what I think about the 8890 but if there are any questions that you would like to ask or have answered please feel free to e-mail me at cmc@ualberta.ca and I'll do my best to give you my opinion and personal experiences in regards to the questions asked. Cheers ! C.Chan Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 88828 2000/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice design internal antenna tiny size great ui 2 way sms email vibrating alert infrared no wap flaky lcd connection not a world phone can t store email addresses durability The Bottom LineGreat phone! Full Review With the 8890, Nokia created one of the classic modern cell phone designs. It's simple, elegant, compact, and works in both the US and Europe. Although this design at least 3 years old, I still haven't seen a newer world phone that beats it on my criteria. DESIGN + This phone is TINY: only 3.9" x 1.7" by about .6" thick, and it weighs a miniscule 2.8 ounces. This is about the size of a five-pack of cigarettes, if you've ever seen one of those. It's small enough to put in your front pants pocket, shirt pocket, or anywhere else, without getting in the way. + Although I tend to dislike flip/slide covers, in practice the 8890's slide is very useful. It protects the keys from accidental dialing, and, considering that most calls you make are dialed via the address book, you don't need to access the keys as often as you might think. + No mandatory protruding antenna: WELL DONE Nokia for figuring out how to make an internal antenna work, thereby avoiding the need to put a protruding antenna stub on the phone. This in itself is one of the best features of the phone - there's never anything sticking out, digging holes in your pockets. Don't worry, the reception is great, see below for details. And with the 8890, the internal antenna is actually extendable, for when you need just a bit more signal. Great feature. + buttons: the buttons seems tiny at first, but you'll get used to 'em, and they work fine. The only gripe I have is that the power button really is tiny, and doesn't really give any positive feedback; you have to look at the phone to confirm that it's on... You'll find that your index finger naturally falls over the volume up/down buttons on the side of the phone when you're talking -- an example of good design in action. - durability. others have said it and I will agree that the overall build quality and resulting durability of the phone is not as good as it should be, for what is still a rather expensive phone. My 8890 lost speaker function, and I had to open it up to replace the speaker... Luckily, this is a $5 part found easily online and at many cell phone shops. More importantly, the LCD on many Nokia phones, including the 8890, often starts to flake out after a while, particularly if you drop the phone. The reason is the LCD connection to the its power source is by pressure between the board holding the LCD and the backplane of the phone. Dropping/twisting the phone weakens this fit, and the LCD loses its power connection. You can often make the LCD "work" by applying manual pressure near the "Nokia" logo above the LCD. The good news is that this CAN BE FIXED. Take the phone apart, and either put a thin shim under the Nokia logo (on top of the LCD screen), or file down the plastic studs on the back of the board holding the LCD. Either technique should increase the pressure on the LCD power contact, restoring its function. This site has a great article on 8290 disassembly: http://www.all4cell.com/ USER INTERFACE / OPERATING SYSTEM + In general, I'm a big fan of Nokia's UI/OS. It's very intuitive, and consistent across different phones. You have easy access to all the features mentioned below, your email/SMS inbox is only two clicks away, no big faults here. From what little I've seen of the Ericsson and Motorola UI's, Nokia beats them hands-down. - Depending on your carrier, there's often no way to get rid of the annoying "safety first" startup logo. Nokia informs me that this is actually the carrier's fault (Cingular), since the phone does support changing the logo via programs like LogoManager (see below); in this case, the carrier has locked the logo in place via the SIM card. Very silly. FEATURES So many features packed into such a tiny phone! + Infrared. There is a tiny little IR port on the side of the phone. Now, what does that do, you wonder? Well, try it out: activate the IR, and point it at some other IR device. You can beam phone numbers to and from other phones, as well as other handheld devices such as Palm, etc. I repeat, you can beam a number from the phone to another phone, or to a Palm device, or from a Palm to the phone, etc. Incredible. More importantly, the IR allows you to connect the phone to a PC (as long as the PC has an IR port, of course). This means that I can put my 8890 next to my Thinkpad, connect via IR, and sync the phonebook and calendar between the PC and the phone! No! YES! It actually works. More on software below. By the way, this feature was enough for me to justify switching to a GSM carrier, since IR support is only available on GSM phones. This is one of the differences between the 8290 and it's sister the 8260. More on these differences below. + Voice dialing. You can record voice tags for up to eight numbers. Very simple process, and it actually works. Keep in mind that it's not actually understanding the name as you say it, it's simply matching what you say to the list of "voice tags" that you've previously recorded. In any case, it's incredible that they've stuffed this technology into this tiny little phone. + Predictive text input. Nokia uses Tegex's T9 system (not that you care what it's called) to predict what you're trying to type as you compose a written message. I continue to be amazed at how well the system works; it can somehow predict the spelling of by first and last names, which as you can see are by no means common. This is a great feature, even if you only send SMS/email once in a while. + two-way SMS/email. You can receive and SEND both SMS and email messages from the 8890. The difference is that SMS goes directly via the GSM network to/from other GSM phones, while of course email is, well, email. You really can send email to any internet email address; I don't use this often, but once in a while it can be VERY useful. Note that incoming emails are broken up into 120-character messages and in some cases cut off, and so you aren't going to want to receive lengthy emails on the phone. + Calendar. Since the IR port lets me sync the phone to my PC calendar, I've ditched my Palm V, and now just have my calendar in my phone. Very intuitive interface, somewhat limited display (it only carries over the subject field of your appointments, not location and notes fields, for example), and you can even add in new appointments on the phone keypad. Very useful. The calendar holds up to 50 appointments at any one time. + Data call capability. Again, since the IR port lets you connect to a PC, you can use the phone to make modem data calls, from anywhere. + Call forwarding. You can set up separate call forwarding for voice, fax and data calls. This allows you, for example, to use your cell phone as your universal number, and route fax calls to the nearest fax machine. (Or just use EFax, and they'll show up in your email inbox.) + SIM card. All GSM phones use a SIM card to store your carrier, phone number, preferences and address book data. The 8890 can store 250 numbers on the SIM and another 250 on the phone itself. You can take the SIM out and stick it into another GSM phone, and you'll have your phone number, and your entire address book intact. More importantly, you since the 8890 is a dual-band phone, you can buy a cheap prepaid SIM in any European country, pop that in, and you've got a local cell phone number with cheap calling. Since you don't pay for incoming calls in Europe (!), just forward your US number to your European number, and hey presto. What's NOT stored on the SIM? Although your phone numbers are stored on the SIM, voice tags and custom ringtones are not, for example. + Vibrating Alert. This a key feature for me, and it's nice to have as a standard feature -- without requiring an accessory battery, for example. I keep the vibe on all the time, it's easy to tell if the phone is ringing in your pocket... + Profiles. The profiles feature makes it easy to set up different ringtones for different situations, e.g. outside, standard, meeting, headset, silent, etc. + Self-adjusting alarm clock. Set the alarm, turn the phone off, and it will wake up at the desired time, and then nicely ask whether you want it to turn itself on for calls... The clock on the phone adjusts itself via the GSM network. I think it even adjusts for different time zones when you travel! + Ring tones. You can download ring tones from the internet via SMS messaging. I finally have a phone that will play Dixie! That said, this feature is so annoying that it should only be used in the privacy of your own home. Please stick to normal ring tones (no songs!) in public. Please! + Games. I'm not much for games, but once in a while I play Snake while waiting for baggage to come through... + Calculator. useful. The calculator also has a currency converter function, although it's a little hidden. Open up the calculator, and hit Options, then scroll down to Exchange rate. Hit OK, and then you can put in the exchange rate btw your "home" and "foreign" units. Once you've done this, you can put a number into the calculator, and then hit Options, scroll down to "In home currency" or "In foreign currency", and it will make the conversion. Although I suppose this could be useful, it's usefulness is limited by the fact that the 8290 is not a world phone. You could use it in Canada, I guess. - no WAP. I decided that I'd rather have a tiny phone. - no voice recorder. Some high-end phones now offer 30-60 second voice recorder features. This would be nice. - you can't store email addresses in the phone book. This makes sending email rather tedious, as you have to peck out the email address each time, and the predictive text feature isn't much help here. One tip: store messages containing your frequently-used email addresses in the Outbox, and the just edit the saved message to send a new one. SOFTWARE & URLS + Nokia 8890 phone page: http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/8890/1,5258,,00.html + Online user manual: http://www.nokiahowto.com/8290/index.html + Cingular Wireless: http://www.cingular.com/ + Nokia Data Suite. This is the Nokia software that allows you to make modem/data calls via the IR connection. Watch out, this software does NOT currently run on Windows 2000, only Win95/98. Argh. I may switch back to Win98 for this feature! Get it here: http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/downloads/1,5230,,00.html#8890 + LogoManager: http://www.logomanager.co.uk let's you edit data on the phone's SIM card (phone numbers, etc) on your PC. In theory, LogoManager also lets you edit the various logos used on phone, including the picture message icons, but this all depends on whether your carrier has locked the icons into your SIM card. RECEPTION / COVERAGE / BATTERY Reception/sound quality is excellent. Coverage is generally very good. I live in San Francisco and travel frequently to Boston and New York, and the coverage is at least as good as Cellular One and in some cases better. Keep in mind that the coverage is more dependent on the carrier than the phone, of course. It is true that GSM phones will not roll over to analog, which means that it's not much use in rural Montana, but that's a non-issue for me. Battery life is excellent. No complaints here, and it takes a charge very quickly. 8890 VS. 8290 The 8290 is Nokia's US-only version of the 8890. Under the covers they're almost the same, primary differences being: + dual-band GSM means the 8890 will work in most international locations. While the 8290 is a GSM phone, it only operates on GSM 1900, which is only found in the US. + The 8290 has no sliding keypad cover -- the keys are exposed. + The 8290 has no extendable antenna -- just the internal antenna. - The 8890 is very slightly bigger due to sliding cover and maybe a tiny bit heavier. 8890 VS. Ericsson T28w ("world phone") You can get an Ericsson T28w for very cheap, and the phone is attractive and quite small. I've used both, and ended up with the 8890. Here's why: - The Ericsson UI is horribly slow and very frustrating. Nokia has them beat hands-down on the UI design. - The Ericsson has no built-in IR support; you need an add-on module for this, which makes the phone bigger, and cancels out the cost advantage over the 8890. - The Ericsson has a large protruding antenna stub - The Ericsson has an annoying and potentially flimsy flip cover - The Ericsson has MUCH higher radiation ratings + The Ericsson phone is much more durable than the Nokia. I guess I'm willing to sacrifice durability for usability. PRICE I paid about $250 for a used 8890 on eBay. Although these aren't the latest phones, the design still commands a premium. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 88827 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sexy phone works everywhere in the world small international roaming is expensive Full Review About 2 weeks before going for my 3 week trip to South Africa, I happened to come across a Nokia 8890 Phone on Ebay. I needed a new cell phone... and I thought my Nokia 2190 was a bit outdated, so I made sure I won the bid @ $550. You may be saying THIS GUY IS NUTS, but I have to disagree. The features of this phone make it well worth the price. Advantages of the Nokia 8890: 1. The best looking phone on the market! 2. Futuristic Blue Screen- This screen is awesome 3. Voice Activation- Dial a number by talking 4. Built in Modem - For you laptop or palmtop computer 5. Built in Infra Link- Connect with your computer wirelessly 6. Dual Band GSM- First phone by Nokia that can be used in five continents 7. Can be used in over 123 countries! 8. Aluminum Finish that grabs everyone's attention. 9. Weighs only 3.2 oz 10. Memory Free Litium Ion Battery- charge when you want to. This phone is excellent- I usually get a standby time of 2 days (I keep my phone on all the time) I'm not too sure of the talk time but the manufacturer says up to 200 minutes- its more than enough. The blue screen of this phone is easy on the eyes and is probably the most clear cell phone screen I ever seen. I just love the reaction people get when I answer a call on my phone- about 5 or 6 people already have asked me where I got the phone from. Right now I am writing this review of the phone from Durban, South Africa- and my Nokia 8890 phone is working flawlessly here. Due to the GSM systems here in South Africa (900Mhz) and the GSM systems in Los Angeles (1900Mhz) I have all my digital cell phone features intact anywhere in the world. Voice Mail, Caller ID, SMS, Picture Messaging- you name it. Also, in most countries (except USA) they have prepaid GSM service. An interesting fact which I didn't know was that Prepaid GSM service was invented in South Africa by VodaCom (http://www.vodacom.co.za). You can go to almost any store and pickup a GSM Smart Chip with a phone number for almost next to nothing. With service providers outside the US receiving cell phone calls are 100% free, it makes sense! I just got a a prepaid smartchip and people all over the world can call me on my cell phone. If I put in my pacific bell chip, people will just have to dial my regular Los Angeles number and I will receive the call whereever I am in the world. I love everything about this phone. The only thing I hate is that using a US GSM chip internationally is too expensive... $5.00 a minute, but all you have to do is buy a prepaid GSM chip from the country where you going to. Anyway, this phone is too neat...I highly recommend it to anyone with $500-$600 to spend on a cell phone. If you travel outside the US & Canada, then this phone is a must have item. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 88826 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 constant signal no matter where i am smallish buttons Full Review Although I am not the biggest fan of cellular telephones my job duties dictate constant communication with others so a cell phone is an absolute must have for me. I chose the Nokia 8890 for several reasons, none of them being the price, and have been 100% satisfied with it since my purchase. The Nokia 8890 is 4 inches tall and weighs a mere 3.2 ounces making it one of the smallest cell phones available but don't let the size fool you, there are a lot of extras inside this little package. The phone features games, a calendar for date references, vibration (ooh-la-la) mode, and over 30 tunes to choose from for your phone to play when it rings. Once you have loaded your phone numbers into memory you don't even have to use the buttons to dial because the Nokia 8890 has voice dialing. Say the name of the person you want to call and the phone dials for you. What makes the Nokia 8890 the ultimate mobile business phone though is the ability to connect and swap numbers easily between two phones using the infrared port that the phone has. Hooking it up to another phone allows you to quickly load data from that phone to yours ending the need to program every company phone you have. Having one phone with all the numbers that your employees need makes it a snap to get them on the road without having to manually input the information. The 8890 also features a battery that lasts for just about 3 hours talk time and I rarely lose a signal no matter where I am driving. I have had nothing but positive experiences with the Nokia and it works very well with the local wireless phone service provider I have. The Nokia isn't cheap, costing anywhere from $500-$600, but in my opinion it is the best cellular phone available and one that I highly recommend. Recommended: Yes 88825 2000/7/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great for the global business man not so great for everyone else Full Review To be competitive in the wireless industry, companies must do more than merely provide a quality phone to customers, they must produce products that are forward thinking. Hence, a wireless product that has the ability to function globally and appeal to consumers is an attractive option. Enter Nokia and one of their newest mobile phones- the 8890. Clearly this phone has a target audience, the world traveler. Still, the production of a phone that can and does function on multiple continents signifies that we are beginning to enter a new age in wireless technology. An age that will eventually require phones to link up via satellite anywhere in the world and produce a sound that is crystal clear. For now though, let us examine the Nokia 8890 and see just how much of a reality this really is. How this phone operates It starts with the GSM chip. I've mentioned in several previous reviews that most phones are empowered with either a TDMA or CDMA operating chip. Now without me launching into a detailed discussion of operating chips, let me just state that it is the GSM chip that allows this phone to operate globally. This particular phone boasts that it has the ability to operate on 5 contents and 120 countries (This I will take at face value). Using a signal from a satellite transmissions are received from virtually all major cities worldwide. Eventually, I believe that all phones will employ this technology and the perfect chip will be a blend of the convenience of GSM technology with the efficiency of CDMA functionality. Once you get past the chip (which is the draw of this phone) the phone also has 200 minutes of talk time and 144 hours of standby time. It runs on a lithium ion battery. Signals are transmitted on GSM frequencies of 900 and 1900 mhz and a GSM super extended frequency of 900 mhz. Overall, impressive battery life and power compared to phones of similar quality. What are the features of the phone The first thing that I noticed about this phone was the size. It's remarkably light and fits easily into a coat or shirt pocket. Nokia has always done a good job of producing lightweight products, but the 8890 is much more defined than the 6000 series. The screen is easy to read and backlit with an indigo display. The phone comes with most features that you would expect a high-quality phone to carry (E.G. voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, paging) and a few that you might not (E.G. such as one touch credit card dialing). If you do a lot of traveling in the car, the voice dial feature makes life a lot easier. Simply store the number in the memory and presto the call is in progress. The phone sports a rather large database to store addresses, personal info, calendar, your lawnmower (just wanted to check if you were reading this?). User interface is friendly and the directions will guide you through the procedures quite easily. If problems persist, Nokia can be contacted directly or online. One feature that I particularly like is the Irda port. This allows data to be transmitted to a computer using an inferred signal. With this phone it's primarily employed to send and receive e-mail. Information is inputed using predictive text. It is rather easy and can be mastered with some practice. Now for the bad, this phone does not have Internet access. Oh, don't worry the wireless web is on the way, but for now Internet junkies will have to turn to their mainframes. Final thoughts For its audience, the Nokia 8890 is not a bad phone. Still, at $700 dollars the investment is great. So, if you're a world traveler then by all means check the 8890 out. If you are however, among the many of us whose idea of a getaway might be a trip the health spa then this phone is not for you. So admire this phone, play with it if you get the opportunity, and realize then in just a few years you'll probably have a phone that can do everything this product can at half the cost. It's American Capitalism at its finest. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 700 88824 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small new technology you can use it in 120 countries global voice options too expensive to buy for non business needs The Bottom LineI if you can afford for it, you can buy it. It's the best phone I have ever seen in my life. Full Review Techology runs fast so Nokia gave out a new (baby) mobile phone loaded with incredible electronic features. The name? Nokia 8890. The new Nokia has new wireless techonology that you can use the phone almost everywhere in the world, including 120 countries!!! The new Nokia 8890 has a new chip that makes possible to the phone to change band automatically wherever you are in the world, via satelite transaction, so you don't need roaming or everything else. It has the functionality to speak 3 languages (English, Spanish, French) and operate in over 120 countries, 5 continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, Australia). This phone looks like Nokia 8850 (as 88's series),it is very light -about 3oz- has a cover and tiny metalic keys, phone's directory holds up to 250 names and numbers, has calendar, handles multiple calls, supports email and fax sending. It also supports two GSM bands one at 900MHz and another at 1900MHz, works like wireless modem (tranfer rate depent on your network), has voice dialing sytem with up to 8 voice recordings, you can talk up to 120 - 180 min, and up to 140 hours have it standby. Moreover you can use the Infrared data transfer, internal digital data, download ring tones (as all Nokia phones), picture messaging supported. Some new things also is the currency converter calculator embeded, auto redial option (up to 10 times), voice message indicator, numeric paging capability (acts like a pager) and it has retractable antenna. Have to admit that it has a solid stable signal, you can hear clearly loud, better than any other Nokia phone. Well, I thing that this is your phone, if you're a business man and need to travel and work global. In any other way this Nokia (baby) is far too expensive to buy. I had the chance to use it, but I don't even think of buy it (yet). Let's wait prices to fall a litle bit first. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 699 88823 2000/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice compact cellular phone the price The Bottom LineThis phone isn';t for everyone, but it is a beauty! Full Review This is a beautiful small cellular phone that weighs only 3.2 ounces (91 grams) with the standard battery in it. It is 3.9 inches in length, 1.5 inches in width and only 5/8 of an inch thick. (10cm x 4.5cm x 1.6 cm) It is not much larger than a credit card! This is a Global phone that can be used in over 120 countries in 5 different continents, this phone will go almost anywhere in the world you wish to go. The signals are transmitted on GSM 900 MHz and GSM 1900 MHz. The blue backlight is an eye catcher with the silver brushed aluminum case. There is a sliding keypad cover to cover and protect the phone's keypad. This is a very attractive phone! It has a retractable antenna that can be used for a better signal. The Nokia 8890 has a built in modem for data transfer that is capable of receiving graphics, text and has voice dialing. This phone supports Voice mail, fax, e-mail, numeric paging, caller ID and more. This phone can have two different phone lines on it, this depends on your provider. The built-in phone directory can store up to 250 names and phone numbers. The built-in clock and calendar can keep track of up to 50 appointments. You can set numbers to be dialed by your voice. This phone has 35 different ringer tones that can be customize for your personal preference. You can have a certain ring to let you know when your spouse is calling, a different ring for the kids calling, your boss and so on. You can also set it to vibrate when you get an incoming call. There are four built-in games, Snake, Memory, Logic and Rotation. This may come in handy to keep the kids occupied on a long trip. There is also a built-in calculator. For security you can set it up with two pin numbers, a security code and a password. That should keep anyone out if desired. There is a "Call Log" that keeps track of every call made from the phone, the numbers and the time spent on. The battery is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that will let you talk two to three hours and the standby time is between 50 to 150 hours. (Standby time changes depending on usage.) The Screen The blue backlight screen shows you your signal strength, battery power and the volume you have it on. There are several icons to let you know if you are on line 1 or 2, if you have any new voice messages, voice mail, call forwarding, alarm, and much more. You can use the built-in phone book and scroll up and down to find the number you want, then there is a button to press and the number is dialed for you. There are also menu shortcuts that can be made. I recommend keeping the manual close by because this phone has many options. The biggest con about the phone is the retail price of $470 in the US and $850 in Canadian. Another thing I don't like is it has only a one-year limited warranty, a phone of that price should have at least a one-year full warranty. Overall This is a really nice Global phone! The Nokia 8890 is made mainly for the businessperson on the go traveling worldwide. The phone can be used for the non-businessperson but, why pay the high price for the phone if it is not needed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 7768 Nokia 3595 88902 2006/6/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 color display games web browser everything else none although keypad may be a little trickey for large fingered idiviuals This phone, which I have had for 4 years, is a charm. It has many features and includes a mobile web browser. My kids enjoy games and dislike long car rides so this Nokia, and it's 3 games ( Bowling, Sky Diver and Tetris, with more downloadable) keeps them entertained on even the longest car rides. Need to check on your favorite baseball team score? Mobile web is there, with weather, sports, new, stock and pretty much everything else. Just want to use the phone for what it was intended for? The calls are crystal clear and the battery life is seemingly endless. All on a beautiful 4096 color display with the ability to view pictures. No camera on this one, but it is availible on the 3200, a step up from this one. The one odd thing, I must say, is the keypad. It looks weird and is DEFINITELY NOT for people with large fingers. For others, it will be fine. I've dropped it 20+ times and, except for a few scratches, it is fine. This is a quality phone for anyone who wants a good, reliable communication tool with a few extras. 88901 2004/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen long charge on battery under the cover antenna none This is a cool phone. It has great features, it is light weight, compact, and has a very visable keypad and screen (depends on lighting). I highly recommend it for someone that is new to the cellular phone world and has no idea how to work one. It is very easy to learn. I wouldn't mind getting a new one. I have the EasySpeak Prepaid T-Mobile service. Ya, I know it's prepaid but it's better than not having a phone at all! I paid about $78 at Wal-Mart Supercenter (Fort Worth, TX). 88900 2004/4/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability call quality airglide is the only good game calendar does not have view all day notes feature This is a very durable phone with exceptional sound quality. When I got tired of my Nokia 3390, I decided to get a new phone with color screen. Call quality is my number one requirement than all the other features. I tested Nokia 6100 and Nokia 3595 at the shop and found that Nokia 3595 sounded much better on both ends. Very durable. Can be carried stealthily in back pocket and sit on it. It does not break. AirGlide is the only good game. 88899 2004/9/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks cool it s immune to water easy to use ummm living thru water is more then enough to make up for it few cons Wow! Today i was in a canoe in the middle of the river when these mean guys in a motor boat came speeding past us. My 3595 was in my pocket and i was pretty sure it was gone. It was in the water for at least 5 minutes. and then it stayed in my soak and wet pocket for a while. When i to my car i opened it up and let it dry off for a while. it still wouldnt work. I pretty pretty sure it was dead forever. I actually had a 3560 which takes the same battery... I put it in there and whoa! it came alive. It works after 5 minutes of water time! and all i had to was change the battery! I think nokia created a monster. I've always been into nokia! I just hope that i can write a review like this about my camera and photography equipment. Praise God! He's so good! 88898 2004/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 free with t mobile data transfer no voice recorder This is a great first phone. Can download ringtones, purchase different faceplates and keypads. It does not have an antenna (our other phones antennas usually broke off), but still gets good quality reception. NO additional noise. Guess it depends on the mobile service. 88897 2004/6/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 design no antenna games color screen no internet capabilities I love this phone and I love the color screen! I had a Motorola through Tracfone (Pre-paid wireless) and I hated my Motorola because it had a funky antenna that didn't stay in and had no color screen! The only thing I don't like on my Nokia is the echoing! The games and ring-tones are good but the main thing is, is that the phone works, and this phone does more than work! 88896 2004/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 display sound quality battery life keypad could be less stylishmore practical I have had this phone for 1 year and it is probably the best of all that I have had. It replaced a Samsung Q105 which was a good phone also but the reception and battery life were lacking. The best part of this phone is the battery life which I think Nokia does better than most. I have the phone in a charger cradle in my car for my 15 min commute and I never have to charge it more than that. The color screen is very readable in all conditions and the wallpaper is a nice touch. The resolution of the screen is what you would expect from an entry level color phone. I like the ring tones which are not as detailed as the more expensive polyphonic phones but they are loud and easy to hear. I also figured out how to truncate MIDI files to make my own ring tones without paying TMob .99 per tune. Overall I would highly recommend this phone. 88895 2004/8/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable dropped it many times excellent features service battery life easy to use keypad setup I purchased my phone around the same time it came out. It was my first color phone, and it was the first phone that i had with polyphonic ringtones. I upgraded to the Nokia 3595 from the Nokia 3390. I found the Nokia 3595 to be a great phone. I recieved great battery life, and very dependant reception. The only thing that i did not like about the phone was the keypad. I did not like the fact that all of the buttons were connected. I solved that problem simply buy buying a new faceplate for the phone that had a normal keypad setup. If you are thinking about switching to T-mobile, or just want to upgrade, the Nokia 3595 is a great phone. 88894 2005/3/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound battery life color graphics none that i have noticed thus far This is my 4th phone and I just love it. Great features and reception. I have not had any problems with this phone. It works great. I love the fact that there is no antenna to break off. 88893 2005/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good display durable good sound no antenna good reception bulky Like all the other opinions of the key pad layout, it takes a little getting used to. This is a bulky phone compared to flip phones, but this phone works great and reliably. I have dropped mine down a flight of stairs, on the ground several times,and it still works fine. Battery life very good (I charge every other night). My thirst for tech. advancement (realy want a camera phone)has led me to many reviews, but I am having second thoughts (just read some reviews for the flip/camera phones out there)I like the security of having this reliable phone so much that a camera does not seem all that important now. 88892 2005/6/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 rugged body great reception user interface menu options the buttons wear out Great Reception This phone is a tank, I've put it through hell and back, and it always keeps working. I got it with the first cell plan that I signed up for and the only thing wrong with it is the buttons, they're just not as responsive as they were when the phone was new, and the interface makes it sort of hard to find things. The buttons wear out 88891 2005/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 display reception the list goes on functionality none besides the lack of features Pros: Good display and backlighting. Great reception everywhere I go (Cingular Orange Customer). Very loud ringtones. Cool keypad design. Quality polyphonic speaker. Loud handset speaker and headset. Fully customizable with covers, graphics, and ringtones. Survives everything (I drop it all the time, once on ceramic tiles from atleast five feet up and nothing broke...well except for my cover that I had on it at the time, but the phone is still completely functional). Cons: The obvious lack of what are now "essential" features such as camera, Bluetooth, loud speaker, etc. However, once you judge this phone on what it is instead of what it isn't, you see its a great phone. All-in-all I would recommend this phone to anyone that is looking for a basic entry-level phone and doesn't care about cameras, Bluetooth, and all the other bells and whistles. 88890 2004/10/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen battery life quality control in general reception clarity you can never use it in a noisy room I got this phone as an upgrade from my 5165. I instantly noticed it wasn't as clear as my old phone and got slightly worse reception. Then about a week went by and it started having the notourious sim-card problems. It happens about once a week, and says that it can't access your phonebook at this time. Give it a couple seconds and it usually works, but it's annoying. It's been a year now, and i'm starting to have major problems with it. The last week i've gotten "network not available" on 3 out of my 4 calls in the dorms. I've had people claim they call me but it never rang. The other day i came out of the L (underground), walked a block and tried to make a call. And it said it had no service. 10 seconds later i had full service. I'm really regretting getting rid of my huge 5165 that actually was a nice phone. 88889 2004/10/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice screen good battery life keypad is easy to use makes noise around electronic equipment b c of radiation I've had this phone for almost a year and it's still working great. The battery lasts long (I probably charge it once a week). Although it's bulky and I wish it was smaller, it is quite light for that size. I fell on my phone playing roller hockey and although I cracked the screen and can't see anything on it now, the phone itself still works. Talk about durability! Definitely would recommend buying it if you don't mind its size and the fact that it probably has a lot of radiation. By the way, I use Rogers AT&T but I always have great reception. I think it's because of the phone. 88888 2004/4/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great battery life great color screen other party often reports they cannot hear me clearly echoing is terrible Our old Nokia phone batteries were dying. Went in to our T-Mobile store and we could pay $50 per battery for new ones, or they would give us new phones for one more year of T-Mobile contract service. We have been very pleased with T-Mobile, having had them for 3 years. We signed the year agreement and took our new phones with the color screens and left happily. The battery life is really good on this model. I can go almost a week before having to recharge. I use my phone a lot--about a 1,000 minutes a month so I am pleased with this aspect. The color screen is great and very easy to read, especially in low light conditions. The audio clarity on the phone is bad. Too often we both get an echo the repeats what we have just said....so that when the other party is responsding, my voice is still echoing. Damn frustrating! Many times as I speak with business clients, I can hear them okay, but they tell me they can barely make out when I am saying. That is also frustrating! 88887 2004/6/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 ringer selectionsound color screen interesting keypad nobody can hear me when i am speaking to them on this phone I really enjoyed having this phone from day one. The ringers were better, the color was better, and I even enjoyed the odd keypad. However, nobody on the other end of the line can understand what I am saying. It is a constant complaint by everybody I speak to, and it becomes very frustrating to have to repeat myself over and over again. This phone would be great if people on the other side could hear you. 88886 2006/5/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nicedurable phone for low price loaded with features battery doesn t last much in the long run insert sim card error gets annoying I've had this phone over 2 years now and I love it . Definately worth what I payed for it --$80 2 years ago. Now it's worth about $55 and its a nice phone for that price. Fully loaded, color screen with 4096 colors, polyphonic ringtones(4 channel), WAP with GPRS or GSM data, JAVA games and applications, etc. It's a great little phone for people who want color and polyphonic ringtones. Its also a nice and durable phone, lasting me 2 years with very harsh treatment ( I threw it against the wall when I was angry, and it still works). No scratches. The other hand, things I dislike: Sometimes the phone appears with "insert sim card" and the only way to get rid of it is to restart the phone or reboot it. Also, I dislike the battery life in the long run. They've only lasted me about 6 months until they're virtually unusable. Like before, I'd get 7-10 days of standby battery life, and 8 months later or so, the battery of life would be 14-20 HOURS! 88885 2000/8/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 price free inter face games battery life screen is somewhat blocky The Bottom Linegreat interface, games, and price Full Review While I had the phone it was a great piece of electronic equipment. This phone, which is offered by many phone companies for free, is a great user friendly phone. I had my 3595 for nearly 10 months befor a puddle of water took the phone from me. Sadly Nokia doesn't cover water damage in their warranty. Menu: The phone is by far the easiest phone to use! My mother has this phone also and she isn't very good with learning how to use electronics but within 15 minutes she was able to access everything and anything that she wanted to find. I was amazed on how Nokia could make an interface that was so comprehensive yet so user friendly. All the pages in the menu make sense. Whatever it is you're looking for you can find rather quickly without having to consult the manual. Screen: The Screen is nice. It's not as viberant as my new phone Samsung SGH-S307, but it is still very nice. It is bright enough to see in the sun-light. The display does seem to be a bit "blocky" but it only has a little more than 1,000 colors as opposes to 64,000 with my new phone. The screen is large enough to easily read what it is you're looking for but isnt quite as large as some of the other phones out there. Games: The games are great I absolutely love the bowling! With the phone you get four games: Bowling, Skydive, Glider, and backgammon. These games are very handy if you're just flat out bored, I often found myself playing games when I probably shouldnt have just because they're so addictive and fun. Glider and backgammon are entertaining but I didn't find them very fun to play, but "different strokes for different 'fokes'" Battery Life: The battery life is great. You can let the phone sit for a week and it'll still have plenty of battery life for you to talk to all of your friends and colligues. When I bought the phone I was told to charge the battery all the way and then drain it until the low battery indicator came up to condition the battery. The salesman said to do that two times but I was too busy configuring everything to do that, and because the battery life lasts soo long. Size: The size of this phone is great. For a non-folding phone it is the perfect size, nearly fits in the palm of your hand. It will comfortably fit into your pants pocket or purse. Ringtones: Well it seems like most new phones never come with any good ringers anymore. Can't they just give you the "classic" house phone ringer. I know that you can download more and that everyone wants a personalized phone with a unique sound but lately it seems like the "classic" ringer is unique and rare. Reception: The reception, I am with Cingular, is great. Everywhere I go I get great reception. The quality isn't quite as good as a house phone, but what phone is, but is better than most. Overview: If you're on a tight budget and want a great phone you should take a close look at this phone. The size is good for a non-folding phone. The battery life is great. The inter-face is designed with purpose. The games are strangly addictive. All in all I say buy this phone (most carriers are giving them to you for free with a new plan) you will not be sorry you picked this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88884 2000/4/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life color screen good reception durability would be nice to have a standard ringtone number pad takes some getting used to The Bottom LineA good and durable phone once you get used to it. Full Review I got a Nokia 3595 phone free when I switched to T-Mobile. One thing that caught my eye right away is that the buttons are a physical part of the phone. I had a Kyocera phone with my last plan (see my review on T-Mobile itself) whose buttons are part of a keypad that can fall off the phone and you virtually need a new phone after that. But those same keys were also initially a turnoff. They don't look like the keys of a standard phone and they took a little getting used to. But the positioning of the numbers was technically the same, so after some time I didn't even notice. This is my first phone with a color screen. I find the screen easier to read with color, so I really enjoy that feature. I must say it has proven durable in many ways. I have already dropped the phone twice in the month I've had it and no problem. And the 4.5 hr. talk time and 13 hr standby time that was mentioned in the first review on this topic I have mostly found to be true. One thing I kind of miss is the lack of a normal "phone" ringtone option. I've noticed that the trend in general (catering to the very young I guess) is to give you melodies and even somewhat recent songs (for example, I've even seen an option to download a tone based Sean Paul's "Get Busy" hit) for ringtones, but I'm a bit of a traditionalist (and not even that old) and like the standard phone ring. The only tone that remotely approaches this is the one called "Low" and even at highest volume, it is lower than the other tones (I guess too many people find the traditional phone ring to be annoying). I also like its reception. I've never had static, and I've been a little beyond the supposed coverage areas and still got reception. And this with no outside antenna (another plus, fits nicely in my pocket). Finally, the games are a nice touch. I especially like the skydiving and bowling games. All in all, a pretty neat phone. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88883 2000/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fairly reliable excellent battery life easy to use no ir capability data transfers are almost impossible The Bottom LineDurable, but not for those needing to sync to a computer. Full Review I have had a love-hate relationship with this phone for a year and a half. Day to day operation is great--probably the best I've had. Specialized functions such as data transfer are rough if not impossible--and they are time consuming. I bought this product because the price was right from my carrier-Free! It had plenty of memory for my 350+ contacts and calendar functions, important to me because my phone acts as my PDA. The day-to-day functions are great. Good reception, above average battery life and ease of use are all pluses for this model. However, the difficulty with which one transfers data has made this phone a thorn in my side. I really regret having bought this phone, and you will too if transferring contact or calendar data from your computer is important to you. I don't know what Nokia was smoking when they designed this phone, but there is no IR data capability. Yes, it does have SyncML to transfer/sync data from the web, but SyncML is apparently in its infancy so I wasted a lot of time on that. You can also transfer data via a third-party data cable (available on eBay, etc). This was my preferred method. But Nokia will void your warranty since it never intended data to be transferred this way. The operation of the connector is flaky and so I would only get 10 or so uses and I would have to get a new one. Plus it would take me 45 to 60 minutes to get data transferred because I would have to work with the connectors. But alas, it did give me 1.5 years of heavy use. So I cannot give it a completely low score. However, now the hands free is going flaky so I will probably retire this phone soon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88882 2000/8/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen polyphonic ring tones great price free fairly stylish poor configuration cheap keypad faulty keys The Bottom LineAvoid this phone if you are an avid user that desires more than just basic functionality. Plus, it just is not durable. Full Review Yes, this phone can commonly be acquired for free, which makes it a very enticing deal. Its 4,096-color screen is one of the standout features, which is a vast improvement over the previous generation of Nokia screens. For a budget-level entry, Nokia has also raised the bar for stylish design - with a modern keypad and clean lines. However, that is where the positive aspects end. Unfortunately, after owning this phone for over a year, some very annoying aspects have become more apparent... 1) In-Call Volume: this setting can only be adjusted during a call, which is very annoying. Also, in-call volume cannot be adjusted during mailbox calls, since the up and down arrow keys simply scroll through your password entry. 2) Faulty Keys: I am a very "light" user, and take care of my cell phones, yet the keypad has several buttons that barely work, including the up-arrow key (which makes scrolling and volume changes very difficult). Such abnormal wear is not acceptable. 3) Digital Feedback: Even if the phone has 100% reception, digital clicks and whirs are very apparent during conversations - an artifact that is not present on other GSM phones from the same wireless provider. Overall, I am not very pleased with this phone. Initially, I would have written a glowing review of this phone considering its price and features. I cannot recommend it, though, because it simply has not held up over time, and also has some annoying aspects that become more apparent with time - including the lack of dedicated volume controls and functions that are far too buried within menus for quick access. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88881 2004/5/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great quality cheap price lightweight no antenna color screen great battery color screen is basic no polyphonic ringtones The Bottom LineGreat phone for the price. Awesome clarity. Battery life is wonderful. Screen is basic but functional. Full Review This is my 7th Nokia phone. I have owned the Nokia 100 (good 'ol analog), 5100, 3360 (2 of them), 8265 (I think that was the model number), 3390 and the 3595. The only bust was the 3360 (very poor quality). The 3595 is a very lightweight, sturdy phone with a color screen. I got it for free from AT&T when I lost my Motorola T720 (that was a very sad day). I wasn't trying to pay over $100 for a new phone! I have since switched service providers. I got a 3390 for free with T-Mobile, but there was no way I could go back to a grayscale screen, so I put my 3390 back in the box as a backup, and unlocked my 3595 so I could use it with T-Mobile since it was the same model phone. The unlocking process was seamless. The screen is a nice-sized phone. I never squint looking at it, except when I'm in direct sunlight. The screen tends to go dark and it is very hard to read. The colors could stand to be sharper (like Samsung phones), but they are tolerable. The keypad took some getting used to due to the dual numbers on 1 button. After a while, you get used to it though. Me, personally, 1-touch dialing is my friend-especially when I am in the car. I programmed my 5 most-dialed numbers and it is very speedy. The menus are very easy to navigate. There are a lot of new-and-improved features on this phone. The phone book has great capacity. You can save up to 250 numbers on the SIM card, and another 200-500 on the actual phone memory. You can choose to scroll by name only, or by name and number. I prefer the name and number option. I tend to use my cellphone as a regular phonebook while I'm at work, so that view option helps me greatly. I am a text messaging junkie. This phone does a wonderful job managing my text messages. It even gives me a warning to let me know when my text message inbox is nearing capacity (which is quite often). I can't stand the T9 predictable typing feature though. Often, I text in "code" to save characters, and this feature isn't conducive to that. There are multimedia messaging capabilities on this phone as well. I haven't had the need to use that feature, but it's nice to know it's there. The ringtones that come with this phone are of a good variety. The one thing I love is that you can set the phone to ring very loud! I need that, especially in the car and while I'm out shopping. I have downloaded a few as well. I wish it had polyphonic ring capabilities, but hey, you can have everything! The graphics are ok. I downloaded some others that I like better. Again, the color clarity plays a big part in how the graphics look. I love the feature that allows me to have the phone lock automatically! Saves me from many misdialed numbers! The games are pretty basic. Out of the 4 on here, I prefer bowling! I surf the net on this phone as well. It's too basic, but I used it often to check my email and chat on messenger services. The connection is quick, but it does like to drop on occasion. This phone is very rugged. I drop it hard on the average of 3 times a day, and it still woks wonderfully. I love the fact that there is no antenna. I have very few missed calls. Even at 2 signal bars, my calls stay connected and clear. It's very lightweight, and not overly huge. It fits in my hand comfortably. I use my earpiece often so I don't have to hold it long. If I'm on a call for an extended amount of time, the phone will heat up slightly. The battery life is the best out of any phone I have ever owned. I talk on my phone a lot, and I only charge it every few days or so. Keep in mind that having a color screen, as well as playing the games and using the internet uses more battery power. Overall, this is a very good phone for the money. It's simple enough for the new user, and it has enough bells and whistles for the frugal techie. Great phone! Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 88880 2000/7/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek light on fluff packed with features internet access email not as simple as advertised The Bottom LineA good functional phone, not bogged down with too many unrelated hoo-haa's Full Review Life is complicated enough; I like my devices uncomplicated. Barring that I like them sufficiently simple in appearance and intuitive in functionality as to make me think they're uncomplicated enough for me to master. I don't have the patience to endure a long learning curve for a phone whose primary task I've understood for years. Nokia's 3595 phone meets those qualifications for simple and stress-free calling. Among the features with which a techie already might be comfortable: an alarm clock, calendar and to-do list, an exchange rate calculator, games and various applications. Network connectivity options are displayed but I haven't even tried to use them. I thought it might be nice to keep track of my email and do some rudimentary internet browsing which the promotional messages for this phone eagerly tout. Disappointment was lurking in that hope, however, since even with properly trained sales staff at the service provider helping me set it up, the process was unbelievably tedious, complex and unreliable. That may have been Cingular's problem and not the phone's but if it didn't work, it didn't work. What I liked best. The 3595 just felt right in my hand. Call it good ergonomics or whatever, there was nothing to flip up or extend and it wasn't awkward to hold like the other brand I tried first. It took me a while to figure out where the sound was coming from and hence how best to hold it but now it just feels like a good fit and no one has trouble hearing me. My favorite ergonomic feature is the way each key is shaped differently; if you have to dial in the dark, while driving or when it's just best to keep your eyes somewhere else the tactile feel of the keypad allows you to dial by touch. Often we don't have adequate daylight when we need to make and receive phone calls. When the phone rings the side panels on the 3595 light up along with the display panel and the numbers. If you can hear it, probably you also can see it. Setting up voicemail was simple enough and entering all the contact information in my address book was a breeze. Just a couple of button pushes (or voice commands) and you can dial any of your contacts without jumping through hoops. Finally, Nokia had the good sense to make the accessories backwards compatible. I still have chargers and hands-free kits from previous Nokia phones and they aren't now just so much clutter. Good job, Nokia! Now, this phone doesn't have a camera, an mp3 player or a PDA built in, but I like my devices uncluttered and uncomplicated. The Nokia 3595 is as simple as you want it to be, or as complex. Mine's just a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.95Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88879 2000/6/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 java games color screen great battery polyphonic ringtones fantastic reception free no ir keypad takes some getting used to The Bottom LineIf you enjoy saving money on a phone that has better reception and features equal to those of expensive phones, the 3595 is perfect. Full Review In the James Bond gadget era that we live in, there are phones with cameras, MP3 players and phones that could probably cook dinner for you. Still, the main concern should be that the phone needs to work. You need to be able to obtain the phone at a decent price and you need to be able to make calls where you need to make them otherwise you're just left with a pretty paperweight. This phone meets those basic needs and gives you a bunch of great extras. For it's price, it probably has one of the best values out there. The Basics Price: I am your typical poor college student so my main concern was price. If you're a new customer, all of the GSM providers in the US (AT&T, T-Mobile, Cingular) offer this phone for free or less than $50 with a mail in rebate so you get it for free anyway. But I'm not the kind of girl who likes waiting for rebates or anything else so I bought the phone off AT&T's website because I also got an extra 100 minutes added to my plan. Not a bad deal. The phone arrived two days later. The shipping was free and the phone and service came with a 30 day money back guarantee. It was fully charged, right out of the box. The reception on this phone is ridiculously amazing. I live in the Phoenix area (1900mhz only area) so I can't say that the phone will work as well in say, a cabin up in the woods or a van down by the river. My signal is almost always full in the places I go. The building penetration is pretty good too. I have heard about 1900mhz signals not getting through buildings so well but that definitely isn't the case with this phone. It works well underground and in moderately tall buildings (there aren't really any huge skyscrapers here I can test). Standby is reported as 10 days and talktime at 5.5 hours. I'm never away from the charger for a long period of time so I haven't tested the 10 days of standby, I've only gone 6 days and the battery was still at least 3/4 of the way full. The manual reports the phonebook capacity as being held to 500 entries and the phone's voice dialing feature can have up to 14 entries. The SAR rating is 1.08 W/kg at the ear and 0.73 W/kg on the body, so the phone probably won't kill you :) I never really needed games or ringtones or a color screen before but now, I don't think I could live without them! Here's a summary of what the 3595 has to offer from the eyes (and ears) of a first time Nokia user: Design: The keypad of the phone is a bit weird looking and takes some getting used to. The 2 & 5 are on one key as are the 8 & 0. If this is a problem, the phone is compatible with covers for the Nokia 3590 and the Nokia 3560, which have more "normal" buttons. You can just snap the cover on and voila! Problem solved. Also, a version from AT&T (dubbed the 3595 IM) has a normal keypad. I do like how the phone lights up and synchronizes with the ringtones. As for the overall shape, it's just a typical candy-bar style phone. Not too big, not too small, just right and sturdy enough to haphazardly toss in your purse. The dimensions are 4.64in x 1.95 x 0.87 and the phone weighs 3.76 ounces. Other than the keypad, the other drawback is that this phone has no infrared capability. This phone has spoiled me...now that I have wallpaper and polyphonic ringtones, I've created my own and want to upload them to my phone. Having infrared capabilities would be the easiest way to do this but thankfully there are other ways to upload your own goodies to your phone: - The phone is compatible with the data cable for the Nokia 3590, if you modify the cable. (You can search for how to do this on various websites, like www.howardforums.com ). You can buy the cable off of eBay for $15 total. I haven't done this as I'm too cheap to spend the $15 :) - Upload your ringtones and graphics to a WAP host site (or create your own), visit the site via your phone and save them - Via your computer, go to a website that will send a ringtone to your phone (usually for a small fee but the free ones do exist if you are determined to find one) Ringtones: This phone is VERY LOUD but very clear. I jumped away from the phone the first time I tested it out. The default settings were waaay too loud for me in an indoor setting (thankfully, you can change the ringer volume). But that can be good in a large crowd setting (like at a concert) as it's impossible to miss a call. The ringtones are polyphonic (meaning they can play chords instead of just one note at a time). The phone comes with a total of 28 polyphonic ringtones which all sound very clear. There are a total of 2 "normal" sounding ringtones (meaning they have rings like a normal landline phone) which may be a drawback to more "uptight" types of people. Organization features: Like on some other Nokia phones, the 3595 has an ascending alarm tone. It's not very loud at first but it still can be heard. The only problem I have with it is that you have to program it daily. The calendar and to-do list on the phone are standard in nature. Color screen: I think this is one of the few free phones out there that has a color screen. There are 4,096 colors on the screen, which may not be enough for some users but anyone who isn't sending pictures or has just come from an LCD screen will find this more than adequate. The size of the screen is 96 x 65 pixels. Just like the default settings of the ringtones were loud, the default brightness is very bright (I alter this setting as well). I've actually used this phone as a flashlight when the power has gone out. I'm surprised that the battery is so great on this phone as I would think that the color screen would suck it dry. The phone also comes with 6 wallpapers. Games: The phone comes with four color Java games: Air Glide, Sky Diver, Bowling and Backgammon. The graphics are pretty good and the phone vibrates according to what's going on in the games (like if you hit a strike in Bowling). The phone is capable of downloading more games but I've just stuck to what it has since I'm not a hardcore game user. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88878 2000/5/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life great reception color size no internet capabilities The Bottom LineGet it- it's free and reliable. Full Review Nokia every year creates a new phone for every wireless firm to use. This year, the 3595 is the model that T-Mobile as well as Cingular and AT&T have chosen as their flagship FREE phone. Not only have they chosen a color phone, they've chosen a delightfully playful phone with a low cost. For my review, there will be 3 categories that will be rated. 1) Build construction and software OR Quality of physical phone 2) Reception and Battery Life 3) Special Features. 1) Build construction and Software (Quality of phone) The Nokia 3595 in hand has quite a solid feel. The phone consists of a change-able front and back facia construction with a durable power on/off button on top as usual and power plug-in and hands free on the bottom of the phone. None of the physical build is unusual except the keypad where the numbers are not aligned as usual. Despite this new keypad, I've found that it doesn't really affect the time I spend trying to call numbers and type in numbers. Another feature that has changed is the color screen. Being that the phone was free, color is a nice change and the software on it is still fast enough to display colors and menus at a normal pace (unlike Sony Ericsson phones). The software is same-as-usual and the colors just add a nice hue to everything. I have dropped this phone in restaurants, hallways, stairs, and have never noticed a glitch yet. The phone is solid and so is the proven software that is on it. 2) Reception and Battery Life The metrics on the Battery and Reception are the same as usual with more bars meaning better battery life and reception respectively. Although reception is really respective of your wireless carrier, the phone also has a bit to do with it. I've found that my phone has never dropped a call (compared to my friend's samsung using the same service in the same places) and that the voice quality that comes over is stellar. Again, nothing will satisfy the cell-phone ear more than a Nokia Signal. I have never had to use the hands free piece for better reception nor have I ever had to redial any calls made. Battery life is also stellar. I can usually go 3 days without recharging depending on usage. If I use the phone heavily like on weekends, every 2 days (always on). I personally don't have a land line and have found that this phone does a reasonable job at living up to its size. With a phone at this size, you would expect a decent battery life due to the size of the battery increasing with size of phone (don't be scared, it's a few hairs bigger than the 3390). I've used the phone for almost 5 months and have found it to be very reliable with the battery life. Charging the battery only takes one hour and battery will be full again. 3) Special Features Special features on the phone are nice, but not great. Despite the simplicity of Nokia phones, this one tries to elevate itself as a basic phone. Not only can you change wallpapers, you can download your own ringtones and games. However, I've found that many of the so called "Web Enabled" features are really not web enabled. The phone cannot surf the web- This is a big deal with much information that can be retrieved using a phone. I've also found that the lack of a speakerphone is something missing. One nice feature is the color, did I say the color feature yet? =) Over the phone won't disappoint for being FREE. If anything, it will surprise you. Don't be fooled by similar phones that are free- Nokia's never disappoint. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88877 2004/8/20 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact small lightweight could use more choices of ringtones The Bottom LineThe bottom line is just a call away! Full Review Nokia 3595 My husband and I decided to upgrade our Cingular Wireless service and instead of two separate accounts, we now have Family Talk. However, upon getting the full details on this plan, it wasn't mentioned until we said, "YES" to the upgrade that we were told that our current phones would not be compatible. Frankly, this sounded like hogwash to me but my husband's phone had just started acting up so we went over to the display on the wall to start our phone shopping. The model that was "free" was very tiny and the numbers on the keypad very small. I did not want that phone. My husband works in an area that has low signals and the Nokia 3595 was recommended for his use. I looked at the model also and thought this would be a good phone for me as well. The Nokia 3595 phone was available for only $19.99 each with our upgrade to our wireless plan. Appearance The Nokia 3595 is a small cellular phone with a color display. The size of this model is approximately 4 inches in length and 1 3/4 inches in width at the largest point and weighs a mere 3.76 ounces. It is lightweight and easy to carry either in your purse or clipped to your belt or pocket. This is a sleek little phone in a silver color. I really like the size of this model. I did not care for the mini flip phones, they were too small for me and got "lost" in my purse. I have no problems finding this phone and it is not so big that it is bulky. Features The Nokia 2595 has lots of features. I'm still finding new ones weekly! *Caller ID *Message and voice mail waiting indicators *One button call back for returning calls left from messages *Speed Dialing, 8 number capacity *Silent Mode and silent vibration mode *Enables you to answer calls by pressing most keys (except end, power, and selection keys) Display As mentioned before, the Nokia 3595 has a full color display. The display also shows the battery life with a total of 7 bars. It has a convenient "date" and "time" display which I use often. It also features 4 lines of display for text messaging with up to 30 characters per line. Stats! The Nokia 3595 operates with a lithium ion battery that gives you up to 330 minutes of "talk time" or 240 hours on standby. It operates on GSM/GPRS 850/1900 MHz systems. It also has memory functions and can store up to 500 name and number locations. Safety Features The Nokia 3595 is hands-free compatible for use in the car on busy by-ways, keypad lock, voice activated dialing (I haven't tried this one yet), and a personal security code. Advanced Features If the above features are not enough to peak your curiousity, take a look at these additional features. Nokia 3595 offers mobile instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger, wireless internet express for use with wireless devices, multi-media messaging with both images and text capability, regular text messaging, games (this model contains 4 standard games), wallpaper designs (change the background on your display), options to download ringtones, graphics and more games, polyphonic speakers, Java support for application downloads. Accessories The Nokia 3595 comes with a AC/DC recharger and an instruction book. Car phone chargers are sold separately as well as belt clips, hands-free devices, covers and cases. Ease of Use and Reception I found that switching to this phone was easy and learning the new features were also easy to learn. I managed to add my phone book list to this phone quickly for easy dial use. I use this function and the missed call function the most. Reception has been very good. Calls are clear and without static except in one area of town and that is near the airport. I have always had this trouble as long as I've been using a cellular phone. It must be due to microwave interference in the area. I've been using this phone for a little over a month now and I'm very pleased with the quality of calls and the durability of the phone. I'll give this one a 4.5 Stars! © 2004 Birdfeather Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 88876 2005/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 much like my old nokia 3360 that i was happy with great new features too did not come with a carrying case The Bottom LineI like the feel of the phone, its durability and ease of dialing. Full Review I had my Nokia 3360 for a couple of years. I recently joined the rest of my family with T-Mobile service. I had a choice of one of a couple of "free" phones. I went for the Nokia 3595 because I had good service with my previous Nokia and I liked the heavier, more solid feel over the offered small, toy like competition that had a protruding antenna. UPDATE February 2005 Unfortunately while playing some sports with my phone in my pocket I bumped the screen and lost the ability to read it. The phone otherwise still worked but is useless now for looking up stored numbers etc. I liked the phone but it has been phased out or at least I could not get it at the place I do business. I had to purchase another phone. Because I liked this one, I went for another Nokia, the 6010. It's the same basic shape but the buttons are different though all the functions remain the same. BE CAREFUL!! I suppose I should have read my instructions more carefully. I stored all my numbers into the phone, over 100 of them. When I changed the phone for a new one I simply switched out the sim card expecting all the phone numbers to be there. They weren't!! One MUST store on the sim card and not the phone in order to switch out phones. I ran into a couple of major phone problems because of this. The new phone now had to be programed. Be sure to do it into the sim card if you want to be able to switch phones. The second part of my problem is that I lost all the numbers that were in the first phone because I could not read the screen to retrieve them. Yikes! Back to the original review. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Though I liked the feel of the phone, I did have a bit of hesitation and apprehension when I saw the key board. It had an arrangement with two larger buttons in the middle that are the 2abc/5jhl and 8tuv/0. See the above picture. It feels like they work on a type of rocker switch. The other numbers straddle around the much larger middle buttons. These to seem to rock from side to side. The salesman told me that this styling had been tested and that it is easier, quicker and more efficient to dial this way. My first attempts proved different. It took a little time to get used to the format, but the fact is that now I really can dial more efficiently now. My thumb is more sensitive to where it is and where the other buttons around it are. I like it. GETTING TO KNOW MY NEW PHONE As I was about to open the box and take out my new phone I read some details. One said that EVERYTHING YOU NEED IS IN THIS BOX *Your Personal Digital Phone *Battery and Battery Charger *Hands Free Device *Manufactures Limited Warranty *T-Mobile Terms and Conditions *Your T-Mobile Welcome Guide with Everything you need to activate service today. I was hoping there might be a case but there wasn't one. While I was still in the store the T-Mobile rep had called in for a change from my previous AT&T service to have my original phone number switched to my new phone. I was originally told I may have to make calls with my new phone and receive with my old until all was finalized. He said it could take up to seven days. To my surprise it was all finalized in about two hours. This I knew because a call from the outside was routed to my new phone soon after I arrived home. It has been perfect ever since. The box also tells us that "This phone is sold for T-Mobile systems. It may not be compatible with other wireless systems." The salesman told me it is used for other systems. I suggest you talk to your reps about it. I do recommend this phone. The box also features T-ZONES, Access your Email while on the go. Look up the score of your favorite team, find a great restaurant or look up a movie and more Another says, DOWNLOAD GAMES, Shoot score, blast run, win! Download fill color games to your phone and turn it into the hottest arcade around! One more says, DOWNLOAD MEGATONES, Personalize your phone with Ring Tones that sound like real music. Choose from hundreds of downloadable options at my t-mobile.com Yes this means that you have to belong to T-Mobile, but the salesman told me other companies are offering these options too. The truth of the matter is I don't use all the technology that is in the phone. In a little while I'll share what I do use and what I think of it. The BOOK As I opened the box I took out the phone, charger, and hands free device. The SIM card was already put in the phone by the rep. Included was an introductory book to T-Mobile and more important to me Nokia 3595 user guide. This book was all in English so I didn't have to sort through pages that were useless to me. The 162 page user guide is pretty compact, written in bold enough lettering, and pretty easy to follow. It has a List of Menu Shortcuts that saves me time. In the back there is a Trouble Shooting section that, thankfully, I have not had to reference. I must say, I haven't been through the whole book and the fact is I probably never will. THE PHONE, FEEL and FUNCTIONS For those who care, I must say that size does matter. This isn't a little play thing, this one means business. As compared to my 3360, my new piece of equipment is longer yet slimmer. Four point six inches may not sound impressive but I have learned to do quite a bit with this baby. It feels good and ,when in my pocket, I don't have an unnatural large bulge in my pants. The use of the phone other than the change in the numerical keypad, is much the same as my old friend that took a lot of abuse and "kept on ticking". Whoops, sorry wrong product. The longer length also helps keep the antenna, that is enclosed in the phone, up higher and away from the hand as you hold the phone. This is supposed to help keep a better signal. I did find that, at times, though not often, I did have to move my fingers down lower on the old 3360 to get better reception. I am happy Nokia kept the simple male/female, easy in easy out, battery charge jack on the bottom of the phone. It makes attachment much easier than other phones with all the little wires that must match up and have locks that you must squeeze to detach. The hands free jack is also still on the bottom too. The battery, like in my older Nokia, seems to hold a charge a while. I also like that it charges up quickly. I had a charger for my car that I can still use with the new phone. I was very surprised that the initial charge to the phone took only a couple of hours. The book said it would take 12-24 hours for a full charge. I watched as the guy cut the seal on the box and set up the new phone with the battery and SIM card. It wasn't previously, partially charged. Some of my basic setups are the same. I like 1 touch dialing but a real pleasure in this phone is the Voice Tag. I had this in another phone a few years ago and found myself repeating the names over and over again. I don't know if it's the service or the phone itself, but I get connected the first time, nearly every time, except a few instances when I'm driving in my car with the radio blasting or outside noises interfere, but otherwise it is terrific! 14 voice-controlled names and numbers can be stored. I did not like the fact that I had to input over a hundred names and phone numbers into my new phone because the SIM cards of the AT&T service and T-Mobile were not compatible. I am told that now that I saved the new numbers to my SIM card I can transfer them to a new phone just by switch the card. Now if I happen to lose my whole phone, then I'm in trouble again. This will be especially true if I fill in the 500 spots that are available for name and number storage. I have gotten pretty efficient with text messaging and use it with my partner when he or I may be in a meeting and do not want to talk on a phone but want to get a quick word in. It took a few times of sitting alone with my phone to figure out the predictive text. It really is pretty cool how the little dictionary in the phone figures out what I am spelling out. That along with the new button set up makes me a wiz! Though, not often, I have Emailed people with my 3360 and 3595 Nokia's. It is easy and makes sense in certain cases. I suppose it would be the best way to keep in touch with some of the Epinoholics at this site. I still have not looked up how or if I can easily retrieve my Emails. The text on the box says I can. I like that when I'm not using the phone the time comes up in very large letters filling half the screen. I do find myself looking at the time from time to time to see the time. Anyways, it's big and I like it. Another feature I like is the "To do" list that is under my organizer section. I use the calender and clock as a reminder of meetings and a couple of birthdays. There is an important anniversary that I must not forget either. In my business when I work with Team Building Events I sometimes need a stop watch. This phone has one built in along with a calculator and alarm clock. The screen I do have to say that the clarity of the screen seems to have lost some definition when I look at it from the side during the day. It's perfect straight on. I liked the screen on the 3360 a bit better during the day though this one isn't bad. At night is when this screen shines. It is bright and very crisp and clear on the screen. When scrolling for numbers this screen has four numbers on the screen vs three the 3360 had. I was able to adjust the screen background color and intensity of the light the screen has. The phone comes with a few built in screen savers that were down right pitiful looking. I just use the plain back. The phone is just a shade lighter gray in color than the old one. It is attractive, It's actually a handsome looking phone and rugged. Light up the night! Another plus over my last Nokia is the lighted panel. All the numbers light up and are easily read in the dark. They light up in a blue colour while the on remains green and off is red. A Big Help The biggest improvement for me is the ring tones. The old Nokia wasn't loud enough for me in some situations. This has a number of selections and I found a combo vibration/ring that I can hear in most situations. I work in a party environment at times with speakers blasting music. The new "Low" tone makes it easy for me to hear. It's not low in volume, it's low in its pitch. I have trouble with higher pitched sounds. There were plenty of options and my kids tell me I can download some songs as a ring tone if I like. "I don't like". I can set the volume on this phone too. The silent feature sets up the phone so when the phone "rings" it starts flashing on the front displays and also along the sides of the telephone. What a simple yet great idea!! Another feature of this phone is a rubber piece molded into its back. This is molded for grip but more important the rubber is for safety. It keeps the phone from sliding on flat surfaces. I can place my phone on the dash board of my car and not worry about it sliding off. The rubber piece creates friction so it doesn't move. I sometimes use my wifes car and her dash is on a slight angle. By placing the phone on its back on the angled dash, I have no fears of it sliding off and onto the floor. It stays in place even when a sudden turn is made. This means less wear and tear on the phone too. I don't know how many times I had to search for my 3360 Nokia on the floor of my car somewhere. Games I don't waste much time playing games on the phone but I do want to mention this phone has a few built right in. Air Glide Bowling Sky Diver and Backgammon These have some color graphics and some cool sound with them, though I haven't really played much. I do like the backgammon that can be played alone or with another player. SUMMING IT UP I like my new Nokia 3595. The weight and feel in my hand and pocket is just right. I like the new dialing configuration and some of the new features. I particularly like the voice activating function and the, better for me, ring tomes. The phone has been dropped and I hope it, like my other Nokia, keeps on working well for me. Did I mention that the voice quality on the phone is excellent! It sure sounds good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 00.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 88875 2000/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use color screen with animation no antenna compact lightweight none The Bottom LineGreat Phone from Nokia... I am quite pleased! Full Review Having previously owned and really liked the Nokia 3390 Cellular Phone, I was excited when T-Mobile was nice enough to upgrade my phone to the Nokia 3595 just because I am such a loyal customer. I am pretty good at working gadgets, electronics and computers but I'm by no means an "expert" so I need something simple and easy to use, and since this is my 3rd Nokia cell phone, I've learned that Nokia phones are quite similar and so it makes it very easy for me to learn how to operate a new phone. The Nokia 3595 Cell Phone This phone is small (measuring 4.5" x 1.5") and comes with a grayish/taupe faceplate or cover. Good thing they make replacements since browns aren't my favorite color. Anyway, the phone is also very lightweight so it is easy to keep up with and very portable. There is no antenna sticking out of this phone and if my previous Nokia's are any indication of durability, it should hold up quite nicely. I have dropped my cell phone many times in the past and to my surprise, it never broke and I never had problems using it. The phone has a color screen that is really neat. It looks like a mini computer screen! You can even customize your background with different wallpapers and colors. You can also set the phone up to go to a screensaver or standby mode. The buttons are quite interesting. There are only 7 buttons that display all of the numbers on this phone. You'll have to look at the picture to see what I mean. The buttons are contoured though and easy to use and maneuver. The battery, when fully charged, provides 4.5 hours of talk time. It will also allow for 13 days of standby time. The phone comes with a lithium-ion battery. The charger that comes with the phone will fully charge the battery in about an hour. You can also purchase a charger that can be used in your vehicle. The service providers for this phone are T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless. Features This phone seems to do everything! I love the Phone Book Feature, I can store up to 500 contacts (including names AND phone numbers) in this phone! You can also set up voice dialing for up to 14 numbers. Some other features include: * 4 games: Backgammon, Sky Diver, Air Glide and Bowling * AOL Instant Messenger & ICQ, and Text Messaging * Download MegaTones, Wallpaper, Screensavers and Games * Alarm Clock * Customizable Ring Tones and Vibrating Alerts * Organizer * Animated Screen Saver * Calendar with up to 500 entries * To-do list with up to 30 entries Using The Nokia 3595 The phone is simple and easy to operate and I am really enjoying it. The reception is fantastic and I never have any problems with static or a bad connection, unless it is on the other person's end of the line. The phone also comes with a hands free headset so you can put the earpiece in and talk without holding the phone. The sound quality is really good and I like that I can adjust the volume on the phone as well. The phone is so simple to operate. If you can read and push buttons, you can operate this phone. There are easy guides and menus on the phone so if you get lost, it's easy to find your way out. There is also always a "Back" option if you did something you didn't mean to do. If you have owned a Nokia cell phone before, chances are you will easily be able to operate this model. I have found with the 3 Nokia's that I've owned that the set up and menus are quite similar. Overall Recommendation I am really pleased with this phone and Nokia. All my Nokia phones have been great and so I have become a fan of their products. If you wish to learn more about this phone, or purchase your own, you can visit www.tmobile.com (where I got mine) or www.nokia.com (the manufacturer's website). The phone retails for $50 but I got mine free from T-Mobile. Thanks for reading! ;-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freebieRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7769 Nokia 8290 89022 2005/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small changeable cases stylish might be too small Great phone really easy to use with loads of extras on the phone and to buy well worth the money. I owned one for a couple of years and I can't fault it 89021 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny size excellent national coverage great sms features very cheap none that i can tell so far Full Review Just bought this phone two days ago after having waited over 7 months. I had read every review in existence before buying, so I knew what to expect. So far it has lived up to all my expectations. First of all it has all the amazing features that nokia phones are known for. Menu navigation is the easiest and has the most flexibility. This particular model can also receive up to 5 custom ringtones. Considering how small it is, its amazing how well it works. Its on the GSM1900 network, which is nationwide in over 4500 cities. This one is truely tiny, yet still fits perfectly comfortably in your hand. The buttons are also just big enough for even large fingers. So far it has worked flawlessly. Reception is impeccable, especially when you consider that it has a completely internal antenna. It also has its own internal memory for 250 names, beyond the 250 names that you can fit in the SIM (500 names total). And its very easy to move names from the internal phonebook to the SIM card and vice-versa. It also has great battery life. So far it lasts 2-3 days before needing a re-charge, which is perfect for small business trips without needing to take the charger. Although, the charger is so small that even taking it isnt a problem. I paid $169 for the phone (Which is very cheap when you consider how sophisticated it is) and so far so good. I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 89020 2000/9/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great size the battery wears after 3 4 months Full Review HI Guys, I just purchsed this phone three days ago in India & here the Model number is Nokia 8210 so I am really not aware of the the model no. applicable in U.S. because the site is showing 2 handsets with the same photograph but different model nos. i.e. Nokia 8260 & Nokia 8290 so I writing this opinion regarding both the models. The Opinion begins now: I had been dreaming to buy this handset since three - four months. This phone is just great, it looks great, sounds great, feels great..... everything is great about it.I just love this, it is so small & light that now I even forget that it is lying in my pocket & keep on searching for it throughout the place. The best thing I like about this phone is that it has the nice express-on covers which makes it easy for me to to keep on changing the covers & sometimes other people ask me that why do I keep on changing my handsets & that how many handsets do I have with me. Well i like this phone because 1. Size 2. Vibrating Alert 3. Caller Groups 4. Profiles 5. Voice Dialling/Tags. 6. Looks 7. Display etc. etc....... 8. Express-on covers. This is too good, I feel that it is much better than the Nokia 8810 & 8850 as it is a little cheaper & of almost the same shape & size. I feel that if you are looking a handset in this size then this is the best buy. But yes the Nokia 8850 distinguishes one from other phone but at the same time it is very expexsive. To be very frank I was using the Nokia 8850 the other day & found the keys to be really tooo small & difficult to click on, altough the white light on it looks really great. If are looking for a handset then I would suggest u just 3 handsets 1.Nokia 8210/8260 2.Erickson T28s 3.Motorola V3688. Go for it By the way go to http://abhishek.epinions.com/user-abhishek & rate all my epinions & i will do the same with your epinions. Bye Abhishek Jain Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89019 2002/8/10 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 can change the looks cute small more ring options battery life is horrible no good recourse for faulty product The Bottom LineDo not buy this phone because there are no good replacement options if it doesn't work, it has been discontinued due to other problems but should have been recalled. Full Review I got this phone as a Christmas gift and by March the battery/phone was not holding a charge and wouldn't charge fully. I got a new battery and shortly after the battery/phone was doing the same thing. I went back to the place it was purchased and swapped it for another...still doing the same thing. Called my wireless carrier and they said they would replace it for a refurbished one if they could not fix the one I had. Didn't sound like a fair trade to me. Also can't use with it plugged into the car charger, you get a static noise. Now stuck with 2 nokias that don't work well...would suggest not buying nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89018 2000/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 this phone can do more tricks than a magic act easy to loose The Bottom LineThis is the most advanced phone out and can provide you with some money saveing features. Full Review This is the most awsome phone out!This phone is not only small and powerful it also has the ability to do more than just take calls. When I bought this phone,I thought it was just neat because of the size but little did I know what I had. After about a month I wanted to add some new ring tones, but didnt want to pay a buck a pop! So I surfed the web to get more info. I found out there were two other ways of downloading tones. one was to compose the tone and down load it threw a cable to the phone or buy some soft ware and a IRDA infrared adaptor.Well I bought the IRDA and downloaded the soft ware, Little did I know that the soft ware and THIS 8290 phone together could convert MIDI file to ring tones and transmit them to almost any other Nokia phone on almost any other sevice.You can also change logos, startup screens and download and up load your adress book entrys.But you must have the right software and there is only one program out that I know that works.Also this phone has exalent reception and clear as a bell. I have never missed a call !!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89017 2001/1/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 includes vibrating battery no annoying antenna small size none The Bottom LineBuy it, you will love it. Full Review I never wanted a cell phone until the Nokia 8290 came out. I like that I can carry it in my pocket and it doesn't take up a lot of room. I love how it comes with a vibrating battery. That is great when you are in a movie theater or in a meeting. I also like how it has an inferred capability. You are able to send a message to a printer or another 8290 phone. You are also able to play two-player snake, which might be cheesy, but it's fun. The clarity is usually good, unless you are under a bridge or way underground, but that is normal for most cell phones I know of. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.99 89016 2000/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size easy for men to carry in their pocket program small size makes it awkward to dial The Bottom LineI recommend this phone. It is the best I have owned based upon superior reception and small pocket size. Full Review After losing my Motorola StarTac which I lived because of its size, but was discouraged with because of reception issues and dropped calls--I decided to switch to the Nokia based upon recommendation of the sales person and the tiny sleek design. My salesperson assured me it was the latest technology and I would be pleased with the performance. She was correct. I immediately noticed I had superior reception. With the StarTac, I had certain dead areas within my apartment. I have no such problems with this Nokia. The reception is almost as good as using a landline. I have also noticed the battery seems hold up better than on the StarTac--although I have not done an objective measurement. It is smaller than the StarTac and fits easily in my pocket. On the downside--it was more expensive than other phones in the store. The keypad is very small and difficult to dial--but I knew this would be a problem as soon as I saw the phone. It has features such as games--which is essentially useless. I recommend this phone. It is the best phone I have owned thusfar and worth the extra money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89015 2000/5/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size features causes stares doesn t feel as sturdy as some flip phones The Bottom LineIf you're hesitant about getting this phone, don't be. You won't regret getting this phone. Full Review I bought my Nokia 8290 at the end of March 2001 and have been loving it ever since. I got mine through Voicestream service which has been pretty good. Before this phone I had the Nokia 6120, and the 5120 before that, but I was drawn to this phone mainly because of its size. It's the smallest phone out at the moment I believe (excluding flip phones). The Nokia menu and interface is very easy to use which is why I stuck with them through 3 phones. It has many features like games, a calculator (which is more useful than one may think), a calendar where you can store little reminders, infrared connection, and many others. The changeable faceplates is also a great plus. I changed my whole phone, front and back, to a silver housing, which, I think, makes it look much better. I also changed my lcd lights to hyper white/blue lights. This voids my warranty with Nokia so *shhh* =). The profiles are very convenient and useful, as are the caller groups. You can set different rings for different people so you know if you want to answer without looking at the caller ID. I believe this phone with Voicestream is $149 right now, which is not that bad (it was $170 a month ago), although I got my for $95 ($170 - $75 rebate) at Best Buy. If you're hesitant about getting this phone, don't be. It's a great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 95 89014 2000/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light small voice recognition good battery life difficult to type in email The Bottom LineGreat phone for people who like to keep it in their pocket. May be too pricey if it is $99, try to get it for cheaper price. Full Review I received this phone through my handset insurance when my Motorola phone broke. My provider is Cingular in Southern California area. - the size of this phone is the biggest reason to have this phone. It fits in my jean pocket without producing a lump and I can barely feel that I have something in there. - I use the provided earphone and the speech recognition to make phone calls in my car. The limitation is that the speech recognition is good for only a handful of numbers in your personal directory. - the provided earphone is excellent. I can use it inside a rather loud car on a freeway and the voice is still intelligible for the listener. It was better than the Jabra (sp?) earbud things. - I had some concerns that the reception on this tiny unit with no antenna may be bad, but the unit actually performed better than my bigger Motorola unit. - typing email using this phone is difficult due to two reasons - key entry system is difficult, even with Nokia's semi-intelligent entry system. Second reason is that the keys are very small even for my average sized hands. (this might be a general complaint about entering email with _any_ phones) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): N/A 89013 2000/11/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size no external antenna blt in vibration no detachable battery small on off switch Full Review Wanted a more compact phone to replace my Nokia 6190(great phone)....and this was it! Its small, lightweight, caller ID block, built in vibration, no external antenna, excellent reception, great clarity, and packs the same features as my 6190 and more! The main thing I did not care about was the lack of a pop-out battery for quick desktop replacement charges. The on and off button is very small, requires small fingers or your fingernails to activate. The whole phone is made with light plastic and is a little fragile. Not as durable as the 6190. I would recommend purchasing a leather case for the phone. Its a great buy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89012 2000/3/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek effective small great battery life buttons are kind of small The Bottom LineIf you need a phone without too many frills (who needs a web browser anyway) this is the one for you. So light, it's amazing. Full Review I could never have a cell phone. As a guy who didn't carry a briefcase, I refused to keep a bulky phone is my shirt or pants pocket. Thus, I remained unavailable. As soon as I saw the 8290, I knew I could finally have a phone. This phone is so small, people think it is a candy dispenser. The best feature of this phone is the battery life. If you don't make many calls, the phone only needs to be charged every three days. The second best feature is the internal battery. This makes the phone even more pocket-friendly.The Snap-On replaceable phone covers are great as well. Even if you're not style inclined, you can easily replace the cover if your phone gets scratched. The only real drawback is the small buttons. I have to take extra care when I dial to avoid wrong digits. However, with the quick dial function and the phone book, I rarely have to dial manually. Because this is such a popular phone, it is also very easy to get accessories on the Internet (especially EBAY). Beware of inferior knockoff snap-on covers. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 89011 2000/12/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 very light weight feels more like a toy Full Review This is a great phone and I won't rediscuss all the features of this phone. Voicestream in NYC area is great and it's a wonderful plan if you tend to stay mostly in the tri-state area for your "home coverage". But I would like to say this phone feels too much like a toy. It's elegant design is undeniable, but when you use it talk into, it feels more like you are holding something that someone can literally grab out of your hand. It's meager 2.8oz is a technical marvel, but if you want a phone with a better "feel" (and this is purely subjective), I recommend shopping for Sanyo phones (3500/4000/4500) which tends to have a longer handling-shape but very comfortable feel/hold to it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 89010 2000/6/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use charges quickly you may not always get a clear signal The Bottom LineI believe you should go out and look at this phone because it is light and easy to use. Full Review If you are looking for a small and easy to use cell phone look no further than the Nokia 8290. This phone has many enjoyable and convienent features to help you out. I bought this phone over a year ago and have never had a problem with it. Some features are 3-way, 2 outgoing lines, voice recognition, e-mail including text and graphics, a calendar which you can mark dates on, a calculator with different functions, 4 games to choose from which you can play against other people with your phone, call forwarding, many different ringers and you can even download them from the computer to your cell, and a phone book to keep all your friends phone numbers. One of the best things is changing the face plate of the phone because there are so many to choose from. I hope this will give you some of a reason to go out today and look at the Nokia 8290, you won't regret it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89009 2001/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 excellent reception easy to use light small reliability issues The Bottom LineI don't think I can recommend this phone due to it's reliability issues. Full Review I purchased the 8290 because I wanted a phone I could fit in my pocket. The 8290 fit the bill, due to it's small size and internal antenna. I have VoiceStream service in the Central NJ area, and have been relatively pleased with their service. The clarity is very good, and the phone is easy to use with intuitive menus. The only problem I have is with potential reliability issues. I've had the phone for 3 months, and the display started blanking out periodically. It got progressively worse until it just stopped working altogether. Voicestream shipped me a new phone which I received in a week. In all fairness, I keep this phone in my jeans pocket all day so it gets pretty beat up, but I'd expect it to last more than 3 months. I'm hoping this is a problem with my particular phone and not a defect in all of them. I'll keep you posted. Update: I just received a replacement phone about a month ago, and I am now having problems with the display on the new phone. I thought the first problems I had may have been a aberration, but it seems that the phone just isn't built as well as it should. 2nd Update: I am now on my 3rd Phone. I haven't had the problems with the display yet; however, the reception on this new phone isn't as good as the first two, and I'm getting a lot of static. I'm losing faith quickly in this phone, and will probably get a different phone when my contract is up. 3rd Update: Happened again. This time the vibrating function has quit working, so I've been sent a 4th phone. This one seems a bit more solid than the last phone they sent me. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 169 89008 2000/7/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small good reception good voice quality extremely light i m afraid to drop it or bump it against anything small keys The Bottom LineAll in all, I';d recommend this phone to anybody looking for a good quality, small, lightweight phone. As an alternative, check out the LG TM510 from Verizon. Full Review I should have titled this 'My "qwest" for the perfect phone' since the whole reason I started looking in the first place was because of bad reception I was getting on the phones I tried with Qwest Wireless. Anyhow, I did quite a bit of research before I bought the 8290...I read all the epinions reviews, read the CNET reviews, looked through the newsgroups, etc. Based largely on all the great reviews, I decided to purchase the 8290 from Voicestream. To be honest, I would have preferred to go with Verizon (since they offer roaming in neighboring states where I travel occasionally and Voicestream doesn't) but Verizon doesn't offer a comparable phone and the text paging isn't as good. I've had the phone for about a week now and I really like it a lot. It's so small and lightweight that you hardly know it's there most of the time. Despite its diminutive size, it seems to be well constructed. The buttons, although cramped, aren't that hard to use once you get used to them. Voice quality is very good…at least as good as if not better than the other phones I've tried recently - even with the earpiece. In addition, the reception on this phone is great. With my previous phones from Qwest (Kyocera 2035, Nokia 6185) I usually didn't get any bars deep inside the building where I work…with this phone I get 3 bars. One of my co-workers has an Audiovox from Verizon and he typically gets 2 bars. Bottom line on reception is that it seems to be more of a function of the carrier than the phone, but whereas I routinely lost calls before I haven't lost a single call on my 8290. My only concern with the phone is its fragility. Every time I wear the phone (on a belt clip) when I'm working outside I'm afraid that I might bump it against something, causing it to get scratched or worse. I have a feeling it wouldn't take much to cause some major damage to the phone. I wish there was a case that offered more protection for the face of the phone but I haven't found anything yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89007 2000/11/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 strikingly beautiful painfully unreliable Full Review The problem with all this small Nokias is always the same: they look irresistible, they perform poorly. As much as I wanted to resist the urge to once again run to the cell shop and get my hands on the coolest looking phone I´ve ever seen, that little nasty voice inside my head kept saying: " What the heck... think how cool it would be to be the first one in the office to own such a sexy little phone..." $220 USD later along with a 8 month extension in my service contract (When will I learn??), a blue 8290 specimen lays in the palm of my hand, waiting for his master to unleash all the magical powers locked inside it. As usual, if you have been punching around the menus in any Nokia you will immediately feel at home. The problem is that the buttons are so small that you always have to make shure you are pressing the right ones, a situation that becomes increasingly annoying as calls get more and more urgent. The overall feel of the phone is discustingly plasticky: maybe the interchangeable color faces is not a good idea after all. Flimsy phones are a major turn off, and in this particular case, mine was so full uf funny noises while manipulating it that my visual love affair began to fade away. The sound quailty is a little better than the 88´s but still, in this mediocre cellular coverage environment, you will get lots of interference and unwanted echoes. even with a strong signal readout, sometimes its impossible to complete calls, becoming a waste of time and money. The manual says reception quality has been enhanced by new technology, but once again I find this statement very hard to believe and almost impossible to confirm. Considering the fact that I must still use this phone for at least another 6 months, I cant help it but feel ripped off. The only thing that helps ease the burden is a superb LOOOONG battery life (can go for 5 days of calls on one load). This is the last time I buy a Nokia this size....until they come out with a newer, sexier phone. Do you know of a good Cell phone therapist for compulsive suckers like me? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 220 89006 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 more voice dialing light weight easy to use active ir port vibrate not web enabled The Bottom LineFor the money and the features, there is no better phone on the market! Ease of use and portability make it a must have for any man of woman! Full Review The nokia 8290 is the best phone on the market for the money. It has about a 3 hour talk time, up to 6 days of standby time on its battery. It has voice dialing, vibrate mode, an active infared port on the side for linking up with palm's and/or laptop computers, it can store up to 500 names and numbers, built in calendar, calculator, games, 36 ring tones with the capability to download 5 personal rings and much more. Overall this phone is the best phone on the market for the non-world traveller or someone who doesn't need the internet. If you can wait to check your e-mail until you get home go with this phone. The $99 price tag at any Cingular wireless store includes a handsfree headset, a home charger, a choice of color on the face plate, and a little more if you play your cards right with the sales person! Nokia is the most successful phone company for a reason, they make the best phones on the market. As far as concern for easily breaking the phone, you should always insure any phone, even the free ones. When these phones are bought outright(not in conjunction with a new contract) you can add about $250 to the price of any of them! Insurance is as little as $2.95/month and the deductible is only $35 when you make a claim (you do the math if you lose your phone with or without insurance!) Almost forgot, it also has predictive text which predicts what you are writing in the text messaging mode, a service that is free on any cingular wireless plan that allows you to send and receive e-mails on your phone as well as write short messages to other Cingular wireless phones. Good luck and happy talking! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89005 2000/5/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cool look small size headset poor user s manual small size The Bottom LineOverall, a pretty cool phone. Avoid it if you lose things easily. Full Review I needed a new phone after my old Nokia started giving out on me. I was drawn to the 8290 because of its small size (although I was a bit afraid that I would lose it) and seemingly cool capabilities. I also liked the headset. The phone works pretty well. Most of the time, the person on the other end of the phone can't tell that I am on a wireless. And although it is small and difficult to talk on, the headset makes up for that. May look kind of funny while I am wearing it, or like I am talking to myself, but it leaves my hands free to work on other things. The 8290 supposedly has an email capability. The user's manual mentions this, but never tells the user how to use this function. And trying to learn it on my own has proved futile. This has been the biggest disappointment thus far. I often miss calls because I am unable to dig my phone out quickly enough. The phone has the option of using downloaded ring tones, which are seeming to become easier to find. I do miss the "Take me out to the Ballgame" ring of my old phone, but I will get over it. I also really like the vibrating ring, which has saved me several times from missing a call. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89004 2000/9/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 loads of features pretty small accessories small keypad Full Review I bought this phone to replace a larger, heavier phone I always dreaded carrying around. Smaller than a pack of cigarettes, the 8290 fits in your jacket/shirt pocket without creating embarrassing bulge. I like the voice-recognition feature and the fact that VoiceStream ships it with a headset. You can download model-specific software from Nokia's website to use for phonebook administration, etc. The phone has an infrared-port that connects directly to that of a laptop or notebook computer, and can therefore also be used as a modem. The keys are very small (probably designed with female users in mind), but one gets used to that pretty quickly. The 8290 is for people who hate carrying large phones in addition to all the clutter of everyday life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 184 89003 2000/12/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small lightweight all the features you really need in a cell phone buttons are tiny easy to make unintended calls The Bottom LineBuy it unless you have $200 to spend on one with all those bells and whistles you don't really need. Nothing else in its price range even comes close. Full Review I bought a Nokia 8290 from a Cingular Wireless kiosk and took advantage of the upgrade discount. The phone ended up costing me about $70 at that time when the MSRP was around $200. I really like the phone. It has a myriad of aftermarket options available. My current faceplate and battery cover are silver and it looks a lot better than most 8290s out there. I also sprung for super white LED lights which add an additional personal touch to separate it from the many 8 series I see on the street. There are an infinite number of ringtone options to download also. I have few complaints about the phone. I get few dropped and missed calls, especially compared to my old 5 series Nokia, which seemed to never get a call. Sound clarity is excellent, and my voice seems to be heard by all parties I call, even at a whisper. The headset is also excellent, especially its integrated voice-dialing button, which comes in handy when driving. It is extremely small and fits easily in your pocket. I never realize that it is even in there. I have dropped the phone on hard surfaces countless times and besides a few minor scratches, it has emerged relatively unscathed. Now to the problems. There is no keypad cover so it easy to place calls without even realizing it. You can fix this by locking the keypad or buying an aftermarket faceplate, but it's a minor hassle to constantly lock and unlock your phone, and I don't really like how the faceplates with covers look. Also, if you are a female with long nails, it can probably be cumbersome dialing on the tiny buttons. It also sucks playing snake no matter your gender. But those are minor quibbles and all-in-all, the 8290 is a great phone. Battery life is excellent. I talk all day on it and have never run out of juice. The phone book is huge and predictive text input is a definite plus. I believe this phone will give you the most bang for your buck, especially at the low price it's being offered at now. (My girlfriend got one free with a new contract.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89002 2000/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size none Full Review I love my new NoKiA 8290. This phone is definitely the best looking phone on on the market right now second to none. The NoKiA 8290 is very affordable because there are so many rebates our for it right now. The NoKiA 8290 is the most convenient phone; fitting comfortably in your pocket unlike most other phones. The sound resolution on the phone is excellent. The service is provided by Voicestream, which in my opinion is probably the top cellular service. The NoKia kind of phone are the best because they have more options that any one of their competitors. You can do almost anything you want with the phone ranging from playing GAMES to writing text messages. I also enjoy the nice ringing tone. The NoKiA 8290 should definitely be your choice of phone! :} Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 89001 2000/10/13 Product Rating5.0 good none Full Review The phone that I had, was a startac. One of those small things that open up, unstable, that break a lot. Yeah that's it. Well, I got sick of even that phone, which is considered to be one of the best phones ever! The new cellphone that I got is Nokia 8290. I thought it was going to be just like all the other phones, so I just basically wanted to get a new phone that looks different. When I made my first couple of calls, dropped the phone like three times, flashed it down the toilet and all that stuff, I noticed that this thing can survive the most harsh punishments! I started liking it. I am a very busy man, and I call a lot. I remember those horrible headaches fromthe Startac phone, and this one doesn't even give me headaches. The volume is just right, the phone is tiny, strong, unbreakable and all that good stuff. Right now I'm using it, I will update this opinion everyday to tell how I am doing. Goo dluck. Recommended: Yes 89000 2000/2/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 stylish size durable easy to modify features etc talk time reception The Bottom LineIf you want the latest, the most stylish and can handle bad receptions, this is your phone! Full Review Nokia, the brand I trusted since the first day I started using mobile phone. Nokia 8290, the latest Nokia GSM phone sold by PacBell Wireless of San Francisco (by this time now, it should be called Cingular Wireless). The phone is nearly perfect in anyway. Clarity is no big deal to hassle about this phone because this is a GSM phone. The only down slide about this phone is reception. PacBell Wireless is well known in servicing poor reception anywhere out of downtown San Francisco, therefore, it is no surprise. The reason why I bought this phone is because of its stylish look and X-Press-On faceplate feature. This feature is so handy that changing faceplates can be done in less than 10 seconds while it¡¦s brother, the Nokia 8260, has to unscrew 7 T6 screw before you can even reach to the core of the phone while one screw is being hidden under the antenna. While the X-Press-On faceplates are also being used in the Asia and European market (know as Nokia 8210 and Nokia 8250 in Hong Kong) selections are very wide. Foreign language selection is also very wide; the most lovable part of this feature is that it includes two type of Chinese layout, both Traditional and Simplified. The Voice Tag feature is also very nice, able to call anyone by shouting his or her name to the phone, like using a walkie-talkie. GSM phones has the ability to download ring tones for several years already, yet this have not changed, yet, Nokia added an additional four ring tone slot the phone, making it more stylish. No more physical data cables are needed anymore because this phone is packed with an IR connector, able to transmit data via the IR port. The only thing I hate about this product is reception. I can barely get any signal on the street I live on. The signal meter starts dropping like the stock market did when the bus starts going up the hill, what a shame. Besides reception, this is a perfect phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 + TAX 88999 2000/3/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish lots of features extremely portable small display gives out after about 8 months easy to lose The Bottom LineI would not recommend buying this phone, unless you don't care about replacing it in less than a year. It's not worth the (relatively) high price. Full Review When I first got my Nokia 8290 mobile phone, I was more than happy with it. I loved it. It was the perfect size to carry around with me, it had all the features I could want, and it looked cool too. I used it happily for about eight months before things started going bad. The first thing that happened was I lost two horizontal lines in the display. The rest of the display was fine, but I just couldn't get those two lines to show up. It stayed that way for about a month. Then, I lost the entire display. It got to the point where I was shaking my phone violently before I tried to make a call, just so I could see the numbers I was pressing. Finally, it gave out all together. If I pressed a specific place on the case and held that down while pressing one of the volume buttons on the side, i could get the display to come on as long as I was holding down those buttons. Far from an ideal situation. I also know a few other people who have the same model of phone, and they've all had similar experiences. I'm really sad to say goodbye to my phone, as everything else about it was great. If you don't card about seeing what buttons you're pressing, or who is calling you before you answer the phone, then this is a great phone. Or, if you can afford to replace it every 8 months than it's also a great phone. But, if you're just an ordinary person like me who wants a phone with a working display, then I would suggest getting another model. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 139 88998 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small battery life lightweight small buttons Full Review My main reason for buying this phone was that I switched cellular providers. Overall performance is superb on this phone. It rings loud and clear, the vibrate function works the best of any phone I have had. The battery life is great and charges very quickly. The only downfall of this phone are the small buttons. I have big fingers and its hard to dial on the move or in low light. But if you utilize the voice tag features for you frequent calls than this eliminates that problem. As noted in previous opinions this phone is very uncomfortable to talk on for more than 5 minutes. But with the included hands free headset this makes up for that. The hands free set works excellent. Overall I wouldnt trade this for any other phone out there ( maybe digital Motorola Vader ). I know three other friends with this phone and the are very happy with it as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88997 2000/3/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to carry unique snap on covers too expensive can t adjust ring time buttons to small The Bottom LineThis phone is always trendy, but not always the most functional. Full Review I've owned this phone for over a year now. I still have it....so that must say something (or maybe I'm just too lazy to shop for another). Things I like: It's a conversation piece--everyone is always checking it out because of its very small size. It fits into a pocket or any other compact area very easily. The functions were very easy to learn. I get to text my friends who use the same service for free. The battery seems to last forever. The smaller the phone, the less radiation (LOL). Things I don't like: It gets lost in my purse (but then so does everything else). For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to adjust the phone so that it will ring long enough for me to answer it. By the time I find it in my purse, the voice mail has already picked up. Maybe it's me....if anyone knows how to adjust this....let me know please! Thanks! The loudest ring setting isn't loud enough to be heard in a noisy area. The snap on face plates are too expensive. The buttons are too small. The phone calls people when it's in my purse (Unless I have it on lock--god knows who it'll call--and what you'll be saying about THEM at the time!!!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 88996 2002/8/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 compact excellent features very user friendly phone freezes up poor reception in certain areas The Bottom LineWhen the information brochures say "network dependent" believe it! Make sure your GSM provider has adequate coverage where you want to use this phone. Full Review The Nokia 8290 I have used in Michigan with VOICESTREAM wireless has never provided me one full day of complete and satisfactory service. However, when I take it to other locations (i.e. Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto) this phone performs better than my old 6290. The phone itself is very small, something that may be a double-edged sword: Its portability is excellent, but those with large fingers/hands may find it difficult to dial using one hand. However, the voice dialing feature is a useful remedy. The menu/user interface is excellent, you shouldn't even have to crack open the manual for anything else but bathroom reading! The phone clarity (provided a normal signal strength) is superb: I have yet to find a wireless phone to match it. Due to its size and the interchangeable covers, the phone does feel a bit tender (makes you feel like you want to baby the phone) but I never subject my electronic equipment to anything vaguely resembling a stressful environment, so I cannot speak well to its durability. However, with that said, there are some MAJOR flaws with the 8290, though arguably they are more due to the wireless provider than anything else. In Ann Arbor, under a Voicestream network, I rarely receive a full signal, more likely than not absolutely no signal, and the battery cannot go for more than a day if 10-15 minutes of talk time are used. The phone also freezes up on me. However, in other network locales, I have a permanent 4-bar signal meter, and the battery lasts literally for 1 full week. You may say that Voicestream runs the networks in Atlanta and Chicago (for GSM) so why the difference? Well, Powertel in Atlanta originally erected the GSM coverage and was subsequently bought out by Voicestream. In Chicago, the network is under 2 years old, and perhaps they used more/better towers in constructing the Chicagoland network. Thus, your phone experiences with the 8290 (might also include ALL GSM phones) can be largely influenced by the wireless coverage. But, as far as the 8290 goes itself, if you are looking for a "candybar" phone (as opposed to flip-style, which, in my opinion are inferior) you'd be hard-pressed to find one with more features and better quality than the 8290. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88995 2000/9/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny sleek can change to your taste none see review Full Review I have owned a Nokia 6190 for over a year and have been really pleased with its performance, but I wanted a new toy and we needed an extra phone for my girlfriend. In my opinion, Nokia makes the best looking phones on the market by a landslide, but I wanted something a little smaller than what I had (because the 6190 is so huge, right?). After passing on the 8800 series (sooo cool, sooo expensive), I heard about the upcoming 8200 series. Almost the same features as the 8800s, the X-press On covers that made the 5100s so brilliant, and a more reasonable price tag. The fact that is was hard to get my hands on one added to my "first kid on the block" excitement. After seeing the phone online a million times, I was still dumbstruck to hold it in my hand and see how small it really is. About 5/8" thick and the size of a business card. It's very light, but doesn't feel flimsy. The 8290's sound quality is as good or better than the 6190, which is to say it's excellent. The phone's design is beautiful, and navigating the features is pre-school. From the interchangeable covers to ring tones to the profile settings, this phone is super customizable. This phone lacks any WAP ability (though it does support data transmission), but I'm still curious why people think browsing on a 1 1/2" screen would be cool. That may be a con to some, but I don't miss it. In short, this is a beautiful, affordable, well-made phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.99 88994 2000/9/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact features weight reception easy to use Full Review I have had several phones in the last two or three years. I find that the Nokia 8290 has been the best by far. It is lightweight, compact, easy to use, has great features and great reception. The 8290 has also been extremely reliable. I recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a cellular phone. I tried many phones before I bought this one. I found that it has better features, reception, and reliability than most phones. My experience so far (2 months) with the Nokia 8290 has been absolutely wonderful, no problems at all. I have not tried its Rome features though, I have heard that they may be a problem at certain times and areas. Other than that, this phone is perfect. Recommended: Yes 88993 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 many functions small disconnects many times The Bottom LineIts not a great phone to be crazy about. Full Review I had tried many different kind of Cell Phones. Well 3.. Motorola Timeport ( the one that looks like startec flips ), Samsung 6100, and this one Nokia 8290. Here are my comparison With this phone I am having many problems which I never had with others. 1. Phone gets really hot, when you talk for only short time. 2. For some strange reason my arm and hand hurts when using the phone, even less than a minute. Which makes me use the handsfree 3. Since it doesn't have any cover that covers the buttons it calls people when I am not. I put the phone in my pocket and it moves around somehow pressing talk button calling who I called last. It comes with key locking capability, but its annoying. 4. Too small buttons. The Motorola and Samsung one had easy, big buttons even though the phone size was small. ( notice the samsung 6100 is almost exact same size as this nokia one except that it has antenna) 5. For some strange reason, even though it saids I have "4" connection it disconnects me. Its not like beep beep..service busy.... its just hangs up..I have no clue why. Other than that.... Games, changing covers, are great. When I am like bored I just take out the phone, and play the games. The price I got this was free... The dealer I went had special deal on that week. but I think its like $99 in the market. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88992 2000/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use light small many features long battery life not bluetooth compatible if you know what that is Full Review The cell phone market is going towards smaller phones with more features, and the smallest phone with the most features at the moment is the Nokia 8290. This is the most fashionable phone on the market. Available on GSM networks only, it is packed with features such as infrared so that you can send your address book from your computer or PDA to your phone instantly. Also, messaging (with built in dictionary for predictive text input), large screen, changeable faceplates, and other customizable features make it the most appealing phone on the market. Its voice quality is great, although the microphone is located far away from the user's mouth making it pick up a little background noise. The phone is durable, as I have witnessed it dropped on many occasions. Anyone who is in the market for a new phone should seriously consider the Nokia 8290. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 88991 2001/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 ir port wearability have to push button to activate voice dial Full Review Geek. Nerd. Gadget freak. Ok, I admit it. That's me. Due to problems in my area (Houston) with Sprint (HORRIBLE SERVICE), I had to begin the hunt for a new provider. After reading up on the types of service (GSM, CDMA, TDMA), I decided I wanted GSM, which left me with VoiceStream. VoiceStream's calling area has recently expanded, giving them the same national coverage as other providers. Then it cam time to pick a phone. I was really hating that I was going to have to give up my StarTac. For me, "wearability" is my number one requirement, and the StarTac addresses that nicely with it's belt clip. I initially passed on the Nokia 8290 - it was almost TOO small. You do need to be able to hold on to the darned thing during a call! I was looking at the Ericcson T28 Worldphone (also a very cool phone!). As we were about to ring up the Ericcson, the salesperson mentioned the Wireless Infrared port on the side of the Nokia 8290. I was sold!! Being in a geek business (software), I carry my Palm Pilot everywhere, as do most of my colleagues. With the Nokia, I can beam phone numbers to and from the phone, just like with my Palm Pilot. In addition, Nokia offers a free PC Suite application which lets you use your PC to enter information to your phone. (ATTN NOKIA: I need the application in Win2K, please. Right now it is only offered in Win98!) I am holding my breath that Nokia will figure out a way to use this infrared connection to let me dial up my internet provider!!! Hint! Hint! Nokia? Are you listening? You will not believe all of the features contained in this tiny little phone. If you own the cool looking (but not so cool working) chrome phone, be aware that the antenna is drastically improved! Reception on this phone is near perfect!!! One caution - the 8260 is almost identical to this phone in appearance, but without the IR port...this is available on CDMA/TDMA networks - the 8290 is only available on GSM. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 88990 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 signal everything features you may lose it if you don t keep tabs on it Full Review I love this phone. Upgrading from a Nokia 5190(great phone too!) is awesome. This phone has sooooo many more features and is really advanced. I fell in love with it the second I saw it, and couldn't resist getting it! There has been nothing I have found to be wrong with it, except a possiblity of losing it because it is so small and light! THis phone would be a perfect gift for anyone, and I know they will like it! Get it for your teenagers and family, anyone who wants to be in style! It has plenty of menus, and the IR is awesome! I love the voice dialing option too, it is so convenient. It also has an excellent signal! Get one today! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88989 2000/10/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use cheap none Full Review About a month ago I was in the market for a new cell phone. After doing a lot of research I went with the nokia 8290. There are many reasons that I picked up this phone. First off, the size was perfect. It is so small that it fits right in your pocket and it is very light. Next it is fairly cheap I paid about $149.99. The clearity of this phone is great. No longer will you have to wait for signals so you can talk on your phone. I use it inside, in the car, at work and at school. I am very happy with this purchase. I just wish I had the phone a long time ago. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88988 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 small size a little cheap Full Review This phone is indeed quite small, but while it exceeds in looks, actually using it is another story. Every button on the phone is rigid plastic (takes me back to my ninja turtles action figure days) and the power button is literally as large as an eyelash. Earlier Nokia phones were made of a slightly stronger plastic, and seemed much tougher than current phones. Additionally, the grey paint on the buttons is apt to scratch off, revealing the true color of the plastic. Likewise for bright color snap-on covers. Additionally, the phone has no external antennae, instead relying upon an internal loop to achieve a cellular signal. This method works decently, but could certainly be a drawback when you need access to the network in a pinch. In my opinion, the phone is, in technical terms, behind the times. There is no minibrowser support at all. The battery door is also often loose. If you're on a budget, and like bright blue cellular telephones that have "take me out to the ballgame" as a ringtone option, than, by all means, go with this Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 88987 2000/11/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 a very handy piece i dont think any Full Review - the best i have seen in my life - a have great experience with this piece i have never got a network problem till now and its facility make my life much easier - its appearance its options - to make the real and easy use of mobile services - if you really want to use the mobile services to their potential in your business development and working then you should buy this piece - if your a corporate person or a owner oaf a company or running a business in which you have to go from one place to other use this piece Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88986 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 intuitive tiny reliable small size is a little disconcerting at first The Bottom LineTiny, clear, long battery life, what more could you want? Just don't drop it too far. Full Review This is my second phone. The last was another Nokia, but it was huge, heavy, unwieldy, go get a thesaurus and keep adding your own words. This one is great. It fits in my pocket without a problem, the charge lasts quite a while. I've only dropped one call, and in that instance I was underground anyway. The menus are very simple to navigate, it's easy to do just about anything with this phone. And it has games built in. The only problems I've had so far are that it's so small, it takes a bit of getting used to. It only extends about halfway down your face. Fortunately, the mic picks everything up just fine, even clearer than the last one I had. The other thing is that the instructions are a little vague in some spots, but so far that hasn't been a problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88985 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size stylish easy to use not all accessories available in the usa yet Full Review Nokia has done it again! The 8290's great styling, easy use, and compact size are the selling points for me. I recently upgraded from a Nokia 5160 and was already familiar with Nokia's controls. I really like the small size as it is easier to slip into a pocket than it is to wear on a belt. This means no more whacking it against tables or shelves while walking through tight spaces. The internal antenna works great and there is nothing that sticks out to snap off. It comes with two different color face plates to change at your whim. Also Nokia sells other colors and styles that you can choose. Other bells and whistles include an IR port, a Nokia handsfree set, customizable and downloadable ringers (available later in the year), voice dialing for hands free use, and it can even act as a PDA! You truly won't be able to go anywhere without someone asking about the phone! It is an attention getter. The small size and load of features are idea for the businessman, the parent, or the traveler. If you want a phone that has digital clarity, small size, and ease of use, go with the Nokia 8290! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88984 2000/2/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 portable stylish easy to use small functional absolutely nothing at all The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a new phone and can afford this slightly more expensive model of Nokia.. the 8290.. buy it! It is a must have. Full Review At first, I remained loyal to my Nokia 5100 and wouldn't think about buying another phone. However, after laying eyes on this Small and Stylish Nokia 8290 I knew i had to get it. The 8290 matches the ever-popular 5100 in functionality. The best part about the 8290 is that it is small and very portable. It measures only about 3.75" tall! Fits nicely into the palm of your hand. Along with the traditional features of Nokia phones such as calculator, entertaining games, text messaging (my favorite option), multiple ring tunes... this 8290 features a calandar in which you can make notes and set alarms for your notes, and also "evironmental sound settings". You can before hand program in different settings for your surroundings. If in school or in a business meeting, you can set everything on silent and turn vibration on. If on normal mode you can set however loud you want your ring tunes to be. There is also an outdoor mode which allows you to make everything extra loud. You man also now customize ring tunes for different people that call in. If its your best friend calling in you would beable to recognize his/her call by assigning an unique tune to their name. Another useful function included with this phone is "voice activated dialing". Speak a persons name into your phone and have it dial automatically for you! All in all this phone is a great value for its price and it is easy to use for everyone! for additional information visit www.nokia.com thanks for reading this Epinion! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85 88983 2000/10/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight phone small no wireless web or voice dialing Full Review I must say, this phone is good. Could be better, but it's good. I recently switched services from Sprint PCS to AT&T and purchased this phone with the AT&T service. I was disappointed with Sprint's service especially after they hype they promote in their commercials. With Sprint I'd have my calls dropped though I had a full signal. Or I'd 9 out of 10 times get a Network Busy error as they are oversubscribed, at least in the NYC area. With AT&T I have none of those problems. The signal is great throughout the NYC area and the AT&T plan I have is great for my needs. No network busy signals either! The best thing I like about this phone is its light weight. Its small size makes in unobtrussive and you'll hardly know it's there. And it has an earpiece and microphone for hands free use. It even has a button on the microphone to pick up and hang up the calls. The phone has the ability to use text messaging and paging and can send and receive emails. Different built in profiles allow for easy switching from meetings to silent to outdoor to normal modes. The one think I don't like about the phone, though, which my old Sprint phone had, is the wireless web. Then again, I think I spend too much time online as it is to need it on my phone. And a nice feature to have would also be voice dialing. All in all though, the phone is great and is one of the best phones I've had the pleasure (or displeasure) of using. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 minus a promotional atm card of $50 88982 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny lots of features great clarity small buttons hard to hold Full Review When Voicestream hit the New York market, it was a great opportunity to look at a new celluar provider as a replacement for my marginal (if that) ATT service. I was skeptical of the coverage in the area since GSM has not been as popular as in the states CDMA and TDMA over the years. The selling point for me was that I got a great deal on the Nokia 8290. The phone is tiny and full of features. Like all other Nokias the 8290 is soldily built. It has up to 200 min talk time and 6 days standby. The phone can be used to send and receive text messages and emails. The buttons are a bit small but once you get used to them there isn't much of a problem. It can be used as a wireless modem and has infared capability. It has a predictive input to make writing text and emails very simple, its large display also is very accomodating. There are numerous ringtones and user profiles to customize the phone. The call quality is great and the coverage has been superb. I have gotten clear reception from NYC to Dutchess County. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88981 2000/12/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life great color covers sometimes doesn t recognize your voice Full Review Well Nokia's at it again and upped the ante for style with their Nokia 8290, the newest successor to the award-winning Nokia 5190. Available in different colors more appealing to your eyes and make your mouth water, this phone packs a large punch in such a little package. For starters, this phone utilizes GSM 1900 Mhz Technology, the standard that's being used worldwide. As an opinion, I like this technology. It uses a smart card, from which I can switch from phone to phone if I choose to buy a new one. But let's stick to this one for now. Well what do you get when you buy this phone? > 2-way Text Messaging > EFR and EHR coding, to save battery life and/or increase call quality > Predictive text input, which acts as a lifesaver when you write messages > 250 name and number directory > 3-6 Days Standby and 2-3 hours Talk time > Voice Dialing! -and last, but not least- >IrDA Compliant hardware to sync up with your PC. Willing to buy? Expect to pay at least $100 if you also activate new service. You can also change the look for your own flavor with X-Press on color covers. Whatever the mood, there's a cover for you! So those in style, be sure to get this phone before it goes out of style! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88980 2000/10/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it s a nokia size a bit flimsy Full Review I have both the 8260 and the 8290. To my surprise these are very different phones. Not only is the transmitter different, which I expected (TDMA vs. GSM), but the software is significantly different, as is (gasp!) the size of the phone. The 8290 is actually quite a bit thinner than the 8260 and to my estimation, slightly narrower. The major difference, here is the construction. They keys are smaller and don't have as solid of a feel as the 8260. Dialing numbers and using the menus just doesn't feel right coming from an 8260 and (prior to that) a 6162. Look, this is a Nokia phone, so don't get me wrong...it's still pretty great. I very much prefer the 8260 even though I don't get the IR port or the voice dialing. Voice dialing isn't as well implemented on the 8290 as the Samsung 8500, but the software (menus, etc.) is much cleaner on Nokia's phone. I think Nokia has really pushed the limit on size with the 8290. It's pretty incredible what they've done here. For me, the 8290 with it's slightly smaller footprint is just a bit too small. Add that in with what appears to be cheaper construction and I really prefer the 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88979 2000/6/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 decreased radiation emissions light weight small size poor signal reception weak vibration The Bottom LineAside from the size, this phone has no real advantages over previous Nokia models. Full Review I originally purchased the 8290 as an upgrade to my Nokia 6190. I must say, I'm not sure I can really call it an upgrade, but more of a swap. First, the pros. The size is obviously the largest factor (excuse the pun) in the consideration of this phone. Its diminutive size not only makes it an excellent pocket companion, but also decreases the weight enough to make carrying the phone not much of a chore. The rectangular size allows it to be placed on the inside of a suit jacket, which is in stark contrast to the 6190, which had the antenna bulging out the top, and battery bulging on the side. Secondly, the radiation emissions are considerably lower than on any other Nokia phone (except the 8890). Granted, nothing has been proven regarding cell phone radiation and human health, but I'd much rather be safe than sorry, so I appreciate a better shielded phone. Sadly, the cons: Reception. I notice at LEAST a one bar drop in signal strength over my 6190, which results in exactly NO coverage in some formerly low-coverage areas, which is my biggest complaint. Thus, in my pocket, sometimes it will not receive calls that the 6190 would. Vibration strength. This may be a mixed blessing, but I'm not sure. It is nice that the vibration feature is standard in the phone (no special battery), but it is not very strong. Sometimes my old phone's vibration would be audible during meetings, so the 'silent' mode wasn't so covert after all. The 8290 is pretty quiet on vibrate, but is also pretty weak, which again, has caused me to miss many calls. As I stated earlier, the swap between this phone and the 6190 is a balancing act. I compare the 6190 because likely many users of the previous top-end model (6190) will convert to the 8290 (like I did). On one hand, the size is a vast improvement, but the lack of reception in some areas makes me wish I never had brought the 8290 along with me. Battery life in the 8290 is nothing to write home about, either. Chances are most people charge their phones at LEAST every other day, so one shouldn't run out of battery life under moderate-heavy usage anyway. The interface hasn't changed at all since the 6190, so while you'll be entirely familiar with operations, aside from animated icons on the menus, not much has changed. For every benefit, there's a detraction, so I am still unsure if I will be recommending this phone to anyone. The size advantage will make me keep the phone, but I'm not sure I would buy it again, given the option. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 88978 2000/4/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 etc everything clarity a little too small for my fat fingers but not a big deal The Bottom LineGreat quality phone, great name and great deal, all around -great phone! Full Review Hey there cell phone shopper! I just recently purchased the Nokia 8290 Cellular Phone and I am in total love with it! It has everything from voice mail to caller ID and everything in between. I have been real happy with the clarity when I talk! It is way better than my regular phone at home! Also, there are many games I can play and the phone is just all around, plain old great! It works just like my parents Nokia 5190's and it has more features - however it uses the same basic software format. I purchased it @ GOOD GUYS. And, after the rebate it turns out to be $67 with California State Tax. (That is the price after the regular $319 without the cell phone service.)The reason I list the con is because it really is small, but it is good because I can fit it in my shirt pocket and it works nicely. Good luck in cell phone shopping!!! ~Warrenr PS: Thanks for chosing to read my epinion! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $99-$40 reb. 88977 2000/5/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 size t9 predictive text infrared port fades average battery call quality mediocre The Bottom LineI would buy it if you were concerned with looks and portability, but not clarity and cost. No international roaming either. Full Review I will begin with the bad: I don't like where they decided to put the microphone. According to people that listen to me do comparison tests, when I use the 8290, I sound more 'distant' than with other phones. Although the call quality with Enhanced Full Rate is good, it isn't as good as it is on the Ericsson T28 World. Sure, the distance from the phone to your mouth is a factor, but Nokia could've used a different type of microphone technology, perhaps piezo electric. I also am not impressed with the internal antenna. In decent coverage areas it performs as well as any other, but when the signal starts going below 2/4 it doesn't perform as well as the Ericsson, it starts losing information real fast. The Build of the phone is mediocre, a lot of squeaking, not as solid as its TDMA brother the 8260, but then again, it has replaceable faceplates which give it some room to play with. The pros, however, are: An IR port for sending and receiving stuff (link it up to your palm and download mail) Size Operating system is friendly has T9 predictive text entry Has cute pictures interchangeable faceplates battery time is average, but good for its size. Screen is surprisingly large for the phone size. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88976 2000/10/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the look on your friends faces small size long battery life calendar most important small buttons small size no rubber buttons Full Review I recently purchased the Nokia 8290, after seeing its pictures on different websites, and a recommendation from a friend who also bought one. To my surprise the phone is much smaller than the mental picture I had in my mind. This phone will fit into a cigarette box (given that the cigarettes are take out) and it's just a little bit bigger than a Zippo lighter. It takes a bit of time getting used to this phone because of the size alone. It feels funny when I put it next to my ear because I feel that when I talk my mouth is not close to the phone, but to my amazement, everyone that I have called said that my voice was really clear and there was no interference. I often travel between 2 different coverage areas, and even when I'm on the outskirts of the area and my reception is fuzzy, my sister said she thought I was calling from a pay phone. I've never had a Nokia before, but from what my friends say, it's the standard menus and then some more. They also said that if they had a phone like this, it'll take them 2 hours at most to lose it. I, however, keep my eye on this because this is more than a toy for me. I love its calendar feature which lets you add notes, reminders and calls for future dates. Moreover, after paying about $180 for the phone (taxes included) it is not something you let out of sight easily. Great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 88975 2001/1/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 style headset size size sometimes connection like any other cell phone The Bottom LineI recommend this Nokia cell phone because it serves the purpose, it's a convenient size, it's stylish, and affordable. Full Review Yeah, so I really bought it because of it's size and color. That would be typical of me, but it does have pretty good reception more often than not. Much better than the other two cell phones I had before. Maybe it was more of a problem with the service company and not so much the phone. I also like that a headset comes with it for driving. I hate to see others on the cell phone while they are trying to drive (and I mean trying, because after watching some of them, I bet they couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time). It has enough options like choice of ring, games, clock/date display, stored phone numbers, and much more. I don't really need all the extras it comes with, but they're there for the person who would appreciate them. Cell phones should only be used for emergencies anyway. There is more to my life than talking on the cell phone (or any phone for that matter), that I would have to worry all that much about anything other than getting help when I needed it. Maybe it's just because I have a life and am satisfied with it, and I don't need to act like some hotshot trying to prove something to all of society. This may not be the phone for large hands, but that is why we have a choice. I have no need for a large phone. I'm more satisfied with this Nokia than the other Nokia model I had, and certainly better than the Motorola I had before that. None the less, I think this Nokia phone has just as much right to be on the shelf as any other. It's price is affordable, and I have a service contract that fits my needs. The other phones I had came free with the commitment of a one-year contract, and I couldn't wait to cancel them, so what good was having a free phone. I think it all weighs out in the end. I give this Nokia a satisfactory rating and a good recommendation. Lastly, I ask all of you egomaniacs to HANG UP and DRIVE! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170.00 88974 2000/1/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 data capable light t9 text input ir port small changable faceplate flimsy lcd problems The Bottom LineNeat toy. Great if you can afford to replace it after a year because it won't last that long. Full Review I've had this phone for over a year and now it's with Nokia for repairs. Beware. When I first got it I found the phone to be a lot flimsier than I expected. The back plate covering the battery is very flimsy and I expected it to break eventually. Surprisingly, it hasn't yet. For a small phone it overflows with features. It's great for text messaging because it has T9 text input where it tries to guess what you want to type, making it much faster and easier. It also supports picture messaging. The software is similar to almost all the Nokia phones out there so if you've used a Nokia before you'll quickly get used to this one. This phone has an IR port on its side so that you can use it as a data/fax modem with a PDA or laptop. I use this regularly with my Palm to check websites and e-mail. Much better than using a cable but I'm looking forward to Bluetooth solutions in the future. However, while the phone has great features it has significant drawbacks. I'm not sure if this problem affects recent production models but my phone started suffering from a garbled LCD display after a few months. It recently got so bad that I couldn't make out anything on the screen so it became useless for text messaging, call display, etc. Since it's past the one year warranty Nokia won't fix it for free. If you have this phone and notice problems with the LCD, get it fixed before your warranty runs out. If you read the USENET newsgroups you'll find that a lot problem have the same problem with the 8290. A great phone until it craps out on you. If you want to have cool phone and don't rely on your cell phone then you might consider this one but I wouldn't recommend it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250 88973 2000/10/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrating feature small size internal antenna doesn t feel solid cheap look price Full Review Well... where should I start... Fist things first... when I first saw this phone I couldn't believe it was a real phone, it looked so tiny and those colors, I got a blue one, make it look like a toy. Also the silver buttons look so flimsy and cheap that I can't believe that the price is so high, Nokia could've done better with the looks... 8890 kind of maybe... Ok now back to the real review... the phone is very light very, it has an internal antenna which is very helpful since you don't have to worry that it would break in your pocket, and yes it does fit great in the pocket! I love the vibrate feature since it works great in the office where people get annoyed with cell phones, not that I care much. The menus are Nokia easy that's all I can say, I've had various Ericsson's(388, 688, 768), my wife has the Motorola Startac 7760 and my very first phone was Nokia 2180... well nokias are the easiest to figure out. I spend more than 2 hours getting used to Motorola and more than 1 hour working with the Ericsson. Nokia I just picked up and didn't even have to read the manual. What else... oh yeah... I like the reception and clarity of this phone, my Ericsson 768 had similar reception but the clarity much better on the Nokia. The phone fits well in a hand even though it so small and the buttons are easy to use. Probably the only complain I have about the phone is that it feels kind of cheap and easy to break... but than again I though my wife's motorola was easy to break.... after a fall from the stairs, bouncing up and down, nothing happened to the startac... I hope the Nokia is the same way. P.S. I see some of you are looking for accessories, cases and etc., I found a great site to buy them go to http://www.marquel.com and enjoy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85 88972 2000/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 active infra red port voice activation features small does not use standard hands free The Bottom LineAll the great points of a Nokia phone, even smaller and easier to use! Full Review Working for a wireless company has it's advantages like being one of the first people to try out a new phone. When the Nokia 8290 was released I was one of the first in our company to jump at trying the phone out. I had carried the Nokia 5190 and 6190 for some time so I figured it only made sense to try this little guy out too. I did the same thing that most of my customers do the first time they see the phone. One eyebrow goes up and you think, "Man it's small.. I'm probably going to break it in a week!" You run your fingers over the tiny buttons and realize that even though they are small buttons, you can easily push them without hitting any of the other keys. You'll find after much use that like all other Nokia phones, the 8290 is extremely durable being able to fall from great heights and still work. And then you turn the phone on. The screen is easy to read with a large, five line display and set up exactly like all other Nokia products. The same menu functions and options exist so for previous Nokia users, there is little to nothing more that you need to learn before you understand the full functionality of your phone. Like the 5100 series the 8290 has three games, thirty ring tones, the Express Off covers, and a clock. Like the 6100 series phone you have the 50 memory calendar option, auto redail, and the ability to conference call from the phone. The 8290 comes with a 650 mAh (miliamp), Lithium-Ion, vibrating battery which gives you approximatley 2 to three hours of straight talk time, or two to six days of standby time. Being just under 4 inches tall and just under two inches wide, you'll find the phone will fit into some of the smallest pockets... even the change pocket on a pair of jeans! And being under three ounces, no matter if you put it in a shirt pocket, it doesn't feel like its going to tear the pocket right off your clothes! For those of us that use our phones for business, the 8290 is superb! One of the most useful features is actually the Business Card option. You can send, via IR Port or SMS, information stored in your phone to another phone. (Has to be the same provider as your wireless provider.) For example, I have the contact number of an important client in my phone. My boss needs all that info so he can call the client himself to thank them for their new account. My boss is in his car, 100 miles from me. I can send the names and numbers of our new clients in just a few key strokes. Highlight the name you want, hit Options, hit Send Business Card, enter your boss's wireless number (or hit Search and highlight the name instead) and then hit OK. Done. The Provider is her ein our store and wants all the same information... I can do the same thing just hit Send Via IR instead. It's that simple and takes only a few seconds. Another useful item for business users is the profiles and Caller Groups. You can set specific ring tones to specific groups thus you know if your colleagues, family or friends are callng just by the ring tone. If I hear "Flight of the Valkyries" then I know my family is calling. If I hear "The Buffon" I know it's one of my colleagues. With 30 different tones and five slots for downloaded tones, you can be sure it's your phone ringing and who is calling without even looking. A new feature is the Voice Activated dialing option. You can store up to seven "Voice tags" in your phone so you can just hit a button, say the name you want to call and you're on your way. You can always erase and edit these voice tags as you please. The only downfall of the 8290 is its internal antenna. Most wireless signals do carry off the shear surface area of the antenna and thus when compared to other wirelss phones, your ranging and roaming capability may not be as great. For example, you can put your hand over the top of the phone and after about ten seconds you will lose one bar of signal. Remove your hand and it does come right back. One option not available for use with all 8290's is the picture messaging. Your phone has the option listed but it is considered a provider option. Your wireless carrier has to support that option before it will function on your phone. All of your accessories for your 5100 and 6100 series Nokia phones will work for your 8290, except for your handsfree kit. It does not use a standard 2.5mm jack. Most have a two ring jack. The 8290 uses a 3 ring jack. This problem is solved by the fact that a handsfree earbud is included with the phone. When it comes right down to it I just love this phone! I thought I would carry if for a month or two and then go back to my 5190. I have gotten so used to being able to record meetings and transfer client information that I think I'm hooked on this phone. It's great for those that use a wirelss for business but really, I think anyone would like it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.95Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 88971 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 less expensive he learns responsibility change colors with face plates change account type to monthly payments later i can t think of any Full Review I shopped around for 2 months online and in stores for the perfect gift for my son's 17th birthday. Finally I found it! Now I really wasn't sure that a cell phone was a great idea, but he really wanted one. Let's face it 17 year old boys are not the most responsible people in the world. If your under 18 years old, you have to have an adult sign for it. I have enough bills without taking that on! Then a friend told me that you could get cellphones and seperately purchase prepaid minutes. Meaning, I don't need to have an account in my name. Meaning if the bill doesn't get paid, not only am I not responsible , but he gets no minutes. After looking at several phones...Nokia seemed the only choice! Sure there are other phones with prepaid plans, Nokia was the least expensive and from what I could tell through research, the most durable. There are other phones that are durable, but they cost a lot more. There are many less expensive types of phones but the sound quality is poor and the durability is lame. I was able to purchase the phone outright with no hassles. Nokia also has better guarantees and longer warrantees. He can throw it at his sister and smash it.....it won't cost me a dime. I bought him a starter card of 100 minutes. I even had enough left over in my budget to get him two face plates, one in Dolphin and one in some weird green color. Now he gets his phone and I get to see him become responsible. If he wants more minutes , he utilize his job and buy them. If all goes well he will get addicted to it and have a motivating factor on that job. Plus when he turns 18, he can go to cellular One and open his own account with his Nokia phone. A lot of other competitors will NOT let you do that. so...I AM A HAPPY MOM!! UPDATE Shane got that job, so you will see editing in the above if you read this before. He has kept it and is continuing to purchase minutes. He actually told me that this worked good for him because other people are buying him minutes too! His girlfriend has bought 3 calling cards for him so far. So, maybe it isn't always the job that gets the minutes, but at least I didn't get saddled with a bill and Shane is Happy!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 88970 2000/10/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 weight build quality size sound quality might be too small for some Full Review Got this phone after having - and returning - an Ericsson T28 - buggy, slow and felt half-finished. My telco offered this as consolation - WOW! Super light and feature packed I've had this for 5 months now (I'm a Brit :)) and have no complaints. I even (gasp) dropped it in the bath - fully submerged - no problems. Intuitive menus, the familiar Nokia interface, quick response to dialed numbers - whether voice activated, entered manually or pulled from the SIM card add up to a nice and simple 'phone. Although it looks gorgeous and complex. The IR sync works like a treat - even with a Linux machine [and a bit of hacking...] whilst on Win9X it imports from your chosen PIM straight away. Inter-changable covers for a new look every day and its oh-so-incy-wincy-cuteness and tiny size and weight mean that the only bad thing about this phone is that if you lose it - and you might as it's so tiny - you'll never get it back. It has a *very* long battery life (mon-fri with no charging and a lot of talking) and a build quality that belies its looks. You can send SMS with ease, print to IR printers, swap contacts with friends via IR or SMS. Call quality is great if your telco is up to it, and the volume of voice *or* ring is easily set. NEw icons, ringtones and the usual cool games (if a friend's got one you can play head to head - great for meeting strangers on the subway) mean that geek factor is HIGH. And style factor is even higher. A great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): came with telco 88969 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small coolperfect companion for wireless folks none Full Review Nokia 8290 is by far one of the best phone is the 'not-so-pricey-range'. This phone is my 4th phone (Nokia 6185, and 3 startacs) that I have own. The reason why I should this product because of it's price ($68 with contracts in new york city). I won't tell you how light and small this phone is (I am sure u probably heard enough about it) instead I will included my person 'usage' experience on this phone: here is a break down on what you can do ( what i do) with this phone. You can store 250 names on your sim card and 250 names on the phone (500 names and numbers ). *Hints* if you store everything on your SIM card when you switch phone your phone list will get switched to the new phone. You can assign name to different calling group (5 groups) and each group has its own icon, which can be download into the phone ( i use palm m100 to transfer calling group icon). Infared port on this phone REALLY WORK!!!! you can send and receive phone list (one at a time) to palm pilot or laptop (palm m100 and thinkpad 240). This phone can double as a wireless modem (requires additional service from your carrier, voicestream charge $29.99 a month for 1000 'data' minutes) and you can also print your phone entry to an infared printer (HP laserjet). Voicestream users can *ORDER* ringtone(s) from voicestream.com's website and have them send it to you directly via SMS. From the web site you can also send name and phone number via SMS to be stored in your phone list also. SMS (short message service) is a unique feature offers on both 8290 and voicestream service. You can send message to yourself or to your fellows GSMers. It's a pain to type on 8290's keypad but if you prefer to type your texts on palm or CE you can download it from popular download site or if you opt for nokia's own software you can try pc data suite which you can download for free from nokia web site. Pc data suite allows you to send sms from your laptop and edit your phone book (add/delete/modify) so you don't have to cramp your fingers on those tiny keypads. I have send SMS messages to my friend in london (she have a SMS capable and GSM service). Most importantly this phone is base on a GSM technology which mean that you can take this phone and take it virtually anywhere around the globe, but beware of the roaming charge and those outrageous per minute charge. If you are like me who like to change phone this will be a perfect solution for you. By taking advantage of the SIM card you can also purchase another phone ( have to be a GSM 1900 and the phone have to be SIM card UNLOCKED and Provider UNLOCKED) and you can change your cell phone for any occasion =) Reception in New York City is VERY close to a landline, with a few statics and some fuzzy sound. Over all this phone kick ass. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 68 88968 2000/9/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable look small size good features back cover flimsy Full Review I was originally looking to get the 7190 when it became available, however I read reviews of the European 7110 and people had many complaints about it. So I looked to the 8290, cheaper, smaller, and better all around except for the lack of WAP. But with WAP in it's infancy and possibly being only an intermediate stage, I'd say go with the 8290 all the way. It may not look as suave or sleek as the 8890, but for 300 dollars less, hell I'll spend 20 bucks for a shiny new cover and poof it'll be 90% an 8890, 'cept the backlights are still green but that can be changed. This phone is so small I'm afraid I'm gonna swallow the damn thing when I'm using it. But it's nice, fits nicely in a pocket. It's about the size of a deck of cards, but not as wide. The buttons are a bit "clicky" meaning you have to press kinda hard and they click when you do, I liked the buttons on my old 6161 better, they were softer and you didn't have to press quite as hard. Voice dialing is a nice feature, it works pretty well. I use the tag "Where's my baby girl?" to call my girlfriend. I suppose you could have fun with that. Calling groups is also a nice feature. I had 1 problem with the phone, I added a name to a calling group and then the phone locked up on me. It just froze. I couldn't even power it off, I had to remove the battery to reset it. It only happened once, so hopefully it was an isolated incident. The back cover for the battery is kinda flimsy, but it's not so bad. Some people complained about the power button being difficult to press. True it's kinda tucked away on the top of the phone, but it's not hard, just take a finger and press over it, that's all it takes. One REALLY cool feature that these phones have is the ability to cutomize. Go download logomanager from www.logomanager.co.uk If you have an infrared connection or a data cable to your PC, you can customize ring tones and graphics. Pretty sweet. I haven't tried it yet, and the software is designed for the 8210, but it should work for the 8290 also. All things said, this phone is great, small, stylish and works well, packed with features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88967 2000/7/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 changeable look dirt cheap elegant excellent reception small none The Bottom LineSmall, elegant, works. Full Review The Nokia 8290 is small and very elegant like the Nokia 8890 (Nokia's first world phone) but in a very different way... although smaller and even lighter, it has changeable faceplates that can match your mood if you use them right. The faceplates are very sturdy and they never fall off. Whenever I change my faceplates I have to press very hard on the release button to get it off, so I know it never comes off unless I want it too. Although it doesn't have a keypad like the suave Nokia 8890, you can still lock the keypad to prevent accidentally dialing a number while it's in your pocket. The reception is excellent and I have never been cut off using this phone. The backlight provides excellent contrast and makes it easy to see. The phone is so changeable as for as looks, you can even make it look like other phones (but why woul you?) Costing only some $150, it's dirt cheap and I could buy it with the money that falls out of my pocket when I sit down to listen to my favourite orchestra play my favourite piece--Procession of the Nobles. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88966 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size ui battery life features no wap sometimes too small The Bottom LineThe 8290 has the best balance of features, aesthetics, performance and value. Full Review Nokia has turned out some great mobile phones the last few years, and the 8290 is no exception to that. Although the 8290 has been out for many months now, its still a solid choice in comparison to its competitors. The 8290 is a very small phone, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and its also very slim, meaning it can fit in pockets without being obtrusive. However, the 8290 can also be too small at times, making it difficult to hold the phone comfortably for long conversations, and more susceptible to dropping on the floor for those with less dexterity. If portability is a high priority on your list, the 8290 definitely delivers. Nokia has always had an excellent user interface and its menu system is very logical. Even first time Nokia owners will probably be able to find their way around the menu system without having to look at the manual. For those who have previously owned Nokia's, the menus will be a familiar and comforting sight. Sound quality for the 8290 is very good to excellent. I do believe that the ultimate factor in quality is dependent on the carriers coverage, and where you happen to be in relation to that at the given time. In comparison to the Ericsson T28, there are places where my 8290 will not pick up a signal and a T28 will. But during a call, the difference in overall call quality between the 8290 and T28 is negligible, and would not make me pick one over the other. The battery life is excellent, and charges up very quickly. The battery cover, however, is fairly flimsy and is unlike previous Nokia batteries, where the battery itself makes up part of the exterior shell of the phone. This battery cover can pop off when you drop the phone. Things to nitpick about: - the buttons are very small and difficult to read at night - build quality is not as solid as previous Nokias (but its held up fine after being dropped many times) - no WAP browser/functionality This is my third Nokia phone (2120 and 6190 previously), and the 8290 has been the best so far. I've owned several phones from Motorola, Ericsson and Sony before, but I always come back to Nokia, since they seem to always offer the best balance of features, aesthetics, and performance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88965 2000/7/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use menu system functionality great size some software glitches screen problems The Bottom LineIf you love the small size and have the GSM coverage go for it! But remember the size isn't for everyone. Full Review This is a great phone. It has almost everything anybody could want. The only thing it is lacking is a Web browser. Design: When you first get your hands on this phone you will be amazed with the small size, yet it still seems sturdy and built to last. All the buttons seem to be in just the right place. The only thing I didn't like was the placement of the headset jack. On the 8260 it is on the top side of the phone. On this phone it is on the bottom. One very cool feature is the X-press on covers, which come in a variety of colors. Reliability & Quality: For being a Nokia phone it did run a little short on this category. I have had problems with lines in the display and SIM card problems due to the phone, which left the phone unusable. The signal strength seems to be the same even though there is no obtrusive antenna. The sound quality is good and the volume is great. Menu & Ease of Use: The predicative text input makes writing text messages a snap. If only you could send messages across different networks, well that's another story. There is the same easy to use menu that Nokia has perfected. All the menu names, pictures and alerts are all animated. The only downsides to this phone were the problems with the SIM card , which I believe is a spotty case and the fact that it is a GSM phone. GSM service seems to a be very spotty in most areas and is not always available nation wide. If you love Nokia phones and the small size, but can't get the service try its sister the 8260, a tri-band phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 88964 2000/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 its a nokia wish it was a world phone Full Review As a "Cellaholic" I have been known to change phones often. Once they lose their flair ...I ditch them. I gave my Startac 7867 to my mother and moved to a different provider just to get the NOKIA 8290 in my hands. SIZE===Right from the start I was in love. I thought the Startac was small...this phone is smaller and lighter. At first I thought the phone would be hard to dial, but that isn't the case. The screen is not so small you have to wear glasses to read it either. EASE OF USAGE=== Nokia phones are plain and simple "easy to use". The one page mini help booklet will get you up and going in 10 minutes. However if you really want to take advantage of the excellent features like voice dialing, the built-in infrared ...you need to read the manual. LACK OF AN ANTENNA=== The first thing that made me like this phone was the lack of the antenna..I broke 2 antennas off my old Startac. Once I had to get a new phone because the antenna broke within the housing. Again I assumed that without an antenna I would be experience signal loss or poor quality calls. I WAS WRONG AGAIN! I think the clarity is better than my Startac by a mile. STYLE=== OK I'm a woman...the changable faceplate is a great feature too.I change them to match my purse or outfit. People think I need a doctor ...I say they are jealous. I have about 10 different faceplates from the autoslide Matrix styles to the Red Cola faceplates. COOL FEATURES=== Voice dialing is cool and allows you to make calls without taking your hands off the steering wheel to dial. Also voice dialing is just plain and simple cool!!! Downloadable ringtones are great too. Nokia doesn't support them but if you do a search on the internet you can get them...Major points for making you stand out from all those Startac heads!!! I really haven't found a negative point except I can't change the operator logo which isn't a Nokia phone problem but a PACBELL control thing. I wouldn't think twice about recommending this phone...however if you travel outside the USA often ...you need the 8890!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 88963 2000/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 games very light other features nice battery life color change covers don t drop this phone maybe too small for some people s hands The Bottom Lineit's a nice phone, it looks cutes, and all the girls go "ho wow, that phone is so small!" so guys...get the phone if you want to impress the girls Full Review To be completely honest the only reason why i wanted this phone was because it looked cute! yea thats right you heard me i bought the phone because it was cute! but don't let that cute appearce fool you, this phone is a power house of usefull and useless things to amuse you for hour at a time. so lets get down to it shall we.. First off, The phone it'self: the phone is sleek and compact, almost too compact if you ask me, i forget that sometimes it's in my pocket and i break into a cold sweat thinking i lost it somewhere on the subway. but never the less it's a small phone. it comes in a rainbow of colors from black to yellow and everything in between. the face plates come on and off too fit your lifestyle(but why anyone would use the color of their cell phone to show their lifestyle is beyond me). for a tiny phone the lcd screen is pretty easy to read, with a nice sized text area. The Battery: oh ho! you say, well the battery has got to be the most important part of you phone, or else it wouldn't work. the battery that comes with the phone is a basic nickle battery that can do about 2 hours talk time and a couple of says stand-by time(stand-by time is when the phone is just sitting there) recharging the phone takes around 3-4 hours but i never keep my phone charage all the way anyway. The Features: this is the best part of this phone, so im going put a sub group in here...ready..well here we go.. Useful features: KeyGuard(so when the phone is in your pocket you don't acciedently call someone) Caller id(i know we all love this feature, cause it lets you know who's calling, oh your cell phone service has to have this feature in order for you to use it) call fowarding(lets say your busy doing something,i don't wanna know what your doing, but your unable to answer your phone...so you can have the phone automaticly send the call to your house phone or your voicemail...pretty neat) Warning tones( it just lets you know when the battery is low or something else is goig on) calender( just alittle somethig so you can add date and things so you don't forget, saved my butt a couple of times!!) call logs( just so you don't get trapped in a covo and spend all your minutes it's lets you know the time of the call and how long is lasted Variable ring tones( i like this feature so that when a cell phone rings, not everyone in the room is screaming into their phone "Hello..HELLO!!", this way you can program your phone to ring how ever and with what ever tone you want it ring with.) oh and just a word to the wise everyone hates that stupid musical rings! come on people!, and yea and you can also download ring tones from your Service providers website, if they offer that. oh yea i almost forgot, you can also set the phone to vibrate! now what man/woman doens't love this feature! thats right im not afraid to say it, i like it when my phone vibrates...sometimes i will even call my self! like you people don't do that! HA! now the uless feautres that should never be added to a phone Useless Features: Games(now why would you need games on your phone, this feature is probably good for childen and teenages and that get bored pretty fast, as for adults, i don't see many playing "snake" on thier cell phone calulator( this has got to be the funniest feature that anyone ever thought of addig to this phone. who in their right mind is going to sit there and plug in simple calculations into the phone when you can easily do them i your head, for example: 2+2=4....easy no..now do that on the phone and see that time you get done. inferred..(hmm, this should never be added to the phone, do anyone actually use this feature!...if you do, please let me know. that is the basic concept of this phone, their are more features but they arn't even worth mentioning in this opinion since they are little things like, business meeting feature, things like that now for the bad part of this phone:: the phone is way to small, sometimes you might forget you have it unless it rings or makes a sound. the phone isn't built like a tank, so if you drop it make sure it works, i dropped my phone a lot of times and the lcd screen is starting to mess up alittle, but nothing to bad..so far the keypad, this my cause a problem for some people since people come in different shapes and sizes, some peoples hands might be to big to dial the number with ease. Well thats about it, it's a good phone for the price, so give it a try, you just might like it Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $130 88962 2000/11/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very easy to navigate through small love predictive text yet nothing The Bottom LineThis phone is amazing! In fact, as I am writing this, my brother is playing on mine! Its the perfect size and is SO easy to follow! A+...TWO THUMBS UP! Full Review Wow! To think, I was just on this website 2 weeks ago researching this very same phone. I did not know whether to get this of the new Nokia 3360. First of all, I must say, the websites I read for this 8290 phone were INCREDIBLY helpful. Let me start off by making it clear that I am one of the younger people who have written reviews for this phone. Because I am just a teen, there are probably things that I prefer that others don't. For instance, the phone's small size. I LOVE IT! For me, with petit fingers, it is JUST FINE when I push buttons and the phone fits perfectly in my hand! Also, I had read that people had trouble sometimes dropping the phone - I don't think I really have yet. And in fear of that, I bought a cover for it...one of the ones that can clip onto a belt but has the clear front so that you an dial without taking it off. I find it WONDERFUL how easy nokia made it to navigate through the menus - especially easy if you read the manual which has the short cuts. Also, a new "part" off the phone that I used for the first time 3 days ago was the Predictive Text Input. WOW! I wrote a text message to my mom and of the 20 words only 2 werent the ones i meant it for, and even then I found them very quickly! It is great! For those of you who dont know what it is, it is a "thing" where the phone has a dictionary built into it and as you write a word it "guesses" at what you are trying to get at. THis is a big change from the normal where you had to push one button three times to just get ONE letter!!! I have only had the phone for about a week, but I constantly have it in my hands...whether it be sending texts, changing the ringer, or playing endless games of SNAKE! It's a great phone, and I will let you know if I EVER find something wrong with it! Go ahead, BUY IT! IT HAS EVERYTHING! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 ($50 off) 88961 2000/11/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 trendy light many buttons small many faceplates text prediction weak signal everyone has one no web browser light small The Bottom LineNokia's best phone for the NA market. Get it if you live in the city and don't care about the 'net. Otherwise steer away. Full Review This review is for the 8290. I had previous cell phone experience with the Nokia 8290, and Ericsson CF388, with the Cingular/Pacific Bell service in the Bay Area, CA. The Nokia 8290 is the flagship of the recent Nokia phones in North America. Why do I say this? 1. Exterior of phone (5/5) The phone comes with 21 buttons: 0-9,+,*,volume up and down, on/off, talk, end, navi up and down, menu and names button. With the huge amount of buttons comes the familiar styling of the Nokia screen and software. There isn't much to talk about with the Nokia unless you are not already familiar with how to operate the Nokia style phones. It's pretty simple. Furthermore, the 8290 comes with xpress on faceplates. Press the button, pull the faceplate and tada, one can exchange faceplates as easily as making a phone call. There are the most faceplates for the 82xx series than any other phone, especially at malls and in asian plaza places. Not only faceplates but the battery cover and middle part of the phone can be replaced as well! Great customization for a little phone. And the phone doesn't feel cheap either, like it is gonna fall off.. 2. Phone features (4/5) The phone comes with a phonebook, 250 entries on the phone and 250 on my sim card (32k). Messaging: so one can send email or text messaging with other people. Predictive text messaging (T9). A call-log and profile setup for when you need to switch into a different persona instantly. The first generation of games on nokia: snake, memory, logic, rotation, and infared: uploading songs to your phone is very easy! However, no internet access.. granted it doesn't help too much, but at least having the feature is nice. Also it has voice and 1 button dialing as well. Battery life lasts 2 days with normal use. No use lasts about 3-4 days.., fair for the size of the battery. 3. Reception (3/5) I live in the worst reception-wise area in the bay area, near Bayfair Mall. No Cingular phone would get reception besides the 6190 and the 8290 is no exception to this fact. I frequently get dropped calls even if I have 1 bar showing up.. the phone is very bad at receiving a weak signal, but when I am in Oakland or even a mile down the block, the phone works fine! 4. Other Noteworthy Things Because of the immense popularity and size of the phone, there must be millions of people who have the same phone as you and they do! So with those faceplates you can really make your phone truly yours. However if you want something away from the mass, then I would recommend the Siemens S40 or Ericsson T28w or T38m. All three phones provide the same quality of Nokia, but with a different design and features. 5. Final Thoughts Get this phone if you are living in the city or somewhere with a high population. I live in the suburbs and it's not that great but otherwise it's an awesome phone and has great customization for everyone! Get it if the net is not your thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 88960 2000/11/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use lightweight possibly too small Full Review I got this Nokia because I always need the latest and greatest. Come on, Nokia hasn't released a new phone for a couple years now, and I'm a Nokia-freak. The quality they show in their phones is remarkable, and it certainly shows here. In my experience the phone is about the same in software and architecture as the 6190. The menus are very similar and the buttons are in the same placement. The differences are: Internal vibra-call, that means that the phone has built in vibration so you don't ring in the quiet places you're not supposed to. An active IR (infrared) port, this allows you to "beam" data between phones, PDA's, and computers w/ an IR port. Voice dialing, this allows you to make a call using your voice. On this phone you can program 8 voice tags on it. For example I have set one to call my brother, Jon when I say "Jon" into the phone. The battery life is the same if not better than the 61xx/51xx series phones and it still uses all the same chargers. Now, people have complaints about the internal antennae, but I think that most of these complaints are unfounded and unresearched. This antennae is "Nokia's best designed internal antennae, and they'll start using it more in future phones, like the 3390..." Now that is a direct quote from a Nokia rep that came into my place of work. Doesn't mean that it is actually the best antennae but it's encouraging to hear it from them. Sound quality is better than what you can find on a 6190. I have no trouble in any areas where I've used my 6190 and am now using the 8290. This phone is great, if size is an issue then I suggest buying this phone, if you need the latest and greatest, you want a quality phone, etc. you should buy this phone. If you have any questions about my reliability or questions concerning anything with mobile phones then send me an e-mail. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 88959 2000/10/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 excellent menu system user interface voice activated dialing awesome battery life very cool looking small size internal antenna seems much more fragile than the 6190 inconsistent earpiece volume Full Review I'd been pretty happy with the Nokia 6190 that I'd used for a year, but when I saw this little phone at the store, I couldn't resist purchasing it. Since I was still under my one year contract with PacBell, I couldn't buy it with activation for $49, but I figured that if I was gonna use it long term, the smaller size, and cool new features such as voice dialing and infra-red (to interface with my Handspring Visor) would be worth the $299. Besides the phone, the 8290 package included a handsfree headset, blue and red faceplates, and a wall charger. The charger is the same as the one for the 5100/6100 series. The handsfree is a 2.5" plug, which is different from the 5100/6100 series, which has this weird square connector. The first 8290 I got was defective. At first, during calls, it would make this really loud screechy sound. Then it refused to read my SIM card. I put the SIM card back in the 6190. No problem. But back into the 8290 and I got the same message about my SIM card not being acknowledged. Well, I took it back the next day and got a replacement. This one didn't have the same problems, and I was excited that I could be the hippest kid on the block. Hipness was probably the coolest thing about the 8290. Compared to my 6190, reception on the 8290 was worse. Also, the 8290 seemed a little less durable--sometimes the earpiece volume would mysteriously drop by about 50%. It was also much more sensitive to position than the 6190. If there was an area where I could get a clear conversation, I would be careful not to move too much. Talking while walking would make the reception go in and out. Further, there is no belt-clip available for this phone. On the box, there is a picture of a really cool belt clip, but it's not listed on Nokia's site, nor can I find it anywhere online or in stores. I should say that Nokia's menu system is one of the easiest to use that I've ever encountered. The 8290 has enhanced animated menu icons and its menu system continues Nokia's tradition of user-friendliness. The final straw was when I moved to an area where there was hardly any PacBell reception. I bit the bullet, paid the $150 cancellation fee, and sold the phone on eBay. I lost a lot of money, but there's no use in having the phone when I can't use it where I need it. I've now switched to AT&T wireless using Nokia's 8860 and am extremely satisfied. I had the choice between the 8860 and the 8260 (the tri-mode version of the 8290), and went with the 8860 because I got a great price ($99 with a host of accessories) and the 8860 just seems so much more durable. The internal antenna on the 8860 is easy to see, unlike on the 8200 series, where it's buried somewhere inside the phone, so I can keep my hand out of the way when I'm using it. AT&T's reception is better in the areas where I travel as well. I guess this means that I'm among the minority of epinions users that thinks the 8860 is great and the 8290 is not-so-great. The only thing that really sucks about the 8860 is the battery life. This is an area where the 8290 clearly excels. However, in the 8860 package, besides the rapid charger, desktop charger, and a nice carry bag, you get two batteries. My 5190 and 6190 were made in the USA, and the 8290 is made in Korea. I don't know if that makes any difference in quality, but I just thought I'd mention it. The 8290 is one of the newest, hippest phones out there. Its small size and stylishness make it a very appealing choice for mobile phone users. Although it was a decent phone, I wouldn't recommend it over the 6190. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 88958 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable compact size none The Bottom LineFor those who say this phone is too small: You should have known about the phone and button size when you handled the display model. Full Review When I was shopping for a phone, one of the main complaints I heard about the Nokia 8290( and its sister phone-Nokia 8260) was that it was too small. This seemed to be a major deterrent at first, until I started looking more closely at the 8290 and the additional features it had to offer. Here are some major points about the 8290 which I would like to share for the benefit of other shoppers The Size: For those who say this phone is too small: You should have known about the phone and button size when you handled the display model. Honestly, when one walks into a Staples, Best Buy, Bernie's, Circuit City, wherever, there are displays of the phones set up. Why? So that customers can see, touch, handle the product before purchasing. If someone feels that the phone is too small, then why go through the whole process of buying the phone. Buy another phone, if you feel that way! Besides, I choose to look at the source when receiving advice and most of the people who say this phone is too small fit one of the following categories: 1) men with fat fingers 2)men/women who are prone to losing things(and I mean anything, from purses to jackets). So, if size is an issue, go to store and handle the display to judge for yourself whether this phone is too small for you. Vibrating Mode: Once I got beyond the size issue, I looked at the other features of the phone and one that interested me immediately was the Vibrating feature. The 8290 has this feature which allows the phone to be on but not ring when a call is received. Instead, the phone vibrates, or makes a buzzing, low hum sound. I find this to be very useful, because, as a college student, I cannot tell you how many times someone has received a call in the middle of a lecture, class, meeting, etc. Needless to say, it is very embarrassing for that person and I didn't want that to happen to me. Most other Nokia phones do not have this feature, however you can attach a different kind of battery which will vibrate. But, I prefer the convenience of the 8290 feature. The Antenna: Where is it?, I thought to myself as I looked at the model. The answer is that it is internal: you cannot see it. This adds to the compactness of the phone. And quality of calls is not hampered by this feature. In fact, I find that calls on my cell phone to be incredibly clear, without any disturbance. The Battery: The battery is also internal, which is very useful because it will not accidentally fall off. The standby time is 2-3 days, which means you can have the phone on for that time without having to recharge it. Is that great durability or what?!? Also, the phone allows you to talk up to 3 hours non-stop. Locking: Another great feature of this phone is the Locking. This prevents calls from being placed if a button is accidentally pushed. Where to view and purchase: Bernie's, Best Buy, Circuit City, Staples, Elite Communications, Voicestream Wireless. I got mine from Staples, where I got the best deal Final words: Don't talk and drive at the same time- it's dangerous. Don't talk and pay at a register at the same time- it's annoying. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 74.99 88957 2000/8/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect size really long battery life games so many features interchangeable covers soooo sexy takes a little time to get used to The Bottom LineThis product goes above and beyond the duty of a cellular phone. Full Review This is my first cell phone, I was resisting the onslaught of the ubiquitous cell phone. But I just couldn't resist this one it was so well designed, so compact, so well. . . cute! A lot of negative opinions written on this phone have mentioned it's size as a major problem, but I think this phone's size is just perfect. Maybe people are just used to having bigger phones and are resistant to the change. Since this is my first cell phone I have nothing to compare it to, but it feels right and my hands aren't exactly dainty. In fact, when I use my friend's larger phones it feels like i'm holding a typewriter. The menus are intuitive, and functions that you use frequently can be memorized as a set of numbers. So now every time I want to change my ringer volume or sound I just press menu - 3 - 4 - 1. It also has voice recognition and fast keys so often times I just have to press one number or say a name to call someone. This phone has a whole lot of features for being so small. In addition to the 200 entry phone book, there are also calendar, calculator, gaming, and wireless messaging functions. All of these features have allowed me to: - set an alarm with a message to remind me of important appointments on specific dates at specific times (I am forgetful, so this is very important) - send and receive short emails - notify me with the headlines, the weather, even movie reviews - play games on the subway, in fact the reception on this phone is so good I often get calls on the subway platform or in the car while it is in the station! There are so many great things about this phone. There is a vibration feature that can be turned on or off, so I can get a call in a meeting without disturbing everyone in the room with a loud ring. You can set the phone to ring differently for different people so you know who is calling without even touching the phone. You can download and store five ring tones. I'll admit, in the beginning I was worried about losing it because of its size. Thing is, this phone has become so integrated into my life that I won't loose it, its like my wallet. It is literally with me 24 hours a day. I even use this phone in place of my alarm clock, and believe it or not the alarm function has a snooze button. And because it is so small and can be customized so much- it often goes unnoticed by those around me, so I don't have to be a nuisance. I cannot recommend this phone enough. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88956 2000/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small gsm features changable faceplates long battery life some signal problems few carriers The Bottom LineGreat. Small and light enough to replace my pager with the convenience of a cell phone. Full Review This is an excellent cell phone, and I've been very happy with it. First of all, I got mine through Voicestream wireless, and they included the standard AC adapter as well as an earphone handsfree adapter. After charging for the 4 hours instructed by Voicestream, things went OK. There were a few problems; it took them a LONG time (about a day) to set up my voice mailbox. They were nice about answering my questions and requests, though, and I haven't had any problems since. As far as initial opinions, the phone's great. I keep reading people saying things along the lines of, "The keypad is small; I don't have problems with it, but I can see how some people might". Well, I have stubby, broad fingers and I can use it without problems, so I think most people will do OK with it. Text entry was suprisingly quick, even for places you can't use predictive text entry. Predictive entry works great, though, for SMS messages. The biggest problem I've had with the keypad is that playing snake at the high difficulty levels is tough because I can't have fingers on all 4 direction keys at once. =) One of the nice features about this phone is the voice dialing - I used to think that was a stupid gimmick, but with the car headset adapter it's great! All I do is have the adapter plugged in while driving, hold the button on the mic down, wait for the beep, and, for instance, say "clinic". It then dials the office for me, without my having to touch the phone at all. Very nice to cut down on distractions. The changable faceplates are nice, too - I got a green one to replace the standard blue Voicestream one. It's a little scary the first time you do it, but after that, it's not bad. It does take some force, however. Finding accessories for this phone is a little tough, but the web has quite a few dealers with them, and E-bay is great - you can get all sorts of cell phone faces, including a Matrix-esque sliding faceplate. Caution, though - the 8260 faceplates DO NOT fit the 8290. =) My only complaint so far is weak signal strength in some places with a cutting out problem that goes along with that. I would say if you're looking for a new phone, this is a very nice one to get - good caller ID features, conference calling, calls on hold / call waiting, voicemail alerts, calendar, and calculator all built-in. Nice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 88955 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight inexpensive packed with goodies numerous kool features reception sometimes choppy Full Review My girlfriend and I just bought this new phone by nokia just a few weeks ago. The 8000 series phones are nokia's newest phones and retail around $200.00 for the 8290 and $400.00 for the 8890. We loved the look of its stylish design and wanted to get it under a good plan with free mobile to mobile. Pac bell just started a new deal: a 1 year contract with 120 anytime minutes, free mobile to mobile (which means free calling with any pac bell phone) and an option of 1000 weekend minutes for 10.00 a month more - for 19.99 for the first 3 months and 39.99 (that includes 1120 mins. and free mobile to mobile) for the following 9 months. We liked the sound of that, so we started calling around Los Angeles to find the best price of the phone. The best price that we could find was $199.99. That was a little too expensive. We were about to just go for a free 6000 or 5000 series nokia when one of my friends told me that the cell phone stores in Monterey Park sell the nokia 8290 phone for cheap, like under $100! I didn't believe him, but called a store there just for the heck of it. The first store that I called gave me a price quote of $45.00 with activation! Now I was really excited. A called a few more and the best price I found was $40 for the nokia 8290 including a free case and car charger!!! I went there with my girlfriend the next day and bought 2 and we lived happily ever after. OK - my little story is over---- THE END! -now about the phone - so far, there have been no major problems with this phone. Its lightweight, portable, gives a long amount of talk time (about 3 hours), comes with 2 faceplates (red and blue), a home charger and a hands free headset, and has countless "kool" features! (Ex. text messaging, customizable logos, ringtones, profiles...voice activation, vibrating alert, phone book, games, calendar, calculator, and an infrared connection , just to mention a few features! The only problem that I've had is minor connection difficulties once in a while. This is probably due to the internal antenna. All in all though, this is one of the most technologically advanced, cool looking, and inexpensive phones on the market. Recommended - Highly Recommended! Last but not least, if you are someone who is into "fixing up the look of your phone" you can easily change the appearance of the casing to look exactly like the 8890 which is $400 for about 1/10 of the cost. I have already changed the regular green LED lights to a very "kool" neon BLue and have ordered a new "autoslide" case (like the one from the movie - "The Matrix" -) online! This is a very FUN phone to use and play around with! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 88954 2000/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small interchangable covers long lasting battery stylish no annoying pull up antenna good voice quality no analog roaming The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a light, stylish phone with awesome clarity, this is the phone for you. Full Review Well, Nokia.. This is my 5th Nokia phone, and it helps to prove why I keep coming back for Nokia's again and again. The are known for excellent user interfaces, the latest in technology, and stylish phones. With the Nokia 8290 they have pulled it off once again... Oh my! That's what people keep saying about this phone when they see me using it. Standing at less than four inches tall and weighing less than three ounces, this phone is tiny! The phone, when placed up to your ear, goes down just a tiny bit, not quite touching the bottom-middle part of your cheek. With the phone not reaching down to your mouth, you would think that the sound quality is horrible, and I was worried about this too, but surprisingly, it's great! The sound quality is probably one of the best I have ever heard. Wow, this almost has the kitchen sink! This phone has tons of features that one may never even getting around to using and I will do a short piece of each one.. Caller ID: Allows you to see who is calling you, before you answer. Text Messaging: You can send text to people with other cell phones or pagers, making it so you don't have to use up your minutes. Voice Dialing: Just say "Mom" and it's calling her. It's very, very nice. You don't even have to use your hands anymore! :-D Profiles: Allowing you to customize different "settings" so you can select different ring volumes and other things with a touch of a button. For example, "Normal," and "Silent." Vibrate: Allows your phone to vibrate, so if you don't have the ringer set, you can still know when the phone rings. It also vibrates while ringing, unless you turn it off. Nokia + GSM = Customization With newer Nokia phones such as the Nokia 8290, 3390, and 8890, you can have things called operator logos sent to your phone. An operator logo replaces the ugly carrier banner on the phone's display. All you do is go to a website such as www.me43.com and send them to your phone. Bam! Your ugly logo is replaced. You can also have ringtones sent to your phone from the same site (www.me43.com), because the Nokia 8290 has five "Personal" ringtone slots for you to use. Battery Life and Antennas... Nokia claims that the Nokia 8290, gets three hours and 20 minutes of talk time, and six days of standby time. I have experienced numbers such as these, although I think it would be more like two hours of talk time and five days of standby time. It's still great though! The Nokia 8290 also has no popup antenna, and it is very nice. You don't have to deal with an antenna poking you in your pocket every time it's in there. So... ? Get the phone! It is one of the best phones I have ever had and the GSM technology is excellent! It's very awesome, small, light, compact, stylish, and has tons of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 88953 2002/8/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tough as nails intuitive design extremely compact feature packed could easily be lost it s so small The Bottom LineGet this phone. Stop. Don't look any further. My allegiance is hard won, I have suffered so you don't have to. Full Review UPDATE 8/10/02 This phone is the dogs, as the Brits say. It rules, in every way. I've had this phone for so long that the color on the face plate is wearing off, and I have no intention of changing. Motorola V-60? PUH-LEEEZE. No thanks, this little (i mean LITTLE) Nokia will be fine, thanks. I never, ever turn it off, stays on 24-7 and still rules. No screen burn, no interference problems, yadda- blah blah. This phone is a no brainer. Buy it and be happy. When this one dies (I can't kill it, unlike other's I have had) I will briefly check out the other phones Nokia has out at the moment, but it will be a tough sell, cosidering how awesome this phone has been. ORIGINAL REVIEW, UNEDITED, IN IT"S PROMINENT PERFECTION: I have had cell phone service for about two years, and in that time have never been particularly satisfied with my phones (Nokia 5190, 3390 and a Motorola StarTAC 7797) until now. Things that I prize in a phone: size, features, ease of use, good reception, reasonable price and a sturdy build. The Nokia 8290 scores on all points, with a little work. I has an "accident" with my Nokia 3390 (see the review for a description), and consequently purchased a StarTAC 7797. I hated it. I guess my Nokia upbringing wouldn't allow me to use the StarTAC's difficult menu system. I can't afford a Motorola V60 (the in phone of the moment), so settled on the 8290 as a compromise between my need for a small, feature packed phone and my low budget. Turns out it was no compromise at all. This phone has all the features I could need and more, and is so small that when it's in my pocket I have to check to see if it fell out or not. Can't feel it at all! I immediatley noticed better signal reception than my previous 3390 phone. Many places in my area I got no signal with the 3390, and with the 8290 at least I got enough signal to use it. I bought an antenna booster, not expecting it to do a thing, but lo and behold: It works! Now I get signal in my house where I previously got none, and I no longer have (as many) dropped calls in the rural area I am in. I highly reccomend this inexpensive addition to any cell phone. Back to the 8290. So, it has better reception, smaller size, more features and is more sturdy than the Nokia 3390. Great! Oh, and it has one other really cool feature I am just starting to use: caller groups. You can assign 5 different caller groups, and then assign to each group a list of numbers and a specific rining tone. Very cool. For example, I have my wife, my home phone number and her work number all in a caller group named "Wife". Now, when she calls from any of these numbers (since sh is the only person who would be calling me from any of those numbers), my phone plays the ringing tone I assigned to these numbers so that I know it's her before I even take my phone out, or if my phone is in another room. Very handy, especially if you are in a meeting and want to know who's calling without even looking at your phone. As for the 8290's drawbacks, I have had the phone for about a week now, so can't comment on its long term sturdyness (update added at end of review, read on!). It is much less creaky than the 3390, and generally fells more "solid", if you can grasp what that means. The 3390 always felt rather cheapish and plasticky to me, but the 8290 feels and looks very solid and "real". I wish I could better describe what I mean, but if you haven't had either of these phones, suffice it to say that the 8290 is pro grade, where as the 3390 is definitely a playground phone. Don't let your provider screw you on the price, either. My provider (Cingular) wanted $300 plus for this phone. I asked them what I needed to look for if I wanted to buy my phone inedependantly, and then went on eBay. A week later I had a new 8290 in my mail box, and paid a total of $112. Be smart, don't be a retard: Do the research and save yourself some $$$. This phone is the bomb. It fits all my needs, and it fits in my pocket. Don't be afraid to buy this item, you'll be happy you did. You can even get flip, slide and autoslide faces for it if you need key protection like I do. Update, 3/27/02 Well, after a few months of use I am upgrading my rating of this product to five stars, fully reccomended, would buy again, get it as soon as you can status. This phone kicks rear, no questions. Since I wrote the review, my phone has been through everything: rain, storms, snowboarding, roof fixing, sewage pumping, endless 10 hour days in the heat, long stints in the cold, dropped, banged, sat on, even dropped it in a puddle once. The only thing I can say bad about this phone is... that I didn't buy one the day I got cell service! Coulda saved myself over a year and a half of misery with other git phones. I got an "auto slide" face plate for it, and let m tell you: STAY AWAY! Such a cheap piece of junk, I put it on, clicked it once and took it right off. I can't even bring myself to "upgrade" to a "better" cover or keypad, the ones it came with are so good. Minor, totally niggling complaints include: after using the 3390 and moving to this phone, I must say that the "smart button" is an improvement the 3390 does have over this phone. The 8290 uses separate buttons for answer, hang up and menu, whereas the 3390 uses just one, the smart key, and it is much easier to deal with on th 3390. But again, that's really nit picky, considering the overall quality of this phone compared to the 3390. The talk time is no better than the 3390, which is to say that it sucks. But, that's the price you pay for having an ultra-compact phone, one that I am willing to deal with. I actually get a chuckle sometimes when I see people with 3390's, thinking they're all cool. If only they knew the truth..... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 112 88952 2000/2/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very light good reception flimsily builtso so quality The Bottom LineGreat weight and functions. I would recommend it highly (especially if free). Quality is above average, but may seem flimsy. Full Review I got this phone free signing with Voicestream back in 11/00 and are already experiencing some problems with the phone. I will start first with PROS: - Very light - If you've had a NOKIA before, the menu works exactly like previous Nokia - Battery life is excellent. Over four days standby and easily two to three hours talk time - Nice size - Reception is better than the 5000 and 6000 series phones - Package came with charger, extra face (red), and ear plugs - No antenna to break or lose - Haven't used it yet, but it has infrared data transfer capability - Accessories are slightly cheaper than for other Nokia - If you have A LOT of friends or colleagues, then this phone is for you. Stores 250 names on the phone memory and another 250 on the SIM card. Incredible Now for the CONS: - Cover is easy to change because it's the "quick change" type, rattles slightly because it's not clicked on too tightly - Battery cover is even worse than the face. The cover just slides/clicks on and is held on by a small button - Screen exhibiting pixal problems. The screen starts scrolling and blacks out or goes off with only back light on - SIM card takes a fairly long time to go online. Has occasionally taken close to 30 seconds to activate. I have the face and battery covers as CONS because I dropped my phone once and both fell right off, including the battery. The SIM card problem is only a problem if you are trying to dial people that you save on the SIM card memory. If you have people on the phone memory, then you just dial right away. The pixal problem was "fixed" because the battery that came with the unit was "defective." This diagnosis came from Voicestream. I changed the battery and so far so good, so the battery may be the cause. I HIGHLY recommend this phone if it's free. I would not pay $150+ for it with some carriers, but I would still recommend it if you're willing to pay $150 for a phone. This is my third Nokia (I had a 2160 and then 6120) and since they all have similar menu function, getting use to it was very quick. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Nothing 88951 2000/7/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 changeable faceplates looks cool rugged small keypad is cramped The Bottom LineOverall, I would recommend the Nokia 8290 to anyone looking for a small and feature rich digital phone. The ability to put on replacement faceplates is a big plus! Full Review The first thing that caught my eye was the small size of this phone. It measures 3.9 by 1.7 by 0.7 inches and weighs under 3 ounces. The only tradeoffs of the phones small size are that the dial pad is cramped and the keys are difficult to press, especially for those with larger hands. One can store 250 names and numbers on the 8290, as well as 50 appointments. Eight numbers in your phonebook can be assigned a voice tag for hands-free voice dialing. I found this feature very convenient when you only have one hand free and have to dial. The menus and on screen navigation system were easy to master and superior to any other manufactures'. One feature I liked was the predictive text input keyboard. This is usefull when composing text messages as it suggests words based on the first few letters you type, which allows you to write SMS messages faster than on other phones. You can also send small picture messages to other phones that support this feature. I have frequently been dissapointed by a manufactures' battery life claims, but the 8290 holds up to Nokias promises. The included battery gives 3.3 hours of talk time or six days of standby time and took me roughly and hour and one half to fully charge. Another very cool feature, and one of the reasons I chose Nokia over another manufacture, is the ability to add your own faceplates to the phone. One thing I disliked on the 8290 was the lack of a keypad cover, so I purchased a replacement faceplate that had a sliding keypad cover. The ability to customize the phone like this makes the 8290 a great method of self expression. One more reason I chose Nokia is that accessories for this phone are plentiful and relatively inexpensive, because of the phones popularity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88950 2000/2/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 durable stylish features etc talk time easy to modify size reception The Bottom LineIf you want the latest, the most stylish and can handle bad receptions, this is your phone! Full Review Nokia, the brand I trusted since the first day I started using mobile phone. Nokia 8290, the latest Nokia GSM phone sold by PacBell Wireless of San Francisco (by this time now, it should be called Cingular Wireless). The phone is nearly perfect in everyway. Clarity is no big deal to hassle about this phone because this is a GSM phone. The only downslide about this phone is reception. PacBell Wireless is well known in servicing poor reception anywhere out of downtown San Francisco, therefore, it is no surprise. The reason why I bought this phone is because of its stylish look and X-Press-On faceplate feature. This feature is so handy that changing faceplates can be done in less than 10 seconds while it¡¦s brother, the Nokia 8260, has to unscrew 7 T6 screw before you can even reach to the core of the phone while one screw is being hidden under the antenna. While the X-Press-On faceplates are also being used in the Asia and European market (know as Nokia 8210 and Nokia 8250 in Hong Kong) selections are very wide. Foreign language selection is also very wide; the most lovable part of this feature is that it includes two type of Chinese layout, both Traditional and Simplified. The Voice Tag feature is also very nice, able to call anyone by shouting his or her name to the phone, like using a walkie-talkie. GSM phones has the ability to download ring tones for several years already, yet this have not changed, yet, Nokia added an additional four ring tone slot the phone, making it more stylish. No more physical data cables are needed anymore because this phone is packed with an IR connector, able to transmit data via the IR port. The only thing I hate about this product is reception. I can barely get any signal on the street I live on. The signal meter starts dropping like the stock market did when the bus starts going up the hill, what a shame. Besides reception, this is a perfect phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 + TAX 88949 2000/12/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception the holder is not practical they need a new design Full Review I rated the a Motorola as a great cell, I had it for a year and I was very happy, after it got stolen, this Nokia 8290 was recommended to me very highly so I decided to purchase it and to tell you the truth this one is definitly a much better phone. Nokia 8290 first of all has a better reception which is the basic purpose of this technology, fewer cuts and interruptions which as we all know are extremely frustrating. Also you have several very nice features which I will make a list and describe partially each. Phone directory, which is very accessible for searching and saving, it also has the option for a large amount of characters, which is very nice. Another advantage is that you can select groups such as family or business to place the names you save and when they call you beside the name ID coming up the image will also for an easier recognition. With this there can also be a determined ring to each group which is helpful if you are in a meeting and you don't want to answer to anyone but VIP or Family, etc you can ID these. Messages, you have options like voice and written, you can check them with one key touch, you also have the option to have a welcome message when you turn on the phone. Calendar, where you can write notes of the day or program events with alarms like meetings, birthdays, etc. Calculator that is simple to us, normally it is frustrating to use a calculator in some of these gadgets is very hard, but not with this phone. Games, you have like four or five games you can play in the screen of the phone, I have not tried them but I will ad to this review as soon as I do. Other interesting features are a great amount of ring options and of course vibration, ID of the last ten callers and the last ten calls made, and e-mail feature which is not yet available in my area but hope they have it soon. Finally the design is very nice with a very accessible key pad and a nice large screen. By the way the battery will last as much as three days use normal use. Recommended: Yes 88948 2001/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with newest features small good talk standby time voicestream has spotty coverage no wap if you are into that sort of thing The Bottom Linethe phone is great, cutting edge technology for the US and i would definitly recommend it Full Review great phone, especially for the price i got it at 28 bucks! as you know, its only available on the voicestream network in the US. so that is good and bad, nice plan they have, but their coverage is so spotty it makes you wonder if its worthwhile to get this phone... as far as the phone goes (never mind the spotty coverage) its fantastic, its got all sorts of features you can't get with the 8260, such as its thinner, lighter, infrared beaming, animated picture menu, sim card, and voice activated dialing. its small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and defintly looks very cool, (to impress your friends from the countryside) i've dropped it a few times and it has survived no problem... it also has that express on and off covers so you can switch them quick enough to match your outfits (if you are into that sort of thing) and although i don't advocate this, you can switch them fast enough to get a new one from the display models at your local store :P the games are pretty standard, such as rotation snake and memory, and the calendar function is useful as an alarm clock :) the ringing tones are plenty loud also... and on the off chance you can't hear it ringing, the built in vibration mode will certainly alert you to an incoming call or message. which brings me to text messaging, you can send and recieve text sms or picture messages from other people :) pretty cool when you want to invite your friends to get some coffee, you can send them a picture of two cups of coffee with a short message :) also you can have custom ring tones or pictures loaded to your phone for a small fee... i am planning on getting a picture of my car in there with a few different pop songs. anyways its jam packed with standard nokia features such as profiles, call logs, call forwarding, calculator, calendar and has 250 memory for phone numbers and the sim card has another 250... totalling 500 people you can store on this phone! it even has an internal antennae so you don't have to worry about it getting stuck on your shirt or wahtever when you take it out of your pocket. the only downside to the phone is that it doesnt have WAP (the internet thing), but in all truthfulness i have used the current WAP technology for phones and it is pretty horrible... i doubt i would use it even if i had it as an option for my phone ***UPDATE*** approximately 1 year after having the phone i'm happy to say that i still love the features, and the battery life has held up admireably, much more so then any other phone i have owned (3 previous nokias) in the same amount of usage... my phone is pretty much left on 24 hours a day 7 days a week... so the battery has definitly been taxed... unfortunately that is the good news... the bad news is that after about 1 year of trusty reliable service, the display on my phone is on the fritz.... my warranty is expired so i have little recourse other then getting it repaired or sending it back to voicestream to exchange with another refurbished phone for a fee. the display freezes, goes blank, or just becomes garble and unintelligible as to what battery life i have left, signal strength, who is calling or who i am calling.... the phone still functions fine, but i just can't see any information on the display sometimes... this was happening on rare occasion about a month ago, but has escalated to being non-functioning more then functioning in this last week. so just to let you know my experience with the phone, it is still great, but apparently after a year or so, the display decided to give up the ghost for me. i've recently heard that this phone has been a problem for a bunch of people, so apparently my experience isn't isolated. i'll update again, if i try to repair the phone... most likely i'll just get a new/refurbished phone to replace this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 28 88947 2002/9/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 ir port small size smart interface changeable faceplate covers screen may be too small for some not me no analog mode The Bottom LineThe closest phone to perfection I have encountered. Full Review I've been around the block a few times when it comes to mobile phones. Still, Nokia seems to be the only company capable of learning from the mistakes they made in their previous products. This is the first phone, out of maybe seven or eight I have owned, with which I am almost completely happy. Let me start with the physical attributes of the phone. It's very, very small and light (maybe 1.5" wide, 3" long, 1/2" deep). When I first held the phone in my hand, it felt almost too light, like some kind of toy. I was concerned that it might be too flimsy, but after handling mine for a month or so, I can tell that the phone is actually very well put together. See update below... One nice aspect of the phone's exterior is the internal antenna. Unlike most phones, the 8290 lacks any sort of protrusion where the antenna is. Unless I cover the internal antenna with my hand while talking, I have not noticed a negative impact on signal strength, and the regular, rectangular profile makes it much easier to carry in my back pocket. Another nice touch is the interchangeable faceplates. I'm not the sort of person who usually cares about these sorts of things, but one key point is that the clear plastic "window" that covers the screen is a part of the faceplate itself. This means that if you scratch the phone on the screen (as I have done before), you need only buy another $10 faceplate, and your screen is good as new. Additionally, the buttons are replaceable, so if the numbers wear off in your pocket (as mine have on other phones), they can be easily replaced, too. So far, though, the paint on the keys seems to be fine. One final point about the phone's exterior: the buttons, particularly the power button, may be a bit small for some. So, if you feel like you have big, square fingers, this may be a nuisance to you, and you may want to go for a larger phone. Personally, my fingers are far from dainty, and I have no problems, but I can see how this might be an issue for some people. Now, on to the phone's innards. The reception I get, as I said, seems to be quite good. In Pittsburgh, at least, I get much better coverage overall on this VoiceStream phone than I did on any of my SprintPCS phones. Of course, reception is difficult to quantify, and your mileage may vary. One drawback to this phone's guts is that it is a single-mode phone. This means no analog roaming, and no digital roaming in Europe. I don't go abroad enough to worry about the latter issue, but it was a big leap for me to completely let go of analog service. I have nightmares where I'm stranded out in the country, and I have a cell phone, but it won't work because it's digital only and I pitch my head back and cry out to the heavens, "Why did I do this to myself?!" But, I'm getting over it. Besides, I'm not on the road too often, and more & more major interstate routes seem to be getting digital coverage. Incidentally, from what I've heard from people in the wireless industry, dual-mode phones will be diminishing in availability as the big digital systems try to force rural analog carriers to add digital roam capabilities to their towers. So maybe digital coverage will boom in the next few years. I guess I can only hope. The battery life seems solid. Under my average usage patterns, I can get away with charging it every third night. If it starts searching for service, the life is decreased. Finally, I'd like to discuss the IR port. Many people will probably never use this feature of the phone, but I absolutely love it. I can put the phone down next to the IrDA port of my laptop, and boom - wireless internet access from anywhere, at no additional charge (it's like any other call). The phone acts as a regular, old 14.4kbps modem, attached to your computer via the IR port. Easy as pie. Similarly, I can put the phone next to the IR port on my Palm V, and suddenly I have a Palm VII (well, I have the wireless access, anyway). There is even software that allowed me to get my palm phone book into the phone via IR, which saved me hours of manually punching in my phone contacts. Hallelujah! Oh yeah, and with the IR port you can play "snake" against another person with the same phone. Can't understate the importance of THAT! Overall, I am in love with this phone. I have had it for a month now, and I feel pretty good about its prospects for the long haul. Once the honeymoon period is over, I'll update my review if I feel that things have changed. Thanks for reading! ----------------------- Update 11/16/02: Well, the honeymoon's over, and I still love the phone. For the most part. There's only one problem: the thing's a little flimsy. I've reduced my "Durability" rating from 4 to 2 for this reason. I used to keep the phone in my back pocket, and as a result I would sometimes kinda sit on it. I'm not a big guy, and I wouldn't sit on it too sharply, but over time the wear and tear started to cause problems. Specifically, the screen somehow lost its connection with the internal circuitry of the phone. When it started, I'd notice a black line on the screen here and there (which would go away if I pressed any buttons). By the end, it would be completely corrupted with garbage pixels, to the point where I couldn't really use the phone anymore. The good news is that Voicestream replaced the phone very quickly and with no hassles. When the second one broke in the same manner, they replaced it just as readily. (I think they replace these phones a lot.) I decided at that point to stop putting the phone in my back pocket, and I've been fine ever since. So, I would still strongly recommend this phone, but if you're heavy in the wear-and-tear department, be ready for the phone to show it after a 4 or 5 months, and be ready for warranty replacement. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88946 2000/2/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 styling portability extra options small buttons antenna The Bottom LineThe portability, built-in vibrating ring, voice-activated calling and styling make up for the problems I have found (mostly related to size). Full Review I have only had my Nokia 8290 telephone for two weeks but I have to say that I am very impressed with the phone so far. Compared to the Nokia 6190 and 5190, the phone is 1/4th the size and significantly lighter than the two aforementioned phones. I like the size and weight of the phone because it fits comfortably in my pocket without bulging out of my pockets as the 5/6190 did. The options on the phone are fun and helpful. First off, the volume button is conveniently located where a user would put their finger. There are numerous slots for personalized rings and the greatest and most convenient thing that I found was the voice-activated dialing where you state the name of up to 8 people in memory that have their numbers stored with a voice-recognized file. I have not tried the IR function of the phone but I will add on to this opinion when I finally do that. One major problem I have with the phone deals with the internal antenna. The phone seems to get better reception when the antenna does not have something (like a finger) blocking it but since the phone is so small, the user's fingers seem to feel fairly comfortable over the antenna. I find myself consciously removing my finger from the antenna case much of the time to find my reception much better. Another problem is the with size of the buttons on the phone. I haven't had too many problems with this but I would venture to guess that someone with larger fingers would not find the keypad very friendly. Still, the Nokia 8290 is a quality phone that can be taken anywhere. An internal battery along with many other options satisfies my need for a cellular phone in all situations (i.e. taking it out to a loud bar, game, quiet evening, class, etc.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 88945 2000/4/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features custom rings size changeable covers battery life infrared single band expensive The Bottom LineOverall, I am very satisfied and impressed with the Nokia 8290. I would highly recommend the Nokia 8290 if you want a great compact phone that offers lots of features. Full Review For anyone going for a mobile phone service plan that offers this phone, go with this one. I'm using Voicestream's service which is the only plan I believe in this area that carries the Nokia 8290. AT&T and Cingular carry the Nokia 8260 which is slightly different in these ways: a little bit thicker with slightly better battery life but slightly heavier, trimode, uses a different technology, no infrared port, and slightly more expensive. Verizon and Sprint do not carry any of the new Nokia phones. When I first saw one of the Nokia 8200 series phones, I did not think that the battery life on them would be better than my current phone since it was so small. Once I found out it was better than my current phone, I couldn't wait to get one. The battery life is over 3 hours talk time and several days standby. The infrared port on the Nokia 8290 is compatible with the Handspring Visor (and probably with other PDAs also) to send data like phone numbers between them or to connect to the internet which comes in handy for me when I'm out and want to look up something on the web or see stock updates. The infrared connection between them is quite unstable, but it's still nice to have if needed. This feature along with the high quantity of minutes with Voicestream is what convinced me to choose their service over AT&T wireless with the Nokia 8260. The phone includes the whole range of typical Nokia features: Call Log, Messages with text messaging and including e-mail messaging, a wide selection of rings and empty slots so that you download more, a calculator, voice-recognition dialing, calendar for reminders, vibrating alert, and simple little games (including snake, memory, logic, and rotation which are good timekillers while waiting around somewhere). Text messaging is also very nice to have as a college student so that you can receive messages that will not interrupt your class with a ringing phone or having to walk outside the room to take a call. There is no bulky antenna and the phone is so tiny and flat that it can fit almost anywhere including small pockets. The phone is lightweight which makes a real difference in carrying around my purse compared to my last phone (Nokia 6185). The phone is also stylish and comes in a dark blue color with the option to easily change the faceplates, keypads, and downloadable custom rings. With Voicestream, a hands-free kit was included with the phone which is very nice to have when used with voice-recognition dialing if you need your hands free to do something else and also to keep the phone clean of sweat if the conversation is going to be long or you are outdoors on a hot day. The only disadvantages I find to the Nokia 8290 is that it is only single band so if I am in an emergency situation in an area that is considered roaming, the phone is useless. The Nokia 8260 has roaming capability. I've never used the roaming feature on any phone yet but would like to have it just in case. The other disadvantage is the service provider (Voicesream-see article if considering) where in some small select areas of Austin (especially around the University of Texas which is a problem no matter what service you are using). I am not able to use the phone but usually a short walking distance away from the areas outside can take care of that. The price is above average of most phones available out there but very worth it for all this phone has to offer. If you feel this may or may not be the right phone for you, I have found a lot of great information on www.point.com/default.asp which is a great website for comparing all types of cell phones and rate plans of services if you need to research all the specifics. I believe that Nokia makes some of the best phones available out there on the market today in terms of quality and technology, and my experience with using the Nokia 8290 has been excellent. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 88944 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 size ir port appearance hard to hear out of Full Review The Nokia 8290 is simply beautiful. It's so tiny and it's so new! It's hard to remember that you have it. You want to be gentle with it because you'll feel like you'll crush it. People love it and want to hold it. I got mine for a 3 day trial period with Voice Stream, which is brand new to the Dallas area. I'm not happy with the AT&T TDMA clarity and was looking for something new. The New world-standard GSM! Here in Dallas, I almost always got reception. When I was in a relatively quiet place, those I called heard me very clearly. But my biggest complaint was that I couldn't hear anyone else while driving. I used the handsfree set that came with the phone. I called my buddy in New York. He said he couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear him period. He was on his Sprint PCS and I was on the 8290 w/headset. I called the VoiceStream customercare, and they couldn't hear me either. They told me to get off the set and just use the phone. Much better! They told me to get another handsfree set. I opted to return the phone. The phone wasn't the problem. It was the new VoiceStream. I don't thing they have all the bugs tweaked out of DFW yet. I had a hard time hearing out of the Nokia 6190 and the Mitsubishi G310 they had at the store also. I compared all the phones with my AT&T 5160. The AT&T was what I was used to and was a lot louder but not as clear. VoiceStream simply wasn't what I was looking for. You could hear the caller like a landline, but when they listen to you, you buzz in and out, unlike a landline and more like AT&T. The reception is clear, but when you talk, it distorts, and they can tell you're on a cellphone. In a restaurant or Home Depot, I simply couldn't hear. Otherwise, the 8290 is awesome. I love the way it looks/size and it's IR ability/and technology. I bought the Nokia 8290 because it was the newest technology Nokia offered with Voicestream. I used the 8290 and Infrared red to my Palm and was able to "connect to the internet". That blows people's minds. But I need a cell phone so that I can keep in touch with my friends and family first most. I'm never home and always on the go. The 8290 would not be conducive for long periods of time on the cell phone while I'm on the go. I wished the headset was louder and clearer so that I could stay with the 8290. I just ended up yelling a bunch because I couldn't hear out of it. The VoiceStream 8290 is excellent in quiet rooms and convenience stores. I called my mom in Canada and she said it was very clear. But the room was quiet when I called so I was really able to hear her. At Home Depot/restaurants, forget about it! I'm going with Sprint and the Sanyo 4500. From what I've read, the Sprint clarity is unbeatable. If not, I'm going back to the 8290 with VoiceStream. It's much better than the AT&T 8260. I like CDMA and GSM better than TDMA. You should buy the 8290 if you don't plan to use a cell phone for extended periods. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 88943 2000/11/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 portable very small too small display too small Full Review I have used this phone for a month and before my 30-day money-back-guarantee expired I have returned the phone. Why? A few reasons for my dislike after using this phone for a while: 1. The buttons are way too small. I have bigger hands and fingers compared with the average "joe" and dialing on this phone is just so difficult. I would make at least one or two dialing errors each time I make a call. Therefore, dialing a phone number while I'm driving is just impossible. Don't even try it, you'll probably roll your car because it takes so much focus and precision to punch the right number. 2. Very uncomfortable to talk on this phone for any extended period of time. Because it is so small, you get tired and uncomfortable holding such a petite phone to your ear. 3. Display is too small to surf the web. This phone does have the capability to surf the web, but the display is so small and the characters are so small that sometimes it's just a pain in the butt to read information from the phone. These are the 3 main reasons for my dislike towards the Nokia 8290. Things I do like about the phone is reception is quite good compared with other "small" phones. Easily fits in your pocket (portability). And if you like personalization, you can even pick the colour of your choice. Bottom line: If you want a "small", portable phone with web browsing capability, and also looks cute then this the Nokia 8290 is for you. But if you're looking for a phone which is practical then there are others which will serve you better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 88942 2000/11/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception features sound quality i can t think of any to be honest Full Review OK, Let me first start by saying. I was a Sprint PCS customer for a long time and since i have been using VoiceStream, I have found nothing but the best reception and sound quality. I'm saying this because i really depends on the carrier not so much the phone. The Nokia 8290 has tons of features and You will be able to remember them, IT's not the kind of features where you have so much to do and so much to learn, I learned all the features with-in two day's. The Manual has about 130 pages, But don't worry, Alot of it is not needed. Ok, I could go on all day about how much features the phone has but you could just go to the website about that. www.nokia.com Let's get to the performance. The phone has great signal strengh and great quality. Now i hear alot about the phone feeling flimsy and is wondering what the heck there talking about. The phone feels great and People talk about Nokia has bad reception and just looks good. Looks good yes and bad reception NO! I have been through many phones from the Motorola Talkabout which broke after a month's use becuase it's poorly made and the Samsung 8500 which is and all around great phone for sprint and the Nokia 6185 and 90. Now the Nokia 8290 is by far the best phone i have ever bought and the price is great. The phone is really ment for only outside use though becuase as soon as i went into the back of a store say PC Richard The signal would go down, The phone would still be able to make calls but it wouldn't be at the max. Which is still damn good. I have never heard an echo or fuzzy-ness or any sort of call problems with the phone. Just try it out, Trust me you will not be disappointed. I'm not gonna make this too long but to say VoiceStream has kept there promise in delivering me a good signal and a good quality network. The Nokia 8290 has giving me the best signal(IT's always at maximum outside)and features and quality. If you have any questions or need information or anything at all feel free to E-mail me at NYguy747@aol.com I give my e-mail address because i'm true in what i say. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 88941 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activated small lightweight long battery life a bit fragile small lightweight don t lose it Full Review I searched far and wide for a new cell phone and came across the Nokia 8290. My first impression was "Wow,its small!" That concerned me. The thought of misplacing my phone or leaving it at a restaurant made me a bit hesitant. I tried out the phone and the sound quality and features are incredible. If you talk a lot on your phone while you drive, this is the model for you. It has voice activated dialing (A pain to set up-Check with your service provider to make sure its supported!) and comes with a handsfree earpiece. I can dial and disconnect with virtually no issues! One major thing you are going to want to get is the Nokia carrying case. It comes with a belt clip to keep the phone close at hands reach. The protection is needed since the plastic casing does not seem to be the most durable. I love every aspect of this phone. If your one of those people that likes fashionable electronics, get the 8290. There are 8 Nokia face plates available and several aftermarket ones for all your color coordination needs! Prices range from $12 to $25ea. Also the final feature for everybody who has a Palm device and Synch's data. This model has infared built in. So point it to a like infared device and your on the move. Data is transferred in a heartbeat. The battery is Lithium Ion so you get about two weeks of stand-by and a couple days consistent talk time. I picked this phone up for $89.99. I have seen it for as high as $189.99. Do your shopping, you get a great deal! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 88940 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 can use 6190 homecar chargers tiny comes w headset numeric keys are a little too small The Bottom LineGreat for those on the go, but bad for the absent minded. It's so small you could lose it. Full Review Compared with the Nokia 6190, the Nokia 8290 looks extra tiny and super sleek. The standard color is a bright blue, and you can buy other color covers ($20), which are easy to take on and off because it's a snap on. Those days of unscrewing the cover and taking apart your phone are over. SOUND The sound quality is still great, that is, where I can get access. The voice option is a convenient option to have, but it's not reliable. I'd say it recognizes my voice half the time I try to use it. BUTTONS This may be a problem for certain people. Since the numerical buttons are smaller, it's more difficult to find the buttons you want to dial when you can't see them. Even when you can see them, you have to be careful with which ones you press, because you might press the wrong one or more than one at a time. The most difficult button to reach is the on/off button. It's a triangle shaped key that doesn't protrude out as far as the other keys so it's not as easy to switch your phone on or off. OPTIONS The kit comes with a standard Nokia headset (which wasn't included with the 5190 or 6190) and home charger. The great thing is that for those of you who still have a 6190 home or car charger, it works with this 8290 model as well. I like leather covers because I'm constantly dropping my phone and it gets tossed around in my backpack. I admit my phone doesn't look as cool, but I'd rather lose some coolness and keep the blue paint on the cover. CHANGES FROM THE 6190 Nokia put some nice touches on the phone, as the menus are animated, and you can store 5 personal ring tones, as opposed to 1 on the 6190. The ring tones already available on the phone reflect a wide variety of moods (there's even Jingle Bells). You can send picture messages, and infrared is available, though I haven't used both of these yet. The games are somewhat different, though I haven't explored this yet either. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I find that this phone is easier to carry around with me, especially when I'm carrying a small purse. Also, I broke the antenna on my 6190 because it protruded out, and I don't have to worry about the same happening on the 8290, because it's an internal antenna. PRICE My plan is with Cingular Wireless and I went to an authorized Cingular dealer. I traded in my 6190 to get the 8290. Cingular waived an additional $20 fee if I did so. I also had to pay a higher tax. The amount was calculated from $199, the cost of the phone without service. Since I was no longer on a contract with them, I had to sign a new 1-year contract. Though I think the price is a little high, the benefits of having the phone outweigh the cost and getting bound into another contract. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 88939 2000/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 virtually every feature none found yet The Bottom LineAfter doing quite a bit of shopping around and comparison shopping, the 8290 really seemed to stand out above the rest in my view. Full Review I have had a Nokia 8290 for about a week. So far I think it's the greatest cell phone ever made, at least for my criteria and purposes. I have had a series of Motorola phones, including two Star Tacs, both of which had the hinge mechanism fail after about a year of moderate use. I know a lot of people with Nokia phones (generally the 5000 series ones that you can usually get for free when you sign up for a service). The older Nokia phones always seemed to have more reliability and many more features than the Motorolas, but the Nokias were bigger than what I wanted and the Motorolas used to be the only ones that were really small and could easily fit in a belt clip. The Nokia 8290, however, is even smaller than a Star Tac. I think that the Nokia 8290 beats the Star Tac hands-down in all categories and in any comparison. The 8290 is quite small, which some people have called a negative feature. However, when you have a phone that is barely larger than a thick credit card, you will have to deal with that small size. For me, the small size is a great advantage that has some minor consequences that I am gladly willing to live with. Some have said that the keys are also very small and difficult to use. I disagree. The keys are small, but not really any smaller than keys on a Star Tac. Plus, the keys on the 8290 are raised, so they are actually easier to use than the keys on a Star Tac where the keys are flush with the phone's surface. Reception and tone are so far as good as or better than my Star Tac. I haven't traveled with the phone yet, so I don't know if it will have problems in areas outside of the San Francisco Bay Area. The phone has the "PC suite" feature where you can maintain and edit your phonebook on your computer and upload it to your phone through an Infrared port. It also has a total of 500 phone numbers for its phonebook (250 each in the phone and in the SIM card), so I can enter every possible name and number without worrying about filling up the phonebook. The phone also allows "voice dialing" of 8 frequently called numbers, so you just say the name and the phone dials that number. I was concerned that the phone does not have a "flip" cover for the keys, and that calls would be made inadvertently by something pressing the keys. However, wearing it on a belt clip with the keys facing out, that is not really a problem. Plus, you can "lock" the keypad with two simple key strokes, and can unlock it easily too. The flip cover for the keys that Motorola phones have seems to be a point of early failure for those phones. After doing quite a bit of shopping around and comparison shopping, the 8290 really seemed to stand out above the rest in my view. The price I paid for the phone was $99, but that included the AC charger and the headset (which I think Nokia provides as part of the phone package) plus the dealer gave me a nifty holster and a car charger which had a market value of around $40. I also saw them at Good Guys a few days later for $99 minus a $40 mail in rebate, but those did not have the two items the dealer gave me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88938 2000/4/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features you can customize it tiny user friendly nokia accessories are expensive maybe too tiny The Bottom LineIt's probably the best combination of small size and bells and whistles on the market today. Very sleek and customizeable. Both a fun gadget and useful tool! Full Review After a year and a half of faithful service, I finally managed to lose my Nokia 6190 phone. I imagine my old phone frollicking in cell phone heaven, somewhere in Disney's California Adventure between the river raft ride and the Ferris wheel... Now that I have my 8290, I'm almost glad I lost the old one. It might be useful to note that your choice of phone is limited by your service provider. For example, I use Cingular Wireless (formerly Pacific Bell Wireless), whose flagship phone is the 8290. AT&T Wireless has the 8260 for their flagship phone. Both phones look similar, but the 8290 is actually lighter, thinner, and has more features. That would explain the price difference between the two. Also, the communication technology between the two services are different, hence the different phones. So you can't just buy a phone and choose your service. In other words, this review is probably only useful to you if you plan on choosing your service provider based on your choice of phone, or if you're trying to decide between different phones offered by your service provider. Anyway, back to the phone... The first thing you'll notice about the phone is its size. It's smaller than any of my remote controls -- it's basically half the size of my wallet. It's also very light. When I first saw the 8260, I didn't think Nokia could make it any smaller, but they did. The sleek 8290 makes the 8260 look chunky. In addition to being thinner and lighter, the 8290 has a faceplate that can be popped off for easy customization. Many vendors sell a variety of colorful faceplates, keypads, and screen filters that can be used to make your phone unique. The 8290 comes with lots of new features (some very useful, and others not so much). If you've used a Nokia phone before, you should have no problem using this phone -- the "operating system" is pretty much identical, aside from some minor cosmetic changes (animated pictures for the main menu options) as well as a few new menu options to incorporate the new features. The interface is straightforward and easy to use -- all the features of the phone don't make it more complicated to use. Nokia has made this phone even more user friendly by putting in little help messages that appear whenever you pause for a few seconds at any menu option. All the old features that seem to be standard on Nokia phones are there: phone book, calculator, calendar, alarm clock, caller ID, text messaging, call logging, call forwarding, PIN code security, a few games, and custom profiles. The manual is excellent, although it's the size of a small book since there are so many features to describe. One new feature is the voice activated dialing. The phone lets you record (I think up to 9) "voice tags" to assign to different numbers in your phone book. When you want a number dialed, you just hold down a button until you hear a beep, say the voice tag, and the phone dials the number for you. I thought it was absolutely useless at first, since you can assign your keypad numbers for speed-dialing and have it work almost the same way. However, I later found the feature tremendously useful whenever I was using the headset. The headset's microphone has a button on it, and you can activate voice tags by holding the button down until you hear a beep. The button also serves other duties, such as picking up the phone when the phone is ringing, hanging up, and switching between calls. With that one button and voice tags on your most common numbers, you can leave the phone in your pocket and never have to take your eyes off the road. That button is also a lot easier to find and press, as it is about twice the size of the keypad buttons. The voice tag recognition is pretty decent -- I've only had it misdial a couple of times. I remedied the problem by recording a full name instead of just the first name, because the phone has an easier time figuring out who you want to call if the voice tag is longer. Another new feature is infrared communications. This allows you to quickly exchange any phone number in your phone book with someone else who has the same phone. I've only used this a couple of times, but it has worked quite well. Apparently, you can also use this to play the "snake" game with another person. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry -- it's not important.) I believe there also may be software available from Nokia's website to allow you to transfer data between your phone and a laptop or PDA using their infrared ports. Presumably, this would allow you to "sync" your phone book or calendar, or perhaps download your call log or text message log (this is just speculation, you might want to check the Nokia website to see if this is the case). My only gripe about the infrared port is that it's on the lower left side of the phone, which seems like an odd place to put it. Text messaging has received some enhancements, like the ability to send simple pictures as well. My wireless service does not yet support this feature, so I haven't been able to use it. A major enhancement to text messaging is that the phone now keeps a dictionary of common words, making text entry much quicker. For example, if you wanted to type in the word "HI," the old way would have been to push 4 twice to get the letter H, then 4 three times to get the letter I. When you switch on the assisted text entry, you just hit 4 twice, and the phone searches the dictionary for any words which match the pattern. It's tough to explain, but it's easy to understand once you've tried it. Note that you can also enter your own words into the dictionary, so commonly typed words like names will also work with this system. Caller groups is another useful feature -- you can assign numbers in your phone book to certain groups which have custom ringing options. Speaking of ringing options, this phone can receive custom ring tones that you can send to your phone from websites like www.yourmobile.com. As for signal reception and clarity, I can't complain. I suppose results will vary depending on your service provider. I've rarely had problems getting a clear signal where I spend most of my time (the West Los Angeles area). The antenna appears to be superior to the older 5000 and 6000 series of Nokia phones, as I usually get a stronger signal than my friends with the older phones and the same service provider. Touching the antenna (the surface just above the battery cover) weakens your reception, so you'll have to train yourself to hold the phone "properly." The small size of the phone makes it easy to take with you -- it's so small and light that it's easy to forget you have it. It also makes it easy for you to lose it, and probably awkward or difficult for people with larger hands to hold or dial. This isn't a fault of the phone itself -- if you make something this small, it's got to have smaller buttons. Another advantage of the small size and mass is that it won't impact as hard on the ground when you drop it. I've dropped this phone a couple of times by accident, and there's barely any damage to the case. I remember dropping my old phone, and the weight of it caused a greater impact which caused major scratches. Since it's such an expensive phone (and easy to lose), I would definitely recommend the phone insurance. The peace of mind you get is well worth the extra few bucks a month. Battery life is excellent. I've used it for days without having to recharge it. Happily, my old power adapters for my 6190 phone are compatible with this one, so I don't have buy a new car charger. Note that the old headsets don't work with this phone... There's no internet surfing with this phone, but that's not something I particularly want (or expect, for a phone of this size). However, some services will allow you to send and receive emails through the text messaging feature. All in all, a great phone! Although it retails for $200, you can usually get it for $100 or less if you sign up for a service contract at the same time. Many services now offer unlimited nights and weekends (my plan gives me that and 150 peak time minutes for about $30 a month). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 88937 2000/11/30 Product Rating4.0 clear user friendly finding a vendor that carries the phone Full Review This phone is superb. I do not personally own this phone. My girlfriend does and when she is not looking, I use it. He he. She showed me all the features of the phone and it was simple to use and powerful. We called up my dad in the mainland and surprisingly sounded clear like he was right next to us. Other features such as an internal antenna, sleek body, shiny neo faceplate and short messaging are all pluses. When I owned the Nokia 5190, the antenna broke once and I had to replace it to make it work properly. With the Nokia 8290, you don't have that problem. This is also a world phone. This means that you can use it in different countries also. Before, specific phones could not be used because of the different frequencies used but the Nokia 8290 makes that problem disappear. Wow, technology is cool, isn't it? The only complaint I have is that I tried to get the same phone but had a hard time finding it. I could not find a place where I live that sells the phone. I ended up going to San Francisco to find the phone. I guess not too many people find it cost effective to buy an expensive phone when some phone companies offer other quality phones at dirt-cheap prices or at times even free. I strongly advise getting insurance for this phone. It is a costly little device and if you lose it, the insurance will replace it for you. It is a small price to save any future headaches. Happy Calling!! _______________________________________________ Update 11/29/00: Seems like my e-opinoion is outdated so I will fill in the gaps. First of all, it seems that technology is moving very fast that the price they are offering the phones these days are a "steal" and have drastically fallen in price. Just a few months ago, the phones were not offered everywhere. No when I go to different cities, they are offering it all over. I asked the cellphone salespeople and they are simply selling like hotcakes!! HA HA!! (For this fact, I have lowered the price to $165 MSRP.) The phone, depending who your carrier is and where you got it, then it can be considered a world phone. My earlier e-opinion did not state that. For example, if you got the phone in Asia, such as Hong Kong or Singapore and it is a tri-band, then you can get the chip for the phone that has the capability of a world phone. I am sure that Nokia will come up with more and more new models. I just find it hard to try to improve this phone. I find the phone so useful because I also use it as a PDA, alarm clock, and a To-do digital list!! Take care and Happy Calling!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165 88936 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish great selection of features user friendly it s very lightweightit might be easy to damage it The Bottom LineIncredibly small phone, with loads of features, but just don't drop it. Full Review I've been using Nokia phones for about 2 1/2 years now. My first was a 6190. I've just got my 8290 about 3 weeks ago. The size of the phone amazes me. So far I haven't had any problems with handling the phone. The only design feature I don't like is the position of the earpiece volume control. I use a pouch to carry the phone in and I'm constantly pushing the volume controls as I pull the phone from the pouch, messing up the setting. It would of been better if they put the controls more toward the middle of the side of the phone instead of the top. The phone menu is very similar to the 6190. The IR feature is new. It would of been nice if Nokia gave you a little more information on how to utilize this feature in the manual, but it will be fun figuring it out. Another new feature is the voice tag for numbers listed in your phone book. You can set up to eight phone number listings with a voice tag. Just press one button, speak the tag into the phone and it dials the number. Just be careful you don't set the voice tag in an area with a lot of ambient noise. It's very sensitive to background noise and won't be able to access the number after it's been set. This was the initial problem I had with the feature, but got it working now. Nokia has really gone all out on this phone. Even the menu icons are animated as you scroll through them. Just like the 5190 the phone can be totally customized. You can change faceplates with Nokia's Xpress-On color covers. You can change ring tones, ring volumes and profile settings. The battery capacity is incredible. I'm getting three days use without charging and I use my phone about half an hour a day. I can't wait for extra high capacity batteries to come out. You might never need to charge the battery. Ok, you'll still need to charge the battery, but I can dream can't I? The size of the phone is one of it's great features, but it could also be a disadvantage. I have to keep checking to make sure I have the phone with me. You can hardly feel it if you have it in a case attached to your belt. The phone is lightweight, but that also makes it feel somewhat flimsy. Probably one good drop on concrete and you'll be looking for a replacement. Right now the phone is expensive, but just like the 6190, the price is bound to go down. I can't imagine how they could make a phone smaller, especially since this phone is packed with features. I guess the next step will be the pin to your shirt communicators used in Star Trek The Next Generation. You could probably pin the Nokia 8290 to your shirt, but that would make it a little hard to dial. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165.00 88935 2001/2/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small t9 text input keypad a bit small keys not lit well The Bottom LineBuy this phone. It's a good little phone at a great price. Full Review OK, I'm sure a couple of you have read my opinions on this site before, but for those of you who haven't, let me make my standard introduction: I am the Phone God. I have owned practically every GSM, CDMA and TDMA mobile phone on the market since 1997. For the past eight months I've been on a GSM binge, and I've had every GSM Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson phone for the 1900 band. To summarize - I'm sick. Which brings me to my thoughts on Nokia's 8290. Bottom line is that this is a pretty good phone for the money. It's fairly stylish, has personalization capability, and has all the features you would generally look for in a GSM phone at this price range. The only thing it doesn't have going for it is a WAP feature, which I'll get into later. In terms of signal quality, this phone is tops. Of course, signal strength depends mainly on your service provider, but the phone does have a little to do with picking up those carcinogenic (oh yeah? prove it!) radio waves. The 8290 makes use of Nokia's aging internal antenna technology, which made its debut in the US in the ill-fated 8860 handset for TDMA. (What a horrible little phone that was. Thankfully Nokia redeemed itself with the introduction of its GSM 8890.) For ease of use, I have to give this phone four-and-a-half stars out of five. I have to take that half-star off because the keys on this handset are just too small. Even my 4'7" grandmother couldn't dial numbers properly. And using the softkeys below the display was an exercise in futility, as all six keys (the two softkeys, the talk/end keys and the phonebook/menu navigation keys) are all scrunched up together. It looks like Nokia is planning on substituting that design with the newer 8200 series now available in Asia as the 8250, on which the six softkeys are not connected. No official word from Nokia about that switch, but I do know that if you can get your hands on one of the 8250's replaceable faceplates and keypads, they will fit perfectly on your 8290. One piece of advice - it's not worth flying to Hong Kong just to get the faceplate. You can wait; it won't kill you. But look at the 8250 anyway (on www.nokia.com/walkontheblueside/logic.html) so you can spur your jealous instinct. Menu navigation on the 8290 is a snap, thanks to Nokia's smart policy of using generally the same menus on all its phones in the US. New animated menu banners are neat but entirely unnecessary. Calendar, clock and alarm functions are identical to the 6190. Nokia added voice-dialling for eight names on the 8290, an upgrade from previous Nokia GSM handsets, but seriously - who would allow themselves to be seen actually USING the voice-dialling feature? I tried it once on the Metro in Washington DC and felt like a total idiot. A man in a business suit next to me snickered and asked how difficult it was to just dial a number regularly that I had to use the voice-dial. (Man in the business suit: if you are reading this, the answer to your question is above, in the section where I complain about the size of the keypad.) The internal phonebook holds 250 names/numbers (plus whatever your SIM card can store), which is generally enough room to store the people you call most of the time. Battery life is pretty good, but could stand to be better. Using the phone without the vibration alert (which eats up battery power), I experienced an average battery life of 36 hours (combined talk-time and standby). Since I use my mobile often, I charged this baby up at least once every couple of nights, if not nightly. My one major complaint is the creaking sound this phone makes when the faceplate starts to loosen up. Nokia made a killing on its interchangeable faceplates for the 5100 series, and used the idea in the 8290, but the 8290 faceplates (even Nokia original ones) seem to fit well only for a couple of weeks. When they start to loosen up, watch out - the creaks are as bad as the ones we all heard while using Motorola's StarTAC 3000. All in all, however, this is a fine phone with excellent features. Price isn't too bad, either - I paid $229 for mine because I bought it without a contract. Expect to pay about $179 for it with a new activation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229.00 88934 2000/3/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fits anywhere size stylish customize it volume too low for all nokia phones The Bottom LineGet the Nokia 8290 and stay in style! Full Review This is the third phone, yes only the third phone, I've had and also the third Nokia phone. I've had the 5100 and 6100 series prior to this. They're all great phones, but this one really stands out! That's why I got this phone... and also because I was frustrated with the service provide of the previous phones. Yes, the 8290 uses a different service provider and is better but I won't get into that. We're talking about the phone itself no? Well, the phone is really small and light and fits anywhere! In your purse, pockets of your jacket, pants and even shirts! It doesn't have the antenna sticking out. The phone may look small and delicate, but it's quite strong. I've dropped the phone a couple of time, but nothing happened. For those with big hands... you may have trouble holding it or pushing the buttons. When you talk into it, it feels as if you're just talking into air because the phone is only slightly bigger than your ears. But trust me, it's very clear. The people you talk to will hear you. However, you may have trouble hearing them in loud environments. This happens to all Nokia phones. Something they need to work on. Also, because of it's tiny size and the volume buttons built on the side, sometimes I'll press it accidentally. The Nokia, however, is known for it's user-friendliness. You don't even need the user's manual to learn how to operate the phone. The difference between 8290 and the previous phones is that 8290 comes with animated icons on the menu. Pretty cool, but not useful at all. Hey, this phone is all about style! Also, 8290 comes with standard vibrating battery. Very useful because ALL Nokia phones have low ringing volume also, even if you set it at max. Quite a few times I know I got a call because I felt it, not heard it. Hmm... volume seems to be the biggest issue with Nokia phones... but that's about it. This phone uses SIM card which you can take out and use it one another compatible phone. The information you stored on the SIM card, such as your phone book, will be there so you don't have to enter them all over again. You can store up to 250 names/phones on the SIM card and another 250 on the phone's memory! The phone also allows you to program one touch dialing or whatever you call it... and 8 voice activate calling! You can use the phone as a PDA to store other info as well. There's calendar where you can store important events/dates and reminders. Comes with an alarm, built in calculator and currency converter. Some cool features include infrared (IrDA) and text messaging. You can use the IrDA to transfer info to and from your PC, PDA, or other IrDA capable device. And you can send/receive text messages just like an email with predictive text entry. The phone comes with 35 ringing tones with 5 downloadable ring locations. So you don't have to have the same ringing tones like everyone else. You can select your own ring tones and also change the faceplate so you'll be unique! I recently changed mine to look like the 8890... you know, with the slide cover. Oh, more about the ring tone... you can program different group ring tones so that when people from group A calls, the phone will ring in one tone and when people from other groups called, it'll ring in a different tone. This way, you'll know who's calling without looking at the phone display! And of course, if you like games... Nokia's got games for you as well! By the way, I got this phone for free!! Yes, FREE!!! Under one condition... must sign up for a one year contract... a joke right? NOT! I got it in Oct. 2000, so they probably have better deals now. The last time I checked, sign up for a one year contract and get the phone for free plus $10 cash back! This is not a joke or a scam... I've gotten my previous phones for free under the same condition... and none of those "fine prints". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 88933 2002/4/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 perfectly portable no wap The Bottom LineThis small phone has a lot of useful features; its best feature is its size. Excellent clarity. Full Review I've been through a number of cell phones. The main problem is that I hate carrying a phone around, but I am required to by the nature of my job. I also hate carrying bags or anything that doesn't fit into the pockets of a pair of jeans. The last phone I used, a Motorola Timeport (had other problems, too) was small enough to fit in my pocket, but it fit snugly, and once the screen cracked, just from being squished by my jeans (and they were not particularly tight jeans - but I was running around a lot). I needed a phone that didn't do that. Some people are of the opinion that bigger and more rugged is a better way to handle my situation, but I don't think so. This phone feels a little delicate, but so far, so good, and I'm not a very delicate person. There is nothing covering the keypad which I don't like very much because I get gunk in the keys, but I ordered a new faceplate which does enclose the keys and doesn't add to the size, so for $20 it's a pretty good solution. Until then I can lock the keyboard and nothing gets pushed accidentally while the phone is in my pocket. There is also a nice feature that starts the ring at a low volume and continues to get louder if it goes un answered. So if it's right next to you you can answer without making a terrible annoying screech, but if you're in the next room, you can hear it eventually. I really like the "profiles" that this phone offers. When you click the power button you are faced with some options (if the phone is already on, of course). One is "switch off" naturally, and if you hold down the button for a second more, the phone will do just that. But you can also scroll through a bunch of profile options, like normal, silent, outdoor, etc. This is nice because you can have it set to ring normally but then quickly and easily switch it to silent mode (like vibrate) when you walk into a restaurant or movie theater or meeting without fumbling to change the ring settings. Just a little click does it. You can program those profiles to do different things: in the silent profile for example, vibrate when you get a call but do nothing when you get a message. You can also program "caller groups" so you can set it to do nothing for most calls but vibrate (or ring or even ring a different tone from your usual ring tone) when you get a call from a particular person. Go out to dinner and set it to do nothing when your boss calls but vibrate if the babysitter calls, or something. The caller groups feature is nice, but it is missing something that most people probably don't care about, but I do. You can set a special tone for the ring when someone in a defined caller group calls you, but you can't set a special tone for particular messages. You set your message tone (or vibrate) and all messages behave the same way. So what. Well, for me it matters. I'm on call for some web servers and if they go down they send a message to my phone. In the middle of the night, I hear my message tone and leap out of bed in panic only to find a note from a friend saying "hey there!" and I want to kill them for waking me up. But I can't turn it off overnight, because I do need to hear that message (if it's the right one). So message profiles would be nice. The vibrate is pretty intense, too. I was on a ladder working with electrical cables once and the phone vibrated in my back pocket and I thought for a second I was being electrocuted. Nearly fell off the ladder and killed myself, but I don't see this as a common problem. The phone is also missing WAP - internet services on the phone. My phone company - Voicestream - provides some such services but I don't use them. I do use the function of getting email on my phone sent from a normal computer, but that doesn't require WAP. Again, it wasn't enough to keep me from buying the phone, but it would be nice. Overall, I'm happy with this phone. It's the first one I've owned that stopped me from continuing to shop and research other phones for the time being, at least. And the volume is good, both for me and for the person I'm talking to. In fact I was on a call once in a place so loud I was going crazy (an air compressor - if you know the noise, you know how loud it is!), but I could hear everything and the person on the other end said I sounded like I was in the next room. There seems to be some filter on the mic (there was also a filter on the Motorola mic, but it was terrible and cut off some of my speech sometimes). I also usually keep my phones turned up to the highest volume, but this one I keep only halfway most of the time. I can't comment on the battery life, as I have never really noticed. I plug it in every 2 or 3 days, and I usually talk about 2 hours a day total. Mostly, it's small. Mostly, I actually do carry it around. update: ok, it's 6 months later now, and the screen died. I should also point out that my friend, who bought one based on my reccommedation just after I bought mine, also had the screen die. I sent it back and the one they sent me hardly holds a signal. My friend's replacement phone is fine. I'm waiting for my third to arrive, and then we'll see. So I changed durability from a 4 to a 2. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88932 2001/6/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the size the style the features only available in gsm but i really like gsm The Bottom LineThe technology is solid, the design stylish, the price is great and I am as happy with my carrier as I could hope. A no brainer. Full Review I could not be happier with this phone. I have been a Sprint PCS customer (in the Denver area, traveling to metro areas nation-wide) for over three years and have had two models of Qualcom phones. My most recent was the QCP-2760. I bought it because of its thin profile so I can carry it in my front dress trousers pockets or by back jeans pocket. What prompted me to consider changing was the fact that my current model phone had to be replaced under warranty four times. Each time I had to punch my phone numbers into memory all over again. This was very frustrating. What made me take the initiative to change carriers and put myself into a position of having to send my new number to hundreds of people was this awesome phone. Many reviews have focused on the specs and features of this phone. I won't. I want to clear up some things that I was uncertain about during my decision making process. - My biggest concern was changing to VoiceStream, the sole GSM carrier in my area. I climbed the learning curve with Sprint before they had coverage in Chicago and Columbus. Back then I could roam with Analog and pay big roaming bucks. So far I am satisfied with Voicestream. I have resigned myself to the fact that they all kind of stink. Voicestream however did not drop calls where I usually do. I have not found many real bad dead spots yet. A friend of mine is also very happy and has had VoiceStream for about a year. I hope the get Chicago up and connected very soon, but I am willing to deal with the inconvenience if they do not. What I am really impressed with is the feature set of their service. Call me gadget boy, but I like customizing my phone. MyVoicesteam.com was pretty useful for doing so. One great resource was the ability to populate your phonebook memory from their website and have the names and numbers sent to your phone. I have found their customer service to be relatively quick as well. GSM itself is a very well thought out standard. With Sprint (and all CDMA / TDMA carriers) you have to go to the store to upgrade your firmware. With GSM, upgrades are sent to your phone. Also, there is that phone book problem I mentioned. You can put up to 250 numbers on a removable SIM memory card. If I have to switch my phone out for some reason (upgrading my phone, renting a world phone, broken phone, etc) I just take out the SIM and put it in the new phone. - Okay those features are on all GSM phones. Back to the 8290. - The infrared port is great. I was very excited to use it with my palm pilot. Connecting to the palm was somewhat useful. Two problems I found: 1) If a contact has a long title and name (text that precedes the phone number) nothing gets received by the 8290. So if you send a contact who is the Senior Vice President of World Wide Enterprise Resource Management, the palm confirms that the contact was sent and the 8290 does nothing (receives nothing, reports no errors, just indicates that it is ready to receive IR data). 2) Also, only the first number in the palm pilot for a given contact can be sent. Many of my contacts have three numbers that I wanted to send. The remedy was fusionPhone. It synchs from Outlook directly to your phone. If I had had that software, I would have loaded up my phone in about 10 minutes with all 150 contacts I have in so far. If you plan around these limitations you are okay. Also, I have not figured out how to enter a pause with the keypad into the 8290. If you are programming voicemail passwords, this can be difficult. If you have VoiceStream, you can enter number sequences with commas in phone numbers at the myVoicestream web site then they will send the entries to your phone. A hint: the number of characters you can enter at their site is limited. If you run out of space, just send a bunch of commas, then edit the number when it gets to your phone. - Many reviews on the 8290 discussed an alleged flimsy design. The cover is removable so it squeaks when you squeeze the phone. Not a big deal if you ask me, especially when contrasted against the fact that if you crack the face or the screen, no problem. $20 gets you a new cover that you can install without tools. Try that with most any other phone. - The microphone and speaker quality are good, not great, but good. Given my experience in talking with people calling from cell phones the carrier is more of an issue than the mic quality. - Voicestream includes an earbud headset. This works pretty well. My wife used it from her V-8 Jeep. It picked up some background noise, but cleaned it up pretty well. I could hear the clicking from her turn signal very clearly, but not much engine noise as she accelerated onto the freeway. I suspect that there is some digital signal filtering that scrubs "white noise." - The keypad is of course small because the phone is small. In a perfect world, I might have swapped the keypad and screen locations. However, I may have been the only one to buy the phone then and who would benefit from that. - The jury is still out on the calendar feature. If you use fusionPhone, you can send entries from your Outlook calendar directly to it. I will probably use it to check ahead a couple of weeks when I don't have my palm handy, but I don't see myself ditching my palm anytime soon since I refer to notes in the contact screen and I have about 1000 contacts. - Now add all of the stuff above plus what you read in other reviews to the fact that the phone is simply, very cool. I got mine for $109 from CCI Wireless at Flat Irons Crossing Mall. They carry every service provider in the Denver area so they can be objective about the features from each service. Update 6/19/01: I am still very happy with the phone. Nothing new has come out that I would rather have since my 2/26 original post. One note is that a lot of people talk about the durability, but I have not observed any significant posts citing specific problems in this area. A friend of mine has the 8260 TDMA phone from AT&T. He likes to have the best and latest toys. He has tried to find some advantage that the 8260 has over the 8290. He can find none, but I can name a handful of features that the 8290 has over the 8260 off the top of my head: IR Port, SIM Card, changeable cover, size (the 8290 is slightly smaller) and superior reception on VoiceStream's GSM network. Also, I bought my wife the 8290 and have recommended it to some of my friends. I purchased a Jabra headset to replace the one that was included. Since the microphone in the included headset is attached to the cord and gets spun around, it requires as much attention as holding the phone up to your ear. The Jabra set is pretty good for $40. The microphone and speaker are integrated into one unit that goes in your ear. It is the most practical one I could find. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109 88931 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable easily fits in pocket feature packed light tiny buttons single phone number per name entry The Bottom LineAll and all the phone has just few small shortcomings, but it is a very good phone loaded with extras. I highly recommend it. Full Review I have had my 8290 for almost exactly 2 months now. Using VoiceStream's GSM service as my provider. The original reason I purchased this particular phone was two fold. First, I needed to switch cellular services (was on Sprint PCS, and it was awful in my area, see other review of Sprint) and since I was changing services I had to change phones. Second, I wanted a phone that would fit comfortably in my pocket, and I didn't want the feeling I as going to break something (i.e. antenna). This phone meets both of those criteria; it was supported by VoiceStream (my new carrier), and was compact and has no external antenna to break off. Reception on the phone, even though it has no external antenna is very good. Of course I have had my occasional reception problems but overall it has been good. However there are two parts to the "reception" equation, the 8290 itself and the VoiceStream service. The size of the 8290 is a little small for some people who like something they can get their hand around. I have fairly large hands (for reference, I can palm a basketball) but I have gotten used to the size and feel of the phone. One problem I do have with the size though, is with the buttons. They are rather small and close together, as most cell phones are but they are also somewhat raised, instead of the more typical flush or recessed buttons. This has caused me to accidentally hit buttons with my fingers on more than a few occasions, and they also have a tendency to get pressed when the phone is in my pocket and I sit down. I have yet to dial a number accidentally while it has been in my pocket, but I won't be surprised if and when it happens. As for features, in typical Nokia fashion this phone stands out. With Games, messaging, configurable (and updateable) graphics and ring tones, this phones features just keep going. The built in Infrared port allows you to upload and download phone numbers, graphics, and who knows what else. It has voice dialing, and configurable ring tones for users or groups of users. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea. The one feature that I kind of miss about my old StarTac is being able to have multiple phone numbers for each name in my phone book. With the 8290 you have to have separate name entries for each phone number, so if you are storing a Home, Work, and Cell number of someone you have to use 3 entries in you phone book. It makes the phone book extra long when you are scrolling. Other than that, I am sure that I have features on this phone I don't even know about yet. One last bonus for those of you into wanting to "express yourself", the faceplate of the 8290 is of course changeable then again aren't all Nokia's now days. Given the good (small, light, configurable, loaded with features), the bad (tiny buttons, single phone # per name), the 8290 is a solid performer in a crowded and fast growing market of cell phones. I recommend looking into one if you are looking for a good quality Nokia cell phone that will fit in the palm of your hand. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 88930 2000/12/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact high powered style expensive aftermarket products hard to find may be too small Full Review Can this super mini-cell phone be actually practical? and easy to use??? You bet!! My sister purchased this phone and I personally was skeptical. Sure it looks hi-tech and super small but those little buttons seem impossible to find when driving or during an emergency. Well it turns out I was wrong. The 8290 has all the regular functions. If you are a Nokia owner you know what I mean. If not, here is what i mean.. The features include: message center, phonebook, many ringtones, games etc. There are too many features but its safe to say that everything you need is there. Sound quality on a mini-cell like the 8290 any good? Well the quality is surprisingly excellent. Don't ask me where the mic is but heck if it works, who cares. How about the power and battery life? Well apparently this little cell is very powerful. In my house, my other Nokia cell phones cannot receive any reception but with the 8290, there is one bar!! You do not know how amazing this is. It's like a bomb shelter in my house. NO one can get reception on their cells..... except the 8290. Since the 8290 is rather expensive and new, aftermarket products for the phone are harder to find. The face plates are not sold everywhere like the 5190. Ringtones are hard to find online also. With all that said the 8290 is a really nice cell phone if you can afford it. It offers about the same features as any other cell. The compact size may be a plus or minus. Easy to lose but feels like a matchbox in the pocket. You be the judge. Recommended: Yes 88929 2000/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small almost forget you have it compact overflowing with features can get lost quite easily still a little pricey Full Review Following in the footsteps of a line of great phones comes a new breed of digital phones. Nokia has once again upped the ante with their latest phone...the 8290. When I first heard about the phones being available, I thought, "here comes another one." But after taking a closer look at the phone, it blew me away. All the information I needed to make a decision was available at Nokia's website. After long deliberation, I decided fork out the $165 and "upgrade" my phone to the Nokia 8290 for VoiceStream. The first thing that impressed me was its size and weight. Weighing a mere 2.8 ounces, and measuring 3.9 inches in height and 1.7 inches in width, one must keep a careful eye on the phone to insure that it does not disappear. Despite its small stature, the 8290 contains all the features of the 6190 with some cool additions: -The menus now have animated icons, adding a little fun while scrolling through them. -Nokia has included an IrDA infrared port, enabling the phone to connect to and share information with other phones with infrared capabilities, or even a personal computer. -There are five spaces for customizable, downloadable ringtones, bringing to total to 40 different rings. -It now comes with a built-in vibrating function, making the phone vibrate when there is an incoming call. -A voice-dialing function can add "voicetags" to 8 entries in the phone book, giving a new definition to "one touch dialing". -Predictable text input now allows the phone to "guess" what the word is going to be, eliminating some time it takes to write out a text message. -A new set of call timers: Last call, All calls, Received calls, Dialed calls. Because these timers keep track of usage to the exact second, it doesn't give you a clear-cut total of the minutes used, but it helps give you a good idea of where you stand and it's not that hard to estimate. I have found that even though the antenna is now internal, call quality is not significantly sacrificed. The reception is great, and the calls are still crystal clear. Now, as with everything, there are some MINOR setbacks. -Because the phone is only 3.9 inches tall, people using it may find that the phone's microphone (a small little hole at the bottom of the phone) may not reach the user's mouth and so the person on the other side may have a hard time hearing what is being said. -The standard Li-Ion battery does not have the same battery life of the 6190. It can still give some long talk times, but needs to be recharged more frequently than the 6190. Other than those minor setbacks, I found that the phone gives quite a punch. I think that users will find it to be quite a thing of beauty. I know I'm satisfied. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165 88928 2000/10/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 looks sleek doesn t work The Bottom LineUnless you live in Texas with wide open ranges, I would avoid this phone like the plague. Full Review I really, really wanted to like this phone. When I saw it coupled with a VoiceStream offer, my eyes twinkled, and I thought, "This is the phone for me." I was attracted to the compact size and features including personalized rings, text messages, and ability to make voice calls. Pretty tight, huh? But when I laid down the cash to make this baby my own, I faced a lot of problems (and mind you, this could be VoiceStream related, so make your determination accordingly). First, I had mega problems with voicemail. I had to call in tech support NINE times before somebody could get it to work. Guess how many messages I lost? This was the only phone I had at the time, so that was a nuisance. Second, one cannot walk down a simple street -- less than 3 blocks -- without having the conversation cut out or drop completely. In fact, ALL of my calls have been dropped. Third, these gadgets do NOT work inside buildings, so if you're a New Yorker, fugget about purchasing a Nokia 8290. Since they don't work inside, I have to resort to standing on top of my roof no matter what the weather is like. They also do not work underground, but to Nokia's credit, I don't think any phones do. Fourth, the phones are so complicated that I have not yet figured out how to do voice calling - and remember, that was one of the primary reasons I liked this phone. I consider myself pretty handy with electronics, so one can imagine my frustration with the 8290. Fifth (whew!), when people try to call me, they don't get through; instead, my friends, family, and co-workers receive an error message, a dead ring, or just plain air. This plus the inability to leave messages after experiencing this makes me the inconvenienced consumer. Finally, I called to replace my phone thinking it was some mistake, no phone could be THAT bad...or could it? When they sent my replacement, I went through the same problems. Oy. I once had PrimeCo and had much better service with them until they switched to Verizon. The phone still had great clarity, but I had to be careful of 'added' charges on Verizon's bill that even they admitted fault month after month after month. That's the only reason why I decided to switch to another phone company. In retrospect, I wish I had just stuck with them and checked my bill every month -- it would have been so much easier than dealing with the Nokia 8290 now. *sigh* Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 88927 2000/11/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear lcd screen customizable size small keys Full Review "Whoa! What is that THING?!" - Something I've heard from numerous people regarding my new Nokia 8290. I've had this phone for roughly 1 week. I personally love the size! It's a little on the small size, but when you compare it to a 51xx/61xx those phones look like dinosaurs! This phone has it all. Space for 250 phonebook entries. And an additional 250 on the SIM card. 8 Voice recognition entries. I did not think it would work, but it does! SMS (Text Messaging Service) capabilities. Space for 5 personal ringtones. The ability to have different ringtones for different groups. and much more! The clarity is great. When people I call see the phone I use to cell them with they are amazed. After all, the microphone is approximately 2-3 inches away from your mouth! Reception in Austin, Texas is good. Compared to Sprint, there are virtually no dropped calls. But AT&T is my personal pick in this area. I really cannot get over the size of this thing. The main reason I got it was because I wanted my phone concealed within my pockets. The Nokia 8290 is virtually unnoticeable in my jean pockets. My keychain feels bulkier! The Voicestream Nokia 8290 comes with TWO faceplates (red and blue) which are X-Press on, which are a cinch to change. These phones are really popular within the European community and they have A LOT of aftermarket products for it. A search for "8290" on Ebay will yield many faceplates, desk chargers, data cables, etc. Ringtones! Everyone has a custom one nowadays. There are some great websites that offer FREE ringtones, but currently it seems no sites support the 8290. Some to look out for are: http://www.yourmobile.com http://www.mymobile.com http://www.boltblue.com http://www.nokiausa.net You can also get a data cable for ~$25 and send your own ringtones and logos to your 8290. Although I love this phone there are some negative points. First, the keypad is extremely small. It's ALMOST difficult to punch in numbers. ALMOST, I can barely do it. Secondly, I was originally in the market for AT&T because their reception is MUCH better here in Austin. With Voicestream I lose reception in most buildings. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 - ($70 rebate) 88926 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small small voice dialing affordable it s not as cool looking as the 8890 Full Review I first entered the world of mobile phones with a Nokia 5160. This phone was a great phone, until I heard about the 8000 series phones that Nokia released. After that, the 5160 was nothing. Just a toy. I had to have a 8000 series phone. Anyway, all my friends had Pacbell phones and free-mobile-to-mobile. All, I could say was that I could check my voicemail from a land line. No one called me anyway because they would be wasting minutes calling an AT&T customer! Well, AT&T reception was horrible in my area, I wanted FMTM, and I wanted a 8000 series phone. I called up AT&T, cancelled my contract, and within a week, I had a 8290 in my possession! I got my phone for $70 since I was opening a new contract. With my phone I got a car charger, a leather case, blue and red faceplates, a home charger, and a clear faceplate because they were nice. As for the $70 I paid for the phone, I would have paid twice as much or even three times as much for the phone and it still would have been worth it! There are so many great features for this phone that only a Nokia representative would be able to recite them all back at you, so I'll only cover a few. First off, the size! Or lack of rather... This thing is TINY! I was amazed at how small it was the first time I saw this phone. The specs speak for themselves: 3.9 x 1.7 inches and 2.8 ounces. That's about 3/4" taller and 1/2" narrower than a business card, and about half the weight of your keychain. It's so small that I lose it often in my apartment, partly because I'm lose stuff like that a lot, but also because it slips down into cracks really easily, like between the cushions on the couch. Well, no need to worry. Just give your phone a ring and it'll shout out from where ever it's hiding. Well, since it's so small, I bring it everywhere I go. As soon as you put it into your pocket, it seems to disappear. I'm sure you could bring it along on an activity such as running, and the phone wouldn't get in your way at all. The phone is also really durable. Well, at least the electronics part of it. I've already broken the clear faceplate that I mentioned earlier and the blue one included with the phone. The clear faceplate broke because it was a generic one, but the blue faceplate broke because I guess I'm too active. I've also dropped the phone once or twice because it's so small and I'm a klutz. You'd think that something so small and sophisticated would be fragile but the phone itself still works great. With the 5100 and 6100 series Nokia phones, if you wanted to have a long lasting Lithium Ion battery, or a have your phone vibrate when it received a phone call, or both the battery and the vibrate feature, you had to buy special batteries that cost up to $60 each. With the 8290, Nokia has included a Li-Ion battery as standard equipment, so you don't have to worry about upgrading to a better battery. And the vibrate feature is built into the phone itself, not the battery. The battery life on these phones is several days. I'm sure that it could survive on a charge or two a week, but I charge my daily out of habit. One great feature on the phone is the voice dialing. This is a James Bond type of feature where you speak the name of the person you wish to dial and, after searching its database, the phone promptly dials it. You can only store 8 "voice tags," however, but I've found that 8 is plenty. The people that I call often enough that I found a voice tag necessary only take up 6 of the 8 spots, and for the rest of the people that I call often, I hit the letter of their name, and they're a click or two up or down. The voice dialing is also accessible from the handsfree kit, which is very helpful. On the microphone for the handsfree set, there is a button which you can press once to pick or hang up a phone call, or hold it down to activate the voice dialing. Serious secret agent stuff here... =) The memory on this phone is massive, too. The phone itself can hold 250 telephone numbers. And depending on what SIM chip you get, the chip can hold another 250 numbers. That's a total of 500 numbers! Do you even know 500 people? I know I don't. Well, at least not 500 people that I'd call. Well, I find myself storing any random number into my phone. If I call a restaurant, I'll store the number, even if I don't go there often. Even so, I've only taken up about a 1/4 of the memory! I would judge the reception on this phone as average. However, service in my area is spotty, so it may be that. I've found that using the handsfree greatly improves reception. Maybe my big head is blocking all the incoming waves? Well, compared to my roommate's 6190, the reception and voice quality are average. Both get about the same strength signal, and both add that slight digitally encoded touch to people's voices that we've all grown to love. Well, needless to say, I love my 8290. It looks cool and I can be a secret agent who calls his friends free because his communication network allows him to for $10 a month. It follows me everywhere I go except the shower. Oh, and it sure beats the heck out of that 5160. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 88925 2002/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 great ui 2 way sms email vibrating alert tiny size nice design infrared internal antenna flaky lcd connection no wap durability not a world phone can t store email addresses The Bottom LineGreat design, this phone hooked me on Nokias. Full Review With the 8290, Nokia's finally done it. This phone's design, form factor, and features define what cell phones have been trying to be for the last ten years. I suppose nothing's perfect, but this phone is damn near; it's small enough to carry anywhere and everywhere, and many of it's cool little features have the added benefit of actually being useful! read on... DESIGN Overall, exceptional. Lots of oohs and aahs whenever I show the phone around. + This phone is TINY: only 3.9" x 1.7" by about .5" thick, and it weighs a miniscule 2.8 ounces. This is about the size of a five-pack of cigarettes, if you've ever seen one of those. It's small enough to put in your front pants pocket, shirt pocket, or anywhere else, without getting in the way. Finally, a phone actually small and unobtrusive enough to carry around as much as we all carry our cell phones! + NO annoying flip or slide cover: I know that some people really like their Motorola Star-Tac's and other phones that flip open. I for one have never really understood the need to have the phone wrap around my face, and I think the fewer moving parts, the better. Nokia has also tried to make the slide cover a status symbol on its high-end 8890 phone, but it it actually makes the 8890 a tiny bit bigger. + NO protruding antenna: WELL DONE Nokia for figuring out how to make an internal antenna work, thereby avoiding the need to put a protruding antenna stub on the phone. This in itself is one of the best features of the phone - there's never anything sticking out, digging holes in your pockets. Don't worry, the reception is great, see below for details. + buttons: the buttons seems tiny at first, but you'll get used to 'em, and they work fine. The only gripe I have is that the power button really is tiny, and doesn't really give any positive feedback; you have to look at the phone to confirm that it's on... You'll find that your index finger naturally falls over the volume up/down buttons on the side of the phone when you're talking -- an example of good design in action. + exchangeable color covers. The phone comes with blue and red, I like the blue just fine for now... I did actually order an orange cover from nokia.com, and ended up returning it as soon as it arrived - the color was UGLY, and I usually like orange. Maybe I'll try grey. - durability. others have said it and I will agree that the overall build quality and resulting durability of the phone is rather poor. The tactile buttons response of the buttons could be more solid, and the frame of the phone squeaks a bit when you squeeze it. More importantly, the LCD on many Nokia phones, including the 8290, often starts to flake out after a while, particularly if you drop the phone. The reason is the LCD connection to the its power source is by pressure between the board holding the LCD and the backplane of the phone. Dropping/twisting the phone weakens this fit, and the LCD loses its power connection. You can often make the LCD "work" by applying manual pressure near the "Nokia" logo above the LCD. The good news is that this CAN BE FIXED. Take the phone apart, and either put a thin shim under the Nokia logo (on top of the LCD screen), or file down the plastic studs on the back of the board holding the LCD. Either technique should increase the pressure on the LCD power contact, restoring its function. This site has a great article on 8290 disassembly: http://www.all4cell.com/ USER INTERFACE / OPERATING SYSTEM + In general, I'm a big fan of Nokia's UI/OS. It's very intuitive, and consistent across different phones. You have easy access to all the features mentioned below, your email/SMS inbox is only two clicks away, no big faults here. From what little I've seen of Motorola's UI, Nokia beats them hands-down. - The "Welcome Note" feature is MISSING! On my other Nokia, I programmed my email address as the welcome note, which is displayed when the phone starts up. I actually had a lost phone returned to me once, thanks to this feature. I don't know why, but the 8290 does not include this feature. - Similarly, there's no way to get rid of the annoying "safety first" startup logo. Nokia informs me that this is actually the carrier's fault (PacBell), since the phone does support changing the logo via programs like LogoManager (see below); in this case, the carrier has locked the logo in place via the SIM card. Very silly. FEATURES So many features packed into such a tiny phone! + Infrared. There is a tiny little IR port on the side of the phone. Now, what does that do, you wonder? Well, try it out: activate the IR, and point it at some other IR device. You can beam phone numbers to and from other phones, as well as other handheld devices such as Palm, etc. I repeat, you can beam a number from the phone to another phone, or to a Palm device, or from a Palm to the phone, etc. Incredible. More importantly, the IR allows you to connect the phone to a PC (as long as the PC has an IR port, of course). This means that I can put my 8290 next to my Thinkpad, connect via IR, and sync the phonebook and calendar between the PC and the phone! No! YES! It actually works. More on software below. By the way, this feature was enough for me to justify switching to a GSM carrier, since IR support is only available on GSM phones. This is one of the differences between the 8290 and it's sister the 8260. More on these differences below. + Voice dialing. You can record voice tags for up to eight numbers. Very simple process, and it actually works. Keep in mind that it's not actually understanding the name as you say it, it's simply matching what you say to the list of "voice tags" that you've previously recorded. In any case, it's incredible that they've stuffed this technology into this tiny little phone. + Predictive text input. Nokia uses Tegex's T9 system (not that you care what it's called) to predict what you're trying to type as you compose a written message. I continue to be amazed at how well the system works; it can somehow predict the spelling of by first and last names, which as you can see are by no means common. This is a great feature, even if you only send SMS/email once in a while. + two-way SMS/email. You can receive and SEND both SMS and email messages from the 8290. The difference is that SMS goes directly via the GSM network to/from other GSM phones, while of course email is, well, email. You really can send email to any internet email address; I don't use this often, but once in a while it can be VERY useful. Note that incoming emails are broken up into 120-character messages and in some cases cut off, and so you aren't going to want to receive lengthy emails on the phone. + Calendar. Since the IR port lets me sync the phone to my PC calendar, I've ditched my Palm V, and now just have my calendar in my phone. Very intuitive interface, somewhat limited display (it only carries over the subject field of your appointments, not location and notes fields, for example), and you can even add in new appointments on the phone keypad. Very useful. The calendar holds up to 50 appointments at any one time. + Data call capability. Again, since the IR port lets you connect to a PC, you can use the phone to make modem data calls, from anywhere. I haven't actually used this because there isn't support for Windows 2000 yet, but that's another story (see below). + Call forwarding. You can set up separate call forwarding for voice, fax and data calls. This allows you, for example, to use your cell phone as your universal number, and route fax calls to the nearest fax machine. (Or just use EFax, and they'll show up in your email inbox.) + SIM card. All GSM phones use a SIM card to store your preferences and address book data. The 8290 can store 250 numbers on the SIM and another 250 on the phone itself. You can take the SIM out and stick it into another GSM phone, and you'll have your phone number, and your entire address book intact. Many people use this feature when travelling internationally, just get an 8210 in Europe, and swap the SIM when you land. What's NOT stored on the SIM? Although your phone numbers are stored on the SIM, voice tags and custom ringtones are not, for example. + Vibrating Alert. This a key feature for me, and it's nice to have as a standard feature -- without requiring an accessory battery, for example. I keep the vibe on all the time, it's easy to tell if the phone is ringing in your pocket... + Profiles. The profiles feature makes it easy to set up different ringtones for different situations, e.g. outside, standard, meeting, headset, silent, etc. + Self-adjusting alarm clock. Set the alarm, turn the phone off, and it will wake up at the desired time, and then nicely ask whether you want it to turn itself on for calls... The clock on the phone adjusts itself via the GSM network! I think it even adjusts for different time zones when you travel!!! + Ring tones. You can download ring tones from the internet via SMS messaging. I finally have a phone that will play Dixie! That said, this feature is so annoying that it should only be used in the privacy of your own home. Please stick to normal ring tones (no songs!) in public. Please! + Games. I'm not much for games, but once in a while I play Snake while waiting for baggage to come through... + Calculator. useful. The calculator also has a currency converter function, although it's a little hidden. Open up the calculator, and hit Options, then scroll down to Exchange rate. Hit OK, and then you can put in the exchange rate btw your "home" and "foreign" units. Once you've done this, you can put a number into the calculator, and then hit Options, scroll down to "In home currency" or "In foreign currency", and it will make the conversion. Although I suppose this could be useful, it's usefulness is limited by the fact that the 8290 is not a world phone. You could use it in Canada, I guess. - no WAP. I decided that I'd rather have a tiny phone. - no voice recorder. Some high-end phones like the Motorola Timeport now offer 30-60 second voice recorder features. This would be nice. - you can't store email addresses in the phone book. This makes sending email rather tedious, as you have to peck out the email address each time, and the predictive text feature isn't much help here. One tip: store messages containing your frequently-used email addresses in the Outbox, and the just edit the saved message to send a new one. SOFTWARE & URLS + Nokia 8290 phone page: http://www.nokiausa.com/beauty/1,1585,47,FF.html + Online user manual: http://www.nokiahowto.com/8290/index.html + PacBell Wireless: http://www.pbwireless.com/ + Nokia Data Suite. This is the Nokia software that allows you to make modem/data calls via the IR connection. Watch out, this software does NOT currently run on Windows 2000, only Win95/98. Argh. I may switch back to Win98 for this feature! Get it here: http://www.nokiausa.com/pcdisclaimer/1,1661,8290;pc;0,00.html + FusionPhone: http://www.fusionone.com allows you to sync your contacts with your Palm Desktop, MS Outlook, etc. It's free! + LogoManager: http://www.logomanager.co.uk let's you edit data on the phone's SIM card (phone numbers, etc) on your PC. In theory, LogoManager also lets you edit the various logos used on phone, including the picture message icons, but this all depends on whether your carrier has locked the icons into your SIM card. + YourMobile.com: http://yourmobile.com has lots of ringtones, and you can send 'em straight to your phone. As I said before, only in the privacy of your own home, please! RECEPTION / COVERAGE / BATTERY Reception/sound quality is EXCELLENT, noticeably better than my previous phone (Nokia 6160), although some of this difference may be attributable to the carrier and GSM vs. TDMA as well. Coverage is generally very good. I live in San Francisco and travel frequently to Boston and New York, and the coverage is at least as good as Cellular One and in some cases better. Keep in mind that the coverage is more dependent on the carrier than the phone, of course. It is true that GSM phones will not roll over to analog, which means that it's not much use in rural Montana, but that's a non-issue for me. Note that while the 8290 is a GSM phone, it's NOT an international/world phone. Here in the US we use GSM 1900, which is a different frequency from the rest of the world (why, don't ask me). If you need a world phone, get the 8890, or buy an 8210 in Europe and swap your SIM card when you land. Battery life is excellent. No complaints here, and it takes a charge very quickly. SO WHAT'S AN 8210? The 8210 is the 8290's sister phone for European (and other) GSM networks. Since the 8210 and 8290 are both GSM phones (just different frequencies of GSM), they are in fact physically identical (unlike the 8260, see below). This means that if you have an 8290 here in the US, you can put your SIM card in an 8210, and, assuming you have international roaming activated, your phone number will carry over to the 8210. 8290 VS. 8260 The 8260 is the 8290's sister phone for TDMA networks. The biggest differences are: - no IR support - no fax/data call support - no SIM card - very slightly larger and heavier + Dual-band TDMA + ANALOG -- this is useful if you travel to rural areas. Overall, if you want to stick with a TDMA service such as Cellular One, the 8260 is more or less the same phone as the 8290. Go for it. 8290 VS. 8890 The 8890 is Nokia's high-end version of the 8290. Under the covers they're almost the same, primary differences being: + dual-band GSM means the 8890 will work in most international locations, although intl roaming is pretty expensive. + sliding keypad cover, pretty cool, and you can answer/call/talk with the cover open OR closed. you only need to open the cover to use the numeric keypad, which is less often that you might think. + cool blue backlight + retractable antenna might give you a little more reception oomph when you need it. - very slightly bigger due to sliding cover and maybe a tiny bit heavier - EXPENSIVE: the 8890 is about $500, or $300 more than the 8290. 8290 VS. Ericsson T28w ("world phone") You can get an Ericsson T28w for very cheap (I just saw them advertised for $49), and the phone is attractive and quite small. I ended up going with the 8290, and here's why: + dual-band GSM means the 8890 will work in most international locations. + nicely built, seems more rugged than the Nokia phones. - no built-in IR support, you need an add-on module for this, which makes the phone bigger, and cancels out the cost advantage over the 8290. - huge protruding antenna stub - annoying and potentially flimsy flip phone design - much higher radiation ratings - unfamiliar UI PRICE I paid $200 at The Good Guys in San Francisco. The PacBell store wanted $250, and they wouldn't match the price. Both prices were in conjunction with a new service plan; they'll usually try to charge you quite a bit more for the phone without a service plan, but in this case I don't know how much. Since I was ready for a new plan anyhow, the $200 is a fair price for a great phone packed with features - definitely worth it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88924 2000/10/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing small lightweight internal antenna not durable no web browser small buttons cingular has pretty bad coverage The Bottom LineIf you can find a deal consider this phone. Lacks some extras you find with newer phones but ask yourself if you really need those? Full Review I've had my nokia 8290 for about a year now and I must say that I like it. It was great for its time and has been very good to me no matter how many time I dropped it. The coverage by Cingular wireless is nowhere near perfect but it's not the phone's fault. Well the antenna can be pretty fickle at times... Key Features: Text Messaging - The text messaging is a nice feature so I can keep up to date with hockey scores so I know how my wagers are doing when I'm away from the computer or the connection is down. Voice dialing - Voice dialing is more of a novelty item but it's cool to just say a word and hopefully it finds and dials the right number. Small - I loved the fact it was small and light since I traded a 6190 for it but the buttons sometimes seem too small. Pretty easy to accidently press two buttons when dialing fast. Good battery life - The battery can last a good week if you don't use it often but only last maybe a day or two if you talk frequently. Mine charges fully in about 4 hours. Internal antenna - The internal antenna is nice but sometimes I can lose signal just by putting my hand over it although I suspect that may be Cingular's fault since I lose signal in many situations. Custom graphics and tones available - Customizing your ring tones is another novelty that I liked since there are a wide variety of ring tones available for nokia's. Free handsfree set - The handsfree set is a nice bonus but I rarely use it. Storage - You can store I think it was 250+ phone numbers on the phone + sim card. Changeable face plate - Find a face plate with a cool design and slap it on this baby pretty easily This phone has performed its duties well but it could have been better of course. The lack of a web browser was a disappointment since I can't see who scored the goals or check scores any time, just get score updates when the provider sends them. It apparently isn't very durable. People drop them playing tennis or sit on them and they break even though mine has been through lots of punishment ranging from numerous drops on pavement, stairs, weights, and so forth or me falling asleep with it in my pocket and works fine. Has a few dings on it's cover but the cover can be swapped out easily. If you like the design of the phone and don't require the extra bells and whistles it lacks then go for it. There are comparable phones out there you might also want to research. If you can do like me and get it "free" as part of those calling plans then it's worth a try but make sure you have insurance in case you're accident prone or just have bad luck. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 88923 2000/12/10 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size portability small Full Review Well, I have owned my 8290 for about a week now. So far I really like it a lot. I owned a 6190 before it, and decided to "retire" that phone and go with the latest and greatest (as of this writing) I must admit that I tried using the Motorola V2282 before the 8290, But it was just as frustrating to use as My GSM startac! The Motorola Menus are very confusing. So when I saw the 8290 out on the market I began to save up, and now I am a proud owner. I knew that Nokia used the same menu structure on most of their phones so I figured that I couldn't go wrong. When I got my phone in by fed ex, I tore open the box, slipped in the sim card and I was off and running. No problems whatsoever, except for a low battery,,, Nonetheless, the phone is great! Well now lets get into why you are reading this in the first place, the "meat and taters". As I previously said, the Nokia menu structure is excellent. They make it so intuitive and easy that even a first time user will be able to start programming and saving numbers right out of the box. They did change up one thing though. Now the menus have animated icons. They are kind of cool, but really do not serve much of a purpose. The phone also has the ability to send "picture messages" These are preprogrammed messages that have cute little icons, such as a heart, birthday cake, a dinner table, and about 7 more. They are kind of cool; the only problem is that you can only send them to another Nokia phone that accepts picture messages. My girlfriend uses a 5190, so I can't send her the cool little heart. They have also included an Infrared port on the phone. I initially was interested in this feature because I knew that you could transfer data between a palm device and the 8290. I sent a business card from my phone to my handspring and vice versa. To my disappointment I was surprised that only a limited amount of data is transferred. Only the Name and phone number. This is great, but does the extra time to set up the 2 devices really justify not just pulling out a pen and paper? One of the things that really attracted me to the phone was it's size, and looks. I am 6', 3", so when I got the phone I was kind of leery that I was going to look Odd talking on this tiny little phone. Well, I am not sure how people perceive it, but I really like the size. It is small enough to fit in any pocket. I held it up next to a startac. It was the same size as the closed startac! The keys are kind of small, but not too bad. They are actually better than I thought. I was worried about the size being that I send a lot of text messages, but it wasn't bad, the phone has the T9 Predictive text input(completes words for you when you are typing in a message) so that has made messaging so much easier! The phone also has a voice dial feature. I set it up but have only used it once. To use it you have to press and hold the key under "names" then you have to speak into the phone. This is cool, but I find it just as easy to use the one touch-dialing feature. I have to press a number key anyway, so I figure that I can just save a step, by not having to speak the name. It is a cool feature though. The phone also carries over many of the great features of the 6190. You can use caller groups that will allow you to put your friends in different categories with separate ring tones. This comes in handy when you are in a hurry doing something else and your phone rings. You don't even have to look at your phone and you will already know who is calling! The phone has an internal antenna, which seems to work fine; I have had no noticeable problems with reception. The battery seems to be fine also. On a full charge it will last me about 2 days, but I do talk A LOT! I use my cell phone instead of a landline. If you are interested in this phone I think that you will be very pleased with it, it kind of just grows on you. It is small but not goofy looking. There are also a huge amount of cool faceplates that you can get for it that will let you personalize the phone. O yeah, and the built in alarm clock is way cool!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 88922 2000/4/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish many functions brand name well known small short lasting battery fragile due to small size not very sturdy easy to drop The Bottom LineI recommend the Nokia 8290 because of the useful and various functions it offers. If willing to spend more, settle however for the 8890. Full Review Just because Charlie's Angels use this phone, doesn't mean you have to buy one too. I was in the market to purchase an affordable mobile phone along with a dependable plan carrier. The week before I purchased the Nokia 8290, I saw the movie Charlie's Angels, which kept advertising the phone non-stop during the movie. On the big screen, the gadget seems stylish and useful. Later on, I bought the phone on a whim without even researching much about it. I bought the phone along with a plan. The phone shop sold the phone for free at that time if you enroll in a plan. Naturally, due to its increasing popularity, I chose Pacific Bell, now know as Cingular, for my phone plan carrier. Cruising with my new toy, I thought I was the hippest kid on the block holding the newest phone there was. The Nokia 8290 came in a complete package. In it was the lithium battery, a free head set for non-hassle communication when your hands are occupied, two faceplates to accommodate your daily changes (I received a blue and a red faceplate), instruction manuals, and a AC adapter to charge the battery. I have had the phone for 6 months now and I have seen both positive and negative sides of having the Nokia 8290. THE POSITIVE: 1. The phone is small and can be well hidden in the privacy of your smallest pocket. 2. The 8290 looks stylish in a fashionable sort of way. 3. In certain areas where receptions are satisfying enough, the phone offers clarity and static-free conversation. 4. The phone offers many useful functions such as an alarm clock, a plethora of ring tones (some of which can be downloaded right from the internet to the phone), text-message to and from other 8290's, the regular fun Nokia games such as snake, a phone book able to store more than 150 numbers, voice tag for easy dialing, a calendar, a calculator, and an infrared option (I only use this option to play snake with other people with an 8290), and different settings options such as vibration, and caller ID As one can see, there are many useful functions and one can score many cool points using this phone in the neighborhood. However, consider some of the disadvantages of having the Nokia 8290. THE NEGATIVE: 1. Everyone has this phone nowadays. Everyday I run into someone who owns the exact Nokia 8290 as mine, although with different faceplates. Certainly, this phone will make one stand out in the crowd, but only if he is in a room with people using older versions of Nokia mobile phones such as the 5000 series or the 6000 series. If I had to go back in time and buy a cellular phone, I would buy the next line of Nokia after the 8290 and spend a little more for the Nokia 8890. I envy people with the 8890 these days. 2. Due to the small compact size of the 8290, dropping these tater tots looking phone occur too many times in my 6 months of using it. I have dropped it too many times that I think I have seriously done some damage to it. Which brings me to NEGATIVE number 3. 3. These phones, sorry to say, are not meant for the clumsy individuals. Fragile and sensitive, the 8290 can not inflict too many bumps and bruises along the way. It has come to a point that my 8290 "shuts off" by itself or will not show the screen clearly. 4. The battery life, once again due to the small size, is not satisfying enough. I need to re-charge the battery every two days, which I think is absurd. I recommend purchasing two lithium batteries for the 8290. 5. Last is the reception clarity. I mentioned earlier in the positive section that the 8290 bring clarity to the table. However, at places where reception is rare (Cingular seems to have many of these places) the 8290 is weak. Without an antennae extension such as on some of the other Nokia phone lines, the 8290's clarity becomes weaker. The above 5 negatives can be considered when buying the 8290. However also consider the positives. The Nokia 8290 is not meant for everyone. I think I'm starting to see that it is not for me. The 8290 does stand out at times however and is very affordable these days. The various options it brings are also a wonderful criteria when considering to buy a cellular phone. Personally however, I would bump my price up a little bit more and settle for the newer and sleeker 8890. But then again, that's me. Everyone is different. I just hope that I have shed enough light for people considering the 8290. I have given both sides of the story and it depends on the readers on how the story ends. Recommended: Yes 88921 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good clarity when there is reception really small easy to use small buttons low volume in loud places The Bottom LineSure its small, but there are some bad things about this phone that others don't. Good middle of the road choice for its money. Full Review I have always had Nokia phones. I have found them to be the most user friendly and feature packed phones out there. Most of the people I know who have cell phones have Nokias. I know that they aren't the best out there and probably never will be, but they are a good value and perform as good or better than more expensive models. First off, people should know how small this phone is. It is no bigger than a standard mouse in both length and width, and weighs about the same. This is a good feature most of the time, but sometimes you wonder if you lost it or where you put it. It also isnt good if you have trouble dialing without looking at the keypad, because there is almost no way anyone will be able to figure out what button is what, let alone pressing it. They are so close together that it is easy to put your thumb over most of the buttons at once. The volume control is in a good place; it is on the side and is easy to press. The power button, on the other hand, is almost blended into the top of the phone and gets annoying at times to turn it on or off. This phone (like many other Nokias) has removable face plates that come in about 10 different colors, which isnt as much as other phones, but at least you get the option if dust gets in between the screen or it gets scratched up. The buttons do light up on the keypad, enough so that you can read them in the dark easily, but it could always be brighter. The screen lights up as well (in green) and stays lit up for about 5 seconds after pressing a button. It has a cool metallic look to it with the cover off, can serve as a mini flashlight if needed. The interface of this phone is very easy to use. Anyone can learn to use it without reading the manual much or at all. There are about 10 different menu options that in turn, have more options off of them. It is just like all the other Nokia interface menus out there, and it works just as well as any of them. There are seperate menus for messages, phone book, call logs, settings, games, a calendar, a calculator (pretty basic stuff there), and an IR port to connect it to your computer or PDA or other cell phone. Theere is voice activation and speed dial for up to 10 numbers or so, which comes in handy when all you want to do is start talking. I got this phone for a discount with the activation of it (T-Mobile, once Voicestream). It uses a different network system than other providers; it uses the same one they have in Europe. So you can expect that the coverage from T-Mobile wont be the best out there because they have to build almost all of it on their own. It gets good reception almost whereever I go, except for where I live. The reception is either good or bad, most of the time is it clear and there are no problems. But when there are only 1 or 2 out of 4 bars of reception, it can get choppy and hard to understand what is being said. As I said, this doesnt happen too often, but when it does, it is a pain. The volume is a little too soft in some places, like at a sporting event. Even at the max, it is lacking, and I need to press it to my ear to listen in. Some may think that the microphone is so far away that the sound is not loud enough on the other end; that is not the case at all. It is extremely sensitive, as the microphone lies halfway down the face at most. You just have to trust that the sound is going through to the other person. I know that at first I was skeptical, but now I have grown accustomed to it. With the exception of the volume, reception at times, and keypad size, this phone is a good choice. While it doesnt have all the things you might want form a phone these days, such as web browsing, it has all the basic features one could want with a few extras. Talk time is respectible, stand-by time is also fairly good. If you can get a good deal on this in an area that gets good coverage from your provider, think twice before overlooking this one. If you are looking for a phone with all the bells and whistles, look for something else as that is not what this one is. This phone is a solid performer for its size and little more could be asked out of something so small and light. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 88920 2000/2/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception tons of options to choose from great looking buttons are too small to press easily have to use a fingernail The Bottom LineOverall, I really like this phone and I'm glad I bought it. Besides it being a quality device, it looks so cool! I think it's the best cell out there. Full Review I have Pac Bell/Cingular's version of the Nokia 8290 phone. It looks super cool, first of all. I got a clear yellow face plate to replace the red one that came with it. Both look great. It is small enough to fit in the pocket of my tight pants, so I like that. I like all the ringing options and the text messaging with other 8290 and compatible phones. I've had it for a few months now and I've found it to be more reliable than the 5190 as far as reception, clarity, and hang-ups. The things I don't like about it are manageable: I don't like that the buttons are so small. It makes them hard to push while dialing--I often have to use my fingernails to avoid pushing more than one button. Also, I don't like the volume adjustment on the side where my fingers are. I often turn the volume up or down by accident, so that's annoying. There is also a con to this phone being so small--it's easy to lose! I finally bought a belt clip because I couldn't find it in my purse. However, the size can be a benefit also. I like that you can change the face plate. I haven't seen a face plate yet that didn't look good with this phone. I also really like the vibrating function (I often want to keep an out for phone calls in the movie theaters and at school but can't have the ringer on and don't want to miss the call). Also, the separate dial and hang-up buttons make that part very easy. On the 5190, you have to push the menu button to call and to hang up, but sometimes when you push another number it won't let you hang up until you clear the numbers, which can add embarrassing time to the phone call and the hanging up process. One more pro/con to the phone. The menu is VERY complicated. The bonus is that there are tons and tons of options. The bad part is that it's quite difficult to find anything you're looking for. I also haven't been able to find a welcome not, which I like to see. The battery lasts a really long time, and I can almost always gets good reception on it. I like the internal antenna because you don't have to worry about breaking or losing it. And I like the sensitive microphone, though it seems to be sensitive to everything--not just your voice. So it's not good for talking in loud environments. Overall, I really like this phone and I'm glad I bought it. Besides it being a quality phone, it looks so cool! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 88919 2000/9/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery lasts lasts tiny size simple menus i ll let you know if i ever think of one Full Review To the fine citizens of the New York city area, the arrival of Voicestream in NYC to replace Omnipoint means one thing, and so far they've delivered dramatically: newer, better, and more stylish phones. Whereas Omnipoint made the mistake of dumping Motorola Select 650 flip phones, Siemens 1050 and G12 phones, and countless other duds, Voicestream has abolished all the oversized out of style phones and replaced them with stylish, small, and even in some cases VERY affordable. One day last week they introduced us to the fabulous 8890. While this is probably the coolest phone I've ever seen, and while I had a chance to play with one for a couple of days, I could never justify the price tag on my humble salary. Two days later, they introduced the 8290. What's the difference? Well actually, there aren't many. This phone doesn't have the signature keypad slide cover of the 8800 series, but is about a half an ounce lighter weighing in at a mere 2.8 ozs. as opposed to the 3.2 ozs. of the 8890. And while it's stylish in its own right, the 8290 does not have the brushed aluminum finish of the 8890. Instead, it comes with two interchangeable faceplate covers, Metallic Red & Metallic Blue, with more options available from Nokia and soon from authorized retailers. This phone doesn't have the funky backlight of the 8890, instead Nokia opted for a much more standard green backlight. Not that I have a problem with that; I found the backlight on the 8890 a bit hard to see. Also the phone is a single band phone, meaning you won't be able to use it in too many places outside the US (if at all, the reason being very few countries outside of the United States use the 1900mhz standard we use here). Okay... What's the skinny? Basically the phone is another Nokia work of art. Style is not absent in any aspect of this phone's design. From the curved, silver plastic buttons, to the internal antenna to the tiny little battery, to the interchangeable faceplates, this phone is just loaded with personality. Add 35 ringers + 5 programmable ringers, and you just can't go wrong. You'll surely be able to customize this little guy to your liking. The phone has Nokia's now famous pseudo-gui interface with cute animated icons and brainlessly simple organization. You can find anything you want at the touch of a button including the option to switch to different profiles (ie: meeting which has a gentle and quiet ringer, outdoors which is loud, etc...) Games are there (as in all Nokia's current offerings), a calendar, alarm clock, and calculator are also included which are useful in a pinch. The 8290 also includes Tegic's T9 predictive text entry system for entering SMS messages to other users. What makes this system shine is that for entering a typical sentence, you only have to hit a key once, rather than hit it a couple of times, no matter what letter you're aiming for. The included dictionary does a really good job of picking out what word you're trying to write. The battery life on this phone is typical insane Nokia super battery power. Included is a slim and light Lithium Ion battery which lasts for days. I really admire Nokia for their ability to produce phones with eternal batteries, and yet they still produce phones that you would actually want to own and doesn't weigh 60 pounds in your pocket. Bottom Line More power to Nokia for producing a slim tiny stylish phone that the average everyday person can afford. Continued attention to all market sectors will continue to make Nokia, in my opinion, the best all around cellular phone maker. While other companies produce "high-end" phones, very few spend the necessary attention on the entry level consumer with the same gusto. Buy this phone. I promise you won't be disappointed. (BTW, I have also written a review on the other half of this one two punch, the 8890 so if you're undecided, you may want to check that out as well). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Got it as a gift from a friend 88918 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome features so stylish hmmm gets lost easily Full Review I purchased my 8290 in late Thanksgiving as an upgrade to my Nokia 5190. To get it for a good price, I had to sign up for a new plan through VoiceStream. With a no-contract, $19.99 per month plan and free activation, I didn't mind too much- after all, the phone only cost me $80 with the new plan. This phone is the nicest phone I have used in terms of style, features, and size. It has just about EVERYTHING! I'm not going to run down the entire list of features since it's so long (and you can just go to Nokia's website for that), but I will mention the features that I liked the most. Obviously, the size is one of this phone's strong points. Next to the 8290, my old 5190 looked liked one of those huge 80's cell phones that people bought when they first became available to the general public. The 8290 is about 1/3 the size of the 5190 and so light that I don't even notice it in my pocket. One drawback, however, is that it is SO small and SO light that I often had problems with "misplacing" it (sometimes I would even find the "lost" phone in my pocket!), especially when I put it in my purse or bag. The phone itself is gorgeous. The VoiceStream phone comes with the Electric Blue face plate, but can be easily changed to any of the six other Nokia face plate colors (or an infinite number of aftermarket face plate colors and designs- although these are lesser quality). I myself have taken a liking to the red Nokia face plate; although it looks BRIGHT red in pictures on the internet, it is actually a deep dark metallic-y red- GORGEOUS!! The buttons this time are silver and look awesome with any of the metallic Nokia face plates. The phone is the most stylish one out there today, I guarantee it. The phone is light, and may feel a bit "flimsy", but in actuality, it is pretty sturdy. If you do drop it, it will be hitting the ground with less force than a normal cell phone since it is so light, and unless it is dropped very hard or on a very hard surface, it should be fine (with the exception of a few possible blemishes on the beautiful face plate). This phone has one touch dialing as well as voice dialing, which are both quite handy if you use your phone while driving (shame on you). You can program keys 1-9 with one-touch dialing for all your frequently called numbers, such as your phone's voice mail and customer service. My favorite features are the text and picture messaging. You can send emails to anyone with an email address, and text or picture messages to anyone with a compatible GSM phone. There are ten or so pictures already saved into the phone (such as a heart, a champagne bottle, and so on) and I think it's possible to create and/or download others. You can even add a bit of text to a picture before sending it (i.e. "I love you" at the bottom of the heart picture). The only drawback is that you can only send these to people who can view picture messages on their phones (read: they most likely need an 8290 as well!), which for me was pretty rare. Writing messages on this phone is easy as 1-2-3, since it predicts what you are writing (this means you only have to hit a number button once for each letter, regardless of if it the first letter corresponding to that number or not- the phone will figure it out as you go). This is AWESOME once you get used to it- no more hitting each key 2 or 3 times to get to the "right" letter. It even switches from upper to lower case when appropriate. The internal antenna is nice although I can't say that the reception is THAT much better. If the cell signal from a certain area is weak, the reception won't be great regardless of if you're using this phone or your old one. I have enjoyed using this phone and don't have any complaints. There is a lot to learn since it's packed with features, but it will give you something fun to do for a few days. I would recommend this phone to anyone and everyone- it is awesome. If you don't already have a cell phone plan, you should look around at your local cellular shops as well as on the internet- I've seen places selling it for $199 with activation, and places selling it for $80 with activation. If you are activating new service, don't pay more than $100 for this phone if you can help it- there are GREAT deals out there just waiting to be found. If you already have a plan and want to upgrade on your existing phone without a new activation, the phone shouldn't be more than $200. Again, look on the internet- it is your key to a great price. I love this phone. I have used the 8260 as well, and it doesn't even compare- it may look the same but it doesn't have all the cool features that the 8290 does. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 + service plan 88917 2000/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small active infra red port voice activation features does not use standard hands free The Bottom LineAll the great points of a Nokia phone, even smaller and easier to use! Full Review Working for a wireless company has it's advantages like being one of the first people to try out a new phone. When the Nokia 8290 was released I was one of the first in our company to jump at trying the phone out. I had carried the Nokia 5190 and 6190 for some time so I figured it only made sense to try this little guy out too. I did the same thing that most of my customers do the first time they see the phone. One eyebrow goes up and you think, "Man it's small.. I'm probably going to break it in a week!" You run your fingers over the tiny buttons and realize that even though they are small buttons, you can easily push them without hitting any of the other keys. You'll find after much use that like all other Nokia phones, the 8290 is extremely durable being able to fall from great heights and still work. And then you turn the phone on. The screen is easy to read with a large, five line display and set up exactly like all other Nokia products. The same menu functions and options exist so for previous Nokia users, there is little to nothing more that you need to learn before you understand the full functionality of your phone. Like the 5100 series the 8290 has three games, thirty ring tones, the Express Off covers, and a clock. Like the 6100 series phone you have the 50 memory calendar option, auto redial, and the ability to conference call from the phone. The 8290 comes with a 650 mAh (miliamp), Lithium-Ion, vibrating battery which gives you approximately 2 to three hours of straight talk time, or two to six days of standby time. Being just under 4 inches tall and just under two inches wide, you'll find the phone will fit into some of the smallest pockets... even the change pocket on a pair of jeans! And being under three ounces, no matter if you put it in a shirt pocket, it doesn't feel like its going to tear the pocket right off your clothes! For those of us that use our phones for business, the 8290 is superb! One of the most useful features is actually the Business Card option. You can send, via IR Port or SMS, information stored in your phone to another phone. (Has to be the same provider as your wireless provider.) For example, I have the contact number of an important client in my phone. My boss needs all that info so he can call the client himself to thank them for their new account. My boss is in his car, 100 miles from me. I can send the names and numbers of our new clients in just a few key strokes. Highlight the name you want, hit Options, hit Send Business Card, enter your boss's wireless number (or hit Search and highlight the name instead) and then hit OK. Done. The Provider is here in our store and wants all the same information... I can do the same thing just hit Send Via IR instead. It's that simple and takes only a few seconds. Realize though, the business card transfer can be done to any phone (of the same provider), the IR transfer can only be done to another 8290 (of the same provider). Another useful item for business users is the profiles and Caller Groups. You can set specific ring tones to specific groups thus you know if your colleagues, family or friends are calling just by the ring tone. If I hear "Flight of the Valkyries" then I know my family is calling. If I hear "The Buffon" I know it's one of my colleagues. With 30 different tones and five slots for downloaded tones, you can be sure it's your phone ringing and who is calling without even looking. A new feature is the Voice Activated dialing option. You can store up to seven "Voice tags" in your phone so you can just hit a button, say the name you want to call and you're on your way. You can always erase and edit these voice tags as you please. The only downfall of the 8290 is its internal antenna. Most wireless signals do carry off the shear surface area of the antenna and thus when compared to other wireless phones, your ranging and roaming capability may not be as great. For example, you can put your hand over the top of the phone and after about ten seconds you will lose one bar of signal. Remove your hand and it does come right back. One option not available for use with all 8290's is the picture messaging. Your phone has the option listed but it is considered a provider option. Your wireless carrier has to support that option before it will function on your phone. All of your accessories for your 5100 and 6100 series Nokia phones will work for your 8290, except for your handsfree kit. It does not use a standard 2.5mm jack. Most have a two ring jack. The 8290 uses a 3 ring jack. This problem is solved by the fact that a handsfree earbud is included with the phone. When it comes right down to it I just love this phone! I thought I would carry if for a month or two and then go back to my 5190. I have gotten so used to being able to record meetings and transfer client information that I think I'm hooked on this phone. It's great for those that use a wireless for business but really, I think anyone would like it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.95 88916 2001/7/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use long lasting battery hold great new web features great sound quality a little expensive no wap browser The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8290 is an excellent phone hands down. It has all the features and quality that you would expect from a Nokia phone. Full Review If you are looking for perhaps the lightest and easiest to carry phone, the Nokia 8290 is for you. At only 2.8 ounces, its a far cry from the heavy phones of only a few years ago. Add in the zillions of features and this phone is a sure bet. The overall value and sound quality of this phone is unparallelled (at least until the latest Nokia phone comes out). Let's break it down: Styling: A slim curved design accentuates this fine looking phone. It stands only 3.9 inches tall and 1.7 inches wide. Wow! Not only that but you can personalize your phone with different Xpress color covers. Nokia always has the most stylish phones. Battery life: 200 minutes of talk time with 6 day standy. My phone seems to last a little longer than this though. I've gone weeks without having to recharge my phone. Of course, I only turn it on while I'm driving, so I'm definitely a casual user. Features: It would be easier to list the features this phone does NOT have. Geez, this phone has it all. Here's just a few: 1. Ring tones...tons of them. William Tell has always been my favorite. 2. Voice dialing...I love this feature. Simply say "Home" and it will dial automatically. This is quickly becoming standard, but I still love it. 3. IR modem...you can even print your messages by simply hooking it up to a computer. 4. Great sound quality...I don't get the usual echoes that I always got from my Ericson phone. 5. Some cool games...my favorite is Snake with a top score of 298. Anyone else beat that? 6. Multi-lingual support for 5 languages...es muy bueno! 7. Profile settings....great feature that lets you preset ring tones/vibration. I use this constantly to avoid the STARE when I'm in meetings or certain public places. 8. Internal battery. No more sliding that stupid battery off and on. Conclusion/Final Thought: All in all this is an excellent phone that has style and all the features you expect and more. It is so small that you may actually fear losing it! :) Nokia has done it again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88915 2000/3/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice battery life goes anywhere packed with powerful features small size cuts both ways hard to handledial The Bottom LineAnytime, anywhere access to communication services make the 8290 a bargain at under $150. The 8290 packs a lot of power with its SMS, email, and even instant messaging abilities. Full Review I have been a VoiceStream wireless customer for a couple years now. I started out with a Nokia 5190 handset which served me well for over a year. I then decided its increasing lack of features and bulky size would eventually prompt me to upgrade to a newer phone. One of the models offered by VoiceStream happens to be the 8290, so this is what I ended up getting. At a low price of $150 at the time, I couldn't go wrong -- the features were appealing and the phone could go anywhere I could. And when I wanted to upgrade from my 5190 all I had to do was change the little SIM card. The 8290 operates on the GSM 1900 MHz PCS standard like its many sister phones. GSM is much like TDMA networks in that it operates in the same frequency spectrums. One of GSM's cool features is the SIM card -- I previously mentioned that to switch from handset to handset you simply change out the SIM card in each phone. Your phonebook and its up-to 250 entries, and other phone settings, automatically go with you. Quite cool. One of the new features enjoyed by 8290 users is that of hands-free voice dialing. Instead of pushing the clumsy little buttons, you can assign a voice tag to your friend's phonebook entry on your phone and use your voice to command the dialing process instead of scrolling down to his entry. This is a safety factor while driving. Another practical feature in the 8290 is the infrared port. Depending on your needs this can be used for transfering messages, phonebook entries, reminders, calendar items, even for rudimentary low-speed dial-up Internet access if you have a laptop or PDA device which can handle these functions. This phone fits almost anywhere in your lifestyle. It weighs less than a deck of cards and is almost just as small. In fact, it's so small that you can easily lose it. It will fit in your jeans pocket with no problem. However the main drawback here is that it's nearly impossible to crane your neck to talk hands-free unlike conventional telephones. You also might not be used to how far away the mic is from your mouth, but it's pretty sensitive. This is pretty much acceptable considering how small and light the phone is. Its built-in vibrate feature will alert you to calls and messages during meetings and class. You can customize several different profiles based on your ringing tone and volume preferences, as well as vibrating alerts and other options. I have on many instances dropped this phone on hard concrete surfaces in the middle of a phone call and remarkably it hums right along. I think Nokia engineered these phones to be be durable for all the klutzy people like me in the world. It's one solid cell phone, just like my old 5190. Sound quality is just as good if not better than any other cell phone. Most people think I'm calling them from a regular land-line phone, sometimes if I am getting a weak signal from the tower they might be able to tell. Their voices also come in just as loud and clear on my end. Oddly enough there is one place where my 8290 doesn't get a signal. High atop the 8th floor of my dormitory on the Purdue University campus, a reinforced concrete/steel frame prevents my phone from working in my side of the building as the VoiceStream towers are far on the opposite side of the structure. Therefore the phone sits next to the window while I'm in the room to obtain at least a minimal signal. Everywhere else, however, it seems to get perfect reception...except in basements or elevators of some buildings. The battery with the Nokia 8290 is a Lithium Ion. This differs from the older Ni-Cad and Ni-Mh batteries which suffered from the dreaded 'memory effect' when you did not fully discharge them before recharge. Instead, the Li-Ion battery prefers to be topped off every 2 or 3 days of standby or heavy use. In any case, my battery lasts about 6 days in standby...and if I use it heavily it will last about 3 or 4 days maximum. I could go into all the technical specs of the 8290 but I'll leave Nokia's website up to that duty. What is important to me is that it contains all the convenient features that I need, from the phone book, to the customizable alert profiles, long battery life, and its infrared capability. This tiny phone packs a lot of power, and I have been nothing short of impressed while owning it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 88914 2000/3/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small light weight larger than a credit card The Bottom LineThere is no 5 star phone and service provider combination on the market right now. But the Nokia 8290 and Powertel is a solid 4. Full Review After lugging an Ericsson CF788 around for three years, I have now upgraded to the Nokia 8290. Why? The CF788 is a fine phone, if you read my epinion review of it you'll learn why I think so. But being the geek that I am, I had to upgrade. So I put together a list of requirements: 1. Longer battery life 2. Lighter weight. Although the CF788 is a small and light weight phone, I knew I could do better. 3. New technology; not necessarily WAP, I am not willing to pay extra for a technology that was stillborn. 4. Smaller size 5. Data modem! 6. Dual or tri band 7. Solid SMS support This was my list of priorities pretty much in that order. The Nokia 8290 I began my search by visiting the local wireless stores in my neighborhood to see what phones were available on what networks and to determine local pricing. I have been using Powertel for over three years now and have had no problems. Their coverage in my area is great. But my area is also serviced by Cingular (BellSouth), Verizon, and Sprint. After comparing them all, I decided to stay with Powertel. My plan gives me 300 anytime minutes a month for $35 and I rarely exceed that. The two phones I had to choose from were the Nokia 8290 and the Ericsson t28 "World Phone." With the field trip complete it was time to do some research online. After reading reviews on epinions, zdnet, cnet, and others, I decided that the $200 Nokia was for me. Although the 8290 is $50 more than the t28 it is a better buy for the single-band user. It is more compact and fits in a pocket easier due to its internal antenna. It has a lower SAR, and it has more support from the aftermarket. In Use This phone is really small. In fact, some of my friends think it is too small for daily use. I strongly disagree with this. I dream of a phone the size of a credit card. Buttons Yes, the buttons are very small, but if you only dial nine phone numbers or less regularly, you can use "one-touch dialing" and avoid entering multiple numbers every time you make a call. Battery The battery life is very good at three days of use before a recharge. That may not sound so great but I play the games a lot and never turn the phone off. Data Modem The data modem is now my favorite feature. I can now check movie times, check e-mail, and actually browse web sites with my PalmIIIx and 8290. And this is not some lousy half-baked WAP version of the web sites, but the actual web sites, using the Eudora Internet Suite for Palm. Through Powertel it costs an additional $5 a month to use the data modem, I think that it more than worth it. Powertel Here is a warning! Even thought the phone supports a feature, it does not mean that your sevice provider does. Powertel does not support SMS, but uses a proprietary set of feature labeled PowerChat, Mobile e-mail and "Go Mobile." Do not be fooled. These may use the SMS protocol, but you cannot send SMS messages to ANYONE! Not even other Powertel customers unless they are on the GSM network and have a phone very similar to yours, even then it will be bastardized into Powertel's version of SMS. You cannot send graphics or any of the other 8290 goodies. Please complain to every service provider that chooses to be this stupid. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 88913 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small enough to carry in my pocket afraid to lose it Full Review From the first generations of the cellular phone, I've always felt that were too bulky for me to carry around practically in my pocket. Even newer phones such as the Motorola Startac or the Nokia 51xx/61xx phones were too big for me because they would generally bulge out of the side pockets of my pants. We've finally reached a phase where advances in technology has been able to shrink sizes to such an extent. I was always hesitant to buy a cell phone in the previous years because of their bulkiness, so I always used the phones of my parents or of friends. Until I met the Nokia 8290. Check Out the Size On This Thing! When my friends in Southern California purchased this phone when it was widely available to Pacific Bell, I knew it was time to actually buy my "first" cell phone. The sheer size & weight of the 8290 was what brought my dreams of an ideal phone to reality. You all know that it weighs 2.8 ounces, but what it really "weighs" in a pocket is comparable to that of my house keys or something so light that I can't find a description for it. :) What worries me however is the possibility of losing or dropping the 8290 because of its small size. However I definitely plan to purchase a carrying case of some sort, perhaps a leather case w/belt clip or anything that would at least keep scratches at a minimum. (Although cases still aren't available @ Nokia's website) I've only used this phone for the past week, so I haven't used all the features that Nokia and other reviewers are touting about, such as the voice activated calls, but in due time I'm sure they'll come in handy. Of the things I'd like to mention that stands out to me about this phone is the really small internal lithium-ion battery which keeps the phone as small as it is. So far it has a talk time of around 3 hrs, and to keep it safe, I charge it around once or twice a week. The voice quality is perhaps a little bit better than average, but I cannot claim that it is as clear as land line because it is purely subjective to the wireless company, and to the reception in your vicinity. It is the pet peeve of mine because the quality of calls are still not up to par due to the spotty reception in one area of a city to the clear reception of another area. From Pacific Bell Wireless, the 8290 I bought came with a free metallic red faceplate, desktop charger, hands-free earphones, and a car charger (which I have to pick up at the store, since they were out of stock). For those of you who are worried about radiation, the hands-free kit is a must because it places the phone far away from your head (the subject of the radiation controversy these days). As a matter of fact, C|Net has posted an article ranking the radiation levels of various cell phones where the 8290 has a rating that is in the middle of the industry average. http://www.cnet.com/wireless/0-1923401-7-2587640.html?tag=st.wr.1923401.bhed.1923401-7-2587640 Overall, I am very satisfied with the Nokia 8290, despite the fear of breaking such a small phone which will be alleviated by the purchase of a case & belt clip. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 88912 2000/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating4.0 pop off faces infra red lightweight sound quality not excellent Full Review OK, first I'll review the 8290, then I'm going to put it head to head against the T28, which I also own. Hopefully this will help buyers choose between 2 of the lightest phones in the world (the 3rd being the Motorola V3682). Review of Nokia 8290 At first glance... Phone looks awesome, real head turner. The pop off faces are great if style is a big concern. Coming from the 6190 where you had to unscrew the phone to change the color, now you can just snap off the cover. There are about 5 colors available at launch, but i'm sure the aftermarket will soon follow. The size is very small, thin and rectangular with NO protruding antenna. It is a lightweight 2.8 oz with the included battery. With the key-lock activated, the phone can slip into a pocket or purse and goes unnoticed. Very nice. The phone feels cheap. There, I said it. The keys feel like cheapo plastic and have no tactile input. It is hard to type on the phone without looking down to see if you hit the right buttons. The way the talk/end button swoops around doesn't work as good as it looks. Performance The sound quality is very good, and the phone gets a decent signal. I'm not sure if the new antenna technology (integrated) affects the signal, but I wasn't wowed. One thing I noticed which was great is when I hear an echo (happens from time to time on GSM), the phone eliminated it. If you just continue your conversation, the phone must realize their is echo, and cancel it out. This is nice... Operating System It's a Nokia. If you've ever owned one, you'll breeze through the phones menus and features within minutes. They even made the icons dance around for your amusement. Nokia has designed an excellent user interface and it is very intuitive. You can program shortcuts as usual, or jump directly to commonly used features. You will become a pro at it very quickly. Features The phone can store 250 names in phone memory, which is nice if your 8K SIM has maxxed out it's 99 locations. If you have a 32K SIM (new voicestream subscribers will get this), you will get a total of 500 name/number locations. Is that enough? I hope so... I just reached 100. The phone is GSM and includes all the features that go along with GSM service. That being said, the most important feature that turned me on to this phone is the T9 Tegix text input system. Wha-what? This is the name of the technology that allows you to type 1 key-press at a time and the included dictionary "figures out" what you want to say. This makes SMS message input VERY smooth. The technology works, no doubt. Comparison Vs. Ericsson T28W This is what I really want to get to, having owned both phones. It's a close one folks... here goes: Physical Appearance Phones both look cool. The Ericsson has the spring-loaded flip which looks slightly cooler. The Nokia on the other hand has the colors that pop on and off. Sooner or later their will be a clear face for the Nokia and it will look awesome. The Ericsson has a protruding stubby antenna, Nokia has an internal one. Ericsson is thinner and wider (if it is wider, it's slight). Winner: Nokia why: If it weren't for the pop-off faces, the Ericsson would win. The Ericsson does look nicer. But the mere fact that EVERY T28 looks the same bothers me, yours will look just like the next guys. I like to be different and therefore would probably get a wacky color on my Nokia. Build The Ericsson is built better, hands down. I've dropped mine and it was unaffected. I'm afraid if I drop this Nokia it will shatter!! More info on how and why I dropped the Ericsson below. The Nokia, however can have it's face replaced for $20 or so. Winner: Ericsson why: Not having a shell that pops off, the T28 can handle more shock, and has already survived a fall. It also feels more solid. The T28 sounds better and louder. It gets a better signal. People have commented on how clear I sound on the T28. The Nokia has no such luck. Maybe it's the antenna, I don't know. I'm just writing what I feel. Both phones being almost identical, let me just discuss the differences. The Ericsson has auto-redial. Unless I haven't figured it out on the Nokia, the Ericsson, when it gets a busy, will offer to continuously redial for you. It's really nice. Frequency If you don't already know by now, the T28 is a WORLD phone and thus, works overseas in many countries. If you need this, than consider the T28 or the Nokia 8890. Being in America most often, I am overlooking this big difference. Sim Card Access The Nokia lets you browse your SIM quicker. I don't know why, the Ericsson takes a good while to load the sim into memory. Data Access The T28 requires a data cable or extra IR add-on to link to a PC. The Nokia does it out of the box. If you're looking to synchronize with outlook or just back up your contacts, the Nokia does this out of the box. The data suite is required however for the outlook synching. Holster Both Nokia and Ericsson offer a sideways mounted holster for their phones. The Ericsson one looks great and has a metal clip. The Nokia has a leather clip with a fold over pouch holding the phone. I dropped my ericsson because the case fell off my belt. The Nokia case stays where it is because it is tighter and made of leather. Battery Life Both standard batteries will last maybe 2 and a half workdays on. Neither one wins this contest. I do believe Ericsson's biggest battery WILL beat out Nokia's biggest battery. Conclusion. Let me finish this up before I write a book. I had the T28 for a month, then bought the Nokia and sold the T28. It wasn't worth twice the price (I paid $400 for it, as compared to $169 for the Nokia). However, the T28 may be introduced soon on Voicestream at a competitive price. I am going to go back to T28 if this happens. Here are the compelling reasons each phone has: Nokia T-9 Tegix Predictive Text Entry Snap off covers Built in IR Ericsson World Phone (Dual Band) Better accessories available (MP3 player, chatboard, etc. sorry I didn't get into this one) Better signal/sound quality Tetris :) I hope this helps someone, because choosing a phone is driving me crazy!! ----------- I just want to add that this week (10/8/00) I returned my Nokia 8290 and re-purchased a T28W. The signal strength and call clarity just were not as good on the Nokia. Everything else is just bells and whistles. If your phone has no signal, what else is there? This phone is giving GSM and Voicestream a bad name because of it's poor reception. Speaking of Voicestream, I beleive the T28 will be offered by them shortly, if not by now. Thanks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 88911 2000/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great design interchangeable faceplates small size plastic feels a little flimsy Full Review The Nokia 8290 is a great addition to Nokia's lineup of cell phones. It combines the small size and light weight of the top of the line 8890 with the trendy interchangeable faceplates of the wildly popular 5100 series. In doing so, they made the price almost irresistible and have certainly outdone themselves again. The experience I have had with this phone is perfect, the phone is so small, I sometimes forget I even have it in my pocket. The features of the phone are exactly what you would expect from a top of the line Nokia, which is to say that they are the same as the 6100 series. In this phone, the infra-red port is not disabled, allowing data connectivity without a PC card, as well as one of the coolest features of all: 2 player Snake! Battery life on this phone is also excellent. A full charge lasts 4 days with average use, and 6 days "under optimal conditions." Even without an external antenna to get in your way, this phone has excellent reception. I tested its reception against a 6190 as well as Ericsson's top of the line T28 and the 8290 outscored them both! The only gripe I have about this phone is that the build quality does not feel as solid as the larger Nokias. Perhaps they decided to use lighter plastics in order to keep the weight to a minimum, but it makes the phone feel like it would break if it was dropped. This is a minor peeve, as I have yet to test the construction by dropping the phone, and I don't plan to anytime soon! In all, anyone who is looking for a beautiful, well engineered phone should take a close look at the Nokia 8290. The price to features ratio can't be beaten and you'll be the talk of the town with the coolest, smallest cell phone around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 88910 2000/10/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 customization with faceplates small size poor reception placement of ir port The Bottom LineSmall powerful, feature rich phone. Perfect for the mobile professional who doesn't need wireless e-mail or web access on their phone. Can beam (IR) between phone and Palm devices. Full Review I've always enjoyed having the latest and greatest in technology, and trying to keep up. But when you have credit card payments, and truck payments and other bills every month sometimes it can be hard to keep up. I do try though. When I started off a pre-paid Voicestream (now T-Mobile), I liked the prospect of easily switching phones. I've actually done that too. I started off with a big, bulky and cumbersome Motorola V100 phone with a gimmicky (but cool at the time) FM radio built in. It was a great phone, but for a pre-paid phone it didn't offer a call history list, or an on-screen display of the time on the current call. I did not like that, so I picked up a used Ericsson T28 phone (which I've already reviewed). The Ericsson was great, but I wanted to get something that had an IR port so I could possibly get online. I bought the IR adapter for the T28, only to find out that the pre-paid Voicestream services do not offer any data services. Bummer. Some of the reasons why I upgraded from the T28 to the Nokia 8290 was my dad had a Nokia, and we could use the same charger. Also, it had some PDA like features and amazingly, it can send and receive things between my Sony Clie NR70V using it's IR port! As long as the item is short, you can send contacts and calender events. Very cool. The 8290 also has a lot of additional features as well. You can setup calling groups, and a ringer type to that group. All you do next is create a contact and assign them to that group. Very cool. You also have about 40 different ringer options available, with some of them being of almost deafening levels at full volume. Of course with it being a Nokia phone, it has their standard set of features and the icon based menu system. It allows you to customize different sound profiles, so if you are outdoors, in a meeting, or need silence you can customize each profile to meet your needs. What I really like (and wish I had access too) about this phone is the IR port. With data-enabled services you can use this phone as a modem! It is ideal for mobile professionals with PDAs that like having their phone and PDA seperate. It does work and when connected through the Nokia it is about as fast as a 56K connection. Be warned though. The AOL application for the PalmOS does not provide the option to use an IR modem, or other connection types. You cannot use this phone and the AOL program together. If you happen to have a PalmOS PDA, then the Nokia 8290 would be the perfect partner for your PDA. It is small enough, and light enough, to drop into a pants pocket and forget about it. When you need it, you just pull it out, turn on IR recieve and line up the IR ports on your PDA and phone. The bad thing about the Nokia is it's IR port is on the left side, making it difficult to position the two devices. Overall the Nokia 8290 is a well built phone. For me it lasts about five days in standby, and offers about two hours of talk time. I did buy my phone used though, so a new 8290 with a new battery will probably last longer for you. It is small, portable, and very well built. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 - used 88909 2000/5/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a reliablesturdy phone with many advanced features more features than i really need The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8290 is a really great phone for dependability and quality with loads of features. It has more features than anyone should ever need. Full Review Just before the birth of my son, my husband suggested that I get a mobile phone of my own. I would be leaving my job soon and have to turn in the company provided Erricson phone. There were so many choices and I was really confused about what to get but my husband steered me toward the Nokia brand phones. He uses this brand at work and swears by them. Since I had no real brand in mind, I went with his suggestion. I picked out the Nokia 8290 in minty green. This phone was small and light weight at just under 3 ounces with the battery inside. The size of the phone is under 4 inches tall and less than 2 inches wide. It was little enough to fit in the zipper pouch of the diaper bag or inside the console of the car. The things I like most about my phone are the soft keypad, the slim design, the volume control on the side, caller ID, and the ability to change the covers. Another thing that makes this phone nice is the large display so the LCD is easy to read. I know these aren't the most important features but I really bought the phone because of the looks. My husband liked all the features but the manual was large and I never like reading those things anyway. But he does. Some of the features of this phone include the voice messaging, which was really cool. I can put up to 8 of my friends and families names by just saying their name after you hear the prompt. This is really handy when driving so you don't have to punch in phone numbers. Another message option is to go to the Voicestream webpage and send text messages. You can also download more ring tones from the site for this phone but Voicestream didn't have many last time I looked. I usually just keep the phone on vibrate when I have it with me. I really don't get into all the web features of the phone because I have little time for the internet with the baby. I do like that I can send or receive email and faxes with this phone and also pictures but I haven't used the pictures yet. I just think some of these extras are silly for someone like me. There is an address book that holds 250 entrys but I have only added 6 so far but it was easy to use. There is also a calendar that holds up to 50 appointment dates. You can beam information to your computer or PDA with this phone too with the infrared connection. The basics of the phone are easy to operate. On the front of the phone there's a left and right scroll key to scroll through the menu. There is also the talk button and the button to end the call just under the scroll keys. The talk button is on the right and the end call is on the left of the phone face. The volume control is on the side of the phone. All the keys are easy to operate and access. The Nokia claims 200 minutes of talk time and that is about accurate. The battery is a Li-Lon battery and the replacement will run you about $50.00. We have the charger, cigarette adapter, headset, and leather case for accessories on this phone. I also have an orange cover for it but have not changed from the green yet. For anyone that needs the technical specifications, I will list those now for you so you have all the information you need. Data support GSM Phase 2+ features GSM 1900 service Real time network updating clock Wireless infrared connection From a woman's and mom's point of view, this really is more phone than I need. I was perfectly happy with my old phone because all I need is to be able to send and receive telephone calls. The extra features are really nice and I hope to learn how to use most of them but all in good time. The most important thing to me is that the phone is reliable, quality made, and offers features that should take me through several years without having to get a new phone. This phone is really advanced for someone like me that needs very little in the way of technology and probably not near enough for someone on the cutting edge. But for those people, something new will be out next week. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 139.00 88908 2001/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small like a little 6190 did i say small what s that are there any The Bottom LineYes I would recommend the Nokia 8290 for anyone who wants a Extra Small Phone, With all the capabilty plus, of a 6190. Full Review Introducing the newest in cool, a bold statement that fits your own sense of life style, the Nokia 8290 mobile phone. A GSM phone for those who appreciate design excellence without compromising performance. Small enough to fit into any pocket, yet feels perfect in your hand. So many features packed into one sleek package. The Nokia 8290 mobile phone is well connected…connected with life style. Well I could't stand it any longer. I found the 8290 for a bargain price, and bought it. I've only had it for a couple of days now, But I am impressed with the small size, and how much Nokia has put into such a small phone. My main phone is a 6190, but when I go out on a nasty job I switch over to a old and beat up 5190. Now, when I go to the city I can switch over to my NEW 8290, Ah the wonders of GSM and their sim card (smart card) This phone has Up to 200 minutes of digital talk time with a standard battery, and Up to 6 days of digital standby time, and is Only 3.9 inches tall, and only 1.7 inches wide,And only Weighs about 2.8 ounces with a standard battery. It has user changeable color covers, User friendly softkey interface. Stylish design, Send and receive text messages just like a pager. And send or recieve e-mail from all over the world. Fits in your pocket without sacrificing functionality, features and performance. Internal vibra alert and side volume keys. Comes with 35 ring tones. Holds 5 slots for downloadable ring tones. and Large easy to read 5 line display. Profiles allow adjustment of phone to your environment and lifestyle. Personal ring tones identify the calling party. Animated Menu Icons, Consistent easy to use Nokia User Interface Internal Antenna. And it has Infrared connectivity that allows the phone to connect with PCs, PDAs, & other phones to exchange phonebook entries and calendar appointments. It also has Over-the-air activation for downloading e.g. phone numbers and pictures sending/receiving) and e.g. ringing tones and CLI icons (receiving). Predictive text input for easier and faster message writing, Voice dialing, It Supports 5 languages (English, Spanish, French, Traditional & Simplified Chinese), Mobile Originated SMS, Picture Messaging, Caller Grouping allows you to set an alert sound for designated callers while other calls alert you silently I think I'm going to really like this phone a lot, but time will tell. I'll update this review ever now and then. And yes this is just like a little 6190 2001 style. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 88907 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable tiny size still very hip mimics a pda expensive tiny size Full Review I've had a few cell phones over the years -- the Motorolla Flip Phone, the original Startac, the Nokia 5180 and now the Nokia 8290. Each new phone seemed like the most wonderful invention in the universe at the time. Within a year, however, I always felt like my phone was obsolete. That's why I bought the 8290 in the first place. I bought myself the 5180 about seven months ago for $150 plus my service contract. I had to have the phone that all my friends had. I wanted to change the color of my faceplates, and have such a user friendly phone. Then my friends started buying 8200 series phones. I didn't want to be left in the dust. Yes, I bought a cell phone out of vanity. I didn't buy it because it is important for my job. I didn't buy it because it was important for any reason, really. I just wanted it. It's like any other type of technology -- you don't want it because you need it, you want it because it's "cool." Before you know it, it is something you need because you rely on it so heavily. So what's so special about this phone that I would get it before my contract was up with my other phone? Well, for starters, it's tiny. It weighs just over two ounces, and is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. It's even smaller than my Startac was. I always felt like my old Nokia was huge. It took up one entire section of my purse (ok, it's a tiny purse, but still) and made it hard for me to fit my wallet. With my new phone, I can fit in my wallet and lipstick with no problems. I even have a small bottle of perfume in there too! And there is still room to spare. Ok, the size comes at a price. I have small, girly fingers. I have no trouble pushing the buttons on my new phone. My father, on the other hand, cringed when he saw how tiny the buttons are. I can see that it would be hard for someone with large hands to handle this phone. Also, I've already lost it in my pocket of my jacket a few times. It weighs next to nothing, so you don't feel the weight, and there isn't a lot of bulk, so it doesn't "jump out" at you. So aside from its size, what is so special about this phone? Well, for starters, it has the Nokia menus, which are incredibly intuitive. It's so user friendly! The Startac wishes it could be so easy to use! When I try to use my old Startac now, I just stare at it and wonder what I am supposed to do next to make a phone call. My 8290 (and my old 5180 for that matter) are a breeze to use. This phone also has a special battery which allows it to vibrate. This was an optional feature on the older Nokias which is standard on the 8290. This will come in handy at work and at school, where getting personal calls is frowned upon. You can also change the face plates on this phone, much like the 5100 series Nokias. My phone came with a red and a blue face plate, but I want to get some better colored ones. (I'm thinking baby blue or black with hotrod flames). This phone also allows you to program in up to eight numbers which it will dial by voice. Just press a button, say someone's name, and viola! It will dial the number for you! It can also remember up to 250 names and phone numbers, plus an additional 250 names and numbers on the SIM card that comes with the phone. And when this phone becomes obsolete, you just pop out the SIM card, and plop it into your new phone. You won't have to sit there for twenty or thirty minutes transferring your phonebook manually like I did when I switched phones. This phone also acts as a PDA. You can program in special events, such as birthdays, meetings and reminders. It will alert you to the event with an icon and an alarm, if you wish. It also automatically updates the date and time, so you don't have to worry about springing forward or falling back (or is it springing backwards and falling forwards? :>). It also has a calculator built in (which I have used more than I ever thought I would have -- why didn't they include this sooner?). One of the coolest things about this phone is the capability to both send and receive text messages. You can send messages of up to 160 characters to people. You can send them to other people's phones, or to people's email accounts. They can also send to you from their phone or email. This is the coolest thing ever. Not many people in the states have this technology yet, but in Europe, people communicate more through text messages on their phones than by talking on them! The other cool thing about this phone, in an entirely vain way, is the ability to customize your phone. I already mentioned the ability to change the face plate, but many phones can do that. This phone will also allow you to change your ringtones. Why have a boring "ring ring" on your cell phone? You can customize your phone to play almost any song you can imagine. I downloaded "Funkytown" for my ringer, and am working on finding the "Ruff Ryders Anthem" for my next ringtone. You can connect to your computer via IR port, or send the ringtone to yourself via SMS. You can also download graphics for your start up screen on the phone, or for your text messages. There are also the standard Nokia games, but now you can play two player snake! I haven't tried this yet, but you can connect via your IR port on the phone, and play snake against a friend. This sounds like the perfect phone for the teen (or even twenty or thirty-something) with everything, doesn't it? Basically, the phone has almost every technological feature you could want, for normal or business use. The question is, will the tiny sized phone be an asset or a liability? For me, it makes this phone the best toy in the whole world. For someone with larger hands, or who misplaces things easily, this might not be the right phone. If this phone is too small, or too flashy for you, I still strongly recommend my last phone, the Nokia 5180. I really can't say one bad thing about that phone, other than I grew too vain for it. I wrote a review called "The Best Toy Since Legos" about that phone. If you are interested in a user-friendly, but not too fancy phone, you can check out my opinion at: http://magentasepinionland.epinions.com/elec-review-79E6-2CBD2D5-3931EF35-prod6 or check out all the opinions on the 5180 at: http://magentasepinionland.epinions.com/elec_Cell-Hardware-Nokia/Nokia5000ProductFamilyily-Nokia_5180 Happy cell hunting, whether you decide on a big or small phone; a fancy or frill-less phone! Just make sure you shop around first and find the phone that is right for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 88906 2000/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size features battery life easy to lose The Bottom LineGreat phone for anyone. Full Review I first saw this phone in the movie Charlie's Angels and was instantly intrigued with its size and sharp looks. So I decided to upgrade my phone with VoiceStream to the 8290. My fiancé and I both have had this phone for over a year now and actually still like it. Surprisingly, it's still an up-to-date phone with interchangeable faceplates and small size. Before I get into our experiences with the phone, here is a rundown of what it has. Features: Auto-redial, business card support, calculator and calendar, caller ID, alarm clock, currency converter (even though the phone probably won't work anywhere you need to convert currency), a log of dialed, received and missed calls, email support (text only), fax (I have not used this yet), battery meter on display, phone locking option (to lock keypad and avoid accidentally calling someone), numeric paging support, credit card dialing, organizer (contacts and appointments), many ring tones and the ability to download more to it, infrared support (wireless dialing, printing to a supporting printer and modem for net access), games, voicemail and finally call forwarding. That's a long list, I hope I got everything. This phone supports the GSM 1900 standards in only the United States, which is why you probably wouldn't need the currency converter. The Nokia 8890 is it's twin that supports GSM 1900 and GSM 900 allowing it to work in like 100 + countries, but is also 5 times the cost. SMS or short message service is also a feature on the phone. Basically you can send a test message from your phone to someone else's phone, like they show people doing in the Cingular ads. The ads make it look easy, but its not. Each number on the keypad has 3 letters associated with it and you have press the number between 1 to 3 times to get the letter you want. It's a little awkward to get used to and making SMS very time consuming to use. The microphone on it is very sensitive, I've never had any complaints from anyone I talked to. Reception: I knew this phone was much better than my old one when I was able to make a call from the back of a Super Wal-Mart (I try to stay away from these now, the people in them scare me). Reception also varies from different providers and tower locations. I get good reception in most buildings, not all. I also notice when in new areas, the phone takes up to 5 minutes to sync up with the local tower. Battery: Battery life is roughly 2 hour talk time or 6 day stand by max. This is only if you have full tower reception. I average 4 day stand by with mine. Comes with: A SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) Hands-Free ear-piece with microphone Wall charger Battery Whatever color faceplate your providers defaults to (VoiceStream is blue and Cingular is Red). Doesn't have: WAP Browser, also known as web-enabled. I don't think I would want to browse the internet on a screen that small anyway. If it's a must have, than get the Nokia 8260. It's like the 8290 in looks and size, but is web-enabled and does not have an infrared port. Durability: My phone has not given me any problems, I usually carry it in bag and don't wear it. My fiancé wears his all the time and it has taken a beating. He has broken one face plate and currently his microphone is starting to have problems, sometimes it won't work at all. But it goes through a lot and has done well considering its age (14 months). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 88905 2000/1/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 strong marketing stylish missed calls not sturdy Full Review I recently have been working for an electronics store in the area over my Christmas break from college so I have had the chance to use quite a few products in some depth recently. No, this job has nothing to do with my studies for graduate school; however, I figured it would be a good way to earn some spare cash while I was away from school for only a short time. Furthermore, this job explains why I have not been writing or reading and rating as many opinions as I usually do, but now I'm ready to get back into the swing of things so expect to see more of me, like it or not :)! Anyway, introductions aside, I have been able to use the phones in the Nokia 8200 series a lot recently because of my job. Furthermore, I have been able to deal with customer complaints and try to resolve them. This gives me some quality experience with these stylish little gems. It seems recently that Nokia has been all over the proverbial map of the cell phone world. Their marketing strategy has been bold and aggressive, sponsoring sporting events such as the Sugar Bowl and some in your face television commercials. I have a good feeling that a lot of the hype surrounding this company and their phones mainly deals with their style and strategy and not necessarily with the quality of their product. In my mind, the 8290 is no exception. This phone is very stylish. It weighs just more than 2 ounces and is not only light but very small. It easily fits into the pocket of a sport coat or jacket and has great portability. This phone is very easy to operate and will be picked up easily by beginners. As with anything else, I would recommend reading the instructions before use though. The phone has a memory for the user to store numbers of the people they call the most often and also has a voice interface system where the user can say a name of the person they would like to call and set it to memory. The next time the user would like to call this person all they have to do is speak the name again. This is becoming a somewhat standard feature with many of these phones; however, I must say that it is quite nifty. This phone has a great memory and will support over 200 stored numbers. Furthermore, this phone recognizes 5 languages, has call forwarding and even comes with a somewhat standardized list of simple video game like bells and whistles. The battery life is also somewhat sufficient. These are all wonderful features and certainly they add to the hype surrounding these phones and the respective stylish image that Nokia has created; however, this phone seems to be lacking a bit in functionality. Many users have come into the store in which I worked complaining of missed calls and broken phone parts. It seems that around one third of these units will break very easily with normal usage. People often say that the face plate of their phone just fell off or was knocked off very easily. True, some of these people may have been merely looking for a refund and misused their phone; however, this is an extraordinarily high percentage. Furthermore, many users complain of missed calls, especially in some enclosed spaces. I have also seen this to be true of some similar phones from Nokia. All in all, this is a stylish phone that may make a person more "hip", "cool" or "suave", but it lacks where it needs to be the best in stability and functionality. My recommendation is "Don't believe the hype" and buy another phone. P.S Hope you like this one because a bunch of electronics reviews are to follow in the near future. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 280 88904 2001/3/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light long battery life compact color changing covers sleek design impressive features might be too small for you The Bottom LineNokia 8290 is an excellent choice -; it looks nice, features very good sound quality, long battery life and extensive set of features. Full Review With seven available colors and sleek design, the Nokia 8290 looks like a toy. There is no antenna sticking out (it is located internally, so you cannot see it), which would get in the way when you pull the phone out of your pocket. Size At 2.8 oz, the phone is very lightweight and compact. The phone is small to the point where you begin to worry if the other party can hear you - the microphone is too far from your mouth. However, the microphone is very sensitive and can pick up whatever you are saying. The microphone location can represent a problem only in the noisy environments. Because of the phone's size, the buttons are somewhat small and there is not much space between them. To protect you from accidentally pushing buttons, the phone has a keypad lock function. Colors You can get the Nokia 8290 in seven colors: Coral Red, Metallic Blue, Mocha Brown, Mint Green, Lagoon Blue, Lunar Yellow or Storm Black. The phone's front panel has silver and black elements. I like Metallic Blue color the most. The colored covers allow you to change the color. Reception Although the internal antenna is smaller than in conventional phones, the reception quality is very good, the sound is clear and there is no sound breakup (this of course depends on coverage in your area). Text Messaging You can use the service provider's web site to send text messages to the phone. You can also send and receive text messages, the same way as a two-way pager. Voice Dialing The phone allows you to dial the numbers buy saying the person's name, it supports 5 languages - English, Spanish, French, traditional and simplified Chinese. Battery Life Both talk and standby times are good, especially in digital mode - Nokia claims up to 200 minutes of talk and 6 days standby in digital mode with standard battery. Accessories The phone uses standard Li-Ion 650 mAh BLB-2 battery. The desktop charger is compact and stylish, it connects to the electric outlet by the travel charger (standard type or rapid charger), they charge the BLB-3 battery in 2 hrs 25 min and 1 hr 40 min respectively. The covers that allow you to change the color of your phone cost around $20 each. You can also get the mobile holder, cigarette lighter rapid charger (1 hr 40 min), express car kit (car charger and phone holder) and handset kit with "answer/end" button located on the cord. Phone Book and Stuff The phone features infrared connectivity (through the built-in wireless infrared modem) that allows you to connect to your PC, another phone or PDA for information exchange. There are 5 ring tones that are downloadable - you can use some web sites to send the ring tones you like to your phone. The phone supports data transmission rates up to 14.4K. The phone can store up to 250 entries in its phone book, you can store names, phone number and email address. The calendar holds up to 50 appointments or reminders, there are 40 ring patterns, you can also program the phone to vibrate when incoming call is detected. Six user profiles can hold preferences for different situations (ring pattern, volume, etc.) The phone has clock (synchronized from the network) with alarm, calculator, calendar and event reminder, currency converter. You can send and receive short Email messages, if your wireless provider supports this functionality. You can also send and receive faxes. You can set your phone up to be able to easily dial numbers using a calling card. Nokia 8290 is an excellent choice - it looks nice, features very good sound quality, long battery life and extensive set of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): plan 88903 2001/4/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light loaded small may be too small for some The Bottom Lineversatile phone loaded with dynamic options Full Review Accessibility is a very important concept. Access to people and information is a valuable commodity. This resource can lead to power and profit, but to what extent? Nokia and other cell phone companies extol these virtues of connectivity. Never miss a call. hip Email in the palm of your hand. bold Internet at the press of a button. stylish Business the right way. sleek These companies are dire to attach this activity with an upbeat aura. Convenience with a "Have a nice day!" smiley. "Welcome to the New Era," scream cardboard coffee sleeves on Madison Ave. The reality, on the other side of the fence, is that this can be an expensive service - regardless of your means. There is no need for this sort of "sophisticated expressionism" when it comes at a premium. Any fool, who can nonchalantly foot bottomless phone service bills, is probably someone you wouldn't wish to do business with. Connecting people has become a billion dollar business constantly on the lookout for your intangible dollar. Look for ways to justify the service, instead of incorporating it into a lifestyle. Besides, ignorant people abusing cell phones in public are just that. Bottom line - don't buy into flowery image, buy into practicality. Anyway, dial tone triumphant - if you give them phones, they will call. Who's gotta have one? Choosing the Nokia 8290 was really quite simple. I had used cell phones for years but never had become an owner - Ericsson, Motorola Star Tac and the ever-popular Nokia 5100 phones. Now, with an assortment of affordable call plans and a preference to Nokia's functionality and design - the time was ripe. Nokia 8290 is about the size of a box of Chiclets. Smaller than a cigarette box at 3.9" x 1.7". This phone conceals away in the palm of your hand, and is a featherweight at 2.8 ounces. Trim, slick and perhaps a better alternative to the one Maxwell Smart has been using all these years. The phone design is simple and intuitive. Soft keys and a scroll button guide you through the functions of menus, submenus, and phone book. The talk and end buttons are illustrated with corresponding green and red icons. The on/off button is seamlessly built-in to the top of the phone. The buttons are easy to press and a volume control button can be easily accessed on the left side of the phone. Within seconds, your fingers can master any desired function. Plethora is the only word apt to describe the limitless number of features that this model offers. * 200 minutes digital talk time * voice dialing * calling groups * personal ring tones * vibra alert . . . to name but a few of the robust functions. The long list of other functions includes: auto redial, calculator, caller ID, email, fax, infrared (to communicate with your Palm or other device), phone book, profile settings and more. Nokia 8290 also offers an array of changeable color covers. Not just for those who are in need of style but to differentiate your talk toy from those of your friends. ;) The phone performed well - easy-to-use, with great clarity. The ring was a pleasant brief chime that I opted for and the automatic vibration that accompanied it was an added surprise. Programming the phonebook was simple and effortless. Leaving second long voice tags for auto dialing was downright mischievous. Nokia 8290 has earned my business. A dynamic product to bolster finicky coverage areas and adequate call plans. Impressive quality in the palm of your hand. Effective yet dangerous, I hope I don't have buyer's remorse when the first bill arrives. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7770 Nokia 6590 89034 2004/10/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 see above but hey no colour screen this phone is going on 2 years old people this phone rocks and anyone says it doesnt either got a bad seed or doesn't understand how to use it properly, good reception, easy to use, awesome blue backlight, super small, durable as hell. im goin on 2 years with this thing which has nothing more than white plastic showing through on each corner as signs of wear. thinking about buying a new faceplate for her, she's a little scratched up and i saw a few nice replacements on ebay... oem stuff, not those 99 cent asian specials. LOVE THIS PHONE 89033 2005/2/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception all the nokia features we know love compact intuitive no color small size takes getting used to I have had this phone for two years now and although it has developed a little bug (slight delay when required to communicate with the sim card), I have no complaints, for it has served me well. It is compact (though its small size takes a little getting used to), has no protruding antenna, has a voice recorder, an FM radio, a datebook, an alarm (I tend to ignore my REAL alarm clock in the AM and have taken to setting this one each night as well). It is a cute, reliable phone that works better than most of my friends' phones (and THEY have all the *bells and whistles*). I will either use it until it dies or until the PalmOne Treo 650 comes down to my price range (my old, decrepit PDA just died & I need a replacement)! Get one. Unless you have an awful service provider, you can't go wrong with this little gem. 89032 2000/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 hi res screen sturdy design extremely sleek difficult to cradle on shoulder The Bottom LineA great phone, though if it's that much more than its cousin the 8390, which I have seen for $0 once or twice, I might think twice about the splurge. Full Review Having won this phone as a replacement to my Nokia 8390, I was very confused. Isn't this new 6590 the same as my 8390 but with a champagne face plate? To the contrary, the 6590 takes the 8390 and raises the bar a notch. First, the 6590 feels far more solid and well made than my old 8390, and next, the screen on the 6590 is far higher resolution than my old Nokia. Also, the 6590 adds a radio and a few other nice touches to the software. When I first started using the phone, I thought to myself: "does anyone really care if their phone has 7 chunks to indicate battery life (6590) instead of a paltry 4 (8390)", and to tell the truth, no, it doesn't really matter; but whenever I see my old phone, the display now looks very crude, and I yearn for the crisp screen of my new 6590. Next, the radio, which is a feature I was sure I would never use (a radio... in a phone? use your walkman!), but it has proven to be a most pleasant feature, enabling me to listen to a bit of music on short trips when I wouldn't ordinarily bring a walkman. Keep in mind, however, that one needs a headset to be able to listen to the radio, though who would want to hold the phone up to their ear for ages anyway. That brings me to my final point, which is that, as with all other phones of this size, it is very difficult to cradle it on your shoulder while calling, which is why I got a headset for it. Though I wouldn't want a bigger phone, as it wouldn't fit in my pocket, a flip phone might be something to consider if you wanted a phone you could cradle on your shoulder. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89031 2000/2/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 high resolution screen minor bugs in firmware The Bottom LineThe 6590 is worth every dollar you pay. Full Review The first impression i got from a 6590 was how compact and elegant it looked. With 5 different xpress-on covers available, you can easily customise the phone's looks depending on your peference or mood. Also, the keypad and the screen are illuminated by a pleasant blue backlight which gradually powers up and down (A feature also available in the 8390). Although the size of the phone is small, it is still easy to hold with one hand and type messages at the same time. The features available in the 6590 are somewhat the norm for phones of this age (Calender, Calculator, GPRS, Voice dialing, Games). Although you can't compose ring tones on your phone, the Nokia PC Suite software included with the standard package allows you to do so. You can also write a new message, organise your phone book, change calender entries, customise profiles, draw operator logos/pictures and edit WAP settings with the PC suite software. It is also interesting to know that this phone has an integrated FM reciever. However, to use this feature you will have to connect the headset included. Overall, the radio reception is clear. The interface is easy to navigate and the graphics on the menu are fully animated. In addition to the user friendly interface, Nokia has also added a shortcut feature which allows you to directly enter any menu option simply by pressing a combination of keys. The voice quality is clear and dropped calls are rare. Talk times as stated by Nokia can go up to 5 hours while standby time is up to 16 days powered by a 750mAh Lithium-Ion battery. Overall, this phone is a very nice product by Nokia. The games are rather addictive and fun while the GPRS makes checking your email a simple affair while on the move. Although there are more phones available out there which has more features, the Nokia 6590 is still the winner in style and functionality. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89030 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sms games more compact many features like wireless web stylish antenna buttons may be too small for those with big hands no color screen The Bottom LineWorth every penny you pay! Don't pass up this phone from Nokia! Full Review I bought this phone a few months ago and I must say, it's a superb phone! I went to the store to actually by a different phone, but then I saw this one and I HAD to have it. This is a very sturdy phone, so much better than the 8390. The 8390 had somewhat of a cheap feel to it and had a fuzzy screen. It is very small and tiny and I love the way it looks cute, but professional. You can change the covers and keypads. The buttons are a little small for those with big hands but I have small hands so I doesn't matter to me. The antenna could be a problem (I've had none so far), because the whole top part of the back is it, it's a darker color than the rest of the phone. Since the phone is so small you could accidentally cover it, lowering the signal. I bought this phone through AT&T Wireless and reception and clarity is great! I haven't had any dropped calls and rarely is the sound fuzzy. The phone has many features such as voice and text messaging, 4 games- Snake II, Space Impact, Bumper and Sugar Bowl (which is the stupidest game, I have no idea what to do), and has nifty little features such as a FM radio, infared, e-mailing and internal vibrate. There are 25 ringtones and they are really cute, I personally like Groove. Some people say they are bit on the quiet side, but I'd rather have it like that because I really hate those people who put their phones ringer on so loud the whole block can hear it. The radio is clear although I don't use it that often. I haven't had a chance to check out the wireless web but I tried the e-mail thing and it worked! LoL I was so excited when I got home and saw my e-mail box and a message from my phone! There are little features like alarm clock, stopwatch, screensavers and everything but I don't really use those. All in all, this is a great phone and I recommend it to everyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89029 2000/5/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small easy to use light horrible signal issues The Bottom LineNot happy at all with this little thing. It's small, light, and it doesn't work like it's supposed to. Full Review NO shortage of problems with this phone. After trading in my big clunky phone, I noticed the nice tiny 6590, and after reading all the positive reviews here at Epinions, I decided to pick one up. Wrong decision! I bought this phone in Vancouver, Canada. My local provider (Rogers AT&T) and I've had no shortage of problems. I thought I might have gotten a lemon phone, so I exchanged it - I'm on my second phone now, and I have the same problems. So it's either a problem with the model or a problem with my network. The most annoying is the signal strength. I've heard that the new GSM technology has "penetration issues" but it seems really bad with this phone. If I step into a building, the signal meter falls to one bar. If I travel inside twenty feet, there is no reception AT ALL. In the Library, if I wander behind a bookshelf, the reception kicks out - nothing. No signal at all. SO FRUSTRATING! A phone that only works outdoors? What good is that? I was at a conference today, in a meeting room that was one level below ground. Lots of people were happlily chatting away on thier Telus TDMA and Bell CDMA (I asked them what service they were using) phones. I had no signal - not even at the main level of the conference hall, twenty feet from the door, where I could see the sky outside! Another annoying feature is that the phone sometimes "refuses" to pick up calls. I'll be sitting at home, or in the car, and the phone will "beep beep" announcing that a new voice message is ready for me. Where was the ring? The phone didn't even RING! WHY does it go straight to the voicemail? Seems to happen 20% of the time.No ring, callers just go directly to voicemail and the phone has no record of a missed call. REALLY FRUSTRATING! When the phone is on and taking or making a call, there is a slight "hummm" sound that comes out of the speaker (along with the regular sound). It's not there when the phone isn't actively dealing with a call so I can only assume there's some wacky wiring around the speaker that's linked to the battery with a lousy connection. Whatever it is, it's annoying! The phone itself if fine, lots of standard Nokia options, easy to use. But the annoying "doesn't pick up calls sometimes" problem and the horrible signal penetration problems FAR outweigh this phone's small size. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89028 2003/6/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features compact size no color screen may be a little too small for some people on off button The Bottom LineWorth every single penny! Full Review I got this phone through AT&T Wireless, although you can get it from Cingular too. Everything about this phone is GREAT! I actually was going to buy a Nokia 3395 but then my friend got a 6590 so I fell in love with it! It's built really solidly and doesn't feel cheap (nor is it cheap!). Reception This phone has really good service. Once in a while it gets fuzzy but when your at school you can't expect it not to be, but the amount of fuzziness is almost non-existent. Sound is clear and people can't even tell that I'm not using a land line. The antenna is internal, but its the whole top back of the phone (it's black). Since this phone is so small you could cover it and the signal will go down, but I've covered it and talked before. I think it just uses more of the battery. I get good coverage all over Long Beach, in some areas it goes out but not to the point where there is no signal. Battery Life Battery life is excellent! When you first get your phone your supposed to charge it fully then let the battery drain a few times. I have no patience for that so I only did it once. Nokia claims that talk time is up to 5 hours and standby is up to 15 days. My phone's battery lasts all day and I can get a good 4 1/2 hours of talk time! I was amazed! I don't know if it will standby for 15 days because I have a habit of hooking it up to the charger every night. Even why I do other things like send e-mail the battery only loses like 3 bars (out of 7) all day. Screen/Size This phone is super tiny, about 3.7 inches tall. For bigger handed people and people who lose phones or hate small ones, this isn't for you. Man, if you complained that the 5160 is small, this is definitley not for you! I love it. Maybe when you play games it's hard to hit the buttons but as for dialing it's no problem. They do get pushed easily so I recommend using keyguard (keypad lock). The screen is small, but surprisingly fits 9 lines of text! It's lit by blue lights and looks very modern/stylish. It's VERY clear and I love it. Features Whew! Finally to the features. I'm not going to explain them all in detail but here are some: Calculator-for the people who are bad at math, this is for you! Voice recorder- You can record a special message or a bit of a conversation. I think you can record for up to 1 minute or 3. Voice Commands- You can just say something like "Profiles" and it will automatically come up. Stopwatch- You can time things...like if someone says I'll be back in 5 minutes you can time them.. Infared- Umm, I'm not sure what this is for, but all you tech people will know. Games- There is Snake II, Bumper, Space Invaders and Sugar Bowl. When your bored or waiting these are really fun! Calender/To-Do List/Notes- Keep track of everything. This is phone is practically a PDA! Radio- Surprisingly clear! You need the headset though, and you can program 20 preset stations. Messaging- You can send e-mails, SMS messages, Pictures, etc. This is fun too, and it's only $.10 per message! Call Log- You can see the last 10 calls you missed, dialed, or recieved. You can also view the duration of your last call, all calls, all dialed calls, and all recieved calls. Very handy. Profiles-You can choose from 25 ringtones and you can have each caller w/ a different tone. You can also have it set to vibrate only, vibrate and ring, or ring only. You can download 10 ringtones. Services- You can accsess the web from here and do all those things but since I don't pay for that stuff I don't know exactly what it does and how to use it. That concludes my review and I hope it was helpful! Buy this phone! (I don't work for Nokia by the way lol). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89027 2000/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size features nokia userinterface no colour screen The Bottom LineFor the price, features, ease of use and Nokia's name, you cannot go wrong with this product. Full Review I recently bought this phone after selling my Nokia 8390 for a Motorola. I needed to get a Nokia again because they make by FAR the best phones for sms'ing. I must say that this was the best choice I have made in a long time. The phone is tiny, has a beautiful blue back lit screen which is very easy to read, day or night as well as being easy on the eyes. It has a much improved lcd screen with higher resolution than previous models. A much better functioning calander and a beautiful FM radio which I use daily when I'm walking the dog. And for once you are able to choose any alert you want for messages instead of the few choices you used to get. Also can't forget the auto keylock which locks the keypad after a certain amout of time which prevents accidental dialing. The phone has great RF and a nice natural sounding earpiece. Much more natural than the previous 8290 and 8390's. The only thing that could be added would be a colour screen but I find those are really bad choices for visibility in sunlight conditions. These are the new functions that I really appreciate being on this phone. You also are recieving everything that was put into the 8390 such as multiple names per number phonebook, stopwatch, countdown timer, etc. I had to have this phone unlocked and shipped to Canada so I could use it and it was the best thing I have done in a while Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89026 2000/5/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life small light full of features low ringer volume direction sensitive earpiece The Bottom LineMight not appeal to someone who wants to be on the cutting edge of technology, but for everyone else it's a great combination of practicality and fun features. Full Review I started with an entry-level phone, a Nokia 3390, but decided to upgrade. After a bit of research I was determined to get the Nokia 6590i. It had all the things I wanted improved over the 3390 and a similar and very intuitive menu/controls. First things first, this phone is tiny and light. I love it. I can just slip it in my pocket and forget that it's there until I need to make or receive a call. The 6590i is a dual-band phone operating at 850 and 1900Mhz. It should be noted that there is also a 6590 (without the i) available. The only difference between the two is that the plain 6590 only operates at 1900Mhz. In large cities with extensive 1900Mhz coverage like NYC the difference is marginal, but outside of these areas 850Mhz is very good to have, in some places it's absolutely necessary. Reception is great with my 6590i. This phone is chock full of features including voice dialing, one-touch dialing, voice commands, FM radio, organizer/calender, voice recorder, WAP, IrDA and the standard games/calculator/etc. I've found voice dialing to be really convenient when coupled with a hands-free device while driving and I've gotten plenty of use from the FM Radio (requires an earplug). Recently I've started to use the organizer/calender feature and it's been really helpful for organizing/planning and remembering events and birthdays. I've even bought an infrared adapter for my PC so I can sync up the info on my phone with Outlook. Battery life on this phone is vastly superior to my old phone. It's advertised at 16 days of standby or up to 5 hours of talk time. In reality I've never had a phone that lived up to the advertised standby/talk times, but power consumption depends on a variety of factors, including how hard the phone has to work to find a signal. I know my battery tends to drain faster when I'm in the basement. I'm not really sure how much talk time I could get on my phone because I'm obsessive about recharging it, but I'd say it's easily double or more that of the 3390. The only issues I can think of are that the ringer volume is a little low even with the volume turned all the way up and the earpiece is really direction-sensitive- if you don't hold it directly by your ear it's hard to hear. It's a great phone. I'd heartily recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 UsedRecommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89025 2002/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light tiny high res screen fast charging well constructed no bluetooth not a color screen The Bottom LineIf you like tiny, high quality phones, this is for you. Its tight construction means business and pulls this phone out of the mass market category. Full Review I ditched my Nokia 3360 (see my epinions review on that one if you'd like) on ATT's TDMA network to move over to the Nokia 6590. I waited awhile until ATT's GSM network started maturing a bit, but, I recently picked up the Nokia 6590 GSM (it's only sold by ATT for use on their GSM network). I went into the store expecting to get the Nokia 8390, but, then noticed the 6590 sitting right next to it. One thing I wound up not being impressed by the 3360 with was its relatively clunky and loose construction; it felt like a toy. When comparing the 8390 and 6590 side by side, I realized I didn't have to make the same mistake twice. The 6590 is clearly better built than the 8390, and its higher resolution screen is nice and crisp. I figured ATT would push the 8390 to the youthful crowd, and the 6590 to the professional crowd. I couldn't be happier with the 6590. The keys are highly responsive, and they don't stick. The talktime is huge (today I was talking on it for at least 3 hours), and standby lasts several days. The software follows Nokia's standard models and paradigms; so, if you have a Nokia, migrating to this one is simple. There are up/down keys on the side of the phone for volume control which is a great feature (something Nokia ignored doing in the past) The phone fully charges in just a few hours which is nice too. One thing that I do find highly annoying about the phone is that, rather than "mute" having a single button shortcut while on a call, "hold" does. My old 3360 shortcut "mute" which is very handy when you're on a conference call outdoors and you don't want others to hear the wind. With one button "mute" access you can easily (without looking) toggle between mute and un-mute. However, with "hold" you can't hear the conversation, and other's on the call can't hear you. With a cell phone, "hold" seems like a completely useless feature, and certainly one I wouldn't have provided one key shortcuting to over "mute." The tiny size and near weightlessness were the main reasons I bought this phone. I carry my phone in my pocket so, the smaller the better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89024 2000/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool blue screen well built business look light weight small high resolution screen can t store calling cards in it The Bottom LineIf you want a well built phone with very stylish look, small size, and organizing tools. this is the best phone you can find in the market for its price. Full Review I got this phone 2 months ago and I didn't have any problems with it since then. As soon as I got this phone I ditched my old Nokia 3360. I actually have the nokia 6590i, the Canadian version of Nokia 6590. The only difference between them is that the 6590i has the GSM 850 band enabled because Canada uses this band. This phone is very well built. you can obviously see that when you compare it to the squeaky Nokia 8390. The keypad in the 6590 is very firm and nice, unlike the 8390 that feels like a toy, the 6590 feels like phone. The software is very good. I haven't discovered many bugs until now. Actually, the only bug i found was when using the Internet. When trying to connect to the Internet, and the phone can't connect, it keeps trying to connect and you cant exit easily from there. Other than that, the software is super good. The software on my phone is V 40.41. The Menu, as most Nokias, is super easy to use. The high resolution display is very nice. You can fit up to 7 lines in the display, which is rare on other nokia phones. The organizer on this phone is very nice, too. The calendar is a pleasure to use. It is very easy to scroll through the dates and add reminders to them. The "to do list" is very helpful, too. You can save the things you have to do with their priorities. Basically, I don't have to right any reminders on paper anymore, I put everything on the phone. The phone book is one of the main reasons why I bought the phone. You can store up to 500 numbers, 250 on the phone and 250 on the sim card. Under one entry you can have 5 phone numbers, email address, web address, Street address, and a note. The phone is very small. Since I like to keep my phone in my pocket, the smaller the better. When I had the 3360, i hardly kept it in my jeans pocket, because it was big and heavy. But since I bought 6590i, I always keep it in my pocket because it doesn't bother at all. Actually I can hardly feel it. I have always wanted a sleek stylish business phone that is very well built and doesn't grab a lot of attention. The 6590 has this all. Unlike the 8390 and many other cheap built colorful phones that grab attention miles away. Despite the pictures of the 6590, when you see this phone with the blue screen lit in reality , you will fall in love with this phone immediately. Since I bought the phone, the battery never died on me. I charge the phone around once each three days. I use it for at least 20 minutes a day to 80 minutes in a very low signal areas. This is a very good battery life for a phone. The only thing I didn't like about the phone is that I can't store long distance prepaid calling cards in it. I had this feature in my Nokia 3360. What this feature does exactly is that it allows you to store the $5 or $10 long distance cards in the phone. And when you need to call a long distance number, all what you have to do is input the long distance number and keep pressing on "call" for a few seconds. The phone then automatically inputs the calling card providers number then the card number, which saves you a lot of time when redialing the number. So basically using the card would be like dialing a normal number. I bought this phone for $122 Canadian which is Approximately $82 US. I go it for a good price because I signed up for a 2 year contract with Rogeres At&t. This phone is the best I ever had until now. If I will upgrade, it will be to a color screen phone. But color screens are still very expensive, so I'll wait. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 82 89023 2003/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fm radio high res display well built small size no color browser somewhat counterintuitive display on the small side The Bottom LineSmall, well built, elegant phone for AT&T's GSM/GPRS network. Full Review I used my Nokia 6160 phone for many years. This was a very well built phone with a very nice, intuitive user interface. Most of the newer Nokia phones like the 3360 looked pretty cheaply built, so I never upgraded my phone until recently when I switched to AT&T GSM/GPRS service. Initially, I was planning to get a Nokia 8390 or Ericsson T68i but I liked the 6590 I saw at the store much better. It did seem to be very well built and had a much more solid feel than the 8390. Even though Ericsson T68i also seems to be a very nice phone, I decided to go with the 6590 since it was smaller, more elegant looking and also had the same familiar Nokia interface and menus I was used to. After using this phone for about 2 months, I am convinced that I made the right decision. My wife has a T68i so I was able to made several side-by-side comparisons. The T68i definitely has a better browser and a nicer color display, however, I use my phone primarily for voice. Of course, web access through GPRS is useful, as it is convenient to be able to check the arrival time of a plane, get directions, etc. every once in a while. It is even useful to be able to read the news when you are waiting at a doctor's office, etc, and the 6590s browser is good enough for these types of occasional web usage. The web browser that comes with the 6590 is a little bit counter intuitive, especially selecting text boxes and entering text is somewhat tedious, but for basic browsing it does an OK job. Even though it is on the rather small side, the display on the 6590 is very crisp, and the blue backlight is way cool. One of the best features of the 6590 is battery life. I can talk for more than 3 hours on one charge, and standby time is from many days to over a week depending on how good a signal you get and how much browsing you do. Voice quality, which is mostly dependent on the quality of signal reception, is generally decent and I don't get many dropped calls. This phone definitely seems to be a little bit better than my wife's T68i in terms of voice quality, signal reception and dropped calls. 6590 has many built in bonus functions. The phone book has been much improved compared to what I had on my 6160. You can now store multiple numbers per name and the number of contacts has been increased to 500. There is also a much nicer calendar that can keep track of your appointments, birthdays, etc. and can even display a month view. It is possible to synchronize the contacts, calendar and to-do list with Outlook or a few other PC applications using the PC Suite you can download from the Nokia site. The PC Suite also comes with a few fun, if not useful, applications like the ring tone composer. 6590 does not have bluetooth, so you have to use an irDA port to synchronize with your PC. I have a notebook with an irDA port, so this was very convenient for me, but if you have a desktop, you may have to get one of the USB to irDA adapters that cost around $40 if you need to sync with your phone. Now hat irDA ports are disappearing from most newer laptops, maybe Nokia should sell these USB to irDA adapters on their accessories web site. The headset that comes with the 6590 is pretty nice. It has a button that enables you to answer calls or hang-up. 6590 also has voice recognition based dialing and control features, which can be very useful if you are wearing the headset and you don't want to use the keyboard on the phone. One of the bonus features on the 6590 is an FM radio. The radio has pretty good reception, but it only supports mono through the supplied Nokia headset. You can set preset stations using the keyboard and then change stations using the button on the headset without touching the phone. Apparently, some of the newer Nokia phones, which are not yet being sold in the US, also support stereo FM radio functionality. One thing to watch for is the antenna. The entire upper back section of the phone, which is a darker color than the rest of the phone, is the antenna, so you should not touch this area, especially when talking, otherwise, you can lose the signal. With such a small phone, it takes a little practice to get used to this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free upgrade 7771 Nokia 6800 89068 2004/4/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 it s coloredhas polyphonic ring tones a whole lot this phone isn't that great at all, it doesn't have a camera and isn't as user-friendly as other Nokia cellular phones. there aren't any extra ordinary features. i wouldn't really buy it. it's not that great. 89067 2003/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 a nice battery life compared to similar featured phones voice commands keyboard not enough go toone touch commands speaker quality menu navigation too complicated Simply put, the keyboard makes this phone. The keyboard takes "texting" from a sadistic finger exercise to a practical form of communication. I expected the keyboard to be quite flimsy and breakable, but it isn't. I've already subjected the phone to several 3ft+ falls, and it hasn't even scratched. This phone's lackings could easily be fixed. The menus are complicated. Inexplicably, the "go-to" shortcut option leaves out many phone features -- especially all things web related. The built in speaker is a bit noisy; a fact that is obvious when compared to the headset. FM radio is a major plus. -- Essential if you plan to use your phone for information in a local or national emergency, especially if the cell towers are jammed with calls. Speaking from 9/11 experience, don't count on getting a call through during a widespread crisis. 89066 2005/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 4 im clients my favorite phone fm radio good battery life qwerty keyboard large for some occasional delay in recieving im messages no camera gprs not edge This phone keeps me sane during school, and basically any other stretch of time where I don't have access to my computer. While it doesn't have a camera like the later revisions, it still manages to fit into the niche that is my life. It is an excellent phone for people who want mobile IM, and quick access to text messaging. The speakerphone function is very well implemented, and the FM radio works well also. The included headset is one of the best wired headsets around. In my experience the battery life is great if you use it for mobile web, and text messaging. The talk time is about 5 hours, but with minimal talking the phone will last for over a week with constant mobile web usage. Overall this phone is another excellent handset by Nokia which stands out because of its innovative keyboard. PS: It also supports all major chat clients: (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ) 89065 2003/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 qwerty keyboard text messaging back light doesn t stay on not a lot of accessories The mini-keyboard is actually quite handy. I like the fact that I can send text messages very easily with this phone. The sound quality is not as good on my phone without the headset plugged in, which brings me to another fauxpas.....I purchased the ear boom headset after I got my phone. The headset itself has good quality sound, but the cord is not long enough to put the phone on the dash in the car! The other thing I wish this phone had was the capability to set the length of time the back light stays on. It's real annoying at night in the car! It stays on for all of about 15 seconds or so, and that's it! 89064 2003/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 programs keypad easy to use color buggy os I've had this phone now for a few months and I have been nothing but happy with it. I bought it because I do a lot of text messaging and it has been great. Its so much easier to use than the standard "predictive text" on other phones. The nice thing is that the screen flips when the keypad is open. Full color is always nice and being able to upload wallpapers and take pictures with this phone has also been cool. The only bad thing that I found is that the O/S does seem to have a few bug and at times will freeze up. but its not a major issue. The quality of sound is great as is the signal. Downloadable ringtones are nice and the ringtones that come with the phone are actually pretty good. It has easy stuff, techno, you name it and the vibration goes with the beat. SWEET! 89063 2003/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 convenient qwerty keyboard great battery color screen buggy o s unreliable fragile disappointment overall Sorry, but I've been using Nokias for 10 years, now, and I've never owned a Nokia that was as fragile as this particular model. I have put my former Nokias through the tests and each and every one has survived remarkably. This one has the buggiest Nokia O/S to date, locking up reliably 3 times a week. Often resulting in missed calls and messages, no less. Additionally, this phone reacts like it's made out of glass. Occasionally, we *all* drop our phones. Getting out of a car, running down steps, jogging to wherever, holding it between our shoulder and our ear... It happens to everyone. This phone in it's entire life can take perhaps 2-3 of these drops. After that, it's *finished*. I'm going back either to my reliable and tiny 8260 (which has taken a 2 year BEATING and been submerged in water for 5 mins on 3 different instances), or my clunkier but even more durable 3360. Shame on you, Nokia, for releasing a weakly and unreliably feature packed phone, that can't stand day to day reality. 89062 2004/3/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 keyboard loud speaker phone easy calender planner customizable menus radio voice dial pricey at cingular light stays onfor 13secs cant change screen crackedtwice in onemonth i ve owned it This is THE phone for text messaging.Period. The outer appearance is not striking, but open it up...and find a full keyboard, split on either side of the screen! Some say the phone is too big. I am the kind of person who loses stuff and this phone is a good size and too expensive to lose-I like the size. Color screen,deep menus and ease of use need mention. Center joystick, 'select'and 'back' buttons allow easy movement through the complex menus(..very similar to Nokia 7160) Phone is easily customized -voice recognition is good, "goto" button on start screen allows skipping several menu steps. Color schemes allow personalization as does .jpg wallpaper and a silly array of poly-ring tones supplied and thousands more on-line. Extra$ like radio and computer link require buying accessories... The phone is expensive but perfect for full-time texter or emailer on the go(requires subscription to network and some set-up). Lastly, I find battery-life is fine for my use= 10-20 calls dialed/received per day; I keep the phone on all day/night and recharge every 3-4 days. 89061 2004/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 none The main feature that stands out about this phone is the keyboard. This allows you to type alot faster and saves time. Also heard that you could get AIM,YIM,and MSN on this. 89060 2005/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features reliable fairly easy to use fairly durable not many I have had the Nokia 6800 for about a month now and so far I have been very satisfied with both the phone and my service provider T-Mobile. The phone some very good features including the portable keyboard which is very helpfull and usefull when typing in new contacts, text messages, personal notes, etc.. The phone also comes with an FM radio, a handsfree ear-piece, instant messaging through any of the major instant messaging services, a good variety of ringtones, wireless internet access, games, and more. I would recommend this phone to anyone. 89059 2004/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large display fold out keyboard for text msging sometimes the internal antenna can be covered by your hand I have had many phones and this is the best, I also have the 6820 (same phone for the most part, smaller and has a camera). Unless you want the camera I would stick with the 6800. It is a little larger which I found helps when using the "keyboard." Also the size makes it easier to hold to your ear when talking. I have gone trough many of the first Nokia's, then Motorola's, Ericisson, etc. If I had my choice of one it would be this phone, the 6800. 89058 2004/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 nice keyboard good display loads of features email is a pain to get working exterior paint is chipping buggy os I have had this phone for about 8 months and in summary I think it's a ok phone for the price I am disappointed, the Operating system is a bit buggy; sometimes the speaker phone will not turn off unless I reset the phone, the caller ID gave me some problems and I have found the Internet email system to be very difficult to setup. For the big $$ I spent i am some what disappointed. 89057 2004/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 gprs seems exteremely fast tons of features great sound quality the keyboard rocks thats about it heavy bigger than most WOW, what an amazing phone! It is full of features and fairly simple to use considering how complex it is. For those who want the organizer and notepad abilities of a Palm but dont want to carry 2 devices with them this is the unit for you! The ONLY complaint I have is the operating system is a little jerky, but this only is a problem for games. Also the GPRS seems way faster than other phones I have tried. all in all its TOTALY AWESOME!!! 89056 2004/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 software great support features lack of available accessories Top notch phone with great features. When I began looking for a new phone and service, I was looking for something that would be easy to use, as well as having a plethora of features.... hence, I bought the Nokia 6800. The ability to use a full qwerty keyboard is amazing, and the response and feel is great. The phone runs many java apps that I was surprised to see it run, and the support community is great. 89055 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality joy stick qwerty keyboard pop email reception speakerphone quality no mp3 no bluetooth no expandable memory no edge no camera gprs network performance poor The Bottom LineGreat product, but purchase the EDGE Compatible 6820 instead Full Review The Nokia 6800 represents a leap forward in interface design that mobile executives will appreciate. Unlike most phones that require multiple key presses per character, the 6800's full QWERTY keyboard allows users to rapidly type information. At first glance, the phone looks like a conventional cell phone. Ingeniously, the main numeric keypad folds open, to reveal right and left halves of the keyboard that sit on either side of the screen. This arrangement allows significantly faster typing than via QWERTY keyboards on the Handspring Treo or Blackberry. It makes entering notes, adding contacts or accessing the Internet much more appealing. My reason for purchasing the phone falls into the last category, Internet use, which has been disappointing due to the network performance. Unfortunately, ATT Wireless GPRS service is spotty at best. In fact, here in downtown Chicago (as of 4/04) access to mMode can be hit or miss even though there is maximum signal strength. Oddly, the data network appears to have degraded significantly since it went live 2.5 years ago. With reliability being as bad as it, one has to question the value of a superior interface, especially if the primary motivation for upgrading your phone is easier use of data functions. Clearly, one could not rely on this network for critical access to data for business purposes. Data performance aside, the 6800 is an impressive phone with the best keyboard on the market. It also has a joy stick that allows for easy navigation of menus. Although I have never played games with the phone, the joystick would be excellent for this purpose. To aid users typing in poor ambient light, full keyboard lighting is available at the press of a button. The elaborate set of interface elements, especially folding keyboard, makes the phone appear fragile. Yet, my experience shows the phone is quite rugged as it has survived several drops on hard concrete. There are many bells and whistles on the phone including a programmable FM radio. Although the reception is adequate in the city[Chicago], it degrades significantly 10 miles outside the city limits. Compared to a car radio with external antenna, it leaves something to be desired. Oddly, the stereo headphones (not required) cost $25, which is more than most digital FM radios. At first glance, one might think a radio on cell phone is a useless feature. However, many health clubs have their television screens' audio broadcasted through FM. Having an all-in-one device is nice in this regard. Combined with an excellent interface, the phone's feature set is sufficiently robust as to supplant most PDA functions. The screen is large enough for the calendar and note pad. When traveling, I have found the multifunction calendar and alarms very helpful. A surprising feature of the phone is the quality of the speakerphone. Clearly there was major engineering to get the clarity and volume is good as it. One very useful capability, which many users are not aware, is the phone's ability to use any POP email account. Hence, you can send and receive business email - and NOT use an ATT address. ATT has its own SMTP capability, which is transparent to the sender and recipient and lets users avoid blocked SMTP access hassles. More recently, all of the major web-based formats (Hotmail, Yahoo) have been added to the ATT mMode offering. While most of the problems with the phone stem from the data network performance, there were some Nokia-created glitches. The original headset and numerous replacements kept breaking. I went through four in the first three months. The salespeople at the ATT wireless store were kind enough to provide a new one each time. One even suggested that there were many headsets from this particular model being returned. Nokia may have had some manufacturing problems with the initial production lot as I haven't had any problems in the last five months. Although the overall design is excellent, I would have appreciated a keypad cover. The main numeric keypad is prone to accidental key depression when the phone is placed in a pocket or backpack. Many users will lament the lack of a camera or Bluetooth. However, I truly miss higher data rates from offered by EDGE. These features, including EDGE data capabilities, are available in the recently released Nokia 6820. Given the enhancements of this later generation model, there is little reason to purchase a 6800. If you don't mind the flashier design of the 6820, skip the 6800. FINAL WORD Skip the 6800 and purchase the 6820 instead Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89054 2003/10/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent clarity speakerphone excellent email capabilities thumb type keyboard larger than average size average battery life The Bottom LineThe phone provides excellent call quality and more email/internet features than any other phone on the market. Full Review This phone was purchased after I was on the verge of discontinuing my service with AT&T GSM after a year of horrible reception, dropped calls, and poor customer service. I call to indicate I would be willing to pay the cancellation fee of $150 because my service is so bad on my cute but worthless Sony-Ericcson T68i. The customer service rep. immediately told me that the problem was primarily due to the notoriously bad quality of the T68i and recommended I try the Nokia 6800 which he himself was using before canceling. The phone was selling for $200 - $100 for my dissatisfaction - $50 rebate by AT&T bringing the price down to a reasonable $50! With that in mind, I want to say that I love this phone, despite a few limitations, and am greatly appreciate of that AT&T Customer service rep. OVERALL: The phone is very revolutionary with its thumb-type keyboard, 4064 color screen, speakerphone, and easy usability. BATTERY: This was one area of concern for me because I read a lot of reviews that discussed the poor battery life. The bottom line is it's not as bad as most report. With average use (using the phone for ~60min/day), I end up charging the battery every 3-4 days. This is less than the T68i (probably because I never had a signal to be able to use it), and less than my prior Nokia 6160. Overall I think the battery life is typical for a color phone with speakerphone and radio capabilities which drain the battery more. I didn't read any reviews which mentioned the phone also had a vibrating battery, which is also a must for me. CLARITY: This was another area that received a mixed response by other reviewers which I was concerned about. The phone's speaker is odd in that your ear has to be over a specific part of the speaker or else the sound is very distant. This is something that you adjust to and have no problems with after knowing what part to listen to. As for the speakerphone, I think the clarity is better than that from my regular land-line with a VTECH phone. I didn't think I'd have much use for the speakerphone feature, but after getting the phone, I found it great to be able to listen to and talk with someone else along with my wife. BUILD: The phone's workmanship is excellent and appears very solid. The keyboard which opens up is a bit firm to release, but that is the benefit since it feels very solid in use. I'm sad to say I've dropped the phone twice so far, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it survived both falls onto concrete with minimal scratches. TECHNOLOGY: This is where the 6800 really excels. The phone has an extensive number of features that differentiate it from the competition including: speakerphone, radio, keyboard, java/gsm email reader, and an easy to use organizer/calender which syncs with your computer via IRDA or optional USB cable. The main limitation I've encountered thus far relates to the phone's email capabilities, and I think this is more a limitation of AT&T than the phone. Basically, the only way I can access my Yahoo POP3 account is via AT&T's mMODE, despite the phone having other capabilities and it's own Email section which ends up not being used. UPDATE! In my discussion above, I was frustrated by the inability to use the phone's own email capabilities to retrieve email apart from using mMODE. At least this is what I was told by AT&T. I did, however, find a way around this on the Nokiausa.com website. The results are amazing! I can now retrieve my emails without starting mMODE, I can edit, reply, forward, etc. in a very easy to use way. One less complaint! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89053 2000/8/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nokia interface wow factor sync with outlook screen polyphonic capabilities size paint on phone is not very adherent The Bottom LineBuy it if you need a new toy and depending on how old your other phone is. Full Review I had purchase this phone in lieu of a Samsung S-105, another great phone. I hated the "t9" typing capabilities using alphanumeric keys, so I thought this Nokia 6800 would be the perfect solution. Much to my happiness, the Nokia 6800 serves this purpose. Messages are easy to type, quick to send. Rather than focus on the pluses which are outlined by many of the reviews, I'd like to mention the items that bothered me: 1) Screen - As with most of the new Nokia color screens, it is noticeably duller/lower in resolution compared to many of the hand phones out in the market today. Or it could simply be that Samsung happens to have one of the brightest displays out there. My roommate's t68i also suffers from the same problem... the screen just is not bright and has low resolution. You may not think this is a big deal, but it makes reading so much easier when you have a bright, crisp display. 2) Polyphonic ringtones/alerts - The Samsung S105 also has a noticeably better polyphonic sequencer. Seems that the problem lies in the fact that Nokia phones only play 4 tones simultaneously. Haven't heard many other polyphonic phones yet, but the Samsung seems to be noticeable clearer. This makes noticing your ringtones easier, especially when you're in a noisy environment. 3) Paint is not adherent - I noticed about 2 weeks after having the phone that the paint on the left edge of the phone was coming off, showing the white plastic underneath. Perhaps because I stick the phone in my pocket. But I never had this problem with other phones. It could also be because this phone is larger than my other phones, so the phone is more likely to rub against my jeans/pants. 4) Size - As mentioned in the previous point, the size is 'annoying.' I'm looking forward to the infrared projection keyboards that will be rolling out in the upcoming year as a solution to this... but at the moment, there is no other way a QWERTY keyboard is going to fit on a smaller phone (and still be solid), so this is an excuseable deficiency. Unlike my Samsung S105, this links to Outlook (huge plus), plays the radio, has a speakerphone (every phone should have this), reads/sends email, and looks cool to have. One thing you should note is that 'Instant Messaging' as described as a feature of this phone is not integral in the software provided. This is available by linking to wap.aol.com, but no documentation is provided for this, and no java software exists on the phone to provide this 'feature.' Disappointing to say the least... because 3rd party chatting software MEANT FOR CHATTING would be extremely nice to have (does it exist somewhere that I don't know about?). I just hate having to click on 'open link' every time I want to send a message. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 89052 2000/1/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 calendar birthday reminders alarm backlight etc cell fax keyboard phonebook landline for each contact keeps breaking low speaker level too The Bottom LineGood keyboard phones without Blackberry bulk are rare--but baby this, and you *might* not have to replace it every season. Full Review I Loved this phone when I first bought it, almost 2 years ago. Even though I could not get the email to sync right, nor did the wireless web work nearly as well as it should--I eventually dropped that service option--I loved it. The keyboard fold-out design is trick, and the board itself is very easy to use. It makes entering memos, contacts, calendar stuff, etc. *very* easy. And I still want a phone with a keyboard, but not a oversized (and overpriced Palm variant). But I started to sour on this thing when I discovered that due to some memory partitions or something, the 5MB of memory is only enough for 100 or so text messages (which you must read to delete; of note if you don't want to pay for them), 14 memos or so, and about 250 calendar entries. I've still got 3.8 MB left, but the limits on all those functions--the ones I use--were reached in 6 months. Now I have to go back and delete old stuff I'd rather keep just to enter in a new appointment or note or receive a new text message. Worst of all, though--the damn thing BREAKS. I've had FOUR--count 'em, 4--of these things, and they've all developed the same problems within at most 8 months. First off, the contacts decay where the phone flips, making the outside numerical buttons respond only partly or not at all. Also, that half of the keyboard then only works sporadically. Then something will go wrong with the brain, and the phone will freeze, or more often turn itself off. I even had 2 that would often start dialing numbers by itself--I could leave them on my desk and watch as after a few minutes, a number or several (or symbols) would appear as if I typed them (which I could not, since the buttons no longer worked!). It would even hit the send button on its own a few times--and if one of the numbers that had magically popped up on screen happened to correspond to an autodial entry, it would actually *call that person!* My Mom--#7 on speeddial--was woken up several times by my phone as it sat on my nightstand, only to hear me snoring in the background. She'd call back, wondering if I'd been hurt or...? I'd tell her I hadn't called, but look at the dialed calls and there it was! Basically, though, I'm upset that I've replaced this thing so many times. They're good about the warranty, but sending the same damn model back every time just ensures I'm going to need another replacement (until this last one, which was the first one I ever really dropped, thus cracking the screen--on the first day--and screwing my warranty claim possibilities). Glutton for punishment that I am, I'm now looking to buy the twice-updated 6820--can anyone tell me if that model has similar issues??? I'd stay away from the 6800... unless you enjoy replacing your phone 2 or 3 times a year. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89051 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nokia durability qwerty keyboard easy to operate long battery life little larger than expected The Bottom LineGreat phone, durable, "You'll be the life of the party!" Full Review Throughout my cell phone career I have tortured, thrown, dropped, slapped, dropped into a milk shake, hacked, changed face plates, changed housings, added stupid flashing lighted antennas, added stupid flashing batteries and even spray painted at least one of the following cell phones: Nokia 3300, Nokia 5100, Samsung n625, Siemens crap phone, and Motorola phone that resembled the size and weight of a brick - old school!) With my cell phone credentials out of the way, the only phones worth their weight in gold are the Nokias! I switched from phone to phone every few weeks, only to settle a few months with the Nokias. Then came along the 6800! I began researching every conceivable aspect of the 6800. Most reviews rendered the same droning information, "No Bluetooth", "No picture capabilities", "Poor word processing capabilities", or even "Battery lasts too long." What the heck people?!?! Are you freakin' stupid?!?! If you think that you are that important, go get a stupid Bluetooth phone! It's a phone, not a camera! Use your huge corporate Bluetooth demanding paychecks to buy a digital camera! Word processing on a phone?!?! Come on!! Get a freakin' laptop Macgyver! Now granted, having a camera, word processor, coffee maker, coffee grinder, built-in tape dispenser and a Bluetooth would all be great to have in a phone. But for the realistic person, with their head correctly screwed onto their bodies, would realize that all those gizmos do not make you a better businessperson. This phone is built with Nokia durability and StarTrekie innovation! Calendar events are easily stored using shortcuts via the home screen. Simple notes can be taken with the opening of the keyboard. Tons of "totally radical" polyphonic ringtones are available as defaults! Using its infrared capabilities, you can send more ringtones and pictures. If your cell phone provider provides internet, this phone can surf with the best of them. Text massaging has never been easier. There are so many things you can do with this phone! Don't let those "Too Cool for School" Bluetooth guys tell you otherwise! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89050 2000/8/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 scroll navigation button color screen battery life qwerty pad design speakerphone light power button location headset slightly large battery life short for a nokia The Bottom LineEvery person I've shown it to has been awed by it! (I still am!) I think Nokia owes me a commission on the sales for this phone! Full Review I've had this phone for three weeks now and I really haven't been this excited over a phone in two years (when I got my Nokia 8260). This is my fourth Nokia (I've had a Motorola before as well) and by far my favorite phone. I wish it was the size of my 8390, but I can understand they made it this size because anything smaller would make use of the QWERTY keypad awkward and difficult. The design is great (it may look a tad odd, but when you see the hidden function of the phone, it surpasses the unusualness of the design) and of course it's a Nokia, so it's very user friendly. I wish I could use one of my many other Nokia headsets on it as the one that comes with this phone is odd and a bit uncomfortable (especially if you have a couple piercings on your ear). The power button should have been placed elsewhere I think and it would be nice if the screen would light up whenever you press any key (instead of having to unlock the phone first) and the keys could have been lit a bit better. It also would be nice if I had the option of changing the faceplate and getting a leather case for this phone, but seeing as it has an unusual design and it's brand spanking new, perhaps those accessories will become available soon? I love the color screen (not very pixelated, so that's nice) and the polyphonic ring tones are great (especially when you can get your phone to play a techno song or the Super Mario Bros. theme song!) I love how easy it is to use the internet on this phone and the text messaging is SO much quicker when you have a mini keyboard to do it on! Did I mention the PRICE!? Only $150 ($100 after a $50 mail-in rebate) for this fantastic toy! Get 'em while you can! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89049 2003/6/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 loud speaker everything else a nokia phone has always offer keyboard foldout radio can t use standard headset its a huge phone but it has a fold out keyboard The Bottom LineIf you really want it. Just get it. It will be a great experience if you are a Nokia fan. Full Review Describe your experience using this product. I fell in love with the phone as soon as I inserted my sim card and turn it on. It felt like a real phone not like a toy...ie the 3595...don't even bother with that one. Why did you buy this product? It was given to me to replace my Motorola T720. That phone sucks...after a couple months of pain and troubles and complaints I get a e-mail from Motorola that the phone is called back. So don't get the T720 from them and if you have it with problems demand the Nokia 6800 to replace it with no charge. What do you love about this product? The 6800's fold out keyboard is a dream come true. I can finally tumb as fast as the teens in Japan. The e-mail option to send your company e-mails to the phone is heaven. No more looking for internet cafes in the area to get e-mail from work. I can even text message using my yahoo account. Okay, it has 5 mbs of space and a radio option which all you need to do is buy a $20 headset. What do you hate? It's huge...really the same size as the average Nokia phone. But hey...it has a fold out keyboard which rocks. So i really can not complain about the size. It's perfect. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89048 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features keypad price accessories are rare soo new that apps The Bottom LineI have never been more impressed with an electronic device in my life. Full Review First off the only bad: This phone is soo new that it doesn't have a leather case, or a lot of games or apps as older phones, but the way this phone is going to sell that will change soon. It doesn't have a stock camera but you can buy one for about $50 U.S. Specifications for the option: Weight: 2.12 ounces Dimensions: 2.86 x 1.12 x 0.72 inches Cable length: 33.46 inch connector and 27.56 inch headset Connection: Pop-Port™ Resolution: VGA 640x480 pixels File size of image: Higher quality: approximately 30 kB Lower quality: approximately 12 kB Color depth: 24 bit Light sensitivity: 30 Lux Operating temperature: -22° to 158° F But I didn't want the extra price for the camera so it works out great. The second is that it can't play videos. This feature is only reserved for the $200 phones eats battery life and needs Giant phones for the memory and chips, but I want it all and am never content. A few people have complained about the size. They are crazy (sorry fellas). This phone fits perfecly into your hand and any smaller the buttons would be too hard to press. The rest or should I say the good? The speaker phone is awesome. I have never had a complaint on the other end and I can hear the other party great. I'm not too big into stlye or looks but when you fold it out to talk, people are impressed. It comes with a headset that is so comfortable that I forget I am wearing it, looks cool and soulds great even with the radio. The radio is great sounding and reption is as well. If I go on to list all the other features I would be here for hours, so I will sum up, vioce recorder has a 3 min of great quality, messaging is great and can be used on an airplane so you can stay in touch in your flights if that is relavent to you, and I am equally satisfied with all the other features. This phone can also be used in Europe. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89047 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice note recording qwerty keyboard color screen reception The Bottom LineI really suggest to look around for another phone if you are not getting the NOKIA 6800 for the qwerty keyboard because besides that it is just an average phone. Full Review I bought this phone along with my new ATT plan before I came to college this year. It cost me 50$ with my 550 daytime unlimited nighttime nationwide plan. I think the phone was normally 149 but I recieved an instant 100$ rebate. I bought this phone instead of the others because of the nifty qwerty keyboard feature. All of the other phones had what seemed to be the same exact features but different styling. This one had the special flip out keyboard feature that made it stand out. I also liked that it had 3min of voice recording time, so I could make notes to myself ( I normally carry around 10 sticky pads in my pocket as reminders of sertain things) now I dont have to. I really did end up liking the keyboard as I have used the phone to send emails very often. One thing I like is that I was able to use my university email instead of a pre-assigned ATT email. I dont use the phone to recieve emails because it costs more money to download more info (there are many plans you can buy to reduce these "per kilobite costs". The voice recorder has taken all of the sticky notes out of my pocket. There is also a calender that you can use but I found that the voice recorder is enough for a college student. I dislike the fact that the phone gets poor reception. I have held it up to my old Nokia phone and have seen a considerable lack of reception. I often have to turn the 6800 off and then on for it to recognise that there actually is a signal. But I guess I can live with it. If you dont think that you will use the special features of this phone I would suggest another phone that gets better reseption. The batteries last long enough for me to forget to plug it in for a night or sometimes two. This phone comes with unusually crappy games but they can be downloaded for reasonable prices. I recomend to search for the game on your computer if you can because it costs money to surf around on your phone. But it is nice to have the games for when you are just sitting around. For all of the other technical information that is useless to me go to the official NOKIA site of the 6800 phone: (http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,4486,00.html) Thanks for reading Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89046 2000/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fold out keyboard good display navigation system not great could be true of all phones i don t know The Bottom LineThis phone is great if you anticipate using text messaging, e-mail, or wowing people regularly. :-) Full Review This is from a phone newbie's perspective, so some of the material in this review may be of limited value because I don't know the competition very well. First off, the built-in flip-out keyboard is great. My girlfriend and I both got our phones at the same time, but her phone is different (since she needed hers to work in Europe, a feature which I don't need). Entering data in her phone after spending some time with mine was a real chore. Also, I feel comfortable sending longer e-mails using this phone because of the ease of typing. Speaking of e-mail and web stuff... This is one of the phones on the GSM/GPRS network, so if you're willing to pay the $10 / month or so (varies by plan), you are already set for e-mail, very limited website access, and other online features. I wanted to be able to send e-mails comfortably, and this phone enables that. The speaker phone and mic work well, and I haven't had any complaints from people with whom I've been conversing. I have mostly done this from quiet offices so far though, so I can't say how it would perform in a noisy environment (not that you'd be using a speaker phone in a noisy environment anyway). As for the phone navigation: I come from a computer background where I have a certain mindset of how visual navigation of a system should work. The phone does not conform to that, and the small screen size (relative to a computer monitor, not other phones) makes it hard for the OS designers to include the right visual cues to make navigation easier. Like I've said though, I don't think this is a problem particular to this phone, but probably comes with every phone that uses Nokia's navigation and AT&T's mMode layout (Nokia's is fine, it's the mMode that's a little more confusing to use). Also, it is a bit confusing at first switching between keyboard and non-keyboard mode, as the buttons change function. This would be expected, but it's a bit odd using the power button to choose "select". That's something I'll get used to over time, I'm sure. I have read other people saying that the size of the phone is too large and that the battery life is kind of short. Perhaps if I were more versed in cell phones I'd be able to confirm or deny this. As I have used other phones only sparingly over the past few years, I don't have a good means of comparison. Sufficed to say that it's alright by me so far. Note that on the price listed, I got 1/2 of because of a corporate discount - definitely check if your employer has agreements with AT&T, as getting a phone like this for $75 seems like quite the bargain. The list price at the store is $150, I believe. Finally, take the "Durability" and "Battery Life" entries from below with a grain of salt, as I haven't had the phone long enough to really make a good determination. I probably should wait a while before writing the review, but I probably would have forgotten to do so by then, and I figure any review is better than no review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89045 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 astounding design allows for flip to a full qwerty keyboard this enables easy text messaging screen can be scratchedno carrying case has been designed The Bottom LineThis phone is a wonderful gift and the ultimate in text messaging technology. It looks cool and works great! A must have. Full Review It was that time of year again. Summer. Like most people these days, I was intrigued by the idea of a cell phone, but I didn't know which one was right for me. I had to choose before I left for college. After much scrutiny and price shopping I finally settled on the amazing Nokia 6800. Here's why. For starters, this phone just looks sweet. It's sleek silver body is nicely complemented by its dark blue and silver keypad, and dark blue interior casing. It has a great self lit color screen that can make regular cell phones feel inadequate. The back is charcoal black, with a silver band which wraps around to the front. No matter which angle you look at the 6800 from, you will undoubtably feel like it is calling your name. The next aspect which drew me to the phone, and by far one of the most revolutionary features to ever be invented, is the flip. The Nokia 6800 has a front keypad which flips open to a fully functional keyboard! When onlookers first see this feature they are often left gasping for air or fainting to the floor. It is just that good. When flipped, the keyboard almost doubles the length of the phone, yet can still be easily operated in the palm of your hands. The 52 querty keypads are just big enough to be typed on just like a regular keyboard, and this makes typing text messages or emails a walk in the park. Did I just say Emails? Well yes I did. This phone has been fit with all of the latest programs and technology, almost like a mini-computer. And emails are no exception. Multimedia messaging with text, audio and pictures are also available. Just about any form of communication you can imagine can be found on this phone. And with such an amazing keyboard funtion, texting long messages has become effortless. Are there any game fans out there? Well this phone has all of the capabilities to bring all of your favorite games into the palm of your hand. The self lighted color screen allows for ultimate gaming late into the night. And the built in mini-Joystick is perfect for all sorts of games. One of my favorites is the classic, Prince of Persia, which actually kept me busy for months. But what if you need to talk on the phone and use your hands at the same time? No problem! The phone's built in speakerphone feature really comes in handy. Who knew that such a little piece of equipment could produce such massive sound? Well it is perfect for many situations where you need your hands for other things... The vibrating feature shows needed ettiquite and unrefined politeness. It lets you stay in touch without loud rings. Its perfect for meetings, classes, and anytime that you don't want to disrupt your peers! One feature that I use constantly is the calendar. Since typing is a breeze, I put all of my important meetings, birthdays, and other important events into my phone. With the click of a button I can set a reminder for me with a desired ring tone, and at a predetermined time, the phone will remind me of my event. I've been much more organized ever since this has come into my grasp. The features are endless, but you get the picture. This phone has it all. With the latest technology, I'm going to hold onto this phone for years to come. My friends love getting so many text messages, and I love staying on track with my life. Having games and organizers, I can stay occupied forever. Thanks nokia! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89044 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable speakerphone great quality lacks the digital camerabluetooth The Bottom LineThe phone is great to use and I feel many people will not have problems with it. Full Review Introducing the Nokia 6800 GSM/GPRS cellular phone for AT&T Wireless. Once again, I have managed to pick a great phone to make me satisfied. This is one of the latest models released by Nokia. I don't know what it is, but every 6000 series Nokia has released has been good. Let me tell you why I love this phone so much. The Nokia 6800 is a sharp looking phone for starters. The phone has a flip keyboard so you can easily send e-mail, text messages or even multimedia messages. To be honest, I really do not use the flip keyboard, but it is nice to have.It is one of the few phones out there right now with a new and exciting look. The battery has 4.5 hours of talk time and 240 Hours of standby. Not bad!! The Nokia 6800 also has a loud speakerphone feature. In fact, it is louder than the Nokia 6200, Nokia 3300 and the Nokia 3650! When I am driving or working on the computer it comes in handy. The phone also has a colored screen. This is one of the new features that will be on all models sooner than we know it. I think it beats the old green and white LCD screens. You can actually put any picture on your screen as a wallpaper. If you don't know what to put on your phone you can check out www.esato.com. They have alot of great things for free there. The phone also has new ringtones known as polyphonic where it sounds more like a casio keyboard instead of a beep. I have downloaded about 227 ringtones into my phone. That is incredible to me. My nokia 8260 only had 5 personal ringtones. You could have everything from Elvis Presley to Nelly. If you have mmode, which is the wireless internet from AT&T Wireless, you can check out these WAP sites.Just to remind everyone with AT&T, you can receive the mmode for free for the first month. That is worth getting. For WAP sites check out......http://v22.net/midi/index.wml or you can try acegames.com. The 6800 also has the same features as most of the older Nokia phones. You still have your alarm clock, calculator, calender, voice recorder, countdown timer, stopwatch, voice commands, infrared and to do list. The phone comes with 2 games..Bounce and Triple Pop. Once again if you want to download games, this phone supports JAVA. You can go to Google.com and search for Java Games and you could have Snake or Pac-man. When you find a game, save it to your applications. This phone also has an FM Radio. I really think this is good to have. The first Nokia phone with a FM Radio was the 6590. This feature has improved though. If you don't want to listen to it on your earpiece, keep it plugged in and play it on the loudspeaker.Great quality and the loudest yet!! What else can I say...Nothing! I really think that this is the second best phone AT&T Wireless has right now. The first, in my personal opinion, is the Nokia 3650. If you don't need a camera or bluetooth, the 6800 is the next best thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89043 2000/8/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 full keyboard exstensive battery life tons of features takes a while to learn smallish screen slow operation The Bottom LineInto writing text messages? Want a GSM phone? After something new, hip, and up with the times? If you answered yes then the Nokia 6800 is for you. Full Review This is my second cell phone ever. The phone I had before this was two years ago and it was a Nokia model that was very similar. Although not nearly as cool and way out of date. I've had good luck with Nokia so far though so I decided on this phone. I got the phone through AT&T as a GSM phone and paid $130 before a $100 mail-in rebate. Not bad!!! First off, the phone does look a bit funky from certain angles due to the flip out keyboard but when you realize that this thing is meant for functionality, the phone's looks won't bother you. It is extremely useful. Text messaging, surfing the internet, and checking email is a breeze using the keyboard. Which by the way, has lit-up keys by pressing a small light-bulb button on the keyboard. Nifty! There aren't many games and apps available for this phone, but it doesn't matter. There are enough bells, whistles, options, menus, and buttons to keep you occupied for a long time. I haven't even gotten too deep into the menus yet. I mean I've set my own ring tone, changed some texting options and user settings, but that's about it. It goes so much deeper. There's voice activated calling, one touch dialing, loudspeaker capability, multimedia messages, and so much more. You can surf a limited internet on this phone. Basically text links with minor pictures. It's enough to let you check your internet mail (AIM, Yahoo, etc) get stock quotes, read the news, and find out the winning lotto numbers. This is pretty amazing stuff coming from a phone. The screen is a tad small compared to some other models but it gets the job done and with color too. The reception is quite good for being GSM and the range of this phone is pretty amazing too. One thing to be careful of is the fold out keybaord. It locks into place at both the closed and opened positions so there are tabs and contacts that can break over time if you're not careful. Battery life is very good and the recharge time is very low. Even from a car adapter, an hour can fully charge this thing. The only real downside to this phone is the slow internal processor. Surfing the net even with full reception, loading applications, and saving information takes quite a long time by today's standards. Not to mention the lengthy time it needs to boot up from being powered off. But it is a great phone and I've been using the heck out of it. I love it and I have a feeling I'll keep it for a long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 89042 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 display everything features form vs function tuner option somewhat slow response time in menu options gsm related not backwards compatable with headsets The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone looking to try something new in the cell phone world. Full Review To qualify my opinion on this product, I'd like to mention that I work for a major wireless carrier. I used many different types of phones and both TDMA and GSM technology so I have a good base to work from. I am also a dedicated "gadget guy" who loves a new battery-operated device as much as anything else. That being said, I was one of the last people in the office to switch from TDMA to GSM service. The reception where I lived was poor due to the surrounding landscape but a move down the street solved that (not why I moved). I finally succumbed to peer pressure, got myself a GSM phone.... and fell in love. This is hands-down the best wireless phone I have ever owned/used. I'll break it down into it's individual attributes: Size: I have heard that this phone is big and heavy but I appreciate a phone with a little bit of heft to it. GSM phones are, for the most part, known for their impossible size and non-existent weight. The 6800 weighs more than, say, the 7210 or the 8390 but the trade-off is a fully functional QWERTY keyboard. This phone is also a little bigger than a typical Nokia GSM phone but, again with the trade off. The phone does not look bulky in a pair of khakis, will not weigh you down but probably does not belong in a shirt pocket. Design: The overall structure of this phone is awesome. Buttons are typical Nokia and laid out intelligently. You will notice a trend towards odd shapes and sizes for phone buttons on some of Nokia's newer models but this phone must have come from a different department. The flip-open keyboard seems like nothing but a show-off feature... however, once you start using it, you'll never go back. You can type out e-mails, notes, web forms, everything. It has its own light and button presses are solid and satisfying. The idea of moving parts on my cell phone is a little discouraging but Nokia consistently builds a reliable phone so I took a chance. You would not believe how many comments you get when you're typing out an e-mail on the flip-open keyboard and listening to the radio... all on your phone. Features: This phone is LOADED. First off, the infrared connection option is PRICELESS. You can sync outlook calendar items, contacts and notes by downloading the free PC Suite software. Enable the IR on your laptop/iPaq, turn on the IR on your phone, set the two next to each other within a foot or so and they connect. Surf the web fully HTML enabled on your PDA or laptop, transfer pictures back and forth, update contacts... its all SO easy. Other options include a radio feature which I use all the time. Reception is iffy at times and it does not get very loud but just having this feature is too cool. The pop-port for headsets and other accessories is good because it allows awesome expandability but I have several Nokia headsets that were rendered useless. Audio/Video: I have heard people complain about reception but the only problems with reception you have will be the same or worse with any other phone. My GSM reception is great around all the areas I function in but this has not been the case with all the GSM phones out there. I find that I will get a signal with this phone before others with the same service and a different phone. The best part is that I will get great service throughout the range of reception bars (i.e. call quality does not go down drastically when you are at 7 bars compared to 1 or 2 bars). The speakerphone option is awesome, very clear I/O and no one at the other end can tell. The ringers sound just as good as any polyphonic phone and the screen is very bright and colorful. I do have one complaint about the standard earpiece though. If you do not hold the phone perfectly, you cannot hear anything. I find myself adjusting every now and then because the caller is inaudible. Once situated, however, audio clarity is great. All in all, this is a great phone for everyone. I use mine to keep on top of meeting appointments, stay in touch via e-mail, music source when I'm studying, keeping in touch with my girl via txt, surfing the web for things to do and playing games in between. I will definately have this phone for a long time... keep an eye out for other flip-open phones coming soon from Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89041 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the first phone to combine a kickin set of features with user oriented design pricey The Bottom LineIf you're the kind of diva who likes to USE the features that pack your cellphone, and don't want to carry a phone/PDA combo unit, this is for you. Full Review It can't come as a surprise to you that every Intergalactic Space Diva needs a cellphone. When Miz Trin bought her Nokia 6800, it was a case of love at first sight. See, me and Le Fab Hubby had gone into the wireless store to purchase a new phone for him. Now, you should know that LFH is one of those guys who needs to do only one thing on a cellphone -- talk. The fancy keypads, the cameras, the IR ports, none of that means diddly to LFH. I, on the other hand, take pictures on my cellphone, and send them to people. I use mobile internet. I send text messages and do wireless IM-ing with my pals. I even synchronize my address book in Outlook with my phone using the IR port. All of these things my SonyEricsson T616 did quite well. And then, I saw the Nokia 6800. Finally, a Qwerty keyboard on a phone that didn't increase it's size three-fold. Finally, a Nokia that had the camera, the IR port, the mobile internet, and none of the software glitches that plagued the Nokia 3650. (Miz Trin's unfortunate experience with that model included going through no less than 3 handsets in less than 30 days!) As my husband looked at more sedate phones that had far more toys than he was interested in, I followed him around the store, carrying the store's display model of the 6800 with me. I simply couldn't put it down. Yes, I will confess: Miz Trin was ogling that little celly like it was Brad Pitt's butt in a loincloth. Finally, I could stand it no longer, and did the only thing a Space Diva can do for her long-suffering Fab Hubby: I gave him my old phone and bought the 6800 for myself. The 6800 is not only the newest Nokia model, it is destined to become a classic. Why? For the simple reason that it does everything one could possibly need a phone to do, and does it in a compact, usable package. This is not the first cellphone to offer a calendar and to-do list that synchronizes with Outlook via an infrared port. But it is the first one to offer that functionality that also has a qwerty keyboard, thus making data entry into a calendar feasible and reasonable. (Gone are the arduous days of having to push tiny buttons two and three times just to get one little letter to show up on a screen!) Most of the features on this phone are features we've all seen before -- mobile internet, camera, polyphonic ringtones, IM capability, games, etc. It's just that all of them are now in one device that is the size that we have come to accept as being "normal" for cellphones. (Miz Trin remembers the days of the Motorola bricks, and knows that it was not all that long ago.) Are there downsides to the Nokia 6800? Well, the price is still a little steep for a phone that doesn't have more unique features. Other than that, the only problem I have is that the qwerty makes data entry too easy. It has all but rendered my PDA useless, and I now spend entirely too much time IM-ing my pals when I'm bored. (At 10 cents per outgoing message on AOL Mobile IM, boredom can be VERY expensive! Add it to the list of things that make up the high price of diva-dom...) There is also the matter of the synchronization software -- I had a little bit of an issue loading it onto my laptop, but Nokia's customer service was friendly and knowledgeable and patient while I struggled with my less-than-complete IT knowledge. Apparently some of the 6800's shipped with a European version of the synchronization software. On the whole, however, I remain thoroughly fascinated with my new phone. And Le Fab Hubby is doing just fine with my old Sony Ericsson.....I'm such a lucky girl. Only a fab hubby would take on a used celly so that his wife could sport diva-worthy tech. And make no mistake darlings -- the Nokia 6800 is truly divalicious. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89040 2000/9/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 big screen easy numeric keyboard lighted keyboard not many accessaries available attractive to theives dependant on services provided by wireless service The Bottom LineThe bottom line is Freedom! With the Nokia 6800, your desk is in your pocket! Blackberries don't fit in your pocket but this will! The Poor Man's Blackberry! Full Review I've been a cellular phone user since the days of Cellular One and the DiamondTel22x. In those days, your phone being able to be a beeper was what made it rock, but ten years later, I have picked up the Nokia 6800 on AT&T Wireless service and haven't been able to put the phone down! The obivious feature is the fold open Keyboard. Instead of having to put some cumbersome attachment on or fidget with keys, you just flip it open, which is a nice feature for anyone who ever wanted a Nokia Flip phone. The Screen orientation changing feature is a time saver, as this could have easily been a menu setting. It flips automatically when you open the phone. It's also got a lighting button on the upper left to illuminate a keyboard, handy if your're passing the phone around at your night club table. The 2-way feature is comparable to that on a 2-way box - you can make life easy on everyone by getting a normal email address that forwards to the phone, like "yourname2way@yahoo.com" or something of the like. With that, I can be anywhere in my office complex and reachable without being intruded upon. The Radio is a handy feature, especially during the last black out that hit New York City. Depending on your service (I have AT&T MMode), you can do AOL Instant Messeging, Yahoo Messaging, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, etc on this phone, which again with the keyboard makes you free from Cybercafes, your desk, or whatever tethers you to your computer. This is definately a rockin' phone, and could be considered the 'Poor Man's Blackberry'. It's revolutionized my life because I'm no longer stuck to a computer - I can interact via 2-way messaging, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Mail, and Yahoo Mail from Church, work, home, or just on the road. The size is acceptable given the keypad. The Numeric Keypad, unlike the 7210 (my last phone, still in use with a SIM swap!) , is very navicable. Remember, the smaller the phone is, the more cumbersome simple functions tend to become. The joystick is another feature that is nice, given the ability to go to the calendar at a moment's notice. The Infared is good, in concert with the Nokia Sync software creates a copy of your outlook contacts. The only drawbacks are: The usefulness of this phone is dependant heavily on the service provider - basic functions are fine but if your service provider gives you any enhanced services like MMode from AT&T, your'e better off. It has the AOL and other features I spoke of earier built into it's service. There isn't really a good carrying case for this, it's more a 'slip it in your pocket' type of device. The ones I've seen from overseas and of course the 'phone glove' Nokia offers defeat the ergonomics of the device itself. This phone IS a conversation piece and is subject to theft. Because it runs on SIM cards, it would be easy to hijack by someone else. Not having a carrying case could be a blessing in terms of the phone being exposed less especailly in areas like NYC. Bottom line - This phone ROCKS. I haven't been this excited since my DiamondTel22x back in 93.... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89039 2000/7/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 integrated fm radio high gadget factor color screen email client innovative flip out thumb board no bluetooth no integrated word processor buggy nokia o s The Bottom LineRoad warriors, executives, & power users will find the phone useful; a PDA replacement it is not. High gadget factor, good form-factor, and good usability are plusses. Full Review Nokia released the 6800 GSM phone in the U.S. market in June 2003. Key features include: - An innovative "clam-shell" style keyboard that expands from a traditional cell-phone style keyboard to a full "thumb board," suitable for limited text entry including SMS and email; - Built-in email client software that allows POP and IMAP email to be viewed, and SMTP replies to be sent from the device; - An integrated Web browser, which also supports WAP browsing; - Tri-band GSM support, enabling the phone to be used in over 80 countries (including the U.S.); - GPRS data connectivity, providing modem-speed (~40 Kbps) data communications; - Infrared connectivity, enabling wireless synchronization. The infrared port may also be used as a data conduit, enabling the phone to act as a GPRS modem for laptops and PDAs; - An integrated FM stereo radio; - A color LCD screen, which automatically re-orients itself when the keyboard is opened; - Polyphonic (4 voice) MIDI ring tones. I was excited to get my demo unit, as the 6800's design has been promoted by Nokia for some time. A fully functional keyboard in a cell phone footprint, enabling email and even limited word processing, is a compelling combination. I have been using an early production version of the 6800 for a couple of weeks now, and for the most part, I am pleased with it. The keyboard functions as advertised, and the email client is functional, albeit basic. The biggest value that I obtained from the phone was the ability to log in to Office Online, a Web-based email service offered by AT&T Wireless for USD $2.99 per month ($5.99 per month if you want to access it from a non-wireless device). Office Online allows access to Exchange-based corporate email servers via a small piece of software, known as an agent, that is installed on a user's desktop PC in the office. The 6800 is able to log in to the Office Online service through AT&T's mobile Web page, which then establishes a secure connection to the agent on the desktop PC. Users are then able to view email, calendar, and contact information, as well as compose and respond to email messages on the Exchange server. The keyboard on the 6800 proved invaluable for Office Online, and text entry when responding to email is easily ten times faster than the traditional "predictive text" methods traditionally employed by cell phones. I was able to view all of the messages in my inbox, as well as respond, forward, and delete messages, all from my cell phone. I was also able to view, accept, or decline meeting invitations--a key feature. On the negative side, the 6800 does not have an intuitive way to create regular text documents (there is no in-built word processor). It does have a 'notes' capability, but notes may only be retrieved from the phone via Nokia's somewhat buggy (but free) synchronization software (Nokia PC Suite), which requires a PC or laptop. In addition, memory limitations on the device prevent large documents from being loaded and/or created on the device. I was able to find a Java (J2ME) word processor on the Web, and was successful in installing it on the phone. Unfortunately, the program was not able to understand data coming in from the keyboard, possibly because the software was designed for a cell phone user to input text using only the number keys. Nokia has published a keyboard API for the phone, incidentally, so I anticipate that a 6800-aware word processor may be in the works. Another key technology that is missing from the phone is Bluetooth. Bluetooth allows short-range (under 10 meter) wireless connectivity (using radio waves) between cell phones and other devices, such as wireless headsets, PDAs, and laptops. I have a Nokia 6310i phone (which has Bluetooth), and have become spoiled by my Jabra FreeSpeak wireless headset, which is useless with the 6800 unless I purchase a "dongle" to connect on the phone side. Another serious drawback of the 6800 is the fact that is does not have a "real" operating system, such as Symbian. If the phone had an operating system, an entirely new world of software would be available to the user, including word processors and email programs. Nokia's 9210, 7650, and 3650 phones have Symbian, and I have been favorably impressed with the capabilities of the O/S, which is jointly owned by Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, and a number of other cell phone manufacturers. On the usability side, the phone is plagued by a number of bugs, possibly because the unit I received was literally one of the first to reach U.S. shores. There were a number of instances when the phone would spontaneously "reboot", once right in the middle of a conversation, and I also experienced several instances where the phone would not allow me to back out of menus, necessitating a power-off to correct the problem. I imagine that these problems will be corrected in subsequent releases of the phone. In summary, the 6800 holds promise for road warriors and executives that seek basic email and communications capabilities in a small form-factor, but it will fall short for power users that are seeking to replace a laptop or PDA. If Nokia can leverage the 6800 keyboard technology in a Symbian-based phone, they will have a clear winner with cell phone power users. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): est $400 89038 2000/5/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full qwerty keyboard w minimum size tons of customization options no possibility of custom faceplate options limited accessories The Bottom LineAs a writer the flip open full QWERTY keyboard was the biggest selling point. All around this is truly the best phone I have ever seen. Full Review After 4 years with the same phone I finely decided to upgrade. AT&T was offering the 6800 FREE to upgrading customers, so that convinced me the time was right. I have been with AT&T for 5 years, happily so the 2 year contract I had to sign was not an issue. Set up was a breeze. The learning curve for the menu options and features was small but I was coming from a Nokia 6100 series and the two have similar setups. If you're upgrading from another brand of phone you may find it a little more difficult. As a writer the flip open full QWERTY keyboard was the biggest selling point. It is easy to use and I was able to type a full 2000+ character text doc in just a few minutes. I'm looking for some java app that will give me a slightly more robust word processor. Java apps are out there and I assume there will be more to come but it does raise one question. Will I need virus protection for my phone now, too? With this being a web enabled phone, what about a firewall? I suppose that's just the world we live in now, sigh. Uploading to the PC couldn't be easer. Creating ring tones and custom wall paper is also a plus and quite addictive. Being able to have 5 caller groups means that I can have six active ring tones (5 for the caller groups and one default) so making several ring tones is more fun and practical. Without the caller group option no matter how many ring tones you make only one will be usable at a time. Battery is shorter than my old 6100 despite having similar, but unfortunately not compatible, batteries. In defense of the 6800, look at what its being used for and how long. I would never have even tried to type a 2000+ document on the 6100 even if it would allow me to. On the 6800 I have spent hours just typing. The bright easy to read screen is a battery drainer. Not to mention the very useful option to turn the backlighting on for the whole keyboard. Very useful for typing in dim restaurants or bars, you never know when the inspiration will hit you. For the gamers this is a must have. Though I have not tried any of the many available games they do look well done, all things considered. There also appears to be a way to have group games either phone to phone or over the web. I can't say much more because I just tried the two games that came with the phone once and then forgot about them. The default games do seem a bit forgettable. If you're a gamer you will want to immediately get more games and there are a lot available. For those that want Bluetooth and a built in camera there is a 6820 model available, not for free, with AT&T. (other providers may vary) I had little need for the Bluetooth and I bought the headset camera off ebay for under $40, NEW. The pictures are what one might expect from a camera the size of a volume control on a headset. Anything short of a sunny day or a well lit interior will cause your pics to be dark and unusable. A half decent flash would be nice on future models. (Anyone from Nokia listening?) Transferring them to the computer is easy. This is important because I am using them on a website and time is money. I have yet to utilize even 1/3 of the functions this phone has to offer so there are many more months of experimentation for me to have fun with. All around this is truly the best phone I have ever seen. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89037 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 full qwerty keyboard speakerphone rebootsshuts down all by itself or requires a rebootshutdown freezes up The Bottom LineWould recommend to anyone save for the glitches which I think are very large problems. However, I have never encountered the freezes, reboots or shutdowns during a conversation. Full Review My wife and I went looking at the end of the first quarter of this year for new cell phones. I decided to go with AT&T Wireless this time, mostly since I get a great discount through my company. That's when my son-in-law introduced us to this great little phone while we were visiting my daughter and him before their wedding. At the time he was working for a Cingular dealer. My wife was absolutely fascinated with the phone, while I thought it was simply, at first, different (heck, all I needed really was just a phone for voice communications). The downside was that he didn't have a functional version of the phone at his kiosk. So we headed over to the AT&T Wireless store after we got back from visiting them (Cingular was not in our area then). That's when I took a better look at the phone and tried it out with my wife. We loved the phone. So, I ordered two of them via my company discounts and about two days later this puppies showed up at the door. We wound up getting them for free with a one year contract. At first, the phones worked great, without flaw. For the most part, they still do, with a few exceptions. I decided to break this review into several sections. Durability This phone is the least durable of any Nokia I have ever used. It has been dropped exactly twice, both times getting out of a car, and fell less than 2 feet onto concrete and now it has several scratches all over the casing. Worse, the glass covering the LCD cracked during normal usage of the phone (e.g., less than 1 pound per square inch). While I love the keyboard, it can be downright frightening to open the keyboard because you have to almost literally pry the the release point open. There should be a release button on that makes it near zero-force to open. Software What device these days doesn't have software? It has absolutely the worst software I have ever seen in any consumer electronic device! First, understand that I am software engineer by profession for over 15 years. While sending an e-mail with a CC recipient on it, the phone deterministically shuts down every time. The phone has actually rebooted on me quite a number of times. The keyboard refuses to lock at least once a week (via Menu | * ) and I have to reboot the phone every time. About once every month the entire phone will freeze: the screen is frozen on the last thing it displayed, none of the keys will work, and flipping out the full keyboard does not cause the screen to rotate the 90 degrees like it normally should; it's just 100% non-responsive, plain and simple - reminds me of Windows O/S. The phone always has to be rebooted in these cases too. A few times, the phone will freeze just like I described, but, the phone cannot be shut off using the power button, I have to physically remove the battery, reinstall it, and then power it back on to clear the symptom. There have been occasions where I even after removing the reinserting the battery while the phone was on and frozen that the phone would then not even turn on - I actually had to wait for an hour later for it to finally power on using the power button. In all honesty, it has been a few years since I last used a Nokia phone prior to this one. The menu system, I swear, has barely changed! While I am an advocate of "if it works, don't fix it." which is clearly what Nokia has done here, I'm also a strong proponent of innovation. Nokia has not done too much in this area with respect to the menu system. The radio feature is nice I have to say. However, in order to use it, you have to first have the headset plugged in. Once you got the radio going, you can then switch on the loud speaker and remove the headset and listen to the radio that way. What the hell was Nokia thinking of here in the first place!? Did they not ever think that maybe, just maybe, someone might actually want to simply use the radio via the loud speaker and not the headset? Then again, maybe they did - where "they" is some engineer but some brain dead manager clearly failed to grasp this simple concept. The embedded e-mail client is horrible. It can only check e-mail from one e-mail configuration at a time. Uou can set it up with several e-mail configurations however. You just have to manually switch from one to the next to the next for each e-mail account you wish to check. Composing an e-mail message is simple and straight forward, but, the implementation of it is a laughing stock. What I mean by this is that it is a guided approach to composing an e-mail message, sort of like a wizard on a computer when installing software. I suppose this is fine for most users, myself, I would prefer to have it all in the same place with scroll bars with all the usual e-mail fields. Well, since it is the former and not the latter, the latter would be cleaner though, as you progress from one screen of information to the next while composing the e-mail message (e.g., subject, recipients, message) the phone iterates through all the prior screens for every subsequent screen you complete. This winds up looking like a macro is executing with the screen being refreshed all the while. Very unprofessional. Moreover, this e-mail client could use support for at least IMAP instead of just POP3. I would also like to see VPN support since that is the only way that I can access my company's e-mail when not on-site. Cut and paste? What cut and paste? That would have been a nice feature for Nokia to have included since this phone is a wonderful text device - thanks to the full QWERTY keyboard which I absolutely love. The address book is top notch. I have always loved Nokia's address book implementation on their phones. I have yet to find a better implementation in fact. All the other phones that I have had and tried have too many limits on their phone books. The one common limitation they all share is a pathetic number of characters may be used in a phone book entry name - usually something like 16. Nokia goes far beyond that of 16. I like it because I organize the contacts in my address book using the "last name, first name" format and I like to spell out everything as much as possible. Display The display is average. Standard LCD screen, nothing to write home about. It is not very vivid. When compared to my Sanyo 8100, the Sanyo 8100 has an absolutely beautiful display, clearly top-notch. Bright. Vivid. Far more bits per pixel than Nokia could muster up. Even the LG phones on the market are far more vivid than this display. Battery I must say, the battery does last! I charge this phone about twice a week and have not seen a single drop off in the battery life nor the performance of the unit with respect to the battery. Good job Nokia. This is what I expect from you. I get what Nokia states in the specifications for the battery life during use and stand by. I am very satisfied with this aspect as it is up to par with my expectations from Nokia. Audio The speakerphone on this is pretty decent. I have very little trouble understanding the person on the other end of a conversation and I have not received any complaints from them either that the conversation was not clear. In fact, they were surprised to learn that I had them on the speakerphone! However, the volume and clarity when not using the speakerphone leaves quite a bit to be desired. There are many times when I have to ask the other person to repeat what they said. No, this is not an artifact of my service, it is an artifact of the device itself, whether hardware or software or both. The headset alleviates this problem. The cord to the headset could be longer. I hate the headset's connector piece into the phone. It is proprietary which severely limits the choices of headsets one can use. I prefer the standard mini headphone plugs - they are significantly easier to connect as well. Apparently Nokia has not learned that standards are a good thing, at least with respect to this particular item. Miscellaneous This phone is missing a camera some would say. I say that is what the accessory is for. I actually prefer phones without an integrated camera because of my job (cameras are off limits at every facility where I work). So, an integrated camera on a phone does me exactly and precisely zilch; moreover, it effectively ensures that I have a "part time" phone. I cannot stand integrated cameras on phones. I like accessory option because it is just that, an option (and nine times out of ten an accessory camera will have better resolution, color and capability than integrated camera). While the phone is J2ME compliant and runs most Java applications without a hitch, it runs them slowly. The IRdA on this is pretty good. It has no problems "beaming" information to another Nokia 6800. I also have no problems beaming information to Pocket PC PDA's. Nice job Nokia. This phone needs an option to be able to transfer all address book data from the phone memory to the SIM card and vica-versa. Would I recommend this phone? Absolutely - on the condition that Nokia fixes the real problems with the phone: the freezes, the reboots, the shut downs (should be feasible via an OTA update). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89036 2003/11/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 performance keyboard excellent quality sound color display design many features battery life expensive large compared to other brand name phones The Bottom LineThe Nokia 6800 was an excellent investment. The features, including the fold away keyboard, and ease of use have rendered my PDA useless. I would highly recommend. Full Review I walked into my local Cingular Superstore a few weeks ago on a mission. I wanted to purchase a phone that I wouldn't want to "trade-up" in a year. A phone with features out of the wazoo. Features including Internet access, a high capacity phone book, a calendar and to-do list that wouldn't take me 10 minutes to set up an appointment, calculator and games. My Cingular rep first showed me a small, but impressive, Motorola. It was nice but I knew several people who had some software issues with Motorola's high-end phones. So I declined. "Look," I said to the sales rep, "a few weeks ago I went to a Cingular kiosk in the mall and asked them to provide me with a top-of-the-line phone. They gave me the Nokia 6340i. It was nicer than my Motorola T120 but not what I was looking for. I want a phone that, when I pull it out to have a conversation, people will notice. I want bells, I want whistles, I want it all. Now what do you got?" With that said my sales rep ran to "the back room." He emerged shortly thereafter carrying the Nokia 6800 released just a few weeks ago in the US. It was easy to be impressed with the 6800. The color screen, fold-away keyboard and polyphonic ring tones were enough to make the geekiest of gadget collectors water at the mouth. The Good: The 6800 has a high-quality feel and an impressive design. The number pad flips up to reveal a 52 key qwerty keyboard. The display is crisp and clear and rotates when you flip open the keyboard. I also fell for the easy to use fully functional calendar and to-do list. Entering events and appointments is finally easy - easier, in fact, than my PDA. The polyphonic ring tones are fun and sure to annoy everyone around you. I would also like to mention that voice recognition dialing is excellent compared to the 6340i and my old Motorola T120. The phone volume is exceptional including the speakerphone option. I have yet to receive a complaint from the party on the other end on the line of a speakerphone conversation. Also improved is the call waiting and conferencing feature as the display lets you know which lines are in use. The software is well designed and easy to navigate through. Settings are easy to locate and customize including wallpaper, ring tones, time and date, etc. Other features include wireless Internet, downloadable applications, games and ringtones, multi-media messaging, infrared connection, PC Syncing and FM Radio reception with optional headset or speakers. The Not So Bad: The included games, bounce and triple pop, are somewhat entertaining and nice to look at but a little too intricate for the keypad and "joystick" controls available on the 6800. Cingular offers several arcade-style games that are either too easy or too intricate for the money. Games range from free to $6.99 and you must have Cingular's wireless Internet to download them. I have also found that the EGSM connection is just OK in my market - Southern New Jersey - but I was told that would improve with the adoption of new technology - I won't hold my breath. Compared to other phones available the 6800 may be considered a little big at 4.7 inches and 4.6 oz. But, hey, there IS a 52 key keyboard built in. The Bad: Ringtones and games are a little pricey and require wireless Internet connection. I have also found the battery life short compared to other phones in this class. Nokia advertises 4.5 hours of talk time. I found myself starting to rely on other features such as the calendar and web connection that, of course, affect the battery charge. The Ugly: None. I am really satisfied at this point. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89035 2003/7/17 Battery Life3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fm radio speakerphone voice dialing qwerty keyboard distribution lists no bluetooth poor battery performance The Bottom LineA well designed text messaging phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. However corporate email users should look elsewhere. Full Review Digital Cellular Networks. I remember the first digital networks made available to the consumers in the NY tristate area. One was a fledgling company called Omnipoint that was slowly rolling out Americas first GSM network. The other was Sprint PCS and their CDMA networks which were adapted from old US military technology. Omnipoint went on to become Voicestream, which was eventually purchased by the German telecom giant Deutche Telecom (DT). It is now called T-Mobile. Since most of the popular 900mhz frequencies were already in use by analog networks, most of these digital networks were based on the 1800-1900mhz band. The biggest problem with these higher frequency networks was a reduced range and poor infrastructure penetration. This problem still persists today, in spite of significant improvements in technology. Comparatively in Europe and Asia, the digital networks are mainly based on the 800-900mhz bands. The advantages of digital networks along with the improved range and reception, make them far superior to what is available in the US. The advent of digital cellular networks in North America, brought with it some substantial advantages to consumers. The sound quality was significantly improved, but most significant was the ability to be able to send and receive wireless data, text messages, e-mails, pictures and browse the wireless web. All the major cell phone manufacturers were only too eager to manufacture and market these new digital phones. Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson were initially the most popular brands. In the last 5 years, these phones have evolved quite a bit. The models available today have organizers, PDAs MP3 players and even digital cameras built-in. However text messaging still remains one of the most popular cell phone activity. Enter the Nokia 6800. What is it? The Nokia 6800 is a cell phone designed around one single purpose. Namely text and SMS messaging. Most phones sold today only have a numeric keypad that doubles up for text entry. However typing even a very short text message using only the numeric keypad, is like tying your shoelaces with chopsticks. You could do it, but why? The past attempts to include an alphanumeric keyboard, resulted in large clumsy devices such as the Nokia 9000 series communicators. Yes they also had the PDA functions, but they were huge. The 6800 is among the first compact sized cell phones with a flip open full alphanumeric keyboard. One of my co-workers had recently purchased one. So in the interests of research, I grudgingly exchanged my for the 6800. I used it for little over a week. Design and specifications. The 6800 is a dual band 850/1900mhz, GSM/GPRS phone. My test phone had been activated on the Cingular network. My first impression was that the phone was quite light, and felt very comfortable in the hand. The external numeric keypad was fairly easy to use. The screen was bright but not as clear as the . The menus were slightly different from the older Nokia phones, but easy enough to follow. The 4096-color display in the 128x128 pixel LCD, rotates by 90 degrees when the keypad is flipped open. The flip itself is sturdy and feels like it will last. The full size keyboard keys seemed a bit stiff initially. But I got used to them after about 30 minutes. There is a built-in infrared port. The internal antenna worked well. During the week, I did not find an inordinate amount of dead spots in the NYC area. The phone measures approximately 4.5 x 2.25 x 1.0 inches, and weighs about 4.3 oz. Included in the box. Nokia 6800 phone, BLC2 battery, HDS3 headset, ACP12 travel charger, user guide, applications CD-ROM and a bunch of other pamphlets you will never look at. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT's HOT. QWERTY keyboard and messaging options. This is the most notable selling feature of this phone. There are numerous messaging options included. The keyboard makes it extremely easy and convenient to compose e-mails and SMS text messages. It also makes it very convenient to manage your personal data such as contacts in the phonebook, notes and alarms. While browsing the wireless web, it is easier to input URLs, searches, etc. You can also play the included games using the keypad and both hands. Other phones like the , use graffiti software for text input. While I prefer to use graffiti, I found using the keyboard on the Nokia 6800 was quite refreshing. I did not have to pull out a stylus. I just had to flip it open and start typing. This is a noticeable advantage when you want to send a quick response to an e-mail or an SMS message. The keypad has a familiar layout. The numeric buttons are along the top. Below those are the alphabets, and below those are the shift and space bar buttons. All these buttons have a soft backlight that makes them usable at night. Speakerphone. In my personal usage, I find the speakerphone function very necessary and convenient. It enables me to continue working while speaking with a client. It seemed to work fine when I was in a quiet office or inside my car. However I found it lacking in every other situation where there was some background noise. This is the reason I prefer a to a speakerphone. It provides the same convenience but better sound quality. For some reason I found the speakerphone quality, better on the . Other Notable Features. FM Radio. This allows you to listen to the radio with the enclosed headset, or thru the speaker. Reception was excellent, but I live near NY City so it was expected. But if you use the radio often, you can expect reduced battery performance. I would have preferred if Nokia had included an MP3 player with an XD memory slot instead. Distribution lists. The phone allows you to set up 15 lists with up to 50 contacts in each list. This feature is great if you want to send the same message to all your friends, relatives or co-workers. Voice dialing for up to 10 numbers. Phonebook capable of storing 500 contacts. I find this more than sufficient for all my contacts. Polyphonic Ringtones. The phone has 35 polyphonic jingles and 10 regular rings. I'm sure you will find some of them amusing but I hated them all. I must be getting old. Access to POP3 and IMAP4 email, let's you access you personal e-mails from a web-based server. You will be able to read the text in your e-mails but not any attachments or animations. It can send SMTP e-mails but it does not support VPN for secure e-mails. WAP browser seemed to work fine on my yahoo pages. But I usually do not use or need this feature. Predefined numbers. If you are getting this phone for your kid, you can restrict the phone numbers that can be dialed from it. That should prevent from wasting all his airtime minutes talking to the nice lady at the nearby 7-11. WHAT's NOT. Poor battery performance. The included 1000mAh Li-Ion battery is rated at 4.5 hours of talk time and standby time of 10 hours in digital mode. However in my typical heavy work use, the battery indicator started to balk after 2.5 hours. The standby time gets significantly reduced with the use of speakerphone and FM radio functions. A quick note about battery performance and reception strength. A cell phone has a built-in transmitter that is constantly connected to the network, even when the phone is not being used. When the phone is far away from a cell site or tower, that transmitter increases its signal strength to remain connected to that tower. It slowly powers down as it comes closer to the next tower. However, if you live or work on the peripheral area of a cell site/tower, your phone transmitter will be constantly at a high level thus reducing overall battery performance. IR Port. I could not use the IR port to transfer images from my . It recognized the iPaq but would not transfer any files. The BOTTOM LINE. This phone was designed for text messaging. The flip out keyboard makes it very convenient to type short or long text messages. However if you are a corporate user who needs access to your secure e-mails, you may want to consider the . The FM radio feature is nice, but I would have preferred an MP3 player instead. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 7772 Nokia 6360 89081 2004/7/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size weight reception voice dialing commands quality user friendly not the latest phone or technology Battery Life/Size/Weight/Reception User Friendly Quality This phone is great. I'll admit that at first, it took some getting used to and I almost returned it, today (18 months later) I'm glad I didn't. This phone does everything I need it to do and is far more powerful than most of the newer phones out there. I plan on holding on to this one for a while. 89080 2005/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 calendar with pc connectivity no color display I had bought this phone in used condition; I used it for a year before buying two more for my family to use. It has been a great phone. I love the ability to connect it to my computer to update my contacts and my Calendar. You can also create you own ringtones from midi files using the software that is free from nokia! Great phone I love it!! 89079 2004/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good phone overall with easy to navigate menus major screen problems So if you are looking for a phone and you are here you are obviously thinking about this phone. It is a wonderful phone with good coverage (on one or two bars you can make and receive most calls) and the battery life is pretty good too. I have had one problem with this phone. I thought at first it was just a once only problem but when my dad got the same phone and had the same problem I knew something was up. Sometimes the screen on my phone will just black out completely for several minutes at a time. I have been told it shouldn't do that and my cell company (Suncom) can send it in for repair but that will leave me without a phone for several weeks. That's not good. 89078 2000/3/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception versatile solid construction comprehensive manual clarity lack of accessories The Bottom LineThis is a great phone which offers lots of features, solid feel and quality, great reception, easy to read display, and excellent online support. Full Review My experience will cell phones amounts to mostly having my Nokia 5165 for a couple of years and not at all liking that particular model. I bought the 6360 based on user reviews and several of my friends who had very positive comments on this phone. There are a lot of cell phones on the market and almost everyone has one. If you are looking for a gadget filled phone which can display photos, enable you to play a ton of games, and comes will changeable faceplates, etc., then this phone will not impress you. It does however, offer very good reception, long battery life, easy to learn and easy to use functionality. This phone has an equalizer to personalize the audio, it also has easy to understand menus and options and features infrared, voice command, and voice recorder, as well as an extensive address book, easy to read display with a contrast setting and most impressive to me is the solid build quality. This feels like a well made phone, a serious phone for when you need to use it, not the play phones you see some younger teens using. Nokia has been in the phone business for quite a while and their website has a lot of usefull information on their products as well as support, downloadable ring tones, and a "How To" section that goes over every detail of each model and explains very clear how everything works. I found this very helpful when I first bought this phone as it was easier than reading the entire owners manual. The size and weight are perfect, quality is top rate and the sound rivals my Panasonic cordless home phone. I am partial to Nokia since I started out with the 5165 so I am sure other companies offer phones as good and with the same features, possibly even more features, but this phone is meant for people who need to use their cell phone and who want clear, crisp reception, easy to navigate menus, and a long lasting battery that also vibrates when you get a call. i am very happy with this purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85.99 89077 2003/5/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large backlit display digital accs available in superstores loaded buttons a bit pricey but discountsspecials available through carriers no belt clip The Bottom LineOverall I give this little wonder 5 stars and 2 thumbs up for packing 100 pounds of features in a 4.2 oz.body. Full Review Goal:Find a new cell phone with built in voice dialing,text capability,long battery life and small size. All the above was found in a neat little package by Nokia.The 6360 does everything a wireless phone should do and more.The reception is great.Digital and analog.On the ATT system you get free unlimited text reception that can be sent via the ATT web site right from your computer.Text may be sent from the unit for a fee measured by data size.Voice mail and all the other bells and whistles are available from the carrier.Caller ID included.Huge phone book and built in voice dialing for free.The phone allows voice tags for phone numbers stored in the address book to be recorded so you simply touch one button and speak the name of who you want it to dial.This is great because you need not subscribe to or pay for this feature as its also part of its built in voice recorder.Many accs are available in the superstores at rock bottom prices. It's supplied with the lithium ion battery,a hands free headset/mic and a home charger.Battery life is very high between recharges-up to 14 days standby and 5.2 hours of talk in digital mode.The phone has a built in internet browser(need to subscribe).Games(for those who care),many built in ring tones as well as the ability to download more.Infra red for communicating with certain PC's,can be connected to pc with optional cable as well for downloading data etc.A built in adjustable graphic equalizer for those that have hearing problems,side mounted volume control(no fumbling with menus)clear audio and loud ringer,TTY capable,hearing aid compatible and will operate optional car alert equipment like lights and horns.Chat and image send/receive capable. This unit works flawlessly,the manual is one of the best i've read and leaves no room for error.Examples abound. Most features are accessable with just a few keystrokes and the display walks you through the menu with pointers to select options.2 tone silver face one piece design(no flip to flop).I suspect durability will be average as it's very light and should survive normal drops although I recommend an optional protective case/holster.I found one custom fit for $6 bucks in the big W store.There are few features you might want other than a built in camera with audio that this phone does not already have. Service in my area by ATT.Prices with service and specials vary by area. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.00 89076 2000/9/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 noise filtering excellent infrared synchronization reception operating menu system battery life no joy stick unlike the sony ericsson t60 The Bottom LineExcellent noise filtering. IR works wonderfully with the Pocket PC and Windows. Full Review I am really happy with this phone. I bought it 45-days after purchasing a Sony Ericsson. When the Sony Ericsson failed 45 days after purchase, I was happy to be paying the $120 for a Nokia 6360. The reception and quality is wonderful. This is my third Nokia. I have destroyed and lost the others while doing such things as high speed snowmobiling or adjusting the car seat. All the Nokias are all about the same, however, the 6360 has infrared (IR). This means no more special cables and expensive software. Out of the box, I could IR phone numbers from my Pocket PC to my phone. Wow, is that cool. Next, I set it up to communicate with a laptop. The free Nokia PC software is great, making it easy to download your Outlook calendar, tasks, and phone numbers to your phone using the IR connection or the separately purchased cable. If you like the idea of downloading your calendar to your phone, you will like that "reminders" are also downloaded. If you set an Outlook appointment to remind you 15 minutes before an appointment, this too is downloaded to the phone. The phone will then remind you of your next appointment. I was going to purchase a PDA for my wife; however, she is now using the 6360 in conjunction with her Outlook. She reported recently, "This is the best tool I have ever had." MIC QUALITY One last point, the microphone quality on the Nokia is excellent. For a short time, I was using a Sony Ericsson. People had a hard time understanding me in the car because of all of the background noise (A/C for example). The noise filtering was terrible. HOWEVER, no one knows I am even in the car with the Nokia. It has the best microphone filter around. The phone drops continuous background noise so only your voice is transmitted. A++ Nokia! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89075 2000/9/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good useful features battery life reception changing the volume size The Bottom LineHighly recommended. Especially if you are looking for business features and not "flashy" junk... Full Review My older Nokia 8260 was starting to die, so wanted a new phone. Since I travel across the country and could work in any part of the country for weeks at a time, I felt it important to stick w/TDMA w/ATT (at least for now). After deciding to stick with TDMA, I wanted a phone that would hold a lot of phone numbers, contact information AND be able to add text under each contact (so that for example under Holiday Inn, I could not only put the reservation number, but also my frequent stay number. Also use this for b-days or anniversaries, etc). Finally I wanted the phone to be able to easily sync with my laptop as I didn't want to have to enter all this information on the tiny keypad of the phone. Plus I wanted a backup. Well if you look, there are not many phones that meet all these criteria. The 6360 was the only one I could find that would do all this. So I got it. It does all of this well: -While it does not have blue tooth, I was able to quickly, easily and on the first try download from my lapy to the phone using infra red. Took about 30 seconds to download my 1st batch of about 40 contacts. -The software that is available free at Nokia could use better instructions but is fairly easy. You can sync directly from Outlook or other PIM's if you want. -While you can put multiple phone numbers under each contact, you can state a "main" number. So if you search the names find the name you want, the hit call and it will call the main number. I was pleased that: -The battery life was so long when I 1st got the phone, I actually thought there was something wrong as the battery meter did not move for several days. -Reception is terrific. Before retiring my old phone, I compared them side by side for a couple of days. The 6360 consistantly showed a stronger signal. In addition, in an area near my kids school, I would alway lose calls. But not with this 6360. -Voice dialing works very well. Even if I have the radio on in the car, I can use it. -I also like the voice "commands". For example, instead of scrolling thru to find and activate infra-red, I can press one button then say "download" (you can program anything you want) and it will active infra-red. You can do this with 5 different commands I believe. This also works well. -The screen is larger then most phones I have seen. I love this phone. My gripes are pretty minor: -The phone is a litter bigger then my old one. It is thinner, but longer. It does fit comfortably in hand, but I feel a little uncomfortable with it loose in my pocket. I find myself leaving it on my desk, or sitting in the passenger seat of my car when driving. -The volume is hard to adjust. I have to physically look every time. -Blue tooth would have been nice for headphones. But the infr-red is quick for downloading stuff. Highly recommended. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89074 2003/8/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size ease of use voice dialing weight price no lock out The Bottom LineFantastic. I would recommend it to strangers (if they didn't think I was looney for doing so). Easily the best one I've used. Full Review I recently upgraded my phone with AT&T Wireless after using my former Nokia 5165. The 5165 was great for my first phone and for a freebie, but it was not everything I needed. After much research, I determined that the 6360 would be everything I wanted and one that I would keep for at least a few years. Because of its assumed longevity, I decided that it would be worth the price. As I am sure many of you have discovered, cell phones can be very expensive when you are not signing up for that "brand new" account. The ticket price on this phone was $149. Of course, I did not pay this. My husband and I discovered that AT&T has contracts with many companies to offer employee discounts on bills and phones. My husbands company does do this. Fortunately, we got an excellent rep who pointed this out to us (for the past year, we've been paying full price unnecessarily). You should check on that for your account the next opportunity you get. This discount saved us 50% on this phone. In addition, we received a $22 credit apiece on our account for being "long-time" AT&T users (1 year). This brought the price of our phones to $52.50 each. Still pricey to me, but better than the original cost. First, the pros: I love this phone because... 1. Talk time - It has a lithium ion battery. This means that it will not die every other day like my other phone. It has actually lasted me 6 days (with full use - I talk approximately 40 minutes a day). This is approximately on par to the length they say it should last. 2. Size - The size of this phone is wonderful. It fits great in my hand with ease and without discomfort. My other phone was bulky and Nokia has put out a lot of smaller phones lately that seem to be too small for my hand and make it difficult to dial (my bosses each have one of the smaller phones and I use them often). This phone is longer and slightly wider, but slimmer than the other small Nokia phones. Perfect for me. 3. Weight - This phone is very light, even with the battery in. It's a blessing for me as I carry a heavy wallet, palm and phone in my purse. 4. Safety - One of the features that made me want to purchase this phone was the voice dialing. It is very easy to set up and use and is quite sensitive to your voice (it responded well to my commands while I was driving with the windows open). You can even leave the phone locked and still use the voice command as long as you have a headset (one comes with the phone) that has an answer/end button and a Nokia connector. Another function that is useful to some people (but not me) is the automatic answer when the headset is in place. I don't like this function because I tend to leave my phone in the car with the headset in and this would cause it to answer when I am not there. My husband (who travels on the interstate often), however, loves this feature, as he does not have to take his hands off of the wheel to press the answer/end button on his headset. 5. Ease of use - This phone is very intuitive for its users. It is set up with almost everything you could possibly need including task lists and calendar functions. It allows you to group callers under categories and subgroups (such as Friends/the Smiths) so that your phone numbers are more organized (under the Smiths you can add all of their cell/home/other phone numbers). It even allows you to assign different ring tones to each category and you can still apply a voice command to each individual phone number (up to 20 total). Although I do not use the calendar (as I said, I carry a palm), it looks easy to use. Finally, the IR is excellent. My husband often beams information back and forth to his palm and you can send whole subgroups of phone numbers to other people at the touch of a few simple buttons. 6. Clarity - It has excellent sound quality. I spoke with several people who thought I was on a land line because they could not here background noise. Also, this phone works everywhere. Even where my old phone did not. The internal antenna is very clear (and now my cats won't chew on it). It even works in the department stores. Nothing I have ever used works there. The cons: 1. No lock out - Users who are familiar with Nokia phones are also familiar with the lockout function. This enables you to set a pass code on your phone so that, when you turn it on, you cannot access it without the code. This is a good anti-theft device if you remember to shut it off or if you lose your phone (it shuts off upon battery discharge). This phone has no such feature. 2. Personalization - I really liked the idea of personalizing my old phone with holograms and faceplates. Unfortunately, you cannot do that with this phone. It does have the express on capabilities. As a result, even though you can take off the old faceplate via 4 Nokia screws in the back (with a special screwdriver kit by Nokia) and replace it with a faceplate specifically made for the 6360, you are not allowed to do so. Doing so will void your warranty. This is why Nokia and AT&T do not sell the faceplates themselves. 3. Accessories - As this is a new phone, I am sure this con will alleviate itself; however, very few places carry accessories for this phone. Staples and Circuit City are the only ones who do so in our area. This phone does take the same connections for headsets and charges as the 5100/6100 series phones, so fortunately, headsets and charges are easily locatable with this piece of information. However, protective cases are not abundant. Presently, only three are made for this phone: An Ion silver belt clip cover made by Body Glove/Fellowes ($24.99/AT&T), A black leather cover without a protective plastic piece over the keys and buttons made by AT&T ($24.99/AT&T), and a Neoprene black swivel clip cover made by Body Glove/Fellowes ($19.99/Staples & Circuit City). Or, there is always the website. But for now, that's all. UPDATE: Two months after writing this review, I began to have problems with my phone. It began dropping calls and crackling for no reason. I called AT&T and they sent me out a replacement (neglecting to tell me it that they only replace with refurbished phones). The "new" phone I received did not work properly from the day I received it. The problems were all related to the headset connection. It crackled when ringing (only with the headset in)and produced a vicarious connection (the headset would stop working mid-call at times). These problems persisted no matter what brand of headset I used, leading me to believe it was the phone. Again, AT&T replaced it with another refurb, which seems to be working fine. Even with these problems, I still believe this is a great phone. My husband bought the same phone at the same time and has had absolutely NO problems with his. He is tough on phones and this one has lasted longer than any other phone he's owned (and he is no easier on this phone). I honestly believe that my original phone was a fluke(as sometimes happens with manufactured goods). The second phone was most likely an incorrectly fixed refurb (as it didn't work from day 1) and the third phone seems to be working fine. And since AT&T has a great return policy on phones (the new phone overnighted, a return label for the old phone included, and only a $10 return charge on the FIRST replacement), I did not feel put out or inconvenienced in any way. For these reasons, I will still recommend this phone highly and will not change my initial rating. I just felt that anyone reading ought to have all of the facts. But, I have to say, it's still the easiest phone I've ever used and I LOVE it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 52.50 89073 2000/3/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 incredible battery life excellent reception kind of large no internet connectivity wap The Bottom LineIf you live in a metropolitian area, consider getting a GSM phone. Otherwise, this is the best choice for AT&T's TDMA network. Full Review When I lost my last phone over Christmas (Panasonic ProMax EB-TX210) I faced a dilemma: I wanted all the features of the latest m*life (AT&T speak for GSM) phones but I lived in suburban Houston. If AT&T TDMA service wasn't very strong in my area, there was no way in hell M*Life was going to be effective in my neighborhood. What was I to do? My solution was the Nokia 6360. Over the past 7 years, this has been the best of the 8 or 9 cell phones I've owned. Here's why: Battery: One of the key disadvantages of the Panasonic phone was it's battery life. Initially, the battery life lasted only a day on that phone -- and got progressively worse. Just before I lost that phone I was lucky to get 60 minutes of talk time and 8hrs of standby without charging. The nokia on the other hand is awesome. If you've ever had the pleasure of owning a Nokia before you'll know the standby time is among the longest of any cell phones. Even as a fairly heavy cell phone user (~3200 minutes/mo), I've only had the battery run dry once. In fact, on several weekend trips I left my charger at home and never run out of charge. Since Jan I can think of only two times when I completely drained my battery. Accessories: Another great feature of the 6360 is also true of all Nokias -- the accessories are generally all compatible. This means that there are quite a few accessories you can get for very, very cheap off of eBay (I bought a charger for $4 shipped the other day). Transmitter: Here's another key differentiator. The transmitter in this little guy is one of the best I've ever used. The Panasonic phone I last owned was soo bad that I actually bought an external antenna to use with that phone in my apartment. The Nokia's reception, without an external antenna, is even better than that setup. IR Capability / VCARD: I always thought the IR port was a stupid feature of my laptop and never thought it would be useful. That was until I faced the task of entering all my contacts into the new cellphone. In migrating to previous phones this process would literally take 2 hours of constant thumb-work. Under Windows 2000 I just waive the cell phone in front of the laptop, wait until it detects the phone and puts an icon on the desktop, and drag .vcf (contact files made by outlook and other contact managers) files straight onto the phone. The phone detects data being transferred and allows you to save the file as a record. Simple! What once took 2 hours only to 20 minutes of dragging and dropping! BTW: Like most new phones the 6360's contact directory uses a record system which lets you have multiple phone numbers and notes attached to a single name. Until bluetooth finds itself into more laptops and cell phones, IR is by far the easiest way to transfer contacts to/from cell phones (it works to/from my PDA, too!). High-resolution screen: While the screen is only monochromatic, the 6360 comes with a hi-res screen. What does this mean to a phone without any internet access capabilities (at least on the AT&T network)? Games, games, games! In addition to an updated version of the classic Snake, I've killed time in many an airport playing Pairs, a side scrolling spaceship shooter, and Racket. Voice Recording: like lots of new phones the Nokia allows you to record voice messages or snippets of phone conversations -- up to 2 minutes worth of talking. I've used this feature several times when friends have given me phone numbers or directions and I didn't have a pen at hand. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89072 2004/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good size plenty of useful features great reception weight low profile buttons The Bottom LineGood piece of hardware,loaded with useful features Full Review ***UPDATED 24 AUGUST 2004, SEE END OF REVIEW*** I bought this phone to replace my very tired Nokia 6100 series, which was a durable, reliable workhorse of a phone. I beat the tar out of it, and I definitely got my money's worth. I'm a big guy with huge hands, and therefore cant effectively use many of the silly little phones on the market today. Besides, I look at my phone as a business tool, and have no use for neon faceplates, games, glowing antennas and the like. I have been quite happy with my 6360. A summary of the good points and the few minor negatives: Reception: AT&T Wireless provides, in my opinion, the best quality service in the Silicon Valley, and the 6360 has only improved things. The 'dead spot' down the street from my kid's school is gone! Form Factor: The 6360 is the same length as my old 6100, but notably thinner and lighter. While I found the fatter 6100 slightly more comfortable to hold (again, big hands!), the 6360 fits nicely in a pocket without any problem. The length keeps the microphone close to the mouth for better clarity. Somewhat larger screen for easier viewing. Battery life: I've only had to recharge this phone after extended headset use, which sucks the charge out of any phone. Other then that, battery life seems quite good. Menus: Typical Nokia menus, which I happen to like. Easier to get at the buried commands that you may use a lot via voice prompts, discussed below. Address book: New (at least to me...) for Nokia is nested entries within the address book. You can now store multiple phone #'s, and addresses, too, under a single heading. I have found this to be a major improvement Features: Wow!! -Infrared beaming is great- I was able to beam all my contacts from my Palm Pilot effortlessly. -Voice dialing works with a single button touch, and a very nice audible prompt. I've found it to be quite accurate, though short voice prompts (for me, dialing "home") have required some re-records. A two or three-syllable voice command seems to work best. You can have up to 20 numbers with voice-activated dialing, which has been more then adequate for me. Up to five command functions can be activated by voice as well. Works better then my expectations. -Voice recorder. The feature that I've needed for years and didnt know it!! You can record multiple voice memos, totalling three minutes. Set an alarm and you will be reminded of the memo later. I have this as a voice-activated feature-- touch one button, say 'memo', and I can record a note. I use this daily! -Bells and Whistles: OK, I admit that the ability to download custom ringtones is pretty cool, and the 6360 can hold several. There are a handful of games, for those who care about such things, and a datebook as well. A few minor negatives: -The phone real estate lost due to the bigger screen means smaller buttons, closer together. Still adequate for me, but I preferred the 6100's buttons. The buttons are very low profile- almost flat, which I'm sure makes for a slicker look, but not ideal for dialing. Again, even with my meathook-like hands, these are within my tolerance, and MUCH better then the smaller Nokias. -The 6360 is so light that it FEELS somewhat flimsy. I have no reason to think that it is, but compared to the hefty 6100, it comes across this way. Time will tell, but given my experience with Nokia, I'm not overly concerned about this. Bottom line-- good phone with a lot of useful features. If you want a silly toy with a digital camera, online games and cutesy faceplates built in, this is probably not the phone for you. But if you want a good performing piece of hardware with some very well thought out features, look no further! ***UPDATE*** I've been living with this phone for a year and a half now, and despite the fact that it's pretty low-tech by current standards, I stand by my 5-star rating, but have a few nits to pick that I will share: - Finish: After about 6 months of use, some of the silver highlight started to rub off. Big deal, eh? I dont care, but someone might. If you do care about something like that, you're probably not considering this phone anyway. - Volume: There is no way to adjust the volume on busy signals or 'no signal' tones. If you put the phone right up to your ear and get the good old 'fast busy' noise, its gonna be loud. This happens to me about twice a week, and every time I feel like a monkey in a lab experiment that keeps touching the electrified button trying to get a pellet of food. Or maybe it was Homer Simpson. Its a flaw in the phone, but maybe I should have this one figured out by now! - Earphone jack: WHEN IS NOKIA GOING TO DUMP THEIR CRUMMY LITTLE CUSTOM HEADSET JACK CONNECTOR?? I have the worst time keeping a headset plugged in, to the point that I rarely use one. If and when California requires mobile phone drivers to use headsets while driving, I will have to dump this phone in the SF Bay. Until then, though, I can live with this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89071 2000/9/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ir connectivity w pda vibrating ring ring profiles voice recognition must pay nokia 35 can t replace faceplate on your own or you void warranty The Bottom LineCellphones today are going color, and attaching peripherals like digital cameras and PDA's. But if you want a simple phone with alot of nice features, this is perfect! Full Review This is my second cell, the first one being the base Nokia 5160. After haggling with my Suncom rep, and sitting in the waiting area for an hour, he ended up giving it to me free of charge, which was a definite added bonus. I was told, at the time, that this was thier "business-geared" model, and I have been impressed so far. The Features & Upgrades: Since the 5160 was the base model, it didn't have a large amount of features. The 6360 was a big improvement. The best upgrades were voice recognition, the vibrate feature, being able to "beam" my address book from my Palm M100, and ring profiles. Voice Recognition: This is an especially nice feature upgrade! I used to use speed-dialing, or "one-touch" dialing, which meant that I just programmed people into numbers 2-8. However, this was very problematic, because I had trouble remembering more than 2 or 3 speed-dial assignments. The voice-recognition technology solves this problem by allowing up to 25 voice assignments. It works like this: you select a person's phone number (or a ring profile, which I will explain later), then speak a sample recording (such as "Mom's Cell"). Then, from the main screen, you hold down the "names" button, the phone will give you a prompt tone, and you speak the same recording. It matches this to your sample, and calls that number. It was easy, using the instructions, to figure out how to program them. The one thing to remember, however, is that the sample you provide be as neutral as possible. The less background noise, the better; make sure you say it how you would normally say it. Otherwise, the feature has a tendency to either not recognize the input, or it will mistake it for another. A number of times, I have said "Mom: Cell" and it will call my brother. This feature could surely be improved upon, but it does work 95% of the time. Voice recog has helped immensely in saving time and cutting back on scrolling through names. The big drawback, however, is that it's slightly embarrassing to be sitting in the middle of a quiet room or office, and all of a sudden, you break the silence with "MOM, CELL". But, that's something that comes with the territory, I suppose. Vibrate Feature: Too often, I wanted to turn the ringtone off on my 5160, but still wanted to receive calls and be notified of them. The vibrate feature on the 6360 solved this. I positively hate all the annoying ringtones I hear everywhere I go, from theme songs to polkas to holiday jingles. And it seems like everyone turns their ring up as loud as possible, so as to one-up everyone else. I have programmed a "discrete" ring profile, which I use 99% of the time. It consists of vibration, and a single beep. This is all I need, unless I'm at a loud concert or club. The vibrate feature has been a huge plus! "Beam" from Palm PDA: Anyone who has a cellphone knows the frustration of having to enter your entire address book by hand using the keypad. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and realized that the 6360 had an infrared receiver on the top. On a whim, I lined my palm m100 up with the phone, and beamed my address book. You can imagine my joy when I realized that it accepted it! No more entering my address book by hand! Without a doubt, an invaluable feature. Ring Profiles: My 5160, as I said, was feature-barren. The 6360 is much different, and one of the best features is the ring profiles. While the 5160 had "loud, regular, and silent" ring settings (with volume control), the 6360 lets you set up a number of ring profiles, which you name. Each one has a number of options, such as which ringtone to use, how loud it is, how many times it rings, whether it rings for everyone or only for family members, whether it vibrates, etc. The added bonus is that it also utilizes the voice recognition technology. So, once you assign a voice tag to a profile, all it takes is the previously explained voice-recog actions (press the names button, and at the prompt, say, for example, "LOUD", or "NORMAL", and it switches your profile without having to scroll through menus. This has been a fantastic feature; I love being able to switch my profiles on the fly. Another great subset of this feature, while I have had no reason to use it, is the automatic time-switch setting. For example, you can set it so that your phone automatically switches to your silent profile when you get to your office in the morning, then switch back to normal when you go home at night. Other Miscellaneous Features: Voice Record: Allows you to record a brief audible memo, up to 1:30. A nice feature, especially for little things you think of in the car but can't find a post-it. Also allows you to attach a voice-recog tag, allowing you to just say "record this", or whatever tag you choose, and it will start recording automatically. Organizer: Allows you to have a calendar and to-do list. I haven't personally used it much, mainly because I already have a Palm PDA and MS Outlook, and this one is a very basic "organizer". It is, however, handy if you don't have your Palm and need to set an appointment alarm or make a quick to-do note. Exterior Volume Control: Located on the left side of the phone, the volume control is easy to use, though, sometimes it gets pressed accidentally. Calculator & Stopwatch: Self-explanatory. Useful in certain situations, I suppose, but I rarely make use of them. The phone, as a phone: The sound quality is pretty standard, and I haven't had many problems with it. The recharger and hands-free device, both standard issue with most Nokia phones, are adequate. The display is larger than the one on the 5160, and is easier to read. The charge lasts for a good amount of time, I'd say it is average for phones I've used. The signal is better than the 5160, though, it could be improved. This is probably a pitfall of the internal antenna vs the external one. The improved number list is nice as well. The 5160 had one number per name, and that was it. This allows you to enter several phone numbers for each person, and assign them labels (such as mobile, home, office, etc); then, you can assign each number its own voice-recog tag. You can also create categories with which to group people. For example, you can put all your family members in one category. Then, when their call rings normally, they'll have a little "heart" icon next to their name. The real plus of this is that you can setup your ring profiles to only ring for certain groups. Thus, if you're busy, and only want to hear from family members, you can group them and set your ring profile to match. The Cons: Well, there aren't many. I'll refrain from including future features, such as color screens and digital cameras, since that isn't really a "con". That would be like saying that the 1957 Chevy was poorly design because it didn't have electronic fuel injection. Anyhow, the only big con that this phone has is that the faceplate is not easily replaced. On most other Nokia phones, the faceplate snaps right on and off, making to very easy to replace. Now, it's not that I really want to put day-glo crazy faceplates on this phone, but the fact that my faceplate is all scratched up, and Nokia doesn't offer factory replacements. Instead, I have to send it in to them, and let them replace it for a rather large fee. My other option was to get it from a non-OEM dealer. I tried this, but when it arrived, I had to send it back, because it was cheaply made and had little tacky sparkles in the paint. Not my cup o' tea! And in addition, to get the faceplate off, you need a Torx screwdriver, which you have to buy seperately. Nokia also told me that if I attempted to replace the faceplate myself, I would void any warranty. This is very frustrating, because I would like a new faceplate, but I'm not going to pay upwards of $35 for it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89070 2002/7/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large phonebook lightweight calendar internal antenna not bluetooth compatible no synchronization with mac The Bottom LineThe Nokia 6360 is packed with most of the same features offered by many of the higher end phones at a mere fraction of the price. Full Review For three years I had been using a Nokia 5160. While this phone was light on the features it did prove to be a very dependable workhorse. Unfortunately, this year it started showing it's age as quirky little problems started appearing. I decided it was time to upgrade my phone. I didn't necessarily want the most expensive phone with all of the latest gadgets on it, but I wanted more than just your basic cell phone. The Nokia ended up being the perfect compromise. I looked hard at the Nokia 3360 and some of the Panasonic models. I admit that I pretty much passed over the Ericsson phones due to many past negative reviews. When my SunCom rep noticed that I was having a hard time making up my mind she suggested that I wait until May before getting a phone. That was when they were going to release the Nokia 6360 and the Motorola V60. The 6360 and the V60 shared many of the same features, but the V60 cost considerably more. The few features it had that the 6360 didn't could not overcome Motorola's iffy quality problems and the price gap. In the end, I was able to get the Nokia 6360 for $69 after getting a 50% discount for also upgrading to a plan that was at least $40 a month. I have not had a single regret since then. Features: 1. Voice Dialing for up to 20 numbers 2. Record memos and up to 3 minutes of a conversation 3. Voice commands for up to 5 menu items 4. Emails, text and picture messages 5. Text Messaging 6. Predictive Text Input 7. Calendar 8. Phonebook with up to 500 contacts, with up to 5 numbers and 4 text entries each 9. Calendar with up to 500 entries 10. Alarm clock with snooze 11. Synchronization with PC 12. Send and receive data via infrared 13. TTY/TDD compatibility 14. Wireless Internet (WAP) 15. Wireless modem capability 16. 5 Games (Woohoo!) 17. Download up to 20 ring tones 18. Compose ring tones using Nokia PC Suite Specs 4.2oz Internal Antenna Vibrating alert Up to 2.6-5.2 hours talk time and 7-14 days standby time Compatible with most 5100, 6100, and 7100 series accessories Local Language Support A Few Impressions With my 5160 I had to purchase a vibrating battery to get the vibrating alert. This added a substantial amount of weight to that phone. Obviously, the first thing I noticed about the phone was the cool looks. But more importantly, the second thing I noticed was how lightweight the phone was, even with the built in vibrating alert. Another major physical feature about the phone is the internal antenna. I have cracked and broken more than one antenna. Even the short stubby ones found on many Nokias. I was a little worried about the quality of reception with an internal antenna. My worries were quickly proven to be baseless. This phone actually gets better reception than the 5160. My parents live out in the boondocks. Even though their house is technically in my home coverage area I could never use my 5160 out there. With the 6360 I can be way down at their pond and the reception still gives me a call that is clear as a bell. Even in large department stores what used to be a hopeless situation has drastically improved. With a phonebook with 500 contacts with 5 numbers each (essentially 2500 phone numbers) There should be very few people running out of space. Any more and you would spend too much time looking for the right phone number. I've heard reports of the predictive text input capabilities of other phones being sketchy at best. I am here to tell all that it works like a charm on the Nokia 6360. Another great feature that I use all the time is the voice dialing. It is nice to be able to hold down a button and say a name, then have the phone automatically dial for you. This is especially handy if you are on the go. I keep my keypad locked to prevent keys from accidentally being pushed. You do have to unlock the keypad to get voice dialing to work, unless you are using a Nokia earbud. If that is the case, all you have to do is push and hold the talk button on the earbud cable and say the name, even if the keypad is locked. As far as I am concerned this is one of the best safety features any mobile phone manufacturer has come up with. I'll be honest. I have not messed with many of the other little features, such as the alarm clock, calendar, and to-do list. As far as the games, well, I use them for one purpose, draining the battery for reconditioning. They are excellent for that. Speaking of the battery. As far as I am concerned, nobody can beat Nokia when it comes to battery life, and the 6360 is not exception. I rarely ever turn my phone off. That way if an emergency arises and my power and phones are out I can still be reached. Don't laugh. It has happened. I can go about 8 days before needing to recharge. That is 8 days of a mixture of talking and standby time, and my phone gets talked on quite often since I have considerably more minutes on my plan than my wife has on hers. I would say that safely falls somewhere in the battery life ranges Nokia claims. Missing Features The 6360 can be synchronized with a PC using Nokia PC Suite. Unfortunately the PC must be a Windows machine. Admittedly this is probably not a problem for most people, but it is for me since I work on Macs. Another missing feature would have fixed this problem. That is bluetooth technology. The latest Mac OS that is to be released about one month after this review is being written, will include bluetooth technology, which would allow the phone to synch with my Mac as well as any other bluetooth devices, such as PDA's. Perhaps Nokia will follow Ericsson's lead and release a bluetooth adapter. If not, I will revisit that subject when it becomes an absolute necessity. Until then I am going to enjoy this little gem of a cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 89069 2000/9/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 usable durable strong reception long battery life feature rich screen not pretty sometimes hangs mid call The Bottom LineThis phone is a great long-term phone doing everything it does very well. It is easy to use and has the longevity of those Chinese guys in the Guinness Book. Full Review The 6360 was my first "real" cell phone, having used prepaid services with obsolete phones in the past. I got a really great deal on this phone which, in terms of features, was a bit better than a "middle-of-the-road" phone when I got it in Sept. 2002 at an AT&T dealer. The main reason I got it was because of the great battery life. The Good: A friend of mine got a feature-packed flip phone (a Motorola something) and he was constantly charging and recharging it. The 6360 promises over 340 hours of idle battery time, the key word being "idle". Although I have never seen this kind of uptime on my phone, its definitely good enough for 2+ days complete with a few good-sized phone calls and text messages without a single charge. It's also a very durable phone. I'm a big guy whose massive strength just might crush a small, flimsy phone, or even worse, let it slip right from my hands to an unforgiving pavement. Even on the one or two times that I have dropped the phone, it has not smashed, dented, or died. One thing I wish I did have was a cover because the display does get lightly scratched rather easily which is more of an annoyance than a true defect. Memory is huge. The thing holds over 500 numbers, which for me, is plenty. Saving and searching for contact information is easy, and you can even store numbers under different types (home, office, mobile), and store them under their own groups for which you can assign different, distinct rings. I seemed to think you could block numbers, which would be great, but now I'm having trouble finding that feature. It also comes with an infrared feature which you can sync up with applications such as Microsoft Outlook. I probably would use this, if I didn't have to purchase an infrared transmitter for my computer for an extra $35 or so. Call me cheap, but I got the phone during my senior year in college when the choice between intoxication and infrared capability usually resulted in an alcoholic victory. Maybe now that I've got a big boy job I can make the investment. The 6360 also has 5 games. They're not great games, but you get Snake II, the much anticipated sequel to the classic, Pass 'n Rush, a football strategy game, a matching game, table tennis, and something else that I never play. There's also an alarm clock, calendar, a calculator, to-do list, text messaging, and voice activation. Numbers can be dialed manually (searching for number or dialing direct), voice-activation, or 1-touch dialing. Such eye-free dialability is great when driving. Call-waiting and three-way calling capabilities also make it a user-friendly cellular machine. This phone is jam-packed with features, which could be why it's bigger than your average celly. The Mediocre: The 6360 is not synonymous with sexy. It's not a very pretty phone, as far as the newest phones are concerned. It's got a standard dot matrix display with no color, but you do get to control the contrast which is wicked neat. Its rings are also quite annoying, so I made my own for free (on a website, then it was sent to my phone). It would be great if you could compose rings directly on your phone as you can with other Nokias, but alas. One other quirk could just be due to the metal plate in my head, but on occasion I'll be deep in conversation and will suddenly just hear a high-pitched beeeeeeeeeeeeeep. The conversation will end, my phone will literally reboot, and it's just annoying. It usually happened when talking to my ex-girlfriend. Maybe my phone is psychic. I should've taken the hint. Seriously though, I don't know if it's a common bug, but I've never done anything about it. The General: Good phone. Not the phone of your dreams, but it's got a nice body and great personality, so you really shouldn't complain. If you're low-maintenance and don't need a cutesy phone to show off to your friends then this is the one. I don't think I could see a girl with this phone, just because it's not cute enough, but I could very well be stereotyping. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7773 Nokia 8260 AMPS / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 89397 2004/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use solid older Easy-to-use Small This is an older (2+ years old) Nokia model. Like most, if not all, Nokia models it's a solid user friendly phone. 89396 2003/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 it s a small phone easy to turn on a lot of number storage etc screen ring tones games connections A LOT of number storage Let's be honest, when you first get a cellphone, you don't have REALLY high expectations. When my dad had this phone, I was in awe. It was everything I wanted in a phone, and when he handed it down to me, I was ecstatic. Well, I got used to working with it, but several things went wrong. First the good: It's a small phone, easy to fit anywhere Easy to turn in Then, there came the truth, the bad: Most of the time, the words, "No service" graced the top portion of the screen under the words "AT&T". The screen isn't exactly customizable (no screen saver, etc). There were a lot of ring tone options, but not exactly 'up to date' ones. The connection was horrid. The left side of the screen usually showed that the connection was going to be bad. I could barely hear people talking. All in all, the games were basic, but the looks gave it it's flair. As a first phone, I guess it suited fine. But now I'm moving on up to a flip phone. :) 89395 2000/11/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 it s small light not to mention sexy sometimes my calls get dropped because of the antenna Full Review Okay, maybe I'm not as sexy as this phone. Who am I kidding? Hells yeah I am. I bought this phone because I was too sexy for my old one (StarTac). If you want to check out some stuff on the 8260 go here: www.cellphoneuser.com. Here's some background information: Up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time with a standard battery Up to 8 days of digital standby time and 1.5 hours analog talktime and 36 hours analog standby time Only 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide Weighs about 3.4oz with a battery Three stylish colors (Carbon Grey, Electric Blue, and Red Pepper) (I got the Red Pepper one) Holds 5 downloadable ring tones Caller groups that identify the caller by a specific ring tone Profiles allow adjustment of phone to your environment Internal vibra alert 5 line LCD display Internal antenna Send and receive SMS (short text messages) Send email Predictive text input Support 7 languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Chinese) Caller Grouping allows you to set an alert sound for designated callers while other calls alert you silently PDA with 250 name, number and email address storage Calendar with room for 50 appointments and reminders DualBand/ TriMode TDMA 800/1900 and 800 AMPS Seamless transfer between analog and digital service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89394 2000/10/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact dependable lots of options stylish described above Full Review I love the 8260. This is one excellent phone & becoming very popular really fast due it is size & stylish look. Excellent signal strength, plus!!! I've dropped this phone approx. 15 times & no problems only a little paint chip overall this is one HARD CORE phone & perfect for those with butter fingers such as my self. Only one thing I found an annoying little problem using the caller groups for those wireless suave users, you know when your assigning those favorite people in your phone book to cute pics & descriptions you may find the the phone has activated silent ring. Go to MENU > PROFILES >NORMAL ( or what ever one you use) > CUSTOMIZE > ringing options & displayed there " Caller Groups" is what's selected under ringing options you have to change this to "ring" Just about every time you assign caller groups. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89393 2000/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight cute buttons get pushed in pocket sometimes bad reception The Bottom LineGet it! Full Review This is a good quality phone for someone on the go! One can change the colors from red, blue, green orange purple etc.. to meet the needs of the individual. The phone has good reception and is very lightweight. The only problem is sometimes it's a little too small and it can be hard to find in purses, large bags etc... However, Nokia gives excellent service, they have a good reputation and the phone is new. Overall, i would recommend this phone for a man more than a woman because men put phones in their pockets where they are easier to find. women tend to lose their phone in purses. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89392 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact cool with easy interfaceclear signal despite the lack of an antenna tough i m always afraid that it ll get stolen or lost really small The Bottom LineThis is the phone you want to buy, it's sleek, easy to use, VERY cool, and very practical. ¤ Full Review With essentially the same guts and programming of a Nokia 5125, the Nokia 8260 can be used with ease and style. With it's T9 Predictive Text Input and a flexible dictionary built in, the phone can write messages easily and quickly. With a user-friendly interface which blows away it's predecessors, a weight of 3.2 ounces, and few problems with connection despite the fact that it doesn't have a standard antenna, it can be used in almost any situation. Alltogether, I have been very happy with this phone, and I would recommend one to anyone that is thinking of upgrading. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 185 89391 2000/2/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 earphone jack internal antenna large memory sharp screen size or lack thereof is a problem tiny buttons are frustrating The Bottom LineSmall size is the only major problem--otherwise, worth the money Full Review I traded my old 5120 in for an 8260 in December, and my first reaction was, "This is a phone?" I thought I was going to lose the darn thing within a week because it was so small. Well, to my surprise, it has held up and surpassed my old 5120 by a good margin. I now have room for up to 250 saved numbers (the 5120 can only hold 99), an earphone jack for hands-free calling, and 2-way text messaging (limited to 150 characters, though). It's a good phone overall, but the size is something to worry about, especially if you're prone to misplacing things. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 216 89390 2000/7/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable efficient easy to use clear ringtones needs better games The Bottom LineThe greatest cellular phone by Nokia so far. Combines all great features to create a small, light, compact, and inexpensive phone! Full Review I just recently bought this phone. I must say the Nokia 8260 is positively amazing. The 8260 combines sleek compact design with reasonable functionality. I found that the 8260 fits perfectly in a pant pocket and does not shake around. One of the best functions of the phone is its ability to receive SMS messages. This function allows the phone to not only receive messages, but also receive graphics and ringtones. They are sent by a regular e-mail account and recieved by your phone that same way. By doing this, Nokia has gotten rid of the link cable that was required by other previous phones. With the 8260 all you have to do is go to a website (I.E. www.supermegaphone.com), choose a ringtone or graphic, type in your phone number, and type in your service provider. The file will be automatically sent to your cellular phone within seconds. Thats not all...one time I found a website who provided the string of jargon that makes up the ringtone, they wouldnt send it to my cellular phone though. The solution was to copy/paste and send it to yourself. By typing in **********( * = phone number)@mobile.att.net I was able to send the tone to myself. Overall the 8260 is one of the greatest phones Nokia has ever made. It combines all the greatest new features with the cuztomizability of the old. There is also a large aftermarket part market. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89389 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size weight on off switch Full Review After my old Nokia phone met with an untimely demise, I walked over to my AT&T store to go about replacing it. I looked at various phones including the new internet capable ones. I decided to go for small and cool rather then bigger. The 8260 is a full featured phone. It has text messaging, caller ID, call waiting, directory function and all the other perks one would expect. It is also very small and light and can easily fit into a shirt pocket. The battery seems to last forever and it sounds great. The package comes with a quick charger, and good easy to follow directions and an ear piece with a built in microphone which is good for driving. The main (and only) problem I have found is that the on/off button is really small and for guys with fat fingers (like me), it is hard to turn off/on. I bought the blue one. Recommended: Yes 89388 2000/9/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fits right into the cell phone case built into my purse gets hot if you talk for too long without earbud included The Bottom LineThis is a great phone! Lightweight and durable, clear and cute. It has many features which makes the whole package too good to turn down. Full Review I got this phone in blue about a two months ago. I got it at first because of the way that it looked. Its small and stylish, won't get in the way of other things in my purse, it can even fit in my pocket if need be. It also was a good choice with the cellular plan that I chose. Its been a good investment so far. I use the phone a reasonable amount. Most of the numbers I call are long distance, so the plan I got worked out well. But we are talking about the phone here, sorry to sidetrack. I would recommend that if you are going to talk for more than 10 or so minutes, that you use the earbud that comes along with the phone. Its not the best piece of equipment but its better than holding the phone up to your head that long, as it can get a bit hot after a few minutes of talking. Also, if you are doing other things at the time (such as driving or something, its not too easy to hold this phone between your ear and shoulder, which I tend to do A LOT. There are better ear pieces available at an additional price. The reception has been good. I haven't had any complaints from the person on the other line at all. It also comes with games, which are great while waiting in long lines or while sitting at red lights. (totally kidding! drive safe!!) The calculator function is good too since I am no good at math. Also comes with 2 way messaging. It has an extensive capability to hold numbers in it, has several different settings so you don't have to keep changing every option, and downloadable ring tones! That's been great for me, although the ones that it comes with are catchy too. If you can find the phone on sale, or with a rebate, all the more reason to buy it. But I would say its a good buy either way. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89387 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life size many useful features none The Bottom LineIf you want a smaller phone with lots of features and great capabilities this is the phone for you. Full Review I recently got this new Nokia from Att Wireless. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at the capabilities of such a small phone. Among its best features are its multiple rings (including a vibrating/pager option), its phonebook with large storage capability, the long lifespan of its battery, and the calculator function. While it doesn't have a protruding antenna, the phone does get remarkable reception, better than my last Nokia phone (the 5100). The only possible problem I could forsee with this phone is its size- because it is so small it is easy to misplace and sometimes more difficult to dial. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89386 2001/2/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size signal strength tri mode size The Bottom LineIf you want the new cool techy style phone and have small hands get it! Full Review I received this phone as a gift and was very excited to get it. I was thinking it was the 8290, but after examing both phones I realized they are almost the same. The 8260 is a little bit thicker in width but also supports Tri-Mode (PCS - DIGITAL - ANALOG) where as far as I have heard the 8290 only supports one mode, therefor if you go into the mountains you have no signal. The size is not that noticable comparing it to the 8290. The signal strength is great as long as you don't have LARGE hands, if your hands are extremely large you may cover the BUILT-IN antena on top of the phone. I have used this phone out in the middle of no place on an ANALOG signal and people I call think I am dialing from a land line. The button size is a downfall because once again if you have large fingers\hands you will have a hard time dialing people. The custom ringtones, and large variety of options make it a great phone for everyone.! (WITHOUT BIG HANDS) If you want a larger phone I would go with the Nokia 6290 it is a great phone. The 8260 also does not support faceplates like the 6290, 8290, and other series phones do... So basically you better like what it looks like when you buy it because that is what you are stuck with!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 89385 2000/2/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid reliable easy menus big display compact none The Bottom LineThis full featured, full powered phone is in a class by itself. Full Review I've been using my Nokia 8260 now for 3 months now. I upgraded from a 6120 and prior to that I was using a Nokia 5120. I really think that Nokia, by far, makes the best cell phones in the world. I have used Motorolla, Ericson & Sony & Mitsubishi in the past. Nothing comes close to a Nokia as far as ease of use & reliability. The menu functions & features are all things you can use. Hold the "hang-up" button down & the keys are locked; put it in your back pocket & go. Switch to vibrate & bingo! no ringing, only you know it's going off. Assign different rings to different callers & you know who's calling without even looking at the screen. The built-in internal antenna is as good as an external one. If you are looking for a phone that is compact, solid & reliable, then this one is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89384 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 user friendly nokia interface comes with hands free headset small cant change colors Full Review I bought this phone about a month ago and I have to tell you even though the price was a bit steep, I have no doubts about my purchase. If youre used to the Nokia interface this phone makes it even more accesible and user-friendly than ever before. I get compliments for this phone ALL THE TIME!! Everyone's like: "oh let me see your cel phone, it's so cute" ,"...oh i want it" and stuff like that. I got mine blue, but I think red is the most striking one of all. I didn't get it myself because it looks kinda girlish and you can't change the colors like you could on the 5100 series for example. If I were to change one thing on this phone it would be that; to be able to change the colors. The european version of this phone comes in something like 10 different colors. All in all, it's great. I love it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89383 2000/10/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small first small phone to have long battery tri mode no antenna to break off screen not sealed buttons get worn The Bottom LineBuy it because it's small and good. Full Review You buy this phone because of its size and because it's tri-mode TDMA/AMPS, and those should be the only reasons you need. There are only a few phones you can carry in your pocket at all times, and this is one of them. I've had it in the front pocket of my jeans for a year, and it has held up very well. ... uhh....that hasn't been the same pocket in the same pair of jeans continuously... just thought I'd point that out :-) The two complaints: - The buttons sometimes need to be pressed relatively hard to click, especially the upper left "Unlock" button, after you've hit it about a million times. - Dust collects under the screen! This makes it hard to read at an angle in sunlight. This is totally inexcusable. I can't understand how modern electronics manufacturers keep failing to avoid this problem. Otherwise, it's a solid buy that's held up well for a year. I'm hard on my phone, and every other celphone (Qualcomm, Sony, Ericsson) has fallen apart within a year. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89382 2000/11/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 logic controls battery life good reception almost too small The Bottom LineSmall, efficient and stylish. If you don't have real big hands it's hard to beat. Full Review I think the 8260 is about a small as a cell can be and still be useful. I do believe for some it will be too small. It is just big enough for me, but I don't have very large hands. It's still amazing, as small as the keys are, you almost have to do something intentional to hit the wrong one. Nice design! Battery life is amazing, and I leave it on all the time. Good accessories, like a good hands free system for the car, the basic Nokia hands free earphone, mike w/button for disconnect or answering, and a quality case are all that's needed. With discounts, that was another $85 for the works. Things I would have eventually bought anyway. I would avoid the additional add ons that just add bells and whistles and risk the warranty coverage. It's only phone, not a toy or an article of clothing. The colors and style of the stock phone is great, and a nice case the ION Body Glove by Neogeo added a great look as well as superior protection. I got the service (AT&T) over the internet through Getconnected.com, which I do not recommend. Delivery was fast, and I did not have to jump in my car, and the phone was set up when I got it, but you have to mail in all kinds of receipts to get the write-off rebates. At a cellular store it's all taken care of up front. Live & learn! But in the end it was a good 'deal'. My price below is after rebates and with service. List price varies from $179-199. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 89381 2000/3/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight good package small size nice features nice appearance too small for some doesn t have some of the gizmos The Bottom LineIf you need a good phone in a tight package with all the important features this is the phone for you. Full Review I bought this phone several months ago. It replaced another aging Nokia. I use this phone primarily for business communication so dependability and range are major factors in my purchase. Overall the phone has been great. Its sound quality is excellent and its package is slick. One reason I chose this phone was because of its size and structure. Many of the phones in its size/weight class fold. For some this is not a problem but over time the phones begin to wear out and can be broken more easily. The phone is also attractive, not gimicky or, gaudy just simple and clean. In a business atmosphere its important not to have a phone that looks like something from star trek. Overall I recommend this phone. Many companies are offering it a great prices with good packages. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89380 2000/11/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 hip look its not wap enable Full Review In need for a mobile,I thought I should treat myself with a Mobile.To choose one from 100's of other models and makes I took the advice from a freind instead of a sales representive.Was I right to take his advice,Upto now "YES" The new Nokia 8260.If you understand the difference between clothing and style, then you know the difference between a mobile phone and the Nokia 8260. Its got class,its got the look with vibrant and fresh colours and Its so slim and light,sometimes I dont realise it that I have got a mobile!!.The simplest way to dial is to press one button and say a name. I have never been so impressed with a mobile then I have been with this one. The Nokia 8260 is suitable for young and old,male or female,for bussiness use or just for fun.My advice to you is if you are looking for a mobile then you should stop looking because you can not find a better mobile then the Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89379 2001/1/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cute it s small portable interchangeable phone coverage is little less than others high priced because it is new The Bottom LineGreat for all ages, small, portable and cute. Godd for a man or women, a little expensive! Full Review I started with the 5100 series phone, then moved to the 6100 series, and now, I am using the 8200 series. Since beginning to use the 8290 I have noticed the phone coverage isn't as good as with my last 2 phone's. Sometimes I have to go outside stores and friend's houses to get a clearer reception. However at times I can get coverage in areas I wouldn't normally get coverage, so go figure! I bought this phone because it is so small and easy to use. It hardly weighs anything and is so portable! It's great for a man or a women because you can change the face plate to different colors to suit your personality. This phone has a wide selection of ringing options which includes a vibrating batter and light up screen. And the changeable face plate. The only set back I would say is the price. I know in 2 months from now they'll probably be handing these out because there is a new "better" or "smaller" model. So if you can wait I would recommend it. Otherwise if you just want the phone it can cost you up to $300. IF you are getting a cell phone plan AND the phone it may only be about $150-$200. But like I said in about 2 months this will be "the thing of the past" so it will be like the 5100 and 6100 phones and cost about $50 if my prediction is correct!! A great GIFT for your teenager!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89378 2002/8/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 compact cool looking reliability is very suspect The Bottom LineAvoid this phone like the plague. Look for the April introduction of the 6360...it should be better. Full Review This is the first review that I have ever done of anything, but I felt compelled to share my story of this phone. Let me say that I am a long time Nokia fan...way back to a model 100 thing that was about the size of a large TV remote control. I progressed through the 5*** series on to a 6162 with flip and then to a 6161 without the flip. These were all great phones with good service (Suncom aka ATT). When I cracked the display on the 6161, I opted for the sexy new 8260(April 2001). I was impressed by the compact size and good performance. It is an appealing phone. After a few months I realized that I was beginning to miss calls. People would call and the phone wouldn't ring. The caller would hear 4 rings and then voicemail. When they leave a message it is immediately reflected on the phone, but no ringing. I started to have fast busys and dropped calls...sometimes I would dial a call and it would try to make a call and then just back to idle. Very frustrating. Customer service says to cycle the power off to re-register with the tower...sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Back to the store and swapped for 8260 #2(August 2001). Good phone with no problems...for a while. A month or so ago, the same routine began...along with a very annoying hiss on all calls. Back to the store. Oddly enough, I was one of two customers in the store. The next customer through the door was bringing in his 8260 and complaining about the same problems. Even customer service admitted an extraordinary high number of problems with this phone. Viewing this web site should make it obvious to someone considering this phone...don't. Roughly 25% of the reviewers on this site have had the same type of trouble with this phone. That is way too high and this phone should be avoided. Update - I am now on 8260 number three, and as was the case in the beginning with the other two phones, this phone is great. But, I have no doubts that sooner or later (probably sooner) the problems will return and I will be back to the store...this time switching to a different model. Update - 8/02 - Starting to get some fast busy signals when trying to make calls. Also getting reports of people trying to call me and reaching the cellular dead zone. I'll give it a few more days and then I headed for the store. Slight hissing sound recently became noticeable. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 89377 2000/12/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small reliable small The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a stylish small phone with good clarity and durability, this is the phone for you. Full Review I bought my Nokia 8260 about 5 months ago or so. It has lasted since then and has had no problems. The service is clear and is easy to use. It is very small which can be both good and bad. It can be good if u are carrying it in your pocket but it can also be bad because if has a tendency to fall out more easily. If you carry it in a purse it is harder to find. Also the phone is relatively durable for its size. I have dropped it a few times and i only have minor scratches. The phone has many features which are easily accessed and easy to use and figure out. This is a great phone and i highly recommend it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89376 2000/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very pocket portableunobtrusive reception seems a little more stable than other nokia models no antenna jack the backlighting on the keys could be a bit brighter The Bottom LineSame features as other basic phones except it's half the size. Thinner than clam shell phones. It could be a little cheaper. I would buy again if trashed. Full Review I've been leary of owning this phone because it had no antenna jack and also because the battery seemed too small to really carry a charge worth mentioning. That was all perception not based on experience. I bought one and this is one of my precious possessions among my other electronic devices. I got an amazing deal because my old phone was insured when it died. It fits in any pocket or my sock unlike my old Nokia 5160 which was the size of a brick with the extended battery. The 8260 is the size of my old extended battery which I find amazing and it carries the same amount of talk time and standby time. About 3 hours talk time and about a week standby time. I did not have to replace the car jack or the quick charger from my 5160 though they say to do so, but I found that advice to be ignorant. I've heard people whine about the keys being too small for big fingers. They would be if you had to poke at the keys like other models with the bony part of your finger tip or with your finger nail. When I dial I cover the appropriate key with my thumb. The soft tissue on my thumb depresses the key perfectly making a tiny click which can be felt or heard. I have never had to zero in on a key with my finger nail. I originally had a fear that adjacent keys would be accidentally activated when dialing, but that has never happened because you get a feel right away for centering the pressure of your thumb. The power switch at the top of the phone has been another point of concern. It's tiny and flush with the body of the phone. Just looking at it, the first reaction is to use your finger nail or a pen tip or something to power up or down. I discovered that just covering the switch with my index finger and pressing causes the soft tissue to depress into the power switch to power up or down. It requires pressing harder than you would with the keys. The volume on the ringer is not as loud other my other phone, but for me it's perfect since I don't like obtrusive rings. You can set it to vibrate if it's in a pocket or purse. The reception seems no better or worse than my Nokia 5160. In fact, it seems to have better reception by 1/2 to 1 whole bar in low reception areas. But it depends on atmospheric conditions. The reception as a whole seems more stable and clear. People tell me that I sound loud and clear and I hear them just fine. I was really concerned about the phone not having an antenna jack to plug in a signal booster. I found a passive antenna for about $30. It has a small sleeve which snaps onto the phone over the antenna compartment and I found it boosts the signal just as well as an external antenna that you plug directly into the phone. I believe all external antennas work about the same. They may stabilize the signal, but don't work miracles. Even the smallest boost of signal is better than nothing. I also installed in the battery compartment this paper thin antenna booster for $5. This also helps. Even without these extras, the phone reception is as good or bad as any phone and not worse as some people claim. When you shop for an 8260, you can always bargain with the sales rep to get the price down. Circuit City seems easy to bargain with. It doesn't hurt to ask. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 37.50 89375 2000/11/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 compact intuitive interface lightweight maybe too small for some people The Bottom LineGreat phone for those who value compactness. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is a great phone which packs a lot of functionality into a very lightweight and compact form factor. I have the AT&T Wireless service, and the phone weighs a mere 3.4 ounces including the battery. There is a similar GSM phone, the Nokia 8290, which has the same shape, but weighs even less, at 2.8 oz with battery. There are some slight differences in functionality, which would be the subject of another review, but they are largely the same. I really like the Nokia interface. The menu options are logically organized, and it makes it very easy to store names with numbers in your phone's directory. It is also simple to save a number from someone who has called you with Called ID into your phone's directory. The Caller ID and phone directory are integrated so that if someone from your directory calls you, the personal name you have entered for them will appear on the screen. The 8260 is also packed with extra features. There are games to pass time, a calculator, calendar, and it can send and receive text messages and EMAIL. Yes, email! The messages are limited to 160 characters, but it does work, and delivery of email messages from the internet is almost instantaneous. I signed up with CNN.com and now get a short text message on my phone whenever their is a "breaking news" alert. This is very handy to keep yourself aware of the most recent events. Ring tones for an incoming call and alert tones for a text message are separately configurable, so you do not have to be disturbed with loud ringing if you don't want to be. The 8260 can also be set to vibrate for silent operation. The Nokia 8260 can be carried in a shirt pocket with no trouble at all. You may even forget that it is there, so be careful not to let it slip out! It's not the most durable phone I've seen, and a fall from 5 feet to the floor may well break it. Considering the typically steep $200 charge for a new phone, equipment insurance from your service provider may be a good idea -- although be sure to read the fine print on the deductible and what is covered. The 8260 is a popular model, so you can find plenty of aftermarket accessories for it easily. Check out Ebay for assortments of headsets, desktop chargers, spare batteries, car chargers, holsters and colorful replacement faceplates at cheap prices. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 with plan 89374 2000/4/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size reception battery life maybe a little easier to lose The Bottom LineFits in your shirt or pants pocket, great reception, excellent battery life, very nicely lighted key pad, included earphone/microphone cord, it's very difficult not to recommend this phone. Full Review I've had the 8260 for about 2 months now. The primary reason I retired my very dependable 6162 was that I wanted a smaller phone for obvious traveling need reasons, space. I bought the phone, spent 2 hours entering all of my contact numbers ( yes 2 hrs, probably because of a small key pad but how in the &#@! is a big key pad going to fit on a very small phone? a question to those who complained that the key pad is too small) in the phone book then later that night decided to find out if I made a smart buy. Turned out the majority of the opinions were favorable, good deal! didn't waste those two hours. The few reports on poor reception due to the internal antenna had me concerned. I use this phone in 23 major cities in the US and the only poor reception area I have is Seattle and I'm pretty sure that has to do with the location of the hotel we use and AT&T's coverage area or lack of, because my 6162 had the same problem. I've also dropped the phone no less than 5 times without any operating damage so I also rule out the folks who were unhappy with the lack of durability of the phone. The auto-update of current time & date is a great feature the phone offers. Fly to a different time zone and your phone will set itself to that local time when you turn it on, unfortunately my AT&T system doesn't currently support this feature but several wireless providers do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 89373 2000/2/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 colors cute no antenna small The Bottom LineIt's a great phone, but there are some set backs. Full Review The Nokia 8260, overall an adorable phone but does it pass the test? Well 5 of my friends and I took turns using this phone and we all agreed that yes it does pass the test. We felt that the colors were great, we all liked the red. The clarity was good, a little static here and there but over all better than other cell phones. It was unbelievably small, small enough to fit in a mini Kate-Spade purse. Of course it also had it's down sides, the fact that it was so small made it almost a sure thing that one of us would loose it in the near future. The fact that it was so small was also strange while talking on it, you could never tell if the person you were talking to could hear you or not because the phone was so far away from your mouth. The last problem I saw with it was that there was no antenna, which means that any radiation given off goes directly into your head, now I do not know any of the numbers or dangers of this radiation, I am just saying that if you use your cell phone a lot you might want to think about an antenna. All in all the Charlie's angels phone kicks butt!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 89372 2000/2/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 small size stylish fun to play with when you first get it charging outlet is unreliable ringer vibrate features moody phone can freeze up The Bottom LineStay away from this phone. One day, you'll thank me. Full Review Oh, the horrors! When I got my first cell phone in August when I started college I was pumped. Not only did I have a ton of minutes, but I also had the sweetest looking cell phone on the market. However, by November I was kicking myself. After a month of my phone periodically ringing and then not ringing, and vibrating sometimes, and not at other times I was getting rather irritated. I hadn't changed my options and it should have been using those features. I finally broke down and sent it back to the company to get it replaced when it randomly just froze up on me one day. The key pad was not locked, and it wouldn't let me push any of the buttons or turn it off. I took it by a cell phone dealer and they told me they were stumped, so I sent it back. So, I got my new one, and things were working out great... until the ringer and vibrator became moody once again, and it stopped charging my battery. I changed my battery (not a cheap thing to do on these phones) thinking that perhaps I had just run it dry, but my phone charged the new battery once and then just decided not to do it again. It'd tease me, like it was GOING to charge it, and then it wouldn't do it. So, although the phone is cute, stylish, and fun, I have found it to be COMPLETELY unreliable. I wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone. I've talked to cell phone sales reps who say that they have had numerous complaints about the phone. I'm happy for the people who have had good experiences, but... have a back up, because your time is coming. I'm not abusive with my phones and I've had two bail out on me. I'm moving on. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 140 89371 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 predictive text input nice design fairly good size easy to use very limited e mail capabilities a little bulkier than it s european counterpart The Bottom LineThe perfect basic phone for everyday use. Full Review While not state-of-the-art in any aspect, the Nokia 8260 delivers where it really counts; good voice quality, sleek design with an internal antenna, easy to use predictive text input for text messages or e-mail and a nice, small size make this a desireble basic phone. If you're not into text messaging yet because they're tedious to write, try the predictive text input on this Nokia - it makes writing a breeze. The e-mail capability is quite useless, only supporting some 140 characters. It's a good way to send a reminder or a note to someone discreetly, though, even if they don't have a text message-capable phone. Ease of use is a big plus; the Nokia models in general are much easier and faster to learn and use than, say, Motorola phones. Most deals include an earpiece - if not, get it, as it's worth the little money it costs. Very convenient in a car and necessary where cities have banned regular cellphone usage while driving. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89370 2001/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 download graphics ringssmall size 30 holiday rebate ripoff The Bottom LineWatch the rebate scam. Full Review I was extremely excited when the Nokia 8260 launched. I have purchased 2 phones and convinced my roommate and several friends to purchase them as well. With great disappointment my Nokia $30 Holiday Rebate was returned in an unopened enveloped stamped "Return to Sender Postmarked After Program Date" despite accurately following all of the rebate instructions. I purchased a Nokia 8260 on 12/30/00 as reflected on my Invoice. This purchase date according to the Nokia $30 Holiday Rebate form was before the stipulated "Offer Ends December 31, 2000". The rebate term "All requests must be postmarked no later than 30 days from the date of equipment purchase as shown on your receipt" was followed. So does the offer totally end 12/31/00 and if the Nokia Rebate Center does not receive the rebate by 12/31/00 (because the phone was purchased at the end of the offer time), the submission is returned to sender? Did the "postmarked no later than 30 days from the date of equipment purchase as shown on your receipt" not apply to me although I purchased the phone before the offer ended? Don't get me wrong, I love the phone however I am now disputing that I did not initially receive the Nokia $30 rebate. Three Customer Service Reps and 11 months later, I received the rebate. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89369 2000/8/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size vibration etc weight calendar changeable covers battery is weak compared to other nokia phones Full Review I used to have the Nokia 5260, the only thing that beats this one is the duration the battery holds. The Nokia 8260 is hot, it's totally light, has all the functions and then some...! It has speech-dial, a very handy calendar (don't know what I have done without it!), room for 250 Numbers and even 4 games! Everything you want, this phone has it... If the battery was more durable, I would hold my hand in fire for this phone...! It's a must buy, if your looking for a phone that is light, small and does EVERYTHING!!! It took me about a week to go through all the gadgets this phone has! My favorite part is the calendar, it remembers birthdays and all your important meetings or whatever with a beeping sound. There is also room for your personal ringing tones, and other fun gimmicks. It's just to much to talk about, buy the phone, and you'll have fun and a reliable phone for quite a while...! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250 89368 2000/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life great size faceplate scratches easily The Bottom LineWonderful little thing, but they should put more quality into their add-ons. Full Review Functionally, this is a great phone, and the "micro" size is awesome, BUT!! Within a few weeks, the faceplate became scratched just from carrying it in my pocket. I love the small size and strong battery, but the extruded faceplate is a bad design in that it protudes from the phone, meaning it scratches easily, and if the phone is dropped, the face takes all the impact . I have accidently dropped the phone on three different occasions, and each time it has landed on its face and cracked. After the first drop, I got the protective case/clip made by AT&T. The last drop was today at lunch when it fell out of its case from my belt clip (see my review of that product that I am going to write next). Again, it hit a tile floor face first and cracked the LCD and made the LCD completely disfunctional. I have not treated this phone recklessly, in fact I have been very careful with it, as I am with everything I own. I expected that a cell phone would be more rugged and be able to withstand these kind of minor blows. Why can't they make a faceplate out of a similar material as a watch face? Functionally, it is a phenomenal phone, but the physical design and plastic faceplate material are its weak points and thus it is a fragile phone, even in its "protective" case/clip Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 171 89367 2000/4/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything about it nothing come to mind well i wish the keys had a cover The Bottom LineIf you need a phone and it is available on your system BUY IT Full Review I really like this phone. Easy to use, very very very compact. Clear audio, great reception, fantastic battery life. It recharges from absolutely dead in about one hour, I can not think of anything really annoying about the phone except it does not work with FoneSync (the people at FoneSync tell me Nokia is working on an adaptor but they don't know when it will be available. The thing is so compact and light I do forget which pocket I put it in! My wristwatch weighs more than the phone! I do wish there was a cover on the keys but I guess that would make it a touch heavier. I could lock the keys but that can be a little (very little, ok I am lazy) hassle. I have large hands and have no difficulty using the keys. It is a fantastic phone and by far the best of the 6 or so I have had Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 89366 2001/1/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything options signal strength size so small you might lose it The Bottom LineGreat phone, great price! Full Review After reading review after review of this phone I finally decided to buy it. But what would be the cheapest way? Since I was already an AT&T customer I didn't think that I could get a rebate, but I was wrong. I went to my AT&T dealer, they sold me my phone for $200, then they called AT&T and they gave me a $75 upgrade credit to my account. Nokia gave me a $30 rebate, and then I sold my old 5160 on ebay for $50. And for $45 dollars I love this phone. I would have paid the full amount for as much as I love this phone. It is so small, no antenna, you can download up to 5 ringtones from the internet, and set it up so that when a specific person calls you, it will bring up a customizable picture and ring a specified tone. Better reception than my 5160, and half the size. If you are even thinking about buying one, I recommend buying one immeadiately, I know you won't be sorry. I sure wasn't. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89365 2000/2/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 very small nice sound quality great reception looks flimsy The Bottom LineGet it you won't regret it, its much better than what you own at least it was much better than my Samsung 3500 Full Review I first saw this phone when I was in Hong Kong last year. My first impresion on it was that it was too small and that I could not ever possibly use it without losing it. But now that the Nokia 8260 is available in the United States, and I was able to get it for a very reasonable price from www.amazon.com I find that not only is the size not a problem but its very much a plus. No longer do I feel like I am carrying an extra wallet in my pocket, I can barely feel the phone in my jeans. This phone is both analog and digital but I've yet to see it switch to analog. One of the greatest features about this phone I think is the ability to send short messages and email out to other people that have the phone or email addresses. Not only is the phone capable of the messaging, but its made so that instead of having to push the number 2, 3 times to get the letter C the Nokia 8260 instead has a dictionary that automatically guesses what you are trying to type with each number. This phone is the best that i have owned yet. The battery life on the thing is also amazing often I go without charging for a week, this is if I only talk for a few min a day though. One side note that i have though is that this is the first phone that I've owned that intefers with my stereo speakers (I get this really wierd buzzing noise) and if you put it up to any monitor while making a call it will disrupt the display on the screen. But otherwise the phone is great, I can't imagine what else I would want from it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2 89364 2000/2/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small sized over 3 hours of talking time from experience easy to lose The Bottom LineI would really recommend this phone to anyone who needs a new cell phone, and little space to keep it in! Full Review ~*Why I Bought This Product*~ For Christmas, 2000, I really wanted/needed a cell phone. Of course my parents said, "You don't need one...You're too young." BUT I DID need one! I was always looking for change to use the payphone and some places I was didn't have them! I was in need of a Nokia phone... ~*When I got it~* Christmas morning, after waiting for my turn to open my presents, I saw a box. About the size of a shoe box, and I tear it open...Inside is a red nokia phone! I probably screamed for a half hour! ~*Features*~ With the ability to send and receive email, text messages, business cards, and appointment using predictive text input (for easy text entry), you are connected. Small in size, great in shape and style, easy to use! It has good clarity and is great in durability. ~*My experience with this phone...*~ I brought this phone with me EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere! Not a second went by that I didnt have my phone on me. WIth over 3 hours of talk time (battery) I could chat with friends and parents...for rides! Yes, indeed the phone is small so I did lose it once, but I got it back! Iwas on my bus home from school and it must of slipped out of my bag! Good thing I called the bus company! Thanks for reading my epinion because everyone's opinion counts! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89363 2000/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 better reception in airportsin north oakland battery life profiles size not web enabled proprietary headset jack screen tough to read The Bottom LineHigh quality, good-looking, solid functionality, wearable, Nokia quality. If you don't need a web-phone, the 8260 is a great choice. Full Review I switched providers (Sprint PCS) and handsets (Samsung 6100) to take advantage of my company's national plan with ATT. I was concerned that I would never get used to the Nokia OS after being a Sprint customer for so long. After a little reading and a little scrolling through the menus I was very comfortable with the phones features and interface. The battery life is fan-tastic and I get better reception in two key spots where I had problems with Sprint -- near my home and at the Bay Area airports, even inside the plane! When I am in meetings I am able to send text msgs and emails without disturbing the group. What I would change: reduce the gap between the face of the phone and the actual screen panel; drop the proprietary headset jack (I had to ditch two headsets I was very happy with when I got this phone). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 190.00 89362 2000/7/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features durability the size colors button size The Bottom LineThis phone is the best one for the buck. See for yourself. Full Review When I was first looking for a cell phone I past right by this phone. Looking at the size and no attenna I figured this phone would cause more problems. However my brother got one and seemed to like it. SO I decided to get one of my own. When I first got it I couldn't stop playing with all the features from the games to the calendar. Even though most phones had these options i was completely impressed by this phones capability. I was also surprised how you can really make this phone a part of you. With the extensive calendar and places to put your friend email and phone numbers I found my palm pilot just another useless thing I bought. You can also change the ringer tone to be something personal for yourself. You can go to the web site and download any song you want from almost any group plus you can even make your own if you want which I think is just great. However when I was first looking at the phone the size kind of scared me. It made me wonder if it could actually withstand the use I gave it. IT also scared me that the microphone is so far away from my mouth which I thought would make it hard for my friends to catch what I am saying in the busy office that I work. However this phone taught me that I was completely wrong. I was able to talk to my friends and they could hear me clearly. I also have dropped this baby a few times and only got a few scratches from the falls but no real damage. With working in an office I always seem to miss calls but I haven't missed one yet with this phone. However i did notice that if I was really far from a cellular tower or an area that had service I did have a few problems with clarity but I still got my calls. However the one con that I did find with this phone is the size of the buttons. It does make it hard at times when I would dial numbers that I was familiar with because I would be going to fast. However I did solve this problem because I put in all the numbers I use and know by heart into the system. So all I have to do is recall them on the screen and the numbers I don't know i take more time to dial anyway so I'm not in a rush. However my brother who owns on is a big guy and doesn't have a problem with the buttons. I think its just something you have to get use to just like typing on a keyboard. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89361 2000/2/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size tons of features lightweight buttons are hard to push sometimes due to the size of the phone The Bottom LineA great mobile phone that's functional, clear, lightweight and durable. All this for a fairly reasonable price. Full Review I've had three different cell phones, and all of them have been from Nokia. I've found that their phones are practical, very easy to use and stylish at the same time. I currently have the 8260 which I got about 4-5 months ago. This phone is fantastic. It's microsize allows you to take it any where you want. Unlike other cell phones out on the market, this phone fits conveniently into my pants pocket without it bulging out of my pocket or weighing it down. This phone also offers a bundle of features, from different ringing tones, to games, a calculator, a calendar in which you can set reminders for yourself i.e. anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Another great feature this phone has is that you can download different musical tunes from the internet and set them as your ringer. When you purchase this phone, it also comes with a hands free ear piece, comes in handy when you're driving. The only complaint i have about this phone is that the buttons on it are a bit small. They're a little hard to push sometimes, especially if you have gloves on. It's a result of Nokia microsizing the phone. My 8260 has proven to be very durable too, I dropped it on the driveway a couple of times an it's still in perfect working condition. For anyone who is currently looking for a cell phone, I would highly that they take a good look at the Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89360 2000/2/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 email messaging capabilities lightweight small battery life internal antenna difficult to change cover The Bottom LineIf you want a mobile just for 2 or 3 calls a day, or if you need to be connected with everyone by all means, this IS your best choice Full Review But I got it back the next day, it is so small you don't even notice is there until it rings (and vibrates). The first reason for buying the mobile phone was the excellent design without compromising size and usability, starting for the internal antenna. Forget the fact that is small, is very comfortable when you talk, and the screen is as big as the 5100 and 6100 Nokia mobile phone series. Email and messaging capabilities are a true advantage if you are someone who needs to be connected and online all the time. I can receive emails and reply even if I am on the subway on my way to work. I can send small messages to my coworkers to confirm news and let them know about my current location without having to call them and talk for that kinds of stuff. The battery lasts for about 8 days if you don't talk too much, if you use it a lot, it will last for about 5 - 6 days. The charging only takes 2 hours. Sound is very clear, volume control is well located, and it has all the standard functions you expect for this kind of phone: address book, games, PIM, calculator, 3 people conference, call waiting, etc. The best phone I have used, and very recommended for anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 89359 2000/3/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 e mail more clear quality compact e mail messaging capacity is too short The Bottom LineGreat quality, durable, great portability... I love this phone! Full Review I absolutely love the Nokia 8260. I've had horrible experiences with two previous cell phones, but this one is a gem for me! It's a very conveniently compact size, you can easily fit it into a pants or shirt pocket. I love the fact that you can send messages to people via e-mail, or the paging service. A couple of bad points about the e-mail, however, is it doesn't go through/ isn't received right away. It has 37 different ringer tones with it that you can select from, and you can even download more ringer tones at http://www.nokia8260.com, as well as download graphics for your phone address groups. I like the fact that the phone has a few games with it, that's always a neat little extra feature on phones. The buttons are a little bit small, but I've found them easy to get used to. You can choose different colors for the phone- I personally prefer having the blue, it's nice and bright. Overall this is truly a wonderful phone and I highly recommend it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 89358 2000/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 packed with excellent features simple navigation tiny vibrates text messaging no internet The Bottom LineThere's maybe a 3 in 1000 chance that you won't worship this phone within 20 minutes of buying it. Fantastic. Full Review I wasn't expecting a knockout punch when I purchased this phone. But I got one. It's such an excellent cell phone I laugh when I think of my old ones. And now in spirit of the phone's effortless navigation system, here's a concise rundown even a 6-year-old can understand. PROs: Tiny phone, light, with an great, flat shape. Superbly implemented features, like putting reminders and dates into the calendar for the phone to "alarm" you of later. Loud ringer and strong vibrating ring. Holds not only 250 names and numbers, but their email addresses too. Uses T9 predictive text software, which is awesome. I won't attempt to explain it. It's brilliant idea yet so simple and effective. You've gotta try it. Solid ergonomics, battery life, sound quality and structural integrity. Quick charges (under 2 hours). Makes excellent use of "earbud" hands-free piece and corresponding "profiles," which alter the phone's settings for rings and volumes based on where you are at the time (like "meeting," "silent," "normal," and "pager"--which suppresses all calls and acts as a pager would--among others.) 4 included games are great time killers and mind-sharpeners. Text messaging is simple and works just like email. Capable of phone-to-phone, phone-to-computer, or even computer-to-phone. Your email address is (phone number)@wireless.att.net. Navigation is utterly quick and simple, as if the phone can read your mind. Cons: Basically none. Web access is absent but not missed. Price may be considered high. If this phone's pitfalls weigh a pound, its virtues could rival the weight of a small elephant. I vehemently recommend it to basically anyone, maybe with the exception of those who desperately need to surf the web on a cell phone. Final word: I am deeply, deeply satisfied with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89357 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small chirping noise Full Review I have a question about the Nokia 8260 on ATT Digital One Rate (new york city area). The phone seems great BUT I have noticed some background noise when the phone is ON. This happens all the time and gets worse when making calls - has anyone else experienced this problem. I love the phone but this noise is a deal breaker. It is not a defective phone because I have had them send me 3 and all have the problem. Nokia claims they have not heard about similar problems and so does AT&T. Would love to know the cause so I can keep the phone, if not it must go. Recommended: Yes 89356 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size range of colors with volume on high you hear yourself talking Full Review I am a mother and a student. I needed a pager or a cell phone so that my children's school could get in touch with me. I decided to buy a cell phone because I did not want to hunt for a public phone. Shopping for cell phones is not as easy as it seems. First I was bombarded with over 20 different types of phones. Then each of the several calling plans from different companies appealed to me. My final choice was the Nokia 8260. I love it. This phone is ideal for the professional person, student and your average Joe or Jane. Its small size fits in any purse, brief case, backpack, or jacket pocket. The phone has 35 different ring tones and silent mode. There is caller ID, phone number memory, and games. You can print a message, have conference calling and put a call on hold. With many more options and displays just a button away. My friend commented on the phone's clearness. I felt as if the person was standing next to me! I enjoy changing the face plates, but they do run rather expensive, for a piece of plastic. What a palm held wonder! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170.00 tax not included 89355 2000/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 quality size features quiet ring on most settings heat The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for most people. Full Review I recently had a Samsung phone with a different provider, and found the phone to have poor reception as well as a horrible ear piece. I decided to switch providers and go with the 8260 because of it's size as well as Nokia's reputation. This phone has more than lived up to my expectations! There have been a few places in the Ann Arbor, MI area where I have gotten poor reception, but I think this is due to the phone coverage rather than the phone itself. I have also found that I can hear my callers better, and clearer than with my previous phone. The buttons and screen are small, but my hands aren't big enough to make the buttons and issue, and my sight is 20/20, and I have no problem reading the screen. If you can press the buttons and read the small screen, this phone is excellent. If, however, you have big hands and / or not so good vision, I would recommend a different phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89354 2000/10/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small many useful features stylish too many people has it small button The Bottom LineGet it, you won't regret, especially for your lady out there! Full Review After the disappointment with the Motorola Talkabout, I decided to choose this pretty red Nokia 8260. She is a little thicker compare to the 8290 and give you better grip while holding it. This telephone is quite slippery especially if you don't want to miss call, it slip out off you hand easily, please also be careful with the small LCD display, it gets scratch easily. Althought I hate to do this, my advise will be, get a leather cover, it might not look cool with the cover, but it will protect. I like Nokia with all the fancy ring tones to select and all the extra accessories you can have to dress up the phone. You will be amazed how many different things you can add to dress up the phone. Try go to the Oriental store. All those cool accessories from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China! My opinion is you better dress up the phone a little to add some personality to it, because you probably see 4 out of 10 people carrying it, since AT &T is promoting it very hard, so do other phone company! I have 7 friends and 4 family members carrying the same phone. Function wise, this phone is easy to use, menu, phone books, different profiles. I like the profiles especially because you can customize different ring tone, beep, or even silence depend on you situation,i.e. when I am entering the library or in a meeting. One thing that I wish the phone will have compare it to Panasonic DuraMax EBTX 220 is the detail phone function. I am sure nowaday everyone has 3-4 phone numbers, home, office, cell etc. The Panasonic DuraMax has a funtion in the phone book where it list all the phone numbers under the one name and one click. When you have to reach this person no matter how? you can just select once it list out all the numbers that person has, call the home, not home, call the office, not there, call the cell... This function also make storing, managing and viewing the phone book easier. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89353 2000/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very functional attractive appearance good size buttons a bit close together Full Review I don't actually own a Nokia 8260, my wife has got one through her work, but I get to use it whenever I need to have a mobile phone on hand. I have to say I really like the look and size of the Nokia 8260. As a modest guy I can carry it in my pocket without ridiculous bulges. It even has an internal antenna. Its a beautiful phone in appearance and functionality. Its also worked perfectly whenever I have used it. I live in Australia and the mobile phone service is notoriously bad so you need a good phone which can pick up the pathetic local signal system. The Nokia seems to work well even in locations where I have had trouble with reception with other mobile phones. I like the feel of this phone and its general appearance but there are one or two annoyances. The top of the screen seems to be hard to read when the batteries get low and the backlighting is not the best I've seen either. The buttons are a bit close together too, although you have to expect that on a compact phone. These are minor quibbles though about what seems to be a very reliable, good sized, well designed phone with a relatively robust construction. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a good mobile phone for business. I looked at buying one myself but the price was a bit steep for a casual user. Recommended: Yes 89352 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great looks poor reception Full Review My girlfriend and I have had this product for a couple of months already. We bought it because we thought it is the best looking and smallest cell phone in the market. It is also the first no antenna cell phone that we can afford. It worked very well for a while and then we started to notice some problems. My girlfriend was complaining to me about dropping calls a lot more often then her previous cell phone (an Ericsson). So we started to do some experiment with the phone since I also have a Nokia (6161) and we are with the same network provider. We tried using our cell phones together in shopping malls and underground parking etc. This result was obvious. My cell phone with antenna was getting signals in spots where her phone didn't. There are also times that her friends have to call my phone to find her since her phone didn't ring in the shopping mall. So you want to buy this phone? Think about where you go normally. If the signal is weak for your existing cell phone with antenna, it is probably going to be weaker for this Nokia. Note: This is an update of my previous opinion. Please check out the other opinion as well for more information. Recommended: Yes 89351 2000/12/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception style email is difficult to use Full Review My father got this phone through his job a few weeks ago. I had heard that this phone was small but good so I asked him if I could try it out. I am not sure what he has to pay for service and how many minutes he gets (I do know that it is nationwide coverage through AT & T), so I cannot comment on whether it is a better deal than say, my Sprint phone. This 8260 phone is just small, but the buttons are comfortable and the use of them is true. I tried the phone in Sacramento, California and the reception was just fine. I heard no static, and there was delay in ringing numbers that I dialed (this sometimes happens on my Sprint, it bothers me). This phone can send and receive emails. It is not easy to use however and would not suggest using it for such. It takes forever to write the emails on the buttons on the phone, and long emails get cut off, which is very frustrating. I have heard that there are some specials where you can get this phone for $20. Do it if you can. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89350 2000/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 sound quality size easily chipsscratches power button small buttons comfort The Bottom LineIf you have AT&T and you need a new phone and don't want to switch, then buy this. But if your not in a contract, avoid this phone. Full Review I just actually sold my phone on Ebay, but at first I loved this phone! But after 9 months, the novelty really wore off with me. Here's why: Size-It is a pretty good size, not that big, but let's face it, a Motorola V flip phone is smaller and more compact. This phone will fit in your pocket, but it's shape does get to annoy you sometimes. Quality-Call were pretty clear on here with AT&T, but now that I have Verizon, I know what clear is. My main complaint is the design of the keypad and power buttons. The buttons are so small, and the power button is a real pain to to press. You must have your keypad locked, otherwise your going to be pressing keys and dialing #'s all day. Another reason, why I prefer a flip phone. My screen scratched easily and paint chipped off all the time. Sure a case would stop that, but those cases are ugly and make the phone bulkier, kinda defeating the whole purpose. Comfort-Phone is just plain uncomfortable to hold. Although the person your speaking to does hear you fine, it's is uncomfortable to hold it to your ear, and your arm will begin to get tired after a few minutes. Once again, a flip phone fits and comforts your ear much better. Battery Life-Excellent for a small phone like this. I really do not recommend this phone, unless you have AT&T and you don't want to switch. This is the best phone ATT has to offer, which is why I just switched to Verizon Wireless the the Motorola v8160, which I am much more happier with. Nokia does make good phones, and overall I still feel this wasn't a bad phone, but I had my qualms..... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 89349 2000/10/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features lightweight price too small for some The Bottom LineGood phone, but you can get basicially the same thing but bigger with the Nokia 5160 for a much better price... FREE! (with rebates) Full Review The Nokia 8260 is a great mobil phone, no doubt about it. It is full of various features from e-mail to voice mail to 40 different ring tones it has it all. I personally love Nokia phones so when I needed another phone I bought the 5160 as my 2nd phone. After using it a while I realized that the 5160 is almost the same phone as the 8260. The differences I found were... -5160 Was Bigger than 8260 (obviously) - 5160 is not compatible with graphics from the nokia website while 8260 is. - 8260 gives you more ring tones to Choose From -8260 came with a vibrating battery (helpful when at a meeting or somewhere where a phone ringing isn't appropriate. Overall I would say that it would be a better desicion to buy the 5160 from Nokia. It is much cheaper and you aren't losing many options. This is why I say I would not reccomend this to my friend. Yes it is a great phone, but I believe you get more for your money with the 5160. However if money is no object to you the 8260 is a great phone. Another con of this phone is that it may be too compact... some people like bigger phones and if you're one of those people the 8260 is definitely not for you! Overall Phone: A- -R16Shortie Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 190.00 89348 2000/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks features size have to use headphones calls more than 5 minutes Full Review Nokia 8260 phone is great by size, functionality, and looks. I had this phone for couple of weeks now. Only thing I don't like which nobody have mentioned in any of opinion posted is that because of the small size,and the antenna build inside the phone, phone gets warm quicker than most of the cell phones out there. If you are making call more than 5 minutes you better use headphone set that it came with or else you will be switching phone from one ear to the other ear. Other than it heats up quicker, its a great phone, Most of times I use headphones to make any calls over 5 minutes. I you can live with that this phone is for you. By the way since it phone body was heating up so quick I went and got a replacement of this phone thinking if it was bad. But my second phone does the same thing. I guess in this phone you can feel the radiation quicker than other phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89347 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features clarity size sometimes hard to see buttons in dark closeness of buttons Full Review When I went to look for a phone, the Nokia 8260 was the one that stood out the most. It's appealing face and it's small size made me purchase this phone over the larger ones. Plus, it comes in three appealing colors: midnight blue, red, and silver. It has a lot of cool features like text messaging, e-mail access, vibrating alert with ring tones and as a ring setting, and how you can just put it right into your pocket conveniently. The only thing I really don't like is how close the buttons are and sometimes in the dark, the lit up buttons are hard to define. Other than that, its an awesome phone with a lot of style and convenience. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 w/out rebate. 89346 2001/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek accessories small cute pricey non standard headset jack The Bottom LineGreat phone, you won't even know you have it with except when it rings. Full Review Ever since Cameron Diaz flashed her cute Nokia 8000 series on Charlie's Angels, I knew I had to have one. So when my Ericsson R280LX started acting up, I knew it was time. I was tired having big, bulky cell phones. Anyone who sees this has to admit that it is cute and fashionably sophisticated. I promptly went and purchased the body glove case. Now, I can have the phone in my purse, around my neck or on my belt. It is still accessible. So, I would have been satisfied with the basics but to my surprise when the phone rang for the first time (I was at Funtime USA amidst chaos searching for my cousin)I felt a buzz at my side. It was like whoa!! I don't need to buy a vibrating battery or module, the battery that comes with it has vibrating capability. I see the headset, and start doing a cheer in my mind. I am thinking that Nokia is the bomb. It looks like I can use my headset from my cordless phone, but it was just a mirage. The Nokia headset jack has two little lines at the end and the regular headsets have one; so, the regular headset cannot be used with this phone. However, the phone comes with a headset. It is not the best available out there, but it is functional. So where's the antenna...it is integrated into the phone so there's nothing sticking out of the phone. My fiance thinks that this is a flaw in his words "poor engineering". His other objection to me buying the phone was that the keys were too small. He figured that if I bought the phone, he should also be able to use it. So, this phone is a bit pricey... If you have extra money to burn or just willing to spend the extra bucks for sheer sophistication with all the necessary cell phone attributes... I say go for it!!! Plus, lots of places are selling it cheaper with new activation (Buy.com has it for $79.99). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 134.99 89345 2000/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity looks size on off button a bit difficult no flip cover Full Review Cool design, great colors, all the features of the best Nokia phones, and fits in my pocket. I've got a thick thumb, but use the keypad with ease -- even to score 800+ on snake. I was surprised at the reception with a built-in antenna, but have no trouble hearing and being heard clearly, even while driving down Hazel Ave. (If you live on the east of Sacramento, you know what I mean -- choose your own street in other towns.) Easily scolls through 250 stored names and numbers, and allows for different rings for different groups of people. I always no when the call is coming from my wife's cell phone or home, or from the boss -- which I always answer (he maybe reading this). I did like the flip cover on my 6162, and this does not have that feature. Locking the keypad is a necessary evil. I also found the on/off switch difficult to press. But that's it. Everything else, battery life, sound quality, size and weight, looks -- it's a winner. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39 89344 2000/4/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive stlying many features compact size lack of color selection feels too delicate The Bottom Linethe 8260 is a very appealing phone for everyone with only minor flaws. it is small, yet feature rich. if only it was a little better looking.... Full Review the nokia 8260 is a great phone, that will catch everyones attention. i have been through many cellular phones, due to my terrible luck with them. i have gone through three top of the line phones in two years, and have found nokias to be most favorable. the elegant styling, quality technology, and superfulous amounts of features are what keep me using their products. whenever i buy a phone i also expect it to look good, or else i do not feel it is worth my money. my last phone was the nokia 8860, which i loved, but unfortunately it was stolen. i went back to the store to buy another 8860, only to find its production was halted. instead i saw the 8260, and thought it to be suitable for myself, although not as tantalizing to my senses as the elegant, chrome plated, 8860. the one i purchased was blue, which i found quite a dull color, after previously having a very beautiful phone, it was a sacrifice. luckily it is possible to change the faceplate with a special screwdriver and faceplates purchased online. it is quite a hassle, but worth it. the phone itself is very functional. i love the voice, and text messaging, which can be used for sending and recieving email on the run. it also has games that make the daily commute more enjoyable. as for reception, that is a quetionable matter, which probably depends on your provider, but in my area, i lack service a few miles away from my house, but can recieve coverage though many states. as for the structure of the phone, its screen is very nice and clear, but the back light is not as appealing as i would have hoped. the buttons also feel of low quality, being hard plastic with no added friction. as for size it is perfect, small and compact, with a nice feel in your hand. battery life is also great with up to 8 days stand by, i rarely charge my phone, and the rapid charge is very quick. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89343 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 pocket size lightweight leather case it came with slips off belt The Bottom LineIf you're not into bulk, this is a good, clear phone. Full Review After researching the phones available with the phone plan I chose, I decided on the Nokia 8260 and love it. I use it exclusively now. It has more functions than I will ever use. It literally fits into my shirt pocket and is so light you can't even tell it's there. I plug it in before bed and it stays charged for at least 2 days. I've used the hands-free mic and admit I didn't have a lot of faith in it at first, it just sort of dangles there, but no one could tell I was using it because it sounds perfect. I love the one-button dialing, it has a huge phone book and a lighted dial. I also like how you can set up certain callers to ring in different rings. I always know when my dad is calling cause it plays the Simpson's theme. There are tons of rings on it already and tons more to choose from online. The only very minor drawback I would say is that in comes standard in red or blue, I would have preferred dark grey or black. The other bummer is it came with a black leather case with a belt clip. That is no good. It slipped right off my belt and I didn't even feel it. Lucky for me some honest person saw it and returned it to me. I spent $10.00 to get a hard plastic holster that the phone snaps into place. I am very happy with this purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89342 2000/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size new features non Full Review I work in the cellular phone business and have tried out everything from the old school brick phone to the nokia 7160. I have to tell you this is a HOT LITTLE PHONE. I love the fact that I can fit it into my jeans pocket and it doesn't take up to much space, also you don't have to worry about missing a call because it VIBRATES. My major reason for getting this phone is that the headset adapter is on the side with a metal adapter not a plastic one that clips on the bottom (with the bottom adapters I found they could break easier). The case on this phone is superb too, it fits on your waist sideways rather than longways. The whole phone is more user friendly (size, weight, and the colors are great) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89306 2000/2/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight two way text messaging internal vibe alert enhanced nokia features very compact size might be delicate occasional missed calls very minor antenna not as good The Bottom LineSmall, light, better Nokia firmware, excellent noise cancellation, quick charging, internal vibe. Surprisingly durable. May not be best choice if you are in a fringe area. Full Review I've owned and used the Nokia 8260 for nearly three months. The cell phone is always with me, as it is my primary means of professional and social contact. On average, I use the phone between 400 and 1000 minutes per month. While this phone is not for everyone, it's perfect for me. I've used cell phones for years, and have owned various Motorolas (including the StarTAC) and flip and non-flip lid versions of the Nokia 6100 series. This is easily my most favorite phone. It's light, compact and inobtrusive. Here are a few reasons: * The lock function is better--you can't accidentally hit the Talk button and call out (unlike previous versions). * The long awaited two-way messaging and associated T9 predictive text entry function is quite handy. * Noise reduction is greatly improved--it kills a lot of road noise, making life easier for people you call. * The phone is smaller, therefore I don't drop it as much. I've probably trashed three Nokia 6100 series phones. Why? They're bigger, and tend to get popped off my belt or rammed into objects (desks, elevator doors, etc.). This phone, being smaller, is simply in the way less. * This phone charges faster: smaller battery, lower power electronics all make for short charging time. With the included fast charger, it's done in 1-2 hours. The phone seems to be a bit delicate, and I exercise care to avoid dropping it. However, it did survive a turbulent night on a dance floor of a busy electronica club--to be returned later by a bartender. A little scratched it was, but surprisingly, the display was intact. Still works fine too. Also, I'd note that the antenna is not as good as the Nokia 6100--it does occasionally (less than 5 times per month) miss a call or sound noisy. However, this problem is simply not an issue to me, as these problems can also be an issue with AT&T Wireless Services (I've had calls roll directly to voice mail in a full reception area). Overall, this is the phone for me! PS. If you have an old Nokia headset, or any other "standard" 1/8" barrel plug headset, it will NOT work with this phone--same plug width, different tip. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89305 2000/7/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small powerful nothing to speak of The Bottom LineIf you carry a cell phone with you all the time, the 8260 is perfect. Full Review You can say (and my friends often do) that I am a complete cell phone 'geek'. I've had a cell phone ever since they first came out with the 3-watt car-phone in 1988. So, as a 'geek', when something new has come out, I am usually one of the first to at least try it out. And, I am very impressed with my Nokia 8260. The three most important features for me were it's size, range and messaging. All three come together for me, since I am a 7x24 technician that has to be available at all hours of the day and night. Also, the added feature of text messaging allows me to use it as a phone and a pager. It is much easier to have one phone that a phone and a pager along with me at all times. You would think that a phone with no visible antenna would lessen it's ability to make and receive calls. After having the phone for over 8 months, I have seen no difference at all between the 8260 and the 5120 and 6120 phones I had before. And in those fringe areas of coverage, you aren't going to be making any calls at all with any handheld phone anyway. As far as size, I also compared the 8260 with the StarTAC. Although the size are about the same (the StarTac is a touch wider), the features of messaging and Caller ID aren't available until you open the StarTAC anyway. I highly recommend the 8260 cellular phone. It costs more than others, but if you have it with you 24 hours a day, it will be worth every extra penny. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 89304 2000/4/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight stylish good reception easy to use long battery life small display scratches easily plastic fragile expensive The Bottom LineThis phone looks cool! Built-in features are convenient & useful(vibra-alert, text, etc.). High quality electronics, but low quality plastic housing - wish it was made of metal. Full Review When I first saw the 8260 I knew right away I had to have it. Thanks to a special promotion by a local wireless service provider, I was able to purchase the 8260 for just $99 (along with a hefty service contract). Prior to the 8260, I had a 6120. I have been very pleased with the reception quality and battery life of both Nokia phones. The 8260 is easy to learn (upon reading the owner's manual). The buttons are a bit small, but I don't have any problems using them (someone with large fingers may). For fun, the phone has a LOT of ringtones and has the ability to 'recieve' new ringtones. Text messaging is a piece-of-cake and has proven to be very handy among my colleagues and I. The screen on the 8260 has managed to get some pretty deep scratches on even (even with the great care I take in protecting it). There are also some dust particles in between the phone housing and the LCD, which is going to require disassembly to clean out. Along with this, the phone's housing tends to "creak" while you handle it (because of all the plastic). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89303 2000/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great for little people i m not a little person The Bottom LineThere is such a thing as too small. Full Review I bought the phone for the same reason most people do- it's tiny. It fits in the pocket, and I don't have to walk around with a phone clipped on my belt looking like a dork. That was appealing. I have had the whole gamut of phones- from the the ludicrously large first ones to the small-but-awkward StarTac. This was the most obvious sequel I guess. But I'm 6'3". I have big hands. The phone is too small. Dialing is awkward. Try and dial with one hand, you'll have to contort your fingers back to reach the keys. The keys are small. My fingers are big. I dial the wrong number all the time. When I hold this thing up to my head, I must look ridiculous. No one sees the phone. It looks like I'm walking around with my fist on my ear. And one of the worst features is that because of its size, the vibrate function barely registers. And if the three tiny ear-holes are blocked, you won't hear it ring either. So basically, I bought a tiny phone to keep in my pocket which you can neither feel nor hear when it's in your pocket. I have missed many calls. This is not just true for me- I have two friends with this phone who are usually in loud environments. They complain about the weak vibrate and ring as well. I have no problems with the interface. It's pretty standard. The phone is cute. It does its job. It's just too small for taller folks with big hands. I feel like I'm playing house every time I make a phone call. I'm sure my girlfriend would love it. She's small. And perhaps a busy 7 year-old would enjoy the size. Or a bunny. Just not me. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89302 2000/3/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 email options games to keep you occupied long lasting battery durable no large choice of colors no calendar option buttons are confusing The Bottom Line A good phone, offering new services, however I think the wiser option would be to wait for better cell phones with the same options plus refinements to come out. Full Review Cell phones have taken many large steps in the past few years. Remember those ones that were the size of a cordless phone, weighed a ton, and lasted 20 minutes of talk time? Well look where we are now, the Nokia 8260. This new cell phone technology has basically turned the cell phone into a mini computer as well. The Nokia 8260 is a very light phone, and very flat, perfect for a lot of travel. The clarity is good, enough to hear the person on the other end clearly, which should be enough clarity for anyone. In addition,you can send emails from the Nokia 8260! You can check and send your mail whenever you want now, a feature that i definitely think will take off in the months and years to come. I think that more color options would make the Nokia 8260 more popular...after all, everyone might not want to be seen with an electric blue phone or a red pepper one. A calendar to help list upcoming meetings or events would also have improved the quality of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 239.99 89301 2000/5/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of features good battery life fits into pocket easily too small reception isn t great The Bottom LineA small sleek phone with a ton of features and whose biggest opponent is its size. Full Review I walked into the wireless store ready to get a new cell phone. I had the StarTac and I thought it was decent but it was time for me to get a new phone. I wanted something sleek, stylish, with lots of features. But I wasn't going on just looks, I wanted a good phone. And I got the Nokia 8260 but I haven't been overwhelmed by it. First off, this phone comes packed with features. Now, some of them are pretty stupid, like the calendar because entering appointments with a tiny phone pad is the biggest pain in the neck. However, it's still there for people who use it. Next, is the size. I didn't want one of those huge phones and being a guy I don't carry a little bag where I could dig my phone out of, so I wanted something that would slip into my pants pocket, with ease, without me constantly thinking how big and annoying this phone feels in my pocket. And this phone fits into your pocket great, and you don't even need to think about it. Something I really like is the vibrate options. If your in a loud restaurant/bar/party or in a very quiet place, the vibrate option is awesome. I keep it on vibrate all the time (but you can easily switch it via the power button to a number of different settings which you can configure). The battery life too is great. I had the phone on all day, came up threw it down and didn't turn it off/didn't charge it and it still had a good amount of battery left when I woke up the next morning. These things I love about this phone. But then your making a call, and the phone it's just so small. First, it feels like your talking into thin air, which is a lot better than those huge phones but it's like your talking to someone who isn't even there. Second, the buttons. The buttons are so small that anyone who has fingers bigger than a 10 year old is going to have a hard time with this phone. Many times, I'm plugging in a number and I hit the wrong button because the buttons are so small. In addition, the call quality didn't blow me away. It's not horrible but I've been on some other people's cell phones and the clarity is just, wow. If you can get over the small phone/keys, the clarity really shouldn't be a problem for you. The features are nice but I still can't say I would get this phone again. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 89300 2000/1/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 aesthetics features slightly lower signalcall quality Full Review It's seductive isn't it? The small size of the phone, the glitzy aesthetics, and all the rest really tempt you into buying this phone. But here's why you might think twice: (1) The internal antenna is not quite as good as the external antenna on the 6100 series. Although reception is fine in major metropolitan areas, the difference "makes a difference" in more suburban and otherwise remote areas. So if you travel a lot, outside highly populous areas, you might have problems getting coverage. (2) Call clarity. Again, there is a slight decline in call quality relative to the 6100 series -- possibly due to the antenna as well. And by the same token, while the difference is not particularly noticeable in large cities, it is more noticeable in remote areas -- even relative to a 6100 series phone used in the same locale. Figure out where you will use the phone, and let that drive the decision. If you are in a big city all the time, get the phone. If not, you might reconsider. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 89299 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight compact great features price Full Review When I was shopping for a cell phone recently, I came across many different models, plans and accessories. Being one of the newer cell phones on the market, the 8260 immediately jumped out at me. Not only was it light and small, it also had an attractive look to it. The text messaging option is a great accessory feature of the phone, making it quick and easy to keep in touch with friends and family. Downloading ringtones is a breeze, and you get the functionality of e-mail, a calculator, and a calendar. I've even seen faceplates available for this model of phone available over the internet. All in all the nokia 8260 is a great phone for anyone looking to buy a nice, modern cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89298 2002/8/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 nice looking small changeable appearance ringtones reception stinks at t burns ear after a short period of time not a flip fragile The Bottom LineOnly buy if you don't plan on talking much ever. Full Review This was my first cell phone. I bought it for superficial reasons...i didn't really NEED a cell - for business or much for pleasure either. So at first it seemed like bargain. That was just over 1 year ago. I am writing this to warn all potential buyers since i feel that most reviewers of the 8620 have not owned the phone for too long. In my experience, this phone is not much more than a fad. It's little. Yay. You can change faceplates (more difficult than the 8290, but still possible) and ringtones. Woopdee doo. You get over that real fast when you try focusing on sturdiness and functionality -- or lack thereof. First off, about 6 months ago, I began noticing a rattling in my headpiece. After researching on the internet, I carefully removed the antenna and cover to reveal a tiny loose screw. This upset me because I'd thought it to be just a bit of beach sand or something along those lines and not a loose part. I painstakingly screwed back in the tiny screw with an xacto knife, covered it back up and went about my business. It began rattling again a few weeks ago. I dropped my Nokia once. It works just fine, but that big scratch on the plastic really turns me off. About 2 months ago, I cancelled my regular land line. Since my roomate who was sharing the bill, decided to not pay any longer (don't ask), I figured I'd just use my cell...and why not? Well, 2 very big reasons. 1-the damn thing nearly ignites your ear after 8-10 minutes of usage. I have to take breaks between parents when I call home because of the burning. It's actually kinda funny how they know : "mom will call you in ten minutes after the phone cools down" Well, acutally it's not very funny at all. Actually, it really stinks. 2- AT&T in New York is terrible. Sorry guys, I'd love to help you out, but I'm gonna have to switch to Verizon. The reception is just awful. I think it may be a combination of the phone and the service, but sometimes i can't even hear the person calling me if they're from anywhere beyond a 30 mile radius. Other times I will hear ok, but others will say that I am "breaking up." Others who are on their land line. AT&T just offered to waive one month of service charges in exchange for my signing up for another year. Again, sorry - time to figure out why people are going to Verizon here in NY. Still, this could be the phone, in which case my sincere apologies to AT&T. The bottom line is: don't bother with this phone if you really intend to use it. If you're a teenager who likes to play with toys, and try and impress other teenagers with faceplates and ringtones then go ahead. Just remember to lock that damn keypad every time you're done telling mommy you won't be home for dinner. Oh, and I forgot - no Web for Nokia, huh? I really like Nokia and I hope they try and keep up with the others because it seems like they are lagging a bit. They also have no flip phones at this time. I really used to hate flips, but ever since I accidentally called everyone in my phone book at least once at 2AM, I've changed my mind. So, until Nokia decides to work on something a little bit more advanced technologically, rather than spending time making pretty colored faceplates, I'll be enjoying my Motorola. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89297 2000/2/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 little good colors new look of a phone someone might get jeloustake it you could lose it The Bottom LineWhy i would recommend this phone is because its light weight send email. I am just recommening it because its a good product. Full Review I would get this phone because. It has striking good looks and an impressive list of features, Its small to fit in you hand. You get up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time, and 8 days of digital standby time and 1.5 hours analog. Its very light. It hold 5 downloadable ring tones. It have internal vibra alert .you can send email and do all sorts of things with this phone I would recommened it a lot. You can support up to seven languages English, French,Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Chinese)you to set an alert sound for designated callers while other calls alert you silently . With the dtx it makes the battery life longer UP TO 30% thats a lot. You can send and recevie short messages Predictive text input you can send email and get the phone in different colors its Only 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89296 2000/2/24 Product Rating5.0 stylish at t great battery life affordable the nokia 8260 is compact not the most feature rich phone dial pad keys are cramped The Bottom LineGreat phone. And It is 99.9% user friendly. Text messaging, and downloadable sounds and graphics this phone is a lot of fun too! Full Review Size Does Matter on Cell Phones I love the size, general quality and feel and the text feature. The phone was made in my breast pocket. Tiny, easy to carry. Customize the phone with faceplates and ringtones SMS is awesome, faceplates and ringtones now available everywhere, ATT service unsurpassed. The custom graphics and ringtones are a nice touch. Email ability The keys are ergonomic even though small. The clairvoyant text messaging makes writing short messages or emails easy (you have to turn this feature on). It roams on analog, vital in the US. And the reception is just as good as my old 6160. One suggestion, though, is too improve the volume, it is hard to hear people on the phone when you are in a loud environment. However, it has a cheap build quality even in comparison to other Nokias- does not feel solid- feels "flexible". Tiny Keys on phone Inferior On/Off button is tiny- mine easily jams in the down position when it is pressed. Somehow I have visible dust clinging to inside of display glass after a few months. Antenna and Signal Strength Was worried that lack of external antenna might cause poor signal reception - so far, phone has done VERY well. The reception can be poor inside of almost any building. Love the battery life and phone book memory. I am having so much fun showing off my phone and now that I have discovered how to customize the rings with downloads off the Internet it is even better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89295 2000/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 size internal antennae Full Review I bought this phone because of its size. If im going to carry around something everywhere I go, everyday, then I want the lightest phone there is... and that's the 8260. For the most part, I have to say its a great phone. I love the size, the messaging is great, but still takes awile to write an email, even with the patented predictive text technology. The main reason why I would like to put a review here is because of the internal antennae. I previously owned the 6120 and had great success with signal reception. I cannot say the same thing with my 8260. In fact I am somewhat dissapointed and would like you to learn from my experience... If you know you live in a building that may interfere with the signal, then test out someone else's 8260 before buying it. The best phone is the one that works, I dont care how small it is! Additionally, I cracked the center plastic by keeping in my back pocket. Again, used to be able to do that with the 6160, not with the 8260. If the signal where you live and work is good, get this phone. If your not sure, be sure then decide from there. I hope this review was helpful to you. Also, I have not been able to download ring tones like the at&t representative advertised. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89294 2002/7/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small size long battery life buttons not as responsive bulkier than the 8290 The Bottom LineIt's small but not as small as other offerings, it has good features but some drawbacks. For value it's great. Full Review The 8260 is the CDMA version of the 8290 designed for GSM networks. As everyone now knows, the 8290 is extinct as it was problematic (it broke too easily). The 8260 is bulkier than its predecessor but it is a little more sturdy. Almost too sturdy. Removing the batter cover is nearly impossible. The buttons are stiff, do not depress easily, and sometimes do not respond as one would like. The battery life on the phone however, is excellent and so are many of the features. Nokia's menu for the phone is terrific as it is by far the easiest cell phone you will ever use. Your calls are usually clear, although you will experience a hiss almost all the time. The headset works clearly and effectively. The ringer and vibrate should be cause for concern though. In my experience it is sometimes not loud enough for one to hear. If you are at a party and it is in a pocket of your cargo pants, there is no way you will know that a phone call is coming in. As a matter of fact, you might not notice it in a loud restaurant either. AT&T is the only service provider for this phone that I know of and they generally have decent service with a wide coverage area but staticy calls. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 89293 2000/12/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 charlie s angels uses them size reception Full Review This phone is very similar to the Motorola V8160 phone I have with Verizon right now. The reception quality is similar in both phones and they are both very small. I ended up going with the Motorola partly due to Verizon's better rates for 2 people on one plan and problems with the AT&T sales rep. I originally signed up with AT&T, but later returned the phone. As far as the phone itself, the positives include its small size and weight. This phone is very convenient to carry around, unlike my old Sprint phone, which was a monster. Useful features include a calendar and calculator, and a few games to kill time. The headset included with it is very convenient, I found it using it quite a bit. Now, the bads. Due to its small size, the buttons are rather small, and sometimes it is easy to fat-finger the buttons when you dial. Also, it does not come with a clip (one reason why I went with the Motorola). Since it is not a flip phone, if you are not using the headset, I found it rather awkward talking and listening at the same time due to its small size. Finally, the reception quality is only average. It suffered more from bad spots (just like my Motorola) than other larger phones I've used. I'm pretty sure it's not the carrier, as a friend of mine had a Nokia 8800 series phone (I think) with AT&T and his phone's reception was great. It does not however, suffer from the hollow sound quality that affects my Motorola. Overall, a pretty decent phone. I would recommend this phone to others. For me, the lack of a clip (I've replaced my pager) and bad AT&T service, along with a better Verizon plan lured me to spend $200 more to go with Verizon and Motorola. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89292 2000/3/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size clear reception very long lasting battery very cute easily gets scratches very small buttons The Bottom LineBuy this phone, its not that expensive and it will last for a very long time. Its compact and durable. And the reception is excellent. Full Review This is such a cute phone. I just got a cell phone for the first time, and I am very very satisfied with this phone, and no, not just because of its cuteness. First of all, the best thing about Nokia phones, is the life of the battery. It lasts almost 5-6 hours before you have to recharge it, and then you only have to charge it for about 5 hrs, and it is fully charged again. I greatly like this feature, because often you don't have time to charge or you are away from your home and can't charge it so it works out nicely. Also, its the perfect size. It's small so it fits in any purse or even your pocket if you aren't caring a bag. But its not too small to loose either. It's very convenient. Also, the reception is great, which I know is not the actual phone but your service, but I thought because of the smallness of the phone, it would be difficult to hear when speaking, but its not at all. It has very good sound. Also, the ring is not too loud but not too quiet either. Overall, this is a very good phone and I really suggest it to anyone who is in the market for a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 (50%off) 89291 2000/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish no big antenna easy to carry unique customizable hard to answer calls small buttons easy to misplace lot of radiation The Bottom LineThis phone is the best phone for both adults and kids. it is affordable, nice looking and very portable. Full Review This phone, like many other nokia phones is customizable to suit your own individual tastes. It is easy to carry around because of its small size, and you won't be carrying the same phone as everyone else because you can customize it. i have had my phone for about 3 months now and i like it a lot more than the larger 5190 phone. that phone was a pretty small phone during its time, but its time is over. this is the new phone. This phone is also affordable. i got mine for about 50 dollars. there are many different plans available for the phone. if you get a realy good deal, you can get free nights, weekends, text messaging and mobile to mobile. so basically the only time you are being charged is when you talk during the weekkdays in the mornings. some bad things about this phone is that sometimes the buttons can be hard to push. also, the radiation from the internal antenna CAN cause cancer. to deal with the cancer issue, nokia gives you a free earpiece with every phone you purchase. the earpiece is a hands free piece of equipment to make it easier to talk on the phone while driving. it also helps reduce the chance of getting cancer. also, since the antenna is internal, the reception is not as good as the larger phones with external antennas. i recommend this phone to anyone that needs a cell phone. it is better than all the rest. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89290 2000/4/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 options size instruction manual The Bottom LineWell worth the price if you would like more options and portability than previous Nokia models. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is a great buy for those who never can seem to find a place for that huge hand sized cell phone. A phone small enough to fit into your jean pocket with having to make a tremendous effort to fit it in, but not so small that you'd lose it very easily. The range of options from a calendar, calculator and email is much better than many of the previous models, my only qualms being on the instruction manual which neglects to instruct one on how exactly to send email from the phone. Make sure you contact your service provider about this as I thought perhaps my phone was malfunctioning when email kept getting sent back. The only options I'd like to see are an interchangeable cover for the phone so you can change the color to what you actually want rather than the three standard colors that are available. As well, a battery with a longer life than two days, as it seems the vibrator option on this phone drains batteries like you've never seen before. But overall, it's a good quality phone with as much power as it's larger counterparts. Well worth the price paid. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89289 2001/2/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 portability size size The Bottom LineGood phone, just not right for me. Full Review I was really excited when I bought my 8260 phone, since I had been a long-time user of Nokia phones and have been very happy with their quality. The problem I have with the 8260 is that it is just too small (I can't believe I am saying that!!). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the portability of the phone, I through it in my pocket and off I go. The problem for me with the size is that if you are driving, walking or otherwise on the move it is very difficult to cradle the phone between your ear and shoulder (to free both hands to write something, or get something out of your pocket). A way around this problem is to use the ear bud and microphone. I find this difficult to use, because the cord always gets tangled-up in my pocket. I have been using the phone for about 4 months, but will probably switch to one of the slender flip-phones. They have similar portability, but are longer when flipped open, so I can cradle with my shoulder. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89288 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish lightweight small portable inexpensive buttons hard to press small unable to change faceplate Full Review This phone is absolutely amazing. It is incredibly lightweight and small, and very portable. The battery time is also very good. There are a couple of bad things though too. If you don't press the button hard enough, it doesn't work. Also, the buttons are very small. Sometimes, while not paying attention and pressing buttons, you can easily press two buttons at once, or the wrong button. Also, another bad thing is that you cannot change the faceplate! I know, I know, very disappointing. If you buy a blue phone, you have to keep it blue, and if you buy the carbon grey phone, you have to keep it carbon grey. I also like this phone though because for its size and ability, it is very inexpensive. For $200, you really get your money's worth. Finally, anyone who desires to be popular at school or work must buy this phone. It is very stylish and attracts a lot of attention from other people around. Overall, I recommend this phone to pretty much everyone. Spend the extra $100 over the other nokia series and buy one of these! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89287 2000/12/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very light slick looking e mail technology no outside antenna small buttons Full Review I have been using cell phones for many years now, since they first came out. I tried several different manufactures, however, I still believe that Nokia phones are truly one of the best in the market today. I recently upgraded mine to the Nokia 8260 model and I honestly love it. The small size makes it easy for woman to throw inside their purses or for men to easily slip in their jacket or pant pockets. I find it very easy to use and very convenient that it rings and vibrates at the same time without having to program it. It also sold me because the antenna is not visible. It's inside the phone. You will not bend or break like the others. The calendar feature reminds me of doctor and meeting appointments. The calculator has also come in handy while I am out on the road. I believe that the $199 price is well worth it. I also bought one for my husband and asked him to try it out for 30 days and if he didn't like it, we would exchange it for a different model. It's been 2 months and all he told me was "It's a Keeper!" It comes in 3 different colors, and it's so light that you will truly enjoy having this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89286 2000/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 can figure where all the pieces go after falling out great to take apart just one the one off switch takes quite a bit of pressure to activate maybe The Bottom LineIt's just a neat phone, does it's job, has lots of features. Full Review I purchased this phone in dec 00, and it does me well. Reception is no worse than any other cell phone in my area. Sounds clear and has long lasting battery. I got the red one, but hated the Low intensity green led's, so I changed them to orange, much brighter, cooler, and a fun project for me. I don't recommend you do this ......... unless you can solder very small (smd-surface mounted devices) on a small board. The led's surprised me as they are the size of a grain or yeast, if you ever saw some! This phone is SMALL, but unlike star-tac phones you never have to fiddle with opening it up (unfolding). Has plenty of features, check it out, I won't waste time writing them all. Nice conversation piece, and I think rugged enough. I threw it at my dog, well he just came in from outside and was whining to go out again after 5 mins (oh for the animal lovers out there, I missed, so be cool). It had only a small scratch from that one after it hit the kitchen table and fell on the parkay floor. Still worked perfectly. Internal antenna is a plus. Well, get out there and get one ... ehhh. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 89285 2000/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 calculator fancy small light coverage text messaging email diary calender phonebook plasticky almost tooo small fiddly little keypad battery removal The Bottom LineFor ther person who want's a small phone, its an absolute MUST! It can be used on AT&T and Verizon networks. Otherwise look elsewhere Full Review I was still hauling around a 5125 until recently and decided it might be time for a change. All my friends had small pocket sized phones and I thought I would join the race. There are two providers, Vodafone (GSM) and Telecom (TDMA). I'm with the latter on an old deal I got when I joined up so I wanted to stay. I searched around for a new phone and found What I was after in the 8260. A: a large phonebook. I'm quite popular so a large phonebook with the caller grouping was quite important. B: Text messaging I send a lot of these. the phone is small and light and can do the predictive text, less keypresses for me. C: Small and light I'ts so small it's almost too small! i'm okay as I have thin fingers but for someone who has larger fingers, it could be a serious problem! D: Appointment scheduling. I am a bust person so a calender with appointments and reminders is a MUST for myself. I can now ditch that digital diary. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89284 2000/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size interface reception battery life none Full Review As the need to be in touch and available grew for me. (Surgical Practice, Four Kids, etc), I decided that the Nokia 6210 mounted in the car was forgotten there too often. So I started looking for a small "personal" phone. I have owned Star*Tac and Ericsson but neither had the features or reception I found satisfying. I love the display/user interface of Nokia, esp. the profiles. Star*Tacs aren't even close to that convenience. Ericsson has always disappointed me with their reception in our area. Also, I find their menu system counter-intuitive. As for the Nokia 8260, the size is amazing, truly palm-size. The display is sharp and large and the keys, though small, are very thoughtfully placed and easy to access correctly. Reception has been outstanding and I am talking in South Louisiana. Battery life is tremendous, no less than 5 days on the stock battery. The extended battery nearly doubles that with my daily use. To be honest, there is nothing I can find to dislike about this phone. Frankly, I would recommend this to anyone who needs a cell phone. P.S. We have just gotten SMS service now and this probably means the end for my pager, as well. One less gadget to carry! If you are getting a new cell phone - get this one while you can!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89283 2000/12/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact phone with amazing clarity sleek it is awfully small Full Review First of all, let me tell you that I am new to this whole "wireless" thing. I recently got back from Japan, a land where everyone and their dog owns one of the things, and the longer I have been back, the more I have decided I need one. Finally I caved in, and I bought a phone. Why the 8260? The reason I bought the 8260 is twofold. First, the sales guy talked it up pretty good. The second reason is because AT&T had a promo where I got 155 bucks back, making the phone a reasonable 44 dollars. I was sceptical at first, because the phones that were as small as the 8260 in Japan were worthless. The letters were impossibly small and forget about signal quality - you'd have to have your conversation through a thick layer of static. After using the phone, though, I was very impressed by it. The sound quality is (when signal is at 4 bars) as good as a 900 mHz cordless. You couldn't even tell that I was on a cell phone. It doesn't have a guard plate over the keys, but the keyguard function in the internal menu is a good fix for that. The menus are organized rationally and are easy to flip through. However, I don't recommend using the e-mail function unless you want to spend 20 minutes writing a little 5 sentence message. (That is a gripe with all phones with e-mail capabilities.) Another thing worth mentioning is the super long battery life. I charge it maybe 1-2x/week and the power bar on the LCD is accurate and easy to interpret Who needs this? Anyone and everyone. The lack of an external antenna is a real boon - I hate those little twiggy things that tend to catch on things and/or break. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 retail, 44.00 after rebates 89282 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life features great style voice quality small buttons not suitable for all Full Review I purchased this to replace my Analog mode Motorola StarTac phone. I was tired of the short battery like of the StarTac and it's lack of features (analog remember). I was initially interested in the 8260 for it's design and small size and decided to purchase it. It's tri-mode operation (with the AT&T plan) provides excellent coverage in the SF Bay area. While initially concerned by the size of the phone (small) I'm very happy to say that it's not a problem. I'm not sure how much use I'll get out of the bidirectional e-mail capabilities but the phone quality is great (for digital) and it's battery like is amazing. I charged it once and have been using it for 3 days with the battery still showing >75% charge. I'm very happy with the purchase and recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 95 89281 2002/7/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 high tech nice looking small takes a little getting used to The Bottom LineThe sleekness and small size of this phone actually take a bit of getting used to, but the convenience and technology are worth the switch! Full Review I got this phone a couple of months ago because it was the one with the highest list price that I could get for free with a plan. Previously, I lived in Europe and had a Nokia in the 5000 series - big and clunky. I'm still getting used to this one, however sleeker it might be. First, it seems to have a much shorter battery life. It promises 8 days of standby, but it seems to run out after 3 for me. I hardly ever recieved or made calls during this time, so I'm not sure where my batteries are going. My suspicion is that the keypad might be getting pressed somehow, and although I keep my keypad locked, the phone still lights up and gives a 'locked' message, thus using more batteries than if it was really on standby. Second, although this is by far better looking and hi-tech phone, I kind of miss the 'substantialness' of my old one. This is so light that I wouldn't notice if it was missing, and when I make calls, it's hard to keep it against my ear correctly. The phone is certainly more hi-tech than older models. For one, there is an infared port on the side. You can use this to communicate with other phones or with a handheld as a modem. I've never used this feature, but I've been able to connect to my handheld just as a test. It's amazing! Also, the calendar feature allows you to use this in place of an organizer or handheld. The space for saving names is also much longer than on other phones - all of my contacts are listed with both first and last names. Some people complain about the small size of the keypad, but I've never had a problem writing text or dialing numbers. Despite all the complaining I've done above, I really do recommend this phone. It just takes a little getting used to for somebody accustomed to clunky, substantial, older technology. Get a good holder for the phone, and you'll be on your way! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.01 89280 2000/7/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use color size durability easy to text message clarity of sound hard to change faceplates The Bottom LineIf you want small size and big performance, here it is! Full Review For those who want a small and durable phone, this is the perfect phone. Sending e-mail and text messages is so easy (with the predictable text). The best part is that the phone can go anywhere with you because of it's tiny size. I personally have small hands so holding it wasn't a problem. I was an owner of a Nokia 5190... although that one had changeable faceplates, this one is a lot more durable. I've dropped it so many times and nothing would happen to the phone. The lack of a color choice does limit your creativity, but I'd rather take the durability instead. It is possible to change the faceplates in the 8260, but it is more difficult than the 8290 and the 5100 series. I bought the phone because there was a rebate from Nokia and AT&T (which made the phone free). The amount I paid was before the rebate. I have been a happy user since. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89279 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size no service in my area Full Review I love entering sweepstakes and have won many nice prizes my latest win was the Nokia 8260 and a years service! I was thrilled and after receiving my prize I found out the service for it wasn't offered in my area yet! Its too advanced, they said try back in a couple of months. Some of the wonderful features of this tiny compact phone are, it includes a phonebook that can store up to 250 names and associates phone numbers. It has a extended Li-lon battery which offers 2-3 hours of digital talk time and up to 8 days of digital standby time.It can send and receive email messages and text. It has a personal assistant feature to wake you up in the morning and remind you of important events!It even has a calendar.You can even play games on it,Memory,Snake,Logic and Rotation. Some of the set network features are voice privacy,call waiting, call forwarding and sending own number.It even comes with a hands free headset. I can't wait to try this baby out!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 89278 2000/8/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery life downloadable rings small factory messes up a lot of them poor coverage The Bottom LineEh, nothing too jazzy. Want good features and a phone that might fall apart someday? Well, then get this phone. As for me, it's a little too unreliable and unusable. Full Review I have had my Nokia 8260 for a long time. But a month ago it started to fall apart...not physically, would more calls would drop, coverage would slowly fail and a series of other issues. So many, I called AT&T to get a new one. They explained that they get many of them back and it's not a surprise. After I got the new one, I realized how nice it would be to have an IR port like they have on their newer, cheaper one. The buttons are a little too small and the navigation is simply too limited. Further, I wonder how they decided what phone gets a WAP browsers, since they are randomly in some and not in others. It is certainly a downfall of the product. And one of my biggest pet peeves with this phone is the low volume of the earpiece...this seems to happen on every Nokia. It's just a real pain to squeeze that little phone into your ear. The calendar feature is decent, but nothing too easy. The whole layout could be more intuitive. Overall, Nokia had a good run with the 8260, but much better phones that are more reliable, and have pretty much a better everything, makes this phone old news. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 85 89277 2000/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 very cool look style address bookcalander also cool downloadable tones need clip bad for carrying no clip to atach to belt The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8260 is a must have. Full Review This is a must have phone for the out going people and did I say party pepole as well.The first thing you'll notice about the 8260, a dual-band TDMA model, is that it's really small. It measures 4.1 by 1.75 by 0.7 inches and weighs 3.4 ounces, which is only slightly more than what the 8860 and 8890 weigh. Like the chrome 8860, this model has a built-in, hidden antenna. But what's different about the 8260 is that it comes in three colors (Red Pepper, Electric Blue, and Carbon Gray) and doesn't have a slide-down, dial-pad cover; the 8260's keys are always exposed. There's nothing inherently wrong with this design. You may initially find the 8260 awkward to talk into, though, since the mic on this shorter-than-usual phone rests high on your cheek rather than close to your mouth. However, callers will be able to hear you just fine. (It should be noted that Nokia seems to have designed this pocket-friendly mobile especially for those who prefer to use an earpiece for hands-free operation. Our review unit came with an earpiece, but in the real world, it's an optional accessory.) The 8260 doesn't suffer from the fingerprint problem that the chrome-finished 8860 does. But the upper half of the phone, a clear, plastic face that protects the LCD, does attract the natural oils from your skin, which means you'll end up having to wipe off the phone regularly. And while we're griping, the dial-pad keys are cramped (as with most supercompact models) and a little slippery. Dialing numbers was sometimes an adventurous process. Also, the on/off power button, which is hidden at the top of the phone, is tiny and can best be activated by using your fingernail (nail biters might have a problem). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 89276 2000/10/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features vibrates without the need of a second battery small size great looks not customizable physically ring tonesgraphics don t count The Bottom LineSmall, portable, and enough features to keep you connected with the right system behind the phone. Full Review The ironic part of owning such a phone as the 8260 is really the size vs. the functionality that some other phones might have but sacrifice on size. The ease of use in navigation is definitely a sure thing with it's familiar software and interface that most other nokia phones already have been using for years. What surprises me the most is the excellent feature of vibrating without the need to purchase a second vibrating battery like some of its counterparts need (ahem, the 7200 series as well as the 5100 series). I have been using this phone for nearly a year now and have found that the functionality of the phone falls short sometimes when compared to some of the sprint samsung phones. However, it's robustness really comes through in portability and mobility. I've found that the phone really comes through in travel and its ability to be stored discretely in any pocket of mine. What's even more surprising is that it doesn't sacrifice too many features for its size. Ok, you've already read almost 2 paragraphs and are unsure what I'm saying it's negative points are. Frankly, it doesn't have voice activated calling or even speakerphone that some of my friend's have shown me on their sprint phones. It also doesn't have any kind of address book naming conventions like 'home', 'apt', 'cell', 'dorm'. However, you can always add those yourself, but it's just sometimes a hassle. All in all, the most important thing despite it's lack of lusterous features really comes down to it's usefulness and utility. Other than it's dumb calendar feature, the phone doesn't have any real disappointments. With my AT&T plan, I use a nice email system that notifies me of any emails through the phone as a text message and if I am compelled to know what the message is about and aren't around a nice internet laden computer, I simply dial up using my mobile phone to have a computer read me my email without charge. This has served me so useful especially when I'm camping or even on the train where it's not accesible to get to the internet. Well, most of you are asking, what about those Web enabled phones? HA! You don't need it when you have systems which read you email to you, I've been doing this for a year now, and it works! Also, what about those movie show times, or sports features? Ha! AT&T has this thing called #121. It's the savior to all commuters who don't have time to look at the phone in the middle of rush hour traffic. That's right, it's voice activated service which will tell you everything from traffic to news and sports and weather. Ok, That's about the plan, so I won't go any further. The phone really has been a blessing to me and I just want everybody to know I'm the most discretely connected person on the planet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 89275 2001/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 light weight compact neat sounds you loss it easy you can t be heard The Bottom LineIf you want a phone that you can loss easily, buy this one! Full Review Oh, how I wish I kept my old Nokia 5180. The lady at the store said oh you'll like this because you get a better signal, more battery time, and it doesn't cost that much. I hate to break it to you lady, even though I get a better signal, no one can ever hear me on my phone. They can sure everybody elses conversations for some reason. The phone picks up every noise in a 20-30 ft radius. It's horrible. And the battery time, it's not much longer. Also, let me ask everyone out there where most people use there cell phone...IN THE CAR. While I'm driving I tend to press the buttons by feeling there location on the key pad so that I don't have to take my eyes off the road. One problem - the 8260 has such a new sleek design that you tend to dial the incorrect number. The buttons are tiny and in odd positions making it difficult to punch in the right number. Also the accessories cost twice as much because this is a new product of course. My hip-clip already broke and I haven't even had the phone for more than two months. Someone please find me my old phone! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 189 89274 2000/1/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 abality to sendrecive email great signal text messageing durable very rapid charge very long standby very small very new phone which means not all areas have the capabilities to program the phone to their systems maybe to small for some a bit expensive Full Review When I set out to buy a new phone to replace my old outdated phone, I turned to Nokia as a reliable sorce. Nokia has been providing quality products ever since I started doing business with them. After searching around for quite awile I stumbled upon the Nokia 8260 model phone which my friend had purchased. At first I thought that well since its so small how in the world can people on the other end ever get what your saying? So I asked my friend to let me try it out. I called my boss and explained why I was calling. He told me it sounded like I was calling from a normal phone. (he wouldnt believe that it was actually a cellular phone). When I looked to see what kind of signal I had I noticed that it was 100% and I was in a Wal-Mart. This is the only phone Ive ever been able to use inside of a Wal-mart. (for some reason all the others seem to loose their signal in a store like that.) Well me being the way I am I had to rush and get my own. I loved the fact that it has an internal antenna. I dont know about you but I tend to drop my phone quite a bit and Ive seen first hand the effects of droping a phone on the antenna. But there is one thing that seems to be a little bit of a problem at first, its so small for about the first week you use it you tend to "loose controll" of it. I know I must have dropped it at least four times. And to my surprize it still worked perfectly, besides the fact that there where a few scratches on it. If you are someone who likes hi-tech and doesnt mind paying a little extra go it, I bought this phone and never once have I regreted the purchase. After you test drive this phone for about a week you wont be able to belive how big your other phone seemed. This phone has endless options attachments. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89273 2000/4/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cute small lots of neat features too small lcd small keys slippery The Bottom LineIf you have long nails, this is not the phone for you. Full Review OK, so I'm on my 5th mobile phone in 4 years. It's not like I want to get a new one every few months. Unfortunately, they tend to get "lost" or dropped in the lake. So, I found myself at a crossroads last week. Do I stay with Sprint or switch to AT&T...which phone do I buy. That's a whole another epinion, so for now I'll just discuss the phone I chose...the Nokia 8260. It was my brother in law who recommended it. He said, "you gotta get my phone. It's so great." So, I rushed right out and bought one. I paid $199 for it..ripped off I know, but I didn't know any better. I returned the thing 4 days later. Here's why. First. Yes, it is small. But, I say it's TOO small. I would hear it ringing and dig into my bag (substitute briefcase, purse, backpack, etc.) and I couldn't find it! Worse than that, by the time I did find it, I'd realize that I'd accidentally answered it while fumbling around and the person had already had a good laugh at my incompetence and hung up. The Nokia 8260 is too sensitive. The keys just barely need a nudge and you're dialing. I can't tell you how many times I accidentally dialed my last number called...by accident. This just was not the phone for me. In addition, the screen is small and sometimes quite hard to read despite the backlighting. I am not a picky person, but I really disliked this phone. Granted, it does have lots of great features...rings, games, etc. But, it just did not meet my needs. I returned it to AT&T for a full refund. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89272 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small light weight several funtionseasy to use for first time buyers dont buy this phone with out the insurence plan cause if you drop it other than a soft drop its gone Full Review When you look around this day and age, what do you see all around you-CELL PHONES. Here, there and every where, cell phones seem to be in every persons hands every where you go. Well why not have the hottest little number to hit the markets ever in the cell phone industry. Im talking of course about the nokia 8200 series that has endless possibilities. I say this because there are 70 different interchangable face plates and over 15 different phone add on such as A Standard Travel Charger Rapid Travel Charger Rapid Cigarette Lighter Charger Desktop Charging Stand Headset Kit Express Car Kit Mobile Holder Leather Carry Sleeve Carry Sleeve Loopset This phone offers several different features such as, messages- This feature allows you send and recive test messages and let you check your missed call messages. Calllog- this allows you to check all of your call times and how many minuted you have left in your monthly plan. Profiles- This lets you customize your ring tones and lets you have personal ring tones for several stored numbers. Setting allows you to set all your security things and your clock and alarm clock. Forwarding- lets you send all incoming call to a different number.-Games- they have several little games to play such as snake and rotation. Calender- lets you save info on this and it can ring at a set time and a set date. Infered- This is by far the coolest feature, this lets you to send info from phone to phone( they must be compatable) and they other phone can recieve the message from up to three feet away. I choose to buy this phone because of its looks and because of the features that it offered. I would highley recomend this product to any one that wants value and and a sleek stylish phone to have and to show off. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 (best buy on sale) 89271 2000/4/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 for those of us who like tiny phones for those of us who don t like tiny phones The Bottom LineGreat value. I hate the smallness, but most people disagree. Full Review Nokia phones are known to be friendly. They are generally easy to use and offer a good amount of extras, including games and customizeable dial tones. The Nokia 8260 follows the same format as most of the other cellular phones of the Nokia brand, with an address book, games, and many more options. The reception I've noticed has been sharply upgraded since the 5165 series (probably the most standard cell phone out there), which is a major plus. It also became about one half of the mass to fit the desires of many mainstream consumers. The phone is tiny! One can easily conceal it in the palm of his hand or in a pocket. It's durability will also enable it to be kept safe in a pocket even when you play basketball or take a jog. While I like Nokia products in general, however, I'm not the fondest of this little critter. I will admit it is a high quality phone for about $100, but I've always prefered a cell that fit comfortably to my face, such as a Motorola StarTac. This tiny thing feels awkward against your cheek, and the fact that the mic is a few inches from your mouth means that more outside noises can be heard just as loudly on the other side. I often found myself using the phone as a walkie talkie, which is why I switched over to a Samsung TCH, which too offered a user friendly setup and plenty of options. It also cost $50 more, so that should still be taken into consideration. For the money, this is a very good phone. It is ideal for parents who want to give their children a cell phone for a birthday present (some feel safer knowing that their children can call home at any time, and kids don't seem to mind having one either). Although I personally didn't liek the tiny size, many others do. Despite my negetive feel for the phone, I realize that it offers good bang for buck, which is why I give it a 4 star rating. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89270 2001/3/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feels light long battery life tiny looks schwag text email no web service programs functionality The Bottom LineAs long as you're all about appearances, this phone is absolutely perfect, and if you think you're more of the practical type, well then it's nearly perfect. Full Review I bought the 8260 for one reason alone - the looks. And in that respect, this phone won't ever let you down when you whip it out pretensiously in crowded locales - oohs and ahhs, followed by, "Nice phone!" always make my shallow and materialistic self feel great. It looks much nicer than the far more expense Nokia 8890, not shiny and gaudy, but rather subdued, refined, and yes, SCHWAG!! If you are as hopeless a sell-out as I am, you will love this phone for all its exterior glories, and ignore all of its shortcomings. The phone's got an excellent battery life, I am talking LONG!! I have been through many cell-phone, and nothing compares to the battery life on this baby. When you are on three night drunken binge in Las Vegas and you forget to bring the power adapter....ah no worries, because the 8260 will not forget you, charged and ready, waiting for you to input that stripper's beeper number and call your casino host from Pahrump because you need a ride back to town. You've got your own email address and text messaging, and depending upon the plan, this stuff can all come FREE. People without text-messaging capabilities can go to AT&T's web site to message you, or they can email you. Sometimes the lag between when something is sent and when it is received is a bit off, but this might be due more to your service that the phone itself. Inputting messages and email is a pain when you first get started with this thing, but before you know it, you're pounding away like it's a second keyboard. There is a calendar (I'll never use it) and several games to play, including my all-time favorite, Memory. Several hundred annoying rings to choose from, vibrator mode, silent mode, ring one, and options to select different ring profiles depending upon who the person is that is calling or where you are (meeting, outside, car, etc...) The phone even comes with its own headset, tossed in for free. What's wrong with this phone is mostly just an annoying lack of "extras" on the functionality side that 90% of most cell phones don't have either. Stuff like having to enter in your phone book four different entries for the same person because the software won't let you specify mobile, work, etc... The display when you're talking doesn't keep a record of how long you've been on the air, or what number you dialed, etc.. And you've got to enter in the time and date yourself, it doesn't adjust automatically with your phone service. Oh yeah, and there's no way you can get on the Web to check sports scores or if Priceline is still in business...but that's about it. I picked up this phone off Amazon.com, with their $50 coupon that they've been promoting. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89269 2000/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid construction built in pim intuitive use stylish case e mail2 way sms capable tiny size 6 day battery life no browser capability hard to locate power button Full Review After buying this phone I am truly a Nokia phone fan. I had an Ericsson Phone before KF 788. That phone was horrible even though it compares in size. Nokia menu system is truly the best, it's very intuitive, I learnt over 70% functions without referring to a manual (some stylish cell phone like Sanyo or Motorola) have difficult to locate common functions such switching from Vibrate to ring mode. Nokia makes it easy. All components that phone is built from are very low power consuming devices. There truly isn't any other phone on market this form factor that has battery standby of 6 days. There is no extra hanging antenna. I am not a big size man, but this phone fits in my jeans pockets easily and conveniently. If you like Palm Pilots and simplicity in their user interfaces, you will definitely like this phone. In fact, the phone has some features like organizer etc. so sort of implements PDA features. It can send and receive SMS messages. The I liked most was transmitting business card over to another cellular subscriber (hopefully there's an standard on this data packet through SMS or something like that) so it becomes defacto as other phone companies catch up on this feature. If you were looking for a TDMA phone, you'd be stupid (sorry to use that term) to go for anything else. There is absolutely nothing better as of Dec 15, 2000. With this phone, Nokia has shown that they get it and most probably they will continue to dominate phone market for foreseeable future. I am not a stockholder but then again I many reason I should be Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 89268 2000/2/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 menu system features size loads of problems games size again The Bottom LineSmall with decent reception, but there are many problems which may not be serious but are still unnecessary. Full Review Maybe my title doesn't make sense, however, I've had this phone for a few months now and already some problems have occurred. Now, I put my phone in my pocket and leave the vibrating alert on but when it does vibrate and i take it out, the screen is all messed up (lots of pixels here and there and generally 'screwy'). Another problem I have had recently is that the recipient of my phone calls can't hear what I'm saying, maybe it's because they don't want to hear it but then after they call me back, everything is fine. Now that that's out of the way, let's get to some of the good points. I know it may be superficial, but I like the fact that I can change the logo on the startup and the logo on the phone while it is on. Also, ringer tones may be downloaded to the phone, so you can have the latest song on your phone (maybe poncy, maybe fantastic). The calculator is pretty useless, but the calender is fantastic! No longer do I have to look for bits of paper with birthdays written on them, but I can type them into the phone and set an alarm for the day. It is a godsend in some respects. The alarm is annoying but it gets you up at least. The games are entertaining for two minutes, then just get boring. Physically, the phone is slim and light, one which may fit into the tightest of trousers (however unflattering it may be) but that, I feel, may be a big problem. I have average sized hands and even then, I press two buttons a time sometimes, and sms messages are annoying to write. I may be a die-hard Nokia phone user (i've had 3 previous phones, all Nokia) and so I find it easy to navigate through the menu system. I've tried using other cell phones but they all are difficult to use (I've never used another phone!). Overall, this is a neat phone (fully customisable) and the benefits do out-weigh the problems at the moment. But one person I know has had to swap the phone many times because of problems, but I quite like it and now with a different cover, many logos, and some funky ringtones have made the phone my own and no-one elses!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89267 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features size text messaging not sms compatible like they claim Full Review I bought this product from AT&T wireless at a local shopping center at Copper Square in downtown Phoenix for $199. With the phone came a $75 + $30 rebate - dropping the price to $94. I thought that was fantastic, signed up for AT&T with 3 free months of text messaging, and off I went. The following day, while looking online, I noticed that buy.com had the phone for $99, plus the $75 and $30 rebates - bringing the phone not only to free, but you get paid $6 to get it!!!! Doh! I specifically asked if this phone would be able to send text messages to any SMS enabled phone. They promised that it would, but it does not. I can send messages to any other text enabled AT&T phone, I can send emails, I can download ring tones and graphics, it's portable, it works great, it's very tiny, I love it. Only problems - they sell three things in a $40 package - the car charger, the leather case/belt clip, and the desktop charger. If you use the leather case, you cannot drop the phone into the desktop charger without removing the case. What a drag - you can't use an item of convenience without it becoming inconvenient! Once again - ask about SMS messages - especially if you want to send messages to any other SMS enabled phone in the world - it only works via the AT&T gateway and not with to the GSM (global services for mobile) gateway for sending free text messages to your friends outside the US. Also - ask about Bluetooth. I don't know why this phone isn't Bluetooth enabled - the wireless Bluetooth earsets are soooooooo cool. And why no voice dialing and net access? They can put the confusing T9 predictive messaging on the phone, so why not voice dialing or net access? Overall, it's still a 5-star phone - just watch your price and make sure your carrier gives you a 30 day money-back guarantee on the phone! Ben Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 94 89266 2001/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrating battery looks great small little expensive little little The Bottom LineIf your a guy who hates the bulkiness of your current phone, you'll love this one. Full Review This is a pretty cool little phone. The main thing that attracted me to it was the size. I like to keep my phone in my pocket and out of site. I could do that with my old phone, but at the rate I'm gaining weight, I wouldn't be able to do it for much longer. I was able to upgrade my phone so it only cost me $99, which I don't think is THAT terrible. Little pricey, but within reason. Once I got it home though, the small size really started to show its ugly face. I was able to notice this right off the bat, because for some reason this phone doesn't have a data port on the bottom. "Who cares" you might say. "NO TALKING," I reply. Since there is no port, you cant simply transfer your numbers saved in your old phone into your new phone. Unfortunately, my cell phone is where I store ALL my numbers so I have almost 100 in there. That was a blast. You really start to notice how small those little buttons actually are when you start to enter phone numbers. Sheeesh. I probably have fairly large hands I suppose (you know what that means ladies), and it was kind of a pain to try to hit the right button. It is also small enough that it kind of makes it awkward to talk on it. It's not really uncomfortable, but a little awkward. Everything else on the phone is as good as you could ask for. Great reception, 4 games for when your stuck somewhere, a new calendar (which I don't really see that much of a use for), alarm clock and all the features of the older models. It seems like the battery on my older Nokia used to last a little longer, but I can still get my phone to last almost an entire week so I ain't complain'n none. It really is a nice phone and looks great too. It's the perfect size for my pocket, but a little small for everything else. Gotta take the good with the bad I suppose. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89265 2000/1/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 text messaging size looks phone heats up with long conversations quiet hissing noise Full Review After seeing the Nokia 8260 in Hong Kong a year ago, I waited patiently until the US came out with this phone. It seemed to be the perfect phone. At the time I had a Motorola StarTac, which I was happy with, but it didn't have the looks of the Nokia. The Nokia has a few advantages over the StarTac. First, with my StarTac, I would have to remember to charge my phone every night or else it would die on me the next day. With my Nokia, days can go by without charging my phone. Another advantage are the standard features of a Nokia phone that aren't found in Motorola phones: calculator and games. Being a student, the calculator function has come in handy when I have forgotten my TI-85 at home and I am in the middle of an exam. (The teachers do give me weird looks when I take out my phone and start punching buttons in the middle of a test.) I have not used the date book function but it could be useful to someone without a palm pilot. Another function that I now can't live without is the text messaging. I can send messages to anyone else with the same phone on the AT&T service. I have yet to try sending a message to someone with AT&T but a different phone. This option is free with my service plan so I use it a lot when I am in places that are considered roaming. This way I can still keep in touch with people without having to pay roaming or long distance charges. It is effective for short messages. You are also able to send e-mail using the text message function and receive email if it is sent to your phone. Compared to my StarTac, I get reception with my Nokia in places I didn't with my StarTac, but the clarity is not as good. The phone makes a soft hissing noise that isn't noticible when in a public place, but when I am talking at home, it is enough to be an annoyance. One way I handle this is to use the handsfree set. This eliminates the hissing sound. The handsfree set is very useful and I use it whenever I plan on making a call longer than 5 minutes. The phone has a tendency to heat up if used for 10 minutes or more, which can be quite uncomfortable. I miss how the StarTac flips open and close. I am constantly worried about scratching my Nokia. The on/off button is a hassle to push and I end up using my fingernails. The other buttons are small, but manageable. The StarTac has buttons that do not stick out so I actually like the Nokia buttons a little better. Overall, I am satisfied with this phone but I am keeping my eye out for new phones to come out. I am waiting for the prices to drop on the Motorola V-Series but I don't know if I am willing to say good bye to the text messaging option of the Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 89264 2000/10/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small size vibration ringer smooth exterior makes it hard to grab onto small shape Full Review I replaced my Nokia 6160 with the Nokia 8260 a month ago. The Nokia 6160 was a great phone, but the size was a bit bulky. The Nokia 8260 seemed to be best the Nokia 6160 represented, but in a smaller sleek package. I enjoy using the Nokia 8260, but there are some glitches and poor ergonomic design that I hope can be addressed in future models. First, the phone's smooth exterior makes it easy to fumble when you're trying to hit the small keys down by the bottom of the face plate. While your fingers are trying to hit the keys, it's easy to allow your grip to slip and drop the phone. To overcome this, you have to conscientiously hold on tightly and concentrate on punching the keys. Secondly, the phone comes with a vibrating ringer, which is great. However, when you set the phone to "silent" or "meeting", the vibration mode is defaulted to "off". I didn't realize this until I missed a number of calls. I was very disappointed by this poor design. I assume that when you want to receive calls discreetly in a meeting, the vibrating mode would be the best way to go. Why it would be defaulted to the off position boggles my mind. The fix to this is to customize the "silent" and "meeting" mode by turning the vibration on. However, any intelligent person obviously would not expect to have to turn on vibration in these settings. Third, there is something not quite right with the balance, shape and texture of the phone. Just hold one in your hands, try manipulating it in various manners with your hand, and you'll find it hard to hold on to naturally. It's almost like a slippery fish that threatens to launch from your hand. The level of comfort using this phone is not as good as the Nokia 6160, and it can be especially hard and dangerous to use when driving, if you have to concentrate to use it. I've dropped the phone quite a few times, even though I don't consider myself clumsy. The phone's case seems to have come a bit loose, and it takes more time to recognize the network and register a signal when I turn it on now. Another problem of buying the phone so early is that there is not many accessories available. A smartly designed case might allow your fingers to hold onto the phone more easily, and make it less of a chore to handle. However, the Nokia 8260 is slightly bigger than the Nokia 8290, so you can't buy the cases and other accessories that are available for the 8290. This is a shame because there are lots of accessories for the 8290, including cool covers, cases, backlights, that just can't be used with the 8260. Other than the issues stated above, the phone works great, both in sound and signal strength like the Nokia 6160. If you are happy with your Nokia 6160/5160, I wouldn't recommend you go out and buy this phone unless you can get a significant discount. Also, hang on to your Nokia 6160/5160 because you may find that you want to switch back. However, for many people, the style of the phone will be irresistible. Once the novelty wears off it will be just another phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89263 2000/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small size unreliable clarity The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone and it would soon be in my son's Ecology Club cell phone recycle basket. Full Review In January 2002, I decided to get another cell phone for my wife for emergency purposes and family connections. We went to the closet authorize dealer and sign up for a new line. The sales person insist us to get WorldCom wireless (now bankrupt and the customer all transfer to AT&T) and offer us a free 8260 phone. First, we thought what a deal. But weeks of trouble just lay ahead. Problems: First, we notice the new phone have statics, which affects the clarity of the sound. (probably due to the very poor WorldCom Wireless coverage) So, sometime my wife and I would just unintentionally yell at each other via the phone because my wife would always ask me "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" or "SPEAK UP!" My sister in law said the poor clarity of the cell phone is also due to lack of an external antenna. So if you want small, you can't hear what other people's talking on the phone? Nokia, you really have to design a better cell phone. (However, when WorldCom bankrupt and I got switch to AT&T, the clarity improved a little bit. So I can't totally blame on the cell phone.) Now the major issue--reliability. This phone is just a piece of cheap plastic. The screen broke in 3 months. The place that sell the phone provide no help at all and I round up need to call WorldCom and they send a loaner phone to us while we mailed our broken phone for them to repair, thank god it is all covered by warranty (1 year warranty). Well, that makes me out of cell phone service for about 5 days, plus hours of waiting to call WorldCom (that explain why they bankrupted). A month later I heard the news that Nokia announce that 8260 have a flaw on the screen and I want to regret my decision to choose this phone. On the positive side: This phone has game in it so my younger son can play the cell phone when he's bored and his Gameboy is out of his reach. The small dimension of the phone is the most appealing feature of this phone. I often left it in my car due to the lightness of the phone that I forgot I have a cell phone. The Battery life is long, I average 2.5 times charging per week. But keep in mind that I often made short phone calls. My personal opinions: In my opinion, the words on the screen is too small to see. I have a difficult time to view the message on the screen. Final Conclusion: If I have to pay a premium price for this phone, I would definitely need to bang my head on the wall because I would regret it so much. But luckily this is a free phone, and my contract broke before the designate date due to the bankruptcy of WorldCom, so now I could change to any cell phone company I want without the early termination fee. Even this phone is free, it still take away my time to face the horrible customer service of WorldCom to fight for a repair. So I would not recommend this phone because it is so easy to break. It is very unreliable!!!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Free 89262 2000/8/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small sleek easy to carry around short battery life the screen will blank out sometimes The Bottom LineThis is a great phone and I recommend to anyone that is thinking about buying it to get it. You WON'T regret it! Full Review This phone is one of the best phones I've had so far. All my previous phones so far have been too big and just felt like a burden to carry around. I don't know why anyone would want to have a big phone in their pocket or even clipped onto their belt. No matter where you put the thing it will always get in your way somehow. This is a great phone to buy if you're planning to purchase a new cellular phone. People say with every good thing a bad must come right? Well the phone does have a minor problem. After a couple months of using the phone, the screen will start to go. Don't worry though because the phone will still be under warrenty. It has been over a year now since I replaced the screen and I haven't had any problems with it since. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89261 2000/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 2 way messaging size features no gee whiz features keypad size Full Review The new 8260 from Nokia (through AT&T) has proved to be just what I've been looking for in a mobile phone. Yeah, it doesn't have all of the gee-whiz-cool-new-bleeding-edge features that some other phones have, but it's definitely got everything that I need in a small compact package that fits _in_ my pocket. Ever since I purchased my first mobile phone around two years ago, I've never truly been happy with them. The first was either too heavy (with an extended life battery), or didn't have the power to last through a day. And just to make it worse, the reception was extremely poor. The next had every feature I would ever use in a mobile phone, but it was still a bit too large to fit in my pocket, and as a result ended up clipped to my belt, ready to get in the way. Then along came the 8800 series phones. I saw them, and immediately said "I want one." Then I saw the price, and immediately said "It can wait." And so I waited, and waited, and waited. Lo and behold, the 8200 series makes its appearance. And let me tell you, the first time I saw this phone, I knew that it was going to be the phone I wanted, and the it would be the phone everyone wanted once it was available. Well, it would seem that at least one of those is true, the other remains to be seen. Why would I say these things about this phone? Let me tell you. First, it's size. Everyone wants a mobile phone, but no one wants to have to lug it around. With the compact size of the 8260, you can slip it into a pocket, and hardly notice it. Second, the features. Now, I don't mean to say that it has more features than the next phone, because it doesn't. But the fact that it does have the most of the same features, and the same functionality of the other Nokia phones but in a package that is so much smaller is a testament to the fine work of Nokia's engineering teams. Third, the price. With the 8800 series phones coming in at a high price point of around $700(MSRP) it's basically beyond what the average person is willing to pay for a mobile phone. But since the 8200 series phones come in at the much more friendly price of $200(MSRP) it's well within the means of your average mobile phone buyer. Add to the above the fact that it comes in your choice of three different colors, and you've got a winning package (small as it is :). If there is any negative to the phone, I guess that it'd be the fact that it has a small keypad, and the lack of the mostly useless extras that are not likely to be used anyways. Overall, I love the phone for its size, features, and usefulness. It's reception has proven to be just a strong as my previous Nokia 6160, and with the small addition of the _2-way_ text messaging, it's potentially even more useful with the growing popularity of 2-way pagers. I recommend taking a look at it if you're in the market for a new mobile phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 89260 2000/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 brand name size personal songs size battery life The Bottom LineIf size matters and you'd like to forget that you are wearing a phone, then the 8260 is for you. You can customize rings and profiles to suit your taste. Full Review I have been with Nokia ever since the 2120. The oak panel square block from Nokia many years back. I switched after my painful experiences with Motorola. I've been very happy with the Nokia line of phones since then. So the 8260 only makes me scream for excitement with the compact size and text messaging capability. The phone itself offers 5 personal tones which can be downloaded from the web as well as different profiles to suit your immediate needs of vibrate only, low ring, high ring, group ring only, etc.. It's perfect when you can switch between profiles depending on your setting - extra loud when outdoors vs silent ring when in a meeting with just 2 clicks of a button. I've had mostly positive experiences with the 8260; however, the negative experiences has to do with the cell provider more than the phone itself. I understand Voicestream offers a smaller version of the 8260 than Cingular or another carrier. But at that size any smaller and you'd need tweezers to press the #s. Overall, I'm very pleased with the phone and have gotten more than 12 friends and family members to switch to the 8260. If I only I had taken Nokia stock years ago!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89259 2000/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable downloadable ringtones design assigning of ringtones to certain callers sharp sleek hard to navigate if you have large fingers or hands The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8260 phone is definately worth buying, because of its stylish design, and its easy-to-navigate menus. Full Review This is by far the most worth while Nokia phone to buy. If you didn't want to pay $500 for their sleekest models, then this is a wonderful replacement. It is quite cheaper in price, but just as navigational and rich in functions. I especially liked this phone because of the option to download your own ringtones. In this process, you go to a website with listed downloadable ringtones which match to the 8260 model, and then upload them to your phone! Another function I liked was the freedom of being able to assign certain ringtones to certain callers. The only thing that might cause some inconvenience would be the fact that it is so small. Impaired people and people with large hands find it hard to operate. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 89258 2000/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 compact two way text stylish calendar internal antenna heats up The Bottom LineThis phone combines some of the best features you would look for in a phone, great battery life, compact, and sleek. Full Review I purchased the Nokia 8260 about a year ago to replace my 5160 which had died after numerous confrontations with the floor. So far the 8260 has been good. The first problem with the phone is that after a 4 min phone call the device gets extremely hot. Second the call log wont record one persons call time and date twice. You need to go back and erase it every time. Other than a sub-par Call Log and device heat-up the phone is good. I am not a big talker on the phone so I rarely get it to heat-up. But if you are the 2-3 hour Lithium Ion battery will impress you. I bought this phone because of size and Nokia's reputation for quality. My next phone will most likely be a Samsung flip. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89257 2002/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 compact stylish questionable durability could be a lemon bad reception The Bottom LineI would recommend it to a friend, but not a business associate. Only for social calls. Seems to last a year. Full Review UPDATE: I have had my 8260 for a year and a half. The LCD screen has been malfunctioning a lot (as of late). Sometimes it totally blanks out, until I press on the key-pad, sometimes there are blank lines across the screen, and sometimes it works perfectly fine. Other problems I have noticed: Oftentimes, when other people are calling me, my phone does not ring until they have hung up. I don't know if this is a very common problem, but my girlfriend's phone has the same problem. On another note, service on Cingular Wireless appears to be headed in a downward spiral. All too often there are "system busy" signals, where no calls are allowed through [particularly during peak hours]. All in all, this phone has serviced me well for about a year (maybe longer if the Cingular Wireless store clerks have some simple fix-it solution for my LCD screen). GET INSURANCE on this phone. ******* The following segment is an 8260 Review: WHY DID I BUY THIS: REASON I: My service was running out, and I decided to switch companies and get a new phone. Ever since I saw promotions for the Nokia 8260, I have wanted to get it. I always thought that the 6100 series was too bulky. Besides, this Nokia has a built in antenna. REASON II: I'm currently living forty minutes from LA, and you can get this phone for really cheap here, especially if you a) know someone who works at the shop b) buy a plan with the phone. In fact, around here, if you meet both criteria, you can get the phone for free now [you just have to pay for the phone service]. If you are on an existing plan, be prepared to shell out a lot of money. PROS: It's small, it's stylish, and it's loaded with features. Some people like to change the face to accessorize with whatever they're wearing. Free text messaging. Voicemail capabilities. It's perfect for the average high school or college student. With mobile to mobile, unlimited calls to your friends and family. THIS IS NOT THE PHONE YOU WOULD WANT IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO USE IT FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES. Read cons. Go to http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/8260 to get a list of it's features. Make sure you check out the variety of different plans offered by different companies as well. CONS: 1) At the beginning, the small buttons take a little getting used to. 2) Reception. Stick with the series that have an external antenna. Although some sellers will tell you that the quality of the reception is not affected; I have oftentimes not gotten any reception in places whereas my friends of whom carry older Nokia's have. In enclosed spaces (office, some rooms in your house, the mall), it is difficult to get reception. One thing that I want to make clear is that reception can vary depending on your wireless plan. From what I have experienced, Verizon seems to have the best overall reception (at least on the West Coast). I have friends getting calls with crystal clarity while inside the mall when my reception bars were non-existent (I have Cingular/PacBell). If you need a phone that can receive important business calls, this phone will fall short of your expectations. 3) The Durability is an issue with many of my friends who have the phone. Be sure never to drop the phone (since it is so small, it can slip out of your pocket). People who have dropped the phone have experienced decreased battery life, even worse reception leading to calls being cut off, and LCD screens that have gone on the fritz. If you decide to purchase the phone, get the leather phone case, with the clip. Or at least get a belt clip for your phone. 4) It could be a lemon. Pay for insurance. Many people who have not paid for insurance have lived to regret it. The quality of this phone seems to be questionable. Some phones work without problems. Others have many glitches, even if they have been well-cared for (never been dropped). Bottom line? If you're a student, and you just want a phone that's styling, convenient, and gets decent enough reception...this is the phone for you. If you want a phone that will be primarily used for business, skip the Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 89256 2001/12/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small good battery lots of features ring too quiet signal clarity not great The Bottom LineGreat battery life, every feature you could want, super portable and just plain cool-looking. The best choice for a cell phone, with a reasonable price. Full Review For about $400 less than Nokia's top of the line phone, the 8260 offers just about the same features and works for everything I need it too. You can get one from just about every wireless provider on the market, for prices ranging from $80-$250, depending on the deal for service you make with them. It is an amazing little phone- you can hide the entire thing in the palm of your hand. The interface of the phone has been very well designed- it is simple to use and all the features that are important are quick to get to. In many ways the design of this phone is like the operating system on a Palm handheld- it is practical and useful. Dialing a stored number is a matter of 3 or 4 keystrokes, even if you have a fairly large list of numbers. Redialing a number is 2 keystrokes, unless you set it to happen automatically. There are different 'profiles' that can be set up to change certain settings of the phone depending on where you are. Hit two buttons, and you change from your normal profile, where the phone rings as normal, to your silent profile, and the phone will just vibrate and beep once, depending on how you decide to set it up. There are a lot of little features like that, stuff you wouldn't normally think of but come in really useful once you have them. The think I like the most about this phone is its e-mail and text message capability. Almost all wireless providers provide these features free when you sign up, and they turn the phone into an instant messanger and e-mail program. Plus, you can effectively communicate with just about anyone who has a wireless phone without them having to answer (good if they are someplace where they don't want their phone to be ringing, like in class), and sending text messages does not use up your minutes. The one main thing that I am unhappy with this phone is its signal clarity. It never seems to have a problem getting a signal, except for in subways, but sometimes (not very often) the signal it recieves is choppy and it gets hard to hear the person you are talking to. I don't know if this is a problem all digital phones have, but it can be annoying. Other than that, I think it was a great buy, and i firmly believe that if you are looking for a cell phone, then this is the best choice there is. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89255 2001/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 email capable fully functional small phone heats up on long calls keys too small The Bottom LineAll in all, this is the best little phone you are going to find. All the features in the smallest possible package. Full Review I have always liked Nokia phones, but the company bought me a StarTac last year so I used that for awhile. When I had the opportunity to buy my own phone, I immediately switched back to Nokia and bought a 6260. After finding it too large after the StarTac, I picked up the 8260. The size of this phone is just awesome. As long as you keep your finger off the top part of the back of the phone, where the antenna is hidden, the reception is comparable to the 6260 and the StarTac. It has every feature I wanted, including one I didn't know I wanted until I got it: the ability to write and send messages and emails. Nokia has even built in a dictionary to save keystrokes, and it works pretty well. The only things I have a problem with is the fact that, in order to keep the phone small, the keys are pretty cramped. Especially the Talk, Hang Up and menu keys, which I frequently hit in error. Also, the phone really gets pretty warm if you talk for more than five minutes. Maybe Nokia realized this was a problem, as they included a hands-free headset with the phone that works extremely well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89254 2001/11/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ample battery life great reception small size quality construction no internet access other than email higher than average cost inconvenient for multiple batteries The Bottom LineBest phone I've owned so far, very clear, long talk and standby times, very small and lightweight. Full Review This 8260 is my 3rd Nokia phone, with my most recent prior phone being a Motorola Star Tac 7620(which I really liked). Things I like about the Nokia 8260: * Small size- it is roughly the same height as my closed Star Tac yet it is more narrow in width, and about the same thickness, and you don't have to "open" it to use it. * Display is always visible and clear * Menus are easily navigable * Can recieve and send email, although not an internet "browsable". * Battery life - In my real world observations I tend to charge the battery every 3 days or so. If you talk a LOT (more than 3 hours in a single day) plan on recharging every 24 hours or so. The battery charges in about 2-3 hours with the supplied Rapid Travel Charger. I bought a spare battery on Ebay for $20 but rarely use it (see below). * Good reception - This may be more dependant on your service provider than the phone and AT&T uses the 8260 model... But in comparison with my Sprint PCS service (Motorola Star Tac) and my wife's Voicestream (Nokia 5165) this phone is vastly superior in reception,coverage-wise as well as overall quality of calls. I must confess that I am surprised that the internal antenna design on this phone works as well as it does. * Tough little phone - It seems to take the occasional drops onto pavement and such better than any phone I've owned prior to. Could it be that it is just so small that it's mass (or lack of) helps here? My gripes: * As of this writing Nokia doesn't make a connectivity kit to connect to a laptop. Boohoo. * A long call can get uncomfortable without a hands-free mic attached (too small? ;-)) * I ordered a spare Li-Ion battery which I rarely use since it is not as easy to access the battery as other phones. * At&t really sucks... see my review of the service in Austin. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89253 2001/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it s cute it has games trendy its too smallit s trendy The Bottom LineIt's just too darn small. Full Review I don't have luck with cell phones. After breaking my last phone which was not a Nokia, my boyfriend suggested this phone. He said to get this one because he had read somewhere that internal attenia's were safer than the outer kind. So I went and got this little bitty phone. I like the game thing. My last phone didn't have games, and the fact that i can keep myself amused on a long ride or a boring class made me happy for about a month. This little phone has the on and off switch in the most annoying spot. It is impossible to turn on with one finger pressing down so hard your finger turns red. The buttons are small. They are impossible to use unless you have little hands. I always ending hitting 5 when i wanted 2 or something to this my finger hits 3 buttons at one time hassel. I feel the phone has horrible reception. This all depends of course on your server, keep in mind, but i feel that it could be better. Granted i really didn't expect it to work all that well in the basement of a large old big house on our school campus. (Daddy Warbucks house in the movie Annie). But I do expect reception while driving in the car with the windows down. I feel this phone costs way too much for what is worth. I also bought a radation cover from a place called rfsafe.com My phone dose not interfer with electronics as some people are saying. But I do remember a buzzing by my computer when I did not have the cover on. (I noticed it with my other non-Nokia cell also). It has many nice rings, which don't help me because i only use this phone for out-going calls. I think it also has the option to download songs from Nokia for your own personal space. I am guessing this because there are 3 blank spaces in the ring option area that say personal. Also, because I have heard other people say they have done this. But this option still will not make this phone worth the price I paid. Overall I don't feel this phone is worth the price in any way. I bought it at the Mall in Jan. of 2001. They were having a sale. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89252 2001/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything you look for in a cell phone not too much The Bottom LineClear, light, stylish, wonderful, worthwhile phone. Full Review This cell phone is a marvel of electronic genius. Every time I use it, I am amazed by its abilities. In every respect, this is the phone to own. When I am talking to my friends, no matter where I am, I hear perfectly. This phone has a great clarity. It works well indoors, outdoors, or in basements. This is also a really cool looking phone. I had an old Nokia before this one, and its such a good feeling to have a stylish new phone to pull out when making a call. Plus, its so small and light, it fits in my jean pockets. I can't imagine a more versatile phone. After a short while, I got used to all the features, but there are still some I don't have a use for. I don't think this is a negative aspect; I'm sure other people need these functions. The battery life on this phone is really good as well. I've often left it on overnight by accident to find that there was hardly any loss of battery energy the next day! If you want a phone, Nokia is definately the way to go. More precisely, this model will really be a pleasant addition to your pocket. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89251 2000/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 very portable small cost easy to loosedrop The Bottom LineNot recommeded. Small, thin plastic, and you can get better phones from Nokia for less money, with better options! Full Review Nokia is one of the best brands in cellular service, and as far as I am concerned they are the best. I have been a nokia customer for about 5 years now, and everytime an upgrade is available I jump on it. Granted that things are suppose to get better with time, and technology I feel that the new Nokia 8260 is a far reach to be cool. I have used the 8260, and I personally don't see what the hype is all about. For cost, and efficiency the 5190 gets things done with a ton of accessories to choose from, and many on-screen options. The 8260 is small, and very easy to carry around but then what happens to things that are small? they get lost, stolen and are very hard to find. For it's size it appears to have a very good battery life, which makes me wonder why they can't get that much life out of these bigger batteries. The 8260 is a great phone, but for the financial needs that most people have it is just not practical. In comparison the 5190 is only a bit bigger, and has many features like sending messages, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, busy call waiting, numeric pager, games, a host of musical rings, an 80 name phone book, and tons of additions, like the easy click covers, and clips, car kits, batteries, holders, and ear pieces. If you are serious about wanting a good phone for a good price, buy a Nokia 5190. I promise you will be pleased. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 89250 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 light weightnot hard on the pocket book it scratches very easily buttons could be bigger The Bottom LineThis would be the one I would choose.You get more then you pay for! Hope my review helped you in your buying decision. It took forever to writ =) Full Review The Nokia 8260... where to start, well this is one of the many Nokias I have used including the Nokia 2160, 5160, 5190, 6160, 6188, and the Nokia 6190. For all of you Nokia fans out there, there are a few subtle differences between the 8260 and the older models, those mainly being, the built in vibrating alert, the new smaller size, and the SMS and e-mail capability. I realize that the 6160i, 5165 and a host of new updated models that are currently being released from Nokia have all of these abilities. For those of you that have never had a Nokia, allow me outline the main features of this particular phone. -Built in vibrating alert -250 number phone book -weighs 3.2 oz with a li-ion battery which is included -It takes approximately 2 hours to charge the battery -built in internal antenna -available in three colors -and what is proving to make these new phones from Nokia quite popular are the ability to send ringtones and new user graphics to each other. I have sent quite a few to friends and myself and I admit, that it is quite a neat feature, but I wouldn't let it be a deciding factor in purchasing this phone. -caller groups I have had my Nokia 8260 for about half a year now and also currently own a Ericsson T28 and a StarTac 6500. I have done a tiny comparison on the Nokia 8260 and the T28 should you wish to check out my review of the T28, but for this personal review I will mainly be focusing on the Nokia 8260. The features that have made me so fond of Nokia phones, are their large displays and their extreme ease of use. Anybody can pick up a Nokia phone and figure out how to use it, the engineers at Nokia have by far come up with the most intuitive menu navigation system out of all of the cell phones that I have tried. Also, the 8260 keeps track of the last 10 missed, 10 dialed, and 10 received calls, along with their call times. From almost any menu displaying a phone number it is very easy to save and to label all of your phone book entries. The Nokia series phones also allow you to have longer titles for your entries then the Motorola StarTac's and the Ericssons. What is becoming standard on many cell phones is the Tegic text predictive input. This is included with the 8260's software and once you become familiar with the system makes writing and responding to e-mail, or text messages a snap ! It is a very well designed system and can be tailored to the type of vocabulary the owner prefers. The Nokia 8260 is currently available in three colors, red pepper, blue, and cobalt grey. They are all beautiful. It broke my heart when I dropped my phone and picked it up to find tiny scratches and dents on the faceplate. Unlike the 8210 and the 5100 series phones it is not as easy to change its faceplates. Actually, it is quite a headache. I have taken mine apart and it took me quite some time to reassemble it. This being said, that is one of the weaker points of the phone. The construction of the phone is not quite as sturdy as that of the 5100s, or the 6100s. But it can take a reasonable amount of abuse. It will just show rather quickly. The electronics inside the phone are quite close together so one shouldn't worry about anything being jarred or shaken loose. Call quality... well most of have used digital cell phones and the call quality on the 8260 is most similar to the 6100 series. The microphone on the bottom of the phone is quite sensitive, although I wouldn't mind if one could turn up the ringer volume a touch higher and the earpiece volume louder. I can hardly tell the difference between level 4 and 5 on the ringer volumes. But I will admit that the vibra-alert does do quite an adequate job for making up for this. Whenever you are sitting around one bar of signal strength, at times you can expect conversations to be a little choppy, or expect a bit of static. For the most part, in the city I have rarely had any problems except in a few particular buildings and certain areas in the downtown corridor. The analog reception on my particular analog network is terrific. One should note though, the internal antenna works quite well, but with the phone being as small as it is, some people have noted that it is difficult to hold the phone without covering up the antenna (therefore affecting your call quality). One advantage for all of you that have owned Nokias in the past, you can use the 5100,6100,7100 cigarette lighter adapters and home chargers so if you have old phones kicking around your place, you can have some extra accessories. All in all though, ever since I got my Ericsson T28, I am still very fond of the Nokia 8260, there are advantages to both systems, GSM vs. TDMA, etc. And I would go with the phone that best suits the person, and what they are looking for. The Nokia 8260 has quite a few features that the Ericsson T28 does not have, but whether or not they apply to you the buyer, it all depends on what you are looking for =) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89249 2000/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size interface design lots of plastic to scratch Full Review I have been a long-time user of Nokia phones, using the old-school 6160 for over two years with excellent results. I then sharply diverged, purchasing a StarTac 7797, basically because I liked the small size and the hip holster. Bad idea. Comparing the Nokia and Motorola interfaces is like comparing a Commodore 64 with a Dreamcast--there simply is no comparison. So, as soon as my carrier offered the 8260, the choice was easy. The interface hasn't received many updates, but realistically, there wasn't very much that needed improving. The addition of two-way text paging and email are great features, and I have found myself using them a great deal more than I first thought I would. The size of the phone has been described by some as being too small to be manageable, but I couldn't disagree more. The phone is truly a personal communicator, sized to be hidden away in virtually any pocket or compartment. Everything is effectively backlit, and using the phone at night couldn't be easier. The built-in vibrating battery is a great addition, allowing call notification to occur in vibrate mode without adding any bulk to the design. The antenna has been built in to the back of the phone, effectively eliminating any appendages that could be snapped off or bent by rough use. Further, my reception on the phone has been noticeably better than that of my 6160; I easily receive calls in specific areas that could get little or no signal before. Overall, Nokia has come up with a great phone that will serve me well until the true wireless internet can be integrated into a phone of this size and utility. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89248 2000/6/18 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small lightweight looks cool short battery life small buttons antenna too close to head fragile heats up quickly The Bottom LineIf I had the money, I would go back and buy a Motorola StarTac phone or a phone of similar design. It is still lightweight and compact. Full Review Brief Description Nokia 8260 is one of the smallest phones offered by Nokia. It is very sleek in design and weighs only 3.4 oz and stands a little over 4 inches tall. It comes with a standard Li-Ion battery offers to 3.3 hours of talk time and up to 8 days of standby time. (All talk, data, and standby times are approximate and depend on network configuration.) The phone has a Five-line LCD display. What made me purchase this phone? I bought it because of its SIZE. I previously owned the Nokia 6160. A very nice phone, but just too heavy and large for my front pockets. And too bulky on my hip. I didn't care about the features nor the number of lines it displayed, nor its battery life. Complaints (1) ELF Radiation - I like the size and all, but with all the buzz about ELF (Extremely low-frequency) radiation coming from cellular phones these days, I no longer view this phone with the same admiration as I once did. The antenna is not your typical "pull-out" kind. Rather it is so called "invisible." It resides on the upper back-side of your phone, directly above your battery. Consequently, the antenna is less than an inch from your head. So if you believe in the ELF radiation issues, than this is not so good, I would recommend a Motorola StarTac designed phone, as their antenna points away from your head. Nokia however provides you with a headset to wear which helps avoid this. But if you are like me, I only use the headset in the car. And not at work, nor the grocery store, nor the house. (2) Sweaty cheek? - As this phone is so compactly designed, the other problem you may face is a sweaty cheek. Normal phone calls range anywhere from 1 minute to 5 minutes. However, you will have your occassional 10+ minute phone calls. As a result, I have found that any phone call that exceeds 4-5 minutes (while not using the headset) the phone begins to generate heat. Don't worry you won't get burned, but your face will certainly perspire a bit. So please be warned. (3) Small Buttons - One digit of my index finger covers one column of buttons. It is amazing how small they are. If I am lucky enough I will never make mistakes. But if I am making a phone call while driving, which is about half the time, I have a very hard time dialing the number the first time around. Solution: Use speed dial or your directory. But if you are like me, even if they are in memory, you still find yourself dialing the number anyway. (4) Pricey with no real frills - Expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $200. However, note that you cannot access the Wireless Web. You are pretty much paying for the size of the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89247 2000/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 packed with features great reception size cumbersome menus The Bottom LineWell worth the price. Great reception, very functional, small, useful. Full Review I've gone through six cell phones since I went cellular a year ago, and this is by far the best. My apartment, being in a basement, is the ultimate test of a phone's reception, and because the 8260 uses TDMA technology, I can finally have a conversation in my apartment somewhere other than next to a window. In fact, my Nokia is clearer in the middle of my apartment than my other phones were outside. There's amazingly little fuzz when I speak. It's crystal clear, in fact, as clear as a land line. This is so nice. Also, this phone can really be made yours. The caller groups you can arrange, along with special rings, and cute little graphics, the variety of ringer profiles, all of these things are very, very nice. You can even choose from six languages for your phone's display, and as I'm a big nerd, I was simply ecstatic that I could choose Hebrew, a language I speak. However, the other side of this is that there are a lot of menus, and they can be a bit difficult to navigate. It takes a while to find where everything is, or even to recall where some of the more obscure features, that you occasionally need are. Nokia should include a few more shortcuts, or at least place items like the calendar higher up, so they're more easily accessible more quickly. And speaking of that calendar, a month view for easy scrolling through dates, and T9 predictive typing would be simply wonderful. As it is, T9 is only available for use for text messaging, something I never use. There are a few things I would also like added. I'd like a banner that I can change. Seeing AT&T on my phone all the time gets a bit dull. Battery life is quite long. As usual, don't belive the hype; it won't last eight days on standby, but it does last quite a while. Overall, I'm tremendously satisfied. This is the best reception, the longest battery life, and most useful phone I've had. I think my long search for a semi-perfect cell phone is over, at least until Nokia comes up with the next generation. Did I mention it's a wee little phone that fits easily in your pocket, but doesn't have an annoying external antenna? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89246 2000/11/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight loads of features talk time no replaceable faceplates Full Review What is the "hype" on this phone? Well first of all, the first thing that diverts your attention towards this phone is the size. 2nd, the attractive, trendy colors (Red Pepper, Electric Blue and Carbon Grey) and 3rd, it has no pesky antenna. I know this how I got hooked on this phone. People have described it in so many different ways, but it basically sums up to just plain "trendy". It definitely turn heads and make them red in envy. Even though it's not the cheapest phone around, and not to mention the lack of Internet access (ranging from $199-$300.00, although, you can get it for $24.99 at buy.com with service), but it's still getting rave reviews and consumer support. Good and Bad Experiences with the Nokia 8260 I'm a Nokia freak. I had the 2160, 6160 and now the 8260. I've always trusted their phones in many aspects. Good ergonomics -- it fits perfectly in your hands. Excellent menu and keypads -- I personally like using one hand when using my cellphone, and so far, I have no muscle strains whatsoever. With the 8260, one hand utilization is definitely doable, since it's so small ... it is not necessary to use the other hand. Even with the small keypad, for some reason, I never had a problem entering letters or numbers. My technique is to use the side of my thumb. But come to think of it, I've been doing that even with the big and bulky 2160. Anyway, even reception is not an issue with me. I still get the same amount of reception I use to get with my old and trusty 6160. I never had dropped calls so far! Charging and talk time. Now that is something that I totally love from Nokia phones. Charing only takes a couple of hours ... 4 hours is sufficient. Talk time? It definitely lives up to the hype of 3.5 hours. I never really tried talking on the phone for 3.5 hours, but so far I only charge my phone once a week. Personalization. I love the idea of FINALLY not getting stuck with these corny ringtones (I HATE FUR ELISE!) and be able to download all these ringtones that would suit your taste from the Internet. Believe me, there's a lot of them out there. Recently, I was also able to download "graphics" for my Caller Group feature. If you own/owned the 6160, you know that when you get a call, in addition to the name of the person, you would get a graphic symbol preset on your Caller Groups. Now, you can customize that too! Mobile Originated Short Messaging Service. This was a big help to me while I was on vacation. Instead of me incurring roaming minutes, I just send messages to all my friends. It's fast, it's quick and best of all it was free (up until Feb. 28, 2001). I love this feature because, most of the time you really don't feel like talking on the phone. Especially, when all you need to say is "I'll be there at 10:00". With this feature, you can do that and save you the minutes again. Even with the .10 cents/message, you're still saving money! There's really nothing to like on this phone except the lack of the XpressOn covers, the InfraRed capability and those darn menu animations. Why buy it? It's the millennium. Everybody deserves to own a stylish phone. Gone are the days of monochromatic phones that only serves its purpose. This is the era of color (just go to Target) and mixing style with our everyday routine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89245 2000/2/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size loaded with features small button size signal strength The Bottom LineI absolutely love this phone. If you need a small phone with many features, this is the phone for you. Full Review Being a gadget-minded person, I felt like I was in heaven when I first saw the Nokia 8260 phone. I had owned a 5160 for over a year, and really enjoyed it. Not only was it well made, but you could make calls almost anywhere with it. Plus, it had the wonderfully nifty Xpress-On covers, which added a level of customization to the phone. Since I was already in love with the Nokia brand, buying the 8260 was an easy choice. With all the features (customizable ringtones and operator graphics, two-way text messaging, multiple caller groups, customizable ring profiles, calendar) I instantly knew I would love getting to know the little phone. I spent the better part of the day I bought the phone just playing around with all of the little goodies it had on it, and giggling like a little child. It was all too fun! My favorite feature on the phone is the multiple caller groups--this allows you to set different ringtones for different people. Very useful when you get calls from people you *really* don't feel like talking to...or calls from someone important (like a fiance! :)) so that you don't even have to look at the caller ID to tell who's calling. The phone basically tells you. The calendar is also a very useful feature. The Nokia 8260 is basically a tiny PDA - it has spaces in the calendar to allow for appointments, reminders, callbacks, or memos to be put in, and alarms to be set to alert you to an item in your calendar. While I wouldn't exactly throw the Palm away, it's still very useful for tiny things. The drawbacks are few and far between. The signal strength is not quite as strong as on my 5160 (undoubtedly because of the internal antenna) and does have some problems squarbling inside of buildings--a problem I rarely had with my other phone. The buttons are also very small...but, if you're looking for a tiny phone you can take anywhere, the buttons are going to have to get smaller, aren't they? :) There are also no Xpress-On covers for this model phone...the 8290 supports them, but not this one. Not a big deal at all, but I guess I just got spoiled on that feature on the 5160. :) All in all, this is a wonderful phone that I would recommend to anybody. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89244 2001/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight easy to use small battery life disappointing tiny antenna The Bottom LineThis is a good, solid, lightweight phone, but try it before you buy it. It may not be right for everyone! Full Review Well, here I am again, a consumer electronics writer writing about consumer electronics; what a surprise! Actually, I want to discuss the Nokia 8260, as it seems to be one of the currently "hot" phones in the cellular world. As everyone seems to know, the phone is tiny, just 4 1/4" high and 1 3/4" wide. It is also very light, about 3.5 ounces with the battery in the phone. I say IN the phone, because unlike most cell phones, the battery is under a removable cover, and not just stuck on the back of the phone. Does this mean anything? Not really, but it does deserve a passing mention. A number of people have commented on the size of the buttons on the front of the phone. I found them to be small, but okay in real world usage. If someone does have very large or stubby fingers, (sorry about that), I could see the buttons being a little awkward for you. Also, the power button is located on the top right of the phone, and it is tiny! I have to turn the phone power on by almost using a fingernail to hit the power button! It is not a problem to me, but again, something to check in to. This is not a phone you can purchase without trying out first. Make sure the ergonomics are right for you. The phone is available in blue, red or gray. I chose the gray because I felt the colors made the phone look too much like a toy. All individual taste, obviously. If you are at all familiar with any other Nokia phones, you can use this one with ease. The programming and operation are about the same as the 5160 or 6160. There are some additional features, but nothing to jump up about! I have a problem with the battery, as it is supposed to last about 6 days or so on standby, but mine lasts about a day. The battery and/or charger must be faulty, so I will have to bring mine back to the AT&T store where I purchased it. To sum it all up, I recommend this phone as it is small, light and has decent voice clarity. Due to its size and shape however, I would recommend that you try it out first to make sure it is right for you! NEW REVISIONS: Well, I have used the 8260 for some time now, and in all honesty, I must say that my epinion has somewhat changed! First of, I was outside standing next to a few people, all making cellular calls, all on AT&T Wireless. My 8260 was the only phone without good reception. I had a long talk with an AT&T senior technician. He said that the antenna is buried within the top of the phone, and it is a small plate. Not only is the Rf signal not that great, but when you hold the phone, your hand, or your head for that matter is right on top of the antenna. Now this may or may not be important to you, but it is worth mentioning! I find the buttons really are a little too small, but the main thing is you feel like you are talking into air. The phone is so tiny it does not reach your mouth.The microphone is sensitive so it picks you up, but the feeling is very strange. Plus, you will pick up a lot of extraneous noise since the mic is not near your mouth! Well those are a few more added facts, with additional usage. If they help you even more to make up your mind, great! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 89243 2000/8/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small size lots of features unreliable expensive poor reception The Bottom LineDon't get a Nokia 8260, you can spend a lot less for a much more reliable phone. Full Review For my wife's birthday back in January, I surprised her with a brand new Nokia 8260. It is a replacement for her aging analog Startac. At first, she loved the phone. It has lots of cool features, ultra-small and it is red, her favorite colour. After a few weeks, she quickly recognized the phone's weaknesses. The phone does not function well when it is indoors or near city limits. It doesn't work at all on highways. For those who are wondering, we are on the AT&T network. We did a comparison, we used my Motorola 7790 and her Nokia 8260 to make various phone calls at different points within the city, indoors and on the highways. The Motorola generally provided us with better sound quality, better range, fewer dropped calls etc. This is particularly noticeable indoors or outside city limits. The Nokia becomes progressively worse with its range and sound quality. By April, it started to drop calls even within the city's downtown core and it would take 5-10 tries to get a call out. We took it back to the retailer who promptly sent it into a Nokia service depot for us. He informed me at that time that he was sending, on average, a Nokia 8260 in per week for similar problems. The phone came back in 2 weeks. The paperworks suggested that Nokia replaced the antenna assembly and the phone was working within Nokia parameters. We tried the phone for one day and promptly returned it for further repairs, the phone was not working at all, no outgoing calls at all. The phone came back again in another 2 weeks, this time, the paperworks suggested that Nokia had replaced the circuit board. Once again, we tried the phone for one day and promptly returned it for further repairs; still no outgoing calls. After another 3 weeks, Nokia finally gave up on repairing the original phone and sent us a new phone. So far, for about a month now, the new phone is working fine. It still doesn't work well indoors or outside city limits but it is working. Overall, the phone is very small, very stylish and packed with features. If you really want a small and cool looking phone and you only use the phone under perfect conditions, may be the Nokia 8260 can be a good phone for you. But if you use the phone a lot (like me and my wife) then you probably need your phone to have good range, good reception, work indoors as well as outdoors, work on the highway and foreign cities; then the Nokia 8260 is definitely not a good phone for you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89242 2000/10/22 Product Rating5.0 small excellent sounding not loud enough ring tone Full Review I just purchased this phone along with the att service for my area.The phone is very small and lightweight,with excellent sound. It has a internal antenae with it which makes it easier to use. the complaints with this phone are the ringer volumn is so low at its highest setting that if your in a room of people you will never hear it. When I called cust service they told me they were as loud as allowed by law however my nextel phone is at least 10x louder.The only advantage to this is that it has a vibrating feature that works great. The other problem is it states that you can download 5 new ringstyles but cust service says this is not available in the usa.overall i have to rate this a 9 of 10. A very solid well built phone with menu opinions that are easy to learn Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89241 2001/2/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great design great controls great reception hands free included none The Bottom LineI looked over everything that is out there. If you don't need a web browser, 8260 is the best thing going. Tiny,gorgeous,very convenient,+ great reception. Full Review When there are pro and con reviews I always try to digest these and come up with my own take that considers the points raised. The 8260 is obviously a tiny, gorgeous, feature-rich phone. Criticism has been raised about it being too tiny. I would disagree. I have fairly large hands with very long fingers. I find the keypad and other buttons are very well designed and placed. This is perhaps actually the easiest phone I have ever had in terms of the requisite daily button pushing. Yes, the on/off is recessed and in a funny spot. Thats fine. It is not difficult to find/use this button when you want to - and pretty much impossible to push it when you don't want to -which is the idea. Along those lines, this phone also has an excellent keyguard which locks up all the keys (but still allows you to answer calls). This is great for me as a couple of times I had made mistake calls with my previous phone when buttons got pushed in a coat pocket etc. That will eat up the minutes let me tell you. The keyguard is easy to activate and easy to deactivate and this phone is so tiny I just put on the keyguard and throw it in my pants pocket. I would strongly disagree that there is a quality or design issue with these controls or that flip-phones are superior (the keyguard solves any key-press problems and is much easier to use than opening a flip-phone). I directly compared the 8260 with a couple of Motorola Startacs and I felt the quality and ease of use was much better with the Nokia. When you actually get down to using them, there is a flimsy feel to the poorly-spaced keys on the Motorolas. As for reception, another area of criticism, all I can say is that my experience has been that reception is actually superior with the 8260 compared to either of my previous phones (Ericsson and Audiovox). I get consistent and solid reception inside my office building and have yet to have an obvious signal strength problem. I'm sure there are phones that have better reception and this may be an issue for you depending on the cell situation in your locale - but to suggest that reception is generally poor or substandard with this "antenna-less" phone is just not correct. I had raised this issue with the salesperson due to this unusual design and she also indicated that most people seem to find the 8260 has as good or better reception than other common cell phones. The feature set on this phone is absolutely complete except for web features. My wife and I love the text messaging and email and the predictive text input makes this VERY easy to use. I have never used a hands-free headset and this included option works/sounds great. Battery life has been pretty much as advertised and charging is quick although I did prefer my last Audiovox charger that had an actual cradle as opposed to the simple jack on the Nokia unit. I think a cradle charger is probably an option. UPDATE: Last month we had a terrific "rush"-hour snow jam here in N. Jersey. My wonderful wife and I were both separately stuck in traffic for hours. The cells were saturated that afternoon as you might imagine and I think one call out of about 30 we tried went through - and that at the very end of the evening when the shouting was over anyway. However the text messaging worked perfectly during this period. I guess these text streams go into some kind of queue and are sent despite the traffic level. Using this feature we were able to communicate w/ each other very effectively and coordinate and solve what could have been a serious situation (w/ her car stuck on the road twice,etc). This was a real eye-opener for me and a very good reason to chose a phone like the 8260 or others out there w/ text messaging/predictive text input. Its not just for flirting at rock concerts! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 w/rebate 89240 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 built in vibratory alert small size many features no antenna poor signal strength price can t force analog Full Review Overall Nokia has done a great job with this phone. I've always liked and trusted their products (I've owned 3!). The quality of the phone seems very good and it's intuitive to use. The 8260 experiences infrequent but extended dropouts (up to 1.5 seconds) making conversation difficult at times but I want to point out that this is probably due to the digital cell network and not the phone. My Nokia 232 (analog) performed better in clarity and signal strength however it had more frequent (but shorter) dropouts than the 8260. Again, this is probably due to the analog cell network not the phone. The 8260 is a dual mode phone, but it won't switch to analog unless there is no digital signal. I travel a lot and would recommend an analog only phone over a digital for power and clarity provided you are out of town a lot and don't care about the extra digital PCS toys. It's always a trade off. I love: - The tiny size and with no antenna. - The no fuss lithium-ion battery that seems to last for ever. - The built in vibratory alert and combinations of ring and vibrate. - The sharp multi-line screen (although the print is a little small). - The free PCS features that I didn't think I'd use but am. Don't care much for: - Poor signal strength indoors in some places. (But there's no antenna!). - Inability to force an analog signal when desired. - Occasional voice distortion (could be the network though). - Extended dropouts of up[ to 1.5 seconds (could also be the network). - Occasional echo received that interupts my side of the converstation. Recommended: Yes 89239 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 carry it in any pocket there just aren t any The Bottom LineGotta love it! Full Review At first I thought it might be TOO SMALL. I was wrong; despite my 6 feet and 200 lbs, I can punch the buttons quite nicely, thank you. I can put this phone in an inside breast pocket of my sport coat and you can't even see a bulge. BEST FEATURE: (I only keep my phone on about 50% of the time.) Two Weeks between chargings! It's nicely styled (I'm a designer; this matters). The itsy-bitsy leather cover/belt hanger doesn't significantly hide it's good looks either. Wearing a phone on your belt (I do this as little as possible.): here's one that doesn't make you look like a telephone lineman or policeman ... you can literally HIDE the phone, on your belt, if you're wearing, say, a shirt or sweater that doesn't get tucked in. Also, with its tiny size and lack of protruding antenna, it DOESN'T GET IN THE WAY WHEN you sit (It swivels, even completely around, on it's hanger)! Oh yes, sound and adjustment of same: CLEAR AS A BELL! An intuitive up-and-down rocker switch (tiny and nice looking, of course) on the side of the phone (right where you expect to find it) adjusts volume up and down -- EASILY AND WHILE YOU TALK! Price: I don't know what the "approximately $199.00" figure is based on . . . my EXISTING SERVICE PAID ME to upgrade to this phone. I'm guessing anyone with existing service is going to pay a lot less than $199.00. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): less than 0 89238 2001/2/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 loaded with many special featuresfunctions size does matter buttons are too small to press bad reception did i say that already The Bottom LineSize, size, & size. If that's ALL that you're looking for, then this is it. Don't upgrade to a 'better' phone, you'll regret it - I have. Full Review Now, I know full well that there have been rave reviews from people who can go on an on about this phone. Don't get me wrong, but, for it's size AND price it's pretty well put together. The special functions; (downloadable rings), picture id for different callers, compactness all definitely factors into making this phone a highly competitive phone. I can go into further detail about some other special features, but, that's easily done through epinions.com for all the specifications. However, my concern/question is this.....what good is a phone, if you can't even use it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the phone? Did you notice how there's no external antenna? I don't know any type of equipment that requires one that actually works better without one. Having built an internal antenna only helps with the appeal and it's size. I've received many calls in good 'reception area' and it would still be a bad connection or it would just disconnect. The server I'm with also is one of the top telecommunications companies in the country of Canada (Rogers). So for all those looking for a recommendation? Stick with the Nokia 6100 series. You'll be glad that you did. Don't believe me? Take a look at the other reviewer's who rated it, more often than not, people were complaining about the reception. But, then again it's your money - not mine! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89237 2001/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 featuresinfrared connectivity great size poor build quality finish The Bottom LineBuy it if you have to carry a PDA, Phone and keys all the time. Yes I could carry a brief case but would you rather not Full Review Yes I have had many phones from Motorola and Nokia. I used to have a Nokia5190 before I got the 8260 also known as the 8290 depending on the wireless career you are with ......... INFRARED CONNECTIVITY Main reason for changing was that it had an infrared port to connect my notebook computer and my PDA for e-mail and other emergencies when I am away from a PC. I have found that the infrared connection is very stable compared to some other phones my colleagues carry.... SIZE I was also thrilled about the size as it is easier to carry in your pocket and not worry the antenna breaking off or bending it. Another plus is that it has a thin profile ... there are small phones made by Mitsubishi, Samsung and Motorola but they are all very thick ... add a battery that lasts as long as the 8260/90 and they get even bigger. I hate belt clips ... they make you look like an out of season Christmas tree FEATURES I like the features on it although you could get most of the features on many other phones too.... the phone has I believe 100 phone number memory spaces on the phone apart from the space you get from SIM card... The direct dial feature for accessing menu options is a nice touch by Nokia.... after a while you get used to remembering the menu numbers The decision NOKIA made regarding the hands free headphone jack is great ... they used the small male jack instead of the bulky bracket they have in the 51 series The things I don't like BUILD QUALITY The build quality of the phone is very poor ... it looks cheap almost like a toy ... the marketing department of Nokia probably did not expect execs to have one of these phones ... I got my phone with a blue very cheap looking cover ... well I bought a Carbon Grey express on cover (US$14) to make it look a bit more classy... the other colors are good if you are a teenager The other minor drawback is the side volume button tends to get pressed every time I get it out of my pocket.... they protrude too much ... I don't know how many people need to change the volume constantly The power button is too sensitive too ... I have found many times the phone has switched off accidently. All in all the phone is great ... I would only change it when I decide to buy the silver world phone... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89236 2001/6/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life easy to use lightweight tiny sound quality not the best The Bottom LineIf you need a small, lightweight cell phone this is the one! Full Review The NOKIA 8260 is a great little digital cell phone. I bought it as I was looking for a small, lightweight phone with a long battery life. If it were much smaller it would be hard to use! Setting up this phone is a breeze. After just a few minutes I had programmed all my important phone numbers as well as made a few notes in the calendar. It is so lightweight it's easy to forget you have it in your pocket! Checking voicemail is easy and the phone displays an indicator when you have new voice mail or text messages. The SMS allows you to send and receive short text messages. If your calling plan includes it, you can also send and receive Internet email. Another nice feature is the caller ID which automatically looks up the incoming number in your address book and displays the name you want (e.g. "home"). The address book is easy to use, and includes the most common items With the "predictive" typing system, the phone "learns" your style and tries to guess which words you want to type. This makes it easier to type text messages. The sound quality can be a little fuzzy at times, but I'm willing to put up with that in return for the compact size and long battery life. In addition, since the phone is optimized for digital systems it can draw down the battery if you are outside of your system area. Also, the small antenna make it less reliable in areas with weak signals. I also got the headset which is convenient for hands-free operation. It also comes with a calculator and a few games to waste your time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89235 2000/3/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 2 way text messaging vibrating battery download ringers icons small size battery life isn t that great gets too hot The Bottom LineI love that I can text message anyone who has Cingular for free anytime with it from anywhere, the downloaded ringtones, vibrating battery, and size. It's worth the investment. Full Review Before I write about my new Nokia 8260 phone I just wanted to say that I have taken a break from epinions while they got their new site in order. Now that it's up and running somewhat smoothly, I'm baaaaccccck. Why was I phone shopping? I previously had a Nokia 6200 series phone and was fairly happy with it. It had good reception, and the only downfall was the screen had a malfunction and after 2 years I couldn't see the display anymore. So, I went phone shopping. Why did I choose this phone? Of course, I had to stick with my favorite carrier, Cingular, so I had to choose from the phones that they support. I prefer Nokias, just because the last one I had made me pretty happy and I didn't like the way the StarTac's looked, honestly. Why this model? Well, the first reason was because it is so tiny. It can fit in my purse without taking up the whole thing!!! A definite plus. I also wanted a phone with 2-way text messaging capabilities. I love being able to text message my friends from lectures anytime :) Another huge plus was that I can download ringers and pictures from the web (www.the-mobile.net is my favorite place). Definitely great to personalize the phone :) Advantages Well, the advantages of the phone are mainly the reasons I chose it. I like the personalization features (ringers and pics downloaded from web), the vibrating battery, the small size, and the two-way text messaging. I also like that they give you a headset with the phone, I use it often when I am just sitting around my house. No one knows for sure if those things cause cancer, so it doesn't hurt... and it is sure nice to talk on the phone and doing something else. As with my other Nokia phone, the conversation is completely clear on the digital signal. Sounds just like a land line to me, but that probably depends more on your carrier. Finally, I like that Nokia has kept the same user menus for navigating through missed calls and user settings, etc. It made it an easy transition to my new phone. Disadvantages First of all, this phone is on the pricey side... runs about $200, but most carriers will give you rebates if you sign a contract. I was really unhappy when I realize the phone gets pretty warm if you use for longer than like 10 minutes. That is just ridiculous in my opinion, for a $200 phone. In this case, the headset really comes in handy. I also am unhappy on the battery life of the phone. I don't use it too much, but I find myself charging it every night. With my old Nokia I used it just as much and charged it every other day, or every third day sometimes. Other epinions have commented on the small/close together buttons. I have small fingers so this isn't a problem for me, but I can imagine it would be for someone else. Overall I love this phone, I won't lie. I love that I can text message anyone who has Cingular for free anytime with it from anywhere. I love my downloaded ringtones, the vibrating battery, and the small size. It definitely has its drawbacks, however, but to me it's all worth it. I am very happy with my investment!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89234 2000/3/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 it s a cellular phone that can be useful the reception on the thing is terrible The Bottom LineI would never recommend this phone to anyone. Nokia should come out with a new toilet paper for crying out loud! Full Review I personally used to have a Nokia. It worked for about two weeks, then it started getting fuzzy on me. I don't think that it is a very high quality of a phone. I fuzzes if I talk indoors, and that's most of the time, just because it's cold in this area. I wish that Nokia would make a better quality cell phone. I now have a new type of cell phone that is high in quality. My new phone works so much better. I think that the Nokia should be thrown in a garbage disposle. I have no use for a Nokia. Why in the world did I even buy one? The Nokia phone is as useful as the toilet paper I wipe my rear with. I personally think that Nokia should get rid of their phones. They're poor in quality. My sister also bought a Nokia phone. Hers only lasted a month at the longest. What kind of idiot would sell a phone like this one? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 14 89233 2000/1/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 forget you are wearing it small great signal easy to use features no sync software The Bottom LineBest thing I ever bought ! Outstanding phone. Better than I ever expected. Full Review Great phone, I've had it for about a year or so. I talk 300-400 minutes per month, and wear the phone constantly. It has great signal strength. This phone is 1000 times better than I ever expected. Keep your hand off the top of the phone where the antenna is, and you'll have great coverage. The amazing thing is I was ready to switch wireless providers because of poor signal. I turned out to be my old lousy phone. Once I got this phone I was thrilled. No dropped call. If I don't have a signal, no one in the crowd has a signal. What I really like about this phone is the size. I forget I'm wearing it until it rings or vibrates. It has downloadable ring tones, so you can program different rings for different people. As soon as I hear it ring, I know if it's my wife, boss, or unknown. Speaking of unknown, the large 250# phone book is great. Not because I have that many friends, but because I like knowing who is calling me via caller ID. If you have an entry in the phone book caller ID will tell you the name of the person calling. You immediately know if it's a call you can take, or send to voicemail. This is useful on vibrate mode. Vibration is strong, ringtone is adjustable to very loud. Battery life is what impressed me the most. A fully charged battery will last 3 to 4 days. I charge it every 3 or 4 days, unless I talk alot. I've never lost a call due to the battery dying in the year I've had it. I strongly recommend the horizontal carriers they sell for this phone. My is a carrier has a magnetic closure. This is very convenient. I forget I'm carrying the phone. The phone is durable, it's survived a couple of good drops. Your more likely to lose it than break it. If you don't get a horizontal carrier, expect some damage. A lot of people throw them in their shirt pocket, and they fall out and get damaged or lost. The only think I wish it had was a way to synch the address/phone book. Currently I either manually type in an entry on the keypad, or go to a web site and type in the entry that sends a "bus card" to the phone. Then you save the "bus card" to the address book. This is a GREAT phone if you carry it all the time. If you don't, say you throw it in a pocket book or brief case, you might prefer a larger phone with bigger buttons. I wear my phone constantly so I love it. The other thing you want to do is lock the phone, I've noticed you can accidentally place calls if you don't. To lock or unlock the phone simply press menu * Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 last yr 89232 2000/4/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 incredibly easy to use vibrating alert tiny t9 text messaging pim etc single purpose no wap The Bottom LineIf you are looking for WAP or a PIM in your mobile phone, find something else. If you don't need those features, the Nokia 8260 is the phone to get. Full Review One day, I hope there will be a perfect handheld device that will encompass my mobile phone, Blackberry-type pager, and PIM. Until then, I will just have to settle for finding the smallest, most useful items in each category. The Nokia 8260 is one of those gadgets that does a singular purpose, and does it perfectly. I've always loved the latest and greatest in mobile phones. I've owned a NEC blocky phone about 10 years ago, Motorola Star-Tac about 6 years back, a Nokia 6120, and now the Nokia 8260. Before buying the Nokia 8260, I looked at phones from Qualcomm, Ericsson, Samsung, and Sanyo from both AT&T Digital and Sprint PCS. Although I loved the features and looks of the Samsung and Sanyo, I ultimately decided to stick to the AT&T Digital network (as bad as that can be at times) so I had a smaller selection. And although sometimes, I wish I had the WAP capability, I'm totally happy with my selection. First off, the appearance and physical characteristics of the 8260 are top-notch. Nokia really knows how to make a phone. It's a tiny phone, but feels fine in your hand (although for extended calls, I use the included earpiece). It's durable and rugged, as I found out while dropping it a couple of times already. The best part is that it fits in my front pocket. I carry it around almost all the time in Silent mode and rely on the vibrating alert to let me know when a call is coming in. Having used and played with a couple of different phone software, I will say that Nokia has really mastered the mobile device UI. The 8260 UI builds on the excellent, intuitive 6120 UI, with a few more bells and whistles. If you've owned a 6120, the new features are (in order of value to me): vibrating alert, text messaging, phone book with email address support, call groups to identify callers with icons, and new games. The Nokia phones also have the standard mobile phone features such as phone books, call logs, alarms, and an anemic calendar. Nokia makes no pretenses about an integrated mobile phone and PIM. They have a sweet, tiny phone with an easy-to-use UI. You'll have to use something else for your PIM functionality. Since the text messaging is relatively new, it's probably worth discussing. You can recieve short email and short text messages. More importantly, you can send text messages to another Nokia 8260 (I haven't tried sending to other phones) or an email address. You'd think you'd go crazy typing any text on the phone, but the 8260 incorporates the T9 input system so typing goes pretty fast (amazingly). One thing that confounds me though is that the T9 input is disabled by default and a lot of people (myself included) take a while to find it, or never find it at all. While some people may complain of missed calls, bad connections, and call drops, I blame that on the carrier as much as the phone. I've always had to deal with those issues with any phone that I've used and have tried it with different carriers as well. Until the US gets reliable service, I wouldn't necessarily blame the phone. If I were building the perfect mobile device, the 8260 would fall short. But given Nokia's apparent purpose with the 8260 - to provide an inexpensive, tiny phone with a single-minded purpose of making phone calls and text messages easy - it has succeeded admirably. There are really only two things I would even note as issues: my UI menu initially shows three dots instead of a 1 (looks like a bug) and calls start out a bit quiet for about a second, then kick in at regular volume. In a nutshell, I love this phone. Until they come out with something that can provide a compelling PIM and real email functionality, I'll stick with the Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89231 2000/11/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light convenient more fragile than other phones Full Review I have to say that the Nokia 8260 is great!!! My brother purchased one first and I thought I would never want a phone that small, too difficult to talk with, too small, lots of things. But, after one of my friend's husbands had it, I wanted one. I realized the size is very convenient, it's not big and bulky, which is why I hated my other phone, a Motorola StarTac. The clarity is superb! I actually use it for my long distance and people think I am on a regular phone.I have no problem hearing in loud places. The features are great. I love the inside antenna feature, you don't have to worry about breaking it. The different profile settings is great. It has outdoor, normal, silent, pager, different profiles for different needs. the vibrating feature is great, no more embarrassing ringing in certain situations. One touch dialing with the phone book is great. You can customize the ring, I believe there are over 30 rings to choose from. Call log where you it has a life timer and also a timer where you can reset each month to keep track of how long you have used it. It even has a timer where you can monitor each call you receive/make. The feature I like the most is the calendar. I actually have thrown my planner away and use my phone. You can set meetings, b-days, reminders, basically anything and you can set an alert to remind you. The one thing I will say, it is more fragile than other phones. I have accidentally dropped it once, and there is a hairline crack on it now and part of the face has chipped off. Not a big deal, but you do have to be more careful with it. Overall, I would highly recommend this phone. It is convenient and very user friendly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89230 2000/9/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size talkstandby times vibrates weight not many accessories yet Full Review I'm a die-hard gadget junkie. Started using using cell phones since the heavy duty Motorola Ultra Classic was the thing to have. Since then I have been through countless phones from Motorola, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and other brands. In the past 2 years, my phone of choice has always been from Nokia. Given my recent acquisitions were the Motorola Digital V-Phone and the Ericsson T-18d, much smaller compared to the Nokia 6160, I still settled back to the Nokia. The Nokia had the best reception, features, and talk times then the others, but boy was it big. I wanted to switch to the cool chrome 8860, but friends and family urged me not to due to the sorry reception and insignificant talk times. So I settled with the "candy bar" 6160 with a chrome face until something better came along. A few weeks ago, a friend called and told me that the new 8260 from Nokia just came out. Although it was a TDMA phone, my carrier Cellular One said it won't be out for its system until mid-October. Sorry but I'm not one to wait. I found a local distributor that carried AT&T phones, they had several 8260s in stock and promised it would work since the phone is TDMA and I figured since AT&T bought CellOne, I can't go wrong. I picked up the Electric Blue 8260, better than the drabby red or the boring grey. I have used it for about a week now and I absolutely LOVE it. Why you ask? Well for one thing it weighs less than the battery from my 6160. Yep the whole phone actually weighs 3.4 oz, that's quite a bit lighter than the extended li-ion battery on my 6160. Much smaller too, standing up next to the 6160, the 8260 barely reaches the top of the keypad on the old phone and much thinner too. It runs with a semi-fixed li-ion battery, unlike the nickel metal hydride in the 8860, so you don't have to detach to charge it. Despite being much smaller than the standard batter on the 6160, the standby and talk times are pretty much the same. I have gotten 3 hrs and 20 min of talk time on it and standby by about 3 days. Given that it has an internal antenna like the 8860, the reception is much better. The reception is almost identical to that of my old 6160 with the big external attenna on it. When I call my friends, they claim that it sounds like a regular land line. Feature-wise it's very similar to the 6160, the menus and options work the same way. There are quite a few more ring tones than before and the great added feature of caller groups, which allows you to put a several people in a group with a different ring tone for each. The 6160 allowed only one different tone for one person. Now I can group people I don't want to talk to, like mother-in-laws, bosses, and free-loading friends into one group and therefore one tone. Plus the 8260 has a built in vibrating feature which is great now that I don't have to hunt down my vibrating battery every time I go to the movies. I hope they come out with some cool accessories for this phone, I'm using a Body Glove Ericsson T-18d case for it right now, fits pretty good, but I would prefer a case made specifically for this phone. The phone is very small and light and I'm more afraid to lose it then scratch it, since Im sure there will be different face plates available soon. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is currently using the 5100 or 6100 series and are tired of lugging around a big candy bar phone. It's basically the same phone in a smaller package. I paid $299 for it non-activated, you can find one for about $199 activated in most cities with TDMA coverage. For the price, it is a great phone compared to much more expensive big brothers 8860 and 8890. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 89229 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color face plates ring tones small size cover will get scratched not a flip phone Full Review Nokia 8260 debuted in the summer of 2000 here in the US. It is a TDMA phone. For those of you who don't know what that means, it is one of the three standards which are supported by US cell phones providers. AT&T is one of the few cell phone providers which do support this service. So if you want to buy this phone, then you cannot use Sprint or Bell Atlantic as providers. I will tell you the reason why I bought this phone: It is neat, and it is cheap. I bought it on-line at Amazon.com for $50 after a discount, and that is not including an additional rebate of over $100 from AT&T and Nokia! So do yourself a favor, and NEVER pay full price on cell phones again from some dealer at your local mall, search for phones on-line and buy them on-line. The 8260 replaced my Nokia 5130 which replaced a StarTac before that. Each of these phones have their own benefits and faults which I will be discussing from this point on. First I will go on about battery life. Since the marketing of digital phones in 1998 there is really little reason to go back to analog phones unless you live in a very rural area which does not support digital signals too well. Digital mode will give your phone a few hours of talk time rather than simply 1 hour. The 8260 has a great battery life, a little longer than the 5130 I believe, and definitely longer than the StarTac phones. Other than battery life, I am sure everyone would say that reception is an important criteria in judging phones. The 8260's reception is slightly worse than the 5130, so I would put it on par with the StarTac. When the reception is good, all of these phones provide a great a sound quality, although I think the StarTac provides a better sound quality for the receiver of the call. My friend who has the new Motorola Timeport (an evolved Startac) sounds great to me when he talks to me using his phone, whereas my other friend who also has a 8260 doesn't sound as good when she talks to me on her phone. I am not sure if this is because my friend has a better phone service (he has Sprint and she has AT&T) though. Due to some legal issues (Motorola has a patent on folding phone, so others could not make them so easily), nokia's phones could not fold. While this may be trivial to some, a folding phone does have some important advantages. With Nokia phones I often mis-dial because I put my phone in my pants pocket and the buttons on the phone will be hit constantly. The folding phones such as the Timeports and the Samsung phones will never have that problem. More than a few times I accidentally called people, or picked up calls from people when I did not want to has resulted in some embarrassing moments and relationship mishaps. Although you could lock your keys with your Nokia phones it is a pain in the butt, and you could still pick up calls by mistake. Anyways, the other advantage of a folding phone is that you could never scratch the phone's panels and display surface. Because I put my phone in my pocket all the time the nokia phones get scratched all the time. Now the good thing about the 8260 is that it is very small. I think the Motorola V-series phones are the only smaller phones. So you could easily slide your 8260 into your pocket. The small size and the light weight of the 8260 also would make the phone easier to lose, and it flies all over my car if I place it on the passenger's seat while driving. Finally, I will get down to the big reasons why many people are attracted to Nokia phones and not the Motorola phones, the color face plates, the ring tones, and other bells and whistles! Although this is no longer unique, Nokia have provided many colors for the face plates for all of their phones. Although this have no relation to the functionality of the phones, it does attract people into buying them, much like the Beetle cars (these quirky Europeans!) The (in)famous ring tones, dozens of them which comes with the 8260 (and the 5130) is also a crowd pleaser (or a major annoyance, depends on where you are) is also another gimmick which sells nokia phones but does not add much functionality to their phones. The 8260 comes with 5 open slots for ring tones which you could download from the Web! Imagine the smiles which brought to my friend's faces when I set up StarWar's tones to my male friends, and the Charlie's Angel's theme to my female friends, and classical music for my parents. 8260 gives you options to assign 6 different groups of callers, each gives you opportunity to set up a distinctive ring tone, ring volume, and a 20x40 pixel graphical image which you could download as well! The 8260 comes with a handful of other features such as a calendar, games, and hundreds of slots to store phone numbers, all of these features which I hardly care about and would probably use a few times in a year (except for storing phone numbers, although I don't think I have THAT many friends). Unlike some other phones the 8260 DOES NOT have voice dialing and web capabilities, although I doubt I will be using these features anyways. I really like this phone, and I think most people will like this phone as well. It might be too small for some people, but for people who likes neat things, this is a great phone to buy. This will make me happy for the next year or so, until it breaks down like all of the other cell phones I have had (is it me or cell phones are designed so they would break every year as mine have?) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): - $35 89228 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid construction light Full Review This little phone is my first real taste of wireless communication, after first having the pay as you go BIG phone. It's great, the best looking piece of electronics that I have found, and extremely functional. This little guy handles both phone and email, works as an address book, an alarm clock, a game system (although a lame one), and a calculator. Beyond that some of the features of this phone are it has up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time and 8 days of digital standby time with standard battery and weighs 3.1 ounces with battery. That is the only negitive feature to this phone, it is so light that yu may not realize that you have it. I have dropped mine several times all ready, and no major damage yet....but I shouldn't speak to soon, something this small can break fairly easy. I recommend that if you buy this phone buy the belt clip, even though it is small enough to fit in your pocket. The buttons on this phone are also small, I don't think that the buttons are too small though, perhaps just too low. You have to hold it with your top two fingers in order to dial with your thumb, which puts it in a topheavy position, thus more likely to take a tumble. All in all it a good phone maybe a bit to small or it may just take some getting use to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 89227 2000/2/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 tiny sleek design lightweight average reception may be too tiny for some The Bottom LineBuy it if you need the smallest, lightest phone around. Nokia is still THE leader for cell-phones! Full Review About 10 months ago I was in the AT&T Wireless shop upgrading my calling plan, when my eyes fell upon the new Nokia 8260. I had been using my Nokia 6120 for a while and it was still in great shape but I couldn't take my eyes off of this cute, blue, diminutive phone. After a bit of haggling, I was able to walk out with it for the then reasonable price of $99.99 After years of loyal service with my 6120, I was looking for more of the same in a more compact package. Let me start by saying that I tend to be a bit rough on my cell-phones, I carry them nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week and they are subjected to quite a bit of abuse. If the phone's not in the holster, it's in my jacket pocket or thrown into a bag, but always close at hand and always on. I'm reaching my one year anniversary with my 8260 and let's just say that the experience has been acceptable but a bit of a trade-off overall. For those of you who have owned Nokia phones, the 8260 will feel very comfortable. It has the same central rocker switch that'll allow you to scroll through your choices surrounded by two select buttons. The solid tactile feel of the buttons is still there, you know when you've hit the key properly without even looking at the display. From what I understand, the LCD display screen is the same one that's on my old 6120, it just looks a lot bigger on this tiny phone! For those of you who haven't owned a Nokia phone, you'll find that saving numbers in your address book and setting the phone configuration is very intuitive, I also use a Motorola for work and it's a mess to set up compared to the Nokia. I won't go into to too many details but some new features on the 8260 I like are the downloadable, customized rings (Mission Impossible for me!) and the included hands-free earpiece/microphone (though you do look a bit psychotic walking down the street, talking to yourself!). The design is sleek and modern with no obtrusive antenna protruding, very stylish. Now what are the drawbacks? The battery life is limited, this phone is small and light so compromises had to be made. I can use this phone for maybe 36 hours, it seems to drain more quickly than my 'ol 6120. The reception/signal seems to have suffered due to the internal antenna, I don't get as much signal in areas that I'm frequently visiting. Finally, the build quality seems to be a notch below the 6120. I've dropped my phone several times and I can hear something jiggled loose inside causing occasional malfunctions. Due to the size of the phone, buttons are nearly TOO small (especially the power button) and those of you who have over-sized digits, may find yourself pressing the wrong or extra digits when dialing! So what's the final verdict? While I love the size and look of this phone (not many can be slipped into your shirt pocket), I sometimes think about pressing my old phone back into service. The functionality of this phone has been impacted by it's size and my expectations are that each succeeding generation of technology should improve the product. With the Nokia 8260, it's been a bit of a wash. If you need a slick looking phone that won't weigh you down, get the 8260. If you want a durable and functional phone, go for one of Nokia's older models and save yourself some money. Though I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the next-generation of Nokia phones in the hopes that they will get everything right, hope springs eternal! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89226 2000/6/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great easy to use menu features light in weight small size may be to small for some people The Bottom LineThe phone is super light weight and small, with an abundance of easy to use features. I would recommend this phone to all nokia users. Full Review I have used the Nokia 8260 several times since this product has burst into the scene. Virtually all my friends who have cell phones have purchased and use the Nokia 8260. The feature I love most about this phone that makes it different from other phones is the Nokia 8260 impressive light weight small size. The phone is 4.1 inches long and 1.8 inches wide. The first time I picked up one of these phones I was shocked at how light weight the Nokia 8260 model is. In fact, this phone fits so tiny in your hand you will find yourself speaking at a high volume because you almost get the feeling the phones not even there. The phone fits easily into a pocket. The problem is the phone is so small that its easier to fall out of your pocket without you even noticing. I also like the fact that the Nokia 8260 doesn't posses and external antenna. You don't have to worry about extending an antenna when you go to use this phone. The lack of external atenna helps make this phone compact and light weight. Just like other Nokia models you can pick what type of color you want on your phone. I have used both the red and blue colored Nokia 8260, I find the red being the more attractive style of choice. You can also place a protective coat around your phone to have a better grip or to keep your phone from scratching. The sound quality of the Nokia 8260 from my experiences works just as good as the other Nokia models. With the Nokia 8260 you keep the quality but reduce the size of the phone. It's a perfect example of how technology has advanced. You will pay around 200 dollars for this phone, this seems to be the going rate. The menu features are easy to apply, and if you have any experiences with other Nokia models shouldn't be a problem for a new user of the Nokia 8260. I would recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a light weight, smaller cell phone. Any of you out there that still use an older Nokia model and are looking to reduce the size of your phone, the Nokia 8260 is the perfect phone for you. I have used several Nokia models and the Nokia 8260 is by far the smallest and lightest. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89225 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small nice features convenient attractive weak design easy to lose faceplate breaks often small The Bottom LineIf you got it in package deal, good for you. If your gonna buy it, you MIGHT want to try the other nokia model like this. Full Review This opinion is based from a High Schooler's use and perspective. I really like the size of the phone. Very convenient, and easy to hide from school proctors (we're not allowed to have cell phones or electronic devices at school) and convenient. I take it everywhere, and it is not much of a hassle. I got my phone with a package deal from pacific bell (now cingular). I only had to pay tax, like 35 bucks, but it was originally 250 bucks back then when the model came out. Much of the phones features I don't use very much. If you have a lot of things to do, this phone can be helpful, but I don't use the features much, just the instant messaging feature. You can set many things for the phone to do, ie timer, reminders. There is even some games for when you get bored in calculus (can't beat the games I got on my Ti-86 graphing calculator though :-)) Still, the phone's size is nice for those who don't have a lot of space. Paradoxically, I didn't enjoy the size because of a few reasons. Although I liked the conveniency and space, it is easy to lose. The tinyness and weight makes people think its a toy. Its funny to see my friend with a regular sized cell phone while I have a tiny one I have to hold with 2 fingers. You wouldnt even have to hold it you could just place it on your ear. If you like the tinyness though, theres no problem. The phone has many options, I had a car charger and earpiece kit. It allows you to talk on the phone without holding it (an earpiece is connected to phone and microphone). In all, I would recommend this phone very highly. I would recommend the other nokia i forgot it looks just like the 8260 but like milimeters bigger and rounder on the edges. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 34.00 89224 2000/5/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size easy to use newest technology expensive not compatible with other nokia products The Bottom LineYou should by this phone for its size, the technology of mobile messaging, vibrating alert, and the downloadable ringtones. Full Review This phone is a big thing in a small package! This phone contains the usual options like different ring tones, caller ID, call lists, and any other popular option cell phones have. The new options on this phone add a lot! Added options include Internet messaging, mobile messaging, and predictive text. The messaging allows the phone to send and receive messages from the Internet or another phone (as long as you provider supports this service). The predictive text is used when typing a message. An easy example of using this would be: Typing the word "The" Without predictive text you would have to dial the numbers in this sequence: 8+44+33 T H E With predictive text you just have to dial the numbers in this sequence: 8+4+3 The phone will guess what word you are typing and it makes this very fast. The one reason I don't like this phone is that it is not compatible with the car installation kit. Instead there is a cheap speaker/microphone combo that plugs into the cigarette lighter of you car. Lastly, my thought of the best part of this phone is the fact that it vibrates when it rings. Almost all the other Nokia phones do not have this option! It was very nice to notice someone calling even though it is on silent mode or if it is to loud I would still notice them calling. This phone is great if you want a small phone and you like the easy use of Nokia software. The mobile messaging is another great reason to buy this phone. The last and most fun part of this phone is that you can download ringers! Just do a quick search for ring tones and you will be able to find a site with FREE ring tones! The site I use is http://www.2thumbswap.com. You need the messenger service for this and then just type in you mobile # and select you carrier and it will show up on your phone! My next opinion will be on the Nokia 7160/7190 as soon as that comes along so look for me there! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 185 89223 2000/8/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 useful featuresdiminutively sizedlight weightdoes not set off airport metal detectors no gsm or ir capabilityproprietary accessories required web The Bottom LineA great phone, fully featured and extremely portable Full Review So small and light that it doesn't even trip the metal detector at the airport, the Nokia 8260 is the perfect companion for the active individual. It's leather case (not included in the basic package) probably weighs as much as the phone itself. Still the Nokia comes loaded with features that put even recent Nokia models to shame. Lot's of memory for phone numbers, intuitive programing and use, and a vibrating, long lasting battery highlight this winner. Used in conjunction with ATT's One Rate nationwide plan, it has never failed in providing me with seamlessly consistent service coast to coast. Although it has no visible antenna, reception seems better than other 6000 series Nokias. It's lightweight battery lasts for at least three days on a single charge with normal usage, far longer than the other Nokias in my family. How do they pack so much in such a small package? The lack of infrared equipment and GSM technology are part of the answer. Users of wireless computing will have to look elswhere if they need to use their cellphone as a wireless modem, and international travelers won't be able to connect with the GSM network which covers most of Europe. While the 8260 is e-mail send-receive capable, it lacks web surfing capabilities (which is not much use on phones which have this feature anyway). Still, the 2 year old Nokia 8260, with it's smart styling and convenient size is probably the sexiest cell phone out there right now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89222 2001/1/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light easy to use small speaker has to be right on the ear maybe too small The Bottom LineIf you're going to get a cell phone, why not get this one? Full Review I have the gray one, just so you know, and I work for AT&T. In order of importance, the reasons this phone rules. First, the size. This little sucker fits in the change pocket of my pants with less than an inch showing and weighs between three and four ounces. For the size, the battery lasts longer than the 6160 at approx. half the size. It also has a built in vibrate feature which would cost about $60 for a new battery for any other phone. Secondly, I love Nokia phones in general, compared to Ericssons and particularly the StarTac series, this phone is really easy to figure out. I work for AT&T, and helping people program these is much easier than any other phone. Third, this phone is much more sturdy than one would imagine based on the size. I have dropped it twice, to no adverse effects, but I had an Ericsson that was more or less ready to be retired after being dropped once. It may take some dings, but unless you drop something on it, it will hold together. Lastly, you may hear people complain about the reception on this phone, don't believe it, the only reason it doesn't work well is when people place their fingers over the antenna spot on the back of the phone. If you use headset with the phone your reception will be just as good as any other Nokia phone. The headset is an entire issue on it's own. They provide it for free because sometimes, to be completely honest, the size of the phone gets frustrating. It is too small to hold it between your ear and your shoulder, so you have to use the headset or get a cramp in your arm holding it against your head. For most of us, though, the sacrifice is well worth it. I should also mention, that while I do use the headset, I'm not overly fond of it as it is just an earbud, but hey, it was free and it works and if it really bothered me that much I'd buy a new one, wouldn't I? The phone is actually surprisingly customizable. Someone I work with has tricked his out with a clear face plate and a different color back light (purple) and other such cool details, all of which will violate your warranty, but the hipness is worth it, isn't it? The text messaging is handy, the games are a good time waster if you have time to waste, and I really don't have any complaints. I love my phone, recommend it to anyone, and also, if you paid $200 for it, you really over paid. Anywhere has a deal on this so it shouldn't cost you the full retail. Thanks for reading my opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 89221 2000/2/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great looking really small none The Bottom LineBuy it, it's really worth it. Great price and with rebate it's practically free. Also the At&t plans are fantastic. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is my first cellphone. I got it for it's great looks and it's size. So far I have gotten many oohs and ahhs from this phone. If you are the kind of person that likes that then this phone is for you. As for the exterior, it's great. The buttons are the perfect size and the screen is the right size. The only negative is that you cannot change the shell of the phone. The number of options this phone has is amazing. There is a message option where you can send and recieve text messages and e-mails or check your voice messages. There is a call log where you can check your missed calls, dialed calls, recieved calls, and the amount of time you have used on talking on your phone. Under profiles you can customize your ringing levels and tones. There are games, a calculator, a calender, and a keyguard. So if you need a phone, I strongly suggest you get this one because it has no flaws. As long as you don't need a web-enabled phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 89220 2000/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 games buttons Full Review This thing has too many buttons!! It is hard for me to comprehend what is going on. The thing is though that this has games off the heezy fo' geezy. The point is that this has too many questions though that is good too because you have more options to play games. This thing has too many buttons!! It is hard for me to comprehend what is going on. The thing is though that this has games off the heezy fo' geezy. The point is that this has too many questions though that is good too because you have more options to play games. This thing has too many buttons!! It is hard for me to comprehend what is going on. The thing is though that this has games off the heezy fo' geezy. The point is that this has too many questions though that is good too because you have more options to play games. This thing has too many buttons!! It is hard for me to comprehend what is going on. The thing is though that this has games off the heezy fo' geezy. The point is that this has too many questions though that is good too because you have more options to play games. This thing has too many buttons!! It is hard for me to comprehend what is going on. The thing is though that this has games off the heezy fo' geezy. The point is that this has too many questions though that is good too because you have more options to play games. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89219 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features including profilesbuilt in vibrate alert tiny size stylish long life did i mention the size some advanced features not yet supported by carrier buttons may be difficult for some people to navigate Full Review Skipping a generation, I went from a Nokia 2160 to the 8260... what a difference! I needed something small and able to use more current features; and wanted something stylish. The 8260 actually fits in a shirt pocket and has all the bells and whistles. One of my favorites: "profiles" such as Normal, Silent, Meeting, and Pager that can be set easily to change a slew of options on the phone with one push to fit your situation. The phone also has a built-in vibration alert for when you don't want the phone to ring (although there are tons of volume settings plus settings including "single beep" and "ring once" options that is far less conspicuous than a full ring). Standby and talk-time are great, the Lithium Ion battery resists "memory effects" that reduce battery life. Clarity is good (for cellular), at least on the receiving end. The size of the handset puts the microphone mid-cheek and I'm not sure if that or the cellular network is responsible for some difficulty being understood. Fortunately, there is a headset port that gets around all this with your choice of wide variety Nokia or third-party headsets. My only nitpicks are mostly related to my carrier (AT&T Wireless)... while the phone supports sending messages (SMS) or e-mail, it's up to the carrier to support the service. Also, hopefully because the phone is so new, it's missing some options... most notably no way to connect to a computer (this is automatically available on the 8290 GSM phone). In addition to preventing wireless data communication, a link would make features like the calendar/appointment book easier to use... not to mention the phone list (which is still a major improvement over previous models... entering, managing, and deleting names & numbers is a snap!) This phone is great for anyone on the go... it's small, stylish, and feature-packed. I would encourage those who need full-fledged wireless data services to choose the nearly-identical 8290 instead. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 95 89218 2001/1/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 i look cool man easy to dial light bad unpredictable reception The Bottom LineThis phone is great for casual cell phone users. Due to poor reception, if making phone calls is your livelihood, you may want to try something else. Full Review I'd been using a several year old Sony Z phone with Sprint when I made the switch to AT&T with a Nokia 8260. (As an aside it was a delight having AT&T immediately answer the phone whenever I needed to contact them vs. Sprint's interminable waits.) Here's what I've found after a couple weeks of use. The good: -I can take it jogging in my pocket and not notice it's there. -I am in constant touch with friends with the email feature. Sure it's awkward but to me email is just another perk this phone offers. -I have barely recharged my battery at all. It's a delight to have such a reliable phone. -I can dial easily with one hand. (I was used to a small phone key pad already.) -The calendar feature with event alarms comes in handy if you don't always have a PDA with you. The bad: -I just got off a call, while sitting in a quiet room, where my caller thought I was on a speaker phone. -While it's very clear - meaning I don't hear static - it turns out about 1/4 of the time the other party can't hear me. This happens both indoors and out. The antenna really does need work. -It doesn't have as many intelligent usability features I'd like, such as if I'm typing in an email using the predictive text input (which guesses what you're trying to spell), but I need to pick the word I wanted from their list, I have to scroll past 5 menu items to get to the "matches" menu item. It should know if I go to look at options while typing a word with multiple matches that I probably want to see matches...ok I'm having a delusion that a Nokia product manager will see this. Similarly after sending the mail, the menu choices often don't match what I want to do with the message, such as add the recipient's email address to my address book. Those are small nits though and I plan to use this for years...unless the reception problem does me in. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89217 2002/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 crisp clear sound packed with great features beautiful design great finish wonderful feel compact size must use fingernail to turn on off power button too many features you will never use The Bottom LineBuy it! This phone delivers great sound; compact, small, solid; wonderful feel; great finish; packed with features; intuitive shortcuts; you'll love it. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is simply wonderful! After using a digital Motorola StarTak for over a year and a half, I was thrilled to finally own the definitive cellular phone! What struck me initially is it's tiny size. The Nokia 8260 feels great in your hand and is weighted perfectly. Unlike the delicate StarTak, the Nokia 8260 is one solid piece. The one I own has a beautiful cranberry, metallic finish which is a treat for the eyes. This phone delivers crisp, clear sound. The battery has a super-long standby life. I only use half the features offered with this phone. Nokia tried to pack every feature into this phone, including those you will never use. But all that is trivial because the main features are outstanding. Because the entire antenna is built within the Nokia 8260's body, the top of the phone is completely flat with nothing protruding out from it. It keeps this phone ultra compact. Unlike many cellular phones, it doesn't require the user to pull out a flimsy antenna which is prone to bend or break off. Keep in mind that since the Nokia 8260's antenna is located in the top back of the phone, remember not to place your fingers over that portion of the phone when making or receiving calls if you don't want to risk having its reception compromised. It has been mentioned in other articles that the keys are too small. Unless you're a pro wrestler with fingers that resemble sausages, you'll have no problem pressing the buttons. It has also been mentioned that the keys have a tendency to turn on when your phone is placed in your pockets, purse, or wherever. Answer: The keypad can be locked in one step and turned back on in 2. It has also been mentioned, that the plastic which covers the screen is prone to scratches. Answer: Buy the leather cover which protects the whole phone. The phone is completely functional with the cover over it. The Nokia 8260 is wonderful in design, performance, and appeal. You'll love it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 89216 2000/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 price 40 tones weight vibrate size nothing so far Full Review I love this phone! Too bad all my friends do to though because i can't seem to ever have time with it my self! This phone comes in 3 different colors, not face plates unfortunatly but belive me its hard to come up with anything bad about this phone. I got this phone for 200$. Here's a little summary of the Nokia 8260: Two way text messaging & E-mail sending compatible: This is a great feature. You can send an email from this phone! (Sent with the email address your#@mobile.att.net) Also, you can send text messages to any person on the ATT network! Its great when you are just sending a little note or congratulations. Weight: Weighs about 3.4oz with standard battery : It is sooo light you can't even feel it -- that may be a problem :). It comes with a lithium battery! Size: its soooooooo small!!! Its only 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide. Standard Battery Life — Voice mode: Enjoy up to 2.5 hours of talk time and 8 days standby (digital): This is not stretching anything, I think i usually get a week worth of battery power with this phone, i only rarely charge it! Display: Five-line LCD screen with very small dots! Its really clear and crisp. Black/White. T9® predictive text input for quick text entry: You won't believe it until you try it! It really is great, my friend was obsessed with trying to deceive it but it wouldn't fall for even the tricky words, this feature is a must for anyone who uses e-mail or the two way messaging. Slide volume and menu keys that are easy to access during your call: This is nice, although its standard now on most phones, its nice to be able to adjust the volume (if you mom is prone to yelling into the phone!) Built-in clock, calculator and calendar: This is very useful, you will never know when you will need an alarm, believe me this has saved me MANY times! The calculator is very useful, (have you ever wished you had a calculator, well you always have a phone with you!) Calendar allows you to save notes (so you won't ever miss your spouses birthday again!) SuperSpeedDialTM for nine numbers: This is great I just press and hold 6 if I want to call my dad (Its free with the Family Plan!) Memory: Stores last 10 incoming and outgoing calls: This is nice, and they even show if the calls were missed through a special indicator! Vibrating Alert: Standard and soo necessary! So useful if you work, school, anything where a ring would be rude. Phone book: Holds 250 entries in groups with assignable ring tones: Yup, and the names are in alphabetical order, which is very easy. Entering a name and number is really easy! Idiot proof! Text messaging with 30 text message storage: I love text messaging, people can just e-mail my ten digit number with the att domain and it will zap the message right to me for free! (e.g: 9999999999@mobile.att.net, or log on to att.ws/personal/messaging for instant delivery of the message!) Also it works with any other two-way text messaging service! 40 ringing tones: Yup this is a must-have for me anyway, and the tones are listed with their names unlike some phones. And you can get unique ring tones "sent" to your phone by the phone company. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO DO THIS? its electrowizard@email.com. Caller ID: Yes Caller ID, even on flash (should you really inturrupt your conversation with your mother for a call from your girlfriend) Call mute: I haven't used this but I'm sure its handy for those people who want to have background conversations about the person they are talking to while they are talking to that person. Low battery alarm: This is handy when I leave my phone on at home! Phone lock: Yup this is handy for high crime neighborhoods. Programmable unlock code: For those people who live in NY (I've only been mugged there like 3 times, as opposed to 0 times in Boston) Keypad lock: Its really easy and really useful, all you do is press MENU then *. Games: This is great!!! Rotation, Memory, Snake, Logic (Snake is an all time favorite arcade classic!) User Interface: Nothing is easier to use than a nokia!! Emergency dialing when locked: Very safe, do you really need to worry about pressing UNLOCK then * then 911 when your car is totalled? Buttons: Hard plastic really nice - no rubber soft keys!!! Voice Quality: Very good, although this most has to do with the service.. This is the best phone ever!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 (upgrade from an Ericsson) 89215 2000/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size easy to use very long battery life less analog range than larger phones The Bottom LineBuy it if you have good cellular coverage and want a great small phone. It's superb. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is one of the new series double-digital plus analog band phones. It carries over most of the operating logic and button sequences from previous Nokia phones, so if you have owned one before you already know most of the operational procedures. This phone has a number of great strengths: - It has great battery life. I have the phone turned on from 8 AM to 6 PM every day, and the stock battery lasts four to five days per charge. No I don't talk for hours every day, but this is great battery service. Nokias are noted for having long battery life, which for me is a HUGE advantage. (By comparison, my wife's Qualcomm only lasts about 8 hours between charges with the stock battery!) - The stock battery has a vibrating unit in it. You can use the Silent mode and turn the ringer off. Most phones require you to buy a replacement battery to get the vibrating function, but it's included with this phone. - The phone uses the increasingly-standard mini-plug type headset. These headsets are available for as little as $10, and a basic one is included with the phone. Headsets with custom multi-pin plugs require either a much more expensive headset or an expensive adapter to convert to mini-plug service. - The audio quality (incoming and outgoing) is quite good, and there is a volume control rocker switch right on the side of the phone so you can easily adjust volume if needed. I leave mine on full most of the time. - The phone holds 250 names and phone numbers. You can also store email addresses, and use it to send and receive emails (in areas where the service is available). It's very easy to retrieve any number by pressing the Scroll Down key, then hitting whatever alpha/numeric button is close to the name of your listing. That jumps you to that part of the alphabet, and you can scroll to your listing with a few presses. - Any time you see a phone number displayed on the LCD screen, you can press Call and the phone dials it. This makes working with the call logs extermely convenient. - The very small size makes this an easy phone to carry. The cons are: - The microphone pickup is on the bottom of the phone. This is actually only a disadvantage if you don't pay attention to it. Keep this in mind and cup your hand with the phone in it so that your voice will have a surface to bounce off....it's basic acoustics. - The phone is optimized for digital service; although it has an analog band, the signal strength in analog service seems to me to be about 75% of the digital capability. I also think the digital capability is perhaps 10% les than that of phones with external antennas. Driving on the freeway between Fort Collins and Denver (60 miles) there are spots where signal strength will fade out to the point that the other party can't hear me. However, the signal strength comes back up within a few seconds and the phone has *never* dropped a call on me. - The only leather cases that I can find for this phone use swiveling plastic belt clips, which I loathe. They break, and they make the phone stick way out from my body. I removed the swivel for the plastic belt clip and installed a belt spring clip from a used case; the phone is more secure this way. More belt case options are needed, and will surely appear soon. I strongly recommend this phone if you live in areas with decent cellular coverage. If you live on the prairie in Montana or Wyoming, you should buy a bit larger phone (probably a Nokia) with an external antenna for more range. There are often special deals on this phone which give considerable discounts. Mine cost only $50 because of a special. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89214 2001/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size battery life sound quality digital reception no voice activated dialing no internet capability The Bottom LineIf you're in the market for a super, compact phone w/exceptional sound quality, this is it. Full Review With hundreds of opinions already rendered on this phone, why do I want to add another? Simple. This phone is worthy of praise. If you're looking for a phone w/all of the bells and whistles (e.g., voice activated dialing, internet browser), this is not the phone for you. If you're looking for a phone that's portable, sounds good, looks good, and can hold a charge, then you may want to consider this one. Nokia listened to the demand in the marketplace, and decided that this phone would meet a niche. Obviously, it has, as is demonstrated in its popularity. It works great as a phone, having superb sound quality and digital signal retention. I emphasize digital, because its performance in analog is questionable, in the opinions of a number of AT&T Wireless employees. If you keep your hand off of the area where the internal antenna is placed, you'll actually improve its analog performance. Keep this in mind when calling in the rural and more remote suburban areas. It serves well as a PIM, w/a calendar, 250 name/number phone book, alarm, and 2-way text messaging. Personally, I would have preferred if it had voice-activated dialing capability, but I think AT&T will overcome this obstacle w/a system-based voice-activated service in the future. Its cousin, the Nokia 8290 does have this feature, but it's only available on Voicestream's network, which is limited in coverage. Because of the phone's size, and no external antenna, holding it may feel awkward at first. You may want to try using a headset/belt clip combination as an alternative. However, don't let the microphone location fool you. Its sonic performance is stellar, and most people I've spoken with have heard me just fine. Overall, it's a great little phone which does the job it's suppose to do, and it does that job exceptionally well. If you want to maintain its pristine appearance, keep it away from keys and change in your pocket. If you want it to perform to its optimum, keep your hand away from the internal antenna, and enjoy using it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89213 2000/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 3 colors light weight nice design lots of features the ringer is weak The Bottom LineGood clarity, sleek design, many add ons, new features. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is an extremely popular model among teens and adults as well. Nokia's latest model is jam packed with new features. I will get into the features later. The phone is very hip, with a stylish design. And it is quite small in size but yet very durable. There are many usefull add ons to this model. It is completely digital, containing the needs of the future. The phone was released in late 2000. Colors The 8260 comes in three new colors. Electric blue, Carbon gray, and red pepper are the colors you will get to choose from. I enjoy my Carbon model, it gives the phone a more sleek, safisticated look. Features - Send e-mail or short messages. - Built in calander. - Fairly large LCD screen, visible text. - Built-in antannae - Volume key in good location on left side. - Has 5 ringers, each with a different sound. - Almost 4 hours of digital talk time with the standard battery. - 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide, weighs 3.4oz with a battery - Phone supports 7 languages. Keys The black arrow keys are 'soft keys.' Gives a nice feel to the user. These keys accsess the main menu. The 'End' key is used to hang up the phone and activates keygaurd functions. The 'Talk' button is what you will press before punching in a number. The scroll keys are also soft, use these to scroll through addresses. The 'Power' button powers on and off the phone. Design Three exciting new colors. Nice sleek design for the professional and the adventurer aswell. Size The phone is fairly small. It will fit into the palm of your hand with no problem. It is light weight yet it won't break on contact. It is a surprisingly sturdy phone for such a small size. Battery Life The Nokia battery seemed to last much longer than my old Sam Sung battery. I found myself rattling off hours and hours of conversations without replacing the battery. Clarity All cell phones have some trouble in this area. Don't get me wrong, the phone is very clear but doesn't compare to the clarity of a home phone. But overall it is fairly good and you don't get that annoying echo like other cell phones have. Accessories Swivel Clip Carry Sleeve Leather Carry Sleeve 920mAh Lilon Semi-Fixed Battery Desktop Charging Stand Spare Battery Charger Standard Travel Charger Rapid Travel Charger Rapid Cigarette Lighter Charger Leather Carry Case Headset Kit Express Car Kit Mobile Holder Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89212 2000/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature packed stylish miniscule proportions low sar poorly designed on off switch no faceplates Full Review I fell in love with this phone as soon as I laid my eyes on it (I was in my local Cellular ONE store getting my Ericsson KF 788 repaired). It was small, it was light, it was stylish, and it was feature-packed. I decided to purchase it and replace my Ericsson, haven't regretted it for a second (except when I was paying for it. $240 was more than 3 times what I originally paid for my Ericsson. Inside the box was the phone, manuals and such, a charger (not the nice desktop kind but the cheap-feeling cord you plug into the back of the phone), and a handsfree earpiece. Also included was a pamphlet explaining our current knowledge of the possible dangers of cell phone radiation (actually, the SAR of the 8260 is one of the lowest in the entire cell phone industry, so those of you for whom cell phone radiation is an issue, this is the phone for you.) In the Nokia tradition, the 8260 features a large, high-resolution backlit display, straightforward navigation, and tons of easily accessible features, including a calendar, calculator, and games. One might think that, given this phone's almost-ridiculously small size, using the buttons would be next to impossible. But those guys as Nokia have made the buttons very easy to press, and I have yet to accidentally hit the wrong button (unless you count the intense games of Snake) One button is exceedingly difficult to press, however, and that is the power button, which is small, narrow, and almost recessed into the phone. I often have to use my fingernail to turn this thing on or off. Of course, with the incredibly long battery life, turning it on and off isn't really too necessary. Another annoyance is the lack of faceplates, which would be understandable except for the fact that the Nokia 8290 and 8210, both GSM variations of the 8260, do offer faceplates. Aside from those two complaints, the Nokia 8260 is truly a flawless phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240 89211 2000/2/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 size battery life sound quality user friendly features that would have made it much easier to use lacking simple The Bottom LineSmall phone with clear sound and long battery, but missing those simple features that would have made it much more user friendly. Would not have bought it had I known. Full Review This is a nice phone, but it does have a few drawbacks that are starting to get annoying. I was upgrading from an Ericsson DH318vi phone. The Nokia 8260 caught my eye because of its small size, internal antenna, long battery life, and vibrating ring option. Those are all nice features. It also has clear calling (both what you hear and how you sound to the other party). But it is sadly missing some handy features that my old Ericsson had which made it friendlier to use. Keypad Lock That keypad lock is serious. Nothing can happen until you unlock the keypad. You can't even turn it off. Ordinarily, when you press any key, the whole keypad lights up. This is handy when trying to dial in the car or a dark room. But with the keypad lock engaged, nothing lights up when you press the keys. So you are stuck in this catch-22: you can't light up the keys to see them because the keypad is locked, but you can't see the keys to turn off the keypad lock because they won't light up. You sit there fumbling, wishing the dang thing would give you some light. It is also annoying that you can't even just turn the thing off when you want to without first going through the unlock process. Keypad light My old Ericsson phone would stay lit if I had the cigarette lighter charger attached. That made it handy to use the phone in the car at night. The Nokia 8260, however, does not light up even with the cigarette charger attached. It won't light up until you hit the keys. So if, like me, you call home to check for messages, and your phone takes more than 5 seconds to answer, when it comes time to enter your code you are looking at a dark keypad. Oh sure, once you hit your first buttons, the pad lights up again. But by that point, you've entered the wrong code (and perhaps accidentally hit the code for deleting a message). I wish it would just stay lit up as long as the charger is engaged. Speed dial Sure you aren't going to memorize all 250 numbers in your memory. But with my Ericsson, there were probably five or six that I called often enough that I remembered their location. "1 + send" reached my girlfriend; "3 + send" reached my answering machine; "19 + send" reached my buddy Tom, etc. That was so convenient. Now, when I want to call Tom, I have to click [Names] then ["T"] then [Down][Down][Down] to get past all of the people whose names start with "T" but come before Tom. And I have to be looking at the screen the whole time. Heck, at this point it is just easier to input his 7 digit number and ignore the fact that I have it SOMEWHERE in memory. LCD Screen Problems The LCD display on my Nokia 8260 has accumulated dust on the inside. I've only owned it for 4 weeks, and it is already getting hard to read the screen through all that internal dust. Last week I went back to the store where I bought it, and they sent me to another one of their stores 15 miles away. At that store today they did clean it for me in about 1/2 hour, but they told me that in the future they will not do "service", and I will have to go to an electronics store and pay for this service. If every month or so I'm going to have to get somebody to clean out the internal dust blocking my LCD display, this is going to become very costly and annoying very quickly. Buttons The [SEND] and [END] buttons just have a green line and a red line. Immediately above them, the main two menu keys just have a blue line each. The keys are equal in size, and placed next to each other. I am constantly hitting the [SEND] or [END] keys when I mean to hit the menu keys and vice versa. Other perks This may sound silly, but my old Ericsson had this nifty feature you could set so the phone would make three quick beeps when the number you dialed actually connected (so that it was ringing). That solved the problem of hitting send, and then staring at the thing for 30 seconds while it searched for a cell tower nearby. Of course, you could always just leave the phone against your ear and wait for that first ring to begin. This is a small thing, but I got very used to that handy feature. I would dial and leave the phone comfortably in my hand until I heard those three quick beeps. Only then would I raise it to my ear, knowing I was connected to a ringing phone on the other end. I wish the Nokia 8260 did that. Conclusion It is still a nice, small phone with good reception. I'll keep it and make due. But quite frankly, if I had known about the above missing features/funtionalities when I bought the thing, I wouldn't have gotten it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 125 89210 2001/8/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pocket sized light weight has many features internal antenna have not found any The Bottom LineBUY THIS PHONE!!! You will thank me later! Full Review About a month ago I bought a red pepper Nokia 8260 phone off eBay. Great Buy!!! For most of last year I was using a blue Nokia 5165. It was a good phone, but I was about to go back to college, and would have liked to have a phone that I could keep in my pocket at all times. THIS IS THAT PHONE!!! Like you, I read some reviews on epinions.com and had a conflict. I was told of all of the reasons why people did not buy this phone... "It's too small, my fingers hit the wrong buttons." "It gets bad reception in buildings" Well I'm glad to tell you these statements are not true! I bought this phone because I was looking for a smaller phone, I got that and so much more. The phone is the perfect size, and is also lightweight (at 3.4 oz). It has an internal antenna that makes it more compact, and you don't have to worry about breaking the antenna (it sounds strange, but has happened to two of my phones). The phone also vibrates (this is great for a night at the movies). I could go into all of the details of this phone, but I'm sure you know about them by now. All I can say is... BUY THIS PHONE!!! You won't be sorry. This phone has everything you could ever want in a phone. I bought mine on ebay for $120 and sold my other one for close to $100! A new phone for only $20!!! My Advice: Buy it on eBay and Sell your old one there too. PS. I bought this phone and just kept me old plan. All you have to do is call attwireless customer support line (1 800 888-7600) and get to a live person (type options 1-4-0), and let them know the number on the new phone and you'll have a new phone and the same account. If this has helped you, please let me know by clicking VERY HELPFUL just below, also if you trust me let me know (to the left), thanks... TheCollegeGuy Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89209 2001/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life no external antenna compact keys very smallhard to see in dark accessories limited no external antenna output The Bottom LineVery good phone. It does everything a phone should, and really personifies the definition of mobile and portable. Full Review I purchased this phone over a year ago when it was first introduced, so I have had a significant amount of usage from which to form an opinion. The compact size is all in all a plus. It fits everywhere; easily in ones pants pocket, or in a womens purse. I really enjoy the fact that I can put it in my shirt pocket or pants pocket, and not feel I'm carrying a brick. I like that much better than having a phone clipped to my belt all of the time. The reception is very good, and it's nice to know that an external antenna is not right next to your ear. The antenna is built into the back of the phone. There is no antenna stalk sticking out of the phone. In standby mode, the battery lasts a long time, days and maybe even over a week. Talking naturally drains the battery much quicker, depending on signal strength. A weak signal will make the phone work much harder and drain the battery faster. Generally, the talk time is about 4-5 hours I would estimate, which is a good amount of time. The sound clarity is very good, and people on the other end of the phone always tell me how clear I sound, so the microphone pickup from the phone is also very good. Now, there are a few drawbacks, but nothing major. First, earpieces and headsets have been hard to find for the Nokia 8000 series, and the selection is limited. Often when you do find them, they are much more expensive that for other phone models. This phone has a 2.5mm jack (standard type plug), but you still need accessories made specifically for this model phone!!! The earpiece or headset must specifically say compatible for the Nokia 8000 series. Just because the plug fits into the jack doesn't mean a device is compatible. About the only headset with a boom mic is the Plantronics M133-N1. There are currently no headsets made for this phone that fit over the ear like headphones. I prefer that over sticking the earbud in my ear. There are several manufacturers that make the earbud device. There is no external antenna output, so if you want to install a hands free setup in your car, you can't attach the phone to an external antenna mounted on the outside of the car. An external antenna on your car will give you much greater reception, so I am disappointed about this. I use a handsfree wired device (plantronics headset), but would much prefer the externally mounted antenna for better reception, especially in hilly terrain where a signal often fades in and out. Lastly, when driving, the small keys make it a challenge to dial, at night it's murder. The keys are lit, but because of the small size, they are very tough to see in the dark. A small phone means smaller keys, so I guess it's the nature of the beast, but something you should consider if you drive and dial the phone a lot. Everything else about this phone is good, and it has all the standard functionality you want as far as ring tones, settings, etc. I would recommend this phone as a quality phone that meets most important criteria. The downside of the external antenna, hands-free headsets, and small keys are minor negatives in my experience, and are outweighed by the other attractive features of this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89208 2000/2/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size makes it easy to stow very light size makes it hard to hit buttons The Bottom LineGood phone, loud enough, easy to use, etc. Too small if you're a big person or have wide fingers. Full Review Let me begin by saying this is my third attempt at owning a cell phone. I like the idea of cell phones as added accessibility, contrary to the fact that I hate the idea of cell phones as a status symbol. Working in an electronics store that sells these items, I see plenty of people buying them for both reasons, and I see plenty of people buying the wrong phones. I started out with a Nokia 6180. I liked that phone as much as someone can like a phone; it was easy to use and small enough to be extremely portable. Many of the features I liked about the phone I have presently are carryovers from the 6100 series. Next I tried an Audiovox phone, and don't get me started. Just don't buy one. The reason I ditched the 6180 was because it dropped 99% of my calls within two minutes of receiving/making them, and 100% of my calls, is they lasted after two minutes. I will add that most of my calls didn't even go through. I am hoping this phone is not disappointing in the same matter. Moving on from my ownership history, there are a lot of interesting features about the 8260, and like I said a good deal of them are carryovers from previous Nokia phones. Firstly, the phone book is accessible and easy to use. When I say accessible, what I mean is that you do not have to enter a series of introductory rituals to get into the list of names and numbers. In fact, all you have to do is hit the "down" button and you're scrolling through it. Also, a feature which I think SHOULD be standard, but surprisingly is NOT (which I learned from having the Audiovox) is automatic alphabetization. This is something everyone is going to look for in a phone, because that's how people think, it's how all other phone books are arranged, from A to Z. It's a "duh" feature, but I was surprised to find out how many phones are not equpiied with it. Another key feature for me is silent / vibrating ring. I am a student and I carry my phone with me. I do not answer it during class (so many people do...annoying!) but I like to be aware of people trying to get ahold of me. Especially since I have a large family, and any number of things could be happening to any one of them, and if I needed to be notified of something, at least with the vibrating alert, I can answer my voice mail messages within an hour. Also, for people who work in retail jobs making money for the man, a lot of times employers don't allow cell phones to be on your person. Vibrating alert combined with the size of this phone, give you an alternative to missing your calls. Ah, the size. This is probably the biggest area of delight / concern for any owner. Personally I like the size because I don't like to have big things in my pockets. In fact, I don't even like to have my keys in my pockets, because they stretch the fabric out in a weird way that makes my rumpus look odd. My pants are ugly enough; I don't need stuff crowding up my pockets making people think I'm a weirdo. And I certainly don't need stuff pushing out my pockets VIBRATING making people think I'm a weirdo. The 8260 is tiny. You can't even tell it's there. If you do see it, it's squarish and barely bigger than a pager, so you quell possible nasty rumors. BUT. It is tiny. I don't have huge fingers, but I am clumsy. And sometimes I have fingernails, and I have to say it gets hard to press the right buttons. I haven't had the phone for long enough to become totally comfortable with it, in such a way that I can dial without looking, though, so this may be an unfair assumption. Another feature I like is the calendar. I was considering buying a palm pilot recently, and frankly I don't think I need to. The only reason I would buy a palm pilot is so that I would have an excuse to get organized: the potential waste of several hundred dollars otherwise. Almost any feature a PDA gives you, this phone gives you. At least the features I'D use, which are personal calendars, notes, calculator, etc. It even has an alarm clock. There are also some other neat gadgety ideas I may never take advantage of, that bear mentioning: you can input email addresses along WITH the name and phone numbers of your phone book entries, and depending on your service provider's plan, you can send them an email FROM your phone. You can send messages phone-to-phone between other 8260 users in the room, as well. I can't say I'd ever USE this feature, (unless there was a really funny inside joke to be made), but I do have friends who think it's the coolest thing out there. Again, let me reiterate how clumsy I am. I have already dropped this phone at least fifty times, and I've only had it a month. There have been no adverse affects, as far as I can tell. Granted I haven't been throwing it from moving vehicles, but with constant abuse anything will bust, and this phone has shown its durability well enough. The clarity of sound on this phone is good, not the BEST I'VE EVER HEARD but it's a cell phone. I don't get loss of quality when I go under viaducts, I don't get static intereference, the volume control goes loud enough so I can have my windows at least partway down, etc. I am MOST disappointed in the ring tone selection, however. Not that it is brief or LACKING, for most people, but one of the things I hate most about cell phones is those damn classical pieces everyone loves so much. I don't WANT to hear a chipmunked version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and I sure as hell don't want to hear the screeching rings that are the alternative. What I LOVED about the Nokia I USED to have was that it offered the "Low" ring. This was an almost normal-sounding telephone ring, and NOT in a higher register than is humanly acceptable. I loved it. It was pleasant, even. The 8260 doesn't have that ring, which was, believe it or not, one of my most convincing arguments to stay with Nokia. This phone also gets really HOT after using it awhile. I got a cell phone pretty much for the free long distance. I talk to people of considerable distance quite a bit, and therefore when I do call them the phone conversations are long, sometimes more than an hour and a half. This phone, (like its predecessors) get extremely warm on the back side after periods of use I wouldn't consider to be too long (roughly twenty minutes or so), which is worrisome but not a big deal, I guess, as no functionality is lost. Overall I do like this new phone. It is extremely small, which is nice for anyone who hates the 16-year-old "My daddy bought me a cell phone" kids who run around clipping bright green faces to theirs, so everyone can see them, even across the ocean, even when averting their eyes. I don't WANT people to see me on the phone, because it makes me feel that they all think I think I'm better than they are, even though most of THEM use cell phones, too. I don't know what this idea is, but I'm sure other people have thought it, and in any case, hiding the tiny phone in my hand lets people choose whether they want to think I'm pretentious, or simply schizophrenic, and if I had to have a stranger thinking I was either one, at least they'd stay away from me if I was schizo. If you have big fingers DON'T buy this phone. It doesn't have many more features that make it worthwhile over the other models, not if you hate having to retype and redial everything you do. Also, since the antenna is internal, they suggest in the manual not to put your fingers over the little antenna area on the back. Well, if you have hands that are bigger than average, you can't AVOID putting your fingers over the antenna-back, and that does interfere with reception. As it stands, I haven't had any problems, and I have no reason to believe I didn't make a good purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89207 2000/5/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small sizebreadth of featuresinternal antennalight weight almost too smallsometimes awkward The Bottom LineSmall size, feature packed. Full Review If you are looking for a feature packed digital phone in one of the smallest profiles available, consider the Nokia 8260. I loved my Nokia 6185 but is was beginning to show its age after almost three years of use. I had grown accustomed to Nokia's menu based system but wanted a small phone like the Motorola Star Tac. I chose the Nokia 8260 primarily because of its small size and familiar menu system. The phone measure only about 3.5" x 2.5" and weights 3.4 oz. It has an internal antenna so their is no bulky protrusion to catch on your pants pocket. Despite this small size, the buttons on the phone are the same size as that of the previous, larger Nokia's so using it is not any more difficult. The menu system is also the same as the other Nokia phones so, if you are a Nokia user, no re-training is required. The 8260 comes complete with a wide range of rings (including vibrating alert) and has the ability to send text messages and e-mail. I was worried about reception and sound quality prior to buying the phone, however, my fears proved to be unfounded. Although it has an internal antenna, the reception on the phone is excellent. I use service through ATT and I rarely have dropped calls. I often receive signal in areas where other ATT users (on different phones) cannot. The earbud piece for the 8260 is also a convenient bayonet type plug rather than the blade type. Sound quality, in both the handheld and earbud modes, is excellent. The phone is also durable. I have dropped it many times (due to its small size!) and it has not shown any signs of damage. I do recommend buying a protective sleeve for it as it is so small, it often gets thrown into a pocket with keys and change resulting in scratches on the display. There are a few drawbacks with the phone. One is that a user with larger than normal hands might find it difficult to use. Since the phone is so small, it is sometimes hard to line up on your head properly when making a call. Nokia recommends not touching the area where the internal antenna is located. Given that the phone is small to begin with, this makes holding the phone somewhat awkward. Because of this, I use the earbud whenever possible. Also, I have found the small size of the phone to be a drawback at times. It is so small that it got lost in my pants pocket. When I moved to carrying it in my breast pocket, it was so small that it would often turn sideways and get lodged in the bottom of the pocket. For these reasons, I have purchased a belt clip for the phone. All in all, it is the best phone I have owned yet and I have no plans to replace it anytime soon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 89206 2000/11/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 did i also mention no antenna to poke you did i mention small light great battery life small slightly small keypad Full Review I, for one, am very satisfied with this phone. Compared to my old 6160 this phone is absolutely tiny, which is exactly what I was going for. Finally, a phone that fits in the pocket of a pair of Jeans comfortably. Which means a lot less of carrying my phone, or worse yet deciding to leave it behind because I can't carry it on my person without having to actually keep it in my hand or on my belt (which is something I really, really hate to do). Sure, as I've heard from some others, the keypad is a little small, and the phone "feels" a bit more chinsy than previous phones, but what else can be expected in the never ending strive for smaller and lighter? I in fact find this phone very usable - I'm a tall guy with decent size hands and find that I can type phone numbers, address book entries and emails one handed - just takes a little getting used to. And the size benefits far outweigh any minor annoyances, all while maintaining basically the same outstanding battery performance I had with the 6160. Oh yeah, and one last thing - no antenna sticking out to poke you. As for reception, I work in a large size (~100yd by 100yd) 4 story building, and the only place reception is a problem is in the stairwells/elevators, which is most likely due to the material of the elevators and the fire protection in the stairwells. All in all I give this baby a thumbs up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 - already had plan, and didn't turn in old phone 89205 2000/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use good design price is too high Full Review I recently purchased a Nokia 8260. I admit, my purchase was driven not entirely by the need for a new phone. I previously owned a nokia 5160 which was a great low-priced model for most of my needs. The 8260, however, provides 2-way text messaging, 1-way email (I say 1-way because you can't configure it to send from a specific email address; it always defaults to yourphonenumber@mobile.att.net or whoever your provider may be), a calculator, calendar, and vibrating feature. For personal data management (address book, calendar, etc) i prefer my palm pilot because the input interface is easier to manage. But until we get convergent cell phone/pda's in the states with widespread support, I am satisfied with the 8260's pda-like capabilities. Within a few days of having my new phone, I quickly adjusted to the small buttons on the keypad. I find the 8260 easy to use and the navigational controls are adequate and generally make sense (select, back, up/down, start call, end call, raise/lower volume). The reception is very clear and is a significant improvement over my old 5160. I actually get reception in my house now! All in all, I am pleased with the product but disappointed with the price -- I paid 199 USD which seems to be the going rate. I bought it from best buy and they are offering a few rebates (one of which to be eligible for, $75, you need to sign up for a new calling plan). If you are indeed eligible, all the rebates sum up to $75 + $20 + 30 BBD (best-buy-dollars, which aren't worth quite as much as real money). This makes the cost a little more bearable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89204 2000/2/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 firm buttons great reception transmission small great keylock lightweight good screen speaker isn t loud enough in very noisy locations mediocre phonebook small enough to lose easily The Bottom LineHave some fun with your old phone and see how far you can drop it until it breaks apart. Then run right out and buy this one! Full Review This has got to be the best digital cell phone out there. I had to switch services when I moved about a year ago and the carrier I selected didn't support my old phone. I was terribly distraught because I had been using my SprintPCS Touchpoint for about 2 years and it was perfectly suited for me. It had great reception, a good mike pickup and a great phonebook. I decided to try and find the smallest phone I could that would still be "dial-able". Some of these small phones have miserable keys for a man to dial. I selected the Nokia 8260 on the condition that if I used it for less than 30 days I could bring it back and exchange it for another. The reason was that I was very leery about a phone with such new technology, an internal antenna and a mic that sits about 3 inches from your mouth. Plus I was used to having a "flip phone" and had friends whose phones were always calling someone from their pockets and briefcases because nothing was protecting the keys. Well, I never did go back. The phone is absolutely amazing. People I call tell me that there is the least background noise that they have ever heard from a cell phone, I don't know how Nokia does it and to be honest I don't care. It works like a champ and that's all I care about. The internal antenna is better than my friend's Nokia (on the same network) that has an external antenna. Because of this antenna the phone easily slips in and out of a pants pocket. Now to complete this convenience Nokia has a great keyguard feature. Once activated you have to press two certain keys within three seconds of each other to unlock the phone. I know what you are saying, "Great, but what about when the damn thing starts ringing? By the time I get it out of my pocket and press the two buttons the call will have gone to voicemail." Well, not to worry, Nokia thought of this and when the phone rings if you press the "dial" key it will unlock and answer the phone for the duration of the call. When you hang up the phone automatically goes back into lock mode. The three drawbacks I have are that being so small makes it easier to lose (I explain in a minute), the internal phonebook is poorly designed, and the speaker could go a little louder. The first one is that because it is so small it is easy to lose track of. When you have the phone in your pocket you don't even notice it is there. This means that when it isn't there you don't notice it is missing. Plus it is small enough to get mixed in with other things in its immediate vicinity. For instance, I was at a restaurant and the phone rang, I took it out and answered it, spoke for a minute or two and after hanging up I put it on the table. When we left I forgot the phone. It was so small that it got "mixed in" with the background clutter on the table. It didn't stand out in my brain as I saw the salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup, glasses, etc. Fortunately, a very kind waitress found it and called the last number dialed, which happened to be the person I was with at the time. We went back and picked up the phone. Had a less honest person found the phone I would have been out of luck. The internal phonebook is a joke. While it does have a large capacity the software is very stripped down. My old Touchpoint would let you enter a person's name once and then "attach" up to five numbers to him. This book is the more traditional line entry method, i.e. enter a number and attaché a description. OK, while annoying you figure you can live with it by creating entries like "Doe, John - Home" and "Doe, John - Work". Alas, this doesn't work because the screen is so small that these would both be abbreviated as "Doe, John …". Very annoying if, like me, you tend to use your cell phone as your primary contact list. My final criticism is that the phone is small enough that the earpiece doesn't cover your ear and the speaker isn't loud enough to overcome excessive outside noise. This is only a real problem in very loud situations like a crowded mall and such. However, don't get the impression that I don't like this phone. Overall I think it is the best one out there. Those three criticisms are minor compared to the drawbacks of many competitors. I highly recommend this phone. I got a great deal on it because I bought it when Nokia was giving a $50 rebate so it only cost me $129, but even at the local retail price of $179 I would still have bought it. Give your old phone to a friend or your dog as a chew toy and upgrade to this beauty!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 89203 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality features ease of use size curb appeal small buttons especially the power button Full Review The new Nokia 8260 is a sexy little phone, and I mean little. With no external antenna, and a weight of less than 100 grams, this phone is truly a "pocket" product. My old Ericsson started dropping calls constantly after about a year so I decided to go shopping for something new. I had researched many phones and had narrowed the list down to 3 or 4 when I spotted the 8260. It shares the same basic chassis as it's big brother, the 8860, but for less than half the cost. 'Nuff said... The 8260 met all the criteria I was looking for, size, features, appearance, and most importantly, price. At about $200 bucks after rebate, I decided that this was the phone for me. The 8260 comes standard with a 900mAh Lithium-Ion battery and a Quick travel charger which means if you've got digital service you can expect about 8 days standby, and roughly 3+ hours of talk time on a 1 hour charge. Very impressive for such a small package. Although I've only had this phone for a couple of weeks, I have tried to find it's weaknesses, and so far they are minor. The backlighting on the keypad is a bit uneven when viewed in dark conditions, but still quite readable, and the plastic buttons seem a bit "clicky cheap" compared to the reasonably sturdy body of the phone. The display, although quite large for the size of the 8260, shows a little too close to the edges making it sometimes tricky to read in bright conditions due to shadows. On the plus side the Nokia 8260 is feature packed with "actual" useable stuff like E-Mail & Text messaging (both ways), a calendar with alarmed "reminders", as my girlfriend noted, an alarm clock, and a distinctive ring feature which is very nice. I can tell by the ring who's calling even before I look at the call display window. The menus are very easy to use and navigate through, and the "predictive text" mode when writing messages is accurate and easy. It knows what you are writing without double or triple clicking keys to get a specific letter. Sound quality is excellent and at times even comparable to a land line. The Nokia 8260 for sure, has the "WOW" factor going for it, and with features too numerous to even get into, it is an excellent little unit with tons of appeal for both guys and gals. If it's a small, feature rich, attractive , and surprisingly well built cellular phone that your looking for, then this is it. When I pull this phone out, someone always asks to see it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140.00 89202 2000/7/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 efficient fun durable lightweight changing from the original will void your warrenty although aftermarket faceplates are available The Bottom LineThis phone is excellent...a true model of the portability and convienience for which cell phones were originally designed. :o) Full Review As my husband is in wireless sales for AT&T, I have had the opportunity to own and operate various brands and models of cellular phones and, I must say that the Nokia 8260 is (without a doubt) my favorite. I received this particular phone about 6 months ago as a gift from my husband who thought it would serve me better than my 5160. I did have my initial doubts about the phone. For those used to talking into larger phones, it seems as though the microphone would be too far from your mouth to pick up on your voice properly. Also, it was slightly hard to get used to the size at first. Once I overcame those small obstacles, I was quite pleased. The phone is so small and light in can fit inside your pocket or the smallest of your lil' evening bags (Probably not a factor for most of the men). The phone may seem delicate due to its size, but do not let that fool you. I have a toddler who believes this phone to be HIS. I gave up trying to keep it from him...I simply lock the keypad and he plays with it and drops it quite regularly. I must say, that for all this abuse, the phone has not suffered at all...physically or in voice quality. This model offers several useful functions...an easily accessible Calendar and Calculator, text messaging with a feature known as predictive text (You don't have to hit the key 3 times for the 3rd letter of a word...the phone just "knows"), and the fun option to personalize your ringtones. Aside from the tones offered on the phone, there are 5 empty spaces to fill with rings of your choice (available on several websites). I currently am using "Blister In the Sun" by the Violent Femmes. :o) The sound quality is fantastic on this phone and it is made with as built in antenna that will avoid breakage. Also included in the box with the home charger was the hands-free ("ear-bud" type) kit for added safety while driving. All in all I must say I was very happy with my gift...my cute, lil' red phone (also available in blue and gray) that serves as my link to the rest of the world. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89201 2000/6/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 tons of features you ll probably never use small tons of features you ll probably never use too small The Bottom LineSlim design has TOO MANY FAULTS Full Review The cellular phone market is an ever changing one. Long gone are the days of those big bulky Motorola with the long antennae. Now we have the tiny Nokia "Charlie's Angels" phone. With an integrated antenna, its tiny portable design, and after seeing it on the big screen I knew I had to have one. From the first call, I knew I had made a mistake. This phone may be TOO SMALL. It still feels odd to me talking into a phone that barely reaches my cheek. If you're a busy person that has their hands full all of the time, then this phone will become a real drag if you tend to rest the phone on your shoulder while talking because it is just too small. If you dont believe me, try it out at your nearest Cell phone store. The hands free kit is not just an accessory, its a NECESSITY. This is the only way you will be able to talk comfortably. Last complaint about the size, you better have good habits or a good memory because you might just lose this thing because of the size alone. You can easily lose this phone in a large pocket. Other complaints about this phone would be the plastic case it comes with. It scuffs much too easily and before you know it, you'll see lines and scratches all over the screen. There is also an accessory clip that you can purchase for $25-$30. This clip is horrible and I cant tell you how many times people have given me back my phone simply because the clip disengaged from my belt or pocket and the phone was left on the seat or the floor. The buttons may be too small for larger hands and punching in numbers might be a problem. The last problem I encountered which may just be my phone is its intermittent failing to charge. When its plugged into the charger, it states that it charges, but a few hours later, it hasnt charged at all. This may be a problem only with my phone, however. As for the good points, it has a large capacity to memorize numbers, a calculator function which is NOT INTUITIVE TO USE, and some simple games. No, this isnt the playstation 2, but its great when you're shopping with your girlfriend or wife and she's trying on the entire store and you have to wait. Overall, i do not recommend this phone to anyone. If you are looking for a phone, look elsewhere because having to use this phone for the contract year is looking to be a nightmare. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 89200 2001/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight features design maybe not enough features according to todays standards cheap covers The Bottom LineWith newer models out there you maybe can have a good deal. The 8210/8260 is still a phone to beat. Full Review For the money you can have better specs at other leading brands. But for the numerous possibilities of customizing your mobile, the Nokia 8210 can't be beat. The cheap plastic cover can easily be replaced by "what have you" these days. This attractive idea is one of the major drawbacks at the same time. The covers simply scratch too easily. Not good for a piece of equipment with this pricetag! Nokia thought of this and provides the sturdy 8850/8890 with an alloy cover. But at what price? Go for it if you can fork out the dough, otherwise be smart and get some spare covers and save the extra money for your telephonebill. One of the coolest things though is the ability to receive ringtones via SMS. Go check out www.yourmobile.com, they've got the largest collection of free ringtones for your Nokia. Make your mobile personal to the max without having to compose any tunes yourself. Anything else good on the 8210? You bet!! Razorsharp/bright screen, clear sound and T9txtinput to name a few. Did I mention the Irdaport, four fungames and picture messaging? The list doesn't end here; vibrating alert, voicedial and agenda(never forget your weddingday!) Now to round up my epinion I think the menustructure is a bit cluttered. Coming from a Motorola with less options the Nokia needs a bit getting used to. Also the sleek design hampers the receivingquality over models with antenna. And for those of you who think they need WAP, this one doesn't have it. Wap is a fad in my opinion anyway. Bottomline... I won this phone at a contest and gave it to my girlfriend. A sexy girl needs a sexy phone, right guys? Recommended: Yes 89199 2000/9/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish small size takes a beating high price for features poor build quality The Bottom LineOverall I think this is the best phone available for TDMA networks like AT&T or Cingular, but it is simply too poorly built for me to recommend it. Full Review I travel constantly so my mobile phone is my primary means of communication. I'm also a gadget freak so I've used everything: Ericsson GSM phones, Motorola CDMA StarTAC, Nokia 6100 series, and AT&T's Ericsson web phone. My current, although soon to be replaced phone is the Nokia 8260. Styling The styling of the phone is definitely cool. I think smaller gadgets are better, and I am a big guy with big fingers, and I really haven't had too much trouble using the small buttons. I have the blue phone, and when I first got it everyone was asking about the phone, although now they are far more common. The phone is incredibly small and light, and fits just about anywhere. The only size-related problem is that I've had the phone fall out of my pocket on a few occasions, especially in taxis or cars where it can slip out of a pants pocket fairly easily. Talking on the phone is no problem, although some of my friends don't like talking into "nothing" since the phone will not be in front of your mouth while talking. I've had no real problems with the button size, although I know a lot of people complain about the buttons being small. The keypad buttons provide a fairly solid feel when pressing them. The only really annoying button is the power button. It is on the top of the phone, and provides no real tactile feedback when it's pressed. Features I've always been somewhat underwhealmed by the renowned Nokia menu system. It is fairly easy to use, easier than my old StarTac or Ericsson, although it does not provide as many features as I would expect for a phone of this cost. The address book works well, which is the funtion I use most, and allows for several speed dial numbers as well as the usual address book functions. This phone is one of the first to support two-way SMS messaging, although it is limited to your carrier. (i.e. I am on AT&T so I can only send SMS' to other AT&T users) You can also send short emails from the phone, although entering addresses is tedious. When a message is received the phone does not map the sender's number to the name in your phone book as several GSM phones do, which is somewhat annoying. Downloadable ring tones and group pictures are also supported. The group functionality is fairly interesting, although I found I did not use it as much as I would expect. You can assign entries in your phone book to several groups, and assign a custom ring for each group so you could have a certain ring tone for work callers, and one for friends. The biggest problem I had with this feature was that I was used to a certain ring tone, and would often ignore my phone when it was making a ring for a different group. My favorite feature that has become relatively standard is the profile set. You can assign ring tones, vibrate modes, and SMS tones for each profile. For example I have a "Meeting" profile that makes the phone beep once for a call, rather than ring and disrupt a meeting. I also have a "Crowd" profile that rings at the highest volume and uses the vibrate function. Battery life is fair, and the phone comes with a rapid charger rather than the slow charger vendors usually provide. Talk time is about two hours, and with moderate use I get 2-3 days of use. With heavy usage expect to charge every day or carry an extra battery. Extra batteries are rather expensive and around $80. Since the battery is inside the phone, rather than a battery pack, there is only one size battery. There are no WAP capabilities, or any provisions for data, which I find rather annoying on a phone at this price point. Reception Reception on the phone is fair, although in analog mode it is not as good as most other dual-mode phones. This phone does seem to have problems connecting calls though, although that may be a function of AT&T's network rather than the phone. Sound quality can vary widely based on position of your head or a number of factors. Reception in digital areas is better than with my old Ericsson WAP phone, but analog is not as good. Durability This is my biggest issue with this phone. I probably use my mobile harder than most people, but this phone shows a lot more wear and tear than other mobile's I've had. The blue paint that makes the phone look so cool easily clips and flakes off, although this is purely cosmetic. The really annoying problem I've had is that dust collects under the display, in two different layers, and since it's internal to the screen there's no way to get it out without disassembling the phone. In direct sun the glare on the dust makes the display nearly unreadable. I have dropped the phone several times and it keeps on ticking, although it shows signs of use fairly easily. The phone also is a bit flaky sometimes. For example I'll plug the phone in to charge and the display will say "Charger Connected," and then in a few seconds say "Not Charging." The phone will also mysteriously turn off on occasion, or the battery meter will not read accurately. I've gone from four bars on the meter to the phone shutting off with no warning on several occasions. The Verdict This phone is very stylish and good looking (before the paint chips and the dust gets under the screen), and it can take a beating, although it will show it. The size and weight are a huge plus, but the quality issues and lack of features are making me upgrade to an Ericsson T39. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89198 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 usually free small size choice of colors reception is spotty in congested areas too small internal antenna The Bottom LineIf size & style are your key parameters, what are you waiting for? Full Review Abstract: The 8260 is a great phone, but makes some ergonomic and performance sacrifices for its small size. Design: The choice of colors is a key factor for most people, which was also a key component to the older 5200 series' success (those interchangeable faceplates made them very popular). The small size/weight and highly stylized design are nice, but make it less of a "handheld" phone and more of a "three-finger" phone. This 8200 series is probably just about as small as phones can realistically get for American hands. The tiny buttons are made of a slippery, rubberized plastic that makes entering a number quickly sometimes difficult; text-messaging is definitely tough for those with medium-sized and above fingers. Performance: Reception is good, particularly in suburban and less-dense areas, but in signal-heavy areas (our experiences were in Manhattan & downtown Chicago) the reception is poorer than our StarTac. If you use the phone regularly (eg: you're a traveling exec), expect about 2.5-3 days between charges. A soccer mom or college student using it a few minutes here & there a day could go for about 4-5. The only time we even got close to 8 days (6 in our case) was when we used it for less than 5 min during an entire week. Speech quality (what the other person hears) is good, but not great. Flip-out models like the Ericcson KF788, which preceded our Nokia, tend to have better quality. Radiation issues: The poor reception in congestion due to the internal antenna (?) troubles me. When a signal lessens, the phone pumps up the energy the driven to the antenna (not an exact explanation, but it works for our purposes) to increase the reception. The higher the energy, the more that gets absorbed by the area around you ear. As most people know, the results of cell-phone radiation/brain cancer tests have been conflicting, but it does help to know that most "experts" suggest using a phone that protects the ear as much as possible. A "reverse" flip-out phone with a long-antenna, like the StarTac, is probably best, both for reception and for lower radiation. Just a thought. Value: Nokia is unloading slow-moving inventory by discounting the 8200 series to the point that they can be given away with rate plans. Free = good value :) Recommended: Yes 89197 2000/3/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small stylish maybe too small The Bottom LineA Great Small Phone Full Review I bought this phone for my wife about three months ago. I signed her up on Cingular wireless, which gave her the phone for $99 plus, a one-year commitment. I think the phone is great. For me, the smaller the phone the better but this phone maybe as small as they can get for practicality reasons. The phone is about the size of an Ericsson T-28 except without the antenna. The screen is bright and reasonably large for this size of a phone. One of the great things about this GSM version of this phone is the SIM chip. I love these chips because they make the service very flexible. All of the user information, phone number, address book, and other things are stored on the chip. I can swap chips between my wife's phone and my phone and now my wife's phone is mine with my phone number and address book. One example of how this is helpful is if you buy a new phone, there is no need to reprogram all of your phone numbers, just swap chips. The down side to this phone is that it is small. I have used it a number of times and found my big hands fumbling with the tiny buttons. Over the long run I think I can program my hands to operate the tiny buttons. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89196 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features functions weight size size can be small for larger people Full Review I bought this when it was time to start looking for a replacement for my 6100 (check out that review). I probably would not have purchased it, as the price was $199.00, but AT&T and Nokia offered rebates and credits that lowered my cost to $34.00. Having used the phone for a month, I would now gladly pay the $199.00. I also ran out and bought a second a week later. So my bias now shows. This is a great phone. The size is the biggest little feature. Dropped in a shirt pocket, this phone disappears. The buttons are smaller than my 6100, but not by much. I am comparing the two side by side, and the 8200 is less that 1/2 a row smaller than the larger phone. I have no problem with the size and placement of the buttons, and suspect most won't. The screen is the same size as the larger 5100/6100 phones. Like the 6100, the 8200 has two soft buttons (change based on menu you are in) and two scroll buttons. The extra button (5100 has only one soft button) is a big bonus, and makes navigating the many menus a breeze. The phone has a huge memory, and shows both names and numbers stored in your phone book. If someone you stored calls you, their name is displayed in the screen. Otherwise, the caller ID shows only the number. There is a calendar and clock, which tell you which calls you missed when. You can also enter notes and appointments, but I wouldn't run my life like that - get a real PIM for scheduling. The niftiest little toy is the messaging function. You can send text messages to others with this phone. My wife and I both have one, and it is a discreet way to send little 'I love you' messages without talking or disturbing others. I have been able to send messages to users of other Nokia phones, however I have only tried people that use AT&T as their provider. I don't know if I could send a text message to someone on another provider. The antenna is internal, so there is no danger of breaking it, as I did on my 6100, 2100, and other cells I've owned. The battery has an outstanding life, and it vibrates - standard. If you've spent $70.00 for a vibrating battery, you know they are great, and will appreciate that this one is "free". This phone does not offer internet connection, but it does offer e-mail - you can both send and receive e-mails if you sign up for the correct plan. A couple of things I didn't like: The size, while a bonus, can be a quirk. It fits perfectly in your palm, but that means it fits perfectly in your palm. My palm can cover the microphone (on the bottom of the phone rather than the face) if I'm not careful. As there is an internal antenna, you can not touch the top back of the phone while talking. I consider both of these a learning curve, however. There are not faceplate replacements available for this phone, so it is more difficult to express yourself with this phone than a 5100/6100. This is absolutely the best phone I've owned, and I've had plenty. Well worth picking up, especially if you are able to get the rebates I got from AT&T. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 34.00 89195 2000/4/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything nothing The Bottom LineGood, solid phone with many cool features. Full Review I was pulled into the cell phone craze a few months ago when I bought a red Nokia 8260. The store I bought it from also offered a very nice deal, which influenced my decision. It is so small that when I hold it and talk into it, it looks like I'm talking to my hand. I just keep it in my pocket and sometimes I don't even know its there. I love the text messaging and email. Since my family is always online at home, I'll just email someone instead of trying for hours to get through on the phone. The preset ringtone is a little lame (its the same Nokia tune you hear everywhere). But that can be changed. Go to www.cellphoneuser.com and they have a huge selection of cool ringtones for the Nokia 8260. They will just send it to your phone, no cable or wire needed. The hands-free headset is also a very nice feature. Just plug it in like you would a headphone (the headset plug is actually smaller than a headphone plug, so only the headset plug will fit). If you go to eBay, you can find all kinds of cool faceplates and even different color lights for the Nokia 8260 phone. The battery lasts over 200 hours on standby and about 32 hours talk time. Its a very good phone for anyone to get. Recommended: Yes 89194 2000/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size great features reception clarity power button cumbersome vibrate mode lengthy to initiate The Bottom LineOnce this phone is available with CDMA technology it will be a FANTASTIC little unit. Full Review I purchased this phone from AT & T (NYC region) and will be returning it this week. The phone is real nice but AT & T STILL is LOUSY in NY ( please see my separate epinion on that service). I was amazed at how compact this phone really is. It truly does weigh 3.4 ounces and seems very well made. The voice quality (when you get good reception) is land line quality. The software as with all Nokias is flawless except for a few quirks with the vibration mode. I also own a Startac and all you need to do to put the phone in vibration mode is press two buttons (function and 8). It takes an inordinate amount of time to turn the phone into vibrate mode. Am I missing something? If so, please let me know as I'm quite curious if there is a shortcut. Since the phone is SO small, it takes getting used to holding such a tiny object close to your ear. It just feels strange as you're really not talking into a mouthpiece as you would on a Startac. This is NOT a shortcoming as the person on the other end can hear you fine! I also found the volume control on the side a nice touch but my big fingers had a tough time modulating the volume. I had to physically look at it to go up and down. The power button located on top also requires a bit of patience since it is SO tiny. This shouldn't pose a problem as I rarely turn off my phone as I am sure most of you may not either. Battery life is excellent and much better than ANY Motorola product I've ever used. I would like to see a little key cover added in the future. I know it adds a little more complexity to the package but initiating keyguard is a pain and I always seem to forget to do it. When I take my phone out of my pocket there are ALWAYS numbers on it but I guess with time you can remember to do it. Overall, if I was pleased with AT & T I'd keep the phone as I think it's a wonderful piece of wizardry. I can see now why it is so highly rated on epinions. If you're looking for a small phone that has great reception then you must get this Nokia little gem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 89193 2000/4/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 slips away nicely into pocket very stylish too damn small The Bottom LineThis phone is probably the new "bad boy" on the market but it's just too damn small for me. I feel like a giant when I'm dialing or talking. Full Review I personally find them to be the best on the market. The 5120 series seems to be the most popular, but then the Nokia 8260 came onto the market. It looked very stylish, and was a very small phone. My CellularOne plan was terrible, so I decided to get a new cell phone plan, and I purchased a Nokia 8260 with it. After a while of usage, here's what I found: Price: The Nokia 8260 comes in at a price of $200. I'm not too sure if this phone is worth the $200. Some of my favorite phones which are web-enabled and go with Sprint PCS are around $150 to $300 at most. Those phones including the Motorolla flip-phones seem to have more features for the price. Yes, the Nokia 8260 is high quality and carries the Nokia name, but it lacks many features of other phones that are in the same price range or even cheaper. I think the Nokia 8260 is pretty much the "BMW" of phones, looks good, works well, but there are others that work just as well or even better for less money. The Nokia 8260 probably costs so much for its size, and styling for most part. If you want a nice phone that looks great and are willing to pay a lot of money, then purchase the Nokia 8260. Durability: This is one questionable aspect of the Nokia 8260. It's a very small and very lightly built. That means it lacks the solidness of Qualcomms for example. I have a friend who once broke one of these when they were in his pocket. The Nokia 8260 are definately not built as solid as other phones. But if its taken good care of, then there shouldn't be any problems. If you need a phone in a more harsh environment, then consider a different kind of Nokia, Motorolla, or Nextel phone. Plans: The Nokia 8260 can be used in celluar phone plans that use Nokia. The Nokia 8260 is widely accepted, with plans such as AT&T, Verizon, and Cellular One. This phone is great with because it is widely accepted. Portability: The Nokia 8260 is a very small phone that is very easy to carry around. It weighs almost nothing, and is only 4 inches long. You can hold it in your smallest pockets, and not even know it's there. It's the smallest Nokia cell phone, and the smallest cell phone in the United States. It's very easy to carry around anywhere you go, but the tiny size makes it easier to break. Clarity: The Nokia 8260 is for most part quite clear with some static here and there. In some areas where there can be a lot of static interference such as inside stores or shopping malls, there can be a lot of static. If the calling areas are moreover neutral, then there may be a a very small amount of static. The Nokia 8260 overall has little static in good calling areas, but has quite a bit of static in areas that cna cause a lot of static interference. I have tried other phones that were compatible with Sprint PCS in the static areas, and my calls were sounding clear for most part. Some of the web-enabled phones that come with Sprint PCS or Qualcomm usually have much better clarity in these areas, while the Nokia 8260 has more static interference. Ease of Use: The buttons on the Nokia 8260 are small, but the Nokia 8260 is incredibly easy to use. It uses a very basic interface. It's very easy to add numbers on speed-dial and play games on. The Nokia 8260 is much simpler to use than a web-enabled phone, but it lacks internal features anyways. Just about anyone can use this phone with no problems at all. Battery Life: The Nokia 8260 has a relatively short battery life. It can last a few hours while being on. The Nokias aren't known for long battery lives anyways. The Nokia 8260 has a few hours of juice in there, and I was usually able to talk for about 1-2 hours on a battery. The batteries that are available with the Nokia 8260 having a vibrating option which is great if you need to see who's calling and can't have the phone ring. The Verdict: The Nokia 8260 is really a quite nice cell phone. It's very small and beautifully styled. It costs too much for a phone with minimal features compared to other phones in the same price range. $200 is too much for a phone. I think that the size and styling are what cost $200. The phone itself performs well with less static than other phones that i have seen, and it's incredibly easy to use. If you're not looking into wireless internet or business phone plans, then the Nokia 8260 along with a good plan is good for you if you'd like to show off this device for $200. If you need a cell phone plan with a small phone and aren't willing to spend over $150, then consider a Qualcomm (small version) from Verizon wireless or other smaller phones such as other Nokias that come with AT&T and Verizon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Around 200 89192 2000/11/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrates clear stylish small fun sometimes poor signal Full Review My electric blue Nokia 8260 is my first cell phone, and it's a fantastic choice for any non-business oriented person who needs/wants cellular for strictly social purposes. While I recognize its shortcomings, such as less-than-perfect reception indoors, it is great for someone on the go who wants to stay in touch. -The light weight and small size of the phone allows me to keep in in the pocket of my jeans; it would also easily fit into a jacket pocket. -The 250-name memory allows me to store more contacts than I'll ever speak with. -Text messaging is a fantastic feature. The 8260 is capable of two-way messaging; whether you can access the service depends on your network. Additionally, the predictive typing dictionary makes spelling words in messages even easier. -The vibrating ringer makes answering a call for me much easier than it is for others. However, I find that the 8260 rings less loudly than some other phones; if I do not keep it on my person (where I can feel it vibrate), I am prone to missing a call. -The battery life is great IF you an adequate digital signal. For example, the phone can go more than an entire weekend without charging under normal conditions, but the battery will drain after only one day in school, where there is no cellular signal. Overall, the 8260 is a great phone, and frankly, I have not stopped playing with it since I got it a month ago. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Would be $125 with activation; free for me with rebates from Nokia and AT&T wireless 89191 2000/5/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 size reception is slightly less than other phones by nokia The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a hip phone, look no further, but know that the reception is slightly less than some of the best. Full Review Hey there.! For those you don't really read my other opinions, let me share with you I have gadgetitis. It is a serious condition, and I know many on this Web site have it, too! I recently traded in my Nokia 6162 for a Nokia 8260. The main factor behind my decision was size. I use several portable electronic items and wanted to lighten my load. I also was switching phone plans. Unfortunately, I did not do enough comparison shopping on this phone and was taken a little bit. I paid $129.95 for 2, one for my wife and one for me. Since I bought these, I have found them for $99 and then with a $50 rebate, which results in a $49 purchase price. The phone itself is nice. It fits in your hand well. If you have big hands or chunky fingers (please DO NOT take offense), pass on this phone. It will only cause you headaches. The buttons are small, but that is one of the trade-offs. The phone comes in 3 colors. Electric Red, Electric Blue, and Staid Gray. I bought Red for the wife, and Gray for myself - they did not have the blue. In retrospect, I'm glad I got the gray phone.. It is less assuming and noticeable. One feature that I really like about this phone is the cordless headset. I use that often. The one for the 6162 has an awkward adapter plug-in that I have broken on numerous occasions. This one, however, is solid. Overall sound quality is good. Speaker microphone pick-up is good, too. My biggest complaint, however, is the reception. Cell phones will be cell phones. But this one might cause you a little more concern. In the open, it's great. In a car it's great. But get into a building, well… It just does not do as well as others. This is a hard issue to properly convey so let's look at this on a continuum. Assume that no reception would score 0 and a land line would score a 10. Average portable phones in a home might be in the 8-9 range these days. Some Cell phones today fall in the 6-8 range. Older phones fell in the 4-6 range. This phone probably boarders on the 6-7 range. It's not perfect, but it is not horrible either. Obviously, a lot depends on where your cell phone towers are. But if you are in the rural areas of America, you might want to check the phone out to make sure it picks up a signal. Most city folk will do fine. Again, it DEPENDS on your area. Battery life on this phone is above average. Ringing options are great, and the dual ringing vibrate is a nice touch. I'm glad to see that the phone will vibrate on a call right out of the box and that you don't need special batteries. Ratings: Form: 9 The 8260 is sleek, thin, light, and fits comfortably in your hand. It has definite sex appeal. I particularly like the fact that I can put this thing in my front pocket and forget about it. Function: 7.5 Cell phones have come a long way. This one has great features - typical Nokia fashion. Expandability: 4 About the only thing you can apparently do is download ringing options. Unfortunately there is no infrared or anything similar. We are a ways away from Blue-tooth. But one day… Value: 5.5 Look, there are better phones for overall sound quality. You can get one that has better range. You can find one that works no matter how large your fingers are. And well, in this day and age, the phone is a little on the pricey side. I let my pride step in on this decision - I have gadgetitis. I wanted the hip and cool phone. But you should know that I could have kept on using my 6162 or picked up a newer version for under $30. Overall: 7.5 It does what it was intended to do. It's sleek, sexy, and definitely compact. Conclusion The geek factor on this phone is pretty high, but a true geek would be looking for that phone that no one knew exactly what he had. (smile) This phone is a great choice. I'd recommend it if you need one, need something compact, and IF you have good wireless connectivity where you live. If not, be careful because the reception is slightly less than some other phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.95 89190 2000/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life size reception headset jack no interchagable faceplate Full Review The Nokia 8260 is my latest in a series of phones on my everlasting quest to find the perfect phone. Being an AT&T One Rate customer, my selections are limited. AT&T is going to be doing a revolutionary change to their service in about a year, so manufacturers are not rushing to create phones for what will be an obsolete network. On the plus side, the 8260 has a great form factor. I can slip it into a jacket pocket, even the breast pocket with out disrupting the lines of the suit. If, like me, you have to have a phone with you all the time, this is the least obtrusive one I've found. The reception and battery life are also much better than expected, as long as you keep your hand off the antenna (built-in back face plate) while using it. Not hard to do once you realize where it is. Another pro is that Nokia finally fixed the ringer...this phone has one you can hear. On the con side, this phone is the unwanted stepchild in the 8200 line. It comes in 3 colors, and there are no interchangeable face-plates. I have found that I really like being able to put a new faceplate on a phone when the clear plastic starts getting scratched. The headset jack also LOOKS like a universal jack, but it has four bands instead of the normal three on the plug, so you have to order a special headset for the ohone. AT&T does provide an ear bud with the phone, so this may not be necessary, unless, like me, the ear bud just will not stay put. I can't comment on the 2-way short-text features as I don't use that option. If I want to send email, I use my RIM. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89189 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life small tons of feature durable easy navigation maybe too small for big hands easy to lose poor manufacturer headset The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a stylish yet durable, customizable and loaded with great usable features, this phone is for you! Full Review Nokia 8260 is far stylish and durable phone anyone can have. I have dropped this phone roughly 10 times on a solid concrete and not one thing has broke (maybe a scratch). 8260 owners will tell you the same, they are very durable. (8290's have problems) The size itself maybe an issue if you have a bigger hand. It's not a cell phone to hold for a long periods of time so a headset may be recommended. The headset that come with the original package is too cheap. I use the sleek headset from Plantronics, the known company for cell/office headsets with their noise-cancelling feature. Features: Nokia 8260's have tons of features from address book, calculator, games (memory, snake, logic, rotation), calendar just to name a few. You can also change its environment whether you're in a meeting, noisy place or for normal use. The group feature allows you to download custom icons to identify when you group individual/company name to a specific group. (e.g., VIP, Friends, Family) You can also send emails & text message although it's not as quite as fast as typing, receiving quick messages from another people is like having a pager. Design: The design for the 8260 is very nice. The original light that comes in these phone are green. The keys are big enough to key in just fine without fat-fingering for an average adult male. The volume control on the side allows you to adjust volume from 1-10. The on/off button at the top is designed so you don't accidentally shut down the phone. If you press the on/off button for 2 seconds, it automatically goes off. Or else, it will prompt you whether you want to turn off the phone or change its environment. The microphone located at the bottom near the charger connector is sensitive enough to pick up your voice and eliminate background noise. The headset jack is located on opposite side of the volume control (on the right). The battery cover can be easily opened by pushing flat button on the bottom while pulling down the cover at the same time. Reception: I hear a lot of people that have bad reception but I have a great reception compared to the Sanyo 4500 phone I had with Sprint. I live in a rural area & the Sanyo could only pick up one bar while this 8260 picks up the full complete bar. Maybe it could be the # of towers in the area but I haven't had much of dropped calls with AT&T. As with any geographical location, any land/area that's blocking the radio signal will cause any phone to have bad reception... Accessories: Like I mentioned before, the headset's gotta go. It comes with complete manual and a wall charger. The battery lasts long time if you just keep it on without talking. It will last days! I would recommend getting a car charger if you're a frequent traveler since these phones charge pretty quick. Upgrades & Other info: Nokia's are great for after market accessories for the phone and the phone itself. The below mentioned ideas are not recommended as it may damage the phone but can be done in so many ways. I strongly recommend a professional install for any of the methods below or if you're familiar with electronics you should be fine :) I have replaced my LCD with inverted LCD (Darkblue background w/ white text) and also replaced the green LED to a hyper-white LED's. At night the keypads glow all bright white while the LCD displays all white text with dark blue background which looks awesome. Inverted LCD's are about $60 a piece and LED's are about $20 for all six. Other customization you can do to the phone is its faceplates. I highly recommend keeping the original since most afer-market faceplates do not last long with its poor quality. I just put my original faceplate and I find it better then any other faceplates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 89188 2000/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life durable small size standard headphone jack built in vibrator good reception small size takes some adaptation but easy to do The Bottom LineThe best cellphone I've ever used. Durability much better than the Nokia 5100 or 6100 series. A real keeper. Full Review I purchased this telephone after my dissatisfaction with the Ericsson R280LX. As stated in that review, I have been a cellphone user since 1991 and routinely purchase one or two new cellphones each year for personal/business use (one at a time for my own use). The 8260 is as near perfect as I have found to date. It is small, has good reception, easy to use, and high tech looking. I have had this cellphone for nearly 6 months and have no desire to switch to another one. Specifics: The internal antenna is much superior to the clunky external antenna of the Ericsson. I was somewhat concerned about this based upon some negative ratings of this telephone regarding reception - until I tested it on my own. The only time reception is limited is if I place my hand on the upper half of the back of the phone (where the internal antenna is hidden). I've only had difficulty with the key pad size when I become over concerned with pressing the buttons. It's counter-intuitive, but the more I become concerned with their small size, the more likely I seem to be to press two keys at the same time. If, on the other hand, I just "dial" the phone like any other phone there seems to be no problem with hitting the correct key. Now that I am completely familiar with the phone, I don't think I have misdialed in over a month. PS: I wear size 2XL gloves, so it's not dainty fingers I'm using. The battery is built in (it is easy to replace, but it is not as obviously a tack on as batteries on other phones), and it seems to last forever. I routinely take weekend trips and don't bother to pack the charger - even after 2 or 3 days of intermittent use it retains enough call time for a call of significant length. I routinely make 2 or 3 hours of calls in an evening and have never had the phone "beep" to say it needed charging during a call. It also recharges extremely quickly, in just a few hours. It has the ability to place and receive short email messages. I don't use this feature a lot, because I have a notebook computer with me almost all the time and access to the internet when I need it. It has come in handy during meetings, or family emergencies. The only problem is that (with ATT anyway) it uses a combination of the cellphone number and a long @ line on the email. To solve that problem, I signed up with a free email forwarding service (email.com) that allows me to give people a short email address to remember. This IS one area where the small keypad is limiting, it is slow and cumberson sending email messages but this is more a function of the keypad layout (telephone rather than typewriter) than keypad size. I have used other (larger) cellphones with phone keypads and had the same difficulty. The 8260 has a sophisticated word guesser that helps speed the input, but it takes some getting used to. To top it off, it so well designed ergonomically that I CAN talk for hours with it. All in all, I believe this is the best cellphone I have ever used (coming from a use base of at least 15 or 20 phones dating back to the Motorola "brick"). If you have ever used a Nokia cellphone, there will be no surprises. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89187 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 style 2 way messaging size features build quality Full Review The Nokia 8260 is the latest TDMA phone on the market set to replace Motorolas StarTac 7797 as the leading phone for the networks. The 8860 has also been available but is far more expensive, with few functional differences. The 8260 is the somewhat poorer cousin the 82xx family of phones, missing on key features such as IR, voice dialing and xpress on covers. The reason for the covers not being used is that the 8260 is ever so slightly larger than the 8210/90 phones so the existing covers will not fit. Having owned the Startac 7797 prior to the Nokia 8260, I feel I can safely compare the two. The menu system and screen on the Nokia is far more usable than the startac, especially now with 2 way messaging, i'd hate to even think about trying to compose a message on the Startac. I prefer the Nokias software, albeit I may have some bias having owned 5 Nokia phones prior to the Startac. The battery life between the two is no comparison, I always used a slim li-ion on my Startac which barely managed to last a day before charging. Some may say thats what you get for using a slim battery, but my view is if you go and buy a Startac, you do so for its size, so the last thing you want is a honking big battery pack strapped to it. The Nokia's call quality is as good as the Startacs, but not as good as previous Nokias with external antennae. One weak point of the 8260 is an issue of build quality, the casing seems to be flimsier than previous Nokia phones and material quality is questionable too. I scratched the case on my 8260 within the first day, something i've never managed with previous Nokia phones. I then cracked the casing a couple of weeks later, dropping the phone 2 feet onto a carpetted floor!! An essential accessory for the phone is the leather case to protect the phone from scratches and damage. Mine arrived two days after i cracked my phone ;) The good news is that with various rebates from AT&T and Nokia you can get this Phone for LESS than free!! Check out pricing on http://www.cellphoneuser.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 89186 2002/1/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice looking compact lightweight poor reception poor craftsmanship control freak of a phone The Bottom LineSanyo, LG Infocomm, even Motorola, all making better phones now then Nokia. Full Review I was previously the proud owner of a Nokia 6160 (I have even written a glowing review of it here on epinions.com). At the time the 6160 was introduced, I was working for AT&T Wireless and was one of the first people in the country to carry that phone. The 6160 was a technological marvel at the time. It was so because of its enhanced ability to fully utilize the now vastly expanded mobile phone networks, including the PCS networks that were brought about in 1996. This ability was the reason AT&T was able to offer nationwide, no roaming, no long distance calling plans. Indeed the first company to do so in the market, ahead of any other wireless company. Since that time, Nokia has introduced several other phones of similar breed into the market, the latest incarnation of which is the Nokia 8260. There were a number of issues I had with the original 6160 that are still present in the 8260. I'll go into further detail about those shortly. In the beginning, it was worth the sacrifice because no other company offered the same type of phone and thus also didn't offer any calling plans that were similar. The day has since come however when that is no longer the case. In the true spirit of competition, other wireless companies now offer phones and calling plans which are free of roaming charges for certain large areas or the entire country, as well as free of domestic long distance. So these days I have a hard time justifying the sacrifice any longer…. Bad Things First and foremost, the most annoying thing about this phone is its incessant reception problems. I live in New York City, arguably the most densely populated part of the country. There is no excuse for poor reception anywhere within a 60 mile radius of Manhattan. Yet there at least 6 or 7 areas I am in frequently where I consistently cannot get a good signal should my life depend on it. I can think of 10 times as many areas where the signal is so weak that a call will go through but one or both parties on the call can't hear 90% of what's being said. Perhaps you have noticed that this phone has no external antenna. Common sense or perhaps a basic knowledge of how these things work would tell me that something's not right about that. Guess that's one point for basic intuition. Add to this the quirkiness of the phone's "Intelligent Roaming Database" or IRDB. This is a database stored within the phone that tells it which network to use based on where the phone is. For example, if you take the phone to New Jersey, when it gets there it scans the networks to figure out where it is. Once it figures that out, it compares that information to it's IRDB to find out which network out of 8 possible networks to use. It sounds like a simple yet great idea, however it doesn't always work. I find that in Connecticut for example, it frequently wrongly switches me to an incorrect network on which I cannot get my digital features (caller ID, voice mail notification, text messages, etc). You cannot switch this phone between digital and analog manually. I can understand why a wireless company would want this on a phone, as it is significantly less expensive for a wireless company to process a digital call then an analog call. However considering this phone's inherent reception problems, this is a major inconvenience when it can't get a strong enough signal to put a digital call through and won't switch to analog on its own. Additionally, this feature is partly responsible for the fact that you cannot connect this phone to a laptop modem in the same way you can to many, if not most other wireless phones on the market. The size of this phone is great, it's compact and lightweight. However the shape and placement of the buttons, along with the fact that there is no cover for the keypad make for some annoyances. I find I have to lock the keypad in order to prevent accidentally placing a call or doing a number of other things to the phone via accidentally pressing its buttons. The phone scratches easily, especially the display. The paint or whatever you would call it chips and peels off the plastic on the faceplate easily. Good Things It has all kinds of nifty ring tones and graphics you can download from AT&T's website. As I mentioned before, it's lightweight and compact. That's about it. So in the end, there was a time when this phone and its predecessor were the only of its kind on the market. The day has now come where that is no longer the case, and it's easy to gain the technology as well as the "Good Things" I mention above without having to put up with a phone that my best friend now refers to as "The Barbie Phone." Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89185 2000/12/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 email small size text messaging internal antenna looks a little cheap feeling expensive Full Review This is one sharp looking cell phone! One look at this phone and I was in love. It's sleek look, small size and wealth of features made this a very attractive phone. Nokia has always made top notch cell phones, but the 8260 goes above and beyond. I had been using the Ericsson 788 for the last year and a half and felt it was time to upgrade. The 788 is also a small phone, but is a generation behind the 8260. The Nokia 8260 comes with all the bells and whistles in a smaller, better designed package. As I use AT&T for my service provider, I was worried that I would not be able to find a phone that I liked. I was interested in a web enabled phone, but AT&T only had a few phones that supported internet browsing, and they were all very unattractive phones. I saw the 8260 and loved the way it looked. I soon learned that it did not support internet browsing either, but did support 2 way text messaging and email. I thought about it for a moment and decided what I really wanted was the email anyway. Web browsing on a cell phone is very over-rated. The screen is too small, the connection is too slow and the service is too expensive. I promptly purchased the 8260 in chilli-pepper red. I originally wanted the carbon gray, but they were all sold out. I looked at the red instead and being impatient, decided to buy it on the spot. Features: Text messaging and E-mail This was the biggest draw for me. I sent a friend a text message to her 8260 right away to let her know I finally bought one too. We had a small conversation using only text messaging on our cell phones. This morning I sent an email to an associate to keep up with events at the office while I was on the train. When I arrived at work, my colleagues asked me to make my phone's email address available so they could contact me in case of emergencies (wait, that's not a good thing!). I called AT&T before hand to see what kind of charges I would incur by using the email and text messaging. I was delighted to learn that sending and receiving messages and emails does not use up any minutes! Another added bonus. Predictive Text Entering: The Nokia 8260 has a built in dictionary that helps speed up your typing by trying to predict what you are trying to enter. It really makes entering text much quicker and easier. Instead of entering letters the usual way, clicking on a key several times until the right letter appears, then moving on to the next key. Predictive text allows you to simply click once on each corresponding key and the phone will guess what word you are attempting to enter by the combination of keys entered. Example of the old way: To enter home, you would press the following keys 4(press twice), 6(press 3 times), wait a moment, 6(once), 3 (twice) Predictive text way: press these keys on the keypad - 4663. The screen will read "good". Press the *+ button and "home" now appears. You won't be writing any novels using this technique, but with a little practice it becomes very easy to type this way. Caller Grouping: You can assign people to specific groups, replete with their own rings! So when my friends call my phone will ring, "auld lang syne". For business it is the regular ring and for my family it is "William Tell". This way I can know right away who is calling even before I look at the screen! Internal antenna: The phone is small as it is, but with the internal antenna, it is truly minuscule. This phone is so small you won't even notice it in your pocket. The phone is about the size of a spring roll. I know that is an odd comparison, but that is the only thing I could think of! Smaller then an eggroll, a tad bigger than a zippo, definately more like a springroll. I was concerned that the lack of external antenna would affect the reception, but it doesn't. The sound is as good as, if not better than my previous phone. Another quirk of the phone's small size is the placement of the microphone. The mic is actually on your cheek when you speak. Feels odd when you first talk into the phone, but the person on the other end won't notice. You soon forget about the mic, and the phone comes with a hands free earpiece you should take advantage off. These were my favorite features on the Nokia 8260. Other features include a lithium-ion battery, which gives the phone incredible talk and standby time. Caller Id, voicemail, call waiting, call forwarding, clock, calendar, alarm, calculator, and profiles. The display is surprisingly large and clear. The phone feels a little flimsy, I will have to be careful not the drop this one! I also see that we can download up to five custom rings to the phone. The only problem is I can't figure out how. The manual doesn't say, and neither does the AT&T website. I am hoping there will be a way. It isn't such a huge priority, but why have that option if we can't use it? I have only had the phone for a day and so far I love it. I just wish more people had the same phone, or at least the capability to send and receive emails from their phones. It is a neat function, but if no one else can utilize it, it loses some of it's appeal. Well, I will make sure to keep you updated on how I like the phone. So far, so good! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 ($150 after rebate) 89184 2000/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small great features downloadable ringtones don t work Full Review I have been using AT&T wireless for several years. My 6160 needed an upgrade and through my AT&T rep, I was able to get a great deal on this phone. It lists for $199, but through the upgrade program I was able to get it for $139. In addition, there is a $50 Nokia rebate and a $25 Old Navy gift certificate, which made this phone and extremely good value. A few issues: Coverage is easily as good as my much larger 6160. This phone has some great features that I find invaluable: - Vibrating alert - Very small and light. (It often feels like I am talking into my hand!) - Mobile originated SMS. Great for paging friends and colleagues. - SMS reception (stock alerts, short email, numeric pages) - Large memory space - Call groups with icons - Great Nokia menus (consistent with my previous phone) There are also some neat features I never use, but that may be of interest to others such as a built-in calendar, alarm capability and simple games. When I bought the phone, the AT&T rep. told me the phone is capable of downloading ringtones. This is a really cool feature to me as I would love to have my phone ring to neat tunes like the James Bond theme, etc. However, it does not appear that AT&T currently supports downloadable ringtones. I did try and test it by having someone in the UK send me one, but it didn't work. AT&T tech support says they do not plan to support it, but the sales rep insists that a web page is currently under development and will be available soon. So, if downloadable ringtones are important to you, don't expect them to be working, at least right now! Overall, this is a great phone. Fully featured, very small and sleek. Of the 6-7 phones I've owned, it is easily the best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139 minus rebates 89183 2000/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life very reliable very small fits in pocket no antenna very clear no external data connection The Bottom LineThis is bottom line the best performing and smallest phone I've ever owned. I love it and I'm glad I got it. Even my wife and friends love theirs. Full Review I've read a lot of negative opinions about this phone, and I disagree with almost all of them. I bought this phone because I had a Ericcson KF788 and was never completely satisfied. The Ericcson was a pretty good phone, but the battery life was just too short. I had owned A Nokia in the past, my wife owned a Nokia 6160 and loved it, and my opinion is that Nokia makes the best sounding phones. I'd even owned 2 Motorolas in the past and wasn't completely pleased. Finally, I held this phone in the store and fell in love with it's size, I had to have it. I carry my phone around with me everywhere and it stays turned on 24/7. I keep in in the front pocket of my pants and it fits very well. The lack of a prodruding antenna is great for carrying in your pocket. The battery easily lasts Monday through Friday with some life to spare. I never really measured how long it fully lasts, but it's a long time. Besides, it only takes about 30 minutes to fully recharge it. The speaker volume goes higher than I ever need. Sometimes I forget the volume is all the way up (because the last person I talked to was quiet) and get an unpleasantly loud "hello" in my ear. The microphone seems to be top notch as well. Clear? This is the clearest cell phone I've used to date, and I've used a lot of them. How about that antenna, do you lose calls, do you get cut outs? Well ironically this is the first phone I've ever owned where I rarely get any cut outs.... ever. Don't be fooled with the fact that it has no external antenna. Side by side other phones, this one had a signal in fringe areas where my friend's phones wouldn't get a thing (and they were on the same provider.) I never have trouble getting a signal indoors The bottom line is that this phone performs excellent and better that I expected in all areas. The phones features are great. You can read other opinions about them, but I don't have anything negative to say about my experiences with the menus, software or features. I think the phone book, text messaging, and ring profiles are all well done. What about the cons? The only negative thing is that I don't think this has any kind of data port on it. I'd like get some softare to manage my phone book on my computer and download it to the phone, but so far I haven't found one that supports this phone. I think it may not be possible. What do you love about this product? What do you hate? Read a sample opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89182 2000/12/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy to use nice extras can be lost unnecessary features for some people Full Review I wrote an epinion about my Nokia 5100 phone because it replaced my landline, and I ended up getting this phone because of some great rebates and I like new tech toys. About 90% of this phone is the same as the 5100 I liked so much before, the noticeable differences are size and text messaging but neither are that important since these features existed before but not as extensively. The size is great. The 5100 wasn't oversized, but the 8260 fits anywhere and thus can be carried without any concern or noticeable weight. The smaller size has one drawback: it is difficult to cradle the phone between your head and shoulder, but that wasn't so easy with the 5100 either. The software that organizes this phone remains pretty much the same, clean and well organized. I have gotten more confused at times, but that is because there are more features. The extras that come with are great. The standard battery is a super-light vibrating Lithium Ion battery that has about 4 hours of talk time and about a week of standby time. You also get a handsfree kit which is great for driving although my ear has never been the right shape to keep those in my ear. I have noticed that the phone does heat up quite a bit during longer calls, but it doesn't appear to effect the performance. The memory is better, holding over 200 names and numbers along with emails (which you can send from the phone). The only real area that I haven't seen improvement is quality of calls and power of reception. The same areas I had difficulty with reception before are the same. I haven't been disappointed, but this is obviously an important characteristic that one always wants to be improved because what good is a cool phone that doesn't work. It does seem to pick up service faster when I turn it on or re-enter active zones. They are selling this as a web enabled phone, but you cannot surf the web with it only send and receive text messages. I have heard that although text messaging is free with AT&T, you will probably need to pay for it in the future (but who knows with AT&T changing soon). You could receive text messages with the 5100 (which is nice with a mobile service like Yahoo!Mobile that sends news, stocks, and sports scores to at preferred times), but now you can send messages to other phones as well as emails to other people. Although writing is a time consuming process, the speed dictionary makes it worth it to get little messages to friends and can be fun when you are waiting. All in all, it's a nice small package that tech-heads would enjoy and new phone users to start with but it isn't necessary for most people to upgrade from other reliable Nokia products. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 ($25 with rebates) 89181 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 i can be reached at any time i can be reached at any time Full Review I know, I know. Those of you who have heard me rant about cell phone abuse are now laughing your eyes out at me. Go ahead. Yuck it up! It's about to get worse... For the longest time, I have secretly been eyeing cell phones, and (shame, shame) the goodies one may purchase to "personalize" said item. I admit it, I was lured in by the bright colors, the fun little ditties that announce a call, the carrying cases. I yearned to turn my back on people so I could "take a call". I just wanted to feel special. A little over a month later, I sit and look at my bill. WOW! I certainly know how to have fun with this thing. Most of said "fun" has been involved with the final coordination of the move, the getting things up and running in our new location, and compensating for not having phone service as planned in the new location. This is not just a toy. It's got practical applications. What have I done? I have made myself available to my kids, their educators and my family. Most of my day is spent at school, or riding the bus. It is possible to get a lot of phone work done on a bus trip across town. My kids can get in touch with me, because they know that every passing period I check in and see if any messages have been left. (I refuse to leave it on in class, it irritates the bunnies out of my instructors!) I can keep up with the things that sitting at home with the phone does not accomplish. You know, the calls that are prefaced with "We'll call you right back..." so you sit and stare at your phone for hours, not getting the groceries bought or the kids to soccer practice. I don't have that as a problem any more. I recharge my battery about once a week. I don't talk constantly on it, so I think that I get a fair return for the charge time. Most of the time the signal is great, although occasionally I run into dead spots or static. That's what I get for chatting. So far the durability is great. I have dropped it, the kids have dropped it, it got a bath when a water bottle spilled in my bag... It just keeps on taking the dirt I dish out. I feel very comfortable with it, I rely on it's ability to keep me connected to the world off campus. One thing that I have noticed, I tend to get into the conversations that I really would prefer to keep to myself, in public. I start out making a basic call, get rerouted to another number, and before I know it, I am standing in front of 27 people screaming "What do you mean, you didn't get the check?". Not good. Then I feel like a dork, because I have been hollering in front of people I don't know about personal stuff, that wouldn't be a problem if I checked my mailbox in the first place. Yes, I worry about the radiation. Sadly, I have been convicted of not following my own dictate of "Shut up and drive". I am guilty of those charges, and more. Can I live with it? As long as I am mobile, and not easily reached by a "work" number, I will. It is a logical option. So, when you see me in the mall, drooling over some silly case, or a new faceplate, try not to snicker too loudly. I'd appreciate it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89180 2000/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use clarity size price size aftermarket accessories The Bottom LineGreat dependable phone, and if portability is high on your list, this phone is it!!! Full Review I thought I'd never buy a cell phone as my lifestyle never really justify needing one. I have come across several occasions where I wish I really had one though, and thus broke down and purchased a wireless phone and service. Based on my lifestyle, I went with AT&T prepaid plan and bought the Nokia 8260. As it was my first time looking for a cell phone, I haven't a clue where to begin, and now that I'm a rather "seasoned" veteran in the cell market, my criterias for a cell phone is no different than when I didn't know what to look for in a wireless phone. My criterias are: 1) Ease of use. This was my #1 priority simply because why should anyone bother making things difficult just to make a simple phone call? In case of emergency, it would be easy to just make a call. 2) Portability. Since I'm a dude, I'll have to keep it in my pocket. I can stick it in a briefcase, a men's handbag or what not, but I just don't want to search for it when it starts ringing. 3) Features. Yeah sure there are plenty of extra bells and whistles the average cell user won't ever touch (ex. games, security code, calculator...etc), but there are some of those that people could take advantage of, like vibrating, and text messaging. The Nokia 8260 met all of these criterias for the following reasons: 1) Ease of use. I looked at all of the different phone brands at the store and settled on the Nokia brand simply because it was easier to use than the Motorola. It takes a couple less buttons to punch in general to do the same functions. 2) Portability. This was my basic reason for buying the Nokia 8260. Its the smallest phone in the market right now and all I have to do is simply slip it in my front pant pocket and I don't have to worry about it clunking around when I walk like other candy bar phones. 3) Features. The Nokia pretty much has all of the basic features like other cell phones (different ring tones, security features, text messaging...etc) but the most important feature I looked for was whether it had the vibrating mode. I know and understand how annoying it is for a cell phone to ring in any type of situation, especially during a movie or meeting, thus it was important for me to have one where it can silently vibrate so as to not annoy others around me and still be considerate of others! The other feature I looked for was its battery life. Even though I narrowed my choices between Motorola and Nokia, Nokia has a longer battery life than Motorolas. The 8260 has an 8 day standy time with over 3 hours of talk time. Considering I only use the phone for emergency purposes only, I basically charge my phone once a week! The other feature I didn't anticipate becoming useful was its text messaging ability. Since its incoming messages is a free service, I find it very useful for those needing to get a hold of me from anywhere in the country from their computers! Other than that, there are other cosmetic modifications you can make to further personalize and express your personality into your phone. There are various different faceplates, cheap aftermarket accessories and even different colored backlights! With every pros, there are cons, and they are: 1)Price. There definitely are many other cheaper phones out there (with the same features too) for a fraction of what you would pay for the 8260. As the adage goes "you get what you pay for", you are paying for the convenience of its portability. In considering its long battery life and compactability, I think its well worth it. Besides, I'm sure you can get it cheaper if you looked around some more or talk to the sales rep for incentives like I did (I got a cheaper price simply because I'm also giving AT&T another customer, my wife). 2)Size. Yeah sure its compact, but I find it annoying when I'm talking mainly because I feel as if I need to shout since the microphone isn't anywhere near the vicinity of my mouth. The mic does pick up well, but I've caught myself several times speaking loudly. Oh well, I have no one to blame but myself for doing so. Another pitfall with its size is also its buttons, especially for those with pudgy fingers. I have no problems with it whatsoever, but my fat fingered friends have difficulty punching buttons. 3) Aftermarket products. As mentioned above, you can change faceplates and even the backlight colors. If you plan on doing so, do it at your own risk! I wished that the 8260 had the faceplate change feature like the 8290, and it can get tricky when changing faceplates. You basically have to take the phone apart to install a different faceplate, unlike the 8290 you simply pop it on and off. As for the backlight, I wouldn't even try to explain as it gets even more complicated as it involves soldering! Other than that, you can get other accessories, like car charger, desktop charger and what not for much cheaper than you would going to a retail store. So that's basically it. I can write an essay detailing every single feature the Nokia 8260 has, but I'd spare you the pain and simply tell you the basic features the average cell phone users use. I've also read from other reviews concerning the clarity and dropped calls concerning this phone. These complaints are basically the cause of the phone company's wireless infrastructure, not the phone (unless there's a defective component). The more established a cell company's infrastructures are, the better the clarity and service you get, and since AT&T has an established infrastructure, I've had no problems with clarity nor dropped calls yet. Aside from this, I highly recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89179 2000/10/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact tons of features light small none Full Review I bought this phone 2 weeks ago from Cellular One and I love it! At first, I was going to go with the Startac because it was small and the price was about half that of the 8260. However, the look of the Startac was somewhat ugly in comparison to Nokia phones. I'll admit, Motorola makes small and light phones, but they're just not that great-looking. I was VERY hesitant about spending over $200 on a cell phone, but figured that I'd spoil myself just this once. I haven't regretted that decision one bit. The phone is tiny compared to most other phones out there on the market; I can stick it into my pocket very easily and forget that I even have it. That's very important to me since I hate carrying stuff with me; it's a pain in the butt. The Nokia 8260 has great features on it including the ability to store 250 names/numbers, a calendar, a calculator, etc., etc...I have no problems with using the buttons as other people have pointed out. I find them very compact and neat. The menu's are pretty easy to navigate around as far as I'm concerned and the features included with the phone are fantastic. It's also a very sleek looking phone and my friends love it. Most of the time, the clarity on my phone is pretty good. In some locations it's better and in others its not so great. I think that has more to do with your service provider and whether you are close to one of their towers or not though. In general, I am very satisfied with my phone. I've done a lot of research online of the phones on the market and I think that the 8260 outshines the ones from Samsung, Motorola, etc...I can't stress enough how much I love this phone. I think that every penny spent on it was well worth the price. If you are in the market for a new cell phone, I would seriously suggest that you take a careful look at this phone. You won't be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 230 89178 2001/4/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nokia quality nice color light small lots of functions small buttons not the smallest phone from nokia plastic easy to be scratched The Bottom LineThe best phone you can get on the inexpensive side for great service(especially from AT&T), portability, and tons of functions. Full Review I personally owned the 6160 before, and by then, I thought I had the best cell at the time. Not until I saw the 8260. It's a very sweet cell phone filled with useful functions. The best is the ability to send and receive email and SMS(short messaging service). I am currently applied to the service and I tell you, it's a VERY useful function. For example, you can send and receive emails and messages to others(yes, I said emails) when you are in places where you can't use your phone~!(during meetings, classes, etc.). And most importantly, there's no long distant charge for sending the SMS/emails to others even if they are located on the other side of the country~! Another good thing I like about it is that you can download songs into the phone. There are five slots allowed for five different songs you can download into it. Songs are not hard to compose but take time to understand the coding of them. Else there are plenty of websites which offer free songs downloading through the use of email/SMS, as long as you have subscribed to the SMS/email service from your service provider~~ :) There are too many songs for you to download!! Any new pop songs(no matter if they are English, Chinese, or Japanese), they are so easy to find and just clicks away before they are downloaded into the phone~! Excite and Yahoo even offer free news, weather and sport report, and stock information send right to the cell through SMS/email everyday at your chosen time~~! I find this to be great for something to do while I am in the bus or having my coffee break. *There's one thing I need to point out is that when you send SMS's, they can only be received by others who also own TDMA phones.* As you may have read from other reviews, the phone is small and light~~ I like it, since my hands aren't that big. But even so, pressing the buttons may sometimes be hard due to the fact that they are tiny...but i think this problem is saved by the design of the keys, they are silver color and nicely lined up with clear letters that let the green light shines through in the dark~~ And with the blue LED installed(which you can get easily off Ebay), MAN, it's hot! Especially if you chose the electronic blue color for the phone~! Having the blue light on the LCD screen and shines through the keys makes the phone not just a communication device, but a display gadget!! It flashes nicely accompany by any ring-tone you download into it when someone call you~(I changed the LED of my 6160, and man, it blasted all my friends away~!!) One really bad thing about this cell is that the black plastic cover around the screen is really easy to be scratched, therefore I strongly recommend the use of case with the phone if you are going to get one. Also I recommend using the clear plastic case so that you don't lose the vivid color as if you are using the leather case. Signal receiver is alright to me. I mean it's not any better than my 6160. In fact, it's a bit weaker than 6160 but not a lot, mainly due to the use of internal antenna. But in the reality, not many of us will be at places where signals are weak enough just for the 6160 but not the 8260. What's more, you only get no signal when you are in underground parking of malls(and you really have to be deep in the underground parking in order to lose all signal) or deep inside a huge concrete building(and I mean a really huge one that stretches a whole block on the street and is 30+ stories high). For the speaker of the phone, somehow it heats up after about 5 minutes of conversation. This may be nice when you talk on the phone out in the street on a cold winter night, but for use indoor and in the summer it isn't any comfortable. So, a hand-free with the phone is sweet. In fact, hand-free only cost a few dollars if you get an after-market version of the Nokia's. So, I do recommend this phone. But really depends on your need: likewise, if you are looking after lightness and size but doesn't mind about limited service area, I recommend you the 8290 since it's almost half the thickness of 8260, and you can buy extra face-plates of different color~~a nice feature that somehow the people at Nokia didn't include for the 8260s; and if you are looking for the functions and games, I recommend the new 3390, which sports new games(VERY COOL games that makes the phone more like a Gameboy) and an internal ring-tone composer that you can compose songs right on the phone!~~; but if service quality and compactness is what you are looking for, 8260 is for you, since no other server offer as good the quality as AT&T, who uses 8260 and every major cities in the whole North America!~~ so, if you don't have the big bucks for the 8860/8890, 8260 is here for you at a fraction of the cost~~!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89177 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 usability size style poor reception Full Review When I first saw this phone I knew I had to have it ...it was so small and lightweight and styled like nothing else out there. Plus it was a Nokia. I've always liked their user interface...their's is the most intuitive of any phone I've tried. Yes, the buttons are small, but unless you have really large fingers I found them surprisingly easy to use. I carried it at times just in my shirt pocket, very comfortably. I bought a belt clip which, unlike the 6190 which hooks directly to the phone, comes with a small leather carrying case. I found that it hung out too far and got caught on chairs etc. as I walked by. I liked the fact that it included a hands-free earpiece and a vibra battery...those extras alone probably would have cost close to $80 for my old Nokia 6190. I got the blue, I've heard some complaints about fingerprints showing up on the red one displayed in all the ads. But the color selection makes it even more seductive. But in the end I had to return it. Even though I liked its looks its reception was often choppy. Granted I live to a rough cell area (at my home it was next to worthless) but even in areas which should have been fairly strong it seemed to fade in and out. I could often hear the other end but they couldn't hear me. I don't think Nokia quite has the internal antennae thing figured out, maybe someday. It also got quite warm after talking on it for a while, one more reason to use the hands free I guess. Recommended only for those who spend most of their time in the stongest of calling areas or those who just want to have something cool looking to show their friends. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 after several rebates 89176 2001/2/28 Product Rating3.0 weight size proven nokia menus looks temperature non flip reception no belt clip The Bottom Lineconclusion...this phone looks good and works well but has what i think are flaws that each individual will have to consider before purchasing. Full Review My biggest concern is size...the phone has to be small. I want to feel like it is not even on me. I carried the ericsson 700 series flip for over 2 years...very happy with the phone(read my other epinion). but i wanted a change and when 8260 came out i immediately went out to get it. its been almost 6 months and ive noticed things that i really liked and things that are very troublesome. the goods... --SIZE, its not much smaller than my ericsson but is much more streamlined and sexy and has an internal antennae which doesnt stick out or break off like startacs can. --WEIGHT, it is still a little more heavy than the startac with slimline battery but i still keep having to pat down all my pockets to find it sometimes. --LOOKS, sorry but startac and ericsson looks are both very dated and clunky. even the timeport that i had for a while didnt give the jollies i got from looking at the nokia. --MENU, anyone who has owned a nokia are familiar with the menu system which is one of the best ive seen. not as intuitive in some aspects but good enough that you get used to it in no time at all. the bad... -TEMPERATURE, i started noticing this with my very first phone 6 years ago and it is something that all phone users are going to have to deal with...but it is a really noticable annoyance with the 8260. it is not uncommon for me to break a conversation just to give my ears time to cool down or to switch to the headset. i would have to say it gives off the most heat of the 6 phones that i have used. --NON-FLIP, this is a feature ive loved since my startac. i dont have to worry about accidental dials and answering calls just requires a flick instead of having to press the right button. the 8260 buttons are very sensitive and i constantly have to keep the keypad lock on when not in use which was a big problem for me in the beginning. just one more step when dialing out. --NO BELT CLIP, i finally found a belt clip...i had to buy the $100 car kit to get it though and its not nearly as good as the ericsson. i dont keep it on my belt, but i hook it onto my pocket so i know where it is all the time. the clip for the nokia is very flimsy and situated too much in the middle so the phone sticks out too much from my pocket. the clip with the leather case...well i hate leather cases, i think they look horrible and add bulk. --RECEPTION, i have always had no problems with reception, especially the startac and AT&T but the nokia which is a dual band, for some reason does not have the coverage of other phones ive had with the same carrier. not that big of a difference but some regions require a little dance to find the best place for sufficient signal strenght...but its still better than my timeport that i had with sprint...good nationwide but bad local service in the Washington DC area. other nitpicky things...i wish it had startacs scroll buttons...the nokia side buttons are just for volume. im torn...i cant really recommend it to veteran phone users who know what they like and what they dont like, but for first time users...it is a great phone without much to complain about. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89175 2000/12/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 layout internal antenna ability no big difference comparing to 6160i Full Review Reason why I bought this phone: Simple, by hearing the name Nokia, you'll already know it's a good product. After my Nokia 6190 GSM died out, I decided to give TDMA a try. The Nokia 8260 really proved itself. It's size, it's functions, and capabilities comparing to other lower models are flawless. The most noticeable difference is the "Internal Antenna." The size and weight of the headset is also a big advantage against the good old 6100 Series. My experience using the Nokia 8260: This phone is flawless in reception. Basically, it can gain service everywhere! No matter you are up on a hill or low on the metro (only applies to MUNI in San Francisco). The only place, which "NO SERVICE" displayed, is while riding BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit www.bart.gov). Reception is excellent however; sound quality is a big problem. When you listen closely, you can hear fuzzy noises in the background, this is a great disappointment because even its weaker opponent, GSM, is able to filter out these fuzzy noises. Battery life is flawless also; the phone can stay up several days with excess usage without charging. The Pros Cons of the Nokia 8260: This phone is definitely an excellent idea for upgrading. It's size, features, and abilities. The internal antenna is really the best feature. Also, the thin internal battery is also a big advancement comparing to the old fashion "push in" battery. Also, 5 ring tone slots have been added, this is extremely attractive. Other than that, there are NO differences from the 6100 series. Its software is almost identical with a 6160i (except word guessing and email). Which consist 4 games, 250 names and 6 profiles (including HeadSet). Besides size and the antenna, it's typically a "clone" of the 6100 series. Also, comparing to its brother, the 8290, a lot of functions seems to be missing. The biggest disadvantage is probably the lost of xpress-on faceplate feature. SMS Service is also required to download ring tone to the phone while GSM can obtain ring tones in matter of seconds. Who should buy this product? This phone suits everyone. It's a very typical phone with user-friendly features. If you're looking for a stylish, user-friendly, and easy to handle phone, this is the right phone for you. With the new downloadable ring tone feature, you won't be looking at your phone while you hear someone's ringing anymore because your phone has a unique ring tone of yours. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 8 + TAX 89174 2000/12/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very smalllightweight with internal antenna cannot switch faceplates buttons are too small Full Review Why do I feel like half the world already owns this phone? Because it's a well crafted, beautifully fine tuned piece of technology necessary for men, women (and even children) alike to reach one another (instantly!)in the 21st century. From the outside: Nokia's 8260 comes in three flavors: Blue, Grey and my favorite Red (pepper) and has no antenna (well it actually has one but it's built in internally) You won't have to worry about pulling anything up or out every time the phone rings. It's gorgeous! It's is the lightest phone to date weighing in at a mere 3.4oz (including the lithium ion battery) has a talk time of 3 hours easily with extreme compact dimensions of 4.1" x 1.8" x .5". You can easily forget you're carrying the phone with you. (until it rings or vibrates!) It's trendy, yet user friendly! Incorporates a nice large LCD screen to provided data about the caller, length of call and missed calls. Use the keypad to send 2 way messages to one another, do some math with the built in calculator and even play games while you're waiting for a call. You can store up to 250 name and numbers and use the calendar feature to notify you of upcoming events. This is great for birthdays and holidays etc... As compared to the Star-tac I once owned, very crisp sound quality most of all the time with a little fuzz and fade out(dropped calls) at times. I still believe it's the service provider and not the fault of the phone. I notice that dropped calls happen frequently in certain zones and not haphazardly. One of my favorite options this phone has is the group ring function. I can set the phone to ring a certain melody say when my girlfriend calls...and another when the mother-in-law calls. I'll know whose calling before picking up the call (or even reading the LCD display) by the ring tones. In addition, you can download new ring tones off the internet for your new Nokia phone. Oh, the lithium ion battery provides ample standby time. I only need to charge (overnight) once every couple days. Only cons I can see about the Nokia 8260 is asethics. The darn buttons on this unit are too small and it's difficult to customize your phone by buying add-on accessories. This is unlike the older Nokia's where you could purchase a flashing led antenna, vibrating battery, and colorful faceplates,etc. Overall thought... irresistibly stylish, yet trendy and incredibly functional. Nokia's a major asset to telecommunications era and sure to keep heads turning. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89173 2001/3/2 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size text messaging capability internal antenna cool extra features no silent mode with headset timer records in minutesseconds no internet availability The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone--it's got everything I want--size, clarity, battery-life, durability, and gimmicks. Full Review After using a digital StarTac with GTE service for a year and a half, I decided to try out ATT wireless with this little technological marvel. The two big features that led me to get this phone were the size and battery life. Smaller than many packs of gum, this phone is small enough to slip in a front pants pocket, or you can get one of two available leather belt-cases--one holds the phone in the traditional position (vertical) while the other keeps the phone in a horizontal position along your waistband. I use the latter when I don't just throw the phone in my pocket, and it's absolutely perfect--the phone never gets in the way of anything and is perfectly accessible. The other feature that sold me on this phone, as I mentioned before, was battery life. A single charge provides up to over three hours of talk time or up to 200 hours of standby time! Whether you're traveling for a weekend, don't want to have to charge your phone every night, or talk a whole long time between charges, this phone's stingy battery use is exceptional. A feature that seems relatively trivial to some is the internal antenna. Having had a StarTac for a year, I value that internal antenna greatly! On the StarTac, the antenna is easy to break or bend and awfully difficult to replace compared to some other phones. With the 8260, there is no worry about that as the antenna is part of the phone's external structure itself. In fact, as this phone is also not a flip-phone, there are no moving parts to break, so it seems to be one of the more durable phones on the market. Also, even with the internal antenna, reception is, on the whole, at least as good as the StarTac, if not better in most cases. As a gimmick guy, I have to say that I'm impressed with the trivial features offered on this phone. It has four games--snake (as action-y as they give you), logic (a mastermind-type game), rotation (an ordering game), and memory (like concentration without the rebus). It comes with 35 preloaded ringtones, and you can save up to five personal ones that you can get off the web. There are several profiles, all of which are able to be customized, so that you can switch from meeting mode to silent mode to normal mode with minimal hassle. Also, another thing I like better about this phone than the StarTac is the vibrating alert. On the StarTac I missed many calls--you could have it either vibrate or ring, but not both at the same time, and the vibrate function was weak. On the Nokia, when the phone vibrates, it vibrates enough to feel, and it will ring at the same time if you want it to. The phone can store up to 250 names, but only seven can be used with one-touch dialing. The good news is that it's simple to change the numbers that are programmed for one-touch dialing. The others are accessible alphabetically, and you can use the number keys to jump to a specific letter. Unfortunately, this phone does not have web-browser capability, but it does have text-messaging and short e-mail capability. The text messaging also has a cool function that allows you to type by hitting each key once for each letter in the word and a dictionary tries to match what you've typed to a word it knows. This feature saves massive amounts of time and the text messaging is great for getting a quick message to or from someone. (If people want to send you a message but don't have a phone that can do it, they can go to ATT Wireless's website and send one from there.) One thing I don't like about this phone is that the resettable timer records times in minutes and seconds rather than minutes rounded up like the StarTac. Unfortunately, this makes for difficulties keeping track of used minutes, but it's something that, if you take it into account, won't mess you up too much. Just stay on the conservative side when you get close to your monthly limit. All in all, I would say that this phone is among the best on the market right now. It doesn't have world-band capability, so if you travel to Europe a lot, stick with VoiceStream. Otherwise, I would recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 (rebate) 89172 2000/6/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 simple agenda long battery life small size 250 memory locations good value if you search around terrible ringing tones fragile The Bottom LineGood practical phone. Full Review So you are interested in the Nokia 8260? Here is my advice. In general it is a good phone, you cannot go wrong with this baby. BUT, I have noticed a large price discrepancy among vendors (and providers). Since I believe in serious research before buying an expensive item like a cell phone, I may spend days just going over prices and reviews before making a decision, and I was quite surprised that some vendors ask for $199 for this phone and some only ask $20. Of course both are attached to a plan. Since I bought this phone through Amazon, I was lucky that they were offering a $50 rebate with purchases over $100, the phone was exactly $100 with a $30 annual plan with AT&T. But after I received the phone, I also received the $30 rebate coupon from AT&T, so that makes the price only $20 (after the rebate). Now the phone itself, I have used several phones in the past, mostly Nokia's, and I would say this is one of the best I have owned. Many people say the size is much too small for comfort, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The small size just makes it a pleasure to carry. I never have to worry about the phone getting into the way. Although I use a belt-clip, I could easily slip the phone into one of my front trouser pockets while hardly feeling it. The vibrating ringer is a little too weak to feel while you are in a car, or doing some sort of physical activity. Another great feature of this phone is the long battery life, Although it may not last as long as the manual says, I get a decent 3 days with normal usage and a bar or two left (I like charging before it empties, so I won't worry about the battery running out the next day). And since this is a Lithium Ion battery, I don't have to worry about any memory effects. The rest is pretty standard for cell phones plus a generous 250 name phone book memory. One of the features I like about the phone is the simple agenda that is built-in. Don't expect PDA quality, but since I don't like to carry numerous little gadgets, the 8260 agenda is perfect for storing important time and dates, it also has an alarm to accompany it. Some cons about this phone is it's fragile nature. I once kept the 8260 in my pocket with my plastic sunglasses. And I realized that the screen and body was scratched in several places. I never had this problem with my Ericsson T-10. Another thing that I dislike is the 30 something musical rings. Don't be fooled by the quantity of ringing tones, almost all of them are musical tones. I like phones with a simple "phone ring" that doesn't sound like video game music. Bottom line, a good phone. And great value if you shop around! Best for people who like practical phones. But don't forget to search for a good plan before buying any phone. The plan (in my opinion) should be the major consideration before deciding on the hardware. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89171 2000/3/28 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good operation small handy monster battery life learning curve button size The Bottom LineA handy package with multiple functions, well worth the money. Full Review I was an late adapter to cell phone technology. Being in Alaska, I was never more than 20 minutes from contact, so I didn't see the need for cellular service. Add to that the higher rates we see in the 49th state and you might see why I didn't really consider cell phones until recently. When my office bought me an 8280, I accepted it with trepidation, not because I feared the technology, but because I knew I'd like it and I'd likely become one of those men wandering the stores talking into the nearly-invisible clip-on microphones that come with the 8280. These phones are excellent in most regards. The charge is phenomenal. I leave mine on all day (work requires it) and I have to charge it once a week for a few hours. Granted, I'm not spending hours a day talking, but I rarely have to deal with it dying on me. The operating system is good, if not too good. There are multiple system menus, from 'Profiles' to 'Calculator' to 'Games' to 'System' and so on. There are perhaps too many options, as I found it difficult to traverse to the ring settings to change that. Once I did, though, I was pleased to find a few dozen ring sounds other than that annoying 'Nokia' ring. If there is one flaw in this phone, its the small buttons--both the numbers and the on/off switch. I'm not a large man, and I have moderate difficulty calling a number if I don't have it stored in memory. I don't make calls while I'm driving, but I cannot imagine doing this with an 8280 if I don't have the number in memory. Having said that, I can say with confidence that this is a non-issue with me, as I don't like talking while I drive. Others might take issue with this . The size of this phone is great. I have it in my front pocket of my jeans and I forget it's there. Perhaps the greatest testimonial I can offer is that after 6 months with mine, I bought one for my wife. She loves it, although she spent two evenings customizing her ring, calendar, alarms, etc. This is a great phone that should last me a few years, which is a lifetime in the cell phone industry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 89170 2000/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 size clarity looks weight poor paintthe clear plastic face The Bottom LineI would definitely get this phone. This is a great phone with no extra B.S.. All of my friends love the phone and are getting their own. Full Review I got this phone a few months ago from AT&T and I love it 95%. I paid $75 for it (WOW) after a bunch of rebates and "customer satisfaction" discounts. Here's the pros and cons for this phone: Pro's 1) Very small and lightweight - put it in any pocket and you don't even know it's there. 2) Very good battery life for such a small and lightweight battery. 3) Very good digital clarity and service. The antenna apparently is tuned for the digital towers which causes a slight degradation in analog service (I haven't noticed anything). 4) The internal antenna is awesome. It will not break off and the phone will not get stuck in your pocket. 5) Built-in vibrating alert is very useful. 6) The looks are great. 7) Screen layout is easy to read -- very simple and business like...no BS blinking stuff except for the games. 8) It has games. 9) Text messaging. Con's 1) The paint is not durable enough. 2) The clear plastic cover get scratched easily. 3) Lack of internet abilities. 4) Lack in the ability to program the phone via a computer link or lack in the ability to save your numbers on a computer. I broke my first 8260 when I dropped it and I really really hated programing all of my numbers in again. 5) Cost...I only paid $75 for the phone...I would never have paid $200. Overall this phone is great. I RECOMMEND USING A CASE FOR THIS PHONE TO PROTECT THE PAINT AND THE FACE. I dropped my first 8260 in a parking lot a few months ago and the screen stopped working...if I had it in a case it probably would have been fine. Fortunately AT&T replaced it for free. Enjoy the phone!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75. 89169 2000/2/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 downloadable ringtones great clarity small size graphics limited faceplates little buttons The Bottom Linechange carriers if you have to - I did. Full Review My husband and I used to be Sprint PCS people. And we were very happy with their service and coverage, except for one thing. They never got really cool phones, they were months behind the other carriers in getting the hottest phones. We coveted the Nokia 8890's sharp chrome-y good looks and slide-y cover for months, until we noticed on a lot of the displays the shiny finish was peeling off. It was just a shiny coating on a plain plastic phone. For almost 800 dollars at the time, that was totally unacceptable. So we moved on to the 8260, which was much more reasonably priced and we have not regretted that decision. We got two, blue for me, red for him (no gender/color stereotypes here). We signed up for SMS messaging because we have always enjoyed sending text messages back and forth, plus, SMS text messaging is the method by which you can download ringtones and caller group graphics to the phone. And I was pretty certain that I absolutely HAD to have the Star Wars' "Imperial March" ringtone on my phone. So, the service is clear, we have enjoyed great coverage through AT&T. I love the fact that there is no antenna to sticking out of it. Battery life seems exceptional compared to my old phone, a Sony Z-phone. It's small. I have a hard time finding it in my purse sometimes. With the SMS messaging service, you can download ringtones and graphics from several sites like www.cellphoneuser.com. Or check out www.upoc.com for mailing lists that will alert you when your favorite celebrity is in a Starbucks on Park Avenue in NYC, if you sign up for the "NYC Celebrity Sightings" group. There are a couple of minuses. If you're a man with big hands, I could see the buttons being a little too small for you. And if you like have a variety of swappable faceplates, I have not seen many. There's another Nokia phone very similar to this one that seems to have faceplates galore, but they don't quite fit from what I hear. I haven't gotten my rebate back yet - when we bought it, there were all these rebates available that made the phone practically free. More than worth every penny even without rebates though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89168 2000/2/16 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool colors exceptional clarity long lasting battery so far none The Bottom LineGet it! It will make your life that much less complicated. Full Review The Nokia model 8260 is not only the cutest, but also the clearest, cell phone I've had yet! I've owned just about every model that Nokia has put out so far, and I have to say, they just keep getting better! What It Has To Offer: *Long talk-times: With up to three and a half hours of digital talk time with a the standard battery *Constant Charging not necessary: Up to 8 days of digital standby time *It's Light & Compact!: Measuring only 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide and weighing about 3.4oz with a battery *Choose Your Own Style: Three super-cute, super-hot colors to choose from including Carbon Grey, Electric Blue, and Red Pepper. *What's that Ringing in my Ear?!?: Don't worry, it's just your phone. It comes pre-programmed with 35 tones, but you also have the option to customize five of your own! *Hmm...Who Could This Be?: You'll never have to utter those words again. This phone comes equipped with Caller I.D. It also shows dialed calls, incoming calls, and missed calls. *"In Consideration of Others, Please Make Sure Your Cell Phones and Pagers are turned OFF.": That's cool, with the silent and vibrating alerts, you can keep your phone with you at all times, even in the movie theater. *That was TODAY?: You can set up your phone to remind you of important events like meeting, interview appointments, and anniversaries. *ZZZZZ.....buzz!: Leave the alarm clock at home and let your phone interrupt your sweet dreams! *Mucho Dinero: Along with a handy calculator, the Nokia 8260 comes with a currency converter. *You've got mail!: You can and receive email on this baby. Why Do I Love This Phone?: Geez, the question should be why wouldn't I love this phone? That is just a few of the options offered on this phone, there are so many more! I would recommend this phone to anyone and everyone. It's so great and does so much stuff. With this phone you can leave your calculators, clocks, watches, whatever at home. Just let the phone handle it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89167 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very lightcan fit in my jeans no protective key cover Full Review I have recently retired my nokia 6162 and went for the 8290 from Pac Bell. Although the phone is extremely good looking and has useful features the service from Pac Bell was very disappointing. So I went back to AT&T and bought their 8260. The 8260 is very much similar to the 8290 except the voice dialing feature. Also a lot of people here are confusing the nokia 8260 to the 8290. The nokia 8290 is the phone with the changeable faceplates not the 8260. Even without the voice dialing and changeable faceplate I really like this phone. So far the reception has been great. This probably has a lot to do with my current wireless service provider AT&T. Pacific Bell was a big dispointment here in the Sacramento area. I was getting about 10 drop calls within a 20 minute phone call with Pac Bell but maybe only one AT&T. So far I can't find any complaints about the 8260. Oh by the way my first phone was defective. For some reason it keeps on making a humming noise everytime I made a call. My new replacement phone seems to have solved that problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139 89166 2000/2/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small vibrating ringer name groupings lightweight no external antenna too easy to drop expensive The Bottom LineA super-cool phone in a super-small package with lots of feature you will use. Highly recommended. Full Review I've literally gone through 4 cell phones over the last 2 years. Every time my contract ends, there is a newer, smaller, lighter, cooler looking phone that boasts more features that I'm interested in, so I shop around. The Nokia 8260 looks much cooler than the Nokia 5160 I used previously. You will also be quick to appreciate it weighs in (with battery) at only 3.4 oz, compared to 5.9 oz for the 5160. What I like best about this phone -- Because I have my phone on my waist with a belt clip (purchased separately for ~ $20), I've found that the vibrating alert is *perfect* for use all the time. In my car, in class, at the movies, at restaurants, its the best way to ensure that you are the only one who knows when you are receiving calls, and therefore don't disturb everyone else. As a college student, I always bring my phone with me to class. Although I do get calls and let them go to voicemail while in class, its always people with other phone that obnoxiously ring on full volume during class and upset the students and the teacher. Use the vibrating ringer, you will fall in love with it. You can store up to 250 names and numbers in your phone, and easily set them up in your 7 one-touch dialing keys (keys 2 - 8; 1 is voicemail, 9 is 911). You also can classify the names in up to 5 grouping capabilities, each group can have its own group icon, a different ringer and other settings. Basically, this lets you have different rings for different people. This works great for me because I can put my business contacts in one group, my friends in another, then easily be able to tell who is calling me from the ringer tone (although it does take a little time to remember that your phone has 5 ringers, not just one!) The 8160 offers 4 games now. Although I don't find time to play them, sometimes friends appreciate being able to pass time by playing on your phone. Games offered include the ever-popular snake, and then memory, logic (like mastermind), and a new game called rotation. The standard Nokia features -- Still available as you would expect. You can still browse the last 10 missed/received/dialed calls, which makes it easy to track down who called you last or who you missed. The standard calculator, calendar, profiles, are still there. There are a handful of new ringers in additional to the regular Nokia ones from previous models, bringing the total to 40 ringers. There also is the ability to receive up to 5 more ringers if you buy them online, assuming your service plan supports the messaging feature necessary to do this -- Mine doesn't. There was enough ringers that I liked already that this wasn't a problem. When I purchased this phone several months ago, practically no one had it yet, which made having it really fun. Even now, its still a new toy -- You probably will enjoy all the "oohs" and "ahhs" and "Can I see that?" when someone notices your phone for the first time. Ronnie's Tips on this phone -- 1. Purchase it from Best Buy. If there's no Best Buy in your area, http://www.bestbuy.com Why? Although this phone isn't cheap, you can make it much easier on yourself in the long run by purchasing Best Buy's extended warranty on it. In 3 years when you trade in your phone, Best Buy will put the FULL PRICE you paid for it towards a new phone when you trade it in, no matter what shape its in (so long as it works). Also, having Best Buy behind you is great if you accidentally drop the phone (easy to do without a belt clip!), or break it. Best Buy's price is competitive on the phone (around $199), and even if you find a lower advertised price on it they will match it. 2. Buy phone insurance. For around $3.00 a month, my cell phone carrier (SW Bell) will insure my phone in the event that I lose it, or it gets stolen (Best Buy's warranty doesn't cover loss/theft). In 6 months, I've made 2 insurance claims already because I managed to scratch my phone up a bit, and I wanted a new one. For a measly deductible of $30, I got a brand new phone! 3. Change the Carrier Name. So long as you don't use AT&T, you should be able to change the carrier's name at the top of the phone with any text you want. I changed "SW BELL" to "RONNIE". How? At a clear home screen, type in: *3001#12345# Scroll to NAM1 and hit Select. Then scroll to PSID/RSID lists (not Alpha Tag) and hit Select. Scroll to P/RSID 1 and hit Select. Scroll to Alpha Tag and hit Select. Hit Clear to erase it then type in your name using the numeric keys, then hit OK. Hit the END key (the Red key) to exit. The last trick is you must power-down your phone to continue. Hold the power button on top until your phone turns off. Turn it back on, and after a few seconds you should see your Name at the top of the screen! Easy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89165 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 versatility size price Full Review With two teenage children and both my wife and I working, I have had several cell phones and cell phone accounts in the past. Our primary phone is a Nokia and when I needed another phone I went to my local AT&T store and saw what was new and different. I purchased a plan that gave me a Mitsubishi phone. Within three weeks I went back and traded it in on the Nokia 8260. This phone is everything anyone would want...reception is great, size is unbelievable, talk time/stand-by time is long. In short this phone delivers everything it promises. There is a calendar/calculator feature which is great for making notes and with the alarm you can remind yourself of upcoming events or appointments or just tickler reminders. One of the things that I love the most is that there are several "profiles" that you can select. In essence a profile is the way the phone rings (loudness), the way you are notified about messages, the key pad sounds, etc. In my line of work I can not have a cell phone ringing. What I do when I am working is change the profile to "Silent". The phone ring is silent (it just vibrates), message notification is also by vibration. When I go on break I can return calls as conveniently as I want without interruption. The vibrating factor itself is worth its weight. Bottom line I feel that Nokia understood what was important. The phone can be customized with profiles, the phone is lightweight and small, and most important talk time is very long. One negative: the phone has a suggested price of $199.00. See what your provider can do for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 89164 2000/1/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 usable extras only 3 colors Full Review I have used Audiovox, Motorola, and Nokia phones in the past so when it came time to upgrade my Cell-One plan I looked at the current crop of phones. I can't stand wearing a phone on my belt since I do a lot of crawling around and work in close spaces so I wanted a phone small enough to pocket. When I saw the Nokia 8260 the first time I wasn't sure since it didn't have the flip (I was also looking at the Star Tac) that I expected to need for carrying a phone in my pocket without activating it or rubbing off the numbers. The 8260 has a simple and quick key lock feature that ended those worries and the leather case has clear plastic covering the keys. I didn't think I would need the 200 memory slots or the calendar and never expected to play the games so I almost didn't get the phone. I talked to several friends who told me how good the reception was with the 8260 and that got rid of my last hesitations. Now, after I have the phone I love the calendar with the ability to alarm/remind me of appointments or holidays (birthdays are input with the date of birth and the reminder then tells you the age). The games are addictive and a great way to waste time waiting for people who are late for meetings.The vibrate ring along with 40 possible ring tones make sure you have one that will satisfy you, and the ability to make call groups ring differently you can use several. I have been able to go 5 days without recharging the battery (if I don't play snake too much) and the display is very easy to read. My feature of the phone however is the ability to send text messages from the phone itself. The 8260 incorporates predictive text input that allows to just hit the key once for each letter and the dictionary tries to match the possible word. If the phone gets the wrong word you can change it through the menu, but I have only had to change a word once. SMS (short message service) capability must be part of your service plan though so make sure you get it if you want to be able to send a quick message from the phone itself. My plan gave me a $100 rebate so the price is deceiving. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89163 2001/1/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small can fit in your pocket light none The Bottom Linecan fit in your pocket because it is so small, it's not heavy and it comes in all different colors which is cool Full Review Skipping a generation, I went from a Nokia 2160 to the 8260... what a difference! I needed something small and able to use more current features; and wanted something stylish. The 8260 actually fits in a shirt pocket and has all the bells and whistles. One of my favorites: "profiles" such as Normal, Silent, Meeting, and Pager that can be set easily to change a slew of options on the phone with one push to fit your situation. The phone also has a built-in vibration alert for when you don't want the phone to ring (although there are tons of volume settings plus settings including "single beep" and "ring once" options that is far less conspicuous than a full ring). Standby and talk-time are great, the Lithium Ion battery resists "memory effects" that reduce battery life. Clarity is good (for cellular), at least on the receiving end. The size of the handset puts the microphone mid-cheek and I'm not sure if that or the cellular network is responsible for some difficulty being understood. Fortunately, there is a headset port that gets around all this with your choice of wide variety Nokia or third-party headsets. My only nitpicks are mostly related to my carrier (AT&T Wireless)... while the phone supports sending messages (SMS) or e-mail, it's up to the carrier to support the service. Also, hopefully because the phone is so new, it's missing some options... most notably no way to connect to a computer (this is automatically available on the 8290 GSM phone). In addition to preventing wireless data communication, a link would make features like the calendar/appointment book easier to use... not to mention the phone list (which is still a major improvement over previous models... entering, managing, and deleting names & numbers is a snap!) This phone is great for anyone on the go... it's small, stylish, and feature-packed. I would encourage those who need full-fledged wireless data services to choose the nearly-identical 8290 instead. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89162 2001/5/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight easy to use interface compact superior reception concealed antenna there is no cover keys are exposed The Bottom LineAn excellent choice and I definitely recommend it. Don't overlook the 8260 if you're shopping for mobile phones. Full Review I've owned two Ericsson phones prior to switching to the Nokia 8260. I must say that the Nokia is clearly the superior phone. I use my phone for very basic mobile communication, so my review is aimed for others who intend to use the phone on a very basic level. (Most of the time on standby and calls are rarely longer than 5 to 10 minutes.) Many of my friends are into customizing their phones and taking advantage of every single feature, but my phone is just a phone-away-from-home. As I understand, the 8260 is made for AT&T plans and the 8290 is for PacBell plans. They should be virtually identical phones, but I've heard that the 8290 doesn't come with a hands-free jack and it's actually a little thinner (don't try to swap faceplates between 8260s and 8290s: I've heard they aren't interchangeable.) The one I own and am writing about is the 8260, AT&T. Battery life is excellent. I can let it go on stand-by for three or four days before charging it. Mine came with a household charger as well as a car charger. Being in the power crisis we are in now, I just use the car charger. There is no antenna, so you don't have to worry about pulling anything out or bending anything out of shape. The antenna is concealed within the phone. What is surprising is that the reception is much better than what I used to have with Ericsson phones. Of course, the Ericssons were a bit older, but the Nokia 8260 is pretty reliable as far as reception. That translates to fewer missed calls or fewer annoyances because you can't dial out. The menus are pretty easy to follow. I haven't been able to really do much with my screen. It displays time, "profile" (grouped settings), battery life and reception power. The 8260 lets you download ringtones from the Internet, so you can have your own melody ring when you receive an incoming call. Mine does the Mission Impossible jingle now. There is a variety of other preset melodies that come with the phone. You can also send and receive email text messages, if your carrier supports it. A very useful feature is the silent ring: you can set the phone to "vibration" mode and it will rattle like a pager without playing the ringing. Comes in handy during meetings or if you're at a restaurant or other public places/situations where mobile communications would be inconsiderate. The keys are backlit so dialing in the dark is easy. The phone is lightweight and compact. At first, I was afraid it was too small (easy to lose, hard to punch keys), but I've grown used to it and it really is a good size. The faceplate is changeable and comes in three colors (red, blue and charcoal.) I wish it had some sort of hard cover to protect the keys. I usually find myself having to use the keylock option to avoid accidental dials. I also wish the phone would keep track of call time. I think it does, but the display returns to default as soon as you hang up, so you really have to look before you end your call. The Ericssons had call logs with call time. If you're into hands-free, there is a headset jack. Mine came with the headset (and earplug and a small mic.) There are all sorts of rebates available from time to time, so check several stores before you buy. In short, I am very pleased with this phone, despite its little shortcomings. I even dropped it on a concrete sidewalk accidentally and it survived the fall with just a few minor scratches on the case. I am hoping Nokia and other manufacturers will keep engineering better phones and that the US market will eventually open up to more sophisticated technology already available in Asia and Europe. If you found this epinion helpful, please rate it before you leave this page. Thanks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 - rebate 89161 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone literally pocket size cheap hands free kit buy the right oem model Full Review I upgraded from my trusty 6160 to the new 8260 and I love it. I wanted a smaller phone to fit in my shirt or pants pocket and the stubby antennae on my 6160 gets in the way if I put it in a jacket pocket. I love the fact that this phone, besides being so small, has no external antennae. With AT&T's website promotions, I transferred my old phone to my wife on a great rate plan and got this phone for $54 including tax (after all the rebates.) Of course, I checked epinions before buying. Since 95% loved the phone, I looked for the opinions that had problems. I'd like to address those here. The biggest complaint I saw was that the keys were too small. The keys are fine. I'll admit that I have small hands for a guy, but I had a bandaid on my thumb and I still used it to program over 150 names and numbers into the phone. I miss-hit only 1 digit the whole time. The keys are raised and there is enough definition in them to tell them apart. There was a comment that the light behind the keys wasn't strong enough. That may have been the case in earlier phones, but mine is fine. At dusk, it is a little hard to see, but so is any lighted phone. Another comment was that you couldn't see the top bars for the reception and the battery strength because they were behind the display cutout. Again, there was no problem on mine, so it may have been an issue on earlier models. Some had mentioned poorer signal strength with the 8260. I had my 6160 and 8260 next to each other out on the road and 95% of the time, there was no signal strength difference. Very infrequently, when I had 2 bars on the 6160, I only had 1 on the 8260, but usually they were equal. Most of the time in my area, I have 3 or 4 bars anyway. The overall quality of the phone seems to be great. Some thought that the keys were a little cheap, but I don't think so. They seem to be fine to me. I did like the feel of the rubber like keys on the 6160 better, but quality wise, the 8260 keys seem just as strong. One thing I didn't care for was the handsfree earpiece that came with the phone. I didn't know it was going to come with one, so I had already ordered one online. The one that comes with the phone is a cheap model. There is no foam cover for the earpiece, the clip for your shirt or seatbelt isn't as easy to use, there is no button for answering or disconnecting, and, most importantly, I found that it created a little static on the line. Again, I had already ordered the OEM earpiece online from another site and it works fine. It has the foam cover, the button, the better clip, and there is no static. All in all, a great phone for a great price. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 54 89160 2001/1/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features style size durability The Bottom LineThis phone is for you if you like a stylish phone that can fit in your pocket. No antenna and tons of other features come with this baby. Buy it! Full Review Well AT&T finally started offering this great cell phone to their cellular customers in my area (Detroit, MI)[I am actually from Warren, MI, the city where that goof ball Eminem roams the streets] so I had to pick it up. The Nokia 8260 is the latest in Nokia's cellular technology, and also the most stylish. This phone has so many features it is sure to satisfy any cell phone user out there. What You Get In the box comes one Nokia 8260, a rapid plug-in-the-wall battery charger, hands free earpiece for driving in the car, LiIon rechargeable battery (with vibrate), and a detailed instruction booklet. Size! The size of this phone is one of its best features. Weighing only 3.4 oz with the lithium ion in it, you can hardly tell it is in your pocket. The digital screen is just as big as all the other Nokia series phones, so you don't lose screen size. The phone is about 1 cm. longer than a 1.44 MB hard floppy computer disk, and a little less than half of the disk's width. You can put it in your jeans pocket or a shirt pocket and not see it bulging out, unless you are wearing tight daisy dukes or something. Battery The very small Lithium Ion battery gives you 3.5 hours of talk time and 8 days of digital standby time. It took about 25 hours for the initial full charge, and about 4-5 for the next two full charges. It is recommended that you totally drain the battery the first 3 times, then you can charge it whenever you want. The battery is on the back of the phone, behind the backplate. It is east to take the battery out, and the phone will not lose any stored info when you take out the battery. Clarity So far all the calls I have made and received on this phone have been crystal clear. The phone is plenty loud to hear while at a party or in a crowd of people, but isn't as loud as some of the larger cell phones out there. A friend of mine has this same phone and he also agrees that the clarity of this phone is right up there with the best. I haven't had a dropped call yet. Antenna This is probably the coolest feature of this phone. The antenna is an internal antenna, so there is nothing sticking out. It is located on the back of the phone at the very top, and is about 1" tall and 2" wide. I was skeptical about the quality of the reception with an internal antenna, but so far it has worked great. One thing they recommend you do is not touch the antenna during a call, just like all other cell phones. It is out of the way where you hold the phone while using it, so this isn't a problem. Features! Features! Features! This phone sure has a lot of features. I won't list them all right out of the booklet, but tell you about some of the most useful ones. Vibrate This phone comes with a vibrating pack built in the phone, so you can use this as a phone and a pager. You can turn the vibrate on or off. You can also have the phone ring and vibrate if you want. The phone vibrates for about 1.5 seconds, then pauses for a half second, then vibrates again until your voicemail picks up. It vibrates enough to feel it in your pocket, so you won't miss calls. Profiles The phone comes with 6 different profiles, all of which can be modified and renamed except one. It comes with Normal, Pager, Silent, Office, and a few other modes. It is nice because you can set up a few modes for depending on where you are. For instance, I have my Normal mode (I renamed it "Mike Mode") set to Ring mode, ringer volume 4 out of 5, the "Kick" ring alert, and vibrate off. While at work I have it in Pager mode...ringer off, vibrate on. You can also set the volume of your touch-tones. Phone Book This phone stores up to 250 names and numbers in its phone book. It has a search feature where you type in the first few letters of the name you are looking for, and it will go directly to that name. You can also mark certain people to certain groups. I have Friends, and a Family group. When a friend calls, I have the ringer set to one tone, and when someone from the Family group calls, a different ringer is heard. So you can tell what type of person is calling just by the ring. Pretty neat! Calendar This is just like a calendar you would have on a Palm Pilot, but a little harder to use because you can't write with a pen, everything has to be typed in with the small numeric pad. You can make reminders for birthdays, meetings, and anything you would like to have your phone remind you of. It lets out a beep to let you know that there is something you were supposed to do on that day. I really don't use this feature of the phone much, but it is nice to know it's there. Text Messages This phone is capable of sending and receiving text messages and emails. If you are signed up with AT&T, people can send you a text message from a computer by using this address; areacodeandphonenumberhere@mobile.att.net. I tried it out and it only took 10-15 seconds to receive my text message, so it works pretty well. Right now I can only receive text messages because of my service provider, but the phone can send and receive them. You can also forward messages to other cellular phones or email addresses. Outgoing and Incoming Call Blocking If you find a number on your bill that keeps appearing and you don't know why or how, you can put that number on your block list. Your phone will not be able to call or receive a call form this number. This is also handy if your younger sister or brother likes to call their friends when you aren't looking. Others Of course you also get caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, 3-way calling, voicemail, 7 one touch programmable numbers, emergency one touch 9-key (calls an emergency number you program like 911), and many other features. There are 5 slots for downloadable rings if you don't like the ones that come with it (about 32). There are 4 games that come with the phone...Snake is the coolest. UPDATE! It is now Nov. 6'th and I havn't had any problems with this phone. I took the underground tunnel to Canada (it goes under the Detroit River) and I had almost a full signal the whole way. I even called someone to make sure it wasn't just screwed up. My friend sitting next to me had a 6180 model and it had no signal. It is now Jan. 31'st and I am still pleased with this cell phone. I have noticed that the ringer is not as loud as some of the bigger cell phones out there, but the fact that it is so small, and you can just turn on the vibrate and put it in your pocket makes up for that. I have a few small scratches on the display of the phone, not a big deal though. Overall I still think this is a great phone. Overall Since this is the latest in cell phone technology, and it has tons of features, I will give this phone a 9.5 out of 10. The only downfall of this phone is that it doesn't feel too durable. I am not about to drop it on the cement to test its durability, so I will just take good care of it. You get a very compact cell phone without losing sound quality and reception. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89159 2000/4/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size familiar interface call clarity i have to remember to check my pockets before doing the laundry now The Bottom LineYou can have my 8260 when you pry it from my cold, dead hands -- or when Nokia eventually releases a nicer phone. :) Full Review Hard to go wrong with this phone. I've wanted it ever since it first came out, and recently got a chance to get one for an incredible $29CDN. It meant changing the cellular number I'd had for the past 2 years, but I decided to go ahead with it -- after all, if the phone was crummy, I could sell it for 5 times the price, easily. I don't regret it at all. The phone came the next day, and even though a friend of mine has had this model for 6 months, I still blinked when I opened the box. This phone is *tiny*. The interface will be very familiar to you if you've used a Nokia phone before -- I upgraded from a 6160 -- and I consider that a big plus. I know those menus like the back of my hand, and having to learn a different manufacturer's system would have been a pain. Since I was essentially already familiar with the phone, I was able to start using it immediately. I had heard people mention that the reception on this unit wasn't very good due to the internal antenna; I had no trouble at all, both in urban and highway settings. I had heard the phone heated up a lot while in use, and I haven't encountered that yet either. I tend not to make too many hour-long cellular calls anyway. The only problem I had with my phone was a minor one -- the little speaker in the earpiece made a buzzing sound when very loud sounds were piped through it. It was very irritating, and I took the phone to a service center, where I was told I would have to send the phone out for two weeks. No way! I couldn't spend that much time without my 8260 anymore, so in the end I took the phone apart myself (shhh!) and fixed it -- it turns out the tiny speaker wasn't seated properly in the little rubber mount for it, and the membrane was vibrating against the phone housing. Since I reseated it, things are crystal clear even at high volume. The charge time with the supplied charger is somewhere between an hour and two -- but you have to let it trickle-charge for another 2 hours after it shows up as full before you get a "true" full-charge. I don't see that as a problem at all, since I only have to charge the thing every 4-6 days... The phone is a pleasure to use, and virtually transparent when you carry it. You'll forget it's there until you need to make a call or answer one, and every now and then you'll have to explain to people you call that you're on a cellular telephone, not a land line -- and that's what it should all be about, right? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 18.73 89158 2001/2/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the nokia 8260 great phonea great deal with some companies almost too small The Bottom LineGreat light weight phone with 3 hour battery. Good clarity and worthwhile device to own. Full Review The 8260 is my third Nokia phone. These phones really are all that they are cracked up to be. The changes they have made in the line of improvements are weight and styling and a wide range of other features. I love the volume control on the exterior that you can manually adjust while talking. Who wants to hang up, increase the volume and then call back, which is what you used to have to do? This is a very compact model device - it only weighs 5.6 ounces. It fits nicely in a breast pocket and can easily be misplaced. I try to keep up with it, but it is really easy to lose in a handbag or briefcase. I love the colors that Nokia provided for selections this year. Mine is cobalt blue and I find it be to most enjoyable to use - perhaps too enjoyable. The keypad is almost too small. But, once you touch it, it lights up and it can be easily seen in the darkness. The little screen size is still the same and can easily be read. The functionality of the phone has been improved and seems to be easier to program or perhaps I am becoming more adept. The vibrating ringer was a new feature added to this version that was good. I particularly like that since many people have become averse, (me included)to the rudeness of phones ringing anywhere and anytime. I like the newer car cord- it is a heavier duty version than my last one and seems to work better. I am not crazy about the leather cover design. It adds serious weight to this little hummer and also seems to not lend itself well to the design. But, the cover has a great clip that attaches firmly to your belt, without any need to worry about losing the phone. The only feature I am not fond of is the turn off key, which is on the top of the phone and is so small. that it requires a small fingernail to be depressed down into the the space where this black key sits. Other than that, this is a great phone. This phone would be my first choice for a phone, regardless of whose phone I could choose from. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 89157 2001/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 really light included vibrating function expensive buttons are idiotically small The Bottom LineIts really senseless to pay 100 more just for styling. If you are on a budget I would recommend finding another Nokia phone. Full Review I purchased the 8260 two months ago at a local phone store. They were just starting to catch on and everyone seemed to have one. Naturally I was attracted to the cool styling and the electronic gadgets like the calculator and the calendar. As a large handed individual I had a great amount of difficulty turning the unit on and off. The button was so small I would have to fish a paperclip out of the drawer in order to operate it. Dialing was no treat either...I was forced to use the tip of my fingernail to press the buttons. Reception in buildings is not very good due to the internal antenna's limited receiving capabilities. The price is pretty ridiculous too. $150 bought me a phone that I could hardly use...not a great value. Personally I don't think that all the hype surrounding this phone is all that true. Sure it looks good, but does it make sense to pay an extra $100 for styling and a couple of electronic gadgets? My current phone, the 5165 has better reception and practically the same features. Oh yeah and it was only $60. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 89156 2000/10/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 headset good signal reception internal vibrate airscripting ability li ion battery small size extra features that come on the 8290 gsm model no internet access Full Review I just bought my 8260 a week ago. I wasn't too sure about the phone though. Especially with the internal antennae. Heard some things about the 8860 having signal problems. Went to a Nokia seminar that was displaying the 8260 about a month ago. Nokia reps had advised me of the same thing and that they had redesigned the internal antennae. With that on mind I went ahead and purchased the phone. My previous phone was a nokia 6160. Overall I didn't have any problems with the phone. I just wanted something new. I had the other phone for about a year and three quarters. The ultimate test would be the signal reception on the phone. When I activated phone the signal started off perfect. I new I was in a good area because my 6160 was great in the same area previously. The place the test would show all is at my home location. I live in an intermittent low signal area. I brought the phone home and watched the signal reception vary from 1 to 2 bars of signal with an occasional 3 bars. That was a good indication on the phone. But I also know that 1 bar on one phone might not be the same on another. So I decided to put the phone in Field Test Mode and check the signal in actual numbers. I also did this with the Nokia 6160. They seemed to have even match. So far I love the phone. We will see if anything changes after a few months of use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89155 2000/3/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use superb reception extra long battery life ringer not loud enough impossible on off button The Bottom LineExtremely compact and loaded with USEFUL features. Avoid if you have hearing problems or a heavy hand. It has the best sound quality I´ve ever experienced on a cell phone. Full Review Thie Nokia has so many good features that its hard to find where to start. Let me just start by saying that I never believed I could find a better deal that my former Motorola ST 7797...was I ever so wrong... Lets begin with its small size. It fits confortably in your hand, shirt pocket, suit, and even my jeans. I always found that phones with no key covers were so unpractical, even the risk of making unwanted calls. Nokia solved this problem by ading a "keyguard" function that blocks the keys from unaware pressings. Very, very handy. The screen display is large, extremely easy to read in all conditions. To me is a big plus because my vision is not too good. The menu in this phone is so logical, so well structures, that even without the manual I was able to input numbers, set ringtones, program birthdays (YES; IT HAS A BUILT IN CALENDAR...)in less than 10 minutes! With the 8260 you have more than just a cell phone: a full featured message center, voice mail and agenda that even has a programmable alarm clock...this is so handy when you travel. Even more: you can SEND written messages from your own cell phone! Data input and editing is also very easy, and the menu always tell s you exactly what you are doing, because there is an onscreen help always available. Add to all this the MODES on which this cell phone operates: Normal, Meeting, Silence, Pager, Ambience, etc, where you can program EXACLTY how your phone will act in every situation: ring, vibrate, tones, ...you name it. A great feature is that you can incorporate your phone list into categories, so you can know in advance who is calling just by the ringtone. Quite impressive. The BEST features, however, have to be the SUPER long battery life (3 days in my case), and the superb clarity of every call. I have yet to miss a call on this phone, and this is a big plus in my book. Drawbacks? shure. For my own taste, the ringer volume is not loud enough, but it has a vibrating battery, so you wont miss the call if the phone is with you. The keys are quite small for my fingers, but now I dial more carefully. It will not take abuse very well, so please be kind to your phone and do not get into many bar fight with it. Expect great quality and features. It is really hard to find a better cell phone, believe me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 185 89154 2000/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light 2 way paging small wish it had the internet feature sometimes loses signal in my pocket Full Review I bought this product because I was getting tired of my Sprint PCS service and Samsung 3500 phone. I decided to go with AT&T and look into the phones that they offered. Well I went with the Nokia 8260 because I enjoyed the look as well as the feel the phone. Plus the features were most interesting. One of the first phones to offer two-way paging. It also has an exceptional battery life. One-touch access to voicemail, comes with a handsfree handset, instructions, and recharger. Holds up to 250 names, 8 days of standby time, up to 50 with appointments and reminders. Vibrating alert is also on this phone as well as Caller Grouping which allows you to set an alert sound for designated callers while other calls alert you silently I think one recommendation I would have is an infrared port like the 8290 model. Also some very nice cases that NOKIA has made for the phone normally retail for $24.99. Normal retail for the Nokia 8260 $199.99. When I first used the phone I noticed that I wasn't getting good reception in my house but outside I would say it was very good, NOT EXCELLENT but it's getting better. Plus I've gotten many compliments on it as well. Let's face it I'm not only a techno gadget freak I also enjoy having some fashion sense as well. This product is definitely for those who enjoy putting their phone in a pocket and not worry about some heavy weight in their pants. Very light and quite durable I might add. It comes in three different colors read, blue, and grey. Also Southwestern Bell also offers this phone with their service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 employee discount 89153 2000/9/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a great price excellent service almost smalllight enough to loose Full Review After one cellular tech world face lift, will Nokia stop at nothing to become/maintain their status as the worlds best... With this phone...I say yes. After upgrading from the nokia 5100 series recently, I realized that nokia had finally accomplished what they had set out for...creating a new version of the phone that will eventually be the standard in cell plans to come. With the huge sucess of the 5100 series Nokia needed a new phone to take over the "welcome to the market, heres a affordable phone" and the "We want to make a phone people will upgrade from the 5100 when they hit there service plan upgrade with their wireless provider." Personally, I belive Nokia tried to do this with their recent, not so grand, 6100 series...however, pricing on the phone was to steep, and the differences from the 5100 didn't deliver the "bang for the buck." However with the 8200 series Nokia has created this mobil perfection. Integrating the same changes as that of the 6100 series (e.g. The newer button layout, a calander, and a calculater) with the look over their supper high end 9000 series. Nokia may have been able to replace what they first found in the 5100. Other then that, I'm sure the vibrating battery, the less then 5 pounds in weight, the stylish shape with interchanging face plates, and the included "hands free kit" helped. Nokia, as they like to do frequently, included a few nice options in this phone. Incoming and Outgoing E-mail services make the phone as almost as useful as a PDA(Personal Digital Assistant...aka PalmPilot). Speaking of PDA's the Nokia 8000 series includes a infared system allowning PDA communication, and even phone to phone text messaging. For the teenagers, and music lovers at heart, Nokia incorporated the ability to download Music files of the web and incorporate them into the ring. The pricing on the phone is genius. By placing the MSRP fairly over the Wholesale price, cell phone service providers are able to flex more on the upgrade pricing and the sign on pricing...provinding a very high end phone at a real down to earth price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89152 2001/1/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 digital interface good looks not always clear too small The Bottom LineRead my 'Verdict' Full Review I love Nokia phones, and I personally find them to be the best on the market. The 5120 series seems to be the most popular, but then the Nokia 8260 came onto the market. It looked very stylish, and was a very small phone. My CellularOne plan was terrible, so I decided to get a new cell phone plan, and I purchased a Nokia 8260 with it. After a while of usage, here's what I found: Price: The Nokia 8260 comes in at a price of $200. I'm not too sure if this phone is worth the $200. Some of my favorite phones which are web-enabled and go with Sprint PCS are around $150 to $300 at most. Those phones including the Motorolla flip-phones seem to have more features for the price. Yes, the Nokia 8260 is high quality and carries the Nokia name, but it lacks many features of other phones that are in the same price range or even cheaper. I think the Nokia 8260 is pretty much the "BMW" of phones, looks good, works well, but there are others that work just as well or even better for less money. The Nokia 8260 probably costs so much for its size, and styling for most part. If you want a nice phone that looks great and are willing to pay a lot of money, then purchase the Nokia 8260. Durability: This is one questionable aspect of the Nokia 8260. It's a very small and very lightly built. That means it lacks the solidness of Qualcomms for example. I have a friend who once broke one of these when they were in his pocket. The Nokia 8260 are definately not built as solid as other phones. But if its taken good care of, then there shouldn't be any problems. If you need a phone in a more harsh environment, then consider a different kind of Nokia, Motorolla, or Nextel phone. Plans: The Nokia 8260 can be used in celluar phone plans that use Nokia. The Nokia 8260 is widely accepted, with plans such as AT&T, Verizon, and CellularOne. This phone is great with because it is widely accepted. Portability: The Nokia 8260 is a very small phone that is very easy to carry around. It weighs almost nothing, and is only 4 inches long. You can hold it in your smallest pockets, and not even know it's there. It's the smallest Nokia cell phone, and the smallest cell phone in the United States. It's very easy to carry around anywhere you go, but the tiny size makes it easier to break. Clarity: The Nokia 8260 is for most part quite clear with some static here and there. In some areas where there can be a lot of static interference such as inside stores or shopping malls, there can be a lot of static. If the calling areas are moreover neutral, then there may be a a very small amount of static. The Nokia 8260 overall has little static in good calling areas, but has quite a bit of static in areas that cna cause a lot of static interference. I have tried other phones that were compatible with Sprint PCS in the static areas, and my calls were sounding clear for most part. Some of the web-enabled phones that come with Sprint PCS or Qualcomm usually have much better clarity in these areas, while the Nokia 8260 has more static interference. Ease of Use: The buttons on the Nokia 8260 are small, but the Nokia 8260 is incredibly easy to use. It uses a very basic interface. It's very easy to add numbers on speed-dial and play games on. The Nokia 8260 is much simpler to use than a web-enabled phone, but it lacks internal features anyways. Just about anyone can use this phone with no problems at all. Battery Life: The Nokia 8260 has a relatively short battery life. It can last a few hours while being on. The Nokias aren't known for long battery lives anyways. The Nokia 8260 has a few hours of juice in there, and I was usually able to talk for about 1-2 hours on a battery. The batteries that are available with the Nokia 8260 having a vibrating option which is great if you need to see who's calling and can't have the phone ring. The Verdict: The Nokia 8260 is really a quite nice cell phone. It's very small and beautifully styled. It costs too much for a phone with minimal features compared to other phones in the same price range. $200 is too much for a phone. I think that the size and styling are what cost $200. The phone itself performs well with less static than other phones that i have seen, and it's incredibly easy to use. If you're not looking into wireless internet or business phone plans, then the Nokia 8260 along with a good plan is good for you if you'd like to show off this device for $200. If you need a cell phone plan with a small phone and aren't willing to spend over $150, then consider a Qualcomm (small version) from Verizon wireless or other smaller phones such as other Nokias that come with AT&T and Verizon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89151 2000/3/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great compact size none so far The Bottom Linei think it is a great choice Full Review Ever since Nokia started making its diminutive model 8260 cellular phone, I've seen a lot of these cell phones around here. Is it due to the small size, or is it a result of the excellent reviews the 8260 has received from critics and trade publications Actually, I would wager that it's probably due, more than anything else, to the fact that one of the threecolor schemes in which this phone can be purchased is a nice combination of mostly red and black, which happen to be the University of GeorgiaBulldogs' school colors. If you think it soundsabsurd that someone would purchase a particular cellular phone, just because it comes a nice rendition of their school's colors, then you obviously haven't been to Athens, Georgia (home of UGA). While it seems unquestionably and totaly absurd to me, many people are just that hog-wild about UGA Athletic. Apart from the nice "red pepper" color, the Nokia 8260 also comes in either "electric blue" or "carbon gray." No matter which of the three difference color schemes you choose, however, the black and silver parts of the phone look the same. The different colors are basically equivalent to the changeable faces featured by certain other models of Nokia phones. Probably the single greatest advantage that the Nokia 8260 presents over many other phones is its extremely compact size. At just 4.1 inches long and 1.8 inches wide, it is positively tiny...almost too tiny. While it's nice being able to drop it into your pocket and almost forget it's there (after all, it only weighs around 3.4 ounces), its small size may actually a little annoying. Now, without trying to insult anyone, some people just have bigger heads than others, and for those who have larger heads, four inches from your ear to your mouth is just not going to be long enough. Fortunately, the microphone on the 8260 picks up your voice fairly well, even if you're not speaking directly into it...but it can still be annoying. Talk times and standby times are fairly good with the Nokia 8260; about the same as other phones of the same, high level of quality, but certainly not eye-popping. Nokia claims that you will be able to get up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time (1.5 hours for analog) and up to eight days digital standby time (36 hours for analog) with a fully-charged, standard battery. Of course, it should be noted that these are absolute maximums, and you will almost certainly never reach these levels. For example, if you pulled the fully-charged battery out of the charger, stuck onto the phone, turned on the phone, and then put it down and left it alone entirely, it's slightly possible that the battery would last eight days. If you plan to actually use your phone in any way, however, you'll find that your standby time will be significantly decreased from what Nokia claims. Likewise, your talk time will only approach 3.5 hours if you make a call immediately after taking it off the charger and then stay on the same call for 3 1/2 consecutive hours. Another particularly nice thing about the Nokia 8260 is the complete lack of an external antenna. Before having seen one in person, I always just assumed that the antenna was just retracted in the commercials. However, the reason the antenna is never visible in Nokia's commercials is actuall because it's inside the phone. From what I've read and been able to tell from personal experience with respect to this phone, the internal antenna neither adds to nor takes much of anything away from the performance, range, or clarity of the phone itself. It seems basically to be little more than a triumph in convenience (no more having to pull out that little, plastic antenna every time you want to make a call) and compactness (even when a typical cell phone antenna is retracted, the stub can catch onto things or poke you. Apart from the above listed features, the Nokia 8260 brings little to the table that isn't already offered by other phones on the market. That's not to say that the 8260 isn't a fabulous, high-quality phone, but it's certainly not ground-breaking in a technology sense. That having been said, though, if you'd like a top-of-the-line phone that's feature-rich and is even pretty darn aesthetically pleasing, then the Nokia 8260 definitely deserves some serious consideration. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): GIFT 89150 2001/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight won t snag hard to grip The Bottom Lineif you can get it for around 50 with only a year commitment i think its a good deal. Full Review i got the 8260 three months ago from buy.com. it was 100 with a 50 dollar nokia "atm card" rebate plus a 20 dollar ecoupon. nokia ended up sending me a check for 50 so my net cost was 30 plus about 10 for shipping. interestly enough the cost of this phone went negative for a short time if you included the 75 dollar att rebate. the calls are very clear except when just on the edge of its range. the first thing you notice about the 8260 is that its tiny...not just small. however the mic does work well and ambient noise isn't a problem. i have really big hands though and i have to either hold it with my fingertips or grip it across the keypad. not only is it small but it lacks a protruding antenna common on most other phones. because of this shape i carry the phone in the small pocket (the change pocket) of my jeans. in contrast all the other tiny phones i tried had snaggable surfaces. the next good thing is the battery life. in digital mode it has lasted for three hours on one charge. in analog/tdma mode its a lot shorter..more on the order of an hour. but..and this is a big but..many other tiny phones are digital only so you are out of the network once you leave highly populated areas. in standby mode i find it lasts about 6 days with about 30 minutes of digital usage. also it recharges in about an hour. with the 8260 you can send email easily. it has this T9 predictive input program that is trivial to learn and lets you write painlessly on the tiny keyboard. the problem here is that when people reply they tend to forget the phone truncates email at 150 characters.and thats including headers. the sms is fun too if you have friends with sms phones. i found the messaging routine fun for the first 5 minutes then got bored of it...but you may not. kids in japan can crank out over 50 words per minute on this type of thing so it probably will catch on. sorely lacking of course is WAP. you can rig up email alerts etc so you can get have some interaction with internet news sources. in any even wireless protocols are evolving and aren't real secure at this point. the rings and vibrating alerts work well. also you can customize it for different groups of callers. its all about discretion ;) the PIM function is good only for appointments. one last thing....it comes with a hands free earphone. this thing kept falling out of my ear untill i put a cover on it that came with a friends jambra headset. now it works really well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89149 2000/11/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception tons of features very small none Full Review On the quest for a new cell phone replacing my junky Ericcson one, I looked through many phones in the AT&T store. Suddenly the new Nokia 8260 caught my eye. This was the smallest phone I had ever seen, and I needed to take a look at it. Not only the was the phone so small that it could fit in that mini pocket in my jeans, it was also as light as air and was a pretty cool color! I took a look at it, and after seeing all its features I bought it. First of all the most important thing when buying a phone is the reception. Unlike other people saying this phone doesn't get a good reception, I find it to be great everywhere except low places like home basements. The reception was loud and clear, and it seemed like I was talking on my home phone. Knowing that I was going to get an excellent reception, I researched the other features the phone had, which was a strong purchasing factor. I have not seen a phone with more options than this. Not only is it extremely useful, but it is also entertaining! The phone has a wide variety of text messaging programs. You can send a text message almost like an AOL "instant message" to another phone with the service, where it pops up on their screen and they can reply back to you. This service comes free with the phone and is very useful in situations where you cannot talk like a performance or movie. Also, with my plan I get email included free, where I can email anyone from the phone and they can reply back to me. I have read other epinions where they give this phone one star because they buttons are too small. Although the buttons are not the most practical thing, I have no problem with them, having large hands. You have to sacrifice some size when you want to get such a small phone. The phone then also has a ton of other features, too many to list that you may also find on other phones like setup options, voicemail, and ringing tones. Unlike some other phones though this one has vibrating alert when you need to turn the ring off, and has 5 custom tunes you can download from the Internet so you have a unique ring. The phone also can help organize your busy life. The phone has a built in calendar which you can enter in appointments, birthdays, meetings, etc and have the phone alert you at the exact time and date of the meeting. Also the phone has a built in calculator to figure out your waiters tip and a currency converter when you are traveling international. For the most part, this phone can replace your Palm Pilot or other PDA because it contains most of the same features. Finally, one extra feature which doesn't help calls but is extremely fun, is the few games Nokia put on the phone. They included four basic games like Snake and Memory for those subway rides with nothing to do or a boring meeting. Sure they don't help with calls or reception, but they sure are fun! This phone is great all around and I would recommend it to anybody looking for a light, portable phone. It has a great reception and more features then some home computers! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 w/rebate 89148 2001/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 two way text messaging small size e mail function cool look small size The Bottom LineIt's a great phone and an excellent replacement for someone using the 6160, especially if size is a concern. I highly recommend the Nokia 8260. Full Review As fate would have it, I had just purchased a new extended life battery and headset for my Nokia 6160 phone when it stopped working. You would think that it should hold up better to being dropped a couple of hundred times. But for some reason, the "Send" button stopped working. I could still answer calls, but forget about calling anyone else. Not good when you use your phone as much as I do. Anyway, time to put the 6160 out of it's misery and move on. (Sniff)It was a good phone until the end. I'll miss it... I decided to call AT&T directly to see if they could offer me any discounts on the 8260. Surprisingly, they offered me a significant discount for being such a long-standing customer (like they don't offer this to just about everyone on the planet!). Additionally, Nokia offers a mail-in rebate for another $30 dollars back. Overall, it made the upgrade a little less painful in the wallet. They even shipped the phone overnight, so I got it early the next day. The New Phone: When I opened the box, I was impressed by the sleek look of the Nokia 8260. I ordered the one with the blue face plate, and I really like the color. It looks great with the silver keys and trim around the display. The antenna is internal, so there's no "nub" at the top of the phone and nothing to extend. The battery is also slightly different, as it is tiny and hidden beneath a plastic cover. I quickly realized that there is a huge benefit to having a phone this small, and a few "challenges". I had gotten proficient at using my 6160 one-handed, and quickly learned that this would not be so easy with the 8260. For example, just turning on the phone requires me to hold it in one hand in order to push the power button on the top of the phone. It's almost flush with the case and very small, nearly requiring you to use your fingernail to push it in. Also, I have a hard time holding the phone and dialing it with only one hand, as the keys are small and close together. However, this is really just a matter of getting comfortable with the phone and learning a better way to handle it. Overall, not a big problem. Features: Anyone familiar with Nokia phones since the invention of the 2160 (Those were HUGE compared to this one!!) will quickly adapt to the 8260. The menu function is still accessed by a rocker switch on the front of the phone, and there are few changes to the menu itself. However, with a few new functions built into this phone, the 8260 also has a few new menu options to go with it. The 8260 has a vibrating battery as standard, enabling you to avoid the costly expense of purchasing one separately. I like to keep my phone on during meetings, setting it to vibrate only. I had to spend extra money to get a battery for my 6160 that has this capability. For an extra monthly fee, the 8260 can handle two-way text messaging. This is really a cool feature, as it enables you to respond to text messages by returning a call or simply sending a text message back. You can also create text messages to send to someone's cell phone, or create e-mail messages to send to their Internet e-mail address. (The phone is also capable of receiving short e-mail or text messages.) Sure, the keys are small, so it takes a while to enter a message, but it's still a cool feature! And actually, to help make writing messages easier, the phone "guesses" at which word you are typing and gives the option of "auto-completing" the word. Performance: This may be a little difficult to judge, as a phone is usually only as good as the wireless service provider. I find that the 8260 performs just as well as my old 6160, with perhaps a little longer battery life. Reception is clear, although positioning the phone can be a little difficult due to its small size. I ABSOLUTELY recommend using the hands-free earpiece (included with the phone). One interesting aspect of the 8260, is it appears to have been designed with the understanding that it might be a little difficult to position. The microphone component of the phone is very sensitive, so it doesn't really need to be near your mouth for you to be heard. Just get it positioned appropriately by your ear and talk, the person on the other end will hear you fine. It feels odd at first, but it gets more comfortable with time. My service provider is AT&T, and I've noticed no change in my reception. I still get disconnected for no reason in the middle of Dallas, and I still get delayed messages and missed calls. I don't blame the phone. Accessories: This has been my biggest disappointment so far. Luckily, my home and car chargers for the 6160 also work with the 8260, so I now have extras. The hands-free set came with the phone, as did a home charger. However, I have seen little in the line of cell phone cases or belt clips for the 8260. The phone is small enough to carry in a shirt or jacket pocket, a woman's purse, or a briefcase; however, it is so small that it can be difficult to retrieve and quickly gets lost among other contents. I hope the lack of accessories is only due to the fact that this model is so new. Overall, this is an excellent phone. It's small and stylish, and it performs well. In general, the 8260 operates much like the 6160, with a few extra features. Menus are intuitive, with "help" information to explain more about a specific feature. The phone list allows you to put in a persons name, phone number, and e-mail address. I find this very helpful for managing my contact information. And the text messaging feature is convenient for sending quick messages, either to someone's phone or their e-mail address. I highly recommend the Nokia 8260, especially when that trusty old phone passes on to the cellular graveyard and its time to find a replacement. The 6160 is actually more durable, but I find that I drop my 8260 less often since I can slip it easily into a pocket. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139 89147 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size sometimes looks it vibrates battery life features no express on covers ringing volume price small keys The Bottom LineIf you want something to show off in public or you want more features than another phone like the 5160 can give you, go for it. Full Review Very recently I decided to change my previous Nokia 5160 phone. Now keep in mind I loved my phone, but I had some complaints. Well, not really, but I did want to have the greatest phone on the market and the 5160 was getting old. I wanted a smaller size, and a much cuter phone. When I went up to Cellular One to try out another phone, the sales person brought me to the back room and talked me in to buying the 8260. The price was very high - $250, but you only live once, so that baby went home with me. At first, I was disappointed in the phone's size. Sure it was small, but holding it at your ear is uncomfortable, feels really weird, and your index finger almost always has to touch the antenna which causes the power lever to go up, the battery life to go down, and the signal bars to decrease really quickly. In some weak areas, this also will drop the call. I was really impressed how easily it fitted into the tightest pair of jeans I had without being a pain. So the size really has some drawbacks, but it can also be a life saver. The navigation system is laid out the same as it is on other Nokia phones. There are the usual 5160 features, but also added is a calender, a calculator, and really, those features could have been left out. I have yet to use them. A PDA will work much more efficiently. The Nokia 5165 introduces the ability to download up to 5 ringtones from the Internet, and you can still do that on the 8260. However, I did find that there are really many ringtones that I loved on the 8260. Some people may find them annoying though. The volume control (nicely placed where your thumb doesn't quite reach - on the side of the phone) is really hard to press and even on its highest setting is too low. The same can be said for the ringer volume, which is way too low. Some rings can sound like setting number one when it is set to number 5 and others can be the opposite. However, the 8260 does include a vibrate feature, and I love that you don't have to buy a different battery for it. I have also found that the screen is very weak. One night I had my keys and the phone in my pocket and the key went through the screen leaving the phone and myself traumatized for the evening. But the good news is the insurance company is sending another phone in the mail. My mom still has a 5160 and I used it the other day. The 5160 feels much better to talk into and use, verses the 8260, which can be a pain in the butt. I've gotten weird looks from people who probably thought I was talking into a deck of cards or something. The phone can be just too small. The battery life is impressive, but could be better. The battery "meter" seems much more accurate than the 5160 was. When you charge the battery for one minute, it doesn't display full charge. So I think the internal quality is better. But the outside could be stronger. All in all I like the phone. If you're willing to cough up the dough for it, go for it. Or if you're a big talker on the phone or just want to show it off, go for it. Otherwise, leave this puppy on the shelf. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89146 2000/11/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 beats those bigger phones i m pleased can t think of any Full Review I just wanted to clear some comments up. I never owned a mobile phone before, but only used a family or friend's phone rarely. I'm most content with the features of this phone as it offers anything I would ever need and then some. I'm 19 and attending college. That might play a key role in the phone usage as well. There is a manual that comes with the phone, as with anything else made by a decent manufacturer. I find that it is necessary to read the manual in order to get the most out of the phone. Many people have been concerned with the reception due to the internal antenna. First, ask yourself why would Nokia put out a phone that doesn't have good reception after they've tried so hard to make such a great reputation for themselves. Next, reception has to do with the phone AND the service provider. I must stress the service provider, because even if you have the biggest, most extraordinary antenna hooked up to your cell phone, you won't be able to get any reception if you don't have a decent, RELIABLE service provider. Granted some areas are more well-covered than others, but you can't possibly blame the phone for that problem. Next, internal antenna = following the same rules of the external antennas. The antenna has a little box at the top of the phone to let the user know what not to touch. Obviously, it's a small phone and it's hard not to touch any part of it. However, if the user keeps their hands off the top of the phone, I promise the reception will change GREATLY. Try it out and see what happens. I live in a metropolitan area - Philadelphia, PA. I'm expecting the service with AT&T to be exceptional due to the population size. The service has been straight out flawless for the first week. Features - the phone packs in the features anyway you would like. Most of all, it's a phone that works exceptionally in style. That's all I have to say. Besides that, the ringtones and group images are a neat addition to regular cell phones. Also, don't pay $200 for the phone if you don't have too. There are several promotions (I received mine for $5). Buy.com has a special where you get $24.99 in return, after rebates of course. Be careful about what kind of plan you choose too, make sure you get all the goodies that the provider offers at no charge. About the casing - do you expect an army tank of a phone? It's priced at $200 on the market, do you throw a $200 piece of equipment around for fun? Think about the situation. Charging - Is it so hard to charge your phone every once in a while? Part of the responsibility is to charge the battery. Do you complain about changing the oil in your car every 3 months or so? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 5 89145 2000/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 has some great features size small enough to take anywhere the reception is not always as clear as one would like The Bottom LineA great phone for people who travel and for those who want to keep everything stored in one place. It replaces the need for a palm and/or organizer. Full Review First. Although I recommend this phone, it is not for everyone. If you have small hands, slim fingers, etc. this phone will not give you too much trouble. The other thing you must look into is location. It has both great and awful reception, depending on where one is, and it seems at times that even bad weather will play with reception and that the left side indicators on the screen are not always accurate at displaying the level of reception one has in the area. Sometimes it will show at full reception, but the person on the other line will complain of not being able to hear. What makes this phone great is both its size (fits into pockets with ease) and features (although the model Nokia sells in Europe has even better features, but that is a problem with the entire cellular industry). This phone does not have an external antenna. The plus is that it makes the phone smaller and fits into tight places. Yet, on the other hand, an external antenna does add to reception and clarity, so it is a choice one has to make for oneself. One of the reviews placed the rings on this phone as a con, calling them "whimpy." I disagree with this. There are 40 different ring patterns to choose from and there will certainly be one that will suit most tastes. The other great ring feature is that you can designate certain rings for certain people so that if you are expecting an emergency call, you can store that number in the phone and designate a special ring to it and thus, you will know who is calling before you even look at the screen. This is done by placing certain individuals in "caller groups" and then designating a ring for each group. A group may consist of one or more names. Speaking of the address book. This is a great feature. One can store not only the phone numbers, which show up as one scrolls down the list of names so that you don't have to look each number up individually, saving lots of time, but also e-mail addresses. You can therefore send and receive e-mails, text messages, and business cards. Other features include the Message center (text and voice), call log, profiles, settings, system, games (memory, snake, logic, and rotation), calculator, calendar, and keyguard. The keyguard is a lovely feature because if you are going to place the phone in your pocket but don't want to accidentally call anyone (the phone has one touch dialing or speed dial) you activate the keyguard feature. It will not let the phone dial unless it is taken off keyguard, but in case of an incoming call, the phone works as normal and you simply answer. Thus the keyguard feature in no way impairs the ease of answering the phone. Another great feature is smart texting. The phone is equipped with a dictionary (much like the one in a word processor) which guesses at the words one is typing and completes the word for you so that it does not take you as long to write out a text. For some this can be a bit annoying and one can easily turn the feature off, but it is great for those who text frequently and at length (This feature is used more it seems by Europeans or at least the English than Americans, who don't seem to text as often). One cannot ignore the shear beauty of this phone. It is just stunning. This is probably its biggest selling point. The features are great but this phone is simply cute and easy to work with. It costs $200 market price but I would try to get it on some discount and there are usually many being offered. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89144 2001/1/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size cutting edge technology great value no web browser small size The Bottom LineNOkia has developed a highly advanced, versatile, stylish phone that will fit into people's budgets and please everyone. Aside from no web-access, this is the Nokia to have. Full Review When I wrote the original opinion, I had only played around with a friend's phone. Having purchased and used one since the end of Dec. 2000, I feel that I can add more substance to this article. Using this phone has only strengthened my opinion of the Nokia 8260. The first thing that I must reiterate is VALUE. I paid nothing for this phone. Even today, you can get this phone for $80. That's not bad considering it's features. A comparable Motorola V-phone is upwards of $300, and the Startac will cost about $100. THis phone also includes an earpiece and does not need a car adapter... two items that you'll pay for with the Motorola's. The biggest benefit I find in this phone is the extra features. Yes, I'm the guy that called them bells and whistles, and they still do not directly enhance the primary function of talking on your cell phone. However, they do make the phone much more useful. I find myself using the calendar quite a bit. It holds up to 50 items. While it is a bit of a pain to enter items, I find that I can find time to add in a word or two as I'm waiting for an elevator or things like that. I can then use it as a reminder or alarm clock. The calculator is also quite handy. Short Message Service (depends on your provider) is somewhat useful. I've recieved quite a few messages, but don't really send them out. It costs me $.10 cents, and while the predictive text does make it easy to enter messages, I'd rather just call someone. Recieving messages is useful in getting directions, multiple phone numbers, and things of that sort. A cool feature along the same lines is that you can send other people "Business Cards". Basically it will send over all of the infomation for "John Smith" to someone else... it saves time and effort on your part to get and send numbers like this. It took me quite a while to get used to the Nokia User Interface, but now I'm finding ways to make it work for me. Nokia has built in shortcuts that save alot of time that make this phone tremendously easy to use. I think that Nokia users will find the same thing switching to Motorola's. I have found no problems in call clarities and other people hearing me. Additionally, I use the earpiece so often and just pocket the phone. I have had no complaints. There are times when this phone drops a few calls, but that's more a function of AT&T than this phone. Some interesting features that make this better than the Motorola's. The call logs are more detailed than the Motorola's. The ringers are more distinctive (albeit annoying.) I have downloaded ringers (for free) into my phone, so I rarely get confused with other people. The only problem is that Nokia lacks a number of good traditional ringers. Another useful feature is being able to assign people into caller groups. I can differentiate family, friends, business, or random callers. Each one can be assigned different ringers. Also, I can set up different profiles, allowing me to switch several phone functions depending on the situation. For example, I can change the ringer, volume, vibrating features and a few other minor details by just changing profiles. The best feature about this phone is the incredible battery life. I guess that my phone stays alive for about 3-4 days, which includes about 1-2 hours of total talk time during that time. The build quality for this phone is good. The internal antenna makes it much more stable. The only reason I didn't give it a 5/5 is that it's so small that it's so easy to misplace, that I would be surprised if I left it somplace where it was bound to break. I won't break with normal usage. Using the phone for a month, I do have some complaints. The display rests upon your ear, thus getting dirty... a problem I never experienced with the StarTac. THe phone book doesn't always store things alphabetically past the first letter, so I sometimes spend an extra few seconds looking for a number. SInce this phone doesn't assign location numbers to names, you have to manually search for numbers not on 1-touch dial. Therefore, you can only direct dial 7 numbers ("1" is for voicemail, and "9" is for emergencies.) WIth the Motorola, if I often dialed "John Smith" in location "51", I could just hit "51" and then "send" to dial. The internal antenna dies get fuzzy if you cover it with your finger. It just requires you to hold it differently (which I had to do with the StarTac's awkward shape anyways.) The buttons can be small for certain people, although I haven't had too much trouble adjusting. The backlight on this phone isn't as good as the Motorola's... it gets the job done, but could have been done better. The 8260 does not have an infra-red port (the 8290 does.) My biggest complaint is that there is no Web-browser on this phone. Well, despite NOkia's shortcomings, this phone is great. My phone came with a car charger and earpiece, so it's very comfortable to use. I never have to worry about battery life, and price was great. The small size is great because I never feel it (it's thinner than the Startac so it actually fits in my pocket better). It's an incredibly versatile phone that bests Motorola in just about every aspect except for Web capabilities. I would recommend it more now than ever before. In fact, at this point, I wouldn't give it up for even the Motorola V-phone. Who'd have thought. ----------------------------------------------------------- I've been looking to switch from Verizon to another company for about 6 months now (great service, high prices), and my research leads me to believe that this is the best Nokia phone to buy. As a die-hard Motorola Startec fan, I was shocked when I realized that I actually might even PREFER to have this Nokia. So, why is this Nokia special? Well, the biggest reason is it's size. Despite being compact and light, it seems to be well-built. The stability is further enhanced by not having an external antenna. (I realize that many people feel that this is bad due to cell-phone radiation, and I do not have an opinion about that specifically.) Even with it's small size, it has a rather large and clear display, so you aren't sacrificing anything about dialing numbers, seeing text, etc... So, overall, the phone is easy to carry around, and it's also stylish enough to appeal to those who want the coolest gadgets. Another reason why I have begun to like this phone more than the Motorola's is the extra features. These phone are really turning into mini-PDA's that can grow as your needs grow. I think that these features are bells and whistles, but I guess that there's nothing wrong in having them, right? These features include calanders, calculators, infra-red ports (to sync to a computer), downloadable ringers, etc... All that means that this phone is highly technologically advanced, and can offer more to people (especially those using it for business) than a Motorola. Those features also allow one to customize their phone. (i.e. you can download the Mission Impossible theme as your ringer.) Again, all these are non-essential, but I'm not going to complain is they are there. While Nokia has added in all those goodies, they have not deviated from the essential features that make their phone excellent products. This phone has a great battery life (about 8 days), which is same as the old, immensely popular 6160. Additionally, they have the same intuitive menu system to go through the different phone functions. Plus, the clarity and volume are still excellent. They have not gotten rid of a huge 250 name memory, and have added e-mail addresses w/ the names. Another feature they have added is an internal vibrator, so you don't need to buy a special battery anymore. Lastly, this phone seems to have the same high build quality that the 6160 had. So, is this the perfect phone? Well, some people may have issues with it. First of all, it does not have a web-browser. (OKay... I wouldn't pay for the service, but ATT offers it for free, but it would be unaccessible to me w/ this phone.) It's the biggest technological flaw with this phone, as Web-browsing will probably become more popular as it's perfected. Second of all, the small size may not suit everyone. I love having the flip-down portion of my Startec to see "where" I'm talking. This may just be a matter of getting used to, but it's an issue. Another problem with the size is that the buttons may not be big enough for everyone. People w/ bigger hands may find it difficult to dial the numbers. I also wish that Nokia grouped multiple numbers under 1 name. That system does have it's disadvantages (see opinions on v8160 and Startec), but it's an option that I personally prefer. This phone is a great value for the money. If you go through a reseller, you can get great deals on the phone. I can currently get the phone for FREE and would acutally make $5 in the process if I go through Comtel Communications. ($199 for phone - $100 Comtel rebate - $75 ATT rebate -$30 Nokia rebate) Additionally, for most people, it's a great phone that offers more than the bare requirements for a phone. The only trick is that I haven't found a plan that works for me that offers this phone. Still, if you like ATT, or Voicestream (digital only), this is a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 89143 2000/11/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size great battery life style internal antenna battery almost impossible to remove cramped keypad for larger fingers a bit pricey The Bottom LineIf given the opportunity to purchase again, I would. The size and battery life of the phone are great - I sometimes forget that I have it on me! Full Review Before I begin my review of the 8260, let me start off my saying that I have always owned Nokia cell phones exclusively - I love 'em for their size and ease of use. I use my cell phone quite a bit so I looked for a good number of features when looking to replace my sturdy 6162. I primarily use my cell phone (with the headset) while in the car and so the ability to dial while driving is very important to me (as is the size of a phone). My last phone was the Nokia 6162 on the AT&T Wireless network in Washington, DC. Size I'll start with this feature as I think it is the single biggest reason most people even consider purchasing the 8260. Nokia's 8260 is small enough to fit into a man's trousers without causing a noticeable bulge (the 6162 I had before this was considerably larger). Nokia claims it disappears into shirt pockets as well but this is debateable. Anyway, the phone is very light and thin - I actually like the size of this one more than the size of the newest StarTac (I don't like the bulkiness of the StarTac). I also like the fact that the 8260 has an internal antenna and this makes the size even smaller. The keypad on the 8260 is MUCH smaller than the 6162. If you have extraordinarily large hands, you may have a problem using this phone. I'm 6'0" tall and have average size hands and have had no problems with this phone. I do, however, sometimes need to look down at the phone while driving just to make sure that I'm dialing the right number. Setup and Installation Easy as always. Before you install the battery on this phone, make sure you write down the ESN (electronic serial number) for your new phone because once you put the battery in, it is virtually impossible to take the battery off to find the ESN. The difficulty of snapping batteries in and out (which was relatively easy in the 6100 series phones) may deter some people from purchasing the 8260. I, however, have had no need to switch batteries since I bought the phone. If I need to someday get my current battery replaced, I will have to take it to an AT&T store and get them to do it for me. Phone Features Really no frills. Same setup menu as the 6100 series phones. You get the usual 250 name address book and can add 50 appointments in the calendar. One new cool feature is called "SMS" (short messaging system). In a nutshell, it allows you to send and receive email from your cell phone to any other cell phone user or email address in the world (assuming that the receiving party has the correct options set up on their wireless network). This is a good feature that I've used several times when I've been stuck at airports and had to email people who I couldn't reach by phone. Battery Life and Reception Great battery life - Nokia claims 3.5 hours of talk time and 8 days of standby time. My experiences have been slightly better in that my battery usually lasts close to 4 hours. Reception is atleast as good as my old 6162 and may even be slightly better (since this is a newer model). Value for Money I paid around $125 for my new 8260 after deducting rebates from AT&T Wireless. I wouldn't pay the retail value of $200 for this phone simply because you aren't getting a whole lot of new features for that price. If size were the most important feature, I may consider it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89142 2000/12/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light small nice buttons lots of extras large screen battery does not last too long may be a bit too small for big hands Full Review After using this phone for some time, here's what I have to say: - Size/Weight : This phone is incredibly small. So small, in fact, that it could fall out of your pocket without you knowing it (although some of the Samsung brand phones are worse.) That said, it's nice to know that when you're in for a long call, this phone won't break the poor arm trying to hold it up. It fits quite nicely in most palms, although users with big hands may feel a little more uncomfortable with this phone. - Form : A hidden antenna prevents the phone from catching onto anything, which is helpful compared to models like that of Ericsson. In terms of form factor, it's slim and small and follows the new design of Nokia phones. - Buttons : Very responsive to feedback, the buttons are excellent even for those with big hands like mine. - Menu : Nokia phones have a very intuitive menu and selection system that is even now being copied to a certain extent by other phone manufacturers. With a tree of options and very clear classification of features, using the phone becomes easy enough even for an eight-year-old. - Battery : Battery life on this set, however, is slightly lacklustre. Recharges are frequent. And DO NOT leave the phone in the charger overnight. I learnt this the hard way when my charger burnt out. Luckily, the phone automatically stops charging when fully-powered, so I didn't lose my phone. - Screen : The screen size of this phone is big enough for such a small handset. The graphics and text are clear and sharp, allowing for easy reading without hurting the eyes. (Don't stare too long at any phone screen anyway.) - Features : This phone has all the basic features you'd want for your handphone, and Nokia throws in extras like lots of ring tones. Plus, you can download tones and startup graphics from the Net. All in all, I would say this is a great buy and you won't regret getting it for yourself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ? 89141 2000/1/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 custom ring tones great reception accessories o plenty email tiny easy to use tdma won t support 3g web access The Bottom LineGood lightweight phone that is rich with features. Great for people that do not want to be weighed down. Full Review Being a long time user of Nokia phones I am amazed at how they continue to improve the product line. This little gem is packed with all the standard Nokia features, AND even works with older accessories. To start out, this phone is a tri-mode dual band phone. It will switch between the different TDMA digital networks, and analog roam without dropping a call. The antenna is built in, but still offers the great reception, without the hazard of it breaking off. While being super small, the battery life is quite good, often lasting several days between charges. This is saying a lot considering I use it 400 minutes per month or more. The 8260 also has a vibrating alert, which is a nice standard feature that comes in handy when you don't want to disturb those around you. Nokia packs the phone with all the standard ring tones, plus 5 slots for downloading custom ring tones. Wireless carriers are quickly discovering that offering these cheap add ons is a good source of revenue. And at a bargain price of about $0.99 per ring tone (varies from carrier to carrier), it didn't hurt my pocketbook at all either. The Nokia 8260 also supports two-way text messaging, and email. You can send/receive emails to anyone up to 128 characters. However, these messages usually just display your phone number or text messaging email address rather than your name, so don't forget the signature. While typing text messages, the Nokia has a built in dictionary to help you type each word. This feature is cumbersome to use and not 100% accurate, so I turned it off after a few tries. The concept is nice, and works by predicting the word you are trying to type. This saves you a lot of time typing out messages with the numeric keypad, but can be annoying in a rare instance where it will try to force you to accept an incorrect word. Also although you can add words to the dictionary, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get them back out. The new model actually accepts chargers from the popular 5100 and 6100 series phones, so you can save some money on accessories by using the old ones. The hands free kit and earpiece however use a standard mini-plug style earphone jack, which was different from the previous models. Overall, the phone was a good buy, and it comes recommended by most of those I know that use it. Being a TDMA phone and not CDMA, you get better voice quality and less fading and echo. However when 3G wireless access debuts later this year (probably by Sprint or Nextel), we'll be left out in the cold. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89140 2001/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny feature laden stylish i overpaid but you don t have to The Bottom LineA truly awesome phone for the gadgeteer! Loaded with features that may not sound so awesome, but you will wonder how you ever lived without. Full Review Price Let me first start off by saying that I really overpaid for this phone. I paid the MSRP ($200) at a local wireless store, and I was extremely pleased with the price. I had wanted this phone all along, and for it to be only $200 was impressive. I bought it with an AT&T wireless contract and so I also got a $50 rebate, so the final cost of the phone will be $150. Later I found out that it can be bought with AT&T wireless service at buy.com for only $100, and the $50 rebate is still applicable! Plus a $75 rebate from AT&T for signing up for service more than $30/m. I am still pleased with the price -- you know that Nokia is taking a large loss on this phone, or at least they would if they were not being subsidized by the telcos. Appearance The phone is small and sexy, weighing under 4 ounces and just the right size to hold in your hand with the fingers around the side of it. I got it in red, but it is also available in grey and blue. Just like Nokia, you can buy face plates for the 8260 for about $20 new (less on eBay, of course), or if your case becomes damaged you can even buy replacements for both front and back for about $30! (One web site I have seen a large range of accessories for the 8260 is http://www.vividwireless.com , including the full case replacements.) Design You may not have noticed, but the Nokia 8260 has an internal antenna, instead of an omni-directional one sticking out. Whether this reduces or increases the potential for RF exposure, I do not know, but I don't care either -- the 8260 handily comes with a Nokia-brand hands-free kit so you can keep the phone away from your head. Whether this was the reason it was included or not, I don't know, but it certainly is a nice addition because it would otherwise cost $20 or more. And again, if you get sick of the color you bought, you can change or exchange it for a new face plate or whole new body case (also handy for those who may put dings and scratches in the case). Some people feel that the phone is too small to hold up to your head and talk with normally. I agree that it feels this way, for sure, but no one has told me that they can't hear me because the microphone is too far away from my mouth, and it is VERY far away from my mouth when I use it (I have a very big head!). I say that if that is a problem, use the free hands-free kit -- you don't want to have a cell phone up against your head for too long anyway. Features As you'd expect from Nokia, this phone has a lot of features, amazingly organized through various menus and surprisingly easy to access. There is an addressbook that will not only store your phone numbers for easy access, but combine with the caller ID to label incoming calls. You can organize your addressbook entries into several caller groups, and assign caller groups different ring tones, and each call group has a little icon that is displayed on screen when someone in that calling group calls. Speaking of ringtones... you have five free slots on the 8260, which you can fill with ringtones that you downloaded (emailed, actually) to your phone. You can find some of these online, or make your own. You can also email yourself new images for the calling groups. The calendar function allows you to view and store dates and appointments, which is pretty cool but I haven't used it yet (I have a Palm). Text messaging, called SMS, and email, are another two functions of this phone. You can receive email and SMS messages (SMS are sent to the phone number, email is email), and you can likewise send them to other phones on your service or to people's computer email accounts. (These features depend on your service provider, but your phone has the capability. I have this on my plan and I love it!) You can store email addresses with addressbook entries, and access them easily when you wish to send an email to someone. T9, or predictive text input, makes writing emails and SMS messages on your phone bearable. You don't have to enter the word normally, by hitting a number key the amount of times in relation to the order in which the letter you want is on the key. (For instance, d is the first letter on key 3, so you hit it once for d, twice for e, etc.) Instead, you simply type as if it were a keyboard, regardless of letter order, and the phone will "guess" -- if it's not right, hit the "guess" key again and it will cycle through all the possibilities, until you're either satisfied or it lets you spell it out normally. I've found that it works very well, and really makes a difference in time and ease of input. This is a feature a lot of cheaper cell phones do not have, and if you plan on using messaging, you really want it. The 8260 sports different "settings" settings. By the first settings, I mean options such as "meeting," "outdoors," "silent," and "headset." These sets of preferences let you specify different ring volumes, ring tones, vibrating on or off, and more. You can change from one to the other at any time, with the exception of the headset setting, which turns on automatically when you plug a headset in. (You can, however, modify it.) Also unlike some phones, the 8260 does have silent / vibrating ring. For the politeness-conscious, this is a must! Battery and Reception Talk time, assuming digital TDMA conversations, is over 3 hours. Standby is 8 days. With a combination of standby and lots of talking, I have found these estimates by Nokia to be quite on the mark! I can't imagine buying a phone you'd have to charge more often. Reception is great on AT&T Wireless, inside my building and other buildings and moving in the car, I've had no problems. I haven't taken it on the DC Metro yet but I'm sure I will, just to try. In the Box The hands-free set ear piece is high quality and the microphone is positioned much better when you use the hands-free kit than when you talk with the actual phone itself. To complete this, I purchased a plastic slide-in belt holster for my 8260 so that the cord for the phone can run up under my shirt and hook on my collar. The charger included is the Rapid Charger, and I find that it charges the Nokia fully in under an hour. The manuals and such included with the phone are extensive, and useful. If you lose yours, Nokia lets you download them for free in PDF form from their web site. Overall This phone rocks. I've never owned a cell phone before but I've used quite a few, and I love it. I've had it for over a week now and I can't keep my hands off it, playing with it, downloading ring tones, etc. There are no cons in my opinion, except that I could have gotten it cheaper. If you want wireless web (WAP), you're out of luck because this phone does not support it, but there is no other setback in my opinion. I love the free hands-free kit and it would be nice if it included the plastic holster I went out and bought by myself (or a kit of three colored face plates). But those aren't complaints, just wishes. Update, 01/22/2001 I just found out something new about my 8260. Not only can you use the SMS/email functions to send your phone new ringtones and caller group images, but you can also send just about any kind of data, type, too! For instance, you can send: a "business card," with a person's name, number, and email address to go into your address book; you can also send calendar meetings, phone calls, reminders, and birthdays to your phone. There are several sites that help you email these data items to your phone but the one I like to use is www.the-mobile.net. Being able to type it on a keyboard and then simply click "Save" on the phone makes entering data 10 times easier (though sometimes it takes a little while to receive the message.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 after re 89139 2000/4/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 style weight size no wireless web The Bottom LineA terrific, attractive phone if you can live without the wireless web. Full Review Well, I finally purchased a cell phone. My friends could not believe it. I've been holding out for so long now, waiting for the right technology to come around. It finally has, and it's nestled into the compact, sexy Nokia 8260. This is a wonderful phone. First of all, it is the perfect size. Any smaller and it would be hard to use. As it is, the keypad is a little cramped, but perfectly easy to manipulate. The battery life is stellar, the display clear and bright. The sound quality is excellent, as one would expect from Nokia. I also really appreciate the vibrating ringer. There are so many good reviews of this phone on epinions (and believe me, I read a ton before I finally bought one), that I won't focus on all the nitty-gritty features which you can find out about elsewhere. Instead, I'll try to kind of sum up my experience with the 8260. The only major problem I have with this phone is its lack of wireless web capabilities. Although you can send brief text messages and emails on it, you cannot surf the internet. At first I thought this would be an unnecessary luxury, but I think the wireless web could turn out to be a wonderful technology. Imagine walking down the street trying to find a restaurant and getting a review from zagat.com on the spot! What bliss! Unfortunately, there are no cell phones as good-looking as the 8260 that have wireless web capabilities. When one comes out (which will probably be soon), I'll most likely kick myself for buying the phone I did. For now, though, I love it. Yes, it's more expensive than a lot of others out there, but you get what you pay for. Nokia quality and great design. We've all experienced phone envy - when someone whips out a phone sleeker and cooler than your own - but with the 8260, you're the one they drool over. It's wonderful. One thing to keep in mind is whether you will be traveling abroad a lot. The 8290 with GSM signal reception is a better choice if are. It looks almost identical to the 8260. Unfortunately, only Voicestream carries the 8290 in the Northeast. I opted for AT&T because they gave me a huge rebate when I upgraded to digital from my old analog service (I had a big old phone in my car). I would give the 8260 5 stars were it not for the web issue. It's a terrific phone and I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 w/rebate 89138 2000/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use light weight great sound cool colors small size electromagnetic interference with other devices Full Review This is the second mobile phone I have ever had -- the first was a thick Motorola StarTac that I used a few years ago, that was just for my work. After going without a cell phone for a couple of years, I finally got a Nokia 8260 for myself, for personal use. This phone met all my basic criteria: it's tiny and unobtrusive, good-looking, and works well. It may not have as many features as some of the larger phones, but it has everything most people would normally use, and it's usefulness is greatly enhanced by it's small size -- I take this thing everywhere. 1. Style: This phone gets noticed -- not as a big bulge in your pocket or clipped to your side, but when you take it out to check the time or make a call. People are impressed by the small size and stylish look (especially girls); some other cell phone users actually look a little jealous when they see it. It's available in three colors, which are cool looking but still classy (no neon or translucent i-mac colors, but sophisticated dark red, blue, and charcoal, with metallic tinges). 2. Portability: Alright, I've already said it a few times, but this phone is truly tiny. The fact that it fits easily and inconspicuously in my pants pocket vastly increases the chances of me taking it when going out at night, or anywhere else. It's so light that you don't even feel it in your pocket, and so small that it can fit alongside a wallet. If I put it down in my passenger seat while it's driving, it either slips through the seat crack because it's so small, or slides off the front of the seat when I slow down because it's so light. The size and good looks are what made me buy this phone, and what keeps me happy with it. Here is my response to a couple of the criticisms related to its size: -- It doesn't have the microphone in front of your mouth (like a StarTac or other flip-phone): I think this is a pro rather than a con. Your voice quality is not diminished (often people don't know that I'm on my cell phone when I'm talking to them). All it takes is getting used to the fact that this is not a traditional handset, and believing that the person on the other end can hear you even if you're not speaking into anything. -- Buttons are too small: I don't have tiny fingers, but I haven't had any problems dialing on this phone. It is probably a little more difficult than dialing from a phone booth, but it is a very appropriately sized keypad for a mobile phone. 3. Functionality: Sound (both outgoing and incoming) is very good quality; the reception is reasonably good (you might do a little better with a larger phone, but I haven't had many problems -- just as long as you don't accidentally block the internal antenna with your hand or shoulder.). As far as features go, all I really care about are: can I make and receive calls, store a lot of addresses, check the time, and see when I need to check messages? The answer to all of these was yes, and the interface was quick and intuitive enough that I didn't have to waste a lot of time getting to know my phone, as the relatively inexperienced cell phone user that I am. It also comes with a headset with earbud speaker and in-line microphone, that I use frequently in the car and also gets very good sound. The battery has plenty of standby and talk time (I usually just plug in the charger when I get home every night, but I could probably go 2-3 days without it). The one criticism I have of the phone is the electromagnetic interference when recieving calls -- the phone interferes frequently with computer speakers or monitors, up to 20 feet away, if a call starts coming in or if I'm talking on it. If I'm more than a few feet away from the computer, the interference is relatively minor, but if I'm too close, it's really loud and noticeable. However disturbing this may sound, I'm told that there is a heavy layer of shielding in-between the internal antenna and your head, so that all the radiation goes outwards or upwards, and not to your head -- some people are worried about the cell-phone radiation issue, some aren't, just thought I'd mention it. There is also another model of this phone, the 8290, which is even a little smaller (in thickness) and lighter, and has a few more features, though it costs 2-4 times as much and in the Bay Area is only serviced by Pacific Bell (which I wanted to stay away from at all costs). The 8260 I got for $125 after the mail-in rebate, and after having it for a month and a half, I'm still in love with it. There is no other cell phone that I have seen that I would rather have with me -- and I did a lot of shopping around before buying this one. I recommend this phone to everyone looking for a phone for personal use, and for all but the most serious business users or people that demand the most functions out of a cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89137 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small sexy feature packed fiddleyradiation worries Full Review What could I say about this phone. Well it's the most popular phone here in Australia right now and is selling out everywhere, thanks to its new low price. ok lets get down to it. •••LOOK ••• You can go much better than this. The 8260 looks like it should be in a James Bond film. Compared to the 8860 it has a much more street feel to it. ••• FEEL ••• While at first it feels like a toy you get used to it and enjoy its sleek feel. If you play football this phone may actually be to small for you. The buttons are pretty small and fiddley at times. ••• QUALITY ••• All mobile phone have a kinda cheapness about them, hey they are plastic. The buttons click nicely and the case doesn't shift around so I feel it'll hold up for quite a while. ••• FEATURES ••• Jam packed with every mod con except WAP (which i feel it useless). *SMS, caller ID, caller profiles, downloadable ringtones, customisable user icons, 4 games (snake, rotation, memory and logic), calendar, picture messages, vibration alert, keypad lock and many more Features that make it stand out from the rest are:- * Infa-red: You can send phone numbers and play 2 Player Snake with other infa-red enabled phones. You can also print out SMS messages with this as well. I doubt there will ever be a need though. * Voice Dialing: 8 Names can be recorded so you never have to key in your girlfriends phone number again. ••• MENU NAVIGATION ••• Up, down, enter, exit it doesn't get much easier. There is a search function for names (if you have a lot of friends) and all the menu items have big bold icons. ••• PRICE ••• Well the phone was free for me on a AUD$55 p/month plan so in the US i have no idea. A 8860 costs AUD$700 on the same plan. ••• HEALTH RISK ••• Does the internal antenna increase the risk of radiation? or help it? guess we'll find out just like the smokers did. ie too late ••• DOWNSIDE ••• For people with big hands, or big heads, the phone may be to small. The on/off button is in a bad position and takes a few presses to work. As with all phones radiation. ••• OVERALL ••• I couldn't ask for a better first phone. I'm now addicted to SMS and can't live without my mobile phone. Recommended: Yes 89136 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 internal antenna feature rich lightweight tiny size none to speak of Full Review Ever since Nokia started making its diminutive model 8260 cellular phone, I've seen a lot of these phones around here. Is it due to the small size, or is it a result of the excellent reviews the 8260 has received from critics and trade publications? Actually, I would wager that it's probably due, more than anything else, to the fact that one of the three color schemes in which this phone can be purchased is a nice combination of mostly red and black, which happen to be the University of Georgia Bulldogs' school colors. If you think it sounds absurd that someone would purchase a particular cellular phone, just because it comes a nice rendition of their school's colors, then you obviously haven't been to Athens, Georgia (home of UGA). While it seems unquestionably and totally absurd to me, many people are just that hog-wild about UGA Athletics. Apart from the nice "red pepper" color, the Nokia 8260 also comes in either "electric blue" or "carbon gray." No matter which of the three difference color schemes you choose, however, the black and silver parts of the phone look the same. The different colors are basically equivalent to the changeable faces featured by certain other models of Nokia phones. Probably the single greatest advantage that the Nokia 8260 presents over many other phones is its extremely compact size. At just 4.1 inches long and 1.8 inches wide, it is positively tiny...almost too tiny. While it's nice being able to drop it into your pocket and almost forget it's there (after all, it only weighs around 3.4 ounces), its small size may actually be a little annoying. Now, without trying to insult anyone, some people just have bigger heads than others, and for those who have larger heads, four inches from your ear to your mouth is just not going to be long enough. Fortunately, the microphone on the 8260 picks up your voice fairly well, even if you're not speaking directly into it...but it can still be annoying. Talk times and standby times are fairly good with the Nokia 8260; about the same as other phones of the same, high level of quality, but certainly not eye-popping. Nokia claims that you will be able to get up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time (1.5 hours for analog) and up to eight days digital standby time (36 hours for analog) with a fully-charged, standard battery. Of course, it should be noted that these are absolute maximums, and you will almost certainly never reach these levels. For example, if you pulled the fully-charged battery out of the charger, stuck it onto the phone, turned on the phone, and then put it down and left it alone entirely, it's slightly possible that the battery would last eight days. If you plan to actually use your phone in any way, however, you'll find that your standby time will be significantly decreased from what Nokia claims. Likewise, your talk time will only approach 3.5 hours if you make a call immediately after taking it off the charger and then stay on the same call for 3 1/2 consecutive hours. Another particularly nice thing about the Nokia 8260 is the complete lack of an external antenna. Before having seen one in person, I always just assumed that the antenna was just retracted in the commercials. However, the reason the antenna is never visible in Nokia's commercials is actually because it's inside the phone. From what I've read and been able to tell from personal experience with respect to this phone, the internal antenna neither adds to nor takes much of anything away from the performance, range, or clarity of the phone itself. It seems basically to be little more than a triumph in convenience (no more having to pull out that little, plastic antenna every time you want to make a call) and compactness (even when a typical cell phone antenna is retracted, the stub can catch onto things or poke you. Apart from the above listed features, the Nokia 8260 brings little to the table that isn't already offered by other phones on the market. That's not to say that the 8260 isn't a fabulous, high-quality phone, but it's certainly not ground-breaking in a technology sense. That having been said, though, if you'd like a top-of-the-line phone that's feature-rich and is even pretty darn aesthetically pleasing, then the Nokia 8260 definitely deserves some serious consideration. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89135 2000/4/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very good battery life excellent set of ring options stylishly tiny form factor menu is not intuitively navigable lack of good belt holder accessories The Bottom LineFor the price, it's probably one of the best cell phones available. If you are fashion-conscious and on a budget, it's probably *the* best phone you can buy. Full Review This particular cell phone was prominently "product-placed" in the "Charlie's Angels" movie of November 2000, and that should be an indicator of how important style is to this piece of communication equipment. Its main attraction is its tiny size. I've seen cell-phone *batteries* larger than the entire Nokia 8260. Nokia also offers the phone in three "designer" colors -- Red Pepper, Electric Blue, Carbon Gray -- and I was a sucker for the choices :-) I bought red for my wife and gray for me (I'm a vice president at a major Internet company -- can't be too funky ;-) After four months of ownership, I'm still in love with this cell phone. The size continues to be a major plus. I can carry it in any pocket or bag easily and even just holding it in my hand is a pleasure (let's face it: when it comes to personal electronics, smaller is cooler). The battery life is excellent, a very important feature for cell phones. If your actual talk time is low, the unit will stay alive for 2-3 days without a recharge. Other noteworthy plusses: +Memory holds 250 names + numbers -- more than enough. +Vibrating alert option -- perfect for meetings or noisy environments. +Dozens of cute/annoying ring songs and patterns. +Lockable keypad to prevent accidental pressing of buttons. +Included earpiece + mic allows for hands-free talking. +Included AC charger is lightweight and small. Negatives: +I've yet to find a decent belt-holder accessory for this particular model phone. +The menu navigation took longer than it should've to master -- and I even read the owner's manual first :-) +No Web access. Obviously, the negatives are few and minor; this is a wonderful little personal cell phone that I would recommend without reservation. (If you need Web access on your cell phone, you'll have to look elsewhere.) In the last few months, it seems like every executive I meet with has this phone. It's become a fashion-accessory cliche! But I mean that in the most positive way. A note on price: I bought my red phone at the AT&T store in the local downtown shopping mall and got some mail-in rebates. Final cost: about $100. I bought my gray phone via AT&T's tollfree service center and got more mail-in rebates. Final cost: less than $90. Of course, you must sign up with a calling plan at the same time to qualify for these prices/rebates, but who buys a cell phone without also signing up for service? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 89134 2000/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound size features headset ear bud Full Review I purchased the Nokia 8260 because my previous cell phone's battery was no longer holding a charge for very long, and replacement batteries were proving to be very difficult to find. The 8260 came highly recommended by a few co-workers, so after much research, I decided to buy one. I have to say that I've never been so surprised by a product. Usually, when I buy something with a good reputation, I expect and get quality. Here, the reputation was as good as that of any other phone, but I was nevertheless blown away by its many, many features and exceptional sound quality. It can send/receive email messages, store hundreds of phone numbers or email addresses, it has distinct rings for specific callers, many, many different ring choices overall, a battery that lasts forever, no antenna sticking out anywhere, and on and on and on... My only gripe really isn't with the phone, per se, but with the cellular service I pretty much *had* to choose in order to buy/use this phone here in Chicago. There are some serious dead zones in the northwestern suburbs where the AT&T service almost 100% of the time drops your call, but wherever the signal is strong and clear, the reception for both myself and the person I'm calling is exceptional. I've taken the phone to Dallas and New York, and the reception and clarity in those places was also simply great, but again, that's more an issue with the carrier than the physical phone. I have very large hands, and have found it difficult on occasion to use the very small keypad, but I can't really complain about it; the advantages of the 8260's miniature size are many, and having to dial carefully is a small price to pay for a phone that sounds great, is loaded with features, and practically weighs less than my pager. I had a Qualcomm 800(?) before, and while that phone served me very well, it really seems like a museum piece (not to mention the fact that it weighs so much more) now compared to this 8260. The only thing I'd ask Nokia to change is the handsfree headset you can buy for the phone (you actually get a very basic one with the purchase of the phone, but you can buy a little nicer one after market). The "ear bud", as it's called, might be able to fit comfortably in the ear of a blue whale, but not the ear of the average human. I suppose they had to make it big to provide the clear sound it provides, but it truly is painful if it's in the ear for very long. I'm electrically- and electronically-inclined, so I've been able to modify it a little bit with a more comfortable earpiece, but Nokia shouldn't expect everyone to do that in order to use their headset comfortably. All in all, it's a terrific phone, and I can't see buying any other cell phone these days, since all the rest are either bigger or offer fewer features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89133 2000/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 light calculator easy interface downloadable ring tones new ring tones small it is hard to hold without covering up the antenna Full Review I bought this because I just love new things. When there's something new I WANT IT. I chose the 8260 over the motorola timeport flip phone because i had a startac before so i wanted a change. The first nokia I had was the 5120. The interface was good but it was waaaay too big. The 8260 however is no doubt the boss. It is small The phone fits in the change pocket of my levi's and leaves room for change. It's also less bulky than a startac so whether standing or sitting the phone is no discomfort. Another advantage over the startac is the games, calender, calculator etc. etc. etc. Oh and of course Nokia is known for it's interface. There are features i will never use like e mail. I think i can wait till i get to a computer to do that and text messages can only be sent between 8260 owners (i think) The phone can also ring and vibrate simultaneously which i think is cool no more false alarms when someone elses phone rings. The 8260 is also a serious fashion statement, they come in red, blue and black but the colours are not as "loud" as they seem on the ads. Mine is red I think it's quite sleak. Lemme see are there any disadvantages? I think one disadvantage is the reception. At times when your hand is on the internal antenna the signal gets fuzzy and the phone is so small my big hands are always on it. But i think i'll get one of those internal antennas "as seen on tv" that may help i hear they're great. But the reception is generally good because all phones give static if the antenna is touched during conversation. THIS PHONE IS NO DOUBT THE BOMB BUY ONE Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89132 2000/3/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny good reception decent battery life tiny lacks some features hard to use keypad sometimes The Bottom LineAn excellent little phone for the price and feature set! Full Review I had a Nokia 5260 for about two years, and decided that it was simply too big and bulky to keep carrying (although a large part of that bulk was the "extended battery" that kept it alive for a month or so without recharging...) In December, my fiancee and I decided that we'd go shopping for phones - a replacement for my phone, and her first cellular. I wanted to stay with AT&T, and I wanted the smallest phone I could get that still had two-way SMS (short message service) capabilities. The Nokia 8260 fit the bill perfectly, and with the refunds at the time, we ended up with two of them for less than $150. It'll hold more phone numbers than I care to program into the phone, a calendar with reminder alarms, and has the ability to "download" other ring tones from the Internet (I currently have the "Mission Impossible" theme set for my ring!) I get about three days of life out of the battery before I have to recharge the phone, with about an hour or two of talk time. The phone is *incredibly* small. It's a little larger than the size of a Doublemint Gum "Plen-T-Pak", and fits easily into a pocket or belt clip/holster, but has no folding parts or external antenna to break. An included earphone/microphone makes it easy to answer calls while driving, and keeps the wind noise down if you've got your windows open. During movies and meetings, you can easily switch the ringer off, and leave the phone in "Vibra-Alert" mode - the phone vibrates to alert you to an incoming call or message. Stored numbers can be "grouped," and a specific "ring tone" assigned to each group. This makes it easy to know whether you *really* need to answer a call, or ignore it. My fiancee has programmed *her* phone to play the "Wedding March" when I call her. Also, caller groups can be assigned screen graphics, which allow you to quickly discern by looking at the phone whether or not you should answer it (handy in the movie theater when the ringer's turned off!) The "Short Message Service" or SMS feature allows you to send and receive text messages up to 110 characters long to and from other AT&T phones, or any e-mail address. I've configured a couple of my machines to send me alert messages when certain events occur. I've been in a couple of areas where reception was spotty, but those same areas affected my older phone, too. Now for the drawbacks... The phone is *so* tiny that it gets lost a lot more easily than my old one. I've lost the phone in my jacket pocket, amongst some papers and stuff! There's a rectangular area on the opposite side of the phone from the earpiece that houses the internal antenna, and putting a finger over it can cause the phone to transmit at higher power than necessary (because you're blocking part of the transmission), and will deplete your batteries faster. Supposedly, the same action can result in dropped calls in a "fringe" area. The keypad is *small*. Since you have to use the keypad to dial as well as to key in the SMS messages, this can be frustrating at times, especially if your hands are cold and a little numb. The built-in "calculator" function is nearly useless. Entering numbers is fairly easy, but entering the operators to multiply, divide, add, or subtract is *painful*. I do wish that the 8260 included an infrared data port - you can use the phone to send "business cards" and "calendar entries" from one phone to another, but it requires the use of the SMS capabilities. Some of the other Nokia phones can use their IR ports to exchange numbers and other data without resorting to a call or SMS message. Also, the IR port can be used to connect the phone as a modem to a computer that also includes an IR port. The 8260 has *no* capabilities for use with a computer for data services. I can cope with those drawbacks, though - I *love* this phone, especially when compared with my old 5260! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 (rebate) 89131 2000/4/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great feature vibrating battery built in antenna be careful screens crack The Bottom LineTHE 8260 IS A GREAT ITEM TO HAVE. THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. Full Review YOU CAN PROBABLY TELL THAT THE WIRELESS WORLD IS MOVING AT A FAST PACE.( UNLESS WE ARE TALKING ABOUT OVERSEAS!)THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT WE ARE THREE YEARS BEHIND, BUT WE WILL BE CATCHING UP SOON. THE NOKIA 8260 HAS BEEN OUT IN THE AT&T WIRELESS STORES SINCE OCTOBER. THE RISE OF THIS PHONE IS INCREASING. WHY? THIS IS A GREAT LOOKING PHONE THAT HAS ALOT OF DIFFERENT FEATURES. LET ME START OUT WITH TALKING ABOUT THE BASICS. THE 8260 COMES IN THREE DIFFERENT COLORS...RED,BLUE, AND GREY.(I HAVE THE BLUE) YOU WILL HAVE THREE HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES OF TALKTIME AND EIGHT DAYS STANDBY TIME. THE BUILT-IN ANTENNA IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. RECEPTION IS AS GOOD AS THE 6100 SERIES. THE VIBRATING BATTERY FEATURE IS ALSO A PLUS. IF YOU HAD THE 5100 OR 6100 SERIES YOU HAD TO PURCHASE AN EXTRA BATTERY. WASTED MONEY WHEN THE DAMN THING SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I ACTUALLY WENT TO COLORADO TO VISIT MY UNCLE LAST MONTH. I TOOK MY 8260 UP ON PIKES PEAK, A MOUNTAIN THAT IS 14,000 FEET HIGH. I HAD THREE BARS ON THE TOP BY THE GIFT SHOP. MY UNCLE HAS SPRINT...LET'S JUST SAY HE WOULD PROBABLY BE BETTER OFF TAKING OFF HIS SHOE TO MAKE A CALL. SORRY SPRINT, NO COVERAGE!! THE PHONE HAS THE CALCULATOR, CALANDER, AND A 199 NAME/NUMBER PHONEBOOK. YOU CAN ALSO USE THE TWO-WAY TEXT MESSAGING FEATURE. TEXT MESSAGING IS THE BEST WAY FOR ME TO COMMUNICATE. THIS FEATURE,MOST PEOPLE DON'T BOTHER WITH. FAST, EASY, STRAIGHT TO THE POINT, COMMUNICATION. THAT IS ANOTHER WAY TO SAVE YOUR MINUTES. YOU ALSO HAVE FIVE PERSONNAL RINGTONES IN YOUR PROFILES. YOU CAN DIAL THE #3366 THEN SEND TO GET YOUR RING. IT IS ACTUALLY EASIER BY GOING TO THE WEBSITE...WWW.SUPERMEGAPHONE.COM. HERE YOU WON'T GET STUCK WITH THAT NSYNC SONG FOR THE FOURTH TIME! YOU MUST CHOOSE AT&T POCKETNET WIRELESS AS YOUR PROVIDER OR IT WON'T WORK. JUST TO LET YOU KNOW I STILL HAVE LENNY KRAVITZ ON MY PHONE. YOU DON'T REALLY NEED A SECOND BATTERY BECAUSE THE BATTERY YOU HAVE WILL BE ENOUGH. BESIDES, HOW ARE YOU GONNA CHARGE IT? YOU ALSO HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR YOUR SCREEN. IF YOU JUST THROW IT IN YOUR POCKET, IT IS VERY POSSIBLE IT WILL CRACK. IN CASE YOU DID NOT KNOW, THIS IS ACTUALLY A REPLACEMENT PHONE. DO YOU REMEMBER THE NOKIA 8860? IT WAS A CHROME PHONE THAT HAD A LOT OF RECEPTION PROBLEMS. I ACTUALLY HAVE THAT PHONE AS WELL, MINE WORKS FINE. JUST WANTED TO PASS THAT INFORMATION ON TO MY FELLOW WRITERS AND VIEWERS. THIS PHONE I PURCHASED FOR $199.99+ TAX WITH A $30.00 MAIL-IN REBATE. I THINK THAT IS A LITTLE TOO MUCH, BUT THEN AGAIN I HAVE NOT HAD A PROBLEM WITH IT YET. I DON'T MIND SPENDING THE MONEY AS LONG AS I HAVE THE COVERAGE. THANKS AT&T! I HATE TO LET EVERYONE DOWN, BUT THIS PHONE WILL BE GONE BY NOVEMBER OR DECEMBER. I TOLD YOU WE ARE MOVING FASTER. I STUDY THIS ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT PHONES ARE THE BEST.THERE IS ONLY ONE OTHER PHONE THAT I JUST RECENTLY PURCHASED... THE PANASONIC DURAMAX...GREAT PHONE. 400 HOURS STANDBY/ 4 HOURS TALK TIME! I WILL WRITE ABOUT THAT BAD BOY NEXT TIME. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 89130 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 versatile design excellent not practical for private phone calls Full Review This is actually the one phone I would buy if I could ever get away from the scary research I have done about the dangers of cellular phones. I will start by giving my review of this product as a cellular phone and then tell you why I would never buy one. The first thing I have to say about this phone is that it is sleek, I give it that, it has a very stylish design compared to many other cellular phones on the market. It is very versatile in the number of colours that you can get for the face, and my favorite one is one that is not commercially sold but was made for a Canadian Beer Company, Labatt for their Out of the Blue campaign. This cell had a cloud front with the words out of the blue, it was very cool and the phones were given away in selected cases of beer by the Labatt company. Other than that special face, my favorite colour face is the yellow because I find it the most sporty looking. By letting you choose the colour of face they let you add a bit of your own personal touch to the phone which I like, kind of like buying a car in the colour you like best. This phone has a very ergonomic design that is very comfortable to hold in your hand for long, and costly I might add, phone calls that you pay for by the minute. I like how you can recieve email on this phone which is a great feature. I like the vibrating option of this phone for those darn movies at Famous Players where you are warned to turn off your cell phones and pagers, it doubles as a little massage. Now that I have rated the product, which my sister owns (in red), I will tell you why I would never buy a cell phone in general. If you have ever seen the movie Scream, you will know that criminals cloned a cell in that movie to frame the father. This is a true life occurance and it can cause you to get blamed for a crime if criminals ever clone your cell. Another more commonly known cellular flaw is the fact that any signal unless it is corded, is not completely private. I know people who are able to listen in on cellular conversations which leaves me unsettled to the idea of my private calls being intercepted by peeping toms. Although I may seem paranoid on this matter, I find it just as convenient to use my pager and use the nearest payphone when I am on the go. Therefore I never Pay as I Go, everywhere I go, and I feel safer doing so. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 145 89129 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish with great featuresbattery life convenient customizeable portable lacks voice dialingcertain features that the 8290 has The Bottom LineFor those who like self-expression, great features, and style in a small package, the 8260 is the perfect choice for your wireless needs. Full Review This little Nokia phone is a great choice for those who love portability, personalization, style, and great features. I'm assuming you already know about most of the features and specifications of the phone so I won't go into detail about that. Let's begin on size. This phone is so small, it can fit almost anywhere! It'll fit in any pocket without creating a heavy bulk and might even go unnoticed, which might be bad for some because if you lost your phone, you wouldn't know when or where it happened. That's why I have a case that clips onto my pants and you just slip the phone in. When wearing shirts that you don't tuck in, its unnoticeable and keeps the phone safe in place. When wearing dress shirts, the case looks very stylish and professional. So for those who hate carrying around bulky items or whose bags and purses are filled to the brim, the 8260 is a perfect choice. This little phone packs a great punch in the features arena. I especially love the ring tones feature. You can download ringtones of your favorite songs to your phone and set them to ring whenever someone calls you, adding more to the great personalization options of the phone. You can also set entries in your phone book to certain "caller groups". When people in your caller groups call you, the ringtone will ring differently depending on which group the person is in. Another great feature of Nokia phones is the ability to change faceplates and lights, making your phone as unique as you are. There are thousands of different faceplates out there for the 8260 and many different colored lights that you can change your phone to. So even though all of my friends have the same phone as I do, each and every one is different and unique to the owner. The downsides of the 8260 are that it lacks many of the features that the 8290 has. There is no voice dialing, infrared, or forwarding options, but overall the 8260 is an excellent phone! The only people I wouldn't recommend this phone to are those who have bigger fingers as the buttons might be hard to press. I have fallen in love with this phone and I'm sure many of you will to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89128 2000/8/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception stylish look great value good battery life small size can t change faceplate missing features from gsm counterparts 8210 8290 Full Review Awesome, Amazing, Beautiful, Stylish, Tiny, Useful, Functional... these are just some of the words I can think of when I think about the NOKIA 8260. First of all, I would like to say this is the biggest bargain for a cellular EVER! I would first like to talk about it's size, although it is heavier than its GSM counterparts (8210, 8290), it's still only 100 grams. This is 20 grams lighter than the 8860, and about 40 grams lighter than the Nokia 51xx/61xx, and the Ericsson T18/KF788. It's measured at 10cm tall, 4cm wide, and 1.8 cm thick. If you take out a ruler and make a box using these measurements, it just wouldn't do. It's when you see the phone in life, hold it then you feel just what an amazing package this is. Features : It has ALL the features the 8860 has, at least that's what I think. My friend has the 8860 and I'm VERY sure the 8260 has'em all. Too much to list, but I'll talk about some special features. There's "predictive" text input, which is useful at times, but for me not using email it's nothing more than a gimmick, so not much use, for me atleast. I have yet to try the downloadable ring tone, but I'm sure it's good just because you can totally personalize your phone... ring, that is. You can also put a "tag" on each name in your phonebook so when the call display shows, it also show a picture, not "too" useful, but cool. I'm just talking about the "extra" features here, so these may not be daily used features, but the all the "useful" features are there. The only one that I can think maybe useful that's missing is "Voice-Dialing", but I'm not at all dissappointed since I know they basically only come in GSM phones. Look : Stylishly Slick! The buttons maybe a little tight, but you'll get use to it, and the silver "solid" buttons make it look very nice and the backlight shines "through" the buttons, unlike the 8860. Sound Quality : Very good! I know their have been negative comments about the 8860's reception, but I did not detect it through this phone. I previously had a 5120, and this performs just as good if not better at the places that I usually use the phone. Battery Life : All I need to say is, this is just as good as my 5120 in battery life, and just as good as my Dad's 6160. Negative Points : Can't change faceplate, and missing features from GSM Counterparts (8210, 8290) such as IR ports. But that's about it! Overall : Great phone, and all comes in at about $175US. If you feel like spending $400+ on a phone, this is the wrong phone, but if you want a $400+ phone for less than $200, this is it!!! P.S. Don't have time to tell durability and reliability yet, since I only have had it for a short time, but with the 5 letters "N,O,K,I,A" printed on top, I believe it will last and be as durable as it's "88xx, 61xx, 51xx" counterparts. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 89127 2000/12/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish crisp reception abundant features pricey w o rebates carrying case not included Full Review Previously with Sprint PCS (Qualcomm QCP-1920) and Pacbell PCS (Motorola StarTAC), I was terribly discouraged by the pathetic reception and anemic battery life of my phones. Frustrated by the total inadequacies of my previous two mobile phones, I was extremely wary of spending the considerable amount of $200 (this was before the rebates taking up to $125 off the phone price) on a phone when the Nokia 5100 series phones were also offered by the same PCS service provider for free. I now believe that at $200 or the current $75 with rebates, this phone is worth every penny. This phone is nearly everything I could ask for in a digital PCS phone. Extreme functionality combined with a very compact, stylish package force me to write accolades about Nokia's creation. All of the basics are found in the 8260. Standard features I expected on nearly any other digital phone, such as storing 250 names/numbers/email addresses, 1-touch dialing (for commonly dialed numbers), generous battery life, multiple ringing options, intuitive controls and hands-free ability are all offered in the 8260. Where this phone set itself apart from the pack was the extensive features found on this phone, rarely found together as a complete package in other phones. In my opinion, the text abilities of the phone are exceptionally well implemented in the 8260. Receiving SMS (short text messages) and emails broadens your wireless communications beyond vocal conversation. Sometimes, I found it more convenient corresponding via text versus voice. Since my service provided, ATT PCS, rounds mobile phone calls up to the nearest minute, countless minutes/dollars were saved by sending a short message, free of airtime charges, that would have taken 15 seconds to say over the phone, taking up a whole minute of your calling plan. In addition, as a professed sports junkie, I love the ability to receive up-to-the-minute sport updates on my phone (through Yahoo!'s free mobile alerts). Contrary to reviews that present the 8260 as a flimsy, plastic-feeling phone, I feel that the construction of the 8260 is extremely solid and potentially long-lasting. As stated before, I had a Qualcomm and Motorola, and the quality of the Nokia's construction is far superior to the fragile materials of those companies' products. I must confess that I have dropped my phone, at least twice, from about a 4' height onto concrete (due to the lack of carrying options, discussed below). Despite a few superficial nicks and scratches, the phone feels as solid as it was new and works with no apparent degradation in performance. My accidental real-world stress tests revealed the durability of Nokia's assembly. Reception was clear and reliable. While slightly weaker than Nokia's 6100 and 5100 series phones in this aspect, its shortcoming was marginal at most. The internal antenna pulled in strong signal wherever provided by the wireless company. Another feature I consider important was the silent, vibrating alert available on this phone. Admittedly, I could have bought the Nokia 6100 series phones and purchased the $40 vibrating battery for a total sum less than the price of the 8260. However, the 6120 lacked all the functions that were available on a stock 8260. Of course, with all good things must come the bad, but with this phone, the "bads" were pleasantly minor. Like many reviews will tell you, the 8260 IS small. Thus, the buttons may be small enough to create a slight degree of difficulty when dialing a number while driving (which is not recommended in the first place) or when playing the snake game (which some, surprisingly consider a critical function). However, dialing while not intently involved in other activities should not be problematic (unless you have hands the size of Shaquille O'Neal's hands). The 1-touch dialing feature circumvented the problem of dialing while preoccupied and using a hands-free headset (provided with the phone) provides a convenient alternative to holding the pocket-sized phone between your ear and shoulder. My biggest complaint of the 8260 was the lack of availability of a holster or some belt clip. If you wanted to carry your 8260 around, it either went in your pocket, purse or hand. At the time, Nokia advertised a carrying case for it on its web site, but did not actually offer it for sale, nor could I find any dealers that offered it. I was left with no other option but to purchase a 3rd party belt holster that failed to retain the phone with any quick movement on my part and always pressed the #4 button, dialing a 1-touch number when I forgot to turn the keylock on. Now that a quality carry sleeve (CSH-1) is available on Nokia's web site, my complaint is resolved. If Nokia had included this $20 carrier with the 8260, I believe that many customers would appreciate this model significantly more. Overall, this phone is superior to any mobile phone I or any of my friends and coworkers have used. It is very functional and if the user can cope with the petite buttons, it will not disappoint. Nokia has built is reputation upon reliable equipment with practical features, intuitive to use and a pleasure to look at. The 8260 is a perfect example of why Nokia is quickly outpacing Motorola in the wireless phone market. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89126 2000/3/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 not as flimsy as it looks small cute can be pricey not made for big fingers The Bottom LineI recommend this for people who have small fingers and need something light to carry. Full Review I think this phone is so cool. It is small, nicely designed, and functional. Okay, those of you with large fingers are not going to agree with me. Yes, I admit it, every now and then I will dial a wrong number because the keys are small. There are times when the keys seem to stick. Hey, what do you expect from a miniature phone like this (It measures 4.1 by 1.75 by 0.7 inches and weighs 3.4 ounces)? Does size matter to you? If you want small, there are some trade-offs. Okay, I will admit another thing, I have another phone, a Nokia 6190 (an excellent phone, by the way, but quite a bit larger than the the 8260). The reason I have the 6190 as well is that I still haven't found out if this works in analog country. I travel quite a bit and sometimes I am in an analog area, so I have the other phone just in case. On to the features that make me like this phone. Aside from being small, the phone has quality sound, is durable (I dropped it once or twice and it kept on ticking). With an internal antenna, there is nothing protruding, so the phone easily fits in your pocket. It also has some cool features, such as the voice dialing. Yes, you can program the phone to dial a number with your voice. Battery life is excellent: Standby Time: 192 hours,Talk Time: 200 minutes and The phone book stores 250 names and numbers, and the calendar can track up to 50 appointments. Personally I think this phone was made to use with a headset. It feels better that way. If you use it without the headset, don't worry about the fact that it is on your cheek, people will still hear you. Believe me, I tried it on my mother, and she would tell me if she couldn't hear me. This is an excellent phone for those on the go who don't want to carry anything with too much weight. A word of warning---watch it, it is small enough to lose! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89125 2000/12/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 functions compactness compactness not great for large hands Full Review In my search for a PCS service away from Sprint (see my future review on Sprint PCS), I looked for a new phone. Upon seeing the 8260, I was intrigued by the compactness of the phone and lack of external antenna. My major concern was reception in the car and in buildings. I have now been using my 8260 for about two weeks now and found that the reception of the phone is about average. But given the information I had on phone internal antennas, I feel that it is above average overall. I do experience some...I guess I would term it warbling of reception when inside a pretty good sized building. I have yet to enter a skyscraper and test out the reception inside. (I will edit this Opinion once I do, however.) Even though it 'warbles', I did not have a dropped call. Which I deem just as essential as being able to hear a conversation on the phone. When I first got my phone (this is the first Nokia phone owned by me), I found the instruction manual rather confusing and the customization of the phone difficult. Once I got use to the phone, it became rather second nature, I would therefore classify this phone and user friendly overall. I disagree with some of the Epinions' members comments that the power or reception meter is difficult to read when you have the leather casing. I can see both rather well and my conversations was not affected by the case either. I noticed that some phone cases muffled my voice and therefore the other party could not hear me very well. I find the calender, the calculator, and reminder functions of this phone to be great. I am not a big fan of internet access for cell phones but the calender and calculator functions I think is a great functionality for phones. With so many different ring tones and the capability to load additional ring tones, it would be easy to distinguish your own phone with that of anyone else's when a phone ring (I have many occasions where there are a lot of people in the room with the same ring tone). I would recommend that people who likes gadgets or a phone with above average capabilities and good sound quality. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 89124 2000/9/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light compact 100 s of features stylish on off button colored covers are a rip off Full Review Wow, I have this exciting feeling of having a brand new piece of equipment in my hands, and that I'll be little by little over the next few weeks finding out about the many incredible features this cell phone has. I'm not new to Nokia phones, this is actually my fourth and I've never had phones from any other brands. The logical reason is that I'm so satisfied with Nokia that everything in comparison seems either too limited or too complicated. As I was saying, I just got this phone last week after my 3200 series got stolen in China and I must confess I'm almost glad it met this fate otherwise I'd probably still be a couple of years before I would think of upgrading. Enough stories told, let me get to the bottom line and explain why I find it so fantastic. Apart from all the usual Nokia features, such as user-friendly icon menus, large 5 line screen, keypad lock, beautiful design, etc this cell phone has a few characteristics that put it a step beyond its cousins as well as its concurrents. First there's the size and weight. It is so small that it would probably fit inside a pack of cigarettes (providing it contained no cigarettes inside anymore). This is the first mobile phone I can sit down comfortably without having to adjust it inside my jeans pocket. I can even forget it's in my pocket. And, as the ad boasts, it can actually fit inside a jeans watch-pocket. The best thing is that in contrast to the star-tac when folded, it's not bulky. Then comes the weight factor, which by all means is simply neglectible with its 79 grams. Then comes all the features that at first sight seem to be nothing more than gadgets, but the more you use them the least you can live without them. Such "gadgets" are voice dialing which works perfectly without you having to concentrate hard an speak in the exact same manner as recorded. It can store up to eight such vocal instructions, which is very adequate for someone who's fairly sociable. The next invaluable new feature is the predictive word input for SMS composing. This saves hours of boring letter searching to form a single word. You can type words like "unconscious" in less than 5 seconds, as opposed to about 20 in a normal keypad. One more message feature which I have to admit that falls under the "gadget" category is the possibility of sending image messages. The 10 images available are quite useless, and besides, you can only send them to someone who owns a Nokia 3000 or 8000 series. Finally, a feature that has changed my life is the possibility to configure various ringing modes for different occasions. Right now, I'm in the University library with it set on "silent" mode inside my pocket where it'll only vibrate. At work, I set it on "discreet" mode which beeps lightly then vibrates. Or you can leave it on "standard" mode, which will ring and/or vibrate according to your preferences. Battery life is so far satisfying, requiring recharging after 2 or 3 days (I turn it off while I'm sleeping) and it seems like it'll be pretty durable, although it doesn't look as robust as a Nokia 5100 series. The signal is pretty good, but the downside for it not having a bulky antenna is that it is less performant than the 5100 or 6100 series. Still, where the reception is good you can speak clearly everywhere and it is only inside large concrete buildings that the signal can fade a little. My only possible complaint about this model is the on/off button which is tiny and hard to reach, even with the fingernail. The other downside is that although you have the possibility of changing colors with the X-Press cover, it'll cost you a steep 40 U$ for a darn piece of plastic. They used to sell the 5100 series with a standard black cover, but they'd throw in an extra one of a different color, sadly, this isn't the case for this model.If you have the chance buy them in Bangkok or other South-East Asian cities where they'll cost you as little as 1 U$ and you'll have plenty of other models to choose from. What, they're fake? So what, they do the job just as well. Just a note: I live in Europe where the model on sale is actually the 8210 which works on GSM. If there are any discrepancies with the US model I apologize. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89123 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small long battery life light case can become scratched new ones are available unofficially not from nokia Full Review I resisted getting a cell phone for years. The idea of people being able to track me down that easily just bothered me. One must escape sometime. Plus- well, they seemed a little pretentious. And people used them in ways that annoyed me. When some idiot swerves into my lane and I see they're talking on a phone... grrrrr. However, I got tired of missing out on things because someone left a message in my voice mail that I didn't pick up until too late. Trying to make plans on the fly seemed like it would be so much simpler with a phone. And then, while I was considering maybe getting one... I saw this phone. I know it is going to sound superficial, but it's the coolest looking phone I have ever seen. The Nokia 8260 (probably the 8290 also) takes handsets to a new level of gadgetry; smaller than my work pager, it only weighs 3 ounces. It is so tiny when I first saw it I wondered where I would hold it- the microphone is inches from my mouth when the speaker is by my ear. The directional microphone manages to pick up my conversation clearly though, even that far away from my mouth, even in a crowd with other voices all around. It can do tricks too- it can hold 250 names with numbers and email addresses, and has a nice calendar function. Typing things in is much easier than I thought it was going to be, too. The standard letter-input was fairly simple and straightforward, but now that I've gotten used to the predictive software i can type on my phone almost as fast as on my keyboard. The coolest of the bells and whistles with this phone have to do with the way it can use SMS, the short message service. This allows the phone to receive and send email messages, and to download different rings and graphics(your carrier has to support this, you might want to check, especially if you don't live in an urban area). Ring tones and graphics are widely available on the net for phones in Europe and Australia right now, where the phone and others like it have been around for a while. These sites will hopefully include North America soon. AND hopefully will come down in price, as many of them seem amazingly overpriced. I have found two free SMS sites that deliver rings, graphics and messages to the US- they are still small but I love them both. http://www.the-mobile.net/ has a better library of stuff, but http://www.nokia8260.net/ is geared specifically to this phone. The speed at which you receive the downloads varies, I think due to traffic. If you send a graphic in the middle of the night it happens in seconds as opposed to a few minutes. The biggest problem I have heard mentioned about this phone has to do with it's reception. Different people have described huge variations in quality. Mine has been crystal- even in a cement building, even in the basement, no matter where I take it the strength meter never goes below 3 out of 4 bars. There was a letter enclosed with my phone that said if you took it out of a digital network (not a problem for me, digital covers the area around me for a hundred miles or so)into analog land, it would not work as well as a standard analog phone, since it was configured to work on digital. This makes me wonder if people who had problems were experiencing them because of their provider's lack of digital service, at least in that spot. I think that researching your service provider and their coverage is a good idea. This is a great little phone but if it doesn't work well in your area it loses much of it's charm. One spot to look is http://www.wireless-cellular-phones-plans-decide.com/ . They have maps of coverage and quality of coverage in different areas, selected by typing in your zip code. They also will show you comparisons of phone plans. Overall, I am extremely happy with this phone. I would recommend it to anyone considering it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 ($199 minus $50 from Nokia, $50 from AT&T, and a $75 service credit from ATT 89122 2000/6/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 visually pleasing design sensible functions convenient size no browser no voice dialing calender pim a little hard to use The Bottom LineIf you need the fancy stuff, this is not your phone. If you need a well-balanced phone that gets the job done, you should buy this one. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is a solid phone that focuses on the essential functions. It doesn't have a lot of fancy features like the Sprint phones, but it has all the necessary ones, plus a little extra. The Good: First, it's shaped like a little brick without any moving parts such as flip covers. I feel that this increases its durability, especially after I put it in a case. My previous Nokia phone (6260) lasted me nearly 2 years, so I have additional confidence in their products. Next, it has logical functions such as an alphabetical phonebook and softkeys. I tried out the Ericsson R289LX and Motorola V2397 and found their menus to be less intuitive than the Nokia. This is definitely my personal opinion which others may argue. Nevertheless, it was a sign that the Nokia was the phone for me. Lastly, I love the reception. I understand this probably has more to do with my service provider (AT&T), but I'm still happy that I can talk clearly most of my way to Tahoe while my friends cannot. What's the point of getting a cell phone and paying for a plan if you can't talk? The Bad: WHAT'S UP WITH THE 2.7MM HEADPHONE JACK?!?! This is the most annoying part of this phone that I didn't anticipate. The 8260 comes with it's own cheap headphone set, which was ok with me because I was planning to upgrade anyway. However, practically all handsfree options on the market are made for 2.5mm jacks, making it almost impossible to find a midtier headphone in Fry's, Best Buy, and Circuit City. Be prepared to do some legwork or internet shopping if you want to buy another headset for this phone. I am also jealous of my friends who can voice dial and look at an entire month at a time on their Samsung phones. These are obviously conveniences that I can live without, but dude! Those are cool features. However, I do derive comfort from the fact that I can get reception in a lot more places than them. :) The Ugly: ...otherwise known as the Truth. This is a no BS phone. It looks pretty nice and it's portable. It'll let you talk. It'll let you store names and numbers. It'll even let you play some games and set up some ringer tones that you like. To me, these aspects of the Nokia 8260 overshadow its inequities. I'm glad I bought this phone and I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89121 2000/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features battery life looks size small buttons poor reception phone heats up The Bottom LineBuy it for style and efficiency, but buyer beware, the phone has little problems that some people may find too irritating! Full Review The Nokia 8260 is a very small phone with the same features (and new ones) as it's older brother, the 6-series Nokia. I won't really talk about the regular features and such as they are listed in many other reviews. However, what you will find in this review is insight on the pros and cons. AFTERMARKET ----------- -Nokia could have went a lot farther to improve this phone, for example with the LED lights, but they did not. The green hue does not go well with the technologically advanced body of the phone. I personally fixed that by replacing my green LED lights with white ones from Hong Kong ($80) and phone pad lights with blue LEDs. Many people have commented on how nice it looks with the new lights. -There are also many replacement faceplates out there, even ones avaliable now in HK that can make your phone look like a 8890 with the push-button sliding case, ala the movie 'The Matrix'. -There are also replacement battery case plates to make the front and back of your phone an identical colour, an option that was avaliable in HK/Japan years ago. PROS ---- -As a former Startac user, I am used to small phones. Nevertheless, I could not locate my phone on several occasions because it was so small and light. I think this phone is as small as a phone should be. If it were smaller, there would be too many lost phones. It doesn't look as good as the 8290 (8290 is smaller, has snap off faceplace button and has chrome nokia logo on the back), but no one will know. -Another pro would be the price. With a free phone on a two-year contract, or $99 phone on a one-year, this phone is very affordable. -As with all Nokias, battery life is excellent. I talk a lot (over 119 hours logged on my 8260 in around 3 months) and the Nokie has always served me well. -The features are nice and the functions are easy to access. Probably one of the best on the market. You can even download a few songs (www.cellphoneuser.com, I think), but you need to have e-mail and text messaging enabled. -The phone seems pretty durable too. I dropped it a few times on many types of surfaces and it still works fine. I can safely say I haven't taken care of my phone very well but has lived through rough treatment. CONS -For me in the Toronto area, the reception is HORRIBLE. I had to whip out my Startac on one occasion in a mall just to make a call because the Nokia had no signal. I'm with Rogers AT&T, the best provider in Canada, so I don't think they are the problem. -The buttons are too small! At first when I heard the buttons were too small I didn't think it would be a problem for me, but it is! I have accidentally pressed the "*+" button in the lower left hand corner many times when I intended to press the "7". -The phone gets REALLY hot when you talk for more than 10 minutes and not too long after that SMOKE literally comes out of the phone! It's not a lot of smoke but you can smell it. I guess this is good because it reduces the amount of time you spend on your phone. It's like holding a hot coal and really gets you to speed up your conversations. =) -I don't like the hand-less kit either. People say when they talk to me I sound like I am talking into a can. Perhaps this isn't really the phones fault. CONCLUSION ---------- I'm going to use this phone for one more year and then if there is something better on the market (A new Motorola Digital Vadar???) I will switch. I'm happy with my purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89120 2000/1/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 gets your attention durable works great for its size heats up on long conversations Full Review I just started a new job and asked my wife to purchase a new cell phone for me at the mall. I wanted something that was duel mode analog/digital because in the Columbus OH area I was always running into trouble with my all digital phone. At first I thought the phone was much too small to work effectively but the phone soon proved it had quite enough signal power. I found myself slowly drawn to this phone because of its light weight and the fact I can carry it around without having to purchase a tool belt to carry it on. T he screen and the directions on screen walk you through practically any mode of operation you can imagine without a problem. My service included the e-mail and instant messaging that becomes addictive when you want to send someone a quick e-mail message from the road. I have already dropped the phone on several occasion and Nokia has made this one built to last. I think because of the light weight it is less likely to break into a million pieces if you drop it on the floor. It is also a real attention seeker when you pull out this phone the folks around you are instantly curious about its size. The only drawback is if you plan on being on the phone for more then 10 minutes this thing heats up like a hot coal on long conversations. The battery life really surprised me, with casual use you can expect it to last about five days between charges. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89119 2000/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable durable compact internal antennae Full Review First I must admit I am a electronics gadget freak. Once I saw the Nokia 8260 I wanted to get it right away. I have had my phone for 2 months now and have not experienced only minor numbers of dropped calls. The only real problems I have had is when I am in tall building and I go towards the middle or in their elevators. That is where I experience most of my drop call or have difficulty in hearing the other party. It still works as good as it did on the first day I got it, even after I had the opportunity to drop this phone at home on the hardwood floors and at work (commercial carpets). I did break a faceplate in attempting to change my original gray colored one. This process is difficult as there are many parts to remove or move aside to put a new plate on. I highly recommend having the retail store replace the plates. But having said that, they do have a large assortment of colors, patterns, and themes for this phone already. I love the user friendliness of this phone. I was very intuitive for me to use. Controls are standard Nokia and I took to it like a kid does to candy. Some functions of the phone includes: phonebook, grouping of stored phone numbers, calculator, calender, text and numeric messages, games, and alarms and reminders. Another great feature that came with the phone was a hands-free earpiece. I think more cellphone companies should be like Nokia, whereby the earpiece is a standard accessory so people can talk on the phone without holding it if they are driving. My personal opinion is that I can drive while holding and talking on my phone, but there are a certain segment of the population cannot do that, let alone drive. And it is those people that have the accidents that is making local and state governments banning the use of cell phones without handsfree capabilities in cars while moving. I recommend this phone highly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89118 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fits in your pocket without looking funny sometimes sacrifices clarity for size Full Review I am a gadget guy. I like the latest and the greatest in cell phone technology. BUT I don't like to LOOK like a 'cell phone guy' with a big, bulky phone that clips onto my belt for the world to see my latest purchase. I used to have an Ericsson that satisfied my need to conceal the phone. It was small, I could put it in my pocket and it had the vibration alert to reduce those embarrassing moments when you get a call during meetings. It was pretty good! Kind of heavy for it's size, but the battery would last for all day when I was using it and I'd plug it in the car on my 20 minute drive home. It was pretty clear in most areas and it would hold all of the numbers I needed to keep around. The screen was small enough that I had convinced myself I needed glasses. I never really felt 'at one' with that phone. Then I caught site of this little Nokia! I liked it from the moment I saw it. Call it, "love at first call." It was smaller than small, I could fit it in my pants comfortably, and it was the easiest piece of technology I ever used! It has a different profile setting for wherever you might find yourself to be sure you either hear the ring (if you're outside) or feel the ring (for those important meetings). It's impossible to think that I can talk off and on for most of the day and not have to charge the battery for at least 2 days!!! I love it! It's stylish in 3 different colors (and I'm sure there are more colors on the way) and it's screen is big enough for my grandma to read without her bifocals! There are those times when it seems that I'm talking into the phone through a snorkel 10 feet under water. I live in an area that has spotty service at best. BUT, I actually have more success with keeping signal than I ever had with my other phone... and it had an EXTERNAL antenna. It's much more durable than my old phone. I've dropped it already on my tile floor and don't even think it knew what happened! My other phone would have exploded into about 4 parts. It's numbers are pretty small, so bigger fingers tend to double punch numbers. It's a little hard to hit only send or end also. The small size tends to bunch the keypad and function keys, but my fingers are compact enough that it's not a problem. AND, the best part is that I can actually send text messages from the phone! I can actually use the phone to save money on my bill! Imagine that! I've used the text send to email work contacts, send love messages to my wife, ask my friends for the surf report, and I've even sent myself emails at home as reminders of things I have to get done! Let's put it this way: it's pretty cute, very usable, and an undeniable name in the cellular world. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89117 2000/10/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish inexpensive lots of features tiny no interchangeable face plates voice recognition Full Review I've waited for this phone to be available in the U.S all summer long. And now it's finally here. It is a great phone and well worth the wait. The size of this thing is just amazing. It is smaller than the pager I got for work, and I can just throw it in my pocket and forget that it's there! It's a huge improvement over my old Nokia 6160. The buttons are a little small, but they light up when you press them. This makes dialing in the dark alot easier. The phone barely reaches your cheek when you hold it up to your ears, but the sound quality and volume(from what I've heard from my friends) is just as, if not better than my old phone. The reception I get is alot better than the Nokia 6160 as well. I love not having a weird looking antenna sticking up. I don't know, call me weird, but I just don't like having an antenna poking out. The phone comes with a lithium ion battery which lasts a pretty long time. The phone also comes with the option of vibrating, which is nice considering that I had to shell out 70 bucks to get a vibrating battery for the 6160. I don't use my cell phone that much so the phone usually can go for three or four days without charging. I tried plugging my old charger from the 6160 into the 8260, surprisingly, it works on both. The phone comes with a hands free head phone set with a microphone. Personally I think when in use, it looks kind of like you're talking to yourself, but it definitely comes in handy if you like to drive and talk on your phone. The only problem I have with the phone is that the display picks up the natural oil from your face, so you have to clean it often to keep the phone clean. I got the phone with a fifty dollar rebate from Nokia, a fifty dollar service credit from AT&T since I resigned a contract with them for another year, so it all came to about 70 dollars, which is wicked cheap for a cell phone like this. Overall, a great phone. If I wasn't too lazy to switch my service to VoiceStream wireless, I would've gotten the Nokia 8290. The 8290 is a better phone with voice recognition, changeable face plates, and over all a better technology. Too bad AT&T doesn't support the GSM technology because the 8290 is a much better phone compare to the 8260. Oh well, I still love my 8260 though! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89116 2000/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 weight sophistication size easy to use menu features battery life size Full Review I, like half the people who use cell phones, have been waiting impatiently all summer for the new Nokia 8260 to come out. I had had it with my old Ericsson, which weighs about two pounds, has no battery life to speak of, is not ergonomic to hold, is NOT stylish, and has a mediocre menu and other features. I was feeling behind the times. I had planned to buy a Nokia 5160 or 6160, but when I learned about the 8260, I decided to wait. It is a beautiful phone. It's small, lightweight, attractively designed. I have no problems dialing on the small buttons, like some people. I just use the side of my thumb. The size and weight are a problem, however, when I just want to stick it in my bag; I'm worried the face will get scratched or beaten up. I will definitely be looking into a protective sleeve as soon as they become more available (I buy directly from Nokia as CellOne charges at least 50% more). The size is awkward in that it's too small to hold comfortably while dialing and I'm afraid I'll drop it because it's so light and a little small for my hand. As a woman, I don't wear a lot of clothes with pockets, so sometimes I'm stuck carrying the phone in my hand while I'm walking around, which isn't ideal. If I stick it in a jacket pocket, I'm always worried it will fall out if I bend over, get crushed if I take my jacket off and put it down or forget the phone's in it, etc. It's too soon to tell whether this phone will replace the 5160 as the new standard in cell phones. I'm disappointed with the reception and battery life as advertised by Nokia and Cellular One. For a phone of its touted sophistication and advanced technology, there should be no problem with reception indoors. I even had a dropped call while in my car. It's not worth sacrificing functionality for aesthetics (after all, it's a phone--aren't they *supposed* to have antennas?). Eight day battery life? No. I get four days on standby max, and the lower the battery gets, the worse the reception, so that's not even accurate. That's one main reason I wanted a Nokia; I wanted a workhorse of a phone (i.e. excellent battery life, excellent sound quality, excellent reception). People on the other end tell me I sound terrific, however. The menu of features is nicely programmed and convenient, and I really enjoy having a birthday reminder, large phone book, and especially downloadable ring tones (which Cellular One in San Francisco does not yet offer, by way :-(). Many of the ring tones already installed in the phone are mediocre and boring; there should be more room for downloadable tones. The phone came with the headset and the rapid charger, which is nice, since I would have paid 30 bucks for a headset. The rapid charger only takes 2-3 hours for the battery to charge completely. I think this phone has many of the features of older Nokia phones, packaged into a much smaller, lighter, more convenient size. I have no trouble talking into it even though it's small. I will add more to this review as I learn more about my phone. There are no perfect phones, though, but for now this one works just fine. The battery life is a lot better than my old Ericsson, the features and menu organization are beautifully engineered, and the sound quality is much better than my old phone. The only feature I can think of that I'd want is internet access, but until that becomes a more standard feature I'm perfectly satisfied with my Nokia 8260. BTW, if anyone knows where to find downloadable ring tones for *this* phone, please leave a comment for this review. Thanks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 minus rebate 89115 2001/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small unobtrusive long battery life internal antenna provides reception comparable to external number pad poorly lit accompanying headset is low quality The Bottom LineThe phone book features, keypad layout, and programming are intuitive and easy. This is a wonderful phone if small and light is your preference. Full Review Having owned my Nokia 8260 for over a month now, I feel I have experienced it enough to offer you a thorough opinion with valuable insights. Ease of Use and Comfort First things first, I don't recommend this phone if you have large fingers. Long fingers aren't a problem but thick fingers will cause you to press buttons you don't mean to select. For best use, you will want the top end of the phone about half-way up the height of your ear. This provides the best sound quality as you listen and it puts the mic closer to the mouth so your words aren't missed. Unlike most other phones, your whole ear won't be covered. Because of this, the "shoulder hold" does NOT work well with this model. If you are a juggler of items while you talk, and you don't use hands-free mode, this phone is challenging. But if you like to use hands-free, it is a piece of cake to slip the light-weight 8260 into a pocket without feeling like you have a bag of pennies pulling your pants or jacket down. Just don't expect much from the headset (earbud type) that comes with the Nokia 8260. While I've never had any complaints about sound quality nor have I had trouble hearing anyone with the phone by itself, I have had all kinds of problems with the headset. Mostly people say I sound like I'm in a well and that my voice breaks up too much. I'm currently shopping for a new headset option. Holding the phone up to your ear isn't as tiresome as with some of the heavier Nokias such as my old friend: my 5160. The phone does, however, get just as hot when you've been on it for awhile (10 minutes or so). Features The phone allows you to set "Profiles" so you can set your phone within seconds to accommodate your changing environment. It comes with several preset profiles such as a loud ring and vibrate mode to alert you to calls when you are "Outdoors" and a quiet single beep alert for "Meeting" mode. The 8260 contains all the basic features of any older model with the addition of a "Calendar" feature and a "Calculator." While the calendar is a neat idea, it is cumbersome and not really worth the effort. The calculator also is not intuitive and I can do my math on paper faster than getting the thing to work right. I am a huge fan of PDAs and adding these features to the phone is a clumsy attempt at overlapping the features between wireless phone and PIM. My opinion is Nokia shouldn't have bothered. The battery life is amazing. I've run low, but never run out. I only charge my phone every couple days and when I think to plug it into my car charger. I am a moderate user. (about 900 minutes/month) and am extremely pleased at how long the 8260 retains a charge. Overall, the phone is terrific. Reception is superior to that of my 5160--I've had only one dropped call and that was due to geography (common problem in that area). Sound quality is excellent--I've had people who remarked they did not realize I was on a wireless phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89114 2001/3/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 transferrable sim card good vibrate mode extremely small boring nokia interface bugs in display colors suck The Bottom LineHighly recommend it to anyone looking for an incredibly small functional phone. Great for urbanite males who do not want phones bulging from packets or anchored to belts. Full Review I've had the 8260 for about 7 months now and have few, if any complaints. The phone is the smallest phone I have ever seen and to me this one single characteristic rates it above all others. Size does matter when you're first of all a guy (who doesn't carry a purse), and on top of that a guy who does not wish to place his phone in a holster (dreams of living the cowboy way i guess). I can carry the phone along with my other essentials in virtually any pocket with little interference or bulging, even in my clubbing pants. I do not wish to give an inaccurate measurement, but I would say it is probably about 3/4" thick and maybe about 5" long, it is so think that I can fit it in a cigarette pack if the first row of cigarettes are gone (extremely useful during some of those clubbing nights). The small size is often criticized by people when they first get the phone because it is easy to "lose" the phone in your pockets and one often has a difficult time locating it in their pockets when they have a lot of other things in there. However this is only a problem for a short time - trust me, you'll get used to it, and you'll soon have no trouble finding this phone in the most awkward places. The 8260 also has a great vibrating mode which is impressive given its small size. I've had other phones that needed to be a lot larger in order to accomodate the vibrating mechanism. If it is ever in my pant pockets, I am sure to feel it vibrate. The infrared port is powerful and the phone can be linked to your Palm or your PC, I haven't done this but friends of mine have and can easily transfer numbers from one to the other, you can even easily transfer numbers (read business cards) from one 8260 to another. Apparently if you get the right software you can use the 8260 as a cell modem and surf the web on your palm or pc from anywhere. Plus you can play 2 player snake. The text messaging service rocks, i didn't think i'd ever use it, but i ended up using it all the time. It is easy to type messages with Nokia's Predictive Text Messaging feature which figures out what you're trying to type. So you don't have to hit "2" three times to enter "c". if you type in "2255" the feature automatically enters the word "call" and if that is not the correct word you hit "*" to go through different choices. I assure you, me, my brothers, and my friends use this feature constantly and can now type messages in our phone at about the speed a two-finger typist types. My qualm with the 8260 is the bug in the display. When I first bought mine the phone just came out, after a few months I would notice my display would go haywire, getting scrambled, disappearing, freezing up on me. I first shrugged it off, but soon it began to happen constantly. To Nokia's credit (or maybe it's just my service provider - Voicestream) they do replace the phone, it was an easy process I just called them and they sent me a replacement phone, all I had to do was transfer my SIM card from my old one into the new one, and the new one instantly had all of my information, it took about 10 seconds. They also sent me a prepaid mailer to send back my old phone. So in the end, I really wouldn't knock points of them for this one, and I'm sure the phones in the market now do not have this bug. Mind that because of the tiny size, the battery is not so powerful, I do not have the numbers on me, but I think it only has about 60 mins. talk time. However it charges fairly quickly, i'd say in under an hour. Another qualm I have however is with the colors, as far as i know there is only blue, red, and dark gray. These colors suck, can't i just get a polished chrome or black, those other colors really clash with my style (sorry for being so superficial Nokia). Oh by the way, I got the phone for only $70 in NYC. That's always a plus. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89113 2000/8/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 tiny size louder than before questionable durability bad reception Full Review I have been a cellular nomad, bouncing from provider to provider for nearly 2 years in search of the perfect plan and phone. I was currently pretty happy with my Verizon 7868 Startac when I saw that Cell One in Boston had a local plan with free nights and weekends with FREE LONG DISTANCE!!! So I picked up the package along with this (supposedly nifty) blue Triband TDMA 8260. And it is going back to the store..... Feel--holding it in my hand felt great. Feather light, no antenna, smaller than a pack of smokes, unobtrusively slipped into a shirt pocket. Package Quality--with lightness comes poor production. The buttons, silver-dyed light-molded plastic feel flimsy and have way too much play, and are in fact too small (I think) for most male fingers to use them effectively. The ON button, on top of the phone is even smaller than any of the pushbuttons, and is better suited for a Lee press-on nail to operate it than my finger. It is like some digital watches whose "set" button is so far in that it is a battle to set the watch. Ear jack is in a handy place, and the phone came with the nice Nokia handsfree headset. Using the phone, though, without the handsfree is better suited for children or people with extremely small hands, as holding and speaking into the phone can be quite uncomfortable. Menu/Operation--no huge problems here, I guess. The same tried and true Nokia menu you know from the 51/6100, with an expanded phonebook (with spaces for email addresses) and more rings, including some programables that Cellone New England does not appear to provide download support for (American GSM network operators like BellSouth do on the GSM version). Games includes "Rotation," but no Snake II or Pong (like on the 7100). Again, like its brothers the 51/6100, it has the calendar and calculator. No major improvements since '98. Reception--here was my big problem, perhaps due to the absence of an external antenna (8800 users?). I do not believe it is Cell One, because other folks I know with the service on 51/61s get it just about anywhere. The signal strength inside any building is rarely more than two bars, and often one, which makes outgoing calls difficult and most incoming calls uncatchable (going right to voicemail). This area, in my opinion is where the 7868 shines. Although plenty of places have bad reception all around, the Verizon Startac 7868 gets me clear calls in a stairwell and just about anywhere else. I'll eat the 10c long distance for a phone that makes and takes all calls. Volume--one place Nokia did some work on was the volume, which is significantly louder on the 8260 than other Nokias. All in all, very unimpressive. A 6100 in a smaller, flimsier package with bad reception. Motorola still carries the torch for me. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 190 (with trade in) 89112 2000/3/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery life good signal strength small form factor standard headset jack no pc connection available must re input numbers through keypad The Bottom LineDon't pay retail, but it worth ~$150 if you use your cell phone a lot ... Full Review I'll admit that I was really seduced by the form factor; it feels less cumbersome than the pager I carried three years ago, and is functionally as good as my trusty Nokia 6160, which performed really well for the 18 months I had it. Besides the form factor, I've found battery life, signal strength and volume to be equal or better than the 6160. It has a vibrate alert (which you had to buy in battery battery for a 6160), uses cheaper and more available standard-plug headsets (which required a quality-effecting adapter on 5100/6100). Also, if you had a 5100/6100 series phone, all of your auto and wall adapters will charge the 8260 (glad I didn't have to pick up any more of those -- it comes with ). Unfortunately, (or as I was told by the salesperson) there's no way to connect it to a PC; also, I don't know of a way to enter contacts from a web page (as some services might offer, AT&T doesn't offer it in my area). If any one knows of a way that I can migrate my phone book from the 6160 to the 8260, I'd be glad to know. Like many, I suppose, I would love to get even ore out of this device; take something this size and couple an mp3 player with a dataplay slot and I'd pay $400 buck for it a heart beat ... as it is, if you can get a special or upgrade price, it might be worth it; or if this is your first phone, pay the money and forego the free phone; this is better. But by all means, don't pay retail ... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 89111 2000/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 email capable size louder ring voice volume not enough accessories available yet Full Review This phone has the best features of your familiar 6100 series, in a conveniently sized package. The user interface is nearly identical to any 6100 series phone, with the basically the same out of the box talk/standby time you're used to. The 8260 adds the ability to send & receive text email from your phone. The Nokia 6160 phone I use for work hasn't survived the hustle & bustle of business travel very well. I think this is due to it's size; ie not fitting well into a pocket, leaving it exposed on a belt clip and susceptible to banging around. My battery wouldn't stay on very well, and the slightest jolt would launch it from my belt. Contrast the chic 8260-it's small enough to fit in a pocket and comes with 2 must-have accessories: 1) Earbud microphone 2) Rapid Charger. If you're upgrading from a previous Nokia, the slow charger and car charger work fine with the 8260. As well as making the new phone smaller, it's lighter as well. I was a bit concerned about longevity & build quality, since the buttons don't have the solid feel I was used to. But, after 2 months of regular use including 4 business trips I've been impressed. I throw it in my Camelback while mountain biking, and it's emerged unscathed even after a wipeout or two. One of my gripes about my older Nokia is about the low ring & call volume. This seems to be greatly improved on the 8260-the ear bud is more than adequate, and the loud ring with built-in vibrating capability is definitely an improvement. The 2 way SMS text messaging and email are helpful if you need to stay in touch if you're not able to do it verbally. Here's my biggest dislike-lack of accessories. I use Fonesync regularly with my old phone to update the phone's address book. So far there are no data cables available for the 8260. If you're interested in this phone, check out http://www.nokia8260.net for more info. Buy this product if you're interested in a conveniently sized phone with a familiar, intuitive user interface. New features such as SMS messaging, 2 way text email, and Li-ion battery technology raise the bar on consumer cell phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (after $50 mail-in) 89110 2000/6/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life small size voice quality a couple limited or hard to use features gets too hot The Bottom LineGreat little phone, small, good quality, lots of features. Only complaints are that it gets too hot, and that some of the features could be more user-friendly. Full Review Let me start by saying that I have never owned a mobile phone prior to purchasing the Nokia 8260. That being said, I have borrowed a lot of mobile phones from colleagues or friends to make up for my desire not to be reachable 24/7. I finally was forced to get a mobile phone for work, and I chose the 8260. I purchased the phone in September of 2000, right as it was being released. Since then, the phone has become something of a status symbol: a compact, affordable yet trendy phone that more and more people are using. Although the sex appeal was certainly a factor in selecting this phone, there were several core requirements I was seeking. The first was size. I did not want a heavy phone to carry around, and the 8260 fit this nicely. The advertisement boasted that the phone could fit into the fifth pocket of your jeans (you know, that tiny pocket in the front that no one really uses). I tried it out and, sure enough, it fit nicely. (I sometimes actually carry it in that pocket when I wear jeans) Finally, a use for that pocket! The second was the battery power. I must admit that I was amazed at how long the power of the battery lasted. I took the phone on a business trip once, used it intermittently, and it lasted for a good three days without recharging. Wow! The third was the voice quality. I was concerned that the little microphone wouldn't pick up my voice well, because it was sitting against my cheek instead of at my mouth. However, it really does capture everything I say without capturing all of the surrounding noise. I was really surprised by this. Similiarly, the hands-free adapter that came with the phone also worked as well. Overall, I've been quite pleased by the results! Now for the negatives. There have been a couple of annoying qualities about this phone that I wish could be fixed. The first is that the phone can get really hot after awhile. If I'm on an hour-long conference call, and I'm not using the hands-free, the phone practically burns into my hand/cheek. Its very uncomfortable. To help with this, I try to use the handsfree as much as possible on long calls. The second annoying feature is the mute button. When I call into conference calls, I go through a two-stage dialing process. Therefore, after my initial call goes through to the conference bridge, I need to dial codes to connect to a conference call. After the initial call is connected, all of the digits that I dial are displayed on the display unit of the phone, and the right menu button has an option to clear them (a character at a time). This right menu button is also the button that is used to mute, but the mute option is only displayed when the screen is cleared of characters. Therefore, I need to clear the screen of characters (one character at a time) before I have the option to mute. And as each character is cleared, a little beep is heard in the phone. For example, say I dial 1-800-555-1000 to connect to the conference bridge. Then I need to dial "1" to connect, I enter my four digit code "9999", then the "#" sign, then I say my name, then press "#" again, then press "1" to connect. Once I'm connect to the conference bridge, I'll have the following string of characters displayed on my phone: 19999##1. I need to press the right menu button ("Erase") eight times before I can get to the option to "Mute" the call. That means I hear eight little beeps, and cannot hear what is being said on the conference bridge. This is an annoying feature that I wish Nokia would fix. Finally, the little complaint that I have is that I am limited in the ring tones that I can download. For the 8260, you need to download new ringtones from your service provider. AT&T doesn't provide this service, so I'm limited with that small set of rings that is offered. No big deal, but I would have liked to add the Austin Powers ring tone to my phone ;-). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89109 2000/10/13 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 great looks high price not much value added Full Review My girlfriend bought a Nokia 8260 a few weeks ago. I have been an owner of Nokia 6161 for almost 2 years. I am going to write this opinion as a comparison between the 2 models. We've also looked at other Nokia phones such 8890 before making the decision to buy this one. But 8890 is a lot more expensive than 8260. My girlfriend also doesn't like the very visible finger prints that are left on the phone after handling it. Well, this is very true, the shiny surface of the 8890 can get dirty very easily. There are many improvements to this model over 6161. First and most obvious, it is the much smaller size. On top of that, 8260 no longer has the antenna. There's also a choice of face plate color. That makes the 8260 very stylish, no doubt about it. Another new useful feature is the internal vibration alert. If you ask me, I would say the 8260 is a very solid phone with very good features. However, are those new features good enough to justify the much higher price, I don't think so. Older models are just as solid as the 8260. Most of the basic features offered by 8260 such as user friendly interface, phone book, calender, calculator, alarm, games, etc. can be found in 6160 and 6161. The vibration feature is good, but it can be replaced by buying a vibrating battery. Also, this feature is just a waste for ladies because they tend to put their phones in their bags. If you are buying this one, there can only be one reason - the great look of the phone. This is also why my girlfriend bought this phone. She doesn't care about the features at all and I don't think she will touch most of those features. If style is not your priority, go and get an older model for a much lower price. They will do just the same job. In conclusion, 8260 is a good buy only if you want to show off your phone to your friends. It will certainly turn heads (actually, her new phone has already attracted a lot of attention from our friends). Don't buy this phone for its features. Older models carry most of the same features with a much more reasonable price. ************** Please take a second to vote for this opinion below. I would appreciate some feedbacks for my opinion. Thanks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 330 89108 2000/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent standby time small size simple navigation system scratches up easily the keys are too small at times Full Review Hi, for those of you who are not familiar with the kinds of cell phones I have used, please read my review on the Ericsson T28. The Nokia 8260... where to start, well this is one of the many Nokias I have used including the Nokia 2160, 5160, 5190, 6160, 6188, and the Nokia 6190. For all of you Nokia fans out there, there are a few subtle differences between the 8260 and the older models, those mainly being, the built in vibrating alert, the new smaller size, and the SMS and e-mail capability. I realize that the 6160i, 5165 and a host of new updated models that are currently being released from Nokia have all of these abilities. For those of you that have never had a Nokia, allow me outline the main features of this particular phone. -Built in vibrating alert -250 number phone book -weighs 3.2 oz with a li-ion battery which is included -It takes approximately 2 hours to charge the battery -built in internal antenna -available in three colors -and what is proving to make these new phones from Nokia quite popular are the ability to send ringtones and new user graphics to each other. I have sent quite a few to friends and myself and I admit, that it is quite a neat feature, but I wouldn't let it be a deciding factor in purchasing this phone. -caller groups I have had my Nokia 8260 for about half a year now and also currently own a Ericsson T28 and a StarTac 6500. I have done a tiny comparison on the Nokia 8260 and the T28 should you wish to check out my review of the T28, but for this personal review I will mainly be focusing on the Nokia 8260. The features that have made me so fond of Nokia phones, are their large displays and their extreme ease of use. Anybody can pick up a Nokia phone and figure out how to use it, the engineers at Nokia have by far come up with the most intuitive menu navigation system out of all of the cell phones that I have tried. Also, the 8260 keeps track of the last 10 missed, 10 dialed, and 10 received calls, along with their call times. From almost any menu displaying a phone number it is very easy to save and to label all of your phone book entries. The Nokia series phones also allow you to have longer titles for your entries then the Motorola StarTac's and the Ericssons. What is becoming standard on many cell phones is the Tegic text predictive input. This is included with the 8260's software and once you become familiar with the system makes writing and responding to e-mail, or text messages a snap ! It is a very well designed system and can be tailored to the type of vocabulary the owner prefers. The Nokia 8260 is currently available in three colors, red pepper, blue, and cobalt grey. They are all beautiful. It broke my heart when I dropped my phone and picked it up to find tiny scratches and dents on the faceplate. Unlike the 8210 and the 5100 series phones it is not as easy to change its faceplates. Actually, it is quite a headache. I have taken mine apart and it took me quite some time to reassemble it. This being said, that is one of the weaker points of the phone. The construction of the phone is not quite as sturdy as that of the 5100s, or the 6100s. But it can take a reasonable amount of abuse. It will just show rather quickly. The electronics inside the phone are quite close together so one shouldn't worry about anything being jarred or shaken loose. Call quality... well most of have used digital cell phones and the call quality on the 8260 is most similar to the 6100 series. The microphone on the bottom of the phone is quite sensitive, although I wouldn't mind if one could turn up the ringer volume a touch higher and the earpiece volume louder. I can hardly tell the difference between level 4 and 5 on the ringer volumes. But I will admit that the vibra-alert does do quite an adequate job for making up for this. Whenever you are sitting around one bar of signal strength, at times you can expect conversations to be a little choppy, or expect a bit of static. For the most part, in the city I have rarely had any problems except in a few particular buildings and certain areas in the downtown corridor. The analog reception on my particular analog network is terrific. One should note though, the internal antenna works quite well, but with the phone being as small as it is, some people have noted that it is difficult to hold the phone without covering up the antenna (therefore affecting your call quality). One advantage for all of you that have owned Nokias in the past, you can use the 5100,6100,7100 cigarette lighter adapters and home chargers so if you have old phones kicking around your place, you can have some extra accessories. All in all though, ever since I got my Ericsson T28, I am still very fond of the Nokia 8260, there are advantages to both systems, GSM vs. TDMA, etc. And I would go with the phone that best suits the person, and what they are looking for. The Nokia 8260 has quite a few features that the Ericsson T28 does not have, but whether or not they apply to you the buyer, it all depends on what you are looking for =) I hope that this has been of some help to anybody who has read this and please take the time to let me know if there is anything I can improve in my reviews or should add to them ! Thanks for your time !! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89107 2000/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features size battery life reception in my area miss some features i m used to can t find accessories The Bottom LineBuy, USE, LOVE! Full Review Well, here I am writing my 2nd cellphone review. Maybe you caught my Epinion of the Samsung SCH2000 in Jan/00... I had a feeling then that would be my last cellphone purchase..... I WAS WRONG. The Nokia 8260 is a ton of phone in 3.4oz. I have not been able to run the battery dead yet, and I talk, talk, and talk - not to mention making appointments, setting alarms, playing games, writing eMail and SMS messages - oh, and calculating the shrinking of my stock portfolio. The 250 member phonebook (with eMail addys), 8 speed dial numbers will keep you in touch. You can set multi-reminders and alarms. BUT, the SMS and eMail make this toy for me. You can say a lot, they go thru when the signal won't support voice, and do NOT count as call minutes! (Although I LIVE in FL - my phone is set up on the CANADIAN AT&T franchisee - so I have a Canadian phone number - for my special CrazyCanadianLady to call me LOCAL for her - it's a great ONE RATE PLAN that gives me all of the US, CANADA, HONG KONG, PR, USVI with 600 minutes for under $100 US$). And, this is the first Nokia I've seen with a real sub-mini hands free jack, located on the SIDE of the phone - one turn off for me with Nokia has been the cheap and delicate contraption for attachment to the bottom of their phones - every friend I have had with one has broken an earphone or charger connection. That is NOT a problem with the 8260. YES, I miss my voice recognition dialing I had with Samsung (but that is a network option with Rogers AT&T - and a 500 number phonebook). YES, I miss my memo recorder on the Samsung - YES, I really MISS IT! - but, for size, and other features.... THIS NOKIA 8260 WINS COOL by a mile. Mine is in the Pepper Red..... Way COOL!!! (Phone was free with service extension to my friend's contract) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89106 2000/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 ring tones games battery calculator stylish calendar compact address book quality reception no web browsing capability The Bottom LineDon't get the phone. It's size and features are nice, but it's unreliable and isn't worth the headache. Full Review Overall I've had a negative experience with this phone and as a result just stopped using it yesterday. I originally bought it because it was so small, stylish, and I like the fact that it had an internal antenna that wouldn't get in the way. Also, I travel a lot and like the convenience of accessing my phone quickly with one hand (nothing to flip open, no antenna to put up). The phone was physically convenient and the user interface, although a bit antiquated, was easy to navigate and use. My only complaint about the functionality of this phone's system is that it is old, no web browsing capability, and most irritating, the phone book only allows for single phone number entries under each name, which makes scrolling through the phone book time consuming when everyone you know has a minimum of three different phone numbers. One other shortcoming I noticed as I traveled is that this phone's reception is inferior to most others. Friends of mine with different AT&T phones got reception when I didn't. The benefit of having an internal antenna comes at the sacrifice of reception. By far, my BIGGEST COMPLAINT is with the phone's lack of quality and reliability. I got my first Nokia 8260 in December and by March it had serious problems -- the screen was turning off randomly for about a week when one day it finally turned off permanently (calls could be made, but the screen didn't work). I sent the phone back and it was exchanged under the warranty for a new one. By early July I started having problems with my new phone as well-- the phone would go into "headset" mode randomly despite the fact that I was not using a headset and had never used a headset. The result was in the middle of a call I would hear silence, I would look down at the screen and it show the call was still connected, however, it would say "headset" so I could not be heard nor could the person on the other end of the line hear me. I would have to hang up and try the call again. This happened often when I would receive calls too. My brother, sister, and two friends of mine have reported similar problems with this phone and have all since replaced their phones. When I explained this problem to one AT&T representative, she said that she had heard many complaints similar to mine and knew right away what was talking about before I could finish explaining it. Another AT&T representative at the store where I just got a new phone tried to convince me that this was an isolated incident, but it seems widespread to me and I'm surprised that haven't dealt with it yet. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 89105 2000/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small very clear reception trendy fashionable good battery life very cool phone great ringtones not web enabled appears to be fragileeasy to scratch The Bottom LineIt's a great phone for casual use, but it might be too small and too fragile for the power user. Full Review The Nokia 8260 is an above average phone, albeit more suitable for a woman's use than a man's, based on the experiences of my wife and me. We bought our phone from the ATT Wireless website in October 2000, paying $199 less $75 worth in rebates. At the time, ATT had a limited selection of phones in their product mix and we felt that the 8260 was ATT's best value which was helped by the rebate offers. ATT also tosses in an earbud with the deal, so tack on another $25 value. Our other phone is a Nokia 6160 which we have had for two years and it didn't take long to figure out who was going to carry the new phone. My wife took ownership, only because she found it's size and it's features more usable then I did. I kept the 6160 because it is simply a bigger phone, although there are times when we switch phones depending on who needs the phone with the fully charged batteries. The nearly identical menus and keyboard layout allowed both of us to readily adapt to this phone. The reception of the 8210 is quite good. My wife and I often compare our phones in weak signal areas, and the 8260 will sometimes show 1 more bar of signal strength compared to the 6160. It might be related to wear and tear on the older phone, but considering the internal antenna of the 8210, its ability to pull in a signal is very good. The LI-ION battery life of the 8260 is more than adequate. It easily lives up to its rating of 3+ hours of talk time and 8 days of standby, beating the times I have gotten from the extended NIMH battery of my 6160. The 8260's battery also features a vibration mode. The battery is not much bigger than the those found in home cordless phones. It has all of the menu features of the 6160 plus more. You can store the time on it. You can receive and store 5 custom ringtones on top of the standard ringtones provided by Nokia. My wife's current ringtone is the Flintstone's theme song. Yaba-daba-do. The texting features of the 8260 are adequate. You can receive email and text messages, but each text message sent to an email address or a cellphone costs 10 cents. ATT offers a text messaging service for $4.99 per month. Compared to web-enabled phones, the text messaging feature is primitive. On a rare occasion, my wife and I will send text messages from a PC to a cellphone, but that is about the extent of our usage. Because of the smaller keys, I found it difficult to hold and dial the phone with one hand because the base is smaller, and especially while driving. My wife, with her smaller hands, doesn't seem to have this problem. My wife likes the phone because it easily fits in a side pocket to her handbag or knapsack. I prefer to carry a phone on my belt, using a swivel clip. However, the 8260 is too pretty to carry in such a manner, unless it was carried in a case. So far I haven't found a case for the 8260 that has a suitable belt clip that won't come loose. Most of the exposed surface of the 8260 is covered by a shiny clear plastic cover. The rest of the case is a satin like blue plastic. Upon closer examination, the keys are made of clear plastic, silkscreened in silver paint with the number and letter characters left clear to allow light to pass through when the phone is illuminated. It doesn't seem possible that this phone could endure very much external abuse unless it was in a case of some type. I personally dislike the use of cases, but others might. The quality of the materials is very good, but the phone has this "please don't hurt me" look about it. It certainly would not hold up in an industrial setting or last through very many drops. Overall, I would say that the Nokia is a very good phone. It works very well, pulls in a good signal, and is very easy to use. It's just a very fashionable phone, with good basic features. My wife loves it, but for me, I'll stick with my Nokia 6160, which despite it's battle scarred appearance, keeps on working without fail. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $124 89104 2000/8/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use stylish small size no wap loses features from euro cousin Full Review The gods have answered my prayers. Finally a phone small enough to fit in my pocket and still deliver incredible ease of use, functionality, and portability that no other phone on the market offers. I purchased and used this phone in Europe a few months ago when it first came out. As many of you know Europeans are often the first to get the newest in cell phones. I really liked my little Nokia and was sorry I could not use it with my service provider when I returned to the states. Thankfully I was recently given a phone to test on ATT network. The Nokia I received in the US is a little different from the European model. Here are the major features that the US model (8260) does not have compared to the European model (8290) NOTE: US GSM Models phones may have these features: 1. Voice Dialing 2. Weighs 2.8 ounces not 3.4. 3. Changeable color covers 4. Ability to connect to a PDA 5. Be able to use it in Europe and many other continents. Many of the lost features in the US version are pretty insignificant. I rarely used the above features on my European version. After a month of using the Nokia in the US I am still in love with it. I will go over many of the pros and cons. 1. Great size. If the phone were any smaller I would be afraid to lose it. It also gets to a point where if the phone where any smaller you would have to sacrifice screen size. 2. EASE OF USE. This might sound vague, yet I love all Nokias for their use of use. All menus are very easy to navigate and changing settings is a breeze. Even if this is your first cell phone you would never have a problem setting it up. 3. No external antenna. I love this feature, I always seemed to catch previous phones large antennas in my pocket when trying to pull it out to answer a call. 4. Great talk time. I have been averaging 3 hours talk time. 5. Phonebook is easy to navigate. You can sort all listings alphabetically automatically. There is no assigning a listing a certain number. 6. Nifty calendar is very useful. This feature is not available on many other brands of phones. 7. Choice of colors, blue, grey or red. 8. Accurate battery meter. 9. Calculator 10. Vibra Alert is very useful. I found this feature to work well compared to some phones weak vibrate mode. 11. Addictive games 1. No flip cover. I wish they made some sort of cover so that you would not accidentally hit buttons when keeping the phone in your pocket. Of course you can get around this by using Key Guard Lock, yet I hate having to do this every time I put my phone in my pocket. 2. Buttons might be a bit small for people with big fingers. 3. Power button is fairly small and hard to hit. 4. No wireless internet access (WAP). Not a major con though. After having a bulkier WAP phone previously, I don't miss it. WAP will be useful when its perfected in maybe two years. After using the phone in the US now for about a month these were my only cons (not many). I truly think this will be the most popular phone on the market by Christmas time (time to invest in Nokia stock?) For those people looking to buy the phone right now (Aug 22), you may have to wait till September when ATT formally rolls the phone out with their service. Other carriers such as Pacific Bell carry the phone now. So what's the verdict? GO BUY THIS PHONE! What are you waiting for? Below is a list of all features (pulled from Nokias website, www.nokiausa.com): Fully Featured Up to 3.5 hours of digital talk time with a standard battery Up to 8 days of digital standby time and 1.5 hours analog talktime and 36 hours analog standby time Only 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide Weighs about 3.4oz with a battery Style Three stylish colors (Carbon Grey, Electric Blue, and Red Pepper) Ergonomic design with side volume key Holds 5 downloadable ring tones Caller groups that identify the caller by a specific ring tone Profiles allow adjustment of phone to your environment and lifestyle Internal vibra alert Easy to read 5 line LCD display Internal antenna Well Connected Send and receive SMS (short text messages) Send email (depending on service provider) Predictive text input Support 7 languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Chinese) Caller Grouping allows you to set an alert sound for designated callers while other calls alert you silently Performance Up to 8 days of standby time Powerful PDA with 250 name, number and email address storage phone book Calendar with room for 50 appointments and reminders Now with DTX, which improves battery life by up to 30% (carrier dependant) Service DualBand/ TriMode TDMA 800/1900 and 800 AMPS Seamless transfer between analog and digital service. Extended performance provided by a true 3V transceiver extended operating times I will post updates if any thing goes wrong with my phone. So far it has proven very reliable and has the ability to withstand dropping a few times. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89103 2002/11/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 pocket sized durability first of the internal antennas now somewhat outdated The Bottom LineA landmark that has set form and design standards for many current phones. It has lasted through the worst of beatings. Hopefully it's successors can do the same. Full Review I recognize that with 480 other reviews on this phone made two years ago, you're thinking "Why a current review on such an old phone?" One reason...tried and true durability. This was my first and only purchase in the cell phone market, but I have done a lot of research on it's counterparts and successors. As I come up on its 2 year anniversary, I am somewhat sad to say that I must relieve it of duty and move on in life to a GSM phone. I thought I would give one final tribute to a faithful friend before I retire it to a paperweight. DURABILITY I've had the 8260 for 1 year, 10 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, and 4 hours. In that time, I have never had to be without my phone or cell service because of any damage or inadequacy of the 8260. I have dropped this phone on carpets, hardwood floors, concrete, and any other surface imaginable except a large pool of jell-o and I have yet to break it. I had to replace the front cover at one point because I had slammed it into the corner of a bench and broke the plastic view window, but it still didn't break. I have taken the phone apart and put it back together, mashed, beaten and overused it and it has yet to stop on me. I can't think of any other electronic equipment I own that has taken this much abuse and survived in near original operating condition. SERVICE Service, of course, depends in large part on your carrier. I use AT&T and have had a good experience. I can say with relative confidence though that the 8260 was as good as any phone produced at the time I bought it. I still receive a good signal most any place I go, and when compared with other phones on AT&T there is rarely a difference in signal or sound quality. On average it is the same as any of the 5100 series phones. I know Nokia has updated the antenna and signal quality of this line, so the 8200/8300/8500 line should be quite good. SIZE Originally criticized for small buttons and close layout, the layout of this phone has become the standard for most new Nokia phones. I have never had a problem with punching the wrong keys or had difficulty seeing the numbers/letters. I cannot begin to explain how handy it has been to have a small phone that fits in my pocket with comfort and is relatively unobtrusive. BATTERY I realize that new batteries are giving phones out there ridiculous amounts of talk time and standby time. To keep it simple, I can say that I have never had a problem taking my phone with me on a weekend with no charger as long as I turn it off at night. You can do the math on that if you like. MENU The menu for this series is very intuitive and was easy for me to learn. I will require the direct menu option access through numbers on any phone I buy in the future. (i.e. you can press [menu],4,2,2 and you are at the alarm clock, or [menu]3,2,1 puts my phone on "silent"). Once again, I know that Nokia has continued to update and improve on this feature. OVERALL I have immensely enjoyed my time with the 8260. I realize that few, if any will read this review. But I write out of thankfulness and true satisfaction with a product. I will certainly purchase from this line of Nokia phones when I move over to the GSM network. The 8390 and 6590 should be similar in form, style, and let's hope...durability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 89102 2000/12/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sms size included headset downloadable ringtones email builtin vibrator hard to findchange faceplates no internet Full Review I've had this cell for 2 months now and I love it. It have it for AT&T and after signing a new contract and getting rid of my old nokia 6260. I was also looking into the 8290 for Voicestream and Motorola V series for Sprint. Here is what I like about the 8260: Can send and recieve e-mail. Though it's limited to only 150 characters which includes the subject. It's usefull when you can get in contact with someone and when someone wants to talk to but is connected to the internet through their phoneline and doesn't want to disconnect to call you. Can send and recieve short messages to other 8260. It is not compatible with 8290s which is stupid since the messages are both supposed to follow the SMS system. You can always trust US wireless carriers to squable over standards. SMS comes in handy during boring classes or just to say goodnight to a fellow 8260 user. It's not exactly instant messaging because it takes a few seconds for it to go through then typing a new message takes some time to but it saves some of your minutes. AT&T is currently providing this service for free though next month I think they're limiting it to 500 messages and $5 for unlimited. Predictive typing. You don't have to press '7' 4 times to get 's'. just press each key once and it uses a dictionary to figure out which word you're trying to type. you use the '*' to change the word if that's not the one you intended. You can also use either the predictive typing mode in lower case or upper case and non-predictive mode in upper case and lower case by pressing the '#'. This feature is great but don't expect to write too much like this. It's still very time consuming. Downloadable rings. I love this feature! I am currently using Alice Deejay - Better Of Alone for my default ring. I'm using Mission Impossible for calls that come from on campus. And the James Bond Goldeneye Theme for friends back home. You can set up to 5 groups all this different rings and logos. I made logos for each group. Rings and logos can be sent to your phone from sites like nokia8260.net. Your phone can hold up to 5 rings. The size and weight. I look at people with my old nokia 6260 and amaze at how huge it is. How did i carry that thing around? The 8260 is truely pocket size. It's light weight too. Design. It looks cool. It comes in 3 colors. Grey, blue, and red. The blue was sold out everywhere I sent so I went with the red. They sell faceplates for it anyway. The 8290 offers a much wider variety of faceplates and it's detachable. The 8260 faceplates should be installed by the dealer sinc eit requires upscrewing it. Uses the same charger as the 6260. So now i have 2 chargers. One to keep at home and one to keep at school. I can also still use my old car charger though I couldn't use the old desktop charging stand. Built in vibrator. It also didn't draw as much battery life as I expect with vibrator on. The 6260 battery life is cut in half if you use the vibrating battery. Free headset. The 8260 automatically detects if you insert the headset. The included headset is extremely useful. It has a button to pick up or end calls. I don't suggest you use it in public though. I've recieved many stares from people who thought I was talking to myself. And if you use it around people make it known. My friends talk to me not knowing that I'm on the phone. Lit buttons. Makes it easier to see in the dark. Good reception. The reception has been better than my 6260. It depends a lot more on your service though. In NYC AT&T and Verison has the best coverage. Sprint is good in Manhattan but not on the edges of NYC. That's all the good points. The only bad thing I can thing about it is no WAP. I know the wireless internet sucks right now but it wouldn't hurt. The battery lasts about 3 days between charges for me. It's suggested to let it fully discard before recharges. The games are getting old, the calculator comes in handy once in a while for simple calculations, I've never used the calander. I've tried the 8290, 8860, motorola talkabout and startac. the 8290 is the lightest of these then it's the 8260. The 8290 is a GSM only phone. So reception sucks. Though when you do get good reception the sound quality is superior. The only other differences between the 8290 and the 8260 are the easily removable faceplates of the 8290 and its IR capability. If you sign up for wireless data you can lay your 8290 next to your palm and surf the web through your palm. Currently that service is $30 on top of the $40 phone plan from Voicestream. As for the 8860. There is no reason to get this phone now. The should just discontinue its production. The chrome case gets fingerprints all over it and weighs twice that of the 8260. AT&T is going to be the 1st carrier in the US to roll out its transition system, EDGE, next year. It's designed to allow their network and GSM networks(the international standard) to ease the transition of full 3G service(high speed always on internet). AT&T and Voicestream are the only ones that are going to follow the international standard. This means AT&T and Voicestream customers will be able to roam globally(Voicestream currently allows this. IT is availble for AT&T business customers at a premium) and better phones will be availble since all the manufacturers have to do now it change the frequency of their international phones and sell them to the US. AT&T is years ahead of the competition to switch to 3G. If you buy a cell phone now it will probably be the last non-internet connected phone you'll buy. So save the extra money you'll spend with more expensive phones because you'll be getting a new one in a year or so. Cell phones should be replaced every year or year and a hlaf anyways. One more thing. I got my 8260 for $50. If you live in a large city with a Chinatown or Koreatown, Asian places usually sell them a lot cheaper. Definately don't buy it online. I paid $100 and got a $50 rebate from Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 after rebate 89101 2000/3/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very small compact easy to conceal reception could be better The Bottom LineIf you like New Technology Then This is the Phone for You. Full Review Everything now is becoming smaller and smaller. Therefore it's not a big suprize that the cell phones are following the same trend, the "Size HYPE". What is the "Size HYPE"? The size hype is that everything has to be smaller and more portable than its preceding ancestor. People want the smallest device that they can possibly hold or at least the newest technology. With this desire they have only one small problem. Technology Can't Keep up With Their Demands Completely. - Pros - : Why This Phone Is Good The first thing about this phone is that it is very compact. This means that it is great for use in schools, offices, churches, meetings, etc . . . The phone measures about 4 inches tall and about 1.5 inches wide. This makes it very each to hide in a shirt pocket, or side pocket of pants. The second thing about this phone is the larger capacity to hold numbers, information about others, and of course, ringtones. You can hold roughly 250 phone numbers, which is 150 more than the Nokia 5160. You can also store four of your own personal ringtones, (The way the phone will ring when someone calls you), which is more than the 5160 will even consider. Other features of this phone include e-mail, one extra game, and a calendar, calculator, and a memo pad. - Cons - : Why This Phone Isn't So Good The only main problem with this phone is the reception. I have used a Nokia 5160 for quite some time and have become used to the quality of reception. Therefore when I walked into a building with high electro-magnetic fields I still expected the phone to operate. It still operated but the phone was really fuzzy. Not great when you are in a meaningful conversation, and all you can hear on the other line is "I can't hear you, what did you say again?" Other than that the phone is basically a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89100 2001/1/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good size screen infrared port lighter in weight very small none really but is a tad expensivehas no internet capabilities The Bottom LineIf you have the money, it's a great upgrade. Mobility is so much better and the features will be appreciated. Full Review PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE Before I switched to the Nokia 8290, I was a Nokia 5190 user. Nokia phone seem to work really well, in my opinion, and switching within the brand was not a problem. The 5190 is rather heavy, especially with the stock battery, so users of the 5190 will experience a major improvement in terms of size and weight. The menus are different as well, with the 5190 having a "central key" which operates functions, whereas the 8290 has slightly more complex navigation method, with no real "central key." PHYSICAL APPEARANCE The absolute best thing about the 8290 is the size. It's not only small, but it's thin, which is a huge advantage for those who need to carry phones in their pockets or jackets (in my case, a suit pocket on occasion). Another huge advantage is that the phone is very light and the battery is small. The keypad is very responsive and operates fine. The screen is the same size as before, which is one of the perks of Nokia phones, in my opinion. One thing is that the backlight is still green and I must say that the indiglo blue light of the Nokia 8890 (the high end Nokia model) looks nicer. They also have a number of faceplates which you can interchange, although with Pacific Bell, they give you a red and blue one most of the time. There are variations in stock color so check to make sure. I had a friend receive a yellow one once. Other companies, like ATT (whose model is the 8260, a different model slightly) and Cellular One offer different colors as well. FEATURES The Nokia 8290 has some nice features. In addition to the standard phone list storage, it has various ring tones, alarm clock, games and calculator. However, there are many improvements over the 5190. ANTENNA/RECEPTION I've found the reception levels on the 8290 to be up to par with my 5190. The antenna on the 8290 is internal, whereas the antenna on the 5190 is external. This really helps on size, and I've found the reception to be fine in most areas and just as good as my old phone. IMPROVEMENTS 1) Infrared Port - One thing I love about the 8290 is the infrared port that you can use to swap information with other infrared-enabled phones. You can just swap contact numbers instantly. 2) Calendar Mode - There is also a calendar mode, which is sort of a reminder or pda-type feature. 3) Voice Activation - Another fantastic improvement is the voice tag option, where you can record 8 "voice tags" for 8 frequently used numbers. By simply saying the name of the person into the phone, the number will dial automatically. Of course, you have to say the name very similarly to the way you recorded it, it comes in handy when you are driving. 4) Profiles - There are various "profiles" on the phone where you can pre-program entire phone settings for future use. For example, if you want the phone to be completely silent during meetings, but to ring once when you receive voice mail, you can preprogram the "meeting" profile to have it do that, instead of changing both options separately. BATTERY The battery system works slightly differently than the 5190 and 6190 in that the battery is actually much smaller and is housed within the phone while being protected by the battery cover. With the older Nokias, the batteries would just hook onto the back and slide into the connectors. With this phone, you put the battery in, then put the cover over it. 1) Battery Life is approximately 150-200 hours standby and about 100 minutes talk time. They advertise a higher amount, but this is pretty much the maximum that I've been able to get out of a full charge. 2) It takes less time for the battery to charge (about 4 hours) than the older batteries. 3) Instead of vibrating batteries, the phone itself vibrates. This can be shut off, but the vibration is actually so hard that you can hear it. I would say that if you are in the theater or in a meeting, to shut off the vibration since it is audible. FREEBIES The phone comes with a hands free kit, charger and two face plates. The hands free kit is very helpful, and, according to California law, required now while driving I believe. The hands free kit is also more sturdy than those of the 5190 series. Instead of a number of small connectors, there is just a plug at the phone-kit connection at the bottom of the phone. OVERALL I would say this phone is an extreme improvement over previous models. It offers the user a much smaller and lighter phone with more options that are rather well thought out. The retail price is a bit much, but I think that it is well worth it due to the small size and improved list of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89099 2000/3/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small looks good light almost too small bad reception expensive tiny buttons The Bottom LineThis is a nice phone, but it has some major flaws. I would recommend waiting until Nokia comes out with something better. Full Review At first glance, this is a really nice phone. It looks good and is amazingly light. However, it has some major flaws. First of all, the buttons are so incredibly small that it takes a lot of precision not to push two of them at once. The buttons make it harder to type text messages, enter names in the address book, and play games. The highest snake score on this phone that I have achieved is only 398, compared to a 536 on a Nokia with bigger buttons. This phone is REALLY small. That is good and bad. It is almost unnoticeable in a pocket; making it difficult to detect if your phone has fallen out of your pocket or been stolen. I have read that the smaller the cell phone, the greater the radiation. This is about the smallest cell phone available... The internal antenna is nice because it reduces size and prevents the phone from becoming cumbersome in a pocket. However, it gets fairly bad reception. I live in Portland, Oregon,a city infamous for bad cell reception, so other people in larger cities may not have this problem. The screen scratches easily, so you should get some kind of protective case or cover. The phone is expensive for what it is. At first, I was really attracted to this small Nokia, but on closely reviewing it, and borrowing an 8260 of my friend for a day to see if I would like it, I decided to wait for something better to come along. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89098 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features size because i m one cheap bastard pricey Full Review First off, I just want to apologize to drlolipop for referring to myself in the third person in the title. For those like myself who turn at the sight of long reviews, please read the last paragraph. OK, gang. The phone I own is the Nokia 8290, but it's more or less synonymous with the 8260 other than in name. SPECS-- Weight---> 3.2 oz. with battery Operating Voltage---> 3.6 V DC Frequency Band---> GSM1900, 1850 to 1910 MHz (TX), 1930 to 1990 MHz (RX) Dimensions---> 10.0 cm. in height, 4.0 cm in length, 1.5 cm in width This is a pretty cool looking phone. I love it for its size. It fits entirely on the palm of my hand, which totally kicks ass because my last phone resembled that giloppy Zach Morris used to have in Saved by the Bell. You know, that phone the size of a shoebox that he used to order pizzas in Mr. Dewey's class with. Plus, the LCD screen is about the same size as any other phone. But the fact that you don't even know you're carrying it is the best benefit. FEATURES AND OTHER THINGS-- There's a built-in antenna, so you don't have to pull any stupid, ugly wires out. So this bad boy is 10.0 cm at all times. Plus, the reception is pretty darn good and the clarity is great considering the phone stops at the middle of my cheek. Side volume control. There's two little buttons on the left side that raise or lower the volume. The volume control on my last phone pretty much consisted of me telling the person on the other end to shout or to shut up, so once again, another convenient feature. It comes with a free headset. This way my ass doesn't have to worry about idiots talking on the phone while driving at the same time. You can just pop in the earpiece and plug the other end into the phone. It's also cool for walking around because people think you're some psycho who's mumbling to him/herself. The phone memory can store up to 250 names and numbers. I'm sure the cool and popular people will love this feature. Mine's pretty much limited to "Home," "Shakey's," and "Chick from Spanish Class." Damn my parents for raising a nerd. Easy Menu short-cuts. Lots of phones have this, but it's a feature so I'll mention it. All the features are divided into 10 menus and sub-menus. Just press the corresponding numbers on the keypad to get where you want. I'll quickly list the 10 menus and each subcategoy because this will be a faster way to cover all of the phone's features: 1. Messages: Keeps track of your inbox and outbox. Lets you send emails, picture messages, send and recieve faxes, and listen to your voice mail. 2. Call Log: Keeps track of all the calls you missed, received, made, the last call, the current call, etc. Also lets you see how much each call cost you, and how much talk time you have left. 3. Profiles: Lets you customize your phone for the setting you are in: Normal, Silent, Meeting, Outdoor, Pager, Car, and Headset. Ringing tone, volume, vibrate, etc. all change according to which profile you choose and how you customize your options. The vibrating feature is good because if you're in a quiet place you don't have to shut your phone off, and it's almost sensual in a way. This phone also gives you the option to download 5 ringing tones off the internet. This is pretty sweet because the phone comes with 35 built-in tones, and they more or less blow. My current tone is that kick ass keyboard solo from "Take on Me." 4. Settings: Customize your alarm clock, clock, call settings, security settings, and phone settings. More to be explained later. 5. Forwarding: Lets you forward calls, voice mails, and faxes, but at specific times. For example, only if you don't answer, all the time, when your phone is off, etc. 6. Games: Fairly cheesy, but they keep me occupied when I have no newspaper or something to keep me busy. They include Snake, Rotation, Memory, and Logic. 7. Calculator: Duh. But it also gives you the rate of exchange for different currencies. 8. Calendar: Also self-explanatory. Sets dates of events, notes, etc., and beeps if you want reminders. 9. Infrared: You can send information between phones or another Infrared compatible device. 10. SIM Services: This is if your phone runs with a SIM card. If you have no clue what a SIM card is, then your phone doesn't have one. It's basically what keeps the phone working with your set features (a little memory chip). OK, that covers most of the features. Other features include: Built-in dictionary so you don't have to press a number multiple times to get the corresponding letter, ability to have two phone lines if you're a spoiled punk, putting calls on hold and talking between different callers, caller ID, use touch tones (the sound from a combination of keys) to access desired information, auto redial, store 2 calling card numbers, use voice dialing (access features through voice recognition), 1 touch dialing, create caller groups (put people in different groups so you know who is calling you), about 3+ hours of talk time, long lasting battery (I recharge every 2-3 days), keep track of call times, different languages [English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese (?)], safety restrictions so outsiders can't make calls or strangers can't call you, and two free faceplates (phone covers). These are basically all the features I've ever bothered to mess around with, but I think I probably covered like 90+% of them, so you get the gist of this phone's capabilities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89097 2000/10/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great looks light very clear might not make it on the highway Full Review Ok, we've all done it right? You go to the car to buckle the kids in, etc. and you lay the phone down on the trunk. You drive off and about 5 miles down the road you look at your spouse and say, "Where's the phone??" Well maybe not everyone has done this, but my wife did. The mobile insurance man seemed to think it was a pretty common occurrence. I returned to the restaurant that we were previously at and sure enough. There where I made that right turn to get onto the highway was the phone, or what was left of the phone by now. I don't know how many peeled back Firestone tires had run over it by now, but needless to say, it was a goner. The next day, I took the phone to our local repair shop and after they realized that "God" was not working there, they would have to replace the phone. The phone that I had was a Nokia 6161 and it was a great phone. I only had a few problems with it roaming when it shouldn't, but that was about it. There on the counter at the service center was the new Nokia 8260. I picked it up and about threw it through the ceiling it was so light. I played with the functions a minute and asked the salesman how much it was. He said that I could upgrade for $80.00 since I was getting a new phone anyway. Ok, I'm getting to my opinion of the phone. I purchased the last one that they had. Differences - from 6161 to 8260 · Phonebook on the 6161 will store 199 names and numbers & the 8260 will hold 250. The 8260 also has a place to store the contacts email address. Now this could be helpful! · Weight difference is pretty dramatic, as I could easily tell. The 6161 weighs 5.8 oz and the 8260 weighs 3.4 oz. Again, you must be careful not to throw it through the ceiling if your used to the 6161. · The 8260 also has a 2-way paging function which the 6161 did not have. You can type in an SMS message and send it directly to another phone capable of receiving SMS messages. · That brings up the really "neat" function included with the 8260. Predictive text input will automatically try to guess what your typing as you type. You can add and delete words from the dictionary. It keeps your spelling neat and also makes typing a long message a lot easier. Anyone that has ever tried to type a message using cell phone keys will definitely appreciate this feature. · Another new feature of the 8260 is the internal vibra alert and side volume keys. There is no longer a need to purchase a $100.00 vibrating battery that cuts your talk time in half. This does not tax the battery anymore than the ring. Great feature!! · Holds 5 slots for downloadable ring tones. I was pretty confused and interested in this one. It has 5 ring tones that read "personal". The User Guide doesn't give you much information about this. I'm looking all over the Internet and finding these ring tones for Nokia phones. I'm working with tech support now to see if we can get some loaded. I'll have to say that I'm finding ring tones for many phones, just not many for the 8260 yet. · The Calendar holds up to 50 appointments or reminders, which was not an option on the 6161 either. So this is definitely a plus. Before I purchased this phone, I did a lot of research on the Internet and of course Epinions. The phone is very highly rated everywhere. I hope this helps someone make an educated decision about it. It is definitely a great phone, I just hope it's a little tougher under tires than the 6161. Have a great day! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89096 2000/12/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to carry soft ring small buttons too small Full Review You have probably seen many of your friends or family carrying around this relatively new phone made by Nokia. I used STAR-TEC for a long time and finally got my boss to swing for a Nokia phone. To tell you the truth, I prefer STAR-TEC. Let me tell you the facts about this highly overrated phone: PROS: I found the lightness of this phone to be the only pro to owning this device. I was amazed to see how easily it fit in my pocket, bags, etc. It is one of the thinnest phones I have ever seen. It also has a calendar, calculator, and address book. However, I have found that the address book with phone numbers is really all that is convenient to use because of the small buttons. CONS: Now let's discuss why I don't recommend this phone: Because the phone is so tiny, the buttons are too small for my fat fingers. I suppose maybe if you have slender fingers, then this phone is right for you, but not for guys with large fingers. Do you know how many times I have dialed the wrong number because the keys are too small? Another problem I have with this phone is the loudness of the ring. Due to my noisy working environment, I have missed numerous calls. I suppose you could put it on vibrate mode, but due to the nature of my job, it is usually not attached to me. Conclusion: I only recommend this phone to people who have slender fingers. Its scheduling features can be found in most new phone, and the problems that the small buttons have caused me, override any of its advantages. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 89095 2000/3/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very cool looking new features small light with internal antenna the reception isn t as good as other models The Bottom LineIt's an awesome cell phone, buy it if you are looking to get a plan. Full Review This phone is really awesome. This is my fourth Nokia phone that I've had the last two years and this is by far the best one. I've gone through my share of cell phones as I've said, starting with a monsterous trac-phone model of the Nokia. Then I used a 5000 series Nokia for a year, and this model was a lot nicer and more comfortable to carry around. Four months ago I bought a 6161 flip Nokia phone, this was a slick design with great reception. But the first time I saw this phone I wanted it, I fell in love with it and wanted to buy it. Why did it catch my eye? For obvious reasons, it's small, light, and very cool looking. The phone is just a little bit bigger than my middle finger, and let me tell you I don't have big hands. What makes it look so cool, is the fact that there isn't an antenna on the outside of it, it's built internally. So this makes the design look even better. The colors come in red, blue, and gray. A feature that I absolutely love on the phone is that it vibrates when it rings, this is really nice. On other Nokia phones you have to buy special batteries that will do that, the vibrating feature comes with this phone. It also has a volume control buttons on the side of the phone and you can adjust it during a call. The Good and the Bad Good-this phone is very light and comfortable to put in your pocket, you can hardly even feel it in your pocket. The design is cool, and the vibrating alert makes it even cooler. Bad-some bad things about it, is a little shady reception in doors, small so you could lose it. And the buttons are small so this could be bad for someone who has big hands. All in All All in all this phone is great, the good whip the bad in this case. I bought the phone for $80 at buy.com, but i had to buy a plan with it from AT&T. It comes with a plug in hands-free microphone. The battery lasts exceptionally longer than my other phones from my experiences with it, at least 40 percent longer. The phone is great and is definitely a must buy for anyone looking for a sexy looking phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 89094 2000/10/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features stylish small haven t found one yet Full Review I think I am obsessed with this phone. After waiting for the whole summer, and checking the Nokia website every other week, the 8260 was finally available in mid September. I brought mine, the electric blue one, from AT&T Wireless the same week that they started selling them. I had considered getting a 6100 series, but when I borrowed a friend's 6160, I found it to be a little bulkier and heavier than I'd liked it to be when it was in my pocket. The 8260 on the other hand, is perfect. I am extremely glad I had waited to purchase this phone. The phone is very small - 4.1" tall and 1.8" wide and weighs 3.4 ounces with the battery. After putting it into my pocket, I'd forget it is even there and would check once in a while just to make sure it's still there. The battery life is great - I've gone 5 days without recharging and I'd still have one bar left on the indicator. The on/off button is also pretty small, but after a while I got used to it. I found it much easier to push it by pressing on it with the tip of your finger instead of trying to push it with a fingernail. The antenna is internal so it doesn't snag when you pull the phone out of a pocket. The reception is good, with the only problems being when I'm inside a building completely surrounded by concrete. Usually this is when I'm in class, so I don't mind as I won't be answering any calls anyway. The clarity is very good - I can't tell the difference between it and a regular land line phone. It's even better than some cordless phones I've used. People who I've called say the clarity is excellent on their end too, so the distance of the microphone from the mouth doesn't seem to affect it any. The volume of the phone is also very good. I have it set at about half way and I have no trouble hearing the other party. I love that Nokia included the vibrating alert into the phone instead of putting it in the battery as with the 5100 or 6100 series. This phone might cost more than the 6160, but if you factor in the vibrating battery, the price comes out to be almost equal. When I'm in class and a cell phone rings, I can rest assure that it is not mine... at least when I remembered to set it on silent mode. The most awesome thing about this phone is that it can send text messages and email. I wished that my friends' phones could do the same thing. It's not as much fun if I send a text message and to respond they'd have to go find a computer or call. Composing a message is fast and simple with the predictive text input feature. Just keep pressing keys and the phone will figure out what word you are typing. When one of my friends first saw this phone, he couldn't stop saying how sweet it was, so I wasn't the only one blown away by this phone. If you are looking on buying a new cell phone that is small and stylish, the Nokia 8260 is definitely the one to get. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89093 2000/7/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality size on off button colour Full Review After having a series of Ericsson 788/768 phones, a combination of decreasing signal strength, (they all seem to lose signal after about 12 months…) and increasing annoyance with the rubber antenna, I decided to look for a new phone. A workmate's husband works for Nokia, and had one of these (numbered '8210' in the UK) on pre-release test, so I first saw it in October '99. At the time, I didn't believe that it would actually ever be made and offered for sale. in January 2000 - out it came, exactly as per the test one. Excellent, but too expensive for me at over $300. The Ericsson had cost me about $30, and I could not justify ten times that much for the new phone. However, I had the bug to buy, so I started seeing what other phones were around, that offered similar size and performance. Basically, there was the new Motorola StarTac (but only in silver - I don't like the black ones), and a silver Samsung. The Samsung was rejected because it felt too light. But not in a good `this is a light phone' way - more in a `this feels like it'll fall apart' way. The Motorola was rejected because of it's tacky antenna, and the fact that it's bulky when folded. So the Nokia was the only one in the in the game. When a call to my service provider (Vodafone GSM) confirmed that they could upgrade my Ericsson to the new Nokia for about $200 - and they'd deliver it to my office on the next day - and they would reduce my tariff costs at the same time - I was sold. The phone duly turned up, and is VERY impressive. Without a doubt, it is the smallest phone on the market - the New Ericssons are slim and small, but still have an external antenna - the Nokia eschews external antennas, so the entire unit is as small as it looks. And it is the smallest you can buy (I know Nokia also offer the 8850 (I don't know the US model number) which uses the same basic chassis, but has a slide down key cover - and probably more functions - as it should at over $750!). At first, I had some reservations about its tiny size - the main one being how would it pick up my voice when the microphone (a tiny hole in the bottom) was so far from my mouth? No worry. I don't know how, but it works fine. I was also worried that the battery (internal to the phone, and covered by the phone's backplate, unlike on most phones where the battery clips to the unit itself) might be short-lived. Again. No worry - after one or two initial charges, it now regularly lasts for 24 hours and about 60 minutes of calls between charges. If anything, this is better than the Ericsson, which I always thought had superb battery life. Functionally, it does all the good things - Voice tags on numbers, infra red data transfer (although you'll need software for this), multiple ring tones, call registers, etc etc. Most of these I thought were gimmicks, but as it was a new toy, I gave them a try. The voice tag actually works (although I had to re-record the tag after `Alex' kept being interpreted as `mum' (you can tell the kind of high-powered calls I make)). And Call Registers are great - miss a call, find it on the register, then keep the number in the memory, dial it, erase it - whatever! As a function of the network, it supports Caller ID, but as a new feature, you can assign a simple graphic to types of caller - eg hearts to friends and family, a group of stick people to business acquaintances, etc. No practical use, but quite fun, nonetheless. As for ringing tones, there are twenty-some tones, and (again with optional software) you can record your own - if you can be bothered, and you don't mind driving everyone in the office crazy. These tones are set in the `Profiles' section of its easy-to-use menu. This feature really is nice. You can set up to five profiles - each profile containing different ringing levels, message alerts, etc. Again, it sounds like a gimmick, but I set one up that I called `Walkman' so I can use it when I can't hear. Basically, this one has no ringing tone, but will vibrate and flash. Great. So when I'm on a train, I activate that profile, and I'll not bother anyone else with an unanswered ring. The phone also includes some fairly annoying games, but I suppose they are better than nothing... It has a calculator - again this could be useful, and a diary function. This one is pretty good if you want meetings and birthdays set for you. It'll never be a PDA, but again - it's better than nothing! In a similar vein, the predictive text feature is not really clever enough. If you do buy one, try typing in the word 'Hello', without it insisting you say 'Hi', or 'Help'. You can switch the feature off, but then why have it at all? (PS - if you do work out how to type 'Hello', please let me know.) Obviously, it supports all digital network features - Text Messages, graphics transfer (between it and another Nokia, that is) Cell Location indicator, (useful if your tariff supports `local' calls) Broadcast Messages, and so on. This is not a WAP-enabled phone, but Nokia have tried to bridge the gap by setting up a (pretty poor) website for emails. Frankly, I can live without emails and internets until I get to a real computer anyway, so this is not an issue for me. Convenience-wise, the phone uses a small SIM-card. This meant that transferring from the old Ericsson to the new Nokia took a matter of seconds, and kept all my address book numbers because I'd stored them on the SIM, NOT on the phone. As for usage - my old Ericsson's rubber antenna annoyed me because it would catch on the inside of a pocket, and make it difficult to retrieve the phone when I needed it. This phone doesn't have that problem, but it's SO small, that it does fall over horizontally in a pocket, meaning it is still hard to fish out. B ut what do I want - if it were bigger, I wouldn't have bought it. In fact, if it were bigger, it would be a 3210! I've had this for about two months now, and it appears to be pretty durable. I've dropped it a couple of times, to no ill effect, and it's survived in a pocket with pens/change/pocket knife, and suffered no more than some extremely fine surface scratching. I have no reason to think it will prove anything less that tough and reliable. The downsides to this phone are fairly cosmetic. It comes with Nokia's `Express-On' cover feature, whereby you can change the front cover for another to `match your mood'. This is quite a nice idea, but the covers cost $35 each - my mood swings would have to be pretty severe to justify that! Plus, the cover supplied with the phone is a rather bright Metallic Red colour. I'll admit it's grown on me, but why pick Red as a default? Why not Blue? Or Yellow? - or perhaps more fittingly - Silver? Anyway, I'm taking mine off this weekend to paint it. (Try doing THAT with an Ericsson!). As a consequence of the removable cover - the on/off button presents the worst flaw in the unit's design. This button is part of the cover, on the top right hand corner. For a start, it's so small that it's difficult to push - even with a fingernail - and it also feels fragile. When you look at the construction of the button on the cover - it IS fragile. It's yet to break, but I won't be surprised if it does.. Other downsides - well, I'm used to phones with a keypad cover, and this one has no such thing, so I often find that buttons have been pushed while in my pocket. No real problem, but a keypad lock might help. And Nokia see fit to only include one battery charger with the phone. Again, no real big deal, but one at home and one at the office would be nice. Anyway, the downsides are nowhere near serious enough to detract from the fine features of this phone. It is tiny, light (in a `wow, that's well made' way), stylish (even in Red), and functionally superb. It is made of high quality materials, is well detailed, and very well made. Even if I hadn't got a good deal, I would still recommend this phone to anyone - even at list price! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89092 2000/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 is it s one of the better cell phones why i wanted to buy another nokia one is better than none The Bottom LineYour Nokia 8260 will connect you with style and will not only be your wireless call, but much more. Full Review I have bought Nokia a view years now. I like the new styles and colors the phone comes with. I wanted to have a phone that is compact, and clear. I wanted a phone that I could understand and easy to use. Comes with quick battery charger, explore some quick basics. You switch on the phone and press and hold the key for about 2 seconds and watch the screen light up. Press to make and answer calls.Press to end calls or return to the phone's Start screen. Press to enter phone numbers and when you dial the letters when enter names in the phone book. Nokia has made their phone easy to used. I had others in the pass and I could not understand how to enter phone numbers and names and to search back and get missed calls. This phone is so easy to understand. Size is small than some other cell phones and the reception is clear. If you have one you made a good choice and If not go out and check one out and see that Nokia 8260 is a good choice. I have friends that have one too.Price I paid is I upgraded my old Nokia.You can also receive text messages, including e-mail, if you've subscribed to the appropriate service. Writing messages is fast and easy with a new feature called predictive text input. A great phone and for the size its does a lot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 89091 2000/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 customizability weight size features reception poor at times no internet access Full Review I've been a happy Nokia user for several months, as anyone who's read my review of the Nokia 5160 could probably guess. As some might remember, the 5160 and I weren't quite a match made in heaven, though. Sure, the phone delivered good usability overall, and I couldn't argue with its "free with a one-year contract" pricing. But it lacked the calculator and calendar features of the 6100 family, and the send-message capabilities of the Nokia's GSM phones. So I always felt there was a little something missing. A couple weeks ago, I discovered that little something. A co-worker who had a 6190 mentioned that he was getting a new phone, and that it was smaller. I took a look at the product sheet he'd been given, and was amazed. At first glance, the 8260 looked like the 8800 series "silver bullet" phone, but without the sliding cover. I don't get overly excited about design, but as a former architecture major, I have a healthy appreciation for it, and this phone definitely has a striking design. Reading over the specifications left me even more impressed. Two and a half times the phone book entries of my old phone. Space for e-mail addresses. Downloadable ring tones. Calendar. Calculator. Customizable profiles. Send-message capability (also known as MO-SMS, for Mobile Oriented Short Message Service). All that in a package about half the size of my old phone. I wanted to purchase the 8260 through the AT&T Wireless sales representative who dealt with my employers, since doing so would get me a nice discount. Unfortunately, I mentioned it to him on a Saturday, when the distribution warehouse was closed. The next week, I had to travel for four days. When I finally made it into the office that Friday, I learned that we'd gotten a new sales representative in my absence - and that she was coming over to introduce herself. Of course, she brought the phone, and answered the few remaining questions I had. Since getting the 8260, I've found it a lot more enjoyable to carry around than the 5160. For starters, it's simply easier to carry - it's smaller and weighs less. It's also much easier to hear callers in noisy outdoor settings; I'm sure some improved amplification circuitry gets the credit for this. The calendar feature makes it much easier for me to keep track of transportation schedules I deal with on a daily basis, and all the things I should be getting done... though it doesn't make me get them done any faster! There are a few features I'm not really using yet. The included headphone is very handy, well-designed and pleasant to use, but it's one more thing to carry around, and I'm not the "one more thing" type: I like to be as unencumbered as possible. I'm only using part of the Caller Group features - I assigned groups to callers, but have not assigned special ring tones to those groups. Maybe if I can find ring tones of Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" for the family group, Bachmann Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business" for the business group, and so on... Of course, the 8260 can't be completely perfect, and I'm finding that it requires a few behavioral modifications on my part, beyond getting used to having the "clear" key on the right instead of the left. Most importantly, I'm learning to look at the signal strength indicator before I call. Since the 8260 has an internal antenna, it seems to be more susceptible to electronic interference than my old phone. That's the only real technological shortcoming; everything else involves my rather agile but not particularly small fingers occasionally bumping the wrong function buttons, and my forgetting to lock the keypad before pocketing the phone. The send-message service, it turned out, wasn't launched by the time AT&T Wireless started selling 8260's here, so I had to wait a couple weeks to have that functionality officially available. I can still receive alphanumeric pages, e-mail and the like in the meantime, of course. Once AT&T's network started offering the capability, I was able to easily send e-mail messages from my phone, as well as sending short messages directly to other phones on the network. The "T9" predictive text input software the phone uses makes entering those messages much easier - I just wish it was usable when entering appointments in the phone's calendar! Thus far, I've acquired only one accessory - a little third-party leather case with clear plastic over the phone's screen and keypad and a belt clip on the back. The official leather case wasn't even available yet. I've e-mailed a couple ring tones from www.cutetrend.com to my phone, and they worked just fine, much to my delight. In summary, the Nokia 8260 isn't perfect, but it's small, light, powerful, and relatively customizable. It's not cheap - the list price is around $200, though I was able to get a significant discount - but it's not one of the most expensive ones out there either. The only major feature set it lacks is Internet access; fortunately, I didn't need that capability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89090 2000/11/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features dimensions signal strength keypad too small for some Full Review Nokia's 8260 is a cell phone with some truly advanced features. As a StarTAC user for the last 2 years I've become familiar with many of the features of the 8260, but this phone adds some interesting extras that might make it worth the money to upgrade. Main Features Size Of course the most obvious attraction to this phone would have to be its dimensions which are 4.1 x 1.8 x .5 with a weight of 3.4 ounces. That's with the battery. The StarTACs main attraction was surely its size as well and I'd gotten used to storing inconspicuously it in my pocket much of the time. This phone is even easier to slip in a pocket and so light that it's hardly noticeable in a shirt pocket. While portability comes up a winner, ease of operation could be said to be slightly impaired by the smallness of the phone. The buttons are very small and take some getting used to, even coming from a StarTAC user. The on/off button is extremely small such that someone with bigger fingers might almost need to carry a pen around to turn it on/or off. Most people probably leave their cells on all of the time anyway, so perhaps the button size is the evolutionary equivalent of the little finger in cell phone terms. So size is an attraction, but comes with some downside. Functions In terms of features which enhance the functionality of this phone, the 8260 retains all of the main features I was used to on the StarTAC such as ring or vibrate, multiple rings available and more can be downloaded from the internet, digital/analog switching, decent battery time. (About 3 hours talk time can be expected on a charge. For my usage that's about 2-3 days which is comparable to the StarTAC.) It has auto-redial and a keypad lock. Improved features are the number store, which holds 250 entries and has a place for email addresses as well. Real caller-ID is supported rather than just for those who are in your phone list. The unit has a calendar which holds 50 entries, with alarms and alerts for meeting etc. tied in (as well as a normal alarm clock feature). The phone has a calculator too. Advanced Features In addition to the calendar and calculator which are pretty neat in themselves, the Nokia 8260 supports 2 way paging and messaging. This is something we use already in my workplace within the limits of the current technology. We still use pagers as well, but these phones can finally make pagers obsolete. Related to paging and messaging is support for email which really brings this phone further into Palm Pilot territory and takes advantage of recently relaxed regulations stateside. A truly useful and advanced feature is a type of word recognition system (Predictive Text Input) which allows text to be recognized as it's being typed and inputs the rest of a word for you. This will prove very useful especially with that small keypad. One neat feature is that a little icon can be associated with entries on the phone list so that you can designate your girlfriend with a little heart, and the bill collector (or mother-in-law) with something else of your choosing. These are probably downloadable, but I'm not sure yet. The phone comes with a couple of games as well, which I must admit I haven't looked into and probably won't take the time to. I'm sure they don't require Direct-X though. Construction In general the body of this phone seems to be well constructed. It's so light that dropping it doesn't really have enough impact to break it anyway, unless you're on the ledge of your brokers office whilst the Nasdaq takes another plunge... and drop the thing... it doesn't have stock quotes anyway (unless of course you're getting them by email). The number keys and the on/off buttons seem kind of flimsy perhaps due to the changeable front panel which allows you to decorate your phone with fancy colors, again not a feature that interests me in the least. The antenna of the 8260 is located internally which may eliminate those trips to the repair center which were not infrequent with my StarTAC for the antenna breaking. The absence of an external antenna however may contribute to the weak signal which this phone seems to have a bit of a problem with. The power bar signal seems to indicate a fairly weak signal while indoors buildings other than just those made of concrete which are known to be a problem for cell phones. They do seem to have improved on the volume which is an extremely welcome feature. Conclusion Overall, this is an improvement in many way over the StarTAC in terms of some extra features and capacities. I think there is enough here to make a difference and enough to acquire on of these now rather than wait for the next advancements to come out on competing models etc. Price is comparable to the StarTAC and I consider this a good value. People with large fingers however might be frustrated and should really trial this phone. Also the weak signal might be enough of a drawback to consider if a this is for mission critical, life or death situation use (which of course everyone's phone calls are anyway). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89089 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use size aesthetic battery life proprietal hands free jack Full Review Let me start by saying this is my 3rd cell phone in 5 years...and it is by far the best. Now, I know what you're saying"of course it is, its the newest one!" but I think it goes beyond that. Let me tell you why. I've always been impressed with the quality of Nokia products. They are well manufactured (they have a really solid feel to them)and in my opinion the have one of the best user interfaces of all the cell phones (I design UI's for a living). My only "complaints" with Nokia phones up until now were the physical size of their phones (larger than many of their competitors) and the lack of battery time. With the 8260 Nokia has fixed both of these issues. The phone weighs less than 4 oz. (if my memory serves me right);but at the same time has a much greater sense of "solidity" then my previous phone (a startac). I can also say, that even if phones were to get physically smaller, I wouldn't want one that was. This phone is almost too small. Its small enough so that I forget its in my pocket, but large enough so that I can hold it without my hand feeling awkward. There has been alot of research into extending battery life in the last few years; and Nokia has definately done their part. The lithium-ion battery has 3 1/2 hours of talk time or 8 days of standby...thats right 8 days. I've never gone 8 days without putting the phone in its charger; but I have gone 4 days (with some talktime) and the phone still had a charge. Remarkable!! I'm also impressed with the aesthetic of the phone. It's the 1st phone in Nokias new "designer" line, and I must say, they've made a beautiful phone. My friends have liked it so much that 3 of them just got their own...and they can't stop raving about them. It's almost viral. I "ended up with" the red phone, as the other 2 colors (grey and blue) were sold out. I have to say, its grown on me. Besides "red" is a bit of a misnomer..its a little "deeper" than just red...maybe burgundy? There are a few things I'm not completely impressed with..but none of them are show stoppers: Make sure you use the "keyguard" as buttons are easily activated in your pocket. I had the misfortune of having my phone call my voicemail for 30 minutes during peak hours. Ouch!! Also, Nokia uses a proprietal headphone jack, so you cant use aftermarket hands-free devices like the Jarba. The included hands-free headset works quite well though and lastly, while you can store up to 250 names, you only have 7 presets (2-8 on they keypad) so you have to scroll though your list of names or use the "search" functionality. Maybe theres something I'm missing as I've only had the phone for about a month, if there is I'll make sure to update this review. So...overall, I'd have to say that I've never been happier with a cellphone. The sound quality and reception are excellent. The size is perfect, battery life is plentiful and it's easy to use. What more could you ask for (ok...its not free) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89088 2000/2/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fits in front pocket sizeweight no need for carrying clip etc so smalllight makes difficult to hold on long calls The Bottom LineFor what we wanted out of a wireless phone - something we would have on us at all times - the Nokia 8260 is perfect. Full Review My wife and I bought this phone last October. We looked into a lot of different designs. It was hard to make up our minds. Here is why we decided on the 8260. Size size and size. We were not looking for a phone that we would be talking on all the time. It was going to be mainly for emergencies, and almost like a pager - so I could let my wife know...ok I'm here, parked outside...waiting...car is running... even if she doesn't answer I'm able to leave a voice message. The only way we were guaranteed to have the phone on us at all times was if it was light and easy to carry. The 8260 fit the bill. An important factor was also the life of the battery... we find it can go almost a week without charging. Also you don't have to wait till the battery goes completely dead before recharging. It is easy to lock the keys so that you don't press numbers while carrying in your pocket. There are about 20 different programmed rings. We use a combination vibration and low ringing feature. It is easy to set up speed dial as well...(add the names of people you call often) simply start to type the 1st few letters of the person you want to call and the phone fills in the rest. We didn't sign up for the email feature - I think it was an extra $4 per month. On very long phone calls you might find your hand and arm getting tired and even cramping holding something so small. I'd recommend the headset for long calls. It may be difficult to get used to speaking into thin air. The phone is so small the receiver sits just below your cheek bone. Don't worry they hear you fine on the other end. The antenna is actually built into the back of the phone - you have to be careful not to cover it while your on a call though - you will get interference. For what we wanted out of a wireless phone - something we would have on us at all times - this one is perfect. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89087 2000/12/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 so compactstylish appearance i don t know of any Full Review *Updated!* If any of you have read my other reviews, you will see that I loved my Motorola StarTac. I did, but I must admit that the little Nokia 8260 far surpasses it. It isn't just a phone, its a calendar, organizer, and instant messenger in one! I just recently bought the phone for myself after buying it as a gift for my boyfriend this summer. It is the hottest of the next generation of cell phones. I'm not going to bore you by praising it, instead I will give you the features and let you look at the above picture. Yes, it really is that small and the style is far beyond any other cell phone on the market. * Talk Time: 3.5 hours of digital talk time with a standard battery. I literally use the phone all the time. Having a boyfriend hundreds of miles away requires it! I charge it approximately every three days. * Size: 4.1' tall, 1.8" wide, and less than 0.5" in depth. It weights approximately 3.4 oz. with a battery. You won't even realize you're carrying it! My boyfriend carries it in the pocket of his pants, and I can fit it in my small clutch purse. It is very convenient. * Phone book and Calendar: The phone book can store 250 names and numbers and the Calendar stores 50 events, birthdays, etc. You can put your meetings and appointments in it and it will beep to remind you beforehand. Who needs a Palm Pilot? Store birthdays forever so you'll never send a belated card again! It even has cute little icons that you can associate with the phone book entries or reminders. I have little hearts next to my name :) * Internal Antenna: That's right, no more pulling your antenna out or sitting on it and breaking it. It is a solid, compact tiny phone with no visible antenna! * 2-Way Paging and Short Messages: This is the hottest thing in Europe. People are constantly sending and receiving SMS messages. You can send and receive e-mail, given that your provider supports it. It even has the word recognition feature, so you don't have to press the button three times to get the letter "C." You simply press each button once while spelling the word and the phone will guess what word you are writing. I've used this, and yes I was skeptical at first, but it works! If it can't guess the word you're writing, you spell it again using the correct letters, and it will remember it next time. * Loads of Extras: Caller ID, Downloadable Ring tunes in addition to the myriad rings already available, Alarm Clock, Multiple Languages, Auto-redial, Keypad lock, etc. ** See comments for sites to download ring tones and how to work the keypad lock. * Warning: you cannot change the face plate on this phone like many other Nokia phones. It comes in red, blue, and a slivery gray. I think they are planning on adding this feature in the future (the 8290 in Europe has it) but for now, you have to live with one color. As you can see, I am blown away by this phone. You might not have seen it before, because it was just recently introduced in the US. Cellular One, Voicestream, and AT&T offer it in most areas. If you're thinking of Cell One, be sure to read my review. Many sources say that this will be the standard in cell phones. It does not have wireless web or voice recognition, but the demand for that technology is not as high as many manufacturers predicted. It has yet to be perfected and but the time it is, you might be looking to purchase a new phone. If you just want a stylish, well-made phone with some great features, check out the Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89086 2000/7/27 Portability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery life lots of options small very convenient sometimes too small options can take a while to learn The Bottom LineThis tiny little phone has just about everything you can think of. Full Review This little phone is a wonder packed with tons of options. It's like a BMW roadster that's loaded! If you are looking for a wee little phone (weighing in at only over three ounces) that has a lot of offer, this is a great cell phone. The first thing you'll notice is that it's small. Very small! It is thin and only a few inches long. Sometimes I think this phone is a little bit too small, because it is easy for myself to misplace it. Also, when using this phone in public places, one might think you are talking to yourself, because you can barely make out the fact that there is a phone hidden in the palm of your hand. The only thing that I felt uncomfortable about when I first got the phone was the way that the microphone is nowhere near your mouth like a "regular" telephone would be like. Instead, the bottom of the phone only comes down to your cheek. But there is no problem with the person on the other end hearing you, so it is of no worry. This phone comes in three colors- metallic red, blue, or grey/silver. All three colors are really attractive; although I am sure they could rake in extra money if there were a larger selection on colors or if there was a way to change the faceplate on the phone. Although there is not the option to change the faceplate, there are a plethora of cell-phone accessories that are compatible with this phone. I have a little holder for the phone to keep it "safe" (however, the holder and clip is practically the same size as the phone!). I recommend getting some type of protective holder so that the phone and especially the screen do not get scratched. When I purchased the phone, I got an AC charger as well as a car charger, which would be hard to live without. You can also get a hands-free kit, which allows you to talk on the phone in the car or elsewhere without having to hold the phone at your ear. Comes in handy especially when you are from Long Island, where Suffolk County was the first county in the United States to ban the use of cell phones in the car. I am assuming that it is legal to talk hands-free, because I do not condone breaking the law! There are so many options on this phone. When you turn on the Nokia, it tells you the name of your service provider, as well as your phone number. The main screen consists of a battery indicator, reception/signal indicator, the time, whether or not you have messages, and it will also tell you if you have "no service", "roam" or whatnot. There is a great phone book option, and the menu on the Nokia is quite nice. Among the options are Messages, Call Log, Profiles, Settings, System, Games, Calculator, Calendar, and Keyguard. -"Messages" allows you to select among messaging services -"Call Log" gives you the option of keeping track of phone calls made and received -"Profiles" has several ways to customize your phone, including an outdoor and headset mode. -"Settings" includes things such as your clock, alarm, and phone card settings -"System" has to do with service provider -"Games"… well this is self explanatory. There's snake, memory, and some others. -"Calculator" and "Calendar" are self explanatory as well, and are quite handy. -the "Key Guard" allows you to lock the keys, so if your phone is in, lets say, a backpack, you won't inadvertently dial 911 because your phone fell to the bottom of your bag and a book fell on it, dialing some numbers. It is quite easy to accidentally dial a number especially because of the phone book function. The protective holder that I have for the phone helps a little to prevent accidental dialing. It takes a little while to learn all the functions on this phone, but with a manual and a little bit of just experimenting, it's easy enough to figure out. The buttons light up when pressed, which also lights up the screen. There are just so many options, you could easily sit down for hours and go through them all. For example, there is a plethora of ring sounds to choose from. The battery life on the Nokia is a few days, so just have a charger around to get it recharged every so often. I would say the battery life is pretty decent, and would recommend getting both the regular charger as well as the car charger that goes in the cigarette lighter. I prefer not to talk about the clarity or reception on this phone. I currently in the process of cancelling a service provider that I found to be notoriously bad in terms of cell service, so I do not want it to be a reflection of the phone's performance. I don't have anything negative to say for this phone, although its incredibly small size has been an interesting facet to get used to. Don't lose it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89085 2003/1/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact loaded with features great battery life size may be a problem for those with visual impairments or large hands wimpy ring The Bottom LineLooks great, has long-lasting battery, and has tons of features. Might not be the best for those who are visually impaired or for those with really large hands. Full Review I came to own the Nokia 8260 when I decided to upgrade my cell phone to a newer model. My previous phone, an Ericsson LX100, was serviceable, but had lots of little quirks. So when the battery died, I had the perfect excuse to get a new phone. When I learned that I could get a $100 discount through the AT&T Mobile Services upgrade program, I jumped at the chance. Much to my surprise, it also came with a special $30 rebate, so I managed to get a whole bunch of bang for relatively few bucks. (OK... $70 isn't pocket change, but it's much less than the $200 retail price!) Size does matter! Very few things in this world are made for small people. The things that are usually lack features or are in some way dumbed down, as if the lack of stature somehow translates to a lack of brain. I'm not sure if Nokia had small people specifically in mind when they made the Nokia 8260 phone, but it is perfect for those people who just don't need large toys. The Nokia 8260 is about half the size of a deck of cards and weighs almost as much. It fits nicely into a shirt pocket and even fits into my pants pocket without leaving an embarrassing bulge. However, size can be an inconvenience at times. The phone is so light that I often find that I have to take everything out of all of my pockets just to make sure that I haven't lost it! An AT&T customer care representative told me that more customers report these lost than any others. (I wonder how many of the customers who report them missing later find them in the bottom of purses, briefcases, etc.!) Because the overall size is small, Nokia had to make some compromises. The number keys are really small and close together, taking up about a 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch area. This might reduce the usability for someone for big hands, but for me and my small hands, the proportions are perfect. On the other hand, the display area is ample, especially in comparison to my LX100. The display area is sufficient for 5 lines of text (3 for messages and 2 for icons/information). If looks could kill The Nokia 8260 is, in short, one cute little phone. It comes in 3 colors: red, blue, and gray. I picked the red one. The advertisements for the Nokia 8260 depict a bright fire engine red phone. That's not what I got, and I have to admit that I'm pleased. The red surface of the phone looks like brushed steel, so the resulting color is more of a cranberry. The trim is black and silver, again with the brushed steel look. The overall combination is perfect for Ohio State Buckeye fans! The keys on the phone are very different than those that I've seen on other phones. Rather than having plastic buttons that glow neon green in the dark, the keys are silver, with only the outlines of the numbers and letters on the key glowing in the dark. The effect is subtle and may not work well for those with poor eyesight, but I really like it. The overall design of the Nokia 8260 is sleek. The antenna is internal and there is no keypad cover. I like this because there's nothing to get caught on things in my purse or briefcase. At first, I was afraid that the lack of keypad cover would be a problem, but with the use of the keypad lock, I have found that it isn't. (Much to my surprise, I am able to answer a phone call even with the keypad lock set.) Talk to me! Calls sent and received through the Nokia 8260 sound great. At first, I thought that I might have to yell in order to be heard, since the microphone is a good distance away from my mouth. However, that's not the case. The phone comes with a side volume control to allow adjustment, if needed. I set it once and forgot it. In addition, my Nokia 8260 came with a headset that looks almost like a basic earphone. The microphone is attached to the cord. Again, my experience with such things was so primitive that I didn't think it would work. However, I have found that it's wonderful and the reception sounds almost better than the phone itself. I didn't lose your number; I'm ignoring you One thing that I have found annoying in the past is that I never seem to have phone numbers when I need them. Some of the ones that I need the most often but dial so rarely that I never remember them are those for my daughter's pediatrician and dentist, my doctors, select relatives, etc. Now, the only excuse I have for not having the number is sheer laziness. The Nokia 8260 provides storage for up to 250 entries in an address book. These entries include a name, the phone number, and an email address. The user can then be place a call by locating the number (via search or scrolling) and hitting a single button. The numbers can also be grouped into call groups. More on that later. Would you answer the phone already? The Nokia 8260 provides a number of ways to signal incoming phone calls. The user can choose from 40 ring patterns, though on my phone, 5 of those are blank and useless. The rings range from simple (a single beep) to long and musical (Equilibrium). The user can determine whether the selected ring tone can be ascending (starting out soft and getting louder with each ring), silent (for meetings and movie theaters), or always the same level. My biggest complaint about the Nokia 8260 is this area. The ring tones are either incredibly wimpy or ear-splittingly shrill. Even adjusting the volume level doesn't seem to help these much. The musical ones are cute, but I would feel rather embarrassed to use some of the longer musical ones (like "Mary Had a Little Lamb"), especially in a work environment. There are 5 personal ringtones available, where users of qualifying service providers may download from a wide range of ringtones. However, my service provider does not allow this feature. So out of 40 available ring tones, I find that I would only use 5, which are very similar to every other cell phone on the market. (If you want to get confused, go to Union Station in Chicago during rush hour and try to figure out whose phone is ringing!) In addition, the user can have the phone vibrate when it rings. This is perfect for those times when ringing phones aren't appropriate (like those times when you want to go see a movie, but don't want to wait until the movie has ended to find that your child has burned down your house in your absence). It also helps with the wimpy ring problem, as the vibration can be felt even when the ring cannot be heard. The Nokia 8260 also has storage for six user profiles, where each profile contains a distinct combination of ring tone, volume, vibration level, etc. This makes it very easy to change the phone from the "Normal" setting (where it rings loudly and vibrates) to a "Meeting" setting (where it only vibrates). It also makes it so I can have a special profile which plays "Mary Had a Little Lamb" when I'm out with my daughter or something "Normal" when I'm in a business setting. The Nokia 8260 also allows the user to program incoming calls from certain groups of saved numbers to ring in a specific pattern. This feature is nice, but doesn't work as well as I would hope. For instance, my husband has a phone number at his office where I may call, but due to the size of the company and the configuration of the phone switches, the actual incoming number is different. So if I wanted my phone to ring a certain way whenever he calls, I have to save all of the source numbers. Frankly, as much as I would like to have the "Tarzan Yell" announce his attempt to reach me, it's just not worth it. It's almost a PDA I have an old Palm II that I used to carry around, but I finally got tired of lugging such a heavy object around. Unfortunately, that meant that I lost most of the ability to keep track of useful information. The Nokia 8260 is saving me, though, because it has many of the same features as a PDA. • Built-in clock I no longer have to remember to wear a watch • Two way text messaging The Nokia 8260 can act as a pager using my wireless provider's text messaging service. I can send and receive emails (up to 100 characters) via my cell phone. This is very handy, especially for the short "I Love You" notes from my husband. • Games The Nokia 8260 comes with 4 games: Snake, Logic, Rotation, and Memory. My favorite is Snake, where I steer a little snake around the display to collect new segments. It's highly addictive. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to drain the battery of power as I was afraid it would. • Calculator I can't count the number of times when I've wished that I had a calculator with me. The functionality is basic, but sufficient for keeping a tally of my Christmas purchases. • Calendar The calendar allows me to keep track of meeting times, birthdays, phone calls, etc. and to make notes about specific events. It's alive! The best feature on this phone, though, is the battery life. With all of the things that it can do, I find that I have it turned on all of the time. With my Ericsson LX100, the battery would have been dead in just a few hours, even when brand new. But the Lilon Semi-Fixed (920mAh) battery lasts virtually forever. With my digital PCS service, the talk time is up to 3 hours and the standby time is up to a week. (Actually times vary based on how the phone is used. Times are less for analog service.) I have been so impressed with the longevity of this battery that I have yet to buy an auto charger. My phone came with the Rapid Travel Charger, which is smaller and more lightweight than any charger I've ever seen. The battery can be completely recharged in less than 2 hours. Conclusion For the most part, I adore the Nokia 8260. It looks great, works well for long periods of time, and has tons of features. I am unimpressed with the ring tones, but I can live with that. Because of its diminutive size, it might not be the best selection for those with visual imparities or for those who have really large hands. For the rest, this cute little phone packs lots of punch. Further Reading Still connected Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89084 2000/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small size battery life sound quality ergonomics buttons construction quality Full Review What up y'all. It's been a long time since my last epinion. Between working alot and not getting my hands on any new toys, well, there went all my time. Anyway, I did get something pretty new last week, my new Nokia 8260 cell phone! I had been using my Nokia 6160 for nearly 2 years and it has served me exceptionally well. I've traveled with it all over the country, dropped it in the rain, had it slide around the inside of my car and even had it trampled on in the train. The combination of AT&T/Cellular One service and the 6160 was provided some of the best cell phone coverage and reception around. I would still be using it, except I dropped it one too many times and it started crapping out on me and shutting itself off at seemingly random and usually inopportune times :( As usual, I'll break this review down into different areas and give each a 1-5 rating. The Look: 4 When I was shopping around for a new phone, I realized early on that the coolest phone by far is the Nokia 8890, the one with the matte aluminum finish and slide-down cover, retractable antenna, etc. The whole nine yards. To me, that phone represented a huge leap in not only functional industrial design, but also in size. However, that phone operates on GSM networks only (in my area, that means Pacific Bell) and I wasn't about to give up my crystal clear Cellular One/AT&T service. So, I settled for the 8260, which is the next best thing. This is a slick looking phone. I've seen pretty much all of them and it's one of the better looking ones out there. Overall, I'd say it's like the 8890's younger cousin, sans nice finish, antenna and sliding cover. Ergonomics and Functionality: 3 For those of you familiar with the now ubiquitous 6100 series phones, you'll pick up this phone and will be able to use it pretty quickly. Nokia did a fine job programming the nice user interface and logical button scheme, so why mess with success? Well, while most of the UI and functions are the same, the buttons on the 8260 are significantly smaller and closer-spaced, making them harder to push. In addition, the "talk" and "end call" buttons are on opposing sides of a wide rocker switch, that I really don't like. On the phone whole, nearly all the buttons are significantly lower and thus hard to identify by touch. The power button at the very top right is practically flush to the case as is the increase volume rocker on the side. I hate this. Bear in mind, I have very thin fingers to begin with so anyone with even average-sized hands is going to have a problem operating this phone. The buttons themselves seem to be of lower quality than the nice, firm rubber ones on the 6160. They are made of a cheap-feeling plastic and the backlit LED illumination that is so nice on the 6160 isn't nearly as good on the 8260 -- in fact, in the dark, the keypad doesn't illuminate evenly which makes the numbers tougher to read. Along with the whole new small form factor, the 8260 comes with a new battery design that is internal. In order to swap out batteries, you need to slide off the rear cover and then pry out the internal LiION battery. Not easy when you're on the run. I prefer the old 6160 series where it was easy to snap on batteries in seconds. One other thing I don't like: Nokia took the existing 6160 LCD screen and "framed" it in a smaller casing with the 8260. The end result is that the top portion of the screen gets cropped off slightly, making it hard to read, esp if the exterior cover is casting a shadow on it. This is hard to explain, but if you compare the two phones in person, it's easy to see what I'm talking about. The end result is, it's hard to see if you have 3 or 4 bars of reception/battery life, which is annoying. It's also hard to read the clock...grr.... As far as included accessories are concerned, it's slightly better than standard fare. The 6160 came with a heavy charger and heavy NiMH battery. The 8260 improves on both with a much smaller and lighter travel charger which has a higher output for quicker charging and it also includes a light weight LiION battery as standard. In addition, it comes with a hands-free earpiece which is a much better design than the old 6160 one, which never stays in place and is so prone to breaking off. But how does it sound? Reception: 3.5 Cell phone sound quality is largely dependent upon alot of factors beyond one's control. Even if you have the best phone in the world, you'll still get crappy reception if your service sucks. That said, I tried to do the best I could by going with AT&T. I must admit that I was pretty spoiled with my 6160. I had great reception throughout the SF Bay Area, and around the country. I even had reception in the middle of the desert in Arizona. I credit it to good AT&T coverage as well as the fact that the phone could switch to analog mode whenever needed. Around downtown SF and the East Bay, I routinely got 4 bars of reception and most people thought I was calling them from a land line. That's probably the ultimate "compliment" a cell phone can get. With my new 8260, I think it's not quite as good. While people I call can hear me perfectly fine, I am hearing a bit more background noise than I did with my 6160. I'm not sure if I'm ready to live with this or if I should just go back and get another 6160. Hmm.... When I compare it side-by-side with the 6160, the 8260 usually starts dropping to 3 bars before the 6160. You can usually "induce" it to drop by simply placing your hand over the upper portion of the phone, where the internal antenna lies. Overall, I'd say the 8260 sound quality so far is about 80-90% as good as the 6160. There is a slight difference, noticeable, but I think I can live with it. If you're like me, your talking conditions aren't all that great and there's lots of ambient noise from the street, crowds etc. In those situations, the two phones would sound nearly identical. Build Quality: 3.5 I would say this is more of a "designer" phone than anything else. While I felt comfortable throwing my 6160 around, I wouldn't do the same with the 8260. Firstly, it just feels so much less dense and solid. Secondly, there are more shiny parts on the front face that are prone to getting scratched. However, the internal antenna is a very nice feature. My 6160 antenna was starting to break and crack and I know of many people who "accidentally" sat on their 6160's and broke their antennas clean off. I've had this phone for less than a week, so I'll have to update this a few months down the road. Overall: 3 Before I forget, I got a pretty decent deal on it. As an existing AT&T subscriber, I got this phone for around 80 bucks after serious rebates from both AT&T and Nokia. Price before rebates was $199. You're probably wondering why I give this phone a 3.5-star rating. Well, I must say that the small size is simply incredible. It makes the difference between putting a phone in your pocket and putting it in your pocket and forgetting it's there. With the 6160 in your pocket, girls are like, "Are you happy to see me?" Not so with the 8260. Is that good or bad? Hmm.... UPDATE: 12/17/2000 Well, after 2 solid weeks of heavy use, I decided to return this phone in exchange for another 6160. Even though the 8260 was really small, I found the buttons just way too closely spaced together to be easy to use. I was finding myself constantly having to look at the keypad carefully instead of being able to navigate by touch. Also, I miss the easy slide-on/off battery feature of the 6160, which I really need. I didn't like having to slide off a cover, pry out the battery and replace it with another one on the 8260. Moreover, when doing so, you'd lose your clock settings and it wouldn't prompt you to reset them once you replaced the battery. What else did I miss? I missed the easier to read screen and more evenly backlit keypad. One other thing: nearly all of my friends use Nokia 51/6100 series phones, so if I'm ever in a bind and need to borrow batteries, it's much easier. The most important thing is to figure out what your needs are and then see what phone helps fill those needs. I was so attracted to the phone for its small size and ignored other usability and practicality issues, but am now happy back with a good ol' 6160. Peace! Jason Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 89083 2000/10/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 portability features you will miss calls phone is almost too small Full Review In my recent quest to buy a cell phone I came up against many obstacles. I was somewhat leery of these items anyway, being that I at first felt they were more of a status symbol than a usable everyday piece of equipment. I soon found though, with the start of my new internet business that a cell phone would be a practical investment for me. I searched and searched for a quality phone for quite awhile before deciding on a phone from Samsung. In my process of looking for a quality phone, I came across many models and had the chance to use this phone from Nokia, both on a trial period and also because my friend has one. I will explain my trial usage in this review although I also feel it is important to point out that my friend is also dissatisfied for many of the same reasons that I was with his phone. There are many positive aspects to this device and I feel that it is only fair to point these out first. The first thing that jumped out at me in regards to this phone is its lightness. This phone easily fits into the users shirt or jacket pocket( I stress "easily" ) and overall cannot weigh more than a few ounces. This makes portability for the user a definite advantage as this phone from Nokia can easily be taken just about anywhere the owner may desire. This phone also has many neat features. First of all, a calendar and a calculator can be easily accessed for those who are on the go. Secondly, there is a feature that allows the user to type in the name and number of the people they are likely to be calling most often. These numbers are saved and can be displayed and dialed easily in the future. This is a fairly common feature with many cell phones; however, it is one that is very usable and nice to have. Finally, there is a space to type in the email adresses of those people whom the user would like to talk to via computer. The addresses can be called up again at any time at the users convienience. This is also a nice feature if the owner is on the computer a lot and would rather use email. Forgetting an address will never be a problem again. Overall the menu is very easy to navigate and will be a help to the user. Now, I must state the many problems that I have had with this phone. First of all, while being an advantage, size is also a disadvantage. The buttons on the phone are so small that I had problems typing the digits I wanted because of my large hands. I would often hit two digits at once which would cause me to have to dial the needed numbers over again. Furthermore, I often found that it is hard to talk on this phone because of the small size. Petite people will find it a breeze, but tall individuals like myself may be hard to understand by the person they are talking to. The biggest problem that I had with this phone would be its reception. I have a quality long distance plan and am able to make and receive calls easily usually with this plan. I noticed that with this phone; however, that I was often unable to make or take calls when I was in enclosed rooms or spaces. The power levels weren't high enough from the phone's reception. Once I stepped outside, the power quickly came back and receiving calls was a breeze. This is not good for me though because I am often inside and it is imperative that I receive all calls while indoors. Most of these missed calls were forwarded to voice mail, which is nice, but this is still no substitute for missing an important call. All in all, the Nokia 8260 has some nice features but is not good where it needs to be for me. These would be the areas of practicibility and reception. If you do not have large hands and can stand missing the occasional call here and there then this would be a nice phone. It just doesn't do the job for me. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): would be 200 89082 2001/2/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life nice looksextensive set of features good sound quality small size might be a problem The Bottom LineWith good sound quality, long battery life, nice looks and extensive set of features, the Nokia 8260 is a very good choice. Full Review The Nokia 8260 looks very nice. The antenna is located internally, so you cannot see it (and it doesn't get in the way when you pull the phone out of your pocket). The colors and sleek design are also nice. Colors You can get the phone in three colors: Red Pepper, Carbon Gray or Electric Blue. The buttons are silver and the phone's front panel has silver and black elements that do not change with the change in phone's color. Size The phone is very compact and light (at 3.4 oz), the phone is so small that you start to worry if the other party can hear you - if you put the speaker to your ear, the microphone is very far from your mouth. However, the microphone is very sensitive and can pick up whatever you are saying, unless you are located in the very noisy environment. The buttons are somewhat small and space between them is also less than optimal, but this is because of the phone's small size. The keys are not covered with a keypad cover, but you can use keypad lock function. The outline of numbers on keys glow in the dark. Reception The internal antenna is smaller than in conventional phones, but this does not decrease reception quality. The reception is clear and sound quality is very good. Battery Life Both talk and standby times are good, especially in digital mode - Nokia claims up to 3.5 hours of talk and 8 days standby in digital mode, 1.5 hours of talk and 36 hours standby in analog mode. The phone uses LiIon 920 mAh BLB-3 battery. Accessories The desktop charger is also compact and stylish, it connects to the electric outlet by the travel charger (standard type or rapid charger), they charge the BLB-3 battery in 3 hrs and 1 hr 50 min respectively. You can also get the leather case, cigarette lighter rapid charger (1 hr 50 min), express car kit (car charger and phone holder) and handset kit with "answer/end" button located on the headset. Email If your service provider supports it, you can use this phone to send and receive short email messages. You can also use service provider's web site to send text messages to the phone's owner. A very nice feature. You can also use two-way text messaging. Phone Book and Stuff The phone can store up to 250 entries in its phone book, you can store names, phone number and email address. There are 40 ring patterns, you can also program the phone to vibrate when incoming call is detected. Six user profiles can hold preferences for different situations (ring pattern, volume, etc.) The phone has clock, calculator, games (Rotation, Snake, Logic and Memory), calendar (you can keep track of events) - PDA features. With good sound quality, long battery life, nice looks and extensive set of features, the Nokia 8260 is a very good choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89341 2000/2/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 no antenna to break or bend small size small size is easy to misplace The Bottom LineA functional phone in a diminutive package Full Review I purchased this phone in October of 2000. When I went to upgrade my phone at the local AT&T store my biggest problem with my previous phones was breaking or bending the antenna when I would put it in my purse. That feature alone sold me on the phone, but when I made my first call to my husband he was surprised to find that it was no bigger than a credit card. The sound quality is great. It is easy to lose in your purse! I do not carry a big purse, in fact it is on the small side, but it's wonderful small size can make it invisible. Another great feature is the battery life. My last phone needed recharging often, I can get a few days use on one charge. (I use my phone only a few times per day) It did come in my favorite color, red, which was not a problem for me but the limited selection of colors, blue, black and red may be a negative for some. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89340 2000/8/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 large phone book text msging long battery life custom ring tones small email clear display small can you hear me now The Bottom LineWant a small phone with great quality? nab it if you can Full Review This phone I bought a year or so back due to the problem where, I didn't carry my original phone, because it was too big. I bought this phone, and I ALWAYS carry it around now. It doesn't make a dent in my pants pockets like my other phone did. And as far saying "Can you hear me now?" as a con, can't really say its the phone's fault because 100% of the time its when I have a bad signal, and its my services fault. I really enjoy this phone. I rarely use it to speak on it anymore, but I text message on it like crazy. I do normal text messaging, AOL's Instant Messenger (which can be done through AT&T's email trick-a-roo), and Email..not so much email, but definitely straight up text messaging. AT&T has improved there text messaging service across providers so it knows where to send it if the person you are sending to isn't AT&T. Anyway, back to the phone The phone book is all out large. I believe you can store up to 200 phone numbers, so it should be plenty. You can assign each number in your book to a group. In a group, you can assign a ringtone and other items as well. Your phone can hold up to 4 or 5 custom ringtones which you can pay on sites, or get them for free if you search around a bit. I personally like this feature, and seperate family, friends and work. Plus, there are a bunch of different built in tones that come with the phone, and it also vibrates, which is something I ususally don't feel when I'm driving with my stereo up at 98 decibles, don't ask me why. So I ususally miss calls while I'm on the road, which is illegal in NY now anyway. the display screen is easy to see, day or night, and the buttons are a nice little buttons, not hard nor soft, but "just right." it even has games on it, but, who needs that..I can ususally let my phone go for about a week or two before having to recharge if I don't use it. less battery life if I speak on it, and more-so battery life if I just text-message... sound quality is great, its amazing how good it is. a friend of mine couldn't believe how clear it was. I thought it was just normal. oh yeah-- some people like to switch the face plates, it looks pretty tough to do on this phone, you need a torx #6 screwdriver to do so.. good luck :) great phone overall even though I get a major headache when using it for more than 5 minutes at a time...but I think thats with all cellphones... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89339 2000/6/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality features size battery life price size The Bottom LineWell worth the price tag. Full Review When I first saw the Nokia 8260, I loved it. It looked great, and I have always been a fan of Nokia phones. I did some more research, and found that the basic specs were comparable to the 5190, which I currently owned. However, since I wasn't happy with Voicestream, I decided to change. I picked up the 8260 for $60 (after rebates), and activated it with AT&T. Included with the phone was a rapid charger (charges in half the time as the standard), as well as the standard large manual and registration/warranty cards. I charged up the phone and dove in. The more I saw, the more I liked. Although some of the menus aren't laid out the way I'd like, I picked them up pretty quickly, and I was on my way. The quality of this phone is second to none. It is solid as a rock, and I have dropped it several times on a hard floor, with no ill effects whatsoever. I even took the phone apart to put on a new faceplate (which WILL void your warranty), and was able to put it back together without too much difficulty. All my calls have been great, not nearly as many problems with reception as my last phone. Text messaging, email, etc. are included in the many features of this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89338 2001/1/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish design great usability size but is worth it The Bottom LineLook at it.... Try it.... Love it... Keep it forever... Full Review Well let me start by saying I am from Denmark... This means that electric things like cellular phones are very expensive because of high taxes. You can see this on the price i paid for the phone. The phone itself is the best of the 11 phones i have had so far, but also the most expensive (taxes). It's perfekt in design and usability because of the many functions like email and the standard SMS. It's usage stabillity is also a great plus but it seems very vulnarable, so don't drop it... This phone really rocks, it has NO background noise or scramble and the menusystem is easy to find your way through. I will recomend reading the manual because it has ALOT of features and it's always best to use them the right way. The SMS word "correction" is easy to get familiar with even if you haven't used this kind of writingtool before. Buy it and be satisfied is all i can say about Nokia 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 420 89337 2000/3/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent customization features compact fashionable reliability few accessories The Bottom LineAlthough I'm having hardware problems, I would still recommend the 8260. Suggest an upgrade to 8290. Style, features and simplicity make 8260 worth it. Full Review I've had the 8260 just over two weeks and I'm already having problems with the unit. I know the issue is not with my service provider. Basically, when I turn the unit on after being off, it cycles through the normal menu routine but then turns itself off. The unit follows a pattern of turning itself on and off continuously. This repeats anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. Once it finally agrees to work for me the phone is great. Basically, I can't take the chance of turning the unit off because I might find myself without a cell phone. Quite inconvenient! I'm in the process of having my service provider replace the unit for me free of charge but if this continues then I may have to switch to a different phone. Aside from my hardware problem, if you can find one that works then I must admit that this phone is very cool. Just a few of the great features include; profile customization, menu navigation, text messaging and email capability. The one very cool feature that I must point out is the ability to program a number followed by phone tree instructions. For example, if you call your bank and enter in the same phone tree options, you can program the 8260 to do this for you. You simply quick dial a number and enter the command to process the phone tree selections for you. Very cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 228 89336 2000/10/11 Product Rating3.0 great phone featuressize questional coverage Full Review About 2 months ago I won a Nokia 8260 form SW Bell. It is a great phone and the features and size can't be beat. My problem is that my local carrier, Cellular One (Philadelphia), tells me that once I go out their footprint I may not have service. This is a real problem as I have a nation wide plan. It works fine in the Philadelphia area but it did not work in the Reading Pa area, or in San Diego CA but did work in Detroit MI. My carrier suggested that I bring in the 8260 and have it replace with a different series. I know I should complain too much since I did win it. But for some reason it just doesn't work nationally. I did take it in to make sure it was programmed properly, they checked it and said it should be fine... I like the phone so much I haven't given it up, the phone is great but my carrier I am unsure. Recommended: Yes 89335 2000/3/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 pint sized a big head turner fun slim poorly placed power button The Bottom LineIf you're looking for something small, portable, and classy, the Nokia 8260 is definitly for you! Full Review I honestly have to stop spending money! The Nokia 8260 is one of the most beautiful electronics piece I have ever purchased. It has everything consumers desire: A slim design, a big phonebook, an appealing look, an illuminated keypad, huge battery storage, and a bunch of games packed into one little thing that you can actually call people on! The Nokia 8260 phone is quite simply stunning. It has every feature a normal phone (of larger size) has, and even included a variety of games, telephone rings (from Jazz to Jingle Bells), and a vibrating feature that won't distract everybody else. The Nokia brand name is synonymous with wireless phones, and great ones at that. This telephone is simply perfect for kids, grads, and adults alike. The 8260 comes in three colors: Red, Dark Blue, and Gray. Personally, the blue is my choice. Covers are changeable, but are more difficult to change, and more expensive (nearly $22 a pop.) Do not buy this phone anywhere else than AMAZON.COM. I purchased mine there, and I have been very satisfied. You receive a $50 cash rebate when spending $100 at their cellular store (the phones rings in at a measly $99 with AT&T service.) Overall, the phone is inexpensive, good-looking, and an excellent buy for anyone wishing to turn heads. The phone is smaller than it looks in pictures, it really is tiny. It fits well in the palm of your hand, and a plastic/velcrow case is highly recommended to protect your investment. I've owned previous cellular phones in the past (Qualcomm, other Nokia brands) however, this phone surely takes the cake. If you buy one thing for the rest of your life, make it this phone. Everything has satisfied me about it, except my one problem: That being the power switch on top of the phone. At times it can be difficult to turn on, but it is not a HUGE problem. That said, I highly recommend this phone. It's small and classy, and deserves your care. And I guarantee you will be addicted to "Snake" by the end of the first evening you own it. BUY IT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89334 2000/11/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size signal strength features price Full Review As a Celular Dealer i see many phones come in and out of my store, the newest being the Nokia 8290. From what i have learned of this phone i am amazed, almost every possible feature too be on a phone including IR, calender, clock, voice activated dailing, and all with an Ion Battery (well not develop a memory after constant charging). The Phone is made for two types of people, the business person with its currency converter, built in messaging, and Text Messaging, and the fashion minded individual (hottest phone on the market in other words). Due to its small size and its sleek looks who wouldn't like it (all right a little too small for some people). Basics on the 8290 are this, 200 minutes of talk time and and up too 6 days of stand-by (www.nokia.com). The phone also has a vibrate function if you are in a private meeting or such and do not want a ringing phone this makes it possible. The main thing i was afraid of with this phone was the fact that it had no external antenna. To make up for this Nokia made the entire inside of the phone it. Not only does it give you a good signal but i have found that it actually gives you a better signal then most retractables. Not only would i recommend this phone to someone who is looking for one for themselves i have actually gotten one for myself (and if you know me you know just how cheap i am). it was well worth the money i spent on it and i am using it for more things everyday. To anyone who has the 8290 welcome to the future of Celular/PCS to those of you who are looking for the future this is it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 89333 2000/12/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features size sex appeal of course not ha thats funny Full Review Ok I have had this thing for a while and i still love it. BUT in dallas a month after i got my 8260 Voicestream GSM came to town with their 8290. Now the 8290 is 8260 with many more features(infrared etc.), lighter, smaller and in my case after rebates cheaper! Also what really excites me about it s that it has X-Press on covers, one thing i didnt like about 8260. So next September when my 1 year contract is up with AT&T if i find a good plan with Voicestream and find out good thing about their quality, i will get the 8290. Because with X-Press on covers I can have a better looking phone every month for under $20! Or maybe by then a 8295 will be out with bluetooth, mmmmmmmmmmmm! See my ideal near future is to have a phone in my pocket that connect to internet at 3G+ speeds, and has bluetooth to be the "middleman" to the internet for my PDA laptop gameboy whatever. It seems like a better idea than having each PDa and Laptop have to connect seperatly and on their own. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I jut found out info! Call att and ask them for the 2-way sms service! There are two versions. One is free and you can recieve a small amount (100?) and you pay 10 cents for each one you send. then the 5 dollar a month option lets you send and recieve 500 messages. What sux is that I have the digital advantage and a great perk of that is unlimited incoming messages, but in Febuary they will do away with that! See i was right with my prediction! Itll be out by around 10/24/2000 I have gathered this info from AT&T on the web, on the phone, and at their stores. I have also found out info from a few ebsties and friends in the buisness. AT&T will launch their 2-way SMS in October, the same time theyll try to release new features like downloadable ringtones. The service will be free but, it seems itll be $5 or less. I bought this phone because I am a student and my life gets pretty crazy at times. I just needed a phone for convenience and safety. I did a lot of homework and research and I have found out this is the best phone on the U.S.A. market. I just got the phone last week and I can't explain how happy I am with it. While in Europe this summer I saw its European GSM version and I thought it would be cool if I could have that in U.S.A. Well now I have it and boy its rules! It has all the features you would expect from a phone and the some like the Mini-PDA, which I use a lot! I always wanted a simple PDA for simple things and now I got it in a great phone! It doesn't have voice dialing but it has 1-touch which is better, I press 2 then send to call my girl, I like that more that shouting "Alison" into a phone. As I was saying, it has the features, but the best part is that they come in such a small package. It weighs about 3oz. So sometimes you have to check if it's with you. Also because it comes standard with a lithium-ion battery I have only charged the phone once since I have gotten it last week. I turn it off at night but why not? Call quality is surprisingly great, I thought because its so short it wont pick up my words. I though wrong, it's amazing but it sounds just right. The internal antenna must make the reception worse right? Well again no, I have never gotten below the 3 (out of 4) on the reception indicator even in a huge multi story school. Also this isn't the phone fault but SMS is not full blown yet. AT&T is trying to get the best network and is letting competitors release their SMS 1st. Still, I get many alerts and such from MSN Mobile, since text messaging and e-mail (one-way for the next couple months) for free. Like last night I got an email 15-minuets before the Cowboys game started, then a message with the score about a minute after the game was over. When I wake up in morning I have the weather and news from day before which I just read while getting ready. Again, I have never seen such a sexy phone. I have it in Red Pepper; it is metallic and not as bright as it looks in pictures, which is good. It will get attention so be careful, people will bug you about it if you use it right in front of them and let them get a glance at how cool it is. It also has spaces for 5 (WHOA!) downloadable ring tones. The service provider can send them to you I think. I think it'll be like the European version, somebody sends you the ring tone through SMS, you take a test listen and if you like it, boom its saved! There are so many other sweet things I am most likely leaving off but I think you get the point. So to get it straight, I love everything about this perfect product. Again there is nothing to hate, unless you hate being smart and cool. Anybody that wants to get a phone should look no further. This is the phone to get. Hurry and get it now before everyone else does. You will not find a better phone. Also, sadly the only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have X-Press On covers. I am only complaining because I know the GSM European version does. It is not a fault with the phone but still; it wouldn't have hurt at all! I got it with AT&T and they have a package with a rapid charger and a handsfree. Also it coust $200 but itf bought by the end of September you will get a $50 ATM card(good as cash), and a $25 Old Navy card. So if you dont liek Old NAvy give it as a gift like I did! Email me at 9723420094@mobile.att.net with questions and comments. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200--$150 after rebate 89332 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact loaded with features could use more accessories Full Review This phone is great! It is almost as small as a pager and is loaded with a TON of features. I particularly like the built-in antenna and the wide selection of audio options, from ringing, to alerts, to keypad tones. It comes with a earphone cord & mic that is kind of weak, however. They really should give several of these, because they are cheap, and that way you can leave one in your car, another in your office, etc. Also, mine hasn't broken yet, but I'm sure it will. There should also be more accessories available for this model like Nokia has for their 5200-series phones. I think they will come out with more accessories if this product sells well. Which it should. I do have to disagree with their cross-promotion of this phone with that stupid Charlie's Angels movie. Maybe their marketing research told them that Drew Barrymore fans are at the heart of their target demographic. And maybe they are. This phone's looks do say something about the owner. Namely, that the owner likes to shag. So you see, this is a great unit. The reception is good, and the displays and menus are logically arranged and quickly become familiar to almost anyone. Even residents of Palm Beach County could learn to use this phone. And learn to like it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89331 2000/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact size stylish design no antenna ease of use brain cancer small buttons The Bottom LineGet one of the many other phones on the market if you think they cause brain cancer. Full Review Overall, I'm extremely pleased with my Nokia 8260 as far as a cell phone goes. The size and design make it a great accessory. It conveniently fits in your pocket or hangs on your belt with the leather belt clip accessory. Like all Nokia phones it is easy to use. It also has the unique feature of possessing an internal antenna. One of the things I didn't like about any of my previous cell phones was having to pull out the antenna every time I wanted to make a call. The possibility of also breaking the antenna or bending it if you didn't push it back into the phone was an inconvenience. The small buttons on the phone make it difficult to dial, especially when driving. Often I have to use the tip of my fingernail to make sure I am hitting the correct button. But this is not why I am not recommending the phone. If you don't believe any of the hype about cell phones causing brain cancer, this will either not bother you or maybe convince you that it does. When I'm not using my Nokia, I keep it charged by my computer at home and at work. Whenever I receive a call or place a call within 10 feet of my computer, my speakers emit a loud buzzing distortion like when you hold a powerful magnet up to your speakers. I sometimes know I'm going to get a call before my phone rings because my speakers start to buzz really loud. I have to walk away from my computer in order to get it to stop. I can only imagine that this phone must generate a powerful electromagnetic field when activated that interferes with the magnets in my speakers. I have never experienced this with any of my other cell phones. I can only imagine what this energy field is doing to my head. If you don't believe all the hype about cell phones causing brain cancer, then I would recommend this phone. If you are someone who doesn't want to take any chances with that possibility, I recommend one of the many other phones on the market. Recommended: No 89330 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight so easy to carry clear voice reception options of changing colors attractive last but not the least nokia s efficient customer servicebrand loyalty status symbol outclass features very user friendly very delicate a bit on the expensive side Full Review After a month's time for finding the right kind of an instrument for the Mobile phone service I came across this Nokia Model no : 8260. My search stopped the moment I had this in my hand. Its light weight and attractive looks gives you complete satisfaction. I was overwhelmed by the no. of appreciations I received while using this phone. I have made it a habit for changing the top colors of my phone every month. I was asked by many to exchange it with theirs. I feel one must definitely opt for this very product if you are looking forward to keep it for a long time. Outclass features : Very user friendly, attractive, light weight so easy to carry, status symbol, options of changing colors, clear voice reception, last but not the least Nokia's efficient customer service and brand loyalty. Look no further please..... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 430 89329 2001/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size clarity ringtones size power switch key pad Full Review so i bought this phone because my carrier has it on as a special for 0$...but at&t also had the 51xx for free too...so what made me pick this tiny 8260 which comes with a higher rate plan? 1)the look. ok, so i am a fashion victim! honestly, the sleekness and the weight of the phone..(all 3.4 oz of it!!) are its best features...really, i slip it in my levi's 501s and you can't even see it there...my swiss army knife is bulkier! 2)features. so it's NOT the most feature packed phone and it isn't a GSM world phone (which, if you live in a TDMA area like me, is pretty pointless to have..though you could have more ringtone and logo fun with GSMs than the TDMA phones). but frankly, for 200$ i have a very efficient calendar (if it works for an mba student/articling student, it's pretty heavy duty...), the text messaging is not bad at all, though i COULD ask for easier keys..., and the various profiles are great. especially as warning signs of who's on your line...*g* 3)reception. i don't know, maybe i am such a downtown person, but reception on this phone with its hidden antenna is very clear...even on low battery and electric wiring areas and 6 discmans around you... 4)ringtone/logo fun. found a great site with lots of ringtones and logos to download...so now i have different group banners! the 40 odd ringtone space the phone has is awesome for me to replace some of the godawful nokia sounds....*shudders at 'fly' nad 'mosquito'* now i just have to figure out how to replace the operator logo.... CONS: 1)size: so it makes me look good in levi's! unfortunately, i have a fear of losing it or breaking it if it is not physically attached to me by my belt clip... 2)keys: they are stiff. and a pain to msg with. 3)the on/off button. I HATE THAT THING!!! i have problems turning it on in the dark...especially when i am half awake and i desperately need to use it...... overall, the 8260 is a cool phone...certainly low radiation ratings HAVE to say something..and it's CHEAP! Recommended: Yes 89328 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features size battery weak alerts questionable internal antenna Full Review My previous Phones: Motorola Flip and many other Analogs, Nokia 918, Nokia 5100 Series, Nokia 6100 series, Samsung 8500 series, Motorola TDMA Timeport. Have also used the Nokia 7160 and others. Current Service Provider: Ameritech (SBC/Cingular) in the Detroit area. THE GOOD: Size: Nice and small, easy to fit in pocket with no protruding antenna. Memory: Plenty of space for numbers and caller groups (different rings for different people) are nice. Battery Life: Very Good overall (I average 3 days standby), better than the Li-Ion Main Battery on the TDMA Startac. Clock/Calender/Games: Nice features. Text Messages: Receive and Send, can download ring tones. Convenient for sending quick messages to friends. Inputs: Easy to use standard Nokia car cord input. Handsfree jack included. Quality: The housing seems to have a more solid feel than that of the Startac. The startac housing flexes easily when bent, and cracks when dropped from only a short distance, especially around the antenna. NOT SO GOOD: Size: No as easy to hold as Startac (a minor complaint, hey its a small phone!) Memory: Cannot store multiple numbers under name (like Samsung 3500/8500) Power Button: Awkward placement, should have used END button instead. Computer Sync: Cannot sync phonebook/calender with Computer (like Nokia 7160) Volumes: Very week earphone volume, ringer volume and vibrate strength. (compared to similar sized phones). Calender: Desperately needs a "month view" option, searching day by day is tedious. Also, T9 is not active in Calender mode, only text message mode. Inputs: Included handsfree is cheap, port is only compatible with certain handsfree earpieces. Antenna: Questionable performance from this internal antenna compared with other models with external antenna in same coverage areas. ***CONCLUSION**** If you are comparing the features of the 8260 to the Startac, the Nokia wins hands down. The TDMA startac is an old design that performs well but lacks many important features. As long as your coverage is good, I see no reason to choose the startac over the 8260. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): None (Dealer) 89327 2000/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use non obtrusive antenna long battery life vibrating ringer size below average reception dust getting into the screen The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to all my friends. The one quirk is its below average reception. I highly recommend it because of its miniscule size and weight. Full Review The first thing everybody notices about this phone is its miniature size. Now and days cellular phones are getting smaller and smaller. I've talked to many people that are skeptical of the phone being too small. Well, that is what I absolutely LOVE about this phone! I tend to carry my phone everywhere I go, and usually leave it in my front pocket. It's so small and light that I usually forget its even there. And because I can hold it in my pocket I'll never misplace it by holding a big bulky phone that usually gets in the way. Battery life is above average. I only need to recharge after a couple of days or couple hour phone conversations. Because the phone has an internal antenna there's nothing to break (which has happened with my Motorola flip phone) when carrying it in my pocket. Although I like this phone a lot, it does have a couple of flaws that I hope they fix with their next phone. Things this phone can improve on: - Because of the internal antenna, reception indoors is below average. - Because I carry the phone in my pocket, dust seems to creep inside the phone on the screen which makes it very unattractive. - No web interface. Overall I really recommend this phone to anyone. You can usually get a good deal on this phone with buying a year's worth of service. I got a really great deal from Amazon.com last year. Be on the look out for this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89326 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 functions nokia quality size buttons don t have any bounce Full Review I recently switched from my Nokia 6190 to an Ericcson T28 that I just had to have because of its compact size. Well my wonderful employer decided that they wanted to pay my cell bill however I would have to switch to the company carrier. They also said that they would get me a Nokia 6160. Errrr... I was a little upset that I would have to get a bigger phone; after all they're supposed to get smaller not bigger. After numerous attempts to keep my Ericsson with the new carriers I finally caved to the pressure, but with a little twist. I visited the Nokia website and discovered the 8260. So I paid the extra $50 and upgraded from my 6160. I've only had the phone a short time and I must say that I'm very impressed. It has all the features of my old 6190 that I had over a year. It's small, it vibrates, it has no antenna, and it has a calendar. It's great! The only gripe that I can even think of is that the keys are a little lifeless. They don't have any bounce to them. Other then that I would recommend this phone to everyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89325 2000/9/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery life vibrates tiny tiny not many accessories available yet fragile Full Review I like most of you am a tech junkie.. Half of my bi-weekly pay check goes to advance my collection of high tech gadgets and gizmos. I am only 19 and this is already my 5th cell phone. I've been through Sprint twice, Bell Atlantic twice, and now I'm on Cellular One for the second time. The biggest reason I'm with cellular one was because I now work with them, as I did with the other companies that have provided my service. So I know my way around the cellular arena. I could have had any phone I wanted, and I chose the Nokia 8260. I've now had it for a month and cannot get enough of it, I'm actually on my second one. I dropped the first one and didnt have a case on it, I corrected that this time. Anyway, I love this little phone. I get all my email sent directly to me along with news, weather etc. Because I work for Cell One the option to send text messages to other phones is great because I'm sending messages to my customers and my colleagues on a daily basis. The only time I have trouble with reception is when I'm in the courtyard at school surrounded by 3 story cement walls, otherwise the reception is great. When I bought my phone it was either the Nokia or the Motorola Timeport, I was leaning toward the timeport on its looks. After trying them both out, I had to get the nokia for its functionality and I advise anyone in the market to do the same. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89324 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life size sound quality style looks due to size buttons can be hard to push The Bottom LineVery pleased with this phone. Sleek, stylish and lightweight. Well worth upgrading to if you have a lower model like the 6160... Full Review The minute I saw this phone, I knew I had to upgrade my 6160. This phone makes that model look like a tank. I purchased the carbon grey model, but it also comes in blue and red(my wife has this one). The phone is very sharp looking and incredibly small(make sure you remember where you put it, or you may not find it) and very easy to use. Features include email, text messaging, and voicemail. You can also set up profiles, such as normal, car, and meeting, so you dont have to change ringing options and messaging options when you enter/leave a meeting. The phone also vibrates when receiving a message or call if you choose. I am very happy with this phone thus far and have only found one small problem with it. Due to the small size, you will occasionally press the wrong number due to the small size of the buttons. Cost It can be expensive if purchasing the phone without activation ($199), but I was lucky enough to receive Nokia phone and package upgrade rebates which brought my price down to a very manageable $79 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $199 89323 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life it has a small compact design for easy portability reception is sometimes a bit less than perfect The Bottom LineThis phone is simply phenomenal. Its got so many features that you can change to accent your own personality. And easy to just keep in your pocket without bulging. Full Review I am always receiving compliments on my Nokia 8260. It is cute enough for all of the girls to want, and cool enough for any guy to try to show off to all of those same girls. The 8860 is great to carry around because of its light weight, and compact design. It is totally jam-packed full of features. From a calculator, to a personal assistant, to all kinds of downloadable stuff, this thing has everything but the kitchen sink (almost literally). You can basically program your whole schedule into the personal assistant, and have it remind you do anything. This phone was the one featured in the blockbuster hit movie "Charlies Angels" last summer. The 8260 is basically a more compact version of Nokia's more elderly, but still popular 5100 series phones. It still has the games, the large array of tones, and even its overall personality. It has almost got just as many personalizeable features as well. You can find faceplates for this phone at almost any cellular stand in about every local mall. Although these faceplates are easy to buy, this doesn't exactly say much for their ease of installation, but that's a whole different story. However, I still think this one will, without question, outrank any other phone that Nokia will produce for a year or two. Even the wallet draining 8860, which is priced just right at about $400 when buying outright. I had an 8860 for about 3 months, and couldn't even deal with it after about a week. If you are trying to decide between any other phone, take a close look at the 8260, you will certainly get a good bang for your buck!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89322 2001/7/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 cool image great features ultra portable no internet or java support may be too small for some The Bottom LineA great cellphone if you value portability and can deal with the tiny buttons. Full Review I replaced my 5190 with this phone about 6 months ago and I'm very pleased. At first this phone was so small I could hardly hold it...but with time I've gotten used to it and now my previous 5190 (small as that was) seems like a brick :-) Just because this unit is small does not mean it compromises on features. It has all of the features of the 5190 and then some. The keypad is very tiny and at times can be hard to use. The reception seems good, similar to or better than a larger cellphone. Infact, with my 5190 I was not able to recieve or make calls inside my home...with this phone I can very clearly. The unit also has a headphone jack at the side and comes with a headphone/mic (for hands free operation). The unit does not have Java software like some newer phones so it cannot connect to a PC/Notebook or a Palm etc. to sync information etc. It also does not have support for a browser so you cannot surf the wireless web. My service with AT&T does include email support though. Overall this is a great phone and I recommend it. It costs $200 but service rebates from AT&T reduce the cost. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89321 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small cute many functions availablebattery life is amazing very expensive to fix if broken The Bottom Linesmall, compact, stylish, durable, amazing battery life, many useful functions and many for you to discover and play with later on when you have time. Full Review i've gone through many cell phones and am exploring other new phones for fun but by far, this has been my favorite phone. the only one tempting me away would be a motorola v60 but i'm not fond of antennas poking at me. it's a shame they stopped making the red and blue models. this phone has everything i could need, the earbud that at&t gave me for free with push button answer/hang up makes it much better to drive with....you never realize what a distraction holding a phone while driving is until you start using a headset. luckily for me, the phone was free, i opened 2 new lines so 2 new nokia 8260s, red and blue. mine works wonderfully, i change ringtones when i want, set my profiles for silent when i'm in a meeting or a show, one for headset, etc. the battery life is the longest of any phone i've used. it does run out eventually but it lasts for quite a while. it's small enough to fit anywhere, perfect fit for a small purse. it's a bit heavier than the 8290, i have an 8290 as well with voicestream and it feels so flimsy and breakable. the 8260 has some wight to it so you won't feel like you can squeeze and crush it like a soda can. but the 8260 is not free from the fragileness. i've dropped my phone quite a bit and it's lasted this far, invest in a case if you want, most places give out free leather cases but they add bulk to the phone. my mother dropped the red 8260 i gave her and either stepped on it or rolled over it with her car. and the screen was smashed as was the internal. it would costs over $100 to fix, quite a cost considering the phone was free so we replaced it with an old ericsson. with this model, you can't change faceplates as is so popular with nokia phones but that may be a good thing. once you change the plates on other phones, your warranty is void. the blue and red models are quite cute as they are. there are many accessories available for cell phones that can be used on the 8260, you'll find them mostly in chinatowns and asian markets since cell phones are so ubiquitous in asia and it's trickled over to the asian american population here. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89320 2000/7/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent technology lightweight eye catcher small face gets scratched The Bottom LineThe Nokia 8260 IS the latest technology - it's the right step in the right direction for portable phone makers. Full Review Nifty opinion title, huh... This phone is actually excellent. I came from a GTE model flip-down phone, which was the smallest phone at the time I got it, so I'm used to smaller phones. Although, even with that phone, I wanted something smaller, so that it wouldn't bulge out of my pants pocket when I walked around. In came the Nokia 8260 (and the Charlie's Angels movie) - and I was ready to buy this phone. It's excellent! The reception is as good as any phone I've been on, most stores give you an ear-piece (that actually works well with the phone), it's as small as most pagers (so it doesn't annoy you when you carry it), it's got nifty gadgets to use (such as an alarm, a calendar, 250 slots for name and # storage, different profile settings, and text messaging - which will be something we will use more and more here in the States), and finally the battery will last until you die (okay, I'm joking, but it will last a long time). If you can find a deal for this phone, I would definitely recommend it, because then everyone will ask, "Wow, is this phone good? I've been wanting to buy it, but I don't have the money." And then you can tell him or her (or whoever) that you got it for about 1/3 of the retail price because you got a HOOK-UP! Now the cons list for this phone is short, but includes an antenna that is inside the phone, which means it's right next to your head when you talk on it. That's why I mentioned the ear-piece before, because it does work well, and if you care about what MIGHT or COULD happen with extreme use of a cellular (or digital) phone, then you'll want to know that. Also, the face gets scratched up easily, but that's okay, because it just shows that you use it - and even if you want to replace it, it's only like 20 bucks at the mall. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89319 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 small good user interface light battery life decent reception no browser no connectivity no ir build quality The Bottom LineIt's a good basic product, but beware of quality problems. Full Review I have had this phone for about six months now; I got it basically for free after my company cell phone went away (along with my company). My experience with this phone has been pretty positive, but there are some shortcomings. It is a great basic phone and works great (usually). The connection quality is consistently good, the menu interface is good, the battery life is outstanding (I could use it for 5-6 days between charges), and the form factor is perfect even with the cheapo leather case that came with my package. It's not good if you want connectivity. There is no browser, no WAP, no bluetooth, no IR, no GRPS, etc etc etc. You can't synchronize your phone book with your PC (or anything else for that matter). The good news is that the user interface for managing your phone lists and other parameters is excellent. It even has a built in calculator, video games (such as they are), and calendar (of course, without PC synchronization). This brings me to the quality problems. After one month, without cause, the LCD display died. The phone continued to operate, but without the LCD, it's VERY difficult to use. The place that sold me the phone replaced the display for $25, but I could have sent it back to Nokia for a repair (if I wanted to wait two weeks). I have heard this complaint repeatedly from Nokia customers, so this is NOT an isolated problem. Later, I *lightly* bumped it against a rail, and completely cracked the cheap plastic window in front of the LCD panel. Finally, for no good reason, the phone has turned into a rattle when you shake it. I can't find the source of the noise, but it's there somewhere; I'm just waiting for whatever-is-loose to short out something important. In all, it's a good basic phone for 95% of the mobile users out there. I have been pretty happy with it, but buy it knowing that it's made cheap. Recommended: Yes 89318 2000/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception cool extras lots of features long lasting battery too small to handle The Bottom LineGreat phone that is worth every penny until better web access phones arrive. Full Review This is a great phone with lots of little extras. I have had no problems with the phone and have been using it for over 6 months now. It sounds great, looks great and is very inexpensive if purchased online. It comes with a earpiece which I highly recommend using due to the very small size of the phone. When you first use this phone you wont be use to its small size. It makes you feel the need to shout. It does have the ability to receive email but replying is a whole other task. It takes about 5 minutes to write one sentence on this phone because the keys are so small. It does not browse the web, but for now that is good considering that every web phone I have used have been terrible products so far. I love the ringers that you can add to the phone. I downloaded Aha, Devo, Depeche Mode and a few other favorite groups of mine. It's a cool little extra feature. It of course also gives you the opportunity to add pictures; something I have yet to experiment with. At any rate, its a great phone for the money. I do recommend ONLY buying this online since retailers charge much more for the same phone. I bought mine at buy.com for only $80 as opposed to all the retailers which have the same phone for $200. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 89317 2000/5/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 features weight size ringtones no composer size for big people The Bottom LineIt has excellent features and is a SUPERB All round phone... It would have received 5 if it was a tiny bit bigger! Cool Phone Full Review The nokia 8210 (UK), 8260 (US) is a great phone... It has a number of superb features such as voice dialing, vibrating alert, 35 + (5 RECEIVED)Ringtones, it has 4 good games, a calendar calculator as well as a very good IR (infared) system. It is a very well designed and all round phone in general with changable covers, good battery life, good features. It is a great phone, when you are in a call it sounds superb very, very clear!! Well desiged phone and it does not even have a "VISABLE" antenna! A brilliant all round phone 10/10, But really for people with larger hands you could have trouble with the buttons, very durable phone... Everyone knows what its like to drop a phone and it break but this is not really a problem for this phone... I must have dropped it loads of times (me=slippery hands LOL :-) ) and it still works fine! Oh yeah it comes with 10 picture messages and you can receive operator logos, 5 ringtones, you have group graphics and you can have a different ringtone for every person u know upto 40!! This phone is very stylish, light and small however for larger people this could be one of the worst phones in the world however for the average person summed up in one word...... SUPERB! Amazing phone! WOW....... Well done NOKIA! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 89316 2000/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight small too small Full Review I recently bought the Nokia 8260 thru AT&T to replace another digital phone that was dying by degree. The differences between my old phone and the Nokia are amazing. My old phone weighs almost twice as much as the Nokia and doesn't offer half of the features that the Nokia 8260 does including 5 ringtones that can be "personalized" (I have the James Bond theme on mine). The phone's light weight and fairly easy to use once you get a hang of its menu. The ability to recieve text messages is nice but can add up depending on your cellular provider. My only problem is getting use to talking into an item the size of a pack of cigarettes.The volume needs to be amped up a little to make conversations a little easier. Everything else so far has been great. By the way, shop around for this phone as that there are many different cellular providers offering this phone. I paid less than $50 for my phone at the time of this writing. Nokia and AT&T we're offering also sorts of rebates so be aware. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 89315 2000/11/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 small very bad reception Full Review Nokia 8260 is probably the worst cellphone I ever use. There is no doubt about its coolness. It is small and it has all the functions like all other Nokia phone does. However, after using it for a while, I really want to change back to Nokia6160 because its bad reception. Nokia 8260 has the anntena inside the phone and it is a very big problem somehow. I can't even get any reception when I walk into a mall. I am not sure if that only happens in Toronto but if you are looking for a cellphone that will do your job anytime anywhere, get somethingelse like Nokia6160. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 89314 2000/3/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks great great features great battery life buttons too small sometimes The Bottom LineI highly recommend it. It is a great phone that looks great, performs great and will hardly ever cut you off in the middle of a call. Full Review I first saw the phone when I was watching the super bowl. It was on a Cingular Wireless commercial and was advertised for only $99.99. I thought the price was very intriguing for such a good looking, new, phone. I got the phone, and immediatly started calling people on it. The first thing that I realized was that I the reception was excellent. My mom also has a Nokia phone and it doesn't really perform well in our suburban area. The 8260 did very well. Also i could speak really softly and the people on the other end would hear me loud and clear. The battery life is great though. I charge it up nightly and the battery life can stay at four "blocks" (full amount) for the entire day and half of the next (if i turn it off at night). However, the 8260 is a very small phone and can have some problems. The buttons are small and it is hard to play snake on them sometimes. Yes, I am a fan of snake. The durabilty is OK. The screen is easily scratched but I put it through some bad situations and it has held up fairly well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89313 2000/10/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 light easy to use small a bit delicate Full Review After changing phones almost every contract cycle, I have finally happened on one that does virtually everything I could ask. It has a 250 slot phone book, features too numerous to mention, and literally disappears in your pocket. My wife and I each have one and love them. I've heard complaints about quality and standby time. As far as quality goes; if you want a 3 ounce phone, you can't expect it to be built like a tank. I'm sure many parts were changed to lightweight and thin plastics as a weight savings. Besides, you're not playing catch with it! As regards battery life; with moderate on air usage we get at least 5-6 full days of standby. With no usage I'm sure it would be the eight Nokia claims is possible. If you want small, light and state of the art this is the phone to go with. Of course, your satisfaction with it will depend to a great extent on the carrier you choose. Don't be sucked in by huge amounts of minutes, stick with the big boys. The start ups have to give it away to get going, but rarely have the infrastructure in place. Good luck> Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140.00 89312 2000/11/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality hard to find a ring that i liked Full Review If you're looking for a cell phone to purchase this is the phone for you. I bought this phone a month ago and let me tell you it is great. The sound quality far surpasses other digital phones. I have tried many other phones through Verizon Wireless and they didn't even come close to the Nokia 8260. The only other phone the same sound quality is the Motorola Startac 7797. On the Nokia 8260 there are many more advantages such as the calender with alarm and the one that I've found most useful is that I can input 250 names with phone numbers and email addresses. The other great thing is that if I become bored hey I've got a couple of great games to play. The only thing that I didn't like about the phone is that amongst it's multiple rings it was hard for me to find one that I liked. Granted, that's all personal preference. Overall I think it's a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89311 2000/3/30 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 looks cool bad reception way too small calendargames are a joke The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone unless you are tiny like the phone. Full Review I recently got this phone when the store had a special on it for $99. To be honest, the size of it was one of it's selling points. I was tired of using phones that didn't fit in my pockets well or were too big and clumsy to use. I was also sold by the fact that it had an internal antenna (one less thing to break). However, as I started using the phone I realized that I made a mistake. The phone is way too small for any normal sized person to use. The power button is so tiny that you have to use you fingernails to turn it on, even then sometimes you miss. Once you get the phone on, the numbers are pretty small to dial as well. Worst of all though, is actually using the phone. Because the microphone is relatively far from your mouth people are always saying to me, "I can hardly hear you." The Internal Antenna was a great idea, but you compromise you reception with it. If you ask the store clerks about it, they will tell you reception is fine, but they are wrong and they lie. Afterall, they're salespeople. The calendar and games on it are completely a joke. Don't even waste your time reading the manual about or trying to play with it. The only people that should buy this phone are really really small people. I have returned the phone and am a lot happier with a real sized phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 89310 2000/12/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 i cant think of any cheap terrible quality everyone has one flimsy awful reception no changeable color covers The Bottom LineIn my opinion, this is the most horrible mobile phone that you can get on the market. Once people reailze these phones are defective, they will stop selling. Full Review I have gone through 11 different Nokia 8260 phones in the past year. From being defective, to dropping the phone onto a carpeted surface and breaking it, I have had 11 different 8260's Let me tell you this was the most horrible phone that i have ever owned. Every single one of these phones gave off a distinct hissing noise, which dramatically degraded the sound quality. This phone also had the most horrible reception i have ever experienced. It all started when i saw the new 8260 phone advertised in October of 2000. This was the newest, most sylish phone on the market because of its sleek looks and cool design. I liked it for about the first month days, and then the problems started. I called AT&T wireless to report a hissing noise that the phone was giving off, even when it wasn't in a call. It was so bad that it drowned the person out on the other line and made the phone impossible to use. AT&T told me they would ship me out a "new" phone. When the phone came, i discovered it was refurbished. I called back AT&T and asked them for a new one, and they said that the only thing they could offer me was a refurbished phone, and that there was basically no difference between the two. I reluctantly listened to them, and used my "new" phone for about a week. I discovered that this phone is doing the same exact think that my first phone was doing. i repeated the AT&T warranty exchange process 8 different times until i got fed up with it and took the problem to the manufacturer to see if they could actually help me with the situation. Nokia was very helpful and they sent me a brand new phone on my first call. the phone was good for about 4 weeks (a record), then it started to have the same exact problems as the previous phones had. I repeated the process with Nokia, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times i had the phone repaired instead of replaced. This proved insignifcant, as I still had the same exact problem. Nokia finally replaced the phone again, which worked for about 2 months this time without a significant problem. One day, i took the phone out to answer a call, and it fell onto a carpeted surface and the screen cracked in half. At this point, i was getting just a little frustrated with the framework and quality of the phone. I called Nokia up and sent the phone in once again to repair it, and once again received it back. Within a few days i was experiencing the SAME exact problems i was having with the previous phones. Finally, i called up Nokia and they finally sent me a brand new phone, and a brand new battery, in exchange for my defective equipment. I actually was pretty impressed. The phone only gave out a small amount of noise! It was a miracle. By the time i had the luxury of a working mobile phone, my service contract with AT&T happily ended! I switched my phone and provider to the 3390 gold with voicestream and i have crystal clear recpetion now. Never again will i become an AT&T wireless customer! I can now say 2 good things about this phone. It has great battery life, and is very portable. That does not help much if you want to actually TALK on the phone without static does it? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89309 2000/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 too many to list not as good in analog Full Review Such a cool phone. Small, great battery life (7 days standby) and all the bells and whistles of the other phones and more. 2 way email, alerts and tons more. Go to the website http://the-mobile.net Download software to make calendar, phonebook entries from your own computer instead of the keyboard of the 8260 Download custom Graphics and tunes. Send calendar and phone book and business card entries right to your phone or to anyone elses phone if you have their information. Want email alerts for weather, sports, horoscopes, stocks, news and more? MSN and Yahoo both have sites that do this and it works great. http://mobile.msn.com http://mobile.yahoo.com All these are free services! No charges whatsoever. Want to know 15 minutes before the Knick game starts? Set it up. Want to know when the Giants score each time? Set it up. If you don't like this phone you are not from this world:) I am in the Cellular Phone business and sell Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson phones for the most part. That is the reason it cost me nothing. I have had this phone for 7 months now and just threw away my 6162 to get another of these. This phone is NOT great in Analog service areas, but great in Digital service areas. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -0- 89308 2000/6/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life internal antenna small breaks often dust gets into screen The Bottom LineAs long as you have no problems getting it replaced, it is a good phone. I do believe you'll need to replace it every 4 months or so. Full Review I have had Sony, Qualcomm, and Nokia cell phones, and I have found that Nokia phones have had the longest talk times and battery life and are loaded with features. The 8260 follows that trend and is loaded with features. Unfortunately, like buying a camcorder, those extra features are not needed. For example, the phone comes with games. But when was the last time I've played it? This has only been a nifty feature when I was called in for jury duty. The calander and calculator, although good features, are rarely used. The calander is good and easy to use. The calculator is not. To find the appropriate symbol is cumbersome. The best feature this phone has is 2-way messaging. This allows to you e-mail any e-mail account (under 250 characters of writing) or telephone. The vibrating alert is also key to this phone. On the downside, I'm a guy and i keep my phone in my pocket. Although this has never happened to me on any other cell phone, the 8260 collects dust under the screen. The other problem I have had is that after about 4 months of working, the phone loses reception. My service provider is nice enough to replace the phone, but it is a headache. One final annoyance....the phone has a static sound to it. The sound is crystal clear at first, but after about 10 calls over 2 minutes, the sound is distorted and a really annoying tone develops. All in all, this is a great phone. However, those little inconveniences do bother me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89307 2000/9/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small unique price tag Full Review I would like to tell you about a great new phone that Nokia has put out. The 8260 is one of the most popular phones on the market right now. Its size and design make it so appealing. I am a wireless consultant, so I have had a chance to play around with this little phone. So small it could easily fit in a pocket or purse. It gets great reception, and is also a tri mode digital phone. It uses tdma technology, which is the same technology that At&t and Suncom use. It is very feature rich, and easy to use. Like other nokia's it has lots of melody rings and has games, but this newest nokia can do even more. It has the ability to send and receive emails, business cards, and several other new features. The 8260 comes with a free headset, and the price tag, although a little high, is well worth it for the wireless phone enthusiast. This phone is very unique and is a very hot item. I have sold several of these phones already, and expect them to really be strong in the wireless market. I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a new phone which is unique and loaded with lots of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 7774 Nokia 3200 89408 2005/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 look cool built well it s a nokia good reception none This phone use to be my main phone until I decided to get the Motorola V180. The phone is a very nice phone that works well and looks really awesome. It is great at reception. THe camera is a nice addition as well, and the color screen is nice and vivid. I also like the ability to make my own covers. Overall this is a great phone. 89407 2005/5/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 flashlight radio speakerphone battery lasts forever the cover is hard to snap on i love this phone! its cute, lightweight, has a voice recorder that i use a ton. The radio kinda sucks, but its cool when you feel like listenin but cant on a normal radio. the speakerphone is my favorite part of the phone. The keys are easy to get used to, i dont know what these people are complaining about. its convinient for text messaging, alot easier than some phones... I'd definatley recommend this phone to anyone who has the money to spend on it. 89406 2005/2/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight fm radio speaker phone battery life phone inserts i can t find any This phone is great. I have bought it twice and am getting ready to buy it for a third time. For the price you pay for the phone, I think it is great. You get a camera, voice recorder and speaker phone plus a flashlight!! The battery life could be better but I noticed other people have good reviews on their batteries so it may just be mine. It does not take long to get used to the buttons either. 89405 2004/10/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of features buttons hard to use It's a real nice phone with lots of extras but i found the buttons hard to use since there are 2 numbers on each button 89404 2004/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 camera its a nokia needs more features I have never been a big fan of Nokia. There are only certain phones I like of nokia. This one is not one of them. IT may have camera and all but its not worth it. Best to stick with another brand phone. 89403 2007/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good fm radio affordable love the torchlight function the package itself a little tacky could look better it's small, it's cheap and it has almost all of the features of its other counterparts when it comes to camera phones, when it was launched it was the first camera phone that was actually affordable for everyone instead of just a dream of a camera phone, it was my first camera phone. 89402 2000/3/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 fm radio durable camera flashlight speaker phone weird button configuration low megapixel camera blurry display not as sexy as newer phones The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for cell phone buyers that are in the market for an inexpensive, entry level phone with many neat features. Full Review This is an excellent entry level phone for individuals that do not want to spend a ton of money for a cell phone. Not only is this phone inexpensive, but it has many neat functions and abilities that phones of its time and price cannot touch. The first thing that I noticed about this phone when I first bought it that made it stand out in my eyes was the LED flashlight. At first I couldn't even figure out how to turn the light on and off, but after fiddling with it for awhile I figured it out. You simply press and hold the " * " key for 2-3 seconds to turn it on...and the same to turn it off. This one key on/off switch was very useful. I used it often when I drop things in the grass at night, drop my keys between the seats in movie theaters, or many other miscellaneous things I may need to do in the dark. Other features that make this phone way ahead of it's time when it was first introduced was the fact that it had a camera, a speaker phone, and an FM radio. But to be honest the camera was very low quality and so is the screen's display. The speaker phone is excellent and plenty loud. It is louder than most other cell phone's speaker phone that I have used before. The FM radio is a neat function, but you have to have the head phones plugged in to use it. It would be great if you could play the radio using the speaker phone...but I think I was told that the cord on the head phones is the actual antenna, hence the reason you need it plugged in for the radio to work. Lastly, this phone is the MOST DURABLE, TOUGH, and UNBREAKABLE phone I have ever owned. It has been through hell and back. I actually got deployed to Iraq and took this phone with me to use it as a phone book and alarm clock. Which reminds me...the Nokia charger that comes with this phone will charge the phone using U.S electrical current AND Iraq/Middle East's 220-240 volts! Back to the point...the most important thing about electronics, in my opinion, is their durability. A super cool gadget with all the bells and whistles is useless if cannot last a little beating. This phone can take over 100 drops and keep on ticking. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89401 2000/9/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 small sizecalender with reminder option features are great soft plastic case damages easily poor photos not the quality of my old nokia The Bottom LineI would not buy this phone again, I initially wanted a flip phones until I saw this one with the camera,wish I hadn't changed my mind. Full Review I got this phone 6 months ago because of all the features. I had fun playing with the new toy, bought an infrared gizmo so I could download the digital pictures to my PC. I was disappointed in the quality of the pictures. The clear plastic case (while a good idea) is a soft plastic and scratches easily, so after a while it starts looking bad. The color display is really nice and bright indoors or in the shade but you can't see it in bright outdoor light. This phone is probably better suited for teenage girls and not a working man. The rocker type buttons were hard to get used to and still not as easy to use as individual buttons would be. The size is great, as I can carry it in my shirt pocket and leave it on vibrate in the noisy shop and be able to get my calls. Also the loud speaker feature is a neat feature when I'm talking to one of the kids and my wife and I can both talk and listen, or rather she can talk and I can hear both sides of the conversation (I'll pay for that statement if she reads this). The calender is also a nice feature as I put all my appointments and reminders in it with the alarm feature on to remind me. The phone volume control is impossible to use when you're talking to someone. The phone has a automatic volume control but to me it doesn't work all that great, I would rather have a volume up/down control on the side so I didn't have to say hold on a minute, look at the phone to turn the volume up/down. The flashlight I've used a few times when I walked into a dark room and needed to find a light switch, so I would say the flashlight is a neat feature. I also use the FM radio feature in the shop area where its too noisy to listen to a regular radio. Most phones now probably have all these features and if could do it over again I would opt for a flip phone with the few features I use and forget all the bells and whistles. If you want a neat stylish little phone that has a lot of glitter this is probably the phone for you but if you are a blue collar type worker you probably oughta think twice before getting this one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89400 2000/7/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool design games customizable camera radio sm incl ok battery odd key layout memory no mp3 The Bottom LineIt's Trendy, yet Functional. It's Feature Packed, yet performs where it counts. Full Review This is one of the most feature/value packed phones available. This packs a punch with a color screen, camera, flashlight, printable "faceplates" (inserts), FM Radio, Included Headset, Polyphonic Ringtones, Java Game Support and much much more. Let's break it down.. What I wanted and how I decided on this over other similarly priced models This is my first cellular phone and I basically wanted a phone with good reviews, a brand name, and game capabilities. Though slightly more expensive, I compared this phone with the Nokia 3300 wich plays Mp3's. I ultimately decided to go with this one in the AT T store after feeling like a space alien talking on the 3300, but slightly lust after the MP3 capability. Bottom Line, the 3200 was cheaper and felt more like a phone than a game boy. Key Features and Descriptions -GSM capable phone, basically I believe this means you can get all digital service (though reviews are love or hate) -Color Display (4,096 colors 128x128 pixels), Color can make any phone 100% better, the color isn't the richest around but i have no complaints! -Camera (352 x 288 resolution), It's cool to snap a photo of your contacts and have it pop up when they call or use pictures to customize phone (see below) -Instant Message Support (AIM and ICQ maybe others) I haven't used this feauture, but if it is cost efficient it is very nice to have! It is hard to input text though -FM Radio (w/ incl. headset) you must use the headset as an antenna, but you can also play radio over speaker and it can be soft or very loud. a bit sporadic channel changing if you move headset -Flashlight, VERY bright and I have never seen a feature like this on a cell phone. Good for losing your keys or power outage. First day I had my phone my power went out and it came in very handy. -AIM compatibility, you can set your IM's to go directly to your phone whenever not signed onto aol instant messenger. (AT T free to recieve txt messages) -TXT Message Compatibility, Send and recieve -E-mail compatibility, haven't used but it sounds cool!! -MMS compatibility, Multi-Media Messages I believe are the thing of the cell phone future! Allows you to send picture messages!! -Speed Dialing (haven't set it up yet) -Downloadable Ringtones, Background Images, ScreenSavers, and Java Games. See Customizability Ingeniously Original, Customize it your way! -Original to Nokia, Phone has a clear case wich allows you to use three included pre printed holographic inserts to jazz up your phones looks. You can easily download the Nokia pc Suite to create your own faceplate inserts and print onto included blank sheets. =) -Customize Menu Color Scheme, Screen Background, Screen Saver, even Text MEssages have a few black and white picture inserts to jazz it up. You can always download more images for your background from AT T or Nokia.com -Downloadable Polyphonic Ringtones, they sound much better than the cheezy monophonic I hear all the time. You can get them almost anywhere including AT T, Nokia.com, or Zingy.com -Downloadable Java Mobile Games, What does that mean? Better games! They have some awesome games available for this game; tetrist, pac-man, bowling, Mah-Jong, Solitaire, Space Invaders and less traditional ones like Bejeweled. Phone comes with Virtual Me (a create your own character dance dance revolution type game), Bounce (a challenging, get the ball here without hitting that game), and a Blacjack Trial. If you are a teen like me and welcome change on a whim, you will love this phone! You can change the color, background picture, Ringtone, or even record your own ringtone!! Complaints..few My first battery had to be swapped out because it was defective, but i really think that the shady AT T guy just gave me a bad one when he set up my phone. With replaced battery it seems ok. I charged last night and used the radio for almost an hour, played some games, talked on the phone for about 20 minutes, and left it on standby all night and have only lost one of 7 battery links. Plastic case may or may not hold up, we'll see. The Keypad layout is different and takes a few calls to get use to, but its fine. The memory is only a megabyte so I suggest for serious gamers and ringtone downloaders to opt for a cable on ebay and store some ill-used on your computer for later. If not, you might find yourself deleting that first ringtone you paid 2.00 for to make room for the latest American Idol hit! hehe Complete specs can be found http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/3200/1,2803,feat:1,00.html The Bottom line is, you're getting a great phone with practically all the features/extras you would want and need without sacrificing the actual phone part! Why wait? Get it now! I paid only 119.99 for the Go Phone plan through AT T Wireless. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89399 2004/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 features galore excellent battery life odd button layout takes getting used to The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a budget phone with all the bells and whistles you want, need, or never even knew existed, this one's for you... Full Review In the Beginning... The last time I bought a Nokia mobile phone was in 1997. It was my first mobile ever, it was analogue, and it looked kind of like a small, black house-brick. It did not have a camera, an FM radio or a flashlight. Neither did it have a colour screen, games or polyphonic ring tones. It did have "WAP" capability, in the sense that "WAP" was the sound it made when used to successfully land a blow in hand to hand combat. In this capacity, it was far superior to it's more modern couterparts, such as the Nokia 3200, which, while it does have all that other stuff I mentioned, would be unsuited for use as a defensive weapon in anything but the most minor of skirmishes. Where Have All the Buttons Gone? The first thing I noticed about the 3200 was the buttons. There were somewhat fewer than one would expect to see on a mobile phone. On closer inspection, it became apparent that the numbers, star and hash keys were being shared, two characters per button, ie. 1 and 4 are on the same button, as are 2 and 5, 7 and *, etc. Pressing the top of a button will produce the character printed on its upper section and vice-versa. This does not work quite as well as the more traditional "button per character" layout... care must be exercised when entering a number or writing an SMS, as the buttons are quite small. You do get used to it, however, and the button layout does have aesthetic appeal. Any Colour You Like As Long As It's... Anything And let's face it, when the Nokia design team came up with the spec sheet for this phone, "Aesthetically Pleasing" would have been at the top of the list. So the 3200 has been given a clear plastic shell, which looks cool. But wait, lift off the front and back covers, and you can slide in one of several sets of paper "cover designs" supplied with the phone, which looks really cool. Or if you want to explore realms of coolness previously unheard of, use the provided templates to create your OWN cover designs! This kind of customisability will no doubt be especially appealing to the younger demographic this phone is clearly aimed at, and which I can, sadly, no longer claim to be part of. Although I can't be arsed making my own cover designs, the ones provided with the phone are kind of "pseudo holographic", look pretty good, and will do me (for now, at least). Features, Features, Everywhere The next thing on the designers' list must have been "Fun, Cool Features", as the 3200 is loaded with them. Let's start with the most obvious one - the camera. Baby, the Camera Loves You The 3200's camera feature is OK. Probably what you would expect from a phone in this (lowish) price range I guess. The resolution is a reasonable 352x288 pixels. When pressing the button to take a photo, there is about half a second of delay time before the frame is captured, so photographing anything that isn't sitting relatively still could be tricky. When a picture is taken, it is stored in the "Images" folder in the 3200's "Gallery". From here, you can do neato things with it, such as insert text, insert another picture, add a frame, crop the image, zoom into it, and set the contrast level. Then when the picture looks just right, it can be used as wallpaper, sent to someone using MMS or e-mail, or even assigned to someone in your Phonebook, so that when they call, you will see their picture (or someone else's, if you feel so inclined) pop up on the screen. Untried, Untested... Short Disclaimer I haven't used any of the MMS features and probably never will, so I can't make a call on what they are like. Also, it is possible to transmit data between the phone and a PC using a special cable (sold separately) or by infra-red. I couldn't test these either, but I did try sending a picture from the phone to my email address, and can confirm that this works nicely... which leads us into the next feature, WAP. WAP! POW! Holy Wireless Internet, Batman This phone is able to use either EDGE or GPRS for WAP connectivity. The XHTML browser provided works well, looks good and is not hard to use. Now, if you have never used WAP before, well... you haven't missed much. About the only time I use it is when I want to know the footy scores and there is no TV or radio around, otherwise I find it isn't really worth the effort. Especially when the telco charges 2.2 cents/KB! But if you want or need WAP, this phone does the job just fine. The Price of Cool Having said that, one thing you may want to use WAP for is to download stuff to make your phone look and sound cooler. I suppose it will vary from telco to telco, but mine (Optus, Australia) sent me nice glossy brochures full of interesting crap to download. Want "Channel V" wallpaper? You got it bro, that'll be $2.95. Fancy AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as a polyphonic ringtone? No problem, $4.50 and it's yours. Oh yes, you can have all this good gear, but be prepared to wear the cost. And in case you think you can get away without downloading any of this stuff, think again. The ringtones and images supplied with the phone are uninspiring, to say the least, and could never be construed as cool. So if you want to get invited to all the good parties, and don't want your friends laughing at you behind your back, you better get some o' the good stuff, buddy. Who Got Game The other thing that you can, and should, download, is a game or two. I have downloaded only one, a motorcycle racing game called "Moto GP". It cost about $6.00, and is not too bad, a bit better than the games provided with the phone anyway. For the record, they are "Nature Park", which is similar in concept to the old Sega Megadrive game "Columns", "Virtual Me" which I haven't really got into yet 'cos it looks pretty naff, and "Bounce" which is a platform game in which you are a ball trying to negotiate various hazards to get through to the next level. The 3200's buttons are not particularly well suited for game control, but the games are all full colour, look very good, and are light years ahead of "Snake". Just For the Record There is a voice recorder included which you can use to record an audio file into the Gallery. I tried recording my voice, and the results were quite good. Each audio file can be about a minute long, and if you wish, you can use this file as your ringtone. I thought I would be super cool and record some cool music using the voice recorder, which I would then set as my ringtone, in the hope that someone would notice how cool it was and invite me to a cool party. Sadly this did not work well. When I played back the file it sounded like it was being played underwater, and not at all cool. The frequency response outside the range of the average human voice is very poor, but it is, after all, a voice recorder, so that's fair enough I suppose. Making Waves The 3200 also provides an FM radio which works very well. There is an earphone supplied (looks very similar to the hands-free kit, also supplied) which plugs into the large socket at the bottom of the phone. This provides mono radio only, stereo headphones can be purchased separately. Unfortunately there is no standard 3.5mm headphone socket provided, which I am sure is merely an oversight on the part of the designers, and was never intended to force us to buy official Nokia brand headphones... Yeah, anyway, the radio can be played through the phone's loudspeaker as well, although the earphone must still be plugged in. The reason for this is that the earphone wires also function as the radio's antenna. The sound quality through the loudspeaker is fine, quite listenable. Lightening Up Finally, there is a flashlight in the bottom of the phone, consisting of two white LEDs. This feature did not impress me much at first, it seemed to be a pretty weak, gimmicky, useless thing to put in a phone. However, there have been several occasions where the 3200's flashlight has come in very handy indeed, so I'll have my crow well done with a side of 'taters please. As an example, I was recently travelling (as a passenger) in a car at night, and we were navigating using a street directory. The 3200's flashlight allowed us to do this without turning on the car's interior light, which would have been very irritating for the driver. Back to Basics As a phone, the 3200 works fine. It has no external aerial, but reception has never been a problem. Calls are nice and clear, and can be piped through to the loudspeaker if desired. Not much else to say really... funny how the primary function of a mobile phone is often the least important selling point these days. Power to the People It is worth mentioning that the battery supplied with the 3200 is excellent. For me it lasts anything from 5 to 7 days with light use. The "battery low" alarm is unobtrusive, and gives plenty of warning that the battery is due for a recharge. Seek and Ye Shall Find There are lots of other bibs and bobs lurking in the 3200's sizable (but easily navigable) menu system. Mostly standard mobile phone fare, such as a Calendar, Calculator, Profiles, etc. I can't think of anything you would expect to find in a mobile that is not in there somewhere. Cheap at Twice the Price The Nokia 3200 is likely to be especially popular with younger phone users, but should satisfy anyone who demands a phone with bucketloads of cool toys to play with. It's also quite cheap (mine was free, 'cos my telco loves me), offering a hell of a lot of bang for some pretty modest bucks. The Last Word After all these years I still miss the sheer physical presence of my ancient analogue Nokia battlephone... but the Nokia 3200 is a worthy, civilised descendant, and if you think it sounds like the goods, go ahead and get one. You won't be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89398 2005/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 camera tons of features well designed menu system radio keep having to re select dictionary in text messaging not the best display around The Bottom LineIf you want a versatile phone and having a camera and radio is important to you, you won't get much better than this. Full Review Firstly I'd like to thank for adding this to the database so promptly. Well, before you all start thinking I've come into money and could buy a shiny new phone (well 2 actually as I'll be reviewing another one soon as well), it's actually because the wife and I both got free upgrades recently. :-) So there. So Get On With The Review Already... The Nokia 3200 is a stylish little thing, not the smallest or the lightest on the market, but not all that far off either. Over the years Nokia is a brand I've come to trust as they always seem to produce user-friendly and most importantly reliable pieces of equipment. The 3200 is no exception (though obviously it hasn't had to withstand the test of time yet!). It isn't the most advanced phone on the market and probably in every area you can find a phone that's better in certain ways, but it's solid in every area and loaded with features. And if you've read that review - okay I admit it, I've taken to some of the features I previously classed as "gimmicky". I can't help it, I'm a victim of society... or something... One of the best things about this phone is that it sports one of the new breed of lithium batteries - this takes under 3 hours to fully charge and, unless you are using it really heavily, you probably won't need to charge it more than about once a week! This is a great improvement on every previous phone I've had. Speaking of features, one I found completely by accident the other day (not much of one for reading manuals, I'm afraid) is that you can actually use your phone as a searchlight - there's a small but fairly powerful light at the bottom of the screen you can access by holding down the * key. Speaking of keys, the keyboard is a little different from my old . The keys are all "double" keys - depending on whether you press the top or bottom of the key you'll get 1 or 4, for instance. This actually only took a couple of minutes to get used to, which surprised me - especially as I tend to not look at the phone at all when I'm using predictive text messaging. There are 3 preset covers you can use and changing these is very easy. You can even create your own covers, though I haven't actually done that as I like one of the preset ones. The display is crisp and the colour saturation reasonable, though I've seen better. The screen resolution is 352 x 288, which isn't bad (I remember my beloved old Atari ST with its 320x200 resolution and 16-colour display - and thinking it was wonderful... how things change), and the polyphonic ringtones are certainly better than the old, ear-splitting monophonic ones, though the MIDI files you can play on it only tend to be low-medium quality. Part of the reason for the graphics and sound not being quite as good as some other modern phones stems from the fact that it only has 1Mb memory - but this is going to be enough for most people. The menu system is your standard, simple menu with the nice option of using icons instead of text. It's an extremely user-friendly phone and if you leave it on a menu screen without selecting an option, information regarding that menu will pop up on the screen. Reception seems greatly improved over my old , although it's still not perfect - obviously this depends to a large extent on what service provider you're using. (I'm with T-Mobile - so there may be some slight differences with this phone if it's provided by a difference service provider - but essentially the functions will be the same so this review should be applicable no matter who you use.) I'm not going to go into great depth about every menu option as that would make the review ridiculously long, but I'll list all the menu tree as that'll give you a good idea of what this phone can do. Messages Submenus: Text Messages -Create Message -Inbox -Create SMS e-mail -Sent items -Archive -Templates -My Folders -Delete messages Multimedia msgs. -Create message -Outbox -Saved items Voice messages -Listen to voice messages Voice mailbox number Message Settings -Text messages -Multimedia messages - Other settings Service Commands ---------- Call Register Missed calls Received calls Dialled numbers Delete recent call lists -All -Missed -Received -Dialled Call duration -Last call duration -Received calls' duration -Dialled calls' duration -All calls' duration -Clear timers GPRS data counter -Data sent in last session -Data received in last session -All sent data -All received data -Clear counters GPRS connection timer -Duration of last session -Duration of all sessions Contacts Search Add contact Delete -One by one -Delete all Copy -From phone to SIM card -From SIM card to phone Settings -Memory in use -Contacts view -Memory status Speed dials Info numbers -Info -Services My numbers Caller groups -Family -VIP -Friends -Business Profiles -General -Silent -Meeting -Outdoor -Pager Tone settings -Incoming ringing alert -Ringing tone -Ringing volume -Vibrating alert -Message alert tone -Keypad tones -Warning tones -Alert for Display settings -Wallpaper -Colour schemes -Screen saver timeout -Display brightness -Menu view Time and date settings -Clock -Date -Auto-update of date & time Personal shortcuts -Right selection key -Select Go to options -Organise Go to options Connectivity -Infrared -GPRS Call settings -Call divert -Automatic volume control -Anykey answer -Automatic redial -Speed dialing -Call waiting -Summary after call -Send my caller identity Phone settings -Phone language -Automatic keyguard -Welcome note -Network selection -Help text activation -Start-up tone Enhancement settings -Headset -Text phone Security settings -PIN code request -Call barring service -Closed used group -Security level -Access codes Restore factory settings Gallery View Folders Add folder Delete folder Rename folder Usage rights list Gallery downloads -Graphic downloads -Tone downloads Media Camera -Standard photo-Portrait photo -Night mode -Self-timer Settings Radio Voice Recorder -Record -Recordings List -Replay list -Send Organiser Alarm Clock Calendar Calculator Applications Games -Select Game Game Downloads Memory Collection -Select application -App. Downloads -Memory Services Home Bookmarks -Various T-zones links and user-created bookmarks - obviously the default bookmarks will vary from network to network Download Links -Tone Downloads -Game downloads Service inbox -Connection settings -Appearance settings -Security settings -Service inbox settings Go to address Clear the cache Go to Create MMS Create message Alarm clock ************************* Whew, that took some time, let me tell you. There are a few tertiary menus but including those would be complete overkill... As you can see from the menu tree, everything can be fully customised, which is one of the things I like about the phone. Other things worth mentioning are: Good Things The camera is extremely easy to use and sending it to an email address via multimedia messaging is very quick (you can take a picture on your phone, send it, and receive it in your email inbox in literally less than a minute). The only thing you'll have to watch is how much your service provider is charging for MMS! Ou can choose between low, medium, and high jpg compression. The radio works well, with good reception and fidelity. Naturally it needs a headset before you can use it. There's a loudspeaker mode that means you can use it pretty much as a hands-free without having a hands-free kit. (However since I have one coming in the post - free again (innit great?!?) this isn't something I'm likely to use greatly. Though not quite as robust as the (which was practically bomb-proof), it's certainly not going to stop working if it just takes a little knock. Which, given my tendency to drop my phone every so often, is a good thing. Having 4-directional cursor keys is quite a boon (when was the last time you saw that expression in an eps review?!??), especially on text messages when you realise you've made a mistake earlier in the message. The better resolution (than older phones) means more lines of text can be on screen at a time, meaning more of a message / more menu options can be seen at once. The calculator has been slightly improved now, with functions like square and square root added. (Don't expect to work out cosines and suchlike though.) The GPRS is quite fast and reliable. As usual, it's decent content that's the problem... Bad Things Though there are plenty of links to download things, non of them worked. However this is not a fault of the phones, but T-Mobile do not support the feature on this phone at the moment (I'm sure they will in the future). However, if you feel an overwhelming need to waste your money on ring tones, wallpapers, and games, you can do so from the Nokia website. The games that actually come with the phone are sub-standard. (Almost definitely to get you to spend money downloading more.) There are only to games here, though "Bounce" is actually quite an addictive little platformer. You often have to end up re-selecting the dictionary in texting - if you finish a message on non-predictive, you seem to lose the option to use predictive on your next text until you reselect the dictionary. Summary This phone doesn't have the best display or sound in the world and it's not the best one for games or emailing. But it's solid in every area, and where it really shines is in the sheer number of options and features available. I'm extremely happy with it and though my wife's phone (which I'll be reviewing soon) is superior in some ways, it is also more limited in others. So if having a camera and radio on your phone sounds good, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Nokia 3200. If on the other hand having a better display (and being able to take 640 x 480 .jpgs) and more memory (5Mb) sounds more appealing to you, look out for my review of the excellent Morotola v300. Thanks for reading / rating, and thanks again to Howard for adding this to the Database for me. CaptainD - outdated today, but still one of the most durable phones ever made (virtually bomb-proof!) - a pretty good business phone, but not the best in the Nokia range. And a non-Nokia phone: - not bad, but not terrific. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADERecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7775 Nokia 6310i 89418 2004/9/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 interface compatibility with earlier models software production quality overall speaker I bought this product because I used to own the famous Nokia 6110 which had always served me well. After the 1st 6310 failed on me because of problems with the speaker. Since my experience with Nokia handsets until that time had been superb, I figured this was an anomaly. therefore I decided to buy another 6310. Regrettably, this phone has also failed me. This time it will switch itself off automatically. Having taken it for repair since, I regret to say that this just has not helped. as a result I have decided to stop buying Nokia handsets. Finally, I believe though the designs are 1st class, the production being outsourced has not held up. 89417 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 gsm tdma big no color screen I decided to get this phone since it is a gait phone, it can use both gsm and tdma networks. It is a great phone overall, it is excellent at rf performance. It is a bit on the big side though. If you want a phone that works almost everywhere, then this is your phone 89416 2003/1/7 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 software bluetooth blue screen outstanding voice quality gprs flexible unless you feel that paying less for more is a con couldn t find one The Bottom LineI recomend the Nokia 6310i for it's Price , practicality , power , diversity ,It's Communication quality , Information handling , it's flexibility, beauty, and of course Fun Full Review Well it's my second 6310 series phone in a long line of Nokia hardware that I have owned beginning with the 8110i. The first thing I checked was the Firmware info after unpacking the phone, this model Nokia 6310i (Firmware info: V5.10 NPL -1 (C) NMP) Came to me as a Christmas present last year and after I sat under the tree in amazement at its singular beauty, I switched the phone on and began to explore it's many flexible features (it has an easy to read manual) I did the usual basic first things, such as testing it's voice and call recording feature, and set up the GPRS account to get on my favorite WAP homepage on the internet. It was after I hooked it up to my computer that I discovered all of the flexible ways that the Nokia 6310i can handle a business person's demand for handling important information. The Nokia 6310i doesn't pretend to be a PDA, in fact it is just like a PDA only one that gives valuable communication benefits with high quality results. I easily synchronized to my agenda and contact list in Microsoft Outlook, it took up my address book , customer data base and calendar also. Soon after it began to alert me of agenda events that in a day to day busy life anyone could easily have forgotten. It was that quiet vibrating in my Pocket that reminded me that I was supposed to meet a business associate for a planned meeting before the close of the year 2002. The Nokia 6310i is easily customized to enhance a personal feature that should make each unit unique in every way. The Nokia PC suite software is the easy basic tool that helps every beginner to get the unit to do exactly what a user would require of it. There are more software packages available, such as a viewer program (Active Viewer) and a sentry program (Mobile Safe). The unit can be accessed with other soft products from the people that bring us O2 software (Oxygen Phone Manager II). Then there are function customizations that can be done with Java Program applets (.jar files) so the list of possible function modes are virtually endless. Some people may think the phone tends to be a little larger than small, but really it is much smaller than medium sized units, and it packs 100 times more battery life than the largest of units (17 days standby) I have the newest version with a production date of 11/2002; it is a blue screen model with the latest firmware version, and increased capacities for all the fun things like games, ring tones, SMS graphics, and Logos. I like to call it a mini communicator , not that I don't like the Nokia Communicator series ( I DO ) , It's just all the pocket space needed to carry the 9000 series keeps me from carrying one with me , so that's why I carry the 6310i instead. These are the 2 main reasons why I bought a Nokia 6310i: 1. it's cheaper than its bigger brothers, but has just about the same capabilities, and flexibilities as those big boys. 2.It's much more inexpensive and is in size compact equal to or less than all of the same genre of phones in it's family 7210 , 8210, 9110 etc. So if you want all the power of one of the big boy's , yet have the beauty , portability , and style of a small package , A Phone with flexibility ,A Phone with outstanding savings , than you should get a NOKIA 6310i , they're all new , and improved. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89415 2003/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy menu system sensibly sized java lightweight excellent battery life faceplate not replacable quiet ringer weak vibration no screensavers The Bottom LineIf you don't need 100% ringer loudness and don't often drop/scratch your phones, I would recommend this phone over any other. Full Review I'm going to review this phone as compared to a 3390/3390 Gold phone, which is the previous Nokia phone I owned. The 3390 served me well for over a year, but I felt it was time to move on. The 3390 is also the most common Nokia phone currently (besides perhaps the 51xx series...SO old), along with being the current giveaway phone from T-Mobile and Cingular, so I'm hoping most people will understand where I'm coming from. The 6310i is sexy. That's all there is to it. I haven't met a person who doesn't think so. I have the US version, which is sort of an off-silver color (different from the Lightning Silver european version). The problem with this look, however, is the faceplate is not replacable. This is most likely because it is targeted as a "business" phone more than the teenage-targeted 3390, but that doesn't cut it for me. I tend to drop my phone and nick it up, and one thing I loved about my 3390 is if I did so, I could buy a new faceplate for five bucks and it was good as new. My 6310i already has two scratches and they bug me a lot - a replacement housing from Nokia costs $35, which is not worth it to me. The 6310i is about an inch longer and a quarter inch thinner than a 3390, which makes it, quite possibly, the best sized phone ever. I can't stand the little 3"x2" phones like the 8290, there's nothing to hold on to, and I can't brace it between my head and shoulder. The 6310i is the perfect length at about 5" - small enough to keep in a pants pocket, but long enough to have something to hold on to, and not accidentally press the keys with your face. It's also mighty thin, no more than half an inch, everyone who I've shown it to loves how thin it is. My old 3390 could hold a charge for one, MAYBE two days before it would be completely dead. However, on my 6310i, I haven't EVER seen the battery bar drop below 7/7 (full), and I only recharge it when I think to (about every four days). It's rated to standby for up to 14, which is amazing. The 6310i continue's on Nokia's legacy as far as the menu system goes. I've used Samsung, Motorola, Ericsson, and Siemens phones, and I simply can't stand their awkward menu systems. Maybe I've just been pampered with Nokia's, but why should a solid, understandable menu system be a "luxury"? Nokia's system is a simple hierarchical setup that starts with things like "Phone Book", "Call Log", and "Settings" and gets more specific as you go down. Everything is where you would expect it to be, unlike, for example, the Samsung R225, where the 'vibration' option is under system settings, instead of ringing. I love Nokia's menu system. One thing I do miss about my old 3390 Gold is the built-in AOL Instant Messanger feature for use on the T-Mobile network. However, since the 6310i has Java 2 Micro Edition built in, I can program my own AIM midlet for it that surpasses anything on the 3390. Awesome. However, when you get down to day-to-day use, there are a few notable, if nitpicky, annoyances. The phone's maximum ring volume is about half the 3390's, so I sometimes can't hear it at parties or in my pocket if I'm near loud music. This would be ok, since that's what the vibration mode is for, but the vibration is also only about half as strong as the 3390's, so I often don't even notice it. That gets annoying fast. Another nuisance of the quiet ring volume is the alarm clock. I rely on my phone's clock to wake me up (easier than having to take a clock when you travel), and the 6310i sometimes isn't loud enough to rouse me. The only feature the 3390 had that the 6310i lacks, as far as I can tell, is screensavers. Sure, these are sort of frivolous, but it's nice to have a graphic say your name or something so if you leave your phone behind and someone picks it up, they can easily tell it's yours. Call clarity has never really been an issue with any Nokia phone I've used, but the 6310i is the most landline-sounding phone so far. It really doesn't sound like a cell phone, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the pinnacle of call quality. The reception is better than the 3390, but not enough that it can be used in all sorts of new and exciting places. One of my favorite features of the phone is the PC Suite software. Within about 5 seconds I linked up via IR and transferred all my contacts from SIM memory to phone memory, which has a lot of advantages. First and foremost, the phone doesn't have to load the numbers from the SIM, so your contacts are available about 5 seconds after the phone boots up, instead of 2 minutes. Putting numbers into phone memory allows you to add more than one number per name, which is so blantantly obvious to me it makes me wonder why this isn't part of the SIM spec. Regardless, it's great that I can at least do it. The PC Suite software also lets you compose ringtones very powerfully (it can even import MIDIs), synchronize your contacts with other software like Outlook, edit phone profiles, caller groups, and pretty much anything else you can edit on the phone itself. It was really nice being able to type in some new contacts in on a QWERTY keyboard instead of the 123ABC one. [Addendum I] Also, a quick note on bluetooth. Bluetooth is awesome, it's a wireless protocol aimed at eliminating cords. Bluetooth devices are all interoperable, so a bluetooth-enabled phone, like the 6310i, can talk to a bluetooth headset for audio or a bluetooth computer for data. I wasn't able to get it to work with my laptop (I blame my bluetooth adapter, not the phone), but it works great with my Compaq Pocket PC. The 6310i's bluetooth is quite simple to set up and works great. Not much else to say. [/Addendum I] [Addendum II]I guess one of the big reasons I like this phone is it's powerful and stylish without being wasteful and annoying. I'm glad the screen, for example, is monochrome - color screens are, in my opinion, useless for a cell phone, and only drain the battery faster. Polyphonic ringtones? They don't sound like a cell phone. I like the standard piezzo ringtones as much as I did when ringtones were first introduced. I prefer things to be simple and powerful, and the 6310i is the perfect matching of these.[/Addendum II] All in all, the 6310i is the best phone I've ever used. I love it and it's ice colored backlight gets me every time I turn it on - it's beautiful. The lackings are relatively minor on a technical level, but translate to big problems if say, you sleep through your wake-up alarm and miss an appointment. Would I buy it again? Yes. But I'd love to be able to get a new faceplate with it. Maybe a 6310j should be next :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 243 89414 2003/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 feature rich robust durable gold standard nokia marketing are possibly pushing the packet a little too far The Bottom LineCompetition is healthy and Nokias position has possibly lead to reduced quality in most aspects of their business. Full Review As a GSM user since 1994 I am an avid Nokia fan. To be completely honest, I am writing this because it's the first time I've been disappointed. In the 6000 range I have owned (and still retain) the 6110, 6210 and 6310i (in this case the only thing that the i provides is tri-band required for the US) as well as 7210, 8110 and others. I recognize that this is an alternative perspective from a power GSM user (Internet dial, GPRS, WAP, SMS, etc). Keep in mind that this is an upmarket Nokia product, built for 'the executive' for reliability, robustness and full function. There are a number of lower-end/mid-level alternatives for the basic user that are excellent products, firstly the 6310i is bigger than most of the alternatives, and does not have a camera or mp3 player commonly found with new GSM phones. The 6110 was by far the most superior phone on the market in it's day, and this sold me on the whole Nokia brand. I had used an Ericcson prior, but besides in portability it was inferior in every way. Nokia certainly enhanced on the 6110 and many new features were packed into the 6210 (still found in the 6310i). Voice tagging was a neat addition. This allows one to program a voice tag onto an addressbook recipient which allows you - with the push of a button - to announce who to call and the phone recognizes your voice and calls the recipient. In the beginning I used this feature a dozen times and maybe a couple times since then. The neat enhancement was the addition of sentence case. It was always constrained to have everything in caps, especially sms's. They also added predictive text on the messaging, I find this strange and non-intuitive, others I know swear by it because of the time required to type messages with a numeric keyboard. I also tried WAP at the time and after getting it all to work, I hardly ever found a need to use it. The addition of calendar and to do list were other areas of the menu that I never used. It's difficult enough to keep my diary up to date and a numeric keyboard just isn't good for that type of stuff. I realized the need for good PC to phone connectivity. Regards durability of the 6310i, it still feels good after a year of use. I was a little disappointed with the durability of the 6210. In addition to the phone aging far quicker than the previous model, the battery connection became loose and the phone intermittently would just turn off. The keys were flatter and initially appeared more easy to use, that was at the cost that one needs to use key lock all the time as well as allows more more errors in key punching. The 6310i, similarly includes all that the 6210 does, as well as a number of new enhancements and new features. You MUST keep in mind that most of the lower level phones have also incorporated all the good stuff that was included in the 6210, with exception of bluetooth and GPRS. It was for this specific reason that I bought the 6310i. I also thought that the voice recorder was neat, I don't need more than 3 minutes - which is all it holds - but the number of keys that one needs to press before one can actually record something is far too cumbersome, although I do keep a couple of recordings of my kids voices for my business travels. As I mentioned phone to PC connectivity is my need to better manage my lists, calendar and tasks on the phone. They numeric keyboard is just too clumsy to really use these functions and backup is fast becoming essential. Although the previous models allow for this connectivity through a cable or infra-red these were expensive options and the software was at an additional cost. The 6310i comes with software and bluetooth included. Bluetooth is neat because its really fast, a real communications standard also already being built into headsets, car appliances and cameras. A USB bluetooth adapter (for any PC or Mac) costs around $45. This is really where Nokia came short. Unfortunately they have made their software to work only with their proprietary version bluetooth adaptor which costs around $400. I must admit that a standard bluetooth adapter should come with the software required that once your service provider enables GPRS (a new 'broadband' network standard), easily get any laptop to make a GPRS connection to the Internet. Although a little pricey, it's incredibly useful to be truly online portable (our networks have a huge national footprint). As expected, Nokias technical service took some time to come up with the goods. Besides being told they would call me back four times - and never responded over a period of three weeks - they made me come in to upgrade the software on my phone, waited two hours, and still could not begin to assist me with my problems. In the end - after speaking to the CEO of the country agent - I did manage to get to a competent technician. He confirmed the proprietary requirement for the bluetooth as well as the documentation on the web that stated this. If you're not a power user or looking for fun extras go for the Nokia '3000', '7000' or '8000' series. If you're going to use GPRS and bluetooth I have a feeling that Sony Ericcson are going to impress. I have a friend who has all this stuff working - plus picture messaging - on his T68i. I have a feeling that the new P series will have real impact at Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 w/contract 89413 2000/10/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything else gprs bluetooth weight nothing yet The Bottom LineBest Nokia phone ever !! Full Review Hello guys, I've got this phone about 3 weeks ago, it's a company phone. I was waiting these 3 weeks to check all the capabilities of the phone and I am very, very impressed. I have been using a lot of cell phones in the last 6 years, but my favourite is Nokia, for a lot of reasons. And from all Nokia phones I've ever tested, 6310i is by far the best one. I'm a techy guy, so I'll give you some facts (said by the producer-Nokia) and then my personal opinion. First of all, it's a tri-band phone (900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900 MHz-for US), so you can use it all over the world (except, of course, where you don't have coverage :) It has Bluetooth integrated (Bluetooth refers to a short-range radio technology aimed at simplifying communications among Net devices and between devices and the Internet. It also aims to simplify data synchronization between Net devices and other computers). Bluetooth is very fast, you can have up to 1MB/sec between two Bluetooth devices. It has also HSCSD and GPRS(General Packet Radio Service, a standard for wireless communications which runs at speeds up to 115 kilobits per second, compared with current GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) systems' 9.6 kilobits), two standards for high speed connection to the Internet. It is WAP ready and you have Java™ support for application downloads, which means that you can actually download over the web applications specially designed for the phone (you can find plenty of them on www.nokia.com) The standby is between 14 and 20 days with 5 to 6 hours talk time. What can I say is that, for me, the standby was 18 days and 6 hours with about 33 minutes talk time. So, in fact, is better than I was expected, as normally the manufacturer data is on the upper limit and when we test it, rarely you can reach these parameters. I think this is due to the new 1100mAh Li-polymer extra-slim battery (yes, this the latest battery generation, Li-polymer). Other features include voice dialing for up to 10 numbers, voice commands for up to 5 available menu items and record memos and conversations up to 2 minutes. More important than these are the next ones: - Phone book with up to 500 contacts, with multiple phone numbers and text entries per contact - Calendar with monthly view with up to 250 entries - To-do list with priority levels with up to 30 entries - Wallet provides storage for confidential information such as credit card numbers, user names and passwords - Calculator with currency converter - Alarm clock with snooze - Stopwatch and countdown timer You must be aware this is a business phone, so it's not worth to buy it if you don't you actually use it with its full capabilities. I mean, there is no point to buy only because it has Internal antenna and vibrating alert and high-resolution illuminated graphical display (96 x 65 pixels), or because you have 35 ring tones and 10 picture messages and you can download up to 10 ring tones and up to 5 picture messages. Or because you can compose ring tones and create picture messages using Nokia 6310i PC Suite 5 You have also three games: Snake II (2 players via infrared), Space Impact and Bumper. About Nokia 6310i PC Suite 5, this is very useful tool, and it really works well. And now, few things you need to be aware of: first of all, DO NOT BUY Nokia 6310, this is the first model from the 6310 phone generation and it has/had a lot of software problems. So, take a good look about this (at least one in 10 phones has software problems and Nokia knows about this.) If you want to use it with a laptop and a USB or serial cable (of course, there is not point in using with these, instead of a Bluetooth card with connection up to 1 MB/sec, but a Bluetooth card is quite expensive, about 400 USD) to connect to Internet, be sure your cable is compatible with the 6310i. If is not working, call the cable manufacturer and ask him to confirm you if it's compatible or not (there are a lot of these cable son the market, built for Nokia 6310 and which do not work with 6310i) This is the only Nokia phone which is Bluetooth compatible, so if you are in business and you want to have "something" between phone and Palm with the same features (or even more), buy this phone, it's worth the money. In fact, I think I'll give up my old palm and keep only this phone, it's enough and it's only one device, smaller and even better. Please be aware that the price I put in the "Amount paid" is a corporate deal, the price in depends of the package you want to have Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89412 2000/7/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 powerful simple not a pub phone The Bottom LineBuy Full Review I've been the owner of a Nokia 6310i handset or a few months now, mainly using it for work purposes as well as personal. I picked the handset mainly for it's outstanding reputation and as it seemed fitted to my needs almost exactly. The handset is feature packed, filled with everything the average 'business' user could wish for, and it should be considering Nokia have squarely aimed it at the business market. With that in mind beware this is NOT a 'toy' handset. It doesn't sport polyphonic ringing tones, thousands of games and screen savers, so stop reading now if you're a Pink Panther fan and fancy having a quick dance to the ring tone you've downloaded every time your phone rings. This is a tool, a 'business' workhorse, not for the faint hearted. Grrrrr. The Outside The Nokia 6310i is a good size, well proportioned a comfortable ergonomically. The keys are large and fairly well spaced apart allowing for the quick and easy dialling of numbers and text messaging. The antenna has been squeezed inside the top of the phone - not new technology but handy none the less. The same comment can be made too about the large screen. It's clear and easy to read and of a high resolution, even though it's monochrome (black and white to you and me) it's a pleasure to use especially in the dark with the blue glowing backlight. The battery is also another one of the many strong points. It's fantastic, claiming a full seventeen days when left on standby, (a little optimistic if you ask me I'd class myself as a heavy user, and would expect about four to five days of continues use.) The battery is also a lithium-ion technology, allowing the user to 'top up' charge it without the risk of the memory effect, handy if you're on the move a lot and like the idea of a fully charged phone. The size and style is still in keeping with mainly of the other Nokia 6 series. The connections on the base of the handset are exactly the same as its predecessors allowing for it to be used with an existing Nokia car kits. Great. The Inside Now we move to the inner parts of the phone, and the software it comes loaded with. It's far support to that of the Nokia 6210, being faster, slicker and more stable. The menus are noticeably easier to use - it still uses the well tried and tested Nokia interface - but with a few additions. There's an improved calendar with reminder function so you'll never miss another appointment. Next to that a to-do list allowing you to do away with pen and Post-it notes all over your desk and prioritise your memos and personal notes. The usual call divert, calculator, stopwatch and countdown timer can be found along with a new Extras menu, containing a voice recorder function which acts as a Dictaphone storing three minutes of your own voice notes and/or live phones calls. (A word of caution however. When using the voice recorder for capturing telephone calls, there is an intermittent 'beep' noise heard down the line by both you and the other caller, notifying you both that the conservation is being recorded. A small not for any budding James Bonds out there secretly taping calls...) One of the main boasts of the Nokia 6310i over its predecessors is it supports the Java programming language, allowing you to download new games and small yet useful applications to the phone. Currency converters, and a world clock are applications waiting for you but the facilities there for you to download more from your network provider should you wish to. I for example managed to download Moto GP a racing game in the last few days, but it's not much fun playing on a black and white screen. Having small Java apps in the handset is undoubtedly a memory hungry exercise and this is again where the 6310i shines. It can store 150 text messages, a God-send for Europe's obsession with SMS; and there's also room for 500 name and number slots, allowing you to have one name and several numbers for an individual in your phone book. It support the now just come of age Bluetooth wireless technology, enabling it to communicate with other Bluetooth devices such as PDAs and headsets etc. Although not a feature I use really used all that much, it is a good function to have especially if you're planning on buying something like a Palm Tungsten T, or a new Ipaq PDA which come with Bluetooth connectivity already installed, or with the new driving while using mobile phone laws come into affect in the UK, Bluetooth wireless headsets. Computer and PDA connectivity is also supported via the built-in infra-red port located neatly on the top of the phone for easy access. Conclusion There's also a great sign of quality and though gone into its design. The backlight, for example, when not being used will stay on for ten seconds or so, and then gently fade off, rather than quickly snapping off. The vibrating alert is strong and can be felt in a jacket pocket, a blessing for anyone who's ever owned a Sony Z5. It's taught to, and can take - although not recommended - being dropped onto a tarmac floor. (I've gone got wankered and dropped this thing more time than I care to remember!) But it has been designed with the business user in mind, the sensible size and weight - not too small - the commuter and PDA connectivity, the battery life and the relativity large memory. This all lends its self well to a very simple user-friendly yet powerful mobile phone. I'll be a user of one for some time to come. It'd a fine handset. Buy it! Thanks for reading. Mark. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 pounds(uk 89411 2004/2/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 a fantastic phone simple but full at once love every minute of it see review picks up background noise a little but can be minimised very little The Bottom LineIt's everything you want in a phone with nothing you dont. it's the [TOOL] mobiles should all be. has many of the abilities of "3G" without the horrible fiddly gimmicks. Full Review All I can say about this phone is WOW! I was impressed when I first saw the 6120! This phone keeps Nokia's legendary simplicity and simply carefully adds, without clunk or fuss,, many new features (I should say TOOLS) to the menu. This beauty does everything. It's the prefect phone I have dreamt about since my 6120. That is. everything that is a TOOL and not a silly toy gimmick. If you want a phone and not a gameboy or toy this is the one. It's monochrome screen is clear and super to view and the white icy backlight is just a dream at night.. it's not colour but have you ever tried looking at a colour screen when in sunlight.. not for me. they apparently chew battery life as well. "only" monophonic ringtones but that's they way it's best. You will hear this phone in any noisy situation unlike a polyphonic one. they are cute but a waste of time unlees you are a kid who likes to "play" with your phone. Keypad layout is just fantastic. It's the perfect size, nice and large and well spaced. not large nor too small, so responsive to touch and send a text message on or send emails (WAP). GPRS data and WAP is a really simple and straight forward tool. Sending an email was a snap with phones predictive text input in WAP (a feature most don't have). not a hassle at all!!!! I was surprise how non fiddly it was! I'm no longer tied to my PC!!!!!! No need for a laptop or PDA either. (service provider dependent) The size and shape is perfect. Slim but spacious and comfortable to hold. rounded and easy on the hands. You will love this phones curvy simple shape and it's comfortable to use against the ear as it's long. Calls.. Very clear, almost landline. only small issue was the MIC picks up background noise and takes it to the speaker making callers hard to hear. (can be minnimised via volume which is also plenty loud) Oh and it fit's anything your 51XX 61XX did :-) including a car kit, headset, batteries, charger, (NOT data cables though) You beauty! MENU system Simple, straight forward layout. no silly weird things in places they shouldn't be Let's start from the beginning. Messages, Not only a really easy and simple messaging system but emails and simple picture messages for saying that something special. Though not a main point and you don't notice it's there. (for compatability reasons) Phone book. Manage your contacts here., throw away your phone book. Email addresses, alternative numbers, phone will ring the persons personal tune, Can store up to 5 details like name, cell #, Work #, Address, Email, Notes Call logs, Detailed information at your fingertips including unknown numbers and times they called, Also has a GPRS data counter so you can keep tabs on data. NICE! Profiles. Assign different profiles for different situations. the best thing is a "profile timer" which allows the phone to scedule the profile to a time. Make the phone to go loud at 7 in the morning and go quiet at 6 at night AUTOMATICALLY!! Settings, The best thing is there first, The alarm clock the rest is esay to access and "should be here" Games. Not a biggie, snake, space impact and a pinball game moving on....... Applications! Seen those new colour java phones with games and stuff. this one has it! not colour but MSN messenger on your mobile is a nice tool along with what's up and coming! I have found some excellent stuff for free. Seems to at least attempt to run what's not made for it. Some very handy conversion tools, dictionaries and stuff plus yes... Games. Calculator. Self explanatory but very handy. next. To Do list. Nokia's "Notepad" you can also send a note to calender.... nice.. Calender. Just gets better... now it looks just like a wall one. with detailed scediling features and alarms. Excellent. who needs a PDA. Infrared\Bluetooth communicate with outside devices. access the net on your your pocket PC while phone is in your pocket! Great amazing Invention. Almost reason enough to buy it! Extras Voice recorder. You can even record and play back calls. even to another caller! WOW Voice commands Tell your phone what to do! Wallet. feel like shopping in WAP. store your CC in here. countdown timer. Very very useful and keeps going when you exit the menu. stopwatch yes yes yes. also keeps running when you exit. Services WAP browser. Get your applications here as well! download them straight to the phone itself. Email on the run is a super time saver. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89410 2000/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of great features sound quality bluetooth easy to use battery life not much a couple nit picking observations The Bottom LineIf you're looking for the best "business" or "fun" phone, your search is over. This phone rocks. That's about all I can say. Full Review I bounce from mobile providers as often as most people bounce around pizza delivery places and in the process I change equipment as if it were an oil filter in my car: at regular intervals. I signed up with AT&T here in LA about a year and a half ago and I'm now on my 3rd phone with them. I love getting the newest and best devices out there and when AT&T released their GSM service here in LA (after the obligatory 6+ month "working out the kinks" period) I jumped on board. I initially signed up with the service the day it was released with an Ericsson T68i and it was horrible, but when I saw that the Nokia 6310i was available and affordable I jumped ship to the GSM service. The phone is absolutely wonderful and here's why... What I Like: Like all Nokias, this phone is very easy to use. I personally feel that Nokias have always been the most intuitive phones on the market. Everything is where you'd expect it to be and everything is very easy to learn. The menus are simple and effective. Entering and storing #'s is very easy and accessing the phonebook takes only a push of the up or down key. Holding in the "names" button accesses voice dialing, one of the many cool features on this phone. My prior phone was a Motorola v.60 and the voice dialing was a little easier as it was a 1-touch operation instead of holding in the button here, but it's a minor complaint. In short, this is a phone that you don't really need to read the manual to understand and feel very comfortable with. Are there any features missing on this phone?! Java apps, Bluetooth, voice dialing, voice recorder, GPRS, infrared, calender/PIM, email, ringtones, stopwatch...I can't think of any more but I know there are! Now, I don't make my phone my all-in-one solution, but it is nice to store email addresses and contact information for those that you might email from time to time. Another feature that was missing from previous Nokias was multiple #'s per phone book entry and it's a great addition to this phone. Add to all of this that the 6310i is a tri-band "world" phone and this is the king of widely available GSM phones in the world. The battery rocks the free world. You can talk for hours (no exaggeration) and the phone can remain charged in standby for a LONG time. I can't tell you how long because I am yet to even be notified by the phone that it needs to be charged. If you talk regularly on your phone (maybe 30 minutes a day or so) it's safe to say that you can go from Monday to Thursday and beyond without ever having to plug it in. And when you do plug it in, it recharges very fast. Along with this is heat. I don't notice this phone getting quite as hot as most others out there, including other Nokias. The blue backlight on the phone is sexy. After looking at this phone at night, you'll never want to go back to that radioactive green! I also love that the light fades in and out instead of just turning on and off. Very cool. A quick note on Bluetooth. It's great. I love not being tethered to my phone, especially while in the car. I will admit that the sound quality decreases a bit, but overall it's still very good and being able to walk anywhere within a 30' radius of your phone is awesome. I'll be purchasing a Bluetooth card for my laptop and surfing the Internet and checking email while sipping on a mocha at Starbucks in the very near future:) What I don't like: I'm nitpicking, here. The only things I don't like are little quirks such as no timer displayed while on a call. I also wish that the mute button was not buried in a menu, but rather one of your soft-button choices while in a call. Other than that, there is nothing wrong with this phone. Nothing. In conclusion: If you are on a GSM network, look no further. This phone is worth every penny and will exceed your expectations and previous notions of what a GREAT mobile phone is. I cannot say enough good things about this phone. Kudos to Nokia for developing such a superior phone. Looks like I won't be bouncing around providers or equipment for quite sometime... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 89409 2003/9/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 superior battery life bluetooth functionality clarity wow where to start must use nokia s no 2 5 mm plug for aftermarket headset The Bottom LineBottom Line comes down to all the features this phone has plus the quality of Nokia to their absolute best. Recommended? ABSOLUTELY! Full Review This is the phone that packs it all in for the the cell phone user that wants more than the free phone the wireless provider gives you. I was in the market for a new cell phone after dealing with the basic choice of a five year old Nokia. First, my biggest problem with cell phones today is that manufacturers are starting to make these things smaller and smaller. I am partial to Nokia but I always like to shop around. Being a fairly big guy most of these phones can fit inside my palm and if I put it to my ear they barley go beyond the middle part of my cheek. They maybe light and portable but I barely feel like I have possession and control. This Nokia stands 5 inches tall and about and inch and a half wide. It is very comfortable in the hand and up to the ear. Ergonomics of the phone was well designed, such as the keypad layout, which is slightly curved to make dialing easier. For those of us who had a flat keypad, you will notice a difference. Under ideal and practical conditions the phone had plenty of volume to hear the caller, which can be adjusted on the side of the phone. The volume that is, not the caller. With all the calls that I have placed, so far no one has claimed they cannot hear me well. Second, the battery life is outstanding. This has to be the mother of all problems with cell phones purchases. How is the battery going to perform? Nokia offers a high capacity battery if you are wondering but I do not think it is necessary. Talking on and off during my typical day barley put a dent in the power meter. Using my old cell phone and witnessing the performance of others, sometimes the battery can burn off a quarter of the battery depending on the length of the call. This battery, however, has been the best performing unit I have witnessed. Even utilizing the higher functions of the phone such as Bluetooth and GPRS it still does not drain off fast. Those I will touch on later. A good tip that is found in most battery utilizing products is to drain the battery all the way down until it is practically dead. Following this tip has maximized battery life in a majority of my electronic products. Third, packed within this unit is the vastly growing feature of Bluetooth wireless technology. This allows synronization between your wireless phone and another Bluetooth device. This was a major deciding factor in the purchase of this phone. I also own a Toshiba e755 Pocket PC which I wanted to sync with and get the internet anywhere I want if I am not near a public Wi-Fi hotspot. This Nokia performed flawlessly each time I utilized that feature. It never disconnected nor lost its signal even when the battery was on its last bar. The one option I am going to try next is to purchase a Bluetooth headset so that I may walk or drive without the presence of a dangling cord. At this time, based on the performance between my phone and my Pocket PC, I would not see why any other Bluetooth device you wished to utlize would not function less than optimally. Fourth, another wireless function this phone has is its Infrared (IR) beaming technology. This would be the same technology that is used in a majority of television remote controls. This is a "line of sight" technology that requires a non-obstructed view of the other IR device. I have also utilized this function with other cell phones and my PDA and it has never let me down. I have not experimented with this as much as the Bluetooth such as duration and distance. Fifth, we live in the information age. Some people cannot live their day without accessing the internet. Maybe you are stuck at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and you want to check sports scores, and since it is Dallas maybe even the weather. All this and more are available with the GPRS feature on this phone. This function is not to browse eBay looking for deals or any highly complex browsing. The monochrome display keeps your browsing simple but if you want to complicate things up you can purchase other consumer electronics that will suit your browsing needs. The biggest thing you must realized is that the GPRS is not a dial up wireless service. This is a data service you must sign up for from your wireless carrier. Sadly it does not come with the phone. Depending on the amout of data you wish to transmit the services can range from just a few dollars more to over twenty bucks added to your service bill. And finally, lets talk about what this phone is not. This is not the phone for you if you wish to send and view color pictures. This phone uses a dot-matrix monochrome display and does not have a built-in camera. Hence, that is why it is less than $130. I knew that the monochrome display was fine for my purposes because if did search the web on my phone it would be to see basic information or to download a ring tone that I found. Otherwise I would browse the internet using my PDA. The color screen is for those people that want to have colorful graphics, play games, and browse the internet on a 1" x 1" screen. Does it sound like a necessity? To me, no. The other feature that this phone does not have is a camera. If you are known as a liar or live that much of a spontaneous life and have to carry a camera phone everywhere you go just to prove what you did or saw then you are already hopeless. Most people do not have color display phones and almost half of the newly manufactured phones are monochrome, so forget sending that picture to other phones. Sure you can take pictures and save them for later, but you would be better off to buy a small digital camera to tote around. In my opinion this is another feature that is waiting to break. I have never owned one or used one. I could be wrong, but what if you drop the phone? Maybe a lens shifts. What if you scratch the transparent outer guard? Possibly distorted photos. So you shelled out the money for that camera and look what happens. The only real thing that this phone does not have is a standard 2.5 mm plug for a headset. Nokia's earpiece and mic plug into the bottom using pins. Thus, limiting your options when looking for a headset. The Nokia 6310i is by far the best phone for the money on the market today. It packs all the features of a $250+ phone for about $130. Communication is clean an clear. Batter life sustains prolonged use and idle. The buttons are easy and quick to navigate. My new best friend is the Bluetooth feature, but an honorable mention for the IR function. The screen is clear to read and does light up blue along with the back-lighed keypad. It can access the internet via the GPRS. What more could you want in a phone? Is the color display and camera really worth that much? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7776 Nokia 7160 89438 2001/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 functional easy to read screen easy to use stylish design durability of sliding cover The Bottom Line A good mix of performance and price, I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a personal organizer in their phone. Full Review I looked at several other nokia phones before i decided on this model. After 6 months of use, the phone is still in near perfect condition, with my only worry being that the sliding cover feels weak, although it still works like the day i bought it. with the ability to store more names than most people will ever need and 5 numbers for each name, it makes it very easy to organize all my phone numbers in it. the larger than average screen makes it easier to use the phone without squinting my eyes every time i make a call. In addition, there are ample ring tones for everyone and even the ability to choose and customize different modes for it, in case you're at work and you dont want it to ring or you do want it to ring but only once. the battery life is very good, as i can go about five days without recharging it and when i have to recharge, by the next morning its fully charged. the sound quality is fairly good, it is digital so the sound can be very clear, although as with most phones there are times when it becomes muffled, but that is on rare occasions. I would recommend the phone to others based on its performance, design and the multitude of tasks that can be done with it. while it isnt a palm pilot, it definitely helps you to organize appointments, set reminders of events and many other things that you'd expect from a personal organizer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89437 2000/11/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 ease of use similarity to the 7110 lost some of the features of the 7110 The Bottom LineStick with the Nokia 7110. Unless your American. And then you can't! ;0) Full Review When I got hold of a 7160, I was expecting a more advanced version of the 7110. If this is what you are after - then beware! Unfortunately, they have removed two of the most useful items (well, the one I had - anyway!) Namely, vibra-alert and the spring loaded front cover. I use the vibration facility every day. it is especially useful when commuting on a train, or in a meeting when you don't want to disturb others. So the removal of this, makes the phone a non-starter for me. Perhaps they will decide to add this feature back onto this phone in future. The spring-loaded cover is quite fun. I actually find it very useful. It takes getting used to, but once you have the knack, then its very beneficial. It has been written that this feature has been removed due to it failing. But in 3 years, I have had two of these phones, and have never had a problem with the spring mechanism. Making the phone Tri-band, is useful when going to USA, but if not, then stick with the 7110. Its dual-band, so can be used almost everywhere in the world. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 89436 2001/7/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything from style to functionality your friends can t keep asking you to see it The Bottom LineThe nokia 7190 is definitely a winner. The price for the phone is worth every penny. Full Review The Nokia 7160 is the ideal phone for anyone who does not want to spend a great deal of money on a 8000 series Nokia phone, and people who just want a great phone that will not become obsolete in a few years. Practically everything about this phone is great. The only thing I can mention that is only half-con is the size. The size of the 7160 is a brick compared to many others, but it definitely makes up with its features. An important aspect of this phone is the active slide used to answer and end calls. This feature is appearing more and more on newer cell phones, but Nokia has the styling to match with this feature. The Matrix phone (the 8110i) slightly resembles the slide on the 7160, except the fact that there is no trigger for an auto-slide. The Navi-roller makes for a very easy navigation around the many features that come already packed into this phone. One thing that is a hit for many people is that the 7160 is capable of viewing Chinese characters. It is essentially a PDA and a mobile phone, compacted into a sleek design that catches the eye. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 89435 2000/6/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great display direct connect to palmpc without a modem tons of features a little flimsymanually dialing can be a bit difficult The Bottom LineIf you can purchase it for a reasonable price and really need the ability to connect to the web its a great phone. Full Review Signed up with Cingular in December and got their 1 ct. Ericsson A1228di which, at the time, seemed like a good deal. The phone looked like it was extremely durable and well made. Unfortunately after about 6 phones (software problems) and a mishap it I upgraded to a Nokia 7160 for 90 dollars which was also an amazing deal. First the phone is very light - significantly lighter than the Ericsson. Second the display is simply amazing. It can be viewed in any light, its contrast setting can be adjusted and the text is very clear. Menu navigation is a bit of a pain - like all Nokias in that it takes several keystrokes to get to exactly where you want to go but the Naviroller does help a bit. There is probably a shortcut but I haven't found it as of yet. Voice clarity and reception is also significantly improved over the Ericsson as well. In a grocery store or mall I would get voice dropout and crackle with the Ericsson. Took the phone recently to the same store and made a call, the transmission was clear as a bell and I have yet to experience any crackle or voice dropout. Accessories and batteries can be found at discounted prices and are readily available which is a plus since Ericsson accessories can be a bit elusive. Now to the good stuff , web access and connectivity. Trying Cingular's web service for a month for $6.95 which includes 100 short messages. Since my plan is National and I only have 175 minutes per month using the phone for web connectivity can be a bit expensive. If I were on a plan that gave unlimited nights and weekends with 300 minutes per month using the phone for web based communication would be more affordable. Navigating the web with the phone is extremely slow. Aside from the 9600 kbs everything is menu based and entering text with the keyboard is a joke. If Nokia designed a Chatboard like the one found with the Ericsson it wouldn't be so bad but with the phone's keyboard using the service is not that elegant and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really need a stock quote or airline arrival update. Connecting the phone to a computer without a modem card is pretty impressive. Easy to connect with the supplied serial cable and I had no problems dialing into my service. Have yet to connect it to my Palm which is really the best way to access the web on the go. I can only find a few flaws with the phone. First the sliding cover is a bit weak and expect it to loosen up over time or break off. Since my phone is covered by a replacement if damaged warranty for $35 I really am not all that concerned but it could be an issue for some. Second, when the slide cover is open pressing the * or # key requires a very small and slim finger since the cover just extends to the bottom portion of the keys. Third, Nokia needs to design a better case for their phone since the leather model is very stiff and bulky although very well put together and beautiful to look at. Using a belt clip with the "button" that attaches to the case isn't a good idea since I've heard of several horror stories of cracked phone backs and damaged phones. Fourth, Nokia does not allow the display backlight to be turned off which would save battery time when using the phone during daylight hours. Currently if the phone is left on and used sparingly with the standard battery I can go without a charge for 3 days. If you start using the WAP features expect only a day or so before you get a low battery message. Overall the phone is a pleasure to use. Voice clarity is excellent and signal reception is quite clear. I wouldn't get too excited about using the phone to access the web with just the keypad but using the phone to connect to a computer or Palm Pilot is a joy - but just keep track of the time because it can really eat into your plan's minutes. The phone appears to be durable if you are not abusive and keep it in a case. The metal surround appears to be very delicate and can get scratched easily. The sliding cover is cool but the aluminum rails that its attached can break off it hit or dropped but I'm told it can be fixed cheaply and I wouldn't really consider it a factor. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 89434 2000/11/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 calendar sliding cover battery life large screen curved shape fits your hip calculator a little big but i carry it in my pocket anyway The Bottom Linei love this phone couldnt imagine using anything else, sprint and motorola are not up to par. Full Review i couldnt go a day without this phone. i went from a nokia 6120 to the 7160 and love it. it has features too numerous to mention, but ill list a few. first the sliding cover prevents accidental calls from your pocket, something that the 5000 and 6000 series nokias are prone to do. it has a large screen which i love. the included battery will last around a week per charge depending on the amount of calls. next it has a huge phone book, plenty of space. i love the icons next to the number, i can list a friends name in the phone book and have 4 numbers within it, organized by the icon next to the number, one for cell one for home one for office, etc. next is the calendar, which works best when syncronized with a pc and the included software. the calendar leaves room for a detailed message and has an alarm that will notify you of important meetings. the clock/alarm function is LOUD alarm clock, i use it as my everday alarm clock. this phone may be a little cumbersome in size, that is perhaps its only drawback. if this is most important to you, than get a smaller phone with less features. next lets talk about reception. this phone is equal to the 5000 and 6000 series phones in reception quality, this is a good thing, nokia phones with EXTERNAL antennas have exceptional reception. its all in the carrier you have! dont doubt the phone until you try it with another wireless service carrier. i went through a year of dropping calls and people told me my phone was junk. i switched carriers and the problem was solved, i kept my same 7160 by the way. so after 18 months im still happy with my 7160. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 89433 2002/9/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 its a nokia sliding cover text messaging navi roller not many service providers offer this phone The Bottom LineThis is the greatest phone of all time! Full Review This phone was the best phone I've ever had by far! I was sick for months after dropping it in the bathtub and finding out that Cingular Wireless in my area did not service the phone any longer. As a matter hardly any company in my area carries this phone. I find my self comparing every phone that comes in to my life with my "Beloved 7160." The sliding cover was great at protecting the keys and with one slide you could answer the phone! The battery life was outstanding and the reception was always great. The phone stores about 1000 phone numbers. AWESOME!!!! And you can download five different ringtones unlike some phones that only offer one or two. And usually with the phones that offer one or two downloads, you cant find any ringtones that are compatible with the phone. Nokia phones do not have this problem. But the most impressive feature that I found(and only after having three different phones) was that this phone would recieve text messages no matter how many characters. If the message someone sent you was over the limit it would just continue the message in another screen that you could simply scroll down to. Especially helpful for those of us who have friends with Two-way pager's who's signature lines take up all the characters before u can even get the message!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Upgrade 89432 2000/6/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good features nice screen high pricelimited use with the palm pilot The Bottom LineA very nice phone. It would be great if they could work out the bugs with the Palm! Full Review I did'nt want to buy this phone. I was perfectly happy with my nokia 5120I, wich i used on the cingular system, but I was entreaged by a notice that i saw on the avant Go website saying that i could connect my palm IIIc directly to the cell phone and use it as a wireless modem. All I had to do,according to varius websites was to buy a cable,plug it in to the phone at one end,and the palm at the other and i would have a poor man's version of the wireless internet. So I ordered the cable,hooked it up but it didnt work. Than i began a long journey that ended up with the 7160. First i contacted the cable vender, who told me i couldnt possibly be there cable but to be sure i should buy another data cable to test the connection to the phone to test it,I did. It didnt work either.Next I contacted cingular and they told me i would have to buy a new phone the 7160 after seaching on ebay i found for about $150.00 and it was set up for cingular.I really started to really start to use this phone. Its a huge improvement on the 5120. I was able to import hundreds of names from lotus notes,but not the palm pilot without license this seamed a little odd to me i also tried importing from outlook express but that was unpredictible. The phone sync had some strange results with comas and tabs as well as some of the feilds. I was able to use the nokia 7160 as a modem for my pc using the included data cable and getting me a refund on my data cable. I had alot of fun with the downloadable ring tones.The sliding cover is slick dude. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89431 2000/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 keypad cover stylish slick features none The Bottom LineGreat phone with tons of features! Full Review I don't know how many times I've had to answer the question "Cool, is that the Matrix phone?" No, it isn't. But, this Nokia 7160 phone is one of the most stylish ones on the market today. Bundled with features and style, this celullar has been my most successful one to date. I used to own the 6120, but one day, the phone took a long drop and was obliterated. My sister was going into labor soon and I needed a new phone ASAP. I quickly called my Cingular Wireless service and requested a new phone. I reviewed the features of the 7160 and was quite impressed, they proceeded to ship the phone to me Next Day Air. Upon receiving my phone, I was in shock at all the features in a compact phone. Menu Options: Messages - You can send and receive text messages, as well as voicemail (if selected with your service) Call log - View all your Missed Calls, Received Calls, and Dialed Calls as well as the length of time on each call. Profiles - Manage all the different kind of settings you want on your phone in regards to ringing, volumes, etc so that you may instantly put your phone in Meeting mode when you are in a meeting, and other modes as well. Settings - Configure the settings of the time, phone, and network. System - Search for the system through Automatic or Manual Search Games - Play Snake II, Rotation, Racket, and Opposite Calculator - Handy if you don't have a PDA or small calculator with you. Calendar - Make a note on any date in the calendar To-Do List - Talk about having a Personal Management tool! Create your to-do list on your phone! Services - Yes, this phone is Internet READY!! You can browse the Internet if you choose to subscribe to the service through your mobile provider. Infrared - Send and receive phone numbers and names. You can even send Business type cards. Keyguard - Lock your keys when not in use. Other features: 35 ringing tones, also receive tones through SMS The sliding cover on the keypad helps when you carry your phone in your purse or pocket, instead of using the keyguard feature, just close the cover. Navigation roller to scroll up and down menus. Do you drive a lot and talk on your phone? Make it safer with this phone with it's voice dialing. You can program voice tags for a certain number so all you have to do is press a button and speak the person's name and automatically get connected. I've had this phone for almost a year. I had one issue once where the display stopped working, but that was my doing when I dropped the phone, but within a few hours, my local Cingular fixed it for me as it was under warranty. I'm very happy with this phone and all of it's features, I recommend it to all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89430 2000/5/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life predictive text input voice tags big screen roller thing nice design a little expensive can t hear rings in loud places no vibrating battery The Bottom LineThe Nokia 7160 is a great phone no matter who you are. I highly recommend it because of its cool features. Full Review I was recently looking to buy my first cell phone. I wanted a digital phone with many cool features. I stumbled onto the 7160 on Nokia's website when I looked at their phone selection. I instantly bought it. It has a big screen versus many other cell phones. The popular small 8260 has a tiny screen. It has seven notches to more accurately show battery and signal strenghth than smaller phones. The Navi Roller is a very cool exclusive feature of this phone. I had never seen anything like it. Instead of having arrow buttons to push to scroll up and down, you can just roll the roller. It is much more natural. I f you push in on the roller, it can perform some functions such as clicking on menu items. It is also necessary to play the game "Racket" on the phone. It is a fun addicting tennis game exclusive to this phone. The roller controls the tennis racket and pushing it in make the racket swing. The design of the phone was what first caught my attention. I love the colors black and silver together and Nokia meshed them together so well on this phone. The battery life of this phone is also a great thing. In a digital zone, it has 4-10 days of standby time and 2-4.5 hours of talk time with the standard included battery. Another feature of this phone that is very useful when writing a quick text message is predictive text input. Instead of having to tap the keys each a couple of times to get the letter you want, you only have to tap each key once. The phone guesses what word you were typing. It is usually right. If it guesses the wrong word, you can easily change it by hitting the star key so it guesses a different word. It also uses sentence case so you don't have to keep changing back and forth from capital letters. You can also send emails from this phone! There are caller groups on this phone. This means that you can set a different ring for different people if caller ID is enabled. The 7160 has a calendar as well as a to-do list. The calendar is very useful while the to-do list could be done without. Another neat feature of this phone is voice tags. This lets you just say the name of the person you want to call. I think the phone can hold about 5 of these voice tags. Now with all the good things in this phone, there comes a few bad things. If you are in a crowded and/or loud room, you can barely (if at all) hear the ring even if it is set on max. This is made all the more worse because the phone does not have a vibrating battery which the 8260 does come with. Finally, the 7160 is a little expensive. But for all the features, to me, it's worth it. NOTE: This phone does have Internet capabilities but I have never used it because the company changes a lot of money for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 w/servic 89429 2000/9/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing othello reversi game predictive typing easy to read screen acts as pda antenna vibrating feature not standard The Bottom LineI highly recommend the 7160. It acts as a phone, PDA, web browser, and email device. If you carry gadgets, you can ALMOST consolidate everything into the 7160. Full Review It's not exactly the Matrix phone, but it does slide. I asked someone from Nokia at Comdex why it doesn't slide automatically, and he said it was only done for the movie (it was an older Nokia GSM phone too). I upgraded from a 6161 and like the fact that each entry in the phone book allows multiple phone numbers, email addresses, and notes to be attached to each name. It also has a calendar and todo list. It can synchronize your contacts, calendar, and todo on your phone with different applications (such as Outlook). This is possible through a Fonesync -- you get a license code and can download it through Nokia. This is a great feature because you can dial or send email from your phone. It's almost like having a Palm VII. Ever since I got this phone I never really carry my Palm anymore (I just used it for my calendar, contacts, and todo). When sending email from the phone, you can type messages quickly through predictive typing. Instead of hitting the 2 key a few times to cycle through A-B-C-2, you just hit each key once and it'll predict what the word is. The phone also has some built in games: Snake II - newer version of the classic game with walls Rotation - some logic game Racket - ping pong Opposite - Reversi/Othello clone (my personal favorite) Unfortunately the phone doesn't have a built in vibrating ring (this is standard on the Nokia 8200 series). I bought a vibrating battery from marquel.com which made up for it. Also there's an antenna sticking out of the top. It's a standard thing, but Nokia was able to get rid of it on the 8200 series. The 7160 also has a web browser in it. I don't really use it that much, but it's functional. Voice dialing is another feature. It can dial some numbers (I forget the exact number, but it's under 10) by the sound of your voice. Overall it's a great phone. It has a lot of new features, can act as a PDA, and gets some attention too (a lot of people comment saying that it's the Matrix phone). I highly recommend this phone if you're looking for a new phone or just upgrading. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89428 2001/6/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 screenfont size features button sizedelay between screens The Bottom LineGood recommendation for short e-mail usage and slightly better technology. Heavy hitters may want to stay clear! Full Review Hello Friends, What can I tell you about the Nokia 7160 that you have not already read? Well, not much in fact! I upgraded to a Nokia 7160 from a Nokia 6190. The only reason I upgraded was because I was tired of how hot the 6190 could get after a lengthy conversation, as well as I was in the need of new technology. I am one for two! I got the Nokia 7160 as soon as it was available from my wireless provider. I had seen it in use by some Nokia folks in a meeting in Denver around August of 2000. I fell in love with it right away. Then again, it came with WAP capabilities. Unfortunately, mine only allows e-mail, which I guess is better then nothing. No WAP as of yet, but it could be that I did not sign up for it. The folks at Cingular only know how to sell the phones, and the pre-cooked service plans, and not much else. A few extra buttons are available in this phone that were not available in my previous one. There is a new one that allows scrolling. It is a good idea for some of the technology present in the Nokia 7160, such as the list of names/phones you have compiled over time. But that is where things can get hairy. The scrolling and other functionality happens to be slow. Your fingers can do the moving faster then items showing up on the screen, and lots of times you end up choosing the wrong thing. But you learn to slow it down a notch. The buttons are still small. I like small items, but here in the East coast, it gets very cold in the Winter, and with gloves on, you are guaranteed out of luck when trying to hit a button. Just like the slowness of the software hampers the navigation, so does the small size of the buttons. One of the cool features on the phone, that my wireless provider allows is e-mail. And there is a cool feature here. Of course, you are only suppose to use it for short messages, but good nonetheless. You can e-mail yourself someone's car plate number for example in case you get into an accident or witness a hit-and-run. Hopefully that won't be the case. The actual cool feature here is the automatic creation of words when you type the e-mail itself. It does not happen for the subject, but the e-mail message itself has this cool feature where it allows for faster typing. For example, to type the word "ball", you normally have to hit "2-2" (wait) "2" (wait) "5-5-5" (wait) "5-5-5". With the cool feature on this new mobile phone, you just hit "2-2-5-5" and the word "ball" is automatically picked. If by any means another closely written word pops up, you can just hit the "Options" button, and scroll down until you see "Next Match" and you are all set. It has picked the correct words about 95% of the time. So, it does save some time off your typing. Aside from that, I consider it a small upgrade. Size is comparable. I have had no issues with the slidding cover, but I am not a heavy user either. I can certainly see how with heavy users, the cover may be an issue. It seems that I get more clarity on phone calls in elevators, but it could just be that my wireless provider has upgraded their network. Things like clarity and dropped calls I don't normally blame on the phone, but on the wireless provided instead. But, that maybe just another ePinion! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 89427 2000/8/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sliding cover that does not need to used large memory bottom buttons difficult to reach can t customize cover earpiece did t fit my ear The Bottom LineThis is the phone for those who have an organizer, either PDA or book, who want to slim down on what you have to carry. Full Review To begin with, I do work for a cellular provider. However, I am a consumer when it comes to cellular service and the equipment that I use. And I have many phones and the Nokia 7160 is the best of the line of phones I have used (and I am the envy of my co-workers!) Why do I rate this phone so high? Well, where do I begin? Memory I have used 5100, 6100 and 8260 series phones and they do not compare with the memory storage that the 7160 has. And I can save multiple information per name! For example, say you have an entry for Bob's cell phone, Bob's home, Bob's work on the other phones. With the 7160, you can list the numbers, plus e-mail and address, under "Bob". I went from 199 entries on my 6161 phone to 87 on my 7160 with over 65% of my memory available. Slide Cover Although the slide cover is a good feature to protect your keys, you can use the phone with out opening the phone. When I receive a call, I just press the "TALK" or "ANSWER" button and I talk. With the 6161, I would have to open up the flip to answer the phone, which while driving can be dangerous. (I always use a hands-free kit in my vehicles.) Most of the times I don't open the slide cover to make a call, either. I just press MENU, roll down to CALL LOG and select MISSED CALLS, RECEIVED CALLS or DIALED CALLS. Then I highlight the number and press TALK. PDA This phone is not a full replacement of my Palm Pilot or my organizer, but now I only carry 2 items instead of 3. And my wife has inherited my Palm. Plus, I can share my calendar with my wife by sending the dates from my 7160 to her Palm via infrared. I do have the option of hot synching my information to my computer, but I have yet found the need to do so. (Some of my fellow co-workers have done so with ease.) Customize your phone Although the 7160 is only available in black and you can not change the faceplate like the 5100 series phones, you can customize the ringtones and the "Caller group" graphics to make you phone more "you". Buttons Although the buttons are larger than the 8260 buttons, I find the bottom buttons (*, 0, #) more difficult to press when I do have to dial a number because of where the slide cover top ends. Before I bought this phone, I had asked everyone I saw with the 7160 their opinion, and I got mixed results. And it was always the buttons that made the difference. Most men, because of our big hands, did not like it. Most women loved it. I am with the women on this one. Overall Overall, the functionality of the 7160 is what sold me. If size of the phone were a selling point, I would have chosen the 8260. If popularity were a selling point, I would have chosen the 8260. If customizing the faceplate were a selling point, I would have kept my 5165. What I was looking for was for a phone that offered more than my 6161 had to offer. And the 7160 gave me just that! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89426 2000/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks ease of use compatability signal strength batery life not a very solid feel but of course this is nit picking The Bottom LineThe Swiss Army Knife of Cellular Phones. Amazing portability, functionality, and ease of use. This is hands down the best Nokia model on the market. Full Review I recently came in cell phone market again after throwing my star-tac on the ground for the ump-teenth time. The star-tac was the most frustrating phone I have ever owned, and I strongly discourage anyone from buying it. From the day I bought it it was disgraceful (I could not even get a signal standing outside the wireless store where I purchased the plan and phone). But now back to the issue. After I sent away my star-tac for service for the third time and an average turnaround at 60 days, I was definetly in the market for a new phone. Now, the problem with reviewing a cell phone is that you never know if you are reviewing your wireless provider or the actual phone. Sometimes I wondered wether the star tac was really to blame. After purchasing the NOKIA 7160 I can assure you that this is an exceptional phone and my star-tac was a hunk of junk. (I tried to give it away to my girlfirend who doesn't even have a cell phoen and she refused it! It was that bad!) The NOKIA 7160 exceeded my expectations in all areas. From the moment I activated it I was happy. It feels solid in your hand and the slide feature allows you to extend it for a more LAN line phone feel or keep it closed for a more portable feel. Its battery life is amazing at 10 days standby. The NOKIA 7160 was easy to learn how tu use. It took me only about an hour to learn all but the most dificult functions and I had never owned a NOKIA before. Perhaps this phone's greatest breakthrough was the NAVI-ROLLER. This is a black buttone that you can roll up and down to scroll through names, web pages or links, or the alphabet to type messages much faster than click click clicking your way. When you do finally get to the name or letter you would like to choose, you can press the NAVI-ROLLER in like any other button. This feature makes dialing while in a hurry very easy. I hooked it up to my computer with ease as the phone comes with software to link to you eail, phone, pc, and handheld device. Programming in the numbers and addresses is easy using your PC, but the 'typing' function on the phone itself is a cinch to use. Typing emails and text messages is easy as pie with the dictionary feature. I can type in messages 3-4 times faster that I could on any other phone. If you own a palm or any other handheld device this phone is a beauty. I have all my appointments and to-do's linked with the phone. You can also have the phone alert you of an upcoming appointment however many minutes before the appointment you choose. Surfing the net is extremely eeasy thanks to the huge screen and the many Wireless web site friendly sites out there. The NAVI-ROLLER allows you to scroll through these sites like you are sitting at your own PC. I know many phones have the voice activated dialing feature, but I have to mention it in this review as well. It is easy to use especially while driving. Now I know what you all think, don't drive and dial, but I have the NOKIA handsfree kit in my car and regardless of what phone you have, you should buy a hands free kit. All in all this phone is a must for anyone that relies on their phone more than the average person, a businessman or a palm user. I think the price is amazingly low for the quality of this phone and I give it my full fledged recomendation. When I was shopping for phones I started by looking at the NOKIA 8260, but the salesman whispered to me that it was not half the phone the 7160 is and that almost all his collegues used it. Those that didn't, used the Motorola TimePort, but I feared buying another Motorola phone and I KNOW I made the right choice. I use this phone in the Chicago area under Cingular Wireless and have only one minor complaint. The slide feature which covers the buttons to the phone can be activated so that when you receive a call you can eitherpress a button and answer the call with the slide closed or open the slide which also 'answers' the call. As my phone wore for about a month the slide became loose and when I would answer calls using the button as opposed to the slide, the slightest movement from my chin or hand would cause the slide to slightly move making the phone think the call was being ended. I had this repaired and after about another 3 days it started doing it again so I just deactivated the "slide to answer" feature. Since then, and before then, I have not had a single problem. My only issue is now trying to get rid of my Star-Tac that just got back from its most recent 60 day voyage of service. Enjoy this phone and spread the word! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89425 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice big screen built well great organizer lots of features long battery life external antenna needs a vibrating battery for vibrating mode The Bottom LineExcellent phone, but it may TOO many features for you. Look into other phones to find the right one for you. Full Review I've been a long time user of Southwestern Bell Wireless (now Cingular) for the past 6 years. I have been on the analog service for a long time (the whole 6 years), and my bill was getting larger and larger. :-) So I decided to go PCS, and signed up for Cingular Digital PCS service. Well, I needed a phone for the service (makes sense, doesn't it?). I went to the Cingular store, and looked at the "common phones" including the Nokia 5165, and a few other phones from Ericsson and Motorola. After trying out all the phones, I narrowed down my choices to the Nokia 7160 and the Nokia 8260. I really liked the Nokia 8260; it features a compact body, an internal antenna, and a built in vibrator. However, it did not feature an infrared port which was something I really wanted for my phone so I could access the internet via my PalmPilot. Well, after thinking and thinking, I chose the Nokia 7160. Here's why. Casing This phone feels very durable and it seems to be built very well. Everything about the phone is solid. I love the sliding key cover, since when you answer the phone, you slide down the cover, sort of like you would with a flip phone. It feels a lot more comfortable talking on this phone then on the 8260 since the microphone is much closer to your mouth then it is on the tiny 8260: however, I am sure I could have gotten used to talking on the phone on the 8260; it just feels strange at first. Also, the 7160 can be answered by pressing a button instead of sliding the cover; this phone is very customizable. The phone also has a "Naviroller" (sort of like a Sony jogdial) to scroll through menus, address books, the alphabet, and basically everything else. This is very convenient when you want to access information quickly. Kudos to Nokia for including this feature! This phone is only available with an external antenna, which I found kind of annoying at first. If you don't want anything to snag your clothes in your pocket, consider the 8260. Screen The screen is nice and spacious; it is perfect for people who want to access the wireless web via their phone. Also, it is convenient when you access the phone book, calendar, and other organizer features since you see more on the screen at once. The LCD screen is very easy to read in any type of lighting. Sound Quality Sound quality is incredible. You may even confuse this phone with a landline phone during long conversations! Also, the microphone is very sensitive, so the other party won't ask you to speak louder. You can easily hear people when you are in a loud crowd. Features This phone is packed with features. It comes with a syncing cable to sync the phone's organizer with your PIM program like Outlook on your computer. I haven't used the organizer that much since I am using a PalmPilot, but it is still helpful to use. You can send and receive phone numbers via infrared to other PalmPilots and phones that have an IR port; I find this very convenient. Voice activated calling is also included. You can program up to 10 numbers with a voice command. Then, just hold down the phonebook key and say the voice command; the program will dial out the number for you. The battery life is incredible. I can leave the phone on standby and not recharge the phone for over 10 days! Now that's what all cell phones should be doing! :-) Overall, this is a great phone! However, it may have too many features then you will need. If you just want a good-quality phone, then look into the Nokia 5165. Also, if you want a very small phone, take a look at the Nokia 8200 series. Thanks for reading my opinion! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89424 2000/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight big screen long battery life neat features voice dialing great organizer great reception sliding cover metal plate heats up after long use no vibrating battery The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for people who love to be organized. It is designed for someone who wants to be in constant touch with everyone. Full Review After throwing around my 5160 way too many times, I decided it was time for a new phone. I had the 5160 for a few years and wanted a phone w/ more features so I headed on over to my local Cingular store to see what was available. I had originally had my eye on the 8260, but after seeing so many negative reviews about the size and reception I was hoping there was something better out there. There is - the 7160 is all the phone I could have asked for! It is great looking, lightweight and has wonderful reception. Features include the usual phonebook, calendar, clock, to-do list, calculator and ability to send/receive emails and mobile messages. You can also transport your information from Microsoft Outlook as well as use the infared technology to transport information to and from other phones. (I have not used this feature so I can't report on it). There are many differences between this phone and the other Nokias that are worth mentioning. The first and most notable improvement is the NaviRoller. This is equivilent to the center button on all the other Nokia phones except it allows you to effortlessly roll through all menu items and the phone book, as opposed to click, click, clicking your way throughout the menus. I must say this is very handy, especially while driving (oops, did I say I dialed while I was driving?!) There are 3 different ways to make phone calls on this phone which is very handy. You can either voice dial (up to 10 entries), leave the cover closed and just scroll through your phone book w/ the roller, or slide down the cover and dial. The voice tag system is pretty handy especially when you are driving as it does not require you to look down and select who you want to call. There is one problem w/ the voice system...it is VERY sensitive. You must previously record the person's name you want to talk to prior to using, and unless your voice is in exactly the same tone as it was recorded, it won't recognize the voice. I have found it to be much easier if you just use a person's first name initial to avoid this problem. Also, it seems to get confused if people's names sound similar. Another great feature is the size of the screen. I would say its about 2/12x the size of the 8160 which is wonderful for writing emails and messages. A handy feature of the phonebook on this phone is that it allows you to store up to 4 or 5 numbers per person (mobile, home, work, email, etc.) and also places a corresponding picture that goes along w/ it so when it comes up on caller id you will know where the person is calling from. It also allows you to designate each person as either a friend, business, family, VIP, etc. If for some reason you don't want to take any business calls, you can direct the phone to send all those callers who are designated as "business" to go to voicemail. This comes in handy when I am lying on the beach on a Tuesday. I am also very impressed w/ the email/mobile messaging ability of this phone. It is very easy to use and everyone gets my messages w/ no problem. This phone also has a "smart dictionary" which recognizes most common words and puts them together for you as opposed to you hitting the #5 button to get to the letter l. Totally saves on time and is very accurate. If it gives you the wrong word, it always lists other options. You can also transfer emails/mobile messages to your calendar and archive any items you want to save. I have not yet figured out how to transfer calendar and contact information from my PC to the phone. The phone does come w/ a tutorial CD Rom to explain how to do it, as well as comes w/ the port to connect from your phone to computer. The only dislikes I have about this phone is the face plate and the sliding cover. After speaking on a relatively long conversation, the metal portion of the face became uncomfortably hot. This only happend on the one phone call so it might be wise to use a handsfree device if you are going to be talking for a long time. The other problem is w/ the sliding cover. This would be a nice feature to use if it wasn't so sensitive. As I mentioned above, you can use the phone w/ the numbers covered. When I had the sliding feature activated, I constantly lost calls because it was way too sensitive. Everytime my chin moved the cover up a millimeter I would loose the call. Its not really a big deal though, you can turn the feature off which now just requires you to hit the "end" button when you are finished w/ a conversation as opposed to just shutting the slide. The calendar, to-do list and calculator are very easy to use and are pretty self-explanatory. One other pro is the battery time on this phone. I believe you can leave it on standby for almost 10 days! Overall, this is a great piece of technology! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89423 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a voice set cableearphone in a package most advanced model in standard absence built in vibrocall high price The Bottom LineThis is convenient phone having practically all functions of modern mobile telephones. Full Review I with impatience waited for emerging this phone in internet-shops with impatience and among the first buyers have issued the order. By opening mail packing, I have seen a small box, which was made out in the constant style Nokia. The standard package includes: phone Nokia 7160, lithium - ionic 900 mA*h battery (BLS-2S), charge system (ACP-7U), cable DLR-3P (for connection with the PC through 9-pin COM-port), earphone with a microphone (HDC-9P), CD with the software, user's guide of the telephone, instruction on connection to the PC and still whole heap of the every possible prospectuses, visual posters on operation etc. Design of the telephone is very nice. Outwardly telephone differs from Nokia 7110 only warm black color of body and absence of a back button for fast discovery of a slider with the help of of spring mechanism. Probably, the often breakage's of the mechanism have forced the manufacturer to refuse this construction. At first to open a slider by one hand there is enough complicatedly, but in one week get used. In AMPS/DAMPS the standard SIM-maps are not used, therefore connection of the telephone is made by an operator of the cellular company by means of input in the telephone of a code containing number of an operator, and entering ESN of a code of the telephone into a data base of an operator (the process is named as "creation of a pair"). Thus, in the telephone it is possible to register up to three different numbers (NAM) and to be switched between them through the menu of the telephone, the truth to work there will be number, only selected in the given moment. When turn on the telephone instead of customary logo with an image of symbolical handshake demonstrates effective animated picture "NOKIA Connecting People", which can be replaced by a salutatory line on one from 6 built-in languages. On a screen are mapped 7 divisions of a level of a signal and charge of the accumulator, time and signs "Menu" and "Names" .If you work in DAMPS the display signals about work in a digital mode by "D", it absence means connection to AMPS. Nokia 7160 works in TDMA 800 (DAMPS, IS136), TDMA 1800 (PCS), and also in AMPS. It is necessary to notice, that the analog block at modern digital models Nokia is rather weak, and it is by a negative manner has an effect for work in the mixed nets AMPS/DAMPS: during switching the telephone with analog on a digital signal (and back) the device becomes temporarily inaccessible to entering bells. The sensitivity of this model noticeably is higher than DAMPS-models Nokia (6120, 6160, 8860, 8260), but on quality of work in AMPS it slightly concedes to analog telephones Nokia 252, 282 and Motorola slightly. Behind city when availability digital (DAMPS) signal the telephone perfectly keeps a connection, in regions with uncertain analog (AMPS) reception Nokia 7160 frequently passes entering calls, but to call allows down to full loss of a signal. Quality of a sound is very good. The successful disposition of a microphone at the moment of talk just against a mouth has an effect, and technology AMPS/DAMPS ensures very natural and pure sounding. The stated operating time from a standard lithium - ionic 900 mA*h battery till 2,5 hours in a mode of talk and till 50 hours in a waiting mode in an analog mode and till 4,5 hours in a mode of talk and till 10 days in a waiting mode in a digital mode. When I (as a average) talk till 15-20 of minutes per day in mixed AMPS/DAMPS mode, the telephone has held on more than three day without turn off for night. A lot of energy is spent for a re-registration in a system AMPS/DAMPS, which happens much more often, than in GSM. Connection to the PC was easy. Windows 2000 through has defined it as "Nokia 7160 Data Fax PnP via Cable" and has installed) offered drivers from CD. The maximum data rate in AMPS/DAMPS - 9,6K, connection the telephone keeps confidently, that allows in marching conditions to use Internet. And here the synchronization with the PC has caused small difficulties: the program FoneSync 4.0 of CD refused to connect with the telephone. The problem managed to be decided with the help of download from site NokiaUSA of the new version of the program. Nokia FoneSync 4.0 allows synchronizing the telephone book of the telephone with a calendar of data's of such programs, as: Microsoft Outlook, Symantec ACT! And Lotus Organizer. The connection through infrared-port with notebook has passed smoothly, after installation of drivers the telephone has appeared in the list of modems as "Nokia 7160 IR on Virtual COM4". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 290 89422 2002/7/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 screen size features slide cover scroll button need vibrating battery to vibrate size The Bottom LineA great techie phone with tons of features... minus vibrating mode... Full Review Well, I had this phone for about a year now and it has been great. (Although the service provider is another issue...) I'll just list some pros and cons for you to judge it for yourself. The biggest pro for this phone is the display. When I let someone make a call on my Nokia 7160, this is the first comment I get. The display is HUGE compared to other phones. Another is the slide cover. Many of the Nokia phones don't have covers. My father has the old 6110 and he keeps on calling me by accidents. When I pick up the phone, all I hear is the back ground car noise.(since Nokia phones have easy redial features, this makes it worse...) Well, you do have the lock feature but it's such a hassle. It's also very unique in that it slides down instead of openning out which I think is cool.(Many people have almost broke my phone trying to open the cover instead of sliding... I guess that can be a con...) It also has a scroll button instead of up and down button like most of other phones. It makes it very easy to look up and down your large phone book as well as navigate. It feels very much like your scroll mouse... Lastly, the size of the phone is plus when using your phone. I used small phones like Nokia 8810 but it would hurt my hand after long use since it's so small and thin. I also didn't like the fact that I was not talking into the mic of the phone.(felt weird) With this phone, you can talk very comfortably for long time(long battery life) and you are talking into the mic since the cover slides down. Ok, enough about physical attributes, now for the features. It has standard Nokia features like *games*(Nokia has best games), calender, schedule(I'll describe more later), messages, call logs, phone book(can put people in groups and can enter multiple phone number like cell #, home #, work # for each person), many many ring tones(I just use regular ring since I think many of the tunes are just silly. I guess many others think so too since when my phones rings, many people check their phones...), nokia's easy navigation system(my opinion of course...), and more. Now, let me tell you about the extras. I comes with synch cables and programs for your computer so that you can use your phone as organizer. Nokia had the schedule and calendar feature for long time but many people didn't bother to use it since it's so hard put entries using your phone. But, with this program and synch cable(as well as Infrared (IrDA)) to make your schedule on your computer and type up phone numbers on your computer and synch with your computer like PDAs! Also the big screen makes it easy to read off.(still, I don't use it... but it's there.) Another feature that I thought was very cool was that it can act as a external modem for your laptops. I tried to get it working but I couldn't... maybe it's my service provider or I am doing something wrong... but again, it's there. Con Well, that was lengthy pros, but there are short crucial cons. First is the size when carrying around. This another comment I get, "Wow, your phone is huge!". It's big and it isn't comfortable in your pocket... Great when you are using it, but it's a pain carrying it. I guess it's ok with a belt clip or in a bag, but I carry it in my hand or pocket and it's not comfortable.(I guess that is why folder phones are popular. They have it good both ways, carrying and using... and now with external lcd panels... I don't know why Nokia doesn't make them.) Another big con is the lack of vibrating feature. Hmmm... big phone with many extra features can't vibrate? What were they thinking!!! Biggest con for 6110 and 5110 was that they needed vibrating battery for the phone to be used in vibrate mode. It's same here since the batteries are exchangable between 7160 and 6110 and 5110 and other similar phones.(so you can use your old 6110 and 5110 batteries as back up batteries) The vibrating batteries don't last as long and interchanging batteries are such a pain... So when I have to put it in silent mode, I put it in silent and call back since it will let you know of the missed calls. I figured, vibrate mode was big plus but I won't be able answer or talk for long on those situations anyway. But, if you have emergency calls, you will miss them. If you have many emergencies, you should consider carefully. Well, that about does it. Conclusion It's basically a techie phone with many added features. If you don't care for added features, you can get cheaper nokia phones with similar features. If you don't like large phones, look else where. But, if you are someone wants a cool phone with many extra features, this is the phone for you!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89421 2000/8/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 after a while you won t know how you got along without it does everything people want to rip off the slide plate The Bottom LineSO many functions, so little time. I love this phone and am glad I bought it. Remember, the IMAX of phone screens :) Full Review Have had this phone for about four months now, and over all I am very happy with it's performance. Had an old Nokia 5120 before, while it was a very durable reliable phone it was falling behind quickly in the tech features of other phones. Time for a change. First thing that slams you like a Mack truck when you see this phone in action is the size of the screen. Think IMAX of LCD phone screens, I mean it's that big folks. Like 3 times larger than some phones. Everyone that uses it, gushes about the ease of eye strain when entering numbers and watching the screen while playing games. I really like that aspect of it too, it didn't really hit me until I had left my phone at home one night and had to use a friends phone, I was like "dude where's the screen?" As I sit here writing this review I am quickly realizing that I could spend hours listing all the functions of this phone. I mean it's that packed. It's got a slide plate, something called a Naviroller, which is like the scroll wheel on your mouse and it's quite cool once you get used to it. It's got a reminder calender(never forget a birthday or anniversary again) and IR sensor so it can talk to other 7100 series phones or palm pilots and send and receive data. Plus you can add more than one number to a name, instead of having John work# and John fax# and John home#, you just have John and his various numbers listed in his name group, which then you would easliy scroll through with the naviroller. I'm tellin ya folks, it can be down right fun watching people's faces when I go to use my phone in front of them. They look down on their silly excuses of cellular plastic and frown. :) Okay, so many pro's what about the con's right? Here we go. Though few and far between, there are some. One of the functions that I love, the slide plate, is one of the most abused components by my friends. When they see it, something tells them they should flip the plate down instead of slide it down. Then when they can't get it to flip down they build into a blind fury of cell phone abusing chumps and try to rip the sucker off the phone! Personally, I think I have some stupid friends, cause even after several uses they still can't figure it out! Think of the apes in 2001 when they see the monolith for the first time. But I digress. Another problem is the ear piece on this baby. Because this phone has amazing battery life(oops, that would be a pro) you will want to talk a lot more on it, when doing this the brain cancer inducing microwaves coming from the phone cause the ear piece to heat up to uncomfortable levels. Sometimes alot faster than other times. Haven't figured out why it gets hotter faster than other times, but I'll let you know if I do. Speaking of the ear piece, it is not positioned in the normal spot, so if one day you can't hear the person on the other end of the line all of the sudden, it might be cause your ear is not in the right place. This is minor and with the exception of 2001 ape friends, you will get used to this quickly. One problem that I encountered about a month ago was that the phone for no apparent reason would go dead on me when I answered it or was talking to somebody. This has been the only problem I have had with the phone and it was really pi**ing me off to the point that I was about to take it in to get serviced and then it quit having the problem. Weird. Over all, great phone. Would highly reccomend it, though most of you considering this phone will end up with the newer 7190 series, but if it's anything like it's big brother it will be a great purchase! P.S. In case you are wondering about the radiation thing, I checked it out for you and found that this phone ranks in the bottom third in radiation output. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.00 89420 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 large memory comes with all the necessary components good battery confusing menu system lit display drains battery The Bottom LineDon't pay full price. It is feature-packed and very powerful, worth what I paid, but not the $200 that Nokia is asking. Full Review I purchased the Nokia 7160 approximately a week and a half ago. I am using it on the Cingular network (formerly Cell One in this area), which I will go further into detail with the service in my other review. This review is strictly about the features and uses for the phone itself. Nokia is an intelligent company when it comes to designing their phones. They have created an entire line of phones that are entirely interchangeable and universal. Batteries and earpieces from a large variety of their phones can be interchanged as wished, making their components and accessories inexpensive. I purchased this phone at a local Sam's Club Warehouse store. It cost $79 before tax (opposed to the usual $150-$200) with a 1-year Cingular service agreement. It comes in a box with the Phone headset, battery, AC adapter, computer link cable, software, and handsfree earpiece, along with manuals and other similar documents. The phone also has a Nokia 1-year warranty. My first impression of the phone as I held it in my hand was the durability. The phone itself is very solid, and heavier than most other current-technology phones, giving it a sense of structure. The sliding cover over the keys, however, feels slightly weaker and less durable. I sometimes feel like it will simply break off (The manual has information on re-attaching the sliding cover if it does come off, so I guess Nokia is aware of this and made it a break-away item so it can be easily fixed). The screen is huge and well protected. It feels very scratch-resistant. The screen has a very nice back-light that is even across the whole screen. At first the size of the screen felt awkward, but I have gotten used to it over time. The memory space is phenomenal, it will hold up to 1000 Names with up to 5 numbers per name, an Address line, E-Mail address line, and Note line. It will also hold numerous amount of Calendar and To-Do information. The phone is equipped with a Clock, Alarm, fully-function Call Timers (including an unresetable life-timer), and 35 built-in Ringtones. It also includes four games, which don't intrigue me much. One is very similar to the QBasic game "Nibbles" (Snake II), another is like a game of Tennis (Racket), The game Opposite is similar to yet another common low-profile game, and I'm still not sure what the game "Rotation" involves. Although the phone is designed for its remarkable ability with WAP (wireless internet) and messaging services, I do not use those. The phone does, however, let you send and receive E-Mail directly through the phone service, and browse through the wireless internet. If you plan to use these service, you should also plan to pay the extra rates. The roller function is highly beneficial. It makes for easy navigation of menus and items, especially the address book. With the large variety of menus available on the phone, this is a necessity. Now comes the question of battery life. When the phone is in stand-by, no buttons being pressed, the battery seems to last forever. The battery-usage meter includes 7 sections (along with the signal strength meter) making it easy to tell precisely how much battery power is left. If you are using the phones functions regularly, writing E-Mail, using the phonebook, or playing games, the battery tends to wear down quickly. I have managed to drain the battery in a single day of use, and on the other hand I've had it last through an entire day and not lose a single battery meter bar. Don't get me wrong, the battery talk-time and standby time is very good, but when using features you are using the lit display, and this will quickly drain the battery. The things I don't like or find annoying about the phone go as follows: Often when moving the phone the sliding cover will open just enough to turn the display light on. This happens more than I would care for it to happen. It seems as if whatever causes this light to come on is a bit too sensitive. The speaker for your ear is in an awkward spot. If you hold the phone up to your ear as you would a regular phone (or any other phone for that matter), you can not hear anything. You have to move the phone down slightly to line the holes up with your ear so you can hear. I thought the volume was down too far at first until I moved the phone a little and was able to hear the other person talking. It would be nice if the sliding cover was not as flimsy. As mentioned above, it does feel like it will simply snap off at any moment. The phone does not come with a vibrating feature. If you want that capability you much purchase a vibrating battery separately. These batteries, however, are not expensive. The phone is larger and heavier than other current-technology phones. This can be both good and bad. It makes it feel more durable, however it can be more annoying to carry around. Nevertheless, it does fit in my front pocket alongside my keys. The menus can be confusing. I often spend a long time using trial-and-error to find my way to different features. I recommend studying the menu diagram in the manual when you first purchase the phone. Also, you can only get into certain options via extraneous methods or using other buttons beside simply pushing the roller key. Sometimes the roller key opens new menus, other times it selects certain options. The left button (next to the roller key) is other times used to open new menus. This can become very confusing and annoying very fast. I managed to wear out an entire battery simply going through menus in order to figure out what did what and to change settings to my preferences. The phone was by far worth what I paid for it. It retails for $150-200 on average (with a service plan activation), but I managed to find a deal (as mentioned above). It is extremely powerful and versatile and is basically like having a small computer to hold all your information. I keep it with me at all times for all purposes. It has a few flaws, most of which can be overcome with a little manipulation and studying. If you want something powerful that can serve as a small computer and a phone, then this is it. For the price I paid, this will suit anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89419 2000/5/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sliding cover phone computerpalm pilot all rolled into one ear piece doesn t fit in my ear The Bottom LineIf you are looking to avoid purse dialing, and want a great phone that does it all this is it! Full Review I have been a proud Nokia user for over 5 years. In those years I have been on both Analog and Digital phones. With each year, and every phone I noticed I was having more and more problems with what I like to call purse dialing! Ok, you might be asking what purse dialing is, and I will be glad to tell you now. Purse dialing is when you have your cell phone on the inside of your purse, and it dials a number for you, without your knowledge! I personally have done this, but my mother is more famous for calling extended lengths of time, where I can hear her singing to the radio in the car(this was quite costly when I lived 1000 miles away from her). Anyways this type of dialing was becoming more and more frequent as the phones became smaller, more compact, and easier to use. Luckily, I moved home to Florida to work after college graduation, or we might have lost tons of money to this horrible problem! In 1999, my mother and I renewed our contracts with Bell South(now Cingular) and received our new Nokia 5100 series phones. I had a 5120, and my mother got a 5160. Both great phones, but still very easy to dial without even realizing it. For 2 years I would receive phone calls, hearing my mother singing to my latest cd that she stole out of my collection (Little Earthquakes is her favorite to steal)! Now don't get me wrong, I love my mother, and her singing voice isn't half bad, but I hate for her to use 30 minutes of talk time, because her phone dialed out, while embedded in her purse. Well, May 2001 was rolling around, and my mother and I realize one day that our service contract with Bell South is about to expire, and that we needed to change the service plan over to Cingular. When walking into the store, we noticed this nifty looking Matrix type phone, and over heard, the words brand new, out of a sales persons mouth! My mom and I just looked at one another and nodded, we had to have this phone, if not for me, definitely for her! This phone fun and practical. It has many great features that you can't help but wonder what you ever did before, without them! My personal favorite is the To-Do list, since I am interviewing right now, it lets me keep my appointments all set in my phone and reminds me 30 minutes before hand! Features include: Navi™ roller for fast and easy scrolling and selection of the phone's great features Profile settings allow adjustment of phone to your environment and lifestyle Predictive text input for fast and easy way to write Short Messages(stores up to 100 Short messages) Voice dialing with up to 10 voice tags Ascending ringing tones Personal alert tones 5 downloadable ringing tones Call forwarding, call waiting, own number display(network dependent feature) 4 games (Snake II, Rotation, Opposite, Racket) Phone Book: Stores up to 1000 names, up to 5 numbers per name (general mobile, work, home, fax) and up to 2 text fields per name (postal address, email or note) Calendar with details and various new options; stores up to 500 entries To-Do List: Stores up to 100 items Active slide for answering and ending calls(this is my favorite feature if you can't tell!) This phone allows for some futuristic movie-like features that normally one could only see in a James Bond flick, such as Infrared for wireless communication between phone and PC,and phone-to-phone transfer of names, phone numbers and calendar entries. Another great innovation is this phone is Internet and PC ready, you can get your email from anywhere just by turning on your cell phone, providing your service allows it! What other phone has over 4 hours talk time, up to 10 days of digital standby time, light as can be at less than 5 ounces,with a large graphical display and menu animations? The Nokia 7100 Series is in a class of its own, and the 7160 is quickly becoming a favorite among cellular customers, and being less than a month old, that is quite an accomplishment. After talking to a sales person, we opted to sign a new contract for 2 years, and got the phone for only $99 (normally $149 with 1 year contract)! Now granted I have only had this phone 3 weeks, but now instead of turning off the phone whenever I am not using it, I find myself leaving it on to wait for incoming calls (a rarity before this phone)or calling out myself to talk to someone! I am proud to say that in the past 3 weeks of owning this phone, my mom and I have ceased to have any purse dialing problems. I love the fact I can pick up my phone, call my mom and actually talk, not just hear someone singing through a muffled purse! This phone has changed our cellular outlook. Thank you Nokia for finally coming together and creating such a great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7777 Nokia 7250 89446 2000/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 games colour screen camera polyphonic ringtones no good covers for it could be smaller The Bottom LineGreat phone! Full Review The thing I like best about this phone, is that I can use it when I am bored. Here is a list of the things I like to do on my phone. -Games I love playing Bounce. It's like Mario, but with a ball that grows bigger, as you advance through the levels. More fun than boring snake. -Take Photos Anywhere, anytime, of anyone. But not in public changing rooms, as that is illegal. In Australia at least. There is no zoom function though, and if it's a sunny day, you can't take great pics. But it's good if you want to take a pic of someone without them knowing.. Great for on the train when you see hot guys..muahaha -Ring Tones They are polyphonic and they sound like nothing you've ever heard before. You can download some cool things off the internet to make good songs. -Radio You can listen to the radio through this thing! Just using your head set! The thing I don't like about this phone is that there aren't many (or ANY) different covers for it yet, so you have to settle for the typical grey depressing colour they give you. The colour screen is a pleasant change from the usual green and black you get with other phones. The graphics on the screen are cute, and sometimes you feel like you are on the computer. YOu can also gain access to the internet via this contraption and read your email. Quite handy actually. There is also speakerphone option, so when you're driving your car, or lying in bed, you can just sit the phone there and it will talk to you. (Quite amusing actually if you place the phone beside a teddy bear. It seems like your teddy is talking to you.) That's all I really have to say about this phone. It has folders and stuff too... like in Windows explorer, so that's cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): worth 1000AU 89445 2003/3/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small changes from the 7210 6610 make this an outstanding phone leftright buttons above remind me of 7210 costly screen still ghosts at times The Bottom LineGreat design, Great camera. What's not to like? Definitely for those looking for a fun mobile phone. Full Review Before changing to this phone, I was using the Nokia 6610, which has been with me for less than 4 months. It was good phone I must say, but the release of the Nokia 7250 had made my heart flutter. Still, I was hesitant. I did not know if it was worth the money to change the phone. And I did it. And I never regretted. First look at the phone and I was captivated. The design was "provocative", quoting Nokia, and very nice in my opinion. The little touches by the sides made the phone look of brushed metal. Phone feels good in the hand too, but I'm constantly conscious of not staining the camera. One press at the keypad and i was delighted! But the keys on top, ie. the Left, Right, Up and Down keys are close together and reminds me of the terrible 7210. Some may argue that is simply a 7210/6610 with a camera. I must inform you that this is NOT the case. Many small refinements make this phone a brilliant phone. For starters, the key which used to be for "names" in many other Nokia phones, can be configured to "Go To" somewhere of your choice, for example to the camera or for a quick change of profiles. The menu, like so many Nokias we know, is easy to pick up and very instinctive. Makes the instruction manual seem redundant in my case. Furthermore, the menu pictures now come with animation. For example, when you press "menu", you will see the "MESSAGES" heading with a picture there. Then you'll see a fish swimming across the screen. No tangible benefit, but definitely pleasing to the eye. Lastly, on to the most hyped-about feature of the 7250, the camera. This is the sole reason I changed from a 6610 to a 7250, and I was not disappointed. Photos were of good quality, and relatively impressive as compared to the 7650 or the S.E. T68i. The photos are well-displayed on the screen. Nokia still goes with a passive matrix 4,096 colours display. Some may say that it is too little, considering the fact that competitors like Samsung are coming with TFT Screens with 65k Colours. In my opinion, the Nokia screen is good enough. Normally you can't tell the difference with 65k Colour screens due to the small size of screens on mobile phones. It does its job well, though the problem of "ghosting" still occurs on the Bounce. The 7250 comes with 6MB of memory, a good improvement from the 7210/6610. I was kind of hoping for a memory stick slot, but then again I digress. Polyphonics were generally impressive, though not to the standard of the 16-voice or the 40-voice polyphonic phones because essentially this phone supports 4-voice polyphonics only. One complaint: Tones are too soft. Call quality was great too, and it sounded good in places of poor reception. Excellent. In conclusion: The camera does not add too much weight on the phone. Coupled with the relatively impressive quality of the photos, and also with the little touches of improvement from the Nokia 7210/6610, lead me to conclude that this phone is worth every cent of the SG$750 i forked out for it. Essentially being a fun mobile, with an FM Radio and Camera, as well as being extremely portable, brings me to recommend this phone for most people. For hardcore technology seekers, do look elsewhere. I love this phone. You'll love it too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 w/o line 89444 2000/12/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker for quick hands free option tailorable menu shortcuts poor camera quality headphone socket is horrible chunky by todays standard The Bottom LineSolid phone, intuitive menus but hate headphone connection Full Review I have now owned this mobile for 6 months, I think Nokia is the still the best, (Nokia's intuitive menus, reliability, say no more); On the plus side; - Nokia intuitive menus just get better, they are without doubt the best. - new menu shortcuts I love, choose your favorite menu options and add them to a shortcut. I now go into work hit two keys and the ring changes to a quiet bleep, then hit two keys as I leave work to switch to my "Muppet Tune" ringtone. two keys and look at my photos. -ability to download photos to the PC at 'no cost', but for some crazy reason you have to transfer the photos to a different folder on the mobile before you can download them. shops told me this was not possible. - speaker is excellent for quick handsfree / conference option. - a camera in a mobile is excellent you always have a mobile but often would not carry a camera, you can take a picture of yourself and partner in a restaurant at the stretch of an arm, great fun. - battery life is a lifetime. - downloaded space invaders game, great fun if ever bored - varying ringtones for different people is still a great feature. On the downside; - camera quality is poor, suppose thats common, can't wait until they improve. - connection to headphone lead is horrible. - a bit chunky, not ergonomic design (a bit of a small brick). it looks small but its thick. - screen could be larger for viewing photos. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): £150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89443 2000/7/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 looks elegant built in camera tri bandmms capable colored screen no bluetooth expensive paint on the casing not that durable The Bottom LineIf the camera is the only thing you want in this phone, I suggest you look somewhere else. Full Review Having been a Nokia user for the past 8 years, it was natural for me to upgrade to Nokia branded phones. So when the phone company where I am subscribed offered free phones for it's loyal customers, I jumped on the opportunity to get this particular phone. As a Photographer, I have always wanted a phone with built in camera but didn't want anything that would be too bulky on my pants' pocket. So after getting this phone, the first thing I did was play with the phone's camera. What a dissapointment that was, I expecting quality to be better than the older model Nokia 7650, but suprisingly it was worst. If you try taking pictures of people like in a well lit restaurant, where the people are more than 10 feet from you, you won't be able to recognize their faces anymore. The only time it became useful was when my wife recently gave birth to our second child. I took a picture of our baby at arms length, and sent it to people through the phones mms (multi media message) to people excited in seeing the baby. My last phone a Nokia 5210, was a great no frills phone, the only problem was the phone's memory capacity was small. I was already erasing phone number of people who I thought I would never call again, just to enter new phone numbers. Good thing about the 7250 is the memory is more than twice that of the 5210. After transferring my old numbers to the new phone and added quite a number of new ones, I still have a good 40% of the memory left. Using the phone, like other Nokia phones, are a snap to use. It is very user friendly, and if you are already a current Nokia user, getting use to this phone will only take a few minutes. There is one function in the messaging (SMS) that I can't say I like or dislike, it's the function that saves sent messages automatically to a folder. This eats up your message memory, and you have to regularly delete these messages to free up memory. The good thing is, there are times you have typed a lengthy message and sent it to someone, and after clearing write dialog you remember you have to send it to another receipient. Since it saves all sent message, rather than re-typing the lengthy message just access the sent folder and re-send that message to another user. Let me explains some of my cons: Expensive - If I didn't get this phone for free, I would have had to spend over $500.00 to get this phone during that time I acquired this phone. No bluetooth - self explanatory Paint on the casing - After the first week of use, I have already found some parts of the silver grey case going black. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89442 2000/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 looks screen slow menus camera build quality radio headset design The Bottom LineBuy it if you've got money to burn. If not, resist the good looks and wait for something better. Full Review I've owned this handset for a fortnight now. Perhaps unwisely, I imported it from Hong Kong without having seen anything more than a few online pictures of it, never mind had a chance to play with it. But it looked so good on Nokia's website... I had to have it. The pro's. - It looks great. It's possibly the best looking handset Nokia have ever made. I bought it in grey which is, as far as I'm concerned, the only colour to have it in from the four initial 'out of box' choices. - Perhaps only because it's so new, it's desirability factor is very high. Everyone who's seen it is impressed. And why not, it's a handsome looking beast, after all! - The screen is bright and the colours vivid. Top marks. The cons. - I've come from owning a Nokia 8310 previously. The radio on it was quite good. It managed pretty good reception almost anywhere that a normal radio would have good reception. The 7250's radio performance, however, is completely dismal. I struggle to get a clear signal almost anywhere I go (which isn't any different that the places I used the 8310 radio). Whether this is down to the electronics in the handset or the arial (i.e. the headphones), I'm not sure. It's almost laughable that it's capable of playing FM in stereo, when it barely manages static free mono! In any case, it's far from impressive. If this were a radio, and not a phone with a built in radio, I'd take it back for a refund! - Now, you could argue that it's a phone first, and that the radio and camera are added bonuses. Well, yes, that's true to an extent. But when you're paying way over the odds for these bonuses (as you currently have to do with the 7250), then you want them to be fully functioning and high quality. The camera, in this incarnation, is pretty much a gimmick. The max resolution (at 352 * 288) is a too low for anything useful, and the absence of a flash makes it no good for dark/night shots. You're certainly not going to throw out your 4MP digital camera in favour if this, and never were you meant to... it'll be a long time before that day arrives, but it doesn't mean you should be happy with ultra low res images from a camera phone either. On the plus side, at such low resolution there's room for about 250 snaps before you'll run out of that 5Mb space. - In comparison with my old 8310, menu navigation seems sluggish. Not unusable by any means, just slower that I'm used to and slower than I'd like. - The headset design has to be some sort of joke. With the old 8310 headset, it had a sturdily built clip which housed the mic and you'd attach it to your collar or something. It was simple and it worked. The new headset is just terrible though. The distance between the headphones and the mic is about 60cm. If you put the headphones your ears, the mic sits round about your waist!!! The alternative is to create a loop around your neck to use up some of that length, hold it in place with the little snap-together clip, and drag the mic back up to something approaching mouth level. But, doing that means that there's barely enough length in the wire to have your phone sit in your coat pocket!!! I don't know what Nokia were thinking, but it's bad design. Very, very bad design. The same can be said for the connector. It reminds me of the multi-pin Ericsson GA628 I had years ago. Repeated insertion and removal over two weeks have rendered it loose and it's not so unusual for it to now pop out of the phone while in my pocket. - Finally, the build quality. It's not bad, but it's not what I'd expect for the money. The scroll buttons squeak and creak when pressed and it just doesn't exude the build quality I'd expect from a phone costing this much money. Other minor quibbles include not being able to assign a photo to a number in the phonebook so that it shows when that person rings, although this may (or may not) be addressed with a future firmware upgrade. All in all, it's not a BAD phone. It's just less than I'd expect from Nokia, and much less than I'd expect for the price. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500 89441 2000/11/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great size global coverage great look radio camera no bluetooth expensive The Bottom LineExcellent. It has all the functions that you could want, including a radio which should become a standard inclusion on all phones, and a fun camera. Full Review So I needed a new phone. My 1 goal - to avoid Nokia. I had spent a few years with the 8250 and then the 8210 and had never had a worse experience with any product. I walked into shops with the cry "show me anything that isn't a nokia". I looked around the web. I considered the sony ericson t610 and that sharp clamshell model. I looked at Samsungs and Siemens. And I looked at the 7250i. Could I be persuaded to go back to Nokia? People assured me that the software problems with the 8250 and 8210 were limited to those two phones. I decided to risk it and I haven't looked back. Despite being the sort of person who doesn't consider themselves to be too materialist and should certainly be above caring about their mobile phone, I really like this one. The colour screen is great. Really nice. The polyphonic rings and games and the covers are not so exciting so if you care about those things, you may want something else. I couldn't care less, in fact I think the cover is really nice. The sound quality seems a little ordinary but it could be that I've just been talking to my girlfriend whose on holiday overseas a lot recently and we've had bad connections. The camera is a bit of fun. It's not going to replace a serious camera just yet but it's a nice little accessory so long as you think of it as a fun thing to have on your phone, not a way to develop a career as an amateur photographer. The radio is very useful. Sitting on a bus? Waiting at a cafe for friends to arrive? Walking to work? The radio is excellent. The reception is very good considering it's a phone. The headset is a little crackly at times but that's to be expected. It's really useful, particularly if, like me, you can never be bothered carrying a walkman around with you but don't mind a little bit of music if you're just waiting or something. I would never get another phone without a radio. Also, it's a really good size. It actually looks bigger than it is because of the amount of space dedicated to the screen and buttons but it's actually a very small phone. The raised edges are also a clever touch because they help protect the screen from getting scratched in your pocket. No bluetooth. This will disappoint some but I've never had it so don't know what I'm missing I guess. Overall, a great phone for someone looking for a couple of extras but who doesn't expect their phone to represent their identity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1000Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89440 2000/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good looking feature rich no bluetooth jack of all trades master of none The Bottom LineBuy it, if, like me, you like the Nokia menu structure, like gadgets, but can live without them all being top-class. Full Review I'm a big fan of Nokia phones, and have been using them since the bricks of the early 90's. As a business user with monthly bills in excess of $700, I guess I rate as a high user, so I need a phone up to that kind of abuse. I've been using a 6310 for the past couple of years, and it's never let me down. My requirements for my new phone were that it must be tri-band, and ideally have Bluetooth, as I've got a bluetooth car kit fitted. The 6310i would have been the obvious choice; however, I needed a change. I started out with a 6100, which, apart from the camera, has the same functionality as the 7250. However, I didn't think much of the sound quality, and the phone was a bit creaky, so I returned it for a 6610. This was a bit better, and again, other than the radio and camera had exactly the same functions, and is very light. However, in my opinion the sound quality was still only average at best, and I needed something better than that. It sounded like the ear speaker was a bit loose in its' mounts, which gave a buzzy, tinny noise when listening to someone, particularly if they had a low voice. A call from Barry White would have been unbearable! (not that it ever happened!). I've now got the 7250, and I'll be sticking with it. The sound quality is a little better (presumably due to the fact it's a bit heavier). Right now it's sitting in the Music Stand (DT-1) which allows it to act as a normal radio, as well as a hands free speaker phone. Very cool. (I'm a sucker for gadgets). So, what's good and bad about it? We'll, my opinion is based on having used Nokias for over 12 years, so bear that in mind - GOOD - Nice looking, not too creaky for a phone with user-replaceable covers (but not as good as the 63xx series where the covers were not replaceable, and therefore a lot sturdier - Menu structure is classic Nokia, but in colour. If you like it then great (I've never found anything even close), but if you don't like other Nokia phones then this won't do anything for you. - Radio. I live in the sticks, but the reception is still pretty good. I'm not the type to walk around listening to the radio, so I can't testify to the quality when using it whilst moving, but see my comments below regarding the headset! - Features - this has more or less every feature of most current phones, but, typically for Nokia, none of them are class leading. As some examples, the camera is a great gadget, but that's all it'll be used for. The polyphonic tones are OK, but they only support 4 concurrent channels, whereas some of the cheaper phones (i.e. Samsung) support many more. - Size/weight - not too small, not too heavy. Just about right in fact. - Good keyboard. When I tried the dummy model in the shops, the keys were spongy and without feedback. there was no real handset to try, so I had to take a chance. Fortunately all is fine, and despite the funky design, they're pretty good. They even all light up fine, one of my big criticisms of the 6310, where the edge keys don't illuminate enough to be able to see the characters. BAD - The covers are plastic, don't let the adds deceive you, the metal look is exactly that! Hopefully Nokia will release some real metal covers, though maybe that would screw up the reception? - The headset is a classic case of letting the designers go mad, with no regard for usability. However you hang it off yourself it looks weird, and is far from discreet. Mine's still in the box, and that's where it'll stay. - Every polyphonic ringtone is a melody. What's wrong with some normal ring ring type sounds? I use this phone for business, and don't need a polyphonic charge of the Light brigade to announce a new caller. I know I can download some new ones from various website, but why should I have to? - No Bluetooth. Not a great loss, but it makes my car kit redundant. These chips are very cheap now, and Nokia were one of the main supporters of it, but just lately hardly any of their phones are supporting it. Why?? - It didn't ship with the Nokia PC Suite, but this can be downloaded - a mere 22MB! Great fun over a dial-up modem. - The pop-port 'innovation' seems to be a retrograde step. Why go back to clunky, easy to break connectors? We're stuck with these for the next few years at least, but how this design got to market I'll never know. In summary, it's very easy to pick fault these days, as there's so much competition, and no single phone has everything just right. I could have got the Sony/Ericsson P800, but then I'd have to put up with a worse GUI (IMHO), and something twice the size of most other phones. The 7250 is a pretty good all-rounder, with no obvious major short-comings, and no must-have features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 89439 2000/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 funky easy to use sexy camera detail isn t great The Bottom LineA fantastic phone with all the latest technology... although no BlueTooth. Full Review After many happy years together with my Nokia 3310, I decided to donate it to the 'please Kirsty can I have your phone now' fund otherwise known as my broke younger brother. I had also been having problems with my network - O2 I hope you're taking note! - and to be entirely honest... just fancied a new phone. I had been after the Motorola V300 for ages but hadn't been able to get hold of it. I am not famed for my patience so when I trotted past the Orange shop I did a double take. The Nokia 7250i was calling out to me. It was on offer for GPB 199.99 on pay as you go with free text saver worth GPB 19.99, giving me 5 free messages a day. Hurrah! 'Buy me' it called as I stepped into the store and obeyed. After arriving home with my prized purchase, I was a prepared for a long wait as my old model took a good 16 hours for it's first charge. But much to my amazement, one and a half hours later it was fully charged and ready for me to get my mitts on. Right lets get on with it, shall we?! What I love about my sexy new phone: I can... take, send and receive photo messages (multi media messaging) talk hands free with the speaker phone and hands free kit supplied download games with Java listen to the radio on the move with the in-built FM stereo download lots of trendy new polyphonic tones using wap and annoy everyone on the bus by showing them off... hehehe I can also attempt to organise myself with the fantastic calendar which allows you to record birthdays, meetings, memos and general reminders. The camera is located on the back of the phone and is really easy to use. You can choose from standard photo (just a normal pic), night mode (for those times you're in the dark and really just have to take a photo) and portrait for taking a slightly more elongated photo. You can attach photos to people in your phonebook so their face shows up when they call, as well as using them as wallpaper. I love the fact that it is so easy to personalise this phone, you can change the wallpaper, much like you can on a computer, the tones can be altered as can the colour scheme. there are a few facias about now, but the amount available will increase as the phone becomes more popular, or so I'm told by the bloke in the mobile accessory shop. So give it six months or so. The speaker phone is a work of genius, it actually works really, really well. The hands free kit is also used to listen to the radio and is great. I always feel a little self conscious using it on the bus though, as it is the kind of bus where everyone sort of knows each other as we're all on there everyday, and it causes a flurry of excitement when someone's phone rings and EVERYONE turns and looks at the freak who's talking to herself while looking out the window. I have surprised myself by managing to download a couple of ring tones and quite a few games. The phone came with two pretty pants games, Triple Pop and a ball related thing. Both of which were deleted to make room for my new Scooby-Doo Java game which is genius. You can buy quite a selection of Java games to download from most phone retailers, just be sure to check compatibility on the box, and ask if in any doubt. What I can also do but haven't quite worked out how to yet: connect to my computer using infrared or something called 'wirefree'. Ok, I have to be honest and admit I haven't got the faintest idea of how to go about doing this, but I am taking an educated guess and assuming it enables you to link the in-built calendar and the email facility?? The wap service is also really as simple as wap can be I suppose. It connects using GPRS which means that you pay for the information accessed rather than the time spent looking at it. I haven't had any problems with it so far, although it takes longer than I would expect to connect sometimes. As with all Nokias, the SMS messaging is easy to use, you can choose to type using predictive text or normal type, and it allows you to spread your text over three messages as with other Nokia models. The actual look of the phone is very sleek, with two black strips down the front on either side, and is very light to hold. The buttons are smaller than others and more compact, but are not so small that you can't actually get to them. The colour screen is surprisingly large and incredibly sharp and clear. So to summarise I'll briefly go over the main features; *Camera- easy to use, several settings available, good quality pictures *Accessories include the usual calculator, but calendar and to-do list functions enable you to carry your life in your phone *Good range of polyphonic tones in-built on the phone, and can download many more *Games already on phone are a bit boring to say the least, but recent downloads include Freecell and Scooby-doo *The memory on the phone is excellent, I can store 150 text messages and 200 contacts on the sim card and many more on the phone memory. *Bonus features include the ability to access the full memory while having a particularly boring conversation on the phone perhaps. *The battery life is really good, depending on how long you spend actually speaking on the phone of course. Battery life is naturally also relative to the sheer amount of 'fiddling' with the functions. To conclude, the Nokia 7250i is a trendy little number and is fantastic to personalise. It is easy to use, although the buttons are sort of swapped over from the 3310 which is confusing at first but you soon get the hang of it. So what more can I say? Oh, apart from the fact that it's not a flip phone damn it! Congratulations, Nokia, another superb little number and worth every penny/cent! K xxxx Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7778 Nokia 5210 89449 2005/4/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 different covers good clear sound shock proof dust under screen just me being picky i think The Bottom LineThis is the action mans/womans phone! Full Review Well this is the Nokia 5210 and I love it and yes as many people have mentioned and you've probably heard this phone is "shock proof". When buying it I didn't realize just how shock proof "shock proof" meant. I have been outside on my bike at speed, dropped my phone and my friend right behind me hit it with his front wheel lost control and fell over and the phone was launched into the road. I got off my bike (after stopping) and went to pick it up and it was fine it all worked! And as for the cover and screen: one mark diagonally down it but what do you expect a 14 stone man hitting it on a bike. Also I didn't care about the outside damage I was just amazed it worked. So I suppose I've tested it for shock proofness and it passed with flying colours. I have also dropped in a few puddles (by accident) and guess what it survived that. Now thats a bonus as nowhere in its specification is waterproof counted (I wouldn't try this and if you have to remember I only dropped it in a puddle not a bath or something). Moving on from its extremely practical features its also very good on the eyes small, curved, lightweight and interchangeable covers which you can mix and match. I did this with a dark orange and blue and it defiantly stands out! Charge times are quick and battery life can vary from 5-7 days depending on usage. I find all the buttons the right size for me but some people may find them too small and fiddly. When on the phone on a train (in rush hour) I find I can still here my conversation easily. You get loads of ringtones (not polyphonic but still pretty damn cool) and the usual clock, calculator, diary, address book. Games incude: The famous snake, bantumi and a few more. The only thing that annoyed me was I was ripped-off but luckily for you the price has gone down a lot since I purchased it! One flaw which isn't really bad it's just me being picky is that the inside of the screen seems to collect dust easily but you can just take the cover of and clean it so its not really a proper problem. Oh and on the subject of taking the cover off its different to most nokias its in two parts: top and bottom not front and back. And when the cover is off it looks really cool but it's not good to use it like this as its a lot more fragile. I hope this review will help you make an informed decision on your mobile phone purchase. P.S. There are many other features i didn't include such as timers etc for running etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.51Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89448 2000/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 tough unique trendy the case gets dirty rather easily The Bottom LineThe 5210 is value-for-money. You can drop the phone and it still works well. This is for the road warrior who demands reliability. Full Review I needed a new phone a year back because my 3210 was problematic. Was having a toss-up between a Nokia 5210 and a Siemens M35 (water and dust resistant too). Decided on the 5210 for various reasons -- the user friendly interface, the generous screen, the familiarity of the Nokia, and the unique sporty outlook of the 5210. It was love at first sight because I love the fact that an arm strap was provided for jogging purposes. Though, I must admit that the grey colour strap does not really colour coordinate with my Californian orange case. The case: The phone has an interesting two-piece shell that splits into the top and bottom sections. You have to hold down the sides of its hips and pull the top shell out. Subsequently, hold on the skeleton of the phone and pull the bottom shell out. The shell is made of shock-resistant materials, thus, making it resilient to shocks -- can be the g-shock of mobile phones. The stark contrast between the Californian orange and blue makes it outstanding. On the case, there are 5 attachment spots for you to put your cute mobile accessories or hang it off a neckstrap. Somehow, these attachment spots are more sturdy compared to other Nokias because it is integrated into the case. There is a cover to close up the ear piece and charger part of the phone. This is useful for someone like me who enjoys lying on the beach for hours. Sand could not get in at all. However, do not put your phone in water -- it is water resistant (not 200m like the G-shock) NOT waterproof. Take it to the warm shower with you, no problems. The non-Nokia shells have really bad button pads. The non-Nokia top and bottom shells also do not fit properly over the phone properly, leaving gaps in between. The cover for the ear piece and charger also does not do the job. The display: I really love the generous and high-resolution no colour display. It has a screensaver quite unlike the 3310 and 3315 -- the time is shown with the DATE on the entire screen. This also functions as an indication as to whether your phone is getting any reception. If there is no reception, the clock will not show up. I find this a really useful feature. The screen is illuminated by a warm orangy light -- unique considering most phones are going blue these days. The buttons: The buttons are a lot easier to press. The shell of this model actually has the button pad integrated into the shell. The quality of the buttons are gr8 -- firm to press down, good size for big fingers and good response from the springs. Size: Well, if you compare the skeleton of this phone with that of a 6510, the 5210 is slightly bigger by 1 mm or so with each dimension. However, the case has made it seem a lot bigger than it is. This is to improve the shock resistant properties of the phone. The size of this phone is comparable to the 6100s and 7000 series Nokia polyphonic phones; though the 5210 is thicker. However, from playing with my friend's 6100, I find the 6100 not sturdy enough. Clarity: The reception is a lot better than the 6510 and the 3310. The clarity is gr8. Battery life: Not bad. Runs out after 2 hours of talktime. However, these days, batteries are cheap and can afford to get a spare. Generally, lasts around 1 day easily. Ear piece: The normal non-Nokia ear piece which worked well with my 3210 and 6510 did not work with the 5210. However, the original ear piece for the 6510 that is used for listening to the built-in radio worked really well with the phone. Infra-red: The infra-red feature is the same as other Nokia phones. It communicated with a Fujitsu computer and a Palm m505. No major problem except for the occasional stuff up with the Palm OS. After upgrading the software for the 5210, the problem occurred less frequently. Other features: Stop watch and thermometer. The thermometer does not work that well and I always have to subtract the degrees Celsius reading by 2-3 degrees. Sometimes I wonder if the thermometer really works or whether it incorporates a number generator that tells you the temperature by random. The calendar is really a norm now -- so I won't bore you with it. Though I must say, I hoped that Nokia was able to put 4 weeks into each view like the 6510 rather than the 2 weeks. Oh yes, I am excited to tell you this... The Nokia 5210 actually has a built-in lunar calendar... No other phone offer that, I believe. Though this phone was sold at a way cheaper price than the 6510 and the 8310 a year ago, this phone offers better value. Currently, the 5210 holds its value compared to the 6510 and 8310 for various reasons. The 5210 retains its resistance while the 6510/8310 is no longer trendy. The 5210 is no trendsetter at this moment but it still delivers beautifully. I won't change to another phone for as long as it works. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89447 2005/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quite light looks sort of funky very small very solid unfriendly wap interface can t download not the best sound quality The Bottom LineIf you want a solid, unbreakable (nearly!) and reliable model and are looking for useful rather than gimmicky, this is an excellent buy. Full Review There is one reason I got this phone - it was recommended as the best ever built if you have a tendency to drop your phone. And I do, having previously killed 3 phoned. My poor little Sagem MiniWap looked like a bomb had hit it and sounded like a phone line to Calcutta by the time I decided I had to get a new one! It's labelled the "Sport" model, and as such it also has some extra features such as a stopwatch, countdown timer and even a thermometer. These features are somewhat unusual and actually very useful. I like the way it looks, okay its not as small as more recent models and it doesn't have a colour screen or camera but who really needs that stuff anyway? Once you're past the early teenage years you should realise that the phone's basically for making calls with. Most of the other options are run-of-the-mill Nokia stuff. But, in summary, here they are: Address book - normal stuff here, can hold 100 contacts + what the SIMM can hold, can assign user groups - ie Family, Friends, Business etc. Messages: What you'd expect really, with the addition of templates, which are pretty useful. Otherwise it's all the standard stuff. Doesn't seem to have tracking options but that didn't bother me in the least. Limited picture messaging support. Call Register - missed calls, received calls, dialed numbers, Erase Recent call lists, call duration. All the normal features present and accounted for. There's not really anything more you might need here. Profiles - a fair number of (sadly) monophonic tunes. You can set different profiles up, and different tunes or alerts for messages, calls, different caller groups or individual callers. Settings: Alarm clock, time settings, call settings, phone settings, keyguard settings, tone settings, security settings, restore factory settings. All you could want to change can be changed, basically. Games: Snake 2 (a great improvement over the original), Space Impact (a sort of tiny R-Type - not too bad I guess), Bumper (a pinball game - which really doesn't transfer all that well to a phone!) , Bantumi (a strategy game with beans! - not bad but too easy), and Pairs 2 (okay if you like that sort of thing). Games are not exactly what I want a mobile (guess I should say "cell-phone" as most people reading this will use that terminology) for, but they do help pass a few idle moments if you're really bored or in a waiting room or queue. Calculator: Er, it's a calculator. Not a scientific one, just your basic functions. Calendar - to me, this is where the phone really shines. You can set up day notes, reminders, and even make reminders repeat each day / week / month / year. Incredibly useful! Infrared - if you ever need to use such a thing for data transfer via infrared. I never have. (Though I have occasionally turned it on by accident! There's no way to switch it off manually, it just automatically shuts down after a few minutes). Extras: Countdown timer, stopwatch (surprisingly well-featured with split times etc), thermometer (useful during the recent heat wave in Britain!), Picture editor (though too fiddly to really be useful). Services - here's the WAP. It works okay, but is rather slow and the user interface is tiresome. I never use WAP much anyway, partly because I'd rather use AOL at home, mainly because it's so expensive and slow. Since I went on broadband at home there's really no reason to use it, other than to keep up with the football scores occasionally... Well, there you have it. If you want a top-of-the-range phone packed with all the latest, flashy, gimmicky features, forget it. If you want a solid performer that is all but direct bomb-blast-proof, this is superb. The only thing I don't like about the phone is that it's not always the best sound quality. It's usually pretty good though, so that's more an observation than a complaint. One other thing. It's dual-band, not tri-band. This means that if you're in Europe you can use it across Europe but not in the States. I guess in the States it means you can't use it in Europe. I used mine in Spain with absolutely no problem, though in France it wouldn't work properly. I guess that partly depends on the particular network you use too. I upgraded mine and at the time that cost £50. I don't know how much it would be now (assuming, of course, that you can still get it!), but it should have come down in price drastically now that they're trying to flog the new whizzy gimmicky models. Update I've finally been offered a free upgrade :-), so I now have the lovely , which is a great improvement. (And I admit it, some of the "Gimmicks" are nice!) - packed full of features, excellent phone - not the best phone in the world, but part of the problem is bad reception, which doesn't seem to have been a problem with the US model. - a pretty good business phone, but not the best in the Nokia range. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 (upgrade)Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7779 Nokia 6160 AMPS / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 89610 2009/9/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price durability Full Review After a long time resisting cell phones, I finally bought a Nokia 6160 for work, both for the phone itself and the AT&T One Rate plan. It has been both a blessing and a curse, in terms of lifestyle, price, and convenience. Having a cellphone, especially one that is small enough to carry around with you, begets dependence on having a phone anytime/anywhere, but it also means that people can reach you anytime/anywhere. * Price: $180 is a decent price to pay, but I would recommend buying an additional car charger and the vibrating battery, which is respectful for others around you dining and embarrassing if your phone rings during a movie. * Product: I have the phone with the blue cover, which is "dandy", but the blue starts to chip/fade off after about six months. Additionally, the ability to put the phone in your pocket makes it too easy to forget it's there, and I soon had a couple of cracks in the frame and antenna (but it didn't affect reception or usage). You will probably start using the address book as a substitute for remembering phone numbers, and when in digital, it's great as a call waiting feature. There have been a number of issues dropping calls in analog/digital switchover, but not enough to warrant complaint, and certainly more reliable than experience of colleagues using Sprint PCS. The battery last great (as long as you are in digital mode), and I tend to recharge every day. * Misc: I would recommend you get the phone insurance. It's < $5/month, and I've known too many people who have lost their phone or broken it, etc. This phone also can receive text pages, which is great for quick messages, and the voicemail is adequate. * Best for: People who make long distance calls often, jump city-to-city as a consultant or sales, and who will use it as a primary point of contact. All in all, well recommended. The 88xx series looks great, but for the estimated price tag, the 6160 should do fine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 89609 2000/5/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loud long battery clear depends on what store though its hard to hear sometimes in stores Full Review I got this phone as a gift and its the best gift I've ever gotten. At first it seemed so small. But now I love it more and more each day. Its so loud and clear, better than my home phone. It has several extras like messages =thats voice or text, also a call log which shows all missed calls all calls made all incoming calls. a calender, calculator, address book,lots of profiles and extra settings. Even games ,yup I said games four to be exact. The battery life on this phone is amazing, you can talk like up to 4hrs, of course I haven't done that. but I can charge it and leave it on and if I don't get any calls I don't have to charge it for a least two weeks. I love this phone and its small enough to put in my purse even if I'm going out and only have a hand bag. This would be a great gift for anyone in your life. I can't count how many times it has helped me out of a tight spot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 89608 2009/10/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 3 1 Full Review I recently upgraded my cell phone service. When I did I received a Nokia phone in the deal. Since activating my Nokia 6160 I have found that the features are very useful especially the key guard which prevents the keys from being pushed when it is in your pocket. Another feature I really enjoy is the name or number memory. I prefer the name feature so I dont have to scroll through all the numbers. I am comparing this phone to a motorola that I had earlier. The motorola was bulkier and more cumbersome to use. One problem I do have with the nokia is dropped calls. This may be due to the service provider, but with my last phone I don't remember having quite so many. The battery life doesnt seem to live up to the manufacturers claims. My experience is that I don't get quite as much talk time as they say and not quite as much stand by time. Also, it seems to take a long time to charge. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89607 1999/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 best cell phone on the market cannot download saved names Full Review I have purchased many cell phones in the past and found this one to be one of the best I have ever owned. It is lightweight and extremely clear. It is also extremely durable as I have managed to drop it a couple of times with no ill effects. This phone has many useful features especially the calculator. It also allows you to save directly into a directory all received or dialed phone numbers. Another great feature is that it has the ability to store the last ten numbers received and dialed. It will also list the last ten missed calls, ( Only if your phone is one ) This is a great feature as you will always know who called. It also has an automatic setting for retrieving messages and keeping your password stored. The only major fault that I have found with this phone is the inability to download your personal directory of phone numbers saved. Should you either lose the phone or by some chance the data stored within you are finished. I have made a written backup and maintain this list. I highly suggest everyone else does the same. As a word of caution, always keep the numbers locked. This will allow to recieve any call but not dial out. This will prevent you from dialing out while the phone is in your pocket. I highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 89606 2009/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features quality size Full Review In the process of looking for a new digital based cell phone I visited a number of local retail showrooms and mall sites to see what was available. There were a number of the $.01 deals on the market but each was very limited in features. The last cell phone I bought provided over seven years of excellent service and I was looking for that degree of quality again. The first models that caught my eye were to very small flip type phones. They are convenient but all lacked one or more features that would limit my future options. After features were considered I looked for quality. My last phone was a Motorola which has served very well & it was the first brand I evaluated. After talking with several friends and representatives of the various companies the obvious choice was the Nokia 6160 series phone. It is not as small as I would have liked but it has excellent quality, a well written instruction manual on its use and programing, a long term reputation for innovation and quality, and offers the potential to upgrade as service plans change. Interestingly enough, the Nokia products were also the ones most in use by the service providers' representatives. They have a choice of any product they sell, yet most are using Nokia. To sweeten the pie, my service provider, BellSouth Mobility, was offering this model at a reduced rate due to a shortage of a lower cost model. The only thing I would like to see changed is its thickness. I prefer to drop a phone in my jacket pocket instead of using a belt case. The Nokia is a little bulky to keep in a pocket. Overall, I would give it a 8.5 on a ten point scale. An excellent product but always room for improvement. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165.00 89605 2000/1/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 size use ability battery life small buttons Full Review This cell phone is great. The biggest advantage is its tri-mode functionality. Which means you can use it almost anywhere. This is especially important for emergencies. The interface is intuitive, it can hold more numbers than you probably need to program. The size is just about right, not too small. Battery life is also very good, even after multiple charges. Lots of accessories available. Can be used with lots of different service providers. One complaint is the size of the buttons, which are very small. I guess this is one drawback to getting the phone so small. Another thing I like about this phone is you don't have a retractable antenna that you have to worry with raising and lowering, or breaking. All in all a bargain for what you get. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89604 2009/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 several features a little bigger than some of the competitively priced phones Full Review The Nokia 6160, as a phone, is great. The problems I encountered were with the display screen. The first one I received had lines across the screen. After the phone was replaced, I found that the screen is becoming a little dimmer over the last year. The features are great if you use them, but relatively unnecessary if you are just looking for a phone. There are several ringing options, but the most useful one allows you to store names with numbers - when you enter the name and place "!" at the end of the name, your phone will ring with a special ring when that name/number phones you. I've had the phone replaced twice (once for the aforementioned display). The second replacement was due to the fact the the ringing levels 4 and 5 did not sound much different. Unfortunately, it appears that the ringing levels of 4 and 5 aren't much different since the replacement phone did not work any differently. In level 5, the first ring is about the same level as 4 and the second ring is louder. I encountered this with both phones. The one thing that I caught on to eventually is that the Missed Call log only shows a missed call once regardless of how many times the same number has phoned you. For instance, if number 123-456-7890 phoned you 2 times and 987-654-3210 phoned you once and you missed all of those calls, your display would read "3 missed calls", but when you go to the call log, it would show only the two missed phone numbers. Therefore, you won't know who phoned you more than once or if an "unavailable" or "anonymous" number phoned you along with the other numbers. Anyway, it is a reliable phone with a lot of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 210 89603 2009/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 alot none Full Review this is a great phone i got my with my payment plan it hold phone no. date time , games ,its also have call waiting , caller ide , the caller can leave a masage ,and if you miss a call you will know when and who call and a press a button you can call the caller back if you want you can programe the phone that with one touch you can call anbody that you want it great for driving Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89602 2009/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 technological marvel but its just not big enough Full Review OR is it.Though the nokia 6160 is a state of the art light weight smaller pocket size ,to a larger user such as my self I find it very uncomfortable . When I put this thing to my head I feel as though need to move it down towards my mouth in order for the people at the other end can hear.The speaker hits me about the side of my cheek,no where near the opening on my face that is the reason too use this creation anyway.Despite the fact that its been the most trouble free phone I've ever owned [and I've had a lot of them]this little piece of technological marvel,with its games ,easy to read face .,changeable face plate& all the other wonderful features to many to mention this is really a great little phone [for smaller users that is]I will keep using it until it goes the way of the many other phones left in my wake .Which at this rate may be awhile .Above all else this little thing is pretty tuff [if you know what I mean].Buy one and find out for your self if your small enough that is. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89601 2009/9/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 long battery life current digital voice quality sucks Full Review I migrated from an analog Microtac Lite and miss a few things from the Motorola: flip cover to protect the buttons from getting pressed, louder volume and the quality of analog transmission. However, I love the long battery life and multi-line large screen display. My other peeve is that if you unhook the battery and it forgets the date/time. My wife uses a Startac and I find it way too small and flimsy (in feel). The Nokia is just about right if the antenna didn't stick out. Anyway, I had dropped my Microtac too many times and it frankly fell apart. I decided to move to digital and be ready for moving to the AT&T one-rate plan when and if I got back to traveling frequently. The 6160 with the 2 week battery life (realistically I get almost a month out of a charge based on my usage - only during commuting) was the main point that attracted me to the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89600 2009/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good sound simple to use none yet Full Review I recently purchased the Nokia 6160. After using older and much heavier model I would have been happy with just about anything. I drive a trash truck for a living and need a phone that is clear and easy to use. I got all of this and more from the Nokia 6160. Its basic design and ease of operation is just what I was after. However I did find that the service provider makes a big difference too. Overall I highly recommend this model for anyone that doesn't need one of those new Swiss army all purpose phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 89599 2000/1/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 right size different from the 5160 nice games decent battery life heats up horribly randomly doesn t ring faceplates nearly impossible to change The Bottom LineCompared to the 5160, this phone is great, but the bad outweighs the good and there are better products out there. Full Review Cell phones became the "big thing" about two years ago. After swearing it wouldn't happen to me, I bought the Nokia 6120 February of 2001. To this day, I still can't decide if I love it or hate it. To be honest, one of the big reasons that I bought this phone was because it WASN'T the 5160 that 99% of everyone in this county owns. I didn't want a phone that if I set it down in a public place for 4 seconds, everyone within 30 feet would be claiming that it was theirs. In that manner, my plan worked. I was, however, disappointed to find that faceplates for this phone are incredibly hard to find and on the rare occasion of finding one (that isn't just a "rustic color"), they need to be professionally installed. Costly and a pain. There really doesn't seem to be any nice carrying cases for this phone either. The one I finally settled on (without the plastic covering the entire front) makes it virtually impossible to hit that tiny power button on your first try. This phone is incredibly easy to use. I think that having the separate talk and end buttons, as well as your menu buttons, make this phone much easier to use than the 5160. It's easier to navigate through the menus. The calendar and reminder functions are very handy. Without paying an arm and a leg, I have a phone that I can set an alarm on in a matter of seconds. Great for breaks at work. One big pain of this phone is that it heats up. I mean, I can understand if someone were to talk on their cell phone for an hour or so, but this phone gets painfully hot in around 5 minutes. It really makes you wonder about the entire radiation idea. It's hard to concentrate when you're phone is burning your ear. Although my battery life was great at first, I notice that I'm charging it more and more often, yet I'm hardly ever talking on it. I've heard of battery life diminishing after a while, but since I've not even had the phone a year, it is annoying that if I talk on it for 15 minutes over three days, it needs to be charged. I could be imagining things, but I don't think I am Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 65 89598 2000/1/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 blocks roaming charges nice looking sturdy antenna not very loud low battery life The Bottom LineThe Nokia 6120 is great if you need to block out Canadian towers. Full Review I have used the Nokia 6120 for about 4 months now. The first two phones I had were a Motorola bag phone and a Motorola star-tac (both analog). I switched from the Nokia 5160 after constantly picking up roaming charges from Canada. I live about 30 miles from Canada, but their towers are much more powerful than those in the US, so I pick up their signals rather than ones in my backyard. The 6120 is dual-mode, which allows me to accept just "home only" calls when I wish. If I travel out of the area, I am able to pick up any towers, which is helpful if you have a plan that allows you access in more than one state. However, if I use "any system" around here, most of my calls will be roaming into Canada. The 6120 looks alot like the 5160. Both phones are relatively easy to use. The sturdy antenna has been crammed into my bag and my pocket countless times without any problems. I love the address book, which I can program using correct capitalization and which will scan names that start with the same letter when I do a search by entering just the first letter. I like the call log feature, which lets me reset the number of minutes used at the beginning of the month so I don't go over my limit. My cell phone service provider just turned digital at the beginning of the year and still hasn't added caller id yet, so not sure how that feature works, although I am dying to see it. I also haven't tried playing any games, but I just have no interest in that. I have bought several accessories for it from Ebay, and they cost alot less than they do in the retail stores. I highly suggest picking up a lithion-ion battery, which lasts much longer than the Ni-MH battery that came with it. One of the nice things about buying a Nokia 5100/6100 phone is that there are alot of accessories out there to choose from. I do find the volume is a bit low; since I mostly use it for outgoing calls, when I do receive a call, I sometimes am not sure it's ringing. I find the call quality low, but believe that is due to the area I live in more than the phone. When I do have 4 signals (which is rare), the sound is quite good. Recommended: Yes 89597 2009/9/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 complete shape easy functional not expensive all ma friends have the same phone individual Full Review The Nokia 6160 is my first cell-phone. I may not be an expert on cell-phones, yet. But often, it is very good to know the opinion of an total amateur. if i can handle the phone with easy and pleasure - then everybody can for sure. what i really like about it is the ease of use. all functions are logically arranged, easy to find and work perfectly. concerning the size of the phone - well it is not the smallest - but do you force your telephone into the really tiny denim-pockets that many jeans have ??? well i do not. so the size is alright. size does not always matter - as long as certain standards are OK. concerning the color: i like the blue-green color that changes when different sources of light hit the phone. so, the look is alright. what bothers me though is that everybody of my friends has exactly this damn phone. so when we meet, it looks like the NOKIA-army is taking over the restaurant. of course we have the same phone and in the same color. The ringing again is loud enough to be heard where ever you are. the are many different rings to choose from - most of them are pretty geeky though. so for everybody who is looking for a good mobile with everything you will ever need the NOKIA is definitely a good bargain. try to get the green version though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 89596 2000/5/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good durable easy to lose Full Review I love this phone. My kids love to play the fun games on them at no extra cost and I love how the battery lasts. my 15 year old daughter just got her first phone and i got her this one!!! she loves how she can change all the covers and I can keep in touch with her while she is out with her friends. and also my 6 year old loves to look at the colors and play with the ringers. Overall this is a great phone for the family and your kids will love it too. If you have any questions e-mail me, instant message me do what ever you want to get in touch with me and remember to trust me on this one!!!!!!! its an amazing phone it will last forever and it is very light and durable and also it comes with glow in the dark keypad for at night. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 88 89595 2000/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 well balanced phone unable to synchronize with palm devices style doesn t work well on shipsboats The Bottom LineA great mobile phone that will not let you down Full Review The 6160 is a very nice mobile phone. It has a ton of features that will allow minimum brain power needed to remember phone numbers. Just program them in and presto!!! A feature that I would like to see on this phone would be the ability to synchronize with a palm device. It would be very nice if there was a way of putting my palm contact information into my phone Perhaps there is a way, I just haven't figured it out yet. This phone has a quality feel to it. It is a workhorse type phone and can stand up to any abuse you throw at it. I received the phone as a gift last Christmas and I can see getting many more good years of use. It is highly compatible with most wireless networks so you won't have to purchase a new phone when changing carriers. Also the usability is outstanding, operating the phone with one hand on the go is a breeze. It seems everything is where it is suppose to be when operating the phone, Nokia engineers did their homework and it shows.... Customizing the 6160 is very attractive. You have an abundance of ringers/ profiles that will suit you needs. It is not one of the most sylistic phones out there, but it is a great workhouse for people who you their phones to get work done. I recommend this phone for professionals who need a reliable mobile phone that will not let them down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89594 2009/11/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good size etc clarity great phone battery life in talk mode Full Review The Nokia 6160 is an easy pick when deciding on styles of digital phones... It is a great size unless you have to have the smallest-then you need to go to the Motorola Star Tac. The sound on the Nokia is great. It also has a very good menu with plenty of options and nice scrolling feature to find ALL of your frequently used numbers. Storing numbers is a very easy process with this phone. The only negative is short battery life when you are in talk mode(not stand by)-which can be helped with longer life batteries. Also suggest a portable charger if you travel and a car unit to keep it charged when in the car. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80-with call plan 89593 2000/2/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything none Full Review When I was looking to buy a cellular phone, I did my shopping. I wanted something that was convenient and dependable. Something that had those extra options that everyone wants. I found what I was looking for in the the Nokia 6160 model. This phone is a social life saver. It liked the 6160 for its style. I chose it over the Motorola Star Tac models because I felt that the Star Tac was fragile. The 6160 felt sturdy and yet was small enought to fit into my pocket. It was also something that you can actually keep in your hand without having it slip a few times. For it's size and value, the Nokia 6160 is the most practical. It's battery life can last about four days standby and 4 hours talktime, which is excellent. It also has games that will keep one entertained when waiting for an airplane or just sitting. It also can store names and numbers which is excellent if you have trouble remembering names. There are lots of options available to help you with your needs. I recommend the Nokie 6160 highly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40, with a plan 89592 2009/9/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to understand menus small stylish picking up signals battery life component expense Full Review This phone has many great options when it works properly (games, caller ID, voice mail, and number storage), as it is a PCS phone. However, I am disappointed as people walk by me in the Metro station, talking on their phone while I get "No service" on mine, although I am in DC on a DC based phone. The most troublesome drawback is that the battery does build up a memory, and completely charging / discharging the battery still does not ensure proper operation. My university has purchased two batteries for my phone, and I keep the one not in use charging at all times to ensure I can receive calls all day. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89591 2000/5/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery life overall good performance price size useless features Full Review The biggest complaint, of course about this phone is it's size. Compared to the competition, this phone is huge. It more than makes up for it though, because overall it is a great phone. It does have a couple of useless features, (like the games) and offers a whole slew of different rings to choose from. Battery life was not a problem with this phone. I found with continuous use, that the phone would need to be recharged every 3-4 days. The problem with not recharging it though, was that when the power got low, it was still usable, but the reception would be tremendously weak. Actually, if you want to know about cell phone service, you're best off looking at the ratings for the actual services, as they make a much bigger difference than the difference in phones. Overall, I found the Nokia 6160 to be a good buy. I would buy it again and I would recommend it to friends. I found it to be a very rugged design also, I must have dropped that thing at least 20 times, and it still functions fine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.99 89590 2000/8/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 blocks roaming charges nice looking sturdy antenna low battery life not very loud The Bottom LineThe Nokia 6120 is great if you need to block out Canadian towers. Full Review I have used the Nokia 6120 for about 4 months now. The first two phones I had were a Motorola bag phone and a Motorola star-tac (both analog). I switched from the Nokia 5160 after constantly picking up roaming charges from Canada. I live about 30 miles from Canada, but their towers are much more powerful than those in the US, so I pick up their signals rather than ones in my backyard. The 6120 is dual-mode, which allows me to accept just "home only" calls when I wish. If I travel out of the area, I am able to pick up any towers, which is helpful if you have a plan that allows you access in more than one state. However, if I use "any system" around here, most of my calls will be roaming into Canada. The 6120 looks a lot like the 5160. Both phones are relatively easy to use. The sturdy antenna has been crammed into my bag and my pocket countless times without any problems. I love the address book, which I can program using correct capitalization and which will scan names that start with the same letter when I do a search by entering just the first letter. I like the call log feature, which lets me reset the number of minutes used at the beginning of the month so I don't go over my limit. My cell phone service provider just turned digital at the beginning of the year and still hasn't added caller id yet, so not sure how that feature works, although I am dying to see it. I also haven't tried playing any games, but I just have no interest in that. I have bought several accessories for it from Ebay, and they cost a lot less than they do in the retail stores. I highly suggest picking up a lithion-ion battery, which lasts much longer than the Ni-MH battery that came with it. One of the nice things about buying a Nokia 5100/6100 phone is that there are a lot of accessories out there to choose from. I do find the volume is a bit low; since I mostly use it for outgoing calls, when I do receive a call, I sometimes am not sure it's ringing. I find the call quality low, but believe that is due to the area I live in more than the phone. When I do have 4 signals (which is rare), the sound is quite good. Recommended: Yes 89589 2000/3/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has everything full featured some completing functions my be cumbersome Full Review This phone is excellent, i have owned two of the 6100 series, the 6185 and the 6160. The size combined with the battery life and the features make this phone very hard to compete with. Nokia has always made decent phones, but this one takes the cake. It has a built in calender, 199 entry phonebook, 35 - 40 selectable rings. the 6185 allows you to add a particular ring for certain individuals that have entries in your phone book. Both feature games to play when you are completly bored, and there fun to. I would recommend this phone to only those who have the time and patience to learn its functions though. The interface is simple, but the menus seem to go on for days. So if you are not of the technical mind, or don't wish to deal with all the added features then stay away from it. But over all it i a very nice and interesting phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 89588 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception reliability great features vibrating battery must be purchased seperately Full Review I am proud to say I am one step closer to simplifying my life! Last week, I purchased a Nokia 6160 to replace my 5160. I wanted the added features: Calculator, calendar, reminders, alarms, different rings for different groups of people, storage of 199 phone numbers & names. It is very cool! I no longer have to carry my phone, calculator, calendar, sticky notes. I don't even wear a watch anymore! This phone does it all! I do not worry about forgetting birthdays, my kid's parties at school, to call to make dinner reservations...this phone reminds me. And not only does it remind me to make calls, but just one touch and I'm actually making that call. I have always been a big fan of Nokia, and I really enjoyed my little 5160; but they have totally outdone themselves with this phone! I love it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 89587 2000/5/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use compact screwy frequency scratchy screen Full Review This is a great cell phone. It has many features, like calling (duh!), messages, call log, profiles, settings, system, games, calculator,m calender and keyguard. Actually, it is my dad's phone, but I use it a lot. This phone is fun to use, and it has high batteries, plus you can buy the adapter, it has the looks and it has a cool little leather case. I like this phone because it is easy to use, looks cool, has so many different features, is small enough for even shorts pockets. Things I do not like about this phone is that it does screw up the frequency a lot, and its screen gets scratched and fingerprints fast, and it shows. Anyhow, I think this is a great phone to buy, and i recommend it to people who are ready to buy cell phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ??? ( I don-t own it!) 89586 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 no flip front easy to handle none to speak of Full Review We bought a 6160 not all that long ago when my family needed a cell phone. The Nokia 6160 is a very easy to handle phone and it fits nicely into your hand. We had the choice to purchase either the 6160 or the 6162. It wasn't a hard decision at all. The 6162 has a flip-front that most of the time you would think to be an advantage; not so. The flip front is positioned to close to the speaker's mouth and is also prone to closing during conversation without warning. That is one thing i love about the 6160. It has no flip-front that gets in the way of talking. It is easy to handle and has many features that are useful at a low price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (with the $50 rebate) 89585 2000/6/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use long battery life 8 haven t found one yet Full Review I have a Nokia 5160 (for home) and a Nokia 6160 for work. I love my Nokia phones. They are very easy to use and I can go three days before I have to charge the battery. I was surfing around and found a really good web site that will helps learn all the features of the phones: http://www.nokiausa.com/ and click on the "Nokia How to" link at the bottom. You choose your phone model and click on what you want to learn how to do: for example, setting the alarm on the phone. The web site then goes step-by-step on how exactly to set the alarm and has little interactive pictures so you can follow along. A very good resource for new phone owners. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 (5160) with purchase of AT&T rate plan 89584 2000/4/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight ease of use call clarity everything including battery life no internet Full Review I just upgraded from a Nokia 2180 with GTE to a Nokia 6160 with cellular one and wow what a difference. I don't know if it's the service change or the phone change or what, but this is great. I travel alot on the weekends to the mountains or lakes in California and this 6160 get reception just about everywhere. Would you like an example? In the height of the 2000 ski season I was on the HWY 80 Donner Summit Pass between Sacramento CA and Reno NV and we could not get the started after our pitstop at the pass rest area so I went to use the pay phone which needless to say had a 10 person line to it and it we were in the middle of a blizzard. So I went back to my car to get some change for the phone and I saw that my cellphone had two bars of reception out of four. So I tried it and I got a hold of some friends that were able to come pick us up. That phone actually worked in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. When I went to the pay phone line to pull my brother out and tell him that we had a ride on the way, the entire line looked in amazement. I quickly told them that I had a Nokia 6160 with Cellular One service and was able to make a clear call to friends from within my semi warm car they all swore to get the same phone and service plan. I am sorry to say that I am very abusive to my cellphone, but every Nokia I have had has performed without fail. I have dropped it, kicked it, thrown it, and walked on it, but it keeps going. If you want a small Digital/Analog cellphone with exceptional clarity and battery life then I recommend it. The only downside to this phone vs other available is that it doesn't have internet access. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89583 2009/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use small price Full Review The Nokia 6160 is small, easy to use, and can do anything short of wash dishes. You can get clear, digital sound, Caller ID, voicemail, games, text messaging, etc. This phone can do it all and if you can spend the money, it's definitely worth it. It is really small, and the belt clip (you can find it at most stores) makes it easily accessible. It also features several different ringers (Symphonies, car horns, and more) and themes (silent, outdoor, conference). This phone is great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89582 2000/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 longest talk timestandby time in the industry extra features reliable safe strong changing colors slightly expensive Full Review The Nokia 6185 is a brilliant easy to use phone with features such as web browsing, caller ID, call waiting, a 199 memory phonebook. The aspect of this phone that is really remarkable is the fact that it has an 8 hour talk time and approximately a 9 day standby time. This is the longest any phone of the same size has ever had. Available in a variety of colors ( Face plates of different colors available to change color of the phone)this phone would make a perfect gift to people of all ages. It is a safe ,reliable and a very strong phone (mine got run over by a car and it still works). The only drawback is the fact that this phone is expensive as is its accessories. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89581 2000/4/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice look nice price you get the point nice size lots functions still building their services Full Review NOKIA 6160 is my first cell phone, and I still have it with me now, even tho I got a new cell phone. I got the 6160 for only $99, which is very cheap for a phone that does the samething as the NOKIA 8860, so why spend $400 more for it? With the build in phone book, you can store up to 99 number and names in your phone. It's got Calender for you to make your notes and reminders on what you have to do everyday. You can also play games on your phone when you get bored. It's really a nice phone for a very cheap price. The reason that I am not using it now is because the NOKIA 6160 I got with AT&T only works in their digital areas, so after i moved, I have to get a new phone. But now they have AT&T digital services in my area now. Yes, they are building their digital services more and more, larger and larger. I would really recommand anyone to get the NOKIA 6160, that will be the only phone that you need. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89580 2000/7/6 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 bag etc chic can fit in your pocket colorful classy but worth it a bit expensive Full Review This well-designed sample of Finnish technology is doing wonders in the world of cell phone. The Finns are great users of this technology. Almost each one of them owns a cell phone. The US is just far from catching up with them. Maybe Japan and Sweden are the second to them. No matter what, the Nokia brand is turning heads all over the US for its versatility and chic. Here are the top reasons why you should purchase A Nokia product for yourself: 1. You will have a phone book to store up to 199 names and numbers 2. Four entertaining games 3. Clock with alarm 4. Calculator 5. Cordless extension 6. Versatile range of accessories 7. 35 distinctive ring tunes 8. Currency converter 9. Personalized features 10. Profile setting to fit your needs you can get so much more. So now you understand why you may want to get one of these babies. Recommended: Yes 89579 2000/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity sound limited supply Full Review Having owned a variety of different cell phones I must say that the Nokia is the best overall service and established parameter for product. The Nokia Phone book will store up to 199 names and numbers and they are easily accessible from a dummie menu! When you purchase a Nokia phone it is also a pager and can make a beeping noise on arrival of a page. Versatile range of accessories for home, office and auto include various charge units and services outlined and available. The Nokia product is especially well represented in the market place and offers a variety of customization features including time, calender, address book and call logs. Another excellent benefit of the Nokia product is syncrination with other companies and a variety of services including games. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89578 2000/3/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great battery life lousy display that sometimes fails Full Review Clearly this is one of the better phones you'll find on the market today, if only because it's tough to beat its small size and great battery life. However, one potential problem you should be aware of is with the display. The LCD display will often "fade", and at times the screen will go completely blank (leading you to believe it's off, when in fact it's on). In order to make the display readable, you have to press down on the display. My dealer tells me this is a problem with all the 6000 series phones, and he even had a special kit to fix it (sort of like an O-ring for the display), which suggests mine is not the first Nokia 6000 to experience this problem. Too bad the fix didn't work. And frankly, for $179, it should work properly straight out of the box. My advice: wait - if you can - for Nokia to figure out how manufacture a proper, readable display. If you can't wait - it's a good phone, but be prepared for some frustration at times when trying to read the display. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179 89577 2000/1/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 its waste of time features its connections Full Review I have tried and tried to get good performance out of this phone, and came up with negative results almost every time! The phone sounded like a good deal, but most everything does when coming from the mouth of a good salesperson. I bought this phone in hopes of having good connections virtually anywhere within the US. I was wrong! About 50% of the time you will get a decent connection. The only way that this phone might be right for you is if you dont go outside of your local range. Most people do, and most people expect good service when they do. Well you might as well forget about it with this cellular phone. I ditched mine as soon as I could. I would tell you what I made my investment in, but I think that it is important to check the wide variety of cell phones out to find one that more fits your personal needs. I offer here only one opinion on one seemingly popular phone that I had. I suggest that you not waste your time like I did with this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 89576 2009/8/13 Product Rating3.0 easy to use great size long battery life average return repair policy lcd iffy quality Full Review I purchased my Nokia 6160 through ATT at work. And the process was painless and the phone was great - easy to use, nice form factor, long battery life. The coverage through ATT was a bit spotty but the phone was very reliable. However, 5 months into the phone's use, I discovered that the LCD display started to disappear ocassionally. With time, the display would increasingly fade; 10 months later, the display has completely disappeared - although the back light is luminated. This apparently is not an uncommon occurrence with this phone - when I called Nokia regarding the problem, they knew immediately recognized the problem and have heard about this issue in the past. What is concerning is that there is no loaner phone program nor compensation for the defect - thus, when I sent back the phone for repair, I was without a phone for more than a week. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 89575 2000/2/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable ease of use durable none found The Bottom LineShort of spending several hundred dollars I could not find another cellular phone that comes close to competing with the Nokia 6160. Full Review I purchased my first cell phone 5 years ago. My first phone was a Nokia and I loved its ease of use. Each year I upgrade and trade in my phone. This past year I made the mistake of initially purchasing another brand. My last Nokia would not hold a charge for more than a few hours so I was ready to switch brands. Well, I did but after a few weeks with another brand and seeing the noticeable differences in quality and ease of use I headed back to dealer and made the switch back to Nokia. I now have the Nokia 6160 and LOVE it. It holds a charge for at least 48 hours even with the phone left on ready to receive incoming calls. Its durable, as I have accidentally dropped it a couple times without any negative outcome. I am a Nokia customer for life. In my opinion the other large cell companies just do not compare. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89574 2000/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 efficient entertaining portable easy to use none Full Review I have been a cellular user for almost 10 years now. I got discouraged with the cellular service in my area, and for a while, moved to PCS with omnipoint. The Phones were terrible and the service was lousy! I went back to cellular service with AT&T in April of this year, and although I am satisfied with the service but THRILLED with my telephone. The talk time is amazing, and it is completely user friendly. While stuck in traffic or commuting, I can play one of the built in games. The options for customizing ring tones, voice mail and text messaging are very useful, as are the internal alarm clock and the reminder memos. I would highly recommend this telephone to both experienced and novice users. It is a great value. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89573 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small enough to carry with you screens go out bad reception Full Review My husband and I dumped our old cell phone, you know the big old grey Motorola ones? And we got the compact Nokia 6160 digital phone. At first sight, I loved it. It came in neat colors, you could program it, send it e-mailed messages and it even had games! Then the screen went out, You had to press really hard on it to make out any words or numbers. We took it back and got a new one. When my husband would call on the newer one, I could hardly make out three words because it was so scrambled. "Hello? <bzzzzshhhhhbzsh> Are <bzzshhbzt> you <bzzshhhhh> there? <Bzzzshhhhh> Sooo, we took that one back! We had the same problem with the next one! We ended up going through 4 phones! The customer service at the store we purchased (and returned) the phone said they had received a bad batch. How we ended up with 4 of them I don't know! We finally gave up since we would be moving out of state anyway, and decided to be "phoneless" for the time being. Now, a friend has one and has the same problem. He calls he we can't make out a thing he is saying! I would not pay for another one of these phones again. Bad luck or bad phones? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89572 2000/1/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light durable easy to use interface many different ringing options comes with 4 games had to buy extra battery for vibrating new smaller phones out Full Review I have had the Nokia 6160 using AT&T's Digital One Rate Plan for over a year now. I chose this particular phone because it was one of the smallest phones made at the time, it came with four games in case I got board in any of my classes, and had several different ringing options available. I have dropped the phone several times in the course of ownership and it has held up rather well. The clarity of the voice and sound is outstanding. I can store up to 200 names in the phone book, but now there are new phones with more sophisticated phone books where you can put two or three numbers under one name. The 6160 is also a dual band phone so it will work with a digital or analog signal. I have several accessories for the phone including a hands free car kit, a belt clip, a desktop charger, a vibrating battery, and an American flag faceplate. It is a very simple phone to operate and I would recommend it to anyone looking at AT&T's wireless plans. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89571 2000/10/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable product slick exterior case Full Review The Nokia 6160 is the best cell phone I have ever purchased. It is just the right size -- some cell phones are too small & others too large. My decision to purchase this product was based on prior use of Nokia products. They have always been reliable in performance. I like many of the features this product has. Large address book, specialized rings, incoming call notice, voice mail notice and the large number of options on each menu. We have two ranches & I love the ability to carry this phone with me everywhere & I have excellent reception regardless of the area I am in. The only criticism I have regarding this phone is the slick case. I recommend purchasing a good leather case with clip to avoid dropping your phone. This product is good for just about anyone who needs a reliable cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165 - trade-in service 89570 2009/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life well considered convenience features great reception fewer custom covers available for this model expensive Full Review It's true. A lot of a mobile telephone's performance is due to the service provider. Quality of reception, coverage, and service are impacted by the equipment the telephone company uses, how much of it is out there, and what condition it's in. Having said that, I happen to spend a lot of time in the mountains NW of Los Angeles and it took me three tries before I found a telephone I could rely on; the Nokia 6160. The Startac is cute but it lacked power. Conversations were a lot like Christmas with Great Aunt Mildred. "Eh? What did you say? Can you speak a little louder? I'm having trouble hearing you." The one before the Startac dropped the signal so frequently my customers flat out refused to bother talking to me on my mobile. If you rely on your mobile telephone to stay in touch, and you work in challenging terrain with lots of interference like mountains and canyons, I'd recommend the Nokia 6160. You can dump your pager by setting the phone to a vibrate mode, and read the "missed call log" instead of picking up every call and incurring the cost of the call. The key panel cover is a handy feature, especially for people who tend to toss their phone in a hand bag or briefcase. I've come to rely on the programmed number feature so much that I don't need my Palm Pilot most of the time. All in all, I'd be lost without my Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 230 89569 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 digital support services none Full Review I bought a Nokia 6160 more than a year ago, and I have not been forced to get it repaired or buy a new one since. One would think that the technology in the phone would be seriously outdated by now, but that is not the case. The Nokia 6160 provides features such as an address book, a message base for either incoming text or voice messages, a call log for outgoing and incoming calls (provided Caller ID is activated through the cellular service provider), multiple profiles (so if you're at a meeting, the phone doesn't bother the guys in the next building when it rings), a calculator, a calendar, and even games! The phone comes with more technical features than this, but I am a layman in the language of cellular devices. Overall, I believe this Nokia 6160 is a very nicely-built telephone. Several people I know use these phones, and I have never heard about anything going wrong with them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 89568 2000/4/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek great phone games are ok Full Review I have never had a cell phone before but after using this one, I know I would never want another. The Nokia 6160 is slim and small and fits right in the palm of your hand. The back of the phone is also curved in a way where you could just use your shoulder to support it. The many features of this phone include caller id, voicemail, paging, phonebook, games, calender, and a calculator. You can also pick among a variety of music as a ringing tone for this phone or a silent tone for the days where you would rather not have it go off. The ringer can be LOUD which thankfully, you have the ability to adjust also. Perhaps its because it's a digital service but the reception is wonderful and there's barely any static. Even when there a signal of only two bars, I could hear the other person well (they might not hear me that well). The talk time is great too though I do find that I have to charge it every couple of days. It fits nicely in my purse without taking up too much room. This phone is dependable and fully worth its price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ??? 89567 2009/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 accesories durability battery life navigation of menu Full Review This phone has been a blessing for me..I upgraded from the old Nokia 2140. In any respect I have had only minor irritations with the phone (1) The obvious: Leave it in the car, near sunlight, and the screen becomes very dim and dark. The problem is self imposed, but has cleared up in an hour by placing it in front of the air conditioning duct. (2) Navigating the screen is somewhat difficult. Train yourself on the key things you need on the menu, and you'll be all set. I travel a significant amount of time,within the US, and have been extremely happy with the battery life. I charge up before leaving on a 2 day trip. I am able to leave the phone on constantly without the battery going dead. Replacement batteries: don't buy the nokia one. Not necessary, high cost. My latest gadget has been to add the headset. This accessory has a weird method of attachment, as you will need both the headset and an adapter, however, I am very happy with the clarity and portability. A must for the business traveler with hands full. I paid $199 for the phone with the AT&T plan. I believe it was a good value at the time, however, with the new series of phones arriving with email, and internet access, I would not buy one if these new bells and whistles are a must. Hold out until the price of the internet access phones go down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89566 2000/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight battery life on standby features does not come with desktop charger talk time drastically decreases battery Full Review The Nokia 6160 is a GREAT phone! The phone is very lightweight and loaded with features. The phone can easily be stored in your pocket or it has a nifty belt clip that prevents slipping. The features include alarm clock, games, calendar, 200+ memory for numbers and has a standby time of almost 7 days. All these features make the 6160 a terrific phone to own. The phone almost does everything for you except dial!! Who needs all these features you say?? Believe it or not I said the same thing, until I bought one for myself. The fact that you don't have to pull up the antenna to talk and you don't have to charge the battery EVERY night is very convenient. It helps take the "Oh NO, I forgot to charge the cell" out of your day:).The durability of the phone is amazing..I can't tell you how many times I have dropped the phone and not a scratch!! I use the games, alarm clock and calendar everyday even though I swear I wouldn't need those frivolous features!! I am here to say..that is the most awesome part of the phone!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 89565 2009/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good size durable long battery life none for me Full Review I chose the this phone because of it's compact size (you don't have to extend the antenna). It's small enough to fit in almost any pocket but big enough to not be forgotten. The optional belt clip is amazing too. Very secure but easy to access. I've dropped my phone at least 4 times. Each time the battery separated from the main unit but after it was put together it worked fine. Rugged. Before this phone I used several Ericsson models and the sound quality on the Nokia is much clearer. The games that are built in are pretty stupid but the calendar and calculator functions I've found useful. It stores 199 names and numbers which can be navigated very easily. My favorite feature is the ability to set different "profiles." I have one called "Car" that I use while driving when I tend to listen to music pretty loud. The profile allows me to use the most obnoxious ringer at the highest volume. At work I use the "Normal" profile that's set to a quiet "cheep." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89564 2000/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception simple small expensive Full Review I bought this cell-phone for its many features and simplicity. This phone is the top phone on the market and absolutely the best. This phone has a signal almost everywhere in the state of Texas and is very compact. This phone has a wide variety of rings from songs to the simple ring and the volume can be adjusted. I recommend this phone to absolutely everyone and I guarantee you that you will be satisfied. This is the only phone that you can play games on for a little entertainment. This phone also comes with digital and analog so that it will work throughout the nation. It has a roam and crystal clear reception talking to anyone. According to me this is the best phone on the market right now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200+ 89563 2000/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life fun games crisp sound not a lot of nokia color faces seperate battery for vibration Full Review I love my Nokia 6120!! I had an Analog Motorola Star TAC Lite previously. I switched services and bought this phone for the heck of it. I sure am glad I did! I'm so impressed with the looks, quality, and features that this phone provides! The address book makes life so easy. Forget punching in numbers, just scroll. When you're stuck in traffic, at a long light, in the drive though there is nothing more fun than a game of Snake! Whoever thought of putting games on a phone deserves something beyond what I could dream of. The different rings are great in a crowded (phone friendly) place. I always know my phone because of my ring (robo x??). The battery life is excellent. I had to recharge my old phone every other day. I can go 5-7 days with this phone. There are a few downsides. You have to buy a special battery for vibration features. Also, there aren't a lot of Nokia color covers for this phone like the 5100 series. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 w/ service 89562 2000/8/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight features looks check the battery for the performance then buy it Full Review Hi Friends, I bought this handset when it was just launched in India & was being used by many people as it offered many options which were just great & were never seen before on any handset before. Well Guys I bought the Golden handset which I found to be really great as it provided me with Caller Groups, great no. of ring tones. light weight, Good handset memory, etc. etc. I was just surprized to find the handset in the hands of every 3rd person whome I met. I found it to be a phone which was being used by the masses. Even now when the phone is over 2 years old I find it in the hands of many people. I sold this phone after using it for 6 - 8 months as I got fed up of this because it was being used by everybody & thus it did not give me any exclusive looks which I expected from this handset & also I found the Battery of the handset to be very loussy. But still now whenever I ask anybody who is using this handset about his battery he tells me that it is just working great & their battery works for more than 3 days as standby & 180 minutes talktime which I found to be quite good, & not i think that it may be a problem with my handset that it did not work properly, I would suggest you to go for this handset if you are looking for an OK phone which is light on your wallet at the same time gives you a variety of features, then you must go for these. Thanks & Bye Ankur Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -- 89561 2000/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features durability more features date book can be a hassle Full Review This is a definite high quality phone. It's packed with features that you may or may not ever use. I bought this phone for several reasons. First, I respect Nokia products. They have a fine reputation across the globe for producing quality products. Secondly, this phone has several features which I used. Lastly, I bought this phone because it was durable. In regards to the features, there was several that interested me. First, I wanted the date book. I needed it because I didn't have a palm pilot yet and thought I could settle two issues with one purchase. It has a built in message service, also, that I found comes into use. With that feature, I can receive emails on my phone. The other features were just fluff. Such as five games and many different ring tones. As for being durable, that was a great selling point. I am hard on phones. I've dropped more then I care to elaborate on. Needless to say, if you can drop a phone onto concrete and have it work without hardly a scratch, that's great. I would recommend this phone to anyone who wants plenty of features without going to buy another electronic device. Two words of caution though, the date book can be annoying because you don't have a keyboard to type on. Also, if you store many items and then the phone dies or you buy another you can't transfer them easily like with a GSM phone. Besides that though, this is a good phone. I wish the faceplate could be changed as easily as on the 5160 or 5190. But you can't have everything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 89560 2000/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light all accessories have to be purchased separate Full Review I've owned the 6160 for over two years with AT&T as my carrier, first in Dallas & now in Los Angeles. It has been a great phone and has lots of bells & whistles. One of my favorite being the calendar w/alarm for special dates. I recently changed my plan & now receive local coverage for most of California & Nevada. Just like all cell phones, you will have areas where their is "no cellular coverage", transformers, power lines and other electrical interference, so you will have static or even dropped calls. I've actually used this phone in Washington D.C and reception was clear as a whistle.... Other than the occasional display fade, it has a lot to offer the average cell phone user. This phone offers a keypad lock, calendar, games, 35 different ring settings, profile settings for the environment you may be in, callback info, 1 touch dialing, last call/l0 redial, alarm clock and a lot of other great features, which I don't use all of them, but my favorite is call timer reset. I use this function to see how much time I've actually used on my phone between billing cycles. This is where the calendar comes in handy, for those of us who need "date" reminders. With the leather cover, my phone & most important, my display screen is in excellent condition. The 6160 is the one to have....But not all carriers provide service for this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89559 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the phone is wonderful everything in one little package none Full Review I love my cellular phone, the Nokia 6160M, it is so easy to navigate around in and has a large enough screen to view large numbers and icons. The storage capacity for phone numbers is wonderful and it alphabetizes them as they are entered. The numerous features are wonderful and so easily accessible and user friendly. Everything you need to know about the phone is explained right there on the phone. The menu selections are pretty much self explanatory and sooooo easy to use. I use the alarm clock feature when I go on vacation! It wakes me up, never fails! The calendar feature is also wonderful, my wireless phone reminds me of my appointments, birthdays or any other special occasions. It is small enough to fit in my purse with no problem and it is so lightweight. The call log is great as well, if I miss a call, I can pull up the missed number (because I have caller ID) and it will tell me the time and date of the missed call. It keeps the last 10 numbers dialed, received, and/or missed in memory. When I am at the doctor's office waiting, instead of being bored, I just pull out my Nokia 6160M and play one of the Games like Memory or Snake. The other features are outstanding, there is a voice privacy option, there are call blocking options, calling card options, etc. I love my phone and would tell anyone in the market for a cellular (not one of the new so expensive ones) to go ahead and get the Nokia 6160M. Recommended: Yes 89558 2009/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 appearance everyday features size voice activation calling etc Full Review I purchased the Nokia 6160 at an outstanding price (for the going rate)of $169 which I thought was a steal and continue to think so, for the most part. It is a medium sized when compared to others which means it is not so small that it is an awkward feeling when trying to talk to someone, you do feel like you are on the phone not just talking out loud to yourself while covering one ear with your hand. It has a multiplicity of functions (many that I will never use) yet they are competitive with others for the most part. It is very durable, I have dropped it a number of times yet can't seem to find a scratch. It sound quality is excellent for the most part. There have been a few times that I wish it were louder. I do wish it somewhat voice activation because the buttons are small and difficult to dial when walking or driving. This feature is within the same price range as other brands and is definitely something to consider. Overall this phone has helped to kept me happy and secure. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 89557 2000/3/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid good reception not the smallest available anymore The Bottom LineGood solid phone for the heavy user that values quality over features and size. Full Review I have used this phone for over two years. I think it's a great phone with all the bells and whistles you should expect in a cell phone but it has a couple of flaws. 1. No vibrating ringer built in. However, you can go to www.batteryoutlet.com/nokia.htm to find a replacement battery with the vibrating feature built in. 2. LCD display goes blank sometimes and requires a firm smack on the side to get it back. This is only mildly annoying and seems to plague most 6160s I have seen. Other than that, I have been extremely happy with this phone. Nokia seems to have one of the most intuitive operating systems around. (ease of menu navigation) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89556 2000/7/26 Battery Life2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 talk time features quirky performance bulky Full Review I got the Nokia 6160 for work (to replace the Ericcson 788) and have been satisfied for the most part. The PROS: The talk time is good and there are a ton of features. I have hung up the Palm Pilot and use the Calendar for my daily reminders. Also, the alarm comes in handy on the road. Stored numbers are plentiful (200) and are very easily retrieved and easily stored. The keypad locks with the touch of 2 buttons and the display is large enough for me to read without problems. The CONS: The phone lacks a vibrating feature useful for movies, meetings, etc. It has a silent option (not available on the previous Nokia my wife had) and the default Meeting function is set for one beep. This is good for a meeting, but is hard to hear elsewhere and with both there is a potential to miss calls. I guess I am more of a stickler for this feature b/c the Ericcson 788 I had before had the vibrating option and I got used to it. You can get a vibrating battery for the Nokia, but I don't want to put a lot of money into a phone that isn't mine. The other problem I have is with the phone randomly shutting off. I have read the other reviews and not seen this in there, so I wanted to make it known. I can go for days with no problems and then 2 days in a row when I will pick up the phone and it will have shut off for no reason. This gets to be very annoying. Overall I think this is a decent reliable phone. It gets better reception than the small Ericcson 788 when put side by side (on AT&T digital coverage in Florida). I would recommend it, but from what I have seen Nokia is on the verge of something better. This series has been their newest release for a couple of years now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Company paid 89555 2000/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good phone sucky games Full Review This phone is a reasonable product to buy. It is both compact and you can get many face plates to put on it. I got this phone to stay in touch with my family and friends when I could not answer them at home. The phone has 3 games on it: logic, snake, and memory. Snake is the best game on it. The phone stores many phone numbers inside it so you don't have to get your address book. I bought this phone for one hundred dollars and got a 50 dollar rebate so look around many stores for the best price. Anyone should buy this phone. It is a great way to stay in touch. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 105 dollars with a 50 dollar rebate 89554 2000/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 special rings games horrible reception Full Review My husband's employer switched from Nextel to Nokia phones about three months ago. Ever since I have had only a handful of conversations with him that were not full of static and breakups! We are continually disconnected during conversations. I do like the features of the Nokia. The games keep my husband from complaining when standing in line and the different rings help him know when it is his phone ringing. Even with these features I prefer the Nextel. The reception was better, although the walk-talkie feature could be annoying. The service plan is comparable to most other plans it has Free nights and weekends and includes 500 minutes a month for $39.99. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free w/ plan 89553 2001/3/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 it is a great phone it cost money to use it The Bottom LineI love this mobile phone and use it everday. Full Review Nokia 6100 series Oh my goodness do I love my cell phone. I am actually just lucky to have a great customer service at Radioshack on Stateline in Texarkana, TX. I bought my cell phone. Then I had to study the directions just a little since I had never had a cell phone before, although if I would have just played with it just a little I would have been able to discard the instructions strait out of the box. You can send and receive email, be paged, and call anyone easily. You can choose whether it is Digital or analog or it can be programed to switch as needed. Every feature is at the touch of a button. press the Menu button once and you are at the messages prompt you can either select that or scroll with the easy to read arrow up and down key. Messages Call log Profiles settings system games calculator calendar Keyguard Press the END button from any menu and it takes you back to the first screen. In the first screen you press either the up or down arrow and you can scroll through your phone book. The only problem that I had with the phone is when I tried to hook up a car antenna to it some of the soldier connections broke and I had to send the phone back to Nokia and they fixed it for free. It has an alarm clock. That is almost loud enough to wake me up but I have Three Alarm clocks to wake me up in the mornings. It comes with a Rechargeable NiMH battery Type BMS-2s 3.6 V. The Phone will beep once to let you know your battery is low, but you will only have a few short minutes of talk time when this happens. It will then beep 3 times and Then turn itself off. The battery has a life of: For Digital talk time 2 to 3 hours and 15 minutes. For Analog talk time 1 to 1 hour and 50 minutes. When I bought the Cell phone it came with a Rapid cigarette lighter charger, and a rapid 110 volt household charger. I really think this would be a great phone for anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 89552 2001/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 decent size good clarity great features solid construction sizeweight won t satisfy the pickiest of cell phone consumers The Bottom LineExcellent phone for the price Full Review First, let me start off by saying that I no longer use this phone. This is not a negative, as the only reason I switched was because of my extreme pickiness when it comes to size and weight. Had the Nokia 8260 not arrived, I'd still be happily using this phone. Overall, the 6160's size is still competitive, and found that it fit in decent size pockets. Perfect size in terms of buttons, and very easy to use. The multi-mode, multi-band capabilities of this phone are also a plus especially if you travel to areas where service type changes or digital is not available. The clarity also never gave me a problem, and the battery life is phenomenal compared to other phones I've owned. You can even greatly extend the standby/talktime or even add vibrate capability by purchasing a battery from many online and offline retailers. I was very happy with this product and would recommend it to many. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89551 2000/3/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good accessories available slim design great features common screen problem causes display cut outs Full Review I have two Nokia 6160's -- a personal phone and the company phone. My personal phone has lasted me nearly two years and performance has been exceptional except for two problems. The first problem is the screen display many others have reported. Like others I have been unable to get good resolution on the problem. Initially I could just tap the display for it to come back but that doesn't work anymore. This problem alone is enough that I would not purchase the same phone again. The second problem occurred after several hard falls -- the battery is now "loose" and occasionally causes the phone to cut out. I'll take responsibility for this one since I have been very hard on the phone. The business phone has taken less abuse and I've had nothing but stellar performance. If this had been my only experience, I'd recommend the phone without reservation. Functionally, the phone offers enough features to keep 95% of users happy. I'd consider picking up a used one but with new phones coming out with advanced feature sets, the $180 price tag is a bit steep. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89550 2000/6/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features small package bad reception without the headset Full Review Although the Nokia provides a bundle of great features in a small package, the reception can be VERY poor sometimes. I attribute this directly to the phone because friends with the same provider, but different phone, often have better reception/transmission while standing in the same location as me. Perhaps its the short and unextendable antenna, but callers frequently complain about me "cutting out." However, with the addition of the hands free earpiece, reception improved dramatically. This further lends support to the conclusion that it is a problem with the antenna or internals of the phone... when held next to your head in normal talking position, the signal cuts in and out. But, when held away from your head with the earpiece in, the signal is perfect. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 189 89549 2000/6/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life slightly larger size Full Review I recently purchased the Nokia 6160 phone with the AT&T plan and could not be happier with my decision. The battery has a long life, the phone has a easy-to-use directory for name and phone numbers and it is compact. The phone has a nice voice-mail system which makes it easy to retrieve messages. I bought the optional carry case and attach the phone to my belt. The phone is relatively light and compact. Additionally, I have been very impressed with the quality of the reception that the phone receives. It is also very easy to change options on the phone like type of ring and tone. I also have the hands free ear piece and microphone which is ideal for traveling. I would recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89548 2000/8/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 soild engineering triedtrue phone it s big cost Full Review When I first got this phone, it was very new to the market, and the size and the features of the phone really impressed me. Now, a few years have passed, and I'm starting to see the limitations of this phone. First off, it's a great phone (a bit pricey, though), but it's a large phone especially when compared to new models from Motorola, Samsung, and Nokia. A cell phone, these days, should be able to fit in one's pocket, and this one barely does that (with an uncomfortable protruding antenna)... The phone does have some nice features (that most phones these days have as well) such as multiple rings and games. Games are a lifesaver when your standing in line at the post office... and you can set the phone to ring differently for differently people calling in (if you have caller ID)... great feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89547 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 can change the face plate nothing wrong unless you drop it Full Review I love Nokia phones. These phones have everything you could possibly need including a phone book and games. This phone in good for me because when i get bored in class i can play games. The quality of them is very good also. I have owned three different Nokia's and not one of them has ever broken. If you are not good with phones it can be sometimes complicated. However, if you are very expirienced with phones this phone will be no problem for you. The phone can be very fun. There are changable face plates that you may buy that you can change every day. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): my dad bought it for me i have no idea 89546 2000/5/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 memory sleek styling have to listen to boss Full Review This is the second phone I have purchased in the past two years, I also have a Motorola which I love. Upon purchasing this product I was greeted with great memory and capabilities, as well as sleek fashionable design which i have come to love. My ability have this cell phone tag along with me wherever I go, without weighing me down is great. I would also like to add that the clarity was great, because I could hear everything my boss had to say about my work. I got this phone for my business line so that I would always be available to my boss, g-d love him, and any other blood-sucking executive who needed to thrash my opinions. I can't have much higher praise than I already have for this phone, and I think you should too. I hope you can enjoy it better instead of me who must listen to yelling all day. Good Luck!!! I hope this helps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 89545 2000/11/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 can be cradled on shoulder long battery life larger than phones with comparable features Full Review I travel extensively - extensively - for my employer, often several weeks a month. Unfortunately, such frequent travel keeps me out of my office, which doesn't stop while I'm gone, and it keeps me away from my wife, who also doesn't stop while I'm gone. ;) To me, it is very important to be able to reach my wife or for her to reach me as quickly as possible, and I find it very helpful to be able to check my work messages or return calls without having to find a landline. The Nokia 616x series of phones performs admirably on these tasks. The talktime, standby time, and outstanding communications range combine to provide the best option I've found - I've tried a LOT of phones - for keeping me in touch with family and the office when I'm gone. Many people cite the phone's slightly large (compared to other phones today) form factor as a negative. However, I find it convenient if I'm trying to write on a notepad or a PDA because it's just barely large enough to cradle between my shoulder and ear if I need to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89544 2000/5/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity price Full Review Dear Cellular User, We recently purchased a Nokia 6180 and we love it! From an older cel phone, we upgraded to this excellent quality Nokia. We have never tried Nokia before, and after using this 6180 that we aquired through my office, I would not purchase another brand of phone. The sound is so clear, and we can store all of our messages, addresses and phone numbers in there. I cant imagine that small little thing can do so much! I am thinking of getting one for my kids and a different cellular phone for my husband, than the one he already has. His is very cheap, and we can berely communicate! Technology has come so far in 2 months! Thanks for reading my epinion! ~Warrenr Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 89543 2000/8/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome battery life great sound quality light weight it s costly Full Review My Dad purchased the Nokia 6160 about a year ago. He got it because, he likes spending good money for good stuff. This cell phone definetely falls under the category of good stuff. The phone is light as a feather, it weighs a mere six oz., and it's small enough to fit in to any pocket, without even feeling it there. This makes the phone easy to carry around with you, wherever you are. The phone also gas excelent quality. My Dad has had it for a year, and it's only needed one repair. The battery lasts over three hours, which enables you to leave it on without worrying about the battery running out. The 6160 is reliable. The calls coming in, and going out are always crystal clear. This is unlike many phones where that important call that you're waiting for never comes in. In conclusion, if you can afford this expensive little gadget, get it, you won't regret it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): N/A 89542 2000/6/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 connections hands free low price caller id none Full Review The Nokia 6160 is a great phone. This phone has a ten hour to twelve hour stand by time. This means that you can leave your phone off for ten to twelve hours and then turn it back on and it would work. The phone also has a eight to none hour battery time. This means that the battery will last for eight to nine hours when your phone is left on. This is very good because I always forget to turn my phone off or to recharge it. I got the family plan with this phone and with that plane I got three phones and two hundred free minutes every month. This cost me about two hundred dollars and then it is just one low price of 19.95 a month for all of the phones. These phones are also great because they always get a clear connection. I have only lost my connection once with this phone. The phone also comes with caller ID and a bunch of other neat things such as tones. You can have your ringer be Bach and even Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Another great thing is that the phone is hands free. You just press the answer button and then talk. This is great because it makes you drive safer and you don't have the waves traveling through your brain. Over all I think the Nokia 6160 is a great phone with lots of options. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89541 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good clarity ease of use nicely designed fragile antenna poor battery life nickel metal a bad screen The Bottom LineThis phone is a great value. It will last a long time and is very simple to use (even my mom got it!) Full Review The 6120 was my first cell phone. I had it for over a year and I replaced it with a 8260 (read my review of this also). I replaced the phone due to an on-going problem with the screen. Whenever I went to read the screen, there would be nothing there. To get it to work I would either have to squeeze or twist the phone. The screen would work for a few seconds and then disappear again. Apparently this was a design flaw with a connector inside the phone and I hope Nokia has fixed it by now. If you are having this problem look on the www.all4cell.com website under the 5100/6100 disassembly instructions for a fix. I sold the phone to a friend and later on fixed it. Otherwise this phone is very durable and will last a long time. I dropped mine a countless number of times and the only damage incurred were scratches and dings. I did have to replace the antenna once. I had a bad habit of twisting the darn thing which apparently tears up the insides of it making it useless (DON'T TURN IT! ONE TURN WILL RUIN IT AND YOU WILL NEED TO REPLACE IT TO GET YOUR SIGNAL BACK). If you do get the phone try to get the lithium battery. The stock nickel metal hydride battery looses its capacity way too fast (even though I charged and discharged it correctly). The games are also a lot of fun. Snake is my favorite on this (also known as nibbles). As with all cell phones and rechargeable batteries, make sure to charge that battery for 12 hours the first time. This "opens" the battery up for the most capacity and talk time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89540 2000/10/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 taste size feel smell shape none Full Review I have owned my Nokia 6160 for the last two years. This phone is BY FAR the easiest to use, most reliable, and best sounding phone on the market. I have used phones by both Ericsson and Motorola in this category and the Nokia is by far the best interface, clearest signal, longest battery life, most appropriate functioning, and most reasonably priced phone in the market. Combine the 6100 Series with AT&T service in Los Angeles area for Bulletproof performance! I have a 1400 Minute plan which I pretty much blow through on a regular basis, in otherwords, I talk a lot. I rely on the phone for all my business and personal calls during the day. I am one of the few people who have taken the time to program 200 numbers into memory and really use the telephone contact list for making calls. I regularly use the Calender, Calculator, and Alarm Clock Features as well, they are intuitive & reliable. I am a gadget and technology guy, I have checked out the 7100, and 8100 series phones and passed deferring back to my trusty 6100. Intrigued by voice recognition, I checked out the T-28 World phone from Ericsson, after two days of trying to get the thing to work properly (using its JOKE of an interface) I sent it back to the dealer. Until WAP is a reality, I will keep my 6160 and use it everyday! Thumbs Up! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89539 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 safety cars cell phone possible wreck Full Review My father bought this for me because he loved his so much, which he also received as a gift. I have had mine for 2 years or so now, and have had no problems. I take it everywhere. It fits in my purse, and just so that I don't accidently call anyone, I can put the key guard on and go on my merry way! My favorite thing about this phone is the games and the fun rings! Not that every phone these days doesn't have cool rings, but these are simple. The games are so addictive and entertaining while waiting for a doctors appointment or something of that manner. Anyone who talks on the phone a lot, or does business at home, or just any child even that needs it. I know that teenagers get into trouble and sometimes want to come home, but there is no phone...this is what cell phones should really be for. Enjoy!~Dancer Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 89538 2009/7/13 Product Rating5.0 clear sound good batter life small 6162 flip front is awkward Full Review This review focuses on the debate over the flip-front that distinguishes the 6160 (no flip-front) from the 6162 (flip front). Both phones are excellent for reception, battery life, and ease of interface -- it's a no-brainer to get the Nokia 6-series. The only question is which one... I recently exchanged my 6162 (still under 30-day grace period) for the 6160. The phones are identical in nearly every way except for the flip-front that the 6162 has. Although this flip-front seems like a nice feature that will protect your phone and will reduce abmient noise during your conversations, don't be fooled! The flip-front is awkward to hold and inadvertently closes with the touch of your hand during conversation, which causes the call to be cut off. Additionally, if you are trying to use a hands-free headset, the flip-front gets in the way when you want to put the phone down (on the car seat or desk in front of you). The 6160 also lets you put a colored face plate on it -- so if you want a red phone or a blue phone, or even a metallic green phone, you've got it with the 6160. This is not possible with the 6162 due to the flip front. Overall, either phone will do you well, but be sure to consider the cons of the flip front before you opt for the 6162. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (with $50 rebate) 89537 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything about it none Full Review This phone is the best phone I've purchased. I've had other phones in the past but this one beats them all. I've had the phone about a year or so and have had no problems with it what so ever. The options that come with this phone a phenomenal (calendar, games, address book, many different ring options, and much more). The battery last a considerable amount longer that any other ones that I've had and have seen. I took a lot of time in looking for the right cell phone and I found it in the Nokia 6160. Hey Nokia nice job. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.99 89536 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loooong battery lifegreat reception with many calling features a bit large compared to many new phones needs a way to synch phone numbers with an external device Full Review I purchased this phone about 1 1/2 years ago and I am happy to report that it continues to perform comparably or better to the current models now hitting the market. The Battery life remains excellent without any evidence of the dreaded "Memory Effect". My typical use is 15-30 minutes of talk time during the weekday with standby times from about 8am to 8pm. With this usage schedule, I need only to recharge the phone overnight every 5-6 days. I have a high "free" minute plan on weekends, and using the phone for 120-200 minutes of talk time after a single overnight friday charge is not unheard of. One thing that was pleasing was that the original $150 purchase price that I paid for this phone is still pretty much the going rate. Rare in this era where consumer electronics have a shelf life of 2-3 months and retention of value is uncommon, and being disposable is the norm. The phone is tough despite being dropped MANY times and having been exposed to stifiling Heat (San Bernardino summers in my car), freezing Cold (sub zero temperatures in Mammoth CA ski resort parking lots, sand and salt air at the beach is still going strong. I did break one hands free earbud set at the base of this unit, but the phone itself did not suffer. I have not yet begun to completely fill up the 200 phone number capacity. The internal phone book is excellent and is often more complete listing of my important numbers than that of my Palm V. The names and numbers are far easier to access than that of the cheaper 51XX series phones. In summary, this Tri-Mode phone does it all. The reception and battery life are excellent, exceeding my ability to stump it. The calling features are very complete. The only thing one might wish for would be a better way to synch the numbers with a laptop or palmtop. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89535 2000/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small handy nothing Full Review This is a fair cell phone. I have one myself. The good thing about this phone is it is small, handy, light and very very convenient. This company lets you also put a cover of lots of colors over the top so you will not get each family member or friends phone mixed up with yours. You can store many phone numbers, receive e-mails, play games and much more. This phone has helped my family in many ways because we are able to contact each other in any emergencies. There are many other cell phones but i recommend this one because it allows you do many things with it and has many special services included in it. All in all I think that this cell phone is a great buyer and you should definitely purchase it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): unknown 89534 2009/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small enough to handle easily have to flip through all the names in the directory Full Review I bought this phone as my first digital phone. It's small enough to stash in my pocket and big enough to handle without feeling it's too small. The menus are easy to follow and clear. The only problem I have is following the game instructions (didn't buy it for games--right?). I can add/delete names to the 99 name/number memory. However it would be nice if there was a search button or a number that was assigned to each name entered in the directory so that if I remember a number for a name I could enter that # (like in speed dialing) and just push send. Instead you have to flip through the name directory and look for the name/number you want. The ring tones are variable, you can set it for meeting (1 quiet beep), normal, outdoor. It even has a "silent" mode where the phone is on but it doesn't ring. I have recommended this phone to my friends/family & tried my best to get my dad to switch from his phone which he has had many problems with. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89533 2009/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features cool look small glitch in the screen Full Review With over a week of standby time, a couple of hours of talk time, and an excellent look, the Nokia 6160 is worth what you pay for it. The screen is big enough to see most anything on it and its not too big. The size is a great plus. It's just about right. I myself have had a good impression about this phone, but basically the main features of the phone that you're most likely to look for (call quality and dropped calls) are all up to the service provider you choose. If you're looking for a phone to go anywhere with and a phone thats easy to use, get the Nokia 6160 today. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Unknown 89532 2000/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use user friendly long standby talk time no offered by all plans Full Review I have owned many phones over the years and my favorite is the 6160. It is user friendly and has an automatic redial. Standby time lasts for days and I hardly have to recharge it. There is a lot of talk time. My Verizon plan doesn't offer service for the 6160 and I'm forced to purchase the 5180 which looks like the 5120 (which I own). Now I have 3 phones. The 6160 has better presentation and to find settings it is much easier and the buttons are color coded. It has caller ID which I enjoy so if I miss a call I can redial the last number immediately without having to scroll through stored numbers like I have to with the 5180 & 5120. The 6160 has many features and digital instructions are easier to understand and use. Dollar for dollar the 6160 is inexpensive and easy to use especially for those who are not digital savvy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 89531 2009/10/31 Product Rating1.0 handinice to have extremely high radiation Full Review This is a nice and convienient phone, but very dangerous phone to use. The radiation levels are dangerously high, and can cause brain tumors. If you already own this phone, please never use it with the anttena in in, because that generates twice as much power, and that just about doubles the radiation to over the leagal limit. Another way to reduce the radiation intake is to try to hold the phone with the antena away from you, so that the minimum radiation is entering your brain. This phone is good to have if you have ear phones with a mic for it, so the antena, the radiation point, is well away from you brain. So before buying this handi phone, please take note that it has the most radiation of all the popular cell phones, at over the legal limit. Recommended: No 89530 2009/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life reception menus no vibrating alert Full Review Talk about a difference. As a former owner of an Ericsson KH668, I can tell you - what a difference a few $$ can make. I originally bought the Ericsson because of the price (at the time I was a poor student). And it served its purpose. I was able to make calls, and receive them... most of the time. Then I got a job. Then I got a real cell phone. Nokia's 6160 turned out to be a major step up. After having done alot of on-line research, I got the new phone, and discovered what I'd been missing. With a much larger feature set (which includes every feature that was on the old phone), greater clarity during calls, and reception that seems amazing in comparison, this phone is just about the best it gets. A few major points: 1) The signal reception is far and away better than any other phone that I've seen. I can make calls from places my friends wouldn't even get a signal. Combined with the digital nature of the phone, it's made for calls that rival land-line phones. 2) Battery life is just about as good as it gets. I can go for about 3-4 days without worrying about the battery charge. While I'm not the heaviest cell phone user, 3-4 days of continuous standby out of a device like this is pretty amazing as far as I've seen. 3) Easy to use. The only thing I used the manual for was to find out what the default security and lock codes of the phone were when I went to change them. Haven't look at the manual since. Lastly, on a negative note. This phone does lack one major feature - vibrating alert. An invaluable feature when sitting in a meeting, or any other venue where quiet is appreciated. You can however correct this problem with the Vibrating Battery accessory. Overall an excellent phone, just wish it had that cool sliding panel like the Nokia phone in The Matrix... *grin* Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 89529 2000/2/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek design very little or no static great sound quality can be a little expensive Full Review Don't you have static? I mean it seems no matter what type of phone you buy you will always have static, and most of the time this is true. Right? Well not with the Nokia 6160. In my travels i have yet to have a bad experience with this phone. I mean ofcourse you might get a little static in the background in certain conditions, but not to the point to where you want to press a switch channel button. Now since there isn't one of those buttons on a cell phone then i guess your going to have to look into getting one of these. Also you better buy one of those handy leather cases also. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89528 2000/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight many features small viewing screen dims sometimes Full Review The Nokia 6160 phone is a good, small, lightweight digital phone! I've had my phone almost 1 year now. This phone is small enough and light enough that I take it backpacking with me whenever I go out. I also work outside a fair amount of the time and can get quite dusty at times, but I've never had any problem with the phone. The battery with this phone is great, unless you are on analog, but I've been able to pull a digital signal over 50% of the time. I decided to get this phone because of all the features that it had. I love the 1-touch number calling and the large address book that it keeps. I was also amazed with the number (and quality) of games on it, but who ever buys a phone to play games? Sure, it CAN help pass the time when waiting in an airport or for some meeting, but there always seems like I have plenty of other things to keep me busy! Another great feature is the calendar that stores meetings, reminders, etc. I live, work and play in some remote areas and this phone usually pulls in a pretty good signal. The clarity on this phone is good when you have at least 2 bars. One thing I don't like about this phone is that sometimes the display dims. Why, I don't know, but it can be very annoying, in fact, one time I didn't think the phone was on and I had to press on the display and it became viewable again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89527 2009/10/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 low elf emissions not many Full Review By now, most of you reading this will agree that the Nokia 6160 is one of the most user-friendly, function-full and long-lasting (talk-time and battery-strength wise) cellular phones on the market. However, most of you probably do not know that the Nokia 61xx handset emits one of the lowest levels of electromagnetic frequencies (ELF) when compared to other cell phones. Now, there is no comprehensive proof that high exposure to ELF will result in any harm to the human body, however, a number of studies have linked ELFs to brain cancer in mice. THE PAPERCLIP TEST In the earpiece of your phone, there is a magnet. The strength of the magnet indicates the level of ELFs emitted by your phone. One easy way to determine the strength of ELF emissions from your phone is to try to pick up a small paperclip with your handset. The Nokia just barely picks up the paperclip, whereas if you do this exercise with an Ericsson (I used to have one) phone, you'll pick up everything metallic within 6 inches (exaggeration but generally true). I've tried this with many other brands including Samsung, LG, non Nokia 61xx phones and the 61xx always did better. To validate the ELF emissions thesis, I've also measured the ELF levels using a Gauss meter. When you receive an incoming call, the ELF emission is about 80-194! Gauss. As a comparison, a computer monitor or television set gives off a reading of 15-25 gauss. So imagine putting your head next to a machine with the ELF output of ten TV sets, the next time you use your phone. While my points are far from scientific, I do think the general direction of what I've written is true. Aside from going cold turkey on the mobile usage, there is an alternative to ELF exposure. Use one of those earpiece headphone accessories. You may look a fool and appear to be talking to yourself but it may just save you from harm in the future. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 89526 2000/5/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish package simple soft ring need to use keyguard Full Review I had to be talked into getting a cell phone at all, but now that I have it, I think it's great. The Nokia has great style, of course, but it's also got good battery life and easy-to-use features. I can frequently get a week out of the phone before needing to recharge. Between my husband and I, we have two phones, three batteries and one charger stand - so there's also spare power... I think I've only been cut off once because the battery died. The phone book/number list is simple and functional. It has extra features like games and a calculator and a calendar which I never use - well, once in a while I play "Memory" (a/k/a Concentration) in the car (when someone else is driving). The keys are easy to push if the phone is kicking around in my bag, so I usually use the Keyguard feature, which means pushing 2 buttons to unlock, but I'm pretty used to it so it doesn't bother me. Sometimes, I miss calls because I don't hear it ring. I always turn it off in the theater, but I think, no one would hear it anyway...it's pretty soft. Basically, it does everything I need. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ~200 89525 2000/4/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of options great design need to buy the slim battery in order to make phone less bulky Full Review When I bought this phone about a year ago, it was the top of the line phone on the market. I bought this mainly because I saw all my other friends with it and they were all bragging about how great their new phones were. I owned two cell phones before this one and they could not even compare this the Nokia 6160. This Nokia has an unbelievable amount of opinions. First of all, the ability to program all your phone numbers into a phone a must because you will now never be caught somewhere without a needed number. This phone has an alarm clock which I have used from time to time when I have gone somewhere and forgot an alarm clock. Also, there is a date book in this phone where you can program you dates and appointments into. Another great opinion is the calculator which I use lots because I not the best at math, but it is kind of inconvenient to carry around a calculator. Lastly, the games in this phone are quite entertaining. I have found myself playing these games on many occasions when I have been sitting waiting somewhere. Finally, the voice-mail and the caller ID are a must for knowing when you are somewhere and missed a call or you don't want to talk to the person who is calling. Another great benefit of this cell phone is the great number of choices in phone plans. There is the standard plans, to the free weekends, to no long distance and roaming charges. The no long distance and roaming charge plan is the plan I use, but it is only available on the digital phone. It is great because regardless of where I go in the continental US, I can be reached and I can make calls without worrying about outrageous long-distance and roaming charges. A complaint about this phone is that it is too bulky for phones today. This problem can easily be solved if you buy the slim battery which also allows for the vibrate option. Overall, this is no better phone on the market for it's price range because this phone has all of these great benefits. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 190 89524 2000/2/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many features durable long battery life lightweight high radiation emission Full Review The Nokia 6160/6190/6120 line of phones have captivated my attention since they first came out a few years ago. They are the most efficient, and tightly packed phone i have come across to date. With their long battery life, durable covers and antennas, and high power, they make for a killer combo. I purchased my phone almost a year ago, and have found it to withstand every venture i have taken it on. My 6160 has withstood mountain biking falls, entire days of falling on it while snowboarding, dropping it from heights of 5 feet on pavement, laying in the gutter during a rainstorm (yes, its no lie), and just about everything else you could possibly do to it. Oh yes, dont forget the time i wedged it between the cardoor and the body to hold the door open in high wind while i worked on my Chevy Tahoe, only to close the door later and forget about the phone. All that happened was it bent the rubber antenaa, which by the morning had straightened itself out (WOW!!!!) I am in awe that the thing still works, but it still does like the day i bought it. I AM IMPRESSED! The battery life on the Nokia 6100 series phones is incredible. These i have had my phone charger out about once every 2 weeks to charge it. Its amazing. Now if you use your phone on a daily basis, then your going to have to charge it about once every 4 to 7 days depending on how much you talk, but it definently outpowers any phone on the market (aside from the military backback satellite phones). You can also purchas a long life battery which makes the phone a bit fatter on the backside, but i cant even imagine how much time that would add on considering i have the standard battery. The Nokia 6100 series phones are also the most powerful phones on the market. Meaning that they emit the most radiation, but get a much clearer signal. :) But they are perfectly safe for a normal human who talks on the phone once or twice a day. If you are a business man/woman whos got it glued to your ear, then i suggest either a different phone, or a hands free kit so the phone sits on your hip while you talk away. The other general features of the nokia 6100's are user profiles which let you set different ring volumes for meetings or driving or whatnot, and different message alerts and whatnot. With 36 different rings, caller id, text messaging, user profiles, great coverage, games, calculator, and hands free availibility. BUY ONE TODAY!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89523 2009/9/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 techie features volume size shape Full Review The Nokia 6100 series, although one of the best phones out there feature-wise, is a tough choice for the man about town. Why? Because for us front pants pocket cell phone carriers this phone is neither shapely, comfortable, or loud enough to be heard. Who cares if the battery lasts until next week if you can't carry it comfortably or stylishly? Who wants to look like you're carrying around a big snickers in your pocket? When it comes down to about town usage, go with a Motorola flip-phone. The reception may be slightly worse, but the shape is flattering to the front pocket, the ringing volume loud enough to be heard through the thickest of corduroy, and in my epinion, just plain more suave. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179. 89522 2000/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size calculator phone memory extended battery time calendar weight small buttons obtrusive antenna Full Review The 6160 I have used this past year has been an excellent performer. At first I was a little skeptical. A little phone like this can have all these features and good quality phone reception? But Nokia has shown me the way. I charge the batteries twice a week and I'm usually fine, I keep the phone on 24-7. The calendar lets me program reminders and appointments, the calculator comes in quite handy, so does the phone's number storage. I liked it so much that my family owns two more, after my advice. This little phone also has paging and messaging capabilities. It is just so convenient. I couldn't live without it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89521 2009/12/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size digital reception design weight battery connection timedate memory screen dimming Full Review This phone is fine for everyday use with average expectations for a business user. It does have some serious flaws, which over time become extremely annoying... perhaps Nokia can resolve them in other models. The European GSM version of this phone (which I owned when living in London) is more reliable... so we should expect that Nokia can make this model more reliable as well. Pros: Good, compact size Clear reception in digital mode Very good battery life Sufficiently large (200) phone number directory Easily navigated menu Cons: Sometimes confusing menu hierarchy... takes some getting used to, if you've had previous versions of Nokia (5000 series) phones Very annoying date and time reset... if you have to switch batteries quickly, and forget to switch off first, you must reset time and date... the phone should be smart enough to store for that data for a reasonable duration I have confirmed the following two problems with other Nokia 6000 series users, as well as with two different phone vendors: -- The screen will frequently "dim down", requiring you to go back to the phone store and have them open the phone and insert an adhesive-backed foam pad between the screen and the phone casing. I have had to have TWO pads inserted (and in the first two months of use). This is clearly a design defect, since the phone stores have these pads at the ready. If you walk in and show them your phone, they don't even ask what's wrong, they've seen so many occurrences of this problem -- The battery does not always "seat" itself properly, causing the user to have to move the battery around a little to make sure it's getting a close contact. All in all, it's a good phone, with very comfortable tactile design and clear reception, even in downtown Boston, Manhattan, etc. Have had some degradation of reception when in analog areas in the non-metro areas between Boston and New York City. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.00 with plan 89520 2009/9/14 Product Rating5.0 stylish excellent menu ui super long battery life not too good inside of thick walls frys brain Full Review Even though the 6100s are no longer the "MOST" chic phone to have (check out Nokia's new 8800 series!), they really are high quality. The sound quality is great, the battery life is amazing (I usually go about half a week without charging, talking at least 30 minutes a day), and it's a sharp looker. The onscreen UI for controlling the phone's settings is also very intuitive and packs in a lot of features. The phone has text messaging, a calculator, games, a calendar, phone book, and more; including some very annoying rings (luckily there's dozens to choose from). The little fella is also quite durable. I've dropped it several times, from as high as five feet onto asphalt without any serious damage, just some scratches on the shell. I have AT&T's digital one rate plan, and with the tri-mode phone, coverage is basically everywhere. One of the shortcomings of the phone, however, and something I have noticed with many digital phones, is that things get really spotty inside of buildings or other thick walls. I get very low signals (and sometimes dropped calls) inside of my condo, my garage and in the tunnels on the seattle to bellevue commute. My only other gripes are that there is no vibrating ring on the stock model (you can, however, get a vibrating battery), and the phone gets kind of warm on your ear when you talk for over 10 minutes or so, making me feel even more like my brain is being fried. Also, and this is just geekdom speaking, there is what appears to be an IR port on the top of the phone, but sadly is just a cover in the US. It would be cool to have a working IR port, and be able to easily sync with my palmpilot's address book, beam messages, etc.. About the look of the phone; while not going as far as the 5000 series with the neon covers, the 6100s are available in several more toned down tones such as sky, ocean, blue jean, and black. They're quite small and easy to carry, just make sure that you turn the key lock on when you put it in your pocket, because the buttons are easily to press by accident. One other note about the faceplates: If you want something a little more interesting, check out http://www.mobileart.com, they make some really bizarre replacement covers that snap on. Recommended: Yes 89519 2000/5/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 complete with pager nothing out of the ordinary Full Review Nokia 6160: Cell phones, are they all the same? In my opinion, yes. I recently bought the Nokia 6160, and from my experience there is just about no major difference between any other cellphone I have ever owned. Its light and compact, just like every other phone on the market, decent service plans, and a moderate price. With flashy features like your phone being your pager, Nokia makes a vapid attempt at drawing attention away from the fact that all they've really done is recycle the old cell phones to produce the 6160. I wouldn't recommend the phone, but I don't recommend against it either. Owning this phone is no different than owning any other cell phone. Recommended: Yes 89518 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 smallreliable with nice features rugged vibrating ring requires special battery Full Review This is the "Honda" of Cell phones. Easy to operate, rugged construction, lots of nice features, long battery life, small frame. I had many cell phones before this one, and while they all worked, each one had it's own problems: Short battery life, bad battery contacts, breakable antenna and the list goes on. This nifty little Nokia suffers from non of these ills. I constantly abuse it and it has proven to be both rugged and reliable. This phone, just basically keeps on working. While the interface is basically easy to use, with a large display and a menu driven operations, Don't confuse it with a Macintosh. Simple operations (storing numbers, changing profiles, ring tones etc) are easy enough, but if you want to use more complicated features, go read the manual. For example, I still don't know how to display the phones own number (except when you turn it on) even though I am sure there is a very easy way to do it. However, relative to other cell phones, this one is actually very easy to use. Has lots of nice accessories which don't usually cost an arm and a leg (unlike some other phones) However if you want a vibrating ring, you need to purchase the vibrating battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 89517 2000/1/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dated alarm calculator excellent tech support display went bad but they replaced within days Full Review I've had this phone for almost a year and its the best phone I've seen or had by far. I use it for everything from tracking appointments, a phone number listing, to adding up tips. I'm pretty much lost without it. I have had one problem with it, the screen would intermittently dim. I called AT&T tech support and they sent me a new phone within days, they also sent a prepaid return address label to send in the faulty one. My favorite feature of this phone would be the alarm. I can stay anywhere and still get a "wake up" call on time. I bought the phone for a part time job delivering pizzas. It kept me in touch with my wife and gave me assurance that I would find the customer. I would recommend this phone to everyone who needs a cellular phone, but wants the added features to keep you in control of your personal life on the go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89516 2000/1/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 plastic windowbuttons equipped with useful set in features relatively nice in sizestyle can decorate with many different color tops so remember to lock your keys or you might be making unexpected phone calls no flip top Full Review I can't believe the Nokia 6160 is priced at $179. I got mine last summer for $87, during a time where most of the other stores charge anywhere from $99 to $129. Not only was the price lower, but I also got some more accessories for free! My phone came with a iridescent cover, a battery charger and leather case. In addition, I got to "re-decorate" my phone by changing the buttons, plastic window, and the top cover to a different color. All this for just $87! The battery I use for my Nokia phone works pretty well. I don't really need to charge it that often. The battery gives up to 2.5 to 3 hours of talk time or about 3 days of standby time. A fully charged phone will last me for a good three days. I tend to use my phone a lot at night, so I usually charge it every other day. The good thing is I could talk on the phone while I'm charging. The Nokia 6160 is relatively small and light, weighing close to 6 oz. I usually carry it in my purse or in the coat pocket. It's also equipped with a couple of useful features: - It can store up to 199 names and numbers. I literally use my cellular phone as a phonebook now. - It's built with a calendar and personal organizer. You can jots little notes and reminders in it! - There's also a calculator! I find it really useful when I'm eating out with a bunch of friends. All I have to do is whip out the calculator, press some keys, and find out how much we each owe from the bill. Overall, the Nokia 6160 is a nice phone for a good price. It makes a relatively presentable and not-so-expensive gift. My last word of advice: Make sure you shop around. The price differences you'll encounter will be surprising. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 87 with lots of nice accessories! 89515 2000/5/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 decent reception on most service types very portable feature loaded adaptable appearance practical features hidden additional costs lacking standard Full Review As a cellular saleswoman, I've seen the good, the bad, and the extremely ugly--as far as cell phones go. Frankly, I've found that Nokia's products--specifically, the popular 5100/6100 series--are not all they're cracked up to be. Nokia has made its name by appealing to a sense of style and status. From interchangeable faceplates to built-in calculators, calendars and games--they've got the fashion column covered. The slim design and internal antenna maximize portability. The infrared lens on the 6100 series has proven to ensure optimal reception. The label itself speaks volumes to the typical layman, making Nokia products easy to sell to just about anyone. However, when I have a customer stride into my store, asking about products and accessories for a "No-KEE-uh" (correct pronunciation: NO-kee-uh), I have to wonder how much they really bothered to learn about their phone before they plunked down the cash. Why am I not impressed? These misguided individuals have spent their hard-earned money on a brand name, and they will have to continue to spend money on batteries, belt clips, cases, and hands-free kits--all before their phone can have the practical features which come standard on almost every other phone on the market today. The vibrating capability, for instance, which comes standard on Motorola, LGIC, and Audiovox models, cannot be attained with a Nokia phone until a vibrating battery is purchased, ranging from $49-$79. Nokia also offers a 30-day lithium-ion battery, but that doesn't come standard with the phone, either--another $69-$89. There is also the popular light-up antenna--which is one of many "after-market" products leaching off of Nokia's reputation. Not only is it extremely difficult to interchange (done it), but reception is also significantly reduced, and proper reception cannot be regained, even by replacing the original antenna. Many states are now passing laws requiring hands-free driving kits, and though an expensive, permanent installation is no longer the only option, Nokia is one of the only phones without the universal 2.5mm headset jack. Instead, the consumer is forced to first purchase a specific attachment which, if he is able to find one, will cost him $20-$30. Only then is he able to select his preference between a full headset, a tiny earpiece, or any of the variations available for a comfortable fit--this, of course, also costs money. Then there are the more expensive options, such as the Navigator by CCM, which provides a speakerphone-type setup. The Nokia model goes for about $79. The Nokia 5100/6100 series come with a clever slot in the back for a swivel clip--quite convenient until the plastic panel where the clip is held gives way, leaving the feature, the phone, and the consumer appearing to be not-so-clever. In general, the average consumer may pay well below the cost of a new Nokia 5100/6100 series model, and not have to spend more until he is ready to purchase a new phone--a point to keep in mind the next time a salesperson starts his pitch on the latest "No-KEE-uhs". Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79-$129 89514 2009/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 memory storage is huge belt clip accessory isn t comfortable Full Review i own this phone and although i am pleased with it's performance I hardly believe that it can cause cancer. One it is not as much the phone as it is the signal it carriers which carries radiation waves. If the antenna was strong enough to omit waves that could cause cancer then we would receive a crystal clear signal all the time. The energy that is needed to cause such a radiation wave can't possibly be held in a battery with a shelf life of 36 hours. Secondly I have heard that it isn't as much the phones that cause the problem as it is the signal. I am not an expert but I heard the Cellular waves are considered more of a likelier source of radiation because of the strength of it's waves compared to that of the lower powered digital waves. This is definitely a grey area which deserves some attention but I don't think it is fair to jump all over the wireless phone industry until federal inspections state otherwise. Now onto the actual review of the phone. I like it, it has room for improvement but i do like it. First off it is pretty small and fits in my back pocket without weighing me down. Secondly it as many features which I really like having. Those features include games, calendar, phonebook, caller id, text messaging, and calculator. It is like a combination of pocket organizer and phone all in one. I've thrown away my black book and pocket calendar for my phone, it handles it all. What I don't like is the belt clip accessory which isn't very comfortable to use. Instead I bought a leather carry case, which almost doubles the size of the phone making it a little bulkier. It is a pretty reliable phone and have I've been happy with my purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89513 2000/6/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 excellent features poor antenna power Full Review I purchased a Nokia 6160 cell phone 1 year ago. After 6 months of numerous dropped calls, I gave up on the phone, after the cell provider replaced it 2 times. The technician stated that the antenna was not adequate and that they were not recommending the unit anymore due to numerous complaints about the same problem I was having. I have used cell phones extensively for 8 years, and 2 months ago replaced this with a different brand and my dropped calls are few and far between. Shame on Nokia for selling this for the high price they are getting. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89512 2000/11/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable small battery scratches small Full Review 1. Didn't buy this product. Another toy my company gave me. I like it because it's small, but that's also a minor problem. I have trouble putting it to my head to listen/talk properly. I like the ability to program in many names, the myriad of ringing tones and volume (although I'd like the loudest ring even louder), customizing products available. Downside: I have to have to phone turned in a certain direction to get a decent signal. The faceplate scratches easily so buy a cover. And, the battery only lasts maybe 5 days with 40hour/wk on time. Good choice overall though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): none 89511 2009/11/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome form factor shape colored faceplates weight annoying ringing options expensive no vibrating ability with default battery Full Review The Nokia 6160 is pretty much the ideal cell phone in most criterion people look for. The form factor is nice-- tight, fits nicely in your hand, shape is conducive for pockets (some friends with Motorolas or other brands that fold into square-shapes often complain about how it just "doesn't quite fit"), and the weight is enough for the phone to feel substantial, but not too heavy. I also appreciate the fact that I can get different colored faceplates... what can I say, I enjoy aesthetics, and am very happy with the iridescent blue/purple/green "ocean" faceplate I have-- reminds me of a fly. Furthermore, battery life is really really long, reception is clear (on occasion I get echoes if I'm calling long distance, but the other end doesn't hear it), and navigation through the menus is easy with two soft keys (whereas the Nokia 5100s only have one). Unfortunately, the default battery that comes with the phone does not have the vibrating option (though I believe you can get a battery that does include the functionality, but the price you pay is a bulkier phone), and all the ringing options are terrible. Really annoying, high-pitched noises that try to resemble songs. Also, the phone is expensive at $199. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89510 2009/11/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 games ring types calculator feature rich calendar antenna doesn t extend retract Full Review I have had 4 phones now, and this is by far the best! It has about 35 different rings, which help you distinguish your phone from those around you. It has 4 different games you can play when you are really bored. The calculator comes in handy, as does the calendar. You can set notes and reminders to call people, so you never miss an appointment. The backlit display is easy to read, and the menus are easy to use. The phone is dual mode, so you can use the digital or analog system. The battery life is one of the most exceptional I've seen. I leave my phone on for days at a time without recharging it. Even with normal use, you shouldn't have to put it on charge more than every few days. Another useful feature are the profiles. You can set the phone to OUTDOOR to ring extra loud, MEETING to beep once, SILENT to not ring at all, or PAGER. You can adjust all of these profiles to suit your needs, and switch between them quickly and easily. There is also text messaging, a 200 number phonebook, call logging, and a keyguard. The phone is both durable, and compact, and offers lots of accessories such as handsfree microphone, vibrating battery, and clip on holster. One thing I miss is a retractable/extendable antenna. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89509 2001/8/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compact various ring selections excellent battery life size volume The Bottom LineThis phone in an excellent communicator in a spoken world. Full Review Communication is the key. Good Communication skills. Communicates well with others.... It is time to face reality. No matter how much I love to read and write, it is a 'hearing' or 'spoken' world that I live in, and to succeed I need to be able to communicate clearly and directly with the others that I work with. As a transportation provider, I do not get the chance to discuss my schedule over coffee with my boss. Instead, it is usually done while I am on the road over the company cell phone, Nokia 6120. Our company has 4 Nokia 6120 phones in use daily. Each of the 3 vans keeps one at all times, and we have an extra at the day care to call in on. Our phones are taken off their chargers at 6 am and replaced at 6 pm to be charged. Even though it is a full 12 hours before being recharged, I have never had a phone that had a dead or low battery. From cell phone to cell phone, the conversation is clear if we ( the drivers/vans) are within 5-8 miles of each other, any farther than that and it is very difficult to hear.But in all honesty, not only are the phones picking up the sounds of voices, they are also picking up driving sounds, and our vans are noisy. From cell phone to stationary phone, the conversation is much clearer and easier to understand. I have noticed when I get about 10 miles away from the stationary phone that I am calling, whether it be work or a friend, that the reception is impossible. A lot of times I can hear the stationary person, but they can not hear me at all. One thing I love about this phone is the different ringing tunes you can choose from. There are at least 4 tunes only for Christmas. There are several classical tunes and then the standard Nokia ring. Although, the volume can be set at different degrees of loudness, the loudest ring is still difficult to hear while traveling in the vans. I have missed countless calls because I did not hear the phone ring. This in turn means that some clients did not get picked up because they are not normally scheduled to come in but have called and said they wanted to come in. When this happens, I must return and pick them up which throws a real monkey wrench in the rest of my route/day. I wish the volume could be made louder. The phones are very compact which I love. Being a driver, I generally always have about 5 things in my hand when beginnning my route, one of which is a clipboard. The phones are compact enough to fit into my shorts pocket or slip into my purse as I carry the stuff to the van. Although we don't use it, the phones can be provided with a adaptor that plugs directly into the cigarette lighter, for added charging. This phone can definetly stand up to the use and abuse of a harried driver. I have accidentally dropped my Nokia several times, yet the phone continues to work just as good as before the dropping. Yesterday, I accidentally dropped the phone and the battery snapped out. I was sure that when I replaced the same battery that the memory would be erased, but no, the phone worked just as good and the memory was still intact. One of the best features of this phone is the range indicator. Our routes often take us into the hilly country to clients homes. With the range indicator, we instantly know whether we are too far out to call back. For the price, this is a really handy phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89508 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery weight size antenna nothing Full Review This phone will not stop. The best part about it is its battery. I have been using it continuously for a long time, and it rarely needs charging. I can use it daily for a week, even two, without charging. It gets extremely good reception. I live in an area where not many cellular recievers are around, but I always get perfectly clear reception. It has not broken up yet, even in tunnles. It is also very tiny. Though it can't compare to things like StarTac in size, it perfectly fits in my pocket. It has a shell which will not break or leak, as it has been dropped in a toilet before (leaning over to raise the seat. I really love my phone. I reccomend it to anybody who is in the market for a great cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.95 89507 2001/8/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nationwide use no take me out to the ballgame The Bottom LineThe 6160 was a nice phone, but I had to replace it with the 8260. Read my update for details. Full Review I purchased the Nokia 6160 to replace my Motorola bag phone. Don't get me wrong, I loved my bag phone, but I had to switch to a different service provider (AT&T), because the roaming fees were killing me. Plus in some areas of the USA, my bag phone was useless. Now, with my Nokia 6160 I have nearly unlimited use within the USA and I don't have to use the expensive hotel phones anymore. Another moneysaver! With the purchase of the Nokia I was able to get rid of my pager and my bag phone, therefore, saving me even more money. Now I only get one bill. The phone is great. I can hear much better than my old phone. The clarity with digital is a big improvement. I have a better signal in previously poor areas when traveling and I am getting used to carrying a phone with me at all times instead of leaving my bag phone in the car. I do appreciate all the optional accessories that are available for the Nokia 6160. Although, if you want to match your faceplate with your outfit or season, you might want to consider the 5100 Series. The 6100 Series doesn't have as many faceplate options as the 5100 Series. Also, I find the 6160 more user friendly than the 5160, but they are both great phones. I use the Nokia 6160 with a headset when I'm in the car and it works great. I drive a five speed and holding a phone while trying to steer the car and shift at the same time is rather difficult at times. With the headset, I can keep my hands free for more important tasks, like avoiding the other driver who is too cheap to spend the money on a headset. I think everybody who uses their phone in the car should be required to use a headset. I also use four chargers ( 3 different ones). I have a rapid charger in my office, a charger in my car and two chargers like the one that comes with the phone (one at home and one with my laptop). For more information on the chargers, please contact me. I chose the 6160 over the 5160 simply for the expanded memory and the weight. I passed on the 6162 because I didn't care for the flip cover. I think I would really like the 8860, but it is out of my price range right now. Another difference between the 6160 and 5160 is the selection of tunes that act as your ringer. I was rather disappointed that the 6160 didn't come with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." Plus the 6160 offers four games compared to three for the 5160. They're great when you're waiting for a plane on a layover. It's not a Gameboy, but when you're bored out of your skull, you're more than happy Nokia included them. UPDATE: I no longer have the Nokia 6160. It has been replaced with the Nokia 8260. The antenna on my 6160 had a hairline crack that ran all the way down the antenna. When that happened you could of stood under a tower and not got a signal. The 8260 that I replaced it with is a lot smaller and the antenna is internal. I have thought about writing a review on the 8260, but there are so many well written reviews on this product that I have decided not to write one at this time. If you have any questions, please contact me via e-mail. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89506 2000/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 software battery life size easy to lose Full Review I first bought a cellular phone in the mid 80's when service became avail. in the Central Florida area, and was totally enamored of the convenience and safety of calling from the car. And it was ONLY from the car, as the GE phone I was using was permanently installed in my station wagon. Since then, by my count I am on my seventh cellular phone-but as far as I am concerned, I'm using the best phone I have ever used-the Nokia 6160. I absolutely love the battery life, the size, and the intuitive software-before getting this phone, I hardly ever used the name and number storage because it was just too dang complicated to have to remember, unless you used it every day. With the way this phone walks you through the save process, it's easy and fast to use it as your mobile phone book. Also, the voice quality with my AT&T North American Digital Cellular network is terrific-best I've ever heard in a TDMA phone. I think Nokia has made some improvements in the vocoder for this phone. I have never been a fan of NADC phones as far as voice quality goes until using this phone. Kudos, Nokia! There are many other features incorporated into this phone, such as a calendar with alarm, calculator, and several others. It's just a feature packed cell phone, and when you combine those features, it's multi-band capability, the small size, and it's Nokia reliability, I'd say it's the best phone I've ever used!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.95 89505 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life menu interface excellent talk time none Full Review I really think it should have the "S" sign on the front of the phone, because this phone is UNBREAKABLE! Not I deliberately tried to break it, but I'm sure a lot of people can testify that it's not the most ergonomic phone. So, a couple of times it did slip and fall on every type of flooring or ground you can think of! Yes even gravel! I no longer have this phone, but I would never forget my experiences with this phone. Excellent reception, EXTREMELY excellent battery life. With the thickest battery, you can yap on the phone for hours! And if I can remember correctly, I never recharge the phone every week, more like every other week or 2 weeks if I don't use it much. No wonder it's the #1 selling phone back then and until now it's pretty much popular. The menus are VERY user-friendly, even a child can figure it out. Let me tell you a great experience I had with this phone and it's the honest-to-goodness-truth. My friend's poster bed broke and fell on the phone, which up to this day, we don't know why she charges the phone under the bed. Luckily, the whole phone wasn't crushed, but the antennae was cracked and ripped open. We saw copper wires sticking out of the antenna. I mean, if you see it, you know they need to get a new one. So, we tried putting it back and already planned to go the dealer to get a new one. When some miracle happened, the phone rang and my friend answered it and spoke to the person with no static problem whatsoever. And believe it or not, she's still able to talk to that phone up to this day. That's why I call it SUPERPHONE! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89504 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 you can make a call generally you can not complete the call most of the time Full Review My husband is a network technician, and therefore in the field a lot. His customers rely upon this phone to get ahold of him during the day. His work has paid for the phone (we personally use Primeco), and we have never had more problems with a phone than this Nokia. It is very disconcerting to get disconnected or hear complete jibberish because of the poor quality of this phone. It seems that eighty plus percent of the Houston area is completely useless with this phone. Also, it does not bode well for my husband when I think he has hung up on me, and can only imagine what his customers must think when they get disconnected three or four times trying to have one conversation. My husband has made the comment (on more than one occasion) that he might as well have kept his pager, because it serves the same purpose as this particular Nokia phone. Meaning that he gets a call, and has to wait until he gets to a real phone before he can complete a conversation. It does not happen every time he uses this phone, only about forty to fifty percent of the time. We feel that if someone is to pay that much for a cellular phone, it should work much better than this phone has for him. We would not recommend this phone to anyone. It is the worst we have ever used. We realize there are problems with pretty much every cell phone, there are just too many with this Nokia phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): unknown(work phone) 89503 2009/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple dialing large phone memory hard to turn phone on lots of options Full Review There are a number of things that instantly appealed when selecting this phone: Features, size, and battery life. There are a number of things that weren't as nice once I started using the phone: Features and ON/OFF button. The Nokia has a lot of options. Initially, I was quite impressed with all of the features, especially the easy to use name entry feature for the phone numbers I wanted to store in it's 190 phone number memory. It's very easy later to find a number to dial using this feature. As I began to try to examine other features, I found the menuing system to be quite overwhelming, and not as logically laid out as one might expect. It's easy to navigate the menuing system, but finding things can be difficult, especially like ringer selection. Although "neat," one useless feature is the games that the phone will play. I hope that it didn't add to the cost of the phone. I have been pleased with the clarity of the phone conversations, _when_ I had a strong digital signal. It certainly is an advantage that this phone supports digital and analog. Overall, the phone is a good buy, especially if you can get it cheap. It's not as small as the Motorola phones, but it's generally cheaper. I would recommend buying a cheap protective case for the phone, but I would note that it makes the already difficult ON/OFF button more difficult to use! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29 (after rebates) 89502 2009/9/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 size digital quality mechanical problems with displaycover Full Review While the Nokia 6162 has been an excellent phone in most respects, there are a number of hardware issues that keep it from getting high marks. My experience is limited to two phones I purchased and two purchased by friends. Of these four phones, 3 of them have had problems. Two of the phones have a problem where the display does not make contact with the electronics and therefore is blank. (You can temporarily overcome this by pressing on the "Nokia" label.) The At&t store fixed one of the phones by placing some weather stripping foam inside to cause the printed circuit board to rest against the display, but the fix lasted only a few weeks. Their current opinion is to add more foam. Two of the phones (one of the same phones that has the display problem) have a problem with the switch on the "door" hinge. The switch stops working so that the phone either does not answer when you open it or answers and then hangs up. Form factor, battery life, signal quality (if any mobile phone signal can be referred to as having quality) are all acceptable. I use the phone daily and still recommend that people looking into a new phone consider it. However, these little problems (at least in my sample of four) are annoying and while I have used Nokia phones for a number of years, I will consider other brands next time I buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 89501 2000/4/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good talktime lotta features some might think its outdated by new phones Full Review The Nokia 6160 is still by far one of the most long lasting phones in terms of talk time even after the new wave of cell phones have arrived. The new sleek Noka 8860 "a la Matrix" might wow the business associates, but if you want a phone that you can talk on 'til the cows come home for a good price, look no further. THe 6160 is PACKED with features, With the Nokia 6160 you can personalize the phone's alerts to fit your needs and surroundings. Its digital technology provides enhanced sound quality and call privacy. Long Lasting, Lightweight and Small From 2 hours to 3 hours and 15 minutes talk time with standard battery From 4 to 8 days of standby time with the standard battery Weighs less than 6 ounces with standard battery Only 5.2 inches tall, easily fits in your pocket or purse. Features: Phone book that will store up to 199 names and numbers 4 Entertaining games Calculator Clock with built in Alarm Calendar Currency Converter 35 Distinctive ring tunes Your phone is also a pager Versatile range of accessories for home, office and auto Personalized Profile settings to fit your environment. For it's price, it cant be beat. Just be wary of the provider you sign up with...that can make or break your phone experience. Around here in CA, ATT service stinks, go with Pac Bell or whatever your equivalent is. All in all, this phone might be "bulky" by todays standards, but its small enought o slip into your pocket wherever you go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89500 2000/1/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life easy of use build quality need optional battery for vibra alerts not that compact Full Review This is perhaps the best phone overall out there on the market. Quite light (really), VERY easy to use, great battery life (not the top, but really up there), large screen, very robust build. However, I decided against it cuz I wanted something smaller and lighter to slip in my clothes at times when I need that to be, and you must get an extra [cost] battery for vibration. However, this phone is wildly popular for good reason (and no, not just for those games that come with it standard!). If the new digital StarTacs didn't come out yet, I would have went for this phone. Excellent design and value. You will not go wrong. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89499 2000/2/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 snake is a lotta fun i sucked at snake Full Review I got my new Nokia 6160 phone. I was so happy. I loved being in class and being able to turn it to vibrate. Teacher never knew when I got a call. I spent hours and hours programming in hundreds of phone numbers, setting a high score on snake, and choosing a ringer. What for? Well, I loved my 6160. Until, terror struck my house. My mother loves animals, but much in the way one would love Yard Art or something. Or, a Vase. I mean, they are pretty to look at and yell at, but that is about as far as she goes. So, we have an uncontrollable lil dog...my Cashmere. She is so cute, but a lil devil. She eats anything...including my Nokia 6160 phone. And, judging by the damage she did to it, I have concluded that she enjoyed it as much as I did. I mean, she really licked it clean. So, needless to say, I no longer have that phone! But, I loved the phone. It was great! I have not a complaint. Would not rebuy it though. A lil large for me. I hate having that unsightly bulge in my pants (the phone I mean :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89498 2000/1/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool tunes durable easy to use occasionally locks up bad plastic holster Full Review As an IT professional on-call 24 hours a day, my cellphone is a necessity. Over the last year or so I have owned two Nokia 6160's and they have performed admirably! While there are cheaper cellphones and flashier cellphones out there, few are as well-designed and manufactured as the 6160. I initally purchased my phone as a refurbished model through Cellular One (now AT&T Wireless) for $99.95 including a long-life Li-Ion battery. You can currently purchase a brand new 6160 for $149.95 (with activation) but it only includes a standard NiMH battery. Why do you want a Lithium Ion battery? It tends to hold a longer charge, is a bit lighter and has no problems with battery memory (which in NiMH batteries requires that you totally discharge it from time to time to get a full charge). While your choice of cellphones will depend on your cellular provider, I also considered the Nokia 5160 (your choice of fashion faceplates but a bit heavier) and the Motorola Startac (cool design, looked a little fragile). Nokia currently has an even smaller 8260 cellphone which may be my next move up! What's to like about the 6160? When you use one, it just feels right! The phone is very simple and well-laid out with a large LCD screen, a nice black matte finish and a stubby little antenna. The buttons have good tactile feel when you press them, similar to the way controls in a nice car turn on and off. The menu's are all very intuitive allowing a new user to maneuver through them quickly without needing the instruction manual. Plus there are some nice little bells and whistles such as games, a calendar/calculator and 35 neat ringing tones, ranging from Auld Lang Syne to Mozart! Creating a phone directory is easy; you can save numbers when you make or receive a call and once in the phone, they are alphabetically arranged and you can toggle through up to 199 of them. The build quality is excellent, I've dropped my phone a multitude of times since it is with me constantly and I've never had a problem. The 6160 is all digital, can receive pager/text messages and is capable of data transfer with a cellular modem. In my daily usage (30 minutes talktime/day), the battery will typically last for 24 to 48 hours on one charge but will stay in standby mode for days. Some additional accessories you might consider would be a charger for the car (I prefer a second charger in the office), hands-free kit and a holster. While Nokia has a small plastic holster that clips onto your belt, I recommend a leather case for your 6160. I found that while using the holster, the phone would get knocked loose when sitting down and the clip would quickly become useless. A leather case, while bulkier, will provide a little extra protection if you drop the phone. The phone is great but is it perfect? Of course not, every now and then (once a week) it seems to get locked up and the only way I can make a call is to power it off/on; sort of like rebooting a PC. But that's about the only problem I have run into with this phone. All in all, I can't imagine a phone being any easier to use and more reliable than the 6160 and I would highly recommend it to anyone getting a new cellphone! Note: The Nokia 6162 is identical in features to the 6160 except for a flipdown keypad cover. I also recommend programming your own phone number identifying yourself as the owner in case you lose your phone and a good samaritan finds it! Nokia Website Link - Features/Details http://www.nokiausa.com/beauty/1,1585,32,FF.html Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 89497 2009/11/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size sound clarity digital a little pricey Full Review For the most part the 6160 is a great phone. It has a lot of bells and whistles however that I will never use. Including a calculator and event calendar is just a little much I think - especially when you are trying to type 'real' words using a 10 key numberpad. This aside, the phone has great range and reception for it's size. Keep in mind that the smaller the phone, the smaller and less powerful the antenna/receiver. So like I said, for it's size it works great. Getting used to not talking into a mouthpiece that you can see takes a little getting used to. You feel like you are talking into thin air and it makes you talk louder than normal. Once you get used to it however, you realize that it works great. The menus on the phone are fairly intuitive, although I did have to refer to the manual when setting it up. Other than that I have not had to refer back to it. The availability of a vibrating battery is great. Many times in the past with my old phone had I wished that I could turn the ringer off and make it vibrate. Well now I can. You can store multiple profiles that are easily accessible as well. For example one for vibrating and one for regular ringing. The profiles are accessible from the power button. It's weight (or lack of it) and size are a plus as well. I can keep it in my jacket pocket or clipped to my jeans pocket with no problem and it really does not get in the way. There are a wide variety of add-on's available as well, from hands-free car adapter kits, computer modem adapters to leather cases. The caller ID function works great and the large LCD display is very easy to read day or night. In standby mode the battery will last several days. Since I charge my phone every night I have yet to have it die on me while I was using it. (I use between 300-400 minutes/month) At the moment I think it's probably the best overall value in a digital cell phone.. but you know how technology changes! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 89496 2001/6/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use sounds clear lots of options can t force it to analog or select channel The Bottom LineA good phone.... Full Review I was one of the first proud owners of the Nokia 6160 when it first came out in the summer of 1998. I was interning at AT&T Wireless Services that summer, which was the company who first sold the phone. It had be ingrained in all of us how much of a technological marvel this phone was, so by the time we had been issued one we carried it around like it was some kind of James Bond super gadget. I used this phone until I was forced to put it out of commission a while ago by way of switching wireless companies. The Good Points: Where to start?! The greatest thing about this phone is its battery life. In a digital service area, it boasts 8 whole days of standby time. It recharges quickly, usually within an hour or two. The display is large, easy to read, and well lit. The graphics and text are clear and detailed, and it can display both in a number of different sizes. There is a scroll button located in the middle of the phone above the keypad, between two soft keys. It's angled and shaped in a manner that make it easy to locate without actually looking at the phone. In fact, the whole phone is very easy to use without looking at it, despite the keys being so small. It fits very nicely and comfortably in your palm. The clarity / call quality on this phone is excellent. This phone is equipped with a very sophisticated vocoder (the device which actually converts your voice into a digital signal, and is 80% responsible for the sound quality) which has yet to be outdone. This phone has enough bells, whistles, options, gadgets, and toys to keep a hyperactive child (like myself) occupied for hours. There are like 20-something ring styles, most of them songs of some sort. As you navigate the phone's menus it beeps in a soft, pleasant manner. There are different schemes that you can customise for say, outdoor use when you want the phone to be loud, or meeting when you want it to be silent, etc. It has a calculator, a calendar, and games for when you are really bored at the airport. I have found the 6160 to be quite durable and sturdy. I originally used the phone in Seattle where it was used in the rain frequently. I have dropped it multiple times without any damage. When the phone was first sold, there were a number of people who experianced problems with the antenna cracking, resulting in poor reception. AT&T (the only company selling the 6160 at the time) took steps to replace these phones at no expense to the customer. The Bad Points: One of the first things I disliked about this phone is that there is no way to force the phone to analog mode. In Seattle in particular, the digital service is sometimes poor, and it helps to be able to force your phone to analog to complete a call. Also, there is no way to switch the phone between the A and B cellular channels. Instead, the phone does this strictly on its own using a number of factors to determine which channel to use. However it sometimes chooses the wrong channel, and the result is that you may get a recording asking you to enter a credit card number and pay outrageous amounts of money to complete the call. It's rare for that to happen, but I still wish I had the capability to set the channels myself if need be. Also, since the phone cannot be forced to analog, there is no modem capability in this phone. In other words, you can't hook it up to your laptop and connect to the Internet like you can with a lot of other cell phones. Even though the 6160 and its counterparts have been out for a few years, I still would recommend them to anyone for wireless service. The price has gone down significantly and there are, and in the near future will be few other phones that compare to this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89495 2000/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 superb sound quality durability options ringersearpiece can be quiet Full Review I have had a Nokia 6160 since the week it came out (over two years) and I will say that it has held up nicely. I have only had one problem with it, cracking. Its durability is second to none, but I actually cracked the plastic casing around the antenna. To get this fixed I had several options. I could go back to Circuit City and get them to fix it, try to get ATT to fix it, or see if I can do it myself. I know that there are a lot of do-it-yourselfer out there but I would not recommend fixing this one. The two main reasons; (1) once you open up the case no company, including ATT, will service it (2) the parts are going to get more expensive for you than anyone else. I chose the Circuit City path. Being an ex-employee I was assuming that this was going to be easy but it wasn't. I had to wait for three weeks without my phone only to have them return it to me still broken. So after fighting with the manager (it paid to have worked there and knew the policies of the company) I got a new phone. I think that this phone has a lot of nice features that the average person can use. The calendar will try to keep all of us on time, and every one needs a calculator every now and then. I would recommend it over the 5100 series any day. It actually feels like a phone in your hand, unlike a poorly assembled children's toy as the 5100 does. A must have for the person on the go that wants a cell phone that will take most of the rigors of the daily grind. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 Another plus about working a Circuit City 89494 2000/2/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything at t usually comes with the deal Full Review The 6160 is a great phone. I have owned mine since the day they came out. Although I have been through three 6160's due to breakage (they are very, very, very hard to break), I have never been dissapointed by this phone. While I was waiting for my third replacement, I recieved a 5160 as a loaner, at that time 6160's were in short supply. The 5160 was harder to operate with one hand...the one "enter" key got on my nerves and the overall build quality was poor. Amazingly enough, I got the new, updated 6160i as a replacement. This phone had a few extra features including expanded language options, caller grouping and a host of other neat little quirks. The performance was a little better. I decided to disect my old 6160 & the loaner 5150 since the idiots at AT&T did not request the old 6160 in trade. I was suprised to find that the 6160 had great build quality with a genuine Intel chipset, I thought it was going to be Sony guts. The 5160 was a joke, let's leave it at that. I am sad to say that I am dropping AT&T due to the crappy customer support, you can read about this under "Mobil phones and plans". Although I was happy to drive from Chicago to LA last month without missing a call, I am going to switch service providers. Next phone? Dual mode Star-Tac. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89493 2000/7/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many accessories durable long talktime good size no ir port Full Review I love my 6160. I've put this phone through hell. I drop it, I clip the wall as I'm walking along, I've yanked out the headset a few times, and it's sat outside overnight once or twice and been covered with dew in the morning. It still works. OK, the case got scratched up from all this, but my reception seems the same. I like the feature set. You get 7 one-touch dials, plus voicemail, plus the Emergency key for Mobile 911. The headset allows you to answer and drop calls from the button on the microphone. I can store 199 names in the memory, and scrolling around the phonebook is easy, once you figure out that the keys will jump to the letters they are associated with (ie pressing 5 twice gets you to the k's in your phonebook). I am especially fond of the multiple modes the phone can be set for. Aside from your standard ringer tone, volume, etc, mode, you can define Meeting, Silent, Outdoor, and Pager modes according to your situation. So now, with my vibrating battery, I can go to the movies, set the phone for silent, and not miss a call. When the phone starts buzzing, I can check to see who the caller is, and then politely excuse myself from the theater if I need to take a call. I am bummed that there is no real IR port at the top of the phone. My understanding is the european models get this feature, but not the US models. How nice it would be to upload phone numbers from my Pilot, eh? Unfortunately, after all the abuse I've put my phone through, the battery retaining clips seem to be wearing out. I can't really complain, since most other phones would simply have exploded by now, according to my friends who own(ed) them. ALL: PLEASE, WHEN YOU BUY A CELLPHONE, BE COURTEOUS TO THOSE AROUND YOU. IF YOU'RE IN A NICE RESTAURANT, AT THE MOVIES, OR IN A QUIET PLACE, SET YOUR PHONE TO A QUIET OR SILENT ALERT, SO YOU DON'T DISTURB EVERYONE ELSE. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89492 2009/11/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 simple solid long battery life clear no built in vibrate too big for a pocket Full Review My Nokia 6160 is hooked up to AT&T Digital PCS. I reviewed the AT&T service separately. I bought this phone to replace an old analog handset, so maybe its no surprise that I'm extremely happy with it. The call quality is as good as a land-line according to the caller at the other end. Battery life is excellent, more hours of talk time than I've ever needed, and over a week on standby. Access to the other features such as the calling lists, call logs, clock settings, etc. is extremely easy through the "soft key" menus. Names are displayed in upper or lower case, numbers are automatically formatted to be easily read, and the display features different character sizes so short words are shown large, and longer words are in smaller type. That just about covers why I bought the phone and why I like it. There are dozens of other features. You can customise clock settings, calendars, timers, and multiple system priorities for local and roaming. There are several profiles with customisable rings and volumes, including a silent vibrate alert which requires a special vibrating battery pack. In some ways, Nokia has gone too far. There are four games included, fun for a few minutes, but is this really necessary on a phone? This is not the smallest mobile phone available. It is compact rather than small and has a very solid feel to it. It fits very comfortably into a jacket pocket or purse. It will fit into a jeans pocket, but you won't forget its there and you won't be able to sit down. It seems very durable. Mine has suffered a few indignities including a soaking in liquid car polish, and it still works without a hitch. Very shiny too ;-) There are a few nice touches which show the effort Nokia has put into this handset. The simple button lock can be activated by holding down the end key for a couple of seconds. It must be deactivated by pressing two buttons in the correct sequence (with on-screen prompts to help you), but an incoming call can be answered normally so there's no panic trying to unlock the keyboard to answer that important call. Caller ID is built in and displays the name of the caller, shows you any calls that you missed, and allows very simple calls back to those numbers. You can also program one-touch dialing for a few numbers you call all the time. A lot of other phones have some or all of the features that the Nokia 6160 includes, but I have never used one which makes the features you really need available so easily, and everything else simple to find through the menus. Its a delight to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89491 2000/5/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable lightweight depending on company prices Full Review Now everyone knows what a cell phone is, well almost everyone. And, we all have our different opinions about each and everyone that is out on the market. Personally my favorite is the Nokia 6100 series. That is what i carry, and that is what i recommend to all my friends. The nokia 6100 series not only allows up to 3-5 hours of talk time, the ability to change your alerts and download new alerts with special software, is small and lightweight. The Nokia 6100 series has a feature called the calender and it allows you to set appointments and reminders in the phone so you won't forget them and it will also send you an alert tone. The way I learned about the Nokia 6100 Series was by working at a digital cellular company here in Jacksonville called Powertel. We were able to choose a phone of our liking and this is the one I chose. Not only is the phone small and easy to manage and handle you can also change the face plates on it to match your outfight or your mood. I currently have the Chameleon face plate it changes with every move ( alot like me). Anyway, if you are looking for a reliable, easy to handle somewhat cheap phone, this is the way to go. Oh Yeah, there are also many many many accessories that help this phone to be the best that it can be! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 89490 2000/9/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 all around good phone auto dial a problem a times Full Review The Nokia 6160 is a winner in the digital phone wars. Compact size, good battery life and tons of features make this one great phone. The size allows the phone to be dropped in a pocket, clipped on a belt or tucked between the seats in your car without getting in the way. The battery, when fully charged, lasts forever! Talk time and stand-by time have never been an issue with this phone for me. The different ring tones and silent feature allow the phone to be programmed with a distinctive ring or no ring at all to help you when everyone around you has a ringing phone, and be discreet when getting calls in places where a ringing phone is inappropriate. The ability to send and receive text and numeric messages also expands the phone's capabilities, if you provider offers such a service. Displays and menus are easy to read and follow, and even include a "help" screen that explain the functions and how to use them. Call logs are great for missed calls (caller ID required) and keeping a number you recently dialed handy. The display screen is always clear and easy to read. The menus are logically arranged and easy to follow. Extras such as games provide an amusing distraction for car rides and down time, and while not needed they are a great perk. The only annoying thing I've found is when searching the memory for a number (last number dialed, for instance) it will automatically dial the first displayed number if you don't do anything. So, a movements distraction may have you frantically punching "END" before you send an unwanted call. Pound for pound, this phone is a vast improvement over Nokia's other lines and has been a top performer for me. I only wish my provider was so reliable!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89489 2000/4/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good quality phone with plenty of features must be careful with it or it may break Full Review I love my Nokia 6160 phone. I basically bought this phone because of its features, the appearance and the variety of colors I could chose with this phone. Only thing I disliked originally was the price of the phone. I paid about $200.00 for it. It has a lot of features such as time, date, calculator, calendar, phone book, one touch dialing, voicemail capabilities, a few games, system configuration settings, security settings, call time, missed/dialed/received call log, a security code and a good quality display. I'm sure there might be a few more features but there are so many I can't remember them all. For me, the phone was a little too much feature wise because I do not use all the features on the phone but for business use or if you have to keep track of a lot of numbers it is very good. Only problem I had with talking was the battery would lose its charge completely in a short amount of time. I must warn you though...the phone itself is pretty fragile (unless my phone was defective. i had to argue with nokia customer service because they accused me of mishandling the phone which was untrue) and I had to send it back because I had no signal for a while because somehow the antanna got cracked and this phone was kept in a safe place at all times. The only real complaint I have besides it being fragile is the keypad. The keys are a little difficult for me to dial numbers. If you ever get this phone just make sure you take care of it because Nokia was very strict with me and wanted me to give them $175.00 for the phone but luckily they replaced what was broken which by the time they called me two other things were broken and I had only sent it back for the antenna. If Nokia hadn't given me a new phone I would have had a serious problem and most likely would not have done business with them again but they did so I am going to be loyal to Nokia for my future cellular needs because I feel it is better than Ericson and Motorola. If you are a business person this phone is for you. But if you are someone who just needs a cellular phone for emergency or once in a while calls this phone isn't for you. It costs too much money for that type of need and has too many features that would be put to waste. One last thing...I do not recommend using the cigarette adapter that comes with the phone. The first one I had broke inside my power outlet in the car and blew a fuse. And the replacement I received did the same thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 89488 2009/11/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 works as advertised hard to use at night Full Review Right off the bat, I have to say I hate cel phones. No, that's not entirely true. I would say more precisely I hate breaches of cel phone etiquette. Having said that, I now admit to being a 1000-minute-per-month, polite, discreet, cel phone user. My weapon of choice is the Nokia 6160. This little gem came with my AT&T one-rate service, and is a part of my life now. I can get voice mail, I can set the ring for different volumes, I have a cute little earphone that prevents frying my brain with the transmission radiation (the mike on the cord is a nice touch. My old cel phone was heavier, but mounted in the car for hands free use. This does not mount, but the earphone makes for good hands free use and the button mike is far superior to any windshield mounted mike I have seen. With space for 199 numbers that you can spell out by name, I never bother remembering numbers anymore. Battery life is great, and the portable charger works like a dream. What do I not like about it? Well, it could be a bit smaller (although it fits comfortably in my hand), the lighted dial could stay on longer at night (that would be really useful), and there could be a function that kills the phone in a restaurant or other enclosed public place (well I can dream, can't I?) The best feature for clumsy oafs such as myself is the ability to lock the keys so it does not dial Tierra del Fuego while bouncing around in my pocket. Saves me a bundle. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89487 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 build quality battery life small size expensive accessories Full Review I've owned a Nokia 6160 for almost three years now. At the time of purchase it was one of the sleekest and smallest phones around. Although it's starting to show it's age it's still working well. I have used this model with several of AT&T's OneRate plans ranging from $59 to $89/month. If you travel frequently from state to state this is a great little phone. It's small in size in will fit unobtrusively in a pant or jacket pocket. It's not as "wearable" as some of the Motorola flip phones but it's still very portable. This model has all the standard options found on newer digital phones like voicemail, multiple ringer tones, call logs as well as a few simple games, calculator and calendar. I especially like the key guard to help alleviate accidental dialing. I'm very impressed with the build quality. I've dropped my phone many times and it's still humming along without any problems. It's showing its fair share of scratches but it's never experienced any mechanical problems. Most of the accessories are very expensive. If you have to drive and use your own you might want to invest in a Jabra headset. I've used several and the Jabra works very well with this Nokia model. Overall this has been a great phone. It's not cutting edge anymore but it does the job and does it quite well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89486 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very long battery life very portable easy to use flimsy antenna could have better reception Full Review I was one of the fist people to have this little phone. I loved showing it off. I love the clock, the calendar (with date reminders), the calculator, the games, and the battery life. The battery lasts for a week… still! The programming and other features are easy to learn. The menus are very user friendly, and if one does come across something puzzling, they can simply leave the phone on that particular prompt and the phone will display a short explanation. All together, this is a good looking, easy to use, very handy phone. My only problem with it was after the first replacement. I had to have the first one replaced because the antenna became loose and reception was lower than it already was (this phone does not get the best reception on the market to begin with). I figured it was just a defective phone, but I am coming across the same problem again. So, besides the antenna, the phone is great. If fact, I will probably replace it with the same phone again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): upgrade 89485 2000/1/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use sound quality battery life none significant Full Review When I was shopping around for a phone and cell service about a year ago, the Nokia 6160 stood out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the battery life is phenomenal -- better than any other phone out there. Secondly, there was a wide variety of aftermarket options, batteries, etc. Thirdly, it was available with the service i chose (Cellular One) Ergonomics: The engineers at Nokia did an excellent job designing this phone. Not only are all of the controls completely intuitive, they managed to pack a ton of features into a clean and simple, straight-forward interface. My benchmark for ease of use is this: if I need to read the manual, it's too complicated. You can probably figure out the main functions by yourself, and the manual will fill in the finer points. The buttons are pretty easy to push and I like how they glow in the dark wth clean crisp outlines. My only gripe is the antenna which tends to wedge itself in jacket pockets, making it tough to get out. My friend's antenna also broke, so it's not the best thing in the world. Either a retractable or permanently embedded antenna (a la 8810). Sound Quality: Granted, alot of it has to do with the service plan you choose, most 6160's I've used sound great. It's got that tri-mode thing going on (dual digital plus analog) and it switches between modes seamlessly. I was in the middle of the Arizona desert and got 3-bar reception! Not bad!! Features: It's got everything I want in a phone. However, I would like a simple way to maybe sync it with my Palm V or Outlook contacts. Maybe that's asking for a bit much. Also, why is the IR port vestigial on my phone? I hear it actually works in European versions of the phone. The numerous different ringing tones are nice, but can be downright annoying when other people let their phones ring and you have to listen to the Blue Danube in MIDI sound. Battery Life: Excellent. I routinely get 4 straight days of continued standby with the stock NiMH battery. I'm now using the thin LiIon battery and it's just about as good, but shaves some noticeable weight and thickness. Construction: Quite good, though the clear plastic face gets scratched easily.I'd like to see a recessed face as a preventive measure. Antenna seems prone to breakage, and the colored face plates tend to chip easily. Overall, a great phone, good value. You can't go wrong with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89484 2000/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great overall phone easy to usemany accessories available poor headset designno internal vibrate alert on phone itself The Bottom LineThis phone is probably the easiest to use on the market - you can't go wrong with this phone. Full Review I have had a Nokia 6160 for about two years now. It is an excellent phone and I would not hesitate recommending it to a friend. There are several great features about this phone that I detail below. The Nokia 6160 is a tri-mode phone made for the AT&T Wireless network. Tri-Mode means it works in the Digital PCS band (~1900 MHz) as well as both Digital and Analog modes on the Cellular band (~800MHz). The digital standard it uses is TDMA which is what AT&T uses as well as South Western Bell and Cellular One. The phone is programmed over the air, which means that someone at a computer at AT&T sends out a signal that will program the phone. This programming will also tell the phone which towers to look for. The way this works is that it will look for an AT&T signal first, and then if it doesn't find one it will search for a signal that AT&T has an agreement with. There are two Cellular bands and six PCS bands in the US - not all (in fact most) are not TDMA, so it will search the bands in order to find a signal on its list. I used to work in the cell phone industry and while this phone is not perfect, I believe you get a wider range of coverage with the AT&T plans than with any other service. This, of course, will vary from are to area. One of the best things about this phone is its popularity. Most accessories for this phone will fit any 5100 series or 6100 series phone. The Nokia 6110 is made for Europe, the 6120 is an analog US phone the 6160, 6161, and 6162 are all tri-mode TDMA phones and the 6185 and 6190 are also US versions of the phone. These phones are all very similar in that the batteries are all compatible, as well as power adapters (for US models), headsets, and cases. This means you will have almost no problem finding accessories for this phone. One of the other great features of this phone is its easy to use - intuitive menus. When using the phone two of the buttons are almost always acting as soft keys. They are sometimes labeled "OK", "Menu", or "Exit". These change based on what you are doing and make the phone very easy to program. For example there are several ways you can store a number. By default, on the main screen, you can push the soft button labeled "Names" and then scroll down to "Add new" and choose the soft button that now says "Select". You are then prompted to add the name and phone number. This is only one way you can do it - as the phone is designed to be easy to use at any point. Let's say that you have the number, but want to enter it in before you forget it. No problem - just dial the number like you normally would, but instead of pressing "TALK" you simply press the soft key that now reads "Save" to get the same prompt to enter the name. It WILL NOT ask you for the number again, because you have already typed it in. Another example on how to save a name and number is if someone calls you and their number shows up on your caller id - you do not have to reenter it. Simply go to your call log and view your received calls. Find the one in question and now hit the soft key for options and you will again be able to add the name without having to re-enter the number. The phone is an all around smart phone. Another example of how smart it is - is the alarm feature. They didn't just slap together some cheap alarm feature - they made it smart. I use this as my standard alarm clock now. It starts off soft and gradually increases in volume until you shut it off. Want to shut the phone off so you won't be disturbed? No problem - the phone is smart enough to turn itself back on to wake you up - and then even asks you if you want to keep it on! Anyone who can use windows will have no problem using this phone - you will be able to use all the features of the phone without reading instructions - it is that easy. There are some other cool features - it has 4 games, a calculator and even different rings tones that you can assign to profiles. Let's say you spend time in a library. Do you want a loud ringing tone interrupting you? Of course not, but the phone can be set up to make a very short quiet beep tone instead. There are so many features this phone has that it would take pages more to describe it all. There are only a few things I do not like about it. First of all - the headset adapter has a poor connection design. It cannot stand up to much stress (which if you are careful - should not be a problem) and I have seen some of these break before (I used to sell these). Second, the phone does not vibrate as many new ones do, but you can get a vibrating battery for it. This is a poor solution, because you have to be using that battery for the feature to work. Nokia has fixed the headset problem and has incorporated the vibration feature into newer models such as the 8260. It is not worth it to me to upgrade to that phone, but might be to some people who don't have one at all. If you are looking for a cell phone make sure you consider the 6160 - you won't be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89483 2000/1/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good styling strong after market size light weight good information storage antenae may break off no synching your address book with a computer Full Review This phone is a good choice for anyone looking for a cell phone purchase. It's a good size (good styling, good weight), good information storage capabilities, it has plenty of after-market components (faceplates, antenaes that light up, colored batteries, vibrating batteries, etc.), etc. The lifespan of the battery is one of the longest on the the cell phone market today, and there are tons of people with this phone whom I know would agree with what I'm saying. One problem that I've found though, is you can accidentally break off the antenae. One day I had the phone in my pocket, and the antenae was hooked under my belt. I was getting in my car (more like jumping into the seat), and it snapped off. The back piece of the casing was cracked where the antenae had connected to the phone. I thought I had to replace the whole phone, but when I went into my dealer, they had an after-market back casing (but not in my color choice - wood grain, I look like a pimp now). I also got an after-market antenae to replace the broken one. Unfortunately, they didn't have a standard gray one, so I walked away with a flashing red one (when the phone rings, it lights up). This was working for a bit, until... I jumped into my car again about a week later and busted the new antenae off again. Luckily my friend has just replaced his antanae for a flashing one, and he gave me his new one. Now, I'm very careful when I get in my car. You should too if you choose to get one of these phones. But even if you do break something, like the antenae or your faceplate, there is a strong after-market for this phone, so you'll be in good hands in that case. I'd buy this phone again even if I couldn't fix it for all the other reasons as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89482 2000/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 gsm features price needs adapter to work outside of gsm area Full Review Ok, it's a Nokia. I love Nokia phones. I've had great experience with Nokia phones and I hope to continue doing so into the future. Plus, it's a GSM phone. GSM phones have several advantages over their TDMA and CDMA cousins. The first being that they have what's called a Smart Chip that goes in the back of them. This chip stores your messages, phone numbers, calendar, datebook, etc. This is probably the coolest feature of the phone. If you get another GSM phone, all you have to do is take the chip out of the phone and put it in the new phone. Don't worry, it's easy! You just remove the battery, slide the chip out of it's holder, and place it in the new phone! It's so simple. Once you do that, the new phone is active and all the information from your old phone is in the new phone. You don't have to call customer service and tell them to active your phone and wait hours or days for it to become active if there's something wrong the network or it's a busy weekend or whatever. Since I switched to GSM, I've loved it. Better yet, if you go to Europe, usually your hotel has GSM phones you can rent. Because the American GSM isn't compatible with the rest of the planet, you can't use your American GSM phone there. But that's ok. Just take your chip out of your phone, and put in the European model (it can even be the same model, just made for Europe/Asia) and BOOM it works! Ok, so now your asking, "This is too good, what's the catch?" The catch is, this phone is GSM only. It doesn't do analog. So, it works great as long as your in a GSM market area. This would be Pacific Bell Wireless, Voicestream Wireless and some others. But, if you go out of the area, it won't work. Unless, you have an analog adapter. Nokia happens to make one. This adapter fits between your phone and your batter. It makes the phone about 1/3 larger then it's normal size. However, because your phone isn't built with analog, it's normally cheaper then a multimode phone. So, if you don't travel outside of your provider's network very often or don't need it outside of the area, then a GSM phone is perfect for you. This phone comes with a date book / calendar, message service (it can send and receive email) and a calculator. It's a nifty phone and if it fits your needs you'll be happy with it. I assure you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 89481 2009/11/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of accessories good software some accessories are cheap Full Review I bought my Nokia 6160 phone about a year ago from ATT. Since I travel a lot, I figured that the digital 600 minute plan would be great because there is no roaming or long distance. Here are my experiences with the phone. At the time I signed up, I was told by ATT that I would have to have a special "dual band" phone in the Nokia 6100 series. This phone had to come from ATT and it started at $199 for the non-flip version. I really wanted the flip but they were out of stock. I was concerned about the lack of a cover for the phone because I figured that I would constantly be hitting the keys. Fortunately, I figured out how to use the convenient key lock in a hurry. Now, I'm beginning to believe that the 6160 is a better phone than the 6162. Even with the keys locked, you can press talk to answer the phone and you don't have to flip it open. After using the phone a couple of weeks, I discovered that there were a few accessories that I had to have: a car charger, headset, belt clip, and long life battery. Here's the scoop on each. The car charger is very useful and I definitely recommend it. I bought mine at Radio Shack for $19.00. The great thing about it is that it charges the phone much faster than the wall charger. The headset is very useful but very poor quality. It is basically a wire with an earpiece on the end and an imbedded microphone and clip in the middle. The problems with this are numerous. First of all, the whole assembly is very fragile. Secondly, the earpiece hurts my ear when it is place, and thirdly, the cord is not long enough to place the phone away from you when you are driving (the very time you would want to use it). As poor as it is, I find that I use it often when on long trips because it is so darn convenient and much safer. The belt clip was my favorite gadget until it nearly broke my phone. The problem here is that if you sit down while wearing the phone on the clip, there is the potential of pulling the clip out of the phone and damaging the plastic it is attached to. That's what happened to me and now the belt clip will not attach to the phone anymore and it nearly broke the battery latch. The extended Lithium Ion battery is now my favorite accessory. I bought it at igo.com for $69.00 and I love it. It adds a little to the size and weight of the phone but I can easily go on 5-7 days on standby and between 2 - 4 hours of talk time with this battery. It is very comforting to know you don't always have to have a charger nearby. I also bought the lithium ion vibrating battery but I'm less happy about that battery because the vibrating is annoying and the life of the charge is short. The phone itself is great and the software is very useful. The ability to manage phone numbers is somewhat awkward using the keypad but I've seen recently that you can buy software to do this for you. The "Gotcha" here is that you need a special cable to connect your PC to the phone. Question, what the heck is the IR for on the top of the phone? I figured that I could just beam the addresses over to my laptop. However, I don't think that is possible. My only other complaint is that this is a TDMA and analog phone only. I only mention this now because if you are thinking of connecting the phone to a laptop or handheld device, don't hold your breath. I have found no cables or software that will let you use your 6160 as a wireless modem. Your best bet is to get a 6190 and go with GSM or even CDMA service. However, if you don't need wireless data, the 6160 is a fine choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89480 1999/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 portability clarity product quality display Full Review The Nokia 6160 is intuitive and reliable. I echo many of the sentiments shared by other reviewers, however, there is one major flaw with the 6160: Two months after I purchased the phone, i noticed the display would occasionally fade out. I also noticed that if I squeezed the phone with my hands when the display was faded, it would return to normal (bright and clear). As time passed, the problem worsened as the display would fade more and more frequently. I called Nokia and asked what was up; they said they've received numerous complaints about the same problem from other users. They also claim they've corrected it on newly shipped phones (I got mine in February '99). If you have a faulty phone and want it fixed, get ready to wait: You have to take your phone to a regestered nokia dealer and instead of giving you a new one, they repair your faulty phone. I'd have no problem with this -- except that it takes the registered dealers about three weeks to do the repairs. No way I can go that long without my cell phone! just a heads up... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89479 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 amazing battery life excellent user friendliness no data support relatively high cost in some places locked to a provider in some places Full Review My first cellular phone that I was going to buy was going to be this one. I knew it from the start. At the time the small size and battery life were something that most phones didn't offer. Two years later, I still have it, and still use it, which as any mobile phone user will tell you is a tribute to its usefulness. The immediately striking thing about this phone is the amazing battery life. While your results may vary, my typical use of about 15 minutes or so a day left me without having to charge the battery at all for up to four days. It's nice to not have the phone die in the middle of a conversation (which in the two years I had it, it never did), and it's also nice to not have to worry about putting the phone on the charger every night, or even the pure dread of waking up the next morning and realizing you left your phone in your coat pocket the night before. Ease of use is a major plus with this phone. Everything that can be done is accessible from a scrolling icon-based menu including such added features as the datebook application, the 4 games (not gameboy calibre, but entertaining on the long ride on the subway nonetheless), and the calculator. While some of the items are buried a layer deep, they are all logically arranged behind categories such as Phone books, call logs, settings, etc. What I love is that if you're not sure what a menu contains in it, leave the icon on the screen and within three seconds a short blurb comes up with a summary of all the options underneath it. I also love the profiles option. It does a lot more than just changing ringers. With a touch of the power button you can configure the phone to only alert you to incoming voicemail/sms and not ring at all, or you can have separate ringer volume settings for use in your car, home, with a headset, or anything else you would need separate settings for. Now for what I don't like. As it turns out, the phone does not support data. For all its good points, that's the one bad one. And some carriers require you to pay the hefty $199 price tag for the phone and then keep it only on their service (for example: mine is on AT&T Wireless in NYC and the phone can never be activated on anything but AT&T ever so you may need to consider how willing you are to stay with one carrier for awhile). All in all, this is probably one of the best phones I've owned. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants their phone to just "be there." It's a low maintenance type piece of equipment where only minimal care is necessary to get the most out of it and in most people's busy lives, the last thing you want to do is worry about your cellular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89478 2000/6/5 Product Rating4.0 good battery life easy to accidently dial numbers Full Review My company gave me a 6160 so they can contact me in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it always works. One of the nice things about the phone is all of the "toys" that are available for it. I was given a desktop charger, an earpiece, and a vibrating battery. The earpiece is convenient in the car, when you really don't need to be looking around for the ringing phone. Unfortunately, I've already broken one (it mounts on the bottom of the phone, and I drove the connection into a chair arm while sitting down). Its also too uncomfortable to keep in your ear all the time, so most of us have them connected onto our shirts with the ear piece dangling down. The vibrating battery is great in meetings, and it was one of the features that I missed when the StarTac went away. The batteries seem to last forever, usually a few days with average use. I tend to be on the phone for bursts, so its nice not to have to worry that the one day idle isn't going to kill the battery. A major complaint is that I'm always going through the menu or dialing numbers unintentionally because the keys are hit while I'm walking around. This is one of the main reasons why I've always gone to flip phones. There is a key lock function, but its tough to drive and unlock at the same time. If a phone with good reliability and battery life is needed, and dexterity isn't a necessity to unlock the keys, this phone will do the trick. Recommended: Yes 89477 1999/10/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 numerous easy to use features easy to use changeable color plates sometimes inconsistent signal strength Full Review When I took my most recent job, I was given a list of phones to choose from. Since the firm was going to pay for the phone, I was able to overlook the prices and simply get the phone that would be the best one for me. I asked around, surfed the web and talked to my co-workers about their experiences with their phones, doing a great deal of research to make sure I got the best phone I could get. I looked over the options and nailed down what I felt were the criteria for a great cell phone: size, features, ease of use, battery life, signal strength and clarity of sound. Well, the 6160 hits the mark on all of these, and while I recognize that there are other phones that do more (especially some of the new ones coming out late 99'), the 6160 best meets these criterion for the money, so I give it my recommendation. And Wall Street apparently does too,as I see this phone everywhere. It's small, not as small as a Star Tac, but small enough to fit in your jacket pocket and not be a burden and it's proportionately lightweight. The size is good though because you can still grip it with your hand, instead of your fingertips. And talk about your gadgets! It has too many for me to want to list, but I'll put a few here. It has a call log, alarms, caller ID, calculator, calendar, etc, it also has games. A great timekiller when I'm on the subway with a little time to kill. It can also receive short length emails, which can be very handy. And the menu is so simple to use, I never read the manual. It walks you through everything with a large menu window. The battery life is great. More than once, I have been out of town for the weekend and have forgotten the charger--hasn't died on me yet. The signal strength has been great, although I have had some experiences where others around me have been able to get signals when I haven't. Overall, I have been happy with this area, (especially the signal reader) but I would say this is it's only fault. The sound quality is great too. I frequently make/take calls while walking on the streets on Manhattan and despite the horns and city noises, I can always hear just fine. One of the added bonuses of this phone is the multitude of colored faces you can buy to give your phone a personalized look. You can also beat it up a bit; mine spends time in my bag getting knocked around frequently, but it hasn't given me any troubles whatsoever. Unless you have $5000 and you HAVE to have one of those new Internet phones, I recommend this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 89476 2000/9/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life good clarity numerous functions personalized settings element of distortion no vibrating function Full Review As I began school last month, I found myself in dire need of a cell phone. Wow, so many to choose from, I thought. I finally decided upon the NOKIA 6160, and since then I am almost completely satisfied. I have had an extremely positive experience using this phone. It has many useful functions such as a calendar that reminds you when it is someone's birthday, games to play when bored, capacity for 199 phone numbers, and even an alarm clock if you need one (you never know, I've already used this function). In terms of clarity, it does a good job. It also has many personalized settings that can really make your phone reflect some of your personality. Those are the things I love about it. Now to the things that I wish I could change... First, there is not a vibrating function that can be activated while I'm in class or at the library. The user's manual claims the phone has the capability, but I have followed the instructions given by the book repeatedly and have had no success. I think that it may be necessary to buy additional hardware (a vibrating battery) in order to make this function work. Secondly, as with all mobile phones that I have used, there is a certain degree of digital sound on the mobile phone's end. To people who are talking to you, you sound great; however, to you they sometimes sound a little distorted and are occasionally cut off to you when you speak (similar to carrying on a conversation over a speaker phone, but not as bad). I haven't found a cell phone that doesn't experience this phenomena, so until I do, the Nokia 6160 is the best cell phone around. I recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a reliable cell phone that has long battery life, numerous functions, and compact form. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 230 89475 2009/11/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 standby time talk time rugged still pricey at about 170 not the smallest phone Full Review I've had my Nokia 6160 since they became available thru AT&T Digital Wireless. I've had various other phones in the past, including phones from Nokia and Motorola. I can honestly say the 6160 is the best piece of wireless equipment I have used. It has proved durable and reliable. It has survived coutless drops, has been sat on, and has been whacked against countless doors and walls while attached to my belt clip. It has excellent talk time and standby time, both of which have diminished only slightly since I've owned the phone, probably due to battery wear. They games and calendar functions on the phone are neat for a few weeks, but I honestly find them useless. I have used the alarm feature a few times when traveling and it has worked quite well. When the 6160 was released it was considered a very small phone. With the newer phones getting smaller and smaller, the 6160 is beginning to look sort of big. It's really not a "shirt pocket" phone, but it fits nicely in the back pocket of pants as long as you don't sit down. There are a few nice aftermarket items available, including several useful belt clips. There is also a selection of hands-free ear pieces that are helpful when driving or walking around. The 6160 has served me very well. I look forward to Nokia's future products being this powerful and sturdy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 when first available 89474 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 features style reception at times Full Review I got the Nokia 6160 about 5 months ago, and it has been pretty good so far. I haven't had any problems with it breaking or anything along those lines. I have had a few problems with getting good reception though. When I purchased the phone, the salesman said that it would be almost "crystal clear", and it is certainly not that. A lot of the time I do get very good reception with it, but then there are also those times when the phone cuts me off in the middle of a conversation. One other thing that I dislike about the phone is the fact that in order to change face-plates, you have to pretty much take the phone completely apart. If you are into putting different color face-plates on frequently, this is a major downfall of the phone. On the upside, there are tons of features on the phone. I am also very pleased with the battery life. I only have to charge it every three days, and I keep it on almost all the time. I use it quite a bit, and I would recommend this phone to anyone that wants a phone to use for emergencies, or just for convenience. I wouldn't recommend this phone for business people that need it for important calls, because there's always that small chance that you will get disconnected in the middle of the conversation. Recommended: Yes 89473 2009/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good cell phone same problems that all cell phones have but also a volume selection problem Full Review Why can't someone do the things with cell phones that we really NEED? I mean, this phone is really nifty- it does all sorts of good things, like remembering the numbers that called, and remembering the numbers I dialed. But I could live without those functions. What I'd really like is to be able to adjust the volume of the earpiece (where you listen to your phone)without having to be in the middle of a call at the time. Which is what this phone is limited to; you can only change the volume DURING a call. What the heck is that all about? Who made that decision? Another thing that this phone can't do -and I haven't found one that can- is link a chain of numbers in memory. Okay, everyone's got a calling card, right? You have to dial a toll-free access number, right? Then your code, then the number you want. Why can't some cell phone manufacturer realize this and have a function that allows you to call up each of these three numbers separately? Sure, you can enter it as one long string, with pauses at the (estimated) appropriate moments, but why? That's limiting- if you want to call more than one person long-distance on a regular basis, you have to go through that gruelingly-repetitive act of punching in 37 numbers for each memory entry. Bleah. Other than, it's a pretty good phone. But so what- aren't they all? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): N/A 89472 2000/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 multiple features long battery life seems to get warm after 20 min of talk time Full Review The phone is so nice and small. I went from my old (about 4 years old) cell phone to this digital phone. It is awesome. It actually doesn't take up half of my purse. The size is only the half of it. The phone is pretty complex but once you get familiar with it the menus are pretty easy to scroll through and there are so many options. I love how you can chose the different ways to hear the ring. It is so loud. I can play my stereo in my car half way and still hear my phone...plus it vibrates!!! I can easily scroll through stored names to call someone. The battery life is awesome. It has the lithium-ion battery which doesn't have to be fully decharged to recharge. I can accidentally leave it on all night and still have some juice left for the next day. There are call timers that let you know how long you have been using it. That is useful if you have limited number of hours per month. Very few negatives. One I have noticed that it seems to get hot after 20min of talk time. Not sure if that is expected or not but I hope that changes. One last thing is that it is nearly impossible to position it between your ear and your shoulder...while driving this can be a negative. To me I would rather have the space in my purse than be able to do that. If you really have to put the phone between your ear and shoulder while driving maybe you shouldn't be talking and driving at the same time. Overall great phone, hopefully I won't have to get one for another 5 years. A tad pricy but top quality around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 with 90 dollar gift rebate 89471 2009/11/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality durability battery life buggy screen model is long in the tooth Full Review My overall experience with the 6160 has been fantastic. However, I've encountered the same problem many others have apparently had with the screen either fading or disappearing altogether on occasion without explanation. Also like some other people, AT&T installed a generally-useless piece of foam on my phone to fix the problem, which only seemed to work for a matter of weeks. I've come up with my own "fix" that works just as well: simply knock on the screen (hard enough to hear a sound, but not hard enough to bruise your knuckle) once. That'll take care of it for at least a few days, if not longer. I'd also give the 6100 high marks for durability. I'm incredibly hard on phones; I've dropped this phone onto a hard surface at least 15 times, plus I've spilled food and liquid on it on numerous occasions, but it still works good as new (except for the screen, of course). However, I would personally avoid buying a Nokia 61xx model at this stage. The phone has been around for nearly two years now and is about to be eclipsed by several newer types of phones, both from Nokia as well as other manufacturers. AT&T is now selling the *really* cool new 8800 model (it's the chrome one Nokia has been advertising heavily in its magazine ads recently) in most markets, though unfortunately it's priced at the ridiculous price of $799 (with a downright insulting $10 "discount" if you're upgrading from the 6160). The price will probably go down within six months though, and even if it doesn't, the 6000 series direct replacements (which, as I understand it, are somewhat lighter and considerably better in terms of Web access) should be out early next year. If you do really need to go ahead and buy a phone immediately and can't afford the $800 price of the 8800, I'd go with a 5100 series instead of the 6100. They're significantly cheaper and are functionally identical to the 6100s (except the 5100 can only hold 100 entries in its address book as opposed to 200 on the 6100). P.S. On a side note, if you want either a battery replacement or a higher-capacity battery, don't buy the overpriced AT&T/Nokia ones. You can get a perfectly good one on eBay for a lot less. I bought a vibrating slim battery for $30 recently that has a longer battery life than the $100 brand-name one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89470 2009/8/6 Product Rating5.0 solid great design swappable face plate rare face plates cause bouts of jealousy in other nokia owners Full Review With cellphones, the dictum "smaller is better" has always been a natural rule. This makes sense, up to a point. The Nokia series of phones seems to have struck the perfect balance of size and comfort. This phone fits comfortable and naturally in your hand. It also feels solid, unlike the Motorola StarTAC, which feels flimsy, and is ugly to boot. With the 6160 series you can swap the face plate out and get one more to your liking than the standard matte black. The buttons on the Nokia are large enough to be easily useable, even in the dark. You can dial a number and navigate the phone's menu without looking at it, which is important if you happen to be doing something at the same time (like driving). The buttons are also raised, which feels a lot better than the StarTAC. There are the standard "lock" features which prevents the phone from dialing when buttons are accidentally depressed (as in when it's in your pocket). In a rare touch of forethought, you can still answer the phone when it is in lock mode - you don't have to unlock it first. The battery power on this cellphone is amazing compared to everything else on the market. It can go for 4 days on stand-by - I've never had the need to go more anyhow. If you regularly make 40 day trips out into the desert, this may not be the phone for you. For the rest of the world, this is just fine. When considering cell phones, the calling plan is obviously very important, because most plans carry only certain phones. The Nokia was good enough to actually prevent me from considering plans that did not offer it. (I eventually decided on the Cellular One Plan which offers excellent coverage of California.) In short, this is a cell phone with excellent performance, and elegant but solid design. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 89469 2000/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 so many features lightweight great reception small none that i have found other than a thick user s guide Full Review I purchased the Nokia 6160 a few weeks ago and have very impressed with a number of aspects of the phone. I went all out and got all of the gadgets, but for what reason I am not sure since I seldom need to stay THAT connected. First of all, the phone is small enough to fit in your pocket and is light enough that you do realize that you even have it with you. The battery provides 192 hours of standby- eight days- and you can talk for 195 minutes, or a little more than three hours without running into charging problems. The phone has the best reception I have ever heard on a cell or a cordless phone. So what features do I enjoy the most? The phone book/ quick call features are really nice touches. The phone book feature allows you to store 250 numbers in the phone's memory. Goodbye, physical phone book! The quick call feature allows storage of eight frequently called numbers. I love these features for the simple reason that if I leave the gym and want to call a carry out or delivery item I do not have to wait until to order since I do not have the phone number. Now, the number is right there in my phones memory. A few other great features include the voice mailbox. Although pretty standard these days, the mailbox accepts small email messages, alerts for news and stock quotes, and standard voice messages. A great feature is the ignore device. If someone is calling you their number is displayed and if you do not want to talk to them right now, you can press this button and send them into your voice mail. Great if your on a date and another girl calls you and you still want to hear what she has to say. LOL! The phone does give you the ability to send small emails, but I have not really tried it yet. I have sent one and it went off without a problem, but that is the extent of my trial to this point. And, finally, the phone can act like a pager. For instance, you can set up your phone to ring many different ways, vibrate, light up, and forward calls to you at another phone. All nice features. What are the drawbacks? The phone is a little pricey, but you are also on the cutting edge of technology with this phone. The one drawback that I found is the initial learning curve. I am a tech savvy guy, but it took me forever to go through all of the pages in the user's guide. Most of them were explained well and were pretty easy to understand once you got going. And, I guess, I should have expected a lot of reading would come with so many options. I would suggest the Nokia 6160 to anyone looking for an advanced phone that is small, lightweight, and has a lot of life to it's battery. So far I have no complaints. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89468 2000/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life small attractive lightweight none Full Review My friend and coworker Brad convinced me to get one of these. The decision was made easier when I found out that my company would buy it and pay for the PCS and analog service. I had a choice of Motorola, Ericsson, or Nokia phones, and I went for the Nokia. I'm glad I did. The phone is small and lightweight, but has a substantial feel to it. The Finns really know how to design and manufacture electronic gadgets. They also know how to write simple, instructive manuals. Even better, they know how to make easy-to-use devices that don't require instruction manuals. I've carried the wallet card along with me for a couple of months, but have never had any need for it. This little beauty is really a fashion statement. Brad got a metallic blue cover for his. I'm staying with the more conservative black--I have an image to protect. The only accessory I've purchased is a Radio Shack leather case (black, of course) for the phone. It has a built-in clip for belt or pocket. I just couldn't stand to see the screen get scratched. The many things I like about this phone include the one-touch access to the voice mailbox, the one-touch dialing feature, the call-timers, the ability to add and delete phone numbers and names, and the amazing battery life for such a small unit. It will stay on standby for days without a recharge, and you get more than three hours of talk time from a fully-charged battery. Not too shabby! In addition to the expected features, the Nokia has customizable rings for different numbers. I have a special ring that alerts me if one of my kids is calling. It also has profiles that are customizable for silent operation (it can be set to vibrate noiselessly), meetings (it can be set to beep once), outside (set it to ring loudly), and so forth--you get the picture. The phone has a built-in calendar, alarm clock, calculator, and games (Snake, Memory--a Concentration knock-off, and logic--reminiscent of Master Mind). Today, I found a way to keep a bored 15-year old occupied for an entire hour's drive. I handed the phone to my daughter and asked her if she could beat my high score in Snake. Of course, my score was 8 and she got 57. There's nothing like the eye-hand coordination and reaction time of youth. For areas where PCS service is available, the sound clarity is outstanding. One drawback I've noticed is that when the signal is weaker, connections are sometimes dropped. But I don't fault the phone for that. This is a great phone. I recommend it highly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 89467 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 phone book great sound small light too much to list calender monkey s are not smart enough to use it Full Review I just bought the Nokia 6160 and am in love with my phone. Through a special incentive deal with AT&T the phone cost $139.99, but then they are giving me a $50 rebate, so that knocks the price for this little baby down to $89.00. Not bad for a phone that not only makes calls but organizes your life! The phone is very light and small enough to fit in your pocket. It is one piece, and doesn't have any flip components, which I like. It is very sturdy and easy to hold. The antenna is stationary, which I like better because you can't bend it or break it by mistake. The phone has a built in phone book that holds 199 phone numbers, and is very easy to use. Also built into this little gem is a personal calender. You can input important dates or appointments, and the phone will remind you of them. You can even put in birthdays! I love this feature, as it keeps my calender and phone book both in my pocket. The 6160 also has a built in calculator, and also a currency exchange thingy, which I don't think I will ever use, but it is still a cool feature if you need that sort of thing. A fun thing for the train are the four built in games. These are nice to waste time with, as they are very simple but entertaining, and don't waste too much battery time. The battery lasts a LONG TIME! The phone comes with the recommendation that you should totally deplete the battery the first couple times, before you fully recharge it again. It took four days before the battery ran out, which made the impatient side of me angry but the frugal side of me extremely happy! I think the battery has three to four hours of talk time and four to five days of standby time, and that is with the battery the phone comes with! As for the quality of the phone calls, the sound is great. With many phones I've used, voices sound very robotic and digital, but this phone sounds like you are talking over a land line, even when it is digital. My only complaint is that sometimes the voices coming through the receiver are too loud! I always have to turn down the volume. OK, maybe that isn't a very good complaint, but I am trying to have a cons column too to make this a fair review. This phone is an excellent little invention. I have AT&T service, and many people who have this service complain about missing calls or getting bad or no reception. When I ask them what kind of phone they have, they never say the Nokia 6160. When they tell me that, I understand why they are complaining. My 6160 makes AT&T seem like the greatest cellular service ever made. I love my phone, and recommend it to anyone who is in the market for a cell phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.99 89466 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound many features small none Full Review This is the first Digital phone I have owned. I was previously a cellular customer, and I felt a need to upgrade to a more advanced phone. And to be honest the Nokia phones are all the rage now, so I wanted to get in with the latest trend. I opted for this more advanced version of the Nokia phone and I am glad. These phones not only are small and easy to carry, but they offer great reception, and come in many designs. I currently have a purple cover on my phone, but even the plain black looks great. The phone service I bought comes through SunCom, which is owned by AT&T wireless. I get free: Voicemail, CallerID, Call Waiting, Email paging, regular paging, and all for a great low price. There was no sign up fee, and I got a great deal on the price of my phone. The phone has a lot of great features. It has a calender, comes with about 25 built in ringing sounds, and it is easy to charge. I recharge my phone every night, but it would stay charged for a few days if i needed it to be. The sound quality on these new digital phones is great, there is hardly ever any static. And I live in an area that is not so largely populated w/ Phone Towers. I would highly recommend this phone to anyone who is thinking of joining the digital phone family. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): about $99 89465 2002/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it s got games a 199 number memory a calendar earpiece heats up The Bottom LineAlthough this phone has tons of toys, its earpiece heats up uncomfortably. I can't recommend it as a phone because of that. Full Review I had a Nokia 6120 for two years when I was with Cellular One. Nokia has a good reputation, and the 6100 series was a very popular phone. This phone was a classic case of forgetting the basics. The 6120 was obviously planned out by people who wanted to add in everything but the kitchen sink to the phone. It had a lot of good points. The phone was built to offer a ton of extra features. The Nokia 6120 is a TDMA phone. It uses 800mhz digital and can also use analog (old-style cell phones). Other phones in the 6100 series used different digital systems, but they all looked the same and had the same features. Reception on the Nokia 6120 is adequate. It has some static and distortion, but nothing too bad. This is often worse when you are using an analog signal. The phone's antenna is a small rubber-covered antenna. It's not extendable. What's good about this phone In a word, toys. The phone has a 199-number phone book -- certainly enough for anyone. It also offers one-touch dialing for 9 numbers. It has a calendar and offers rudimentary PDA functionality, like a Palm III (it would remember events you put in to different days.) The calendar is often clunky and hard to use, because the user has to use a phone keypad to input alphanumeric data. It has four games. While these games are simple, and about what you'd expect from an Atari 2600, no other phone had them. (At least when I used this phone -- there may be more phones with games now.) Navigating the functions of the phone is relatively easy. It is simple to pick up and easy to do. Once you have the phone for a while, you will find it's easy to get where you want to go and do what you want to do. The phone is nicely sized. It'll fit in your shirt pocket easily. The buttons are a bit small, but unless you've got really big hands, it serves its purpose well. Battery life on the 6120 was OK. It wasn't great and it wasn't awful. I could usually get through the day with this phone and make a few calls. It wouldn't last through the day if left on constantly, though. A charger for the office will probably be very handy with this one. The 6120 came with a house charger and a car charger -- a nice touch, since most phones don't come standard with a car charger. What's bad about this phone What's bad about this phone is exactly what's so aggravating about it. The phone's earpiece heats up when you are talking on it. Inside of five minutes, it was uncomfortable. After five minutes, it was acute. I tried storing the phone in a leather case. This bought me a minute or so more of talk time before the phone became uncomfortable to use. I eventually switched carriers in order to get away from this ear-burning phone. And that's what's so aggravating. The Nokia engineers were so busy tossing in toys and features that would be extremely cool that they forgot what a cell phone was for -- to make and receive calls. Despite the many redeeming features of this phone, I can't recommend it. And that's a shame, because they really tried to make this phone a competitor. But a phone that makes making and receiving calls a physically uncomfortable experience (since your ear is burning as you talk) just isn't an acceptable phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89464 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a plethora of options gsm is expensive Full Review I have written a couple of reviews on Nokia phones here at Epinions.com. One of my overall favorite nokia phones is the 6190. Everyone nowadays is switching over to pcs and gsm (higher frequency networks) because older networks such as amps are getting too clogged with radio transmissions. The good thing is, that this phone is gsm. Not only does it sport the newest kind of Technology, but it offers high speed data transmission, sms in and out (sending and receiving text messages), a calendar, storage of 199 names and numbers, calculator, personal ring tones for individual groups of people, voice privacy (when activated it disallows listeners from catching your conversations), fax capabilities, alarm function, multiple date setting options and reminders for the calendar, an extensive call log, a slew of options such as ring volume, ring tone, button sound level, message tone, and message volume level, and an entire slew of other goodies. An incredible feature that I would kill for is the infrared port, which is only included in Asian models. That infrared port, when it becomes available hear (its the little red lense at the top of the phone that faked out many users in the time of its first arrival to the market), will destroy the need for modems and cables. All you would need is a laptop, pda that has an ir port. Then it can beam the data back and forth at enjoyable data speed levels. Another sweet thing about this series is the amount of options that are available for the phone. You can get all kinds of faceplates, vibrating batteries, extended life batteries, clear batteries, flickering batteries, flashing antennas, laser pointer antennas, car phone kit, and much much more. I currently don't have this model, however I do have the 6120. The reason why I don't have my mitts on this puppy is because GSM isn't cheap. That is probably the only downside to this phone. Other than that, stream less and clear calls are about the only thing that you would get out of this phone. Since it is on the highest frequency system, it among the clearest of the best phones. I would give my right arm for it:) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): less than 150 89463 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features value durability design quality built in games 2 tempting 4 recovering game aholics Full Review ..when I get down, I can always tur-urn to... Oh, hey! Hi, there! Just calling to brag about my new Nokia 6160. I got it to replace my 2160 model, after logging 200+ hours over 3 years of ownership. It still works fine, so I converted it to pre-pay use and gave it to my sis... ...well, truth is, AT&T offered me a better plan --same minutes for less bucks-- if I upgraded to a dual band phone, capable on both the 800 and 1900 megahertz digital phone networks. It's a no-brainer. I get more reliable coverage, plus I'll recover the $139 I paid for the phone in 7 months... ...as a matter of fact, I stuck with Nokia for three main reasons: 1} the call quality at both ends is so much clearer than any of the other three brands I've owned and Nokia's kept me connected in areas where other phones let calls drop... 2} the ergonomic design gives easy access to all of the functions and programming, one-handed, using a thumb on the raised-button keypad while cradling the phone in the fingers... and 3} my escapades have proved how durable Nokia hardware is. When I dropped my 2160 off the roof onto the patio, the battery and belt clip went flying and I thought the phone was trashed. But, I snapped the battery back in place, powered up, re-connected and continued the conversation. I still hate planned obsolescence brought on by the march of technology, but I'm a sucker for durability... ...besides, the 6160 model has great features like 8 one-touch dialing keys for most often-called numbers, a "live" call timer, easy access to voice mail and text messages, caller ID, call-waiting and automatic logging of calls dialed, received and missed. There's also a 199 name and number scrollable directory that's easy-to-read on the large, back-lit LCD screen. I can even designate caller groups like "business" or "friends" that display distinctive icons and can be set to any of 35 distinctive rings... ...you?...in the "nerds" group with the "Playground" ring...no, that won't make any difference. Once your number is programmed into my phone, it shows up on the screen, even if you DO "block" your outgoing calls! Did I mention the calculator and e-games? Or the accessories available? Hands-free loopset! Car kit! Belt clip! I can feel your writhing envy. ...the only feature I miss from the 2160 is the ability to scroll through the directory by phone number, which is really helpful when I get pages to mystery numbers. I suppose it's a small sacrifice to gain the 6160's auto-alphabetizing and the undocumented any-key jump from the scrolling mode to the corresponding letter... ...the real surprise is the battery life. With the standard Lithium-Ion battery, I'm only on my second charge cycle in 10 days and I've made and answered 2 hours and 23 minutes of calls and haven't turned it off since the first charge... ...speaking of which, gotta go, you're burning my air-time... ...aaaaAAAte-6-7-5-3-0-niiEEE-IIine! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139. 89462 2000/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many options small size questionable build quality Full Review I purchased my first 6185 to use with Sprint PCS. The features that appealed to me were its small size, numerous features, and (I know its sad) the fact that it had games on it. I found removable faceplates for the model about a month later. They are much harder to come by than plates for a 5100 series. That phone was later stolen so I was forced to purchase a sesond phone. This is where I've experienced some difficulty. There have been numerous times while using this phone that is seemed to freeze up on me. This never happened during a call, but while either playing games, looking at the calander, or entering data. This didn't happen on my first phone and I'm beginning to wonder about the build quality of the design. Given it is only a phone and shouldn't be expected to have a blazing cpu but it should at least be able to process its own ROM without lag. Also, I've noticed that the battery meter jumps from a full charge to near empty in an instant. Note the most important thing in the world but it makes judging how long you can go before a recharge very difficult. Overall I like the 6185, enough to buy a second in fact. With wireless web becoming better and the new line of phones coming out for summer '00 however I would suggest holding off on a purchase of a non web phone. Recommended: Yes 89461 2000/4/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 one rate plan compatible call waiting d call i dual band dual mode phone big time phone guys might want to jump to the 6190 for new users will have to practice to understand features Full Review In the world of cellular technology often its difficult to find a wireless phone that suits your needs. Let me make an economical suggestion, the Nokia 6160. The advantage of owning a Nokia 6160 Nokia is a Finnish based company that has been involved in the wireless technology field for several years. The 6160 represents a major technological breakthrough for Nokia. Why? The 6160 is the first tri-mode phone. Ok, next question what is a tri-mode phone? A tri-mode has the capability to operate on three levels. The digital phone has the ability to send and receive signals on both 800mhz and 25 mhz frequencies. This means it operates in town on digital towers, out of town using the roaming features, and nationwide by linking to other towers nationwide. So you can visualize the tremendous advantage of using this unique one rate one nation calling plan. A must among business travelers or those who have friends in many cities. The 6160 allows you to pay a flat rate (last I checked it was 89 dollars for 600 minutes) to make calls anywhere in the U.S. That's why the ability to cut costs on your long distance while having the portability of a cell phone is a tremendous advantage for the consumer. This phone also has the specs to satisfy In addition to availability of the one rate billing plan, the 6160 is a dual-band dual-mode phone. What that means is that the phone operates on both a digital and an analog frequencies allowing you to call virtually anywhere in the U.S. The phone has 240 minutes of talk time or time spent in conversation away from the charger. It also has about 72 hours of stand by time, or time where juice will remain in the battery before it needs to be recharged. Of course the Nokia also sports caller ID, call waiting, the one touch scrolling system, voice mail, and my favorite game snakes. Overall the 6160 gets a thumbs up One of the main reasons I recommend the 6160 is that it is more phone than just about anyone needs. The 6162 holds the same physical characteristics as the 6160 except that it holds the flip top cover. The 6185 and 6190 are very nice phones, but the change in technology doesn't quite justify the price just yet. Trust me, if you want a phone that is reliable, economical, and durable then go with the Nokia 6160. You'll be a happy man. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 89460 2000/7/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very few drop calls great options not good to look at Full Review I have always been a fan of Nokia's. Through the years I find them to have a all around better signal quality than any other cells in it's class. Although it is slightly more bulky, it's bulkiness is justified with the technology and features behind it. The Nokia 6160 is the best when it comes to storing names and numbers. With the option to place names in VIP, BUSINESS, FRIENDS, or FAMILY folders is GREAT! It releaves the hassle of scrolling through 199 names to find just one. But if you are the type of person who isn't interested in "Bells and whistles" just in a phone that works then you will also love this phone. It is so far the closest thing to a land line than any other cell I have seen. The sound quality is very good and I very rarely see dropped calls, MAJOR PLUS IN MY BOOK! If you are looking for style over technology however. The 6160 is not the way to go. The 6160 is a pain when you want to get a new face plate to have that more stylish look. However Nokia does make a phone with interchangeable face-plates. Also the 6160 is a heavy phone with battery and is (like I said before) bulky. But I feel that a phone should be talked through not looked at. All in all, if you are looking for a dependable phone that will never let you down or drop your calls the 6160 is the way to go. Just think of it this way if you are stuck on the side of the road somewhere would you rather have a phone that looks good or a phone that works. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89459 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light good features compact usually strong signallarge calling radius works poorly indoors Full Review The Nokia 6160 model is a great all around phone with a few small flaws. I have used this phone extensively at work (using AT&T as my service provider), which gives me a pretty broad understanding of this phone. First off, the Nokia tends to get a clear signal over a very broad area. Whether this is because of the service provider or the cell phone itself is hard to say, and this particular part of the service may vary depending upon where you live. However, the phone, when connected, tends to give a clear digital signal and is easy to use. The unit is compact, and has several nice features, like locking keypad buttons to prevent accidental calls from bumping the phone. Programming the phone is also simple, with large, easy-to-understand instructions on the phone itself. It is much easier to configure than many of its counterparts. And for those of you that like that sort of thing, the 6160 model actually has a few games for when you're bored on the road. There are some flaws. The phone has difficulty when used indoors, especially in large buildings. Signals can be very degraded while inside. This was causing problems at my current place of business, a large facility, so it was decided to go with another cell phone. However, for the personal home user and traveller, the Nokia 6160 is a great lightweight model with a strong outdoor signal. I would use it again. Recommended: Yes 89458 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long standby talk time excellent sound quality works on digitalanalog light weight can t think of any Full Review I got my Nokia 6160 phone as a present from my wife for Valentine's Day. We got the phone at Circuit City with a price of about $50 after the rebates. The reason I got the phone is because my other phone would no longer hold a charge. It was cheaper to get a new phone than a new battery. I have had no problems with the phone as of it. The sound quality is always superb and I never feel that I have to yell. Even in low signal areas, the phone still picks up well. Another plus of the phone is its extended stand by time. The phone will last a week without charging if it is left on. That is very handy for me. I can also get a few hours of talk time on the phone. The phone is also very lightweight and easy to carry around. It fits in my pocket and I can carry it all day long. Another really neat feature is the number of different ring types on the phone. It has over 30 different rings to distinguish your phone from all the other people who have cell phones. Some of the rings even make you smile and brighten your day! :-) The phone's durability is another strong point. I've accidentally knocked the phone out of the seat of my truck onto the pavement, and it still worked after I picked it up and dusted it off. The phone has been the best cell phone that I have ever used. There have been no problems with it and I intend to keep it for a long time to come! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89457 2000/5/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable battery life a little big Full Review I've had my Nokia 6160 for over a year now, and I think it's great. When I bought it, I also got the leather case, extra battery, and car adapter. In the meantime, I've also purchased the headset adapter. Sometimes it's difficult to judge the quality of the cell phone, because it's also affected by the quality of the cell service provider. I've receive service through Cellular One in California, and I've been pretty happy with that (with some exceptions...) As far as the phone itself, the battery life is great. I keep my phone on all the time, day and night, and I usually only have to charge it every 2-3 days. I would not actually recommend getting the extra battery. Here's why - In order to charge the battery, you've got to have it attached to the phone. So you can't be charging one battery while using the other. So if one battery gets used up, and you go to the backup battery, you are in trouble once that one dies, because then you have to charge them both again, taking double the amount of time. I would recommmend just getting one battery. As far as the leather case, skip it. It does provide some protection against dropping the phone, and it does look a little cooler, but it makes finding the number keys much more difficult when you are not looking at the phone (such as when you are driving). I found that I had to take off the leather case in order to dial effectively. I've also dropped the phone a number of times (on concrete!) and it is totally fine, without the case. One thing that I would recommend is the headset. There have been some studies that suggest that prolonged cell phone use is bad for your health, because the cell phone causes some sort of radiation that is very close to your head. I don't know if this is true or not, but using a headset would solve the problem. It doesn't affect the sound quality at all, and it makes it a lot more comfortable to use the phone. One problem is that people tend to think you are talking to yourself, if you use it while walking around. A pet peeve of mine about this phone is that the clock needs to be reset every time the battery is taken out. I usually end up ignoring it and turning off the time and date, even though it is very helpful to have it there. The feature set, which includes 100+ phone numbers stored, quick dial, volume control, muting and some other features is more than adequate. I've played the games once or twice, and I've never used the calculator or the datebook. There are over 30 different rings you can use (you've probably heard them all by now). I use the one called "Jumping". I like it because few people ever use it, and everyone inevitably starts humming it after my phone rings, so they are not as annoyed that I've received a cell phone call. When I bought this phone last year, it was over $200, with a plan from Cellular One. I wouldn't recommend paying more than half that now, though, because you can probably get a web-enabled phone for around that much money. Overall, though, it's a quality phone that's lasted me well for almost a year and a half. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89456 2009/12/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very light easy to use state of the art battery life coverage in rural areas at t small speaker Full Review My company decided to replace the older Motorola analog cell phones with regional service packages with the AT&T PCS Wireless plan, including the NOKIA 6160. The service plan they have worked out is outstandingly efficient and cost effective because we have a choice of 4 different price ranges to subscribe to (depending on online hours and coverage area). Utilizing AT&T's nationwide wireless area I do not have to bother with roaming charges anymore and the coverage works definitively great in all major US cities. Since I am traveling in rural areas as well there are some minor downturns where a regional company may have better coverage. But I never have to drive longer than 10 minutes (NC, SC, VA) in order to get into the next coverage area. The 6160 has been awarded several times when it was launched late 1997 (e.g. "The Year's Best Products for Your Home Office." Home Office Computing). No wonder: it is a fine piece of technology, focusing on user demands and ease of use. The phone's weight is less than 6 ounces with standard battery, measuring 5.2 inches in height. AT&T features lots of accessories throughout all major cell phone shops and stands, all major electronics stores sell the belt clips (great comfort and handy extra!), extra batteries, leather cases, exchangeable colored covers (Black, Earth, Ocean and Sky available), cradle, free-speak kits, power cords, connection cables and lots more. Hit: I have never used a cell phone, and don't know anyone who had, with that extended battery life! The standard battery lasts about 3 hours straight talk!!! But even more impressive: when charged regularly I achieve a stand-by time of 7 days and more! Impressive and very useful. The desktop cradle that was delivered with the phone (you would have to order it additionally) is small and easy to use. You just put the phone in standing and charging is very quickly (takes about 20 minutes from empty to 100% power). The free-speaker kit in my car is functional as well as I can always place the phone into the cradle and remove it without any hassle. Actually all features around the phone are very convenient. Nothing to snap or zip or attach, everything fits nicely and easy (belt clip, cradles and car kit). Using and configuring the phone is as easy as all hardware features. Controlling the menu and navigating through all options can be done with three buttons only that are located right below the screen (backlight is not too bright but enough to read everything, it activates on any button push). The screen shows battery charge and signal strength, clock (optional) and menu functions as well as type of service offered for area you are in (Roam - but we do not pay roaming charges, AT&T network or extended area or No Service - only in very rural areas or deep inside some steel framed buildings). The right control button serves as activation key, the left one as the enter-select key and the double up-down middle button as the switch between rows on the screen. This concept does never change, whatever you do on the screen. Extremely functional and intuitive!!! Following all features and menu commands with lower hierarchies and some comments out of my experience (in brackets): Phone book: Holds up to 199 names with numbers, as you enter longer names font size decreases automatically (I'd wish some more digits for the names as I'd like to have some names private or connected to a company or both) 4 Games: Memory, Logic, Snake, Dice, pretty easy to use (no fun for me, I just don't like this stuff) Calculator: Easy to use, non-scientifically, pretty slow to handle compared with a regular pocket calculator (useful if you don't have a second choice of calculating, otherwise I'd prefer the pocket calculator or Palm) Clock, Calendar: here again - better Palm or pocket agenda, but nice if you don't have anything else handy, appointments give alarm, clock is displayed in every screen (optional) Pager function: you would have to talk to your provider because the 6160 can be used as a pager, on top of that: e-mail (text messages) available, you just use your phone number and the AT&T network in the e-mail address (NICE! I have used it for several occasions when I knew I would be in a conference all day) Voice messages: AT&T network voicebox, very easy to use, always available, nice voices, you can use your own greetings and setup a lot of functions there. Great: Whenever you receive a text or voice message off-line: next time when you switch on or reach a coverage area the messages will be listed with an alarm sound and there is only one button to hit to reach the message. Also the phone will alert you if you missed a call by displaying the number that called in while being off-line. Additional features: Caller ID, cordless extension to desk phone, lists of dialed, missed, received calls (very nice!), keypad lock, one-touch credit card dialing, special number dialing (talk to your provider about special services and 800-numbers to be activated with your service), etc. Some menu functions: Message menu for voice mail and text messages; Call log (lists mentioned above, very nice feature!), different profiles for meeting, outdoors, car, normal and other situations (you can configure loudness, types and repeat setup of rings etc.); Settings for automatic re-dial, security features, emergency speed dial, etc.. Exchanging the battery is easy too, speaker is a bit tiny but pretty clear. When I talk to someone with good digital coverage and strength they really do not recognize that I am talking on a cell phone. In weaker coverage and strength areas though, the digital signal hacks the voice pretty disturbing but I guess they are working on extending their network anyway. Overall I am extremely pleased with this phone, especially because of the nationwide coverage for a very reasonable price (no roaming) per month and use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): company paid service plan 89455 2000/1/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 workhorse that doesn t give up a little bulky by today s standards Full Review This is my 3rd Nokia cell phone. I also have had Ericcson, Motorola, Bosch, Uniden, and Fujitsu cell phones. I would need to see remark improvements in all but the Bosch to consider those phones again. Battery life is always the big question, followed closely by reception, when discussing cell phones. This has a predictable battery life. I'm not saying it has the longest battery life, but I know I can go on a 2-3 day trip without my charger, leaving the phone on the whole time, and be able to use the phone. Other phones I've had, especially the Ericcson which was also a dual band (Digital/Analog) were extremely unreliable with battery life. The Ericcson would switch all too easily to analog mode and suck the life out of the battery. Reception is good. The only place I have trouble is NYC (but my GSM Bosch does well there) and that's mostly due to AT&T's system being overloaded (see for details). A nice feature of the phone is that when all hope is lost for a clear digital signal, it will switch to analog while you are talking. You don't drop the conversation. I keep mine on all the time. I also bought a vibrating battery and the handsfree earpiece. This is very useful. Many times when I'm on the go, I use the handsfree adapter to make my notes while not breaking my neck cradling the phone. Some people are not fond of the "in the ear" solution. The 6100 series also has a lot of customizing features for rings and the like. It also has a few games (which I never play) and a calculator (which is occasionally handy). If you don't need these, save a few bucks and go for the 5100 series from Nokia which offers much of the same functionality as the 6100's. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 89454 2000/3/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many handy features none Full Review I have been using the Nokia 6160 in conjunction with Suncom (an AT&T network partner) wireless service. I have been very pleased thus far, especially when compared with the analog Ericson phone I previously used. This phone has many desirable features, some of which may vary depending on your wireless service provider. On my phone I have caller ID, call waiting, voicemail, and numeric paging. It also has a great feature that allows you to receive an email message from any computer with internet access. The phone has a dual mode chip that allows it to function as an analog phone in areas that do not have digital coverage. The drawback is that some of the above features like caller ID and call waiting do not work while in analog mode. Voice mail, paging and email will download to the phone when you return to digital coverage. There are numerous features of the phone that function regardless of service such as 199 alpha numeric telephone memory positions, call logs for calls made, missed and received. A profile menu allows you to control how and when the phone rings i.e. normal, meeting, pager, silent, outdoor, etc. The phone also includes a calender and 4 games. Overall, when operating on a digital system the reception is excellent and people on the other end say the sound is exceptional as well. Overall I highly recommend the Nokia 6160. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175.00 89453 2000/3/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good everywhere games for when you get bored long lasting battery tons of features can t really think of any The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for the occasional need or for the on the run businessman, I give it top honors! Full Review I spent well over a year of shopping and comparing phones before I finally decided on this one. I don't have or make a lot of money but I do a lot of traveling and I need something that is going to last on a long road trip and that I can count on if I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. I live on the very edge of America, coastal North Carolina, and there isn't much in the line of civilization where I live. Many of the cell phone users in the are lose reception simply because they are out of range of any towers. This phone has tri-mode so that I can pick up any digital 1900mhz, 800mhz, and analog signals and I have only lost my signal once when I was inside an all metal building out in the middle of nowhere. The tri-mode feature will also switch automatically to a different signal to give you the best possible reception. Another great thing about this phone is the long battery life. Even with the stock battery that it comes with I can go for over 8 days on stand-by and I have almost 4 hours of talk time before I have to recharge it. Since I work two jobs and go to school full time this is great because I don't get many chances to recharge it. When I do get the chance it never takes more than a few hours to charge at home and only about an hour in the truck. Some of the nicer features on the phone are 99 locations for phone numbers, one button answering, one button emergency 911, and 40 different ringers with volume control (you can also set up 5 different profiles depending on if your outside, in a meeting, etc...). You also have an internal timer that tells you how long you have talked, a calendar that you can set meetings, reminders and important dates with an alarm, a lock to keep your kids from calling Japan or you from accidentally bumping buttons, and even 4 different games while on those long, boring business trips. The phone itself is a good size for putting in your shirt or pants pocket, it weighs just under 6 ounces, a 5 line light up display and keypad that is really easy to see, and you don't have to worry about breaking the antenna because it doesn't extend. You also don't have to worry about breaking your pocketbook because it is fairly cheap, $149 but I got mine for free in a promotion, keep an eye out! Some of the extra stuff that you can get include a hands free headset, desk or car charger, a vibrating battery (for those pesky meetings), and even different face plates. Over all I am completely satisfied with my phone and can't really think of anything bad to say about it. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best phones a student or traveler could want. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89452 2000/12/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small lightweight clear sometimes the display fadesi have to tap it Full Review I have the nokia 6160 cell phone. I can say I think it's great. The reception is clear and has a great range. The antenna is a little stub that does not get in the way. The phone is very small and light weight and will easily clip onto your belt with the carrying case or will slide into your pocket. Battery The phone has great features and even more than I need. The battery has an 8 day standby life with 3 hr 15 min talk time. I usually get around 2 hours talk with 3 to 4 days standby. The battery has a quick 3 hour charge. I suggest fully draining the battery and fully recharging it for maximum battery life. This keeps the battery hold a maximum charge memory. Phone Features The phone has 30 selectable rings along with selectable ring volumes from silent, meeting, outdoor, paging mode, and a normal mode. Some phone features included are a full function calculator, 199 name and number memory bank, full function calendar with birthday, meeting, and event reminders, alarm clock, e-mail messaging and alpha numeric paging, 4 video games, and a full call log of times calls were received, dialed... used in conjunction with the caller id feature. Ease of Use The phone key pad lights up and is real simple to use. You do not have to push the keys hard. It also has a one touch dial into the voice mail, and a one touch emergency key. I Paid 199.00 for the phone and I got a deal that included a leather carrying case, car adapter, and an extra battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 89451 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 utility cost size the power button is too small Full Review Nokia Digital 6160 I purchased this Nokia from the BellSouth Mobility store at my Father's insistence. (Yes, it seems he wanted to be able to reach me whenever, wherever - and my little X02 pager just wasn't doing it for him anymore.) Of course the real kicker was the realization that I NEEDED a cell phone for business - my running the business kept me running - and stopping at pay phones to return pages was inconvenient at the least, as well as time-consuming and expensive. I also knew I didn't want a flip phone , or anything too elaborate - cell phones still struck me as a snob appeal item - if I were going to have a cell phone then it had better be a workhorse - not a prize pony. The features of this phone, while not flashy, are commendable and useful : Phone Book - although it took some time to enter the names and number s- it is much more convenient than flipping through a phone book, or calling the office for a customer's number. I especially like the search feature, and the 1 button dialing. Keyguard - I don't use this as a general rule of thumb- because in order to answer an incoming call you must press unlock and then * - and since I am not coordinated enough to pull over, get the phone out, then push unlock and * in the time allotted to answer the phone…. My Tones - includes ringing options, warning and game tones, keypad tones, and message alert tones. Each can be set to your "loudness" level, and as any of you know - there are various "tunes" that can be played to let you know when you have an incoming call. Clock - just that, and an alarm clock as well - which is helpful at the job site - when I need a reminder to leave to keep another appointment, etc. Games - well, I never thought I'd be playing a game on my phone - but the 45 minute wait at the Dr.'s office gave me a reason to explore this little feature- nothing to brag about -Snake, Memory Game, and Logic, but it did beat staring at the walls or reading 6 month old issues of House Beautiful. System Settings - I don't know much about this - except they set it for me at the Store and I haven't touched it. Supposedly this searches for the correct "signal" digital or analog - depending on where you are. Call settings - Emergency 911 ( key 9) on or off as you choose, Calling Card - if you use one with your phone , Automatic Redial , Call Log - this displays call timers for the current call as well as all calls - so not only do I know how long I spent talking to a specific customer (or my Dad), I also know how close I am to my total minute usage for the month, and can compare it with my bill to check for accuracy - or in last month's case - calls that were billed to me that I did not make or receive. Subdirectories for the Call Timer feature include: Dialed calls - very handy when, after you've hung up, you remember you had one more thing to say. Received calls, Missed calls (and the numbers if you have the Caller ID feature), and Clear All lists. Messages - for text messages over your phone. Messages contain an Inbox , saved box, and Write new. I have not used this "feature". Oh, it also contains the "Welcome" note - which is the screen that comes on when you first turn on your phone. Per the postal scale in my office this phone weighs only 6 oz., the buttons are adequate with the exception of the power (on/off) button - I either have to repeatedly push, or remove the cover, or use a pen to depress it enough to turn the phone on or off. It seems well built and has survived a few drops from my purse, desk, and car - with no obvious damage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 89450 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 all the features only can go through at t Full Review My husband got this phone through his work. The Nokia 6160 with AT&T Digital PCS (personal communication service). We are so happy with this phone and service that I think we are going to get me one too. This phone has so many features I'm not even sure if I'll be able to tell you about them all. We got the basic package which included the phone, battery, standard charger, head set, user literature, warranty information, and AT&T Digital PCS information, terms and conditions. It was very easy to activate this phone. First we had to charge the battery. Then within a few minutes of going over the different service options with the representative from AT&T we were able to use the phone. This phone has caller ID and if the number of the person calling you matches one of the numbers in your memory phone book, then their name will show up too. You can have up to 199 name and numbers in your memory phone book. The AT&T customer care phone number is pre-programmed in your phone in case you have any questions. The phone also has call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way conference calling. When using the call waiting or three-way calling the airtime, roaming, and applicable long-distance charges will apply for both calls. Your phone can also be used as a pager. It has voicemail with a message waiting indicator. If someone calls they can choose to either leave their number, a voice message or a text message. You can store up to thirty text messages. For your caller to be able to leave a numeric message you'll have to modify your voicemail greeting to instruct your caller to press "5" to enter a message. When you receive a numeric message an envelope icon will show up on your phone to let you know you have a message. My husband didn't know someone could send messages to his phone so I went on the internet and e-mailed him a message. He wasn't sure what to do when he got it, but he finally figured it out. I really like this feature because since he got his phone through work he has a long distance phone number. His company is based out of Florida and we live in Indiana. I'm not going to call him long-distance every time I need something. If you don't have the internet you can also call AT&T and dictate a message to an operator who will then send the message to your phone. This is only an add-on feature, so you would have to pay an extra monthly service charge for it. If you send messages to the same people pretty often you can create a group list in your memory phone book. This will let you send a message to more than one person at once. You can also create groups of names and give them each a different ring when they call you. You can use this phone as a calculator or calendar too. The calculator adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides, and even converts currency. The calendar can keep track of birthdays, meetings, reminders, and calls you need to make. An alarm will go off when it is time for you to call someone or go to a meeting. A few other features this phone has are the key guard and alarm clock. You can even play games on your phone, such as memory, logic, snake, and dice. This phone can only be activated on the AT&T wireless services network on a Digital PCS calling plan. You must get credit approval or have a major credit card. The battery life varies according to the customers usage pattern and network conditions. Standby time ranges from 100-200 hours and talk time ranges from 2.0 to 3.2 hours. This phone also has a security option. AT&T is designed to make your service more secure. It helps prevent counterfeiters from stealing your phones signal. There is a 30 day return policy and a one year limited warranty. If you are not satisfied with your purchase you have 30 days to return it under these conditions. You must have proof of purchase. All the original materials must be with it. It has to be in its original package and it must be in re-sellable condition (no cracks, scratches, or liquid damage). I've never been more satisfied with a product than I am with this phone. I don't even feel like I am using a cell phone, everything comes in so clear. I would definitely recommend this phone if you are wanting to get a cell phone or to replace the old one you have. It would even make a great Christmas present. I hoping I get one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): work phone 7780 Nokia 3390 89697 2004/2/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 easy interface decent battery time clock functions poorlydisappears erratic reception screen malfunctions I would not recommend this telephone to anybody. The screen broke after a short time of use. Lines and blurred black-spots make the phone virtually unusable. Reception is poor and clock never wants to function properly. Cheaply priced because it is cheaply made. A definite NO! in my book. 89696 2004/7/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small voice dialing good battery life compact durable none it s an excelent unexpensive phone I've had all kinds of nokia, and until new color-screen models appeared on the market, this still is my favorite phone. Durable, small, no external antenna, simple to use, fast menu-navigation, voice dialing, etc. Handset speaker has a good sound and nice volume (you dont usually have to set it to the highest level), handsfree is practical as well. Big screen makes it easy to see the numbers, and the keypad distribuition avoids pressing an undesired button. 89695 2004/4/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 more games good features good graphics good calling service some similarities to nokia 5190 Overall, not a bad phone compared to the Nokia 5190 that we took back. It has very good features (more than Nokia 5190), more games, and good graphics. Some good games that I like to play on the phone are Snake and Space Impact. Here's how you play Space Impact: Aliens are trying to invade your spaceship. You use the arrow keys to move up and down. You use keys 1 and 3 to fire the main weapons and keys 4 and 6 to fire the bonus weapons. The phone also has email and a calculator. I think this is a much better phone than the Nokia 5190. 89694 2003/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the perfect size durable inexpensive screen savers text messaging black white screen As i searched high and low for the perfect cell phone, i looked down to see the Nokia 3390. This phone was exactly what i was looking for. It was the perfect size, not so big so it would fit into my pocket, and i didnt look like i came from the 80's, but not to small like most phones coming out these days that you have to move the phone back and forth from your mouth, to your ear as your conversation goes on. not only was it the perfect size, but you could do things with it to! download ring tones, talk on the Internet, text message, and you can change the cover to match your personality... it even has screen savers! and it is very inexpensive, after all, its there to make a phone call, not to hack into the governments data files and type your 10 page reports. 89693 2004/2/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 works well rebate offer You might be senile by the time you get it. My experience convinces me that these vendors who offer rebates count on many customers forgetting about their rebate and thereby improving their bottom line! I called Nokia rebate center [which I suspect is a contractor who deals when MANY vendor rebate offers] to ask the status of my rebate. I received a 2Jan04 email saying my "claim" had been approved and to expect my check in approx 10 days. On 4Feb04, I called the rebate center and was told that my check was mailed to the right street address, but the wrong town. Allegedly, the employee entered the wrong ZIP which produced a city address 20 miles away. Here's the kicker......When I asked the supervisor, who allegedly has issued me a new check, what would have happened if I hadn't called, her answer was: "Nothing" If one of their employees entered wrong address info and USPS returned it, you're never going to see your rebate unless YOU make the effort. Good way to add to the bottom line! Lousy "customer service"...another oxymoron of our time! 89692 2006/9/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything battery life could be a little better I HAVE USED THIS PHONE FOR A FEW YEARS WITH T MOBILE SERVICE. I HAVE HAD A MOTOROLA RAZOR, SAMSUNG E105, E335, E635, AND THE NOKIA 6010. AFTER USING ALL OF THEM FOR A WEEK OR TWO, I END UP PUTTING MY SIM CARD BACK INTO THE 3390. IT'S THE MOST RELIABLE PHONE, AND THE RECEPTION IN EXCELLENT. I'M TRYING TO FIND A NEW OR REFURBISHED ONE ON E-BAY RIGHT NOW. 89691 2003/11/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice mail caller id email aol instant messenger does not have any The Nokia 3390 cell phone is the best cell phone made. It has email, caller ID, voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, a calendar, a calculator, and Aol instant messenger. I would not hesitate to buy it again. 89690 2005/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality easy txt msging compose your own ring price reception none i can think of I've tried other phones/brands. Some flip phones. No has come even close to the reception and sound quality the NOKIA 3390 offers. 89689 2000/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 weight profiles size address book backlighting menus The Bottom LineThis is a good phone for personal or business use with enough flexibility either way. Custom faceplates, Profiles, graphics, etc... I'd recommend it to anyone for daily use. Full Review The title is a little misleading I suppose since I got a coupon for a free phone and had to pay just the 9.99 shipping costs. Anyway, this is a decent phone with a lot of features built in to it. First, what I don't like about the phone: The address book is terrible compared to what I am used to. You cannot store multiple numbers per name and you cannot edit the entry when viewing the address book. This can be annoying. For example, I have to have three separate entries for my Wife... Home, Work and Mobile, that takes up 3 of the available slots. Good thing it has the capability of storing a lot of numbers! One tip on this... What I do is put 1 period after the name for Home, 2 periods after the name for Work and 3 periods after the name for Mobile. I also do not like having to reset the alarm every time it goes off. Would be nice if it just reset itself and went off the next day without having to turn it back on again. Another thing I do not like is the backlight. I really wish there was an option to control this... I like having it on 'all the time' while charging or in a call. The backlight on this phone shuts off rather quickly which is annoying when I have to press buttons while in a call and I can't see what I am pressing until it's already done. OK, now for the good stuff! The clarity is very good compared to other phones I have had, however I have had some problems when I am too close to computer speakers. The size is great because you can put it in your pocket and not really even know its there... this is also one of the lightest phones I have ever had. I also like the ability to have 'Profiles'. Profiles make it easy to change the actions of the phone when a message is received or a call comes in, etc. I have several setups which include Loud, Silent, Discreet, Beeper and Normal. I use Silent at movies and meetings because it makes NO noises, I use discreet when out to dinner, etc. and Loud when I am at the bar or in a noisy location. I'm sure you get the idea. Some general comments: This phone has the ability to use 'screen savers' which can be either sent over the internet or via pc data cable using a program such as LogoManager (which is REALLY slick). You can also change the 'Operator Logo' which is displayed when the phone is in standby mode (unless the screensaver comes on). Note: Some service providers block the Operator Logo from displaying. I have VoiceStream and it works fine for me. I'm not much into playing games on a mobile phone, but it has three if that's your thing. Snake II, Space Impact and Bantumi. There are probably other reviews here that go into more detail about games, and since I don't play them I can't really give my 'epinion' on that feature. Recommended: Yes 89688 2000/4/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fits in a pocket compact easy to use durable none The Bottom LineThe phone is great , durable and easy to use . Full Review This past year for my birthday I decided I wanted a cell phone . After all , it seemed like all my friends had one , why didn't I ? So my mom and I went to the local Cingular store and picked out a phone for me . I needed a phone that would fit in my back pocket since I don't carry a purse and I needed one that was reliable since I'm often out by myself . The salesgirl recommended the 3390 which was the second smallest phone there and it has performed admirably well in the 7 months I have had it . It has been dropped in a toilet (a clean one thank god!!!) . I dried it off , left it on a table overnight , plugged it's battery back in and it was fine . My phone swims but I don't know if anyone elses would ! It has traveled cross country on an airplane twice . Vibrated itself off of tables a few times when I left it too close to the edge . The housing pops off when it falls but I chalk that up to a secondary market housing that doesn't fit quite perfectly . It has been snotted on by a horse . Wiped off and it's as good as always . This phone is great . It has a nice long battery life (my friend's phone always runs out of juice first) and is simple to use . The phone practically walks you through anything you may need to do . It has a variety of secondary market housings available (though not as many as some other style phones) and they are easy to change . Overall I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone ! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89687 2000/10/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 intuitive good battery life user friendly small possible button problems no computer connectivity no analog The Bottom LineThis is a great little phone with plenty of cool functions. It is sturdy, stylish, receptive, and fun to use. Full Review I just ordered my 3390 last week and I love it. I have tested out the battery life and found it more then satisfactory. Furthermore, the os, if I can call it that, which Nokia has installed is quite simple and intuitive. Even the games are fun. With the Nokia Composer you can even create your own ring tunes (complete with 3 octave ranges and the ability to switch between Whole, half, 4th, 8th, 16th, and 32nd notes!) As far as the body of the phone, I couldn't be happier with the 3390. It is compact enough to fit into the palm of your hand, but you don't have to worry about typing on a tiny keypad, the numbers are big enough and spaced well enough that I have never had a problem. The only button that has caused me trouble is the option button. Once already during a call my cheekbone pressed the button and ended my call. Be careful there! The only thing I didn't like about this phone is that it does not have analog capability. In the city, with VoiceStream, I have had no problem getting reception. However, once I drove out of the Digital network I was out of luck. Fortunately, I haven't had a road-side emergency yet. In all I really do love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89686 2002/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 attractive compact short cheap widely connectedeasy to use good looking The Bottom LineI reccomend NOKIA3390.It is compact and it didn't create problem when i chat with some one over phone. Full Review hey guys and gals, i have seen the product NOKIA3390.Its look so nice.Its very easy to use as it is so compact i can place it in my front pocket of my shirt.it have various features that attract me to buy this cellphone.I can hear clear voice without any disturbane.It is available with variety of colors and with various models.you can store various ring tone .one thing i like about it is that it is wireless. you can talk anywere and its connectivety is very good .Nokia3390 have e-mail facility also you can send and recieve mail from anywere as you in car or in office you can send and recieve mail.Nokia3390 have SMS facility also you can send SMS even from your telephone also.I love my nokia and it didn't create any problem for me it worked smoothly .it build so nice that attract everyone and anybody eager to like it .i hope you will read my review and like to buy NOKIA3390 go hurry and buy this product you will feel nice to buy nokia3390. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89685 2000/12/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use tough program cable not included no irda prort The Bottom LineGreat phone for the money! Small easy to use and easy to chage the look. Full Review This is a great phone for the money. It is small but not as small as my 8290,but that is good because the 8290 is so small i have lost it out of my pocket many times.The 3390 is easy to hold while talking because the phone doesnt have to be right at your mouth.It has many good loud ring tones so you can tell your phone appart from every body elses , and if thats not enough you can down load even more or make your own with the ring tone composer built right in. It also has a good text editor for aol or msn for chat or even just ping pong.I am not a big fan for games but this phone offers more games than any of nokias earlyer modles.But the one thing I like the most is that you can easly chang the front AND back covers so every thing will match.This is a great phone for anybody including the kids,if they tear it up or loose it your not out much! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 89684 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable easily portable nice features clear light nice phone not always as clear as other phones not very loud The Bottom LineThis is a quality phone with a ton of features and great aspects to it. However, it is not very loud and this can be a concern for some. Full Review Nokia. Let me tell you something about Nokia phones. Personally, I have mixed reviews on several Nokia products, but as far as the Nokia 3390 goes, I have to say that I feel that this phone is a GOOD overall phone, but not fantastic. Let me explain why. I'm an experienced Nokia user, I've had nokia phones for the past couple years. However, I have to say that this phone is indeed worth the buy. First of all, this phone, despite a small size, is quite durable! Mine has taken many a beating since I've had it, I've even left it outside overnight through dew and bitter cold and all. This phone just keeps going. Also, I've dropped it numerous times, and to my suprise, I've never had a problem. Thats the beauty of this phone, if you're a careless person like I, especially with fine electronics, then you cant go wrong here. Another great aspect of this phone is that its very easily portable. As far as size goes, its not the smallest phone out there, or even in the Nokia line, but its small enough that you will forget you will have it with you. Weight is not even a concern here. The phone itself is also rather clear. Granted I'm very happy with my service provider, I rarely have difficulty with bad reception or what I call "garbage on the lines." Voices come in without any embargo and this is a key factor that makes any cell phone likable to use. HOWEVER!!! Here is why I do not find this phone to be a standout. THE PHONE IS NOT LOUD BY ANY MeANS! In fact, in many instances, even with the phone on its special "Loud" setting, I have had much difficulty in hearing voices, even in places as simple as movie theaters or in the car. The problem is that one cannot increase the volume past a certain point, and let me tell you, and forwarn you, that this point is NOT loud by means. If you want to avoid frusteration or have difficulty in hearing at times, I'd check out other models. This phone does have nice other features, such as games, a phone book, optional internet, calendar, and much more. Its a good good phone overall, but again, I'd like to stress that it is not a very audible phone on some occasions. Test it out for yourself to determine! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 roughly 89683 2001/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek good price bad reception in buildings takes a while to start up voice dialing has problems The Bottom LineThis is the newest phone nokia has as of 6/01 Full Review I have this phone for quite some time now and it is one of nokia's better innovations. They have designed new games on this phone and have build in vibration alert for calls. I have not have any problems with this phone and is still working fine for me. Now for the things you need to know if you owned the nokia 3390. I have looked online for these codes and have tried them on my phone. These are the only codes that work in the U.S. so if you find other codes, they will not work. ---------------------------------------------------- Dial these numbers as if you are making a phone call *#746025625# - [*#sim0clock#] Checks if the sim clock can be stopped. Sim clock stop is a kind of stand-by mode which will save battery time. This code doesn't work with software version 4.59. *#92702689 - [*#war0anty#] Warranty code. You don't need the warranty code any more like you did with some earlier phones - instead, now you can scroll through the information like in any other menu. It has the same data as 8100- and 3100-series phones with "Edit" button for purchase date, and "User data transfer". Menu: Displays the serial number of the phone Displays the month and year of manufacture (e.g. 0997) Displays (if set) the date when the phone was purchased (format: MMYY). You can set the purchasing date here, but be careful what you write - you can do it only once. Displays (if set) the date of the last repair Transfers all phone numbers, pictures and sounds from one phone to another (e.g. if the phone is broken). With 6110 you can transfer all data via the infra-red port. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 89682 2000/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish affordable much more music composer small replaceable frontback covers hard to download rings The Bottom LineIt is a great all around phone, suiting very well to the needs of the everyday person. Full Review This phone is great, especially for your teens at home. It is "cool looking," with an option to replace both the back and front cover. The newer Nokia phones such as this offer many new features. This is a phone that can be personalized, meaning messages, calendar, day and time, ringing tone, profile, and even a music composer. This "people's phone" is small, fitting much easier in pockets or purses than the older models. The accessories that come with the phone are great, such as the hands-free ear device. The buttons are smaller, not as easy to accidentally hit while in your hand or pocket. New games are created, adding a little variety to your phone. A vibrating feature allows for silent ringing, a very important feature in some instances. The bright display is easy to see, and the incorporated phone book can hold up to 100 numbers. A great phone!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 89681 2000/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception easy to use interface colorful faceplates loud vibrating alert hard to change faceplate poor battery life The Bottom LineYou cannot beat this deal if you live and use the phone in urban areas. Full Review I have had the Nokia 3390 for about a week now. Now that i have switched to GSM, I am able to experience crystal clear phone calls, a huge difference to the TDMA Nokia 8260, which got basically no reception where I live. The 3390 has been living up to its every expectation so far, I have had basically no problems with the phone except for the fact that I have had a pretty tough time changing the faceplate on the phone; its not quite as easy as the 5100 series phones. This phoneis the perfect size; not too big not too small. it weighs about 4.2 ounces, and its easy to hear out of, unlike the 8260 that i previously owned. The 3390 offers Color Covers, a ringtone composer, 4 downoadable ringtone spaces, voice dialing, new games, lengthened text messages, and T9 predictive text input to facilitate writing text messages on the phone. This phone also comes with all the basic features of a Nokia phone, plus the new ones listed before. There are only a couple things about this phone that i can complain about and one of them is its loud vibrating alert! The vibration on the phone is useless if you are in a place where you do not want everyone to know that you are receiving a phone call because it is so loud. This is probably the most successful series that i have seen Nokia come out with just because its feature packed and it literally costs no money. Another thing is that the battery life is only 2 hours and 40 minutes which isn't as the previous phone i owned. Another thing about the phone is that since it operates on a single, all digital network, you receive great clarity and all, but when you live urban areas, you rarely get any reception with it. I think that i will be keeping this phone for a long time. I am a loyal Nokia customer and this phone even increased my liking of the brand. Recommended: Yes 89680 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many great functions with large screenbuttons the phone can not edit phone numbers straight from scrolling down the phone book The Bottom LineGo with the 3390 which offers the simplistic ease that Nokia is known for, with the amazing amount of features that cell phones SHOULD be known for. Full Review In a world vastly inhabited by cellular phones and communication devices, one finds it very hard to choose one to match his or her lifestyle and criteria. Upon searching for a phone to replace my outdated Nokia 5590, I had two choices. One was the Nokia 3390 and the Nokia 8290. They were both new models and sleek in look. The problem I noticed in the 8290 was that because of its lack in size. I also noticed that from my friend's 8290, it froze up a lot and had many problems that needed to be fixed. I had no personal reference when deciding to go with the 3390 but had heard good reviews about the phone. Upon receiving the phone, I just simply switched my sim card from my old 5590 into the new 3390 which is so great about GSM. I then jumped into checking out the phone. It was simply a gorgeous phone when seen in your hand. It had the great amounts of options that Nokia is known to put into its phones with the simplicity so that even a 7 year old could use it. The only disappointment about the 3390 that the 5590 used to have was that after I entered in all my phone numbers, I couldn't edit them by simply scrolling down the phone book. I had to actually go into the phone book and find each and every individual name I wanted to edit and edit it. Regardless of that small nuisance, it was a great phone which also had voice tags which was a wonderful addition. Interenet access was not a big deal for me because I am a student in college and was not really interested having internet access with me on the phone when I carry around a laptop and palm anyway. The games on this phone were also a fun little treat added on by Nokia. It had better graphics and actual screen shots for it's new games such as snake 2, space invaders, and pairs 2. The phone also allowed you to make your own ringtones with a composer included in the phone which provided me with hours of pointless, yet enjoyable, time to make my favorite tunes into ringtones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89679 2000/2/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cute styling good games great clarity voicestream personalization options internal antenna does not pay off in low reception areas somewhat flimsy casingbuttons The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3390 is by far the cutest phone on the market, and by proportionate size, even better than the 8290. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is a great phone. GREAT. Small enough to slip in my pocket, not as tiny as some others, but thats alright. Styling to make some friends ooh and ahh with the Matrix-style sliding faceplate I have equipped on the phone's already nice looking casing. I have this phone on Voicestream service in the New York Tri-State area with a near-unlimited family time plan, so I use this phone a lot even when I'm right next to my own home land-line. When there is a strong field of top reception, the clarity is amazing. I'm astonished that people on the other end ask me about certain sounds from my environment that I can barely hear. In a few cell areas, I get the echoing that I'm sure is commonly associated with many other phones. Although, I was disappointed, at a bar mitzvah, my phone did not any service in the area so I asked a friend who had a StarTAC and was angry to find that the quality on her phone was quite loud, clear, and strong compared to mine. So for clarity and reception, this phone is right there on the average mark. The feature list is unbearably long. Ones like Picture Messaging, calculator, ringtone composer are ones I don't find myself ever needing, unless I'm bored and another form of entertainment cannot be purchased :). While the amount of features is exceeding "basic", it lacks PC connectivity and a web browser- functions I could play with on a regular basis. There are endless ways to call someone using this phone. Holding almost any numeric key will in turn call a number from the phone book, as will constantly clicking the Navi button, as will any direction arrow pushed will scroll through a list of dialed calls, or the phone book. In here, voice dialing seems redundant as I feel more comfortable dialing numbers even with them in phone book. (Although I will say the voice dialing is quite accurate). One pet peeve of mine is that in this phone book, you are unable to look at a number without dialing it. Therefore, I am forced to go into edit mode to view the digits so that I may call that number using a land line. The screen is backlit by 4 green LEDs located on the bottom side. They keys are also lit, but that makes it hard to read the keys in daylight (typing messages). Charge time is very minimal. This is the first Nokia I've owned and for some reason I had the crazy idea that the battery would go for a week or slightly less without charge- well maybe it's just my phone thats the exception. Most of the time I can get away at 3-4 days with pure standby time. All controls are nicely placed (layout resembles 5100 series), and it feels very nice in the hand. All in all it's an outstanding entry phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89678 2000/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery strength great reception perfect size light weight n a The Bottom LineAwesome phone for the everyday reason you have to have one. Full Review Let me tell you about this phone. If you are looking for quality and an excellent price range for a cellular phone this is the one for you. Its size, weight, look, styles, and reception are just a few of the things that make this phone an incredible tool for you. First off the size of the phone is not too huge and not so tiny that you can feed it through a needle. It is just right. It can go in your pocket and even fit into a sleeve pocket in your shirt. It is so accessible and handy that it takes away the stress from those old phones which looked like a cordless one you have at home now. Weight wise it is like a feather. Not a pile of bricks you have to carry around you know. Instead it has the lightest weight of any other phone out there and even with the battery the there seems to be no difference at all with this model. As far as the menus on the screen go they are incredible. This phone is so user friendly that it makes the other competitors phones out there look like a battle to figure out what is what. It is a step by step menu that follows you through and goes easily with you until the completed task. I can't make it simpler enough. A user friendly phone with an awesome tough and many colors and styles as far as face plates go as well. Reception wise it all depends where you are. To be honest you won't get reception if you are in an area that your provider does not cover. As if you are in an area that you are covered in you will have no worries because this phone will never ever give you a headache or stress you out as far as anything goes. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00 89677 2000/7/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 d stylish relatively cheap full of gadget like features functional no pc sync ability no display of how long current call has lasted The Bottom LineBUY IT! It's one of the best phones on the market for under $100. You won't be disappointed! Full Review I got the Nokia 3390 as part of a VoiceStream Get More plan located in Chicago. And I personally love the phone! I used to have a Cingular plan with a Nokia 5160, and I loved that phone as well, but the 3390 is much more stylish... it looks like the 8200 series, only slightly bigger. It has an internal antennae, but I have not found it to be problematic at all. It looks simply amazing, and it is lightweight - I barely notice it in my pocket! As with the 5100 series, you can change the covers (this time, both the front AND the back), but the snap-on covers are pretty expensive. Along with the snap-on covers, the phone can be further personalized with downloadable ringtones. VoiceStream provides this service, but I am sure it is possible to get it in other ways. I was able to download the Simpsons and Peanuts themes, and whenever I get a phone call around friends, they're in shock that my phone plays the Simpsons theme! And what is the purpose of a gadget if you can't impress your friends? ;-) The phone is a GSM phone, which means it employs SIM-card technology. That means that the address book, phone settings, and other personal information is stored on that card! So if you want to suddenly switch phones, you can - all by swapping out the SIM cards! For myself, who travels to and from Champaign, IL (where I go to school), I have the ability to have two SIM cards - one with a 217 area code (Champaign) and one with a 630 area code (Chicago), and I could NEVER do that with other technology. I bought this phone for a few reasons. One, the style - I love gadgets, so the sleeker, the better! Also, it was lightweight and I could carry it in my pocket without one side of my body heavier than the other. The GSM service sold me on VoiceStream, and the 3390 implements the best features of GSM extremely well! The one main annoyance is that when i'm in a call, it does not display the length of the call, which my old 5160 did. Then again, with so many minutes, it doesn't matter as much, but it was definitely far more convienent with my 5160. Also, there is a calendar and phone book feature that are nice, but I already have an organizer, and the 3360 has no abilities to sync with your PC... a minor annoyance, but the ability to do so would have made the phone infinitely more functional. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89676 2000/4/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice size easy to use not that reliable The Bottom LineIt is a neat little phone but it has been pretty unreliable for me, and I don't even use the phone alot. Full Review When I first got the Nokia 3390, I thought it was a great phone. I had it for about 4 months and that is when the problems started. I used the headset once and from that point on, I could only use the headset to take calls. The sounds wouldn't work unless the headset was plugged in. The receiver would not work either unless the headset was in. Finally, after talking to my service provider (Voicestream), they said that they'd get me a new, but used, phone. Then the darn thing started working correctly again. It still breaks every few weeks and has been pretty unreliable when I needed it the most. It's definitely not worth the $69.99 that I paid for it. Other than that, it has an easy menu and setup inside the phone. I still have the phone, but, I can't wait until I get rid if it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 89675 2000/4/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery life free aim voice dialing customizable easy navigation durable a little bit heavy no color screen screen size small bulky The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anybody. It is a phone that will serve you well for as long as you need it to! Full Review I had the Nokia 3390 Gold as my 2nd wireless phone after a horrible Motorola Talkabout series phone. I got the phone because it was free from my wireless provider, T-Mobile. This phone has many great features, and it's great for people who haven't had a cell phone before. One of the things I loved about the phone was Nokia's extremely user-friendly menu. The menu made the phone very easy to navigate. Another feature that I enjoyed with my Nokia 3390 Gold phone was that it had AOL Instant Messenger on it, a service that I frequently use at home. It was nice to be able to stay in contact with my friends and family while I was away from my computer. In my opinion, the battery life on this phone happened to be especially good. I easily got at least 5 hours of talk time and 5 days of standby time. The phone also had a nice vibrate strength. I wore the phone on a belt clips and I was always able to feel it when it "buzzed." It was also able to vibrate and ring at the same time, which is a feature I enjoyed. One of the nice things about Nokia is that it's completely customizable! You can set your own screen savers, get new interchangeable faceplates, and there are lots of little gadgets that go with it. Nokia's phones are especially durable as well. I accidentally threw my phone across a hallway, and it was perfectly fine. It was also dropped on numerous occasions. The only bad things about the phone (I thought) were the smaller screen size, the fact that the screen was black and white, and the phone was a little on the bigger and heavier side for my liking. However, you get used to the insignificant cons quickly. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89674 2000/11/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 sim card more options than earlier models user friendly interface large size for such a simple phone unreliable reception The Bottom LineThere are many phones that offer similar or better features that will have more reliable reception. I would recommend this model if you don't mind occasional interruptions. Full Review I must admit I did not take time to research this cellular phone before purchasing it. The "screen saver" won me over! My only worry was possible bad reception but the knowledgeable salesman assured me that new technology has replaced antennas. The following weeks left me more and more disappointed. I discovered the lack of an antenna can affect reception. It's not bad reception like I usually think of it though. If I am perfectly still then my Nokia usually works just as the salesman assured me it would. However, if I move my head to the side or am walking around the connection sporadically cuts out. I am not trying to convey that the reception is terrible enough to render the phone useless. I am still able to carry on most conversations without extreme amounts of interruption, but it is a disadvantage compared to older model cellular phones I have used in the past. I brought it back to the store and they tried to sell me a Nokia 3395 to fix the problem. My only other complaint is the somewhat large size compared to the other recent Nokia models. There are not many different features between the models and yet the Nokia 3390 is larger. It's rectangular shape doesn't make this phone very innovative or stylish. As for for practicality, many active people would find this more of a hindrance to carry on a belt holster like other Nokia models are so well suitable for. There are many useful features that you can read about in the positive reviews. I am just advising that a better option can be found with all the options of the 3390, but may allow better reception. After all, when you get down to it, what good is a cellular phone if you can't carry on a conv*schhh* Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 120 89673 2000/1/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small compact stylish durable short battery life The Bottom LineA must for mobile phone users looking to keep with the latest trends. With a truckload of accessories and options to choose from, this phone will keep users satisfied. Full Review Nokia has outdone themselves yet again with their introduction of the Nokia 3390 to the market. When one first picks up the phone, the first thing that is noticed is the size and weight. Fitting comfortably in the palm of one hand, talking with it is a breeze. The menu options are ALMOST exactly like that of the Nokia 8290. However, there are several differences. 1. There are 3 "empty" spaces allowing the user to create a user profile best suited for their own lifestyle. 2. The caller groups have been replaced by the ability to add a ringtone to each entry in the phone book. 3. 4 new games have replaced the old ones. 4. Nokia has added a new feature to the phone, "Ringtone Composer", which allows the user to create their own ringtone and save it to the phone. Nokia has taken all of the best features of the 8290 and tweaked things around to come up with the the 3390. The finishing touches are done by enclosing everything into a more durable outer shell, giving it more protection from accidental drops. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 89672 2002/7/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of useful features good key size no external antenna hard to change batteries should have actual talk end buttons instead of the softkey The Bottom LineIf you want an affordable phone loaded with features, go with the Nokia 3390! Full Review I have been using this phone for about a year now, and I still think it's a great phone. -The microphone pics up very well -the sound quality is good -reception is very good for an internal antenna. I have owned a few different cell phones over the last few years and have become partial to Nokia because of the useful features they load in their phones, the good looks, and portable size of their phones. My last phone had an external antenna and since I wore it on my belt, the antenna was always jabbing me in the side, so it's been a relief not to have that anymore. This phone has proved to be durable as I sometimes drop it twice a day (on a bad day) but it has yet to show any sign of abuse in it's performance. If you drop it too hard, the faceplate usually takes the impact and slides apart a little bit, no big deal, just slide it back together. While looks shouldn't be the primary focus in buying a phone, they are important, at least to me. Both the front and rear faceplates slide off so you can style your phone as you please. Faceplates havn't been too hard to find for this phone. The battery life has always been up to my standards, usualy about 3 hours of talk time in a day. It's never been a problem running out of battery, as long as I charge it in the morning. If I don't use it much, I go a couple days before charging. The phonebook holds 200 entries, stores the last 10 missed calls, received calls, and dialed calls, has over 40 ringers (and is capable of downloading ringers), a silent vibrating ringer (VERY useful in meetings), has 4 entertaining games, keygaurd, calendar, and if you have a lot of spare time on your hands- a ringer composer, and the most useful feature THE CALCULATOR! I love it, everywhere I go, I have a calculator! I would buy it just for that! Now, the cons, It sounds stupid, but I will never buy a phone again without a seperate Talk and End buttons. Instead this phone has a buttons that performs many functions, but it just gets to confusing especially when you are dealing with call waiting!! Most of the time though, not a bid deal. And secondly, it would have been nice to have an external battery that is easier to change in a hurry. You have to remove the front and rear face plates to get the battery out. But it doesn't matter that much, it has a good battery life. Overall, I am pleased with this phone. I paid about $90 for it, but that was when it just came out, the price has come way down in the last few months. It's worth a look. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 89671 2000/6/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 quality sound great price plenty of features clear nice size occasional echoing The Bottom LineI recommend this to teenagers and adults looking for easy usability, and the same features of high tech phones for a fraction of the cost. Full Review Just so that my readers may get to know a little bit about the writer, I will tell you about myself. I am a sophomore in high school, and my parents have been thinking about getting me a cellphone. I need one so that they can reach me at all times, whether I'm at the movies, the mall, or just hanging out somewhere. We decided to go with Voicestream since we have heard many good things about it. (By the way, Voicestream is a great cellular service provider! They give you plenty of minutes for less money, free nationwide roaming and long distance, and they have lots of coverage so that your calls are almost, always clear!) They had plenty of phones to offer. My father had the Samsung N105 for awhile, and although it was a nice phone, it wasn't really my style. I narrowed my choices down to the Nokia 3390 and the Nokia 8290. I decided to get a Nokia because of all the good things I had heard about it, but I couldn't decide which one. Although the 3390 and the 8290 are both really small, I have heard many problems with the screen in the 8290 malfunctioning. So I gave the Nokia 3390 a chance. Boy, did I make a good choice! The 3390 is great for teenagers who do not need complicated menus, but DO need plenty of features. In fact, it is great for any age range. It is so easy to use, my eight-year old brother knows how to handle my phone! I figured out everything I about this phone in the first week. One great thing about this phone is the phone book. You can set it to show the name and number, a name list or just the name each time you search for a number. In the Phone Book menu, you can also set voice tags to numbers for voice dialing, or choose numbers to use for one touch dialing! It is especially useful while driving, or you just feel too lazy to dial the number. The next menu is Messages. You can send and receive messages to other phones or e-mail addresses. This is useful for when you are in a place where you cannot talk, like in a meeting or at the movies. Just key in a message and it sends it in instantly! Menu number 3 is Call Log. It shows you the last 10 calls you missed, received, and dialed. It also has a sub menu called Call timers, where it shows how long all your calls were. You can even set it to where it displays how long you have been talking on your current call WHILE you are talking! After this is Profiles. This menu lets you set what type of ring tone you want, how loud you want it, if you want it to vibrate, and many other things. You can have up to 6 different profiles. You can also name these profiles anything you want. My six profiles are: Movie, Date, Discreet, Normal, Quiet, Loud. These really come in handy. The next menu is Settings. I do not really care much about this menu. You only use it to set your clock(including an alarm clock),call settings, phone settings, and security settings. I am going to skip a few menus because this is already too long. I has great games, which I love because I get bored easily. The four games are Bantumi, Snake 2, Space Impact, and Pairs 2. These are really easy to play(although if you play them too much they drain your battery power). It also has an easy to use calculator and currency converter. Normally you have to go through many menus just to add and subtract, but just use the * key as a shortcut. It also has a keyguard. This is extremely useful because one time I slipped it into my pocket and it called my mom. She was listening to my whole conversation. This phone also comes with IM,which is great if you wanna instant message somebody but you are not at a computer. But no, this phone is NOT perfect!(What phone is???) Don't get me wrong the call quality is great. People have claimed to think that I was talking from a land line. Also, they hear background noises very clearly, even if I could not hear them. But the thing is, only occasionally do I hear an echoing sound. My voices echoes when I talk into the microphone sometimes. The weird thing is, only I can hear it and not the person I'm talking to. Other than that, the phone is great. Also, even when I get only one bar of service, the call quality is extremely clear. The battery power is great once you charge correctly. DO NOT charge it everyday or else your battery will not last a long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ plan 89670 2000/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 new edge phone that scores cool points feature enhanced small limited accessories at this pointno black cover The Bottom LineAwesome value that will put you on top of the geek heap. But, if you're not a true geek you'll have a hard time figuring out some of the features! Full Review I label myself as an "early adopter" and this often comes back to haunt me when I find the next 'cool thing' and a month later, something else comes out. But..... I may not have mud on my face after trying out (and deciding to hang on to) the 3390. I bought it, because it had no antenna, was smaller, and new. Some of the things I like most about this one was, the low price and tons of cool features. Features such as being able to enter your own ring tones, voice dialing (it has it even though they don't advertise it anywhere), and customizable graphics. The voice dialing deserves further mention for those of you not familiar with it. Basically, you can program up to 8 numbers already in your address book to be dialed simply by speaking into the phone. The problem I've run into is that it doesn't always recognize what I said. The other funny thing was that for the heck of it I blurted out "abracadabra blah blah blah" and it started dialing my mom! By virtue, I immediately put in my own ringtones (the Michael Myers Halloween theme) using the composer. Figuring out the composer is also a bit of a challenge and the only help I found was Nokia's owner's manual. Good Luck! Cons: the only thing that aggravates me is the lack of a Nokia supported black faceplate. Sure there are aftermarket ones out there but I want the real thing. You can't even find that much out there (and I only did so after going through all the search engines). I like simplicity and a black faceplate would be cool. I wrote Nokia and all they told me was "thank you for your comments,yada yada yada" great! The other thing is the standard battery (NiMh I beleive) is a little short on longevity. I've always used a Lithium Ion one and if you manage to find one for these phones it's $60 or more. Ouch! Hopefully at some point they will get more of the toys out there for this phone. Overall it's an awesome value and you will be pleased. Is it solid? yes. I've already dropped it twice with not even a dent. In summary, I will keep it until they blend my Palm PDA with another phone of the same type. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89669 2004/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small light looks nice easy to use just a great phone a refurbished model w a broken battrey cover rogers at t gsm coverage The Bottom LineIf you don't need internet, or analog service, this is the phone for you, but make sure that GSM coverage is good in your area first. Full Review I bought a 3390 just before Christmas 2003 for myself from Rogers AT&T in Canada. I bought the refurbished model from their website for $70 Canadian (regular model is $150 CDN) on the Pay As You Go Prepaid Plan with no contract. I ordered it 9:00pm Dec 22nd and it got here by noon on Dec 24th. Wow! That's free shipping too! Well that's Rogers' service not the phone. I'll get to the phone soon. Why I bought it: I had a V-Tech A700 before the 3390 and it was junk. It kept crashing (yep just like a Windows computer) and the case broke in a couple different places because it was so flimsy. Fido-Microcell the service provider replaced the software on the phone after several trips to the Fido store in Downtown Vancouver. The price to fix the damage was $60 CDN, so I decided to look at phones that a> are GSM (all the new towers are GSM) b> are Nokia (My dad has a 5160 and it's really good) & c> is under $150. The refurbished 3390 from Rogers AT&T fit all this criteria. Altough Fido is a GSM only service provider, and they have cheap phones, their signal is is the worst in the country, so I wanted to switch to a network with better signal. The actual phone: The 3390 is very similar to the 5190 (and the 5160 to a lesser extent) except smaller, lighter, and with a few added features such as an A.I.M. client, a calender, a calculator, and newer revised games. Nokia's trademark the "Navi Key" is very useful, but it takes some getting used to over other phones. The keys fell nice and sturdy so far (I've only had this phone for a couple days now). The keypad is replacable and comes out when you take the face plate off. The phonebook is easy to use and is accessable by pressing the down scroll key. The scroll keys also select things in the menu and adjust the volume. The predictive text messing can be handy, as my V-Tech A700 had this too, but I still find it easier to type it out normally. Everything else works just as predicted. My only complaint: My phone came shipped with a faulty battery cover, but remember it is a refurbished model. Rogers AT&T was very kind by offering a replacement model shiped ASAP by UPS, and free return of the old one back to them. (Note: The replacment was also broken. It had a chipped back cover. I ended up sending that one back and getting a third 3390. All three phones were here within 36 hours of ordering it, another WOW! on Rogers' part. I'm greatful that their customer service staff were helpful, capable of speaking English properly, and polite.) I would recommend this to anyone looking for a basic cell phone. ---UPDATE - JAN 1, 2004--- I've decided to return this phone to Rogers through their Rogers.com 30 day exchange policy because their network kept dropping my calls, and I couldn't get good enough signal to make a decent call even in urban areas. I blame this on the Rogers AT&T GSM 1900 network that the phone uses. I've had no problem with the replacment phone itself. I've decided to try a Bell Mobility LG TM-250-1 CDMA 1X Prepaid phone next. (The LG TM-250-1 is sold under the VX3100 model number in the US). I would not recommend Rogers GSM 1900 service to anyone in Greater Vancouver, although the 850 network is excllent. Thanks for reading this review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 54.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89668 2000/11/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compose ring tones powerful antennae easy to use battery life The Bottom LineOverall this phone is good. I recommend it. It is one of the best Nokia's I've had. Full Review The main reason I got this phone was that it was cheap with the cell phone provider I was signing up with. It was only 39.99 at the time, I think the prices have gone up since. I've had this phone for about six months now and I've switched SIM cards and phones with my brother once in a while just for the hell of it. He has a 8290. And to tell you the truth, I prefer the 3390. The main reason is that I found that the antennae is much stronger, thus giving better reception. Another reason I like it is that the phone is slightly larger but not too large. I found that using the keys on the 8290 was a little hard, since my fingers would sometimes accidentally hit a different button. I don't get those problems with the 3390. And my fingers aren't big either, I actually have bony fingers and I have trouble witht he 8290. Cool features? The coolest thing that will get your friends wowed is the composer feature on the phone. You can find websites that have music as ringtones and you can put it into your phone. It is really really really easy to put ringtones into your phone. All you gotta do is key in the numbers you find on the website. Another cool thing are the games on this phone, they have come up with this new game called 'space impact.' This game is truly amazing. It has a cool intro screen and I swear it's graphics are comparable to a gameboy back when it was black and white(without the music though). It is also very easy to switch faceplates, where as other Nokias where you would need a special screwdriver to open it up, this one you didn't. It just snaps right off. There are some really cool faceplates for this phone too. I got this matrix style faceplate off of ebay and I like it a lot. People are also impressed with this faceplate. The only bad thing I found about this phone is the battery life and charging time. The phone comes with a 600 mah nickel cadium battery. Though they say standby is up to 5 days, I have only gotten up to maybe 2 days. I had to get an aftermarket 1200 mah lithium ion battery off of ebay and it was well worth it. I've had this battery last up to 5 days without charging. I found the charger to be really slow too for my busy lifestyle. So I went out and got an express charger from nokia. It fills up my 1200 mah battery in about an hour from where as it used to take up to four hours for the same battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 89667 2000/4/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 it s great easy does not light up The Bottom LineGood, reliable and easy to use. What more can a person want? Full Review I have cell service through Voicestream(now T-Mobile) and upon renewing my contract, I was able to upgrade to a better phone for free-which is how I got this one. I like the weight of the phone, it is not too light but has a very balanced feel. The screen is easy to read and all the functions are really easy to use. There is a large variety of ring tones available and it is easy to program the ring. This phone has great features that include: Keypad lock- If I throw the phone in my pocket, I can lock the keypad so no calls can be made by accident. This is also useful when I leave my phone somewhere-nobody can make unauthorized calls. Easy volume control- The volume control buttons are on the face of the phone. They are good size and easy to push. I like the fact that they are on the face instead of the side so I can't accidentally change the volume level while holding the phone. Button size- The buttons are a nice size and are easy to push. Makes dialing and searching through the menu easy. Easy menus- Maneuvering through the menus is easy-just touch a bar(I hate to say button because it is bigger than that) and you can fly right through. Games- This phone has a good variety of games and they are easy to play. The sound quality is great and reception is really good. Thre is not a lot of fuzz to interrupt my calls. This phone is also made well--I have dropped it more than once and it just keeps working--no broken parts or even scratches. The phone also recharges well and can go 3-4 days turned on before it needs to be recharged. Overall--a nice free phone. Would I pay for it?? Yes but not over $50. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 89666 2000/5/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life features light small free headset vibrating battery voice activation features not practical additional for case price 100 The Bottom LineA great phone all around - not too much room for improvement except for price and a belt clip with the phone. Full Review We paid less than $10 for the phone since we got a 'loyalty coupon' from PowerTel for $100 off any new phone. It retails for $100. It came out of the box with almost everything (headset & vibrating battery). The only missing item was a belt clip or carrying case. It has a really quick charge time - only about 1-2 hours and lasts a week before it runs low on juice. The voice activated dialing is a great idea but its not yet mature. We tried it but could get it to work only 30-40% of the time. If your tone of voice does not match EXACTLY, it fails to find a match. It should pull up the closest match by default. The power button is in an awkward location (on the top) and could be pressed by mistake. The Nokia 51xx had a better location for the button. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 89665 2000/1/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight compact size easy to use powerful features battery needs frequent charging The Bottom Lineone of the top phones on the market Full Review I recently retired my nokia 5100 series phone that had loyally served me for several years. Parting was hardly sweet sorrow since I was replacing it with the new nokia 3390. This phone has been nothing but fantastic. The 3390 is the updated version of the nokia 8290 minus the infrared feature. If you aren't planning on using the infrared to download information from a computer I would definately go with the 3390 since it has more features and is more durable. The phone is an ideal size, fits neatly in my purse or in your pocket if you are a man. The phone had a great list of features to keep you organized and entertained... everything from an interactive calander, games, ringtone composer, to calculator. As always with nokia, the menus are very well organized and easy to navigate. The phone can be personalized by downloading ringtones and graphics and interchanging both the front and back faceplates. The phone is durable... I've dropped mine several times and it keeps on ticking. It also gets very clear reception despite the fact that it has an internal antenna. The only downside to the phone is the standard battery that comes with it. The standard nicd battery has a short life between charges. If you can pocket the $60 or so to upgrade to a lithium ion battery that increases battery life substantially. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 89664 2000/5/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 nokia 3390 has it all for you what you want in a cellphone not that hi tech The Bottom LineYou buy it, it is worth your eye strain in e-shopping... Full Review Well, this Nokia phone is called Nokia 3310 here in the Philippines and it is very efficient in sending SMS (Short Message Service). When it comes to durability, it is undisputedly amazing. I had once accidentally lose grip of it and it was dropped four feet high down to an asphalt road! I thought it was the end of it. When i picked it up, it only got some mild scratches. I even called my mother and told her what happened. Going back, it's features are very cool. You can compose your own ringtone. If you like funeral songs, you can make a ring tone out of it. Oh yes, what i like most of the Nokia 3390 is the built-in games!Yippee! You can play Snake II, Bantumi, and my favorite: Space Impact! Do i have to say everything? Anyway, The Nokia 3390 has the usual features like the Phone Book, Call Register, Settings, Call Divert, etc., however, it has the new Chat feature where you can chat with your friends (even enemies). I strongly recommend this phone for you Westerners out there, although you don't utilize SMS. It's perfect for outdoors and if you got lots of money to pay the bills, use it indoors.In addition, the Nokia 3390 is more expensive in Asia than in Europe.So, you'll get big savings if you buy it now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 89663 2003/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small aim installed on some very durable spacious keys freezes up sometimes The Bottom LineI recommend this to anyone looking for a cheap, good quality, small, and durable phone. The phone looks good and works great. An excellent all around device. Full Review Overview The Nokia 3390 is a great all around cell phone, especially someone looking for just a basic durable cell phone possibly for a teen or college student. Features 1. Text messaging capability 2. Downloadable ring tones 3. Customizable Face Plates 4. Games 5. Calender 6. Calculator 7. Alarm Clock 8. IM on some 9. EMAIL 10. Headset capable 11. Address Book 12. Speed Dial 13. Voice Activated Dialing 14. Call Forwarding 15. Profiles 16. Create your own Ring 17. Vibrating Feature Text Messaging Depending on the service provider you have this phone supports dual way text messaging with other phones. I use this feature over 10x daily. The phone can store up to 30 saved text messages Downloadable Ring Tones Depending on the service provider the Nokia 3390 accepts up to 3 downloadable ring tones. I downloaded two Christmas ones for the holiday season. Its a fairly simple thing to do. Customizable Face Plates As is the latest craze for cell phones there are numerous face plates and keypads avaliable all over for the Nokia 3390. Games The Nokia 3390 comes with four different games. There is Snake II, Space Impact, Pairs II, and my favorite Bantumi. Each game can be customized based on player's ability. Calender As Cell phone companies keep marching towards integrating the PDA with the cell phone Nokia has taken it a step closer by integrating a Calender into a low price phone. The calender can be set for reminders as well as just being able to show what happens on that day. Calculator The phone inclues a simple four function calculator for quick and easy calculations. Alarm Clock I think this feature is self explanatory IM AOL has included IM on this phone. You can sign in with any of your AOL or AIM screen names. When you sign on people can see you on their buddy list with a little cell phone by it indicating you are on a mobile device. Email This phone has the ability to send email to any email address depending on what your setup is with your provider. Headset Capable One of the accessories avaliable for the nokia phone is a handsfree device. I use this device all the time and it works great. There is no degredation in the quality of the sound when using the handsfree. Address Book There is numerous space avaliable for entering phone numbers for contacts. Voice Activated Dialing For each contact in your address book you can assign a "voice tag". You can enter into a voice mode and say the name of the voice tag and the phone will automatically dial the number. This works great while in the car. Profiles You can create profiles for your different rings. For example you can have the phone set for different, quieter ringers if you are in a quiet place or set for a loud ringer if you are in a noisy place. Create your own ring You can create your own ring tone by entering different notes. You can adjust the tone and change the type of note Durability This phone is very very durable. Probably the most durable phone I have ever used. I have dropped this on cement, concrete, tile, carpet numerous times. This phone frequently falls off of the top bunk of my bed falling 8 feet to a tile floor. It works just fine still. Sound Quality When this phone gets a good reception the sound quality is superb. The little built-in microphone picks up even the smallest of sounds. The adjustable volume also works really well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 89662 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight still durable loses reception very easily The Bottom LineThis phone is perfect for someone who needs to stay in contact etc. Its perfect for the younger crowd also since it has games, and a composer. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is my first cell phone ever. So I am relatively new to the world of mobile phones. The Nokia 3390 was very simple for me to understand. Im to stubborn to read directions, and with in an hour I understood nearly everything about the phone. Be warned though, the SIMS card can be very dangerous. One of the first nights I had the phone I put a lock on it. So if you turned the phone on, then you would have to enter a secret code in order to send or recieve calls. I thought everything was going smoothly until i tried to enter my code and it didnt work, so i tried again, and again, and then BAM my phone was locked. There was nothing I could do to get it to work. Apparently the security feature only gives you three chances to enter the correct code before it completley locks the phone, forcing you to call a 1-800 number in order to fix it. Other than that small mishap, the phone has been very useful. The phone has everything you could really need, texting, calendar, calculator, numerous alerts, alarm clock, various games, etc. The calendar is very useful, you can set alarms to remind you to do certain things, for example "get mom's birthday present". You can even set the alarms to go off at certain times in the day. The phone also comes with many new games: Snake II, Space Impact, Bantumi, and Pairs II. These can be very entertaining when you are on a long train ride, etc. Im not sure if its my carrier or the phone, but it tends to lose reception very quickly! One moment I will be walking in an area where i have full reception, then the next my call is getting cut off. Other than the reception issue every now and then, i really like the phone. Oh, i forgot to mention, that in addition to the already 36 different alerts, you can download or create your own. Yes, you can go into the composer and create your own ring. This allows you to escape the very uniform rings that every phone seems to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $60&activat. 89661 2000/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size with big size sound you ll be dialing without knowing if you forget to keylock The Bottom LineI recommend it. It's a good little phone with good quality sound. Full Review My Nokia 3390 has it's own favorite phones to call and does so everytime I forget to "Keylock"! It calls my husband, it calls my stepdaughters, sometimes it just calls random numbers. There's nothing like having people listening in on your life because your phone decided to call them! There isn't anything technical I can say about the Nokia 3390 that hasn't already been stated. I can, however, comment on something that happens regularly with this phone if you're not alert to it. True, it's my fault for not clicking a button a few times and securing the keys. I'm use to my old flip phone, so when I toss my phone in my purse I'm expecting it to just lay there until needed. Not the Nokia 3390. No... it goes ahead and dials whatever keys are getting pushed by your lipstick and wallet! I had my Mother-In-Law listen to my rantings at stupid drivers all the way home one day because my hairbrush inside my purse hit the right buttons and my phone called her up. I miss my flip phone where the keypad was covered. Other than that minor flaw, in me for my inability to remember to lock up the keys, this phone is wonderful and I recommend it. Games, Calculator, Assigned ring tones for individual numbers, voice tags for up to 8 numbers, screen savers for the display screen, easy to use menu, and a changeable body in a variety of colors all help make this a great buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89660 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 full customizable small unbeatable price lots of features battery no wap no pc synch The Bottom LineIt's a cell phone for yound people, low cost, small and full customizable. Full Review If you are not the kind of people that thinks that new cell phones must fits with the old ordinary cell phones (aka big and black), you must see the new Nokia 3390. What makes it different? You got a small cell phone (4.3 X 1.9 X 0.75) weighs only 4.2oz with no antenna interchangeable faceplates, custom ring tones and many more in a price of a hundred bucks! It's so simple! But take a look deeper and further about 3390. Nokia provides 3390 with Xpress covers in six different double side covers, which you can change in a snap, 35 build-in ringtones, ringtone composer, you can have a different ringtone for each person in your phonebook, text messaging, email, calendar (but with no synch capability with your PC), screen saver (you can download more screen savers, just like ringtones), It's also included voice dialing capabilities, alarm clock, vibrating alert, a lot of games (with vibration capabilities; like when you win, lose etc.), supports up to 250 entries in the phone book, and, yes it's that's only $100 to buy it, so simple! However, Nokia 3390 was no web capabilities that mean you cannot serf the web with this one. The battery is some of a problem also, cause you its not lithium based battery. With this battery you can have 160 min of talking time and 5 ½ in standby. The bottom line is that Nokia 3390 is a cell phone, full customizable, very small in an unbeatable price. If you think it's your type of cell phone, you need to check it out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89659 2000/8/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 interior antennae cool screensavers cute ringtones everything else The Bottom LineGet a different phone. You'll be glad you did. Full Review I received my Nokia 3390 free, as part of a package deal from TMobile. I have had the phone for nearly a year, and couldn't stand it anymore. I had to order a new one. The screensavers and ringtones on this phone are very cute. I keep the little tropical island with a ship in the background on mine. The interior antennae is nice, too. You don't have to worry about knocking it off of your phone. That's about all of the good I have to say about this phone. First of all, the phone is HEAVY for a cell phone. It weighs as much as a regular cordless phone around the house. I can't keep it in my purse, because I get a backache from it being so heavy. I also found the menus to be very confusing, and ringtones and extras were nearly impossible to find. I spent literally hours with the manual, going over menus and things, trying to figure the darn thing out. In order to get exactly what you're looking for, you have to go through several different menu choices (that don't even seem like they'll lead you where you need to go) before you find it. The battery life on this phone is an absolute disgrace. I have to plug mine in every single day, or it dies. And unfortunately, since my car lighter doesn't work, plugging it into my car charger isn't an option. I don't know if it's the interior antennae or what, but the signal on this phone is just lousy. It drops calls, gets fuzzy (like an analog phone), and just seems to have a difficult time picking up a good signal. I can stand in one place and not move and watch the signal bar jump up and down. If you want a decent phone, this is not the phone for you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89658 2000/5/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap actually it s free with some providers small third party covers are crap The Bottom LineGreat phone but loaded with irritating "features" that you're not likely to want or need. Full Review I got my 3390 in a deal with Voicestream at my local mall where I got the phone free. I tried to find the catch in the deal but couldn't and three months down the line, I'm happy to say it was a geniune steal. I've not been raped on hidden charges from the provider, and the phone has been flawless in operation. It's the usual Nokia fare, with the usual Nokia settings and the usual number of extremely irritating ring tones. Here's the first downside. The 3390 doesn't actually have a ring tone any more - there isn't one of the multiple irritating little noises that actually sounds like a phone ringing any more. They're all beepy, whiny, irritating noises. You might have guess that I don't like ring tones, but if you're one of the billions who do, this Nokia, like most before it, will allow you to download ring tones from internet sites to your phone. So you too can have the latest hits rendered unrecognisable by a cellphone's 7-tone ringer :) Also, like so many other Nokia phones, this one is loaded up with features that have no place on a telephone, like games. I think the 3390 comes with three but given that I wanted a phone and not a games machine, I couldn't tell you for sure. It also comes with a calculator function which, on the face of it, seems extremely useful, but in reality is nauseatingly complex to use. The phonebook is easy to use in the 3390, and easy to get the numbers back out of. It's amazing how many phone manufacturers make their in-built phonebooks so hard to use, but the Nokia is the usual robust, well-designed system that you can pick up and use without needing to read the manual. If you fancy third party covers for your phone, be careful with the 3390. It's a complete swine to get the covers off in the first place, and not one of the third-party covers I've tried has fitted properly (I've tried roughly 20). More importantly, the genuine Nokia covers have a small rubber grommet behind the grille where the earpiece is. This fits neatly over the speaker inside the phone and channels all the sound from the speaker out through the grille to your ear. None of the third-party covers have this, and as a result, the calls are a lot quieter - you'll need to turn the volume up to max to be able to hear anything. I'm guessing the sound is being reflected off the inside of the cover and away from your ear. You can modify any cover to work properly with a bit of superglue and some thin rubber sealant, but it's annoying that the cover manufacturers don't do this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.01 89657 2000/11/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 inexpensive for the new user small loud ring signal strength is quirky drops calls constantly The Bottom LineFor an average user, this phone works. But for anyone who depends on their cell phone, I would suggest that you get something else. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is a good phone for what it was designed for. . users who do not use cell phones heavily, and don't depend on them constantly. That's why it's one of the phones that you see being given away free with a new cell phone plan. The full product details on this phone are: Basic info: Talk time: Up to 3 hours and 45 minutes Standby time: Up to 7.5 days Size: 4.3 L x 1.8 W inches Weight: 4.7 oz. Built-in Paging Caller ID Conference Calling Call Waiting and Call Hold Access to Directory Assistance Emergency Calls AOL Instant Messenger™ Service (AIM®) Voicemail with Message Alert Call Forwarding The Nokia also has a built in antenna and vibrating alert. It is a small size so it's handy to put in your pocket or purse, and has a hands free kit that makes it easy to use in the car, etc. For the low end cell phone user, it works well. The problem comes when you are someone who uses a cell phone constantly . .as I do. I have had this phone replaced twice due to it's problems. . the signal strength on this phone is quirky, seeming to have a mind of it's own. You can sit in the same place, put your phone on the desk, not move, and have the signal change from 4 bars (full strength) to 1 or even no bars in an instant. There is no reason for this that I, or the manufacturer, is aware of. This phone also drops calls constantly. My experience has been when I've been on a call for over 10 minutes, the call will drop and then the signal strength will go back to normal, and it will allow you to make another call. Then, when you're on that call for over 10 minutes, that call will also drop. Since I am in IT and need my phone to work (and sometimes will be on calls for up to 3 hours if there is a system outage), this problem is unacceptable to me, and I am actively looking for a different phone. If you do not have the need to be on long calls, and the quirkiness of the signal does not bother you, this phone will work fine, as it has many good uses. You get what you pay for, and in this case, that says it all. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 89656 2000/6/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very portable light none The Bottom LineThis phone is the best! Full Review This phone has everything you need in a cell phone, it's perfect. I like how it works in every way. It's light, portable, clear, and has great features. It's features include a phone book, many games, a key guard, and those are just a few of the excellent features. I love it, it has always worked perfectly in all of times I have needed it. I recommend this phone to anyone and everyone it is great. It's internal antena works better than my mom's which has a half inch antena. I like it everyway I can't stress that enough. Please buy this phone. It rocks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 36 89655 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 low price excellent reception fully customizable short battery life The Bottom LineExcellent phone for any level of users Full Review Recently, I changed from my Star Tac Timeport 8167 to Nokia 3390. I also changed service provider from Sprint PCS to Voicestream who uses GSM network. Why Nokia 3390 Price First, I bought the phone for its low price. I signed up with a year contract, so I received the phone for less than $100. Some place offered the same phone for less than $50 with a contract on the internet. So, if you look, you can buy this phone really cheap. Functions If you like gadgets, then this is the phone. Generally all functions are very intuitive. You only need to look at manuals when you are trying to do something that you never usually do with a phone such as composing, text messaging and so on. This phone has about 10 main categories in its menu. 1. Phone Book - you can add/remove phone numbers, Assign voice tag for number you want to call often (Voice Dialing- This actually work quite well.), One touch dialing(it's extremely helpful if you can remember whose number is assigned to which number.) 2. Messages Voicestream offers what they call Ping Pong Talk. It's text messaging system. You can go to their website to send messages like email or you can use phone to type it in. There are many templates available for common message such as I will be late or something like that. If you want, you can even send Smileys and pictures. Oh, you can check your inbox and outbox as well. 3. Call Log This is pretty much self-explanatory. Unlike my previous cellphone service(Sprint PCS), you can't really check the remaining minutes by calling in special number or in the net. You have to call the customer service representative to figure that out. So, Call Log is more important in Voicestream. 4. Profile It's a place where you store your preferences. Unlike some phone I have tried, you can have multiple preferences by occasion. For example, you can use normal setting for your everyday usage and there is silent setting for the situation that requires such. One big difference to this feature is that each setting can be customized to your liking. So, you can set one tone for your normal setting, and set a separate tone for silent. You can actually assign a different tone for a different person as well. 5. Setting Basic phone and security settings 6. Forwarding There are three options. Forward all calls, Forward only when you don't answer, and Forward none. 7. Games Snake, Bantumi, Pairs II, and Space Impact. I have only used Snake,so I can't tell you much about the other, but Snake is quite enjoyable when you need to wait for someone. 8. Calculator 9. Calender 10. Composer With some training, you can compose your own tones. Or, you can go to internet to find some. It really works Custom Accessories Like any other Nokia phones, there are so many accessories available. You can use OEM or genuine accessories, but that will cost a lot more. There are a lot of accessories where you can just buy for a few bucks on the net like eBay. You can even change the backlit color if you want from weak green to bright blue led. Looks pretty cool in blue. Reception I have a lot of problem with my Star Tac Timeport especially reception areas. This one has no problem. It's really strong. However, there was some unusual fluctualtion in reception sometimes. For example, you are standing in a same place, but the reception suddenly drops and go back to full again. I have heard it's quite common to Nokia phones. As you can see, I love this phone. Only problem I have is with the Voicestream. I still can't check my remaining minutes. They don't give first minute for free when you are either calling or receiving like Sprint. When you call customer service, you are using the minutes. Beside that, I like the service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89654 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 is easy to useis great options could be smaller The Bottom Linethis phone is great you have to buy it because it is very appealing and has great functions Full Review The 3390 came with my contract with voice-stream, it is a GSM based phone(uses a SIM card).4.3 inches tall and 1.9 inches wide This phone weighs about 4.2 ounces with a standard battery. The standard battery lasts around 2 hours 30 minutes of talk time and around 5 to 6 days standby. You can also get the extended battery which only increases the weight of the phone, it doesn't make the phone more bulky. IT has the option of ex-press on covers which come in a large variety of colours which are: Artic silver(My favorite) Himilaya white Iceberg grey Mica pearl Navy blue Polar blue Sahara yellow Vesuvis red one of its best features is the fact that it has a composer which lets you compose your own melodies (only one can be saved). but u can download or receive 5 other ring tones which can be kept on the phone.u can also edit g profiles which can be accessed very easily. it also has voice-dialing where u can store up to 8 numbers which can be accessed by voice dialing. it also comes with new games: snake 2, space impact pairs and bantumi. The phone book can store 0 numbers on the phone but can store 250 numbers on the sim card. it comes with a calender which u can set alarms which will display messages.the standard battery comes with the vibrating alert option. you also get caller id. its very durable and easy to use. it is not too small and not to big. its battery life is great. On an overall I recomend this phone is a must to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89653 2000/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 downloadable ringtones changeable faceplates lightweight small easy to use simple no auto keylock can only text message other voicestream phones The Bottom LineThe light, compact, inexpensive 3390 is user friendly and full of useful features. At $70 it's a great buy for those who want a lot of phone for little money Full Review I just stopped using my Ericsson R280LX with AT&T recently, because I was able to get a second line with VoiceStream. My R280LX was acting up, and rather than pay to get it fixed, I opted to get a different phone with a different company. I wanted to get the Ericsson T28 World phone, because I already have one that my fiancée uses. Unfortunately, the Upgrades department couldn't get me that one, so I opted for the 3390 instead. I was really surprised at how easy this phone is to use! It fits well in my hand and I can operate it without having to look at the key pad most times. There are only a few buttons dealing with the operation of the phone, so it's not all that confusing. One main button, which is usually labeled 'Menu' but changes to 'Select', 'Back', and other labels. There are three other buttons that deal with the menus as well. There is the C button. It is usually the 'clear' or 'backspace' button. It backs you out of menus and erases text. Then there are the two arrow keys. These are usually for scrolling through menu bars. The down arrow allows you to save the number you have punched into the keypad at that moment. Great for when you want to save that Pizza Place number without having to re-enter the number later. I have never owned a Nokia phone before, so I was new to this brand. Someone had told me that most people prefer Nokia. Since I'd mostly dealt with Ericsson phones, that was my preference. But now, compared with my fiancée's T28, this 3390 is a breeze to use! The menus are a little more user friendly, and use more common sense. This phone has a lot of features, but not as many as other phones on the market. First, there's the phone book. It's laid out very well. You can browse your phone book by Name Only, Name and Number, or Name List. The Name Only feature is just that, Name Only. When you are scrolling through your book, only the name will appear, and nothing else. The Name and Number funtion is also just that. When you scroll through your book, the name and the number show up, and nothing else. The Name list is similar to the name only function, but rather than just one name, several names show up, and you can see the other names listed alphabetically in the phone book. I like this feature the best, because I can scroll down and see who I need to call without having to go through a bunch of random names. Nokia saves the numbers in alphabetical order, where as Ericsson saves them in numbered slots, in the order they were entered. The Nokia also lets you voice-tag various numbers. This function works by pressing and holding the menu button until a little tone sounds. Then you say the name of the person you want to call. Of course, you can't do this until you assign voice-tags to your numbers. This is a great feature to use, whether you're driving or just chillin' at home. It does have it's faults, though. Several times it either doesn't know what I'm saying or brings up the wrong name. I'd say this feature works about 60% of the time. It would probably work better if I just memorized how I said the name originally and said it the exact same way every time. Another feature of the phone book is the Edit feature. On my Ericsson, it was difficult to edit a number you had, and you couldn't change its position at all. So, if Joe was entry #34, no matter what you did, that position would have Joe's info, unless you changed it to Jeff's info, but it would still be #34. Nokia eliminates this by not assigning numbers to positions, and therefore makes it easy to change information that was previously saved. You can also assign various ringtones to certain names. On my Ericsson, you had to assign a name to a category, then assign a ringtone to that category. Very tedious. Nokia's phone is better, because all you do is assign the name to the tone. Now, when my mom calls, the phone rings the Coca-Cola theme. Very easy to identify who's calling before you even look! Ringtones are very popular right now. Free Ringtones are even more popular. This phone has the Composer on it, which will allow you to 'write' your own ringtone. Great if you know what you're doing! Fortunately for me, there were some sites out there that give you the information to put into your phone to 'compose' your new ringtone. Then you can save it into a slot on the phone. The downside to this is that there is only one slot for the composer. There are four slots for downloaded ringtones, which gives you five total 'original' ringtones. To make the ringtone you put in the phone with composer a 'downloaded' ringtone, you have to send this ringtone to yourself and then save it in one of the four slots. It's simple enough to do, but I wish I could just save it in any of the five available slots. The 3390, as with most new phones allows you to send text messages to other devices. Unfortunately, with my phone, I can pretty much only send text messages to other VoiceStream customers, so that limits my messaging abilities. I don't mind too much, because it is rather tedious to type out a message. It's a lot easier to do though, because Nokia uses a predictive type function, what Ericsson called T9 Tegic. You just push the button of the letter for each part of the word. For instance, to say Hello, you'd type in 43556 and it would know that you want to say hello. Sometimes several words can be made from the same numbers, so you just push the star button, and then you'll scroll through the words that correspond to the numbers. Then you just keep going on with your message. The 3390 also has 'Profiles.' This allows you to set up various settings for the phone. At work, I can't answer my phone, so I set the phone up so that it doesn't vibrate, doesn't ring and it makes no sound. Nokia has 4 pre-programmed profiles, and you can edit them, as well as add two of your own. To change profiles, you can go through the menu and select the profile you want, or you can just tap the power button and scroll through the list. Really useful and easy. The 3390 has 4 games on it also, Snake 2, Pairs 2, Space Impact, and Bantumi. In Snake you control a snake and run around various mazes and eat dots and mice and spiders. All the while your tail gets longer. You try not hit anything either. Pairs is a matching game. Whoopie. Space Impact is cool, like a side scrolling space invaders game. Shoot'em up! Bantumi is also known as Mancala. You move your pebbles around a board and try to get more in your pot than your opponent does. Fun, fun, fun. I usually play these on my breaks at work. This phone also has a calculater and a calendar. Not much new going on here, but it's nice to have a calculater handy. The 'neatest' part of the phone is the Instant Messanger feature built into it. You can sign into AOL's Instant Messanger and chat with your online buddies when you're not on the computer. Really neat. You just set up AIM on your computer and then you're good to go. There is a slight delay in sending and receiving messages, but it's not deathly slow as some of the 'internet' phones have been. The 3390 hasn't been out too terribly long, but it already has tons of accessories available for it. The big thing is the faceplates. Just look online for '3390 faceplates' and you'll see about a hundred of 'em. It's pretty simple to change the faceplates, too. Just push and slide the back off, then pull the front off, and there you go! On the downside, the 3390 doesn't support Logos, which are pretty neat. You can add little pictures (logos) to other phones, but this one doesn't support that function. Also, unlike my Ericsson, you have to manually lock the keys, so that you don't end up calling *#794 on accident. Yep, you can do that, just by putting the small phone in your pocket and bumping things. Not too bad, I just have to get used to locking and unlocking the keypad. Also, the LEDs on the keypad and LCD screen aren't very bright, so using the phone in the dark is a bit dimmer than you'd hope. Not a big deal, but they could have put about four more LEDs in there to make it a little better. Overall, the 3390 was a good buy for me. VoiceStream has a great, although limited in area, service. I always have good connections, and it never cuts out. This phone is light enough and small enough you could put it in your breast pocket of your jacket or in the front pocket of your jeans and you'd never know it. I really like this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89652 2002/7/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 customizable internal antenna small weighty for its size The Bottom LineI recommend this product because it is one that gets good "bang for the buck" points. Full Review I have had this phone for a year and 3 months. It is a good phone for most light to average users. I have had no troubles with this phone (Once it froze up, but that's not bad.) This phone has all the features I need: -SMS=Short Message Service --Predictive Text Messaging --Concatenated Messages (160 characters * 3) --Picture Messages --Ringtones over SMS -"Calendar" / Reminders -Calculator --Exchange Rates --Simple Usage -Games --4 Games: Snake 2, Bantumi, Pairs, and Space Impact. -Ringtone Composer --Whoohoo! Now u can make ur own ringtones. -Phone Book: 110 Names/Numbers on SIM card. (Dependent on SIM Card) All of these features make this phone the perfect for me. The SMS features help alot. The T9 Predictive Text is correct about 95% of the time, if not more. It makes writing messages very quick and easy. The picture messaging is wonderful, if the other person has a Nokia 3390 or other Nokia PM-capable phone. The longer Concatenated messages are great, but again are only recieveable if they have a newer Nokia or a 3390. The Ringtones are great, as now I don't *have* to have just the programmed tones. The Calendar / Reminders help me organize my stuff and stuff to do, go, go get, finish, yada yada yada. These little remiders show up on screen if you set the alarm or you can use them like Sticky Notez or a planner and have the day-minder there. The calculator is simple and won't solve the quadratic formula for u, but it does do the exchange rates (after you figure out which is which) and does do simple maths. "4+4=8" or "4-3=1" or "4*4=16" or "4/4=1" And "170£ to ?$" Hehe, the best part the Games. Four totally different games (even Snake is different) to play with on this phone. If your bored and want to do something to occupy the mind, these games will fill out that need. The ringtone composer is good, I can input the music so, whoohoo!, I have had 5 different tones this last 2 weeks. :) -- I don't think *I*'m obssive, do YOU? The address book is good because it'll hold up to 110 names and numbers, and that is much more than i think i'll ever need, i mean EVER. I don't need WAP/Mobil Internet services until GPRS comes out, even then I still might just be considering a Mobil Internet phone. I've also heard that there isn't much on the Mobil Internet anyways and that it's not very content-based. So, I don't miss this feature on the phone. Although what I do miss is a FM radio or MP3 player. These would be great features, and would make it more teen chic. Okay, so now my phone has had 'the' drop (from 5-6 feet onto cold, hard, not-giving stone at the local mall). Fortunately it wasn't by me [:-)]. It still is functional, but it does have it's 'quirks', such as something is loose in the antenna cabinent and jingles when the phone moves from side to side. Also, the screen will flash on-and-of very quickly if that jingly thing is moved correctly. However, I cannot really complain, it still works, and not much has changed. It's time for a new phone anyway! There are also many after-market products (from Europe and Asia) that work well for this phone. And Nokia has sleeves, batteries and "licenced" faceplates. This makes this phone very customizeable and it stands out from the other 3390s and 8290s. Overall, I'd say it is a good phone to work with, and it will defintely work for light users and youth (like me). [Update for clarity and grimmer on 19 May 2001] [Updated on 4 July 2002 for updated informations] Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89651 2001/10/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small ring tone composer vibration very portable short battery life just okay reception The Bottom LineUnless you want a WAP phone or a phone with good battery life, this is a great little phone for the average person. Full Review I began with a Nokia 7190, but that had too many problems, and then Cingular Wireless (Southern California) discontinued it due to the problems that too many customers were having with the 7190. I had to return it, and they exchanged it for this Nokia 3390. The reliability has been much better than the Nokia 7190 (except for the reception and battery life). HERE ARE THE GOOD POINTS ABOUT THE PHONE: - Ring tones (the phone comes with approx. 35 ring tones preprogrammed) - Ring tone composer: (you can look online for sites that give you the notes to enter into the ring composer)...this way you don't have to download the ringtones that some web sites require you to pay for. - Customizable ring tones: you can save up to 4 ringtones in addition to the ones already preprogrammed and have 1 stored in your composer - Messages: templates and smileys included; the predictive text input method comes in very handy and works great when writing messages - Size: small, very portable and convenient to carry around (but don't lose it or drop it!) - Vibration built-in (you don't even have to buy a special battery or anything for this) - Screen Savers: (although I haven't figured out how to download or obtain more screen savers for free, but the phone already comes with approx. 9 screen savers) - Call log: logs the last 10 called numbers, the last 10 received numbers, and the last 10 missed calls - Profiles: create 6 different profiles - Phone book: very convenient and easy to use. All names and numbers are stored on the SIM card. In other words, you can't have some stored in the phone's memory and some stored on the SIM card. - Games: Snake II, Space Impact, Bantumi, Pairs II - Calculator - Calendar - Alarm - Clock - Volume control SOME BAD POINTS ABOUT THE PHONE: - Internal antenna: actually this could be a good point depending on who you are talking to. An internal antenna is much more convenient, but it doesn't get as good reception as a phone with an external antenna...which could come in handy if your in an area that doesn't get strong signal. Those people in an area that gets strong signal don't have to worry about reception, in which case an internal antenna would probably be more desirable. My mother has a Nokia with an external antenna, and the place she lives gets some signal, but not very good, but she gets better reception than me. - Very easy to accidentally push a button (which means you gotta use the keyguard often) - Voice activated dialing: tried to use it, but it is too hard to match my voice with my voice that I had used to program into the phone THE BIGGEST COMPLAINT I HAVE ABOUT THIS PHONE: - Battery life: The Nokia web site claims this phone has approx 5-5.5 days of standby time with the included Ni-MH battery. I never get this much amount of standby time. The most I get if I absolutely don't use the phone is 2-2.5 days of standby time. If you use the phone everyday, expect to recharge the phone every night. (On average, I get about 1.5 days of total time out of this phone before I have to recharge it). OTHER COMMENTS ABOUT THE PHONE: - Quite easy to change the faceplate - The power button is located on the top of the phone - I've had a couple instances where the phone just froze. I had to remove the battery and put the battery back in again to get the phone started again. - Buying a Li-Ion from Nokia to replace the Ni-MH battery is quite expensive. However, a Li-Ion battery (made in China) can be bought on auction websites for about US$10, or if you look around the Internet, a Li-Ion battery (made in Japan) can be bought for about US$30. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69 89650 2000/8/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 calendar calculator games compact size hidden antennae li ion batter costs extra small size easy to loseawkward to talk into The Bottom LineA powerful, but compact phone with very few tradeoffs. If you can do without the convenience of dual-mode, this is an excellent value. Full Review I bought this phone to replace a piece-of-junk Ericsson CF888. I lost the dual-mode capability of the Ericsson (which didn't work anyway) to get a better quality digital only phone. There are many quality features like the calculator and calendar (with alarm and notes), 30+ custom rings (more can be downloaded or self-programmed), four games, and more. I haven't found a way to use it with my laptop as a modem, but the salesperson said it could be done. The small size is an asset and a liability. It's very portable and lightweight. But the size makes it easier to lose though you could always call the phone and follow the ring if you didn't turn it off. It also is a little awkward to hold to year ear and speak into. Hold a credit card to year ear and you'll get the idea. I also bought the hands-free car kit which works well, but takes a little getting used to. I kept finding myself looking at the speaker (in the cigarette adapter) while I talked. This is more dangerous than holding to my ear while driving. Also, the adapter is pretty big, so if your cigarette lighter is in a tight spot, it may not fit. Overall, however, I've been very pleased and would recommend it to most anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89649 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features customizability size no wap access Full Review The new Nokia 3390 is the company's latest entry into the US mobile phone market. This phone is aimed squarely at the low end user, but it is loaded with advanced features. Intended to be placed below the Nokia 8890 World Phone as well as the Nokia 8290 "style" phone, the new 3390 is larger and more customizable, following the scheme created with the last generation's 6100 and 5100 series. The Good: The features of this phone are excellent. With up to 2 1/2 hours of talk time and 7 1/2 days of standby, this phone is Nokia's current leader in both categories. Predictive text input for SMS messaging is also included for this phone, one of the most advanced features available. Customization of the phone is also a priority. When Nokia realized the success it had with the 5100 series' interchangeable covers, it quickly turned around and made interchangeable front and back fascias, allowing people to change the look of the entire phone. Nokia also created a new generation of games to play on this phone, directly appealing to teenagers, who were especially hooked on Snake. Lastly, the small size of the phone is excellent. Not too small that it becomes cumbersome to use, while being sleek and incorporating the essence of the 8200 and 8800 series, the style of the 3390 is excellent. The Bad: One feature is glaringly absent from this phone, WAP access. With the recent availability of internet access via mobile phone, it is unsettling that Nokia has not introduced a WAP phone into the US. Conclusion: As a phone, the Nokia 3390 is excellent for users who are looking for long talk times as well as the latest features. Unless mobile internet is a priority, then this phone should be high on your list. With its low price and great features, this is a top choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 89648 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweight na The Bottom LineI love this phone, ALMOST as much as my 5190. the reception was great and call clarity was terrific Full Review for anyone who has read any of my previous opinions on cell phones you will know that i am quite dedicated to my Nokia 5190. i know its getting old, falling apart but i love it. BUT i did try this little 3390 out for a few days and i ALMOST talked myself into it. It is very light weight and most of the features, as usual with Nokia are easy to use and navigate. Their are some great games to pass the time. the voice tag feature took a little getting used to but after getting all the settings just right it was convenient to just have to say "call home" instead of searching for the numbers. I had great reception and the calls were crisp and clear. changing the covers was not as easy as with my 5190 but still at least offers the chance to modify and personalize the phone. the melody composer for making your own ring tones is a Great idea and actually my favorite feature, you can get the notes for most songs off the internet and compose them yourself. All in all this is a good, low price new tech toy and i do recommend it for those who do not want to make a 450.00 investment in the top end gadgets. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89647 2000/7/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 games lots of customizable features it s a nokia flimsy weak signal 2 hour talk time bulky no web access The Bottom LineBottom line: Great if you live in area with many towers and love bells and whistles. Not too great if you accidently abuse and use your phone all the time. Full Review This review will be based on Cingular service in Northern California, specifically the Sacramento and Bay Area. I got the Nokia 3390 free during a promotion at a store where I got to college in May 2001. The first time I held the phone at the store, it felt light and the buttons felt accurate. So I ended up getting a plan for Cingular. The day I got my phone I charged the battery overnight like they said and used it frequently every since. So far I really like how small it is. I can hold it in my hands and it fits fine, thanks to it's bulkiness and round shape. And the accuracy of the buttons pressed is a plus too, doesn't feel to rubbery or solid, just right. I bought the 3390 for its customizable features and Nokia did not let me down. It came with a pleathora of customizablity. From the variety of faceplates available from Nokia and from the aftermarket, to the tones 36 given and 5 customizable tones, and even voice recognizition, this phone had all the updated features recently without going too far. I frequently use text messages to save my friends a minute or two of there talk time, so thanks to the T9 regonizable text, it makes it soooo much easier for me to type. Furthermore, the screensavers, although it does not move, gives the phone even more of a U to it. I love everything you can do with this phone. It even has a palm-like calendar reminder to remind you of birthdays, meetings, and so on. It also comes with 4 games: snake2, pairs2, bantumi and space impact. Finally, there is a vibrating mechanism inside the 3390, which isn't too hard or too soft, just enough so you know there is a phone call waiting for you. On the other hand, what I don't like about the phone is also the size. Because it is so small, it makes it flimsy and easily dropable.. I have already dropped the phone several times, no LCD damage as of yet, but the casing has suffered scraps and bruses everywhere. This is because the casing is not very durable plastic material that is not seen in the 8290 phone. There is only two pieces to the faceplate, the front and the back, but they are both plastic and the surface's initial rough surface has rubbed off to reveal a coarse and cheap feeling. Furthermore, the 3390 is very and I repeat, VERY sensative to reception. I live near Bayfair Mall and I can not get good reception at all. (1 bar right now) but when I go 2 blocks away to Blockbuster Video, I 3-4 bars instantly. I came to this conclusion because my friend who also has Cingular service has a 6190, but gets perfect reception. He lives down the block from me, so it's the internal attena sensitive to blame. Finally, the battery life on the phone is only 2 hours of talk time, which is sufficient for most people, but I would like to get 4 plus hours just in case of emergencies. However, battery life comes at the size of the battery so that makes perfect sense. And where is the web access?? Let me add that the 3390 works fine when I am at Davis, CA, thanks to better reception and less population of people. Just the phone is very sensative and needs a really good tower to receive optimal sound. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ con 89646 2001/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light stylisheasy to use not really any The Bottom LineA small phone thats easy to carry and fun to use. Full Review All right ladies and gents, yes I know that it has been awhile since my last review but hey even I have to work. Anyways here we have the newest American Nokia Phone to hit the market the Nokia 3390 . Not a bad little phone is the approach that I most often use to sell it and underselling it I am. This is one great little phone, do I dare even say one of the best phones on the 1900 GSM. Here is the rundown on what it has to offer. SIZE The Nokia 3390 is only 4.3 in. long x 1 in. thick x 1.9 in. wide. Making it great to easily store in pockets or purse without really getting in the way. And weighing in at a mere 4.2 oz. with the battery you really wouldn't even notice it there anyways. BATTERY Ahh my favorite story is about how my Motorola Startac ended up in the Mohawk River thanks to the battery dying on me. No such luck here for you scuba divers because this little puppy has up to 5.5 days of Standby Time (when the phone is ready to receive calls but is not backlight) and 2 hours and 40 minutes of Talk time (when actually using the phone). Nokia continues to prove that they can lead the way in battery life on phones. FEATURES Here is just a little bit of a taste of what this phone has to offer: Calendar, clock, calculator Use these features to program reminders years in advance and set alarms plus you can figure out just how much to tip at the next company lunch. Ring Tone Composer Don't like any of the ring tones on the phone and feel that you can do better. Well here is your chance make up your own and use it to impress your friends. Vibra-Call Vibrates when your phone rings to let you know that you have a call. Voice Activated Dialing Just say the name and dail upto 8 preset voice activated numbers. Plus many many more! RECEPTION With the internal antenna and solid front and back removable faceplate I figured that this phone was going to lose reception. Actually it was better then most stub or pullout antenna that I've seen. I don't know how they did it but they did it great. LOOKS Always important when it comes to phones now a day. The phone comes in a light blue (at least for VoiceStream in the Northeast) but no worries if you don't like the colors. Nokia also offers their line of X-Press On Covers allowing you to customize your phone. The Bad Of course there always has to be some bad.... Holds on I'm thinking...okay I thought of one. Once you snap the battery into place it is quite difficult to get it out again and does take a little bit of practice to get it in and out quickly. CONCLUSION With style, features and grace this one is a no brainer. It easily made its way onto my top five phone list as follows: 1. Nokia 8290 2. Nokia 3390 3. Ericsson T28 World 4. Nokia 6190 5. Nokia 6161 All and all if you are looking to get onto the VoiceStream or any other GSM network you can not go wrong with this phone. It has almost everything you can ever need. This Phone was made for use on a text messaging. I'll be posting a review on its uses for that a little later after I've had the time to really use it myself. All specs on phone taken directly from the Nokia Website. Any farther questions on the phone please visit http://www.nokiausa.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89645 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 not a flip up phone sizeeasy access to numbers unlike smaller phones switching snap on covers can be a pain The Bottom LineBiggest Bang for the Buck Full Review If you are a mobile phone user and you are looking for a practical phone that doesn't sacrifice size and ease-of-use, then the Nokia 3390 is for you. Design The design is very comfortable in the hand as you speak. The buttons are not so small and close together that you mis-enter numbers when calling. The scroll buttons are very easy to use as well as the access to the power buttons. The weight of this phone is so pleasing the hand - i.e. you don't feel like it's a plastic toy about to break if you accidentally drop it, and it doesn't feel like a ton either. My only gripe with the design of this phone is changing the snap-in covers if you want a new design or color for your phone. It is pretty difficult to remove the necessary pieces to change the covers, but that is of no consequence if you buy the phone in the color you desire. Features and Functionality The menu system in the Nokia is so easy and so user-friendly that you can't imagine a better design - unless they come out with voice activated browsing of the menu system (how cool would that be). Features such as 1-touch dialing, voice-dialing, and call logs are very helpful, although many mobile phones seem to have these features now. One of the great feature of most Nokias are the absence and nuisance of a flap (unless you want one). No longer do you have to flip open the flap to see the time, although many new models are coming out that have the display on the outside of the flap. Although 2-piece phones allow for protection of the number pads, Nokia has countered any problems of accidental pushing of buttons by employing a feature called Key-Lock. Really easy to implement and easy to disable. Different rings can be assigned to different callers, and you can download new rings if you like. Depending on service Provider, you can get text messaging as well as AOL Instant Messenger with your 3390 (Voicestream has AOL). If you already have a buddy list, you can log on through your phone and IM with your buddies as you would at home or in the office (for some of you slackers out there). The 3390 also has very easy to read display - signal strength and battery strength indicators are stylistically featured on the main menu. My favorite part of this phone has to be its long battery life. Compared to Motorola's and some others, I love the fact that I don't have to charge the phone every night. That can become cumbersome when you have evening phone calls to make and you are out in the middle of nowhere (with a signal of course). Speaking of signals, with Voicestream in NYC, I actually have a clearer connection than with my AT&T land line. You can also purchase additiona SIM cards to install into the phone should you decide to go abroad and call around. Details for how to use that may differ from each service provider. All in all, for the price (free for me with Voicestream plan - or $60-$70), you really can't beat the basic and extra features that this phone has to offer, not to mention its ease of use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $70 value 89644 2000/3/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool games lots of features bigger than 8260 kind of heavy The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to picky people like me, who expect everything from a phone. Also recommended to chinese people. Full Review This phone is one of the coolest phones I have ever used, it's got a calculator, calender, space impact( kind of like macross/galaga) best nokia game to date in my opinion, the other games kind of blow. This phone is just packed with features, you want ringtones? can't find them on the web? CREATE YOUR OWN!!! This phone has a ringtone composer, it's a little bit hard to understand how to use it but once you play with it for about 5 minutes, you can create any song you like, provided you know a thing or two about music. This phone is very simple to use, it is basically the upgraded version of the 5190, giving you evrything in the 6190 plus a few more options so you can fully customize your phone. One of the many cool things about this phone is that you can change both the front and the back faceplate, so instead of having a mismatched phone, you now have a phone that is the same color all around! The only complaint that I have about this phone is that it is too big for my tastes. If it was Nokia 8260 size, that would be absoloutely perfect. So far this is the closest thing I have seen to a perfect phone, just needs to me smaller and have a functional slide like the 8890! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89643 2000/7/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features for a cheap phone reception is questionable somewhat flimsy The Bottom LineBest starter phone with more features than you think. Full Review When I signed up for Cingular's (excellent) plan, they gave me a choice of 2 free phones (a 5000 series Nokia or an Ericson). I, of course, wanted to see what my options were if I foot in a little more on top of service. I was given a choice of a 8000 series (the really small one, but looks very nice) for $100, or the Motorola StarTec Timeport for $400. Both phones were a bit out of my leauge in terms of pricing! So the salesperson showed me their one and only (last one they had) Nokia 3390. Having such a low model number than the rest, I thought it was even cheaper (and worse) product than the 5000 series that they were giving away. I thought I was just paying for the small size. They offered the phone for $39.99 (same price as the service). I took it, and was glad I did. It turns out that the 3390 is actually a brand new phone that just came out recently when I bought it (about 2 months ago from time of writing). But this still wasn't the reason why I was happy with my purchase. After a couple of weeks later, I found Cingular advertising for this phone, and was quoted at $69 with activation! Glad I got mine when I did! I started playing with the phone and realized that there are lots of high-end features that even those expensive Motorolas don't have. Features such as the user interface (a lot friendlier and easier to use than the Startec), included games, calculator, calendar, alarms, and (my favorite) Voice Tags! The games that was included with the phone is listed here: Snake II Space Impact Bantumi Pairs II The calculator is very basic, so you would NOT want to use this feature as your only math assistant. Most of the functions must be selected via a menu system. Though easy to use, I'd rather hit "+" "-" "/" or "*" when I do simple math, instead of hunting thru the menus. The calendar feature I don't use, but it has a feature than one wouldn't think it have! YES, it tells you the date, but it also lets you make notes for that particular day. Interesting feature, but most likely not used by most. Many of us will have a Palm or a WinCE (Pocket PC) for those functions. Standard fare Nokia, they allow you to create and recieve text messages, if YOUR SERVICE allows it, that is. Okay, enough of the little things... I did say my favorite feature was the Voice Tags. You'd think it's a small trivial feature, but it is very useful (and most often used by me) during driving (or when I'm lazy). Once a voice tag is assigned (max of 8 tags - small amouont, so use it on your most frequently called people), you can get your 3390 to call someone from your Phone Book by saying the tag. The tag isn't really a sophisticated voice recogintion. It just matches the best it can to what you recorded earlier when you assigned the tags. To call someone, you'd push and hold the middle button with the green stripe (in the LCD display, it should say "Menu" above the button) until you hear a unique tone (so you won't mistaken it for something else). When you hear the tone, just say the tag. When the tag is recognized, it will play back the tag that matches the most (and sometimes, it doesn't match). "Tod Cell" can be mistaken for "Bob Cell" if you have those two tags in the system. It works well most of the time, but when driving with the stereo up or windows down, it will interfere with how the Voice Tag work. 3 beeps will indicate that it did not recognize the tag it just heard from you. Small minor (but still important) plus is that this phone is very cool! No, not in the "chic" sense, but in the temperature sense. It does get slightly warm (barely noticeable) during long usage, but unlike most phones I've used (Qualcom being one), it's relatively cool - even during charging. This phone is one of the flimsiest I've ever felt! One drop ruined my LCD display, as well as sending my phone in different directions when it broke into several pieces. And this is a drop from hip-height! Thankfully, Cingular has an insurance service for an extra $2.99 a month. It is worth it, as this "cheap" phone costs about $200 without activation! Reception, perhaps either due to Cingular service or to the internal antenna, is very lacking. It is hard to get a full bar, averging half of the full bar wherever I go. I usually get one or no bars if I walk indoors. Battery life with the included NiMH batteries don't last too long. Talk time of about 2 hours, 3 days standby is not that long! Thankfully, there are third party battery manufactuers (pretty cheap, too) that makes Lithium Ion batteries that last waaaay longer. Now, my calls average about 3 hours and standby of about a week! Recomendations Shortcommings are...well.... SHORT! The plusses waaaay outwiegh the negatives, so if you get a chance with this GSM phone, don't pass it up! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 89642 2002/7/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 menu features downloadable ringtonesoperator logo good rfvoice quality size not using standard headphone jack weight The Bottom LineI would recommend the Nokia 3390, because it`s loaded with features, good RF capabilities, good sound quality and easy to operate. Full Review This phone was given by the cell phone carrier when signing for a monthly plan. Please take this into account for my review. I bought this product because my other cell phone carrier (AT&T) did not have a good coverage near my home. So I decided to go GSM! Take note that GSM phone have 1 watt of power instead of .6 watt for a TDMA phone. Thus the GSM phones are much more powerful, and it is the case for the Nokia 3390. The RF (radio frequency) performance is good. Because it has a built in antenna, you have to be careful where you put your fingers when you are holding the phone. Putting them anywhere near the top of the phone can severely interfere with the performance of that hidden antenna and the reception will suffer. The sound quality is good and the earpiece is loud enough. The ring volume is not loud enough but the phone can vibrate at the same time. No headset came with this phone and you have to buy Nokia`s headset because they don`t use the 2.5 mm standard jack. You can customize the looks of your phone by replacing the front and back cover, either O.E.M. or jobber from lots of stores on the web. The battery is tuck inside the phone. It`s a extended Nickel Metal Hydride model. It can last for about 4 days on one charge with casual talking. (less than 15 minutes a day) One thing I don`t like is when you remove the battery (the SIM card is under it) you have to reset the time and date when you reinstall it. This might not affect some people, but when you use 2 phones, it might bug you. The 3390 does not have any in-phone memory for storage of phone book entries. All phone book entries must be on the SIM card. Most SIM cards can store 200 phone numbers, so I guess that is not a problem for most users. By comparison, many of the other phone companies have separate memory in the phone for storing extra phone book entries. You can download 4 ringtones and even create one from the keypad, which is nice since all Nokia users seems to select the same ringtone! It also supports the new multi-part SMS feature. This allows you to enter SMS of up to 459 characters in length.( before it was limited to 160) Some other features are : T9 predictive text entry = useful picture messaging = gimmick games = very fun and addictive Voice dialing = useful only when your not in a noisy environment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89641 2000/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small good battery life intuitive to use plastic housing although feels sturdy The Bottom LineThis phone is good for everyone except the guy trying to impress everyone he's got a $900 phone. It's economical, small, and extremely easy to use. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is being marketed as the teenie-bopper cell phone, but really packs a lot into a small package at a great price. For years, Nokia's most accessible models were the 5100 series for the value conscious and the 6100 for the more professional set. If you're familiar with these great phones, then you already know how well engineered this phone is. This little blue phone can do a lot. Obviously you can call people with extremely good reception and great battery time, but how passe. The 3390 most directly relates to the Nokia 5100 series phone in the way you use keys and features. So if you've already got a 5100 series, you know exactly how this one works. I came from a 6100 series, and picking it up was very easy. The 3390 comes with a bevy of new features, such as a ring composer (to compose your own mini-sonata to warn you of an incoming call), some new games, and enhancements to their interface (the screens look prettier, an annoying intuitive typing system that you can, thankfully, turn off, etc.). This phone is incredibly light and small for the price. To get this small, usually, you'd have to plunk down some major change for a Motorola Startac or the new 8800 series from Nokia. This is small, light, and extremely portable at a fraction of the cost. It also has an entirely enclosed battery, which means it won't fall off, unlike the 5100 or 6100 series phones. This blue wonder also comes with its own headset, which is good for hands free talking. Yes, you'll look like a nerd, which probably won't appeal to teenie-boppers, but for the rest of us it's an incredibly nice feature. But perhaps its most noticeable feature is what it doesn't have, namely an exterior antenna, and still gets really good reception. You really don't miss it at all. It retains the PDA (personal digital assistant) features, but using your cell phone as a PDA is a lot like using your bathroom scale to weigh letters for postage--it's just the wrong tool. The input mechanism is a typing system using repeated keystrokes and well timed pauses on the dialpad to get different letters. If you want a PDA, buy a PDA--this will make you go nuts. This phone keeps some of the regular Nokia features, like a lit keypad and screen (don't buy a phone that doesn't have these), and loses infra-red capabilities of the 5100/6100 series (although, who ever used that???). As I said before, this phone is really marketed to a teen audience, even though I think it's a great option for anyone. In that teen vein, it's got a lot of enhancements to its messaging component. This feature has really caught on in Asia, but isn't that big in the states yet. Basically it makes your phone a text pager. This Nokia also allows you to send smilies, and a few pictures (not ones you create, however) along with your message. I work in television, and the text feature is great to get in touch with a reporter who can't talk but you've got to communicate with (like, say, if they're stuck in a courtroom, or funeral, or something like that). This really is a lifesaver. Nokia is also coming up with some phone add-ons that should allow you to play MP3s on the cell phone, and some other "gee whiz" features that would appeal to a teen audience. Don't let these features make your decision about a cell phone, though. Many consumers make the mistake of comparing feature lists on cell phones and seeing which ones have the most checks by them. The 3390's feature list is respectable, although not earth shattering. But what Nokia still wins hands down is usability. Unlike other phones (like the Ericsson or the Motorola), you don't need an engineering degree to understand how to use the functions. Better yet, you really don't even need to read the manual to understand even complex features of the phone. It's when you get into the really exotic that the manual needs to come out, and maybe not even then. The bottom line is I think this is a great phone for anyone. It's light, very economical, and is easy to use. The $80-100 won't give you snob appeal, but it does give you a very capable phone that will honestly do whatever you need a phone to do, and a lot more. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 89640 2000/1/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 no attenna fits anywhere good signal reception small lightweight battery life The Bottom LineI'd buy it. It's a great phone with the exception of the poor battery life. :-D Full Review First of all let me say, I've had this phone since July, so I feel that I can write an adequte review on the phone. In the past I have used an old Ericsson GSM phone, then a Nokia 5190, then a Nokia 5185i, then a Nokia 5160, and now a 3390. I have experience with cell phones. :-D Size does Matter! One thing I like about this phone is the size. It is a definite plus! I am a junior high student, (8th grade) and cell phones/pagers are banned in our school. With my past phones, I would have had to just leave them at home, but not with this phone! I can easily put it in my pocket and it is not noticable! It's also very light, so I don't even remember that I have it. It's an awesome feeling after feeling the weight and "presence" of the old Nokia 5100 series phones. The Annoying Ring that Wasn't Heard You won't hear my phone ring. Why? Well, because my phone has the built in vibrate feature, which allows the phone to vibrate while it rings, vibrate alone, or just ring alone. Because I am in school most of the day, it is on vibrate most of the time. This is a very useful feature when you do not want to be one of those annoying cell phone rings during a good movie or date or when you're out with family. Well, actually.. that annoying ring may have been mine.. ;-) This phone is equipped with the "Composer" feature which allows you to compose your own ringtones on the phone using such websites as http://www.Tones4Free.com. You can have old medlys or new tunes. Right now I have "Lay Low" by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. Yes, a typical teenager, right? Customation is the key! What I also like about this phone is it is GSM so you can be sent messages in screen saver, picture, group picture, or operator logo form. Now, for you people with Cingular Wireless, they make it easy. Just go onto their website and get logos and ringtones, but for us VoiceStream customers they make it more difficult to get free logos and ringtones, but there is a way. I just discovered a website, http://www.Me43.com. They allow you to send your phone logos to replace that ugly "VStream" text at the top of your phone display. A nice touch if you don't like that logo. Profiles!! Profiles allow you to have different preferences for different occasions. Mine has 4: Date - Sets the ringer to "low" and vibrates. Family - Turns ringer to "moderate" and vibrates Movie - Turns ringer off and vibrates DamnMonkey - My normal setting; goes along with my operator logo at the moment. ;-) Where art thou, Attenae? One thing I don't miss is that ugly atenna that is usually sticking up at the top of the phone. It's nice not to have that.. it's an added bonus. :-D Battery Life! One thing I despise about this phone is it comes with a super cheap battery! It won't even last a day and a half on standby without charging. The good news is that you can buy a *new* Li-Ion battery that will last a long time off of http://www.eBay.com for about $10-20. Now, that's about it! I basically love the phone and I would reccomend it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89639 2000/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating4.0 no special battery required for vibrate mode tons of features very small cool features not compatible with my wireless service very short battery life fragile The Bottom LineIt's not that I don't recommend this phone, but I'd give it a big warning label: handle with care! Full Review Hoo boy. I have been through SO MANY cell phones in the last three years, Nokia owes me some sort of frequent-buyer discount. First I traded my old Mitsubishi phone in for the 5190 (See my review, "If it costs nothing, it must be worth the same"). The 5190 is kind of the Geo Metro of Nokia phones, so I upgraded to a 6190, which was a previously owned one and the LCD screen ended up fading out. So I went out in search of a new phone, and since Cingular has some sort of deal with Nokia, my choices were pretty limited. At the time I got the 3390, it was fairly new. It was not yet the standard "sign up now and get this free phone" and so I had to pay a bit more for it - $50, plus add another year of service to my contract. I picked the 3390 over the 8290 or whatever it is - you know, the Matrix phone - for two reasons. One, cost. I didn't want to spend $100 on a new phone. Two, the other one was just too damned small. The 3390 is pretty wee as it is; I am sure if I'd bought the other one I'd have lost it a long time ago. My new phone has tons of options and features. Lots of ring tones, and you can download more as well as create your own. Games to waste time with. Text messaging features that I'm sure would be fun if Cingular supported them. A built-in vibrate mode, so you don't have to go buy a completely different $70 battery like you would with a 6190. Accessories like snap-on cases (although they do cost a pretty penny) which, by the way, can be found in many more cool designs over in Europe. I spent my vacation browsing through mobile phone shops searching for a nice cover; I found one that makes your phone look like a pint of Guinness, which was cute, but I decided not to get it. Sounds lovely, right? So what am I complaining about? This phone is made almost entirely of plastic, which makes for a much lighter phone. That is very nice, but if you drop it on a hard surface from only 12 inches above it, you're playing 52 card pick-up with all the delicate parts of your phone. I'm not kidding. I've dropped it two or three times and while my 5190 and 6190 put up with that kind of abuse, no problem, this phone literally goes to pieces. Second, the battery on this phone is very, very small. You get almost no talk time. Seriously, I am charging this thing daily and I really don't talk on it that much! The small size can be seen as a pro or a con. It's much easier to lose this phone. It's also awkward to hold it sometimes and be able to hear it and be heard by whoever you're talking to. That's why I always use my hands-free set with it. Finally, I get the worst reception. Now I have come to realize that this is the fault of my service provider too, but I swear, Nokia phones just don't get good reception, and I think this phone does have some part in the problem. All in all, not a bad phone. I just hope someday I can get decent cellular service! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89638 2000/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear easy to use durable i ve dropped it the phone is small the phone is smallhas a short battery life The Bottom LineIf you have to have a cell phone with you at all times, this is the one. It is stylish, compact, and easy to use. Standby time is rather short. Full Review Well, I finally did it. I joined the masses and purchased a cellular phone. Having a ground line is expensive and I drive a lot, so it is nice to have a phone in case of emergencies. The Nokia 3390 is the phone I purchased, mostly because it "looked cool" and also because I got a good plan with VoiceStream. The Phone is Small... Yes, this phone is quite small. To me there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to such a small phone. First, the disadvantages: It takes a while to get used to holding the phone while conversing, and the phone is so small that I sometimes forget I've left it in my pockets--so in the past I have left it behind in my jacket. Now, the advantages; The phone is small enough to carry in my pockets--yes this was also a disadvantage. The low weight and relatively small dimensions allow me more comfort (I don't use belt clips because I think they are, honestly, a bit too much, plus I don't want everyone to know that I have a cell phone.) Clear: Never have I had a call dropped while using this phone. The clarity is better than I have experienced on many ground lines, however, when the signal indicator gets below three bars there is some choppiness. This can get annoying--especially when I have to keep asking, "what did you say?" Luckily, this is usually not a problem because I use this phone most often in areas with high signal strength. Durable: Not much to say here, except that I have dropped it three or four times onto a hardwood floor and there is no sign of damage to any part--in fact, the only thing I damaged was the floor. It would be nice, though, if the display area wouldn't scratch so easily. Easy to Use: This phone is quite simple to use. The best feature is the "navi-key" which operates as a multi-function button. After dialing the number you wish to call, you then press the navi-key to "call." Quite simple. Another thing that is handy is the text completion feature. When sending a text message you needn't press the keys multiple times, the phone guesses what word you are typing and fills it in--very helpful. Battery Life: Talk time is fine on the phone, but if you keep it on standby the battery lasts for only about three or four days. This may seem long enough, and if you make even a 30-minute call, the battery display bar goes down a mark. Overall, this is a good phone. I enjoy the many features (the calendar, games, text messaging) and I also enjoy the looks. An interesting quirk, so to speak, would be that the 3390 has a feature that allows one to create one's own ring tone. I haven't tried it, but people with a more musical or creative vein may find that entertaining. This phone and VoiceStream have not given me any problems so far, and the way things appear, I don't expect any issues in the future. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 89637 2000/3/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features very light but not too small caused by mobile phone service fido reception not very good The Bottom LineGreat little phone with some of the best features you can get, but make sure your area is well covered to get the best out of it. Full Review I recently had the Samsung SCH-3500 and became tired of the phone, and looked around for something with a few more 'fun' features. I had always known Nokia phones were great for this, so I decided to go for the newest Nokia phone available in Canada, the 3390. The Good This is one small phone, but then again it's not SO small that you'll mistake it for a credit card. It's the first phone I've had with the lack of an aerial which is a nice change. It's a great looking phone, and the faceplates are surprisingly easy to change. The features are endless and include an extensive text messaging service, actually FUN games, and downloadable ring tones and screen savers. This was the reason I bought the phone, and I'm very pleased with what I got. The Bad The mobile service I had to go with was Fido. They are a canadian company, and have been known for lousy reception in such places as basements or areas near a lot of computers. This holds true with this phone, but the phone can't really be blamed. Fido simply needs to upgrade its towers or expand their services. Overall This phone is one little beauty, and with the sheer amount of features and options, it makes me forget the fact I get good reception about %80 of the time. If you live in a well covered area, then it's a definite buy, but otherwise, I would think twice before buying. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89636 2000/4/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 price customizable sound quality craftsmanship features not compatible with istream The Bottom LineThe 3390 is a lot like a fully loaded Toyota Corolla. It's not a Lexus, but as long as it has leather and a sunroof, who cares? It's LOADED! Full Review Call Clarity Of the things I look for in a mobile phone sound quality has to be high on the list. The 3390 is all digital, so there is no analog hisses or buzzes. Before purchasing this phone with a contract, you should be sure to check the coverage in your area and in the areas that you plan to travel regularly. In comparison to other phones that I've had, the clarity of the 3390 is substantially greater than any phone I've owned in the past. Navigation The 3390 makes use of softkeys, which basically means that one button may have more than one function, depending on what is written on the screen directly above the button at that particular time. I really like the "Navi" key that Nokia phones use - the use of Navi key to perform different functions is convenient, and is much less old-fashioned than having separate "Send" and "End" keys. Features The 3390 uses X-Press on faceplates, so you can buy and use the faceplate of the color or picture you want and put them on in mere seconds. You can also download different ring tones, group graphics, and send/receive picture messages. The phone also features standard SMS (short messaging service). One feature that allows you to customize the phone (strictly for the musically inclined) is the composer, which allows you to create your own ring tone and save or send it. The 3390 uses a removable SIM chip (or smart card as it is sometimes referred to as), which stores your address book and text messages. Your ringtones and graphics however are stored on the phone itself, so if you get a new phone, you'll have to download your ringtones and graphics again. The phone weighs 4.2 oz. with standard NiMH battery and has an internal antenna which has no impact on the reception. The phone's display can hold up to 5 lines of text. There are 6 profiles that feature different ringing tones for different environments. The phone can remember 250 phone numbers with names, has voice-activated dialing for 8 numbers and remembers 40 ringer tones. Some slots for ringer tones can hold downloadable ringtones. The 3390's features also include a very handy calculator. The phone can also convert currencies. There is a great calendar function to keep track of all of your important engagements. The 3390 can be used as an alarm and also has the ability to send business cards. The phone also features four games: Snake II, Pairs II, Space Impact and Bantumi. Unfortunately, the 3390 is not equipped with iStream, the fastest nationwide wireless data network that enables you to send e-mail or access the Internet, on your laptop or PDA. Other standard features include voice mail, sending and receiving text messages, caller ID, call waiting, etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 89635 2002/8/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very rugged good featuressound clarity as long as you have a good signal big drawback is the lack of internet connection The Bottom LineAs long as the Internet connection is not that important to you then this phone is fine. However, I can't recommend a phone that severs my connection to the web. Full Review First things first, this is a good phone. I bought it last week and have been using it all weekend. It is well sized, has great features and for the most part is easy to use. I had some major problems with the store where I bought the phone but that will be corrected later today. Let me discuss a few of the minor things that I saw as flaws and then we will get into the details. Right out of the box I noticed that my phone came with a gold case skin, for those that don't know the plastic casing of the phone can be changed to whatever color you like. I asked the salesman and was told that I could replace it with a black or gray cover for an additional $10. Instead I opted for a leather case with a belt clip that for the most part covered the gold. I was very pleased to see that Voicestream is packaging a hands free earpiece with their phones. Because I do most of my dialing in the car I normally end up paying an extra $30-$40 for a headset and this time I don't have to. After getting home and starting the programming of the phone book I noticed that you must manually change the case of the text that you are typing in by pressing the # key. I was used to my Samsung that automatically capitalized the first letter of each word and then auto-switched back to lowercase. Again, these are just the minor things that annoyed me. After programming a few of the phone book entries I switched to the Calendar. This is a stroke of genius on their part. It works just like my Outlook calendar and even offers an alarm reminder before your appointments. I moved on to the Internet connection, hmmm, can't seem to find the menu for the Voicestream I-Stream service that I signed up for. After going to the I-Stream Website and searching in vain I called Voicestream to ask what the problem was. After a few minutes on hold, it was around 7:00pm last night, a very helpful customer service tech informed me that the Nokia is the only phone Voicestream uses that does not access the Internet. It does however use the AOL Instant Messenger service. At this point I'm about to flip out, the only reason I got the phone was because I was told that I would be able to access the Internet just like my sprint phone could. Net access is important to me because I do a lot of directory assistance calling. With the web connection I can go to Yahoo's yellow pages and find the number I need without spending $.75 on dialing 411. I know that this misrepresentation is not the fault of the phone and be assured I am not holding poor salesmanship against the phone in this review. I am very surprised that Nokia would leave out the feature that every provider seems to be advertising currently. Now then, for the specifics of the phone: Clarity Great sound on this phone, right up until the call drops. The problem is range, it loses it quickly. I was in the car this weekend heading down the interstate with a full signal. I exited and went about a mile and was suddenly out of range. Voicestream has done a great job of getting coverage all the way down the major interstates in Texas but if you are heading anywhere rural you may be in trouble. Sturdiness The phone seems to be as well made as most Nokia's are. I have dropped this phone from my hip a couple of times this weekend and the worst that happened was the phone shut down. The leather case does offer some protection from a fall as well keeping the cover from popping off on impact. Features Phone Book: Easy to use but limited to 16 characters in the name. Each number saved must a have a unique name associated to it. It is hard to get a name and what number you are programming on the screen. I ended up with a lot of "Joshua W Cell" and "Joshua W Home". I like the way the Samsung phone book works better. You can enter one name and associate up to four numbers to it. You end up with: Joshua Wimberley 555-555-5555 C 555-555-5556 H 555-555-5557 W Going along with my earlier comment, the upper/lowercase control seems awkward. Maybe it is something that I would get used to in time but it would be nice if it would handle the capitalization on its own. Messages This is the feature that I feel has grown the most. It is very easy to use now and seems very natural in the menu progression. When a voice or text message comes in it immediately gives you a notice and asks if you want to deal with it right now. If you open it (text) it will ask what you want to do with it when you are done and Erase is the first option. Voice mail works like it always has, very well. Call Log No major changes here that I have noticed. You have a list of your last 10 Missed, Received, and Dialed calls. On the call timer they have added a neat feature. The all call timer is still there but there are two new timers that show you how much time was spent on outgoing calls versus incoming calls. Profiles I have not had time to really get into this feature but it seems like there are more options here than are really necessary. This is where the phone keeps all of its notification options. You can control what type of ring, volume, beep, vibrate, screen saver and message notification you want. You can choose from the four preset styles or create two of your own in the empty slots. Personally, I would kill the empty slots and add more memory to the phone book. Settings This is where the clock function is hidden. You will be resetting this clock on occasion. If the phone is dropped and loses connection with the battery before being turned off it will forget what time it was. There is also an alarm clock setting here for when you forget yours and the hotel doesn't have one. Forwarding Nice one touch menu for getting those calls where they need to go. You can set it up to forward all, forward all that you don't answer after a few rings or forward none. Games Who thought this was a good idea. I swear I've seen people in traffic playing Snake on their phones while driving 80 mph. But if this is your idea of fun, there are 4 games programmed into this phone. I can't tell you anything else about them but they are there... Calculator Again, nice touch. I never had a calculator around when I needed one and now they have bundled one in with my phone. It isn't the easiest calculator to use but it gets the job done when you don't have another one laying around. In case you are wondering, and I was, the math functions (equals, add, subtract, multiply and divide) are pulled from the menu key after entering the numbers. It also has the ability to do exchange rate for currency. Calendar I talked about this earlier. This is a really nice tool. It works like Outlook. You can put in Reminders, Calls, Meetings or Birthdays. You can then request an alarm to remind you of the daily notes you have put in. Composer I put this up there with Games. Why is it in my phone? Nokia has turned your phone into an electronic keyboard so you can create your own ring tones and share them with your friends. As if the 1,000's of tones already out there aren't annoying enough. Sorry, but my phone is strictly for work and is never off of the vibrate setting. I can't stand to hear a cell phone ringing during a meeting and I certainly don't want to hear it playing Fur Elise while I'm talking. Keyguard Has this feature ever changed? Instant Messenger This might be useful if others in your work/social group use the AOL IM service. It does nothing for me however. She's Dead Jim... Well, I want to leave an obituary for my dearly departed phone. As I was getting out of the truck I had the phone in my lap. I didn't notice as it fell under the vehicle parked next to me. After an hour of no calls (highly unusual) I went looking for my phone. I found it, shortly after the car parked next to me had backed out over the phone crushing it. You may be asking why I'm adding this to my review... Good question, the thing is, the phone still worked!!! I couldn't believe it, after being crushed by a car wheel, having the screen shattered and the case destroyed I was still able to make and receive calls. Even the handsfree earbud still plugged in and worked. This phone is one tough cookie. Sadly I won't be repairing it as the new screen is $45 and a replacement case is $10. I can get a different phone for that kind of money and get my internet service back. Once more for the record, this phone rocks... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 89634 2000/4/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sounds great small easy to get to know great battery life other than no internet access i cannot find one The Bottom LineSimply put, if it is FREE and has a reasonable contract (2 years or less), sign on the dotted line and enjoy your new phone!!! Full Review Cellular Charisma!!! In Las Vegas, where I live, Cingular Wireless offers free Nokia 3390 with a 2 year contract. If you would like to fork out a few extra Benjamins you could get something better...but why!!! The Nokia 3390 has Cellular Charisma that other phones just cannot "shake a stick at" and best of all it was FREE (The most wonderful sounding four letter F word in the dictionary!!!). Cellular Sound The most important, and sometimes annoying, qualities of a cellular phone is the overall sound quality. Each cellular phone uses DTM (Digital Transmission Technology), so there will never be any analog noise. Cingular Wireless of Las Vegas has some of the best reception I have ever dealt with anywhere in the country. This little phone gets reception and sounds great just about anywhere I am, not to brag but I rarely lose reception even while I am driving. Note: I HIGHLY am against cellular phone use while driving...it is dangerous and against the law in Las Vegas!!! Please drive responsibly and use an earpiece if you must talk and drive. Ok, back to the sound quality...overall, the sound quality of this phone is excellent and is substantially better than the sound quality of other cell phone I have tested out and had. The Nokia 3390 uses GSM standard, also used in European markets. Nokia "Navi"...Nokia's Nerdy Lingo "Navi"? Could Nokia not come up with something more clever than "Navi". If you saw "Meet The Parents" this quote is for you..."Navi" is short for Gaylord Focker. I happily admit that I do not like the "Navi" key that Nokia phones use. The use of "Navi" key to perform different functions is more than smart sometimes, but other times it is more Gaylord Focker than having the usual "Send" and "End" keys. Using it for placing and ending calls is ok...once you figure this out. Hopefully you are smarter than the phone and figure out the functions quickly, like I did...if you do not want to be a confused cellular clone than look for a different phone!!! Wow...I am a poet and did not even know it...ok, enough with the rhymes. In short, "Navi" stands for clever cellular lingo from the nerds at Nokia and it is done in poor taste for those who hate to be confused this phone is not for you!!! Ok, Nokia's Fun, Fabulous Features Now the guts to why you want this phone...the fun, fabulous features. First off, the Nokia 3390 uses killer, easy to change, snap-on faceplates. You can buy and use your favorite color faceplate or picture you want. For the fashion guru's this is a definite added feature. Feeling Blue...they have the color for you!!! Feeling Red...this color sticks in your head!!! Feeling Green...you are starting to get what I mean (I have a serious rhyming problem...I need to seek help. Any advice?)!!! Another unique feature with this phone is the customized ring tones you can download from the internet at Cingular.com. "Answer The Phone" by Sugar Ray was my favorite but I opted for Bubba Sparxx "It's Getting Ugly". The ring tones are as endless as Michael Jordan's career...you want them to go away but they just keep coming!!! Speaking of Michael Jordan, you can program your phone to receive your favorite teams sports scores via the internet. At the end of each Phoenix Coyotes game I get the Final Score sent to my phone and if I am at work I can see how they fared!!! I also get the weather, my stocks, and my horoscope sent to me at different times of the day...all for FREE from Cingular. You can set this up via the Cingular website!!! Pretty hip stuff... The phone also has pictures you can send to anyone (The "Heart" gets sent to my girlfriend quite often) and two-way text messaging, for an additional fee. This phone also uses a removable SIM card, which stores all your vital information. The phone weighs about 4.2 ounces with a standard NiMH battery and has an internal antenna, which makes the phone look slick and sleek. The internal antenna DOES NOT affect the reception at all, read above again if you are doubting this!!! The display can hold up to 5 lines of text, not too much but enough to say what you have to say. This phone can remember 250 phone numbers with names (18 characters long), has voice-activated dialing for 8 numbers and remembers 40 ringer tones. Pretty cool to talk to your phone and have it dial for you!!! You can also create your own ringer tones with the built in Composer...for you music producers!!! This phone also features the world's most difficult to use calculator (You have to press * four times to divide, three times to multiply...stupid, yes, very stupid!!!) You can also convert currencies if you travel alot, a meaningless function but it is there for you any ways!!! There is a calendar function to keep track of your meetings, birthdays, appointments, and hot dates!!! An alarm is also available as well as the ability to send business cards. The phone also features several FREE games: Snake II, Pairs II, Space Impact, and Bantumi. Nice games to play in the car of a long trip or play on the plane to annoy who's sitting next to you!!! Other more typical features include voice mail, sending and receiving text messages, caller ID, call waiting, you know the basics every phone should have!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 89633 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 with clear soundnice screen small keys uncoveredthere s no clip The Bottom LineThis is a great phone! Small, light, versatile and great sounding. Full Review I've had cellular service for about six years, and I've always hated it. I don't really like talking on the phone in general, and the static and sound qualities of cell phones has always driven me crazy. Even with my last phone, a digital Ericson, I couldn't stand the sound quality, even when I could get a signal (which was rare - even though I live in the Baltimore-Washington area, which should have plenty of coverage). Enter the Nokia 3390. This phone sounds great. It came with a Jobra hands-free earpiece (I'm not sure if this is standard or just standard with my new service VoiceStream)and I like that even better. Suddenly it's like talking on a regular phone. I would put the average call quality somewhere between talking on a regular cordless phone and a corded phone. Also beneficial is its size. It's very small, and very light. All the 33xx series appear to be in the same case; only the guts are different. Despite its small size, the keys are not too hard to use (I have pretty big fingers), and the screen is impressively large and clear. I was somewhat concerned that the size would also negatively impact sound quality, but according to my wife she can hear me much better with this phone than my last. The 3390 also includes several games and a primitive calculator, as well as a choice of ring tones. The phone also has a silent alert feature that "buzzes" the phone to alert you of an incoming call. After spending some time figuring out all the ring options, I'm pretty confident they've considered everything one might want: simple rings, various ring levels, rings that get steadily louder each time, silent alerts, etc. Plus you can program in or download new ring tones, although I haven't tried this yet. The phone also allows one to preset up to six ring settings, which makes changing all the different options easy. I've got one for work (soft ring, buzzer), one for home/car (louder ring, no buzzer) and one for court/meetings (no ring, buzzer). You can even assign particular rings to different incoming numbers, which I may do if I figure out how. This is one of the "disadvantages" of the phone: it does so many things it is a little overwhelming at first. Nonetheless, Nokia does a pretty good job of using a nested menu system that tend to lead one right to the right function. Other "disadvantages:" The phone does not come with a clip. Personally, I like just slipping the phone in my pocket anyway so I don't really care, and I think that if you really want to clip it to your belt there are inexpensive third-party holsters available like for the Star-TAC. Also, the phone is not a flip phone. This means the keys are exposed at all times, which means that they can be pressed accidentally. The phone comes with a "keylock" feature that prevents accidental calls and such, but the constant pressing keys has to use battery power faster, and I am not yet in the habit of putting the key guard on before slipping the phone into my pocket. Finally, the phone is digital only, and mine is GSM. That means that if you are not on the two coasts or a big city, reception may be non-existent. GSM is great if you go to other countries, because it's the international standard (although I haven't yet figured out how much those phone calls are going to cost me - my bet is big bucks), but it really isn't the standard here so people who travel a lot in the US may need to find a phone and provider that has better coverage. Other details: battery life is great compared to my last phone(s): a full charge seems to last about three days, depending on time spent on the phone. I understand this is a little weak by the standards of some other phones currently on the market, but it sure beats the 24 hours of my last phone and the 6-8 hours of the phone I started out with six years ago. Also, in terms of size, the 33xx series is slightly larger than the 86xx series, but seems to weigh almost exactly the same. The difference is negligible, but I was caught by surprise when I ordered my phone online. The battery is not easily accessible without taking off the back cover, which is not exactly easy. Overall, a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89632 2003/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight loads of other features clear sound quality no back light at night The Bottom LineIt has got the bells and whistles that everybody needs bare minimum like the vibrating alert, voice activated calling, light weight etc., Full Review The smaller cell phone models actually seem too small (the distance between your mouth and the microphone is big when the phone's speaker is at your ear - feels a little awkward), the 3390 seemed to be well-sized unit. Not too big and bulky but at the same time kept the length in balance. Ease of use Most of the cell phones will give the most used feature in a well accessible manner, Nokia lost the battle on it. First when I got the phone, I charged the battery and put the SIM Card in the slot. I receive my first call and boom the ringer wakes up everybody in the office. After finishing the call. I though that the Arrow keys to the bottom of the Navi key would be the one to reduce the volume of the ringer, tried it in vain. Had a hard time to do this and as a last resort browsed the manual and found that you have to reduce the level (1-5) for the ringing tone. Wow! What a pain? Just to set the ringer volume to low. Lets say you are making a call to an automated system where a series of inputs need to be entered.After hanging up that call the famous Nokia NAVI key says "Call" with all the gibberish menu numbers you entered for that call. I really hate that. Have to press the Clear © key and hold. Why not just clear it automatically when you end the call? Sound Quality The phone uses digital transmission technology, so there is no analog noise.The sound quality of this phone is very good. The Nokia 3390 uses GSM standard, also used in Europe, Asia. But cannot be used in those areas because of the GSM frequency requirements. Navi Key I must admit that I don't like the "Navi" key that Nokia phones use - the use of Navi key to perform different functions is sometimes convenient, but sometimes it is more confusing than having separate "Send" and "End" keys. Other than using it for placing/ending a call, the usage is quite simple. Features Voice dialing is a great feature. Even though, I had a tough time to find how to add the voice tags, at the end it was worth a feature. Press Menu and hold until you hear some beeps the screen displays a graphic for you to speak. If you use a headset, the headset will beep if the voice is not recognized to an entry in the phonebook or it is not found. If it finds the voice tag, it will playback the voice tag and connect you to that phone number. Neat right?. With all the automation in the world, the phone book number entry should have to be more than 32 characters. I tried to program the sequence of the call forward feature from the local telephone company to the phone book. But after half of the sequence is entered it would not allow me to enter. You can store the calling card in a separate menu using the famous NAVI key. It's a very nice automation Nokia has thought of. The calling card access number and the card numbers are stored by entering the security code and can be changed only by entering the security code.I used MCI Calling card where the dialing sequence is - Access Number, Card Number and then the phone number to be called. The phone offers three different dialing sequences for the calling card.After saving and selecting the calling card, making the calling card call is a snap.Enter the number you want to call as you would normally to make any other call using the cell phone, press the NAVI key and hold for some seconds, there it goes. The phone recognizes that as a calling card call and dials the access number and tells you to press the NAVI key after the beep to send next dialing sequence which in my case is the calling card number and the next NAVI key press actually dials the number you first entered. The phone uses snap-on faceplate, so you can buy and use the faceplate of the color or picture you want. You can also customize it by downloading the different ring tones. The phone also has picture and two-way text messaging. You could compose your own ring tone using the easy composer format also. The phone uses a removable SIM card, which stores all your information. The phone weighs 4.2 oz. with standard NiMH battery and has an internal antenna, which makes the phone slick and does not affect the reception. The phone's display can hold up to 5 lines of text. There are 6 profiles that feature different ringing tones for different environments. The phone can remember 250 phone numbers with names, has voice-activated dialing for 8 numbers and remembers 40 ringer tones. Some slots for ringer tones can hold downloadable ringer tones. You can also create your own ringer tones. You can also assign different ring tones to different callers in the phone book. The phone features also include a calculator (cumbersome to use - have to press * four times to divide, three times to multiply, etc.) The phone can also convert currencies. There is a calendar function to keep track of your meetings, birthdays, appointments, etc. The alarm is also present as well as the ability to send business cards. The phone also features several games: Snake II, Pairs II, Space Impact and Bantumi. Other features include voice mail, sending and receiving text messages, caller ID, call waiting, etc. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20 89631 2000/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 intuitive interface long battery life wired mic ear bud works great it was free too easy to accidentally dial a number from a quick key The Bottom LineFunctions as it should; just a hair above "utilitarian", which is a good place to be.... Full Review I'll start with the pros: It was free as part of a Powertel offer. The number buttons are very, very nice. They have a very solid feel, it is very easy to judge if you have successfully pressed the button or not. They are raised quite a bit so it is easy to tell by feel which button you are pressing by the sense of touch. The other 3/4 remaining buttons serve dual purposes depending on the menu selected. Nokia has been very clever in using these buttons in both an ergonomic and expected way (barring one item explained below). Each button's purpose is very intuitive - enter the phone book menu for example, you "know" which button is going to scroll, which is going to select, exit, so forth. Small enough, but not "tiny"; probably the most optimal size. Long battery life: I plug the charger into it once a week, maybe. It hasn't caught me offguard yet in a conversation running down. Battery indicator is very clearly visible. Menuing is very well thought out: a manual is almost superfluous, it's very easy to figure out most every operation of the phone by merely selecting options. Construction seems very rugged. It has already survived a number of 3 foot falls from a desk to a hardwood floor, being squashed in my pocket, extreme heat in direct sunlight - after being left in a hot car on post-100 degree Georgia summer day; and it's gotten some rain on it as well. Apparently with no adverse effects. The supplied wired microphone/ear bud works much better than anticipated. After qiuzzing a few people I've called about the quality of what they were hearing, they all said "great" or words there of. This was a concern of mine after hearing other people use similar setups on their phones, I expected to have to buy a "better" mic/earphone, but apparently I'm not going to have to. CONS The button that controls volume is on the face of the unit. Which means if you use it "normally", sans wired mic, you have to remove the phone from your ear to adjust the volume. No biggie, but considering how ergonomic the rest of the phone seems to be, a nit picky point of contention. Radiation. When I leave this phone sitting on my desk about 2-3 feet from my computer monitor, I can tell when I'm about to get a call; the phone must send out an acknowledgment signal - it totally distorts my monitor. When speaking in the phone, I can see my computer screen warp and mutate as I talk. My old Motorolla digital phone didn't do that.... Additionally, I've noticed that sometimes objects laying underneath the phone will get really, really hot after the phone has been used for awhile.... That's a bit unnerving. It's ok though, I use it with the wired mic. Outside of that, no complaints. It functions as it should, and as a free promo it's exemplary. Recommended: Yes 89630 2002/6/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 helpful guides easy options easy to use not much signal easily locks up The Bottom LineThis is an easy phone to use, personalize and make your own. Full Review It is hard looking for the right cell phone. I have this cell phone because I received it for a gift at Christmas. I really enjoy using this phone because it has very eay to use features. Such as, call log. The call log lets you view all of your missed calls, recieved calls, dialed calls and call timers. This is just one option that is very easy to use and is very helpful. The voice mail is very easy to use as well. After setting it up you can access personal options like who is on your phone lists, pass words, and your greeting. You are guided the whole way through. The phone is also great too because it has a wide range of screensavers which give your phone a personal touch. You can have a rose, heart, cake or more on your phone at all times. Another way to make the phone personal to your taste is the welcome note. You can have the phone say whatever you want every time you turn the phone on. The phone book is another great option. The phone book is easy to use and provides options such as personal ring tones, voice commands, and speed dial. You can personalize your phone so you know just who is calling every time with their own special ring. You can program voice command to call whomever you want just by saying their name. One pitfall however, about this phone is that it is easy to lock your phone up. I was playing around with the settings once to turn on call block when my phone told me to enter a password. I entered my voice mail password which was a bad idea. Turns out, the dealer had that special code. If you ever get that message call the dealer because once you enter the wrong code you will shut down your SIM card which holds all of the information. Then you will need to purchse a new one for about twenty dollars. It is hard to get a signal at times. It is very hard to get a signal inside and sometimes in places far from where there is a tower. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89629 2001/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice sturdy for its size compact chock full o features vibrating takes a long time to boot up or make a call unimpressive signal reception The Bottom LineIf you love playing with your technology, this is the toy for you! It's affordable for all that it offers, though a little slow. Full Review My last phone was an Ericsson CF67something... I loved that it was tiny and stylish, but it lacked a lot of things. Plus it was flimsy. I needed to get it replaced because the flip-down piece was cracked and about to fall off! Rather than go with the newer model Ericsson, I decided to go with Nokia because they just look sturdier to me. I had decided on the similar 8260, but the Cingular rep told me that the 3390 was more popular, had more features, and actually cost less. I was surprised and wondered why, but who was I to quibble about a new toy costing less? One thing that Nokia kicks butt over Ericsson is the screen size... what's with the one line at a time huge font that Ericsson uses for its display? I found it odd that a phone so small would use lettering so big. It was annoying to have to wait for it to flash to the information I wanted. Not so with Nokia's ample-spaced display with small-but-readable font. The less scrolling the better. FEATURES I USE MOST: Phone book - It's so easy to access the phone book and look up the names in there. I discovered the easy access just by playing around with the phone and the interface is very intuitive. Screensaver - It's weird to call it a screensaver because it doesn't move or anything to prevent burn-in, which is the true purpose of a screensaver. This is just an image that is displayed on your screen while on normal standby. It's pretty much useless, but kinda like putting bumper stickers on your car. Profiles - This was one of the coolest features I found. You can have various "profiles" for various situations you might be in. If you're in someplace noisy you can set it to "Loud". If you're in a theater you can set it to "Silent" (vibrating only). Or you can set it to vibrate with a quiet discreet ring. You can customize each profile and add more too, I love it! Vibrating - This is one useful feature for when you need to be notified quietly. I still get goosebumps every time is shakes in my pocket, wooo! FEATURES I'D LIKE TO GET AROUND TO USING: Voice Dialing - I read about this feature and was all "Wow, that's so cool!" But I've never gotten around to actually using it because first you need to set up "voice tags" in a quiet environment, and then to use it you need to hold a button before you say a name. I don't make so many calls that it will be useful yet. Reminder Alerts - It has a calendar you can set up an alarm to sound at particular times, but I haven't needed it yet. Customized phone covers - Right now the market is flooded with all sorts of colorful covers for the 5190. I've only seen a few icky colors available for the 3390 thus far, but because both the front and back are changeable I look forward to the more imaginative covers that are sure to come. There are tons of other features that I'd need to go through the manual to remember what they are. I obviously haven't had a need for them yet, but it's nice to know they're there. My sweetheart has complained that the phone is too small because she can't cradle it on her shoulder. For some it might be, but for me it's perfect. The smaller the better because my purse is cluttered enough as it is. I don't cradle the phone because I have enough neck problems, so the compact size is no problem for me. It makes it much easier to stow away quickly in a pocket. My only complaint is that it seems to be slow. It takes like half a minute to boot up when you first turn it on. If you try to use it before it's ready it'll say "SIM not ready". It's kind of irritating when you're in a hurry. It also takes awhile to connect the calls. There's like 10 seconds of silence before you hear anything. So for those of you who need to do things NOW NOW NOW this phone may not be for you. ************* REVIEW UPDATE ************** After several months of use, I can still say this is a pretty nifty phone. My biggest complaint would be the so-so signal reception. It is weaker than the Nokia 5190 model, and those of you upgrading from the 5190 will notice it. I don't know if it's the phone or the service (Cingular Wireless) but the signal fluctuates a lot. Other than that it seems like a solid phone. The case kind of squeaks if I press and twist it, but there's no rattling. I finally got around to reading the manual about the cool voice-activation feature, but it isn't as cool as it seems. You have to first press a button before speaking... what good is voice activation if you have to press a button first? I can just dial my most often-dialed number with two simple button presses, so I didn't even bother with the voice activation crap. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 promo 89628 2000/5/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight inexpensive voice recognition small cool faceplates life still a ways to go on the voice recognition technology batt volume The Bottom LineI already HAVE recommeded this phone to friends & family. It's pretty simple, yet has more if you want it. Full Review I get an email saying "free phone". Hey, I'm always open to a bargain, besides, I was in the market for a new phone anyway. A smaller one. It's a voicestream marketing email. After doing my homework (and yes, I did a LOT of homework researching carriers, phones & rates), I figure voicestream has a program that fits me & my budget. Ok, they send me my phones (I got one for me, one for my wife) with a brand new carrier. Cool. This phone's LOADED, man! I STILL haven't got it all figured out yet! This thing has so many bells & whistles on it, it'd make my Dad's technologically challenged head EXPLODE! He's still wrestling with email! Anyway, starting off, it's got different ring tones. Cool ones, too! Plus, I can download or program others. Sweet! It's got a few cool games that are easy to control with the nice little keypad. The keypad has a nice click to 'em & it's easy to dial when you're driving by just feeling them (so you don't have to take your eyes off the road). The options are almost endless! They DO take some getting used to though. I've emailed from my phone before, but I can't remember how. It's not that easy. I can't seem to get the hang of Ping-Pong messages or IM (text messaging) from phone to phone either. You really DO need to read the book with your phone in the other hand. I really like the voice recognition dialing. Only problem is it's got a little ways to go before it's great. If there's any ambient noise, it doesn't hear you or misunderstands you. For example, if I'm in my car with the windows down (I don't have a/c) and I use the voice recognition, I say "Val" and it comes back with "Mike D. Cell" or just beeps saying it couldn't understand you. But once I roll up my window, I say "Val", it repeats what I say, and dials away. Where the voice recognition fails is where the one touch dialing picks up, but you only get a few of those (#'s 2-9 I think. #1 is to check your voicemail). The battery only lasts maybe 2-3 days and the car charger only charges it long enough to last through the day until you get home to plug it into the wall. But that's ok with me. I don't know if I'm hard of hearing -- nobody's told me... at least I don't think they have ;) -- but the speaker volume seems to be pretty quiet. I read an Epinion review saying that there's an adjustment for that that sacrifices battery life for volume, but I haven't figured it out yet. I LOVE the easily changeable faceplates. They don't have too many cool ones in America yet (it's a realatively new phone in the U.S.), but if you go on Ebay, you'll find all kinds of cool ones (took me a while to find the COOLEST Donald Duck one, but it found it!) and they're not very expensive at all. With shipping averages out to be around $12-$15 (I got burned by one seller, ALWAYS READ THEIR FEEDBACK!). I've dropped it A LOT and it's held up pretty well. The case hasn't broken or even chipped, and it works perfectly. It seems like they've planned ahead for this phone too. I understand in the Orient & Europe, they use the infrared (sp?) for things like vending machines that just charge the pop or candy to their cellular bill. Pretty cool if you ask me! I ready for it in America, man! (Do you ever pass the Salvation Army guy in the Santa suit at Christmas ringing that bell and think, "Don't you know nobody uses cash anymore?"?!). If you want to overpay for accessories, go to a cell phone dealer. If you want a good/fair price for the same thing, go to Ebay or the flea market. For all the features I use, I really like the phone. The only things they need to do to make it an AWESOME phone is work on the voice recognition, pump up the volume, make text messaging easier, and build in a digital recorder! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89627 2001/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 small has the most features of any phone in the us customizable phone beautiful no web access The Bottom LineThis is the newest, most feature-packed, easiest to use, prettiest phone you can buy in the states today. Get it unless you need web access. Full Review You won't go wrong with this phone. It's the all-around best phone available (for under $300-$400) in the US right now. - Looks This phone is small. It's about halfway between the omnipresent 5000-series and the super-tiny 8000-series. It's the perfect size, in my opinion. It fits in your pocket (Old Navy's Painter Jeans pockets are made for these phones!!), but isn't too small to talk into on your shoulder. The buttons are small but I've never had problems hitting the wrong button (unlike what I've heard with the 8000-series). The phone has an internal antenna, but I've had no irregular reception problems. I'll talk about faceplates, which cover most of the phone's looks, under "accessories" below. - Availability The 3390 works with GSM systems - Voicestream and Cingular being the major carriers of this type in the US. I live in Seattle and use Cingular. It cost $69.99 with activation and it cost the same price with Voicestream. This is about the same price as Ericcson's T28 World, which doesn't compare with this phone (although it works worldwide and is a flip phone, which I'm not too fond of). The 5000-series is usually free with activation, and the 8000-series costs around $150-$450 (depending upon which phone). - Accessories The basic kit comes with the standard plug-in charger and a hands-free earbud. I've had no problems with both; they're high quality parts. I'd prefer a two-earbud hands-free kit but the one they give works great, and has great reception. I also have a car charger (they cost about $10, you can find them for less though). The (cigarette lighter) car charger charges the phone completely in about an hour. The regular charger says about 3 hours, but it charges up well in one hour too. Nokia is well-known for its great faceplate system. The Nokia phone comes in a very dark grey-blue, which is nice and basic. The 3390 comes with both a FRONT and BACK faceplate so that the colors match on both sides. Mall stores and official Nokia faceplates cost around $20 -- DON'T BUY THESE! There are tons of GREAT faceplates on Ebay for around $4 + shipping. This is mostly because the 3390 is new in the USA but has been around a while in Europe and Asia, and there are tons of 3390 faceplates there in all sorts of designs. Most work great, but some are slightly worse quality than Nokia's official faceplates (one came with my phone). There's usually no big difference, though. Some third-party faceplates are even waterproof (I wrecked my phone once but dropping it in water -- I *heart* Cingular's insurance plan). There are also a lot of other accessories I've seen, but don't own, on Ebay. There are batteries that light up when you receive a call. There are different colored LED lights that light up under your buttons. Take a look and see what's new. There are some really nice faceplates that are kind of bizarre, too. - Features This is where the 3390 really shines. This phone has more features (except web access) than just about any phone out there, including Nokia's $400+ 8890. This is mostly because the phone is a new model by Nokia -- Nokia's newer models in Europe and Asia have even more features! Here are some of the best features: * Vibrate mode -- The phone can vibrate and ring, ring only, vibrate only, or neither. * Voice Tags -- I love this. Hold down the menu button and say "POLLY" and it will automatically dial Polly. It can store up to eight (not so many, but a good number) phone numbers that you can dial using your voice. A very fancy feature. It has very good voice recognition unless you're in a very noisy area or your original recording wasn't that great. * Ring tones -- The phone comes with a good 20 or so ring tones, and you can download more ringtones online. The 3390 comes with a "Composer" where you can make your own ringtones. You need to know a little about music, as it's based on "real" music (quarter notes, eighth rests, B flats and such). * Profiles -- This is a great feature. You can click the "on/off" button once and select a "profile" to use. The basic ones are "Normal" (normal ring etc), "Silent" (no ring), "Discreet" (very quiet discreet ring), and "Loud" (loud ring and beeps). Just about all of the features in the phone are customizable through the profiles and they're very easy to use. It's easy to tell which profile you're using because it says the name at the start screen and you can set "screen savers" for each profile -- pictures that load on your start screen. Of course, you can create new profiles for different situations you're in. * Games - The best games you'll find on a mobile phone. Snake 2 is the sequel to the Nokia favorite.. it has better graphics, "wrap" around the screen for your snake, as well as six mazes (including "regular"), and all kinds of nice new updates. There's also "Space Impact" which is a very fancy space shooter game -- like "Gradius" or a cross between "Defender" and "Space Invaders." There's also "Bantumi" which is a fun parlor-type game, but by the time you learn it you've almost mastered it. There's also Pairs 2 which is an update of the original Memory-like matching game. No Tetris is the only problem here! * Functional Start Screen - Includes a "battery" bar, a "connection" bar (how good your connection is), plus the time and screen saver. * Etc. - There are tons of minor updates to previous phones. These include "picture messages" (of course you can do normal text messages too), animated menus, etc. * Old Nokia Features - Calculator, Calendar, reminders, alarms, phone book, call logs (incoming and outgoing), call forwarding, and key lock (so that you don't accidently call your mom while you're delivering pizzas to a swearing youth like I did). * Convenient Interface - Nokia has great design people. Just click menu and star to lock or unlock your keys. You can use the number pad instead of scrolling through the menus for shortcuts (Snake is 7-1-1-1). I don't think you'll have problems using the phone. You can even set up one-touch dialing for numbers you call a lot. - Lacks This isn't the "perfect" phone, although it's close. Most people won't have big complaints about the size, but the miniscule 8000-series does look nicer, although it's not as functional a size. There is no web access (no Nokia phone has this in the US yet). There's no Tetris! The phone does take a few seconds to start calls and to boot up and load the SIM (memory) card. The only big complaint with this phone is the battery length. I often have to recharge the phone every day. It lasts about 3-4 hours of straight talktime. It lasts several days on standby, but I think using the phone's features (like games) runs down the battery a little. It's not a big deal, since the phone can be on while charging, but it would be nicer if it lasted longer. - Last Words You can't go wrong with this phone, unless you need web access. It's leagues ahead of other comparably priced phones, and even more expensive phones. I highly recommend it unless you're a world traveller who needs a worldly phone or need web access (which isn't that great on phones anyway). I haven't listed all of the dozens of features in this review, but the fact that I listed so many but still missed some speaks to how advanced this phone is. Get it:D. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 89626 2002/7/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small light vibrator no antenna great alarm clock the keys are very hard to read in the dark The Bottom LineEverything one can need in a mobile phone: small, light, useable, reliable. Great alarm clock. Vibrator. No antenna. Full Review This phone is exactly what I was looking for: a device that is small and light enough to fit in my pocket and that contains no awkward sharp edges, or worse, an antenna. No things to break off. Of course, I wanted a reasonable display, microscopes are rather heavy and their use would definitely defeat the purpose of the phone. In addition, yes, the keys had to be large enough to be useable. A vibrator was an absolute requirement, as I hate to have my phone ringing in public, regardless of the circumstances. Even in life-and-death situations, it is an annoyance to anyone else and frankly, they do not care if someone is dying or just bored. In addition, I wanted the battery to last at least two full days. When I saw it, I loved it. A Star Trek Communicator. That was my first thought. This thing fits the bill, and much more than that. I like the Keyguard. Press the largest button on the keyboard followed by the asterisk and you can safely put the phone in your pocket without having to be afraid that you will accidentally dial some unwanted numbers. The same combination unlocks the keys, and whatever keys you may press, it actually explains that to you. Just in case you forgot. It stores phone numbers on your SIM-card, not in the phone. That is great. Move the SIM-card to another phone and you will not have to re-enter everything. The names are limited to 12 characters. That is not enough. I like to type someone's name, enough to know who it is, and then add if it is a mobile or a landline. This is hard to do with no more than 12 characters. The phone displays the name and the phone number of whoever phones you (if the number or the name is available or not blocked, of course). It also remembers the last ten numbers and names that phoned you and it has a separate list with names and numbers whose calls you did not answer. It remembers the last ten numbers you dialled and it has a few timers to keep track of your on-air time. It allows you to select profiles. These profiles contain different settings regarding the amount of noise or vibrations the phone makes. Better still, you can configure those profiles yourself. There are six profiles but I use only four of them: everything as loud as possible and vibrations everything as loud as possible but no vibrations no sound whatsoever, but vibrations no sound and no vibrations I do not care about quiet and half-loud settings and the like. But that is a personal taste. You can set an alarm clock. This is extremely useful. For me, anyway. It is very easy to set, because you can type the time like any number. Most normal alarm clocks want you to hold down buttons or press them like crazy to advance. Not this one. If you want an alarm signal at 08:35 AM, you just type 0835. Nothing more. Better still, this thing makes, or can make, more noise than my oversized electronic Radio Shack alarm clock. It actually wakes me up. No small feat. Also, because it so light, I no longer wear a watch. I use the phone as a pocket watch. No more shackles for me! The phone has the possibility to send and receive SMS-messages. The length of those messages is limited to some 450 characters, more than most phones. However, non-Nokia 3390 phones will receive these as two or three separate messages, depending on the length. But then, who wants to type a message on a numeric keyboard? It will take forever and then some. I found a great use for SMS though. It enables me to communicate very short messages to my brother in Belgium, that is at the other side of the Big Ditch and they cost the same as the ones I send to my neighbour. Sending and receiving e-mail is also possible, but it is so inconvenient that I have dropped the idea. The phone contains a number of other features like a Calendar and the possibility to set alarms on certain dates and times, a ridiculously simple and inaccurate (according to the manual) calculator, stupid games and a composer that allows you to make a small melody that you can use instead of the built-in signals. I do not see these as cons. I chose to ignore them and they leave me alone. In the beginning, I was afraid to scratch the display. Until I found out that the `glass' was actually part of a replaceable shell and that the display never was in any real danger. I was also not very happy with the metallic keys of the keyboard. They looked cute enough, but it was extremely hard, and often impossible to read them in the dark as the light of the phone hardly passes through them. I have since then replaced the rather unimaginative blue shell with a third party shell featuring my favourite Japanese cartoon character Doraemon. In the process, the keyboard was replaced with a translucent plastic keyboard that lets all the light come through. I have no problems reading the keyboard now! The light is actually strong enough to read printed matter in total darkness. The battery lasts longer than expected. At least three or four days. How long it lasts when you are actually talking, I do not know. I have only talked for half an hour at the most on the thing, in total. The sound quality is great, though. Much better than any other phone I have previously used. The lack of an antenna seems to have the disadvantage that the phone is not as useful in large buildings or subways as my previous phone. However, people can always phone me back, can they not? In all, this is a great phone. I love it. I have it for about six months now, and I will use it for a long time to come. Bart B. Van Bockstaele - www.bartvb.org Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 89625 2000/2/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 no antenna good reception vibrator mode the display The Bottom Line. Full Review I have to admit that I love cell phones. In my region, cell phones got popular about three years ago, and since then, I passed about eight cell phones. My Vtech A700 died after I dropped on the cement, so I was forced to buy another cell phone. I wanted to stay with the same wireless company, which is Fido. Most of the new models out there are either too small, too toy looking or too cheap. The Nokia 3390 interested me mainly because of its shape. It looks classy, especially with the black shiny cover. The size of the phone is decent. I used to hate my Vtech because it was actually too small! The price was rather expensive. It sold for two hundred canadian. However, if you take it with a monthly contract, you get a credit of a 150$, so the phone actually comes out to 50$. I didn't mind that much to pay a big amount because I knew from friends that this phone had a good quality. One thing that I must point out is that the reception is excellent. People who call me often cannot tell the difference between my cell phone and my home phone line. The transmission is very clear and there is no delays, as I have experienced with my Motorola startac and my Samsung. The battery life is average. I can manage to go through 3 days with my phone being open day and night. Nokia claims that the phone can be used in communication mode for approximately 3 to 4 hours. I do not believe that the actual numbers are that high. I had to purchase an extra battery, and I found that the generic brand battery actually had a long life than the original from Nokia! As with many other Nokia phones, the covers can be changed to give a more personal touch to your cell phones. Covers sell at around 30 dollars each, but you can get generic covers for 15. As opposed to the 5190, the 3390 can have both the front and the back cover removed! Nokia introduced a new concept in their menu called Profiles. It allows you to change from one setting to another by a single click of a button. You may have several profiles, such as normal, discrete, silent and so on. For example, you may want to have vibration and your favorite ring tone in the normal profile, and only the vibration in the silent mode. I find this very intelligent, since I always had to go thru the menus to change to vibration mode on my other cell phones. There are also many other features that I do not use, but that may come in handy for other users. For example, there is a calculator, a few games, voice recognition, and the possibility to assign different tones for different callers. One feature that I liked the most was the possibility to download ring tones from the internet. However, ring tones are 1,50$ each, so you may want to limit yourself to only take the ones you like the most. Also, you can have your horoscope and daily news sent to your cell phone everyday. However, I am not aware of the charges that apply for this service. Another thing I must point out is the fact that this cell phone has no atenna! It was about time that a company decided to figure out a way to hide those ugly antenas that point out of your pants, or poke your belly when your kneeling. The most suprising thing is that the reception for the wave signals is actually better on this cell phone that my previous phone, even despite the fact that it has no antena! One thing that I do not like is the screen display. I was suprised that nokia hadn't improved its very normal looking display. It's actually the same as on the 5190, except maybe for a few animations. The famous NaviKey isn't that great. Sometimes, when you want to hang up, the NaviKey gives you choices such as hold, mute, flash... and you must make a combination of a few keys to hang up. If nokia would have made the screen display a little more attractive, such as using a blue backlight and maybe changing the way the menu is organized, this phone would probably be one of the best on the market. In short, I am very satisfied with the Nokia 3390. I recommend it to anyone who has a reasonable budget and that is looking to have a cell phone with a good reception. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89624 2000/5/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features small phone good reception can t really think of anything else maybe a little small for some people The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3390 is the most popular phone by Nokia and with good reason. It has many great features that will provide great use for anyone. Full Review When I decided I needed to get a new cell phone I made the choice to go with Nokia. Along with Sprint, Nokia has the best selection of cell phones that you can go with for a number of reasons that I will tell you. The most important thing when considering a cell phone is the clarity of the reception, the portability, and the options and features it has. You should have an idea of what you want to use your phone for and what options you would like it to have. For example it is not necessary to pay the extra money for a phone with internet connection capability unless your planning to use it. Personally I do not use the internet on my cell phone because I do not like the format. I am not addicted to the internet quite that much so it is something I can do without. The thing that caught my eye about this phone was the look. It is small and this was something that I wanted in a phone. I had a phone with a belt clip and I really did not like it. This phone is small enough that I can fit it in any of my pockets without it bothering me. Another thing that stands out about this phone is the internal antenna. It is the only phone with an internal antenna which gives it a very unique look. You also are able to buy Xpress on covers to give your phone a new look. These cost about $25.00 dollars and are nice if you want your phone to have a new look every once in a while. I like them because they are easy to apply and makes it look like you bought a new cell phone. If you drop your phone and it gets scratched you are not stuck with a scratched up phone, you are able to grab a new face plate and snap it on. The clarity of the phone is really good. I do not think I have ever had a dropped call while using this phone. The reception is always good and I am always heard good and can hear the other person just as good. The battery life of the phone worked out really well for me. A fully charged battery allows for about 2 1/2 hours of total talk time. I always charged my phone overnight and kept it on from the moment I woke up. My phone never shut off or ran low while I used it so I was very impressed with the battery life. You are also able to purchase higher quality batteries that will give your battery extended life. I found that the battery that the phone comes with is just enough if you charge your phone every night. The phone also comes with a few games that are fun to play if you have time to kill. The phone has great ring tones and has a vibration setting that comes into play with the games. There is a snake game on this phone as with most cell phones, but because of the vibration function the phone vibrates when the snake eats a little pebble, or whatever they are. Overall I would have to say that the Nokia 3390 is a very good phone. I would recommend it to anyone who is in need of a cell phone. It is durable, lightweight, and provides great service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 89623 2002/4/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek strong reception light weight elegantsporty if you want it to be no browser no analog mode battery life The Bottom LineGet this phone as soon as you can put your hands on it. We did and no regrets! Full Review Hello Intro Firs I would like to wish happy new year to everyone. This is my first epinion this year. Many things happened since my last postings and we got many new products. One of these products is the Nokia 3390 Mini marvel, mobile telephone hand set. The deal we got on this phone was so good that we couldn't just let it by pass us. We got this phone three days ago and my wife is in love with it already. She had a Sanyo SCP-4000 before this for about a year. Gee, what a difference in quality and portability and everything else. I don't want to put the Sanyo down but the change from one phone to the other is like trading your K car to a new Camry like feeling, but you get the picture, I assume. The 3390 This telephone is so easy to use we figured out almost all features without reading the book at all. Here are some basic features this phone has. Eight number Voice dialing, Forty ring tones, Composer, 400 number phone book, Changeable face and back plates, Built in antenna, Calendar, Affordability, Strong reception, Ease of use, Style, Adoptability, Big clear display. This phone will not work in analog mode however the digital reception is so strong that while my Sanyo SCP-4500 was looking for service in the shopping mall, my wife's Nokia still had a strong signal. Amazing. Who needs analog anyways? We are in a digital age, plus the phones usually useless in analog mode at the first place. Why get it I am not saying that this phone is cheap. The regular price on this hand set is about $200- Cdn which is about $140- US. We got a very good deal on it however. She used to be with TELUS mobility and now we switched to FIDO. TELUS does not offer this phone. For only $23- / month she gets 200 any time minutes + call display + call forwarding + Call waiting + Conference calling. There is no contract. We have to stay with FIDO for at least three months, that's all. When we got the phone at the phone boot, this was in special for $50- so we got the set with a $150- savings. It also came with three different face and back plates as part of their promo. I switched the covers to red for her and applied the single rose screensaver on it the same day to custom tailor the hand set for her. Using the phone Using this phone is very easy. it comes with a huge user's guide the AC charger, warranty info, Safety guide, the battery and the SIM card. The SIM card tells your phone that you are with a certain provider, like we are with FIDO. The card is called the smart card here but it is a SIM card as we all know and as soon as you change the card, it is usable with other carriers. This is a GSM phone. GSM networks are used through Asia, Europe, Africa and now here in Canada. In the US I think it's coming soon as well. The GSM network enables the set to be used for two way, phone to phone text messaging and to interchange SIM cards in the phone so you can use the unit with a different provider. This set fully charges up in about two hours with the AC charger that comes with and it can go even for a week without charging it. It all depends how much you play around and talk on it. The set comes with the standard battery which drains rather quick, especially when you play games or entering text. You might want to consider a spare Lithium-Ion extended battery for this unit. Summary I very highly recommend the Nokia 3390 hand set to everybody, especially for young people and to folks who want a small handset. This phone only weights a few ounces and it is only about three inches long. There is no sticking out antenna on it. The battery is located inside, under the back cover so you don't have to worry about loosing the battery in case the phone gets dropped on the floor. If you want to surf the Internet or check your Hotmail, I suggest you to get a different set. Nokia manufactures other models with mini browser built in already. This phone shows the high quality and attention to detail. We are glad to have it and adopt it into our family. Nokia is one of the oldest mobile phone manufacturers in Finland / Europe. Nokia and Ericson. These are the two names you can trust when it comes to mobile communication. If you see this phone on special or just part of a plan offered by a carrier, get it rightaway. You will not regret it for a minute. Finally Thank you kindly for reading this "epinion" and please do not forget to rate it on the bottom of this page. Thank you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89622 2002/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish good features durable too big heavy mediocre reception The Bottom LineA good, durable, feature-packed phone for a reasonable price. Too big and heavy for me though. Full Review I've had the Nokia 3390 for a little over a year now. I have Cingular as my carrier in the Southern California area. The phone can be had for free these days if you sign up for a 2 year contract, maybe around $50 if you sign up for a 1 year contract. The menu and interface are very intuitive and easy to use. My dad has a Motorola V2282 (or similar) and the menu on that phone is extremely difficult and confusing, the Nokia on the other hand has a very logical, easy to use system. There are 11 main menu options 1) Phone Book: to store up to 250 phone numbers/names, as well as one touch dialing (press and hold '3' to dial home instead of dialing the number out, for example), as well as 'voice calling', this is a neat feature even though i rarely use it, what you do is you can record your voice, say for example 'John Smith' and later when you want to call John, you can speak 'John Smith' and the phone will call John automatically, the speech recognition is pretty good, I experimented with varying my tone, accent, speed when voice-dialing and the phone recognized the variants very well. You can also assign different rings to incoming calls from different people. For example, you can assign this ring tone to when your friend #1 is calling so that if you hear that particular ring is ringing you can know it's your friend #1 before you even look at the phone's built-in caller ID. 2) Messages: you can receive and send numeric pages, as well as, text messages and even picture messages with other nokia phones. 3) Call Log: shows a list of your missed calls, received calls (who called), dialed calls (who you called) as well as call timers 4) Profiles: There are different settings you can customize, there is a normal setting, there is a silent setting (which doesn't use an audio ring, but a vibrate ring and the phone doens't make any beeps when you're entering menu choices, it normally beeps when you're entering menu choices) the phone's beeps and rings are volume adjustable from 1 - 5. 5) Settings: various options (security, phone, clock, alarm clock) 6) Forwarding: you can choose to have your calls forwarded to another number (your carrier will charge for this feature though) 7) GAMES!!: Snake 2, Space Impact, Bantumi, and Pairs. All are fun games, my personal favorite is Bantumi. 8) Calculator: A basic 4 function calculator. 9) Calendar: A calendar, you can put in appointments, reminders etc, and have the phone give an alarm alert at a time you choose. 10) composer: you can compose your own ring tones, personally I could not get a decent ring tone out of this, but I never really tried. :) 11) Keyguard: since the 3390 has an open keypad, (no covers to cover the number pads) you can accidentally press the keys when the phone is in your pocket or wherever, so this locks all the keys so that nothing will happen is any of the keys are pressed. to access the phone again, you have to unlock the keys first. even in the locked state, you can still receive calls without having to unlock the keys first. The phone is durable, I once dropped it on concrete and it still works perfect to this day. The phone at first didn't seem durable though because it's made of plastic, and on my phone, the plastic back cover is not snug, it moves around a little bit.. but it is durable i guess. The battery life is okay, I averaged about 3-4 days between rechargings. The phone only requires about 2.5 hours to fully charge using the regular charger. I'm not sure how much of the reception is due to the phone or the carrier so I really can't comment on the PHONE'S reception but overall I would rate my reception as poor to average, especially indoors. My only real gripe with the phone is that it's too bulky and heavy. You may be thinking 'what, he's calling this phone big and heavy?' but yes, I do think it's too big and heavy. The thickness is 0.8 inches, it's really bulky and noticable when I leave it in my pocket and the phone is 4.3 ounces, it looks heavier than it is, the aforementioned Motorola v22xx phone is much bigger than this phone dimensionally, but this 3390 is actually a little heavier! But that's just me personally, for most people this phone will be just fine in terms of size and weight but make sure to try it before you buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89621 2002/3/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice durable one touch dialing vibrating alert internal antenna plenty of customisable covers great games sound quality was bad at first battery life is a joke The Bottom LineI recommend the Nokia 3390 to anyone who needs a wireless phone. It is small, sleek, and packed with features that everyone will enjoy. Full Review After having hundreds of hours worth of conversations with my Nokia 5190 over the past two years, I began to have interest in other phones that are out there. I had a long talk with my old phone, and we both decided that it was best for the both of us to part and find another significant other. It didn't take me long to fall in love with the Nokia 3390; this small and lightweight phone has something for wireless newbies and seasoned veterans alike. I use this phone with Cingular Wireless service. Check out the review at: The physical design Just like the 5190 and other models, the 3390 has a simple button layout, consisting of a two-direction scroll button, the centre Navi-Key for performing phone functions and voice dialing, a Clear key, and your standard 12-key numeric keypad. The buttons are small but spaced far enough apart so that you won't accidentally hit the wrong key. I don't have to press hard on the keys whilst using the phone; they have a really good tactile response, and I get a nice, satisfying "click" when pressing on them. The power button is conveniently located on the top of the phone. The menu and features Since I'm familiar with the 5190's menu system, I learned how to access the phone's features in no time. Even if you've never had your hands on a Nokia before, you'll find it easy to navigate through the menus and get to the feature you want, although I must admit that you may have to spend a little extra time looking for certain less-frequently used features. Besides the standard phone book and basic calculator that you'll find in almost every other phone, the 3390 has a lot of unique and useful functions. You can assign one of 40 ring tones (35 included + up to 5 downloaded/composed) to each name on your phone book, so you can differentiate between incoming callers. You can also choose to play no tone when a certain someone, such as your boss or ex-boyfriend, calls. ;o) In the Text Messaging department you'll find T9 predictive text software. This is a text messaging junkie's dream; it allows words to be spelled out with less effort, which means you can write longer messages in English, en Español, ou en Français in less time. There are also pre-made templates and picture messages to help quickly send commonly-sent messages via e-mail or to other mobile phones via SMS. You can create custom profiles and set up the right combination of ring tone, volume, vibration, and warning tone settings. For example, you can choose to vibrate only whilst in an important meeting or in a loud place where you wouldn't be able to hear your phone ring. Then quickly change the current profile as your situation changes. The phone's new games are fun for the kids or for those boring, idle moments in the middle of the airport terminal. Treat yourself to a game of the new-and-improved Snake II, Space Impact, Bantumi, or Pairs II (an improved version of Memory). The calendar does a great job at keeping appointments and birthdays. One major downside is that T9 prediction isn't available, so you'll have a harder time making entries into the calendar. You don't always have to make your fingers do the navigating and dialing; you can set up your phone to dial up to eight numbers stored on your phone book using your voice. Note that this feature is not voice-activated; you still have to press and hold the centre Navi-Key to make the phone ready for you to speak the name. Nonetheless, this feature works very well and is a good way to impress those around you. :o) The performance The sound quality on calls made on this phone was unacceptable--at first. I found out that the bad quality was due to a setting that made longer battery life a priority over good sound quality. Dialing a special code dramatically improved the quality at the expense of battery life, and it now sounds just as good as the old 5190. I used to believe that internal antennae decrease signal quality and cause more dropped calls and bad sound quality compared to phones with external antennae. The 3390's internal antenna actually performs better than the 5190's external antenna, and well exceeds my expectations. If you need a long-lasting battery, or you're used to the battery life of most other models, the battery included with this phone will disappoint you. The standard battery lasts no where near the standby times Nokia states; if you plan to use it often, plan to either plug it in to an outlet at least every other night, or invest in another battery; prices start at $36, which is a bit too much for my wallet. Overall, I'm pleased to say the Nokia 3390 is a much better phone than its predecessors and a lot of its competitors. It's not only convenient to hold and carry but also much fun to use and customise. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89620 2000/8/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 interchangable covers intergrated antenna small size lots of features good reception nice looks operating system bugs navi button can confuse new users no web access The Bottom LineA excellent value: lots of features, pretty good price, distinctive styling, durable. If you don't need to use it overseas, it's a great little phone. Full Review First off, i'd like to say what a great value this phone is. Here in Canada, I brought it for $150 Can (about $100 US), and the price will probably drop in the future. It has a lot of features usually found in much more expensive phones, and it is pretty small, but has a good heft and feel. In short, the 3390 is great. Features: the 3390 is loaded with features: it has call logs and profiles (staple Nokia features), a calendar, 4 games, calculator, vibrate mode, voice dialing, and a ring tone composer (last time i checked, very few phones have it). It's not the easiest to enter compose a ring tone, but it saves you from getting charged for downloading ringtones. Although voice dialing is becoming more common, it makes the 3390 an even greater value. There also all your standard cell phone features: phone book, SMS, etc. So basically, you get nearly every feature Nokia offers for about $100. Features not included that i can think of are web access, a voice recorder, and infra-red; and that's it. These omissions are certainly not negatives given the price. In fact, I must wonder how much of a profit Nokia makes on this phone. Interface: I myself prefer Nokia's two-button navigation (like on the 6190 or 8290) compared to the 3390's one-button 'Navi' key. It is a multi-functional button; it's function depends on the text above the key. Many of my friends who use my phone ask my where the 'talk' and 'end' button is; both use the same key and this throws some people off, but it's no big deal once you learn how to use the phone. The 3390 is pretty easy to use; the interface is simple, the menus are well labeled and contain number shortcuts, and there is even a basic help system built into the menu: for most entries, a description will pop up if you wait for 15 or so seconds. The 3390 has predictive text input for writing SMS messages, which speeds up writing messages a lot. Note that predictive text input does not apply to the phone book, calendar, etc.; it is only for SMS. Performance: reception is very good...i never had drop-outs and the strength signal never dropped below 1/2 at or above ground level. Sound quality is also very good, and so is the volume, though I have heard louder. What is loud is the ringer...maybe not the loudest, but it's plenty loud. Remember that you can also have the vibrate on at the same time. Styling: For the price, there is nothing (to me) that looks better. Both the front 'face' and the back battery cover can be replaced for different colors...you can even have both cover in different colors! Here in Canada the covers are expensive (i'm talking about the geniune Nokia ones). I would prefer something that looks more 'classy', but it's really a personal preference. Flaws: My first target is the operating system. i don't know if it's just my phone, but one of the 2 blank profile settings that i configured as 'Home' would sometimes be renames 'HXXX', where 'X' are squares. It has don this 3 or so times, but not recently. One other weird thing is that once the software seemed to have 'frozen' up for about 3 seconds. These things have never happened with my previous 6160. I don't think it's anything too serious, though. The second and last flaw is the average battery life. If left on standby (without any calls), it'll last about 4 days (straight) on a full charge. When you get 8 or so calls a day, you might not make it through the second day. There are optional batteries available, so at least it's fixable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89619 2002/9/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good quality very easy to use resonable price may sound a bit like analog half a second delay sometimes The Bottom LineThis phone is worth every penny. I love the design and the fact that it isn't too complicated to use. Great little phone for the price. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is an excellent phone for all your daily uses. It's portable, convenient, and ergonomic design give it an excellent appeal. This phone also has an extremely long battery life. Let me give you the technical specs and run down the information about this phone: Phone Features Voice Voice dialing for up to 8 names Mobile Messaging Two-way text messaging 1 E-mail over SMS 1 Predictive text input AOL Instant Messaging (Voicestream) 1 Personalization & Fun Ring tone composer, to create your own tone Xpress-on Color Covers Downloadable ring tones and profiles 1 New games including Space Impact and Snake Organization Phone book stores up to 250 names & numbers Currency converter Alarm clock Specifications Weight: 4.2 ounces Up to 2 hours 40 minutes of talk time with standard battery Up to 7.5 days of standby time Only 4.3 inches tall and 1.9 inches wide Internal antenna Internal vibrating alert Service GSM 1900 Automatic network selection 3390 Battery Life Standard NiMH Battery 640 mAh (BMC-2) -- Digital Talk Time up to 2.75 hours -- Digital Standby Time up to 5.5 days -- Analog Talk Time N/A -- Analog Standby Time N/A Voice dialing The voice dialing on this phone is pretty weak,essentially, if you want it to work you need quick sounds like "a" "b" "x", do not use "b" and "d" because the phone will confuse the names. But pretty neat feature. Mobile messaging is probably one of the best features on this phone. It has T9 cababilities, basically an internal dictionary that guesses what word you'll type and saves you an enormous amount of time. However mobile messaging isn't too much of an important feature for a power phone user but otherwise serves its purpose. E-mail and AIM You get e-mail and AIM over voicestream - both features work well but I found them useless. I actually turn off my phone because how often do you want people to contact you. Sometimes you want to be gone, unreachable! Heh, with this feature people can reach you through so many communications mediums that you might as well be open 24/7 like 7-11. Personalize You can personalize this phone to the extreme; dial-tones, screen-savers, and every other little gimmick can be downloaded from the web. I believe there are over 2,000 dial-tones for Nokia phones. Also, you can buy covers, psychedelic lights, and other useless features that'll make this phone the life of the party. Conclusion In my opinion the ease of use and the battery life are the best features. You get up to 3 hours of talk-time and over a day of standby. I have found that this phone is great on battery saving. Also, the ease of use for the address book, alarm clock, and other little features makes this little phone pack an enormous punch. The Nokia 3390 is an affordable little phone that'll take care of business. The only cons are that you may get talking delays sometimes, like a half second lag, and also some dropped phone calls. I have found that the internal antenna phones aren't as good as the ones with - but factor this in with all the other features I have mentioned. This is an otherwise affordable and well made phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89618 2001/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use nice looking good reception light weight can t receive special ring tones no web access capabilities The Bottom LineIt's nice looking and reliable. Give it a try. Full Review Talk about being "un-hip" for the longest time. The last cell phone I had were those "big" black ones that felt like a little anvil inside my pocket by the end of the day! You know, the end of a long day of walking and talking, with keys and coins and whatnot inside the same, space-deprived pocket? Well anyway, after awakening from a deep, technology-starved slumber, I decided to go out and buy another cell phone. I obviously based my purchase on what little I knew of the current models of cell phones out there. Almost everyone I know has the smallest Nokia model right now; the 8290. However, as small and nice looking as the 8290 is, almost everyone told me not to get it! I was told that it was poorly constructed (meaning easily breakable) and it had really bad reception. So I followed their advice and I am now able to tell you that going with the 3390 will be a good choice! :) I have had this phone for almost a month now, and I am very satisfied with it. (Obviously I haven't written a review in AGES but...) If you read my past reviews, you'll know that I am really big on "aesthetics." What does that mean? It means this phone kicks major G.M. in the Looks Department! I am fortunate to live in a predominately (try 1.6 million!) Asian area (also known as Los Angeles), so I am able to get a variety of creative and attractive cell phone covers that are imported from Asia. The clear, plastic cover makes the phone look very clean and "techy." But regardless, this phone looks pretty darn good right out of the box anyway. Now for the functional aspect. This phone has better reception than the big clunker (remember the anvil in my pocket?) that I had before. Even though there are still a few places where I cannot receive a signal, for the most part, this phone doesn't have a big problem catching those radio frequencies. Now, I am also sure that the actual cell phone company has something to do with the quality of reception as well. So you'll have to ask around your neighborhood for the best service provider. Also, continuing on with the functions, this phone is totally easy-to-use! If you've ever used a Nokia before, you won't even need the manual. Just toss that thing in the recycler bin! Really, there is nothing complicated about this phone that a 3rd grader (or a tech-ignorant adult) couldn't figure out. The only "beef" I have with this phone is that it can't receive those "special ring-tones" that yourmobile.com has available to other Nokia models. It could be that this phone is still relatively new and websites just haven't updated their capabilities yet. I have no idea, but it doesn't really bother me that much. It's just a ring tone that doesn't even sound like the actual song, right?! (Some people will know what I'm talking about) So in conclusion, if you don't surf the web on your phone (I mention that because some people actually do want web access on their phones) and if you like "aesthetically" pleasing objects with reliability, then the 3390 is for you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 89617 2001/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 has a lot of easy to use features excellent reception very portable none so far The Bottom LineIf you are in the market for a new cell phone, the Nokia 3390 is a great value for the money. Full Review When I first signed up with Voicestream, I selected a Mitsubishi phone as my "free phone". I used this phone for several months, and although I had a few issues with it, there was nothing major enough to really upset me. Until one day when I went to charge it and discovered that it was no longer chargeable; the charger prong had broken off. I had to have a phone, and decided to buy a new one rather than having Voicestream simply replace the old one. I figured there had to be better phones on the market, so why not? I called the Voicestream dealer, and the salesperson I spoke to recommended I go to Costco to purchase a new phone if I was interested in saving money. So, off to Costco I went. And the Voicestream dealer there had the Nokia 3390 phone on display. At first glance I liked the way it looked. Then I read the box, and I liked the accessories that came with it. (Regular charger, car cigarette lighter charger, leather carry case). Finally, at $99.00 it was reasonably priced. When I got home and started reading the book that came with the phone I was hooked. When I started learning the features, I knew that I had really been missing out with my Mitsubishi phone. Having a cell phone is a fun thing, and this Nokia phone makes it very fun. First of all, it is very user-friendly. My other phone was complicated, but not this one. The menu button takes you into everything you want to go into with no problem. What I Like First, the phone book. It is easy to program in numbers, and even easier to retrieve them. Different rings can be assigned to different people, which makes it really nice! I like knowing who is calling simply by the way my phone rings. There are a lot of different ring sounds to choose from, another nice benefit! And they are varied, from simple rings to songs like Elise. A nice feature! This phone even has the capability for voice recognition; it is possible to program it so that you can speak into the phone "call so and so", and then all you have to do is say those words and the phone dials. Very fun! My kids like the games that are on the phone. Could be cool if you are stuck in traffic and have nothing better to do. The reception is very good. I live in an area that is heavily shaded by pine trees with a rising hill in the back, and had a lot of trouble with my previous phone and reception when I was at home. Not with this one! I really like this, as generally when I need my cell phone it is because I can't get my teenagers off the regular phone. Calls don't cut off. With my previous phone, I had a lot of trouble with calls suddenly disconnecting for no apparent reason. I have not experienced this problem at all with the Nokia 3390. The owner's manual is great; easy to read, easy to follow, with directions that make total sense. There are few things that frustrate me more than having problem with an item and pulling out the owner's manual, only to find I am even more confused once I start reading. Not so with this one! Battery charge time is excellent; I charge my phone occasionally, but not daily like was I was forced to do with my previous phone. What I Don't Like Hmmm. I can't think of anything. So far I have not had a bit of trouble with this phone, and that speaks volumes in my book! Final Assessment There are many cell phones out there to choose from. If you are looking for a reliable phone for a reasonable price, consider the Nokia 3390. I did learn some things in my quest for a new cell phone, the most telling being a comment from one of the dealers I spoke to. She told me that the "free" phones given to customers when they sign up for service seem to be "designed to break", as they rarely last very long. Mine did last six months, but that is not terribly long in the grand scheme of things. If I had known this when I signed up, I might have chosen to upgrade at the time rather than waiting until the phone broke and having to go through the hassle of getting another one. I do love this Nokia 3390, though, and I firmly believe that I will get many, many hours of use out of it. This equates to money well spent in my book, and that is something I like. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89616 2000/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small great features no flip no external antennae occasional dropped call might be too small for some tastes The Bottom LineI recommend a serious look at this phone. The features are excellent and very user friendly. Full Review I guess there is good reason that there are currently no epinions that do not recommend this cell phone. This little guy has more features than an AMC movie theater, and it's cute too. Before I describe each of the features, I want to give the three that initially attracted me to this phone. 1. No External Antennae - My previous phone had one of those useless things and it drove me crazy. Without sacrificing reception this phone uses only an internal antennae. 2. No Flip - Ugh, I hated that feature on my last phone too. The flip panels are generally flimsy and too much of a pain to deal with. I like being able to easily use my phone with one hand. I can answer it quicker without the flip too. 3. Small Size - This aspect lends to the one-handed usage as well. In one hand I can easily dial, cruise the menu or nearly anything else I need to do on this phone (except play the games). ~~~~~~~~~~~~ As for the other features of this phone that I have come to love... Profiles are like a master control over how your phone behaves. Each profile has it's own alert settings (ring and vibrate), as well as volume settings, screen saver, warning tones, message tones and keypad tones. The profiles are all customizable so you can create different profiles for different situations. So, as you go into an important business meeting, a quick change and your phone behaves itself. Games are the feature we are all afraid to like. But I will be completely honest here. This phone comes with 4 games: Space Impact (Defender-like), Snake II (eat and grow), Bantumi (the bean dropping game), and Pairs II (memory game). These games are pretty fun, and suprisingly so for a cell phone. One word of advice though...When you play while sitting in the restroom at work, be careful of the audible sounds you make. The Composer is a feature I have yet to master but it is an amazing idea. With this option you can create new tunes, or noises as the case may be, to be used for ringing tones. The display shows the musical notes as well as the time signature, so a little knowledge of music would help. Tempo can be changed too. A little practice is needed for this feature. The Calendar is handy to make notes for upcoming events. You can chose different alerts to remind you of them too. The Calculator is not a full featured sort, but it can do simple arithmetic. It also has a handy exchange rate feature for international travelers. The Messages section is where you get options for receiving voice and text messages. It records the number that called and allows you to return the call or save the number, and also allows you access to your voice mail. The Phone Book is fully customizable with names using upper and lower case as well as all sorts of symbols. Each entry can then be assigned a different ringing tone if desired. Then when this number is calling your phone, not only will the name you assigned it be displayed, but the tone you assigned it will ring. Pretty cool. The phone book can contain 270 entries. Keyguard prevents unintended dialing...only if you turn it on though. Forwarding allows you to send calls to another phone automatically. The Call Log logs calls. The SIM Card is the memory card of the phone and it can be a cause of some problems if it doesn't function properly. Also, since I moved to Colorado from Texas, I had to get a new SIM Card because I am in a different region. The interaction with the SIM card is specific to the service provider you are using. I am using VoiceStream and well....that is another review altogether. For more info on options go to: www.nokiahowto.com I have had a great experience with this phone so far. Its small and light and quite cute too. I bought it for $100 at BestBuy where I got a $100 in-store rebate with the phone (and service plan from VoiceStream). So I virtually got this phone free since I needed the service plan anyway. While I have read that the smaller Nokia phones (8000 series) have trouble with dropping calls, I have not had much of this with this particular phone. If your looking for a new cell phone, check this one out for sure. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89615 2000/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good cheap phone none that i have seen so far The Bottom LineThis a great phone for anyone who wants a cheap good quality phone. Full Review This is a great little phone that is both cheap to own and offers some great features. The sound has always been great with this phone for me and I recommend this as a first phone or a phone for someone who wants something a little easier than a lot of the newer phones that are being sold. Sound Quality This phone offers great sound quality. I have never had any huge problems with anyone hearing me on this phone or people understanding what I am saying. The great thing is you can adjust the sound by pressing the up and down button until you get it right while you are on the phone and this for me makes a great feature for those times when you are calling someone who has a loud phone or a very quiet phone. Range I have never really had a problem with the range that this phone can get. I thought at first with an internal antenna that it might not get very good reception but found out that it is very good and at most times is completely in range. I have only found two places where my range is limited - in my house (for some reason but I am thinking it's all the metal siding on the house because once I step out the door it's fine again and on the toll road leading to Irvine from the 91 freeway. But again that is brief and doesn't cause me any inconvenience. Battery You can actually talk about 2-3 hours without recharging your phone and I have gone about 7 days without charging if I am not talking a lot (or playing the games I describe below) on it. So that is a very good life in my opinion. When I charge it the most it will take from empty is about half an hour so if I need to I can charge it in the morning when I am getting ready to leave for school. Features and Navigation As you will see here not only is this phone good for sound quality but also in it's features that you are offered. Navigation Now I know that some people who have used my phone think that this is strange on this phone compared to other phones that they have used but I think it's very simple. First, you have a middle key that accesses the main menu and can be used to dial calls and to end calls. This makes it so simple to start - although I know some people prefer the send and end buttons some phones have this takes up less space and is very simple to use. Next you have a "C" button or clear which will back you out of menus and clear your screen for you. Also very convenient and I find myself using this all the time. Now you also have a button that has arrows pointing up and down. At first I only used these to navigate within the menus but found that they are much more useful than that. From your main screen if you press down you get access to your phone book. If you press up you will get a list of your last dialed phone numbers. Very simple to use and a great feature. Calling Features You are also given many good features with this phone that will aid you in making and receiving calls: Call Waiting - you don't have to worry about your friends or family getting a busy signal. Caller ID - so you know who is calling before you answer the phone. Voice Mail - always a good feature to have in case you just can't answer the phone when it rings or you miss the call. Text Messages - you can send and receive text messages and what makes this better is that you can view up to 5 lines of text on your screen at the same time. You do have to sign up for this service separately (at least with my plan you do but it's built into the phone). Speed Calling - you can have up to 9 preset numbers in to dial with the two buttons - the number you programed it in and the enter key. Weight This phone is extremely light weight weighing just over 4 ounces. So you can carry this everywhere and most of the time forget that you have it on your until it rings or until you need to make a call. Dimensions The phone is extremely small which makes it handy to carry. It is about half an inch deep, 3.5 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. It is very streamlined and I liked that when I saw it because I knew it was big enough where I wouldn't lose it but small enough that I could carry it anywhere without it taking a lot of room. Phone Book You can store up to 250 phone numbers in this phone - I haven't even stored close to that so for me this has a lot of storage space available. Messages If you do have your phone set to receive text messages (or to send them) there is a menu set up for you to access your old messages or new messages and for you to compose a new message. Call Log Here you can check how many minutes you have used. I reset this at the first day of my billing period so I know exactly how many I have used in that billing cycle. This makes it easy for me to know how close I am to the limit. This also breaks down the call logs into calls received and dialed and also will tell you how long your last call was. I find this menu to be very handy for me. Profiles This is another great feature. Here you get 5 profiles to chose between and you can also create your own from here, including different ring tones, screensavers and vibration. You can also download more screensavers and ring tones from Nokia for your phone - I have not done this but I have heard that this is a great way to get more into your phone. Settings This is very handy and I have used this many times also. Here you have an Alarm Clock which I have used many times to get up for school in the mornings. Since the phone is very small I can place it by my head to make sure I hear it. You can also set your date and time here, as well as your security settings. Forwarding I have never used this also but you can set this to forward your calls. I guess this would be a good feature if you didn't want to take your phone everywhere or you were going to be someplace where you couldn't answer it. Games There are also 4 games included with this phone: Snake II Space Impact Bantumi Pairs II When I get really bored I will play these games but they waste a lot of my battery power so I try not to play them that often. Calculator I don't use this because it is hard to use. You have to press several different buttons for multiplying and dividing, although addition and subtraction are very simple. So this might be usful at a grocery store. Calendar I have used this feature a few times because you can set reminders for yourself for different days and also find out what day of the week a day is on. Composer Another feature that I have not used but you can also enter your own ringtones here if you know how to do that. I have not figured this out yet but I really haven't put much effort into figuring this out. Keyguard This is another important feature for me. This will lock your keyboard so that it can't dial someone by itself - sometimes in my purse it has done this to me before so I keep it locked. Cases For me this is a negative about this phone. I have not been able to find that many new cases for it. I find ones for different models almost everywhere I got but I very limited supply of cases for this model. I did finally find a light blue one that I liked at Best Buy but even there they only had 3 different colors for me to chose from. Price I got mine from Cingular Wireless with a contract and a special they were having at the time for a buy one get one free offer so my mother and I both got one at that time. Our initial payment for everything was $54.00 - which included the $20.00 for our chips to be activated at the office and $19.99 for one phone and the other was free. Conclusion This is a great simple phone that has some great features, is very simple to use and usually has a great range. They do include a huge manual with the phone that helps answers any questions that you might have about the product when you get it home with you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89614 2002/9/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive very easy to use jam packed with awesome featuresgames has a mediocre vibrate function talk time battery life could be better The Bottom LineWhen you would expect mediocrity from an inexpensive phone, Nokia pulls through with the 3390. The 3390 rivals many more expensive phones and is very easy to use. Full Review I remember back in the day (about a month ago) that I had AT&T wireless service with my new 3360 phone. We got the 3360 for free (being cheap like we are) and loved it. Then we switched wireless plans to Voicestream by T-Mobile. Buying the service off Amazon.com, we received a Nokia 3390 and an additional 50 bucks back. Seeing as the phone was close in model number to my 3360, I was delighted. The Nokia 3390 runs on the GSM standard, the wireless system that is used all throughout Europe and Asia. Voicestream is definitely ahead of the game in their use of the system, as the other providers are considering following suit within the next few years. The Nokia 3390 has a spectacular list of features; even rivaling its predecessor-the 3360. Features include: Mobile Messaging Two-way text messaging 1 E-mail over SMS 1 Predictive text input AOL Instant Messaging (Voicestream) 1 Personalization & Fun Ring tone composer, to create your own tone Xpress-on™ Color Covers Downloadable ring tones and profiles 1 New games including Space Impact and Snake Organization Phone book stores up to 250 names & numbers Currency converter Alarm clock Specifications Weight: 4.2 ounces Up to 2 hours 40 minutes of talk time with standard battery Up to 7.5 days of standby time Only 4.3 inches tall and 1.9 inches wide Internal antenna Internal vibrating alert Service GSM 1900 Automatic network selection 3390 Battery Life Standard NiMH Battery (BMC-2) -- Digital Talk Time up to 2.75 hours -- Digital Standby Time up to 5.5 days -- Analog Talk Time N/A -- Analog Standby Time N/A **All features are copyright of Nokia.com** The first difference from the 3360 that I noted was the use of something called a SIM card. After taking the cover off of the phone, you must insert two things. The first is the battery, and the second is the SIM card. A SIM card is used with phones on the GSM standard. It is basically a smart card that gives added security to your phone. After placing the gold plated SIM card in the phone, you can close up the cover again. Covers are changeable (although what kind of person would ever want to pay 30 bucks to do this, I don't know…). As you can observe from the features list above, the phone is extremely light. Weighing a half-ounce less than the 3360, the phone is both light enough and small enough to easily fit into a trouser pocket. I would recommend buying a case for it though, which can be worn on your belt. The menu system is about as easy as they could make it. Much like the 3360, by pressing the button underneath the digital words "Menu," you can access the top level of menus. Menu options consist of: Phone book Messages Call Log Profiles Settings Forwarding Games Calculator Calendar Composer Keyguard IM The phone book can store 250 names and is very easy to access. One mistake with the new model, however, is the inability to program multiple numbers for one person. Say for example you wanted to program your friend Billy Bob into the phone. He had two numbers, his cell and his home phone. Using the 3360 and probably other Nokia phones, you could program both numbers under that one entry. Using the new system, you must program in two entries. This was unfortunate. Also relating to the phone book is the IR capability of previous phones. When I wanted to transfer all the phone numbers from my 3360 to my 3390, I was shocked to find that the 3390 has NO Infrared port. I was very upset and had to spend a very long time programming in all the numbers. A lack of an infrared port also means that you can't send "business cards" to other people via IR, you must send them by SMS or the short messaging service. Business cards are basically a phone book entry with your name and number. The last disappointment would be the sad attempt at a "vibrate" function on the phone. While the 3360 had a very strong vibrate, that could scare the heck out of you, the 3390 feels like a mosquito. If you were thinking that you couldn't feel mosquitoes then you were right. I have missed many calls due to the pathetic "vibrate" function. If you rely heavily on this function then skip this phone. On the other hand, there are some new additions to this phone that haven't been on previous models of cell phones. The first is AOL Instant Messenger preloaded on to the phone. Once you get the whole typing with your thumbs thing down, you can chat with your friends at all hours of the day. Having the AIM service on your phone can also mean that instead of using the outlandishly expensive directory assistance, you can just IM a friend to look something up for you. You must have a previous AOL Instant Messenger account for this to work. Visit www.AIM.com for a screen name. The Nokia 3390 also gives you the ability to program 8 voice recognition tags. By holding down the menu button and then saying the name, you will be able to call that person without going through your entire phone book. Other additions include additional ring tones and a new game. The ring tones are interesting, and some of the new ones are big improvements over ring tones on previous models of Nokia phones. While Nokia has never really excelled in the ring tone market, they make an active attempt with the 3390. Also included is something called a ring tone composer. This allows those musicians out there to create their own unique ring tones. The program is pretty hard to use, but interested parties could figure it out. My favorite addition to the phone is the new game Bantumi. How thrilled was I to find out that they had Mancala on the cell phone. While I have yet to beat the computer on Level 1, I love playing Bantumi (mancala). Other games on the phone include: Snake II : This highly addictive game allows you to control a snake around a very small playing arena. The snake must eat apples and animals, without consuming itself or bumping into the walls. The game comes preloaded with tons of awesome mazes. Watch the snake carefully as you play, for it will open its mouth wide to swallow something, an amazing effect. Not only that, but you can watch as the food goes slowly throughout its body until finally ending up at its tail. Space Impact: While I wish the phone came with Space Invaders, I'll have to do with Space Impact. In this game you control a spaceship. You must both avoid and destroy other ships and their weapons to win the game. I basically avoid it. Pairs II : Another highly addictive game, Pairs II is much like "Memory." You must find all the matches underneath the pile to win. Play with a lot of cards and those long plane trips will be shortened immensely. Sound quality on the 3390 is very high. While I get the occasional garbles due to Voicestream, the other party can always hear what I am saying. The phone speaker is also of high quality, but in noisy places you may have trouble hearing the other person or persons you are talking to. In normal situations I must turn the speaker volume up all the way to hear the other person clearly. I doubt I am going deaf, so I assume the problem is on Nokia's end. In future phones I hope they make the handset volume louder. Battery power on the 3390 is incredible. After charging the phone once, you can leave it on standby for 6 or 7 full days before you lose all battery power. Talking on the phone can shorten the battery power very quickly. Speaking on the phone for about half an hour will drain around a quarter of the battery power. For high volume chatters, this probably won't be the phone for you. In conclusion, the Nokia 3390 is a very well made phone. It is durable and is jam-packed with features. Looking through the lists of available phones and then looking at epinions, I saw that the 3390 is one of the highest rated cell phones out there. www.cnet.com says basically the same, putting the 3390 into its top 5 list. The phone also has a certain sex appeal about it that many other cell phones don't. It is small, cool and easy to use. The 3390 will certainly make an enormous boom when providers such as Verizon switch to the GSM standard. If you are looking for a new cell phone and plan, definitely put the 3390 at the top of your list. While it has its issues (a poor vibrate function and poor address book), it is still a far better choice than some of the cheap brands such as Audiovox. Nokia makes high quality phones, and luckily the 3390 didn't fail. Additional Note: The Nokia 3390 comes with a manual and an addendum on how to use the AIM service on the phone. The manual is very easy to understand and gives step-by-step instructions on how to use the phone, including how to troubleshoot problems. The manual is small, but is 148 pages. The phone also comes with an AC adapter for charging the phone, and a convenient hands-free set. Thanks for reading! For additional questions please email zborman@eudoramail.com. Grade: B+ If you would like to learn about the Nokia 3360 which runs on almost all other major networks, please read my informative review! See the below link. ***************************************************** Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -50 89613 2002/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has everything you need more i don t even need it to do that though can t connect to the internet The Bottom LineThis is a great phone. I am glad I spent the money and got a decent phone instead of settling for the freebie or spending more for something less. Full Review The Nokia 3390 is one of three phones that we had to choose from when we signed up for our Wireless Provider. We looked at all of the options of all three phones and settled for the Nokia 3390. We are very happy with our choice and I think you would be very happy with this phone as well. This phone can be personalized to fit your personality. The only thing that this phone doesn't do is have the option to connect it to the internet. It can send and receive text messages of 140 characters but it doesn't have the ability to hook a laptop to the internet. This phone is a lot smaller then the first phone I ever owned a couple of years ago. This phone is even small enough to fit in my pocket. Among the many features that this phone offers are: Call waiting Caller ID Volume indicator Screen Saver Voice-activated dialing for 8 names Two-way text messaging Up to 2 hours and 40 minutes talk time 7 days standby time snap-on faceplates (what a cool thing) downloadable profiles with screen savers and ring tones. (Hey, you can even download the music to the Star Wars Episode I movie.) lithium ion battery AC travel charger hands-free ear bud (This has come in handy in the car) weighs only 4.2 ounces (with battery) small size of 4.3 H x 1.9 W x 0.8 D inches. Internal antennae (no more having to make sure the antennae is pulled out before answering a call.) Create your own ring tone with 3390 ring tone composer The phone makes a beep noise when the battery level is getting low, so there is no guessing, or forgetting when it is time to power up the battery. The Nokia 3390 has 4 New games: Space Impact, Snake II, Bantumi & Pairs II. It is definitely entertainment for those idle moments. That is if the idle moment is a place where you can have the phone turned ON. So, WARNING: Do not play games on your phone where use of a wireless phone is prohibited, or when it can cause interference or possibly danger. A hospital setting comes to mind, or possibly not a good thing would be on an airplane. I would have to say my favorite of the four is Pairs II. A small description of the games is as follows... Space Impact: It involves using your weapons to survive alien attacks. When you defeat all of the enemies you progress to the next level. Snake II: You are supposed to feed the snake as many goodies possible to make it grow. The longer the snake's tail grows the higher the score you get. You can choose to play in a clear field or select from 5 different mazes. If the snake runs into its own tail or one of the walls the game is over. Bantumi: You play against the phone dropping beans into pots. Press 4 or 6 to pick a pot and 5 to drop the beans. When you finish in your big pot you get another turn. If you finish in your empty pot you can get beans from the opponent's pot. Basically the one with the most beans wins. Pairs II: This involves some skill, you have to uncover pictures to find pairs, all while using as few tries as possible. In arcade mode, you must find all of the pairs before the bomb goes off. I must give my piece about Wireless Phone Safety...With all of the controversy about wireless phone use in cars while driving, I think the driver should use discretion. I have heard of too many instances of people getting hurt from drivers not paying attention to the road when they are on the phone. I think that this wireless phone has come up with a few solutions to make driving and talking a little bit easier. This phone comes with a hands free ear bud that doesn't have one of those funny microphones in front of your face.. It is discreet enough others can hardly tell that it is there. I have used it while driving and I was talking to my hubby and he couldn't tell that I didn't have the phone in my hand. In other words the person on the receiving end of the phone call has no idea that you aren't using the phone. Another nice feature with this phone is hands free dialing. It has something called Voice Dialing for up to 8 names. So, for those phone calls that just "have" to be made while on the road use the hands free ear bud, the voice activated dialing, and KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR SURROUNDINGS. For someone that just can't do more then one thing at a time by golly pull over to the side of the road and finish your conversation there. Where it is safe.. The person on the other end of the phone does not want to feel responsible for you getting into an accident. Okay enough about that ... I just had to let you know how I felt. This phone in my opinion has it all. The options that come with this phone are endless. One thing that does come to mind, is that if the network that you are using as a wireless provider does not support all of the things that this phone is capable of doing then, you won't be able to get the full potential out of the NOKIA 3390. Another thing that comes to mind is the reception that I receive on this phone is exceptional. The person that I talk to is as clear as can be. The person that is listening to me gets to hear all of the background noise around me thought because it has such an exceptional microphone on it. We bought our Nokia 3390 at Costco for $99.99 but it came with a $50 airtime credit, a leather carry case,a car charger and more. If you have any questions just leave a comment and I will get back to you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89612 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great quality sound reasonably priced break up occasionally The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a reasonably priced, sturdy and high quality sound phone, I would say to search no further. You will have that with the Nokia 3390. Full Review After half a season of bad communication (or lack of communication I should say) from my son's Basketball Coach, we decided the time had come to purchase a second cellphone. Although we had talked about doing this in the future as our children got older, we decided that it would be beneficial for our whole family to go ahead and move forward with this decision at this time. I have been a very happy owner of the Nokia 5190 for over a year now. I love that phone. Through good times and bad, my Nokia lived well above my expectations. Our preference for Nokia was even taken a step further when my husbands company switched cell phones 3 times this past year. Out of all the 3 cellphones that he used (Motorola, GTE and Nokia) he found the best quality in the Nokia. So we unanimously decided before hand that we would purchase another Nokia phone. At the cell phone retailer, we managed to walk into a pretty good deal. Don't they always have some kind of deal to rope you in? Anyway, after declining their BIG deal of the day (where we would have ended up spending twice as much on a bunch of stuff that we didn't need), we ended up with a pretty good deal where we got a Nokia cellphone for half off under the terms that we would sign up for the Family Talk Plan. This worked out perfect for us because this was the plan we were already coming in for in the first place. Along with that, we go a newer model Nokia, the 3390. This review is going to be a comparison between the 5190 and the 3390 since these are the two that I have had the most experience with. Looks The Nokia 3390 is a lot more modern looking the older, 5190. The phone is slimmer and less bulky. Where the 5190 had a short antenna on top, this model has no antenna. At first I couldn't place my finger on what made this phone look so different and I later realized that this was why. It looks more high tech without the antenna. Also with the more compact sleeker design, it is even easier to store your Nokia in your purse, glove box or other convenient place. You are also able to purchase Xpress-on Color Covers for this model phone. Unlike the color covers that you were able to purchase for the 5190, these covers enwrap the entire phone. They have a front and a back piece. You are able to either choose one color for your front or back or you have the option to mix and match the front and back pieces. The two plastic covers just snap on to your phone. These are neat, I was almost tempted to get myself the Silver and Black case in honor of my favorite football team, but..... for the additional $25.00, I decided I would just have to skip the "team spirit" at this time. I decided to take mine as is. It came with the standard dark blue color, which looks fine. The phone is set up very similar to the older model with a few new upgrades. Instead of the big square soft LED buttons, the 3390 has silver plastic buttons and only the number, letter and symbols are illuminated with the LED. This looks a little more high tech. I like this change. Options As with most cell phones you are able to choose between a variety of options when you set up for you service plan. All options are readily available by scrolling through the menu till you find what you need. I decided not to go into detail about the options since that all has to do with the service plan you purchase and not the actual phone. But no matter which extra options (call waiting, voice mail, etc...) your sign up for, this phone is very user friendly to take you to any of these options. You also have all the familiar options of choosing a ring sound and personalizing your settings. These all work in the same way as my previous Nokia. Games There is a whole new set of Games on this phone and they are much more advanced than those that came with the 5190 model. I almost felt like I had bought a video game system, well.... almost! ; ) As someone who loves to play with these little games, this was a cool addition for me. Along with the new games, your phone also comes with a cool vibration system. This makes playing your games that much more fun. An example would be a game that I frequently play on the phone called SNAKE. I played this all year long on my older Nokia, and was thrilled to see that the upgraded SNAKE 2 was on my new phone. You maneuver your little snake around and he eats little dots that appear on the screen. The snake gets longer with each dot it eats, etc... Well, on The Nokia 3390 you phone will vibrate in your hands as you gobble up each dot. There is also sound effects on the games with this phone as well. Cool! Maybe not the most important feature, but a fun one anyway. ***The phone also vibrates in the same manner when it rings. So, if you want to turn off all ringing sounds, you could still know when someone is calling by the vibrating. Just like with a pager. Compose Yes, you can compose music on this phone! What is the purpose of this you ask? Good question, I have no idea, LOL. The only use I can find for it is to help keep my kids busy when we are driving. But, you are able to do this nonetheless. After composing a song (using the number keys) you can save it and then play the entire song back. Parts, how well it is made Very well. The Nokia phones are put together fairly well. Never have I had a piece break off or crack with neither of my Nokia phones. My husband had one phone that the antenna broke, the flip door popped off and the back cracked. I don't know if that was the quality of craftsmanship in the brand of phone he had or if it is just because he is a little harder on his phones than I am on mine (it is probably a bit of both), but I haven't had anything go wrong with either one of my Nokia phones from day one. Clarity and Reception Although this is by the far the most important thing to know about any cell phone, I wanted to talk about this last because it is the one thing that I can't say is better than the Nokia 5190. By no means am I saying that the 3390 is not a very clear phone, because it is. After witnessing first hand the clarity/reception in some of the phones that my husband has used, the Nokia 3390 is still by far more clear and has a much better reception quality. But I have to be honest and say that my Nokia 5190 was even more clear. With both model of phones, never have I experienced being cut off while using it. (Expect for the times when you drive into an area where there is no response signal at all.) But I have noticed, even though it is very rarely, that the 3390 with break up a bit. I never had this problem with the 5190. That was the one thing that I could tell and recommend to everyone I spoke with about the Nokia, was that it had a great reception. So, when I started using the 3390 and experienced the occasional break up, I wasn't ready for it. However, even though it does this from time to time, I don't feel it happens enough or as often to call it a problem. It just does occur from time to time. As far as the sound, the Nokia 3390 still has the same great quality of sound. There is hardly no static at all and I never have a problem hearing the person on the other end perfectly clear. As a matter of fact on both phones (the 5190 as well as the 3390) I have had people tell me that they couldn't even tell I was on a cell phone because it was so clear. That quality still exists in the 3390. Battery Life The standard battery that comes with the phone gives you approximately 2 1/2 hours of talk time before needing to be charged. You are also able to purchase (as an option) batteries that have a longer, extended time. But with the stationary charger at home and the Cigarette lighter charger, I have found that the standard battery works just fine. Overall I have found the Nokia 3390 to be a 4 star phone all the way. I liked it so much that even though initially, this was going to be the phone that I would have my son take, I have since done a "micro chip" switch and changed phones with him. I have grown to love this phone more. So, if you are looking for a reasonably priced, sturdy and high quality sound phone, I would say to search no further. You will have that and much more with the Nokia 3390. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 89611 2002/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features sound quality customization available price free with contract i dislike the navi button The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3390 is a good and inexpensive (with the contract) phone. The sound quality is excellent and the amount ... Full Review In the area where I live, Cingular Wireless offers free Nokia 3390 with contract. To get a more stylish (and more compact) model, you have to pay extra. And, since the smaller models actually seem too small (the distance between your mouth and the microphone is big when the phone's speaker is at your ear), the 3390 seems to be well-sized. Sound Quality One of the most important qualities of a cellular phone is the sound quality. The phone uses digital transmission technology, so there is no analog noise. One thing you have to make sure about, however, is the reception in your area - Cingular Wireless at the time I used the phone didn't have enough coverage close to the mountains I usually go hiking to. Overall, the sound quality of this phone is very good and is substantially better than the sound quality of my older Samsung phone. The Nokia 3390 uses GSM standard, also used in Europe. Navi I must admit that I don't like the "Navi" key that Nokia phones use - the use of Navi key to perform different functions is sometimes convenient, but sometimes it is more confusing than having separate "Send" and "End" keys. Other than using it for placing/ending a call, the usage is quite simple. Features The phone uses snap-on faceplate, so you can buy and use the faceplate of the color or picture you want. You can also customize it by downloading the different ring tones. The phone also has picture and two-way text messaging. The phone uses a removable SIM card, which stores all your information. The phone weighs 4.2 oz. with standard NiMH battery and has an internal antenna, which makes the phone slick and doesn't affect the reception. The phone's display can hold up to 5 lines of text. There are 6 profiles that feature different ringing tones for different environments. The phone can remember 250 phone numbers with names, has voice-activated dialing for 8 numbers and remembers 40 ringer tones. Some slots for ringer tones can hold downloadable ringer tones. You can also create your own ringer tones. The phone features also include a calculator (cumbersome to use - have to press * four times to divide, three times to multiply, etc.) The phone can also convert currencies. There is a calendar function to keep track of your meetings, birthdays, appointments, etc. The alarm is also present as well as the ability to send business cards. The phone also features several games: Snake II, Pairs II, Space Impact and Bantumi. Other features include voice mail, sending and receiving text messages, caller ID, call waiting, etc. Bottom Line The Nokia 3390 is a good and inexpensive (with the contract) phone. The sound quality is excellent and the amount of features is so high that it is unlikely anyone will use them all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7781 Nokia 5165 AMPS / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 89784 2003/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 downloadable ringtones accessories out the a messaging basic email lots of dropped calls cutoffs but that could ve just been cingular I had a 5120(identical almost to this phone) as my first phone, and I missed it so bad that I got a new one, well as close as I could find anyways which was the 5165. This is a great "no-brainer" phone suitable for first-timers with good basic features. Plus- the accessories! God it has got to have the most accessories of any phone on the planet. I have a whole shoebox full of faceplates, batteries, spare parts, antennas(I actually found a blue light-up Hello Kitty antenna for this one), etc...and I actually found a purple backlight for it which looked cool as hell. But since I got my camera phone, I'm passing this one on to my mother who desperately needs a phone that wont die on a daily basis. I'll miss it though, for a basic cell phone, it couldn't be beat. 89783 2004/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use durable big I've had this phone for about a year now and I love it. None of my other phones have lasted me this long. It's extremely simple for anyone to use. It's very durable too. I've dropped it several times and I haven't had to replace it yet. 89782 2004/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 wide coverage great reception none that i know of Wide coverage I've had this cell phone for years and I would never trade it in! It has lasted so long and has worked so well. The range it covers is incredible. Whenever we travel, it gets reception in areas where nobody else's phone does - and those people have upgraded to newer phones. I would definitely recommend this phone to everyone. The menu is easy to use. It has games, e-mail, text messaging - almost everything the newer phones have. And there are a multitude of accessories available for this phone - many designs to chose from. This is definitely a phone to hold on to and one to buy if you can! 89781 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception big screen isn t color heavy This phone is the absolute best at recieving a signal. It will work everywhere literally...well not really...but still it will work almost anywhere. If you are looking for a phone that is made well and will work well, then check out the Nokia 5165. You won't be dissapointed. 89780 2004/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 tone volume easy faceplate change durable no viberate ring no com texts tones good basic b w screen I thought it was the service(A.T.& T.[cin.Bell]) so i got a 3560 the tried a Version v60I. What a difference the 5160 faded alot and would not virbrate.The large 40 hrs battery would give me maybe 15 hours of talk or 30 hours of stand-by.Large batteries do not come with vibrate thought.Phone comes with a none viberate battery that might last 10 hours of both(stand-by & talk). 89779 2005/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 it is reliable great reception sound the battery lasts a long time i did not like how heavybig the phone is I owned the Nokia 5165 AMPS/D-AMPS cell phone for two years and now my brother has it. This phone has been reliable and has always had good reception. I would defiantly recommend this phone. This cell phone was very easy to use. The menu was very self explanatory and could easily be figured out without reading the manual. I found Cellular one to be very corporative and always were there if I needed help with the phones features. This phone always had great reception, the battery lasted long and the sound was excellent. This Nokia 5165 was free for me it was thrown in with a phone service package I got. But normally this phone is usually pretty cheap with the rebates you receive. It has the basic features like alarm clock, address book, games, text messaging, caller id, and voicemail. Some things I did not like about this phone were how heavy it is. It is also pretty big compared to newer phones. The features this phone has are very basic. The screen doesn't have color and is small. I would recommend this phone to anyone who just needs the basics and doesn't mind the size. 89778 2000/8/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 phone performs very well nokia customer service The Bottom LinePhone is a performer! Nokia Customer Service abysmal. Full Review This is the first cell phone that I have owned or used. I bought it just prior to taking a long road trip from San Jose to Fairbanks, Ak. along the Alcan Highway.Then to the Southwest...Santa Fe, Denver. The phones ability to operate analog and digital were good selling points. The clincher was the $40 rebate from Nokia. With the exception of a few spots in the Yukon Territory and stretches of the SW desert the phone performed very well. I have however had an incredible degree of difficulty trying to collect my $40 rebate from Nokia a problem that has still not been resolved. I have submitted all the usual paperwork twice and they supposedly lost it twice! My feeling is that they feel if they stall long enough I will simply give up on the rebate. Based on this I will not be buying another Nokia product. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89777 2000/10/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 affordable versatile its small a lot of people have the same phone The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for college students or anyone else that is looking for a cheap, durable, compact phone with all the basic features. Full Review Okay, I know there are some phones out there that can basically launch nuclear missiles, but for most people this is the perfect phone. Its compact, so it can fit in a purse, but its not super small like those phones that barely can reach your mouth and your ear at the same time. Also the font is large enough to be read without straining. The face plates can be changed. (they sell them for this model EVERYWHERE) and ring tones can be customized. (even downloaded from you computer) This phone has all the typical feature: text messaging, voice mail, caller id. Its perfect for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/plan 89776 2000/5/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact fun adorable lots of features sounds like a regular phone sometimes the bellswhistles are too complicated The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 is adaptable, fun, handy, oh, and practical. Full Review I got my first Nokia 5165 for Christmas. My hubby, John, was tickled to death with his find, and with the simplicity of purchasing accessories for it. He had walked into our local Big Lots (and if you don't have a Big Lots Store in your area, I pity you) for $5.99 each. For under $20, he carried out a hands-free device, car charger, and pink-metallic faceplate. The phone itself set him back $50. He had chosen to go with a Trac-phone, thinking that I could use pre-paid cards and easily keep my account up-to-date without worrying about bills or a credit check. While the idea was golden, in practice Trac-Phones are more expensive than your average calling plan. With a Trac-Phone, you purchase units, not minutes. Units are much shorter than minutes, though I haven't figured out exactly how many seconds they actually last. To make a long story short, I was soon shopping for a calling plan, and the Nokia 5165 had to be included. My Trac-Phone is now wearing a red-metallic faceplate, also purchased at Bog Lots, and my pre-teen son is carrying it for emergencies. Lord help me if he gets a girlfriend and starts using up those units! I love everything about my little Nokia 5165. First off, it is very easy to personalize. Between the wide ranges of inexpensive faceplates to the downloadable ringtones, your phone can be totally different from mine. However, I have yet to figure out how to download those ringtones. My instruction book and my service provider have been very vague about exactly how this process works. All they can tell me is "yes, it's possible" and "your phone can hold five downloaded ringtones." There are many more practical features that I enjoy with my little Nokia. All phones have storage for numbers, but can they also save e-mail addresses? Mine can. I like using the one-touch dialing, and enjoy the security of the emergency dial (just push 9). Also, text messaging is nice, though I have only used it once. It also is capable of sending and receiving e-mail, which is something else I have yet to figure out. (Please do not think I am electronically illiterate. I really am not.) My phone has excellent reception, even the rural area in which I reside. When I use the phone, I do not feel as if I have to scream into it, nor do I have trouble hearing the other party. This is something I cannot say for my husband's Samsung. Oh, and it has games. Mine has three: Snake, Logic, and Pairs (a memory game). You may wonder why a 33-year-old woman would be happy with a mobile phone equipped with games. The games are very handy to while away the 8 hours traveling to my mother's home, and can also keep a restless pre-teen boy from driving me crazy because he's bored. Not only did I get a phone, I also got a Game Boy! Now, if Nokia can only figure out a way of letting us download "Tomb Raider" or "Pokemon" onto it, we'd be in seventh-heaven. In closing, I would recommend to anyone considering a Nokia 5165 that, after they check out all the loopholes in their calling plan (and trust me, they all have loopholes), purchase this phone. It is small, it does its job and then some, and it is fun to carry. I always know when it is my phone ringing when I am in a crowd of people, because my ringtone is so unique. I almost forgot, my Nokia also has a programmable Welcome Message. When I turn my phone on in the mornings to leave for work, it says, "Love and Blessings!" Now, what person can hate a phone that gives a greeting like that? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 89775 2000/1/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 comfortable to talk on color covers priced right only 1 per name in the phonebook vibrating alert sold separately external antenna no reminders The Bottom LineThis is the phone that set the standard for cellular phones -- the standard by which all others are judged. Full Review The Nokia 5165 was the first cell phone that I owned. I choose it because of it's popularity & it served me well. As phones go it is a little on the heavy side & the external antenna makes it a little uncomfortable to carry in your pockets. My service provider is AT&T and I live in the Orlando, FL area. Overall, the reception and sound quality is acceptable. Just a tip though, if your reception is lacking try one of those stick-on internal antennas. I bought one and it appeared to improve my reception in buildings. When you look at the bottom line, this is the phone that set the standard for cell phones. Good phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $25 refurb 89774 2000/2/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use great phone reception battery life bulky for a newer cell phone durability average The Bottom LineA great choice if you want great battery life, excellent reception and ease of use. Skip the 5165 if you want portability or lots of extra features. Full Review Battery The battery life on this phone is great. The guide says you can get up to 8 days of standby time with the original battery and i can get up to 10 days of standby time. Talk time is great too, about 2 and a half to 3 hours, which is great if your not talking on your phone all day long. Phone Reception The reception on the nokia 5165 is great. Since i have used this phone i have never had a dropped call or never had any static. This is probably because i have a good service provider too, but other phones i have used in the past have not compared to the Nokia 5165. Size and Ease of Use For most people the size of the Nokia 5165 is probably fine, but if you want to fit it in a pocket, it is a little too bulky. If you want something you can put into your pocket, consider buying the Nokia 3360 The Nokia 5165 fits comfortably in your hand and is very easy to understand and learn how to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 89773 2000/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 accessories everywhere durable quality interchangeable face plates reception The Bottom LineNokia phones are the only way to go. Full Review My first cell phone was an old NEC that my wife and I got back in 1993. At the time it was the best thing out. It had an 8 hours of standby time and 30 minutes of talk time. It could double as a weapon with enough velocity. In 1997 when my wife was pregnant I got a smaller Motorola that was suppose to have 24 hours of standby time and 60 minutes of talk time. Well, the original battery would last only 6 hours and the super thick battery might last 12. The video that came with phone was still not enough to teach me all of it features as it was too cumbersome to use. Needless to say, when my 2 year contract was up, I looked for a new phone. I settled on a Nokia because of the endless accessories everywhere you looked. It is small, light weight, by far the most popular. When the sales man said the battery would last 3 to 5 days on standby, I did almost everything short of calling him a liar. You know, he was right. the battery really will last that long. The phone is very easy to use and learn. I easily figured out how to load my phone book. In fact it is so reliable, convenient, and assessable that I use it way more then I ever planned. My original plan had 200 peak minutes were as today, I have 700. If there is a weak spot it is its reception. My wife's Audiovox 4000 doesn't loose its signal as quickly as the 5165. But that is only a minor problem as I spend most of my time in a large metropolitan area. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $1.00 89772 2000/9/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect size incredible battery life great reception not to large not to small none that i have found The Bottom LineIf you want a phone that is the perfect size this is the way to go. Get rid of you land line. Full Review The first cell phone that I ever used was a Motorola bag phone. Since I had that phone cellular technoology has come a long, long way. My Nokia 5165 is the perfect phone, and I can't see needing it to do much more for me. The next phone that I will upgrade to will be one that does my laundry and cooks my dinner. Size The size of this phone is perfect. As far as I'm concerned it's as small as you need to get. Much smaller and anyone with large fingers will have a hard time dialing numbers. I don't even use a belt clip, the phone fits comfortable in my pockets. The keyguard features keep me from accidently dialing anyone while the phone is in my pocket. I seem to break belt clips when I buy them, so have given up on that idea. Battery life The talk time/stand by time on this phone in incredible. I am not a heavly user, but can usually do 2 to 3 days with the phone powered on the whole time without having to charge. Features This phone has everything other than actual web access, and for web access I'd rather use a labtop or home PC anyway. Text messaging is great. You can receive and send text messages, and as well you can send e-mails on this phone. Also, depending on your provider there are variety of information/news services avaiable to you. Times have changed At one point in time, cellular phones were a luxury item. They were expensive and not many people could afford them. Now they are almost as cheap as your home phone service. Some features such as unlimited long distance at a certain cost make them even cheaper than land line, plus you don't have to be at your house to get your calls. Buy yourself a Nokia 5165 today, and you will not be dissapointed. The phone is great, and will satisfy the majority of your cellular needs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 89771 2002/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use cool kinda new look clarity small buttons no belt clip The Bottom LineGreat features, with a good talk time on the standard battery. Lots of gadgets to play with when waiting at the airport or stop light. Full Review After finally being told that we need to get a cell phone for the 1000th time, we finally did it. The phone is actually quite large compared to some of the other phones that Nokia makes, which was a possible problem that I had until I picked up the other phone that was much smaller. Not that I have a huge dome, but try to talk into those phones that are so small that you have to switch between your mouth and ear just to feel like you are holding a conversation that the other person can hear and understand you is tough. As for the features, there is a whole list: 1. Uses both digital and analog phone systems...so you can travel and not be interrupted by service 2. Talk time of about three hours as long as you are outside and in a digital service range 3. There is a address book in which you can store 100 names...I don't even know that many people!! 4. There is a feature in which the phone will automatically adjust the level of vol. so you don't have to. Great when on the go 5. A phone lock is installed so that all your outgoing and incoming calls are locked. If you lose your phone and don't report it for a while, the lock is installed so that you are not worried about someone else charging up your bill 6. An alarm clock is installed if you needing a reminder to be somewhere or to get up at a specific time 7. Text messaging is available. It is also 2 way messaging There are a few downsides to this phone, as it is a PAIN to carry around and not lose. That could be me to... The text messaging is a feature that you pay extra for and that kind of sucks. I feel that if it is offered on the phone...why cant we all have it? Also the fast charger is a good idea, as I take it everywhere I never remember to plug it in and the battery always goes dead on me, and I have to wait over night to charge it all the way. Over all this is a very good little phone with a lot of features that are available and should MORE than cover the basic consumers needs. If you have any further questions, feel, free to E-mail me at mcaanda@yahoo.com and I will reply as soon as possible! Thanx, Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.95 89770 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great accesories lots of features easy to use cheap maybe a little heavy compared to newer phones isn t voice activated The Bottom Lineneed a good reliable phone with great features, this is it Full Review Hello I would really like to say that I was against the whole cell phone phenomena. I always thought that I didn't need one and I refused to buy one. This all changed during Christmas where I received one as a gift. After giving it a try I found out that this little phone is pretty handy. The Nokia 5165 came in a little package containing a digital phone, battery, charger, headset and a refill card. The phone itself is very stylish; I changed my faceplate to one of the newer white ones, which I really like. The phones battery last really long to up to 3 ½ hours of talk time. It can stay connected with up to 200 hours of standby time also. It stores up to 100 names and numbers in its phone book. The phone itself is very easy to use and anyone can learn to use it. If your bored it has 3 built in games to play to pass the time. It features call waiting, 3 way calling, 1 touch dialing, text messaging, email, and keeps time on top of that. For what its worth this is a versatile phone that can do as much or even more than phones double its price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89769 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 practical the games are neat handy not for people with bigger fingers Full Review My boyfriend and I decided that it would be a good investment for us to go wireless. The problem was, we were having trouble finding a provider to suit his needs (he is a trucker). Once we overcame that hurdle, we found out that we were getting free phones - Nokia 5165's. For me, they are just the right size. For him, his fingers are bigger, so the buttons are too small. The reception is good, the size is excellent. Personally, I like the games too. Gives me something to do when I am waiting for my son at the school. I charged the phones when we first got them, and we let them go to see how long they would stay charged. They lasted well over 4 days! The special features on this phone are just an added bonus. The phone itself is good enough! Recommended: Yes 89768 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect for high school college students easy to use trimode analog digital pcs auto timesync not always accurate small buttons need to reset time if battery is removed The Bottom LineNokia should find a way to make the 5165 a little lighter and make the buttons a little bigger, but otherwise this phone is good the way it is. Full Review I am a senior in high school, and will soon be a college student. I already use my Nokia 5165 quite a bit, and I imagine I'll be using it more when I get into college. My older brother, who is in college, has the same model phone, and he enjoys it very much. Being a trimode phone, it is very difficult to find a location where this phone will not work. Most of the time, it is in digital mode. However, since digital calling is still in developmental stage, there are gaps in the digital service coverage. If the phone happens to cross into one of these gaps, it'll automatically switch to analog (cellular) mode. If the area also lacks cellular, the phone can use PCS service. This automatic switching of service has resulted in very little, if any, loss of service. It is also easy to use, quite small (in my opinion), and I utilize the built-in alarm clock occasionally. It is, however, not without flaws. The automatic timesync isn't always accurate, possibly a problem with the network. More than once I have seen the clock say it is 1:30AM when it was actually 6PM, so I have that feature turned off. Also, if for some reason the battery is removed (Maybe an older brother swapping his dead battery for my full battery), you need to manually reset the clock to the current time. And as others have already brought up, the buttons are a little small. Overall, this phone is perfect for the student on-the-go, and I do recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/svc 89767 2000/3/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small enough to fit in a pocket but not so small that it s easily broken as most users will tell you small buttons The Bottom LineI love my Nokia 5165 and take it everywhere with me. The only thing I haven't done is name it.....yet Full Review I've had this phone for 2 months and love it. The "silent mode" is really convenient when a loud ringing phone would be a problem. I laughed at first when I was told that there were games on the phone ("what is it, a video game/phone/cuisenart???") but have found the snake game to be a great way to entertain my 10 year old daughter while we're stuck in traffic! Okay, I admit it, I've played snake a time or two myself, but ONLY to show-off to my know it all teens....lol If you're looking for a phone that you can rely on and even have a bit of fun customizing ring tones, face plates, etc., this is the one. BTW, I paid $129.00 for the phone and a host of accessaries bit got rebate checks for $105.00....works for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 89766 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use easy to change faceplates please don t drop it it breaks easily The Bottom LineIf you want a phone thats easy to use and affordable, this is definitely the obvious choice! Full Review I do love this phone, however, for someone as clumsy as me, it would be wise to invest in another brand. I say this because I have dropped many Nokias and ruined them all. However, when my Motorola was dropped into a lake and left there for several minutes (not to mentioned dropped more than a few times on the pavement), it was still fully functional and is to this day. I'll give you a run-down on some of the features of the Nokia 5165. *One-button NaviTM Key guides you through features *On-screen help *Large, backlit screen *Two-way mobile messaging and e-mail* *Wireless Business Cards* *Network time sent directly to your phone* *Network-based prepaid capabilities* *Supports 4 languages *Hearing aid support *Phone book stores up to 100 entries *3 entertaining games (Snake, Logic and Memory) *30 distinctive ring tones plus you can download up to five additional ring tones (but check with your service provider first, as there may be additional fees to this service!) *Automatically transfers between digital service and analog (but you may incur roaming fees when operating in analog mode) *Alarm clock *Call waiting *Caller ID *Dialed/Received/Missed call logs *Keypad lock *Message indicators *Two-way messaging(this service may require an extra fee) *Vibrating alert (with vibrating battery) Now, if you like lots of features and lots of options, you'll love this phone. It's easy to operate, especially if you are upgrading from another Nokia phone, and has so many features (take the built in games, for instance), that you'll never get bored with it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ plan 89765 2000/4/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the phone is comfortableeasy to use long battery life none The Bottom LineGreat phone, good battery life Full Review Being a soccer Dad, yes there is such a title, I was in need of a cell phone to keep track of the girls,I have two, soccer games, practices and the rest of my life. I went to the malls to get a clue on this topic,wow this stuff gets intense,I was overwhelmed by all the gadget and gizmos that are avaliable to you on a cell phone. I was looking for a dependable, trustworthy phone.I ended up coming here, to e-opinions for some help. I was very happy after I decided to buy a Nokia 5165 from ATT wireless services. The phone is a blessing, on days that I have two kids ,on two different fields,in two different towns,I know that an update is only a phone call away.This phone also has text message,which is cool, the coach can leave a short message,like a time change or a cancellation from his computer and I get it in a flash..... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 89764 2000/3/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life voice mail games caller id a very easy to use menu it s bigger than the small cell phones today The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 is a great phone for the person who likes handy features at an affordable price. Buy it for you; not for anyone else. Full Review I used to be an owner of a small cell phone. The phone was alright for me, but since it was my first, I now see the world in a whole new perspective! With my second cellular phone, there's so many more options to use, and the phone overall is such a time and money saver. I've seen other people using the Nokias' now, and when I do, I think to myself, "Hey, this must be a good phone is there's more than just myself using this thing!" The clarity on the Nokia 5165 is almost perfect. I feel like I'm talking on a house phone when I use it. Not to mention the battery life. I've only had this phone for a month now, but so far, I haven't run into a problem yet when I hear a little beeper telling me that it's time to charge up the power. Because I could leave this phone on for two days straight, and still, I would have enough battery life to talk. With my AT&T wireless plan, not only am I paying $29.99 a month, but I receive multiple features like free caller ID, free voice mail, free call waiting, text messaging, games to play with (such as an all time favorite, Snake), and also a handy phone book that can carry up to 100 numbers! I haven't been in the cellular phone bit long, but now I can see how great it can be with the phones of the future. I can now see how handy cells are, and I can now see what I was missing, and now am experiencing with the all new Nokia 5165! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89763 2002/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 no nonsense solid little phone auto turn off on incoming calls bad battery fit battery gauge useless The Bottom LineThe battery problem is well known and mentioned in many review. If its free, take it. Otherwise move on! Full Review Let me first of all start out by saying that mobile phones do nothing for me. Yes they are useful, but the ability to change faceplates or download ringtones is no longer a thing of great significance. It is perhaps for this reason that I have owned or rather used a mishmash of mobile phones in recent years, both in the USA and in Europe. The Nokia that recently came into my possession is being used on a pre-pay plan with AT&T. That ought to be the subject of a whole different review. So, with all that said, here is what I consider good and bad about the phone: Good. It's big enough to use yet small enough to hide. It's robust. No small pieces or hinges to break off. Bad. The battery is loose. This is an inherent fault with the 5165 that is cured at the dealership by the assistant folding his business card into two and jamming it between the battery and the phone. The battery contacts are poor. Because of the poor manufacture of the battery/phone fit, the battery contacts are loose/low pressure. This means that as you receive a call or as you try to make a call, the phone will cut out due to the volts drop across the contacts. This can be avoided if the phone is plugged in or you have lots of patience to fiddle with the battery position. The battery gauge is very misleading. Perhaps due to the battery technology used, the gauge shows a full charge up to a few minutes before the battery becomes flat. This is an embarrassing feature. The power button is hard to operate. Given the number of times this phone turns itself off (often, every incoming call), the on/off button should be easier to use. In conclusion This is a poor phone, yes with lots of gizmos and games, but does it do what its supposed to do? I don't think. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89762 2000/10/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 multi function phone attractive cant think of one The Bottom LineBest cell phone I have ever had in my entire life! Full Review I will start by saying that in the past few years I have had many cell phone and honestly I have to say that Nokia 5165 is the best. It, is a very attractive phone, with many different functions. For example, it store your phone numbers and email address of all your friends and family. You can send email from your phone and it is very easy to use. You can change the color and style of your phone with just the snap of a face-plate. There are so many choices of face-plates also, so you can change it to match your outfit or anything! This phone will keep up with how many minutes you have talked all month long, incase you are on a limited amount of minutes each month. It will tell you how long your last call was. It has a built in Call ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, and 3 Way conference calling. What more can you ask for? All in all I have to say I love my Nokia 5165, and wouldn't trade it for nothing! jk...But seriously it's is an awesome phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .01 89761 2000/11/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good unit no instructions Full Review 1. I think it is an excellent product, compare to the other phones I own it has the best resolution. 2. The unit is dependable and as for most parts user friendly. 3. I love the ability to send e-mail and communicate in other manners other than just talking. BUT I HATE that I have a 5165 model phone sent to me from NOKIA themselves and they sent it in a box and all instructions for a mobile phone to a 5160 model. I searched the net and it stated no manual available. unfortunately there is features that this unit has that I have no idea how to use hem for my benefit. 4. every one should have one it is a great light weight unit with great reception PS. Just get me the manual. Recommended: Yes 89760 2000/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good stylingchangeable faceplatesawesome battery lifekeyguard reception not that greatvoice quality sometimes fuzzyno wap wireless internet could be smaller The Bottom LineThis phone is great for beginners, easy to use and looks good too. Its loaded and will suit almost everyone. Full Review When I was first shopping for cell phones, I wanted to avoid a nokia at all cost. I didn't want to be the average Joe, I wanted to be different. So much for that. My motorola v2267 from clearnet (more on a different review) was a bust, so I decided, (grudgingly) to get a nokia from Rogers AT&T. The Nokia 5165 at first glance looked like a normal phone without all the bells and whistles, but don't be fooled. Its loaded. The first thing I did when I got it was (naturally) make a call. The voice quality isn't bad, but it could be better. If you have a single phone line like me, and you are on the internet, and you want to make a phone call, keep it away from the computer, sometimes it will drop the call. The email feature is great espicially when your computer is down and you need to make a (very) short email to your buddies. The three games included are great: snake, my favourite (*****) memory (****) and logic (yawn,*) and so you will be never bored again. The one thing that I love is the key guard feature. When you put your phone in your pocket, the keyguard will lock all your keys so you accidentally won't dial a number. This phone has an alarm clock (very handy) and you can also get internet information messages (and reminders!) off the phone. The thirty ringers are fun also. I only wish this phone had WAP. The address book also stores emails so you don't have to type them later. The battery will last (almost) forever on standby. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): CAN $175 89759 2001/5/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the blue face meant i didn t need to spend 20 more on a face plate i wish the battery lasted longer rural living doesn t allow for clarity The Bottom LineIt's the best cell phone for someone venturing out in the wireless world. Don't get it if you plan on heavy business use. Full Review I used to hate cell phones. They were too intrusive, too obnoxious, and too expensive. At that time, I wouldn't be caught dead even thinking of buying one. Then I started driving back and forth alone from Ames, IA, where I attend school, to my small Wisconsin hometown. It's a 350 mile journey, through some of the most unoccupied land this Midwesterner has seen. It was time to give in, and the phone gurus were ready for my dollars and inexperience. WIthin 30 minutes of entering the business of "U.S. cellular authorized agent," I had a phone of my own. And it was the right phone to give out to someone new to the world of wireless. It's small and it's blue face plate is CUTE! The functions (a clock, alarm, text messanging, games, phone book) were easy to figure out - I only had trouble getting my Nokia to accept usage of a phone card. The phone is small, but large enough that you're reminded that it's there. (However, if you have a propensity to lose things, GET INSURANCE.) Another complaint of mine is the clarity. If you aren't near a sizeable town, forget about trying to have more than a 30-second conversation with someone. You'll be in trouble. The battery does have a decent life, and I enjoy the feature that gives you three warning beeps that the juice in your phone is running low. All in all, if you're getting a cell phone for personal use, this would be your perfect match. The deals are great, and you usually get this phone for free. The best feature of the Nokia 5165? The return of one's mental health. My frustration is lessened if I see someone talking loudly on their phone in public or hear that telltale Nokia ring. In my three months as a cell phone user, I've learned that a jerk is still a jerk with or without a wireless in his hand. Finally. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89758 2001/10/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 user friendly reception is hard to come by The Bottom LineNot for the business world, but just fine for say a college student. Isn't the best, but at the affordable price, worth your money. Full Review Nokia has been coming out with a newer version of their phone more and more often it seems. Last year I had the 5160 model and this year upgraded to the 5165.(which is already surpassed by an even better model) However, this cost efficient phone is a comfortable size and has a user friendly set up. I didn't even have to read the directions to know where to find the features and how to use them. The features are very adequate to what most everyday people need and use: phonebook, call waiting, caller ID, voicemail, alarm, keyguard and the list goes on and on. The one downfall that I have found to this phone that was also a problem on my 5160 model is reception. Not so much getting reception, but once I have a signal it is hard for me to keep it. Another problem is the battery life. They are advertised to last for approximately 180 minutes of talk time life, however, I have yet to see mine out live 100 minutes. Granted everyone occasionally gets stuck with a "lemon" of a battery, but this also happened with my last phone. Overall, for students, and families I recommend the Nokia 5165 because it will accommodate all of your needs. However, if you are in the business world and need a phone that is more technologically advanced, say with internet hookup, then I suggest you keep shopping around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89757 2000/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life ergonomic excellent design well designed menu poor choice of ringtones does not vibrate bulky The Bottom LineThe 5165 has been well engineered, it will not break very easily, and it is fairly ergonomic. Buy it with confidence. Full Review When I saw this Nokia phone I chose it... not only for the brand, which I respect, but for the design as well. The screen went dead a couple of days after purchase. A friend made a call and when he gave it back to me the display mysteriously would not show anything. I tried taking it apart, putting it in the freezer, and the cold temperature made the LCD pop up for a few seconds but I'm not going to store it in the freezer all day, so I sent it off for repair. Sounds crazy, huh? The company repaired the phone in about 14 days but sent it back to the wrong company, instead of Cingular they sent it to Cellular One. They were supposed to send it back to me at my address. Anyway, since the repair it has been an excellent phone. I have dropped it by accident a few times and it still works like a charm. Nokia makes a great product, I don't care what they say about them. Every Nokia product I have used is quality, including a computer monitor built in Finland that is top-notch. The phone comes with a lot of ringtones but most of them are annoying. The menu system is pretty well done, although there is no manual selection of analog or digital service in this phone. The model that came before this had that option. Sometimes the phone has poor signal strength in some areas, and has switched back and forth between home and roaming systems when sitting perfectly still. I would recommend this phone, although it does not have the capacity to vibrate. Sometimes when the phone is dropped the battery falls off but it continues to function perfectly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89756 2000/7/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price often free with a multi year plan reliability balance of features problems with carkit handsfree recharge The Bottom LineA great all-rounder for a reasonable price. Full Review Nokia's entry level digital phone comes in your favorite color (as long as its blue). You CAN buy different color face plates for an astonishingly high $25 MRP (get 'em for a lot less on eBay). But why start with a complaint? This phone has excellent features and performance for the price. Very good reception - first and foremost. I have used more expensive digital phones (namely the Nokia 8260) and not had the same consistently good reception as the Nokia 5165. As with many digital phone, the battery charge-life is very good. I have been able to keep this phone on for most of the day, every day for a week, before recharge. The features and ease of use are also excellent for the money. Although the manual is well written and logically organized, you can figure out this baby by just playing with it. Notwithstanding all the positive points, one more complaint, before I finish. I spent over $200 having a complete Nokia "handsfree" system for the 5165 installed in my wife's car. The 5165 works fine when fully charged but the charge depletes very quickly and there is no RECHARGING from the car battery during normal operation. Originally, we were told by our U.S. Cellular that this was a problem with the way their 5165 is programmed. But we switched service to Cingular, bought a new 5165 from them, and it has the same problem. What gives?! So... forget about the Carkit. Just use the ear bud and mike attachment for car "handsfree" time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 with 2-yr 89755 2000/5/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice shape used by many people custom face plates caller id bad reception a little heavier than other cell phones The Bottom Linevery nice screen, customized face plate for just about anybody, and not very expensive Full Review If you are looking for a cell phone for personal use, and to use to talk to friends and family while away from home, this cell phone will suit you. Although it doesn't have the service of connecting you to the internet and if it does costs a lot extra per month and the battery life isn't that long, this cell phone really does pack everything into something little. It has more features then most home phones! You can go to just about any cell phone store and pick up a face plate to put on for about $15 to $45, some places have everything you can customize them with, antennas, batteries, your cellphone could be all clear if you wanted it to be! Does have bad reception sometimes, other times it is crystal clear, depends on how many people around you are using a cell phone, and if you are in a valley, tunnel, elevator, etc. Is very light-weight so can be taken almost anywhere, I take it with me everywhere. Some great features I enjoy using are; phone book, caller ID, custom ring tones, and ability to lock buttons. You should be able to get the actual cellphone for free and just have to pay the monthly fee at most providers, I got mine for free just have to pay monthly for service! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 a month 89754 2000/8/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 many available ring tones easy to use phone to battery attachment not secure The Bottom LineIt's fairly durable, easy to use and looks nice. I think it's worth the buy and should last you until new technology comes along. Full Review I am a public relations professional, so I live on my cell phone. It's unfortunate fact of my life, but it does make me somewhat of an expert in the area. This is my second Nokia telephone. Overall, it's a very durable brand. The only reason I traded in my first phone was that with an upgrade in service, I was eligible for a new phone. I was immediately impressed with the variety of colors available and the sleek styling. I've never been a fan of flip top phones and phones with pull up antennas. Both features make the phone more fragile. The only problem I have encountered with my Nokia 5165 is that the battery does not snap onto the phone as securely as I think it should. The battery slips loose very easily and I often find myself having to pop it back on and reset the time. This is annoying. Having said that, I should admit that I'm rather rough on my phone. It's dropped from car seat to pavement more than once and it gets banged around in my bag quite often. Aside from my little battery glitch, which was also a problem on my last Nokia, the phone has held up amazingly well. The features are easy to use and each includes a little informational screen that will pop and and tell you what the feature does. The sound quality is good. Better than some other phones I've tried, but certainly still has it's problems, though I think this is a function of service in certain areas and not a problem with the phone itself. The phone offers a nice variety of ring tones as well as a few games, though who has time to play games on their cell phone, I'll never know. The address book is easy to navigate and the caller ID with name feature is a godsend. Overall, I think this phone is a great value. It's relatively inexpensive and seems to hold up better than the more fragile (and expensive) models. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 89753 2000/4/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use good reception not too many features The Bottom LineI recommend this phone because it is very easy to use, gets good reception, is durable, and has good clarity. The only thing it lacks is some fancier features. Full Review My Nokia 5165 is about three years old. I have had it for over a year and before me my sister used it. The phone has held up very well over three years. I get reception almost everywhere (I only have trouble in heavily wooded areas and in a few stores). The clarity is also very good; the sound never breaks up. The only trouble I have is with the battery. Because it is about three years old, it is starting to die. I have to recharge it more frequently and sometimes I run into trouble with the clock. But the trouble has only started in the past six months, so overall I'd have to say that the battery stood up well. The phone comes with basic features. The phone book can store up to 100 names/numbers/email addresses. The phone also supports text messaging which comes in handy for me. The text messaging feature can also be used to email. There is also a call log which remembers the last ten missed, dialed, and received calls. Additionally, there are three games: snake(which I enjoy), logic(a confusing game), and memory(which is okay). Other features include an alarm clock and key guard(which stops you from accidentally dialing numbers). There are 30 ring tones and 5 spaces for custom ringtones that you can download(usually for $0.99). I plan on buying a new phone soon because of my dying battery. I am looking to buy a phone with features that this Nokia lacks: voice activated dialing, vibrating battery, calendar, calculator, more downloadable ring tones, and a smaller size. Recommended: Yes 89752 2000/3/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 tones available for download from the web numerous generic accessories available somewhat difficult to navigate The Bottom LineBottom Line? You get what you pay for...it's not as fancy as some of the more expensive phones but its nicer than a cheaper phone. Full Review When my cheapy cell phone died, I didn't know what to do for a phone. It wasn't time to renew a contract so I couldn't get a discount, and most of the phones that were really cool, I couldn't afford. (Yes, I am a gadget type of person. The more buttons to play with and the neater thing it does, the better!) So I headed to my dealer and looked at what they had. I was somewhat familiar with the Nokia phones but just wasn't sure that is what I wanted. I started talking to the sales associate and he introduced me to the Nokia 5165. He started to tell me about the neat features it has the main one being that you can download tones from the internet. My favorite, being the Pooh freak that I am, is the Winnie the Pooh theme song. You can download what you want, but the system only holds up to 5 of them. To get the tones, go to www.cellphoneuser.com. It will walk you through the steps. The other feature I like about the 5165 which may be a feature on other cell phones as well is the ability to chat and send not only messages but emails as well. To get signed up for the email feature is a bit frustrating but once you get it, it's well worth it. Where ever I am I can spout off an email to who ever I want! The only thing I don't like about the phone is the navigation. The other day call waiting clicked in and I couldn't figure out how to answer it without hanging up on the other person. And to do this, you have to pull the phone away from you to see what's going on. The speed dial function is not all that great. You must scroll down through all of your numbers stored or you can remember what number you programmed them into but it's still difficult. If I had to go and buy another phone today I'm not sure that I would buy this one again, however, I would have to do some research. I have seen other phones that were more difficult to manuver in but it's all about talking and looking at the phone that you are interested in. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 158 89751 2000/7/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features kewler look than 5100 series somewhat bulky in a modern way not small enough to show off to friends The Bottom LineGreat Buy if don't have a six figure salary. Full Review Well, after dropping my shiny red Nokia 5160 Model I received the 5165 covered by my phone insurance plan. Always spend the extra bucks on insurance! Anyways, this model looks more modern than the 5160 model because of the more stylish faceplate, namely the buttons. It has pretty much the same features as the 5160 except mine is now has the ability to send/receive e-mails and text messages. What I Like All the features come in handy. In fact, there are so many I'm not even going to write them down.. you can go to www.Nokia.com to check out this and all of their other phones. Anyways, what I like the most about this phone is that you can download ringtones of your favorite songs from the 50's - 90's, Movie Themes, Classical Music, and Latest Chart Toppers just for 99 cents each. I know that Cingular Wireless and AT&T are doing this but I'm sure other services will pop up soon. The other feature I like is the ability to change faceplates to pretty much anything you want. You can choose from Nokia's website or have them design one for a fee. What I Don't Like Well, the battery it came with is somewhat bulky and heavy. It is a bit cumbersome to carry around in your pocket unless you buy a clip. Also, the battery life is long.. just as long as you don't talk on the phone. When talking, this phone eats up batteries very quickly. You would be better off by just buying a longer lasting, slimmer battery. Recommended: Yes 89750 2002/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 doesn t need the bells whistles like others simple phone to use games who needs them The Bottom LineSimple, cheap, the Nokia 5165 is the perfect phone for those who don't need bells and whistles and just want to talk. Full Review I've had my Nokia 5165 for just about one full year now. I have waited to write a review until I was positive about the product, and was able to put it through hell. The following is what I have learned. I purchased the 5165 standard package which includes the Phone, 3.6 V NiMH battery, travel charger, and a hands free headset. I purchased a vibrating battery as well at the time and have used that exclusively with my phone. The 5165 is a very simple phone, no bells and whistles, but you can purchase them if you are into being super hip. The menus are easy to follow (you don't need to read through the instruction book in order to get started), the phone is comfortable when in use (not too small), but is small enough to put in your pocket when not in use. The chargers work quickly, and the batteries tend to hold their charge for a long time. You can download special ringtones to the phone as well. The only reception problems I've had (and they have been few and far between), were because of my provider. I've never played the games on the phone, because I got it to talk on, not play games on, so I cannot give an assessment of them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 89749 2000/11/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 alarm clock couple of games lightweight nice phone for the buck no data cable for it so getting ring tones into it costs you minutes The Bottom LineNokia knows cell phones. With the 5165, they once again delivered a solid, dependable phone with enough features to please the picky. Full Review I got this phone with my Tracphone prepaid package. It's digital and has all the usual features one would expect in a cell phone: address book, one-number dialing, and call timers. Any phone that doesn't come with those nowadays can pretty much be looked over. But the Nokia 5165 is not to be looked over. I used to think that no one would ever actually play the games on a cell phone. I was surprised to see how often I am playing them: standing in lines, going to the john (ahem), and in any situation where I'm bored out of my mind and can't do anything about it. The three games are memory (or concentration), snake, and logic. The phone can hold 99 names and phone numbers -- more than enough for most people. The phone doubles as a alphanumeric and two-way pager since it has text messaging built into it. You can send and receive those cute, yet oh-so-annoying "Wht RU dng 2 nite" messages that the television is trying very hard to convince us is cool. For me, it's not so that features goes completely unused on my phone. But, hey, to each their own, right? The phone has over 30 ringtones already in it, ranging from the mundane to the musical, including some Mozart. There is space for some of your own tone, but that is where my one complaint comes in. I can't find a data cable for this phone anywhere. So in order to add new ringtones to the phone, you have to message the tones to the phone, which costs minutes or messages, depending on your plan. So in addition to the fee that places now charge for ringtones, you also pay to get them into the phone. Not fair. I want a data cable! The alarm clock is a standard alarm clock that does what it's supposed to do -- go off at a certain time. Functional and keeps me from having to pack a clock when I travel. One of the coolest features of the phone is the ability to change it's faceplate with any one of the thousands of plates available for the Nokia 5xxx line. I replaced my phone's factory faceplate with a replica of the phones used on the Matrix, so at the push of a button, the mouthpiece of the phone slides out to reveal the keypad! Pretty nifty and everybody thinks I paid hundreds for the phone, when in reality it's a $7 faceplate. Very cool! The battery life is AMAZING. I have left mine on in standby mode, waiting for a call for three days before needing a charge - and I even played about an hour or two of games during that time. I highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 89748 2000/10/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 price size reception voice mailtext messaging hard to figure out games The Bottom LineGet something newer and better. This phone is outdated. Full Review I've had the Nokia 5165 for over 2 years now. I bought this with a 1 yr tracfone plan in july 2003. This phone basically gets the job done...and thats about it. Size: Overall this phone is of average size. You can get plenty of smaller ones out there though. Features: Well it kind of lacks...Theres the options of 3 games. 1 game I couldn't even figure out how to play. I'm not one of those people who aren't very tech savvy. I've been using little gadgets my entire life and I love when new ones come out. So being technoloically challenged is not too blame for my not being able to get many features to work. This also comes with voice mail another thing I couldn't get to work. um...theres a clock. Portability: Obviously portability is important after all it's a portable phone. It's a little thick. But not too bulky I didn't have a problem here. Ease of Use: Besides not being able to figure out voice mail, text messaging and a game, overall dialing out is pretty easy. Reception: TERRIBLE. I had to get to the top of the fire escape at school to make a call. And this was in the middle of a snowstorm one time. Even then I could barely hear who I was talking too. Conclusion: Overall this is a phone for people who dont' really use them much and are just looking for a cheap emergency alternative. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89747 2000/5/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use durable none yet The Bottom LineWould purchase another. Durable, reliable, and clear. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is a very reliable phone. I find the phone has all the features I could want. It includes a phone book, thirty different tones, text messaging, caller id, missed call list, time of call list, three games (snake, logic, memory,), and a keypad lock. The phone also has interchangeable face plates that can be purchased at phone outlets for about $20-$25. The phone costs about $20 to purchase, but can be free with a service plan. Mine was free with the purchase of a Cingular wireless plan. The battery lives up to its charge. I find I get about 3 days stand-bye and about three hours of talk time. A full charge takes about three to four hours. No vibration option with this one. Can be purchased separately for about $80. I really enjoy a non-extending antenna, although I thought I would get poor reception. Actually, I have found quite the opposite. I find the antenna extension does not matter, but, rather, signal strength is based upon the wireless provider. The phone is durable, however, I have seen phones that were dropped. They scratch and dent easily, but if you get a leather case, the phone is virtually unbreakable. The weight is great. I know many females who believe it is light enough to be placed in a purse without notice. I keep mine in my pocket. Never had my pants fall down yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ Plan 89746 2001/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it has great tunes games no roaming information great tunes don t go in alarm clock The Bottom LineNo to those who owned Nokia phone before, Yes to those who never had cell phone before Full Review First of all, I came to and read all the reviews about nokia first before I purchased this phone. Wow, all the good reviews, so I went ahead and bought it. To my disappointment, I thought it was a perfect phone. However, I could see a lot of improvement there.... (I am not going to write a whole menu like most reviewers do such as address book, call settings, phone settings, network services and so on, that would make no sense, I would just write some important things that most reviewers didn't write about it) Read on... Free Phone indeed This 5165 practically is a free phone no matter how you do it. First, when I read an email about this phone, they said, retail value is 80 dollars, you will get 40 dollars and 40 dollars rebate. So it is free. For me, I just switched or upgraded my phone rather, they told me it's 60 dollars, but I have to be on the contract for one year, and I will get 20 dollars credit and 40 dollars rebate. So it is the same thing. Old phone vs New Phone If you have used a free Old Nokia phone ( I don't remember the model number, they probably don't make it any more in the market ) , a little bigger than 5165 before, you will know the difference. Same clarity Both are the same Battery It's light which is good, but it does not do vibrate feature if you have a regular one. I was wondering why my pager has the ability to do vibration and this phone needs special battery to do it Screen Size Bigger screen of course. When it comes to screen, the older phone always beats the old phone. New features - The old phones don't have the following.. 3 new games on the phone. Wow, playing games on the cell phone, this is pretty cool I thought. The games are memory, snake, logic. I played a bit when I first got them, but get bored with that. Come to think of it do we need that? More tunes, there are about 30 programmed tunes on the phone, pretty cool. However, the alarm clock's tune does not pick up those tunes. I was disappointed by that. They should have just killed the game function, and put the memory on setting up alarm clock's tune. That will be more useful. Don't you think? Roaming My old phone used to have abilities to show A or B or AB, which is home area or not, this new phone won't! When it is roaming, my old Nokia used to show other Communication like "comcast" or some other company if I am different area. This one only shows ATT, when it roams, it shows no information for other telecommunication company. Those are the things I see, and I was disappointed about. In Conclusion Anyway, if I never got any cell phone in my life, I would recommend this phone. Otherwise, try other phone!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60 89745 2000/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 decent battery life easy to use inexpensive too big The Bottom LineThis is a good phone, it is easy to use, good battery life, inexpensive, and pretty durable Full Review I have had my Nokia 5165 Phone for almost a year and I have been very pleased with it. I am lite cell phone user (less than 400 minutes a month) so this phone works great for me. I got it for free when I signed up for a year of AT&T Wireless service so that was very nice! I was locked into a year contract though and I have to pay for a new phone if mine gets damaged. I have found this phone easy to use with its simple flip through menus on its large display. It has lots of features to choose from, I especially like the text messaging service. The talk time is about 3 hours or so with the standard battery, you can get a long lift battery. This works great for me. The battery is easy to take on and off. Signal reception is good! I don't lose people when I go through the tunnels on I-90 through Seattle! This phone is rugged, althought I do keep it in a leather belt case which helps. I has survived significant water exposure, being dropped, kicked, etc.. The only really bad thing I have to say it that it is a bit larger than I would like. It makes me jealous of those little flip phones that fit in your front pocket. I got a new faceplate for it to. That is a nice feature to have. That is about it, I recommend this phone!! Recommended: Yes 89744 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 replaceable covers lots of features economic stout shape makes it hard to talklisten at the same time The Bottom LineIf there is one word to describe this phone it would be 'average'. Full Review I recieved this phone as a gift a few weeks ago, and although it wasn't the one I wanted (I wanted a StarTac or Samsung 8500), I have no complaints thus far. No real complaints anyhow. The things I especially like about this cell phone are of course the affordability (the phone itself is free when you sign up for just about any plan from any company), the games (snake, memory, and logic, which I still haven't quite figured out yet), and the many ringing tones. You can actually add several more of your choice by e-mailing tones from a website directly onto your phone. One site I know does this is http://www.cellphoneuser.com/ringtones/index.asp Try the Coca-Cola ring tone! And finally probably my favorite feature would be the replaceable covers. You can change the look of your phone at your convenience simply by removing your current frame and clicking a new one on! Some stores offer customizable covers, meaning you can actually create your own look to fit your unique desires. Well anyway, those were some of the advantages offered by the Nokia 5165. Want to hear some of my complaints? Read on... Despite the fact that you can alter the look of the face of your phone, it'll still be the same Nokia 5165 which just about everyone has nowaday due to its affordability. That was one of the main reasons I wanted a phone such as the Samsung 8500, because very few people I know own it. Also, the stumpy shape of the phone makes it hard to talk and listen simultaneously, simply because when resting near your ear the microphone is rather far from your mouth. It isn't exactly what you would call comfortable either. Phones like the StarTac fit easily around your mouth and ear at the same time eliminating that problem. Finally, the most annoying part about this phone is that the "End" button (yes, the one used to end a call) is placed right where your cheekbone is very likely to accidentally press it. Several times already I've accidentally hung-up on people in the middle of a sentence because I pressed the button. If there is a way to disable this feature please post a comment. All in all, if you're looking for a phone to start with, this is the phone for you. It's easy to use and is the standard for cellular phones today. If you want something a bit less average and common, however, try something else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Pending 89743 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception features battery life size maybe slimmer battery The Bottom LineGreat digital cell phone, size and features fit my needs perfectly, especially if you don't want a "mini-me" phone that will fall into your coffee cup!! Full Review Wow, almost two-years of reviews for the Nokia 5165. Pretty impressive that this model is still offered and appreciated in the buy/replace/toss cellular phone market. I've had this phone for about a year now and really like it. The size is good, the reception is good, and the features are good. I don't understand the need for people to continually ask for smaller and smaller cell phones. If the phones get any smaller, I'll go crazy. I like to hold a phone in my hand that has SOME substance!! I was reluctant to give up my old Nokia 2160 with a retractable antenna. I live in an area with really spotty cell coverage. Cingular or Verizon subscribers...don't even bother thinking you will get good coverage on the Central Coast of CA!!! But the Nokia 5165 with Cellular One (AT&T) has surprised me with its reception. The "angled-out" stubby antenna (protects me from a brain tumor, I guess) actually provides good reception. The 99-number phone book fits my needs perfectly...along with its CallerID function. Battery life and cell reception displays seem to be very accurate and the messages display, call log, settings system, clock, answer tones, and even the games selections are easy to access with the "one touch" MENU key. One drawback with the "one touch" key is when it comes to ending a call or dealing with call waiting or retrieving voicemail: sometimes you need to scroll through a selection. A nice item about Nokias is when you get a voice message (if you have that service) is hitting the #1 key for auto voice mail retrieval. With my voicemail service I get a beep (adjustable) and a visual notice in the screen. I was able to get rid of my pager with this phone! The 5165 also has a lot of flexiblity, as mentioned by other reviewers for items such as replacing the face plate (inexpensively) getting after-market accessories, etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 89742 2000/2/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 durable many extra features good looking phone economical easy to use short standard battery life The Bottom LineWhile providing some convenient extra features, the Nokia 5165 is the bare minimum when it comes to cell phones and will soon be surpassed by technological advances. Full Review I have finally taken a step closer to being a modern citizen. Recently I purchased my first cell phone: the Nokia 5165. The first thing I noticed about it is it is a very sharp and stylish looking phone. The midnight blue and silver keys is a really good looking color scheme. The phone is very light and, though not the smallest phone out there, has a sleek feel about it. When I first began to use it, I realized it is basically the workhorse of the cell phone. If you are looking to get your first cell phone, the Nokia 5165 is a good starter phone in that it is easy to operate. All of my friends had this phone so that was a big influence for me to get the same phone. I observed the dependability and how easy it was to use the phone. If you ever have any questions about the phone, you can refer to the product guidebook that comes along with the phone. The book answers almost every question imaginable. I appreciate such features as the caller ID, the multitude of ringtones, games, and personal voice box. All of these features added immensely to the enjoyment and usefulness of this phone. My favorite feature is the phone book. It saves a person the trouble of having to remember phone numbers and always seeking that piece of paper and pen to write down a new number. With the press of a few buttons, you can add a new phone number. The phone altogether stores 100 numbers. I realize there are many different accessories that can be added to improve the performance of this phone such as an ear piece with a microphone or a charger that hooks up into a car lighter. I purchased the phone more for pleasure so I did not invest a lot of money. I was merely looking for a phone with the bare minimum. One thing I really admired about this phone was its toughness. I am sure everyone has done this, but I have dropped my phone a few times. The phone does not seem to be affected at all by this. There are a few scratches on the clear faceplate. However, it does not seem to affect the phone's performance. I never have had problems with static. I have had conversations from considerable distances. This phone has done a good job of holding a signal and allowing me to continue conversations during thunderstorms. One thing that I think is a major downfall of the phone is the short standard battery life. As long as I am not talking, the standard battery lasts for days. However, as soon as I actually start using it, whether I be chatting or playing games, the battery would absolutely drain. On more than a few occasions, I found I actually had to shut the phone all the way off to conserve battery. Another negative aspect of this phone is the antenna that sticks up. I just do not feel comfortable slipping it into my pocket like I maybe would with other phones. One reason I do not like putting it into my pocket is the antenna protruding from the top. I have not found it to be a major problem. Rather, just a nuisance that seems to get in the way. I just do not like the idea of the antenna breaking off while it is in my pocket. Overall I found this phone to do a very good job. It makes phone calls and provides some very handy services. All of this comes at a very economical price. I would recommend this phone to anyone, especially someone looking to get their first cell phone like me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 89741 2001/5/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life caller id changable color covers voice mail kinda heavy The Bottom LinePretty cute phone. Easy to use. I recommend it! Full Review I got my Nokia 5165 free when I signed up for a two-year plan with cingular. My husband had a cell phone from a couple years back and decided to check out the market and see if there was a better deal. We went with Cingular because we can share minutes but have two separate phones and phone numbers. I think this phone is simple to use despite the fact it has many different functions. You can get a hang of using it without even reading the user manual…it is simple. I just hope the thing does not cause cancer! (Wink wink) Anyway, the phone stores 100 names and phone numbers. A call log saves a list of phone numbers you have dialed and shows you how much time you spend on the phone. It also records phone numbers of missed calls and received calls (if you have subscribed to caller Id) The voicemail is easy to use too; the only thing I dislike about the voice mail is that it uses airtime when you check it. When you turn on the cell phone, it says if you have new voicemail or not. It also tells you if you had a missed call. You can type text messages also, but I do not know much about that because I did not subscribe to that feature. You can use this phone to send and receive e-mail messages. No computer needed. There is an alarm clock on the phone. If you want a unique ring for your phone you can download ringing tones from the net. I was surprised to see that they have games on the phone too! The three games included on my phone are Snake, memory, and logic...I have messed around with the snake game but I like to save my battery for better things like talking! There are accessories that you can get for this phone; for example, you can buy colored faces for your phone... This is wonderful if you get tired of things easily. My phone came with at headset that provides me with hands free operation so that You can concentrate on driving instead of holding your phone. Safety is a big concern with me so that was a plus. I have had my cell phone for a month or two now and it has not given me a bit of trouble. Six ounces so it is heavy compared to many of the phones on the market lately. Durability: I am rough with my stuff and my toddler seems to be able to get a hold of everything I own. This phone has not broken yet and that is saying a lot. Battery Life: 192 hours. This is pretty good. Talking Battery Life: 180 minutes Clarity: Excellent!!!! I recommend this phone because it is relatively cheap (if not free!) and it's good for people who love to express themselves. Feel free to leave comments! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): zero 89740 2000/5/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy faceplates good battery life lack of more robust addressbook sound quality is bad The Bottom LineIf you need a good phone that will last a long time on batteries this is the one. Full Review I recently became a AT&T user, and wrote a review on a awesome phone, my Erricson, however when my Erricson phone decided it would be fun to leap from my shirt pocket to a hard floor and shatter the folks at my AT&T Wireless shop were nice enough to trade me out this new Nokia 5165. It was definately a change, but with my first cell phones being Nokia's (252c, followed by the 5190 which survived a car accident) I have had my share of Nokia phones and this is my first trip back, and its a nice phone. Battery Life Nokia is a good phone, first major difference from the Erricson standpoint was Battery Life out of the box. As people noted to me on my previous review of my phone you can upgrade the battery and have awesome battery life, but out of the box, Nokia win's hands down. Quality in Sound The battle goes to Erricson on this one. The Nokia is great, dont get me wrong, but with the Erricson it sounded more like you were on a phone than in a box. The Nokia has awesome range with AT&T but the sound quality lets you know you are on a cell phone. Features While Erricson's phone has a great address book (something I hope Nokia upgrades in the future) Nokia still has a lot more in text input via the keypad. What I mean by this is the ability to put in words using the numbers and have it guess correctly the word. Erricson had something similar to this but it only worked in certain areas. The price This I can not comment on too much, my AT&T Wireless store gave me the exchange for $2.00 since I was a new customer and wanted to keep me happy. Nokia's are traditionally cheap, but with each cell phone provider it differs. What you could get for free with a year of service at Cingular costs $199 at Verizon. Overall Worth it. This phone may not sound great or have a lot of bells and whistles but all I know is I have to recharge weekly, not daily on the battery without having to buy something extra to make the phone do that. It's definately worth a buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2.00 89739 2000/11/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small cool number storage option easy to use clear as a bell can t think of any The Bottom LineA cool little lightweight phone that holds tons of information Full Review I had a Star Tac phone before I got my Nokia Phone. I didn't like it and I plan to write a review on why. My sister sells phones for Sun Com and I really wanted to get rid of that "death trap" phone I had before, so I bought a Nokia 5165 from her. The thing I really like about my phone is that I can store all of the numbers that I call and all of those that I hardly ever call on it. When I'm going to call someone, I just scroll through my list and then push the button to call them. That way, I don't have to keep looking for phone numbers. It's really cool for super organized people like me. I don't have an address book any more. I don't need one now since I keep everything in my phone. I can even keep e mail addresses in it. It has all these cool ring tones you can choose from and you can even go online and download other ring tones. You can get top 40 songs for your ring tone if you want. With this phone you can receive alert tones when you get a new e mail. I didn't really like that because it just showed you who the mail was from. It didn't give you the option to read the whole thing, so really, what's the point? You can send and receive text messages which are fun if you're bored or if you try to call someone and you can't hear them too well. It's time consuming because you have to type in each letter using the keypad. But I kind of like doing it from time to time if I'm bored and feeling kind of dorky. I hardly ever have a hard time hearing people or being heard when I use this phone. Only every now and then in the mountains do I have a problem. The battery on this phone lasts for 2 days or more before I have to recharge it. That's really good compared to other phones I've had. The last thing I'll mention about the phone is that you can get all these neat face plates for it. Any color or theme you can think of is available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 89738 2000/3/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the honda civic of cell phones too big The Bottom LineOverall I recommend this phone to everybody, it is a great phone and if size does matter to you, go to ebay and buy a slim vibrating lithium battery. Full Review Since I work in the cellular industry, it is very important for me to recommend the right phones for individuals so they don't come back and b*tch at me. The nokia 5165 is your best bet if you have never had a cell phone before, it is extremely simple to use and has plenty of features to accomodate most people. This phone is the Honda civic of cell phones, you can change absoloutely everything on this phone, the faceplate, battery, rear housing, antenna, ringtones, graphics, LED/LCD, keypads etc..... It boggles my mind how Nokia came up with an overly simplified cell phone with so many features to boot. However, every so often unfortunately, people do come back and they can't figure it out. I tell them, what you need to do is you need to return the cell phone and get a pager because if you can;t figure out how to use this phone, YOU DON"T DESERVE A PHONE AT ALL!!!!!! Okay, anyways to keep up with tradition, here are the bad things about it: 1. It is way too damn big, especially with the NiMH battery it comes with, but i guess for the price, what do you expect? 2. Durability is not the best with these 51xx/61xx/71xx series phones. If you drop it, you will most likely crack your antenna and rear housing, resulting in a moderate repair bill, usually about 20-30US(about as much as you pay for the phone) 3. Needs a calculator and internal vibe. Overall I recommend this phone to everybody, it is a great phone and if size does matter to you, go to ebay and buy a slim vibrating lithium battery. It is pretty much the same as the higher models but the only things you miss out on is the calculator/calender/grouping of phone numbers and more choice in your customizing of personal profiles. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89737 2000/4/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life intuitive lots of options extremely easy to use great feel trouble w email time sync doesn t work can t upload addresses a bit bulky The Bottom LineIt's an awesome phone - you won't be disappointed! Full Review I first purchased a Nokia 5160 back in 1999, and, although it was awesome, it had a few flaws (IE: The screen would "blank out" every so often - it got worse near the end, the antenna was prone to breaking, expensive service plans). I finally upgraded my 5160 to a "refurbished" 5165 (It only cost me $30 in the end) and switched to the Prepay service (I was paying $30 a month - or more, if I actually *used* the phone!). I must say that the Nokia line of phones are a DREAM! The menu system is probably the most intuitive and intelligently designed interface I've yet come across (it even beats the Palm handheld for ease of use!) It features 2-way Email (although I've yet to get sending to work) and voicemail options. The addressbook is *very* easy to use, and it sports an intelligent word-finding system for the email. If you're like me, and don't use portable phones that much, I would definitely suggest going the prepay route. You load the phone with money, and only pay for what you use. If you go with a standard plan (they start at $19.95/month), and actually *use* the phone, you will incur all sorts of other fees (you wouldn't believe the types of charges you can incur! And they're usually above and beyond your normal service charges!) When the prepay account goes below $10, you will receive an Email on your phone alerting you to refill. You can refill the minutes either on the phone (easy) or on the web (actually more difficult!). The other Nokia phones sport calendars and calculators (why can't they make these things standard?) and the 5165 offers "timesync" support (the phone will reset the time for you automatically), but after continued usage, it doesn't seem to work. (Why can't they figure this stuff out?!?! My clock on my computer can figure out the time, why can't a phone?!?!) Other than those minor inconveniences, the Nokia 5165 is a great deal. Now, if only they could wire it directly to my head...:-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89736 2000/4/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 custom ringtones good sound quality standard good battery optional covers single button system requires reading prompts signal strength not as good as later phones The Bottom Line5165 is a decent "old" phone with custom ringtones and wide array of accessories. Recommended to those who don't need the smallest and lightest. Full Review I used to have a 6120 and a 5160, so 5165 is instantly familiar to me. It is a decent phone so there are plenty of accesories available. It is also very cheap (free with contract) with wide array of accessories. However, newer phones with more features are available. The 5165 has a single 'action' button that performs a variety of functions depending on the display prompt. There is a separate small "Cancel/Clear" button. This "flex" button design was not that well received and later 33- and 82-series went back to the 61- series' two-button design, which is much more intuitive (at least to me). My grandma had problems using the 5160 she had, so she got the 3360 (reviewed separately) and I kept the 5165. While 5165 is plastic-y with all plastic exterior, it's quite robust and have survived many falls onto concrete, asphalt, hardwood floor, and more. The keys so far have retained all its colors (no rub-off yet). The 5165 has a lot of optional accesories on the market including replacement stub antennas (with LED lights), replacement batteries with vibrate, belt hook, replacement covers and keys, and much more. If you want to accessorize, you will have plenty of choices, far more than the other choices on the market. You'll find a wide variety of hands-free set, desk charger, and much more. It's also nice of AT&T to include a free Nokia headset (the earbud type) in the kit (along with the home charger). As a side note... Get a geunine Nokia belt clip. It has LIFETIME warranty... If it breaks, send it back in (or return to your Nokia retailer) and get free replacement FOR LIFE. It's MUCH more robust than those imitation clips. So far the battery life is quite good. I can field many phone calls (dozens) and my battery would be only down to about half. Recharge is quite fast with home or car charger (2 hours at most). Sound quality is quite good also and can be turned up quite loud or toned down to more reasonable levels. The 5 slots for custom ringtones are great. I've filled them already. Too bad you can't assign special tones to certain call groups. You can assign one tone per "profile" but that's not that useful. My 5165 sometimes have problems getting calls in heavily urban areas (like Chinatown or inside some buildings), where the 3360 were able to field calls more effectively, at least based on my experience. 5165 does not come with built-in vibrate feature so if you set the phone to silent you have to look at the phone later to realize you've missed calls. The built-in games are pretty silly. Snake, concentration, and mastermind aren't that interesting after the umpteenth time. The built-in calendar is too hard to look up (it would be easier if there's a button that displayed date/event immediately). As explained before, the single-button feature takes a little getting used to, as you must READ the prompt to determine what the phone is doing. For someone who desires a SIMPLE phone, this can be confusing. Overall, the 5165 is merely another step in the 51-series that adds some of the features like custom ringtones without sacrificing compatibility to the old accessories. There are newer,smaller phones available, with more features possibly, so 5165 can only beat others on price. If you want usability, pick one of those with "two-button" interface instead. Otherwise, 5165 is hard to beat if it does everything you want. Recommended: Yes 89735 2001/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight durable stylish great clarity battery life a bit too large The Bottom LineAnother winner from Nokia. A solid, dependable phone that is perfect for entry-level users. Full Review The Nokia 5165 was the third Nokia phone in the lineage of cell phones that I've been through. I began with the analog 918, followed a couple of years later by the analog 252 (both of which I've reviewed elsewhere on Epinions). For what they were, those were terrific phones which more than got the job done. When it came time to upgrade to digital service, I eventually sought a personal-use plan that would land me another Nokia (AT&T, which I will review soon), and hence the 5165 entered the picture. Actually, it entered the picture twice; the first time as a phone for business and the second as a personal phone. Eighteen months or so later, I've moved on to the 3360 (epinion coming), which will be my phone for the foreseable future. But, other than its cosmetics, it's not leagues different from its predecessor, which I'll give a few thoughts about here. My initial reaction to the 5165 was one of disappointment in terms of call clarity--I experienced significant, annoying delay. Of course, this turned out to be the product of my service carrier (initially, Alltel) and not the phone; I've noticed no such delay with my current provider. Call clarity is exceptional, and many have remarked that they thought I was phoning from a land-line while using the 5165. The look and the feel Cosmetics are a huge part of what I look at when thinking about a new phone. The 5165 was a shade larger and bulkier than I wanted when I upgraded from the 252, but not annoyingly so. The external antenna (non-retractable type) is largely the culprit here, making the phone's profile a bit thick and tall (about 5 inches). However, what this thing lacks in beauty it more than makes up for in durability. My first 5165 withstood being dropped countless times among other things: a washing-machine cycle (don't ask), ethyl alcohol and betadine spills, and a number of curious toddlers, some of whom are my patients, and one of whom lives with me. The phone isn't heavy (5 to 6 ounces, on the bathroom scale) despite it's (by 3360 standards) large size. How does it work? Menus and features and so on... Operation is very much in the typical tradition of Nokia software, with a series of easily-navigated menus driving most of the crucial operations. Name/number/e-mail address storage is simple (which reminds me that the phone can send text messages, voice messages and e-mail messages) and plentiful enough; there are enough ringing sounds to keep you busy and you can download more from the Net; all the standard calling logs (incoming and outgoing numbers and missed calls), call timers and security features (like the lockcode) are also easily accessed from the menu. There are even three games. Apparently, the phone is compatible with the wireless Internet service provided by AT&T; I've never really used it as I get most of that sort of info on my pager, but I imagine this feature will appeal to many. The text display is oversized and very readable, and improved from the analog Nokias I've used. Gotta have juice: notes on battery life Battery life is probably satisfactory for most users given the limitations of the standard battery. It's rated as capable of 3.25 hours of talking time and 8 days of standby time per full charge. Maybe. The standby claim is accurate, as far as I can tell; you get about a week from a charge (with the standard charger this is an overnight thing) with very, very light use and predominantly standby operation. I can't really speak to the talking time; I've never come close to pushing the limit. This amount of battery life strikes me as being acceptable but not spectacular, and I can easily see it not being nearly enough for some users. Parting shots I'm sold on Nokia phones; they've been solid performers for me, and I'll stick with a brand that hasn't given me a reason to jump-ship. The 5165 is a solid, basic digital phone, a perfect entry phone which is packaged with AT&T and (I think) Cingular (I'm not certain about that; it may be the 5180 which is a close cousin). I would definitely recommend that potential buyers consider stepping-up to the 3360 or a similar model; it's smaller and fits nicely in a pocket, and all the essential features are preserved (battery standby time seems a bit longer, 10.5 days in the advertising, but talk time is rated the same; there are some other new features, like vibration instead of audible ringing). I'll review that phone when I've become more familiar with it. Recommended as a great entry-level digital phone that gets the job done. Enjoy... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free w/ plan 89734 2000/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice size good selection of features value weight locking keys is a must The Bottom LineGood, well-featured phone for a great price. Full Review I recently replaced my ancient cellular phones for my wife and I with current service. I was looking for a convenient, casual use phone, primarily to keep in touch with my wife. My work suggested a Family Talk plan with Cingular Wireless that generously filled my needs. I selected a pair of Nokia 5165 phones for my service. I have been been satisfied by the durability of Nokia phones in the past. In terms of weight and size, the phone is great. The display is clear and easy to read. The buttons have a convenient layout, though they are a bit on the small size. There are 12 number buttons, 2 scroll buttons, a cancel button, a power on/off button, and a multi-function button. The stubby antenna is not extendable, but seems to have fine reception. My only complaint about the buttons is that while clipped to the belt, there is a possibility for accidental pressing of the multi-fuinction button, which can lead to an accidental call. It is necessary to keep the keylock feature engaged (press multi-function and * and repeat to unlock). The phone has digital reception, and can send emails and text messages. While text messaging sounds like a gratuitous feature, it is actually very convenient and simple. My wife, whom I affectionately refer to as "technology chalenged", figured out how to use this without my instruction. It is a bit more convenient than voice mail (which I also have), as the text is sent directly to the phone. It took about 48 hours for the text/voice mail service to set up. Other features include emergency 9 key, call waiting, call forwarding, multiple calls, and caller ID. There are games available, as well as multiple rings and alerts, with more available by download from the internet. The price of each phone was $79.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate, making the final price about $30 per phone. Each phone included a AC charger, battery, manual, and hands-free headset. Battery life, so far, is excellent. It is recommended that batteries be charged a full 24 hours initially. Maximum capacity should be reached after 3 complete cycles of charging and discharging. The manual is easy to follow, clear, and concise. I purchased an snap-on faceplate of a different color to distinguish my phone from my wife's, which easily installed. I also purchased an accessory set that included a mobile charger and leather cover/detachable belt clip. The accessory kit and the snap-on cover were $20.00 each. Thus far, I am very impressed with these phones. They are lightweight, easy to use, and have plenty of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 89733 2000/1/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 can change the colors on the facedownload tones easy to use not very sophisticated The Bottom LineIt is so easy to use and light to carry. Plus, it is highly customizable and works great all the time. NO COMPLAINTS! Full Review I got my Nokia 5165 for use with my AT&T digital service. I bought it at Circuit City and got a rebate on it, which made it almost free. It is very easy to use and I have had no problems with it at all. I use it a lot and the battery has been holding up well and charges fast. I have very good reception and rarely drop calls. I went to the AT&T website and was able to download song to use as ring tones for my phone, so that I can tell that if it is my phone that is ringing in a crowd. It holds all my phone numbers and even does e-mail and instant messaging to other phones. It is little without being too small and the battery is a bit heavy, but I still like it better than my cordless phone. There are tons of faceplates availble for this phone and other accessories, so it is completely customizable. Also, you can lock the keys so that it doesn't accidently make a call if you hit the buttons. It isn't a flip phone so the keys are in plain view. Also, it has a few games on it, but they are pretty boring. I feel that it is very easy to use, and works great if all you want to do is make calls and the occaisonal IM. I would recommend it, as it doesn't lack quality, even though it is at the lower end of the price range. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 89732 2002/2/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 decent features for the money easy to use typical nokia quality cool new looks no internal vibrate mode other nokias have more features The Bottom LineWhile its true the 5100 line is getting a bit long in the tooth for some people it offers first time and budget buyers an excellent phone. Full Review When I switched wireless providers I decided to go with Cingular Wireless and their fantastic unlimited nights and weekends promotion. This did mean however that I would have to part with my Nokia 6160 from AT&T. Since I was very happy with the 6160 I decided that I would stick with another Nokia product for my next phone. Cingular no longer offers a version of the 6100 ( they used to sell the 6120 and the 6161 flip phone),and I didn't like the 7160( I hated the slide cover and the "NaviRoller") or the 8260 ( too small) so is was either go for the 5165 or get a Motorola StarTac 7897. I detest the StarTac so 5165 it was. Clarity: The 5165 is one of Nokia's newer phones so it has Nokia's updated technology over older models such as the 5160. The 5165 is the clearest phone I have used to date. Never once have I experienced any static or echoing while on a call. The 6160 had some funky sound quality problems that probably had more to do with the AT&T service than anything else, but the 5165 sounds richer. Features: The 5165 has some features that the 6160 lacked. Features such as text messaging and email are a very nice touch. You also have the ability to download five personalized ringtones on top of the 30 that come programmed into the phone. Like all modern Nokias, the 5165 comes with the games you would expect such as snake(the only one I've bothered to play). However, there are some features from the 6160 that I really miss. These include the calendar, the calculator and the profiles setting which allows you to change the ring settings to fit whatever environment you happen to be in. Another feature that I would like is an internal vibrate mode. For some reason, Nokia only includes this in certain models such as the 8200 series and the CDMA version of the 6100 series (6185/6185i). I resent having to purchase a vibrating battery which costs anywhere between $30-$70 depending where you look. I may plunk down the cash for one, but I have not decided if it is worth or not. ( Update: I bought the vibrating battery just before christmas. $35 aftermarket. Its worth it!) Ease of use/Quality: When I purchased the 5165 I didn't think it would be as easy to use as the 6160. After six months, I'm finding that I like the 5165 beter than my 6160. The 5165 like all other 5100 series Nokias has the centralized Navi key which controls most functions of the phone plus a rocker switch on the right to scroll. This setup ends up being easier to use than the seperate talk and end buttons on the 6100. As far as size, I feel this is the perfect size for a cell phone. I very much dislike the ultra small 8200 series Nokias feeling they look and feel like a toy. The Nokia 5100/6100 feels substantial and comfortable in your hand. It seems to be built to last and that is very important to me. I will replace this phone when the new Nokia 6340 becomes available since Cingular is switching to a GSM network like Voicestream has. The 6340 will support both GSM AND TDMA which is the newtwork Cingular uses now. Until then, I'll hold onto my 5165. Overall: I really like my 5165. The 5165 offers most of what I need in a phone and a few extras, but it also has its minuses. The 5165 as well as the rest of the 5100 series line is the perfect phone for most people especially if they have never used one of the more upscale Nokias. It gets my recommendation as being among the best. Hey what do you expect, it's a Nokia! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.95 89731 2000/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 extremely customizable great features excellent sound inexpensive fun games somewhat bulky by today s standards small phone book The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 offers a combination of quality and price that you will not find with any other phone. You really can't go wrong. Full Review I am completely happy with my Nokia 5165; it's everything I'm looking for. Critics will (truthfully) note that it only has space for 100 phone numbers and is slightly larger than today's newer models (i.e. the Nokia 8200 & 8800 series phones), but that really doesn't bother me so much. If you need to have more than 100 numbers on hand, you're overtly pretentious, and if it's too big to fit in your pants, your pants are too tight. Just kidding! :) In all seriousness, those downsides aside, this really is an excellent phone. Due to the fact that this was the first phone that was really very customizable and early models of it came out a long time ago, there are THOUSANDS of accessories you can find for it. I've tricked mine out with a bright white faceplate, swapped the green backlight for a blue one, bought a thin battery so that the entire back of the phone is flat, and downloaded a variety of pop/techno ringtones. There are a great deal of other accessories as well, such as speakerphone/handsfree devices, glowing antennas, cases, etc. that I don't currently own. I really also like the sound quality of the phone - I rarely have to ask people to repeat things, and I can hear everything said even if I'm at a club. For even greater quality, headsets can be invested in. The feature set is phenomenal; I can send text messages to other Cingular customers as well as to email addresses (something not all other carriers allow), I can play games, I can change the language the phone is in, I can review call lists and timers, and there is even a "test mode" you can put the phone in whereby you can see what the techies see, which is kind of cool. Finally, like I said, this phone and the nearly-identical models before it have been around for forever. You can get a smaller phone, or maybe one with web access or a larger phone book for $150 and up (I've seen $800 phones), but this is a great phone and most providers have it for $30-$60. You can't go wrong! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 89730 2000/6/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 tons of features wide variety of face plates not very big easy to use face plates for this model are hard to find The Bottom Linegreat phone, easily changeable face plates, light and easy to use Full Review This is the third Nokia Phone I have had in recent years. Different service provider this time though. Around the beginning of the year my parents contract with US Cellular was up so we switched over to Southwestern Bell in hopes of getting better service in our area. When we switch we got brand new phones. Our new service provider isn't much better than the old one but I do like the phone. The Nokia 5165 doesn't seem much different than the 5160 I had before. I do like the new keypad design and find the menu easy to nagivate and use. I don't like the voice message thing, I can never figure out how to listen to my messages so I try not to ever use the voice message thing. Now I don't like trying to find face plates to fit the keypad for the 5165. You can use the old keypads for the 5160 model and the face plates on this phone and it will still work. After some hunting i finally found a hello kitty face plate on ebay that was meant to fit my 5165 model phone. But if you can find the right face plate or the one you want the plates are easily installed and removed. The face plates are more of an accessory so if you are happy with the standard blue face plate there is no need to change it. But if you like to have a change every so often there are a wide selection of face plates for Nokia phone but not for this particulary model. I have a car adapter for my cell phone but it is useless in my car since the cigeratte lighter only works when the car is on. So I use the house charger to charge the phone. I like that this phone isn't too big and will fit in the back pocket of my jeans or nicely in my lil backpack purse. You can change the ringer tone to one of the many choices programmed into the phone and I have seen on the net where you can buy new ringer tones. It has two way text messaging, never used but have recieved text messages from Southwestern Bell every so often advertising. It has has a feature for you to send e-mail which I haven't used since it is suppose to take up air time and wouldn't want to use that keypad to try to send a long e-mail. The phone has a built in address book which I love, I can easily store all my friends and familys numbers and e-mail addresses and look up them up quickly. Now when calling family or friends I don't have to memorize the number or fumble through my purse to look for a number. Even have local restuarant numbers programmed in that I call often. You can save up to 100 telephone numbers and addresses in the Address Book. You can also play a few games on your cellular phone to help pass time. There are three games: Snake, Memory and Logic. Although I wouldn't recommend the games, they only waste battery time and quickly it seems. Overall I do like the 5165 model and hope to keep this phone for another year or two and collect many face plates for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89729 2002/3/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 extra features simplicity low cost long menus 100 number memory radiation levels The Bottom LineA great phone for the price($0). I have seen better, but I have also seen worse, those that weren't as good still cost more. Give this phone a good look. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is a rather simplistic phone for a basic cell phone user. The 5165 includes the ability to send and receive text messages. This cellular phone includes a large black and white pixel display that displays different graphics for each feature of the phone as well as text. The phone incorporates all the basic features a cell phone should. This phone should be able to be talked out of a cell phone dealer for free with the purchase of a one-year cellular service agreement. This cell phone includes: - On Screen Help - On Screen Help are little text messages that appear to explain each feature that you can select. The help automatically appears if you don't touch any buttons for a little while. It can be useful to gain a basic understanding of features. - Two-way Mobile Messaging and Email - You can send and receive messages from any phone. Your cellular provider has to support this feature in order to use it. This feature is more common in the US today amongst cellular providers, it is called SMS Text Messaging. It allows you to send messages of up to 150 characters to any email address and you can receive messages up to 150 characters from anyone sending to your email address. (Your cell phone's email address will vary by cellular provides, for example AT&T's is cellnumber@mobile.att.com. I use this feature to receive daily horoscopes and a daily weather report. Be aware that most cellular providers charge per message received or sent. AT&T is the one exception I have found which only charges to send messages. - Network Time Synchronization - With this feature, if your cellular service provides it again, will allow your phone to automatically synchronize it's time with that of the time provided by your cellular service. This helps for people who travel a lot, they don't have to set the time on their phone as they change time zones because the phone automatically updates itself. - This Phone supports up to 4 Languages - Self-Explanatory, basically you don't have to know English to use this phone. - Hearing Aid Support - - Phone Book Memory, up to 100 Entries - This allows you to type in your friend's names and numbers. This phone lacks in the amount of numbers that it can hold. It can only hold 100 entries, which includes your friends names, numbers and email addresses (used to send SMS/Text Messages). The major drawback on this phone is that it doesn't allow you to provide different numbers for different contact methods for each person. AKA: If your friend Bob has a Work number, a Home number and a Cell Number you have to enter Bob in your phone book 3 times with Work, Home and Cell after his name. Other phones I have seen allow you to specify different contact methods so you would only enter Bob and then you can specify his work, home, and cell number. This is more convenient and Nokia really fumbled on missing this feature. - Three Games - These are the three traditional Nokia games. They are okay games and they basically keep you busy if you're sitting somewhere waiting for friends to arrive or something similar. (Don't plan on replacing your Xbox or PS2 with your new Nokia Cellular Phone games…hehe) - 35 Ring Tones - This allows you to have 30 Ring Tones to select from. Five of which are customizable. You can download those ring tones to your phone via your cellular service or on the web. Beware most people try to make you pay for this service while it is free, the only part you do have to pay for is receiving the SMS messages, the ring tones are sent in SMS Text Message Form. - Xpress-On Custom Covers - This allows you to buy extra covers for your phone which you can put on. This allows for more customization. This phone support these basic calling features: - Alarm Clock - You can set an alarm clock to go off at a certain time. - Call Waiting - If you have call waiting with your cellular service (most people do) then this phone does support it. - Call Log - You can view the numbers (if you have caller id) of those people who you have received calls from and those calls you have missed. You can also see those people who you have called. This phone stores the last 10 numbers for each catorgory. Going into the call log you can see the time you called each person, the number and name for each person (the name only appears if their number is in your address book on your phone). You can also easily call anyone in any of these logs back. You can easily access your most recent calls by pressing the up arrow on the phone when the phone is on it's main screen (not in any menus). - Email over SMS - Allows you to send Emails using SMS Text Messaging (network allowing). This is useful when a call isn't appropriate. - Keypad Lock - This allows you to lock the keypad on your phone so that you can put it in your pocket and not worry about accidentally calling people. - Network Auto Redial - If you try to make a call and the network is busy then your phone will automatically try calling again within a few seconds. The phone makes a loud beep when it finally doesn't have a network busy signal. (This isn't the busy signal you hear on a traditional phone, but rather if the cellular network is busy). - Phone Book - This allows you to store the names, numbers, and emails of up to 100 of your friends for easy access. This makes it so you will no longer have to memorize all of your friends phone numbers. Now you can just scroll down a list and select their names. - Voicemail Capability - Voicemail is a cellular phones answering machine. If you have your phone off or don't answer it and your cellular service provides voicemail then the caller will be able to leave a message. Once you turn your phone back on your phone will automatically notify you that you have a new voicemail message. - Caller ID - This allows you to see the number of the person calling you, and if that number is in your phone book then your phone will display the name of the caller. This only works if your cellular service provides caller id. - Profile Settings - This allows you to setup a profile. For example Silent, Regular or Quiet. I use this when I go to class. I can quickly change my phones ring tone settings by selecting Silent which will make it so if someone calls me while I'm in class my phone won't ring. You can also select Quiet if you're in a library or another appropriate situation. - Indicators - Displays battery strength and cellular tower strength. Conclusion Overall this phone is a rather useful phone for being free. Some other phones will cost $100's, but this phone is free and includes all the basic useful features. This phone should come with a charger and an earpiece that allows you to talk hands free. (You can use this while your writing a review for epinions and talking on the phone.) You can also pick up extra adapters that allow you to charge the phone in the car or hook it up to your computer to act as a modem. The major drawback on this phone is the radiation levels: Before using a cellular phone one should be advised about this technology. The FCC provides some basic data at: http://www.fcc.gov/cib/consumerfacts/mobilephone.html The Radiation Charts published by the FCC are at: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/ In order to find out the SAR (radiation) levels of a given phone you must know the FCC ID that the phone is registered with. The FCC shows people how to find this number if you don't know what it is. The maximum value allowed by the FCC is 1.6 Watts per Kilogram. Be advised, the Nokia 5165 has an SAR value of: 1.46 Watts per Kilogram. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 00 89728 2001/8/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 e mail alarm clock etc easy to use none The Bottom LineThis little phone is a powerhouse of capabilities. I love it! Full Review I finally broke down and got a cell phone, though I won't drive and talk on it, and now I don't feel like a dinosaur among the Einstein's. My family kept telling me I needed a mobile phone, but I kept resisting because I think it is unsafe to drive while talking on a phone (see a previous review "We're All at Risk..."). I decided on the Nokia 5165, which was offered by AT&T Wireless. The phone retails for $99.00. AT&T had it on sale for $79.00, and they offered a $40.00 rebate, so my phone only cost $39.00. I had been looking at cell phones and comparing prices, when I received the AT&T offer by mail. I called the 800 number and signed up. My phone arrived the very next morning, just in time to take it on a trip. This phone has many options, which include the following: 1. E-mail capability--I can store e-mail addresses and send e-mail with the phone. I can also store e-mails until I have time to read them or send them. Since I don't own a laptop computer, my phone lets me keep up with e-mail while traveling. It's fun. 2.Voice mail--messages are recorded and easily accessed. 3.Automatic redial--I can redial the last 10 numbers, which are stored. 4.Clock--All I do is set it once and it holds until I take out the battery, or until the battery runs down, which is a long time, because the battery has a long life. 5.Lighted dial--This makes calling at night on the road easier to do. 6.Automatic answer--If the phone is connected to a headset or to a hands-free car kit, it answers automatically after 1 ring. 7.Phone book--I can store everyone's name and number in the phone book, as well as e-mail addresses. This is very handy. I just enter the person's name, and the number comes up. Then I push the call button and it dials the number automatically. 8.Text messages--I can send, receive and store text messages. I use this when I'm a passenger on a long trip. 9.Alarm clock--I can set it for any time I want. 10.Games--There are 3 games--Memory, Snake and Logic--all fun and easy to play. These help take the boredom out of a long trip. 11.Volume and tone adjustment--I set it to the tone I want and the volume I want. 12.One year guarantee--I can send it back within one year for a refund or an exchange. Considering all these options and more, I think this phone was an excellent value. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't decided on a cell phone brand. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00 89727 2001/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use low price works with many prepaid services limited features The Bottom LineI'd recommend that you buy a Kyocera 2135 prepaid phone from Verizon Wireless instead, but the Nokia 5165 is overall a good phone. Full Review I'm reposting this review in the proper category, I realized it was in the wrong place after posting my new cell phone review this month. This review in the other category (Nokia 5160) has been deleted, but it has received great ratings. I ended up buying a 5165 phone kit just to work on the AT&T prepaid plan. At the price of $99 minus a $40 rebate, how could I go wrong? The box even contained $25 in minutes ready to go, and an offer for $25 more. The price was right, and I found this phone was extremely easy to set up and use. Within minutes of purchasing the Nokia 5165, I was ready to call people. Features Now I'll talk about the best feature for many people: the ease of use. My dad and grandmother both own either a Nokia 5165 or 5160 digital phone, and that says a lot! If you're the type that would just like to call people without messing with all the features, this phone is for you. Just turn it on, hit the numbers just like a regular phone, and press the send key. (actually a multi-use key below the display that carries out the function stated on the screen) If you'd like to get into the other features, change your ringtone, welcome message, etc. it's easier than setting the clock on the VCR. Just go into menu and select the options you'd like. For most people, this phone has enough features. Caller ID, one way text messaging, voice mail, and more. This isn't bad, but I was disappointed that I couldn't use two-way messenging. I was told with the 5165 that you could for an extra fee, but it won't let me. If you're looking for an advanced phone with wireless web, etc. this one isn't for you. The thing that I don't like is the inability to upgrade the phone, add programs, and things like that. The phone comes with 3 "games" that are terrible. (Memory, which we can't figure out, Snake, and one other) The phone's display is pretty basic... but it'll get you by. On my new Kyocera phone I could really notice a huge difference with that, among many other things. Reception The reception one thing on this phone that people can't seem to agree on. I think mine works fine, where other users (such as my father) think it's terrible at times. While driving through some areas on vacation, we couldn't even get over one bar of reception. However, if you plan to stay in a coverage area (see your phone dealer for a map with selected plan) the calls will be extremely clear. Accessories The Nokia 5160/5165 phones have many additional accessories available. From faceplates, different batteries, chargers, and much more. Since they're in the same series, the faceplates can be swapped from the 5160 phones to the 5165. This is where it pays off to get a very popular phone. Also, if you buy the 5165, they added a new feature that allows you do download musical ringtones off their website. (requires an additional data cable, and $.99 per download.) I've seen software on the net that allows you to convert .wav music files to ringtones for a low one time fee, but I'm not sure how it'd work. Other Info... The Nokia 5165 phone got me by for about 4 months before I decided to upgrade. The phone held up very well, and the next buyer of the phone was very happy with it's condition... though I think the way I took care of it played a large part. Most Nokia phones that I've used, including this one, aren't very comfortable to use. The design doesn't really fit your head when talking, and the phone isn't specially made to fit in the palm of your hand. It does, however, have a very sturdy feel... but that also makes it feel much heavier than other phones in it's class. If the look and feel play a large part in your decision when shopping for a wireless phone, I'd recommend that you stop in your favorite wireless store and check the Nokia 5165 phone out before buying online... it will make a huge difference. Conclusion After buying a new Kyocera 2135 [Freeup] prepaid phone from Verizon Wireless, I would have to say that my new phone is much better than this one. You can read my reviews of both the Kyocera phone and Verizon Wireless from my profile. I was happy with my phone and service here, but the other phone is just much better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 - $40 89726 2001/6/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good clarity good size display many customizable features battery life could be better The Bottom LineDollar for dollar, this cellular phone is an exceptional value and offers enough features to please almost anyone. Full Review Better than I Expected I had a Nokia phone many years ago and was NOT impressed. So, when AT&T offered to replace an Ericsson T18LX (due to reception problems) with a Nokia 5165, I had many reservations. Was I surprised how much Nokia has changed for the better! The phone isn't too small and isn't too large; it's just right. Same goes for the buttons and the display. I happen to be visually impaired, and the display and keypad on this phone is adequate for me, even for reading news briefs and short calendar reminders. The keypad and display light up very well for low light conditions. Clock & Alarm The time of day is ALWAYS on the display (or not, if you so desire), and there is also an indicator to show if one has the alarm feature set. The time for this phone can be manually entered and then set the clock to "auto update" so that it is always accurate. The alarm feature beats almost any alarm clock out there, even those not associated with a cellular phone. I sleep with ear plugs AND a box fan on high, but have NEVER slept through the alarm on this phone. It starts out medium and gets louder and louder and louder, and rings for quite awhile. The display and keypad also flash constantly so that one can find the phone in the dark to turn off the alarm. Unlike other cellular phones, the alarm on the Nokia 5165 works even when the phone is turned OFF. I could never figure out why the Samsung model phones put out by Sprint PCS required that the phone be ON in order for the alarm to work. I could never use the alarm feature on the Samsung without being woken up by a ringing or vibrating cell phone. Duh! Phone Book The phone book has room for 100 names, telephone numbers, and e-mails. The purpose for the e-mail is because these phones are two-way text compatible so that one can send an e-mail from the phone or even forward a text message to any e-mail address. I only used the e-mail feature once or twice in an emergency, and am confident I would not use this feature on an ongoing basis because it very frustrating and time consuming. A really helpful feature in the Phone Book is the flexibility to view Name List, Name + number, or Name only when displaying the address book entries. Great Menu Navigation The menu navigation for this phone is exceptional. There are very few buttons to push to get where one needs to go, and one can eventually memorize the shortcuts to often-used features, such as Menu+7+1 to set the alarm clock. Ringing Options The phone can be set to Ring normally, Ascend, Ring once, Beep once, or Silent. The Tone can be set to 30 pre-programmed "tunes," including Entertainer, Reveille, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Long scale, Charleston, William Tell, Dizzy (my favourite), and many other popular tunes! There are also several sections for "Personal Tone," but I haven't figured out how that works yet. Ringing Volume can be set from 1 to 5. Keypad tones have three levels of setting or the Off position. Message Alert Tone can be set to Beep once, Long & loud, No tone, Standard, or Special. There is a "one button shortcut" key to override your Ringing settings to either Silent, Quiet, or Loud, and then back to your pre-set tones when you want to switch back. I have used this feature quite a bit to make the phone LOUD when vacuuming or when I want to roam around my condo without bringing the cell phone with me to each room! Just before a meeting, I have used this feature to make the phone Quiet without having to play around with "five million" buttons! Miscellaneous The functionality of Messages, Call log, and Settings features are on par with other cellular phones, if not better. My Nokia 5165 also came with 3 preloaded games: Memory, Snake, and Logic. I only use them to "pass the time" while doing a Number Two and forgot to bring material with me! (Hey, inquiring minds like to know this stuff.) There are way more features to this phone, but I couldn't list them all here. Although not part of the functionality of the phone, one can purchase a face plate to match their mood. From Disney to Warner Brothers to bright metallic plates, there is something for everyone! Shop carefully, though, because some retailers charge $9.99 for a face plate that another retailer may charge up to $24.99 for! Be Sure to Use KEYLOCK & Headsets! Something very important, probably for any cell phone model. Even though it can become a nuisance to remember, I recommend that all cellular users use the KEYLOCK feature on their phone. On this particular model, for some reason, I was able to forward my cell to a non-working number (without my knowledge) when the phone was in a small hemp shoulder bag. For five days, anyone who called the cell phone received "The number you have reached is not in service...." AT&T Wireless told me they receive several calls each day about this happening, and it can be prevented by using the KEYLOCK feature religiously. Also, since we do not yet know the real medical dangers (if any) from extended cellular use, please purchase a high quality headset or ear bud for your cell phone. I notice these cell phones get very HOT in the earpiece after about 10 minutes of use, and anything that gets hot can't do ones ear (or brain) any good! I happen to favour Jabra headsets and ear buds because they make a really good quality product! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89725 2001/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light fun small keys The Bottom LineI would buy all my friends and family this phone because I know they would enjoy and find it as useful as I have. Full Review In the age of rising gas prices, it almost necessary to know if people are going to be home when you are planning to drop in. I find my Nokia 5165 useful after a hard day shopping. Most of the time I want to stop by a friends house and show them my finds. If I am on the road I want to know if they will be at home so as not to waste gas and time. This phone is perfect for that. When I first started looking for a cellular phone, this one caught my eye right away. Not only is is small, it is also attractive. The original face plate is almost a midnight blue and the buttons are silver in color. If you don't like that combination, there are many other face plates called Xpress-ons to choose from, and you can also get other buttons colors. The possibilities are numerous. Another reason I liked this phone is the display screen. The screen is really easy to read and spaced evenly. There are also lights that luminate when ever any key is pressed. This is great at night when you are in your car and need to dial a number. Other features on the phone that made it my final choice include the keyguard option, that allows you to lock your phone from dialing numbers by accident. This helps out a lot if you are like me and drop your phone in your purse or jacket pocket. It also has a phone book where you can search for the names you have entered, and new names, edit names and numbers, and erase those names and numbers you don't need any more. You can also use the 1-touch dialing and send business cards to associates. A feature that means the most to me is the messaging feature. You can receive and send text messages to other phone. You can even write and send emails to anyone. This phone also has a call log, where you can see all the calls you have missed, received, and dialed. So if you can't remember a number of a friend that you have called or gotten a call from, you can always check there. When you are bored and have nothing else to do, you can play one of three games. Memory, Snake, and Logic provide something fun to do when you are at the doctors office or just hanging out in the McDonalds drive thru! You also have and easy to set clock and alarm clock. The clock shows on the face at all times so you will always know what time it is. When you first get the phone, you will have thirty preset phone rings already loaded on. You can download more on-line at www.cingular.com. There are also five ringing volumes to choose from and five ringing options also. The Nokia 5165 has a fixed-length antenna, so you never have to worry about pulling out and accidentally breaking it off. You can also use calling cards with this phone to make long distance calls. You have to store the numbers in the phone and then they are accessible anytime you need them. When you sign up you also have the option of signing up for Voice mail box, so you never have to miss a call. You can also get call waiting, caller ID, and three way calling. There are also many other accessories for this particular phone. A few being extra batteries with varying talk and standby times and car and home chargers. The only complaint I have had about this phone has been the rather small keys. It is such a great phone though that even the small keys can't keep me away! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 89724 2000/1/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 fairly well featured add ons add up in price lacks some important features Full Review My Main reason for purchasing this phone is it best met my needs, for my selected carrier, Rogers AT&T Wireless. (Formerly Cantel) NOKIA is currently the phone of choice, with many models, and features, with extensive series lines. The 5165, follows the path of the 5160, & 5160i, where the look and feel are pretty much the same, although this model has been dressed up to look more appealing and professional. The features that were most attractive to me were the Text messaging (Phone to Phone & Via the web) as well as E-mail Messaging. The phone features a predictive Text messaging system with extensive dictionaries in 3 languages (English, French, Spanish) which helps speed up writing of messages or E-mails. It takes some getting used to, but well worth it after the 3rd E-mail. The standard Phone Book has been expanded with email address support however, making it that much easier for you to send them. Other standard features are the Call Log (Received/Missed/Called/Timers), Many settings for Network/Phone/Security, and even games. There are some 35 Tones (5 of which are personal / Downloadable) and a number of ringing options, including support for Quiet, Loud, Ascending, and Silent/Vibrate modes. It has separate Tones for Messaging too. The clock has an Alarm, but no DATE. 3 games are even included.... On the down side: I found the standard (900 mAh) battery runs out too quickly on he Hands Free / and Headsets, you require an adapter, which breaks easily. NO Calendar / Date support *BIG Issue for me* Only standard length Vibrating battery available (900 mAh). Lack of support for Mobile (Laptop) Communications. Can it be better?: Add a Calendar. Better Call time tracking support. Automatic (Timer) Key-lock support. What about Accessories: There's support for Headsets, and Hands Free Kits, including in Car. Changeable Antennas, faceplates. External Antenna Jack for car or other boosting antenna. Extensive 3rd party After Market Batteries and other add-ons as well. Personal Add-on List: (Price for comparison) -> $175 $55 - 1x Li-Ion 3700 mAh Vibrating Battery $20 - 3x Headset / Hands-Free Kit Adaptors (total) $10 - 1x Headset, Around Ear, with Boom Mic $70 - 1x Car MAG Antenna, and hands free set. $20 - 1x Starter Package (Case, Belt Clip, Travel Charger) I paid about $25 US for the phone (Price because of Activation plan) Totalling $200 US. ($300 CDN). With all that was lacking and the costs involved, it was still the best choice for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89723 2001/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 simple built like a tank but only 14 oz easy to use small buttons The Bottom LineIf you want value and you don't need the latest and the greatest little fufu phone, then get a Nokia 5165! Full Review This s a great little phone because it is rugged, functional and just stylish enough. I tried the awful little 8260 and it was so small I couldn't operate it. I mean small is good sometimes, but people still need to be able to operate it. I traded in the little 8260 for the larger 5165 and i'm glad i did. The buttons on the 5165 are not exactly large. I have large fingers so it was difficult using the faceplate that came with the phone. So i just swapped it with a 5160 faceplate and all was fine. All of the 5160's thousands of faceplates are compatible with the 5165 so you can customize it as much as you want really. The only difference between the 5160 and the 5165 is 2 way SMS (Short Message System?) capabilities. Its really not all that big of a deal unless you enjoy typing messages out using the keypad (ERR). PHONES WERE NOT MEANT TO SEND TEXT MESSAGES! But besides all that its the same. Its very hardy. You can probably run this thing over with a truck and it wouldn't have a scratch on it. Sound quality is obviously affected by your phone services. Digital PCS TDMA/CDMA in the NY metro area has its inherent downfalls and really isn't a fair means of comparing sound quality. Except for the occasional dropped call i've had no serious problems with sound quality. I have no experience with the phone in analog mode so I really can't comment on that. Battery life on this phone kicks the $^#& out of some of my friend's Ericssons. 3+ hours of TDMA/CDMA (PCS)talk time and 8 DAYS of standby time. Analog talk times will obviously be shorter due to the huge energy drain required to communicate on analog networks. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89722 2000/11/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 has t 9 predictive text capability more styling then 5160 comes only with nimh battery not lithium ion a little big Full Review Once again, I have taken the time to review yet another phone, from my expeiences working as a Customer Service Rep for Rogers AT&T Wireless. From my personal preference, and experience, Nokia makes the best phones. I have heard they have started to make computer monitors, and all I can say to that is "Please don't become a SONY". Sony makes about 6 trillion different kind of electronics, and altho they are quite good, they don't match to those companies that specialize in one specific type of product. I have to say, Nokia does a good job in putting a number of phones out in the market. And to start, the 5100 series was the best one. When the phone was first released on our network, it was released as the model of 5120. It was later updated to the 5160 model, (dualband dualmode) and finally updated to 5160i (yes "i") which gave it the ability to SEND text messages, and also be used as a modem for your computer. Nokia has now released yet another model in the 5100 series, which is the 5165. This phone is a upgrade to the 5160. It has a lot more of a "stylin" look to it. Once again, like the 5160 it is TDMA 800/TDMA 1900/Analog. Probably the newest, and best feature that the 5165 has is its T-9 predictive text capability. Predictive text input makes it fast and easy to write messages on the keypad of this Nokia phone. The phone contains a built-in dictionary, with support for three major languages (English, Spanish, French.) Each time you press a key this Nokia phone compares the word you have written so far with the words in the database and selects the most likely word. So you can write by pressing one key per letter, instead of two or three as with an ordinary keypad. If there are several possible words, you choose a new one by pressing the star key. You can also input new words and names into the database. The only thing is that this is a network dependent feature. Sounds complicated, but is actually super easy. This is also a feature that the 8260 boasts as well. Also the phone comes with the general 30 ring tones, and space to download 5 more as well. I guess one downfall, because the 5100's don't rate high, is that it comes with a high capacity NiMH battery which lasts for around 2-3hr talk time, & around 4-8 days of standyby time. Which honestly is good enuf. But just think how much better Infolithium makes it. =) Probably the last but best thing about the 5165 is the way you can customize the phone, from everything from downloadable ringtones, to changeable flace plates, changable antenna's, you can make this phone yours. Voice clarity is great on the phone. Getting a handsfree kit helps a whole bunch, and once again the great thing about Nokia phones is almost all their accessories are compatible. Well thats about it, I have no real complaints againts the 5165. Getting the phone with Rogers AT&T Wireless all you gotta do is pay $99, and you get a $100 rebate, so the phones free. What more can you ask for? Check this phone out, it rocks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0CND 89721 2002/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 text messages price email downloadable ringtones reception slim on features menu battery indicator misleading The Bottom LineNot a bad phone if you get it free, but for me- I'd rather have some of the cool features on other phones. Full Review Well, I must say that I was spoiled with a great phone before this Nokia 5165. I had a Sanyo 4500 with awesome features such as a built-in speakerphone, voice activated dialing, calendar, alarm clock, voice memo recorder, and the ability to play many different musical pitches at the same time- enabling it to have some pretty cool harmonies and good sounding ringtones (a neat feature for a music lover like myself). So, this review of the Nokia is based on my previous utopian cell phone world with the Sanyo. -Reception I've read some other reviews that commend the Nokia 5165 on it's reception, but the number one thing that I judge a cell phone's reception on is- if it works inside my home. I have a cell phone plan with Cingular that includes unlimited nights and weekends- so there are plenty of times that I'd like to use those free minutes instead of my regular "ground-line" phone in my home. The Nokia 5165 does not work very well inside my apartment and it has been very frustrating to have to walk outside until a clearer signal can be found. What a pain! I must also include that it does seem to work pretty well inside grocery stores (another good test of reception) which is a must when you need to call the wife to find out if you need anything else from the grocery store before you get home and have to go back out! (been there, done that) -Features Once again, I'm comparing this to my previous phone- the Sanyo 4500. The features seem slim to someone like me that appreciates little cool things that a phone can do. I appreciate the wow factor of feature-rich electronics. The menu includes- -Phone Book -Messages -Call Log -Settings -System -Games -Clock -My Tones -Keyguard Battery Indicator Don't be fooled by this less-than-accurate meter on the phone's screen. Some days I will go from a "full" battery to an empty battery in a single day- with normal use. After the initial full charge when the phone is new, I recommend charging it overnight every other night. Price It's hard to beat a free phone! I paid $19.99 for mine, but it is not uncommon to find this phone being offered for free with a new cell phone contract. Ringtones A neat feature that is becoming popular and more common in cell phones is the ability to customize the ringtones. This Nokia lets you accept up to 4 ringtones from websites (such as cingular.com or other service providers). But, most of the time there is a charge of about $1 per ringtone to have it sent to your phone. Although cingular.com offers a couple for free. Text & Email Messages This is another nice feature that is becoming common and popular. You can send text messages to other text-message-enabled cell phones. But they are limited to 160 characters (spaces and letters). Also an email can be sent to any email address from this phone. Note: these are nice features, but entering text is tedious-even with nokia's autoword feature that tries to guess what word you wanted when you pressed 6-6-5-4-2 (nokia) or other combinations. SUMMARY This is not a bad phone, just not the best. If you can afford to get a more feature-full phone, I'd say go for it. But, if all you want is a way to call the wife from the grocery store and you don't want to pay much (or anything)for a phone, than this phone works fine. Just don't expect much for nothing! -chippervw Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 89720 2000/12/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sms easy to use noone really knows anything about it Full Review Recently I went to my local AT&T Wireless store to look at the 5160, with interest to purchase one for my mom, to get her away from her old ericsson. Since I've had a 5160 for quite some time now, I decided it was a good phone. Since they are no longer making the 5160, they offered me the 5165, it had the same basic look to it, except it was an antique blue and had different buttons. Cool. So I bought it. Later after getting it home, my mom refused to switch phones.. so naturally I decided to keep it for myself.. I needed a new phone anyway. (Mine was over a year old..) Instinctively, I didn't even open the book to look at it, I just started going through the menus and playing with it, and I started to learn more about it. It has a few of the same features of my friends 8260, for example the automatic time update.. which I haven't figured out if that really works all that well or not, since I had to turn the clock back on, and reset the time earlier today. This phone supports SMS, which in reality, is the ability to receive and send short messages. When hooked up to the data suite (which you can buy from nokia for usually $39 and up) I found I could upload my own ringtones; which I had 4 to change, to whatever I wanted. Right there, that was way cool, considering this phone is a small step up from the 5160 which doesn't allow that, it only allows incoming emails. When I started into the address book, it had the same basic features, only 8 number one touch, no biggie.. But when you are saving a person's number in the address book, it gives you an option to save their email address as well, and that can be quite handy when you're on the road and can't remember an email address away from home. Much to some argument, the 5165 is compatible with ALL 51xx and 61xx accessories, with the exception of the 61xx faceplates/keypads. (seeing as how the 61xx doesn't have easily changeable faceplates anyway.. ) My headset from my original 6160 worked, my desktop charger.. all my batteries, my car charger, etc.. Even the 5160 faceplates work on it, granted it changes the actual look quite dramatically, since the 5160 had a slightly different style (the buttons and the lens are much different now in style) But having the ability to use the 51xx faceplates is very nice, since noone really makes them for the 5165, when they do.. that will be nice too, because the buttons on the 5165 are actually pretty cool.. They are shaped similar to the 8290 and are silver, but light up like the 5160's did (Very nice in a not so well lit area) Now on to the phone.. I don't know how helpful this will be, because it's mostly enhanced by the service provider and the quality of their signals. I believe this phone is dramatically clearer, on both ends of the call. I called a friend from a noisy restaurant, and they could only hear me, as if I were in a quiet area. There's less of that horrible "feedback" I used to get with my 6160 and my 5160, where when you make a call, every word you say, you can hear repeated with a 2-3 second delay.. and that can be VERY annoying. I haven't had that yet with this phone, I suppose it will come in time, because it happens with all phones.. But hopefully Nokia has gotten it right with this phone. I'd recommend this phone to anyone. It not only looks better, but its got more features, for around the same price as the 5160. It's a good phone, and I love it more than I ever liked my 6160. -5 line LCD display makes for an easy read, day or night. View text, numbers or graphics on the oversized display. -Includes permanent signal and battery strength indicators. -Select from any of the 30 ring tones or play one of the 3 games. -Receive short text messages directly on your phone. -Clear display text -View the last 10 calls missed, the last 10 numbers dialed and the last 10 calls received. -Phone book: Up to 100 Locations. -Other great features: Alarm Clock, Automatic Redial, Call Forwarding, Call Hold, Call Timers, Clock, One-Touch Dialing Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109.00 89719 2002/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good community good size intuitive design there are two common problems with the screenbattery The Bottom LineI would highly recommend this phone for a lot of reasons and especially because the cons are easily fixed if you're under warranty. Full Review I'm going to start with the overview. All in all I really like this phone, the pros outweigh the cons by far mainly because Nokia is really cool about fixing the cons with a replacement if your under warranty and call them. If your looking for a first cell phone or one that's really easy to use, see, hold and find then I would recommend the Nokia 5165. In short this phone roxors. More in depth stuff This is the first cell phone I've ever had and I'm really happy with it. I got the 5165 with the AT&T shared advantage plan with my sister and mom and it's worked out really well. There are a lot of pros with this phone but the con's are there also. Reason's to buy the phone: One of the things that I really like about this phone is the intuitive design. There's only sixteen buttons including the keypad which means there's only four buttons excluding the keypad (five if you count both the up and down portion of the navigation). Even with only four buttons getting through the menus is fairly easy. One complaint that I've seen is that the middle, main button on the phone has too many uses. I never found this to be a problem because it's current use at any time is always labeled at the bottom of the screen. I like this design because it limits the number of buttons on the phone without limiting the uses of the phone. If there were more buttons they would have to be too close together or too small to press. The phone has a lot of features that I use regularly; the alarm clock has been very helpful because mine's been broken for some time now. I've also found that the alarm clock on the phone is easier to set than the ones I've had by my bed. The games (snake, logic think mastermind, and memory) have helped my pass many a boring time by. The many built in tones help my family keep straight whose phone is ringing when (although we still have problems remembering). You would need a really large family to use all the tones and even then you can download five extra tones from the internet for more a personalized ring. The phone book is easy to use and with the one touch dialing I almost never touch more than two keys to call the people I need to call most. The text messaging is a great feature because for us receiving messages is free and you can send them from the internet to a phone, which is another way it's really easy for my family to stay in touch. You can also send messages from the phone to other phones or e-mail addresses for a small fee (this is with our plan on AT&T this will vary with your service provider). It's also easy to lock the phone so you don't accidentally call someone while the phone is in your pocket or purse. On the 5165's you can press either main button-9 or main button-* to lock your phone and you can press main button-* to unlock it (I just always press main button-* because it's easier). There are so many cool things about this phone I almost forgot. The screen lights up when you press almost any button. So if your spying on your neighbors at night, while your hiding in the bushes you can still call for a pizza because the screen lights up green making everything easy to see. Another thing I really like about this phone that I've heard other people complain about is it's size. Some people say it's too big. Maybe I just have big pockets but I think the size is perfect. Just because there are smaller phones doesn't mean they're better. My mom has a smaller phone (the 3390) and she looses it in her purse easily. The 5165 is easily held in my hand without me feeling like I'm going to break it because it's so small. Smaller phones usually fold and have moving parts, general rule for anything mechanical, moving objects are prone to breaking. The 5165 isn't going to break in two (unless you try really hard) smaller folding phones are usually connected by small pieces of plastic which just isn't that strong. The 5165 is one piece and hasn't broken (lengthwise) yet. One cool thing about this phone and most Nokia phones is it's really popular which means there's a good community for it. If you search for Nokia 5165 on google (http://www.google.com) you'll get a bunch of sites with lots of info and programs and ring tones. Some of the programs are for rather illegal purposes like free calling or breaking passwords but there are also some useful perfectly legal uses. Reasons to not buy the phone-There are actually only a couple I just discuss them a lot it's still a really great phone. The first common problem: The battery I mentioned that it hasn't broken lengthwise but it has depthwise, kind of. The phone has four layers, the top is just the face plate, the layer below that is the keypad which is set into the face plate to make one layer but can be technically removed so I'll count them as two. Then comes the actual physical electronic device that is the phone. If you ever have the faceplate off look at the place where you put your ear it's kinda cute. The last layer is the battery. There are a couple kinds of batteries you can get for this phone (some last longer, some vibrate, some get up in the middle of the night and make you crepes) but I think they all have the same problem. The connection between the phone and the battery is just six small pieces of plastic (remember what I said about little pieces of plastic). Since you don't use them that often it's usually ok, on my phone its fine. On my sisters phone however it's lose and sometimes the battery falls off for pretty much no reason. This isn't a good thing and is actually a fairly common problem with this model. Now this problem with the battery can be as a result of either the battery or the phones connections (the male connectors which we will call Bob, or the female end which we will call Frieda). If you have this problem and you decide it's the problem is with Bob then you can get a replacement phone with new Bob connections from Nokia really easily (I just did it but for the reason listed below). If the problem is with Frieda (the battery) then you need to go to the place where you bought the phone. I think this is because it costs more to ship batteries, which have hazardous chemicals inside them, but I'm not sure. One small note, technically there aren't really male or female connectors between the phone and battery they actually kind of slide into one another which would imply two Bob's, but that would have gotten really confusing in a lot of ways wink wink nudge nudge. The other common problem: The screen Okay let me tell you a little story. One day some weeks ago I was in Calculus and we were practicing re-writing integrals on the board for an upcoming test when I decided to check my phone for messages. I was expecting one from my friend to tell me when they were getting into town. It was a nice day so I was hoping it would be on time and everything would be good. I sneaked a quick look at my phone (it's easy to see if you have a message there's a little envelope if you do). I had to do it quickly because were not supposed to have them in school. I did so and discovered nothing on my screen but one thin line running down the right side of the screen. I figured the software had just crashed, all the software I've ever written has crashed it's to be expected so I'll just turn the phone off and start it again. I did so and nothing happened. The lights under the keypad went on and off when they should have but the screen wasn't showing me anything. I spent the rest of the day taking the battery on and off and shaking it and yelling at it but to no avail. Yes my friends my screen had died and there was nothing I could do. This isn't that rare a problem and I had actually heard about it before. I'm a pretty lazy person (notice how I wasn't doing my Calculus but checking my phone instead) so I didn't get a replacement for a while because I thought it was going to be a hassle. It wasn't. I went to a local AT&T store and verified that it was the screen and they just gave me a little pamphlet with a number to call. I went home and called it and talked to a nice guy in Tennessee named Chris I think who took my information and in two days I had a replacement. They also require you send them back the broken phone in two days or you have to pay for the new one full price so I dropped that sucker in the mail today. They include a sticker and you can send it right back in the box the replacement came in (assuming your dog didn't open it) and they even send you a piece of tape to seal it with it was easier than... um, something hard. Also if your phone is broken because you dropped it a bunch of times or dipped it in water or something liquidy I don't think the warranty covers that (mine doesn't but that wasn't the problem) and they'll charge you full price. Over all for a replacement phone it's 9.99 for shipping and handling there and back which they put on your next bill and is actually pretty cheap for over night air both ways. The "is that me" problem Ok this isn't a problem with the model so much as with the fact that there are lots of people in the world. Generally I like people but when they have my phone, and my ring tone well then it gets annoying. I've been in Borders and the guy across from me in the aisle's phone will ring and I'm not kidding the three people around my and myself all reached for our pockets of purses or whatever because we all had Nokia's (the ring tones aren't model specific, especially the default Nokia tune which I think is exactly the same on all models). So above I talked about how there's a pretty good community well in order for this to happen there generally has to be a lot of people in the community. This is more a good thing than bad but it can get confusing in public places. If you often find yourself in a particularly cell phone heavy place like an office building or New York it might be a good investment to buy a more personalized ring online. Denouement Denouement - "Pronunciation Key: (day-new-ma), n. The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot." Dictionary.com. Ok, so this is finally the end. This phone is really cool, recently when I went to the store to get my phone diagnosed for the dead screen I asked if I should extend my warranty. The guy said "no", that new phones were coming out and I should just get one of those if my 5165 died again. I still think I'm going to get the extended warranty because I like this phone a lot and the newer ones are going to have to have something really cool to sway me to something else. -nalebunni "If you see a faded sign at the side of the road, that says fifteen miles to the love shack" B-52's Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free, rebate 89718 2000/11/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 takes a beating good battery life customizable hands free set attaches awkwardly vibrate needs vibrate battery The Bottom LineA no frills sexy phone that does the basics above its calling. Full Review Nokia has definitely taken the cellular market into their own hands as other manufacturers have failed in producing phones like the Nokia 5165. Within my family, we have 3 separate carriers as well as 3 different phone types. The Nokia 5165 being the "mom's" phone, I use it frequently and have no problems with it at all as all Nokia software looks similar and take on similar features. The Nokia 5165 strong points are the customizability of it's faceplates and the plethora of different batteries, accessories, and options available to it. The faceplate comes off quite easily and doesn't require any sort of torque screwdrivers like the 8260 and feels solid despite it's interchangeability. If you buy those service warranty plans, this phone can be customized and un-customized if you need to replace the phone on warranty or defective parts. With our other phone the 8260, customizability is non-existent if you want to keep the service plan and don't want to break contract on warranty. The battery is a great asset to this phone, having nearly 3-4 hours of talk time on it. However, I have found one flaw in this battery, it's inability to give the phone enough power to vibrate on calls and messages. This function has become almost a necessity for women especially. I've found that the 'mom' often doesn't hear her own phone because either there are other people with phones that ring as coincidence or that simply the phone in the purse doesn't allow the ring to be heard quite with the same effect if out of the purse. However, I've found that the vibrate function allows most 'moms' to notice the ring much more effectively in shopping areas and whenever the phone is in the purse. This phone is a solidly built phone, have dropped it many times on the kitchen hard-wood floor and haven't had to kick the service plan just yet. The nice thing about the build is if you ever do drop the phone and crack the faceplate, you can simply replace the faceplate since it most likely will come off (has happened many times) and will just snap right back on along with its counterpart the 'battery'. Along with the the battery, the other weakness I've found has been the hands-free set attachment. Although my carrier did not provide me with one, I bought one at a local discount store and attached it at the bottom of the phone. Whether or not other people like this feature, I have found it to be cumbersome, especially if the phone needs to go into the pocket or if it goes into tighter spaces while the connection protrudes ever so largely from the phone. I've thought of the other reasons why they might have this at the bottom, such as car-hands-free sets as you 'plug' it into the cradle... Overall, this phone has pleased my family. I've found that while I talk on this phone, or carry it around town to go about my business, this phone has performed solidly and hasn't failed me yet. It does it's job well, the basics that is. There's a no frills sexiness and it definitely keeps it's promises. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 89717 2000/9/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 quality easy to use price very great selection of features accessories kinda large heavy lacks some options The Bottom LineGet this phone. The features and benefits outway the problems, unless you need a tiny or flip phone. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is the third cell phone that I have purchased. The first was the Analog Nokia 918 which was good, but huge and not loaded with anything. Then I went all out for the brand new Motorola Startac. That was purely because of size and features. Then, when I changed companied to Cingular, I picked up the 5165. Truthfully the main reason I bought it was price. The only other phone cingular carried at the time was really REALLY expensive, so I went with this one. Examining the features, I was sure this phone would work great. I was right. For starters, this phone could not be easier to use. The main functions are all controlled by one large button, centered in the middle called the "Navi" button. I will admit to some, this feature is confusing, but overall it makes directions really easy (scroll down and push the only big button on the phone!) The way all the menu system works is whatever word is above the navi key is what it controls. The phone knows what option you want next and makes that the "navi" key. For example: To access your voicemail, you select (from the idle screen) "menu" which is displayed above the navi key. Then you use the arrow keys to scroll down to "messages". Then, once again you push to navi key to "select" that option. Then you scroll once again to "voicemail", push the navikey, scroll to "listen to voicemessages" and again, the navi key is what you need. It may sound complicated in my description, but when you have the phone in your hand, it couldn't be easier! The customization of this phone is both excellent and not really that great. The excellent part is the faceplate feature. There are literally thousands of faceplates you can buy almost anywhere (I've seen them at gas stations and upscale clothing stores) for about $15 and install them in about 2 seconds. The designs are endless. You can get sports teams, crazy designs, clear, and even flip or "matrix slide" faceplates. These add character to your phone and your phone only and make you stand out in a crowd. With the same idea, you can buy flashing keypads and antenna. With these ultra hip accessories, you can be sure your phone is unique. For a super cool look, you can purchase a complete clear houseing for you phone, a flashing keypad and a matching antenna. The problems I have with the customization are not about the outside, but about the interface itself. You cannot change the banner that says "cingular" or something. You can change the startup banner to say "Hi Joe" or whatever, but that lasts for a total of 2 seconds. Also, the menu order cannot be rearranged at all. I only say this because I compare it to my Motorola v60 which does let you change all of that, along with the functions of certain buttons. One of this phone's strongest features might be the availability of accessories. Like I said before, the faceplates are everywhere. But there is everything else too. I got all my accessories at cheap discount stores for CHEAP! My leather case (same as the nokia one) was $7 and my car charger was $8. Also, the flashing antenna, chargers, cases, headsets, and handsfree kits are everywhere and cheap! I say get this phone, especially since most companies offer it for very little money when purchased with a plan. For the price, the quality of the sound and the features are outstanding. If you want something smaller, lighter, loaded with internal functions and gadgets, go with motorola! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19 89716 2000/7/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features inter changable faceplates inexpensive yet high quality somewhat bulky compared to new phones The Bottom LineIf you want an inexpensive phone that works well and has many features I would recommend you check this phone out. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is a decent all-around phone. It can't compete with Nextel, Samsung and Motorolla Smart phones but not everyone needs a web browser with there phone, I mean until they make the phones easier to type and send emails I will wait until I get to my home or office to email someone or check my stocks or sport scores. Appearance- Very similar to the older 5160 but with a slightly more modern appeal. The display is easy to read at night as well as the keypad, making it much easier to dial at night than some other phones I've used. Quality- The voice quality is much better than the 5160 and seems as if it gets better reception. The phone is very durable as well, I've dropped the phone numerous times and it stills works great. Features- It has a 100 number phonebook including name, number and email address. Text messages can be sent, check with your provider it's usually a few dollars more for the feature. The call log that works with the caller ID tell you who you called, when you received a phone call and if you missed a phone call with the time and number that they called from. The only thing that I wish that it did have was a date stamp. The games are very basic but can entertain you in a traffic jam, airport or waiting at a Doctor's office. The Alarm clock is a great feature when you travel and didn't want to pack an alarm clock. Plus it has the microphone adapter so you can talk hands free. Conclusion- This is a great phone for most people that don't need to have the latest tech. I am a college student and have access to a computer just as easily as I do my phone so I don't need a web browser. This phone is durable, clear and the battery last for quite a while. A great phone period. Size, some people complained of the phone being to big, I mean really how small do you want your phone to be. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 89715 2003/11/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 perfect size reliable all around great phone no internal vibrate dated games The Bottom LineThis is the best phone I ever had, and I probably won't upgrade anytime soon! It's (almost) everything a cell should be! Full Review I've had two cell phones before my Nokia 5165, and neither have lasted as long nor were they as cool as this one. I purchased this phone on Nov 6th, 2001... so the phone is two years old (and some days). At the time I think there was a later model or two out, but they were a lot smaller and I have big hands so those smaller phones are aggravating. It was a good match- they were trying to get rid of the 5165s to make room for the newer models, and I was looking for a particular size that wasn't so new. Right from the start I discovered my first downside to the phone: No internal vibrate. The models after the 5165 have internal vibrate built into the phone, but for this one you have to have a separate vibrating battery. I have my own business, but I also went to school at the time plus had a part time job, so there are many times when I want/ed to leave my phone on but not for it to ring. So I had to buy a vibrating battery (I had to get an off brand as they didn't have Nokia's kind, plus it would have been two or three times the price). Phone Book: You can keep 100 names and numbers in your phone. Pretty good feature because my contact list stays around 90 to 95 of friends, family, and business contacts I need on a regular basis. Going through the list is pretty easy and it even holds the last 10 numbers you called for even easier and faster calling. There is an option to where you can assign numbers for one-touch dialing, but I've never used it. The basic feature works fast enough for me. Messages/Text and voice: This pretty much depends on your plan carrier, but I've used both a lot and they come in handy on a nearly daily basis. Call Logs: Gives the numbers of missed calls, calls you've received, and a few other things but I rarely use those. Games: Comes with Snake, Memory, and Logic. When I first got the phone I played Snake a lot, but my friends had the newer versions and they had Snake 2 and Space Impact which are a lot more fun. Memory and Logic bite, but Snake is still decent (if I had the free time to play it). My Tones: It comes with a lot of ring options at different loudness/tones. Try to find a ring not too many other people have. My personal favorite was Samba, but every once in a while there are outbreaks of a ton of other people I run into with the Samba ring, so then I have to change to one of the rings I downloaded. Overall, this phone rocks the free world!!! There is a glitch in mine to where the text message icon is stuck on my screen- it usually is an indication that you have new text messages, but there are none. It's not a problem as there are other indications to when real new messages arrive, so no worries. Also, after two years my battery doesn't hold charges as long as it used to, but that comes with the territory. As for the newer models in this series, remember I mentioned how my friends got the newer models? My 5165 has outlasted ALL of theirs!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89714 2000/4/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great features up to date technology bulky a bit heavy The Bottom LineMostly a great phone, but could be lighter and have larger buttons. Full Review I was not an early adopter of cell phones. I often find them rude and obtrusive. People who leave them on in movie theatres and museums should be taken out into the street and flogged until death ensues. That being said, my wife was recently in a car accident. She was uninjured, thankfully, but it got me thinking. If she had been hurt a cell phone could have garunteed a quicker response by emergency personell. So we bought this one. It is our first cell phone, so I don't have a lot to compare to, but will offer my observations. Aesthetically the Nokia 5165 is quite pleasing. It has a lovely teardrop shape that catches the eye. The screen is relatively large, which is easier on my poor eyesight. You can purchase covers to change the color of the phone. I don't need this accesory, and assume that it is aimed at teenagers, but it is a nicd choice to have. The buttons are a bit small, and hard to push. I tend to accidentally hit more than one; however that says more about my clumsy nature than about the phone itself. Another bad thing is the phone's weight. Even though this is the only one I have owned, I held others in the store and the Nokia seemed heavier. But, along with being heavier it seems more durable. Many of the phones I looked at seemed as if a stiff breeze would tear them apart. I have dropped this one several times, and have not seen so much as a crack. The phone offers two way text messaging, which I have not used, but it seems like a nifty feature. You can set the ringer to over thirty different settings. Again, this is mostly useless, but fun. The most important aspect of a mobile phone is call clarity. The Nokia has that. Every call I have made has sounded as clear and clean as calls on land lines. I have yet to notice any static, or that annoying "box" effect cell phones are prone to. All in all I really like this phone. It works well, has more features than I need, and looks good. It is a bit heavy, and the buttons are a bit small, but I can live with those minor drawbacks. Oh, the price bears mentioning as well. I paid $10. Granted I got a discount for signing up for a service agreement, so you may pay a bit more. However, considering the technology involved and the ease of use I found this price extraordinary. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 89713 2002/10/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 plenty of features good reception smaller buttons difficult to see screen in daylight numberstext very small The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 is dependable product, when coupled with a good provider will deliver the best results you deserve from the cellular experience. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is a pretty straightforward cell phone, offering many of the features standard on most cellular phones today. As it is generally a loss leader, offered by cellular providers to invite new business, the Nokia ($199.00 msrp) 5165 has become one of the most popular phones in cellular marketplace, often offered free, by cellular providers to $29.00 and up as a enticement to new customers who sign service contracts. It would appear the leader works because this phone is literally in one of every 5-6 hands you see with a cell phone in it. The question beckons: is its popularity a direct result of its reliability and integrity, or has it become a convincing lure to cellular service? To objectively evaluate any cell phone, you must also look at the cellular network it is connected to. For the sake of this review, I subscribe to the Cingular network, which has it's good and bad points as any cellular provider out there, but their reliability, thus far, has been better than most. Weighing in at 5.9 ounces with a standard NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery, the Nokia 5165 is an open faced, fixed-length antenna model which comes standard with a wall charger. It's rated at 3 hours talk time, 8 days standby time, although 5-6 days is closer to the norm. Its dimensions are 5.2 H 1.9W X1.2D. Among the features this phone includes are: · 100 name memory slots · 30 melody ringer options · 5 lines of display · Alarm clock · Analog/digital capability · Auto redial · Automatic Answer · Call waiting/forwarding/send own number... A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION · Caller id ....A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION · Down loadable ring tones · Email · Emergency Number · English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese capable · Games · Predictive text input · Pre-paid service capable · Security access, Lock & Restrict call code capable · Silent alert · Text Messaging... A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION · Three Way Calling... A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION · Touch Dialing · Two way text messaging... A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION · Voice Mailbox... A NETWORK SUBSCRIBER OPTION OPERATION Once you gain a working familiarity with the various menus and features the 5165 includes, maneuvering your way around to desired functions becomes second nature. The NAVIGATION and SCROLL buttons are intuitively interfaced with the selected call and menu modes applicable. The rocking SCROLL key facilitates menu browsing, cursor movement, memory access, phone book, call logs, and volume. The Navigation Button directs you to menus, saves entries, and confirms commands and choices. Dialing an outgoing call is as simple as pressing a pre-programmed number assigned to your call, scrolling through your address book, or the old fashioned way. Simply dialing. Once in a call you may have the capability to monitor your signal strength by referring to the left arrows of the DISPLAY window. Working the SCROLL button activates last number redial. The last 10 calls you placed are stored in temporary memory for later recall. Calling Cards Numbers can be programmed into the Nokia 5165 to facilitate calling card calls One of the more useful features of the Nokia 5165 is the in-call menu, which can be activated during a call you simply press Options and scroll through the menu: § Answer answer a waiting call § Swap Switch to waiting call § End End All Calls § New Call Make a new call during a call § Connect All Connect all Active Calls § Phone Book Access Phone Book § Menu Access Phone Menu § Touch Tones Send Touch Tones § Mute/end Mute DATA ENTRY Entering names into your phone book is achieved by pressing the appropriate number/letter key until the desired character letter appears. Utilize the SHIFT key to access upper lower case and number modes. You may utilize the KEYGUARD to prevent your phone's keys from being pressed in transit. CLEAR KEY The CLEAR key is used for deleting a character when data entry, character clearing, returning to previous menus, accessing call menus LIGHTS You can backlight the Nokia 5165 by pressing any key, provided key guard is not activated, for 15 seconds. With the optional car kit, the lights will remain on, turning off between calls. It would have been a nice touch to activate backlight for the duration of a call or menu scrolling. EXTERNAL ANTENNA JACK You have external antenna capability by plugging into this jack located on the back right of the phone. MENUS There are 9 MENUS to navigate. Menus, like them or not, are an essential component of electronics today. Navigating them is made easier by understanding what headings your various functions and features fall under. Below are the Menus headings and subcategories. They are assigned a number that is displayed on the upper right of the display window as you scroll through them. 1. PHONE BOOK · Search · Add new · Edit · Erase [one, all] · Options [scrolling view, memory status] · T Touch Dialing · Send Bus Card 2. KEYGUARD · on/off 3. TONES · Ringing Options [ring, ring once, beep once, silent] · Ringing Tone · Ringing Volume [levels 1-5] · Message Alert Tone [no tone, standard, special, beep once, long & loud] · Keypad Tones [ off, levels 1-3] · Warning & Game Tones [On. Off] · Vibrating Alert [On, Off] with optional vibrating battery · Key guard 4. CLOCK (automatic network time correction) · Alarm Clock · Clock Settings, [display / hide, adjust time, time format] · Auto Update Of Time [on, confirm first, off] 5. GAMES · Memory · Snake · Logic 6. SYSTEM · Automatic · Manual · New Search 7. SETTINGS · Call settings [Emergency key 9, Automatic redial, Calling card, Automatic answer] · Phone Settings {touch tones, language, restore factory settings, lights] · Security Settings [restrict calls, Access Codes] · Network Services [Voice Privacy, Network Feature Setting, Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, send own number · Own Number Selection 8. CALL LOG · Missed Calls · Received Calls, · Dialed calls · Clear Call Lists [all, missed, received, dialed] · Call Timers [last call, All Calls, Life Timer, Clear Timers] 9. MESSAGES · Text [inbox, saved, write, email, Outbox, erase all] · Voice Messages [listen to, Voice Mailbox #] · Welcome Note Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications giant, has been a pioneer in the field of mobile communications and communication infrastructure products since the early 1960's, and have a gained a rather impressive foothold on this market internationally. Perhaps it's their marketing, but more than likely the early quality and name recognition of their products have set them apart from their competition to this day. The Nokia 5165 is a rather capable cellular phone delivering all the features you would expect in a phone today. While there are other phones in the marketplace with features such as, speakerphone, date book, graphical displays and a plethora of other features, and sizes, the Nokia 5165 does not fall short in the features arena. In a perfect world, the Nokia 5165 would have larger numbers and clear text on a display that is easier to read in the daylight hours and glare, with a lit keypad, instead of lighting behind the darkened keys. Aside from that and the occasional interference from large buildings, basements and intermittent signal loss, you should find the Nokia 5165 a reliable product that will keep you in touch when you need it the most. The Nokia website www.nokia.com offers informative step by step operational guides to all their products, information on accessories, ring tones, support and investor information . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.00 89712 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very portable light weight great power small long lasting lots of features leather case designpoor of hands free ear attachment The Bottom LineSmall, light weight, very portable, great power, long lasting, lots of features. I highly recommend it. Full Review Nokia 5165 Cellular Phone I had an old analog bag phone for about 5 years, and finally decided to switch to a new digital phone with a new calling plan. I purchased a Nokia 5165 for $30.00 (with a leather case for another $25.00). I was looking for a portable phone that had a long standby time and a reasonable amount of `talk' minutes. This phone was listed as having a 4-to-8 day standby time and a 2-to-3 hour talk time. It came with a hands-free earpiece that inserts into the bottom of the phone. It has a solid, non-extending antenna, a charger, and an extended NiMH 900 mAh battery. I purchased the Northeast Coverage plan for $30.00 per month. I took it home and charged it up. It took some time getting used to a phone that was smaller than my old bag phone. I always felt there could be problems speaking into the pickup. It has been about 4 weeks now, and I must say that this is one reliable phone. I do not have any difficulty speaking into to it, and everyone hears me quite well. The phone needs only a weekly charging, and it's nice being so portable. It's so small I can take it everywhere. I do not miss any calls and it's great not to have to worry about the battery fading at any time. The non-extending antenna is nice, the unit is durable, and it works well with no thin fragile moving parts to worry about. It has never faded out during traffic or distance. There were 2 things I found disappointing. The first was the leather case. It makes the phone feel bulky and it makes it difficult to access the keypad, especially the power button. The only time I use it is when I need a clip, which is rare. It's small enough that I just slip it into my pocket or my purse. The other matter was the hands-free earpiece. I thought this would be great so all I would have to do was press the `On' button. Well, the piece is suppose to just sit in your ear—but if you turn your head, it falls out. If you try to place it deeper into the ear canal, it is not comfortable at all. It hurts my ear. I did not have a holder for mounting the phone in my car. I have a 1997 Saturn SL, and there is little available space for attaching a phone cradle. So I purchased a special hands-free holder for the cigarette lighter. Not exactly cheap at $60.00. It has a built-in microphone and speaker and comes with an optional clip-on microphone. You simply insert it into the cigarette lighter, use the 2 positioning gimbals to adjust the position and lock them in. It's easy to do. It stays right where you want it to, perfect even at an odd angle. I used to place my phone down on the seat next to me. This is so much better. I hooked the clip-on microphone to my rearview mirror and plug it into the bottom of the attachment. When I get a call, I can press 1 button and just speak or listen. (I don't need the clip-on microphone for this, I just prefer it.) There are no wires restricting my movements, no bulky objects, no fiddling with anything else. This is no different from speaking to or holding a conversation with someone in the car with you. Another advantage: the phone charges while it's in the cigarette lighter holder AND you can still use it at the same time. I've had the holder about 2 weeks now and I no longer even have to charge my phone--it's always at full power. There's also a multitude of great features I did not even mention. I'm glad I went digital with the Nokia 5165. It lasts a long time, is portable, nice looking, and works great! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 89711 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good digital sound qualitybattery life no internet features a little larger than some more recent cell phones The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 is a good cell phone, especially for light cell-phone users, but there are definitely better ones out there. Full Review I have had experience using a wide variety of cellular phones and the Nokia 5165 is definitely one of the better ones I've used. It's not the world's smallest phone (which might be a good thing because then it's harder to lose it) and it doesn't have wireless web surfing features, but it's good for what I got it for -- standard phone calls. Nevertheless, I like it more than my old Motorola Startac or the hideously awful Ericsson phone I used to have. I like most everything about this phone. I have no problem using it for my day-to-day calls. However, most people tend to be affected more heavily by the negative aspects or features of a product than by what works fine. I will therefore focus this review on what I find annoying or problematic with my phone. If you're not a fan of electronic menus, like on VCR's and TV's, you wouldn't like this phone. In lieu of the traditional "Send" and "End" buttons, there is one button on the phone that doesn't have any preset name. Rather, it's action changes depending on what mode the phone is in. When you've entered a phone number you're about to dial, it's the Send button. When you're in the middle of a call, it's the End key. When you're in the phone/address book, it's used to Store data. This isn't really a problem but it took some time for me to get used to. I'm glad that the keys are hard enough that accidental keypresses are kept to a minimum with this phone. To get around the electronic menuing system, you can memorize shortcuts for specific menus (i.e. Menu -5421) and directly access what you want, but that's too much work for most people to be bothered with. One of my big gripes with this phone has to do with the way one stores phone numbers into the memory. If you have one of the more basic cell phone plans that doesn't cover the whole US, you probably have to dial 1 plus the area code when you want to make a call from outside of your home region. If you have a phone number stored in the memory, e.g. 234-5555, it will work fine if you're in your home region, but you'll get an error message if you're outside the area. Why should I have to program 1 plus the area code into the memory slot? Doesn't a cell phone know what its own number (and therefore, its area code) is? My gripe about the memory storage is compensated by the caller ID system in this phone. When I receive a call I know right away if it's something I want to answer or not, which saves money. Who is going to answer a call from "AMERICAN DIR MKTG SVC" on their cell phone? To finish up, I have had a positive experience with my Nokia phone thus far. I have only had calls break up twice, while this was a very common occurrence with my old phone. When my contract runs out and it's time to scope out a new phone I'll probably see what the current Nokia phone is and upgrade to something that hopefully has a few more features and is a little more refined from a user-interface standpoint. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2yr contract 89710 2001/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 one key call senddisconnect user friendly light price of accessories The Bottom LineI enjoy the versatility of this phone as well as the ease in use. Full Review I simply love my new Nokia 5165, it is very easy to use. It is free with a one or two year contract with Cingular, and only a $20 dollar activation fee. Optional Phone Color Features This phone has a detachable face plate so you can customize it to fit your personality. It comes in nine vibrant colors to choose from. The face plates are a cost of $18.99 each. When you receive it the main face plate is dark blue. Battery Choices Extended NiMH (900 mAh) Battery BMS- 2S Extended NiMH Vibra (900 mAh) Battery BMS-2V Extended Li-Ion (900 mAh) Battery BLS-2N Ultra Slim Li-Polymer (600 mAh) Battery BPS-1 Accessory Choices Loopset LPS-1 Solution Kits LCH-8KB 5100, 6100 and 7100 Journey Pack Headset Kit HDC-9P Standard Travel Charger ACP-7U Rapid Travel Charger ACP-9U Rapid Cigarette Lighter Charger LCH-9 Compact Desktop Charging Stand [Charger Sold Separately] DCH-9 Desktop Charging Kit DCH-12K Complete Car Kit with Privacy Handset CARK-91H Privacy Handset HSU-1 Belt Clip BCH-12U Leather Carry Case CSF-1 I suggest you buy these accessories other than the Cingular store because you will get a price shock. Online you can buy the car adapter for 24.99, in the store it is 69! The Phone Features Up to 3+ hours digital talk time with a standard battery Up to 8 days of digital standby time Weighs less than 6 ounces with a standard battery Only 5.2 inches tall On-screen help Large backlit screen Hearing aid support Phone book will store up to 100 names and numbers 3 entertaining games (Snake, Logic and Memory) Text messaging 30 Distinctive ring tones plus the ability to download 5 more How long it took for me to figure out my phone I was excited when I first got my phone, until I looked at the 86 page booklet that came with it. At first I thought this is just going to be overwhelming. To my amazement it wasn't difficult at all. Within the first fifteen minutes my phone book was set up, and it has a wonderful feature to add email addresses. Yes, you can also send email from your phone! I sent several text messages to friends and family, and played with the tones until my kids threatened to take my phone away. No roaming, what a blessing! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/servi 89709 2000/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 with ability to send sms messagese mail digital phone not a con for everyone but connected through rogers at t The Bottom LineGreat phone for all those looking for many features, while maintaining a low cost. Full Review If your looking for an inexpensive cellphone with loads of features that sounds great, look no further. The Nokia 5165 is the phone for you. When we switched our cell phones at work a while back from Motorola to the Nokia 5165, I was a bit skeptical. The main problem I had with it was the fact we also switched carriers, we went from our local Bell company to Rogers AT&T. This was a major hurdle to overcome, as we have very little coverage outside the major cities in this province, where as the Bell company pretty much has the countryside covered. While not a problem to most, with my job, I spend most of the time driving from place to place, and it would be nice to be able to use my phone everywhere. Little by little, this phone has been winning me over. The sound quality of this device is great, most can't tell that I am not on a landline when in Digital territory. When switching over to Analog, quality is a bit lost, and the battery life is affected, but still on par with the pack. The phone has SMS messaging and you can read/write messages or send/receive e-mails from it. It also comes with a neat feature called "Predictive Text Input", which is basically a dictionary which predicts what word you are typing and fills it in for you. Much like your web browser filling in website URL's when typing in the location bar. The phone also has an easy to use address book, which saves both phone numbers and e-mail addresses, up to 100 contacts. The phone also comes complete with 30 different rings, and has 5 additional memory slots for rings you can download, provided your cell phone provider has them available. The phone has an amazing battery life. With the basic battery that comes with the phone, you can have over 3 hours of talk time, and 2 weeks of standby time. You can upgrade your battery to have either a longer life, a vibrating case, or both. The phone has many accessories that can be upgraded such as a charging stand, a car install kit, complete with hands free calling/talking and an earpiece, belt clips, hearing aids, and a feature called "Change on the Fly" where you can change the keypad on your phone to any color in about 10 seconds assuming you have purchased one of the 6 available other colored keypads. While I don't think I will ever use this feature, if you ever have a key that doesn't work, it allows you to fix the problem without the large service bill. And finally, for those boring days (I don't recommend this when driving), it comes with 3 games. "Memory" which is like Concentration, where you flip 2 cards and keep going until you match all the pairs. "Snake" which is an old DOS game where you get your snake to eat dots while not biting itself or hitting the barriers. And "Logic" which is much like Mastermind, where you must figure out the randomly selected order of symbols. While not a Gameboy, it is more than you would expect from a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89708 2000/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable feature rich solid easy to use no wireless web The Bottom LineGreat phone, great price, great reception, great buy! Full Review The Nokia 5165 is better than I ever expected. I have always been a little wary of getting a cell phone, but about every two years, I re-evaluate the pager that I use, and this time when I did, I noticed that I can spend the same amount of money, that had been earmarked for my alphanumeric pager, on a messaging-capable cell phone. So anyhow, here's the skinny... MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Wow! This is probably one of the most feature-rich and usable phones on the market. My last cell phone was a Motorola flip phone (the OLD sort) and this knocks that out of the park. The calls are clear, the buttons are easy to touch and the menu-based system is super-easy to use. I'm impressed! CONTROLS AND INTERFACE: The controls and buttons are laid out as simply as anything I've seen. The whole phone works on a two-button system with an up-down selector switch, a "function" button and a clear button. Couldn't be easier. All the functionality of this phone is contained in a menu based system, which seems to also have numeric short cuts. OVERVIEW OF THE PHONE: The phone's normal screen has the time, a "D" if digital service is available, indicators for battery and signal strength, and over the function button, is listed "Menu" Using the Up/Down key, you can scroll through options including a 99 entry phone book, the SMS (Text messaging) service, a call log that includes incoming and outgoing calls, phone and system settings that allow you to customize the operation of your phone, 3 games (Snake, Memory, and Logic) that are great time wasters, a clock and alarm, 40 ring tones (with 5 downloadable personal slots) and a key-guard feature. NIFTY STUFF: -5 download-able tones -FAST Messaging, with a built in dictionary to correct your spelling -Substantial feel (not like those stick-of-gum phones) -Easy to use interface and buttons -90% of the time it has GREAT reception! -Lots of accessories available on Amazon, and the like -Nokia always did make a good phone... -Customizable faceplates on nokia's web site ICKY STUFF: -No wireless web -Batteries last about 1-2 days as I use it. Sales rep told me LOTS longer. -Included hands-free kit is a joke -Bad reception in valleys and big brick buildings So that's it... Please read my profile and my epinions, and if you'd like, add me to your web-of-trust! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89707 2004/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long lasting battery fun to use keyboard a bit small seems complicated at first use The Bottom LineEasy to use, even for technical moron like myself. Have not broken it, done anything really stupid with it, and it has survived me dropping it on cement (twice). Full Review The Nokia Model 5165 is a pleasure to use. When it was time to trade-in my old Motorola flip-phone, a co-worker recommended this Nokia model. I've been more than pleased. First, the battery is long lasting. With the use of LED displays and a power-saver, I get a tremendous amount of stand-by and talk time. While I do not have an exact time or allotment, I can tell you it passes "The Car" test. You know, you leave your cell phone turned on in your car, after work. In the morning, if it's beeping or "dead". that is the car test. With the Nokia, I can make a call or two in the morning, while I was unable to do that with the Motorola, due to battery strength. This makes the Nokia worthwhile. Second, the key-lock option is wonderful. You can lock the keypad on the Nokia, great for carrying in your pocket. This feature allows you to carry your cell phone, without worry. No longer will you get re-calls or calls to Taiwan, due to the cell phone being bounced around and the keys or autodial being placed. It's locked, but incoming calls still can come in. Great feature. Third, the screen shows the phone number of all incoming calls. Nice touch, similar to caller ID. Enough information which allows you the identity of the caller and whether to ignore or not. There is a "phone book" option which allows you to store up to 100 numbers in your set and several ways of finding the names and numbers which you would like. Very easy to use. The call log feature is great for identifying missed calls. With the Motorola, all it said was "Call", the Nokia gives you the phone number. The voice mail option is good, similar to other voice mail options on all phones. If you're a techie, there are plenty of other bells and whistles which I do not use. All I know, is that the Nokia works well, lasts long, easy to use. Except for my fat fingers having problems punching the small numbers on the keypad, this phone is a great value and easy to use! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89706 2002/6/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tons of options easy to use immediate connection to familyfriends nothing so far The Bottom LineI found this NOKIA #5165 very easy to use, it has so many useful features that make it a useful phone over the conventional telephone. Full Review Not knowing much about cell phones as I found myself in dire need of having a cell phone handy during my husband's surgery. My son was with me during that day, as he was using his cell phone, I mentioned that I should get a more modern cell phone. Ours was one you only used in the car and plugged into the cigarette lighter. This phone was used only for emergencies. My son and I went looking for a proper service where I could call all over the United States. I would have to be making calls to let family and friends know how my husband was doing. SHOPPING Out trip took us to the local mall in Temple, Texas and we saw many booth's set up in the mall and I picked the AT&T service plan for their digital one rate for America. I just wrote a review on that service so check out my previous review. The salesman suggested this NOKIA MODEL #5165, saying that it was a very popular phone. My son had a NOKIA Cell phone and was very satisfied with it so agreed that it would be a good one to use. Being so new and ignorant about this fast growing popular cell phone industry I signed on to the Digital one rate plan. SELLING POINTS The nice AT&T salesman said he would get the phone ready for immediate use, ordering a number, checking my credit card and installing the battery. He explained to me the simple way I could get started in making my calls. He showed me the extra equipment that came with the NOKIA #5156, as battery charger, user guide booklet, earpiece and microphone plus guide on getting started. He also showed me extra equipment as the array of Xpress-on Color covers but I was not interested in that, this nice black color was good enough for me. Now I was ready to learn how to work my new phone. USING THE USER GUIDE I used the User Guide to become acquainted with the NOKIA features. On the first page of the guide it has a diagram of the phone with explanations of all the keys and their use. All the important keys such as the power button, display screen and the Navi Key, which is positioned right below the screen, are all you need for placing and answering calls. The first calls I made after the surgery were a pleasure, but little did I know that during the next three weeks I was on that phone almost constantly informing everyone of more surgeries. During much of my waiting time while he was in ICU I learned much about this cell phone. That user guides was with me all the time I had to refer to it frequently as I needed to learn some of the basic functions of this new phone. PACKED WITH FEATURES It amazed me just how much was on such a small machine. After several tries I did manage to activate the AT&T Voice Mail box, as I needed to get calls from family members when I had to turn the phone off while in ICU. The instructions were fairly easy to follow but being a little nervous I took me awhile to figure it out properly. I did not activate the AT&T Digital Pocketnet Service, as I was able to check my e-mail at home. It was good to know that I would be able to do this on this small phone. You have to activate the Voice Mail box before the pocketnet service is workable. MAKE YOUR OWN PHONE BOOK Another son on one of his visits from Houston showed me how to put in all my phone numbers in the cell phone Book. I was able to type in their name and specify just which phone to call such as home, business or cell phones of all my children, grandchildren and friends. This was a great time saver and kept me from miss dialing by punching on those small keys every time I wanted to make a call. The instructions on this are found on page 38 of the user guide. To find the number you wanted to call just scroll down on the scroll keys on the side of the cell phone. FEATURES TO BURN There are many nice features on this NOKIA #5165 is caller ID lets you know who is calling, automatic redial, internal clock, can set which language you want to use, change the ringing options and tones, emergency numbers, network services, call waiting, call forwarding, one touch dialing plus many other features I have not studies up on all those features at this time. I do enjoy the voice messages of calls I missed on the Voice Mail box you can save these calls if you desire or have them erased. I may yet get into the e-mail section of this little machine when I find the time to work on that. ACCESSORIES PLUS I use the earpiece that comes with your phone most all the time, as you can hear so much better and your voice also carries better on that small speaker. It clips to your shirt so it is ready to use at a moments notice. It works fine while in the car, I just turn the phone off when I am driving, don't want to be distracted. An electrical charger comes with your NOKIA #5156 cell phone, so check your screen to see the scroll signs on the side and you can tell when you need to recharge the battery. You can buy accessories such as a desk charger that you can place your phone in during the night or whenever so your phone will always be ready to use. I may look into that purchase, also my son had a leather cover with a clip on the back that looks like a good investment. CONCLUSION One can find all types of accessories to purchase on the NOKIA web site at www.nokia.com or www.nokiahowto.com. Also on these web sites you can find all models of these cell phones. The NOKIA MOBILE PHONES can be found at 7725 Woodland Center Boulevard, Suite #150 at Tempe, Florida 33614. You may telephone at 1-888-685-4228 or fax at 831-249-6542. There is a one year limited warranty and all the terms of this is listed on page 77 of the User guide. You may be interested in reading the section on care and maintenance of your cell phone, one really weird one was don't paint it, what dumb person would want to do that. Someone must have done that to have it included in that list. BLESS THE INGENUITY OF CREATIVE THINKING IT BROUGHT US ALL TOGETHER BY CELL PHONE!!. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 32.46 89705 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent phone none at this time The Bottom LineIt is an excellent cell phone, stylish, easy to use, full of features and reliable. Full Review The Nokia 5165 Digital is easy to use, effortless to learn and stylish. The Nokia 5165 will let you change cover colors anywhere anytime. The affordable price of the Nokia 5165 coupled with its outstanding list of features makes this phone the perfect answer to all your wireless needs. Some of the key features of the 5165 are: · Auto redial · Call alert · Caller ID · Clock with an alarm and timers · Dialed, received, missed calls log · E-mail access · Keypad lock to assure no accidental calls · Message indicators · Multi-party calling · On-screen battery indicator · Phone book · Ring tones · Voicemail · Xpress-on™ Covers The Nokia 5165 will also allow a little over 3 hours talk time with a standard battery (This is digital by the way). When the phone is in standby mode the battery should last up to 8 days. I've had mine last 6 days so far and that was with about 30 minutes of talk time so I believe the 8 days standby time is probably pretty close. This phone is very compact, light weight and stylish. With the standard battery it weighs in at a whopping 6 oz. It is just over 5 inches in length. And you have a choice of Blue, Gold, Bronze, Green, White, Pink, Blue Indigo, Yellow or Red covers. The keypad is also very easy to use and easy on the eyes, even for these elderly eyes of mine. The Nokia 5165 offers a Navigational guide that will easily take you through all features. It also has a large screen with a light and on screen help. I do need my glasses though to read some of the help screens. The Nokia also comes with 3 games: Snake, Logic and Memory. Why? I'm not quite sure why the games are included, guess for kids that have cell phones. This phone also has hearing aid support, extended calling with DualBand/TriMode operation. You will find transfer between analog and digital service flawless. You also have a very wide range of tones for the ringer: 1. Elise 2. Ode to Joy 3. Mozart 40 4. William Tell 5. Samba 6. Charleston 7. Orient 8. Jumping 9. Jingle Bells 10. Tangoed 11. Equilibrium 12. Long scale 13. Toreador 14. Dizzy 15. He's a Jolly Good Fellow 16. Take me out to the ball game 17. Mexican Hat Dance 18. The Entertainer 19. Reveille 20. Personal ring tone options 21. Ring Ring 22. A low sounding ring 23. Introduction ring 24. City bird 25. Auld Lang Syne 26. Nokia Tune 27. Polite 28. Playground 29. Fuga 30. Badin Erie 31. Minuet The Nokia phones are sold by many Cellular Service companies, some being: AT&T Wireless, Midwest Wireless, US Cellular, Cellular South and Bluegrass Cellular. Rate plans and prices will vary from area to area. The phones run from one cent to $49.00 with purchase of phone plan. Depending on when you buy and if they have specials going on. So far I have found the phone to be very nice, very easy to use, and very good reception. Others that I have called say they cannot tell I'm on a cell phone which is nice. I find this to be an excellent choice for wireless communication. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 89704 2001/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception long battery life nice form factor lots of accessories a little heavier bulkier than the others no time syncing The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5165 is the Honda Accord of cellular phones. Full Review WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE OWN THESE? I'm the type that likes to be different. When it comes to cell phones, I want one that not a lot of people have. When the Motorola StarTAC phones first came out on the market, I raced to the stores to get one. The same with the Samsung SCH 3500 flip phone offered through Sprint PCS. With every phone, there was always a weakness or 'bug' that made me look into purchasing a different one. I never thought I'd get myself to purchase a Nokia 5100 series phone just because every Tom, Dick, and Jane owned one. Was it because the phone is inexpensive? Or was it because the phone offered so many features? Or was it because the phone can easily be personalized with changeable faceplates and accessories? The answer was YES, YES, and YES. THE NOKIA 5165: The Nokia 5165 is one of the newer members of the 5100 series. In appearance, the phone has the same, exact shape and feel as the rest of the 5100 series phones. The only difference is the faceplate along with the silver buttons on the keypad (silver painted over rubber). The shape of the keypad resembles the 8200 series phones, as it's shaped like teardrops. A few notable features that are offered on the 5165 are: + T9 character recognition (as you type messages, it will bring up some of the most recently used words for you to choose from so you won't have to key it all in). + 2-way text messaging (send and receive text messages) + 30 ring tones plus 5 slots for uploading your own ring tones (depends on service provider) If you've owned a Nokia in the past, you'll be able to toss the user manual and just dive right in. Even if you have never used a Nokia phone, you'll understand how to use it within minutes of just experimenting. CALL CLARITY AND RECEPTION: Two main variables (the phone and your wireless service provider) predict the clarity of your calls as well as the reception. In the Portland/Metro area, I find that the combination of AT&T Wireless and the Nokia 5165 is a winning combination. With my Verizon Wireless service and my Motorola StarTAC phone, I could never get a digital signal from my office (which is located about twenty feet from a window). It would always go into analog mode (draining my batteries and redirecting all my incoming calls into voicemail). With my new Nokia 5165, my reception stays digital and shows on my phone as 3/4 bars. I've made several calls already and a lot of the people I called thought I was calling from a landline phone. Out of the last ten calls made, only one call started to fade (could hear my voice being repeated a split second later) and that was mainly because I was walking inside a building and then hopped on the elevator. With my StarTAC, my connection would have been cut. WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT THE NOKIA 5165: The Nokia 5100 series phones aren't the smallest, nor the lightest on the market today. In my opinion, the 5100 series phones are perfect in size. It feels very comfortable when you're using it and very sturdy when it's in your hand. The weight of the phone can vary. With the standard battery, it weighs over 6 ounces, so it's not something you want to drop into your shirt pocket. It's also not a phone that you really want to put into your pant pocket, either (for guys, it'll scare away even the closest of your female friends). Many digital PCS phones are capable of syncing the time and date on your phone. After reading the 5165 manual, it gave me false hopes. It says that time updating is possible but to check with the wireless provider. After calling AT&T Wireless, I was informed that it was not available for the 5100 series phones. BATTERY POWER: The supplied Nickel-Metal Hydride battery lasts a long, long time. Providing up to 3 hours of talk time (when you're in the digital network) and up to several days of standby, it's amazing to think they offer batteries that will last longer. With the included charger, it takes anywhere from 4 to 10 hours to fully charge your battery. With an optional rapid charger, you can charge your standard battery in less than 2 hours from a totally drained state. A car charger is also able to rapid charge the battery. I still can't get over the fact that people manage to talk on the phone for 3-straight hours or more… sheesh. LOOK MA, NO HANDS! Ever want to look like one of those secret service men? The earbud accessory that comes with the 5165 package will help you. By plugging this piece into the bottom of your phone, it will allow you to carry on a phone conversation without tying up both your hands. It's great when you're driving in traffic (not that I'm endorsing the use of cellular phones while operating a motor vehicle). ACCESSORIES & MORE ACCESSORIES: If you want to personalize your 5165, you're going to have a hay-day. Nokia, by far, offers the most accessories for their line of phones. Third-party manufacturers also crank out several hundred different faceplates, covers, cases, and even antennas that blink when the phone rings. Batteries are more than abundant and you have the choice of going with a cheaper, generic battery or purchasing a Nokia-brand battery (which isn't too bad in price). The greatest thing about the 5100 and 6100 series phones is that all the parts are compatible. For example, your buddy has a 6100 series phone while you're sporting your brand new 5165. You needed to make an important call, but noticed your battery was dying. You politely ask your buddy, "...'gimmee your battery. Mine's low on juice." Nice! SUMMARY: The Nokia 5165 has won me over. Yes, a LOT of people have this phone, but there's a reason why. It's because it's one of the most rugged, dependable, and cost effective phones on the market today. They retail for $99, but you can pick these up for cheap (or even free) if you sign a contract with some of the wireless service providers out there. The form-factor is perfect, I think. It's not the smallest phone, but it definitely carries enough features and performs like a champ for me to overlook all of its shortcomings. I know I'm going to put this phone through enormous abuse, but I know it will survive because I've seen my friends and coworkers . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.95 89703 2000/5/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 still works fine it s old The Bottom LineIs NOT hip and Trendy, but had no other choice. Full Review 3 years and still going strong I've had my Nokia 5165 for 3 years now. It was one of the phones on the while I was checking out the prepaid plans. When I decided to purchase their plan, they offered this phone or the Motorola for free with the yearly plan. I chose the Nokia because I had a Nokia with a prior cellular plan. Since I was familiar with the keypad, it was quicker for me to learn how to use it. Although this phone is not popular today, it's not broke so I'm not replacing it. Everyone is getting newer and fancier phones. That's fine. Most, nowadays, can do much more than mine can, sure, but they all basically are needed for the same purpose, to make a call with. And also the newer ones are very thin and light, easy to drop. Mostly everyone I know have replaced their bulkier phones with the new fashionable ones with the exception of 1 who has a Nokia like I do. I've also heard many negative stories about the smaller phones. Some have poor reception and also they are easily dropped because they are so light and fragile. If they drop, they break like glass. Basic Features My Nokia came with many features. The features I mainly use are the Phone Book which I can store up to 100 contacts. Call Log that shows missed calls, received calls, dialed calls, call timer. The menu screen lights up when in use and is easy to see. I don't use the other features, such as Voice Messages, E-mail messages, alarm clock, 3 games since I only use the phone occasionally when needed but not to hold a conversation. The user guide is 86 pages long with detailed instruction that are easy to follow. I can lock my keypad to avoid any keys to be accidentally dialed without my knowledge. There are a few Security features which I have no reason to use but can be helpful to those that allow others to borrow their phone. Included with the phone was a charger and a car charger. Included are 30 ring tones. I feel more comfortable holding this phone than any of those that look like credit cards. It fits nicely on my hand. I have had no complaints from anyone not receiving good reception from my end and also I can hear those I call perfect. This phone has been dropped several times and have been lucky it has not chipped or cracked but I do keep a leather covering on it. I can honestly say, it has not given me any problems. Nokia is a reputable company. This phone may not be available new anymore, but may be found on Ebay or other resellers. Since this phone has not given me any problems, easy to use and study, I plan to keep it Till the end of time. Nokia will be me next cell phone when I have the need to replace it. Fancier new phones are ok if you have the urge to try out new improved features. Newer cars, clothes or jewelry really get my attention though. I would change cars every year if I could. My car recently broke down on the highway at rush hour coming home from it being repaired. I was helped to get the car on the shoulder, then I got my Nokia and called for help. I knew my phone would be there ready to use in a noisy highway situation. I had to wait half an hour for someone to come to my aid, but I felt comfortable knowing I had a reliable phone by my side while a concerned family member kept in touch with me to check on my safety. The techs: ~My battery can last up to 100 hours on standby, but 2 to 3 hours talk time. I usually charge it every 2 weeks. ~Transmitting power: Up to 600 mW nominal, 3.6 V voltage, 2 NAMs. ~TDMA 800 MHz / TDMA 1900 MHz / Analog Support and help is still available on the Nokia website for this 5165 model http://www.nokiausa.com/index Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89702 2000/9/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 love the choice of face plates alarm clock caller id our old face plates from our last nokia do not fit our new one The Bottom LineWe are very happy with our Nokia. It is great for anyone looking for a cell phone. The face plates are very colorful and stylish. Full Review We have been through a few different cell phones. Our newest is the best one yet. The Nokia 5165. Style: I love all of the choices they have for the face plates. The colors are so neat. We have gloss midnight and Bermuda blue. Currently we use the blue one. The phone itself is small and lightweight. It does not feel too awkward to hold. Also it comes with a hands free set which is great for while your driving. Durability: Well we definitely put it to the test in this category. Patrick takes it to work with him every day. He does tile work in new homes. The phone has been dropped and banged into things numerous times. Still we have no problem, it works just as good as the first day. This phone holds up well for those who are not very careful such as me and Pat. The battery seems to have a longer life than our past phones too. Now for the features: I am not going to list every feature. I will cover the special ones and ones we find useful or not useful. *It has an alarm clock. The alarm will sound as loud as you have it set to ring. It also has a snooze feature. If you use it the alarm will sound again in 10 minutes. If you turn the phone off it will automatically come back on at the time you have the alarm set for. This comes in handy a lot. Especially for Pat when he is working. If he knows he has to call a customer back at a certain time but is working and may forget. He sets it for the time he needs to make the call. For me I do not really have much use for it. *You can send and receive text messages. This is neat and has easy instructions in the manual for it. You can even save as many as 30 messages on the phone. You can send text messages not just in English but in Hebrew,Portuguese, and Spanish too. We only speak English and really don't need that feature but it is still nice. *This phone even has games which sounds really cool at first. I believe the only time we have ever played them though was the first day when we brought the phone home. You can play memory,snake, or logic. The directions are explained for each game in the users manual. The only problem is that in a time of N64's and PS2's these games seem very generic and silly. They are black and white which is hard to get used to when even Gameboys are in color now. Also difficult to play on the tiny screen and small keypad. *You can send and receive email on the phone too. We honestly do not use this option. I still think it could be useful to some though. You need to call your service provider after you get the phone to get what is called a gateway number to get started. There are instructions in the manual to guide you through using this feature. There are many other features such as a phonebook, phone lock, voice mail, different rings to select,caller ID and all of the basics that you find with most cell phones. The ones I listed in detail are just the ones I find to be the most interesting. The phone comes with an 86 page user guide. It is very helpful in explaining what your new phone does and how to do it. We found the instructions very easy to follow and they did not seem to leave anything out. I even found lots of interesting information in there about cell phone safety. How cell phones can effect different medical devices. Also how they can effect improperly installed electrical systems in your car. We had rebates for the phone so we actually wound up paying nothing for it. It was 80.00 out of pocket and two 40.00 rebates. Overall: We love the Nokia 5165 and highly recommend it to both new cell phone users and those looking for a new cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89701 2001/5/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent phone with tons of features the 5100 series faceplates don t fit the 5165 without buying new keypads The Bottom LineIf you want a quality and proven design in a cell phone, go with the Nokia 5165. Full Review My Nokia 5160 died recently. All the electronics worked fine, but it was losing its ability to tie into the closest cellular tower. Messages would get dropped, or gargled, or static-filled. I thought the problem was AT&T Wireless Services, my cellular provider, but other people who had it in my area had no complaints. I took my Nokia 5160 into a store, and they determined that the antenna had separated from the circuit board, and that there was no way to repair the problem. My Nokia 5160 survived almost two years. In discussions with several companies that sold cellular phones, that's a pretty long lifespan, especially for someone who uses his phone several times a day, every day. My next inclination was to go ahead and purchase another Nokia 5160. The problem is that Nokia stopped manufacturing this telephone in 2000. They replaced the 5160 with the 5165. At a glance, there isn't much difference between the 5160 and the 5165. However, upon closer inspection, this isn't the same phone as the 5160. Features of the Nokia 5165 In constructing the 5165, Nokia improved the phone's microphone and speaker. The sound quality is much improved, and people at the other end are asking me to repeat myself less often. So, my hat goes off to Nokia for improving these two all-important features. The 5165 can also send and receive text messages and send e-mail. It has a built-in dictionary and can help prevent spelling errors. I'll admit that I've not yet used the e-mail feature, mostly because typing an e-mail message seems to be more trouble than its worth (especially since I can just call someone and leave them a message instead at half the time). The idea of sending messages seems difficult because unlike a typewriter, where you have 54 keys. On a telephone, you only have twelve. This means that you have to have keys doing triple or even quadruple time. But the one thing I do like about this feature is that I can store e-mail addresses in the Address Book feature of the telephone. This means that if I travel, I don't need to carry around paper telling me everyone's address. I simply flip to the right entry in the Address Book, and I'm able to have someone's e-mail address and telephone number available any time I need it. Putting a new entry into the Address Book is a cinch. You simply dial the number that you want, but instead of hitting the Send button, you push on either the Up or Down button and click "Save." You are then able to add in the person's name, and it will then place that number in the memory of the phone. You can save up to 100 telephone numbers and addresses in the Address Book. Finding that person's name is also easy. The phone lists the numbers in alphabetical order. You simply scroll up and down the window until you come to the right person, and then you click the Send button, and that person is automatically dialed. When you're driving in the car, this is an excellent feature. Even if you have several numbers memorized, it's a lot easier to just click on their Address Book entry than dialing in the ten (or eleven if it's long distance) digits. But dialing can get even easier than that. The Nokia 5165 has Speed Dialing (One Button Dialing). This is even a safer feature. If you need to check your Voicemail, you simply hold on to the number One button, and after two seconds it will automatically dial into your voice mailbox. If you have an emergency, you simply hold onto the number Nine button, and it automatically dials 911. Any other buttons are fair game for programming in the Speed Dial feature. You can also program the phone to carry a few credit card numbers if you are going to make credit card calls. Another nifty feature of the 5165 over the 5160 is Automatic Redial. The wireless world is not yet perfected, and unfortunately there are many holes where service is still unavailable. If you try to dial a number and you're in one of those holes, the phone will continue to dial the number and when you're finally in a service area, you'll be dialing into your intended party. The Automatic Redial feature does not redial busy signals. The 5165 will also dial into one of the various Atomic Clocks and check the time of the phone and make automatic adjustments every time you turn on the phone. If exact time is important to you, this is an invaluable feature. You do have the option of simply shutting this feature off. You can even shut down the whole clock if that isn't important to you. The 5165 will, if you are interested in privacy, scramble your voice so that no outside sources can pick up on it. The major downside to this feature is that it taxes the battery. This phone keeps a log of all incoming calls, all outgoing calls, and all missed calls. It will also keep a running timer on all calls made, helping you to control your monthly minutes and preventing excess minute charges. The Nokia 5165 has a variety of ringing tones. I've found this to be a good feature because there is nothing worse than being in a crowded grocery store, having the phone ring, and having everyone digging into their pockets or purses (I don't have a purse, thank you!) hunting down their cellular phones to see if it is their phone ringing or not. I've picked a tone that I don't hear other people use, and when my phone rings, I know it is mine and not someone else's. You can also play a few games on your cellular phone to help pass time. There are three games: Snake, Memory and Logic. Snake is a lot like an old Atari game Serpentine. You steer the snake around various mazes, picking up bonus points and making your snake grow. If your snake hits itself as it is circling around the maze or hits a wall, the game ends. Memory is a game that involves matching pictures. I believe the game from which this came from was called Concentration. One picture is shown, and you must find the pair. The object is to reveal all the pairs of pictures. Logic is a game that I've not tried to play. The instructions in the user's guide are confusing and I've not tried to play the game to figure them out. Again, playing these games will tax the battery. The 5165 will work on all three types of cellular service: Digital, Analog and PCS. This means that if cellular service is available in your area, this phone will hone in on a signal and let you use whatever system you're being serviced by. Finally, for safety reasons, the phone comes with a hands-free kit. This is also an excellent safety feature for the car. Instead of holding the phone up to your ear, there is an earpiece and a microphone that hang from your ear. You can use two hands to operate the vehicle and this is one less distraction. There are a variety of accessories that you can purchase with your Nokia 5165, including a better hands-free kit, a belt holder, different faceplates, a car lighter adapter, etc. The only thing that I do want to mention is difficulty in changing the faceplate of the Nokia 5165. When you go to a dealer and look at the packages. Those faceplates state that they fit all Nokia 5100 models. You have to look at the faceplate very carefully. There is one miniscule difference between the 5165 and the other 5100 series phones, and that's in the up/down arrows on the keypad. The 5165 has no spacer between the up/down arrows, while the other models do. That spacer prevents those nifty faceplates from fitting the 5165. The good news is that some of the more expensive faceplates come with a new keypad, and you can just change that out into a new one so that any 5100 series faceplate fits the 5165. Conclusion I would definitely recommend the Nokia 5165. It is constructed in the same quality manner as the 5160, yet has a lot of updated features. It offers nearly every option short of having true wireless Web access. I will give the 5165 five out of five stars. I hope to get another few great years out of my Nokia telephone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89700 2001/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 text messaging customizable features more stylish lots of accessories not the smallest phone out there standard battery has short life The Bottom LineGood value phone of decent size with many available accessories. Handsfree kit in the box. Phone has sleeker look than other 51xx phones. A good starter phone. Full Review The Nokia 5165 is the successor to the 5160i series phone which was the successor to the 5160 and 5120 phones. As far as I know, this model is compatible with AT&T Wireless and the newly minted Cingular Wireless (Cellular One, AmeriWest, Bell South, and several other companies merged together.) Pretty much, these two cellular companies are number 2 (Cingular) and 3 (AT&T) in size and membership in the US. I got the 5165 from my local Cingular store for $19.99. This is Cingular's current phone promotion (1/2001). In reality, there really isn't much of an upgrade to the 5160i version of the Nokia 51xx phones. The phone comes in a Navy Blue faceplate with silver light up keys. The keypad features much sleeker oval buttons instead of the standard large white buttons on the 5120 and 5160 and standard black faceplate. However, if you already have another 51xx phone, you can buy the faceplate and keypad to place on your phone. So that really isn't much of a big deal. The phone is compatible with TDMA 800/1900 signals as well as analog signals. Battery life with the standard 900 mAh NiMH battery is rated as 2-3 hours of talk time but I found it closer to 2 hours overall. You do have various options on batteries to purchase however. Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries are also available as well from Nokia and multiple manufacturers. I bought a 1900 mAh Lithium Ion battery for $39.99 that rates for 5-7 hours (I've gotten about 6 hours of talk time) of talk time. Note that different battery can drastically change the thickness of the phone... generally, the higher the mAh, the thicker the phone while a Lithium Ion will decrease the size from a comparable NiMH battery. The sound is clear with no echo from Cingular Wireless... however, this really depends on your signal and where you are calling from and traffic on the airwaves when you place your cellular call. The accessories for the 5165 are compatible with Nokia's whole 51xx, 61xx, and 71xx series phones. All 51xx faceplates are compatible as well as long as you use the corresponding keypad to the faceplate. Previous owners of any of these phones don't have to buy any more accessories since they all still work! On the other hand, since there are so many 51xx and 61xx phones sold in the US. You should have very few problems buying accessories for a good price. The 5165 like the 5160i is capable of text messaging. The 5165 also supports a feature where the phone will suggest/guess the word you are trying to type in. After the phone learns some of your favorite words/phrases, this feature proves to be of some use. Both AT&T and Cingular support text messaging. Like all 51xx, 61xx, and 71xx phones, there are plenty of customizable features. You can pick from any of 30 rings with an additional 5 custom rings you can upload. Volume and keypad tones are adjustable. Time can be displayed although there is no true date of time feature. 3 games can be played on the phone if you're bored (the games are not that good though) as well. Many of the little features of the phone and how it "acts" can be customized. Nokia has also provided a handfree kit with the 5165 as well. It's a nice little bonus. Overall This is a good value phone with great features. I already had a 5160i phones and transferred all of my accessories and batteries. At $19.99 price from Cingular, the phone is a steal with a free handsfree kit included (a $9.99-29.99 value depending where you look). The only downsides were the large size of the phone compared to others in today's market and the likely need to buy a new battery depending on your needs. The Lithium Polymer is the slim line battery that costs anywhere from $59.99 to $99.99. Otherwise, this phone is a hard value to beat overall. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 89699 2000/9/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent sound reception price mine was free battery not as easy to use as some other phones evident cost cutting The Bottom LinePerformance wise this phone is great, but I find it not as easy to use as some other phones. As usual, cost-cutting shows. Full Review Ease Of Use And I thought my Samsung was complicated... My mom recently got Nokia 5165. The phone was free with a $29 a month plan, it looks nice and unsophisticated. Maybe, if you used Nokia phones in the past, you will have no problems operating this one. But I have Samsung SCH-411, which is much easier to use. My main concern is the way the buttons are used to place a call, end a call and navigate menus. With my Samsung, the keys are "fixed" - there is a designated "Send" button, separate "End", "Menu", "OK" and "Clear" buttons. With this Nokia, one button has no inscription and is used for "Send", "Menu", "End", "OK" and other functions, based on what's written on the screen above the button. For example, if the lower portion of the screen says "Send", this "main button" is currently "Send" button. After you initiate the call, it turns into "End" button. Another, rather annoying feature, is the fact that if you go at least one level deep into a menu, after very short period of inactivity, the description of the chosen menu item appears and the almighty "master button" described above changes from "Select" into "More info", so to select that menu item you have to press "C" (clear) and then "Select". I understand that this system allows Nokia to have less buttons and save space and money, but for me it's too cumbersome, at least after having used my Samsung. Also, the display fits only one high-level menu item at a time (i.e. "Phone Book"). My [smaller] Samsung fits 4 menu items and seems to have higher display resolution. Overall, I am not impressed with the ease of use here. Performance The 5165 shines here - the sound quality is excellent, unlike my Samsung, which suffers from reception problems (although it might be caused by different coverage maps in my area). The battery life seems to also be longer. Manual recommends to wait until the battery is fully discharged before recharging though. Size And Stuff The phone has a fixed antenna, which you cannot extend. My Samsung has extendable antenna, but extending it bring nothing. The phone is larger that Nokia 8260, which can be considered good and bad. It's bad because it takes more space in your pocket, but I find it easier to use than small 8260, where you always have doubts if the other party hears what you are saying, since the microphone is so far from your mouth. The phone has replaceable faceplate, so you can buy a differently-colored faceplate and replace them all the time. This is the feature I couldn't care less about. Bottom Line Performance wise this phone is great, but I find it not as easy to use as some other phones. As usual, cost-cutting shows. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89698 2002/7/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks really nice slim phone great reception none The Bottom LineI still like Nokia and will for a very long time. Full Review Please note: Since first posting this review back in Jan. 02, I have been really satisfied with this phone. My 16-year-old now has one. Her plan is linked to my plan. She loves her phone as well. Nokia really does make a great cell phone. I had to do the unthinkable! It took a lot out of me too! It was not easy for me to do this, but when I was told that I was obsolete or on the verge of being so, that I would soon not be able to get parts for repair, that my flip was no longer currant in daily usage, well I was just stunned! How could this have happened? I was being defeated by modern technology once again and was unaware of it. Boy do I live in the sticks or what! Today I took my cell phone in finally for repair because I was not getting a good reception and had not always out here in the woods. And a Cingular One tower was put in right next store and the reception still stunk! So I had finally had enough. And besides I was close to the Cingular One Store and I actually remember to stop by. As it would happen the antenna was broken. What do you mean by broken, well I mean broken, I could turn the antenna around and around, and was informed that this was not the correct way. Well since I had this particular cell phone the antenna had always turned and the rep that sold it to me told me that this was correct. I never thought anything about it. The tech did a check on the phone to be sure and nothing else was wrong with the phone. Then they wanted to charge me 14.95 for a new antenna. I don't think so! I politely told them I was not paying for something that was sold to me incorrectly in the first place. So a store manage was called and he informed me that I could upgrade at no charge, but would need to sign another contract for one year with Cingular One. I told them if I could keep the same plan that I currently have then I would look into it. I was told that I could. So I checked out the possibilities. And I love Cingular One anyway so a year contract was no big deal for me. I am happy to say that not only did I get a new cell phone but also it is just like the old one except without the flip cover. Obsolete! Not me! Not anymore! I did lose the calendar and calculator features but I didn't use those anyway, and I picked up some more features. My new Nokia 5165™ is great! The new design is slick and slim. I now hit one button to do it all instead of three. To call I hit middle button, to program something I hit the middle button which will bring up the menu where I can add numbers to the call list, change system settings, etc. And to clear something I hit the C button. To go up or down no matter which menu part I am in I hit the up and down button. The color is blue with silver buttons and silver framework and looks really nice. I can still play the same games like snake and dice and still use the same sound for the ringing of the phone which is still "Joyful, Joyful". And once again Nokia™ is a name that I can trust. And so is this Nokia™ 5165. The old battery will fit the new phone, the old charge cord will fit the new phone, the old cigarette lighter charge cord will fit the new phone, so now I can have one of each in the house and in the car. This is really neat for me because when I forget to bring the one from the house all will be okay because I have the set in the car. (Course I have to remember I have the set in the car.) The battery is a "zinc/nickel" battery, which means, that you could charge the battery up at any time. (I have found this to be true with the old phone, and certainly will be with the new phone since the batteries are the same.) The battery last time is about 1 ½ to 2 hours. I should tell you that when you get a new cell phone of any kind the battery will most likely have to be charged overnight before usage, this is a good habit to get into. But now that I have two batteries life will be a little easier for my cell phones and me. I can still program in up to 99 numbers. And still choose most any type of music for the incoming call ring. I still check the call log at any time and set up the settings the way I want to. I am so tickled over my new phone. It's new but old at the same time. I still check for the last number called or dialed! This is still cool because I can check up on the kids. And I can go back if I forget a number that just came over that I might need to call. The new phone is doing much better out here in the woods. I could even call from my yard with very little static. And on the way home those areas that were reading no service are now reading "make the call already" well not in those words, but the signal is showing clear. When I hold the phone I can truly hear the caller better. Instead of the sound coming from the top of the phone it is now centered where it accommodates the ear better. I can still use the universal headphone piece that I have which I really enjoy. This is safer when driving. I try to always stop to make calls but I am not always able to do so. I can buy an optional color face but I don't think that I will be doing so. I would love to have the yellow one but not for 30.00 dollars! The blue looks really good anyways. So over all the new Nokia™ 5165 is a wonderful little phone. Fits into any pocket, purse, back pocket of pants, just about anywhere. It's slim, trim, great looking and works well for me. But shop around before you buy any cell phone. You have to choose the one that is right for you and you also have to choose a plan that is right for you. This phone cost me nothing, but for some it can run around 150.00 or more, depending on the area in which you live. So shop around. I love Nokia and have for many years. Some things in life I will not change and Nokia brand cell phones is one of those things. I am no longer obsolete and proud of it! God Bless! ©2002 LKD Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free upgrade 7782 Nokia 3660 89787 2000/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone great camera good enough for email least expensive bluetooth equipped phone small hold on tight too close together buttons on keypad slippery plastic finish The Bottom LineThis phone is almost a PDA, a lot it can do I'm not aware of yet. Good as phone, camera-reporter, speakerphone, Bluetooth. A lot more than just a mobile phone. Full Review I was after Bluetooth and found this to be the least expensive Bluetooth equipped phone my carrier had to offer. I paid $74.99 with another $50 credit to my account after 6 more months of service on a 1 year contract renewal. I've been with T-Mobile since they acquired my account with Voicestream, probably 8 years now. About every 2-3 years, I ask for new equipment and this is the 1st time I've been willing to PAY ANYTHING for equipment, but Bluetooth is so practical and safety is increased, so it's certainly worth it. The thing I started getting annoyed with almost immediately is the button size. I kept mis-dialing and felt like Homer Simpson when his fingers got too fat in the episode where he gains weight to get disability pay. This is not a phone that is itti bitty so you'd expect it to have some room for larger, more spaced buttons. I'd almost prefer the goofy counter-clockwise circle of the Nokia 3650, because at least there, the buttons are spaced apart better. But once I got the Bluetooth headset (Motorola HS810 - $40 + $9 shipping off Ebay) I decided this phone is gonna be alright after all. For one, I rarely have to dial or even handle the phone much anyway since I can voice tag all my contacts. The wireless Bluetooth headset works flawlessly with voice dialing. The only improvement here would be if it could recognize individual digits spoken, then dial the number you just said, then you'd never have to touch the phone at all! I have found the speakerphone crystal clear & FANTASTIC for getting customers involved in communicating with my providers while I'm face to face with the customer. Plus they don't have to put their face on my phone getting us both all germy. The camera works well enough for email and pic messaging problems and challenges hit on the job to providers. There's probably alot more this phone can do that I haven't had time to figure out yet. It's good. And it's not so big and clunky as I thought it would be. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 24.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89786 2000/4/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good replacement for my pda internal memory camera easy to use a bit large small keypad battery life requires bluetooth no data cable The Bottom LineExcellent phone, but understand its capabilities and limitations before you get it. Full Review This is my first cell phone, so I really wanted to pick it up and tinker with it before I bought it (I had heard it was big and used Symbian, which I'd never heard of, so I was concerned). Unfortunately, it's an old model, so no one carries it. I ordered it anyway and was pleasantly surprised when I received it. It's definitely larger than most mobiles, but not nearly as large as I'd feared. It fits comfortably in my hand and between my shoulder and ear (I always have a hard time keeping other people's small cell phones there). So far, I'm very happy with the phone. Here's what I've liked: Camera: very convenient and easy to use. Haven't had the chance yet to get the images off the phone (more on that later) to see them in detail on my computer, so I can't say how well they turned out. But they look good on the phone. There are different modes of picture taking (normal, portrait, and night) and each takes up different amounts of space. I haven't experimented with the portrait and night modes yet. Calendar/To Do: I've imported info from my Palm via infrared to the phone's calendar and it could hardly be easier. You are forced to go to your inbox and open each imported item, hit Options, and select Save to Calendar. It would be easier if the phone simply detected the incoming file as a calendar file and gave you a prompt to automatically incorporate the files. Not a big deal. The phone has a To Do list instead of a Memo function, and when I import my Memos from my Palm to the phone, it will not save in the To Do folder, but instead remains as a simple txt file that can be accessed from the Inbox or My Docs, depending on where you save it. Both of these capabilities take away the main utility of my Palm, so I don't have to carry around both devices. The phone has replaced my Palm, and also does picture and cell duty, so I can't ask for more than that. I really do love this phone! Email: I use basic email txt via T-zones with T-mobile, and it's very easy to use. Typing with the keypad is ok once you get used to it. The phone is large enough so that they really could/should have either enlarged the keys or expanded the keypad so the keys are separated from each other a bit to make them easier to use. Composer: I can make my own ring tunes, which is geeky, but fun to do. Other cool things that I haven't tinkered with yet: video recorder, currency converter, Java applications (I really don't even know what that is), Real One Player. And Nokia Customer Service has been great. Disappointments: Getting pictures off of the camera was a major challenge. This phone was designed to be totally wireless, and as such, Nokia does not even manufacture a data cable that will support the phone. It's either infrared, Bluetooth, or Multimedia email. Being relatively new to cell phones, I figured I'd just email the pictures off the phone. Then I found out that there's an extra charge for sending emails with attachments, and I can only send attachments if I have Multimedia service (basic text email is not sufficient). It took me several phone calls to Nokia and T-Mobile to figure out that the only viable way of getting info/files out of the cell (barring spending $20/month more on upgraded internet access) is to buy a Bluetooth adaptor. Even then, being totally new to Bluetooth and wireless tech, I had no idea what Bluetooth device to get. The manual says I need Bluetooth Specification 1.1, so I finally purchased a Bluetooth 1.1 adaptor in ebay for $20. It hasn't arrived yet, so I don't know if it'll work. Also, I don't like the lens on the back of the camera. It comes with a clear protective sticker across it, and once you take it off, there's no protection for the lens. Setting it down on the front will eventually scratch up your screen; setting it on its back will eventually scratch up the lens. Also, the Real One Player does not support Mp3 format. And the battery life on my phone is pretty horrid-- it's only lasting a couple of days (although I admit I've been using it heavily). Lastly, I haven't been able to find an international charger for this thing, which may make it a little painful when I travel abroad. But overall, for a free phone (after rebate), this thing is awesome! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89785 2000/1/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 bellswhistles galore easy to use convenient quality product expensive difficult to turn off minor phone annoyances The Bottom LineA very good phone with surprisingly few problems and annoyances. Full Review My wife has many a fight with the cell phone carriers and usually the problem gets blamed on the phone itself. She has been through three Nokia's in the past two years. Each time the provider told her the problem was with the phone and not with the network or carrier. So, each time we asked for a new phone and an upgrade. The most recent time we went and asked for a camera phone, not because she is likely to use it all that often, but because we felt that we deserved it and we wanted to get the most expensive option the company would provide for us. We came close to getting the 3660 for nothing but did end up paying $50.00. Not a bad deal as far as I am concerned. THE SPECIFICS: * 130mm x 57mm x 26mm * Weight of 130g with lithium ion battery * 176 x 208 pixels * 65,536 color full color display * Five way scroll key * Capture resolution at 480 x 640 * Photo album ability * 3.4mb internal memory * External memory on 3V MMC memory card * Bluetooth wireless technology * Voice dialing and recording * Hands free speaker * Battery time of two to four hours while talking and 150- 200 hours while in standby. * Video playback: RealOne player; formats: H.263 and MPEG- 4 video inside 3GP file format; RealAudio and RealVideo The Nokia 3600 is loaded with bells and whistles. The above shows that you can send and receive pictures and videos. But, you can also play games and have access to the most advanced calling options. A truly technologically wonderful phone. WHAT I LIKE: 1. The cool factor. The Nokia 3600 is the first phone that I know of that can successfully can send video. Heck, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were able to begin taking photos with our phone and now we can take and send videos. Amazing. Simply amazing. So, the cool factor definitely applies to this phone because it is such an advanced piece of equipment. 2. You can more with this phone than you can imagine. Sitting in a boring meeting and wanting to play a game? Go for it and try playing something as simple as Pac-Man or as complicated as games that can be played against other people and their phones. Need to send an email to a friend to get you out of a horrible date? You can do it with this phone. Like to take a still photo to prove to your friend's that you finally got a date? Yes, the 3660 allows you to do so. Get that hot date back to a hotel and want to take a video a la Paris Hilton? You guessed it- the 3600 allows you to do so. Want to watch the movie with the other party? Yep. Play a cool MP3 in order to get in the mood? Yep. Download her squeals as your ring tone? Aha, gotcha. I do not think you can that with this phone. You get the picture. The 3600 has all sorts of capabilities that make it a great phone for a huge variety of needs. 3. Ease of use. The 3600 is surprisingly easy to use. I say this because as phones have shrunk (This is still a small phone.), my fingers have found them more difficult to operate the phone. I too often hit multiple keys or have to dial very slowly. The 3600 is actually pretty good when it comes to this. In other words, I do not hit multiple keys very often. The phone also has a big scroll key that operates a great deal of what you need outside of the number buttons. There are also two buttons that function as options to the scroll button that work the on screen menu every bit as easily as the scroll wheel. Finally, screen is larger than any I have seen and that allows you to see more of what you want to see, whether or not we are talking about the pictures, menu, or directions. 4. The games are very cool and this is coming from someone who is not a game player. The phone supports java and symbian games and provides the ability to play games versus other phone users who have bluetooth capabilities. I have yet to play the bluetooth games, but love the ability to play that old standby- Pac-Man. I have seen the bluetooth games played and they are quite cool. Obviously it is not the same thing as playing on your computer, but, despite the smaller screen, the experience is still pretty cool. And, I might add, great for those boring moments like the doctor's office, bus ride, or the like. 5. I cannot believe I am going to say this, but the battery is pretty good. I get two to four hours of talk time and it is usually on the top end of that estimate. I can also stay on standby for up to 200 hours- so the phone claims. I have had it on standby for a full week with a few short conversations in between. One thing to keep in mind is that the battery life goes down significantly and quickly when using the photo or game features. Yet, how often do you use them? It is not like you will be taking 30 photos with this in short order and then sending them immediately. For a high end cell phone, the battery is pretty good and a huge improvement over previous Nokia batteries. 6. The video and photo abilities are quite good and easy to use. Recording is as easy as starting the record application and then selecting new. From there simply point and you are off recording up to 10 frames per second. The camera option the same way. You can then send either the video or photo as an attachment to anyone who has the ability to receive the attachment. It could not be a whole lot easier and the quality is surprisingly good. But, do not think you are going to get great quality; simply put, the quality will not disappoint, but it is nothing like your 46" flat panel TV. 7. You can download all of the personalized options that you want. You simply go to the Nokia web site and download different ringer tunes or games. Or you can go to the site and download options that can make your phone more pleasure or business friendly. For instance, more games or silly ringer tunes. 8. The travel friendliness of the 3600 is wonderful. What do I mean? Well, the 3600 has all of the options that make it a joy to use when using it as a phone. You have the ability to go hands free when talking. The phone can be voice operated and has voice dialing. It also has the ability to function as a recorder- a big deal if you think of a million dollar idea while driving. Finally, the 3600 is small enough that you can carry it in your jacket or suit pocket. I do like the size- small but not too small- since it means that you can put it in the jacket pocket and not worry too much about forgetting it is there. WHAT I DO NOT LIKE: 1. The 3600 is still an expensive phone. You will pay anywhere from $200 to $300 for one of these and are stuck with T-Mobile as your service provider. There is a similar model available with Cingular and AT&T providing service. I always preach waiting to purchase when it comes to technology as the prices inevitably fall and usually fairly quickly. 2. I find the 3600 difficult to turn off. I ran into the problem of forgetting to put it in mute mode during a meeting and found myself endlessly trying to turn the ringer off. This is a Nokia problem as my wife's previous phone had the same problem. Just make the button easier to push or bigger. 3. As a phone, the volume is often lower than it should be and there is occasional static. The volume just seems low unless you have it set on a high setting- I know odd, but an annoyance, nonetheless. Additionally, the static could be the networks problem as much as the phones, but you never know. The static is not so much that it will cause a problem, but it is enough that you will get the occasional "Are you on the road?" question. THE BOTTOM LINE: The Nokia 3600 is a very good phone with more options and features than you will ever use. Play games, send video or photos, send and receive email, play MP3's, and even use it as a phone. We have had this phone for a month or so now and have not had any real problems. There are a few minor annoyances as noted above, but none of the huge problems that we have experienced with previous Nokia models. I highly recommend the Nokia 3600, but at the same time would also tell you to wait a little while to purchase it. The price will come down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7783 Nokia 5190 GSM Cellular Phone 89886 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good rf performance big heavy Though this phone is probably one of the largest and heaviest gsm phones available, it is also the best at getting a signal. This phone will work in places where other cell phones wont get a signal at all. It is very big and heavy though so it is more suited to be left in the car or something other than carried around. 89885 2009/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 interchangable frontback covers long battery life games have to buy a vibrating battery Full Review I got a 5190 for an early christmas present and I have to say that I love it. It's nice and small, with a good screen. The changeable covers are AWESOME! GENIUS! SOO COOL! My cover is this blue and silver Mercedes-Benz cover with a cover that comes down with the press of a button. Then the back is this clear blue cover thing. The functionality of this phone is great. You can use it with one hand, no problem. It has games which is awesome for those boring presentations and such. The great battery life is cool too. The only bad thing that I see is that you have to buy a separate vibrating battery. This phone is awesome. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 89884 2000/8/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple design easy use could have been a little more compact The Bottom LineNeed a phone??? Can't afford a high class one??? This one is a winner!!!!!!! Full Review For years people have tried to make improvements to the innovative "cell phone". Too small of buttons and so small of a phone thats it's ideal for losing are just some of the many changes the cell phone has gone through. Motorola, Sprint, and Ericcson have a adaquate set of phones, but I have to say Nokia has become the most successful. The 5190 is one of the most basic designs of a cell phone ever made. Stable antenna, gripped buttons, call forwarding ; this phone has it all. It's simple layout makes it easy to customize and organize.This phones a winner! One of the popular items in the industry, the 5190 has made it to almost every mobile service in the country ( ex. Cingular, Att Wireless, Sprint ). Very customizable, the various color plates and lights that can be changed onto this phone can fit any person's lifestyle, if your a executive manager or a energetic teen, this phone's for you. Using it is easy. You have a phonebook where you could save about 200 numbers without having to dial out. It's voicemail feature picks up your calls when your phone is off or charging, and if you do miss a call while your phone is on, it's caller ID leaves a list of who called. Games on this phone are also good to use while your bored on the road!! Call forwarding takes your incoming calls to another phone, which is really helpful when you can not access you 5190. The power to customize your phone with ring tones, backgrounds, and colors makes this phone stand out among the crowd!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 89883 2000/6/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality features price free menu layout bulky The Bottom LineFor a free phone this is a good offering with many quality features. Fine for most people that are not seduced by the tiny star tac types. Full Review So I can't have too many complaints right! Well I have Cingular wireless, formerly Pacific Bell, and my first phone with them was an Ericsson CF-788 phone which lasted me 2 years. By the end it was beat and missing a few pieces but still working. So it was time and Cingular was offering so I took them up on the Nokia for free with another 1 year committment. The first thing I will say that people switching over from Ericsson phones will have trouble adapting. I think the Ericsson menu system was much easier to use. But they are no longer in the cell phone business so at some point everyone will have to transition. The single menu button for making a call, ending a call and doing in call functions is not very intuitive. For instance when you are in a call it will be an OPTION button and then it will switch after a few seconds into and END button. You really have to look at it or you could put a call on hold instead of disconnecting. The phone book works pretty good and if you store your numbers in the sim card they will transfer over flawlessly from the Ericsson. You can program quick dial keys 1-9 that can be accessed by pressing and holding the desired key. Voicemail is available by pressing and holding the "1" key. There are alot of choices when it comes to ring tones. Everything from Jingle bells to Ode to joy is covered so you can recognize your phone ringing in the crowd of cell phones. The handset is loud but can be set to silent with a push of the power button. Yes even that button has more than one function. Voice quality is very good and signal strength at least with Cingular receptions seems to be very good. The best part about owning this phone is that since it is one of the most popular models the accessories are very easy to find and very low priced. I got a hands free adapter and carrying case for $9 each. You can also get removable faceplates in a variety of colors. This has spawned entire pushcart stores at the mall that only sell the faceplates!!! Recommended: Yes 89882 2000/7/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with features one touch dialing long battery life light weight poor reception The Bottom LineI recommend the Nokia 5190 to anyone that needs a tough, cheap phone. Full Review I received my Nokia 5190 as part of a calling plan. My choices were the 5190 for $ 10.00 or an Erikson phone for $100.00. I use my phone for business and since I am a carpenter, it gets carried in a pocket on my nail bags. I did not want an expensive phone getting filled up with sawdust. The Nokia has held up very well under the less than ideal conditions it has been subjected to. If I only have a fair signal indicated, reception is a bit fuzzy on the phone, however when the signal indicator shows a strong signal communication is crystal clear. The phone has several nice features. I like the one touch dialing, the 250 number phone book and I've been guilty of playing a game or two while waiting to meet a client at a jobsite. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10.00 89881 2000/10/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap old now Full Review I got my nokia 5190 cause i needed a cell phone cause i am never home and i needed a new primary phone. I use my 5190 as my primary phone so its my life pretty much. i love the nokia 5190 cause it is cheap and you can get cool face plates for it. i hate the nokia 5190 cause its cheap. the battery doesn't last long enough, and its now behind all the newer models. I think if you are a teen or someone who just wants a cell phone cause its cool or cause they want a way for people to get a hold of then easy then this cell phone is perfect for them. I think this is the best starter cell phone around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89880 2000/4/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fairly small alarm clock caller id lots of ring options bad reception short battery life The Bottom LineIf you get it free, it's worth it. However if you have to pay, go for a more expensive model. Full Review About two months ago I signed up with VoiceStream and got a Nokia 5190 phone with my 39.99 plan. I was so excited by my new phone I could hardly wait to use it.... but of course I had to wait for the battery to charge up. And yet it seems, two months later, I am still waiting. Don't get me wrong... I still love my phone. It's small, convenient, has many ringing options, an excellent caller ID system, and an alarm clock which I set to help remember things like pills or other simple tasks. However, my battery always seems to be low, even though I don't use it much, and the reception on it is not very good at all. Other phones through VoiceStream seem to have a much better antenna, like the 6190, or other versions. I do like the fact that since it is a common phone (the 5100 series) I can buy as many face plates as I want, all with a different pattern. I really enjoy being able to change the look of my phone whenever I get the urge to, which is pretty often now that I discovered how cool of a feature it is. Overall I really like that phone.... and I really shouldn't complain at all considering the fact that my VoiceStream dealer generously gave me my phone for free. In retrospect, I still would have gotten the free phone. (what can I say? I'm cheap!), however, in some respects the 6100 series or higher would have seemed to have been a better choice. If you have the choice of either phone, or you have to buy either one, I would recommend the 6190. If, however, you get in on the free phone thing, I would say go for it. The phone isn't bad enough to pay $70 dollars or more for a phone of just a little better quality. Recommended: Yes 89879 2000/10/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 some nice features relatively poor reception The Bottom LineThis is a cheap, almost unbreakable phone that is easy to operate and has a lot of features. Full Review I have had my 5190 for well over a year and I talk between 1,000 and 2,000 minutes per month, so the phone gets quite a bit of use. I am only on the second battery and the first one still works pretty good. One of my favorite features on this phone is the alarm clock. I use that now instead of the one beside my bed. primarily this is because I can set the alarm, turn OFF the phone (so the battery doesn't run down) and the alarm will still sound. I like how it starts out quiet, so if I am sleeping lightly, the alarm doesn't wake my wife. The phone doesn't have the strongest reception. I used to have a Motorolla that I used in the same coverage area and had fewer problems. Sometimes when I am in my car I miss the old analog bag phone. That sucker would never drop calls. I would recommend buying a 5190 because It's cheap, has nice features and is virtually indestructible. On that note, I should add that my 8-month old son batters the phone around all the time and it still works fine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89878 2000/3/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 looks good holds a battery charge well interchangeable face plate turns itself off with no warning awkward user mode poor reception The Bottom LineIf you get a 5190, buy some phone insurance and "accidentally" drop it in a wood chipper before it turns one. Full Review My Nokia 5190 was about a year old when it started turning itself off abruptly. At first I thought I'd done something wrong when replacing the face plate with a cooler color. I took the plate off and reassembled the phone, but the problem didn't go away. In fact, it got worse. Just in the last two weeks, the thing has started turning itself off at least once during every call. Often it will go down just after being turned on again. Fortunately, it's a sturdy little product so it hasn't suffered being slammed against the dashboard a few times. According to what I've read on this site, it's a common problem. Something to do with the battery connection growing loose over time. My wife has a 6190 and it's so much better you wonder if it's really made by the same company. This phone might be a good option if you get it free with your calling plan and use it only occasionally. Under normal use, you may encounter the same problems I did. Recommended: No 89877 2000/7/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good size not too big or little good options flimsy The Bottom LineDefinitely a simple easy to use phone! Nothing too frilly, yet nothing too blah! :) Full Review I have had my Nokia 5190 for almost a year now. This has been my first and only cell phone so far. Has definitely stood the test of time and my dropping it accidentally. :) The features are wonderful! 250 names and numbers for an address book (which I don't even use half!), caller ID, great options for the ring tone (5 different settings, great for ANYWHERE!)... The games are even a little mind boggling (for me) that I hardly touch them, but still when I am bored they come in use! And the alarm has been a lifesaver and it's great that it gets louder and louder instead of one standard volume. Voicemail is wonderful also. Lots of options, but not at all confusing! I set up mine in less than five minutes! Accessing, listening and deleting voicemails is so easy and quick! I know this depends mainly on your cell provider but my range is great! In a year I've only been disconnected while talking once or twice! It just really seems to keep the range better than I've heard it to do! Overall I am very happy with this phone. My only small complaint is, the battery supplied with it doesn't seem to take the test of time well. Like I said, I've had mine for almost a year, and the battery with average use... lasts maybe three days, sometimes more, sometimes less. I guess that could be with any and all batteries used regularly. Last comment... don't drop this phone, even accidentally! (I know that's hard to do!) I've recently dropped mine two or three times and the housing cracked even with a cell case to help protect it. Even though it IS cracked the phone still works like new! THANKS NOKIA! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): N/A 89876 2000/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use plenty of features lots of accessories standard battery is horrible Full Review For the most part, I have liked this phone. It is relatively small, has a lot of features, and the menus are intuitive. I have only one complaint about this phone and it is a really big one: the battery it comes with is absolutely horrible! I generally leave my phone on all day and charge it every night. Well, as I started to use it, the battery lasted less and less time until 3 months later it could only hold about 1 minute of stand-by charge! I went through 2 batteries in 6 months, which was very expensive. Finally, I ordered a lithium battery from the Nokia website and I have had no problems with it so far. If you buy this phone, you need to be prepared to pay for an extra battery in the near future ($50 at the time of this review). When my parents and grandma went to buy phones, I didn't recommend this phone to them because of the battery problem. Instead, I recommended the Samsung SCH-3500, which is a better, less expensive phone. The largest advantage of the Nokia 5190 is that it has a lot of useful accessories. I can't live without the belt clip (BCH-12U) or headset (HDC-9P), they are really useful. However, I have broken 2 belt clips through normal wear--they are fragile! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 89875 2009/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 smart sim card many features price signal strength Full Review This phone is a very light weight phone with many offered features at an excellent price. I have seen the the phone for as little as $50 after a $50 rebate (offered as a joint partnership between Costco and Voice Stream). It features Caller ID, Call Waiting, 35 Different rings, Ring Caller Identification, 250 number memory, A Battery with up to 9 days of stand-by time, Pager capabilities, Digital messaging, e-mail receiving, volume control, multiple line interface, Time tracking, missed call recording, Games, and more. It also features the smart sim card which makes it compatible with many cellular companies like, voice stream, AT&T, Pacific Bell, Alert Cellular, Mountain West, etc. the card also carries your personal information form phone to phone; you won't lose your pin code, person numbers, etc. The only negative thing I can think of for this phone is it's signal strength. In large buildings surrounded with heavy concrete may block the signal. This is an excellent phone, definitely worth the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 after rebate 89874 2009/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very easy to use no flip front option Full Review Six months ago, I bought the Nokia 5190. This was my first cell phone and I chose this brand because it came highly recommended. So far, I have had nothing but positive experiences with my phone. I have dropped it several times and have had no mechanical problems. It came with a handbook that is very user friendly. I prefer to read "bonehead" instructions and that is exactly what I got. The programming of the internal phone book and advanced functions are very easy to use. There are 35 different ring tones that allow you to set the appropriate ring and volume depending on your environment. There are many phone menu shortcuts that are displayed to help you easily access the option that you need. I find this especially important when driving. I want to be looking at the road, not trying to figure out how to use my phone. This phone also offers 3 games to chose from that come in handy when I am in a waiting room or just plain bored. My 10 year old daughter is able to easily maneuver her way around the Nokia 5190. When I was looking into purchasing a phone I did a lot of comparison shopping and I found that the Nokia 5190 offered the most features for lowest price. It is small, attractive to look at, and there are many different color covers to chose from. The only thing that I do not like about the Nokia 5190 is that there is no "flip front" option making small pieces of lint or things of the like to get caught in the keypad. This would make a great phone for a beginner as well as someone that has used cell phones for many years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): about $75.00 89873 2009/11/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use xpress on color covers lightweight small battery life is mediocre Full Review I recently bought a Nokia 5190 cell phone so that I can keep in touch with family and friends on the go. I paid around $29 for the phone itself and I am extremely happy with what I got for such a cheap price. The Nokia 5190 is small, lightweight, and simple to use. There are numerous functions on the phone such as Caller ID, Missed Calls, Phone Book, 35 different ring tones, and even 3 games (Memory, Snake, and Logic). The Nokia 5190 can also be used for e-mail, faxes, and short messages. The thing I love most about the Nokia 5190 is the Xpress-on color covers. Nokia offers colors from Antigua Red to Tango Orange that are simple to change as often as your mood does. Nokia offers a bundle of accessories such as batteries, chargers, car kits, belt clips, and headset kit. So if your looking for a cheap phone that can do what more expensive phones can do, the Nokia 5190 was made for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29 89872 2000/1/22 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 great connection breaks easily Full Review Despite the decent service(connection) that Nokia gives to its consumers, the Nokia 5190 did not satisfy my needs of a cellular phone. The battery of the phone now comes off without any force against it. I was very displeased with the phone. But then again, I may have been expecting too much out of the phone. But i was pleased with one of the features that Nokia gives that any other phone does not: the games. Whenever I am bored I merely played a game on the phone. So if you are looking for a cell phone merely for "business purposes," purchase the Nokia 5190. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free, with activation 89871 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 not a bad size multiple rings colorful face plates no vibrator ringing weak reception The Bottom LineThe Nokia is a fun telephone that's perfect for a teenager. However, someone who needs it for business or other heavy reasons shood choose a different phone. Full Review Hi, I have owned many cellular and digital phones over the course of the past few years. I had also read numerous articles raving about Nokia's blend of style and quality, creating the perfect phone. As far as the style is concerned, I love it. I have purchased numerous versions of the Nokia faceplates, including ones with auto brands such as "Ferrari". The style brings color to a black and white world. The games also give you something to do when you're stuck on the train or something, so that's deffinately another plus. However, on the other end of the chart, Nokia has inconsistent reception. Sometimes, it workd beautifully, but other times it barely works at all. I don't like screaming into the phone, but that's often what the Nokia forces me to resort to. Also, there is no vibrator ring, which makes my student life quite difficult. I have to choose between important phone calls and embarassing myself. All in all, the Nokia is a fun telephone that's perfect for a teenager. However, for someone who needs it for business or reasons other than basic telephoning, then the Nokia 5190 is NOT for you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89870 2009/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 full of features battery life becoming dated by newer technology Full Review The Nokia 5190 was a great phone when I got it 6 months ago and it still is a great device today! I decided to move from an analog to digital phone so I did my research. No one can come close to the battery life that Nokia squeezes out of its phones. We are talking about 4 hours of talk time, and most of the time I don't have to charge my phone but 4-6 days! Now that is great performance. The phone is small (5.2 inches tall) and doesn't weigh too much (about 6 ounces). It is easy to read, thanks to the large backlit display. It has a built in phonebook for all of your important numbers. It has a myriad of rings (everything from a standard ring to "Take me out to the Ballpark" or the Mexican Hat Dance). It can receive text messages or e-mail as well. The only real downfall to this phone is that the internet capable phones are coming out and will soon begin to replace the 5100 series on the shelves. As with all technology, new better phones are already here, if you are willing to pay the price. For now, I perfectly happy with my 5190 and see it taking me well into the new millenium. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89869 2000/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 changable colors text messaging sound quality kind of big The Bottom LineThis is an awesome phone. Buy it. Now. Full Review I got the Nokia 5190 phone about 9 monthes ago with VoiceStream in Minnesota. I bought it for a price of $50 with activation, which was a good price, but now it is free with activation. Let me say, I absolutely LOVE this phone. Changable faceplates, text messaging, awesome voice quality.. those are all contributing factors to say why I love this phone so much. I am a big fan of GSM because I think that it is more technologically advanced than TDMA, CDMA, or PCS. Come on.. You must have had some problems... Well, yep, you're right, and I was just getting to that. With my phone, they battery was attached, but while I was talking on it, my finger would somehow lodge it out of place, which is a common problem with this phone I guess, because I also have the 5160, and the 5185i, and my friend also has the 5190. I took it to the VoiceStream store, and they replaced it, no questions asked, no interrogations, no reciepts needed. It was a very nice experience. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89868 2000/4/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent value only weighs 6 ozs not many for the money The Bottom LineI would recommend the Nokia 5190 to anyone who is looking for a lot of bang for the buck Full Review This is my first cell phone so I may be a little behind the times. I did not want to jump on the band wagon and have an object glued to my face while walking down the street or driving on the highway. But, now I see the joys of having a cell phone. My mother has had one for about 5 years so maybe I am way behind the times. Anyway, this phone does so much for what I paid for it. I have a prepaid service . This allowed me to see what my usage would be like so if at some other time I want a monthly contract I can be a wiser shopper in choosing a suitable calling plan. I paid $49.99 for the phone which came along with 250 minutes of talk time. This was a steal for a $149.99 phone. It does so much. It holds 250 names in it's phone book, it has 3 way calling and caller id. I don't even have caller id on my home phone {yes, I am really way behind, folks!!) It has 30 different rings it has an clock, alarm, & even games. I don't know how many other phones come with this fun feature but I would think not many. I worked for a cellular phone company so I have seen some nice ones yet my Nokia 5190 has not made me feel like I was dealing with the bottom of the barrel in cell phones. Love it!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 89867 2000/4/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 everything you need vibrate mode The Bottom LineHas all the features you need and is still FUN! Full Review This is quite an ideal phone considering all of its features. The all important clock is intact along with the missed call log. This is a great feature due to the occasional failure for callers to leave messages. Several ringer tones makes this a fun phoen to have as well. You can never get bored with this phone because you can change its screen icons as well as its several custom ring tones that can be accessed through different web sites. The reception on this phone is great! You can talk in most enclosed places including many buildings. The battery lasts an extremeley long time, making for good talk time and especially long stand-by time. More fun features include games. Yes games on this phone such as worm make boredom just pass you by. Great reception makes for clear talking. This phone also has an extensive phone book and one touch dailing. Dont want to leave voice messages and just want to tell someone exacty what you want them to know? Send them Text Messages on this Nokia. This phone has no vibrate mode, but that does not mean it has no vibrate at all! For a small fee, you can purchase a battery that has vibrate mode enabled. Over all this phone is a perfect little phone for everyday use. It is long lasting and very durable. Recommended: Yes 89866 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable durable i think this has to do with providers signal strength Full Review For such a small phone, I am very surprised at how many features it has. Nokia has everything. It has 35 distinctive rings, plus you can download custom ones from your provider (provided that you have the newer firmware; it makes me sad that mine doesn't)! The calculator it has comes in handy for me several times for shopping. The games are kind of dumb, but then again most cell phones don't have these neato toys. Build quality is another thing that I'm impressed with. I can't even count the number of drops on pavement that my 5190 has survived. After about a year or so (this is how long a phone usually lasts me before I completely destroy it) the only thing that has come apart was a little piece of plastic that broke off under the antenna. If you bang the front too much, it's as simple as replacing the faceplate. What's also good was you can customize it with cool stuff. Some people like light up antennas, but somehow I don't. The battery life of the phone is great. It lasts me about 3 hours of talk and 2 days standby. All of the other phones I've owned had to be recharged at least once per day with light usage. Recommended: Yes 89865 2000/10/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 high quality easy to use clear sound none Full Review I was very sceptical about getting a cellular phone. Cellular service seemed scary and confusing and I was very afraid that it would be expensive and poor quality. Boy was I surprised when I finally broke down and got a phone. Of all the brands only two seemed the most reliable Nokia and Motorola. I was determined to purchase one of them. I spent some time reading up on the phones and discussion service and phone with various salespeople. OK I was a bit paranoid - and I started to realize it after the third salesperson. So, I decided to plunge in and get a depedable middle-of-the-road phone. I didn't want something with too many bells and whistles, nor did I want a bare phone. And so I found the Nokia 5190. Immediately it became a new body appendage. The quality is surreal. I love the feel of the phone in y hand and the clarity of the sound. The features are very easy to use - I did not even have to read the extensive instruction booklet. And, there are so many accessories one can purchase. I Highly recommend this phone!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89864 2000/10/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lighted buttons easy to handle can t think of any Full Review I bought this phone because it was free, not really, but it came free with the service I signed up for with Pac Bell. Before I had a flip phone from Erickson, which I liked also, but only had one line display and was small and difficult to dial. The buttons were very close together and it didn't light up at all, so it was difficult to work at nite, This Nokia 5190 is really nice, easy to handle fits nicely in your hand, very clear reception and has good features, Easy to read screen, the phone book is wonderful, for dialing while you are driving, yea, I know you aren't supposed to talk on the phone while you are driving, but why should I be the only one who isn't. Anyway, I really like this little phone and hopefully will stay with it through update to update. Everyone should buy this unit, it a good, sturdy, trusty little phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 (free with sign up for service) 89863 2000/10/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 i do like the gui interface read my opinion Full Review I bought this phone as a package deal from Radio Shack, more for the service offer than for the phone itself (Sprint PCS month to month with no free long distance and roaming), and boy was that a mistake. In DOWNTOWN San Francisco, the Mecca of wireless technology, I can't get a signal. Maybe Sprint is as much to blame on this as Nokia, but the clarity of the phone is certainly an issue. I am told by ALL I talk to on my phone that my voice cuts in and out, so much so that they cannot understand what I am saying. The problem is that any noise/conversations going on around the phone, however low, pick up better than the voice talking right into the phone! You have to be in a sealed room in order to deliver a consistent conversation to the person you are talking to. Not too bright seeing as though it is a MOBILE phone, which should have the technology to work BETTER with background noise. I know because my girlfriend has the same phone with the same service (we share a bill) and if there is any background noise, I can't understand a word she says. VERY FRUSTRATING. To boot, the battery latch has ceased to work after only 1 year of ownership. As a result, I turn on the phone, start to make a call, and the phone just shuts off...the battery slippage, however slight, just causes the phone to lose the power connection. Ridiculous. No wonder they give these away for free with service...you don't see any decent phones being offered. Next time, I won't go cheap. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 89862 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 universal parts availability compact size price interchangeability of faceplates batteries smsemail compatible wireless provider will determine your happiness The Bottom LineThis is the smallest phone with these features that you can own for next to nothing; best starter phone available. Full Review The Nokia 5190 is the modern equivalent of the black touchtone phone you used to see on office desks everywhere. I work on a college campus where there are 35,000 students half of whom carry this phone. Part of that is savvy marketing by Voicestream and a couple other vendors. I got my first 5190 free with a one-year contract for 60 minutes a month for $19.95 a month. The idea was to use it just for emergencies but I eventually moved up to more minutes. The phone I have now is barely the same one I got two years ago: I have added a couple batteries, including a vibrating one, and bought a handsfree/leather case set and a car attachment from Radio Shack. And most recently, I replaced the entire phone after purchasing a barely-used one on eBay for $31. (All I had to do was move the SIM card from the old phone to the new one, and adjust a few phone settings.) I also purchased the analog module for the phone, but have never really used it; analog service is absurdly expensive and the module adds about a half-inch in thickness to the phone. It's not the most feature-laden phone, nor is it the smallest. BUT for a phone that can send and receive short messages, fits easily in your pocket, and costs nest to nothing, it's great. Recommended: Yes 89861 2000/11/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life plentiful features simple operation could be smaller Full Review I've had my Nokia 5190 for almost two years now. I got it free as a promotion that Nevada Bell Wireless was doing. I believe the promotion is still going on. $20.00 got you a phone and a few accessories if you signed a year's service contract. On the whole, the phone is very good. It's battery life is at least two days with heavy usage and several days with light usage. It stores up to 99 numbers, and has quite a list of features. The phone is compact and durable and the sound quality is good. The price is a very nice feature of the phone as they are a very popular free phone with many providers and the interchangeable faceplates make for a personalized phone that is easy to recognize. On the whole, it's a great phone for students and those who don't want to pay a great deal for convenient and reliable communication. Recommended: Yes 89860 2000/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable long battery life small no new tech features small Full Review This was my first cell phone. I needed a way for my wife to keep in touch with me when I was commuting to work and school. I chose the 5190 because it was small, cheap, and simple to use. It also turned out to be durable and reliable. This phone is the base Nokia standard. You see them everywhere because they are small, easy to use, and many providers started giving them away. After much shopping around I paid $50 for mine, and the next week they started giving them away with extras. I've always had great timing. This phone has over 30 rings and four volume settings. It doesn't have all the games, calendar, planner of the 6190 but they are so difficult to use with the small keypad that who would want them? It is just a good basic function phone. It is like that little kitchen wall phone you've had for 15 years. It works so why buy a new one? The compact size of the phone makes it easy to throw in your pocket and carry anywhere. It also makes it durable. When you drop it, and you will, it just bounces around picks up some scratches but keeps working. The worst that ever happened what that the battery popped off. The battery life with the standard nickel metal hydride battery is great. The lithium ion battery is smaller and lighter for the same battery life but this phone is already small enough. The only problem with this phone is that it is so small it is hard to hold onto for a long conversation if you have big hand. Also, if you are looking for the latest features keep looking. This phone does not support wireless web, e-mail, or voice dialing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89859 2000/2/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 you can change the look options this phone has about 30 different ringing noises you can t always hear the phone ringing to purchase the vibrating battery it s 100 00 The Bottom LineLooking for a cell phone that isn't over $100.00, that is durable, has a great battery, and the option to change its look? Nokia 5190 is best. Full Review Upon purchasing the Nokia phone I was immediately happy with it. It is small and can fit just about anywhere from a small purse to the pocket in your pants. For 60 dollars I got everything I needed in a cell phone. In the 5 months that I have had it I haven't ran many problems with it at all. It is very sturdy, I have dropped it on the ground and it did not even phase it. I also have purchased about 7 different face plates for it so I can change the look of my cell phone whenever I would like. The battery that comes with the Nokia is the best battery around. When I completely charge it over night, the battery can last up to 4 full days. It has plenty of space in it for 100 names and phone numbers to store, plus 30 different ringing tones, an alarm clock, 3 different games, and you can keep track of all of your calls, how long each one was, and whom you have called and has called you. Another feature I like and use everyday is the lock button, you simply have to push two buttons and your phone is locked so when you push any buttons it doesn't do anything. This helps a lot for people who put their phones in their purse or have small children who like to play with phones because numbers can't be dialed therefore you don't have a 40 minute phone call you didn't know about. It doesn't cause a hassle either, if it is locked and the phone rings you can push a button to answer it and as soon as you hang up it goes back to being locked. I get excellent reception with this phone, it is very clear, and rarely has any static. Overall I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a good phone for a good deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 89858 2000/9/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 you can always make it look different ends up costing alot to buy all the different things Full Review Let me start off by telling you that buying a Nokia 5190 is probably the BEST phone you can buy for someone of young age. As a teenager i got a 5190 as my first cell phone and i absolutely loved it. Its a great phone because you can change your face plates and intenas all the time so that no one has one identical to yours. You can always change the looks of your phone according to your style or what you are doing that day and that is why i love this phone. I, myself, have 27 different phone covers that i like to switch around with. I have many different colored ones and some animal print ones and some with cool designs and even one that lights up all different colors and sparkles. A great thing about their face plates is that they have ones that are made as flip phones so you can put on a face plate so that your phone becomes a flip phone and you wouldnt even recognize your phone it looks so different. Another way to make your phone look different is by changing your intena to one that lights up. i have 4 different Intenas. i have one that is bright blue when it lights up, another that is half blue and half red (my favorite), one that lights up blue, red, green orange and yellow and keeps sparkling, and then another that is like a laser pointer but it points out an angel, its really cute =). Another one of my favorite ways to change the look of my phone is to change my battery pack, i have a see through purple battery pack that i rarely use, and then i have one that lights up in the shape of a star and keeps making the design of the star in defferent patterns and it lights up realy bright, its my favorite. So as you can probably see this phone is GREAT for teenagers cuase they can always make it different. The phone isn't hard to use and isn't too high tech for them so its great. However, i do not recommend this phone to people that are into more high tech phones, this phone is just simple and easy to use for new comers to phones and i think it is an absolutely great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): the phone was free with purchase of service 89857 2000/8/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quick dial looks features calling card none Full Review ... But I chose Jewel Green for my 'free' faceplate. I had an Ericsson that was so useless, I only ever used about 20 of the 300 minutes a month I had signed up for. The ariel broke about a year ago and the replacement didn't seem to have the same range, but I put up with it. Then, the only screw on the phone came loose which made awful crackling noises - and guess what? you had to have a special screwdriver to tighten it! FINALLY, Pac Bell sent me an offer thru the post - "Give us your old phone and we'll give you this brand-spanking new one in return!" - Well, it was just what I was waiting for so I went to my local Pac Bell outlet and handed over my phone and voucher. Due to the franchise system, the shop had a better offer which included a headset, case, vibrating battery, car power adapter and faceplate so I went with that option. Of course the 'contract get-out' was more expensive than the normal Pac Bell one but my company is paying the bills so what the heck! This phone is fantastic - I love using the headset with the phone clipped to my belt, the LCD display makes recalling numbers extremely easy, replaceable face plates means you don't have to worry about scratches and it looks and feels wonderful. Calling Cards ------------- This phone has a calling card feature that allows you to use your home or a business phone card to supply long distance service. I call the UK and long distance quite a lot and I only want my cellphone to be charged for the calltime, not the long distance charges. Use of the Caling Card is very innovative - To place a call normally, you type in the number, then press 'call'. To use your calling card on the same number, just press and hold down 'call' a little longer. This functionality can be used with programmed numbers in the same way too. Voice Mail ---------- Voice mail is easy to use, just press and hold down '1'. You can also program all the other number buttons to dial your favourite numbers. This is great, to call home, I just press and hold down '2' - to call my office, '3' etc. Oh, and '9' is the emergency number - I haven't worked out what number that will call - I daren't use it! Other Features, some gripes --------------------------- I've got a spare, vibrating battery but I wish the power cord plugged into it, rather than the phone, then I could charge my spare battery while using the other. Adapters are available but I know I'll never get one. My old Ericsson had an automatic keylock facility that stopped accidental keypresses. This switched on after 3 minutes of no-use. The Nokia has a keylock feature but you have to enable it manually. This is a pity because I'm always knocking the keys when it's worn on my belt. SMS, GSM and all that Jazz -------------------------- I recently found a web site http://www.goSMS.com that allows you to send SMS messages to the phone to alert you to new email or send you stock updates and stuff. To use this service, you have to have signed up for the PacBell 'PCS Email' service which is $4.95 a month but just go to www.goSMS.com - You can test it out (the calls go through fine) but you can't really use the service without signing up with Pac Bell. Note that Pac Bell uses GSM which is the phone system the rest of the world (Europe, Japan) uses. It is the only digital service that allows outgoing messages. If you think you may ever want to use this service, remember only Pac Bell supplies GSM in California. For more information on GSM,SMS CDMA, TDMA etc. - see http://www.gosms.com/gsm.htm Conclusion I'm pretty impressed with my new phone. I suggest that if you're still struggling with an old (2 years old) digital phone, you should probably upgrade now! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89856 2000/4/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features static The Bottom LineReliable and easy to use. Full Review I have never owned a cell phone, and until recently knew absolutely nothing about them. Finally I decided to "give in" and go get one so I went down to the Cingular dealer and got the Nokia 5190. Many things attracted me to this particular phone. It wasn't price because all of the phones at Cingular were 10 dollars with the service plan you picked. My friend had the Nokia 5160 and I had heard all good things about the Nokia so it was definitely the brand I had in mind. The Nokia 5190 is very simple to use, a MUST for me considering it is my first cell phone. It has many features such as: a phone book that stores more numbers than I'll probably ever know, voice mail and text messaging, call forwarding, call waiting, changeable faceplates, games, a calculator, many different rings and tones, and probably some other features that I have yet to use. The battery life on this phone is incredible. I took the phone with me on a trip recently and it lasted for 4 days without a recharge. My mom's old phone would hardly last a few hours. I haven't used it for many long conversations so most of this battery time was just time the phone was on but not being used. The only complaint I have about this phone is the reception. Sometimes it's very clear almost like I'm on a normal phone. However, most of the time no matter how strong the signal I still get a lot of static and it's hard to hear what the other person is saying. I thought that this might be because I live near an air force base and some people say that interferes with their phones and pagers, but I checked out some other epinions on this phone and found many people were having the same problem. Overall the Nokia 5190 is a very reliable phone. It has many great features and is very easy to use. Static is the only problem I have experienced with this phone, and it wasn't enough to substantially lower my opinion of it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10+39.95/mo 89855 2000/4/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 simple easy to use lack of styleclass weight it s not exactly cute frightening unreliability size The Bottom LineYou will regret buying this phone. It's reliability will sicken you. Full Review The Nokia 5190 - one of the lower model phones. Cost to make in $USD: 2.14 Normal retail in $USD: $99.99 (Saw it for $149 from some vendors) A year ago, I paid $9.99 for this phone, with activation through Voicestream. I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread (excuse the cliche)... This lasted for about 2 months, then the reality of the product set in! Worthlessness. All of my friends also used Voicestream, but had better phones. We would all be at the same place, their phones showing 4 bars of service, and mine struggling to even display any network connection. Voicestream has pretty disappointing service coverage in my area, but the phone was the major player in this mahem. Next, came the charging problems. The battery would only stay working (even when idle) for approx. 2 hours. Charging wouldn't even work. Would they replace my battery? NO, I had to buy one for $39.99! Excuse me? I paid $10 for the phone, including battery, charger, and other accessories. These cellular places really capitalize on us poor consumers - and they get away with it, since cellular phones are still fairly a new, uncharted, rapidly changing movement. I was stuck with this paperweight for a year and I just recently got a new Audiovox CDM-135 with service from Verizon Wireless - the phone and the service are much better. I sold the Nokia on eBay for $30 (it was my turn to capitalize) So, I hope you have learned from my experience. Please, do not buy this phone. I would suggest a higher model or a different brand. Anything smaller, stylish, and more efficient. Stay away from the Nokia 5190 by all means. Thank you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 9.99 89854 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fun functional maybe a little thick but still a trim package Full Review I know for a fact that Nokia made this phone just for me. How else can you explain that even I, the techno-phobe, can love it? I got the Nokia 5190 because it's the one that came with my Pacific Bell service, but it's exceeded all expectations of what a cell phone should be. There are so many versatile accessories, from leather cases, to snap-on covers, to flashing antennaes, that you can't help but love it. You can personalize the phone to match your personality, even downloading special "ring tones." (Mine plays the "Friends" theme song!) And if you're bored, don't forget the five games that come standard. (My high score for SNAKE is now 800, top that) But the phone is just as functional as it is fun. It's extremely easy to use, the phone book allows more people than I probably know, and it even has an alarm. (And a calculator for when you want to give the waitress exactly a 15% tip.) Just press the down arrow and you're immediately scrolling through your phone book. Just press the up arrow and you're immediately scrolling through the last eight numbers you dialed. These functions make the phone perfect for use while driving, keeping your attention on the road instead of the phone. And caller ID and voicemail come standard with nearly every service plan, just adding to the list of features that are easy to use with the Nokia 5190. Unfortunately this is the lowest end model of the Nokia series, so it's not possible to use the mobile web with it. But do you really need to be that connected anyway? I don't. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20/promotion 89853 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 features works on low signal gets very hot when on analog Full Review This phone gets so hot when it switches to analog that I cannot even put it to my ear. Right up front, I would not recommend this phone to someone that calls outside the digital zone. I called the phone company and they assured me this was normal. I could not believe that anyone would market a phone that can get as hot as mine has. The longer you talk while in analog, the hotter it gets. This makes for some short conversations. There are many features on this inexpensive phone. I like the way you can tailor the ringing type, volume, and variance (descending, etc). There are a lot of extras you can purchase for this phone including a different color nameplate. I sometimes miss my send button. This phone uses one main button for everything except scrolling. It represents whatever the caption is above on the screen. It took me a while to get used to looking at the screen. You cannot push the "send" button again for a quick redial. This phone has auto redial. I have tried it, but have never gotten an answer that way. It may be that I am too impatient. I quickly bored of the games in this phone, (as well as running my battery down). The reception is not as clear as I would like. That may be due to the area in which I live. We have mountains in East Tennessee. The reception could be worse, but at times I wish for a bigger antenna. If I could do it over without losing money, I would have bought a different phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 89852 2000/9/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cool switchable covers kind of heavy Full Review I bought this phone around Christmas time last year 1999. It is my favorite phone yet. It may not be as small and portable as the tiny flip phones that are also on the market today, but it is very sturdy and durable. Believe me, quite a few times I have (accidentally) dropped my phone, yet it still works just as well as the day I bought it. The reason that I call this the trendy phone is because at my school, everyone who has a phone has the Nokia 5190. Everywhere I go I see these phones. I know why too, the way they make them allows you to switch the phone covers to standard or bright translucent colors, which are sold everywhere. Every time I look there is a new patterned or colored phone cover. At my school it is real trendy to have your phone match you outfit. However, if you are not concerned about the color of your phone, then you will be more interested to hear about the settings and functions of the phone itself. Well, it offers three different languages for your phone, and games, plus your own mailbox for messages. It also has a phonebook, which holds an extensive amount of names and numbers. Plus the usual small details such as you can leave a note or reminder when you turn on the phone, and your able to access ring options and message settings off of the internet Recommended: Yes 89851 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small many fine features available with great plans um none The Bottom Linegreat phone, great plans, go buy one and read my other opinions. Full Review Nokia, the fastest growing name in the cell phone industry. Within the past few years has developed this Nokia 5100 series phone. I own the 5190, which has never let me down. The phone is small enough to fit into any place desired, and very light. Also the nokia 5190 has many features in areas such as a large phone book storage, call logs, call timers, time display, locking features, games, and tons onf songs and tones. The accessories for this phone are amazing. You can buy many face plates, chargers, head phones, cases, clips, vibrating gizmos, and holograms to put in the face. People often complain about the reception of their phone, but one must know that reception is also based on the servies you are with. Some services have larger and more complete networks, and others do not. Be sure that the company that you use has everything you want, and has a large enough area for your comfort. PS. no cell phone will work if you are in a tunnel, or underwater. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 89850 2000/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear sound compact easy to use sim warm up is slow Full Review I've used several cell phones and this is one of the best. It's compact, efficient, and once you get used to the few control buttons easy to use. The sound quality is what really surprised me. It's loud and clear, just like the ads say. Now this may vary depending on the service you have. I use VoiceStream, and so far I'm happy with it. The recharge time is fairly quick and I can use the phone for hours without fear of it running out of juice. When looking around at other services I was interested in the AudioVox 4000 (?), but the service didn't seem to be any good. The one negative I have is that it seems to take a little long for the SIM card to "warm up" before I can search for a phone number. This should be faster than it is. Add to this all of the features of VoiceStream and you have an excellent value. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89849 2000/12/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 practical affordable ease of use easy to customize none Full Review The Nokia 5190 is suitable for work, play, and just about anywhere you go. If you are looking for affordability and practicality, the 5190 should be a perfect fit to your needs. I have been using this phone for a good 6 months now and I am happy to report that it is as easy and handy to use as it was when i purchased it. I was fed up with paying extra money for the newest top of the line cell phone so i settle for the 5190 which came free with my plan. My thinking was that why pay for a top of the line phone which will be given away for free in a few months. The features of the 5190 include: games, phonebook, message center, and a wide variety of ring tones. You can even put personal ring tones and images on the phone by downloading it off the internet. On the topic of looks, the 5190 can be personalized like its ringtone. The faceplates or sold everywhere. Antennas, covers, and buttons are easily available. You can make the 5190 customized to your delight. The key advantage is that after your plan is up, you can always get another "free" phone. The Nokia 5190 in my opinion beats out the new age phones since as technology is getting smaller, so are the buttons on the phones. When driving my car, i wouldn't like to be putting on my spectacles or squinting at the tiny number pads on the newer model phones of today. So for practicality and ease of usage, the 5190 is the way to go. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with plan 89848 2009/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 interchangeable faces to match decor low tones rings Full Review The 5190 is a great phone. Light, compact and fits well in my purse. I like the interchangeable faces. I also like the easy to read LCD screen. It has many options, a phone book, a last number callback and other features. I also like the short and sturdy antenna. One thing that I do not like is that I can't hear the tones/rings while it is in my purse. It needs a volume button on the phone itself. Otherwise it is a great phone. Very sturdy and dependable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139 89847 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool changeable covers kind of heavy Full Review I bought this phone around Christmas time last year 1999. It is my favorite phone yet. It may not be as small and portable as the tiny flip phones that are also on the market today, but it is very sturdy and durable. Believe me, quite a few times I have (accidentally) dropped my phone, yet it still works just as well as the day I bought it. The reason that I call this the trendy phone is because at my school, everyone who has a phone has the Nokia 5190. Everywhere I go I see these phones. I know why too, the way they make them allows you to switch the phone covers to standard or bright translucent colors, which are sold everywhere. Every time I look there is a new patterned or colored phone cover. At my school it is real trendy to have your phone match you outfit. However, if you are not concerned about the color of your phone, then you will be more interested to hear about the settings and functions of the phone itself. Well, it offers three different languages for your phone, and games, plus your own mailbox for messages. It also has a phonebook, which holds an extensive amount of names and numbers. Plus the usual small details such as you can leave a note or reminder when you turn on the phone, and your able to access ring options and message settings off of the internet. Recommended: Yes 89846 2000/1/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great tone loses battery power rather fast Full Review The Nokia 5190 model is such a wonderful cell phone. It is easy to use, has many different features and the reception and tone of the phone is great. It is extremely light and compact, which allows you to fit it almost anywhere at your convenience. Features, such as, ringing options, tones, volume, etc. are all set manually to your preference, so you won't ever be forced to stick with one particular setting option. At a touch of a button you can call a friend who has been programmed into your own personal phone book. The key pad is very loud and as you dial the number dialed appears on the screen of your phone, so if in a rush you can double check to see if you have not typed in the wrong number by mistake. I recommend this phone to everyone, it definitely speaks for itself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 89845 2000/2/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 free with 1 year contract with cingular wireless does not support 3 way calling with cingular The Bottom LineIt has great features, it is a freebie with some plans, very much worth it. Full Review I started using Cell phones for work & emergencys and since my useage was very minimal I got the free Nokia 252C with Tracfone. Recently with my new job however an upgrade from old analong networks was required thus a move up to the Nokia 5190 with Cingular Wireless. The Good Stuff This phone supports SMS & GSM, so you can utilize online services for a number of alerts, news, or data transfer. The 5190 is capable despite what some websites say, of reciving a single ringtone and Operator Logos. Very nice for giving your phone that "Personalized Look" Text Messaging is also a good plus, may not be an option on some services but if your luck enough to get access to it, kiss your old fashioned numeric pager good-bye! The phone is also Caller-ID capable, see the number of who is calling you, and decide, pickup? or press C to send them to voice mail? ;-) Overall I am really enjoying this phone. I was a tad upset to learn 3 way calling is not a feature on this phone :( but for everything else it works just fine! Give the Nokia 5190 a run for your money, it will do you good! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89844 2000/10/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large variety of face plates easy to use 2 1 lots of tones 3 sometimes poor reception 2 1 many newer nokia phones available Full Review The Nokia 5190 is a great phone for people who are uneasy with the use of electronics in general. It is very user friendly. My boyfriend bought this phone for me (along with a great service from Pac. Bell) so we can keep in touch when we cannot see each other. We have unlimited talk time with our service's free unlimited mobile-to-mobile deal, so I have put a lot of use into this phone. Also, I should mention that the phone was included with the service, so I did not have to pay extra for it. He uses his phone in the work place, as well as most of his coworkers. I leave my phone on all day (hoping the love of my life will call)and I have to charge it up about every 3 days. When HE does call, we talk on the phone for about an hour for 4 days of the week when we do not get to see each other. The reception is good, depending on your location. For instance, I get good reception where I live, but my boyfriend does not.If my boyfriend does call me and I do not answer or my phone is off, he can leave me a message on voice mail. When I turn my phone off, it makes a sound and an icon appears in the upper-left corner of the phone. All I have to do to check it, is hold down the #1 button! The phone has some really user friendly features. The menu button pretty much does it all. It allows you to access your phone book, messages, call log settings, forwarding, games, calculator, clock and tones. Each option has a submenu of options as well which the arrow buttons allow you to select. For instance, if you select phone book, you can choose to search, add entry, edit, etc. The phone also has a handy (and very often used) clear button. This button takes you back to a previous screen or deletes some or all characters from an entry. As if that was not reason enough to go out and buy a Nokia 5190, on a more fun side, there are a lot of tones to choose from! Try 35 different tones!! Almost all of them are long tones too. You can choose the Mexican Hat Dance, Ode to Joy, Elise, Mozart 40, William Tell (Lone Ranger), and many more! One of my favorite things about the Nokia 5190 is the wide selection of face plates (check out ebay.com). There are all kinds of colors and designs and they are easy to change. Overall, the Nokia 5190 has been a great experience for me and I highly recommend it for first time users of mobile phones. Recommended: Yes 89843 2000/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap in price reliable kinda bulky Full Review I have the Nokia 5190, through Aerial Communications in Houston Texas. The service isnt that great all the time but the phone kicks ass. I havent bought a extended battery or anything and it seems like my phone never dies. the buttons are easy to find, and the menu is a piece of cake All of my friends like it cause they can play the games on it when there is nothing else to do. I really want a 7110 but that one isnt out yet. This phone is a great value, it has a bunch of rings, and aolt of other options that are cool to. I like being able to go and see all the las t calls and received calls and missed ones ad all that good stuff. This phone can do that with a touch of a button. PLus the phone bok is great, although it could be a bit larger. Good phone for the money. Go get it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89842 2000/1/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool gadgets good reliability picks up your surroundings more than other phones Full Review Are you looking for a new cell phone? The Nokia 5190 is a good investment. I have had my Nokia 5190 for about 3 months and it is great. It features: 1) a phone book to store frequently called names 2) a built answering machine for voice messages, PCS e-mail messages, and pages 3) a call log that stores the last eight numbers dialed, the last five calls received, and the last five missed calls Why purchase a Nokia over an Ericsson? Reason #1: After talking long hours on your Ericsson cell phone, the phone burns up and cooks your ear. Ericsson phones are known to overheat because their battery is closer to the ear piece than a Nokia's. Reason #2: Gadgets, Gadgets, and Gadgets! Nokia has accessories that are exclusive to its phones. For example, the easily removable face plate and the light up antenna. The Ericsson has a removable face, but by doing so you lose the manufacturer's warranty when you take out the original face with the warranty sticker on it. Also, it is much more of a hassle to change face plates on an Ericsson than on a Nokia. If you are wondering "I am not going to need to change my original Nokia face plate", you are wrong. After using it for about a month, you will want a new look. Besides, face plates for Nokia are so cool to look at that you wouldn't want the original black one. The light up antenna is another cool gadget that has bursts of neon colored light(s) that shoot to the top when the phone rings. Personally I think that is the best. Mine is red and blue and it looks so tight. Reason #3: I'm sure there are other advantages of having a Nokia over an Ericsson but these are the ones that come to mind. The Nokia 5190 weighs under 6 oz. and has up to 5 hours of talk time and up to 9 days of standby with the standard battery. There are also vibrating batteries available so people will not hear the ring. I am pretty sure you will enjoy owning a Nokia 5190. By the way, the latest model out is the 6190. Recommended: Yes 89841 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 everything about it no vibrate option for calls Full Review The Nokia 5190 is a great phone. There are many features that will help your everyday life. At below $100, it's a great value if you can get the right service for the phone. On the outside, you can very easily make the phone even more personalized by changing the color of the faceplate on it. Extremely good idea for anyone who wants to be noticed. For the features of the phone, in the menu, it includes: Phone Book, Messages, Call Log, Settings, Forwarding, Games, Calculator, Clock, and Tones. Each of these menu items opens into a new category, and you can change things in each menu. Here's an outline of all the menus: Phone Book -Search -Add Entry -Edit -Erase -Send Entry -Options -Scrolling view -Memory Status -1-touch dialing Messages -Text Messages -Inbox -Outbox -Write Messages -Message Settings -Set 1 -Set 2 -Set 3 -Set 4 -Common -Voice Mailbox Number -News & Info Service -Service Command Editor Call Log -Missed Calls -Received Calls -Dialed Calls -Clear Call Lists -Call Timers -Last Call Duration -Digital Calls Duration -Clear Digital Call Timers -Show Call Costs -Last Call Cost -All Calls Cost -Clear Counters -Call Cost Settings -Call Cost Limit -Show Costs in: Settings -Call Settings -Automatic Redial -Call Waiting -Send Own Number -Line in use: -Calling Card -Security Settings -SIM Card Security -Phone Security -Fixed Dialing -Access Codes -Phone Settings -Language -List of Own Numbers -Touch Tone Length -Welcome Note -System Selection -Emergency key 9 Forwarding -Forward All Voice Calls -Forward when not Able to take calls -Cancel all call forwarding Games -Memory -New Game -Top Score -Instructions -Level -Snake -Logic Calculator Clock -Alarm Clock -Clock Settings Tones -Ringing Options -Beep Once -Silent -Ring -Ascending -Ring Once -Ringing Tone -(35 Distinct Rings) -Ringing volume -Message Alert Tone -Keypad Tones -Warning and game tones As you can see, this phone has incredible options and is a great buy, i definately recommend it over any other nokia phone, b/c the 6100 series' display does deteriorate and fades after a while, the 5190 is the best Sean MoHNeY Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): < $100 89840 2000/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nothing Full Review Let me first start of by telling you that the Nokia 5190 is a great phone for people to have. With all the competition out there this phone seems to be at a responable cost and offers great deals.The pplan that I have right now is 59.95 for 1100 minutes. It seems that no matter where i go the reception is perfect. You may talk to your friends and they may tell you that their phones have dead spots but with this phone you do not have to worry about it. I live in San Diego but yes, I do travel so i know that the phone works all over the U.S. The good thing about this phone is that it s light weight and very easy to use. It has most of the features that others do have. I like the phone because it offers free 411 for you so when you are in a jam they also can assist you with help. The 411 is more than a telephone directory but whatever you want. It makes restaurant reservations for you and gives you movie listings if you want. The phone is incredible and i would recommend it to anyone. Try out the 5190,, i know you will be satisfied with your service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.95 89839 2000/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 microphone battery features display looks navi key can be confusing when attempting to use in call features Full Review About 2 years ago, I signed up with Pacific Bell Wireless and started my plan with the Nokia 2190 Telephone. It served me well for a year, however it had a short battery span, was pretty big and heavy, and basically became outdated. 2 months ago, I went into a PacificBell Wireless store and upgraded my phone from the 2190 to the 5190. It was a very simple procedure. They simply removed the smart-chip from my old phone into my new one and I was ready to go. All my stored phone numbers, my tel number, as well as my service plan were automatically switched over to my new phone. Right from the start, I was pleased with the phone. It looks nice, is comfortable to hold, and has an absolutely incredible battery. It lasts about a week having the phone turned on about 8 hours a day, talking about 1-2 hours during those weeks. The phone has also proven to be quite durable. During one particular day, I dropped the phone on concrete twice from a height of about 4 feet (the phone fell 4 feet) and only got minorly scratched. It's functionality was not hindered at all. It has a long list of features, including 5 or 6 games to fill idle time. The phone also has the ability to change the color of its face by popping of the front cover and snapping on a different color, however that is a feature that I have not looked into since I think the standard color is the best looking. My single complaint with this phone is the "navi-key" that Nokia built into this phone. This key basically controls everything about the phone, so it is over used. It alternates between options and end during a call, so it is easy to mistakenly hang up on someone when trying to use in-call options. Overall, this is a very good cell phone. It has a clear, easy to read display, good sound quality from the earpiece, a sensitive microphone, and has very good range (is able to maintain a conversation even with a low signal level). On a scale of 1-10 (10 being best) I rate this phone: 9 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 89838 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it s great for emergencytraveling purposes it s cute lookingthe reception is clear most of the time drop callsit only works in certain areas it s not both digitalanalog Full Review Hi All, I just wanted to give you all my opinion of the Nokia 5190 phone. I have this phone for about a year now. At first I bought it mainly for emergency purposes but now I use it all the time. I have the $24.95/month plan which includes 300 minutes. I found it very convenience to have a cell phone because you can make a phone call every here and there as needed. I think it's such a hassle to have to stop by a pay phone to make a quick or an emergency phone call. As a female it's very dangerous if your car break down in the freeway especially during the night time. It's very scary because you don't know who's going to stop by to try and help you. I mean you can get yourself hurt, rob, rape or etc. Anyhow, I really like the phone because it's a good size, cute looking and you can dress it up or down with the different face color. I own four different face color and really like them. Most of the time the reception is very clear. The great benefit of it is that the battery last 3 days. The battery can hold the talk time up to 3 hours. However, there are a few things I don't like about the phone. The thing that most bother me is that sometime I get drop call. I get cut off sometime during a conversation or trying to call someone. I happens to me quite a few time. Another thing is that the phone is pure digital therefore it will not work in an analog area (e.i. in the mountain, near the government base, area with a lot of wires and etc.). Other than that...I really like the phone. I strongly recommend this phone to all my friends and family and those who needs a phone for a little traveling and emergency purposes. That's all for now folks...thanks for reading my opinion. Wild Orchid Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 89837 2000/1/19 Battery Life1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 great options battery problems phone malfunction Full Review As a young guy that is constantly on the go, I decided to purchase a cell phone a year ago. I was offered a great deal on a Nokia 5190 with Pacific Bell Wireless. At first the cell phone seemed to solve my problem. But after a few weeks, the problems started. The main problem that I have with the 5190 is the battery. When you buy the phone, they give you that sales pitch that the battery will last for about a week. I can not make my battery last even one day. I guess that would be normal if I was using the phone a lot, but I only make a few short calls a day. My second problem is that the phone will shut off in the middle of a conversation. Now this is not a service issue. The service is still there, but the phone will actually shut off while I am talking to someone. I can immediately turn the phone back on and call the person back, but it causes great irritation when I have to apologize to someone that thinks that I hung up on them. Pacific Bell tells me that I have to bring my problem to the phones manufacturer, but Nokia will not respond to my issue. Granted, there are several good options that the phone offers. I love the ringing options, caller ID, the fact that I can also use it as an alarm clock. So in my opinion, if you are considering purchasing this phone, please bring up your issues with the distributor. Make sure that you do not get stuck with the same problems that I have. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 89836 2009/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 technically a free phone monthly charges add up Full Review Ok, you judge if this is a deal or not. I just got the Nokia 5190 Digital PCS Phone. Supposedly it normally costs $199 for the phone but you get it free if you sign a year-long contract. If I happen to break this term, I will be charged $150 as an early termination fee. So I am committed to this phone for at least a year. We will see how it goes... The phone is "free" except for the sales tax which calculates out to be $16.42. Hmmm...I am not sure how that is considered free. But, wither way, it is pretty cheap...so far. After they run a credit check and take this money from you, you've got a phone you can use after 12 hours of charging. I chose a plan where I get 90 weekday minutes free per month and 1000 weekend minutes free per month. I only pay a monthly service charge of about $30. Any long distance calls outside of the free minutes are $0.15 a minute and local calls or somehow more. I am hoping to only use the free minutes and very few or no additional minutes. I guess I will have to hang up on some people midsentence. Anyway, what the clerk failed to tell me was that there is also an activation fee of $20. So I am thinking that the phone really costs $16.42 + $20. This equals $36.42. I don't know much about phones, but I have a feeling that this isn't much of a deal. We won't even consider how much it costs to actually manufacture a miniature phone, but it seems as though I ended up paying for the phone as well as the service charges. Did I actually get the phone for free? or is it all a hoax to make us feel as though we saved money? Kind of like "Buy one for $5 or two for only $10." You decide. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 16.42+$20 activ 89835 2000/8/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 removable face plate lots of features holds charge for a long time constant signal drops turns off by itself The Bottom LineIt's a great phone, except it can't draw a good signal, and it turns off for no reason. Those are pretty big flaws, though... Full Review I thought a long time about buying a cell phone. When I finally bought one, I initially got it simply for convenience. It was a nice thing to have. A couple months later, I took a job in sales, and suddenly this "convenience" item became a necessary work tool. I got the Nokia phone for free as part of a promotional deal from Verizon. I had a choice between this phone or an Audiovox, which looked pretty junky. I liked the sleek design of the Nokia, plus my dad has had several, and has always liked them. The 5190 has a lot of cool features. It can store a ton of phone numbers, it has many different ring tones, it contains games for when you're bored at the office, and has a detachable face plate. Replacing the face plate is a great way to keep the phone feeling "fresh". The phone worked fine for the first several months I had it. But about the time I started in sales, it developed a strange condition where it would simply, for no apparent reason, turn off. It would usually do this while being handled, and I think the problem has to do something with the battery connections. The weird thing was, about that same time, the phone started losing the ability to get a good signal. My desk at my office is right by a window, and over time, I went from getting great reception there, to none. I called Verizon, and they had me "reset" the phone, whatever that means. They did something on their end, and I entered a complex series of digits into the phone to "reset" it. Once reset, the phone once again worked perfectly. Sure enough though, it recently has began to shut off by itself, and is not getting good signals. I've got no clue what is causing this problem, and Verizon has really been no help. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not buying insurance for the phone when I got it, so I would have to pay to have it replaced. So, I suffer with what I have. A friend of mine has a phone identical to mine, and uses Cingular as his provider. He's had no problems with his phone...he loves it. He also had to buy his. As for me...I'm not really happy with mine. It gets the job done, but I have the fear on every phone call that the phone is going to turn off, and thereby disconnect me from who I'm talking to. And that, my friends, is very annoying. This phone has many cool features, but there are many others that have similar features, that may not chronically turn off. I can't recommend this phone. Recommended: No 89834 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 convenience affordable reception problems Full Review After years of carrying around coins to use the pay phones when I had to call home, I finally got a cell phone. My mom knew the guy who ran the Nokia booth near her workplace, so I sat and talked with him. I grilled him for 30 minutes about possible hidden costs and things like that. But he assured me that all I paid was for minutes. The phone and activation was free. Since I am never home, I bought the 500 anytime minutes, 500 free weekend minutes plan. My mom insisted I'd never use that much, but I wanted to be safe. If I got the lower plan and went over, I had to pay 25 cents a minute. From the moment I got the phone in my hand, I was like a little kid. I played with all the buttons and listened to the selection of ring tones. There was an instruction book included, but I never even opened it. The phone was really easy to use and there really isn't anything you can do to mess up. And if you do, there is a customer service line that you can call. Yes, I had to call the line twice. I was just playing with my phone when I came to the security settings. I thought I knew what my password was, but I was wrong. Enter the wrong number 3 times and you phone will shut down. The only way it can be unlocked is to get the number from the customer service representative. I can tell you that the people are incredibly nice. Both times they helped me and answered all my questions. I know deep down they were thinking I was a big dork. I've now had my phone for almost a year and it's gone through a lot of changes. First, my faceplate is no longer the regulation black one that comes with the phone. I bought a metallic blue one. And I bought blue keypads to match. I also changed my antenna to a light up antenna. It's really cool to see it light up when the phone rings. It does drain the battery though. I love having the convenience of a cell phone. And with the free voice mail that comes with the phone, it acts as a message service when my phone is off. I like that part. Retrieving voice mails is easy too. And you can personalize your greeting on your phone. Just be aware though that you do get charged to retrieve your messages from your phone. Okay, now a little of the negatives. The battery drains really fast. I recharge my battery at least once a week. Sometimes every 3 days if I use my phone a lot. It does get to be a pain because you can't really be using your phone while it gets charged. The charger does come with the phone, but it's the 6 hour one. You can purchase the 45 minute charger for around $25-50. Another alternative is to buy an additional battery and switch them around. Another thing is that the phone does not catch reception everywhere. I like to shop...a lot. And one place I find there to be no reception is deep in the mall or in the stores. If you are near the door of the mall, you might have a little. Reception is a funny thing. You can be talking on your phone and then it'll cut off and say no reception. I've had that happen to me a few times. Paying a little extra for a cell phone is worth it. And now I definitely don't have an excuse for not keeping in touch with people. I love my cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 per month 89833 2000/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many good features customizable appearance a little bit small Full Review I love my Nokia 5190. Let me repeat: I love it. I got this phone as part of my signup package with PacBell Wireless about a year ago, and have found it to be reliable, sturdy, and highly functional. With four mobile phones in the family, the special ringtones are a strong feature, so that we know whether it's your phone, my phone, or his phone that is ringing. Another feature that I like is the switchable faceplates. It comes default with a black faceplate, but I purchased a mock redwood burl faceplate with a sliding key cover to protect the keypad. I plan to pick up a few more faceplates so that I can change them with my moods. I don't use the games feature, although they are kind of cute. However, the calculator gets frequent use, as does the alarm clock. The size of the phone is, in my opinion, just a bit too small. I would love a mobile that I could stick between my shoulder and my ear, but I suppose that then it wouldn't be very mobile. I've dropped this phone several times and it has sustained no damage, even the faceplate seems to be resistant to scratching and cracking. I get about 2.5 hours of talktime per charge, and have found that the car charger is a good extra to purchase, because it charges the phone more quickly than the wall charger that comes standard with the phone. (About half an hour versus several hours) All in all a very good phone. Recommended: Yes 89832 2000/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight banner changing Full Review When I first decided to purchase a cell phone, I looked at several different service providers. The only catch was that whatever one I went with, I wanted a Nokia phone. I had heard from others that they were reliable, easy to use, and easy on the eye so I wanted one for myself. So I signed up with Voicestream Wireless and brought home the 5190 model, a headset, and a charger for it. I charged it to it's fullest potential and started using it from the beginning. This phone is very easy to use! It comes with an cute little menu button and icons throughout the menu to help you with your selections. If you already know what menus you want you can use the number keys to jump ahead. It has a large phone book which can be set up in 3 different views with one-touch dialing if you want. It also has many different ring tones and if you use Voicestream you can download all kinds of ring tones to personalize it. In addition there is an alarm clock and calculator. My favorite feature is that it has all kinds of games if you are bored. Besides these there are all the basic features: call forwarding, settings, call log, and voicemail/pager. What I love about this product even more than the ring tones is the personalized face plates. You can get colors from all over rainbow and are extremely easy to change. Mine are changed daily and you can even get colored number buttons. The only thing that I do not like about this phone is the display banner. Unlike other phones you do not have the option to change this so the name of your service provider is in that space. Recommended: Yes 89831 2000/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pin feature small size phenomenal standby time costs more than some would want to spend Full Review I actually received this phone because VoiceStream was out of the Mitsubishi phone that you can order through their web promotion. It was a pleasant surprise to receive the upgrade! This phone has phenomenal standby time. After 3 complete cycles on the battery, it lasts almost 10 days in between charges. Although I'm not a heavy user, I imagine that standby time far out performs the competition even for those with high talk time usage. The PIN feature is great, and phone calls can be answered even when the phone is locked. There are so many features on this phone that I'm sure I haven't discovered how to use half of them yet, but the basic functions are easy to use. This phone is also tiny enough to fit in just about any pocket. The reception is great, with others often mistaking me for calling from home. I have no complaints about this phone, whatsoever. Yes, you can buy cheaper phones, but like anything, you get what you pay for. I'm thankful that VoiceStream was out of the Mitsubishi phone! Recommended: Yes 89830 2000/1/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 simple menu structure tactile keypad excellent ease of use a few games a dozen rings so it only has 100 numbers okay Full Review The Nokia 5/6 series is a best buy. I have owned both and wanted to recommend you buy the 5100 series by far for ease of use. I won't go into a lengthy review here on the other merits of these products versus the competition as it has been done elsewhere; but the point is that most plans will give you the 5100 cheaper than the 6100 and you should take it! The 'advertised' difference is that the 6100 has more buttons and more memory (if you really need 200 rather than 100 numbers stored). Otherwise, the 5100 has better human factors by far. For the over 40 crowd and those who just like it simple and readable, the 5100's bigger, translucent white keys with black lettering are far better in daylite and at nite with backlighting than the sleek 6100 mini keys that are black with translucent 'white' lettering fit only for the visually exceptional (i.e., twenty-something). The 6100 keys are also smaller, more numerous and more subdued on the 6100 so you can be challenged to touch your way around the keyboard in the dark or while driving; and you will 'fat-finger' the wrong key more often. The 5100 has simpler, larger and hard-edged keys that you can find with your thumb easily while avoiding to hit that idiot in front of you on the highway (I am willing to bet that 6100 users have more day&nighttime rear enders than 5100 users). As to the menu system, again the 5100 is trivial to learn while the 6100 will keep you guessing until you're a months-old user. The 5100 uses one simple softkey in the middle under the screen with a dash on it for virtually all actions. They change according to the most likely need you have at each point in a call or the menu structure. For example, after you enter a number you press it to send and while on call you press it to end. How else would you want it? The 6100 has two softkeys just to keep you guessing, and there are separate send and end keys just to add to the clutter. If you press the 5100 softkey without a number in place it drops into the menu system (again, where else would you want to go) and becomes the select button (again it is the contextually correct action key as above). To the right, you have the up and down keys for scanning the options at each menu level. These give the phone keypad an asymmetry so you always know which side is which. On the left, you have the clear/end key that you use to exit up the menu. The menu structure on the 5100 is also simple (because you are supposedly getting less, which is of course more when it comes to menu complexities). Most actions are effected with fewer keystrokes on the 5100 than the 6100, in fact, possibly all. I challenge anyone to figure out how to set the ringing tone/song on the 6100 faster than an naive user can do it on the 5100 with little experience. I still can't find it sometimes on the 6100s at the office. It was self evident on the 5100. Meanwhile, the sexy 6100 is symmetric, has two separate softkeys to keep guessing, and you need to wear your bifocals to see the key numbers (and worse yet, letters!). You do get an extra game or two, if that's what you're life has boiled down to. And you get more ringing tones, as if 36 were really needed over a dozen or so. Maybe you'll pick up an extra date for having the sleek 6100 unit but I doubt anyone really cares but whether you can press the right buttons to talk to them, in which case you better have the 5100. Basically, I think the guy who engineered the 5100 interface should get an award for an exceptional HF design, while I assume some flashy marketing guy 'designed' the 6100 I/F to appeal to those who like to look good and brag about the 200 numbers they don't know on their cell phone. (By the way, I am both a HF grad and marketing manager so I know the difference.) Sorry if I offended any die-hard 6100 fans but likely they didn't try the cheaper 5100 first, that's all. Nokia's a great product in other dimensions regardless of these model distinctions so you can win either way. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89 versus $149 89829 2000/11/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable reliable fairly cheap easy to use none that i know of Full Review I have had my Nokia 5190 for about a year and a half now. I have found it to be extremely reliable and durable. The majority of problems I've had relate to the service and not the phone. Or are because my phone has been dropped more times than I care to admit. The phone is easy to use, to the point where most idiots could use the phone without reading the instruction manual. It has the capability for sending and receiving short e-mails which is very nice. The games are fun, especially for me as a college student being trapped in boring classes. I use the alarm clock every day, because it is so easy to set. And the alarm is really great when you travel, since you always have your phone on you. And if you ever need to balance your checkbook, it has the calculator too!! The size of the phone makes it so easy to carry around. I can just put it in my purse or pocket and go. And I love the ability to change the look of the phone so easily. I have kept the black faceplate, but got metallic shimmery keys for my phone, which makes it look unique for cheaper than faceplates cost. One thing which I don't like is that it does not have a vibrating ringer built in, but just through an expensive battery. I do have problems with the battery slipping, but its due to being dropped. My service is through Voicestream (previously Aerial), so my phone has a SIM card, and occasionally I will have problems where it will take time for the phone to recognize the SIM card, but its not that serious of a problem. I think many of the problems with clarity and coverage many people have expressed are due to their phone service, and not the phone. My coverage and clarity have been great, with limited problems due to my cellular provider. In general, its just a great phone. I never cease to be amazed by how much I've beat up this phone, yet it still works perfectly Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): received as gift 89828 2000/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small reliableyou can change colors to fit any mood i dont have a con Full Review Last summer I found the need for a cell phone. Actually the deal I happen to fall up on made up my mind. If I made a donation to the Red Cross of $20.00 Pacific Bell would give me a Nokia 5190 free minus taxes which came out to $15.00 also in the package was a gift certificate for a local grocery store for $25.00 . So I got the phone and $10.00 free. How ever I did have to sign up for a years service from Pacific Bell $29.00 per month. Im not impressed with the service but and totally happy with the cell phone. First and foremost it is small and fits just about everywhere (even in this cowgirls tight jeans pocket). The phone has some great features: Call waiting Call hold Redial last call dialed call Redial last received call Speed dial Clock and alarm features 10 or more different ring tones Text message as well as voice mail Vibrate instead of ringing tones (need to purchase different battery) Phone book Call forwarding Has 12 or more different colored casings And it even has games. I leave my phone on 24 hours as it is the only phone in the house you can get through on, we have three computers in the house and all using a phone line. As I said, it's on 24 hours and the battery life is incredible. In my line of work I sell tons of batteries for radios and cell phones and I think that the Nokia battery is better than most. I get 5-7 calls a day and make about 3-5 calls. The quality of sound is one of the best I have heard in this price range.I would recommend Nokia 5190 to anyone who need a cell phone. They are always having specials like the one I got so look for them before a purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Nothing got a deal 89827 2009/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use lot s of colors can t think of any Full Review I don't consider myself to be a trendy person. But I must be honest; I began noticing lots of people carrying around little cell phones in lots of bright colors. Forget the boring business black; green, red, yellow, blue...they were all over the place, so when the time came for a new phone I knew what I wanted. I chose the Nokia 5190. Since I got one of those deals where you make a donation to the Red Cross for example, your phone is "free" I don't really know what the actual cost of the phone would be, so let me just move on to the phone's features. The 5190 is 100% digital for clear calls and security.The phone is small and lightweight. The screen is fairly large and the words and or numbers are easy to read. One of the best features is the Navi key. This is the main key located directly below the screen. By pressing this key you are guided through many of the phones features. Pressed once and you are taken to your personal phonebook. Pressed again and you are taken to a sub screen with several options: Search, Add Entry or Edit. Two arrow keys located to the right of the Navi key let you cycle through the sub screens. I found that after reading the owner's manual once I could easily locate and edit any feature the phone had to offer just by using the Navi key. This phone also uses a "Smart Chip" so in a few years if I decide on a new phone, all I have to do is pop open the back take my chip out and snap it into the new phone, and all of my personal information (like my phonebook) is right there in the new phone. Talk time is listed as 3-5 hours (in digital) and standby time 60-225 with the standard battery. When the battery is low the display shows "Battery Low" and mine makes a quiet chirp every half hour or so. Recharging is a snap; one end plugs into the bottom of the phone by the mouthpiece, the other plugs into a standard 120V AC outlet. A charge indicator scrolls on the screen during charging. I don't know the exact amount of time it takes to recharge the phone; I'll plug mine in in the evening and forget about it, but my guess would be 2-4 hours. Some of the fun features include 35 different ringing tones, built in answering machine, and let's not forget the colored covers. The original primary colors are plenty as far as I'm concerned, but now they have a zillion (or so it seems) colors and designs. I have no regrets with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.00 with service plan 89826 2000/6/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sms good basic phone gsm bigger than today s phones weight The Bottom LineOverally, (is that a word) it will work if you are new to mobil phones, and for teens/young-adults. Full Review This was the unfortunate phone that was dropped by silly old (well not really, but...) me and I broke the LCD screen. It served it's purpose for a very long time (3 years...long time in cell phone indust.) It worked for all the things I needed. What's great about this phone: near everything (save weight and size issues, but it's an older phone...come on) Customizeability: -Faceplates -Antennae (not recommended, but cool factor of 15/10) -Keypads -LED Backlighting -Ringtones -Operator Logos All of the above mentioned things can be changed on the phone. This makes the phone VERY VERY uniquely you. With 35 built in ringtones and one downloadable one (check to see if your operator supports it) you will most likely not be confused who's cell is ringing (unlike some of the other older phones). Also, you can make your phone to look like most any awesome idea you can think of (i.e. Red and Orange backlighting, with a "chameleon" color changing face plate with metallic keys, a cool techno ringtone, your favorite Oakey OpLogo on Startup and a hanging blinking antenna...you could also go for a Britney Spears motif (that is if you like it...her...hehe j/k)) Quality: -Build -Voice Umm...i don't know I've dropped the phone several times and it stood up until the last time. So I'd say that this phone's build quality "represents." (rolls eyes, I can't believe I just said that...) The voice quality is very good (even with 0-1 bars of service (although don't use this as a measure of signal strength/clarity)) that's mostly due to GSM (5190 is a GSM phone)...however if you are in a fringe area don't think that your are going to sound like you are on a landline. Games: -Snake -Memory -Logic The first majorly-bought cell phone in the US to have *the* game (Snake). It has Snake, Memory, and Logic. All of the games are useful when you have nothing to do or you are waiting for (someone, something, the doctor, the dentist, the train, etc.) However don't expect it to be like your playing on a NES...i mean it's just a mobil phone. Snake is just like it says...you have to lead a snake to get "apples" (crosses on the screen) and get the snake's tail to grow longer. Memory is like the classic bored-as-hell game you played with your 'rents on vacations. And Logic is a game where you have to figure out the sequence a certain row of icons comes in (kind of like Miser). Other "Stuff" -SMS (Texts) -Address Book SMS is the most useful thing on the GSM system (my view-only). It however is quite tough on this phone...there is no predictive text for the older versions, newer ones however have T9 Tegix Predictive Text. This makes the phone much easier to type in short messages (the S, and the M of SMS) to people on the GSM system (around the nation and around the world, too!). The Address book is up to 250 entries (Name and Number), but is dependent on the size of the SIM (SmartCard) you get from your Service Provider. (The cards range from 8-32kb in size). However this is probably more than you'll need unless you are a business person...then I'd be asking why do you have a 5190...go for the 8290 or 6190. :-) Other things -Battery The battery life on this thing is amazing (or so I thought 'til the new phones came out)...however the phone will work for a good 3-5 days on standby with light to moderate usage (maybe 20 minutes a week) with the battery provided. If, however, you'd like a vibration feature, you'll have to buy a battery with the vibrating motor built in. Also, if you use the mobil phone as the main way of voice communication (ie as your only phone) you'll need a bigger battery. If you'd like to not have to recharge that often then go out and buy a longer-lasting battery (the higher the mAh, the longer the phone *should* last per charge). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100-3 yr ago 89825 2000/5/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compatibility features size price durability customizable coverage area signal reception The Bottom LineI strongly recommend this phone because it gives you all the features at a very low price. Full Review Over the past few years, I have gone through seven different kinds of phones and the best I have ever owned was a Nokia 5190. I loved this phone so much that I bought two of them. The first one I paid about $75CDN($50US)and came with a SIM card(smart card), phone, battery, charger, welcome code, and a free faceplate & headset. The phone has many features like an alarm clock, clock, games, calculator, phonebook, ringing tones, and call log. This phone has been around for years and can still compete with other phones in the market. Out of all the seven phones I had, the nokia 5190 is by far the most durable pone ever. God knows how many times I have dropped this phone on the ground and two years later it still works. Another advantage to this phone is that it is 100% customizable. You can change the faceplate to the phone or even the leds inside. Some other things you can change is the antenna, battery, keypad, ringtone, icons, backlight colour(led), backplate, and little gadgets inside the phone. This makes the nokia 5190 the most unique phone the entire market. As for the voice quality for this phone, it is very clear and very loud when you have good signals. The only problem is when you only get one bar of signal or when the signal is weak, the voice can get a little fuzzy. The phone itself is digital only but the analog module can be purchased. The battery that comes with the phone is absolutely exceptional. Just on stand-by mode the phone can last up to 5 days with out re-charging it. Overall the Nokia 5190 is the best buy and beats any other phone in the market. If you buy this phone, it will last you a life-time and I mean it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89824 2000/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact lightweight many features sometimes has trouble picking up a signal where there is a lot of interferance Full Review I just upgraded my cell phone from an older Nokia to a Nokia 5190. I really really like this phone. It's very compact so it fit's almost anywhere but it's also a really great phone quality-wise. I paid very little for this phone because I signed up for the annual contract but the Nokia 5190 retails for about $200. I had a cell phone that I used for work before my son was born and I decided to upgrade to a higher plan and a better phone after he was born just for the safety factor. I would hate to think of me and him walking down the very busy San Diego freeways at night if we had blown a tire or something. To me, a cell phone gives me piece of mind. The Nokia 5190 is very cool. It has like 40 different rings to it. It plays little songs like Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday and a lot more. It's also very clear and gets great reception. It actually sounds like if I'm on my home telephone. Nokia has taken prevention against cloning too. Cloning is when someone copies your cell phone number and either uses it for themselves or sells it to someone else. Either way, it can cause you a lot of trouble. The Nokia has what they call a "smart chip". What it is is a chip that somehow mixes up the signals therefore not letting people with scanners, monitors and the like hear your conversation or copy your phone number. The phone comes with built in voicemail, a pager, call forwarding, call waiting and almost every other bell and whistle you can imagine. The talk and stand-by time on the battery are pretty good too. I think it's like 300 hours of standby time and about 10 of talk time. You only have to charge the battery about evey 3-5 days and not nightly like a lot of other cell phones. I'm very impressed with the Nokia cell phones and when mine becomes obsolete, I'm sure I'll trade it for another Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200..00 89823 2001/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 able to customize to your taste stylish nokia quality reception illumination kind of dim in dark light situations Full Review Doing a lot of driving to and from school, I needed a cellular phone that was reliable, small, and was easy to use. So I looked at many phones and services in my area and decided to go with the Nokia 5190 from Voicestream. I have mostly positive things to say about this phone. For one, it's reception is outstanding. It sounds like i'm talking on a land line phone according to many of the people who I call. Not many cellular phones can boast that. Also I can pretty much have a strong signal everywhere except the airport and some buildings where there aren't any windows. But it's never a big deal with me. Battery life is excellent and so is the talk time. Things that I like about the phone is the 35 different ring tones you can have, the games, and it's fixed antenna. Things that I don't like about the phone is that everyone pretty much has it here and it isn't "original" anymore. Also, I think the green illumination is rather dim. But other than that, the phone is phenomenal. I've had mine for over 3 years and it has never gave me a problem yet. I actually have 2 of these phones because I like them so much. I was going to trade it in for a new Nokia 8290, but decided not to because I would be afraid of sitting on it or pressing 2 keys at once because of the 8290's small size. That's one thing that the 5190 has over some other phones--it's ruggedness. It is rugged indeed. My friend dropped her phone twice from over 6 feet in height and her phone was absolutely fine. Nothing cracked or broke. This is one tough phone! **UPDATE**, Just bought a Nokia Vibrating battery for my phone and I love it!! I'd recommend buying a Vibrating battery if you're in meetings or if you're a college student and want to keep your phone on in class without it ringing. It sure beats paying more for a Nokia 6190 with a built in Vibrating battery. Paid $49 for it. It still comes out cheaper than a 6190. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 (in 1998) 89822 2000/5/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it came free with the service now seems old technology The Bottom LineAn acceptable phone in its day, but technology has already moved on. Oh for vibrate ringing and hands-free dialing! Full Review I doubt that you'd be considering getting a 5190 these days. Times change so quickly that service providers probably aren't passing these phones out any more. But if you are, here is my experience with this phone. I have had my phone for 18 months and it has given me very good service. I bought it through PacBell, now called Cingular. The phone and the corresponding service coverage in my home town of San Diego has been very acceptable. The phone came free with a year's contract. After a year and a half of business use, the phone still performs well, but it feels clunky and outdated by current standards. Pros 1. Easy to operate one-handed, due to the one button menu feature and up and down scrolling keys. 2. Seems pretty rugged. I have accidentally kicked it around the parking lot several times without harming it. 3. Many different faceplates are available if you feel the need to customize your phone. Cons 1. Seems heavy with the beefier battery option. 2. No vibrate option on ringing. I have missed many calls simply because I couldn't hear it ring. I have to keep the ring set to loud. 3. Despite the instruction manual saying so, I have found no way to lock the keypad and PacBell were unable to help. The result is many accidental phone calls made from the bottom of my briefcase. 4. The hands free earpiece stopped working after a few hours of use as the plug would not stay in the base of the phone. I could hear the caller but they couldn't hear me. Ever had the situation where you have been carrying a phone all day and the first time you come to use it there is no service or the battery is dead? I can't remember this ever happening with the Nokia 5190, so I guess it has done it's job though in a pretty unexciting way. Recommended: No 89821 2000/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable cheap very discrete must purchase vibrating battery separately for 80 Full Review First off, I completely agree with killerinstinct's epinion that this is overall a great phone at a great price. I've had mine over a year and it's been used and abused and keeps on working without problem. My additional praise is that, for me, this was also the best phone because I wanted my first phone to be discrete and painless to use. For me, this meant that I had to have a phone that fit easily in my pocket, and it had to vibrate since I would never turn the ringer on. I tried the star-tac's vibrating feature, putting it in my pocket and calling myself, and I could barely feel it at all. This would mean a lot of missed calls. Plus, to look at a call on the star-tac one has to take the phone out of your pocket and open it to view the caller ID screen and see who is calling. With the Nokia, however, I can be in the middle of a conversation with someone, feel the phone vibrate, discretely glance down at the easily visible display, and either send the caller to voice mail or interrupt my current conversation and take the call if it is important. With so many people today thinking users of cell phones are rude and inconsiderate to those around them, especially if they let their phones ring in movie theaters or you are standing there talking to someone who suddenly answers an urgently ringing phone, I feel like I can be as sly as possible with this model from Nokia. I reviewed the Powertel plan that I got with this phone here: <> However, I believe the non GSM versions of this phone have the same features. You can go here to purchase accessories offered for the 5190 directly from Nokia (this is where you can go to get the vibrating battery, which does not come with the phone unfortunately): <http://www.nokiausa.com/shopnokia/1,1181,,00.html?body=/accessoriesphone/0,1173,5190;,00.html> -Lewis ------July 24 update---- (a Dog ate my phone) I just wanted to add some real world experience about how nice that little GSM chip is. When I was fishing last weekend I left my phone on the shore and a dog ate it, or at least it chewed the top half off. Because all my information is in the GSM chip, which the Dog didn't get to fortunately, I just got a new phone from PowerTell for $48, popped my chip in the phone, and was up and running in no time with my same number, stored phone book etc. The old phone has lasted over a year by the way, but due to this canine incident I am unable to report on how reliable it is or how long it would last "under normal operating conditions." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 (with plan, not including vibrating battery) 89820 2001/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice menu system durable plenty of accessoriesface covers has space for only one custom ring tone no voice activated dialing or conference calling The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for first-time users and those who don't want all the bells and whistles of a more expensive model. Full Review This Nokia phone is my first wireless phone, and along with service by Cingular Wireless (be sure to read my review of their service in Los Angeles!), it ain't a bad combination. The only reason I got this phone was that it was free with a one-year contract, and since it's my first phone, I thought I'd just take it to give the service a [year-long] test-drive before I upgrade to a better, smaller phone. The 5190's physical design is pretty cute; the buttons are laid out and work very well, and I love the many removable Xpress-On Covers that are available for it. I only have three of them at the moment, but I hope to be able to shell out some cash for a couple more sometime soon. You won't have a problem slipping this phone into your pocket, but I myself use a belt clip (about $10.00) and it works like a charm, allowing me to quickly retrieve the phone from my belt to answer or make a call. The battery also fits in the back very well and doesn't add much bulk or weight into the phone. Using the phone is also a breeze. Accessing frequently used features like the phone book and redial can be done with the touch of one button. One-touch dialing is also easy to program and use. Using the rest of the phone's features using their menu system is also very easy and won't leave you confused while trying to change a setting, add a phone number, or even play a game of Snake. The important job of making and receiving calls is done very well. Calls are completed very quickly and the sound quality is very clear and loud. You can adjust the volume of the earpiece during a call, although I wish the volume control buttons would be on the side (like on the Nokia 6190) instead of the front. The antenna is very small yet efficient; you don't have to extend it when using the phone. Just warn your friends not to pull it when you let them use it; I almost got mine broken off. There are plenty of accessories available for this phone. While you won't find an MP3 or FM Radio attachment, other useful accessories like a hands-free headset ($25.00) and a wide array of chargers, batteries, and car accessories can be used. I use the headset quite a lot; it's very lightweight and convenient to use. You can use the Answer/End button mounted on the microphone instead of reaching down to the phone on your belt clip to answer or end your current call. I would have loved to see voice-activated dialing, so I would just say the name of the person I want to dial on my headset instead of reach down and hope I hit the right one-touch button. If you're in the market for a basic or first wireless phone, the Nokia 5190 is an excellent value for the money, and I would highly recommend it. I suggest others with more expensive or higher-tech tastes look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89819 2000/11/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 doesn t need to be charged for days it s easy to carry around most importantly makes you look cool when you leave it at home you re just another geek without a cell phone Full Review I do not know how I survived without my Nokia 5190. I used to carry around my Motorola pager and would always have to go to a pay phone to return somebody's page. My little,compact cell phone makes it much easier to talk to people outside my home I had originally heard about this great invention from my younger sister, and at first was not very impressed. I figured that it was not worth paying all that money to buy it, and then continue to pay each month for the cell phone service. I mean all I'm getting out of it is that I can call my friends, and they can call me. But what I didn't realize was that the Nokia 5190 came with a butt-load of perks. The biggest perk, in my opinion, would be the phone book that is installed in the menu. I can't even count how many times I have been out driving around, looking for a party, and can't remember anyone's number. I've never been one for carrying a phone book with me, because it's too bulky. I'm not a girl, so I don't have the luxury of carrying a purse to put a phone book in. The memory holds up to 70 numbers, and the coolest thing is that if someone calls you that is in your phone book, it will list the name of who is calling you at that time. Another bonus is the games that come with the phone. I have spent hours and hours trying to get the high score on Snake, but that's probably just because I'm a geek. The other games are memory, dice, rotation, and logic. I don't really care for these games, but it is still nice to have the option to play them. The next benefit is that you can change the ring on your phone. It gives you a long list of recognizable songs that you can choose from for your ring. Another cool thing that I just recently learned about is that you can go to www.yourmobile.com and get an even bigger variety of songs to choose from. I personally picked Hey Jude by the Beatles, but they have hundreds and hundreds of popular songs. It also has a clock that gives the time and even an alarm clock. I've personally used the alarm clock many times. Especially when I have partied my buns off, crashed at somebody's house, and then have to get up for work the next morning. This wonderful cell phone also comes with a calculator. I have never used it, but it would be useful when you're shopping at the grocery store. Lastly, it comes with a call log that records all of the missed, dialed, and received calls. I like it a lot, because I can see right away who's call I missed. I really do not know how I had a social life without this cell phone. It allows me to call people whenever I want, for a relatively small price (Free on Weekends!). I can only speak for my service, Voicestream, because I don't know how the other ones work out. This particular cell phone is cheaper than most, and has almost all of the same benefits as the more expensive ones. I would highly recommend purchasing the Nokia 5190, if you want to stay intact with all of your buds. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89818 2000/11/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable portable customizable battery life Full Review I personally think everyone should have a cell phone. No matter where you are you can communicate with the world. And great if your somewhere with an emergency. It's at your fingertips. So if your going to consider getting a cell phone, I'd say this is the one to buy. Just Enough This phone has just enough goodies on it, without having a bunch of stuff that you won't need. It's features include... Excellent security features >>>>>Including Pin, Pin2 and Security Codes >>>>>Smart card Phone Book, can store up to 99 names and numbers Messages Mailbox >>>>>Including Text message ready A call log >>>>>Telling how long your last call was and total call time Various Call Settings, Phone Settings, and Security Settings Call forwarding Games Calculator Clock And Tones, lot of tones >>>>>The tones may just seem like a waist, but it will prove to be useful when you find out that the other guy on the sky train has the same ring as you and you pick up your phone and no ones there Durability The durability on this phone is simply outstanding. I have dropped this phone about ten times in the last six months that I've had the phone. And it still works fine and I've had absolutely no problems with it. The worst that I've had happen with it, is that the battery slid off when I dropped it. The whole phone is built very solid. Portability This phone is very light weight. I always just slip it in my pocket and forget about it. Not only that but, it is also very small. No need for a belt clip with this phone. Customizable GOSH!, where to start? Well, you can basically customize every millimeter on this phone. As many know you can customize things like the face plate on the front of the phone. But you can also change the look of the buttons, even the antenna. I've even heard of people getting different colors of batteries and even different phone casings. The customizability is amazing, since this is such a common phone. And if you really know your stuff you can go online and somehow with some kind of computer hook-up you can download different kinds of tones and images into your phone. And I wouldn't even doubt that theres more! One complaint!, BATTERY LIFE! If I had to give one complaint though is that the battery life isn't bad, but it's not great. It will on average only last about 3-4 days without a charge. But that's not bad compared to something like a Startac phone which lasts about a day or two. Overall a very good phone at a very affordable price. Makes a good gift for a loved one to show that you care. --GWEEGER-- Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89817 2000/12/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 functionality durable low cost easy to use a little heavy Full Review The 5190 is a great entry-level phone. What I mean is the phone is easy to use, durable, and provides a slew of functions for a low price. It is aging, however, and newer models from other manufacturers offer many more features. Let's begin with its ease of use. Everything is accessible through a large center button, what Nokia calls a Navi Key. The menu system is easy to navigate, and each option is represented by a descriptive icon. Access to the phone book is quick and easy, while adding names is just as simple. It offers 35 different tones, although I've gotten sick of most of them. The phone is extremely durable. I've dropped mine at least twenty times now, and only the battery has slid off a couple times. The faceplate, as you probably know, is removable and replaceable (so need not worry about scratching the screen). But really, where the Nokia 5190 shines is in its functionality. The phone offers a clock, alarm, text messaging, games (with the well-known Snake), and even a simple calculator. The 5190 is unique in the 51xx series because it works with a SIM card. This allows a maximum of 250 entries into the phonebook, and if your phone stops working, you can transfer your phonebook to your new phone. ;) The shortcomings of the phone: single band, flimsy connection with hands-free set (sometimes disconnects), charger is relatively slow. I mentioned that this phone was aging, because comparable phones now have integrated vibrating batteries, web-browsing capabilities, downloadable tones, more phonebook entries, schedule management options, voice-activated dialing, etc. But the price of the phone explains much of its shortcomings. It's your standard entry-level phone with many extras for the price. And boy, are there gobs of accessories. One thing to note is that 20/20 found these Nokia phones to emit a lot of radiation into your head, since the antenna is very close to you when you're talking. Just a thought to keep in mind, if you believe in the findings. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 89816 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid construction loose battery Full Review When mobile phones started appearing on every second person in public I swore I would never get one. Obviously I changed my mind since then. I didn't get my phone to yack on the bus and irritate everybody in my general area. I don't have anything that important to say. I wanted a mobile for safety reasons. I work late and thus go home in the dark a lot. I also appreciate that I can let people know if I'm going to be late or they can let me know. It took me forever to decide on which phone and which service. I knew I wanted a pay as you go plan to avoid another bill every month. I ended up going with this one because I could get text messages sent to me. They're free and it's fun sending dirty messages. So far the phone's great it was only about $100.00 and came with a free phone voucher. It has more features than I need. It has a ton of ring options, volume control, calculator, phone book, 5 games, as well as security features. I like the weight of it. I'm not worried I'm going to break it and it's solid. It doesn't fold (those phones feel really flimsy to me) and the antenna doesn't pull out and break. My only complaint is that the battery wiggles a little. A friend of mine with the same phone says it will get looser. I'm not thrilled but it's not that bad. The battery lasts a long time too. So far the reception has been good and it hasn't cut out on me in the city or the suburbs. There's also more features but I'll let you read the manual. If you're looking for you're first mobile phone I highly suggest getting this one. The price is right, it's not fragile and I've had no problems in four months. If your a mobile phone expert and you need a new one I still suggest this one unless you need the really high tech models that most people can't afford. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 89815 2000/11/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very low price i guess it doesn t give me back massages well Full Review Purchasing a cell phone is no easy task. There are a billion different phones out there, sold by a billion different companies, each supporting a billion different services. I thought coming to the conclusion that I actually was going to buy a phone was a feat in itself. Little did I know, the hardest segment of my cell phone adventure was yet to come. Walking into the cell phone dealership, I had no clue what plan to get, whose service was most promising, which phones were available to which plans and services... Okay, you can go ahead and make the assumption that I was basically clueless. The solitary criterion I had on my mind was "cheap." I didn't know exactly what I wanted, but I knew I wanted it at a price that wouldn't seem like a waste. That's why it was pleasantly surprising to find, posted in the window, a poster advertising a "free phone*" in the window. Of course, the asterisk caught my attention first and foremost. Then I began to picture this trashed, second-rate mobile phone these guys were probably going to try giving away to me... Far from the picture I had conjured up in my mind, the Nokia 5190 was what was being advertised. For a free phone, the Nokia 5190 is absolutely a steal! It has basically every feature I've ever seen, wanted, or dreamed about on a cell phone. It can track calls, store more than enough phone numbers (to ease the strain on the address book all of us have and that all of us know is far too crowded and bulky to be useful anymore) for one's personal use, and it is compatible with several different cell phone services, among which include PacBell and AT&T. The best thing about this phone is that its battery seems to last forever for me. After first experiencing all of the other perks to this FREE phone, I had my reservations still. Sure, it has all this great ability, but I'm sure it will die about an hour after it comes on. Wrong again was my intuition, as I came to realize that, depending upon how many calls I made in a day, I could keep my cell phone on during the day for 3 or 4 days on end without having to recharge! And rarely did I ever need to go that long anyway, since I didn't use my phone at night and could always charge it then. Go out today and get this phone, if you can find a dealer who is offering the "free phone" deal (and you were looking for a phone). Even if you can't find the free deal, this phone is comparable to phones I've seen that go for $50 - $150. Even with a price tag like that, the Nokia 5190 is definitely worth every penny. (okay, okay, I admit it, the REAL reason I love this phone is the fact that there's even a 3-selection GAME MENU! C'mon, who doesn't mind having the option of playing "snake" or "memory" while waiting in line at the deli for lunch?) Recommended: Yes 89814 2000/8/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive light weight games some problems with call quality antenna close to head The Bottom LineNokia has really done it this time, with super rigid construction, and superior call quality and battery performance, the Nokia 5190 is a "Super-Phone." Full Review When I signed up with VoiceStream, this phone was the free phone that came with the plan. I've had a lot of problems with my Service; however, I believe that my phone has performed correctly throughout the ordeal. The phone seems to perform correctly, as far as making/receiving calls. The phone has the ability to change the faceplate in the blink of an eye. The phone has the ability to download ring tones (at a fee) from the VoiceStream website. The phone has basically everything that you can expect and more, coming from a tiny piece of battery operated equipment. I really like the battery life of my 5190. I can go out of town (or across the country) and not have to worry about having a dead battery, or charging my phone. The menu options are clean, and make sense. I especially love the "C" (Clear) key, which basically serves the same purpose as the back button on a web browser. An indication of the quality of this phone is how many people own them. That's also a downfall for me though, as I strive for uniqueness. This phone is so incredibly popular that VoiceStream has actually started charging for them, as opposed to giving them away with new service. I marched in Washington this January, and dropped my phone while I was running. Someone noticed it (hard to miss, as the face-plate is bright orange) and returned it to me. I didn't expect it to work, but it didn't even turn off as a result of the fall. One time I was in Wal-Mart and I had my phone in the cart, it fell out and I ran it over with the cart, the phone was of course fine. In an effort to prove the indestructibility of my phone, I have kicked across a grocery store, without a problem. Of course, the phone did encounter minor scratches/gouges, but those can easily be remedied by placing on a new, fresh, clean faceplate. I guess to sum it all up, I have super phone. From here on out, let all Nokia 5190's be known as "Super-Phones." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89813 2000/7/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of accessories it s clear no roaming charges none Full Review After many months of talking my husband into why I needed a cell phone, he finally agreed. A few blocks from our home is a PacBell Wireless store. We decided we could probably trust them alot better than some of the other fly by night wireless stores. When I walked in I spotted the Nokia 5190 laying on a display. It happened to be on sale. What Luck! When I purchased the phone there were a ton of free items that came with it. I received a vibrating battery, a travel recharger, a cigarette lighter charger, a hands-free headset, a leather carry case, and my favorite, a color face plate. I even got to pick out which one I wanted. The Nokia 5190 has many included features. It has a phone book where you can add all of your friends and family. It has up to 35 different tones with which you can choose to be your ring. You can even download your own ring from your computer. That is soo cool. This is such a fun addition, I think I change my ring at least once a week. There is a built in clock which comes in handy because the battery on my watch just gave out. There is a calculator which comes in handy with the checkbook. There is 3 different games included on the phone. There is the memory game, the snake game and the logic game. I am no good at any of them, but they keep the kids busy in those times of desperation. Nokia 5190 also offers call forwarding, caller Id, and even voice mail and text mail at no additional charge. I think I got a heck of a deal for the little price I paid for the phone. I use this phone more than I use my phone at home. I use this phone when I am on the internet. We only have one phone line in our home, so people know that if they can't get through they can always call on the cell phone. I also use this phone while my daughter is at grandma's. I am a dialysis patient so my daughter stays at grandmas 3 times a week. If someone needs to get a hold of me they can bypass the front desk by just calling on the cell phone. This also allows them to talk directly to me, with the front desk they would just have to leave messages. I have not found any fault with this phone. It is clear when talking to people. Some phones tend to have lots of static, but the Nokia 5190 is crystal clear. You can even hear the background noise of the person you are talking too. The Nokia spreads from the southern most end of California to Reno, Nevada without roaming charges. I highly recommend this phone to anyone and everyone. It is great for just emergency use or everyday business talking. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 89812 2000/1/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use cheap free no vibrating capability w o battery weak battery Full Review I bought the Nokia 5190 for use with a Voicestream calling plan. It was on sale at Best Buy for $50 but I was able to get $70 worth of rebates out of it. You should be able to find it at any local wireless store for free or at the very least, for free after rebate. The Nokia 5190 is a GSM phone. So it has a little plastic card that stores your information and identifies the phone as yours. Its located beneath the battery. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with the GSM frequencies used overseas (i.e. Japan, Europe). PROS: The Nokia 5190 is well-built and seems like it would be less prone to breakage than say, a Motorola StarTac. Faceplates, accessories, etc etc. You can do almost ANYTHING to the Nokia 5190. I have seem the entire housing replaced so that it is clear or some other color. The antenna can be replaced. The battery, even the LED lights that light up the keypad. Functionally, the phone works well, sounds very good (though that might be partly due to Voicestream's system). It is easy to use and the functions are well placed - that seems to be one of the best things about Nokia's phones in comparison to its competitors. CONS: The Nokia 5190 lacks wireless web capability. On the plus side to that, it allows for email and text messaging. Voicestream has a voicestream-2-voicestream text messaging system that I use quite often when I don't actually want to call someone but just want to get in contact with them or remind them of something. I formerly had a Nokia 6100 series phone with another wireless provider. There are a few things I miss from that phone that the Nokia 5190 does not supply. First, battery power - the 5190 comes with a nickel cadmium battery that is adequate. However, my other phone came with a lithium ion battery that ran practically forever. That being said the 5190's battery should be fine as long as you remember to plug it in every night. Second, no vibrating capability. The 6100 I formerly had vibrated. The 5190 requires a vibrating battery to have this function. There have been a number of times when I didn't hear the phone ringing but would have been able to feel it vibrating. You CAN buy the battery, but thats shelling out an additional $30-40. You might want to just go ahead and spend an extra $50 for the 6100 series phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89811 2000/3/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features lightweight none so far The Bottom LineNokia has mastered the art of manufacturing a dependable, inexpensive, trustworthy cellular phone. Full Review I recently upgraded from a Mitsubishi T200 to a Nokia 5190. I say upgraded because the T200 offers few features, other than it's lightweight, slim design. The 5190 is a superior phone, with features from a large memory for phone numbers to a calculator and games. It's more than a phone, it's something to do while you sit in Los Angeles' rush-hour traffic. I have a lot of people whom I try to keep in contact with, and this phone is great for storing lots and LOTS of phone numbers. You also have the cool option of turning on "key lock." I have an organizer that can hold a cell phone and when I have the 5190 in there, I can lock the keypad so I don't end up accidentally dialing 911 and wasting my precious minutes :) Another great option with this phone is the calculator of all things. I have problems balancing my checkbook )don't know why) so I can pull the phone out and make sure I still have that $.76 in my bank account. It has dramatically lowered the number of overdraft charges I receive. That's a plus! The best feature of all has to be the smart chip which I have installed, as a safety feature when you buy a phone from Cingular Wireless. If I lose the phone, I call the phone company and they "zap" the chip in my phone so no one can call China for 9 hours at my expense. It's a real lifesaver. Well, the 5190 is by far an incredible deal and it's a phone with the dependability I require as well as the cool, changeable face plates :) Go buy one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89810 2000/7/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 so easy intuitive to use no web access available a little dated Full Review Wow, what a great phone! It's so easy to use, you could basically throw the manual out when you buy it. A great beginners phone. EASE OF USE Very intuitive, can be learnt, mastered and understood in half hour max. Nice small size and weight. RELIABLE Very sturdy, I have dropped it a couple of times with no problems. Have never had any problems with it mechanically. TECHNICAL ASPECTS It has a long talk and standby time and charges quickly. The phonebook is easy to access as is the call log. The call quality is exceptional. NEGATIVES The phone is beginning to show it's age. Takes a while for the phonebook to become available when first turned on. Sometimes the antenna strength indicator takes a long time to recognise that a signal is available (ie. after coming out of a parking structure). No web access, limited short message system. Regardless of these small nit-picking problems, this phone is such a perfect, reliable, easy-to-use simple phone. It is hard to think of things to say about the phone because it melds so easily into your life, I am beginning to appreciate this now that I use an Ericsson which in contrast feels like I'm trying to teach calculus to a 2 year old child while flying a plane for the first time. Not exactly a natural, intuitive process. Nokia, how I miss thee! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with Pac Bell 89809 2000/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ringing options on screen displays phonebook belt clip Full Review I have used my Nokia phone for about a year, and I love it. I first saw this phone on a friend of mine, and when I asked him about it, he highly recommended it. Since I was looking into getting a cell phone, I checked it out. We live in a rural area with a (pardon the expression) "po-dunk" telephone company, and we wanted to get a nation-wide calling plan so we wouldn't have to use our home phone for long distance calling. (Our back-woods company kept accepting long distance change orders without our permission, so we were getting "slammed" about every two months - accompanied by change order fees every time!) We opted for AT&T's one-rate plan and purchased our Nokia phone when we got our service. HINT: This is a great way to save money. Instead of us paying $50 a month on long distance AND $65 a month on a cell phone, we now only have one bill. We have eliminated our long distance calling altogether on our home phone. This Nokia phone has many great features such as an opening greeting you can program yourself (since there are so many of these around these days, it can be easy to pick up the wrong phone). It also has a neat little phone book that will store more phone numbers than I'll ever need. It has the ability to choose your own ring tone and volume (I like to change it with the season; for instance, during the World Series I used "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and during Christmas I used "Jingle Bells", etc.) It also displays incoming calls with the option to call back, the number of voicemail or text messages you have, and signal and battery levels. The phone is slim and easy to carry almost anywhere. I also like the lighted keypad (you can use the black keypad for a sleeker look, but I like the ability to see the numbers I'm dialing in the dark). My only dislike about this phone is the clip that is used to carry it on your belt or purse. It is much too bulky for the small size of the phone. I found when I clipped it onto my purse or diaper bag (and especially my belt) I knocked it into everything. Really, this is no big deal, though. The phone is so small you can always carry it in a coat pocket or almost anywhere else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 89808 2000/10/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light easy to use durable easily dialed accidentally Full Review I received my Nokia 5190 as a Christmas present last year. I feel that after almost a year of use I can give an honest opinion on this product. Before I get into the reception or features, I must first mention the durability. This little phone is darn near bullet proof. It has been dropped, stepped on, wet and left on the beach in the sand. It has stood up to all of these and still keeps on working. The battery lasts a good long time, mine is a year old and still lasts 2 to 3 days between charges. It is also very thin and does not weigh much. This makes it easy to carry in my front pocket. The reception has been getting better every day, as my provider's system grows. It is unfair to put the blame for reception on the phone, when the phone is at the mercy of the transmitter. I have a good PCS service and there are places where I have great sound, even in an elevator and other places where there is no signal at all. This phone has more features than any one person would use. I especially enjoy the calculator function, I never thought I would need it but it gets used more than I thought it would. There is an abundance of ringing tones, which is a good thing due to the popularity of this manufacturer. The call log function is great. It gives an accurate account of all of your calls down to the second. It keeps track of all calls coming and going. The key lock function is nice, but it has been easily forgotten to be enabled, therefore I have made some calls I didn't mean to at first. Since I have had this phone for a year now, it is habit for me to turn on. The reason I bring this up is that the keys are higher than the face of the phone and easily depressed. Good for when your dialing but bad for accidental dialing. Since I carry mine in my pocket and do not use a case, the keys are susceptible to being depressed. The phone is easy to use and the instruction book reads well too. It is an excellent choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Came with service 89807 2001/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 games lots of ring tones other cool features it was free damn thing won t find or keep a signal The Bottom LineIt's likely to be offered free when you sign up for a service....well, there's a reason they give it away. It's a cheap piece of crap! Full Review I've been a Pacific Bell Wireless customer for two and a half years. When I signed on, I got a free Mitsubishi phone - something obscure and no longer available - and I was happy with it for a long time. After two years, it was starting to die. The paint had worn off the buttons, they didn't work as well, the antenna was bent, and the battery kept coming loose and the phone would cut out (that is, turn off) in the middle of use sometimes. I was ready to find a new one. So you could imagine my delight when Pacific Bell sent me something in the mail telling me that because I had been such a good customer, I was getting a free phone upgrade and I could trade my old one in for a Nokia 5190. I got the new phone, and at first, I was thrilled. 35 ringer tones! Games and calculator! All kinds of stuff my other phone didn't have! Plus, it was smaller and I could put cool face plates on it (although they do cost $20 each). But then, I realized, this phone was not all I had hoped for...no, it takes twice as long to charge, for some inexplicable reason, and it doesn't like to work either. It takes forever to find a signal, and it has a much harder time keeping one too. It doesn't dial the numbers sometimes...it'll sit there, say "Calling 555-1234" and NOTHING will happen. Or it will just hang up and beep at me. I turn it on and it takes forever to "warm up" and it won't let me access the memory as quickly as it should. I mean, I live in the same place I did before and I have the same service. So any differences have to be attributed to the phone. I've been aggravated with this phone more than not, and about a thousand times more than with my previous one. But hey, it was free. I'll keep it....... ***UPDATE*** No, I didn't keep it. I'd had one too many dropped calls, so I "dropped" the phone rather forcefully on my desk, which shattered the LCD screen (I knew it was a cheap piece of crap!). I ended up getting a 6190 and I like it much, much better. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 89806 2000/10/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size you always looksee if it is yours since so many people have this phone whenever you hear one ring Full Review The Nokia 5190 is the best cellular phone that I have had. It has several great features which I like. Size This phone weights about 6 oz. It fits easily into your purse, pocket, car, practically ANYWHERE. It's not bulky, and it does not take up much space at all. Look I liked the look of this phone. I don't like the "flip-top" phones. I also liked how you could change the color plates on this phone. A word of advice, if you get the color plates, only buy the official Nokia ones. The cheaper / generic ones do not fit correctly on the phone, although they appear to, and it ends up messing up the clarity on the reception of your phone. Features There are many nice features on this phone. The games are fun to play when you are bored. I found the "phone book" feature on the phone to be quite handy. I can store tons of numbers and find them with the click of a button. It saves me a lot of time. I also like that the phone informs you when you have voice mail (if you have this service selected with your cell phone carrier). It will dial-up to your voice mail box and give you your messages. The phone also lets you change the rings. There are some cute "rings," as well as some annoying ones, in my opinion. ;) Clarity This phone has great reception. People tell me that the sound on it is clearer than my phones at home. Your clarity on your phone may be affected by the color plate you put on; for instance, if you have a generic one, you might not have as good as clarity that you might have if you had a Nokia plate. I love this phone. I carry it everywhere I go. It is a great cell phone, and I highly recommend it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 89805 2000/11/14 Product Rating4.0 easy to personalize small secure is an older model so it lacks certain features Full Review I love this phone! as an employee of a cellular phone company i was able to choose from various models of phones for my own personal phone. I choose this one for many reasons. First my main choice would have been the Ericsson T-28 but i could not see myself buying a phone with so many features i would never use. I choose this phone mainly because i am able to easily personalize it to my mood for the day. I have MANY face plate covers that represent, my favorite color to my favorite football team. The faceplate and even the buttons on this model are easy to change and this makes it easy to personalize from the basic black that most cell phones come in. I also chose this phone because out of all the ones i tried this one had comparable reception and great call quality. I see and hera alot of complaints about call quality and reception and what alot of you do not understand is that it is generally not the phone, its your location to the nearest tower and how many others are using that same tower at that time. So its easy to always want to blame the phone and not consider the coverage location of your service provider or the many other subscirbers who may be using the same provider. This phone is wonderful, its lightweight, has an easy to use menu and functions, has the nub antenna which is great for putting in your purse and with the many faceplate options it is easy to personalize. It also (if your provider uses it) supports the new SIM (subscriber identity module)chip, which increases sercurity and stores your information so that yu can just use the chip in any phone that utilizes this technology and not have to worry about goin through the hassle of reactivating another phone. ALl in all for the money this is a great and fun PCS phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 89804 2001/1/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 user friendly inexpensive free with service comfortable to use none for me The Bottom Line A good inexpensive tool if you just want an extended phone. Full Review Just looking for a regular phone to keep you in touch without all the fancy bells and whistles? My Nokia 5190 was free with my cell phone service subscription and it does everything I want it to do. But all I want is a portable regular phone. The 5910 is small enough to fit into my purse and my coat pocket without trouble. It has a straight forward key pad that looks the same as an in home desktop and/or cordless touch tone key pad so there is no mystery to dialing it. No worry about unknowingly erasing your hard drive, permanently disabling your television or stereo and no burning down the house because you programmed your self-cleaning oven to clean for 72 hours. I make computer chips for a living, I don't and don't need to understand how they work. The Nokia 5190 has caller ID and call waiting features just like at home and some extra doo-dads like "busy hands are happy hands" games to play if you have to wait for something. There is text messaging capabilities and although I do subscribe to a movie rating group I could probably live without it. It is very comfortable and fits against your head without strain. I have not noticed any impairment in reception or had anyone complain they could not hear me. Mine also came with a combination ear piece and front clip microphone for hands free communication and I have used it in my car without any problem. The battery holds a charge for up to 5 entire days and the menu is a user friendly "prompt" system. It is voice mail ready as well. These are all the functions that my home phone provides me, these are all the functions I wanted in an extended phone. If you are just "another mom" and want the freedom to be away from home and not worry about how maybe the school is trying to reach you, this is an inexpensive and functional tool for this purpose. (It shuts off when you can afford to hide for a couple of hours) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/servi 89803 2000/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very sturdy long standby time from physical appearance to ring tones very highly customizable dumb ring tones Full Review I bought this phone a year ago after my Erricson was stolen. It was a good thing, because I actually hated the phone anyway. I paid $200 for the new phone--since my wireless service did not offer insurance on phone. I needed a phone to keep in contact with members of my family who were ill. If they ever needed something, I would be able to get to them sooner if they could call me directly. While pricey, I'm glad that I purchased it. The 5190 offers a wide variety of options for optimal customization. It is small and compact, but has great sound quality, even with a leather cover. It even has a few games for when you are truly bored. Short messages can easily be sent and received. I use my phone with the vibrating battery (an extra expense, of course), as I'm in school and having the phone go off in the middle of a lecture is really annoying, as well as rude. However, I often use the audible features for rings and key tones. I also love the clip-on hands-free device for when my hands are busy. My phone has been the unfortunate victim of a few drops, and there has been no problem at all. This phone is quite sturdy. My husband, while visiintg the Queen Mary in California, accidenatlly, dropped it about 10 feet onto a wooden deck, and the phone bounced twice, but still it works just like new. I was told that the phone had an alarm feature, but I have yet to discover it, nor could I find it in the documentation that came with the phone. If there is one, someone let me know. I am also somewhat annoyed at the ring options. They are kind of, well, dumb. When I use the tunes and others hear the phone ring, I get all kinds of weird looks, so I stick with the standard low 'ring-ring'. I love my phone, and I fully recommend it. It may be a little outdated now, but I have no complaints. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89802 2000/3/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact customizable cheap if you know where to look could be clearer semi dated The Bottom LineNokia's 5190 is a sleek and inexpensive phone for people who do not need absolute clarity and do not need to spend hours talking to people on a cell phone. Full Review I recently purchased Nokia's 5190 phone with a calling plan from Cingular Wireless. About everyone has a cell phone or is planning on getting one these days. It takes care of having to carry around the $.35 to call someone from a pay phone when your out and about. I thought I should jump on the bandwagon, and so I started looking around. Style, Fashion, and Customizability Many people believe in being fashionably hip, and this phone can change with every style coming up. The faceplate (AKA the part that covers the buttons) may be popped off and changed with a wide variety of colors and patterns without any tools required in about a minute. They are also making after-market antennas for the Nokia(these aren't company certified, so I wouldn't recommend them) that flash when you are being called. The LEDs inside which cause the buttons and screen to glow green may also be changed to any color of the rainbow(not sure if this is ok with Nokia either). Also, not only are the 35 preset ring tones(what you hear when your phone rings) such as Ode To Joy, Toleador(from Carmen), and The Charleston there is a spot so when you buy a special cable sold by Nokia you can load your own song. Sadly though, there are no just normal rings, and the cable costs money. This phone can be made truly personal to your image. The Actual Phone I'm not a technical wiz. In fact, there is not much I know about the technical information of the phone. Its small, slim(with the appropriate battery. The standard battery is very slim), and nearly weightless(6 oz with the BSM-2S battery). It has a fixed (doesn't pull out) antenna and has 1W of transmitting power. It has many games including Snake, Memory, and Rotation. There is also a program which allows you to roll dice. I've dropped it and it still works fine. The Only Real Problem The clarity could be better. Its not horribly staticy, but I've noticed the occasional, "Hey N-k. *fuzz fuzz* ws it g*hiss*ng to-ay?" when I was walking downtown. Its not horrible all the time. In fact, a lot of the time its better than your standard cordless home phone. It really just depends on where you are at the time. If you need to be on a phone 1 hour straight walking near large buildings, I wouldn't recommend it as it might get sort of annoying. It is pretty much the standard cellular phone static everyone loves. Overall I like this phone. There is nothing wrong with it. It saves time, effort, and spare change. Its great for emergencies and 2-15 minute away-from-home chats with friends. The clarity could use some work, but very slight work, and it is easily ignored and is nothing major. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $10 w/ plan 89801 2000/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good looks plenty of accessories available unbreakable nice features light easy to use hard to reach volume control can be slightly uncomfortable in pocket The Bottom LineIt has almost everything I want in a phone, but look into the Nokia 8800 series if you can afford it and want something smaller, lighter, and more featureful. Full Review One of the best things about the Nokia 5100 series is that it's practically indestructible. On several occasions I've dropped it a couple of feet onto concrete without damage. You can take it anywhere and don't have to worry about breaking it. It's also wonderfully easy to use. It has an easily accessible phone book and an intuitive interface. The caller ID, call waiting, and voice mail support is excellent. It has plenty of ring tones as well so you can distinguish your phone's ring from those of others. There are some simple, but fun, games as well. The calculator also comes in handy. The volume control is on the front of the phone, however, which means it's awkward to increase or decrease the volume during a conversation. It also has support for SMS messaging, and most service providers will also give you the option of e-mail. It's great being able to send and receive e-mails on my phone when I'm on the go. I also like it's lightness and unobtrusive shape. It's comfortable to slip into a pocket, but it would be better if it didn't have a protruding antenna. There is also a wide variety of extras you can buy for the Nokia 5100 series phones. The NiMH battery that comes with the phone is adequate, but I bought a slim Li-ion vibrating battery from eBay for about $30. Not only is it lighter and has better battery life, but now I can set it to silent vibrating alert so I don't annoy everyone around me when I get a phone call. The hands-free attachment is useful as well when I am talking on the phone and need to type on the computer at the same time. The car charger is also handy for road trips. It also looks great. You can get new face plates from eBay, or almost any store that sells cell phones if you want to customize the look of your phone. I just wish my land line had all the features of my Nokia. I even use my cell phone around the house since it is smaller and lighter, gets better reception, and has better battery life than my roommate's cordless phone. With a phone like this, who needs a land line? The Nokia 5100 series of phones is probably the best value on the cell phone market today (in fact, I got it free with my service plan), but it doesn't have all the extras that newer phones have. Nokia's 8200 series of phones is smaller, lighter, has better e-mail support, but is more expensive. Recommended: Yes 89800 2000/10/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 clear sound nice design all the basic features included sim locked in my case not an ergonomic keyboard Full Review I just got this phone a couple of hours ago from the VoiceStream guys, who had a deal on it, if you sign up for their services. They are the only ones in the Washington state area offering GSM network, so you don't really have much voice, if you want to go with GSM, but the phone is also SIM-locked, thus you can use it only with VoiceStream, not with PacBell down at South. The phone is nice and fits into the pocket, has all the basic options I* need, although it seems a little bit deprived after my Ericsson T 28. The menu allows the user to browse through: 1. Phone Book - add, edit and delete phone numbers of the people you call. The phone book can also be called to the screen by the > (down) button. 2. Messages - SMS or text messages and e-mail. With VoiceStream it is available as their E-Notes service, for which I am not signed up, but the great thing about SMS (Short Message Service) is that these short 160 symbol messages can be sent around the world to any other cell phone or even e-mail address, thus you can drive your car and be sending a birtday greeting at the same (well, don't do that while driving the car, but you understand my point abgout mobility). 3. Call log - includes missed calls, received calls, the call list and the option to clear the call log. Nothing much to comment about, basically any digital phone would have that feature. 4. Settings - that's where you can tweak the phone to serve to your needs. If you need to change the PIN code number, change the greetings message that comes up when you turn the phone on, turn on or off the automatic redial, use a calling card instead of direct call, have a one-touch emergency number (a cool feature, actually), change the phone language to Espanyol (or whatever is supported by your operator), that's the are to go to. 5. Forwarding - presents you with the option of forwarding all the voice calls to a specified phone number, forwarding the voice calls only when you are not available on this phone, or cancelling all the call forwarding options. 6. Games - one of the most widely used cell phone features with this model comprises of Memory (uncover and cover the numbers), Snake (the classic one), Logic (I haven't got that far as finding out what exactly it is), and Dice. 7. Calculator - that should be self-explanatory. 8. Clock - including the clock and alarm clock settings. 9.Tones - the option that lets you choose different melodies for your ring, the volume of the ring, the sound produced when messages arrive. You can also download different tones off the Nokia Web site, but I didn't go that fancy as preferring my personalized tone for the telephone. You can choose different covers, but as has been mentioned in the other reviews, the prices are usually high, since the phones are usually given away by the GSM operators. A feature that I liked compared to Ericsson phones is one operating button, i.e. the same button is used for calling and stopping the call, thus your fingers never have to go through the whole keyboard. As for sending text messages and e-mails, the keyboard is located low, thus you cannot hold the phone with the palm of your hand and punch the buttons with the fingers of the same hand, or maybe it's just that my hands were designed that way. The standby time for this product seems to be pretty good compared to the others, and the phone should last you for a while before next recharge, although make sure when you are going on a trip that you've got the necessary car kit. So that's it for right now, remember, I just got it, thus if anything happens and goes wrong, just watch out for the other epinions of mine:-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 89799 2000/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features great sound quality reliable easy to use compact can t turn off leds some factors can cause echoing Full Review Buying a cell phone and access was a new thing for me... I had never owned a mobile phone before and needed some extra communication abilities in case of emergencies or for casual use. When one of my friends enticed me into buying a PCS phone, after a lot of looking I decided upon the $149 Nokia 5190 handset and my Omnipoint service complements it. This is a handset that operates on the GSM 1900 technology which, depending on your service provider, allows you to use it anywhere in the world where there is a GSM Alliance provider. As a novice to the mobile phone industry, I found the Nokia 5190 amazingly simple to operate and learn. Simplicity does not mean it is missing features! This handset is the best mix of functionality and simplicity. On-screen help is even available on the handset. Although I don't know the exact differences between the 5190 and its other 51xx family twins, I'd say that this phone has the flexibility and power to satisfy almost any mobile phone enthusiast. Along with the available accessories, this handset becomes a powerhouse. One prominent feature is the 250 location phone book. I don't know who could ever fill that many speed dial locations up, but it sure seems like plenty for someone like me. Another really nice thing is that all of your data is stored on your service provider's SIM card, which is a tiny microprocessor card which slips in and out of the 5190 handset at your convenience. It has an alarm clock which even wakes up the phone at alarm time--so it doesn't have to be left on standby. And, it does have a nice little basic calculator function which has already come in handy for me a few times. Just recently, I calculated a waitress's 15% tip at a local restaurant on my 5190 handset. Handy, huh? Additionally, this thing also has e-mail, fax, short message, and obviously Caller ID just to name a few things. I also like the outgoing and incoming call logging. Sound quality is quite impressive. The person on the other end always sounds as good as a landline. Unless you are not anywhere near the vicinity of a PCS tower, you may notice echos, artifacts, etc. Occasionally echos are present, but I found out this can be caused by the leather carrying case or my car's metal frame. I can honestly say that my friends can't tell I'm calling them from my cell phone or my landline. 35 different ringing tones? There are only two or three which aren't goofy tunes -- more REAL ringing choices would have been nice. Battery life is EXCELLENT. Continuous talk time is 2-4+ hours per battery. Standby time with moderate or infrequent use is even better -- I've seen it anywhere between 3 and 8 days. The 5190 is solid! I've dropped this 6-ounce wonder many times on concrete surfaces, and it's even fallen down a flight of stairs. Not even a scratch or blemish scars its surface. They sure do make these phones to last. Durability is an A+++. It is sexy, ergonomic and fits right in your hand. It's very lightweight and will discreetly fit into any shirt or pants pocket. Getting used to it does take awhile, as it is awkward to have the mic so far from your mouth, unlike a regular phone. Also, it's next to impossible to cradle it between your shoulder and head -- buy the headset if you need hands-free. The faceplates are replaceable/changeable which is nice if you are into fashion accessories for your telephone. If your faceplate gets dirty or scratched up, you can usually buy a replacement, but beware as these can be expensive unless you find a good deal on eBay. Don't buy any sliding faceplates as they are really flimsy. Chrome faceplates also get smeared up real fast. I do have one complaint -- The LEDs and display unnecessarily light up in the daytime, which can eat up more battery if use is extensive. There is not a way to manually turn them off. This phone has tons of features, and I just touched on a few of them. Check out Nokia's web site for the full list, as I haven't got the time to go further into all the power of this handset. Before you plop down $149 though, see if there is anything cheaper that gives all the necessities--otherwise you may see it as a completely overkill handset. This phone really does go everywhere, and it can do almost everything. Have fun. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89798 2000/1/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap lots of features size could be smaller bad reception in dorm buildings Full Review I bought my Nokia 5190 back when they were offering it free with the donation of $20 to the Special Olympics. At first, I bought it just so that I could keep in touch with my family when I had to go to work late. Soon, it came in extremely handy for letting my friends know when I'm going to be late to an event. The 5190 was free after rebate and I thought that it would break down on me early on. I was proven wrong. I have had my phone for almost a year and its reliability still continues to stun me. The only discontent I have with it is that I cannot use it when I am at the dorms in my college. Everywhere else, the connection is almost always clear. I carry my 5190 with me wherever I go now, as it has proven handy under all circumstances. This phone does fit in my pocket, though slightly uncomfortably. I solved that problem by buying a phone case which protects my phone while allowing me the comfort of dialing without removing the case., This phone may have been free, but it comes with many features. I particularly enjoy the different tones that it offers, my favorite being Playground. Since this phone has many different and unique sounds, it makes it easier for me to be able to tell the difference between my cell phone ringing and my friends. Notification of incoming calls is clear. This phone also contains games, which I use whenever I am really bored. It'll come in really handy for those jury duty summons =) This phone also has an Emergency 9 option. As a female college student who walks around the campus at all hours, I find that that having this option on my phone makes me feel more secure as I am walking to and from late night classes and get-togethers. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199...free after donation 89797 2000/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solidly built with some nice features functional phone no industry standard headset connector Full Review I have had my Nokia 5190 for about 4 months now, and I've been pretty happy with it. I have compared it to a Mitsubishi G310 (I own one, and use it often by swapping my SIM card between the two), and believe that the 5190 is a better, more solidly built, more customizable phone. Voice quality, on my provider (Fido) has been great in most areas. Signal strength has always been acceptable - Even with a blinking antenna installed, I can still get a connection almost anywhere. The 5190 is loud enough that I can use it in a crowded mall or sidewalk with no problems hearing the person on the other end (Impossible on the G310!). Battery life, although not quite the advertised "5 hour talktime and a gazillion hours of standby", is still very useable. I have never been able to drain the battery in a day. I usually get about 2-3 days of usage out of it with no problem. Feature-wise, this little sucker is packed! The menus are very simple to navigate, and Nokia has put a lot of effort into nifty-neato stuff, like uploadable ringtones via SMS! (www.yourmobile.com for these) I haven't been too mean to mine, but it feels very solidly built. You can squeeze it as hard as you like, and it won't creak at all! Things I don't like about it - It isn't quite as lightweight as my G310 is, the antenna can not be replaced very easily (you have to take the phone apart), and it does not use an industry standard headset connector, although these aren't very major gripes =-) Overall, I've been pleased with this little one, and certainly recommend it to friends. Plus, you just can't turn down with faceplates and uploadable ringtones =-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Came with cellular package 89796 2000/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very good sound quality transmittingreceiving easy to use can sendreceive email small size 3rd party designer keypads prone to wear Full Review You can buy a Nokia 5190 phone from just about any member of the SBC Global Network but why bother? Pacific Bell Wireless GIVES THEM AWAY when you sign up for a year of service for as little as $20 a month. Similar service plans should be available from other SBC providers. Naturally, that makes one wonder: Just how good is it? Nokia, like Sony, is a company that makes expensive stuff and cheap stuff, but they DON'T make junky stuff. The Nokia 5190 packs oodles of features into a neat tiny package that's a little more than half the size of a regular telephone handset. It uses the GSM (Global Standard for Mobile) protocol, so it's among the most likely candidates to still be usable if the FCC demands a single standard for wireless phones in the USA. It also means you should be able to roam through all 50 states as well as into parts of Canada and Mexico. GSM is already THE standard in Europe and most of Asia. Depending on your service plan and provider, the memory for storing phone numbers in your 5190 ranges from "elephant" to "elephant genius". The sound quality will actually make people at the other end say "You're on your cell (sic) phone?! You don't sound like it!" Similarly, the sound quality at YOUR end is just as impressive. The only thing that takes some getting used to is the lack of "sidetone", that is, hearing your own voice amplified through the receiver. Even without a microphone that's aimed right at your mouth, the 5190 effectively screens out background noise so well, the person you're talking to might not even know you're at the mall or in the car (only when safe conditions permit, of course). The phone isn't intimidating in appearance. Instead of a confusing profusion of buttons and keys, everything is accomplished with just 4 buttons: a large "Navi key", a pair of up and down scrolling keys and a button marked only with the letter "C". 15 minutes with the instruction book and a little button poking will have you flying through the menus on its lighted full alpha-numeric LCD screen. That same screen can turn into a miniature arcade where you can play 5 built-in games. It ain't exactly Gameboy but it's enough to pass the time while waiting for a connection at the airport. And once you get to your hotel room, you can forget about unreliable hotel wake-up calls or trying to figure out how to set the clock radio. The Nokia 5190 has one of the easiest to set alarm clocks built right in. Out of the box, the 5190 gives you a choice of 35 ring tones, more than enough to prevent "Is that my phone ringing?" confusion. It can also send and receive short Email messages phone to phone, phone to Internet and 'net to phone. Signal strength is often good enough to let you place a phone call from inside of an elevator. Like all Nokia 5100 series phones, the 5190 can be dressed up with changeable faceplates and keypads. Be aware, however, that keypads not made by Nokia have a tendency to have their markings rub off, just from normal use. The original keypad that came with mine still looks like the day it first came out of the box. So, if you're looking for a great little wireless phone, DON'T buy a Nokia 5190. Just ask for one. There are plenty of places to get one FREE. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 (free with 1 year contract from Pacific Bell Wireless) 89795 2000/8/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 ease of use features plain looking indoor connection intermittent Full Review Just like the little ubiquitous car, the Nokia 5190 is functional and cheap, with enough flare to keep most users' happy. What's more is most of the times it's free with special promotions from the service provider for signing up on a 1 yr contract (I donated $20 to Special Olympics). The 5190 has a bit of everything for the casual user: phone directory, a collection of annoying ring tones, call log, games, clock, and even a calculator. This is simply the-bang-for-the-buck phone. 1) User friendly panel and features. I barely had to read the manual to understand the logic and functions of the buttons. Four buttons allow navigation through the menu. To the left is a clear/go back button, the middle is the enter/select button, and two scroll buttons at the right. The large screen provides clear readable text, and makes navigation through the menu labyrinth more bearable. 2) Almost free - Many mobile phone services are giving these babies away for signing a contract. This is pretty good for a more than basic phone. But see con #3. 3) Customization - This is one of the reason why Nokia's are everywhere. The face plates can be changed to fit whatever mood you're in. There are the optional solid color face plates that Nokia offers, including the primary colors, plus two kinds of silvers, and a glossy black. One can also get more unique ones at small specialty shops. 1) Cheap plastic feel. Ok, I know it's free. 2) Signal Cutoff - The transmission does not seem very strong indoors, and cuts off the connection without any warning sometimes. 3) Fees - This is more a knock on the service provider than on the phone, but consumers should be aware what the total cost is. For basic Pacific Bell Wireless service, there's a $30 activation fee plus $12 tax on the free phone. The tax is paid on site to the vendor, while the activation charge is added to the first bill. The $30 is waived if a 2-year contract is signed. 4) No belt clip included. It's a handy option that usually comes with other phones. 5) Rings - Although there are plenty of musical rings to choose from like William Tell, Fuga, Badinerie, Menuet, etc., most sounds awful with the high treble tone. A tip on deciding which plans to choose is to start lower cost plan. One can never tell how many minutes they actually use until the first few bills come in. Remember, you can only change your plans upwards. Which means upgrading to a higher minute/ cost plans is easy, but once you upgrade, you're stuck with it phone the life of the contract. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free+$12tax 89794 2001/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 intuitive o s small size for a non folding phone good battery life poor reception leads to frequent call dropping The Bottom LineIf you have a new cell phone, or have a larger budget/demand your products do more than this isn't the phone for you. Full Review Well I signed up to Pacific Bell a little over a year ago and initially received a Startac 7000g phone. I used that for a year, and when it came time to renew my service I took advantage of their trade in offer ($149 credit towards the purchase of a new phone after 1 yr of service). Now I WAS going to get an Ericsson t28 World phone (just about the nicest phone available), however 1 thing kept me back: I felt a need to use my Palm PDA as a web browser and thus was forced into purchasing the Nokia 5190 as my new phone due to compatability limitations. Let's get on to the phone details: The phone, overview The Nokia 5190 is pretty much the same as all the 51xx cellular phones Nokia offers. The first two digits refer to the model number, while the last 2 refer to what network(s) they run on. The 5190 utilizes a GSM network (which offers data and voice communications, digitally). The phone is about 6 inches long, over 1.25 inches thick and almost 2 inches wide (with the stock NiMh battery which). The keypad is on the front of the phone along with the display. The display is about 1 inch squared, and has a decently high resolution for being just a cellular phone (and considering when this phone was originally made). There is a small antenna sticking out the top of the right side, it is encapsulated in rubber and is not flexible, and only protrudes about .75 inches from the top of the phone. Enough schematics, onto the pros/cons and analysis of this phone to others... When I first got this phone I planned on using it mainly for my PDA to make data calls (to check email in class and during travel). I liked my Startac much better (in the beginning) since it is MUCH smaller and also all the sensitive bits of the phone fold together so there is no risk of buttons getting pushed or the display getting scratched. I began to use the Nokia 5190 a little bit just to check out how it compared to the Startac...how did it do? Well let's just say that I haven't used my Startac ONE SINGLE TIME since acquiring the Nokia 5190. That's not to say the Nokia isn't perfect, it's far from it, but compared to the older model Startac the physical downside is more than made up for the intuitiveness of the phone. Pros/Cons Pros: The phone employs much more fuzzy logic than other phones I have used. For example, if someone calls and leaves a voice message it doesn't just display an icon. This phone also has a message that tells the person that he/she missed a call and that they have a new voice message AND it asks you if you want to listen to it with a one button push. This simple example is expanded on by nearly every operation of the phone. Menus are easier to navigate than the Startac, the phone book is easier to edit and modify, straight up the Nokia O/S just blows away the Startac. Also, the Nokia 51xx (and 61xx and some other series) has an easy to remove faceplate for customizability. For $10-20 a person can find all sorts of faceplates with different colors and designs to match their personality. The Nokia also supports many different types of batteries (including NiMH, Lithium-Ion, and even Vibrating batteries). For modifications/accesories, there really aren't many phones that can hold a candle to the Nokia. Cons: Well, there really aren't many cons with the Nokia, but I have noticed a major drawback lately. It seems that in certain environments (maybe it's my computer...) I just can't get any kind of reception. This has led to MANY lost calls, generally in order to minimize static I have to leave my room and actually walk OUTSIDE of my house to keep a decent signal strength. This was not the case with the Motorola Startac which generally didn't have much difficulty maintaining a strong signal. My guess is that the smaller integrated Nokia antenna just isn't all that great. Also, a con which has arisen due to increased technology is just the simple fact that the Nokia 5190 is merely an entry level phone. Generally this phone (or it's brother the 6190) are given away for free to new subscribers. It's a great phone, however when compared to other models currently offered by Verizon Wireless and PacBell, it just doesn't really look all that amazing. Conclusion Well all-in-all the Nokia 5190 is a great phone, it's cheap, flexible, portable and works pretty well generally. Yeah it may not have an MP3 player addon or Bluetooth support (ie--E t28world) but then again cell phones don't really need to do that. A cell phone's job is to make a call remotely using a wireless network, a job this phone has no problem doing efficiently, and easily. A 9/10 overall rating in my book. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89793 2000/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 games small great battery life how d i make that call Full Review Hello. My name is Mike. And I'm addicted to "Snake." Snake is one of the games on the Nokia 5190, it's basically a clone of the ancient "Centipede." The basic idea is that you're this pixelated snake trying to gobble up rats, tokens, birds, or whatever. Every one you swallow adds four pixels to your length. You don't want to run into walls or yourself. What a game to be addicted to. In all seriousness, however, I do find myself playing Snake constantly - whether it be at the coffee shop, at work (shhhh - not that much) or at home. The other features of this phone are equally fantastic, however. GSM The Nokia 5190 is a GSM mobile / cellular phone (cellular refers to the arrangement of cellular towers, each one covering an area known as a "cell"). GSM is by far the most advanced and usable cellular technology on the market today. Its primary competitors, CDMA and TDMA, are generally lower-quality, lower-reliability and lower-bandwidth. GSM is the standard cellular system in Europe, and they have an incredibly advanced system there. You can even order sodas by dialing a vending machine and billing it to your cell phone bill. Very cool stuff. GSM was developed during the early 80s when analog cellular systems were really taking off in Europe -- especially Scandinavia and Britain. Each country had developed their own cellular network, and none of the networks were compatible with each other (for instance, I couldn't cross the channel with my British phone and expect it to work in France). The Europeans realized that this wasn't an ideal situation, and in 1982 the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group called Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) to develop a cellular system for all of Europe. The criteria were simple - good subjective voice quality, ISDN compatibility (for high-speed Internet access), international roaming support, spectral frequency (more users per cell) and handheld units (obviously!). GSM has met all of these requirements and many more, offering everything from Short Messaging Service (small text messages between phones) to e-mail and Web access, in addition to good voice quality. Size, weight, durability The Nokia 5190 is rather small and light, weighing in at less than six ounces and measuring about 5.2 inches from head to toe. I generally keep it clipped to my belt, and after the first day I stopped noticing it was there. I simply hear it ringing and say to myself "oh, I have my phone with me." This can be both a good and bad thing. I haven't had any problems with durability so far, although it hasn't had much of a chance to break. So far it's holding up very well though. Dialing Oddly enough, yesterday I placed a call to my office and managed to stay on the line for about fourty-five minutes. I say oddly enough because I never dialed the office. My boss, being the idiot he sometimes is, put me on speakerphone and proceeded to listen to me laying cable at a local coffee shop. Needless to say, that cost me some minutes on my plan. Features I already mentioned the games. There's also Short Messaging Service (receive small e-mail-like text messages from friends and news services), there's a nice headset device (which came with my phone) which works very well, and there are a myriad of other niceties such as more than two dozen different ring tones (everything from Ode to Joy to the Mexican Hat Dance to ring-ring. I keep it on ring-ring). Battery life I seem to have relatively good luck with my batteries. My phone generally needs recharging every two days, with about an hour of talk time per day. Call quality Except for one area where there was a signal strength of one out of five, I have had unbelievably clear and wonderful calls. No one has commented I'm on a speakerphone or cell phone, and most are very suprised when I tell them I'm not on a landline. Overall I'm really enjoying this new phone, and I have a feeling I'll be keeping it for a while now. If there are any problems that may crop up, I'll certainly let everyone know. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89792 2003/9/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight small lots of features i will never use all of the features The Bottom LineA great little phone. I give it a 5 star rating because it worked great for me. Full Review ***Update -- September 2003: I had to get another phone. My new one is a Nokia, but I don't like it nearly as much. The back kept slipping, which caused the phone to discharge. When I took my Nokia 5190 to the Cingular store, I was told that this phone only has an average life of 8 months before the back cover begins slipping. They have fixed this problem now in that the battery is no longer in the cover, but a separate piece. The man at Cingular said I must have taken very good care of my phone as he almost never sees one over a year old still in service. It was a sad day for me as I loved my little phone. Prior to my Nokia 5190, I only had one other cell phone. It was an older and a much larger (huge, actually) analog type. It served it's purpose quite well. I only got rid of it because the battery was dead, and it was cheaper to get a new Nokia 5190 than to replace the battery. I love this phone!! It is small, which also equates to less weight (it weighs in at less than six ounces). When I had my other phone in my purse, it felt as though I was carrying a lead weight in there -- a heavy one! With my Nokia 5190, I have to check to make sure it is in there. It is so light that it is easy to forget that I am carrying it. On the downside, it is very small. I have an elderly aunt that can't use it because of the size. However, this has never been a problem for me. It has a lot of features -- many of which I don't use simply because I am too lazy to read the instruction manual (like the security settings that I know absolutely nothing about). Fortunately, my husband has the same phone and has shown me some of the basic features. Some of these, like the screen that lights up whenever you use the phone, are automatic. I must say that I love this feature. I have poor vision, especially when it is dark. The lighted screen is a big plus for me. It also has a built in Caller ID feature, which shows the name and number of the person calling. In addition, it shows any missed calls, including the time of the call. Most of the features, that I use however, you have to set manually. A couple of the features that I don't use, but are worth mentioning here are voice mail and call forwarding. I suppose that these would be nice to use, if I would ever take the time to learn how to use them!!! One of the features that doesn't come preset that I do like is the phone book, which allows you store over 100 names and phone numbers in the phone. Calls can be made by just scrolling or searching, locating the name, and hitting send. Another useful feature is the variety of rings you can choose from. Since my husband and I both use the same model of phone, we have ours set to different rings -- his is a phone provided by the company he works for, and it could potentially be disastrous if he misses a call. No confusing a call made to his phone to wither my cell or the house phone! Games, like snake and memory, are programmed into the phone. I have to admit, this feature came in handy over the holidays on road trips. Nothing like a game of snake to take your mind off the fact that there is six more hours of driving time, and your husband won't let you behind the wheel! Another feature that bears mentioning is the fixed length antenna. It is much nicer than my previous phone, which had an antennae that you had to pull out. I think I went though three different antennas with that phone! If you are in the market for a cell phone, I would suggest for you to at least go by your local retailer and check it out for yourself. I think for the price, quality, and ability, the Nokia 5190 is the best out there. Other features that merit mentioning include the battery. Mine holds a charge for three to four days -- I leave the phone on all of the time, but don't use it for more than 30 minutes tops each day. I suppose if you do use it more, then you would have to charge it more often. With my previous cell phone, you couldn't use it while it was charging. My Nokia 5190 is fully functional even while hooked up to the charger. The call quality is also very clear. Again, with my previous cell phone, the person on the other end could always tell that I was on my cell. With this phone though, no one has been able to tell the difference. Although it isn't a big factor for me, it is for my husband, who uses his for business. I really do like my new phone. It is a big improvement over my last one. The deal I got when purchasing makes it extra sweet too (a donation to Special Olympics and the phone was free.) I would recommend this phone to anyone in the market for a new cell phone -- even if they have to pay full price, which in this area is about $100. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): donationRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89791 2000/12/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life light small poor reception The Bottom LineOkay for personal use, not good for business due to poor reception. Full Review Recently a friend gave me his old Nokia cell-phone. I have one of my own, a Samsung, but I was having a lot of problems with the service provider -- mainly they overcharge and do not record incoming numbers so it is impossible to verify billing unless you record every phone call you make and receive. To change to another provider would have cost $75, the Nokia was a gift. Features Telephone book: Stores up to 250 numbers (more than I will ever need). The phone book is easy to use, and incoming calls from people in my book show who is calling. Call Log that records the number (and, if in my book the name) of any missed calls -- a handy feature for people who don't leave messages. Automatic redial feature. Call forwarding. Lets you receive calls at another number. Call waiting. Lets you know when another call is coming in. I haven't used this feature yet. Games. Some pretty basic computer games. Not at all addicting, they're pretty boring in fact. Calculator. This feature came in handy when I forgot to pack a calculator and had to figure out my students' grades. Clock. Tones. Like all phones, you can select your ring type. Unlike my other phone, the Nokia only has a few basic options. My experience The Nokia is a decent telephone, but reception is poor when you are indoors, and occasionally calls get dropped altogether. The battery charge lasts several days, an improvement over my other phone which needed to be charged every 12 hours. Overall recommendation If you can get this phone at a decent rate and do not plan to use it for business purposes it's worthwhile. Otherwise, invest in a newer model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): GIFT 89790 2000/8/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great size great storage ringing tone volume battery life reception Full Review I got my Nokia 5190 phone about nine months ago to replace my analog phone that was getting ancient. I bought a service plan that allowed me to have 1000 weekend minutes and 500 daily minutes. I use my phone mostly at night and on the weekends so the plan fit me and my budget well. I like a lot of what the little phone has to offer. It is very compact, a little over five inches long and about an inch and half wide and thick. (It is about the size of a ball point pen in length). It is very light and you can fit it into your purse or pocket with ease. The phones antenna is very small and only sticks out about a 1/2 an inch. Colorful covers can be purchased for $ 19.95 to make your little phone look nice. The phone has a lot of features that makes it a handy storage device. The plan I have allows voice mail, written messages, and the storage of up to 80 phone numbers and names. The phone's battery life is said to be up to 5 hours of talking time and up to 9 days of standby time. My phone lasts about 2 hours of talking time and I have not tested the standby time for any great length of time, (more than a day). Some of the features that I find myself using in everyday life are the Lock out button, The number storage feature in my phone book, and the voice mail. My dislikes of the phone are as follows: Reception: the phone is digital, my reception a lot of the time is worse than my analog phone was. At times my conversations are as clear as a land line phone. At other times in bad areas my phone cuts out and I can not understand the person on the other end. Ringing Tones: My phone does not ring loud enough for me. When it is in my purse at times I can not hear it. I wish the ringing feature was louder. Battery life: Mine lasts no where as long as the up to five hours advertised. Up to five hours to me, means more than four; not two. Even with the dislikes I still recommend this phone. It is a lot smaller than an analog phone and it has a lot more features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Special Deal 89789 2000/12/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 quality price ability none Full Review I Love MY Nokia Cell Phone Through the last several years, I have owned many different Cell Phones of a variey of different brands. I kept changing and searching for one that met all my expectations. I finally found one that did in the Nokia 5190. I first became familiar with this phone because my husband has this Cell Phone. (This is the phone his company gave to all its employees). So, when we were on vacation this past summer, I familiarized myself with his phone. I loved it and was won over right away. I immediately went down to my local Pacific Bell Wireless store and changed my Erickson in for the Nokia 5190. (With the Smart chip, this process is very simple. They simply remove the chip from the back of the old phone and place it into the new one.) •Size- This phone is small enough that I can fit it into my purse or any other small place, yet not TOO small where it is hard to operate. (I had this problem with my Erickson, the buttons were so small that I could barely push them). This Nokia 5190 model is just perfect. • Phone Book- You are able to store over 100 names and phone number into your phone. Calls can be made by just scrolling up or down, finding the name you want to call and hitting send. (You can also do a search for a name instead of scrolling, whichever you prefer.) • Security Settings- I really love this feature. You can set your phone to a pass word, so that when it is not in use, nobody can turn your phone on. You have to enter your password into the phone in order to activate it each time. (This makes a wonderful feature in case anyone steals your phone.... they wont be able to make any calls on your account.) •Ringing Tones- There are several different rings that you can choose from to customize your phone or you can choose to have no ring at all, it is totally up to you. (Mine is set on the Mexican Hat Dance Song for when it rings.... Why??? I have no idea, my husband is responsible for that one.) •Screen- Your screen lights up when you begin pushing buttons, which makes it easy to see what you are doing. (You can adjust it to stay on always too if you would like.) •Caller ID- This shows the name and number of the person who is calling. (Just like your one at home would do.) It also show missed calls numbered in order from when they were received. Just go to the function that says missed calls and you can scroll down and view them all. •Games- Games are programmed into the phone to play. (Not like this is of any importance... I just thought I would mention it. That way if your husband is the HARDWARE store taking forever or your wife is taking a bit too long shopping and you are left in the car, you can kick back and play a quick game of "Snake" or "Memory") •Emergency Key- This phone has an emergency key to call 911 quickly. Just push the number 9 and hold down on it for a few seconds, your call will be placed through. (You can also do this by hitting 9 and send.) make sure you activate this when you first get your phone, because it doesn't come already on. •Voice Mail- You can activate you voice mail in a similar way to the "Emergency Key." You push and hold down #1. •Antenna- This phone has a fixed length antenna. No more having to pull your antenna up while you are using your cell phone. (this was the very thing that caused my antenna to bend on my last phone. The fixed antenna is the best.) •Call forwarding- This phone allows you to forward your calls to another number. This is a great feature. •Call Hold- You can put a call on hold by selecting HOLD in the menu and then click UNHOLD when you are done. (You can also mute the speaker, which is done in the same way as the call hold.) There are so many other features that this phone has that I couldn't possibly name them all. I have had my phone for about 5 months now and I am still learning new things about it everyday. If you get this phone, I would suggest keeping the users guide near the phone. (Either in your purse or in your glove box.) There is a convenient index in the back that will direct you to the instructions on ALL of the functions. I guarantee that every time you pick up your phone you will find something else new and nifty that your Nokia 5190 can do. Overall, this is a WONDERFUL Cell Phone. I just can't say enough good things about it. I have recommended it to many of my friends and family members and I will continue to do so. If you are in the market for a Cell Phone, I would suggest for you to at least go by your local retailer and check it out for yourself. I think for the price, quality, and ability, the Nokia 5190 is the best out there. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): I did an upgrade, so I didn't pay full price. 89788 2000/8/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 size ease of use features hands free etc weight transmission quality not too great Full Review Background About six years ago I bought my first Nokia as part of a plan. It was the 101 and cost me $15. The phone itself weighed as much as a full can of Coke and was physically huge. It had outstanding reception and never dropped a call. My second was also analog and was a bit smaller, but still very heavy. It too was extremely reliable, never dropped a call, and was crystal clear 24-7. Both of these phones had been dropped many times. The 101 was put on the trunk of my car and fell of on a highway, so I walked back onto the median, picked it up, put it together, and it worked fine. It was dropped in a hot tub and after drying out for about a week, worked great. It (the 101) was dropped down stairs, thrown at a wall, menaced by my dog, and it worked great when I gave it to a friend almost 2 years after i bought it. These are all true stories that I am relating for the purpose of proving a point, Nokias are tough, durable phones. The 5190 I have now I also bought as part of a plan for $20. Its the basic model, no flip, no springs, no sliding part, and it doesn't look like the phone in The Matrix. It was a basic phone purchased to replace my landline and my dependence of the EVIL that is Southwestern Bell. I have never dropped this phone and don't plan on it for several reason that I will detail as we go along. I do want to state right off the bat that a lot of what I am describing here can be attributed directly to the quality (or more specifically, the lack there of) of the provider I made the mistake of getting, Voicestream Wireless in Austin, Texas. But this review is about the phone, not the service, so let's go! Features This phone has a lot of them. In traditional Nokia style, you probably won't use many of the features, but its nice to have the versatility available. The call log is one I use often. Because a lot of my friends have cell phone numbers that occasionally change it is nice to be able to go back and see what number you dialed last or even 8 numbers ago. One of the features that makes that menu feature useful is that if you dial the same number again later it won't take up room in the log, just new numbers. Also, in the same vein, when you go back to check the last numbers recieved, it will only log the new numbers and simply replace the time, how convenient! The games are fluff, but its nice if your stuck in line someplace, on a subway, back seat of a car, or even bored at work. They aren't too difficult to master, but really now, its a phone not a Nintendo. The Clock feature is VERY useful. I now use the alarm clock on my phone as opposed to my little Sony clock radio. The snooze is shorter (less chance of sleeping late), the alarm is irritating as well as earsplittingly loud, so its always a good bet I'll get up. I use the calculator more often than I thought I might, I'm really glad to have it, whether its balancing my checkbook or calculating a drag coefficient. The messaging service is outstanding!! Not only can I get text messages for free, I can essentially use the phone as a pager or I can use it for voicemail, its my call (though I know these aren't available everywhere). The text messaging is great, I can store a large bank of form responses that I can scan and choose depending on the text that I recieved. It can take a while to write original text messages, but its worth it if its private or the person is unreachable verbally. One of things that Nokia has long been famous for, other than build quality, is their unreal amount of ring options. If you can't find something that appeals to you in this list of some 30 or so songs, get a bookshelf, you've got bigger issues. Personally, I like changing mine every few weeks, just for variety. The loudest ring could be louder, but in most situations it will do. It has the options for soft ring, single beep, and silent as well. All of these things have a place and I have used them all at least once, which for me, proves those options are more than just fluff for the purpose of a sales point. The screen is bright clear and easy to read. As i understand it, there have been problem with the screens going dark or light to the point they are illegible. I have not experienced this. Mine is as bright now as the day I got it. There doesn't seem to be any leakage in the crystal matrix, nor does it seem warped, and its been in my car in the daytime. For those of you not familiar with Texas, that can equal 160 degrees quite quickly. I haven't ever really had a need to use the forwarding feature, though I did read the directions and it seems relatively straight forward. The setting section is really only something you might use to set it up and possibly change the greeting message or change the security access code that has to be put in when the phone is turned on. Battery The key to getting any battery to perform well is to be sure to open it up properly. What I am going to describe is time consuming, but will ensure optimum performance and battery life. I did not do this procedure fully and as a result have to charge my battery at least every 24-36 hrs. Keep in mind however that this is my sole communications device, so as such I tend to log 900-1300 minutes a month. Opening the battery is simple, but it has to be done right. When one first receives the phone, charge the battery until it stops charging and leave it in the phone, with the phone on, and don't take any calls. Let the battery drain completely. Repeat this again, then a third time. This can take up to a week in some cases, but it can make the difference between buying a new battery a year later or three years later. Its your money, your effort, and your time, so make the right move and take the time to open up that battery right! The fact that I didn't do this and the fact that I repeatedly start charging the battery before its discharged its load has resulted in unreliable performance, huge variances in batt life, and the need to carry a second in the car and a third at home. This can be more than irritating, don't do what I did. Performance The phone performs flawlessly when the signal is strong and there aren't mitigating factors like massive electrical storms. Unlike analog (this phone is single band digital) this phone just drops the call when you are out of range, no warning. Analog on the other hand will static out slowly, so at least you have a chance to finish up. This also allows for greater space between dedicated transmitters. With a digital, you may not be able to recall untill you are near enough to the next one, and in central Texas, the hills only exacerbate this. When the signal is strong, peoples voices are of land line quality. Most of the time however (70%) it is very spotty at best. Again, this could be due in part to my lousy service. I live with the phone though, I can cope. It has almost been a year, the contract is almost up, and as soon as it is I am going to Verizon and getting an Audiovox 3500. Anyhoo, overall, the reception is good with occasional use, because I use it constantly, these difficiencies are in my face all the time, the casual user may not be so affected. The earset (I have the Jabra model) is easy to use, fits well, is comfortable, and has a good mic in it. I use it most often on the road, but there are times I will use it home when I am cooking or cleaning. Most people do not us this in their vehicles that I have seen, so I may be in minority on this one. I like it, its a convenient feature for me. Summary Choose your provider well, do your research, find references, check with family and friends. This ultimately will determine how you feel about the phone you choose. I have several friends with 5160, some with 6100 series dual bands. They all like their phones, as do I, but I sometimes I have a hard time figuring who to blame for my phone woes. I have a hard time believing its the phone. My experience has told me Nokia makes the most solid, versatile, user friendly phone out there. This phone seems to support those feelings. I would be more glowing about the review, but I think my &*%$# service colors this somewhat. I say this to all of you, get a Nokia product and you should be happy beyond words, but that phone in the hands of an inept provider can make that experience seem like a root canal. Nokia has established a permanent place in our culture. At this point you would have to have been living under a rock not to have seen them in some point. As the level of phone technology increases and the cost of the phones start to drop into reasonable ranges for their respective uses, i think reviews like mine of their product(s) will get better, untill then get a Nokia, and if you have the money get a Motorola. Take care all! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 7784 Nokia 8265 89899 2000/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to get attached to sleek looking phone easy interface slightly oversized for its price The Bottom LineA very simple and basic good looking phone. I love it. Full Review These days, an inprovement, a new edition of anything technological often means that they've figured out a new way of shoving the same stuff into smaller confines. Not true here. Instead, I suppose Nokia wanted to give their popular and well liked 8260 some leg room and enlarge the subsequent edition. Personally, I think that the newer Nokia 8265 has gained a lot in style, for the tradeoff in size. i have a penchant for flip phones that oddly, seemed to fade with this one. From roughly four weeks ago, its purchase, I have dropped it in water (the nice saleslady supplied me with a new one) and lost it at school (a friend of a friend found it, got my desperate text and gave it to my friend who surprised me with it when I'd lost all hope of getting it back)-so yeah, this phone and I've been through a lot. Motorola, probably Nokia's biggset competitor at this point (although others like sony ericsson and samsung are coming close), supplies its phones with a much more thorough and oft times complicated interface. You can pretty much customize anything (if u read the manual carefully enough) on that phone. My mother has a T90 (or something like that) and it comes with 'soft' keys, which you'll find on the V60 & V60i as well, which basically allows you to customize what three keys lead to. You can set one for voicemail, one for address book, one for web, etc etc. It also types in many differnt characters, meaning the tap method gets very tedious if u miss your letter. Nokia is definitely not like this. Their system is in a word-universal. There is no NEED for customization, when everything is laid out in front of you very very simply. Profiles are easy to use, the games (SNAKE II...lol) are enough to keep you occupied, everything is simple and streamlined. It's like having big yellow post it notes on every button-kind of makes you feel like a huge idiot, but reassuring and helpful at the same time. Do not expect to find hidden features by reading through the manual-you won't. Everything that comes with teh phone is out infront of you in the menu. I personally like the look of hte phone. With the leather case however, it can get bulky. It's parts, I've noticed, especially the earphones are definitely not as well made as Motorola's. These small parts are ones you'd expect companies to skimp over, but surprisingly Motorola pays them a good deal of attention while Nokia does not. It features a built in antenna which is good and bad-good because there is no danger of banging it around or it breaking off, but bad because it is hard to get used to talking on the phone without holding it (since you aren't supposed to touch it) The main features include: Phonebook -self explanatory. There is no voice recognition mechanism that comes with most motorolas and samsungs and others. it's a relatively simple and basic function. There isn't the more than one number per name function (example, john's work, john's home, john's cell would all be grouped together under john with different logos to pick from), so it gets cluttered kind of fast. Messages : Voicemail, text, welcome note, and PICTURE MESSAGES. picture messages are just text messages but with pictures, nothing to really be excited about. Call log: I like the 'missed calls' option very much, because it does not count each call individually. Suppose one person called you ten times, it would not list ten of those calls, it would only list one and their various times. WILL BE UPDATED. UNFINISHED. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89898 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ultra sleek user friendly mega features price tag The Bottom LineI have found this to be the perfect combination of phone and service provider! Full Review I am a long-standing fan of Nokia model cell phones. I started out with a 5120 model, moved on to a 8260 and now I've upgraded to a 8265. I could not WAIT until Cingular started carrying this phone! It's just as easy to use as all Nokia phones, plus has newer games and animated menus. The menus are still black and white, which is upsetting, but I can deal with that. Some menu options have been moved around and are hard to locate. For instance, previous phone models had a KeyLock feature that was listed as a separate option on the menu. Now, it's not. And unless you remember the key combination (Menu, *) you won't be able t activate it. The Calendar stores all your dates and important notes and functions. That's still available. I am one of those people that loose phones inside a pocket, a purse, or a car. Imagine the trouble I went through with my previous phone (Nokia 8260) and you will appreciate what I have to say next: The 8265 is slightly larger in size and heavier in weight than the 8260. Which makes it perfect! It's not so big that it becomes burdensome, and not so small that it gets lost in your pocket! The clarity and the stability of the signal is also outstanding! Keep in mind that the antenna is an internal one, but it does not cause a problem at all with Cingular. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 89897 2002/9/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 like the 8260 but with better call quality slightly bigger than the 8260 nokia added useless features in lieu of meaningful improvements The Bottom LineA great phone just like the 8260. Its principle benefit is still its small size. Full Review The Nokia 8265, as successor to the 8260, shares all the good qualities of the 8260 but in a slightly larger package. (Some claim that the larger size makes it easier to hold, but I don't agree, and I'm not sure why Nokia chose to make the 8265 bigger.) Improvements or added features: When I recently called AT&T to complain about frequent dropped calls and poor quality, they suggested that my 8260 was the culprit, and recommended I upgrade to the 8265. I did, and the call quality does seem to be better. Additionally, the 8265 has a brighter backlit screen (black on white) than the 8260, and changeable faceplates. The 8265 also has a new capability for "picture" messages, but this doesn't seem like a very useful feature - the resolution is too low to send anything other than simple clipart. Improvements Nokia should have made, but didn't: I used the 8260 for almost two years, and it was a great phone. Great size, good user interface, great battery life. But it wasn't perfect. There were a few things that I had hoped Nokia would improve upon in the 8265, but didn't. The 8265, like the 8260, still has no external interface to its phonebook. No IR (like the 8290), no serial or USB, nothing. You have to manually key in every phone number. The call log still does not record the elapsed time for individual calls, and completely ignores incoming calls from caller-id-blocked/unavailable numbers. The call log also does not store multiple entries for the same phone number; it only stores the most recent call per number. Finally, the phonebook still does not allow for multiple numbers per entry (i.e., Home, Cell, Pager). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 (w/AT&T) 89896 2000/8/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight changeable faceplates custom callergroupsringtones excellent reception faceplates chip easily a little larger than it s predecessor the 8260 The Bottom LineThis phone has everything you could want in a phone and it looks really cool and has great reception. Full Review I just upgraded from the Nokia 8260 after dropping it way too many times and I love this phone. For those familiar with the 8260 the menus are almost identical except that they've increased the number of downloadable ringtones to 10, the menu pictures are animated, and the display backlight is a cool white. The built-in antenna on this one works a lot better than the 8260's also. It has great reception. It also has changeable faceplates that are very easy to change. If you drop the phone they scratch up pretty easily but the upside is that the faceplates cover the entire phone so after you've dropped the phone for the 1000th time you can change faceplates and the phone looks like brand new. And the insides of a Nokia keep running no matter how many times you drop them. One of the best features of the phone is the alarm clock with snooze that even works when the phone is off. If you have something important to wake up for, you never have to worry about the power going out. As an airline steward this is perfect while traveling. On the downside the phone is a bit larger (a few millimeters) than it's predecessor but the larger keys are nice. And phone only comes with the standard charger and not with the lightweight rapid travel charger that charges in 1 hour as opposed to over 2 hours with the standard. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89895 2003/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small lightweight no data interface small very few features The Bottom LineGood as a basic phone, but not enough features to compete with other modern phones. Full Review I had a Nokia 5160 that I was very pleased with. I switched to the Ericsson T60 last year and had a horrible experience (see my T60 review). Update: After 2 days, I have returned this phone and switched to a Nokia 6360. The lack of features on this phone for the same price were enough to help me to switch. Positives - Size - I'm very happy with the size and weight of the 8265. It is small and light enough to be almost forgotten in my pocket or on my belt. - Backlight - The backlight is great - it's very bright with good contrast. - Call Quality - I haven't made many calls yet, but the call quality seems fairly good. - Features - The phone also includes T9 predictive-text input for messages (more no this below). Negatives After having a T60, I was very surprised at the lack of features on this phone. - Address Book - The address book doesn't support multiple numbers per contact. Also, you can't use the predictive text input when entering names into the address book. - Keypad - The keypad is strangely shaped and the buttons take a bit to get used to as they are small and close together. Also, the white backlight makes the default keypad hard to read, since most of the buttons are light gray. - Data Sync - There is no data sync capability for this phone. Apparently you can receive "Business Cards", but I can't seem to find a way to send them (other than from the phone itself). OK, so the size is too small for me. I don't have overly large hands, but my hand started cramping up when talking on the phone for more than a minute or two. A handsfree set is definitely required. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89894 2003/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 colorful cases white screen fits in palm the palm of your hand light weight small buttons The Bottom LineThis phone is small, light, and fits all of my needs. Full Review Why I Bought This Phone It seems that every year I end up getting myself a new phone to be different from everyone else. I loved my last phone and just didn't want to have to get a different phone, but I had no choice. My old nokia phone had a problem with the screen so that NOTHING showed up on the screen at all. Immediately I started shopping for my newest phone. I had always wanted the Motorolla V60 since before the public new about this phone. At this point, everyone and their cousin had this phone. I like to be different, so I didn't want it anymore. I ended up doing some research and just decided I would try out the Motorolla V60. I just wasn't happy with it, so I moved on back to Nokia and tried the 8265. Case I hate having the original case on my phone because it is just so boring, so my first accessory bought was the orange/green case. I love the case because it looks orange from one angle, but if you turn the phone it has a green shine to it. Everyone loves my phone especially because of the case I bought for it. Features After getting used to having certain features on my past nokia phones, I just couldn't live without having the same features on this new phone. Thank goodness this phone had all of those lovely features. I still have the Calender, 10 downloadable ringtones, calculator (which comes in hand when doing sale shopping), different profile rings, and of course the games (which some phones just don't have). I don't really use the calender for any other reason than to remember people's birthdays. Occassionally, I will make a note on the calender of a song name and artist so that I can download it when I get home so I don't forget the information. When I go shopping, it is great to have the calculator on my phone to help figure out how much things are and how much I will be saving. I could probably live without the games on the phone since I don't play them, but after having them on my past phone, its just a feature that if you didn't have it and you needed it, you would be upset. Screen The bright white background light is great. It helps you to see the screen so much better. The only problem with it is when your phone rings in the middle of the night and you look at your phone when you wake up from being asleep, it kind of hurts your eyes. I guess thats what you get from leaving your phone on while you are sleeping. Profiles The different profiles on the phone are a fun feature. This allows you to set up different ring volumes, and different ring tones when set at each profile. This way, when you go into a meeting, you can just put your phone into "meeting" mode which has been set up with a low ring volume, with a preset ringtone of your choice. You can even rename the profiles to fit your needs. The same goes for the caller groups. You can set up a specific ring for certain people. For example, when your friends in the group call, your phone will ring in the "Samba" ring and when your family in the group calls, your phone will ring with "city bird". This way when you hear that certain ring you know whether you want to rush to the phone or not. Buttons The only problem I have with this phone is something that cannot totally be fixed. The buttons are a little small and too close together. If you think about it, in order to get the small compact phone, you have to deal with problems like that. After a while, you start to get used to it and adjust. I do like how the buttons are shaped differently than most other phones. Durability This phone has yet to let me down. One other problem with this phone is that it isn't a GSM phone which are becoming popular now that they are hitting the market. If you don't need any of the GSM phone features, this would be a great phone. It is durable and won't break as easily as most phones. I dropped my phone a few times and just have a tiny scrach on the back cover that can be changed. I hope my review has helped some of you to determine if you want this phone or if you ruled it out of your choices. If you would like more information, please write me a comment and I will be sure to edit my review to answer these questions. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 89893 2003/10/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 internet browser mobile text messaging none that come to mind The Bottom LineI like it. Works great for what I need and sometimes even what I don't. Full Review Is the Nokia 8265 really on the cutting edge of mobile phone technology? I think it is! I mean after all, it's cheap, it does things those other phones 2-3 times as expensive as it does, and it does them well. The 8265 gets great reception even in areas that I have had problems before. My old phone was a Nokia 5165 so one of the nicest things was that my power cords all work for this one as well. Let ma tell you a few of the things that the Nokia 8265 has to offer you: A mobile Internet browser that someday soon I hope to figure out how to use. I wish I could tell you more about this feature but I can't. I promise though that when I learn to use it I will come back and update this opinion with that information. The phone book lets you store up to 250 names and numbers that you can call up rather easily. You can even download different ring tones from an Internet site to this phone so that your phone won't sound just like everyone else that has one. Not that I think it is such a big deal but you can get accessory color covers so that your phone won't look like everyone else's as well. The phone also features two-way text messaging that I once thought was just a stupid feature but have since learned I like it almost as much as talking to someone. Sometimes a conversation is out of the question. To be honest I feel like a little kid passing notes at school when I use it. I have had nothing but a good experience using this phone so far and doubt that I will need another any time soon. It's small enough to stay out of my way but big enough that I don't find myself looking high and low to find it like smaller cellular phones. The Nokia 8265 can be used with AT&T Wireless, Cellular One, and Triton service providers. I myself use AT&T. For the $50 that I spent for my Nokia 8265 I think that I got a great deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89892 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 think of it as a nokia 8260 on a party custume great reception flashierslightly bigger but not clearly superior to the 8260 The Bottom LineA dissapointing but efficient next step from the great 8260, on of the best sounding phones in the market, and the best reception for any Nokia. Full Review I loved my 8260. Superb phone, reliable, cute, small size..had it all. Now comes the 8265 and here I am, ready to get this one before anyone else. I should also mention that I own another cell phone, the also impressive Panasonix TX310. Now that is what I call comparison potential! What new bells and whistles does the 8265 has to offer? Nothing much, really, other than a better backlit screen, which now its bright blue-white, much easier interchangeable faceplates, a slightly bigger body, and much better sound quality. MUCH better. You will notice a much sleeker face, more "triangular" buttons that do not improve dialing at all. Sure, the new 8265 looks cool and jazzy, a lot more than Panasonic´s TX310. The lack of a visible exterior antenna is still one of nokia´s better points, and this time, reception has been improved substantially, because I am taking calls on places whene I usually could not. I can say that Nokia matched the outstanding reception abilities of the TX310. If overall size is a priority for you, then the Nokia is your phone. Wait a second. Weight is also important. The new 8265 is still far heavier than the TX310. Battery life is comparable on stdby mode, but on call mode the scales tip in favor of the Panasonic with over 20% more capacity. You must know, however, that the TX310 is one of the lightest phones in the market. Nokia is not. How about other improvements? Nokia stayed with its great formula where ease of use and intuition take center stage. Nokia has to be among the friendliest phones out there, menus are clear, straightforward and logical. The alarms and agenda are top notch tools for us traveling people, and the new 8265 has the same cool features its predecesor did. The only problem is that TX310 still offers a lot more, like voice commands, speaker, more powerful agenda, and its own ring tone composer, just to name the most evident. Finally, the new 8265´s faceplate may be easier to interchange, but it is also flimsy and after less than one month of use, it looks beaten. The faceplate chips easily, and to top it all off, the dial is all squeaky now. Bottom line is: I expected a MUCH better phone than this as the succesor of the excellent 8260. The looks are killer, yes, and the recepction and sound quality has been MUCH improved, but slight size increase, and the flimsy faceplate are dissapointing. The TX310 has a lot more to offer and feels more durable. I have to choose which one to keep by the end of september. And Im keeping the Panasonic. Enjoy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 89891 2003/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use cool features clarity great back light small size placement of numeric keys The Bottom LineI highly recommend this phone. Excellent reception and call quality. Great back light, very portable - the perfect size and weight! Cool features! Full Review I have had a Nokia 6161i for 2 years and decided to upgrade because I wanted something a little less hefty to carry in my purse! I didn't realize that not only would I get a smaller, light weight phone, but I would get better call quality! This phone rocks! I used to try to call from the back of our Walmart store (I live in the suburbs of upstate NY) and I could not get a good enough reception. If someone called me while I was shopping, the phone wouldn't even ring, due to poor reception. Well, my first day with this phone my husband called me and I was in the far back of the store - no windows - and I could hear him crystal clear! I was quite impressed! I have now had the phone for one week and all of my calls have been much clearer and the reception way better! I love the back light! It is very bright and much - much easier to read than the old green light of my old phone. This light is white with like a hint of blue and it is so much better to see - in all light conditions. I was a bit worried that going to such a small phone would make the keys hard to use, but it didn't take me long to adjust at all. By the time I was halfway through entering my 75 phone book entries, I was a pro at the keys. I really thought I would have a hard time getting used to their location, as it is a bit funky, but it wasn't hard at all. I would still prefer that the keys not be angeled like they are, but it was easy enough for me to adjust to them. Also, I would point out that I rarely use the numeric keys now that I have my phone book set up. I love the little features like programming your phone to ring different for different groups of people, and adding little graphics. When my husband calls, he has his own ring and hearts appear on my LCD. I love that! Although this was a feature with my old Nokia, I didn't realize it until I bought this one. Cool! I am a bit biased to Nokia. My parents and sister all have Motorolas and I just do not care for them at all. I just like the ease of use with the Nokia. The menus are easy to follow and the phone has all of the features I would ever need. It has a time display, you can set it to be an alarm. You can set up the different ringing groups, etc. It even has features I would rarely use like playing games, ability to download ring tones, as well as text & picture messaging. I like knowing these features are there, should I decide to use them some day. This phone has a very loud ring. It has 5 different ringing levels, and I was a bit worried that the smaller size would effect the loudness of the ring - not so. Like I said, it has 5 levels. Although I think level 4 is the same as level 5, it doesn't matter to me because level 4 is VERY LOUD! Also, you can adjust how loud you can hear through the ear piece, and with the level for this set all of the way up, it is way too high, for me anyway. However, I would imagine that it would be good if you are in a very noisy environment, or if you are a bit hard of hearing. Although I can't see me ever needing it at it's highest level, it's good to know - just in case! I also like that you can have the phone vibrate AND ring. This way, if you hear a cell phone ringing and can't tell if it is you or the person next to you, then you can tell by if your's is vibrating or not! You can have it just ring, just vibrate, or both! How cool! I would also like to note that my 6161i was a flip phone, so I was worried about the keys on the 8265 being accidentally pushed while in my purse. The salesman was kind enough to show me a quick shortcut to locking and unlocking the keypad. All you hit is "menu" followed by "*" and the keypad is locked; do the same to unlock. So simple! To sum it up, I am so glad I spent the money and upgraded! It was well worth the money. I am so impressed with the call quality and I love how light it is to carry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 89890 2002/11/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size easy nokia interface bright backlight it s a nokia sometimes difficult to dial with teeny buttons The Bottom LineIt's a Nokia. This phone is easy to use, feature-rich and very stylish. Full Review I bought this phone after my short love affair with the Motorola V60t ended (See my review for the Motorola V60T for AT&T Wireless). This is the 4th phone that I have owned this year. I am hoping that it's the last phone I have to buy for a long time. I bought this phone simply because it's a Nokia. I had past problems with the Nokia 3360, so I knew that I wasn't trying to go back to that particular model. I wanted something just as small, if not smaller, with all of the features that I have grown to love about Nokia phones. With the Nokia 8265, I have gotten all of my features back and then some. I love the size of this phone. I usually have this phone in the clip attached to my purse, but it fits nicely in my pocket also. The buttons are a tad bit tiny, but since I have small hands, this is fine by me. The reception of the phone is excellent. I can actually have a conversation in my house now. That was near impossible with all of the other phones that I have owned. The battery power can tend to be a little on the weak side, but I find that if I don't play Snake all of the time, the battery lasts much longer! (SMILE) The backlight is a huge improvement from the greenish-gray backlights of Nokia phones past. It's very bright, and the screen is much clearer. All of the menu features are pretty much the same. I can download more ringtones now, which is a definite plus. I got my Snake back! I love this little game! It really passes the time while I'm waiting at the Doctor's office or something like that. I'll even admit, it got me through a particularly boring sermon one Sunday at church! (I know, that's foul, but hey! I'm being honest.) The one new feature that I am sooo in love with is the fact that I can group people together and assign a ringtone to them. That is the absolute best! The Sprint phones have had that feature for years. This particular Nokia function could actually use some beefing up, but hey! You have to start somewhere, and I am very happy with it! The one thing that I do miss on the Nokia that I got a little spoiled with on the Motorola V60t is the voice dialing feature. That feature helps a lot while diving. I just discovered the AT&T has a new voice dialing feature. Of course it's $3.99/month, but you can store like 2000 voice-dialed numbers, and you can manage your voice-dial address book online. That's worth the cost of it by itself. On the V60t, you could only store 20. Period. I will definitely add this service soon. Some of the other reviewers of this phone have complained of the face scratching easily. BUY THE LEATHER CASE! I have had minimal scratching. I'm rough on phones, so buying a case is a needed option. Even if it's just a case that the face is open and the just the corners and sides are protected, that's better than no case at all. The other wonderful thing about this phone is that all of the accessories from my old Nokia work on this phone. The only thing I had to get that was different was the earpiece, and thankfully that comes with the phone. I have found that the earpieces that come with this model are more comfortable than the previous Nokia earpieces. I can keep it in my ear for a long time with minimal discomfort. I wish that the standard earpiece came with an on/off switch, but I think you can buy an aftermarket one with that option on it. I usually buy the car kit for the phones that I have owned. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to buy the car kit for this one yet. For now, the earpiece is quite sufficient. Overall, I am extremely happy with this phone. It's a Nokia. No more. No less. I hope that this is the last phone I have to buy for a long time. This phone is everything I dreamed it would be and then some. I highly recommend this phone for the beginner wireless phone user as well as the experienced techie! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 89889 2002/11/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 weight size white backlight signal headset doesn t have answer hangup button The Bottom LineA cell phone that works, and works well. Durable, portable, usable, lovable and huggable. Full Review Once upon a time I had a dream about the perfect cell phone. I woke up one morning and my dream came true. To me, a perfect cell phone must be small enough to carry around without burdening you in any way. Have good battery life. Get enough signal to be used just about anywhere. Have good enough voice reproduction so I can use it as my primary phone. The Nokia 8265 is that cell phone. Those are the most important features I think you can have in a cell phone. I've used the Nokia 5 series, nokia 6 series, nokia 8260, Handpring Visorphone, Handspring Treo, Ericcson rx 300(or something close to that), motorola v60, motorola startac(several), nextel i1000, and the nextel i95 cell phones. None of them fit the bill. All of these seemed to be lacking at least one of my requirements. The Nokia 8265 is definately not feature packed. There's no wireless web, color screen, or even voice dialing. In fact, it's very bland in everything other than design. Despite this, it's still my favorite cell phone. The first thing I noticed was the battery life. They tell you to condition the battery, fully charge and fully discharge the phone (repeat x3). In doing so, I was getting frustrated because I wanted to get this process over with as fast as I could so I could start charging it whenever I want without worrying about not conditioning the battery properly. This cell phone seems to live forever on standby. I use the headset for fear of brain damage, and talked on the 8265 for a good 2 hours and it didn't seem to die, still 3 bars. Woke up the next morning to 2 bars and used it for the rest of the day, still one bar. I had to unplug the headset and use it for another few calls before it finaly died on me. I was very impressed (and annoyed). In the last two months I've used it, the battery life seems comparable to my first experience. The sound and signal is excellent. When there is a problem with the signal, it usually originates from the other side. The voice quality is nearly as good as with my cordless phone. My house seems to have a barrier to block out all cell phone signals but the Nokia somehow managed to come through where all my others fail. I can get signal from almost anywhere in my house with the 8265, just not the basement. It fits easily into most pockets without bothering you (unless you wear skin-tight leathers). The 8265 is slightly larger than the 8260. I find this great because the 8260 was just small enough to be annoying. This phone fits snuggly in my hand so it doesn't feel like i'm going to drop it. The buttons are a bit small, but I think most people can deal with it. The display is well lit by bright white LCD's. It's alot easier to read than some of my previous cell phones. Some people have mentioned that the faceplates chip very easily. I haven't had it chip yet, but I can believe that. I personally don't care too much about that because full replacement housings for this cell phone are as cheap as 10 dollars (or you can buy 25 dollar replacements from ATT) and easy to change. That means I can carry this around in my pockets that contain keys (about 99% of the time) and not worry about needing to buy any protective gear for it. I don't worry too much about taking care of my Nokia's because from my experience with them, they seem rather indestructable compared to all my other phones. The one thing I would have liked is a headset that has an answer/hangup button on it so I wouldn't have to reach for the phone. If you don't need to use AIM, browse Yahoo, look up weather, check your stocks and just want a cell phone that does it's job, this phone is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 89888 2000/8/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great clarity small sound lightweight excellent backlight may be too small for some people The Bottom LineLooking for a small phone brimming with features? The Nokia 8265 is for you. Full Review In the world of microelectronics, smaller is better. The same has been true, for a while, with mobile communications, and with cell phones in particular. Cellular phones are getting smaller, which for most people, is a good thing. I remember the first "car phone" my Dad got for his work truck. It was contained in a black zippered case and was the size of a small car battery. It weighed about 3-4 pounds. Mobile it was not. Sure, that was fifteen years ago, but it goes to show how far we've come. My Nokia 8265 cell phone measures four inches long, 1¾ inches wide, ¾ of an inch thick, and weighs in at a paltry 3.8 ounces. Now that's small. There is a limit, of course. Cell phones can get too small. That is unless you live in South Korea, where smaller will always be better. But for now, the Nokia 8265 is just the right size. I recently ended my contract with Verizon Wireless, so I was pumped to not only get a new service provider but also a new phone. I went with Cingular Wireless and I went with the Nokia 8265 phone. I've been using it for a few months now and I really like it. I wanted a phone that would fit nicely in my pocket, didn't have an extendable (and therefore bendable) antenna, and I could play games on it. The Nokia 8265 can do all this, and so much more. Features - 10/10 I could go on for pages with a long list of features, but I will limit this section to the features I use. I will mention a few cool features that I don't use but are worth mentioning. The others can be found elsewhere. Many people depend on there phones to keep track of the phone numbers (and email addresses) of many important people and contacts. The Nokia 8265 has a phone book that can store 250 names, phone numbers and email addresses. That is a lot of people. I think I have ten numbers stored. I still think 250 slots will be plenty for most everyone. You can also set up caller groups (such as family, business, etc) within your stored phone numbers and then associate a distinct ring tone with each group. There are also seven slots for "one-touch dialing". The call log feature is very nice. This keeps track of all received, dialed, and missed calls along with their associated time and date. This is makes keeping track of your call minutes a cinch. The Profiles option is another cool feature. Here you can customize all your ringing options (volume, tone, vibration) and other settings. There are six different profiles but I only use two: Normal and Silent. More options would be helpful to others but two are plenty for me. My Nokia 8265 has 45 different ring tones, with the ability to download more. Are 45 ring tones too many? Probably, but I have Merry Christmas on there, so I'm set for the holiday season. There are a couple built in games, Snake II, Pairs II, and Space impact. They are fun to play for the first couple of seconds but aren't worth the time. But it is comforting to know that if I ever become so bored that I risk losing my sanity I always have Space impact to reel me back to reality. There are many other features, too many maybe. There is a scaled down version of a PDA with a calendar, business card organizer, alarm clock and calculator (complete with currency converter). I won't go into any detail with these features since I don't use any of them. Use and Feel - 8/10 The Nokia 8265 is the ideal size for a cell phone. It fits comfortably in the palm of your hand but is big enough to make it hard to lose. The keypad buttons are small but are efficiently shaped and strategically shaped in such a way that you don't inadvertently hit two buttons at once. The menu buttons used to navigate through the menus, on the other hand, are a little too close together. It's not enough to be frustrating but it is a flaw nonetheless. Battery life, reception, and sound - 9/10 The Nokia 8265 has a rechargeable Li-ion Battery that performs admirably. My phone usage is small, about 10-15 minutes a day. With this amount of usage, a full battery charge lasts me about one week. I'm sure with heavier usage the phone would use up its battery juice a lot faster. The phone has a very bright backlight but this doesn't seem to put too much of a strain on the battery. The reception on this phone is superb. While reception strength is a function of both the service provider and the phone, I am hardly ever with out a strong signal. When I go into the lab in the basement of my building at school the reception goes down but never out. I haven't made a call down there but don't doubt I could. The sound and clarity of the Nokia 8265 is also noteworthy. With a good digital signal my calls sound better than some of my cordless phones at home. The clarity is equally good on the other end of the line as well. Often people don't know I'm calling from a cell phone. Customization - 10/10 The amount of customization of the phone has already been mentioned, but the aesthetics are also customizable. The face plate, back cover and key pad are all interchangeable. So with the replacement of the face plate or key pad you've got yourself a brand new phone. The Nokia 8265 is a great phone for both on-the-go professionals and the casual user alike. The wealth of features will make a gadget junkie like me busy for months. I haven't even scratched the surface of all this phone is capable. This is simply a great phone. *Note the list price for this phone is $200 but coupled with the right rebates I got mine for $30. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 89887 2003/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 works nicely user friendly sleek has all the basic features small faceplatebattery cover are cheap can be too small at times The Bottom LineAlthough this isn't the most feature-packed phone on the market, I love my 8265 after two years of the 8260. It's cute and classy! Full Review After two years of owning Nokia 8260 cell phones, I decided to opt for an upgrade to the Nokia 8265. I am a subscriber to ATT Wireless, and this phone was one of several options to choose from. Because I liked my Nokia, and because I don't need a particularly fancy phone, I wanted to stay with something similar. Size I have always loved the small size of my 8260, so my first thought was that I hoped the 8265 would be the same. I purchased the phone through AT&T, before I had a chance to see the phone in person. I was alarmed that this might be a little bigger than its predecessor. When I opened the box, it even looked larger than my previous phone. But when I compared the two, side by side, they matched, almost exactly. The exact measurements are 4.2" long x .87" thick x 1.88" wide. The overall weight is only 3.8 ounces! This is a small phone, and for not being a flip phone, that's pretty good. Just keep track of this thing, because it tends to get lost! When I first had my Nokia, I had to get used to such a small item against my ear, because it didn't feel like a phone, and it didn't feel as though the person on the other end could hear me talking, since there wasn't anything by my mouth! Now I mostly use my hands-free kit, but I have gotten used to the feel of the phone. Appearance As far as I know, you can purchase the Nokia 8265 in silver/grey, blue, or red. Of course, you can alter the appearance with varying faceplates. The phone looks small and streamlined. My 8260 was a little bit simpler, with a single color faceplate and silver buttons. However, my 8265 has both silver and grey tones, and the keypad corresponds with both silver and grey buttons. The biggest difference, and the most noticeable one, is the screen lighting. Compared to my old phone with its greenish hue, this phone has a bright, silvery white screen and lighting. The buttons light up as well, and it is so much easier to read and to look at (as compared to the 8260, especially when you compare the two. There is a button on the top of the phone, to turn it off or to switch between "silent" and "normal" modes. On the side is a volume control. Lastly, there are two ports on the bottom of the phone. The larger is for the charger, and the smaller (which was moved from the side to the bottom compared to the last model) is for the hands-free kit. The antenna is internal, and basically consists of the top underside of the phone (in other words, not the faceplate, and not the battery cover). It is recommended that you don't touch the antenna while talking on the phone. They say this is to reduce interference, but I would also recommend this for avoiding those wonderful cancerous "rays". The 8265 adds a nice rubberized bump to the antenna to minimize the amount this phone slides around. I almost like my previous phone better in terms of appearance, because it was a little simpler, but the 8265 does look very modern and streamlined, so I can't complain. Features This is where this phone and its predecessor seem to be the most similar. Menu options consist of: Messages, Call Log, Profiles, Settings, System, Games, Calculator, and Calendar. Subtle improvements include animated menu options, new ring tones, new games, and other slight changes. The features on this phone are fairly average. I don't use this phone for business, but there are text and e-mail capabilities. The phone book can hold about 250 names, which is plenty for me. I don't need anything too fancy, like kits so I can sync my computer with the phone. I just need the basics for making phone calls. My personal favorite is the alarm clock, with snooze capability. This phone delivers a nice punch of an alarm sound. I love to use this feature when I travel or even at home, because I feel very secure in setting the alarm, and because the alarm starts at low volume, increasing until I hear it. Very nice. Battery, Signal Strength & Phone Durability I never thought this line of Nokia phones was ever too durable. In fact, they seem a little on the cheap side, with faceplates that easily chip, and what seem like generally cheap materials. However, no matter how much this phone is damaged, that outer layer can be replaced (new faceplates, new battery covers, etc). This is obviously not a flip phone, so I recommend keeping it in a case or somewhere where it is protected, so that the screen doesn't get scratched up. The screen is exposed, and although is somewhat indented, will become easily marked up without proper care. (Hint: cheap faceplates for this model can be found on Ebay for just a few dollars; otherwise you'll be paying $30 at Nokia or AT&T!). If this is similar enough to the 8260, I expect this phone to be fairly durable. My 8260 phones took quite a beating, and even with nicks and chips, lasted quite a while. As for the battery life, you can get about 2.5 to 3.5 hours of talk time on this phone. Otherwise, without talking, the battery will last up to 6.5 days on standby. I actually read the manual this year, which says to charge and drain the battery 3 times upon first getting the phone, to "train" the battery. I would say the phone charges up fairly rapidly. I keep a car charger on hand so that no matter where I am, I don't have to worry about the battery running out. You can also buy additional batteries to have on hand. I am in my third year with AT&T Wireless, so I know service has mostly to do with the provider. I can't say I have been able to compare this phone to others that are under the same service, but I have definitely been surprised at picking up a signal in some remote areas. Accessories With the Nokia 8265 came a few accessories. There was both the hands-free kit (consisting of an ear bud hands-free set), and a home charger. There are plenty of accessories for this phone, ranging from functional to fun. You can buy cases to faceplates. You get an Owner's Manual with the phone, and although this isn't an accessory, it's certainly important. I never really read the guide with my first two Nokias, but this time around I read it and got a nice insight into some features and suggestions. Not only are there tangible accessories, but you can also download ring tones and graphics, which are fun but will cost you. Ease of Use I personally think that the Nokia 8265 is a user friendly phone. Like I mentioned, I never really read the Owner's Manual with my first two 8260's, yet I was still able to browse through the phone features and figure them out. The faceplates are very easily interchangeable, and I experienced removal of the original faceplate by accident as I was inserting the battery for the first time. I therefore know that I wouldn't have a problem if I decided to switch faceplates. Price & Where to Purchase I got this phone through my wireless service, AT&T. Of course, I get a good deal because I've been a customer for two years, and because I'm upgrading and all that. However, even when I got my first phone with AT&T, there was plenty of room for haggling for a good price and good deal. Websites AT&T Wireless: www.attwireless.com Nokia: www.nokia.com Overall I chose this phone because of my experience with the previous Nokia model, and because I simply need a decent phone with the basics. I could have gone for the Motorola V60, but I would still be using the same number of features, because I don't need all those extras. I have always loved the size and classy look of the Nokia 8265. I honestly don't have complaints about this phone. Sure, I wish the battery life could last a little longer, but that's the way it is. I enjoy using this phone, and don't feel that there is anything that I particularly dislike. This is a good phone for what you get. You buy it because it offers the features that you need, and because it works nicely and is user friendly. It is somewhat overpriced in my mind, and since there are better phones out there, I'll give this phone 4 out 5 stars. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this phone, unless you're looking for more features. My review on AT&T Wireless Service in NY: My Nokia 8260 Review: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 7785 Nokia 3590 89909 2003/12/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 friendly interface cheap ugly blah ringtones boring colors Screen Color is Blah. But it has some awsome features like a calender, alarm, profiles, and caller groups. I've never used the web feature but friends have told me its adequite. Rings tones are embarrasing compared to the new ones that are out there. The screensavers could be better. The reception is awsome though. The only time I didnt have reception was in a tunnel while driving. 89908 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good rf performance big no color screen Even though this phone is now considered obsolete I still use it in places with bad cell phone service. This phone will get a signal almost anywhere. It is a pretty big phone though, so you won't want to keep it in your pocket. It would be nice if it had a color screen. 89907 2004/2/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 no antana everything else This phone is suppose to be good and all from the reviews I have read but I hated it first of all it's ugly in every way and the reception was bad, but that was at&t's fault, but even when I had a full signal it sounded like crap I just used it twice before I cancled the service and the interface was sad at best and the ringtones were a joke and either to soft or to loud and the ugly green backlight was just pathetic. 89906 2000/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 calender setting polyphonic ring tone internet access pea soup green lcd double press unlock button voice calling rarely works The Bottom LineIf you like polyphonic ring tones I say invest. Depending on the service provider, there may be problems with reception and clarity. I like my phone regardless of its perks. Full Review Well I've always have been a Nokia fan for years now and I must admit, Nokia almost had it right with model Number 3590 series. The hook that got me was the Polyphonic ring tones. Now for those who don't know what Polyphonic is, it is a ring tone that is created using multiple sounds at once instead of one single tone in a sequence creating a much richer sounding ring tone. When I heard the Nokia ring tone in Polyphonic sound I was impressed. When I looked at the LCD display I also noticed that the screen still had that Pea soup green look. I bought the phone at a price I thought was great for a non-colored screen (and believe me, I tried looking for a colored screened Nokia that had the Polyphonic ring tone, but with no luck.)and I put it in my pocket. I went to work and I noticed that I could feel the phone vibrate but the phone was not ringing. So I checked the setting to discover that the maximum volume was set for the phone. Another disappointment. I did like the fact that I can go online to other WAP (Wireless Application Protocols) site and look for movies, restaurants, and events nearby my location. I did not like the fact the phone would sometimes not work to go online with. The Nokia 3590 works on a GSM network. I was told that the phone would work anywhere I was with perfect clarity and no cut-offs. Well, I never noticed the difference. As a matter of fact, I think my old phone was better when it came to clarity. The manual to the Nokia was as basic as the other books that comes with any Nokia phone. The front cover of someone happy using their phone, the logo and the model number in a bold blue text. It's good reference material if you know a lot about phones, but if not you will get lost. I liked the fact that the phone has voice activated dialing where you hold the send button and you say the name of the person you want to call. But unfortunately, when you first record the name of the person, you have to say it the same way again. If not the phone will dial someone else's phone number. The Nokia 3590 has the key lock button to prevent the user to dial out, but to unlock the phone the user has to double press the menu button then press the star button. I was very impressed with the screen savers that were available for the Nokia 3590. The battery last longer than any phone I have ever experienced, up to 12 hours of talk time and 72 hours of standby time. The buttons themselves are a nice size very basic gray and blue. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 186.90 89905 2000/3/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life text message software uses sim cards reception web browser could be more user friendly The Bottom LineGreat phone supported by excellent signal strength and battery life! Full Review I just got my 3590 a few weeks ago. I have owned several cell phones in the past but this one is probably the one that I have been most happy with. The signal strength with this phone is awesome, it's the best that I have had out of all the phones I have had in the past. I get great reception pretty much no matter where I go, I can use this phone in places that any of my other phones would simply not have worked at all. The only draw back to the phone is the lack of a colour screen but that's very minor. I've been looking for a phone with great reception for a long time and this is definatly it! This is the phone that I've wanted all along. My father has a 3590 also and I can remember his phone always putting my other ones to shame. I had a Nokia 918, 3390, a Motorola v60i, and a T720 and the 3590 blows all of those phones away. I always liked my father's phone and wanted one for a long time. I finally got sick of my t720 and found out that a friend of mine had a 3590 that he wasn't using so I bought it off him for $20.00 (canadian funds). This is THE best 20 bucks that I have spent. Text messaging with this phone is very easy and quick to do which is a plus, I text message ALOT in the run of a day so this feature is a definate plus! Web browsing with this phone is a bit of a pain in the butt because you have to access the options menu while browsing to open new links. The battery life for the phone is great too, it'll last for days without having to be recharged (depending on how much you use it). All in all I am very satisfied with my investment and will most likely continue to purchase Nokia products in the future. The 3590 is definatly one of the best phones you could have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 16Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89904 2003/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 cheap polyphonic ringtonesjava on an entry level phone no ir or modem software problems on simple tasks The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3590 is a basic phone which sets the standards for basic features. Unfortunately, a basic phone is expected to be reliable, something this Nokia lacks. Full Review With GPRS, Java, GSM 850 and polyphonic ringtones, the Nokia 3590's feature list makes it a worthwhile upgrade from the popular 3390. The phone has equal reception and call quality as its successor and can uses the same battery, charger and headset. Its 96x65 pixel screen is larger and of a higher resolution than the 3390. 4-note polyphonic ringtones are loud and clear, although most phones feature 24 or 32 note polyphony. The phone includes a selection of classic Nokia ringtones in both polyphonic and monophonic versions. Java support is included, although MIDlets for the small screen are not very common. A major con with this phone is the lack of an official Nokia data port or IR. This precludes the use of the phone as a modem, or the ability to download ringtones or Java MIDlets from your computer. An aftermarket cable, which requires removing the case and battery is available, but is too unwieldy for everyday use. The biggest issue is a number of annoying firmware bugs that plague the phone. Whereas previous Nokias were reliable, this phone has a surprising number of problems for an entry level device. I used firmware version 7.04. Unlike previous Nokias, this phone will shutdown by itself and not reboot, leading to missed calls. Everyday tasks, such as exiting out of a menu cause shutdowns. Another problem was that the voicemail number would be deleted and could not be reentered until the SIM was placed into another phone and returned. Update: Nokia took a week to update my firmware to 7.14, skipping at least one release. Not only are the problems of missing voicemail and crashes still there, now GPRS fails along with the voicemail. Furthermore, nobody must have tested the firmware, as the phone annoyingly and regularly flashes a "Connection to server secured" message, interrupting and slowing down WAP browsing. Nokia's complete inability to fix their firmware while not introduce other problems lead me to conclude that this is my last Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 89903 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good features for entry phone excellent battery life few software problems The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a cheap reliable phone, I suggest the Nokia 3590. Full Review In August of 2003, I decided that my Panasonic Versio just wasn't the phone for me. It was a great phone but was too lite, very easy to bend, and not many features. So I started looking at cell phones, and saw the Nokia 3590. It was cheaper than most of it's competitors, and had a good bit of features on it, so I opted to purchase the 3590. The phone itself is small and easy to carry on your belt loop or in your pocket, yet the buttons aren't so tiny you need a pen to push them. Nokia 3590 Features. Up to 6.5 hours talk time and up to 12.5 days standby time. Functional X press-on color covers. Mobile Internet with XHTML browser via GPRS. Polyphonic ring tones. Java™ support for application downloads. Voice dialing. Now I use the phone on AT&T service so the phone basically works anywhere I take it in my local calling area (all of Florida.) The internal antenna works excellent and gets better reception than my other phones with external antennas. Battery Life Now Nokia states the phone has a talk time of up to 6.5 hours, and a standby time of 12.5 days. I'm not sure about the standby time, but I have experienced a 6 hour call on the phone before the battery died. If you are a person, like myself, who uses your phone as your main phone line, this battery is excellent for you. Also, for some reason, my battery rapidly looses charge while using the Internet browser. Phone Software The phone software that is installed on the phone is OK, but my phone has the tendency to occasionally turn its self off while in standby. Also, when you turn the phone off, the background lights stay on for a few seconds before turning off. Polyphonic Ring The polyphonic ring tones are a nice touch, however they are too soft, and hard to hear. If it weren't for the vibration on the phone, half the time I would miss calls. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89902 2004/5/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception many features tough very cheap annoying power button erratic battery performance not small The Bottom LineThis phone generally wins on all the important fronts and only "annoys" on minor details. As such, I must say that this phone is an excellent value. Full Review Intro: I am relatively a new comer to the cell phone world as I got my first one only in the year 2000. However, I have used many of my friends and relatives and as such I have come to realize that there are two things worth noting before reading this review: 1. I do not use any electronic organizer because I find that most of their features are present in most cell phones (the most necessary ones anyways) 2. I am still a firm believer that a cell phone is simply, A CELLPHONE. Meaning, the main reason we have/use them is for making calls on the go. As such, this review is intended mainly to review that fact (and related facts). So now, on with the review... First and Foremost... Mobility: As I mentioned, (supposedly) the reason we buy cell phones is to be able to talk on the go. A cell phone provides this by the following criteria: 1. Reception: This phone has without a doubt one of the best reception levels I have ever seen. I live in the 21st floor in an apartment building and I also park in an underground parking and my 6185 used to have trouble in both places. As a matter of fact, every single person I know who ever came to my underground parking had at best terrible reception (if at all, not any being more likely). The 3590 on the other hand allows me to send and receive calls in my car in the underground parking with no issues. In various occasions I was able to maintain a conversation during the entire 21 floor flight in the elevator with only occasional voice break-ups. 2. Battery-life: Supposedly, this phone has a stand-by time of around 6 days (replace each day with one hour of talking). However, my experience has shown that it is safe to say that you will definitely survive through one full day with at least 3 hours of talk-time if starting from a full charge. 3. Coverage: This phone is digital dual-band GSM only. This means that it will not work in areas that only have analog signals. Being dual-band, this phone will not work in Europe or the Middle-East either (you need a tri-band phone for that). However, I have used this phone in the general Toronto area (Ontario, Canada) and almost everywhere within 2 hours drive (including Buffalo, NY) and it has worked perfectly. 4. Hands-free operation: This is important for drivers, and I must say that the headset for this phone is very functional. It is very light/small to carry in your pocket (or purse if you're a lady). It uses an ear bud for the ear-piece which is good because it is the least irritating to the ear. It also has a collar-clip to prevent the ear-piece from being pulled out of your ear if the wire gets into something. Finally, the phone can be configured to automatically answer calls when the headset is attached, and it does so after letting it ring for a short while to give you a chance to decline the call if you like (and yes, the auto-answer setting doesn't have to be changed, it will automatically go back to normal answering mode if you detach the headset and then once again go back to auto-answer if you re-attach it) 5. Voice quality: This is a purely digital set, which means that the voice quality itself should never change (complete break-ups, however, are excepted). I am usually forced to keep it at the highest volume because anything less will make you struggle to hear an averagely-loud person. The headset is much louder, however, and allows a much clearer conversation. Unfortunately, the mouth-piece is very sensitive, and as such tends to transfer too much background noise to your party. Looks/durability: Compared to most phones available today, this phone is not the best-looking/smallest. It is smaller than my old Nokia 6185 (which at the time I got it was considered relatively small). It doesn't have an external antenna which is a good thing because it makes it more likely to last longer (I have eventually broken the antenna on my 6185 and believe me, it was no more than a paper-weight until I got it fixed, which is a relatively expensive repair I must add). It doesn't have any kind of a flip-over piece (something I find very irritating) nor side buttons (which I always accidentally press). So in short, the phone looks very basic, with no protrusions of any kind. I consider this as being very functional. However, others may think of it as bland/boring. Finally, the top, bottom, and button-sheet are all easily replaceable for those who like alternate face-plates/etc. The body is made from a somewhat malleable plastic which also allows it to last and to withstand stronger drops. However, I found the factory button-sheet to be very flimsy, as buttons (specially ones in the bottom row) tend to tear at their base when you -say- take the phone out of your pocket. Features: Despite being an entry-level phone, this phone is not short on features in any way. The B&W LED display is fairly large and high-rez. It allows for lots of information to be displayed at one time. There is also a new set that replaces this one (3595) which is pretty much identical except for having a color display. The phone comes with memory for 199 names, allows for multiple phone numbers per name with categories like home/work/cell etc., plus having the ability to add street and email addresses to your contacts. The ringer supports polyphonic ring tones (which are not as good as -say- those of the LG4600) but they are relatively good and definitely much better than the basic ringers of other phones. The phone itself comes with 32 tones and supports adding others (however, it provides no means of programming them manually... I have researched on the web also for any "hidden" feature that allows this and it seems to me that none exists). Another cool feature is voice-dialing, which I have found to work pretty well as long as you try to minimize the background noise before uttering your party's name. It is also very easily accessible (involves only a single long key-press) which is also very good. Hey, what's the point of voice-dialing if I still have to hit 2000 buttons before I get it to work! SMS messaging is supported two-ways. However, I have been unable to send messages to recipients of certain networks overseas. The phone allows for predictive text entry with options to minimize button-presses which I have found to work very well. Finally the alarm and calendar/reminders work very well together. I was disappointed to find no means of listing all reminders like my old 6185 but it's not a big deal. Other features like games and a calculator are present as well (the latter being the more important). Aside from SMS, no other communication is possible with other devices like blue-tooth or IR. This may be an issue for some people but for the mainstream they are not really needed features. Issues: This phone generally works very well. However, I am not completely satisfied with the battery performance of this phone. It tends to behave in a rather "erratic" way as it tends to provide very misleading power readings sometimes. Also, I have seen this phone a couple of times lose power very rapidly (really, not just based on the power meter) which can happen in very inappropriate times. Another somewhat major issue is the power button, as it requires a lot of force to connect since it is: 1. At the very of the top side of the phone 2. Completely flush with the top side 3. Very insensitive to pressing There are a couple of other very minor issues, the first one is the ringer being relatively quiet, although this also depends on which ring tone you are using. Also, putting the phone in silent mode causes the vibra-alert to be disabled, which basically means that you'll only know if a call is incoming if you happen to be looking at the phone and see the backlight flashing. Finally, charging while using the headset causes a severe buzz to be heard by the other party. Conclusion: This phone generally wins on all the important fronts and only "annoys" on minor details. As such, I must say that this phone is an excellent value. This is even more pronounced when purchased with a plan as many come with it almost free (I personally paid $0 for it with a 2 year contract). This is still true for the color display version (3595). Great! Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89901 2003/9/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wireless web capable customized profiles for environments download ringtones graphics capable voice activated dialing power on off button takes few seconds before phone shuts off very soft ringtone The Bottom LineFor an entry phone, it has a lot of features. The excellent battery life, customizable profile, wireless web, downloadable multimedia capabilities make this an enticing choice Full Review As I hinted with my Motorola V2397 TDMA cell phone review that I really wanted wireless web, well, I took the plunge and got a GSM phone that I can surf the web. It may sound funny to those who aren't a news junkie like I am that web browsing on a cell phone seems stupid. Well, for me, I've always wanted to be informed on the latest news and getting it text messaged to me just wasn't enough. So, I ended up getting a GSM/GPRS cell phone that I can look up the latest news, find out whether my flight got delayed, find out the latest weather forecast, etc. Also, I've heard rumors that Rogers AT&T is considering providing the mMode, pretty much a marketing glitz on the GPRS that's currently offered on the AT&T's GSM network. This is similar service to DoCoMo's iMode in Japan. And checking AT&T's mMode site, the mMode service is offered on the Nokia 3590. For more info, check out AT&T's mMode website: http://www.attwireless.com/mmode/ I've added more details of my search and research which may not be relevant to the 3590 so to skip down to the actual review of the phone please go down to the area that starts with "=======" Before I even began doing research on the phones, I had to first narrow down which cellular carrier I wanted. There is only four main national providers in Canada: Bell Mobility, Fido, Rogers AT&T and Telusmobility. Both Bell Mobility and Telusmobility operate on the CDMA network while Fido and Rogers AT&T operate on GSM. Rogers AT&T also operate on the TDMA network. Since I already got a phone from Rogers AT&T and was really interested in getting a GSM phone rather than a CDMA phone, it wasn't hard to narrow it down to Rogers AT&T. And, after doing and weighing the comparisions between all four providers, I still stuck with Rogers AT&T. Fido, although it didn't really require much of a contract (3 months), has very limited coverage in only metropolitan cities across Canada but it is cheap if you only need it within the big cities. Bell Mobility's phones weren't very appealing to me and I didn't like signing a 2 year contract. Telusmobility has great coverage in BC and Alberta but I really didn't want to sign a crazy 3 year contract. Rogers AT&T also requires a 2 year contract. But, I was able to take advantage of a promotion at Rogers Video where I can apply a $30 promotional "check" towards a cell phone and get a phone for free on a 1 year contract. That was appealing because I really don't like contracts mainly because I was really looking to get the phone and a year later, put it on the prepaid plan. If you want more information on comparing the four Canadian cellular carriers, please check out my website, via a link on my profile page. There, I've described in detail the pros and cons of prepaid cellular on Rogers AT&T compared to other carriers as well as tips on saving money on your bills. Before I took the plunge into the Nokia 3590, I was considering other phones from other manufacturers. I browsed the web, logged into cellular phone forums and did a bit of research. Nokia, it seems in North America is very popular. I've read tons of reviews and info and almost all of them how Nokia makes quality products and great features. Motorola, it seems sometimes come out with a less than stellar performer. Many people absolutely find the C33x series a piece of trash. And, for Ericsson, there wasn't much support (technical or repair wise in Canada) that would justify my consideration of getting one, although their phones always look so cool. And Samsung seems to come out with some good and some not so good products and their software was buggy. So, with the selection narrowed down to Nokia, I looked at my budget and what features I really need and want and what I'd like to have. I was pretty limited to whatever phones that Rogers AT&T offered since I wanted the GSM coverage and didn't want to complicate my life further by buying a phone off Ebay or a store in the US and trying to configure it to work on the Rogers AT&T network. Since I don't travel beyond Canada and the US, I didn't need a "world" GSM phone with 900/1800/1900Mhz band operation and wasn't willing to pay extra for that. With Rogers AT&T planning to implement the 850Mhz GSM band across Canada (and the US is following suit), I wanted to take advantage of that and narrowed my phone choices down to the Nokia 3590 and Nokia 6590i (the "i" refers to the enabling of the 850Mhz operation on the 6590 phone, which otherwise would only operate on the 1900Mhz band.) Price and size finally persuaded me to go with the 3590 since with the current Rogers Video promotion. They offer a promotional $30 check towards the purchase of a cell phone. For me, with the Nokia 3590, I ended up not paying anything when using the promo check but have to sign a 1 year contract. The other good thing I liked was that I didn't need to mail in any rebates and wait for the credit to arrive months later. So, for signing only a one year contract and no mail in rebates, I couldn't refuse. And, I also get four free 7 day Rogers Video rental coupons. That is one little known fact about Rogers Videos, that they can offer a relatively cheap price for a phone ($20 and up) with a ONE year contract, compared to the usual 2 years at most dealers. Sure, you pay for the phone but if it means that I have a shorter contract, I'd go for that. $20 x 12 months is $240. Once the contract is over, I can opt to put it on a Pay As You Go plan and pay whenever I need it or go on a cheap $10 retention plan (you have to call the Retention department). Now, back to the other choice, the 6590i. As for the 6590i, I would still have to pay about $99 with a two year contract. Since I don't like signing contracts, that's a major deterrant and I still have to pay $99. And, I am one of those people who like cell phones to be a certain set size. I don't like fighting to press the small buttons and feeling like I'm talking to a matchbox. I'm sure a lot of people disagree with me. The 6590i is much smaller than the 3590, which in turn is a smaller size than my previous Motorola v2397. For me, I guess, it's much easier for me to adapt to a slight size decrease than an immediate size decrease, which I would otherwise have if I went for the 6590i. So, after all those considerations, I went with the 3590. ============================================================================== Rather than go through all the features of the phone, I've decided to concentrate on my opinion of features that I liked. Here's the specs of the phone: Dimensions: 11.8 x 5 x 2.28 cm (4.68 inches long x 1.97 inches wide x .9 inch thick) Weight: 111 g (3.92 oz) Standby time: Up to 12.5 days Talk Time: Up to 6.5 hours Battery: Lithium Ion 825MAh (BLC-1) Vibrate Mode: Built in Web Browser: Yes Calculator: Yes Calendar: Yes Changeable Faceplate & buttons: Yes Download Ringtones Capable: Yes Ringtone: 10 Polyphonic and 15 Monophonic (25 total) Pictures: 10 pictures and graphics Games: Space Impact 11, Bumper, Nokia Sugar Bowl Voice Activated Dialing: Yes for 10 numbers Keypad lock: Yes Number of Lines in Display: 5 lines Predictive text capable: Yes ICQ chat capable: Yes Mode: GSM/GPRS 850, 1900 Mhz Phonebook capacity: 500 names and numbers Java support for downloadable applications: Yes I have to admit, at first glance, I found the buttons were very ugly and I didn't like the arrangements. But then, it didn't take me that long to get used to it and I stopped getting distracted. The phone is much lighter and thinner than the Motorola. And, there's no external antenna. That could be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you view it. With an internal antenna, there is less chance of physically damaging it. But, with an internal antenna, there is the potential problem that you may not be getting as good a reception that you would otherwise get if you got an external antenna. And, with the internal antenna located near the top at the back of the phone, it may pose a problem for those people who put their phones in their pockets with the display facing out. An alternative is to face the display towards you so that the antenna wouldn't be blocked. And Nokia's manual advises not to place your fingers or block the internal antenna as it could damage the antenna. They even have a triangular rubber-like attachment to the back of the phone, supposedly for your index finger for those who hold the phone that way. I always hold my phone on its side, thumb on one side and the other fingers on the other side. Enough about that. The display is much bigger than my Motorola and even the number buttons were slightly bigger, although they weren't the usual oval or rectangular shape. But the feel of the button isn't as nice comparatively speaking. The buttons on the Motorola felt softer and had sort of a rubbery feel to it. The buttons on the Nokia were just plastic and felt rigid like any plastic button would. When I press on a button on the the Nokia, all the buttons lit up and you could see the light behind the plastic buttons. With the Motorola, the light would show up on the edge of the button, but bright enough to see the buttons. As well, the bottom and the side of the phone would also light up since the side and part of the bottom had a translucent white colored piece of plastic. As discussed, the display, was a bit bigger than the Motorola but it seems that I can see more with this phone than with the Motorola. I think it's because with the Motorola, there are more indicators and symbols located near the bottom of the display than Nokia. The Motorola display indicators take up part of the top and bottom and thus crowding the message area. With Nokia, the displaying of the size of letters change depending on which area you are on. For instance, when entering an email address, the font can be quite large. When you're composing the message, it shrinks down to a smaller size so that it can maximize the amount of what you can read while composing your message. Also, when I press the scroll down button, rather than scrolling one line at a time, like the Motorola, I get to view the next page. This saves on having to keep pressing the scroll button to read the entire message. When entering address book entries, I like the automatic jump down to the next line when I'm entering a name rather than leaving the word cut of somewhere in the middle. As well, address book entries could have additional details and number under the same name. That means, for an entry, say for Dad, I can have his home phone number, work number, fax number, e-mail address, web address, home address, notes, etc. This can make finding someone a little easier rather than settling for a one entry, one number address book. The 3590 has a screensaver, which acts very much like your computer screensaver, coming on when not in use. For me, I've set up the basic digital clock with date rather than some picture or graphic. I actually prefer it that way because the time is very big and can be seen quite well from afar. There are message folders that you can create and move messages around to sort them in any way you want. This can make the messages filed based on your preferences and requirements. For me, I've entered and saved a few messages in my Templates folder for when I need to send a quick email or SMS out. That can be quite handy, especially at times when the person you're calling is busy on another line and you can't get through (if they don't have call waiting). In those cases, I just send them a quick text message to call me back. And the calendar, although it isn't anything like a PDA or a daytimer, can be useful for reminders. You can put in a note as a reminder, put in a specific time and it will remind you with an alarm at the time you specify. But of course, if your phone is turned off during the time you've indicated as the reminder, it won't go off and turn on your phone, but will sound when you do turn it on. And, you can move the reminder with alarm to another date, edit it or erase it. I am currently using this calendar reminder as a little portable daytimer where I would enter shopping list items or errands and set an alarm time to remind myself. You don't have to set an alarm if you don't want to. If I forget it, I just move it to the next day. And I make a point of erasing all past and completed reminders so that it doesn't take up storage space on my SIM card. Sure, I can store 500 addresses, but every character or reminder counts so if I don't need it anymore, I'd just delete it to free up any space. Although reminders set in the calendar don't turn on your phone and the alarm if the phone is off, there is a feature where you can set a one time alarm on which will ring even if the phone is off and turn it on for you. This is handy if you're traveling or whatever and need a alarm to wake you up or something. But it is a one time alarm and if you want it to ring every day, you'll have to set it each time. For those who wants to know how to set it, here's the instructions: Go to Menu, scroll down to Settings, scroll down to Time and date settings, and set up your Alarm clock at the time you want but make sure you indicate the current am or pm. And you're done! It will sound an alarm even if your phone is off. The 3590 is a GSM phone and with the 1900Mhz GSM coverage in the US being very sparse and unpredictable, you can't blame people for complaining about the reception. But, since the 3590 does support the 850Mhz, when North America rolls out the 850Mhz, I think people won't be complaining as much about the horrible reception and dropped calls. That should be a consideration when you're getting a GSM phone: the coverage in your area. So far, I've had no problems with the reception or the clarity. One thing about the phone that a lot of people complain about is the soft ringtones. A lot of people complain how soft the ringtones can be, even at max volume. Even I found it a bit soft but got used to it because I realized that it might actually be less annoying when I'm out in public and it rings. I get less mean stares when answering my phone in public. And the even softer message alert ring is a welcome sound when I receive message alerts (such as news alerts which I subscribe to). With my old Motorola, it would ring very loudly until it rings enough to annoy everyone around me or when I press my toggle button. I ended up muting the alert rings on the Motorola. With the Nokia, since the alerts are quite soft and brief and it creates a soft vibration when the phone receives a message, it is very calming. And, if I didn't want to hear it, I could also mute the alert and just settle for the vibrate mode. If you get an earpiece (which is essentially an earbud and a mic attached to your phone jack at the bottom), you can answer the phone while you're driving. There is a button near the mic where you can press to answer the call and end the call. That makes it easier than fumbling with the phone and looking for your Send and End button. And with the earpiece, you can hear the call much clearer and louder, for those who complain about the soft volume. The polyphonic ringtones really separate the phone from a lot of others. Rather than listening to the usual one note at a time, you can hear multiple notes and sounds at the same time. And most times, the polyphonic ringtones actually sound pretty good, more vibrant than the usual midi tones on most phones. If you haven't heard the polyphonic ringtones, I think you should check them out. It could really stand out from other phones in that respect. And, you can download some polyphonic ringtones off the web, usually at a price. There are lots of free monophonic ringtone web sites out there but since I've listened to the polyphonic ringtones, I only want the polyphonic ones. One bad thing is that it doesn't support a data cable so that you can't download the polyphonic ringtones from your computer to it. That seems weird considering that the 3390 (which this phone is based on) had the data cable capability. So, to get the ringtones, you'll have to download via WAP or via the wireless internet browser or receiving it via SMS. One main thing I don't like about the phone is the difficulty I have in turning the phone off. The on/off button on the Nokia 3590 is located at the very top of the phone. Its size is even smaller than the round tip of a pen's eraser butt and it's set inwards so you'll probably have to use your fingernails. And, I find that I have to press very hard and long, usually using my finger nail to press on the button before it turns itself on or off. Usually I don't have a problem turning it on. I press long enough for the phone's display to light up with the soft "on" alert ring. And when turning it off, it takes a few seconds for the phone to turn off. Once the phone registers that you're shutting it down, it takes a few seconds before the lighted display shuts off and turns off the phone. I've heard that some people have problems dialing to retrieve voicemail. It would come up with an error saying that the number is invalid. Some people say that they remove the SIM card and replace it back in to correct the problem. Others say turn the phone off and then back on. And even someone mentioned putting the voicemail number as an address book entry and dialing it from there. This might be a buggy software but I don't use voice mail so I can't comment on that. The backlight of the 3590 comes on when a button is pressed (like most cell phones) and it fades out when it detects no action for a short while. The battery life is excellent. Since it's Lithium Ion, it's very light weight and last a lot longer than NiMh or AAA batteries. I've had the phone for over a week now and I still haven't re-charged it yet. I have to say I'm amazed at the battery life. And it takes only about 3 hours to fully charge. The 3590, being a entry level phone geared towards the young generation, has the option of changeable faceplate and buttons. There is currently the "Dragonwish" faceplate and buttons which when the phone is ringing, would flash in different patterns. I guess that would be "cool" for the younger crowd but I'm way beyond that. Since it is an entry level phone, it's not packed with lots of features but still has some. It has extras such as voice dialing for up to 10 numbers, calendar, alarm, calculator, 3 games, downloading capability for ringtones, graphics and other multimedia applications, customizable profiles for different environments (ie.outdoors, indoors, etc) and maybe different users (if you share the phone), SMS capability to send and receive, wireless internet capable and vibrate and ring. For those who require TTY capability, you can purchase an accessory (TTY/TDD adapter) to attach to the phone. Some extra features that I would have liked in this phone would be: voice recorder, infrared and/or Bluetooth capability, data transfer capability to use the phone as a modem for my laptop, camera, FM radio. But then, this is after all, an entry level phone so I really can't complain. As well, I have purchased a magnetic snap on phone case (holster) that clips on my belt or pants. I find it very handy. The phone rests in the case horizontally, making it parallel to your belt so that it doesn't get in the way, like when you're bending down to tie your shoelaces. Since the case is securely attached to your belt and you unsnap the case to remove the phone, I always find it is very convenient to remove and replace the phone back into the case. I find that because the case is always attached to my belt and that the phone doesn't have a wrap around it (like most phone cases), I find that I always replace the phone back into the case when I'm not using it. This helps prevent me from forgetting about leaving my phone behind (a big reason why many people lose their phones). The phone case was bought at the Rogers Video stores, the only place where I found those cases. Everywhere else, the cases are like the generic Nokia cases where it wraps around the entire phone and it clips on vertically. And with it being a Rogers AT&T phone, provided that you buy the phone from an official Rogers AT&T wireless store or a Rogers Video store, there is a 30 day return policy. Provided that you don't use more than 30 minutes of airtime and 150kbytes of wireless data (GPRS) and return the phone within 30 days, you can cancel out of the contract without any penalties. Just pay for whatever airtime, long distance and data usage during the time you owned it and you can walk away from the contract. Otherwise, you have to pay $20 for each month remaining in your contract to a maximum of $200. So, if you find out that you're not happy with the phone, the network coverage and reception, you can always get out. But remember that this is a Rogers AT&T wireless policy. If you purchase the phone from Radioshack, Futureshop, Staples, etc, they may have a different return policy in place. You may be subject to a re-stocking fee or other fees or maybe even not be able to return it. Please take the time to ask the dealer what their returns policy is before you buy the phone and sign the contract because you might be stuck with a 2 year contract and a phone you don't want. There's also a cell phone forum called Howards Forums which has a vast selection of handset reviews by Howard Chiu and also has forums devoted to cell phones and cell phone providers, including Rogers AT&T. Check it out at: http://www.howardforums.com I must say, after getting the Nokia 3590, I am very happy with it. It provides me with almost all the features I would want although I wouldn't mind if I got more features but then the extra price was the deterrant. I would have preferred the 6590i but I didn't like the size and paying for the extra. Maybe in a year I'll get used to the smaller size (when everything is that size or smaller) and the price will be much cheaper. For the price of free with a one year contract, I really can't complain. The 3590 provides the dual band 850/1900 GSM Mhz that I would want to take advantage of the rollout of the 850Mhz band in North America. It provides voice dialing for 10 numbers, GPRS "always on" internet access and web browsing, is SMS capable for receiving and sending, 3 games (for those who want to play games), downloadable polyphonic ringtones, MMS capable for receiving and sending, vibrating and ringing option, support for call forwarding, call waiting, caller id/display (carrier dependent). The slim, light weight and the decent size (not too big or too small) make this a very good selection of a phone for someone who might want a dependable phone with extra features but won't break the bank to get it. Thanks for taking the time to read and rate my review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89900 2003/8/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception lightweight lots of features voice tagging needs work The Bottom LineIt has the features I want and some I don't need--yet. Good to know they're there if I ever decide to pay for them. Full Review I received this phone "free" with my service plan. I prefer a no-frills phone--just give me vibration and speed dialing and I'm happy. Luckily, this has both, but so much more. This is a GPRS phone (General Packet Radio Service) It's a new non-voice service that allows information to be sent and received across a mobile telephone network. It's faster than the older methods and allows for additional features such as chat, animation, and other advanced features. I won't pay for these extras so I've not experienced them on this phone. My old phone service, now my son's, had free web browsing which I used occasionally for looking up movies--the service was fine for that and I used it as it was free. I wouldn't pay for it although others might find it useful. It has a built-in antenna that you're not suppose to touch when the phone is on--unfortunately, it's on the back of the phone right where you would normally hold it. To help you avoid touching it they've added a finger grip on the back--I wondered what that weird hump was for! It also makes me wonder about also has an internal antenna but no grip. The reason you're to avoid is it can interfere with the call quality and may cause the phone to operate at a higher power level than otherwise needed. The start screen gives you all the details--left-hand side has a reception bar--the taller it is the better the signal. The right-hand side has a battery indicator--same here, the taller the bar the stronger the battery. Navigation is done through a toggle button near the screen--it's neither too small nor too large for my fingers. Shortcuts can be used for navigation as well--press Menu, 0, 15,1 for example to listen to voice mail. A complete list of shortcuts is available in the user manual. FEATURES Calendar, calculator, alarm clock, applications (here's where you browse the web--not very intuitive to me), games (Space Impact II, Bumper, and Sugar Bowl), phone book (with caller groups--up to 500 names depending on the length of your entries), call timer, call history, 1-touch dialing, call forwarding, and automatic redial. There are some features that are plan specific like voicemail, one-button access to mMode Microbrowser (access e-mail, driving directions, news, movie times, sports, etc.), text messaging, conference calling, and caller ID. There are 25 preprogrammed ringtones--can't find one you like? Download more of them. It has a vibrating alert--an important feature for me--I can be notified of a call without disturbing others. Call Alert - allows you to set the phone so it alerts you only if a specific caller or caller group is trying to reach you. A replaceable cover & key pad--you can buy optional flashing, blinking, and glowing accessories to really spiff it up. It's easy to change the Nokia 3590s faceplate--push the small button on the back and press down while pushing toward the top of the phone (toward the on/off button). Use caution as there are two small hooks in the plastic that can be broken off. I admit it, I bought a new faceplate--it's adorable and totally changes the look of the phone. I finally found a great cell phone accessory store (see the bottom of this review for the link to the store's review). One of the best features is the key lock--no more calling people on accident from my purse. Set it to automatically lock after your desired number of minutes of non use. It's unlocked by two key strokes--no weird combination to remember, the screen prompts you with the correct keys. I love this feature! Wish I'd found it sooner--in the first week I was charged for an hour of Internet time that I didn't actually do--the button got pushed while it was in my pocket. AT&T didn't understand the circumstances and wouldn't remove the charge. VOICE TAGGING I thought this would be my favorite feature, sadly it's not. Voice tagging allows you to use voice commands to make calls--sound great, right! Unfortunately, it doesn't work that well. First, the phone has a hard time recognizing the tag. Things like background noise or a how you recorded the tag affect it (straight to the phone's microphone or using an earpiece/mic). I recorded several entries while using the ear piece--none of those were recognized by the phone when I tried to use them without it. I ended up recording all of them twice--once each way, since I use the phone frequently with and without the earpiece/microphone. Secondly, if you don't speak EXACTLY as you did the day you recorded it you may end up calling a wrong party--this happened over 50% of the time. Also, the button you need to hold for 3-seconds to let it know you'll be speaking is in a difficult place to hold down while holding the phone with one hand--terribly not comfortable! The length of the recording is very short--"Judy's Home" taxes the limits so you're stuck shortening them which means more confusion and more miss-dialing. I've pretty much given up on this feature and have resorted to 1-dial calling. BATTERY Standard for Nokia phones: Powered by a rechargeable battery--you'll need to completely charge and discharge (leave the phone on until it goes dead) it two or three times before it will work at its full performance. Fail to do this and you'll suffer poor battery life. Temperature extremes can also affect the ability of your batter to charge--allow it to come to room temperature before charging. Also, never leave your battery in the charger for more than one week--overheating can occur and ruin the battery. The standard charger that comes with the phone takes 24 hours on the first charge and then approximately 5 hours for mid-charges. There are faster options--a quick-charge will do it in 2 hours. TALK TIME/STANDBY The amount of time is dependant on how you've cared for your battery (see above), how old it is (they can be charge thousands of times but they do wear out), the signal strength, and your accessories (all those blinking lights and web surfing are battery-burners!). Generally you'll have 2-1/2 - 6-1/2 hours of talk time and 5-12-1/2 days of standby time. I run on about 10 days standby and average about 5 hours of talk time because I don't use any of the extra features and have no add-ons. WARRANTY One Year Limited Warranty SPECIFICATIONS Operates on 1900MHz (North America) Frequency Dimensions: 11.8 x 5 x 2.28 cm (4.68 inches long x 1.97 inches wide x .9 inch thick) Weight: 111 g (3.92 oz) FINAL THOUGHTS This is a nice lightweight phone that has features to spare--many I'll probably never use, but it's nice to know that if I decide to use them they're there. Charging and batter life are right within the advertised parameters and so far the reception has been excellent. I live near Seattle where reception is sketchy--I find I have service in a few more places than I did with my older non-Nokia phone. Still not perfect, I can't get service from my home, but that's a system fault, not the phone. I'd recommend it for people who like bells and whistles and future development that GPRS has to offer. 11 UPDATE: I bought accessories for this phone--great experience! Read the review at Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7786 Nokia 6610 89934 2005/2/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life speakerphone reception size no camera The title says it all... The two biggest things is the excellent working speakerphone "unlike the Nokia 3650" and the superb reception Nokia is known for in the GSM phones they make... Only con I can think of is no Camera.... No big deal for the size.. This phone is a winner... 89933 2004/6/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice design good battery life good reception the hissing background noise vibration not very good low maximum volume Generally the phone is very nice. I upgraded from Sony Ericsson T200. Probably the good looks and design was the major reason for my choice, but I also wanted to have infrared, polyphony and color screen - all the things I missed in old phone. Though, when I started using it, I discovered a number of issues with it - the vibration and the loudness was much less than in my old T200. The major problem, however is the permanent hissing noise in the background when using highest volume levels. After checking newsgroups I found many complaints about this problem in 6610. However, others did not have this problem at all. There was a speculation that it was fixed in later parties, so you have to check for this before you buy. I have already dropped it few times with no visible effect on the phone, so I guess durability is quite OK. 89932 2004/7/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish lightweight color screen volume setting too low you cannot talk in loud areas tiny power button I've had lot's of nokia phones in my life, from the prehistoric 636 until this one, the 6610. Overall, I'm satisfied with the phone. Nice and bright screen, loved the loudspeaker function (and it really works!). Handsfree is nice too. I miss the voice dialing function (C'mon Nokia! it's even present on cheap phones.). One touch dialing is not as simple to set like other models. You cannot associate a once-touch key with a number located on SIM card. It must be in your phone memory. Love the IrDA capability, although bluetooth would be more desirable. Yet one complainment: The headset speaker volume is too low. It's OK when talking in silent places but I do not imagine using it on the subway, for example. After Reading some reviews I figured out it is a general problem, so I wont take it to service. Navigating through menus is a little slow too. Tiny power button makes changing profiles slower. 89931 2004/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small clear speakerphone great reception lightweight hissing in the earpiece I had this phone for one week before I purchased the Motorola V300 (big mistake). I was in love with the size and the good reception.. The only problem with this phone is the constant HISSING in the earpiece. Be warned, I tried two of these phones and each had this irritating HISS in the earpiece. Otherwise, battery life, reception, speakerphone, etc., were all good. I read on the message boards that I was not the only one to have the problem with the hissing, which ended up in me returning the phone (nokia.howardforums.com). 89930 2005/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tri band bright color screen pleasing sound nice keys great battery life good speaker phone no bluetooth We've had the 6610 for over a year now and are very happy with it. Other phones we've used are the Motorola Startac, Nokia 8290, Samsung r225 and the Nokia 6600. The 6610 is the one that gets most usage. My wife likes this phone a lot. The 6610 has a good speaker phone. You can talk for hours without any fatigue. It feels right in the hand. The keys are just the right size and need the just the right pressure. It is built very well and has withstood rough use well. I'm thinking I'll get a new faceplate to make it look new. If you are a stickler for quality and don't need a gadget, this is the right phone. It also has FM radio. TMobile has stopped offering it, however. 89929 2004/2/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 colorful easy to use clear fun the cases of the phone are limited in color About the phone options: Message Section You have text messages, multimedia messages, chat, voice messages, and message settings. Profiles Profiles are the way you want your phone to ring or vibrate. 5 options for you to set up how YOU like your phone. Radio MY FAVORITE PART! Put your headset in, tune into your favorite radio station and you have wonderful reception from your phone. Organizer Calendar and To-Do list. Great for reminders when you really need them! Games This phone has 2 games. Chess Puzzle and Bounce. In Chess you can choose from 4 different puzzles. The idea of Bounce is to bounce the ball over obstacles and in through hoops to gain points. Applications Portfolio is where you can save your stocks. The other application is a converter. It converts money, temperature, weight, length, area and volume. The Phone book The phone book has separate groups to add different people. You can set up separate ring tones for each group. The search option makes it easy to find who you are looking for. Loudspeaker You can press a button while your call is in progress and hear the person like a speaker phone. 89928 2004/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ring tones user friendly small size better reception non flip price no camera I've been T-Mobile member for a few years & my Samsung R225 was getting wacky on me in regards to receiving calls & dialing out w/o being able to hear ppl or ppl being able to hear me...So I upgraded my phone to this Nokia 6610 (purchased it back in May 2004). I am LOVING it & even have insurance on it. I noticed right away my reception was better & didn't mind paying close to $200 since my 1 yr warranty was up for my Samsung, besides even the T-Mobile sales guy owned it himself & recommended over camera phones. I'm not a gadget savy person, but needed a phone that was small enough, yet stylish for my feminine taste. I really like the "loudspeaker" feature when I don't want to hold onto against my ear & the "radio" feature which I just discovered since I am a music lover! 89927 2004/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 handsfree radio battery duration audio clarity looks suits my requirements somewhat flimsy cover no pc connection I searched long and hard for a good handset which provided the functionality I needed without silly flashy selling points. Many phones seem to be either focused on garish looks, flimsy designs and/or camera attachments. I was not interested in having a camera in my phone, since I don't see the need for taking poor quality photo's from a device meant as a communication tool. In addition to requiring a tidy appearance, good battery life and proper audio, the only extra's I had hoped for were a colour screen, improved ringtones and decent calendar functions. Having used a 3210 for a long time, I was hopeful for another Nokia. I found that the 6610 was a tidy phone without too many unnecessary added features. The one that I welcomed was the built-in FM radio, purely because this meant having a some degree of hands-free capability provided in-the-box by the manufacturer. I would've welcomed the ability to hook the set to my PC's USB (or infrared) port without first having to purchase a extra component though. I waited until my service provider had a cheaper contract package, offering this unit and happily upgraded! 89926 2005/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to carrycofortable keypad excellent reception never drops a call a bit lacking on colour display only 4096 no camera I bought this one six months back and i am in no mood to change this one.I find this phone very easy to carry and operate,it has got good display,fm radio,decent loudspeaker,light weight & sleek design.One of the features that i liked the most was that it has the option of auto lock keypad which i found very helpful,the keypad is also very soft and its battery backup is also good..So overall i would rate this phone as 8.5.There could have been some more features to this phone but hey! u can't expect any more than this at such kind of a price tag.The best part about this phone is that all the functions are easy to understand and operate. A VERY GOOD MID RANGE SEGMENT PHONE! 89925 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 nice color screen good features terrible distorted sound quality on some handsets The Bottom LineIf you care about hearing the other end of a conversation, look elsewhere Full Review I have had three (3) Nokia 6610s so far, and each of them has had the same problem - namely, the audio is very distorted, whether using the handset or a headset. In a car, with the associated background noise, this distortion makes the other person extremely hard to understand. I find myself repeatedly saying "huh?" or just missing large pieces of what they are saying. I can muddle through the conversation, if I have to, but why go through this pain when there are much better alternatives available? The size and features of the phone are good, and the color screen is nice, but in the end a phone is a device that you use to talk to people, and there isn't any point in having a phone if you can't hear what the person on the other end is saying. I was so certain that my initial phone was defective that I immediately sent it back upon receipt. The replacement had the same problem, which isn't subtle (a friend asked to borrow my phone, and when he placed the call he looked at me and said "is your phone broken?"). I sent my second phone back and got a third phone, but it had the same problem. So, I threw my third phone in a drawer and reverted back to a previous phone. Of course, this was after spending countless hours on the phone with customer service while they "checked the network," made me switch out my SIM card, made me reset all of my phone settings and did other, assorted hocus pocus that didn't improve anything. If you search the Web, you will find users complaining of distortion, with some saying that the problem was fixed some time ago. Unless all three of the phones I got came from old stock, it seems that distortion is still a problem with some phones as of December 2003. Bottom line is that I have been a wireless customer almost since the inception of wireless phones, and have had over 20 different phones over my lifetime. The audio quality on this phone is the worst I have experienced. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89924 2000/11/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 nice keypad convenient size loud speakerphone color screen could be faster small memory The Bottom LineYou can't miss with the nokia 6610. But if you're a gadget freak, a 6800 might be better. If you want a camera, a 7250 would be your choice. Full Review The nokia 6610 does its job well. That job being, phones calls and SMS messaging. It is nicely-shaped, suitably small, and has an OK display. The GPRS functionality is a decided plus, althoug the lack of Bluetooth might bother you. There is only a limited amount of memory for Java applications (250kbytes or so) but then most Java MIDP 1.0 applications out there are cheesy games, so no great loss. The screen is nice and bright, but it's passive and not transflective, so in daylight it washes out. The sound quality is quite good. But then I'm used to that, I've had quite a number of nokia phones. The speakerphone is a useful gimmick though. It's nice and loud. The earphones (which double as the FM antenna) are just ok -- the hard earbuds are not exactly the comfiest. Although the FM reception is fine, I think it's a gimmick since you'd drain your battery quickly by using the 6610 as a radio. The battery lasts 3-4 days under regular use. The T9 predictive text input is well-integrated (better than older Nokia phones like my old 6210). I like the keypad, the "hard" keys are preferable to the rubbery keys on the 6150 or 6250 (my preference). Occasionally I can lock up the phone while playing Java games (there are lots of nice ones out there -- sure beats playing Snake when you're bored in an airport terminal or something). But the software is decidedly less buggy than in some previous phones (6210, 7110). The phone is a bit slow though, but not as slow as my Siemens ME45. Overall, a good buy. You can hardly go wrong with Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89923 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 visually very nice excellent pc suite integration true business tool no bluetooth niggling software flaw lagging menus The Bottom LineVery good business tool however may be overlooked because of no bluetooth. Stylish phone. Triband is a big plus. Best phone I've had so far. Full Review All in all quite an impressive phone. I've been using Nokia phones for about the last 5 years now and they have never failed to impress. Coming from an 8210, the size is quite comparable, although the bigger screen gives the impression that the handset is also bigger, not so. The handsfree connection has been an area of disgruntlement, however I have managed to get around this by having a full carkit installed. The carkit is good however the connection at the bottom of the cradle is easy to knock loose. Menus are a bit laggy, but after using for a while, you know what is coming up next and can press the button before you see the screen and it still computes (you still have to wait the lag time though). Other little niggling annoyance is the built in FM radio. When you plug in the headset, you can switch the radio to play through the built in speaker, but the radio won't play through the speaker without the headset plugged in. If the handsfree radio piece didn't ship in the box, I could understand this (as a push to buy the accessory) but I see no point in making you plug in the headset to play the radio if you're not using the headphones! (HF radio comes in the box for Australian model. Not sure if this is standard overseas). Also you can't send ring tones via sms. PC Suite is quite good. Integration with XP is wonderful. A true business tool. I sit my phone next to my laptop and have it communicate via sms. It synchronises my calendar with my outlook calendar. Let's me create background pictures from other pictures with its picture conversion tool. Convert MP3 files (with a combination of other easily available software) to ring tones that actually sound like the song they came from. Also backs up / allows editing of your contact list. No bluetooth is a bit of a downer, but for the price, you can't have everything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89922 2000/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 the phone has many pros as stated above the phone has really no cons as stated above The Bottom LineLight, clear, easy to sync calender. Full Review Signed up for T-mobile, and got two of these for my wife and I. So far the phone has provided every function I needed and then some. The only thing missing is a camera, but I didn't want one, so no problem. I was looking for a phone that would easily sync up with my work laptop (so I would stop missing meetings) and this phone does it incredibly easily and quickly. PROS Small, lightweight, large enough buttons to easily dial, PC Sync. Just download a program (free) from the Nokia website, and you are off. If your computer has infrared, then this is really easy. If not, I know that they sell a serial cable. I was able to load my entire contacts, and 4 months worth of my calender (1 back and 3 forward), and only use up ~60% of the phones memory. The Nokia website also gives you cool programs to load sounds and pictures to your phone. Putting my kids faces on my phone only took a few minutes (one thing you need to do is to reasonably reduce the picture size, or the program won't even load the image.) The phone list can be organized by groups (i.e. work, friends and family), and the phone will ring according to the person calling. One neat feature is the timed "profile" setting. What this does is let you put the phone on silent for a pre-determined amount of time and then automatically revert to normal. The color screen is nice and easy to read. The speaker phone works great, and although clumsy at first the ear piece works great too. THIS IS DEFINITELY THE CLEAREST SOUNDING PHONE WE HAVE EVER HAD. PEOPLE DONT BELIEVE WE ARE ON CELL PHONES. In summary, I really wanted a phone that I could sync up to my PC and have my calender handy. This phone does this EXTREMELY well. The phone can handle recurring appointments from every day, week, month or year. Phone has currency exchange, units converter (i.e. length, mass, temperature etc.) a stopwatch and separate countdown timer. CONS: If I have any issues with the phone they are minor: The case feels a little cheap (although you could say that it makes it really lightweight). I know that you can buy new cases, although I am sure that they will be the same grade of plastic. The backlight goes off really quickly, which is kinda annoying, but certainly tolerable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89921 2003/7/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 can download own picturescreate ringtones into phone many ringtones strong signal hands free headset difficult to connect into socket extremely tiny power button The Bottom LineBuy this phone and you will not regret it. Full Review I have never been so glad to be a shareholder in this company until now. I always knew Nokia makes great phones but this phone is simply excellent. First of all is its size. I can place this phone in my pocket and forget it even there. That was something I could not do with my Nokia 3390. The 3390 was sturdy, but bulky and heavy. The Nokia 6610 phone has excellent ring tones and a strong vibrator. If you let this phone ring enough it will vibrate right off the table. This economical phone comes with a color screen. It is not the best color screen I have seen(Samsung S105 gets that title), but it bright and does not eat up batteries(Like the S105). The features I like best about this phone are the built-in radio and PC Suite. It is nice to be able to listen to the radio on the phone. Not necessary, but still a nice touch. If you should go to www.nokia.com you can download PC Suite, which is a program that allows you to sync with the 6610. From there you can synchronize with Lotus Organizer or Microsoft Outlook. Imagine storing your name,numbers, and street address in your phone. There is no need for me to carry my Pocket PC any longer. PC Suite allows you to also load pictures and create ringtones from any MIDI file that you have on your computer. However this eats up the shared memory. Now to the bad stuff. This phone has the most idiotic power button I have ever seen. Could it be any smaller, I could not find the thing when I first went to turn it on. If you are a person who does not see very well the this is not the phone for you. When you do find the button, I hope have a fingernail because you will not be able to turn it on. What the h..ll were they thinking when they did that. Second is the headset connector. I could not get it in at first. I had a few people try and they put it in either. I quickly learned that you must place one end in and then push in the rest. Once again I dont know what Nokia was thinking here. They must have invented this design on Friday at about quitting time. All in all this phone is great despite a few engineering oversights. It certainly is better than some of the other color phones I have seen. I highly recommend purchasing this and will keep you updated as I use it more. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 89920 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen signal strength size speaker phone no voice dial The Bottom LineA nice, well designed phone. Buy It. You wont regret it! Full Review This is my first Nokia phone and I am impressed. I recently switched from Sprint to T-Mobile service and couldn't be happier. I travel around the Washington, DC metro area for work and have no problems getting a strong signal anywhere around the Beltway. I have previously owned Samsung and Sanyo phones with Sprint PCS service. Both (the phones and service) were reliable and worked well. I have also used 2 Motorolas with Nextel which I hated. My job provided these phones (i30 & i60) and they were crappy. The i60 actually wasn't a bad phone, but the Nextel service in the DC area is suspect. Choppy signal and to many dropped calls. Also, the Nextel walkie-talkie feature is overrated. Enough Nextel bashing. Back to the Nokia 6610. The reason I chose this phone was because it had a speaker phone feature (the 1 thing I liked about the i60). I considered getting the Samsung SCH-400 with Sprint because it had a speaker phone, but opted against it because of the weak reception I get at my house in Silver Spring and the fact that I was tired of breaking the tops of flip phones. The speaker phone option is really nice, especially if you hate wearing the headsets. In the car the speaker phone allows hands free use, people don't even know they are talking to me over the speaker. It is also nice when I am working. It allows me to talk on the phone and work on the computer at the same time. The Nokia offered all of the features I was looking for (size, speaker phone, color screen) and was offered with the T-Mobile service which gets excellent reception at my house and elsewhere in the DC area. Plus, I had talked with other T-Mobile users and all were very satisfied with the service. I also couldn't beat the price. I got the phone for free with rebate from www.letstalk.com. The only downside with this phone is the lack of voice dialing. The phone has every other feature you would want, but no voice dialing. Go figure... Recommended: Yes 89919 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent keypad design good range of features good polyphonics easy good colour screen can t use personal sms tones but can be fixed with software upgrade poor mms support The Bottom LineDo get this phone. It's great. Full Review The Nokia 6610 is a fine example of Nokia's genius. Before this I have used the 8250 and 6510, and I must say I loved the 6510 for all of its design and ease of use. Throw in Java, MMS, Polyphony the new Pop-port interface and of course the colour screen and we have a Nokia 6610. SMS support is brilliant, and the concatenated message feature is handy and useful. Too bad it does not support real message reports, which I think most people including myself can get over. MMS support is not that good. You can't insert sounds! I found this very irksome, and this would espcially be so for those who bought the 6610 for its MMS support. Hopefully the new software can fix it. The new software, v4.18, fixes what I felt was the biggest problem to me in the beginning. No personalized tones for SMS messages. I couldn't believe it in the beginning. With the new software comes much relief. (I hate the upgrade clearing all of the phone's content, though) Design-wise, I like the way it looks on the overall. Very classy look. Also, it has very good reception, like most Nokias out there. The colour screen is good, though not excellent. It still lags behind the Samsung T-100, the Panasonic GD88 and even the Sony-Ericsson t68i. (in terms of brightness) However it is good enough. The screen does not eat up very much into the battery too. Battery life is unbelievable. I could go up to 5 days before charging. It is that brilliant. Of course during this 5 days was mainly light use. It can go about 1-2 days on heavy use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280 (w line) 89918 2000/7/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 functionally superior great features visually understated great battery reasonable price faceplate is too thin still the same strange headset dongle The Bottom LineSlaves to fashion need not read further. Classic design and total reliability sets this phone apart from the rest. Full Review I bought my nokia 6610 after my trusty but old motorola V66 fell apart. T-mobile gave me a good deal on the 6610, and from their lineup at the time, it was the best overall package phone. Even now, it's tough to beat the 6610. Look and Feel: The 6610 is very understated in the looks department, which I think is a big plus; the 6610 bears fine traits of mature superiority; the trend now is for ugly clamshell camera phones, i've been told that the "candybar" design is "out". Design-wise however, nokia has really refined the candybar and they still working hard at it after seeing the newer 8360 executive phone. The aluminum buttons give nice push feedback, and don't have the cheapie feel like most cellphones. Classic will never go out of style. Build: I've dropped this phone more than a couple times, and almost every time, the entire phone just fell apart--front and back plate, keypad, battery all just went spewing everywhere on the ground. It's alarming every time it happened, but every time, i just reassembled it and it worked fine. But I have to say that the faceplates or at least the faceplate locks should be a little sturdier to prevent that. Reception: Depends really on the service plan, but I have T-mobile which has a reputation for bad reception, but I haven't had much trouble getting any calls anywhere, except for when I went to Mont-Tremblant in Canada, north of Montreal. Both the speakerphone and earphone is loud, but would be nice if it could be a little louder(i'm in new york city...) Interface: Nokia has always been #1 in the user interface department. Color screen is pretty solid for a 4K color screen. Features like the calendar, messaging, and settings are easy to access. The phone is very limited when it comes to memory-even 1MB would be great. The radio is a nice plus, but reception is always hit or miss, but nice to know that it's there. Other javabased software is included like a calculator, converter, stock updater, etc, and also has ways of downloading games and other apps, depending on your service plan. The headset is pretty nice, but I never understood why the Nokia headsets need such a strange dongle. The headset works fine, but it's looks is a bit far off from the design of the 6610-very alien like. Battery: Excellent battery life, as most all nokias. I hear friends complain about their cellphones' battery life and wonder to myself why they would choose anything but a nokia. Overall it's a great deal; as a gadget freak, I'm always on the lookout for a sweet new phone, but so far nothing is going to unseat the 6610(unless it's the crazy-priced 8630). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89917 2000/6/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 speakerphone fm radio java vibrate with ringtone familiar user interface good reception slow mms no sound 4 chord ringtones pop port 4096 colors no built in camera The Bottom LineThe price of Nokia 6610 has dropped considerably, making it an attractive buy again. However, there is other better choice around. Full Review I have been using Nokia 6610 for about a year. I like the phone for its radio function, which phones from other manufacturers lack. The reception of radio is okay, but automatic tuning sometimes won't be able to find your stations. Nokia 6610 has only 4096 colors and 4 chord polyphonic ringtones, which is very pale if compared with phone from other brand, e.g Samsung, which boosts 64K colors and 40-chord polyphonic ringtones. Besides, it's MMS feature can only send picture without sound, a big minus points. How could a MMS (first M stands for multimedia) couldn't have sound? Besides, there is no built-in camera on the camera, you have to purchase the camera which attached on the ear piece seperately. Worse, the photo it took is of low quality, so it's no point spending more money to buy a new earpiece with the camera. Nokia 6610 uses new pop-port interface for its earpiece, which is very big and clumsy. And I do feel that the phone is quite slow in responding and scrolling, especially when I scroll down the contact or message list. Even selecting the menu options proved too slow for me. I believe the camera processor is too slow. But the phone carries with it the usual familiar and user friendly Nokia user interface and features, coupled with good reception, and it's Java enabled. Means that you can download Java games and applications to the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 89916 2000/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 loud ringer light but sturdy ab fab reception inconvenient headphone handsfree jack price The Bottom LineI would buy this phone again if for nothing else than the reception and the battery life. It is an all-around terrific phone. Full Review I bought this phone because i "lost" my other phone, which sucked. It was a motorola c332. Compared to that phone, this one is a godsend. Never buy a Motorola. But even in comparison to the Nokia 6190 that I had before, the 6610 is wonderful. I have TMobile and the reception is rarely but occasionally spotty in surrounding towns. In one friends house, I was never able to get a signal, with either phone. As soon as I got the 6610, perfect reception in the whole house! The ringer is quite loud, if you need it to be, but you can choose from quieter settings, including of course, vibrate with or without ring. The vibrate is very strong... i feel it even when it is in my bag. There are many rings to choose from, and they are polyphonic, so they are pretty. There is no standard ring, so a professional might feel silly with the goofy ringtones, but you can always download different ones. The phone automatically locks itself, which is a huge help. It has a built-in radio, but you have to have the headset plugged in to make it work, and i can't be bothered with that. The phone has a loudspeaker which I LOVE!!! I use it as my handsfree now. If I am driving, I just tuck the phone into my seatbelt across my chest and the sound is perfect on my end and on the other person's. People I talk to don't even know that they are on speaker. The phone has features like java and stuff but i don't bother with that so i can't review it. Great color screen and great battery life. Don't even bother with the extra battery. Its a waste of money and you'll probably never use it unless you are going somewhere without electricity or something. Infrared transmitter so you can send info wirelessly to a PDA or another phone or something. The phone is very expensive unless you get it through a new plan, but if you need to get a new phone anyway, this is one of the best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 370.00 89915 2000/10/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone color screen silver look great size headphone jack not industry standard battery life different battery size slight menu lag The Bottom Linegreat features, lacking in others but gained by unique features. Excellent size, not too small or big, good weight, color screen and cheap!! Very functional business type phone. Full Review LOOKS: I bought this phone because my nokia 8390 mysteriously stopped working. I bought the 6610 because it looked sleek yet at the same time didn't look like it came straight from outer space like most of the other phones on the market now. I liked the fact that the buttons are relatively the same size a lot also. Black on silver design is great as it hides scratches too. SIZE: The size of the phone is about 2cm bigger than my 8390 which is good because the 8390 was a little too small. The phone's width is about the same, just a little taller, but all in all a very good sized phone. FUNCTIONALITY: The phone performs as you would expect from a nokia; the menu system is awesome and very easy to navigate around. However, my biggest complaint about the phone is how laggy the menu system is, its no where close to how fast i was able to skip around menu's instantly. The lag is only slight, but its enough to mention in the review if your an impatient person, and by impatient i mean .02 of a second DISPLAY: having limited $$ and the need for a new "high tech" phone i wanted something color. I found this phone because it was cheaper. However the display from what i read was not "up to snuff" with other color phones. The display is that of a "passive matrix" which from what i hear is worse. This is especially true when viewing pictures as your wall paper because the detail is not as fine. The color backgrounds also make it somewhat difficult to view important things quickly such as the signal bar and battery bar. BATTERY LIFE: after using my 8390 for about a year, ive found that the battery life on the 6610 is significantly less. With a full charge the phone lasts about 3 days straight (night too) the 8390 however lasted about 6-7. Another disappointing factor is how the battery used is not the standard nokia battery, it is slightly slimmer which makes sense of the shorter battery life. The phone still uses the standard nokia charger though, which is great. SOUND QUALITY: Much of the sound quality depends on the carrier. I currently use singilar and i just love it. The sound quality is excellent with no breaking up or voice echo. The ear volume is definietely too low for even normal use like driving on the highway in your car. this would be a very big con if it weren't for the speakerphone option because if its loud enough where you are and you turn the speakerphone on (really loud) you put it to your ear since its the same speaker and it sounds fine! FEATURES: Although this phone has abandoned much of the industry standard features such as voice dialing, snake (that's right no snake II) and some other things, it has gained a few very usable features. One thing i like about this phone is how it has the option to call foreward calls. The single most useful feature however is the speakerphone. The sound comes out of the same earphone only a LOT louder. Of course speakerphone is useless without a good mic so the person on the other end can hear you, but they did an excellent job here as everyone ive talked so says they can hear me crystal clear on the other end, this is great for use in the car! by the way this phone also has a radio but its basically useless unless you have the right headphone attachment (only available from nokia) to make it work! coincidence they did this? i think not... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89914 2000/8/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen small size world phone nice design great nokia ui polyphonic ringtones stereo headset in box new accessory device connector no bluetooth The Bottom LineIf you want a new Nokia world phone with color and poly tones, and don't need a built-in camera, the 6610 will do the trick nicely. Full Review The 6610 is a brand new chassis shared with the 72xx line, which I imagine will largely replace the now-venerable 81/82/83/8890 line. It's largely the same feature set as the 8890, with the addition of a few updated features such as GPRS. If you want a Nokia world phone with color and poly tones, and don't need a built-in camera, the 6610 will do the trick nicely. DESIGN + Nokia's UI/OS beats all the others that I've tried hands-down. It's very intuitive, easy to use, and consistent across all Nokia phones. At this point, I won't buy anything but Nokia. + Display: Old school black and white works fine, but it is nice to have color. This is a passive matrix display, so it's not as bright as some of the new phones with active matrix displays, but it's still a pretty nice upgrade from B&W. You can load JPG images onto the phone from your PC and use them as wallpaper. - Unfortunately, I don't think you can link a photo to a phonebook entry for visual caller ID. + Size: A tiny bit larger than the 82/3/8890, but still small enough to fit in a pocket easily. + Internal antenna means no protruding parts. + Design: At first I wasn't sure about the Star Wars motif, but now I like it. + Buttons: The buttons are HUGE compared to many of Nokia's smaller phones, making it very easy to dial, etc. Much better feel and easier to use than the 8290. + Backlight: a bit brighter than 8290 - bright enough to use as an emergency flashlight. ? Durability. The overall build quality and resulting durability of past Nokias that I've had had not been nearly as good as it should be. I've had at least three Nokia's on the 8x90 chassis; the screen went south on two of them, the speaker failed on one, and the microphone failed on my 8390. I'm hoping that the new chassis on which the 6610 is built is more durable. - New accessory device connector :-( I think Nokia has made a strategic error here. The new connector is supposed to make it possible to connect external devices such as... ...digital cameras. But with camera-phones readily available, who in the world would buy a camera accessory for their 6610? What we're left with is a headset connector that's four times the size of a simple 2.5mm headset jack. FEATURES + GSM world phone: This is a tri-band 900/1800/1900 GSM phone which will work on GSM networks all over the world. You can either pay your US service provider for international roaming or buy a local SIM with a local number when you arrive in country. I often do that, and then forward my calls from my US number to my temporary overseas number. That allows people to reach me on my US number as usual, but my local calls in Europe or wherever are much cheaper than using U-based international roaming. + 16-level Polyphonic MIDI ring tones. Nice sounds, and of course you can download a millon tones from various sites on the internet (see note re GPRS below). You can also cook up your own ringtones, but unless you're a musician with MIDI experience, your results probably won't be very listenable. + Sound volume: I have had problems with inadequate ringer/speaker volume on other phones (e.g. Samsung). The 6610 rings as loud as you'd ever want, and calls can be heard even in loud surroundings if you turn the volume up and position the phone correctly against your ear. + SIM card. All GSM phones use a SIM card to store your carrier, phone number, preferences and address book data. The 6610 can store 250 numbers on the SIM and another 250 on the phone itself. You can take the SIM out and stick it into another GSM phone, and you'll have your phone number, and your entire address book intact. + Infrared. You can sync contacts to your PC and swap "business cards" from phone to phone via the IR port. Very handy! + SMS/email. You can receive and send both SMS and email messages from the 6610. The difference is that SMS goes directly via the GSM network to/from other GSM phones, while of course email is, well, email. You really can send email to any internet email address -- just put the address at the start of your message, and then send to the number "121". Note that incoming emails are broken up into 120-character messages and in some cases cut off after that point, and so you aren't going to want to receive lengthy emails on the phone. + Calendar/Organizer. I ditched my Palm long ago, and use the Calendar on my Nokia instead. The IR port lets me sync the phone to MS Outlook. Nokia has a very clean and intuitive interface, and it's easy to add/edit appointments on the phone keypad. Very useful. Note that some phones (Samsung) claim to offer a Calendar function, but only provide an open text field for each day, not actual appointments -- useless! One small gripe is that Nokia has made the appointment options more complicated; now there's a both a "Subject" and a "Location" and a start and end time. While this provides more complete mapping to MS Outlook, it's overkill when entering appointments on the phone directly. + Speakerphone: Once you connect a call, you can hit "speaker" and set the phone on the desk. The speaker is loud enough to use as a speakerphone. Nice small feature. + FM Radio: very cool feature -- came in handy during the NYC blackout! Annoying that you can only use the radio with a headset connected though -- why couldn't they make the radio work through the speaker as well? + Data call capability. Since the IR port lets you connect to a PC, you can use the phone to make modem/data calls. Some people actually know how to do this; I haven't ever bothered, especially with WiFi on the rise. + T9 Predictive text input. I'm sometimes amazed at how well the system works; it can somehow predict the spelling of my [rather unusual] first and last names. + GPRS -- useful, I suppose, if you use it. I don't. One bummer is that you must have GPRS service available (and paid for) to download new ringtones. Since I spend a lot of time in an area with no GPRS coverage, this isn't much use to me. + Vibrating Alert. Some phones still don't have this! + Profiles. The profiles feature makes it easy to set up different ringtones for different situations, e.g. outside, standard, meeting, headset, silent, etc. + Self-adjusting alarm clock. Set the alarm, turn the phone off, and it will wake up at the desired time, and then nicely ask whether you want it to turn itself on for calls... The clock on the phone adjusts itself via the GSM network. + Games. I'm not much for games, but Bounce is kinda cool to play if you have a long subway ride. + Calculator. Very useful somtimes. There's also a stopwatch and countdown timer -- also very useful, for example while giving speeches. + You can store email addresses in the phone book. You can even create a "template" for an outbound SMS that contains the email address of your favorite person... - Voice dialing. For some reason, they left this out even though it has been around on other Nokia phones for a while. I never really used it anyhow. - Voice Recorder. I thought it was cool that my 8390 had a voice recorder, but I never used that either, so no loss. - Stereo headset: The headset provided with the phone is a stereo (two earbuds) model. While this might seem cool if you plan on using the radio feature a lot, for general use as a headset/handsfree, the stereo headset is a pain in the a-s. The extra earbud exacerbates the typical headset tangle issue, and, what's worse, the microphone hangs so far down that you absolutely have to hold it up to your mouth to speak. They should have provided a normal single earbud handsfree in the box, and made the stereo headset an option, instead of the other way around. - No Bluetooth: IR works fine for PC connectivity, but it would be nice to have the option of using a Bluetooth headset. - No Camera: I looked at camera phones, but they were much bigger and heavier than I wanted. + Reception/sound quality is excellent. + Battery life is excellent. No complaints here, and it takes a charge very quickly. + Nokia 6610 phone page: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,734,00.html ~ I paid about $250 for a brand new unlocked 6610 at a Russian electronics store in Manhattan. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89913 2003/10/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 good feature set awesome reception small color screen tiny power button no bluetooth proprietary hands free port The Bottom LineA phone that is designed for everyone. Good looking, great feature set, awesome reception. What else could one ask for? Full Review The Nokia 6610 is one of those phones that strikes a good balance between all extremes. Its screen is not as bright as my because it is not active matrix, it is a passive matrix screen. Yet, the screen is still damn good. The 6610 does not feel as rugged as my because of its XpressOn covers. Yet, I can customize it to my heart's content. The list goes on, but there are a lot of very positive things about the 6610 that make it a great phone and not just a regular phone. I had my heart set on a Sony Ericsson t68i since I saw the phone on display. I had tried to win the phone on eBay, but could not convince myself to pay up the big bucks. When I saw that the Nokia 6610 had almost the same feature set as the t68i, I did some more research on the phone. Lucky me, had run a special on the phone and I was able to pick up a 6610 for only $35. Hardware The Nokia 6610 is a tri-band GSM phone. It is essential the same (internals) as the Nokia 7210 phone, but with a more "business" or elegant design. The phone operates on GSM900/1800/1900 and will work with all GSM carriers in the US. The phone comes in the classic looking Nokia format, it is not a flip phone. The phone is pretty small at 4.17"x1.77"x0.69" and weighing in at a measly 84g. The phone is roughly the size of a Sony Ericsson t68i. The phone comes with a color LCD display that has a resolution of 128x128 pixels. It is capable of displaying 4096 colors. The LCD as I mentioned before is just a passive matrix screen and does suffer from ghosting from games, but otherwise the display is bright, well saturated and pleasing to the eye - it beats the 101x80 pixel, 256 color display on the t68i. The 6610 has the standard 12-keypad for dialing. Then there are two toggle-like buttons on either side of a four-way navigator on the top of the phone. The two toggle buttons click up for the soft-button functionality and down for connect and disconnect. The layout of the buttons is very classic and not outlandish like the buttons on the Nokia 3650. The buttons are well-sized and are easy to use and find. They do feel a bit cheap and wiggle a lot when used - not solid feeling like the buttons on my Samsung R225m. The buttons are also not tiny like the ones on the t68i. On the left side of the phone there is a rocker switch that lets me adjust the volume of a call, this is very important for me and was sorely missing on my R225m. The one big complaint that I have about buttons is the power button which is located at the top of the phone and needs a fingernail to push. This thing is not only small, but really thin. The power button on Nokia phones usually brings up the Profiles menu for changing profiles quickly. Since this button is so small, it makes changing profiles difficult - or just longer if I have to use the Menu to change profiles. Next to the power button at the top of the phone is the infrared port. On the bottom of the phone is a PopPort for connecting cameras, headphones, or hands-free adapters. Next to the PopPort is the power jack for charging the phone. Oh, and there is no protruding antenna like every other phone (except for the ) that I have had. The antenna is internal and works fantastic, more on this later. There are not external LEDs on the phone. This is a blessing for me since the bright blue one on the Samsung R225m was ultra-bright (enough to light up a room when it blinked on). Inside The phone takes a new lithium-ion battery that yields 3.5 hours of talk time and 225 hours of stand-by time. I haven't worn the battery out yet and it seems to last forever for me. I do charge my phone every night though. The 6610 runs Nokia's Series 40 OS. It does all sorts of things that have acronyms. Get ready for a list of letters: GSM, GPRS, WAP and MMS. GPRS allows the phone to connect to a high-speed data network. With T-Mobile it is called t-zones and with AT&T it is called mMode - it is all the same, it just allows you to semi-surf the web depending if a site is written in WAP format or not. A tip though is to look up the site via wap.google.com and then surf to it via Google since Google has a WAP translation engine that will make the page viewable on your phone. It comes with Java 2 MicroEdition built-in for running games and applications that can be picked up all over the web. The 6610 comes with four Java applications by default. Two are applications (Portfolio II and Converter II) and two are games (Chess Puzzle and Bounce). Of the four, I like Bounce the best since it is pretty entertaining as a game - though the physics of the game are a little screwy and take some time to adjust to. The phone is polyphonic, but it can only do 4-chords at once (compared to the 16-chords that the t68i can play). The volume of the 6610 ringer is loud and I mean it is really loud. I need to put the ringer down to about half in order to make it not annoying when it rings. This is a good thing since with my R225m I could not hear it ringing a few rooms away in my house. With the ringer on the 6610 it is loud and clear. The 6610 has a built-in FM radio. But the drawback is that the hands-free needs to be plugged into the 6610 in order for the FM radio to work. I am guessing that the 6610 uses the cord on the hands-free as an antenna to receive the FM signal. I have yet to use the FM radio because the hands-free boom that is included in the package is probably the ugliest thing I have ever seen. One day I will order a nicer hands-free set. The 6610 also has a built-in speaker phone, which works very well. It is loud and clear and just plain works. Unlike my CDM-9500, there is no physical key for activating the speaker phone function. It is assigned to the right soft-key when a call is made. The 6610 also comes with a calendar and to-do list capabilities. The phone book function inside is excellent. It allows multiple numbers per entry along with email addresses and notes. If you want to store your phone numbers on the SIM card, you'll have to stick with the single number per entry, but storing them on the phone makes it more convenient. Phone entries can be assigned to categories and then those categories can be taken into account with different profiles (ring only on "family" calls and stuff like that). GPRS is the data-side of the phone and that works out very well - as well as surfing the Internet on a tiny screen. T-Mobile offers an Internet portal named t-zones, which is a nice starting point for getting information, games, ringtones, and what not. But don't get stuck using it because most everything there is for sale and not for free. Look on the Internet for different wap sites that offers free J2ME games and ringtones to download to your phone. Unlike the R225m, the 6610 is able to synchronize its clock with the network if the functionality is available. Here in NorCal, the Cingular network (in which the T-Mobile services runs on) does allow it, so I don't have to set the clock on my 6610 (or adjust for lost/gain of minutes). This is a nice function that should be in all phones, too bad it was missing in my R225m. The built-in IrDA (Infrared) port is amazing! Instead typing entries into my phone on the keypad, I am able to do it on my computer and "beam" them right over to my phone. I can also use the port for sending over background images, ringtones, and games. For data purposes the phone can be used as a modem through the IrDA port (though I have not tried the modem functionality yet). If you don't have an IrDA port on your computer, you have two choices: Buy an USB-to-IrDA adapter or buy the Nokia data cable. My suggestion is to get the IrDA adapter instead since in the future the data port on the bottom of your new phone may not be compatible with that data cable. The chances of a phone having an IrDA port is higher than the chances of a compatible data port in my books. There is a limited amount of memory that is shared between images, ringtones and applications. I haven't figured out exactly how much there is, but it is enough to hold quite a few calendar events, games, ringtones and images. I wish there was more though since I do have to delete stuff in order to get new stuff on the phone. Am I a digital pack rat? Yea. Sound and Reception The major test of a phone is its ability to get reception in my house. My house is built like a tin can and reception inside is not the greatest. I have used many phones through my house, SprintPCS, Verizon, MetroPCS, and T-Mobile phones. All of them get pretty bad reception. The Samsung R225m was the first to get a semi-decent signal inside the house. The Nokia 6610 gets better reception than the R225m, which is something specail because in certain places where no phones would work, I get a decent signal from my 6610. That is outstanding. Outside, as with most T-Mobile reception, it is crystal clear. 1900MHz has penetration problems with buildings, but outside it is great. The 6610 has no problems getting and locking onto a signal outside. Because my fiancee and I have been doing a lot of wedding planning stuff and visiting different vendors, I have been able to test the 6610 in all different areas of the Bay Area. I have tried the phone in downtown Los Altos; around University and High Street in Palo Alto; the Stanford Shopping Center; on Treat Street in Concord; Walnut Creek; in and around Valley Fair in Santa Clara; and in general all around North San Jose. Reception is exceptional all around. What is nice is that the 6610 gets all this good reception with a built-in antenna. There is no stub of an antenna sticking out on the phone. The antenna is integrated into the back of the phone and the manual shows a good picture of where it is and where I should not put my fingers if I want to get really good reception (basically the top quarter or third of the phone on the back). My Samsung R225m was a very loud phone. The 6610 is unfortunately not. The loudest setting for the phone is still a bit too soft, it is just about the same volume as setting my R225m at around half. It is OK for quiet environments, but I don't imagine that it would be loud enough in some louder environments (like crowds or at the mall). Some have complained in the forums that the ear piece makes weird vibrating noises when the volume is set for maximum, I have not experienced that with my 6610. The sound quality of the phone is good, on par with my R225m. The voices are very natural sounding without much distortion. Like the R225m the phone has a hiss that accompanies sound, I am not sure if this is an inherent part of GSM or if it is just the design of my two GSM phones. Observations The 6610 comes with T9 text prediction for messaging. And it works pretty well, I like the ability of being able to switch between T9 and regular entry with a single key instead of the R225m where I had to do it via a menu. I have not yet messaged too much on the phone, but it does have the facilities to add words to the T9 dictionary. That is a definite plus since there are names and stuff that I would end up editing all the time on my R225m. The menu system on the phone is pretty easy and straight-forward. There is a little bit of exploring to do if you want to turn on some stuff (like the call timer is not turned on by default and I had to find where that was. The date and time are not displayed by default and I had to find those too). The Pop Port is the only want to attach a hands-free set. I wish that there was a standard 2.5" port on the phone along with the Pop Port for accessories. As it stands, there are hardly any hands-free sets for the phone because of the proprietary connection. I wish the phone also had Bluetooth and conformed with the SyncML standard. Then I would be able to synchronize it with my iBook (with iSync, iCal, and Addressbook). As it stands I have to use Nokia's PC Suite with Outlook on my PC. The PC Suite is not a bad piece of software though, I just wish I could have the phone interface with my iBook instead. You won't get PC Suite in the box with the phone, you'll have to go download a copy from www.nokia.com, it is free and if you have an IrDA port, it is quite useful. Also check out Oxygen Phone Manager II for Nokia at www.oxygensoftware.com for a good third party tool for interfacing with the phone. Conclusion For $35 the Nokia 6610 is a steal! Even for the retail price of $149 (with activation) the phone is a great deal. This is one good phone that has impressed me from the start. It has awesome reception, an easy to learn menu system, a good set of features, and a pretty good color screen. It may not be the best at everything that other phones offer, but for the price it is a great deal. Minor drawbacks like low call volume and a tiny power button should not turn off a potential buyer. This is a great phone and a great upgrade from my Samsung R225m (which now sits in its box as a backup for my Nokia 6610!) If you are thinking about purchasing the Nokia 6610, go right ahead, you won't be sorry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89912 2000/12/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 charges quickly good battery life tiny fonts not durable drops address book entries screen invisible outdoors high learning curve The Bottom LineAlthough the battery life is a major plus, almost everything else about this phone is poorly designed and manufactured. Look elsewhere. Full Review I've become increasingly unhappy with the cell phones being sold these days. In the ever-intensifying hunt for smaller faster cheaper, the phone manufacturers have thrown things like usability and durability out the window. The Nokia 6610 is a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon. Who cares if you can actually hold the phone so you can hear and speak without major repositioning as long as you can slip the phone unnoticed into a shirt pocket? Who cares if the plastic casing is so flimsy it practically dents if you look at it too hard as long as the phone is light enough you hardly notice that you're carrying it? Who cares if the text on the phone is so miniscule it's illegible as long as the screen has lots of pretty colors? I care. The Physical Phone and Ergonomics The Nokia 6610 is a small, thin, light phone. Too small, in my opinion. As I mentioned above, you have to move the phone from ear to mouth to hold a real conversation. When I forget and just hold the phone to my ear, the person on the other end only seems to get every other word or so. It's also too small to reasonably rest on your shoulder, held in place with your head. With careful positioning you can do this briefly, but even the slightest movement upsets the balance. If you're using the phone and need use of your hand for a second you'll have to shove it in a pocket or otherwise store the phone. This is really inconvenient. The phone has a very light, very fragile plastic casing. Unlike my previous phone, it dents and scratches every time you drop it, knock it into something, or otherwise exert any pressure on it. The screen is very bright with vivid colors indoors but fades into invisibility in direct sunlight. It's also somewhat pixelated and collects dust like it's going out of style. The keypad buttons are, like the rest of the phone, small, but they're fairly easy to press. They're metal with a slight slope up or down (adjacent buttons tilt in opposite directions) making it a little harder to accidentally press the wrong button. I have done it, but surprisingly infrequently given the size of the buttons. The command and directional buttons directly under the screen are another matter entirely. These buttons are hard to press and so close together that an attempt to hit the four directional rocker button often results in a click of the select, cancel, send, or end buttons. This is really really frustrating. The power button blends in with the case and is difficult to depress. The side rocker looks like trim and barely extends out from the main case. Whoever designed this phone should be shot. The Learning Curve I already mentioned the power button blends in and is hard to press and the side rocker looks like trim and is also difficult to use. This caused a lot of problems when I first got the phone. Part of my job is figuring out how to use various gadgets, yet I had to resort to the documentation to figure out how to turn the phone on and off. I needed a customer service representative to figure out how to use the side rocker switch and adjust the volume. This is not good. Sound and Volume The sound quality on this phone is generally good but you will infrequently get bouts of static or rustling or other odd background noises. They usually pass within a few minutes and seem very random - they aren't tied to weather conditions or specific locations. The default volume is quite low, but the maximum volume is easy to hear as long as there isn't too much background noise. My old Sprint phone was louder, but I can live with the maximum volume on this phone. Battery Life The Nokia 6610 has pretty good battery life. I use about 100 minutes of calls per week on average and have my phone on standby most of the time it isn't being actively used. I usually only charge the phone twice a week and it generally still has two or three battery bars left (out of seven). This phone charges faster than any other I've used, charging in 20-30 minutes (from the not fully depleted starting point). Even on those rare times when I start from a fully drained battery it only takes 45 minutes to charge. The battery is one thing Nokia got right. The Operating System The Nokia 6610 uses the standard Nokia software interface so I'm not going to spend a lot of time discussing it. However, I do feel compelled to mention a few issues I have. First of all, the fonts used by the phone are very small and aren't configurable. Things like the time and date are even smaller than dialed numbers and input names and are pretty much unreadable. The single biggest problem I have with the phone is that it randomly drops phone book entries. It does this often but with no discernable pattern. At least half of the times I've gone to dial a number I'd previously added to the database it wouldn't be there. It's gotten so irritating that I've stopped using the phonebook and just use a combination of the recent calls list and my palm to look up phone numbers. Extras The phone comes with the normal extras - a few ringtones, a few games, and a charging cable. It also has one rather unusual extra - a small headset that transmits FM radio via the phone. This is a proprietary headset with one earbud and a slight extension with a microphone. In addition to playing the radio, it also acts as a handsfree headset. The headset adds a lot of bulk to the bottom of the phone and isn't very comfortable so I rarely use it, but it is nice that it's included. Summing Up As you can tell, I'm not very happy with the Nokia 6610. It's too small, badly designed, drops numbers frequently, and just generally offers a very poor user experience. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89911 2005/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable user friendly a lot of features stylish small memory limited camera dreadful tones The Bottom LineIf you want a good all-rounder, the Nokia 6610 isn't a bad choice. Full Review Yes, it's that time of year again - UPGRADE TIME! Though in a way I feel that the Nokia 6610, while it definitely looks more stylish, isn't really a step up from the 3200 model. While it's got plenty of options and the sound quality is very good, it isn't significantly better earlier models. The slim-line design is a lot nicer than that of the chunkier 3xxx and 5xxx ranges, though. Sadly this seems to have come at the price of durability - drop this and watch the back and battery scatter across the room. (Obviously the best option would be not to drop it...) The battery life seems very good (without extensive call or radio usage about a week) and the charge time is very low (an hour and a half or less). Menus and comments: Messages SMS / MMS messages / SMS email. (You can also set it to use GPRS.) Set up your delivery receipt options etc. The ability to use templates and delivery lists is good; the inability to create your own templates isn't. Call Register Incoming, missed, and outgoing call summary. Contacts Does exactly what it says on the tin. Profiles Set up your rind tones, colour themes, etc. Settings This menu is for... um... your settings. Everything is configurable. Radio Good quality audio. Requires earphones etc (a decent set supplied with the phone.) Camera The camera is decent enough but far from the best on the market. Night mode is useful (lightens the image in the dark - there is no flash) but only useable in standard mode, so no help for taking a portrait picture in the dark. (Just turn your phone sideways...) Gallery Have a look at your photos and the pre-loaded or downloaded clip art or other images. Organiser Features the delights of the alarm clock, to-do list, and calendar. All reminder services etc are the same as on older Nokia models. Games The pre-loaded games (on T-Mobile phones anyway) are Bounce (fairly addictive platform game) and Chess Puzzle (pretty good mind melter). Three games are available as FREE downloads from Nokia.com - Snake II (prettier but somehow less interesting), Space Combat III (decent horizontal shoot-'em-up, not too bad but the key controls are horrible), and Trail Biker (a fairly fun - and extremely frustrating - Excite Bike clone). Note - some games download into the Applications menu. Games seem to cost £5 each and the price is added to your next phone bill. Applications Pre-loaded applications are Converter II (convert currencies, weights, measures, etc) and Portfolio II (useful to a limited number of people, I guess!). Extras The Extras menu sees a welcome return of the Countdown Timer and Stopwatch features. Other than that we have a password-protected Wallet feature, presumably used for online shopping purposes (you keep credit card details etc on it). Personally it's not something I would use and anyway, even with password protection, I consider it too much of a security risk to put my card details somewhere that could potentially be accessed if someone stole my phone. (Call me paranoid if you like, but I'm not likely to change!) Connectivity GPRS allows quick loading of web pages, (but Nokia's browser interface leaves a lot to be desired). Particularly annoying is the way that menu items seem to be available before images have loaded but aren't. Download speed seems to be about 2Kb / second (that's 2 Kilobytes not Kilobits). So a 60Kb game takes about 30 seconds to download. Services Various pre-set webpages. Go to (bookmarks) Quick links to your favourite websites. Other specifications / comments. Memory: 4Mb - for more things this is fine, but for a camera phone (albeit only a medium quality one) this is a little on the stingy side. For me this wasn't a major problem (since we also bought a device to transfer pics from the phone to the computer via infrared), but memory seems to be the one area where Nokia consistently lag behind their competitors. (For instance, my wife's new phone, a Sony Ericsson, has a whopping 41Mb, and even her old phone, the Motorola V300, had 5Mb.) The tones supplied with the phone are mostly pretty poor, and as usual with Nokia phones the pitch seems to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high. Uses Nokia's own format or MIDI files. Not all that great but the better tunes sound reasonably good. However the sound quality for calls and radio is good. Not sure about its processor power but judging by the slow-down in games with multiple sprites on-screen, it seems possible that it may even be slightly less powerful than the 3200. The display is quite good with vibrant colours and decent resolution though so it's not a disaster. Verdict The Nokia 6610 is a good phone with a lot of features but nothing stands out as being among the best around. The design of the phone is nice and, as is typical of Nokia phones, is very user-friendly. The major failings are the limited memory and relatively poor sound quality, and the camera isn't the best in the world. If any of those things are important to you then I wouldn't recommend it. However, as an all-rounder it does a good job. If you're not too fussy about having the most high-tech gadgets and are careful with the phone (I am going to make a real effort to drop it less!!), it's a nice phone and quite stylish too. For many people, it is perhaps more suitable as a business mobile than a personal one. Related Links Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADERecommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 89910 2005/12/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 world phone good battery excellent sound fastuser friendly ui good reception saves phone numbers to phone memory not on sim by default could look better The Bottom LineI am happy with my Nokia 6610. It provides the qualities that are most important to me: good reception, excellent sound quality, compact size, good battery and fast operation. Full Review After using the with T-Mobile for one year I decided to upgrade to the . There were several reasons for that with the first and foremost being the sound and reception quality. The R225 could drop calls unexpectedly and experienced dropouts and low reception in some areas, which (I suspected) was due to the phone and not to the company/coverage. The Nokia 6610, indeed, provides me with better reception, sound quality, fancy features and longer battery life. Looks The phone I got is silver, but you can get snap-on faceplates to convert it into many different colors. I don't care about the color (unless it is something hideous), as long as the performance is there. The phone is compact and quite lightweight. The phone doesn't have a protruding antenna, unlike the R225, but it does not degrade its performance. It doesn't look as durable as Samsung was, but it should survive. Especially taking into account that I am not the kind of person to drop phones. Also, the button backlight could be better. Update (15 months later): the phone proved to be quite durable, despite its apparent flimsiness. It still works well. Battery The phone uses quite small battery that has surprisingly long life. The manual recommends to fully discharge/recharge the battery three times and only after that the battery should gain its full capacity. But even the first charge lasted more than 4 days of standby with about 20 minutes of talk. Charger The supplied charger recharges the battery in about 1 hour. I was surprised to find my completely discharged battery charged in only about one hour (even though you can keep the charger plugged in for more - Nokia recommends 3 hours to obtain full charge). The charger is a "travel" type. It is compact and can charge the phone in other countries as well as it supports 240-110V 50-60Hz current. This is much better than my previous Samsung's "travel" charger that can only use 110V 60Hz (US) or my newer 's charger (ditto). Reception/Sound The reception is better than it was with Samsung and the sound quality is noticeably better as well. The phone also has a speakerphone mode. And it comes with a good hands-free kit, where the microphone is attached to the earpiece on a protruding plastic rod. It is a much better design than the Samsung's (where the microphone is on the cord and people cannot hear you unless you yell or hold it closer to your mouth). Color Screen The phone has a color screen and lets you choose the color scheme in several colors. You can set different "wallpapers" and send/receive pictures. Ease of Use The phone is very easy to use, more so than the Samsung. Also, it doesn't have the delays the R225 has while operating menus or locking/unlocking the keys. There are "Help" prompts guiding you all the time if you forgot something. You have to know that when you save the phone number/name, it is saved in the phone internal memory by default and not on a SIM card. If you want it saved on a SIM card, you have to go to the number and select "Copy" and then Copy or Move. As you are scrolling through names, you can see a little icon depicting the SIM card in the upper right corner of the screen if the current name/phone number is on the SIM or nothing if it is in the phone's internal memory. Infrared The phone has an infrared port for information exchange with other phones or computers. It is located on the top of the phone as does the power button. Games The phone comes with a couple of games, one of which is the chess puzzle. Rings The phone has polymorphic tones (polymorphic tones use MIDI files and sound like a cheap radio). Several are preloaded and you can download more if you so desire. I don't. The ring volume can range from low to very loud (to a point where it is scary). There is also a vibration mode available. You can set several profiles (Normal, Silent, etc.) and switch between them. Organizer The phone features some organizer functions: calendar, appointments, etc. It also has calculator, stopwatch and times, and other features. World Phone This model is a Tri-Band phone and will work in Europe and Asia (GSM). I used my Samsung (dual band) in Europe and it worked well. I also used this Nokia 6610 in Europe (Denmark, France and Belgium) and it work very well. Overall I am happy with my Nokia 6610. It provides the qualities that are most important to me: good reception, excellent sound quality, compact size, good battery and fast operation. See also: my Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7787 Nokia 7210 GSM / EGSM Cellular Phone 89952 2004/9/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 i like everything on this phone it s light it s small the price is high as compared to other mobiles I like everything on this phone it's light, it's small, it's got a big screen, it's got lots of memory has an attachable camera available and is very popular but rubbish ringtones. I am very satisfied with my mobile 7210. The price is high as compared to other mobiles. 89951 2000/3/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen lightweight too big no 2 5mm headset jack slow ui The Bottom LineIf you want a color phone, this is probably the one to get. Full Review This is my third Nokia phone (I've reviewed my other two here on epinions as well) and I'm impressed once again. Nokia has melded style with function with this phone. I really like the unique keypad layout, and the mixture of clear and opaque plastic for the body provides cool look and feel. I just ordered a new cover for it though. Mine came in the aqua blue color and I wanted the black to tone it down a bit. The 128 x 128 pixel color screen is very cool; of course I'd love to see higher density, but it displays pics of my family adequately. I was able to easily transfer images from my PC to the phone using Nokia's PC Suite software and the IR connection that the phone provides. I also like browsing the web in color a lot more than the black and white browser on my previous phone. Though most of the content is still only one or two colors, it is just nice to see color. The four-direction arrow keypad has also been nice. My previous phone (Nokia 6590) only had up and down which is a pain when you're navigating a grid (like the calendar application that comes with the phone); left and right are very useful. The phone is tightly and well constructed. My phone pet peeve is when it is put together poorly. No rattling or loose fitting covers for this phone which is great. I did notice that the vibrating ringer can cause a rattle sometimes. Battery life seems the same, if not better, than my old 6590. I was expecting the color screen to drain the battery, but I have noticed no difference which is nice. Reception and clarity are the best I've ever heard on any network (I'm on ATT's GSM network). It's much better than my previous Nokia, and they've somehow resolved a lot of the latency problems which is fantastic! One of the things that bums me out about this phone is its size. My previous phone (the Nokia 6590) was super small. All though the 7210 is thinner than the 6590, it is taller and a bit wider as well. I would have preferred all of these features in a phone the size of the 6590 (the perfect size). Another thing that's bugging me is that the headset jack isn't the standard 2.5mm round jack that I had grown accustomed to. Instead it's some proprietary connector that clasps into the bottom of the phone. As a result the connector is larger than the standard 2.5mm jack that my previous phone had. Two more gripes: one, the color screen could be brighter (even though there is brightness control) and could do better in broad daylight. two, the user interface lags and is a bit sluggish. I can type faster than the UI can update for example; not a big deal, but kind of annoying. I would have liked to have more regular ring tones. This phone supports polyphonic ringtones that allow for more realistic tones to be played (like songs) which is great, but all I can find are converted songs for ring tones for the most part. I've heard other polyphonic ringers on other phones that replicate old fashioned telephone rings and I can't find one for the Nokia. That's another thing, you can download graphics and ring tones to the phone (for a fee) which is cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89950 2000/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features is the ideal fashion accessory very stylish headset disconnects screen de lightens The Bottom LineI would buy it if you are looking for a new MMS phone and had previously owned a Nokia before. Otherwise try another brand and model. Full Review When i first heard about Nokia bringing their latest colour screen phone out, i thought it would be the size of the previous one, the 7650. But how wrong was i?! The phone is just slightly wider by 2cm than the 8310, is 9cm longer too and it weighs 1kg less than the 8310. It still feels 'sheak' and small enough that you'll be proud to pull it out of your pocket. It is packed with all the latest features you would expect for a MMS phone, minus a built-in camera which is now available separately. The colour screen takes some getting use to because of the change from a black dot-pixel screen. The display is 128x128 and can hold a massive range of colours; 4096. And it is brilliant for txting as it can show a huge 8 lines. The display is fully adjustable so you can dim down or brighten the screen. The memory on the phone allows you to store 300 names and numbers although this is minus your simcard allowance. Mine increases it to allow 450 names and numbers. You can also store 150 txt msgs, MMS msgs, images & ringtones. It also has vibrate alert. You can use the calendar with to-do list too. The best part though, for them long journeys, is the ability to play Java games. Java is a technology used on the internet and has now came to phones to offer excellent games compared to the old games like snake. The games preinstalled are above average but nothing special as snake once was. It also has a build in radio too for them walks to school and college to keep you entertained. The phone is also tri-band with auto switching, which basically means you can take it around the world and it will still work. Also the phone allows you to change its front and back fascias. The designs vary but the official Nokia ones are very stylish; mainly because this is the fashion phone brought out for the fashion shows. All in all, the phone is excellent for the person upgrading from the old dot-matrix phones. Plus it will be a breeze for people who previously owned Nokias to get use to the phone because its more or less the same layout. Poorly though, i believe Nokia rushed the phone out for the people who didn't like the bulkiness of the 7650. Sometimes the screen goes duller at no command and you can't re-adjust it via brightness control. The only way to solve it is by turning the phone off then on or leaving it until it changes back itself. Also when using the hands-free\radio earphones, it can easily pop out from the phone at the bottom and when you plug it back in, the sound is much quieter with the only way to solve it is to turn off the radio then back on again. One last fault is the vibrate alert is much louder than the ringtones itself at the highest sound level. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 162 89949 2000/4/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 style excellent list of multimedia options size weak vibrating option The Bottom LineLike other Nokia phones,7210 is another asset that Nokia got Full Review The Nokia 7210 has been one of the most anticipated phones. It had aesthetics in mind when it was designed. Sleek curves, polyphonic ring tones, and a beautiful color screen is only the beginning.Nokia took a chance with the 7210 with its unconventional look. I think overall it did fairly well. The new cool will definitely draw a crowd when people see its artistic design. But as for functionality is sacrificed for form. The keypad is differently spaced on the top and bottom, making text messaging difficult. We were definitely surprised by the 7210. One had it had features we weren't expecting from a mobile phone in its price range. Most notably, the mini sound card, excellent FM radio, a loudspeaker that worked well, and downloadable Java application and games. On the other hand we thought that certain common features for the 7210 were left out that should have been included. Most notably, the voice dialing, and a larger memory for storage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89948 2000/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 plenty functions nice looks stupid handsfree set foolish interface The Bottom LineAll inn all this a good phone on carnival. That makes it mediocre. Buy the similar Nokia 6610 instead. Full Review As a professional tech journalist I test the most interesting consumer electronics. I got the Nokia 7210 from their public relations department. I was only allowed to have the phone for a week, so please bear that in mind when you read this. My model was in stylish orange color. A lot of people will probably like the stylish design. I think I can like it as well. But why have Nokia for the first time made a phone that is so difficult to use? Usability is everything. And Nokia have always had the most usable phone menus and keyboards. Not anymore. The keys are the biggest problem. They are arranged in a fancy pattern. But that makes them difficult to reach and even more difficult to push. The large space between the keys is the biggest problem. I loved the japan inspired techno-chic from its successor Nokia 8310 (sells as 8390 in the US). But this is just too much. The other extremely foolish thing about this phone is the clumsy hands free kit. The phone has a built in stereo FM radio, so you need headphones. With a large plug and a system where the wires goes behind your neck and up to your ears, this kit it useless. It takes minutes to put on and of. Who wants that? Besides for the stupid interface, this phone is great. That sums it up as mediocre. This phone has a brilliant and sharp color screen. There is no problem that it just shows 4096 colors. The phone also supports multimedia messages. It has GPRS and high-speed Internet, infrared, java for downloading apps and games. It also has polyfonic ringing tones, but it lacks bluetooth. All inn all this a good phone on carnival. Instead you should buy the Nokia 6610 which ships these days. It is exactly the same phone, but has a design that makes it possible to use. PS: Nokia are famous for their bugs. There has already been reported errors on the 7210. Some phones doesnt seem to be able to reproduce very light voices. For example a female voice. It crackles. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 650 89947 2000/7/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fm radio screen sound battery life price easy to use removing ear piece from handset is hard The Bottom LineThis phone is a must have for flip-phone haters!!!No real flaws here, just satisfaction and function with a splash of style. Full Review If you hate flip phones or over priced color screen phone, then you're like me and you are wondering about the Nokia 7210. How is this phone? After two days I must say that this is one of the better phones I've experienced. First off the Nokia menu system is so easy, precise, to-the-point, and practical. I went from my first mobile, the Nokia 8890, to a Motorola, The infamous V66, and even played with my Girlfriend's Samsung Sprint phone and not to mention my bestfriend's Siemens S55 phone and hands down Nokia conquers all in the menu realm. The screen at 4096 colors is really good. In fact I've played around with the Siemens SL55 and Sony's Ericsson's T68i phones and their screens are not as bright and their fonts are no where as clear and crisps as the 7210. You should also consider the font sharpness and size when looking at screens before you buy your phone. In terms of flip phones I cant compare the 7210 because I don't like flips and don't waste time playing around with them. I do know most new Panasonic flips and the Motorola v600 (when it debuts this Fall 2003) has 65,000 colors. Bottom Line is the 7210 has a far better than average screen compare to it's competitors. The sound is also amazing. I've read some reviews about sound being low on the headset. I must clear this up. The "Nokia Boom HeadSet" that comes in the box sucks. The piece sits outside your ears and you can't hear well. However the stereo headset, sold separately, is much better. The handset sound was pretty good as well, far better than my old Motorola v66 phone. Also the FM Stereo and Loudspeaker sound was uncanny. When you put the 7210's FM radio on speaker it is very very loud and clear. The phone itself somehow becomes a 5 watt speaker. (you have to experience it to believe me) Battery Life was very good. I spent the entire day out shopping in Manhattan with the FM stereo playing constantly, and over an hour of phone conversation and the battery meter didn't drop a bar when I came home. Build Quality is pretty good for a plastic phone. Because the phone does so much it feels solid, yet the 7210 is so light you would think it was a hollow shell of plastic. I also like that the Xpress covers are so easy to change and are easily available from lots of stores. (On this note Buyers beware; I was told that after market plastic shells and cheaper quality and do not protect your phone as well as the original Nokia 7210 covers) The Key Pad was also easy to use and I got used to it in no time. The keys also feels solid and sturdy. The Phone has tones of features within the menu system that I won't get into here but so far I love them all. The games are cool and I can look forward to downloading a few more. The only thing is the 7210 doesn't really focus on the camera thing that most phones are selling these days. (eg. picture caller ID etc...) And you have to by the camera part and attach it. I haven't done this yet so I won't speak on this. Another thing is the headset and data cables attaches in a weird way to the 7210 handset. It hooks into the base of the phone with a spring-claw. This is good because the cable won't come loose accidentally, but it's also feels like you're about to pull your phone apart when you try to remove the cable. Maybe I'm not doing something right. RingTones are just as good as the other billions of cell phones out there. I'm not into how my phone rings so I won't speak on this here. I can't think of any real negatives so far with this phone. My Nokia 8890 was my first and best phone I've ever used or seen but I think the 7210 will soon take it's title. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 89946 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 trendy great loudspeaker function 128x128 pixels screen resolution no bluetooth can t send mms weird keypad The Bottom LineIt`s pretty! It`s got inner beauty! BUT lacks the functions and price of the top phones. Full Review The Nokia 7210 is phone with a broad appeal. It suits both the businessman and the more trendy person. With a bright color screen, powerful polyphonic ringtones and a series of other advanced function, this phone is guaranteed to be a bestseller. The price is probably the only thing holding it back. The 7210 doesn`t really have a revolutionary design. It has inherited most of its lines from its predecessors in the Nokia-family, even though the key-placement is brand new. It`s also a bout slimmer than it`s chubby relatives in the 33-, 34- and 35-series. Nokia is experts in brand building, and the 7210 is a phone that most likely will increase the memberships in the Nokia fan club. It`s a very good phone, it is functional, has a very good design, and is a high-quality phone. It`s also got good battery time, weight and volume. In other words there aren`t many weak areas on this phone. But I found something..... I am not thrilled by the way the keys are placed. The keys 1-4-7 and 3-6-9 is placed as a integrated part of the classical Nokia-bow, while 2-5-8-0 is directly beneath one and other, with progressively smaller keys (ref: the picture). The result of this is that the gap between 1, 2 and 3 is big, while the keys around 0 is tight as a fishes a.... If you have an heavy addiction to SMS, it will be a test of thumb strength when you have to change techniques according to which keys you want to hit. If you, as me, don`t like the keys you can just buy yourself a new cover with normal key placement. The 7210 uses the same covers as the 6610, which by the way is the exact same phone under a different model name and with a more standardized keypad. Nokia 7210 comes with a number of pre-programmed ringtones. The multiple-voiced ringtones is pretty much made so they sound like alarm signals, and not like regular music. The pro is that you can hear if someone is calling you, or if it`s just the discman of the guy next to you. The con is that it sound oh so awful. The screen of the 7210 can show 4096 colors. It gives you a better color resolution then both Panasonic GD 67 and Sony Ericsson T68i. This works especially great when you receive messages with photos. The phone`s got MMS, and it is surprisingly easy making an MMS. You can`t SEND any real MMS though, with sound, picture and text, only RECEIVE. 7210 hasn`t got a built in camera either, so you`ll have to download pictures to the phone through the Internet (WAP), or by a computer. You can also receive pictures via IR either directly from a camera or from another phone. You can add several pictures into a message, but in the 7210 you can create a slide-show, and as said, NO sound. The 7210 has got an address book which rooms 300 listings ( SIM). The memory is dynamic, so if you save more than one number to each contact there will be room for less contacts. It rooms a total of 725 kB, which is spread out between MMS-messages, saved pictures and ringtones, calendar appointments, notes, contactregister, Java-games/programs. The memory very quickly becomes a tad to little. This is not a pure-breed professional user phone. It lacks voice commands, picture editing and the possibility of composing your own ringtones like the former Nokia models. It hasn`t even got Bluetooth, despite, Nokia having said they really believe in this technology. In return this one got radio (stereo), and support for 1900 mHz (used in big parts of the USA and some of the Far East). It`s also got a loudspeaker function that works very well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 530 89945 2000/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sms gprs 4096 colors screen not that bright no bluetooth heavy price tag The Bottom LineFor about the same price, get a Panasonic GD87. What is the GD87? (built-in camera, 65 000 colors, triband...etc) Full Review Hi, I have been a very active mobile user for the past 5 years. I have used pretty much any mobile phone you can think of (Obviously, those that work in North America). I have been working in the telecommunication sector for about 4 years now. I have to admit that Nokia phones have always impressed me and this 7210 isn't an exception. (NOTE: Nokia impresses me in a good and bad way :) ) This is the FIRST Triband the Finland based company is throwing into the market. Impressive because they should have made that move a LONG time ago. Second, this phone has a 4096 colors display. Pretty sharp if you compare it the Sony Ericsson T68i (265 colors) I previously owned before getting the 7210. The down side of this screen is that it isn't as bright as the T68i. The 7210 is 5 grammes lighter than the T68i which is 88 grammes (battery included). Compared to the T68i, this phone has a MUCH better reception (built-in antenna). As for the battery, the T68i isn't even nearly as good as the 7210 which has a very impressive battery life time (3 days standby with an average of 25 calls per day at 2-3 mins. per call). The keypad has a very sharp design compared to a pretty conventional keypad design from the T68i. However, if your hands are slightly bigger than average you might experience a little bit of difficulty with the keypad. If we take a look at the menu itself, Nokia hasn't really made much of an effort to make to improve their menu. Pretty much the same as any other Nokia I previously owned (8890, 8860, 8390, 8260, 8290, 3390, 7190). If you have already used a Nokia before, you shouldn't have any problems using this one. The major improvement about the 7210 is that it's a Java phone, which means that you can personalize it with extra features downloadable off the internet (I.E. games). The phone is light and compact (106 x 45 x 17.5 mm, 83g). The ringing tones are polyphonic, which sounds nearly like a radio. Speaking of radio, the 7210 has a built-in radio. However, if you want my opinion on the radio, it's useless. It's just an extra highlight to make this phone carry a heavier price tag. Now, the downsides of this phone. The 7210 has, unfortunately, NO BLUETOOTH. I was VERY VERY disapointed about this. If you have already owned a T68i, you probably know what are the advantages of having this technology in your mobile. Bluetooth is a wireless technology, which allows you to connect various units with Bluetooth connectivity together (I.E. Wireless handsfree (Sony Ericsson HBH10, 15, 30, 60). The price tag for this phone is also a hard on your wallet (550$USD is what I paid). The other downside of the 7210 is that it doesn't have a built-iin digital camera. I have to admit that not a lot of phone has it. However, considering that the 7210 was released only less than 2months ago it should have had it on. The good news is that you can buy a digital camera (external, about 125-150$USD). If you are patient enough, wait until 2003 1st Q and the 7250 should be release (Same as the 7210 but with a built-in digital camera in the back of the phone). Bottom line, it's a nice phone with not many new features but it still carries a heavy price tag. My personal rating is 7.5/10. One last thing I would like to mention. For those who like a stylish phone, the 7210 has X-Press convers you can interchange to make your phone look "less boring". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 89944 2000/1/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone tri band operation color screen changeable faceplates some might not like the unorthodox style try the 6610 instead The Bottom LineAn excellent phone for anyone searching for style, international use and a color screen. Full Review For those of us who have been waiting for a color screen phone and a tri-band world phone from Nokia, the past few years have been quite annoying. Watching Ericsson come out with its t68 and Samsung come out with a variety of flip phones always brought up the question of why Nokia was always behind. Well, finally in the fall of 2002 the 7210 was released. With its color screen and tri-band operation, it was just what people like you and me wanted. Here I will describe my experience with the 7210, which I have been using in Italy and the United States. The Screen: with a relatively large (for a non-flip) resolution of 128x128 pixels and a capacity of 4096 colors, this screen is excellent. The screen, since it is reflective is easy to read inside and outdoors, unlike the screen on the Sony Ericsson t68. The Phone: Slightly taller than the 8310/8390, the phone makes up for its size by being thinner. It weighs 83 grams, which is very very light. The phone has excellent build quality and the faceplates fit together very well. The keypad, although it may look odd is quite nice, and the keys are well positioned. Call Quality: The phone gets excellent reception, along the lines of the Nokia 8390. Call quality is top notch, there is no hissing or noise when the phone is properly connected. Battery: The phone comes with a 720mah battery which lasts about 4 days with normal use. Interface: The software on the phone is similar to that of other Nokia phones of late, with the 2 softkeys and a 4 way scroll. Menus are very well organized and easy to navigate. Nokia menus, in my opinion, are the best in the industry. Messaging: Composing messages is similar to any other phone, with tegic's T9 text entry software. The Nokia has the capacity to send MMS messages with the optional camera. I don't own the camera, so i didn't use this feature. Ringtones, games, etc.: The phone has a variety of polyphonic ringtones built in, which are removeable. Games are loaded as java applications, and they are in color. Triple bop and Bounce were the games which came on my phone. You can download other games from Nokia and install them on your phone. The phone's FM radio is quite nice, and it works when you attach the headset, which also acts as the antenna. Speakerphone is quite clear, and I was able to use it in my car. Conclusion: In all, this phone is an excellent candidate for anyone searching for a color screen world phone. It doesn't have a built in camera, but the 7250 should remedy that soon. The feature set on this phone is quite complete and most users won't be missing anything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225.00 89943 2000/7/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 radio no bluetooth camera attachment The Bottom LineIts small, stylish and durable, what else could you ask for! Full Review Ive had this phone for 18months now and im still really happy with it. its the perfect size to have in your pocket or even put in a small bag! the battery is long lasting, i never switch my phone off and i only charge it up every 5/6 days. The great thing about this phone is the fact that it has radio. it saves a lot of space, meaning when im going somewhere i dont need to take my portable cd player with me, which is obviously bulky compared to my phone! one problem with this phone is the lack of a camera. i bought the camera attachment but much to my disappointment the pictures were not at all clear, therefore i havent used it very much. the phone has the usual nokia layout, with the easy to navigate menu. the different headings being: messages call register (missed calls, received calls etc) profiles (silent, loud, vibrate) settings alarm clock (which is very useful!) radio gallery (images and sounds!) organiser games (which i thought were quite disappointing) applications extras connectivity services my services along with your usual phonebook ihave found the internet very useful on this phone, especially when i have been going on weekend trips to visit my boyfriend on the train. Travelling on my own at first was quite a big thing, and if the trains were delayed it could panic me. it was good to know that i could go onto my phone and look up the next train, without having to worry about finding someone to ask! I can store around 150 messages on my phone which is useful as i have a habit of saving them, and i stil lhave the problem of deciding which ones to delete! I can also store and send media messages, although i can only store around 3/4, however i dont tend to send them or even receive them! the calendar i find very useful in storing birthdays and little reminders for myself, and i like the fact that you can set the same reminder for everyday without having to type it in everyday! at first i thought the layout of the phone would be annoying in terms of the keypad, but it doesnt take long to get used to, and you can text away til your hearts content! Overall the positives outweigh the negatives and i havent come across a phone to replace the nokia 7210 yet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89942 2000/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tri band operation speakerphone color screen changeable faceplates some might not like the unorthodox style try the 6610 instead The Bottom Linenice Full Review An excellent phone for anyone searching for style, international use and a color screen For those of us who have been waiting for a color screen phone and a tri-band world phone from Nokia, the past few years have been quite annoying. Watching Ericsson come out with its t68 and Samsung come out with a variety of flip phones always brought up the question of why Nokia was always behind. Well, finally in the fall of 2002 the 7210 was released. With its color screen and tri-band operation, it was just what people like you and me wanted. Here I will describe my experience with the 7210, which I have been using in Italy and the United States. The Screen: with a relatively large (for a non-flip) resolution of 128x128 pixels and a capacity of 4096 colors, this screen is excellent. The screen, since it is reflective is easy to read inside and outdoors, unlike the screen on the Sony Ericsson t68. The Phone: Slightly taller than the 8310/8390, the phone makes up for its size by being thinner. It weighs 83 grams, which is very very light. The phone has excellent build quality and the faceplates fit together very well. The keypad, although it may look odd is quite nice, and the keys are well positioned. Call Quality: The phone gets excellent reception, along the lines of the Nokia 8390. Call quality is top notch, there is no hissing or noise when the phone is properly connected. Battery: The phone comes with a 720mah battery which lasts about 4 days with normal use. Interface: The software on the phone is similar to that of other Nokia phones of late, with the 2 softkeys and a 4 way scroll. Menus are very well organized and easy to navigate. Nokia menus, in my opinion, are the best in the industry. Messaging: Composing messages is similar to any other phone, with tegic's T9 text entry software. The Nokia has the capacity to send MMS messages with the optional camera. I don't own the camera, so i didn't use this feature. Ringtones, games, etc.: The phone has a variety of polyphonic ringtones built in, which are removeable. Games are loaded as java applications, and they are in color. Triple bop and Bounce were the games which came on my phone. You can download other games from Nokia and install them on your phone. The phone's FM radio is quite nice, and it works when you attach the headset, which also acts as the antenna. Speakerphone is quite clear, and I was able to use it in my car. Conclusion: In all, this phone is an excellent candidate for anyone searching for a color screen world phone. It doesn't have a built in camera, but the 7250 should remedy that soon. The feature set on this phone is quite complete and most users won't be missing anything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 89941 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 design colour screen connectivity fun features good reception usability keys are very small awkward at first due to irregular placement The Bottom LineGood-looking, lightweight, reliable, easy and fun to use... what else will you ever ask for? Go and buy it. Full Review The 7210 incorporates all the good things of successful models such as the 6210 into a funky new design adding lots of innovative usability, utility and fun features. It is a good-looking, reliable, usable and fun phone. I own it, I enjoy using it and I strongly recommend it. Products like Nokia's 7210 show a company that applies innovation not as an ad hoc procedure, but as a continuous improvement and optimisation of successful designs. I have owned many Nokia phones, and every new model adds excellent innovative features without affecting the powerful and well-design elements of the previous one. This may sound common sense, but this sort of common sense is not *that* common with most electronics products today. Aesthetics A highly subjective matter so I won't try to convince anyone why I like the looks of the phone. See the pictures and judge for yourself. One thing is for sure, the phone stands out with unusual keypad organisation - key placement serves to define the shaping of the phone. Form Factor The phone is tiny and ultra-light. It doesn't just fit into your pocket, it can get lost in it - I literally have to fumble in my jacket's large pockets to get hold of it. Battery Battery charges in less than two hours and lasts for 3-5 days at a talking rate of 1 hour per day. Multimedia features and radio will consume slightly more power if extensively used. Reception Clear sound, received even in tricky spots where my older Nokia would not have a good signal. Features Powerful phone book, great polyphonic sounds (much better quality than the sound of other polyphonic mobiles) super-cool colour graphics. (you can put your own photos as a wallpaper) I've made a lot of use of the FM radio receiver feature even though I thought it was silly when I bought it. SMS / MMS Great completion dictionary. Auto-split of long messages comes very handy. Multimedia messaging looks great even though I don't have enough friends with MMS phones to make any serious use of it. Connectivity, software, extensibility Cennected to my laptop via infrared in no time. The software to synchronise addresses and calendar is just great and very easy. Image and sound exchange between computer and phone is very easy using the software utilities provided. The ability to download and install java programs on the phone adds a whole new level of versatility. The pre-installed unit conversion application is a typical and very useful example. The memory is limited though, I'd like a little more space. Internet access / Wap Haven't used the new features yet, but I see that all the useful features of my old 6210 are still there. Usability The phone makes simple things easy and complex things reasonably feasible. In all states, every button does what you expect it to do. Every feature that you'd need is right there as an option when you need it. The awkward key placement takes a little to get used to and the keys are too small, but again you get a handle of it in no time. (I can't blame the design for key size, the phone is tiny itself and the big screen leaves little space for the keypad) Usability of mobile devices has a long way to go, but Nokia is always a mile ahead of other manufacturers in this area. The big colour screen allows for better representations and more information, so each task needs less clicking and transitions to accomplish. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 530 89940 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 light colour screen neat portable fresh new design ridiculous hands free appalling sound quality very poor screen The Bottom LineSorry, Nokia you've got it wrong this time! Full Review I recently upgraded to the 7210 on the T-mobile network here in the UK. Its original launch on the network was delayed by about six months because, according to the guy in the shop, "T-mobile were not happy with the performance of the phone and wanted things put right". The phone was finally launched last week and so I went along and got myself one. The first thing that strikes you is the rather futuristic design. The keys are arranged in a sort of semi-circular way. It looks good but in practice, it makes them a little difficult to use - you'll find yourself frequently hitting the wrong keys at first - so double check what you are texting before you send! All in all, I'm not impressed. I've always had Nokia phones. Most have had bugs but were bearable. This one is one big unbearable bug. It has fully replaceable covers - a really handy feature, if, like me, you keep your phone in your trouser pocket along with keys, change etc. - and so you can change the cover every few months to stop the phone from looking too wrecked. It has a built in radio - the sound quality on this was surprisingly good - although it uses the headset cable as the antenna. It also has a built in speaker phone which is EXTREMELY useful. The games are good, but, and you may want to sit down at this point; THERE IS NO SNAKE!!!!!!!! I don't know what Nokia were thinking of here - you can download it via GPRS from their site for a fee, but to me, a Nokia phone without snake is rather like a car without wheels. Now, the sound quality, which frankly, is dreadful. If anyone calls you who has a reasonably loud voice, or is calling from a noisy area, then expect distortion the like of which you would hear only on a cheap transistor radio turned up to the max. It appears to affect women's voices the most. I don't know what the problem is, but it's driving me nuts. I'll keep you posted of any developments. . Yes, the 7210 has a colour screen. Yes, it has over 4000 colours. Yes, the colour menu looks great but the moment that you either upload a picture or get one in a MMS it just looks awful. My wife has the Samsung T100 and photos that look great on there are barely legible on the 7210! The screen itself appears to have contrast problems - you can't adjust this - and the so-called 'screensaver' is supposed to be a clock on a black background but unless you view it from the side you can't see what on earth it is. The hands free is the most ridiculous design I've ever seen - it's stereo - apparently for the radio - but you have to get the bits into your ears, undo a tiny popper-thing put part of the cable around the back of your neck. re-pop-up the popper-thing behind your neck. Then attempt to get the connector into the phone - which, trust me, is a feat in itself! Apart from making you look ridiculous, it feels as though you have a noose around your neck! Also, the whole operation of getting it on is so fiddly you need to be sitting down still and DEFINITELY not on the move. One of my main grumbles with Nokia was that every time you buy a new Nokia phone they change the hands free connectors and you have to buy a new hands free as you don't get one with the phone. Well, this time, yup, you guessed it, they've changed the connectors AGAIN, but they do give you this ridiculous device free - I whizzed off down to the shop to get a normal hands free that very day! The phone does have the option of having a camera attachment which rather cleverly doubles up as a hands free. I tried the camera out - in fact, I bought one - but ended up taking it back for a refund as the picture quality was so poor - the guy in the shop told me that it was the third that he had had returned that day for the same reason. All in all, I'm not impressed. I've always had Nokia phones. Most have had bugs but were bearable. This one is one big unbearable bug. Sorry, Nokia you've got it wrong this time! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 89939 2003/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light feature rich great design full color screen no voice commands some voice distortion read below over priced accessories The Bottom LineBuy it for looks, buy it for features, buy it for battery power...oh, and buy it for the radio. Full Review After finally giving up on my hopelessly flawed Sony Ericsson T60 phone (read my other reviews), I decided to make the leap to GSM network device, and AT&T's vaunted Mlife service. Overall, I am very pleased with the phone and would recommend it to anyone needing a professional device. BODY The size of the phone is small, but not too small that it can get lost easily in your jacket/pants pocket, as is the case with the absurdly tiny Nokia 8260. It is also extremely light. SCREEN The screen dominates the phone, taking up about a third of its face. It is very bright, color-rich, and has excellent battery/signal meters. The navigation is a little tricky (it took me about half-an hour to really get it down) but once understood, is easy to zip arround in. The only real problem I have found lies in the auto-dimmer; sometimes, it does not brighten when you would expect it too (like when you get an incoming call after the screen has darkened but before the screen-saver kicks in). FEATURES I will be the first to admit that the radio feature weighed heavily on my decision to purchase this phone. I live in Washington DC, and I walk everywhere (work, bars, the Metro) and having a radio combined with my phone meant I had one less thing to lug around, and the sound quality and the reception are both excellent. The other features, such as the ability to use Java applets, the calendar, the extensive phone book...all of them work great. The only feature that I miss in my old Ericsson is my voice commands. I don't see why Nokia couldn't add those in, and I refuse to use the clumsy AT&T voice activation service. SPEAKERPHONE This has turned out to be the best feature on the phone. I can sit at my desk, or lay on my couch, and just speak into the sir without a clumsy ear piece clamped to my head. It also works great for meetings, when friends want to talk along with me, etc. BATTERY Just great...the phone charge lasts at least two hours more than my old phone, even with running the radio and playing Java games on the Metro. DATA PORT Hmmm...okay, so all the audio/data accessories attach to the phone through one port, with one universal connector. Great! But does it have to be on the bottom of the phone? EVERYTHING ELSE Okay, here we go... Web Access: Text only, but there are applets you can download to view pages as they are (on a very, very tiny screen, of course). SMS/MMS: Haven't really used it yet, so no comment. Accessories: $50 for a data cable?? Nokia is getting a little greedy. Also, not a lot of accessories are available on the US market (right now, anyway). I tried the camera headset in the store, and the images were pitiful, so don't waste your money. Bluetooth: There is no bluetooth. Seeing as I don't know exactly what this is, I don't care, but you might. UPDATE: Okay, I have been told what Bluetooth is now and now, naturally, I really want it. I have found a good option to it though. There is a company in the UK that sells an IR port that basiclly is a little knob that plugs into one of your USB ports and allows you to use the Infrared features on your phone (NOTE: If you are using a laptop, you probably already have an IR). The device can be found here: http://www.logomanager.co.uk/cat/details.php?product=124 Distortion: Very infrequently, and only with a woman's voice (and then usually only with a recorded woman's voice), there is an odd level of distortion which makes words illegible. RINGTONES: Yes, the Polyphonic ringtones are great fun BUT...you can't add personal ring tones to individual numbers. You can add them to groups, which you can then assign a list of numbers to (like "friends" for instance), but the phone is limited to 5 groups. You can change the group names, but you cannot add more. UPDATE: I returned the phone. I loved it, but when the Nokia 3650 hit the market, my geek factor went into overdrive and I had to have it. Also, AT&T has dropped the 7210 from its website, and my local dealer said that the complaints about the phone out-weighed the compliments by 10 to 1. Take that into consideration before picking this one up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 89938 2003/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 comfortable hold color screen radical design quality radio display contrast keypad buttons new design The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a JAVA ready Phone, color display, excellent radio and volume control and 250 to pay for :) Full Review Ok.. Let's start with the buttons layout. One of the things you will notice the first time you see the 7210 is the new and weird button layout. It's very pretty and original but this odd vertical format they are taller than wider which is not normal, by the time i try to ignore it and it becomes sorta easy to use when time passes. One of the things i have most problems to get into was that if you press the 1 button and move your thumb directly to the right and press, you will press no the 2 button, but the 2 and down button together. This has the effect of slowing down input as the motions of your thumb are now more complicated. Colorful Screen With a resolution of 128x128, it can display nearly twice the number of pixels as the T68 can. This is a good thing. This, in spite of the fact that the screen is only about 20% larger in area. This means fonts look much smoother than on the T68, which is a good thing. The problem is that the display exhibits a lot of ghosting, which is common to passive matrix LCD displays. This means that when you are viewing the calendar's monthly view, for example, you see shadows or "ghosts" underneath the black dates that are written on the white background. Ghosting also is evident when any kind of animation or scrolling is taking place, such as in games. This is not prevalent on the T68's display. Additionally, the brightness of the display is not quite up to that of the T68. It could be a function of a slightly dimmer backlight, I am not sure. When viewed in daylight, the brightness of the two displays is comparable. MMS Send me a message. The 7210 supports the new MMS standard for sending text and images over the air. I don't have any accounts on a MMS capable network, so sadly I can not test this feature. I was able to create messages with the MMS editor to get a feel for it. It was easy enough to use, but did not seem to support the inserting of any kind of music. Also lacking was any kind of timing controls for how long an image would be displayed before the text would be shown. I must admit I am not MMS expert, but this seemed lacking compared to other MMS devices I have used. Normal SMS messaging, on the other hand, was superb. The display allows for the use of a small font, if you so choose. The T9 is really fast, even if the strange button layout slows you down a bit. There is support for SMS chat, and there are 4 SMS profiles to configure and use, too. On a related note, you can have any of the 7210's ringtones set as the message alert by using the "special" alert tone when setting up the regular phone profiles. What else is in there? The 7210 has a nice profile system. There are 5 to choose from, and they can be renamed and configured exactly as you like. The profiles are also timed, which is great. This means you can activate the "meeting" profile and tell the phone to automatically revert to the "general" profile at 3 o'clock, when your meeting is over. This keeps you from leaving the phone in silent mode all day and missing calls, something I have a tendancy to do. The call register system is also pretty standard. It allows you to see recently made, missed, and received calls. It also contains two GPRS counters. The GPRS data counter and the GPRS connection timer. Between the two GPRS trackers, you should be able to adapt to most any current GPRS tariff and have an idea of what your are spending. So what is missing? Well, frequent readers of this site will know that we are very big on Bluetooth. Sadly, that is not available in the 7210, and Nokia has said that there are no plans to make a Bluetooth adapter for the 7210 at this time. I understand that many people won't be put off by this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 89937 2000/6/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 it s a colour phone is easy to use comes with fun games the irritating on off button no built in camera keypad takes some getting used to The Bottom LineI have enjoyed this phone, and i think that others will do so too. Full Review I currently own the nokia 7210, and am generally very happy with it. It does have its downsides, but i would say that the pros outweigh the cons. Firstly, the biggest let down of this phone is the fact that it doesnt come with a built in camera. At the moment, nearly all colour phones produced come with built in cameras and this is a huge advantage. To purchase one, it can cost well over £50, and even then, the picture quality doesnt really match up to the other phones around. What i love about this phone is the free headset (i received one) which can be connected to a radio in the phone, and also played on a loudspeaker. The loudspeaker has the ability to play extra loud which is a great feature! I think that all the nokia 7210s come with the game; Bounce. Now i must say, this is a highly addictive game, and extremely popular in the rankings! Despite its extreme simplicity, it really does provide fun and eagerness to progress from level to level. However, the 7210 obviously isnt the only phone with this game, but i am glad it came with it! It is just a simple ball game, that literally "bounces" through a mazes of 11 levels where you have to collect gold rings, avoid spikes and moving spikes, and bonuses along the way. The keypad of the phone took a lot of getting used to for me especially since i was used to the nokia 3210 and the nokia 8210 before progressing onto the 7210. I am a keen fan of nokia phones, for once you know the layout of one of them, they are all basically the same and if you upgrade to another nokia then you should know your way about quite easily. But the jelly keypad, despite boasting good ergonomic features, is made so that the buttons are very small! The most annoying feature of the phone is the ON/OFF button, where you really have to work hard to turn it on and off! Before i ramble on far too much, I would, overall, say that i am glad i have the 7210, and feel comfortable with it. My nokia 8210 had several screen problems, but ive had the 7210 for over a year now, and have never once had a problem! If i did have a problem i would simply use my club nokia card (you can sign up to that on their website) to help solve the problem as Club Nokia is a great thing to join up. I find that battery time lasts the longest out of my 8210 and the 3210, which is effiicient since its the smallest battery too! The best thing to do is to purchase TWO batteries, charge them both up and so you'll never be without a fully charged battery..worth investing! Having said, it does charge up quite quickly though. The look of the phone i think is really classy, because on the back of the genuine nokia ex-press on covers (another fantastic feature - you can personalise your phone to match any mood!) there is an oval which is like a ripple, with a coloured-glass look to it. That i adore! I would reccommend the 7210 for a cheaper buy, but not for someone who wants a camera, as i did buy the camera only to be disappointed with the bluryness, and grainy texture of the pictures. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): unsureRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89936 2000/4/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 color headset radio style speakerphone polyphonic tones no bluetooth no camera not enough memory short headset cable The Bottom LineIf you like the look, and the price is right for you, and you can live w/o a camera or bluetooth on your phone, then buy it! Full Review *STILL THE BEST* I have to admit, I'm a Nokia fan. My friends were all changing to the latest and hippest style from Samsung or Sony Ericsson or Motorola or Panasonic, but I stick w/ my Nokia! One simple reason, Nokia functions the BEST! The 7210 has a similar great look of 8250, but added new GPRS technology for wireless packets sending/receiving (internet capable), color Screen w/ 4096 colors, and perhaps the most important feature for me - Polyphonic ring tones! In terms of feature, I'll admit that Nokia is a little behind. Samsung has TFT 16K color screens w/ built in camera, Sony Ericsson also has built in camera bluetooth, Panasonic is tiny and has long had polyphonic tones... Motorola has... well... Motorola is even more behind! :D haha... *PROS* However, being a cell phone, no one beats Nokia for call quality and ease of operation! Nokia phones constantly get better signal than other brands, their headset is clear to both end of callers, User Interface is intuitive (as opposed to Motorola's counter-intuitive) you don't need to read the manual to learn to use any features! I got this phone from AT&T and I'm using it in NYC area. Reception is EXCELLENT! Even better than T-Mobile, to my surprise since AT&T started building their GSM/GPRS network only last year but T-Mobile/voicestream had started years ago! The radio feature is a nice add-on that makes sense. It doesn't consume very much battery and reception is OK. Battery life is about ~3 days w/ normal use (1 hr talk time each day 2-3 hrs radio use). I downloaded the Nokia Suite for 7210 from Nokia's website and installed it on my Sony laptop running Win 2000 without a hitch. I then transferred my phone lists to 7210 through IR and it worked right away! Next I downloaded some midi from the net used the Nokia Sound Converter (included in the Suite) to pick 4 instruments to play and uploaded them to 7210 (through IR again). No problem! I'm loving it! The only problem may be that large midi files (the song is too long) can be uploaded but can't be played. This is a small problem though as you're only likely to hear about 30 seconds of ringing before voicemail picks up the call. So, get a program called "midicut" and cut out a small part of the midi for upload! GOD I LOVE THIS PHONE! *CONS* The headset cable is a little too short. The new "clipping above and around your ear" integrated mic design makes it hard to fall out of your ear but I have to say I do like the old ear bud separate mic w/ on/off button better. Reception for the other party is better than before though. I used to have to hold the mic close to my mouth when I'm outdoors and there's wind & traffic. Now they can hear me just fine anywhere. The navigation buttons in the middle is laid out a little weird, but once u use it you'll find that it's no different from normal ones like those on Samsung. I would like to see it includes a camera and bluetooth, but if u want camera u can get the 7250 (but that isn't as stylish). Bluetooth can give us cool features like wireless headphones and car stereo integration. I'm sure either I can buy an adaptor to plug in, or by next year those bluetooth things still ain't out and I'm already getting another new phone! :P I think there isn't even 1MB of shared memory of your images & ring tones and stuff. I will definitely use them all up w/ my ring tones! Finally, some people may think it's flimsy and not well built. Remember 8290? It was tiny and light and felt like a toy! I've owned it since '99 and have dropped it numerous times but it's still working now! Nokia is amazing! You can't go wrong with Nokia! Recommended: Yes 89935 2004/8/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size pop port fm radio easy interface design mediocre screen not enough memory feature to price ratio of a new 7210 The Bottom LineNokias infuriate me because they always rip me off. But at the right price, the Nokia 7210 is a fantastic phone. Full Review I've had an interesting experience with this model of Nokia. Let me tell you how I came to acquire one of these works of modern art. It was January 2004 and I had just come back from France. Understandably I was suffering from major depression, what's there to be happy about being back in dingy Adelaide when I was only in one of the world's most beautiful cities only a couple of days before! Anyway, at the same time as my return, my whole family came over to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. Little did I know, my uncle had bought me a new phone! He brought it back from China, because my mother wanted to get me a new phone, apparently. So I'm asleep in my room, and my mother comes in, telling me about my uncle's purchase. Excited, I forgot about jetlag and rushed straight for the dining table, where I saw the Nokia 7210. To say the least, I was EXTREMELY disappointed. Why? Because for an extra $40, I could have bought myself a Nokia 3650, with tons more features. The 7210 was overpriced and underfeatured, and I hated Nokia for producing phones like this (the 7250 is a prime example of this, where spending the same amount of money on a product from a different company would have provided you with a superior phone). Anyway, it was better than my 3330, so I used it. First problem with this model: It would not receive any reception. So I took it into the Nokia Care Centre, with my receipt from Hong Kong, and after me having to drill the fact that this model had an international warranty on it for 10 minutes, they took it in. The problem was severe; they had to replace the phone's entire mainboard. This took a month and a half, during which I became quite accustomed to my 3330 again. I received the phone back, only to find the radio didn't work. Another 4 days, and they realized that the headset that came with the phone was faulty, and so they replaced that. So the model had spent 2 months in the friggin' Care Centre already. I really did not like this model any more than before. Not only was it not worth the money, it was faulty as ever. Trudging along with this model just generated scorn and hatred when I pulled it out, so I decided to sell the 7210 and buy my dream phone, the 3650. (Believe it or not, I now have a Sony Ericsson P800, and am selling my 3650). The 3650 had all the features the 7210 didn't: a screen that had a refresh rate of more than 1Hz, a screen that was thrice the size and a million times the quality, a camera, video recording and playback capabilities. It had expandable memory, looked better and had SYMBIAN SERIES 60 SOFTWARE. It was my dream phone, through and through. So if I hated the 7210 so much, why am I writing a review on it? Well, stupid question you might think. But, many months later, I got tired of lugging the extra bulk of the 3650 around. It did not have a radio, and I listen to the radio all the time, so I needed to carry around both the 3650 and n-gage to perform all the tasks I wanted. My mother was changing jobs, and she needed a new phone. I jumped to the opportunity, and scored her a boxed Nokia 7210 with USB data cable. Also I bought her two original covers, one beautiful orange and a very sleek black, like the one I had on my original 7210. I must say the green buttons contrast beautifully with the black cover. She now uses one of these as her main phone, and I'm insanely jealous. Let's see why. Even if my Nokia has all the features of Apollo 11, it's about the same size. And coupling that with the n-gage that I have to carry if I want radio is just ridiculous. The 7210 has all the addictive games that I play on the 3650 (a.k.a BOUNCE! The best phone game EVER), it has a great sounding FM radio, and is absolutely tiny. Not "gets-lost-under-your-fingernail" tiny, but the perfect size. You don't notice it in your pocket, but it fits in your palm perfectly. So, I used my mother's new phone for a couple days and was in love. I no longer hated this phone, what I hated was its price. In January, the phone cost $300. I bought my mother's one for $190, and that included a $100 DKU-5 USB cable. Now I paid what I wanted to pay for this phone, I was totally happy with it. It sounds great, like all other Nokias I've used. The stereo headset that comes with the phone sounds impeccable, and the microphone has excellent pickup. Anyone on the other end of the conversation always heard everything I said, even in a busy street. I also like the necklace-style headset, where you wear the whole piece around your neck, with the earphones dangling on each side and the microphone is the pendant. I could have one ear in, both ears in, or neither, if I wasn't using the phone for listening to radio or talking. Pure design brilliance and convenience. The only gripe I would have about the handsfree is the difficulty in plugging it into the Pop-Port. A bit stiff, but gets in with the right amount of force. So what's the Pop-Port? It's the new connector you will find on the bottom of all Nokia Series 40 phones (all the ones that use the same operating system as the 7210, like the 3102 and 5100). You can plug in USB cables, headsets, cameras, and MP3 players, anything that's designed for this connector. A true triumph, because it ensures total compatibility between different phone accessories. No longer do you have to upgrade all your accessories when upgrading your phone. One gripe I have about it though, is the non-standard handsfree port (i.e. Pop-Port), meaning you have to use Nokia headsets and only the Nokia stereo headset for listening to the radio (of which I do all the time). But hey, I'm over it. Especially considering I conceded this phone to my mother, after all it is hers. In terms of features, the 7210 isn't revolutionary. It has a nice colour screen, albeit a tad small, but that's because I'm used to the humongous screen on the 3650. Its small size and low resolution makes it unsuitable for MMS, because most images that appear on the screen are unrecognisable. It also has WAP, GPRS and IrDA for interfacing with other devices, and J2ME. The first two are pretty standard, but the IrDA irks me. On the newer 3200, and my 3650, you can send and receive multimedia files to and from other phones, and of course my laptop. This does not work in the 7210, which requires the Nokia Data Suite in order to transfer these files. Therefore the IrDA is a feature that could has been under-implemented, and is a real shame. J2ME is good, but the phone only has 1MB to place all your ringtones and Java apps so you have to be selective as to what games you will have. Games can be transferred via the Data Cable, or downloaded via GPRS. The keypad is one aspect that I was weary about; when seeing it I wondered how it would affect the ergonomics of the phone and text input speed. Astonishingly, the odd design makes it easier and faster to input text and numbers. I think the vertical bias that the buttons have increases accuracy. But apart from that, its just a little quirk that makes life easier. On the battery, it is a Li-Ion one, pretty light, but lasts ages. A week of standby or about 3 hours of talktime, it's amazing how much juice can be squeezed out of the tiny battery. In conclusion, if you can get the phone for a reasonable price, the Nokia 7210 is certainly worth it. Not worth $300, but certainly $150. I miss my old 7210, even if my 3650 and P800 have more features than an expensive car. Sometimes, certain features that I never use (lets be honest, how often have I used the video recorder in the 3650?) can be traded off for beauty and extreme portability. But only at the right price. PS All currencies are in AUS$. I suggest you whip out that currency converter! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300AURecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7788 Nokia 5185i 89978 2004/1/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 some good rings good volume long battery life quick menu access extremely sturdy high radiation level no vibrate terrible headset connector my first cell phone, but i need to switch to a better one. i go through about a headset a month, and it'll save me a lot of money to get a phone that doesn't need a weird headset connection or adapter. and the radiation level is way up there (1.42 sar digital rating, you can check this at cnet) that i don't much like holding it to my head for long periods of time. but other than that, i like it. it's really very sturdy- i drop mine all the time and it hasn't sustained any damage. the battery hasn't had any noticeable drop-off in talking or standby duration. the reception is clear, usually- sometime an echo, but not lately, so might have been one type of headset- and i know people don't like those pull-out antennas, but i do, mostly because i can hold it by my teeth if i need my hands for a minute. i probably shouldn't have said that. 89977 2000/2/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clock phone book call log 3 games 30 different ring tones email no web enablement The Bottom Line A great phone, that might not have internet access, but it is definitely the only phone I'd buy! Full Review Ring..Ring..Hello?, oh so you wanna hear about the nokia5185i? Well I can help you in that department! So your away from home, you dont have a labtop, and you need to send an email!! Well, no problem! You can send an email, right through your phone! Your bored as hell, you have nothing to do, all you have is your phone. No problem, there are 3 games that you can play on this phone.The games are:memory, snake, and logic. You meet the hottest guy/gal, you get their #, but you dont think you'll remember it. No problem, just put it in the "phone book". Man this ring is so boring! The same old ring..ring! No problem, just change it! There are over 30 different ring tones that you can choose from! Darn, I forgot my watch! No problem, there ia a clock on my phone! Wow, the battery is getting pretty low, all I have to do is recharge it! Great, my little brother just got home from summer camp. How am I gonna keep him off my phone? All I gotta do is put the keyguard on, and he cant access it! The only thing that isnt covered by this cell-phone, is internet access. But what it covers makes the difference! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 89976 2000/3/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 li ion battery clear reception slim colorful covers pull up antenna The Bottom LineBuy this for size and clearity, not for cosmetics. Full Review I have had this phone for about three monthes now and I do have two other 5100 series phones so I can compare. I have the 5190, the 5160, and of course the 5185i. I just bought this phone awhile ago for use with the Verizon network. I am pleased at a number of things. So tell us, what are you happy with? Well, I like these key points: *Clear Reception for Every Call *Very slim, I think the slimmest of the whole 5100 series line *Comes standard with a Li-Ion battery *Generous talk time with the awesome batter So there must be some cons, right? Yep, here are some of them: *Pull Up Anntenna (Nokia made a bad choice by doing this) *Text Messaging does not work All in all, this is a very good phone, but I would check out the other Nokia phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89975 2000/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 a pretty good phone with lots of name brandafter market accessories phone housingbattery mating surfaces allow excessive movementwear until phone cuts off The Bottom LineI hope if you purchase a new 5185i that you get one with the latest design changes. Full Review We own two 5185i Nokia phones that are about two months outside of a 12 month warranty. My three sisters and my mother all got 5185i phones about a week or so later from the same service provider. In all we have eight 5185i phones. Within the last month or so we all started experiencing problems with our 5185i's cutting off for no apparent reason either during use or simply on standby. When cutting the phone back on you see from the battery meter on the phone that the battery is not your problem. I have contacted Nokia Customer Care and have had two reps acknowledge a known design problem that allows excessive wear to occur between plastic parts on the battery and plastic parts on the phone housing. At some point the battery will fail to stay in touch with the battery contacts of the phone housing. My local service provider reports that Nokia is aware of the problem and that the phone has gone through two design changes undetectable to most end users. Nokia Customer Care will not stand behind the phone design but will stand (or hide) behind the phone warranty. Warranties cover defects in workmanship and manufacturing, not design problems. Hopefully any new 5185i phone you purchase or get from a service provider today will be a 5185i of the latest design. As best I can tell the phones giving us trouble were manufactured either around May or November 2000, although we didn't get the phones from the service provider until the middle of June 2001. It looks like I will be stuck with a $100 out of warranty repair per phone or end up signing another service contract per phone so I can get new phones at a reduced price. This is my own personal experience with this product and I just want others to be aware of the problems this phone has given my family. Best wishes on making your next researched buying decision. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 31.75 89974 2000/5/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many many features no vibrate feature The Bottom LineI would recommend this to anyone in the market for a new cell phone. This is the one to get. Full Review This Nokia and the 5100 series in general are excellent phones. A friend of mine has one, her mom has one, and my dad just got one. They are the most feature packed phones on the market today. My favorite part about this phone is the many ring tones that come along with it. Among my favorites are "Helan", "William Tell", and you cant forget the holiday rings; "Jingle Bells" and "Auld Lang Syne." Another great feature about this phone is the games it has. The game I like to play is called memory and my parents like to play snake. The other game is called logic. This phone has an excellent battery. You can leave it on all day and make several calls with it and not one of the battery level bars will go down. It has a 5-day standby time though so I guess that is why. Changeable faceplates, yet one more excellent feature! It is so neat to make people think you got a new phone everyday. There are so many faceplates out there. My friend has 40 of them for her phone that she has collected since her purchase. This phone is the best phone on the market I would say. It sure beats my Nokia 918! I want this phone too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 89973 2000/8/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 nokia menu functions below average quality flimsy The Bottom LineIf you are considering this phone based on previous experiences with Nokia....stop. It is not anywhere near what they have done in the past. It will break. Full Review In the past I have been a loyal Nokia customer. I started with the 232 then the 252 then 6125 and LOVED them all. I have always had multiple accounts and multiple phones. I honestly can not believe this phone was made by Nokia. The very first week I noticed the battery was "loose" and a few of the display functions were not working properly. You could actually move the battery from side to side. Verizon replaced my phone only after 21 encounters with their "customer service". (that is another story in itself !!). Unfortunately, it was not the phone. I have 2 others and they eventually encountered the same problems. I am not an "aggressive" user in the sense that this phone only travels in my hand or in the cradle in my car. For those of you who must carry the phone constantly I recommend you find another one. If you think you are getting Nokia quality...you are not. The battery now needs constant charging and shuts off without warning. Not a good thing if you need to be contacted by employees etc. If this phone were free I may feel differently but it was not. I spent nearly $400 on 3 of them and even more valuable time standing in line at Verizon. Not a good buy. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 89972 2000/11/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact size many great features clear reception none known Full Review The Nokia 5185i phone was received as a gift by my teenage daughter for her birthday. It is the perfect size to fit in her pocket or slip into her purse or backpack when she is away from home. The reception is extremely clear, without static or feedback, even when she is riding in a closed automobile. People on the other end of the phone are always surprised when they find out she is on a mobile phone! There are good security features, preventing others from making unwanted calls, and you are able to lock the keys so there are no accidental phone calls made. The phone number storage is very large (room for 100 names and numbers) which is more than adequate for a mobile phone. This phone features an automated emergency key ensuring safety, just press 9 and send! The speed dial and redial features allow you to access numbers quickly and efficiently. It also has a paging system, text and voice messages. Text messages can even be sent from computer to this phone. Overall, this is a great phone, particularly for teens away from home a lot. I would recommend it whole heartedly! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Gift ($214) 89971 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 accending volume ringer rugged easy to use name number storage above average reception good battery life no calculator that is the only thing i miss from more expensive phones i ve used The Bottom LineGreat for storing names/numbers and making phone calls, if that matters. Excellent fringe area reception. Great battery life. Expensive proprietary headset. Full Review Got this Nokia 5185i used phone a year ago when I lost my LG-510 in a snowbank somewhere. Before the LG-510 I had one of the Startac phones, not sure of the exact model any more. Two things I didn't like about the LG-510: poor fringe reception (just like the StarTac) and marginal battery life. Make that three things I didn't like on the LG-510... I didn't like the clunky way the desktop cradle charger mated with the phone. (Car charger plugged in with a blade connector, not so bad.) This was the first time I had lost a phone, so I popped over to my local Verizon store and told them I needed a new phone 'cause I lost mine. "No problem" the rep said, after I waited 15 minutes in line and had to hear way too much about the personal lives of the folks in front of me. "Did you buy the $75 (can't recall the real price but it was high) insurance/service/replacement plan?" "No" I said. He went on to tell me I could get an "entry level" phone for about $150, or a nicer one for $200! "Wow" I said, "I thought phones only cost about 50 bucks." That's when he 'splained that those prices are for new customers, but if I sign-up for another 2 years he can get me 50 bucks off the price of a new phone. My contract was up in a couple months and even though I like most things about Verizon, I get lousy reception at my house of all places, so I wasn't ready to lock in for two more years quite yet. I decide I better think about this. I went home and checked ebay for "Verizon" cell phones. Found the Nokia 8185i for about $15, $20 with shipping. When it arrived I took off the pink face and replaced it with the included stock blue one, then tried to reconciled myself to the fact that I am a 40 something year old man using a teenage girl's hand-me-down phone. Any anxiety faded as I began to use it. What a great phone! No it is not a flip phone or color or take pictures, but here’s what it is/does do: It rides easily in a shirt pocket, or pants pocket, get very good fringe reception (place where the LG-510 and StarTac just gave me blank stares), has great battery life (about double the LG-510) stores and retrieves numbers easily and did I mention the screen is easy to read, and I love the ascending ring tone feature. Oh yea, one more thing... While carrying the Nokia 5185i in my shirt breast pocket I dropped it in a pool of water. Dirty mud puddle water. Yes it was on at the time. It was night and I could not even retrieve it until the next day. Opps. Well in addition to not wanting to pay for a new phone, I had a ton of numbers/names in there. Some of them were going to be difficult or impossible to replace. So... I decided a last ditch operation was worth the risk. I took off the battery. One of the terminals on the phone was already turning green. I took out the four #6 torx screws that held the case together, took two more torx screws out (torx screws are the kind they use to signal you that you have no business taking this apart), dismounted and disassembled the screen (just kind of snaps together) and cleaned the whole thing with an old toothbrush dipped in 70% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol. Several of the contacts had corroded and I cleaned them carefully with a pencil eraser and more alcohol. I set the various parts next to the warm air register for 4-5 hours. I should have left it for 24 hours but I was too impatient. I put it back together. I was afraid to put the battery on it because I did not disassemble it and was not sure it was really all dried out yet. So I just plugged the phone in to the charger and watched for sparks! None appeared! I pressed the on button, but nothing happened. Tried pressing it several time, but nothing. I held the phone up to my ear and could hear a humming sound. Oh well, at least I tried. The next day I was trying to see what could be salvaged, the swappable face, charger, etc. I put a voltmeter on the battery and got nothing. So I decided to see if the phone would charge the battery. I put the battery on and plugged it in to the charger. Voila! The screen came on! I pressed the on button, voila, the phone came on! Wow, it spent the night under water and it still came back to life! Now that is a good phone. So.. As I am sure you wish I had just said at the beginning: The Nokia 5185i gets great reception, has very good battery life, is easy to use and very durable. I highly recommend it. Martin @ crossetrainer.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 usedRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 89970 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ring features good size color faceplates not very fancy but ideal for most people The Bottom LineThis phone is perfect for somone that doesn't need all these features and uses the phone occasionally. I definitely recommend this phone. Full Review I bought my Nokia 5185i phone at a local Verizon store in Dallas. I was first lured by their great service plans and then they offered me a few different phones. The Nokia 5185i is their most popular phone, and I'm not surprised. I've seen many people with this phone because of it's durability, convienant size, and it's easy to use. Even my mom who can't turn on a computer is able to easily work this phone. Another deciding factor was the low cost. They are easy to find in the $20-$30 price range, however, mine was $30 and had a $30 rebate. So I now have a free phone which is great. Good features of the Nokia 5185i... -changeable colored faceplates which make it popular for teens and adults. There are options of about 10 different colors plus you can find an infinite amount of other patterns from private dealers. -Phonebook features makes for one touch dialing. Enters around 100 numbers as well as e-mail addresses. -Messages: both voice and text messenging availiable. Easy to get to your voicemail box by dialing your own number, pressing the pound key, and your numeric password. -Call log: Shows your missed, received, and dialed calls. -Games- three games of Memory, Snake, and Logic. My personal favorite is snake. -Ringing options: Over thirty different types of fun tones. You can also adjust the ringing volume, messege alert tone, and how many times the phone rings. -Keypad lock feature. Locks the keypad of the phone. -This phone is also very durable, I have dropped it many times and it is very sturdy and nothing happened. -It depends on your service provider but I have always had great reception on this phone. All my calls have always been clear. There is also an indicator on the main screen of the phone across from the power indicator which shows the level of reception in the certain area you are in. The phone also comes with a plugin charger. It shows on the phone how much power is left and after about thirty minutes of charging, the power is fully restored. There is also a car charger which is great to let the phone charge while driving or when you're on a trip. The only con I can think of is that this phone is not as fancy as other phones on the market at this time, which is reflected in it's low price. It doesn't have internet features, it's not as small as other phones, etc. However, this phone is perfect for somone that doesn't need all these features and uses the phone occasionally. I definitely recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 (+rebate) 89969 2000/11/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 tho low pricepowerful function not wap fuction Full Review With the character the Nokia5100 mobile has lived for about 3 years. The main characters as follows: 1.The price is very low. Now it is only $50 for every one. 2. The Nokia NaviKey. It is a powerful key. This function provides easy access to all its functions such as short messaging, saving names and numbers and selecting new ringing tones ¨C all with the touch of a single key. It is easy use for every user. 3. The uniquely fashionable Xpress-On color covers. These covers are easy to be changed. The user can select their love color as they like. These covers allow users to quickly snap on and snap off a variety of colored faceplates in a matter of seconds without using tools. With this function Nokia mobile phones are known not only as sophisticated communications devices but as fashionable personal accessories as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89968 2000/7/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good call clarity good memory function price no wap nokia s poor cdma implementation had to have phone replaced The Bottom LineMy recommendation for Nokia is to work on your implementation of CDMA. If your phone provider sells Nokia CDMA phones, and you did not have this problem, rejoice. Full Review This was literally the first phone that I have that was worth it's salt. First, I must mention the positives of this phone. Nokia did an excellent job at designing a user interface that made the phone easy to use. I was able to pick it up and use it without having to use the manual. Second, this phone was very economical. It only set me back $50. Third, the call clarity on this phone was superb...in Bloomington, Illinois, that is. This Nokia phone, like other phones, featured the game Snake, which was fun, I must admit, but I don't particularly miss it. It also had the stable of annoying ring tunes that Nokia phones are known for. The battery life was decent but the phone did not have a vibration function for time you needed one of those annoying rings to NOT happen. I guess that explains why I hear the "Nokia tune" at least once a month in class. When I left Bloomington to move down to Southern Illinois, I was relieved to hear that Verizon had bought out Cellular One's Southern Illinois division, with stores in Carbondale, Marion, and Chester. I went to the Chester store, and the girl there told me that I would have to wait a few days for the phone to be reprogrammed. I got another Nokia as a loaner. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Two months later I got my phone back. It was time to rejoice. Little did I know that the phone swap drama had just begun. I got the phone back...but an annoying "Welcome to the American Roaming Network" message had replaced the clear digital service that I had been used to in Central Illinois. I called the Chester office back on a land line, they said that the would sell me a new phone. I told my folks that, and they went ballistic. An hour on the phone with a Verizon customer service rep in Florida got the results I needed. I would have to go to Carbondale to get a new phone since Verizon had sold the Chester store to JCS Tel-Link in Cape Girardeau. They provided me with a Kyocera 2035a in a phone trade with the useless Nokia. Apparently Verizon made an upgrade to their service and the Nokia phones did not make it. They were all swapped off for Kyocera, LG, and Motorola phones that supported Verizon's cell phone standard CDMA. I later learned that other Nokia phones provided throughout Illinois and Missouri that were sold through Verizon acted in much the same way. Make no mistake, the Nokia 5185i was a very good phone. I just wish that I could have kept it a lot longer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 89967 2000/3/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sleek slim does what it s supposed to do not enough ring tones my battery dies very quickly The Bottom LineI love the way it looks, but the way the battery dies and the lack of ring tones make me only like it, not love it. Full Review I upgraded to the Nokia 5185i in December of 2000 after I had problems with my Samsung. I'll admit, I'm a girl, I wanted a phone with switchable faceplates. Plus, I had always heard good things about Nokias, so I figured I'd go with it, since it was replaced free by Verizon. When I first got it I was in love. I have a cool silver faceplate that matches my car (remember, I'm a girl) and I had many more ring tones than my Samsung had. Also, the battery lasted for 4 whole days! Wow! It doesn't get better than this! But, then I moved from Cincinnati to the Bay Area, and in the process went thru 3 batteries. I was lucky for a charged one to last 2 days. That's with minimal talk time. I use my phone all the time, for long distance and just when I'm out and about (again, I'm a girl...) I haven't had a problem being stuck without a phone due to the battery dying, but I really wish it would last a little longer. This new one seems to be doing a tiny bit better, but the Verizon rep also said that the signal may not be as strong here as in Cincinnati, thus the battery has to work harder. Also, it doesn't have the cool ring tones that other Nokias have. Yes, petty, but hey, I'm a girl! I REALLY want "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" on my phone, but I don't have it :( I also can't find a site to download tones from, since I don't think Verizon has one. But, I must say I have been entertained with the games, and the phone is very easy to operate and figure out. I will give it that much! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 89966 2000/2/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good old nokia menusfeatures volume problems with earphones no dedicated end button The Bottom LineIf you don't require the headset/earpiece functionality and can deal with the multi-function button, it's a fine little phone. Full Review I previously had AT&T service with a Nokia 6160 phone and had gotten very spoiled by its features, durability, and overall quality (AT&T coverage in MD/VA did leave something to be desired). I recently switched to Verizon here in MD and wanted the same type of phone, so I got a 5185i. Well, this is not a phone Nokia should be overly proud of. It does offer all of the easy to use menus, one touch dialing, great display, and functionality I was used to, but there are several irritating problems that lead me to believe that this is constructed much more cheaply than my old 6160. First off, when dialing numbers, the tones you hear are sometimes intermittent, almost as if the contacts in the phone are dirty. While this does not affect operation, it does leave you with an uneasy feeling about the phone's quality. Also, the response seems to be slow, meaning you can press several keys, and the display/tones can be just a little bit behind. Since I am a road warrior sales type, I spend lots of time in the car and prefer a headset. The one I had with my 6160 plugs right in to the 5185, but does not work correctly with it. Sometimes the person you are calling can hear you fine, others, you'll sound as if you're miles away (lower volume), and if you plug or unplug the earpiece mid-call, you may get an echo, or your caller may not hear you at all. I have gotten three other earpieces/headsets and even tried a new 5185i from my local Verizon dealer, but it's always the same thing. Something is not right with the headset interface circuitry or control software in these phones. Verizon is not very well informed about these phones and I am trying to find out if there are newer revisions of the software which might fix these problems, but so far, no one at Verizon is fessing up or offering any insight. As a last ditch effort, I went to Target and bought a Navigator hands free unit ($50) hoping to overcome the earpiece problems. The volume and sound quality (on both ends of the call) seem to be OK with this set up, but it does not offer the privacy of an earpiece which is nice when others are in the car with you. One thing I really miss is a dedicated Send and End button. This, and several other similar Nokia models have a multi function button just below the middle of the display. Normally, this button is labelled "Menu". When you start dialing a number, it changes to "Call". Once the call begins, it changes to "End". The problem comes when you press keys in the middle of a call, such as when you are entering an extension or a password for voicemail. Once you touch a key during a call, the multifunction button changes to "Options". To end the call, you then have to clear the display of all typed digits using the C key, which makes the multifunction key go back to "End", or press the multifunction key when it says Options, and scroll to "End all calls". On a positive note, the Verizon service is great. I frequently drive from Harford county all the way to Herndon, Va, traveling out rt 70 and down 340 to 15. With AT&T, service along 15 was terrible, but with Verizon I recently carried a call most of the way down 15, even through the low-lying Point of Rocks area. I failed to mention that after my initial disappointment with the 5185i, I switched it for an Audiovox 4000 which was highly recommended by the Verizon sales guy. Well, it was only a week or so before I decided that its menu system was for the birds, and took it back for my 5185i again. The Audiovox's sound quality was good, but I couldn't get past the absurdly difficult menus. Verizon would be smart to get a software upgrade out there to fix the headset/earpiece issues if possible. It would also be nice if they offered another model of the Nokia that has a working earpiece interface and a dedicated send and end button. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89965 2001/1/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight easy to use great clarity easy functions none so far The Bottom LineGreat product. A must-have for teens and even adults. Full Review I'm 16 and just got a Nokia 5185i two weeks ago. Up until then, I've used my mom's cell phone...another Nokia that doesn't even have a chance against this one. My mom got this one for me for my birthday. I have to confess- I love it! I've wanted one for the longest time now...and I'm SO glad I chose the Nokia 5185i. I was originally looking at this exact site at Nokia 5160s, but found that there were discontinued. Hey, that's okay...this one is even better! Functions- This phone has everything! I got a great deal on mine- I got the phone for free and I'm paying $30 a month for 100 minutes and unlimited minutes on weekends. I got free voicemail, caller ID (which really comes in handy when you don't want to leave your phone on all the time but you still like to know who has called), and call waiting. You can also get text messaging, call forwarding, 3 way calling, handset protection, and roadside assistance. I really like the voicemail. I can check it from my cell phone and home phone which is really handy. One of the best things is that I just press #611 and I am automatically connected to customer service...and the people there really do answer your questions. They're really helpful...and it's free. It's not even included in your minutes. The other great functions are different ring tones (tons of them), a phone book, call log (if you have caller ID), text messaging (if you have it), an alarm clock and even games. I love snake...but I'm pretty bad at it. I think I need more practice. Overall- This phone is very reliable. The reception is exceptional for a cell phone. It's like I'm using a home phone. The menu is easy to use, the buttons are big enough even for an older person to use (not tiny like some phones). The changeable cover is a definite plus (especially for a teenager). It's small and light weight. I can stick it in my coat pocket and forget it's there. Everything about this phone is great! Recommended: Yes 89964 2000/2/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use features overall quality rocks bulkier than some newer phones The Bottom LineA reliable, user-friendly phone; lots of options and great battery life. There's a reason so many people have this phone. Full Review This is a great, reliable phone. I purchased this phone after coming to my senses and getting rid of my StarTac. This easy to use, functional phone was such a welcome relief. One of the best things about this phone is how easy it is to use. The menu is clear and logically laid out, so even if you never read the manual, you'd still be able to place and recieve calls. I also like the Navi-key, which pretty much guides the whole phone. If I'm trying to program something or answer a call or check my voice mail and I don't know what to do, I just press the Navi-key and everything usually works out for the best. And if I don't like where I'm going, I just hit the 'C' button until I'm back at the menu. Works every time. I'm not the most technologically-advanced person, so the simplicity of this phone is great. I also really like all the options this phone has. And, since I'm kind of lame, I took advantage of all of them. I have a personalized welcome message to greet me when I turn on my phone, I have a "Shark Silver" snap-on cover (actually, the store was giving them away for free...but I would have wanted one anyway), and I've finally decided on "Kick" for my ring tone...for now. And I know some people find the cutesy ring tones annoying, but I find it advantageous to know which ring tone is mine when I'm on the train and cell phones are ringing left and right. And, I now consider myself a Snake champion. The battery life of the Nokia is excellent. This was the major selling point for me in buying this phone, since my StarTac would shut down after a five minute conversation (sad but true...I later found out that leaving it charging depleted the battery. Shouldn't that be in BIG LETTERS in the manual?). I charge the Nokia every night just because I like to have a "fresh" phone every day, but thankfully it turns itself off when it's through charging so there's no depletion of the battery. You could probably get by with charging it a couple of nights a week, though. The reception is also excellent. I have had a conversation going through the Holland Tunnel and there was no breaking up at all. This may be due to my service, but I think the phone has something to do with it as well. The antenna extends, though I only use that when I'm inside, etc. And the antenna seems pretty sturdy...my cat enjoyed the springy-ness of it and has attacked it several times, and it's still in working order. Overall, this is a great phone for people who need simply that: A phone. If you're looking for web service or organizing features, look elsewhere. While newer phones are much smaller, I actually like the size of this phone. It's sturdy, I won't lose it, I don't need to press the keys with a fingernail or pen, and I can put it between my shoulder and ear if needed; phones like the StarTac would snap if you did that. I don't feel the need to be too delicate with this phone. Overall, I'm really stoked about the Nokia 5185i. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.95 89963 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 price easy to use ability to change look battery life if i had a modem for it i could get rid of my regular phone Full Review I purchased my Nokia 5185i as a package offered by a new service provider called Cricket Communications (visit www.cricketcommunications.com for more info on them - they're not listed on Epinions yet). For a price of $94.99 I got the phone, charger, and 1 month of pre-paid digital service (unlimited incoming & outgoing calls). I have been so pleased with both the phone and the service, that I bought one for my sister-in-law for Christmas. They have since disconnected their home phone. I love my little Nokia. I've had a few other cell phones in the past including an Ericsson CF388 and one of those old Motorola StarTacs. My husband's boss provides him with a Nextel i700plus (manufactured by Motorola). So I've had some experience with cell phones in the past. I'd always heard good things about Nokia phones, and was thrilled to find such a good deal on this one. I couldn't wait to get it home and try it out. The included NiMH battery was fully charged in about 4 hours, and although it seemed to run down fast the first time... it's life has gotten much better after the recommended 3 cycle-downs. This is a very important thing to do with a new phone or battery. Let the battery fully charge before taking it off the charger. Then let the battery run down completely (until the phone shuts off) before plugging it back in. Do this three times. (Note: It will take a few days with this phone unless you use it constantly during that time.) Once you have completed the cycle, you can plug the phone in any time you want to give it a little extra juice. I have went 3 days with mine off the charger, making 15-20 minute calls 2-3 times a day before having to recharge it. The size is just right. Big enough to keep track of it, but small and light enough to carry in a pocket or purse. I purchased an optional leather carry sleeve for mine and clip it onto my jeans pocket. Keeps it safe and close at hand. My sister-in-law has never owned a cell phone, computer or anything remotely technical before so she was a little nervous when I first gave hers to her. She was afraid she'd break it or not be able to understand how to use it. But after about 10 minutes of showing her how to use the menus and store numbers, she was a pro with this phone. She'd saved all her friend's numbers into the phone book and could scroll through them by pressing one key. She especially appreciated the "Keylock" feature, which will keep her 3 small kids from accidentally summoning police or making other unwanted calls. It also makes a handy alarm clock for taking naps on my lunch break! Now that I have my leather case, my next mission is finding a cool zebra face plate (I collect zebras, so what better way to make the phone "Mine"?). Overall, the Nokia 5185i is a great phone for the price. It comes loaded with lots of little extra features found on higher priced phones and retains good battery power under normal conditions. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 94.99 89962 2000/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 games etc rings versatility faceplates accessories size faceplates scratch easily volume doesn t go high enough The Bottom LineSo many features! Great phone. Very good accessories... Perhaps too good. I love this little guy! Full Review I got this phone about 4 months ago. I was so jazzed, these things rock! They're so cute. Not only that, but the kind I got from the service (Verizon) was the smaller, lighter one. It has a much smaller silhouette. *Coolness* Actually, the first one I took home had been pre-owned (hefty discount, score) and allegedly taken back due to lack of signal, because he lived in some weird valley with no reception. But that turned out to be untrue, because right in the middle of a moderately big city it wouldn't pick up the signal! Okay, this thing comes to me ~second~ hand with this dudes numbers all programmed in there, people I don't know, kind of odd, and it doesn't work! Argh... So we take it back and the sales guy exchanged it for a new one. (He knows what's good for him!) All is well! So I take this little bugger home, very excited, and ready to learn all the little nuances and customize my phone. Which I did. I set up the voicemail, everything. I even went online, figured out a code you pressed that changes the message on the screen of the phone. Originally, mine said "Verizon." Quite dull! So I changed it to say my name. (Also dull, but less so I'd hope.) The phone itself comes equipped with many entertaining things, a few of which I haven't even been able to get to yet. From the start screen, you can access the Menu, which takes you wherever you need to go basically. I love the button placement, they're easy to press. (But you won't dial Tai Pei while it's in your bag, because there's a button lock!) As far as games go, there's Memory, Logic, and, my personal favorite, Snake. Much much entertainment! So I have this cool little phone, very functional, could have better reception, but nothing to complain about. So far the only accessory I have is a dorky, rather bulky protective case for it. Not that it'd need it. I could drop this thing from a two story building practically and it'd still be good to go. No problems with the phone at all, oh except once when I was messing around with the retractable antenna (GREAT for reception) and the antenna broke off! In my heartbroken fit of angst and terror, I somehow fixed it, however, and to this day it is perfectly fine. Thank goodness! So, I'm all set. But then... On one fateful day in the mall, I happen to walk by this kiosk. What's this??? Could it be?????? And suddenly I am eye to eye with an enormous selection of faceplates. All of a sudden, my dull gray phone is agonizingly non-stimulating. I decide this is of utmost importance that I replace it. Immediately! Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but they're just so pretty! Some of them, anyway, there were a few pseudo-bare-women ones. I don't think so. After an hour or so, I decided on a star one. Hooray! And of course how could I live without the... get this.... ~Lazer-etched buttons~ That supposedly will never wear off like the "normal" ones. Man am I special or what? (Not really but my cell phone sure was.) One day, I was simultaneously shocked and filled with sorrow. My space-faceplate had been scratched. ARGH! I guess that dorky black case does come in handy. (Yes, very much so, a case is *necessary*) But this tends to happen a lot in the Nokias, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I love this phone and the only thing I'd change about it is higher volume and better reception, though these are both probably problems with my service. Very well-built, quality phone. Great battery life, and easy to recharge. A word to the wise: If you get one, you'd better keep a tight rein on your wallet unless you want to wind up in the poorhouse with me and my 10,000 sparkly faceplates. Just you watch, Nokia will make me go Brokia and I'll be dang happy about it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 89961 2000/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many convenience features small durable great clarity light none so far The Bottom LineIf you want a reliable, easy to use phone that is lightweight and easy to decorate differently then this is your phone. Full Review I recently came back to current times and got a cell phone. It amazes me how quickly it becomes indispensable. Very soon you feel naked without it, isn't that silly? I love my little Nokia, it has really simplified my life. I never have to worry about missing a call from my kid's school or other important calls and I have a phone in case of emergency. Emergency situations were one of the primary reason's we bought a cell phone so it was important the phone be reliable and not have horrible reception. We were not disappointed by our little Nokia. This phone get's great reception and has proven to be very reliable and durable. Even after being dropped it works great. I like the many convenience features it offers like "phone book" which will even store E-mail addresses. Caller ID so you know if you want to answer :) and games! yes, they are simple games like memory and snake but they keep my kids busy if I get really desperate waiting in line somewhere with bored children. The cover on the Nokia snaps off and various manufacturers make other covers so you can switch and change to your hearts desire. Everything is available from the popular cheetah print to sports teams to basic black. There is something to suit every taste and your every mood change! The phone is very simple to operate with clearly marked keys. All the features are laid out for you in simple format in the book accompanying your phone in plain english so all can understand and take advantage of it's many features. One I especially like is the ability to optionally use the "one touch emergency button" where simply pressing the number key 9 will auto dial the 911 service in your area. I thought this was a great feature because in times of true emergency you often cannot stop and dial complete numbers, you need help THEN and this will summon that help for you. The only complaint I have would be better directed to my service provider but is common among cell phone users so I thought I would mention it here. Somehow, someone has our cell phone number and thinks it is a fax number. Every day, usually many times a day a fax machine tries to call my phone. Normally you can block such inconvenient and bothersome calls but this one does not show up on the caller ID so we have no number to block. Because of that there is nothing they can do to stop the calls. It is only a nuisance though, not a big deal. I love this phone, lightweight and ready to go! Clip it on your belt and go out and have a life unchained from the regular phone. Now you have more room to roam and still stay in contact with your loved ones. As you will see below I did not list an purchase price. This is because we got the phone for signing up with MSN so I am unaware of it's real cost. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 89960 2000/4/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excelent features for such a cheap phone price good construction bad power management The Bottom LineCheap doesn't mean bad with this phone. Lots of good features, some only found on the "expensive" cell phones. A bargan phone that doesn't scream "bargan basement". Full Review Another number to remember with "Nokia" slapped in front of it Let's face it; Nokia makes a lot of cell phones. And yes, like every other company that makes anything, they like to give unique model numbers to their various products. This is the Nokia 5185i USA Cellular phone. This is a very unique product (it is NOT Nokia's 5165,5125,5190,5180,5170,5160 or 5120). That's right, the 5185i is it's own phone. And it is…? The Nokia 5185i is a mid-range cellular phone from Nokia. It is considered a "tri-mode" phone, because it supports hi-band and low-band digital communications, or more specifically, it supports CDMA at standard (800MHz) and PCS level frequencies (1.9GHz). It also supports AMPS (Analog). The technological upsides of that paragraph. Translated into English; This phone allows you, the owner to roam about the country effortlessly. This phone can sense, and adapt to any CDMA covered area in the US, AND, auto-sense areas NOT covered by digital service, and fallback into an analog communication mode, WITHOUT switching and WITHOUT dropping a conversation. So if you are on the road (using your HANDS FREE MODULE of course) and travel into the boonies (or any other area not covered by digital cell service) the phone will sense this, and switch instantly onto an analog band to continue operation. You don't even have to think about it. This really isn't a tremendously revolutionary feature. A lot of Cell phones have this ability, and most people don't have true "roam" concerns these days thanks to national (and international) phone services. But it's a nice feature to have, when you need it. Truly useful features This is a mid-range phone, which means it's mid-priced too (can't have you going around with an under-featured, but expensive cell phone, now can we?). The first thing you'll notice about this phone is how it looks. The Nokia 5000 series in general supports Nokia's customization feature; the faceplate. Faceplates are thin, plastic covers that hide this phones true absence of a "cover". The faceplate protects the phone's inner workings (or more accurately, its outer skin) as well as adds the ability to customize how your phone looks. The Nokia 5185i is no different, supporting any 5000 series compatible faceplate you may come across. Stylish ones (for those who think your cell phone cares how its dressed) are available in a lot of places; Wal-mart's, discount cellular stores (the old "cheaper beeper" like places) CompUSA stores, and from Nokia directly (www.nokia.com) Again, interchangeable, and cheap, these faceplates are a fun and economical way to customize your cell phone. And…? One of this phones better features is its support for SMS (simple messaging service). Not too many cell phones support SMS, and those that do are considered "better", even if you don't get, or subscribe to SMS service. SMS is a two-way, data standard for "text" over a cell phone. The result is a little like a text pager, with your phone able to display short text messages from other phone users, or in some cases (provider dependent) e-mail. It works like this: 1. Someone with another SMS capable phone, who is also on the same network selects the "send message" feature on their phone (yes, this phone can also SEND messages through menu 2-1-1) they enter your phone number, type the message using the key pad (a tedious process, but its only a short message, right?) and hit "SEND". Seconds later, your phone begins to beep a special tone indicating; "You've got Mail!". You acknowledge this, and begin to read the little note… 2. A person with a computer visits the website of your provider, and selects the "send a text-message" option from their website. They fill out a little message form and hit "SEND", seconds later, you get the message. 3. Some providers use e-mail systems to get SMS messages to cell phones (and vice-versa…) you can give someone an e-mail that looks like 1235551212@my.provider.com that, when mail is sent to it, your phone receives the message. SMS is a very new technology (well, its not THAT new, it's just new here) and also a nice alternative to phone calls. SMS messages are typically substantially cheaper than phone calls (even though there are usually length limits) and more versatile then getting called (or making a call) when you're IN A MOVIE THEATER, or a noisy place… Fortunately, you can receive, AND send SMS messages using your Nokia 5185i phone. You will however, need to consult your regional service providers to see who actually supports it… Now the really important stuff; Ring Tones! People love unique ring tones. If they didn't, we wouldn't have a new ring-tone available every week from providers like VoiceStream Wireless (formerly Omnipoint). The Nokia 5185i has a good collection of unique ring tones, but it has some downsides. Firstly, of all the tones available, they are available on virtually every other digital Nokia phone on the US market. Second, the tones aren't expandable. You can't visit a web site, give your number and download new ring tones (or connect the phone to your PC and do it that way either). But the collections of ring tones are sure to amuse you, and your friends when it goes off (as soon as you choose something unique that is.) And there's more! Yes, this is quite the cell phone (and yes, there are better ones, but…) and it does have more features. The most useful feature of any cell phone is its "rolodex" feature. The ability to store previously made calls, frequently made calls and just generally maintain a "phone book" (the official name of the feature on the Nokia 5185i) of people, e-mail addresses (maintained for SMS e-mails sent from your phone), and yes, phone numbers. The phone book on the Nokia 5185i supports up to 100 names, e-mails, and numbers in its tiny little memory. The Nokia 5185i also supports caller ID features (send and receive based on provider preference) so you can know whose calling, and if you should let them go to hell, or to voicemail. And yes, this phone also supports voicemail services (and voicemail notification if your provider feels so inclined). Games A good cell phone has good games. Well, the term "good" is a relative one, and is based on your personal preference. The Nokia 5185i comes with a "snake" game where you control a snake along the screen to eat "apples" (or more accurately, dots…) in order to grow longer and progress through the game. The other games include a "logic" puzzle game where you have to match columns of similar icons to progress through, and a "memory" game where you have to pick & match icons on the screen that are similar. None of them are really "entertaining", and are only designed as a minimal distraction while waiting for/on the train. But they're there… What I like about this phone This Nokia model is cheap. It's not the most feature filled phone in the world, but it comes with its fare share of cool features that higher-end handsets come with. I like that, and I didn't have to sell an organ (or my first born, or file for a micro-loan) to get it. With a noteworthy feature set AND a good price, this phone packs a punch. Reception is only as good as the CDMA standard set it at, and when I'm in analog country (like my house…) the quality is as good as analog can get (yes, static is unavoidable in analog mode). I like that I can attach a hands free unit without any effort (those cheap headset things at Wal-Mart) and that this phone is easily reconfigured with the simple to use menu system. The Navi-key universal interface is also great. I don't need to fumble to answer OR hang-up a call because one button does it all. What I hate about this phone Corners had to be cut, and I guess the features I like the most about digital phones was it. First, this phones battery time sucks. You get about 60 hours of digital stand-by time (even though the manual swears you get about 100) and 2 hours of digital TALK time. I've seen phones that can go DAYS without being recharged, where as a afternoon and a half of sitting ON in my pocket whacks out the battery. This phone also takes forever to charge that weak battery. The "portable" charger (the plug adaptor that comes with the phone) takes a good 6 hours to recharge an empty standard Lithium-Ion battery cell. Not the most rapid charge in the world. This phone doesn't have a "vibrator". Let me clarify; it has no vibration mode. Now, there is a vibrating battery you can buy for it, but this $60 attachment battery is weaker than the Li-ion batteries typically found for it, and is extra. I have no intention of buying it. If I want discreet contact, I'll send the phone into "silent", shove it into my pocket and occasionally check my voice mail. This phone is also not ungodly loud enough. Sure, there are some ringing tones that will pierce the windows, deafen dogs, and drive young children to run away from you screaming. And sure, the volume is adjustable, but there are a lot of "low tones" on this phone that are just too low even on high-volume mode, and a trip to the mall food-court could mean missed phone calls because your ring tone is too low. This phone does NOT support mobile Internet. There is NO internal web browser for surfing the net (if supported by your service provider). This phones "wired" connectivity ends at SMS. Summary This isn't a bad phone. There are invariably better phones out there, but they cost more money. The Nokia 5185i is a great CDMA tri-mode phone at a good price, and comes packed with features found on more expensive phones. This is a great phone for people just switching onto a new provider, and want access to their higher level features, and aren't willing to pay for the "golden cell phone" with features that just make it a "toy" and not a tool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 89959 2000/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 works great colorful small none Full Review And it is purple, blue and red! After far too long waffling around trying to decide if she really needed a cell phone again, your Chief Dragon in Residence finally broke down and committed to owning one for a year. Boy oh boy, have these puppies gotten small and sexy since the first honking big Motorola she had installed in her Taurus. That one took all day for two fumble-fingered fools to install and three days to activate. In less than an hour your Dragon was yakking away on her new and colorful Nokia 5185i, blissfully oblivious to all the Christmas shopping Lynchburgers who were attempting to run her off the road. BUT IS IT DIGITAL? Betcha green scaly tail, it is! And analog, too, for when she drives out of the digital area, which ends approximately 753.7 yards from the south-eastern boundary of the Weyr. The good news is that the Weyr is located solidly within the digital signal area and this is important, as this phone eats power when in analog mode. The bad news is that the signal strength is only two bars when standing outside in the rain on top of a hill. Inside the house there is no signal at all. Oh, well, this is the price one pays for seclusion and privacy. WHAT ELSE CAN IT DO? Besides performing admirably as an actual telephone, the Nokia 5185i serves as an alarm clock and will play games with you. With its nifty little Nokia Xpress-on color cover it can also function as a piece of practical art. The truth is that the Dragon's internal clock works perfectly well and she has no need of another. She rather despises playing games, too, so it is highly unlikely she will ever take the time to figure out how to play one with her telephone. Certainly not as long as there are pussy cats around to play with. AN IMPORTANT SAFETY FEATURE We all know how dangerous it is to talk on the phone and drive at the same time. After all, one should always keep both hands on the steering wheel, unless eating, drinking, or fluffing one's hair. However, she is willing to give lip-service to the alarmists (and police officers!) who object to the practice. Her new Nokia 5185i came with a peculiar little hands-free headset. With this devise in place, it is possible to gab away and still keep both hands on the wheel. Even better, it frees up the phone -holding hand for eating, drinking, and fluffing. Naturally, taking both hands off the wheel to do any of the above would really be dangerous and she does not recommend this course of action, except in dire emergencies (for instance, if you might fall asleep if you don't sip some of your coffee or if the police officer pulling you over for erratic driving is really a hunk and you need to fluff). As she has only had the phone for about 8 hours, she has not yet had a chance to test the hands-free function. However, the charming young lady at U.S Cellular promises it is truly excellent, with fine fidelity and she swears she uses hers all the time. Surely Crystal would never lie to us, we would tell her mother! HOW MUCH DID IT COST? Drat, why would you want to know that? Just do what most everyone does and get one pretty much for free when you get it activated. This is what the Dragon did. Not only did U.S Cellular waive the activation fee in their eagerness to rope her in as a new customer but presented her with this neat little Nokia 5185i with the pretty purple, blue and red X-press-on color cover, as well. She can't imagine actually paying retail for a phone when one can be had for free. The truth is, she has absolutely no idea how much these sell for at Circuit City, Staples, or Wally World. Well, ok, she can tell you how much the X-press-on color covers cost. There was a sticker on the back of the package, it said $17.95. Amazon.com sells them for $14.95 plus shipping. Get one for free, they are not worth 15 to 18 bucks! You could just as easily pop off the black cover and paint it yourself with a can of Krylon spray paint. THE DRAGON HUMBLY SUGGESTS If you are in the market for a new cell phone, by all means check out the Nokias. The buzz on them is uniformly good and they are said to be reliable as well. Time will tell and if this one should happen to fail catastrophically within the next 12 month (the extent of its warranty) she will be sure to let you know. Do try to get one with the activation rather than going out and paying retail. You are going to have to activate it if you want to use it, after all, so let that work for you. Get a free phone if at all possible and make your Auntie Dragon proud. And remember, it really is best to always keep both hands on the wheel when driving. No point in ruining your day with a trip to the emergency room. © 2000 Pamela Matlack, all rights reserved. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): N/A 89958 2001/12/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 varied ring selections interchangeable face plates flimsy pull up antenna occasional echoing on some calls The Bottom LineA decent inexpensive or free cell phone with a few nice features on it. Each user can easily customize the phone to their own specifications. Full Review Recently my husband and I had a decision to make, renew our cell phone plan or let it go. Since signing up one year ago with a screaming good deal on airtime, we were mostly pleased with our savings, however our original phones (Kyocera dual modes) had been nothing but irritating from the get go. If we were to stay on as Qwest wireless customers they were going to have to do much better in the way of an actual phone. After expressing our concerns to the customer service representative, our two new Nokia 5185i cell phones were on their way and we had a new one year contract with which to road test these cell phones and see if they measured up. ----- First Impressions- Right away upon opening the box containing my new phone I could see that the Nokia 5185i was different than my last phone. It seemed smaller, lighter and slimmer. It measures approximately 5 inches long (not including the antenna) by 3/4 inches wide. The other thing I noticed promptly was that my phone and my husband's phone were identical, and in contrast to our previous phones, they were not programmed with our names on the display. (*Note-these phones can be programmed with names or greetings to appear when they are first turned on, but the display can't be set to show your name at all times.) This phone is also easily programmable. All I needed was the included manual and a few minutes and I was on my way. My husband was stunned, as he's always had the programming duties at our house. Features- What can this baby do? Is the very first thing my husband had to find out. He is definitely the more interested of the two of us in these matters. Oh Boy Games! The Nokia 5185i comes programmed with 3 games, Logic, Memory and Snake (hubby's favorite). If you do get an urge to play a game sometime, the directions are actually programmed into the phone and you can select a level of play from beginner to advanced. Alarm, Alarm! My personal favorite feature is the alarm clock on the Nokia 5185i. You have to program it daily if you need it, but hey it even had a snooze option. Ring Tones- If variety is the spice of life, then this phone is zesty. There are 39 ring tones, or should I say tunes to choose from. (That reminds me, it's almost time to switch to Auld Lang Syne). The user can also select between ascending and descending rings, the ringer's volume (very handy for the courteous cell phone user going out in public), and even the volume of the key pad while dialing. Number Storage- The Nokia 5185i is programmable to hold up to 99 numbers in your phone book. You can also program one touch dialing for your most frequently called numbers. Keep Your Guard Up- Having two small children that have been able to tell the difference between a "real" phone and a play phone since before they could talk, this feature was a must. Two quick clicks and no outgoing calls can be made, but you can still answer incoming calls in your normal fashion. You've Got Mail- The Nokia 5185i has a mail box to either leave or save messages and notes. Who's Calling Please?- Another handy-dandy feature on this phone is the call log. This will let you know who called while you are away, who you've called, and how long you've talked (a necessity for keeping track of usage minutes). The Nokia 5185i also features caller I.D. to show who's calling, so you can decide before answering whether or not to waste your cell time on them. Standard Equipment Vs. The Options- You new phone will arrive with a standard plug-in adaptor for charging your cell battery, the cell phone, and an instruction manual. Additional accessories available for purchase include custom color faceplates, longer life battery options, cases,and chargers. You can easily customize this phone to suit your own tastes. Battery Life- The standard, included battery, according to the manual has a standby time of 70 hours, and a talk time of 120 minutes. I have actually talked many times closer to 2 or 2 1/2 hours on my standard battery. What Could Be Better?- While this Nokia beats the pants off of my last phone, that's not saying too much. The Nokia generally holds up well, but does occasionally drop calls for no reason in particular. It also does not beep when it drops a call, so I have actually found myself still talking when the phone rings back in my ear. I also have a bone to pick with the Nokia 5185i cell phone's antenna. Oh, how I yearn for a cell phone with a built-in antenna, my next phone must have one. This phone has a flimsy, pull up antenna that pokes me in the head, when it actually decides to stay up that is. Luckily, I don't need the antenna often, because it is a disappointment. All in all, the Nokia 5185i is an able performer, easily programmable, and has proven durable thus far. I would recommend this phone to anyone who wants an inexpensive phone to meet most of their needs. Thanks for taking the time to read. This is my first review in the area of electronics, so comments are welcome. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89957 2000/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 inexpensive durable easy to use simple features there is really no cons considering the price of this phone The Bottom LineThe Nokia 5185i Cell Phone is Inexpensive, Durable, Lots of features and easy to use. Full Review Just as I stated in my title the Nokia 5185i. is an inexpensive, durable and great starter cell phone. The Nokia 5185i is a very popular cell phone to be offered in alot of the Cell Phone starter plans. It is also offered in alot of the free phone deals. If you are purchasing your first Cell Phone and you are not sure if you will like it or really don't have alot of need for it than if you can find a Cell Phone Plan that includes this as a free phone offer than you should take it. We have 2 Cell Phones in our house and I will be writing a review of both. One is this Nokia 5185i and the other is LG-TM510. So this review is on the Nokia 5185i. With our Nokia 5185i Cell Phone Kit it came with: 1. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone itself. 2. Standard Battery a BLS-2N Extended Li-lon 900mAh 3. Standard Plug in Charger 4. User Guide We added on these options: 1. Leather Protective Case 2. DeskTop Charger....Phone stands up to charge in a holder 3. Carry Clip to clip to belt or purse. 4. Car Charger for trips......this plugs into your cigarette lighter for charging. 5. Hands Free Ear Piece....this let you use your phone without having to hold the phone to your ear. The Nokia 5185i Cell phone is 5 inches long excluding the antenna and 2 inches wide. The Antenna extends 1 inch off the top of the phone. The Antenna extends out 3 1/2 inches making total antenna length 4 1/2 inches. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone has lots of features. Here is a listing of the major Features: 1. Volume Adjustment feature. This allows you adjust the volume that is right for your level of hearing. I have to adjust it to the highest level because of my being deaf in one ear. 2. Last Number Redial and Automatic redail features. Helps if you get disconnected and quick reconnect. 3. Saves Names and Numbers feature. You can puts you family and friends name and numbers so they are easier to find. You can also enter special characters into names and numbers. 4. Email Address feature. This allows you to save email addresses right on your phone. This feature is great when you are away from your own computer and what to use someone elses to email someone. 5. Muting the Microphone feature. This helps when you are in a busy place and can't hear because the noise around you. You can mute the microphone and only hear the caller now. 6. Language Settings feature. You can choose what language you want. You can only choose from 5 language on this phone. They are English, Spanish, French, Hebrew and Portuguese. 7. Ringing Volume feature. There are 5 levels to the the ring volume. Again this depends on how well your hearing is. 8. Keypad Volume feature. There are 3 levels of volume here. This is for the keys you are pressing on the phone. 9. Message alert feature. This is when you miss a call or have a message waiting for you. There are 5 different settings here. Or you can have no tone at all. There is a beep once or loud and long which will beep quite a few times or you standard beep which sounds like a beeper. And there is a Special setting which never put this setting on unless you are outdoors and never at a business meeting. The Special setting is a very high pitched beeping like one of those body alarms that goes off when you are being attacked. We went to a party and the music was very loud and I set my phone on this setting so I could here in case there was a call about the kids and forget to set it back and went to a meeting and almost caused every to have a heart attack it was so loud. 10. Clock and Alarm Clock feature. Can you display the time on you screen so you don't have to worry if you forget you watch and you can set the alarm clock to alert you to a time. Believe it or not the Alarm Clock also has a snooze. 11. Voice Message feature. Just like an answering machine, you leave a message for the caller that you are unavailable and to leave a message and it will record their message. You than can than retrieve your missed call messages. IMPORTANT.....Most people also don't know that when you use your Cell phone to call and retrieve your messages you are actually using your minutes so if you get alot of missed calls and have to call alot for your messages, you may want to do it from a regular phone unless you have alot of minutes to use up. 12. Checking Available Time feature. You can check how many minutes you have left to use on your phone so you don't go over and have to pay the sinful rates they charge for going over your minutes. 13. Text Message feature. You can send a text message if the person has this feature to accept text messages. 14. One Touch Dialing feature. This feature allows you to program your family or friends to a number....1 or 2 or 3 etc and then all you do when you want to call them is push and hold the number on your keypad and it will dial them right up. Very simple and easy to set up. 15. 911 feature......You can set you #9 number key on your phone to call 911 by just holding it down. This is a great feature for emergency situations. 16. Ring Setting feature. This allows you to pick what type of ring you would like to hear when your phone rings. There are alot to choose from on this phone. There are 40 different ring settings to choose from. 17. Game feature. There are 3 games to play on your phone. So if you are really bored and have only your phone with you, you now can entertain yourself. Or give it to the kids to keep them entertained. 18. Call forwarding feature. You can have your calls from home or work or from another cell phone set up to go to your Cell phone. So you never have to miss a call again. This is an extra cost but most plans do include this. 19. Calling Card feature. Some people do not have Long distance included in the minutes but have a Calling Card. You can program your calling card info in the phone and use it for long distance. 20. Security feature. This feature allows you to enter codes to restrict call, lock phone and prevent others from messing with your settings. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone has alot of different features for being an inexpensive phone. Alot of your expensive Cell phones do not have some of these features. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone is easy to use and the User Guide shows step by step instructions for setting up and using the phone and features. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone is not as light weight as some Cell phones. But it is not heavy either. This phone is durable and seems to be able to take alot of wear and tear. We do keep our leather case on it for added protection and we have had our Nokia 5185i for awhile now and it still looks like we just took it out of the box. I do recommend a phone case for added protective to make you phone last or if it is dropped. The Nokia 5185i Cell Phone is a phone where you can change the face plate and you can find a big variety to choose from. So you can make your phone as fancy as you want. Fits in most standard cell phone holders too. The reception of the phone is clear but it also depends on your calling area and calling plan. It has the extending antenna but we have never had to extend for reception. You can look at the screen on your phone and it will tell you how much signal you are getting. It will also show you how you battery is doing and if it needs to be charged. For people who are hard of hearing I recommend this phone because of the volume level in listening and ringing. I miss calls on are other cell phone all the time or other people will tell me my phone is ringing and that phone is more expensive than this one. The only negative thing that I can say about the Nokia 5185i Cell phone is the battery life and holding a charge. After we had are phone for awhile we found that the battery was not holding a charge as well and we had re-placed the battery. We also learned a few things about charging the battery. Do not let your battery run all the way down. Charge it before it gets to the last signal line. Also do not leave your phone in the charger all night. Charge it and when it is full take in out of the charger. These steps have helped us not to have to replace the battery again. We got this phone free with a special promotion when we signed up for our plan. I have seen the Nokia 5185i cell phone priced between 29.99 and 69.99. Overall the Nokia 5185i Cell Phone is a great phone with lots of features, durable, inexpensive, easy to use and great for people who are hard of hearing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 89956 2001/3/12 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 39 ring tones caller id versatile face plate exchanges 3 games call log not web enabled The Bottom LineNokia 5185i is a versatile, durable, cellular with 39 ring types & 3 games. This is a wonderful cell for those not desiring web enablement. Full Review My sleek, slim, smooth cellular is a Nokia 5185i. Simplistic, yet ready to please, this phone has many features making it an excellent bargain considering the affordability. Understand though, if you are in the market for a mobile phone with Internet capabilities - this is not the phone for you! However, shall your needs summon an easy to hold, versatile attired cellular phone - this could be your babe! It all started when I decided enough was enough…. No longer was my husband going to be allowed to borrow my cellular. Get your own dude; this woman needs her always-ready companion! So, I ventured into my local Verizon wireless store and set forth to make an additional purchase. In this region Boeing employees receive an incredible calling plan option from Verizon. Thus explaining why they are the only option for this family. Our calling plan offers 800 minutes for $29.95 monthly (more about our satisfaction with Verizon at a later epinion). The deal of the day was a Nokia 5185i. For $29. I was able to acquire this phone, a designer cedar green metallic faceplate, and establish an additional account (yahoo 1600 minutes). Oh, but wait it gets even better! This affordable deal included an additional Nokia 5185i cellular for free. Yes, $0.00. *Lisa thinking ~ Umm…. I already have a Qualcomm 2760, and it is working okay. I never use the Internet feature. I would like more ring choices and I hate the fact that it only tells me 'missed call' - not who was missed. Oh, my... look at this little beauty. This Nokia has so many rings. I can choose designer faceplates. It tells me the number and information of whom I missed. It has the snake game. That's it. Qualcomm your powered off and Nokia you're the boss!* Decision made! Hubby and I would have matching Nokia's! My designer faceplate color choice was a dolphin metallic blue. There we go, two phones (well three - but only two powered up), two phone numbers, and minutes galore. What more could a mod family want? We still have modem Internet access and use our in home line mostly for computer purpose. Most personal calls are received on the mobile phones. Since it is much easier to access us by cellular contact, the necessity to both own a cell phone was ever increasing. Now I may tell my hubby's friends to back off and phone him at -------! Cellular phones are much more convenient than public pay phones, and really a must have for traffic conditions. Not to mention emergencies. Speaking of emergencies let me enlighten you to the more popular use. Any parent knows that arranging sexual encounters with your spouse becomes slightly more challenging when children are around. Answer to this needed romance escapade? Give a call! I vanished to the master bedroom suite. The children were engrossed in watching Lady and The Tramp II. After a couple candles lit, change of attire, and little spritzing of seductive fragrance… She picks up her cellular and dials his cellular number. Doah, answer your phone! Three attempts later he answers. (After realizing what the summons was about and fulfilling the call, he promptly changed the tone of ring!) Dude, get to the bedroom and don't disturb the kids! I think next time his phone rings he will answer pronto! What About the Nokia? This sleek 6" long X 2" wide X 1" deep phone is easy to hold, and takes little cargo room. Your initial purchase includes the phone, a standard wall outlet charger, and operation manual. The dealer we purchased this at included a designer color faceplate at no extra charge. For an additional $29.00 we purchased an LCH-9 rapid cigarette lighter charger. The phone includes a one-year limited warranty. Prior to initial use you will need to charge the included battery for 24-48 hours with the included wall outlet charger. The face of your Nokia 5185i offers an earpiece, power button, screen, Navi key, clear key, scroll keys, number keys (offering additional feature of voice mail key, special characters key, case key, and emergency key). The standard faceplate is grey. The options for designer faceplate replacements are numerous. For incredible fun visit: http://www.sunnycell.com/store/itemdetails.asp. The choices might amaze you! For my phone we purchased a designer exchange kit. It included a pink marble like faceplate, body, vibrating battery, flashing antenna, and pink screen mat. The purchase price was $49.99. The kit included a screwdriver and was easy to convert. Designer phone! Features ~Phone book: you may save for dialing purpose 99 phone numbers and names ~Automatic redial ~Clock ~Language: English/French/Spanish/Portuguese/ Hebrew ~Lights ~Voice mailbox ~Welcome note ~Emergency key ~Multiple call making/receiving ~Calling card information storage ~1-touch dialing ~Anykey answer ~Automatic answer ~Call log: missed calls/received calls/dialed calls/call timers ~Alarm Clock ~Games: memory/snake/logic ~Security features: call lock/restricting calls ~Tone adjustment: ringing options/ringing tones (39 available tones ranging from typical to musical to eccentric)/ringing volume/message alert tone/keypad tones/warning & games Network feature setting include call forwarding, call waiting, and caller ID. Some of the available to purchase accessories: vibrating battery, rapid travel charger, rapid lighter charger, compact desktop charging stand, spare batteries, fashion face plates. Overall Both my husband and I are pleased with the Nokia 5185i. My phone display went blank two weeks after purchase. Verizon replaced it with a new unit free of charge. We wrote this off as one of those electronic mishaps. The episode didn't detract from our overall opinion of the phone. I really like that you can still answer incoming calls with the keyguard on. This is an excellent feature when you are traveling or shopping. The multiple choices for customizing this phone make it a fun unit to own. Multiple tone settings and 39 ring selections make the Nokia 5185i even more versatile. The inclusion of games makes for a fun past time while awaiting a fast food order or physician appointment. The simplicity in function allows for user friendly programming and usage. I find this Nokia is capable of excellent voice quality, and service range. In this area it is a match to the Qualcomm I previously used. This unit would be improved if the vibrating battery were inclusive at original purchase point. Another down fall is the needed additional charge for the portable car battery. Overall I find this phone to be a palatable choice for the user not desiring Internet access with his/her cellular phone. © 2001 Lisa_J Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29. 89955 2002/1/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 plenty of features usually cheap with a package deal from service provider cheap pester folks from the comfort of your car The Bottom LineIt's portable and it works. What else do you want in one of these dreadful things? Full Review My goodness, how I hate those cellular phones. The last one I owned "accidentally" flew out of my car window due to a strong gust of wind (or, that's my story, anyway). I assume it was broken as I was driving along at around 80-miles-per hour at the time down the interstate, but I didn't bother to stop and check. So, imagine how thrilled I was when my Wife got one of those damn things. Specifically, she got the Nokia 5185i for "emergencies." There haven't been any emergencies, of course, but she has been able to give me plenty of those choppy, barely-audible calls from her car during which she can ask me when I'm getting off work, tell me our son lost a shoe at daycare, inform me I'm in trouble because our son shook his fist and yelled, "Get a car, hippies!" at a group of cyclists, or whatever else she has on her mind. Truly, I hate cellular phones. However, I won't gripe too much about my Wife owning this Nokia because it was dirt cheap and came bundled with a ton of minutes. Through the local Alltel provider, this phone was included with my Wife's calling plan for a mere $29.95. The ton of minutes that came with my Wife's plan have inspired me to use this on a few long distance calls at home rather than using the more traditional phone at my house. So, I've learned a thing or two about features. Frankly, there are too many damned features, and they are all described in a 90-page users manual. One of my Wife's favorite feabures is the ability to select around 40 different ring tones. Currently, she's got her phone set to mutilate Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but there are some other classics and ditties this phone can trash, as well. Yes, there's nothing quite like hearing one of these tinny, rotten little things absolutely shred "The William Tell Overture" or our National Anthem (I imagine dead composers turning in their graves every time one of their masterpieces is blooped out by a crummy phone). And, there are even a few tones which sound rather like an electronic phone should when it's ringing (imagine that). As for the music here, just imagine symphonies being played through the sound channel on an Atari 2600 or Odyssey 2, and you'll get the idea. Also, this telephone has the ability to redial the last number called. She, evidently, likes that feature. I know this because I tend to accidentally hang up on her when she calls me while driving down the road, and she always manages to call me back rather angrily and immediately. The phone also has a built in address book, so one can store a lot of numbers and quickly locate a few people to bother. Also, there are some games built in to this. Good God! Why would you want to play games on a damn phone? You can go down to Toys 'R' Us right now (provided your local store isn't one of the 65 or so being shut down) and pick up a cheap LCD game for about $5. I'm not sure why Nokia bothered sticking that kind of cheap junk on an allegedly sophisticated communications device. The phone also supports some features, provided they come with your cellular plan. Voice mail, text messaging and call forwarding are all supported on this one. This phone, being digital, is supposed to provide one with that crystal-clear communications stuff we've heard about for a couple of years now. I know from using it at home that it's clear enough when stationary. However, my Wife's signal seems to break up a bit every now and then when she calls me from her car. I also know that it's got a good, strong microphone in it as I can always hear my Wife's voice and plenty of road noise when she calls with it. Perhaps the choppy reception that plagues this thing from time to time is due to our provider and the fact that signals aren't so strong at various spots in these Ozark hills. Still, it sounds a heck of a lot like one of those "low tech" analog cellular phones to me. As for size, this phone is pretty small. It's about six-inches long and fairly light, making it the ideal size to toss out of a car window or skip across a pond. My Wife says it travels well in her purse, and refuses to let me toss it out of a car window or skip it across a pond. However, at $29.95, you won't lose too much if you destroy it by venting your anger on it. I suspect stomping one of these "digital ball and chains" into dust or backing over it a few times with a car is just good therapy. And, if you just can't stand that black phone with a dark gray cover, you can even order a custom cover to stick on your phone. I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that, but there are a heck of a lot of covers available. Finally, the issue of battery life comes up. Honestly, that's not been a problem. My Wife has a charger here and one that plugs into the cigarette lighter of her car. She's never run out of power. Indeed, she can gab away on this dreadful little device and pester folks for quite some time because she's never too far away from a charger. So, in short, this is a cheap phone that works well enough. You don't get any Internet connectivity with it, but I doubt most people are interested in burning up minutes contacting the Web on a cellular phone, anyway. As for my recommendation on this, the Nokia is a very average, middle-of-the road phone. You'll never find me telling anyone they must rush out and buy a digital phone. This model works well enough, I suppose, but I wonder how many people actually need one of these. I'd argue that we've been tricked into purchasing these things by some clever marketing. However, if I'm going to buy something I don't need, I'd like to at least have something cool like a Harley Davidson or a bottle of good bourbon. Now, hang up that damn phone and drive! Super Special Extra Bonus! I've already listed some of these, but here is a very useful list of things you can do with your very own cellular phone. I call it Grumpy Ol' HawgWyld's List of Dandy Fun Things to Do with A Cellular Phone: 1. Measure snow 2. Use as a tire chock for semi trucks and other pieces of heavy equipment 3. Skip across a pond 4. Use as clay pigeon for skeet shooting 5. Toss out a car window to test wind resistance 6. Throw at officials at sporting contests when you don't want to waste plastic bottle of beer 7. Buy 10 or so and make your very own portable speed bump 8. Give to Rover for use as a chew toy 9. Impress 12-year-old kids down at the mall who still think it's pretty darn cool to own a digital phone 10. Use as "Exhibit 'A'" when arguing that society's going to hell Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 29.95 89954 2002/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 built to hold up many features small none The Bottom LineThis may not be the king of cell phones anymore, but it is so sturdy that it can fall off the roof of a truck, and still work. Full Review Update! January 3, 2002 I do not know how many of you remember the Timex watch ads, but they should make one about this Nokia phone. Some months ago, my husband was going with his hiking group and decided to take the cell phone. It was still dark, and apparently he put it on the roof of his truck, forgot about it, and drove down the road. Nearly a mile later he heard something fall, and yes, it was MY phone. He came home in search of the flashlight, told me the bad news, and I was just sick. These are expensive to replace. Oh well, it is just a phone I thought. About ten minutes later the home phone rang, and my husband was talking on the cell phone. He found the pieces, put the phone back together, and other than a few scratches, it kept on working......just like the Timex watch. Not having had cellular service for a couple of years, I was amazed at the difference in size and features that this Nokia phone had compared to my three year old phone that was sitting in a drawer in the kitchen. It was so small that I sometimes cannot find it in my purse. I bought this phone because it was what Verizon was offering for $50 with new service. They also had a promotion of buy one get one free with the second line, so averaging out we paid $25 each for this product. It did take me a short time to get used to all the features of this phone, but Nokia provides a fairly simple, but extensive manual to explain how to put everything into working order for you. This Nokia is a digital/analog combination so it can be used in all areas. I have never had a problem with clear connections unless I was in the mountains, which obviously will block service. Some of the features of this phone that I like are: Phone Book: This will hold up to 99 numbers including names. It sure is easier to scroll through names rather than try and dial a number. Once the name you are looking for comes on the easily visible screen, you just push the call button, your phone call will go through. No more fumbling on a key pad. Voice Messages: I had to contact my service provider to get the "secret" code, but after I got that, it was easy to set up, and I was able to leave a personal greeting. Text Messages: The phone has the capability for this service, but unfortunately my provider will not be adding this until sometime this year. At least I have the proper equipment! Call Log: This is an excellent feature so you not only know how long you talked on one call, but you can reset it each month to keep track of your total talk time. If you have a phone call that the number is not in your address book, it is easy to go back to the "received calls" feature, look through them and if you want to call them back, just push the send button. This clever little phone has some games, a handy alarm clock, and numerous features that are included in 86 page instruction manual. It took a little time to get used to the smallness of it, and was it positioned correctly so people could hear me. However, after a few quick phone calls, I am completely satisfied, and would recommend it to any person looking for a reasonably priced new cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 89953 2000/7/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has many features i need easy to use antenna pretty flimsy The Bottom LineA nice cell phone for the average user. Full Review My last cell phone stunk. It really did. It was a cheap Motorola flip phone ( ) and it never stayed charged, was a pain to flip, and had only the basic of features. I was frustrated with it all of the time. So at the time when we updated our cell phone plan last year to include a 2 cell phone plan (previously husband's cell stuff was bought and paid for by work) I told my husband he could get whatever plan he wanted ... so long as I got a new cell phone out of the deal. He came home with a Nokia 5185i, and I have been happy ever since. Keep in mind, this phone does not have all of the technology and features that a phone can have, and for that I am grateful. There are those of us who do not want to check email, the Internet, message someone etc. I just want my cell phone to stay charged through the day, work well, be sturdy, and tell me who is calling and who has called. The Nokia 5185i fits the bill nicely. Can it do what I need? Certainly - it even has features I have yet to use! My main features are all accessed from the larger main button on the top center of the phone - it allows different screens to come up, including (and they are numbered, thank goodness): Phone Book, Messages, Call Log, Settings, System, Games, Clock, Tones, and Keyguard. The Nokia 5185i has a number of different ring tones to try. That might not matter to some, but I like the option of picking a different tune to have the phone ring too, and I don't need anything fancy or too complex. Just click on the option for tones, and scroll down the list - choices include William Tell, Tango, Polka, Auld Lang Syne, Scifi, Kick . Mine is set to "Mozart 40" and any time I've tried and change it I don't recognize my phone ringing (I've grown so accustomed to that song). So .. "Mozart 40" it is. Nice to have the options though. And on each tone you pick it gives a sample of how it would sound automatically, so picking is a breeze. It also has a large address book memory. Mine currently only holds about 20 numbers, but it has the capability to hold just under 100. You can type in the number you need to save, type in the name (using both capital and lower case letters when needed), and easily save those important numbers. What I especially like is that, once these numbers are programmed in, if any of those people call you, the name you've typed in for the address section pops up! This phone also stores the last 10 numbers I called, that I received, and calls that I've missed. I use this feature a lot to go back to calls that I didn't want to store the number in my address book, as I didn't plan to use over and over again. My phone stays charged all day, and the battery is pretty durable, so long as I recharge it every day or 2. My Nokia 5185i takes phone messages - it allowed me to record a message for all to hear, and takes messages when people leave them on my phone. It is pretty easy to tell when I have a message as a little icon appears. I also like that this phone lets me know when I missed a call - and provides the caller's phone number and time they called. This, combined with the messaging, has been a pretty important feature for me as I have to turn my phone off at work. Now I can safely know my messages and calls will be ready for me whenever I am ready. Other features include changeable face plates - I have about 3 that I've used so far. you can easily get them on-line or from many cell phone shops, kiosks. This phone also has an antenna that pulls out. It's pretty flimsy and I get it caught in my hair a lot, so I really don't bother pulling it up any more. Also there are 3 games to play - pretty simple games of Pairs, Snake and Logic. I mainly only play Snake, but it keeps me busy at those long doctor's office waits. I have been completely satisfied using my Nokia 5185i phone and it has all of the right features for what I need. List of features from Nokia website: " One-touch access to voicemail and text messages Speed-dialing On-screen message indicators Clock with alarm Your phone is also a pager Local language support (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese and Hebrew) Phone book stores up to 99 entries Retractable antenna 3 entertaining games High quality, full-graphics display One button Navi Key guides you step by step Versatile range of accessories available Predictive text input Hearing aid support with the LPS-1 Loopset 40 distinctive ring tones Xpress-on front and back color covers (sold separately) 5185i Battery Life Extended Li-lon Battery 1050 mAh -- Digital Talk Time up to 5 hours -- Digital Standby Time up to 7.5 days -- Analog Talk Time up to 2.5 hours -- Analog Standby Time up to 23 hours " Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with plRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7789 Nokia 8210 89982 2003/11/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small very usable lightweight many phones become unusable freezes screen very bad shuts down software problems I have had 6 mobile phones over the years, but without a doubt the lowest point was my experience with the 8250 and 8210 from Nokia. They are very similar phones, the difference being that the 8250 comes in silver and has a blue screen. They are nice phones in that they are small and light but they have terrible problems. The software freezes, the screens shut down very easily. You get random error messages that shut down the phone in the middle of a call. This happened first to my 8250. It became completely unusable and a friend gave me her 8210. Similar things happened. I had to squeeze the phone in two special points just to get it to work. A friend and an aunt had the same things happen to them. This really is one of the worst products I have ever had. 89981 2000/5/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small easily fitting in the palm of your hand high quality well designed light such an old model no wireless imaging no multimedia no color screen The Bottom LineThis is a classical model no matter how old it is. You won't forget it. Full Review Three years ago, I bought my Nokia cell phone model 8210. The reason why I chose Nokia was very simple: My mother had a Motorola and my father was loyal to Samsung, and I just wanted to try something new. Three years later, I'm still using my Nokia 8210. And you won't feel surprised if I tell you that there have been two more Nokia cell phones in my family - my mother bought a Nokia last year and my father changed his cell phone, too. Many of my friends have changed their cell phone into color screen ones or some new models, but I'm still enjoying my old 8210. Why do I like it so much? The quality is soooo good I should say. I can't remember how many times I drop it onto the ground, but each time it tells me: I'm OK! And the design is my favorite - small and exquisite. Its size just fits the palm of my hand and it feels comfortable when I hold it. Besides, I can always change its xpress-oný cover, but many color screen ones don't have this feature. I have bought many different covers from the local market, which are printed with my favorite stars or cartoon characters. I use different covers in different situations, and this is also why my cell phone still looks new. If you have a bad memory, you are saved - use its calendar notes, and it will remind you in time. And it seems that Nokia 8210 has better signals than other mobile phones. When my friend and I tried to send messages to the same cell phone at the same time, my phone won. It really afflicts me if you want me to think of any shortages. The only shortage may be attributed to its lack of current technology. By the time everybody is talking about color screen, multimedia or wireless imaging, it is really hard for 8210 to find much space. But I don't care, I think I can still use it for another 2 years. My poor English may have afflicted you, but I promise Nokia 8210 won't. So why don't you give it another chance if you are tired of your 9210. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 190 89980 2000/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light impressive features easy to hold color changing covers may be too small The Bottom LineNokia 8210 is an excellent choice - it has nice-looking, long battery life and extensive set of features. Full Review I bought Nokia 8210 in 2 years one which my friends recommended me. Although some people like to change their phone because of colorful model or digital camera in the new style phone, I still like this one because Nokia 8210 is an excellent choice - it has nice looking, long battery life and extensive set of features.It is a great phone for anyone.It has more features than anyone should ever need. Aspect: Nokia 8210 looks like a toy. There is no antenna sticking out. Although the internal antenna is smaller than in conventional phones, the reception quality is very good, the sound is clear and there is no sound breakup. Size: It is only 79 grams. The phone is small to hold. Because of the phone size, the buttons are small and there is not much space between them. To protect from accidentally pushing buttons, the phone has a keypad lock function. Color: Nokia 8210 in seven colors. The phone front panel has silver and black elements.The colored covers allows you to change the color. Nokia 8210 also offers a series changeable color covers. Function: The phone allows me to dial the numbers buy saying the person name. Both talk and standby times are good.Nokia claims up to 180 minutes of talk and 6 days standby in digital mode with standard battery. The phone can store up to 250 entries in its phone book; you can store names, phone number and email address. It has a much extended function, but some of the features of this phone for me are plethora which includes the voice messaging and sent or receive email and faxes with this phone. I never used these functional before. I am not familiar with using Internet for a long time I just think maybe someone like me. Anyway, I still think Nokia 8210 is a good choice for all of you.. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 89979 2000/7/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple changeable covers elegant no mms or coloured screen memory may be lacking for some The Bottom LineAn ideal basic mobile phone. Full Review I have owned more than 10 mobile phones for the past 7 years ranging from Alcatels to Samsungs. In all my years of owning a mobile phone, my preference still lies with Nokia for their user-friendly interfaces and simplicity in designs. When the 8210 first launched, it was a huge seller because it was one of the first phones of its size and unencumbered by an external antenna. The screen is surrounded by a brushed silver frame and the front cover comes in standard blue. The back cover is black. The keypads are brushed silver too, which lends an air of sophistication (at that time at least). The LCD although small is enough to display the network logo, profile, network and battery indicators, and menu functions. The SMS displays up to 4 lines of text. The travel charger is solid and fits snugly into the 8210. The Menu consists of Messages, Call Register, Profiles, Settings, Call Divert, Games, Calculator, Calendar, Infrared and Services. The phonebook is under 'Names'. The SMS function is easy to use, especially after activating Predictive Text Input (under Dictionary) and enables the user to write up to 160 characters per message. Depending on your service provider or synchronising with a computer / laptop via infrared, the user can send pagers, faxes or emails (using the phone as a modem). Profiles are customisable, meaning I can change the name of each profile (except General or Headset) and the settings within (i.e. ring tones, volume, etc.). This phone allows up to 5 downloaded ring tones and comes with 35 default tones. I have downloaded the Sex and the City theme from a local network site and it works beautifully. Unfortunately, the ring tones are monophonic... hence you only hear a series of beeps made into a tune. The highest volume is Level 5 and that is really loud and piercing. Or I can set it to vibrate mode when I don't want to be disturbed. The phone memory allows a storage of up to 250 names and numbers. It enables users to allocate contacts either into phone or SIM card memory (the capacity of which is dependent on the type of SIM) or both. The view for the contact list is customisable as well. A shortcut to accessing the phonebook is by pressing the down arrow key while the phone is in idle mode. This phone also comes with 4 default games; Memory, Rotation, Snake and Logic. I have to admit I hardly play any of the games and find them to be a little fiddly when playing on the keypad. Some of my friends are really addicted to Snake and Snake II (available with later models). Under Settings, I can control my network preferences, phone settings and security features. It is recommended to commit your PIN or security code to memory once changed as you may have to go through quite a bit of hassle to have either unlocked. I find no use for the Calendar function eversince getting a PDA, although it comes in handy when you want to be alerted discreetly (vibrate mode) of a certain date or time. The Calculator is not that handy except when calculating currency conversions. I have tested the Infrared by beaming business cards to another compatible phone without issues. You can also play 2-way games with another person as long as the ports are pointed towards each other and within 10cm. In conclusion, this is a fantastic little phone to suit and customise to my needs. I have dropped this phone numerous times and things are still ok. If scratches appear, I can easily change the covers. I have not faced any of the 'screen fade' issues that was notorious with this model. Perhaps I got it from a good batch? Anyway, I'm thanking my lucky stars that after 3 years, it's still going strong and I never had to face a service centre. Sales Kit: Transceiver (phone) Covers (normally blue) Travel Charger Li-Ion Battery Userguide Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 7790 Nokia 918 90091 2009/12/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use battery gets hot Full Review I purchased this product because this phone came with the service plan. I have never had any type of problems with this phone. It is an easy phone to work. One good characteristic of this phone is that you can unplug it while you are talking and it doesn't turn off. The battery on these phones last a long time. This phone has many different types of rings to chose from as well as volume adjustability. You can also purchase many different colors of covers for this phone from yellow, to purple. I don't feel that there is anything bad about this phone, except that the battery becomes hot when it is fully charged and left plugged in. This phone would be good for someone who is just getting started using cellular phones because it is simple and easy to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90090 2000/1/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good features for the price great durability talk standby time less than optimal Full Review I recently purchased a Nokia 918 cell phone, and I have enjoyed it ever since. They are very durable, and offer a good range of options for a low cost. The standby and talk time is on-par with others in its class, but I occasionally wish for more standby (maybe 24 hours). I haven't had any major problems with the phone, and I have no intention of upgrading to another, with more options (and a higher cost!). Reception is excellent, in all areas which i've tried it in, and the menu features that Nokia developed are commendable. Overall this is an excellent phone that will get the job done for anyone with a fast-paced lifestyle. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90089 2009/12/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 free lightweight easy to use haven t found one Full Review I bought this Nokia 918 phone about a year ago. I really enjoy this phone. First, this phone came free with the service plan which was a big incentive to buy that plan. I didn't want to have to pay for a phone, so this phone worked out wonderful. There are many great things about this phone. It is not as small as other phones, but is still small enough to fit in a purse or bag, or even your pocket. This phone's buttons are easy to read and easy to use. This phone can store names as well as numbers for quick dialing and you can even change the type of ring or the volume of the ring. This phone's battery lasts a long time and only needs to be charged about once every two days depending on how much you use it. I have not found any of this phone's qualities to be bad. I have even dropped my phone numerous times on concrete(oops!) and it didn't hurt the phone at all. On other phones that I have used, when it is dropped, the battery falls out, the phone gets major dents or it doesn't work anymore. Not this phone! Overall, I found that this Nokia product is wonderful. It is lightweight, easy to use, and was free with the service plan. So I would definitely recommend it!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 90088 2009/12/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality display not many choices feature wise Full Review The Nokia 918 is an excellent cellular phone. This phone is very lightweight and tough. This phone can be used with two different batteries. The more lightweight battery is great for the light users while the heavier battery is good for excessive users. This phone always seems to get a pretty good signal and hardly ever cuts out. There are many nice features that come along with this phone. It is able to store up to twenty-five phone numbers with the names of the people also. It is also capable of using caller Identification. This phone has very few different types of rings, but what difference does it really make anyways? Another nice feature is that this phone is able to use the pre-paid cellular phone cards. This is great when you can't really afford cellular service plans. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90087 2000/9/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cost durability dependability none Full Review I bought this phone about a year ago because it came with pre-paid calling card plan. I find the phone to be more than dependable and very durable. I have used this phone in heavy rain and in heavy snow without ever having a problem with it. I have dropped the phone and it has been stepped on and totally abused but it keeps working just as it did the day that I bought it. The only bad part of the whole thing is the pre-paid calling card plan which is not the fault of the phone. I recomend this phone to anyone who wants an affordable phone and who wants one they can depend on. I enjoyed it so much that I have since bought two more of the same model. The first two phones were bought at a convience store in my community and the third was purchased through a long distance phone company. I really think that this is a great product and this is coming from someone that is very critical about most products and services. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90086 2009/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 handy easy to use none so far Full Review I acquired the nokia 918 in Aug. 99 .I had used a motorola cellular phone for 3 years. It was bulky and hard to travel with. I love the little nokia, it fits so nicely in my purse... or any little bag I choose to use. It is handy and can be taken anywhere. I only used the motorola when traveling but carrying my nokia everywhere. It is easy to understand programming and is very user friendly. I have found it to be durable and sturdy. I recommend all cellphone used to try it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90085 2000/2/9 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 cell phone s are convient cell phones can be a pain Full Review I have a Nokia Cell phone. I have had it since April 1999, there alot of ups & downs of having a cellular phone. About 90 % of the time when I get in the car to use it the battery is dead. Then the other 10 % of the time I'm not close enough to a tower to have service. I think the world is moving so fast that sometimes we should just take a break to make a phone call. Alot of people in ohter countries are just happy to have a roof over their heads, and us Americans spend hundreds of dollars a year on phone bills. I watched a report on television the other night on Nokia cellular phones the were saying how great Nokia is, I'm not saying Nokia is a bad cellular phone I just have not had good luck with mine. I think it is rude to be in a resturaunt and to hear someone's phone ring. I have also had some close encounters on the wide open road with unconcious cell phone user's . It's against the law in Minnesota to talk while driving. I just wish more people would obey that law. So the next time it rings be aware of your surroundings... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 90084 2000/1/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dependable if you don t have one you should get one Full Review The Nokia 918 is lightweight and and is comfortable to carry. I like the idea of the different colors you can choose from. In a crowd you can set your ringer to be different from others so you can tell if it is your call. The Nokia 918 has memory to store numbers, restrict calls, call timer, lights on display, ringing volume control, emergency key, lock code, and if you have caller ID it is compatible. The sound is crystal clear and range is great. I live by some hills and with my old cell (which was a Nokia also) I did not get clear reception. That problem is gone now. For the price and options that come with the Nokia 918 you will not find a better deal. This cell is for everyone. The battery charge on my Nokia 918 last 2 days a a time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.00 90083 2009/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight durable inexpensive good clarity in style none Full Review I first entered the wireless world when I decided to commute to and from college. I purchased a bag phone for my car, and found out I could get more use with a handheld phone. I went shopping and ended up with a Nokia 918, about a year ago. I love my phone. The main selling point that hooked me was the affordability. Other phones I was not familiar with were way to expensive for my college student lifestyle. Being a full time college student, as many of you can relate with, know how precious money is. The Nokia made it capable for me to afford a great phone. I also was sold on the Nokia 918 because of the features, sleek design, and the phone is available in various hip colors, not the boring black. So, for those independent ones that like to stand out from the crowd they can express themselves with a colorful Nokia 918. The battery life of the phone is another plus. One can have a good amount of stand-by and talk time. The phone is light weight and can even fit into your back pocket, but it is not to small to be lost. The features are numerous but not confusing. The numbers and words can be read well because they are large and bright. The clarity is great. I live in the country and have never had any trouble with clarity. I even take it four-wheeler riding with me!! For those who are technology illiterate, the Nokia 918 is very easy to operate. Believe me because I am one of the illiterate. So, those looking for an affordable cell-phone with cool colors and features consider a Nokia 918. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 (prices may vary) 90082 2000/2/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use light small simple needs car adapter short battery life Full Review I received the Nokia 918 for Christmas this year and even though I love the phone, its battery lifetime was extremely low. It was a big inconvenience for the battery to after leaving on for about 20-25 minutes accidently. I found the car adapter online for around $14.00 (including shipping) and it was one of the cheapest, but best buys that I've made. I can charge it and leave it on while I'm in the car and I can leave it on in case someone needs to call me. The battery life should improve as I have the phone longer, but I've been told that charging it for more than 8 hours at a time can ruin the battery, Additionally, I can take the Nokia 918 wherever I go - it's not restricted to the car. It is small and doesn't have all of the extra features some phones have - it dials out and lets others dial in. That's all I need, and this phone works great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 90081 2009/12/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very durable it gets bad reception if living an area where there are alot of mountains Full Review I am clumsy and sometimes my "butter fingers" get the best of me. My Nokia 918 has been able to withstand my abuse for over a year now and it still works great. It is lightweight and has excellent features. It was bought for me as a Christmas present and I must say is probably the best present my husband has ever bought for me. Although the Nokia 918 is a very good product I do not recommend it to people who live in the mountains because the reception isn't always good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00 90080 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight small not too many ringing typesmore storage of numbers Full Review My dad brought me a Nokia 918 for Christmas and I was very excited. I love my phone because it is light and small and it's easy to find. Another thing that I like about this phone is that I can hear people well with no static and the price is excellent. I also received another battery and a charger for the car. It's wonderful to have. However, I wish that it had more ringing type choices (more than 5) and I wish that it can store more numbers, but all in all, I love this phone. I think that everyone who wants a high quality phone that does not want to pay a lot of money for it, should purchase this phone. I recommend it to everyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90079 2000/1/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to operate inexpensive poor construction poor battery performance Full Review I regret to say that I am very disappointed in the Nokia 918 cell phone. I had great luck with the Nokia that I previously owned. The major complaint I have with the Nokia 918 is their battery system. After charging each battery for the initial 24 hour period the batteries would not last more than 12 hours on standby, and much less if you had to, God forbid, use the phone. I tried 4 different batteries, in two different sizes all with the same results. What made it worse is that SOMETIMES they would work as advertised, but that was on very rare occasions. I took them back to Southwestern Bell and they replaced one battery only to have it perform the same. They checked my battery charger as well as all batteries. I finally just gave up on the thing. Also it was too bulky for its power. My phone had some screws that started to work loose. It all boils down to me being very disappointed in this product. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49 90078 2000/6/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight easy to use none Full Review I own the Nokia 918 pre-pay by Trac-fone and I like it. The phone has a good long life battery and great reception. I bought the phone from radio shack with 60 minute for $100, quite a while ago. I have had no problems with the phone at all. The only complaint I have is the service is on the salty side. Its $20 for 30 minutes, but you can get other services with this model if you buy the phone at the place of service. The phone has a built in phone book that will dial up the number you wish to in your directory. The phone charges up fairly quick too. Which is good if you're always on the go. If you miss a phone call then the phone talies up a calls missed screen to inform you of all the calls you missed. All of the buttons are very easy to find and straight forward. I never recommend using your phone while driving. Cell phone drivers upset me, but if you absolutely must use it while driving, the buttons are easy to find and the phone is fairly light and small. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90077 2000/1/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 rugged price reliable peace of mind it is on the big side but so what Full Review I purchased the Nokia 918 Trakfone at Wal-mart I only wanted it for incase of emergency and peace of mind, but not for constant use. I am very pleased with the product, and it is very rugged and holds up good. For the price you cant go wrong, there is also a $30 mail in rebate. Just like you cant compare a Geo to a Rolls - Royce, you get what you pay for. I am pleased with the phone, and would recomend it to anyone who wants peace of mind, and a good phone that will make you happy. I take it Hunting and fishing with me . Recommended: Yes 90076 2000/9/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 service reliability coverage affordability signal strength size Full Review I would like to thank the Nokia company for developing the Nokia 918 series. I am proud of this great little machine. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in quality. True, this may not be the smallest cellular phone you can buy, its certainly the best buy for under $100.00. Recently I had an emergency in which a cellular phone was neccesary, I first reached for the bag phone I keep in my car, I hurriedly put it down when I got an out of range light. I figured I was in trouble, since I doubted my cell phone would be able to get a signal, but much to my surprise, I got enough of a signal to call 9-1-1. Without this phone, I'm sure there would of been a devistation in my family and I owe it all to my Nokia 918. I have used other cellular phones and none have compared to the superior quality and reception I get with the my Nokia 918. I have since eliminated the bag phones in all company vehicles and equipped them all with Nokia 918's... I could go on and on forever about this great phone. I would buy another in a heartbeat and for reliability, you can't beat it. Afterall, I trust the welfare of my family and employees with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 90075 2009/12/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight bad reception not much memory Full Review I have had my Nokia 918 phone for about 1 year. I use it regularly and am glad that I purchased it. I enjoyed it a lot, but I now wish I had picked a better phone. My friends and family have cell phones, and theirs always seem to get better reception and hold up better. If you need a cell phone for basic use, just to have a phone for emergencies, it is a good phone, but for everyday use, I would recommend putting the money into a better phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 90074 2000/11/28 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 easy answer price unreliable reception weak battery Full Review I received this phone for work. It was $9.99 with a two year contract. The price was economical no more than I use it. It does have some drawbacks. The reception is unreliable. I can be talking to someone, and then turn a corner, and can't hear a thing. The ringer volume is adjustable, but not loud enough if it is inside my purse. The battery lasts if I don't use it, but I've never had it lasts as long as the stated talk time. I do like being able to press any button to answer, that way I don't have to look at the phone to answer it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 9.99 90073 2000/4/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 backlit display no contracts or bills anyone can buy it long battery life some audio distortion Full Review First off I bought this phone because I didn't want to sign up to any contracts where companies take advantage of you, and plus this phone is a prepaid calling phone. If you have seen the prepaid phone from Phillips it looks like a phone made for a baby, wide and big buttons. With the Nokia 918, you will first have to call them up to activate your phone which takes a while to actually talk to them, but after that you only have to call them again every 2 months to refill your phone, So far I like the phone because Telecom starts you off with 10 units(10 local minutes). It is quite bulky with the supplied battery, but I suggest buying the slim battery so you can fit it in your pocket with out bothering you. SOMETHING THAT I DIDN'T KNOW THEY DEDUCT UNITS AFTER 5 SECONDS WHEN YOU PRESS SEND AND WHEN YOU PRESS SEND TO RECIEVE A CALL. The clearness of the audio is not the best but it is clear enough not to make you annoyed. This cause is because it is an analog phone. There are no digital prepaid phones right now. I consider this phone as the best of the best prepaid phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90072 2000/11/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price ease of use size antenna battery size Full Review I bought this phone for a trip,in case of emergency and was extremely surprised with how much I used it when I returned. It's small so it's easy to carry without being in the way. The features are easy to use and the menu makes everything easy to find. Since this is my first phone I can't compare it to other phones, although I have enjoyed much use from this phone. I like the find name feature that allows you to get your favorite numbers up and dial quick! The shape makes it easy to talk on. I don't like that you have to pull up the antenna,that also could get broken by accident. The battery also could be bigger it does not hold the charge as long as I would like. I would recommend this phone its easy to use and not very expensive. I have enjoyed trouble free use and expect to continue with the Nokia 918. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 90071 2009/12/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy use reliable cool colors could use a more durable antenna Full Review I work as a delivery driver, and this phone is sometimes my only link to dispatch. I use it every day, making and receiving calls all day, and I only have to charge it up once a day, when I get home from work. The area that I work in is very hilly, with lots of valleys, I have yet to not be able to make or receive a call. The Nokia 918+ is also the toughest phone I have ever used, it has been dropped on concrete, blacktop and tile floors, without fail, I know that I can pick it up and not worry about it still working. The only drawback I found is the antenna, I have had to replace mine once after dropping the phone and bent the original. The controls are very easy to use, and the display is one of the easiest to read of any phone that I have used. I would have no reservations at all in recommending the Nokia 918+ to anyone who wants a reliable and durable cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .99 with plan 90070 2000/3/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 not too expensive doesn t ring loud enough The Bottom LineGood for light use around town or in the car. Heavy Duty use should get a higher quality. Full Review I have had my Nokia 918 for about 1 1/2 years now. When I bought it, it was $99, but now the price has dropped quite a bit. It if fine for putting in a jacket pocket or purse, but a little big for your pants. I haven't had any technical problems with this phone. I live in a rural area, and it still hits the cell tower without much problem. It can have static if you get to an area where the signal drops too far, but there is a meter on the phone to let you know how it is doing. A couple things I don't like about the phone is number one: It doesn't ring loud enough. If you are walking along a street with cars driving by, you cant hear it. It doesn't have a vibrate mode. Also, the writing on the buttons wears off after a little use. I use my phone with the TracFone service, witch I find conveinent for light cell phone usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90069 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good price many features the only color is black Full Review I was in need of a cell phone and didn't now where to look , then I spotted this phone. It had a nice sleek design and a great price. It has five different rings, can store many names and numbers of friends and family, and has a light up display. It is very durable and not to heavy. There aren't very many colors to pick from I think black being the only one but the price makes up for it. This is a great phone to buy if you are not to sure about current phone technologies because it is a very reliable phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90068 2001/3/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 no contract s a bit large to carry The Bottom LineWhy be stuck with long term contract's when the Nokia 918 trac phone is available. Full Review Nokia 918 is still the very best I can find. I have talked to many people about their cell phone's. There are problem's with all of them. I for one am glad I decided on the Nokia 918 track phone. I need a phone for quick call's. I feel if I want to talk for extended period's I can use the phone at home but, should the school need to get intouch with me about my grandchildren or perhap's I want to call in a pizzia to pickup on my way home this is the way to go. Yes, I can be costly if you don't use it for quick call's but, if all you need is a way to call for help, or to be contacted about important event's in your life. You just can't beat this phone. Now to cost! I paid $19.95 for the phone at Ame's department store. I bought it on a tuesday which is senior day and received a 10% discount on that. Then I also, purchased the trac phone card for $19.99 which was a 30 minute card and I again received a 10% discount on that. Then I sent in the rebate form to trac phone and they mailed me a check for $30.00 after keeping the phone active for 90 day's. Plus, everytime I add more minute's they give me more free time. Now I did have a problem with the phone after about 6 mos. and called trac phone and they told me to mail the phone to them and if it could'nt be fixed they would mail me a new one for free. They did. In about l0 day's from the time I mailed the phone to them they returned me a new phone plus, extra free minute's for the enconvience it might have caused me being without my phone for 10 day. Now you tell me just how many cell phone companie's will give service like that. I would recommend this phone to everyone in need of an emergency type phone. I also, ordered from Nokia the speaker adapter for my car. I can talk without even touching my cell phone through this device and that make's it alot safer than haveing to hold on to the phone while driving down the road. You might even run across a great deal like I did the other day at Lowe's. They were closing one of their store's and had 40% off the trac phone card's so, I stocked up. Good luck and enjoy your phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 90067 2000/3/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 a lot of features for the price it is analoghas no battery life The Bottom LineGo with digital guys, please!?!? Full Review This was the first cell phone we ever got. It was about two and a half years ago and the phone was good at the time before new digital service and better phones came out. We have since dropped service on this phone and are now using digital service. The digital is so much more clear and is well worth the extra money for it. This phone has a lot of features for the price. Features like 5 ring tones, a keyguard, one touch emergency dialing, and so on. The phone has a terrible battery. As do most analog phones. Another good thing about the phone is the color choices. Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and Black. I would say if you are going with an analog plan that there are a lot better phones out there to get. If you get this phone I would say that you better not go home from your new purchase without also purchasing an extra battery and a car charger because the battery does not last all day on a full charge. We even had the extended talk time battery. My recommendation is to go with digital, but if analog is your choice, go with a little bit better phone. They do exist, trust me! :-) Recommended: No 90066 2000/3/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 cheap in price can t call out of servicing area Full Review I bought this product because I thought I needed one to keep in touch with my friends and family members when I'm out doing something. So far this cellular phone works great if you are within the servicing area. I love this product because I can talk to my friends and family when I am away or in the car going someone. What I don't like about this is that when you are out of the servicing area you can't call people, and people can't call you. People who go out a lot or own a car should purchase this item. That is my opinion on the Nokia 918 cellular phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90065 2000/5/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to carry small accessories poor no portable mobile antenna Full Review I bought this product for my Mom and Dad as they are getting along in years and I wanted to be able to reach them when they were not at home and visa versa. I was told that I could get a mobile antenna for this so they would get even better reception when out on the road, BUT no one told me I would have to get a glass mounted antenna (which has to professionally installed). They have two vehicles and I wanted them to have a portable antenna to move from car to car. The reception on this telephone out on the road is not that great and so now I'm going to have to invest in two glass mounted antennas for their vehicles. I suppose I have to take some of the blame as I did not specify that I wanted a portable antenna for this make and model. Anyway if they are close by the reception is fine, but if they are off any great distance I can barely hear them! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 90064 2000/1/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compatible none for me Full Review My first cell phone was a big clunky Motorolla. It was one of the first "free" phones company's were giving away with service. I said FREE??? Yah, I'll take it. Oh, what a nightmare. The phone was huge and so weird to hold. So last year I gave the phone to my boyfriend to put in his car for emergencies and went back to the dealer for a new "free" phone. The 918 was small, so it took it less space in my purse and was easy to carry on campus. Every college student knows, with books you don't have much space for anything else. It was easy to carry and came with many of the features as the "pay for" phones. And this phone is compatable with over 20 wireless carriers nationwide. So, if you have to move, it can move with you. So, when shopping for a cell phone, look for the offers for "free" phone with service, this is the phone you are sure to get. If you are given a choice, this is the winner. I have dropped this phone on the sidewalk more than once, and it is still working without a scratch. There are lots of accessories for this phone as well. Lots of fun, and trendy. The only time I had the sound go fuzzy is on a trip to a friend in Iowa, I was on I-35 in Kansas ( I am in Oklahoma ) and was surrounded by powers lines and cornfields. Perfect the rest of the time. Real winner for someone on a budget, or for a first phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90063 2009/12/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive smallish very well designed lengthy recharges slightly fuzzy connections Full Review The Nokia 918 is a stalwart of the cellular airways. A common phone that is often included with contracts, it is very dependable for the low cost for which it can be attained. It also seems quite rugged, having taken the abuse of a full years worth of use to date. The battery life is reasonably good with the metal hydride battery that is standard (approximately 1-2 hours of talk time, 9+ hours standby) but is improved if the lighter but more costly lithium battery is chosen. While very functional in its design, accessories like the car lighter adapter and synthetic leather protective cover turn this phone into a slick little number perfect for stuffing in a purse, pocket, or hanging on a belt. This analog phone is an especially good value for those living in rural areas where digital technology hasn't made an impact in cell phone quality. Overall, I think the Nokia 918 is a quality purchase for those seeking occasional to somewhat frequent use of their phone at a good price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90062 2009/12/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice thing to have around cost a lot Full Review The reason why I bought my Nokia 918 is because I am a full time college student and with me driving over 54 miles one way to school, I thought that I should have one with me just in case of an emergency. The phone is a good phone in my opinion. The reception was great except a few times when I was roaming. Everyone thinks that they are a toy phone and call every one in the world with it all the time, but it gets very expensive. I should know because I was one of them people at first until I got my first phone bill of $784.53. I was not a happy camper. The thing I love about this phone is that it is small enough to hang on to and not loose it. You also can change the ringer so if you are with someone that has the same phone you will know what phone rings if you have different ringers set on your nokia. The thing I hate about this phone is that it don't have all the funky front coverings like the smaller nokia's do. I think that people who know the responsibility and risk of having a cell phone. Like us adults. Lately I have seen teenagers with cell phones and their parents are not happy when they get the phone bill because they call all of their friends all of the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90061 2009/12/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 flat lightweight slim bright in color none Full Review I bought this phone because I liked the thinness of it and the easiness of operating....the window and writing in the window is large and easy to see. It's size is a plus for my small hand. It offers options to meet everyone needs such as various rings, caller ID, timers, call registry etc.. I had a choice of colors, which are not dull. I chose RED! It is the perfect size to slide into side pocket of purse and not be seen and not too big to wear clipped to waistband or shirt pocket. I am impressed with the length of time the battery stays up and how fast it is recharged. Recommend it highly!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00-Upgrad from last phone. 90060 2009/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long lasting standbytalk time light weight cristal clear sound always having to take the book around if your a forgetful person Full Review The Nokia 918 is the best phone for a man or a woman on the go. I'm always on the move and I need to keep in contract with alot of people and make alot of arrangements during any given day. The Nokia extended standby and talk time allow me to do this. I have almost all the accessories for my phone, but even on days that i forget to take my car jack, my phone has never gone dead. I also usually have alot of people to call, so the extended memory space really comes in handy for storing all the number I need. I almost love it light height and the games feature that comes with the package, you can also receive and send e-mail, that beats having to wait to get to your computer. The ring selection is also great, they have songs for every season and all types of beats.I alarm setting allows you never to be late for those important meetings. I has about a dozen more feature that I'm still exploring. The only inconvenience is having to carry the book with you, because with all the features you sometimes forget how to do something and you have to look that up, but even that's not too bad because the instructions are really easy to follow. The clarity is also much better than my old phone the Ericsson. I have never gotten cut off and I hear the person I'm talking to cristal clear and vice-versa. If your a person on the go this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90059 2009/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great memory sometimes loss of signals Full Review I got a Nokia 918 for my birthday two years ago, I really enjoy my phone. It's a great thing to have because I live in the snow belt and in is good for emergencies (such as bad weather and accidents). I has great memory on it, I stored all my most used phone numbers on it and it helps a lot to have them with me at all times. Last winter my husband took the phone with him to work, but when he was cleaning off the car the phone fell out of his pocket and was lost in the snow. It then got plowed into our side yard. The following spring my husband found it in the side yard and when we turned it on all the numbers that were stored on it were still there. It was so awesome and we had the phone reactivated and has worked fine ever since! Thanks Nokia for a great phone!!!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90058 2000/1/4 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 nice size looks nice weak cheap Full Review The Nokia 918 is a good looking phone and is nice in size, not too small and not too big. The major down fall to this phone is that it is a .4 watt phone. This phone is very weak. The reception is the worst. The price is not bad because what can you really get for fifty dollars anymore. When you really need a cell phone you want it to work and not tell you that you get no signal! This phone is not the worst phone in the world but I would not recommend it to anyone. My father sells cellular phones of all kinds so I do know what I am talking about when I say this. So when buying a cell phone spend the extra fifty dollars and get a good one!!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 90057 2000/2/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid made for an inexpensive cell phone a prepaid phone that works in rural areas not at pickup setup takes patience time ticks off when you first start dialing The Bottom LineIf you want emergency service, and don't cell-yak all the time, this is the cheapest-- ratewise--cell phone out there. And it's really a solid phone with 99% nationwide coverage! Full Review I came upon this cell phone shopping at Wal-mart's one night, and started not to buy it. I previously had a bad experience with the Philips Isis Phone not living up to expectations by not working in the rural area I live in. But the price was right--$39.99--and so I said What the Hey, I'll give it a try. I'm glad I did. I now own a phone that offers great clarity--even though it's analog, and offers me emergency cellular service in my car for as low as $7.99 a month. Not Bad. Not Bad at All. That is, if you have the patience for its initial setup. They give you this 800 number to call, and a voice mail system answers telling you you have a wait of 40 minutes for an operator (I hope you have a phone in the house with speakerphone) Then the operator has you punch in about quazillion numbers to program it. No Joke! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 90056 2000/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 comfortable keys easy to use good voice clarity too basic too large horrible talk standby time bad display soft ringing volumes The Bottom LineI would not recomend this phone to a true friend. It's just plain. Not recomended for busy people. Full Review Let's get started. When you first look at the nokia 918 picture on the box, it looks pretty neat. STOP! Looks aren't everything. This phone is above 7 ounces, which is pretty much now-a-days. It's pretty bulky as well, mainly because of the battery. When you walk around, this phone might swing about(depending on pants) which is very annoying. Bringing the phone in public can be pretty embarasing as well. The Buttons are spaced out pretty well. This makes it easier to push a button without touching another one. The Display is quite disapointing, considering that it has 2 lines that can display up to 8 characters. It has no support for graphics. You have a tiny choice of 5 ring tones. They all are very short and boring. You can bearly hear it ring at the mall, even at "High". The phone is easy to use, with a 75 space phone book. I don't like it though because it is too basic. Not like the Nokia 5165. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90055 2000/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durability features price none known yet Full Review I needed a cell phone to because of traveling so often to hospitals for my daughter. The Nokia 918 had the best price and lots of features. It is durable. One big reason I love this phone is because you can use it with the tracfone service. There is no monthly fee. You purchase the tracfone prepaid phone cards and program them into the phone then use them as needed. It is based upon units. For example 30 units is $19.47. you may call anywhere and its 1 unit per minute. If you are roaming it is 4 units instead. This includes all taxes air fees and other charges. You always know what you have used and how much you have left. If not used the units carry over. You never loose the units. The phone has keyguard to keep from accidently making a call. It has 5 different types of rings. It has silent ring. You can even store 40 names and numbers. This phone has never sounded fussy while speaking. I have always had a clear connection. This phone has certainly saved me many times. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 (then a 30. rebate) 90054 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features needs vibrating ring mode Full Review We purchased this phone because we had a bag phone and needed to carry a phone for emergancy only use. Of course it is used more than that!! We love it. It has many great features. One of which is our favorite..the 5 different ring types. Our daughter, 16 mths, loves to dance to the ring #5. I love the easy access menu. Love the 3 different timers. Love the keypad lock. This phone is so easy to use and small enough to fit into your back pocket. Reception is good. We have traveled 9 hours by car from home and this phone kept us in touch. My only complaint would be that it does not have a vibrating ring that can be used when you need a silent phone. I would definately reccomend this to anyone that is purchasing a phone for the first time or someone who, like us, wanted to get rid of a larger phone for a small one. This phone can meet most anyones needs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90053 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 little affordable phone the only con is i don t have more free minutes to use it Full Review This Nokia 918 cell phone is a great, affordable way of communication. After being with my boyfriend and using his phone constantly, i decided to get a phone of my own. Instead of choosing the phone he owns (Bell Atlantic Mobile) digital, I decided to get a Nokia 918 because of the small size and cost. Don't get me wrong, I do have Bell Atlantic Mobile service which is great. The service is great!! With Bell Atlantic Mobile Service I get free weekends and evenings all year!!!!As a college student, I am always either in the car, at work, or in class. I am never out of touch with my friends or family members. I do find the lay-out of the buttons easy to use while in the car. The main reason I purchased this phone is because I own a pager also, and constantly get pages when it is not convenient to use a phone. Overall, i love using the phone in the car and in public places, i feel important. I love this product because it is small and affordable. I don't like the way that you never know how many of your free minutes you have used. You should buy this phone because it is awesome!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.00 90052 2000/1/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features small lightweight occasional fuzzy spots Full Review I bought this phone for $35 with free activation to my local phone company. They had only a few phones that you could get for that low price, so I was a little skeptical at first. This phone has really worked well for me. It came with a cigarette lighter adapter and an electrical charger, so I can charge the phone up in the house or in the car. It is also extremely lightweight and goes easily in my purse or diaper bag. I get very good reception on the 918. I have a similar phone of a different brand that does not get as good a signal. I live in a very rural area with a lot of hills and valleys. I have got atleast a partial signal almost everywhere. The Nokia 918 has given me a greater sense of security. I am no longer afraid of being stranded or broke down when I travel alone with my children. I also travel more at night. I love the phone's memory feature. I have all of my friends, family, and emergency numbers programmed in. I also like the fact that when I dial numbers, it doesn't make that annoying beeping sound. It makes it a lot less obvious if you are calling in a public place. This is a phone for just about everyone. It is great to carry everywhere with you, or just to stay in your car. It could easily be used as an "only phone" in the home as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 90051 2000/3/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight small multi purpose affordable great controls easy to use power button awkward to use at times Full Review Nokia a well known reputable cell phone company and one of the best in Canada has again showed us that cell phones are not complicated. The Nokia 918 is easy to use and understand for anyone and does not lack features that you would expect from a celluar phone. We got our Nokia 918 from Radio Shack in Truro, Nova Scotia and it was free to us and it has never failed. After having it for eight months it has never had to be repaired or looked at once for any reason. It has a great 40 number memory and you can even input the person(s) names. A large display screen with easy to read numbers and buttons. It has a nice menu of features with ringer/tone volume control and five different unique rings. Great with finding signal and a good battery low warning. It is also light weight, I can carry it to school now and then and forget I even have it in my pocket until I need it! Quick charging and easy to use features make it a good phone for the average user to any business. It is a recommended Nokia product and another great reason to have a cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE! 90050 2000/1/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 call waiting key guard speed dial ringer change short battery life Full Review I had been desperate to finally go out and pick my new cell phone. I know how convenient there are, and they are especially handy in an emergency situation. I chose this particular phone mainly for its good looks. It is small enough to carry in your pocket, yet big enough to keep track of. Plus, if you do carry it in your pocket or purse, you can activate the key guard so no accidental calls are placed just by the touch of the end button. I love the different features that are included with the phone, such as the call waiting feature. The phone will beep to let you know you have another incoming call, and an added feature to this is the caller id, which can allow you to decide who you talk to and who you ignore. There are also several different rings you can choose from on the phone. If you get tired of listening to one, you can easily switch to a different one. Another feature that I love that makes dialing a lot more simple is the name and number storage. You can type in your most frequently dialed numbers along with the name of the person, and it is entered into speed dial. The only real complaint I have about the phone is its battery life. The battery that comes with the phone only lasts a few hours before needing recharged. I highly recommend this phone to anyone who is a first time buyer, and to anyone who just wants a good looking, easy to use phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ plan 90049 2000/2/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 does its job i have a phone when i need one occasional static short battery life Full Review Well, by now, it's rather large, inefficient, and doesn't have a pretty little LCD screen on which I can play "Tetris". But my Nokia 918+, which mom gave me two years ago when I got my license, still gets the job done. I've had a few problems with the battery; it seems to drain rather quickly, particularly when I leave it on in case of an incoming call. I bought a cigarette-lighter-charger, but it was the most useless piece of equipment I've ever purchased. Instead, I have a Motorola AC adapter, and as long as I frequently plug in the phone, it lasts long enough for my needs. As far as functions are concerned, it has the basic ones- phone book w/ naming feature, etc. I hate keyguard, but it has that as well, in addition to a lot of other features that I've never really used. As far as the size is concerned, it's not too bad. Some friends of mine boast some real old-school cell phones that we've dubbed "the shoebox", but mine is still considerably larger than a StarTac or its kin. However, since I don't carry it around (it's primarily for car use), size is rarely a problem. There are a wide range of peripherals for it, too, like larger batteries, vibrating batteries (silent alert), hand-free talk kits, etc. When all's said and done, it's a basic cell phone. It does it's job. It's battery occasionally has left me hanging, and the clarity isn't perfect, but when its battery is fully charged, it gets the job done. Recommended: Yes 90048 2000/3/30 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 uhhh hmmmm some options are inoperative Full Review Would someone please explain why the built in features on this phone, and designed SPECIFICALLY for this phone, don't work?! The security feature, to prevent theft and usage by an unauthorized person, DOESN'T WORK ON THIS PHONE!! Nor does the calling card feature, or even the function to restrict calls! My question- Why are these here if they are unable to function. I went to my dealer, he said call the manufacturer, and when I did, all he could say was, "We are aware of this problem and are putting in our best efforts to remedy this matter" and when I asked if he knew WHY they don't work, he didn't have a clue. What is going on with this phone? This phone was a waste of money for me because the features I wanted in this phone, and I thought it had them mind you, don't work. Why? I dunno. But if this is the case with all Nokia phones, then maybe I'll switch to Motorola and see if their phones work the way they are supposed to. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.88 90047 2000/3/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 free short battery life Full Review To start with, I didn't even buy my product; my parents gave it to me. The funny thing is, they didn't buy it either; it came with the cell phone service. I'm sure many of you know how over protective your parents are and how your mother seems to worry about everything all the time no matter what it is about... So imagine your mother lending you the Chevrolet Suburban to go to school and saying, "Call me when you get there so I won't have to worry if you got there safely." Sound's embarrassing, doesn't it? Well, that's something I had to live with for about a year and a half of my high school career. Soooo, every morning when I got to school, if I remembered, I'd whip out the phone from my center console and call my mother. That was all the phone was good for. I don't care if Epinions says that this phone gets 15 hours of standby, or 75 minutes of talk time... I never got that much time!!!!! Sometimes, I remember going out and leaving the phone on because I was expecting a phone call, and it lasted about 4 hours on in standby! By the time the call actually came, my battery was dead!!! Now isn't that an oxymoron for what a cell phone actually stands for?!?! So, eventually I gave up as using it as an actual phone... It's best suited for making calls when they're absolutely needed. After a while, my little brother got his own cell phone. It's an Audiovox, so it's not as prestigious as a Nokia... but let me tell you, it's a lot better of a cell phone than my Nokia. He leaves the thing on all day long... heck, he uses it as his personal phone... One time I took it down to New York City and I left it on all day and it barely took a dent out of the battery meter. I got calls from my friends on that day; something I was never able to do on my Nokia. This is my experience with it, but maybe Nokia has improved on it since I had mine. Hopefully I did, because I'd never think of buying one again. Recommended: Yes 90046 2000/2/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 see 1 5 above could use better lighting in keypaddisplay Full Review The Nokia 918 was not my first choice for a new replacement cell phone. When my contract came up for renew. After having spent 2 years with a model I grew to loathe. My first choice was a Star Tac. Lucky for me I was able to use my sisters for a weekend and was really disenchanted with the phone. My Cellular carrier was offering the Nokia 918 free with new or renew contracts. I went ahead and tried it out and was amazed at the overall quality of the 918. Easy to use, easy to program and sound quality is great even when I'm on the factory floor at work. I invested in a couple of extra batteries and the drop in charger. If your looking for a durable easy to use phone the Nokia 918 is worth trying. My 5 top favorite features: 1] Great reception and performance with the antenna collapsed. 2] Depressed power button makes accidental shutting off of the 918 low. 3] Easy one hand operation. 4] Decent battery life with the long term batteries. 5] Clarity of sound. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ contract 90045 2000/6/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability low cost not digital analog Full Review The Nokia 918 is a great choice for those who don't need a digital phone or who live where digital coverage is not comprehensive. The 918 is very durable, I have dropped it accidentally many times with no ill effects. Sound quality is excellent, most of the time people don't realize I am speaking to them on a cell phone. The Nokia 918 is inexpensive -- I received mine free for signing up for a year of service. I am a heavy user, averaging over 1000 minutes a month and I never have a problem with the 918. The amount of time you can use the phone between battery recharges varies depending on the type of battery you have. The NiCad battery is perfectly acceptable but is rated for only 100 minutes talk time or 21 hours standby between charges. The NiMh batteries are usually rated for 140-180 minutes talk time and up to 30-33 hours standby. The 918 is a durable, solid performing workhorse for those who need an inexpensive, high-quality cell phone and don't require digital coverage or care about the latest fads like playing Pong or PacMan on their little cell phone LCD screens. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90044 2000/12/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 durable large speed dial pay as you go plan larger model Full Review I received this phone as a gift from my mother. Now, I commend her for her choice of gift, but not as much as I usually do. You see, I liked the phone in the fact that it had a large speed dial and different rings, but it was HUGE, and not to mention a giant antenna. Now there are better points, including the ability to use a pay as you go plan (great for teens who want cell phones and no monthly bills) and it's also virtually unbreakable(trust me I speak from experience, I dropped it down a paved hill and it slide 40 feet, hardly a scratch). So to sum it up, if you don't mind the size of your phone or you kids are looking for an affordable one, this is the one to buy, if not look elsewhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 109.99 90043 2000/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable solidly made none as far as i m concerned Full Review I can't tell you how happy I am with this phone. Well, okay, I'll tell you. This is a wonderful cell phone. I've purchased two, one for myself and one for my girlfriend. The first was $10 at a garage sale, the second $30 at an online auction. At either price I consider it a great deal. The sound quality is solid, the battery life exceptional. I love the storage functions. It's easy and quick to program in the numbers of family and friends. This is also a solidly built phone. I've dropped both of these phones numerous times and, with the exception of a few small scratches on the batteries, both of them look as good as the day they left the factory. They also seem to charge very, very quickly. All in all, a solid investment and a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 (an average of the two phones I own) 90042 2000/3/27 Product Rating3.0 small short battery time Full Review The first and most obvious advantage of this phone is that its a very small phone and very easy to carry. The smallness and durability of this phone are the good sides of it. Some of the bad ones include the phone not being that clear when calling and also the battery doesnt last that long. Its not one of the expenssive phones but still its $50 which should at least get you a deacent battery. I think the new Motorola phones with voice recodnition are a real expensive deal but as soon as the price comes down, thats the item to get. They are small, clear and battery lasts over 24 hours. A great great phone. Recommended: No 90041 2000/9/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 reception cheap features analog technology only length of life Full Review Sometimes your first love is bittersweet. I am married to a relative technophobe. I on the other hand am a gadget lover. In my quest to have all the latest toys I treated myself to a cell phone with service through Cellular One for my birthday in March 1999. As part of the new service plan I found and liked the 918 phone. I was able to finagle it as a free perk to a new customer. Over the course of the following 12 months I found the phone to be valuable personally and professionally. It was compact enough, had plenty of number storage, good reception and decent battery life. I couldn't imagine myself with a new phone anytime soon. Unfortunately, fate had something in store for me. Almost exactly on the 13month anniversary of my relationship with the 918, she died. For unexplainable reasons there was no life in her when I went to turn her on one morning. Of course the 1year (i.e. 12 not 13 month) warranty had expired. I had to find a new phone. No matter how I tried I could not find a new 918 in any of the cellular suppliers stock in my area. I had to find a new phone. While we were together, I found the 918 to be a thing of simple (analog) beauty. Had I been able to I would have replaced the phone with the same model. Since that time, Cellular One confirmed plans to introduce digital technology to my area and I have found a new phone with tri-mode features. I will always remember my 918 fondly though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90040 2000/2/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 basic analog cell phone solid old technology a little large by today s standards pretty sure no longer available new The Bottom LineNeed a dependable backup or beater cell phone? Will retro make a come back in tech where bigger is better? Then this is it! Full Review It was my first cell phone and it was a good one for the 3 years (an eternity in the tech world!) I used it. I recently upgraded to an Ericsson A128c (see my review on that) as it was time. Although cellphone providers push digital, analog cellphone signals are still more widely used and available throughout the the U.S., especially away from metropolitan areas. The new digital phones can automatically switch back to analog if that signal is stronger but many phones cannot. Analog is still out there. Sound quality on my 918 was fair-to-good; it was usually dependable but that's up to the service provider. The most expensive cellphone won't pick up a signal that's not there. Features? Basic. I thought the 40 number/name storage was more than sufficient until I filled it up with people I wanted to call. Battery life is only good for around 20 hours while on standby (on); you'll need to keep it on the recharger at night when not in use if you keep it turned on. And yes, someone mentioned that it can take a beating and keep on ticking. I've dropped mine a few times and it's tough. Because it's about 5-6 years old technology-wise, it's a little on the big side so it'll leave a larger bulge in your jacket pocket or purse/bag. The fashion conscious among us might not like this. When I got my new phone I was hoping that I could keep this old one as a back up or sort of extension line with the same phone number. I couldn't. They somehow turned it off electronically. You could still dial 911 on it but not anyone else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 90039 2000/3/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very durable weight Full Review We have had our Nokia cell phone for 6 months now. I honestly believe this phone is made of steel. It is very durable! For the countless times it has been dropped or left in the car during unfavorable temperatures, there has yet to be any indication in lack of performance. The Nokia has a decent sound with little to no static and has many options available on it. This buttons on this phone light up pretty brightly so even at night it is easy enough to see which numbers you are pressing. The buttons are very sensitive though, especially if you don't have a case/cover for your phone. If I'm in a rush and I just throw it in my purse then when I go to take it out it shows a variety of numbers on the display screen. You can set the volume and ringing style of your phone. and with added features you can have caller ID put on it so you know the number that is calling you. If you have that particular number stored in your phone the name will pop up as well. Even if you choose not to have the caller ID option, you will still be notified when you missed a call. the display screen will say (# here) missed calls. It is a bit heavier then some of the newer flip phones, and it takes a while to get the knack of programming it but in the end it is a phone you will be satisfied with! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 90038 2001/1/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice price especially with a pkg deal 10 w activation fee heavier than some cell phones The Bottom LineThe Nokia 918 is a dependable phone and easily affordable. Full Review In Aug. of 2000, I looked for a cell phone. I wanted a pkg. deal without a large monthly bill. mainly, I wanted the reassurance of being safe in my vehicle when I made out of town trips. Most of the phones and packages. I checked into were out of my budget. Then I came across the Nokia 918 cell phone. It looks like other cell phones and even has a choice of types of ringing (plays music) etc. It has a ringer volume control on it and a call register. You are able to see who has called you when you missed a call. Also, you are allowed to store phone numbers on the phone too which is also another nice feature. You can get caller id on it as well. I got the basic pkg. and the phone cost me $10 with an activation fee. I bought a battery charger for in the car also which enables the phone to be on while it charges the battery. That was an additional fee, but well worth the money. That way, the phone is always charged. There's a meter that tells you when the battery is getting low and also a signal output area that allows you to see you high the signal is when you are using the phone. This phone is heavier than some phones and I do notice it makes my purse a lot heavier when I am carrying it around. It measures about 7 inches by about 2 inches. One more nice feature about this phone is that when I turn it on, my phone number pops up- it's nice to have a reminder on those days when your minds seems blank and you just can't remember anything. It lights up when you dial it which makes dialing some much easier! It's a thicker phone, whereas some are slimmer models. However, I would say this is a great little phone, nicely priced and it sure gives me a peace of mind when I am up and about running around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 90037 2000/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small key guard cute colors i can t think of any Full Review What can I say other than "I love it!" This phone has given me my freedom. I paid nothing for the phone when I activated to Cellular One. My other phone, a Motorola bag phone, could never compare. The Nokia 918 goes anywhere! I just slip it in my purse, with the key guard activated and go! I couldn't take my big ole heavy bag phone out of my car. This phone is tough too. It rests on my console between my front seats of my car. Sometimes it gets knocked on the floor, or smashed under my emergency brake. I've dropped it, set cups on it, I even accidentally threw it in the trash one day. It still works great. I have just one thing to say, if you're gonna get a cell phone, and you don't wanna spend any money, consider the Nokia 918 with your cellular package. I'm sure glad I did! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with package 90036 2000/11/27 Product Rating4.0 clear sound small Full Review I have many friends who own this phone too. Some of them have written opinions about it also. They were all good, let me tell you. My family use to have one of those big and ugly phones that always get in the way. They have a cord and you can't move it around too much. It literally is just a CAR phone. You can't take it outside of the car and use it. So the size is very useful in this phone. It can fit in your pocket, in the glove compartment, or anywhere else. I bought Nokia 918 for $25. It usually cost around $40 to $50. The local Wal-Mart here in Kansas was having a Cell Phone sale. So I got out lucky. But even $40 isn't that bad, plus you get 100 minutes a month. Which I don't even talk that much on it a month. So it's more than you or I need. If you are planning on using this phone outside, don't be scared of the static. The phone doesn't even have it. If you make sure to use it right you won't have any problems with this subject. You can purchase Nokia 918 in many different colors. Mine is a gray color, my friend Jessi's is a dark blue, and my other friend Jaquie's is a green one. There is also yellow, black, and orange. I personally think this is a good buy. Its not too much money and you get a lot of minutes. The phone is very convenient. It's small and looks sharp. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25(on sale) 90035 2000/2/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reception durability size price battery time Full Review Like the digital camera I reviewed, I don't actually own this product. However, if I had the dough to shell out for a cell phone, I would seriously consider the Nokia 918. Both of my parents have this model, and each time I borrow their phones I wish I had my own. I have found the general design of the handset to be user-friendly, but with enough capabilities to rival any more complicated model. The quick entry address book is a handy feature, and it is simple enough to program in numbers (although my parents had my brother do it...they consider him the most technically savvy member of our family). The reception is quite good and the volume is easily adjustable for a variety of background noise conditions. If I had to pick my favorite feature of the Nokia though, I would probably choose its size and durability. This phone truly can fit anywhere, yet it doesn't need to be folded. The charger which comes with it is also tiny, making the entire overall package a compact system. The one thing I would add would be MORE BATTERY TIME! Similar but more recent models add this feature and might be worth the few extra dollars. Maybe this will encourage my parents to get a new phone so I can have the old one :) . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 90034 2000/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small enough to carry in your purse or pocketvery attractive also easy to use i cannot think of any Full Review This is my second Nokia Phone. My first one still works, but when I signed up for another 2 yr plan, I got to get another phone so I have one for a backup. My phone works well, easy to operate, and easy to handle when you need to use it. My very first phone I had was a bag phone. They were good, but with my life style of constantly on the move running my children every where, I felt I needed a portable phone that would fit in my purse and go every where, even when I am not in the car. This phone is really convenient. My husband takes it, when he needs to, my children would take it with them when they go on bike rides ( so as to touch base with home). I have used it many times. I really like it when we travel ( especially in other states). It is comforting to know that if you need assistance or help, you do not have to get out of your car to use it. I keep my phone charged at all times, in case, for example, if your car dies and you cannot get it started, at least you can still use your phone. With the bag phones, if the battery dies, you cannot use your cell phone. I would not be with out one. My phone was free when I signed up for a 2 year plan. Like I said before, every time my agreement comes up for renewal, I sign up for another plan and then get another phone. It doesn't pay to fix the phones, they are very inexpensive to purchase if need be. Or do as I do, just use the new one that you have put away and forget about fixing the old phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free with 2 year agreement plan. 90033 2000/12/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the size is perfect of course it doesn t have all the modern features Full Review I actually got this phone in a Tracphone kit. It is really easy to use. It is also the perfect size, small enough to fit well in a purse, but not so small that you fear it will break. This phone has quite a bit of features. It lights well enough to see in the dark, has a good-size phone directory, the basics: redial, speed dial, keyguard, and 1 touch dialing. Of course it has a great menu which is easy to use. The menu contains: memory, find name, and call restriction. I got this phone because I am a stay at home mom and needed something so the kids teachers could reach me or if there happens to be an emergency. The prepaid option that is on this phone is a wonderful benefit. Of course it would not be logical for someone who uses their phone an awful lot but for emergency purposes it is perfect. I really don't know if they offer this phone at phone dealerships anymore but the prepaid package is really worth the $49.99 that I paid for it. This package also includes a charger for a wall plug-in and one for the car. You even get an extra battery included. It also has a prepaid amount inclosed. I would recommend this phone to anyone that does not use a cellphone often but wants the freedom and sense of well-being it can offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90032 2000/4/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 dependable sturdy small none Full Review My husband and I both have nokia cell phones, and we are VERY pleased with them! Their slim design allows us to carry then anywhere, they slip easily in my tiny purse, diaper bag, or glove compartment. My 2 year old has dropped mine on the floor, and it caused no damage, they are very sturdy phones! The buttons are easy to press, the display area is easy to read. The battery is advertised as lasting 13 hours, but mine has lasted much longer then that on several occasions. The phone has all the standard options, such as allowing you to program numbers into the memory, change the ringer tone, and keep a register of you calls. We have had no problems at all with either of our phone soin the 3 months we have used them so far! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90031 2000/9/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features antennae breaks easily Full Review My first cell phone was the Nokia 918. My wife was pregnant and we needed a way to keep in touch. We were at our local mall one afternoon and went by the GTE Wireless(now Verizon Wireless) booth. The salesperson talked up the great deal that was going on. If we signed up for one year of service the phone was only a penny. One little Abe Lincoln. We agreed and decided that we could afford to drop off two pennies that day. We opted for an additional phone with a minute share plan. It was a pretty good value. The Nokia 918 has several handy features. There are five different ring types to choose from. Up to 40 names and numbers can be stored in the memory. Thus, the memory dialing came in handy for me and my little pregnant wife. It just so happens that I was at work when she started labor so she called me on my new cell phone and I rushed home. Now we have a beautiful baby boy. When he was about eight days old, we were traveling and had a flat. It happened to be very hot that day. With my new cell phone, I was able to call someone to come and get the wife and child until I got the tire changed. This phone was a definite must for our family! The only problem I have had with my Nokia 918 is that the antennae is always breaking off. I guess that's why you get that insurance plan! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): One Red Cent 90030 2000/8/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 convenient service with no monthly bill decent phone still needs periodic reactivation phone cannot be used with other services The Bottom LineBasic cell phone service at a reasonable price Full Review First off, let me say that if you're the type of person who is ALWAYS on your cell phone as if the world would end if everyone who knows you can't reach you at a moment's notice, then stop reading this review. Nokia's Tracfone plan is not for you--you're better off going with one of the continually advertised monthly plans. For the rest of us who intend to use a cell phone for emergencies or to keep in touch when traveling, Nokia's Tracfone plan is a good bet. The set-up is fairly straightforward--the phone and ten minutes of airtime can be purchased at stores like Wal*Mart and Best Buy. You can activate the phone by calling an 800 number or by visiting Tracfone's web site at www.tracfone.com (if you activate via the website, you'll receive an additional ten minutes of time). When you run out of time units, simply purchase more from a store or from the website. A display on the phone will let you know how many units are left, and the phone will beep when time is running low. Keep in mind that while "roaming," 2 units of air time are used per minute, so plan accordingly. A small drawback is that the phone will periodically need to be reactivated by buying more time regardless of how little has been used. A solution to that, however, is spending $100 on a pre-paid card that will keep the phone active for a year and give you 100 units of air time. If the phone isn't used that often, it's not a bad deal compared to monthly service. The phone itself is relatively lightweight and easy to use. A nice feature is the address book, which allows you to plug in numbers so to be recalled and dialed with the push of a couple of buttons. The reception is as good as any other cell phone I've used. It may not look as fancy as a lot of other phones, but it does the job. If you use Nokia's Tracfone plan as a prelude to "real" cellular service, be advised that the phone cannot be used with other plans. Many wireless companies do offer prepaid service, so you may want to go that route. But if you just want to have a phone handy, then Nokia's Tracfone plan is worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 + airtime 90029 2000/12/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fairly compact low cost durable recharging required often finding accessories Full Review The Nokia 918 cellphone is a good phone to have primarily for emergency cellphone usage. I have mine hooked up to CellularOne prepaid minutes service in Chicago, IL, which doesn't require any contracts, monthly fees, etc. I obtained the phone for free and it only required a $10 activation fee for the prepaid minutes plan. I keep the prepaid minutes loaded on it to a minimum at all times ($10). With a rapid charger, it should only be charged for three hours at a time; I read an opinion that one user was noticing the battery was losing ability and that the user would recharge it overnite or 8-10 hours at a time. I was told not to charge it overnite, and Nokia's instruction manual states the same thing, i.e. don't overcharge the battery. It should also be allowed to totally discharge itself by leaving it on, and then recharged. The drawback, then, is the phone needs to be checked and recharged fairly often, even when it's not in any use. Nokia says the battery will run down within a week with no usage at all. I have a Motorola flip-phone which I use in the same limited manner, and it only needs to be recharged every couple of weeks, based on my very limited usage. Also, finding and buying accessories (extra batteries, chargers, handsfree setups) can be somewhat frustrating and pricey because Nokia has come out with more advanced models. P.S. (12/09/00) You can get a downloadable copy of the instruction manual for the Nokia 918 on Nokia's website for free (Adobe PDF format). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90028 2000/7/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight easy to use none Full Review I recently bought a cellular phone. When I was looking around for one, my cousin told me about the Nokia phone she had just bought. So I checked it out, it's a really nice phone. I absolutly LOVE it, mainly because it's so easy to use. The only thing that can be a pain in the butt about the phone is getting t activated, but that's it. It's so easy to use that my mom, who doesn't understand cellular phones can make a call and even program it. Another good thing about the Nokia is, it can hold up to 40 phone numbers in it, like a phone book type thing. Plus you can put your friends and or family on speed dial so you can call them without having to dial the number. Another thing that's good about it is it has 911 already programed so if you have an emergency just hold down the "9" and you'll get connected. The price of the phone is also a fair price. Mine was $40.00, which I think is a good price for a cell phone. But some places they could be more or less than that. I think that the Nokia is an easy, lightweight phone that anyone could use, but don't take my word for it, if your looking to buy a nice phone that's easy to use then I would suggest the Nokia 918!!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 (plus tax) 90027 2000/6/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use offers basic features very durable good where digital service isn t available phone too old to reprogram for current service plans overheats too much tracfone too expensive The Bottom LineIt's a good phone for basic or beginning users. Most people would find this useful enough, but power users like me want something more. Full Review I have used three Nokia 918 cellular phones in the last year and a half. None of them were replacements, but three family members and I have them. The phone is very easy to use, and has a good deal of features for it's simplicity. I have found this phone to be very durable. I know about four different people who use this phone, and the one has a habit of dropping mobile devices. PDAs, cell phones.....If it's portable, they've dropped it sometime in their life. This phone has been dropped on our concrete driveway countless times getting in and out of the car, and still works like new. It has a small crack near the antenna area, besides that, it's very durable. Speaking of the antenna, many people have noted that it's weak. The antenna on this phone is thicker than most phones you will see. I consider myself an expert on cell phones and their technologies, and I could state that very popular digital Nokia 5100 series that I see a LOT of people with have thinner, weaker antennas. Another one of the phones was dropped in between the car seat once, after a struggle in there, it also has faced no future problems. We got the phone for $19.95 through TracFone Prepaid Wireless Service. The cards are somewhat expensive, if you compare their prices per minute to a contract price per minute. However, not being bound by a contract is a very nice insurance, in case you would want to cancel without a large fee. The phone has excellent reception for an analog phone. I was quite surprised when I first used it to find very little static. Friends of ours live in a rural area where they cannot get digital service at home, despite that they have been using the digital service for a number of years. When we visit, we receive a weak, but usable connection. My biggest complaint about the Nokia 918 is an overheating problem. When I use the phone for a small 5 or 10 minutes, the area where you put your ear and the battery become extremely warm. I have experienced this on the other phones, and I assume it's a problem that Nokia simply didn't fix. The heat doesn't really bother me, except that it's something that I feel should be fixed. I've seen conflicting reviews of Caller ID and Voicemail in reviews. I can quickly clear this up. The Nokia 918 phone has support for both of these over the analog network, however, most analog networks do not support those features. So, a few people get these services, while others don't. This phone is most commonly used for TracFone service, and their network in our area is provided by Alltel, who does not support analog Caller ID and Voicemail services. Overall Review: Good for beginners and basic users. But people who like gadgets and electronics will find it to be too simple and not contain enough features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 90026 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 low price stays charged for a long period of time great phone none Full Review I am impressed with my Nokia. It has been through so much. For the first 6 weeks of it's life, it had been used for work purposes at a Lawn Service company. It got dirty, got dropped, banged, and left in a hot truck all day long (with no cover). That's when we decided to buy a protective cover for it. It doesn't take very long to charge. I usually charge it for about 2 hours. I used to own an Ericcson mobile phone, but the battery went dead constantly. I don't have this problem with my Nokia, even though I own the cheapest model. The sound quality is as good as the phone in my bedroom. It's small and lightweight. The buttons are easy to read. As a matter of fact, I recomended this phone to my 84 year old grandfather. He is a first time cell phone user. I didn't want him to have too many hassles with his mobile phone. It stores up to 40 phone numbers and names. And, has 5 different ringing choices. You just scroll through the phone numbers until you find the one that you want. And finally, the price is cheap as you will find. I paid $99.00 for mine at Cellular One. But, the price has gone down since then, to about $50.00 dollars. You won't be getting a phone that vibrates when it rings, but it's still the best deal around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 90025 1999/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long batt free life clear loud fragile antenna analog Full Review The Nokia 918 has served me well. I've had the phone for a little over a year and I have yet to have a major problem with it. I'm in an area where there is no digital service, but this phone certainly has a digital feel. It's clear. 'Nuff said. Even in the 'sticks', the quality is very good. Another nice thing about the phone is that it is loud. The ring is loud, and even better, the speaker is loud. One thing I hate about some phones that you have to practically go into a sound proof room to hear your conversation. Not with the Nokia. I work for a television news station. We recently covered local elections, and had to do some phone in interviews. In a very loud, bustling room, the 918 was easily heard by the interviewer and he didn't even have to cover his other ear. I was impressed. Another nice feature is that the keypad lights up. Something which I love about the phone is that it is big. I hate the phones which are smaller than the palm of your hand. They are so hard to use and frankly are annoyingly small. Finally, the battery lasts forever... An accessory i have for the phone which has probably kept the phone from getting broken is the nice leather/pleather case/beltclip/cover for the phone. It stays on the phone all the time, and allows for me to dial and talk without removing it. It also protects the phone from damage and scratches. One problem I've encountered is that the antenna is weak. I've bent it a few times. However, it has seemed to last. Overall, it's a great phone. The service i have (cell one) sucks, but thats another story. Happy calling. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 00 90024 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great clear reception none Full Review Nokia, what a name for a great phone. I bought the nokia 918 for my son who is 17 years old. He just had surgery on his foot and needs to return to school soon. Anyway, I bought him the phone so he could contact us for emergencies. Well it was the best darn investment I have made in a long time. The Nokia is very clear, sharp and a large roaming distance. The phone is perfect in size and very easy to use. I thought for sure we would have problems using the phone at such a distance . When he calls home it sounds as though he is right in the same room. The best part is I paid 44.99 for the phone and Ames has a 30.00 rebate on the Nokia 918. So all in all I end up paying 14.99. I would walk a mile to save a penny. The battery life on the Nokia is 21 hours which is also great. Fully charges after 6 hours. I have contacted their service department concerning the warranty paper work and had nothing but a delightful expereience with them. I can't say one bad thing about the Nokia 918. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 44.99 90023 2000/6/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to program prepaid option prepaid minutes more expensive Full Review I wanted a cell phone because I do a lot of big city highway driving and my car is several years old. I wanted a cell phone for emergencies, so I didn't want a monthly fee. I opted to buy the Nokia 918 with prepaid service through TracFone. The phone is easy to use--it has a 40 number phone book, auto dial for 911, a keypad lock, a PIN call option (to lock others out from using the phone), and a backlit keypad and screen. It is not as small as some cell phones, but it easily tucks into a purse or on a belt. I paid $79 for mine at KMart, then received a $30 rebate from KMart and a $30 rebate from TracFone, so my final cost was $19. The prepaid cards are easy to use, you dial the service number and give them the serial number on the card and it is added to your time on your account. The phone tells you how many minutes are left each time you turn it on or complete a call, and when you need to add more time. The cost per minute is higher than many monthly plans, but if you don't plan to make lots of calls, you come out ahead because there is no monthly fee. This phone charges fairly quickly, and has about a 2 hour talk time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 90022 2002/3/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 excellent menu functions well nice appearance durable dropped calls poor battery life sound isn t clear The Bottom LineI would keep shopping for a better than average product if I were you. Full Review If you are shopping for a new wireless phone and you can't get digital, this is one great phone. But if you CAN go digital, do it!! My husband and I bought two of these phones in early 1999 and we signed-up for a two year contract with the cellular service. We were content with our phones for the first year or so. But during this second year, we started shopping around for new phones to buy when our contract expires. Wow, the new phones are much lighter and smaller than this one. Their features are unbelievable and the size... tiny. The new phones have a MUCH longer battery life, clearer sound, less call-drops and greater capabilites. First of all, when you arrange your mobile phone service - I would strongly recommend signing a contract for ONE year or less. Two years is just too long. The technology changes so rapidly that even one year is long, but after having these phones for nearly 2 years... they seem ancient in comparison to the new ones. Our phones are analog, we hate that. Digital is so much better for quality and reliability. Analog doesn't allow for crystal-clear, land quality sound and calls are often dropped - the PRIMARY reason for our analog hatred. The size of the phone is average. It's fine if you like to carry one in your purse, but if you prefer to wear it on your waist, like my husband did, it's just too long. I wouldn't say the phone is very heavy, though, just the size is a bit large. It is a thin phone, just longer than most. The menu features on this phone are great. The different rings are a nice option. I have a directory of numbers stored in my phone, the excellent part is having the names and numbers stored. I just press the alphanumeric key to show the numbers ascending by name, scroll down and hit send twice to make a call. I love that feature but the truth is, it's available on any new wireless phone out there. The phone is very easy to use. And the Nokia owner's manual is also very well organized and easy to understand. I have found it very helpful. I would recommend this phone to someone who doesn't have access to digital or someone who doesn't mind putting-up with dropped calls. If you will use the phone for frequent talking, the sound quality just isn't there because it is an analog phone... digital is 1000 times better. But for the price it sells for now, it's a decent deal. But there are incredible deals on digital as well. NEW PHONE UPDATE: My husband and I just bought 2 Motorola Talkabout T2260's (also rated) and they are outstanding!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 90021 2000/10/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use menu sturdy construction kind of big as cell phones go Full Review This phone is a solid performer. Where I work I sell a ton of these phones, and very few have ever returned with problems. It was this proven track record that influenced me to get the 918 when I was ready to get a new cellular service back in '98. I got this phone for one penny while signing a one year contract, and it was a fantastic phone the entire time I kept the service. There are a few things about that make it so great. First, it looks good and can have a different color face put on it if you like. Second, it can take a few drops in stride. I was putting up stock on day on an eight foot ladder and knocked it off my hip. It hit the concrete floor, and the battery shot off. I just knew it was busted beyond repair. To my surprise, there was only a small scratch where it slid. I put the battery back on a made a call. Third, it has a great interface. You can easy read all the letters on the screen, and moving around in the menu is easy. It even stores the name and number of up to 40 people. I recommend this phone to anyone who isn't looking for every bell and whistle on the market, but wants a reliable phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .01 with 1 year contract 90020 2000/11/1 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 it fits in my purse this is better than no phone at all the battery goes dead after talking for ten minutes everything The Bottom LineDon't worry with this phone unless you want a headache. I wouldn't want anyone else to go through this. You can't even talk for ten minutes!! Full Review I always heard Nokia made the best phones, Boy was I wrong! I got a new cell phone. I had always heard that Nokia is a top brand among cell phones. All this phone has done is give me a headache. When you talk on it the battery goes dead after ten minutes of talking. I leave it on the house charger and it says that it is fully charged but it goes dead. I have it plugged into the car jack while I am talking and it still goes dead. You can't talk long. You had better say what you have too before it goes dead! I'm not kidding. It doesn't even last ten minutes. The signal tower is always up high so I should be able to hear. WRONG!! This phone always has static. I am in the calling area. The volume control on the phone doesn't work. You can just barely hear the person that you are talking to. The sound on this phone is awful. It does fit into my purse. I don't put it in there. When it is in my purse, you can't hear it ring. This phone is junk. I hate it. If I didn't have a contract signed I would turn it off and get another one. After the contract runs out, It will go off and I will find a phone that I like much better than this one. This one will be in my son's toy box. That is all that it is worth. All this phone has been is a headache. It is cheaply made. It has fallen out of my purse and the edge has broken on it. The battery doesn't stay charged long enough to have a conversation with anyone. (Even when it is plugged in, it goes dead!) You can't even talk for ten minutes! That is horrible! The phone always has static in it. The volume control doesn't work. I am not happy with this phone at all. I wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone. The only thing that it might be good for is an emergency. But you had better hope that you can hear. It is not a good phone. Thank you for reading. Have a good night! Kimberly Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30 90019 1999/11/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable affordable battery life is only adequate Full Review The Nokia 918 analog cellular phone is a real work horse. If you live in an area without digital service and you're hard on phones, this might be the right phone for you. We've had this phone for nearly two years and have done just about all the things it says not to do in the instruction book and the it still works as good as new. We are in a very rural area with spotty analog coverage and needed a reliable cell phone for mobile communications and emergency situations, so it didn't make sense to get a top of the line phone with features that we couldn't use. This phone serves us well and I'm amazed at it's clarity. We got the leather protection sleeve and mobile charger as accessories. The car charger is a must have since it doesn't have much battery life between charges. However, battery longevity must be good since we're still using the original battery. Specs and features for the 918 with standard battery: 75 minute talk time 15 hour standby time 6.7 ounces Caller ID Dialed, received, missed calls display Keypad lock On-screen battery indicator One-touch credit card dialing Voicemail capability One-touch dialing One-touch message retrieval One-touch emergency dialing Phone book stores 40 names and numbers On-screen notification of roaming status 5 Distinctive ring tunes Available in black, blue, green, red and yellow It doesn't have built in games or a calculator, but anyone that wants a reliable, affordable, basic phone that is easy to use and durable should consider the Nokia 918. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90018 2000/2/24 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 i simply love this phone none yet Full Review My husband and I have had 5 cell phones in the last 4 years and so far the Nokia 918 is by far the best one. It's tough and durable, which we need since my husband works as a mechanic/tow truck driver and isn't known for being gentle on his equipment. It has a relatively compact size, important to me since I carry it in my pocket or a small purse. I can charge it quite fast, within an hour it has reached full charge on my phone. I love the keyguard feature on here since the other phones I have had would dial numbers just from being bumped and the timers for both life and last call are helpful to my husband. The numbers are big enough to be able to dial without hitting more than one at a time and it is just an all around better phone. By far the best deal I have seen to date. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): I think $75 90017 2000/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 extremely clear very durable no caller id Full Review As I see my friends and even my parents buying all these new fancy cell phones, i don't feel jealous at all; because I think my Nokia 918 is still the most reliable phone in the market today. It may not have the fancy face plates or creative rings that some of my friends may have, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. My activities on the weekends tends to take me to many remote places around my city where many phones do not get good reception. Usually, i find myself loaning my phone out to all my friends because their "fancy" cell phones can't pick up a signal. Along with being reliable, this phone is extremely durable. I can't tell you how many times I have dropped this phone, it's been through a lot. However, it hasn't missed a beat, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. This phone also has some of the greatest reception I've ever experienced with a cell phone. My father has one of the newer Nokia models, and he has to stand outside and walk around just so he can hear the person on the other line! No such problem with my Nokia 918. I can take it just about anywhere and have perfect clarity. So, if you're in the market for a new cell phone, I urge you not to just go for the newest or best looking model out there, go for reliability, and the Nokia 918. Recommended: Yes 90016 2000/8/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable affordable not too small compact buttons push easily ringer is irritating Full Review The Nokia 918 came free with the cellular plan we purchased. And what a deal that was! This phone has been hauled around in my car, in my back pocket, in my backpack, and anyplace it fits - and this phone fits just about anywhere. It's small without compromising its feel as a phone. I've used other small cell phones and they were not comfortable at all. My phone is great - easy to grab while driving or on the run. The ringer is very, shall we say, *distinctive,* and plenty loud enough - in fact, it scared me the first time I heard it - but it's easy enough to change if you play around with it a bit. This little thing is pretty tough too - it has been dropped a few times, and nothing has compromised its functioning. I do not usually keep it on all the time, but on the occasions when I have had to, it just needs to be recharged about every other day. This isn't a problem except for on weekends when I would go away and need to lug along the charger. I've never had a problem with the sound on this phone except for one time when I was calling someone from inside a metal building. I do find that I tend to hear people better on this phone than they hear me. I used it quite often, too, because this cell plan has a wider "free" calling area than my normal home phone plan. One issue I do have is with the keys on this phone. They are very easily depressed and I have more than once opened my bag to find a strange assortment of numbers on the screen of the phone. I just hope that it never decides to actually call these numbers :> This is a very nice (and affordable) phone for commuters, college students, moms on the go - probably about anyone. I've since moved away from home, though, and this phone is now used by my mom while I've upgraded to an Audiovox digital phone that covers the area in which I live. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90015 2000/5/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small compact easy to use analog Full Review I received this phone free when I signed up for my cellular service nearly two years ago. Right off I really liked it, it was so compact after using that old brick cell phone, I could throw this one in my purse and hardly even know it was there. The accessories kit I received was just enough for me, it came with the cigarette lighter adapter and the home charger. Since my phone is for convenience and emergencies, I never needed it out of my car, so I only used the car adapter, which worked great. My battery would be totally gone and after charging in my car for about 1 hour it would show a full charge. Another nice feature this phone has is a missed call indicator, the on screen display would show how many missed calls there were, if there were any. Finally, in this world of cell phones ringing everywhere, this phone has 5 distinctive ringers, seldom did I go searching for my phone when someone else's was ringing. I recently decided it was time for an upgrade, and since this phone is analog and my service area has become primarily digital, I can no longer use my Nokia 918 (I can, but the service area is so poor). When I went shopping I went directly to the Nokia phone, I am looking forward to receiving my new Nokia, and plan on reviewing it as soon as I get to know it. Recommended: Yes 90014 2000/6/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable none that i can think of Full Review I received my Nokia as a Christmas present from my grandmother. I know she would buy nothing that wasn't worth every last penny! It is a great phone. I have used other cell phones and this one has been one of the best. These are the good points I see in the phone: The battery lasts a long time (at least 12 hours running around all day) and I don't even have a recharger in my car and I take it everywhere I go. The reception is always very clear. There are so many different functions that you can choose. Different ringing options, caller id, keyguard - a whole list. Very durable. Mine has survived a toddler thinking that it's hers. Recommended: Yes 90013 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive design long battery life durable no monthly charges slightly bulky expensive accessories The Bottom LineA great phone for low to moderate usage at a great price without the hassle of a monthly fee. Full Review For a long time I avoided cellular phones because those nagging monthly bills can really stick it to you if you're one of those people who likes to talk while you're shopping, while you're driving, while you're brushing your teeth… I know people like that, and I also know that they have outrageous phone bills to pay at the end of the month as a result. I've often joked with them that the reason they have a part-time job with the local grocer is to pay their cellular bill. Now there is another option. Nokia (as well as several other wireless companies) has come up with the pre-paid cellular phone, a way for those of us who don't necessarily need to talk for hours on end across the airwaves to communicate what we need to when we need to. The 918 is one of a plethora of pre-paid phones on the market currently, but several features set it apart from the rest in terms of service, features, and overall usability. The phone comes with a $30 calling card when you buy it, which is good for 60 minutes of local calling time (you've nuts if you use it any more than sparingly for long-distance calls) and this should easily get you through the 3 month activation period, using the phone only in emergencies, with the occasional frivolous call to your aunt Betty to discuss sweater colors. This phone comes with a battery and an AC adapter to charge from any household power outlet. There are a number of accessories available for this phone, but beware, they cost slightly less than an arm and a leg to purchase, so unless you are a power caller and NEED that headset to talk in the car, I would advise against most of these items. I purchased a leather case for my phone to protect against scratching and overall case-wear and it set me back $20… twice as much as it should have. Phone features include: 40 name storage, 5 different ringing modes, keylock, battery life and signal indicator. The battery the phone comes with is a standard sized battery for this type of phone, an optional slimmer battery can be purchased as an option. You can expect about 21 ½ hours of standby "on" time for the standard battery and about 100 minutes of actual "talk time." For someone who needs an emergency phone for occasional to moderate use, the Nokia 918 is an excellent option, offering competitive pre-paid rates and a good looking (albeit bulky) product. My 918 has gotten me out of many a hairy situation, most recently about a week ago when I was stranded with a friend in the city, about 60 miles from home and the car wouldn't start. You never need a cellular phone until you NEED it… then it's too late. This phone now retails for approximately $49 from many vendors, more than half off the price I paid for it, and I considered it a steal back then. I have no hesitation in recommending this product, it has served me well and will serve anyone who buys it. Just watch out for those mid-morning calls to Bangkok, they're killer! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 118 90012 2000/2/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great phone to have can t easily find accessories for it Full Review We have a Nokia 918 Tracfone, and it is a great phone. There are features on it that are very impressive. For example, there there is number storage/recall which allows you to store something like 40 numbers that you can recall later. There is also a lockout type feature that you can activate so if for some reason numbers get pushed on the phone, you won't run up minutes because in order to unlock it you have to push a certain sequence of numbers. Like I said, it is a great phone to have... However, there is a problem with the phone that we don't like. It has nothing to do with reception or anything. What it has to do with is accessories for it. It is impossible to find accessories in stores unless you check out their website. An example is that we have been trying to find a cigarette lighter charger for it. We have been to so many stores that we have lost count, and we cannot find a cigarette charger for this phone. I mean, you can find Nokia chargers for other models--just not this one! We contacted Nokia and were basically told that if we want accessories for this particular phone, we would have to order them off their website. Furthermore, the charger is like $30 on their site. All other Nokia chargers can be purchased for half the price in stores... So, this is how it is. Yes, the Nokia 918 is a great phone, but when it comes to accessorizing it, forget it. It is more trouble than it is worth... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Can't Remember 90011 2000/1/16 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use lightweight hot base short battery life Full Review I recently purchased a new nokia phone, but the 918 served me well for the time I had it. It is a lightweight and slim phone. It has a screen so you can see what you are dialing and for the caller ID. It has storage capability so you can enter in all the names and numbers of people you call. It has a keyguard so that if you have the cell phone in a purse, bag or pocket, when activated, the keyguard prevents any buttons from dialing or being pressed so no calls are made accidentally. The only downside to this phone is that the talk time is not that long. The battery seems to drain at an extremely quick rate. I always find myself having to recharge. Also, because the phone is so slim, the base of the phone tends to get extremely hot while you are talking. Overall though, it is a good phone for the money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ activation 90010 2000/1/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable reliable larger than the newer phones Full Review I am a great believer in the Nokia 918, because it is the toughest phone I have ever had. If you don't believe me, I have a great story to tell. I was loading my bags one day in the trunk of my car, so I could make a trip out of town and not all of them got loaded, because my friend left before it got done. Well, little did I know, but she had left one of my bags behind my car and I backed over the bag, with my phone in it! I thought surely I have just completely ruined my phone, but nope that didn't happen. I turned it on and it actually still worked, the only problem was that the last row of number didn't work. I took it back to the place I got it and they fixed it in under ten minutes. I have never been that embarrassed to take an item in to get fixed. The phone is not only durable, but it has great features, like different rings, it lights up, has caller ID (which in my life is a must have), and comes in great colors too. When you are using the phone many times, the person you are talking to can't even tell you are on the phone. I have made important business phone calls and they never knew I was actually in route to the office. Many times, I will just jump into my car, plug in the adaptor and the phone stays under my car seat and really takes a beating. That is where the "keyguard" feature comes in. You just push two buttons and the phone activates itself to secure your phone so that you don't accidently make any phone calls that you didn't mean to make. Another great thing is that the battery has a long life and this phone is usually just a free phone to get you to sign up for their service, which for paying nothing, its great! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 90009 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 everything that people dont pay attention to the road when they are using cell phones Full Review When my wife and I were looking for a cellular phone, we couldnt make up our minds. We wanted to stay it touch when we were apart, everything was too cheap or too expensive. Then we ran across the Nokia 918. This phone had everything we needed and wanted. It had a memory so if we were in the car it would be easy to dial a number without taking our attention away from the road. It has many, many, options. From making it a recieving only, to changing ringer tones and volume. It has everything. You can lock the keypad up so only you can use it. The keys are easy to hit and the menu is self explanatory. It doesn't take long to charge up the battery either. If you drain it and plug it into the wall it suggests five hours. If you plug it into the car it takes only an hour to charge it. I use the phone every day and it is only a third drained. My day starts at 0900 and runs until 1630. I usually need to charge the phone every third or fourth day. You can also get a bigger battery than the stock battery that you get with the phone. This phone will also withstand a beating. As long as my wife doesnt read this or someone doesn't e-mail it to her I will survive. I was standing on top of my shelter, which is about ten feet off the ground, adjusting the nets. When my genious self went to grab my Gerber Pocket-Tool, I knocked the phone off my belt. It hit the ground hard. My Motorpool is concrete I was waiting for the inevitable sound of pieces of plastic being scattered everywhere. It never came. The phone only has a little scratch on the back of the battery. If you need to get a cellular phone I suggest this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 90008 2000/6/5 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 namenumber programming cheap nice looking not many features not great clarity poor battery life a little heavy Full Review The Nokia 918 is a nice-looking phone with decent, basic features. If you are looking for a basic phone without any special features you may be satisfied with it. You can store names and phone numbers and find the stored numbers easily. The menu is also easy to navigate. Two problems I have noticed, however, are 1) battery life, and 2) reception. There is a battery life indicator on the phone which tells you when it is fully charged, and when I purchased it I charged it for the recommended amount of time. However, even after the phone has supposedly been fully charged, I still end up with a quick-draining battery, and my calls are almost always under 2 minutes each. I don't even leave the phone on to receive incoming calls, and still the battery drains quickly. As for the reception, it is decent, but there are occasional annoyances of fuzziness and static. I have heard digital phones have better clarity. After owning this phone for a few months, I think I am going to purchase a small digital phone with more features, probably a Samsung or Motorola. One other thing to note - if you are at all concerned with radiation from the antenna, "clamshell" style phones have been shown to be safer based on research. These are phones which you flip open and the antenna points away from your head at an angle. The Nokia has a basic antenna which points straight up. A recent 20/20 episode showed that clamshell style phones emit much less radiation. This has also been a factor in my decision to buy a different phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 90 90007 2000/7/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 inexspensive easy to use different rings short battery life The Bottom LineThe Nokia 918 is a good phone. The TracFone service is decent, but it can get exspensive. It's a good phone/service if you don't plan to use it a lot. Full Review When we decided to get a cell phone, we didn't want to be hassled with a contract, so we checked out the Tracphone. We'd heard good things about Nokia, and TracFone seemed ligit, so we bought the Nokia 918 and a 10 minute card to go with it. The phone itself seemed very good, it had a 21 hour standby battery life and 100 minutes of talk time battery life. It is a decent sized phone, not to big and not to little. I would have liked to have gotten a different color faceplate, but it is very hard to find faceplates for the 918, but they do make them! We read through everything and plugged the phone up to charge. You only have to let it charge six hours before you call Tracphone to have it activated. When you call, hope you get an operator who talks clearly! The person I talked to didn't say the numbers clearly so some of the codes didn't work at first. You can also activate your phone online to avoid the hassle of automated customer service. You have to buy a airtime card once every month, or two months, depending on the time. A ten minute card has to be purchased every month, but if you get a 30, 100, or 260 minute, you only have to buy one every 2 months. Now, the things I don't like are my peeves and they may not happen to you. We didn't get the 21 hours of standby like the book said. We were sometimes lucky to get 10 or 11 off of a full charge. The battery just didn't seem to last that long, and we hardly ever made calls. Also, the TracFone service in this area was pitiful. Sometimes we would go on roam 2 miles from our house. We always hit roam as soon as we got into the next city, even though it was supposedly in the same calling area. Roam is a bad thing with TracFone, and the main reason why we decided to switch to a contract service. If you make or receive a call while in Roam, it takes 4 units to equal 1 unit of call time. We had to make a few calls in roam mode while on a trip, and we had to buy more airtime when we returned because we ran out of time. One other thing, if you are like us, and decide to switch to a contract service, be prepared to buy a new phone. Most companies will attempt to make your TracFone work, but TracFone puts a chip into their phones so it can't be programed into another service, even though the book you get with your TracFone says it can be. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 90006 2000/1/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight slim god sound clarity dependable none Full Review My husband and I both have a Nokia 918 cell phone, having gotten them about a year ago in a 2-for-1 deal. We have been very pleased with them. The calling range on them is outstanding, as is the sound quality. They are slim, lightweight, and very compact to fit easily into my purse. They hold a charge for a very long time, and this is very important when my husband and I go out and leave one of our phones on so that whoever is babysitting our children can reach us if needed. These phones also recharge very quickly, usually in only an hour or two, which is essential to our busy lifestyle with three kids and operating our own business. We have found this phone very dependable. The Nokia 918 was my first cell phone and I have really enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00/ for 2 90005 2000/5/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception for a regular user the battery runs out quick when using it alot Full Review This is my first cell phone and I've had it a year now. It's funny I signed up for this Epinions today just after I dropped the cell phone on the cement in the garage. I was worried that it was going to be broke and was thinking as I picked it up "How long was that extended warranty for?" When I picked it up it didn't even have a scratch on it. I was amazed! The only downfall with this certain cell phone is the battery time. But, I fixed that I have 2 batteries for mine so it's always changed and if I am going to use it a lot and I'm away from home I just bring the extra battery with me. more info added 5/6/00 Since this was my first epinion written I didn't do a very good job at it. Here are some things I missed the first time around. This phone has some good features. * 5 different rings * 2 volumes high and low * Memory storage for numbers (can't remember how many) * Name finder * calling card feature * many more It weighs under 7 ounces and easy to carry around. The one thing it doesn't have is caller ID which would be nice to know sometimes. All in all I still love my Nokia :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 90004 2000/8/25 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use simple short battery life Full Review I have been an owner of the Nokia 918 for close to three years now. I originally purchased it because I did quite a bit of driving home late at night due to my job, and the last thing I needed was to have to worry about being stranded on the side of the road in the wee hours of the morning unable to contact anyone. Most certainly, at that hour of the night you don't want to have to rely solely on the kindness of others. So off I went to my local cellular dealer to purchase my first mobile phone. I was looking for something inexpensive, because the phone was to be designated for emergency use only. The phone itself only cost me $21.19 with tax, and I got a pretty good deal with the service; 45 minutes a month free and $19.99 a month. I especially like being able to program in my important emergency phone numbers for quick dialing. This phone is extremely durable; I can be clumsy sometimes, and this phone has been dropped quite a few times. This has in no way affected the performance of the phone. Despite the abuse, it still works as well as it did when it was brand new. My only complaints about this phone would be the occasional poor sound quality and the short battery life. This phone just about always stays plugged into the charger when it is not in use. This phone is excellent for people who just want the security of having a phone for emergency use. It would also make a great gift for parents to give to their teenagers for peace of mind. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 21.19 90003 2000/1/29 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight holds a charge all day durable no vibrate feature no vm indicator Full Review I purchased the Nokia 918 in October 1999. The phone I'd owned immediately before was an Ericsson digital, which died completely after 2 months. I needed a durable and reliable phone, as I work in construction. I'm not very easy on my equipment, and this phone has proven to be very forgiving. It's been dropped in water, left in a cold truck for many hours at a time, and is always required to work under stressful conditions. It's performed admirably--I have no complaints. >>Features: 7.6 ounces & just over 1/2" thick [fits easily in a pocket]; keypad/security lock [so when it's in my pocket, I'm not calling China]; 40-name/number memory with 7 one-touch stations; 2-line, 16-character display; display is blue/green instead of gray; large-ish number pads. This phone also includes last number redial [just hit "send" 2x], missed call memory [only if you have callerID], and switchable color face plates. Mine is construction yellow-since I lose phones so often. This phone will go from full dead to fully charged over the lunch hour, using the car charger. I'd tell you about the AC charger, but I lost it the first day :) I'm sorry to see analog phones don't come with that many features any more, since digital seems to be taking over. I've used digital, and it didn't work out for me. I talk about 5 hours per day on mine, and the digital didn't want to work inside concrete buildings or underground. I have no problems with the analog. >>Things I don't like: No "vibrate" feature. If I don't want to be immediately bothered with a call, I have to shut the phone off. No voice mail waiting indicator-this is definately a prerequisite for my next phone. I have to call my VM to see if I have messages. >>Real-world use: I use the heck out of this phone, and it just keeps on performing. I talk all morning, plug it in for lunch, then talk all afternoon. It keeps going, and going, and going..... Even after dropping it in water, I've noticed no deterioration in sound or performance. This is a basic, durable, utilitarian phone. It's not sexy, and it doesn't have games, but it rings every time, and keeps going under stressful conditions! I recommend it highly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/activation 90002 2000/10/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 no monthly bill activation process is a little long Full Review We bought this phone because the price was right, and we didn't want a monthly bill for a cell phone. Wal-mart had this Trac-Fone on sale for $38.98, but they didn't have any in stock. Ames honored Wal-mart's ad and we were in business! We charged the phone and called the 1-800 number to activate. Activation is a process of entering a bunch of numbers the operator gives you into your phone. This can be a little difficult if the operator tries to go too fast, or doesn't speak up. After this, you are told to wait a certain number of days for activation. It was the start of the Labor Day weekend, so this period was a little longer than normal. We were told to wait 72-96 hours. After that time, you are supposed to try to call the phone from another one, then place a call from your new phone. Ours didn't work, even after the full 96 hours. I called the Customer Service number and spoke to a very helpful operator. My phone was working that evening. You have a fairly large "local area", before roaming kicks in. Roaming costs you four units per minute, as opposed to 1 unit per minute for local area calls. Our calls have always been clear - haven't had a problem with static. Cards are good from 30 - 60 days, depending on the value. However, even if you let your card's time expire, you have 120 days to activate a new card and still use the expired minutes without losing them. Every time you turn on your phone, you are reminded when a new card needs to be activated. You can purchase the time cards almost anywhere - Wal-mart, Radio Shack, Ames, Eckerds, just to name a few. I highly recommend this Nokia 918 Trac-Fone for anyone who wants the convenience of a cell phone without the hassles of a high monthly bill. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.98 90001 2000/11/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 it can survive a high degree of abuse mine had quite a few quirks Full Review 25 October 2000 UPDATE included The Background I received this phone free with a 1-year contract I took out with my local mobile phone company last year. Overall, I've been fairly satisfied with the phone because it's actually survived a year with me (I'm always running around and some of my electronics have a hard life as a result). I've dropped it three times on concrete (without a leather case or additional protection) and it sustained deep scratches, but it never stopped working, luckily. The Plot Thickens... Even before it was mistreated, I noticed some bizarre things happening (which are still occurring). I'll only mention those that began to happen _prior_ to abuse because I don't find it logical to expect 100% performance after severe treatment. Here's a quick summary of pre-abuse quirks I noted: - Overheating while I talked: Approximately 70% of the time, I would notice the entire phone becoming remarkably warm to the touch, and my cheek would actually be red after a call lasting 25 minutes. (This happened to me once before when I owned a Motorola flip phone, as well.) - Overheating while the phone charged using a Nokia brand rapid charger: This happened on 3 occasions. I picked up the phone after an average of 8-12 hours charging on 3 different occasions and it was _very_ hot. Not just warm, but HOT. (I changed outlets each time to be certain it wasn't an electrical problem in my home.) - Irregular charging: With both the regular charger and rapid charger, I noticed that the phone was beeping constantly (1-3 times per hour) to announce it was charging. Sometimes when I would plug it in, I wouldn't even get the charging beep until I tried plugging it in several times. (I tried charging it at a friend's house and I got the same result.) I never replaced the phone because I was informed that I would need to pay a $25 reprogramming fee for a new phone. I just chose to endure the quirks. Other negative points I might add: - The flimsy antenna: My antenna began to bend through repeated use and I occasionally need to tinker with it to get any reception at all. - The weight and size: It's difficult to carry it in a pocket or anything else than a bag or purse. And the Envelope, Please: Yea or Nay? It was a satisfactory starter phone and it was a good phone in its time. However, now that good quality digital phones have come down in price and are offered free with 1-3 year plans, I would have to recommend avoiding this type of phone altogether in favour of a lighter, higher quality phone. The overheating coupled with the irregular charging is just too much of a hassle and is rather worrisome. I'm afraid of sleeping while this phone is charging. 25 October 2000 UPDATE Since writing this review, my phone has essentially become a lemon yellow paperweight. It has become almost impossible to get it to charge, which leads me to suspect that there is an internal problem where the prong from the charger slides in. I need to wiggle it for 3-5 minutes each time to get it to charge. In addition, the phone is not wanting to hold a charge anymore. Even after 12 hours of charging, the 100% charge indicator is reduced to 60% within 10-15 minutes. Worse yet, sometimes it will indicate 100% when I leave the house, and within 10 minutes it indicates that it's on its last leg, which leads me to believe that it's not even charging properly. -------------------------------------------------------------- For these reasons, the Nokia 918 analog cellular phone receives a "Would you like your eggs scrambled or sunny side up?" NAY. Recommended: No 90000 2000/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability size dependability price not one Full Review When my husband purchased the Nokia 918 for me, we were in the market for a phone that I could have with me at all times. I was a mother of a small child and was babysitting an infant at the time. I was driving a vehicle that was not trustworthy and we wanted to be absolutely sure that I could reach help anytime, anywhere. We chose the Nokia 918 because of the size and shape. It is small, lightweight, durable and attractive. I can slip this phone in my purse or even in a pocket. My husband prefers to hang it on his belt, but either way it is highly loved in our home. We have had this Nokia 918 for over three years now and have had NO problem with it at all. It's been dropped on cement many, many times, dropped in dirt and grass several times and even slobbered on by my precious son numerous times. Our Nokia 918 only cost .01 cent because they were having a special at Cellular One at the time we purchased it. It is very clear. Most people are not even aware that I am talking on a cellular phone because of the surprising clarity. I really love the portability and durability of this phone! I took my children to the park last summer and popped this phone in the stroller just in case my husband tried to find us. While we were at the park, we witnessed a young child being beaten up by some bullies. I called 911 immediately and was very thankful for my phone that day. I highly recommend the Nokia 918 for anyone who wants the added safety of a cell phone that is durable and dependable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): .01 with contract 89999 2000/5/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 slim various features low battery life poor reception Full Review If you are looking for a basic phone for emergency situations only, this is for you. But, if you're a person on the go like me, big no-no. The reasons we purchased this phone were the price, it was free with a two-year contract and $19.99/month and the colors, ours is red. Well, the twenty-dollar a month phone ended up being $70.00/month. My reason for having the phone is so that my children and husband can get a hold of me 24x7. But, if my kids needed me during peak times (50 cents a minute, 8am to 8pm) and they often did. The phone bills racked up. Not to mention the fact that, if you go out of your area you receive roaming charges. So, if this phone suits your needs, read on. The phone is a little longer than the phones just coming out and it doesn't flip. It is however, very slim, so it fits nicely in compartments in purses. I purchased the leather carrying case so I could clip it on to my purse, easily accessible. It is user friendly which is a plus. I programmed mine without the book. There is a back light on the LED screen that makes it easy to read. To place a call is simple, within your area code just dial the number and press send. To end the call, press end. There is never a need to dial 1, if it's outside your area code then just the area code/number will work. You can program up to forty names/numbers in the phone book. This is very easy to retrieve, really important if you're driving. You just hit the arrow up and down button on the right of the phone to scroll through it; you can also go through the main menu screen and select via name. The names are very easy to program, you just select the abc button and then the number of the letter you need. Example: if you need the "A", you press the #1 key, for "B" you would press the #1 key twice and for "C" 3x's. If you make a mistake, press clear once for one letter and hold it down to clear the entire screen. The main menu has numerous options. You scroll through the options until you find the one you need, press OK and then select your choice. You can: *Select one of seven catchy little ringers *Turn your keypad tones on/off *Dial emergency 911 with one button *Turn the volume on high, low or silent (it doesn't vibrate though) *Restrict certain calls *Caller ID but I never activated this because it was extra, My bill was high enough! *See if you've missed a call (not the number, it just says, "01 calls missed" or "02 calls missed") *Program your calling card number in for long distance calls You can also lock your keys while it's in your pocketbook or briefcase by pressing "menu" and then the "pound" key. You deactivate it the same way. This prevents any mistake calls from being made and money wasted. Good feature. Now, the down falls. Two big ones. The battery and the reception. After only a month of use, my battery had dwindled down to only a few hours of talk time. Near the end, it wasn't even that. I couldn't wait for our one-year contract to be up so I could upgrade to digital! Thank goodness I purchased the car adapter. However, if your battery is empty and you use this adapter, you won't be able to place a call. It will have to charge at least five minutes to get enough juice to place the call. The reception was so horrid, very crackled and broken up. My husband had a digital one through work and that immediately spoiled me. The difference is so clear. I was so unhappy that I had them move my contract day up a month so I could upgrade early. I have now purchased a digital phone for $10.00/month more with 200 peak and 600 off-peak minutes. It also includes free caller ID, call waiting, voice mail and numeric paging. But, if you are looking for a cheaper service for emergency use, this is for you! Recommended: No 89998 2001/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent voice pick up easy to use fits in pocket withstands abuse loud ring reception excellent ear piece occasionally hard to hear in The Bottom LineRegardless of features and capabilities, we just needed a cell phone that could withstand my husband. Clear reception and able to withstand ANYTHING, NOKIA 918 is it! Full Review When I was pregnant with our little daughter (now 20 months old) we decided to have a home delivery with my husband as the facilitator. He is a painter who can be anywhere on a job at any time. Our only way to assure that we could reach him was to purchase a cell phone. I was rather hesitant to purchase ANYTHING for my husband. You see, he can not keep many things in one piece for very long. That is why he does not wear a watch (the average one lasts 2 weeks before annihilation), expensive sunglasses (he loses or breaks them all in record time), or even pagers did not last with him. If ever there was a natural born "beta tester" it is my husband. But with this cell phone thing- well, we were locked into a 1 year contract. I hated to pay for a year of phone calls that we would not use if my dear husband decimated the phone in a few weeks. As we were looking for a solid phone to purchase, the man at the cell phone centers at BJ's Wholesale Club told us that the phone to get was the NOKIA 918. Yes, it is an analog phone, but he said it was tough. I laughed. We would just see how tough this thing was...... Well, the phone did make it until I had the baby, and it even made it into the winter. In fact, it has made it through unbelievable trials and torture. This phone has fallen off a 2 story ladder (in my husband's painter pocket where he landed on it), been tossed from a car window, dropped in a wet container (taken right out), flung across a dance floor, sat on numerous times, and I am sure my husband has not even told me half of the abuse that this poor phone has taken over the last 2 years. The only thing that has had to be fixed is the broken antenna - only 2 times. THAT, dear people, is a MIRACLE. Another interesting thing about this phone is that we have been in places where people have tried to call out and their phones do not work. Ours has worked. They were amazed that our phones worked. That happened in a restaurant last year. This guy at the next table had a very expensive phone and it would not call out. Ours rang right after and he was stunned. We have received calls while in a valley about 1 hour away from home. We have also had pretty good reception where some digital phones do not even work well. All in all, this phone is amazing to me. If superman was a phone, this would be him. The light up dial is easy to read, the ring is loud (with many sounds to choose from), and you can see how many minutes are on the phone since it was first purchased. It has a missed call feature, but we do not have caller ID. I know that there are other features on this phone and we have the book that lists them all. When I get the phone back tonight, I may amend this opinion to include them. However, my main reason for writing this is to tell you all that this phone lasted through a person that regularly destroys all kinds of things and after 2 years, it is still going. We just now have to replace the regular strength battery that came with it and it has been 2 years. We currently use the extended time battery. We get about 2-3 hours talk time from that. The only features that we regularly use is the different rings (in case someone else has the same phone nearby), missed call, and total minutes use since we purchased the phone. This phone is tough. We have not seen anything as nice in either digital or analog cell phones yet. Hopefully when we have to replace this one, we will find another just as tough. ADDENDUM: Since this review was written, 2 antennas have been broken off, and the phone itself it held together with tape. It is still working just like new. I have never seen a cell phone like this. CAN YOU TAKE JUST A SECOND AND RATE THIS REVIEW? I NEED TO KNOW IF IT IS HELPFUL OR NOT. I AM WRITING TO BE OF HELP TO YOU AND WILL ONLY KNOW HOW I AM DOING IF YOU GIVE FEEDBACK. THANKS! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free with 1 year plan 89997 2000/8/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 you only use what you pay for no monthy bills no contracts none Full Review I had been looking into buying a cellular phone and knew that I didn't want any of the hassles of contracts and monthly bills etc... So I decided to go with this one. The Nokia 918 works the same exact way an average cell phone works, the only difference is, is that instead of having to deal with contracts and all of those hassles, and instead of getting that bill each month from Cellular One, or Sprint or whatever other carriers there are, you get nothing. No monthly bills no nothing. If you are someone like me who wants to use the phone for emergencies, or say you are traveling along and oops forgot you needed to make a quick call, there isn't a need to go find a pay phone. It's quick, and simple, and still you have no monthly bill. My boss has a cell phone she gets a bill every month for $35.00 whether she actually makes calls or not. Who wants that? I know I don't. With this phone you pay for only the time you would use. All you have to do is buy the phone, (Very affordable) and then buy prepaid air time cards that you just call a 800 number from your home phone to activate it on your cell phone and Ta Da... You have air time. When it's used up, you can just add more. It's very simple, and the best part about it, is that you don't get stuck in any crazy contracts and you don't get a monthly bill. I absolutely love it. For the amount of time that I actually use this phone it's perfect for me. But I know I have it if I need it, and that's what I love about it. The phone itself was on sale for $49.99 and the store that I bought it from had a $30.00 rebate on it. I could either choose to get the $30.00 back, or choose to have a free 40 units of air time added to my phone. I couldn't pass it up, it was an excellent deal. The quality of the phone is also excellent, I haven't dropped it or anything, but it seems to be very strong and durable. The sound quality is also very good. It's not much different than if I were at home talking on a cordless phone. It's not big or bulky, and fits easily in my purse. I really have no complaints at all... I love it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 89996 2002/5/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 not too compact phone is light about seven ounces easy to use clarity of calls not always very good antenna doesn t alleviate static The Bottom LineFor the casual cell phone user, the Nokia 918 is a good buy. Full Review Let me start this review with a disclaimer: I don't like cell phones. Those ubiquitous, noisy, irritating devices represent to me the downside of technology. But I have a cell phone -the Nokia 918- one that is perfectly-suited for the casual user like myself. The phone is six inches long, and weighs about seven ounces. Other brands, particularly newer ones, are so small that while you're talking on them, you have to keep sliding the phone up to your ear to listen, and then back down to your mouth to talk! Not so with the Nokia 918. The Nokia 918 comes with a nickel metal hydride (BMT-1L) or a nickel cadmium (BKL-2S) battery, which slides easily on and off the back of the unit. Mine has the former. The owner's manual states that you can have between an hour and 90 minutes of talking time before the battery needs to be recharged. If you use your cell phone a lot when you're on the road -which you shouldn't- you can recharge it using a Rapid Cigarette Lighter Charger(LCH-6). About once a week, I take mine into the house and charge it overnight with the Standard Travel Charger (ACH-8U). Both charging cords are accessories, and available at additional cost. Although I generally leave my Nokia 918 in the car, this is not recommended, as extreme temperatures can adversely affect battery life and overall performance. The manufacturers recommend actually letting the battery life run out periodically, then recharging it. This is accomplished by simply turning on the power and letting the phone sit. Features The Nokia 918 stores up to 40 numbers in memory, and one additional number in a buffer zone called the "notepad." Any information stored in the notepad is lost when the power is turned off, however. By pressing the MENU key and the up or down arrow key, you can easily scroll through your list of stored names and numbers. One time-saving feature allows you to search by name, by pressing MENU, scrolling down to the FIND NAME option, and keying in the appropriate letters. Numbers can also be changed or erased as the need arises. Complex keying operations can be reduced to one or two buttons. For example, you could store the automated toll-free number for your bank account, and enter the information so that it not only automatically dials the number, but selects the option you want. So you can find out what your balance is, what the last five checks were, or what the amount of your last deposit was, with the push of one or two buttons. If you make a lot of calls during the course of the day, Call Register can display the last ten numbers. You can also check the amount of time spent on each call, which can be useful for tracking business expenses. The volume is adjustable by pressing the up or down arrow key, but this only works during a call. If you like a little variety, there are five different ringing sounds from which to choose. When the ringing is muted, the lights flash and the phone beeps once to announce an incoming call. Still better to turn the power off when you're in a movie theater. The Nokia 918 allows you to restrict calls so that only certain numbers are accepted. With this setting, however, new acquaintances whose numbers are not programmed into the phone would not be able to reach you. Subscriber-only features If you don't want an answering machine, the Nokia 918 supports voicemail. This convenient feature gives privacy and security to your personal messages. To access voicemail, just dial your mailbox number and listen to your messages. You can also store your mailbox number in memory. Call waiting is also supported by the Nokia 918. If you're on the phone and suddenly realize that you have to call someone else, but you don't want to disconnect, you key the number while the first person is still on the line, and press SEND. This puts your caller on hold. I find the use of call waiting to be rude, but that's just a personal issue. The Nokia 918 also allows you to choose from two different numbers, again, only if you subscribe to this service from your cellular provider. Security Features You can program your Nokia 918 so that a four-digit PIN (Personal Identification Number) must be entered prior to making calls. This may be inconvenient for people who make a lot of calls or who are accustomed to speed dialing. The keyguard feature is designed to prevent the accidental calling of numbers while the phone is in transit,or stuffed in a pocket or purse. I simply turn my phone off when I'm not using it. While keyguard is active, incoming calls can only be answered by pressing SEND. The lock code is a four-digit number that must be entered to change the phone settings (i.e. ringing sound, keypad tones, lights). But if you forget your lock code, you can't change the settings, either! While basically a good unit, the Nokia 918 has some drawbacks. The clarity of calls is not always very good, especially in confined areas. The three-inch extendable antenna doesn't seem to do anything to alleviate the static. The Nokia 918 is relatively simple, and probably not sophisticated enough for technophiles. The Nokia 918 meets all my needs, though. I've had mine for five years, and will probably have it for at least another five. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $30 (?) 89995 2000/12/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 7 99 month to keep it activated up to 3 16 minute when roaming Full Review Let me clarify that this review is for both the Nokia 918 and Tracfone (my cellular provider). I've got a few nice things to say about the Nokia 918 phone, but since there isn't a separate category just for Tracfone, I have to combine the two. I purchased my Nokia 918 back in August. I realized that I wasn't going to use it everyday, just emergencies. My wonderful car works great, but we've had a few unfortunate mishaps where it just took a nice peaceful break on the side of the road. I'll admit, this scared me a little bit, so I decided some peace of mind is what I needed, and went out to get this phone. Obviously, I wasn't interested in anything pricey, just something that'll work when I need it. So, I chose the Nokia 918 that Tracfone was offering. This nice phone shows how much airtime is left (since it's prepaid), as well as some other nice features such as five ring tones, emergency dialing, and a 40 name & number phone book for you to store phone numbers in. I said to myself..."Hey, $40 for a cell phone, not a bad price!". On top of that, it was only $7.99/month to keep it activated. I decided to go for it since I didn't have to sign any contracts, and I'd only have to pay for the units (minutes) I needed each month, instead of "use 'em or lose 'em" plans. The units also carry over to the next month if I don't use all of them. All of this sounded nice and dandy until I started using the service. I'll admit, not having a monthly bill to pay was nice, and I could just pick up my Tracfone card whenever I go into Wal-mart. When I took a trip one day, my phone switched to roam (as it should have), and I needed to call a good friend of mine so I could fine my way to his house. Since I had 24 units left, I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I knew that roam counted each minute you talked as two units, so I only had 12 minutes to talk to my friend. Well, that plan flew out the window! I called my friend, and everything was fine and dandy until I reached 6 minutes in the conversation and without warning, it disconnected us! I called up the tech support phone number (was on hold for a good 20 minutes), and told them what happened. The guy told me that roam used to be 4 units instead of 2 units, and he told me that I needed to buy 10 more units ($7.99 @ Walmart) for them to switch my phone from the 4 unit roaming fee to the 2 unit roaming fee. I said..."Alright, thanks" and hung the phone up. I thought about it a little bit more, and the more I thought about it, the more upset I became with the whole situation. I decided it isn't my fault they neglected to tell me all of this! So I called back the next day and stayed on hold for nearly an hour. I figured this was a good time to get some house cleaning done, maybe read a book or two, so I switched to speakerphone so I could hear when they picked up to answer my phone. As I was saying, an hour later, somebody finally answered. I told them what had happened, the the young lady told me the same thing the guy told me. I asked if I could have the 18 minutes back that I lost because nobody had told me that it charged 4 units when on roam. She told me that she couldn't do that, but she can call the supervisor and ask him about it. I told her ok, and I was put on hold (only 5 minutes this time). She came back and told me that the supervisor can't do that. So, I politely asked to speak with him. She put me on hold...again...and she came back to tell me that they can give me 10 units back (not as good as the 18 I lost, but better than nothing). I told her I'd be satisfied with that and she told me to punch in a bunch of numbers to program my phone for 10 more units. I asked if it's going to charge me the 4 units, and she said that she switched it to the two unit per minute roaming charge. *Hopefully* it's all cleared up! The lesson here is: If you use Tracfone, use it for extreme emergencies that will be in your area. seventy-nine cents a minute (local) just isn't smart to use unless you've got the money to blow. Go with Sprint or AT&T if you're going to use it for anything other than emergencies! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 89994 2001/6/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable small many options need more options for covers The Bottom LineCoupled with Tracfone, my Nokia 918 has been an asset to our family! Full Review **I was pleased to open my Wal-Mart flyer and find the Nokia 918 Tracfone is now for sale at their store! This is great news, as the unit cards will be much easier to pick up. No more special trips to truck stops for more units! I purchased my Nokia 918 from Pilot Truck Stop in Tuscola, Illinois because my sister-in-law recommended it. She, an employee, knows all there is to know about these phones, and owns two herself. I purchased mine to be used as a TracFone. I don't necessarily have bad credit, just don't have any credit. So, when we tried to get a cellular phone, we were asked to pay a $600 deposit. Wrong! As a family of 5, we aren't going to pay a deposit as large on something that we don't NEED. Nokia 918 TracFone was the answer. I purchased my Nokia 918 in June of 1999. It cost me $100 for the phone, indoor charger, rapid car charger, sock phone cover, battery and 50 units. We picked the phone up on our way to Indiana for naughty things (the 4th was right around the corner). While in Indiana, we stopped at a pay phone, where I called the 800 number to activate the phone. This wasn't a great idea. We couldn't hear very well, so it took a little longer than necessary. The operator informed us that the phone must be fully charged to activate it or any unit cards. This isn't necessarily true. I have never called for activation with a charged battery. I plug it in, and do it that way. Works fine for me. For first activation, I had mine plugged into the car's cigarette lighter, and it worked just fine. The information that the operator asked for was simple, a 4 digit pin, the Nokia 918 serial number,a codeword, name, home phone and address. This helps them to set up your account for the area you reside in and activates your phone using a tower near your home. After entering 3 series of numbers (they are long series, but the will go slower if you ask them too), you will enter another 3 series of numbers to activate your unit card. After this is complete, the operator instructs you to turn the phone off and back on. At this time, you will read your phone number to her, she verifies that and the number of units your phone should have on it. The operator then tells the user how long it should take to activate it (not usually as long as they say) and how to check if it activated properly. (The Nokia 918 came with a user's guide, as well as a card to write your pin, phone number, serial number, etc. on for later reference.) This done, I had nothing to use my phone for until it was activated. The operator informed us it could take Ameritech up to 72 hours to activate. So, my husband began to play with the phone's features. (Our phone was activated within 24 hours.) The Nokia 918 is a small mobile phone that is also used as a cellular phone or a debit phone. (I believe I could later activate it with a cellular company, if I so choose, but I won't). Mine is dark gray (I've been told they come in other colors, but I haven't that option) with a lcd display on the front above the key pad. It's antenna fits into the phone and is very thin when pulled out. I sometimes don't even use the antenna, that's how great the reception is. The antenna is flexible, so it would take some doing to "accidentally" break it. The ear piece has 3 small holes in it and it is plenty loud enough. There is only one hole for the microphone, so when I talk into the phone, my voice is not muffled nor do the other people need to hear several repeats. (I've never heard that my voice is too loud either.) The phone came with a stretchable black sock cover. It stretches over the back of the phone and the front, in two connected pieces. I lift the front cover over the back and fold under the bottom of the phone when I use it. It comes off easily, and to me seems a little cheesy, but my sister-in-law found a black leather cover that seems too masculine for my liking. So, I'll stick with this one, I have now decorated it with fabric paint and is at least attractive. The power button is located in the upper right hand corner of the phone. A simple push and the phone comes on or off. It doesn't push too easily though, so you don't need to be concerned with accidentally ending the conversation. When the phone is turned on, the phone number, the *date you need to activate another unit card, signal, and battery power are all displayed. *A new unit card must be activated every 60 days or the phone will have to be reactivated, thus changing your number. Not a big deal, but it makes it a pain for those who write the number in their address books. Below the display, is the key pad. The top four buttons are ABC, Menu, OK, and up and down arrow key. The ABC button is for changing the display from alphabet to numeric display. The menu button displays "view menu" and up and down arrows to choose from 16 menu options. The OK button is to tell the phone what your selection is or that you are done with an action. The arrow keys are used in the menu option. Menu 1 Store to memory: You can enter phone numbers and names into your own personal directory. The ABC button is used in this feature. 2 Find Name: You push okay to this option and, using the up and down arrow key, you can find the name of anyone in your personal directory. 3 Erase Name: Self-explanatory. You okay this option and it asks "ERASE?" and gives you a name if you haven't already entered one. If you don't okay it, it doesn't erase. 4 Restrict Calls: You can select only incoming, all calls, memory only. 5 System Select: This is how you decide which tower to run off of for best reception and signal. There are the following selections: Home area, any, Home-Type B, and Non-Home Type A. Recently, TracFone has made all of the calls made from a TracFone account local calls. No more 1, 1 1/2 and 3 unit calls. The calls are all 1 1/2 units a minute (or so), no matter where you are in relativity to your home tower. (At least that's how I understand it, and I paid no roaming charges while in Wisconsin two weeks ago.) 6 Call Timers: This is neat, you can find out how long your last conversation was, the total amount of time you have used the phone for, the life (mine is 149:56), and you can clear these times any time and start over. This is a great option if you let someone borrow your phone or let the kids take it somewhere. This way, as long as they know not to clear it, you can monitor how often it's used. 7 Lights: On the display and under the key pad, on or off. The light shuts off after 30 seconds anyway, but comes right back on if you push a button 8 Keypad tones: This tells the phone if you want to hear a beep when you push a button. Mine is on, that way I know if I'm pushing a button while it's on my hip or in my purse. 9 Ringing Volume: High, Low, Silent Service 10 Ringing Type: There 5 types. 1 is a regular high pitched ring. 2 is a slower high pitched ring. 3 is a fast double ring. 4 is a short musical sound. And 5 (my personal ring) sounds like "Kelli's here to save the day" in a song. 11 Emergency Key 9 or you can just push the red number 9 until you hear a beep. This automatically calls the local 911 dispatcher. I have used it and it does work. This call uses no units. It is, as should be, a free call as long as you use the red 9 or this option when dialing. 12 Name Select: If I push this button, it tells me the phone number of the phone. 13 Calling Card: You are supposed to be able to use a calling card with these phones. You can enter calling card information into your phone and use it to place calls, instead of your purchased units. I haven't tried this. 14 Change Lockcode: Again, this option is explained in the booklet. My sister-in-law uses this option to lock out the keypad so that her husband won't dial the phone with his rear while driving down the road with the radio blaring. (Not fun when the other party answers the phone and opens up the line.) I personally can't remember my lock code, and can't change it without it. 15 Call Register will tell you how many calls (up to 10) you missed while away from the phone if it was turned on and it lists the last 10 numbers dialed from the phone. If it is off, you will never know. I don't use this option, because the display shows the number of calls missed if it is on anyway, and no one else uses my phone so I know who I call with it. I can see where this is useful though. 16 DEBIT: This option lets the TracFone user know how many units are available and when the card is due again. With this option, it is unnecessary to turn the phone of and on to find the number of units available (like I have been doing.) If you look at the display after a call, it lets you know how many minutes you used, and what the rate was for those minutes in units. The menu can be accessed if you know the number of the option you wish to use and it can only be accessed this way for items 1-9. So, if I want to find someone in my directory, I would push the menu button and the number 2. This will take me to that menu without having to go through all of the options. When I first got the phone, I didn't ask how much a minute. I didn't care because I knew that I wouldn't use it for idle chit chat. I have been informed that TracFone calls run as high as .50 a minute. That's high. But the more units you buy at one time, the lower the cost. There are several TracFone deals when buying these cards. Currently, if I go buy a $100/240 unit card (no sales tax added) I won't have to activate my phone in 60 days like usual, but instead, I will have 120 days before TracFone will shut me off for not activating another card. Also, when you activate a unit card, you don't lose the units you have remaining on your phone. Once you pay for them, they are yours to use whenever you wish. So if you never use your phone, you could end up having A LOT of units on your phone by activating a $25 card every 60 days (that's 40 units). I don't worry about a phone bill. I don't worry that someone is going to run me out of free minutes, or that I'm calling during off-peak time. There are always good deals to be found if you buy at the right times. There is a card to fit almost anyone's budget and purposes. Obviously, it would be less expensive to use a cellular plan, for some people. I like that I can control how much I spend on my TracFone bills. There aren't bills. They don't call if I'm late, they just shut me off. When I call with a new card to make the phone work again, they give me a new number and no questions are asked of my credit because credit isn't relevant when paying up front for services. A friend just encouraged her 18 year old to buy one of his own. All said and done, he has the same thing I do for $20 (prices do go down with time). He mailed in a cash rebate and got $20 refund. The phone included a 40 unit card, so now he just has to reactivate another card every 60 days. If he uses all of his units, he simply buys another card. When the phone's units start to run low, at 10 units available, it will beep every 30 seconds you are on the phone. I let mine get as low as 8 units and couldn't finish the call. I got disconnected, but could still place another call. I won't let my phone get below 20 units before buying another card. This thing is so convenient. I know several people who own them because they don't have to worry about a bill or a credit rating. It's easier than worrying about getting shut off and not being able to get turned back on until the bill is paid. I bought my phone on a Friday morning. One week later, I used it for an emergency phone call to 911. I wish I could say that call saved the lives of the kids in the accident, but I did use the ^9^ feature and the call went through for help. I will never ride in a vehicle without my Nokia 918 TracFone along (I don't fly). Our family bought one for Grandma Dorothy so that she'd only be a phone call away. It would be a great gift for anyone who doesn't own a cellular phone and doesn't want the extra bill! ***Great News! Tracfone has a website. What does this have to do with Nokia918? Now buying your prepaid airtime is much easier! The Nokia918 and various other phones are also available for purchase at Tracfone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 for battery, phone, 2 chargers and time units 89993 2005/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 its cheaperdoes the job for lessor price compare to other models choosing this nokia 918 from other phones The Bottom LineA basic phone that comes with a good price for low static and style with good looks. Full Review I had gone shopping for a cellular phone and Nokia 918 was the one I wanted. Its convenience, easy to use and static is mild than some phones I had in the past. My husband needed a phone in a hurry because the one we had did not work good. My husband is a truck driver and needed the phone because he needs to have contact with home at all times. With this Nokia 918 its easy to use. With all the noise from the driving in the truck, the reception and quality of low static is what I wanted because I was on the other end and I wanted to hear what my husband was talking about. This phone is wonderful. Quick easy guide to follow and program your phone: For your safety: 911 Emergency calls; Battery: Slim 600 (ACS-1U standard charger) takes 5 hours charging time Rapid charger (ACH-6U 60 minutes charging time Talk time ( 1 hour 15 minutes) Standby time (15 hours) Extended 800 Standard charger ( 6 Hr. charging time) Talk time 1 hour 40 minute- standby time (21 hours) Rapid charger: ( 90 minutes)charging time You get a signal when the Battery is low. Signal Strength Indicator. Basic switching on and off. Making call are easy just area code+ number and press send Ending a calls press end Answering a call, press send Caller ID Adjusting the volume Last number redial Last 10 Dialed Numbers Speed Dialing( press location 1-40 then send 1 touch dialing Can use voice mailbox if you subscribed to : Memory and easy Menu Method Ringing tones to choose from lock code for security Accessories: Standard Travel Charger, Rapid Travel Charger, Compact Desktop Charging Stand,Headset Kit,Cigarette Lighter Charger, mobile Installation Charger, Mobile Holder. These Accessories come with extra charges and some might be included in specials at dealers with phone packages. Updated: I have several friends who have bought this phone and they are so happy they did as I am telling them and seeing that this is a great phone and easy to use too. ` Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 89992 2000/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable well made great features free biggerless cool than other phones Full Review I'm a relatively new cell phone user. This is my second year. It's kind of like a microwave... after a while you don't know how you could live without it. The Nokia 918 is my second phone, my first being an older Nokia model. I have lent this phone to my teenagers, and it still works when I get it back. :) I'm not exactly gentle on it either. It's usually shoved into my purse, or on the floor of the car, or at the bottom of a coat pocket. I like it because it's too big to lose, but small enough to be convenient. Here are the features I like: - It was FREE! You should not pay anything for this phone, it should be given to you free when you sign up for cellular service. - The audio quality on this phone is superior. No problems with hearing the other person or being understood. Many times it is not obvious that you are on a cell phone at all. - Great programmable features. And if I had some time I'd sit down and learn them all. One you definitely want to get to know is the "keyguard" feature. This will prevent the phone from inadvertently dialing numbers by itself just from being pressed up against something (like the side of your purse). You can change the audio volume, the ringer types and volume (you can even set this phone to discreetly beep once and light up instead of ring) - Caller ID. I love this feature! You can see who is calling and decide whether or not to answer. You can also track your missed calls. --Add-ons I recommend: - A case. It's worth it to keep your phone from getting really messed up. - A car recharger. Since you'll be depending on your phone when you're on the go, you'll really appreciate being able to charge the phone while traveling. There's many times when I just can't remember to bring the phone into the house and plug it into the charger and then remember to bring it back to the car. ...Some interesting notes about cellular service in general. When you're considering cellular service, the most important thing to know is that it's all negotiable. You can bargain for better deals, and even for better phones. Play off one company against another. Threaten to discontinue your service, and see what they offer you from their retention department to get you to stay. Really shop around. There are all kinds of promotions that can save you tons of money. I have free night and weekend calling along with 30 free minutes of peak airtime a month. This works really well for how I use my phone. Spend some time investigating the plans and think about which one your usage pattern would best fit. Be careful and deliberate in your choice, cell phone service can end up costing a lot of money and if you need to bail out of your contract it'll cost even more. Recommended: Yes 89991 2000/8/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight excellent clarity dependable not digital Full Review Traveling throughout the Southern-most part of Illinois.....my Nokia 918 works great even in the hills and valleys of the Shawnee National Forest. The Nokia 918 is an exceptional wireless phone. Although slim and lightweight, it is also quite durable.....please read on. I "inherited" my Nokia 918 from my son-in-law after he opted for a digital system. A truck driver by trade, my son-in-law relied on this particular Nokia everyday in his work. Stepped on, dropped on concrete, thrown in the truck and carried on a belt, this phone has seen it all! It was very well used and abused for well over a year before it was given to me.....and it still works great! An optional leather protector helped my Nokia to survive the first year of it's life.....the phone itself still looks like brand new. A clear vinyl "lens" covers the keypad making all functions easily utilized. This leather protective cover is well worth the cost of $19.95. The Nokia 918 wireless phone is extremely user friendly. One-touch operation allows the user to make a call with the mere touch of a button. This is how it works..... Store up to 40 names and numbers in Nokia's built-in phone directory. Scroll through these names and numbers.....make a selection.....press SEND to make a call. It's as simple as that! One-touch operation allows you to easily make emergency calls. The Nokia will dial programmed emergency numbers by pressing a single key.....EMERG then displays on the screen. I feel secure knowing help is only one-touch away! Red, yellow, blue, green or traditional black.....take your pick! The Nokia 918 comes in each of these fashion colors. My attractive little red phone fits easily into my purse or bag.....I never leave home without it! The keyguard feature allows you to lock the phone's keypad to prevent accidental speed-dialing when your phone is in your pocket or purse. This feature is easily activated and cancelled with the touch of a couple of buttons. Incoming calls are easily answered when keyguard is active....simply press SEND. It doesn't get much easier than this! Specific phone settings can be changed by utilizing Nokia's menu system. Press MENU.....visualize a menu screen.....and Nokia walks you through the changes you want to make.....step by step! Nokia's menu system gives you a varied selection of ringing types and volumes. You can even scroll through the options and listen before you choose. By choosing silent, your phone won't ring with an incoming call. Instead, the phone beeps once, briefly flashes it's lights and displays CALL. Think about it for a moment.....no more annoying stares from people in church or at the movies! The Nokia 918 has a call timer which allows you to see how many minutes you have used on your phone.....select the amount for each single call or the total of all calls made within a specific time. Clear the timer at the end of the billing cycle.....and you will know how many minutes you used that month. With the option of Caller ID, Nokia's call register allows you to see who is calling.....before you answer. You will never miss a call with caller ID.....the numbers of persons who attempted to call you is saved and easily retrieved with the touch of a button. The call register also allows you to view calls received.....as well as calls you have dialed. The Nokia 918 wireless phone is powered by a rechargeable NiCd battery. A standard battery charger comes with the phone. Just plug the charger into any AC wall outlet.....then connect to your phone. A complete charge takes about 6 hours. I plug my Nokia into the charger every night.....this guarantees me 1 hour 40 minutes of talk time.....and 21 hours of standby time! In addition, I purchased a rapid charger which plugs into the cigarette lighter in my car. If I forget to charge my Nokia at night, I can fully charge my phone in 60 minutes.....and I'm back in business again! Just a note about rechargeable batteries.....a battery lasts longer and performs best if it is fully discharged from time to time. Just leave your phone on until it turns itself off.....then it is ready for charging. I try to make a habit of doing this about once a week. With perfect reception almost anywhere, there is usually no need to use Nokia's built-in antenna. The antenna on the Nokia 918 seems somewhat fragile in comparison to the many other durable features of this phone. The Nokia 918 is powerful, has good range, is dependable.....and is known for it's superb clarity! Talking on a wireless phone.....only you will know for sure! Out of range? Nokia displays roaming status.....before you make a call! No more "surprise" phone bills.....This feature allows the user to recognize and monitor these expensive roaming calls. The Nokia 918 offers many additional features such as voice mail. Although I do not subscribe to voice mail....it is good to know that this option is available. A great value, the Nokia 918 is well worth the cost of $49.95. You won't need to replace this phone for a long time.....unless.....you opt for a different color, that is! Go out and get yourself a Nokia 918.....you'll be glad you did! I highly recommend this durable, little phone to anyone.....for work....or just as a way "to keep in touch". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 89990 2000/2/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 affordable compact easy to use not the best choice for a business person The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone for casual use only, it doesn't have the talk time that business people might need. Full Review I bought my Nokia 918 about 6 months ago. I had already had a pre-paid cellular phone, the Uniden PCD2000A. I was not happy with that phone at all, it was to bulky and to expensive to maintain. However, this epinion is not on that phone but rather on the Nokia 918. One of the main things that attracted me to the Nokia 918 is that it is small in size, but not tiny. It can fit into my purse or my pocket and I don't feel weighed down by it. The other thing that caught my eye is that airtime does not have to be purchased every month. If you buy a 10 minute phone card, which I list the price of below, then you must add additional airtime within 30 days, however, if you buy more then 10 minutes you only have to add additional time every 60 days. Also, if by chance you forget to buy airtime within the required time, and your phone gets disconnected then they do not charge you a reconnection fee, but your phone number will get changed. This phone does have many options with it, such as, different sounding rings(5 of them), storage of up to 40 names and numbers, you can assign a PIN number to keep your phone from being used by others who do not know the PIN, you can lock the keypad so that numbers do not accidentally get called, and you can also store a calling card number to use from your phone. There is a keypad light that lights up whenever you push a button so that you can see the display in the dark. There are volume controls for the ringing, keypad tones, and ear piece. On the display it will show when the phone is in use, in seconds and minutes, it shows if you are roaming, if the battery is low and also if you have the keypad locked. The menu is very easy to follow and walks you right through anything that you need to change. There are 16 menu options that are fully explained in the owner's manual that comes with the phone. Most of these options were listed above. The prepaid plan is called Tracfone and their service is easy to use. It is an automated service that walks you step by step through the process of activating the phone. They also offer special promotions, such as 10 free minutes for referring a friend, 30 free minutes when you purchase 30 minutes worth of airtime 3 months in a row and their promotions are always updated. The price of the 10 minute phone card at Wal-mart is $7.97. The price of the 30 minute phone card at Wal-mart is $19.97. They also sell phone cards that are 100 minutes and 250 minutes. Again I would suggest this phone for people who are looking to carry a cell phone for safety reasons or personal reasons. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 89989 2000/2/28 Battery Life4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 provides all the basic functions of a cell phone battery will lose charge if kept in extreme hot or cold conditions The Bottom LineThis phone has performed well, and believe will continue to provide good performance as long as I remember not to leave it out in extreme temperatures. Full Review I made this cellular phone purchased through (Bell Atlantic Mobile, now known as Verizon) and this phone pretty much meets all of my needs as far as a cellular phone service goes. I'm not what you would call a "devoted" cellular user. You won't find me talking on this device while driving. Especially considering I have had close calls with others cellular users who believe they can actually drive their car safely while at the same time carry on a conversation. These "idiots" unfortunately usually while trying to make a corner, find they can't make as tight a corner using one hand, and end up on my side of the road. Nonetheless . . . The Nokia 918a cell phone has all the basic functions, which are as follows: 1. To make a call, press SEND. 2. To receiving a call, press any key except the ABC key 3. To activate Keyguard press and hold END key, or press Menu then *. This is a nice function when storing the phone in a purse, briefcase, or pants or coat pocket and will prevent keys from being inadvertently pressed. 4. To deactivate Keyguard function, press Menu and *. 5. To activate PINCALL, key in *#, enter Pin Code and press MENU key. 6. To deactivate PINCALL, key in *#PINCALL #, press OK key. 7. To adjust volume Press the arrows upward or downward. 8. To use Calling Card function, enter destination phone number and press and hold the SEND key for more than 1 second. 9. To clear a digit, press CLR 10. To clear display, press CLR 11. Ending a call press END 12. Last number redial, press SEND SEND. 13. Last 10 dialed number, press SEND, and press downward arrows. Then press SEND. 14. There is a 9 Key emergency call feature. To activate just press and hold the 9wxyz key for more than 4 seconds. 15. One-touch dialing, press designated key, hold for a few seconds. 16. Storing a number, clear display, enter area code and number, press ABC key enter name, press and hold OK key. 17. Search for a name, press ABC key then arrow. 18. Search for number, press down arrow key to scroll through numbers. 19 Speed dialing, press location number (1-40) and then SEND. The above list of features I think pretty well establishes the basic functions this phone provides. And so far I have been satisfied with the service. The only trouble I've had with the phone is whenever I leave it out in the car overnight, and it's cold, the phone will not work the following day. Then rereading through the manual I found that by leaving the battery in extreme hot or cold places, reduces the capacity and lifetime of the battery. The manual suggests keeping the battery in an environment where the temperature is between 59 degrees and 77 degrees. It also states that a phone with a hot or cold battery may temporarily not work (or charge) even if the battery is fully charged. NiMH battery performance is particularly limited in temps. Below 14 degrees. Not realizing this, my husband always seemed to be charging up the battery whenever the phone was left out in the car. I was confused by this because neither one of us uses the phone all that much where the battery would wear down that fast. I was happy to find out why we were having this problem. Now we ensure that we bring the phone into the house instead of leaving it outside in the car during extreme hot and cold weather. Again, this cell phone so far has met all of my needs. It is a nice size, not too small and not too large. Both my husband and I have no trouble with the keypad. The sound is good and clear and so far in those places I've had to use it I've experienced no connecting problems. My service is through Verizon, and believe I'm getting a reasonable rate at $25 a month, and have not had to pay more than that on any given month. I'm sure that if I used this phone more often than I do now I would probably need to do more research to ensure that I am getting the best phone service for any additional usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): approx 50 89988 2000/12/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable easy to use not the smallest cell phone available Full Review Tip From Chip In my experience in the world of electronics, the best way to make a decision on what you are going to purchase before you walk into a store is to do some research. Check the item out on Epinions and talk to people that have the same or similar products you're interested in. Someone that has what you are interested in purchasing is not going to tell you what the manufacturer or retailer wants you to hear, they are going to tell you exactly what they think of that item. They don't stand to gain anything by not telling you the truth about the product. If the situations permits, don't be afraid to ask them a few questions. The Purchase I walked in a retail store to do some shopping and they had a little stand in the middle of the aisle, that sold cell phones. I couldn't help stopping to take a look at what they had. Although I knew I wanted to buy a cell phone, I really had not planned on getting one that day. The selection wasn't very big and I thought it would be safe to look, since there was nobody at the stand at that moment and there was a sign on the counter that said the person working there wouldn't be returning for another 15 minutes. I had no idea which one I wanted to purchase. All I knew is that I wanted to get one that I could use with a prepaid service rather than have to get locked into a long term contract and that it be a Nokia phone. As my luck would have it, the guy returned 10 minutes early and asked me if I wanted to look at any of the phones. Wanting to have the prepaid service, I was limited to three phones I could get. The one that stood out, was the Nokia 918. I know a lot of people that have Nokia cell phones and they think very highly of them. When I saw that they had a special running where all I had to do was pay the activation fee and purchase a prepaid phone card, I decided to get it. Features I've had it for about a month now and so far, I've been very pleased with it. The readout is very easy to see and lights up when I turn it on. The keypad also lights up when I'm using it. I'm able to keep track of how long I've talked on each call and the total time I've used. This is very helpful since it's a prepaid service. It came with the AC charger and battery. I decided to purchase a leather case to put it in, not only to protect it, but the case had a clip to put on my belt. The other thing I got was the car adapter. I've found this to be very useful when I've used the phone a lot during the day and the battery is in need of a charge before I get home. You can use the phone while it's charging. I like the fact that I can store up to 40 personal phone numbers in the phones memory. Once I programmed it, all I have to do is scroll through my list and hit the "OK" key to bring that number up to call. Another handy feature is the call register. This tells me if I missed any calls and who I've called. Since I'm on a prepaid plan, I don't have the ability to have any extra services, such as caller ID, call waiting and so on. If I was on a regular calling plan, I would be able to see who was calling me. I can also make it to where I can receive all calls, only get incoming calls or only make calls to numbers that I've stored in the phones. If you let others use your phone this could be a valuable feature to use. You can also lock the phone to someone from making calls without you knowing about it. The phone has 5 different ring styles, ringer volume and a silent mode. If I'm having problems hearing the person I'm talking to, I can simply turn up the volume and the problem is solved. There is also a signal meter on the readout screen to let me know how strong of a signal I have and a battery meter to remind me that it's time to charge up the battery. If the battery gets low, it will also show me in text that I need to charge it up. This may not be the worlds smallest cell phone or one that has every feature known to exist, but it is an excellent phone for someone that the size of a cell phone is not important. The actual dimensions of the phone are 7 inches long (including the antenna base with the antenna not extended), 2 inches across and 7/8 of an inch thick at it's widest point. The Cons Other than it's size, I don't know of anything that I can say about this phone that's negative. I do have a few things to say about prepaid services that I'll save for another review. :o) Closing Comments I'm very happy with my selection and if I decide to purchase another cell phone, there is no doubt in my mind it will be another Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free With Activation fee and purchasing a pre-paid card 89987 2000/2/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to program fits in pocket or purse use lightweight none that i have found The Bottom LineI don't think 45-90 minutes of talk time is poor as they suggest, when you only want a phone for checking in and emergencies. To each his own. Full Review This review is written by a person that has always said no to a cell phone. I just always thought for a few pennies you could stop your car at any convenient store where they have public phones, or one of any thousands of public phone locations, call whomever you want and then be on your way...no expense except the phone call. Since my hubby and I have been traveling quite a bit with our motorhome and the fact that we have between us 7 children and 10 grandchildren we decided we really needed a cellular phone so that we could keep in touch with the family. Since we wanted one only to have in case we ran into problems while on the road or for checking up on our family we decided the Nokia 918 Tracfone "pay as you go" would be the best phone system for us. What also helped in making our decision was the cost and incentives when we went to purchase this phone. Our local K-Mart carried the Nokia 918 Tracfone and when we went out to check it out there was an instant $30.00 rebate as well as a send in rebate of $30.00 or you could choose a $40.00 phone card. With the phone retailing at $79.00 the instant rebate brought the price down to $49.00. We chose the $40.00 phone card since this was the better deal of the send in rebate. Another thing that helped in making the decision to purchase the Nokia 918 Tracfone is the fact that you do not have any charges other than phone cards after the initial expense of purchasing the phone. No monthly bill, which is to me, a great thing. To keep the same phone number you start out with you must keep time on the phone. If you let time run out then when you purchase another card you will have to re-activate the phone and they will issue you another phone number. So it is best to keep time on your phone. The phone indicates how much time you have left so you will know when you need to purchase another card. You can buy time increments 10 units (minutes) for $7.99, rates per minute is .79 and is good for 30 days, for $19.99 you can get 30 units, rate of .66 and good for 60 days, 100 units is $49.99 or .49 per unite and last 60 days, if you like to talk a lot you can purchase a 260 unit card for $99.99 or .38 per minute and this also last 60 days. You must redeem a prepaid card every 30 or 60 days, depending on card value, to maintain Tracfone Cellular Service. Tracfone is America's #1 prepaid cellular plan. You have no activation charges, no monthly access fees, no deposits, no use 'em or lose 'em minutes and no hidden cost or fine print. This is the claim that Nokia makes. They also tell you that you get nationwide service and it works everywhere there is cellular service. Airtime cards can be purchased at over 15,000 retailers nationwide. You can make local, roaming and long distance calls. The Nokia 918 Tracfone is powered by a rechargeable battery. Battery operation times depend on how you use the batteries, as well as on the coverage of the network and network parameters set by the cellular service provider. Standard time is around 6 hours to recharge. Getting started with your phone is simple. You phone an 800 number and l get your local cellular number. Then you wait for a few hours before it is activated. After activation you are free to use your phone. There is a feature called Keyguard and it locks the keypad so that you don't accidentally press the keypad when the phone is in your pocket or purse. The directory allows you to store 40 names and numbers. You can choose the volume at which the phone rings. You can set the emergency key 9, which when programed into your phone allows you to press 9 to call your 911 emergency number. The Nokia 918 Tracfone has very clear reception and with everyone I have talked to on it they say that it is clear on their end as well. It is so easy to just turn it on, then search for the number/name you have stored in and press send. That is it, the call is placed and all you have to do now is wait for the party to answer. This phone will be just the thing for us when we are on the road most of the summer. Not only will it keep us in touch with family and friends but it will allow us to call in case of an emergency and it will be easy on the pocketbook. With over 15,000 locations nationwide to purchase cards, we will not have to worry about finding a place to purchase additional cards. To redeem the card, you call their customer care center at an 800 number which is available 24/7. Tracfone minutes will not expire if you maintain active service, they will expire if service remains inactive for 4 months. Tracfone tracks how much airtime you use and how much is left so that you control your cost. If you are thinking about a cellular phone but don't want the hassle or cost of another phone bill you should consider the Nokia 918 Tracfone "pay as you go system." This would be a great phone for teenagers. They could have a phone in case of emergencies but would not be able to drive up a large phone bill. If they wanted to use it more often then they could be responsible for buying more phone cards. We have had our Nokia 918 Tracfone now for about 5 weeks and now don't know why we didn't check out this cell phone option earlier. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $49.00 89986 2001/1/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features for price slim battery life is not that hot The Bottom LineThis is a basic phone for people who don't need a lot of fancy features. Battery life could be better. Full Review I hate to refer to myself as simple but that is really how I use my cellular phone. I purchased this phone when renewing my cell phone contract with US Cellular. It set me back $20. Although this phone does not do everything that some of the newer phones do it does the job just dandy for me. The design is slender if not as small as a flip phone and fits easily in my purse. This phone comes with enough options that it should keep anybody happy that doesn't need every bell and whistle. You can store 40 names in the phone directory. Storing the names and numbers are pretty simple with directions on the screen. When not in calling mode you can scroll through the numbers to find them easily. It also has a restrict call feature that I do not use. It means you can restrict whether you can make outgoing calls, or only make outgoing calls to the numbers in the memory. You can lock the keypad so that when carrying the phone you don't accidentally press any buttons thus rendering your phone useless for incoming calls. This is called the keyguard. Turning this feature off and on is simple since the directions show on the screen. A nifty little item that this phone features is a call timer (I know just about every phone made nowadays does). This allows you to see how much time you've spent calling on your phone. Of course, how you are billed for that time varies for each service provider so check with them to see how that time will show up on your bill. The keypad does stay lit for a short period of time after touching the keypad and that can be turned off or on. Handy I suppose if you want to keep things dark? I don't know why someone would use that. You can also turn the keypad tones off and on. This would be handy, like in church! The type of ring is also adjustable. There is a limited selection compared to other phones but really how many do you want? This has four and as you scroll through it will ring in that type. I haven't changed mine, default seemed just fine. You can also change the volume of the ring. Gee, nothing new here. You have high, low and it can be turned off completely (yes, please do this at the movies). In this mode the phone doesn't ring but beeps once, flashes the lights and displays that you have had a call. You can program Key 9 for an emergency number. I haven't done that. You can dial this even when you have restricted outgoing calls. It has a special menu to set up use with your calling card. Can't say how this works I haven't used it but I could see how it would be very handy for those who travel a lot and do not have digital service. If your network supports it the phone will keep track of the last ten people who have called you but you did not answer the phone. Nifty! This is stored in the Call Register. I have never had good luck with cell phone batteries. Is it just me or do all of these reek? The battery life on this seems a bit weak. Since I do have trouble with that I did purchase the cigarette lighter charger/adapter. Good thing, I have had to use it. Regular charge times with the charger is about 5 hours for a full charge. The display will show when the charge is complete. I found most conversations on this phone to be clear, but all calls I make are short and to the point. I do not get a good signal within my home but this maybe due to my service. Overall this has been a nice phone. It is not a flip phone and you can't change the skins but that isn't important to me. I have been satisfied for my $20 (and another $20 for the car adapter/charger). I can recommend this phone but do note the battery life is quite short and that may be just me. I have given in full charges and discharges as the instructions say so…. I also try not to leave it in the car during the frigid weather. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 89985 2000/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small durable phone has volume controlfits in my purse service with tracfone is very expensive The Bottom LineI'd recommend this phone to anyone who wanted a cell phone without a contract. Its a great phone to have! Full Review I'd been wanting a cell phone for awhile, but really didn't want to get stuck in a contract because of my past experience with cell phones, so when my sister in law got one of these Nokia918 Tracfone's, I got very interested in getting one for myself. The phone itself cost $49.99, but came with a choice of a $30 rebate or 100 free minutes. Once you'd kept the phone activated for 90 days, they sent you your refund. I chose the free minutes since 100 free minutes is worth $50. The phones are sold in most major department stores and the price varies between $49.99 and $99.99 for some of the more expensive models. The service, however is the same price. Once you buy the phone, which comes with 10 minutes. When you get home with the phone, plug it in for 48 hours to charge. Then you have to call an 800 number to activate it. You can also activate phones by going to the Tracfone website. When you call or go to the website, you are required to give them your personal information, such as name, address, phone number, etc. You do not need to give them a credit card number. You also have to pick a 4 digit PIN number. Once you get through that, then its time to activate your phone. The operator will give you several sets of numbers to punch into your phone, once you've finished, your phone is now activated. Then you have to wait another 24 hours to use the phone. They ask you to test it by calling your home phone number, then calling your cell phone from your home phone. Once tested, the phone is ready to go. To add more time, you have to purchase phone cards, most major department stores sell them, I usually get mine at Walmart, or buy the cards right from the Tracfone website. I find that to be easier, again when you buy the cards, you need to go to the website or call the 800 number to punch numbers into your phone to activate the minutes. The first time takes the longest, after that it takes about 2 minutes. The time on the phone cards vary, you can buy a 10 minute phone card for $7.99, a 30 minute phone card is $19.99 and a 100 minute phone card is $49.99. You can also buy a 260 minute phone card for $99.99. You have to buy a 10 minute phone card every month in order to keep your phone activated. You only have to buy the other cards every 60 days, which is a better value. Any unused minutes carry over to the next month, provided you buy a new card in time. When you turn on the phone, the amount of units (minutes) you have left shows up as well as the expiration date. Its definetely more expensive than other phones, where you can get up to 500 minutes or more for $29.99 a month, but the reason I like tracfone is that I'm not stuck in a contract, even though its way too expensive. I don't plan on keeping this phone forever, but for now its good for emergencies and nice to have. This phone is easy to use, and is very durable. It doesn't have alot of features and you can't check your email with it. It does have caller ID and you can change the rings. The battery lasts for about a day and a half off the charger and it beeps when the battery is getting low. Its small enough to fit in your pocket or purse and is very durable. I dropped it once in a parking lot and figured it was history when it hit the cement. It still works. Its also got a volume control for people like me who have hearing problems. Reception is great unless you're in a really remote area. I'd recommend this phone to anyone looking for a low cost cell phone, for emergencies or for someone who just doesn't need another bill every month. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 89984 2000/1/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 emergency use convenience too large to wear comfortably static Full Review With the close of the 20th Century, we have gone tech. We have a computer AND a cell phone. My wife had jokingly said that she wanted a phone "because all the other mommies have one". I thought that it would be good for emergencies so on Mother's Day I surprised her with a Nokia 918. With a contract plan with Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) through work, we got the phone for free. I did purchase the carrying case for $20. I have seen smaller wireless phones, the size of a pager, that can be worn unobtrusively on a belt. The Nokia 918 is larger. Too large to be worn comfortably. My wife carries it in her pocketbook. This model is an analog and sometimes you hear static. Occasionally it does not function while inside stores. I hear digital phones have better reception. When we were first getting familiar with it, I called our home, from our home. The next bill came with roaming charges from New York. When you leave your home service area, your phone will roam, picking up the next cellular system. We live in CT, on the shore of Long Island Sound. The radio waves travelled across the sound to a New York network and back to us. Path of least resistance. You are able to disable the roaming feature and only make calls from your home area. If we travel, I will have to re-enable it to roam. It is a very durable phone as my wife has dropped it numerous times. The last time knocking the battery off. I popped it back on and we're still in business. The battery just snaps on the back. There are two different batteries that can be used. Slim 600 mAh NiMH with a talk time of 1hr 15 min. (5hr charge time) Extended 800 mAh NiCd with 1hr 40 min of gab time (6 hr charge time) The charger plugs into a standard wall outlet. We recharge it every couple of days. She only turns it on when she makes a call. If you leave it on to receive calls you will have to recharge daily. You can store up to 40 names and numbers in the Nokia 918, as well as your calling card information. The keypad and display have lights for easy reading. There are 5 ringing type options that can be set to ring high, low or silent. In silent mode, the phone will beep once and flash the lights, displaying CALL. No embarrassing ringing. The Nokia 918 is a fine cellular phone for the first timer. Would also make a good work phone to keep in the truck. If you plan on carrying it with you, you'll need big pockets or a purse. Wireless phones can be invaluable. My wife just remarked this the other day after fearing she had a flat tire. So too, I imagine, thinks the guy who, using my SSN, opened up an AT&T account and called EVERYONE on the face of the planet. Warning:Cell phones Can be Dangerous Don't use while driving. Switch OFF in Hospitals or near medical equipment Using mobile phones on aircraft is illegal. They can cause interference. Turn 'em off at gas stations, near chemicals or fuels. Do not use where explosives are being used for blasting. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): We got it free with a service contract...They go for $49.00 89983 2001/12/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 a good choice for emergencyoccasional use available in several stylish colors battery life is rather short too large to wear at the waist The Bottom LineConsidering that the Nokia 918 was free with our cellular phone service contract, it still provides adequate features and reliability for the basic user. Full Review As an owner of the Nokia 918 cellular phone for about two and a half years now, I feel that I can accurately give a good description of its product features, long term durability and ease of use for the basic cell phone user. And because my husband owns the exact same phone (only in a different color with a different battery type) and uses it often for business calls, I can also explain why this particular model would not be the best choice for more regular users. Free with our three year contract with Cellular One, my red model and my husband's blue one are still going strong after all if this time. Measuring a little more than 4 inches in height with the antenna not extended, my Nokia 918 cellular phone can be found inside my purse any time I leave the house. Because I work the 3-11 shift at the hospital and usually do not get home until right before midnight most of the time, we decided a few years ago that owning a cell phone was not just a luxury but a necessity. Having that extra peace of mind knowing that my Nokia 918 is safely tucked away in my purse fully charged and ready to go in the event of an emergency as I drive is certainly worth the $20 a month I pay for 200 minutes of talk time. While that probably does not sound like much to more frequent cell phone users, it has always been plenty of time to fit my individual needs. For in an average month, I use MAYBE 30 minutes of my allotted time, if that. Quick calls home while I'm in the car or sometimes out shopping are usually the only calls that I make. When not in use, I rarely keep my Nokia 918 turned on unless I am specifically expecting a phone call. So as a basic, rather infrequent cell phone user, I've found that this particular model has served me well over the years without the need to upgrade to a more advanced model. ~~~Cell Phone Design~~~ At the time when we received our Nokia 918 cellular phones, I remember thinking just how SMALL I thought it was compared to the much larger and heavier version we had owned previously with a different service contract. Now over two and a half years later, this particular model seems HUGE compared to many of the newer phones that may be purchased on the market today! This only proves just how much difference a few years makes in the electronics industry. Still, my attractively designed red Nokia 918 is constructed with durable materials containing a fully extendable antenna for use as necessary. And it still looks almost brand new since we purchased the optional black leather cover with strap and belt clip for to protect the exterior of our phones. Available in several other optional colors (green, yellow, and black) besides the red and blue ones we own, the Nokia 918 cellular phone not only provides reliable performance for the basic user, but is also stylish in its design as well. ~~~Battery Life & Talk Times~~~ With the Slim 600 mAh NiMH (BMT-1L) battery that is currently attached to my Nokia 918 cellular phone, I have approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes total) of talk time and 15 hours of standby time when this model is turned on to receive calls. My husband's larger Extended 800 mAh NiCd (BKL-2S) battery lasts a bit longer, giving him 1 hour and 40 minutes of talk time (100 minutes total) and 21 hours of standby time in contrast. And using the standard charger we both own, it takes around 5 hours to fully charge my slim battery while it takes about 6 hours to fully charge his extended one. To prolong the battery life of the Nokia 918, it is recommended that the battery to be allowed to fully discharge before recharging it up again. And when stored fully charged but turned off, my phone will still have enough life left to make a short phone call several weeks later. But on average, I charge mine every one to two weeks for basic occasional use. My husband has to charge his more often, usually daily, and he often runs out of battery/talk life frequently in the middle of a phone call. This can be very frustrating for him at times to say the least, but if I'm around when it happens, he simply "borrows" my Nokia 918 and picks up where he left off. ~~~Cell Phone Features~~~ Along with several ringing style choices and the keyguard feature, the Nokia 918 cellular phone offers speed dialing with a memory of up to 40 different numbers (see tech specs below) as well as voice mail and caller-ID (service is extra). When the battery or signal reception is low, the bars on the display area of the phone will line up accordingly so that any adjustments can be made. As the phone is turned on, the pre-programmed number will be displayed for a split second with the light turned on for easier use in the dark. Storing numbers and making calls are as simple as pressing a few buttons, and both the ringer and receiver volumes on the Nokia 918 cellular phone can be altered to meet your particular needs. ~~~Technical Specs~~~ Weight 7.6oz with Extended 800 mAh NiCd Battery 6.7oz with Slim 600 mAh NiMH Battery Transmitting Power 0.6 W ( + 2 dB - 4 dB) Operating Voltage 4.8 V (Internal Battery), 120 V (AC), 12 V (Car) Frequency Band 824.040 - 848.970 MHz (Tx) 869.040 - 893.970 MHz (Rx) Number of Channels 832 Memory Locations 40 Memory Capacity Alpha: 16 characters/location Numeric: 32 digits/location ~~~Cell Phone Safety Issues~~~ Please use common sense while using the Nokia 918 as well as any other cell phone, not only in the name of basic courtesy and safety for others, but for your own as well. Always pull over the side of the road to dial a number and pay particular attention to everything going on around you while talking as any form of distraction can lead to an accident with injuries or even tragic fatalities. The safe use of cell phones while driving has become such a serious issue lately that some states are now considering banning their use altogether for this purpose. So talk smart and be considerate. Your fellow (wo)man will thank you. {Rant on} And please pay attention to those "No Cell Phones" signs when you enter the hospital to visit a sick relative or friend because they are there for a very legitimate reason and not for your inconvenience. The signals they transmit sometimes interfere with medical equipment, which could potentially place patients at a dangerous health risk. So compliance here would be greatly appreciated by both the patients and the hospital staff. {Rant off} ~~~Overall Recommendation~~~ For basic, occasional use, the Nokia 918 cellular phone is a good reliable choice. Kept tucked away inside your purse or jacket, this average sized model provides basic quality and performance at a rock bottom price. But more frequent users like my husband who talk longer than 30 minutes a month, pass this one by and purchase a more up-to-date top of the line model instead, especially if you prefer a smaller, wearable size. So check out the Nokia 918 today and see if it fits your particular cell phone needs. Because of its long term durability and service, I have no complaints at all regarding this cellular phone's ability to get the job done. But I DO have one question for any of you more advanced users out there: Is Nokia pronounced "No-kia" or "Nok-ee-a"?? Inquiring minds would LOVE to know!! The Nokia 918 is sold with a one year limited warranty and many convenient accessories are also available if desired. See the owners manual for details. For more information on the Nokia 918 cellular phone and other more up-to-date models, check out their website online at: www.nokia.com Questions or comments? 1-888-NOKIA2U Nokia Mobile Phones, Inc. 6200 Courtney Campbell Causeway, Suite 900 Tampa, FL 33607 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7791 Nokia 5180i 90097 2000/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life reception user friendly with tons of great features a little on the large side but no real problems The Bottom LineThis phone is great... it has everything I need. The price is unbeatable; Its perfect for anyone who wants an inexpensive phone with all the features they will need. Full Review Wow... this phone was free with activation and is simply amazing. The battery will easily last the weekend; I have never had to worry about it dying when I may need it. The reception is as good or better than any other phone I have used; I have never lost reception, even while indoors. Everything about this phone is easy to access and change; Nokia has come up with a great interface that is by far quicker and more efficient than others. When I first saw it, I thought the size seemed a little large. However, I soon found out that it is easier to hold and operate than the small ones. It slips into my pocket easily every time. This Nokia is great; the value is really incredible. After seeing this phone in action, I don't think I will ever spring for a more expensive phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 (Free) 90096 2000/11/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 practical good buy none The Bottom LineI love that I control the cost--and with the same provider, Verizon, that others pay a mint for! Full Review One hour in a snow ditch convinced me I'd better get cell for emergencies. I'm completely satisfied with this phone--it has all I need plus voice mail and caller ID. Activation and voice mail setups were a breeze, and adding airtime can't be simpler (I've tried both via phone and web site--both are easy). No activation fees, no getting nickled and dimed to death on a monthly bill, no worrying about "anytime minutes," or other gimmicks, no severance fees, no taxes, etc. I also have no interest in getting the newest of everything, so this candy-bar shaped model is for me! I only wish they had a message board site for tracfone users, since there are a lot of useful hints to share. For example, I access my cell voice mail via a landline (at work)phone and, therefore, no "units" are deducted! Also, you can also have someone leave a phone number message on your VM, then read it in the text inbox WITHOUT (again) having any units deducted. In short, I recommend this highly for anyone who simply wants to make/receive calls and who doesn't need to make the phone companies rich by having the newest model around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90095 2000/5/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features great reception it s cheap changeable faceplates compact stylish no calculator The Bottom LineWith all that this phone offers you can't beat the price, it may be a little chunky but it's still very stylish and portable!Good investment! Full Review I just got this cute little phone a couple weeks ago and it has been nothing but great! I get excellent reception even in buildings! It has over 30 neat ringtones. The menu is clear and easy to understand. The screen is big and very easy to see. With 3 different games, 99name phone book, text messaging capability, caller id, retractable antennae, alarm clock, and other stuff I can't remember! Oh,.. changeable faceplates too! I don't know where people are getting that this phone is big... it isn't one of the smallest out there but it isn't the biggest either at 5.2in. and weighs under 6oz. (I guess it is a little chunky, but it's still very portable!) I got this phone through TracFone and got free voicemail, caller ID, and call waiting. (Only available with digital).. The only thing I'm lacking is text messaging- which the phone is capable of... I just can't get it through TracFone. All in all, for the price this is a great little phone! Highly recommend! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 76.00 90094 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 changeable faceplates good reception relatively bulky few features The Bottom LineGood mid-sized phone for people on a mid-sized budget. Full Review The Nokia 5180i is a good, substantially weighted phone that most consumers would appreciate. If you like pretty, tech-y toys, you probably wouldn't give it a second look. It's no behemoth, but its a good bit heavier than comparable phones that came out during the same time frame. The battery makes up the bulk of the weight, but as a trade-off, once you charge this sucker up, you don't have to worry about your power depleting quickly (unless you have a phone perpetually stuck to your ear). It's a good size if you like the feel of landline cordless phones. The reception is good; I won't say that you can hear a pin drop on the other end, but I've never experienced any static or drops. If you want vibration, you have to buy a second battery, which I've seen priced at $50--and its HUGE! Otherwise you have a choice of about 40 midi ringtones which will remind you of the elementary etudes you played when you were taking piano lessons. Contrary to what the description says, my phone does have caller ID capability, and it's pretty useful especially if your carrier is a prepaid company. If the number that pops up is in your address book, it will display the name you've entered for that number--pretty nifty. The menu is a bit more complex than previous NOKIA phones, however there are quite a bit more features as well (message center, call log, games, etc.). It has green backlighting which is convenient in the car, and that great feature that you can press any ol' button when it rings so that you'll be able to answer before someone hangs up on you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90093 2000/2/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 has games durable pretty small missing some features The Bottom LineThis phone is cute, and has alot of nifty features, but with all the newer models and different phones out, I would explore my options and get a different phone. Full Review I got this phone about a year ago, and it has served me fairly well. But, I really want a different one. This phone has lots of ringers, but you can't download any, or make your own. The phone has the changable faceplates, and keypads, if you are so inclined. The battery that came with mine is not the greatest, as it falls off constantly. This could be due to my dropping the phone on numerous occasions, I don't know. The battery holds its' charge well, but mine seems to run down in about a day and a half, even after I fully charge it. The keypad is a good size, the buttons are easy to push without accidently hitting the wrong ones. The menus are intuitive and easy to find your way around in. There are a few games, like Memory, Snake, and Logic. These aren't very easy to play on a phone, but cute features. The phonebook stores up to 99 numbers, and you can set it up for 1 key dialing, which is nice. Unfortunately, there is just Silent, Normal and Phone Off mode. There is no vibrate for this phone, which sucks if you are waiting for someone to call but don't want to disrupt say, a classroom with a ringing phone. Also, if your phone is off and someone calls, it won't tell you that you missed any calls. That feature in particular is annoying to me, because if the battery dies, I still would like to know if someone called me. The other really frustrating [to me] part of the missed calls feature is that it doesn't tell you the *date* someone called. Which makes it really confusing if the same people keep calling, because it's very hard to tell what call was missed when from just the name and time. I have voice mail, and am capable of receiving text messages [for some reason, I can't send them, but that has to do with my actual service, not the phone.] The keypad can be locked with a code so that only you [or anyone that knows your code] can unlock it to use it. Reception is pretty clear, but it does give me the annoying echo effect sometimes when I am talking. I don't know if that is the phone, or the service. There are no web capabilities with this phone. Using the Nokia 5180i is really easy, and overall a good experience. It's not a big phone, so carrying around is simple. Basically, the Nokia 5180i is a cute,small phone with alot of features. It does have it's downfalls, but it's not a bad phone at all if you don't mind the missing features I meantioned above. Recommended: No 90092 2000/3/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features good reception voice quality a little bit bulky vibrate mode costs extra the buttons are bit stiff The Bottom LineGreat entry-level phone especially if it comes free with service contract. Prices have dropped to $69-$79 so it's still a good value. Full Review I've been resisting the use of cellular phones until trying a prepaid service while travelling in Japan. Realizing the convenience, I decided to sign up with Tracfone, a nation-wide prepaid cellular service here in the U.S. I chose the Nokia 5180i since it was the newest digital cell phone available for the Tracfone service. Along with the phone came features like voice mail, text messaging, caller ID, and call waiting, which are not available if you choose an analog phone for the service. The Phone The 5180i is about 5" long and 2" wide, which is not too bad, but it is more than 1" thick which makes it feel bulky. The standard battery is Nickel Metal Hydride, but two types of Lithium Ion batteries are available, either to make the phone lighter or to increase battery life. I'd recommend the standard NiMH battery, as it provides enough battery life (2-3 hours talk, 4 days standby) for casual use. The phone has the standard 0-9, *, # telephone keys, plus the Navi, Clear, Up/Down scroll, and On/Off buttons. The Navi key is equivalent to the Enter key, selecting menus and executing actions. The Clear button is like Escape and Backspace. The LCD screen displays 5 lines and gets lit along with the keys when in use. The buttons are somewhat stiff, so they need be pushed pretty hard. It's not suitable for people who like to press the keys quickly. Additional Features The 5180i has all the necessary features, including a phone book, voice/text messaging, configuration menus to customize the phone, call logs to track missed/received/dialed calls and their duration, and Keyguard which locks the keys during transport to prevent accidental dialing. In addition, the phone comes with 3 games (Pairs, Snake, Logic) and 40 different tones. One weakness of the 5180i is that the vibrating mode is not standard, and can be obtained only if the "vibrating battery" is bought separately. It'd be nice if this feature is standard. Using the Phone I took my 5180i along when I drove from San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles and back recently. Reception was pretty good throughout the trip, and voice quality was not a problem whenever I made calls. I had to get used to the stiff keys, and tried not to carry it around as it was a bit too large to rest comfortably in pockets. Summary The Nokia 5180i is ideal for people who use cellular phone infrequently (prepaid service, cheap plans, etc). It has most of the necessary features to make it practical, making it a good entry-level digital phone. For those who rely on cell phones for their work/lifestyle, you should probably look elsewhere for a smaller and more feature-rich wireless phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 7792 Nokia 3360 90178 2004/4/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small durable cheap doesn t always have good service This is almost the perfect phone for anyone who does not need all the fancy color screens, and the polyphonic rings . . . you know, all the bells and whistles. I had this phone for close to 2 1/2 years, and loved it. Its small and fits in your pocket; its cheap and works great most of the time; and its super Durable. I'm one of those really clumsy people, and i would drop my phone all the time. The only time i ever had to replace something was went the cover split and i got a new one. So if you want a good cheap phone thats durable, this is the one. 90177 2003/9/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good long lasting cell phone not colorno wap internet Ok well personally i loved this phone ,... about a year and a half. ago. it is a great phone for those of you who dont like color display or WAP internet. but it has fun games that keep u busy and you can txt message all of your friends! basicly this is a great phone 90176 2003/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small faceplates lots of ringtones vibrate decent battery shape takes a little getting used to slightly difficult to press buttons I got this phone about 6 months ago, and I really have very few or no complaints about it. Tons of features, decent battery life, lots of available accessories. The shape took a little getting used to, but I love it now. Good size phone book (100 entries, I think), 3 cool games, 25 ring tones and downloadable options. This is a great phone! I paid $149 for it, but that's only cause I got it my pre-paid package. 90175 2005/8/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 simple to use small in size great design not very many features not color basic lcd This is my favorite phone I ever owned! It has such a great design, is the perfect small size, offers just the right amount of features for someone who doesn't need their phone for extras like gaming, pictures, etc. It gets the job done without being too complex! Their are a lot of accessories offered for this phone, so it can easily be customized to fit the individual (I personally had a Britney Spears phone cover!!!) I definitely recommend this phone, and wish I was still using it personally!! 90174 2005/9/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 no frills wickedly long standby time just talktext must lock keys a little bulky compared to new phones not a clamshell No frills, just talk and text I had to get this phone as I have a $10/mo 'emergency' plan but the catch is it could only work with TDMA. In the 2 yrs I used the phone for texting mainly and only 20 min a month talking. It worked perfectly and best of all the 12 days of standby time meant I didn't have to charge it every 3 days like my wife's "modern" phone. Sadly, lost the 3360 camping and will probably buy a 3560 to replace it. Must lock keys, not a clamshell 90173 2004/1/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very durable internal antenna simple animation email text message even aol instant messanger capable heavy ugly yellow ish backlighting I bought the 3361 phone (really the only difference between the 3360 and the 3361 is the faceplate) last year for AT&T's Free to Go prepaid service. I would rate this second only to my new toy, a Nokia 3595 color screen web phone. The 3360 is simple. It is easy to use, with one button to access your menu and another to bring you to straight to your phonebook. The calculator and alarm clock features are quite handy, and I love the fact that you can make your own ringtones (but only if you know where to find the codes and websites that allow you to do this). This phone weighs as much as a rock, and you can treat it like one if you like. Iv'e dropped this thing many a time and that hasn't phased it a bit. Great phone. Everyone should have one. 90172 2000/4/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 amazing interface easy to use cheap almost too many options battery life is so so bigger heavier than nokia 8260 The Bottom LineThis phone is worth more than the actual price! Truly amazing for anybody and completely versatile to fit your needs. Full Review What do you call a cell phone, a little game system, an organizer, calander, alarm clock, E-Mail Account, SMS Messanger, Phone Book, Calculator, and an amazing business tool in one? A NOKIA 3360!! The word "options" is the first word that comes to mind when talking about the nokia 3360. This cheap phone is my life. With an amazing Phonebook capacity along with phonebook storage type (have several numbers under each name + E-Mail address or Street Address) this phone is nice and tidy. The interface is truly state-of-the-art and almost TOO easy to use. Have different profiles (such as an outdoor mode, a silent mode, or whatever..). With about 30 ring tones + 7 more which you can download from the internet, including the coolest new songs. The phone rings and viberates at the same time. Send and receive emails. Send and receive short text messages through anybody that has pretty much any modern phone, regardless of the service provider. Most always have clear reception. Gives you more than enough information, and stores more than enough info also. This phone has an answer for every need, and left me with almost no use for my Palm Pilot. The original battery (which is not too bad) is easily and affordably replaceable. This is by far the best phone out for its dollar and is worth every single penny!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 with plan 90171 2000/10/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size very good reception ease of use could be better ok battery life only 2 phones entries per contact The Bottom LineExcellent little phone- easy to hold, intuitive to use, very good reception. Full Review Excellent little phone- I'm pleased with the reception, it's ergonomic and intuitive to use- much easier than a clamshell design- and the games are fun. I don't have need for the internet connectivity, but others might. Haven't tried the infrared capacity yet either. I am able to get reception in some previously dead zones for my old phone. Seems sturdily built- I'm surprised at the earlier review. Accessories are still a bit hard to come by. Bought the 3390 leather case, and it fits fine. Also got the Lithium battery so I can switch batteries when needed. But it is a minor pain having to reset time and date each time I switch. I like the size better than the tiny Nokia- as Little Red Riding Hood said, "just right!" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.95 90170 2002/8/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 interchangeable faceplates accessories size features downloadable ringtones text messaging compatible with palm pilot we are always shopping for more the interchangeable faceplates can be addicting The Bottom Line It is small, yet usable. It is light, yet durable. It has great features for its price. It is even compatible with palm pilots! Definitely a great bargain!! Full Review I was needing to add my teen daughter to our plan. It was perfect timing to go ahead and upgrade our phones while we were at it. I liked it for its size, its PRICE, and it had many of the features we would use, without all of the fluff I knew we wouldn't use. (We had the phones capable of everything..but never used the features) We loved the changeable faceplates, the downloadable ringtones (which we diligently found for free) and that it was just cute! My daughter loves it, I love it. My husband never really expresses too much opinion..but was won over just this afternoon when he realized that he could send information to and from his Palm Pilot!!! What a bonus!! We are addicted to the text messaging! A perfect way to communicate without burning up our minutes...or interrupting a driver. Just a quick note..and all is said!! As for the battery life..we are always sure to charge it while not in use...or charge it in our car, so we can not speak of being disappointed with it. They do offer the extended life batteries which we have purchased and awaiting for its arrival. ALWAYS BE PREPARED! SO FAR SO GOOD ON THIS PHONE! WE 3 ARE A NOKIA 3360 FAMILY!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.01 90169 2000/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 changeable covers internet downloadable ringtones memory space somewhat heavy uses a lot of battery power The Bottom LineVERY good phone with LOTS OF FEATURES AVAILABLE. Full Review I just bought the internal antenna booster for the Nokia 3360, and it works wonderfully! I recommend the 3360 with antenna booster, and you'll get wonderful reception, no static, and excellent clarity! The nokia 3360 has a wonderful antenna anyway, but with the internal antenna booster, it's extremely powerful! The phone itself, is very powerful. It has every feature available! You can: send/recieve e-mail, download ringtones, store like 200 names with numbers, great reception (like said above), small and compact, easy to use, reminders (very handy!), and alot more! The price for the phone is reasonable too. I only paid $50, and IT WAS WORTH IT! Shop around before you buy to get a great price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90168 2000/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 comfortable to talk on easy to handle lightweight sharp looking none so far The Bottom LineFinal recommendation is that if you have chance to go with this model of Nokia then do so. It has everything you need, easy to use, and looks great. Full Review We initially had a Nokia 3390 with Cingular service that was the worst decision we ever made (see review on Cingular service). That is an entirely different story. We recently went with the Nokia 3360 and ATT. That was one of the best decisions we ever made. The phone is light, easy to handle, great looking, user friendly for first time cell users. Text messaging, vibration alert, removable face plates, buttons large enough to navigate phone book, messages, etc. I am very happy with this phone and recommend to others who are looking at it. We went on a share plan and paid $20 for two 3360's and haven't had one regret. The phone works well and has everything you can possibly need. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 90167 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 front back color covers built in vibrating alert downloadable ring tones lightweight covers sometimes get lose over time slightly awkward to talk on The Bottom LineGood little phone w/ just the right blend of features -- not too little, not too much Full Review I graduated from a Nokia 5165 to a Nokia 3360 about 3 +/- weeks ago now & so far I am enjoying my new phone. I am an entertainment designer (lighting & sound) so, I am constantly in performances and the built-in vibrating ring is a God send. The reminders are nice to have, but I find that I don't use them very often. Maybe I'll start keeping my friend's & family's birthdays in my phone. At first I found the phone small and awkward to talk on but I got over that pretty quickly. You just have to use it and after a while it starts to feel good to talk on. The keypad also felt small at first but now I like it too. I think it was just a matter of weaning myself off of the 5165's style. I only have two gripes so far. The first is, when I an checking my voice mail sometimes my phone will freeze, hang-up, and reboot. I searched on the internet & apparently this is a common problem with this phone. I am running software version 1.04. I haven't checked with AT&T (my service provider) yet, but I plan to. It doesn't seem to be a problem if you call your voice mail manually, it is only when you press and hold 1 or press call when you have voice mail waiting. My second & final complaint is, the front & back covers are getting lose. I haven't purchased a new cover yet, but I am hoping that it will alleviate this looseness. The sound quality is good and the reception is great (Orlando, FL / AT&T). I haven't checked into an internal antenna yet, but I had one on my 5165 and it improved my reception in buildings. The bottom line is, I like this phone and am planning on staying with it if AT&T can fix the voice mail freezing problem. Good phone, just the right blend of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $20 w/rebate 90166 2000/12/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size lots of neat features including ir communication with pda snotebooks freezes crashes occasionally seems more frequent when battery is low so so battery life The Bottom LineGreat features for the price. But if you're looking for wireless internet, check with your provider first to make sure they support it with this phone. Full Review I've had the 3360 for a few weeks now and I'm mostly pretty happy with it. The ability to beam business cards to and from my Palm is really useful. If you download and install Nokia PC suite on your notebook PC, you can do some other useful stuff, including backing up and restoring your phones memory to your computer. Reception is quite good, but like all digital phones, can break-up and quit quite suddenly when you're in a fringe area. What usually happens is that you can continue to hear the party you are speaking to just fine, but they hear only small fragments of what you are saying. The biggest reason I bought the 3360 was because of the iR modem capability which is built into the phone. My AT&T wireless dealer had this feature listed in the advertising brochure for the phone. Unfortunately, I soon found out (*after* signing a 1 yr contract) that AT&T disables the WAP menu and wireless modem capability of this phone because it is not currently compatible with their network. (that's the story so far...) Apparently some people who use different providers are able to enjoy this cool feature, but it looks like us AT&T wireless customers have been left out :( Of course, this isn't Nokia's fault - and this review is about the Nokia... It is something to be aware of when shopping for a WAP enabled phone however. Some people seem to complain about battery life on this phone. I found it does fall a little short of other phones, but it's really quite adequate. It's important to let the phone fully charge - don't take it off the charger until the phone displays the message "battery full". Battery life also improved after I ran it way down and fully charged it a few times. If you need more life, then get a 1200 mAh Li-ion battery. I bought one and the phone seems to run forever on it. Got mine from newegg.com for $9 + $6 shipping. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90165 2000/1/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ability to personalize cool features super clarity during calls great reception small size battery life sucks The Bottom LineBUY THIS PHONE!! You will NOT regret it!! I'm so glad I didn't go with another model. The quality is superb! Full Review I really do love this phone. I have never owned a Nokia phone before so this is my first. The phone I had before this was the Samsung 8500 (Sprint) which was...okay at best. The Nokia 3360 is absolutely awesome and I am so glad I got it! When I was first shopping around for a new phone I wasn't sure if the 3360 was any good. Thank god I found the reviews on Epinions because they convinced me that this was the phone for me! Let's start with the actual phone itself. I think the size is just perfect. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers...the Nokia 8000 series are just way too small and it feels weird talking into them for longer than a couple of minutes. I like the weight too. Not too heavy at all and easy to slip into your pocket or your purse. I also like the way the buttons are and just the overall sleek look of the phone. With my old phone I couldn't really change anything about it. I love being able to get different colored/patterned faceplates and having 20+ different ring tones to choose from. The games on the phone are also a bonus. Next...calls. The clarity and reception that this phone gets is absolutely amazing! I don't know about other models of Nokia phones, but the 3360 blows my Samsung 8500 away!! I use my phone a lot in my house as well as when I'm traveling in the car and with my old phone sometimes I would be talking and all of the sudden the signal would be lost. That has YET to happen with the 3360. I was somewhat concerned about the effectiveness of the internal antenna but it has more than proved itself to me. I get full reception almost anywhere I go. Inside stores and buildings the antenna reception meter stays at, at least two notches, usually three or four. When I'm on the phone, everything is crystal clear and all my friends have told me that I sound as if I were on a regular phone. I haven't experienced any static or cutting out AT ALL!!! The only thing that really disappointed me about the 3360 is the battery life. I'm not sure if it is just me or what, but I followed the suggestions from the company I purchased the phone from and charged the battery for the first time for 24 hours before use. However, the battery life is much shorter than I expected. From what I read on Nokia's website, the battery is supposed to give you up to 3.5 hours of talk time. I was lucky if I could get 1.5 hours of talk time out of it. I found myself having to charge the battery during my conversations all the time. I have gotten a new battery since then. I purchased a Li-Ion MaH 1200 battery online CHEAP and my new battery life gives me about 3.5 to 4 hours of talk time which is GREAT! If anyone is interested in purchasing a better battery for their 3360, check out http://store.yahoo.com/kajook/batfornok339.html I got it from them for only $20 plus shipping!! Nokia offers better batteries for the 3360 but they are way more expensive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE 90164 2001/11/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small lots of features lightweight too small for some keypad response The Bottom LineIf you want small, this is the phone for you. If you need to feel like you're holding on to something substantial this is definitely not it. Full Review When I signed my husband and myself up for a wireless plan, I was looking for a phone that was cheap and had enough features to keep us both satisfied. I chose this cell phone because it was small, lightweight, had a ton of features, and was cheap. Additionally, it has a built in antenna which makes it much less attractive to the cats as a chew toy. The phone has a good size display and the standard Nokia menu system which is pretty easy to use. The one problem with the phone is that it seems you have to press the buttons rather hard to get a response but it hasn't really turned out to be much of an issue for me. Additionally, it has an IR port to communicate with your PC as well as access WAP enabled Internet sites. Another great feature is the phone book. Besides being able to store up to 200 contacts, you can store multiple phone numbers for each person as well as address information. My husband, on the other hand, HATES this phone. He thinks it's much too small to be comfortable while talking. The button response and size also seems to be an issue for him. He finds the shape of the phone awkward to hold for any extended period of time. I ended up returning his phone and getting a 6160 which is slightly larger and also has a few more features. I think that this is a good phone for someone who values portability over comfort. The best thing about this phone is that it is small and light enough to keep in my pocket without feeling like I'm lugging a brick around with me. For someone who is constantly on the phone, the 6160 may be a better choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90163 2002/2/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 internal antenna illuminated keypadscreen apparent durability features size weight cannot lock phone to prevent unauthorized use The Bottom LineSmall enough to wear on belt, no antenna to break, easy to use, Nokia quality, coooool. Full Review I chose the 3360 primarily for its size. Next high on my list is the internal antenna. My last phone was a Motorola StarTAC. Great little phone that looks like a pager on your belt. One problem was the exposure of the retractable antenna. It got bent. The 3360 was a logical replacement for the reasons that I stated in my 'Pros'. The phone seems to be well built and typical Nokia quality. The display screen is small but quite readable. The keypad illumination is quite good. The numbers as well as the letters on the keys are back illuminated as are the up/down menu arrows. Your phone list is one key touch away which is nice. Call clarity is good. One thing I do not understand is this. From my office phone I dialed the 3360 to test it. From my location in the building I have only one bar on the signal strength meter. The 3360 did not pick up the call. The ATT wireless mail box got the call. Even though the phone couldn't receive the call, it did get the notification from ATT that I had a message waiting. Plus I could make outgoing calls from the 3360. (??) A major (to me) omission from this phone is the inability to secure it from unauthorized use. Sure you can prevent access to some features and it does have a keypad lock that is only useful for preventing accidental key activation. But the phone does not force you to enter an access code to unlock the keypad. Just hit 'unlock' and *. And, the phone tells you how to do it. Nothing that I have found would prevent an unauthorized user from making as many calls as he or she wants. If anyone knows a way around this, I would like to hear about it. I haven't had the phone long enough to be sure about the battery life. Maybe I'll write an opinion on that after I have had the phone for a while. As to why I chose this phone over the Nokia 8260, which is smaller and lighter (excellent). I thought the 8260 might be TOO light and easy to lose, drop without realizing it, or misplace. That opinion is not based on point of fact...just my perception. Although the 3360 is only 1.4 ounces heavier than the 8260 that 1.4 ounces translates to a bit more heft than the lighter 8260. With the 3360 you know you have something in your pocket whereas the 8260 is a lot less noticeable. The 3360 is about a 1/2" taller than the 8260 - not even an issue. However, the 3360 is noticeably thicker than the 8260. I wear my phone on my belt so, the slightly larger size of the 3360 is not a show stopper from owning this phone. If you intend to carry your cell in a shirt or pants pocket, you should consider the 8260. Another problem with the 8260 is the obviously cheap, painted on finish. My co-worker's 8260 has paint peeling off the corners. The color on the 3360 however looks to be in the plastic itself as opposed to being applied later. Finally, the 8260 would have cost me another $40 under my plan. Notable features of the 3360 are the sizable phone book, one-touch dialing (you can assign one key to a phone number and when you need to call that number just depress and hold that key and the phone dials your number - very handy when you are in a situation where dialing a phone could be a problem). Other good features are the various profiles you may use - normal, meeting, outdoors, silent, pager. You can tailor your ring and volume options to suit those situations. This phone displays the time and has an alarm clock. It has a call log. It can also be set for reminders. It has a calculator and three games. You can send and receive text messages and e-mails. The menus are intuitive and easy to use. It has caller ID, call waiting, three way calling. One final word on ATT Wireless. So far so good. I just hope they get my bills right. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90162 2000/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 guess the seventh times a charm just about the best phone i ve had yet the reception could be a little bit better but that s true for practically all phones The Bottom LineAfter seven experiences with cell phones, this phone with AT&T is the better of seven experiences. The phones durability, functionality, attributes and AT&T's good service, I love this phone. Full Review I am very pleased with the durability of this rather small and light weight phone. Through my clumsiness and belief that I have two hands but that I can hold a million things, I crossed a street with bags of groceries, some other bags, and while crossing my phone must have fallen from my pocket and by the time I got to my front door and noticed it was gone ten cars must have gone down my street, I left my packages down, ran back and saw the phone thrown back out from the spin of the rear wheel of a car, now the phone was pretty scratched up and I wonder if it would work or how much it was going to cost to fix, but I hurried to get back home to my groceries. While walking up the stairs to my dismay I felt a vibrate and heard a ring coming from my pocket, I could not believe that it was still in functioning condition after the beating it must have taken. But durability isn't the only thing this phone has going for it, it has so many capabilities. To start it has infrared, which enables it to be used as a wireless modem, or download and shared data with a PC. On specified models You could even browse directly from the phone. It is able to send and receive text messages and has a chat function like that of instant messages. It has three relatively good games two remakes of the prior games and a new one space impact, my personal favorite. All these, along with the stylish looks of this phone and the variety of colored cases, make this phone to me to be a very, very, intelligent purchase for any consumer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90161 2000/4/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 graphics are about the only thing that s good i have several The Bottom LineThis phone would be good for someone that is looking for an up to date in technology cell phone but does not have the money to buy an expensive one. Full Review If graphics is all you are looking for, then this cell phone is just for you. I believe this phone is just for people that got time to be playing games. The graphics are great but the overall quality of the phone it's not worth it. My phone, in particular has giving me many problems. The biggest problem i've had is with the key pad. When pressing any number in the key pad sometimes you have to really press it hard or else it would not work. For me, it usually happens when i'm playing "SNAKE II". Many of the reasons I loose in that game is because the numbers I use to go up,down,right,left won't work, so you have to press that particular number real hard the next time. The 3360 also does not have as many tunes, but you can always download up to 10 more. You can also change the color of the phone case, but be warned, because it's going to take a lot of practice and time, until you get the hang of it.Also, i'm not sure if it's just my phone or if it happens to all the 3360 at one time or another, but this phone gets to a point where it freezes up and sometimes it turns off. But don't be discourage, cause this phone has some one features. One of the good things this phone has is that it is web enabled. you can search the web if you like while you are waiting to be called up at an appointment; but make sure you got enough minutes. This phone can also store up to 200 contacts with 2 phone numbers per contact. You can also send and receive e-mails with this phone for those of you that don't have an e-mail account. Also, you can do 2 way text messaging, it has alarm clock with snooze, and contains three games to kill time when you need it. Overall, this phone will probably be more appreciated by the teens that are more into having fun with the games and want to have a cool ringtone in there phone or by someone that don't have enough money to spend but want's a phone that has features like today phones have. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90160 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with features that most people use size is just right the sound is like hearing someone talk out of a box The Bottom LineA great phone at a great price. All the functions of more expensive phones. Full Review I've been a fan of Nokia phones for some time now. I get a sense that their product designers in Helsinki really know what a cell phone is supposed to do, and they design the best hardware and software to do it. So this being my third Nokia phone in five years, here's the deal: The size is just right. It's not too small like the 8200 series, which feels like one is talking into a matchbox, nor too big to fit in your pants pocket. When I purchased my 3360 I asked the salesperson what the difference was between the 3360 and the more popular 8290; his answer was "not much, except for about 100 bucks". So I gave it a try. So far I'm impressed with my phones functionality, the long battery life, and the overall design. It fits exactly right inside ones pocket, and so far haven't had a reason to complain. In sum, a very nice phone at a good price. If you're willing to subscribe for 2 years, you can get it for about $20. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90159 2000/5/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 price oh battery super clunky awkward buttons did i mention battery bulky The Bottom LineDon't get strapped with this CHUNK! I tossed mine out the window at highway speeds after the battery to a dump while talking to a client!! Full Review For those pressed for time I will will summarize for you....DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME getting sucked into a year or (dare I say) 2 years with these CHUNK of a phone. It is no mystery why EVERY phone carrier is giving these phones away....they aren't worth it! Nokia single handedly turned the cellular clock back 5 years by introducing this model to the masses. While most manufacturer's are listening to consumers by developing lighter and more funtional unit's, Nokia comes along with this insult to modern electronics!! After just 3 months of moderate to light use (approx. 100 minutes a month) the battery life was only 30 minutes of talk time....NO exageration! I contacted both AT&T and Nokia for help and all I got was an offer to spend $57 on a "high capacity" battery. Evidentally, the one that comes with the phone from Nokia is "low capacity". The size and weight of this phone are to be taken into serious consideration as I could not carry this unit in my front pocket as I was accustomed to doing. The phone layout is also troublesome which lends itself to frustration when trying to make phone calls while paying attention to the road or at night when you can't see the keys. Most phone layouts make sense and are easy to memorize but not so with this baby. Overall, I can't stress enough....PAY FOR A BETTER, MORE CAPABLE PHONE! In fact I paid the $150 premium for the new Panasonic Allure which makes the Nokia look like something from Little Tikes. Do your homework and type Panasonic Allure in your favorite search engine, then open a new browser alongside and type in the Nokia 3360....and compare. I did, only after the fact and wound up paying through the nose for a phone upgrade. If you are looking for a new plan, this might be the way to go as cell service providers discount equiptment when you obligate yourself for at least a year's service contract. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90158 2000/2/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 fairly small lots of features terrible battery phone seems kinda funky sometimes The Bottom LineIF you want this phone, make sure you have to option to bring it back if it doesn't work, because you could very well get a dud! Full Review I was very excited about getting this phone, but I am not so sure now. I like the way nokia phones work with the menus and options, and how they are all the same. The phone really doesn't lack much of anything, but I have some issues with mine. First of all, the buttons are fairly hard to push. I know that may sound lame, but they are soft and sometimes even when you hit it, it doesn't know it. The hard buttons on the 8260 work much better. Also, sometimes the phone just freezes up and stops working, and needs to be turned off and back on again. I don't what the deal is, but I don't like it. The other main problem is the battery, it is pretty pathetic. FIrst of all, it is only 640maH, while the other nokias come with more like 850-900 maH batteries. Also, since it is nickel metal hydride instead of lithium ion, you must be very careful how you charge it. I had replaced the battery a couple of time since the service rep at the store didn't tell me that the phone will not show the charge status correctly the first time you use it. If you are thinking of buying a phone, and you can afford the 8260, then try to go with that one, you will be much more satisfied. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 90157 2000/8/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features durability size ease of use gets hot no color display The Bottom LineThis phone is really good for someone who just wants a phone for average, reliable usage. Great features, and easy to use. Full Review I have had this phone for two and a half years now and I love it. I have not had a single problem with it over that time. It is very easy to use, and there are tons of really cute faceplates for it. (I've used the ones directly from Nokia, because they actually fit the phone, the knockoffs are usually ripoffs.) The phone has a green backlight that is really bright. It's easy to see even in complete dark. Ringtones are good, something for everyone. It is small and light, and that is a big plus! I have very good reception regardless of where I am, and that can be a problem with phones with internal antennas (like this one.) Battery life is good, even with my battery, which is as old as my phone, I easily get 4 days out of one charge with average usage. This phone is very durable. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped this phone. It still works! One con is that it gets hot when I've been talking for a while. Starts heating up around 20 minutes of talktime, and it gets HOT. Overall, I love this phone. I love the text messaging feature! I use it all the time! This phone is getting a little outdated now, since it doesn't have the color display or any of that jazz. Overall, I love this phone, and would definitely recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90156 2000/2/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small lightweighthas an infrared beaming feature none encountered The Bottom LineIf you want a great phone that is extremely light and very comfortable to use, you can't go wrong with the Nokia 3360. Full Review This is the third Nokia phone that I have owned, and I must say that I think the third time is the charm. If you have ever used a Nokia phone before, you will have absolutely no problem picking up on the uses and features of this phone. The Nokia 3360 is a great size for me and fits in my hand perfectly. The absence of an external antennae is something that I never really considered to be an advantage, but after carrying the phone for a couple of weeks, it was great not to have something to get caught on all the time. This phone carries all the standard features, plus a few extras. There is the ability to download ring tones, send and receive electronic business cards and use of Nokia PC Suite software to synchronize your phone book and back up your stored data from other infrared-capable devices. The phone book stores up to 200 names and numbers which are viewable either by name, number or both. You can also add reminders with a ringing alarm, such as my Handspring Visor is capable of. The local provider we are signed up with was offering this phone at $19.00 with plan activation, so it was a deal too good to pass up! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.00 90155 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 smaller lightweight signal isn t much better The Bottom LineIt's worth the upgrade! Full Review I recently renewed my yearly contract with AT&T and I haggled a new phone out of the deal! The 3360 was a marked improvement from the 5100-series phone I previously had. I recommend all 5100 series owners upgrade to this phone, but only if they can get it for free, or nearly for free. - The great benefit is the improvement in carrying the phone on the hip. It is smaller and much easier to carry, since the 5100-series phone was too bulky at times. - This phone has improved features with IR abilities, but I've not been able to find an IR receiver/sender for my computer. The software for typing stuff into my computer was an added plus, and it's a benefit in having multiple methods of getting the info to the phone. - The games on this phone are better than on the 5100-series and this is added benefits when trying to occupy oneself in while waiting in lines. - The vibrating feature is also a great benefit to have if silence is needed. There are many times in my daily activities when ringing cellphones are a "no-no" and this feature ensures that I'm always reachable! - The ability to personalize the phone is also a great feature and the covers aren't too expensive. - The phone comes with a earpiece and this is also a great plus! - Ringtones are a +++, but they are $0.99 at AT&T. - The only negative was that reception isn't that much better with this phone then my last one, but I've had no dropped calls as yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free-rebate 90154 2000/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect size right amount of features none yet The Bottom LinePerfect Size, Durable, Stylish Full Review This is the first cell phone that I have owned in about 2 years. I had a PrimeCo digital phone, made by Sony last, and I was amazed at how far technology has come in the past 2 years. The Nokia 3360 phone does everything that I want it to do, plus has some cool extra features like games, and IR connection. You can also serf the web using this phone, but I am still getting used to surfing on a cell phone. The 3360 is the perfect size for me. I keep it in my back pocket all day on vibrate mode, and I usually forget that it is there. It is not too small though, like some of the phones that I was looking at, which feel uncomfortable to talk on. The phone does have a hands free attachment, mine did not come with it, but I purchased one at Best Buy for $29.95. I have only dropped the phone once, but it was on concrete, and the fall didn't even leave a scratch. The battery life seems to last forever. I have only run out 1 time, and that was a day that I was on the phone for long periods of time through out. The wide range of face plates are easy to install and remove, and help keep your phone looking brand new. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.00 90153 2000/10/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 good size lots of features for a small price terrible quality etc The Bottom LineBuy it once it starts shipping with software version 1.05. It should have less bugs. I think I will like this phone once I get one that works right! Full Review Well I have had 4 Nokia 3360's so far. That's right! My first one would shut off and come back on, the second one had two key that were very hard to press, the third one had infared problems (one of the ir "bumps" was melted), and my forth one has the same problem as the first! Not to mention that the phones software freezes and is really slow at times. All of my 3360's have had less than 60 mins on them that is how I keep getting them swapped out. This last one has about 15 mins on it but I am going to send it to nokia, hopefully they will fix it or send me a phone that works. If you are considering getting this phone waite about a month, I think Nokia released it a bit too soon! Check out www.howardforums.com for mor info on this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 85 90152 2000/1/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek rugged great price internal antenna pocket sized customizable no caller groups The Bottom LineHands down the best cell phone I've used. Small and durable. Very good call quality, yet excellent battery life. Full Review In the last 3 years I've gone through the following cell phones : Samsung SCH-2000, Motorola StarTac, Motorola TimePort, Nokia 5165, Nokia 8260 and now the Nokia 3360! If you're clumsy, or hard on your stuff, get a cell phone with an internal antenna. I broke the external antenna on the Samsung, both Motorolas, and started to on my 5165 before I took a hint and invested in the 8260 and eventually 3360. If you want to change the look of your phone and protect it at the same time, this phone is for you. The 3360 had something the 8260 lacked, a customizable case. If you scratched the lens on the 8260 you were out of luck. On the 3360, the lens is a part of the xpress-on case. If you scratch up your unit or get paint on it or something, you can take the case off and switch on a brand new one in under 15 seconds. And voila! A new phone! The Nokia interface on the phone is familiar to most of us, and for those who aren't, its a snap to use. You can pick up the phone and start using it immediately. Pocket-sized: Don't waste your time on the bigger models, this one is a pleasure to just toss into your pocket. My only complaint, is a VERY small one. There are no caller groups as there were on the 8260. This would have allowed you to assign a certain ring to a call group so you know who is calling. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89 90151 2000/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very functional great features easy to use good size great battery loose casing loss of time date settings The Bottom LineGreat phone, great Price, what more could you ask for? Full Review Lets start off by establishing that Nokia scores big with this phone. I just replaced my old 8860 due to poor reception and I have to say I am more than impressed with this low priced replacement. Here is what I have found so far. Durable. Okay, I am not the king of klutzy, but I have my moments. My last phone took a few good spills in it's day and held up okay. Already I have dropped the Nokia 3360 once, on a hardwood floor, and it is perfectly fine. I was sort of in shock when the case and battery flew off (I have never owned a phone with faceplates...) but after I realized it was completely fine, I rejoiced. My only complaint with that is that it looses it's time and date settings when the battery is removed. It would be a real bummer if you were relying on it as your primary timepiece. Calls/Reception. With my last phone, I became accustom to AT&T's incessant beeping when it was unable to make a call. It is a horrible sound. I am happy to say that I have NEVER heard that sound with the 3360. All the calls go through, the quality is crystal clear, and my friends comment on how much it sounds like a real phone. I have even been using the handsfree, which I had never used before this phone (my 3360 came with it). Battery Life. Ahh, my biggest complaint about my old phone was the horrible battery life. Now I have to try to drain my battery once and a while. I forgot it was in my coat pocket for 3 days and when I did find it, the battery still had enough life to check that 6 voicemail messages and makes some calls. Mine came with the 640mAh NiMH battery, and I plan on buying the stronger Li-Ion soon, even though the current one is more than sufficient (you do have to completely discharge your phone once in a while). Size. It is a little bigger than I am use to, but still a very nice size. It fits in the pockets of my jeans with little discomfort, although I have preffered to keep it in my jacket pocket recently. It is a good size for my hands, even though they are on the large side. The shape feels very natural and smooth in your hands. Casing. One of the other things I don't like about this phone is the case. I always feel like it is going to fall off, even though it is quite secure. It moves vertically a little bit. The cases are customizable, they come in all colors, it seems to be pretty easy to get off and on. The buttons are rubber, something I am not use to, but I like it better than the plastic ones on my old phone. They aren't as responsive as I would like them to be, but it isn't as noticeable anymore. Function. The OS is like most other Nokia phones, with the exception of predictive text input. This feature was a little confusing at first, but it works so well now (it learns as you use it more). The new games are fun and addictive, passes time at the airport waiting in lines. There is room for a ton of numbers (200 I believe) and you can have 2 numbers for a person, which is a really nice feature since most people have a home and mobile phone these days. I wish you could add a more than 2 for business numbers, but I can deal with it for now. There is a good selection of rings, and you can download up to ten from the Internet. The email/chat feature seems to be nice, although I haven't used it much. All and all, the 3360 is one heck of a phone for the price, you really can't go wrong. I am happy I got it when I did and the rebate I got on it was very nice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 ($99) 90150 2000/9/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 just about everything battery The Bottom LinePossibly the perfect phone! Full Review The Nokia 3360 is perfect for me in every way. I love the way it looks, its size, and you can really individualize it! I get a signal everywhere , and there's no antenna so it's easy to carry about. This phone is really fun. I've downloaded a few ringtones already, which is nice because I always know it's my phone ringing. (How many people have a Joy Division ringtone? ^~) Also, I'm really looking forward to getting some faceplates for it. It's a pretty reliable phone, too, which is good because I opted to lose the landline phone... The battery can drop suddenly, but now that I know that, I just make sure to charge it every two days. (Which is really not a pain in the bum if you do it over night.) My father-in-law, who also has this phone, doesn't have to charge his battery as much, since he doesn't use his phone as extensively as I do. The signal is almost always at three, even in places like the grocery store. (And places like my husband's office, where no one seems to get a signal.) The options available are great, also. There are five different settings, so you can choose one appropriate to your situation, whether quiet or loud. You can even set a message for your phone to display when you turn it on. (Mine says konnichiwa! ^^) The phone book is really handy, as are the pre-written messages you can send to another phone. Thanks to the infra-red port, you can send a business card, too, which is kind of fun. This Nokia is a perfect size, where some of the newer ones are too small. I carry mine in my pants pocket most of the time, but it's still big enough not to be awkward when you talk on it. All-in-all this is a great phone! Even if you can't get it for free, it's usually pretty cheap. Also, read the manual or you may miss out on some of the cool things the phone can do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 90149 2002/12/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 infra red wap average signal no smart card avg battery cannot receive send op logos analog tdma phone bad voice quality ringtones The Bottom Linei DONOT recomend that u buy any TDMA PHONE AT ALL,I recomend YOU Buy a GSM phone as TDMA PHONES NETWORKS ARE DEMOLISHING"AT&T"and changing to GSM(Global System of Mobile Communication) Full Review Read Article below to choose wheter (TDMA phone) or Nokia (GSM phone) is best for you i will discuss the cons and pros of TDMA & GSM phones, if you are looking for a long term phone GET A GSM phone. I DO NOT RECOMEND NOkia 3360 PHONE OR ANY TDMA PHONE AT ALL cons of Nokia 3360 and TDMA phones nokia tdma 3360 phone is Expensive for Spec. of phone 1)using Nokia 3360 TDMA Phone and its easy for any 1 to steal ur number and use it when ur cell phone is turned off,also PHONE CALLS are NOT ENCRYPTED. 2)Disadvantages of TDMA phones is that if u r waiting for important calls and ur phone gets damaged u can not transfer ur phone number or contact information to another phone"YOU LOSE EVERYTHING", unless u contact your wireless company during wroking hours or go to ur nearest dealer,so you can getyour phone back in another device.so if you are waitin for an important call and ur phone is damaged u cannot do a thing about it. 2)If You Love Traveling and you want to Take your Phone with you Then you better READ this ..As for rouming in another cities States and Provinces Accross North America you using a TDMA phone YOU CANNOT I REPEAT U CANNOT get all your services you had on your Phone from your current Wireless Provider to work when roaming"travelling" such as caller ID,Call Conference , Call waiting and many more , WILL NOT work in another cities. 3)sound quility and signal is bad ...especially in building's underground parkings 4)phone is average weight compared to other phones.. also 5)As for SMS,RingTones,picture messages,Operator Logos, you can ONLY send or receive picture messages,ringtones,to another TDMA phone within same Network or certain networks. As for sms u can send sms to overeas but cannot receive SMS from overseas or some networks withing US and Canada due to blocked Service by Wireless Provider. as for the Operator Logos Most TDMA Wireless Providers block you from sending and reciveing operator Logos,and you Can only get operator Logos,ringtones,pic messages By Accessing Sites they offer so that They Earn some $$$ out of you. 6)I had so many problems with phone...i the wireless isp had to reset the phone and set it up through network..due to technial difficulties in the network . Advantages of buying a GSM phone I recomend you buy ANY GSM phone .i know you might be asking why?? well... 1)GSM service is offered in more than 150 countries across the world and is the fastest Growing wireless Service among the globle. Also MOst TDMA Wireless Providers Across the world are changing to GSM. 2)you get better quility voice(cd quility) 3)if your phone Gets Damaged and there is another GSM phone around, you Can simply Remove Sim Card"Smart card" that has all your contact and line information and insert it into another gsm phone and u r set to go to use the phone with all your contact information numbers and sms..and this does not need you to contacat your isp so that they transfer your phone line to another phone and that BS... 4)If you love Traveling Read this.. you keep your same phone number where ever u go all you have to do is change the phone"world phone"and insert your simcard into it and you can be using your phone even if you travel to europe,Asia,or any continent of the world. as long as Roaming is activated and Phone works.also as for Service YOU GET ALL YOUR SERVICES working such as caller ID,call conference,Call waiting ,Call forwarding ,GPRS & data services and more"network dependant". 5)As for SMS Logos,Ringtones,picture messages,then dont worry about it you can send,recieve, to any GSM phone in this World.and 1 more thing using GSM u can use Direct calling No need to call 011-country-area-number but u can do it this way country-area-number and its easier 6)MOst GSM phones Come with best service ..as for GSM you will get also Latest Technologies GPRS.Bluetooth 7)ALL YOUr PHONE CALLS ARE ENCRYPTED. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90148 2000/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size ir capability audible quality button size placement nimh battery The Bottom LineShould be a workhorse of a phone and the cost is low. Full Review The size of the 3360 was an instant attraction. It's smaller than the 5100/6100 series and larger than the 8200's which seems just right. Here is a quick outline of what I feel are it's shining features and tragic flaws. STRENGTHS: 1. IR Capability. The ability to transfer info back and forth between the phone and a palm pilot is very nice. If you already have your phone numbers in your palm pilot you are set. I copied my address book listings into another category (upload), edited the address info out, and transferred them to the phone. Each one must be beamed and saved individually but I was not complaining. Remember that the IR port shuts down after 30 seconds so you will need to re-enable it if you wait to long. This seems like a good a battery saving feature. 2. Size. This phone isn't too small that you chance losing track of it, but it's small enough to comfortably fit in a pocket. 3. Chargers. Since I had formally owned a 5100 series phone I still have a home and car charger laying around from it. Surprise, Nokia actually retained the same power plug so I can use my old accessories. 4. FREE Hands Free Headset. It is so nice to get a hands free kit FREE with a phone for once. Thanks Nokia. This is even nicer since the hands free connection IS different from the 5100 series. 5. Swap-able Faceplates. The only reason I cared about swapping the faceplate is that the grey-blue standard face is somewhat unattractive. I found the button that disengaged the faceplate to be really hard to depress. WEAKNESSES: 1. Minute Log. Since AT&T adopted the anytime versus night & weekend format I assumed they would get with the program and offer a way for the user to check their minute usage. NOPE, you have to keep track for yourself. For this reason I am dropping their service. 2. Clarity. Sprint definitely spoiled me. Nothing really compares. There were times where I thought that would have better sound quality talking between 2 tin cans (plus string of course). Try it for yourself. 3. Volume Buttons. The button configuration is only marginal. Even with small fingers I still have trouble finding the button I want. Volume is the most difficult since the buttons are in the middle of the phone below the LCD. The Nokia 3390 seems to have a better system with a rocker button replacing 3 of the 3360's single buttons. Overall the button response was a serious deterent for me. 4. LCD Backlighting. I wish that Nokia would update their phones to include an indiglo-like lighting system. It's so much easier on the eyes and should conserve battery power. 5. Profiles. Nokia has continued with it's profile-driven ring selection. I do not have a great love for this concept. At least it let's you edit the default profile names to make more sense. 6. Downloadable Ringers. Hmmm, I don't think I will be _purchasing_ a ringer from AT&T as they would like you to do. The standard ringers are nothing to brag about but I think a downloadable ringer should be FREE. 7. Battery. A standard Lithium Ion battery would be a nice addition from a stand-by time and weight perspective. You'll have to shell out more ca$h if you want to upgrade from NiMH. Good luck in your cellular quest. Hope this has helped. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90147 2000/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 internet ready vibrates ir capable many great features clarity of conversation great clear view screen battery lifebuttons maybe small for bigger fingers The Bottom LineIt is light, very portable, and many great features along with it. The 3360 is the phone for you if your young and want something that vibrates in your pocket. Full Review I am a college student who uses a cell phone for many different reasons. I have always been a Nokia person and wanted to upgrade my phone capabilities. I have done it with the 3360. My first phone, Nokia 5120, just didn't cut it for what this phone can do. I have played around with this phone enough to find out many great features about it. I usually turn off the sound while in class, sometimes I forget, but when the sound is off the phone vibrates to let you know that you do have a call coming. It is also great when you can't hear the phone in noisy places, such as restaurants or bars. It will just give you a little jiggle to let you know you have a call. I think this feature is the greatest thing because I always had a tough time hearing my phone in my pocket. The size of the phone is a little larger than the 8260 is really nice. I can simply place it in my pocket during class without an antenna digging into my hip. It is very lightweight and easy to handle. I will admit for those people that have larger fingers, the buttons may give you a little trouble. Plus, unlike the 8260, it is Internet capable. In the fast world today, a person can just dial up the Internet and have it available on the go. The IR capabilities is a good feature for the phone. Unfortunately, I have not been able to use it to a full extent, but it is a great extra feature to carry with you. A friend of mine and I have tried it, it was the coolest thing. On some of the sound features you can set the phone up to where you can just press one button to switch to an outdoor, meeting, silent, pager, or normal settings. All of them can either vibrate or not, depending on your liking. The 3360 provides some better ring tones than what I had with the 5120. The 3360 also has a new style of games, two of them are the same, snake and pairs, but the other is space invaders a great game to take away some time in class. I'll admit the phone takes awhile to get use to, but once you do it is the neatest little thing. One last great feature that I have found, almost the hard way, but the accessories that I had for the 5120 works with the 3360. I received my 3360 for free through a promotion, however, you can purchase your own for around $100. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90146 2000/9/1 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 many features easy manuverability nice price sturdy freezes too often poor battery life The Bottom LineGood phone for the price. Looking for something simple yet reliable? The Nokia 3360 is for you. Full Review Well, I got the Nokia 3360 a year ago when I signed up with Cingular. The phone was 50 dollars at the time (I'm sure it's much less now). I wanted a Nokia so I couldn't say no to the deal. First off, the Nokia 3360 is a decent size. There are a lot of phones that are much smaller now, but this one does the job just fine. The keys are very easy to navigate around with, and the menus are very clear and self explanatory. For 50 dollars, the phone is packed with features like an internet browser, and infared capabilities. The phone book holds a good ammount of entries (you won't need more than it offers unless you're 1. extremely popular or 2. a businessman). I also like the fact that it's alphabetized, which helps you find exactly what you're looking for fast, instead of searching around frantically for a number. The games are simple, but entertaining (snake, and a memory game, for instance). The sound quality which obviously has a lot to do with your service, is definitely good on Nokia's side, and the phone's reception is also decent. Another nice thing about it is the casing and the insides. I've dropped this phone 5 times already I bet, and it's honestly never broken. I'm sure that's important to everyone, especially me since I seem to drop mine all too often. Okay, now to the cons: The battery life could definitely be better. I charge it every night, and if I don't charge it every night, by the next day it's almost dead even if I don't use it the whole night. And the talk time? Thumbs down! 30 minutes of talk time...and the phone starts beeping..didn't like that at all. Next, the phone freezes. Often. Yes, it freezes, sometimes while acessing a menu, or a number. This becomes truly frustrating after a while. Sometimes the phone will shut off by itself, restart and then you'll have no battery life and no reception. It's an odd temperamental phone. Anyways, in general, it was a good deal for it's price and time. Phones keep getting smaller, more complex and even better every day-so, spend the money and get a newer model. If you do decide on this phone though, then you're not doing yourself wrong. It's a pretty good phone for the price, and if you're looking for something simple-then this is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90145 2000/12/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 vibrating function convenient small no keypad cover The Bottom LineThis phone is ideal for first time cell phone users, not too many complicated functions. Very easy to learn and use. Full Review First of all, let me say that this phone is great. It really doesn't matter what I'm doing at the time or who I'm trying to call this phone has never let me down. Some people have complained about the battery life on this phone. I have experienced the same thing. The phone does just fine until I forget to charge it over night and it's still on standby. I've figured that it probably last's two full days until it dies, which is not the advertised length. Other than keeping track of charging the phone the performance is wonderful. Some people are really uptight about reception and I can understand that. For me I don't mind just as long as I can hear make out what the other person is trying to say. This phone does a great job when the receptions is good, but because is does not have an external antenna the reception can be a little messed up at times. Nothing to cry about though if you're like me. This phone comes with many options such as: lock keypad (so you don't accidentally make unwanted calls if it's in a purse or pocket), text messaging with predictive text, phonebook with up to 200 saved contacts, picture messaging capability with 5 preloaded picture messages, and what most people love about their phones.... the games (Snake, Cards, and Space) I'm not one to use my phone nonstop. If I'm at a friends house or somewhere that I can use another phone other than my cell, I will. And if money weren't an issue I'd most likely get a better model. But this phone has been through a lot and it's got all the basics. A definite great choice for first time cell phone users. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 90144 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fun rings to download small battery lasts long face plate hard to get off The Bottom LineThe bottom line is, buy it! Full Review I don't know anything technical about this phone. What I know is what I have experienced with this phone. With my old phones, I could never find a signal. This phone always has a signal and is very clear. I spoke to someone in the Persian Gulf on my Nokia and it was like he was right next to me! I could not believe my ears. I was very impressed. I think the battery life lasts a long time. I probably charge my phone once a week, but I don't talk on it a lot. I always have it on. The rings that the phone comes with are not wonderful, but depending on what service you have, you can go to their website and have new rings on your phone in a matter of seconds! I have AT&T. I could find any song I wanted for my phone. You can pick the vibrating option or the "meeting" option. If you chose the meeting option, your phone will only beep once. I really like that feature because I like to have my phone on at work, but I don't like it ringing so loud or vibrating. I also like playing games on my phone when I am bored at work. The 3 games my phone has are Snake 2, Pairs 2, and Space Impact. It does wear the battery down fast though when you play these games. All of my friends and family member own this phone, so it must be good! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90143 2000/1/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable full featured great bang for the buck internal antenna design flaw contributes to poor service in some areas The Bottom LineGood to go! Highly reliable, durable, and full featured. Just double-check the signal in your favorite stomping grounds. Full Review I was a long time Nokia fan. My 6120 phone served me well for 2 years, so when the Cingular folks told me I could upgrade to the latest (at the time) Nokia 3360 for a nominal $29 it was a no-brainer. The 3360 has a remarkable number of great features, packed into a really small package; more features than I really need, but that's not a bad thing ;-) Though I did not purchase it for it's features, some came in really handy: The integrated IR port was a surprise. With the Nokia software (downloadable from their Web Site), I could back up the phone to my Laptop PC. Using the IR port the phone could also serve as a modem when I was on the road, though only at a modest 4800 bps. Also, to be able to send and receive e-mail was very convenient, if only in short messages. Within a few months of getting the phone, I did find there was a problem with the keyboard. Some of the keys would take some coaxing. Three service trips later, a technician confessed to me that there was a design flaw with the earlier keyboards and that the replacement he provided THIS time would be OK. True to his word, this did fix the problem. The only other issue I found was that the cellular service in my own home and my place of work was poor, which was disappointing, but I did not feel that it was the phone's fault (read on) so I dealt with it. 2 years and many talk hours later, it was time to go back to my favorite Cingular folks and get another inexpensive phone upgrade :-) I spoke at length about options. GSM was an option. I told the salesperson (different person than before) about my concern about GSM working in my home/work where the signal was already poor. He suggested that GSM was still a bit spotty and to go with the more time tested CDMA/TDMA network. Next was the question of which phone to get. Cingular only had a few CDMA/TDMA phones available. There was the Nokia line, Motorola, and Samsung (I think). Surprisingly, the salesperson suggested the Motorola over the Nokia. When I pressed for reasons he pointed to the Nokia's internal antenna vs. the Motorola's external antenna. Also, he indicated that the Nokia internal antennas sometimes had been faulty, contributing to poor service in some areas. Turns out he was right. The Motorola (120t) with it's external antenna does notably better (not perfect) at my home and office. Hmmm. Wish I had known about the internal antenna issue previously. Bottom line: I know this sounds like a negative review, but generally speaking the phone is a winner. It worked well in all situations, was easy to use, inexpensive, "pockets" well, and never let me down when I needed it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90142 2000/8/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ir port responsive solid construction loud volume small internal battery small menu shortcuts nimh battery The Bottom LineThis phone excels in almost all aspects reviewed, and is held in regard as a phone with which I highly recommend. Overall, this phone is simply worth the money. Full Review In this review, I plan to discuss all the main aspects pertaining to the everyday use of this phone. I will comment on the structure, the usability, and the customizability of this phone. Construction A good thing about this phone is that the faceplates cover about 90% of the phone, therefore if the phone is dropped and the screen cracks, the faceplate is replaceable. The only parts not covered are the bottom of it and the top, where the IR port is located. Alone, the IR port, cannot do much, however, when used with another phone or a PDA, it becomes very useful. The faceplates cover both the front and back of the phone, therefore it has a protected internal battery. I do not like that the battery is of the NiMH(Nickel Metal Hydride) type. This implies that it is shortened after a few charging cycles. The keypad is a simple rubber keypad, which is replaceable, along with the faceplates. This phone has a solid construction in part because of its protective outer casing. Functionality A phone does not help much if it cannot fulfill its main purpose, and the 3360 is no exception. It has many features, including the phonebook, call lists, call timers, clock, alarm clock, key guard, profiles, and its dual selection keys. Some phones rely on only one selection key, or their call and end keys serve dual purpose, but Nokia ingeniously added the second selection key, starting with the 8200 series. I have found this phone to be so easy to use that the instructional manual is not even necessary. The menus are very self-explanatory, and the sub menus can also be accessed by shortcuts, pressing the number keys in a menu. This is where my single gripe lies. In a menu, if you wait any length of time before pressing a number key, it puts it in as a phone number instead of a shortcut. I find it easy enough to press the end key to exit the menu, no matter how many levels deep you are in a menu, and enter a number there. Also, if you use the selection keys in a menu, and decide to switch back to the shortcut number keys, it won't work, it will also put it in as a phone number. All the features work as expected of them without flaws. Customizability I like that Nokia put in this phone the ability to rename and customize the profiles. You are allocated five different profiles, of which four can be renamed. The profile `Normal' is the default profile, and nothing appears on the main screen when it is selected. In all other profiles, the name of the profile appears in the display. Other than profiles, you can also customize the faceplates. These are sold at many places, and most faceplates also are packaged with keypads. The keypads are also modifiable, as there are different types of keypads. This phone presents anyone with their choice of options. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89 90141 2000/3/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 packed with features small compact ability to change covers lack of calendar The Bottom LineA definite recommendation. Good for the general user looking for a lot of phone in a small package. Full Review I was in the market for a new phone recently, and I decided to do some shopping. I already decided to keep my carrier Cingular, so now I just needed to decide on a phone. Overall, I liked the Nokia 3360 and went ahead and purchased it. I have had it for a month now, and so far I have been pleased with it's performance. The only let down that I really wish this model came equipped with is a calendar. I really wish all newer wireless phones came with one, since this would eliminate my need for my PDA. Anyway, I have yet to have any problems with the phone, after about 30 hours of use. I like the ability to change covers when I please. Also, it is very to change the covers if your heart desires. This phone, as is the case with most newer phones, allowed you to download ringtones. The phone is internet ready, even though I did not choose this feature. Overall, the reception has been excellent, but this also depends on the carrier in your area. I like the feature where the phone can auto update to your carrier's time. Now I never have to worry about changing or keeping time. Since I do like to go out a lot, the vibrating feature on the phone is nice since ringtones are non-existent while at a loud party, or if you are attending a important meeting. My favorite thing about this phone is it's size. It is not as small as a 8260, but I like the idea of keeping my phone in my pocket without having to clip it to my side. When it comes to talk time, so far I have been averaging about 2 and a half hours of talk time, and about 4 days of standby time- a little bit less than the advertised times in Nokia's spec sheet. It only takes about an hour to charge with the included charger. I definitely recommend this phone if you are a general user, and don't need fancy options on a phone. The size, cost, and quality of this phone makes me think that I will get good use out of it for sometime. If you want more info on exact specs, see the nokiausa domain for that! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90140 2000/5/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 cheap durable user un friendly short battery life The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone because of its poor reliability (both battery life and reception) and poor usability. Full Review I got this phone for free, and I got what I paid for. Although the Nokia 3360 does have some good features, I find myself cursing it on a regular basis. The Good The Nokia 3360 is compact and is able to store more numbers (200) than I really need. Its best feature is probably its durability. Multiple droppings don't seem to faze it, and the battery never falls off the way my old 6162 battery did. I haven't used many of the more advanced features, like text messaging or IR, but it's good to know those capabilities are available. I love the vibrating "ring" and the wide selection of ring tones. When I have reception, the sound quality is generally good. However... The Bad My main comparisons are between the 3360 and my old phone, which I believe was a Nokia 6162 and died of old age at the age of 3.5 years. - The 3360 has the number pad laid out in a slightly bowed shape. This makes it much harder to dial or search for names without looking at the keypad. I could do that without looking on my old phone, where the numbers were laid out in straight, "predictable" lines. - The 3360 is difficult to turn off and on. The recessed power button is difficult to manipulate and often requires several seconds of sustained pressure. - The name search functionality is difficult to use. Searching for names beginning with T gets you "stuck" in the T's. If you realize you actually wanted an S, you have to back out and start over again instead of just cursoring back to the S's. - Nokia provides all sorts of nice icons to identify numbers - mobile, home, work, fax, general - but you can only store two numbers per person! So if I want to record someone's home, mobile, and work numbers, I have to record them under two separate names. - This phone seems pretty heavy, but I knew that when I bought it. The Ugly Caveat: Some of the problems mentioned below may be service provider issues. I don't know enough about wireless technology to be sure. - The battery life is short. (I will try the trick someone posted for "resetting" the battery memory - maybe that will help.) - The phone regularly cuts off (loses power) in the middle of a call without beeping to warn me that battery power is low. I've lost calls with my CEO without being able to warn him that my battery is dying, which was very embarrassing. - The people in the store warned me that this phone would have slightly worse reception than my old 6162 because it lacks an antenna. I thought that meant that I'd have trouble receiving when I'm in the boondocks on my way to my parents' house. Instead, it appears to mean that I often get poor or no reception near my home in the DC Metro area. - It also appears to mean that my phone sometimes doesn't ring despite a strong signal indicator. - I have also received notification of voicemail several hours after the message was left. (This is one of those issues that could be a service provider issue.) A large part of the reason I have a cellular phone is so that I can be contacted in an emergency, but this phone is not reliable and has more than once left me stranded without the ability to make/receive calls. This phone was obviously a good deal (I actually ended up with a credit on my cellular service bill after "buying" this phone because it was on sale, plus there was a rebate, plus there was a deal for extending my service contract), but if I had the option again I would pay for a phone that works well. I'm hoping that I'll get a new phone for the holidays. It will definitely not be a 3360! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): -10 90139 2000/3/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 vibrator ir port seems durable limited phone book entries horrible microphone The Bottom LineI think AT&T is now offering these phones for free with a service contract. Don't do it. Get something else. Full Review My coworkers and I use these for our corporate mobile phones. I selected the 3360 because of previously good experience with Nokia (analog) phones and the InfraRed (IR) port for synchronizing contact and calendar information. The phone book holds approximately 200+ entries (and I use about 180 of them). But Nokia only lets you store 2 phone numbers per name. I generally need to store 3 numbers per name (office, mobile and home). So I have to store two entries for every person (that's why I used up so many entries). I find this very annoying when I'm trying to select a name, especially while driving. The Nokia menu system is excellent ... much better than Motorola or Audiovox (the only other two manufacturer's phones that I've owned). The calendar synchronization is very useful for me, and the FoneSync software that you download for free from Nokia's website is excellent. The infrared port works well to transfer phone book data to and from your PC or another phone. I've dropped the phone a few times onto hard surfaces and it still works fine. The battery life isn't stellar, but not bad (about 4 days on stand-by, or an hour or two of talking). OK, on to the major problems: the sound quality of this phone for callers on the other end of the line is horrendous. I am constantly told by people that this is the worst-sounding phone they have ever heard. And since my coworkers with the same model get the same comments, I know it's not just a flaw with my particular phone. I believe the problem stems from the fact that the phone is short and only reaches down to about mid-cheek level. So in order to pick up your voice, the microphone gain is super high. Oh, it picks up your voice all right, but it also picks up EVERY noise in the background with alarming clarity. The person on the other end can hear all background noises at the same level as your voice (road noise, other conversations in the office, etc.), which makes it very hard for them to understand you or follow the conversation. The best solution for this is to use a Plantronics headset with a microphone boom that extends toward your mouth. Plantronics makes headsets with noise-canceling technology that works wonders. People on the other end can't believe the difference when you plug in one of these headsets compared to the sound from the phone's built-in microphone. Nokia also uses a non-standard headset jack, seriously limiting your choice of headsets. I don't know if this microphone gain problem is common to all phones of this size (seems like it would have to be), but my next phone is going to have a flip door on it that places the microphone in front of your mouth where it belongs. This rules out all Nokias as far as I know, which is unfortunate since I like their menu system and many of their other features better than other manufacturers. The speaker (i.e., earpiece) quality is just so-so. I often have to have people repeat what they're saying, even in areas of high signal strength and low background noise. A bigger concern is the lack of a volume control on the side of the phone. You have to remove the phone from your ear to adjust the volume, so you can't hear what the other person is saying while you're doing this. Even worse, the volume control isn't available on the menu if you have entered digits (such as when retrieving your voice mail) unless you erase the digits one by one. This is extremely annoying because it takes a while to erase the screen and the whole time you're missing out on what the other person is saying while you're fiddling around. This phone also has a nasty habit of not letting you receive calls, yet voicemail indications get through and you can make outgoing calls just fine. This begins to happen intermittently and then becomes permanent over a day or two. I have to turn off the phone and remove the battery to reset it. It started doing this long before I ever dropped it, so I know that's not the reason. I own a Nokia 6310 phone that I use when traveling to Europe on business. The 6310 is a MUCH better phone, but also considerably more expensive. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 80 90138 2000/8/7 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good screen no exterior antenna nice size battery dies quickly buttons become hard to press over time The Bottom LineIt'll keep me going until I can afford a cell phone/PDA combo device. Full Review I bought this unit because I wanted something that has text messaging capabilities, and this one does that plus e-mail. The website says that it has a web browser built-in, however AT&T Wireless does not provide the service for that function. I also have never been able to get the infared modem to work with my PDA. Speaking of the infared, this is a really nice feature for anyone with a PDA. I can transfer names and addresses to and from my phone on-the-go using the infared port, and you can even play games over it with another 3360. If I could just get it to work woth my PDA, I could use that to browse the web wirelessly. I've dropped mine a couple times and it takes it just fine. The buttons have started to become less sensative, and I find myself having to go back and enter that missed button-stroke when I'm entering a text message. This has always been a problem for me and my Nokia phones. The battery seems to die on the spot... I can go to 2-out-of-4 bars on the battery gauge to the phone shutting down in less than 2 minutes, which is a little annoying. More than once I have gotten a calle and see that I have two battery bars left, then it beeps to tell me that the battery is low (no bars) before I can finish saying "Hello," and lass than a minute later it gives me three beeps and then shuts down. Luckily the people on the other end have been understanding when I have to find another phone (or my car charger) to explain what happened. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90137 2000/10/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable comfortable to hold relatively lightweight small excellant for price power button somewhat hard to get at need to pay attention to not covering speaker The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a good midrange phone then this is great choice. All in all, a great little phone. Full Review This phone was 70 dollars with an 18 month contract through my service provider - Cellular One. For me this phone is the perfect size, small enough to carry around in my pocket, yet large enough that it isn't difficult to talk with. The 3360 is certainly not heavy, and I have no problem with it's weight, but for a phone of its size it is a little on the heavier side of things. The buttons are easy to dial with, and have a nice feeling when you depress them. They are also replacable, I believe they come with the replacable faces, also a neat feature. The power button is located on the top of the phone and does not stick out at all, so for those of you with large fingers it could be a small challenge, but not a big one I think. The 3360's screen is standard Nokia size, resolution appears to be quite good, and it has a backlit function that comes on as soon as you recieve a call or touch a button, the backlight turns of after about 5 seconds of non-use. I'm not going to go into detail about all of the phone's features, Nokia's website has all that information for you. However, I do like the games, Snake 2 is quite entertaining, as is Space Impact. The phone also includes Pairs 2. The microphone which you talk into is located on the left side of the phone (looking from the top) near the bottom. This is not the best placement, as when you are holding the phone you must be careful not to cover it. Covering it will still allow the person on the other end to hear you, but not nearly as well. Surprisingly, battery life is very close to advertised. I get about 8 days of life when I am not using the phone much, and with heavier usage, around 4 days. This came as a surprise to me, the battery seems to hold it's charge quite well. Also included with the phone is a hands free headset. Certainly not a super delx item, but it gets the job done perfectly, although the piece you talk into can get slightly annoying if you are moving around and it is bumping into your face. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90136 2002/6/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 nice size no external antenna to easily break internal antenna gets terrible reception phone constantly shuts down The Bottom LineDon't buy it! Full Review I bought this phone because I wanted a small, but not tiny, phone. I also picked it because it had no external antenna--that might turn out to be a bad thing. My reception on this one is far worse than my previous Nokia 6160. I feel as those I need to hold the phone up high (in my car with the headset) to get decent reception. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO! It also likes to shut itself off whenever too many buttons are pushed too quickly. The AT & T dealer told me that it's supposed to do that; like a computer if too much is going on. That's crap! It should handle a few button selections. That's completely absurd. The buttons and faceplate seem very cheap; like it's going to fall apart. The numbers are actually too close together--God forbid you have fat fingers! Lastly: If you call somewhere--say a voicemail, and you've selected all your appropriate numbers to "get in"--and now you decide the volume is too soft or loud--too late! You can't adjust the volume while there are numbers on the screen?!? If you try to delete them quickly in an effort to clear the screen, guess what happens... IT TURNS OFF!!! Absolute pain. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 -80 rbt 90135 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 now it s cheap best reception i have had faceplates easy to use small low battery life not many advanced features The Bottom LineThis phone is great. I don't know why I strayed away. Don't sacrifice the quality of your calls for fancy features and looks. Full Review I have AT&T TDMA in the Tampa area, which is my far the best service provider here. Now I like to have updated, fun toys, so I went out and tried a new phone. And then another new phone. And I kept coming back to my 3360. I never realized how good this phone was until I tried to change. Reception I rarely have a dropped call on this phone, and people have never asked me "Are you on a cell phone?" or said "You're breaking up". The sales person at my local AT&T store recently told me that the 3360 was prone to problems with the screen fading out, and that the internal antenna is not advanced as the Nokia 8265. Well, that was a lie. I switched to the 8265 recently and was very disappointed. All of the statements above were asked of me every time I make a call on the 8265. Durability Man oh man, this phone has been dropped a thousand times! And take my drops, multiply it by a thousand, and that is how many times my husband has dropped his phone (the exact same one). Not once has a drop had an adverse effect on the phone. Sure the faceplates can get scratched, but those are changeable! Personality Of course, being able to change up the faceplate is always fun. I've kept my original blue, but my husband has changed to support the St. Louis Cardinals. You can personalize even more with flashing batteries and keypads. Battery I felt that I needed an extended battery, which was the same size as the factory battery, and was easy to install. However, I could have survived with the original. I am just to lazy to charge the phone, so the extended works better for me. Features There are the classic Nokia games, and alarm (which I find out is not very common on other brands of phones), and a few other things. For those of you who just need a phone that can make clear calls, without all that new color and web browser stuff, this phone is for you. Downloadable ringtones are a big plus. There are 5 spaces where you can add your own tone.. of course mines rings with the Gator Fight Song! Infra-red was what I used to transfer my tones. Again, this is one of a few phones with that feature. I just downloaded the Nokia PC Suite off of the Nokia website to my computer, and transferred away! Portability and Size A great size, with excellant key placement. The newer phones are trying to mess with their keypads a little, but this one keeps it plain and simple. The buttons are large enough to press, and the size of the phone lets you hold and press at the same time with one hand. For those of you worried about accidentally pressing your keys when it is in your purse or pocket, there is always 'key lock'. Although my husband keeps his in his pocket all the time and never has an accidental key problem. Overall This phone is great. I don't know why I strayed away. Don't sacrifice the quality of your calls for fancy features and looks. Especially now when this phone is usually offered free with a contract, you can't pass it up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90134 2000/6/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 lack of external antenna make it easy to fit in a pocket small size lack of features make this phone a bad buy The Bottom LineStay away from the 3360 and opt for a slightly more expensive but worth it in the end Motorola Full Review The Nokia 3360 has been the primary free phone offered by AT&T for quite some time. There are several reasons for this. PROS: Compared to many of the older phones still out there (other Nokia phones mainly) the 3360 is quite smaller. The fact that the phone has no external antenna makes is much more durable than those with an antenna. The internal antenna does not affect call reception at all. In fact the clarity of calls is better than those I have used with an external antenna. This phone is the first of the Nokia series to incorporate the IR (infrared port), although this does not offer much function at all. One can send phone numbers to other people with IR ports on their phones and play Snake against each other. I have successfully sent names and phone numbers from my phone to my PDA. Other than that the IR port holds little useful functionality. As with most Nokia phones the 3360 allows the user to change the front and back faceplates. But is that enough to make this phone worth getting, even for free? CONS: As I said earlier this phone is still being given out by AT&T despite its many drawbacks. Right out of the box this phone is confusing to use, especially if one is used to a phone similar to the 5160 or 5190. This phone lacks many of the features that many other companies are currently utilizing. Many other phones at about the same price as the 3360 (free) offer color screens and polyphonic ring tones. Polyphonic ring tones allow a more realistic sounding tone and are not quite as annoying as traditional tones. Also many phones have a digital camera option, making the phone even more useful. The keypad on my phone went bad after just about 1 year of use. Despite getting new plastic keys, I still and finding it necessary to press CALL at least 10 times before it works. The advertised battery life is much higher than the actual achieved battery life. The manual claims nine days of standby time. The common user will be lucky if they can achieve three. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90133 2000/5/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 profiles convenient good charger better technology is now available heavy The Bottom LineA good solid phone, many nice features, convenient, but it is a phone of yesterday, much better technology is now available at good prices. Full Review Don't get me wrong. I loved my Nokia 3360. Its feature rich, its easy to use, and its CONVENIENT. That's pretty much what I have to say about this phone. The charger, for example, is a huge benefit of this phone. Its got a pretty long chord, and its very light (lighter than the phone.) You can just put it in your purse and travel with it. Not to mention if your phone starts to die mid-conversation, its easy to plug it into the wall and you can keep talking as it charges. Beats the heck out of the desktop chargers that I keep seeing these days. The biggest pro of this phone is common for Nokias- its the profiles. One touch of the on/off button on the top with give you a list of "profiles" you can put your phone on which you can easily select- Normal, Silent, etc. There are also several other profiles you can set up. For example, I had Soft for when I wanted my phone to ring but only softly, Nighttime for when I just wanted it to chime once and vibrate so that it wouldn't wake me up if I was sleeping but if I was awake I would notice someone was calling me, and Loud so that it would ring much louder than normal if I would be outside doing yardwork or something and was leaving my phone inside I'd be able to hear it ring. This feature alone makes me want another Nokia, although I now have a LG VX4400. I miss those profiles. It is a very small candy bar phone. However, its pretty thick and it weighs a lot because that battery sure is a lunker! I was always jealous of my boyfriend's Nokia 8290 because it was just so much sleeker than mine, lighter, thinner, etc. I hate heavy phones, and mine was definitely heavy. It wasn't so big that I would consider leaving it at home, but it definitely wasn't pocketworthy. With the battery weighing in like a sumo wrestler, you'd think that the phone would have really good talk time, and it is advertised as having about 3 days of standby and several hours of talk time. However, it would start spiralling downhill after about 20 minutes of talktime, and I definitely had to charge it every 24 hours or it would start dropping calls. The fact that you can talk on this phone while its on the charger is DEFINITELY a good thing, otherwise I don't know how I would have survived owning it. Another thing is that if you're into customization, you can change just about every feature of this phone. There are so many different faceplates, keypads, flashing batteries, etc. for this phone that it is almost ridiculous. Its also rather cheap to change the color of its LED. If you're looking for a phone that you can change the look of easily and find any sort of accessory for in a snap, this may just be it. The faceplates are pretty cheap too- for a front faceplate, back faceplate AND a custom keypad for the phone, expect to pay about $10. Text messaging (and voice messaging too) on this phone was a total pleasure. It was easy, convenient, had good archives (inbox, outbox, saved messages, etc.) and templates that you could use to send basic messages that are commonly sent (Happy Birthday!, Hello! How are you?, Call me soon, I Love You, etc. are a few examples) so that you don't have to type out your messages like that if you don't want to. Also just holding down the 1 key on the keypad will speed dial your voicemail. Speaking of speed dial- setting up/changing speed dial numbers on the phone is really easy, and the phone book is awesome, with three layouts you can choose from, and easy storage/editing of the names. You can also add comments, etc. to names to easily differentiate between two people with the same name. As nice as the features are, and it is a solid basic phone, its behind the times now. I wouldn't recommend going out and buying this phone unless you really are a cheapskate- you can get MUCH MUCH MUCH better phones for really decent prices these days. For example, I paid just $20 after rebate for my LG VX4400, which is a flip color screen phone, has many many more features and is in every way cooler- except that it doesn't have the profiles and it has a desktop charger. Blah. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 96 90132 2000/11/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ringtones built in vibrate sms with predictive text infrared no modem so so battery life no voice dial no speakerphone no background no car adapter The Bottom LineGood phone - go for it. But on the other hand there's not song-and-dance and disco lights.. so maybe not. Full Review The reason I got this phone was with the coverage of AT&T I hardly lose the signal, and being a business phone it works out when I travel. It satisfied most of my requirements. Here they are in order of importance( 1 - high, 10-low): Yes: 1. Coverage Yes: 2. SMS with Predictive text Yes: 3. InfraRed connectivity (can sync with my laptop! and send/recv. numbers from my Sony Clie) No: 4. Battery Life No: 5. VoiceDial Yes: 6. Vibrate option Yes: 7. Headset No: 8. SpeakerPhone No: 9. Car adapter Yes: 10. Ringtones No: 11. Modem/fax All in all I am quite happy with the phone. My battery however went kaputs and was holding charge for a little over 30 minutes (of talk time). I went back before warranty expired twice and told them that my battery was not functioning to stated standards. They swapped my battery out first time. The second time they swapped it for the longerduration model battery. Now I have a fairly consistent 2hour talk time and several days of standby. I never switch the phone off and I charge about once every 5 days. As far as the one-key lock, I used to have a 6160, and you could keylock it using the "End Call" key by holding it for like 2-3 seconds - one finger one touch lock! they've since removed that feature. Oh and for 2 year service they gave me $80 rebate, plus $50 in borders books giftcard. I payed them $100. So in the end they payed me $30 and gave me the phone. I was happy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -30 90131 2000/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great price loaded with features long battery life lightweight intuitive interface none so far The Bottom LineBest wireless phone I have ever owned. Small, lightweight, durable, long battery life, sharp display, and fantastic reception! Full Review I've been an owner of many a mobile phone over the years, and I have to say that I am really impressed with Nokia's new addition of the 3360! My previous phone was a Nokia 5160 through AT&T, which I only gave up because it was damaged in a car accident. Not to stray from the topic, but this little anecdote bodes well for the durability of nokia's: A young driver ran a red light and hit my driver's side door as I was crossing an intersection. The door crumpled in and crushed my leg including the nokia phone I had in my pocket. After fleeing the vehicle, I thought my phone was broken since the screen was cracked, but then it actually rang! I told the caller that I was a little preoccupied at the moment and then sucessfully proceeded to call 911. I have always had a hard time with cell phones. I don't know if it's bad luck or if I'm clumbsy, but I always seem to expose my phones to pretty rough conditions, including dropping it on the floor, getting it wet, car accidnets, etc...and of all the phones I've had, nokia has been consistantly the toughest. My old motorola i550 (through Nextel) completely shut down and was irrepairable after spilling a small amount of water on it. An Ericson I got through an AT&T promotion had bugs from the get go - it kept "rebooting" on it's own periodically. It still functioned, but the on screen indicators (such as voicemail) would disappear after a restart - really annoying. The clarity is also fantastic on the phone. Even though it has a tiny earpiece and microphone, it still sounds crisper and louder than ANY of my other wireless phones. People I've called also commented on the improved clarity when speaking to me on my new phone - even when using the hand-free kit! It's truly quite amazing. As always, Nokia has the best user-interface. I was able to completely figure out at least the vast majority of functions on this phone without ever having to touch the manual. Of course, I am a bit of a techie who likes to explore menus on my own, but even I have run into phones where this was not possible. From my experience, motorola has the WORST cryptic menus. On the i550, you have to go three or four menus deep and choose option *21* just to add a new number! The Nokia 3360 not only makes it easy as pie, but it allows you to store several numbers per person, including home, work, cell, and fax! In addition to it's cool contact features, it has text-messaging and email capabilities (at no extra charge from AT&T), new games, downloadable ring tones, changable faceplates, a quality hands-free adapter, alarms and reminder functions, and an infrared port so you can back up your contact list (would have been useful if my former phone had that). You can even play snakes head-to-head if another person has the same phone! Lastly, the battery life is excellent. It can stay on for days at a time on the included standard battery, even with moderate to heavy usage. It seemed like I was charging my Motorola and Ericson every single day. Extended life Lithium-ion (or LiON) batteries are also available separately, but I don't think the average person would need them. Overall, this is my favorite phone to date. It feels like in 2002 that they finally perfected the wireless phone so that the average "everyman" can get all the useful features in a durable, lightweight phone without having to pay a bundle. Many of the special features (such as sending and recieving email) are even available on the basic plans through some providers (such as AT&T)without having to sign up for separate costly plans. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90130 2000/4/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 full featured great price poor quality control poor keypad contacts poor battery life The Bottom LineThis phone can be the greatest bargain you've had in a cell phone or a major headache. Check it out closely before you buy yours! Full Review As a reseller of Nokia products through Cingular, I became enamored with this little phone for the way it feels in the hand, its relatively small size and attractive price. What I DIDN'T realize before I purchased one myself for personal use was that Nokia failed to execute a great design... I admit to being "picky" but after so many customers selected this phone and very few returned, I was convinced this was a solid product. When my first 2 3360's with firmware 1.04 began "freezing" (locking up or randomly shutting down with a charged battery) I started investigating. I had just gotten my 3rd 3360 from stock when a call to Nokia verified that the 2.06 firmware upgrade would cure my "freezing" issues. After finding no 2.06 firmware phones in stock, I returned the phone to Nokia for a free firmware upgrade and it did cure that problem. What was not cured and being able to compare lot numbers, I found that some "runs" on this model have 1 or more function keys that require multiple key presses to be recognized. The 3360 I had upgraded suffered from ONE such key and I made the mistake of mentioning it in my letter requesting the firmware upgrade. Now after my 30 days grace period for exchange has expired due to the shipping back and forth, I have a phone Nokia has replaced the keypad on twice and now have a phone with 3 of the 6 navigation keys that rarely are recognized on the first key press. Nokia continues to offer every effort to please and would no doubt replace the keypad yet again but I am tired of being without a phone I am paying monthly fee's for. To summarize, if you find the features and style of this phone attractive, price-wise it's a great deal right now with all the features mentioned in other reviews. I suggest using the *#9999# code to verify that you are getting a 2.06 version phone. Also, check the phone YOU are buying, not the demo shown you and test the navigation keys for contact recognition before signing the contract. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90129 2002/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very easy to use small 2 way text messages reception clarity battery life sux if you don t condition it properly The Bottom LineFEATURES, FEATURES,FEATURES!! This is the coolest phone around,2-way messaging is awesome Full Review I don't want to get into ALL the features that this phone has because 30 other people have already done that, So i'm sticking to what I love about the 3360. First my provider is AT&T and the clarity and reception I receive is Awesome, they deserve some credit for that. I know this isn't the smallest phone out on the market, but for me the size was perfect, any smaller and it felt like I was talking into my pinky (inspector gadget phone!) Ringtones Ok, I'm a 28 year old woman but I happen to love(and play with) the Ringtones. I am constantly on internet looking for new ones to download, which you can have 10 customizable ones. Nokia has 20 pre-programmed tones already in the phone. But being able to select different ringtones for different profiles or settings is cool. Address Book Love it. You can add name,address,email address, and 2 phone numbers per each name. I don't even need my normal address book anymore. This is much more efficient. 2-way Text messaging Now this is the Wave of the future People. I think I have 2-way'd and emailed more on this phone than I have spent talking on it. This feature is huge in Asia & europe and is just starting to turn some heads over here. It takes awhile to get used to typing using the keypads but with the T9 predictive text its really easy. Some people have said to me "whats the point of typing, why not just call?" well because you are NOT using your minutes on your plan when you 2-way or email, THATS WHY. Also when you're at places that it is rude to be talking.. movies,offices,hospitals etc. I have used this while in my DR's office. He said he would be 5 mins and I knew better so I sat there and emailed people for 30 mins, it was so fun and a great waste of time for those kind of moments, better than twiddling your thumbs. I also went to CA and instead of paying huge roaming & long distance charges to call from there, I just used 2-way to contact my mom. As long as I'm on AT&T's network(which is everywhere almost) then I pay nothing for incoming messages and 10 cents for outgoing. That's alot better than a connect fee, roaming fee, LD fee. My husband also uses his in his carpool to 2-way me, so that whats being said between us is private.very cool,very cool. Alerts Ok so this isn't really a feature of the phone BUT because the phone has the capability of receiving a message & email, then i'm saying it is,LOL. You can have bank account info,horoscopes,weather,breaking news,traffic, tornado/hurricane/thunderstorm warnings for you area,your personal EMAIL(yahoo&msn)... all of this sent to your phone!! Go to yahoo.com or msn.com and go under their Mobile areas, its all free and its all cool. Then do a search for mobile alerts or cellphone alerts and there are other websites that do this too. Faceplates/Covers Even though I love this phone, I love the fact that I can change the way it looks for a couple of bucks. From different faceplates,keypads,flashing batteries and even changing the LCD color from green to another color(you will void your warranty if you do the LCD thing). I am thankful I at least have the option to do this, unlike some other phones. Last but surely not least with this phone. For you folks out there looking at this phone, Check the firmware version on it before you buy. The old version is v1.04 the new is v2.06 why you ask?? well with the new version you can use PC suite to compose your own ringtones and put them on your phone. also on some v2.06 3360's you have picture messages meaning you can send or receive pictures to/from another picture capable phone. I say some because some people have 2.06 and do not have this feature but yet others do, go figure. To check the Firmware version of the nokia 3360 punch in on the keypad *#9999# 2-way is the future with these phones. Jump on it now! Have fun with whatever phone you choose. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ plan 90128 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 display e mail loads of features voice clarity size battery The Bottom LineGreat phone for students, or anyone looking for a good value with lots of features. Full Review For a quick background as to my frame of reference for cell phones, I had an aging Motorola StarTac (the old single band digital...I think it was their first digital StarTac, but I'm not sure.) After nearly 2 years of service (and 20 to 30 total drains of the Lithium battery), the battery was worthless. I went to the AT&T store to buy a replacement battery, and found that it would run me $60. I told the sales rep that I didn't want to pay that much, and that I wasn't pleased with the coverage that the StarTac got in the first place. He told me about Nokia's new 3360. He advised me to wait a month until it was released (this took place in September). So now I have my 3360 and have had the opportunity to play with it for a while. In a couple of words, I'm quite impressed. I have a few complaints, I'll start with those, and then cover the features that I like. My complaints 1. No WAP coverage (Not really about the phone) My coverage area does not offer wireless web on AT&T's network. However, the plan I had prior to this phone was too good to pass up, so I did not switch. That said, WAP connectivity would make this phone much better 2. Lack of Palm OS capability. I have a Handspring Visor Deluxe with PalmOS v3.1 on it. The Visor will not work with the Infrared on this phone (true as of the time I'm writing this, I'll edit my review if things change.) Wireless internet access on the Palm would be even better than Wireless Web on the phone. 3. Size Like I said earlier, my previous phone was a StarTac. When it first came out, people thought it was a pager. This phone is bigger. That said, it still fits perfectly in my pocket, and I think it's sturdier than a flip phone, so I really can't complain too much about size. 4. Battery--Talk Time The 3360's NiMH battery is only rated for about 2.5-3 hours of talk time, but up to 250 hours of standby. 3 hours of talk isn't a lot. My old phone when new gave me 10 hours of talk time. However, 250 hours of standby is incredible. In addition, a Lithium-Ion battery is available. If I buy one, I'll discuss it in an addition to this review. For the mean time, the battery life is adequate, as long as I don't talk that much. I must say that I'm impressed with the standby, though. What I like 1. E-mail I can write and receive e-mail on this phone. Writing e-mail is something my old phone could not do. I find it really cool that I can sit down in a meeting or in a classroom and send an e-mail. (I'm a wireless newbie...can you tell?) The e-mail service is quick, and the interface on the phone is really intuitive. 2. Call log Call log keeps a record of the calls that you've missed, the calls that you've received, and the calls that you've dialed. It also keeps call timers for your last call, your dialed calls, your received calls, and your total. While these 4 are resettable, there is also a permanent life timer on the phone. Simply several ways to analyze how you use your phone. Plus, call log is intuitive for re-dialing previous numbers, or for calling back someone after missing a call. 3. Profiles Profiles allow you to set your phone's alert methods based on your surroundings. "Normal", "Silent", "Meeting", "Outdoor", and "Pager" are the 5 modes that come built into the phone. Each can be customized for Ringing options, tone, volume, vibration, message alert, keypad tones, and warnings. The power button on the top of the phone allows you to select which profile you're using. Therefore, if you need to silence your phone in a hurry, your just press the black button on top and then choose "Silent". I find this very handy at times when I don't want my phone to make an annoyance of itself, but I don't want to fish through menus trying to silence it. 4. Games Not much more than time wasters...but the 3 included games do indeed do a great job of wasting time. And sometimes, a good time-waster is a very valuable thing. 5. Calculator Sort of odd to be doing math on your phone. This phone provides a four function calculator, with squares and square roots also available. It only handles 9 places. However, it is handy to have. I can generally handle math like that in my head, or else I have a real calculator (or my Visor) handy, but it's nice to know that my phone can do it. 6. Reminders Simply set a time and date, and type in a message and your phone will act like an alarm clock at a given time. It is certainly loud enough to function as a travel alarm clock. Also convenient in general, if you don't have a Palm device to remind you of things in your daily schedule. It is tedious to type your whole schedule every day into the phone, but I suppose it could be done. 7. Infrared Like I said, doesn't work with older palms (and I'm not sure about newer ones). But it works great for a laptop user. Just follow the instructions and it works the first time (or at least it did for me.) With a laptop, I can get true wireless internet. However, I don't have a laptop of my own, just my dad's to play with :( 8. Phone book You get 200 names and numbers worth of storage space on this phone. Unlike the StarTac, you do not assign a 2-digit number to each entry...just type the number, choose options/Save, and then type the name. From the main screen, pressing either the up or down button will activate the phone book. In addition, you can assign 8 numbers (2-9) to one-touch dialing. For this, you just have to hold the assigned key for 3 seconds to dial the number. This is another highly convenient feature. 9. Clarity I must admit that I haven't logged many hours with this phone yet. However, people that I've talked to say that I'm much more clear than I was on my ancient StarTac. Some even say that I sound like I'm on a land line. I know it isn't that good, but I know that digital reception is much better with this phone. I no longer need to sit near a window in my house to use it. Overview I really like this phone. It feels durable, and the navigation and operation is incredibly intuitive. I picked it up in no time at all. The phone came with an ear-but headset, and the AC adapter, plus 1 NiMH battery. I've ordered the rapid car charger and a case for it. My old AT&T plan still applies to this phone. I have 60 minutes on peak a month, and unlimited off-peak within an area of about 100-150 miles in radius. I also have voice mail, 3-way calling, Caller ID, call waiting, SMS, and e-mail all for only $19.99 a month. Sorry, that plan hasn't been around for a few years, but I still have it. I'm very pleased with AT&T's service and the coverage I get with the Nokia 3360. Can't wait to add more to this review as I learn more about the phone...and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for wireless web. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 55 90127 2000/11/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool design ir port long standard battery life solid address book ui some software glitches The Bottom LineFantastic, good looking phone with incredible sound quality and ability to maintain a strong signal. The IR port has saved me from entering my address book on the keypad. Full Review I finally left Sprint because I couldn't take the dropped calls any longer (primary use in CO, Bay Area CA, and Dulles VA). That allowed me to move to a carrier with more sexy handsets :-). While traveling in Europe a few months ago, I saw this gorgeous handset by Nokia that I knew wasn't avail in the U.S. A few weeks after arriving home in the states I noticed someone using a Nokia phone almost identical to the wicked one I saw overseas. Seeing that phone, and being disgruntled over my service quality that I had put up w/ for 3 years with Sprint, I targeted the handset. AT & T wireless was debuting the phone soon, and I'd heard great things about ATT's coverage. I anxiously awaited the Nokia 3360's arrival w/ ATT, and jumped on the first shipment that arrived at my local wireless store. Dropped calls: not! After a month of using the 3360, I have only dropped 2 phone calls (both due to some apparent software glitch on the phone; I was in high signal areas when the calls dropped). I've held calls for over 60 minutes while driving along CA's Highway 101 which is notorious for never keeping a call longer than 5 minutes. I have held calls over the killer US 36 highway hill in CO as well. I simply can't get this phone to fail. Obviously that's a function of the service provider's network as well, so kudos to ATT while I'm at it. Address book: One of the primary reasons I hadn't changed phone earlier was that I was dreading the 100+ phone book entries I would have to type in on the awful keypad of a cell phone. The 3360 has an IR port (doubling as a power button on top) that allows me to maintain my address book on my PC (using one of over a dozen Address Book applications (outlook, MS address book, comma delimited text files, etc). So, all I had to do was use the Nokia PC Suite software (downloadable from their site) to beam my addr book to my phone; no finger cramping while typing on the keypad. IR port: Setting up the IR port for addr book transfer was a snap. Installing the Nokia PC Suite software, then using the "sync" application; voila. IR port as modem: One of the slick features of the 3360 is the fact that the phone can act as a wireless modem (via the IR port). This took me quite awhile to configure (using windows 2000 pro, apparently other windows OS's are easier), and I still haven't established a modem connection :-( . Although my software appears to be configured correctly, there apparently remains a fair amount of actual connection setting tweaking that I need to play with to get it to work w/ my ISP. Some ISP's don't like establishing low bandwidth (19k bps at best) connections apparently; perhaps mine is one of them. The folks I know who have gotten this to work agreed that a fair amount of tweaking may be needed. I'll bang on this more at some point (I have emailed Nokia product support for pointers). Profiles: Profiles in the context of a cell phone are new to me. Apparently Nokia uses them everywhere, but, this is my first Nokia so I hadn't experienced them before. They're pretty cool once you get used to them. You setup various Profiles with various settings. My "Outdoor" profile for example has the ringer on full blast, and vibrate ring on as well. My "Meeting" profile has the ringer set to single beep only as to not be the dork in the meeting that can't control his cell phone. You get the idea. SMS: The phone has full text'ing, SMS, email capability, but, I've never really used it. I think the phone is primarily targeted at a youthful crowd (removable covers, and a few games, for example), so some of it's features don't apply to my exclusive business use. I'm a sucker for the cool design though, so, I'll take the hit. This is also my non-flip phone which has been interesting. I leave my phone in my pocket, so I'm constantly hitting keys which bites; again, worth the hit though :-). One thing that is very annoying is that the clock (display can be toggled on and off) does not automatically adjust for the time-zone that I'm in. I really used that feature on my previous phones. Perhaps this is carrier dependent though. There have been a few occasions where the phone became unresponsive. I had to power it down to reset it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90126 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life no flip cover to break small size no antenna to snap can t turn off animation buttons little small some buttons can get stuck The Bottom LineNokia 3360 is a fine phone with a lot of features and decent sound quality, but some of those features can confuse simple users. Full Review After my grandma manage to lose the old 5160 I got her, it's time to upgrade, and I got her the 3360. It's a smaller phone than 5160, yet not SO small (like the 82 series) she can't punch the buttons (she IS almost 80). Also, it has TWO buttons, one to dial and the other to hang-up. My grandma can't seem to use the single-button type successfully, as she tends to punch the buton one or two MORE times than needed, thus ended up calling again. The phone LOOKS a bit cheap as its all-plastic exterior. However, initial perception proved to be misleading. The phone is quite solidly built and the covers are quite solid. Phone works fine even when dropped from waist height to concrete, hardwood, and carpeted floor several times, with no cracks, scratches, or any malfunctions. The phone is quite good so far. Its battery life is quite respectable. We recharge every night and the phone has yet to go below 3/4 full. The screen is quite visible in most lighting conditions. The internal antenna works quite well in most conditions, even in an urban environment such as SF Chinatown (though part of that robustness can be attributed to AT&T's network). The phone also has built-in vibrate feature, which helps my grandma locate the phone. She usually keep the phone in her pocket, thus not hearing the rings. The phone has several minor shortcomings, mainly due to its user-friendliness... The "dial" button occasionally gets STUCK, thus calling the last called number every minute (eek!) The animation can also get distracting. Another thing that gets quite annoying is if you hold the button for a bit "too long", you get prompted if you want to set the 1-key dial, and you can't turn the prompt off permanently! (no such choice in menus) The phone also supports custom graphics and custom ringtones, though my grandma don't use that. Overall, this is a fine phone with a lot of features. It can be further simplified though as a lot of the features may go unused for a less-sophisticated user. Recommended: Yes 90125 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cheap er just the right size ir port not working no web ear bug sux software crash weird interface The Bottom LineIt's a good phone with good feature/price ratio. You'll have to get used to it but it'll serve you well. Full Review First of all, I have AT&T wireless. The reception is good but then I would elect to say that it's carrier dependent so I'll skip that part. Let's just say that reception is not a problem at all when you have two bars. When you have one bar it skips every other second. Otherwise it's great on reception. Let's go over what's good about the phone. The battery life is good. I had a stupid Motorola ST7797 and the talk time for me is about 2 minutes. The Nokia 3360 is a Godsend. I had it charged up exactly as required by the company, plus I discharged the battery on my first full charge. I can talk and talk and talk.... The ergonomics on the phone is interesting. The size is definitely right. I hate the tiny 8860 or 8260. Can't work them when you have large fingers. The problem is that the keys are not laid out like a regular phone. It's more artistic to have things arranged in a curve, but it makes dialing without looking a difficult task. I much rather have the old 5260 type keyboard. The function keys (not number keys) are raised, and I suspect that due to this design, these function keys are less sensitive. Several times I left the phone on thinking I hung up but the key wasn't sensitive enough so it never did. Another stupid design flaw is the fact that when a call comes in, you have to use the function key to answer it. You can't use the "talk" key. One would imagine that you can use either but nooooooo.... If it is just me please someone send me a note to correct me. The software crashed on me about 3 times now. It happened usually when hanging up or looking for a number. When you try to go fast with the keys it shuts down and restarts again. Once it didn't even restart. And if you are going to ask, no the battery was full. AT&T was nice enough to send a earphone with the 3360, but I have large ears so it doesn't sit right. The fact that there is no foam cover for the earbug makes it impossible to stay in my ear. I've thought about cutting it off and putting on a Sony headphone with one of those loop thingy that goes to the back of your ear... My IR port can be recognized by my laptop (A Thinkpad T21) and I can grab info from the phone, but I can't send information to the phone using the software they provided online. Oh yeah that's another thing. Why is the software not bundled with the phone on a CD? I gave up after trying for 3 hours. I even wrote a few good tunes for the phone ('Cause I got High was one). Otherwise, the phone works great. The new feature to lock and unlock the key is a great design. Overall a good phone but I really think they are work on it some more. I recommend it with reservations. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 90124 2000/2/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 infrared data port features awesome ear piece size desktop software low battery warning indicator weak battery The Bottom LineA great little phone. Avoid the 3390 - go for the 3360. Full Review Introduction This is a great little phone. I picked it up for $19 as a part of the ATT Regional Plan - $49 month, 400 minutes, free long distance, free nights and weekends (6180 total N &W minutes). Putting the plan aside, it came with a great little phone. It is the Nokia 3360, a member of the 3300 series of Nokia Phones. The first issue I want to address is about the Model Numbering. Nokia needs to do a better job of numbering their phones. This phone - the 3360 - is numbered lower than the 3390 and other phones, but it has MORE features. Dont be fooled by providers that offer the 3390 Nokia phone - the 3360 is better. Basic Features Well you can get most of these off the Nokia website but I list a few of the more prominent ones here: -Digital Multi-network - TDMA 800, 1900; 800 Analog -Infrared port for transmitting data to handheld devices and other IR enabled machines. -Can serve as a laptop modem. -Internal Vibrating Alert -Accommodates Digital PCS Features (depends on phone provider) -Space for 200 phone book entries -Wireless Internet capable -4.8oz Why I like this phone... Ok, so you can find a list of features anywhere, but what is it like to use the phone... 1) I like the size. It is not quite as small as the 8000 series phones, but that's a good thing. I have large hands and I swear I would have to grow long nails and sharpen them into pencil points to hit the buttons on smaller phones. You can fit this one comfortably in a shirt pocket, jacket pocket, or even the back pocket of your jeans, yet the buttons are still big enough to actually press. Also it fits my large hands well, I don't feel like I'm sipping a cup of tea when I hold it. At 4.8oz it is pretty light. 2) It comes pre-programmed with the cellular service. The 3390 and other phones require installation of a providers chip in the back of the phone for it to work on the network. This is the case when you use a 3390 phone from Cingular. The problem is that sometimes that chip comes loose and your phone stops working. You have to take the phone apart to press it back in. This has happened several times to a friend of mine that has a 3390 from Cingular. It really sucks when you are driving the car and talking and your phone craps out. You cant fix it while driving since it takes so much manipulation of the phone. My 3360 was pre-programmed for AT&T without the use of a special add-in chip - so, nothing to come loose. 3) The microphone in both the phone and the ear bud are excellent. With my big head it seems my mouth is rather far from the phone, but it picks up my voice just fine. The same goes for the microphone on the ear piece. Though it is small it is amazingly sensitive and clear. 4) Face it, the removable - replaceable covers are very cool. 5) The phone comes with the battery, hands free earbud, and Travel charger. It DOES NOT come with a car charger. This would be an awesome phone if it did. 6) The infrared port is a nice touch. The 3390 phone doesn't have it. 7) Desktop software to manage your contacts. You can download it for free from Nokia, then connect your phone to your computer through the infrared port. It will allow you to manage your 200 contacts on the phone, create custom ring tones, and more. I havnt had a chance to use the software since my desktop computer did not come equipped with an IR port. Those with laptops will probably benefit from this feature. However, I can trade information with other phones and handheld devices. Just like a Palm you can beam a business card or phone number to other devices through this port. 8) Works as a modem for your laptop. Since I don't have a laptop, I have never used it, but what a cool feature. 9) With PCS features and AT&T service this phone is rarely out of range - it stumbles a bit in the mountains, but then that is to be expected. Of course, how well you phone picks up service will depend on the strength of your provider. The Bad- The battery (Standard NIMH BMC-2) that comes with the phone is a bit on the weak side. You can get about 2 hours of talking out of it before it starts to beep and tell you its low. The annoying thing is that the phone beeps when the battery is low and there is no way to shut it off. Even though you can get 2 hours of talk time out of it, count on only 1.5 hours since the rest of the time your phone will interrupt your conversation with a beep. Fortunately you can get a longer lasting battery for about $40. Also, the battery restraint clip in the back of the phone under the rear cover seems to pop loose on my phone. There is so little room for the battery to move around that the phone never looses power, but this is a bit of a concern to me. Conclusion: This is a great phone with more features than most will probably use. The 200 name contacts list and the infrared port are great features. The phone is small but not too small for someone with large hands to use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19 90123 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 relatively inexpensive easily customized lightweight good clarity small for larger hands bulky for small hands The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a phone with plenty of features and functionality the 3360 may be just right for you. Full Review What happens when a 46-lb puppy finds one's Nokia 8260 yummy? You find another phone that fits just as comfortably in its mouth. Granted I've been looking for an excuse to purchase the 3360 only I had planned to wait a few months. This phone has a little more heft than the 8260 and is a tad thicker but has some nifty features that may come in handy for the mobile techie. This is a fairly well built phone. Solid enough that when set to vibrate there are no odd rattles. The phone comes with the standard set of ringtones but you can download custom rings easily. This display is clear and you have the option to change its contrast (phone settings). Unlike many of the Nokia's this one's display is recessed which means the glass won't take the impact if you accidentally drop the phone. Scratching the faceplate isn't a huge deal since they are interchangeable so you can customize the phone according to your mood or style. Trivial to many but Nokia seems to have the patent down for cellular fun and this is no exception. Moving through the menus is a snap, the buttons are solid to the touch and responds well. The on/off switch is located on the top of the phone and may be a challenge but a lot of pressure is not required. Some of the menu options have changed so you may need to familiarize yourself once again although it is intuitive. One of my favorite features is the infrared option. It allows me to move information such as names and phone numbers from my palm unit to the phone and back again. The reminders menu has also changed a bit but with some added features that may prove useful. This information can also be transferred to a palm unit (or infrared capable pc/laptop). What's nice is that the phonebook now allows for up to three pieces of information per person. What this means is that you'll be able to store the persons e-mail addy, home and work phone number if you so choose! The Message option now allows for chat and carries commonly used phrases in the form of templates. Granted not all these features may not all be available depending upon your carrier. You can also archive messages which is a handy feature especially if you need to resend anything. As per usual, there are games for you to wile away the time. Snake II, Pairs II and Space Impact are well depicted and can make boring meetings seem to fly by. For travelers, the calculator feature has a currency converter. It allows you to convert from home to foreign currency with just a few touches of the button. Of course, you'll need to set up everything first but that's a snap! The phone typically ships with a standard faceplate, rapid charger (which conveniently fits the 8260...not that I have one...remember - the dog ate it?) and a handsfree earbud/mic combo. The battery lasts quite a while. I can pretty much go about 5 days on standby before charging. Even when being used the battery consumption is minimal so you should get ample time to yap about the weather, politics and the latest flavor in coffees before you have to plug in. Sound clarity has been great thus far with no drops. The internal antenna seems to be a tad more powerful than my previous phone - I've been able to get good reception in area's that previously gave me trouble. Overall, this has been a nice upgrade from the 8260. It has integrated itself into many of my daily processes and makes many of my travel woes less of a pain to deal with. For the price, the functionality and ease of the 3360 is pretty cool! p.s. here's a fun trick for you! Set your phone to vibrate on incoming calls and place the phone on its end. When a call is received the phone will vibrate and shimmy its way forward! Maybe next time my phone will be able to "run" away from foraging dogs.... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90122 2000/6/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ease of use lightweight customizable can t turn off the auto dictionary in messaging The Bottom LineIt's lightweight and easy to use. Very customizable. Great phone for a really good price. Full Review Well, after having had my 5165 for almost two years I finally decided it was upgrade time. I purchased the 3360 because we had gotten one for another plan, and I had gotten to play with it a bit and I liked the features. The phone itself is small and very lightweight. Has a decent sized LCD which is common with Nokia phones, but something I like because its hard to read smaller displays when driving, etc. Some of the options are: Messaging: SMS/Email capabilities. You get an inbox, outbox and archive to save messages into. Chat: You can "Chat" with someone using the same service/phone kind of like on AIM. Not really sure how it works, because I haven't gotten much chance to use it, but I can see how it would be useful in meetings or when you can't talk. There are also templates that are pre-written text of commonly used messages so you don't have to type as much with the keypad. Call log: Basic to all Nokia phones. Last 10 dialed/received/missed. Profiles: Basic profiles to newer Nokia phones (not on the 5165 or 51xx's) There's Silent, Meeting, Pager, Outdoor and Normal. All very customizable. Going further into the profiles, this phone supports Personal Ringtones. Meaning if you can find a site that offers ringtones, know how to make your own or pay for them - you can use the SMS messaging to have them sent to your phone so it will ring unique to you. I'm not sure exactly how many it supports, but I believe Nokia stated somewhere around 10. (Possibly less, but no one really needs *that* many ringtones, do they?) It also has a built in Vibrating alert, which is awesome for noisy environments when you usually can't hear the phone ring, or when you have it in your pocket. No more expensive batteries with vibrating alerts built in. Games: There are three games, two new. Snake II, Space impact and Pairs II. Haven't really checked them out, but I don't tend to use my phone to play games unless I'm waiting for someone. Calculator Reminders Infrared. This feature is really cool, for those of us with Laptops or IR ports on our PC's. I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to putting in all my phone numbers. So I found a program from Nokia (free download www.nokia.com) for their Software suite. It uses the Windows address book to transfer contacts to your phone. I created a new address book so it wouldn't send EVERYTHING in my address book to my phone with all my contacts from my old Nokia and then beamed it over to the new phone in a matter of minutes. I found this very useful and easy to use. You can also use the IR option to send ringtones made with the Nokia Composer to the phone directly, as well as synch data, etc with the other programs included in the software suite. The best part is, its not difficult to use at all. I'd never used my IR port on my laptop for anything or even knew if it was enabled. Once it was enabled, it found my phone and installed it pretty quickly. (Win98) It also uses a standard 2.5mm jack headset. Which is really nice, because those are very common and not pricey at all. This phone came with the standard ear bud, I changed it to a plantronics over the ear headset, which I really like a lot better than the ear bud that tends to fall out. The phone can also be used via IR as a wireless modem, with the additional hardware of a cellular modem card (pcmica) which I happened to have thanks to my dad travelling often and needing a good laptop modem. I tested it out, and it worked really well. The modem connected to the phone and dialed out without any problems. Now, I've done tech support for a number of years and I've spoken with several customers that tried to use their Nokia phones alongside their cellular modem cards and had something like hell getting it to work. I would recommend this phone even to those burned by past IR/Nokia experiences. Another cool feature to this phone is, you can change the faceplates (front & back) to make it look however you like. I'm happy with the standard faceplate, but from my past experiences, I always end up changing it to something else so everyone knows its *my* phone. Its very nice that you can do this. Its small enough to fit in even the smallest of purses, shirt pockets or pants pockets without being annoying or bulky. There's no antenna to break off (which I am known for) and its really easy to use. The sound quality is awesome and people always ask if I am on a home phone when they know they dialed my cell number, and I'm always told how good it sounds for a cellphone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90121 2000/10/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many cover options small text messaging battery life buttons too low profile The Bottom LineGreat small phone, looks good, but eats up that battery. Full Review I obtained the Nokia 3360 for a very low price under a deal with Cingular wireless. Upon first impression the size of the phone impressed me, along with the variety of options that it presented. SIZE, MANAGEABILITY, EASE OF USE The phone easily fits into my pocket to reside with my wallet and other items conveniently so that I don't have to get an additional carrying case. There are some caveats to this small size however. The main problem lies in the button set that comes with the phone, in that the buttons do not protrude from the surface far enough...in other words, if you have fat fingers good luck not hitting 3 buttons at once. The menus can be a little overwhelming at first but they are easily learned. Sometimes the logic that was used at Nokia is questionable when it comes to where they put certain functions in the menus. FUNCTIONALITY Unfortunately my service does not include the internet on my phone so I have yet to use that option. The phone gets reception that is consistent with that the reception bar on the display indicates. Normally when I am in a civilized area I get pretty good reception, although that is more a function of what service provider you have. Text messaging is pretty straightforward and me and my fiance are always shooting messages back and forth. It really can save on your minutes. The games that are included are mildly entertaining but for the most part I dont use them because they are battery eaters, which brings us to the next category. BATTERY LIFE The life of the battery in the 3360 is directly related to how much you use it. I have seen my battery last as long as 2-3 days when I dont use it. However if you are making frequent phone calls, playing games, or messaging a lot, that battery can get drained within 6-8 hours. That was tolerable when I had a car, but now that I am at school I dont have one and so I have to rely on charging my phone at home. Now I am considering buying a second battery just so I can swap it out. APPEARANCE The phone is very good looking and now that I have my favorite black with lightning cover on it, it is even more attractive. That is a great point about this and other Nokia phones, they have lots and lots of options when it comes to phone covers. There are also lots of options for blinking batteries, lit buttons, etc. * Side Note: If you get this phone it may seem at first that the volume is very low and that the speaker is just crappy, if you press the up button while making a call however it will increase the volume. Just something that I had trouble on at first. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10.00 90120 2000/12/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact size control excellent vol full of features rather short actual battery length has non standard headset jack The Bottom LineGreat compact phone with feature rich ADDRESS BOOK, MESSAGING, INFRARED for data back-up, while being reliable & sturdy. Mic and Speaker control and clarity a real plus. Full Review Why did I get this phone? I recently had several problems with my Ericsson R289LX - mostly dealing with reception and placing calls successfully (a known problem error msg: 'cannot place call'). My service provider is AT&T and they offered an upgrade even though my one year contract is not even half-completed. I went to a local AT&T store (after doing some online research) and paid $99 for the phone, received one full month of service credit ($39), and received a $50 mail-in gift certificate from Nokia to spend at a retailer of my choice... costing me about $15 in the end. What's so great about the Nokia 3360? It's small, compact, and has an internal antenna... so it fits in your pocket very easily. It's function menu is clear, easy to navigate and learn -- and the phone buttons are solid and well laid-out. Its CALENDAR/REMINDER functions are easy to navigate and use. The MIC is well positioned and transmits your voice loud and clear to the party on the receiving end, while the SPEAKER is crystal clear and has an amazing volume range for the size of the phone. The MESSAGING feature allows a text message (to other users on the same service provider network) or an email (to any email address, including those on other service provider networks) to be sent and received with ease. You can customize the templates for frequently used messages. The ADDRESS BOOK holds names and numbers (home, work, mobile, fax, general) as well as email or street addresses or a note. The INFRARED function allows transfer of this data to and from any computer with infrared capability, and Nokia's PC Suite software (free to download from their site) -- excellent for backing up or updating data. The PROFILES allow easy setting of volume and ring types/tones and alerts to be appropriate for various situations and environments (outdoors, meetings, theatres, etc). It even has a CALCULATOR for balancing your checkbook or dividing up the restaurant tab. The RECEPTION of the 3360 is above average when compared with other phones I've had with AT&T Wireless in the same coverage area (Southern California - Greater Los Angeles & Orange County). The 3360 doesn't offer INTERNET ACCESS through AT&T's network. What could be better about the 3360? With the amount of time I talk on the phone, the 3360's standard BATTERY length is about 24-36 hours - although Nokia states it's 210 minutes talk, up to 10 days standby. That's not a problem since I charge it every night and sometimes while in my car, but it's something I had to get into the habit of doing since my last phone lasted 5-6 days without a charge. Without a car charger, it would be difficult to avoid a dead battery now and then. The HEADSET JACK is a non-standard size (not the usual 2.5mm for universal headsets) which means an adapter is needed for the greatest choice in headsets. I had a phone with INTERNET ACCESS before and this would have been a nice feature (luxury, not really needed) to have included on this model to function on AT&T's network. Makes theatre showtimes, driving directions, and yellow page searches a snap! :) Would I get this phone again? Based upon the phones I've had so far in the wireless world, I'd definitely pick up this model again and recommend it to anyone who doesn't need Internet Access, uses Messaging functions occasionally or frequently, and needs a compact phone with a great Address Book and Data back-up capability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 15 90119 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use lots of features tdma technology battery some design issues The Bottom LineNot bad phone for the price I get. Not really recommend it if you can find a good deal on CDMA phone. Full Review The last time I had nokia cell phone was about three years ago and that's a nokia 5190. After that I changed my cellphone several times and this 3360 is my fifth phone and my second Nokia cellphone. First, let me tell you why I bought this phone. I was looking for a new cell phone so I can leave my other StarTac phone in the car all the time, I have a car system for the StarTac includes a handset with keypad, but I have to plug the phone in and out every time I get in and out the car. So I decided to get another phone so I will carry it with me and always leave the old phone in the car, I don't need to tell anyone the new number because I can put the busy/no answer transfer so the call will automatically route to the new number. If I am in the car then the car phone will ring first. So that was the idea. I went to several different local provider try to find a good deal and this seems to be a good one, it's a X'mas promotion, about 100US$ (I paid $149 Canadian) include phone, standard charger, two extended NiMH battery (BMC-3), car charger, handsfree headset, 6 month service and no contract. Since the TDMA phone was not my first choise, I spend several more days to shopping around and finally decide to give this phone a try. The size of the phone is just right, not too big but not too small. I like the backlight of the button, only the number on the button light up, not the entire button. With the build in antenna I don't need to worry about break my antenna while I have the phone in my back pocket (I broke my StarTac's antenna twice within 14 month). The reminder is a good feature but since I always carry a iPaq with me, it's not to much useful for me. The phone book allow you to store more than one number for each name, home number, cell, email... you name it. The other Motorola phone I had before, I had to create five entries for one of my friend in order to store all the number he had. The infrared port is a great feature, I download the Nokia PCSuite software from their web site, then I can download my address book to my phone. My iPaq can use the phone as a modem through the IR port. Another feature is that you can pre-set different ring tone and/or vibration for different environment, and quickly switch them. It's call profile. OK, now let's talk about the most important part, it's performance as a cell phone. First, the reception. I've mentioned that TDMA isn't my first choice, here is why, TDMA phone always search for a digital channel and stay with it as control channel no matter how weak the signal is and how strong the analog signal is, unless you are completely out of digital covered area, then you are in pure analog. In the digital covered area, you can only switch to analog channel after you made the connection. So, if you happen to get into a place that has a very weak digital signal and very strong analog signal, guess what will happen? The phone will pickup the weak digital signal and try to make the call, but the signal is not strong enough to make the connection. So how about analog? remember phone will not switch to analog mode unless you make the connection. Now you stuck, and the phone gives you fast beep telling you there is no line available, sure there is analog channel there but you can't use it, because the phone still think it can make the digital call. The bad news is I happen to live in the area like this. But the good thing is this is a perfect place to test the reception of the phone. I managed to get two of my friends in my house to test the phone, one of them has a ericsson TDMA phone and the other has a StarTac TDMA, all three of us are with the same service provider. All three phone were basically dead in my house, but we do find one spot in my family room all three of them can make and receive calls, the sound quality is OK, lots of noise but still be able to carry over the conversation, the other two phone are pretty much the same. Then we found another spot where StarTac works but the rest were dead. So looks like the internal antenna had a pretty good performance The sound quality is good if you are in the well covered area. Now let's talk about problem. The phone tends to drop the call while I move from a digital covered area to and analog area, it suppose to do a switch without drop the call, but I found the other brand phone had the same problem, so again I will blame the TDMA technology, and my other CDMA phone less likely did that. The NiMH battery is much heavy than Li-Ion battery, most of Motorola phone came with Li-Ion battery as standard, why Nokia didn't do that? Also, because the battery is bit heavier, it makes the balance point of the phone just a little bit higher than the middle point, but the key pad is on the lower half of the phone, so if you only use one hand to hold the phone and try to press the number, I always feel uncomfortable and tend to drop the phone because the other end of the phone is heavier. The function or menu key and the send/end key always confuse me, I hit the wrong button all the time. Why you need a End key while the right function key become End button during the call? So what is my final words? It's good phone and worth the money I paid. But if you can get a good deal for a CDMA phone, go for it, at least my other CDMA phone can switch between digital and analog any time I want and less likely drop the call. But this is the common problem with the TDMA phone, not just for this one. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90118 2000/1/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 price weight size options battery life screen light The Bottom LineBuy it! Its a wonderful phone that will last a lifetime, just make sure to put the keyguard on! Full Review The Nokia 3360 is equiped with the following basic features: Customize look with xpress-on changeable front, and back face color plates 3.5 hours of battery time (thats pretty bad if you ask me) 250 hours of standby time (dont think so) Built in Games Text Messaging service I bought my Nokia 3360 about 2 months ago, so far i have had absolutely no problems, except for one which i will get to later. The Phone comes standard with a deep blue cover and backing, you may want to get this replaced as the color is sort of dull and not very attractive. It is very ligtweight, cant possible weigh more than a few ounces, its about 4.5 inches long and about 1.75 inches wide and apprx. half an inch deep. My favorite plus about this phone is that there is absolutely no attena, no getting stuck in your leg with it when its in your pocket. There is a large phone number list storage area in your phone that i believe holds up to 250 names, you can have a variety of ringtons, and message alert tones, or you can keep your phone on silent or even vibrate, or even ring and vibrate at the same time, there is a text and voicemail box area, an infared sensor that allows you to download things off other phones and somehow the internet (havent figured that out yet.) There is a reminders space where you can type in information and then as that date comes up your phone will alert you with your message. A calculator, no explanation needed there. There are 3 games in the phone, (Space Impact, Pairs 2 and Snake 2) i personally dont really play them unless im bored of my a@@, ill just say if you have nothing else to do and your caught in traffic you might as well. Another thing you can do is customize your welcome message when you turn your phone on it could say something like "Good Afternoon Zach" When the phone is purchased, you get a great deal i think you get it for 60$ if you purchase a plan. When the phone is purchased you recieve a belt clip for the phone and a hook up for your charger, i usually recharge my battery every 2-3 days, but then again my phone is always off half of the day. Now for the very few CONS, the one thing that urks me the most is that when im talking to someone, to actually hear them i have to hold the sound holes real real close to me ear, which makes you have to speak louder so that your voice will carry to the speaking holes (dont know what else to call them.) The other thing is that the screen on the phone is very dark, its only hard to see during the day, at night it is fine since a little light comes one, and the last small thing is that the buttons are very sensative, so if the phone is in your pocket then lots of buttons get touched and i've accidently called someone once, all you have to do to avoid that is put on the keygaurd. Overall i think this is a wonderful phone, even better if you purchase a plan as well. I would suggest buying it immediately! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 90117 2000/10/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive small has good games a bit fuzzy a little hard to hold The Bottom LineThis phone is cute, has some nice features and is relatively affordable, but the keypad might be hard to use by people with big hands. Full Review Prior to owning the Nokia 3360, I had owned two other phones. The first was an old, heavy, crappy analog Nokia, the other a cheap but very good Alcatel One Touch DB. Neither were very cutting edge, but I was never worried as, for me, a cellphone is a necessity, not a fashion accessory. However, I did like my Alcatel phone very much, but as the United States does not really have Vodafone (or SMS for that matter) I had to get rid of it. I decided to get something a little more attractive than my last phones. I didn't really want to pay too much for a cellphone, so I shopped around a few companies to see what sort of deals they were offering. AT&T Wireless seemed to have the best deal (a family plan between two phone: unlimited free phone calls between my fiance and I - that's pretty handy), although we did have to pay $129 for the phone. My last phone was only NZ$50 and I was on a prepay plan so it was comparatively very cheap, but the Nokia 3360 is pretty close to what I had in mind. The Nokia 3360 has some very nice features. I really like the interchangeable face plates because I get sick of looking at the same colour phone all the time. I have the silver ones which are very snazzy. The vibrate mode is really handy because I often don't hear my phone ring - something I hadn't had on my previous phones. The only thing about the vibrate mode is that it is quite powerful, so you don't want to leave it near the edge of a table in case it wobbles off. The power button is right on the top of the phone and the button is not raised. The Nokia 3360 is very hard to accidentally turn off, which is good if you forget to relock your keypad after using it. The address book is very nicely laid out, and you can store more than one number for each entry. You can also store email addresses. You can access the address book easily just by hitting the down button. Text messaging is a very big thing back home in New Zealand, so I really wanted that in the States. Unfortunately, it's not very popular over here, and although I can't send text messages to phones on other networks, I can send emails. This phone has infrared beaming, which is very handy. You can beam phone numbers and business cards to other Nokia 3360's and also to Palm Pilots. My last favourite feature is the selection of games. It has Space Impact, Pairs II and Snake II. You can even play 2-player Snake with other Nokia 3360 users! The not-so-good things about this phone are the clarity, keypad and ergonomics. I find it rather hard to hear people on this phone, but I am not sure if it is the network, the phone or perhaps phones in general in the United States (I also find our landline rather hard to hear on). My only comparison is phones I've used in New Zealand, but unfortunately I think this phone is harder to hear on than the old analog Nokia I had used in New Zealand. The keypad is a little difficult to use - I think this is because the buttons are not raised much higher than the actual face. I think this would be very hard to use if you had big hands or wide fingers, or very long fingernails. The last thing is that I don't think it feels that comfortable in your hand when you hold it up to your ear. It could be that it is just a little smaller than I am use to, but because the antenna is built in to the phone you are supposed to rest your fingers no further up than the 5 bumps on the back which are about 3/4 of the way up. I prefer to hold the entire phone in my hand when I hold it up to my ear, but I suppose I just need to adjust to this phone. Overall, I think the Nokia 3360 is a good little phone. I would love this phone even more if the backlight was blue instead of green, but you can't ask for everything for only $129. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 90116 2002/11/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very pocketable no antenna protrusion text e mail capable calendar for reminderscall log info battery life overstated though now has 900mah battery they eliminated the security lock The Bottom LineSmall, well-built, full-featured phone (not entertainment system), for a great price, and usually part of a very good monthly plan. Full Review While it seems that the Nokia 3300 series has been cursed with a spotty quality record producing either all-love or all-hate reviews, I have to count myself among the former... Using the code of *#9999# , everyone can check their firmware version, and I've read that the 2.6 or perhaps earlier need to be changed out by Nokia. Punching that code in on my 3360, I find that I have a very new version 3.04, dated 8-26-2002. In turn, I have not had one "Windows-like" problem with the phone. Every feature works perfectly and the only thing I miss is the security lock that was standard on the 5100 series. The 2-way text messaging works fine and fast, also the emailing. Nokia seems to have paid attention to feedback from customers, too... The volume control is much louder than my old 5120, so that I have yet to need it "all the way up"... The ringer and the vibralert and even the backlight are the same, all stronger than in previous generations. Also, they even redesigned the faceplates so that the outer lens is recessed, not the scratch-prone, resting point like it was before. Sizewise, I'd call this phone virtually perfect. I wouldn't mind if it were a bit thinner, but width and height are as small as I could want, and still be able to work the buttons accurately. Also, you don't need to do as much keywork, since they've added some intelligence to the text entry. I'm not referring to the predictive text, I haven't mastered that yet, but I love the way that the phone knows with almost 100% accuracy the right times to switch from caps to lowercase, and back, when entering phonebook or reminder entries, or sending text messages. The weight is a bit of a surprise for it's size, but Nokia is addressing another complaint and now shipping the phones with the BMC-3, 900mAH NiMH battery... This is probably the heaviest battery you can put in this phone, but it has almost 50% more capacity than the old, standard BMC-2, and I get a very usable combined range of about 2hours talking mixed with 3 days of standby. That's virtually as good as my old 5120 running a slim LIon, while providing more features and better reception in a smaller package with no antenna poking out. I can put this phone in any pocket, even jeans, and not worry about the antenna getting bent, or being uncomfortably large. Lastly, I want to mention that 3 friends of mine have bought 3360's in the last 18 months and they all love their phones, too. All 4 of us, though, DID strictly follow the battery conditioning instructions: 24 hours on the first charge, and bring it all the way down to "Recharge Battery" for the next two charges to achieve maximum capacity. Indeed, I would unplug my phone for a couple minutes at a time after the first six hours of charging, and it would revert to "Charging", rather than "Battery Full" , all the way up to the 22nd hour. The second charge took 6 hours, and the 3rd took almost 2 hours on a rapid-CLA. However, I've had the phone on standby for three days this time, with only a few minutes of talk, and it still reads full. All told, it's a helluva deal on a good, fairly advanced phone. And with 6,000 parts available on eBay, and completely replaceable front, rear and keypad, I think this phone will be fairly bulletproof, even without a cumbersome leather case. Even (or especially) if your sturdy old 5100/6100 series is still working, you may find this a good enough reason to retire it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 26 90115 2000/4/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use lots of features lightweight small on off button a little hard to press but it works The Bottom LineThis phone is good for people who want a small phone but don't want to spend $400. Full Review I bought my first cell phone back in 1994 when i had a big FAT unreliable van. It was a big motorola and i only got 60 minutes a month and ever since 1994, i have had many cell phones so i guess i could say that i do have a lot of experience with cell phones. from motorola, BAM, nokia, ETC. Well, I really never had a good cell phone, all my phones were never really clear or lightweight or had all those bells and whistles. until i found nokia..... *smiles* Okay, Well as you can see from my review about the BAM cell phone, i really wasn't satisfied. so one day, my BAM cut out and that was it, i was done. I was so fed up with that BAM, so I Went to AT&T wireless and I bought the Nokia 3360. It was $100, but i had a $50 mail-in rebate. Anyway, I got this little phone out of the box, and the first thing i noticed is how lightweight it is. and compact..... those are things i have never seen in a cell phone. As far as i was concerned, a cell phone was a big fat ugly lookin thing that likes to pull you down to the ground whenever you put it in your pocket. Well, When i was introduced to the nokia, that was no longer true. i love this nokia because it is so easy to use and it has so many features. You can set the phone to normal, silent, ETC. On the normal tone, the phone will ring and beep and all that stuff. on the silent mode, the phone will vibrate and the vibrator on this phone is very strong so you can really feel it against your leg. a lot of cell phones vibrators aren't that good and you can't feel them, that was like my old one. Also, with this nokia, you can download ringtones! You can download songs, movie themes, anything, it's so cool. You have to go to attws.com and sign up for the ringtones and graphics thing and then you can download ringtones for $1. I downloaded a couple songs. But if you don't want to do that, you have a choice of 30 ringtones. The phone has changeable covers which means that you can just pop off the cover and put a new one on. You can put almost any color cover you want on. but the covers have to work for the 3360. The cover prices run different everywhere you go. The phones battary time is outstanding. It lasts all day, all night, and i think the rest of the next day. I love that, i feel like i never have to charge it, but, when the phone does go dead, it starts beeping histerically at you as if telling you to hurry up and plug it in. So when you do have to charge it, it doesn't take long to charge. This phone also has text messageing, which means i can send messages to other phones!! it's so cool. This phone with AT&T also has e-mail! whenever you sign up, your e-mail on your phone looks like this yournumber@wireless.att.net and you can send e-mails from the computer to your phone and vice versa. That's not really a essential feature, it's just for fun. You also get voice mail. Whenever you have a voicemail message, there is a little simble on the screen of the phone and then you can click, listen, and it automatically logs you onto your voicemail account and then you can delete the messages or keep them. That might be an essential thing for some people, it depends. all in all, i love this phone, there is so much you can do with it, that i can't explain it all right now. Go to AT&T to get more information on it. buy this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90114 2002/8/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sms easy to use email internet very customizable battery life if not conditioned properly The Bottom LineAlthough, it is marketed as an entry level phone it has just as many features as some much more expensive phones! Full Review I purchased the 3360 as a replacement for my old entry level Nokia 5120. I was very impressed with all the features this phone has for the price. You can email, surf the internet (albeit text only), send graphic SMS messages and much more! Internet I can't really comment on the WAP Internet Browser since I have yet to subscribe to the service. I can say that this is one of the cheapest phones to offer this feature. It basically gives you the ability to visit websites specially designed for mobile internet devices. These sites are basically text only. If your computer is equipped with an infrared port you will have the ability to use this phone as a slow speed modem and connect to your regular internet service provider's dialup number. This feature does use minute on your phone and your service provider must have "data dialing features" which you must sometimes request to be turned on. I have not yet been able to try this feature out as my provider does not have data dialing activated on my service play. Apparently, the maximum connect speed would be 9600 which obviously is very slow. I wouldn't recommend this for casual surfing but it would be a nice feature to have if you needed to check your email on the road or perhaps visit mapquest for directions. Email & SMS You can send and receive SMS or Email via SMS. The messages are limited to 160 characters. You can also receive new ringtones via SMS. I had much trouble figuring out how to do this considering most of the websites offering this service are for Europe only and have begun to charge per ringer. However, I discovered that you can do it yourself for free at cellphones.About.com which has extensive information about how to send new ringers to your phone. You must convert RTTL ringtones to the binary ringtone format using a free online tool then you can simply send the code it generates to your phone for free via your cellular services SMS Gateway. I have discovered that you can send an electronic business card to another phone with SMS or device equipped with an Infrared Receiver; this basically means you can send a contact from your address book to another persons address book. Address/Phone Book I believe you can have up to 200 entries. This includes 2 Phone Numbers (Business, Home, Mobile or Fax) and 1 text item (Email, Note or Street Address) per phonebook entry. If your computer is equipped with an infrared port you will have the ability to synchronize with your Outlook or Windows Address Books. To use this functionality you must first download the Nokia PC Suite from their website. I have found this feature to be very convenient. After setting up the software all you have to do is activate the infrared receiver on the 3360 and point it at your infrared port and voila it will sync with your desired address book. This is much easier than entering your contacts manually on the phone. Customization This phone is highly customizable considering you can easily change both the face and back plate of the phone. Both simply slide off with no need for any tools. There are literally hundreds of choices of faceplates on eBay and other internet sites. You can also download new ringers or even make your own using a computer equipped with an infrared port using the Nokia PC Suite Software or as mentioned above via SMS. Battery Life If you don't condition the battery as the manual instructs it will quickly discharge with use. I have found that it stays charged on standby for up to 7-10 days without much use. Other features Games: Snake II, Space Impact and Pairs II. Calculator with currency converter Internal Vibrating Alert MUCH MORE! I have been really happy with my purchase of this phone. Although it is marketed as an entry level phone it really has just as many features as some of the higher end Nokia phones. The battery life isn't as good as it should be if you don't condition it properly. I really don't have any other gripes about it. The call clarity is very good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 90113 2002/7/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great price lots of functions small size it s a nokia shape is uncomfortable in my hands less than desired battery power cuts off when it wants too The Bottom LineIt's an average phone. Nokia has done much better in the past. The 3360 will do. Full Review This is a review for the Nokia 3360 on the AT&T Wireless Network. Let me start off by saying that I really liked this phone for the 1st 6 months that I owned it. I got rid of it in the 7th month. Let me explain to you the chain of events. I was looking to upgrade from my Nokia 5160. I've always been a fan of Nokia phones, so I figured that I would upgrade to the 3360. The 8260 is cute, but the buttons were way too small, and I have small hands, so that must be saying something! Anyway, I thought the 3360 was the perfect balance of size, portability and quality that I have grown accustomed to by Nokia. The phone has all of the standard bells and whistles that Nokia is well-known for-replaceable faceplates, games, reminders, lots of standard and downloadable ringtones and a huge availability of aftermarket accessories. It has a pretty sizeable phone book. The only thing that the phone had, that was of absolutely no use to me was the IR function. My computer doesn't have an IR port, so synchronizing my data was out of the question. Inputing names and numbers for 4 hours with a phone keypad is not my idea of fun. All the IR port ever did was mess with my CD player in my car! The phone is a good size, but it felts somewhat awkward in my hand. It wasn't comfortable to hold up to my ear for long periods of time. Hence, the headset. Nokia headsets are so uncomfortable in my ears! I always have to search for an aftermarket earpeice for my Nokia phones. Plus, I would really advise using this phone with a headpiece anyway since it has an internal antenna. I'm sure you all have read the radioactivity warnings for cellphones. Just be cautions. Give me an external antenna anyday. The battery drains very quickly. Especially when you're playing games (Snake is my absolute favorite). When it's just in standby mode, it's ok. But if you've been having a lot of stop-and-start conversations, long conversations or playing a game against your best friend on his or her phone, then you better make sure you're nearby a plug! This phone will die on you in a minute! The sound quality of the phone is just standard. Sometimes it was difficult to hear out of the earpiece of the actual phone. I did find myself asking people to repeat themselves often. Ok..back to the 7th month. All of a sudden, my 3360 started shutting off on me. No warning. No reason. The battery was fully charged. It wouldn't shut off on me during a conversation. It would shut off on me in standby mode. I didn't even notice it at first until I started missing reminders. Then I would just happen to glance down at my phone and the screen would be blank! I would have to take off the battery door, put it right back on and turn the phone back on. And we won't even talk about the on/off button! I have broken may a nail trying to push the thing in!! This was getting to be truly annoying to me, so I called AT&T Wireless Exchange. NOTE: DO YOUR EXCHANGE ONLINE. IT'S SELF-SERVICE AND IT'S SO MUCH QUICKER! TRYING TO GET THROUGH TO WARRANTY EXCHANGE ON THE PHONE IS A BIG WASTE OF TIME!!! Anyway...they were very prompt. I had my replaced unit the next day. They send you a new set of insides for the phone and you ship back the insides of your old phone. The annoying thing about that is, if you don't have the Nokia PC Suite, you will have to re-enter all of your data by hand-which is exactly what i had to do! Another 4 hours of entering data! About a week went by, and don't you know this replacement phone started acting up??? I was too through! I called AT&T Customer Service, ready to light into them, but they were very nice. They told me that I had 2 options. I could either do another warranty exchange, since all of their phones have a 1-year warranty on them. Or, I could just buy a new phone-then I would have to extend my contract a year. I told her that I would rather buy a new phone. THE FINAL VERDICT-THE MOTOROLA V60T (check out my epinions review for it.) I ended up giving the 3360 to a friend. She loves it. Go figure! I told her to watch out for that 7th month!!! I did find out later that Nokia did have a bad batch of 3360's (I found this out from 2 friends who work for 2 different cellular phone companies), so that gave me some comfort. So, to end my review, this is a cute phone. I do know people who have had absolutely no trouble with the phone. It's priced well-especially with a lot of companies giving this phone, or a version of the 3300 series away for free, it's a great bargain. I would recommend it for the beginner as well as the advanced. Just because I got a bad one, it doesn't mean all of them are bad! Remember, I loved mine for 6 months!!! So go ahead and get one. For the most part, you'll be making a good investment on a cell phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90112 2002/10/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 pc connectivity ir connection little web enabled battery life The Bottom LineThis is one of the better cell phones in the market today, at any price. With the IR port, wireless Internet, and PC connectivity, this phone ... makes me HAPPY! Full Review I love the Nokia 3360, one of Nokia's newest phones. Here are few reasons why: 1. Size The size is perfect. Not too big, not too small. The dimensions are 4.5" tall, 2" wide, and 1" thick. I like this size better than the smaller 8200 series phones and much better than the larger 5100/6100 series phones. It's small enough to fit everywhere and big enough to be comfortable when dialing and talking. The phone weighs 4.8 ounces including the standard battery. 2. Phonebook You can store up to 200 contacts, each with 2 phone numbers and 1 line of text. The phone numbers can be categorized into General, Mobile, Home, Work, or Fax. The text can be categorized into E-mail (you'll want to do this; see #3), Street Address, or Note. This will help you become much more organized. 3. Messaging (service dependent) You can send short text messages. You can create a message by either typing it in or by selecting one of the default messages (called Templates). Templates include: "Hi! How's it going?", "Thank you", "Have a great day!", "Sorry I'm late", and many more. Text messages can be sent to people who have cell phones with text messaging capability, or you can send it as an e-mail. You can pick the recipient from the Phonebook, or you can manually enter the recipient's phone number or e-mail address. If you'll be doing a lot of messaging, it'll be a good idea to enter people's e-mail address in the Phonebook (this is really easy to do; see #5). There is also a chat function. Chat works only between two chat enabled cell phones. You type, then send. The message goes instantly to the other phone. Works very well. 4. Wireless Internet You can surf the Internet with the Nokia 3360. The limitation is that you can only visit WAP enabled web sites. WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol and WAP content uses the WML programming language, which is like a trimmed down version of HTML. Many web sites support WAP, like CBS Sportsline, eBay, TicketMaster, Google, Bloomberg, etc. 5. IR to Another Phone or Palm Device The Nokia 3360 has an IR port. You can exchange information between phones using the IR port. If you want to send a "business card" (an entry in your phonebook) to another phone, you can beam it using the IR port. You can also send/receive "business cards" to a Palm device (Palm, Visor, Clie, etc) using the same IR port. Really cool. 6. PC Connectivity You can also connect the phone to your notebook computer using the IR ports (most notebooks have IR ports; most desktops do not). You can sync the Phonebook on the Nokia with the Windows Address Book, Outlook, or other popular softwares. This means that you can type all the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses on the computer, then beam it over to the phone. No more having to enter all that info using the keypad on the phone. 7. Built in Modem The built in IR modem is really a bonus. It's a really cool feature but I don't think many will be using this. With this modem, you can connect your notebook computer or your Palm/Visor/PocketPC to the Internet. I have used all of the features above and can testify that they all work very well. The only downside to this phone is the battery life. The standard BMC-2 battery (640 mAh) is rated at: 3.5 hours of digital talk time / 10.5 hours of digital standby time. My previous phone had a 1000 mAh battery which was rated at 5 hours of talk time. Yes, the difference is noticeable. Also, the battery is enclosed. If you're planning on using just the one battery, this is great, but if you're planning on using two or more batteries (charging one while the other is being used), then this is sort of a hassle since you have to remove the cover to change the battery. But, this "hassle" also prevents the battery from falling off when you drop the phone, something that can easily happen on phones where the battery just clips on the back on the phone. Accessories The Nokia 3360 uses the same charger as the 5100/6100 series so it should be easy to find a cigarette lighter charger. The headset kit it uses is the same as the 8200/8800 series: not the easiest to find, but they're out there. For the headset kit, spend a little more and get the Nokia brand. The off brands will last at most a couple of months. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35 90111 2002/7/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 low price tag strong basic features compact good talk time changeable housing annoying ring tones faceplates tricky to remove not always clear calling The Bottom LineGreat entry-level phone with plenty of features and a low price tag. Full Review In June 2002, I bought this Nokia 3360 with AT&T Wireless service to replace my Samsung N200 with Sprint PCS service. Overall, I'm very pleased with the phone. The 3360 is very compact and fits into my "wallet on a string", partially because the antenna is internal. Having an internal antenna also eliminates my worries of breaking the thing when I'm fumbling with my phone on the train. While the standard blue housing is boring, I was able to obtain some very cute faceplates online, so my phone is more expressive of my personality. I've also found the phone to be very lightweight and to fit nicely into my hand (I have small hands, though). Caveats: The faceplates can be tricky to change, and they do tend to slide off if you're pressing the release button too hard. On the other hand, with faceplates, if they get scratched, you only have to put down $20 for a new faceplate instead of buying a new phone. One thing that is really great about the phone is the recessed power button. It's much more difficult to accidentally turn off my phone. Also, the keyguard is accessed by pressing "Menu" and the asterisk, which takes some getting used to and can be difficult if you're driving. I'm definitely happy about the functionality of the 3360. The address book holds two numbers and an e-mail address for each person (or three numbers and no e-mail address). I only have about 25 entries right now in my phone book, and I'm not sure of the total capacity. The main screen has a clock. The phone also has an alarm clock and reminder function. The reminders and phone numbers can be "beamed" via the infrared port to a Palm Pilot or computer with personal information management software. I like not having to enter information twice! Heading onto the menu, the call log holds ten outgoing, ten incoming and ten missed call numbers. The profiles allow me to set not just the ring volume but the particular ring tone, vibrating alert and message alert for a variety of situations, such as "Outdoors", "Normal", "Meetings" and just plain "Silent." Oh, and did I mention the games? There are three, but they're a bit tricky to play with the keypad being the way it is (small). But the "Pairs II" and "Snake" games are welcome diversions while waiting in line. As for the bad: sometimes I have to really press the phone to my ear to hear the other person. The volume doesn't go as high as I'd like. Also, this may seem like a small thing, but with so many ring tones to choose from, I only found one that wasn't hideously annoying. I hate that stupid Nokia ring tone with a passion. Overall, I recommend this phone for younger consumers and those that need basic functionality without a high price tag. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -20.00 90110 2000/1/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 vibrates easy menu use small cool looking hangs up randomly creaky poor reception The Bottom LineErr, here it is again. A good phone for those who want style and compactness. Bad for anyone who wants a serious cell. Full Review Ok, when I got this phone ($40.00 with upgrade) I thought my cell phone problems were solved. This phone is compact, user friendly, highly customizable and it has built in vibration ringing. For about 3 months, I loved it. But then reality started to set in. Early on I noticed a very, very annoying problem: when the phone's key lock is on and it's in my back pocket (where I always carry it) if it rings and i touch any button while getting it out of my pocket, it hangs up on the person calling. HUH?!?!?! This is not a joke, or a mistake. This has happened many, many times. Other annoyances include: creaky construction (sounds small, but if you make calls in excess of a few minutes it gets really annoying to hear a creak and crack every few seconds) and... uh... well, that's it. Oh, and I busted the LCD display from sitting on it. No big, tho, I expected that since I carry my phone in my back pocket. The voice activated dialing is useless. If you record a voice activated number when not in a car with the window down, it won't recognize it when you are in the car driving with the window down, and vice versa. The battery life is great for stand by, days and days. But if you use your phone often, stay near a charger. Talk time is limited, I actually ran out of battery a couple of times. Again, this sounds like a small annoyance, but having to hang up because your battery is dead sucks. As to features, this phone rocks. The menus are totally user friendly, including the ability to shortcut to menu items with keystokes, and when you are at a menu item you use often, the phone shows you the short cut. Example: phone book, edit entry= press 3 then press 5. The phone shows you these short cuts, a feature motorla phones don't have. Why do I mention that? Who knows? You can edit your profiles so that with the touch of a button you can change your ringing options, which is extrememly useful if, for example, you eat out often and want your phone to switch from "ring and don't vibrate" to "ring low anb vibrate" or (if you are in a really classy joint) "vibrate only, no tones for anything else". I can't possibly go into the rest of the features on this phone, which after a year of use I still haven't fully explored. Bottom line? If you make short calls and want a customizable, cute, compact and totally customizable phone and you have a limited budget, this phone is for you. If you use your phone often for either personal or professional business , make extended calls, demand something compact and can afford to pay for or research and get a good price on (ummm, like I did) a Nokia 8290, then skip this rather cheapish and irritating phone. That's the gist! P.S. Yes, I smashed mine to bits. I was in the middle of a call and it hung up on me. I pressed the power button and nothing happened. So I smashed it. Over and over. And over. And over. It was wonderful. Now I have a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 90109 2003/11/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 good form factor easy to use decent reception three different phones have died on me unreliable poorly made The Bottom LineAfter having experienced multiple problems with the 3360, I would recommend avoiding it at all costs. It is unreliable. Full Review The Nokia 3360 is a very poorly-made product that, in my opinion, should have never been released. I am extremely disappointed that this shoddy phone ever made it to the marketplace and unfortunately into my hands. I purchased a 3360 in March of 2002 with ATTWS service. I had had good experience with previous Nokias and the affordability of the phone was a big plus (it was commonly given out as a "free" phone with a contract at the time). I also purchased several accessories. I liked the phone when I first got it. The form factor was good; it's small, but not too small to feel insubstantial into your hand. There is no external antenna to get caught in your pocket, etc. There are a wide variety of faceplates available to change the look. I was a little disappointed that Nokia's menu system etc. had not advanced much since the older 5160, but it was simple to use and had a few handy new features like an IR transmitter/receiver to swap info between phones. It wasn't a terribly advanced phone even at the time (color screens, better games, e-mail access, polyphonic ringtones etc. were coming into vogue) but it seemed to perform the basic functions of a phone pretty well. Battery life was OK if not quite as long as advertised, and reception was also good with AT&T service here in Portland. Unfortunately, about 6 months into my 2-year contract, my phone was affected by a spontaneous reboot problem that I have now learned was a common malady with early 3360s (a quick search on Google will confirm this). The phone would not stay on for more than 5 minutes at a time, and I was lucky if it stayed on for 30 seconds. This was a huge hassle. I could not make or receive any calls. Additionally, all my contact numbers were stored in the phone. It's not easy to get them out of the phone when it turns itself off repeatedly. I was forced to turn on the phone at least 20 times and try to open my contact list and write down as many numbers as I could before the phone rebooted. I did a warranty exchange through AT&T and received a refurbished 3360 a short time later. I reprogrammed all my contacts into the "new" phone. The first replacement phone lasted about two months. At that time, the phone developed a problem where it would lose all capability to receive a signal for hours or days at a time. I would get extremely frustrated as I went to make a call and saw "No Service" on the display almost all of the time. Of course, I could not receive calls either. At least the phone stayed on this time so I was able to use the IR function to transfer all the contacts to my girlfriend's 3360. Once again, I had to change my voicemail message to "I'm having problems with my cell phone, please call me at home...". I did another warranty exchange. I received another refurbished 3360 and by some miracle, that one lasted me almost a year without any major problems. Recently, however, it developed a different problem. One day, the phone went into hands-free mode for no apparent reason. I could not figure out what was wrong so I checked on some Internet forums/newsgroups. Sure enough, other people have had this issue as well. There is apparently a problem with the power connector so the phone now randomly goes into headset or hands-free mode even when nothing is plugged into it. When this happens, I cannot make or receive calls without using a headset (which I do not always carry around with me) because the external microphone is disabled in these modes. Even though I have heard that this is not terribly expensive to fix, the phone is out of warranty and I am so disappointed with it that I refuse to spend anything else on it, and I will go back to using one of my old phones for the remainder of my contract if I have to. I would also like to add that I never dropped any of these phones, got them wet, or even used them heavily. They all simply broke on their own. In addition to the 3 defective phones I have had to deal with, my girlfriend also had to do a warranty exchange of her 3360 due to the "No Service" issue. A friend was also forced to buy a new phone after his 3360 experienced numerous problems including the display showing everything upside-down! This is by far the worst wireless phone I have ever had the misfortune to own, and probably the worst piece of electronic equipment I have ever used. The major convenience of having a cell phone is always being able to make or receive calls, and the Nokia 3360 has not provided me with that convenience nearly as well as it should. Even if the features look good to you, I certainly do not recommend buying this phone due to the problems I have experienced. These problems have either been due to major design flaws or serious quality-control issues, and whichever is the case, I will personally be avoiding Nokia in the future. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.01Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90108 2000/5/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 hand feel internal antenna changeable covers performance functionality not gprs bigger than some not color display The Bottom LineIf you just want a phone that will perform well, feel good in your hand, and look how you want it, this phone is for you. Full Review I have an 8260 that I got Thanksgiving 2000. This phone has worked great except for the front cover having some paint chips and the lens getting scratched from normal cell phone usage. Since they are not removable, it becomes obviously used. I gave this phone to my wife, last Thanksgiving (2001) and got the 3360 on a shared plan with ATT Wireless. (I know, you think I should take the old phone and give the wife the new one, but she likes the smaller phone) If your wondering why Thanksgiving, they usually have great sales on wireless that Friday. I got the phone for $75 with an $80 rebate to mail in from ATT. I also got a mail in coupon for a $50 gift card to a restaurant (I chose Red Lobster). Then, to seal the deal, Best Buy threw in a $100 gift card of theirs. All told, free phone and $150+ of additional gift cards! The first thing you notice is the hand form. It fits well in the hand. The 8260 and other smaller phones look neater by being so small, but they are almost too small to feel comfortable in your hand. This slightly rounded form and thicker body feels more solid in your hand and comfortable against the ear. Next, you will notice that the window is recessed. At first I thought it just made the phone thicker, but what this does is not allow the clear window to come in contact with the table or whatever when you set the phone down face first. Seems like a small thing until you have a phone like the 8260 where the front window is getting scratched. Of course, if you do scratch it, you can always get a new cover of your choice. Nokia has a few, but there are tons of after-market covers to make your phone truly personal. I have the standard blue, a white cover, and I just got a Dilbert cover. I swap them out as my mood dictates. As far as functionality, it has everything you need for your standard voice phone and the software is similar to any other Nokia phone. It has Messages, Logs, Profiles, Settings, etc. as well as Games, Reminders and a calculator. In fact, it is so good that Motorola is now ditching their previous software and designing the same user interface software for their phones. If you can't beatem - joinem! I prefer the 6-key 3360 keypad design to others. I think it is more intuitive and easy to navigate the menus. The 3390 GSM model has a 4-key menu pad that is not as intuitive to me, but that is strictly a personal preference. The battery life is average as compared to other digital phones, but that is somewhat due to the phone coming with a Nickel Metal Hydride battery (Ni-Mh). If given the choice, always choose a Lithium Ion battery, as which comes with the 8260. Much better performance. I won't get into the details concerning TDMA vs. CDMA vs. GSM technology since it is transparent to the average user. But, this phone is an earlier version which is not GPRS. GPRS will enable high-speed data transfer to improve things like internet and other data services. These services are new, and ATT only just started selling the first GPRS model (8390) this month. It will take some time before the services offered justify stepping up to this model. Also, on a small note, I wish they would come out with a color screen. I know they will be released sometime this year, but I would have thought this would have happened sooner. Ericsson just released theirs this year, so I hear Nokia will release this year too. In summary, if you just want a phone that will perform well, feel good in your hand, and look how you want it, this phone is for you. Thank you for reading my review! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 90107 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 great battery life variety of ringtonesfaceplates to buy easy to use bulky heavy no color graphics to liven the phone up a little sound quality The Bottom LineGreat phone for beginners and people who are not into too much technology. Full Review 1 year and 8 months ago I signed up for my first cellular service with Cingular. They were running a promotion where I could choose from three free phones. I chose the Nokia 3360 because it was the smallest of the three. It was my very first cell phone and I have got to say it is a wonderful beginner's phone. Simple To Use I feel it makes for a great first phone because everything on it is simple to use. The menu is to the point and not bogged down with extra features that you find on newer phones like cameras, different ringtone styles, ect. Ringtones The Nokia 3360 comes with only one style of ringtone and that is the mono style. That makes it much cheaper to download rings for it. On the Cingular website those type of rings are only .99 compared with other ringtone styles that can go up to $2.49 per download. In my opinion there is no need to download tones anyways because the Nokia 3360 offers lots of ringtones already found on the phone. Games There are enough games on the Nokia 3360 to keep you entertained but not so many that you feel overwhelmed. But beware, you can really drain your battery fast by playing the games too long. I suggest plugging your battery charger into the phone when you play a game so that you you are charging while you are playing. The games they offer on the Nokia 3360 vary from what I understand. My phone had the game of Memory, Snake II and Pairs. Faceplates There is a wide selection of after-market faceplates you can purchase to personalize your phone. They come in solid colors, patterns, cartoon characters, logos, ect. I have purchased two faceplates from the Clearance rack at my local Target on seperate occasions. You can also find a huge selection of them at several different online stores. Getting the faceplates off and on are a little tricky. The first few times I had to have my husband help me. After a year of taking them off and on, I am still no expert. Lots of struggling, breaking nails, almost breaking the faceplate itself, I am finally able to get it off or on. Quality It is not the best. When I am talking to someone I cannot hear any interruptions they may have because the sound seems to lag. Also, when the other party is talking and if I say "Uh-huh" or anything audible, it cuts off their words. It is sort of like the phone can only deal with one sound at a time. So if you are talking over the other person, you will only be able to hear your own voice, instead of being able to hear you and the other person at the same time. In order to fix that, I just had to learn to stay VERY quiet while the other person spoke. That can cause issues because most people are used to hearing "hmmm" or "uh-huh" or "no way!" when they are telling a story. If the other person stays silent they think the lines were disconnected. Another quality issue is the reception. I am on the Cingular Nation plan but when I travelled to Las Vegas we had to only use my husband's phone because mine kept "roaming" even though we were in a Cingular area. According to Cingular tech support, it sounded like my phone needed servicing since my husband's Nokia 3360 was working fine in Las Vegas. I never did get it fixed since I forgot about it once I got back from my vacation to Vegas. Durability This is part of the "Quality" section but I wanted to make it it's own part. The Nokia 3360 is very well built. I have dropped it on hard floors and carpets several times and it still works. It has even been in the jaws of my 45 lb dog and even though my faceplate has several teeth marks, the workings of the phone was unaffected. Battery Life It all depends on your usage (games, talking, sending emails, ect> but I had no problems with the battery running low frequently. I consider myself an occasional user of the cell phone. I didn't usually talk on it for more than 10 min per call and I never played games after the first couple of months having it. So for me I could go a whole week or two without having to charge the battery. I always shut the phone off at night before bed and I turn it on in the mornings and keep it on all day. A typical day I would maybe use it 2 or 3 times with an average talk time of about 3 min per call. So how often you use it and how long you stay on a call will really factor in to how long the battery will stay charged. When the battery did go dead, it didn't take very long to charge it all the way back up. I am estimating about an hour or so for me usually. Overall Overall, I would say even with the bad quality, it makes for a great emergency phone for teens or other people who need a phone in that way. I wouldn't recommend the Nokia 3360 to anyone who uses their cell phone constantly and who enjoys having more technology to choose from like Internet access, Instant Messaging, cameras, color graphics, ect. Because this phone does not have any of that. It does have email (very primative version of it) and text messaging but that is it. It is also a very heavy phone at 5.3 oz. And it is quite bulky too. For people who are not that into technology and who have never owned a cell phone this is a good place to start. I have sinced upgraded to a camera phone but I am glad I started out with the Nokia 3360 because it gave me lots of practice using menus, text messaging, and regular cell phone usage before I moved on to more advanced phones. Here are some specs on the phone: Weight: 5.3 oz 4.5 in. long x 1 in. thick x 2 in. wide Up to 3 hours 30 minutes of digital talk time Up to 10.5 days of digital standby time with standard battery Internal antenna Internal vibrating alert Language support Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREE Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90106 2000/11/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice sizefit in the hand numbering on buttons wears off on off functionality difficult to engage The Bottom LineHeavy cell phone users will be frustrated. Best for newbies, if anyone. Full Review I got my Nokia 3360 cellular phone free with my ATT wireless service almost three years ago. It's my first cell phone and certainly not my last. I'd call it a good basic 'training' phone, but I started outgrowing it pretty quickly and my frustration with it compounded the issue. In fact, if I didn't have to pay for a new phone, I would have traded this one in a long time ago. My main gripe about the phone is the buttons. The numbers are too small to see on the phone. They do illuminate in the dark, but it's still difficult to see the numbers. One reason why the numbers are illegible is because they are wearing off! Battery life is short! The on/off button at the top of the phone is also difficult to engage. Many times I've had to use two hands to turn the darn thing on and off. You have to press this button - hard! One-handed on/off is an impossibility. I don't consider the menus to be intuitive. The basic menu categories are: messages, call log, profiles, settings, system, games, calculator, reminders, and infrared. It's been almost three years and I still couldn't tell you which menu contains the function for adjusting the voice volume, and believe me - I've looked! By virtue of the fact that this phone doesn't come with any sort of hard cover, I've been surprised on occasion to find that minutes had been 'used' while the phone was in my purse! (It was in the 'on' mode and the phone must have self-dialed while being jostled in my purse.) Needless to say, I don't need my precious minutes wasted! The battery on the phone also gets hot (yes, 'hot') when I'm on a long call. I have no explanation for this other than it's the behavior of the battery as it is wearing down. Besides the normal phone functions, the Nokia 3360 offers text messaging and chat capabilities, voice mail, business card exchange features, games and a phone book. The ringer can be changed from silent, tone or vibration. There are many other features to this phone, but I had hardly the desire to discover them when my basic needs weren't being met. Recommended: No Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90105 2000/5/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features price difficult to change volume on the spot The Bottom LineLove the phone. Full Review "Cell phones have dramatically improved over the years. Going from old school huge to super tiny. I think I may have found the best phone that combines years of technology with ease of use." Intro Finally. My one year contract with Sprint was over. I quickly changed venders, and in doing so, I also changed my phone. Before the Nokia 3360, I had a Samsung flip-phone. While the small size was nice, the ease of use was horrible. You couldn't see the caller-id, and the buttons were all but worn out. When it came for me to choose a new phone, I was looking for the following features: - Size: I wanted a phone that was small enough to fit in my pocket, but not to get lost with my keys. - Bells and Whistles: My phone had to have all the current goodies... ringtones, text messaging and email. - Reliability: Tying right in with size, I wanted the phone to be well built, have great performance and be able to take a beating. The look the feel... of plastic Choosing a cellular phone is similar to getting new shoes. They have to "talk" to me. My first impression was a good one. I loved the compact look of the Nokia, and the size was perfect. It was small enough to slip into my briefcase pocket, but not too small to be confused as with a pager. The design was perfect, and many other Nokias use the same design. In your hands is where I really fell in love with the phone. The plastic had a "matte" feel to it. It was sturdy, solid and even a bit weighty. While many might stray away from the phone simply because of its weight, I personally like the meaty feel the phone gives. The crystal clear display also takes almost 1/3 of the phones face. Numbers viewed (along with text) are highly visible, and when you take into consideration of the backlighting, it is easy on the 'ole eyes. The button placement and design are adequate, but nothing you haven't seen. Four arrow keys are used for menu navigation and there are two buttons used to call/answer or hang-up. Again, the placement of the keys are fairly standard, but are raised up off the keypad enough to ensure a solid button press. For those who like to customize the look of their phone, Nokia leads the pack. The standard shell is an attractive navy blue casing. Since I purchased two phones (one for myself and the other for my wife) I choose a "girly" baby-blue shell for hers. The casings are manageable (but not too easy) to interchange. It does take a bit of practice to switch plates. The best part of the interchangeability is that the entire casing (front and back) is replaced and not just the faceplate. This makes the phone really look personal without loosing the professionalism of a phone. One search in Google for "Nokia accessories" will lead you to hundreds of results. Third party cases are available by the truckload. You can have anything from an American Flag to a faux snakeskin with dice covered spots. The third party accessories are about half the price, but I still recommend using the Nokia brand just because the quality seems much better. Now depending on how wacky you want to get, there are tons of "add-ons" for the phone. For example: you can get flashing battery packs, that light up a series of LED's when you place or receive a call. The novelty is quite... novel. Lastly, I also like the fact that the 3360 doesn't have an external antenna. The vendor that sold me the phone made a statement that many phones with antennas become bent or broken. Even mishandled antennas can dramatically affect the performance of the phone. To an extent the theory made sense. Personally, however, I like the visual effect that it gives. Power tools for nerds On the market now there are dozens of phones, each with a myriad of options and features. I though the 3360 had the perfect balance of features and options for the cost of the phone. The phones retail cost was about $80, but I had a mail in rebate for $50. So, for 30 clams I wasn't complaining. The biggest of the options that intrigued me was the use of text messaging and the interaction with data. Text messages could be displayed in an easily viewed format, and sending and receiving these messages was easier than pie. The phone has the capability to receive emails (depending on your cellular service), text messages and SMS messages via the Internet. A good example of this use is how I use it at work. When I go on my weekend excursions, I have a rule set up in Outlook at work to forward messages to my phone that meet certain criteria. This is a lifesaver when waiting for a certain email. Composing emails is easier than one would think. Nokia uses a technology (if activated) that "guesses" what word you are going to type. It's difficult to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Let's say you wanted to type the word "home". If you hit: 4 4 6, more than likely the phone would type home and prompt you for confirmation. This saves a ton of time instead of hitting the same button, waiting for the cursor to move to the next character. I was hesitant to use the option, but now I could probably type about 20-25 words a minute using the feature. It does take some practice, but once familiar with it; it's a snap! To help out even further, the 3360 also provides templates for sending quick messages. Templates include anything from "Call home" to "Hugs and kisses". These are a huge time saver when you want to send a quick message without having to call someone. Americans sometimes are a bit behind the times when it comes to fads, but across the globe SMS messaging and ringtones run like wildfire. This entry level Nokia does have the ability to download new ringtones. Getting ringtones is quite easy if you know where to look. If you have an infrared component (PC or Palm), you can enter a string of codes and send them to your phone. You can then easily save the tone and use it whenever you want. There are countless web sites that can send you tones directly to your phone, but most charge for this service. However, you can find a handful of sites that provide this service for free. I personally like www.Zingy.com, so give that one a shot. Aside from the ringtones fad, you phone is also capable of chatting with other users and carrying on a conversation. While I personally don't see the real value of it, it is still a "cool" feature. Besides all of the cool features of the phone, the navigational system along with the interaction between user and phone are quite solid. I admit that it took me a good hour to figure out how to go through the menus to get it to do what I want, but their website helped a ton (www.howtonokia.com). My only real gripe about the phone, is that there isn't any real easy way to increase the volume of the phone without scrolling through about a half-dozen menus. For many people (myself included) the menu system is quite overwhelming. Give it some time, and all of your options will be right there. One case about the confusion of the menu was the actual "on-off" issue. The flat button on top of the phone controls the power of the unit. Recently I found out that the same button is "multipurpose". Clicking it once brings up a menu, which in turn, allows you to turn off the phone or set it to a pre-set mode. These modes include soundless/no vibration (meeting) to loud and vibrating (outdoor). Overall, the system works well and once familiar with the navigation it becomes a very useful tool. If you are one of those people who can't live without their Palm, the phone has excellent interactivity with all Palms. Using the infrared port of your Palm and the phone (with the use of software), you can transfer dates, addresses and telephone numbers over with a few mouse clicks. I was surprised to see how well it actually formatted and sorted my data. Searching for numbers and names was very simple, and I found no errors in the actual data transfer. Games on phones are also one of the quirkiest things to ever take place on a phone, but for some reason "everybody is doing it". I head to lunch and see dozens of people huddled around their cell phones and I hear clicks and dings left and right. The phone comes with three games, and I believe the phone also has the ability to download new games to it. I'd rather just pull out my trust GameBoy Advance (see review) and play for an hour... Aside from the super neat-o options, the Nokia also has a nice call log, inbox and caller ID functions. Retracing phone calls and messages is easily done and adding them to your address book only takes two clicks from the phone. If you add in the extensive customizations that you can do with your phone, gives the 3360 a great personal feel. Well oiled machine Performance, for the most part, is dependent on the service provider; but I've found the Nokia to be rock solid. In rural areas where the signal is always strong, I found the phone to stay peaked and never drop out of a cell. The internal antenna works surprisingly well, and the phone clarity is cordless quality. Many times callers can't distinguish the difference between my cellular phone and my at-home cordless. When durability comes into play, I've also put the little guy through a ton. I've dropped it countless times, and banged it unmercifully (by accident of course) and the phone has never whacked out on me. I've also been impressed with the Nokia cases where even big falls onto concrete haven't scratched up the casing in the slightest. As mentioned I really like the keypad, simply because it is raised above the surface of the faceplate. Many cell phones have the buttons embedded under the face, which makes for fat-fingered-frolickers like myself hit many wrong keys. As good as this feature is, it does have one major drawback. If the phone is in your pocket (especially if you have jeans on), buttons can be hit by accident. There is an option to prevent this from happening, but I found it to be more of a pain than a benefit when trying to make or receive a call. 66 Says: For those looking for a reasonably priced cell phone that provides the most bang for the buck, I don't think there is a phone with it's equal. Sure, you can jump up the Nokia ladder, but it will cost you. The only thing this phone doesn't give you in which higher Nokias do; is the ability to receive icons and pictures. People really get psyched about downloading little pictures and icons, but I've yet to see the lure. The standard battery provided lasts about a normal week for me without needing charged (about 20 hours standby and 3 hours of talk). Recharging the phone only takes about 20 minutes. You can "upgrade" the battery, which should almost double the talk time... The phone is well built, has all the options most could want and is reasonably priced. Nokia continues it's domination in the cell phone world, and I wouldn't have anything less. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 90104 2002/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small long battery life useless servicebattery life indicators annoying menu functionality The Bottom LineGood all-purpose phone which does everything a phone should, although perhaps not everything you could ever want it to do. Full Review For the first two years of my cell phone life, I had the super-sleek, lightweight, very cool Samsung SCH-8500 silver cellular phone. Why then, you may be thinking, did I get rid of it if I was so enamored of it? Well, it was a great phone, but it had one major problem -- it was pretty much unusable as a phone. I had no service or extremely poor service as often as not, and even when I was able to place or receive calls, loss of signal in the middle of a conversation was a frequent occurrence. While it appears that some of these problems could be attributed to Sprint PCS, that particular model of phone appears to have worse reception than other models on the same network. As a result, when I finally set out to replace that phone, my primary criterion for my new phone was that it be able to send and receive calls properly on a regular basis. I had heard about Nokia's fine reputation as a cellular phone manufacturer for several years, and got a good deal of positive feedback on their phones generally. That, combined with the fact that most of the phones carried by the new carrier I had chosen (Cingular) were Nokia models, made Nokia an appropriate choice. I settled on the moderately-priced and feature-packed 3360, and it has proven to be a competent performer, although it has some irritating aspects to it as well. First, the good: Long Battery Life. The Nokia 3360 does indeed last a long time between charges. I have routinely gone three days without recharging it, although that requires minimum of use (as in basically none). Even with moderate use, a fully-charged battery tends to last between one and a half and two and a half days. With absolutely no use, it can last as long as four days on a single charge. Internal Antenna. This really isn't that big a deal, but it makes the phone a more uniform shape and reception does not seem to suffer as a result. Excellent Reception. While I'm aware that this has largely to do with the quality and size of the network you're on, the construction of the phone also plays a significant role. I find that I can almost always place calls, and I usually receive most of my calls as well. Even more surprisingly, the phone notifies me of incoming messages most of the time. Web-Enabled. This is a web-capable phone, and also allows you to easily send and receive e-mail. I have no use for those features, but they're there if you need them. Features, Features, Features! This phone really is packed with useful features -- although some are more useful than others. First and foremost, it holds the ten most recent entries each of received, missed, and outbound calls. The settings and sounds are also highly customizable, and you can download special ringtones to the phone through the infrared port if that's your thing. The phone also features both a calendar function, allowing you to enter little reminders for yourself, and a calculator. And yes, it has games, too. Really crappy games at that, but if you're extremely bored they might be good for a few minutes' play. Now for the annoyances: No date display. This can be annoying when you miss a call, for example, and want to know when it came in. Sometimes, it's hard to figure out on which day the call was received. The phone does in fact store the date, but it is not displayed on the main screen nor is it included with call times. Service and battery indicators are next to worthless. The service indicator is far from perfect, as it will often show three or four bars (out of four) and still fail to complete a call. My main beef here, however, is with the battery life indicator. On at least a dozen occasions in the nine months or so that I've had this phone, I've placed a call when the battery indicator read four bars (out of four), only to have it run out of juice two or three minutes into the call. What's more, if the phone is on "silent" mode (where it typically vibrates if you receive a call or message), no noticeable warning as to battery life is given. If you happen to be looking at the screen (as happened to me once by pure random chance) when the battery is about to die, then you will see the warning; otherwise, the phone will just die in the middle of your call. This, combined with having no idea that the battery life was low in the first place (due to the previously mentioned infirmity in the battery life indicator) can be quite annoying. Loses time if battery is removed. This is a minor point, but it's irritating if you want to purchase a spare battery and use it interchangeably with the included battery (as I did with my last phone). Inexplicably, all (or at least several) models of Nokia cellular phones share this problem. Personally, I find it annoying that I have to reset the time if the battery is removed. Will only hold two numbers per contact! This is truly annoying. For some reason, if you try to add a third number to an existing contact, the message "Too many numbers for this name" appears. Yes, I actually do know people who have three or four numbers which I would have liked to keep under the same contact name. Of course, this can be gotten around by adding a second contact for that particular number (e.g., "Bob Cell"), but it's still an annoyance. There are many other little annoyances present in the Nokia 3360, such as the menu options (which I find unintuitive) and the snap-off faceplates (which allow dust to collect behind the screen, making it harder to read), but these are generally minor and relatively unimportant. Overall, the Nokia 3360 is a perfectly serviceable phone which is priced right (about $60) and which passes the most important test for a cell phone -- it works. Based on my other experiences with cell phones, that makes it a rare gem indeed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 90103 2002/9/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable small size has a vibrate alert packed with features low battery life slightly heavy larger than other phones The Bottom LineIts like a seed, it looks small, but it can sprout into a full plant (It just can't make baby plants)... Full Review For the first time I have bought a cellular phone. I didn't buy it just because everyone else has one. I bought it to stay in touch with my family, use it in case I get lost while driving or go on a long bike ride. The Nokia 3360 is a standard phone offered by many carriers. This phone (as of March 8, 2002) is offered by these following carriers: ACS Wireless AT&T Wireless Services Cellular One Cellular South Cincinnati Bell Cingular Wireless Dobson Cellular EDGE Wireless (Member of the AT&T Wireless Network) Hickory Tech Illinois Valley Cellular MTA Wireless Midwest Wireless SunCom Wireless Thumb Cellular, LTD Partnership US Cellular Unicel Wireless The Nokia 3360 is a compact, lightweight and relatively inexpensive cellular phone. It has a medium size black and white screen, a backlit display and keypad, hand free kit, excellent reception, text messaging (where available), email (where available), a web browser (where available), an alarm clock, profile settings, currency converter, caller id (where available), infrared, vibrating alert and more. Phone Background The Nokia 3360 is a mid-size cellular phone. Shopping for a cell phone is like shopping for a car. You want a balance between price, reliability and features. The Nokia 3360 has a nice balance of all of these. It also has a compact size to go with that. The Nokia 3360 runs on TDMA 800/1900 or 800 Analog networks. TDMA stands for Time Division Multiple Access. It gives better call quality, more privacy and uses less energy. Analog uses a large amount of power, and is not digitized. When on an Analog network, someone can eavesdrop on your conversation. The Nokia 3360 uses a menu system for navigation. Using simple presses of the top 2 buttons, everything from your profile to your address can be changed. The address book is available right on the opening screen. By pressing the down arrow or up arrow you can find a persons number and by pressing call, you can call them with one press of the send button. Menu System The Nokia 3360 has a standardized menu system common on many phones. When the phone is turned on you have 2 options at the bottom of the screen. You can choose Menu or you can choose Names. The Names button will be discussed later. In the menu system you are given a number of choices: 1. Messages 2. Call Log 3. Profiles 4. Settings 5. System 6. Games 7. Calculator 8. Reminders 9. Infrared As you can see, Nokia has made the menus very simple and easy to navigate. If you are in a menu item and don't understand what it means, don't press anything. After about 5 seconds, helpful Nokia messages explain the function. Once in a menu item, you use the "up" and "down" button on the keypad to navigate the submenus. It will look something like this: a. Write message b.Write e-mail c. Chat d. Inbox e. Outbox f. Archive g. Templates h. Erase All i. Voice Messages Messages In these menus, you have the option to write an email, write a chat message to another phone or check your voicemail. While writing a text message, you use the number keys to type. For example, if you wanted to write "BoB". You look at the number 2 key (abc) and press 2, 2 very quickly. The letter B will appear. To make the letter uppercase or lowercase, you use a small button in the bottom right of the keypad. The button looks like an arrow facing up. To write the letter "o", you look at number 6 on the keypad (mno). Press 6, 3 times fast. You will have an "o". Using this system, you can painstakingly type out an email. If you are buying the phone to chat by text with a friend I don't recommend it. It would take you a few minutes to type out a single chat message. For email (where available) it is the same thing. Unless absolutely necessary you should avoid this feature. It also costs money to send a chat/text message in most plans. Voicemail is a much simpler system. You can either access your voicemail from the "Messages" section of your phone or from the main screen. The Nokia 3360 has a great feature that I really love for voicemail. Just like the number "2" on your phone has (abc). The number "1" has an object that looks like this: (oo). It is the picture of a tape. By pressing and holding this button down, you automatically call your voicemail number. For most phones, the voicemail is the same as the phone's number. Call Log A disappointing feature of many providers is their not telling you how many minutes you have used. Luckily, there is a cure. The "Call Log" is another menu item in the menu system. When pressing it, you can see "Missed Calls", "Received Calls", "Dialed Calls", or "Call Timers". The Missed, Received and Dialed calls menus tell you the Caller ID of any call you have dialed. Caller ID is the phone number of whoever has called you or that you have called. "Call Timers" allow you to see how much time you have spent on calls. You can see the duration of received calls, outgoing calls and the total duration of all your calls. This will give you a relative idea of how many minutes you have used. Profiles This is probably my favorite section. In here you can choose how your phone will react in different situations. You make a profile with your name, then you can set ringing options, tone, volume, if you want the vibrating alert (very useful), a message alert tone, keypad tones, warning tones (low battery), and the profile name. The phone comes with 25 ring tones, with 10 downloadable when the service is provided. The vibrating alert is pretty strong and may give you quite a scare. I wouldn't rely on the vibrating alert alone though, in my case I use the alert and I also use a low volume ringer. WARNING: If you excessively use the vibrate function, the phone gets extremely hot. This cannot only ruin the phone, but I see a possible fire hazard. Be sure not to let the phone ring too much. When plugged in, the vibrate feature is automatically disabled. The vibrate is SO strong, that if you put the phone on the end of a table, it will bounce off and break. Settings In most cases you won't need these. By reading the instructions you can limit incoming calls and outgoing calls in here. You can also set the clock and date. System You won't hardly ever need to go in here. Basically it allows you to select the provider. For example: If you are roaming, by using the system options you can try to get back on to your own network. When you are roaming, the top of your phone, which says your provider's name, will say "ROAM". For mine, which normally says "AT&T", it changes to "ROAM". Be careful because roaming rates are generally very high. Games The Nokia 3360 has 3 games. You can play Space Impact, Pairs II and Snake II. I haven't become such a loser that I play these games, so I can't provide you with too much information. In Space Impact you are a maneuverable space ship that must avoid being destroyed. You have weapons and you try to blow up the other ships. In Pairs II, you play puzzles. It is extremely confusing and I don't have it figured out. In Snake II, you are a snake attempting to eat an item. You move the snake around and try to eat the pixel. You can receive bonus prizes, but if you run into yourself then you die. Calculator Well what can I say about it? Its pretty? It basically uh, adds stuff. By using the asterisk key in the bottom left, you choose your operation. -, +, / or *. An additional feature of the calculator is the currency converter. I wish you could sync up with your wireless provider to get current exchange rates, but no such luck. You must input the exchange rate yourself. It is a useful feature though, but when are you going to use your phone in another country? Reminders Using the date and time that you have set your clock to, the reminder can give you an alarm at certain times. You set the time, write a short note and you are set. This can also replace an organizer or planner. Infrared By pressing this button you can RECEIVE infrared messages from a laptop or another phone. A feature of Nokia is that you can receive "business cards". Make an address book entry for yourself and then you can send it to other Nokia users. The infrared feature can also be used to upgrade firmware and to add new ring tones. The phone also has the capability of syncing with Outlook. Signal Strength The phone has a powerful internal antennae, the antennae is one of the best on the market and will give you superior call quality. As with all mobile phones, it won't work in an elevator or in a parking lot. In the D.C. metro, the phone will Roam. The reason for this is that Verizon has the sole right to cell service there. This may influence your decision on choosing a provider. Keep in mind though, Verizon does not offer this phone right now. Address Book The address book can hold 200 names. You can access it from the main screen. For each person you can add multiple phone numbers, email addresses, and you can also add a note about them. By going into their entry and pressing the call button, you can call them without dialing their number. Predictive Text While writing an email or note, the phone will try to predict what you are writing to save time. I had to turn this off immediately, it was such a pain in the a**. I couldn't stand the phone constantly changing what I wrote. When writing a name, it will write a logical word, which is not what you wanted. I don't recommend you use this feature. Wireless Internet For those who provide it, wireless internet is a barebones access to information. It will give you sports stats, headlines and weather. You can only look at these options, you cannot visit epinions on your Nokia 3360. Text Messaging This is a useful feature when receiving a message. From many providers web sites, such as ATT, you can send a free text message to the Nokia 3360. The message can be up to 110 characters in length. When sending a message, you must painstakingly type it and then you are usually charged to send the message. The message can only be sent to another cell phone. By using the email feature you can send it to the email address. This is not available with all providers. Size The Nokia 3360 is a relatively small phone. While not nearly as small as some of Sprint's phones, it will fit in a pant or jacket pocket easily. The battery gives the phone most of its weight. By replacing the battery with a Lithium Ion, you may get rid of some of this excess weight. Battery Life The Nokia 3360 boasts of up to a 10 day standby and 3 hours talk time while on a digital network. You will never get anywhere near this. You may get an hour of talk time on a digital network and about 3-4 days of standby. Problem with NiMH batteries---NiMH batteries suffer from something known as the "memory effect". Basically the battery forgets how much it was charged and therefore will shut down earlier than necessary. To fix this, buy a Lithium Ion battery. Lithium Ion does not have this problem. Closing Statements This phone is jam-packed with features. Not only does it allow you to talk, but also you can play games, write email, send messages, and it has a useful address book. I strongly recommend this phone to the beginning user. Even if you are stupid, there is nothing you can mess up with this phone. Within 2-3 days of playing with it you will understand all of the features. The menu system is simple and the antennae is very powerful. Although it is slightly large for a cell phone, it is light and you won't really notice it in your jacket pocket. The backlight is also helpful and will stay on for a long time, allowing you to call someone or write a message. The only flaw is in the low power battery. By buying a new battery though you can fix this. The Nokia 3360 runs at about 80 dollars. If you have any questions, comments or additions see me in the comment section or send me an email. Thanks for you comments and input! If you would like information about the new Nokia 3390, please read my new review at the below link! ******************************************************** Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -26 (rebate) 90102 2002/3/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size ir capabilities more than enough memory call clarity mediocre battery life keypad response The Bottom LinePerfect size, loads of handy features, IR capabilities, and clarity makes the Nokia 3360 a great all-around wireless phone choice! Full Review THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK: Okay, that was corny. Sorry. To AT&T Wireless, the Nokia 3360 is the newest addition (as of October 2001) to their line of wireless phones. I've been waiting for this model for over a year. Voicestream Wireless carries the Nokia 3390 and it has been available for a few months. In Europe, this phone has been out for more than a year. Go figure. To summarize, the 3360 is a combination of the 6100 series and the 8200 series. For me, the 8200 series phone is too small. It fits nicely in your pocket or bag, but when you have to talk for more than 5 minutes, it feels awkward to hold. The 6100 series is very nice, but pretty bulky. The 3360 is perfect… for me, at least, and it features bells and whistles to boot. THE CANDY BAR: Where do I start? It measures a little over 4 inches long and 2 inches wide. It's about 1 inch thick. With interchangeable cases, it's tagged the name `Candy Bar'. The display is large and crisp with the typical, green backlighting. If you already own a Nokia phone or are familiar with using one, it'll be a snap to get used to this one. There are two menu buttons (left and right) along with the up and down arrows and the call and end/cancel buttons. The number pad is perfectly spaced out and the buttons have very good feedback (although the menu buttons you need to press a little harder). The buttons are rubbery compared to the metallic buttons on the 8200 series phones. I like the rubbery buttons. Like the 8200 series, the 3360's battery is housed internally (not like the 5100 and 6100 series phones where the battery is external). To access the battery, you need to slide off the rear case and then push up the release bar. Since I don't plan on changing the battery much, I like the fact that the battery is housed internally. NOKIA 3360 MENU: Names/Contacts: 200 slots are available for storing names and numbers. In each of the 200 slots, you're allowed to store 2 separate contact information such as phone numbers (home, work, mobile, general) and text (email address, mailing address, notes). It's nice because the IR functionality of the phone allows you to beam this information back and forth from other IR devices. Messages: The 3360 gives you the ability to send messages to other wireless users with SMS capabilities. It also gives you the ability to send and receive email messages. There's also a chatting feature which I haven't tried yet. To sort your messages, there's an inbox and outbox along with an archive section and an area with templates (preconstructed messages ready to send… i.e. Hi! How are you doing?). Call Log: It's the same as the other Nokia phones. It gives you a list of call data such as missed calls, received calls, dialed calls, and call timers. Of course, this is dependent on whether your service provides caller-ID. Profiles: The 3360 gives you the option of configuring the ringtones for the different profiles such as silent, meeting, pager, outside, etc. The 3360 has a vibrating function built in along with the ability to store 10 downloadable ringtones from the Internet. Settings: This menu item is the heart of the phone. It allows you to set the time and date, various call settings, phone settings, security settings, and network services. System: The systems setting allows you to set the phone to automatically search for service, initiate a new search, or even let you manually search for service. Games: There are three games on the 3360. I hear that the 3390 has four. The three games are Space Impact (sort of like space invaders), Pairs II (like a card matching game), and Snake II (the new version of the famous Snake game). All of these games are addicting, especially when you're stuck in a really boring meeting. Calculator: It's good to know that you have a calculator at all times. Not only does it give you the basic mathematic functions, it also gives you a currency converter that allows you to set the exchange rate. This is very handy if you frequently travel to foreign countries. Reminders: This function allows you to jot down reminders or notes. You can also tag them with an alarm to remind you. This can serve as your dayrunner or PDA calendar for those important reminders. Infrared: The ability to send and receive data wirelessly has got to be the best invention since sliced bread. I'm able to beam my addresses to the 3360 from my Sony Clie PDA. I can also beam it back to the Clie. I love this feature. Just this morning, I was walking into work and bumped into an old high school buddy. He had his Palm Vx and I had my Nokia 3360. Instead of fumbling over a pen and scratch paper, we were able to exchange our contact info via infrared. I am also able to sync my information with my Compaq Armada M700 notebook computer since it also has infrared capabilities. FIELD TEST: Out of all the dual-band phones that I've previously owned throughout the years (Motorola StarTAC, Samsung SCH 3000, Ericsson R289LX, and the Nokia 5165) I'd have to say I'm very satisfied with the Nokia 3360. It has all the features I need and more. There are three tests I put this phone through. I'm happy to say that it passed all of them with flying colors. TEST #1: PASS Reception quality test. I have service through AT&T Wireless and I'm perfectly happy with the service I get with them. I've gone through three phones over the period of two years because I was very unhappy with the reception I was getting with them. At first I thought it was AT&T's fault, but found that it was actually the phone itself. With my Motorola StarTAC, reception in buildings was terrible at best. With my Ericsson, it wasn't all that bad, but the conversations sounded very `tingy', like I was talking into a tin cup. I was then very satisfied with the reception I got with the Nokia 5165. The only thing I didn't like about the 5165 was that it was too bulky. I had the phone for about four months until I decided to purchase the Nokia 3360. I love it and I mainly bought it for its features. Based on my history of cell phone use, the phones with thick, external antennas got the best reception. I was anxiously waiting to find out how well the 3360 compared to all the phones I previously owned. I was thrilled to find out that the reception was awesome both in buildings and out. TEST #2: PASS The durability test. Okay, this test is only done accidentally and never on purpose. The toughest phone I've ever owned was the Nokia 5165. That phone took a beating and then asked for more. I'm hoping that the same goes for the 3360. It was unfortunate that as I was getting out of my car, the phone flipped out of my hand and slammed into the concrete, face down. I was horrified. But to my surprise, there wasn't even a scratch on it. And it still works fine. TEST #3: PASS Endurance test. The standard battery is average at best. I use my phone anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes per day and find myself recharging the phone every three days. I ordered the BLC-2 (850 mAh) Lithium-ion battery and it's said to have 30% more capacity than the original battery that came with it. Not sure how long the standard charger takes to recharge the battery, but I use my Nokia rapid charger (ACP-9U) and it takes a little less than an hour. The Nokia car charger (LCH-9) gets the job done in about 1.5 to 2 hours. Again, not bad at all. ACCESSORIES: Although there aren't many accessories out for the 3360, there are quite a few 3390 accessories (since it has been out longer than the 3360) and they're compatible (except for faceplates) such as batteries, chargers, hands-free kits, and cases. Leave it to Nokia and other manufacturers to come out with millions of add-ons and accessories for the 3360 in the near future. I picked up a really nice Bodyglove Ion case which fits amazingly tight and it doesn't add any more bulk or weight while it protects the keys and screen. It also has a low-profile belt clip. OVERALL… I LIKE IT! Out of all the wireless phones I've owned, the Nokia 3360 is one of my favorites. When the Nokia 8200 series phones were available, I rushed to the stores to purchase it, but when I spent some time testing it at the stores, I found that it was actually too small. Small is good, but when you use a phone as often as I do, you want it to feel comfortable in your hands, as well as feel comfortable next to your ear. I was really close to purchasing one, but the price was a bit too steep at the time. I'm glad I waited. The 3360 is the perfect size and it adds to it the functions of the 8200 series. I would highly recommend this phone to Nokia 6100 series phone users. The functionality is almost exactly the same but it adds to it some useful features and small form factor. The only thing I'd complain about the 3360 is that the standard battery does not last long enough. I'd suggest purchasing the lithium-ion battery or the extended NiMH battery. This isn't really a complaint about the 3360, but more of something to get used to… the buttons need to be pressed a little harder to get a response. The keypad for the numbers are fine, but for the menu buttons, it seems like I have to press it harder than I did on my 5165. As you can see, I don't have any major complaints. I adore this phone and plan on keeping it for a long, long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90101 2001/12/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small lightweight durable design infrared functions as a wireless modem surfs the internet not as small or lightweight as the 8260 The Bottom LineThis is the latest gadget for the mobile professional. Full Review Now that I've replaced my Nokia 6160 with the new Nokia 3360, I can finally say that I'm a Nokia man! I carried, and abused, my 6160 for two years and three months. Numerous drops, 3 batteries, and 675 hours of talk time later, I found that masking tape wasn't going to hold it together much longer. In addition, I need to send and receive e-mail, and access the Internet when I'm away from my office. One option was to go with a new cellular provider. My provider, Suncom (AT&T Wireless), doesn't provide mobile Internet access. But, I didn't want to change my phone number and have to notify hundreds of my customers. So, I called Suncom and explained my dilemma. The customer service representative wanted to keep my business and offered a $150 phone voucher in exchange for signing another year contract. I decided to accept the offer, and this little phone played a large role in my decision. Here are the reasons why: infrared communication, a powerful messaging and e-mail capability, an address/phone book that can be synchronized with other devices, small size, groovy looks, can be used as a wireless modem, it has the familiar Nokia interface, and it has internet browsing capability (once my provider offers it). Plus, the retail price on this phone is $150.00. My voucher covered everything but the sales tax. However, new Suncom customers automatically receive a $100.00 in-store rebate on this model. So, a new customer would pay $50.00... they probably have a link to this special somewhere on this page? 3360 Basics and the Interface If you've owned a 5100 or 6100 series, you will be familiar with the interface of this phone. You've got four arrow buttons at the top. The up/down arrows allow you to easily browse your phone book; the left/right arrows correspond with on-screen functions. For instance, above the left arrow, your phone displays "menu," pressing this arrow will get you into menus. It's quite easy when the phone is in front of you. Although this phone is really oriented toward the power user, it does include 3 games. Additional games cannot be added to this phone. However, the built in vibration of the phone can be used with games. It's so cool to feel the phone shake when you ram the snake into a wall! Anyway, if you are a gamer, you might want to go for one of the flashier, cheaper Nokia models. The 3360 has a regular calculator as well as a currency exchange calculator. It also has a built in wake up alarm and reminders. You have a great deal of control over the way the phone sounds and acts. For instance, you can change the ringing tune. You can even download other ringing tunes. It also vibrates… which kind of feels good if the phone is in your pocket. Ahhhh… …er, anyway! I would like to commend Nokia on building durable phone. The entire phone is encased in a replaceable, hard plastic, cover. The display screen is recessed, so that when you drop it on the pavement, the screen will never get scratched. All of the buttons are nearly flush with the plastic shell, so it is unlikely that you will press a button by accident. Finally, it is really groovy looking. The standard shell (or case) is a blue-gray outfit with silver trim. The numerals on the buttons are backlit for easy reading in the dark. Of course, Nokia will soon come out with some flashy replacement covers. The Battery Battery power is adequate. The standard battery is a NiMH or Nickel Metal Hydride. It is capable of 10 days of standby time or 1.5-3 hours of talk time. Fortunately, replacements are cheap. You can purchase another NiMH battery for about $10-$15. However, I recommend purchasing a Li-Ion (or Lithium Ion) battery. I bought a Li-Ion battery for $24. My goal is to always have enough power to make it through a day of talking. The Li-Ion is 20% lighter, lasts a bit longer (than a NiMH) and doesn't suffer (the dreaded) memory affect. The memory affect is common with Nickel based batteries. Over time, the battery will forget how much charge it has and will shut down earlier than it should. The fix for this problem is to charge and discharge your battery 3 times to reset the memory. But, like I said, Li-Ion batteries do not suffer this problem. Added Bonus The 3360 comes with an earpiece. It's a simple, but important, free accessory. You place the earpiece in your ear, plug the other end of the wire into the phone, and viola… you've got a hands free phone. A microphone is built into the wire, and you clip it to your shirt collar. I've tried it out and I've been told that my voice was as clear as normal. Mobil Internet Well, like I said, I can't use this feature. Although, Suncom/AT&T is promising to offer the service within the next year. Since I haven't used this feature, I can only tell you the basics. Your ability to browse the Internet, with a cell phone or PDA, is determined by your cellular provider. Typically, you can retrieve stock quotes, news articles, weather reports, horoscopes, Internet e-mail, and a handful of other useful information. In most cases, you can only view the text. Although, some sites, such as Reuters, will allow you to see some pictures. MSN seems to be a big player in the mobile Internet arena. You can set up a free account with them, determine what content you would like to see, and access it from your cell phone or Handheld Device. Phone & Address Book The 3360 has an excellent address book which is capable of storing 200 entries. If you don't want to enter all of this data, just transmit it from you pc to your phone via the infrared device(or IR). And, if you have names in your phone that are missing from your computer, just transmit that back to your PC with the IR. You can store each contact name along with up to two phone numbers and one line of text (usually an e-mail address or home address). One thing that you'll like is that you can enter your own name and contact information and beam it to people as a business card. If you see someone with a PDA or another IR cell phone, just aim and shoot, and they'll have an electronic business card. Typically, I enter a contact name, home number, cellular number and e-mail address. When you need to contact them, bring up their name and scroll to the line that you want to use… home/mobile/e-mail! Yes, you can send e-mail from this phone! Messaging & Email This is one powerful messaging device. Some cellular phones today offer the ability to send or receive short messages. For instance, my old 6160, could receive messages but couldn't send them. So, I found MSN Mobile on the Internet and set it up to send me weather reports and news headlines. My friends could even send me messages; but I couldn't respond. The new 3360, allows you to send and receive messages to other phones, send and receive e-mail, and have a text chat with other cellular users (provided they have this feature on their phone). The messages are limited to 160 characters. So, when you receive a message, it may be truncated (you may only see the beginning). That is why I have my regular e-mail address setup to receive the message and then forward a copy to my phone. If it looks important, I can pull out my laptop or PHD and get the full message immediately. (I'll tell you about that feature in the next section) Infrared and Modem capability That's right, your cellular phone can be used as a modem. If your computer has an IR (or Infrared device), you can set your phone near the computer and connect to the Internet without a phone line! Many times, when I'm on the road, I just pull out my laptop, set the phone next to me, and dial in to the Internet. The connections are not as fast as a landline… usually around 19,200 kbps as opposed to 50,000+ kbps. But, you can do all the normal stuff right then and there. If your cellular service offers mobile Internet service (also known as WAP), you may opt to surf the net with a handheld device. Most handheld computers also have IR capability. So, again, you just set your handheld next to your phone and you can connect. Your provider limits your surfing ability, but with a PDA, you will probably find that the page views are better and you will have access to greater amounts of web data than you would with your cell phone interface. You can also send and receive faxes from your PC or laptop using this phone as a modem. In addition, you can use it to network with other computers. For instance, you may want to connect to your home computer with your laptop while you're on the road. Or, you may want to synchronize your Handheld Computer while you're on the road. In addition to all this, the IR can be used to keep your phone software up to date. If you go to the Nokia web site, you can download PC Suite. I believe they have a version for MAC as well. PC Suite will install on your PC. It will help you retrieve firmware for your phone, and other optional phone software. This software uses your PC's IR to communicate with your phone. It will synchronize your address book data, your calendar reminders, add ringing tones, and perform firmware upgrades. All of this is done completely wirelessly. Last Words This phone has only been on the market for about three weeks. Nonetheless, I can say that it is superior to any other model offered by Nokia. The 8260 was last years big offering and it still costs $50 more than this phone. The 8260 doesn't have IR, it does have chronic antenna problems; however, it is slightly smaller and lighter (than the 3360), and it does store an additional 50 address entries. The IR feature of this phone is a marvel. And, this phone is extremely durable. If you are a power user, I recommend that you look into the 3360 or comparable model… Nokia offers similar models for different providers; they will be numbered 3300-3395. Thanks for reading! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90100 2005/2/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 menus text messages ease of use durability battery life not a camera phone The Bottom LineThis is a tough phone : great for people always on the go, or for people who are as clumsy as me and need to drop it all the time. Full Review After owning this cell phone for nearly 17 months, I thought that it was time to write a review about it. Simply by knowing that I have used the same cell phone fore the duration of my cell-phone contract is a testament to how well built this phone is, and how well it works for my needs. I should also explain that this was my first cell phone, and my first contract, so when I signed up I did not know all of the nuances and terms that would go along with it. But, my girlfriend had a phone like this, and I had used it a couple of times with ease, so when I signed my contract, I purchased the same phone. First, here are the manufactures specs on this Nokia 3360 model: Band Mode...................Dual Mode Brand.............................Nokia Caller ID........................No Display Type................ Dot-matrix Internet Connectivity....WAP browser 1.2.1 Manufacturer Part No...3360 Multiple Ring Options...Yes Product Height .............4.5 inches Product Weight (oz)......4.8 oz Type.................................Web Enabled Vibrating Ring................Yes Now, having listed those, what does it really say about the phone? Well first off, the phone is quite compact. It fits easily in your pocket, or in the palm of your hand. Often, I can go running while holding it in the palm of one hand. This is very helpful, and coupled with the non-existent weight of the phone makes it very easy to take anywhere that I go. So now we know that it is small, and can go any where... but what does it have to offer? The Nokia 3360 has a display window that features a bar on the left side that measures the signal that the phone is receiving with 4 bars being the strongest signal, down to no bars which means the phone isn't receiving one. On the right side is the battery "bar" that measures just how much battery life is left before the phone needs recharged. At the bottom of the screen on the left we have "Menu" and bottom right we have "Names". These correspond to arrow keys on the pad that allow you to access the menu of accessories on the phone or the names of the people you have entered into your phonebook. Top right is where the clock is located, and they give you an option to not have the clock show (which I do not understand). The company name for the phone service you are using shows at the top, right under the clock, and in the center of the screen it displays the mode that you are in on the phone. Under the menu option, we are given 10 menus that correspond to different things on the phone. Those menus are Messages, Call Log, Profiles, Settings, System, Games, Calculator, Reminders, Infrared, and Services. I am going to describe the options that are under each one of the separate menus: 1. Messages - This is the place where any messages that come in, or go out of the phone are located. We are allowed to write a message, write an e-mail, chat, or go to the inbox, outbox, and archive of messages that the phone deals with. When I say messages I mean text messages. They also provide a template for messages that you can send in case you are sending something generic such as "I love you" or "Happy Birthday". Finally, we have the Voice messages where any voice mails that you have received are located. Under this, you have the option of password protecting it, so that if someone is using your phone, you can keep them from being able to access your voice-mail. I really like the text messaging feature with these phones, because you can be on a bus, or out running, and just want to send a quick message without getting on the phone. 2. Call Log - This menu keeps track of every call that goes out or comes in to the phone. Under it we have the sub-menus of missed calls, received calls, dialed calls, clear call lists, and call timers. The phone stores the last 10 numbers that have been either dialed, received, or missed under each sub-menu. The phone also keeps track of the total minutes used in case you are on a tight usage schedule and want to make sure you don't go over your limit. 3. Profiles - This is where you go to set up the profile that your phone will be set on. They provide you with several choices that you can customize for any given situation. The ones that they give you are silent, outdoor, pager, normal, and a custom setting with your name. Under each, you can decide what the ring style will be, how loud the phone will be, and whether or not it will vibrate. This is convenient, for instance, if you are going into a movie and you don't want your phone to make any sound. If you don't want to turn it off, you can merely put it on silent and it won't disturb anyone. The ringing styles consist of 25 different options that you can test out, and the volume ranges from a setting of 1 to 5. 4. Settings - These are the different settings that your phone can be put on. First is the time setting, which is pretty straight-forward, then we have the alarm setting which allows you to set the alarm for a given time. Next there is a Call Setting selection that lets you set whether you want automatic redial or not, and that is followed by Phone Settings. Under phone settings, you can choose what language to have your phone in, whether to have touch tones active, whether to put a welcome note on the front text window of your phone, and the option to decide how dark the display on your screen is going to be. After the phone settings, there are security settings that allow you to lock down your phone if you don't plan on using it, or adding security codes that need to be typed in for it to be used. 5. System - This is just where you decide if you want your phone set on Automatic or Manual for the system. 6. Games - On all cell phones now, there are games. Most of the time I just use them to play when I am stuck on a bus, or waiting in line at someplace and I have nothing better to do. The games on this phone are Space Impact, Pairs II, and Snake II. All very simple games, and the phone will store any high scores you achieve. 7. Calculator - Pretty self-explanatory, it is a calculator that you can use the key-pad to control. It has come in handy for me a few times. 8. Reminders - This is a section of the phone that you can set reminders to notify you when something is coming up. The cool thing about it is that you can set it months in advance and when the scheduled time comes, you can have the alarm set to go off. This makes it easy to remember things when you have a loud alarm going off in your pocket. J 9. Infrared - This is just the option that lets you set up your phone to be infrared capable at any time. 10. Services -- The final menu is services that allow you to access mobile internet services provided and updated by service providers. That pretty much explains all of the special menus that the phone has to offer. Under the names menu, you can choose to find, add an entry, edit a name, add a number, erase something, or set up one-touch dialing for any of the numbers you have in the memory. This is a very easy to use menu, and lets you set it up so that you can put in a home and work number, or even a cell phone number for each of the people in your list. On the top of the phone is an additional button that lets you scroll through the profiles that are available to you. It also allows you to turn the phone off by holding it down for 3 seconds. The phone comes with an adapter to recharge that battery that plugs in to your wall, but if you want to purchase a car adapter, that sells separately. With the phone also comes a manual in case you get stuck in the menus, or if you set up something that you want to change back. One thing that Nokia also offers with this model is a huge selection of face plates that you can choose between if you don't like the factory selection blue. Such face plates can have your favorite sports team on them, be of any other color you can think of, or be a design such as the American Flag. Some of them are actually pretty cool looking, but I elected to stick with the factory selection. This phone has been very durable in the time that I have owned it. Time, and time again, I drop this phone on surfaces ranging from grass, to concrete, and even asphalt, and it has persevered. It is most likely luck, seeing as how I drop it daily, but it goes to show how well it was made that it can withstand the beating that I have given it. The reason I most wanted this type of phone, was because it has an internal antenna. That is a HUGE benefit to me, because I was sure that I would break off an external antenna the same day I purchased it. I recommend this phone, because it is quite inexpensive now, and it does anything that you want a basic phone to do. While it does not have picture-taking capabilities, or the ability to surf the web extensively, it gets the job done well. It comes in clear, and the battery lasts around 2-3 hours on the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90099 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 headphone included small size vibrating mode infrared battery life shorter than advertised no keypad cover The Bottom LineFor the price, a good phone. If money's no object, however, go for something more upscale. Full Review As a substitute teacher, it is not unheard of for me to receive phone calls at 5 a.m. telling me to report for work. When I am in a place of my own, this is no problem. Since returning stateside, however, I am staying with family and the phone is not in my end of the house. The solution was simply to get a phone of my own. Rather than a land-line, I opted for a cell phone. In this way, once I move, my number can follow me. The cell phone I ended up getting was the Nokia 3360. It came as part of a package sold by AT&T wireless. The phone advertises that it is possible to keep talking on the battery with up to 3.5 hours of talk time and to stay connected with up to 250 hours of standby time. My experience has been that the battery runs down with my level usage after about 48 hours. I'm not a heavy phone user and turn my phone entirely off at work. I would expect a longer last to the charge. My only other complaint is that this phone has no external antenna and reception can be a bit spotty. For whatever reason, at one end of the house I can make calls just fine. At the other, I seem to wander in and out of range as I move from room to room. There appears to be no way to boost the reception. The problem, of course, is that the reception is the very worst in the bedroom I'm using and when I wake up in the a.m., I don't want to have to go stand by a window to improve things. When the reception is good, the sound is very clear and both sending and receiving are a pleasure. The one thing I miss on this phone that I had on my last cell phone is a flip cover. I know that it is not necessary to have something under my mouth to speak into, but it felt more comfortable with the cover that gave that feeling. It is possible to lock the phone to keep the keys from being pushed in a pocket or a purse and dialing by mistake. This is helpful for me as I'm constantly tossing it into a desk drawer, a pocket or a pocketbook. The phone is a small size and quite inexpensive. My AT&T wireless plan was $29.99 a month and included the phone in that. The phone set up fairly easily. I plugged in the phone for 24 hours the first time to allow the battery to charge. During this time, the phone had to be on. In the case of AT&T, while the phone is on and charging, it apparently makes contact with the AT&T system which recognizes it. After 24 hours, I was good to go. When typing text into the phone, it is set up for "predictive text" editing. This is sort of like working on MSWord in that the computer tries to anticipate what you're writing and as you add letters, changes the message. I found this feature to be the most annoying bell or whistle I have ever encountered and quickly reset the system back to plain text editing. I now put in what I want and the phone doesn't help/hinder me in anyway. The text messaging also comes with a series of short template messages that can be sent and 5 small pictures that can be attached to messages. My favorite is a picture of a heart with wings which I combine with a "hugs and kisses" message or an "I love you" message. Storing names and numbers in the phone book is easy. The Nokia 3360 allows storage of up to 200 contacts. Additions can be made directly. It is also possible to add a number of a party you call or who has called you. Happily, it is also possible to store multiple numbers for a single individual. For this reason, my friends can be listed with work, cell, and home numbers to make reaching them easier. The phone comes with a Nokia HDE-2 headset. This headset has a small earpiece that rests in the ear. The microphone hangs down from the earpiece by a wire which clips to clothing to keep it in place. The wire also plugs directly into the phone. I have used the headset with great success. My friends tell me it gives good sound. My only complaint is that when our talking overlaps, neither of our signals seem to go through. Although I'm not interested in changing the look of my phone, this one does allow the changing of faceplates to match personalities and/or clothing. The face plates can be ordered through the accessory booklet that comes with the phone, or at a local phone store. The phone also comes with a charger. It is possible to buy other chargers for use in the car or a "docking station" type of charger. These, too, are available through the catalog that comes with the phone or at local phone centers. The phone comes with three different games for play when one is bored. There is a memory game in which players turn over "cards" and look for a match. There is a "snake" game in which players try to get the snake to eat the "food" without running into its ever increasing body. The last game is a space "shoot'em up" in which one tries to blast one's way through all sorts of enemy ships. The only game I use is the snakes, and then only at times of extreme boredom This phone can be used with other wireless devices as it has infared sensing abilities. I have not used this technology, but friends who have are thrilled iwth it. If money was no object, I probably would invest in a different phone. However, as basic equipment goes, this performs all the basic functions admirably. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 90098 2000/7/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight small headset compatible travel charger included expensive for extras The Bottom LineA dependable phone that has given me no problems. Full Review Once my mother decided that she had had enough of AT&T and their constant extra charges, she called me up and told me that we were getting new phones. This was almost a year ago now and I was more than thrilled to get rid of my dependable, but outdated . We ended up at Circuit City and decided on the Nokia 3360. I had not had any problems with my previous Nokia and was looking specifically for another one of that brand. My mother's old phone was a Motorola and she had not thought it was the best thing in the world, so she settled on the Nokia 3360 also. The Nokia 3360 operates on both a digital and analog system, and both a Cellular and PCS system. ~ Includes ~ ~ Nokia 3360 phone ~ ACP-7U Standard Travel Charger ~ BMC-2 640 mAh NiMH Battery ~ User Guide ~ Quick Reference Guide ~ Features ~ The Nokia 3360 features a small black turn on/off button at the very top part of the phone. Depressing it will easily turn the phone on, lighting up the display screen in the process. Six buttons located under the display will be used to operate the phone. There is a green "telephone" button that you will use to answer and make calls. A red "telephone" button will allow you to end calls. Two arrow keys will allow you to move through your menus and options. And two selection keys are used to choose your options from your display screen. These allow you to enter into your menu and phone book storage. Lightweight: The Nokia 3360 weighs in at 5.3 ounces, not too much difference than my old 5120, but noticeable when I carry it around in my purse. At 4.5 inches long and 1 inch thick, it doesn't take up much room and is not at all cumbersome. Display: Your main display will feature your service provider listed on the bottom. There is also a battery life indicator that consists of little blocks to inform you how charged your phone is and an indicator that allows you to know when you have low battery life. The display is a 84x48 graphical pixel display. Settings: Your Nokia 3360 comes with 25 different ring tones for you to choose from. I have to say that I have found one that I like so much; it hasn't been changed since I got the phone. There are also some downloadable ring tones, but that also depends on your service provider. You can also compose your own ring tone using Nokia's PC suite, but I have not done that either. You do have the option of activating a personal security code to prevent others from using your phone. And one thing that most wireless phones do have is the keypad lock. I have been guilty of calling people without my knowledge because buttons just get pushed accidentally while carrying the phone around in my purse. I'm not really a crank-caller! I promise. Call Log: This feature shows the last 10 calls you have missed, the last 10 you have received, and the last 10 calls you have made. You have the option of leaving these lists in your phone, or clearing them so that they no longer appear there. You can also check and see how long each call had lasted. Call Waiting: If you have this option available on your phone, your conversation will be interrupted by a short beep when you have another call. Because I had the Caller ID setup, I am also able to tell who is calling me by looking at the display screen. Phone Book: Your personalized phone book can store up to 200 names with 2 phone numbers per name. And you can store e-mail addresses and send a text message to that address you have listed. Voice Mail: This you will have to set up on your own. The representative that I talked to gave me a number to call, to set this voicemail option up. They will in turn give you a voice mailbox number and password to access your voicemail. The phone provides you with a little beep if you have a voicemail waiting for you, and your display screen will tell you "new voice message." And you can easily access your messages with your mailbox number and password. Two-Way Messaging: This option was not available for free with my service provider and I did not choose to have the service hooked up for an extra charge. I could, in fact, receive messages from others, but I could not send messages out. So if someone needed me, they could send me a message, and I could easily call them back. The phone would beep to allow me to know when I had a text message awaiting me. You can view who sent you the message and what time it was received if you don't happen to catch it right away. Battery Life: Nokia states that you can get up to 3 hours and 30 minutes of talk time and 10.5 hours of standby time with the Nokia 3360's standard battery. This was a little more than the 2-3 hours it promised with my previous 5120 model and I was happy to know that as I have a habit of forgetting to recharge my phones. Games: Space Impact Pairs II Snake II Other Features: ~ Wireless Internet (additional) ~ Multi-party Calling (additional) ~ Speed Dial up to 8 numbers ~ 10 number redial ~ Internal vibrating alert, silent mode ~ Internal antenna ~ Multi-lingual capability ~ You can store up to 20 reminder notes with an alarm settings ~ Alarm clock with snooze ~ Calculator ~ Accessories Available ~ Xpress-on Color Covers are available through Nokia for $14.95 each: ~ Metallic Midnight Black ~ Artic Silver ~ Metallic Electric Blue ~ Polar Blue ~ Metallic Red ~ Metallic Sunshine ~ Sahara Yellow ~ Metallic Mulberry ~ Metallic Lime ~ Boogie ~ Daydream Joy I have to say that changing the faceplate the first time, was not a small feat and I found myself getting agitated. The thing just did not want to come off. Eventually we did manage to get it off and I have since changed the plate again, which was a whole lot easier to do the second time around. ~ Travel Charger ~ Desktop Charging Stand ~ Express Car Kit ~ Spare Battery Charger ~ Rapid Cigarette Lighter Charger ~ Mobile Holder ~ Headset Kit ~ Loopset ~ Carrycase ~ Ultra Battery ~ Service Providers ~ ~ Cingular Wireless ~ AT&T Wireless ~ Cellular One ~ Suncom Wireless ~ US Cellular ~ Western Wireless ~ Edge Wireless ~ Cincinnati Bell. By comparing all of the calling plans that were presented from the different providers, we chose to go with Cingular. The employee helping us assured us that they were a good company, and we had already decided against going with AT&T because of the previous service we had received. And because I would not likely be getting another phone before I made my journey to Pennsylvania, the employee made sure that I would have no problem switching my Florida phone number to a Pennsylvania number. Though it would be a small, added fee later when I actually switched, but that was fine with me. The employee went through the motions of having the phone set up for me. But the problem was that the system was down and we would have had to wait at least an hour. So, my mother and I decided to head home and do it in the morning, by ourselves'. It was a relatively easy process that the Cingular representative talked you through. The representative explained all of their calling plans very efficiently, and help me decide on which one was right for me. ~*~ MY THOUGHTS ~*~ Buying the Nokia 3360 a year ago...retail price for the phone was $99.99 but we happened to catch a deal where they offered a $50 rebate. At that time, $49.99 for the phone was not bad at all. But at this point in time, if you desire this phone, you can purchase it almost anywhere for around $29.99 regular price. The Nokia 3360 comes with a 12-month warranty for labor and parts. But I have not had any problems with this phone thus far and cannot verify their procedures for going through the warranty process. The representative at Circuit City did the installation of the battery for me, but from what I could tell, it was pretty easy to do. Also, there is no antenna to worry about because the thing is internal. I liked that because you don't have to worry about it getting stuck or breaking off. What I liked most about this phone is that is has a non-flip design. I cannot be bothered with taking the time to flip a phone open to talk on it. It just seems annoying to me, to have to do so. This lightweight Nokia is perfect for my needs. And it fits perfectly into the palm of my hand for easy carrying. Navigating through the menu and selecting your options is also really an easy thing to do with this phone and takes mere seconds. Another thing that I like about this Nokia 3360 was the ring tone options. They seem to have added a bit more from my previous . Also, with the extra option of downloading ring tones from the Internet, I was almost guaranteed a tone that would be to my liking. This phone also features different profile settings that can definitely come in handy if you are a student or in the career world. There is a: normal setting, meeting setting, outdoor setting, silent setting, and pager setting. The vibrating alert especially came in handy when I was in a meeting, allowing my phone to alert me with a call by vibrating (exactly like a beeper), instead of ringing loudly and interrupting important business. As with most phones you have the option of having a security code, and locking your keypad. The security code is a good thing if you happen to lose your phone...it prevents others phone using the phone and hiking up your bill. The key guard is something that I use every time the phone goes into my purse, because I have found my phone dialing people on occasion. Both of these options can come in handy. The talk time comes about as promised. I can sometimes go up to a week without recharging this phone, if I don't use it constantly. And I never seemed to have a problem of getting the 3 ½ hours of talk time from the Nokia 3360. I really cannot say anything bad about this phone except that most of the added accessories are priced quite high. I did get a nice Hawaiian print cover for Christmas from my parents and they were able to find it on sale...so that was a good thing. I did receive the car charger when I bought the phone and have since bought a hands-free set. But those were important for me because I often had to use the phone for business while in my car. None of the other accessories interested me, thus I have not bought anymore. Overall, this Nokia 3360 has been quite dependable and has given me no problems. I would definitely have to recommend it over the older model, simply because the phone is now so cheaply priced that it really makes no sense to buy an older model. * This wireless phone is headset compatible...so use it! Be safe and keep those hands on the steering wheel while driving! Nokia Mobile Phones 7725 Woodland Center Boulevard Tampa, FL. 33614 1-888-NOKIA-2U www.nokia.com www.cingular.com ~ Happy Talking! Kim Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 7793 Nokia 3310 90180 2004/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lot of accessoriessupport user friendly for phonebooksms good build just a good if you re into that sort of thing reliable phone not flashy Great phone! Easier to use than a lot of phones I've had. Good battery life, awesome reception, full games, programmable ring tones... 90179 2000/7/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use low price no li ion battery no wap heavy The Bottom LineAlthough this phone lacks some features, it is durable and easy to use. A perfect choice for people who don't need WAP. Full Review I originally bought this phone to replace another old Nokia 5110, and the main reason for this replacement was that the 5110 was too large to carry in my pocket. The Nokia 3310 has the features that every mobile phone must have (phonebook, sms, etc) and gives some other attractive features. I particularly like the reminders. This phone allows you to save a number of reminders which consist of text, and you may also set a separate alarm for each reminder so that you would never forget an appointment. Other cool features include customised ringtones which can be created directly from the composer, and also customised backround pictures which you can send to your friends using SMS (1 picture = 3 SMSs). However, to get the best of these two features, you should buy a data cable which allows you to connect the phone to the PC so that you can upload ringtones, pictures and logos (small pictures) to the mobile phone. However this phone is not perfect. It does not have WAP access which other similarly priced phones have, and it has a NiMH battery instead of Li-Ion which makes it heavy. However, this can be solved by buying a Li-Ion battery separately, but that would be an extra expense... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7794 Nokia 2100 90182 2000/4/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 value for money mobile sleek look light weight no bluetooth heats up in 20 25 minutes no internet The Bottom LineNokia 2100 is a value for money and has a fresh trendy look and feel about it. If you are looking for a light mobile, here is one for you. Full Review When I decided to go Mobile, I had two things strictly on my mind, one I wanted a sleek and small mobile and another I wanted a pretty light mobile. So my hunt got me to Nokia 2100. I have fallen in love with it though of course with time Nokia has come up with much better and technologically advanced models. About Nokia 2100 Nokia 2100 is a stylishly designed, mid segment phone for the cost conscious, yet tredy teenagers. The basic features of most mobile phones are available like: # Built-in phonebook with up to 100 name entries # Built-in animated full screensavers # Built-in date & time screensavers (digital, analog) # Calculator, currency converter # Stopwatch, countdown timer # Repeated alarm # Reminders # Internal antenna The additional features of Nokia 2100 are: # Decent high resolution display, with illuminated display. # Multi language sms support # User changable front and back covers of the mobile. # Dual band operation, operating in EGSM 900 and GSM 900/1800 band networks and has Codec support for HR, FR, and EFR. # Call management features of Call waiting, call hold, call divert, and call timer # Accessories for Car, Audio, Covers and Power are available. # Battery with talk time of 2-3 hrs and Standby time of 50-150 hrs. # Comes in with three games namely Snake, Space Impact, Link 5. # 35 Fixed ringtones + 7 customizable ringtones. Pros of Nokia 2100 1) The first thing that is very attractive about Nokia 2100 is its flashy body cover. Each set comes with a set of flashy coloured mobile covers like light blue, yellow. I must say that yellow one looks a bit gaudy, but the rest of the colors suit the mobile just great. 2) The next thing that I liked about the mobile is it's light weight. At just about 85 grams this is the lightest mobile I could find during my search. When I hook the mobile onto my belt, there is hardly a tug on the belt and is quite comfortable. 3) The next thing that is pretty useful is the illuminated display, especially when you are in dark places, you need not wait to put on the lights to read the caller details or the sms. The illuminated display comes with a powerful blue light that is good enough for reading in absolute darkness as well. 4) The alarm comes in two modes, the alarm mode and the snooze mode. For people like me who sleep after putting off the alarm, the snooze mode works wonders. :) 5) Ease of use. I think this is a USP of all Nokia phones. Gosh, I struggle everytime I get my hands on my brother's motorola. Cons of Nokia 2100 1) The biggest disappointment is that there is no bluetooth connectivity and no internet. 2) I was disappointed that there are only 7 slots for customizable ringtones. Every few days I have to delete one of my collections to make way for another. Sob Sob!! 3) The mobile does get a bit hot once the conversation becomes long. If you wanna talk for more than 20-25 minutes on a regular basis get ready for some tanning. Cost When I bought Nokia 2100, it was the new kid of the block and cost me nearly Rs. 5500 and another 500 for some of the accessories. But since then the prices have been falling sharply and the last time that I actually tracked it, it was costing just around Rs. 3500 mark. Summary At the time I bought, this was one of the best value buy mobiles in its segment. Even now at its rate despite the absence of Internet connectivity, it remains a good value buy for people who are interested in using mobiles just for what it is meant, i.e. mobile conversation :) I will give the product a high 4 star rating based on it's value buy proposition. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90181 2003/9/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 basic features done well user friendly great looking sturdy it does what it s advertised to dodoes it well no cons here The Bottom LineThere should be another category for cell phones--this ones isn't stylish or trendy, but it is geared for teens. That market it covers well. Full Review I like Nokia phones. I've found them to be durable, user-friendly, and inexpensive (plan dependent). They also offer fun features, many which I don't use, but ones that my teens find a necessity. I had the fun of trying out this Nokia when my friend's daughter came to stay with us this summer. She's from the UK and brought her phone with her to call home. This little Nokia offers many of the basic features--a built-in phone book with up to 100 entries, an animated screensavers or date and time screensaver, a stopwatch/countdown timer, alarm function, calendar functions with reminder option, all in a little yellow package. It weighs just 3.3 ounces and is 105.5 x 44.2 x 20.7 mm (a comfortable fit for the palm). Not one of the higher-end models, its high-resolution screen is not in color. It has a resolution of 96x65 pixels--adequate for text messaging but not great for photos. It has the normal look and feel of a Nokia. The Network Signal Strength indicator is on the left of the main display screen, the Battery Power indicator on the right. Each is denoted by a set of bars--the higher the bars the more battery power or signal strength. You'll also see Menu and Names with a button directly underneath--this is the Select Key (the functions of the keys change as you go through the menus). The Menu gives you access to all the features--Names gets you right into your address book functions and call lists. SETUP Set up is really dependant on your service provider, however, it usually something similar to this: If you received a SIM Card (for long distance calling), follow the instructions to open the phone and insert the card. No tools are needed and the SIM card is just a small piece of plastic pushed out of a larger plastic card (much like a credit card). One the SIM card is in place the battery will need to be installed. Again, easy to do and the directions included make it very clear where the battery is to be located and which end to put in first. Once done you're ready to power on. The power button is on the very top of the phone--it's a tiny button that looks like a small computer on button--push it for a second or two until the screen starts to light. You'll be requested to enter a PIN number (if you have a SIM card). That PIN number will be included. Plug it in to the batter charger. Now you just need to leave it on for the network to recognize it and for the battery to charge fully before using it. Get too excited and start using it before it's fully charged and you run the risk of lessening your battery life later on. Looking for an antenna? It's inside--means it suffers from a small loss in reception, but you don't have to worry about breaking it off. While connected to the charger you can set up your functions. Set the date and time, tryout and select a ring tone, set up profiles, and play a few games. All features are network dependant and dependant on the plan you choose. This phone can do a lot of high-end features, but you may not be paying for them. Messaging and chat are two such features. TEEN-DREAM FEATURES Messaging Text messaging: Uses a Concatenated SMS system for messaging and chat. SMS stands for Short Message Service and just means sending short messages via mobile phones. Concatenated is the method of sending the message--it strings together the data and sends it as a "package". The chat and messaging use predictive text input for over 10 languages and support for major European languages - this means the phone will try to predict the word you're typing from the first few keystrokes. If it displays the word you're trying to type, you can "accept" the word with the push of one button rather than continuing to type out the entire word. If it doesn't predict the correct word you continue putting in letters until it does or until you've finished typing the word. The chat system is between devices, not Internet based. To chat you select the function, put in the other person's phone number (or find it in your address book), put in a nickname for the person, type your message and press send. This type of chatting uses your plan minutes (check your plan to be sure). There are built in smiles for chatting and messaging. Should someone send you a message your screen will play any sound you've pre-selected (or none) and display that you've received a message. Profiles Profiling means setting the phone to behave in a certain manner for specific situations. General is the default setting--in general the phone will ring with the ring tone you choose. That's it. However, if you're at school and you'd be in big trouble if the phone range you can preprogram a profile called "School" so that the phone would not ring and the call would go directly to voice mail (if you plan allows it). You can have "Concert" which would have the phone ring at the highest volume, or "Night" so that it would ring low and your parents wouldn't hear it. The provided profiles are General, Silent, Discreet, Loud and My style. You can also designate people with special ring tones so that by the ring you'll know who's calling. Personalization • Photo-insert back cover - a great way to show off your newest love--easy to do, pull off the back, trim the photo to fit, slide it into place, and snap the cover back on. • Xpress-on™ front and back color covers - There are also many non-Nokia faceplates available. I've purchased a few and been happy with the results. Nokia needs to step up and offer more fashionable plates of their own. Easy to change--no tools required. Be aware that some non-Nokia keypads are a bit stiff and make dialing a chore. • Picture Editor allows you to "draw" pictures to send to your friends. The keys on the keypad are used sort of like an old Etch-a-Sketch in that each is assigned a direction--by pressing that key you're line is drawn in that direction. Very rudimentary but my teen thinks it's great. • Ring Tone Composer uses the keypads to provide the notes for your own personalized ring tone. You can shorten or lengthen the tones and rests. Another feature I'd never use but one that my teen is fascinated by. Customizable Distribution List: • Templates for quick and easy sending of prewritten messages - send "Meet Me After School" or "Call Me" type message that are pre-designed and sent with just a few key strokes. • Picture messaging: Sending graphics with text to other compatible phones - basic feature here. Graphics are basic shapes and you'll be disappointed if you think your friends are going to be wowed. Games No solitaire? I love solitaire and it seems no one includes it any more--darn! The games are a big disappointment for me. For those of us who grew up playing Pong and Pac Man, this is a giant step backward. My son finds them totally cool and addicting and he says they're some of the most popular cell phone games around. Guess I'm behind the times! • Link5 - It's just like the game Connect 4 only you have to connect 5 and you're playing against a computer. Mildly fun. • Space Impact - use your rocket to shoot at oncoming blobs • Snake II -use the up/down/left/right buttons to move your snake around the screen to eat blobs...keep away from the walls or you'll loose. Ringing tones • 35 fixed tones plus 7 locations for downloadable or composed tones Dialing Fun • Speed dialing: For up to 9 names (key 1 is always for voice mail) • Last number redial from dialed calls list (dial key brings out the dialed calls list) • Automatic redial (max 10 attempts) • Automatic answer (only works with headset or car kit) BASIC FEATURES • Call waiting, call hold, call divert, and call timer • Automatic and manual network selection • Alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, calculator • Notes- write yourself a short note • Fixed dialing number allows calls only to predefined numbers • Conference call allowing 4 users to join (network service-dependent) • Dual Band Operation - EGSM 900 and GSM 900/1800 dual band networks in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America; automatic switching between bands. Codec support for HR, FR, and EFR BATTERY Battery BLD-3 720 mAh Li-lon Talk time 2 - 3h 20min Standby time 50 - 150h Battery life dependant on SIM card, network settings, and usage. "Talk time is increased by up to 30 percent if half rate is active and reduced by 5 percent if enhanced full rate is active." Play games and send messages and you'll find your battery draining fast. Just put it in your pocket and wait for that important call and you'll be able to go for days between charges. Comes with a standard charger--a car adaptor is available. WHAT'S MISSING Vibrate mode--I can't believe they're still making phones without it. Especially important in a phone marketed for the teens and tweens as schools don't allow phones at school but parents insist the children carry them. No web or data features. No Bluetooth or Internet. Fine, since I never pay for the services, but just wanted to point it out in case someone did want these features. Color screen---with so many on the market it's surprising they're still making new phones with non-color screens. FINAL THOUGHTS A great basic phone that's nice looking, sturdy enough to stand up to a teenager's backpack, and a great starter model. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7795 Nokia 6185i 90185 2000/10/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 alarm profiles great extra feature like calendar on the large side of current phones The Bottom LineSolid phone with lots of little features you will come to depend on. Easy to use and works great. Full Review I've used the older 6185 for the last 1.5 years and now the 6185i for 2 months. I still like these phones for their durability, and especially for the extra features. I have a Palm, but depend on the Calendar feature to remind me of important events, since the phone is always with me. The best feature if the Profiles feature which allows for different call settings for different situations. By default it has a Silent and Meeting setting. By picking the profile, the phone is switched to permanently stored settings effecting ring settings (eg. Vibrate only, ring tone, ring volume). Other good features include the Call Log (stores last 10 calls dialed, last 10 calls received and last 10 call missed) I've compared this to Motorola's V2267 and the Nokia offers so much more. The Motorola has 6 rings, Nokia has 30+. Motorola cannot tie a ring to a phone number, Nokia can (you can tell from the ring who it is). Good phone for a good price. On the down side, why can't these phones interface with Contact management software for managing the phone lists? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90184 2000/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 a nice phone this nokia has some issues The Bottom LineGrab it, but only as a backup phone... Full Review The 6185i Is a smart little phone, When I first received it last month, it was great, it came with the extended life battery, and the phone company even sent me TWO hand free sets. Mind you, the first set did not work worth a damn anyways, so I guess they knew this would happen.. *shrugs* I am moving into my second month now with this unit, and let me tell you..... The first month was fine, no problems whatsoever with the phone, then strange things started to happen. I would start loosing signal at the strangest places, places where my old 252 would have no problems. It has hung up on at least 3 callers, and occassionally has a strange 'twangy' sound to it on occassion (ringing out, and on conversations). I did subscribe to the internet services on this phone, it took some doing, and a tech call to the company but it was recitified quickly, seem's someone forgot to activate my net access. As a avid Internet user, (ie: 10 hours plus per day), I found the menu's well laid out, however I spent more time 'punching' in url's then reading them. I am a big 'telnet' fan, and there is no support for this, and at best, hope only to connect to the sites already in the menuing system. The strangeness continued this last weekend (May 16th, 2002), as I had the phone 'reboot' mysteriously a number of times. It also strangely came off the key-lock safeguard once. This phone is easy to add/edit/remove phone numbers, and also has its own 'date/calendar' menu which I use constantly for important reminders.. (Mother's day being one). The text messaging is nice, but at 15+ Minutes to get the message (and I mean from an msn account, which I am not a fan of..). I have set up my phone so I get updates of the Toronto Maple Leafs games, on each goal. A day later, I have still yet to receive one for the last game, although that could be a limitation of my service then the phone. The text is very easy to read, and the only problem I have with the messaging, is you can not always tell when your at the end of an article and end up running into the next ... again, likely a service issue. Do not get me wrong, I love this phone, I have loved each and every Nokia I have received, and yet, looking at all the nice flashy phones others I know are carrying, and with the fewer problems they are having ... Nokia has lost a loyal user of their phones, the next phone I look at upgrading to, there is less then a 30% chance of my picking a Nokia. I would recommend this phone, but only for the most loyal Nokia fans.. But I am sure you can find a better Nokia phone. Recommended: Yes 90183 2000/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great interface lots of useful features call timer goes away when you press a number analog calendar size The Bottom LineThis is a nice tri mode phone, except when in analog. It also comes with a few hidden features that you just gotta find. Full Review Overall this is a great phone for digital use. Analog is a totaly diffrent story. My area is 100% analog, this phone does not preform very well on analog. This is mostly clearnets fault, but the phone's lack of a pull-up antenna and weak analog subsystems is also to blame. When on digital , the phone preforms very well. The only problem I've noticed on digital is the signal meter. The signal strength must be atleast 3 out of 4 bars to have a usable call. This phone does not take kindly to ANYTHING touching the antenna. I could have 3 bars of analog in my hand, but if I touch the antenna even lightly I will loose 2 or 3 bars. This phone (nokia 6188, which is basically a 6185 with a diffrent faceplate) has a problem with choosing between digital and analog. Clearnet has disabled the ability to force the phone onto analog mode (using menu's or forcing the phone into EVRC mode, EVRC disabling only applies to 3rd generation clearnet software). When you are on the fringe of digital the phone becomes 100% useless. I have noticed my digital fringe area can be as wide as 15 miles. I would like to point out that most 6185 providers do allow the user to select , or at least provide the option even if they wont support it through customer service. The phone I find is also very quiet even at the loudest setting, I can't here the other party unless I jam the phone to my ear if I'm driving. The headset kit from Overall this is a great phone for digital use. Analog is a totaly diffrent story. My area is 100% analog, this phone does not preform very well on analog. This is mostly clearnets fault, but the phone's lack of a pull-up antenna and weak analog subsystems is also to blame. When on digital , the phone preforms very well. The only problem I've noticed on digital is the signal meter. The signal strength must be atleast 3 out of 4 bars to have a usable call. This phone does not take kindly to ANYTHING touching the antenna. I could have 3 bars of analog in my hand, but if I touch the antenna even lightly I will loose 2 or 3 bars. This phone (nokia 6188, which is basically a 6185 with a diffrent faceplate) has a problem with choosing between digital and analog. Clearnet has disabled the ability to force the phone onto analog mode (using menu's or forcing the phone into EVRC mode, EVRC disabling only applies to 3rd generation clearnet software). When you are on the fringe of digital the phone becomes 100% useless. I have noticed my digital fringe area can be as wide as 15 miles. I would like to point out that most 6185 providers do allow the user to select , or at least provide the option even if they wont support it through customer service. The phone I find is also very quiet even at the loudest setting, I can't here the other party unless I jam the phone to my ear if I'm driving. The headset kit from nokia is even worse, you must hold the mic infront of your mouth and burry the earpiece into your head. Hows that for "hands free". The phone has a very simple menu interface, which is 1000 times more simple then the i1000 menu's if you ever used one. It has a massive selection of ringers (40). It has vibra call. I would recommend the 6185 to digital users, I wouldn't recommend the 6188 for digital users that occasionally roam onto analog service. I would not recommend the 6185 or the 6188 for analog. If you want a good durable phone with TONS of features and you will be using it in a digital service area, a 6188 or 6185 is a great choice. This phone supports Amps 800/CDMA 800/ and CDMA 1900MHz. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 7796 Nokia 7650 90191 2003/10/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound graphics size A superb color phone, with downloadable java games, polyphonic ringtones and a high amount of memory aswell, although it is quite big, but you can't have everything. 90190 2000/3/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 organizer functions color cameradisplay video abilities low battery life a bit outdated by more recent phones no bluetooth audio The Bottom LineI racommend this is one. It has the good blend between looks and functions. Full Review I admit I am a aficionado of Nokia Phones. I own since long a 7650 and have still to suggest this as a good choice for a personal phone. Main GOOD things about this phone: 1) It is FULLY customizable. I mean that you can istall from a wide choice of software to change phone functions and looks. The IR and Bluetooth interfaces makes installation a breeze! 2) You can install also security software and software that interfaces with the in-out abilities of the phone (I bought Phonesecure from wildpalm that will tell you whatever your "lost" phone is in use by someone else and send you the phone number of the "discoverer" - a quite handy feature since my last phone was stonen...) 3) It has a camera - 640*480 max resolution. But not really good at all. It is just a convenience for the moments you absolutely donìt want to lose and don't have anything more professional at your disposal 4) It has a speakerphone ability. You can chat while driving hands free! (but the volume level is a bit limited you should close radio and windows) 5) The display is really neat and crisp. Full color! Just a little pale in comparison to more modern models from nokia but still a good one! 6) excellent messaging abilities!!! Can keep all the messages in memory The BAD thins about this phone: 1) If you install too much stuff and/or don't know what you're doing you can damage the operating system and possibly take a walk to the nokia shop for a software upgrade 2) The opening/closing mechanism is not rigid enought and you'll find the phone sliding into close position while operating on the joystck. 3) Battery life! One to three days on a charge. On a average of two and a half using the phone normally. Suggestions on the use of the phone: 1- Charge the battery with a SLOW CHARGER - the one that comes with the phone is the pro version of nokia chargers. It is faster but it stresses the battery more. If you have the time a slow charge will last longer. 2- Don't overload the phone with useless programs. The phone has a operating system on it and it can get clogged. 3 - Try the phonesecure program from wildpalm! 4 - Backup the data with the nokia program and reset the phone on a something regular basis (just like reinsalling the old windows95) This might make your phone run faster! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90189 2000/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 great colour screen the rest of it The Bottom LineIn summery: Do your research first. Full Review I bought a new nokia 7650 about 4 months ago, and since day 3 I have nothing but trouble with it. When I go to make calls I get an "application error" and the phone reboots, and when I try to do most other things except play games it does the same thing. The phone can be just sitting there and it comes up with "system error" and carrys on a bit reboots and sits there waiting for me to enter my code. In that time i miss most of my calls. I have taken the phone to an authorized NOKIA repairer wich can not fix it. In the end they replaced it and this one does exactly the same thing. I also have a friends who has the same phone on a different network and he is having the same sort of troubles. All i can say is maybe you might want to test the phone before adding also ot cool stuff into one phone and assuming it works. Because it does not. Other then that it does take good pictures. Pitty I can't send them to anyone, becasue it just crashes when I do that. The Polyphonic ringing is awsome to, When I get my phone calls. Its a pitty because NOKIA usually only puts out the best phones, and I have never had a problem with any of their phones and I have owned several models. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 1299 90188 2004/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 big screen cheap good camera symbian operating system size battery life The Bottom LineIt was the ultimate in smartphones but now outdated. Still a good phone for the non-fashion conscious. Full Review I wanted a cool new camera phone. I looked at the myriad of phones available and all the different types and features. I narrowed it down to a Nokia phone for several different reasons. Firstly, Nokia phones use a Symbian operating system. This basically allows you to install lots of 3rd party applications. Also, from experience, Nokia phones have the best cameras. The refresh rate is much faster than on other phones. I then had to decide on which model to choose. At the time they offered two models, the newer 3650 and the older 7650. Budget restricted me to the latter. I was able to pick it up for about 100 euro which, for a camera phone without any contract, was very good. Anyway, it arrived in the post one fine day, I carefully unpacked my new baby; I was thrilled. I spent the day clicking everyone I knew; I never had as much fun! I also downloaded the latest polyphonic ring tones and games. It was my portable entertainment system! The games are really quite good with some decent 3d games available. The big screen is a great for playing on. It works well on bright days but is susceptible to being scratched. I was able to get lots of applications for the phone such as a video recorder, real one player, and a special effects editor for pictures. Was I happy with my phone? Yes, at the time I was delighted by it. The phone is packed with features. It has Bluetooth, Infra-red, GPRS, JAVA games, picture messaging and polyphonic ring tones. Would I buy this now? No, not only because of newer phones being available but also because of certain problems I have with this phone. The size of the phone is a major issue. It doesn't just slide into your pocket like newer slimmer models; you need a quite big pocket to carry it in. Also the amount of memory available is a tiny 4 MB. You can fit twenty decent quality photos and a few good applications. Try putting anymore than this and your phone will be forever crashing. As for problems with call clarity, this will really depend on your network. Here in Ireland I get excellent reception but then again you'll get that with any phone here. Also an amazing feature of this phone is that it can receive emails and send them. It's great if you're on the move. Also you can surf the internet on GPRS, which is very fast. If you want, you can send all your friends a picture! Now that could make their day. This was a good phone in its day but sadly it has been rendered obsolete by funkier, smaller editions. It's just too big and clunky compared to the latest offerings. However if you are looking for a cool phone on the cheap, this could just be the one for you. Also look at the newer 3650 which has upgradable SD memory. It was Nokia's first offering in the camera phone section and in my mind they did a decent job of it. While it's a little outdated now, it's a great phone for those not willing to pay 🗴 for the latest model. My final message is that this phone will bring you lots of fun at a very reasonable price. You should be able to buy it second-hand off eBay very cheaply because it's a little old. It offers most the functionality of the newer models but is just a little chunkier. Also if you are bit of geek like me and like to use your phone for more than just calls, this phone offers lots of extra features such as using it as a remote control because of its Symbian operating system. Also it has a funky joystick! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90187 2000/6/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good quality camera solid standard phone features upgradeable software via bluetooth questionable battery life occasional crashes size too big for some The Bottom LineIf you see a good deal, you'll be getting a good solid phone and camera that will see you through for many years to come. Full Review The Nokia 7650 comes direct from the latest crop of photo cameras aimed at the typical non-business customer. It is decidedly bigger than its rival, the 3650, clocking in at around 11cm long and 3cm thick. However, its looks ensure that this is not a mobile to be ashamed of; it has a certain charm and unique quality bereft form other similarly designed Nokia phones. Indeed, from the outset it looks a lot like a PDA, featuring a large and clear screen, a small joystick and only three buttons. All fears of a fiddly touch screen style interface are quickly forgotten though with a keypad that slides down, as immortalised in the film "The Matrix". Of course, this further adds to the phone's size, with it drawing comparisons to the dimensions of a regular house phone, but as this is only applicable when in use, it is not really an issue. The traditional phone functions are performed well, providing a clear line to both landlines and mobile numbers. The industry appears to have entered a state whereby in regards to these features, no further improvements can be made without a significant change in technology. This is not to criticise the phone, as it performed as well as everything else and I found no problems with its use. As though to make up for the lack of Bluetooth headphone interaction, the phone also has a speakerphone option. With this the call is projected louder into room, and the microphone picks up more distant sounds. The speaker performs somewhat disappointingly here. In a driving situation, the roar of the engine seems to dull out the voices from the phone (though it may just be my dodgy Metro!). On the positive side, the microphone is exceptionally good and finally makes those tasks such as using the phone whilst playing Playstation or reading the paper on the loo a reality. The reception performed pleasingly well, succeeding in gaining a strong signal even in relatively remote places (the test network was Orange). The battery life however, is another issue entirely. The standby time is good, meeting most people's needs at 230 hours. Unfortunately, the talktime runs at only 3-5 hours, in my experience heading firmly to the former of that figure. This may be inadequate for individuals who will be phoning a lot without being able to recharge the battery. Also, just using the phone to play games, take photos or any of its other features (which, being such a fun phone is quite often!) drains the battery, though not quite as vigorously as when making a phone call. The user interface is very well designed. The aforementioned joystick navigates the menus whilst the two main buttons either accept or deny a choice. The keypad can be slid down when extra keys are required, but most options and programs can be operated without its need. There is also a separate button with the sole purpose of taking the user to the main menu. This leaves any previously running programs still operating making it possible, for instance, to leave a game mid-play to write a text message. This multi tasking ability is a function that eventually gets taken for granted, a shock when reverting back to another phone. The built in digital camera is obviously one of the main selling points of the phone and it is reassuring to know it performs very well. Taken at 640 x 480 resolution at 0.37 megabit resolution it may not sound particularly impressive, and it will certainly never replace your standard camera, digital or otherwise. The photos though, are of surprisingly good quality considering the limitations even when uploaded onto a PC. It is most useful as a camera that you have with you all the time, so no matter what, you're always prepared to capture the moment, particularly useful for piecing together 'the night before'. Next time somebody gets seven-balled in the pub at pool you can be confident that you'll be there taking photos of their naked body hurtling round the table (for those of you not aware of this rule, be sure to employ it should you ever pot all your balls before your opponent sinks a single one). Arguably the phone's secondary function is as a lightweight PDA. Basic functions such as appointment tracking and note making are available, but anyone expecting anything more comprehensive will be disappointed. That said, the upgradeable software could conceivably enhance these features. The other major selling point of the phone is the Bluetooth capability, with it being able to run certain java and C++ programs. Images, games, tunes, programs and data can be transferred to and from a Bluetooth enabled PC (requires the purchase of a £30ish Bluetooth adapter if not built into the motherboard). There is a large quantity of free software available to download from the Internet for the phone; currently I have my 7650 controlling winamp ensuring I never have to leave my bed to change a track. This effectively renders the phone relatively future-proof as new software will continue to upgrade its features. Recently, a video capture program emerged, allowing short video clips to be filmed. The total memory available to the phone is a non-upgradeable 4MB, which considering its potential is a little disappointing (the Doom port alone takes up almost 2MB). This 4MB can store up to 99 640x480 images, but this assumes nothing extra at all is on the phone. For those who want lots of programs, games, tunes and images, frequent trips to the PC will be in order. As the memory fills, crashing becomes more frequent often requiring the phone to be rebooted. The standard software built into the phone is very much standard fare, besides the PDA programs. It includes a composer, wap browser, games, calendar and to-do list. The PC software to connect to the phone, after a fiddly start, is straightforward to use and allows transfer of files and backing up of data. Overall, I would strongly recommend this phone. As prices vary so much with different contracts and deals, I cannot give a definitive value for money rating. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90186 2000/4/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 bluetooth java symbian color screen strong durable gprs camera video voice recorder joystick navigation limited memory short battery life bulky average call clarity The Bottom LineTechies will like it for it diverse Operating System, the average phone user will find it to bulky for a mobile phone. All will love the Camera aspect though! Full Review I purchased the 7650 for two reasons, firstly for the built in camera that allows you take pictures or record short video clips (approx 15 seconds) and secondly for the symbian operating system that allows you to install additional applications and/or games. I was very happy with the camera functionality of the phone. The large 65,000 colour screen acts as a viewfinder and has an impressive refresh rate as you target in on your subject. A simple click of the joystick takes your picture and stores it in your images folder. In an attempt to compensate for the lack of a flash the camera has a nighttime mode, which brightens the image, this mode by no means makes a flash redundant but does improve picture quality in bad lighting. Overall the camera functionality of the phone is impressive considering that it is at the end of the day a phone. The phone stores images at a maximum resolution of only 640 x 480, useful for emailing etc, but no replacement for a stand alone digital camera. The video capability is only available after downloading the video software from the nokia website, it allows you to record clips of video with sound that last approx 15 seconds. The quality is comparable to a cheap webcam. The second aspect of the phone that persuaded me to buy it was its symbian 6.0 operating system and it's support for Java. The symbian operating systems allows you to download & install applications and games made by nokia and third party developers. The operating systems includes all the normal nokia features and also supports java which allows you to download install Java apps and games (which tend to be slightly more simple & basic than their symbian equivalents.) Looking on the web for symbian 6.0 apps & games I was impressed by the diversity and quality of what was available. (see my-symbian.com - 511 apps/games at time of review. Some truly impressive software is available, some in true 3d! Sadly the impressive nature of the software available is somewhat let down by the lack of memory in the 7650. The 7650 has 3.6mb available for Messages, Calendar Entries, Photos, Video etc... Even after deleting all Messages & Photos etc I found that I could only have one decent application installed at any one time (average app size is approx 400-700kb. The phone requires free memory available just to run properly so you really are just limited to 1 maybe 2 apps. More sickening is the fact that it is not possible to upgrade the memory capacity of the phone. There are memory compression utilities available for a fee, but I can not comment on these, as I have not tried any of them. Conclusion Smart phone, good camera, excellent software available for it, but let down by the lack of memory. (Please note: Anyone who would just been using the 7650 for it's phone functionality alone would find it far to bulky compared to the sexier & sleeker smaller nokia handsets) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 310 7797 Nokia 8310 GSM / EGSM Cellular Phone 90199 2004/9/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 i loved it cutehad great colours it was small i like the sizestyle of the 8310 Since the Nokia 8310 mobile phone came out I loved it, it was small, cute and had great colours. I thought it would be good and it was for the first couple of months and then I started to have problems. The mobile phone would turn off by itself, the voice recorded wouldn't record, and bad reception on the FM Radio and now my games don't work! There is no ringtone composer. I do still like my phone but would like a colour/camera phone but I like the size and style of the 8310. 90198 2000/3/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 fm radio nice backlit screen ringtone volume poor quality overall The Bottom LineBorrow someone else's before you get one for yourself. Full Review I've owned six GSM phones of three different makes, and used several others for work. I bought a Nokia 8310 after having quite some satisfaction owning the products in the past. This phone however, is the last Nokia I will ever own. The quality of the phones Nokia produces seems to have taken a dive. They used to be made in Finland, but obviously the attraction of extra margins has driven their operation to Asia. My first two Nokias made in Finland were of exceptional durability, and outlasted their required spans. The "throwaway mentality" of mobile phone manufacturers has really started to approach too close to brand-new for my liking. First, the good news - I really like the FM radio. It gets good mono reception in places where my walkman doesn't, plus I don't have to carry the walkman and the phone. I love the screen backlighting - it's a purply-gray which is very easy to read and looks much better than the sickly green-tinged ones of older Nokias. The red LED display looks very groovy, and has many people envious when you pull it out at a nightclub. SMSing is one Nokia strongpoint, which seems to be continuing, and the built-in dictionary surprises me sometimes with its perception. The phone has several issues with which I am unhappy. Firstly, the ring tone when set to "ringing" ascends (by more than 3dB after the first two rings). This wouldn't be a problem if the phone had a ring like a 3310, or the like, but my Ericsson T28 is louder than this phone (I thought the T28 was quiet). So, the phone rings 3 times before I can even hear it over most noise levels encountered. The covers have the now familiar sloppy fit, and security that friends of mine with 3310s also complain about. This means that you need an aftermarket cover (which will fit better, without slop) as soon as you buy your phone. The phone has a really bad SIM card function. There is a badly designed trap door which you have to stuff around with to change your card. Forget the fact that once you get the sloppy covers off, you will probably need a tool (or inch long fingernails) to remove the battery. The phone has an annoying rattle in it, which I originally thought was the trapdoor, but now just wonder whether it is a part come loose (no, I didn't drop it, nor mistreat it). "Customer service" - guess what? If you don't guess what the fault is with your new Nokia in 2 weeks, then you're stuffed. You will then need to send it to a "repair center", and be without your new telephone for, [well - that's up to them to decide] weeks. Hmmm, repair centre must be a euphamism for "30 days is way too much of a guarantee for our products". Since practically every other manufacturer offers a 30 day exchange policy (and rightly so) on the odd dud product they may make, it would seem Nokia is experienced with the likelihood of problems with their 8310s... All in all, I am sorely disappointed with Nokia for releasing such a poor product. I will switch to Siemens phones from now on, since I have always admired them, and workmates swear by them. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): plan 90197 2000/5/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 it can supply people conveniencecomfortable game is not enoughthere are all old games The Bottom LineIt is the best choice for the young who would like to have a comfortable and easy life. Full Review I am a student who is studying in university now. As other people live in modern city, I bought a cell phone in order to communicate with my friends in an efficient and convenient way. The type of mobile phone I bought is Nokia 8310. After utilizing it for more than a year, this cell phone has been my best friend. I love it although it is a little bit out of date in current market. We can see that there are hundreds of advanced cell phones being promoted every year. I summarize 5 outstanding points for Nokia 8310 as a one-year user. 1. Durable. I am a careless person, for my cell phone was fall into the floor by my mistakes for about 40 times. However, it still runs fairly well till now. 2. 3-minute recording function. You can make use of this function to record the important things. At the same time, you can set an alarm clock to remind you of the time. I want to say thank you to it, since it made me avoid forgetting so many significant affairs and deal with them on time, even including cooking something for 3 minutes. 3. The bright light on its keyboard. When the environment is dark, I can use the cell phone to light me to work. It looks so romantic when I walk with my friends in park by the light from my 8310. 4. Radio function. With the aid of its radio function, you can listen to whatever radio programs you like during free time. Also, it can help me know news of our world very quickly. 5. Super message storage. My friends told me that their cell phones could only store 20 messages more or less. Do you know how much messages I can store in my Nokia 8310? I have done a test. After storing about 150 messages in my cell phones, it still ran well. In fact, it depends on how much information that one message contains, so 150 is not its maximize number of storage. The reason why I love this function is because that I can store so many sweet messages from my boyfriend. When I feel alone, I like seeing them to comfort myself. These are some of my opinions of Nokia 8310. I wish that people who want to buy cell phone today could get some useful information. In my opinion, fashion is not the only and essential point when I choose cell phone. The most important principle for me is whether the cell phone satisfies my real needs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): around 360 90196 2000/1/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 its phone radio capability is everything you wish you had 3 years ago unreliable it freezes like a motherf 3r The Bottom LineThe features are deprecated and the phone freezes a LOT so don't bother with this crappy phone. You're seriously better off with the "Lucy" of all Nokias: the 5110. Full Review To those who are considering buying a second (or third or fourth) hand Nokia 8310, this review serves a purpose :D Yay! ................. Vivid are the memories of my fling with this phone. Our love 'affaire' was passionate. Scandalous. Tumultuous. I knew it was bound to end in a state of irreconcilable--if not violent, conflict. When I first met Nokia 8310, I knew it was either too good for me or too good to be true. I was impressed by its phone radio capability. It had the coolest frosted, colorful customizable housings and I was able to send graphics, though in dot-matrix, to my friends. The ringtones were polyphonic. I was 2cool4skool and I knew I was in love........for about 2 weeks. 3 thousand years ago. Don't you just love Nokia? After a month or so they never fail to make you realize how so very worthless your investment in their product was by releasing new phone models. And then again, several years ago, if $260+ could buy a phone with a radio and dot matrix graphics and polyphonic ringtones, nowadays that much could get you a phone that is Bluetooth-capable, can play MP3's, features an almost customizable everything (from themes to ringtones), and a 1.3 megapixel camera to boot. That's not a bad deal, I suppose. About 3 months into our relationship, Nokia 8310 started acting all strange towards me. Had I gotten too needy? Clingy? Was I not spending enough time with it? Had we reached a plateau in our relationship? Was it my weight gain of 5 pounds? To this day, I remain unsure. 90% of the time, right before hitting SEND (to send a text message) the damn thing would FREEZE. My gay friends suggested that we seek a counselor. I took it to the nearest Nokia Center and had the software upgraded, which cost me around $10. I didn't mind. The friggin' "upgrade" didn't work though. Blinded by my love for the phone, I paid another $10 to have them "re-upgrade" the software. I was under the suspicion that they might have carelessly missed a crucial step in upgrading its software. It did occur to me that I might be in denial. That maybe I needed to wake up and smell the coffee. True enough, I was *not* (This reminds me of Maury's show: You are NOT the father! lol) ready to face the fact that we were through. It still kept freezing like a bishizzle. After that, our relationship was pretty much just fighting and screaming. I knew we had hit rock bottom because towards the end, I completely lost it: I got violent. In my mind's eye I can see at least 3 times at which I, enraged, threw it against something: the wall, my car's dashboard and finally, against the floor. None of which times I was alone. The last and final straw was that it refused to give up on me when I felt that I had evidently emotionally given up on it and was ready to move on and find someone (err--something) else. It still charged properly and turned on whenever I hit the power button, which I realized was more annoying than gratifying because it continued to provoke me by freezing right. Before. I'd hit "send". My gay friends advised that the relationship obviously wasn't good for me anymore. Mostly because it was causing my skin to break out. "But its vibration feature is still good," I said. And in unison, they answered, "(edited by the Board of Censorship)." Finally, I managed to muster enough courage to end our dysfunctional non-relationship. I did what any girl in my situation ought to do: I, though almost reluctantly, took it to the nearest mall, sold it to some random second-hand phone dealer, and replaced it with a new (yet another) Nokia-brand phone that was capable of receiving coloured graphics and also vibrated well and such. I felt good about myself. Somehow. I took one last, long look at my Nokia 8310 and whispered, "I'll never let go, Nokia 8310. I'll never let go." As I left the place with a sad smile on my face (wooh! I RHYMED!) and a tear rolling down my cheek, in my mind I knew I was finally free. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 264Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90195 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nokia 8310 nokia 8310 The Bottom Line5 reasons to buy Nokia 8310: It is firmly,has record function for 3 minutes,has bright light on its keyboard,has radio function, can store more than 150 messages! Full Review I bought Nokia 8310 last year, till today, this cell phone has been my best friend. I love it though it has been it little bit out of date today when hundreds cell phone have been developed every year. I summarize 4 outstanding points for Nokia 8310 as a one year user. First good point is firmly. I am a careless person, my poorly cell phone had been fall on the floor by my mistakes for about 40 times, however, it still runs fairly well. Second great point is this cell phone has record function for 3 minutes. You can make use this function to record the important things then set a alarm clock to remind you the time. I was so appreciate that it reminds me for so many significant things that I can be on time even I want to cook something for 3 minutes. Third point is that Nokia 8310 has bright light on its keyboard. When I was on the dark, I can use the cell phone to give me lights. It looks so romantic when I turn on it at night with my friends walking on the park. Fourth point is that I can enjoy the radio because Nokia 8310 has the radio function, you can listen in the whatever radio program you like during the free time. The last point is the super message storage function. As I learn from my friends, their cell phone usually only can store 20 messages. Do you know how much message that I can store in my Nokia 8310? I had tested before it stores about 150 messages and still runs well. In fact it depends on how much information that one message contains. May be it can store more. I love this point! Since I can store the sweet messages from my boy friend. These are my opinions for Nokia 8310 and I wish people who want to buy cell phone today can get some useful information. In my opinion, the fashion is not the only point I choose cell phone, but the most important thing for me is if the cell phone suit your real needs. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 245 90194 2000/11/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small lots of features light can be too small for many people not good quality The Bottom LineSmall and weak Full Review Ok this is my first review on Epinions so i don't know if this is any good or not but hopefully someone will like it! I've now had my Nokia 8310 for over a year and its certainly one of the most practical phones i have ever owned. General I think that most people associate Nokia with great quality and design but also very high prices. Mine cost £89.99 but that was over a year ago and i have checked a few websites and found that you can now get one for around £50-£60 from most companys. Technical The phone is very small and compact and weighs around 85g which is light even by todays higher standards. The mobile phone offers GPRS, HSCSD, Wap, Radio, Language Command and Language dialling, a dictaphone that can also be used to record conversations (one of my personl favourites!), a T9-dictionary (very handy and easy to use), vibration battery, a stopwatch, a clock and alarm clock, Dualband, a calculator (also useful), and cost control, IR-interface and classic game Snake aswelll as bumper, Pairs 2 and Snowboarding. Standby is about 350 hours, and talking time about 4 hours, though less if you use the radio frequently. One cool factor is that the phone can now be individually designed with an Xpress on Cover. Design The phone is very, very small. The main menu buttons are chrome coloured and the standared cover is a semi-transparent blue. The display is 94X94 pixals and is lit by diodes. And its pretty cool that the light dims after a few seconds of standby. Sound No one could complain about the sound of this phone its simply, good. The volume has 7 different levels and so do the ringtones. The micro has an exellent quality about it. Most packages come with a head set which is useful for listening to the radio on your way to work :-) (it is also great quality and the sound is never distorted). Features The alarm-clock and stopwatch are pretty self-explanetary so i will not insult you by describing them, instead, i'll tell you about the: Wap- The 8310 uses GRPS and HSCSD as well as Wapmode 1.2.1. It dose not offer a html-enabled browser and cannot receive data as fast as phones that have a 4/1 GPRS slot but is still easily sufficient to tend to anyones needs. Radio- Its a really nice little gadget which you can store up to 20 stations on and listen to at any time that you can get a good reception which is not always easy to find but is usually pretty good. T9 dictionary- Pretty good but dose not always manage to find the words which i have entered. Ring tones- The phone comes with 35 tones and more can be easily added. Vibrate alarm and ringing act at the same time which i think is pretty good. Signall reception- Average but not brilliant. Somtimes i have had no signal when other peoples phones around me have had one but is usually pretty good wherever i am. Quality The cover is very thin and i am sometimes scared that bits of it will break off, Also, when the phone rings the cover sometimes rattles quite alot which is not really very good atall. And the on/off button on the top of the phone is very small and very hard to press especially if you have even medium sized fingers, it is also very hard to insert the SIM card, all in all i think that the quality of the actual handset is very low :-(. Summary I like the 8310 alot. It provides all the features i really need (lthough a camera would be nice!). The stand by and speaking times are fine and have never caused me any trouble. Apparently 8310's with older software versions sometimes have crashes so look out for that ( you may want to consider taking it to a Nokia-shop for a software update if you have/buy an older version) . Overall i am very pleased with this phone. Small design and easy handling make it one of my favourites However, if you're looking for a robust phone that can pick up a signal almost anywhere you may want to try something a little different. Hope you have great fun with it and good luck in finding the right phone for you if the 8310 is not quite your type, please tell me how to improve my reviews, thanks :0) Please note- I have also posted my review on ciao Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): £89.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90193 2000/3/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 good features light small will probably be obselete soon The Bottom LineHighly recommend if you want the cheaper model. Has all the features you need, with cool tones. Full Review A couple of months ago, my old phone, the "big black brick" decided to leap out of my hands and hurl itself into a brick wall, commiting phonicide. The shyte of a thing had died on me while I was chatting to a hot chick for the LAST time!!! I needed a new phone. Telstra ( Australia's biggest phone carrier ) had a great offer, where you sign away two years of your life, and they give you the Nokia 8310!!! What a bargain! It was actually a great deal, I am still happy with it :) Let me start by saying the Nokia 8310 is TINY!!! At 9.3cm long, its a little ripper! It's a great looking phone with sleek, shiny buttons, and a nice size screen. It has a very poweful vibrate, as well as a beacon of a light, which I often use to navigate around my room late at night! The Nokia 8310 comes in a variety of colors, blue, orange, grey, etc... The features are endless. Voice recording and dialling, stopwatch, calculator, alarm, infared, a calender and reminder list, plus much more. It also has a really nice FM radio, which doesn't suck on the battery TOO much. The games are krap though. Simple ones such as "snake" and "snake II", snowboarding, pinball etc. I never play them. The services my phone has are great. You can get information on sports scores, the weather, the stock market, surf report, even current news. Also, it comes with a groovy hads-free kit. This comes in handy when driving, considering we have a law where you get a $40 fine if caught driving and using your mobile phone at the same time....Barbaric huh? "I didn't even see that kid crossing the road officer, my mammy was telling me off for being late!!!" The thing I love about the Nokia 8310 is the tones. I hated my old phone, with its generic, stoopid ring tones, and getting a programmable phone was imperative! I am now the toast of the town, and beam with pride every time someone rings me. With a top song like "Just Ace", it's a chore to answer my phone instead of singing and dancing to my ring tone! All in all, it's a beaut phone! Small, light, and with good features. I am a happy camper. Recommended: Yes 90192 2004/6/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 durable stylish power button voice recording errors The Bottom LineA good phone with some novel features. Slightly more style over substance, though. Full Review It was only seventeen years ago, in 1987, that Nokia produced the world's first NMT portable phone, the 'Mobira Cityman'. In 1992, Nokia announced its first GSM mobile, 'model 1011'. Since then, Nokia has become a worldwide business success and its slogan "Connecting People" has almost become a cliché in today's society. Nokia was originally a wood mill, established by Fredrik Idestam in 1865. Since then, it has manufactured such diverse goods as rubber tyres, computers and television sets. In 1994, the presiding CEO Jorma Ollila determined that Nokia's future strategy would be to increasingly focus on telecommunications and leave old businesses aside. This was a major factor in its success today. ____________________________________________________________ Appearance and Design The 8310 has an impressive white backlight that illuminates the power screen and keypad while one is using the phone. It is powerful and effective, and lends an urban feel to the look of the phone. There is a distinctive shiny chrome surface finish on the main function keys and on the battery release, power and volume buttons. The numbered keys are made of a transparent hard plastic material, and they stand up from the keypad for ease of punching. Colored Xpress-on™ phone covers and a translucent window frame present the opportunity to dramatically change the face of the phone. The phone can thus be a novel way of expressing your personality. The phone is quite petite at 9.7 cm in length and fits perfectly between thumb and middle finger when talking. Even though the bottom of the phone only reaches the cheekbone, its short length does not compromise its ability to detect and transmit sound. The screen is rectangular and can hold five lines of high-resolution text. I do have one serious issue with the design of the 8310 - that is, the position and construction of the power button. It is located on the top of the phone and consists of a silver cap, sited in a considerably larger sunken crevice. In theory, this cap (when pressed) is supposed to make contact with yet another button positioned below it to turn the phone on. However, the cap consistently displaces itself, such that I have to remove the entire cover and casing to power up the phone. I have gone into a number of shops but they can only give me a temporary fix - they have all said it is a common reported flaw of this particular Nokia model. Beware! Features The 8310 has full SMS and non-color picture messaging capacity. SMS messages can be up to 160 characters long. There are templates for the convenient sending of predefined messages such as 'I'm at work. Call me'. Writing messages is a pleasure due to the cleverly constructed keypad and the fact that this phone has a predictive text input facility (catering for ten languages). Picture messages may be sent to compatible phones only. There is an integrated FM radio, but beware - you must buy a headset separately and these are reasonably expensive. Users may also take advantage of the available WAP internet access. Other features include a clock, calendar, to-do list (up to 30 notes), alarm, calculator, currency converter, stopwatch and countdown timer. Apparently there is a voice command facility - however, I have never been able to get it to work, despite following the instruction manual to the letter. Calls or personal dialogue can be recorded for up to 3 minutes. The battery life is excellent. I find that, with moderate usage, I only have to recharge the phone roughly every four days - that includes leaving the phone on at night also. The talk time is listed as 2h 15min to 4 h, while the standby time is superb at between 100 and 250 hours. The SIM card fits in just beneath the battery, and is placed in position via the back of the phone. The phonebook can store up to 500 names. Up to 150 SMS messages of text or 50 picture messages can be stored in a number of individual folders. However, too many messages in any particular folder (for example, the inbox) does slow down that folder's opening. Personally, I find that more than twenty text messages in any one folder is the maximum amount to ensure efficient opening of your inbox. A Games section includes Snowboarding, Bumper, Snake II, Pairs II. I would give each of these an entertainment rating of 3/10, 4/10, 8/10 and 7/10 respectively. Snake II never really did live up to its predecessor! There are 35 fixed and 5 variable ring tones. These are not polyphonic but are reasonably good quality - quite a number have a decent melodic line... The Call Management services on this phone are top notch. There is speed dialing for up to 9 names, voice dialing with 10 voice tags (as I said before, this doesn't seem to work on the phone they sold me!), last number redial, call waiting / hold / divert / timer and the ability to make emergency calls without a SIM card or key-locked phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7798 Nokia 6340i 90221 2004/6/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 easy menu navagation clock never works bugs in the software random power offs I've had two of these phones so far and both have given me trouble. The lock function stops working when you receive a call while locked then try to lock it back when done talking. With both phones I have had trouble with it randomly turning itself off. Reception isn't great and the vocal quality sucks. I have had the mike replaced and could tell a little difference but not much. Just all around not a good phone. Shell out fifty bucks and get a clamshell their loads more reliable. 90220 2003/10/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good for rural areas that do not have gsm coverage multi band the 6340i will not stay on this is a documented problem that should be addressed I returned this phone after just a few days, it would NOT stay on. It would turn itself off every night, no there is no timer, and at least 3 times during the day. After doing some checking I found out this is a very common problem with this phone. A phone that will not stay on is of no use. My old StarTac was never turned off, except when I failed to charge the battery. I expect my phone to be there when I need it and not have to check it every constantly to see if it is turned on. The signal was nothing compared to the StarTac, I would get a better signal without an external antenna on the StarTac than I could get on the 6340i with one connected. 90219 2004/8/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very clear doubles as a pda long battery life tdma gsm a little bigger than the typical phone I've been using this phone for a year now, and it is the best phone I've ever owned. It is one of only two or three phones that work in both TDMA and GSM networks. I just came back from a road trip from Florida to New York (10 states + Washington DC) and I never lost the signal or missed a call. The battery life of this phone is amazing. It lasts a full 5 days without recharging (with a couple of calls). Also, since the phonebook, calendar, to-do list & reminders can be synchronized with MS Outlook (via infrared port) I haven't used my Palm Pilot in a year. This phone has voice activated dialing, a couple of lame games and some boring ringtones. It doesn't have a color screen and it doesn't have a camera (and I couldn't care less). About the only negative is that it is a bit large. 90218 2003/12/20 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 long battery life everything else This phone is owned by myself, my husband, and my mother-in-law and we all have the same problems. This phone is very poorly constructed (the top where the on/off-switch is constantly falls off and you cannot turn your phone on and off), the reception is terrible (very high pitched ear--no matter what volume setting it's on) and (if you have Cingular) it can't be exchanged for a new/upgrade. I was very disappointed considering that Nokia is (or was) by far one of the best cellular phone makers. I found this phone to be extremely poor quality. The only upside to this phone--I only had to charge it once a week no matter how much I used it. 90217 2004/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great for traveling a dependable cellphone not too small picks up a signal everywhere sturdy hard to cut onoff button cover pops off This phone is one of the best that I ever had. Nokia is one of the best phone makers anyway. I had this phone when I was with Cingular, but I switched services and I got a free phone through AT&T . I like the Nokia 6340i better because it gave better reception, I wouldn't lose a signal at all. I dropped it like...40 times and it still worked, it was banged up alittle, he he. On the downside, the power button may pop off, and it can be difficult to turn on and off. I keep my cellphone on at all times anyway, so it does not bother me that much.This phone is simple,the menu is easy to read, and it doesn't have all that fancy crap that is unnecessary. I just like a phone that works, not a portable computer! I got a computer at home! If you want a phone and not a computer, then this is the best phone for you! 90216 2004/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 the battery life is great everything else but the battery life I've had this phone for almost a year now. My fiance' has the same phone. We are experiencing the same problems almost on a daily basis. Text messages are sometimes sent two to three times in the same instance. The phone freezes up sometimes when we are going through the menus. The keypad lock is great, but my fiance's phone will not lock sometimes. The phone will shut itself off. I've had drops during important phone calls. Cingular's solution to fix this ... a software upgrade. I can also buy another phone, if I purchase it for the one year contract price. Speaking of problems and hassles..... I discovered on my cell phone bill that when I do text message someone, I am being charged for the message that I send, but am also being charged for the messages that I receive. Bottom line..... Do not get this phone. It's not worth the hassle. 90215 2005/8/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality excellent signal performance battery life somewhat ugly color This is an excellent phone for anybody, especially those who travel frequently. My 6340i works almost everywhere, and in many areas where GSM-only phones have no service. It is a solid performer and can put up with a good beating. 90214 2004/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 voice dialing seems to work great turns off whenever it wants to resets itself bad speaker Turns off by itself, which is not good if your using for an alarm clock on the road. Always has trouble going from one tower to another. Drops calls, buttons always seem like they are about to fall off. Turned the vibrate mode off because it seemed like it was vibrating it so hard, it might of fell apart! Speaker in it is not good. I had another model Nokia before this one that I loved. Cingular "upgraded" me for being such a good customer. Third phone from them and the same problems. I am now falling to the almighty corporation and purchasing a phone because I can not stand using this Nokia any longer. 90213 2003/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 we like the clear land line quality the light weight design makes it very handy sloppy switching between transmission towers causes many dropped calls mostly when leaving a major metro After using my 6340i since Memorial Day weekend I have to admit I miss my old Nokia 5160. The company I work for asks me to travel all over the upper midwest for many days in a row. I may be driving between three or four states during the weeks trip. I have had continuous problems with poor reception and dropped calls. The phone is on its third software upgrade and has not shown any sign of improvement other than some of the convenience features work better. The external antenna on the car cradle makes no improvement. My dept. has five other people traveling with 6340i's and we all have similar problems. The last dept. meeting we decided to photograph all 6 phones being run over by a car but our communications director overruled. 90212 2004/3/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good battery life fair features fairly small turns itself off poor reception Its not a terrible phone. The battery lasts 3 days on average for me and I barely talk on it. It turned itself off constantly until I shoved torn note cards in it to hold the battery in place. The reception is the worst I have ever seen. Either it is Cingular service or this phone. Hard to turn on and off. Does not easily recognize voice commands. Faceplates are difficult to interchange and replacement keypads are junk. The top plastic piece falls out. I wish I would have payed the extra for the newer technology phone. 90211 2004/7/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nothing i can think of at the moment powers off by itself that is the worst Well, this has to be the second worse phone I have ever had. With this phone I had problems not only with dropping calls but when I had a full charge on the battery the phone would shut off by itself, sometimes during a phone call, sometimes while I would be going through the menu and sometimes just sitting on my night table all by itself. The reception wasn't very good with the phone either. The black plastic piece on top of the phone where you turn the phone off fell out several times. A couple of times I dropped it maybe a foot off of the ground onto soft carpet and it would fall out. This phone easily came apart and is a cheap make. The phone is big and bulky and awkward which makes it easy to drop. 90210 2000/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light weight downloadable ringtones web enabled difficult to turn phone offon The Bottom LineFor the average user it will be a good deal. If getting for children it is not an expensive issue if lost. Full Review I obtained the Nokia 6340i thru a phone upgrade offer from Cingular Wireless. It is about the same size and weight of my previous Nokia which was a 3360. It is easy to use its features, but if you are not careful and place it in you pocket, the phones buttons will be activated by simple pressure. It has a built-in vibration feature so there is no need to buy another battery for the phone that has that vibration feature. The ON/OFF button is located at the top of the phone and is difficult to see and feel if you utilize the belt carrier. It will take a couple of tries to get the phone turned off or turned on. Locking the cell phone keys is also a bug-a-bear, but doable. Battery life is very good and clarity is ok. If in a noisy enviorment, you may have a bit of difficulty if you don't have an earbud or lapel mike. With no antenna sticking out of the phone, there is very little to catch on, but again if you put the phone into your pocket its phone buttons will activate at slight pressure. Recommended: Yes 90209 2000/8/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 better national coverage works great on the cingular gait plan yes it is hard to turn onoffa bit bulky The Bottom LineIf you travel around the country, it's one of the best, a little bulky and without cameras, etc. but certainly worth considering. Full Review I have had the Nokia 6340i for over a year now and am very pleased with the product. We have traveled in some pretty remote areas of the United States and have had excellent coverage on Cingular's GAIT plan. I just do not understand why it is getting several negative reviews as we simply have not had any problems at all. If you are looking for cute, fancy and small, buy something else, if you are looking for a serious phone which can be depended on, I think this is an excellent phone. No product is going to be absolutely perfect as the technology has not yet gotten to the point where we have coverage in every little spot in the country and I understand that living in different areas may well cause others to have different opinions, however, my wife's phone recently was damaged and I went and bought her a Nokia 6340i, just like mine. All these phones are going to occasionally drop in and out of service areas in some parts of the country but I don't think you can find a better phone for finding available coverage as it pretty much includes all the different frequencies and modes most current providers use. Of course service will be changing and many companies are apparently more focused on using their own networks and rolling over to GSM coverage only, however, for an all around good phone, we are more than pleased. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90208 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 works as advertised outstanding battery life nokia branded weak backlight kind of rattles when vibrating The Bottom LineIf in an area similar to mine (Central NJ) there is nothing like using a Cell phone that jumps back and forth to the closest Towers (GSM or TDMA)!!! Full Review My Wife and I recently signed up for a family plan with Cingular but because prior to that we were using Voicestream with GSM based service we were disappointed with the voice quality of Cingulars TDMA based service. GSM has 'landline' like voice quality but doesn't penetrate indoors well and therefore reception is sub-par unless you are outside. TDMA on the other hand has poor voice quality (almost a tin can like sound) but has excellent reception indoors and out. Well this new Nokia 6340i is a "Gait" phone that switches between GSM and TDMA therefore giving you the best of both worlds!! And the best part about it is that it is not just hype. It really works!!!! It will pick up which ever Towers are nearer (GSM or TDMA) and use those Towers. Since using my new 6340i I can vouch for the following- TDMA voice quality has been only marginally better (but better none-the-less) than with my older Nokia 3360 and my Wife's Motorola 120T (both TDMA only phones). Also, areas where TDMA towers were scarce and I used to lose coverage/reception with my old TDMA phones now my 6340 just switches to GSM! Its awsome! And GSM voice quality has been every bit as good as with my old Voicestream service!! The 'hand-off' from GSM to TDMA or TDMA to GSM will not happen during the middle of a call. The phone must be disconnected from any calls in order for it to perform its detection of closest towers. It does this automatically. It truly is an amazing thing... Ok, that is the good. Now for the bad (well its not that bad)- I initially thought I got a faulty phone because of a few nit-picky things that were bothering me but thanks to the reviews I've read here at Epinions I see that these faulty attributes are not just particular to my phone but rather particular to these phones in general. Things I can certainly live with though! I do not like the following: When the phone vibrates it almost rattles as if it has loose parts or something as opposed to the firm and snug feel to the 3360 ringing vibration. It makes you feel like the phone is not built well but I doubt that is the case. The Led screen light is not very bright compared to other phones. No way to adjust it. When scrolling through Menu options and such there is a sluggish feel, or delay. I believe this might be do to the "dynamic memory" (whatever that means) incorporated into this phone. Last AND least. You cannot replace the cases for these phones. So if your one of these people who likes to have Star Spangled Phones, forget about the 6340i. All and all I must say that I am thrilled with this phone!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90207 2000/11/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent signal strength voice dial capabilities call clarity no 2 5 mm headset jack but this is easily fixed with a 3 adapter The Bottom LineThis phone is worth a look if call clarity and reliability are important to you. Combined with a phone that can be used world-wide and you have a true winner. Full Review I have been using the Nokia 6340i for several months now, and I have been quite impressed with everything about it. I am a casual user who uses the phone for casual personal conversations, and a few business related calls...definately not a power user, but more than "Honey, I am running late" calls: Size & Weight: This is by no means the smallest or lightest phone on the market, but it by no means is the largest either. It fits easily into a purse, or pocket, and is slim enough to avoid being bumped with your arm when using a belt clip. Style and Shape: See above. My only complaint here would be it is so thin and so smooth that it makes it difficult to wedge between your shoulder and ear for hands free operation...but that is why they invented hands free headsets. The finger grips, and general size and shape however make it convenient to hold up to your ear if you are not using a hands free headset. The buttons are large enough to allow for relatively easy dialing by an adult. One inconvenience that I have here is the lack of a 2.5mm headset plug. Instead, you have to use a special Nokia connection, so you are limited on the features of a hands free device. I did however stumble on a great buy at my local Cingular store. A $3 adapter, that converts the special Nokia connector to a standard 2.5mm plug that will allow you to use just about any hands free device on the market. Features: The Phone has a variety of features including address book, alarm clock, voice memo recorder, voice dial, infra-red data transfer (which I have found all work very well), and the capability of phone internet and connecting to a laptop computer to act as a wireless modem (I have not used these features). I am particularly impressed by the voice dial functions. It works extremely well, even in a relatively noisy environment. The phone does not have a color display, and to my knowledge does not support the use of camera like some newer models support. The onboard games are also not that exciting, but they are more than sufficient to kill a few minutes while waiting for someone. For me, these features are not that important, as I use my phone primarily to make phone calls, but for those of you who want all the latest toys on your phone, you need to look elsewhere. Now to the important issues. Call Clarity and signal strength. I can not provide enough praise in this area. The only time when signal strength has dropped below 3 bars was while I am at work, inside a metal chamber that is meant to block all RF energy. I usually am running about 5 -6 bars on signal strength. Once in a while, you will start to break up as you are passing from one cell to another, but I have never had to have someone repeat themselves because of a fading signal The only time I have had trouble connecting to the network, and staying connected was following Hurricane Isabel (but being on the east coast, there was not much that was working properly at that time!) Clarity is excellent whether using a hands free device or holding the phone up to your head. The phone sounds as good if not better than a land line. I live in the Washington DC area where Cingular has completed their GSM network upgrade. I have not yet had the opportunity to travel (knowingly) into a TDMA only area, so you may experience slightly different results in your area until Cingular completes their network upgrade. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90206 2000/3/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 incredible sound quality reception decent features nokia user interface multi networks give ultimate covarage buttons rattle a bit only available through cingular so at t customers are out of luck The Bottom LineWith GSM technology becoming the norm, the multi-network 6340i provides you with the comfort of knowing your phone will keep working despite changes in technology. Full Review If you follow the world of wireless phones you may have heard that GSM in North America is finally becoming the technology of choice and in a big way. Voicestream was the GSM pioneer in the USA, adopting the same wireless standard that the rest of the world uses. Other providers had been using technologies that were mainly USA/Canada only. Well now the big boys such as Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless are building GSM networks of there own and plan to introduce them within the next year or so. So what happens to current customers? Many will have to buy a new GSM phone. Nokia understands that this may not be a desirable option for a lot of people. What Nokia has done for us is develop a phone that uses multi-networks, which they call GAIT. The new 6340 and 6340i use traditional USA/Canada wireless technology, namely Analog (a.k.a. AMPS) and digital TDMA but combines these technologies with GSM all in one phone. I orgianlly had the 6340 which has the GSM 1900 mhz band, TDMA with both 800 and 1900 mhz bands and Analog. I have now upgraded to the 6340i which adds the GSM 850 mhz band to the others the 6340 already had. My provider, which is Cingular wireless, is now selling the phone and since the volume control switch on my 6340 was acting up I decided to buy a 6340i. The Cingular store took in my old 6340 as defective and just handed me a 6340i for free! Performance: A I'm using Cingular in Palm Beach County, FL, which uses the older TDMA technology for now. According to the rep at my Cingular store, GSM should be up and running here by August/September. Sound quality with the 6340i is excellent. The speaker volume is much better than on my two past Nokias, a 6160 and a 5165. There is no detectable hiss under any circumstances. I actually prefer to use my 6340i to my landline because the Nokia is so much clearer. The 6340i has an equalizer to adjust the sound if you like. I honestly don't think it needs one and I haven't even bothered to play around with it. Unlike past larger Nokias the volume control is located on the side where its much easier to access. Older models forced you to use the scroll buttons located on the main keypad. Reception is about the same as my other Nokias, which is to say excellent. I usually get between six and seven bars( seven is the max). Calls only seem to drop when I'm speaking to someone with a Sprint PCS phone so it must due to their poor network and not my phone. As far as talk time I average about 4 1/2 hours on a single charge and 11 days standby. That's way better than the 2 hours talk time and 6 days standby I got with my old 5165. Features: A Only a few short months ago the feature set on this phone would have earned an A but so many phones now have color screens, camaras and the like which makes the 6340i now slightly behind the times. However the truly important features are here. The 6340i and its other 6300 series siblings finally offer an internal vibrate mode. This may not sound like a big deal but just try a 5165 or a 6160 with a vibrating battery. The vibrating is weak and the battery itself cost at least $30. The vibrate on the 6340i however is very strong and its nearly impossible to miss a call even in the noisiest places. Like my old 6160 the 6340i includes a calculator and a calendar. When I downgraded to my 5165 I hadn't realized how much I missed those features. I'm now able to plan my entire week on the phone and have the phone vibrate to remind me of an important event. There are also ringing profiles that allow you to customize how your phone rings or doesn't ring as the case may be. The 6340i also includes voice dialing and commands. You can assign up to ten phone contacts a voice dialing command. Plus you can program up to five general voice commands. I switch Profiles often and this feature makes it easy. Just hit the "names" button or the low volume button, wait a second for the chirp and say " silent" or whatever you are trying to access and voila, its that simple! Its great if you tend to use your phone while driving. Also included are the usual Nokia games like Snake 2 and a new pinball game called Bumper. A new feature for the 6340i model is a screen saver that displays an analog or digital clock and the the current date. This is a nice touch and the analog clock looks classy. Since the 6340i is a GSM based phone it uses a SIM card. The SIM card stores your provider information as well as your phonebook information on a tiny plastic card under the battery cover. So in a few years when it becomes time to upgrade your phone this will allow you to do so without losing any information plus you no longer have to face the annoying task or re-entereing your phonebook! You have the ability to download ring tones, text message people, access the web and an infrared feature that lets you "beam" your business card to another phone. I guess a Star Trek style Transporter can't be too far off now! Ergonomics: A The 6340i is one of Nokia's largest phones right now. I feel that a larger phone is easier to use overall. The keypad layout is similar the outgoing 6100 series meaning there are two function keys toward the top of the main keyboard which allows you to access your menus and phonebook (which includes 500 contacts!) Below those are the Talk key on the left, the up/down scroll in the center and the end key on the right. All current Nokias use this same basic layout except for the 5100 series and the 3390/3395. The keys are large and generally feel good. It is worth nothing the keys rattle when the phone vibrates so perhaps its best to use the Silent profile at the movies. This seems to be less of an issue with the 6340i model over the older 6340 for some reason. The internal antena makes the phone more comfortable in your pocket and there's nothing to snag your keys. Overall: A I guess you can say I'm now an official Nokia guy; four in a row and all are winners. The 6340i is a very relevant phone right now since Cingular and others are converting from TDMA technology to GSM and will one day shut down the old network. Purchasing a 6340i will allow you to keep your phone for a long time with no worries of incompatibility. But with the 6340i's superb performance, good feature content and user friendliness you'll want to keep a long time just because its so good Recommended: Yes 90205 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 good features for price easy interface incredibly solid build cheesy ringtones the con that can t be overcome bulky The Bottom Line I recommend against getting the phone ONLY because it's too bulky. Otherwise, it's fantastic. Unreal battery life. Full Review I recently picked up the 6340i after switching service providers, from Sprint to Cingular. A quick word about the transfer of my service and phone number: It was a NIGHTMARE of incompetent 'service' staff and human input computer glitches. As a result, it took me nearly three weeks from the date of order to receive the phone, and a solid two days to get it in working order once I did. However, this review is for the phone, not the service. I just wanted to issue that little caveat. OK: The 6340i is clearly a phone for the basic user, which I am. It has all of the features that a typical user may want, including a huge, alphabetized phone book, wireless internet, voice dialing, one-touch dialing, alarms and calculators, and games. I particularly enjoy the 'Pass n Rush' game. I was sitting on a streetcar going across town in New Orleans...and the game came down to the final seconds. I schtoinked a field goal to win, and caught myself piercing the silcent by yelling something like, "who's your daddy!!??" at the handset. People laughed at me, but I didn't care. I love football. Anyway, I cannot imagine wanting any more features packed into a 'budget' phone. I mean, honestly, how much do you need? It's like that commercial depicting the couple at a restaurant, and the guy's cell phone is equipped with a parmesan cheese grater, silverware, and a host of other extraneous garbage. They made a great point. The Nokia's interface is stupid-easy to navigate, and it is equipped only with what you need. Even that is probably too much for the average hey-honey-it's-me user. However, I will be upgrading to one of Cingular's better phone options. This phone was bundled with the plan, and for that price, I figured that I could give it a shot, and sell it on eBay if I absolutely could not live with it. Well, I can't live with it. Why? It's too large, and too heavy. It's not that it's a moose of a phone. It's smartly and neatly designed, with good lines and none of those obnoxious colors or lights you see on a lot of budget Nokia phones. For a woman who carries a purse, or for the fashion-challenged who feel it is necessary to clip it to their belts, this is a fine model. It's also worth mentioning that a pleasant side effect of the weight is the overall feeling of the phone having been built like a tank. It really is quite solid. Nothing rattles, feels flimsy, or inspires fear of breakage. In that regard I would definitely recommend this phone for your kids or that special someone who is always breaking things (that would be me). All of that notwithstanding, if I can notice that I'm carrying the phone, I don't want it. I don't want to turn anyone off from the Nokia by implying that it's some brick weighing down one side of your slacks. I happen to be accustomed to obnoxiously tiny phones that I forget that I'm carrying. Which is the point. If I am constantly aware that there is extra weight in my pockets, I'm more apt to leave it home for short trips to the store, etc. And that defeats the point of having a cell phone to begin with. The good thing about the whole tri-band bit is that this phone will not be useless as more and more companies morph their services into this new band (can't recall the name of it). Frankly, that's all I know about the internal operations of the Nokia. That, and I have read that the phone will work anywhere in the world, albeit at a hefty roaming charge. However, roaming charges are the least of your worries when you're stranded in Oaxaca, Mexico with about $4 American dollars and a warm can of beer. I would have killed to have this phone, then. At any rate, if you have to have a small phone, I suggest that you accept this one from Cingular, pop it on eBay (they are currently selling for about $50-60), and apply the money towards one of the sexier, more expensive models that neatly slip into that change portion in your right pocket. I don't mind paying $200 for a phone if it weighs as much as the bills I pay for it with. One last thing: The ringtones are horrible. I want something in between a discreet beep and a DEFCON 1 alarm blast that makes babies cry when they hear it. Recommended: No Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90204 2000/8/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to dial large memory badly designed on off switch quits taking charge The Bottom LineDon't bother with this obsolete weakling. It will stop taking a charge. Full Review This review deals with the Nokia 6340i cellular telephone of the "GAIT" variety. It was touted as the best thing out there for widely distributed cellular telephone compatibility when I got the device in early 2005, receptive to both digital and analog service. As a Great Plains and severe weather photographer (go to http://www.skypix.ws for samples), I travel a lot to very remote places like Ekalaka MT, Paducah TX, Ulysses KS, Last Chance CO, Mullen NE, Philip SD, and other windswept bastions of days gone by. "This rocks," I thought, "I'll be able to get digital signals in the cities and interstate highways, and latch onto old analog signals from remote providers in the Great Plains." You know them -- those podunk little local outfits with names similar to Stella Mae's Cell Company and Doofusville Voice Service that gouge the hell out of you on minutes unless you have a nationwide, flat-rate, cross-carrier plan (like me). Cingular (and most other companies) dropped such analog support for newer phones right after I got this one, and switched to totally different technology (full GSM). As someone who travels a lot, for business and pleasure, I was quite pleased to be able to snatch hundreds upon hundreds of minutes of roaming, analog voice signals from the podunk phone carriers, who slammed Cingular with their outrageous roaming and long distance charges while I paid that nice, flat rate. I felt not the least sorry for Cingular, either. If they didn't want to be gouged by Stella Mae or Doofusville, they shouldn't have offered the Nation plan on that phone to begin with. Reap what you sow. Then came the fly in the ointment. This POS phone stopped accepting electric charge a little over one year after I purchased it! For awhile it was hard to charge, but some wiggling and cussing usually got it going. Then it wouldn't work off my plug-in charger at all, and a couple months later, not off my car charger either. A voltmeter revealed the battery was fine, but no charge was getting to it. The phone was less than a year and a half old! What a shoddily made piece of crap. So much for the myth of Japanese excellence in manufacturing. I ordered a replacement phone of the same type off EBay and...same problem! It wouldn't charge either. I tried the AC-conversion and car charger he sent, as well as both of my car chargers and my AC charger for the old phone. Same results, different phone. Enough is enough. I've upgraded my plan and phone. Avoid the 6340i, especially used ones. You may lose charging capability at any time, without warning, thereby finding yourself in need of another phone and another 2-year plan. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90203 2003/10/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight works just about everywhere battery life no in call timer profile selection indoor noise The Bottom LineGet this phone if you put coverage area above style. If you want the latest and greatest features this is NOT your phone. Full Review I had a Nokia 5165 for two years and I only had two gripes about that phone. 1 - it was heavy, 2 - it would not work where my best friend lives. I got the 6340i because it works on everything! All the cell phone technology that is being deployed by Cingular Wireless will work with this phone, including the new GSM that Cingular is deploying. It also works with most of my 5165 accessories. Styling The 6340i is much thinner than my old phone. It's about the same size otherwise but noticeably lighter. The display is larger and easier to read than I'm used to. My phone came with a brushed aluminum colored faceplate. It's a classy looking piece but much larger than the latest and greatest phones. Features I'm a "basic" user. I just use my phone to talk. No email, no fancy games, and I don't care about ring tones. The 6340i has more than enough features for me. It has several features that I'll never use. Useful features (for me): To do list, Calendar, calculator, volume control on the side, multi network compatibility, separate start and end call buttons, call silence and decline. Stuff I'll probably never use: Voice dialing, voice recording, infrared port, wireless internet, downloadable ring tones, equalizer Nokia relocated the power button to the top of the phone. It's also recessed just a little to keep you from accidentaly turning the phone on/off. It's a little awkward at first, but once you figure out just what angle to use it's as easy on/off as any other phone. You still have to hold it down for a couple of seconds for it to work. The 6340i has an option for turning off the annoying help that automatically pops up. There is a screen saver option that will automatically display a clock when the phone sits idle. Performance This is the whole reason I picked the 6340i. I spend a lot of time in rural areas of east Alabama and west Georgia. My old phone had a lot of "no service" areas in this region. When I got the 6340i I drove through with both phones powered on so I could compare signal strength. The 6340i consistently had a better signal than my old 5165 everywhere I went. There were noticeably less "no service" areas as well. I even have a signal at my friends house so the phone has proved it's worth! I've noticed that if I use the phone inside my house that sometimes I have a strange background noise. I've been told that GSM doesn't have the greatest quality when you are indoors. The noise comes and goes, if I move to the right spot it goes away completely. Otherwise the sound is at least as good as my old phone. When I use the headset I don't sound like I'm in a hole somewhere like I did with my previous phone. Battery life is outstanding. I charge it once per week, about half as often as my old phone. The battery is installed inside the back cover of the phone but easily removed if you wanted to carry a spare. The vibrating feature is a lot less harsh than my old phone/battery combo. I guess because the vibration function is built into the phone. It is a subtle buzz instead of an all out earthquake. Even on silent my old phone buzzed loud enough that I was afraid to have it on while hunting. The 6340i doesn't make any noticeable noise when it's on vibrate. The interface is similar to the 5100 series phones, but you have a couple of extra buttons that you have to use to navigate. Once you get used to it you can find what you are looking for easily, you'll be exiting a lot for the first few days though if you are used to the 5100's. What I dislike When you select a profile (Silent, Normal, etc) you have to press select twice. There is no call duration setting for during the call. You can set the phone up to give you a call summary at the end but you don't have the running counter while you are still on the call. Summary The 6340i is THE phone to get if you want complete coverage. It works on old, new, and newest networks so you are likely to have coverage wherever you go. If you just want a phone that works this is the one. If you have a lot of 5100 series accessories this is also your phone because you can use your current chargers, headsets, and car holders. Nokia only made this phone for a short time (I guess it's not cute enough) but you can still get if free from Cingular (with a contract, but you gotta have service anyway right?) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90202 2002/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek voice commands feature rich exceptional reception monochrome display weak backlighting The Bottom LineThe Nokia 6340i is a feature rich, 2 band phone offering the user great reception and current technology. With a color display this phone would be unbelievable. Full Review I will preface my review by explaining the one difference between the Nokia 6340 and 6340i, which is the enhanced version of the 6340. Simply stated, the 6340i has the capability to operate at 850 MHZ GSM; all the technology aside from that is completely the same, and the phones operate and are featured identically. I will explain what impact GSM has on phone operation in the review. P H Y S I C A L Looking at the Nokia 6340i is very much like looking at a slender more technologically contemporary Model 5165 with a couple of exceptions. The "Power Key" (on/off button), as Nokia refers to it in the 174-page manual, is located topside on the top left corner of the unit. Perhaps some users will find the new location more convenient, especially if you like wearing your phone on you belt clip. I suspect many users will have an issue with the new "power key" as it is ever so recessed and has no well countersunk around it to make fidgeting in the dark, to turn your phone on, easy. Those with less than petite fingers will find themselves using their nails to coax the 6340i on. It is attractive though; I'll give them that much. Powering up and off requires you engage the "power key" for at least 2 seconds. Next to the Power Key on the right is an Infrared window. Infrared technology in cell phones is a fascinating technology. With it, you now have the capability to communicate with a host of other devices including, other phones, pc's and handheld devices like a Palm. Of course the target device has to be compatible. The 6340i can be used as a wireless modem when connected to computers and Palm or other handheld devices. A Handy feature on the 6340i is the Volume Control, located on the units left outer side. Comprised of a hard rocker switch, this function is accompanied by audible and visual confirmation of your changes via a beep and 10 graduated bars on the 1 ¼" x 1 ½ " backlit screen. The Scroll Button is placed dead center below the display, flanked on the left side by a call engaging Talk Key on the left and an End Key on the right. Unlike the 5165, calls are quickly engaged and disengaged with one touch of the appropriate control. The End Key also returns the display to the Home Screen. Selection Keys are located just above the scroll key on bottom side of the display. The Keypad is backlit in green and will be considered dim for some users. The numbers appear smaller than those on the 5165 though they engage easily, without err. The Display on the Nokia phones could, in my estimation, all be much better than they are. With the onset on color technology, smaller displays do not have to be difficult to read with added contrasting color text. The green or in some cases blue screens with opposing black text can be troublesome to see in less than ideal lighting. Nokia is currently introducing some really interesting color display phones. To Nokias credit the text is larger than on most phones as is the screen. Signal Strength and Battery Charge Levels are displayed on the screen with scrolling bars on the left and right sides respectively. To the bottom, we find on the left side a Charger with the microphone in the middle and Headset, TTY Data cable (HAD-8) cable connector to communicate with PC, and handheld devices. The rear of the 6340 houses both the BLB-3 battery, which comes with an ACP 7U charger, as well as a connection for an external antenna. Charging the Nokia takes approximately 4 hours. In the Battery well there is a slot for a SIM card useful for storing telephone numbers and transferring them via Infrared or PC transmission. My overall impressions of the phones ergonomics is favorable and like all smaller phones will be uncomfortable for some users; a situation that will only continue as long as the consumer keeps demanding more compact cell technology. F E A T U R E S The Nokia 6340i has plenty of features to keep the child in us at play for many months to come. In order to manage the plethora of features the 6340i offers you need to become familiar with the rather elaborate menu and it's various options. Granted, menu surfing is perhaps the most tedious of tasks and would be best served by voice commands, but the 6340 manages the old fashioned way...scrolling. Short Cut to menu items help the endless scrolling associated with lengthy menus. Below you will get a sense of how elaborate the menu system is and how repetitive the options are for a number of the Settings and Profiles categories. It is easy to scroll into another category and lose your place if you are not paying attention, or moving too fast, or are too unfamiliar with the menus to begin with. A helpful feature here is the text assist feature that offers a definition of a particular function simply by leaving that function displayed on the screen for 10 seconds. With the sheer variety of features involved here, you need to keep abreast of un-necessary files and memory usage. The Nokia 6340i incorporates a Dynamic memory which, simply stated, is a fixed, shared memory for all the functions. Entering too many names into your Phone bank, or saving too many text messages for example, may prompt Memory Full errors when utilizing other memory-reliant functions. Name capacity is 500 names addresses on the phones memory and up to 250 additional names on the included Sim (Subscriber Identity Module) Card. Text messages are saved on the phones internal memory, and are not transferable via IR or PC Suite. The Nokia 6340i is Voice Command capable meaning simply it will dial in pre-programmed numbers simply by recording a voice message along with the number. It is a simple process that is not only a major convenience but also a safe way dial and execute up to 5 commands hands-free. You can also record memos that can be played back during a call, which I find grocery lists, I love you's, and kids voices to reflect on during my business day. Memos cannot exceed 3 minutes. I have to say, I love this feature! The Calendar feature as well as the organizer are convenient and handy from time to time, but text editing into them is tedious. The 6340i synchronizes with Microsoft outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Notes and Organizer via Wap Software, downloadable from the Nokia website. The Wallet feature is interesting. It allows you a place to store sensitive information in an encrypted environment such as debit and credit card data and PIN numbers. You can also use the Wallet feature to sign and verify transactions with a digital signature. M E N U S My purpose in showing what the extensive menus look like are not to add length to this review as they are meant to give the reader a sense of what this phone is capable of. There may be some entries that stir additional inquiry, but understand to outline all the features extend the boundaries of a review into that of technical writer of a 172- page manual. Hopefully the inclusion of the menu will serve to be thought provoking and informative as you consider your next cell purchase. Messages · Write message - an optional service allows you to create and send messages to other compatible phones by entering text via the 2,4,5,6 & 8 keys on your pad. If you look at that configuration is will appear much the way a joystick would scrolling with the outer keys and entering with the center key (5). The 6340i allows up to 450 character text messaging. · Write Email - · Inbox · Outbox · Archive · Templates >Please Call >I'm At Home >I'm At Work >I'm In A Meeting >Meeting is...>I am Late...> See you in...>See You At...>Sorry I Can/t..>I Will Be Arriving...Picture 1-10 · My Folders · Delete messages All Messages >Inbox >Outbox >Archive >Voice Messages >Listen To Voice Messages >Voice Mailbox Number · Service Command Editor · Message Settings >Sending Profile >Overwriting In Outbox >Overwriting in Inbox >Font Size The use of predictive text in this category really does facilitate faster text editing. The Nokia members commonly written words and is prompted by a rather substantial programmed dictionary to manage this function. Call Log · Missed Calls - Logs missed calls by number origin · Received Calls - Shows the numbers of most recently received calls, which is useful for current situation business calling. · Dialed Numbers - Shows most recently Dialed numbers · Delete Recent Call Lists - Displays options for clearing numbers form call lists · Call Timers - Indicates duration of calls and Profiles · Normal Select Customize >Ringing Options >Ring >Ascending >Ring Once >Beep Once >Silent >Ringing Tone (30) >Ringing Volume (5 levels) >Vibrating Alert On/Off >Message Alert Tone >Standard >Special Delivery >Beep Once>Ascending>Personal>No Tone>Keypad tones (3 levels) On/Off** Warning Tones Alert For All Calls >Family >VIP >Friends >Business >Other · Silent (same subheading options as Normal Mode) · Meeting (same subheading options as Normal Mode) · Outdoor (same subheading options as Normal Mode) · Pager (same subheading options as Normal Mode) Settings · Alarm Clock >On /Set Alarm time >Off · Time Settings >Clock >Show/Hide Clock Set Time>Time Format>24 Hour>Am/pm Auto Update date /time>On>Confirm First>Off · Call Settings Call Forwarding > Forward all voice calls >Activate >Cancel >Check Status Forward if busy (same menu options as "Forward All Voice Calls) Fwd If Not Answered (same menu options as "Forward All Voice Calls) Check Status (same menu options as "Forward All Voice Calls) Fwd When Not Able To Take Calls >Activate>Cancel>Set Delay>10sec - 30sec Fwd All Fax Calls (same menu options as "Forward All Calls) Cancel All Call Forwarding Equalizer>Normal>Bright>Dark>Loudness>Set 1>Set 2 International Prefix Automatic Re-dial On / Off Summary After Call On / Off · Phone Settings >Language>Automatic>English>Francais>Español>Portugês>Automatic>Manual>New Search Touch Tone Length>Short>Long Help Text Activation On/Off Screensaver >On /Off>Timeout On/Off · Tone Settings Ringing Options>Ring>Ascending>Ring Once>Beep Once>Silent>Ringing Tone (30)>Ringing Volume>Levels- 1-5 Vibrating Alert>On / Off Message Alert Tone>No Tone>Standard>Special Beep Once>Ascending >Personal Keypad Tones>Off>Levels 1-3 Warning Tones>On /Off Alert For>All Calls>Family>VIP>Friends>Business>Other · Security Settings PIN Code request Fixed Dialing on / Off / Number List Security Level On / Memory Phone Access Codes>Change Security Code>Change PIN code>Change PIN2 code · Restore Factory Settings Voice · Voice recorder>Record>Recording lists · Voice Command>Profiles>Voice mailbox>Infrared>Recorder Organizer Calendar To Do List Wallet Calculator Games · Select game>Snake It>Pass 'n Push>Bumper>Pairs II · Settings>Game Sounds On /Off>Game Lights On /Off Infrared Services Home Service Inbox Settings>Service inbox Settings>Active Service Settings>Edit Active Service settings>Appearance Settings>Cookie Settings>Authority Certificates · Clear The Cache R E C E P T I O N The technology known as GSM (Global System For Mobility) allows for more advanced features as 2 way text messaging and wireless Internet services. The GSM technology was first deployed in Europe. Today 65%-70% of all wireless voice networks incorporate GSM technology for its 200 KHZ channel and 3-4 times capacity over analog networks. Utilizing the ANSI 41 protocol cdmaOne, cdma2000 and TDMA subscribers can roam, making and receiving voice calls, between different wireless systems. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) is a family of technologies that divide a channel into time slots, each handling a call. In order to enjoy these advanced features, your phone must be compatible with these technologies. The Nokia connect over both GSM and TDMA networks. While I have not noticed a real difference in better reception in weak areas, reception in general is noticeably better. Keep in mind that may be a function of a stronger provider presence. The improvement was represented as a function of the 2-band 6340i. I have actually noticed I get better reception in basements with the 6340i, where it was problematic with the 5165. Here again, I cannot say it is a function of the phone itself or network. F I N A L T H O U G H T S I would imagine a great many of us have cell phones that are capable of functions we may never utilize. I have just become a convert to 2 way messaging and enjoy the benefits of keeping in touch with my office by simply glancing, sometimes inconspicuously, at my 6340i. I am still not sold on the email function as I find it cumbersome and time consuming. It is, for my use, quicker to communicate with my office, and personally call a client. It seems too easy to become detached to some old-school principles that still apply. Personal contact will always be better than email in business. That is not to say email isn't useful; it certainly has its rightful place in our society, and the Nokia 6340i delivers a useful utility here. The Nokia Website www.nokia.com offers useful user information, forums and product information. They stand behind the 6340i with a 1 year limited warranty. Accessories range from batteries to car kits, chargers and various holders and holsters. You will find a number of compatible accessories, if you own a Nokia 5100,6100 or 7100 series. My experience with cell technology since 1982 has taught me not get too attached to cell phones, as they are truly a consumable and rapidly outdated, and thus changed. I wonder when that trend will ebb? Until then, the Nokia 6340i offers a lot in the way of value and interesting features to keep you interested. Because this phone can tend to get pricey, try to get your carrier to extend a discount to you. I was able to negotiate a $79.00 deal with Cingular. Generally carriers look favorably to a trade or deeply discounted buy on each anniversary of your service contract, in an effort to keep your technology current and to keep your business. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 90201 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing compatible with gsmtdma networks recorder average display poorly designed on off switch The Bottom LineQuality brand name phone with all options necessary for all but the gadget junkies and techies among us. Full Review We recently updated our cell service to a plan offering us additional minutes and updated our phone to the Nokia 6340i at the same time. We had previously owned the Nokia 5120i and found it offered more than adequate sound and durability for several years. The return to another Nokia product became a "no-brainer" because of it's quality brand name, moderate price, slightly thinner profile and lighter weight. The Nokia 6340i is by no means, a gadget junkie's dream. It does, however, offer any option necessary for everyday use with a few cool extra features. Without spending any length of time explaining the differences, just be aware that this phone operates on either analog or digital systems. This phone is compatible with AMPS, TDMA up to 9.6 kbps or new GSM up to 14.4 kbps systems now being deployed around the country. While I hate to gloss over a rather important fact here, it is most important to note that this phone is compatible with most systems currently used by your cellular provider. Also be advised that a number of the phone choices you may be offered may not be compliant with some of the older systems, limiting your coverage areas. Please take the time to go over these facts carefully with your provider and understand the ramifications of your choice fully before making a final selection. The Nokia 6340i is not the smallest phone on the market at 3"x1.75"x0.75" and 4.4 ounces(124 grams) but it's size and weight make it easy to transport in a purse or jacket pocket. It is somewhat lighter than it's predecessor, the Nokia 5120i and has a slightly thinner profile, mostly due to the leaner battery. The size is also reduced by the elimination of the "built-on" antenna that was present on the 5120i and many of the similar older models. There is a fairly easy to read 6-line, illuminated high-contrast, 96 x 65 pixel LCD display. The display is no match for the new color screen phones such as the Motorola T720 we purchased for our daughter yet it is sufficiently backlit for easy viewing. The main menu display has both a convenient signal strength and battery power indicators. Convenient features Caller ID Message and voice mail waiting indicators One button call back for checking voice mail One button speed dial for up to 8 numbers Silent mode (Silent vibration mode) Phone book for up to 500 contacts with multiple phone numbers Last 20 number redial Voice activated dialing Wireless internet (WAP 1.2.1) Text messaging for both sending and receiving text messages Data capable for accessing email, faxes and interactive messing (optional accessories required) 30 preloaded and 10 downloadable ringtones Infared connectivity to PC and phone to phone Voice recorder Voice commands Mobile Wallet functions for electronic commerce, alarm clock, calendar, currency converter Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, and Lotus Organizer are all supported software programs for synchronization of contact and calendar information into your Nokia 6340i via infrared link or direct cable connection as well as WAP 1.2.1(wireless internet). The Nokia 6340i has an integrated voice recorder and also supports voice dialing for handsfree operation. This phone's voice command software recognizes English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. One of my favorite features is the voice recorder which allows you to record memos or conversations up to 3 minutes in length. This allows you to safely record information without having to pull off the road or try to write down important information while driving. Nokia engineers have designed a phone which eliminates accidentally being disconnected by inadvertently pushing the on-off switch. They placed the switch on the top of the phone and embedded into the phone's body. The switch is small and must be depressed for several seconds and I find it rather difficult to use. Beyond the annoying on-off switch we have found nothing else to second guess our purchase decision. This phone, in conjuction with Cingular's service, has offered clear sound and strong signal in and around the entire state of Michigan. We purchased this phone for $39.99 after a $30.00 rebate and signing up for a 2-year plan with Cingular Wireless. I decided on this phone based on price, worry-free past experience with Nokia products (5120i and 6161i) and the fact I could re-use my car plug-in adapter from my previous Nokia phone. Once you've gotten past the idea the Nokia 6340i is not the smallest phone or it's missing the bright color display, you will most likely see this phone as a true bargain and make it your final choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 90200 2000/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear as a bell this phone is very easy to usehas good reception i have found no problems with this phone The Bottom LineNokia has furnished cell phones for this household a long time and we will continue to use their products. Full Review A little while back I had the opportunity to upgrade my cell phone for free with Cingular Wireless. I have used them now for 7 or 8 years and have always enjoyed the service that I have received with them. And of course over the years I have traded phones and plans. And the service has also improved over time with more and more towers coming up everyday. I was rather pleased when I was able to update to a new phone for free. Cingular even waived the upgrade free, the s/h fee for ordering on the Internet, and free activation. They also gave me a free leather case and a free car charger for keeping my service with them. I was not under any contract at the time and in the end I still am not. So here is all about the new cell phone I got. The Product I love and have always loved and have always used the Nokia's phones. They are my favorite and in my humble opinion they work the best. The Nokia 6340i is no exception to that theory of mine. It is a slick, slim little cell phone that operates on both digital and analog systems. It only weighs 4.4 ounces and is slim enough that it fits well in my purse or I can use the clip to clip it on my jeans. It has a standard battery that works up to 4 hours talk time and 6 hours talk time and 14 days standby time and it also has 25 days standby time. The battery is a 1000mAh Li-Ion. My phone came with the Caller ID feature, message and voice mail waiting indicators, call waiting, one button call back for checking my voice mail, one button speed dialing for up to 8 numbers (which is nice). I can put it on silent mode or I can select a number of tunes or download tunes, which is what I did. Mine plays "Sweet Home Alabama" when the phone rings and "America" when I have a message. It also supports multiple languages, which I will never use but its there just in case. And I can answer calls by pressing any key except for the right selection key and end key and of course the power key. Speaking of power key, it's found on the top left hand side of the phone. Very easy to see and use. And the volume key on this phone is found on the outside left hand side of the phone. I like that a lot! There is a signal strength indicator found on the left hand side of the LCD screen along with a battery power indicator. I also have the clock set where I can always see what time it is. I also have the clock set to show up after about 5 minutes of the phone not being used. The phone book holds up to 500 names, not that I will ever use that many and I can add email addresses along with second numbers for each person. I like that a lot. I can also change my profile anytime, check for the time of calls, number of calls, clear the call log and call timers. Standard with any cell phone I believe. There is of course the personal security code feature, which is a very smart thing for any cell phone. The keypads lock and I can use my voice to activate numbers if I like. There is also a portal for a hands free speaker device. And of course wireless Internet service is available along with text messaging. Company Info Should you need to contact Nokia or want to ask them questions you can do so at www.nokia.com or you can contact Cingular at: www.cingular.com or call at 1-800-246-4852 How I Feel Like I mentioned earlier, I have always enjoyed the Nokia Cell Phones. I especially like this one because of its slimness. And it was free of course. It's easy to use as with most cell phones. I keep it charged up because I don't use it that often but when I do need it it's ready to go. Back in October when my father was so sick I used it a lot. And the months that have followed it has been used a lot. My call plan is right for me, with Nation-to-Nation free long distance and free roaming. I really like that. I am able to get a better signal with this phone. More so than the previous phone I had. We live in out in the woods and with this phone I can get a signal at my front door. That is also a nice thing. Over all I have been happy with this phone and would recommend it. I hope that this has helped in some kind of way. God Bless! ©LKD 2003 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7799 Nokia 3395 90232 2004/6/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 it came free with the service i got what i paid for What a piece of junk! I have been using this phone for almost a year and it has performed several anomalies: -The keypad has frozen to the point that I couldn't even shut the phone off for several minutes. -I have my phone set to ring and vibrate. At least once a week, when I answer the phone, it just keeps on vibrating. So while I trying to have a conversation the phone is just vibrating away in my hand. It will keep doing this until I shut the phone off. -The signal strength bar indicator will show zero or one, but when I turn off the phone and turn it back on, it shows full. I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. The thing is, it's not just me! My wife has this same model (we both use lousy AT&T "service") and a friend of mine at work has one (using Cingular) and we have all had problems. I'm taking mine back to see if AT&T will give me a different model (I'm not holding my breath that they will) as I really don't want to exchange one bag of worms for another. 90231 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy made by nokia small no color screen This cell phone has to be one of the tuffest around. I have had it now for probably about 5 years and have dropped it over and over. I have even dropped it down a flight of stairs, and it still works. It is an older model so it is no longer available, but if you want a sturdy phone, find one of these somewhere. You will love it. 90230 2000/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large font screen for visibility durable compact good storage capability excellent sound quality internal antenna can that be a con The Bottom LineExcellent phone, cheap to buy, excellent sound quality, excellent screen for visibility, durable, and light. Perfect for busy people on a low budget, looking for a quality phone Full Review The Nokia 3395 phone is an excellent phone to start out with. Let me set up an example for you. I started with AT&T 2 years ago, with a small, Ericson phone, and AT&T upgraded my phone for free after 3 months beacuse of the warantee and sent me this phone. I have enough space to store 2 numbers for every name I list, and have enough space for over 100 names, which gives me a total of about 200 stored phone numbers that I don't have to remember all the time. I can also send and recieve emails from my wireless phone and can send and recieve text messages from my phone to others on my plan. The phone itself is lightweight, and fits into a pocket or purse. It can be set to vibrate, ring, both, or silent. You can customize ring tones and download and create your own specialized ones. You can even buy customizable face plates, in case the plain black or gray isn't the right color for you. When you purchase the phone you recieve a complimentary hand's free set, making talking on your phone while at work or in your car much easier since you don't need to hold your phone up to your ear, just put in in a pocket or your cup-holder and go about your regular business. The phone has excellent sound quality and is quite durable...although I've never dropped or abused it...but my friends tell me that it survives falls and accidents quite well. If you buy a new AT&T plan, the phone comes along for free, but for less than $50.00, it is an excellent investment, I've had my phone for over a year now and it is still working perfectly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90229 2000/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 etc stylish lightweight music ringtones games fully customisable nothing yet The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone in need of a stylish and up-to-date phone. Especially teens. Full Review Where do I start?? I am a 14 year old guy, and as you people know that have teens to take care of, they have to have the latest in technology and still be stylish. Anyways, I had an older phone and it didnt look that bad, but it couldnt get music ringtones, didnt have color covers, and all the other "in-style" things the Nokia 3395 has. Since I previously had a cell phone, i had to pay full price (139.99) for the phone, but if you sign on for 2 years you get the phone for free. Well, where do I start? The phone is fully customisable so you can pretty much have a new phone every day. You can purchase Xpress covers in many a color and design. Download about any song on the radio as a ringtone (as long as you have Text messaging). This is probably the most popular phone out there now among teens. Heres some specs... X-press on covers Text messaging - wireless internet 3 hours 45 minutes of talk time 7.5 days of standby time 4.7 ounces 4.3 inchs tall 1.9 inchs wide voice dialing Downloadable music ringtones (around 40 already programmed) screensavers Downloadable games (5 already programmed) internal antenna Vibrating ring (great for school/church/movies) And thats to name a few. I am a 14 year old 9th grade student so the vibrating alert is an AWESOME feature. Also text messages are also really nice. You dont waste minutes for just saying, "Im coming home late" or "Im on my way home" I have cingular wireless, but I think you can get Nokia phones with other cell phone providers. If you have any questions feel free to email me at AbercrombieAF179@yahoo.com or aol IM me at abercrombieAF179 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.99 90228 2000/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use buttons no antenna menus bright backlight small durability The Bottom LineAlways remember that you get what you paid for; in this case only 14 months work of service. Full Review When you consider that most people receive this phone as a "free" promo (free in the sense that they usually have to pay a 19.99 connection fee) when they sign up for a year's contract, you have to ask yourself, "Is a free phone too good to be true?" In this case, no. This phone is a good all-around phone that should only last a year and a half at most. I've owned two of them, each lasting a little over a year. I'm just glad that I didn't actually have to spend much money on them. I've used cellular phones for about seven years, and I've never had anything but a nokia phone. If you've ever used a cell phone you know that it has the standard menus that any basic phone has: Phonebook, Messages, Call Log, Profiles (Nokia's menu for customizing your phone's ring tones and settings), Settings, Games, Calculator, Calendar. The Calculator can come in handy, but the calendar is very difficult to navigate and wastes more time than it will save you. Profiles is very useful for putting your phone in a silent mode. Battery life is somewhat short, but can be extended by buying a larger-capacity battery. Here are the specific capabilities of the phone that may influence your buying behavior: Caller ID: Yes Call Waiting: Yes Text Messaging: Yes Data Capabilities: No Voice Mail: Yes Voice-activated Dialing: Yes (Don't expect it to work) All-in-all, this phone does exactly what it is supposed to do-be a phone. This is not the phone for you is you like dropping this or you want to send an e-mail. Also, don't expect to be making any kind of fashion statement with a Nokia 3395. After all, everyone and their moms have a Nokia 3395. Let me reiterate: This phone is exactly what I expected for 19.99-it worked for almost the exact length of that service agreement (long enough to make me commit to another 12 months for another new phone). Recommended: No 90227 2000/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 user friendly lightweight small size none that i have found The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone for anyone in the market for a cellular phone. Full Review I recently decided to upgrade my cellular phone. So, I went to my local dealer to find out what they had to offer. I looked over quite a few models and chose the Nokia 3395 in the end. After all, I had a Nokia phone and never had any problems out of it. Why did I choose the 3395? Well, that was pretty easy. You see, I'm cheap. I don't like to spend money on things I don't need (or things I think I don't need). But, I believe I need a cell phone. So, with the suggested price of this phone being only $99, I had to take a look at it. After all of the rebates, I ended up getting it for free by signing a 2-year contract. What do I like about the Nokia 3395? 1. The weight. This phone actually weighs about 1/4 of a pound. If you carry it on your belt, you will almost forget it is there because it's so light. Ladies, you won't even know it's in your purse. 2. The small size. The Nokia 3395 is only about 4 inches tall and about 1.5 inches wide. it is small enough to fit in your pocket or to take up very little space in your purse. And, for those of you like me, it can be hidden in many different places in your car. 3. It is very user friendly. Some web sites are calling this a great teen phone because it is so easy to use. Well, I will say it is a great phone for those of us who are a little past our teen years. The instructions are very easy to read which makes the phone simple to use. Is there anything I don't like about the Nokia 3385? Not really. When I got this phone, I thought I really needed one that is web-enabled. Now that I have it, I don't use it nearly as much as I thought I would. It is very handy, but not a necessity. Other features of the Nokia 3395 The other features that are nice to have include voice dialing for up to 8 numbers, 2-way text messaging, downloadable ring tones (these can be very fun), and an internal antenna. In a nutshell, the Nokia 3395 is a great phone for just about anyone. It is inexpensive, easy to use, and can be used by a range of people varying from the person who only wants a cell phone for emergencies to the cell phone junky. Recommended: Yes 90226 2002/6/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to handle easy to use no auto redial yet The Bottom LineA well made product that given proper care should last indefinitely. Full Review I am now the proud owner of the new Nokia 3395!. I couldn't be more pleased. I was so tired of the Nokia 5190 and the loose battery pack problem ! Nokia addressed the problem on subsequent models and fixed it. I was due for an upgrade and went in and this is what everyone in the store recommended. Ease of Use: If you've used Nokia cell products before it is the same functions. If you haven't don't let the manual intimidate you. As with most gadgets there is more on there than 75% of us ever need to know. This little phone will truly do it all if needed.(trying to find the section on cooking my dinner LOL :) I am still finding out new things to have it do. I personally do not use it for internet or email. I need the "phone" that's it. I have used and think that the text messaging can be fun and the small $.10 cent charge my carrier charges me is a nice way to say "Hello", or "Call Home", or "I Miss You" without having to leave a voice mail or get tied up on a call you don't have time for. Size: Perfect. lightweight. I had to have the "buttons" changed to a neoprene/non-slippery type due to my nails, but size is fine, easy to dial and excellent volume control. Fits nicely in my brief case or my purse. I do suggest that you use the "Lock Key" feature since I do have a tendency to bump it and it dials God only knows who. NO complaints. Seems durable, well made, and in keeping with the Nokia reputation is top of the scale for available features and functionality. I would recommend this phone to "family and friends of any age. It will do the job and then some. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): tax only 90225 2000/8/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 better battery buttons more personal ringtones internet bigger screen uses old nokia stuff profiles did i mention ugly looking bigger than the 8290 The Bottom LineIt';s a decent phone, but I';m waiting for the next upgrade. It';s not as suave and sleek as the 8290 was and the key layout sucks. Full Review As cell phone companies try to lure more people into signing up for their products, I decided to join the bandwagon and upgrade my phone. I've been a Cingular customer back in the day where it was Pacific Bell Wireless and offered much better service (you can see my opinion on Cingular Wireless to find out more of my beef there). I'm assuming only Cingular doles on the 3395 while AT&T advertises a strikingly similar phone, just with minor different features. So for $9.90 (the tax for the regular price of the phone), I got to keep my old phone and get my new, standard gray colored phone. Yep, that's right. No more high fees for upgrading like we all had to pay when we wanted to get rid of our 5190s and 6190s. You must be asking did I sign away my soul in order to get the 3395. No! Knowing that I would be a Cingular customer for the next two years because I want to keep the same number, I had to assent to a 2 year contract. The good thing about signing this 2 year contract is that there is only a $150 cancellation fee if you cancel the contract before its termination. Otherwise, you're free to upgrade or downgrade your plan, whereas before, you were also penalized if you downgraded your plan. The plans Cingular offers now are decent. Can you really use up the 3500 free night and weekend minutes? The bad part is that nights and weekends used to start at 8pm and end at 4 or 6am (can't remember), but now it's 9pm to 7am. But this might be good option for you night owls and vampires out there! Cingular also has gotten rid of included text messaging - now, you have to pay 10 cents for every message you send or receive. At first, I felt I was being gipped, but then again, I only send and receive at most 10 messages a month, and that's only a dollar. Now, about the phone itself. The body is made out of a cheaper plastic than the other ones (or so I feel), so it feels like legos put together. The phone clarity, so far, is not that much different from the 6190 or 8290. I feel phone clarity has much more to do with the wireless service provider, and Cingular access ain't too great in certain areas. It has new games (i.e. Snake II and some space invader game), but I never play the games anyway. It has a new option for Internet access called "Services", which I am not going to use because I don't want to pay the extra charge for Internet access. It also has a new feature called "Composer", where you can write your own ringtones. Neat, but I'm musically challenged in this department. No fear, because some musically inclined people have made their compositions available on the Internet and you can just follow their lead and punch in the correct keys in the correct order. The other features are the same as the 8290, just with different animated menu appearances. There is the standard calculator and calendar, vibrating pager option, etc.etc. but the yummy part is that you can add in more profiles of your own as well as store more than 5 personal ringtones. Also, there are numerous animated and non-animated screensavers you can select to appear on your phone screen, which works just like a computer screensaver. There are also slots where you can download and save your own screensaver. There phone itself is bigger than the 8290. For girls, this means less portability. It's 4.7 ounces. Nokia compensates for size first by putting in a bigger battery for more talk time. The included battery allows (it claims) "UP TO 3 hours and 45 minutes of talk time and 180 hours of standby time." The second compensating feature Nokia did was putting in a bigger screen (84 by 48) and bigger keys. (I guess a lot of guys were complaining about hitting multiple keys at once on the 8290, but I didn't have any complaints.) The one complaint I have about the keys is that it's a big change from the menu keys I had on my 6190 and 8290. The scroll key used to be in the middle, with the call and hang up keys to the left and right, and you could use the left key as the menu key. Well, on the 3395, the scroll key is to the right, and the middle key can call, but it also hangs up. It's also the menu key. The left key is just the clear key, but not the hang up key. This was the first time I actually had to whip out my manual and figure out what the hell the keys did. Did I mention there's no volume changing key either? I can't figure out (without using my manual) which keys to press to lower or heighten the volume. HELLO! BRING BACK THE OLD MENU - THIS ONE IS VERY UN-USER FRIENDLY ESPECIALLY FOR US LAZIES WHO DON'T LIKE FLIPPING THRU MANUALS!!! I hate it when companies decide to minimize complexity of the product itself by integrating numerous features into one key. Like how Word put spell check and grammar onto one option - what if I only want to check one and not the other?!?!?!? I don't know what compelled Nokia to switch back to this older key type, but it sucks. I hate it. There's no antenna on the phone, and it's a really, really ugly phone. I feel like I'm talking into a depressed 80s television remote control. The keys are light gray, the case is a medium gray, the trim is a lightest gray - common, cheer up a little bit, phone company! Only the middle call/hang up button has a baby blue line across the middle. But I plus is that I can still use my old Nokia accessories. The downside is that the 3395 only comes with a house charger, and NO headset - I think I have like four chargers now. I thought the companies were trying to promote safer cell phone use. No included headset means I have to go out and buy a Nokia headset because it lasts longer than the generic brand, but that also means another $30 something I have to shell out here. Alright, who was the final decisionmaker in finalizing all the options of the 3395? Part of me would like to give him a piece of my mind. (Grumble.) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 9.90 90224 2000/7/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small stylish full of features convenient user friendly none The Bottom LineIf you want a reliable, super lightweight and stylish phone to carry around, the Nokia 3395 is the best you can find with your service Full Review If you work out of your home or take classes at the local community college or university, you need a cellular phone for your own safety. It's a jungle out on the streets. Only the strong and safety aware people will survive. Besides work-related reasons why you may need to use a cell phone, it's the cheapest way and most reliable way to stay in touch with your loved ones. That's what I have always known about the prevalence of cell phones. When my wife resumed work, I figured out that she would need a cell phone. She got the Audivox that she liked a lot because it was slim and lightweight. Then, she needed to upgrade a little bit. So we shopped around for a good service plan. $36.00 per month on a 2-year contract with the Cingular Wirelss How did we get to use the Nokia 3395? First thing first, we did not like the service plan we had with our first company. So after reading so much about Nokia and Cingular wireless, we decided to take the jump. We have been pleased with their service except for a few occasions when we would get busy signals due to overload in peek hours. This phone comes free with the signing of a two-year contract with Cingular Wireless. Even after my wife had used her first Nokia phone for 5 months, she could still go down to the local office to get a new one. Our son who likes talking to his grandmother had dropped and broken her phone. Free service hours on the weekend If you have family members who live in other states, kids attending out-of-state university, this service plan is a good investment. Comes week-end, you will be able to speak as much and as long as you want with them. Make sure you select a good plan and you will enjoy the use of a great, customized cell phone. "The Nokia 3395 is sold for use on Cingular Wireless Systems. It may not be compatible with other wireless systems. In my mind, that's another drawback. No matter how much you would like to keep the phone, if you don't have Cingular Wireless service plan, you will have to discard it. What's good for the manufacturer may not be good for the user. It's probably an effective way for the firm to control bootlegs and piracy. But, in the end, you can imagine how many discarded Nokia are out there. Let's take a look at the features of Nokia 3395 It comes with a light leather cover and has text messaging It measures 4.7 ounces and is 4.3 inches tall and 1.9 inches wide. Other features include but are not limited to the following conveniences: Battery time: up to 3 hours 45 minutes of talk time 180 hours of standby time voice dialing Downloadable music ringtones (around 40 already programmed) screensavers Downloadable games (5 already programmed) Internal antenna Silent Mode/Vibrating ring (an interesting feature for school/church/movies/work etc.No annoying phone calls at conferences and other important or no-phone-use meetings) Caller ID Message and voice mail waiting indicators Call waiting One button speed dialing for up to 8 numbers The phone supports multiple languages (a great feature for text messaging with family members who may speak other languages) Can answer calls by pressing any key except of course Clear key Great memory features (You can redial easily the last ten numbers. This may explain why our kids can call their grandmother at the push of a button) Great display features (They are easy to use. The animated screensavers are great here; graphical display of 84x48 pixel; battery power indicator In terms of safety and security features, the Nokia 3395 offers the use of personal security code, keypad lock and portal for optional handsfree device. Other important features Wirelss Internet You can send and and receive text messages to other Cingular subscribers What are some of the features of this phone? What's so hot about it? Games with vibra-shock 35 ring tones. Most teenagers love them. Picture messaging Voice activated dialing is very useful in many occasions Predictive text input Changeable color covers, front and back Recommendations The Nokia 3395 is a great phone that you will have lots of fun using in all your activities. It's a must have for any parents, single parents and students. Teenagers love them because they are stylish and cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90223 2000/11/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has many features it s lightweightdoesn t require much storage room so buttons may accidently get pushed keypad is sensitive The Bottom Line For those of you that are looking for something with a lot of useful features I highly recommend the Nokia 3395. Full Review Our contract finally expired, so we decided to trade in our Motorolla cell phones for the popular Nokia. Because I am "technically challenged" I expect that it may take a while for me to learn how to use all of the features that my new Nokia cell phone offers! I've already read through the user guide a few times, and I'm still having a little difficulty understanding how everything works! But, I do not fault the actual phone for my own ignorance. It still amazes me that something so small can do so much! This nifty gadget fits in the palm of my hand, yet has many many functions. Some of the features of the 3395 model include the following: * Phone book which stores all of your important numbers. This feature allows you to dial by using a "voice command", or by using 1-touch dialing. You can also do an easy search for a specific person's phone number. * Messages. You can leave a voice mail message for incoming calls, or send a message to someone else. You can opt to send a voice message or a text message. * Call log. Allows you to see how many calls you've received, or how many calls you've missed. * Profiles. With profiles you can select the volume of your rings, ring tones, keypad tones, vibrating alert, screen saver, and more. * Settings. The 3395 offers a clock and an alarm clock (which I, personally, find useful.) * Forwarding. This function lets you forward calls for several different reasons. * Games This is great for those times when you are waiting in the doctor or dentist's office! There are 5 games to choose from including "snake II", "space impact", "bumper", "bantumi", and "pairs II". * Calculator. Handy in the grocery store! * Calendar. I love having a calendar at the my fingertips. And you can even make notes or reminders! * Composer. This nifty little feature allows you to compose your own ringtones! There are many accessories available for the Nokia 3395. Some include: * Travel charger. * Mobile charger. * Desktop stand. * Spare battery charger. * Mobile holder. * Headset kit. * Express car kit. * Leather carry sleeve. * Microfiber carry sleeve. You can also purchase changeable faceplates to "jazz" up or personalize your phone. These can be found just about any place Nokias are sold, or you can find them very reasonably priced at ebay.com. In fact, I purchased several faceplates on ebay for stocking stuffers for my daughter and husband! Just be sure that you are purchasing the correct model number for your specific cell phone or the faceplate won't fit. Another really fun extra is downloading ringtones from the Nokia website! For only .99 each, you can download from many different tunes. Currently, I have the theme from "The Godfather" on my cell phone. I'm really enjoying my new toy, but I know it will take a while for me to learn how to use it to it's full potential. Personally, I don't really need something that offers so much. I just want to be able to make a phone call when I'm away from home, or in case of an emergency. However, my husband and daughter are both taking advantage of all the Nokia has to offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 90222 2000/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features so small it fits in your pocket great sound voice recognition dialing is unreliable The Bottom LineA great little phone with lots of features. Full Review I have finally entered the digital world of cell phones. Yes, it's true I am one of the last people on the planet to own a cell phone. When I finally decided to make the leap into cell phone territory I new I wanted a Nokia. I know several people who have Nokia cell phones and they seem to be reliable and user friendly. I purchased the Nokia 3395 at Best Buy during one of their cell phone specials. The phone was $34.99 with a $25 mail in rebate. What a deal. Yes, it was the cheapest phone they had but it looked just as nice, if not nicer than some of the others. I liked the looks of the Nokia 3395. It had just the essential buttons, clear, numbers, and arrow buttons. I also liked the layout of the buttons. I had looked at a couple of phones that had the number buttons in the funkiest of spots. I thought this would not make for convenient dialing. Features Once I got my new cell phone home I plugged it in to begin charging the battery. The first few charges take awhile to get it up to full speed. I noticed after the 3rd charge it started holding the charges longer. They do recommend letting it drain completely those first few times, which I did. While the phone was charging I decided to review my manual and explore the features. The manual was very easy to read and follow. Keep it handy because you may want to refer to it as you learn this phone. It has a lot of features. •Phone Book:is is where you can store phone numbers and manage those phone numbers with some of the other features. •Ring Tones: There are several ring tones that you can assign to people in your phone book. For instance when Trish (bryrrose) calls me it plays the Mexican Hat Song, it reminds me of Margarita's which reminds me of Trish, LOL. When my husband calls me, it plays the Buffoon, that's just because I thought that was funny. Of course if the caller has their phone number blocked it will just play the standard ring tone. There are about 18 ring tones already programmed into the phone. Through Cingular Wireless (my carrier) you can download other ringtones (10 cents each) to be sent to your phone. •Voice Tags: This allows you to assign a voice tag to a phone number so it can automatically dial that number. For instance, if I wanted to call my husband I would speak into the phone "Call Hubby" and his number will automatically dail. •Messages: Voice mail is automatically displayed on the phone. You just hit the button to listen to messages. However, you can also receive text messages and send text messages on this phone. You will need to make sure that is part of your cell phone plan. •Call Log: The call log will tell me who has called me, what calls I have missed, and who I have called. You can clear all the numbers out very easily (which I recommend doing in case your phone gets lost or stolen---Grandma won't appreciate calls from strangers). •Profiles: This sets the volume of the phone. It can be normal, discreet, or silent. You don't want your phone ringing in the movie theater, that's just rude and uncalled for...no one is that important! •Settings: There are different settings on the phone. I haven't played with these too much but they include a clock, an alarm clock, call waiting, caller id, and things like that. This is where you can turn those features on or off. •Call Forwarding: This enables you to forward calls from your cell phone to another phone. Again, in order for this to work you will need to make sure it is included in your cellular plan. •Games: As if I have time to play games on my cell phone. Honestly, I don't know who thought of this, but my hubby thanks you. He has a Nokia phone also, but he swears that my phone has better games. There is a pinball game, snake, Space Impact, Bantumi, and Pairs. I haven't played many of these games but they include instructions, high scores and the usual game stuff. •Calculator: Always handy when you are out and about. •Calendar: For busy people who need to keep track of their busy social calendar. What I Like About This Phone This phone is quite handy. It fits in the palm of my hand, fits nicely in the console of my car, fits in my pocket, and fits nicely in my purse. It is small and compact. It has a built in antennae so there is no antennae sticking up. The grey phone has a nice sleek look and matches the interior of my car nicely. It's going to match my lifestyle as soon as I find a Chicago Bears faceplate for it...it's football season in case you didn't know. I like that it has a key lock feature so if my kids get a hold of it they can't call Australia, or accidentally dial 9-1-1, that would be bad. It also keeps it from dialing in my purse or when hubby has it in his back pocket and sits on it. There is an additional security feature that locks the phone with a code. This prevents people from getting ahold of your phone and making calls. I highly recommend using this feature. What I Don't Like The only thing I don't like about this phone is that the voice recognition dialing isn't very reliable. You have to use the same tone of voice and make sure there is no background noise when trying to get it to dial by voice only. I am almost always with kids so the odds that there is no background noise is slim to none. I find that this feature is pretty useless since it only recognizes the same tones, if your a monotone kind of person this might work well for you. I have been very pleased with my Nokia 3395. It is easy to handle, the reception seems to be very clear and crisp. As a matter of fact I can hear more clearly on this cell phone than I can on my cordless phone at home. The phone is easy to use and understand. The Nokia 3395 has a great battery life. It is supposed to last for about 3 hours of talk time. I use my cell phone only in emergencies or very seldom. I usually charge my phone on the weekends and the charge will last all week. I do not use the phone on a daily basis, but I do leave it on continuously and have had success with the battery staying charged. I recommend the Nokia 3395 if you are in the market for a new cell phone. My husband is trying to get work to buy him a new one. His phone is a couple of years older and a bit bigger. I call him Jealous!~ Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 34.99 7800 Nokia 8390 90249 2004/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small easy to use compact face plate changeable monophonic ringtone reception not good no colour background This was my first cellular phone, it's easy to use and compact. However, it frozed on me sometimes and it's dual band without colour background. Most of the time, the reception is not good. And you can't find ringtone for the phone anymore, since it's still monophonic. 90248 2004/2/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small lightweight poor quality low volume bad reception I had the Nokia 8390 for a year and i hated it. It would not save my phonebook on the SIM. the reception is poor and it has bad reception. It also won't get the time of the satellite, you have to set it yourself. I think that this is one of the worst phones that Nokia has made. 90247 2000/11/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 many functions small stylish background noise lack of color volume reception The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a phone with tons of functions that's affordable and stylish, the 8390 should definitely be considered. Full Review I got this phone for free after a $100 dollar rebate promotion AT&T was having. The Pros The phone is indeed extremely small. I switched from a Motorola V60, to the 8390 a year ago, when it was fresh off the market, so the white LED lights, small size and stylish cover appealed to me. The numbers on the keypad are not printed on a rubber keypad, rather they are embedded inside the plastic keypad, making it impossible to have a keypad with rubbed off numbers, a problem I had with the older 8260. With Xpress-on covers you can easily change the look of your phone quickly, unlike the older Nokia's like the 8260 and 5150 models where I would sit tediously trying to undo the tiny screws in the phone, put back the phone, and find out I forgot to put something vital back in.. The battery life on this phone is great, it lasts up to 400 hours (16 days) on standby, and up to 4 hours of talktime, so you don't have to worry about your phone dying on you. You can also browse featured websites for news, stock quotes, yellow pages and more with the WAP browser on the phone. The phone includes a couple of games for you to play when you're bored out of your mind, like say in a doctors office. The games are Snake II, Snowboarder, Pairs II, and Bumper (pinball). I personally was addicted to Snake II and was constantly trying to beat my own high score. The phone also comes with Infrared capabilities, which you can use to send and receive phone book entries, or play games with other phones that also have Infrared capabilities compatible with the phone. The Cons While the small design is cute and fun, it can sometimes be a disadvantage. The antenna, located on the back of the phone, was not that great of receiving any signal. A small phone is also prone to being lost and misplaced..an issue I know all too much about. The volume on the phone could use a boost, considering I would always missed calls, but the vibrating function does help. With all the new color phones coming out it would be disappointing to buy the 8390 with its lackluster screen, but if having no color and having color makes no difference to you, then of course it wouldn't matter. The phone also was prone to picking up background noise. I would be on the phone while my t.v was on (at a very low volume) and the person on the other line would ask if I was deaf and wonder why the t.v was up so loud. A normal conversation outside my door would be mistaken for a party. The On/Off button is difficult to press. I'm not sure if it only happens to a few people, but every time I try to turn on/off the phone, I have to put more effort than I should into it. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90246 2000/9/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice styling features a lot of programing bugs tones a very quiet The Bottom LineSee body of review. Its OK. Full Review As a previous user of the Nokia 8290 I was very excited about the 8390, not anymore. The 8390 is a good phone but it does have its own share of problems. The first thing you notice about the phone is its very impressive looks and white lights. They are very cool. As you scroll through the menu you should also notice the plethora of menu options. This phone does not lack any features. It seems like a great phone, but it is not. I have always used my phone for my alarm clock but not anymore. The first day that I had it I over slept by 2 hours. The key pad and tones are unbelievably quite. Even on high you can hear a button push at arms length. This transfers over to the tones. The next thing that I didnt like about it is how it will lock up on you if you move to fast. Nokias have always been locked by pressing Menu then *. If you move to quickly on this phone it will freeze. You then have to remove the battery and reboot it. The only problem with removing the battery is that obviously this phone has no internal backup memory for the time of date. Everytime the battery is removed you have to reset the time and date. This get to be a problem because I have three batteries that I rotate through. Well I did for my 8290 anyway. Now I will only have one. This phone is also a little thicker than its predecessor. Not by too much though. Overall I dont really like the phone but unless I want to spend another $250 I will learn to like it. The problems that I have had with the phone are miniscule really but they are some of the main features that I look for in a phone. This phone does not do what I need from my phone but for someone else who wont use the alarm or will only use one battery I think that you will be happy with this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 90245 2003/1/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek look small size quiet ring mediocre reception The Bottom LineI would go for this phone if you're looking for something really compact, otherwise I might look elsewhere. Full Review I bought this phone wanting something I could keep in my pocket, and the 8390 certainly fulfilled that part of the deal. However, and especially with the phone in my pocket, I often can barely hear incoming calls, despite the ringer being set on high. If you were going to keep the phone on a belt clip this probably wouldn't be a problem, but in a purse or pocket, I find the volume inadequate. The only problem I have with this phone's size is that it is too small to cradle on my shoulder - though one could always get an earpiece, and I feel that this shortcoming is well worth it, given the tiny size of the phone. Also, I have used other Nokia phones in the past, and all have had better reception than this one - even in places where I get near perfect reception with other models, the 8390 sometimes gives me static, or drops out completely. When I do get good reception (especially outdoors), the sound quality is certainly fine. Finally, and though this doesn't bother me terribly, the keypad and battery cover doesn't seem to be as sturdy as other cell phones I've used, though perhaps this is a unit-specific problem, rather than a general problem with the 8390 series. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90244 2000/5/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 very bright light small size very user friendly countless other things horrible reception very quiet ringerspeaker The Bottom LineDon't buy this, don't even use it if someone has it and you need to make a phone call. Too many disconnects coupled with low volume and really bad reception. Full Review I've had a cellphone for about 5 years now, and it's safe to say every phone I've had before this one was a lot better. Don't let the size and the "features" fool you, this phone is not worth the money. Let's start with the good things. The phone is very small and light. The blue light it gives off is very bright, and at night I have no trouble finding it when it rings (that is.. IF it rings, more on that later). Also, I've used the phone many times as a flashlight of sorts to help me find keys or a remote control or anything I can't normally see in the dark. SO..it really does make an excellent flashlight. It is easy to use, everything is very user friendly, and easy to change around. It holds a lot of names and numbers, and while the buttons are very small I've never had trouble dialing the right number. Now the bad. The reception is horrible, I can't even use it in my basement. Or in a store, or sometimes just walking down the street. I know it's not my carrier (Rogers AT&T) because my friends use them and their phones all work fine. Also, many times I'll dial, only to hear the phone ringing, and then when the person picks up, the phone disconnects me. Countless times I see a message saying "service unavailable" when I dial a number. Sometimes it takes a whole 2 or 3 minutes for the phone to connect me to someone. The ringer volume is way too low,even on the highest setting, so it needs to be on vibrate, so I can feel it ringing in my pocket, or hear it shaking on my table. The weird thing is that when you go to set it to the highest setting it asks if I'm sure that I want the loudest ringer, as if it's going to be TOO loud. But it isn't...not by a long shot. The speaker also is far too quiet, once again, even on the maximum setting. I can barely hear people most of the time. ALSO they can barely hear me I often have to put the phone up to my mouth, away from my ear, for people to even hear me. My friends and family try calling me on the phone, and half the time the phone won't ring...AT ALL, and I won't get "1 missed call" on my screen, even though on their end they hear the rings. IF the phone connects, they usually try calling back later when I'm at home simply because the phone either disconnects me, or one of us can't hear the other. HORRIBLE PHONE. ATROCIOUS. ARG! Overall, the phone is garbage, get anything...ANYTHING, over this, 2 cans attached to a string would get you better reception. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90243 2000/3/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable compact features looks battery may be too small for some people The Bottom LineA cheap, durable, reliable, fashionable phone. Full Review I bought this phone a year and a half ago, on ebay. I loved this phone because it had the nice back white light, the changeable express on covers, the features, the design, and the light-weightedness. It is a pretty small phone that weighs about less than 3 ounces, that is very light. And the dimensions aren't too big either. About 3.78 inches long x 0.75 inches thick x 1.69 inches wide. The only bad thing about it being small is that you can drop it easily, other than that, it is a very portable phone you can easily carry around. The features on this phone is basically like that of the older nokia phones, such as the 8290. But, the 8390 is much much easier to use, not to mention, much better looking. It has the standard messages, call log, alarm clock, calculator, etc.. but the extra features are the different games, the ability to go online(with a carrier that provides a subscription of course), the voice dialing, voice recording, and a few more new features. The voice dialing, to me, is kind of buggy, because you have to say the name quite slowly so that it actually reads what you're saying. Also to add, previous nokia phones could compose their own ringtones and send it but this model cannot, this model can only download up to 5 ringtones, but you can delete the downloaded ones if you want. The talktime.. the listed details on sites about the phone, to me, is usually false. It says it can stand by to about 16 days and have talk time of 4 hours. To me it was not true, I usually talked about 20 minutes a day, and I had to charge once every 4-5 days, but then, the battery wasn't fully depleted, it was down to 1 bar or so. Though it is not exact to what the facts say, the battery life is still far greater than many phones. I now own a Motorola v600(for about a week and a half now) and I had to charge 3 times already. Nokia is very good when it comes to battery life, and charging is a hassle, especially when you're away from home often. What else can you expect from a phone? This phone is about 1 1/2 years old, and it is still a very good phone, though it does not have color, it is durable, reliable, and fashionable. I dropped this phone so many times, and it still works fine. It's reliable in terms of battery life, unless you talk like mad. Fashionable because it is small, changeable covers, and especially the backlight. And the price for this phone is very cheap, less than 100$ for a brand new one, not many phones out there offer as much as this one does. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90242 2000/3/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear screen bright simplequick access to features low volume The Bottom LineIf you like Nokia you'll like this too. If you want your phone to be a phone and not a camera this is a very practical and user-friendly phone. Full Review When I changed cellular service provider I chose this phone because I had the Nokia 8290 and I wanted to easily transfer my phone numbers. I thought it would be as simple as transferring over the chip form my old to my new phone. Of course, the chip is usable only with phones from the same cellular operator. Still, I was able to transfer the numbers using the infrared functions of the phones. It was a tedious process transferring each individual number since I had close to a hundred people in my phone book. Still, it was quicker than having to enter them manually. It's a pity there is no way to transfer multiple records or a "send all" feature. There are several new functions to the 8390 that are nice. All aspects of the phone book are more sophisticated, for instance you can store multiple numbers for each of your contacts and they can be classified as General, Home, Mobile etc. Searching for a name is better and quicker too and you can get to someone's entry by fewer keystrokes than on the older model. The phone is very good looking and the back light is very, very bright. The 8290 looks like it's broken when viewed next to the 8390!! I don't care that it's not a colour screen. It's a phone not a television! My only reservations about the phone are the volume and the pressure sensitivity of the keys. The old 8290 could be adjusted rather more in volume and in some quiet surroundings I could even pick up my voice messages without lifting the phone to my ear! I can't do that with the new phone. The keys on the 8390 are a little harder to press (although they are much easier to see) than the 8290. I don't agree with the complaints that the keys are too small. With a large screen and small phone, that's all the space that's left. I have quite large hands but if I had very fat fingers I suppose I'd have a problem then. This is the sixth cell phone I've had over the last 12 years or so and it's the first phone I didn't spend hundreds of dollars for! So I'd say it was the best buy ever! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90241 2000/3/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small new features better reception lightweight tedious menus connection problems on off button hard to use The Bottom LineOverall, it is a good update for the phone with new features and better reception. It will definitely last a long time! Full Review Upgrading from my old Nokia 5565 was a hard decision. Good thing AT&T wireless had a promotion - the NEW Nokia 8390 @ $100 with a $100 rebate. FREE! I was blessed with better reception and new sleek phone. Appearance The Nokia 8390 gets a PLUS for appearance. It is small and thin and can fit most pockets and purses. This Nokia is very lightweight (2.9 oz.!!). I love the blue light screen and the metallic buttons. The dialing buttons are nice, but may be too close together, leading to some clumsy dialing. The on/off button is hard to use though. I find myself wrestling with it. Features You can customize a lot of things on the new Nokia. In the address book, you can organize people into calling groups, assigning different tones. You can also add more than one number to a person's name, which makes it easier to store school, work, cellphone, and home numbers. There's voice activation, which allows you to call people without searching for the name! There are some new souped up games such as "Snowboarder" and "Snake II". There's text messaging, vibrating options, and different language selections. Performance I love GSM technology! I get really good reception without a clunky antenna, and when I want to change phones, I have a little chip that stores all my phone numbers! It's seriously awesome. There's a handy dandy calculator, voice commands, calendar, to-do list, and infrared. Infrared allows you to "communicate" with phones, sharing phone numbers or playing 2 player snake. The alerts are really helpful. However, I find that sometimes I am not able to call out. I'm not sure if it is the service, but my friend who got the same phone/plan experienced the same problem. I had to turn off the phone and then turn it back on again for calls to go out. The menu surfing can be VERY tedious. The battery life is pretty good. I leave the phone on standby for a few days, and I'm not afraid it'll go down to 2 bars of battery. They say you should let the battery run out instead of charging it all the time. However, when I talk for a few hours, the battery gets drained very quickly. Overall, I am satisfied with the new design and better performance. Here are the Specs: Technology GSM 1900; GPRS Carrier AT&T Wireless Mode Single Mode Digital talk time up to 240 min Digital standby time up to 384 hr Analog roaming capable No Wireless Web access Yes Bluetooth enabled No Text messaging Yes Lines displayed 5 lines International compatibility No Language options English Headset jack No Package contents Lithium Ion battery, compact wall charger, hands-free headset features Vibrating alert Yes Voice activated dialing Yes Speakerphone No Phone book capacity 500 contacts with up to 5 Numbers for Each Name Message waiting indicator Yes Ring tones included 40 ring tones: 35 standard, 5 downloadable Downloadable ring tones Yes Battery included 1 x Lithium Ion battery Physical Characteristics Style Open-faced Color blue Changeable faceplate Yes Weight 2.9 oz Width 1.7 in Depth 0.8 in Height 3.8 in Antenna type Internal Warranty Service / Support 1 year warranty Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 or free 90240 2000/4/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small easy to use menus cool white backlight light cute looking background noise single band The Bottom LineIt's a great phone but the signal is horrible for Atlanta area. You might want to hold off if you are from this region. Full Review I had a Nokia 8290 when I lived in California, but had to switch to Panasonic Allure after I moved to Atlanta since GSM service was still unavailable in this area at the time. Recently ATT started to have GSM phones, and based on my past pleasant experiences with Nokia phones, I decided to switch to ATT's 8390 GSM phone. Appearance & Size: Like all Nokia phones, this phone is very attractive. The tiny 8390 fits into the front pocket of my jeans without making me feel uncomfortable when I walk. The keys are tiny but I have small fingers so it isn't hard for me to dial. There's even a place at the top back of the cell phone for users to hang cell phone accessories. Phonebook: I love the new phone book layout! Each contact can have 5 phone numbers plus email address, home address and web site url address entry. This is my favorite improvement of this Nokia phone. This phone also has voice activated dialing features that I find interesting but don't really use too often. Text Messaging: Tons of added on features are available for text messaging, including templates with pre-entered messages (like "Call me back" etc). In addition to text messages between cell phones users, you can also send email messages to friends. Battery: This is one strong field for this phone. I text message my friends all day & talk on the phone a lot (free nation wide long distance) but I only have to charge it every other night. Previously with my Panasonic Allure I had to charge every night. Signal Strength: This is where everything goes downhill for me. ATT just started rolling out GSM in Atlanta area & this phone is only single band, so I get a lot of dead signals. Sometimes half way through a conversation my signal would drop dead. I would have to take out the sim card to restart the phone. In addition, I hear weird noises when I'm on the phone (like wave sounds), and my friends would complain about hearing cars passing by when I'm actually calling them from home (I live on the 12th floor, shouldn't hear any cars at all). I've talk to other Nokia 8390 users and it seems like other areas (like California) don't have this problem, so I am guessing it is just an Atlanta thing. Perhaps we are not that ready for GSM yet. I really like this phone cz of its appearance and size, but I am getting annoyed with the bad signals and weird background noise. This is just too bad. :( Since I'm still in the 30 day trial period where I can return the phone, I am going to go ahead and do that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 90239 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features elegant sleek expensive when it came out The Bottom LineI'd recommend this phone to anybody that wants something light, sleek and full of options. Full Review When the Nokia 8390, I was drooling over it in stores. I had a cell phone at the time, and it was a black Erisson flip phone, and it was three years old. Finally, it broke and I was off to the mall to buy a new one. When it first came out in Canada, it was $400 Canadian. I was able to get it for $250 a few months afterwards. I'm sure it's really cheap now that there's all these fancy new digial camera phones out now. IT CAME WITH -Phone -charger -instruction manual -SIM card (my plan was with Rogers AT&T) I didn't buy any accessories because I didn't need them. I'm on the go so I don't want extra headphones dangling around. The package did come with a little pamphlet called "Accessory Guide" letting you know all the accessories you can buy with it, like the Travel Charger, Desk Stand, Cigarette Lighter Charger, Express Car Kit, Different headsets, Carrying cases and the 6 different Xpress-on Colour Covers. They are colour faceplates. All you have to do is pull off your original faceplates and snap the new one one. It's really easy and you don't need screws or an expert to help you like the old phones do. THE FEATURES You probably already know how small and light this phone is. At 2.9 ounces, this phone is not too big and not too small. Any smaller and this phone will probably slip from my hand. There's a lot of features in this phone. I'll probably never got to use them all. I don't know 500 people to store in my phone book, but it's nice knowing I can. There's games, a calender, calculator, to-do list, a voice recorder, timer, voice commands, messages, stop watch, and more. The backlight is bright, so it's great in dark places. If you have already used a Nokia phone, this functions the same, so it's easy to use. WHAT I LIKED & DIDN'T LIKE I already expressed how much I love the size, weight and extra features. The sound quality is really great for a phone with an internal antenna. My boyfriend also has the same phone, and his voice is very clear whenever he calls me with his phone. I love how classy and elegant this phone looked. It's a simple design, but the screen is big enough and the buttons are just right. I changed the standard blue and white faceplate into the pink and yellow one for fun and it looks even better. I did wish they had more faceplate designs and more colours instead of just 6 though. I live in a big city, so I get a lot of reception here. Sometimes in basements, I don't get the reception that other people's big and ugly phones do, but it's not a huge problem for me. Like I said, this is loaded with features I don't really use, but it's nice to have the option. They give you a lot of phone ring options as well - original rings. They are loud, but you can adjust the tones. The battery power is really great. It lasts for 5-7 days for me, instead of other phones that last 2 days. I think it really helps to turn the phone off at nights to save battery power. On average, I spent about 10-20 mins on my phone, just to give you an idea of how much battery power I use. I've dropped this phone a few times, usually from desks, and it has not effected this at all. I don't really have a lot of beefs with this phone. It just sucks that it's so much cheaper now than when I got it. Phones nowadays hasn't really gotten better, there's just more features now - like a digital camera, internet access,etc. I just like having a sleek, elegant phone. This will last me a few more years until they come out with a phone just as small that has a good digital camera. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90238 2000/8/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 tiny size great nokia ui nice design internal antenna poor durability not a world phone The Bottom LineIf you need a simple GSM phone for the US, perhaps as a spare, the 8390 will do the trick nicely. Full Review The 8390 is an update of the now-venerable 81/82/83/8890 line. It's essentially the same as the 8290, with the addition of a few updated features such as GPRS. If you need a simple GSM phone for the US, perhaps as a spare, the 8390 will do the trick nicely. DESIGN + Typical small candy-bar size, and nice, simple, functional Nokia design. + Internal antenna means no protruding parts. + Buttons: better feel and easier to use than the 8290 + Backlight: a bit brighter than 8290 - Durability. The overall build quality and resulting durability of the phone is not nearly as good as it should be. I've had at least three Nokia's on the 8x90 chassis; the screen went south on two of them, the speaker failed on one, and the microphone failed on my 8390. I'm hoping that the new chassis on which the 6610 is built is more durable. USER INTERFACE / OPERATING SYSTEM + Nokia's UI/OS beats all the others that I've tried hands-down. It's very intuitive, easy to use, and consistent across all Nokia phones. ~ Display: The old school black and white display works perfectly fine. Sure, color is nice, but certainly not necessary. FEATURES + Infrared. You can sync contacts to your PC and swap "business cards" from phone to phone via the IR port. Very handy! + Voice dialing. You can record voice tags for up to eight numbers. Very simple process, and it actually works. Keep in mind that it's not actually understanding the name as you say it, it's simply matching what you say to the list of "voice tags" that you've previously recorded. + T9 Predictive text input. I'm sometimes amazed at how well the system works; it can somehow predict the spelling of my [rather unusual] first and last names. + two-way SMS/email. You can receive and send both SMS and email messages from the 8390. The difference is that SMS goes directly via the GSM network to/from other GSM phones, while of course email is, well, email. You really can send email to any internet email address -- just put the address at the start of your message, and then send to the number "121". Note that incoming emails are broken up into 120-character messages and in some cases cut off, and so you aren't going to want to receive lengthy emails on the phone. + Calendar. Since the IR port lets me sync the phone to my PC calendar, I've ditched my Palm, and now just have my calendar in my phone. Very intuitive interface, somewhat limited display (it only carries over the subject field of your appointments, not location and notes fields, for example), and you can even add in new appointments on the phone keypad. Very useful. The calendar holds up to 50 appointments at any one time. + Data call capability. Again, since the IR port lets you connect to a PC, you can use the phone to make modem data calls, from anywhere. + SIM card. All GSM phones use a SIM card to store your carrier, phone number, preferences and address book data. The 8390 can store 250 numbers on the SIM and another 250 on the phone itself. You can take the SIM out and stick it into another GSM phone, and you'll have your phone number, and your entire address book intact. What's NOT stored on the SIM? Although your phone numbers are stored on the SIM, voice tags and custom ringtones are not, for example. + GPRS -- useful, I suppose, if you use it. I don't. + Voice Recorder. You can record short voice memos to yourself, and even record cell phone conversations! + Vibrating Alert. + Profiles. The profiles feature makes it easy to set up different ringtones for different situations, e.g. outside, standard, meeting, headset, silent, etc. + Self-adjusting alarm clock. Set the alarm, turn the phone off, and it will wake up at the desired time, and then nicely ask whether you want it to turn itself on for calls... The clock on the phone adjusts itself via the GSM network. + Games. I'm not much for games, but once in a while I play Snake while waiting for baggage to come through... + Calculator. useful. The calculator also has a currency converter function, although it's a little hidden. Open up the calculator, and hit Options, then scroll down to Exchange rate. Hit OK, and then you can put in the exchange rate btw your "home" and "foreign" units. Once you've done this, you can put a number into the calculator, and then hit Options, scroll down to "In home currency" or "In foreign currency", and it will make the conversion. Although I suppose this could be useful, it's usefulness is limited by the fact that the 8290 is not a world phone. You could use it in Canada, I guess. + You can store email addresses in the phone book. - old-skool ring tones. You'll have to get a newer phone for polyphonic tones. SOFTWARE & URLS + Nokia 8390 phone page: http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/8390/1,1162,,00.html RECEPTION / COVERAGE / BATTERY Reception/sound quality is excellent. Battery life is excellent. No complaints here, and it takes a charge very quickly. PRICE I paid about $150 for a used 8390 on eBay. They should be even less now, with all the new color/polyphonic/picture phones coming out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90237 2000/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 stylish design quite a few improvements backlight weight unnaceptable reception earphone ringer volume The Bottom LineGood phone for the occasional user who stays in Metropolitan areas. For the travellers, look elsewhere. Full Review After 300 hours of good usage on my Nokia 3390, I decided that it was time for something new... I've always remained faithful to Nokia (especially after my escapade with the Vtech A700) and I decided to opt for something smaller and more stylish. The 8390 has been on the market for quite a while now, but it's only been a few months since it has been affordable. When it first came out on the market, the phone would sell for 350$ plus a two-year (20$/month) contract. Almost a year after it was available on the market, I got the phone free with 50$ credit with the carrier (and a two-year contract, of course). Now let's talk a bit about the phone itself. The first thing you notice about this phone is it`s size... it fits in the palm of your hand. The phone is just heavy enough so you know you have it on you. The cover is very stylish and much different from the previous, very squared-looking, Nokias. There are many innovations found on the 8390. First, the screen; the new white backlight does a terrific job in illuminating the screen, both during day and night. Although the screen looks smaller than the 3390, it is actually the same size. Other improvements include: GPRS, voice recorder/conversation recorder, infrared port, to-do-list, and 4 new games. I've had the phone for 6 months, and I only used the voice recording once, and played the games a few times. In conlusion, most on these improvements are pretty useless... but it certainly doesn't hurt you to have them. I have three major complaints about this phone: 1) Reception: This is definitely the biggest problem with this phone. Reception is only acceptable in large metropolitan areas. As soon as you move into the suburbs, the phone has trouble receiving signals, and totally looses the signals once you enter an infrastructure. At first, I thought the problem was due to poor signals in my area, however, a small test proved that the problem was actually the cellular phone itself. My friend, who was with the same carrier and had a Nokia 3510 was able to place calls in my basement, while my 8390 could barely receive signals when standing on the front porch. 2) The earphone: The earphone has a volume scale of ten, going from extremely low the very low. You have trouble hearing what the person is saying to you when you are in a library. Moreover, the sound quality is very poor. 3) Another problem associated with the volume scale; the ringer volume, when set at level 5 (maximum) is not strong enough to be heard when it is in your pocket. Therefore, you must have vibration turned on to not miss any calls. In conclusion, after 5 months of aggravation, mainly due to the reception problem, I decided that I had enough. I called Rogers AT&T and asked them to do something about the situation. I was still in the negotiation process until today, when I finally reached an agreement with the carrier. After a dozen phone calls, a few lawsuit threats, I was able to get a brand new replacement phone... the Nokia 3565, the color-screen upgrade of the 3510. After my terrible experience with the 8390, I decided that most of the time, bigger is really better. The phone has quite a few improvements that come in handy... however, the phone just has to many downsides, and in addition, it`s small size can also become an aggravation. The 3565, which is only about 1/3 bigger in size has so many more advantages that the 8390 should not even be considered. Nokia has truly dissapointed me with the 8390... however, after 4 years of satisfaction by their previous products, I decided to give Finland another chance, and truly did not regret it with the 3565. I hope this review has helped you in making the right choice. Watch for my upcoming review for the 3565. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90236 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact lightweight better overall backlit screen good sound clarity keypad light distracting small buttons on off switch requires heavy hand The Bottom LineA phone that is lightweight and packed with features. Full Review With so many phones to choose from I opted to stick with a brand I've grown to love over the years. Lightweight, compact and comfortable, the Nokia 8390 proves itself to be a powerhouse when it comes to features. If you're no stranger to Nokia then operating one won't be a mystery. Navitation is simple and virtually the same with simple one-touch access to everything you could possibly need. The voice-dialing feature is a plus, allowing you to "tag" certain functions and/or people's names easily. The 8390, like so many of the other Nokia phones allows for easy customizing. Changing the faceplate is a snap and picking the right ringtone for your personality is a breeze. Of course with 35 ringtones built in you may find what you like just from the default list. The backlit screen no longer uses that eerie green light, instead its kind of a blue-ish light (although I could have gone for a true blue instead). The faceplate that comes with the phones have a solid backing and a semi-translucent front plate. This allows the keypad lights to shine through. The problem is that its a tad bright - almost obtrusive. Its great for seeing in the dark (and as a flashlight in an emergency) but it's a bit much. Obviously putting on a solid front plate will ease the brightness and still allow the key's to light up appropriately. The display lights fade on and off giving you ample time to dial and take care of business before leaving you in the dark. Like with most small phones the buttons may prove a challenge for those with larger hands and fingers. The features are robust. The phone comes with three games, Snake II, Bumper, and Snowboarding which is amusing. The Calendar has been added in conjunction with the To-Do list. The Calculator still comes with a exchange rate converter and you can send, receive text messages as well as chat. The nice thing about the Mail feature is the Archive and Folder features. Infrared is always a plus if you want to transfer information from another phone or a PDA and the Extra's offer a voice recorder, voice commands, and stopwatch feature. The voice recorder has come in handy for those "jotting" those thoughts down. The mic on the phone is quite good so it tends to pick up background noise easily but not enough to cause a huge problem. GSM phones utilize packets of information versus the typical "airtime". So in order to utilize "mMode" you subscribe to however much information you think you'll download. Good thing there's a counter available on the phone - it would be hard to keep track of otherwise. The mobile internet can be accessed allowing the user to download information such as weather, stocks, entertainment and more. You can even order and download ringtones and graphics if you so desire. The sound quality is very good. There are volume controls available on the side of the phone with great response. The on and off switch is located on the upper right of the phone and does require a heavy push. You also have to hold the button down for a few seconds. It would be nice if the button was a little bigger and a bit more responsive but on the other hand, at least you won't have to worry about accidentally turning on and off your phone. The phone comes with a standard AC adapter/recharger, detailed manual, accessory guide and the typical legal stuff. Nokia also includes a handsfree unit which of course is a simple ear-bud style mic/receiver that plugs in the bottom of the phone. I wish if anything that the phones would come with some sort of basic carrying case. Its not easy to find cases that are simple in style and color although I did find Body Glove to make the perfect case for this phone. The talk time has been more than adequate. Of course depending upon feature usage the talk time may be reduced but in general I am able to get between 3-5 hours of talk time and plenty of days of standby before feeling I need to recharge the phone. Overall, the Nokia 8390 has been a great upgrade. It provides me with the mobility I need without the bulk. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 90235 2002/8/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 loaded with features portability superb styling lacks tri band gsm technologically one step behind the novel products of its competitors The Bottom LineAlthough other cell phones may have more features (e.g. the Ericsson T68i) than the 8390, if its sexiness you crave, look no further! Full Review By far, the Nokia 8390's strongest selling point has to be its style. Its two-tone colour scheme really serves to enhance the sleekness of the phone. The user-customisable faceplating option ensures that you can switch the phone's looks to suit your mood, and the removal/replacement of this phone's faceplate is significantly easier than its predecessor, the 8290. The portability of the 8390 is supreme. This phone feels nothing like standard land-line telephones, and this may be a problem for some users, a godsend to others. The button size/case size may also pose difficult for users with large fingers. Updated from the 8290, the new button placements on the phone seem unconventional but they do enhance the style of the phone. One complaint, however, is that the descriptors on the buttons (i.e. the letters, numbers, etc. on the phone keys) are not etched into the keypad, instead they seem like little pieces of paper encased in plastic. It looks a bit low-rent, but is definitely better for night viewing. The features of the phone itself are similar to the 8290, and thus share similar pros and cons. As always with Nokia, the user interface is simple, straightforward and idiot-proof: you should be able to use this phone out of the box without need for a manual. Additionally, there are a plethora of features, the coolest being a new voice record/voice command feature (GPRS is also included, but i find rather pointless and expensive). The "standard features" are all here, with added PIM (personal information management) features not found on the 8290. As for weaknesses, like the 8290 its size may be problematic. Also, its internal antenna may be as weak as the 8290s (see note* below), I have yet to expose this phone to different GSM networks so I can't say. The biggest con, in my opinion, is the fact that this phone does not have Tri-band GSM features (i.e. GSM 800/1800/1900). I highly doubt this feature would raise the price of the phone, both in terms of manufacturing costs and retail price, by more than a few dollars, and it places the 8390 at a distinct disadvantage in a marketplace that dictates world-capable GSM phones as a standard. Battery life (note*) seems to be greater than or equal to the 8290, which is to say that is is above excellent. The phone will go for days on end on standby without its battery meter dropping one bar, and if you use the phone moderately (1-2 hours a day) all you need to do is recharge it nightly. Basically, this phone carries the same design philosophy as the 8290: a phone loaded with vital features, uber-portability, cutting-edge style, and phone clarity that is the paragon of the industry. Seemingly, therefore, one should have no impetus to upgrade from an 8290. To this, I submit: its improved stylisation and enhanced features (including GPRS) make this upgrade a worthwhile and cost-effective (to those that agree with this philosophy on cellphone design, your requirements may differ) undertaking. As well, for the new entrants to the wireless market: this phone provides an excellent platform to fulfill your wireless telephony needs. However, there is one caveat: buying this cellphone may cause novel users to expect this level of quality and design from all other wireless manufacturers - which is simply not the case. (note* : in my experience, battery life and ESPECIALLY signal reception is largely dependent on the network provider. This phone may have full signal and a 5 hour battery, or it may have no signal and a voracious appetite for recharge. Thus, I highly recommend you seek out users in your home area from which you can derive accurate reports on talk time, standby time, and most importantly, signal strength) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1.00 90234 2002/11/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loaded with features light incredible backlight attractive small small keys single band The Bottom LineAttractive design, loaded with features, you're gonna like this phone. Full Review I've been using Nokia phones since 1995, and currently, the Nokia 8390 is my favorite Nokia phone. 1. Size & Appearance This phone is tiny. The dimensions are 3.78" tall, 1.69" wide, and 0.75" thick, and it only weighs 2.9 ounces. It is smaller and lighter than the 8200 or the 8800 series phones. The tiny size makes it very convenient, but the tiny size also results in the keys being too small for most people, especially for those doing text messaging. The default faceplate that comes with the phone is called Tranquil (a soft gray/silver color). Nokia makes 6 different faceplates, but there are numerous aftermarket colors. The backlight is a cool white light. The screen and the faceplate gives it a blue tint to the light. The backlight is very bright and it comes very handy at night time. 2. Phonebook The phone can store up to 500 contacts, each with 5 phone numbers and 4 text fields. The phone numbers can be categorized into General, Mobile, Home, Work, or Fax. The text fields can be categorized into E-mail, Web Address, Street Address, or Note. In addition to storing info into the phone's resident memory, you can also store info onto the SIM card. The SIM card can store up to 250 names, each with just one number. The advantage of storing in the SIM instead of the phone is that if you change phones, you can take all your contacts with you on the SIM card to the new phone. If you already have contacts on the phone, you can copy (or move) the info to the SIM card, and vice versa. 3. Messaging (service dependent) You can send short text messages. You can create a message by either typing it in or by selecting one of the default messages (called Templates). Templates include: "I'm at home. Please call", "I am late. I will be there at", and many more. Text messages can generally be sent to people who have cell phones with text messaging capability who are using the same service provider as you are (generally, if you're on AT&T, the recipient also has to be on AT&T). 4. Wireless Internet You can surf the Internet with the Nokia 8390. The limitation is that you can only visit WAP enabled web sites. WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol and WAP content uses the WML programming language, which is basically a trimmed down version of HTML. Many web sites support WAP, like CBS Sportsline, eBay, TicketMaster, Google, Bloomberg, etc. The 8390 is GPRS capable (high speed data transmission). 5. IR to Another Phone or Palm Device The Nokia 3360 has an IR port. You can exchange information between phones using the IR port. If you want to send a "business card" (an entry in your phonebook) to another phone, you can beam it using the IR port. You can also send/receive "business cards" to a Palm device (Palm, Visor, Clie, etc) using the same IR port. Really cool. 6. PC Connectivity You can also connect the phone to your notebook computer using the IR ports (most notebooks have IR ports; most desktops do not). You can sync the Phonebook on the Nokia with the Windows Address Book, Outlook, or other popular softwares. This means that you can type all the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses on the computer, then beam it over to the phone. No more having to enter all that info using the keypad on the phone. The software that will enable you to do this is available for free at the Nokia web site. 7. Built in Modem The built in IR modem is really a bonus. It's a really cool feature that most will probably never use. With the built in IR modem, you can connect your notebook computer to the Internet using your dial-up ISP. At least on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the computer automatically recognized the IR modem and I was able to connect with relative ease. 8. Battery Life & Signal Strength The battery life is excellent. I use it frequently (I'm on a 1000 minute a month calling plan) and I charge the phone every other night. The signal is generally good, except that I have a lot of dead spots because AT&T only recently started rolling out GSM in California. Battery life and signal strength are generally service dependent, so your mileage may vary. Remember that this is GSM only (1900 MHz). For most carriers, GSM is not as wide-spread as TDMA, so you might want to opt for a multi-network phone, something with both GSM and TDMA. 9. Voice Features, Selective Alerts, and Others The phone has voice activated dialing features. To ADD voice tags, go to your Phonebook, go to the entry to which you want to add a voice tag, go to Options, then add a voice tag. To USE this feature, push and hold Names in the main screen and you can say the person's name. Another neat feature is the Selective Alerts. You can put people in caller groups and customize your Profile so that the phone will ring only when someone from the designated caller groups call you (Profile -> Customize -> Alert for). If people who are not in those caller groups call you, then they will be sent directly to your voice mail and your phone will not ring at all. The phone also has a voice recorder as well as a countdown timer and a stop watch (all under Menu -> Extras). Accessories The Nokia 8390 uses the same charger as the 3300/5100/6100/8200/8800 series so it should be easy to find a cigarette lighter charger. The headset kit it uses is the same as the 3300/8200/8800 series; the plug on the headset has 3 lines (opposed to 2 lines for universal headset plug). For best results, get the Nokia brand headset; most aftermarket headsets don't last very long. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90233 2000/6/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent clarity great extra features some features are not entirely user friendly The Bottom LineGreat little phone that is fun to use, but it does have a few flaws. Full Review After reading the rather excellent review in this section by namja, I have decided to address the areas that were raised from an Australian angle - it seems the experiences of Australian mobile phone carriers are markedly different to that of the US market. One such example is that my phone is, I believe, called an 8310, although it does not resemble the 8310 on this website. This I may be wrong about though, but it is a small point nonetheless. Also, I am a relative wimp when it comes to being on the edge of technological advances, so I have not connected to the internet or another PC from my phone at this stage, so I have omitted these sections. Size and appearance The phone is a great size. I do not convert easily from inches to centimetres (cm) but suffice to say the phone fits very easily within the palm of my hand. I have not had a problem with the key size, as firstly my fingers are small, and secondly, the phone I was coming from had keys that were a little smaller and slightly closer together (an Ericsson T10). There are two faceplates available on the Australian market - the black and white (very cool when backlit) and a red and white (also quite funky when backlit). As namja said, the backlight is very bright, and I have been known to use it as a torch (flashlight for the US readership) on occasion. It is so bright that when I use the alarm clock function in the dark, my entire room lights up in an eerie manner (sort of like a television flickering in the next room). Phonebook I may harbour slightly strange obsessions with inanimate objects, but let me just say that I am in love with and cannot live without the phone book. I REALLY do not look forward to the day I need to change phones, because I have around 350 names and associated contact details and business cards on my phone. Until then though, I find this function incredibly easy to use and valuable. In the past I have had to store numbers as "Mum home" and a separate entry for "Mum mobile" etc. Much easier this way. Another fun thing - it is surprisingly easy to search your phone book whilst having a conversation with someone on the phone - just warn them that they will probably hear a series of beeps. Messaging Advance Australia Fair! We in Australia have no problems sending text messages to anyone in Australia regardless of their network, so many of the obstacles described by namja do not seem to apply (although I may have misunderstood the comments and replies bit - sorry if I have). In terms of the mechanics of "texting" I have been pleasantly surprised by how much quicker it is with this phone. Aside from the differences in key functions between the Ericsson and Nokia phones, this phone changes from one letter to the next very quickly (making it much easier to enter "noon" for example). There are also a large number of characters that are more easily found on the Nokia 8390 compared not only with the aforementioned Ericsson, but also with the loan phone I had (a rather primitive Nokia 3310). There is a catch with trying to get out of the screen once you have sent a text message (in the write message screen), in that you either have to clear the entire screen which is not that quick, or save the message to outbox. If you send as many messages as I do, the quicker option ends up choking up your message storage really quickly! IR to another phone I have to say, I have tried the IR to another phone thing, and I must be doing something wrong somewhere, because I cannot get it to work. My sister and I have matching phones and have tried playing 2 person games (this potential function redefines what I love in phones!), but alas, I have never been able to get it right. I will persevere however and I will let epinions know when I have been successful in doing so. Battery life and signal strength I am highly dependent on my phone for both business and pleasure (planning mostly) and it has not let me down at all. I can play games, put appointments in (with an alarm reminder), use the alarm clock and listen to FM radio (have I told you how much I love this phone?) as well as talk on the phone, and the battery still lasts me between 3 and 4 days without recharging. The signal strength compared to my last phone is much improved, despite my living in a low strength area. Additional features Alarm clock I could not live without this function, however there are a few problems with it. Previous Nokia handsets have allowed you to program your alarm wake up times in advance on a weekly or repeating basis (this is what my sister's phone does), as well as alter the wake up tones. I am not able to do this on this phone. I cannot fault the volume of the alarm nor the flashing lights that had me thinking at 5am this morning that aliens were coming to take me away. Calendar and to-do list In the calendar option there is a to-do list and you can also list meetings (with an alarm reminder option) phone calls to make (with alarm) etc, but if you have a job to do by a particular time and you want an alarm reminder, you need to put it in as a meeting, because the to-do list does not have a deadline reminder option. A small weakness, but enough to take some of the gloss of obsession off the handset. Shortcuts I am still trying to find or install a shortcut to turn the phone profile to silent and back off. Other LOVE the voice recording - I have had a problem with a stalking woman and I have been able to record her threats and give them to the police... FM radio is available using the hands-free headphones you get with the phone. When you get an incoming call the radio automatically switches off and you hear the ringing of the phone the headset switches to a standard handsfree function. Very good quality signal is available, but the volume does not get loud enough for the radio. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 7801 Nokia 8850 90251 2000/2/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 stylish elegant lack of features The Bottom LineOnly for fashion conscious individuals. Tech geeks need not apply. Full Review The Nokia 8850 is clearly the leader in style with it's titanium colored aluminium casing. It's white backlight is also a departure from the usual green or blue offered by Nokia. Sliding down the cover reveals four rows of shiny buttons albeit a little slim for users with larger fingers. The keypad has a nice solid feel with a sure sense of depth and responsiveness. In addition to this, the side volume buttons are streamlined into the silver portion that runs in between the phone's casing. The power button and the back cover button are also nicely blended into the phone. However, you might want to take care of the back cover as it tends to get loose with prolonged usage. On the whole, it is a pleasure to hold the 8850 with it's clever sense of design and style. It is a little disappointing to know that the 8850 lacks several features like GPRS or WAP. The features resemble that of a 8210, and it also has a similar menu structure. Those who are used to the 8210 or 6150 will also be comfortable with using the 8850. Sending messages on the 8850 is a simple task. The games will keep you entertained on that long train ride and the calender/to do list helps you organise your schedules. Overall, the features may be rather basic but it's helpful nonetheless. Calls made on the 8850 are clear. However, you might want to keep your hand off the antennae at the back to ensure that your reception remains optimum. This phone's battery will last you about 3 days on average depending on your usage. The 8850, although with it's lack of features, is still one of the most beautiful phones available in the market. If you are looking for a fashionable mobile phone, and aren't too fussy on features, then this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90250 2000/5/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 because it is nokia 8850 infrared durable stylish maybe lack of advanced tech The Bottom LineYou won't be regretful of choosing Nokia 8850! Full Review Two years ago I finally had a Nokia 8850!That's amazing!Because I have the Nokia 8850, I even could not notice other mobile phones in the market. This cell phone could be the best one I've ever used during these years. 1>.The phone was well designed. It is slim, with aluminium casing appearance. At the first sight you might think the phone may be a little cumbersome. In fact, it is not cumbersome at all, only after you've touched it you can get a conclusion.Because there's mental to protect the phone, it is very durable. I can't clearly remember how many times I dropped it on the ground! But it always as good, stable and graceful as it first came into my eyes. 2>.The Nokia phones--not only 8850 but all of them,are always have the greatest reception among the phone market. This makes the Nokia family excellent and loved by consumers. 3>.The battery does work very well. Often one battery one my 8850 could last about 4 days. But if I have many phone calls and messages, it could be used for 3 days. 4>.The feeling of the keypad is very pleasant. But a little problem is that the keys may be too small for most people. My dad once said the keypad bothered him a lot. He can't press a key accurately, if he wanted to press "5", then "8" may be come out together! Ignore this disadvantage, the light of background is very different from others even other Nokias. The light is tender, softly and bright enough. 5>.The games are all good. They can help you spend the boring time. If you want more fun, then you can play the "snake" game with friends through the infrared. You can also send messages to others through the infrared. 6>. The drawbacks. In today's market the Nokia 8850 maybe seems a little old-fashioned. Because it has no WAP or GPRS, no color screen, no polyphonic ringtones, no additional compact and a little expensive several years ago. But if we put this phone in the mobile phone market of a few years ago then we should say definitely it was great without any doubt! Even today, it is still different in the market! It is an everlasting classic! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 560 7802 Nokia 3410 90254 2003/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good design good reception battery lots of features power button is hard to press you won t need it often though As I searched for the new phone on the Internet I found 3410 was the best value-for-money combination. It has all the features average cell phone user needs - good reception, very good battery, loud ringing tone, vibrating alert, convenient SMS editing features, alarm clock and reminder, etc. It is particularly good for those who prefer heavier and larger phones. You feel it in your pocket, and you won't have to use a toothpick to push the buttons. One of the neat features is the clock screensaver, which shows in large symbols current time and date (unfortunately not the weekday) on the screen after a period of inactivity (if you select this "screen-saver" from the list in the settings menu). Comes in handy when you don't have a wrist-watch. Also, it's quite rugged - I dropped it a million times, on rough surfaces as well, and it still works perfectly. 90253 2000/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 has a lot of featureslooks good to top it off kind of big to be easily carried The Bottom LineThis phone is packed full of extras, but it's not a small phone by any means, and the novelty of the features quickly wears off Full Review This phone has all the features, you can make your own picture messages, chat 'im' style to friends, download games and moving screensavers direct from your phones own internet. This is one jam-packed model. However, once I got over playing with all the extra features, I found this phone didn't have much more than it's cheaper cousin the 3310. Sure it looked a big better, but I still found it bulky and hard to carry round. There wasn't much to make this phone special to me, and was traded-in again within a month for a smaller, more useful replacement. So if you like a lot of fiddly special features on your phone this is a good choice. But if you want something small and handy to use, you might be better to either look for a cheaper alternative, or paying that little bit extra to get rid of all the bulkness. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90252 2000/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 robust intuitive not colour screen The Bottom Linea reliable, easy to use phone Full Review ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Nokia History Nokia was originally a paper-making business which was the original communications medium. Then in 1967 it merged with Finnish Rubber Works Ltd, and Finnish Cable Works to form Nokia Corporation. In the 1960's radio telephones and data modems were developed which led to Nokia Corporation entering into the telecommunications market. In the 1980's Nokia became a major producer of computers, monitors and TV sets. In Scandinavia in 1981 The first ever international cellular mobile telephone network called NMT was introduced and Nokia made car phones for it. Then in 1987 Nokia made the first original mobile phone which was big and heavy and since then the phones have begun to shrink in size as the market for mobile phones has grown. The Handset The handset for this phone, in my mind is perfect. It is 11cm long, 5cm wide (at the widest point) and 2cm in thickness. The buttons on the phone are a decent size (not too small) and are also linked together in each row which makes them easy to use for quick texting. The phone has an up and down arrow for scrolling through the various menus, there are two buttons either side of the up button (one to accept and one to cancel and action) Then just below this there is an answer button which has a green phone picture on it and a hang up button which has a red phone picture on it. Below this is four further rows of buttons. There are three buttons in each row and each button represents one number and either three of four letters. The screen is approximately 3.5cm high and 2.5cm wide. The button to turn the phone on is a rubber button on the top of the phone which is easy to depress with a finger but cannot be easily knocked in a bag or pocket. The handset is simple and easy to use as well as being a perfect size and shape. What's In The Box - The Nokia 3410 handset - Sim card - The user's guide - Mains charger - A plastic wallet containing booklets about setting up the phone , topping up, call charges, games, taking the phone abroad and a trouble shooting guide. The user guide is well detailed and nicely laid out and includes diagrams where necessary. The user manual also contains details on accessories, which can be purchased, and the warranty. The setting up guide provides the simple steps required to set up the phone and various other details about upgrades, mobile safety tips, mobile insurance, security (pin code) and the terms and conditions of claiming free call time. The topping up guide gives clear, detailed information on the E top up system and the other methods of topping up the phone. The call charges guide explains the different calling plans available and the relevant call charges. The fun and games manual explains the extra features of the phone such as games and chat. The Guide for taking your phone abroad I never looked at when I got my phone but a few months ago when I went to Spain I found it very useful to look up call charges and how to dial from another country. The trouble-shooting guide gives a list of possible problems and the solutions which I have also found useful. I found it particularly helpful that all of these little leaflets were contained in a clear plastic wallet so the didn't get scattered around or lost. The Interface Upon turning the phone on you are presented with a welcome note or the nokia introduction picture (depending on how you have set your phone). The main screen shows the level of reception in bars up the left hand side and the amount of battery charge left as bars on the right hand side. The time is displayed in the top right hand corner and the bottom left hand corner has the word 'menu' to indicate that by pressing the button directly underneath you will enter the menu. The opposite side has the word 'names' to show that if you press the button directly under that you will enter the address book. The Menu The menu consists of 11 different areas: 1. Messages - This area contains your inbox, outbox and is where you write your text messages to other people. The area also gives you the ability to use the chat facility, view and download picture messages, set up and use smileys and templates for messages as well as change the various message settings. 2. Call register - this is where you can view calls you have made, received and missed as well as view various details about your last phone call, such as the duration. 3. Profiles - here you can set all your phone tones to function in a specific manner by selecting a desired profile, for example, the 'silent' profile will stop the phone from making any noises. There are preset profiles but you can edit them as well as create your own. 4. Settings - this is where you can edit different settings of the phone for example the call or security settings. 5. Downloads - here you can download ring tones, games and images onto your phone. 6. Reminders - you can set up reminders for a certain time and date and your phone will display the reminder for when you choose or set an alarm whilst displaying the reminder. Being forgetful as I am, this is a feature which I find invaluable! 7. Games - here you can play a selection of games as well as download some new ones. This is particularly good for when you are bored on a train etc. 8. Applications - In this area you can use and manage java applications installed in your phone. I have not really used this area other than to download a java game but it seemed pretty simple to use. 9. Extras - this is where you can set the alarm clock or use the stopwatch, calculator and countdown timer, you can also compose ringtones and edit or create pictures. You can also set up a screen saver. This is a very useful area of the phone as I often use the alarm clock and calculater and last week I used the stopwatch for a psychology project! 10. Services - here you can use the WAP (wireless application protocol) services such as online games etc. It is also possible to check various email accounts from this area - I often check my hotmail and yahoo accounts on my phone when I have no access to a computer. 11. My services - This shows the different services offered on the sim card, for example talking pages, traffic line, customer care etc. I havent used this area yet but from looking at it just now it looks very useful and easy to use. The Extra Features -You can create your own pictures which I have done a few times during boredom spells! -3D screen savers - these are pretty good, there are various 3D screensavers and some you can edit with your own text. -You can download games and applications so if you get bored with what is already on your phone you can update it. The only problem with this is it can be expensive. -Picture messages can be sent, this is great if you want to send someone something such as a birthday cake picture or a smiley face! -Personalise with xpress-on covers - I currently have a Tigger cover on my phone which brightens it up. These are easy to put on and make the phone look a lot more attractive. Other Details Price ***** Around £60-£70 including sim card Weight ****** 114 grams Standby time ************ up to 260 hours Advantages Although these are all covered in the rest of the review, I think that it is always useful to have a list of advantages and disadvantages so that a potential buyer can easily weigh up the pros and cons, so here you are... -convenient size and shape -fairly priced -very useful user guide and other information provided with the phone -choice of call plan -many accessories available to be purchased -reliable phone -good range of extras -easy to use Disadvantages -Downloading games and ringtones can be expensive -Does not have a colour screen -Only has monophonic ring tones OVERALL OPINION The phone is very easy to use and has a clear and simple layout. The menus are easy to navigate around which makes the phone easy to use for people without a great deal of experience of using mobile phones. The phone is an ideal size and shape and the buttons are also of adequate size to be able to use them easily and properly. The phone is very robust. The only real negative point is that it is not in colour screen although this is not really a problem unless you feel that you need a colour screened phone! I nearly always have reception, even when other members of my family on different networks dont. I have a genie sim card and I think the 300 free text messages and the free wap minutes are very economical. I would recommend this phone to anyone wanting a simple to use, reliable phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7803 Nokia 9000il Communicator 90263 2000/5/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 all in one features keypad Full Review You gotta love this device!! A one stop communication device that is compact, easy to use and just plain fun. Although relatively new, I can see this type of product going through the roof. I am one of those that wear a pager, an email type device and a cell phone. I was beginning to look like Rambo! I was attracted to the 9000il primarily because of the combined features. I love being able to receive a page and have several choices of response methods. Or all three if my page was really important. I can now put the Nokia 9000il in my purse and enjoy the freedom of multiple devices. I am finding I feel lost without all my Rambo wear though! I have no real dislikes at this time and that may be due to the short time I have had the 9000il. It would be great if the button were a bit bigger but then we are asking for a lot in a little bity device. Service providers are still a bit hard to find but I am guessing this is just a matter of time. So far, I'm happy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90262 2000/5/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pdaphone in one large size big price tag Full Review Any one who has ever seen Tommorrow Never Dies, has seen Bonds remote control phone. This phone is similiar, but is in fact alot better. It presents a fully functional fax gateway, cell phone, pc, email station, calendar, memos, numbers, calculator, games, and more. On the outside it looks like an oversized phone. I won't kid you, it is a huge phone. But what is the point in carrying around a pda and a cellphone when you can have both in one. This phone isn't cheap either, but when you think about it, you pay around 600 bucks for a good pda and 100-200 for a good cell phone. With this phone you get both of these things for around 800 bucks. It comes with alot of software, downloadable from the GEOS (the operating system) websites, and package deals that are included in the box. It comes with an ir port that increases its capabilities. If you like gadjets and james bond, get this phone:) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 799 90261 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 does the job hard to set up slow organiser bulky Full Review I've been using the Nokia 9110 here in Holland for about eight months and I love it - it's a great product but there are a few caveats for the less technical - my boss has one too and has never yet succeeded in retrieving an e-mail with his! :-) As a phone I must say the device is very heavy, bulky and looks old-fashioned - especially when placed next to the cute little Nokia 8210 and 8890 units. That said I used to carry both a phone and an organiser and the 9110 is a lot less to pocket than the two separate units combined. The battery life is pretty acceptable - I usually only charge it twice a week. The reception quality is faultless, although Holland has very good GSM coverage so it's hard to say how it is in areas with a poor signal. On the organiser side the unit is pretty slow compared to many of the dedicated units on the market - also it isn't the most fully featured organiser around, for example the word processing functionality is limited and there is no spreadsheet of any kind. The upside is that you can download (or write if you can find a copy of the free BASIC language on the net) new software and applications. Those functions that are included though are generally of reasonable quality, although lacking in any frills. For example the contacts database can be used to store just about everything you need and works well with the SMS and fax writing applications. The internal memory is also sufficient for most needs, but can be upgraded if needed. The Internet, fax and SMS functionality is excellent however. I use it with my normal ISP (Demon Internet) and never have any trouble connecting to their V90 dial in service. I've also tested it against my own Shiva dial in server which runs fine. Naturally download speeds are not stellar, but sufficient for email. The built-in web browser has it's limitations, as could be expected, but it does the job. A few general pluses to add to the above - the printing via the built-in infrared port is slow but works fine and the keyboard is just about big enough to be usable. On the downside the user interface can occasionally be frustrating - not just because of the slow speed, but because some useful functions, like reply to email, are hidden away on the "menu button". Also the PC based backup software is pretty slow - and I like to back up my phone very often so I find this pretty irritating! In summary I'd say it's a great phone and organiser combined, if that's what you want then go for it. If you don't expect it to do everything that a top of the line organiser will then you won't be disappointed. Also I know some people will have trouble setting the phone up - it isn't easy and the manual could be clearer on some points. The price is pretty high (about 1000NFl, USD 450 depending on the airtime package here), although given the units versatility it's fair value for money. Of course the phone also has a very high "wow" factor when people see it for the first time! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 90260 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good for business man a little weigh Full Review This is a small hand laptop. After I used it for about three months I think it is a good selection for a business man. This kind product has many functions that commom mobile phone have not. These function include fax notes calendar system extras and help. Every function has it's own sub function. I like best is it received and send e-mail. It is very easy whatever I am where. It like I sit in front of my computer. The key in the mobile like a computer key. You can type any word as you need. Another I like best is it game. There are many games in this product. When you are free you play chess with this product. Also it has big memory. You can wrote the note diary and it also tell what you will do and what time you will do. It is a good help for your business.These are only some adventages. Others need you search. Of course there are many disadvantages. You must study more to know all the functions. It is a little weigh than other mobile. There are also some difficult with config. But you can study more with use this production. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 600 90259 2000/9/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability1.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 features utility weight size Full Review Hi Guys, This is a very nice & good Nokia handset, it is really very useful if yu want a office on the move.I used this by borrowing it from one of my friends. I had this while I was travelling out of city on Business & thus I needed the imp. things so I took this & I really liked it because it gave me the flexibility to use Fax, Email everything. I really liked it but the only disadvantage was that it was very heavy & thus it was more than just difficult to carry. Luckily I was also carrying my regular handset so I purchased a connection from there & started using it to send emails & faxes & used my own handset to talk. After using it for 2 days I found that the only disadvantage of this handset was that it was just too heavy to carry in your pocket so I deceided to return it to my friend as soon as I reached my City but now I have deceided that I will buy one when we have a smaller version of the same because it is just toooo useful. I found it to be good for the people who travel the whole day & need a lot of things out of their handset which the regular handsets cannot offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -- 90258 2001/1/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 fax pda wireless e mail all in one intercom already dated heavy bulky The Bottom LineBuy the 9210 instead. It is lighter, brighter, and in color. Full Review Although this wireless all-in-one cell phone is a bit dated (Nokia has already introduced a color screen version of the Communicator for 2001), this phone is so uniquely ahead of its time, that it holds its value well. I sold mine for nearly what I paid for it. The Communicator 9000 has been in more movies than some actors. It's a gadget-gurus wonder toy. It faxes, downloads files, surfs the web, sends and receives e-mail, functions as an intercom (look ma, no hands!), does infrared transmissions, and it's a cell phone too! This is a real classic. But, don't buy it...unless you can get it real cheap. Nokia has already produced two iterations of this phone since selling this model and with each iteration they get the phone to shed some of its nasty bulk. This phone will not fit in your pocket. Indeed, even to hold it in your hand, you will think the phone is a bit clunky. We are used to less bulk in our cell phones. The phone uses GSM wireless technology. GSM is not popular in the U.S. So before buying this phone be sure that a wireless service in your area offers support for GSM. I really enjoyed the e-mail feautre on this phone. You can read e-mail or text messages and actually reply to them by typing out a response on the keyboard. (Try that on wireless web flip phone). The web browser was the weakest link on this phone, but that's not surprising since web browsing on any wireless phone is still rather painful to do. But, if you point your browser to a nokia website you'll be pleased to see what it can do. The PDA that comes with the phone is pretty basic. This is not a Palm Pilot, but it does the trick. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 799 90257 2000/6/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 durability user documentation complex setup slow speed Full Review It is time to break out the champagne folks and celebrate one of the worst communication tools on the market today. Nokia's combination of a cell phone and personal digital assistant have been merged in what has proven to be the most frustrating package I have ever had the misfortune of using. Since obtaining the unit yesterday for a 30-day evaluation period, I have spent over 5 hours dealing with both Nokia and Fido technical support in an attempt connect both the E-mail and the WWW functions. Like some other consumers, I did access Epinions.com before obtaining the unit and was pleased with the glowing reviews. My experience in attempting to configure the unit has been anything but pleasurable and I would only recommend this product to my worst enemy. While the unit may be considered large and is not suitable for pocket storage, this was not a significant issue for me as I was interested in the keyboard which folds-out from the phone and makes data entry much easier. The unit comes complete with no fewer than 4 separate manuals, 2 CDs and an installation diskette. For anyone interested in an out-of-the-box solution to business communication and time management problems, this is not the product to buy. I was also amazed at the slow processing speed of the unit. The response time after pressing various buttons was slow in comparison with other personal digital assistants and was reminiscent of a unit that I bought in the late 1980's. At the end of the day, I am left with a $500 (Can) cell phone that can only receive E-mail and has limited functionality. Needless to say, I will not be keeping the unit for the duration of the trial period. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 350 90256 2000/6/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 high tech most features great phone too large heavy expensive Full Review Yup, it's got computer/PDA features (document creation, scheduling and alarms, to do list). You can synchronize easily with your computer. Yup, it's got Internet access and fax *without needing to hook up a laptop, and with graphics enabled or user-disabled. You can get your POP3 email here or download web pages for offline viewing. Yup, it's a full-featured cell phone too, with caller ID, integrated address book, call forwarding, and speakerphone (just open the lid). The best thing about this phone, besides all its functionality in one unit is the keyboard -- I'm not a big fan of handwriting recognition. The worse thing about this phone, besides its weight and size, is that it only works with a few service providers. In NY, it only works with Omnipoint, and they are just fixing my data service so I can surf online. I also wish that it had Windows CE or Palm as the operating system, so there'd be more games and software available for the machine, but the items available for the Nokia9000 are still good: chess games, spreadsheet software, and mini Quicken-like financial software (you'll have to purchase these separately, though). The text documents and address book can also be imported and exported using standard file formats. This is the only phone I found of its type with a keyboard and service in NYC. New similar hybrid phones are expected to come out later this year, but they probably won't have the keyboard feature, due to the amount of space it takes up. If you're looking to buy a new phone, have $700 to spend on it, and want the most high-tech features you can get, check this out! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 700 90255 2000/7/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 an all in one wonder for the modern mobile warrior a little too hefty for the average hip pocket Full Review You would think, by now, that the dentists of this world would have figured the whole thing out. It is not the prospect of root-canal treatment that quickens your pulsebeat and tightens the knot in your chest. It is not the finely-pitched whine of the precision electric drill, or the meticulous gleam of the talon they use to scrape away at the back of your teeth. It is the waiting. You sit in the ante-room with the pastel-coloured walls, battling to divert your attention from the posters of neglected molars and advanced gingivitis. But the only diversion, short of small talk with your fellow victims, is the pile of coverless consumer magazines from the early 1990's, and the scattering of educational pamphlets dumped by the Mentadent rep. Dentists, here is a suggestion. Put a couple of computers in there. Hook them up to the Net. Allow people to surf, check their e-mail, play a game. Your investment will pay off. Your patients will be rewarded. They may not even need an anaesthetic. Yes, I know: it's not going to happen. Dental bills are already high enough. So here is another suggestion. Next time you pluck up the courage to visit your friendly dental health professional, be sure to take along a Nokia 9110. (Or the Nokia 9000i as it's known in the US). You will be able to surf the Net, check your e-mail, play a game. You will be able to send or receive a fax, organise your diary, record yourself speaking. As if that were not enough, when the phone rings in the tone of your choice, you will be able to sit there with the Nokia still open on your lap, and tell the other party that you are in a meeting and will call back as soon as the anaesthetic wears off. Part personal planner, part mini-computer, part Internet-enabled wireless communications device, the Nokia 9110 Communicator is the most compelling example yet of the coolest trend in modern consumer gadgetry. It's called convergence. As separate, overlapping tools and functions merge and, well, converge, the need to carry a multitude of small devices on your person gradually falls away. Now, you need only carry one. True, it's not that small. The Nokia 9110 is about the size and heft of a king-size bar of double-hazelnut chocolate, although it must be said that the sleek, angular design represents the best possible compromise between convenience and portability. From the outside, the Communicator looks like any other cellphone, only slightly more conspicuous. Open the clam-shell, however, and you have in your hands a gadget that even James Bond and Captain Kirk would gaze upon with envy. Anyone who has ever attempted to introduce a cellphone to a laptop computer, for the simple purpose of sending an e-mail to the office, will know that the benefits are rarely worth the schlep and the extra expense. With a Nokia 9110, the whole process is as easy as touching a few teeny buttons, while feasting your eyes on the crisp, backlit and zoomable screen. This is e-mail and fax we're talking about. If you want to browse the Web, it's just as easy, but not quite as quick. The Communicator trawls through cyberspace at 9600 kilobits per second, which is about five times slower than the modem on your desktop. Still, it's fine for checking the headlines and stock prices on a text-only site. In practise, you are more likely to regard the Web access as a nice-to-have perk, while you wonder how you ever managed without e-mail and fax in your pocket. Indeed, you may need to remind yourself that the Nokia 9110 is a cellphone too, and a damn fine one at that. Best feature: the hands-free speakerphone, which allows you to flip the lid and chat away without one of those stupid secret-service buds in your ear. Coolest feature: the built-in voice recorder, which allows you to define your very own ringing signal ("Pick up the phone! Pick up the phone!") in a world where every second person has already chosen Flight of the Bumblebee. Add the calendar, the contacts list, the world-time clock, and the digital camera connectivity, and you have a device that no self-respecting citizen of the modern world can possibly afford to be without. Go on. Be brave. Pick up your Communicator, and make that appointment with your dentist today. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1000 7804 Nokia 5125 90268 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use lots of features not internet compatible The Bottom LineEasy to use phone with tons of features - great for any user. Full Review This is my first cellular phone and I cannot think of a better phone for a first-time cell phone user. While not as light as the new Nokia models it is small enough to fit into most pockets and purses. It's easy to use and perfect for any beginner. When you purchase the phone you receive: (1) Nokia 5125 phone (1) Extended Nimh rechargeable model (1) Standard AC battery charger (1) Instruction manuel w/additional materials about the X-press covers, accessories, etc. When you receive the phone it is advised to charge the phone for at least 4 hours (I charged it overnight). Your phone should be activated by that time and ready to use. According to the manuel the phone should be charged and discharged two to three times to get the full power from the battery. There are other batteries available for the 5125 and chargers that can charge the battery in a little over two hours. To turn the phone on you press and hold the power button (upper righthand corner) and the phone will start up. Once it starts up you can either access your phonebook listings by hitting the down arrow key or the full catalog of options by hitting the Navi key. When you start the phone you'll notice two bars: the one of the right shows how strong your reception is while the one of the right shows how much battery power your phone has. On the left side by the bar will be a bold D or A, stating the network (digital or analog) the phone is currently using. You can also set up the time and it will display next to the power bar. Using the Navi key, you can access the following features: - Phone Book (Contains a directory, options for 1-touch dialing and search functions). - Messages (You can set up your text and voice messages here, including notification features as well access your messages). - Call Log (Displays all the calls you made, missed, and received, as well as a timer for all the calls you made). - Settings (Set settings for your calls, phone, network, and security). - System (Set your phone for analog or digital, or to use whichever network is best accessible from your phone). - Games (Play Memory, Snake, or Logic). - Clock (Set the time, alarm and auto-update). - My Tones (Set ringing options, ring tone w/ 30 pre-set and 5 personal tones, ringing volume, message alert tone, keypad and game tones. - Keyguard (protect your phone from unnecessary or unprohibited use with keyguard). Overall, I've had great success with the phone and would recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): None 90267 2000/3/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long talk time standby time lightweight not web enabled if you need that feature The Bottom LineA solid performer. An excellent companion to pre-paid wireless service. Full Review I am separating this review into two parts: the Nokia 5125 and TracFone wireless service (since the phone is most often sold for that purpose). The first question to ask yourself before purchasing this phone is: "Why do I need a cell phone?" If the answer is, "For occasional, non-WEB based communication", then this merits serious consideration. The basic features: -Stores up to 99 names and phone numbers for one-touch dialing (it is also easy to search for names in the phonebook) -Battery talk time up to 3 hours in digital service area -Standby time up to 8 days in digital service area -Changeable face plate to switch colors -Over 30 ring tones -3 games -Clock with alarm -Prepaid Airtime Balance Display shows you how much airtime you've used and how much is left, so you control your costs The construction of the phone has a high build quality. Pressing any key will turn on the backlight for the display and the keys. The best feature, in my opinion, is the "NAVI" key. This is a very smart key on a well designed phone. For the new user, trying to figure out when to "send" and when to "end" are a thing of the past. If the phone is ringing, press the NAVI key. To end a call, press the NAVI key. Used in conjunction with the up and down arrow keys, you also use the NAVI key to navigate through the various options menus. Retrieving voice mail messages is as simple as pressing and holding the "1" button. The phone will then dial the number you have programmed into it to access your voice mail. You can also activate the "9" key in the same way to access "911". To prevent the phone from accidentally dialing while in a pocket or purse, just activate Keyguard (press NAVI, then *) To unlock, repeat the process. If you like, you can also enter a security code that will prevent others from picking up the phone and making calls. If your carrier supports it, you can also use this phone to send text messages and download additional ring tones. The phone comes packed with a battery and charger. If you buy the TracFone version, it also comes with 10 minutes of prepaid airtime and 60 days of activation. TracFone Since this phone is often purchased in connection with TracFone pre-paid wireless, let me take a moment to discuss that service provider. TracFone is a nation-wide provider of brokered cellular service. They have agreements with several carriers such as Cingular and Verizon to use their towers. When you purchase the Nokia 5125, you can activate it via the TracFone website (http://www.tracfone.com). You can also purchase and redeem additional prepaid minutes at the same site. There are no activation fee, no credit checks, no age limit and no annual contract. This service features free voice mail, free caller ID, free call waiting and long distance. The system is very simple: 1 unit is equal to 1 minute. If you are out of your calling area, the roaming charge is 2 units/minute. Every 30 days, you must puchase a 10 minute card to keep the phone activated. You can also purchase 30,60,150,300 minute cards every 60 days. You can buy airtime in as little as 10 minute increments for $7.99. The best deal is the Plus3 card. This will provide 365 days of activation and comes with 100 minutes of airtime. Pre-paid wireless service is not cheap, but it may be a sensible alternative in certain circumstances. For example: -you use wireless only infrequently -you want an emergency phone for the car -you want to give your teenager a cell phone, but want to control costs When used with the Nokia 5125 phone, you have all the benefits of a full featured digital wireless service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 90266 2003/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use more email enabled great call quality downloadable ringtones until you change that your number shows up as private when you call someone The Bottom LineA decent phone, good for Pay As You Go use, or for occasional talking, if you use your phone a lot or care about features, I'd look else where. Full Review Introduction: I signed up a while ago on epinions, I just never had got around to writing any reviews, although this one has been a draft since last JUNE!!! Its now broke but I'd still like to give any potential buyers the run down on it. I'll give the good, the bad, and then compare it to my older motorola startac 3000 and my newer motorola C332. The Bad: Although when I first bought this phone I couldn't really find anything wrong with it, now that I've had a chance to compare it to other cells, its not as feature rich as I once thought. no web capabilities - This phone has no web capabilities. I thought I'd never use this but now that I have it on my c333 I love it, it would have been nice to see wap enabled on this phone. no calculator - Not a major issue, it would have been nice to see this added on, but I only minorly miss it. no calendar - This is one thing that I really wish would have been added in. Its been a year since I bought this phone, I've had my new c332 for a week and I am finding it way more convienent to use it for reminders instead of writing everything down on paper, plus I don't lose it this way. No Vibrate Alert - I really wish that vibrate alert would have been added on to this phone. When I'm at a restaurant I don't have my phone turned on its nice to be able to see if the calls important. You can get a battery that adds the vibrating function but adding it into the phone is an easy step that shouldn't have been left out. A little big - When I first bought this phone I didn't mind the size, I was happy with it until school started again. It was too big to carry in my pocket, I started leaving it behind quite a bit. The Good Battery life - The battery life on this phone is great. The way that I was going about it was charging it when I went to bed SUnday night and it would be ready for me monday moring for another 7 days. Games - This phones comes with 3 games, Snake, Memory and Logic, I found Snake to be the best then Memory and I never really played logic. Replacable Faceplates Like a lot of phones this phone has replacable faceplates, I find that they fit quite well. Comparison The way that I'll do the comparison is I'll say what I'm comparing then number my 3 phones as to how they compare against each other, 1 being the best, 2 being the middle, 3 being the worst. I will give 3 points for 1st, 2 points for second and then 1 point for last. At the end of the comparison, I'll rate the 3, the highest points is what I found to be the best phone. Battery Life 1. Nokia 5125 2. Motorola C332 3. Startac 3000 Reception 1. Motorola C332 2. Nokia 5125 Call Clarity How strong the Vibrate Alert is 1. Motorola C332 & Startac 3000 Additional Features Total Points 1. Motorola C332 (14 points) 5/5 stars 2. Nokia 5125 (9 points) 3/5 stars 3. Startac 3000 (7 points) 2/5 stars From using all three of the phones, that is the order that I would rate them. The Nokia 5125 is worth buying if you only want it for occasional use, or to keep in a car for emergency. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90265 2000/2/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight compact easy to read screen buttons get stuck under face plate The Bottom LineBill Gates won't be happy, but most other people will benefit from the Nokia 5125 Full Review I have had many a good and bad cell phone in my life, and to review them all would take forever, but I would like to review this cell phone because I have had many positive experiences with it. Below I will outline and describe the pros and cons of this phone that I have personally experienced, but first, lets look at the features. Features ---------- -Dual band mode -caller ID -large display screen for easy reading -phone number storage w/ names -many many rings to choose from -not able to connect to the web Pros... 1) Size and weight: This phone is extremely lightweight (perhaps the lightest I have ever owned) and very small...It can easily fit into your slacks or coat pocket with no problem. 2) Display screen: The letters on the display screen are very large and easy on the eyes, and at night the screen will light up. Many phones light up, but small fonts will run together making it no less difficult to read, but the Nokia 5125 is much easier on the eyes. 3) Features: As listed above, things like dozens of rings form which to choose, caller ID with storage of names and numbers, speed dialing at the touch of a button, and easy programing make this phone a definite steal for the money. 4) Battery life: In my experience, I have had one or two phones with better battery life, but I have likewise had in the area of 10 phones that could not last as long as the Nokia 5125. You can easily get 2.5-3 hours of talk time without charging the phone at all. 5) Clarity: Much like battery life, there are phones with better clarity, but for the money, you can not find a better compact cell phone. Cons... 1) No web-based abilities: Lately it is becoming increasingly important to receive email, stock quotes and similar things on your cell phone, but the Nokia 5125 is not able to perform those features. For the family cell phone, this is a great deal, but you won't see your company's CEO sporting the Nokia 5125 anytime soon. 2) Buttons: Simply put, these buttons are more confusing than they need be. Instead of a talk button, there is a multi-purpose button that will perform the task listed above it on the display screen. Also, I have had numerous experiences with the number buttons getting stuck underneath the face plate. This is, of course, not a buying or selling point, but it does get a little annoying after the second or third time. Like I said, don't get this phone if you are in need of web-based information because you just won't be happy with it. However, if you have no need for those features, I can say with certainty that you will be very happy with your purchase. ~Thanks Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90264 2000/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 you can make calls on it it is a mobile telephone fat dull lack of features dreary boring The Bottom LineIf you have to buy a mobile phone, this one will connect you. But it has a lack of features and is bulky. Full Review The Nokia 5125: An Average Mobile Phone. By James Zaworski I resisted, for many years, the urge to go with the crowd and jump on the bandwagon of cell phone and mobile telephone technology. I finally gave in when I decided it was cheaper for me to lose one of my landlines, and just keep the dedicated line to the computer and FAX machine and throw caution to the wind and get a mobile telephone. It was actually my mother who purchased the Nokia 5125 mobile phone for me as a gift. It is the standard telephone now sold with the Tracfone prepaid wireless carrier, and this and 450 minutes was my birthday present last July. Since then, it seems that wireless technology has come with many new features and the resultant comparison is that the Nokia 5125 is left wanting in many regards. However, it is a functional mobile telephone, and if you get it with the Tracfone prepaid system, it is a good telephone that will get you connected if you are in a jam, a good emergency phone. The features of the Nokia 5125 are: Band Mode Dual Mode Brand Nokia Caller ID No Display Type Large backlit screen Internet Connectivity Phone_indigo5125.jpg Manufacturer Part Number 5125 Memory Comments Stores names and phone numbers Multiple Ring Options No Product Height 5.2 inches Product Weight (oz) 6 oz Vibrating Ring No Web Enabled No What I like about the Nokia 5125 1) Price. This is not an expensive telephone by any stretch of the imagination anymore. You can pick one up for less than $35 if you shop around. 2) Functions. The Nokia 5125 has a very easy to use and understand set of button functions on its control pad. Answering a call, making a call, and navigating the display screen are all very easy. You have the ability to do text messages and access voice messages, see the call log, including calls dialed, missed called, and received calls, settings, system, games, alarm clock and ring tones 3) Phone Book Functions. The Nokia 5125 has the capacity to store telephone numbers, names, and email addresses. It also has a one touch dial feature, as well as a name/phone number association you can use when looking for a number in a hurry just using the name entered and saved. 4) Shortcuts on the Menu. There are a number of menu shortcuts that will get you to the phone book, messages (voice and text), call log, settings, system, games, alarm clock and ring tones. (there is a shortcut for every function, you just have to memorize them instead of scrolling down the menu scroll pad) 5) Battery. The Nokia 5125 comes with a rechargeable Li-Ion battery and associated A/C power cord charger. I find that I have to charge it once every three days with minimal usage, and it is reliable. What I do not like about the Nokia 5125. 1) No web connectivity. This is kind of a hassle seeing that most mobile telephones now have some sort of Internet ready capability. 2) No silent or vibrating ring. This is a feature that is missing on this phone, and I wish it had it because the ring options for the phone are limited and obnoxiously loud with no volume control. A silent ring would be very desirable for this phone, but alas, it is not available. 3) The antenna. This phone comes with a fixed antenna, and I swear there are times you could get a better signal if the phone had an extendable antenna. 4) Size. This phone is bulky, by todays mobile telephone standards. At over 5 inches in height and 6 ounces in weight, this mobile telephone is a heavyweight, and the bulge in your pocket looks awkward and silly. 5) Color of the phone. Nokia 5125 offers color covers, which you can buy, for this phone. They do not come standard with the phone, and what you get is the ugly dark gray to blackish phone cover. It is a dreary colored telephone with no vibrancy to it. 6) Reception. For international calls, this mobile phone has terrible reception, even if you are 0.5 km from the cell phone tower. It works fine for domestic and local calling, though. So, all in all, the Nokia 5125 is an average mobile telephone. It is good in that you should be able to pick up a signal and make a telephone call. The lack of features in this phone as judged by the standards of today make it seem like a dinosaur. If you want a mobile phone with features, try something better and newer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7805 Nokia 3510 90271 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 polyphonic ringtones large screen quite a few good features 5 games downloadable ones screen logos unavailable nothing revolutionary for a new ish phone The Bottom LineGood if not great phone but could only really succeed if released before anyone had heard of camera phones or colour screens. Do yourselves a favour and get the 3510i. Full Review This phone has quite a few good features but not really enough to make up for what you don't get. The phone was released in august (about when camera phones and colour screens started appearing) so people should expect more than is included. Recently (not even 6 months after the 3510's release) Nokia have released the 3510i, which is bad news for people who bought the original as it has a colour screen which makes it a better experience for gaming and WAP. The phone partly makes up for what it lacks with its 5 included games (not mentioning the ones downloadable from Club Nokia). These games are more than enough for anyone with a short attention span. The games included are all equally playable but one really gets your gaming juices going, purely for the fact that it is so addictive, Bumper is a pinball game that rarely gets tiresome and its easy to get lost while chasing your highest score on the bus ride home. All of the games are good and each deserve a place on anyones phone. Another thing that helps the phone is the size of its screen, with the ability to fit 4 lines of text on a single screen, even the most vision impaired people won't find it hard to see the screen. One thing I was quite disapointed at was not being able to put logos on the main screen of the phone, a feature that most if not all Nokia phones usually include. I don't know if the network the phone is on is the reason it can't get these logos, but I know that its a step backwards in the opinion of most people who will purchase the phone. The polyphonic ringtones do add novelty to the phone but they do make you look a bit stupid if somebody calls you while your standing in the middle of a crowd of people. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 157 90270 2000/6/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 value for money large inbuilt memory creative phone covers no gprs through a pc no clock backup battery The Bottom LineBuy it if you need a cheap, decent phone to keep you entertained. Do not buy this if you need advanced features (colour screen, GPRS through a PC). Full Review The 3510 is a very nice entry level phone. It has a good selection of games, no snake, however it has Kart Racing, Link5 (connect 4), bumper, space impact 2, and Dance-2-Music. You can receive (but not send) MMS messages and picture messages. It's black and white screen means that you will not be able to experience the MMS world very well, however you can receive polyphonic ringtones, and animated screensavers. The phone is fairly light (105g with battery), and fits well in your pocket. The phone design is good, and it is compatible with the 3530 covers. The covers for the 3510 are very creative, with different types of cover. Standard, Active (Light show when the phone rings), and Gaming (specialised cover for gaming with a joystick). The inbuilt memory is large, with room for 500 names, 150 SMS messages, and up to 500 calender entries depending on the room left. Some of the banes I have experienced with the phone are: You cannot connect it to a computer and use the internet via GPRS. This means the GPRS function is rather useless, as you can only use WAP over GPRS. I have experienced a few minor software glitches, one was with the audio, the sounds occasionally will not turn off (ie the tone will be continuous until another tone is triggered), this will happen until the phone is reset. I have only had this problem with some polyphonic ringtones. The other one is the cell info display is not centered sometimes, but to the far left of the screen. Nothing major, but it looks a little odd. There is no composer, which is not surprising, as the 8310 didn't have a composer either, and the 3510 tones are polyphonic. I find the calendar feature useful, as you can easily browse reminders and make new ones, the dates with reminders show up as bold. This phone is a good phone for value for money, however the features may not be good enough for some users. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 240 90269 2000/6/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large phonebook memory lots of message space calendar feature is confusing The Bottom LineNice, cheap, light, comfortable use... What else to say? Full Review The terms of my contract allow me to upgrade my phone each year for free (up to a certain value of handset). However I can pay extra money and upgrade to an even better handset, which is what I did after I saw the Nokia 3510. One of the first things that attracted me to this was it's large phonebook memory which allows you to store up to 500 names and numbers. This is sufficiently more than my previous memory of just 99 spaces. You also have the option of copying the SIM card memory and storing the phonebook on the handset itself. The text message memory stores up to 150 messages which is a lot better than the 10 spaces I had previously. I can also create my own folders to organise my messages. This is a particularly useful feature as I can sort my messages by who sent them to me, or what they're about. This handset also comes with polyphonic ringtones. This means that instead of just one sound playing at a time, you have more than one playing so the sound quality is improved. It even makes the terrible "Nokia" ringtone sound quite good! This phone also comes with the WAP facility, allowing you to access the internet to look at news, weather, sport and entertainment and so on. You also have the opportunity to activate the GPRS function which means you're constantly connected to the internet but you only pay for the data you send and receive, not the amount of time you're connected. It has a comprehensive calendar function which allows you to set a whole host of reminders, such as day notes, and birthday reminders. This is useful as it also lists the days as you would read them on a calendar (i.e. you can read day and date). However it is difficult to retrieve the notes to amend them if you've forgotten the date you set the reminder for. However, this is the only fault I can find with this phone. The phone comes complete with 5 games ranging from Kart racing, to Link5 (a Connect 4 spinoff) and Space impact. There is also a pinball game and something called Dance to Music where you push buttons to make characters dance. However there is no Snake game which did disappoint me slightly. As with previous Nokias you have the facility to set different profiles. For example you can have the phone set to Discreet (useful for when you're in meetings/lectures) and the phone will only vibrate. Or you can select Loud for when you're outdoors and it may be difficult to hear. All these profiles can be customised and you can even have different screensavers (some of which are animated for a short period of time) to tell them apart. The battery life is good too. I usually charge mine every two or three days depending on how much I've used it which I think is quite good. If you're a frequent user, you may wish to investigate other handsets with longer battery lives but I think the 3510 is more than sufficient for most users. The phone itself is ever so slightly longer than my old phone (Nokia 3330) but it is much slimmer and a lot lighter so carrying it is no problem at all. There is also the opportunity to change both front and back covers although I've yet to see any in the shops. Al in all a terrific phone and I would strongly recommend it to you whether you're upgrading your existing handset or buying your first phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 14.99 7806 Nokia 3285 90287 2000/8/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 internet capable durable call clarity bulkyuggggely battery life The Bottom LineSTAY AWAY FROM THE 3285!! There are so many cooler phones to choose from these days!! If you don't need the Internet, get the 5185i. Full Review I was pretty happy with this phone until I switched jobs and had to park in a parking garage. As many of you know, no matter what phone or service you have, you won't get a signal in a parking garage. No problem, I thought, assuming that when I got outside the signal bars would come back and the phone would then be usable. Boy was I wrong!! I'd get outside, walk to work and if I didn't notice what was going on with my phone, my battery would be completely drained by noon! At first, I didn't think this was a big deal, I'd just turn the phone off and back on again and everything was then fine. Till it just continued happening every single day, anytime my phone lost all signal bars! If I was driving and went ANYWHERE where my phone didn't receive any signal, it would not regain signal from there and it would totally KILL the battery. So, I called Qwest, told them my problem and they sent out a new phone for me to try. SAME THING!! Although I loved the fact that I could get the scores on the Mariners when a TV wasn't around, and I could get movie times, horoscopes and much more via Internet, it was just not worth the hassle of babysitting this phone and charging the battery every single day. I must say, the other features of this phone are pretty cool, but the body style is ridiculously ugly. There aren't as many faceplates to chose from like there are for the 5185i or the very cool 3360 series. Another feature that prompted me to get this phone was that it was capable to download ringtones. Don't be misled by this feature!! You have to buy a $60 cable in order to do this which I didn't know until after I got it. I finally ditched this phone after the battery started slipping from the device and would not make a connection. Eventually I would have to hold the phone up to my ear (of course) to talk and at the same time, squeeze the battery to the phone so that it would not die on me. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 90286 2000/3/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice feel tri mode changeable ring tones clear large printout easy to dial none The Bottom LineEnjoy your phone as it makes life easier for you. Full Review Verizon Wireless replaces cell phones every 2 years so I got the new tri mode 3285 vs a Kyocera 2185. I asked the clerk to charge it so we can see the display & play with it a bit. Instant love!!!! Kyocera lost when neither of their 2 phones would charge at all. Back to Nokkia, the unique construction of angled buttons makes for a clean, modern look & easily hides in a pocket, a slot in a purse, fits in the car's center column. Via the net we got "Candle in the Wind" as my "ring", so I know it is my phone ringing when we are with other folks. Charger cord goes from outlet to a thin needle-like insert to the phone for a 2 hour charge for full usage all day. Green light makes it easy to find in my purse, which you can program to stay on. Husband got a kick out of the 3 games on it that he was playing away on the plane & also the LAX 3 hour delay. Ring volume as well as hearing volume is also easily controlled. You name it, this phone can do it! This is far from my last 2 phones (Motorola analog & Qualcomm digital). They thought of everything & it all is very easily available with just 2 buttons. Great instruction booklet written in true English, not some scientific jargan. Sells for $220 at Verizon, or $99 with a service plan sign ups, but I got it for FREE! (Still have a year on my 3 year National Calling Plan). They also included a ear buds headset. Almost invisible when on, so even New Yorkers can use the phone while driving. Recommended: Yes 90285 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 easy navigation good size changeable faceplates in fun colors not many aftermarket addons sound quality is below average drops calls frequently The Bottom LineYou could most likely find a better phone for the money. Full Review I've been a loyal Nokia user for about five years, and have tested a pretty wide range of thier phones. I've used the 5160, 5170, 6185, and have recently added the 3285 to the list. I've been most satisfied with the 6185, but when the 3285 came out, I felt the need to try something new. Mistake. I work for a small wireless company in Alaska that uses CDMA technology, so I'm usually up on the new phones that come in. I was one of the first people to try the 3285, and there were a few things that lacked in comparison to the 6185 that I was used to. I live in an area that doesn't have very reliable wireless coverage, so the phones are really put to the test. This phone has some serious problems with making AND holding calls. Sometimes I would have to try two or three times to make a call in an area with good coverage, and when it would connect, it would be really "garbled" which, if you know about CDMA, you probably know that it is pretty uncommon. Another thing I didn't like about the phone is that it would frequently show that it had signal, when it really couldn't make a call. The battery life of the phone was pretty good- the lithium polymer battery did pretty well with my high volume of calls. It wasn't as good as my super extended lithium ion, but for the extra slim size of the li-pol, it's a good trade off. Over all, I wasn't impressed with the phone's performance. I suppose if you live in a bigger city than some small place in Alaska like me, you might do fine with this phone. I paid the same amount for the 3285 as I did for the 6185, so for the money, I would recommend the 6185. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 229.99 90284 2000/5/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 fair soud quality cool color face plates please read for more it s a nokia placing a call please read for more the web browser The Bottom LineI like this phone. It just serves it's purpose. Full Review I bought my first cell phone in June 2001. It was a Nokia 5185i, and I loved it. It was a great phone, but I really wanted one of the Nokia's with the calender and mini browser. I will write about the 5185 soon. In September 2001my carrier, Verizon, started selling a new Nokia. The Nokia 3285. It had all the features such as profiles, browser, calculator, and calendar. I marked down on my Christmas wish list. Chistmas day finally came and I recieved a Nokia 3285. I immediatley called verizon and activated it. I also added on mobile web to keep things interesting. That's the story. How to get it: This is for those who are buying a cell phone. - Go to the phone carrier store of your choice. You can also go to an authorized retailer. - Talk to someone who can help you find the phone and rate plan of your choice. - Find a phone that suits your needs. - After choosing a phone, look at the company's coverage map. Be sure to research each one of your local cellular providers. - Choose the rate plan that is right for you. If you intend on traveling with your phone, choose a plan that offers free roaming. Many providers include this with all of their plans. - After signing a contract, they will activate your phone. It can take a while, so don't use your phone until it is activated. It will be faster if you don't use it. - Once the phone has activated, your ready to go. Features: This phone has many useful features for everyday digital life. Calendar- This is my favorite feature. You can mark down important reminders without using a date book. You can even program an alarm to go off at a certain time and date. Minibrowser- This feature enables you to browse the web, right on your telephone. You can only access certain sites, though. Profiles- The profiles are very cool. You can create different types of ring patterns. There are standard profiles such as normal, silent, meeting, outdoors, and pager. You can even create five of your own profiles. Games- Nokia was the first phone manufacturing company to have games enabled on their models. There are four games on this phone including Pairs, Snake, Logic, and Dice. Snake is my favorite. Calculator- The calculator is very useful. No need to carry an old one around anymore. It takes a little getting used to, but it is useful. The Good: Here are the good things about this system. - You can change the face plates to different colors or designs. - It's nice and compact. You can easily put it in your pocket or buy a belt clip. - It has lots of useful features. - You can shop on the mini browser. There are many great things about this phone. The Bad: Here are the bad things on this product. - When you place a call, it will sometimes take awhile. It will also drop out on you as well. - The web browser is slow and not very easy to use. Verizon charges $6.95 a month for it. It is not worth it. - It's only available through Verizon in my area. This is a great phone. I would recommend the 5185i over the 3285. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90283 2000/8/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool style extremely clear great battery life easy to use you can t get them if you re a verizon customer although the phone itself accepts ringtones The Bottom LineThis is an EXCELLENT phone. The clarity, ease of use, abundant features and cool look make it a great phone for now and years to come! Full Review Well, after debating for a year, I finally decided to enter the world of the cellular phone. I decided to go with Verizon for service - the Nokia phone that works with Verizon is the 3285. There was another phone I could have gotten free, but after doing a lot of research, I realized Nokia was a tried and true company in the cell phone market so it seemed the $30+tax would be money well spent - and besides, I'd be able to get those awesome ringtones, right?!?! So I set up my service and got my phone - here is how I feel about it all... 1. Performance - after all, even though they are fun to play with, the real reason you got it was to talk on it, right? This phone is as clear as I imagine they get. (Of course, a good phone with a bad provider could ruin that point, but I've got a good provider.) Often people don't know that I'm calling from a cell phone. Also for any Verizon customers the phone is good at switching modes to find the best signal possible. The features of the phone are pretty cool too. It has a large address book that list names in alphabetical order. It has 30 different ringtones. You can have 5 different setups in the phone pre-programmed so that you don't have to go through and change everything when you move from one setting to another. (For example, an outside party setup vs. a movie setup vs. an office setup.) You just switch to the setting and everything in the phone is changed to match what you've programmed for that setting. There are many other great features of this phone including a calendar with reminders for Birthday's or meetings that make it very useful. Navigating through the features is easy too. For those with great number memories you can short cut to any given feature with the keypad - for those of you like me who think you have too many numbers to remember already, you can scroll through features, kinda like using a mouse on your computer. 2. The look - this is a cool looking phone. It's smaller than many of the older Nokia models and much lighter too. There are already a couple of dozen different faceplates available for this model and I'm sure many, many more are on the way. 3. The Down Low on Downloadable ringtones - If your provider is Verizon Wireless, you CAN NOT DOWNLOAD RINGTONES!!! I have done much research on this ('cause I wanted to so bad) and there is NO WAY TO DO IT THROUGH VERIZON!!! I have been in touch with the office of the President of Verizon and they have NO PLAN to make this feature available to their customers. Currently Nokia offers no alternate way to get ringtones on the phone if you are a Verizon Customer. It is possible they might offer some way in the future, but don't count on it! Overall I have nothing but praise for this phone. It was inexpensive with the new service agreement. It has all the features you could possibly need in a phone plus some extras. It has a great sleek design. And most importantly it performs wonderfully! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30+tax 90282 2000/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to understand features inexpensive clear sound only 30 calendar entries The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for a traveling professional. If appearance, quality, and reliability are important to you then buy this phone. Full Review This is my first cell phone. There are so many different technologies and options that I wanted to get it right since I planned to sign a 2-year lease. I researched cell phones, service providers, and various cell phone technologies extensively before committing to this phone. I use this phone for my newly started accounting business as well as statewide travel for my auditing job and I wanted something reliable, durable, with good sound, good reception, and which looked professional. The Nokia 3285 has been all of those things and has some very nice additional features as well. I use the calendar on the phone to remind me of everyone's birthday and to track appointments etc. I added a vibrating Li-Ion battery for $20 and a belt clip for $5 bringing the cost up to $75. I have read complaints about sound quality for this phone, but after I learned not to press it to my ear while talking I have had no problems. I have never tried the minibrowser or the calculator. I have changed the faceplate and keypad - both of which are remarkably easy to do. I cannot download ring tones (only because of my service provider) but the phone comes with 40 ring tones and I certainly do not foresee needing that many. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90281 2002/7/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 i suppose it is a typical cell phone nothing special keylock necessary to prevent unwanted calls needs side volume adjustment The Bottom LineFor a free phone, this does the job, however I wouldn't go out of my way to get one. Full Review Despite being a computer geek for a living, only last week did I finally join the cell-phone owning masses. Since I don't expect to use it a great deal, I got this phone, which was Alltel's current "free" model. I did have a pre-paid cell phone three years ago, and the body of this phone is no smaller. The battery is much thinner than that old phone, but the body is pretty much the same size. This really isn't too much of a drawback, because this allows a large, yet thin, battery to attach to it, and the keypad is a generous size. I think this is about one of the bulkiest phones on the market right now, except for those truly huge Nextel Motorolas, and GSM Nokia models that need that nasty analog adapter. The impressively thin battery that came with it (the BLS-2N) was a generous 900mAH, which leads to a pretty decent standby and talk time. However, should you want an additional battery, new ones are pretty expensive, at around $45-$60. My particular phone came with vibrate built in, but there are models of the 3285 without it, so make sure you check with your provider before purchasing. The first day I used it, the phone made two calls from my pocket, due to the somewhat sensitive keys. I highly suggest using keylock (hold down "end" to engage) if you want to stop this from happening in a pocket or purse. I found the lack of volume buttons on the side to be somewhat inconvenient. Groping for the up and down buttons in the middle of the keypad is tough to do while talking. (Note to Nokia manual writers: A note on volume control in the index of the manual would be greatly appreciated.) My calls seem to be reasonably clear, and I have had no problems with reception. As with all cell phones and providers, your mileage may vary. The only time I had connection issues were in a tunnel at DFW airport (duh) and during an electrical storm. (Also kind of obvious.) As far as faceplates and ringtones go: I have not been able to evaluate those features and I don't ever intend to. The phone looks fine enough right out of the box, and I think ringtones are pretty annoying in general. I am going to stick with the basic ring. I am giving it four stars because of the fine reception, decent clarity, and decent battery life, but there is nothing to really distinguish it to give it five stars. I would have much preferred some of Nokia's internal antenna models, had Alltel offered them. (I am piggybacking off of my wife's Alltel plan.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 + contract 90280 2001/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri mode webbrowsertext msging enabled pull out antenna lags explained in review The Bottom LineThis is a great phone, but I wouldn't pay the $220 USD for it, Im glad I got it FREE. Full Review I got this phone about a month ago, this is my 2nd cellphone, the first being the Nokia 5160i. I received this phone free with a 2-year package deal, although it retails for $350.00 CAD ($220 USD). The phone runs on the CDMA Technology, which means you can't subscribe to Rogers/AT&T (easily), but on the upside you CAN subscribe to Bell Mobility or anyother company using CDMA technology. You COULD subscribe to TDMA technology companies like Rogers, IF you get the phone switched over to A side, as default it is set on B side. Heres the Tech Specs on the Phone. Weight: 140.4g (4.95 oz.) with BPS-2 Li-Polymer Battery (The one in the box) Size: 136 cc (8.3 cu. in.) Frequency Range Low Band : 824.04 - 848.97 MHz (TX) 869.04 - 893.97 MHz (RX) HighBand : 1850.04 - 1909.92 MHz (TX) 1930.08 - 1989.96 MHz (RX) Transmitter Output Power : Up to 400mW Batter Voltage: 3.6 V nominal Charging Current: 350 mAh max. using ACP-7U Charger Operating Temp: -30C to +60C (-22F to +140F) Number of Channels 832 Lowband 1150 Highband Number of NAMs: 2 (Number of numbers that can be assigned to the phone) Memory Locations: 200 (Stored Names/Emails) Memory Capacity: Alpha: 16 characters per location Nummeric: 32 digits per location Data/Fax Transmission Rate: 14.4Kbps (Yes, theres a modem in it) Fax Type: Group 3 Send/Receive This phone comes with: BPS-2 Ultra Slim Li-Polymer 1100 mAh Battery and the ACP-7U Charger. Using this charger the battery takes 5-6hrs to charge. The one GREAT advantage of the Lithium battery is that you can charge it whenever and not hurt it. Although it is not advised to leave it on charge for over a week at a time (as with the NiCd battery). Battery Life Digital Talk Time: 2hrs 20min to 3hrs 30min Analog Talk Time: 50 min to 1 hr 40min Stand By: 77 to 130 hrs (dig) 12 to 18 hrs (ana) I have found that the battery doesn't last quite as long as nokia states. But thats not too big of a prob when in digital mode, just pop it ont the charger every 2nd night. When it jumps into analogue mode you better hope the battery was near full, cause it drains fast. The games on this phone are the ever favourable Snake with its 9 lvls of difficulty (I mentioned in Cons that the phone "lags" what i mean is, when im playing snake the phone lags making the game near impossible to play, I have not asked nokia about this, but I believe the problem to be that the phone searches for better service at periodic intervals and that the phone can't handle the 2 functions semlessly), then there is Memory, a rather boring game. It has Logic (still haven't figured out how to play that) and it has Dice, which isn't really a game, all it does is allow a person to roll up to 6 dice on their phone if they are playing a game that needs dice. (Which i usually need, always lose them dice) The phones 3 modes are.. Analogue (Not used too much in urban areas, but rampant in the rural areas), 800Mhz Digital (Most common digital frequency for small cities, allows you to use most of the digital features excluding the web browser), then there is 1900Mhz Digital (This is only found in metropolitan areas or small cities that have decided to upgrade, with this frequency you can use the web browser, as long as the phone company supports it.) Text messaging has a new feature "Predictive Text" this will analyze the letters already entered in and finish the word for you. I found this feature to be very annoying and not work. E.g. I typed in "an" to make the word "and" and the phone all of a sudden changed "an" to "con" I don't know why it did this, but it isn't a very good feature. If you have Digital Call Display enabled on your phone, you can not only see whos calling you but HEAR them too, by setting individual rings to each person on your list, I found this feature very cool. The web browser uses an internal 14.4Kbps wireless modem. With the web browser you can download up to 4 more rings, check stocks, send email or check the weather on certain pages that have made their pages viewable by the phones. I would go into this with more depth but my phone company does not support this feature, yet. =D The phone also has "Profiles" which allow you to set all the sound levels (ringing tones, button tones) and name them, such as "Meeting", "In Class", "Pager", etc. The list could go on forever, as you can type in the new name. The phone has the same headphone and power attachment as the nokia 5160i, with it located on the bottom. There is a hole in the back, just below the antenna where you can plug in another antenna. The main antenna pulls out, to give a strengthened signal. I like every aspect of the layout of the phone except the "ear-piece" or where the holes are cut into the face plate any way, I find them to be a bit high, and this makes me lower the phone ont he side of my head, bringing the antenna closer to me too (I know its not proven to cause brain cancer, but I dont like taking the chance.) Hmmm, I think I covered all of it, well all that I can remember anyway. I recommend getting this phone, it has a LOT of cool features and isn't quite as expensive as other phones with the same features. If you have anyother questions, please feel free to email me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 (Retail) 90279 2000/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very slick lightweight attractive ect ringtones faceplates good sound quality no other cons not many faceplates are out in storesmalls yet The Bottom LineAll Nokia cell phones including the Nokia 3285 are mostly for the younger crowd ages ranging from 13-28. I would totally recommend this slick phone, read on.. Full Review I got this phone about a month ago after a signing w/ a contract with Alltel. I paid 50 dollars for the phone.. I think it is totally worth the money, and seriously, I would have paid 200 dollars for the phone if I didn't get a slick deal on it. Anyways goin on.. I upgraded from a Motorola TalkAbout to this Nokia 3285.. Which I think was a pretty slick move on my part since I'm gettin' a lotta use outta the phone. My Motorola constintly dropped my calls, calls were unclear... you got the rest.. (I don't recommend the Motorola). Alright, let's move on to the Nokia 3285's slick features.. It's gotta 200 name memory phone book for those popular ones w/ a lot of friends and a lot of people to call. I currently have 168 people in my phone book. The names and numbers are in ABC order.. I really like this feature because you don't have to remember everyones number, you just scroll with the scroll button to the number you want to call and press talk. boom! you're done! and the call's connected. Messaging: Depending on if you want text messaging or not, you could write your friends text messages and talk to them without using up your minutes and stuff. You can also check your voice messages, put a welcome note on your screen when the your cell turns on, and you could check your Minibrowser messages also. Call Log: This, I use a lot.. You could check your missed calls, your recieved calls, and your dialed calls, and you could check your call timers to see how long you talked on your last call and see how long you talked on your phone since activation. Profiles: This is where your volume, ringtones, keypad volume, screensavers, vibration options all come in to play.. you can choose many different choices to make the phone best fit you. There's 5 different modes you could set the phone on..I personally like the Silent mode.. So When I am in class or in a movie the phone vibrates instead of rings, and doesnt desturb anyone. One thing I noticed about the nokias that isn't too slick is that you cant put a banner on the display to say your name like most phones you could.. but what i found slick about the nokia 3285 is that you could rename the profiles to say your name,and it will show up in your backround display.. it's seriously SLICK! Settings: This basicly explains itself.. It's just your prefrences of what you want on and off on your phone, not too big of a deal for me to get into detail. System: I don't know about this one you just select the provider or something, I don't know!! Games: 4 Games.. 1. Pairs... Kind of a lame game, never really play it too much. (not slick) 2. Snake.. my all time favorite game.. (VERY SLICK) You guide the snake to the food and make it grow, but you can't hit the walls or run into any part of your snake or else the game is over. my top score is 603.. many of my friends have gotten their scores over 800. this game is really good to pass by boring times in the orthodontist office, the airport, long car rides.. The game is soo slick, that I am completly addicted to it. 3.Logic...Still haven't learned to play this one yet.. Too confusing (Not slick at all) 4.Dice...I don't understand the game.. (Not too slick either) Calculator: I find this part of the phone pretty useful, you can do quick math problems that you cant do in your head and you need a quick response.. it only has basic math though (Add, Subtract,multiplycation, division).. It's a cell phone why would you need more? Calendar: All I could say is.. VERY SLICK!!.. It reminds me to call grandma every weekend, reminds me of birthdays, vacations.. lemme just say it saves me a lot of headaces.. take advantage of this feature! Minibrowser: I guess you could get online w/ your cell phone or something.. I don't use it, never will, I got my PC at home I don't need anymore. Keyguard: This feature is Slick so when you have your phone in your pocket you don't accidently call someone.. again this saves you headaces, take advantage of this feature. Other SLICK features: 1 touch dialing, easy working alarm clock (very slick, call restrictions... you get the picture SLICK tip!!!---I've read many reviews where people have stated that the sound quality and volume isn't that well.. if you put the hole of your ear inbetween where it says Nokia and the bottom set of sound holes the calls are loud and clear.. it took me a while to figure that one out, but it took some adjusting. To higher sound volume even more press the middle scroll buttons in the middle of a call. I hope everyone found my review SLICK, and very helpful. Thanks for reading. John- Age, 14 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90278 2002/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery lightweight easy to use none yet The Bottom LineThe Nokia 3285 is a great phone. Incredibly clear, and the price is unbeatable! Full Review A friend of mine recently bought this phone, and I used it for two days so I could set everything up for her. I put it to good use for those two days, to make sure it worked like it was suppose to. First thing I noticed was how light the phone was. That's due to the high-tech Lithium Polymer battery - Nokia's top of the line battery. It's very lightweight and thin...not to mention it has great talk and standby times. The second thing I noticed was the keypad and menus. The keypad was clicky and had great feedback, so you always know that you pressed a key. Some keypads are mushy, and make it hard to dial. This one was a breeze to use and dial with. The menus were extremely easy to use (as with all Nokias). That's why I recommend Nokias to a lot of people. I went around to different places with my VoiceStream phone and my friend's new Nokia 3285. Verizon has great coverage where I live, so I knew if the phone didn't display full signal something was wrong. Everywhere I went the phone was in digital mode with full signal. My VoiceStream phone had 1/2 to 3/4 signal most of the time, which isn't too bad. Analog mode: Analog mode is important to test should you be somewhere without digital coverage. The Nokia 3285 will fall back to analog mode, if digital is unavailable. Verizon has digital everywhere here, so I forced the phone to analog. It worked like a charm. Calls were crystal clear. I can't tell you how surprised I was. I thought the battery would be dead after all my tested (and it constantly being forced to analogm mode) but it lasted all day and was on 3 out of 4 bars at the end of the day. I'd say that's impressive, considering all the analog calls I made. All calls that I made on the 3285 were crystal clear in both analog and digital mode. The voices were deep and easy to hear. My 3390 got a little garbled, but it was still useable. Antenna: The Nokia 3285 has a retractable antenna. You should extend it as often as possible, as it makes it easier for your phone to aquire and keep a signal. If you're in a weak signal area, it's really important to pull the antenna up because that can determine whether or not the call will go through. The neat thing is that if you don't have digital coverage, you can simply switch it over to analog. There is a lot of analog coverage everywhere, so it's nice that it's so easy to switch it over to analog should you need to. The screen wasn't as bright as I'd like it to be, and it wasn't as easy to see (compared to my 3390). It was still easy to use, but you might have to go near a light to see the display (even with the backlight on) because it's a bit dim. To make a long story short, this is a great phone. It's so great, I'm actually thinking of switching over to Verizon and buying the 3285. I'm a phone geek, and I have a lot of GSM phones laying around such as the 8290, 6190, and an Ericsson. For the 3285 to sway me over to Verizon, it must be really great. This phone was a steal since it's free with contracts most of the time - but in this case, my friend paid $79.99 with a $50 rebate making it $29. Not bad for this much phone and clarity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29 90277 2000/8/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight easily portable large number of ringtones poor call quality misleading display The Bottom LineBasically, I most definatly would urge people to stay away from this phone. It simply is not worth the hassle. Full Review I purchased this phone just under a year ago as an upgrade on my cellular plan. I had been using the Nokia 252 but wanted a phone with digital capabilities, as the analog network just isn't as good. For about the first month, I was satisfied with the phone. It has a lot of neat features that I found very useful. The games and minibrowser were nice to have while I was between classes at school and bored. The phonebook is easy to use and quite helpful. The alarm clock feature is handy for travelling, or catching a quick nap without having to re-set my alarm clock. It is also quite a convenience to be able to assign individual people their own ringtones, so I know who is calling before I even answer. Unfortunately, I started to have a number of problems with this phone early on, which have continued to plague my entire experience with it. Within a few months the battery would not stay attached to the phone on it's own. It needed to be taped on. I took it back and the battery was replaced. I was told this is a common problem with this phone. The phone drops quite a number of calls, and I often have difficulty placing a call in the first place. Part of this may be due to the fact that I live on the edge of the digital coverage area, but often times I will have these problems when my phone is indicating I have a full signal. Call clarity is often below par, with static and screeching completely drowning out anything being said. I have had the LCD replaced, which is apparently another common problem with the phone. Twice now, I have had to bring the phone in for repairs because it was shutting itself off. The first time it progressed to the point where the phone simply would not turn on. Overall, this phone has been a great disappointment to me. While it does serve the basic purpose of making a phone call, it is often a difficult process. The additional features on the phone are neat, and can be fun to play around with, however they simply do not balance out the problems I have had. If it were not for the fact that in purchasing this phone, I had to sign an 18 month contract, I likely would have found another one long ago, as I am tired of putting up with the problems. It was cheap to buy, but I got locked into a contract I cannot back out on, with no option but to hope the phone gets repaired this time. I am definately not happy with this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 15 +contract 90276 2000/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good looking lightweight easy to use battery life The Bottom LineExcellent product, very reliable, tons of cool features. Great buy! Full Review This Nokia 3285 Cell Phone is a winner! When I purchased it from a Qwest store for $59.99, I wasn't expecting too much out of it. I already had a Nokia phone, but it was getting older and just simply didn't have enough features on it (hey, it was over 2 years old). I expected it to be reliable, have good reception (that may also have something to do with the service provider. In my case, it's Qwest), and be easy to use. As it turned out, it was all that I expected it to be and then some. For example, my favorite feature has to be "Custom Ring". It's a feature that allows you to customize the ringing sound for certain people. That's a very handy feature, especially if you're like me and can't wait to see who exactly is calling. I know most of us already have Caller ID, which is also a good feature, but there's something to be said about knowing who's calling even before you touch the phone. Also, it holds up to 200 different phone numbers and E-mail addresses. So you're probably aren't going to run out of space for storing names and numbers. MESSAGES: This is where you go for Text Messages, Voice Messages, Welcome Note, and Minibrowser Messages. Out of those 4, I only use the Voice Messages and the Welcome Note. (For some reason I was never able to get into the whole text message fun. Why use your fingers to type on a phone when you can just call?) But anyway, the Welcome Note is a feature that allows you to have the phone greet you when you first turn it on. For example, "Hey there, Moose!". Or something of that nature. It's very cool. CALL LOG: Here you'll be able to check on your Missed Calls, Received Calls, Diales Calls, and Call Timers. Also, you can Clear All Lists. Of, if you prefer, just clear the individual logs instead. PROFILES: This option allows you to change certain things about your phone. Say you want a different ring tone, or you want to make your phone silent for a while, or use a Pager option. If your service provider supports paging, you're able to receive pages with this phone. ALARM CLOCK: Pretty self-explanitory. One nice thing about it is that your phone does not have to be turned on in order for alarm clock to go off. It's handy if you're staying over someone's place and need to get up at a certain time. Or if you're going to be traveling. GAMES: There are 4 different games on this phone. My favorite is Snake. It's a game in which your objective is to make the "snake" grow longer and longer by feeding it with food (little dots that you have to collect). There are several different speed levels, too. There's also Memory, a game where you just have to uncover pictures to find pairs. Logic is a game where you need to guess the secret combinations of figures. And the last one is Dice. CALCULATOR: This is another very handy feature. You can perform basic calculations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. CALENDAR: Great way for us guys to remember certain dates! Oh, like anniversaries, birthdays, even holidays! If you're a business person, you will love using this Calendar to remember all your meetings with clients and such. MINIBROWSER: This is something that I'm planning on using in the near future. I don't know about other service providers but Qwest charges $9.95 per month for this feature. It would probably be well worth it if you're always out and don't have internet access at work, though. KEYGUARD: Have you ever accidently made a phone call? Well, with this feature, you won't ever again. Providing that you actually use it. All the buttons are easy to press, I've never had any problems with 'em. The display is clear and easy to read. It also has a glow for whenever you're in the dark, just in case. Reception is exceptional. I have a lot of friends who always seem to struggle with theirs under different phones and/or service providers. Mine is always always at 4 bars. I'm sure this will depend on who you have as a provider and also where you live (hills and forrests may hurt). Overall, I have to say that I'm very happy with the phone and the features that it has. For the price that you'll pay, you'll probably going to be very happy with it too. Nokia is a name you can trust. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.99 90275 2002/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cdma technology allows connectivity to laptop faceplates lithium polymer battery capable not as feature rich as other models confusing menus not very user friendly The Bottom LinePossibly A Good Choice For Nokia Veterans, But Other Models Should Be Given Consideration Prior To Purchase Full Review I would like to preface this review by mentioning that I have worked in the corporate sales department of Verizon Wireless for over six years now. I have dealt with every model that Verizon/AirTouch has carried during that time and have heard extensive feedback about them from our customer base. I now have an effective forum, Epinions, that facilitates a forum to share my opinion on these phones. Now, on to the review! Verizon has been carrying the Nokia 3285 for some time now, probably about eight months to a year. Nokia has always had quite a following in the marketplace, given that it's the number one selling manufacturer worldwide. I have personally used a couple of different Nokia models over the years as my "house account" phone and I must say that I have never personally taken a liking to them. Most conclude that the menus are frustrating to use with too many different paths to pursue in order to accomplish a task. Until recently, Nokia's proprietory mentality drove customers crazy. For example, earlier models did not include a standard 2.5 mm headset jack, but rather required special adapters. Fortunately for the public, they have rectified this in most current models and are now becoming more "user friendly", if we'll call it that. I will give kudos to Nokia for the wide range of phones that their accessories will accomodate. For example, one cig adapter may work with as many as half a dozen different Nokia phones. This is a welcome change from most manufacturer's accessories that are unique with each and every phone they produce. The 3285 has some nice features to it, changeable face plates, which are becoming increasingly popular with our customers, two-way short messaging capability, ability to assign ringers to specific callers, standard headset jack, 4 built-in games, 200 memory locations, web browser for use with "Mobile Web", calendar, and capable of using Nokia's new wlithium polymer battery. The battery time is rated at 3 hours and 20 minutes of talk time and approximately five days of standby. Word to public: take any manufacturer's battery ratings with a grain of salt. I have yet to see a company give a completely accurate assessment of the battery life of their phones. A good rule of thumb is to cut the figure to about 2/3, best case scenario, or 1/2, worst case scenario. If you are with AT&T or Verizon and have the potential to drop into analog mode, cut that figure even further, as analog consumes battery charge by three times what digital does. This increased consumption stems from CDMA's maximum wattage output being .2 watts, while standard analog still operates at a maximum of .6 watts. Hence, the directly proportional battery drop when out of digital mode. The 3285 is a sharp looking phone, if somewhat generic by today's standards. It weighs 4.9 ounces and measures in at 5.3"x1.8"x1.1". It's tri-mode, as all of Verizon's phones are at this time. Another advantage to this phone is the interchangability of accessories with the older Nokia 5185 model. This makes an upgrade to the 3285 very hassle free for those customers coming from its predecessor. I have a company looking to sign up a large account with us, but they previously were using AT&T's 5165 with car kits. They were very pleased to know that our 3285 will plug directly into their car kits, despite our use of CDMA technology versus AT&T's TDMA digital. Cig-adapters, batteries, chargers, headsets, and belt clips are all universal between the two. About the only accessories that are not interchangeable are the faceplates and the lithium polymer battery, which is lighter weight and higher capacity than any batteries that were available for the 5185. Again, kudos to Nokia for making the transition easy for its customers. Regarding the feedback that I have received about this model, I would have to say that it has been very evenly divided. I am going to classify the 3285 into the "love it or hate it" category. I either receive nothing but complaints about it or attitudes of complete bliss. Kind of odd, and a big part of the reason for this review. I felt it necessary to share such a unique situation with all of you. As I previously stated, I personally would not choose to use the 3285, given the menu structure which makes it difficult to remember where a certain function is located. Signal strength seems to be above average when compared to other models. Some complain that the menu buttons are too close to the "Talk" button, which can lead to problems if you're not paying attention or while dialing while on the road. Conclusion If you absolutely love Nokia products and experience tunnel vision when considering other products, the 3285 may be for you. I will say that previous users of Nokia models are probably going to take to the 3285 better than Nokia virgins. I personally feel that there are a wide variety of comparably priced models, such as the Kyocera 2135 and the Audiovox 9155 that should be given more consideration before diving into the 3285. Given the lack of features, such as voice activated dialing and speakerphone, that are becoming more prevalent these days, be sure to research your options and find the model that is right for you. Recommended: No 90274 2000/11/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 thinner compatible with accessories mostly not quite compatible with all old accessories battery life The Bottom Line3285 is a good solid workhorse made leaner and updated with latest features. Full Review It's clearly that the 3285 is basically an improved version of the venerable 51xx series. They went back to the two button (on/off) design, made the phone thinner by about 30%, added more Internet capabilities, and voila, you have the 3285. The thinner weight is mainly from the reduction in battery size. the Lithium-Polymer battery is MUCH lighter, but somehow doesn't seem to deliver quite as much juice as the original. However, the phone itself is also thinner. The phone is now thin and light enough to carry in a shirt-pocket. Battery life seems to be somewhat less than the 51xx series. This Li-Pol battery, while lighter, seems to only provide 75% of the li-ion battery used in most 51xx series. This is from my usage pattern, your mileage may vary. The accessories for the 51xx series are mostly compatible. The chargers and headsets all work. However, I have a problem with some of those hands-free stands that doesn't quite fit the 3285 right. Also, the batteries from the 51xx series proved to fit, but tight. Guess the tolerances are slightly different. The screen is NOT color, and quite small, so don't expect to do any serious Internet browsing, even though you "could" with the built-in minibrowser. Still, with backlighting it is quite readable in dark rooms and such. Sound quality feels about the same as my existing 51xx series. Being a lighter phone means the phone takes slightly less damage when falling. However, it's still not recommended that you drop your phone periodically to test this. The phone has downloadable ringtones (5 slots), and from experience, the ringtones in this phone is about 20% lounder than the 51xx series when set to level 4 (default). Most of the 3285's also has built-in vibrate, so you don't need to buy it separately. Overall, the 3285 is an improved version of the venerable 51xx series, with a few more usability improvements. It's a good basic phone for those who treasure reliability more than gadgetry. Recommended: Yes 90273 2000/7/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light weight all around good phone i will edit if i do i haven t found any yet The Bottom LineYou will not be disappointed with this phone if you get it. Highly configurable, light weight, and clarity are just a few bonuses. Full Review My first very own cell phone (I usually didn't need one, so would use my husbands if I had the need), happens to be this little gem. We've owned a cell phone for about ten years now, and have only went through three, this being the fourth. I first went with the Nokia 3285 because of the price. I picked two up for 49.99, a buy one get one free. Since I was in the market for two phones, and this being my own first, I didn't want to get into the more expensive units. I'm pleased with my decision. The phone is light in weight, and easily fits into a purse or pocket. A bonus for me, because it's going everywhere I go, car, walk, motorcycle, wherever. The weight is 4.95 ounces; size a little over 6 inches tall, almost an inch thick and about two inches wide. With changeable face plates, you can choose what you want your phone to look like, I'll need to purchase one so that my husband and I can tell our phones apart, the price for a face plate is $19.99 (at a Verizon store, or on their web site). To me, this phone is packed with useful features: Messages: This menu allows you to access your messages, voice and text. With the push of a few buttons, you can go right to your voice mail, or go to your text messaging center. This phone allows you to store up to 60 text messages. You can also store email addresses, send text messages from your phone to someone else's phone, or to their email address. Useful feature if you just want to leave someone a note. You can also select a specific ring alert for when you receive a message. Call log: This is the menu option where you can see missed calls, received calls, dialed calls, call timers, and also manipulate all these lists. Profiles: This option is where you store how you want your phone to sound. You can set the ringer on, off, silent, and also you can choose different profiles. For example, let's say you're in a meeting, and you do not want your phone to ring, there's a "meeting" profile for you to choose where the phone will act how you want, whether it's just the light on the phone blinking to alert you to a call or message, or vibration, or one single beep. There's forty different tones you can choose for your ring tone, vibration mode, and silent where the lights on the phone blink. Your display will tell you what mode you are on. An alarm clock: for those that travel, like I do, this is very useful. You can set the alarm for whatever time you'd like, turn it off, and the phone will turn it's self on at the designated time so that the alarm will go off. I like the fact that you do not have to have the phone on, to use the alarm feature. Calculator: This, for me is extremely useful. I keep a calculator in my office (of course), living room, vehicles, just about everywhere, because I use them a lot. Having one with me all the time now is very helpful for me, instead of, if I'm out, having to run to the car to grab the calculator. Calendar: This option is pretty cool, you can set it to remind you of meetings, phone calls to make, birth dates, anniversaries, whatever you may need to write on a calender or have to have an important reminder for. It's easy to pick the date and enter your text note to yourself. Things I do not use: The phone has four games, which I've not played with yet. I really have no use for games on a cell phone, but, it's interesting that they are there if needed when bored. The games are memory, snake, dice, and logic. Also there is a minibrowser, and I'll not be using this either, I find no use to be on the internet if I'm not in my office. The buttons on the phone are easy to press, except I find the on/off button a little harder to deal with than the rest. I don't know if this is a safety feature or not, or if I'm just not patient enough. Display is easy to read, lighting is easy on the eyes. The front display of the phone tells you if you're on your calling network, or roaming, the date, time, battery life and signal. It also, when you're searching through your menu options, will give you help text on a menu option if you wait a few seconds on that option. A help screen comes on, explaining how to use certain things, and what they are for. Pretty useful if you've either not read the user guide. The user guide is very helpful and detailed. More so than any other phone that we have owned. Storing phone numbers is easy, and you can store up to 200 phone numbers and email addresses. Just push in the phone number, hit the save button and key in the name of the person that the number belongs to. My phone came with the rapid travel charger. Just an adapter that plugs into the bottom of the phone, and it charges the phone quicker than the desktop charger, which is optional. With the regular charger, the phone will take approximately four hours to charge, with the rapid travel charger, approximately two. A full charge allows talk time up to 3.5 hours, standby time of up to five days with the lithium polymer battery, or 2-3 hours talk time and 4.5 days standby with the NiMH battery. I've not had a problem with reception on my phone at all. I come in loud and clear to the person on the other end of the line (Can you hear me now?), and they come in clear to me also (Good). (This will also depend on your service provider.) I think this phone is a good deal for a good price. Useful and packed with features, I don't think one would go wrong buying it, whether it's for a student, business man, or someone that just needs to have a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 90272 2000/9/4 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 it could do a lot of stuff who wants to do all that stuff it s way to complicated The Bottom LineGets on my last nerve. Hate it. They don't need to put all this stuff on there and make it so hard to use that it's no fun. Full Review I hate the Nokia 3285. It will do all sorts of things, but I can never remember what buttons to push in what order to make it do all that stuff. Plus, it is always doing stuff that I don't want it to do. It is an evil little phone that makes me look stupid just every chance it gets. This phone came free with a 2-year sign up with Verizon, which I have been thrilled with. I had the AT&T plan, and that wireless service was so bad that I cancelled a long-term long-distance contract with AT&T and hope they never call me for anything again. I didn't have a problem with long distance, but if they botch up wireless that bad, then I don't want to hang with AT&T at all. Verizon has been so much better that I am just thrilled (other than with the phone woes). AT&T gave me a free Nokia that I also hated, but I thought that was because the phone never even worked at my house (not in the cell area). I only made 3 or 4 calls total on that phone. I kept it, but I got the new phone with Verizon so did not need the first one which I have tried to forget I ever owned. The phone and the service are two different things. I am fine with the Verizon service but not with free Nokia phone which is similar to the one I got with AT&T and may be the same one (but I did not write down the model number). I gave the AT&T freebie phone to the Radio Shack store for donation to the Battered Women's Project to help other women. I can only hope that someone can teach the women who need it in a pinch how to use it. I would hate to try to use the Nokia if someone was about to beat the heck out of me. I knew when I got the phone that it would let me look online (included in the monthly fee some way) and that it had games. This should perhaps worry me on a phone that has a screen about the size of a big postage stamp. I did not think about it much, since I was not planning to use those options. I am not a big-time stockbroker needing to look at quotes every hour, and I don't even like electronic games. Games make me nervous with things pinging all over the place. I love pinball machines where I can see the ball, but I don't like magic monsters popping up. My plan was to ignore these options that I did not want to start with. I should have worried about all the things this phone can do, since I did not want to do all those things. Since the phone will do everything except wash the dishes and take the kids to school, it has all kinds of button combinations. I have to push the star and then the buttons for V and O letters to get messages. Then I hear my message and have to push the pound and then punch in my code. Next, I push the one button to hear my messages. I can bypass that when I remember by dialing with the talk button but only when I see the message thing on the screen or something like that. That just gets me through the star and V and O, but I still need to do the other stuff. If you are confused, then NO DARN WONDER. It is too much to expect from a general user. As far as buttons, there are the 12 like on the phone at the bottom, the TALK and the END, two sets of up and down with arrows, and then a button with a circle at the top of the phone. Very basically, the phone rings when you have an incoming call. You push talk and hear someone on there if you are lucky. You want to call someone, and you press in the numbers (but don't push the 1 before the number) and then press TALK and it dials. We spent some time here dialing but not dialing when did not press TALK. The first really big problem is that you have to line your ear up just right. A fraction off in any direction, and then you don't hear anything. When you are on target with where you place your ear, then you can hear really well (and I have some hearing loss). To start with, I could not hear a thing and would hang up on people after saying "Hello. Hello. Hello." Now, I am well trained and find the spot, but the margin of error is small. Once you get it, then it does have a nice pick up. You also have to hold the phone the whole time with a small area requiring a tight type grip that hurts my hand. If you try to cheat and press it with your shoulder like the regular phone, then it presses the END button and hangs up on the caller. I do this very often, since the phone does hurt my hand with that little claw style grip. Those buttons are sensitive in general. The phone does not come with a clip, but I bought one, which is about $7, which is a lot for a plastic do-dad. When I clip this on my purse or my clothes, then it gets bumped. There is no telling what you are doing with this complex phone when you bump it. This week I got in EMERGENCY CALL mode only for incoming. My brother worked on it, and he said that it was set to dial 911 if I pressed TALK. Again, this is an extra that I don't need or want and don't understand. I don't know how it got in that mode, how my brother got it out of that, and I don't like that at all. I did not see this in the book, and I don't feel like looking that up. I just hope my hip won't press that combo again. The only option that I really want besides telephone (normal) is to mute the ring sound when I teach or something. It took me forever to figure that out even with the book. That is the button at the top with the circle. Then I can't figure out what to do to make it take the selection half the time. It's one of the lower buttons with up and down arrows after the circle button. Two weeks ago, I went to see my boss. I shut off ring or I thought I did. I think I did. Then it still bleeped off with a different sound that meant I had messages. When I shut it off, then I want it off. It must have two different combinations for shut off the ring and shut off reminders. The regular ring was off, but those reminders kept going every little bit the whole time I spoke with my boss who probably wondered why I could not make the dumb phone just stop it. I just stick in a drawer now and ignore it when I need to. If I pretend like I don't hear anything, then maybe everyone else will too. It's just a small blip in the drawer with stuff dumped on top of it. The Nokia will keep an address book (and other things I don't even know about yet), but I have never found that list except by accident. I also think it will show me who just called by number, but I can't ever find that either. The messages will show whether I have a message or not, so I will ring in (on my minutes) and have messages or not—mostly not. Then I'll press buttons and call someone and not mean to. These are things like call back, save to address book etc from the book. It's all complex, and I don't understand it. It may sound like I am just technically challenged, but I'm a net search whiz, have built a simple web page, and I catch on to most tech stuff pretty fast. I could study the thick booklet more and figure things out I guess, but I don't want anything that complex to do the few things I want to do with a phone. It should be much more intuitive that it is. Basically, I want to make and receive calls and shut off the ringer when I can't answer. That is not much to ask. I don't add all kinds of complex stuff to the mix, though I guess the companies may want me to use the Nokia more and run up that Verizon bill. Even if I could figure it out, I would not go online with that small space to read, and I'm not doing the game thing and especially on this size of viewer area. I do plan to buy a new phone that is not so high tech. All I want is to answer the phone and to place a call and to mute at times. I'm sure that someone has a phone like that and probably at a good cost. Let me know if you know of a good one. In the meantime, I will cuss this phone that does a lot of things that I don't understand, don't need, and don't like. It is not one that I would recommend to anyone. I would also mention that it looks really neat in the picture with that blue cover. It comes with black. You pay more for colors or designs. I'm not upgrading on that, since I don't like the phone at all anyway. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free with $ 7807 Nokia 3650 90338 2003/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 internet calendar email tons of features much more a bit bulky sometimes gets poor signal expensive This phone is a must-have for gadget lovers. Although a bit bulky, the features are great. With all the features of a PDA, it keeps you organized and up-to-date. A large color screen is useful for the camera and video feature. The memory can be expanded to hold hundreds of photos. Easy to use features include voice dialing, speakerphone, email, message alerts, and internet/bluetooth capabilities. 90337 2004/4/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great phone keypads are hard to use in the beginning this is the cellular phone i own. in the Philippines, it's been out for over a year already. this is one of the best camera phones. It has a video recorder, it has bluetooth, where you can send pictures, sms messages, ringtones, all for free, under a screen name, although you have to be near each other when you do this, also the person you're sending these files to have to have bluetooth as well. the camera is pretty good too. it takes good picture, it has a recorder where you can ask people to talk into and use their voice as the ringtone when they call. you can change the memory card into a larger kb memory card. the covers are express on, so you can choose the colors of the covers. the keypads are hard to use in the beginning but you'll get the hang of it. Nokia has come out with the same phone but with the normal keypads as well. Here in the Philippines, these phones cost roughly around $245. No lines or no commitment attached to it. Take the phone and go kind of thing. 90336 2004/11/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 has colora camera not user friendly big I cannot believe how large this phone is. This phone reminds me of the 6180's that people back in the day carried around and as scary as it sounds still do. This phone does not fit in pocket or anywhere else and is a horrible piece of design. This is more a home or office phone. Doesn't even have a PDA considering it's size. 90335 2004/11/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 video recorder great voice clarity quality great phone book organizer camera video recording length fluctuating volume operational glitches mediocre talk time NICE PHONE; GOOD FEATURES; CAMERA NEEDS A LITTLE BIT IMPROVEMENT; VIDEO-RECORDING TIME TOO SHORT; FLUCTUATING VOLUME, EVEN WHEN SET; APPLICATION GLITCHES; BLUE-TOOTH COMPATIBLE DEVICES CAUSE DEVICE FAILURE 90334 2004/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use lg screen w good resolution keypad layout isn t natural I had the Sony-Ericsson T-300 prior to this phone. It was terrible!! The Nokia 3650 has a huge screen, it's easy to hear the person you're speaking with, it has all the features you could ever want! It's easy to navigate through to menus and get to your phone directory. The only downfall, the keypad is difficult to get used to, but on the upside, it discourages you from dialing while driving! 90333 2004/2/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great 640 x 480 resolution on the cameragreat games you can download memory full error occasional freezes up I bought this product pretty much right when it came out. I enjoy using it because of the great features. I like the resolution on the camera and such. 90332 2003/10/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cool skins sim card big display gsm outlook sync poor bluetooth gsm in chicago quiet ringer slow sync Used Amazon and T-mobile rebates to make this phone free. Otherwise, it is pricy. I love how you can synchronize with outlook calendar, task, and contacts. I wish the synchronization times were faster, even with bluetooth. I found a wireless headset that is compatible with this phone (bluetrek). However, when somebody calls, it only rings through the ear piece. The phone only vibrates. The bluetooth connection drops periodically. Not sure who to blame. I found a cool skin with a basketball look and feel. 90331 2003/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 programs are downloadable almost everything you can think of if not funny keypad design size is a little bigger now this phone.. is like "WOW" how did they make this phone? Well for you high-tech freaks out there.. this phone is a must get, where do I start? well, it has color screen, bulit-in camera, bluetooth (allows you connect with your laptop or any devices that supports bluetooth) built in memory and also 16mb card included, many built-in programs, internet support, java support, video catpure, its more like a cell phone PDA, you can do soo much with it. only thing about this phone is the size.. it never got to me, in fact most of my friends love this phone! the battery life is SUPER, it will last you very very long and the charging time is amazing.. 2 hours max its fully charged. one of the smartest phone out there.. of course there are so much for the user to learn, or its very useless if you just need A PHONE to make calls and receive. 90330 2004/6/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 a cornucopia of fantastic features frail as a whiff of rose blossom on a spring day I got the web working long enough to waste a lot of money on downloading games and then the phone simply died. So I got a replacement and once I got it all set up it died. Exactly the same. Just a little, dim Nokia logo. So I got a replacement and got it all set up and then the email stopped working. Three 20-minute calls to ATTWS tech support and they finally convinced me to eat the $300 plus several hundred more on surprise internet charges and BUY from them another phone -- one that works. You are warned. 90329 2004/6/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 photos bluetooth video easy menu medium sized Everyone knows T-Mobile is the best cell phone service around. They have great reception and awesome customer service...and quite frankly one really good phone. I bought the Nokia 3650 a while a go because i loved its features. This phone has anything you can ask for, CAMERA, VIDEO CAMERA, BLUETOOTH!!!!, Infrared, MESSAGING, and AWESOME GAMES, GREAT RINGTONES, and HUGE SCREEN. The menu is amazing and it is almost like a computer. My friends say it is a little big, but to me that doesnt make a difference if a phone really really small, or just medium sized as long as it fits in my pocket. This phone is stylish and delivers great reception. I have never..not even once not had reception in any place i've gone to and that says a lot. You can get this phone for FREE if you just haggle for the price. This is the best buy you can get and I FOR SURE reccomment it to you. 90328 2004/2/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 big screen bluetooth built in camara lots of extras big size This is a pretty cool cell phone. It is a pretty big cell phone, but it makes up for that with all of its awsome features. This phone has a built in camara that takes pretty good quality picture and it can also take 10 second long videos but their quality isn't that great. You can also send these picture and videos to other cell phones or even e-mail addresses, they usually cost like $25 but it varys for different service providers. This phone has 2 different games that I dont find that interesting. This phone is also bluetooth capable, whatever bluetooth means? The nokia 3650 is very durable because i have dropped mine more then 5 times and it still works great. If you would like to buy this phone don't pay like $300 for it because i got mine for free at this site www.hellocalls.com. 90327 2004/5/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 blue tooth camera huge phone book irda great games size is a little big the memory given is only 16 mb Great Games. Huge Phone Book. Blue tooth and IrDa. This is the only review you need to read. THis phone is great for young people and teens who want entertainment. I'm 15 and I only use the phone for pictures and the internet. It is pretty lightweight but long about 5 inches. It can record 9 secs of video. It takes about 200 pictures on high resolution onto the memory card. The pics look pretty good when viewing them on the tv or computer. If you are thinking of transfering music or ovies from your pc to the phone, forget about it, I tried, it doesn't work. The buttons are small and annoying, especially the 5 way key. Some good things are that you can record your own ringtones from the radio, I've tried, sure its bootleg, but it sounds good. You can assing ringtones and pics to different people in the phone book. All in all, this is a phone for showing off and having New cutting edge technology. The memory given is only 16 MB. 90326 2005/2/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reception symbian operating system bluetooth functionality bulky size battery life camera resolution Bought a branded T-Mobile 3650 off Ebay about a year ago for $200. Overall I am impressed with its features, Bluetooth functions, and RF reception! With its Symbian OS you can install practically a application to do anything you want. Since it has a OS it also really expands the functionality of Bluetooth to there you can send/receive files to other Bluetooth devices "really cool" for ringers and wallpapers. You can carrier easily unlock these too with a simple subsidy unlock code generator from the internet and use with other GSM carriers. Reception is by far the best I have had oh any GSM phone. The only negative things I can say about this handset is the battery life sucks "2 hours MAX talk time" and the size "not gonna fit in your pocket easily" 90325 2005/3/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 buttons should be at top i hear people before i answer This is a great phone, but am I the only one that hears my caller talking BEFORE I answer the phone? It is not the auto answer feature either, I checked. No one at Nokia or T-Mobile believes me. Nokia is blaming T-Mobile and T-mobile is blaming Nokia. If I am the only one with this problem then I would recommend buying this phone. I love the expandable memory and the ability to email pics ASAP. GREAT reception even in elevators! Oh and the only other thing I would change on the phone would be to put the button at the top and the screen below, so I can dial with my thumb one handed with out bending my thumb down. 90324 2004/1/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features good screen great software a bit bulky numbers are hard to get used to at first This is a great phone. The functions and the software is great. The dial pad is a bit tough to get used to, but once you get used to the fact that is set up like the old turn-dial phones, you can find your way around it very easily. 90323 2004/5/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 camera reception etc beautiful color screen bluetooth large buggy os keypad takes some getting used to bulky I had this phone for one week and returned it because the software was extremely buggy... kept crashing... Got another one and soon the same problem all over again. I like Symbian-based phones, too... The phone has just about every gadget you can think of, except of course Picture Caller ID.. that was a headache. I think it would be good to mention that anyone who plans on using this phone for the "long haul" should probably bring a charger because the color LCD, although beautiful, just kills the battery. I got about 3 hours talktime out of it (I use just under 2000min a month) unless I was using the camera or playing games,it would drop to just over an hour talktime. The phone is BIG, and will be a pain to carry in your pocket, but I don't think it's mean to be. The speakerphone is loud and clear. The one thing I missed about this phone was that the reception was just phenomenal.. it'll blow you away how good it is. 90322 2000/6/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice pictures long battery life features galore slightly big in sizeweird number pad layout The Bottom LineHere's $50, want to use the phone? OF COURSE!!! Full Review My phone history has been Nokia from the start for about four different phones up to the 8290, and then two Ericsons, one Samsung, one Motorola, and now back to the Nokia 3650. Having hated the 8290, I wasn't too sure if I wanted to go back to Nokia, but I'm glad I did. I didn't want another flip phone because having had a V66 for over a year, I found flip phones to be cumbersome in use, although they are smaller. This phone is packed with features and gadgets. You have everything from infrared, e-mail, bluetooth, memory card, to transfer data from your phone to a PC, or another phone. I've found more pros so far, than cons. PROS: * Large bright color display. * Better reception than Motorola on same network (T-Mobile) with no protruding antenna. * Phone is fairly light, given it's larger than 'standard' size. For men, I don't think this is an issue, for women it won't fit in your purses or pockets very well. Don't take this to be sexist in any way. * Above average picture quality for maximum 640x480 resolution. There is no light, but there is a "night" selection that seems to increase the f.stop slightly to let in more light. * Phone charges up in about three hours with the included standard charger and holds charge, with minimal talking or picture taking, for a good four to five days before needing to be charged up again. * The faceplate is a quick/easy change type. No screw drivers or tools needed. Just push a button, pop the faceplate off, and pop the replacement face on. I have changed mine to a baseball faceplate. * You can use the contacts as like a PDA. You can have name, e-mail address, work phone, home phone, mobile phone, address, etc. There is also a calendar and calculator. * Just like with most camera phones, you set a picture you've taken with the phone as the background. * Right now you can get this phone for -$50 after rebate. * Built in vibration alert. CONS: * Only comes standard with two games. Snake, which is the standard move the snake around eating apples or whatever. And slider, which is put a picture back together after it's been mixed up. Two very substandard and boring games. Should have include something like miniature golf (like the Sony/Ericson T610) or bowling. * If it's available, I haven't figured it out yet, but the phone listing is by last name, first name. I am use to remembering someone's first name, but not their last, so I would have liked the option to list it first name, last name. * Memory card is buried behind the battery, so you have to remove the battery cover and battery to get to the card. It would have been convenient to have the card slid into a slot for easy removal and downloading of data, then easy reinsert. * The old Nokia's all pretty much worked off the same interface and menu structure, so if you owned one and went to another, it was pretty much the same look and feel. This menu is different from my previous 8290. The menu is all new and will take some practice to navigate. IFFIES: * The number pad layout is quarky. It's either like it or not. The rotary dialing takes time to get use to, but it makes it look unique. If you don't want to hassle with getting to like it, you might want to consider the 3660, which is almost identical in features to the 3650, but it has a conventional number pad layout. * I haven't used the bluetooth functionality of the phone, so I can't comment on how hard or easy it is, or if it's even any good with anything. All I know is, it has it for when I'm ready to test it. Overall, I would highly recommend the phone for people who like gadgets. Only drawback is that it's not compact, but with the features and currently getting $50 back from T-Mobile for taking the phone, you can't beat the deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 backRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90321 2000/4/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 bluetooth connectivity screen ring tones style symbian o s still video camera memory expansion keypad bluetooth glitches bulky proprietary memory card no touch screen The Bottom LineHighly recommended fun, usable, fashionable, feature-laden phone; great for people into gadgets. Somewhat bulky; average battery life. Decent price ($300 street; $150 at AT&T with rebate). Full Review I first saw the 3650 when it was advertised during the Nokia Bowl and was immediately attracted to its design and features. When Nokia finally released the phone to the market a few weeks ago, I was one of the first to receive one (I participate in the Nokia developer program), and overall I am very impressed with it. In fact, I am so enamored with the phone that I will probably purchase one for personal use! Overall, this is an excellent phone. The voice and signal quality is very good, its ease of use is excellent, and the ergonomics of the keypad, while it took some getting used to, are actually pretty good. I love the voice dialing, picture caller ID, polyphonic ring tones, bluetooth support, and availability of 3rd party software (by the way, software written for the Nokia 7650 will also work on the 3650). The phone is also an excellent conversation piece, and I love carrying photos and videos of my family around on it. The included email, Web browser, and camera software work great, and it is very easy to send pictures taken with the phone via email, MMS, bluetooth, infra-red, and the Web. I would like to be able to use bluetooth on my PC to allow the phone to use my PC as an Internet "gateway" when I'm in range, but the phone does not support this (you can use the phone as a wireless PC modem via bluetooth, however). Positives: Gorgeous 1/4 VGA color screen, excellent polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones, integrated infra-red and bluetooth, memory expansion capabilities (64MB), Symbian O/S, many 3rd party software programs, integrated 640x480 still/video camera, Nokia PC Suite support for PIM syncronization (bluetooth/infra-red/cable). Negatives: 4-way navigation key is difficult to use; phone is somewhat bulky (when compared to its closest competitor, the Sony P800); no touch screen; bluetooth implementation does not support the headset profile (so many existing bluetooth headsets won't work, including the Jabra FreeSpeak--Jabra is offering no-charge FreeSpeak trade-outs in a few weeks); proprietary, expensive memory expansion cards; camera does not zoom or have a flash, no external antenna jack, average battery life. Other problems: Nokia PC Suite only supports synchronization with PIM contacts and calendar; notes are conspicuously missing; Nokia seems to release a different version of PC Suite for each and every phone (which is a real problem if you have multiple phones). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 (demo) 90320 2003/7/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent software bright screen very light bluetooth etc infrared powerful battery great reception plastic face plates The Bottom LineHighly recommended. Having some of the accessories and PC Suite makes this phone smoke much expensive phones. Full Review I just sold Sony Ericsson's P800 PDA Phone after using it for a week for which I paid $600. Then, got this weird looking phone from Amazon for Free after rebates thinking that it looks huge and has a weird keypad. Well, you wonder why I got it in the first place? I just couldn't resist getting it after reading all the features it has and the Bluetooth. Also, it's the only T-Mobile phone with camera and Bluetooth that's free. Now, I used it almost for a month and each day I get to like it better. I like it more than my old P800. The user interface is very neat and easy to use. The speakerphone is the finest I've seen on any cell phone so far. The camera takes very decent quality pictures. If you get this phone I recommend you also get Nokia's Bluetooth Headset HDW-2. It sounds so clear on both sides that no one will ever notice that you are speaking on headset. Also, download the PC Suite software(FREE) from Nokia's website and sync the phone with your PC if you have a Bluetooth USB Adapter on your PC or Infrared support which most new laptops/PCs have. If you don't have buy a USB Bluetooth adapter for $30 and you will enjoy this phone much more than you ever thought. I subscribed T-Zones and use the phone to check my hotmail e-mail and visit other WAP enabled websites without any problem. Life feels better with this phone in your pocket. Don't be intimidated by the look of it. It feels lot smaller and lighter than it looks once you have it in your hand. The keypad is something you will get used to within minutes of use. Enter a few phone numbers in your address book and you already are used to the keypad. Recommended: Yes 90319 2000/7/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 oh digital camera it s a phone too camcorder takes awhile to familiarize with all the features startup loading takes too long The Bottom LineIt's a futuristic phone with awesome features, but lags behind other regular phones in reception. I would keep a second phone around just in case. Full Review When it comes to cell phones, I'm a no frills person, who basically wants something cheap, reliable and handy during unforseen emergencies. I found that in Tracfone. I was very happy with it and had no intention of enslaving myself to a contract, just to get a better phone. Until..... I saw IT. Nokia 3650. The most technologically advanced gadget phone I've ever laid my eyes on. It's a digital camera, a camcorder, web surfer, email checker, video game console and a phone, all rolled in to a beautifully designed package. I had to have it. But its $399 price tag temporarily shocked me back to reality. "No phone is worth THAT!" I thought to myself. I had all but given up, when I came upon an online merchant selling it for $50. All I had to do was sell my soul to AT&T for 1 year. Uggggghhhhh. As soon as I opened the box, I was mesmerized by IT. IT was beautiful. IT was like getting a new toy on Christmas morning. I was destined to have this phone, like Luke Skywalker was destined for the Light Sabre. As soon as you press "on," the color screen lights up like a window to a new and exciting world. I went straight to the feature that most intrigued me: camera and camcorder. Click on "camera" and the screen lights up like a third eye. The screen becomes a moving picture of the surroundings. When you press "click" the video stops and the subjects become frozen in time. Press click again and it comes back to life, begging to be frozen again. If you really like the picture, you can email it to any email address. I've emailed myself some photos and they look amazingly better than on the phone screen. You can also video record 15 seconds. So, if you'd like to record your son walking for the first time and email it immediately to his grandparents, it's possible with this phone. To be honest, I was so enthused with this feature, I didn't bother making a phone call with it the first week or so. Which brings me to the downer. This phone is incredible at the features I mentioned above... except for one little detail.... phone reception! With the Tracfone, I am able to make a call inside my home without a problem. With Nokia 3650, I rarely get any signals inside the home. I can't even get signals around my neighborhood. When I do get it, it's very weak and tends to drop all my calls. I don't know if this is an issue with AT&T or the fact that the Nokia has an internal antenna, rather than the traditional pull out. Overall, I am still tickled to death at the great features but I will be keeping my Tracfone for a few more months, until this reception problem can be resolved. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90318 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 triband gsm compatible decent menus good receptionsound fun camera backlit numbers haven t found the keylock yet who needs all these features The Bottom LineNot sure I'd pay full price, but for free, very cool. The sound is great. We'll see if I use the cool features. Full Review I have to admit, cool was a big factor in buying this phone. I'd just switched providers and was thrilled by all the rebates offered at Letstalk.com, which got me almost any phone for free with only a 1-year contract. (Check out letstalk.com if you're thinking of switching. They were great.) I liked the visual design, but it's silly the phone doesn't come with any kind of case. Plus I'm still exploring all the buried features, most of which I don't need. As far as basics, the phone sounds great. I didn't want a tiny phone where the numbers were smaller than my fingers so size isn't an issue. I just throw it in my bag--and sometimes it dials my friends on its own. The unusual key layout is a plus. It has predictive text for text messaging--although I needed to turn this off when entering contacts, because it wanted "Eric" to be "emergency" or "eat." Unfortunately many of the phone's features aren't available unless I upgrade my t-mobile plan to include t-zones, so I'm still not sure if I can use the infrared to beam a photo, or what to do with the cute 15-second videos (with audio!) that I can record. The inbox is well designed. The plastic seems a little delicate--I guess weight was a factor--but not sure how sturdy it will be in the long run. My biggest criticism is that no one is addressing the interplay between the phone's features and the service plan. I really only use the phone for calls, and I'm distinctly uninterested in racking up high monthly bills for features I don't need. On the other hand, I'm perfectly willing to pay for cool add ons like sending an occasional (low res, teeny) photo for a fixed price. So far all I've used the camera for is: attaching photos to contact (nice feature, when you can find it in the context-sensitive menus); and making jigsaw puzzles in the Games section. I also imagine I might use it if I were ever in a car accident. Call me a luddite. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0(300rebate)Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90317 2000/11/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 cool design keypad tons of features breaks down continually too many features huge in size The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone because of the enormous size and the terrible reliability. Full Review When I first signed up with my wireless provider they offered me the option of buying the Nokia 3650 for only $150, which is a great deal because the retail price was $400. Great deal right? Wrong! First of all the phone is HUGE in size in comparison to all of the other cell phones in the market right now. Don't expect to put this phone in your pocket without looking and feeling awkward. The phone has tons of features, but you really don't need them. I will admit that the camera is fun, but if you have too many pictures, the phone will go slower than it already does. Also to send a picture it costs extra money and you have to send it to someone who has a camera phone (which not many people do). Last but not least, the phone has broken down on me 3 times in the 6 months that I have had it! Each time I have to send it in to the Nokia Repair Place and I am without a phone for 2 weeks, which is a pain because my cell phone is my only phone! And it was not just a problem with my particular phone, because I had them send me a brand new phone and I had the same problem. What happens is when I turn it on, it flashes the opening Nokia screen a few times, and then shuts off. Finally after it broke the 3rd time I went out and bought a different brand and type of phone because I was fed up with it! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90316 2000/2/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great style light weight packed with features none The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a smartphone thats a lot more than a voice communnication tool - Nokia 3650 is for you then ... Full Review This smartphone from Nokia has it all and will give the competitors run for their money in the smartphone market. It is small and light weight yet packed with features. Has a built in still camera and a video camera to take short video clips - and the picture quality is also quite acceptable. This handset is a lot more than a voice communication tool, with built in software applications such Calendar (for appointments etc), todo lists, voice recorder, calculator, currency/unit conversions etc. it can do many things that a PDA does. Also there are many 3rd party software applications available for this model, which can be easily installed, to use this device to its fullest. Games, organizers, financial software, travel and language related software, health and diet assistants etc. are just a few of the categories of software that are available for this smartphone. And with its many supported communications protocols - to install an application you can: (a) simply email the purchased file to your email address (if you've configured the device to receive it) (b) download it over the air from vendors' WAP site (a web site accessible/viewable from your phone) (c) transfer via blue tooth from your PC/computer (PC would need a Bluetooth adapter, phone already has it) (d) transfer via infrared from your PC/computer (PC would need a infrared port/adapter, phone already has it) But what I love about it is its unique design, it semi-circular bottom fits the mid section your palm and makes one hand operation a breeze. Those used to conventional layout of numbers on a keypad will have to get used to this different/circular layout, but will realize soon that this design makes the use of the keypad much easier. For those who care, this smartphone is based on Symbian operating system, which was designed solely for mobile phones (smartphones) and that is why this phone and others that run on Symbian are so elegantly designed and are so much customizable. And for those who care - many handset manufacturers have chosen Symbian over competitors like Microsoft's Windows CE (and Microsoft is not thrilled about it). With GPRS/data services available from AT&T, T-Mobile and Cingular in the US - this phone is a great choice for consumers. Accessing websites is not taking eternity any more. Bookmark wap sites and check news, stocks, weather etc. quickly. In fact sending and receiving your regular email on the phone is a great convenience (if you choose to do so - but not a great idea if you use a free email service that gets a ton of spam email). Many phones currently available have SMS (short messaging service / text messaging) but not many support MMS (Multimedia messaging service) - with this phone you get that too. Currently not readily available in the US (I had to order mine on ebay from Europe) but is coming to the US soon. Price range around US $500 may sound like a bit too much but then its got everything on it. Any buzz word (useful or otherwise) that you can think of - more than likely this phone has it. I love it, with my T-Mobile service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 90315 2000/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 camera feature is cool but only for a couple weeks horrible software very bulky bluetooth doesn t actually work The Bottom LineWait until they get it right. This is a waste of time and money. Full Review My boyfriend and I each got one of the Nokia 3650's recently. Excited about the camera feature and the Bluetooth capabilities we were anxious to try them out. Once it arrived we had to purchase cases for them since they are very delicate, the cases add considerable bulk to the already large phone. The camera feature is great for the first couple weeks. But once you have impressed all of your friends you realize you really don't need the feature, nor the added bulk of the phone. Plus we didn't want to sign up for the extra $3.00 each phone per month just to be able to send the very low resolution photos to each other. The worst feature about this phone is the lousy software. It is very slow to bring up the windows and it regularly just decides to reboot right after you have dialed a number. It is also slow to reboot, always taking 20 seconds just to load the ridiculous Nokia handshake animation which just ads to the frustration of the rebooting in the first place. It also just turns itself off occasionally. I thought it was due to low batteries but that is not the case. We have sent our phones back to the manufacturer to get the recent software update but we still have the same problems. We have also requested replacements only to have the same issues. It's just bad design. My boyfriend is sick of calling T Mobile about the phone's problems. Then there is the Bluetooth. A great concept gone bad with Nokia. We paid the $60 per Bluetooth unit to be completely hands and wire free. The most frustrating feature about the Bluetooth is that is ALMOST works. It will be working for a couple hours then right when you make a new call it drops the connection right when the person answers. Then you have to scramble to grab the phone and get it to your ear. Now for some unknown reason my Bluetooth unit has stopped working altogether but that is another review. My boyfriend and I both HATE these phones. Nokia doesn't take any responsibility for the malfunctioning design nor does T Mobile. We are going to go back to our smaller, heartier, and functioning Samsungs. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90314 2000/5/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 bluetooth camera video big no case The Bottom LineAbsolutely necessary for those who want the digital camera aspect w/o having to carry another device. The other features rock so you will be satisfied on all ends. Full Review The worst is the size and so far I've not been able to find a carrying case, which makes the screen a little easier to collect scratches. But of course, you can just change that when you buy a new color cover. After you download all the updates/software from Nokia.com, you have a much better phone. Yeah, you have to spend $40 on a bluetooth device for you PC (I went with the Belkin model) but after that, the options are unlimited. Dont bother paying on the internet to download ringtones, you can simply transfer over mp3s or wavs to be your ringtones and they sound exactly as they should. (You can transfer over avis, mpegs if you feel like it) I was exstatic once I found this out. Use a 3rd party program to chop up a 20 second sample of your favorite song and transfer it to your phone in seconds. The volume perhaps isnt the best so you'll use that 3rd party software to increase the volume of the wav before you finish. The pictures you take with the phone make the phone worth everything else. Although they do tend to blur if you're moving too much when taking the picture. Bad thing about the video clips you take (after you d/l the upgrade, you can have sound too) is they are limited to 12-second clips. But they serve their purpose. Anybody who has Kazaa can d/l this zip file which has 72 games for the 3650. ;) The 16Mb memory card is more than enough for whatever games, ringtones, pictures, movies you want. The phone memory is 5Mb as well so there you go. People complain about the number pad. Honestly, how many times do you use the numbers on your cell phone to call somebody? Never. You usually go through your Contact phone book and call from there. You also have the voice feature to just say the person's name and it'll dial for you. When people call you, you can have custom ring tones to play for them, their picture will come up as they're calling you. I had the V60 before this and the service is 10x better on this phone. Same location, same AT&T. Just much better cell phone use. (I paid $150 b/c I had the hookup) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90313 2000/4/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 bright clear display loads of features memory card keypad takes some getting used to nothing really The Bottom LineAn excellent phone to have. Don't worry about the size, it's still small enough to fit in your pocket. The most feature rich phone yet. Full Review Well, I'm one of these people that have to have the latest and greatest of everything. I saw this new phone and just had to have it. At the time of purchase, there was a $150 rebate, so it wasn't that expensive to purchase. Came to about $250 after the rebate. You've seen the pictures, but they don't do the phone justice. This phone has every feature you can think of. The menu is similar to the menu of some PDA's I've used, with icons for everything. Navigation is easy and fast. It includes a 16MB memory card, which can be upgraded to 32MB. This card lets you store pictures, videos, applications, sound, etc. Of course, the phone itself has memory built in, but just about enough to store contacts and ringtones, since it's using the SIM to store this information. It has realplayer built in, so any videos you take with the phone will play using realplayer. The camera quality is superb. Of course, not as great as a stand alone digital camera, but for a phone, it's pretty good. The display is large. Once of Nokia's largest display phones. The quality is excellent, with the color definition one of the best I've seen. Text is easy to read. I don't have anything negative to say about this phone. A lot of reviews I've read of this phone put down the round keypad, but it only took me a little while to get used to it. The placement of the buttons makes everything easy to use. Not to mention, this phone includes bluetooth as well as infared support, so you can communicate with other devices, as well as sync up contacts, etc with your computer. Plus, it has a built in speakerphone, so when you're in the car, it comes in handy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 90312 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish superb features very cool phone wierd keypad layout not touch screen The Bottom LineGreat phone for its price. Unbelievable phone, go out and get it! Full Review First off, Nokia has made a big mistake by releasing this oversized bulky smartphone. Not only did they stick with the outdated Symbian Series 60 platform OS instead of the 7 Series, this phone is actually a little bigger and thicker than the predecessor, the nokia 7650, when closed. With that said, Nokia is a company...that means they want to make as much money as possible. So, soon they will be releasing (unknown when it will be available in the USA) the Nokia 7250, which is a feature packed small sized cameraphone that is almost as feature packed as the 3650. Another thing that Nokia did intentionally to bug customers is they intentionally left out MP3 support. Why? Because, they would make more money if you went out and bought the MP3 player attachment & FM Radio combo that will be released soon thereafter. However, sorry Nokia, customers aren't that stupid, you can easily pay a smaller fee if any and get a symbian software MP3 player that you can pop onto the phone easily to add MP3 support. Now, the positive stuff. The keypad may seem intimidating...because it is. However, you will easily get used to the keypad if you simply follow this little guide...thank me later. Visually, split the keypad into 4 quadrants. You will then notice that the 2 and 3 buttons are split in the left quadrant, the 5 and 6 buttons are split in the bottom quadrants, and the 8 and 9 buttons are split in the right quadrant. you can then easily start to memorize the locations for quick and shut-eyed use so to speak. Anyway, aside from that, the big size, plasticy feel, the phone is definetely cool! The changeable covers are always a plus for people that are looking for the maximum custimization options. The screen is crisp clear with the 4096 colors and the resolution is just as crisp. The phone comes with a built in RealOnePlayer which offers streaming media, MP4/3GP playback, and mid/wav playback or mid/wav ringtones. That's great because if you use mid, you have polyphonic ringtones (which I must add is phenomonal compared to the 7210, T720, etc that I've heard before). Also, you can set a wav file as a ringotne as well. For example, I have my ringtone when I am in class or in a meeting as a Cough, so no one knows that that is my phone going off, only I do. I've already added tons of MIDP java games and apps, and Symbian 7650 software, thats the great thing... yes, nokia 7650 software works on your 3650. So you won't have to wait months until people start developing new software. This phone is almost the perfect phone, but with its constant delays, by the time it comes out, its successors and competitors will be right behind. So, if you want, you can get a Chinese language version flashed to english from overseas at a super high price, or just wait a couple weeks until you get your hands on what I have...a US final official version carrier locked at a discounted long term member price (T-mobile). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 90311 2000/4/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 big color screen very lightweight cool design so many features lengthy to learn large lengthwidth bluetooth incompatibility The Bottom LineOverall, you want a cool phone with many features, buy it.. If you want it for the bluetooth, wait until the next line, they havent perfected it yet. Full Review This phone looks like it should be on Star Trek. The design is original, with its circular keypad and its unusually long color screen, and camera located on the back side. This phone can do it all, but its intro to america might be technologically before its time. For instance, not many carriers support the MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) that would allow you to share your images, sounds, and video that you record with the phone.. (Cingular says its coming soon!) not to worry though, most likely the majority of your friends probably dont have a compatible phone anyway. Here are some of the features in a nutshell: Digital camera (somewhat grainy images but better than most phone cams), Digital video (you can record up to 11 seconds of no sound video), polyphonic ringtones, customizeable caller id (have a picture of your friend come up when they call), Calendar, To do list, voice recorder (as well as phone call recorder), 3.4mb internal memory with 16mb memory card, infrared connectivity (can beam to A PALM!), Email, XHTML browser, and lots of demo software already installed. This phone is for you if you need a phone that does it all and you are patient enough to configure the phone settings yourself. It may take you some time just to figure out where you change your ringtones or to turn the volume off but after some reading, you will have the phone (and its weird keypad) down pat. Now the problem, this phone is not compatible with most bluetooth headsets, ive even heard there is a nokia bluetooth headset that isnt compatible with this phone, which makes you think Nokia may be trying to take ownership of their own limited line of compatible bluetooth technology, which is exactly what bluetooth is not supposed to be.. devices communicating to others, being compatible with others - I bought a jabra freespeak which is by far the coolest of the bluetooth headsets out there and it would pair but not connect to the phone. Sheesh.. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 90310 2000/9/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features aplenty large screen still video camera larger phone circular keypad requires learning curve The Bottom LineA phone that provides looks and functionality Full Review Nokia is always expanding its horizons with innovative and unique styles without compromising functionality. The Nokia 3650 embodies mobile hipness with style and features. The phone is larger by most Nokia standards but that presents the user with a larger, color screen which means less scrolling (always a plus). The color definition is excellent! The circular keypad is unique and at first is a bit awkward particularly if you're used to sending text messages on a "standard" keypad. The blue backlighting that comes through the key's is cool to see but may tend to make things look "blurry" and it probably doesn't help that the letters and numbers seems small in size. The lighting is almost too bright so it would have been nice if there was a way to change the color or at least lessen the brightness. The width of the phone is comfortable when talking but can be tedious at first then punching in numbers or texting. I do like the ways the keys perform - they do require a solid push of the finger so I find that I rarely need to put the keylock function on. The full color screen is exuberant and the clarity is very nice. The menu screen is readily available with a touch of a button. This is an area that Nokia excels in - easy access to the functions you use most. The fact that you can customize two of the buttons easily just means you can utilize your favorites faster and in this time of getting things done efficiently - every little bit helps. There's plenty of features available with the push of the menu button. Almost too many at first glance but you can customize folders and move items around to what makes the most sense to you. The most used customizing functions may be the Profiles (ringtones) and Tools. It may take some getting used to in navigating all the features but they've done a nice job of breaking down the folders. The phone's camera and video capabilities aren't bad. You do have the option of changing the resolution of the camera although I have seen other phone camera's operate with more clarity, in a pinch, the camera serves its purpose. The video feature captures short clips (about 8-10 seconds) and it seems to snag audio quite nicely. The memory card included with the phone is adequate for saving these files to. It comes with a standard 16MB card but you can upgrade according to your needs. The card is great for backing up your phone information, images, etc. Finally something other than the SIM which never seemed to be enough! Great place to save your Contacts info which now sports enough info gathering to make most other phones choke! I personally think most phones are lacking in the Contacts feature, often limiting you to phone numbers, e-card info and other mundane details. This phone permits you to customize to your needs including adding little notes that are available with a push of a key. The Calendar feature is also impressive. I am pleased to have something as close to a PDA in a phone without having to resort to a PDA wanna-be phone. The Calendar can be easily edited and viewed. The alarm is quite audible with a "snooze" feature. Its obvious that having a cellphone means wireless productivity is high on your list. Bluetooth means you have advanced features right at your fingertips. The phone does come with the standard Infrared port which actually works quite well but the bluetooth capabilities take it to a whole new level. Testing it to its maximum distance I was able to connect 98% of the time. The only time this was an issue was where there was obvious obstruction such as other electronic devices too close to the phone. Otherwise its a fantastic way to transfer information from one phone to another (IR is often proprietary to the phones themselves - Nokia to Nokia, etc.) It was surprisingly quick. Synching with your computer becomes a breeze if your computer has IR or Bluetooth capabilities although even with a cable the software enables you to customize your phone even further and expand your productivity one step further. Activating the Bluetooth function will increase battery consumption so make sure you turn it on when needed. Speaking of battery-life. The phone charges incredibly fast and normal talk time seems to be about 3 hours if not more (when not utilizing other advanced features). Standby is exceptional as well which is great considering how annoying it is to be constantly tethered to a power outlet! There's simply too many features to this phone - the little nuances that can make your work or play day that much easier/fun. The phone has proven to be a useful and pleasant upgrade. I have found more use for my phone other than just making calls and it allows me keep everything organized in my everyday busy schedule (including keeping me entertained during downtimes). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Its Hip to Be Functional!Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90309 2004/12/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 mmc slot big screen vga camera replaceable faceplates bluetooth horrible keypad pokemon shaped slow The Bottom LineThis is a TOY. Everything about it is impractical: keyboard, shape, size, OS, everything Full Review I got this phone in the summer, and promptly sold it, I actually had more trouble trying to get rid of the brick than I had expected. Its a big chuck of plastic and almost too big to put in my pocket. Its a "youth phone" which basically means its an ugly looking contraption with less emphasis on quality. Mine had firmware v2.50 which was very unstable and crashed repeatedly and refused to run games. The symbian S60 operating is very nice, except for the way it stores ringtones and a few other little quirks. the phone is basically too slow for the operating system, other S60 phones should be better. I love the way you can completely customize most of the phone. Unfortunately theres a lack of freeware apps for the phone, however I did find a nice one that lets you see what base you are connected to, a bit like netmonitor. Most s60 games ran extremely slowly on this beast. I could also get it to play mp3's with an app, but I had no headset and i dont even know if it supports stereo You DO NOT get used to the keypad, despite what you may think or what desperate commision-based sales reps may tell you. This phone is absolutely no good for texting, unless you want to take a bluetooth keyboard with you, which will fill another pocket, require another charger, etc. if you want a phone to text on, get something with a full keyboard like the 6810, 9300,9500. I cant say much about the battery life, I got mine second hand and i think the battery has taken its beating. It is a huge phone with a tiny battery. You cant forward midi ringtones via MMS, another prime example of nokia whoring themselves out for the mobile content industry, a bunch of stuck up nerds who think theyr all that because they sit in their little office looking at free porn sites, resizing pics to 128x128 and selling them on ringtone sites for $8. This phone also boasts OMA DRM, so these "developers" can copy protect their puny little $8 jpeg's. I hate it when my own stuff works against me like that, I paid for the brick and it should do what I want. The screen is nice and big and bright, and quite good even though its only 4096 colours, the screen never bothered me. Pictures are okay too, a bit blurry though. The video is a joke, you have to watch every video at least 3 times: The first time you try to figure out what everything on the screen is, the second you figure out what their actually doing and the third time you actually watch it. and you need special nokia software to view the .3gp files on your computer. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90308 2003/7/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 video recorder blue tooth gr8 picture quality infrared tri band vga screen speaker phone 16 mb memory modem vga camera size bit bulky wap 1 2 os hangs up The Bottom LineWhat you want from a FREE phone,loaded with zillion features Full Review My previous phone was Sony Ericsson T300 but Nokia is way better then my earlier choice. It is blue tooth enabled and has a 16MB Memory card included in the phone, that helps me install other applications and features to play around. VGA Camera has better picture results and even take pictures in night ( not very clear but results are better then T300 or Samsung) You can record 10 second video size 93K and can be played only Nokia Multimedia player ( that can be downloaded free from www.nokiausa.com )this is a great feature and I use it very often at places, which can't fit in a picture. Sound is also recorded in the video ( patch for sound recording can be downloaded from Nokia , if you are one of the early customers of the phone) I can transfer my contacts to and from Pocket PC via Infrared port or bluetooth, it saves me hassle of entering one by one. Unless you are using Nokia PC suite, then you'll have to sync it with phone. and you can also keep backup of your data. Phone is buly, but I like the screen size and vga resolution. That gives me more area to view. Dialpad is different from conventional phones but it's manageable after a while. Loudspeaker is a nice feature, can become handy when you want the company to join the conversation Loads of games/software is available from handango.com Newer Model in the same chassis is Nokia 3600 as it has WAP 2.0 instead of 1.2 but it's MRSP is around $600 You can buy this phone free ( after rebates) from amazon.com , buy.com or 6ave.com ( they offer it free with extra 50$ in rebate) Recommended: Yes 90307 2000/7/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 video recorder large screen voice tag easy to use lighted round keypad camera i don t have any The Bottom LineA great first phone especially for those who just want a phone! Camera and video are bonuses! Can't be without it now! Full Review I read through all the reviews which, for a first time cell phone user, seem pretty technical to me. I was a little concerned about the round key pad dial but then I used to dial rotary phones, so it was back to basics except that the one should be where the zero is. I've owned it for a year now and I find it much easier to dial this phone than my other family member's phones which have regular key pads. Their buttons are so small compared to this phone and I can feel my raised buttons and dial without looking. Whether it was stylish or trendy was of no concern to me. The phone was priced at $300 but I signed up through Let's Talk.com and received a $150 rebate from them and a $150 rebate from T-Mobile, so the phone was free. I only have a phone plan and chose not to pay the extra charges for the internet features so I can't comment on them. If I want a good photo, I will use a real camera. And I do not own a video camera. I never expected to get great quality photos or videos but for a grandma who saw her granddaughter take her first steps and happened to have my phone with me, capturing those 15 seconds on a short video clip was priceless. At least once a day, I look at the video clips on my phone to bring a smile to my face. The phone came with a fat user's manual and I thought, "Do I really have to read all this?" Well, I did have to read some of it, being a first timer and all, but realized I have access to the entire manual through the help menu on the phone. I always despise seeing people driving and talking on their cell phones because it is dangerous. My phone came with an ear plug type headset but the ear plug kept falling out of my ear so I bought an around the ear style. If I must use my phone when I am in my car, the headset is all ready plugged in so if someone calls me, I am prepared. If I need to call someone, the phone not only has 9 preset memories for those I call most but it has voice tag so all I have to do is call out the name of the person I am calling, never taking my eyes off the road. I've also assigned a different ring tone to everyone in my address book and now recognize who is calling me just from the ring. I had the problem another reviewer mentioned about the ring tone not being loud enough even if the volume was turned up all the way but discovered that only applied to certain ring tones. Most of them are quite loud enough. I carry the phone with me everywhere and charge it regularly. I have never had the phone go dead on me! I love this phone and if you are not as technology minded as most of the other reviewers are, and you just want a phone that happens to have a camera and a video recorder, this is the phone for you. I don't know if I would have actually had to pay the $300 if I would have even considered it to begin with, but for free, this is a great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90306 2003/6/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri band allows you use your phone in majority of the foreign countries battery life is short if you keep using camera feature The Bottom LineFor those of you who love new technology, this phone is definitely a 'must have'. Full Review My wife used to use a Nokia 3390. But when she saw Nokia 3650 on the advertisement, she said she must have it . When she must have something, I 'must' but her :) We trade in the 3390 in Cingular. After rebate, our out of pocket expense is $99. Not too bad for a new model. She starts to play with it and the more she play with it, the more she loves it. My review of the phone is as follow: 1. The phone has a huge color LCD screen (1.5" x 2.125"). it can display a lot of information so you don't have scroll up/down the screen 2. The ring tone is a killer. Since the phone is pre-installed a RealOne player, you can download your own voice (or your lover's voice) and use it as ring tone. Of course, if you don't want to go through the trouble, you can choose the ring tone from their 35-40 build in ring tone. 3. Keypad is stylish. It bring back the classic circular dial. you will need to spend some time to get used to it. 4. You can change faceplate easily (www.88-cellular.com) For $7.50, you can choose from 6 designs aftermarket faceplates 5. You are able to download some games and fun program for free. Because the phone support Java, a lot of companies are writing game for this phone. 6. The phone uses internal antenna. You don't have to worry about breaking the antenna. But the reception for internal antenna is not as good as retractable one. 7. The camera function is fun to play with. Due to the storage limitation, the resolution is rather low (640x480). if you are serious about your photo quality, go buy yourself a digital camera :) 8. The phone has build-in hands-free speaker-phone. That feature alone saves you over $50 (it normally cost you $50 to purchase a cell phone hands-free speaker system) 9. The phone I got from T-Mobile is unlocked. I am able to pop in my Cingular SIM card and use the phone with my Cingular account. ********************** Phone Features Voice Dialing Voice dialing for up to 25 numbers † Record and send memos, conversations, and sound clips 3 Integrated speakerphone for convenient communication Multimedia Messaging Service Combine picture, video, text or voice clip, then send via multimedia message or e-mail to a compatible phone or PC (content appearance may vary depending on the digital content formats supported) 1,14 High-speed data transmission over GSM data, HSCDS and GPRS where available 1 Camera and Video Capability Create your own full-color story with the built-in digital VGA camera (image captured at 640 x 480 resolution) 1,14 With in-box 16 MB Memory Card, Nokia 3650 phone can store over 1,000 standard VGA basic resolution photos. Download and play video clips and movie trailers using the video player Video recorder allows you to capture short video clips Video capture: H.263 video inside 3GP file format, 15 fps up to 95 kB Video playback: RealOne player; Formats:H.263 and MPWG-4 video inside 3GP file format, RealAudio and RealVideo inside RealMedia format Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90305 2000/10/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 bluetooth screen custom menus for power computer user totally inaccessible to the regular user turns itself off at tcingular discontinuedtmobile denies problem powers off The Bottom LineSkip it and go with the 6600 or newer. All the same features but without the bugs. Full Review HISTORY: I've been using the phone for almost 3 years now. I am updating this review for those that purchase the phone used from ebay or for existing owners that want to learn some new things. REVIEW: This phone was way ahead of its time. It is still ahead of many of today's phones. Features: 1. 1/3 megapixle camera 2. Speaker phone. 3. Bluetooth (unrestricted, no like Verizon that doesn't let you connect to your home computer to exchange pictures, etc.) 4. Voice Recorder. 5. Infrared. 6. Smart / computerized phone allowing you to install programs. I installed an mp3 player and a program to automatically lock the key pad after 3 minutes. 7. Applications: calculator, Metric & currency conversion, digital recorder. 8. Standard MMC memory card 16MB, upgradeable to 128MB (that was a lot memory when this phone came out 4 years ago!) 9. Nokia PC Suite for the 3650 (free from Nokia): allows you to backup the entire phone like a computer ghost image and restore it to either the same phone or a replacement phone. If you did the restore to another Nokia 3650 you wouldn't be able to tell the two apart. Even the wall paper, installed apps, phone numbers, notes, recordings etc. 10. Bluetooth: wireless head headset, link to the computer etc. I actually synchronize with a special Outlook profile called "Nokia 3650". I currently have 199 phone numbers and I can add more on the computer and delete a whole bunch and then save it to the phone! 11. In the fall of 2006 I signed up for T-zones ($5.99 /mo) and am able to connect via Bluetooth to my dell Axim pocket pc PDA running Windows Mobile 5.0 (wm5) and use my phone to connect to the internet! Not bad for a phone that came out almost 4 years ago! Reception and voice clarity is also excellent. In 2006 companies still struggle to top this feature list. And the phone is durable. For the super tech-savvy power user this phone is a dream. The more you use the phone and rearrange the menus the easier and more productive it becomes. ---------------------------------------------------------- Now the bad news: It took dozens of hours to master the phone especially the synchronization with the computer. A USB cable would have been so much easer. Nokia now went back to data cables because they are more reliable. Trying to figure out the various issues and unlock the capability of the phone took too much time. This is why I am still running the phone to realize a payoff from the time and effort spent on it. This summer the speaker completely died and I can only hear/feel the phone vibrate or the Bluetooth ear piece ring if it is on. In Depth Look at the Reboot Loop Problem: There are several computer-like software / hardware bugs but the most annoying is the shut off problem or reboot loop. What happens is the phone's Symbian operating system (OS) decides it needs to restart itself. It does this but, like a computer, either fails to shutdown or hangs at boot up or the screen goes blank but is not actually off. It is in a zombie state and still consuming power. Even if the phone is plugged in to a charger it will continue to drain and will not charge in this state since the OS is needed in order to charge the battery. My wife's Nokia 6600 also reboots every so often but does not hang and is very reliable. In 2005, a friend spent $500 on a Nokia 6682 and that phone reboots at least once a day (successfully). I asked him how he knew this and he said it make a chime every time it restarts. Last time I spoke with Nokia they were not aware of any problems. I did 5 phone exchanges through tmobile repair within one year and every single one had the reboot loop problem. Many people are having similar problems including turning itself off randomly and it's not a low loose battery. Google: "Nokia 3650" "turns itself off". http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/archive/t-27127.html http://www.expansys.com/forumthread.asp?code=NOK_3650&thread=156 http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?s=12096fe72fd16469f90320260301c47d&threadid=163306&perpage=15&highlight=\\\\ turns \\\\ off&pagenumber=6 http://hallmall.com/store/wireless-phones_B00009J5VV_Nokia-3650-Phone-T-Mobile.html One review says the phone still turns off after it was sent back to NOKIA and got the latest FIRMWARE update. I also read a post by a Nokia 3660 user that that phone has the same issues as well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90304 2004/1/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has an mmc card slot good phone with tons of featuresexpandability to boot must remove battery to access mmc card no mp3 player The Bottom LineIf you want a good all-around camera phone, you can't beat this one for free. Full Review This phone just about has it all. It is a gadget freaks nirvana. I've had it for 2 months (TMobile service in Phoenix metro area) and love it. I bought it for $300 from Amazon with a $150 Amazon rebate, plus a $150 TMobile rebate. In addition, Amazon gave a $60 rebate on the Jabra Bluetooth headset they sell for $79. Basically, for $20 and a single year contract, I'll own the phone and headset. That is cheap! Phone: (4 stars ****.) Novelty appeal and conversation starter. Blue backlit keypad looks cool. Good sound quality and mic pickup. Speakerphone capability (used very successfully a number of times when 'wait time is expected to be...'). Signal reception has been comparable to other cell phones I've had (Ericcson ?model? w/ AT&T; 3 different Motorola StarTacs with CellularOne/Alltel, Verizon). Keypad layout takes a little getting used to. Picture CID is limited (only shows thumbnail...too small to be real useful). Camera: (4 stars ****.) Decent photos in normal light (640x480 is better res. than many camera phones). 'Night' mode helps with low light conditions, but alters colors somewhat. In all modes, you need a very steady hand or to prop it against something. PDA functionality: (4 stars ****.) Built in calendar, to-do list, notes, voice recorder. Calendar has been extremely useful--I've already trained myself to quit using my day planner (never got a PDA...figured a phone with built-in PDA was my eventual refuge--and today it is). Notes and to-do list are okay, but would like to have a real keyboard. Voice recorder is a bit cumbersome. The controls FF,REW,PLAY,PAUSE are all graphic buttons on the screen which you have to select with the rocker button and then 'push' with the rocker button. Even having it on one of the two hot-keys doesn't make it convienent enough to use as a replacement digital voice recorder. Bluetooth: (4 stars ****.) I love the BT headset! No wires! Handsfree conversations in my car work great, friends can hear me fine and report not even hearing the road-noise that is extremely audible to me. Being able to call people (voice dialing) and answer calls without touching the phone is great. Having an extremely hard time getting it to connect properly to my computer with BT adapter...I've seen lot's of comments on web sites about problems with the BT adapter software--so probably not the phones fault. Expandibility: (4 stars ****.) Uses standard MMC cards (Comes with 16MB, I'm using a 128MB cards, not sure about 256/512MB...but heck, this is a PHONE with more memory than many PCs!). Unfortunately, you can't hotswap. Need to turn off phone and remove battery to get at MMC card. IMPORTANT NOTE: this is not equivalent to RAM. It only has 4MB of internal RAM. The MMC is like a hard drive and allows you to store more games, ringtones, pictures, etcetera. Battery life: (4 stars ****.) Talk and standby time seem to be extremely variable, but generally at least two days worth of normal use. If you use a Bluetooth headset, that reduces the battery time. It also appears that if I leave multiple applications running it reduces battery life and makes the phone slower. So I've taken to making sure I close/exit apps when I'm done. Internet/Email: (3 stars ***..) Internet browsing has a big wow factor, but is of limited use so far. Too few web sites are actually formatted for WAP access. AvantGo gives some downloadable content that is useful. I'm having limited success with using the built-in email client. It's fine for receiving email, but TMobile recently changed something that is preventing SMTP email to be sent. Prior to that, I had successfully attached and sent dozens of pictures to email addresses. Other notable features and issues: Can download apps and games for J2ME or Symbian 60 devices, ringtones in multiple formats including WAV, screensavers, background image, etc. Lots of variety out there. The video capture is too brief to be extremely useful...plus it's very low quality. Some of the user interface features could use a bit of polish (minor inconsistencies about when to use left button/menu option to exit an app versus right button to go back or exit an app. Wishlist: I wish it included an MP3 player. Only issue might be: do they make Bluetooth STEREO headsets or adapters? Even if it could only play in mono that might be sufficient. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90303 2000/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 sound qualtiy built in digital camera expandable memory excellent contacts manager slow os lack of stylus characher recognition hokey video recorder The Bottom LineGreat phone with tons of features. Won't repace your PDA but makes life a little easier. Full Review SI bought this phone through the AT&T Wireless Online Store. I paid $49.99 after signing their contract. My intent in buying this phone was to discard my PDA, and although I haven't thrown the PDA out, this phone does a lot of what the PDA does. The Good... Nokia sound quality. This Nokia phone delivers the same sound quality I've enjoyed from other Nokia Products. Most calls are clear and I haven't had any dropped calls. Digital Camera. I like the fact that the phone comes with a built in camera. When picture phones first came on the scene, most of them were a seperate attachment which didn't appeal to me. Althought the picture aren't of the greatest quality, the pictures are a lot better than those taken with my wife's Sony Ericsson T616. Big Color Screen. I like th fact that this phone is a little bigger than most of the newer phones. The screen is big enough where its easy to see not only the pictures you take but makes web browsing easy. Contacts Manager. I was able to synchronize with my Outlook contacts. Saved me tons of time in inputing item by item or sending business cards one by one via infrared. The Contact manager takes all information including street addresses. You can also insert a picture of some so that when you recieve a phone call your caller ID is the picture of the person who is calling you. Internal memory. Not only does this phone come with a little over 3mb of interal memeory but they include a 16 meg Multimedia Card, to store pictures, videos and/or backup your contacts from your phone's internal memory. Pretty Sweet. Battery Life. Although I haven't timed my battery usage I can tell you when I first bought the phone I would spend hours "playing" with it and would have to re-charge the battery every 2 days or so. Now I only have to recharge it every 5 days or so, but I'm not a heavy phone user. Bluetooth, Infrared etc. Gives you a choice to connect to to other devices via Bluetooth or infra red. THE BAD... No Stylus or character recognition. I've never been a big fan of alphanumeric writing found on most of today's cell phones. Keeps my writing short and not as nice as my PDA. Slow OS. I'm not sure what type of processor runs the OS on this phone but it's kind of on the slow side. Could use a boost in speed. Polyphonic ringtones. Barely audible unless you're in a quiet area. I use the old-type ringtones (monophonic?). But I guess poly ringtones are supposed to be gimmicky, right? Non-Standard Keypad. Although this is one of the first things you notice whe you first see the phone, the rotary style keypad is difficult to get used to. I still haven to look before I dial when making phone calls. Video Recorder. Although this should compliment this phone, this feature is pretty much useless. The quality of the video is horrible and it's in a non standard .3gp making it difficult to share with someone. Also, most other phones don't support this feature so MMS of video is only possible between 2 Nokia 3650s. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90302 2000/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features display quality reception bluetooth keypad size The Bottom LineIf you have the money and like having a ton of features and don't mind the large size and clunky keypad - this phone is for you. Full Review I'll start this review off the same way I start most cell-phone reviews -- I've incurred several early termination fees in my quest to find the best phone/plan/provider combination. And in my travels, I've encountered this rather unique phone. Did I say phone? I sometimes had to repeat that to my friends who saw this PDA-looking device. It's large screen and equally large keypad led many onlookers to believe that this device was more than just a cell phone. And it is. Instead of the typical "Messages, Display, Sound, Settings" menu items, this phone has about two screens full of options - from RealOne Player enabled video recording/playback to bluetooth connectivity. The phone comes with a 16 MB memory card, allowing plenty of fun taking pictures and movies, and provides decent interaction with a SIM card (it would be nice to have a mass copy from local address book to SIM directory function). We'll start from the outside in. The #1 complaint -- the keypad arrangement. The circular design keeps Nokia on the top of the pile for unique and creative designs, but makes text messaging or quickly dialing a number very awkward. On an unrelated note, this phone's next model will include the same form factor, but with a more traditional keypad. The reverse of the phone has the camera lens sticking out of it, the position of which creates a certain degree of difficulty when trying to aim for the perfect picture. Overall, the external design is attractive and unique -- the only problem is the keypad! Bah! The screen is giant, vivid and gives plenty of room to compose text messages, view address book entries and browse the internet. The menu system is great, however some features aren't always where they should be or as easily available as one would imagine (for example, phone settings, SIM card options, etc.) Making calls both from address book and from normal dialing is easy and intuitive, however accessing one's address book based on the phone's out-of-the-box configuration requires pressing a directional key, instead of a soft key as most phones do. Once you're in a call, navigating and using your provider's features is easy! Using the directional keys and softkeys, one can easily place calls on hold, place a second call and access plenty of functions. Overall good points: - Battery life is decent considering the featureset (4 hours talk/8 days standby). However, using features such as camera and video will reduce this life. - Vivid, colorful display. - Attractive user interface, usually intuitive. - Clear calls, good reception. - Camera quality (VGA) is fairly decent, darkness adjustment. Overall bad points: - The keypad organization. - The key... you get the point. - A bit large and heavy. Would be nice if this was a flip model. - Sometimes hard to access SIM vs. phonebook If you like a large display and phone that wont get lost in your pocket, this phone is for you. However, it's a bit pricey for its design flaws and unless you're a diehard Nokia fan who likes the quirky deisgn, I would advise purchasing a less-expensive model or sending a comprable amount on a different, smaller camera phone. All said, I enjoyed this phone (I ended up returning it due to the keypad), but inputting your contacts and sending text messages using the circular keypad proves an annoyance and the overall large design of the phone makes it difficult to be truly portable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90301 2003/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 decent camera bluetooth expandability reception no touch screenweird dial pad size rivals remote controls The Bottom LineToo high of a price to pay for poorly implemented feature sets. There are much better alternatives. Full Review The Nokia 3650 is supposed to be one of the new generation of Smart Phones to hit the market. It uses a Symbian Operating System. Never heard of it? That's okay, just know that its designed to compete with Palm, Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) and Linux. Let's get to the details shall we? The first thing you'll notice is the size. Its a bit larger than the newer wireless phones you might be used to seeing. Some have compared it to a remote control. Believe it or not, not everyone is a fan of the ever miniturization of phones. Women tend to complain that the small/tiny little guys tend to get lost in their purse. But know this, although large, its not ridiculously large. Its size will probably not be a deal killer for you. The next thing that's real obvious is the unorthodox keypad. It takes a little getting used to when dialing out but nothing out of the ordinary. There are those who swears its absolutely annoying but I wouldn't go that far. HOWEVER, if you want to do some major alpha-numeric stuff, then oh yeah, its really really annoying. One is simply not used to swivel one's thumb like that to type a sentence. Once again, probably won't be a deal breaker. The pictures from the camera is of poor quality by ANY digital camera standard. But, since we're talking about phones here, its probably one of the best ones out there. So is it a positive to be the best of mediocore? You decide. Feels like an episode of Average Joes doesn't it? One good feature on this phone is the Speaker Phone capability. By no means its a new feature but it is something that is extremely useful when waiting on hold when talking to Customer Care Representatives for hours. The speaker is loud and microphone is great so that you literally can be surfin' on the net and talking at the same time without having to switch back to "handset" mode. What differentiates this baby from a vast majority of other phones is the fact that it includes a slot for MMC card. Yes, the memory is expandible! Why would you need to expand the memory of a phone? I'll give you two reasons but probably only one makes sense. The obvious is for taking more pictures. But the camera is of such low resolution and low quality, why would one want a major collection of that is beyond me. The second is for music. No, it doesn't play MP3's. But, it does play mp4's. It won't do that right out of the box, it takes some tweaking. But that's why you're buying a "SmartPhone". It has an operating system for you to expand its capabilities! Symbian OS - Perhaps not at the fault of the operating system but as a PDA, it sucks! To use it as a PDA, one would assume it can handle contacts and calendar with ease. But it doesn't. The screen is not touch sensitive, that means you have to use the little dial pad thing to navigate. You can't write on the screen so you'll have to type in all the information via the poorly laid out number pad. If you want to load programs, hopefully your PC is bluetooth ready or else you'll have to spend some more bucks on a cable. Bluetooth operations can be improved but its not BAD. I connected to the Internet with my Ipaq via bluetooth just fine. Took minimal effort. RF - Reception - Perhaps the best one out there on the market. I live in an area with bad reception for every carrier and I get an above average signal through this phone. Its not all the other phones suck, its because the 3650 truely is above the rest. Conclusion: As a straight up wireless phone - its too big, too expensive, weird dial pad but bundles quite a bit and one hell of a reception. As a PDA/Phone/Smartphone - size is okay, lacks in processing power, no touch screen. Get yourself a pocket pc phone edition. Given that it failed both aspects of its design, I must conclude that this phone is not worth the money. Unless you desperately need the RF reception. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90300 2004/3/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easily viewable nokia s wonderful menu system oversized screen cool factor volume inconsistency phone lag glitches power shut off large size can be a pain The Bottom LineGood Phone, Nice Features, Easy To use-- Glitches can be a pain, the size is a bit large for everyday use..... Full Review I finally caved in and got the Nokia 3650 back in October 03. My girlfriend had it and I really liked the idea of picture messaging her at work, plus the phone was just completely different than anything else on the market. After 6 months of ownership I feel I have enough information to write a detailed review. THE GOOD: The menu is very easy to navigate through. This phone is loaded with features such as a camera and camcorder mode. Contrary to what others have said, you CAN play mp3's but you have to first purchase one of those software discs off of Ebay so that you can convert the mp3's to a readable format for the phone. (HASSLE) The battery life is above average, I have talked for 3- 3 1/2 hours straight before. Even though the phone has been out for 2 yrs now, people still ask me about it all the time, so it retains the "cool factor" The screen is easily viewable due to its larger size. Since it is a Nokia, accessories are abundant. The keypad took a bit of getting used to, but now dialing and texting are just as fast if not faster than a conventional number pad configuration. THE BAD: I don't have many problems with the phone in general, but for some reason I notice glitches. My first phone would randomly shut off, the ring volume would always fluctuate (Even when set to the highest volume!), and the phone often feels like a computer in that it slows down. Sometimes if I want to go through my menu,or to perform most functions, it will take a good 10 seconds to execute. However, other times it will react immediately. This is very very frustrating. I contacted my provider and they immediately sent me another Nokia 3650 (Thank you T-Mobile), however this phone is having the exact same issues. The "shut off" glitch drives me crazy so I will be looking for a new phone soon. Also the size being a bit on the larger side can be a pain at times when you just want to wear shorts and a t-shirt! BOTTOM LINE: The phone now is relatively cheap on Ebay in the $100ish range, and most providers are offering it for $150 or even FREE if you sign up, so I think the price is justified. Maybe I was just unlucky with this phone, but I think I am going to try a Samsung or Sony Ericsson next time around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90299 2003/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception sound quality head turning design tons of features camera to work menu system can get confusing phone has to be on for pda The Bottom LineAn excellent combination of phone, camera, camcorder and PDA. I can't see how you can go wrong especially with the price I paid for it. Full Review Now, I will admit before you have to guess: in my heart of hearts, I am a gadget-freak. But I am also a very cheap gadget-freak and that is why I don't actually own too many gadgets. When I started shopping for a new cell-phone and plan, this phone immediately caught my eye and the fact that it is available for free after rebates at most retailers sealed the deal for me. The excellent reviews this product has received in this forum and others did not hurt either. I chose T-Mobile service with this phone because my brother is happy with his service with them (AT&T also supports this phone on their GSM network). A few comments about the form factor: this is not the smallest or lightest phone on the market. But it looks bigger in most pictures than it actually is. Go to a retailer and hold one in your hand to judge for yourself your level of comfort with the size and weight of the phone. The phone seems to be well-balanced in terms of weight distribution and I have found it very easy to carry it in a belt clip and work on it with one hand. Let us talk about the phone first: it is a GSM phone capable of operating on 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz bands, so it is a true world-phone. It has a large 2" diagonal screen which is quite bright and is clearly visible in all light conditions (no problems with direct sunlight). The keypad is backlit when you use the phone, so no problems using it at night. Nokia claims 200 hours of standby time and 4 hours of talk-time on one charge. I haven't tested any of this rigorously, but the numbers look believable to me based on my experience. You will be recharging your phone quite frequently initially when you get it because you will be playing with it quite a lot! The signal reception is very good even without the external antenna and the speaker and microphone are very clear and can be quite loud. The speakerphone is passable, but nothing to write home about. The phone has other features such as a voice recorder that enables you to record a phone conversation. The phone also maintains cumulative logs of minutes used, numbers called, calls received etc. The phone came with a handsfree headset and the sound quality of the speaker as well as the microphone on the headset was quite remarkable. The phone was very easy to set up and I was making calls within 10 minutes of opening the box because the battery came fully charged, and the phone came already activated. All you have to do is insert the SIM card and battery into the phone and power it on (instructions for doing these is very clear and easy to understand). The phone works just like any other cell-phone, you just have to be careful if you are used to dialing by touch or with both hands because of the circular layout of the keys. But the tactile feel of the keys is very good and you are never in doubt as to whether you actually pressed a key or not. Now to the other features: the phone is a PDA, camera, camcorder and phone wrapped in one surprisingly small package. The PDA runs on the Symbian OS and has a calendar, to-do list, notepad etc. The phone comes with a built-in dictionary of common words and has a feature called predictive text input that enables you to take notes or make calendar entries quite easily. The phone has a built-in alarm clock that will sound even if the phone is not on at the preset time. The phone comes with 4MB of internal phone memory and a 16MB memory card that can be used to store applications, images etc. If you don't plan on using the phone as a gaming platform, this should be more than enough memory for all practical purposes. The camera has a 640x480 resolution and is not in the same league as the best or even run-of-the-mill standalone digital cameras. But it is adequate for taking photographs that look good on the phone's screen. And it is certainly better than lugging a phone and a camera separately wherever you go! The camcorder is not very hot either, but takes passable video. Unfortunately, while the camera pictures are in the industry standard JPG format, the video clips are in 3GP format and most PC's are not equipped to play the video clips. One word of warning is that the form factor of the phone and the placement of the shutter button are not conducive to taking good pictures or video. It is very difficult to hold the phone absolutely steady when using the camera and I have sometimes had to retake a photograph a couple of times before being satisfied with the level of blurring in the picture because of shake. The phone is web-enabled and if you subscribe to the right optional services, you can surf the web (it is not very fast, so it is better to restrict yourself to largely text-based sites), send and receive email, send and receive pictures and videos (to other phones or to email addresses) using a messaging service called MMS (multimedia messaging service) and also do the GSM-standard SMS (short messaging service). The phone also comes with realOne player pre-installed, so you can stream audio from internet radio stations directly over the phone, making the phone a sort of FM radio! The phone comes with a 220 page manual. The manual is quite clear in most areas and you can also download a PDF version of it from the Nokia website. You can also go to www.nokiahowto.com and watch step-by-step animations of how to navigate the menu system on the phone to accomplish all sorts of things (such as sending a message, or changing the settings of the camera etc.). The best way to figure it all out is to play with it, but be sure not to change settings you don't understand. I shut myself out of messaging for a few hours because I made a change in the settings and did not remember it while I made several futile attempts to send a picture to a friend of mine. Luckily, I remembered the change and was able to reverse it, but otherwise, you have to call customer service. And that brings me nicely to another "problem" with this phone: most of the customer service people at the phone company are not technical wizards and this phone requires some level of technical expertise to use correctly and also to resolve problems if and when you have them. T-Mobile has a technical support division and they seem to have access to the actual phone and can walk you through steps to correct problems etc., but it can be a long wait to talk to these people (I have not waited more than 5 minutes to get through to customer service, but have been on hold for upto 30 minutes after I have been transferred to technical support). The phone is capable of talking to other devices using IR or bluetooth. I have tested both features between two identical phones and they work as advertised (the IR is a little less reliable than bluetooth). The phone comes with software that you put on your PC and you are supposed to be able to get the phone and PC talking so that you can synchronize your calendars, contact lists etc., but since my PC does not have bluetooth, I have not tried that yet. I have read several stories about people having lots of trouble getting USB bluetooth dongles working with this phone, so if you decide to try it, be prepared for some possible frustrations (try www.nokia3650.net for a forum that discusses these problems and possible solutions). Obviously, I can't do all the features of the phone justice in this review. I will just mention that the phone is a full-featured PDA and you can even find lots of 3rd party software that you can load onto the phone to make it more useful. The fact that the manual is 220 pages long must give you a hint about the capabilities of the phone. A few words of warning though: the phone is a computer and runs on an operating system. It is reputed to be a very stable operating system, but I have heard of people whose phones have crashed because of the applications or combinations of applications they loaded onto it. And some of these crashes have been hard enough to get Nokia service centers involved. So, think carefully about the utility of an application before loading it onto your phone. Also, the phone can run several applications at once and I think it is easy to leave applications running in the background without your knowledge. For example, you pull up the contacts to make a call and when you end the call, the contact application is still open on the phone. If you leave a sufficient number of applications open, you will run into memory problems. So, you have to either remember what you loaded and then close them out or you have to periodically check the list of open applications and close what you don't need. One major gripe I do have with this phone is that Nokia did not have the brains to cleanly separate the PDA and other functionality from the actual phone. To use any of the features of the phone (except the alarm), you have to turn the phone on. Which means you can't use any of the features of the PDA or camera or camcorder on a flight or in any other situation where a cell-phone is not permitted to be switched on. I think it is stupid of Nokia to have overlooked something this basic, but hopefully they will get it corrected in the next version. I wanted to update the review to include details of my use of the PC software that comes with the phone the "3650 PC Suite". I recently got a bluetooth dongle for my PC and the connection with the phone was actually remarkably straightforward and simple. However, I was very disappointed with the software. It enables you to make backups of all the data on your phone and also synchronize your contacts and calendar with those on your PC. However, there are a couple of catches to the process: first of all, the PC suite by itself has no contacts or calendar unlike the PC software that comes with a Palm organizer for example. It just has the ability to store and retrieve your calendar and contact information from third party software like Lotus Notes or MS outlook which you need to have installed on your PC already. When I backed up the contacts on my phone and my wife's phone to Outlook, all the contact information got duplicated in Outlook and the contact information now needs a major cleanup. Worse still, when I synchronized my phone a second time just for fun, all the contact information on my phone got duplicated because it imported all the contact information in Outlook into my phone. So, it is quite a mess I have to dig out of. Second, when the PC suite backs up other files on your phone, such as photographs you have taken and so on, it puts them all in a proprietary format under some directory structures that is impossible to sort out. If you lose information from the phone, hopefully you will be able to restore it from this backup cache that has been created, but I hope I never have to test it out because I don't think you can do selective restores. Also, the photos did not have the JPG extension in this backup directory, so I could not browse them on the PC. However, as a saving grace, the PC suite does have a simple file transfer utility that is like a simple FTP connection between the phone and your PC. I was able to transfer all the photos on my phone to the directory on my PC where I store all my digital photos and this time, they retained their JPG extension and I could browse them on the PC. Bottomline about the PC Suite: It seems to be a messy program that is very short on features. If you are having trouble getting it to work with your phone, you are not missing much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90298 2000/11/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 so many features huge colorful screen a big phone The Bottom LineI recommend this to anyone who is looking for a fun phone. Full Review INTRODUCTION After countless years of having to use one of my friend's phones, I have finally received a phone. I wanted something that was easy to use, and it had to be unique. I didn't want the same phone that everyone else had. I decided to get the Nokia 3650. Now this is a unique phone. It has so many things that other phones don't have. It even has a different shaped keypad arrangement. I knew that it would be a good phone. FEATURES Some features include the humongous screen. It is a high-resolution, full-color display that can show 4096 different colors. The screen is a whopping 176x208 pixels. Another feature that is becoming more and more common with cell phones is an integrated digital camera. Images are captured at 640x480 resolution. The screen, or display, acts as a viewfinder and when you press the middle of the 5-way scroll key to take a picture, a picture-taking sound effect is played. After you have taken a picture you can go to it by going to the menu and then to images. In this folder, you can zoom in, zoom out, rotate, make it full screen, delete it, rename it, or send it to another mobile or an email address. With the same lens you can also capture short videos. Even though the videos are short (about 30 seconds), they are good quality and include sound. After you have recorded your video, you can play it back in the Real One Player under menu. Another feature is the usage of monophonic or polyphonic ringtones. Monophonic is one track and is a computery, non-attractive sound. Polyphonic is more than one track and can be many sounds such as piano, guitar, clarinet, drums, etc. So, if you wanted you could have a piano part with a drum beat behind it. While we are on the note of ringtones, the phone has a built-in ringtone composer. Now, I haven't really figured it out yet but I think you can make polyphonic ringtones. All I have figured out is how to make steady quarter notes. But I will. That is definitely a good feature because if you don't like one of the many built in ringtones to choose from, and you don't want to buy them off the internet, you can always make one to your liking. Another feature is text messaging with predictive text. That is a way to type in words without scrolling through each number to get the letter you want. You just press the numbers that have the letters that you want in them and then the word will be there. So when you want to type in "Nokia" for example, you press 6(mno), 6(mno), 5(jkl), 4(ghi), and then 2(abc). When you look at the screen (and you have predictive text on) the word Nokia should be there. The phone has built in memory for applications, ringtones, pictures, contacts, messages, and videos. The phone comes with 3.4MB of free space. You can also add external memory on a 3V MMC memory card. Another feature is your contacts. For every contact, you can have first name, last name, company, job title, telephone #, mobile #, fax #, and email. You can also add a picture to each contact so if they call, their picture pops up. You can also do voice recognition for many numbers so you just say the contact into the phone and it calls it automatically, without any number pressing. You can also have groups to make your contact list more organized. Another feature is a calendar. That has slots in 1-hour increments for notes. You can view the calendar by day, week, or month. Yet another feature is the to-do list. You can write out to-do notes and set them to certain priorities. When you have completed a "to-do", you can put a check next to it. Another feature is Messaging. You can send a message including text, images, video, or any combination of the three to another phone or email address. In messaging you can write messages, access your inbox, access your folders, mailbox, drafts, sent messages, and your outbox. In the extras folder, you can write notes, convert metric units to imperial units, record a sound, access your clock's options, and access your external memory. Some other features, which I haven't used yet, are Bluetooth (which I heard could be much better), infrared, and modem. You can also download applications off of the Internet such as a photo editor, Ebay, a shopping list, driving directions, etc. ABOUT THE NOKIA 3650 Many people say this phone is bulky and too big. I think the giant screen makes up for it. The phone weighs 130g with the Lithium Ion Battery. It is 130x57x26 mm. The keypad is starting a revolution in keypad design. After the same old rectangle key formation got old, Nokia decided to change it around. Many people say that the circle keypad was a weird change for them from their last cell phone. Since this was my first, I couldn't agree with that. CONCLUSIONS Overall, I think the Nokia 3650 is an amazing phone. Yes it is big and yes the keypad may be strange, but it works great and it has so many things built into it. I would recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90297 2000/5/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 built in camera nice color display bulky battery life heavy The Bottom LineI'd go with the clamshell-type camera phones from Samsung or Panasonic, even for an extra $200 Full Review Nokia 3650 OK, first off, I have to say that the concept behind this phone has some promise. The 3650 has some advanced Personal Information Manager functions, and the large color screen is a nice departure from the usual compactness of mobile phone displays, while staying clear of the awkwardness of square, bulky Palm devices. The built-in camera is a neat little feature, especially for those events in one's life that beg for photographic posterity. Overall, however, I think this phone is about 98% novelty and only 2% functionality. In this Epinion, I'll try my best to touch on the subjects that seem to matter most to mobile phone buyers - that is, functionality (as a phone and as a PIM); signal strength; battery life; and value. I bought this phone from AT&T Wireless in the Washington/Baltimore service region. The retail price was $299.99, but because of some vendor agreement AT&T has with the corporation I work for, I got the phone for $149.99. AT&T just introduced its GSM services in the Washington area late last year; coverage is not as reliable as the brand's own digital (TDMA) service, but in the two months that I've been a subscriber, I've found relatively few dead spots. In that respect, this 3650 was great - signal strength was good and sound quality was crisp (though not to the level of Samsung's GSM S105). Having mentioned these two aspects of the handset, my praise of the Nokia 3650 is pretty much exhausted. The first thing I noticed on this phone was that Nokia's new interface (based on the Symbian operating system) was not as user-friendly as in older models. The 9290 Communicator, also Symbian-based, was far easier to navigate than this 3650. Perhaps it's only a matter of getting used to the new menu system, but as far as I'm concerned, I'd much sooner go back to Nokia's straightforward text-based menus than the Symbian icon-based one. My foremost complaint is that the settings menu, which was once broken down into three easy levels (phone settings, call settings and security settings), has now been further categorized into the 'Tools' folder. To be perfectly honest, most of the settings on my 3650 remain at their factory-set defaults, not because I like those settings but because my patience with the new interface has grown thin! Once one becomes familiar with the navigation, however, the functions of the phone are quite attractive. Like Motorola's newer interfaces (on the v.60i, for example), the 3650 now allows the user to customize the 'soft keys' on the display; so, if you use the Camera and Messaging features most often, you can set the soft keys to have one-touch access to those menus. The PIM functions are pretty standard in terms of appointments; that is, the calendar and alarm remain relatively unchanged from previous Nokia models. A nice new feature is that 'Contacts' function, which allows the user to input several different phone numbers (home, office, mobile) for the same contact, as well as pertinent information like e-mail addresses, fax numbers and birthdays. This eliminates the need to carry around both a cellular phone and a Palm or Pocket PC. The Real Viewer (as well as other software included on the Nokia PCSync CD) allows the user to organize and view images, video clips and downloadable media; games and productivity programs (like the Nokia Converter) round out the included software suite. The 3650 is not particularly impressive when it comes to battery life, which is not surprising seeing as the 4,096-color screen is three times larger than comparable TFT-display phones. The phone also bleeds battery life when the camera function is in use. A word to the wise: if you plan on using the 3650 for all the purposes for which Nokia designed it - cellular phone, PIM, digital camera and toy - keep a spare battery around just in case. And that's no small thing: the new ultra-slim LiIon batteries run about $60.00. Overall, even for the $150.00 that I paid for it, the Nokia 3650 is not really worth the small investment. The functionality and expandability of the handset simply does not match the Palms and Pocket PCs that are available, and the camera feature (in terms of picture quality) doesn't compare to even the lowest-end digital cameras on the market. The novelty of the phone wears off pretty quickly, and when it does, you're left with a relative behemoth of a mobile phone, and not very much to take pictures of anyway. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90296 2000/10/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 many seemingly nifty features bluetooth nonstandard poor access to phone features phone soundcamera quality gsm coverage The Bottom LineConsider the Nokia 3650 only if you're tolerant of poor cellular coverage, many features not working, difficult and often frustrating operation as a phone, and unnecessary charges. Full Review Here are some of the features I bought it for, and the experience I had after buying it: Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 network "world phone" - Too bad it doesn't work on the existing TDMA digital networks or AMPS analog networks that are far more common in the United States. Coverage seems to be spotty at best in urban and suburban areas, non-existent in more rural areas. I can't tell you how many times since I bought this "$350" phone I've had to borrow phones from people around me, who have service while I don't. Camera Phone - 640 x 480 is marginal, but the image quality is so bad (color correctness, etc) that the pictures are worse than you'd see in a bad dream. Great concept, but the implementation makes it virtually worthless. Bluetooth wireless connection - Supposedly you can transfer images to to other Bluetooth phones, and I bought a Bluetooth adapter to transfer the files to my PC. Guess what? When I contacted Nokia and the adapter manufacturer when the connection didn't work, the answer was "Bluetooth isn't one compatible standard". So much for that feature. Transferring the image files by removing the phone's data card is possible, but it's complicated and not well documented. Other design problems with the phone include: Poor access to phone features - There are so many non-phone features that it's cumbersome to do simple phone actions like call someone back or redial a number, requiring you to navigate deep into onscreen menus. Try that while you're driving. On second thought, don't. Hey Nokia, it's a phone, make it work well as a phone!! Poor default ring - Too hard to hear, annoying tune. There seems to be no way to increase volume. There seems to be no way to change ring tones other than to pay for new downloadable tunes. As it's implemented, the programmable ring tone "feature" seems to be a way to extract extra money from users, not a way for users to be happier with the phone. Poor keypad layout - Many of us can dial a standard "10 key" style numeric layout almost without looking. Good luck dialing the radial keys on this phone. The tiny speaker is highly directional - If you don't have your ear in exactly the right place, the volume is severely compromised or you can't hear the person on the phone at all. If there's a way to increase the volume, I can't find it (but then I only have a computer science degree, maybe I'm not qualified to operate this user interface). General usability - Sometimes when you make a mistake using a feature, you get kicked out to a place far removed in the menu system from where you want to be. For example, if you dial a number and the call doesn't go through (which seems to be common on these spotty GSM networks), the number doesn't remain there for redialing. Duh. Didn't anyone at Nokia try using this device as a phone? Maybe they were too busy playing games and changing faceplates and ring tones. I also had some trouble with the user interface when I tried to program numbers and labels into the phone. The phone is highly programmable, but AT&T chooses to have their "MMode" messaging feature prominent on the phone, even if you haven't subscribed to it. If you're curious about what that feature is, or when that Mmode button gets hit while the phone is in your pocket, you start getting charged per byte for data transfers. Overall this phone is unnecessarily difficult to use as a phone. On paper the phone implements some nice concepts and it is a nice demo of features to come, but for now, for daily use, the usability needs work, delivery of the promised features is spotty at best, and the manner of implementing them (such as using features to jack up your monthly phone bill in unpredictable, sometimes uncontrollable ways) can be highly obnoxious. We're getting AT&T to switch us back to a phone that can use the far more common analog and TDMA digital networks here in the United States. We'll consider camera phones and ones that can import an Outlook contact list via Bluetooth when the technology improves and uses standards, and when the manufacturer and service provider's implementations of the features and services are better thought out. Definitely don't buy it based upon a list of features, or the recommendation of someone who hasn't spent a few months using (or trying to use) the various features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 75Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90295 2000/6/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 design modem camera voice recorder expandable memory features bluetooth pim complex software design design unintuitive pc software phone instablity The Bottom LineA phone for boys who like toys - for a trendy fashion statement. A phone that will turn heads and keep you on time to your next appointment. Full Review "It's ugly" - "It's so cool" The 3650 was released in Q1 2003 - since then a plethora of new phones have arrived to market. The 3650 can still match most of these phones feature-for-feature, but is it still the fashion item it once was? The design of the 3650 has always been hit or miss. Upon its first release it was featured in a number of fashion magazines. The purpose of the design is definitely to turn heads. The lines of the phone are very distinct. The rotary number pad is its most distinguishing feature of the device. In terms of scale the phone is larger than average yet sits in your hand very comfortably. The rounded edges of the phone make it very easy to slip into a pocket. There's an IR port on the side of the phone which seems to me a bit from the legacy days. One of the larger selling points of the phone is its Bluetooth functionality. Bluetooth - a short distance, low bandwidth, wireless communication protocol is most being marketed towards wireless headsets and other hands free devices for automobiles. Other uses of the protocol are primary for personal information management (PIM) exchange. Through the use of Nokia's priority software the 3650 can be connected to your computer via IR, Serial, or Bluetooth protocols. When connected images, videos, applications, and more can be downloaded or uploaded from the camera's built-in or expandable memory. Contact, Calendar, and Task information can be synced between applications such as Microsoft Outlook (with the provided Nokia software) which raises the phone's functionality to that of a PDA or the current crop of smart phones. The phone can also act as a modem for a laptop or PDA as well as browse the web all depending upon your service plan. Text interface is typical of a mobile phone. T9 predictive text input can speed some tasks up substantially. Other features on the phone include a low resolution camera which can record both moving and still pictures. This media can be uploaded to a device via Bluetooth, sent via email, or sent via SMS depending on your plan. The phone also includes a voice recorder for memos, a calculator, a currency/unit converter (you need to plug in the exchange rate), and a note taking application. (These applications may vary depending on your service provider or where ever you obtain the headset from). Overall this phone has ample features, many of which I haven't mentioned. Personally I've owned my 3650 for over a year. My service provider has been T-Mobile. There's never been a day where the phone has failed to make a call. However, the software interface, when taken as a whole, could use some honest work. Some features will freeze requiring you to power the phone on and off (which takes a substantial amount of time for a mobile phone... somewhat eclipsed by the fact of this phone's extraordinary battery life). Other times the phone will require a full reset to gain back full functionality (in which case you lose all your user data, although it can be backed up to the phone's flash memory card). To most users this is unacceptable, to others it's the price to pay for cutting edge technology. However, take into account people's reliance on mobile phones today and I think any sort of software flaw is unacceptable. Also consider that a phone may need to serve you in the time of an emergency in which case full functionality is always a plus. However, the 3650 is not a bad phone. If you like gadgets, and are fond of the trendy design - go for it (although if you're fond of gadgets you probably won't be buying a phone that's over a year old). For other crowds, and by other I mean the average audience, I wouldn't suggest this phone. The features are there, but require some time and dedication to get to operate efficiently (if at all). Addendum: I realized there are other important issues I didn't touch on before. The screen is large and fairly bright - a major feature to the phone. Its size and resolution make it very easy to navigate through contacts and within the calendar application. The camera takes average pictures for a 2003 camera phone. Do not expect these images to be great. They are just under par of the image quality of most $30 webcams today. There is no zoom or flash - the latter of which would have been extremely useful in low light situations, albeit at the expense of battery life. The buttons are actually positioned in a very intuitive layout. The rotary dial - while different - is no slower or faster than a conventional pad layout. The battery, as noted above, powers the phone extremely well - as well as recharges extremely fast. With light to medium use you may get away with charging it every five days. The voice transmission quality is average and mostly dependent upon signal strength and carrier. The microphone has a tendency to drift away from your mouth when the headset is handheld - although this could be my own fault, and not a fault of the design. Wallpapers and ringtones are as customizable as any other phone on the market. You can tag a picture to a person's contact information - their picture will come up on your caller id (provided your service plan has caller id... most do). If you sync the contact file to a mac running OS X - the picture will sync with the computer. Syncing the phone via Bluetooth was a major pain on both Apple and PC platforms - it still is on the latter. The newest updates to the OS X operating system have added true support for the 3650. You can use iSync for sync just as you would with your ipod, etc. PCs are still forced to use Nokia's unintuitive and archaic software which doesn't always work. You may need to be - or know someone who is fairly proficient while working with computers. It is much more difficult to sync on the PC platform than it is on the Mac platform. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90294 2000/1/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 ability to laugh derisively at people who have 3650 sthink they re really neat unintuitive os several fatal flaws keypad blech battery longevity size record quality recording length 1 min max The Bottom LineThis thing was designed by Dilbert's company I think. Nice features, TERRIBLE execution, with several fatal flaws; SIZE, Battery longevity, record quality, recording length(1 min max), unintuitive OS, keypad-blech! Full Review I stopped into the ATT store to check out the 3650 because it's what the insurance wants to give me as a replacement for the Ericsson T68is I have that sometimes doesn't want to work with the headset. Apparently the T68 has been discontinued. I found the 3650 to have some interesting features, namely the onboard camera, but to have several fatal flaws that led me to a "thumbs down" conclusion on whether I would accept this phone as a replacement. I emailed two of the photos to myself so I could check picture quality, and it's what you'd expect from 640x480 resolution, mediocre but usable. Strangely, the "night" shot I took, just to see what happened didn't make it to my email, and there was space for it, so I don't know what to make of the fact that the phone told me the email was sent... All of this was really immaterial, because the really useful feature that I use the most on my T68 is the record feature, even more than reminder notices. I know I won't use the camera feature, I keep a digital camera in my backpack and rarely use it. Plus, the 640x480 resolution is nothing you're going to want to use on any shots you'd want to keep. Buy a real digital camera with at least one megapixel or stick with film cameras. The T68is has about 30 minutes of recording time, which is a lot. I document EVERYTHING, so when I make a payment over the phone, or when someone is giving me info I suspect may be bogus, I document that so that when I talk to the next customer service rep who says "well, I don't know who told you that, but that's not how we do it," I can then tell them who told me, and even play back the person telling me. I LOVE that feature, and feel it's invaluable in this day of far-flung multiple customer service telephone centers. The problem with the 3650's recording capability is twofold; 1) the sound quality is TERRIBLE. I mean awful. The best way I can describe it is to use the example of two tin cans tied together by string, well, those have a little BETTER sound reproductive quality than the 3650. I know what you're thinking- well, it's just for documentation, recording directions, etc, it doesn't have to sound great, does it? Well, I'll just say that the T68's recording quality is much better, and then we'll set aside that issue for a second, since it's not the fatal one. The fatal one is that it will ONLY record one-minute segments, then stop. if you want to keep recording, then you will have to go through all the menu steps (6)(!!)again to get to the point where you can do that. No thanks. I've recorded, on occasion, 15 to 30 minute conversations. No freakin way am I gonna be trying to tear through 6 menu steps 30 times for a grand total of 180 buttons pushed to accomplish what my T68 will do with 4 button pushes. Nor should I have to. That's just inexcusably bad design. And what these other reviews have said about the OS seems to be true about the difficult OS, having to drill down through too many screens to do what you want to, keypad ergonomics, etc. It's almost like Nokia screwed this phone up every way they could think of to give people motivation to upgrade when a better version of it became available. Oh, and I could NOT figure out how to get the thing to not use predictive input when I was trying to enter my email into the contact book. Which meant that I could not enter an email address at all. And I'm a fairly smart individual, so while one would assume there must be a way, I guess you can take that as an indication of ease of use. And the first thing that hits you when you pick up this phone is, it's BIG. I mean REALLY BIG, more than TWICE the size of my T68, (which, granted, is pretty small) so unless you're one of those dorks that want people to see that "wow, look at me, I'm talkin on a CELPHONE! Isn't that cool?!" Um, no, actually, it's the 21st century, it's a telephone without a wire hanging off of it, big whoop. If that's your deal, you'd be better off getting a phone with an external antenna so you can get one of those blinky LED replacements at the swap meet and REALLY attract attention to yourself. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90293 2004/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 massive screen great functionality bluetooth image quality difficult menus poly ringtone volume The Bottom LineBuy it for clarity, functionality, screen size (it's HUGE!) and general coolness. Full Review After an uncharacteristic flurry of buying and selling on my part (I dropped my worthless Sony Ericsson T60LX, bought the Nokia 7210 which I liked, and then quickly swapped that for this model), I have settled in on the Nokia 3650. I have had this phone for 2 weeks now, and aside from some minor quirks, I am very happy with it. CLARITY One of the problems I had with the Nokia 7210 was the fact that there was an odd level of distortion with female voices. This is not an issue with the 3650, and I have enjoyed clear reception ever since I switched, indoors or out. FUNCTIONS If I could figure out all the different functions of this phone, I swear I could launch the space shuttle with it. Aside from the camera and video capture, it has a robust Calendar and Appointment Book, a great Contacts Manager and Bluetooth functionality. Nokia finally got the right idea with the Contact Lists; you can not only store every number (cell, home, work, fax) that a contact has, but you can change the labels, cutting out the ones you don't want or renaming others for more specific items (like "Beach House" for example...not everyone only has one house). UPDATE: In addition to the software that comes bundeled with the 3650, there are dozens of amazing little apps. that can turn this "phone" into what it really is; a reason to never carry my PDA with me ever again. If this thing had a stylus, I would be selling my Palm on Ebay right now... SOUND The loudspeaker function is great, but doesn't work quite as well as the one on my 7210(everything that has to do with the loudspeaker is a bit too muted on this phone). The Polyphonic ringtones sound fantastic, but they are way too quiet to be heard walking around the city (I live in DC and walk everywhere). I have tried pumping up the ringtone volume to max, but I can only hear them clearly in the office or at home. There are several cool alternatives to the Poly ringtones, including several traditional phone rings, that are so loud you can hear clear across you house. I also really miss the radio function on my 7210. One complaint here: I paid $350 for this phone, so don't bundle it with a POS headset (it's the cheapest one available for this phone, and completely useless). That's just being greedy... BLUETOOTH This is my first Bluetooth device, so I don't have a lot of exposure to them, but mine works great. I picked up a small USB converter from Comp USA for $40 and spent the next two hours uploading pictures, sounds, movie clips, installing extra software and games...so cool! Defiantly a great function. Following this little geek trip to the max, I also plunked down $100 to pick up the wireless Bluetooth headset. I can't tell you how much I love this thing. I am a web designer, and I am always walking from one office to another with my messenger bag. Before I got this headset, the wires from my cell would get tangled in my bag strap, and there were a couple of times that I yanked the headset out of the phone in the middle of a call. No problems with this little baby. It also solves a problem with recent Nokia phones: Why on earth do they insist on putting the ports for headsets on the bottom of their phones? At least the 3650 has a "normal" headset port, unlike the clunky one for the 7210. The best thing about getting the Bluetooth headset is it solves another little annoyance abut the phone: It's big. The sucker is uncomfortable in you pants pocket, but with the headset, I just put it in a pouch in my messenger bag and, as long as I am within 30 feet of it, it works great. And with the voice dialing features, I never have to pull the thing out at all! BATTERY Okay, so everything has to have a trade-off, and for this phone, it's the battery life. It's not horrible, but it isn't great, and if you talk more for than an hour a day (along with using the other phone functions) you may have to do a mid-day recharge. On the plus side, it does recharge rather quickly. And seeing as an extra charger is cheap ($13 on the Nokia website), you might as well pick on up for the office. CAMERA So you won't be taking museum quality pics with this camera, or even photo-album quality for that matter, but all in all, they are pretty decent. The quality is good enough for your phone and for the web, which is all I am really concerned with anyway. UPDATE: Okay, I just downloaded a little program called Photographer 2.0 on a gamble; it costs $20 and there was no trial version, but it was worth every last cent! The program dramaticlly improves the images that the phone takes and also provides you with a digital zoom feature that the original camera lacked. This is a must have for the Nokia 3650. The video feature is a little choppier, but for quick audio/visual memories on the go, it can't be beat. Make sure to go to the Nokia website and download the expansion so you can record both pictures and sound with the device. SIZE It is a little on the large size, and not the most appealing phone to look at. The keypad looks cool, but is a little tricky to get used to, and the silver faceplate it comes with is plain ugly. I also don't know why they choose white as the base color for the phone; black or charcoal grey would have been much nicer. All in all, this is a great piece of technology. Teens will love the camera functions, and we adults (I'm 26, so I guess I have to be an adult now) will love everything else. Note of caution: No matter how geeky you are (I consider myself very so), you are going to need to crack the manual a few times to get all the functions down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90292 2004/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great editing huge screen downloadable apps versatile phonebook light good reception camera fun s only 3 languages in u circular key pad low volume The Bottom LineThis phone looks so stylish that it's hard to believe it can also be as functional as it is, but it can do everything a mobile should and then some. Full Review INTRODUCTION I have mobilitis, and I'm afraid it's terminal. I used to snicker at Johnny-cell phone walking around looking all-important talking on his little gadget. What, I don't have enough people bugging me at home that I should allow them access to me on the go? Well, all that changed as soon as I had first access to a cell phone: I bought a pay-as-you-go phone to use when in Greece (I go every year for about a month) and fell in love with text messages (SMS) because they're easy and cheap: if I want to let my Belgian friend know that we're going to Makis' taverna for dinner, instead of paying for an international call to her phone and her paying the roaming charges from Belgium to Greece I can just text her for about 4 cents. Last year when returning from Greece I had separation anxiety from my Greek mobile (a GSM phone that does not work on the frequency we use here in the U.S.) so I got one from Cingular, which I had for a year (See my review of Cingular service in our area that will make you understand why it was worth it to pay their early termination fee so I can move on to T-mobile: ). And then (insert heavenly music here) I moved on to the Nokia 3650, for free! I paid $300 at amazon.com, signed up with T-mobile, and will get all $300 back with rebates (half from T-mobile and half from amazon.com). Free is a good price, but I believe this phone would still be worth it for the full price. This is the 3rd phone I've actually owned, and by now I know what I want from my phone. I am extremely satisfied with this product, and I will tell you why. FEATURES & SPECS General Features: The image of this phone should be on this epinion page, so you can see it has a big color screen (bigger than most phones), a rotary-style arrangement of the keypad, and a slightly wider build than most mobiles (5.1 x 2.2 x 1.0 in.). It is, however, extremely light (4.59 oz.) and rather sturdy. And It is stylish and sexy beyond belief (accessories include not only faceplates, but also cool colors for the keypad). This phone is a tri-band GSM phone, which means it can communicate at 3 different frequencies (900/1800/1900 MHz) and therefore can be used in quite a few countries and not only in North America. This also means that I can text message my friends in Europe, and they can text me back (not so with any Cingular phone available in Illinois at present). I might mention here also that T-mobile is the only company I know of that does not charge extra for international messaging (I pay $2.99 for 500 SMS, and it does not matter whether they're sent to/received from the next town or the next continent). Keypad: The rotary style keypad is cute enough and allows for more navigational keys than non-rotary pads. However, it is difficult to get used to, especially when inputting text. I used to input text very quickly on my other mobiles because I remembered whereabouts each number key is in the normal type of keypad (that is, after a while it became easy to remember that to punch in the letter [n] I had to key-in [6] twice, and that this key is in the middle row at the right). But with a rotary arrangement you may be able to move your finger predictably to the beginning or end of the keypad, but not to the exact location of the key you require. It definitely slows down my text inputting, and because of the wideness of the phone also makes it a little difficult to do it one-handed (i.e., to hold the phone in one hand and use that hand's thumb to input the text). I'm quite certain that this experiment of changing the keypad arrangement failed, and that future Nokia products will not revive it. The 4-way navigational key is wide enough to use with any-size finger, but it seems a bit off (sometimes too touchy, sometimes not sensitive enough). The navigational part of this key (moving up/down and left/right) seems to work well enough, but when I press the key in to make a selection it often misunderstands my command as navigational. This is a bit annoying at times. Camera: The Nokia 3650 has an integrated camera. This camera does not have a flash, but it takes pretty good pictures, and has several settings for size/quality of the image as well as shutter speed for night pictures. The pictures can then be stored in the phone's internal memory or the 15MB memory card included with this phone, and can be sent to other phones or computers (using the various types of messages or connections that this phone is capable of, see below) & used as wallpaper for your phone's screen and as images for contacts in the phonebook. You can also take 10 sec. movies, with sound (this used to be without sound, but Nokia released an update for the software and all new phones are shipped with this update; it can also be downloaded from Nokia's website). Memory Card & Battery: 15 MB card is shipped with the phone. This is plenty of memory to download loads and loads of games and utilities, store movies and pictures, and back up all the data stored on the phone's internal memory. The battery life is quite incredible in comparison to any phone I've used in the past. The first day the phone arrived I used about 40 minutes of talking time, I entered almost all the data I require into the phone book, I took pictures and movies, I played with every aspect of the phone that I could think of, and at the end of the day only 2 bars of the battery charge were used up. My Erickson T60d (the Cingular phone I had before this one) would have been tapped after that much use. Sound: During a call you can change the volume by using the 4-way navigational key, but that is a bit difficult to do without looking at the screen, which means removing the phone from your ear. Most phones nowadays have side buttons that can be pushed during a call to adjust volume, and those are more convenient because you can adjust while listening to the call. This phone also has a loudspeaker, which you can select in the middle of a call if you so desire. However, the highest volume for any of the sounds the phone makes (loudspeaker, ringer, handset) is not really all that high. This phone, obviously, allows polyphonic rings (most new phones do) but these are just not as piercingly loud as old-fashioned rings were, and I do periodically miss calls because I don't hear the phone ringing (but when I do hear it ring, I'm quite proud of my selection of the old batman theme as a ring-tone). Connectivity: You can share data in your phone (or memory card), or receive new data, in several ways: you can send and receive files using MMS (multi-media messages) or email, you can download files directly from the web, or you can connect to your computer using either a parallel port or one of two wireless options: Bluetooth or infrared. I purchased an extremely cheap infrared USB adapter for my PC ($10 on ebay), and am now able to synchronize files between the phone, its memory card, and my computer. Infrared does tend to fail quite often, especially when backing up larger files, so if you find this feature important and aren't patient enough to restart the transfer process several times, you're better off paying about $50 for a Bluetooth adapter because this method of data transmission is infinitely more reliable. Infrared on the phone is still useful if you want to send information (e.g., a picture or contact information) directly to someone else's mobile that is also equipped with an infrared port. Nokia allows you to download for free an application called PC Suite for your PC, which you can use to access your phone's files while it is connected to the PC. Do not underestimate the usefulness of backing up your phone's files! Software: One of the best things about this phone is the fact that it can be updated with new applications. In addition to being able to download ring tones and images (something many new phones are capable of) you can also choose from a variety of Java or Symbian OS games, utilities, updates, and the like. I've downloaded a mapquest viewer (so I can now send an address out and receive a map directly on my phone, which I can zoom in and out of and pan around), several games, a web browser, and a utility that allows me to make longer movies than the 10 sec. ones the phone's software limits me to. You can find quite a few of these applications at handango.com. This review is turning into too long a story so I will not go into all the various software that comes with the phone, but I will mention that (1) it has one of the most versatile phonebooks I've ever used, where you can add as much or as little information as you care to in each contact's listing, and you can even edit the headings of the various details; it also allows selecting more than one address to send the same message to; (2) this phone allows you to have more than one application open at the same time, so you can start composing a message, then switch to the camera to take a picture, answer an incoming phone call, and return to the message without losing any characters; (3) there is a plethora of shortcuts and tools, including some very handy editing tools (e.g., selecting text for cutting & pasting); and (4) it has PDA-style software like to-do lists, memos, and a calendar (although I don't use these because I have a PDA). The manual that comes with the phone is worth going over so that you can learn the various capabilities of this phone. Trust me, it can do so much that you're just not likely to figure it all out by yourself (and not because it's confusing, but because you would never imagine that a mobile phone can do some of these things, such as switching between applications, or allowing you to add to the dictionary used for predictive text-input). The one software-related feature that upsets me is that the models shipped to the U.S. market only include English, Spanish and French as available languages. This means that when I go to Greece next summer I will not be able to send/receive SMS in Greek, and that just won't do. Apparently Nokia does not care about the U.S. market all that much. I tried to join club-nokia, but it is not available for U.S. customers. I tried to fill out their survey but received a message saying "sorry, we're only interested in customers living in the following countries" (where U.S. was not included). BOTTOM LINE Although Nokia seems to have a dismissive attitude toward the U.S. market, there is no sufficient language support in the models shipped to the U.S., and the rotary-style keypad is a bit of a failed experiment, this phone's capabilities are above and beyond what I expected, and its potential for expansion (memory cards, new software) as well as its functionality makes it a great mobile phone. UPDATE AFTER EXTENDED USE (Jan 17, 2004) Yes, I still LOVE my Nokia 3650, and even more now that I've been using it since August 03. Anything anyone's phone can do so can mine, and usually better (other than the walky-talky Nextel thing, although there's software that will turn mine into a similar device...). Here are some specifics: a friend signed on to T-mobile the same time I did but got one of the Samsung V200 series phones (a flip phone with the rotating camera). The photos on mine come out better, his doesn't have video, and the reception on my phone is infinitely better than his (there's places where he gets one bar and I have full reception, and we're on the same network so the difference must be in the phones). I have another friend with the ridiculously popular LG flip phone (I forget the model#, but it's really tiny) and again, my camera is better, my phone book is more versatile, and my reception is better (even though he's on Verizon--a company that offers more coverage than my T-mobile, at least for now). Best of all, mine is the only one that has the infrared port that allows me to (1) sync with my PC; and (2) connect with my palm and be used as a modem; So the bottom line after extended use and some comparing with friends is that my phone is still the king. It's good to be king. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90291 2000/4/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 stellar reception excellent battery lots of third party support great camera too large for your pocket circular keypad buggy firmware slow processor The Bottom LineWhat this phone does well is a very small percentage of what this phone was meant to do. Full Review There are so many reasons to choose the Nokia 3650. It's made by Nokia, a company with a reputation for quality and innovation in the field. It has all the features of several separate devices: a camera that actually works really well for impulse photography, PDA functionality that will make you question whether carrying a separate device is worthwhile, support for a huge amount of third-party software addons, and an MMC memory card for when you actually feel like using the phone to its potential and will need more memory. Plus it's got bluetooth, so you can use a wireless headset and connect it to things like your computer, your GPS, and maybe even your PDA if it's still something you use after you begin to exploit the potential of this marvelous phone. Well, that was the idea. I've gone through FOUR 3650s now in my quest for the Holy Grail of Gadget Convergence. Brace yourself for the bad news. The Bluetooth It's a big, big deal to me to be able to use a headset. I need to type with both hands and carry on a conversation with a client. Sometimes, in moments of weakness, I like to drive with both hands on the wheel and talk on the phone. I cannot use this phone for this task. This has everything to do with the fact that the reception of the analog bluetooth voice channel is poor enough that people complain about the quality (something that never happens on my other bluetooth phone) but more importantly the phone will not RING when the bluetooth headset is active! I don't particularly want to look like one of the Borg between phone calls. But if your eye isn't on the phone, you won't know it's ringing if the headset is on. Thinking about turning the headset on when the phone rings? That's a great way to drop a call. Again, the bluetooth reception needs help, and the management of the handsfree needs a complete rewrite. The Memory Slot If you equip a phone with the ability to do everything, people will try to do just that with the phone. They'll take pictures, set appointments with alarms, and maybe even send and receive email with it. They'll be happy if that works, and they'll need extra memory for all of this. Unfortunately, the extra memory in the Nokia 3650 is not usable for contacts or calendar appointment storage. Furthermore, the two most recent Nokia 3650s I have used have been unable to store incoming messages in MMC without a hard freeze-up of the phone for one minute from the time the phone initiates MMS retrieval. This is unnaceptable in a phone! Can you imagine what this means? You can't answer a call - or hang one up. You can't do anything at all while it's trying to receive an MMS. If you care about forwarding incoming email to your phone so that you'll know what's going on in your inbox, this is not your phone. At least not in its current (3.16) firmware revision level - the first two older 3650s I used did not have this problem but the last two did, both with their native Nokia 16MB MMC card and with my 256MB Kingmax replacement. The Web Browser Nice, but half of the WAP websites you visit will be unusable because the browser doesn't properly handle the "submit" button. Moviefone is one good example: useless on the 3650 after you enter your ZIP code. Sure, you can pay for an alternate browser like Opera (which is wonderful, incidentally), but guess which memory it's going to likely need to use? The 4MB in the phone, or the external MMC you thought would be so helpful? sigh The bottom line is this: you will love what this phone does well until you start to use it up to its full potential. It will then fall far short, and nothing anyone can do will address some of its very serious shortcomings, most of which are firmware-related. Perhaps this phone will improve with the next firmware. I'm not waiting. --Ken Greenlaw Greenlaw & Quick IT Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90290 2003/4/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 unique design digital camera video recorder voice dialing mmc memory slot ir port bad keypad ergonomics bluetooth functions could be better mediocre talk time The Bottom LineThis is a decent camera phone. However it is simply out classed and out performed by the Sony Ericsson P800. Full Review This was another instance where a coworker was anxious to try my and compare it to his Nokia 3650. So we swapped them for a week to test drive them and compare our experiences. It seems I always get the short end of these swaps. My first impression was that it seemed comfortable in the hand. The screen was fairly large, bright and clear enough to be used outdoors. The circular keypad roused my curiosity enough to go thru with the swap. Also I was anxious to test the video recorder function and its usability. What features did I like. Video Recorder. This feature allows you to take a short video clip and send it via MMS or Multimedia Messaging Service, email, Bluetooth or infrared port. The video clips are very short at a maximum 15 seconds or approximately 95KB in size. The video clip format is 3GPP which is the standard video file format for MMS. Everything went fine until I tried to send a clip via MMS. The system dropped the connection twice. But it did go thru on the third attempt. I checked my test e-mail on my desktop and the video clip played fine. The quality was very grainy but I expected that given the extremely low resolution. As shipped, the video recorder did not record the audio along with the video. I had to download a utility from the Nokia website to enable audio capture. Digital Camera. This allows you to take pictures at either high, normal or basic quality settings. You can take a maximum of about 40 pictures on high, 60 pictures on normal and 150 pictures on the basic settings. Images can also be taken in standard or night mode, at 640x480 resolution. In portrait mode, the image resolution is only 80x96 pixels. Images can be rotated if needed and are stored in JPEG format. The phone is however capable of displaying images in jpeg, gif, png, tiff, mbm,bmp, wbmp, ota and wmf formats. Again when I viewed the pictures on a PC, they seemed extremely good compared to the The Nokia 3650 captures images at 640x480 resolution, which is the same as the Sony Ericsson P800. Real One Media Player. This software allows you to play a variety of files like 3gp, mp4, amr, rm, ram, ra and rv formats. I loaded an mp4 clip from the movie Matrix onto a MMC card to test playback. The quality of playback was superb. It clipped just once thru a 15-minute video file. Loudspeaker Mode. This sufficiently increases the speaker volume to enable you to use the phone without putting it to your ear. (like a speakerphone) The microphone range however, is limited. Anything over two feet and the caller won't hear you clearly. This was convenient while driving but I still prefer to use my Bluetooth headset with the Sony Ericsson P800. It is much more convenient. Night Mode feature for the camera allowed for decent images to be captured in medium to low light conditions. When set to night mode, the exposure time is longer. This means that the phone needs to be held very steady to avoid blurring. I however could not seem to eliminate the blur when shooting in the early twilight hours. I had to steady the phone against a solid object like a tree or a table to reduce the blur. Memory. The phone comes with about 3MB of memory which is shared between the various applications, such as the digital camera, the video recorder and the phonebook with voice tags, etc. This can be expanded with external MMC cards. This feature makes this phone extremely versatile. The memory can be used to store and transfer a wide range of multimedia files. These postage stamp sized MMC cards are readily available in a variety of capacities. Connectivity options. Any of the various format media files can be shared or transferred via MMS, E-mail, Bluetooth or the Infrared IR port. I found the IR port to be easier to connect to my notebook and my compared to the Symbian OS which is similar to the Sony Ericsson P800, was fast and responsive. Add-on applications and games can be downloaded and installed. Cut, Copy and Paste capability is enormously helpful in creating and editing text messages. Big Bright display. The 4096 color display is 176x208 pixels in size. Images are scaled to this size to fit the display screen. What I did not like. -Even though this phone has bluetooth capability, I could not use my with it. After much massaging, I finally succeeded in pairing the two but for some reason the headset just would not work with this phone. As usual Sony Ericsson and Nokia are blaming each other for their mutual incompatibility. Personally I feel this is a negative for both manufacturers. Bluetooth technology was designed to provide seamless wireless connectivity. They sure didn't consider ruthless proprietary branding issues. - Nokia claims 8 days standby and 4 hours talk time. In my usual rigorous daily use, the phone gave me a paltry 2 hours 45 minutes of talk time. In comparison, my easily gave me close to eight hours of talk time. - At first the round keypad seemed refreshingly different. But I found it difficult to get used to it after having so many phones with standard keypad layouts. After a few days it just seemed gimmicky. The eye-catching layout looks good but really doesn't serve any practical purpose. - No touch screen or stylus capability. This single feature makes the Sony Ericsson P800 much more user friendly over the Nokia 3650. Other standard functions. - XHTML browser with shortcuts, Java capable. - Calendar with to-do-lists and alarms. - Calculator, Music Composer, Unit Converter, Notes, Clock, Alarms, Voice memo recorder, games. Specifications. Tri Band GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 Dimensions: 130x57x26 mm Weight: 130 g The Bottom Line: This is a decent camera phone. However it is simply out classed and out performed by the Sony Ericsson P800. ========================= Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450.00 90289 2000/4/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 practical easy to use cool novelty tech glitches slightly large The Bottom LineWe are pleased with the purchase, but there are a few problems. Full Review Have you gotten over the sound of your unique jingle when your cell phone rings? Gotten tired of playing games on a screen that is too small? Have you found that the PDA capabilities never quite lived up to expectations? If so, I have a new "gadget option" that is quickly becoming a must with all new cell phones. Yes, the digital camera and the cell phone have been combined into one. My fiance recently picked up a Nokia 3650 after having many problems with the her old Nokia. The older Nokia would decided to a day off without any notice and dropped calls right under cell towers. We went and raised more than a little heck (This was the second time we had the problem with the previous Nokia and the phone is less than six months old.) and managed to talk the salesperson into providing a 3650 for less than half the normal cost. Now, I have to admit that had we not been able to talk him down, we never would have considered paying $400 for a cell phone. However, since our service provider "owed" us something and we had already talked the company into providing us with six months of free usage, we decided that the freebie we would push for would be the best phone available. A helpful tip: Anytime you have trouble with your phone, work the person in the store as hard as you can. If this does not work; get the supervisor. If you are still not making it anywhere, call the 800 number and get that supervisor on the line. Make sure you stress how the phone has created significant problems in your business life (i.e. a lost phone book, no service, missed calls, etc.) and how you have lost significant business because of it. Then stress how this is their problem and you want something done about it and want it done now. Do not get too loud or excited, but be firm. With all the problems my fiance and I have had with cell phone provider's, we have, unfortunately, become pros at these tactics. At any rate, you are not checking out this review to learn how to get freebies out of a cell provider. But that does provide a nice segue into the Nokia 3650. So far, we are both pleased with the performance of the phone. The service provider she is using is T- Mobile and in the Philadelphia- to- DC corridor the phone has performed better than anything we have used previously. THE SPECIFICS: * Video capture and playback capabilities * Multimedia messaging * Bluetooth technology * Java MIDP 1.0 * A large color display * Still imaging * Polyphonic ring tones * Weight: 130G with lithium ion battery * Dimensions: 130 x 57 x 26 mm, 139 cc * High resolution display (4096 colors) * 176 x 208 pixels * 3.4 MB of memory for phone, messages, photos * External memory available on 3V MCC card What all this means is basically beyond me. I am not one who is capable of explaining the technological aspects of a cell phone. But, what I can tell you is that the 3650 is the most advanced phone I have ever used. WHAT WE LIKE: 1. The capabilities of an all in one phone, camera, and portable email device. We both like to be connected and the 3650 allows us to send emails (Keeps the fiance from calling me 23 times a day) when not at a computer. This is nothing new, but is an improved function. The speed has picked up and that was always my biggest complaint. My fiance loves being able to take pictures with her phone. Now she is about as technologically capable a person one of the Beverly Hillbillies, but she has figured out the usefulness of the camera. I have received photos of a sofa (To see if I liked the color), her on a beach without me (Make me a little jealous, why don't ya), and a cute photo of her niece's first haircut. I think the 3650 is most useful when shopping. She is able to leave her teaching job around 300pm and will often go out to look for furnishings for our new home. She will usually take a picture and send it to me so I can give a "yes" or a "no". 2. We both love how easy the 3650 is to use. The phone function is basically a typical cell phone. I would guess there is no explanation needed here. The email function is as easy to use as with any cell phone. What I mean is that, while easy to use, it is just as difficult to use because you are dealing with a small interface. We are both willing to make this sacrifice and expect that- until someone develops a virtual keyboard- this is will continue to be the standard protocol for cell phone messaging. In other words, if you want to send messages, you will have to live with it. We also found the camera function easy to use and this surprised both of us. You basically take the picture just like you would with a "normal" camera. Simply point, click, and shoot. We figured that would be the case. What we did not expect was the simplicity of sending the photos. The 3650 does a great job of providing a step- by- step guide for sending the photo to another phone or to an email address. Nokia did a great job of making a potentially difficult task, relatively simple. In addition, Nokia provides the ability to attach text messages, voice clips, and video. Again, these functions are explained as you go. 3. The picture is surprisingly good. I was surprised. Heck, I was amazed. The picture is not as a good as what you would see on a good plasma TV, but it is every bit as good as my two year old digital camera. Technology has come along way over the years. 4. The cool factor. Neither of us is one to sit at a bar and take a picture just to show off our phone. But, I will admit, that it is fun to be an early adopter with a relatively new technology. While you will not get the looks of the guy a cell phone 10 years ago, people will inquire and wonder if the thing really works. 5. The battery is quite good. The user's guide lists a talk time of 2-4 hours and standby time of up to 200 hours. Neither of these numbers will blow your mind in this day and age, but for all the "battery draining" options available, I think this is pretty good. The 3650 is also true with their estimates. Nothing annoys me more than the phone that "says" it will last for a certain period of time and then the battery lasts half of the stated time. I should mention that the time will decrease as more options are utilized. WHAT WE DO NOT LIKE: 1. The phone is larger than what either of us are accustomed to. No, it is not huge. However, it is noticeably larger than other models. In addition, it does not feel as if it constructed solidly. I am sure it is, but the feel is cheap. 2. There are still technological blips. Sometimes we struggle with sending photos between two different types of phones. This is not a terrible problem and I am sure it will corrected in time. If you cannot send a photo to someone, you can send it your email and then forward it from there. At least this is the option we have found works best. 3. The 3650 does not have zoom or flash features. This is disappointing. I would have thought that in this day and age, the camera would have both. Can you live without them? Yes. In all honesty, how many times are you going to be taking pictures of something 100 yards away? If it is a picture that you really want, move closer. 4. You cannot send pictures between networks. I was not aware of this and probably should have been. The problem is this: If I want to send a photo to someone who does not use T- Mobile as their service provider, I am stuck. I cannot send the photo to someone who uses a Sanyo phone as they are serviced by Sprint PCS. I should mention that this is not a problem with Nokia; it is industry wide. I would also think that in order to grow the industry as a whole, the provider's should come together and figure out how to make it possible to send messages across all networks. 5. We both wonder when the novelty will wear off. We wonder if we will still use the camera function two years from now. We also wonder when a new and better technology will roll out. THE VERDICT: I would not hesitate to purchase the Nokia 3650 unless you can hold off until later in the year. Why? Well, there are a few new models coming out this spring, the price will likely fall over time, and the technology will improve with the newer models. Do not look at any of those three reasons as a basis for not purchasing the 3650. Just a thought on why it may make sense to wait. We are very pleased with our 3650 and would recommend purchasing it to anyone who cannot wait any longer. The best thing about the Nokia 3650 is that it brings you closer to those who are far away. You will hear this sales idea in your sleep. Alas, it is true and it is why the camera/phone idea will take off. Though we are very pleased with the 3650, I would not spend $400 for it. The decision for you to make is how important the camera function is. Otherwise, you are simply buying a very expensive cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 90288 2003/7/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 takes digital photos lots of features interesting keypad layout keypad layout low resolution photo no built in games The Bottom LineShe loves is, I think it's a bit silly. If your service is bundled with E-mail and Web Browsing this will be a fun phone. Full Review My brother works for a nation-wide cell phone company, because of this he has access to nearly every phone available for that service. In his position he has the option of switching phones as often as he likes (and his family as well) so I get the fun of trying them out through him. During his most recent visit, I got to play with my nieces' new toy, a Nokia 3650. She chose this one out of the literally baskets full available because of the picture option--typical 15-year old. She loved the way it looked and the "WOW" factor when she showed up at school with it. Me? First impressions were that it was an attractive phone but the picture taking would wear off quickly for me. I did some checking and this phone which used to sell for over $400 is now free with activation on AT&T & a few other vendors so if you just have to have it, check around and see if you can get it for less. I certainly wouldn't pay $400 but free would be good! THE LAYOUT The keypad is designed for fun, not necessarily function. The keys are laid out in a circular pattern--in a counter-clockwise fashion. That was difficult for me--kind of like the old Disney Goofy watches--they were cute, but I could never tell the time. The rest of the keys are more logical--right in the center of the phone (easily reached by the thumb) are the menu and scroll keys. These are the most-used buttons so their placement is well done. The selection keys are in the normal place for a Nokia--just below the LED screen (because the instructions for using them will be on the screen), and the call button is the normal left side (slightly hard to reach) green phone icon. On the right is the red phone icon to end the call (I wish they were opposite). On the back is the camera lens--just high enough that you won't be sticking your finger into it to use it as a finger hold. The battery sits just below it inside the case. Below that is the SIM card (if your service includes it). The bottom of the phone has the headset, microphone, and charger ports. THE WOW FACTOR MMS is the acronym for a Mulimedia Message. This phone comes with this feature means it can receive multimedia messages as well as send them. By using the features below, you can create and send these messages instantly! Taking Pictures: The sole reason she owns this phone is that it takes pictures. It has three modes--standard (a landscape photo at 640x480 pixels), Portrait (a smaller photo used for the Contact Cards (more on them later) with a pixel size of 80x96, and Night when lighting is low (640x480 pixels). 640x480 is fine for a small screen like this phone, but it's not high enough (in my opinion) for use for anything else. The Portrait size is perfect for Contacts as again, the smaller the photo, the better the quality. Larger photos show the graininess (the lack of pixels). You can adjust the quality of the image under Settings. The higher the quality, the larger the memory use. This means fewer photos in your phone and slower upload. Just like digital cameras, you will need to think about what you'll be using the photo for--on screen you can get away with fewer pixels, if you're going to print it, you'll need more. To take the picture chose Camera from the menu, select your mode and quality setting, center your subject within the viewfinder, and press the select button to take the picture. Immediately you have a choice of what to do with it--you can send it immediately via BlueTooth (see below) or e-mail (you'll need to have these services available from your provider to use them). You can add text or and audio file to the photo before sending as well. You can also save it to a folder for later use, or send it to Contacts and then add the subject's personal information as well. What you can't do is take rapid-fire photos (at least we couldn't figure out how) as it requires you to tell it what to do with the photo before taking another. VIDEO CLIPS--Send a clip to a friend by e-mail or MMS--it's easy. Chose Video Recorder from the menu, chose Record, point the lens at your friends, press Start. Use Pause to stop recording. You're limited to 15 seconds (about 95Kb). You can record as many of these 15-second snippets as you have memory available. Like photos, you can send this via e-mail or transfer via BlueTooth (see below) and add text as well to the message. FEATURES FOR THE REST OF US CALENDAR Easy to use with an alarm function so you'll be alerted when you have a calendar event--don't miss those special meetings! CONTACTS: Add your friend, put in a thumbnail portrait of them, assign a special ringtone to them and you're done! WEB FEATURES: (if your service allows it--pricing is service dependant. Some cell packages include a specific amount of time, others are by the packet. Check your service before tying any of these services--they can be quite expensive) Surfing- WAP enabled service speed is dependant on your provider and the strength of you signal. You can download both Symbian and Java applications (Symbian applications are usually larger files--make sure you have enough memory or buy more). RealOne Player: Preloaded with this player so you can watch clips online. VOICE FEATURES Voice Dialing--voice tags on up to 25 different names allows you to dial by pressing the select button and then saying the name of the contact (exactly as you recorded it). I found it hit and miss on performance--sometimes it understood me, most often, it didn't. Background noise as well as quality of the recording affect it. Voice Recorder: You can record a sound clip up to one minute--as a reminder to yourself or to attach to a MMS message. Handsfree Speaker: A built-in loudspeaker you can use when showing off those MMS messages--not a quality speaker, and certainly doesn't replace other hands-free methods of making calls. MULTI-TASKING For the first time you can switch between applications! You can surf the web and still take a picture or answer the phone. Previously you had to close out of the first application and start the next. Now, much like the the alt tab key works in Windows, you can use the menu key to switch from application to application--nice upgrade! PERSONALIZE IT Nokia offers many accessories (and there's always the generic accessories as well). Xpress on faceplates, car charger, carrying case, memory card, and more are available to make it exclusively yours and to show off your personality. She'd chosen an art cover that was lime green in an abstract style--she would have preferred something in pink or purple but they only came in solids in those colors (the faceplates were gratis for her as well--no wonder the rest of us pay such high cell bills!). Changing faceplates is simple and doesn't require any tools. Place it firmly on your thigh (or other soft surface so you don't damage the LED screen), press the small release button at the bottom, press the front cover release button (near the charger port at the bottom--you may need to use a butter knife, it's thin and a bit difficult to get to. I wrapped the knife with a towel so I didn't damage the surface), then separate the 3 pieces (the front, back, and keypad). Change all or some of the parts and put it back together in the opposite direction--carefully, if you're forcing it it's not lined up correctly. BATTERY LIFE An important piece for me--it's hard to gauge this one because it's highly dependant on the features used. Talk time is between 2-4 hours, and standby runs 7 days, but if you play with it and all its features, you can suck the life out of it in about 3 hours of playing, surfing, and photo taking. Luckily, it charges fully in just over an hour and for most fun time she plugs it into the charger. PRICEY UPGRADES Close-up Lens: It fits onto the phone and lets you chose between 5 and 10 centimeters for macro photos in addition to the standard lens. A flick of the button before snapping the photo lets you tell the phone which lens you'll be using. This is useful if you plan taking photos 3ft or less from the phone. The lens itself fits over the back of the phone--it adds a bit of bulk, but images in this distance were certainly clearer. She didn't pay for hers so I don't know the price. Nokia Image View: This little unit allows you to send your photos to a compatible TV or video projector so you can view them. You'll need to use the wireless Bluetooth connection and then control the slideshow with the phone (works as the controller--simple Play, Stop, Fast Forward, Rewind. She hasn't tried this option yet and doesn't think she will--most of her photos are silly shots of friends and not a vacation memory. I can't imagine why this would be a function that most users would need as the camera's photos are high enough quality in my opinion for anything but saving in the phone. SPECS Tri-Band Operation--allows it to switch bands and get coverage on five continents (but does your service allow it? I've never traveled outside of the US and Canada so it wasn't a big selling point for me--for others, this could be something fabulous). Data Transfer: Up to 43.2 kilobits per second in high-speed circuit switched data networks ; Up to 40.2 kilobits per second in GPRS networks Weight: 4.6 ounces (with Lithium Ion Battery) Size: 2.24 x 5.1 x 1.0 QUALITY Rugged enough for a 15-year old who doesn't treat it well. So far, the huge LCD screen hasn't suffered. The reception is outstanding--her phone works (my husband has the same provider) at my home when my own can't even begin to find a signal (for that alone I should get this phone--it's frustrating having free long distance and free calls after 9pm, but I can't get a signal!). The sound quality is excellent (except for the speaker--see notes above), and it's large enough to feel substantial but lightweight enough not to load you down. The screen is large enough to surf and write with ease. FINAL THOUGHTS This isn't the phone for me, but if you like the ability to take instant photos and don't expect them to be works of art, you'll like this phone. It's easy to use and if you pay the fee, it has lots of interactive fun in store for you. Me? I'm too cheap. Surfing on my phone or the DSL at home--easy choice for me. FOOTNOTES WHAT IS BLUETOOTH? BlueTooth enables a wireless connection between two compatible devices. The range is up to 32 feet. Through this connection, you can send images, text, calendar notes, etc. You can also play some games. Recommended: Yes 7808 Nokia 3585 90351 2005/11/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 gps e911 ready great reception outdoors easily recognized buttons voice dialing large java crashes frequently causing menu s to seaze mall performance parking structure horrible indoor I used the 3586i for about 6 months before it finally forced me to either get rid of it of my sanity. The phone is awkward to say the least. It's "JAVA" compatibility is clearly NOT something to speak highly of when it causes just as many "crashes" in the phone as it does in Internet environments. Menu's are somewhat easy to use, but poorly sorted and repititious. Coverage and signal availibility are horrible in buldings and parking structures, I coudln't get reception in my four floor apartment building. Outside, open area reception is good, however. Overall, the phone as great features: color screen, polyphonic rings, but it's oversize hips and it's quirky operations sent me back to the 6590, who kicks butt. 90350 2004/7/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 cheap cheap I am a repair technician for a not to be named wireless provider. I am one of a number of technicians and have worked on the bad phones. Here is what i have noticed. Keypad not working-needs new keypad mylar fix antenna tip falls off-replace antenna poor battery life. recalibrate the internal settings poor reception- multiple root causes, mostly SMT parts Freezes up-needs software update. 90349 2004/3/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 bright lights easy to read screen bulky in pocket software bugs buttons wear quickly This phone has cool ringtones, and appearance(lights up) and you can change the faceplate. Other than that, it has had numerous problems: -Turns off when confused(or just wants to) -A few of the buttons have become almost useless. -Calendar has program issues. I love the calendar features and reminder abilities, but when I use it too often in a day(say more than a few times) it gets confused and turns off!! Helpful, right?? 90348 2003/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 changeable covers great reception easy to use quite durable aside from water the phone is bulkythe antenna a bit flimsy Bought this phone for my son. He has a tendancy to loose things or drop them in the water while fishing. The Nokia 3585 was a replacement for his more expensive flip phone that now rests in the bottom of his favorite fishing hole. Aside from water and an antenna that tends to be rather flimsy,this phone is quite durable. Actually, the reception seems better than his flip phone. The covers are also changeable and there is quite a cool selection to choose from, depending of course on the store. Also, the phone lights up along the sides when it rings, which my 15 y/o thinks is pretty cool. For $25,I feel that the Nokia 3585 is good bargain. Especially, for those who aren't into technological gadgets and are just interested in a basic, inexpensive and reliable phone. Definately worth the money. 90347 2003/9/10 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 uses other nokia accessories lightweight charges quickly picks up pcs signal well indoors rather fragile could break easily if dropped often or stepped on cheaply made This cell phone has a lot of nice features including many ring tones, options and is a small package with power. The reception on PCS is great as far as receiving a signal indoors. Some cell phones don't do as well indoors. This one does a great job!!! Not a bad phone for the basic user. Wouldn't recommend it for a business user. Uses the other Nokia accessories. If you have PCS service, you can also transfer it to this phone. Lightweight. Lots of accessories available: face plates, car charger, cases, etc. 90346 2004/2/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 free with most service plans typical nokia junk What a piece of junk! Dropped calls, slow battery life (and yes, I do run them completely dead before I charge them) I had my plan through Midwest Wireless. There was a "software issue" with this phone. Both my wife and I have the same phone. We sent both back to Midwest Wireless for service. They, in turn, sent them to Nokia. Four months later, Midwest Wireless tells me that Nokia had no idea what the problem was, and that they had no idea when we would get our phones back. I then switched to US Cellular, and got a Kyocera KX414....everything is perfect again. My third Kyocera over the years, never had a bit of trouble with Kyocera (Qualcomm). 90345 2005/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 pretty cheap weak useless fragile Well, I have been through many many phones over the years, and this one has to be my least favorite. I didn't go with pop-culture and decided to get a flip or a camera phone. I can do without. What I did want was one that I could get personalized downloadable ringtones. This phone is supposed to. Maybe it's just a glitch with this one in particular, but it didn't live up to it's promise. It's also really flimsy and I feel as though I need to be super gentle with it, or the back will fall off. I've only had it actually come off once, and that was enough. I don't need the back coming off when I put it down, or much less, when I call someone. I do like the fact that I can get the faceplate in different colors, but that's small compensation for having dropped calls, and lack of reception to send and receive text messages. I got this phone since it was free, but if you have a choice in phones...don't get this one - go for one that will stay together and stay connected. 90344 2003/4/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 now people can get me not just my pager now my wife can get me not my pager The Bottom LineIt was cheap, came with some package Mrs. Schlamozzel got with her phone, and keeps me from spending quarters. Full Review Hello all, Life as a professional SLUMLORD gets complicated from time to time. Usually the difficulty revolves around not being reachable. (Please see my review of Motorola Pagers) So Mrs. Schlamozzel did me a "favor". She got me a "PCS" type portable telephone. I really do love her. Nokia 3585 This telephone is a bit older technology now. But for my intended purpose it works fine. It has basic "telephony" type functions such as: Calling Caller ID Call waiting Call forwarding Voice messaging Stored numbers Stored incomming calls Stored outgoing calls PLUS Video games (monochrome) Numerous different "ring" tunes. (I like the Mozart) Light up body / sides when button pushed of call comes in. Bunch of other stuff I can't figure out. (Hey, I'm a SLUMLORD, not telephone repairman.) Power Source This telephone can either be plugged into standard 110vac house current, 12vdc "lighter" socket, or work off a Nickle / Metal Hydride battery. (Those don't build up a "memory", so you can charge when you want to without worry.) This thing operates equally as well with the antenna extended or retracted. It weighs maybe 6 ounces. In standby time from full charge it will last me about 2 days on 24/7. The telephone is only about 6" long. (I took my shorts down to check) and is tapered in thickness from about 1" down to about 5/8". The one I got came with this glittery deep red colored case. I was told the cases can be changed, but for my purpose I don't really care if it came paisley. Clairity - Sound Quality I'm no connisour of telephones. But I'll say this for the thing, I can hear just fine every word that is being said, provided the tower signal is good. This can be a bad thing when dealing with my mother-in-law... That is all the information I have for you at this time. As time goes on I'll let you know how well it holds up from the "Schlamozzel punnishment, positively distructive testing". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90343 2000/11/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 user friendly aesthetically pleasing no web browser confusing sms setup pocket tumour The Bottom LineA lovely piece of equipment for people less in tune with others' perceptions of them. (Read review for further details.) Full Review If you stress the final syllable of the word "accuracy", you'll have a corny little rhyme that might help you understand this review better. What I really wanted was to review the Nokia 3588, the newfangled counterpart to the 3585. So if it really rankles that I'm off topic by three digits, I recommend you compensate by tacking them onto the model number of the phone in question and viola! Like buttah, you've got an honest review. I'm thoroughly convinced that mobile phones are impregnated with a self-destructing virus that shortens its usable life to no more than maybe two years at most. Til about two weeks ago, I had this lovely little flip phone I called the "smart clam". I think it was made by Ericsson or something. It functioned like mother o' pearl; always reliable, always a clear reception regardless of the thickness of the lead shielding I behind which I happened to be standing. Nothing that could possibly have gone wrong ever did, and it added that vital element of security to my otherwise turbulent life. Then the smart clam suffered something to the effect of a stroke. I couldn't send or receive SMS messages on account of some inexplicable network error. Then the display went so far south it's probably swimming in the Tasman Sea by now. It just didn't work. I could make all the calls I liked, but I couldn't see whom I was calling. That doesn't do a lot of good. The screen either froze or went totally blank, depending on its mood, which seemed to always be a variation on a very crappy mood for a mobile phone. I wanted to salvage it with all my heart, I really did. But that would have been like hanging on to my dear Tante Maiken after her twenty-fifth cardiac arrest; just not humane. (I don't really have a Tante Maiken who suffers from heart disease. It was just an analogy I added to make the review a little more personal.) So I scrapped the smart clam in favour of the Nokia 3588. So far, 3588 seems to be fairly decent, if not modestly so, and I hope this can be said for the remaining one year and 351 days left in its functional life. It's got myriad unnecessary functions, but not to the extent that it warrants justified complaint from someone as technologically ignorant as myself. It's user friendly, as far as both useful features and superfluous entertainment are concerned. The interface is clear as a TV screen, and all the little "vital statistic" diagrams are easy to locate and decipher. I don't have to enter some godforsaken code or recite a pagan chant to find out how much charge I've got left on my battery. I don't have to file a formal request with the federal bureau of communication or make a sacrifice to Talki-Tiki, the screaming god of wireless technology, to know whether or not I've got good reception at my current location. It's all right there in nice little dots on either side of the display. What's more, I'm not saddled with the drab monochrome of the 3585; its older brother, the 3588, has a full-colour screen and a variety of tantalising wallpapers to choose from, including a very creepy looking sun, leering at me from a puffy, cumulus-cloudy firmament. (I've chosen that one for the moment, until I'm feeling slightly less celestially lecherous, as this sun's facial expression so marvelously displays.) During the days of the smart clam regime, I wasn't too fond of SMS text messaging. Partly because I hated the consequences of receiving them in the middle of a lecture about the macroeconomic principles of Blair's New Labour, partly because I didn't like typing out a succinct response whereby I lowered myself to using shorthand (which I absolutely loathe, and partly because I thought it totally contrary to the whole concept of a mobile telephone. (Which is, I remind you, to speak.) Eventually, I just bent down and let the times ram me in the hindquarters, and activated the smart clam's SMS service. I'd grown accustomed to it and even come to think of it in the same light as a normal suburban couple thinks of its adopted Himalayan freak child; as an addition to my life that takes some getting used to, but is deep down a diamond in the rough. Naturally, when the smart clam collapsed, I sought a new phone equipped with SMS and a web connection. In this respect, the 3588 is two-thirds disappointing. I can receive text messages til I think I'm going to claw my eyes out Oedipus-style with shishkebab skewers, but that's not what I'm complaining about. As soon as I'd accepted them into my life, their old-time frustration is renewed by the fact that, while I'm bombarded with shorthand text messages and short e-mails, I can't respond to them! It's like the classic image of Hell as a lavish smørgåsbord from which the condemned eat only to intensify their maddening hunger. The handbook thingy supposedly containing all the necessary information pertaining to my phone tells me that I'll receive a text message (another one!) when my ability to send them in activated, but it's been two weeks and nothing's happened. I called Telenor mobile services, but that was like spitting in the wind; it accomplished nothing but to come back and slap me in the face. They can't help me any more than I can help myself, or any more than Mojo the Monkey can hold a seance with Max Planck. Then again, to be fair to the phone, I could hold Telenor accountable for that discrepancy. I'll let time decide that. In today's safety-conscious age of Volvos and childproof safety mittens, it's probably a universal requirement that all mobile phones be equipped with a voice dialler. The 3588 is no exception. Rather than fumble with the inconveniently small keypad to enter a number, all I have to do is say "home" into the receiver and I'll be immediately connected. If I wish to receive the most urgent updates from agents Sombre Lemming or Enebriated Bear back at Dzerzhinsky Square, I needn't waste precious time dialling; all I do is furtively whisper "na zdrovija Motherland", and I'm talking with President Putin in no time. It's a literal lifesaver when I'm on the road. It saves me from certain death because, not only am I a crappy driver, but I don't drive a Volvo and am therefore not nearly as safe as everyone else. The auto-dialler taken care of with adequate reference to my fanciful preoccupation with the career in the KGB I'll never have, I'd better move ahead to the here and the now. What other functions or features of the Nokia 3588 deserve mention? There's all sorts of organiser thingies. The phonebook, of course, but there's also a calendar that ranges from long before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was born to long after my great-great-great-grandson has died and nourished the soil that has since washed away in the elevated sea levels of the melted polar ice caps. There's also a voice recorder, which provides me with endless hours of fun and distraction from the lectures about Blair's New Labour I mentioned earlier on. And of course there are the requisite ring tones to which I can add by paying out the nostrils to download from a website somewhere in England. Not that I need to, for the 3588 has so damned many to choose from. Whether you're in the mood for discombobulated chirping ("Robo") or Wagnerian grandeur ("Ride of the Valkyries"), the phone can most likely accomodate. Maintaining my Unibomber spirit of technological simplicity, I was as loathe to idea of games in a mobile phone as I was to SMS messaging before the smart clam administration. The smart clam had a blackjack game, a poker game, and a helicopter simulator that I never once used and wasn't even tempted to use. Blame it on the 3588's colour screen or it's pure cuteness, but for some reason, the night I purchased it I was overcome by the boyish urge to play as many mobile phone games as humanly possible. My choices were pong, bowling, and something else I've yet to investigate. As it turns out, they're not as vile and repulsive as I thought, nor are they as difficult to master as my preconception had deceived me into believing. I'm a veritable Bjørn Borg now at phone pong, and I'm a Michael Moore when it comes to bowling. I love these games, and it doesn't even drain my battery. Apart from the obvious features (messaging, voicemail, games, organiser, lack of web connection, lack of remote control link to enormous South American sattelite dish, lack of titanium grappling hook that shoots out of antenna at the touch of a button), the Nokia 3588 super spy phone is simple and sturdy in construction. It vibrates like something obscene when it rings, which is an obvious plus in an urban environment where the sounds of life overwhelm the sounds of artificial life (at least for now). It's almost forged from a single piece of plastic (though the face plate, thanks to God's great mercy, can be interchanged), for which I'm very thankful because I often tend to drop things and throw things when provoked. What I like best though is its flamboyant lighting. It's like a pocket-sized Las Vegas. The colourful display combines with the lighted side panels in a sensational display of talky fireworks. It makes me feel like a little bit of some far away redlight district has paid me a visit every time I answer the phone. Then, when I find out it's my grandmother calling, I suddenly feel significantly less titillated by the idea of a digital redlight district at my fingertips. Eeeewwww. Something's got to p*ss me off about the 3588, right? (Apart from the ordeal with the text messages, web browser, and shameful lack of spy equipment) Yes, you're right. It's kind of big. I don't carry a purse (I'm a bloke!), so I can't easily store it anywhere but my pockets. Pockets tend to be picked with great frequency, and that's a risk I just have to take if I'm to enjoy the benefits of my mobile phone. Argh! Even if a pocket was a safe place, it's still not very convenient. Do you have any idea how silly it looks to walk around with a sort of bulky mobile stuffed into your trousers? It's like you've got a frenetically vibrating, musical, strobing tumour in your naughty bits, and while it may make for interesting conversation, it's not the sort of conversation in which I'd like to participate if I'm the subject of curious speculation. The last word is that if you're willing to sacrifice the convenience of an internet connection and the self confidience you take for granted in not having a robotic tumour on your hip, then the 3588 is the phone for thee. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90342 2000/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice tags polyphonic ringtones uses 51xx 82xx power accessories bright screen antennae is annoying limited organizer no color screen The Bottom Linegood upgraded replacement for the 3360. Full Review My cell provider switched networks to CDMA, and so I needed a new phone. Try as they did to convince me I should go with Ericsson or Kyocera, I insisted they put my name on the list for the newest Nokia they offered. The 3585 isn't so much different from the nice-sized 3360 (my favorite Nokia thus far). It's a bit longer, but a bit lighter, too. It has a very bright white action light and screen...easy to find in my bottomless handbag. In fact, that's one of the best things about this phone. The other essential element of the 3585 is the voice-activated dialing. How did I get along without it before? Simply say the name of the person you're calling and wait for the connection. The 4-way cursor keys are a great improvement over the 3360 (and other "basic" Nokias). It makes entering characters a whole lot easier, and improves entering text for messages. The data sync (which is optional, but essential for me) is terrific. Have had no problems with the PC/Phone sync and it's a nice compliment to my PDA, when it's impractical to take the PDA along. Accepts data and fax calls, which was NOT available on my 3360. I like the mini-browser fine, but cannot compare it to anything else, because it's the first time I've ever enabled it. Seems a bit limited, though. More of a "fun" function. Better games on this phone. Easy to download new ones (at a small cost). Other good things: nice big screen, easy to see, decent sized keypad, nice sounding polyphonic rings, longer battery life, better ear-piece volume, nice "comfort" handfree device included. Things I don't like about the 3585: I hate the antennae. It's annoying to have to pull it up everytime I'm in a dead zone. It's also hard to pull it up unless you have long nails. I don't like that my only color option here is navy blue. I ordered an OEM cover from Nokia.com, but am not happy with the look. How about making these things in better colors and giving us more options to choose from??? At least make the phone silver, not navy. I wish this phone supported pictures. It doesn't. No color screen. All in all a fine phone. I like it as well, if not better than the 3360, and all my old accessories work on this model (thank you Nokia for being consumer-cost conscious about that). Not for the power-business user, but a solid, attractive, fun, feature rich phone for the regular person. $49 with a new contract with cell provider. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 90341 2000/3/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 can handle some abuse large buttons the light feature big phone The Bottom LineGreat basic phone, don't buy it, but as long as it's free with your phoneservice go ahead and upgrade later. Full Review I've owned a variety of cellphones over the past few years and upgraded to the Nokia 3585i this past summer. As luck would have it, my employer actually pays for my cellphone service, but any upgrade (voicemail, web browsing etc.) would come out of my pocket. There were no cost for me for this phone, so I really can't comment on price. Maybe I'm stuck in the stoneage, but I actually wanted a cellphone that lets me make and receive phonecalls. For everything else I use the laptop. The Nokia 3585i is a basic phone that let's you do just that. Available features are webbrowsing (for a hefty $14.95 monthly fee through Alltell), Voicemail (another $5.00 charge through Alltell) and the usual addressbook, speed dial and touchfree calling features that are offered on pretty much every phone. These last features are free and free is good. The Nokia is pretty big when it comes to cellphones. It will not fit into my smaller purses or shirtpockets. My husband has the same phone and is able to fit it into his shirtpocket, but he is 6'2" and his pockets are a lot bigger than mine. It is also heavy, weighing in with 4.1 ounces. Dimensions are 4.6 inches long, 2.0 inches wide and almost an inch thick. The battery is a 3.6 V (nominal) and it uses a dual-band system. The addressbook feature holds up to 500 numbers and names, The calendar and text messages hold up to 100 entries each. However, the speed-dial only let's you put in 20 numbers and then it's back to the regular number search. There are several different dialtones available but all of them are pretty annoying. You can download Midi tones from different websites at an additional cost. The antenna is very thin, but flexible and perfect to poke somebody's eye out. In order to get good coverage in rural areas, you have to fully extend the antenna and even then it's spotty at times. That's not a problem with the phone per se, but with the provider, but it's still annoying. The buttons on the phone are easy to see and operate (even for tall people with big hands). Unfortunately the buttons are very easy to push and sometimes you dial a number without being aware of it. We've had plenty of times where I answer my phone just to find out it's my husband accidentely calling, while he's sitting right next to me in the car. My absolute pet peeve with this phone is the flashlight feature. It's great to have a phone that lights up, but I tend to put it onto my visor and if I have an incoming call at night the phone lights up (very brightly) and absolutely blinds me. Also, the light goes off after a few seconds and if I have to make a call in the dark car, it's hard to see what I'm doing. Okay, so this is probably my fault, but again it's annoying. Overall it's an okay phone for basic service. I have recently added my son to our cellphone service and instead of buying him a new phone, gave him the Nokia 3585i and bought a new one for myself (The Nokia LG 1). The 3585i is rugged enough for my son (teenager) and wil forgive an occasional drop or being banged around a bit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90340 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable price reliable swiss army knife of phones still big for a phone these days not terribly flashy buggy software The Bottom LinePhone serves the intended purpose and does it reliably. It's got some bugs, most phones do, but it has worked when I've needed it to, so no complaints. Full Review Ok, I've been out of Sprint land for some 13 months now, give or take. I had such a bad experience with the Touchpoint and Sprint (see prior review) that I switched services, but as luck would have, my company made a switch from Nextel to Sprint and now my workhpone is this little Nokia. So why, with all the choices out there, would the Nokia 3585 be my choice with the phone stipend I had. Well, Nokia has a good reputation among phone builders as being rugged and durable, all I need when considering a work phone. So I called our Sprint rep, asked him to send me one, and after 3 months here's the scoop from a cell phone snob: The good, the bad, and the ugly- Mixed feelings right now with this phone, I've found it to be all that I expected in terms of durabilitly. The nature of my job (testing and developing military equipment) forces me to spend countless hours in environments not cellphone-friendly. In fact just recently the phone popped out of my belt clip while riding on a large piece of machinery and fell to a gravel road. I expected the worst and found slight damage (in the form of a small chip to the bright red case) but nothing wrong with the actual operation of the phone. A drop like this would have most likely killed my flip motorola that I have for personl use. Drop test- pass. The phone gets stellar reception in places one would not expect, though this might be partly due to new tower placement by Sprint, I can't help but to wonder if Nokia does live up to their reputation of building solid working phones. Either way, calls are clear in the middle of nowhere where I work. Another big smile for call making and receiving reliability. This Nokia doubles as a flashlight. Yes a flashlight. Most phones light up the screen and touchpad during user interface, this phone lights up the room. I had found this useful when making calls at night, or needing to answer that 3 am phone call from my clients bugging me with a must solve problem. But during Hurricane Isabel, when my power went out I grabbed my phone, hit the menu button and managed to navigate my pitch black house to find a lantern. The phone is bright, light emits from the screen, the keys, the side clear panels, the top and bottom clear panels. This is a very useful feature and though not related to anything actually call related, makes life a little easier and times you need it most. User Interface is not the best I've seen, but overall, all menu functions are easy to find and the custom user profiles shaves minutes off of having to adjust the phone in a meeting, or at the movies. The directory holds any and all numbers one might need for a specific contact as well as email and voice memos if needed. Finding contacts is simple, simply press the down arrow and key in the first letter or 2 of the name you're looking. Again, standard stuff that one would expect to find, but it works and works well. I've noticed a little too much "user friendly'ness" though and would like less notification of how many calls I've missed or voicemails I have. Get right to the point, I know I've missed calls, I know I have voicemail (the little icon lets me know), let me jump right into it rather than telling me in big words, "You have new messages". That's nitpicking on my part, but it annoys me. When in doubt, shut down- This has happened a few times and I've yet to figure out why. If the phone gets "confused" it would rather shut down then let me figure out what to do. Confused should never be used to describe modern technology, but there have been times when I am outside the service area, the phone hasn't realized this yet and is showing signal strength, and I go to make a call only to have the phone shut down. I've begun to find this rather amusing. Battery life- Average at best for those who talk a lot. I'm lucky to get through a day on this phone without having to charge. I'm on the phone maybe 3 hours a day. Sometimes less and sometimes more. But if I don't charge it on the ride home from work, I'm out of power by the time I get home. To get the suggested battery life, one can easily check out the phone specs at the Sprint site, so I won't repeat their advertising. But I'm under the impression it does not live up to these estimates. When battery strength indicator is at full through half, I'm fine. Once I start getting below half, it's like a mad rush to the mall during Christmas. Everything goes, and goes quickly. That last few bars seems to last an hour or two at best. Keep this in mind if you make many a call. Price- hey, at under $100, this phone is a good buy if you are interested in reliability. The flashy bright case catches attention but it's a large phone, not suitable for pockets, so style hungry might want to look elsewhere. This is also one of few sprint phones not currently boasting a camera, thankfully. Also, no color. Other- the games are games, if I want to play games, that's what xbox is for. But they are amusing for a few minutes. The home charger plugs into the bottom of the phone, can't stand it up but that's a tiny complaint. Ringers are standard Nokia, some annoying, some fun, most useful. All in all, this phone is a pleasure compare with past Sprint experiences. Not enough so though, to make me want to go back with my personal plan. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90339 2005/2/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 durable construction changeable faceplates long battery life great reception very basic phone mine was unstable The Bottom LineNice phone, but very basic. Good for those looking something affordable, durable, and with great reception. Mine had problems, but this is not typical from what I've seen. Full Review An Older Phone This phone (which is now sold as the 3585i to represent a minor software change for FCC compliance and makes no difference to the consumer) This review is NOT off-topic as in Nokia land an i represents a software change - it's the same hardware and the software change, per Nokia's own documentation, was to add the ability to send E911 data which is meaningless to the consumer (unless you're a government-paranoid type). Phonescoop (a major source of phone data), and Nokia's own releases state that to the consumer this is an identical phone. You may point to the fact that on Nokia's site the non-i is red. Yes, and the i is available in red as well. Nokia sells these in blue, red, and white and they're identical. This phone has been replaced on the market by the Nokia 3586i, 3587i, 3588i, and 3589i. The difference between these new models is only in the software and faceplate/keypad. The 7&9 are BREW for Western Wireless, Alltel, Verizon, the 6 is J2ME, and the 8 is Sprint's. Anyways, the primary difference is that those new phones added a color screen. This is one of the most modern phones to lack a color screen - which hurts readability inside but dramatically improves it outside, where color screens are easily washed out. The short of this is that many of my experiences with this phone will be applicable to the new color 358x's, but not all of them. What does this phone have? Tri-mode This is a tri-mode 1x digital phone (850MHz AMPS, 850MHz CDMA 1X, 1900MHz CDMA 1X). 1X is standard today, but it was new at the time which is why I mention it. It's basically a higher capacity CDMA capable of medium speed data. It's the first generation of "3G" mobile. My provider was Blackfoot Communications which offers 1900MHz old-style CDMA only. One nice thing about this phone was that you could force it from the user menu to "digital only" or "analog only". Of course, analog only resulted in roaming for me so I never tried to see how good it's analog sound quality was. Digital sound quality is mediocre. It's loud but not terribly clear. Fantastic Reception I think this phone is the only reason I could tolerate Blackfoot's service. I could make perfect calls in places where other Blackfoot customers got searching for service. No doubt the whole series, including the newer ones are the reception king talking to some people I know at Verizon Wireless. Nokia uses a different chipset from the normal Qualcomm one, and it works very well. Combine that with the dual antennas (there's an internal AND a pull-out) and you've got yourself the fringe-area reception winner! Java 2 Mobile This phone has J2ME (Jave 2 Mobile Environment) and supports application downloads and polyphonic ringtone downloads via data cable. I don't know about over-the-air as my provider wasn't that advanced (and still isn't except for the ability for them to text you ringtones. Wow.), the newer color ones for VZW and Western Wireless have BREW for OTA downloads (instead of the J2ME platform), but there are less BREW applications available than for about any other phone. Four Built-in Games I didn't realize how nice these simple built in games of Kart Racing, Snake II, Space Impact, and Bumper were until I switched to Verizon which sells phones without any built-in games to encourage you to download games (which cost big $) from BREW (Get It Now!). Admittedly, these games are quite dull in comparison to the BREW content on Verizon phones, but they're F-R-E-E. No complaining about the games! A Nice Selection of Ringers This phone features a nice selection of included polyphonic ringers, but they sound bad. They phone can produce a limited number of notes and has a very tinny ringtone speaker. It also features a vibrate mode, which is very strong. Mobile Web Of course my carrier didn't support this but there is a WAP browser... Changable Faceplates This was my favorite feature, I had a really cute one with glow in the dark butterflies on it. Very nice. You have to be careful when changing them to avoid getting dust under the screen though... Not one for a cute phone? You can get covers that look a lot like the original ones (different color selection though) and make a scratched up phone look new again! Grayscale Screen and White Backlighting It may be gray, but this phone does have different shades of gray (four of them) and a bright, bright, bright white backlight. It lights up the whole room in the dark. Very nice extra, and it didn't seem to hurt the battery life. Super-long Battery Life Partly due to the black and white screen, this phone would last days at a time on a charge. Try that with a newer color phone. Very nice. But There Were Problems! This phone would crash repeatedly, restarting itself. Worse yet, when it restarted itself (and you have no way of knowing this happened if you didn't see it), it wouldn't receive calls. This was sent in for repair at Nokia and I had a loaner Kyocera piece of garbage while waiting. They updated the firmware and maybe did other stuff (I had friends with this phone and the same firmware who never had a problem). When I got it back, the crash and restart frequency had decreased substantially, and it would receive calls after restart, unlike before. But it still had a stability problem. I think this was fairly isolated. Too bad Blackfoot doesn't do outright replacement like Verizon does. Conclusion This is a plain, basic phone. It got boring. Combine that with the extremely limited coverage map of Blackfoot and their capacity problems which resulted in frequent "System Busy" messages and dropped calls and I had to change to Verizon. I bought an LG VX-4400. Which I loved, but gave to my mom when I added an extra line for her and bought myself a Kyocera SE 47 (how I wish Epinions had a category for that one!) which was an endless nightmare, making the problems with this Nokia look trivial. Finally, I've now got an LG with VZW. And there are things I miss about Nokia land - mainly changeable faceplates. This isn't an all-bad phone, and I think my problems were very isolated. I would recommend the Nokia 358x series for those looking a basic basic phone. It's not fancy, not the best sounding, but it is a nice basic phone. Great for business people due to the inherent durability in the changeable faceplate system, as well as for younger children for the same reason. And you can get some really cute faceplates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7809 Nokia 1260 90362 2003/12/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use small weak reception no vibrate gets hot within 10 minutes of taking We received two of these phones for signing up for a years service with AT&T. I know know why they give them away. Reception is very poor. Coverage in my area is poor. Nothing like AT&T promised. The first 30 days it seamed to work great.....then it started geting weaker and weaker. Now that winter is here, it's working a bit better???? They said the foilage on the trees can block reception and since it's winter now and the foliage is gone....it picks up better. All I know is that once my contract runs out in April/May, I'm switching carriers if they don't beef up the coverage. I just turned my home phone off since we have cell phones and wireless internet. Totally wireless! Oh yeah, this little sucker gets hot on your ear! 90361 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good rf performance none This phone is great for people that want an easy to use phone that works great. It is great at getting a signal and maintains calls very well. It is rather cool looking as well. It is a good phone to keep as backup in case your regular phone breaks. 90360 2004/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 e mail aim capable nokia quality great reception great battery not pretty looking screen scratches easily heavy cheap ring tones I bought this as my first cell phone. I like it a lot, but I don't really care for it's outside color and casing. It is also kind of heavy. I have gone on vacation to the middle of the New Mexican desert, and gotten reception. This phone also has great battery life with it's lithium ion battery. But, it is heavy and cheap looking. 90359 2000/3/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good for newbies cheap easy to use limited features poor reception low volume The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a cheap phone I highly recommend this. If you have the extra cash get something better. Full Review Wow! This was my first cell phone experience and it was defiantly an experience. This phone has some great features but lacks some that make a cell phone complete. It comes with: 35 built in Ring tones and 10 downloadable ones A Phone Book capable of holding 200 entries A very loud alarm clock with snooze A wall charger and a hands free headset And a few games such as: Space Impact, Snake 2, Pairs 2 The phone weighs about 5.3 oz and has a standby time of about 15 days and a talk time of about 5 days which overall is not to shabby. Before I received this phone I used my dad's which was the older Nokia 5190. I didn't like this phone because it was so big and awkward but it had a key guard, the ability to get a decent reception with plenty of talking volume. My phone, the Nokia 1260 does not have a key guard and when it's in my pocket or backpack I'm afraid of randomly dialing someone's number. The talking volume is poor, no matter how loud I have it. It takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to power up and get reception. The reception fades in and out although I am using AT&T which is supposed to be good. It also lacks a vibrating feature which is nice to have in meetings or while in class. To solve this problem I just put in on silent. It also lacks a color screen as some of the newer phones have. On the good side, it is small and has plenty of faceplates. There is no external antenna to get in the way. The Nokia 1260 is relatively cheap, and there are usually rebates for it. I got all of the money I paid for it back. It also has the ability to send e-mail and text messaging. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90358 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent price text messaging free hands free earpiece decent reception internal antenna doesn t look that great no vibrating ring no unique special features The Bottom LineIf you want a low maintenance, economical yet durable phone with decent reception, the Nokia1260 is the phone for you. Full Review After reviewing many cell phones and service providers, I finally decided on getting the Nokia 1260 as my personal cell phone. The nokia had a lot going for it: -It cost $49.99 at amazon.com but there was a $100 and $50 rebate so it came out to -$100 overall. -It's decently compact. There's no antenna jutting out to stab you while it's in your pocket. -It has text messaging Great if you want to send out that email even though you're nowhere near internet access... -The reception is pretty good for its price. I don't have problems with dropped calls or poor reception even in a suburban area. While comparison shopping, I've noticed A LOT of reviews of people getting dropped using other phones. -It's durable The phone is simple; you won't have to worry about it breaking after a few months. And it's from a company you can trust. On the downside: -I would have liked to get one of those cool swivel phones, or the ones with the camera, or one that flips and displays color pictures. The Nokia1260 does none of this. -I would have liked to at least have a vibrating feature It'd be really useful in meetings, movies, funerals, etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -100.00 90357 2000/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to figure out good phone for a newbie to cell phones heavy not as many features The Bottom Linegreat phone for emergencies or the occasional call. Full Review I just got my first cell phone last week and I'm ready to change to an upgrade! Boy, did I get into the cell phone rage quickly, or what?! I received an offer in the mail for a free Nokia 1260 phone from AT&T. On the one hand, I'm happy I got it...my credit rating hasn't been the best of late, and when I tried Verizon and Cingular, they wanted a deposit, even if I bought the phone. My only option was to buy minutes at an alarming per minute charge. I wanted a phone for emergencies so I took them up on thier offer. Here is what I got: Nokia 1260 phone-- Weight (w/ included battery) - 5.3 oz Battery: NiMH 900mAh Standy time: "up to 15 days" (depends on analog or digital) Talk time: "up to 5 hours" (depends on analog or digital) Technology: TDMA 800/1900, AMPS 800 Ring tones: 35 built-in, 10 downloadable Phone Book: 200 entries Alarm Clock with Snooze Games: Space Impact, Snake 2, Pairs 2 My phone is smaller than my mothers, an older Nokia phone. It isn't much lighter, however, and is quite a handful to hold for any length of time. It did come with a handsfee headset, which is very nice to use! The screen is black and white (what the heck do you get for nothing! haha) and the games are very simple, and graphics poor quality. Of course, for a free phone, like I said, you get what you pay for! The games are cute though, and they do pass time when you are waiting in a waiting room or bored silly, etc. The snakes game is the cutest, and the Space impact game is a shoot em up, space game. I have AT&T phone service, and since this is the first time I have had a cell phone I don't know if the phone or server is the problem, but sometimes it is hard to hear or be heard on the phone...I have had one instance where my phone just "hung up" or the line was lost while I was talking (mid sentence!) and the reception is choppy at times. The phone has a built in antenna and I wonder if this is such a good idea...if I am holding my hand over it, etc. I do find the reception is better when I set the phone down and I use the hands free headset so I am thinking the reception problem is more on the lines of the phone and not AT&T. I will add more to my review as I go along and learn more about it. I did download a few ringtones from AT&T, but they charged me .99 cents for each one. I am unable to download or use graphics on this phone. I imagine at some point, I will upgrade to a better phone. I would LOVE to get one of the newer phones that have more features! I do think this phone is fine for someone who wants a phone only for an emergency, or an occasional phone call. If you want added features though, I'd recommend looking for another phone. Recommended: Yes 90356 2000/5/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception sound quality easy to use free with mail in rebate free headset earbud is uncomfortable no lithium ion battery most ring tones are a little annoying The Bottom LineI highly recommend it. Especially as a first phone for someone who doesn't want/need all the extras. It's a good, reliable basic phone. Full Review I am relatively new to wireless service and was in the market mostly to reduce the cost of long distance calling and to add the convenience of a mobile phone. I wanted a phone that basically does all that my home phone does in terms of sound quality and easy of use. I found it with the Nokia 1260. I got the phone as a trade-in after trying the Panasonic Versio when I first signed up with AT&T. I found the Versio sound quality to be tinny and the volume level range inadequate as I was often struggling to hear. No such problems with the Nokia. The sound quality is fine (and most of the time similar to my regular home phone) and it has a wider volume range to accommodate any setting. The phone is free with mail-in rebate, so you can't argue about the price. The screen is easy to read and the menus, once you get used to them, easy to navigate. The 200 name phonebook is more than enough for my needs, and I like the inclusion of the games (although I can do without them). This phone doesn't have a lot of the extra bells and whistles: no changing face plates, no speakerphone and no vibration ring. But I don't need any of those things anyway. And it comes in basic dark blue (not sure if there are other colors) - which is attractive enough. It's definitely heavier than the Versio was, which took a little getting used to, but I like the shape of the phone which I find easier to hold while talking. There are just a few minuses: 1. The included headset (earbud) is quite uncomfortable in the ear which will force me to buy another one. 2. The phone comes standard with the NIMH battery (which has the "memory" problem) and it gets a bit tricky to run that battery all the way down in order to maintain its full capacity. I'd have preferred the superior lithium-ion battery, which can be re-charged at any point in its usage cycle without depleting its capacity -- but, when the NIMH wears out, I'll just buy a lithium-ion to replace it. 3. Most of the many built-in ring tones are a bit shreeky and annoying - but still, there are a few that I can choose from. All in all, I like this phone very much. If all you want is a good basic phone, this is it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 (rebated) 90355 2000/1/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of rings battery life w standby good games small size no vibrate or speakerphone volume ugly no carrying case or belt hook no voice activation The Bottom LineDon't go near this phone if you don't have to!!! Full Review I received this phone from my employer. I have had several other cellular phones, and by and far, this is the worst! Although it is small and compact, it doesn't come with any belt hook/clip or any carrying case. How are you supposed to lug this thing around?? There isn't any vibrate alerts or rings. In meetings, I have to set the phone to the "silent" mode, and then keep an eye on the display to see if someone is calling. It is literally, silent. There is no speakerphone option either. In the past, if I had to make a call in the car, I would put my phone on speaker or use the walkie-talkie feature of my nextel phone, to avoid having to keep the phone to my ear. Although there is an ear-bud included, it's quality is very poor. You cannot adjust the volume! Many times I will be on a call and can barely hear anything. But there is no way to adjust the ear volume. I have also had trouble receiving messages, or making phone calls off of this phone, but am unsure whether that is because of ATT Wireless (they are awful!) or because of the phone. Making a call, people cannot hear me often, even if I have a full signal. Battery life is good with standby, but drains pretty quick when you are using the phone. The aesthetics of this phone are pretty bad. It's an ugly phone with awful green LCD. The only pro's I can think of are the following: The snake game that is included is pretty good. There are a lot of different ring tones. It is smaller and more compact that others. You can setup the names of your saved numbers with upper and lower case letters, and it will take a longer name than other phones. Good battery life. Recommended: No 90354 2000/8/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small utilizes wonderful nokia menu system no vibrating battery no nokia faceplates available The Bottom LineCan't beat the price, but don't expect any nice features. Full Review My old Nokia 5165 finally stopped working after a couple of years so I needed a new phone fast. My service is with AT&T Wireless so I headed over to the store for a new phone. Since I was not upgrading or renewing my plan I had to pay full price of whatever phone I chose. Under the government employee plan I was able to get this phone for $20. I was immediately attracted to the fact that it was smaller than the 5165 and had a green "call" button and a red "hang up" button. Since I made this purchase with my dad he was more concerned with getting me the cheapest Nokia phone (we really like the brand) and getting out of the store. Unfortunately I didn't realize how few features that I was looking for were available for this phone. The menus: I love the menus of the Nokia phones in general. Amongst their phones, they are all pretty similar in style and easy to use. The contact list: I found it more difficult to navigate through this than on my 5165. There is no quick way to scroll through the entire contact list as there was on the 5165, but the 1260 does allow you to easily call your 10 most recently dialed contacts by hitting the green phone button from the main screen and scrolling through the names with the navigation buttons. Adding new contacts was very easy, as was adding numbers that called you or that you dialed that didn't yet have address book entries. The one thing I really wish this phone has was the ability to store more than one number per contact. It gets annoying to have 3 separate entries for nearly everyone on my contact list. Call quality: Like all the Nokia phones I have ever used this one had excellent call quality. The volume and clarity were both very good. Any problems with static or dropped calls almost always had to do with being in very poor reception areas. Talk time: The best feature of this phone! I literally sometimes go a week without charging it (though during this time I also make very few calls). I make mostly short but frequent phone calls, and I haven't seen any significant drop in battery power remaining at all as a result of these calls. I charge this phone about once or twice a week and sometimes when I am driving back and forth to school (about 30 minutes) and have never once run out of battery power, or even have it get down to "one bar" remaining. Features: Alarm clock, games (Snake II, Space Impact, and Pairs II), and downloadable ring tones. I have used all these features once or twice and found them to be pretty good. Missing features: For some people these features might not be important, but for me, they were. Unlike the 5165, the 1260 does not have changeable faceplates. This is really annoying because the dark blue color makes it hard to find in the dark interior of a handbag. Also a lot of people in my family have the same phone and, yes, we do get them confused a lot. There is no option to upgrade to a vibrating battery which I had really wanted on my next cell phone. For a phone that comes with nothing, you would think it could be a little smaller. As a woman, a phone of this size is still not small enough to fit into a pants pocket. Overall, I can't complain too much about this phone since I didn't have to pay for it (my dad graciously paid the $20 for me), but I definitely can't wait to get a new, more featured phone soon. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 20 90353 2002/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 even for existing customers free after rebate no vibrating ringer no changable faceplates larger then 3360 The Bottom LineIf you need a backup phone or are happy with very basic features and only adequate reception, this phone fits the bill. Full Review I have a Nokia 8260 with AT&T and was having spotty reception in some areas, so I decided to try an 'upgrade' to a 1260, since it was offered free after rebate. It didn't end up being any better (reception-wise) then the 8260, and is chunkier, and has fewer features. For the price, I'll keep it around as a back up phone, though. In this review I will discuss the specs, compare it to the 8260 and 3360, talk about the aesthetics of the phone, the quality of reception, and the included headset. I don't have that much experience with this cellphone yet (since I just got it). I will add more beef to this review once I've owned it longer. In the meantime, since this phone is basically a repackaged 3360 with a few features stripped, it might be worth your while to head over and check out the (excellent) 3360 reviews: Specs - Weight (w/ included battery) - 5.3 oz - Battery: NiMH 900mAh - Standy time: "up to 15 days" (depends on analog or digital) - Talk time: "up to 5 hours" (depends on analog or digital) - Dimensions: 4.5" long x 1.02" thick x 1.97" wide - Technology: TDMA 800/1900, AMPS 800 - Ring tones: 35 built-in, 10 downloadable - Games: Space Impact, Snake 2, Pairs 2 - Phone Book: Up to 200 entries - Alarm Clock with Snooze - "Predictive text" input The Kit comes with a home charger and handsfree set, but no cigarette lighter adapter (although this is 3360/8260 compatible) or case. 3360 comparison Although I do not own a 3360 and can not compare them directly, while looking at the store, I noticed these differences. The 1260 does not have changable faceplates (it is possible to hack on a new face plate, but this might void your warranty). The 1260 also does not have a vibrating ring, an infared port, has less storage in the phone book. You can't hold down the "hang up" key to lock the keypad, you have to use the "Menu *" sequence. 8260 comparison In addition to the shortcomings described above, the provided battery (NiMH) is inferior to the LIon the 8260 comes with. In addition, I believe the NiMH might suffer from the "memory" effect, requiring occasional drains-to-nothing to avoid lowering the peak capacity of the battery. The ringer is louder then on the 8260. This was one of my main 8260 gripes: No matter how loud I made the ringer I could still not hear it in a loud environment. With the 1260 (and I suspect the 3360 as well). On the positive side, they have added predictive text input (which can get annoying), it's easier to use the power button, and contacts can have two phone numbers each The power off button is easier to press on the 1260, it's not inset like the 8260's. Phone Aesthetics I'll be honest. This phone looks cheap. It looks like the price you paid for it. I was not offered a choice of color, and got a sort of plain dark blue phone. It's taller and wider then then 8260, and although some people might find it easier to hold because of that, I prefer the svelte 8260. Reception Quality No difference to the 8260. It's still crap. I still have all the same 'dead spots' that others don't have, even with AT&T. Although I don't have much evidence, I believe that the 3360 might even have stronger reception. Basically, the internal antenna just doesnt cut it as soon as you get off the beaten track. The sound is muffled and even with a strong signal, can be hard to understand. Included Headset The included free headset is just that. Free. It's a wire with a bud earphone (uncomfortable) and a clip and mic on the wire. I find myself having to speak very softly into it or I will deafen the other party. As well, good luck trying to attach the clip while driving. I usually just let the mic dangle, and that works just as well. Thanks for reading. Again, I apologize for the lack of other details, but I will add them as I discover them. I just wanted to write a review on my experience so far since there is no reviews at all on the web of this thing, but AT&T is pushing the phone pretty heavily (at least they are in my market). I'll understand any sub-VH ratings, but I have to warn you, you might get emailed later to re-review once I add more details! If you want to be notified when I do add to the review, just monitor the comments, since I will leave a comment when I do any edits. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 2 90352 2003/7/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 usable features great reception lightweight small changeable faceplates cheap plastic casing no vibrate mode The Bottom LineBasic cell phone with features you'll use every day. Full Review My 15-year old is a busy person--so much so it seemed like he was always trying to find a phone to call me. Since I get a great discount on cell service through my employer I decided to get him service. Not wanting to pay more than I had to, I chose the "free" phone that came with the service--that's how I ended up with this Nokia. It's a basic phone with basic features--perfect for my son. The on/off switch is a tiny button on the top of the phone--evidently this is quite common for Nokia phones but since this was my first it took me a few minutes to find it. Once on, you're presented with the Start Screen--it gives you some vital information. On the left-hand side is a signal indicator--the taller the indicator the stronger the signal. The right-hand side has a battery indicator--same here, the taller the indicator the stronger the battery. The time is located in the upper right-hand column and from here you can access the menu or phone book (labeled "names"). This all seems logical but is totally different from my old phone. From the menu you have several choices--you can do any of the following: Lock the keypad to prevent accidental key presses (something I should use more often--I've pulled my phone out of my purse many times to see I've "called" someone). Retrieve voice messages Retrieve text messages Use digital services (if you plan allows) Change the ring/download new ones Using the scroll keys located in the center of the navigation area, the keys to the left and right are for selecting options, you can navigate through the many menus as well as your phone book. There is a basic help menu as well--you access it by going to the menu item you have a question about and wait for about 15 seconds--the help information, if available, for that menu item will pop up--use the down arrow to view the entire contents and back button to return to the menu item. SHORTCUTS Everything is numbered so you can get an option quickly without going through all the menus and submenus. To access them press menu--within 3 seconds enter the first number of the menu function you want (shortcuts are listed in the user manual as well as on the phone itself in the upper top right corner of the screen). For example, if you want to change to the silent mode press, Menu-3-2. To write a message press, Menu-1-1. By memorizing your most-used options you'll be able to change the settings with just a few key strokes. BATTERY Powered by a rechargeable battery--you'll need to completely charge and discharge (leave the phone on until it goes dead) it two or three times before it will work at its full performance. Fail to do this and you'll suffer poor battery life. Temperature extremes can also affect the ability of your batter to charge--allow it to come to room temperature before charging. Also, never leave your battery in the charger for more than one week--overheating can occur and ruin the battery. The standard charger that comes with the phone takes 24 hours on the first charge and then approximately 4 hours for mid-charges. There are faster options--a quick-charge will do it in 1-2 hours. STANDBY/TALK TIME Digital the talk time is 5 hours, standby is up to 15 days. Analog is 2 hours/2 days. If you treat the battery properly (see above) the standby time is accurate, at least it is for us. PHONE BOOK Allows you to do one-touch dialing. This phone stores up to 200 entries including e-mail addresses and physical addresses if you wish. You cannot however enter the same name twice-standard for any database driven phonebook. You can add, edit, search, and customize the phone book for your needs. CALL LOG/TIMER Lets you know if you missed a call, what calls you've received and also those you've dialed. It also gives you the total time connected--great for tracking your monthly usage (shortcut: menu-2-5). Be aware though that rounding off will occur so your bill will not match the call timer exactly. If you select to clear the timers it can't be undone. VOICE/TEXT MAIL If your service plan supports it, voice/text mail is easy to use and access from this phone. There are several ways to retrieve it. You can set the way you'd like to be notified--icon only or icon with audible beep. Typing a text message is standard and uses the existing 12 keys to type. The maximum message length you can send is 160 characters. The length of the messages you can receive is dependent on your carrier. PERSONALIZATION There are many ways to make this phone fit you--chose the language you'd like displayed, the ring tone you like, and the accessories you prefer. You can also set "profiles". These allow you to set the phone up for different circumstances--like when you're in a meeting, the office, or hockey game. For example, for a meeting you may want the phone to be silent and show only on the display that you're receiving a call. Same for a movie theatre. However, at a hockey game you'll want the ring tones at their loudest. Instead of resetting the features for each event, you set profiles prior and then when you need them select them with a few key strokes for predictable behavior. SPECIAL FEATURES Alarm Clock--you can even press a snooze key for a few more minutes... Download Ringtones--you can download up to ten ring tones if your wireless service provider allows it. Games- Comes installed with Snake II, Space Impact, and Pairs II. I'm not a game player but my son seems to enjoy these. WARRANTY 1 year which begins on the date of purchase--does not cover normal wear and tear nor damage caused by dropping. FINAL THOUGHTS It works well in my service area--in places my old phone didn't. The features are useful without a lot of extras that would have gone unused. Changeable faceplates add just enough fun for the teenager--we've found a site that sells the popular Nokia-compatible faces for $7.50 so he's stocking up (see below). You'll need a small tool to change the faceplate but most stores offer them for a nominal fee or you can purchase one at a regular hardware store. It's not easy to change the Nokia 1260 faceplate. Here's how I did it--unscrew the two screws at the bottom, place the phone keypad down on your thigh, on/off button facing away from you. Press down firmly toward your thigh will pushing toward the on/off button at the same time. That'll get the back off. Next flip it over and gently pull the bottom out and up toward the off/off button. It's not easy, but if you pry it off you'll break off two tiny pieces of plastic that hold the front to the back. My only regret is that it doesn't have a vibration mode. The sound quality is the same as my more expensive phone (see my review on the - and the ), and since it's small and lightweight it fits easily in his pocket or backpack. I got a new phone as well--it's a fancier phone with more features - only because the service I chose required it, otherwise I would have gotten this simple phone as well. UPDATE: I bought accessories for this phone--great experience! Read the review at Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7810 Nokia 5100 90366 2004/9/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 excellent reception packs some good features like torch excellent battery life sloooow interface very bad keys Excellent battery life. Packs some good features (like torch). I'm using the thing for half a year know. It's good for talking in any conditions, very tough, has decent screen and very usefull torch, but if you need to write an SMS, prepare to be patient. The keys have to be pressed very hard, and sometimes when you do that, it gets double letter (or digit). Also for some reason, every time when i unlock the keypad (left menu key + *), the * thing stays on the screen and has to be erased manually. And the interface is slow as snail. Very bad keys. 90365 2004/1/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 robust design handsfree jackheadset are a joke I had to recently purchase a mobile phone, I'm a cab driver, and one of these models of Nokia had been left in my taxi. The biggest mistake I made was actually buying one of these! My main concern is the awkward handsfree link @ the base of the phone; the number of times I've missed incoming important calls is starting to add up. Why is it a cheaper and readily available Nokia markets is more user friendly. I was able to purchase a simple handsfree wand unit @ a servo here. One button functionality on the wandset, yet on this model..it's two button and damned infuriating trying to hear the other party. And the HF is straight out of the 80's!! This all combines for a potentially dangerous road situation, when all I wish to do, is safely answer the phone whiles driving. Nokia...get it together...the only saving grace of this model is it's attempt to do a Lara Croft with it's robust design! Severely disappointed...Gweggles. 90364 2004/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 color display durability nokia reputation sound quality just a hair fuzzy in my opinion This phone is exactly what I needed: A durable, water- and scratch-resistant design packed with loads of extra features. My favorite "extra" is the built-in flashlight. Why don't all cell phones have this?? How many times have you fumbled to find the right key at night, wishing you had an easily accessible flashlight in your pocket? This phone fixes that dilemma. Of less use (to me) is the calorie counter feature, though I do play with the sound meter at times just for fun. This phone comes encased in a colored plastic "shell" which covers the entire handset, meaning you'll never have to worry about scratching the display, for example. This shell also imparts the water-resistant (NOT water proof) and shock resistant qualities, so you can toss it into a back-pack, pants or shirt pocket without worrying about what else might be in that pocket, and what damage might happen to the phone. If you do get a scratch on the plastic covering the display, simply buy another shell, at a minimal expense, and your phone once again looks like new. 90363 2000/5/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 flash light polyphonic ring tones large color screen durability look feel power button no mp3 player head phone jack The Bottom LineIf you want a great strong little phone then this is IT. Full Review There are very few things wrong with this phone. I gave up my Samsung Uproar to buy this phone, so I sort of miss having an mp3 player, but I guess I was spoiled to begin with. Besides a power button which is hard to turn off, and runs the risk of breaking, a head phone cord which comes unplugged a little too easily, and no ability to use your own headphones with the built in radio, this phone is amazing. This super durable phone feels great in the hand - I've thrown it around, and has yet to even get a scratch. A massive color screen and enough options to satisfy EVERYONE, Nokia has really outdone themselves with this phone, and NO I don't work for Nokia. It works all over the world (Tri-Band GSM) and with switchable covers, should last a very long time. I've even found myself using the built in flash light. The battery rocks, and the ring-tones are very cool. The keys are also a little stiff which is GREAT because I wasn't sure about using a non-flip phone, but I've yet to accidentally call 911. I got this phone on the grey-market, but it should be available in the US by the summer. It's a little larger than the 6100 which was too small for me, and since it's a GSM phone, it won't work all over the US quite yet, but GSM is the future! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 7811 Nokia 3510i 90369 2005/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 all you need good bit oldnot as good as newer phones but oh well I got this phone when I was 11 years old, in year 6, I am now in year 9, 13 years of age, and it still works. There have been no faults on it; it's easy to use, its sends messages, calls people, what more do you need? It also has a number of extras on it, for example, its colour, you can download all the games and mono/polyphonic ring tones you want, a phonebook, folders for messages has a calculator, alarm clock, calendar, countdown timer and a stopwatch! I know all the latest phones have voice recorders, cameras and even video recorders, but you don't need all that, unless if you want to make a movie on your phone. You can buy loads of different cases for the phone, i have about 5! Its a good phone, thats all i have to say 90368 2000/6/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 folder structure large memory light colour user friendly orange sidelights brightness of screen quite large The Bottom LineI personally like the 3510i and would recommend it. It's light and easy to use if a bit bigger than some other new phones. 8/10. Full Review I was fortunate enough to get this phone for free when I decided to opt for a contract phone instead of my old 'pay as you go' 3210. I had the choice of several phones, including the Motorola t720i and the Siemens c55. I decided to stick with Nokia as they are, I believe, the sturdiest and most reliable of phones, having had a bad experience with my first phone, a motorola. The design and layout of the phone is fantastic - you can add and delete folders as you want giving an excellent degree of freedom and choice in how you set up your phone. The games leave a bit to be desired admittedly - although it is easy enough to download more through the GPRS system. The only other drawback seems to be that the colour screen, pretty as a picture in the dark, is a tad dull in broad daylight - a brightness feature would be a fantastic addition. There are a wide variety of polyphonic ringtones in the memory which can be added to or deleted form if more space is required. One of the best features is the rather simple ability to view how many messages you have sent in addition to knowing how long you have spent chatting - handy for not going way over your SMS/MMS limit without knowing it. The battery lasts for a round four - five days before re-charging, which is far from poor. It must be said that although there are smaller phones out there, size isn't everything, and i would heartily recommend the 3510i to anyone willing to listen. Happy shopping! Recommended: Yes 90367 2000/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 gprs polyphony ringtones excellent software design good reception not compact terrible color screen display no infrared The Bottom LineIf I had a second chance, I would not have this phone. The poor screen just bugs me all the time. Full Review I had a Sony and a Panasonic phone before, but I lost them. Blame the thieves!! So, I was looking for a new phone at an affordable range. There were two phones caught my eyes at that time, Nokia 3510i and a Mitsubishi phone. But the Mitsubishi phone doesn't support the MMS service. So, it's out. I took Nokia 3510i home. The first few days, I did enjoy the new phone very much. The software is well designed, rather user friendly. It has a large phone book, and under each entry I could have their cell phone number, home phone number and even Emails. I could create the short messages fairly easy and quickly. Amazingly, the phone allows me to add my own file folders just like on the computers. That's great. Besides, the phone has 4 games as default setting and I could download more via WAP or GPRS. Of course I could download ringing tones and pictures, too. But the drawbacks are intolerable. The ringing tone is polyphony but is too light and hard to be heard in crowd. If not in a quiet place, I would easily miss out calls and short messages because the vibration is also just too weak to notify me. Talking about the downloading, GPRS is just so-so but too expensive for me and without the built in infrared device I can't make a connection with my computer for there isn't data wire available in market, either. The worst shortcoming is that the screen display is just a bug to me. The pixel is 4096, which is just alright compared with the 6k pixel phones. But the resolution is 96 X 65. When receive the pictures shot by other cell phones, I couldn't figure out what it is due to the low resolution. I have to send the picture through GPRS to my Email and see clearly what exactly it is. I don't know why the Nokia official site describes these bunch of color dots high resolution. Unlike Panasonic GD88, Nokia phones use the STN screen, which is intend to save battery but result in a dark display. I couldn't see the screen under the bright sun. Besides, the website says it could last up to 13 days. Ignore it, because I could only use it for at most 4 days (messages, GPRS, and calls in the day and standby at night) for light use. The phone has good features as well as disadvantages. But the shortcomings annoy me very much. I would look for a Panasonic or a Sony Ericsson next time. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 220 7812 Nokia 9290 Communicator GSM Cellular Phone 90377 2000/8/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 great screen easy to use applications advanced keyboard no usb connection no vibrate function no gprs upgrade no windows xp support The Bottom LineThis is the best combination cellphone and PDA that I have tried, with an excellent screen and keyboard. However, the lack of Windows XP support is a show stopper. Full Review The Nokia 9290 Communicator is an excellent attempt at combining the features of a PDA and cell phone. However, it has several problems that need to be highlighted: * The PC Suite software does not support Windows XP and there are no immediate plans for such support (as confirmed by Nokia Customer Service on 8/13/02). Therefore, you will not be able to synchronize your contact information and documents with a Windows XP computer. * The phone does not support GPRS and cannot be upgraded. The maximum speed for data communication is likely to be 9.6 kbps (even in areas with GPRS coverage). * The communication link between the phone and desktop computer is serial or infrared. There is no support for a USB connection, so the speed of synchronizing documents and databases is slow. * The cell phone has no vibrate function. When the phone is set to "silent," you have no way of knowing that someone is calling you. Nokia Customer Service indicated that there are no immediate plans to address these four problems (although competitive pressures will force Nokia to offer a model supporting Windows XP sometime in the near future). On the positive side: * The phone has an excellent screen that is visible in most lighting conditions. The screen is much, much better than the screen on the Treo 270. Unlike the Treo 270, the Nokia 9290 screen is very sharp, with bright colors and even illumination. * The keyboard is very good, and is almost big enough for touch typing. (It would be even better if there was a shift key on both the left and right side of the keyboard.) * The applications work well and are very easy to use. With some experience, the function keys are faster and easier to use than a touchscreen. Much of the information in this review is not readily available from the Nokia website or store salespeople, but can be confirmed through Nokia Customer Service (1-800-4MY-9290). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 599 90376 2000/6/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 microsoft office compatibility microsoft outlooklotus notes synchronization office applications restricted to gsm service providers The Bottom LineBuy it and live with GSM coverage/performance restrictions. It's far better than any other PDA/phone combination out there. Full Review Providers of wireless networks in the US market overwhelmingly use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), whereas European providers use Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), a variation of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). Clearly, Nokia erred in merely changing the 9210 (European model) Communicator from GSM 900/1800 to GSM 1900 to produce the 9290 (US model) rather than using a networking technology more suited to the US market. This limits its use to just a few US providers (T-Mobile and Cingular Wireless, and AT&T Data Services are the primary providers of GSM) and is the only significant shortcoming of the 9290. Obviously the Nokia 9290 Communicator it is a full-featured wireless phone and, equally obvious, it is fully integrated with its Personal Data Assistant (PDA) functions. More important, it's a real computer! Operationally, the designers brilliantly combined the software navigation approach of a Windows oriented Personal Computer (PC) with the hardware key selection approach common to special purpose computing devices like organizers. The result is that the functionality of the Windows "Start" command is implemented as eight command keys at the top of the keyboard. Taking this logic one step further, the designers provided four keys to the right of the display that serve as context commands equivalent to right mouse button functions. Finally, the designers provided a "Menu" key that activates functions equivalent to the Windows Menu bar. A large quad-arrow key provides mouse-like navigation functions. Internally, it has 40MB of built-in memory and a slot for a Multi Media Card (MMC) device; a 16MB card is supplied with the system. MMC's are available in 64MB, 128MB, and 256MB from numerous sources. User memory is swappable thereby allowing a user to store certain data on a specific MMC and installing or removing it as appropriate. Applications in the 9290's "office" suite include a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation viewer that are emulations of the Microsoft Office suite; the word processor even includes a thesaurus and can save documents in Word format. Microsoft Office documents can be transferred to the 9290 and vice-versa. A File Manager is included and data can be manipulated using this package or, when the 9290 is connected, by the PC's File Manager. Integration with a PC is accomplished with a supplied "PC Suite for Nokia 9290 Communicator" which provides functions for backing up the contents of the Communicator on the PC. In addition, this package allows synchronization between the 9290 and a selection of PC clients for mail, contacts, and calendar clients (most notably, Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes. A suite of "converters" is provided (some on the Nokia website) to provide better performance of documents (especially video) on the 9290. Messaging and Internet access is fully supported and the methodology used to gain access is dependent on what the wireless network provider supports. WAP is fully supported and is always available as a fallback network approach. Finally, the 9290 runs under the Symbian operating system and provides both Personal Java and C++ support. There is a growing library of applications and games for the 9290 available for download at Nokia web site (many are available at no cost). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 90375 2000/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 beautiful screen spacious keyboard hands free phone without the use of a headset is good great style internetwap will not function properly in my area The Bottom LineThe bottom line: I've returned the Nokia 9290 and I've obtained the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition. Full Review Nokia 9290 Communicator Research before purchase Online Nokia site Epinions Purchase COMP USA Voice activation Simultaneous data activation CD ROM Instructions for setting up would not work in DVD drive but would work in CD ROM connected by USB WAP connection (T-Mobile formerly voicestream) not functional even after contacting Tech support and following their emailed instructions.This was a very prompt response. Called on Thurs. 09-12-02 after checking and rechecking myself without success. Told they would create a "Trouble Ticket" and forward it to an engineer. I was to hear from an engineer within the next 72 hours. On Tuesday 09-17-02at 1830 hours I called again because the WAP was still not working. I was told the trouble ticket had not been forwarded, but was now. According to them, I was not the only one experiencing the problem. They could not tell me when it would be repaired. I asked "if I could call them tomorrow" and was told that was fine. I was told it was not the communicator but the service provider. So I've had the communicator for 10 days and it still is not totally functional. Well, it's the 13th day, and I think I've finally found an anwer. There is no answer. Finally, I got hold of a T-Mobile customer care rep who gave me the skinny ( I will not give his name to prevent even the thought of reprisal from T-Mobile) "There has been long standing trouble in the Dallas switching office. I'd like to tell you that it (the Nokia 9290) will work next week, but I can't." This led to a conversation about the 9290 being a GSM rather than GRSM device. Sorry folks I do not have the background or knowledge to explain, suffice it to say that it led to a discussion of the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, apparently a GRSM (non-switching device) which I had begun to consider as an alternative. Additionally, as a former user of Nokia phones and a Handspring Visor Prism PDA, there is a definite adjustment to Microsoft's Outlook. Synching Outlook and the Communicator proved to be more of a challenge than with the Prism. Nothing in the PC Suite Help or PDF file for the Communicator tells the user that the icon placed on the desktop of Windows 98 SE does not access the same PC Suite Window that is accessed through "START/ PROGRAMS" (at least not after the first time) This is significant because of the access to CONTROL PANEL, ARCHIVE MANAGER and TASK MANAGER for the Communicator is via the PC from the PC Suite. Synching is not intuitive. I'm used to pressing the button on the cradle and I'm in business. I'm still working on this. Yes, I've got everything "Unify Enabled". I had read there would be a learning curve and an adjustment to scrolling and keyboarding, and there is (though I think it has been very minimal and totally subjective). I find I do miss the rapidity of graffiti, but I had graffiti down cold...the keyboard on the Communicator is quite good and spacious. The color screen is superlative. The hands-free phone without the use of the head-set is quite good. The bottom line: I've returned the Nokia 9290 and I've obtained the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition. Kudos to the manager at CompUSA. This was a no hassle exchange. Editorial Opinion: 1. It seems a real shame that such an aesthetically pleasing device as the Nokia 9290 is so poorly supported by an otherwise sterling company as T-Mobile. 2. The management at CompUSA have really done a turn around over the past two to three years. I once swore at them... my recent experiences (this and others) have me swearing by them. I'll let you know how the T-Mobile Pocket PC experience is sooner or later, depending. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499.99 90374 2000/7/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone great internet utilityemail with a wide color screen full function keyboard no vibrate ring alert big additional cost of dial up big phone very slow internet The Bottom LineI recommend it to people who want a very stylish phone with infrequent Internet usage intent. It has terrific PC and E-mail capabilities. The speaker-phone function is great! Full Review Undoubtedly, this phone has GREAT utility considering the built in web browser. The potential to reach the Internet from any place with a GSM signal is an impressive thing, even in year 2003. However, the Internet is only an option with a dial up service, which not only adds to the cost of the monthly charge, but also creates another potential instability. Moreover, one has to be careful which Internet dial-up he or she is using, for not (including AOL and JUNO) are compatible with the phone. The speed is VERY slow, usually under 9600 kbps, and websites with extensive homepages take forever to open. However if the right low graphic pages are bookmarked, the Internet can be accessed and used very effectively. The PDA functions are very comprehensive with multiple alarm abilities, world time, and all the other gimmicks that are can be expected. E-mail is a great add on, with the ability to type out an email anywhere with the help of the fabulous keyboard. Then log on momentarily just to send your email out. The emailing receiving function is great too, where only headers are downloaded first, and then - as per your request - the body text for the emails is downloaded from the server individually. But I must warn that I have had a lot of trouble downloading from a certain few POP3 email accounts. Although the product is sizable, it is not very heavy at all. This allows it to act as a conventional ear to mouth phone with great ease. However, the rings are a problem and there is no Vibrate signal, which can be quite a strong drawback to many. The best part may just be the speaker-phone and conference options, which are very effective and great utilities. The PC functions are great with all necessary applications, and the feel is very close to that of a windows PC. The phone looks very attractive, and has a terrific antenna to it. The wide color screen is a definite plus. All in all, it is a very good buy for $200, but any more would be questionable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90373 2000/8/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great color display lots of applications price somewhat unfinished casing mediocre web browser The Bottom LineA good integrated communications solutions for a busy professional or otherwise high-tech lover. A high quality product! Full Review Before I write anything about this Nokia's newest pride and joy, I have to admit that I haven't tried the US version 9290, but the European version 9210. They are the exactly same phone but just meant for different networks. The 9290 will hit the markets in the first half of 2002 So. now when that is out of the whey lets proceed with my opinion. First the basics. The 9290 Communicator isn't the smallest thing on the earth (158x56x27 mm, but 244 grams isn't that bad; especially if you would otherwise have a phone and a PDA. The new Communicator, or "kommari" in Finnish, is able to last for 4-10 of talk time or 230-400h of standby time. The times depend on the where you use it and if your phone is switched on or off. 9290 looks somewhat similar to its old sibling - the color is a little bit lighter, some keys have changed places and the keyboard has undergone slight alterations. Are the changes good or bad? Well, as always it is in the eye of the beholder, but I prefer the new revised look and feel. The first thing you notice about the newest Communicator is its excellent full-color display. It is capable of 4096 colors. The display is clear and sharp even if you are using it outdoors in open sunlight. It's a joy to look at it! The phone (if you can call it that anymore) comes with many applications e.g. e-mail, Word, spreadsheet, presentation software and so on. Naturally you can also add new ones later on. The 9290 has a new Symbian platform, which is based on an open system and supports Java. This means that we surely see third party software developers coming up with many useful things (like cool games:-) Due to the new platform, the applications also run faster. Overall the change isn't dramatic but it still is better and looks nicer. Now that it is obvious to everyone that I have fallen in love with this new gadget, let's cover some negative aspects of the gizmo. * It does not come with an USB link-up, instead it uses the same method as the older model. * The plastic cover makes some undesirable noises (which will probably be corrected as the design is fine-tuned for later production patches) * The web browser isn't that grand and has incompatibility problems with some web pages. Don't get me wrong - it does work ok but could be better. * The Communicator does not support Bluetooth, which could be quite useful. So, this was 9290 in a nutshell. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1025 90372 2002/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wonderful color screen graphics great integration of pdacell phone a little large but still better than carrying two devices The Bottom LineI love this phone! So far it is the only combo PDA/Cell Phone out there that was given a lot of thought before production. Full Review Overview So far, this phone is the best integration of a PDA and a cell phone thus far. Nokia has done a great job in creating this product. It's no wonder that this phone is so popular in Europe and in Asia. Experience I am your standard gadget junkie. I love to try out new tech gadgets when released to the public, especially when it comes to cell phones and PDAs. I have been through many PDAs since their introduction. My history of PDAs is as follows: 1. PalmV, 2. Handspring Visor, 3. Palm Vx, 4. Compaq iPAQ 3650, and finally the Handspring Treo 180. As for cell phones, I have had too many to remember although I can remember the cell phones I have had in the past year: 1. Ericsson T28w, 2. Ericsson T39m, Ericsson T39mc, Ericsson T68, Motorola P280, Samsung Q105, and finally the Handspring Treo 180. I am not paid by any company to try out these phones and PDAs. All purchases are out of my own pocket. Initial Impression I was so excited about the phone when it was finally released here in the US. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to investigate the phone. The following Monday after the release I went to the CompUSA store here in Indianapolis to check out the new PDA phone. My sales experience was not the best. The sales person had no idea how to use the phone and actually refused to take it out of the case so that I can look at it. After speaking to the manager and explaining to him that their sign in front of the store said to ask for a free demo, he finally let me hold it. When I held it in my hand, I was taken back a bit because it felt like I was hold one of the first versions of a cell phone from back in the early 90's. However, once I opened the case, all my fears were put aside when my eyes glanced at the color screen. I took out my Compaq iPAQ and compared screens. The Nokia 9290 won hand down. I know one can change the background for the iPAQ, but I still didn't get the warm friendly feeling I got when I opened the Nokia 9290. Calendar The calendar functions and the calendar look, in my opinion are much more pleasing to the eye than my iPAQ. I was a bit worried about how the synchronization between my Outlook 2000 and the Symbian based calendar would work. However, the fear was eliminated after my first synch. Everything came over and mapped correctly. Thanks to the large screen, I can now have a month view and a day view all on one screen without having to toggle between views. Adding appointments, tasks, events, and anniversaries are very easy with the integrated keyboard. Granted I had get used to not using a stylus, but it is definitely much easier than taping a screen. Makes me less worried about breaking or even scratching the screen because I no longer have to touch it. There are 7 views total in the calendar program: 1. Month, 2. Week, 3. Day, 4. Taks, 5. Weekly Time Schedule, 6. Year Schedule, 7. Anniversaries list. I like all the views but the month view gives the most information in one screen. On the left hand side you will see the current calendar month, and on the right hand side the user will see all appointments and tasks for the day. Contacts The contact program is as user-friendly if not better than the iPAQ and definitely better than the Handspring Treo 180. You have a choice between looking up contacts in your SIM card or your database. As in the calendar program, the screen is divided into two sections. On the left side is your contact list and on the right hand side is the information of the highlighted contact. You can change the views if one prefers to view only the detailed contact information or view only the list. You may call the user from the here at any time by highlighting the phone number of the user. When you call from here you may use the incredible sounding speakerphone or you may close the cover to speak privately. Again, thanks to the integrated keyboard, I am able to enter contact information in less time as the iPAQ or even the Handspring Treo. Messaging The messaging department integrates all messages sent from or to your phone. Messages may be in the form of an email, or SMS. The messaging program is very similar to Outlook. The program includes an Inbox, Outbox, Draft, Sent and any other folders you created on the phone. SMS messages are easier to write now that I can use a keyboard instead of using the multi push of a button via the phone numbers. Although you can still send SMS messages and email from your phone when the cover is closed just like you would with a regular GSM phone. Telephone I had a bit of trouble remembering the difference between the Contact program and the Telephone program. The Telephone program lists all contacts in the Contact database and in the SIM database. You can choose where the list is to draw its information, from the Contact DB or the SIM card database. The difference here is that you can't edit, add or remove information from this area. To do so, you will need to go into the Contact program of the PDA. Again, as mentioned above, if you call from this point you can use the speakerphone or close the cover and use the phone. Office Products The Nokia 9290 comes with 4 standard Office programs: 1. Document, 2. Sheet, 3. Presentation Viewer, and 4. File Manager. Each of these programs function very well and there doesn't seem to be a difference in functionality as compared to the office programs in the iPAQ and the relatively non-existent programs in the Handspring Treo, which the user will have to download. All word documents render as the original MS Word document, and are edited just as easily. The included presentation view renders my PowerPoint presentations with ease. The iPAQ does not include a PowerPoint presentation program, one has to download it from their site, and definitely the Handspring Treo is not comparable of doing so either. However, if I have a very important presentation to give, I will still use my laptop computer. The Nokia 9290 also includes an Excel type program that is also very easy to use. However, I must admit I don't use spreadsheets that often. Expandability 3rd party products are numerous, not as numerous as those available for the Palm OS or the Pocket PC OS. However, a very useful program I found is the PDF viewer. Memory expansion for the phone uses the new Multimedia Card instead of a large compact flash card. The unit does not require an expansion sleeve unlike the Compaq iPAQ. The Handspring Treo does not have the capability for the user to expand its memory. Phone Of all the phones I have used in the past, it seems as though nothing compares to the quality of the Nokia 9290. Of all the people I have spoken to on the Nokia 9290, everyone thinks I am using a landline phone. Background noise is kept to a very low minimum. As for reception, it seems to get better reception than the other phones I have had while on VoiceStream. For some reason Ericsson and Handspring performed the worst in terms of reception here in Indiana. The Motorola P280 was in second place in my opinion. I do wish that the phone were at least a Dual Band 900/1900 phone. The phone is only a 1900. So I have still have my Samsung Q105 for my international trips. Battery life The specifications state that it can run for 10 hours of talk time and 230 of standby time. So far, I am running on one charge and it has been 2 days since that charge. The longest I have gone without having to charge the phone. I am not too concerned as I always charge my phone before I go to bed. However, I must say I am impressed that I am still getting the full battery marks. Summary In summary, I love this phone. So far it seems to be the best phone out there that combines a PDA with a cellular phone. Of course something better will come along in a couple of months or years, but that is technology for you. What are my wishes for the phone? As mentioned above, I wish that it was a dual band, but also I wish it was GPRS. Although, it seems as though the web browsing is fast enough for me. If I really need some speed, I will find a T1 line somewhere. As for cost, it comparable to the other PDAs on the market, I paid $599 at CompUSA. I could have saved $30 on the tax by ordering it directly from Nokia, but I needed to see the phone in person. The current, iPAQ is $599. To add the GSM/GPRS phone sleeve, it will cost the consumer another $299. Handspring is cheaper, but you get what you pay for. The way I see it, I bought a great PDA and received a free phone. I definitely recommend this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 599 90371 2000/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good pda with a mediocre phone the best pda phone combo but a no high speed internet connectivity slower than 9600 bps The Bottom LineGood concept, old design & implementation -- don't waste your money, wait for the feature rich successor in the next 18 months. Full Review I followed the Nokia 9290 introduction with zeal -- waited over 6 months for it to be introduced in the States; it's a GSM phone (the European standard that is rolling out across the states), and TMobile was the first to introduce it in my area (Austin). Six months later, I am getting rid of it as I am pretty disappointed. It has some great features and is a constant source of conversation -- people notice it -- but despite its good PDA/phone combination, its large size, feature-poor phone, and lack of viable Internet access make it not worth the size and effort for most of the techie crowd drawn to this type of concept. A GOOD PDA/PHONE COMBO... The PDA/Phone aspect is good. The phone is LARGE -- very -- you can't put it in your pocket, you have to lug it around. However, having used the Treo and the Pocket Phone PC, I believe the 9290 is on track with the best solution. The applications (under the Symbian Operating System) are Windows-esque and intuitive; the keyboard is great, and the 4K color screen is nothing short of stunning. BUT... The 9290 is actually based on an older design from Nokia used in Europe -- it is not "new" technology in that sense, so one surprise is that the phone aspect is not as robust as Nokia's more recent phones. While the phone menu system is similar, it is simplistic and doesn't contain very many options. For example -- you cannot save a number in your Calls List to the address book. So, up front, let me say that if you are looking for a PDA/Phone combo without Internet access, and can live with the honkin' big size, you may like this phone. I have used the PC Synchronization Suite for the 9290 under both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, with no problems whatsoever in sync'ing with Outlook 2000 (unlike a previous poster who had XP/9290 issues). Out of the box, the phone has a 16 MB memory card. Forget that -- you need to upgrade to the 64 MB card to load applications and games, which are available in abundance (see links on the 9290 support page at nokia.com). This OS is popular in the U.K., and there are many applications available. Moving files back and forth from your PC to the 9290 is as simple as dropping and dragging on the desktop. You can create, edit, and view Excel and Word files on the 9290 and easily transfer them to the 9290. Note, this is not without problems, and I would not recommending trying to edit anything but very simple spreadsheets and docs on the 9290. NO HIGH SPEED INTERNET ACCESS If you are interested in this phone for any aspect of Internet access -- don't even consider the 9290. Because it's a GSM phone, I assumed it supported GPRS, the high-speed GSM data connectivity method. WRONG! My first bad surprise was to learn that the phone does NOT! For data connectivity, the older "CSD" method is used, meaning that your maximum data connection speed is around 9600 bps. That's right, the speed of your MODEM 15 years ago. The second surprise was that over twenty hours of tech support time later between Nokia and TMobile -- and I spent 10 years in data communications myself -- we could not get the phone to even connect to the Internet. By the way, the connection method is not exactly elegant. You have to "dial into" an ISP -- no, AOL won't work, you need Earthlink or somesuch -- and when I finally did get a connection, it took over 40 seconds to bring up a simple screen like Google. The crazy aspect is that the phone has a full HTML browser (and even supports Java), but don't even think of trying to do anything practical like look up a phone number or do a Google search... unless you have the patience of Job. This phone is reasonably robust -- I've dropped it a few times with nary a hitch. And compliments on the lithium ion battery -- it performs as advertised. LIMITED CONNECTIVITY... One last note: this is a GSM-only phone. GSM service is rolled out to most major metro areas now, but be warned: if you go very far off the major metro path, this phone becomes a nice PDA with a dead phone attachment. This phone will not "roam" in non-GSM areas. Other Cons: No "mute" in speakerphone mode (otherwise excellent) No "vibrate" mode Repeated problems with the phone not resolving incoming numbers to address book entries -- the phone would just display the incoming number without "resolving" it despite extensive work on this problem on the phone with support Phone would crash about once a week and require a reboot Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500 90370 2002/6/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cutting edge reliable efficient feature rich hidden costs no touch screen expensive awkward navigation The Bottom LineIf you want a genuine handheld, mobile, wireless device that provides the functionality of an exceptional PDA and good cell phone, the 9290 is the answer. Full Review When I think of great communicators I usually imagine a person, but Nokia seems to be attempting to change that. The 9290 is suitably named the Nokia Communicator because it delivers on that notion. The Nokia Communicator enables its users to communicate via voice, fax, e-mail, text messages, infrared, instant message, and nearly anyway you might use IP/TCP for. (I met a Nokia representative who had installed a web server on this thing!) Needless to say, I think the Communicator is a very impressive device. The 9290 is a nice improvement over the 9000i, and it is retailing for a lot less than its predecessor. It's difficult to appraise the 9290 because it is so fundamentally different than most cell phones, and appears to be targeted toward a business-class end-user more than most PDAs are today. Also, the market in mobile wireless is changing so fast that as cutting-edge as this device is it is indisputable that more "advanced" cell phones will be available in Asia and Europe shortly. Hence, this review is limited to American end-users who really feel that they might want to combine the PDA with a cell phone. If you have time, you might want to compare my reviews on some of the PDAs I have used to understand my hesitation with comparing new apples with old oranges. I like some of Palm and Windows CE PDAs, but I have found them missing something; notably, they don't do wireless well. On the other hand, the Communicator does not hot sync smoothly, is not really an mp3 player (even if you buy the software, where would the headphones go?), has no touch screen (navigating on the 9290 requires use of pull down menus and use of oddly set up hot keys). I do not think that the 9290's failings are serious, but I do think some will find it frustrating adapting to the Communicator, if coming from the world of PDAs. If you have the patience it requires to adapt to the 9290, you will be pleasantly impressed with your entry into the world of tomorrow. I have no doubt that the 9290 is a footprint of what will replace PDAs, cell phones, and, possibly, desktops (laptops are here to stay). The phone feels lighter than it looks so if you see one in a store, pick it up. Although the size looks unusual for a cell phone today, the phone is actually as lightweight as phones much smaller. When you open the phone in front of friends, do not forget to put their eyes back in their sockets. The color screen is as crisp as the latest IPAQ, and the 9290 has only 4000 colors, rather than 65,000. Photos look great and video runs smoothly on the Symbian OS. This OS is so robust that apps open or load quickly (some stay open, always), the user can multitask without fear of crashing the OS, and some data tasks can be carried out while using the phone. Here are the minor issues to be concerned about: GSM The 9290 uses a smart card (SIM) and runs its cell service on the GSM network. Although the 9290 is not 3G, GSM is popular outside the U.S. Hence, you gain a phone service that will likely have roaming arrangements throughout Europe and Asia. The downside is that GSM has limited penetration in the U.S. Before spending $600.00 to get this phone, look at a few network maps by cell services who offer GSM. VoiceStream seems to have the best coverage, but other companies are jumping on (or back on) the GSM technology. ISP Your wireless provider may not offer Internet access! This is one of the absurd hidden costs of using all of the features of the 9290. You'll likely need to bring your own ISP to the cell phone, but set up is incredibly easy. Software There is plenty of software for the 9290...especially if you check webites from the UK. The trouble is that the user base is small and the software is expensive when compared to Pocket PC and Palm. I doubt that you'll read e-books or listen to music on the 9290 (and that's too bad) but the 9290 is aimed at business-class end-users who, apparently, don't have time for listening to music or reading. (Actually, you can buy software to do these things on the 9290, but you're not going to want to believe me). There are interesting games available, but the Communicator is for communicating. Memory The 9290 comes with a 16MB proprietary memory card. Since you are not likely to download mp3 files on this device, the removable memory card is sufficient. Also, Symbian is not a bloated Operating System, and third-party software seems compact enough to get loads of apps on this thing. Battery The lithium-ion battery delivers about 10 hours of talk-time, or 8 days of power using the PDA with the phone on or 2 weeks using the PDA with the phone off (yes, you still have access to the PDA, if you decide to shut the phone off), which means the 9290 out-performs most PDAs in efficiency of power consumption. Communications The 9290 works like a workhorse doing what it does best: it's a cell phone, pager, fax machine, e-mail program (with word attachments, if you must), infrared communicator, Internet access, SMS text messenger, instant messenger, news alert receiver, and all this without belts, chains, plugs, sleeves, wires, cords, PC Cards, or any of that craziness. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 599 7813 Nokia 9210i Communicator 90379 2000/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 it does have some pretty cool games it s bulky unattractivei found it hard to use The Bottom LineThis phone isn't for me, but if you are looking for something a bit different it could be for you Full Review I had this phone for a total of one week, it was given to me on a trail, and I can safely say I did not like this phone one bit. But that doesn't mean it's not the phone for you, it just wasn't right for me. Why? Well firstly it was massive, I couldn't fit it in my pocket, and most of the week it stayed at home because I simply did not want to carry it. Secondly, although the keypad inside it supposed to make it easier to text, I found for me it was harder to try and type using those tiny buttons than to just use the reqular phone keys, however as you could not text without opening the phone out fully this was not an option. Basically, this phone just put me off right from the very start, but it's not all bad, my dad not uses one, and he finds it very useful, as he uses it for work and he is able to do conference calls on the move, store his appointments, do online, and he is very pleased with it. I think the deciding factor here is what you use your phone for, as someone who looks for a phone that looks nice and who texts a lot, to be honest this phone just never had a chance. But if you want to use a phone that is good for calls, viewing the internet, etc, then this may be the one for you. But in my opinion there are many smaller, easier to use phones out there now that offer the same features. Recommended: No Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90378 2004/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability1.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 large screen rugged casing standard compliant web browser optimal sms client no mms support lack of gprs microsoft dependencyoutdated lack of bluetooth The Bottom LineThe communicator is a fax device and a slightly outdated EGSM phone. It is a very efficient personal information manager and a reliable device for full-featured email and internet access. Full Review In 1996 Finnish Corporation Nokia released the Communicator, a personal digital assistant (PDA) and mobile telephone hybrid using proprietary software. The Communicator has evolved over four generations to become a fully-fledged multimedia handheld running on the British Operating System Symbian version 6. Endorsed by Diamond, Panasonic, Nokia, Oregon Scientific, Psion, Samsung, Sendo, Siemens and Sony-Ericsson, Symbian is a multi-tasking OS for handhelds competing with Microsoft's Win CE, Palm's OS 5 and Sharp's embedded Linux. Although Psion's EPOC was released in 1991 with the Series 3, Symbian was outrun by the Palm Pilot, which came in five years later in 1996. Palm's software, now licensed to manufacturers such as Handspring, Sony and Kyocera, holds more than 70% of the PDA market share and benefits from an extremely wide range of proprietary applications. Up until the release of version 5, the Palm OS did not handle multi-tasking and was limited to Motorola's 33 MHz processors commonly found on low-cost PDAs. Symbian and Microsoft have long been running on Intel 200 MHz processors. The 9210i version, which will be reviewed in this article, runs on Symbian and includes some major software companies applications such as Sun's Java 2 Platform, Macromedia's Shockwave player, RealNetworks Media player and Opera's W3C standard-compliant Web browser, developed in Norway. HARDWARE Basically, the Communicator is a handheld computer with an Extended Global System for Mobile Communication (EGSM) phone transplanted on it. The outer shell presents a blue-backlit LCD screen along with Nokia's menu buttons set and phonepad. The dualband (900 MHz/ 1800 MHz) antenna can be rotated at 180°, depending on the position of use of the device. The microphone is located on the side of the shell, and the speaker on the back side. This has the benefit of preventing skin contact with the front LCD screen. Folded up, the shell unveils a backlit LCD screen (4096 colors, 640 x 200 pixels) with four function buttons, a compact QWERTY keyboard (depending on the language version) and a loudspeaker for hands-free calls. The display is not touch-sensitive and the means for moving the cursor and choosing options are the keyboard's arrows and the four functions buttons located at the right of the screen. Nokia probably chose not to use a touch-sensitive screen because the fully-fledged keyboard might have made a stylus redundant and would have required additional handwriting recognition software. That being said, the fact that the screen remains untouched gives it a much longer life span than touch-sensitive ones. Deciding if Nokia made the right decision on that aspect is left to the reader. Weighting 244g, the Communicator might fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans, but it will feel clumsy in a classic pair of trousers. Nokia provides a horizontal leather belt holder, which almost makes it comfortable to wear. There's a hands free set available, but the loudspeaker makes it unnecessary. The Communicator is shipped with a 1300 mAh Lithium-Ion battery, which in this article's testing conditions allowed well over 90 minutes of conversation and 5 days of standby. The backside of the shell presents a MultiMediaCard slot, and the battery has to be removed to insert the GSM PIM card. Nokia probably designed it this way so the PDA would get rebooted every time the PIN card is changed. SOFTWARE In terms of graphical user interface (GUI), the Communicator is very much reminiscent of a Windows 3.1 platform. Come to think of it, this handheld computer is quite similar to a 1992 personal computer in terms of processor and memory capacity. The preinstalled software includes mandatory PDA applications, word processing, spreadsheets, slide presentations, Opera's standard-compliant HTML Web browser, Wap browser, fax application and email client. The word processor, spreadsheet and slide presentation handles all the mainstream Microsoft formats and the additional management tool for Microsoft Windows allows to connect the Communicator as an additional drive with the serial port. The applications takes care of converting the files to and from the Symbian format. The major drawback is that email attachments in the most recent Microsoft Office formqt (XP) cannot be interpreted by the Communicator unless converted, making it dependent upon a desktop computer running with Microsoft Windows. The phone manager and SMS client can either be operated from the phonepad or the PDA. Handling calls and messages can be made in both cases, but contact details and phone numbers can only be inserted with the PDA. The application allows to record a phone number in one of the SIM card's 100 memory places, or to create a details cards with additional details to store on the PDA's flash memory. The two phonebooks remain separated, and the user can only switch them through the PDA, which can prove tedious. The tested model's OS would often crash when the phonepad was used while the PDA was opened. The PDA interface is the same for SMS, emails and faxes; and in the case of SMS, all received, sent and message drafts can be edited from the phonepad as well as the PDA. The email client supports POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP protocols, handles attached files and can be set to download only email titles from the account server for memory concerns. The Web browser supports the latest W3C HTML4.01 standard (at the time of writing), but depending on the network coverage, the text-only version might be necessary to limit download time. In the testing conditions, the connection would allow downloads at the speed of 1 kb per second. For example, the Opera browser would have downloaded this page after 18 seconds and all the images after a total of 50 seconds. In this respect, enabling GPRS could have proven useful. The preinstalled software includes Sun's Java 2 Platform, which allows to run and develop cross-platforms applications, and RealNetworks multimedia player for audio and video files. The additional software includes Macromedia Schockwave player, which allows to play a variety of cross-platform games and animations. Conclusion The Nokia 9210i fits in as an all-in-one mobile office tool. It empowers the user with desktop publishing tools and allows to use SMS, email, fax, Wap and Web alongside an EGSM phone. In terms of multimedia applications, the preinstalled software enables it to compete with Microsoft's Win CE and it is yet to be seen how the 9200 series and Symbian devices will compete with Palm's OS version 5. Even though it does not compare to Palm's in terms of applications range and variety, the Symbian available software list is getting longer. The fact that Symbian has been endorsed by major players such as Nokia and Sony-Ericsson should increase it presence in the mobile devices market share. Since this review was written, Nokia has moved on to become the biggest shareholder of Symbian. The Finnish company has successfully used the Operating System on its 6600 model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 900Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7814 Nokia 7190 90381 2000/3/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great display great contact management software big problems little things The Bottom LineI think the Ericsson T39 is my phone of choice the next time around Full Review This is my 7th cellular phone, found Nokia the best. This phone has great features and problems noted by others have not been seen by me. I do not use the WAP feature as it is too slow, GPRS is the way to go. I have had a repeated problem whereby I have initiated a call and in the middle, the phone would unilaterally put it on hold and transfer to a 2nd call which is non-existent. It would also not allow me to transfer back to the first call. VERY PROBLEMATIC. I have been back to the provider who graciously replaced the unit 3 times. As a result of this, I am not sure that I would recommend this model, I am told I am the only one they ever heard of this problem with. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90380 2001/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 huge amounts of memory ability to use 5100 6100 accessories large screen does not feel as solid as the 6100 series The Bottom LineWith its host of features, this is an excellent phone for the Cellular phone power user who doesn't do a lot of overseas traveling. Full Review UPDATE !!!!! I have just been made aware of some new informationa and would like to pass it on to everybody. Much thanks to rettik for passing this on to me. *Retiks comments to help keep us up to date* Good phone - some issues by rettik I think this is a great phone, but there are some issues that I just can't believe they didn't fix. 1) The WAP browser has no "Back" button built in. If you are surfing the web, the only way you can go back is if the web site has added a "back" button. This is very frustrating. 2) Closing the cover doesn't always hang up the phone. (It's supposed to, unless you turn that feature off). Image people hearing your conversations after you thought you hung up -- not to mention the extra minutes used and the battery life drained... 3) Sometimes the phone just reboots. I'll be on a WAP site, and the phone will just shut down, and start back up 15 seconds later. I'm still basically happy with the phone. If you read the other review, I agree with all the positive things, but I'm waiting for the new firmware that is rumored to be on its way. By the way, Cingular Wireless has told me that Nokia has put these phone on Software Hold, and Cingular (at least in San Diego) isn't carrying them anymore at least until the problems are fixed. *Original Review* I am glad to say that I think that Nokia just keeps on getting better and better and better... I have been waiting forever for this phone to come out ! And I am so glad that if finally has ! I won't make this a very long review since I am assuming that most people who read this or are considering to get this phone have had previous Nokia phones. If you have previously owned a Nokia 5100,6100,8000 series phone you will have absolutely no problems picking this thing up and programming it. The user interface remains the same, with a few added touches such as different graphics, icons, and a few different games. There are only a few main differences between the 7100 series from the previous Nokia phones, those being the enlarged display, and the increased amounts of memory. One can easily store 1000 phone numbers with different numbers stored under the same name. The software to program the phone was enclosed with this particular model and it very easy to use. Very much feels like Microsoft almost made it themselves. For anybody that is familiar with windows, you will probably want to plug the phone into your computer and take advantage of the e-mail, and personal organizer features of it in addition to using it for your everyday business and personal phone calls. Like the 6100,8000 series phones, the 7190 can be programmed with particular dates, appointments, and along with these can be set to remind you with a silent or audible alarm. Other features that have been carried over to the 7190 are: -Alarm clock -Call Log -Picture Messaging -The ability to send different ring tones to your phone. -SMS -Email capabilities -A BUILT IN WAP BROWSER !!!! -functional slide cover (like the 8860, and 8890) -Voice Dialing =) Just love this feature The list just goes on and on... Although WAP technology still has a lot to be desired, the larger screen on the 7190 makes for easier scrolling through the small amounts of information sent to your phone, and I really do like how almost all the information can be displayed without having to wait for the screen to automatically change. By this I am referring to a T28W that I also own, and I find the screen to be a little small for my tastes. It can be a little time consuming trying to find what you are looking for. This is just a brief overview of the phone, but should you have any questions please e-mail me. If there is anything I should add, or you feel may be incorrect, again please let me know and I will be sure to update this review =) To sum this up, should you get this phone ? If you are a person who uses their phone a LOT, and also carries a PDA, and a host of other tools to get you through the day, the 7190 is an excellent phone which can replace most of those. But if you are someone who barely uses their phone, it can be a little pricey, and I would recommend getting a simpler phone such as an 5190, until this phone drops in price =) One should note, that this phone only works in North America, so if you are a business person who does a lot of traveling you may want to take a look at the T28W, or the Nokia 8890, both phones which I have also written reviews on. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 7815 Nokia 5510 (Groove Red) 90386 2000/4/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 a real convergence deviceacts as portable hard disk audio management is needlessly painful The Bottom LineIf you need all these devices in one nothing else will match it. Some frustrations that can be worked around but some unforgivable problems too. Full Review About the price- I got this from insurance as a replacement for my old 6210 that I lost. So it didn't cost me anything. I was bowled over when I first played with my new 5110- it was brimming over with features I wasn't expecting (radio, recording off the radio, acts as a portable hard disk etc..) but it didn't take long to find that many of the features were poorly implemented and buggy! This is the first phone I've had which combines Phone (with WAP if that's your thing) Solid State music player FM radio Very quick setting of alarm reminders Very quick SMS entry As I previously had to carry a Phone, Palm Pilot, FM radio and CD player (I've never had a digital player) to provide the same functionality, this is ideal! It can also record music into its own 64MB from any source with the supplied cable! Realtime AAC encoding!? (the recorded music can only be played back on the same handset I think) It's just a shame the functionality is so shoddy. Looking past the typical Nokia sleek curves, you can tell it was designed quickly- just take off the back cover to see they've just taken a 3310 chassis, stuck a keyboard around it, turned the screen round, and filled the extra space under the keyboard with the nokia digital player's innards. see http://www.roblundie.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/storage/Nokia5510BackGuts.jpg Typical Nokia phone functionality of the "do everything button" variety. I prefer the "select/cancel" mode of operation of the 6210 etc. but that might just be me. It's nice to be able to hammer cancel repeatedly until you're back to the main menu (in case you accidentally phone the wrong person or change your mind at the last minute!) but for some reason only known to Nokia you have to press the "do everything button" instead of "Cancel" on this phone to do things like end calls. Not much else to say on the phone side. It's Nokia so it's all good. I haven't tried WAP on it yet. To the gadgety bits. Games not great but better than nothing. The little shooty game is quite fun but pinball is a waste of time as you have very little control and the ball physics is terrible. Also a puzzle game called Bantumi. These plus Snake II and Pairs II. Music as you've seen in the other reviews, the music management system is a terrible, brainlessly implemented, frustrating, crash prone piece of junk with pointless slow cumbersome "copy protection". If I download a bunch of copyrighted music off Napster etc. I can still download them onto the 5510! If I want to turn my CDs into mp3s and send them to all my friends I still can! Nokia Audio Manager forces every mp3 file you want to use with it to be duplicated to a ".lse" file. This file has an extra 512 bytes containing some settings for the Nokia Audio Manager, but apart from that it's EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE MP3 FILE! Are Nokia being paid off by hard disk manufacturers to waste all this space? IDIOTS! Even worse, the only way to get these .lse files onto the player is via Nokia Audio Manager, which is buggy as hell (it won't even recognise my phone's plugged in at the moment). Recording is a good feature, but if the memory is nearly full when you start recording it sometimes corrupts the song files that are already there. Trying to play a corrupted file crashes the player (which seems separate from the phone luckily) which restarts in about 5 seconds. Storage Luckily, the 64 MB internal memory appears as a windows volume (N: on my system) when the 5510 is plugged in to the PC! This can be used as a normal filing system to carry files etc. back and forth. Thumbs up to Nokia for this, as the 5510 takes a pretty standard mini-USB plug so you don't even have to carry the lead back and forth! This means you can see any music files you've uploaded. They're named the same as the .lse files on the source hard disk but have been re-encoded as "protected" AAC. So once they're on the phone you can copy them back and forth directly using explorer so you don't have to use NAM any more! Phew! OK reception, not up to the quality of my little Sony radio but if I walk along with the cable in my mouth it's nearly as good (!). You can toggle between stations pressing the handsfree mic button. The best thing here is that you can record directly from the radio into the music buffer! Fast text entry It's a great little keyboard, I operate it using just my thumbs. The split across the screen is a little weird but like a split ergo keyboard you get used to it quickly. It's very quick at entering appointments- just press SELECT 1 1 1 1 1 (type your reminder) (type the date if not today) (type the time) .. and that's it! even quicker than using my Palm with the scribble pad software, and what's more it's legible when i go back to it. The downfall though is that only 10 appointments can be set! 64 MEG OF MEMORY AND YOU CAN ONLY STORE 10 APPOINTMENTS??!! Recommended: Yes 90385 2000/11/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 comes with case headset can use to transfer files qwerty keyboard plays music proprietry music format flimsy looking covers large size The Bottom LineIf you want to listen to audio, send fast text messages and dont mind the large size or quirky appearance, then you're going to love this phone. Full Review My first impression of this phone was that there must be some major flaw in the design for it to have dropped in price from over NZ$800 to NZ$299 but I'm yet to find it. My guess is that this phone just does not appeal to many people. It has a quirky sorta geeky scientific calculator look to it, and its one of the larger phones around. In saying that, I don't think it could be much smaller and still have a useable keyboard. The case included in the deal looks great and by my guess will last longer than the case on my last phone, but isnt that functional as it covers the screen and buttons completely. This should provide great protection though. Having a QWERTY keyboard makes sending sms messages almost as easy as chatting on ICQ. I dont think I'll be able to do without one anymore! AUDIO The audio quality from this thing is great. It even has multiple equaliser settings to choose from! The 64mb although not upgradable is plenty for holding 10-12 decent quality mp3's and if you sacrifice a bit of quality I'm sure you could fit more on. One of my gripes is the proprietry music format. Mp3's must be converted to this before transferring to the player, and this requires the use of the terrible software included. I would much rather be able to play straight mp3's on this. That way I'd be able to connect it to any computer and just drag them into the removeable drive in My Computer. I encountered problems getting the software to work correctly in Windows XP. In the end I downloaded a newer version off the website and installed that which during its installation correctly setup the drivers. Nokia have some special instructions for getting the software going under XP on their website that I didnt find until after that. Overall, I'm impressed by this phone. I've been after an mp3 player for some time now an this does the job quite nicely. This is my first Nokia and I dont think I'll be going back to other brands after this for quite a while. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90384 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 qwerty keyboard no antenna radio mp3 accessories interface expensive The Bottom LineDon't get discouraged with the shape features are great. Full Review What Nokia ads say is "It does not look like a cellular. It never looks like a mini radio. But 5510 is both a cellular and a player" This totally describes it. When I first saw the phone, I had many questions in my mind like many people did. The classic cellulars were held vertical. But how will this be used horizontal. I thought a microphone set was essential. Also I thought it was very big in order to include that much buttons. Another opinion was that the stand by duration will be decrased too much while listening to FM radio and Mp3. After I had the phone in my hands my ideas changed. It is really bigger and heavier than most of the new generation phones. It is 155 gr. But it was not too big. Its height is only 13 cm (5.27 inches). It is shorter than those that have antennas. The width is 58 cm (2.28 inches). This is a bit wide. It is not very thick but 2.8 cm (about 1 inch) It holds 45 buttons. Keyboard layout is like a Q type keyboard. The buttons are separated into two by the screen. My impression about the buttons is that they are really really useful. Ericsson tried another way for this: Chatboard. But I believe that was a failure. Also I believe Nokia is gambling on this phone. If it brings success, many new phones of this kind will be produced. If you look at the number of the series it is 55xx. A new type. They didn't want to implement the feature to an existing series. To support the sales it has many accessories that comes in the package. Later I will mention about those. The keyboard layout (named Qwerty) will be familiar to computer users. Backspace, Numbers, Shift, are all used in the keyboard. And it is Q type. (meaning the top left button is Q and most of the English speaking countries use this) My fear about the protection of the buttons was not realistic as I realized later. First, think how many times you press for "Z" in a classical cellular. You harm that button many times. But in 5510 you don't do this as you press the exact button for exact character. Also you can imagine how it shortens the text input time. For example you have to write "Deer" in a classical phone. Press "2" than wait or press up button, press "3" twice than wait or press up button, than again press "3" and press "7" three times. 11 action to write a 4 character word. Well, in 5510 you press exactly 4 times and finish it. The time saved is twice the time needed to write. The Mp3 feature is limited with about 2 hours. But this changes according to the quality. Indeed it is 64 MB. A very bad point is that you have to organize them in a PC. You make a playlist and listen to it. Of course you can skip songs, next or previous. A software comes in a CD called "Nokia Audio Manager" (they say some options change from country to country, so ask your dealer if they give this CD or not) Radio is also great but not a new feature. You could even listen to Radio with Ericsson 688 using an apparatus. You can record from radio and CD within your allowed memory. Battery usage increases but not too much. Nokia says, without using other features you can listen to MP3 for 10 hours and FM radio for 13 hours. This is of course theoretical time. Also as time passes the battery capacity decreases. So be prepared for surprises if you aim to listen it all day long. Battery is (BLC-2) A very important point is that as I mentioned before, they support this product with many accessories. Here is a list of them: Devices coming in the box: Standard Charge Device Stereo Headphone microphone set Battery Data Cable Adapter Cable Audio Cable The Data and audio cable is used to transfer MP3 and edit your phonebook with the help of a PC. It can be connected to a PC from an empty port. You can also transfer screensavers and picture messages using this cable. The price of the data cable coming free is around 15$ if bought alone. The general features are nearly same for general cellulars. - Supports GSM 900/GSM 1800 operators - Weight 155 gr. (0.34 pounds) - High Contrast full graphics screen - Five lines for text, numbers and graphics - 100 phone memories + 250 SIM card memory - 35 ringtones + 5 personal - 2 hours capacity for Audio - Chat, picture messaging, preset messages, email over WAP - Voice call (capacity: 8) - WAP 1.1 support (Provider should support WAP) - Picture viewer for BMP and GIF files - Automatically channel search for radio - 10 memories for Radio channels - Bumper, Space Impact, Snake II, Pairs II, Bantumi (If you become a member of Club Nokia, you can send your high scores to the website in order to be listed there. - 23 language support Stand by time: 55-260 hours Usage time: 2 hours 30 min. - 4 hours 30 min. As a final word if you like changes and like multipurpose tools this should be the only choice. It has many features representing today's technology. You will possibly use it all day long especially the first days. This will be a bit tough as it is the first in its kind. You'll probably have to discover many things. Also you will probably buy a new battery earlier than you did in your older phones. But it is really worth at least you won't get bored for a very long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 260 90383 2000/2/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 fm radio in onequerty keyboardcan serve as 60mb usb drive phone mp3 ugly interface for the radiomp3really uncomfortable mp3 loading softwareflimsy headphones The Bottom LineThe device is really feature-packed but some of the most important are very uncomfortable to use. I would suggest buying if you are not going to use MP3 capability often. Full Review When I've seen this phone released I thought that Nokia finally implemented a simple and ingenious idea : to make an MP3 player, FM radio and cell phone in one device. All these with QUERTY keyboard for fast SMS-ing makes Nokia 5510 really attractive gadget. So I didn't hesitate too much and bought it. The fact is that all what is promised is fulfilled and some other pleasant features: Recording from radio directly to MP3 and it may serve as portable drive with about 60MB of memory and no special software required. The phone functions are quite standard and there are no particular surprises here. Radio is also reasonable : 10 preset stations and automatic tuning make it quite useful and the quality is fine. The most disappointing was the MP3 player. In order to control some of its functions (pause, stop) you have to enter menus which might require quite a few buttons to be pressed (especially if you are currently working with some other menus). The quality of reproduction is reasonable but far from outstanding(compared to other MP players) Their headphones are in my opinion badly designed. They are very likely to become extremely mixed up and have a very cheap look. Even more disappointing is the software support. It seems to be nothing simpler than to allow transfer of MP3 to the device and phone would just play them. Instead Nokia went the "clever" way. They invented an equivalent .lse format which is the only supported by the player. So before downloading any .mp3 to hte palyer it has to be converted to .lse which is a not so fast process. Besides that the .lse copy of the file needs space so you will have to store a copy of all of your .mp3 as .lse or you will have to go through album creating and converting every time you want to change music stored on the device. Besides that you cannot simply copy .lse files using standard Windows copying function (the device appears as a separate drive letter) you have to do this through the Nokia Audio manager which transfers files really slowly ( about 9 minutes to load it completely (compared with 3-4 minutes to load it using Windows file copy). Besides that from about 50 songs I've downloaded so far one one song was cut in the middle and two had some strange noise. A small drawback is that only first 10 symbols of the song name are shown and no other information One of several useful things that could have been implemented but were not : recording the phone conversation. Small drawbacks I've noticed : Flimsy back cover, The original order of songs is not preserved. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 270 90382 2000/3/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 distinctive layout one integrated device very poor software suite uses proprietary music format not mp3 no upgradeable memory The Bottom LineThe music player is very very poorly implemented.A good first effort but better products avaliable on the market.Dont fall for the hype. Full Review This is a very sexily designed product. The keyboard is cool and the interface oozes the classy Nokia simplicity. The main reason to buy this device is for its music capabilities. Nokia however has taken it upon itself to police your music collection and has introduced a format called *.lse. Nokia's software suite converts any MP3 files that you have into this lse format. The files are exactly the same size. Since I share my music collection with my wife who has a regular MP3 player (Intel 3000 - a wonderful player!), I now have to keep 2 copies of every track. The lse serves no function or purpose other then being a complete pain. I have no idea how this is meant to prevent piracy.Nor did the Nokia helpdesk. They privately admitted that they didnt understand why this had been implemented and wish it hadn't. The software suite is also pretty poor and unreliable. For inexplicable reasons it crashes when trying to import several songs into its database. The interface itself is also lacking in good design. Although you can add, view and delete files using Windows Explorer (even with the lse files), the player refuses to play them. You are forced to use the software supplied. The memory is not upgradeable so 64Mb is your lot. You also don't have any IR connection, so you have to use a USB cable for transfers. Also I believe you can't use it as a modem for your laptop. The case design, although very good looking does have some shortfalls. The USB and sliding battery cover dont instill much confidence in terms of lifespan. The USB cover is particularly poor given how often it has to be removed and reset. The FM radio is pretty cool though. Although memory settings 1 and 2 constantly corrupt. I have had the firmware upgraded to the latest version (Jan,2002) but the problems still persist. As things stand you only really have 8 reliable memory settings not 10 as advertised. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 7816 Nokia 8910i 90388 2004/5/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 full feature function packed phone unlighted buttons poor slider mechanism A full feature packed phone with class. GPRS and bluetooth are useful. Connection to WinXP Laptop is easy. With the software included you can manage the contents of the phone. backup the phone, compose tunes, and create pictures. SMS messages can be composed on the laptop and sent to anyone in the phones address book which is a cool feature However buttons are difficult to press. Phone is difficult to use in the dark as buttons are not lighted. The bottom slider gets loose through time. Especially the catch. Loose enough that the phone can slide out, even without pressing the 2 side (release) buttons. The slider catch broke right after my warranty period ended. Unlighted buttons 90387 2004/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 good software feature poor build quality I like the features of the phone. With the software included I can connect via IR or Bluetooth connection to a notebook. I can then send SMSs messages from my notebook. The software also allows me to backup my phone and sim, manage my contacts, compose tunes etc. I can also syncronise my phonebook with outlook. Phone is not too usable in the dark and the buttons are too small and not lighted. Phone feature is very good however the build quality is poor. Sliding lock gets loose. My bottom sliding cover broke within less then a year but I got it replaced. And now it's loose again. 7817 Nokia 6610 GSM / EGSM Cellular Phone 90390 2000/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable inexpensive small effective vibrates but not as strong as others The Bottom LineTry it. I have not regretted it once. Full Review I have had my cell phone now for about 3 months. I have watched others as they flip open their flip phones, I have seen the more organized types pull out their PDA/Cell combination cell phones. Those who really text a lot have the mini key boards for more convenient conversation. Although I watch these users and their satisfaction with their purchases, I am happy with this phone. Key Features My most favorite part of this phone is it's size. It is small, narrow, and very light weight. It slides easily into my pockets, front and back. I think the fifth coin pocket of my jeans was actually made to hold this phone. Although it's size is attractive, the thing that get's me more is it's sound quality. The phone comes preprogrammed with several different ring types, with the capability of downloading more, or sharing them through its Blue Tooth function. The rings are loud enough to get my attention, however, with the times that it is not appropriate for a ring, but when I would still like to know I am being called it has the silent option, with the capability to vibrate. (A side note) If I could choose one feature to be altered it would be the vibrate. While it is effective in it's job, it could stand to be a bit stronger, however I am satisfied with it the way it is, considering the other options. I currently have Stairway To Heaven as my incoming call alert. Love that song. Since it is not a flip phone, there is the threat of accidently hitting buttons, and making unexpected phone calls. So the key pad lock is a very helpful button for me. Texting For those who really enjoy texting the phone comes equipped with both T9 texting ability, and also Predictive Text. Both of which are very helpful, the keypad is also quite small making for fast typing should that be your forte. Durability One problem for me, as I hope with many others so I don't feel dumb, is dropping the phone, all the time. I do not reccommend such practice, but when it is out of your control my phone has taken many falls, and it keeps on going. Over all I am completely satisfied with this phone and how it has served me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90389 2000/4/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 very useful speaker function very stylish attractive color screenlots of features nokia does not stand by their warranty the phone broke in five months The Bottom LineDespite infrequent use, my Nokia cell phone broke in just five months. Moreover, the manufacturer refuses to honor the warranty. I strongly advise against purchasing any Nokia product. Full Review Despite infrequent use, my Nokia cell phone broke. Moreover, the manufacturer refuses to honor the warranty. I purchased my Nokia cell phone in August, 2003 and in January 2004, just five months later, the phone began to malfunction. Specifically, when buttons on the keypad were pressed there was either no response at all or the key would "stick" with a never-ending tone and thus prevent any further entering of numbers. The phone would ring and, assuming the "pick-up" key didn't lock up on answering, I could receive calls. Dialing out was difficult. Sending text messages was impossible. Sometimes the phone would lock up and go dead. Eventually the problem got so bad that I took it to the manufacturer to have it fixed. I brought the phone to the Nokia repair site for the first time on Thursday, February 12, 2004. They evaluated it, confirmed it had not been tampered with and that the warranty was still valid, and indicated that it was probably a software problem. I picked it up the following day, February 13 around 5 or 6 pm, and they indicated that indeed, it probably had been a software problem. Aside from malfunctioning voicemail (which may have been a handset problem or a service problem), the phone worked fine--for about four hours. At about 9 or 10 pm that night, it just went dead. It couldn't even be turned on. In that intervening four hours I did not receive or make a single call. I sent one text message. I went back to the repair center the following day (February 14). Again they confirmed that phone had not been tampered with and that the warranty was still valid. I called the day after that (February 15) and they said they had not yet been able to fix it and that the software problem was more severe than they anticipated. They were still working on it and I should call back in two days (February 17). I did so. Upon calling back on February 17, Nokia changed their story and claimed that I damaged it with water and the warranty is no longer valid. Nokia now has the phone working except the ringer. Call me silly, but a ringer is a rather important part of a phone; at least to me anyway. That's unacceptable. I have three points. First, let me make this very clear, in the four hours between when I picked it up and it died, I did not put it in, near or around any water. I did not damage the phone in any way. Secondly, when I dropped it off they confirmed it had not been tampered with and that the warranty was still valid. I have the supervisor's signature to that effect on the service job sheet. This confirmation that it had not been tampered with and that the warranty was still valid happened not once, but both times I dropped it off. Third, if it was water damage, why did they not say so when I called February 15 to check on it? Why did they say they were still trying to resolve a "software" issue? (It sure sounds like they made some error in the repair process and are trying to blame it on me.) The phone was not frequently used, but when it was, it was extremely important to me. I spoke to two people at the Nokia repair facility, twice each, in an attempt to resolve this. To drop-off and pick-up the phone, I have personally been to the repair facility four times. I indicated that I just need a phone that works. They could fix the original phone or provide me with a new one. Either solution was OK with me. They refused both options. I tried the retailer on two occasions. Neither the retailer nor I were able to get a satisfactory answer from Nokia. Nokia still owes me $359.15. I strongly advise against purchasing any Nokia product. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 359.15Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7818 Panasonic DuraMax EB-TX220 90408 2004/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life multi band operation ruggedness logical operation hi tech for 2001 few bells whistles could be smaller Hardly state of the art anymore, but it works great is well-nigh bullet-proof, and works almost everywhere! The battery will last a week with a single charge and average usage (but watch out for using it for prolonged periods when roaming in an analog area). It connects with enough networks to be usable almost anywhere. The controls and menus are well thought-out without the complexity and key multiplexing common to many mini phones (pun intended). It's my gold standard. I still have it because I have yet to find a phone which is functionally superior in any meaningful respect. I've also owned phones from Nokia and Sony, and traded in an Erikson for the Duramax. 90407 2003/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 tough casestable signals battery gets pretty warm after talking for extended periods I have had this phone for over a year now and have no issues with it. It has been dropped several times, stepped on, and used in places I never would have thought I would get a signal. Limited in the ringtone and graphics area but if you are looking for flash this is not the phone for you. Rubberized exterior is easy to hold onto. 90406 2000/7/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life durable inexpensive this list goes on small buttons The Bottom LineDon't spend more money for quality. Panasonic is right on target with this phone. Full Review I'm very hard on phones, I ve had four in the last 2 years. And the previous 3 all broke, one broke twice. This phone is inexpensive, almost impossible to break, it will store more than one phone number per person in the address book. So you done need four different entries per person. It will allow you to set different rings per user. Just for fun I didn't charge the battery to see how long it would last and I was wondering if it would ever run out. It vibrates. You have your choice of display colors (Amber, or Green). The phone is very inexpensive for what you get. When I first saw the phone I was like "No way, Panasonic doesn't make phones it must be cheaply made." I was very wrong. All my friends have phones and spent a ridiculous amount for them. My phone makes theirs look cheap and I spent about $80 less. Best phone I've see yet, and Ha Ha I'm not broke. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 90405 2000/8/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 almost unbreakable rubberized grip just the right size excellent lcd display speakerphone doesn t turn up loud enoughgets garbled The Bottom LineWould use it forever if I could. Full Review I bought this phone in May of 2001 through AT&T and am sorry to say I have to retire it this month (Aug. 2004) because of a company policy on which carrier I can use. I bought because a Verizon cellphone tower installer said it is the only phone he hasn't been able to break. I use it daily and for business travel. It has been dropped more times than I can count. I have forgotten my charger during a week long trip and by being careful about my talk time it didn't run out of juice - it was on standby the whole week and only off on the plane. It has a 1400mAh Lithium Ion battery that came with it - that's as much power as the battery in my laptop. It is not feature laden, but sufficient for my needs - I prefer my separate PDA. I only experienced one glitch with it the entire time I've had it and that was after removing the battery temporarily, it starting running out of power quickly. I thought the battery was failing. I ran it down all the way, took it out again to make sure the case looked okay, put it back in, charged it up and haven't had another problem. The keys are now starting to stick just a little, but still work fine. I only wish they hadn't discontinued it. Someone ought to build an updated model to do what this well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90404 2000/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sound clarity display light battery life phone book the way it stores entries durability speakerphone not loud enough to be used outdoors or in a car The Bottom LineA great phone, I would buy again, but do not buy it for the speakerphone feature. Full Review I would like to add to the reviews in this section, saying that I am generally in agreement with the opinions presented on the phone thus far. I purchased this phone 1 month ago and have used it in Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas, and have found the sound quality and battery life to be impressive. Also the phone book is nice as it stores all of a contact's numbers under one record. (I do not use the speed dial feature, so please refer to other opinions posted here on that) The phone can be programmed to ring differently for any contact you wish, which is another neat feature. It switches to vibrate silent mode effortlessly by pressing and holding the # key, unlike my old Nokia 6160, which was a big production to change to silent and which had no vibrate feature. I, like some of the others in this section also like this phone because it is not too small, and yet is light enough to carry around in my pocket. The factory car charger has an input on the side for the earpiece, so you can have both plugged in at a time, unlike on some other phones. The charging system for the battery seems very smart as well- a red light goes on at the top of the phone as the phone is charging and shuts off when the phone is charged. I imagine this is good for the battery, so as not to overcharge it. Now the news that is not so good - I was in the market for a new phone and purchased this because I wanted the speakerphone feature. I am disappointed that the speakerphone is not loud enough to be heard or used in a car or outdoors on the street. It works fine inside on my desk, but the sound quality is such that I have received complaints from my friends.... "where are you calling from - hell?", "do you have me on speakerphone? I can't hear you" The speakerphone feature is good only to use on people who call you and ramble on - you can just turn it on and leave it on your desk and mutter some reply every once in awhile. Generally I would recommend this phone, but do not buy it for the speakerphone feature - if that is important to you, get a NEXTEL or Sprint Sanyo phone - I have heard them and the speakerphone can actually be used. Were it not for the speakerphone disappointment, I would give this phone 5 stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90403 2000/3/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 extremely durable military specs accessoriesparts are hard to come by The Bottom LineBuy it. You won't be disappointed. Built like a tank. Full Review I have used this phone for a year now. When I first bought it last year, it was even more obscure than it is now (3/02). I picked it because I wanted something that was going to be very durable. Something just shy of being built like a tank. I read alot of reviews and found the DuraMax to be built with military specs in mind. I thought "this IS the phone for me!" Good thing too! My dog has gotten to it a number of times now and has chewed on it. He has chewed the antenna so that it didn't resemble an antenna anymore. Even after that, the phone still worked and I was able to send and receive calls just fine. I don't know if the chewing is "selective" because the only real damage sustained to the phone was the antenna and the part on the phone that the antenna screws into. However, trying to find replacement antennas is a pain! It costs somewhere on the order of $3.00 for the part, but Panasonic wants to charge an outrageous amount for shipping. Something like $6.00! It's been over 6 months now and I can't remember the exact shipping costs, but I remember being shocked. Like they couldn't put a $0.34 stamp on the envelope for a 1 oz. part?! The battery life is GREAT! I can sometimes go all week without having to recharge it. But of course, your mileage may vary depending on how long you chat. Buttons are easy to push, but then again, I have small fingers. Menus are fairly intuitive. Phonebook is easy to use. Volume is nice and loud. Speakerphone option is fairly worthless. It isn't loud enough to make a difference. Have to hold the cell up to your ear anyway. Overall, I'm very impressed. It is not a wimpy phone and can hold its own very well...even against being chewed on! :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90402 2000/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size built in vibrate function intuitive memory approach dual illumination great battery life display most definitely not for the visually challenged no internet browser The Bottom LineNICE PHONE!! Full Review I've had this phone for 1 month now an have to say that I am VERY impressed with the features of this phone! First, when programming the phone I was able to enter in multiple numbers for one name. This is a major advantage for me since I may have a persons home number, work number, and cell number. These entries can be placed under the name of the person instead of making multiple entries. Second, the battery life. The battery on this phone provides you with several days of life. I work in a building that has really crappy reception, and the old phone I had (an Ericsson) used to run from a full charge to totally empty in a little over 3 hours. This phone can go all day in this hostile environment without the battery indicator not even moving. I have noticed that when the battery indicator moves off of 100%, the life seems to diminish quickly. This is the BEST phone I have ever seen with respect to battery life. Third, the size. The phone is a nice size. I ordered the phone online from AT&T and didn't know that to expect. Since I'm a big guy, I wanted a phone a little bigger than my Ericsson. When it arrived it was smaller, but was laid out better than the Ericsson. Now, I've gotten used to this phone and like the size. The keys are the hard plastic type that appear to be more durable than rubber keys. I have mixed emotions about them, but appear to function well, and are very well placed. Fourth, the casing. The case of this phone is rubberized, and can take a little beating and keeps on ticking. I purchased the belt clip and it comes with a cradle that holds the unit at the bottom comfortably. I RECOMMEND getting the belt clip for everyone getting this phone. Overall I think this phone will provide me with excellent value, and durability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 94 90401 2000/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 shock resistant rugged rubberized grip water resistant recessed screen buttons some reception drops small quirky phonebook navigation hard buttons The Bottom LineI recommend it for anyone, especially someone who is hard on their phones! If you find a deal on a used one, don't pass it up! Full Review Upon having the need to replace my defunct NOKIA 6100 series phone (due to the fact that after a year the battery had very little life left), I dropped into my local AT&T wireless store here in south Florida. They had a display with the PANASONIC DURAMAX phone in a photo with a fly fishing rod and reel. Oddly enough, I was into a fly fishing habit at the time, so it definitely caught my eye. My fiance said "It must be tough enough for you since it's called 'DURAMAX' and is water resistant." This tells you how I tend to treat my phones (albeit unintentionally). I purchased the phone for I believe $99 (it was a year and a half ago, so I'm pretty fuzzy on that detail). Over that amount of time, I've never really missed that NOKIA. I've dropped this phone numerous times, gotten it wet, left it to bake in the car in the hot south Florida sun, etc., but that's not the half of it until the other night when I went fishing with some friends of mine. I managed to fall backwards into the water between the boat and the dock with my phone in my pocket (and a fish filet and filet knife in my hands, but we won't get into that here). I quickly scrambled out of the cold (for south Florida standards) water and took everything out of my pockets including my cell phone. My buddy hosed it down to get the salt off and then I took the battery out to let it dry. I didn't want to touch it til the morning to check it out. In the am when I did replace the battery I powered it on and the screen didn't come up. I set it out to dry some more and put it on the charger to see if the heat produced would help it to dry out inside...not without checking to see that it didn't short out first. Well, a couple of hours later I powered it back on again and it worked fine! The only effect it seemed to have for the long term is that the ring is now quieter than it used to be (probably because of the speaker cone being damaged from the water), but I certainly can't complain! The one real complaint I do have (and I feel guilty for saying it after what I've put it through, especially now!) is that when you are in the phonebook and call someone and they are not at home, you can't just bounce back where you were in the phonebook. You have to navigate back in again with the alpha keys. But hey, I'll live with that! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90400 2000/4/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light easy to use lots lots of features program handsome small ringtones i want programmable ring tones The Bottom LineRead the Review! Full Review Duramax by Panasonic is a great little cellphone, using the word little losely ofcourse, by today's standards this one is much bigger than sone of those tiny Nokias but way smaller than the Nextel or the older Qualcomms. This phone has it all, everything I can imagine anyone would like in a Cellular phone. The sound quality is of course dependent on your carrier, though I have experience some problems with people unable to hear me and vice versa I attribute those issues with AT&T. I strong signal places placing a call a land line or a cell phone which is also in a strong signal, this phone sounds like a 2.4 GHz cordless without the weight nor the size. Mine came with a handsfree earpiece with a microphone, though I would have preferred a headset, it works fine and it is free! I complain about the ringtones, but it does have built in a couple of musical tone and also has the ability to vibrate and ring at the same time. It would have been nice to have been able to program our own ring tones like the Nokias. Oh well. It features an alarm, yes it will wake you up in the morning as well. You can program different ring tones for different callers. The call history feature is marvelous, it will log the last ten phone calls you received, didn't answer and called. The EBTX220 also has a few extras like dual illumination (amber/green), a title screen, security locks. The Lithium ION LI-ion is excellent, when fully charged I get 3 days (not hours) standby and a full days work of talk time. Excellent buy for $149, but I think this is an incentive phone, the phone they would give you after activation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90399 2000/11/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable great phone speaker phone absolutely nothing The Bottom LineAbsolutely amazingly stunning! Full Review Once again, let me introduce myself. I am the Store Manager of a local Cell Phone company and I really hope my opinion on this product helps you make a decision. When the Panasonic DuraMax first came out, I got to field test it. One word came to mind....AWESOME!!!! I love this phone and I'll tell you why.... First of all, let me clear one thing up....the buttons are not too small. If the buttons are too small, WHY DID YOU BUY IT????? Anyway, sorry about that. It is a great phone because you can drop the dang thing off a house and it will not break. It is designed to withstand 50 pounds of pressure and believe me, I have tried it!! Also, the speaker phone is great. Have you ever been traveling down the road in your car and you hate talking on those hands-free kits?? Well, if you have then you know how bad some of those things are. Well, turn down the radio and turn on the speaker phone and sat the phone in the seat or in a cradle and talk away with absolute safety. The option to be able to change the back light from that stereotypical green to the Amber is magnificent! Sure, there may not be any new ringtones on this one but WHO CARES! If you want ringtones, buy yourself a Nokia 5165 with personal ringtones then you can BUILD A BRIDGE AND GET OVER IT!! Bottom line folks, if you want a phone that will last you a very long time, get the Panasonic DuraMax and you will love it. Thank you for your time and I hope that this helps! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90398 2000/6/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable casing light weight easy to usemost of all reception perhaps the tiny keys but not a real issue for me The Bottom LineIf you need a rugged tri-mode phone, the EB-TX220 is hard to beat especially at $70. A premium phone at a non-premium price. Full Review My little Nokia was about 2 years old and ready for user-assisted suicide. I called up AT&T wireless and was offered the Duramax phone for $120 and a $50 credit to my account on top of that. The only catch was renewing my service for a year; big deal! After going to the local AT&T wireless store and seeing how little the phone was I decided that I had to have it. The guy at the local store couldn't match the toll free number price and he suggested taking advantage of the good price from the customer service number. The options on the phone are nice such as being able to make multiple entries under a person's name in the electronic phone book. It includes a place for work, home, mobile and office numbers as well as an email address slot. It has the ability to vibrate without a vibrating battery although it probably devours the battery while in that mode. It can also do 2 way text messaging and email. I seriously doubt I'll ever use those features since my wife's phone doesn't support that feature and none of my friend's phones do either. The best part of this phone is the reception with it's little rubber antenna that appears to be very stout. The reception for AT&T wireless has always sucked at my house but this phone's reception is so good that I can actually use the phone at my house. That's a real plus when I've got the land line tied up with my computer. It also has a built in "speaker phone" feature that basically makes the earpiece so loud and the mic so sensitive that the phone can lay on a surface near you (about a foot away)and function perfectly well. What I like is the ability to use it like a Star Trek communicator when one doesn't hold it up to the ear but simply holds it in the hand and talks to it rather than into it. Other people may think you're crazy but who cares; it's very cool. And believe it or not, the phone is made in Japan instead of Outer Mongolia or China, whatever. I like the little touches like the changeable color of the LCD display background from green to amber. The Promax version of this phone doesn't have the rubber case but it's also smaller, lighter and about $30 less. Since I tend to be destructive to cellular phones, the Duramax rubber case was a must for me. If the phone starts to suck after a while, I'll come back here and state why. But for now I recommend the phone. But if you're an AT&T customer be sure to call their customer service number 800-888-7600 and ask for this phone at this price. All they can do is say "no" but probably won't since there is likely much competition in your market for your cellular dollar. And now, it's time to help my old Nokia croak. All I need is to throw it against the brick wall of my house. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 90397 2001/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good contact functionality extremely rugged terrible keys no extra ringtones gets warm during use The Bottom LineGet this phone, especially for work use! Multiple contact numbers are convenient and this phone is durable, maybe more than a Timex. Messaging feature is nice, too. Full Review I've owned a lot of phones over the past 10 years, and of course, they get better and better over time. I thought that the Nokia 6160 was the best phone yet, until one of my co-workers came in with the DuraMax. Once he told me about it shock-absorption features, I was intrigued... The problem I've had with every Nokia phone that I've owned (6190, 6160, 8190) is that if I drop the phone *once* from maybe about 3 or 4 feet, the display breaks! Sure, I have insurance, but it's a relative inconvenience to have to drive to the local PacBell or AT&T Wireless office to have the phone replaced. That's one area where the DuraMax really shines! I've dropped this phone several times, and once even threw it against the wall at work. Nothing broke, and in fact, the case on my phone still isn't scratched! I leave it in my pocket all day with my keys, and the screen also is unscathed! The next feature I appreciate in this phone is the contacts function. With the Nokia phones (and many others), you can save a person's name and phone number. The DuraMax takes it one step further by allowing you to enter a person's work, home, cell, and pager numbers, as well as their email address! This is the feature I've been looking for for a long, long time in a package that's small, light, and aethestically pleasing. You can also change the display color between green and amber. I like the green and my roommate likes the amber. This is convenient because we'd get our phones mixed up otherwise. You can't change the message on the display like you can on the Nokia 6190 or 8190 phones, which is a bit of a bummer. Text messaging with the phone is a real breeze. I almost always use the Word or word function, which minimizes the amount of keys you have to press in order to type a word. For example, let's say you want to send a message that says "Hello". With the older phones, I remember that you'd hit 4 twice to get "H". Then you'd have to hit the Shift key to go to lowercase. Then you'd hit 3 twice, 5 three times, either wait or hit the right arrow (because you have 2 l's next to each other), then hit 6 three times. With the DuraMax, you simply type 4 3 5 5 6. The most common word will pop up first. If it's not the right word, just hit the down arrow to go to the next common word that matches these key presses. I've *never* had to hit the down arrow more than once! The "Word" function results in "Hello", and using the "word" function results in "hello". I absolutely love this feature! My next favorite thing... the price! I traded in my Nokia 6160 for this phone, and only had to pay $39.95 for the upgrade! I do have a few complaints about this phone, however. First of all, I wish the keys were rubberized like the Nokia phones. The DuraMax has buttons that are clear, slick, and hard. When I'm dialing the phone, I don't have a very good sense of where the keys are. My next point, though not very critical, is the inability to load new ringtones. A ton of websites are coming up that offer free ringtones, and you'll notice that they only support Nokia and Motorola. I don't understand why I can't have the same kind of fun... it's just not fair. =) The DuraMax also has multiple alarms, which is really nice. I like the fact that I can set alarms for different times of the day, and also have customized messages. You can even make the alarm occur daily, if needed. So why is this feature in the complaints section? If you want to set a one-time alarm, you have to explicitly set the date. It would be nice if the date automatically defaults to today, but instead it defaults to the last alarm date. For example, if you set a doctor's appointment for 8/1/2001, and now you want to set an alarm for lunch today with a friend, which is 9/9/2001, you have to key in the date! I really hate this because I don't always remember what the date is, I just know that I have to do something TODAY. When I first got the phone I didn't pay attention to the date and actually missed an appointment... oops! So now I use the daily alarm because it defaults the date to today each time. =) The last gripe is about battery life, and the battery indicator. Maybe there's a small bug in the firmware, but the battery indicator shows 100% most of the time, then all of a sudden it drops to 25%. Once this happens, you're in trouble, because I guarantee that in the middle of a phone call or two later, you'll get the Low Battery beep... and this beep is really annoying because it's constantly going. And it's even more annoying because once you get the beep, the phone dies about 45 seconds later. What kind of Low Battery warning is that??? With the Nokia phones, you would get multiple levels of warnings, and at least have some time to chat still. The Panasonic phone just goes from full, to almost empty, to dead without much advance notice. I noticed that the batter indicator refreshes more accurately when you power cycle the phone, but I never turn my phone off! My final gripe applies to all phones offered under the AT&T service... they get hot!!! If you have a conversation longer than 10 minutes, the earpiece gets hot (ok, maybe just very, very warm), and this gives me a headache. I hate that, but you just can't beat the AT&T service. So all in all, I think this is still a fabulous phone. I love the look, the durability, the contacts list, and the other features. I only wish I could have new ringtones (there aren't many built in, and most are lame) and a better battery indicator. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.95 90396 2002/8/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life solid keys reception durability limited accessories speakerphone The Bottom LineA solid performer. If you choose this phone because it's one of the ones that fits your needs and wants, you won't be disappointed. Full Review When my wife and I signed up for a family share plan with AT&T, we were presented with an array of phones to choose from. We chose to buy two DuraMax phones for because it met a combination of features we were looking for: sturdy and durable, vibracall, good reception, and predictive text function when e-mailing. It's not a long list. What's Good There is one thing the AT&T salesman promoted about the Panasonic phones - the reception. He had the entry level Panasonic himself, and said that the DuraMax has better reception than any other phone they sell. He says his customers agree, and now after 4 months of use, so do I. I get great reception in places where my colleagues start hearing static or loose reception altogether (e.g. my building's stairwell, in the middle of a concrete parking garage, elevator). The battery life... the battery life is amazing. I'm a casual user at about 250 - 300 minutes a month, I keep my phone on 24 hours a day, an the vibrating call alert is always enabled, but I only need to charge my phone about 4 times a month. So, once a week I plug it in for 3 1/2 hours and it's ready to go again at full charge. I think the spec on it says it has 4 hours of talk time from full charge and a 16 day standby time (assuming you don't use it at all). With my casual use, the longest it lasted on one charge was just shy of 9 days. The durability factor was important because our 11 months old daughter can get to almost anything she sees. So far, she has dropped, chewed, licked, sat on, and thrown our phones. With the rubberized exterior and hard inner shell, you'd swear we just bought them today. Also, my wife can stuff it in the diaper bag where there is already a very tight fit and not have to worry about cracking anything (the DuraMax can withstand 50 lbs. of pressure). The keys are solid, low profile hard plastic keys, which I prefer to the rubber keys on my old Nokia. The menu gets a little getting use to, but after about a day of fidgeting around with it, I find it intuitive and very easy to use. I prefer the menu style, with its two soft keys, to the menu on my previous Nokia. I won't go into the entire feature list, as most are basic to all cell phones. One design feature I really like is how Panasonic has structured the Phonebook. Say for example you have a close friend named John you can contact at home, work, cell, etc. Normally you would have several entries in you phonebook that list something like this: John's Home, John's Work, John's Cell. Each entry would have its own number. In the Panasonic's phonebook however, there would only be one entry for John with all the different numbers below and their designation, such as work, home, cell, etc. When you create an entry into the phonebook you have the following options to enter information into: first name, last name, work, home, cell, other, ring tone (you can specify which ring tone to use when that person calls you), e-mail address, and position in the phonebook (numbers 1 through 100). When you choose a position, there is a map that tells you which numbered positions in the phonebook are available. You can have the phonebook ordered either by first name, last name, or position in the phonebook. If you phonebook is large, you can use the search function to find an entry. Another handy feature is the T9 predictive word system. It works very well on this phone. Without it, I doubt I would use the e-mail functionality at all. Speaking of e-mail, that is the only web related feature this phone has. My wife and I bought this phone solely for voice communication. We don't have any use for any of the fancy web and non-web related features phones have these days. Web use and a snazzy colorful screen is not what this phone was designed for. For what the phone does do, it does well. Size wise, this phone is smaller than the Nokia 6200 series phones but bigger than the Nokia 8200 phones and the Motorola t60 phone. We looked at both the smaller Nokia and Motorola, but decided that they didn't offer anything for us that was worth the extra money. The Panasonic fits nicely into my pocket and is not heavy by any means. If you want a smaller Panasonic with comparable feature and reception, try the Allure. It's one of the thinnest phones on the market and has a bigger screen. Although it does have a smaller battery which equals less battery time (relative to the DuraMax that is). The Bad The list here is not as long as the good above. One gripe most people have about this phone is the speakerphone. I agree, it's almost unusable. However, unless you absolutely have to have a good speakerphone (which relegates you to very few models), it really doesn't matter. The accessory list is short and bare bones. Only Panasonic accessories will work with it. For a user like myself though, it's a moot point. I have a car charger, travel charger, and a hands-free headset, and that's all I need or want in terms of accessories. There is a 'plug' for the connection port where the hands-free and charger connect to. When not in use there is a plastic plug that you can insert into the port to protect it. What I find annoying is that it is not hinged. When you use the port, you plug comes off entirely and you must put it down somewhere. Overall Overall, I couldn't be more satisfied with this phone. I can see myself keeping it for a few years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90395 2000/1/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek handsome looks dual back lighting nicely rubberized some menu features are quirky The Bottom LineI like the phone because of it's looks and feel and creature-comforts. Menu system is archaic, but no big deal. Full Review Background I've owned various cell-phones in the past starting with a Nokia analog (I forget the model number), then a Nokia 5188 Digital, A Sanyo SCP5000, and then finally, this Panasonic EB-TX220. When I was deciding which digital cell-phone to buy, the "perfect phone" I had in mind had to be functional and good-looking. I had other phones in mind, as well: Nokia 3360 and the Nokia 8260. It was a difficult choice. I've owned two Nokia's in the past and was very pleased with them. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and bought the Sanyo solely for "look factor". I wasn't going to make the same mistake again and looked into features this time as well. The Nitty-Gritty "It looks so good you took it to bed?!" No. Well, yes. I'll leave that one for another review. =) Anyway, I purchased the Panasonic because of it's features and appearance. I'll tell you that I'm a sucker for good looks and one of the main things that drew me to this phone was its ability to switch the backlight between orange and green. Wow. Sweet. I've never seen that option on a phone before. Also, the rubbery exterior and nice font on the buttons is a plus. "Can it do my laundry, too?!" The Panasonic EB-TX220 comes with some nifty features: a hands-free mode (activated in-call by holding the # button), SMS text-messaging, built-in vibration and the ability to store a Work Number, Home Number, Cell Number, and an "Other" Number under one name. "Sounds great. But what's the catch?" Actually, there are a few: Your friend's sore eardrum The Speaker phone is pretty much unusable. I've only tried to use it once, but since you have to hold down the # button for 1 second, you have to warn the person on the other end to move their ear away from the phone before you activate it. Needless to say, I felt like a big jerk the first time I used it; I got an ear-full (literally) from my girlfriend. You can also select the Speaker Phone in-call by pressing menu then selecting SpeakerPhone. Maybe I shoulda done that. I know where you live... Although the multi-number-per-name option is nice, it's very rare that I add more than 2 numbers to a given name. I'd need to know someone pretty darn well to have all that info about them and if I know them so well, I probably would have that stuff memorized. There's a maximum of 100 Names with 4 numbers each that can be stored in memory. I'd much rather have 400 Names with 1 number each (not that I would ever KNOW that many people in my life, but it would make me feel better). Man, I hate algebra Speaking of the Phonebook features, there is the standard speed-dial that all cell-phones have these days. However, the speed-dial on the Panasonic is kinda wonky. I'm used to the ol' Nokia style of Selecting the keypad number you want as the speed-dial, then selecting the Name that you want associated with that button. I wish it were that easy. On the Panasonic, every new name you enter into the phonebook is saved chronologically within the 100 memory slots. If you wish to have one of them as a speed-dial, the number HAS to reside in slots 1-9. You can't just pick the name and number. It's a pain because if your loved-one's number is in, say, slot 46 and you wanted his/her speed dial as "1", you have to COPY whatever number is in slot 1, assign it a different slot, delete it, then assign your loved-one's number in slot 1. Sound complicated? It is. And it didn't have to be that way. *Sigh* It's like playing Musical Names And while we're still on the Phonebook tip, a smaller quirk is to be mentioned. If I'm trying to quickly call my friend "Chris" on a Nokia phone, all I have to do is go to the phonebook, and press numberpad 2 a couple of times until it shows me all the names that start with "C". The Panasonic doesn't do this. It only bounces to the first name of the first letter on the keypad button that you press. So, say you want to phone "Vincent". You could only jump to "Tony", as keypad 8's first letter is "T". You'd have to manually scroll down with the directional pad. Weak. "Gee. It sounds like you hate the phone." No. I really dig it. Those few character flaws aside, the phone is rock-solid physically and in terms of operation. Reception in typically bad areas is quite good. The battery has the BEST life of all the phones I've owned and I could go 5-6 days without recharging (if I don't talk too much on it). The SMS text messaging is done well and the T9 Text input makes writing messages fast and easy (why didn't they implement that on the phonebook?). It's very light-weight for its size and it doesn't make you look like you're talking into your palm (which is one of the reasons I didn't pick any of the Nokia's... they're TOO small). It's got a good shape that actually looks like a phone. The screen is smaller than most, but regular text is easy to read and when dialling, the numbers are displayed in a much larger font. I can even call a taxi while totally inebriated-- that reminds me, is there a review section for Beck's beer? Also, the ability to turn vibration on and off independently of the tone setting is cool. Assignment of different ring tones for particular numbers is also a nice touch. So there. I don't hate it. =) Summary Pro's -light-weight -fits in your hand nicely -looks good (makes you look like a spy) -dual backlighting -fantastic operation (battery and reception) -robust design and manufacturing Con's -unintuitive text menu (although you get used to it) -phonebook features are hard to get your head around -Speakerphone "Hotkey" is useless (made my girlfriend "Hot-tempered") Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 104 90394 2001/8/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 rubberised coating extended battery life compared to tx210 menu isin t easy like nokia s The Bottom LineDURAMAX stands out as a durable and resistant wireless phone. Great battery life, and nice sure-grip coating. Full Review Exactly! A GIJOE action figure with a Kungfu grip. Well lets say that this phone would serve GIJOE very well. I haven't written a phone review in some time, mainly because I've been busy, and because there hasn't been any new additions to Epinions, that have interested me to write about. But when I saw the addition of the Panasonic DURAMAX EB-TX220 I just had to write a review. A quick review on myself, I work as a Customer Service Consultant for Rogers AT&T Wireless, and have been doing this for close to 2 years now, so I believe my opinions on cell phones are pretty good. Earlier this year, in January, Panasonic came out with the release of the TX210. Both my brother and sister had cancelled their accounts with Telus, due to their great nature of Customer service, and also their lack to give either my brother or sister a subsidy towards a newer phone, after 6 years of continuous service with a analog phone. So they both cancelled their service, and moved over to Rogers AT&T Wireless. My sister was the first to get the TX210, because that was the only Panasonic phone released at the time, But only a few weeks later the TX220 was released. Since I work for the cellular company, I can easily change ESN's around, and so I did this with my brothers phone for a good month, to get the feel of this phone. First off, I have to say I LOVE the rubberised coating on this phone. Its kinda a sure-grip coating they've placed over the phone. Regardless of how careful you are with your phone, ONE day, you will drop the phone, and with this coating you will be happy your phone has it! With this coating the phone is also Dust and Shock Resistant. Now I'm not saying you should test this out by throwing your phone off a 40 floor building, and see if it survives when it smacks against the sidewalk, but I guess with the accidental drop, the phone will survive. Sure, it does make the phone a little thicker than the TX210, but compare to my Nokia 6161, its almost a little smaller. This phone is PACKED with features. Its amazing how much they fit into this small sucker. Below a list of its features: Speaker Phone: this phone comes with a speaker phone feature, and by simply holding down the "#" button, it will activate. This is great if you're in the car, or having a group conference. Testing this feature out worked pretty good, and the other party on the other side, didn't have much of a problem hearing me, even when driving in a car. Messaging: the TX220 is a fully functional messaging phone. It allows 2way SMS Messaging, and also has support of T-9 Text entry. This is suppose to make SMS much easier, but quite frankly, being use to my Nokia without T-9, I find turning this feature off, and just typing out the full message much faster. Battery: is TOTALLY SWEEEEEET!! The price difference between the 210 and 220 totally is worth it when you compare the battery alone. The battery on this phone is the extended lithium ion battery, which gives you up to 240 min of talk time, and close to 400 hours of standby time. The TX210 only gives 120min talk time, and 200hr standby time. Keep in mind, the battery on the 220 is NOT compatible with the 210. The battery is much thicker, and won't fit on it properly. Network: The TX220 is a Dual Band/Dual mode phone. It is designed to run on a 800 MHz analog, 800 MHz TDMA and 1900 MHz TDMA. Backlight: Kinda kewl feature, more for personalization, but you can change the background color on your LCD display from either orange, or green, another kewl, niffy feature. Phone Book: I really liked the phone book feature on this phone. It only holds up to 100 NAMES. BUT for each name, you can add up to four listing. IE: If you know someone who has a Home line, Cell Phone, Work Line, Email address, you can add all four, and its listed under one name. Pretty niffy feature. Unlike the Nokia phones, the Panasonic phones do not allow you to download ring tones, or graphics to your phone. This wasn't a real problem for me, because I never had this option on my phone. The phone has internal vibration, which is a great feature, and I REALLY liked having this. My Nokia phone I have now, doesn't have built-in vibration, but you can buy a seperate battery that vibrates. This is a great feature to have, specially when you're in a meeting (not me), or are at the movie theatres. The antenna also on the phone is suppose to be much better. its better built on the phone, and from the signal strength I get on the 220 compare to the 210, I noticed the 220 has MUCH better reception, specially in fringe areas. In the end, I was in total love with the phone, but my brother wanted his new toy back. The DURAMAX has me on the edge of changing over, but the main pressure points was the menu, I found it hard to get use to, and text messaging was slower for me on the phone. Also the absence of games, and a calender, and calulator was also a downer. Trust me those games are a time passer when you're on the throne, and I've found the calender, VERY helpful (almost like a very small palm pilot). But in the case of these missing options (you can't have everything), I would still highly recommend this phone, specially if you're a butterfingers. And if you're a Jabber-jaw, then the battery will suite you fine... UPDATE: I wanted to add that out of the hundred of calls I take, I haven't yet to receive one person who has called to complain about this phone. And my brother, who WOULD complain to me, if he did have a problem, hasn't complained one bit. For my Nokia 6161i Phone Review, check here: http://rendezvous2.epinions.com/elec-review-3A5D-2717A1C-39DF69E4-prod2 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 116 90393 2000/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 strong durable no advanced features speakerphone unusable chicklet keys form factor uncomfortable for long use The Bottom LineDo not buy this if you are more than a casual mobile phone user. Definitely do not buy it for the speakerphone. Full Review Awhile back I made the decision to change wireless providers to AT&T Wireless, a mistake I recently remedied. One of the first things I found with them was that their choice of phones for their TDMA network is rather suspect. In fact, they have no phones currently for their TDMA network that are suitable for demanding personal use or for business use. I purchased the Duramax because I had used the Motorola Timeport 270c with Qwest and loved its speakerphone, and its form factor, weight distribution, and ergonomics. I was hoping the Duramax could at least emulate the speakerphone quality, but I was to be disappointed. I realize that my statements will be unpopular here, because this phone appears to be highly rated, but if you have ever used a high quality phone with a top-notch speakerphone like the Timeport 270c or the i90c which I now use, you will be forced to admit that the DuraMax is not a serious phone. It's not even close to those others. I did make several attempts to use the speakerphone which would literally result in me screaming at the phone in an attempt for the people on the other end to hear me. In all fairness, much of this may have been due to the horrible AT&T Wireless network, with its static and dropped words (and even calls), but I will never know. In addition, activating the speakerphone requires fighting through menus or else holding down the # key for several seconds once a call is in progress. Not something that most people on the other end will enjoy. Especially considering once you do enable it, they will never hear another word you say. Personally, I found the Duramax to be a poor compromise in terms of form factor and usability. The phone is large enough to require a belt holster to carry it comfortably, yet the keys are too small and are basically chicklets. My fingers are not tiny and I found the keys inadequate. The phone is not one that I would compare to the aforementioned Motorolas in terms of ergonomics for holding to your ear for extended periods of time either. Another mystery is why Panasonic could not make a decent headphone jack connector. As it is, if you plug in the travel charger, you cannot also plug in the earphone. You can do so with the vehicle charger. However, my vehicle charger quickly stopped working at all for some unknown reason. Since the speakerphone is so bad, using the earphone is the only way to not have to hang onto the phone throughout the conversation, but the awkward connector setup means no charging while using the earphone at your desk or other indoor location. Very, very inconvenient indeed. Bottom line is that this phone was not designed by or for business users. The speakerphone function may as well not exist, the phone ergonomics are not great, wireless web functions non-existent, and charger/earphone connector downright silly in light of the availability of a standard headphone jack on most decent phones these days. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $130 90392 2002/3/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability small size gets warm when using no built in belt clip The Bottom LineThis phone confirms, once again, why I love Panasonic so much. As I said in a review on my cordless phone, they are great! Full Review **Don't try this at home!** While I was at work recently, I was throwing some trash into the huge compactor we have. After about 10 minutes, I realized that my cell phone was missing. As I looked all over the store for it, I figured that the only possible place it could be was in the compactor. I was concerned because I knew that not only would I have to climb into the compactor & pry around inside it, but that the chances were very good that the phone was ruined. Knowing the compactor had been run 4-5 times since I had used it didn't help these thoughts. At the time, it was compacting at a rate of about 1000psi. I opened the gate and climbed inside. Using a claw hammer, I began ripping into the mangled mess inside. After about 10 minutes of digging through it, I saw my phone laying by my feet. As I picked it up, I couldn't believe what I saw...a cell phone that was in perfect condition. Although it was a bit dirty, nothing was wrong with it. To say I was amazed is an understatement. After cleaning it off, I made a call & found that it was working just fine. How it survived is beyond me. Another testament to it's durability is the fact that as of this writing, I've put 846 hours on it (that's hours, not minutes) & it's still going strong. The features of the phone are easy to navigate through and the address book gives you the ability to store a persons first & last name, up to 4 phone numbers, e-mail address & a distinctive ring for each entry. Depending on the service you have, you can send & receive test messages on the phone as well. Even though you can't download additional tones from the Internet, the phone does has 20 different ring tones you can select from & you can adjust the volume of them or turn them off and just use the vibrate mode. This is great for when I'm at work or in a meeting & don't want everyone hearing that I have a call coming in. It also has caller ID to see who is calling before you answer it or you don't have the phone with you & miss a call. It stores the last 10 incoming and missed calls, as well as the last 10 you've made. You can select a different tone to let you know when you have a voice mail message or a text message too. The clarity on this little gem has been great. The only time I've encountered any problems with it has been because of the service, not the phone itself. I love the rubberized coating that Panasonic put on the phone. I've seen people drop other phones and have the case break, not the DuraMax. This is like the Timex of cell phones.."it takes a licking and keeps on ticking" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90391 2002/10/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life perfect size for me at least reception rubberized coating for easy grip menu system can be improved The Bottom LineThe DuraMax is a very dependable phone that serves its purpose and then some. Full Review I've owned quite a few cell phones in my life. Just to give you an idea, I've owned a Motorola, Pioneer, Mitsubishi, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Sony, and even an Audiovox cell phone. I picked up the Panasonic DuraMax because one of my friends had good luck with it. He said that the battery life was really good. BATTERY: Well, after about a year's worth of use, I'd have to agree with him. This phone is, by far, the best in terms of battery life. On a full charge, I'm good to go for about 5-7 days (that's including talking about 20 to 30 minutes a day). Recharging takes about 2 to 3 hours with the supplied travel charger. TOUGH! I wondered why they named it the DuraMax... I've dropped this phone from a balcony, slammed the car door on it, dropped a suitcase on it, stepped on it, and even dropped it in a puddle (don't try this at home). The phone still works. Amazing. Surprisingly, my phone still looks pretty new. RECEPTION: The DuraMax's antenna is externally fixed, so it gets pretty good reception. I also have service through AT&T Wireless, which has a lot to do with it in the Portland-metro area. Some people in my office complain about not getting good reception, but I'm able to get 4 or even 5 full bars on a regular basis. People on the other end of my phone conversations usually can't tell whether I'm using a cell phone or a home phone. SPECS & INFO: For exact specifications, please visit: http://www.panasonic.com/PCSC/PTSC/duramax.htm ADDRESS BOOK: There's a pretty comprehensive addressbook feature on this phone. It's capable of storing 100 entries with 4 numbers in each entry. For example, you can store Dave Jone's home phone number, work phone number, mobile phone number, and his email address. You can also program 9 quick-dial numbers and assign them a number from 1 to 9. So, if you wanted to program Dave to be number 1, this will allow you to pull up his addressbook entry by pressing (holding down) the number 1 button. If you continue to hold the button, it will automatically call him. RING TONES: Although this phone has a lot of ring tones, it is not capable downloading them off the Internet. There are 20 set ring tones in all. There is also a built-in vibrating mode which comes in very handy when you don't want to disturb others. SMS: The DuraMax is capable of sending and receiving short messages. You can send messages to other AT&T mobile subscribers or you can send messages to other email addresses. The DuraMax is equipped with the T9 predictive text input function, but I don't use it because it's very annoying. DUAL BACKLIT DISPLAY: A cool feature, indeed. The other Panasonic phones now have more than 4 or 5 backlight colors. This one only has two: green and orange (amber). If you have it set to green, the phone will start flashing orange when you receive a call, and vice-versa if you have the display set to orange. BUILT-IN SPEAKERPHONE: Another nice feature of this phone is the built-in speakerphone. To activate it, you need to press and hold down the '#' button until you hear the volume of your call increase. To set it back to normal mode, you do the same. A DISLIKE: I love everything about this phone except the quirky menu system. I can live with it and it's not really that big of a problem but... For example, when you want to set up 3 alarms, you can press 5-2-2 to get to the alarm setting menu. Once you set one alarm time, it kicks you out to the main screen. You then have to go back to the alarm menu again. It's pretty frustrating when you have to turn off the alarms, as you'll have to navigate into the alarm menu three separate times in order to turn them all off. Another fault with this phone is that you cannot use the provided handsfree kit if you're charging the phone (or you can't charge the phone if you're using the handsfree kit). This is because both the handsfree kit and the charge adapter share the same slot located on the bottom of the phone. Not a huge problem, but for someone who's on the run and can't afford to wait for one or the other will be very frustrated. SUMMARY: Overall, the Panasonic DuraMax is, by far, the best cellular phone I've ever owned. It's perfect for the regular cell phone user who is bothered by the fact that they have to constantly charge it every night or for the people that tend to be a little more 'rough' with their phones than usual. The size is perfect for me, as it feels very comfortable in my hands. The display is clear and large enough for me to be able to read incoming messages without having to squint my eyes. If you can pick this phone up for under $100, it's definitely worth the money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7819 Panasonic Allure EB-TX310 (Silver) 90433 2004/2/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nice phonebook lightweight speakerphone background images bad ring tones hard to hear with background noise battery life The phone is on its "last leg" and I'm on the verge of trading it in. Still I wanted to voice my opinions about this phone. Overall it has treated me well. My major complaints would be about the battery life. The phone is maybe a year and a half old and I cant keep a charge for more than a day or two on standby. It lacks some really cool ring tones, the volume of the tones is hard to control. Some tones are way too soft and some way to loud. It is very hard to hear with background noise. What I love is the slim design, light weight, amount of information you can store for a contact. 90432 2004/4/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size memo feature is also very useful weight good choice of ring tones durable buttons are small hard to find accessories except on line or from at t This is a great phone! Its tiny, weight next to nothing and works just fine! The description listed above is inaccurate, though. It DOES have multiple ring tones, DOES have vibration ring and DOES have caller ID. If you're looking for a great phone that's small and you don't need a web enabled phone, this is the one for you. 90431 2004/2/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 headache giver great phone list This phone has great functions and its fairly easy to use but it does have 2 distinctive cons to it. 1. It's difficult to hear the person you're speaking with in loud environments and 2. This phone will give you all the headaches you need after a couple minutes of conversation....I have asked other users and yes, it appears to be the phone that gives you this effect...After 5 years of use I'd love to see how many people complain about TUMORS this baby dug out! Watch out PANASONIC!!!! 90430 2001/12/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 signal excellent sleek light multi color display feature packed small did i say low volume on both ringear speaker low The Bottom LineThis phone is great if your a Librarian or an Executive driving a mercedes with extra sound proofing. If not, try something else. Full Review I upgraded to the Allure on the At&t network with high hopes. This phone boasted an array of awsome features. And an array of awsome features it had. The problem being is that this phone executed none of them well. The speakerphone worked great if you were in a totally sileint library like enviornment. Try using it in a car or outdoors and its useless. Ring volume was pathetic, ear peice volume was pathetic. I travel to many noisey enviornments and enjoy being able to carry on a bad conversation of screaming what did you say. But with the Allure at max ear speaker volume, I could hear NOTHING. The multi color display is very cool, and very bright no complaints there. (changes between amber, green, blue, fruit purple, watered down yellow) I lightly dropped my phone once on pavement, and it was too much for the allure to handle. Although it functioned fine, I had a huge gouge out of the delicate housing. I could have thrown around my prior phones all day long with minor physical blemishes. The signal strength was better than other At&t phone on the market. In the end i returned the Panasonic No-Allure and picked up a Nokia 8260 and have no complaints. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 155 90429 2000/2/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish many features easy to use none The Bottom LineGood phone to invest in, AT&T has a big rebate on it!! Full Review My one year of contract with AT&T ended last week, and it was time for me to get a new phone. I had the Nokia 8260, and although it was very good compared to the other phones a year ago, I realize that this phone, despite it cost, was not as good of a phone as I thought. The person who worked at the store where I activated the Allure recommended it to me. With the 8260, reception was hard to get where I lived, since it was so high up. This is not a problem for the Allure. I am able to get reception almost everywhere I go. The Allure is also durable. I have dropped this phone many times while I was walking on concrete. It has not been damaged as far as I can tell, and there are only a couple scratches. Another cool thing about this phone is its screen light color. Most cellphone's screen is green, but this one has blue lights. Although this is not a big difference, it does make the phone look more modern and cool. The Allure also comes with many new features that make the user's life much more simple. I can access those features easily, and it's not as confusing as the other cellphone's buttons. The battery life is much longer than my 8260, but I am not sure how many hours of talktime and standby time I get. Although it is slightly longer than my 8260, it's a little lighter. Last, but not least, is the speakers on the back of the phone. This is very handy because I can talk on the phone while driving without the hassles of holding it or plugging in the hands free earpiece. I recommend this cell phone to anyone who is looking for a durable, stylish, and a overall cool phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 90428 2000/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light weight exceptional battery life fun fun fun awsome signal hate the little antenna The Bottom Line If you need a phone purchase this one. If you want a phone purchase this one. If you like to have fun with new technology, this can't be beat. Full Review I have used many other cell phones for work purposes so I am familiar with cell phones but this phone is outstanding. 2.7 ounces, it fits in my shirt pocket comfortably, the screen is huge, and I have yet to lose signal in places where other phones simply will not work. I get phone calls and make phone calls and my battery averages 5 days. Without messing with the many options it probably could last 6. Recharging is quick. Love receiving emails on it. Download melodies and graphics for fun, and it's easy to do. Six multiple backlight colors. Voice memo, speaker phone comes in handy and tons of options. Voice command and voice dialing is easy to set up and works well. Couldn't imagine a better phone. Whether you need a cell phone or just want one this phone will not disappoint you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110.00 90427 2002/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish light easy to use full range of personalization low volume The Bottom LineReliable, useful and fun. Simply better than Nokia 8260. Full Review Every once in a while you will find a new purchase so satisfying that you cannot resist showing it off to everybody around the block. Panasonic Allure can well be one of those great toys. I have had mine for three weeks now, and it is simply great. Feature Packed After using a Samsung 8500, I wanted my new phone to be feature packed while light enough to fit comfortably into my pocket. Allure has all the features I need for extensive usage: • light weight. While not as small as the Nokia 8260, it is lighter. I have come to realize that weight is the main factor that determines the portability of the phone. • large phone book. 250 entries, and you can have a birthday and email address for each entry. I can finally rely on my cellphone for contact list. • text messaging. This phone is built for text messaging. There is a button specially designed for you to access text messaging. It comes handy in many occasions, really. • and the other features. It has speaker phone, voice command, differentiating ring tones, six backlights etc. see other reviews for details. Really cool stuff Then, there are those features that make you love this phone: • polyphony. This phone has music ring tones that will not embarrass you in front of your friends. You can program three channels of notes, up to 255 notes. So Fur Elise does not sound like your neighbor's kid trying to play flute. Got to hear it to believe it. • recorded ring tone. You can also record a sound clip to use for your ring tone. I set up my phone to say 'Message for you, Sir', when I receive text messages. (a line from Monty Python the Holy Grail, please do not imitate) • did I mention it looks very stylish? Minor issues • low volume. Sometimes it is hard to hear the other party on this phone. Then again, I only have this problem when the other party happens to be on the Sprint network. • no calendar. luckily it has 10 alarms, so I make do with it. • the rated battery life is only two hours. that seems to be an under-estimate. I use my cellphone as the primary phone, and I have not had it run out of battery yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 90426 2000/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 thin good sound light speakerphone good reception fairly well made no wireless web choices tall The Bottom LineThe Allure is a light, thin phone of good quality. Sound and reception is good, but the speakerphone is what sets this little phone apart. Full Review I purchased my Panasonic Allure sight-unseen off of the AT&T website, looking for an alternative to my broken Ericsson. I'm very happy with it, pleased with the speakerphone abilities. The Allure is nicely thin and light, perhaps a little taller than many cutting-edge phones. The display is easy to read with the option of different color backlights. Navigation through the menus is fairly easy, though sometimes you have to switch from the 4-way nav button to the two top selecton buttons to select certain options. Odd. Signal reception is quite good, I'm now able to talk in some places that I was unable to before. Sound quality is good too, with decent loudness, something I've had problems with on some phones. Ring volume is good, and the vibrate alert shakes the phone fairly hard. I have sometimes failed to notice other silent alerts from other phones, but the Allure shakes hard enough to get your attention. On a desktop, it actually "walks" when vibrating... The speakerphone uses a microphone and speaker on the back of the phone, and is loud enough to function in an office or home environment, but is marginal in an automotive environment so don't count on it as a hands-free alternative unless you drive a Lexus. I've used it as a speakerphone from my shirt pocket in quiet cars with decent success, but in my noisy bronco II at 55 MPH it was a little tough to hear. As long as the location is right though, the speakerphone works quite well, with good clarity and little echo. The standard li-ion battery gives good life, I've only run low when talking for extensive periods of time. With less talking, I've had the phone last all weekend without charging. All in all, a nice phone. Recommended: Yes 90425 2000/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice battery life sleek light no web capacities low speaker volume The Bottom LineGood for the average user and does everything it's intended to do. Full Review Before this phone, i was pretty much confined to using the Nokias at AT&T. The latest Nokia I had, for more than year now, was the 8260. The Panasonic is all that the Nokia was not, and I had plenty of time to test it out since most of my life is spent talking on the phones, cellular or not. You might call me lucky, but i got this phone for free, as with most of my phones since i have friends working at companies. First off, Battery life is outstanding, in fact it' so outstanding that the battery outlasted it's rated talk/standby times. I always recommend buying an extra battery, i got mine with the phone from AT&T for $49, it's at least $10 cheaper on the net. Using both batteries, I can use this phone for almost 2 weeks without needing a recharge. The Allure is light, but somewhat longer than the 8260. This isn't a problem since I prefer the keypad layout of the Allure somewhat more. This is a very well made phone, and despite being very light takes quite a bit of abuse bouncing in my briefcase, or in the glovebox of the car, or even being tossed across the room. Once, i was so mad that i tossed straight into my wall. If that was the Nokia, it would have been gone, shattered, but this guy actually stayed intact. of course, i didn't throw it that hard, but the fact that it can stand a pretty hard hit with the wall amazes me. The Allure gets a strong signal that the Nokia could only dream about. Sound quality is as good, if not slightly better than what I was used to from the 8260. Sometimes, the 8260 would have static, unclear calls, or just other problems, but as long as I used it, i had no complaints with the Allure as far as that goes. There's also quite a bit of features on the phone, such as the handy speakerphone option. A very handy thing when making conference calls or just don't want to use your hands. It is kind of quiet, but most people that say that fail to recognize the fact that the speaker is only an inch big, so naturally it won't sound like a boombox. Personally, I have no problem using it in my car or in the office, so no problem, there. The voice memo is another feature that I've learned to love with this phone, only thing is that it needs more time made available for the memos. Another really cool thing is you can program your custom ring choice. You can make it say "Dude, phone's ringing" or something along those lines. It's more of a practical phone than a fancy one and has most standard functions like vibration, "quiet mode," and a pretty large address book. The address book has 250 entries, 4 numbers per entry, so that's pretty good. I don't know anyone who used their entire address book up, so it's safe to say it'll be enough for anyone. Downsides? Not many, but pretty hefty. One thing is that it doesn't have any games on it. There's nothing more entertaining than playing a game on your cell phone in traffic. I tell you, you should try it, ticks the cops off like anything. I wish the backlight stayed on a bit longer, like maybe another 5 seconds. There really are not that many accessories available for the Allure, but then good things come to those who wait. The biggest downside ever is no web capabilities, not cool. If you want your sports, stocks and news, very important to me, go back to something else. As you can probably see, i didn't keep my Allure, but the fact remains, its still a good phone. there's another cell phone review that i did, i think it was on a Nokia, that's the one you want. Another thing I like that this guy didn't have is the calendar option available on the V60s. That was actually pretty useful. All in all, the Allure is pretty nice, not for real busy people but perfect for what it was made for, talking. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1.00 90424 2000/2/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 packed with features including voice command one of the lightest phones on the market today battery life awkward phone book The Bottom Line This is an excellent quality phone. It performs extremely well, the sound quality and reception is top notch. I would highly recommend this phone. Full Review The Panasonic Allure is probably one of the sexiest phones out today. With its extremely light weight, and small frame matched with the attractive style makes it very appealing. With my almost 8 years working in the wireless industry, and my current phone being the Allure, this has been one of my favorite phones. It is very light (2.7oz)and relatively small in size which makes carrying nice. I use the optional belt clip and I will forget that it is on my side! The physical size is just about as good as you can have. It is large enuff that you can still use it with one hand, but small enuff that you can fit it in your pocket or purse without needing a compartment of its own. The phone as plenty of bells and whistles to satisfy just about any gadget person. You can change the back light, choose from 22 different rings. The phone also has the capacity of holding 1000 numbers in the phonebook, but the phonebook is broken down into 250 locations each able to store 4 numbers. One of my favorite features is the voice command. This feature allows you to link commands such as dialing from memory, or changing some of your personal settings. These voice commands can be easily set, and once set are very easy to use. When used in combination with the included hands free headset, it provides a nice solution for safety and responsible use in the vehicle. The only thing that I feel could be improved is the battery life. Now the life on the battery is subject to many variables. For me it is too short. I use the phone, and I use it alot. Just for a frame of reference I use on average of 2500 min/month. I ordinarily get about 1.5hrs of talk time off of a freshly charged battery, which requires me to charge my battery on a daily basis for the most part. If you aren't going to be a high user, then you will probably see in the neighborhood of 2-3 days of standby. 2-3 days of standby is respectable for a phone of that size, but when compared to my previous phone (one slightly larger) I was getting that much standby in addition to the 1.5-2hrs of talk time. Maybe I had my expectations set to high? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90423 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish easy to read screen nice features custom settings not very big The Bottom LineSize aside, this phone is really solid. I'm glad I bought it. Full Review I picked up the Allure from attwireless.com as a hardware upgrade from my Erickson phone that broke a few days ago. So far I'm thrilled with the phone. It's a nice looking phone, clean lines, a nice shape, but it's a lot lighter and shorter than I was hoping it would be. But like I told the customer service rep when I turned the phone on, I want that big hunkin' Zack Morris cell phone (if you don't remember Saved by the Bell, go back to watching your Barney videos). The features on this phone are pretty hot. Some are standard, customizable welcome screen, caller-associated ring tones. Some I think are pretty new features. 6 backlight color options, standby screen choices and a huge phone book (250 entries, including 4 phone numbers, email address (for text messaging), and birthday. From the phone book entry you can customize ring tone, backlight color and standby screen to be associated to that caller. The first feature I played with was the backlight options. Six options include amber, yellow (which matches the light on the keypad), green, blue, purple & teal. The standby screen option would be cool if I could download new screens, the out-of-box options are sort of on the generically lame side. The ring tones are equally generic, 5 rings, 10 preset melodies, and a handful of customizable melodies (which looks pretty tricky if you don't know how to read music). There's also a voice ring option for the narcissist in all of us. Along with the voice ring option is a built in voice recorder for short memos/personal notes. A nice little feature if you're forgetful like me. I have no problem with the volume settings. Of course I don't walk around talking in the middle of stores/at the movies/in line at 7-11. In fact, if you do that, you're a jerk. Cell phones are meant to be used in cars, where they distract you from oncoming traffic. The hands free adapter I got, which is your standard ear bud w/ mic on the chord is nice. It doesn't have a foam cover to get lost, and is actually pretty comfortable. The only problem with this lies on the phone. The cover for the ear piece plug is detachable and pushing microscopic. It is so going to get lost. It should definitely be attached to the phone. All the draw backs to the phone are associated with it's size. Maybe I have fat fingers, but I like a cell phone with some bulk. Something I can comfortably rest on my shoulder. Aside from that, the phone is dang near perfect for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 90422 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of features small lightweight reception voice commands are a joke scratches easily The Bottom LineIf you want features to play with buy this phone. If you want to talk to someone on the other end, buy something else. Full Review I really wanted to like this phone. I really did. When I decided to give Verizon the boot and switch to AT&T (because of far more prime time minutes per $) I looked at what AT&T offered for phones....and, to tell you the truth, I didn't really like any of them. After much thought and hemming and hawing I broke down and bought the Allure. It is a pretty phone with lots of features-voice commands, programmable ring tones, 2 way messaging and on and on and... I wanted to like this phone. But the phone did not cooperate with my desire in this regard. The silver finish is just that- a finish. The silver color is not the color of the plastic. It is just a finish on the surface of the plastic. SHHHEEEESH! Come on, Panasonic! Do you think you could spare it??? The slightest scratch shows up the color of the underlying plastic. The voice activated dialing is a joke. Hey Panasonic! This was your idea of a joke, right??? My old Audiovox 9000 (god how I loved that phone) had decent voice activated dialing. So maybe I'm spoiled because the Allures voice dialing is for all reasonable intents and purposes UNUSABLE. Even Panasonic hinted at the problem when, in the instruction manual, they advise to use the included headset to record the voice commands. Great. Except if you then try to USE the voice commands without the headset it doesn't work. What a cruel joke. Do you really want to be tied to the headset and look like one of those geeks that walks around the airport talking to him (or her) self??? Did I mention that the sound through the phones earpiece is tinny? Did I mention that callers complain about the way YOU sound on their end? The real clincher for me was the phones lack of signal strength. During the 4 months I used the Allure its signal strength and call holding ability slowly degraded to the point where I called the techs at Panasonic to ask, "What gives"? I was told that the phone was probably checking out of the picture. A PANASONIC engineer... did you hear that?... I said a PANASONIC ENGINEER told me that their reference phone in testing is the Nokia 6160i because it was the best phone they could find in signal holding ability. He further told me that the Allure has about 80 percent of the signal holding capability of the Nokia 6160i. Well that was enough for me. I got the Allure replaced under warranty . But I didn't get it replaced right away. Apparently AT&T had run out of replacement phones. That tell you anything? Then I went on Ebay, bought myself a Nokia 6160i for FIFTEEN DOLLARS and I have been happy ever since. Sold the replacement Allure on Ebay. Good riddance! New is not necessarily better. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 90421 2000/11/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 com content 48058371716 see http www see http www com content 48058371716 The Bottom Linesee http://www.epinions.com/content_48058371716 Full Review see Well, I cannot submit this page without being more verbose here. Lets see.... What I like about the phone: 1. Voice-dialing works well. (User can store up to 40 voice commands. These commands can be either linked to a phone number to be dialed or to menu options.) 2. The memo function works well, but only 1 in-call memo can be recorded at a time. Definite limitation. 3. Some have complained about how fragile the phone seems. Actually, it seems solid to me but I understand why this perception exists—it is so light (2.7 ounces) and so thin that its strength is deceptive. Allure shortcomings How to poorly design a cellphone: 1. Have a dial button perform double duty as a function key. That way, if you need to use the function during a call, your listener will hear a blaring tone in their ear. For example, the instructions for turning on the speaker-phone indicate that you should press and hold the "pound" (#) key during a call to both turn on or off the speaker-phone. Well guess what, that is very painful to the listener. 2. Put the speaker for the speaker-phone on the opposite side and end as the microphone. That way, if you have the phone on its back while using the speaker-phone, the person you are talking to sounds muffled but they'll hear you. On the other hand, if you put the phone face down, you can hear them just fine, but they won't hear you. (You can set the phone on its side, but when you are driving and trying to use this feature in a car, have fun trying to keep the phone on its side. "Well, officer, I was trying to balance my phone when traffic came to a sudden stop.") 3. Design the leather case so that it nearly obstructs the speaker-phone, thus making the case (and speaker-phone) useless. (My solution: I take the phone out of the case during speaker-phone conversations or use the hands-free device.) 4. Don't include call-duration in the call log history. That way, owners of the phone won't be able to tell how long the call lasted in case they need to track this. (The log only shows the number called and the call-initiation date & time.) 5. Design the keys so that they are so small, so close together and nearly flush with the casing, making it very difficult to dial without looking at the buttons. (My solution: Have most of my frequently dialed numbers in voice-dial. Obviously, for business travelers who are frequently calling hotels, restaurants and the like in other cities, this is not an option.) 6. Put the hands-free jack on the side of phone so that if it is bumped it can easily sheer off. This will not only ruin the hands-free unit but may also damage the phone. (The most intelligent place to put this jack is on the top of the phone. I have yet to see any manufacturer do this.) 7. The normal ear-piece (on the front) sounds tinny. (Calls actually sound better through the hands-free headset or through the speakerphone.) Another oddity, not good or bad, is Panasonic's attempt to invent an industry-standard term in the menu options. Specifically, the term "Ring Alert," while accurate, is too generalized for a phone. If this unit included a PDA that could link to the various ringer tunes, it might be understandable. But as a phone, "Ringer Tunes" is a more intuitive label. see user group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanAllure Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90420 2000/5/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life cool features size weight somewhat toylike not as easily navigable as a nokia The Bottom LineGreat phone for the price and should definitely consider if also looking at Nokia's Full Review I purchased my Panasonic a little over a month and a half ago. I have not had a single problem with it once. When I was looking for my new phone, the salesman reccommened this one. He said it was better than the Nokias because it actually has an antenna. The new Nokia's only have internal antennas which do not pick up analog signals when you are roaming sometimes as well. He said the software was comparable and as easy to navigate. First off, it is not as easy to navigate as the Nokia's. It has a similar setup but I just like the feel of Nokia's menus better. It has no customizable ring tones and no games. The games I can do without, all they do is suck the power out of your battery. The cool features it does have are the ability to change the backlight to different colors and to program it to change depending on who calls. There are like 6 possible colors or so. So, if your phone is not physically on you, you can still tell who is calling by just looking at the color of the display when it rings. The phone is very light and small. This is a plus and a minus. It fits in a pocket very easily but some have said it seems "toy-like". This is a little true, but people still seemed to be amazed by its size and weight. The phone with battery weighs as much as my old Nokias without a battery. The battery itslef is waffer thin and has a good lasting time. So, if you want something different than a Nokia but as good if not better, try the panasonic. They have been making cordless phones for years and are now expanding their cell phone line Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 90419 2000/5/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 decent display an acutal ring sound small lightweight good amount of features small lightweight easy to scratch chip battery life The Bottom LineWant great voice quality, in a good looking lightweight phone, then the Panasonic Allure is the phone you need. Full Review The Panasonic Allure is my second cellular phone. My first cellular phone was the Nokia 5165 which was horrible. This is a definate upgrade, if you are on Suncom. The looks of the allure is just great, the display is easy to read no matter how bright it is around you. The weight of the phone itself is just insane. It weighs close to nothing and fits in your pocket great. This phone does not feature some of the more fancy features like some phones do. It does not include a web-browser, games or anything that is really not needed. It is a phone, that's it. Also another thing I like is that it acutally rings unlike a lot of cellular phones that just sound plain stupid when they ring. For you people that like to play around with ringtones that is on the Panasonic Allure also, and it is even better. This phone plays something simular to a midi file, but I wouldn't recommend using that as a ring because it is a really low volume. A couple more good features of this phone. It has a nice phonebook that allows you to store up to 4 phone numbers for a single person and has an icon for each type of location, along with email address. Also included in the phonebook is the option to change the ring, backlight color, and picture for that particular person. Voice commands is another great feature of this phone. I have tried using the voice commands and they work at least 90% of the time. It is very convient but people will look at you strange when you using them. Speaker phone is another feature that is a good idea, but it will not really work if you are in a somewhat noisey area. Other great things about this phone are: - 2-way text messaging - Ability to choose a background picture - Multipule alarms - Great voice quality both ways - Keeps up with date - Will remind you of special occasions for people on your phone book - Will not annoy you with beeps and other sounds (like when locking the phone) After spending $150.00 on this phone I am satisfied with it, and it will probally be with me for a few years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90418 2000/9/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice memo some nice extra features phonebook organized well excellent reception very short battery life The Bottom LineNice basic phone. Full Review With color phones, camera phones, and Internet phones, the basic phone is becoming almost obsolete. For those not looking for all the amenities that new phones have to offer, the Panasonic Allure may not be such a bad option. The phone is one of the lightest on the market and is incredibly small. Furthermore, the phone still manages to get excellent reception. The phone is rather basic but does include some nice features not found on all phones. Voice dialing for example, eliminates the need to search through your phone book for names. With that said, the phonebook fas a unique feature not found on many other phones, listing names. For example, in other phones you may have to list "Jim Home," "Jim Cell," "Jim Work." On the Allure, Jim is one name, and when you hit call it asks you which number you would like to dial. While the phone may not be color, it isn't short of colors. The phone allows the user to choose between 6 different backlight colors for the phone. The Allure also throws in a few other features like voice ring (record your voice as a ringtone) and voice memo (store up to three, 20 second memo clips on your phone). The phone is basic and easy to use which may be a plus for some people not looking for a complicated high-tech phone. The Allure does fall short in some categories however. The battery life is very short. While you have about three days of standby life, you can only talk on the phone for 120 minutes before it completely dies. This is not the phone for somebody who uses their phone constantly throughout the day like a businessman or teenage girl. Also, I have begun to question the phones durability as I am now on my third one in about eight months. Both times I have pulled the phone out of my pocket to make a call and it wouldn't turn on. However, Panasonic has replaced the phone quickly for me with no questions asked. This is a nice phone for somebody looking for basic features and excellent reception. I also wouldn't let the durability factor influence your purchase decision, as I am the only one I know who has had that problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90417 2002/11/23 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large phonebook solid lightweight voice activation small size neat features see review poor battery life after 24 hours 5 calls it is dead voice activation small keys The Bottom LineGreat phone, lightweight, easy to use, best phone on the market IMO. Poor battery life is the biggest complaint. Full Review I just purchased this phone about a month ago to replace a broken Nokia 8260. I thought that phone was very good, but the Allure is steps ahead. For one, the Allure is much more solid than the Nokia was. I have dropped it once, unfortunately, but the phone is as good as the day I bought it. It is a tight package, unlike the Nokia which felt hollow when held in your hand. The Allure is lightweight and compact. It fits well in your pocket, the only limitation being the external antenna. This hardly gets in the way however. The real turn on to this phone for me was the phonebook capabilities which are far superior to the Nokia's. With the Allure, you can store up to four separate phone numbers organized by business, home, cell and other, under a single name. To select a number, all one must do is scroll to the desired name, press the send button, then scroll to the desired number and press send again. This extra bit of scrolling is not annoying at all because it greatly reduces the size of the phonebook. I found myself scrolling endlessly with the Nokia, even when using the search function. Part of the phonebook is voice activation. To describe this feature in one word, I would have to say it is "neat". It works fairly well, is easy to set up, and is just...cool. I have tried using this feature on the freeway, on downtown roads, in a room alone and in a room with other people. The only situation where the voice activation does not ever work is on the freeway. The road noise is just too much. Obviously, the phone recognizes your voice better as the background noise decreases. There are other little features that really set this phone apart. Things such as pauses and waits in stored phone numbers, which allow you to dial a phone number, tell the phone to pause and then key in additional numbers. This is useful for checking voice mail. You can store the voice mail number, tell the phone to pause, then put in your password, so all one has to do is hit the key to check your messages and the phone does the rest. (Hope that isn't too confusing!) In conclusion, this is the best phone I have seen. I think it is much more "mature" than any of the Nokia's I've seen. The Allure doesn't need weird ring tones, faceplates and all that (although you can download ring tones, backgrounds and the background color is selectable) to be great. It has useful SMART features that make it easy to use and practical. Highly recommended. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90416 2001/12/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent phone kewl features very lightweight all outweigh the cons speakerphone capability stinks The Bottom LineI would recommend the phone for the weight and the features... No other wireless phone in it's price range can compare. Full Review I've had Motorola's (star tac, i1000+), Nokia's (5190), and an Ericsson (long ago)... And none can compare to the Allure in features and capability. When I recently needed a new cell phone, I was pretty much sold on the Nokia 8260, but when I reached the AT&T store, the salesman couldn't stop raving about the Allure. Since AT&T has a 30 day return policy, I decided to give it a no-risk try... It was a gamble I'm glad I decided to take. The voice command feature works very well. I also like being able to assign different phone numbers to one entry in the phone book. I like that the phone vibrates, has customizable & downloadable ring tones, and can even use my recorded voice as the ringer. I like the different 6 backlight colors (teal, green, yellow, amber, blue, and purple) and the ability to assign a different backlight color and ring tone to an incoming call if the call comes from someone in your phone book. It has a memo feature so I can record quick thoughts. And even though it's not Internet-capable, it can do text messages in its generous display. I like all the features that the phone has to offer. I've heard others complain about the Allure not having games or a calculator (like the Nokia), but I never used those features when I had the Nokia so I'm not missing them now. Besides, if you need games, buy a Gameboy. If you need a calculator, buy a calculator or do the math the old fashioned way. I think the phone's best feature is its weight (or lack thereof). The phone is so lightweight (2.7oz) that I am always forgetting it's there. I have to touch it to remind myself that I'm wearing it on my belt. But despite it's tiny size, its vibrating ring won't let you miss a call. It's not a wimpy shake either. I do have one problem with the phone... The speakerphone is not the greatest (and I've seen similar complaints from others). If you aren't in a quiet room, the speakerphone is practically useless. I've had the Motorola i1000+ which has I think the best speakerphone feature on the market so I guess I have high expectations. But if I look beyond this small idiosyncracy, I can see that the Panasonic Allure has all the right features at a pretty good price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 90415 2001/11/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode normal rings may be too small or light for those who lose things easily The Bottom LineHigh quality with tons of features, very light and very durable with a great price. Full Review An exceptionally small and light phone. This phone is over half an ounce lighter than the tiny Nokia 8000 series. Even though it is 2.7 ounces, it still has a tight design that feels normal to hold to your ear and talk in and will be harder to break or lose than the Nokia. This phone has been dropped many times by me already and everything works perfectly. And when I say everything, there is a lot of everything. Send text messages, caller id with picture representation, different rings for different callers. Of the different rings, there are many. There are 6 general rings which sound like actual phone rings, then there are 10 preset melody rings, and there are also 5 custom melodies that you can either compose yourself or download off of panasonic's website www.panasonic-club.com. And there's still one last ring, which is my favorite. You can record your own voice or any sound you want and have that be your ring. So when your inlaws call, you can listen to yourself tell you to not answer the phone. Getting back to what the website provides, it has the software to do any composing you want and the software to transfer the melodies and pictures. Pictures of which there are many to download to your phone on the website also. There are also tutorials to help you do some composing of your own. There are six different back light colors to chose from: Amber, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and Teal. Couple things that I especially like that they added to this phone that the previous 210 did not have are the mini jack for headsets. Before you had to buy one directly from panasonic that would only work on that phone. Also added is voice memo. You can create memos to yourself up to 20 seconds in length to listen to later for any reminder. The phone book, yes, even the phone book is amazing on this phone. Not only can it hold 250 entries, but each entry doesn't have only the basic First and Last name, home, work, cell phone, and other. It also has Speed Dial for quick dialing of those you dial most often, email address for use with text messaging, special ring for individual people, backlight to change the color of backlight on caller id for each individual, also picture and birthdate. There is a quiet mode, there is a vibrating ring, and there is key lock. Choose from English, Spanish, French, or Portugese. Basic security with locking and lock code and power lock. Call waiting with caller id. Voice mail. There's even speakerphone on this thing. And it actually works. Just make sure and tell the person on the other end of the line to take the phone away from there ear for a moment while you hold down the button to go to speakerphone. Say your talking on the phone and you need to right down a phone number at the same time and you have no paper. Just key it in on the keypad and save it after you are finished with the call. The call won't be interupted. Did I mention voice commands? Yup, say a name and it will call that person. Tell your phone to be quiet and it will go to vibration mode. Whatever you want. In analog mode the batter is supposed to last 80 minutes of talk time and 5.5 hours on standby. I have yet to actually use analog. As far as Digital goes, talk time is up to 140 minutes and standby is up to 200 hours. I don't even know what its like to run out yet, probably never will. Batter recharge time is approximately 180 minutes. I'm sure there's something I've forgotten, but I've probably already said too much. Sorry about that, but I just love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $89 90414 2000/8/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome ring tones light weight great signal quality speakerphone pc connectivity headset connector no on board programs utilities lack of accessories below average battery life speaker volume The Bottom LineHighly recommended. Extremely light weight, average battery life, great form-factor, wonderful ring tones, and great PC connectivity makes this phone a "keeper"! Full Review I purchased my Panasonic Allure from AT&T Wireless nearly six months ago for $60, and I am very happy with it. The phone is incredibly light weight -- 2.8 ounces with battery -- and it has a form-factor that makes it very easy to talk on and hold for extended lengths of time. My previous phone, a Nokia 8290, was very light but very difficult to use for a long period of time due to the form-factor. I have had very good experiences with the phone's signal quality -- far superior to the Nokia 8290. I am also very pleased with the phone's features -- it has a number of pleasing polyphonic ring tones, and it also has the ability to record a ringer. I used this feature to record my daughter's voice, and I use that ringer whenever someone from my home (and ONLY my home!) calls me. The phone has a wonderful ability that allows you to assign any ringer to any entry in the phone directory -- and the phone directory is very well designed as well. It allows you to input up to four phone numbers for each entry, and you can then pick-and-choose which entry you wish to dial. You can also have the phone automatically dial one of the numbers when you select a person and press the "call" button. The phone also has voice recognition, which allows you to record commands in your own voice (such as "call home"), and the phone will then execute the command when you tell it to. This can be a safety advantage when you are driving and trying to dial the phone. Another really neat safety feature is the phone's ability to record "off the air" for up to fifteen seconds. This comes in really handy if someone is trying to give you a phone number when you are speaking with them -- just press the "record" button, and their conversation is captured in the phone's digital memory. You can then play it back at your leisure. The phone also allows you to record voice memos to yourself, which comes in handy when you need to remember something. Another advantage of the phone is that it comes with a standard 2.5mm headset jack -- Nokia, Motorola, et al usually require an adapter in order to use a headset. The phone also has an external antenna jack, which can be combined with a vehicle-mounted antenna to increase signal quality when you are in areas with poor coverage. I purchased a data cable and "FoneSync" software with the phone, which allow me to download phone book entries, ring tones, and graphics into the phone from my PC. I was able to download my Microsoft Outlook phone book into the phone in about five minutes -- what a time saver! I have been searching for some quality polyphonic ring tones to send to the phone, but have not found any yet. Chief complaints about the phone include so-so battery life (1-2 hours of talk-time and 2 days of standby), and the phone speaker is not loud enough in certain high-noise environments. In summary, I am very pleased with the phone, and would highly recommend it to any one that needs an inexpensive well-designed phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90413 2000/5/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 desirable ringsnot expensive price light weight convenience of short message beautiful appearance short battery press any key press to put through The Bottom LineBeautful appearance to attract young women's attention, the bell sounds pretty and nice, very light,quite cheap. But in the popular color-screen year, it will be wash out finally. Full Review Appearance In my impression I feel Panasonic Allure EB-TX310 is very long, but when I got it I find it is not very long,just the fuselage is very slender.Allure EB-TX310's colorful panel is very stylish and fabrication is fine,also the handle is very smooth.The key-presses are made of hard plastic,and are good at flexibility,have no feeling of agglutination like Samsung;when the use time of the metallic functional key-press and the cross directional key-press on the top is quite long,it will make nick especially by girl with long nails like me;the aperture of the key-presses will accumulate dusts by time past,especially indicate the boy who send short message with eating chips.The screen size is enough,the form of written looks comfortable and obvious, and so big that oldster can see the menu clearly!The edge is easy to fray because it's a little higher than the central screen. The antenna can't be unloaded;sometimes it's also a kind of protection!If you don't know in advance,broke it will make you pay out expense. Feature Afterward,I want to say the functions of Allure EB-TX310. First,the open and close will show you a little length of animation,although short,it is larruping.Allure EB-TX310 can not only establish the phonebook group and edit group name,but also provide 4 kinds of background colors as green,amber,light blue and magenta,10 kinds of pictures and 20 types of rings'grouping.From now on,grouping is not limited by lover and friends,it's very convenient!In the aspect of rings,it's the earliest chords mobile phone,it makes girls joyful.It also has the functions of"melody composer"and"voice ringer",offsets impossibility of downloading,also has full of individuality and absolutely distinguishes with others.Another advantage is DIY rings never make you find your phone when other people's cellular phone rings,and the ring of your phone will make people look askance, and say in heart:COOL!Allure EB-TX310 can be set up with 10 different groups of incoming telephone recognition (ring + picture +background color),there are four kinds of background color as green, amber,light blue and magenta,let you always have the feeling of using new phone! The practicality of the hand's free function makes you can make a phone call while doing other things, have no trouble of making dirty the keyboard.Compare with keyboard lock of Nokia,Motorola or Erison,Panasonic have no carking "# *",or the connection of these two signs. Disadvantage There are also some disadvantages I can't ignore! The short massage can't show Chinese character of sender's name, you must store the person's name in English.The ring sounds good but the volume is not enough.When somebody calls you, you could press any key-press to put through, it's bore some! Conclusion Generally speaking, this phone make me satisfied, especially for it's beautiful appearance, convenience of short message, desirable rings and not expensive price! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 90412 2000/2/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight long battery life excellent signal strength limited accessories pricey only available through one carrier The Bottom LineTo be honest, if I wasn't an AT&T customer, I'd seriously consider switching just for this phone. Full Review I waited awhile to write this review - I've had the handset since October (I purchased it the day AT&T released it to the public). Even though I was enamored with it, I wanted to see how I'd feel once the bloom was off. Now, 4 months later, I love this telephone as much as the day I got it. I wish I could say that I meant to buy it, but I can't. The AT&T rep was in the office and I did the "Cellular Mating Dance". I was a Sprint PCS customer and could not have been less happy. My coverage and connection was so bad that on 9/11 I didn't realize we were in a crisis because that's what my connectivity was like normally. So I was kicking the tires of a few units and the rep pulled out the Allure. "To be honest," she said, "I don't know a lot about it. We got it today, and it's supposed to be the next generation, but no one's got one yet, so I don't know how well it works." Well, telling me no one has it is like leaving a trail of chocolate chips from my front door. AT&T had a 30 day return policy, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Wow! First of all, the thing is so light I've lost it on my body! I'd stick it in my pocket - even my shirt pocket - and forget it was there until it rang! The battery, wafer thin, gives me about 140 minutes of talk time, and around 200 hours of standby - my Samsung 8500 gave me about 45 minutes of talk time, and if i left it in my car in the garage overnight it ran down. It has a speakerphone option which has been handy in business meetings as well as in the car, and the call quality is as good as any other cel phone I've had. I've been very impressed with where I've been able to receive calls. Other friends (with both AT&T service as well as competing carriers) are constantly amazed where I can get calls - in the skybox at the football stadium, on the subway, in doctors' offices - it's great! Now, I will admit it has some drawbacks. You are at the mercy of AT&T for accessories - there are NO other outlets, so discounts aren't an option. And even then, a lot of AT&T stores don't carry paraphernalia for it, so you have to order from the website. Also, the overall telephone, as well as the buttons, are a little small. I wear an XL glove and it can be a little challenging dialing on the fly. But overall, I have been more pleased with this cel phone than with any of the other 14 I've owned. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90411 2002/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish small cost large phonebook feature packed trusted brand weak speaker bad voice commands somewhat glitchy no full color The Bottom LineIt's a low cost phones with surprisingly many features, it's a steal if you can find it for cheap and you like AT&T's calling plans Full Review Introduction I've been a cell phone user for many years. I used to have Cingular (formerly Pacific Bell) Wireless as my service provider. I originally caught on to their service because of the GSM standard, which is by far the most advanced standard available today, in terms of sound quality and power consumption (and the most prevalent worldwide standard also). I will not go too much into GSM, because the Panasonic Allure EB-TX-310 uses the TDMA standard instead. The TDMA carrier across in the U.S. right now is AT&T Wireless, which is also my current cellular service provider. I dumped GSM in favor of this phone because: 1) GSM reception is very low compared with TDMA service in my new house, and 2) Cingular has "oversold" their service in the San Gabriel Valley (Southern California), meaning you can't use your phone even if you're within range of their ground stations. Another reason I got the phone, and very importantly, is the calling plan and cost. AT&T gave me more minutes, free nights and weekends, and free Long Distance at the same price, so I switched to AT&T instead. Since this is a review on the phone, not on the carrier, I will talk more about the phones bells and whistles Features (excerpts from Panasonic's website) Tri-Mode operation (800 MHz analog, 800 MHz TDMA and 1900 MHz TDMA) Backlid 4-line Dot Matrix LCD Display with 6 different colors Talk time up to 140 min./200 hr. standby Weight: 2.7 ounces Phonebook: 250 locations - each with four numbers, plus email, backlight color, ring tone, an associated picture, and birthday alert. Customizeable tone for messages and phone calls Built in speakerphone Voice dial, voice commands, and voice memo features Vibration mode Two-way short messaging service capability with T9 Text entry Handsfree Headset Standard Travel Charger Slim Battery Initial Impressions First hand, the phone is very small and light in my hand. Due to its long shape and protruding antenna, it doesn't get small enough to easily become lost, but it fits comfortably in my pocket or when I'm holding it at my ears. The display is clear and large enough to read text messages. The 4-way navigation key makes it a snap to move within the menus, which is most of the time intuitive. The low-profile buttons on the phone are almost flush with the surface. While this improves the look of the phone, it makes quick button presses very difficult, but possible. The phone's speakers are clear, but lacking in bass. The sound gets drowned sometimes in noisy areas. The built in speakerphone, although a neat feature, is not up to the task. It only works in a quiet area, and the phone has to be very close. Speakerphone is clear, but again, lacking in volume and bass. Closer Look An important feature of a phone is its phonebook capabilities, and this is where the phone shines. It stores a large amount of phone numbers, plus it stores up to 4 per person. This makes calling a person whether at work, away, or at home a lot easier and quicker than conventional phonebooks. You can also link each person to a custom ring and display. Speaking of displays, it can display numerous pictures for standby or for calls, and you can upload more pictures with the optional link cable. Making calls and receiving them are pretty easy, but that's not all this phone is capable of. It can send and receive text messaging if you subscribe to it with your carrier. Text Messages are easy to type due to T9 text entry method, which is a quick way of typing just the letters (and not having to press each button numerous times to get a letter) by using the phone's built in dictionary. Inputing symbols is easy too, since you can always pull up a menu to display the symbols. The 4-line display also helps. The Display background colors are selectable (6 colors), but I find only three colors blue, green, and amber to be of any use (the other colors are too dark). The contrast is also adjustable, but most people would just leave it at the default, most optimal setting. Performance After all is said and done, how does it work in the real world? The battery life was horrible initially, until I charged it 4-5 times to "refresh" the battery. This is how batteries usually break in, and you should always charge a battery when it's near empty, not near full. I find the battery life to be good, but your mileage might vary due to usage. The charge time is around 3-4 hours, depending on battery charge. You can purchase a faster battery charger (sold separately). It'l be nice if they sell a larger, higher capacity battery for this phone, but you're stuck with the standard one. You can always buy a second battery, though. Most calls dial go through with this phone, if your carrier at your location has kept up to the demand, and you're in a good reception area. Calls are loud and clear if you have a strong signal, but it gets choppy with 2 or less bars. Again, this could be the terrain or carrier dependent problem, and not necessary the phones fault. The Voice dialing feature is terrible. It doesn't recognize my command most of the time, so I just gave up using it. (it only works in a quiet area). The phone sounds pretty good when it rings, but the preset and custom melodies are too soft to be heard in a crowd. It's best to use in combination of the vibration feature of the phone. The custom melody is very complicated, since it allows for 3 channels of sound. This can make the ring very musical, but I've set to create one myself due the the complexity. You can still input regular 1-channel sound, however, just ignore the other 2 channels. You can also record memos like a regular voice recorder, at 20 seconds/clip. This can be pretty handy, like recording a small grocery list, for example, but again, the background has to be quiet in order to use this. You can also record voice conversations up to 20 seconds, which is very neat, but you can only record the other person's voice. Also, check whether it's legal in your state to do so! =) Another neat thing is that you can record a sound (yes, any sound) to be your ring. I tried the "ICQ message received" sound on the phone, and it sounds real funny! Again, it's kinda soft, so it's pretty gimmicky Conclusion I would highly recommend this phone, it not only packs a lot of useful features in one convenient and small package, it is also not very expensive. Depending on your location, you can pick this up for little to no money all! That's right, I got it for free with my 1-year contract with AT&T, and I even get a rebate with this. Sweet. In terms of calling performance, this phone is good, but it can be dependent on you carrier and surround area. My phone occasionally has glitches, where it would go into a wrong state and the display turns in to garbage and it sounds a really nasty tone. Thankfully, it's easily resetted with a button press, and it does not corrupt the information on the phone. I think it's only my phone, since my friends have the same phone, but they don't have the same problem with their's. If you can find this cheap for little to no pennies, it would be a steal, and it's a good buy if you don't want to spend a lot of money on a good phone! Recommended: Yes 90410 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 better speakerphone better battery voice memo better screen none The Bottom LineThis is the phone for someone who has a phone as part of their daily life and likes to have fun with it. Full Review I recently traded in my TX-210 for the 310 model. This upgrade cost 150$ but I still think it was worth the cost. The new phone has many of the same features as the old. It has a multi-colored display with a dot-matrix screen. It has the handy built-in speakerphone. It also includes voice dial and other voice commands. And to top it all off, my new phone comes with a better battery. The TX-310 has some features that aren't very useful upgrades. One is the addition of four colors to the screen. It began with two colors on my 210 - which was handy in silent mode so it would still change itself to let me know it was ringing. But the new programmable colors are useless to me since I have no desire to set individual colors for individual callers when it takes me half a second to read the name on the screen. The built-in speakerphone is also a feature from my last phone, but this one has been improved. To begin with, Panasonic had a great idea with this. Even on the high end V-60 from Motorola, the phone must be plugged into its special speaker jack and cannot go into speakerphone mode otherwise. I on the other hand am able to place my phone anywhere and use the speakerphone. I can clean, eat, do work, or just about anything else and I am always able to use the speakerphone. Panasonic has improved their speakerphone by making it voice activated as well. Now I can make calls without having to place the call and then putting the person on speaker. And contrary to some other opinions on this speakerphone, I find it to work wonderfully in any area without too much noise. It need not be silent to use this feature. And considering that this feature would only be used in a private area, there probably wouldn't be much noise anyway. The screen is one of the nicest features of this phone. It is easy to read in the day or night. My friend's V-60 can sometimes be washed out when there is too much light, but the 310 is always readable. The letters are big enough to read and the backlight is not a crappy side "back light" but a true back light. Another new feature of the phone is its voice memo capabilities. You can record up to 20 seconds which can be useful in remembering your list of things to do. This feature also allows you to record up to 20 seconds of a conversation but only the person on the other end. The final, and most fun, part of this feature is that you can record a sound to be your ring. This can be fun since you can make your phone say anything you want. The buttons are nicely laid out with the primary buttons (two soft keys) placed on top for easy access. The buttons are also backlight as they are on almost all phones and are easy to read any any time. The buttons also have pace marking nobs so that you can dial without looking at the phone. The battery on this phone lasts longer than the one on my 210 did. I get more talk and standby time although both were adequate even on my old phone. This is an overall decent upgrade from the 210 model. I thought and still think that it was worth 150$. So if you have some money lying around and like having a non-utilitarian phone, go for the Panasonic TX-310. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90409 2000/8/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 unbelievably lightweight ease of use voice commands that work superb reception looks cheapy difficult to hear on loud environments The Bottom LineGreat recepcion, super long battery, voice commands that work, and you can change the scren color! Full Review "You got a...WHAT??!" This expression pretty much sums the vast majority of comments I got when people found out I traded my excellent Nokia for the new Panasonic TX310. I just took the chance to upgrade to a new phone for free, while upscaling my current plan with TELCEL. One thing tipped me off: virtually all sales reps. were carrying THIS model for personal use, so I figured it HAS to be a good phone. So here is what I have found so far as a HEAVY and serious user of cell phone services. LOOKS Unconvincing. Not tecchie enough for today´s standards. It is as slim as my former Nokia, maybe less than 1.5 inches taller (because of the protruding antenna), the keys are backlit as well as the "cursor pad" located just below the screen. You can choose between 6 (that is right: SIX)different colors for the screen backlight, in MY case being a huge advantage because I benefit a LOT from reddish backgrounds when reading black text. Very slim and thin. Buttons are easy to read. WEIGHT Like a feather. Perhaps 20% - 30% lighter than most phones in their category. This is a big plus if you are used to conceal your cell phone in your pockets. Sometimes you even forget you have it on. BEST FEATURES - Speaker. Yes, you can have a hands free unit without a single extra (Not recommended while driving, though).Sound quality is poor, but good enough to understand the other party if they speak at normal volume. - Menu system: Nokia users will feel just right at home. Simple, intuitive usage makes this Panasonic a phone that is so easy to live with...I was able to do whatever I wanted for customizing my unit in no time. - Voice commands. What seemed like the ultimate friendly tool in this advanced tech phone, in practice turned out to be a major annoyance. How it works? Lets say you want to put the phone in vibrating mode. Just press a button, say the word and voila!. No, seriously..that is how it works... Problem is: you must say the word EXACTLY as you recorded it, meaning same voice tone, pitch, timing, volume...get my drift? I only use 5 monosyllabic words for very common tasks (QUIET, HOME, BABE...etc) so it works great. - Custom Ringer and Songs. It has to be one of the best features of this phone. Ring tones are just soft and civilized, and best of all: it is a dream for the ultimate in customization, as you can compose your own melodies/ringers right on the phone keypad! And when I say you can program anything, I mean ANYTHING! You can even download a variety of ringers and songs from Panasonic website. - Written messages. Easy to write and read them. This phone has a writing aid, called T9 text composer, and sometimes it can really save you time writing your messages and all data input as well. Its remarkable that even spanish text is correctly applied. - RECEPTION. It has to be the best feature of them all. Elevators, basements, buildings are almost never a problem. I drive a lot, and I must have to say without question this phone has a superior range in coverage. -Contact organization: every entry in your phonebook has room for name, last name, 3 phone numbers, email and even birthday. SUper cool. You may recall any number via voice command, just program your voice for that number and off you go. Very handy. - Alarms: What do you say to a phone that wakes you up with your own voice saying "wake up, you lazy bum!"??. Thie Panasonic lets you set one daily alarm and one eventual alarm as you need them. Music, tones or your own recorded voice as reminders. - Battery Life: 300 hours stdby. yes, thats right. and over 2 hour talk time. May not be so impressive, but when you see the battery and weight of the battery (and did I say it also VIBRATES??) this is no everyday foo-foo. I have been using it for less than a month, but so far the performance has been excellent. Dont miss anything about my Nokia 8260 except maybe the sleek design. This is a great phone without the bells and whistles I dont use because those services (WAP, etc...) are not yet available in Mexico. This is a good buy. Recommended: Yes 7820 Panasonic ProMax EB-TX210 90441 2004/4/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great reception pretty durable battery I bought this phone in Ottawa (actually, it was free with a 2-year contract) because the salespeople at Bell refused to sell a phone to someone from Saskatchewan. This was the only phone at Radio Shack that could get reception from inside the Rideau Centre. We were at a retreat for work in the Thousand Islands. Nobody else's phone worked on the resort. Mine picked up Verizon. There are some places on campus where only my phone and a discontinued Motorola get reception. I've dropped the phone at least a few dozen times with no adverse effects other than scratches. The thin battery that came with the phone wasn't anywhere near powerful enough for the phone. It wore out in about a year. The more powerful battery worked better and lasted ten months before talk time started to decrease, and wore out after sixteen months. I haven't been able to find any generic brands of batteries for this phone, and replacement Panasonic batteries are pretty expensive compared to other brands. The phone can only be used with Rogers AT&T in Canada, who barely operate in the Maritimes, and whose salespeople in Ontario could give the mob lessons in racketeering. 90440 2001/7/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 nice phonebook features cool looking light speakerphone is useless feels like a toy almost too small The Bottom LineGet this phone for casual / occasional use - it is light and easy to carry. But be gentle, this phone seems extremely fragile. Full Review The Panasonic ProMax White Gold is an average phone, nothing spectacular. It has some nice features as well as some faults. The phone is extremely lightweight and sleek looking, two of the things that drew me to this phone. The phonebook allows multiple entries (home, work, mobile, email address) for each name. It also alphabetizes the list for easy searching. Dual backlight choices are also nice - green or amber. You can also set a distinctive ring for different callers. Although a built in speakerphone is included, it is next to useless. Unless it is silent where you are, you won't be able to hear the conversation. The phone is too small for a grown man to comfortably hold to his ear for a long conversation, your hand will begin to feel cramped. This phone feels like a toy, I have had it one month now and am curious to see how long it will survive. If you are looking for an light phone that looks nice, and you are a casual user, this would be a good pick. Power users will need to look elsewhere. The phone is too awkward to hold for a long time, and the ear piece is too large for continued comfort. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90439 2000/5/6 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 compact features sleek battery life at t as carrier signal The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a sleek phone, go for it, if you're looking for functionality and clarity of calls, avoid this phone! Full Review I started my search for a new phone, all the great plans out there and if you switch carriers you can get a new, updated phone with a great plan. I was with Verizon for 3 years and decided to switch to AT&T to get this new phone. A friend of mine had it and it looked really cool and he seemed to like the phone a lot. At the time there was a $100 rebate on the phone so I signed up and switched carriers. This phone from day 1 was not a great choice. The signal was never at 5 bars (maximum signal) unless I was right under a cell tower. So, 90% of the time I was only at 2 or 3 bars. When driving my calls dropped in the middle of conversations because I drove under a tree. You could never hear the person you were talking to, unless you were using the ear piece. Battery life was much to be desired. If you didn't remember to plug it in to charge the minute you got home at night, the next day was shot. I can't imagine what it would be like for someone who talks frequently on their phone daily. I typically made about 3 calls a day lasting 5 min apiece and always had my phone on. A car charger and better battery (not cheap!) would be a must! If you intend to use an ear piece in the car with this phone and your battery is dead, it's not going to work - the phone charger and ear piece both plug into the same spot on the phone. You will have to sacrifice one for the other. This phone concerning size was great, it fit nicely into your pants pockets without making it uncomfortable. It's also great for that small club bag for the ladies who need to carry their phone out on the town. However, buyer beware if you have big fingers/hands, the phone which is made of plastic (buttons as well) tended to be slippery made for difficult handling. For someone with large hands this could be a real hassle, especially with no voice activated dialing. One of the selling features is the speaker phone functionality. This feature has much to be desired, unless you are in a quiet room, you'll never hear the person on the other end of the phone. Overall, if you are intending to be a city dweller and have small hands this phone is perfect for you. This phone is definitely not worth the $100-150 price range it's in. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90438 2000/9/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 clear buttonsmenus very light very small cheap feel incredibly short battery life it s appearance The Bottom LineDepending on your provider, avoid it like the plague, even if it IS free with a 2 year signup. Spend the extra few dollars and get a GOOD phone. Full Review Up here in Canada, we have quite a few cell phone providers, but the #1 (based on coverage, clarity, etc.) has got to be Rogers AT&T. Now, I 'purchased' this phone through a 2-year sign up plan with Rogers AT&T, and in doing so, I received it for free along with $50 credit on my account. So as anyone unsuspecting customer, I viewed this as a GREAT deal. Then I began to use the phone. Ok, I'll start by saying the phone IS very small and light which I really look for when buying a phone. It's very difficult to actually LOSE a cellphone, contrary to what people say, I've never known a person to do so. Anyhow, I found this to be an attractive feature. The look of the phone isn't the greatest, but the menus and buttons ARE very easy to read which reminded me of Nokia phones I've owned in the past. The worst things about the phone are what count most, reception and battery life. First of all, the phone is TDMA which is a dying technology so it's not the best to begin with. Reception is decent most of the time but the strangest places I get next to nothing. The battery life though is where it really hurts. Secondly, the phone heats up if I'm on it talking for more than 5 minutes, and I'm lucky if I get 30 minutes of talk time before the battery is flat dead. I've checked, and a lot of people I know who own the same phone have the same problem. Sadly, the cons far outweigh the pros and I'm now stuck with a shoddy phone for the next few months with no escape. Do yourself a favour, spend a few dollars and get a GOOD phone! Recommended: No 90437 2001/6/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 decent battery power build in vibrating alert t9 small light weight small keys with similar shape makes it hard to dial not as well designed The Bottom LineFor casual cell phone users who does not do a lot of text messaging, the light weight, decent battery life and build-in vibrating alert are big pluses. Full Review I have the Panasonic phone for about 2 months now and I like to very much. It is lightweight and small, has decent battery life and I love the build-in vibrating alert. However, there are also several shortcomings that prevent me from giving it a 5 star rating but it is still on my recommendation list. The Panasonic is well build and has a nice feel to it when I hold it in my hands. The battery pack is on tightly and it doesn't move like in my old Nokia. However, the keypad area of the Panasonic is not as well designed as my old 6100 series Nokia. For example, the Nokia has different shape keys, which makes it easier to dial without having to look at the phone. The Panasonic's keypad is made up of similar shape keys and the keys are also very small due to the small size of the phone. Overall, the phone is well constructed but the keypad is its weakest area. The Panasonic's phonebook feature is also different than the Nokia. For the Panasonic, you store your contact's name and then there are multiple lines to store Work, Home, Cell, and Other phone numbers. So each person can have up to 4 phone numbers stored under the same name. Which I think makes finding a number easier. Now the bread and butter section of my review, the actual call quality of the Panasonic. Just like bread and butter the Panasonic delivers. It has good clarity, as well as can be expected of a cell/PCS phone. I live in Central/South Jersey and I use AT&T Wireless. From what I can gather, this is not the best and most well covered area for AT&T. AT&T has some sort of a sharing agreement with Singular (Cellular One)'s wireless network. But once again comparing w/ my old Nokia, the Panasonic seems to get better reception. For example, the Nokia wouldn't work in my townhouse but the Panasonic does. For those who use text messaging the Panasonic does a pretty good job here with the large screen and it has T9 text entry technology. For those of you who are not familiar with T9, what it does is it guesses the word your trying to type so you wouldn't have to type the whole thing thus saving keystrokes. For example, if you use the traditional way of text entry and you want to type "office", the key stroke combination would be 6,6,6,(o),3,3,3,(f),3,3,3,(f),4,4,4,(i),2,2,2,(c)3,3,(e). That's a total of 17 keystrokes. With T9, all you have to do is type in 6,3,3,4 and office in underline should appear and you just move on to the next word you want to type. I've use T9 a few times and it works pretty well. However, if you're going to do a lot of text messaging, the small keys mentioned above makes typing a chord regardless of T9. The battery life of this phone is average but consider its size I think it is pretty impressive. If you take the battery out of its bay, you will see that it is about as thick as 2 to 3 credit cards stack together and weights next to nothing. With a full charge, I could go up to 5 days of normal use without recharging. Normal use for me is about 95% standby and 5% talk. But even if my wife uses it and she's on the phone w/ her friends we can still get at least 2 hours of talk time out of it easily. I am very happy with my purchase of the Panasonic. Despite the drawbacks its advantages of being well build, small, light weight and the build-in vibrating alert fits my needs perfectly. And since I am just a casual user the average battery life is not a big concern with me either. I think this phone will last for at least a couple of years if not longer. Hopefully by then they would have developed a Dick Tracy style wristwatch phone with voice recognition technology so we won't need keypads. That's something to look forward to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 90436 2001/8/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 phone book configuration speaker phone appearance vibrating alert size no internet access slippery exterior speaker phone non adjustable font size The Bottom LineFor the money, it's a solid AT&T phone, with an attractive appearance. Full Review If you like the look of the Sanyo SCP-6000, currently available for Sprint PCS service, then you'll like the Panasonic TX210. Both are slim, although the Sanyo is ultra-thin. Both sport a silvery, white exterior, and both are products of Japanese companies, which seem to be producing slimmer, fashionable phones to meet worldwide demand. Panasonic produced a decent phone for AT&T. Aside from its appearance, its features may be considered mediocre compared to some of its competition, despite the fact it's equipped with a speaker phone. The speaker phone is only useful in quiet environments, however, as its volume is restrictive. The user interface, or menu system, is very user friendly and straightforward. I think Audiovox should take some lessons from Panasonic when designing a user interface for a cellular phone. It's phone book allows for up to 400 entries, including email addresses. It is 2-way text messaging capable. So, with all of these features and its snappy appearance, why isn't it more popular? Probably because it's not internet ready, its exterior is so slippery, especially the keypad, that this may cause irritation for its users, and it's upstaged by other AT&T phones, like the Nokia 8260. Also, the display does not allow you to increase the font size, except when initially dialing a phone number. The display, as is, is difficult to see when the phone is at a measurable distance from your face (e.g., sitting on a car seat). The display, however, can be displayed in either a green or amber light, which you can pre-designate for specific entries in your phone book. It's battery life is acceptable, and almost matches Panasonic's ratings. Overall, this is a good, solid phone, with an attractive appearance. I'm surprised that it's not more popular, but I think it would have been if introduced 2 years ago. This phone has been overcome by events and technological advances. If you slapped an internet browser and voice-activated dialing into it, you may have a contender for greater popularity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90435 2000/11/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight eye catching phone with good reception small shorter battery lifequestions re long term durability The Bottom LineThe Panasonic TX210 is a stylish, light weight phone with good reception. Tradeoffs include battery life and the lack of 3rd party support. Full Review This review is based upon service obtained in Canada from the Rogers/AT&T network. The Panasonic TX210 is a beautiful phone that is both lightweight and compact enough that I can carry it around in my jacket/pocket WITHOUT a belt clip. It is amazing how 2 oz. can make all the difference in the world but it does increase portability by several orders of magnitute. My Background. I am a professional that uses the cell phone mainly during commutes. As I can call forward my phone to job sites, I rarely use more than 200 minutes / month (TOTAL). I have used Nokia 8260's, Ericsson T18 and the Samsung 3530 was the last phone I used. In all, the Panasonic has the best portability/power combo that I have found. The Phone This lightweight 87 gram phone is actually about the same form factor as the pencil thin Sanyo SCP-6000 available in Canada from Telus mobility. I originally ordered a Nokia 3360 phone from Rogers/AT&T but they accidentally shipped me the Panasonic TX210. When I picked it up, I realized what a big difference going from 5.7oz to 3.1 oz. would make in terms of portability. This baby fits in my pocket without the heft that traditional cell phones have imposed (Motorola Startac's included). Battery Life This is a failing of small size unfortunately. Although my modest usage does not tax the phones 200 hr standby/ 120 min. talk time (digital) battery life, I could see how this would be a problem if it was my primary phone at a job site or if I used it a LOT recreationally with the unlimited billing plans. Phone Book This 400 entry phone book is more than adequate for usage. It is arranged so that each NAME / person can have up to 3 phone entries which is much better and easier to find and keep track of. Display This is NOT a web enabled phone. As such, the panasonic has a small overall display. I did not find this to be a problem as the phone would display large numbers while dialing. However, if presbyopia has set in for you - it may be a problem without bifocals. Reception IS EXCELLENT. It is hard to believe that this built-in attenna pocket monster has better reception than a 1 year old Samsung 3500 series with external/pull-out antenna in a metropolitan area. But is gives a good crisp sound with strong signal quality. Not quite as good as a land line, but more than adequate for day-to -day use. Accesories One point of note is that accessories are limited to the proprietory port included. The phone includes a handsfree earbud/adapter but you will have to buy specific panasonic accessories as it only has 1 expansion/charge socket and 3rd parties haven't picked up this phone yet. Unlike the Nokia's, you won't be able to customize this phone in pink! But if you are like me and practicality and function take precedence over cosmetics, it should be fine. The phone comes in White Gold and a Midnight Blue color (priced the same) Price In Canada (as in most countries), the price of the cell phones are subsidized. I picked up this phone for $99 cdn with a 1 year contract which is dirt cheap - nearly free. There are few handsets in this price category with these features. The chief competitor I can find to this phone would be the Nokia 8260. It is nearly the same weight/size and has tons of customizable accesories. However, I skipped the Nokia because I found it's reception to be weaker than the Panasonic's. In addition, it actually felt a little too flimsy in construction materials and I was worried about durability more so than for the Panasonic. If you need a "durable" version, buy the TX220 which is the exact same phone but with a rubberized exterior. In summary - The Panasonic TX210 is a stylish, light weight phone with good reception. It comes at an affordable price point. Tradeoffs would include battery life (due to it's slim size) and the lack of 3rd party support for Panasonic phones at this time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90434 2000/5/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 email capabilities weight price speakerphone look The Bottom LineThis phone is light and easy to use. I recommend it to anyone looking to spend under 100$ but still demanding an excellent phone. Full Review I recently purchased the Panasonic EB-TX210. I got the phone for 80$ with a 40$ rebate. So far the phone performs wonderfully. The battery lasts for more than any time I have ever needed and the voice quality and reception are excellent. The phones look is the only disagreeable feature. The buttons have an odd font and although this is not of much importance, it is the only gripe I have with the phone. Other than the buttons, the appearance is satisfactory. The capabilities of the phone are numerous. It not only displays caller ID, supports call waiting, and three way calling as most phones do, it has the added feature of email capability. The phone also possesses five individual alarms which are use set and can also be set to display user written or prewritten messages at the prescribed time of the alarm. The caller ID will display the number of whoever is calling and will display their name if it is in your address book. The screen changes to its secondary color to show an incoming call and displays the caller's information at that time. If the call is missed, it is saved to a log and will display later. The calls that you miss get forwarded to your voice mail. This is a standard feature on every phone as far as I know. The EB-TX210 has a button that takes you directly to your voicemail, and although this is no innovation of Panasonic, it is certainly not a standard feature on all phones. The reception of the EB-TX210 is excellent. Its antenna does not move and only rises about one inch above the phone, yet it still receives signals clearly and easily. I rarely drop below three of the available five bars of reception. Although that is not a perfect and exact measurement of the phone's reception, it still demonstrates ability to receive signals with some clarity. The email is one of the nicest features of the phone. I don't believe this service is available everywhere, but where it does work, it is marvelous. You can send short alphanumeric messages to other phones or any email address. You can also send voicemails to other phones. The phone can not only send messages, it can also receive them. Any email service and some phones can send short text messages to the phone. The input of the email is made easy through the phones input programs. Instead of pushing each button a number of times to signify the letter you desire, you type in the number which corresponds to each letter of the word and the phone goes through its dictionary to find a match. You can scroll through its dictionary to find the word you want if it doesn't come up immediately. The speakerphone on the phone, although largely useless, is helpful in the car or in other confined, quiet places. The speaker is loud enough to hear and the microphone picks up well. Speakerphone is activated easily by holding one button during a call. There are many shortcuts in this phone to specific functions. I do not have a problem with this, but some people who have trouble memorizing easily might. The buttons are not labeled. One must learn the buttons for the desired functions. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7821 Panasonic EB-TX320 AMPS / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 90451 2005/3/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sound quality good enough for me pretty no frills etc stopwatch function no calculator function But don't expect much bells and whistles from it. I bought this phone used just a few months ago and am using this cell phone with ATT's service. My impressions about the phone and the ATT service I get from it... PROS: It is light - lighter than any other cell phone I've had(that's a good thing). I get strong signal reception in most places. The sound quality is okay for me (not saying that's bad in any way; it's good). Changeable screen backlighting that can also change when certain people in your address book call. Colors to choose from are amber, yellow, green, blue, purple, teal. Purple is easiest on the eyes for me. CONS: The phone doesn't automatically sync the with the cell provider's time. The first time I got the phone, it was set for pacific time zone, and I am in central time zone (USA). So, I had to reset the clock myself. But it is fine now. The phone has no calculator function, stopwatch function, games, built-in LED flash light:). I had these features in my previous phones, but this phone doesn't have it. Overall, I'm still satisfied with it. 90450 2002/7/8 Product Rating5.0 excellent phonebook light weight good reception depends somewhat on service provider color changing backlight not available in some areas The Bottom LineThe Versio is a great choice for someone who needs a reliable phone, with all the features most people need- not to mention its great looks and style. Full Review Going to an out of state college has left me with a need for good, reliable communication while at the same time sharply limiting my budget to obtain it. After a year of putting it off, and dealing with people's frustrations at their inability to get a hold of me, I decided that a cellular phone may be a good investment. This is what lead me to the Panasonic EB-TX320 ("versio") handset. Upon choosing a phone, i didnt have the money to go for one of the more expensive models, but also couldnt afford the "$0.01! its almost free! (2 year contract required subject to extremely expensive changes of terms without notice, termination will require you to give us your soul)" experiences many of my friends have had with the low end nokia models- so i sprung for the $49.99 Versio, and have been glad that i did ever since. This phone has a way of getting reception in areas that other phones have walked away with their perverbial tails between their legs- in buildings, remote areas on the highway, and 'dead spots' in general. It will receive calls in places where others have to settle for a voicemail, and i think this is one of the best features a phone can offer. Weight- The 320 is disproportionately light for a phone of its size and shape- (granted, its not a big phone, but compared to the cigerette pack sized nokia 8000 series and others like it, the versio is good sized). This is a good and bad thing, because the light weight makes the phone feel flimsier then it really is. Size- Will easily fit in a pocket, but might not be comfortable for some people that wear tighter fitting pants. Menu navigation- once you get the hang of it, (the panasonic menus work differently than most others), the phone's menu is very easy to make your way through. The phonebook feature is particularly nice, as you can store 4 different numbers (work, home, cell, etc) under one person's name instead of having to scroll through all kinds of listings. The backlight also changes between three different colors, blue red and green, though it is hard to read from the red in my opinion. At 49.99 the Panasonic Versio is an excellent choice for someone looking for a feature packed phone, but doesnt want to spend a great deal of money, surf the wireless web, or have a phone that does things they will never use. With the release of the TX320, Panasonic has a real winner on their hands. Recommended: Yes 90449 2000/9/20 Product Rating1.0 very lightweight stylish exterior color changing screen not too low battery life The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone - its cheap & convenient. Full Review I first got my Panasonic Versio cell phone when the screen on my then current Nokia cell decided to break. I could no longer use that phone, so I was very hasty in making my decision about which phone to purchase next. When I went to AT&T to find a replacement, my options were a little limited & the Versio seemed to be the best deal at the time. The first impression this tiny phone gave was a good one. It came in my favorite color- silver; was very light; and had the vibrate feature, which my nokia did not have. As I stated earlier, I was hasty about the purchase, and didn't put too much time into the whole process; basically I just wanted a working phone again. I ended up paying about $50, after the mail-in-rebate, which to me, was a fair price for this phone. It ended up being worth the money. When I took it home, I started to toy with the features. It had the color changing face (6 colors to choose from); various but limited intricate ringtones; personalized ringers for each caller; a lot of space for my phonebook; and many other features. It was pretty easy to use as well. The phone also came with a charger and a red faceplate. I was a little disappointed that it had no games, as I had become addicted to Snake, on my Nokia. Overall, the Panasonic Versio is a good phone; it is reliable and easy to use. It comes with a few nice features that you may not find on other phones. The talk time isn't too long, but it will get you through the day. After being a user of this phone for about 5 months, I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is in need of a cellular phone. It will definitely meet your needs as long as you aren't out to get something too extravagant. Recommended: No 90448 2000/2/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very lightweight but sturdy good reception some slow inputs battery meter The Bottom LineA very good basic phone. Full Review If you're looking for a good basic phone, this phone should be on your short list. If you're looking for downloadable ring tones, games, and lots of accessories, this phone isn't for you. GOOD STUFF This phone is incredibly light (about 3 ounces), but it's not tiny. Notwithstanding its weight, it feels pretty solid. Generally, on the AT&T network in the D.C. metro area, I've found that the reception is good. The battery life is adequate, but nothing to write home about. TAKE OR LEAVE STUFF This phone includes both a silver and red face plate. It also always you to change the color of the backlight (I prefer "amber" because it offers plenty of contrast without being too bright). BAD STUFF The meter that claims to show battery life is too optimistic, although it seems to be getting a bit more accurate over time. The key input can be annoying because you can't input a new command until the screen clears from the previous command. For example, if you unlock the keys, you can't dial a phone number until the "Keys Unlocked" message disappears. It's just a matter of seconds, but still somewhat annoying. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 90447 2000/11/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 nice screen colors easy to use nice tones light no customizable ring tone sound quality The Bottom LineThe look and feel, as well as the cool ring tones, make this a great phone! I would have paid $100 for it. Full Review I bought a Versio to replace my old Nokia 5160. The Panasonic is very nice. It is really light and thin. The backlight can be changed to cyan, blue, purple, green, yellow, or reddish-orange. The purple bacground looks great with the green buttons. I also like the silver and black look, but it also comes with a metallic red faceplate. You can also buy a blue flip-fone style faceplate that has a cover for the buttons. The text entry for messages is nice. The T9 text feature works nicely. It predicts what the word is when you type using the keypad. Another cool thing is that besides the speed-dial entries, there is a super speed-dial button on the side of the phone that will call a number of your choice. Very handy! The ring tones that come with the phone sound very nice! They are very melodic and polyphonic (plays more than one note at a time). My nokia could only my lame buzzing noises. Also, you can assign ring tones to different incoming #'s. For instance, when my friend calls (and I have his # programmed into my phonebook) a certain ring tone sounds. It's great because I know if a friend (and which friend) is calling without even having to look at the number at the screen. Also, you can set the color of the screen to have a custom color depending on who is calling. Apart from the above, there are regular rings as well as songs. Also there is vibrate mode. And silent mode. It is all customizable too so you can mix n match tone settings. An added bonus is that there is a hole at the bottom of the antennae for a strap. In Japan, people like to accessorize their phones with straps that have little characters on them, like hello kitty or afro-ken. (I used to live there) With my nokia, I had to thread a strap through a tiny hole (ringer?) which was a pain. You can keylock the phone easily by holding down a certain button for a few seconds. My only complaints are that the sound quality is not as clear as my nokia was. It is still easy to hear, so that is not really a problem. And also, I wish you could download more ringtones or create them yourself. And lastly, there are no games on this phone. I didn't really play any on my nokia, but this might be important you to all. All in all, I am very happy with this phone. It was only $49 when I bought it (July 02) to replace my Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90446 2000/10/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight changable faceplates good display cheap sound quality speakerphone The Bottom LineGood phone...spend the extra $$$ and get a Nokia 3360. You'll be much happier. Still, this is a good phone for the price. Full Review This phone isn't too bad for the price, but there are definately better phones out there. What I liked: - Very lightweight... It's similar in weight to my 8290 which is a much smaller phone. I like that Panasonic decided to package the phone with a lithium-ion battery. That not only makes the phone lighter, but it's just a better battery type all around. I now look for phones that come with lithium-ion batteries as standard equipment, as it's superior to the standard Ni-Mh battery. - Good display... You have a choice of six different backlight colors; some of which make the screen difficult to read (like blue). Mainly cosmetic, but it's cool nonetheless. It's easy to see, and it doesn't scratch easy. - Nice price... This is a well equipped phone for the price. It sells for $49.99 with a new activation, which is a very reasonable price for what you get. - Changeable faceplates... Again, mainly cosmetic but you can spice up the phone if you get tired of the silver and red faceplates included. A nice faceplate to look into is a flip one - check your local AT&T Wireless store for that. - Polyphonic ringtones... The ringtones sound a lot more sophisticated in the sense that there's so many more notes playing at once. The "normal" ringtones can only play one note at a time, so it's not as realistic. What I didn't like: - Sound quality... I thought the sound quality was very marginal. I have multiple AT&T Wireless phones, and this would rank at the bottom. It sounds tinny and it starts to get distorted at high volume -- same goes for the built in speaker phone. - Speakerphone... It's not all it's hyped up to be. It's extremely soft and if there's any noise around you, it's impossible to hear the other person. Totally defeats the purpose of a speakerphone, you know? Overall, it's a decent phone. I would definately pick a different phone if I got the chance to choose another one. Don't get me wrong, for $50 this is a great deal -- I'd just prefer something else. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30 90445 2000/12/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 lightweight easy access to quiet mode lack of features display hard to read hard to find accessories feels cheap sounds cheap The Bottom LineThumbs Down (I hope the Panasonic engineers read this review and learn from it) Full Review After spending two weeks with my new Versio phone, I am sorely disappointed, and am seriously considering dishing this off to one of my kids and buying a real phone (dang, if only I hadn't spent 3 hours inputting all my phonebook numbers already.) Anyway, as a bit of background, I lost my beloved company-supplied phone (a Nokia 3360) on a wild cab ride through San Fransisco and it was recently replaced with what I was told was a "great new phone". First Impressions: My first impression of the phone was that it was light, but maybe TOO light. It feels very cheap and flimsy. In addition, not one person that has called me said I sounded clear on the other end. The Box: The kit came with a much-needed instruction book, an extra ugly red faceplate (which I immediately pitched) and a home charger (which takes a ridiculous 10 hours to fully charge the battery.) The Display: The first thing I noticed about the changeable color display, is that the words and symbols are nearly impossible to make out unless the phone is held 4 inches or less away. Having recently been to the eye doctor, I knew it wasn't just me. While the phone is ringing, you are definitely not able to tell at a glance who is calling. The display must be held close and studied for clues. In addition, the signal strength indicator is WAY to small, and jammed up in the corner of the display. Using the Phone: The one thing that strikes me over and over as I use this phone, is that the Panasonic engineers obviously have never tried anyone else's phones, to see how much easier it can be (and should be) to use a cell phone: First, The basic calling features are extremely limited. For example, you can enter multiple phone numbers for one person, but when the phone rings, it doesn't say what phone they are calling from (work, home, cell, etc.) It only displays that person's name. Second, When using the dedicated button to check for cell voice mail messages, the number it dials must be programmed in initially. After this initial programming, it cannot be modified (to add additional pauses and prompts, etc.) Third, When using the one touch speed dials, there is no indication that you've held the button down long enough to initiate the call. If you have the phone to your ear, the loud and annoying "beeeeeeep" continues long after the call begins to go through. Fourth, There is no quick access menu for creating specific ring settings, such as Normal, Ring Once, etc. However, one of the few redeeming features this phone does have, is the one-touch quiet mode on and off. Fifth, In order to scroll through the phonebook easily, you must enter a first AND last name for each spot. Otherwise, when trying to locate the name later, the phonebook will scroll alphabetically by First Name and then start over at "A" and scroll alphabetically through by Last Name. Grrrrrr. Accessories (or lack thereof) Just for grins, try and find any accessories for this phone by walking into the various electronics stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) They are nowhere to be found. The only place I've been able to locate them is online (with the shipping charge being more than the cost of the accessory.) Overall Impressions: If I had actually paid money for this phone, instead of having it issued by my company, I would have returned it the day after I bought it. Although I have other Panasonic electronics and admire the brand overall, they have a LONG way to go to be competitive in cell phone features, sound quality and ease of use. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0 (too much) 90444 2004/9/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 comes with two face plates light decent voice quality built in speaker phone calendar no web browser so so design games mediocre battery life functioning keypad lock The Bottom LineA phone that gets the job done, but nothing more. A totally forgettable model with some serious design and software flaws. Full Review I had this phone for almost a year, and was someone happy with it, although never quite satisfied. I got it for free with a SunCom plan, which is always a great price to pay for anything. I chose it mostly because all other available phones were either Nokia or Motorola, and I have never been a big fan of either of those companies. When I first held the phone in my hand I thought they had given me the non-working showcase sample because the phone was really light and plasticky looking. Of course it is! It's made of plastic so it makes sense I guess. But the first feel of the phone does not inspire any trust or admiration. I chose the model without the flip cover, because that cover was just a piece of extra plastic that looked really tacky. Later I regretted not getting it though, because I would often push buttons without knowing it in my pocket. The phone had some kind of key lock, but I could never figure out how it worked, nor was it explained anywhere in the manual. I know that several times I've found the phone with a key lock activated without me doing anything, but it was totally random, and never predictable. The phone had a decent amount of features, but lacked some very important ones for me - there were no calendar, games, or a web browser. The built in speaker phone, the vibrating alert, and the changing colors on the screen were kind of cool, but most of them made the display really hard to read. Also the vibrating alert was really harsh and loud so wasn't very discreet at times, especially if you leave the phone on some hard surface. The phone came with 2 face covers which was nice, since most people drop their phones a lot and that gives you a chance to make it look like new again after some serious abuse. I also liked the ability to assign a different ring to a specific number, a feature that's quite common these days. The menu system on the phone is nothing spectacular you have mostly the regular stuff; it does give you an option to assign a VIP number to a special button on the side of the phone. I hated that button, because it was really easy to activate unintentionally, and honestly was a little redundant since there is a speed dial on the phone anyway. I had assigned my voice mail number to that button, which was my phone number, and later I gave that phone to friend of mine and every now and then I'd get a call from her that even she didn't know was made, because that little side button was just to easy to press in her purse. I think little things like that make the difference between a good phone and an OK phone, because this Versio model did have a good reception and an OK battery life. The battery lasted about 3-4 days at the beginning, but that didn't last long. Maybe 6 months or so after I got it I already had to charge it pretty much every night. I have to give it to Nokia - when it comes to battery life they are the best. The other complaint I had with hat phone was that it would get really hot when you talk a long time. Most phones do warm up a little, but this one did more than any other phone I've ever had. I also wasn't too crazy about the design. Besides its lightness, there was nothing too cool about the phone, and I didn't like the antenna much. I like built in antennas - they always seem to create less troubles when you try to stick the phone in some little opening in your car door or something, and are also not as prone to breaking. Motorola probably makes the worst antennas. Another design problem is the keypad layout. The buttons are pretty small and hard to figure out by touch. Right in the middle around the joystick, there are 4 small buttons cramped really close to each other, and it is almost impossible to remember and find the one you need without looking at them, which could be dangerous, especially while driving. Also the back side of the phone is oddly shaped, and when you leave it lying on a table or something it could never quite settle down, because the antenna protrudes awkwardly, creating an uneven surface on the back of the phone. This is a problem when the vibrate alert is activated because the whole phone moves and creates a lot of noise. Also if you leave it on a dash board or other sloped surface there is not enough traction and the phone would easily slide off. This could have been a good phone, but there are some serious design and software problems. Recommended: No Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90443 2002/5/15 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception loaded with features somewhat clunky menu system The Bottom LineConsistently demonstrates superior performance, reliability, durability, and usefulness. Full Review SKA-RUN-N-CH!! That sickening sound on a cold February day last winter marks the beginning of the end for my one of my most trusted and oft-used electronic friends… my Nokia 5160 cell phone. I am busily painting the living room of a customer when my Nokia rings. Where the &*$#@ is it??!!? As the phone continues chirping with growing urgency, my size 12 clodhopper comes down on a small hard object that's hidden under a drop cloth. Coincidental with that sickening "scrunch" of cracked plastic, my faithful Nokia stops ringing. A bad sign… a very bad sign indeed… For the next two months, I am able to salvage at least a modicum of use out of my damaged Nokia. The case is cracked at the base, and the battery won't stay securely attached, but the phone does work... kinda-sorta. However, its ability to function reliably in a business setting seems severely hampered. Finally, in mid-April, I take it to A T & T Wireless to see if it can be fixed… It turns out to be a classic "good news/bad news" situation. The good news: the phone can be fixed. The bad news: it's gonna cost me about a hundred bucks, and the phone will have to be sent back to Nokia. I'll be without it for 6 - 8 weeks. Not a good scenario! Oh, well… maybe buying a new phone is a cheaper alternative. Hmmm… I guess not!! Most of the cell phones in our local A T & T Wireless showroom are in the $100 to $150 price range. I guess buying a new phone is out of the question… …Then I spy this little red phone sitting in a display case all by itself. A very tiny, slim, and stylish little phone. Made by Panasonic. Called a Versio (pronounced "verz EYE oh") EB-TX320. Price tag: $49.99. Not too bad... not too bad at all!! I ask the sales clerk about it. She tells me the phone is brand new on the market, but that initial reports are very positive. I decide to take one… red, of course, just like the one in the display case. I'm happy to report that, in the four weeks I've owned my Versio, I've been consistently pleased with its performance. It's proven itself the equal of my Nokia 5160 in many ways, and even surpasses it in a few performance categories. WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT THE PANASONIC VERSIO EB-TX320… * EXCELLENT TRASMISSION AND RECEPTION! As I said in my review of the Nokia 5160, "All the great features in the world ain't gonna help you a bit if a cell phone doesn't adequately perform its most basic function: providing clear, crisp, and reliable communications." On this score, the Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 actually outshines my old Nokia. As good as my Nokia was, there were several "dead" spots in my local calling area… my house (as luck would have it) being one of them. My new Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 seems better capable of providing completely static- and fade-free transmission and reception in the vicinity of my house and in other problem areas. * SMALL AND LIGHTWEIGHT: The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is about the same size, but only half the weight of the Nokia 5160. It checks in at 5 inches long from antenna tip to base; 1 inch thick; and 1¾ inches wide. It weighs only three ounces.Like most cell phones, it will tuck very nicely wherever you want it… even your shirt pocket! * EXCELLENT DESIGN: As I said at the top of my review, the Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is a sleek and stylish little number that is bound to catch the eye. But the phone's excellent design goes beyond just lookin' good. This is a feature-packed little gem. The digital display and numeric keypad are simple in design, and very user-friendly. The digital display is large, taking up about one-third of the phone's face. The display is fairly easy to read, although the letters and numbers aren't quite as large as the Nokia's. The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 features a backlight that you can adjust to one of several colors: amber, yellow, green, blue, and red among them. I find yellow to be easiest on my eyes. Letters and numbers are easy to read even in low light. The phone's keypad is very well laid out. The keys are small and black, with white letters and numbers that are surprisingly easy to read. The keys have a solid tactile feel to them, and are set far enough apart from each other to reduce the chances of mashing more than one at a time. The keypad is very simple to use, but perhaps not quite as intuitive as the Nokia's. One problem right from the "git-go:" whereintheheck is the "Power On/Off" button?! Pressing the key with the little red phone icon turns the phone both on and off... but you won't know that until you read the owner's manual. That particular button should be more clearly labeled... In addition to the standard alpha-numeric keypad, you'll find a "send" (green phone icon) and "receive" (red phone icon... yes, it's the same key that turns the phone on and off) button, and special keys for menu access; text and voice mail message access; and phone book access. A large round key located directly under the display allows you to scroll through the menu and phone book in one of four directions. The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is well constructed, although it lacks a bit of the Nokia 5160's sturdy "feel." Although it seem light by comparison to the Nokia, the Versio seems built well enough to withstand the rough-and-tumble of the house painting business. * EASY TO SET UP: Simply take it out of the box, snap on the battery pack, and fully charge the lithium-ion battery (that takes about six hours). Once that's done, the phone is ready to use...assuming, of course, you're subscribed to a wireless calling plan. GOOD BATTERY LIFE: The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is excellent. As I write this, I am able to go about three days with the phone constantly on, sending or receiving an average of six calls a day, before it's necessary for me to recharge the battery. This falls right in line with the 140 minute talk time/200 minute standby time manufacturer's specification. * EXCELLENT ASSORTMENT OF FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS: The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is definitely a full-featured cell phone! It's fully capable of Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Voice and Text Messaging, and Caller ID, when those features are a part of your wireless calling plan. Also included (not as part of a service agreement) are last number redial, automatic redial, and automatic answer. Here are some of the phone's built-in features (that are not subject to a calling plan) that I'm sure you'll find as useful as I have: * Phone book: Phone numbers can be dialed either from the phone book, or by entering them directly from the keypad. One excellent feature: each phone book entry allows you to put a contact's home phone, business phone, cell phone and other number. So, while the phone book is limited to 100 entries, it's possible to list 4 phone numbers for each entry. * Built in speakerphone: Pressing the "#/Sp/Quiet" key for about eight seconds automatically activates the phone's built in speakerphone. It provides surprisingly clear, crisp, and easy to hear audio for both callers. * Programmable "Super Dial" keys: You can program all nine numeric keys on the keypad with any telephone number you'd like. If you wish, you can set up key 9 to dial Emergency 911...an especially outstanding feature! * Calling log: Lists your most recent calls, and the time used for each of them. Also included: a set of timers which logs the number of minutes you've used since you last reset the timers. A non-resettable lifetime usage timer is also included. * Digital Clock and programmable alarms: A fully adjustable, very accurate alarm clock. You can set the display to show time (in either 12- or 24-hour mode) and date (in either American or European date format). You can set up to 10 alarms to go off either as a scheduled one-time alarm or as a daily alarm. You can set the alarm tones loud enough to just about wake the dead, if you desire. One annoying feature: If you have more than one alarm set, and you miss it, the first alarm will go off and shut itself off, but any subsequent alarms won't go off… and the phone doesn't revert automatically to standby. If you miss your alarm, you have to manually shut off any subsequent alarms you may have set. * Tone selection: You may select from among 6 "general rings" and 10 preset melodies as your phone's ringer. * Built-in vibration alert: Included with the Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 (at no extra charge) is a built in vibration alert. You can set it either to come on along with an audible ring, or with the ringer muted. Setting the phone for "Quiet Mode" automatically mutes the phone's ringer and activates the vibration alert. * Security: Select voice encryption to guard against eavesdropping; and prevent unauthorized use of your phone by restricting outgoing AND incoming calls! * Key Lock: When selected, this forces the phone to ignore unintentional key presses. It's an essential feature when you have your phone in your pocket, purse, briefcase, or bag. * Lots of optional accessories: The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 comes with a few accessories, including a basic "hands-free" earphone/microphone set; battery recharger and two interchangeable face plates. Other accessories are readily available (at extra cost, of course!): Battery recharger for use in car, SUV, or truck (uses cigar lighter); face plate with flip-down dust cover (I bought this one… and I love it); and a belt clip. CONCLUSION: During the month I've owned my Panasonic Versio EB-TX320, I've been very impressed with it. It has consistently demonstrated superior performance, reliability, durability, and usefulness. Every one of this little red phone's myriad of features works flawlessly. In fact, I like my little red Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 so much that I plan to continue using it... even after I get my Nokia 5160 back from the repair shop. Recommended: Yes 90442 2000/8/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception size sound quality colors price looks sturdy construction weight some buttons menu items are confusing The Bottom LineThe Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is an excellent choice: it looks good is convenient to use and has great reception and sound quality as well as good battery life. Full Review The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is a cellular phone offered by AT&T Wireless, which features excellent reception, stylish and functional design and reasonable price ($49). Design The phone comes with two interchangeable face plates that turn it into silver or red phone with black accents. It features durable construction and quite large and legible display with six selectable backlight tones. There is a separate button to connect to your favorite phone number (to call home, for example) and the center of the phone features a large navigation key, which acts like a joystick and allows you navigate through the phone's menus. There are two so-called "Soft keys" that are used to activate the functions currently displayed above them on the phone's screen. The phone's End key also serves as power on/off switch, when depressed and held. All buttons provide good tactile response. Performance The phone's reception and sound quality is exceptional, possibly due to the antenna that is a little longer than the phone. In addition to the regular conversation mode, you can use it as a speakerphone or with a headset hands-free. The phonebook stores up to 100 contacts/locations with four phone numbers and an email. The phone also allows you use two-way text messaging and can operate in 800 MHz analog mode, 800 MHz TDMA and 1900 MHz TDMA. The tones can be customized according to the person who calls you. You can select among 16 ring tones (10 melodies and 6 tones) and use them with or without vibration alert. "Quiet mode" uses vibration only without the ringer. The phone also allows for three-way calling, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, auto redial and auto answer. The phone features alarms (up to 10 alarms - one time or daily) with volume that can be set to very loud. The volume of the earpiece can be adjusted as well as the volume of the keys. The date format can be switched between American and European as well as the time format. You can enter the phone number while talking on the phone. Super Dial and Speed Dial You can assign the phone number to the button and dial this number by pressing and holding that key (super dial). Speed dial allows you place a call by entering the memory location where the number is stored. Battery The battery that is supplied with the phone is 740 mAh Li-Ion device that allows for up to 140 minutes of talk time or up to 200 hours of standby in digital mode with a charge time of approximately 3 hours, which is quite good as batteries go, especially for such a small size/weight combination. The energy consumption increases in analog mode, so the talk time can by up to 80 minutes and standby time is only 5.5 hours. However, since coverage is mostly digital, there is not much chance that the standby time will be so short. Conclusion The Panasonic Versio EB-TX320 is an excellent choice: it looks good is convenient to use and has great reception and sound quality as well as good battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 7822 Qualcomm GSP-1600 90453 2005/2/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 one phone gsp 1600 two phone numbers at your convenience size of the gsp 1600 is not small but you get use to it I rely on communications almost every day of my life. I use to have many of the cell phones that were offered with the local providers. When I went out of cell range many times and would come accross situations where I wished I had some form of communicating with safety personnel I realized that I was putting myself at risk. I think of the many backpacking trips and kayaking trips that were well out of cell range that were without any injuries or mishaps. In order for me to keep going to the outdoors with a peace of mind after reading about many incidents of tragedies that could have had a better outcome if there was communications gear I decided to have satelite communication. I did some research on satelite communication gear and decided on the Globalstars GSP 1600 for all of my communication gear. It has the capability of a local cellular number which I use for my everyday cellular needs and a satelite number for when I am out of cell range which I enjoy very much too. 90452 2000/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 coverage all over the planet very long battery life bulky not many bellswhistles The Bottom LineIf you need to call from anywhere, this is a great phone. It won't win any fashion or portability contests though. Full Review I've had the GSP-1600 for about 3 years now, and I use it in my car everyday. I bought it as a safety device when flying light aircraft. I still carry it when I fly, but I don't use it as my primary personal phone anymore,except in the car. On the up side, this phone will allow you to place calls from most points on the planet. There is a range limit of sorts, as you must be within a given distance from a ground station. In practice, this doesn't affect most users, as the range limit is between 1500 and 3000 miles from said ground station. The middle of an ocean is probably the only place where this is likely to cause you difficulty. The phone is a tri-mode set, meaning it works on the following services: - Ground-based analog cellular (AMPS) - Ground-based digital cellular (CDMA 800) - Satellite digital (CDMA) The CDMA 800 service is very well provisioned in the United States, so you're likely to have some kind of coverage no matter where you travel. The antenna design is brilliant. It extends from a tubular sleeve as the sleeve is rotated into the upright position. This protects the antenna when stored and is a good use of space. The phone may be configured to automatically switch to satellite mode when the antenna is extended. The phone is simple to use, and from the programmer's standpoint looks just like some of the most popular Qualcomm (now Kyocera) phones. This is important when you walk into your local Verizon outlet with this unusually huge device and tell them to set you up for cell service. I brought a copy of the programming instructions from the web (also shipped with the phone) and they had me programmed in 10 minutes despite never having seen one before. The phone is easy to use, but not feature rich. The Epinions menu states that it's web-enabled, but that's not entirely accurate. This phone may be used with a data cable for data connections, even to the Internet via the satellite service at 9600 bps, but there's no minibrowser in it. The display is easy to use and makes it clear in which mode you're operating. The power-on animation with the satellite whooshing by is a crowd-pleaser at parties. (I'm not making this up.) There's a fairly capable phonebook which will store quite a few numbers. You are constrained to something like 9 characters for names, so skill with abbreviation is useful. The audio quality is great. It's quite loud at the loudest setting. The audio quality of the satellite service pleasantly surprised me. It was almost as good as the digital cellular audio quality. You will get drop outs when you drive under bridges, but that's to be expected from a satellite phone. The neat thing is that it rarely will drop a call for that reason. I tried the old Iridium service, and I can say that the Globalstar audio quality is far superior. To me, a call over Iridium made the other person sound as if they were under water. The battery life is eternal. I don't mean to exaggerate, but I've had a week go by before I charged it up, even with frequent use. Switching to non-digital cellular service will dramatically decrease battery life, but that's true of all multi-band phones. It's a big battery, for a big phone, so perhaps it makes sense that it lasts for a while. Speaking of big phones, the leather carrying case with belt clip leaves something to be desired. The small velcro strip at the top has a tendency to open while it's swinging on my belt, occasionally causing the phone to fall out. This is probably due to the fact that the phone is fairly heavy. I have the first generation car kit, which has caused me some personal grief. The audio quality is excellent, but the satellite antenna in this first version is a large dome with a 2.5" diameter cylinder sticking up about 6 inches. The satellite antenna cable is not detachable from the car kit, so even to use the terrestrial cellular service I have to drive around with this magnetic mount "dunce cap" on my car. The high-powered amplifier for the satellite antenna is in the rooftop unit, so you wouldn't want to keep it in the passenger compartment for reasons of radio frequency exposure. On more than one occasion I have been stopped by people who kindly wanted to warn me that something was sitting on my roof. On at least two occasions, I have been hailed by people attempting to flag down a cab. I can't help but laugh, as I have yet to see a Mercedes-Benz taxi in the United States. Then again, I have the satisfaction of knowing I can make a call no matter where I might drive. The good news is that the newest version of the car kit antenna is an unassuming gray hockey puck. That's what I get for being an "early adopter". Installation kits for cars and boats are currently available, and one for aircraft (which will probably wind up being a new model of phone) is in development. Globalstar has turned on both 9600bps data service and Internet services via satellite. This may seem slow to you, but when you realize that people travelling in almost any part of the world might now be able to check their electronic mail, this is a big deal. I have had a problem with activating data service as my phone has old firmware, and I need to send it into Globalstar for reprogramming. Newer phones should support data services out of the box. On the support side, the Globalstar telephone support people are exceptionally pleasant and helpful. I wish more companies would follow their example. The satellite service prices are quite reasonable and frequently competitive with international GSM roaming rates. There are plans for low-time users and those who like to talk. You're likely to pay about $1.60/minute on a $20-30/month plan. The per-minute rate goes under $1 as the plans become more expensive. You're probably going to be using the cellular/CDMA service most of the time anyway, so this will not likely be your primary usage mode. In short, this is a great phone if you think you might need to make a call from the top of the highest mountain or the floor of the lowest desert. It should even work for you at sea until you get to the exact center of the ocean. You probably won't want to wear it on your belt though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1500 7823 Qualcomm QPC-860 90474 2000/8/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of features poor battery life The Bottom LineMaybe not all Qualcomm products have such bad battery life, but I'm beginning to think that it may be so. Full Review I ordered this 2 year contract with what was Airtouch at the time and thought I was getting a great bargain with this phone. And, it did work okay for about 6 months. I got great clarity of sound on phone calls and I picked up a signal almost everywhere. Then, suddenly I had to charge it everyday to get it to work. And, I very rarely use the phone. Thinking this was just some freak thing, I took it to the now Verizon Wireless store to get it looked at. The sales girl gave me a $60.00 long life battery to help me out. This only lasts for about 1-1/2 days. Now I know and can't be the only one having this problem. In fact, some of my co-workers that have the same phone, have the same problem. They've actually traded theirs in for new ones and had the same problem show up in a couple of months. Thankfully, my contract will be up in a few months and I can then switch phones without having to pay full price. Will I get another Qualcomm? I doubt it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 90473 2000/10/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight great qualcomm quality small interchangeable faceplates small battery life The Bottom LineGood phone, good features, cool accessories available. Full Review I first bought this little beauty when I wanted an upgrade for my Song SMD-500. This phone was on sale with a plan for 400 peak minutes and 2400 off-peak minutes for $ 30.00 a month. I went with this phone, anything was better than my previous phone. After about three weeks, I was getting into the phone, I started going through the features and seeing what it had to offer! WOW was I surprised!!!! This phone has a substantial phone book, its' WAP enabled, its a tri-mode phone, and its light weight! The only thing that I dont like about this phone, is that its' battery life doesnt last very long. If it has a full charge, and I start talking to someone for about 45 minutes, I start getting the "Internal Battery LOW!!!!" warning. I wish it had a longer battery time, but usually I am close to the charger, so I guess it doesnt really matter. I love this phone's clarity!!! On some of my friend's more expensive phones, I couldnt hear, there was a lot of static or breaking up.... however, this phone beats all theirs!!! I wish this phone had some more "Nokia-like ringtones," but, what can you do. I do like number 9 on my cell. I have found that there are numerous places that you can get new faceplates for this cell, so you dont have to stick with the boring old Black or silverish-purple face. I have also found that there are some lighted antennas for this cell. These dont especially get good reception,but for the teen, its a good thing. It makes you look kool when your on the phone and your antenna is sparkling away!!! I have now had this cell for about a year.... I'm still loving it! I bought an extra battery, one that clips on. This makes it a bigger handset, but I can talk for more than 45 minutes on a full charge. All in all, this phone has good reception, a slew of great features, so-so battery life, and there are some cool accessories available!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90472 2000/12/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 thin light pretty blue case short battery life incompatable headset jack Full Review I purchased one of these 6 months ago because it was supposed to be so much better than the Audiovox digital "brick" my provider sold me. It does have some nice features, but it annoys me in three specific areas. First, my model doesn't seem to have any more sensitivity than the Audiovox. This is a big problem for people who spend lots of time in the 'burbs or in rural areas. Secondly, the battery that comes with it typically dies out, with minimal usage about 4:00 pm, despite claims of long usage times. (It goes on about 9:00 am). Lastly, it uses one of the most unique headset connection arrangements out there. If you want to use your headset from a previous phone (Motorola, Nokia, etc.) you will find that you can't. Why Qualcomm didn't put in the same headset jack as everyone else escapes me. You either need a new headset, or a headset "adapter" - either way, it's gonna cost you another 50 bucks. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 90. 90471 2000/1/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 i ve abused this phoneit still works perfectly an extremely durable phone battery life could be longer The Bottom LineReception and durability are its greatest benefits. There are probably smaller phones on the market by now, but who knows if they will be as good in terms of quality? Full Review Someone told me that this phone once won the title of the most durable phone on the market about a year ago. I believe that. I have dropped the phone on concrete and other hard surfaces probably about 50 times(by accident), I've bent the antenna and bent it back, etc. etc., and it still is in perfect condition. I've had the phone for about 18 months now, too. I like the slim design because it fits in even the smallest of my purses. The reception is great, but I don't know if that is because of the phone or Verizon. I bought a hands-free unit from Radio Shack for 20 bucks and that works just fine. I guess the only real con is that you can't charge the phone in your car and use the hands free at the same time because they plug into the same part of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90470 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great for all time use none Full Review I find this phone both useful and fun. With the changeable face plates and the wireless web I'm like a kid in a candy store. I got mine back in late June and have loved it ever since. The battery seems to last forever. I have left it on in my pants pockets over night and only one bar may have gone down. The Wireless web is great for finding weather, sports scores and other useful and cool info when I need it say on a street corner or in a bus station. The plans for the phone are great also I have a plan where my bill is only about 30 to 40 dollars a month. One of the greatest points is you don't have know a lot is use it, it is very easy to use and figure out. So those who have been looking for a good cell phone this would be the one I would chose. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 45 90469 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call clarity durability slim design losing signal turns off keyguard The Bottom LineYou can not go wrong buying an 860. Even an absent-minded person like me hasn't been able to destroy it with two washer and dryer cycles. Full Review I got this phone free with activation and expected it to be the free cheap things I have been used to in the past. How wrong I was! This phone can stand up to all others in its price range and its durability will most likely leave all others in the dust. The slim design makes it very easy to fit in a pocket and hardly know you have a phone there. Turn on keyguard and you'll have no problems unless you lose your signal. Losing signal causes keyguard to go off and the next time your keys come in contact with a button too long you'll find yourself making a fifteen minute call to your parents' answering machine. Watch what you're saying! The microphone has great range and was able to pick up an entire conversation which my Mom played back later to my embarrassment. Moms shouldn't hear those things about their sons. Durability is my favorite feature of this phone. It has been dropped more than I'd like to admit, been through washer and dryer cycles twice and been run over in my apartment parking lot and it still works! Other than the couple dozen scratches in the cover and the numbers that have been rubbed off the buttons, it still is as good as the day I took it out of the box. If you're looking for a new cell, you can't go wrong with this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 00.00 90468 2000/12/14 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 light thin great features didn t keep it long enough to find out Full Review Attention Epinions members!:if you rate opinions strictly by length (as many do) than you might as well skip right to the bottom and give me the SR/NR I obviously deserve. I recently went down to the local radio shack and locked myself into a year-long cellphone plan with Verizon Wireless.It was actually a shared plan so I got two FREE phones with the deal and I chose the Qualcomm 860. These phones are very thin and light but also a bit larger than the average phone and loaded with features.I was actually really impressed with the phones up until the time I actually took the first call. The sound was crystal clear in my ear,but apparently the person on the other end of the line could not hear my voice.A defective unit. So it was off to radio shack again to replace it. After the lengthy process of waiting for the clerk to cancel the first phone and reprogram the second,I was out the door again. The next day,leaving the house with a fully charged battery I was upset to find that the battery was dead less than six hours later without spending a second actually using the phone. With an advertised stand-by time of 100 hours, I knew something was not right so back to radio shack.They replaced the battery (not an easy job,considering the tool to open the back of this phone is one that requires special ordering)and after another day (18 hrs)the fully charged battery was drained.Although my wife's unit seemed to work fine and the battery seemed stronger,I decided to take both phones back because I figured with these kind of results this brand of phone could not possibly hold up to the abuse a cellphone should.Maybe I should have just stuck with my outdated,five pound nokia.... Recommended: No 90467 2001/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 earpiece forms to your ear serveral options clarity slim design antenna doesn t stay extended The Bottom LineI recommend this phone because it is light, thin and the clarity is wonderful. I love all of the options it contains and use most of them. Full Review Recently, my vehicle was broken into and of course my stereo was stolen, and so was my pride and joy......my cell phone! Yikes! I always left my cell phone in the car, because I normally only used it for emergencies. I went back to Alltel, my service provider and look at the array of different cell phones. They didn't have my old Nokia model and so I wanted to upgrade myself a little bit! My phone was just your standard, ring and answer and that was it. I was in the market for the works, caller id, call waiting and voice mail. I like a phone that feels very comfortable when holding it to my ear. I wanted a phone that felt sort of like my own cordless phone at home. I've used several friends phones and either they felt too small or too bulky and heavy. There were different models displayed. Of course clarity was very important. There is nothing worse than trying to talk with someone and get only half the sentence, get frustrated and hang up! I picked up the Qualcomm 860 and held it to my ear. I liked how it felt. The earpiece is oval shape so it almost feels like your everyday at home phone. The number buttons were big enough so you didn't have to use the eraser on your pencil to dial a number. I went to the sales man and asked about the phone and the options. Recently on the Today Show, they had a list of the top selling and most requested cell phones and I remembered this particular phone was #3, so that was a bonus. You can sell me almost anything by word of mouth. Pretty much, this phone can be used just like a PC if you choose. I myself think one computer is enough, and I will keep it at home in our computer room! ;) You can have caller id, call waiting, voice mail and text messages, it has internet and data capabilities, of course you can log in your very own private phone book, you can put a lock on your phone using a 4 digit lock code, and you can only call emergency numbers or receive incoming calls, this feature is nice if you don't want others making outgoing calls without you knowing. The digital screen is big enough to see incoming calls, if your battery is low, if you have voice mail and making sure you have a nice strong signal. It has a menu button so you may see all of your features and options and it is very easy to follow. The phone comes with an internal battery and the talk time is great. You can buy an external battery that snaps onto the back of the phone to extend the talk time. My phone came with an AC adapter that I can plug into the wall and charge the phone when not in use. I also purchased an adapter that plugs into the lighter in my car to keep it charged also. That costs about $30.00. The phone has been very durable, I've dropped it couple of times, holding my breath each time, and nothing has happened. I guess the ultimate test would be to let my 3 year old throw it around a bit! ;) One feature I myself like about the phone is that you can keep the numbers and screen lit up if you need to make calls. One thing about my old phone is that if I were in the car and needed to make a quick call, I had to turn my dome light on to see the numbers on my phone. This feature is wonderful, although I do not recommend driving and talking on the phone, if it were an emergency, the numbers are clear as day and you can dial without doing any added extras. This phone does have alot of options. It comes with an instruction manual that takes you step by step through anything you need to do. Some people don't like to deal with doing so many things with a cell phone, if that's the case, this phone may not be for you. I myself like to program things and this phone is very easy to do that with! This phone runs about $150.00 but I know with some service plans you can get it for about $75.00. Clarity is great. After I bought the phone, I called a few people, didn't tell them I was on a cell phone and asked if they could hear me clearly. They all said yes and were surprised I was using a cell phone. So for me, it passed the clarity test. All in all, I am very happy with this phone, and I do recommend it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $75.00 90466 2000/11/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 auto hands free is great price is right talk time not as long as advertised Full Review This is the current "stock" phone that we are issuing at my job. The cell phone account that I manage runs between $20,000 to $30,000 per month and our phones get a lot of usage by our field forces, so they are "torture tested". Our old "stock" phone was the QCP 820, the model below this one. That phone had a selector dial on the side, where the 860 has two buttons. The dial on the 820 used to be a constant source of trouble. I would get about 2 or 3 calls a week from our field personnel requesting new 820's because the side wheels had failed. We started phasing in the 860 about 6 months ago and I have yet to have one go bad on me due to the new side button design. Battery time on the 860 is a bit on the low side, running about 1.5 hours talk time, max. Speaking of the battery, it is attached to the phone with a screw, it can be removed, but not without a screwdriver. There is an extra battery that will piggyback onto the phone over the built in battery, but that defeats the thinness of the phone. There is a wealth of features on this phone (phone book, timers, ringers, sounds, etc.), but nothing that is not standard on almost every cell phone out there. The phone itself is easy to carry, not a small as say a Star-Tac (our "non-stock" phone) but it is still easy to carry in a shirt or jacket pocket. One item that stands out with this phone is the hard wired auto hands free kit. This kit comes with built-in voice recognition. We use this in a number of our field vehicles and it never fails to impress the user when they have it installed. The phone is brought to dial mode by simply saying "Wake up" twice. You then either ask it to dial a pre-programmed number by speaking the name or you can manually talk the number into the phone. The only time that you must touch the phone is to end the call. With the bulk of our phones deployed in the New York / New Jersey area, we rarely have a problem with signal strength. The phone does seem to work well while in buildings though. Overall this phone is a good performer, especially when I have seen stores giving it away cheap with new activation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 list 90465 2000/11/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 reception memory voice recognition hands free kit battery life display headset compatibility Full Review Hopefully my final phone. The Thin-Phone as it is aptly named by Qualcomm has many features which distinguish it from other phones on the market. It is a dual band phone and has the best antenna reception of any phone which I have owned. The phones which it replaces are the Startac 7760, Ericson AH2130 and a Nokia phone. I have had handsfree kits for all of these phones but none of them compare to the Thin-Phone kit. The kit allows you to use the phone as a voice recognition system which will store 60 names, (maybe more), and will also dial by number if you speak the number. None of these systems are perfect but this one works very well. The microphone works very well and the reception in the car is almost always at full power. Speaking of power, the battery life is nothing close to what they describe. I would recommend purchasing the fat battery. The downside is the display. It is hard to see in certain light and is small when using the web browser features. It also does not have as many ring options as other phones and there is no download capability. The phone can be hooked up to a laptop but only to act as a slow modem/fax modem. This is great when you are on the road. The phone will also not allow you to charge and use any of the advanced features at the same time. This is because the only plug in area is the power plug in and the headset requires an adapter which plugs in the same place to use most headphones. Recommended: Yes 90464 2000/11/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light inexpensive flat design may take some getting used to Full Review The Qualcomm QCP-860 is an excellent and significantly lower-priced alternative to the Motorola Star-tac mini phones. The 860 is amazingly thin and light, yet quite resilient to bumps and drops. It fits inside a standard soft-sided eyeglasses case (which provides much more protection and looks cooler than the leather cases that are offered for this phone) and certainly fits easily in a sports jacket pocket or a purse. For some, the flat design may be slightly uncomfortable, but the shaping of the earpiece somewhat compensates for that. Standard battery life is quite remarkable - a good 30 hours of standby time with the internal battery. You can buy an external supplemental battery, but most users may not find it necessary to make the investment. Non-stop phone users will need to recharge after about 12-16 hours. The 860 is both analog and digital capable, allowing you to use it almost anywhere in the country that there is service. Sound quality in digital mode is superb, and analog quality is better than most analog only phones that I've used. With the digital capability, the 860 is also web-enabled, allowing you to surf the web through a text browser interface. While the interface may take some getting used to, it is on par with other wireless-web phones. A feature of the 860 web browser is that if you are inactive for 60 seconds or so, it drops the connection (to save you precious minutes on your airtime plan) but keeps your info cached. When you choose to move to a new site or screen, the reconnect time is significantly reduced from the initial login time. While the purchase price is listed above as about $75, most service providers will sell this phone to you for between $9.99 and $39.99 with a 1-year service agreement. At this price, you can't go wrong. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 90463 2001/3/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice digital features in an inexpensive phone very poor battery life in analog areas The Bottom LineIf you have a lot of analog territory to call from, don't get this phone. Full Review I've been through all the phases of cell phone life - from the deluxe Motorola bag phone (with a battery even), two different Motorola StarTac phones, and now the QCP-860. I have one complaint about this phone - it's the battery. Ads you see for this phone will tout it's thin figure and internal lithium ion battery. Well, if you live in an area that has not yet converted fully to digital cellular service, as my rural PA landscape (under Verizon's auspices), then forget about going for this phone. Stick with an analog phone until you are fully digital. (Verizon promised digital service by December 2000, and while there are digital service plans in place, my area won't be digital until around June, they say.) NOTE: Digital service was turned on here the beginning of March. It makes a HUGE difference in battery life. Qualcomm says this phone will do up to 10 hours of talk time and 17 days of standby. Read the small print and you will see these figures are estimates based on adding an external battery to the phone (for $80) and in digital service areas. Without an external battery, the ads say you could get 150 minutes talk time and 96 hours on standby. My real-life experience? I get 60 minutes of talk time, and normally can't get through an 8-hour day with this phone before needing to plug it in somewhere (and that's without making but one or two very short calls). It makes the phone pretty much useless when you have to be tied to your cars cigarette lighter while on a call. The added drawback to this is that the included cigarette adapter won't CHARGE the battery while you're ON A CALL. (The wall plug adapter will, however.) I recently sat for a full hour in my car next to the bank, on hold with Verizon, and couldn't do my ATM withdrawal because the battery was dead and if I unplugged it I would drop the call. After going through three different Account Reps to discuss the poor battery life of my phone, I didn't want to drop the call and risk having to start it all over again. Thankfully, Verizon came up with an equitable solution for me. Since I had been promised digital service by December, and I had purchased this phone (for $19.95 plus 2 year service agreement) in preparation for the digital service, Verizon agreed to send me an external battery no charge (an $80 retail value). With the external battery, which actually is a VERY nice feature on this phone, I can now make it through an analog day on my cell phone without worrying about a recharge in the middle. In fact, I could probably make it through two days if my calling isn't too heavy. If you plan to use a phone in a heavily analog area, get a Nokia phone. Friends say their Nokia's work for days on one battery without having to recharge it. So, having dutifully complained and nagged about the very poor battery life of the QCP-860's internal battery, let me brag a bit about it's nice features (in case you haven't read some of the other great opinions in this section). Looks and handling This is a sharp-looking phone. Mine came with the Metallic Red faceplate. It's a bit small for my large hands, but much better than some of the 'mini' compact phones that I have seen. I like not having to flip out the cover as on the Motorola flip phones. The drawback is the occasional bumping of the exposed keys, which could cause you to inadvertently make a call without knowing. A friend of mine did this once with his Nokia, and the humored people on the other end heard about 30 minutes of a church service my friend was in before the battery finally gave way. The keyguard feature of the QCP-860 allows you to lock the keys so that you don't pull such an expensive (and perhaps embarrassing) stunt. Advanced Digital Features For a lower-line (and thus less expensive) phone, the QCP-860 packs some nice features. It includes voice/paging/email messaging. This allows someone to send you text messages to your phone via a supplied email address (which once again won't be available to me as a service for another 6 months). The QCP-860 also sports the web-browsing feature, which allows limited internet surfing from your phone to specialized web pages (text only). I wish I could try it out and tell you about it, but I'll be waiting a few months for that feature as well. There is an excellent online demo of the web features of the QCP-860 phone at http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/support/demos/thin_interdemo.htm. Typical cell phone features I like the functionality of the expansive 100-entry phonebook. Any number you call or receive a call from (if you have caller ID service) can be quickly stored in the phone book with a text name. You can later retrieve the name by scrolling through the index of names, doing a name search, or typing the mailbox number of the name (if you have a good memory). Entering names in upper or lower case along with a host of symbols is similar to entry using other electronic devices with a limited keypad. The menu system on the phone is simple to use and gives you access to dozens of features designed to customize the phone to your personal use. You can set the options for ringer sounds, ringer and beeper volume, Home and Roamer call minutes, lock code (password), autoanswer, scratchpad, battery display, language (Eng, Fre, Spa, Port.), message notification, and fax/data modes. Call quality In my hilly area blackout areas are not uncommon, and I believe this phone gives average sound quality compared to the other phones I have used and been acquainted with. In the FEW digital areas I have called from, the calls had that slight 'jumbled' sound that you areas is that call information such as time/date of the call and duration get logged onto the phone for later retrieval. Bugs Just yesterday the menu system locked up. I had to wait for the battery to die before it sometimes hear on digital answering machines - at times. An added benefit of digital would reset as the buttons all quit working. It seems to be working fine today. I saw a similar comment about this problem on the CNET web site for this phone. Not an encouraging proposition. http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-16329-404-131641.html? st.cn.1433811-7-1433847.dir.16329-404-131641 Overall recommendation I'm giving this phone a two-star rating for those who may be stuck in analog areas like I am. If so, go with a different phone. I do like the phone overall when the battery is working. I hope the menu system bug doesn't end up being a royal pain. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 90462 2000/10/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tons of features easy to use great reception flimsy antenna Full Review For three years, I owned an Ericsson phone, with service through AT&T Wireless, and for the entire three years, the phone was nothing but a pain in the rear. At the time I purchased it, it was supposed to be one of the best phones on the market, but it just never worked for me. So when I recently moved from California to Washington, instead of getting my number changed to a Washington number, I decided to shop for a new phone. So I headed down to the local mall, to the cellular phone stand, and asked about the current specials. They were offering this reconditioned Qualcomm QCP-860 for just 1 cent, with a car charger, wall charger and a leather case. As with all of these deals, the catch is in the service. To get these great deals, you have to sign a service contract. I found a plan that fit my needs, so I went ahead and handed over my penny. I was already impressed with the fact that this phone had a clear signal from within the mall. My Ericsson phone never seemed to work in a building, near a building, or anywhere else for that matter. This phone has loads of great features. I will try to go over as many as I can, without sounding like the User's Guide. Speaking of the User's Guide, this one is written in easy to understand English, without a lot of technical terminology. It took me less than two minutes to figure out how to save numbers in the "phone book." Three years with my other phone, and I never figured out how to do that. The Qualcomm QCP-860 looks pretty much like most other cellular phones. It's in a black plastic casing, with average size buttons. The power button is a little too small, but it's nothing you can't live with. The only thing is don't like about the phone is the antenna. It is very flimsy, and looks as though it could be broken very easily. I will have to be very careful not to catch it on anything, and make sure to push it all the way down into the phone when it is not in use. The display shows you everything you need to know about your phone, and how well it is working. When it is operating in digital mode, there is a D on the screen. There is a little antenna symbol that shows you how strong the signal is. If there is no symbol there, you will see a phone handset with a line through it. This means you are not in a service area, and you cannot make calls. Next to the antenna are bars that show you just how strong the signal is, the more bars, the clearer your call will be. In the upper right corner of the display is a picture of a battery. You can tell how much charge your phone has by how full the battery appears. If the letter R appears on your screen, you are in roaming mode, meaning you have left your home area, and you will be charged extra for any calls. When an envelope is showing on the screen, you have messages or pages waiting. Amazingly enough, all of this information shows up on one little screen. To turn the phone on and off, you hold the power button down for about a second. When the phone comes on, your cellular number appears on the screen for a few seconds. This has been a great help to me, since I have not memorized my number yet. After a few seconds, the number changes to the current date and time. When you are ready to make a call, you simply dial the number, and push SEND. A little timer will appear on the screen to track the number of minutes you have been on the call. This is helpful if you are on a plan with a limited number of free minutes. I have made several calls with this Qualcomm phone, and without exception, they have been of a much higher quality than the calls made on my Ericsson phone. The sound quality is very clear and clean. Whether calling California or Washington, I can actually understand what people are saying! It's incredible! This phone holds 100 phone numbers in it's memory, and as I stated above, it is extremely easy to program this information into the phone. Within thirty minutes, I had programmed all my numbers into the phone book, changed the banner to read my name on the screen, and read through the handbook. If you are looking for a quality phone that's easy to operate, this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 1 penny 90461 2000/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent sound good list of features roams earlier than other model phones Full Review First of all, like at least one other reviewer here, I too came from a previous model phone, also Analog only. Previously my phone (Motorola Profile 300) was the "free" model. "Free" as in: sign up for a year and you can take the phone. This isn't an unreasonable marketing strategy, they had my business and I had that phone for more than 18 months. But all good things come to an end, or DO they?? The previous phone was obsolete enough that batteries for it were taken off shelves and put on "order" only. Accessories were all removed for newer better models, etc. This is the normal evolution of technology, after all, have you seen accessories for a Commodor 64 lately? Well my choices were quickly shrinking, and worse, my battery was failing rapidly.... As fate would have it, the choice was made for me, somewhere, one weekend my phone got misplaced. Nearly a week later, several calls and lots of frustrated hours searching in vain, I gave up. My wife went down to the local Alltel center and upgraded both of ours services to digital and took the latest deal on "free" phones. Low and behold, enter the Qualcomm 860, not a penny, but "free" with contract. I had been happy with the general service of my provider, though under the new contract, I have no roaming fees: which is almost necessary where I work... in the middle of nowhere. Like any good gadgeteer, I had to go through the options, they were easy to navigate with two menu buttons, plus numerical menu access and selection by arrow keys. I did have to pull out the book a couple of times to explain what some options actually did, having come from a model phone with almost no options, this was not unexpected. Selection and navigation of even these items, once the meanings were explained to me, were also easy. There is certainly nothing difficult about accessing this phone. As mentioned by the others, this phone has a 99 number phone book, 9 can be single touch dialing (which I have disabled because of accidental presses). If enabled, one-touch dialing allows you to press and hold a number and the corresponding entry dialed (eg 9 key is book # 09). This is a fairly common feature, at least it was on my old phone as well. The book entries can be sorted by number or by description, descriptions are only 12 characters long, but that is long enough for an abbreviated name or description for most places. This is the second item I have used with the alpha characters chosen by pressing the button 1-3 times based on it's position on the alpha list below the number (eg C = 222 D=3, etc.), so it was quick and easy for me to enter items in the book. I did not sign up for web browser service, so look in one of the other reviews here for that information. Okay, the features are cool, we all have read that digital phones are great, so lets get down to the nitty-gritty.... Functionality. Above and beyond all the bells and whistles lies a cellular receiver and transmitter and digital conversion equipment, etc. Well, living in the cellular black hole that is New Mexico, I am used to dead spots, however those have diminished significantly. The Roaming area of this phone came in by almost 1 mile. Looking through the features, I think I know the cause of this. The Qualcomm 860 features a faster cross-over to prevent drop-outs on near roaming calls, I assume that the phone starts using the roam slightly earlier to try to prevent drop-outs as the current services heads for the dead-zone. That is pure conjecture, but it makes sense. If you don't have a service that won't charge roaming fees, you may want to look in the manual for how to turn the phone to "local only" mode while in your local calling area. This option will allow you to make a call even at the noisy end of your calling area without roaming, however, watch out for drop-outs with this mode..... If you are within the digital calling area, the sound quality is much higher, as to be expected with digital services. The phone book also stores any calls you missed temporarily with their caller-id number (if sent) and it makes calling back missed calls exceptionally easy. Voice-mail and pages are easy to access with the "envelope" button that doubles as email on web-based systems. Additional features: multiple rings, volume control on ring and button, mute, keyboard lock, security code, one-key dial, voice-mail, pager, and many others. But not forget the banner option, lets you put your own banner name at the top of your phone. It came configured as "Alltel" by my service provider, thankfully I changed that rapidly.... If you find a Qualcomm 860 with "SAMURAI" at the top; it's mine, please take good care of it and return it.... ;-) This phone rates a 4.5 in my book, but I will have to round down for this review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free (with contract) 90460 2001/6/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery lifea few cool features flat it might be to big for some but for this price The Bottom LineLight-weight phone, thin sleek design, nice features and long battery life, what else is there? Full Review Qualcomm QCP-860 This is one terrific phone. I will describe the phone in three ways. The phone style and usability, the specifications of the phone, and then the plan. The Phone It is a thin black phone, mine is anyways. It is about an inch wide and 4.5 inches tall. It has an etendable antenna, durable, not loose, and it screws off for easy replacement. it has 22 key. Two on the side and twenty on the front. The two on the side are scrolling buttons to manuver through the program and systems information. The keys on the front are the normal standard keys plus a mail, voice mail, and fax quick key button. A information key, and two other navigation keys for the program. The program is really nifty. It has a keyguard, sounds, call info, security, features, display, alerts, and systems area. I do not need to go into depth in these topics I think you know what they are. -- The cool feature is the Internet capability on the quick mail button. Click it and then one of the navigation buttons will say Net, it will take you to the Net if you have that service plan. The LED panel is 5 stacks high with a lot of information. The date, a personalized banner, the time, two navigation areas, anteanna strength, if you have mail awareness area, battery life and a few others. I did specifications and usability in the same paragraph, sorry if it caused a problem. Here are some more specifications: Digital, by Qualcomm, weighs 4.23 oz., standby battery life is 96 hours, talking battery life is about 150 minutes. I have not found any problems with this phone. I find it useful for me, because it fits in my back pocket and does not annoy me, it does not fall out because of size, height, and is big enough to get a grip on, not like some of those very tiny phones where you cant even press the keys. I like this phone very much. Service Plan The service plan depends on the one you get. I find it very useful in state-to-state calls and roaming. I can't get a signal sometimes, maybe because I am with verizon and not another. I haven't come across any problems with this service plan. I highly recommend this durable phone with many features, it also has a phone book, and a list of who has called you (caller Id if they aren't blocked). Regards, JBHut Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90459 2000/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 replaces my pager decent standby time very thin quiet alerts are still loud no vibrating alert just a tad bit too long Full Review I'm no cellphone freak, but I do enjoy playing with gadgets. I got the bug to lose the old analog phone and go digital a year or so, but could never bring myself to it. After all, I rarely use the phone, and analog works just fine anyway, right? Well, can you get the internet on any old cellphone? No! Starting with Sprint, but now rolling out across the country is Airtouch's wireless "Net Access" which is accessible via my new Qualcomm QCP-860. The 860 has a built in mini-browser, which is great if you want to access a site optimized for a tiny display of information, such as weather and movie listings. In addition, I am able to hook up a laptop or Palm PDA to the phone to access the net. I'll put the net access aside and talk more specifically about the phone. The first thing you'll notice is the extreme thinness of this phone. At about a half-inch thin, this phone fits nicely into a shirt pocket, or even your pants pocket, assuming they aren't too tight. :) It's a little longer than I'd like, but it's about as long as any tiny flip phone in the flipped state. Another nice feature of this line of Qualcomm phones is the ability to add an extra battery right on the back of the phone. This enables you to extend your talk or standby time if needed. Adding the extended battery makes the phone not so thin, however. The phone is pretty standard in the way of features: 99 number phone book, multi-line backlit LCD, volume controls, etc. One nice thing is a couple of "smart buttons," whose functions change based on the text on the LCD above them. The Caller ID is great for helping to cut costs by not taking all calls. It's lacking in much beyond the standard features, though. You won't find a vibrating alert or many custom ring tones. Even the lowest setting for the pager alert is still loud... not too nice in meetings. There is not much memory for text pages, so you'll quickly blow out the memory if you try to get to many email alerts on the 860. I've read some complaints that the battery life is not quite as advertised, but I've been able to go almost two days on standby with some usage before charging. I think charging nightly would be a perfectly acceptable compromise. I keep the extended battery around so it's ready if I need it. Speaking of the extended battery, I'd like to put a swivel clip on my phone, but I can't since it would prohibit the use of the swivel. I could put a swivel on the extended battery, but then I couldn't make use of the swivel clip when I want to be in "thin mode." I'm forced to use a leather case, but that's not all bad, I suppose. In all, I think this is a great phone for people interested in not only going digital, but going digital in style. This thin phone is a great internet tool, allowing you to surf and get a wireless ISP for your Palm or laptop. If your carrier give you a discount or rebate, it makes this phone even greater. Note: This is an edited version of an earlier review from the general Electronics category. Epinions just opened up this webphone category, and I asked them to add this phone to it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 90458 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large display face clear economical too many options features for the average non tech person Full Review I fought the allure of the cell-phone as long as I could. I gave myself so many reasons to not buy one. Who wants to be accessible all the time? Do you really want another monthly bill? Do you really want to be one of those people that a)swerves on the highway for no apparent reason? b)talks loudly into your palm in restaurants? c)ignores your cashier because you are so busy talking? Of coarse not! But the fact remained that I drive an 11 year old Ford Taurus with a death wish. The little voice kept saying, What if you get stranded at night in the cold Ohio winter? Being one who is not particularly fond of the cold Ohio winter, this made a lot of sense. Then my fiance got a job as a cellular phone sales rep for Alltel. All arguments were moot. He brought one home for me as soon as his family discount kicked in. You can't argue with the almighty discount, and you can't argue with my fiance when he's thinking about me stranded in the cold Ohio winter. (I guess the little voice talks to him, too.) The phone is great for my purposes. It is small, light weight, and fits easily into a coat pocket or purse, (even my purse). It is extremely durable as well. I really dislike phones that are so miniscule that it seems like you are talking into a plastic toy. This one walks that line quite well. The clarity of the phone was surprisingly good. There is little interference, and I never have to shout into my palm. The people I call never have to scream into their end, either. What? I can't hear you! Discretion is of the ultimate concern, you know. The design of the phone is pleasing. The display face is large enough to easily read what numbers you are dialing. The numbers are large enough to dial with ease. The phone has many features, most of which are pretty standard. I'm not positioned on the cutting edge of technology, so my needs are easily met. Who needs 99 numbers programmed on their phone? Key lock? Well, you have it. The battery lasts quite a while. If your phone is on stand-by, you'll have juice for 2 or 3 days. My fiance is on his phone constantly all day long, and he still has some power left before he plugs it in for the night. I appreciate the fact that you don't have to let the battery drain before you charge it again. Service Provider Features? Caller ID, 3 way calling, call forwarding, call waiting, internet, voice-mail. We live in a small, small world. Now that world is portable. Wait a minute, if I get the internet for my phone, does that mean that I can read epinions at work? Hmmm... My fiance is quick to point out that there are better, sleeker, more expensive phones out there, but I am quite content with mine. It actually earned its keep when I broke down in a snowstorm while I was delivering gifts to our holiday family. This is a great phone for the cell-phone conflicted. It's better than functional. I would recommend it for the "emergency only" people, as well as those who don't want to invest in a phone, but just buy one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 90457 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size without extra battery size with extra battery Full Review Well first let me start off by saying that I took a new job with Alltel communications. I received this phone to use as a demo phone. The phone was used and returned when I received it, therefore there may be other problems that present themselves in the future. Phone Size This phone is a great size, that is in fact if you just want to use the internal battery. The phone that I received has the maximum capacity external battery on the back. This adds considerable size to the phone, although I must admit that I do love not having to charge my battery every night. The phone automatically changes between the external and internal batteries. This is a good feature because you don't have to worry about the battery charge during a call. The regular battery should be fine for most people. Features My demo line comes with the free wireless internet. The phone has a built in web browser so that you can surf the internet if your service provider supplies the service. The menu system is operated by two buttons below the screen. The phone has menu options that are located at the button of the screen, you can easily navigate the menu system by pressing the button that corresponds to that option. The phones internal phone book is behind in the times. The phone only stores up to 99 numbers, and there isn't an easy way to check your stored names and numbers. By saying that I mean that there is no scroll button from the main menu, you have to press the menu key once to get into your phone book. I have noticed one problem. I get an error message sometimes when I hold down the key to check my voicemail. The phone then powers off and I have to turn it back on. I have only noticed this problem when I hold down the key, it doesn't seem to happen when I just hit the send button. Signal The rest of the employees use the StarTac. When comparing the two, I see that my phone gets a lot better of a signal when I'm in the building that I work in. I only wish that they would have made a fixed antenna instead of using the long and flimsy pull out antenna. This phone is only a dual band phone therefore it only receives one digital and one analog signal. Qualcomm did just make a phone that is a tri-band model, I just wish that they would have included that in the model. Price Alltel charges $69.95 for this phone under a two year service agreement. You can also sign up for a single year but the price goes up to $99.95. I found the easiest way was to just get a job for the company and get a phone and service for free. Recommended: Yes 90456 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very clear sound easy to hold no zone outs still too many features for me Full Review Almost every year, I wind up with a new cell phone because I sign up for a better monthly deal than I had the previous year. I had had my mobile phone service with Alltel with 250 free minutes per month for $29.99 per month (usually $40 by the time taxes and charges were added in). Then Verizon Wireless offered 150 free minutes including free long distance for $25.99 a month as well as free voice mail and other features. The Qualcomm QCP-869 was the least expensive wireless phone available with the plan for $29.99. The minute I held it in my hand, it felt better than my slippery little Nokia analog phone (even though I really liked the burled wood cover). The buttons are slightly larger, as is the earpiece. Features on this phone allow you to access the Web and e-mail, which I have not yet used, and can even help you get maps and directions when you're on the road. The sound is an instant improvement over the Nokia analong model. The keypad OFF function also is easier to work with just the touch of two buttons. The reason that's important is because I've thrown my phone in my purse, one of the auto-dial numbers reached my mother-in-law and she inadvertently overheard an entire conversation I had with a store clerk! Fortunately, I never have an unkind word to say about my mother-in-law. But my sister, who also has a Nokia phone, has had the exact same experience -- she rarely has anything positive to say about HER mother-in-law. I think I'll recommend this phone to her next time she makes a change. This phone's instruction manual is easy to understand, and I had many of my most-used phone numbers stored in 12 or 13 of the 99 storage spaces. Another positive little feature of this phone is a textured surface that makes it easier to hold under your chin. The battery does not need to be de-charged before re-charging, which is a real benefit for me when I don't have time to drain as often as recommended. If your new mobile phone service provider offers this Qualcomm model as an option, I doubt there's a need for the vast majority of cell phone users to buy a more expensive model -- especially if you're used to digital service! While I saw mobile phones in the Verizon store for up to $399, I can't imagine any features they have that would make me happier than the Qualcomm QCP-860. In fact, it's going to take me another week to get used to all the features this one offers. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 90455 2003/9/9 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 small easy to use not able to use as hands free battery life a lot less than advertised The Bottom LineChoose another phone, or you might have to throw this one in the garbage if your state goes hands-free. Full Review When deciding to purchase a wireless phone and service two years ago, there was no question that I would buy two Qualcomm phones - one for me and one for my husband. At the time, Qualcomm was poised to be the standard for wireless Internet. The stock price had soared (yes, I did own some) and the future was promising for this San Diego based company. Dreaming of checking my email through a wireless phone, I eagerly opted for this product, even though it was not one of the phones offered for free with my service. What I Like The phone itself is small and lightweight. Carrying it is no problem as it fits just about anywhere. The phone features a keyguard option. By pressing just two buttons, you can lock all of the keys so that you can't accidentally dial Siberia or something. I also liked the wide variety of ringer tones available. With just about everyone around these parts carrying mobile phones now, I like having a ring that is not so common so I don't jump every time a phone goes off. The screen can be set to stay lit up for various lengths of time or even any time the phone is on. This is important for me when we are camping - I usually take the phone in the tent with me and use it to tell the time in the middle of the night. The panel will also show the strength of the signal, indicate if you are digital or analog, if you are incurring roaming charges, let you know how much time you have left on the battery, as well as if you have a message (if you have enabled that feature). The phone supports many of the features which the wireless companies offer: Caller ID, Call Forwarding, 3-Way Calling, and Call Waiting. What I Dislike New York is now a hands-free state. This means you cannot use your mobile phone while driving unless you have a hands-free kit. Okay, hardly anyone seems to obey this law, but it is one I stick with even when it wasn't a law. I actually had a State Trooper stop in Pennsylvania to see if I was all right after I'd pulled over to take a call last year. So I head back to the store where I purchased the phone and my wireless service to get a hands-free kit for this phone. I found out then that they don't make one. This is a big deal since I essentially cannot use this phone any more while I am on the road, rendering it almost useless when I am driving by myself or just with the kids. Another problem we have encountered is that the battery life is nowhere near as long as advertised. My husband quite often has the phone die on him during the day while he is at work. It is not as if we talk 200 minutes a day to each other - we never even get near that a month. But the supposed 150 minutes of battery life while in-use and 96 hours on standby simply does not exist. I have also found that the battery life diminished rapidly while roaming. On a trip to Florida last year, my phone was dying within about 4 hours. It may have been a combination of the heat and the roaming, but I still think that was way too little time on my battery life. We have had other problems which we cannot pinpoint on whether it's the service or the phone. I suppose that since I will have to buy a new phone very soon for the hand-free feature that I will find out. You can be sure it won't be a Qualcomm. © 2001 Patti Aliventi Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90454 2002/7/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small compact style The Bottom LineGood little phone, if you can get past the unique design. Perfect for my crowded purse. Full Review I got my Qualcomm QCP-860 phone back in September of 2000. The reason I wanted it was to replace my bulky phone at the time. For the last six months I have used the phone continuously without any problems. I bought the phone with the Digital 250 Service plan. I have since changed my calling plans, but I kept my Qualcomm telephone. The Qualcomm QCP-860 phone is an analog-digital phone this allows the phone to search the airways for the strongest signal. The Qualcomm QCP-860 phone measures about six inches in length and two inches in width. The phone really grabbed my eye when I saw the thickness. It is only about a half inch thick. It will fit conveniently in a purse or pocket without taking up much room. The Qualcomm QCP-860 phone has a number of features that enhance its ease of use. Some of them are: SECURITY: The Qualcomm QCP-860 phone has a couple of nice security features. • The ability to lock your phone so no one else can use it. When the security code is activated and the phone is locked, the phone will only accept incoming calls and dial outgoing emergency numbers, such as 9-1-1. I have mine set to be automatically locked when I turn on my telephone. • The Qualcomm QCP-860 phone has a lock key function. If you don't feel like having your phone locked, you can lock the keys. With a few touches of the buttons, the keys will be locked, preventing the phone from accidentally being dialed while it is in your purse or pocket. This is a great feature because my friend accidentally dialed 9-1-1 while the phone was in her purse. SOUNDS: There are different types of sounds that can be adjusted on the Qualcomm QCP-860 phone. • Ringer Volume adjust the volume of the incoming ring of the phone. • Key Sound allows you to select the sound the keypad makes when you are making an outgoing call. There are only two choices, tones or clicks. • Ringer Sound this allows you to change the tone of the incoming ring. There are ten different incoming tones to choose from. FEATURES: The phone has several features. Some of the features will need to be activated by your service provider. Caller Identification - this allows you to see who is calling before you answer the phone. Call Forwarding - This options allows you to have your cellular phone forwarded to a different telephone number Three-Way Calling - This allows you to talk with two other people at the same time; carrying on the same conversation. For example: You, your mom and your sister could all share the same conversation. Call Waiting - A special tone will alert you to another phone call coming in, while you are using the phone on a different call. I have really enjoyed using my Qualcomm QCP-860 phone. I just recently had a chance to give it up and purchase another phone, but I declined. I really like the compact size and the sound quality that I get from my telephone. CON:The only thing that I do not like about the telephone is the style. It is not very stylish. The earpiece stands out too much; it looks like a big round blob that was added as an afterthought. Price This phone was free from my Service Provider. I just had to pay for a change in service fee and the sales tax. So, I do not have an accurate price for this telephone. UPDATE: I am still using my Qualcomm cellular telephone and I love it. My daughter has a different brand phone and it has not performed as well as my Qualcomm. She has had to get it replaceed twice. I doubt that they are making this exact model anymore, but definately give the Qualcomm name a chance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 7824 Samsung SCH 8500 CDMA / AMPS Cellular Phone 90629 2004/8/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice user interface good reception no cid when its closed I am using this phone with its original standard Li-Ion battery for more than 4 years now and It still is working great. I have better reception than many people in my company. This phone is even working inside of a Data Center. 90628 2005/2/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek design terrific reception durable good looking outstanding battery life lightweight simple to use hardly any that i can think of For those into epic video games and Spielberg esqe picture imaging, this phone is NOT for you. For those who want a lightweight, sleekly designed EXTREMELY durable gadget that gives you the best battery life, this puppy does the job better than any other phone made. Sure there are many other phones out there that fit this description, but what really separates the Samsung SCH 8500 is its simplicity. I really like the stylish design and its functional simplicity--gives you the bare essentials, not overloads you with unnecessary junk that makes many of today's phones so confusing to use. For four years, I can say that I have been using the calendar, alarm clock, and calculator in my everyday life--I purchased my Samsung SCH 8500 in Oct 2001 and here I am well into 2005, and this baby is still going strong. 90627 2000/2/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 relatively small easy to carry durable short battery life The Bottom LineI love this phone, I only wish the battery was more reliable. Perhaps I have a bad one. Full Review I love my 8500. First, its durable. I've dropped it from pockets (waist level and higher) three times without breaking.And since I usually have it around my waist, several times I've had it open when I bump into something, and its survived all those, too. But aside from that, the voice command dialing means I can pick it up and call the most important people in my life without taking my eyes off the road. The calendar and to-do lists are useless as I have a Palm for tracking that stuff. The only drawback is that my battery life is relatively poor. It seems to drawin itself in 5 days regardless of whether or not it gets used. I have to keep a power cord in each car as a precaution. Other phones I've had does better in this regard, but I won't go back. Ever! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90626 2000/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cute color light weight antenna would be better if didnt come out The Bottom LineLOW PRICE, NICE LOOKING , GOOD QUALITY Full Review WELL I JUST RECENTLY SWTICHED MY PHONE AND I HAD ORIGNALLY A SPRINT PCS LG TYPE AND IT WAS A GOOD PHONE BUT MY CALLS WOULD ALWAYS DISCONNECT SO I HAD TO SWTICH PHONES AND I GOT THIS TYPE.... I LOVE IT.... ITS WAY BETTER THEN THE OTHER ONE AND ITS CHEAPER. IT MIGHT BE A LITTLE CONFUSING AT FIRST TO USE IT BUT YOU HAVE TO GET USED TO IT. ITS A GOOD PHONE AND ITS VERY NICE QUALITY PHONE, IF YOUR THINKING ABOUT A PHONE WITH SPRINT GO OUT AND GET THIS ONE BECAUSE IS THE BEST PHONE THEY HAVE OUT IN STOCK, AND FOR A LOW PRICE Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90625 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing durable calender wireless web alert reminder it s a flip phone for those of you that don t like them The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a top of the line phone that will still be good in a couple years at a reasonable price this is it. Full Review Hey we all know that Samsung makes great phones. Samsung has the most up to date technology. Being a former employee of Sprint I know that this is one of the most popular selling phones. Its for a few reasons. The 8500 is the updated version of the 3500. Just like the 3500 it has voice activated dialing (20 presets) and 5 message memory(little reminders to yourself). Now what makes it so popular is the fact that it is a lot more durable than its little brother. This phone can withstand a lot...trust me. This phone also had a calendar added to it. This calender can be set to alert you at a certain time throughout the day as to not forget your important event. Very helpful! Frankly this is one of the best phones for the money on the market. We all know samsung made the first mp3 phone (Samsung Uproar). Why not trust them? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90624 2000/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features sleek none found yet Full Review As a disclaimer, my phone does not look exactly like the one pictured here. Mine is silver, so I guess they gave it a face lift. This is my second cell phone. My last phone was from Motorola with service through Bell Atlantic Mobile. While the quality of that service was pretty good. The features through Samsung and Sprint PCS basically sold themselves. The mere option of wireless web on the phone was mind-blowing. Also, I received a $50 rebate when I signed on with Sprint PCS. The phone goes for $199, so I ended up paying $150. Pretty sweet. I find myself still exploring facets of this phone three months after I bought it. There are so many options. It has some of the basic features, such as time and date on the display, ability to create your own display greeting, etc. Then it gets exciting. It has a calendar feature where you can schedule events, set alarms, and even have a countdown to upcoming events (up to the minute). (FYI, the NY Mets Home Opener is in 89 days, 19 hours, and 45 minutes as of 11:45pm on 1/9/01). With this phone you can set up a mini-browser where you can search many areas of the web, including AOL (checking my email on the phone is amazing), EBay, Yahoo, etc. I believe that service is currently $10 a month extra, but it's worth it for those of us who aren't home much. It has phone book features as well as voice dial. And last but certainly not least, you can choose from some cool ring styles, such as Song of Joy and Fur Elise. While this phone is more expensive than what people usually like to spend, it is well worth it. One area that I have not been too happy with is the service. However, that is the fault of Sprint PCS and not Samsung. Kudos to Samsung for creating this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 (after rebate) 90623 2000/11/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 performance sleek lightweight design speed dial memory reception sometimes uses lots of batteries looking for a non existent signal few rings Full Review I've had my Samsung for about five months now, and I like it a lot. It is small and lightweight, so it can fit in my pants pocket, shorts pocket, or even my shirt pocket. The talk time and standby time listed above are about right. The reception is great, and it is very easy to use. Of course, some of these things are going to depend on the service plan you pick. I've got Sprint PCS, and one thing I find a little irritating is that when I'm in my office, the phone sometimes cannot find a signal, and uses up a lot of battery power looking for that signal. One thing I like about the phone is that you can set it to warn you if you're moving from digital to analog service, in case you have to pay extra for analog roaming. The special features are good. It is wireless web ready, but I seldom use that because it costs extra with my plan, and I really don't need it. The speed dial is good, and the voice speed dial works well too. Stored numbers are easy to identify and find in a jiffy. The phone has fewer preset rings than phones like the Nokia series, but that's not a big deal to me. Overall, I think this is a really good phone. I've never had one before, so I cannot compare, but I can say that my friends with Nokias are jealous. Besides the excellent performance, the phone looks cool too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90622 2001/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight sleek durable voice dial practical no link to palm device screen not visible without flipping up The Bottom LineThe sound is great and the voice recognition is one of the most convenient functions on the phone. Good signal strength, battery power, and microphone. Full Review I traded up from the SCH-3500 to the 8500 because of recurring problems with my 3500 speaker going out. I've had this phone for some time now and it's awesome. It's very Compact & to my surprise, Durable. I typically abuse my electronics, not by choice, and the only ones that survive are those that are built the best. This phone is one of those. Love its features and Fax Capabilities. Web functions are nice and with the new T9 software, writing e-mails and browsing web sites just got 30 times as fast. (T9 is software that completes your words for you as your typing it so you don't have to spell everything out all the time). It's PIM functions I have yet to use, it can't beat my palm but it's nice for vacations when I don't have both my PALM and phone on me. This way I can consolidate and use the phone PIM when necessary and still allow my self to be reminded of important functions. It would be nice however to link the two, but can't get everything you want. The charger appears to have some problems charging the phone sometimes, making for a useless phone. Granted, I could go spend $30.00 and get a new or different charger but that's beside the point. Also, one annoyance with this phone, but it's the only one, is that I have to open the "flip-phone" to see who's calling me! After owning the 3500 for a long time and getting used to the screen being right there for me to look at, I've come to the decision that, it is a necessity for those of us always on the move. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90621 2000/7/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small excellent analog signals voice activated caller i d durable lightweight phone must be open to see who is calling The Bottom LineThe best cell phone I've ever owned, try it, you won't be disappointed. Full Review Over the past 10 years I've owned six different cell phones and the 8500 has got to be the best I've ever had. It's filled with user friendly features, an easy to read display (although it's a little on the small side). The voice activation with the Samsung headphones or without (great for hands-free driving) it's Web ready, Caller I/D capable. What more could you want. The dual mode feature is great. I commute to work in a digital signal area but live in an analog area, and I found that with other phones the analog coverage is very weak, but the 8500 gives me a good clear signal. I love the size, nice and small, it fits into my coat or pant pocket very easily. The only drawback is if your using caller I/D you either got to open the phone up to see who it is or leave it open. Not a big drawback. Some people will complain that it doesn't have as many ring options as the Nokia 5100 or 6100 (it only has nine) but I've got better things to do than to sit around and play with my ringer (options). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $199.00 90620 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small crystal clear sound bright screen wireless web no games service can be spotty Full Review I joined Sprint early this summer, after switching from a different cell phone service. I was faced with the challenge of deciding which phone to buy, and more importantly was it worth the extra $50 for the 8500? My questions were answered soon after I began to use the phone. This was not my first sprint phone, I owned the SCH-3500 for a few months and hated it. The 8500 is a vast improvement. The clarity is crystal, it is like talking from a normal phone. The features are amazing, the web access is second to none. I can use instant messenger, check my mail, read news, stock quotes, all from this phone. Sure, other sprint phones offer wireless web, but none has a screen as nice, bright, and crisp as the 8500. The talk time is ample, and it recharges quickly. My only small complaint is that it does not often work indoors, but that is Sprint's fault not the phone's. The phone is also rugged, I've dropped it many times and it still keeps on working. In response to my early question on if it was worth the $50 extra dollars, after having used many different cell phones I can definitely say that yes it is worth the cost, and switching to sprint just to use it. You won't be disappointed! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90619 2000/11/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 functions ease of use size could be a little lighter Full Review When I decided to get a phone I wanted to get one that was sleek and stylish. Not only did I get that but a whole lot more. This phone is jam packed full of so many features that I have no time to play with them all. First of all the phone is small and easy to carry around. I never find it cumbersome or too much of a bother to carry it around. The vibrate function makes it so great to have in the movies and when you don't want those annoying noises. The rest of the phone is equally as good. There is voice activated dialing which has been a life saver on the road. Only program the persons voice into the phone and it dials for you. The phone also has a great wide screen that is easy to read and clearly visible in the dark. The phone has easy internet access that a monkey could work and makes checking e-mail a simple task. There is also a calender which you can work to remind you of those important tasks. I haven't gotten near the phonebook maximum and the voicemail is great. This phone is superb and I wouldn't trade it for any other in its class. At first I was worried about the price but I know I got my money's worth. By the way you talkers don't worry, battery is great, I hardly charge it. And the clarity is unbeatable, my friends never know if I'm calling from home or my cell. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90618 2000/11/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features construction is solid excellent design battery life poor in standby no quick function keys like star tac Full Review I have been with Sprint for several years and have had several phones. My last phone was a Star Tac dual mode. I liked it a lot, but the reception was poor. My son has had a 8500 for several months and he likes it very much. The problem I had with my previous phone was bad reception when I was in a building. I always had to go to the front of the building, e.g. Wal-Mart, by the doors in order to talk. With the 8500, I can get good reception in the back or at least in the middle of the building. I also get a lot better reception at home. I am on the edge of Sprints tower signal radius. I miss the quick function keys of the Star Tac. The 8500 is not as user friendly as I would like. I've had problems with the battery running down quickly. I have noticed that when I go in and out of my office, it goes into search mode and never quits. I have to power it down and back on to go back to Sprint connection. I purchased an extended life battery (1600mAh). It only lasts about 10 hours longer. I am very disappointed in the battery life. Having stated my cons, I do love the phone. It is built very will, especially in the hinge area. It has a larger display screen and the keys are larger. I love the memo option with 4 minutes of record time. I also like the voice dialing. It has very clear reception most of the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90617 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 built excellently great features expensive Full Review I have had the Nokia 5180, Star Tac 7760, and the Samsung 2000. The Samsung 8500 is in a different league. The Nokia 51xx series is pure garbage. I have yet to talk to someone who hasn't had some sort of complaint about it. To a student, the most important feature is a vibrating ringer, something that Nokia missed the boat with. The Star Tac is junk. It is made like absolute garbage. The flip on it was so loose after 2 months that i was forced to get rid of it, and I take care of my phone. The Samsung 2000 is a great phone, however, it lacks all the frills. Now on to the Samsung 8500. It is made very well, as it is very sturdy. When the phone closes, you can tell that it is closed (unlike the Star Tac). The phone has a great phone book, allowing 6 numbers per name. Also, it has a calender with a to do list, countdown timer, alarm, and world time. The phone has a built in mini-browser, VIBRATING ringer, and 13 other ringer choices. The sound quality is very clear. I have one other thing to say here. I have had all of these phones, and yet to have a problem. Sometimes my callers would say that I sounded like I was in a tunnel, but that was with the microphone on the bottom of the phone w/ the Nokia (poor design). What I am trying to say is that quality has mostly to do with your location is respect to a tower, BOTTOM LINE. This phone is by far and away the best phone. Yes, it costs 200 bux, but you will have it for a while. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90616 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 able to record memos useful very stylish none that i can think of Full Review I have the silver colored Samsung SCH-8500. The look is very stylish and elegant. The first reason why I wanted this phone is because of the looks. Then I saw that the features were great too. The calendar is very useful for remembering and scheduling events. The alarm clock gets me up every morning. The vibrate option enables me to keep my phone on when I'm in a library or a meeting. And the voice activated dialing is just incredible. But the voice activated dialing has some trouble determining names that sound alike. I can record memos on my phone. That is great. Not many phones have that feature. The dual mode helps me to make phone calls from basically anywhere and everywhere. And if you're a businessman, then you can utilize the wireless web feature. Anybody can buy this product. It's a great all around phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90615 2000/2/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great plans huge coveragefree extras wireless web not in all markets yetpoor customer service The Bottom LineBuy this the you'll never go back to analog or digital just PCS Full Review When I bought this phone I was not sure what I was getting in to. After I charged the battery up and activated I was all set to go. The activation only took about 10 minutes and you don't have to sit in a store to do it. When I bought the phone, I signed for the 250 Daytime minutes, and 1250 Nights and Weekend minutes for 34.99/mo. I make this my primary phone and I still ahve minutes left over. Also they were offering 6 months free Wireless web service. Their web can be slow at times, but with e-mail and AOL IM anywhere I am is great. If your web time is not free it will cost you either 10/mo. or 39 cents/min. There Customer Service reps are overall rude people who offer little to no help at all. The features are astounding: Calender, To-Do lists, Voice memo, 99 names and number storage, 40 name Voice dial, Roadside rescue, Doctor anywhere service, Caller ID, Call waiting and forwading, and three way calling!!!! It is a great phone!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90614 2000/5/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality voice dial memos calendar holster or beltclip unavailable Full Review I had a Qualcomm 2700 and my wife had just gotten the Samsung 3500... I wanted a small flip phone. The SCH-8500 came out and I bought it right away... It fulfilled all my needs, and much much more... Voice dial is great with the earpiece and microphone. Voice memos are really useful. PIM and calendar is great. Having 4 entries per contact is amazing. The battery lasts extremely long. The only thing I don't like about it, is that there isn't a holster available like for the Star-Tac, and if I put a beltclip on the back then the phone won't fit in the desktop charger. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90613 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact easy to read screen distinct rings for certain callers lost of phone book room many ringer functions that could cause your phone to ring or beep when you need it quiet hard to open with one hand Full Review Well, I have owned the Samsung 8500 for about a week now and I must say technology has come a long way. I have owned 3 wireless phones in my lifetime and this is technology at its finest. It is very compact and fits almost anywhere. I bought it with Sprint service and so far I have few complaints. I used Sprint's website to purchase the phone and it arrived 2 days later. I quickly tried using the mini browser, which was my first experience with the wireless web. It's totally different from sitting in front of your PC, but it serves its purpose. I like the one touch access to your voicemail which is accessed very quickly (5 seconds). I like the size of the phone because it is small enough to be worn on my belt (I have to buy the holster). There are a few things I don't like. I find the mini-browser had to use. I am a fairly bright person and I had trouble figuring out a few of the functions. I also do not like the fact that you have to set each alarm/ringer/alert seprately. I had a Nokia 5120 before this and if I set the phone to "silent" it would not make a sound. If I turn the ringer volume to "off" on the Samsung, I also have to set the alerts to "off" as well. Overall I think this is a great phone. I hear people very clear and they can hear me. I pick up reception in places my Nokia 5120 only dreamed about. One think I haven't mastered and I don't know if it is possible. When I receive a email through the phone, I can see who it is from and the subject but I cannot read the actual message. I have to go through the mini browser which means I have to connect and run up air time charges. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90612 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size its just cool looking features price sometimes a little too small you forget you have it Full Review This phone from Samsung is so wonderful to use I just wished that it came out earlier so I wouldn't have to put up with the other stuff out there....including all the Motorola StarCrap, I mean StarTac phones. I have wanted this phone for about 8 months and I waited for Sprint PCS (whom is the best mobile phone provider with no contract so you can take advantage of any new plans as they come out) to release this phone. I actually bought the Samsung 3500 phone (which is a great phone as well) a few months ago because I just couldn't stand the StarTac anymore, everyone and their mother has a StarTac and the StarTac is such a boring phone. This phone is smaller than the StarTac, tons of features including Web Access, The Price, Phone Book Capacity of 1,374 number's, Voice Dialing, The Price, great ringers (so your phone will not sound like everyone else's), The Size, a Personal Information Manager built in, Calculator, and did I mention the Price?. For the amount of features that this phone has compared to a $250-$300 StarTac, it is so much better since it is only around $200. This phone also feels so solid in your hand also capered the flimsy plastic feel of the StarTac, you can drop this phone and not have to worry about it at all. This phone is the best dual band phone on the market right now bar-none, you will not believe how much you will fall in love with this phone and start recommending it to everyone you know as well. Steve a.k.a Superman a.k.a. Kal-El Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90611 2000/9/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cute long lasting the jealousy factor Full Review I first noticed this little cutie around six months ago. I was pretty sure we could have some sort of relationship, I mean the physical attraction was there, but, I didn't know how are personalities would mesh. Well, I soon found out how perfect she was for me. There is nothing this baby wouldn't do for me. All I had to do was ask and she would dial the number, I didn't have to press a single button. That doesn't even start on how good she looked. She had this sleek little silver number she wore. The looks I got from the other guys, well, let me just say, they wish they had what I had. She was so small, too. I had been with rather large ones before her, but she was so thin, I was never ashamed to be seen with her. Stamina, you better believe this girl had it. She could go two, even three, days before I had to take her home. On top of all this, she made a great little secretary. She could remember hundreds of names and numbers, and she even had a scheduler, so she could remind me of dates and meetings. She is always able and ready to work, no matter where we are. I just couldn't get enough of her. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90610 2000/2/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durable voice recognition fits in your pocket not enough ringer tones The Bottom LineI would definitely recommend this phone because it offers a light weight, clear, durable alternative to severl other phones that do not live up to their promises. Full Review I bought my samsung 8500 phone almost a year ago. I originally was going to buy the 3500, but decided on the smaller, sleeker 8500 instead. This model is better because it has a calender, is smaller, and perhaps most importantly, has a cover over the window. I have dropped it a few times and it still works perfectly. The battery life could be a little longer, but with moderate use, the battery is sufficient. I especially like the voice recognition feature because it makes using the phone so easy in the dark or if you have things in your hands. The calender, while helpful, is not really used by me, just because i don't really need it. It is a good feature however if you have to keep a lot of appointments and is easy to use because of the phones alpha 9 program that makes typing the words in easier. The phone has always been clear when talking also, which is very important. I RARELY get that annoying echo that comes with most cell phones, I have experienced that maybe twice. I would recommend this phone to anyone looking for a good deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 216.00 90609 2000/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 it has every option a gadget lover could want plusit will last a long time there is not really any besides that the wireless internet plan is expensive Full Review This phone is the best! By far it has surpassed any other phones i have seen in all categories. It has voice dialing, conference-calling, caller ID, Call waiting and many ring types. This phone is small, sleek, stylish and has a great amount of talk and standby time for the size of it's battery. This phone also has the greatest clarity of any dual band PCS phone on the market. The wireless internet is also a great option, although viewing webpages on a phone is not my favorite activity. The plans that are available with this phone are cost effective and there are many of them(150 minutes-$19.95 to 2500-$49.95). All in all, this phone is great for anyone and the range of the cellphone is awesome too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149- because of rebates 90608 2000/8/8 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good clarity calendar small light voice dial few Full Review I chose this mobile phone after about a week of online research and 3-4 visits to local electronics stores. I live in Los Angeles, so I had a choice between AT&T, SprintPCS, Pacbell, Nextel, and Airtouch. I actually chose Sprint largely because of this great phone. It has a personal information manager that is fairly easy to use: perfect for short event reminders and to-do lists. A voice-memo function allows for up to four one-minute reminders. The phone book is also easy to use, and holds 250+ entries. The voice-dial function works flawlessly and is a great "head-turner" when you are with your friends :) Since I've only had this phone for a few days, I cant really comment on the battery life other than to say that it charges fast and seems to live up as advertised. The clairty with this phone is light-years beyond my old Audiovox analog, but.... I live in a VERY hilly area and any RF reception here is flaky (TV, cell, radio). Therefore, I really can't tell you how it would be for you. Overall, I love this phone. It is packed full of features- some very useful, some just cool. It has a long battery life and yet is small and lightweight. I give this phone 5 by 5.. copy that? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90607 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything a little big Full Review This phone was a present given to me for my birthday. It is worth every penny, and also a great value. I've used this product for about a week now and have seen all the features. It cost about $200 dollars, and I got it from the sprintPCS website, and got it in a few days. I love the minibrowser because of its easy to use interface and being convienent. Signal in my New Jersey area is decent, sometimes it roams away. The phone book is very nice and the best feature is probably the voice activated dialing feature. The voice memo is also a handy feature. Anyone who wants a cell phone and is willing to spend the price should buy it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90606 2000/7/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight easy to use browser could be better The Bottom LineIt is an all around good phone with many options. Full Review This phone has so many options to choose from. It is Durable,lightweight and easy to use. Built in vibrate mode a plus. It has a mini jack on the side for a hands free headset which makes it easy to use in the car. I have a cheap $9.95 AT&T headset plugged into it and it sounds great. It is easy to charge the phone at home or on the road. At home all you have to do is place it in the docking charger. It also has a slot for a spare battery. On the road there is a outlet on the bottom to plug the cigarette lighter cord into it. It is easy to set up through Sprint PCS. In the process of buying another one for my wife. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 123 90605 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sound clarity ease of use signal strength no numbers for main menu selections Full Review Finally, a cell phone that works. This Samsung SCH-8500 is my 7th cell phone. To me, a phone can have all the fancy features (which this one has), but unless it sounds good and doesn't drop calls, what good is it? This phone phone sounds as good, if not better than my home phone. As far as signal strength, my home is surrounded by hills and I never had a usable signal at home. Well, that has changed, I can't believe I can use my phone at home and make use of the "free" long distance feature. I say "free" because if you choose long distance from Sprint as your free option you lose local minutes. So, unless you need the long distance , I would choose the off-peak option. After reading the cnet review of this phone I wasn't going to buy it, but I decided to to get 'real people' opinions. I'm sure glad I did. I can't disagree more, and cnet has lost some credibility in my eyes. The phone comes with 6 free months of internet usage, I haven't used it a lot , but when I have it has worked flawlessly. I don't know if I'll keep it once my 6 months are up, we'll see. I could repeat all the great features this phone has but read all the posted reviews, they give you a good description. People get caught up on all the features, I want a phone that doesn't drop calls and sounds good. I found it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90604 2000/11/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features none about the phone Full Review I had the Nokia 6185 and it was good, but where I live they were about to instate a law against driving a car while on your phone. I figured if i need a hand's free kit and what not I might as well get a new phone. So I checked out the Samsung on the net and it seemed to have a lot of great options. I went to the local Sprint PCS store to check it out and was thoroughly impressed. Now that I have the phone I am very glad I bought it. The screen is of good size and bright with the "indiglo-like" backlight. The voice dialing feature works great and almost all the time. The wireless web is fairly easy to navigate on this phone. It's an option I have, but don't use often, much like the voice memo and calender. Though there are a few things I don't need, having them has it's merits and is worth the price. One of my favorite features is the phonebook. You can have several numbers for one name (work, mobile, etc.). It's not the smallest of phones, but it's size promotes portability and ease of handling. I have no problems with this phone at all, the only thing is Sprint isn't always the greatest provider. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90603 2000/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size but packed with useful functions can t edit a name or number without erasing Full Review I bought this phone for it size and style. What I didn't expect was a planner, a calculator, a digital recorder, and more. Although, they still haven't gotten to the point where the cursor can move backwards without erasing, it is an awesome little gadget. It won't replace your Palm PDA. It will save you when you don't have a notepad to remember an appointment or phone number. If you have time you can type in the name, number, date, etc., or just speak into the digital recorder. The only problems I had with it were trying to edit and using the voice activated dialing. Although, I haven't seen a phone yet that you can use the cursor to move to the front of a line and insert a number or letter, I think this is sloppy. I will overlook these minor problems, mostly because it blows away my last phone. This is one for the masses. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90602 2000/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features ease of use value lack of accessories Full Review Easy to use, versatile, with lots of "bells and whistles," the Samsung 8500 is a great mobile phone for both the newbie and the cell phone professional. The phone is a bit sturdier than some out there (particularly its predecessor at Samsung, the 3500) and is a great value with all the great features without the cost of some of the high end models. The battery life is more than adequate -- although watch out if you have the phone on while roaming off network because the constant "looking for service" can run the battery down in no time at all. Overall, the phone is easier to program than a vcr, but can be customized with a little ingenuity. The only drawbacks in design are that it is impossible to hold the phone against your ear like a normal phone and talk hands free -- fortunately, an earphone fixes this problem easily. Also, the rubber grommets that cover the headset and cradle sockets are sometimes hard to remove (unless you have tiny fingers) and easy to lose. There aren't as many "fashionable" accessories for this phone as for some, but if you weren't interested in a leopard skin face plate, this probably shouldn't affect your decision. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90601 2000/9/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 the ease of usethe wireless web browser the hastle of typing text without a keyboard Full Review This cell phone has it all. It is stylish, compact, lightweight, and easy to use. I have had a variety of cell phones, but this one is absolutly the best. It is very user friendly. I figured out how work most of the features of the phone without ever consulting the manual. This phone also has a lot of features to help you be more productive. There is a calendar, calculator, to-do list, and phone book. There are also the standard features that come with most phones such as caller ID, call waiting, and three way conferencing. It also has the cool feature of voice recognition. All you have to do is say who you want to call and it dials it for you. But it dosen't stop there. This phone best feature is the wireless web browser. Using this browser, you can do just about anything. I use it constantly to check my email and keep up on my stocks. However, I amazed even myself when I used it to search for local movie listings and directions to the theatres! The only down side that I can see to this phone is the lack of a keyboard. In order to type "fun" you need to press the "3" button three times, the "8" twice, and the "6" twice. As you can see, it can get very annoying. But it is a phone, not a computer, so what can you expect. Overall the pros outweigh the cons. This phone is absolutly fabulous and is worth the extra money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90600 2000/9/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 it s perfect there are no games if that s what you re looking for Full Review I saw this phone in a display and thought, "I Must Have That Phone!" I do a lot of traveling for work and the Samsung 8500 works great! I was looking for a classy looking phone that wasn't too bulky. This cellular phone was everything I wanted. (The Silver model looks the best.) I can do voice dialing, manage my schedule, leave myself voice memos, and browse the web. It has a power save mode so that it can conserve battery life when not in use, which is something I need since my phone is always left on for business. I have had several compliments on my phone. I drop very few calls, unlike my previous cellular phone. One of the best things about the phone is that the flap covers the screen on the phone so that there's really no way of scratching it. I absolutely love my phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90599 2000/8/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 design browser size battery life not as claimed doesn t store addresses The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone based on features and size for the money. You can pay less or more, but Samsung has improved their products and image as of late. Full Review I decided to upgrade my 3yr old Sanyo SCP3000 for the Samsung 8500 mostly to get Sprint wireless access but also for it's other nice features. I read the reviews on epinions prior to purchase which swayed me from the Motorola. What I like about the Samsung: 1. Size and Style - Comfortably fits in my pocket. 2. Features - Calendar, assigned rings, voice dial, messaging, browser. 3. Quality - Samsung seems to have improved their image. 4. Reception - Good, but slightly less than my Sanyo. 5. Desk Charger - Holds phone ready with extra battery behind. 6. Memo record - holds 4 one minute memos, I have used this feature a few times. Minor points I don't like: 1. 12v. Charger* - Don't buy from Sprint! It shorted and blew the fuse in my car - twice. It is junk! 2. Battery life - not as advertised. I get 48 hours max standby with no calls made. 3. Leather case* - Don't buy from Sprint. Clear plastic only covers 1/2 the keys. 4. It won't vibrate and ring together, it is one or the other (sometimes I don't hear the ring in my pocket). 5. If only the calender would hold a few addresses too I could leave the P.Pilot at home. 6. Doesn't tell me if it is charging. The browser has been a good feature and more than a gimmick for me. I can get concise news and market updates from several sources and in places that I would normally waste time - standing in line at Home Depot, the drive through, etc. It only cost $5/mo. and uses minutes from my plan. * I got a 12v charger, Leather case w/key cover, 2nd battery and handsfree cord for $31 including shipping through e-Bay. All except the battery were better quality than Sprint accesories. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $150 90598 2001/8/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life flip up design protects the screen size clear panel looks phonebook lack of belt pin antenna lack of color choices The Bottom LineGo for the free phone offers. Do not pay for the phone.Pretty soon you will get the wireless internet ready phones for free as well. Good Luck! Full Review Samsung describes the SCH 8500 as "A basic wireless phone with style. Ideal for people on the go." That description should be sufficient to tell us what to expect from the phone. It defines the personality of the phone and its user. I would interepret a person with this phone as a stylish person with basic need of being available anytime but still prepared for future. I have been using silver Samsung SCH8500 for a year now, with service from Sprint PCS. I will limit the review to the phone only, not going to service. I like the phone. It matches my needs, even exceeds it. It looks good, handles good, it is small enough to fit comfortably in my shirt pocket or trouser pocket. The flip-up design provides protection to the screen. The seven 16-character-per-line display, would fit in five lines of Internet content, which I think is not bad as compared to other phones available. It also offers features like vibration mode, 20-name voice dialing,voice recorder for four 1-minute notes,a calculator, a timer, and a PIM with storage for 229 numbers, 20 tasks, and 9 appointments per day. It also offers security feature whereby you can lock out unauthorized users. When you activate this feature, the keys on the phone are locked and cannot be operated except for 911 and three user-programmable priority numbers. The Samsung SCH-3500 has a 3.6-volt lithium ion (Li-Ion) battery. Lithium ion batteries are far more durable and do not experience the memory problems as the nickel batteries do. You can also access your call logs. The options are outgoing, incoming, missed, erase history and air time. It gives two options for adding pauses. a hard pause and a soft pause. If you provide a hard pause after the number, then the number will not be dialed until you press the talk key when you use speed dial. The things I do not like include the pull up antenna which looks so thin and fragile, lack of belt pin, lack of color choices. But you can live without them. One thing that bothers me with this phone is you can not hold it between your shoulder and ears comfortably if your hands are not free, like when you are driving or doing something. You need to get the hands free kit. When I baught my phone, I got a leather case, a car charger and hands free kit with it. But still I do not always have the hands free kit with me. I now think I should not have spent 189 bucks on the phone and should have just gone with the free phones offer. But I am holding on to it for now. I would suggest anyone to go with the free phone offer. Think how many features available are you going to use. I found out that I do not use most of the features anyway. So, I would be pretty okay even if those features were not available. Depends on your lifestyle and what do you expect from a cellphone. Good Luck. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.00 90597 2000/9/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 many features excellent lcd display durable small tedious pm glitchy mode switching Full Review Bought this phone after comparing most of them (Sprint PCS). This phone is a model up from Samsungs popular 3500 model, and shares many of the same features. Included in these features is voice dialing, a bright LCD display, calendar, to do list, phone book, and more. The voice dialing feature makes things abit easier when dialing in a car though at times the voice recognition does not seem to work as well as it should. The to do list is a bit tedious to use (to enter information, you must do so through the dialpad) but the calendar and phone book are intuitive and easy. This model is very sleek, fits perfectly in your shirt pocket or pant pocket. I've dropped it a few times with no consequences, seems to be pretty sturdy also. The battery usually lasts me about 2 to 3 days of active usage, the battery life Samsung gives seems a bit longer than what it actually is. My only complaint is that it seems to go into analog/roam mode more easily and more often than the 3500 model does. Otherwise, a very nice phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90596 2001/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features price size large screen tough to open slow menus The Bottom LineGreat phone if you want a wearable web phone with decent coverage. Better than StarTac for web access. Full Review This phone is the best I have ever had, beating out an old Motorola, a Star Tac, and Nokia 5100 series phone. It has great features and I love the store by name feature since it lets you add Home, Cell, Pager, Work numbers. But the display names are only 12 characters (!) and that's a little weird. Great sound quality, nice vibrate mode, voice mail LED is great, web access is superb. Calendar is silly, and I haven't used Voice Memo much. Buttons good even with gloves on. Nice volume up/down rocker, headset access is good as well. 3rd party holsters STINK, I am trying the Samsung one soon (ordered from Amazon.com) Wish it had a thin travel charger, the bulky unit is OK for home but not on the road, so I travel with the car adapter and it seems to work OK. Overall, a well planned ergonomic success. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90595 2000/7/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life small ease of use rings accessory options The Bottom LineA great phone. Reliable, easy to use, and clear conversations. Full Review The Samsung SCH-8500 is a great phone for anyone to use. Menus are easy to navigate and voicemail is one touch away. The voice dial feature allows easy dialing once setup. However, it would be nice to be able to recall a number from the phone's phone book and set that for the voice dial. The phone also supports a USB connection for your computer, a memo recorder and a hands free jack. If there is one complaint though it would be with the hard plastic belt clip. A clip that allows the phone to be opened without removing the entire phone would be nice. I bought it during a Sprint rebate, so I received a $100 rebate, making it an even better buy. If you're looking for a reliable phone, look no further. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90594 2000/6/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small large phone book clear display nice weight poor battery capacity it rings when you dial out low power coverage in marginal areas The Bottom LineI highly recommend this for people who will primarily use this in a city environment. Very easy to use. Full Review I love my little compact Samsung 8500. I have only a few beefs with it. The major one is that the battery life is very small. It will usually last all day if I don't make any calls, however, if I spend any time at all on the phone, it sucks the battery dry. Also, the other major problem is that the coverage reception is rather poor. It does not receive a signal in areas that other phone will (a friend received coverage with a Startak, where mine doesn't on frequent occasions). The benefits are that the menu system is very easy to use. I have a little bit of trouble figuring out how to make the the lettering system with keying in words, but I don't think that is a function of the phone, just me. I love the ease in which you can store phone numbers.... very step by step. The menus don't leave you hanging out there wondering what to do next. I highly recommend this for people who will primarily use this in a city environment, where marginal coverage isn't a problem, however reconsider if you are spending much time between urban areas. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 177 90593 2000/4/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight games a lot of features no built in antenna design isn t much changed from the older model The Bottom LineThis phone is everything the old SCH-8500 was, but better. The look could be better, but then again looks aren't everything. Full Review I currently have the older SCH-8500, and my sister has the newer one. I wanted to compare the two to see the difference. Looking at them from an aesthetic point of view I like the idea of the silver trimmings but when comparing it to the older model it just didn't look as nice. The size of the new one is about half that of the old, making it much lighter, and effortless to put in your pocket. The screen is also minutely larger and possibly sharper. The button layout is the same except for the arrows. Instead of having seperate buttons for each one its now a small directional pad, making it a lot harder to navigate through the menus and play many of its games. Because the buttons are made out of a smooth silver, instead of the old rubber ones it's now much harder to make a phone call. Not that you won't be able to make a call without messing up, but you might need to look where you're pressing before making one. Although I didn't do a battery test It clearly advertised longer call and standby time, something I wish the older one had. As for calls and coverage the new phone is just as good as the old. Calls are clear and rarely get lost, unless you're in an elevator. Note that most of my calls are in San Francisco. Out in the suburbs though can be a problem. I must mention with any phone. You must ideally warn the person you're talking to on the phone you are about to lose them, because of where you are. Now, I've had my phone for about 2 years and am going to get a new one, but because this phone is so good I'm not in a rush to do so. Samsung builds quality phones. I've dropped my phone at least 5 times. My dad, who has the same model as me as dropped his more than I can count. Neither of us use any sort of case to put these things in. Even after all that punishment these phones still work as good as new. I remember my dad had a small ericson before the SCH and the second day he got it he dropped it, and that was it. The phone ceased to work. You could here the broken piece inside it. Even though I couldn't drop the new SCH I'm sure it's just as durable as the old one. So what's my real review of this phone? It's a great phone based on a great phone. You can't go wrong with this item. With everything I've mentioned about my phone this one has more. Hey, you can even change the background to your taste by going online and downloading from sprint. You can also download ring tones. Both things you can't do on the old one. Any questions about price email me at www.mjc_1701@hotmail.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90592 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features compact easy to use dead features in analog areas Full Review I purchased this phone to upgrade my old klunky cell phone it was getting old and wore, and I felt like something new. When I saw this little gizmo as a newly released item in a local retailer I knew this phone had to be mine. It's very light and compact and it absolutely jam packed with features. The display is very clear and numbers are displayed in big bold fonts which makes it easy on the eyes. The phonebook memory is hugh hold I believe 300plus, I have only 97 number programed in and I was curious to see if the phones scrolling feature and alphbetical sort option would slowdown with the increase in inputed memory. The phone was one step ahead on this one, this little phone will no bog down at all, the sound is clear, it's not tinny by any means. 13 plus ringers, and a vibrate feature, the only problem with the vibrate feature is that I think they could have made it a little more powerful cause it is hard to notice if your phone is vibrating if your not really paying close attention. I live in a rural area and a lot of the features that are offered on this phone are only functional in Digital areas not analog, simple features like voice memo does require you to be in a digital area. Digital is going to be sweeping the nation, it's only a matter of time until i can fully us my phone. Accesories are hard to find no retailers have accessories to my phone. Battery life is around 2 days stand by and 4 days stand by if your in digital areas, digital makes for a strong concentration of signal which draws less juice from your battery. All in all a good purchase for $199.909. But I strongly suggest is that you actually try the phone out in the store, bother an associate until you can see for yourself what the phone can do, then you'll be caught. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90591 2000/8/14 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 superior sound quality easy to use none Full Review I needed a good mobile phone. So I asked around. The dealers weren't any help. "You need quality and that means high price." My parents had no idea. "What do you one of those for, you have a cordless phone already." Yeah they really said that. Sad, I know. So I went to the best critics I know. My friends. A good buddy of mine had recently picked up a phone made by Samsung. It was the SCH-8500. I was skeptical at first. "Dude, Samsung isn't exactly the best brand." I was way off. Samsung is top of the line in my eyes. This phone is a godsend for me. I have no idea how I survived without it. I'm always on the go, and this baby is helping make life easier. Let's take a look at a few of the features I like. First and foremost, the sound. It sounds like I am right next to the person, even when I am miles and miles away. That's impressive. The sound quality is just unbelievable. That's what got me convinced that this phone was the one for me. Another great thing was the ease of use. I have trouble figuring mobile phones out. I mean they have all these new features and I was totally lost on past phones. With this one I felt right at home. It was like I knew exactly what to press and what each button did in minutes. Amazing. The next best favorite feature I like is the fact that this phone is totally light. It's not bulky like those other phones are. It doesn't get in the way. I like that. It's very cool. The one problem might be the price. I paid $250 for mine, and I know I have seen them going for as low as $150. The price is nothing though when compared to the quality you get in return. Yes, you do indeed get what you pay for. In this case, that's a good thing. So If you're looking for a good, reliable, and easy to use phone then go grab this one. You'll be happy you did. Enjoy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 90590 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light nice feature price The Bottom LineThe features and user friendliness can't be beat. If you are someone who rarely uses a cell than I recommend buying the cheper phones. I use it. Full Review Im a fan of cell phones and I think that the way technology is going these days hardly anyone will be without one in the future. The benefits of having a cell phone can range from emergencies and just for convenience. Just about any one of any age can benefit from owning one. If your in the market for one, the Samsung SCH-8500 offers a user a lot of benefits. Features The phone is light and flips so that it can be easily carried around. The menu displays are simple to get the hang of. If you have ever used a cell phone before you can figure out how to navigate a menu rather easily. I really like the voice memo and voice dialing feature. The voice dialing works well. The voice mail is really convenient for a person who can't answer the phone for what ever reason at the time. You can go back and check your message that you may have received when you was unable to make it to the phone. It's like having a built in answering machine, which is a really nice feature on this cell phone. The miniBrower allows you Internet access. Its amazing how technology is going these days and I see in the future that the cell phones are only going to perfect this type of technology to do even more. The multiphone book is also a great feature. You can store a number oh phone numbers in which you can look up at any time using this phone. This really comes in handy considering the fact that if your not home and need a number of a friends you can simply look it up on the phone once you have it stored. This is very convenient. The personal information management feature has a calender and can be used as a planner. In Conclusion This is a quality cell phone with some nice features to it. It is light in weight and does fit well in your pocket. The features are easy to use and the menu display is easy to read. The clarity of this phone is wonderful and works just as well if not better then any other phones i have used to date. With the way technology is going today these phones keep improving I would recommend looking at the price and the features of a cell phone before you go out in the market to buy one. This phone is a nice phone and I would recommend it but I would also check and see if you can find a phone that is even more advanced for the price before you decide to do so. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 90589 2000/4/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great size construction great operating system no external screen for caller id heavier The Bottom LineGreat phone. Durable. Lots of features. Good battery life. Reliable. Full Review The 8500 has been a reliable phone. Every phones perceived call quality is dependent on the carrier, so I will not judge the call quality within the US, for its only carrier, sprint, has had terrible call quality lately. However, putting that aside, and with my experience using this phone on another carrier's network in Argentina, the true life signs of this phone stand out. First of all it has several really cool applications, such as a calendar with the whole month view (as opposed to the Nokia day by day view). It has one touch access to the wireless web. It has several number storage for one name (saving you from having to store three different names for the same person's office, cell and home number) It is a well built and solid phone. I have dropped it and the only thing that happens is that the battery falls off, but that is to be expected. I have yet to have it stop working. It works on PCS 1900 and on AMPS 800, giving you the flexibility to use analog if you desperately need it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90588 2000/3/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features great signal indestructable cannot see caller id when the phone is closed The Bottom LineThis phone is a keeper. I've had it for three years, and it's still solid as a rock. Full Review Let me preface this review by stating that I have owned several different phones in my life, and have at one time or another owned most of the major brands. That being said, the Samsung SCH-8500 is the best phone that I have ever owned. Here's what I like the best: 1) The phone has been dropped, stepped on and otherwise abused for three years now, and it has always worked just fine. I have had zero problems with this phone. It has even been dropped in the toilet once! (yuck) 2) The signal strength is better than any phone I've had, even in remote areas. 3) Battery life is very good, I have never been stranded without power. I do have the optional extended life battery, which I recommend highly. 4) The screen is bright and easy to read in all lighting conditions. 5) The phonebook and other functions are very intuitive. 6) Voice dial rocks! If you remember to record the initial samples in a very clear and deliberate voice, and then to use the same manner of speaking while dialing this service works very well. This is a great safety feature for hands-free use in the car. The problems on the phone are few and very minor: 1) With the phone folded you cannot see the caller-ID display. 2) The ring tones are not very cool. If you are looking for a phone that will be reliable day in and day out no matter what, this phone is an excellent choice. I use it an average of 1200 - 1500 minutes a month, and am very hard on the phone, and it has never failed. I will probably buy another Samsung when I get rid of this one, but honestly I don't see any need to trade this phone in at this point. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90587 2000/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 low price for features voice activated dialing light battery life under 5 days Full Review This is a great phone. I switched service from US Cellular (TDMA) to Sprint (CDMA) and had to buy a new phone. Previously owned a Nokia 5100 series. The first thing that I noticed is the incredibly light weight of the phone. When worn on a belt with the standard battery, you don't even notice it's there. Reception is no worse and no better than any other cell phone I've used. Standard sources of interference, such as driving, buildings, etc do cause degradation of signal, but I have learned to set realistic expectations of handheld cell phones. Voice activated dialing is a major plus. This makes using the phone while driving a less hazardous task. The phone takes a licking and keeps on ringing. I've dropped mine several times and have ran into doors, walls, etc, but nothing has been broken. No problems with the speaker or flip-up answering function after 6 months of use, either. I noticed two returns of the SCH-3500 while I was considering the 8500. The 3500s both had a malfunctioning ear speaker. Buying an extra battery is a good idea. Standard battery life is about 2.5 days. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90586 2000/9/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 decent battery life tiny lightweight durable battery life not comparable to the nokia 6100 s Full Review After having a Nokia 6160 for 2 years, i realized that the phone was deteriorating, and my plan was just a flat out rip off. I dropped my service with AT&T and switched to a sprint phone, in which i chose the Samsung SCH-8500. I chose this phone because i was smaller, and looks better than the star tac's do. The display is very nice, and the user interface is simple and fast. The battery life was no where near the 16 day standby of my old nokia, but the phone is half the size. It has an average of about 4 to 5 days standby in digital mode. In analog, this decreases dramatically!!!! This phone is equipped with wireless web, which lets you surf wireless web compatible websites, and check e-mail boxes from you phone. VERY NICE for a traveling executive waiting on an important e-mail or something. If you spend little time at home, then you would want to invest in a cell phone because it lets you keep in touch while your on the road, and plan meetings on the road. This phone also has a built in organizer that will alert you of meetings, lunch times, people to call, and other various things. With 4 mins of digital memo recording, you can leave messages to yourself about grocerys, meetings, flowers for the girlfriend, whatever you want!!! I would suggest getting a car charger, because sometimes the battery can drain a little faster than you think, and then you left high and dry when you might really need that phone. otherwise, The Samsung SCH-8500 is a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90585 2000/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 web capability compact size voice recognition dialing no built in speakerphone some might not want to pay 199 99 The Bottom LineA great compact phone packed with easy to use features. Some may be put off by the $200 pricetag, so look for special offers. Full Review I traded up from a Nokia 2190 single band I had used for 4 yrs, so I was looking for a phone that would be durable enough to last a couple of years. The size is great to slip in my purse or in my book bag (plus the flip portion keeps me from accidentally making calls if I forget to lock out the key pad). The dual band was another plus since I travel out of my service area and want to be able to make emergency calls, etc. Dialing is a breeze on the keypad, but I have to admit, I love programming and using the voice recognition dialing! I was able to program 10 numbers into the voice recognition without using the manual and it works perfectly for me. No more trying to remember who is programmed into what number or scrolling through the entire phone memory to call people. The clarity is great and the additional feature are wonderful (daily & monthly calendar, voice message recorder, calculator, to do list, count down timer, alarm clock, world clock). Plus the phone came with a nice desktop charger that will charge the phone and an additional battery at the same time. The only thing I wish this phone had was a built in speakerphone (my husband just got the Sanyo 4500 - the speakerphone works great). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90584 2000/2/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 options easy to use smaller durable they still haven t come out with a phone the right size for women The Bottom LineThe phone is durable and has every feature you could ask for. I just wish it was a bit smaller. Full Review It took me a while to find the right phone. In fact, I still haven't found the perfect one. I'm looking for something that a woman can easily carry with or without a purse, which I soon found out is not available anywhere. So, this is the next best thing. It is smaller than the majority of flip-phones out there. I can't fit it into my pockets but it fits into a purse easily without taking up room for the other necessities a woman must have. The flip feature is great to minimize size and radiation waves (according to the majority of studies). This phone has a lot of options that are good to have. It is caller ID capable and voicemail and text ready which is a must have in today's society to keep up with everyone who is trying to reach you. It also comes with a variety of rings and alarms to let you know when you have voicemail, or you are in a Roaming area and charges will apply to your call (great feature!! real money saver!!). It also has the vibrate mode which is perfect when in class or a meeting but you need your phone with you (or in a noisy place where you won't be able to hear the ringing). The phone is internet capable. I myself do not see the use in this feature but it is nice that the phone can reach the internet if needed. Other features include a phone book, calendar, and to-do list. The phone is also capable of voice activating. Since I am a student, this phone has been crushed by huge college textbooks and dropped off of my messy desk and it has survived it all and working great. The battery life is good as well. All in all, it's everything you need in a phone. If only Samsung would make one smaller. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90583 2000/7/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 increased signal strength voice dialing price Full Review Samsung has created the gadget phone that finally has the quality service to go with it. Samsung has long made phones that appeal to the techy in all of us, but now they have combined it with quality reception. Earlier Samsung phones had the extras, vibrating ringers and voice activation, but the service and signal strength was often sacrificed. The 8500 itself contains wireless web access, voice dialing, 170 hour standby life on the battery, flip design, choice of colors, and a huge 229 name phone book. The phone is also tougher than older Samsung models, like the 3500 and 2000, and can hold up to more abuse. The price of 179.99, while still less expensive than similar models from other manufacturers, is still a little high for the average wireless user. The 8500 still appeals to the gadget lover, at that price, but many business types will also enjoy it for the compactness and travel features. The phone easily hides in any pocket and can be dialed by simply saying a name. Samsung has also standardized accessories to this phone with other models. This means no buying new headsets and car adapters when you upgrade your phone. I love the look and features of this phone, I enjoy increased reception, and I can deal with the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 90582 2000/7/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good audio great construction mini browser excellent phonebook super small size wide open button pad big alarm daytimer data fax capable voice activation dual band no software is available yet to transfer your contact data into the phone Full Review ** UPDATED 7/17/00 - See below ** I like to carry a phone and I have gone through many over the past several years including Qualcomm, Sony, Samsung, Motorola and recently Denso. Each offers something that the others didn't - choose from among features, sound quality, size or durability. I thought I had the ultimate with my TouchPoint dual, but it was just too big. Next, I saw (and bought) a Motorola TimePort, but the software was ugly to use and the button interface was very small and inconvenient. Then I found my next (and current) new phone - the amazing Samsung SCH-8500. I ditched the TimePort in a heartbeat. I could really go on about this product, but here's what made the SCH-8500 the ultimate PCS phone for me: 1. Super small size 2. Great construction (good "heft" and balance) 3. Big, wide open button pad (very large, bright display is on the flip) 4. Data / fax capable (worked immediately with optional Data Kit) 5. Mini Browser 6. Dual band (and reputed to be dual mode 800/1900 MHz CDMA) 7. Excellent phonebook 8. Alarm / daytimer 9. Voice activation 10.Good Audio The only drawback that I see so far is that no software is available yet to transfer your contact data into the phone (although phone.com says its FoneSync will be ready soon). Bottom line - super duper PCS phone. I really like this one! ** UPDATE 7/17/00 - T9 Word Entry ** I failed to mention an important SCH-8500 feature in my original opinion because, frankly, I hadn't really used it yet: the T9 Text Entry functionality. Essentially, you enter text on the 9 alpha/numeric keypad buttons (hence, T9) and the phone makes an intelligent guess as to the word you want. The real magic is you don't have to press a given key multiple times to select a letter. For example, to enter the word "birthday", you would only need to press the numbers - once per letter - on the keypad where the letters were located: 24784329=birthday. T9 allows you to send email messages from your phone or enter schedule items without all the extra keystrokes. Bottom line - T9 puts the SCH-8500 so far ahead of other (non-T9) internet messaging phones that it's really unfair to compare them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 - phone, $99 - Data Kit 90581 2003/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of features small battery length poor charger stand The Bottom LineSamsung makes pretty phones with lot's of features... but they don't make phones that have good reception... Full Review Well in the war against motorolla and nokia, (let's just say I wish Nokia made a Sprint compatable phone), Samsung has tried to make a StarTac phone out of the SCH-8500 The phone features alarms, different ringers (for different types of calls - blocked ID, Unavailble, normal calls) a calender, to do list, internet access... you name it.. it's got it... Even though I've had the phone for about a year, I'd say that it's menus are hard to get used to... I've had a sony phone, and a motorolla... both of those phones were much easier to navigate through the menus and setup... As for charging, I cannot use the desktop charger that comes w/the phone... I used it successfully for about 6 months, and now it simply does not sit correctly in the cradle to charge... so I can only use my car charger (which I had to buy)... I have not brought this to sprint's attention, but i'm sure they'd remedy the situation, it's just a hastle, and I'd probably have to pay the $35 deductable (I have the insurance on the phone) and the charger is simply not worth that! Update: this was my first sprint phone... i also have a Samsung N200, and let's just say both phones are horrible... The 8500 is better then the N200, but has a few less features... I get ALOT of dropped calls (on both phones)... signal (at 4 bars) every 20mins (or less) fades to no bars... and then jumps up to about 4 bars... very irritating... I did searches on the web, and it seems that Samsung is known for their poor signal strength... and their inability to hold a signal in a less then perfect area... which leads me to why I'm going to buy the Sanyo SCP-4900... () I've dropped both phones a few times (hard) and the phone keeps on going, it's well constructed... You may also find my helpful as well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90580 2000/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy compact can take a drop or two will be outdatedreplaced by better samsungs soon ringer pblm Full Review Not bad at all. Compare to all other phones out there offered by Sprint or cellularone, Samsung 8500 could be on the top of the chart. Dual band is a big difference compared to the Samsung 6100. I have used both of them. If you roam around at times, and don't want to be out of reach, this is the phone for you. It's sturdy, compact, and easy to use. Reception is okay, not as good as the Nokia lines, fades signal sometimes. Hopefully when Sprint strenthens their frequency signals, this won't be a problem. Great features such as the calender, alarm, and personal organizer. One downfall on its ringer setting though. If you turn your phone to vibrate, which happens when you're in class, movies, meetings, etc. That means you don't want to distract others. However, if one leaves a voicemail or pages your phone, the ringer will still go off. Maybe it's one of the things that they overlooked. Samsung 6100 does not have that problem. (They are pretty much the same phone, except this one is dual band). As the Sprint coverage gets bigger, I think dual band phone will be ruled out in the future, eventually. But as of right now, this phone will do. One suggestion if you're looking for another phone in the same price range: Sprint Touchpoint TP-1100 by LGIC. Great single band phone, which I am currently use right now. Cell phones in United States are just a little outdated compare to Asian countries. But this LGIC touchpoint comes pretty close to the "fancy" line. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90579 2000/3/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great design groovy features battery you can t kill it bleeped at me oncei don t know why The Bottom LineYou will not go wrong with this gizmo. It rocks out. Full Review I bought this phone mostly because of all the favorable opinions I found on this site and I was absolutely delighted to find that it lives up to every good thing anyone has said about it. There are so many features that it is dizzying... but they are unobtrusive. The screen is big enough to run the wireless web (which I know I'm not supposed to like, but do) but not overwhelming. I even like the blinky light which lets me know I'm getting a call when I leave it on my desk with the ringer off (the ability to change ringer volume with the scroll button is probably my favorite, though so stupidly simple, feature). I just love this phone and have talked three of my friends, who were looking to get a new phone, into it. They all love it too and thank me. I should get commission from Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90578 2001/7/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 numerous useful convenient features web enabled small could be smaller The Bottom LineThis is a durable yet light and nice-looking phone. It has a great combination of features for a reasonable price. Another quality product from Samsung. Full Review When I walked into a Sprint PCS store to find a replacement for an old phone that was literally falling apart, I knew exactly what I wanted. A small and light phone that would fit into my pocket. A flip cover, so I wouldn't have to remember to lock the keyboard all the time. A web-enabled phone--doesn't matter that I don't really use this feature right now, but what's the point of buying a piece of technology that's ALREADY outdated? An option to set the phone to "vibrate" (my old phone didn't have that feature, and I found it really annoying when I am expecting a phone call in a loud bar or stadium and can almost tell that I will miss it because I will not hear my phone ring). And last, but not least, I was really wishing for a phone with voice dial--so that you speak the name, and the phone automatically dials the stored entry from the phone book (a very nice safety feature when you are driving). All that said, I found a perfect fit for all my needs--Samsung SCH-8500. The model that I have is silver (like the one that the guy has on Spring PCS commercials) The phone was around $199 and came with a desktop charger, the phone case was about $15, and the car charger was about $35. For something that I know I will use for at least several years, all in all it was not that expensive. This model is dual band, meaning it can use both digital and analog signal. I found this feature especially convenient when driving across country--some states do not have very consistent coverage. The phone had no problem automatically switching to digital or analog roaming (catching signal off of other providers' networks) and back to Sprint's network. The battery time is around 3 hours talk/5 days standby, which is not bad at all. The quality and clarity of conversation is usually very good. As any cellular phone, this phone has some static inside buildings, especially far from the windows. But other than that, it sounds very clear, almost like a land line. Quite often, I don't even bother to pull out the antenna. The phone has numerous features. For example, you can set different types of rings for calls that can be identified with a caller ID (which the phone, of course, is equipped with) and calls that cannot. You can edit what, if any, notification should sound when you receive a message. The phone has a simple calculator, a calendar and schedule (you can use it instead of a Palm Pilot!), "to do" task list, and an alarm clock. I am not sure how many entries the phone book holds, but I am sure there are more than enough. Also, you enter up to four numbers for the same person and add labels for home, mobile, etc. This is just an overview of the features, there are quite a few others, that I personally don't really use. Overall, I believe that this is a very high quality product at a reasonable price, and I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90577 2001/6/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 crystal clear calls size wow factor holds strong signal almost all the time retractable antenna what cons The Bottom LineI do recommend it but having to open the phone to see who's calling WILL get annoying. I ended up returning the phone because of that. Full Review 6/4/01 Home run! Home run with this phone! I always knew Samsung would be the best phone to go with. I had the single band 6100 (you know, the sexy champagne colored one, unfortunately SINGLE BAND, which is what pushed me to buy this smaller, sexier bundle of joy). Anyway, I had no problems with the 6100 though, just let me tell you that first. I am also with Sprint and have been with them for over a year and a half now, HAPPY CUSTOMER! Both of these phones can hold a STRONG SIGNAL very well! I'm so impressed but not surprised be it that they are made by SAMSUNG. Startacs can't come close to SAMSUNG phones. That bulging battery just annoys the heck out of me. Where was I... The only thing I guess I don't like is that you have to OPEN the flip to see who's calling. Guess I'm just lazy. But that certainly didn't stop me from buying the phone. No way! I bought this phone at about 9:45am today, put the battery on fresh from the box and had 2 out of 3 battery bars! Wow! Called *2 to activate right away and within about 20 minutes or less, the phone was ready to go! Way to go Sprint! I slipped it into the charger at 10:30 and it's 11:50 right now--phone is FULLY CHARGED! Hey heyyyy! :) My friends all have the darn Nokia 8290's. Argh. Can we say BAD RECEPTION!! Internal antennas are so unreliable. Ew, don't go with Cingular. They're terrible. I am just a phone freak, I've been trying out SO MANY phones lately (Nokia 8260-90, Ericsson t-28, Sanyo 4500, they're all BLAH!) but this SAMSUNG 8500 left me SO impressed, I had to make it MINE. It's a DUAL BAND so you can use it almost ANYWHERE. And the calls are CRYSTAL clear, people don't even know I'm on a cell phone. The antenna is also retractable so if you need the extra help with reception (which most likely you won't but just in case!), you can use it! Phone feels very solid too Wait till I show my boyfriend. He'll be so jealous. I'll update soon. 6.18 Sorry, I know i wrote a rave review about this phone but having to open the phone every time to screen calls really really got to me. With a disappointing sigh, I returned the phone and went back to the single band Samsung. People noticed I sounded clearer on that phone anyway. Sorry 8500! It was just love at first sight. If you had that exterior screen, went on a lil diet and had a better microphone, maybe I'll give you another chance. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90576 2000/7/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 voice nice design many functions one touch point functions heats up faded calls looking for service The Bottom LineNeed second display, better perception, better T9 text recognition, better buttons Full Review I bought my 8500 phone 2 weeks ago, and used it extensively ever since. Here are the things I don't like about my phone: - heats up very fast after few minutes of conversation - calls tend to fade a lot and drop - when calling from my appartment (one step close to the window), most of the calls fade - often, all of the sudden the message "looking for service" appears (the phone was not moved) - sometimes, the ring does not sound and the call is forwarded directly to voice mail - the phone could be a bit lighter (compare to some Samsung phones available in Europe, or Motorolla) - the battery life is pathetic, after an hour of talking the batter is almost drained - buttons could be a bit easier to use (I tried to type one e mail..and it was HARD, I tried to type e mail on TouchPoint 1100 and it was easier) - there is no front display like in TouchPoint 1100..so I always have to open the flip to see who is calling..although I did set up few special rings for special numbers..but it doesn't help much here are the things I like about my phone: - cute - sturdy design..looks strong..I haven't dropped it yet..but looks like if I did it would still be ok - many functions (calendar, countdown feature, rings can be assigned, etc) - nice voice activation (never failed me, I use it all the time) - nice backlight (although it drains batter like crazy if you set it up for 30 minutes / per time) - easy web browsing (nice setup using Sprint site) - I like the function of setting up the rings for different callers, although I only used it once for one caller...I still like it.. Overall, I would recommend this phone to everybody, especially for those who use it outside the house..because the perception seems to be terrible inside the appartment...Also, I would recommend it to people who wouldn't use it for typing e mails as much..since the buttons are not friendly for this... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90575 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many features simple durable light weight clear more nope no cons The Bottom Linebuy this phone if you can! no questions asked. If your getting a phone get this one! Full Review This new Samsung mobile phone is great! My mother and i just got our first mobile phones about a month ago and we both got this phone. The reasons we bought this phone were numerous and amazing! This phone is small, light-weight, very easy to use, great looking and durable. When I was talking to the man who was helping me at the store, he said that many people who had the old version of this phone that also flipped open came back for repairs commonly because the screws where the phone flipped open would break quite often. This phone does not do that and so far they haven't had a single person come back to get that repaired. There are many features on this phone that i love, and although some other phones may have the same features, this phone makes these features easy to use, easy to access and very useful. One feature that i have found great, on this phone, is the memo-button on the left side of the phone. You just hold this button and you can record up to 6, one minute long memos to yourself, instead of writing them down on a little piece of paper that you will probably lose. Its very helpful for me and very easy for my mother, who isn't the most genius person of technology. Speaking of easy, this phone is very easy to use! The phone explains its self while your scrolling down the menu or doing anything! This phone keeps my whole life organized. Another feature that i love is its calendar feature. Again it is easy to access and easy to use. You can look at a monthly calendar on this phone or a daily calendar, whatever you want, it can do it. And although other phones may have this feature, few phones have the feature of t9 which is this spelling dictionary that when your typing in names or any word, it suggests words to you and finishes typing the word your typing before you have even gotten to the second to last letter. Its a great idea and works really well because all my friends who have cell phones, who don't have this phone, have to type every little letter in and it may take a few minutes, but with t9 it only takes a few second to write a few names and dates. The main reason that me and my mother got this phone is because of its antenna. It's antenna is amazing! If your in a place that usually won't get service, this phone will get service loud and clear! So if you have a service that has certain places in the world you can call from, if your on the boarder line of being out of that boundary for calling, it will get service and allow you to call, so you don't really have to worry about getting service at any time! Although this phone is $200, it really can be 150 because there is a 50$ rebate. All you have to do if fill out a few sheets and send it to them and you get $50 back in your pocket! So this $200 worth phone can cost you only $150, and I know I just "only" a $150, but that's money very well spent! You can also access the wireless web from this phone and its easy to go around and use it even though it may cost extra, if you really need to use the web and your no where new a computer, you can use this phone! The battery life for this phone is about 4 days which is more than enough I think, because I charge mine almost every night, but it is able to last for about 4 days. Another one of my favorites on this phone has nothing to do really with the phone or how it works or anything, but they (samsung) put these really cool animation on the phone so, for example, when you turn off the phone, there is this little animation that twirls around and gets smaller and fades into the back round and says "bye bye." This is only one of the many animation but I find them pretty amusing and fun. Back to how the phone works. Again, on the left side of the phone, there are two arrows. One points up, one points down. These arrows allow you to change the volume of your ring and also to change it into no ring or vibrate in about 2 seconds. It's a great and easy feature that makes life, and this phone even simpler, because instead of having to scroll through the menu bar you can just press the arrows on the side a couple of times and your done! I don't want to go on naming every great feature on this phone and telling you why every feature on this phone is so great because you would be reading for hours! There are so many features that make the phone easy to use, very clear, very helpful, and many more. I think this is the ultimate phone that is out and will be for a while. There isn't much on this phone that you can improve on. As I said before though, this phone is durable, and I think that is a one this that is very important when looking into buying a phone because you want to have this phone or any phone for as long as you can without it breaking, and this phone will do that. You can keep this phone for a long long time and it will not break! My last recommendations are this: if you want a great phone that will last you forever, and will be crystal clear and probably the best phone you will ever have, then buy this phone. I can't stress enough how great this phone is. The features I names and talked about were only a fraction of the great features and uses on and for this phone! Even though it costs $200 you can get that $50 rebate. It's a great deal! This phone will do you well and do it for a long time! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90574 2001/1/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent signal great reception small size battery could last a little longer The Bottom LineI have had many phones, most of them lasting less than 6 months, I have had this one for over a year and it's still works like new. Full Review This phone has been through everything and I still have great reception and no problems. I was really surprised with this phone and the reason is this. I had purchased a Samsung 3500 and the phone was junk. I had to exchange 5 of them and none of them every worked properly. I had to get a phone that worked, and couldn't find any other flip phones, the only people who made them were Motorola and Samsung. Motorola had the Star-Tac and it was junk, and Samsung had the 3500 and the 8500, so I had no choice but to take the 8500. To my surprise the phone has been the best phone I have ever had. All of the features work, and work well. The voice activated dialing, the Digital/Analog switch feature and even the different ringers for different phone numbers. The phone gets awesome reception, and I have only dropped one call in the last year, and that is the honest to God truth. I do contractor work, and I am out on sights all the time. As a matter of fact I was laying some sewer pipe about a month ago 12 feet deep, in a ditch with some shoring around me to keep the walls from caving in. I dropped my phone and there was a bunch of gravel dumped all over my phone from 12 feet high. Most people don't understand how hard 3/4 inch rocks falls from 12 feet high, and how much it hurts, or the damage that it can create. Well my phone knows the damage it can do, and so do I. The phone has a lot of dings and little chips on it, but it still works like it was brand new. Now if you have any phone that can do this, you have a good phone. I would recommend to anyone that if you are looking for a good phone, get the Samsung 8500, not the 3500. The Samsung 850 is similar to the 8500 and just as good, but please stay away from the 3500, you will be doing yourself a favor. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90573 2000/6/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy navigation compact size sturdy flip mechanism large display screen voice dialing can be picky not enough ringers The Bottom LineGreat phone for a reasonable price! Full Review I just purchased my Samsung 8500 a week ago, and I'm in love. This is my first ever cell phone, so trust me, I did just what you're doing right now. Tons and tons of research... I thought at first that this phone might have too many features, which would make it incredibly confusing for me to figure out (I've barely even used a cell phone before now), but I was very, very wrong. The menu is setup in such a way that a three year old could operate it, which makes navigating through the countless options very easy. (I'm not going to go into all of the options here, considering 5,296 of the other reviews all rehash the same thing; you've already read all of that.) I needed a phone that I could fit in my pocket (purses are just to darn girly), and this fits quite nicely into the pocket of my jeans. Flip phones can sometimes be flimsy (from what I've read/heard), but this phone is incredibly sturdy, and extremely comfortable. My first thought was that I was going to buy a Samsung 3500, since a lot of people I know have one. But then I started reading all of the bad reviews about it, how the hinges break, the display gets scratched, etc, which is why I did more research on other phones. Compared to the 3500, the 8500 is much more comfortable. The earpiece doesn't cut into your ear like it does on the 3500. You'll be surprised when you actually try one out. The only things I don't like about this phone are the ringers, and the voice dialing. Don't get me wrong, I love the voice dialing feature, but it can be picky when it comes to programming the names. For instance, I programmed my sister's home phone number and her cell number under voice dial. Her cell number is under "kendel cell". I then tried to program my friend's cell under "justin cell", and it wouldn't let me b/c they were too similar. So basically, you can't have more than one person in there as "... cell". Quite annoying. The other thing I'm not crazy about are the ringer options. There aren't enough! 9 of them are just plain rings, and then four play really boring tunes. I would have preferred more options, or at least the ability to download other ringtones to the phone. However, these two complaints in no way outweigh the pros. As for Sprint service... read my other review ;) Price below includes tax Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 211 90572 2000/6/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life phone book size drop in charger too bulky The Bottom LineAn awesome little phone if you've got the money!! It's the best I've used. Full Review I was fortunate to pick this phone up with a $150 rebate in effect due to my corporate affiliation. Whether it's worth $200, I don't know. I mean it's just a phone. But at $49 - I love this thing! The screen is huge for a cell phone, and the mini-browser has saved me from heading to the airport early on several occasions by allowing me to check my flight status before I leave for my flight. I travel a lot and enjoy the compact size and sturdy feel of the phone, but it could be packaged with a more compact charger. The drop-in charger is nice for the desk at home, but takes up too much space in my luggage. I can't bring myself to spend $30 on a travel charger since I already spent that on the car charger. The phone book is great because you can store several numbers for the same person. On old phones I have had to store peoples numbers as "Bob-Home, "Bob-Cell," and "Bob-Work." With the 8500, I store all Bob's numbers under "Bob." Then when I select his name, I get a menu of all his numbers. Harder to explain than to see in practice - but really neat. Incidentally, I don't actually have a friend named Bob. I have also found the alarm clock feature to be useful when travelling. The only drawback here is that it uses the network to determine the time of day. No signal = No clock. No clock = Missing your 8:00 meeting because you didn't call for a wake-up call as a backup. All in all, I love this phone. I know there are some good rebates in effect right now, so pick one up!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90571 2002/7/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 checking voicemail voice memo recorder phone book voice calling calendar no good carrying cases or belt clips are available The Bottom LineA good value for the money. I recommend buying it because of its versatility, clear connection, and ease of use. Full Review This phone is very versatile!! If you find yourself in need of a reliable cell phone that also reminds you of important appointments, then look no further. I have owned this phone for approximately two years now and it has come in useful for me on both a personal and professional level. I really like the phone's calendar option. I use it to keep track of appointments and personal dates. When you make an entry in the calendar, you have the option to set an audible alarm to remind you of the event. (The alarm can be set to remind you of the event on time, or up to one hour before). The "T9 word" technology that Samsung uses in the calendar is very helpful for entering words and sentences very quickly. Just type in the word as it corresponds to the numbers on the numeric keypad. For example the word "WORD" would be numbers 9673: 9-(W)xyz, 6-mn(O), 7-pq(R)s, and 3-(D)ef. You can also scroll quickly through a list of other possible words for the number combination 9673: for example the word "WORE". The SCH-8500 also contains a large phone book with speed and voice dialing options (COOL!). The voice memo recorder comes in handy for taking quick verbal notes. I've also used it to record phone conversations (although it won't record your voice, just the caller on the other end). The voicemail is easy to access and edit. The only drawbacks I have had with the phone are with its accessories. I previously owned a Motorola Star-Tac phone that had a wonderful belt-clip carrying case. This phone doesn't offer any. I bought an aftermarket belt-clip carrying case for my SCH-8500, but the phone doesn't fit into it properly and the case scratched my phone's finish. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90570 2000/9/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 easy access menu sound large phone book poor battery menu organization is not very neat just simple Full Review Catchy-Catchy looks! Okay lets go skin deep again. Amazing looks, can it be deceiving? Well if just look you want then go for it. You see I live in Texas and we are pretty caught up with technology. When a new product comes out, i pay attention on how it markets it self. Did you notice the earlier model? the Samsung 3500 i mean to say. Well it jumped into the brochures quickly even before I pick one up. It was the looks. Okay I have Owned the Samsung 8500, but I have since returned mine. I was blinded by its looks and wow a calendar, voice dial,calculator and a to-do list. This phone comes equiped, I immediately invented a need for it and bought one. I am just so technical that's all. I almost thought that the name was switched with the Motorola Timeport another one I envy because of the looks. I thought the Samsung was way ahead of it time hence time-port! hmmm I bought both phones but could only activate one. Well i chose the Samsung 8500. But a piece of my heart went for the timeport by Motorola. So the Samsung was on check now. I noticed that the Samsung menu animations eventually stopped animating, after few minutes - it was not very stable. It does not have a dedicated processor to handle it simple animation. The one thing that made me return it was the fact that it dropped and never worked properly again. So be careful with it, most of them seem to have this problem. So I took it back and insisted that they exchange it (for the timeport Motorola). I was told that the timeport was flimsy but I took it anyway, I had to see for my self. My heart had been at ease ever since. If a phone can't meet certain standards it's best to keep it simple. That's what Motorola did that for me. Even though it appears to have a smaller screen, the Motorola state of art touch was there. Very stable I say and does not slow down with addition of data. The timeport has advance functions buried under its simple look. Yes no one says this, but it can synchronize with address on your PC. I am not sure if the samsung 8500 could synch with the phone book. The Samsung 8500 has about twice the capacity of storage (some 200 plus names) but you know what? it didn't offer a phone book synchronization - they said they were working on it when i called. yeah right i waited all right. My overall evaluation was that it was built in a hurry on the inside. The outside of the Samsung is well built - it almost hypnotizes one with its sight and feel. Very sturdy. If one isn't interesting in minor things it's a good phone. Just note that, the more information stored in phone, the slower it operates. All the while I owned one, I was distracted by it's look and functions it just didn't seem right. I leave you to decide. I may not be good enough to make one but I know exactly what i want. I leave you with a plus - it has a very easy one touch access to most of its menus. Very easy to get around the phone and that's is a good thing ( i got bored quickly though :) --- 8/9/00 added Everyone usually goes what is that! also check out the new silver colored one The Best part, i almost forgot --- 8/9/00 added Is its abilily to record voice mememos you can actually record a minute or two on a phone conversation by simply holding down the record. I like that in the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 90569 2000/11/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 graphics size voice dial design dual mode signal battery life talk time price Full Review Beautiful, exquisite, the epitome of perfection. This wireless phone has everything you need. Samsung produced the Cadillac of phones. I was working in sales for Sprint PCS this summer and the day this phone came out I was in love. Though it sells for between 150 and 200 dollars- its worth it. Voice Dial is activated when you flip the phone open - Say Home & it dials home. Say Dominos & within 30 minutes you'll have a right-out-of-the-heat-wave-bag pie. The menu is graphical and the screen is extremely hi-res for a phone. The graphics are actually animated. This phone is also small enough to fit in a purse or pocket and has a battery talk time of about 5 hours and 3-4 DAY standby (Lithium Ion Battery). It is dual mode so if you lose a signal you can always switch over to "Bedrock" analog. Great phone for business people, and other people who care about having the very best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 90568 2000/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pc connectivity etc quality wealth of features voice dial analog receiver too strong The Bottom LineGreat phone that does it all. Build quality, audio and reception quality, WAP, dual band, voice activated, PIM functionality, more.... Full Review PDA's and phones are merging fast. I wanted to replace an old Nokia with something that had web connectivity and a good phonebook. This summer will bring true PDA phones to the market, and will surely put this and other high end phones out of the top spot, but I didn't want to wait that long or pay that much ($400+). The Samsung 8500 stood out over the Startac because of its screen and a few other features, and I haven't regretted it. Sound quality and reception are very good. The build quality is excellent. The menu is nicely laid out. Controlling the phone is logical, but the load of features had me reaching for the manual or quick reference card initially. This phone has just about everything and does it all very well. Voice dial works quite well, even in noisy areas. It has great PIM functionality and I've sync'd the phonebook, calendar, and to do list using FoneSync software easily. A bare data cable is all that is necessary to turn the phone into a wireless modem for bringing the internet to your laptop or PDA (fine for email, but slow for surfing- not the phones fault, but Sprints 14.4 data network speed). WAP is implemented and displayed well on this phone. The clr key is the "back" button. I use Sprint, and one thing I had to do is program the phone to use their network only. It would slip into analog easily and quickly whenever I went into fringe areas. My basement included! I was happy to discover that the change didn't mean dropped calls in those fringe areas, the phone held on just fine. I am concluding that the analog receiver is much stronger that my old dual band Nokia, which performed poorly in analog roaming areas. One complaint I had read before purchasing the phone was being unable to see the screen to ID a call before you answered it. This is true, BUT only if you have the phone set to answer on flip. You can set it to answer on 'Talk' or 'any key' to eliminate that problem. I found the standard battery adequate, but am currently using an off brand extended battery that nearly doubles the talk time. I picked it up for only $25 off the web and have had no problems with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 90567 2000/3/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial display voice quality great features quality control reliability The Bottom LineIf you don't need to make calls in analog areas, it's a great choice. But have yours checked out at a Sprint store before the warranty runs out! Full Review The 8500 is a paradox: it has fabulous features that distinguish it from the competition, but has significant reliability problems that frustrate the user. I've had 10 different cell phones going back to a back-pack Panasonic and recently selected the 8500 after a careful comparison of features among available phones. Pros Initially, the phone worked great using Sprint service in northern New Jersey. The voice quality is far superior to any other phone I've ever used, including a number of other Sprint phones (Motorola Timeport, Sanyo 4500). The 8500 has easy-to-use buttons and the menus are fairly intuitive. For those who use the wireless web features, text entry is far easier than on many other phones. The voice dial feature is extremely convenient. Up to 30 numbers can be stored in memory and dialed by speaking the name. Voice memos can be recorded for playback, although I have never used the feature in 5 months of use. The phone book provides ample storage, including 6 separate entries for each name (home, work, mobile, pager, fax and unlabeled). It has a calendar, although text entry is cumbersome. Cons The biggest problem with the 8500 is the failure rate. I have had 7 of these phones, and all but one have failed the diagnostic test administered by Sprint's technicians. Sprint techs have told me that the failure rate is 20-30%. Moreover, none of the 8500's I have had have been able to make analog calls, either in PCS-coverage areas or outside them. In essence, although this is sold as a dual-band phone, for all practical purposes it only operates in PCS mode. Sprint has been trying for two months to rectify this problem without success to date. Even more surprising, the 8500 cannot make a 911 call in analog mode, which I am informed is contrary to federal requirements. Neither of these problems (which appear to be unrelated, by the way) seem to have any affect on calls made or received within PCS-coverage areas. In my experience, even with these problems, the 8500 still is one of the best phones in the Sprint arsenal. If a flip phone is not a priority, the Sanyo 4500 provides greater reliability and the same features, and also provides better battery life, and additional voice features (speakerphone, voice announce). Its display and size, however, are inferior to the 8500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 90566 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lcd clarity size functions travel car charger plug no call id lcd The Bottom LineThis phone is still a bit pricey but it's a solid work horse packed with features. I don't know of another PCS phone I would rather have. Full Review As a new PCS customer I started off with the Sanyo 4500 which was a huge mistake. You can read my review of that phone of if you have an interest: I was given the Samsung SCH-8500 as a replacement for my Sanyo and life was immediately better. I love this phone! It's not a shining example of next generation technology at this point but it is a solid work-horse. Here is a quick outline of what I feel are it's shining features and tragic flaws. STRENGTHS: 1. LCD Clarity. The contrast and light were well balanced and adjustable based upon user settings (time/contrast). I like it as much or better than the indiglo-type backlighting I had on my Sanyo 4500. 2. Reception. I questioned the Portland area signal strength until I got this phone. I am never forced to put the antenna up though I do so as not to take chances. Don't get me wrong, I get disconnected on an infrequent basis but that's a fact of life with Sprint PCS. 3. Size. This phone isn't too small that you chance losing track of it, but it's small enough to comfortably fit in a pocket. It would be nice if the lanyard slot was located in the middle of the phone rather than on the side. When I try to pull it out of my Carhartt pocket it gets wedged. 4. Voice Memos. This function isn't perfect but it does offer five 60 second voice memos that can be named and stored. It would be nice if you could append a message. 5. Desktop Charger. It's bulky but does offer two slots: one for charging the phone and a second slot for charging an extra battery. 6. Volume Buttons. The rocker button that controls call volume is extremely well designed allowing you to make adjustments with ease (compared to individual recessed rubber buttons found on other phones). WEAKNESSES: 1. Mandatory Flip. In order to see who is calling you have to flip the phone open to see the LCD. Logically, newer phones are coming with caller ID LCDs on the OUTSIDE. 2. Travel/Car Charger Port. If you want to use chargers other than the bulky desktop model, that comes with the phone, you have to expose the delicate pin bank in the bottom of the phone (it comes OEM with a rubber boot over it). A friend with an SCH-3500 left his rubber boot off and it eventually got mangled and now he cannot use anything but the desktop charger. You look at competitors car charger slots and they all seem to be a lot more burly. 3. PIM Fault. Since the phone does not have a built in clock, you are bound to being in a PCS coverage area. Otherwise calendar/alarm items you set won't work. On the other hand it is nice when the phone adjusts to the local time when you are travelling. 6 of one a half dozen of the other . . . I am happy with it but I don't expect to use it forever. When my contract runs out I will probably switch to another carrier. Good luck in your cellular quest. Hope this has helped. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Replacement 90565 2000/9/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 nice size features battery life could be better Full Review I recently had to replace my dual-band Motorola Startac due to the fact that I submerged it in water. (oops) I was in the mood for a change anyway so I purchased the Samsung SCH-8500. Overall, I am very pleased with this phone. First off, I'll tell you what I like about it: This phone has a very large, very clear LCD screen that makes it pleasant to look at. The menus are well organized and easy to navigate, with animated icons to make it even easier. The buttons are intelligently placed and large enough to make one-handed dialing a possibility. The side-mounted buttons conveniently control the volume settings of the phone. When you're not currently on a call, they change the ringer volume; when you're on a call, they change the speaker volume. Very convenient. The 8500 also has a vibrating ring and separate tones for pages and text messages. The battery life is fairly decent for a phone of this size, but I do think it falls short of the manufacturer's specifications. Call clarity is very good. This phone gets just as good if not better reception that the comparable Motorola Startacs. Now for the bad: The battery life could be considerably longer. I get about one and a half days out of the battery with moderate calling. This could be a problem if you are a very heavy user. The batteries, fortunately, are small enough to carry a spare. This phone has a tendency to switch from digital to analog even though digital service may be present. On my calling plan, this doesn't pose a problem. Some of you, however, may get charged differently depending on your service. Other than these couple gripes, I've got no complaints. My phone, which was packaged for Sprint PCS service, came with a very nice desktop charger. It allows me to charge the phone with the display open so I can see who's calling. It also has a slot for a second battery. Chargers like this usually sell for at least $60 separately so it is nice that it comes with. Not to be short on features, Samsung also includes voice-dialing capabilities (which work surprisingly well) and a built-in 60 second digital voice recorder for quick memos. Although I don't use these features too often, they are certainly nice to have. All in all I think that this is a very good phone. The size is nice and small and it packs a ton of very cool features. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90564 2000/11/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear display sleek design features clarity of speech portable hard to type emails im s to friends with numpad Full Review Remember reading about Alexander Graham Bell when you were young? Lets face it, were moving forward, things have changed, and so has the telephone industry. What Samsung has done was redefine their old models of cellular phones, into more portability, instead of the un-stylish chunky look. They bring you the SAMSUNG SCH-8500, a stylish [silver or black model] phone, that fits nicely in the palm of your hand. A clear display on the phone, a friendly interface, and new features that are integrated into the phone, and extras more if you are using "SPRINTPCS wireless digital service". Introduction: My Nokia wasn't doing it anymore, it was too big, and people were starting to wonder if that was my Nokia Cellphone sticking out of my pocket or if I was just happy to see them. So the next day, a blue and red box containing the cell phone was delivered to my house, I signed up for SPRINTPCS service, and was setup in no time flat. I turned it on, and was immediately ready to go. I even went to customize my ringer settings, and my visual display to say "Wassup Eamon" when the phone is on. It was very simple. The phone is very light compared to my nokia, and very nice in size, though just a teeny weeny thick of what I expected, but its fine. Phone Use: I immediately dialed my friend and talked with him, the sound clarity was crystal clear, I could hear my friend type on his computer doing "work" as he said, (he's playing Quake3), as he could hear me pacing back and forth in my room looking at the sweet box. What I noticed which really sucked after 1 month of usage of the phone was that, if you are not in adequete range, it goes "out of service" and it does not display the date and time, which really sucks, if you don't have a watch, also you can't access your calendar. I also noticed it sucked big time sending emails on the phone or AOL IM'ing people (really neat feature), so it's basically trivial and a "brag" feature that you should do. SprintPCS added that feature on purpose so you could look cool, but its not cool when you see this guy sweating and irritatedly trying to send a sentence of conversation with that stinky numPad. Oh yeah I have dropped the phone (notice i said THE phone not my phone) a couple times. I took my sister's phone (our whole family has this cell phone to each person, i'm the last one to get it), and dropped it a couple times, and it was fine, notice I did this test without her knowing ;). Conclusion: For 199.99 this phone was very tempting money to blow, because I needed the portability, the cool features (like checking my email or IM'ing someone), to even things like writing a memo to myself: "Eamon go home". I also like the voice-recognition calling, so I could say to my phone "Food", and it automatically dials IMO's Pizza Place (my favorite food) that I had set it to. I really would it if owners of this phone could upgrade or add more dial tones/ringers, which would be awesome. I would like it to play the Macarena or something toher than Kyouk ..whatever. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90563 2000/9/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact battery navigation antenna alert light reception light volume control display long battery slick web reception losses late voice mail needed replacement buttons slippery poor provider rates service The Bottom LineIt is worth the buy but only if you can afford Sprints lousy service. Be careful, I had to replace mine and they didn't ask any questions. Full Review Service/Quality Cons: I want to put the cons first because I had some trouble with my phone and had to have it replaced. Thank goodness it was only 9 months old and under warranty. The phone acted fine for 6 months but then after, it would shut off on me. I would have it fully charged and flip the top down and then when I opened it, it wasn't turning on. It is supposed to turn on automatically when you flip it up. Also once in a while if I was simply dialing, I would press a number and it would shut it off. The phone wasn't set to do that and it can't be and I never abused the phone, it was in perfect condition. Sprint said maybe the battery was defective so I took it in. Since it was still under its one year warranty, they replaced it with no question which was good but then it was too easy, maybe other 8500 phones had this same problem and that is why, I have no idea. I noticed that when I got the REPLACEMENT, they buttons worked better in that they had a click sound after pressed. My phone didn't have that. I am pretty sure it did in the beginning so I don't know if it wears off or what but I noticed this. Sprint Service Plans and Customer Support is poor: SERVICE PLANS ARE A RIP OFF. They had a plan for $35 for 250 day time minutes which they call anytime minutes from 7am to 8pm. And then 1200 minutes after 8pm and on weekends. This is bad because I live in California and my parents and family live in MI. There is a 3 hour time difference so when it is 5pm in Cali, it is 8pm there. So in order for me not to use my daytime minutes I must wait till 8pm. Well, that is a major drawback because a lot of my family and friends work and it is a pain when I have to call them at 11pm their time. Also, I was trying to find other IT jobs while working and was moving a lot so I used this as my primary phone for voice mail. So my 250 minutes turned into an average of 400 minutes. Even if I wasn't using it as a primary phone, 250 minutes is nothing, just like on internet, 50 hours goes by before you know it. so if you go over, each minute is .40 each so my bill was so high. I finally had to switch to the $75 plan because they give you what they should in the first place, 1000 anytime and 1000 night and weekend minutes. At least this way it is split and I am paying $75 not $200 because I went 200 minutes over my 250 minutes like in my previous $35/mo plan. SPRINT HAS THESE NON-EFFECTIVE MID RANGE PLANS that increase your daytime and night time but the real factor is your daytime. They only increase it $10 and only give you 100 more minutes for anytime. Those are the most important in my opinion. So be careful, when they say "We can give you 1000 more nights and weekends for $10 more" beware, you will never use more than 1000 minutes on nights and weekends unless you are a teenager in love. Just pay your $75 plan and don't worry about going over the lousy 250, 305, 450 anytime minute plans they try to rip you off on. I am sure they are making enough money to give you more for YOUR money but you know how the world works now. SPRINT TECH SUPPORT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ON THE LINE. Yes, their web site is useful to view your account but a lot of times you need to talk to someone. Good luck, you have an average hour wait every time you call them. Their standard message says you have a half hour but every time I called, it is AT LEAST an hour. Their support is decent but it is not worth the wait. The CONS on the PHONE itself: BUTTONS ARE HARD TO PUSH. They are flat, not raised and very soft so you have to push quite hard or with your fingernail sometimes. Please get a headset no matter what phone, especially smalls ones like this when driving because if you kill someone, you will wish you never called about your dinner that day. Don't use a phone at all when you are on the road if possible, I understand there are times it is useful though but don't take someone else's life in jeopardy from some material thing that isn't near worth a life. THE RECEPTION IS GOOD BUT IS LOST QUITE OFTEN. This may because I live in California but it also does this no matter where I am, at work, outside in the streets, etc. I constantly have to keep re-dialing to keep conversations going. IT IS HARD TO VIEW THE WEB. The display is just too small. I don't think cell phones will do well with the web just because of that fact alone. Also, you are paying $10 a month for something that is hard to view, just use your computer at home. Also because the screen is so small, you only see text and it is hard to type things in and takes a long time to download pages or type stuff in. You will find this more frustrating then useful or user friendly and will cancel your web plan just like I did. It has no Java scroll menus either which could maybe help. IT IS EASILY DROPPED. I am not clumsy, just that this thing is so small and smooth you better put it in your pocket and not try to juggle this and other stuff you are carrying at the same time. Just because it is small doesn't mean you can carry it in on hand while carrying a grocery bag in the other, it slips out easy. It has happened 2 times to me and is frustrating. It depends how careful you are also so I have learned to not juggle stuff with it in my hand. Phone Pros: THIS PHONE EASILY FITS IN YOUR POCKET WITH LESS WEIGHT AND BULK. I am one who doesn't even like to put a wallet in my pocket but this phone is small enough that I feel somewhat ok with it there. It is very light and the battery lasts long and is charged fast in your car or at home. I would say it takes about 45-60 minutes to fully charge it again but if you have it connected to the charger in the car, you can talk as long as you want but the charging time will be doubled since you are using it when charging it. BATTERY CHARGES FAST AND LASTS LONG. The battery is small and charges fast in the car or at home. If you are in the car, you can talk as long as you want when charging but of course the charging takes 2 times as long. I figure about 45-60 minutes until fully charged again. The base for home is nice. GOOD RECEPTION MOST OF THE TIME. The reception is clear when it doesn't cut out. Again quite often you just loose the reception for some reason when you were talking very clearly. RED LIGHT AT TOP FLUTTERS WHEN YOU HAVE A VOICE MAIL MESSAGE. This is nice so you don't have to call your voice mail to check. It also plays a chime when you have messages. 3 SOUND LEVELS DO THE JOB. This is all you need and they are set perfectly. You don't really need any in between levels. It is easily changed along with the ring volume on the side navigator toggle button EASILY NAVIGATION. Aside from the web, it does although provide nice navigation to your phone numbers and settings Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90562 2001/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice screen intuitive to use compact it s no longer the newest model The Bottom LineExcellent dual band, compact phone with lots of great features. Good battery life. But no longer the "latest model". Full Review This dual band CDMA phone is excellent, an all-around good phone that kicks all over the "other" more popular flip phone: the Motorolla Startac series. I'll take this Samsung SCH-8500 over Startac any day. But it wasn't so easy convincing my mother in law that. She just couldn't get over the old stigma of the Samsung brand, and insisted on the Motorolla Startac. Well, it was her money so we got her the Startac. Months later, they decided to add my father in law to the plan. Him, having no such emotional biases, let me pick "which flip phone" and I took the Samsung SCH-8500. Now that we see them in action side by side, my mother wants to trade. Why? The Samsung SCH-8500 is a great phone. With the Lithium Ion battery is has good standby time of a few days with some chatting. The reception is fairly good, although I think reception is more dependent upon your carrier (we're using Sprint PCS). The construction is solid, especially the hinge which feels much more sturdy than the Startac's. There is a retractable antenna which definitely improves the reception (and moves some of the emissions further away from your head). The screen is physically the same size (about 1 1/2" x 1") as the Startac, but it has a significantly higher resolution which allows a cleaner look and in general a more elegant interface. And that's the biggest area that the Samsung beats out Motorolla. While the Motorolla interface is clumsy, cumbersome, and unfriendly; the Samsung's interface is intuitive and friendly with obvious shortcuts for the user to take advantage of. My wife (also an owner of a Startac) was able to pick up the 8500 and immediately begin navigating her way around the phone. The 8500 has several neat features that the Startac doesn't have, including voice activated calling, calendar, alarm, calculator, and voice memo recording. I only wish there was some way to sync a Palm Pilot to the phone's calendar/address book. The voice activated calling works surprisingly well, but is limited to the voice of the owner (well, actually, the person who recorded and linked the original number). Being a flip phone, the 8500 is of nice compact size as well. Being that this phone has been out for over a year, the battery life is beginning to show signs of age. 2-3 days is excellent and extremely usable. But now that we're seeing 4-5 days on the market, it isn't the longest life battery available. Overall, the Samsung SCH-8500 is an excellent phone. If this phone meets your price range, then I'd definitely recommend it; especially if you're trying to decide between it and a Motorolla Startac. PS. The reason why we paid only $120, was because we got it at a store's going out of business sale. I see it usually for $175-200 retail, and it's worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90561 2000/1/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large display screen lots of features compact size flimsy antenna uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a small phone with a lot of capabilities, this is the one for you. Full Review After several years of carrying a pager and a larger cell phone, I decided it was time for something that would function as both, and was small enough to carry in my pocket. In my search, I came across the Samsung, which had just been available for a few days. It came with a hefty price tag in comparison to other phones on the market, but did have a lot of features, including web browsing capabilities. So I decided to go for it. A year later, I'm still happy with my purchase. The battery life in regular digital mode is about three days. It drains much faster if you're in an analog roam area, though. However, it is also quick to charge, taking only a few hours when it's been completely drained. It also offered a feature that was very important in my choice of a phone- a vibrate mode for the ringer. I find this preferable to bothering others with my ringing phone. It doesn't have many choices of ring tones, which may turn off some younger cell phone owners. However, I don't know many teens who can afford a $200 cell phone, or many adults who care what song their phone plays when it rings. I've found it to be fairly user friendly. It's easy to store numbers in your phone book, although it does take several steps. But the process is tedious, rather than difficult. It offers the abilty to speed-dial nine numbers by just holding down the corresponding number key for 2 seconds. This is a handy feature if you're trying to dial and drive (not that anyone really does that since it could be dangerous, right?) The web browser is also accessible with the touch of just one key. The arrow keys are large and easy to push, even for those with larger fingers. It already has voice dial capabilities built in, so you don't have to pay extra if your service provider offers the service as an add-on to you package. You still have to push the 'talk' button, though. Truthfully, I've found the voice dial to be more trouble than it's worth. It's easier to use the one-key speed dial mentioned above. It can serve is a mini-PDA, with a calendar and 'to-do list' feature. It also has an alarm clock and countdown feature. My main complaint is that it is so small that it can get uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. If you use it a lot, you might want to consider investing in one of the many hands free attachments available for it. The pull-out antenna is flimsy when extended, but I've found that I rarely need to extend it. Even more amazing, the phone has been on the market for over a year and still continues to be amongst the top cell phones. In this day of technology becoming outdated in the blink of an eye, that's got to say something! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90560 2000/12/25 Product Rating4.0 colourful range reliability Full Review I LOVE THIS PHONE. This sturdy phone is the best cell I have owned. I have used Sony, Qualcomm and Audiovox. The Samsung is feature rich with Voice dial/memo are great. The clarity of calls are awesome too. I was a little scared switching from Verison to Sprint. This has worked out great so far... will keep in touch. From what I can tell, consumers are in love with the Samsung SCH-8500's beauty and small size. This "stylish" phone boasts "lots of fun gadgets" like a calendar, voice activation, an LCD display location and web browser. The 8500 also provides "the best signal strength" and comes equipped with a vibrate mode. This Samsung is "easy to manipulate with a single hand" because of its well-designed layout. Consumers do complain that the 8500 should come with a holster, and that the vibrating mode "can be hard to detect," but they still recommend this phone. However, After I had my phone for 3 months, the internal phone book started 'eating' itself. One entry in particular began displaying phone numbers in other locations, and each time I tried to delete the entry, all the numbers 'taken' from the other locations were lost. A phone book reset fixed the problem temporarily, but moving entries around tend to produce misplaced and lost phone numbers. Sprint has been no help on this. This is a SERIOUS problem for a mobile phone. If I can't trust it to save important phone numbers, I'm not going to use it that much. The phone has a nice "curb appeal" but poor quality for the price ($200)with a year contract.If the "drop out" problem was no so bad it has the possibility of being a decent cell phone. Recommended: Yes 90559 2000/5/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of room for names numbers small decent battery life lots of features names can t be long offered pretty much only through sprint pcs The Bottom LineGreat phone, but don't get it. Only one service provider (Sprint PCS) and they really suck so bad you'll regret getting the phone. Full Review Hey, I gotta say, I've been using this phone for about 10 months or so now, and I love this phone. Of all the others I've seen out there, there are only a couple that I would rather have. The phone is absolutely wonderful and offers plenty of handy features. The phone has a calendar, alarm clocks, a countdown timer, and the ability to display world time in a preset selection of cities around the world. It has a voicememo function which can hold up to 4 minutes of recordings. It has about 13 or so different rings to choose from, a vibrate mode, and a minibrowser for web-surfing, for when you get really bored. The phone also supports voice-dailing, so all you have to do is remember the names of people you want to call, rather than their phone numbers. It also has a secret feature, so you can hide the phone numbers of people you don't want called. The lock function on the phone is neat, because while it does leave the phone locked to curious hands, it will allow someone to call 911 and up to three pre-programmed numbers. The phone book holds up to 229 separate entries, with up to 6 numbers for each entry. Lots of room for every one. Signal reception on this phone is rather good (in the areas that are covered by the provider), and if you so desire, you can choose whether the phone should automatically try to find the best signal (between digital and analog), if it should operate only on digital networks, or if it should operate only on analog networks. Now that I'm done with the great qualities of this phone, let's get down to the problems. First thing: I hate the fact that you can only get this phone through Sprint PCS. Throughout my acquaintance with this phone, they have been the thing that I've hated the most, causing me about a thousand times as much trouble as the phone itself ever has. I mentioned earlier that the signal quality is good in areas that are covered. Problem is, Sprint PCS coverage isn't all that great. The phone's ability to automatically choose between digital and analog networks can be really annoying, since Sprint PCS charges you a very high extra per-minute fee for analog usage. Problem is, it has a tendency to want to switch to an analog network far too often. This means that the phone has to be set to use only digital networks. While this can easily be done by a first-time user with a bit of curiosity, it means that if the signal weakens, you will lose the call. Also, the voicememo function doesn't work out of digital networks. Second thing: I absolutely hate the fact that entries in the phone book can't be longer than about 13 characters. My name barely fits in it, and I end up having to abbreviate the names of a lot of my friends and business associates. It's almost to the point that I may have to start putting numbers after people's names (Joe 1, Joe 2, etc.). Apparently Nokia phones have a similar problem too, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. It really annoys me a great deal. Third thing: While this is a minor grievance, I still want to include it. I hate the fact that I cannot set the phone to display time in a 24-hour format. Fourth thing: This doesn't bother me in the least, but it may annoy other people. It should be noted that while many of the phones out on the market provide their users with games, the Samsung SCH-8500 is not one of them. This phone has no games. None. Overall, this phone is, in my opinion (and that's what this entire thing here is), one of the absolute best phones out there. I'm not surprised that it's received a #1 ranking here on Epinions.com. But like I said, the service provider sucks. It's just too bad, because while this phone is an excellent phone, I have to say that you shouldn't get it, because eventually the hassles with Sprint PCS and it's stupid coverage area and rules will bring you down enough that it'll render the greatness of the phone to be insignificant. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90558 2000/1/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks flip design Full Review The Samsung SCH-8500 reminds me of my all time favorite phone, the Motorola StarTac. I got the silver model through Sprint PCS. At the time I got this phone it was the coolest looking one that was dual band. There were some other phones that were smaller and better looking but they were all single band. It's pretty small and light with all the basic functionality you need. The battery life is not bad. The address phone is good since you can store several phone numbers to one name. It's also Web enabled so you can surf the wireless web. I would highly recommend this phone unless you don't like flipping the cover to see who's calling. It can get annoying sometimes to have to flip it open to see who's calling, but I personally like the flip design. Tinou http://www.tinou.com Recommended: Yes 90557 2000/8/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small size clarity none in my book Full Review This is a question that I have been asked several times when I am out in public with my Samsung 8500. I love to hear that question because it gives me the excuse to show off my beautiful piece of mobile technology. When I was looking for a digital phone, I was looking for a replacement for my home phone. I needed something that would have the clarity to rival my land line, be able to pick up weak signals, and have additional USEFUL features in a package that would not be cumbersome to carry with me. The 8500 has met and exceeded every expectation that I had for a digital phone. Clarity is excellent...I have yet to be asked if I am calling from a cell phone, unless I am in my car listening to the radio in the background. Signal reception is also very good...I was using a Touchpoint phone and could not get any signal bars at work but with the 8500 I usally have 3 or 4 bars. I love the additional features and use them often (calculator, alarm, and voice dialing to name a few). I was a little apprehensive about getting rid of my land line, but with the 8500 I have found a digital phone that does every thing my home line does. Freedom at last!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.95 90556 2001/2/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 wireless internet access clear screen battery life size clarity The Bottom LineThis was an excellent phone when it first came out. However, there are smaller phones available. I recommend the SCH-6100 if you do not need dual band. Full Review SAMSUNG SCH-8500 I have tested and used many different type of cellular phones and a couple of different networks in the US, Asia and Europe. After using the SAMSUNG SCH-8500 for a while, I have concluded that it is a SOLID PHONE but there better phones available. WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER THE SAMSUNG SCH-8500 ============================================ 1). You have a SPRINT PCS Service. (Although I do not recommend SPRINT PCS in general, if you have it already, you might as well get a good solid phone). 2). You need a dual band coverage. I cannot stress this enough. If you ONLY plan to stay within Major Metropolitan areas, you DO NOT need this. This really comes in handy if you have long road trips, but if you fly from city to city, you really do not need this. PROS 1). Battery Life. This thing has excellent battery life that will last you a couple of days of light usage. 2). Wireless Internet. If you are one of those who always have to check stock prices or check e-mail, then this is an excellent phone. Of course, all this comes at a rather high service cost from SPRINT PCS. 3). Display. This phone has an excellent screen. It is very clear and easy to read. CONS 1). Size. This is not a small phone. When it first came out, it was comparatively small I'll admit. But there are many other phones available now that can do the exact same things but are just smaller and easier to carry around. 2). Signal Strength. I contribute this mostly to poor SPRINT PCS coverage. But it is not extremely clear phone, land lines are much better. ALTERNATIVES 1). If you do not need a dual band phone, I highly recommend the SAMSUNG SCH-6100. It is much smaller and compact than the SCH-8500, and it has basically the same features. Otherwise, look into other services that have better phones. Of course, this is an excellent solid phone for the reasons specified above. However, most other reviews are out-of-date and there are many better phones available. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 90555 2000/11/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to follow menus keypad small some modes cannot be silenced Full Review Remember going to the World of Tomorrow at Disney World or the World Fair and being thoroughly convinced that the world would be full of flying cars by the year 2000 ? The Samsung SCH-8500 is the flying car we never got. Before I signed up for service I brought home both the Samsung and a Motorola StarTac 7867W. Both phones were appealing, especially after carrying a Motorola "brick" for the last 3 years. The Samsung was the hands-down winner. I had admired the StarTac phones for a long time. But after spending a couple of days playing with both phones, the decision was difficult. Would it be the slightly more slender figure of the StarTac or the less noisy vibration mode of the Samsung. Since I don't want to be embarrased by the needless sound of vibration coming from my pants, I went with the Samsung. The 8500 has a nice feel to it. You open the flip and it feels like it won't wear out if you flip it open and shut 1000 times. The keys give a more definite report as they are depressed. With the Motorola, there's no chance of dialing without looking. The function of the menus and the layout of the keypad is logical. And even though it is small, and I have large hands, it seems to fit the contours of my palm quite naturally. The screen gives a very legible display, and the backlight offers just the right illumination for trouble-free navigation through the menus. At least that's what I remember of it. Samsung's Voice-Dial has virtually eliminated any need to refer to the screen again. That's a noteworthy safety feature. After an accident with a cell-phone user, I truly believe that any attempt at safety is worthwhile. Samsung has made a concerted effort. Once connected, you truly feel like you are on a land line. I've hardly noticed the quality, and that's because it's near perfect and you forget to critique it. Samsung brilliantly designed the quick access volume button on the side, controlling ringing volume in standby mode and speaker volume in talk mode. I still want to live to see flying cars. Until then, I think I have a little piece of the future right now. UPDATE !!!! 11/21/00 I just accidentally dropped the phone on a linoleum floor from about 4 feet. Not only does it still work, there's not even a mark on the case of the phone. Unbelievable !!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 - Sprint $50 rebate on 2 phones 90554 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small portable great battery life web enabled flip style phone is a little inconvenient The Bottom LineA classy and stylish little phone with plenty of features to suit everyone's needs. Full Review The Samsung SCH-8500 was my very first cellular phone. I had it for almost a year before switching phones, not because I didn't like this phone but because of certain circumstances. The 8500 was a stylish phone and since I had it so long, it became "me". I had bought the phone when it first came out, so it was in the black color that Samsung stopped making after a few months. The phone had many features such as voice dialing, setting different ringers for different callers, and multiple phone numbers to one phone book entry. Being a Sprint PCS phone, it was web enabled, which allowed me to go online and chat with my buddies using AIM, which is only available on Sprint service. The 8500 was a very classy phone and I loved the styling. It was very small and lightweight and fit almost anywhere. Changing the volume of the ringer was a cinch. It took only a few presses of the up/down bar on the side of the phone for you to set it on low ringer/vibrate or even one beep! I especially loved the one beep feature. It was an audible indication that someone was calling you but it was not one that would be a nuisance in church or at the movies. The downsides of this phone is that it is a little high priced and the flip-styling is a little annoying. It has been on the market for over a year and yet has the same price tag it did when it first came out, but it does offer a plethora of great features. Whenever getting calls while driving, I have to use my thumb to flip the phone open. After awhile, my thumb cuticle started to hurt whenever I did that, so that was a little annoying. If you don't mind flip style phones, the SCH-8500 is has many great features that you'll fall in love with. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90553 2001/5/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 convenient easy to use small discontinued sales as a verizon phone dual mode not tri mode The Bottom LineThe SCH850 is an excellent phone, packed with all the features that you would need. Full Review I purchased the SCH 850 (The CDMA/AMPS 800 mhz for Verizon Wireless not the PCS for Sprint, but the features are the same..) used from a friend. At first I was hesitant to get a folding phone, I never liked the StarTac phones from Motorola. I thought they were not designed very well, and assumed that all flip phones would be the same.. boy was I wrong! First off, the screen is on the top flip and the battery is on the bottom flip (opposite of the Motorola phones..) And the flip is the sturdiest hinge I have seen on a folding phone. The voice activating feature is convenient and useful, and it works with the head-set (unlike the Audiovox phones with the voice activated features.) Which makes calling while driving that much safer. But this feature only works in analog mode--but going with Verizon, that is seldom a problem in cities. The Mobile Web feature is great also, (content still is a bit lacking, but what's there is nice.) I am kind of an information junkie.. I like to know the score, as soon as the game is over. With it I can look up movie times, sports scores, news, weather, traffic even buy books and trade stocks and more! Being such a small phone, you would think that the battery would suffer, and to a point, it does, but with the lithium battery, I charge my battery every other day or so, and never have a problem. I also have a car charger for the times that I forget to charge the phone at night. Another thing that I like about this phone, is that you can assign ringers to certain #'s. I can tell by the ringer if my wife is coming, kind of a audible caller-id. The choice of ringers is limited in this day of 30+ ringers.. but honestly, when is the last time you changed the ringer on your phone? There are good ringers on this phone, as well as the vibrating feature (which has 1 touch activation). The scheduler is nice as well, a calendar built right into the phone, which you can put appointments and be notified by the phone at or before the time of the appointment. The phone book holds more names and numbers that people that I know, (259 spaces for names, each name holds 6 #'s home, fax, work, mobile etc..) When I get around to replacing my phone, it will be the TM-510 by LG. It has all the same features and more (it's tri-mode), and it is very reasonably priced (about $150 in CA w/ activation). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 90552 2000/9/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dial tons of features durable sound qualityvolume see belowother annoyances The Bottom LineIf you are an occasional user, or a mini-browser, then this might work for you. If you spend any amount of time on the phone...forget it! Full Review I have owned this phone for about 8 months and it is my 3rd Sprint phone, and 6th overall, so I have a good basis from which to base my opinions and review. No, I am not bitter, slanderous or trying to slam this phone, I just think I have some good information for potential owners of this phone. I'll start by saying that this is a "good" phone and would probably suit the average, occasional mobile phone user (read: the 100 minutes or less a month plan). However, if you're very dependent on the phone and use it quite often, I can't recommend it. PROS: The phone is loaded with tons of features like alarm, a quasi-PIM, voice dial and the mini-browser. The voice dial is cool, but I never really use it because I forget I have it; it's not so amazing that I find myself going out of the way to use it, but it is a nice feature. This thing is built like a tank, so the durability is nice, though along with that comes some added heft, which I am not a fan of. The mini-browser is one of the better ones out there for screens around 1.5 to 2 square inches, but strictly for text; input is not the best. I like the LED on the outside of the phone to indicate new messages or incoming calls; a nice feature when in crowded and loud areas. CONS: OK, now I get to what really needs to be said. Sound. Everything from the volume, to the clarity to the receiving end. My biggest gripe with this phone is the volume settings. Low, medium and high?! What the hell?! I look for variety/options like that when I am shopping for t-shirts, not mobile phones. The high is WAY too loud under normal conditions, medium is pretty loud as well, and low can be either A) so quiet you have to push the phone hard against your head (feel that radiation:) or B) still too loud, depending on the connection. The same applies to the ringer volume: L, M and H just don't allow you that much to work with. I have owned almost every brand of phone and when you look at Nokia, you get like 10 different volume settings and the same goes for the stallwart StarTAC. This is a very annoying shortcoming if you talk a lot on the phone and frankly, its inexcusable for such a "high quality" phone. Of the 3 Sprint phones I have owned, the sound clarity has been the worst, by far. Now before you go blaming Sprint (you do have a good point there, and I agree) keep in mind that I have used Sprint phones in Kansas City for 3 years now. Echos, hissing, you name it, this phone has got it. My other complaint is this... Multiple entries for each name is great, but the labeling is crappy. StarTAC's use an easy to distinguish icon (house, office building, fax, etc.) to label each different entry, whereas this phone uses a letter. Try driving and searching through your phone for your mom's mobile number; the difference between the "M" and the "H" to distinguish the 2 is ridiculous...the little bump is simply flattened out. Again, inexcusable. FINALLY: Overall, I would give this phone a C-, which is still a passing grade, but it does not make the honor roll and the cutoff for that is like a B...sorry Samsung! It's OK, it's just not worth it to pay money and have to deal with those annoying problems and shortcomings. Be on the lookout for this phone appearing on eBay soon! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90551 2000/5/17 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 form factor calendar voice dialing phone book predictive text input pull out antenna jump to date bug Full Review Thanks everyone for your reviews. I finally decided to replace my Nokia 6185 with the 8500. To help others decide (?) as well here is my review about the SCH8500. Let us start with the ordering process. I ordered my 8500 via SprintPCS telephone ordering service. I ended up doing this because of two reasons: (1) Currently, SprintPCS Centers does not allow upgrades to the SCH-8500 but only for new account activation, (2) The online ordering form only allow you to have the same billing and mailing address - this does not entirely work for me because my billing address is actually a private mailbox - thus, I ended up calling them for my order - and guess what? Sprint only delivers to your billing address, good thing I was able to arrange with the mail box owner the UPS delivery. I ordered Friday and I got my phone (free delivery) Monday via UPS Overnight Saver Delivery (Guaranteed Delivery by 3pm next business day). This is great except for one thing - they sent me two (now I have to asked for a return kit which they gladly will send it to me). Now on with the phone. I only have the phone for 2 days and so far I really love it! Here are some features that I really like: calendar with one month view, menus are great (there are advantages and disadvantages compared to my Nokia 6185), world time, microbrowser (Sprint/Nokia told me before that they will upgrade the phone's software by January 2000 then was moved to June 2000 - but when I saw the 8500, I thought it is time to change), the predictive text input using Tegic T9 (great for recording events and entering text for wireless web - do not need to type in several times to spell a word - of course, this is limited to the number of words stored in the memory - anyone knows how much words are in the phones memory?), alarm (allows repetitive alarms - you do not need to set alarm daily), phone book is great - tons of entries, great looks, memo recorder function is a smart idea (very useful although does not apply to everyone) and of course voice dialing is awesome! You've got to try it! Calculator is easier to use than the Nokia 6185. Some minor complaints compared to my Nokia 6185: No games, battery indicator only has 3 line compared to Nokia's 4 lines, antenna pull out (I compared the signal strength but so far I haven't seen a big difference even with the antenna not extended) and fewer ring type choices. Bugs: I checked the bug about Jump To Date function one of you posted. Yes, he is correct! If you entered a date greater than 12 (e.g. 6/13/00) it will give you an "invalid date ..." Hopefully, they give us a firmware upgrade for this bug. Note: All, do not be discourage but this phone is great even with this bug - this is only a very minor problem - you might not even use this function. As for the battery life, I will post it next time. 3 hours talk time will work for me but I will look into the extended battery and see how it looks. Until next review. Thanks everyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 plus taxes 90550 2001/1/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use durable great the car kit is not as flexible as some other phones The Bottom LineIf you want a great reliable phone with alot of options, and the ablitly to use the web then there is no other phone out there Full Review When I first saw the phone, I was in my computer store helping a customer pick out a computer for his son. The customers phone rang and I saw the phone and fell in love... The looks of this phone are quite "sexy." I went to my local Sprint PCS store and asked about the phone. I got the phone that day. Once I got the phone I was surprised at all the features the phone has... I had previously used a Nokia 6100 series phone and loved it, now i love my Samsung! There were many options avalible for the phone. I chose the wireless web as one of mine... I love it.. I can be on the road and check my e-mail, get directions through mapquest, check my stock portfolio, and many other things. I had previously had a hands free car-kit for my nokia in my ford explorer. I went to Sprint and got the new hands free for the 8500. I was kinda upset to find it not to be as easy. Insted of just sliding the phone in the cradle, you have to plug a cable into the phone after you place it in the cradle. After a while one gets used to doin this, but at first its a pain in the butt. The car kit does not have the ability to add an exturnal antena but the clearity of the phone is perfect. I travel alot around the east coast and I very rarely have any problems with service! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90549 2001/8/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good display robust average software costly data cable The Bottom LineStylish and functional, software design is only average. Full Review When I bought this phone I was looking for a wearable phone with a good display. I compared it to my older Nokia 6185 and the Motorola 7868W. I bought it at a Computer City store for about $70 less than the Sprint store was offering it for (discount includes a rebate check). The phone is actually fashionable -- it shows up in stylish photographs. It is made in Korea and feels very solid. It's a flip-phone; in use the hinge keeps the phone away from the face; an improvement over my Nokia which was quite hot with prolonged use. The reception is much better than the Nokia (Sprint no longer offers Nokia phones; Nokia refused to pay Qualcomm for a Sprint-approved CDMA chip.). One disadvantage of a flip-phone is that the caller-ID function is much less useful than with a open-phone. I can't see who's calling until I open the phone, and by opening the phone I answer the call. It would be great if I could see who was calling without opening the phone, that way I could send some calls directly to voice mail. (I think I can disable answer-on-open, but it would be even better to have a small caller-ID window visible with the phone closed.) It is quite wearable with the plastic clip ($10 in the Sprint store, $15 at Computer City). The clip is fairly essential and really should ship with the phone. I would prefer if the clip held the phone horizontally, but even vertically it is tolerable. Any earset with a mini-jack will work with this phone, BUT you really need to get the Samsung earset with the built-in on/off switch. If you are wearing the earset and the phone rings, you use that switch to answer; otherwise you must flip the phone open to answer (annoying). Motorola's phones have an optional auto-answer feature that allows one to use a plain earset, the Samsung phone has an undocumented auto-answer option on one configuration menu --but it appears to be non-functional. This phone supports Spring's 'dial-by-voice' access; you say a name and a connection is established. In fact the name recognition is not occurring on the phone, this is really a Sprint service. In my experience recognition is reasonable, it may work better with longer more distinctive names. This feature is most useful with hands-free use. If I have the phone closed and clipped to my waist with a Samsung earset plugged in, I can activate the phone by the earset button. On activation the phone will prompt for a name, and I can speak the name to dial. Because the dial-by-voice doesn't use the phone's directory you end up creating duplicate numbers. The 2001/2002 phones are beginning to do name recognition on the phone itself; this will be much more effective. The Nokia 618xx phones have more elegant software and hardware/software interaction. I work in software design and I'm probably more attuned to this than most users, but it's obvious that the Nokia team spent a LOT of time thinking about usability and design. Unfortunately I doubt most persons ever notice. Compared to the much older Nokia this phone has a more sophisticated phone book, but it allows a smaller number of characters for each entry. A single number can appear only once in the phone book; inconvenient when you want two entries for persons who share home phones but not mobiles and office phones. Text entry is supposed to be accelerated by the T9 software, but this is not well documented and didn't work at all in my experiments. Compared to the older, heavier, uglier Nokia this phone is harder to learn and the buttons are ill-suited to single handed use. Compared to the similar Motorola phone the Samsung is slightly smaller, more elegant, has a better (larger) display for text messaging, and SEEMS less costly. It also ships with a cradle rather than a portable charger. (Motorola comes with the portable charger, the cradle is extra.) The travel charger for this phone is very hard to find; IF YOU TRAVEL A GREAT DEAL THE COST AND UNAVAILABILITY OF THE TRAVEL CHARGER MAY BE A DRAWBACK. Some months after I bought the phone I ended up buying an after-market samsung-compatible charger for about $30.00. I hope it doesn't cause problems with the Lithium battery! In reality the Samsung phone is more costly than the Motorola when one includes the cost of the belt clip ($10-15) and data cable ($50-60 retail, probably $2 to manufacture). (These phone data cable costs are scandalous. In Europe they simply use a $5 IR chip and emitter to do data transfer from mobile phone to Palm or desktop/portable computer. IR transfer is not available on ANY US phone, if anyone knows why this is so please email me ASAP!) Two last notes: 1. Sprint threatened to charge me $35 for activating this phone after I'd lost and deactivated its precursor. Very irritating. 2. The wireless web access on this phone reminds me very much of the 1991 University of Minnesota Gopher client -- only much less useful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90548 2000/7/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 event lists voice dial calendar organized phone book no software availablescreen is on the inside Full Review I must say that the SCH-8500 is a big step up from the flimsy SCH-3500. I've only had the 8500 for 2 days now, but I've been using it constantly and I can't seem to find any flaws in this phone yet. Well, maybe one flaw. The only minor thing that I don't like is that the screen is located in the inside of the phone, making it difficult to see who's calling you. You'd have to open the flip and see whether or not you'd want to take the call or not. Other than that, I don't see any major problems with this phone compared to the SCH-3500, which had some major problems in the design and I had that phone for a total of 13 days. Luckily I upgraded to the 8500. Let me say that this phone is a great buy! It cost less than the Star-Tac, Timeport, and the Talkabout, but beats out all of them in style, performance and sophistication. This 8500 has been very clear in all the areas that I've used it in. But please note that your service area will be different compared to mine. The screen is a bit bigger and brighter, which I like since using the web access feature is one of my favorite features with this phone. The display has greatly improved with the little intro at start up and when you turn it off, giving some life to this phone, if you have this phone; you know what I'm talking about! The voice memo feature is great, I use it a lot to help me remind little things I have to do, too bad Samsung could only hold five short 1-minute messages instead of ten 1-minute messages. The phone book is very well organized, I like having the ability to store 1 name and have up to 5 different phone numbers associated with that name. Voice dial, has not failed me. It works well even in high background noise situations. This phone also has a built in calendar with event notification, also includes and alarm clock, world clock a countdown feature and a calculator. This phone also supports Spanish texts and voice prompts when this feature is turned on. This phone is somewhat on the heavy side compared to the Star-Tac. The sales person said that this phone is smaller than the Star-Tac, which is true in width, but it's a little longer and thicker than the Star-Tacs. So don't be fooled by those sales-people! Overall I must say that this has got to be one of the best phones on the market as of now. I believe that Samsung has truly improved in the quality and design of the 8500 compared to the 3500. This is a must have phone if you're looking for a phone with a lot of features and great quality. It seems like alot of people are looking for a belt clip to wear this phone around their waist, well, after a few quick searches on the net, there is 3 places that I've found that sells belt clips for this phone. The first place was on ebay.com, just do a search for "samsung 8500" and you'll get alot of different products for this phone including the belt clip. Another place to look is at hellostore.com, it's a cellular phone store, which sells alot of products for cell phones. The last place where you'd never think of looking was at the Sprint PCS store. I was just there last week and to my surprise, it was there. I couldn't believe it! Well, I hope I helped alot of you people out there! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90547 2001/1/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish price The Bottom LineAside from the high price all the features of this phone make it a must have. Full Review The Samsung SCH 8500 is one of the most amazing phones I have ever seen. There are so many features on this that it is not only a phone but a calculator, mini-browser, calendar, as well as daily planner. I have never seen a phone with so many great features and yet it is so simple to navigate through it. The phone book is like one I have never seen. Up to 229 names can be stored in it as well as up to 6 numbers per name, which means the possibilities are pretty limitless. When you enter a number into the phone book, you can attach a label to that number whether it is home, work, mobile, pager, fax, or other. The new voice command is truly remarkable. It gives you the ability to be able to just speak a name and it will recognize YOUR voice and dial the number hands free. You can store up to 20 numbers in the voice dialing option. All the little features on this phone make this the complete tool for anyone. There is a memo button on the side of the phone in order to record a memo for yourself on what you are to do for the day. The calendar allows you to plan what you need to do for any day as well as there being a world clock and alarm clock. The phone is so small and lightweight that you barely feel it in your pocket. It is incredibly sleek and stylish that it really makes you feel important carrying this phone around. Aside from the high price of around $200 for this phone, it is the perfect phone for anyone whether it be the business man or just a college student like me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90546 2000/10/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 more tons of features small slick have yet to come across any Full Review After owning a Sprint PCS Touchpoint phone, I was used to the bulky non-flip style phones. Boy, was I missing out. The best day so far this year is when I dropped by Touchpoint phone and the antennae broke. I was mad at first, but when I walked into Circuit City to swap this one out, I fell in love with the slick, eye-catching Samsung SCH-8500. After arguing with the salesman about swapping "physically abused" phones with new ones, I finally was able to persuade him to give me a break. So, I quickly ran to the Samsung and grabbed that baby so tight that no one would take it from me. Upon purchasing this gorgeous phone, I was happily confronted with a free activation for some reason. The looks and features were now right in front of me, so I was going to see what this sucka' could do. The first call was crisp and clean, no distortion at all. I loved it more than ever. Entering numbers into the phone book was a breeze, and I thoroughly enjoyed the speed dial feature. After fooling with the phone more, I found the Voice Dialing, Voice Memos, and Calendar to be top-notch. It was everything I expected and more. The vibrate mode was incredibly useful considering the small size of this phone. I would put the phone in my pocket and have a hard time finding it, believe that! I've seen StarTacs in action and I got to say this phone blows that away hands down. The size of the screen of the Samsung is generous and easily visible. The new fonts they use are a change for the better. I look at my phone everyday thinking how cool it is. Many of my friends are jealous of me, and wish they had a phone of my "coolness". Overall, I have not found any discrepancies with this phone. I have yet to have a dropped call, and the service people are nice (from what I hear). I recommend anyone in the market for a cell phone to seriously consider the Samsung SCH-8500. It has made my life more enjoyable and I'm sure yours will be also. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90545 2000/6/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial sleek design tons of features ear piece size voice memo ringer tones could be better louder a little pricey The Bottom LineI Highly recommend the Samsung-8500. One of the best cellphones I have ever Owned. Full Review I purchased the Samsung-8500 in late August of last year when I signed up with Sprint PCS(Bad Choice of service in the Chicago area). I had just left PrimeCo and was looking for a new service which meant I needed a new phone as well. So, I decided to go with Sprint. Despite the MANY problems I have had with Sprint, I never had a problem with my Samsung-8500. It is honestly one of the best cell phones I have ever owned. RECEPTION The reception was very clear. Better than I expected from a cell phone. It was like I was talking on my home phone most of the time. FEATURES ALARM is a nice feature. I sometimes use it as a regular alarm clock. It is LOUD, which is good for any alarm. CALCULATOR is helpful. I used it a few times when I was on my way to the bank and so forth. VOICE MEMO is very helpful. You can even record an incoming call so you don't have to worry about writing down notes or trying to remember an address that someone might give you. SILENT ALERT is helpful, especially when your in a meeting or in a noisy environment. And, it was built right in the phone so you don't have to worry about getting a separate battery. VOICE DIAL is a really helpful feature. Good if your driving because you don't even have to take your eyes off the road. Just say a name and the phone dials it automatically for you DESIGN/APPERANCE The Samsung-8500 has a sleek design. The one I had was SILVER. The screen was a good size for a flip phone. And, the backlight was VERY bright and clear. BATTERY The battery was a little better than average. The EARPIECE was really nice. You could hangup or answer a call by pressing a button on the microphone. And, you could make a call with the VOICEDIAL but pressing the same button. A plus for when your driving. Overall the Samsung-8500 is a really good phone. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the flipstyle cell phones. I have left SPRINT PCS recently and Unfortunately I am no longer using my Samsung-8500. I am now with NEXTEL and I will soon be reviewing their SERVICE along with the i85s phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 90544 2000/3/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight compact design many useful features inefficient menu design inadequate speaker volume The Bottom LineThis is an all-around good phone -- it's loaded with great features and reliably delivers a strong performance. Full Review I purchased my Samsung SCH-8500 phone through RadioShack in October 2001. I am a long-time Sprint PCS customer and bought the phone to replace my aging Qualcomm QCP-2760. The RadioShack sales associate recommended the phone, calling it a "best seller." The phone, compatible only with Sprint PCS service, comes packaged with a handstrap, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and a dual-slot desktop charger (more convenient, I think, than a travel charger). Optional accessories are available for purchase through Sprint PCS. I was immediately attracted to the compact design -- when closed, the phone is approximately the size of an average person's palm. I also liked the flip design, which makes the phone highly portable and more resistant to the effects of everyday wear and tear. The display screen is large relative to the size of the phone because it is built into the flip and does not have to compete with they keypad for space -- compare this to, for example, the Motorola StarTAC, on which the keypad and display screen share a single surface. The bright-blue electroluminescent display backlight is also a nice feature, making the display highly visible in low-light conditions. The phone offers a number of useful features. With dual-band capability, the phone reliably operates both on and off the Sprint PCS network. The standard battery provides at least three hours of digital talktime on a single charge. The internal phone book feature allows users to store multiple phone numbers (home, work, mobile, pager, etc.) for single contacts. The personal information manager includes calendar, to-do list, and alarm clock features that let users keep tabs on their appointments and engagements. The built-in voice-activated dialing feature is a nice touch, as is the voice-memo feature, which lets users record and store short voice messages to themselves. The phone is also Sprint PCS Wireless Web ready, although I have not experimented with this service. The call quality is excellent. With a strong signal, the wireless calls from this phone are as clear as landline calls. Call clarity is probably the phone's strongest attribute. But, the phone has its limitations. The compact design may be a liability for some users -- this phone is tiny and is, therefore, easy to drop or lose. Speaker volume is another problem. While the speaker volume is adequate for use in quiet environments, users will struggle to follow conversations in noisy public areas, even on the highest speaker-volume setting (maybe this is Samsung's passive-aggressive way of telling us we should keep our cell-phone conversations private...). Users are also likely to encounter some frustration with the menu system. The phone automatically exits from the menu system after a user changes a setting. This means that multiple setting changes are tedious, requiring users to move through the same menus over and over again. Finally, because the display screen is located on the flip, normal use means the screen rests against the user's face. Users who are fussy about the cosmetic condition of their phones will find themselves cleaning skin-oil residue from the screen after each call. I should note that I encountered a number of problems with the phone that, I suspect, are unique to the particular phone I happened to acquire. I found signal reception to be unreliable, even when using the phone in the same location. This probably had something to do with outmoded PRL data. I also experienced problems with the personal information manager -- alarms set to occur within twenty-four hours sounded as they were programmed to; alarms set to occur into the future usually failed. This probably had something to do with a software glitch. Sprint PCS technicians could not determine the causes of these problems, however, and Sprint PCS replaced my SCH-8500 with a newer Samsung model -- the SPH-N200. I would gladly have accepted a replacement 8500, but the model is apparently no longer in production. Sprint PCS actually offered to replace my ailing 8500 with a Touchpoint model that retails for $50 more than the N200. I declined. Consider this as evidence of my satisfaction with the Samsung name. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90543 2000/5/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good size screen useful functions looks nice flip phone won t break very durable no games average talk time The Bottom LineSprint PCS does not have any other phones that are worth the price. It's a definite keeper!! Full Review I bought this phone almost 6 months ago. Initially, I had very mixed feelings about this phone. I was disappointed in Sprint PCS, because I felt that they did not give me many options equipment-wise. I was debating between the Samsung SCH-8500, the Motorola Startac, and the Motorola Timeport. I loved the way that the Timeport looked, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to shell out the $300 bucks for it, so it was basically down to the Startac or the Samsung. Sprint gave me a great deal on my cell-phone plan, and therefore, I couldn't buy the Nokia 8260, which I absolutely fell in love with at first sight. But I thought that the Nokia was much more stylish, lighter, and smaller! I chose the Samsung because it had more functions than the Motorola. It has a voice-activated dialing feature, which is cool. I have stored some numbers through this feature, but I've noticed that if you happen to say the name a little differently or at a different speed than it was recorded at, the phone will not recognize the name. It also has another feature that allows you to dial any 4 consecutive digits of a phone number that is in your phone book, and it will dial that person's phone number; you don't have to enter the entire phone number or scroll through many many names to find that person. This is a feature that you won't get with other phones such as Nokia. It also has a wireless web function, that I've used many times on the bus or in a place where I did not have access to the internet. I could check my AOL mail or go on instant messenger. It also has a screen bigger than some of the other phones I've seen, so when you use wireless web, the letters are much bigger and there are more lines. It's a nice little function to have if you are willing to pay the monthly fee. I got wireless web free for six months free when I signed an Sprint PCS Advantage contract for one year. I will be losing the wireless web now, since it has been six months, and this is one feature that I will DEFINITELY MISS! The phone only takes about 2 hours to charge, which I am thankful for since I'm one of those people that are always forgetting to charge it overnight. It give about 3 hours of talk time, unless you make many many short calls, in which case, the talk time will decrease somewhat. There is instant access to the ringer volume on the side of the phone, which I use endlessly. It's quick and convenient, unlike other phones, which make you scroll through a menu to access the phone ringer volume. It also has a constant greeting on the display screen, which you don't get with a Nokia. With the Nokias, the greeting only appears as it is turned on. Some flaws?? Well, the first thing I noticed was that this phone has NO GAMES!!! I love playing Snakey on the Nokias, but unfortunately, I don't get to do this on my phone. This phone is as sturdy as it can get. I have dropped this phone countless number of times, and still no problems, besides the scratches on the outside. Function-wise though, no problems from dropping it on cement surfaces! I never get scared of dropping it and having it break. But I do get annoyed at the scratches, which is completely my fault. There is one problem with this phone that I still haven't been able to explain. With the total airtime function on the phone, the phone will not record number of hours used when it gets above 30 hours. Once it reaches 29 hours and 59 minutes, it resets to 0 hours and 1 minute with the next minute. Is this because my plan includes only 30 hours?? I doubt it. The number of calls made does not reset unless I manually reset it myself. What a mystery. This doesn't affect any functioning of the phone. Sprint has a great account online service, which keeps track of the minutes used in your current billing cycle pretty accurately. So there is no real need for this function. This phone has definitely grown on me. And if I had a choice, I would buy this phone again, until a better one comes on the Sprint PCS market. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90542 2000/12/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great price performance rating small is that a problem Full Review After several months of complaint-free use, I am glad to come here and express my satisfaction with this phone. This may not be the smallest phone in the market, but it certainly meets the balance in the price-performance-size curve. It has all the features of the 3500, plus the calendar and appointment holder. Is sleek enough to fit in your shirt pocket, and so I can keep it on vibrate all the time, and avoid those 'look whose phone is ringing now' glares in places of large human gathering, from movie theaters to parties to conferences. Reminds me of "one shade the more, one ray the less, had half impair'd the nameless grace" (George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty"). A tad heavier, you won't feel like keeping this in your shirt. Smaller, and you'll either have to pay a lot, or get much less talk time, or don't get the features, or can't talk conveniently with the phone tucked between your ear and your shoulder, hands free. Of course, you can plug in the headphones and go true hands free, but then who has the time to do all that ... I frequently find myself in the balancing act! Several ring modes, though not as many as Nokia. I really miss the Nokia games on the samsung phones. Good backlit display, good clarity, one-touch voicemail access, Sprint quality service, etc. go with this one. I can also vouchsafe on it's robustness - it falls down to the street nearly every time I get down from the car, has fallen down at least 30 times by now, but nothing has happened to it so far. Haven't drowned it in fluids, though. Got to try that one yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90541 2000/7/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable rings large screen most features of any phone thickness awkward to hold weight Full Review This phone does just about everything. It's all of my past phones squished into one. Since most of the reviews are positive, I want to point out the one major drawback: weight. I went from a defective Motorola Digital StarTac to this Samsung. (Sprint swapped the phones so I didn't pay anything for the Samsung.) So I was a StarTac user before this Samsung. That said, I am finding the weight of the phone somewhat irritating. I like to keep my phone in my pocket. I am fully aware when I am carrying this phone. It's also thicker and more chunky than the StarTac. It's heavier than many phones out there. It probably needs to be this way to do what it does. The weight is also distributed oddly - more weight near the "mouthpiece" - just odd. Another thing people tend to overlook is that sometimes a multitude of features is TOO MANY features. I love gadgets but this phone sometimes makes things too complicated - several basic functions are several menus deep. All this complexity also sometimes slows down the processor in the phone... when you go to list your phone book, it has to think a moment before bringing up the display (it actually says "please wait"). My Sprint TouchPoint would pop up the list instantly. Opening the phone is somewhat awkward. Make sure you try it before you buy it. Closing the phone is also a little awkward - you feel like you don't want to damage the screen. Don't get me wrong - this is an amazing little phone. Just make sure you want all these features in this bulky package. If you can live with the weight and the occasional complexity, go for it. (and, let it be known, I don't need a PIM in my phone... at least until one can be EFFECTIVELY integrated. Otherwise, it's a waste) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90540 2000/3/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial t 9 system large screen small form wireless internet easy to use menu dual band flat buttons no games awkward charger can t see who s calling until you answer it The Bottom LineIf you need a Sprint PCS dual-band phone, this is your best bet. It works well, has features up the wazoo, and looks cool too. Full Review So much has been written about this phone already, so I thought I would just share with you my thoughts about it, stuff I haven't read anywhere else. This is a great phone. I moved to it from a Sprint Touchpoint, and this is a great, small, dual-band (which I need) cell phone with all the features one could want. However, there ARE better Sprint PCS phones out there if you are not particular about the dual-band aspect. I would have gone with the TP-1100, but anyway... So you know that this phone is small (fits in my pocket comfortably), has internet access, and the T-9 system, which lets you write words without hitting each button a million times - it's MUCH easier to chat on AIM using it. And the screen is gorgeous. And the voice dial, if you use it, is pretty cool too...even though when it's set for when you open the flip, you can miss "Missed Calls" messages. So why is this phone not perfect? The little things: 1) The charger, similar to the SCH-3500 charger but more elongated, is annoying as hell. It takes two hands to get your phone out, that's completely unnecessary. 2) No games! Granted, the little text-based football game didn't provide hours of joy for me, but where's snake already? 3) Due to the fact that the flip IS the screen, you don't see who's calling (via caller ID) until you open up the flip - so if you're going to answer calls that way, you just might talk to someone you don't want to. You can avoid this by setting it to answer when you hit TALK or any key, but it's still that extra step. 4) These buttons are too flat...I like a little resistance when I dial, and there isn't enough here. 5) I use the vibrating ring all the time - and it's weak. I've missed calls because I didn't feel the phone vibrating in my pocket (please, no jokes). There's also a 1-beep feature, which I don't think I'll ever have use for. Also annoying is that when messages (or voice mail) is set to vibrating alert, it only vibrates once. Then you won't see that you have mail until you open it up. 6) The voice dial is coolest when you can open up the phone and say "home". However, when you have that option set, you won't see the "missed calls" message. Stupid design. Besides these little gripes, the phone is awesome. It fits my needs perfectly and I'd recommend it without hesitation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90539 2000/7/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of memory for address book rugged listed above Full Review I bought this product because I wanted something that would fold up and fit in my front pocket. I totally detest those totally geeky cell phone belt clips. The experience with this phone has been fairly good overall. The voice activated dial is a great feature, and the usability is good. However, I don't think the phone is as great as many others on this forum report. Reading epinions.com motivated my decision to get this phone. I will present some issues that I have: 1) For a $200 phone - the signal reception is not that impressive - especially in areas where your not getting a good strong signal. My friend - who has the same carrier as me - gets 2 bars of signal strength on his cheap $50 sanyo phone, while I get "looking for service" with the samsung. Both of us are standing right next to each other. This really irks me that a $50 phone gets better reception than a $200 phone. 2) You cannot use the voice recorder if you are not within a service area. In other words, if the phone is "looking for service", you can't record anything. This is frustrating, because I am oftentimes not in a service area, yet wish to use the recording mechanism. 3) There is no interface to the outlook email program. I use outlook as my desktop PIM. I would like to interface this to my cell phone. The startak supports this, but the Samsung does not. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90538 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception compact nice looking some date book problems small screen Full Review I used a phone with a PDA briefly and rather enjoyed the experience, so after returning that one due to its poor reception, I went back for another Samsung. So far, Samsung phones have had the best reception I've experienced, and are usually aesthetically pleasing. The 8500 fits the bill well. It has great reception, even in my basement apartment, and has a useful calendar and phone book. I got what I was looking for: a datebook, multiple entries for each name in my phone book, one touch access to my address book, vibrate, a to do list, and something very important for using my calendar and to do list, the T9 typing option. T9 allows you to hit each key once when spelling something, and then guesses which word would fit given the letters. It's shockingly accurate, and even knows some proper names. It's also got an amazingly long battery life. I've gone two days with heavy use before having to charge it. That said, a larger screen would be damned nice. You can write decent length notes with the to do list and on the calendar, but you have to scan down, and the phone will break up words that run over the length, which is an annoying feature. Also, the calendar automatically brings up the day's events if something is scheduled for that day, and it's hard to bring up the month view from there. One touch access to the to do list would also be nice. Overall, this is a great phone. It's compact, durable, and has good reception. I just wish Samsung would tweak the calendar and to do list to make them a bit more convenient. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90537 2000/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial see above size memo button synch software is still in beta stages no holster Full Review I know that many people have already stated that this phone is a great bargain. However, I must add my two cents because it takes a lot to please me in terms of electronics and this phone is incredible. I have owned many cell phones dating all the way back to the "brick" phone from Motorola. Previous to the SCH-8500 from Samsung, I owned a Digital Startac with the Clipon Organizer. I was very happy with that phone because of the size and weight. But when I saw the SCH-8500 (silver) come out at Sprint PCS, I cancelled the two remaining months on my contract and jumped over to Sprint PCS, even though I don't entirely like their service (I have been with them before). This phone is incredible for the features. I know people who have stopped using their Palm Vs because of it. It has all the features of the startac, but is smaller, lighter and more attractive. It is only slightly thicker than the startac. Let's go through the features of the SCH-8500 from Samsung. It is a flip phone with an "indiglow" backlit display. The display is 5 lines instead of the 4 in the startac. It has a very sturdy construction unlike the startac that sounds like it is about the crack at any minute. It has 9 rings and 4 melodies plus a vibrate feature. It can accept text messages and emails and has wireless internet capabilities. The last "standard" feature it has is a 229 number phone book that holds multiple numbers for one person. You can add a mobile, business, fax, etc number under ONE name in the phone book!! These are features that are found in mostly all the new phones on the market. But the SCH-8500 goes even further with 3 more amazing features. It has voice dialing support where you can speak the name of the person you want to call, and it will dial the number for you. An incredibly useful tool when driving. Secondly, it has a MEMO button on the side of the phone that when pressed, lets you record a digital voice memo into the phone. If you are at a meeting, for example, and you don't have the time to enter notes into your palm, you can hold the button and speak them into the phone so you can transfer the information at a later time!! Finally, the most important feature for me, the SCH-8500 actually has a fully functional CALENDER and TO DO list!! You can actually synchronize your PHONE with OUTLOOK 2000 or other software through a software called Phonelink to be released by Samsung in the next month or so (That's what they said). You need to purchase the PC connection kit for this. I have sold my palm V because this phone does everything for me now. It is hands down, the best phone on the market today for the price, features and size. The only thing that is lacking in this phone is that for some unknown reason, Samsung does not bundle a holster (comparable to the Startac's) in the box. You have to buy it separately from a third party. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90536 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features design web browser price desk charger Full Review Great phone, use it with Sprint PCS. Very compact, easy to carry in your pocket yet flips open to a good size. Gets good range, signal, quality, etc. Plus, the silver version looks like a Star Trek communicator Includes wireless web browser, which works well for what it is. Voice dial is a very handy feature. Since it's built in you don't have pay your phone company extra for this feature. Drawbacks include the price, but it should be a good deal when the price comes down a bit. Also comes with a desk charger, so you'll need to buy a separate AC cord/charger for making calls while it's plugged in. Since it flips into an angle shape rather than completely flat it's cumbersome hold against your shoulder. The only case/holster currently available does include a cover for the screen. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90535 2000/4/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speech recognition size pim no visible caller id till flip is opened Full Review After owning everything in cellphones from the original 3-box units to a dual band Startac, I can now claim with some authority that the SCH-8500 is the best phone available at this moment(April 28, 2000, early AM). This unit is compatible with Sprint PCS; non-PCS services use the same phone, rebadged as the "850." This review applies to both. There are several truly small/wearable phones, a few phones that include a PIM (personal information manager), and a few others that provide speech recognition dialing. This is the only phone available today which combines these features. Driving with the accessory earbud microphone, one can receive incoming calls and make speech recognition calls by touching the microphone button on the earbud assembly -- eyes never have to leave the road! This is the strongest and most solid-feeling of the flip phones - no creaking and squeaking hinges. Battery life and performance are both exceptional, even in comparison to the very recent SCH-3500, due to a new generation chipset from Qualcomm. The sole disadvantage is that one cannot see Caller ID without opening the flip, but the unit can be programmed not to answer till a button is pressed. Overall a terrific phone, and in my view the best available in the U.S. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 90534 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 solid construction easy to use design unimpressive reception bug in scheduler pim feature Full Review As a Sprint PCS customer, I have owned both the Samsung 8500 and 6100 phones. After owning both phones for a couple of months each, here is some information, and pros and cons on the SCH-8500, plus information on a bug (with the scheduling/PIM feature) that I identified. SCH-8500 This was the first Samsung phone that I purchased to use with the Sprint PCS service. In general, the phone has competitive features and a good design. One of the primary reasons I selected the SCH-8500 was for the PIM/scheduling feature it offers, which is like a scaled-down Palm Pilot organizer. Solid construction; clamshell design folds to cover and protect the keypad and screen. Large, easy to use keypad. When opened, the earpiece and microphone are in a comfortable position for talking, unlike some very small or non-folding design phones. The phone has a fairly large screen. The phone is a dual-band phone, so it can use analog roaming. These phones offer a PIM/scheduler/organizer feature. (See note and BUG below.) These phones have a voice-activated dialing feature. (See note below.) The phones have a standard earphone jack, so you can use most commonly available earphone/microphone accessories. Large phonebook - 299 entries, with multiple numbers (home, business, etc.) per entry. The phone has a retractable antenna (not stub antenna); the antenna must be extended for optimal signal strength. While the phone appears to be fairly compact when closed, it's actually fairly thick (over 1"), so it's not ideal for carrying in a pants or shirt pocket. While the voice-activated dialing feature is quite handy, programming the feature could be better designed. Even though the number to be voice-dialed may already be in the phonebook, you'll have to enter it manually on the keypad. The software for the PIM/scheduler feature, which is shared by both phones, has a fairly significant BUG -- The *BUG* in the PIM/Scheduler feature... This feature offers the ability to enter a schedule item (dentist appointment, meeting, etc.) which has the following properties: Description Start time and date End time and date Alarm time The bug with this feature is that the alarms for scheduled items are not reliable. You may enter up to nine items in a day, and you have a choice of when the alarm will go off - 1 hour before the item's start time, 30 minutes before, 10 minutes before, or no alarm. However, the alarm will not go off in either of these situations: - Any alarm that is set to sound 1 hour before an event will not go off. - If you have set more than three schedule events in a day, none of the alarms for those events will go off. This bug makes the schedule feature unreliable, and perhaps useless. I discovered this bug a couple of weeks after purchasing the SCH-6100 phone. I reported it first to my local Sprint PCS store, who duplicated the problem and thought the particular phone might have been defective and gave me a replacement. When the problem occurred on the replacement phone, I contacted Samsung directly. After spending two months on and off with Samsung helping them isolate and duplicate the bug, they acknowledged that this was a bug, and that it was in every 6100 and 8500 phone that has been sold and is being sold by Sprint. The bad news is that I have been told by Samsung that this will not be fixed. So, if you are considering purchasing these phones for their scheduling functions, you may want to consider a phone from another manufacturer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90533 2001/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 just plain cool great features sturdy flip top extended battery is a little big on this one The Bottom LineI hate cell phones, but I love this one! It's sturdy, small, has a big screen, calendar, alarm, voice-dialing, and everything you need minus those annoying song ring tones! Full Review I used to swear I'd never get a cellphone. I was forced to change my ways due to my new job and my new location. But this phone made it worth it. I love this phone. It's got all of the standard features (ring volumes, tones - no annoying music!, and vibrating). I'm infatuated with the voice dialing. I just say "Andrew office" and it dials for me. It's also great that when you give your phone to a friend to call someone, they can use voice dialing too. It recognizes the name, not necessarily my voice every time. I also use the web access sparingly, but it has come in handy several times. Especially to check my hotmail or yahoo accounts. The hands-free set is a lifesaver when you're driving or talking for a long time. The phone is small, so you can't hold it under your neck. Use the hands-free set. It works. Everyone seems to be impressed with my phone. It's the size of a credit card and it fits everywhere. It's not as tiny and light as those new Nokia phones, but I think those have gone too far and people I know who have them are always worried about them getting damaged because they're too small. Also, this is a good design because it has the flip top, but without the flimsiness of other flip tops. This means that you have the convenience of having a smaller phone, but with a size that's manueverable next to your ear. It also protects the screen and buttons against damage. When you use the hands-free set, you can even close the phone and put it in your pocket while you're talking, so you don't have to worry about your phone sitting open while you talk. I've dropped my Samsung three times from about 3-4 feet in the air (not on purpose) and it's only got 1 tiny little scratch near the battery. This phone takes quite a beating! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 on ebay 90532 2000/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent display long battery life multi functional text input interface needs improvement Full Review I was one of the first people that actually got their hands on this slick little phone. Now that it's been in use for well over 6 months, I feel qualified to offer my opinion. Prior to purchasing the 8500 from my local Sprint PCS store ($199.99), I had been a Samsung SCH-3500 user. I had some degree of confidence in the 8500 because of how much I had enjoyed using the older 3500. NEW SURPRISES There were a number of new features that became apparent to me quite quickly. First, the new phone book interface is much more efficient. Instead of having multiple entries for one person (home, work, cell, pager, etc..), you can simply have one entry per individual, which contains multiple numbers. In short, my phone book now contains only 27 entries. With the SCH-3500, I had over 70 entries. This feature alone makes my purchase worthwhile. In addition, the 8500 also offers a handy year-round calendar with the ability to schedule reminders and notes. This is a welcome feature and would almost be enough to make me lose my Palm Pilot, if the text interface were more user friendly. Speaking of text, there is a new T-Word feature for use with typing notes and reminders. The 8500 attempts to anticipate what word you are trying to spell, in order to complete it for you. The feature was a bit awkward at first, but once I was familiar with the interface, I was typing notes in a fraction of the time that it took me with Samsung's previous model. Another subtle (but welcome) change is the backlighting. The 8500 offers a pleasant, efficient light blue backlighting. I find this light to be extremely effective and makes with display easy to read in virtually any location. TORTURE TESTING I do my best to take care of my gadgets and gizmos, but I'm not perfect. In fact, my 8500 has been dropped at least 6 times during it's life. Several falls occurred on the hard asphalt of my company's parking lot. I'm pleased to say that the 8500 is no worse for wear. It has picked up a few insignificant scratches on the flip-piece, but it works just at well as it did on day one. The remarkable durability of this phone continues to surprise me. I initially carried the phone in a leather case purchase directly from Sprint PCS. Unfortunately, the case appears to have been hastily designed, as the hole for the mic does not line up as intended. This made it somewhat difficult for my callers to hear me. I opted to pick up a plastic belt-clip holster, which I ordered directly from Samsung USA. Success. I am extremely happy with this holster and I have worn it on a daily basis for the last 4 months. It holds the phone extremely tight and it does not jar loose, even while I dash to my car at top speed to escape Washington's notorious downpours. IN A NUTSHELL The 8500 carries on the most excellent features of the 3500 and manages to remarkably improve upon them as well. Some of the more prominent features include an excellent battery life (I've never run a battery all the way down), strong backlighting on an ample display screen, convenient action keys, WWW access, voice recording, and more. In a world full of do-it-all gadgets, the SCH-8500 manages to actually succeed, where others have failed. I would not hesitate to recommend this phone to other and I look forward to continuing innovations from Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90531 2000/11/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durability clarity signal strength battery life portability takes both hands to flip limited ring tones no games The Bottom LineBuy it if you're looking for a reliable no-frills phone. Full Review To start, here's the specifications of my service and area. The quality of mobile service from the same company can vary widely from area to area, so unless you're from my vicinity, you may want to get a second opinion from someone local to you. I'm currently a Sprint PCS customer in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. I'm one of those people who enjoys spending hours and hours poring over reviews of products before actually purchasing something. Having worked in marketing before, I'm usually leery of gimmicks and ads. The phone I actually first purchased was the Sanyo SP4700. I have to admit that I was wowed by all its features and was impressed with the fact that it was only $129. However, in the first day that I spent walking around the town testing my reception, the best I could ever get was 3 bars, and usually it was 2 or 1 bars. Friends on the other line sounded fuzzy and complained of faint static on my end. It was worse by the Michigan Union on State Street, where I would get no reception whatsoever. In Angell Hall, the largest computing site on campus, the phone would stubbornly switch to analog roaming and drop calls. Now, having heard horror stories about Sprint's service in Ann Arbor, one would be inclined to think that the bad reception was due to Sprint's network and not to the phone. But other coworkers who also use Sprint and have different phones have had no problems with the reception. So I decided to go with my second choice, which is the equally highly-rated Samsung SCH 8500. All I can say is... WHAT A HUGE DIFFERENCE! The reception is almost always at 3 or 4 (4 = highest) bars, and I've fooled people into thinking I am calling from a land-line. The "noise-cancellation" feature of the phone works very well --- I was in a large room with music and loud conversations, and didn't have to raise my voice for the other person to hear me clearly. I guess those new towers that Sprint PCS put up in Ann Arbor has helped area connectivity quite a bit. The physical construction of the phone itself is very high quality --- the phone has a solid feel to it, and the clamshell flip hinge looks to be durable. I especially like the fact that I can drop it in my pocket and not have to worry about accidentally hitting some buttons. The only two annoyances about the design is that the antenna, when extended, is very flimsy and looks easy to break. I didn't notice much of a difference in clarity when I had it extended, so I would recommend just leaving it retracted. The second annoying thing is that it takes two hands to open the phone. No, I don't try to answer my phone with one hand when I drive a car; that's what handless car kits are for. But what I do mind is when I'm walking down the street with a cup of coffee and I have a devil of a time answering my phone because I can't open it. The display is viewable in direct sunlight and easily seen with the backlight on in the dark. The menu is easy to learn --- I never had to crack open the manual --- and can be used with one hand, as all other functions of the phone. It's too bad that the menu automatically returns to the main screen after a change is made --- Samsung should have realized that people like to make multiple changes in a sub menu, and just had it return to the sub menu instead. In terms of features, the 8500 has a calendar (rudimentary, but workeable), calculator, ringtones that you can assign to various tasks (messages, calls with caller ID, calls without caller ID, etc.), voice dialing, a phone book with several phone #s for each entry, a minibrowser, and incoming text messaging. I especially like the fact that the phone lets me choose whether or not to automatically answer a call when flipped open and to automatically end a call just by closing it. The Samsung SCH8500 has all the basic functionality that any user would need in a mobile phone. As for perks, it doesn't really have any --- as I said, it's a workhorse, not a thoroughbred. No speakerphone, no customizable ringtones (you can't download new ones as of this review date), and no games. These weren't a big deal to me, but it might to someone who is looking for a phone with a chockful of nice extras and wants to impress his or her friends as well. In conclusion: If you're looking for a reliable phone with all the basic features you need, and you care more about quality of reception rather than frills and fringe benefits, I would highly recommend the Samsung SCH8500. Otherwise, you may consider investing more money in one of the high-end combined-PDA/mobile phones, or chance the spotty reception of the Sanyo SP4700. For $149, the Samsung SCh8500 is definitely a "Best Buy" in my book. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90530 2000/7/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life great features expensive Full Review I've gone through many a cell phone and this one is by far the best of them all. It's small, has a million features, is easy to use, has great battery life and will make your friends jealous. Pluses: 1. The size. This little guy is tiny! It easily fits in your pocket where you'll ALMOST not notice it. I say almost becuase it could be a bit thinner (the battery sticks out for some reason) and a teensy bit lighter. But see # 2. 2. Ruggedness. Put the Samsung 8500 in one hand. Put any StarTAC in another. You'll instantly be able to tell which phone is built to last. Simply put, the Samsung is a hardy creature. When you open and close the phone, you here a satisfying *thump*. Not a weak click. Kind of like the difference between closing the car door of a Lexus vs. Ford. Its just more well-built. 3. Features! I could go on and on with this point. So I'll mention some that you will use the most. Like multiple phone numbers for each name entry. So for "Bob" you can have his home, mobile, work, fax, etc... all under the same name entry. So nice. Voice dialing: you record a voice entry like "call Bob" and then all you have to do is say that entry and it automatically dials! 4. The screen. The 8500 has hands-down the best cell phone screen I have ever seen. (Except maybe the giant NeoPoint phone.) The green Indiglo backlight makes it real easy to see in all lighting conditions. And the graphical/dynamic font system makes sure that all entries are readable. And when you dial, the numbers are BIG! 5. Call quality. Once you get over the initial problems with Sprint PCS, the 8500 rules. Call quality is superb and drop-outs are rare. I haven't tried analog though. 6. Battery life. It lasts a LONG time. I am not a heavy user, but it lasts me at least 5-7 days. (Not on all the time.) If you are a frequent user, just charge her up every day or two and you'll never have to worry! Some minuses: 1. It could be lighter. 2. The antenna is flimsy. Why can't Samsung make antennas like Nokia? 3. The vibrating ringer does not vibrate very hard. It is sometimes hard to tell it is going off. 4. The regular ringer could be louder. 5. Pricey. Overall, I love this phone. It is expensive, but in my opinion definitely worth it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90529 2001/5/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception features clarity hands free capability cool factor style no quick lock have to flip open for caller id lack of customizable ringers The Bottom LineIf you are searching for a durable phone that looks cool, sounds great, and does absolutely everything except fold your underwear -- you just found your deal. Full Review In a previous Epinion, I reviewed my old wireless phone. It was a decent phone, but pales in comparison to the phenomenal Samsung SCH-8500. This is a truly great phone. Let me dish out my negatives first. · Lack of "quick-lock" - 2 cell phones ago, I was able to press ONE button and lock the phone. Apparently, this design has been left out of most new wireless phone models. With the 8500, you are able to have the phone power-up in lock mode, as this is standard. But if your phone is unlocked and you wish to lock it (without turning it off then back on), you must press *AT LEAST* nine buttons to lock the phone. This involves hitting Menu -- Setup -- Security -- Your 4-digit Lock code -- Lock Phone -- OK. · Lack of customizable ringers - this phone is cool because you can set a different ringer for everything, but you cannot create your own ringer. You can set different ringers for different people, calls that show 'unavailable' in the caller id, voice mails, pages, and even text messages. You can set a different ringer for the 3 alarms as well. But it kind of sucks because there are only 13 ringers, along with vibrate & one-beep. With only these options, it's hard to take full advantage of the customizable ringer option. There's too few to be distinctive. I'm disappointed there is not a 'create your own' ringer available as well. · The only other thing that is somewhat annoying is having to flip the phone open every time someone is calling. It's nothing in comparison to the phone's great features, but it is something that will take a little while getting used to if you're not familiar with it. Note: you can set the phone to NOT answer when the phone is flipped, thus enabling you to screen the call without picking up. This shouldn't hinder you from purchasing the phone...the phone is tremendously better than the 3500, which does allow you to see who is calling. But the 3500 is notorious for problems. You will be able to look past the flip necessity eventually if this is a big concern to you. Okay...now for the positives. Overall, I have not been more impressed with a wireless device. · This phone is durable. Unlike the 3500 that relies on two small hinges for the flip earpiece (which commonly breaks), the 8500 is hinged across the entire width of the phone. It would be very difficult for one of the connection wires to sever. The phone feels strong in your hand - it feels like it was made with the utmost quality and strength in mind. · This phone looks cool as hell. Your friends will think you are cool as hell. The backlight is very bright, and very distinctive. This phone was not made for mass sales -- this is not the phone that was made for 2 dollars to be given away to people signing up for plans. This phone was made with quality and style for people with discriminating tastes. · This phone does practically everything. As mentioned above, you can set a ringer/sound for almost every task this phone performs. You can record up to 4 one-minute voice-memos, and set up to 3 different alarms to alert you. The phonebook is unlike any other phonebook I've seen. It is not set up for you to enter one person's name and their number; rather, it's set up like an MS Outlook-type contact database. You enter one person's name, and then you can enter up to 6 different numbers for them. There is also a full calendar available to set up important dates and reminders, as well as one-touch access to an easy to use to-do list. Voice-activated dialing works very well, and helps o facilitate the hands-free capability of this phone. I can't go into all the wireless Web features that this phone packs in (browser, fax, etc), as I don't have the services. I'm itching to sign up and test it out, though. · The 8500 has wonderful clarity. My friends never know when I am calling on my wireless phone. They are stunned when I inform them I'm on the 8500. I never experience any echoing like I have with previous phones -- this goes for talking to both land-lines AND other wireless users. · I also should comment on Sprint. I've always used nTelos/PrimeCo for my service provider and was very frustrated by their lack of boundless service areas, inflexibility, horrible reception, and very poor customer service. I was nervous to sign a contract with Sprint, but I have been more than pleased with the entire process of moving to SprintPCS. I have not once lost a signal, I am able to call to and from anywhere in the US at local rates, and the customer service has been very helpful. If you are nervous about signing a contract, it's not as terrible as it once was. · This phone works great in hands-free mode. When I'm busy, I simply put on my Plantronic earpiece, fold the phone down (you can still talk when the earpiece is flipped down), slip it into my pocket, and I'm able to do anything without worrying about the phone. I would strongly urge you to get a headset/earpiece with this phone, as you'll soon realize it was not made to rest between your shoulder and ear when you're doing other things. Your neck will ache after 5 minutes of trying to hold the phone with your shoulder. Furthermore, I'd recommend a Plantronics headset with a long mic boom as opposed to Jabra headsets (look for my other Epinion soon). The Jabra headsets are being manufactured for their hip & trendy looks, but I've not had any luck with their reception - it has been quite deplorable. Overall, this phone is amazing. It is of professional quality and standards, and it looks very cool as well. I have never talked on a wireless phone with the clarity and reception of the 8500. You honestly cannot go wrong with this phone. Though not 100% ideal, if you can get over the lack of customizable ringers, and you can get used to having to flip the phone open to read the caller id, I assure you this phone will work out very well for you. Please email me if you have questions not addressed in this epinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 90528 2001/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small durable nice size screen built in voice dial feature ability to maintain signal is just average The Bottom LineFor someone who needs a very small but durable phone, the Samsung 8500 is an excellent choice with few drawbacks. Full Review I purchased a Samsung 8500 after having used the excellent Samsung 3500 for over a year. My wife and I both needed cell phones, so I gave her the 3500, and I picked up the 8500 for $200. It's $50 more than a comparable StarTac, but seems to be a little sturdier. I have heard the StarTac antennas are extremely fragile too. My number one priority when selecting a cell phone is size. If I cannot fit the phone in my pants pocket, I don't even consider it. I don't wear a suit to work (I'm a programmer) so I can't place it in a suit jacket pocket. In the summer, if I have a t-shirt on (no shirt pocket), I need to be able to stick the phone in my shorts or pants pocket. This phone is smaller than a pack of cigarettes, and fits perfectly in ANY pocket. Also, since it is a 'flip-phone', there is no danger of accidentally pressing buttons when it's in a pocket or purse. I don't use the phone for web browsing, although it does have that feature. I have long distance included in my SprintPCS plan, and using the web would be a hefty extra charge (by the minute). The 8500 has a built in voice dial ability, which works as long as you are in the digital calling area. This is a tremendously convenient feature, and an excellent safety extra when driving. I just flip open the phone and say the name of the person I'm calling. It replies "Connecting" and the call is placed. I don't need to take my eyes off the road to dial. Once in a while, it 'misinterprets' my call request, (confuses it for another name), but this happens only when there is excessive background noise. The only negative comment I can make regarding this phone relates to it's somewhat flaky connection holding ability. More often than I experienced with the Samsung 3500, the 8500 sometimes struggles to keep a connection, and even drops calls. I will often check to make sure I have a strong signal before placing a call. Occasionally, and without even changing my position, it will lose signal strength, (and in rare cases, drop the call). Aside from this occasional nuisance, call clarity is very good. I use this phone with SprintPCS, which does not offer as much call area coverage as some competitors, but overall, I am happy with their service. Battery life has been quite good. I use the phone frequently, and find myself having to charge the battery only once a week. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90527 2000/2/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small compact useful high style forget the extra features phone book The Bottom LineSmall, stylish, and really useful...more intuitive then the Motorola's, and not "too" small like the new Nokia's. Full Review If you're reading this review, you've seen this phone and you already know you want it. Its better looking a a bit smaller than the Motorolas, yet not as small and awkward as the new Nokia's. Its an attractive looking phone, and even after having it for 8 months, its still gets a 'wow' when people see it for the first time. The display is large and clear, larger then the Motorola, since it has been located on the top part of the flip. The only downside to this design is that natural body oils and sweat tend to smear the display relatively quickly...but I've found this happens on most phones. The flip is easy to open with one hand, and the casing has remained in very good shape despite the fact that I have dropped the phone on occasion. The phone comes with a cradle to charge it, which has always done a great job in charging the phone quickly. I usually charge the phone every day since I'm a pretty heavy user, but going two days with more stand-by time is never a problem. I've read some opinions complaining about the lack of a setting that will vibrate the phone first and then ring it. Personally, I've never had a desire for such a feature. Either I'm at work and I never want the phone to ring, or I'm in the car and I've got the phone in a cupholder and I want it to ring as loud as it can so I can hear it over my music. Perhaps I'm odd. I do find the volume control on the side of the phone extremely convenient, both for adjusting the ringer volume as well as adjusting the voice volume while talking on the phone. You can also hit the volume control while the phone is ringing to silence it instantly, rather than opening the phone to hit the end button. I haven't used the optional data connection, but I have used the earpiece and microphone offered by samsung. The sound quality is great for the earbud, but some people I talk to complain that the beginning of my words sometime get cut off when I speak. It still works great though. As for the functionality of the phone itself...I currently have about 70 phone numbers stored in my phone - and if you try to access the phone book alphabetically it can take about a second (sometimes a little longer) for it to display the names. While this feature is at least somewhat annoying, it really doesn't cause that much inconvenience. Its just more of a nuisance. By clicking the up arrow, you can bring up the phone book sorted by number. On the upside, you can associate multiple phone numbers with one name (ie, a business number, home number, mobile number). However, i usually prefer to list a separate entry for each number, as I don't like making the extra click to select the number I'm trying to call. The navigation keys are well laid out - it makes occasionally surfing the web (and navigating the phone menus themselves) extremely easy. I forget how easy this phone is to use until I pick up an older phone or one that has small arrow keys tucked away to the sides or bottom. The menus are both cute to look at and easy to use...I never have a problem finding something tucked under one of the menus. A downside is the lack of additional features, if such things are important to you. There aren't any games, you can't download new ringers like the Nokia, and the calculator that it does come with is pretty counter-intuitive. The calendar feature is nifty to set up a quick appointment or something that you want to be reminded of during the day, but there's no way to sync it up with a computer or anything so its more or less useless. However, I have used it to look up a date or two and the occasional alarm is a nice touch. Overall, I'm really pleased and would definitely recommend this phone. My plan may not be perfect, but this phone is pretty close :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90526 2000/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 yet sturdy microphoneearpiece are where they need to be small light occasional annoying echo expensive faint connections The Bottom LineIf you can get this phone through a reliable provider, do it. Otherwise, move on. Full Review See my related review on AT&T and the Motorola Talkabout. This review will focus strictly on the Samsung SCH-8500 phone, and I will be reviewing Sprint and their service very shortly. Although the phone's performance was limited by the quality of the service and they are inextricably tied together, I believe that I used it enough to get a feel for it, and here are my findings. In exasperation with AT&T, I researched other carriers and equipment offerings in my area (suburban New York). AT&T billed me for nights and weekends AGAIN, and I was livid. I badgered them into correcting the bill and a serious adjustment on my future minute use, but I wanted to keep my options open. I ordered the phone and plan online from Sprint's website, refusing to commit to a contract in case it didn't work out. (I recommend doing this with most purchases of this type - you have leverage if you have choices and they know it. In my case, the cell phone is my primary phone, and I need it for emergencies and routine communication. I did not cancel AT&T and this became important later on.) The website was easy to navigate, and I selected the SCH 8500 from a wide selection because I prefer the flip design, and the size and features (such as voice dialing) were what I wanted. I paid online with my Visa (figuring that if anything went wrong I would file a dispute). It arrived the next day via UPS, with no shipping charged to me. It had me from the minute I opened the box. Stylish and sleek, with a tasteful logo, it looked very futuristic. The antenna appears a little delicate. The indiglo display screen proved easy to see even in a darkened nightclub, and actually threw enough light for me to find my keys!!! Display numbers are huge until you use up a line, then they shrink to normal size to accommodate additional numbers. They keypad is a sturdy, easy to navigate marvel of engineering, and I must respectfully disagree with my Epinions colleagues that say it is too small. My hands are not small and I had no problem, but then again, I wasn't expecting to see buttons the size of those on my microwave when I opened it. Programming the phone was not as easy and intuitive as it could be. After my simple Motorola, it seemed that Samsung had almost gone out of their way to make it hard. Executed choices bring a frustrated user back to the original display screen, rather than to the previous menu position. And the voice dial feature, while very cutting-edge, wasn't all it was cracked up to be. For one thing, I was able to enter my phone book online, but the site refused to transfer it to my phone. (It's possible that I wasn't understanding how this feature worked.) And using the voice dial wasn't easy either. In a quiet room, it worked fairly well. But in other places where one is likely to need the feature - a train platform, an accident scene, a parking lot - the background noise made it impossible to use. One plus is that when it did work, it only recognized my voice, which could serve as a security feature. Also, to be fair, this feature could have been hampered by the faint connection I got from Sprint. Overall, I could have learned to love it if not for the lousy service from Sprint. I really did enjoy using it, and it seemed well made. But it's a package deal with Sprint, and that just made it not worth it. With much regret (and after a Class-A shredding of several of Sprint's customer service staff)I packed my phone back to the source. Please see my related review on Sprint's service for a rousing tutorial on how to trash a second-rate phone service provider! Thanks for reading! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 233.00 90525 2001/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 highly portable light highly functional battery is not super strong comes with bulky charger voice recognition doesn t work perfectly Full Review After being a PacBell customer for 2 years, I switched to Sprint PCS about 5 months ago. I could no longer use my Nokia phone with Sprint so I did a lot of research. First of all, the main features of the phone are: Features (specifics below) -Voice Activated Dialing--20 locations -Short Message Service -Dual Mode OTASP (IS-683A) -Authentication -Electronic Administrator (PIM) -Calculator -Calendar, To-Do-List, Count-Down -Voice Memo -Personal Information Manager -Data Capable Advanced Data Capabilities -Wireless Internet Access -Wireless E-Mail Send / Receive -Wireless Fax Send / Receive(PCMCIA not required for above. Connectivity via cable.) -Phone.Com UP.Browser 3.1 Call Management Features include: -Voice Mail -Caller ID -Call Forwarding -Call Waiting -Three-Way Calling -Incoming Call Indicator -Call Dropped Indicator -Missed Call Indicator -Automatic Redial -Call Timers -------------------------------------- Now, as for the details....The Samsung is the best phone out there to be used with Sprint for the following reasons: -------------- -light -fits nicely to your ear so you can hear and speak into it without feeling that the person on the other end can't hear what you're saying -stylish -can be conveniently carried on your belt with using a travel case/belt clip/holster -it's so small, you can easily put it in your pocket (however it's not too small that it's hard to use -like Motorola's V Phone -the screen is not too small and not too big..it is the best screensize for internet browsing while still having a small enough phone to carry around. -you can program your voice into it so that it recognizes your voice and it automatically dials phone numbers (this feature doesn't work perfectly yet) -it has a convenient "memo" button which allows you to record up to 60 seconds of your own voice (if you want to note something) -I use this feature all the time -especially when I'm driving and I don't have a pen and piece of paper to note something. -it has a fairly large screen for surfing the web if you choose (I logged onto hotmail to get a phone number I left in my email) -it has a calendar function where you can program in an event and the phone will ring whenever you scheduled the event -You can program in multiple numbers (home, mobile, work) under one name -You can assign quick numbers to address book entrees and then just press that number followed by "OK" to dial the number...or you can easily scroll down through the numbers to find the number you want and then press "OK" and it will dial the number for you. -a very cool feature allows you to associate songs with specific numbers. I always know when my roommate is calling because the song "Song of Joy" plays. Whenever I get calls from any of the numbers I programmed under my roommates name, the "Song of Joy" plays. -When you're typing text messages (especially for the internet purposes) the phone has a feature called "alpha" which will anticipate what word you are trying to spell by the combination of letters you have entered. Very cool feature. ------------ -The voice recognition feature doesn't work perfectly -the charger is somewhat bulky (Sprint offers a smaller charger for travel) -the battery the phone comes with seems to be not as strong as I would hope. Recently, I charged the phone up all night and the following day, I must have spoken on the phone on and off all day. By midnight, the battery lost all juice. I am actually considering buying a second battery to take with me when I'm away from my charger if I suspect that I will be using the phone a lot on any given day. -there is a limited number of ring tones (13): +Ring types 1-9 (different degrees of rings) +Invention +Fur Elise +Song of Joy +KyungBokung On more recent Sprint phones I believe more tones are available. I believe you can even download ring tones into more recent phones. Another con is that this Samsung phone is not yet a member of yourmobile.com -where you can download all types of popular tunes into your phone. (for more information check out: http://cingular.yourmobile.com/guest/info.asp?userguid=&usertype=0) ------------------------------ OVERALL REVIEW OF PHONE I definitely recommend this phone to cell phone (or any other services) users. I'd appreciate it if you rated my epinion! Thanks! Make sure to read my other extensive epinions on: Samsung 8500 Accessories (holster, belt clip, earpieces): Internet service you can get on the Sprint Service!: Pretty Good Service: *OBTAINING CREDIT FOR LOST MINUTES: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 90524 2000/5/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great size tons of features very clear calls delicate antenna The Bottom LinePacked with useful features, and wrapped in a sleek design, this phone is great. Full Review Ask anyone familiar with cell phones, and they'd have to admit that the samsung 8500 is one of the sleekest phones on the market right now. Available in silver or black, this phone screams style with a light-to-carry body and a flip screen. But beauty is more than skin deep... This phone comes packed with features. A large, readable screen illuminates in green when active, making the menus even easier to see and dual mode (digital and analog) gives you the ability to roam off the digital network whenever needed. Basic functions include phone book (with a feature that allows you to assign multiple numbers for work, home and cell to a single person), a mini browser to access the web, and a calendar. The calendar includes the ability to enter in items to a to-do-list but if you're like me, and hate trying to enter text on a cell, you'll probably enjoy the Samsung's voice recording feature more. The Samsung offers a variety of ring tones to use, and you can set the volume of incoming calls easily by pressing two buttons on the phone, set it to high, medium, low, or vibrate with just a few touches. You can assign a different ring type to each type of call (ones with caller id, and ones with it blocked) and you can also assign different rings to different people in your phone book. The phone also will display the name of the person who's calling, rather than their number, if you have them in your phone book. One of my favorite features is the ability to see all my most recent incoming, outgoing and missed calls. Beyond the basics, the Samsung has a world of perks: - Voice activated dialing lets you call a person simply by saying their name. - Sprint Voice Mail is easy to access with by pressing and holding a single button. If you have new messages, you're automatically notified by a message icon on the screen, and a red light on the phone itself. - Built in calculator - An alarm feature where you can set up to three times. - Data connection port - Call waiting - Three way calling Overall, this is one of the best phones out on the market currently. At a reasonable price, and loaded with a great set of features, you won't be disappointed with this purchase. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90523 2001/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very useful tool sexy small sleek old model falls apart volume doesn t get very loud The Bottom LineSmall, sexy, useful, a great tool. Full Review What an amazing phone the 8500 is. If I hadn't already bought a 3500, I would have easily wanted this one. But why? Is it the cool, sleek design? The clear calls? The e-mail, games, and news on the wireless internet? The planner and calculator? Whichever most appeals to you, I think you'll love the Samsung SCH-8500. There's a million things to love, and I'll try to get you an understanding of the major features that'll get your colleagues drooling, your women flirting, and your car getting 60 miles a gallon (well...maybe not...any of those, but read on). First, the suave design. The silver-grey of the 8500 makes it an eyedraw to anyone passing by (I once saw a guy wearing one right over his ****...pretty shameful, I wouldn't suggest it.) The flip-top makes it have a more compressed design, allowing more phone in a more portable design. All of this can be seen in the picture above. The attractiveness definitely adds to the fun of owning one of these phones. Another cool feature that will leave your friends staring at their own phones with disgust is voice-activated calling. This feature allows you to program friends' names and numbers into the phone, so you can simply slip it open, say the name, and you're connected! Another very cool feature which I have been able to utilize a few times is the memo recorder. You press a button, and can store up to four recordings, up to one minute each. You can even label the recordings so you you can remember what they are later (I put in two one-minute long conversations from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack for whenever I want to hear some funny or intense dialogue). The wireless internet is a feature that i love to use. It has links to most major websites, such as Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, ESPN, some general news, games and features, and AOL. I personally use the AOL e-mail feature very often on my phone, and I love it. Some other features that I will mention are: the phonebook, in which you can enter over 200 names and numbers, about 15 rings to choose from, including vibrate, a planner that allows for scheduling, a calculator, an attractive blue-green backlight, a call log, voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and three way calling, the SCH-8500 is a dual-band phone, allowing it to work almost anywhere in the US, and most major areas of the world; and the security features, which allow you to set up a code to enter the phone each time it turns on. There are LOTS of little toys to play with on the 8500. All of the design and features make this phone a great investment in coolness. That's right, take it from the guy who calls it a great investment in coolness; this is a great investment in coolness. If you're in the market for a wireless phone, just try holding this one in your hand. I think you won't be able to let this one go either. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90522 2000/5/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small size web browser large display voice activation poor battery life no computer sync no belt holster The Bottom LineDepends on what you use it for (sync, voice calls, web) it's a fence sitter. Recommend with caveats. Full Review When I lost my Samsung 3500 (with Sprint service), I decided to opt for the smaller, sleeker 8500. Both have similar functionality but whereas you get games on the 3500, you get a no-nonsense phone that's smaller in size with the 8500. Why I like it - Size -fits in my pocket (not obtrusive) Voice dial - a great feature when you're driving and need to make a call (get an ear-bud headset- worth its weight in gold). Wireless web/large display - large display, easy to key in letters (but I found it difficult to navigate between web "sites" like AOL IM and yahoo. Memory - You can input twice as many numbers as the Motorola Star Tacs. Why I'd reconsider buying it again - Service!!! I don't know if it's the phone or Sprint (Sprint says it could be either but won't go beyond that)-- I used to joke around that there would be fog and I'd drop a call. But literally - one second I would have five bars (high signal) and the next I would have no bars (dagnabit). One thing i would recommend to EVERYONE - UPGRADE YOUR PHONE SOFTWARE. After getting dropped calls left and right and having been on with Sprint PCS in six or so calls, I took it in to the shop - they upgraded the software on the phone and since then I haven't had too many (or nearly the amount I used to have) dropped calls. No Computer Sync. Motorola's Time Port comes with a computer sync that for the 8500 runs anywhere from $70-$100 depending on where you go. I haven't used the Time Port but if you're attached to your computer as much as I am (not by choice), having everything in sync is crucial. Especially if you lose your phone with all the numbers in it. Poor Battery Life - There have been times that I would have one call (1/2 an hour or so) and my phone would fall to either the 2/3 bar or 1/3 bar. The battery life is no where near the advertised time is. Recommend a car adapter if you use it on the go alot. If you're looking for a phone and decide the 8500 isn't for you, I'd look for a phone that has a more intuitive battery indicator like a Nokia. Parts falling off - While I haven't had a problem with the antenna, there are a couple things that don't seem to fit right or want to stay on - specifically, there are two round stickers on the inside top area of the phone under the display. My stickers wore off after about 3 months and now I'm looking at the screws that hold it together. It's an aesthetic thing but hey, you don't just buy a phone for its functionality. The other thing is the car-adapter plug at the bottom of the phone. It just doesn't seem like it was designed for it - it's just a little bit too long and I had to snip a bit off for it to fit correctly. Overall - I'm still on the fence as to whether I would buy it again. If I was a first time buyer and didn't care about the computer sync, I'd be more prone to yes. It depends on what you're looking for. While this phone has all the features a user could want on a phone, it doesn't have the computer connection that comes with the Motorola model. If you add that in, it costs an extra $70-$100. But the display screen is nice, the voice dial is a great feature, and it's a great little package. Again, service is key - you could have the coolest phone in the world but if you get bad service, your phone becomes an overpriced piece of plastic. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90521 2000/10/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich solid compact design haven t found one yet Full Review As a telecom tech at a large company I have the opportunity to test and recommend a variety of mobile phones. The continuing advances in this arena continue to surprise and amaze me. In the past I have personally used the Motorola StarTac (beautiful, tiny, but disappointing call dropper), the Nokia 61XX (great in its day, but dated now), the Samsung SCH 3500 (Still a great, feature-rich, less expensive choice), and the Qualcomm Denso Touchpoint Dual-Band (first of the multi-use, and still a strong contender though bulky). This, however is the device I've been waiting for. By far the most features in the smallest package yet. The SCH-8500 has replaced my pager, Palm Pilot and Nokia all in one fell swoop. In fact it may soon replace my land line. The PIM (personal information manager) allows for event and meeting scheduling. Text entry is simplified with Tegic9 predictive spelling. There is also a world time clock for the world traveller. A true calendar allows you to check and zero in on your schedule like a champ. However, sync software would be nice as keypad entry of data becomes tedious. The Voice Memo feature allows me to create (and save indefinitely) 4 one-minute messages to myself. Its so easy and inconspicuous to use I keep finding more and more uses: memo to myself, contact details, even espionage! The range of available ringing patterns allows me to ID known callers by "tagging" them with thier own unique ring. Not to mention the vibra-alert for dining, movies or meetings. The phone book is amazing as well. I can save 229 numbers-each named entry in the internal phone book can have 6 different labeled numbers. This allows for easy contact management and navigation. The call clarity is awesome when in digital service area and the talk time is above average (3 hours talk/120 hours standby) even with the standard battery. Now to the cool stuff! The addition of a Samsung earbud/microphone to the voice dial feature allows you to launch a call with the phone in your pocket or on the seat in the closed position while driving. After setting up the 20 Voice dial entries (a breeze) I simply a small button on the microphone and a pleasant female voice says, "Who would you like to call?". I say, "Call Home" and she says, "Connecting", and the phone begins to ring. What could be easier? We haven't even touched on the Wireless Web function, but let me just say that if North America catches up with Japan in this area you'll soon be able to buy movie tickets or set a dinner reservation with your mobile phone. I can already use x.com with it to pay for Ebay purchases, or send money to anyone with an email address. You can also check email on POP3 accounts or even check the stock market. The service costs $9.99/month extra and uses the minutes in my plan, but the use of bookmarks for frequently visited sites can cut the average session down to two minutes. There is also the added functionality of text paging (100 characters max.) and one touch voicemail. Also, a Spanish language text/voice prompt capability and an easy to read, backlit display. The phone is dual band which allows for analog roaming capabilities when out of the digital service area. With the addition of the laptop connection cable and software I can get email, fax, and log into the corporate network at 14.4K. Not that great for surfing, but I can sure do text based programming anywhere digital service is available. The phone is not light, at 4.5 oz. it feels solid in your hands. It's small size and flip style mean I forget its on my belt or in my pocket, yet when I'm using it it feels right. There are many features and uses for this phone, and I'm sure I'm going to discover more soon. The price is a bit steep, but there is no phone on the North American Market that can touch it for $199. If you can find one-get it. You won't be sorry unless you are a technological illiterate! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90520 2001/3/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing features galore large phone book compact clam shell design battery life is so so can t see display when closed flimsy antenna The Bottom LineAs powerful as it is clear, the little Samsung 8500 significantly lightens up your load--especially if you take some time to program the many features. Full Review Ah...the Samsung 8500! What an awesome little phone! Looking to buy a full-featured mobile phone for personal use, I got hooked on the sleek Samsung 8500's design and bought it on all it had to offer. Can't compare it to many older phones, as I simply haven't owned them. But this phone is heavy on features and small on size--perfect until they come out with something even cooler next year. The clarity has been good-to-excellent and the signal strength meter seems to be right on target. Next to clarity, the best thing about the Samsung 8500 for me is the phone book memory which holds multiple #'s for some 219 entries. The layout and navigation menus/buttons are easy to figure out and logically placed. It does take some time to set up all the custom features--if you so choose--from the different rings, how it's answered, locked, roaming, etc... But it's very user-friendly once you have some experience. Not being a severe cell-phoner, I haven't burned through multiple batteries and don't have a lot to compare it to as far as other phones. The included battery is very slim and seems to have a reasonable capacity and charge time. One feature I'd like to see added to this phone is an air time meter with the ability to add up the anytime minutes and evening/weekend minutes separately, to keep track of the remaining air time each month without having to contact the provider to find out what's left. You can keep track of one air time and reset it whenever you want, as well as keep track of the phone's lifetime air time...but it doesn't discriminate between usage times. Not losing sleep over this but it would be convenient. A great feature if you're in the car or biking or whatever where you can't look at the buttons/display is the voice-activated dialing. Simply hold down the talk button and say the pre-recorded name of who you want to call and it dials it for you. Also, you can record up to 3 entries on a separate voice message recorder...great for recording directions and playing back while you're driving. This thing is so packed you can practically lose your PDA, if you want...it has a web browser, calendar, data/fax, to-do list, calculator, alarm, world clock--just about everything but an address book. I'm sure that'll be in next year's model. Comfort-wise, it's decent...a little short from ear-to-mouth but I'll take that over the phone's total bulk. The phone tends to get a little hot if used for extended periods of time and it's easy to inadvertently hit the side button when holding or handling the phone--but usually of no great penalty...you don't wind up calling Sri Lanka or anything. Security-wise, you can program the phone to disable if you're ever out of a certain service area and to lock up at varying times so that a code must be entered to use it. The touch pad's buttons feel right to me but long fingernails or big hands might have a problem with operating them. Typing in word entries is a real pain and I still haven't figured out the bizarre T9word system of word-recognition; it always recognizes words I'm absolutely NOT trying to type. Cursor movement also doesn't skip letters, so if you make a mistake while making an entry, you have to erase the whole thing backwards. And I'm just waiting for the day when I snap the 50-cent retractable antenna on this thing. Let me guess: if I break it, I have to buy a whole new phone, right? In the same vein, I'd purchase an after-market cover to protect this pricey little cell phone. While it's not made of super-cheap plastic and it actually feels fairly solid, the telephone part of it is very lightweight and the battery is comparatively heavy--drop it enough times and you do the math. A little on the expensive side but the Samsung 8500 is a very cool phone that I've loved ever since I bought it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 +rebate 90519 2000/7/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features sleek look ease of use sound is very good but not always great Full Review The Samsung SCH 8500 is one of the hottest cell phones around, and for good reason!! In this epinion, I will not only tell you how great the phone is, but I will give you a category by category comparison of the Samsung SCH 8500 versus its chief competitor, the Motorola Startac 7700 series phones. By the end, you will see why switching from the Startac to the Samsung was a no-brainer! A little background on the Samsung: It uses CDMA technology, has an LCD display that lights up in blue when you flip open the phone, has easy to press buttons, and an antenna that extends when you pull it (much like the Startac). Here is a category by category comparison of the Samsung and the Startacs: Size The Samsung SCH 8500 is so small and compact, you will hardly feel that its in your pocket. One of the reasons that I got rid of my Nokia 6160 is because it was a little too bulky. I chose a Startac because it looked small and compact, and is actually slimmer than the Samsung. The Samsung is shorter lengthwise than the Startac, but a little stockier. Overall, both phones are small and lightweight, and you'll hardly feel them when you carry them around. Advantage: Tie Menus One of the things that drove me crazy about the Startac is the complicated menus. I had to read the owner's manual and attempt to memorize how to access many of the Startac's features. The Samsung 8500 makes navigation through the menus very easy. Each menu item has a corresponding number, so if you do memorize what you want to do, you can just enter the number sequence and it takes you there. Or - if you can't remember the number sequence, just go to the general menu screen and scroll through what you want. There's even a corresponding picture to the left to show you where you are. By far, the Samsung is easier to use. Advantage: Samsung Options/Frills The Samsung has so many cool options, you wont know what to do first!! You can surf the web using your phone, and check on e-mail, stock quotes, sports scores, driving directions, yellow pages, and more! The Samsung phone even has a special setting which recognizes commonly used words. So instead of having to press 4-4-3-3-5-5-5-5-5-5-6-6 just to type "hello" (like you would on any other phone), you just press 4-3-5-5-6. The phone recognizes that you are typing "hello" and it doesn't require you to go through each letter with the corresponding numbers. What a time saver that is! The best part is that you can set up your account so that you don't incur an additional fee for using the Web - the time spent on the Web simply comes out of your monthly minute allotment. With the Samsung, you also get voice activation so that you can call people just by saying their name. I can't tell you how useful a feature this is when you're driving. In addition, the Samsung has PIM (personal information management) which includes a calendar, to do list, and a convenient way to store names and numbers. Unlike other phones, where you have to make 3 different entries for someone's home phone number, work phone number, and cell phone, with the Samsung, you just enter their name once and their different phone numbers in the same entry. I know people that have stopped using their Palm Pilot because their Samsung does everything they need! Other options: voice memos, many ringing options, vibrating ring and many many more! These options simply blow away any other cell phone that's out there! Unfortunately for the Startac, it does not offer you any of the options that were described above. Ease of use Sure, anyone can pick up a cell phone, dial their number, and hit send. Easy enough, right? But the Samsung makes it so easy to use all of the features that are listed above. If you missed a call, it shows the phone number for you and all you have to do is press one button to call that person back. If you use the yellow pages on the Web to look up a business and you find a phone number, just press one button and you can call them up. No need to use "411" or any other directory assistance. With the Startac, when I missed a call, I often found it hard to get to the menu that showed me who it was that called. In fact, by the time I was ready to sell the Startac, I only used it to make calls because it was too much of a pain to use it for anything else. If the Startac is going to offer additional options and menus, it should make them easy to use. The Samsung offers you tons of options, and makes each one of them very easy to use. Sound Clarity Overall, I found the sound clarity on the Motorola to be just a little better than the Samsung 8500. However, I believe that part of that has to do with the service provider. I was a member of Cellular One when I had my Motorola, and now Sprint is my service provider. I don't think that the sound clarity is the phone's fault so much as the fault of the service provider. Regardless, given that I've used both phones and felt that the Startac has slighty better sound quality, I give the Startac the slight edge here. Advantage: Startac Battery Life The Samsung battery lasts me about a week before I have to recharge it. I usually keep it on for about a fourth to a half of each day and talk about 100 minutes a week. With the Startac, under those same conditions, I had to recharge the battery every night. If I couldn't recharge it or forgot to, it meant not being able to use the cell phone the next day. Price The Samsung is currently available through Sprint for $199. There are always good deals on www.sprintpcs.com ranging from getting $40 back or having your activation fee waived. I've seen the Startacs go for anywhere from $179 to $250. It blows me away how a Startac can actually be more expensive than a Samsung. If you're willing to spend $200 on a phone, the Samsung is the way to go. Advantage: Depends where you buy Pure Look The Startac is sleek, small, and cool. Despite being a little more pudgy, the Samsung is equally sleek, small and cool. Both are flip phones with LCD display. The Startac might be a little slimmer but that fact alone doesn't make it look any better. Overall, the Samsung blows the Startac and any other phone away. You can use it as your phone and your personal organizer. You get great battery life out of it. It is small, compact, and sleek. Before you consider buying any other phone, I strongly suggest that you look at the Samsung SCH 8500. It'll be a decision that you cherish each time you use the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 90518 2001/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great clarity great batt life small packed with great features maybe the next one will let you watch videos on it The Bottom LineDAMN GOOD! Full Review The Samsung Sch-8500 is truly a piece of art in the cellular phone arena. Sure there are the hot sellers by Nokia 5100 and the new 8100 series (which I love) but none can match up to this little guy. Below I will give reasons why this cell is so above most of the rest of the selection. It has so many features not commonly found on even the top models of Motorola's Startac and Nokia's 8100 series phones. For example it has the usual multi-tone ringers, but to top that off the phone even though its small has a built in vibrator for silent alerts of calls. Even the extremely popular Nokia 5100 and the new 8100 doesn't have this. To get this you need to buy a new battery (a quite big one too) which not only makes the phone ugly it also makes it quite heavy. The phone also doubles as a voice recorder. It can hold 4 files each holding together 4 minutes in total. You can label each file with a name and date and time. Another is the fact you can dial with your voice. I have is so I can call most of my friends and my home just by flipping my phone open (when its on). To give you specifics on how the phone does this I will give you a scenario. Say you want to call your friend named John. If your phone is on all you have to flip it open. If the voice dial mode is on it will ask you for a name. The phone has your voice trained to recognize that name and dial a certain number (note this is done when set up the names you want for voice dial). The phone will then repeat what you said (only if your voice is recognized) and then it will dial. This is all in a matter of seconds. It is much quicker actually then dialing the number. And most people wouldn't expect this to work but surprisingly it works every time, EVERY time. Another great feature not found in most phones is the ability to set up a calendar and to do list. Also it has world time and a calculator. All are easy to use and the world time lets you see where in the world you're looking at. The phone also puts on a show when you turn off the phone. The phone says goodbye showing you the phone closing up. =) Now to the part in why this phone is worth buying for the real user. The phone that I have is on the Sprint Digital PCS network. I get great reception wherever I have used it in NJ. The phone warns you when you are in roam and it will switch back to digital whenever it reaches its zone again. The clarity is clear and never is there any bad feedback from friends and family which I have spoke to. Another great thing is that that although the phone is small it has a bigger then normal screen for the sake of the Wireless web. Boy is this a beautiful thing! Actually you must be very careful. I was so hooked into trying all ends of the Wireless web that I used up over 200 minutes of my plan in the first week just to the web. Try to use it sparingly! The text comes up clear and the pages come up fast. It also has the ability to go on AIM (Aol Instant Messenger) and the ability to check email with MSN or Sprint PCS. Also you can text message too friends who have Sprint PCS phones too. The phone in general is very sturdy. It can definitely be placed anywhere with minimal intrusion due to weight or size and its small enough to go anywhere. The phone is very appealing to look at and the backlit screen is clear too. The battery power is great. I use it and leave it on frequently and the battery meter won't go down. And when it does the charger charges it up as quickly as anything. In conclusion to my report on the SCH-8500 I feel you should definitely check out www.Sprintpcs.com to see if this phone and service is available by you. The only alternative in my eyes is the Nokia 8100, which I love, but it doesn't have anything as much as the Samsung SCH-8500 has. Thank you for your time in which you read this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90517 2000/7/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception voice dial battery life screen size data capable size strength i can t think of one The Bottom LineAn impressive feature set justifies the price, which would make it a one-time purchase that would benefit users in the long run. I heartily recommend it. Full Review I've had this phone for a year now, and since I did consult other user opinions here before buying it, I think its about time that I returned with my share! After tax, the price I paid for this phone was about $216. In a short while, I also bought the BodyGlove for it, and then got an earset as well. As a total, I would think that my total expenditure on hardware would be around $250. Having the service activated from Sprint was a breeze, and I've had no problems with service from Sprint. Both by way of calling plans and reception clarity, I think Sprint is doing a great job. While traveling, I've seen the phones of people around go into expensive roam modes while still retaining my digital / CDMA connection status, and its very helpful! The customer service at Sprint is usually very helpful, and I've seen that wait times are long only if one calls at peak working hours during a popular promotion program. The phone is small, and quite aesthetic. I was initially biased towards the gray and black color scheme, but bought a unit with the silver and black color scheme instead. The antenna doesn't need to be extended, even while traveling, etc. The phone can be flipped open and held with the same hand, and the volume control for the earpiece amplifies without distorting. I mentioned the earset in the hardware detail above because I've seen that this phone has an interesting good feature. When an earset is used, the phone does not terminate the call when phone is folded down. When an earset is not used, the phone does terminate the call when the phone is folded down. Therefore, once the call is made or answered, the earset can be used with a neatly folded-down phone as if the phone is not being used at all. This is very helpful if you've got the phone in a pocket or small pouch that doesn't really allow it to be opened up and stored. I mentioned the strength of the phone as the first good feature because, and I'm not making this up - I've dropped this phone more than a couple of times, only to pick it up and continue using it as if nothing had happened. All these drops have been quite dramatic - one with the battery coming away and spinning off, and one with the casing popping open slightly at the corner! When the battery came away, I put it back in with a silent prayer and it worked like nothing was wrong whatsoever. When the casing was off at the corner, I took it to the store and they put it back in order at no charge. The screen size is another good feature because its completely backlit with a comfortable and consistent electro-luminiscent backlight that can be programmed to turn off after a certain time, and because the screen is large enough to actually make sense of incoming messages and the wireless web browser. Voice-dial is a good plus, because its not the voice dial service from Sprint, but a feature of the phone itself. I'm sure that the service from Sprint is great as well, but this lets me do the same thing without getting the extra service component from Sprint. Since I've had the opportunity, and the calling plan minutes, to actually use this phone for conversations that have extended well into two-and-a-half hours, I can corroborate the claim that it indeed has some really good talktime. This is with the standard battery, and not the extended, enhanced battery. Charging doesn't take more than a few hours, and with "normal" calling, I would think that the phone goes on for about three days with a single charge. The phone book is good, and so is the To-Do list and related personal information management features. The caller ID display picks up the phone book listing. As a very small point of dislike, the Caller ID log doesn't log Blocked ID calls, but I don't know if this is a regular issue, or something that's come out of me having dropped the phone and having damaged something inside! The cost of this phone has been the same - with a slight fluctuation, over the last one year. I hate to see things I buy deflate in their price after I buy them, and seeing that this phone has retained its price, in spite of the new phones on the block, is quite reassuring. I guess its feature set is quite rich and user-friendly, and thus justifies the price. This phone is also data capable, and I've read detailed tutorials on how one could use it as a wireless web modem using a regular data cable that could be purchased directly from Samsung, if you didn't want to spend on the relatively expensive Wireless Web Connection Kit from Sprint. All, in all, a great buy, and a great combination with the Sprint service set. I've got wireless web and wireless web messaging as well, and those have been helpful to send and receive messages, as well as to use regular map services over the Internet to pull up directions while on the road. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 216 90516 2000/9/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy something you can use for the term of your contract solid performance needs a diet nokia s menu system better Full Review My year long contract with VoiceStream is over. My phone with that company was the Nokia 6190. It was my first cellular phone and it proved to be a trouble-free, reliable phone with intuitive, easy-to-follow menus. From this positive initial experience with cellular phones, I expect nothing less. Today, I am with Sprint PCS. The phones Sprint offers happen to be filled with more goodies than my former wireless company and in combination of my savoir-faire for wireless technologies "maturing" in the past year of constant use, plopping down a couple bones for a solid, capable phone made sense to me. My primary criteria during my search for a mobile phone was mainly size. Being a guy who doesn't carry around a purse and also being a guy who really dislikes putting anything of bulk in his pant pockets (remove innuendo here please), the prospect of handicapping a hand with electronic hardware was not a good thing. I initially took a look at the Motorola V8162 which is a little over half the size of the Samsung PCH-8500. While this phone, in actuality, met my personal requirements for a miniature phone better than the Samsung, the looks of it did not justify the $400 price tag. It felt really flimsy and should it get tossed around a few times (which inevitably would happen in my case because I am a pro-clumsy fellow when it comes to carrying around small things), the Motorola bad boy would be no more. Size-wise, the Samsung is thick. If you're like me, you still wouldn't willfully carry this thing around in your jean pocket. Thin is in for people like me and the Samsung is about 1" thick. However, don't let the squarish nature of this phone deter you from taking a good look at it. The clam shell allows for the phone to be compact in length. The Motorola V8162 would have been too small to hold between your ear and shoulder, but the Samsung is large enough to comfortably position so as to talk hands-free without the headset (I'm not down with headsets; the whole talking to yourself look is just plain sorry; holsters are the pocket protectors of the millenium). The benefit of being a little larger than the most diminutive phone available in the U.S. market is the ability to design a larger screen for the 8500. The bluish-green backlight complements the seven line screen nicely and branching from the more screen real estate translates into useful PIM features such as an easy-to-read calendar, to-do-lists, eye-catching icons in the main interface menu, etc. I've only been using this phone for about a week. I've rarely gotten any disconnects and the sound is not at all over-digitized like CNET.com reviewed. I should mention, though, that the clarity of the sound has more to do with your service provider than the phone itself. The speakers on the Samsung PCH-8500 are loud enough to accommodate most environments (at clubs, unless you can broadcast your line to its speakers, forget about it). Talk time rates at approximately two hours (real world results). Standby time I really do not even care to know as I am able to recharge the sucker every couple days while at the pad. As I'm sure you've read in the other reviews, many of the new Samsung phones offer voice-activated dialing meaning you can assign voice notes for specific phone numbers. Recite a "name" when the lady inside the phone asks you "who would you like to call?" and it will dial. I thought this feature would be really awesome, but it's not all that it's cut out to be. In even some mildly noisy environments, the Samsung lady has a difficult time recognizing the name and voice. You also have to make a good effort for the tone and pitch of your voice to be close to the way you recorded the name into the phone. For instance, if you're cracking up and you decide to voice activate a call, you have to first calm yourself down so that Ms. Samsung can match the number with your recording unless you were also cracking in the exact same way at the moment of assigning voice activation. Get it? If you're a Nokia fan like myself, the Samsung's menus aren't as intuitive as the Finnish company's design. Ideally, I'd get the Nokia 8890, but that phone only works on the GSM network and I'm not a big fan of VoiceStream's service should they include the 8890 in their lineup. With the Nokia, I never had to look at the instruction booklet to personalize my phone. The instruction booklet actually looked more difficult to follow than just diving in and tinkering around with the phone itself! On the flip side, the 8500's phone book is a little more clumsy. While you can carry multiple location numbers under one name (e.g., my hot coed female @ mobile, @ work, etc.), to access those numbers you have to press the down key to move down the alphabetized list, but then press the side buttons to go from "M" to "W" to "H." I think this could have been executed better. If you'd like specific technical details of the phone, there are sites out there that will tell you all you want to know about the 8500. However, the perspective I share with you is coming from an individual who: 1) wants reliability being that this phone is my primary line; 2) expects ease of use; and 3) requires something stylish in a mobile phone. Next to my car keys, the cell phone is everywhere I go. I'm sure all of you modern folks have your own personal standards. Check this one out. It might just be the phone for you. Features: -Voice Activated Dialing--20 locations -Short Message Service -Dual Mode OTASP (IS-683A) -Authentication -Electronic Administrator (PIM) -Calculator -Calendar, To-Do-List, Count-Down -Voice Memo -Personal Information Manager -Data Capable Wireless Internet Access Wireless E-Mail Send / Receive Wireless Fax Send / Receive(PCMCIA not required for above. Connectivity via cable.) Phone.Com UP.Browser 3.1 Voice Mail Caller ID Call Forwarding Call Waiting Three-Way Calling Incoming Call Indicator Call Dropped Indicator Missed Call Indicator Automatic Redial Call Timers Weight -4.4 ounces with Standard Battery -5.5 ounces with Extended Battery Size -3.6 x 2.0 x 1.1 with Standard Battery -3.6 x 2.0 x 1.2 with Extended Battery Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 (after employee discount) 90515 2000/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life light strong functionality not too many actually The Bottom LineIf you can buy one do, if it comes with a plan you hit the jackpot. Full Review I bought my Samsung 8500 phone in a department store sale (they were ditching cell phones) and I had lusted after this phone for some time. I finally caved and paid my $100 or so dollars for the phone, I was told that with rebates and through some economy with the truth with Sprint I would get another $50 back in addition to my instant rebate of $50 (original price was $149). The latter turned out not to be true but let's move on, I try to. I had a Neopoint 1000, it's a great phone/PDA but it's built like a brick with poor battery life and single band only. I'm not prepared to carry a Palm and a Phone, so my phone has to perform both functions. Now all I need from a PDA is a list of people I want to talk to and something that reminds me I'm supposed to be somewhere before that time actually passes, and most importantly of all the ability to sync my phone/PDA with my PC to pull contacts and calendar items. This phone meets all my requirements It's light but not so light you worry you might break it (yes I lusted after the Startac for a while too) I like the styling of the phone though I will admit it's not the Motorola V70. It's functionally rich from a cell phone perspective, voice dialing, dual band, text messages and you can talk on it too. You can also program different rings for the different types of calls coming in. The battery life is decent, I recently took a 3-day trip and I charged the phone for about an hour in the car total and it was still going strong after several conversations. It covers my basic PDA needs Web Access although I only ever use this to check flights when I travel. It vibrates (read what you will, useful for meetings and bars, ok now stop it) Another problem I faced with my previous phone was that it was quite rare and rare phones don't do well for aftermarket add-ons. So far I have added the sync cable and software, a hands-free set and a car charger for about $50 total. I can't help thinking if I'd just got that rebate..... Now I've told you I really like it, you probably want to know what I don't like? Well firstly it's not the simplest phone to learn to use and it's really not very intuitive sometimes. Fact is my wife has trouble using any of the functions outside of just talking on it (she has no problems with that). Some people have commented on the lack of ring tones and if you like that sort of thing then yes it only has a few. Personally I like my phone to sound like a phone and not like my daughter attempting yet again to play "Yesterday" on a $10 electronic organ. The synchronization takes a long time to run, I bought FoneSync Pro and the cable in one package for about $30 on Ebay but it takes 5-10 minutes sometimes to get everything done. The phone has a limitation on the number of calendar entries it will hold, I hit this quite quickly the first time around. Since then I just sync about once every 2 weeks and I go back 1 week and as far forward as it will go. Lastly it's already getting old, these are starting to become the phones that they give away with a plan signup but don't be fooled you are not being palmed off with any old junk. This is a very good phone that you will not readily part with when the next time comes around. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90514 2000/5/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 user interface storage features portability no holster touchy reception no desktop synch Full Review I went into my local Sprint PCS store to purchase a replacement for my Qualcomm "Q Phone" that I bought a year ago. My purchase requirements were basically the same: I want it small and light enough that I will keep it with me at all times, I need a silent alert for when I am in meetings, and I need a battery that I can talk on for ~1/2 hour a day without recharging. I also like the clamshell design phones since they can fold smaller and they are also more protected from the elements. Finally, I wanted a dual-band this time since the "Q" was a single band, and I've needed to make calls in Analog before. My selections were a little wider than the last time I looked: the Motorola StarTac is the obvious competitor. It has many more accessories and third party support. However, I wasn't impressed with the user interface, the display size, or the pricepoint: $230. The Samsung was smaller and has the display built into the flip-up part of the case (why didn't someone think of this before?). This allows both a larger display and a bigger keyboard. Also, it has the Indiglo backlight screen, so it shows up great in the dark. If you're checking here, I'm sure you already know the feature set. It is vast, perhaps the most feature-laden phone I have ever seen. Here goes the short list: voice memo, calendar, world clock, minibrowser, to-do list, distinctive ring, vibrating ringer, voice dial, calculator, advanced phone directory, and all the standard PCS stuff. The surprise for me was how well the voice dial works, and how often I use it. You can store 20 numbers, so I can usually contact anyone that I want to talk to just by opening the phone and saying their name. This is much handier than I thought it would be. It's like making the switch from remembering numbers to looking up names in the phonebook: it's dramatic. A lot safer when making calls from the car, too. Second, the Tegic T9 text entry method is surprisingly good. I can enter text very quickly, and it almost always gets it right. It's not as good for web site names on the minibrowser or proper names in the phone book (you can always use the standard multi-press text entry method for that), but for taking notes or adding calender entries, it works great. I just wish you could manually add names to the dictionary. The calendar and calculator utility are pretty basic. They work, but they aren't real standouts. The phone book is also pretty standard: you get six numbers per name, which is nice compared to the "Q" that I had, and it adds an icon beside each number to indicate which "type" of number it is (Work, Home, Mobile, Pager, Data, Fax). The minibrowser works pretty well. Having the larger screen is great. It seems faster than my wife's Sony TouchPoint: my guess is that they have a bigger, badder DSP in the Samsung. I urge anyone who gets the wireless web to sign up for a Yahoo account: I know have email access on the road, as well as a list of all of my contacts. Battery life is decent: I can get by a full day with several phone calls without even losing a battery bar. Be warned, however, that the bar seems to be non-linear. The first day, I get a full battery all day, and then it seems to drop to zero within the first 4-8 hours of the next day. So is it perfect? Not exactly. The biggest problem I'm having now is reception. While overall sensitivity seems about on par with the Qualcomm, this one seems a lot more touchy. I've lost calls walking around the office, or by turning my head sideways in a marginal area. That never happened with the "Q". I would've hoped reception and ability to lock onto the signal had gotten much better in a year, but it has not. The signal indicator seems to be tied to a random number generator: it can go from three of four bars to a lost signal just by taking a few steps in either direction. Also, I'm using my "Q" pouch to hold the phone right now (it's a little big, but it'll work for now). The 8500 case they offer requires you to remove the clip from your belt everytime you want to talk, and I didn't like the way the phone fit in it (I could see my phone taking a fall). I'm really waiting on the plastic holster (like the StarTac or a pager uses) before I get a new case. Finally, I had really wished for more of a "convergence" with this phone. Now I've got three address books: my desktop, my phone, and the Yahoo one on the browser. I can sync the desktop and the yahoo one, but I have no way to sync the phone. That's really a downside: I'd like to be able to update my phone calender from my desktop (and vice-versa), even if it was through the Wireless Web (via Yahoo). That way, I could take addresses or schedule events on the road, and have my desktop updated when I got back. Also, it would let me edit and back up my phone book on my desktop. Surely this couldn't be that hard? Finally, the price is a little high, especially if they only last a year (like my "Q" and my wife's 2700). It seems better built than those, but I still wonder. I got a deal on this one ($129) since it was a return after a week. Overall, I'd recommend this phone to anyone who's looking for a very small phone with all the latest features, including some great ones like the minibrowser and vibrating calls. I wouldn't buy it if you're looking for top-of-the-line reception or aftermarket equipment (no holster, no data sync, no good cases), or the absolute best in battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 90513 2000/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich great quality small i have not found any yet Full Review I purchased this product as a replacement for my Sprint Touch Point 2200 (Denso Eagle 22). A good phone with lots of features. There was nothing wrong with the Touch Point, except Sprint had taken an order from me for a wireless web connection CF Card Kit, and never delivered. Sprint's service is not bad, but their customer adversaries (or was that advocates):) are much to be desired. They are in extreme need of better training, and are otherwise useless. It took six days for my phone to activate, and was told the same canned talk over and over until I demanded to speak to a manager, and threatened to cancel all service. If you need any help, go right to retention (the area that tries to save your business. They are better trained. I purchased the Samsung 8500, since a connection kit was available and also read all the great ratings from all of you other reviewers, except for those opinions on CNET. CNET has lost some creditability in my book. They recommended the 3500 though I have seen 2 returned with bad ear pieces on the one day I was on line at the Sprint Store. The phone is great. It is small, high tech looking, does everything that the manufacturer says it will do. I use it to connect my Casio E125 PDA wireless and it works flawlessly. It has a solid feel, much more than the Star Tac that I've owned, and the cover closes with a good solid close. I very much like the screen being placed on the ear section, allowing for the keys to be made a little larger as well as the screen itself. The screen is wonderful, with its' easy to read electrostatic display. You can have multiple numbers under one phone book entry. The signal strength is good. Using my old Touch Point 2200 in an office building where I work, I barely got a signal, but with the Samsung 8500, it picks up and holds a good signal solidly, with no dropping of calls. The digital design inside is made by Qualcomm, whose phones I've owned, always had a good signal. The voice dialing is accurate and very helpful when driving, and works well with the installed hands free kit that I purchased. The kit was a little pricey at $199.99 but it is a quality kit, hardwired, separate speaker, charger, and cradle. Professional install was suggested, but anyone with some electrical and mechanical skills working on automobiles, like installing stereos, should have no problem. Where I live in Suffolk County, Long Island, a law was just passed beginning Jan 1, 2001 banning handheld cell phone use while driving. I'm certain other areas will follow. A hands free kit was a necessity. The kit by Samsung is well worth it, and it's quality built. Hey it's only money, and if you are a true "technogeek gadget freak", (something to proud of nowadays)then money should not matter. Samsung's quality is superb, and accessories are readily available. make sure you pick up the black holster at Sprint $9.99. It looks great with the silver phone. It is not cheap plastic, and is very functional, holding the phone securely, and ready to access. I am very impressed, having first considered my replacement would have been the Motorola V8160. Way too small. Any one purchasing this phone will not be unhappy. It is well worth the money from all stand points of quality, features, and price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 90512 2001/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing great phone book good menus a little bulky for a small phone expensive mediocre reception The Bottom LineIf you gotta have the latest and greatest, don't get this; if you want a cool phone, this is it! Full Review This phone does everything that most of the high-tech savvy phone users would want. This phone is more limited by current technology than anything else, and the fact that Sprint service is mediocre at best. In fact, the biggest drawback to this phone is that the user will ultimately have to interface with Sprint's customer service, which takes pride in how bad their customer service is. Another drawback to this phone is that its reception is a bit mediocre. For reasons I don't understand, the SCH-3500 tends to get better reception, in the same areas as the 8500. The last complaint I have on this phone is that you cannot choose to have both the ringer and vibrate on at the same time. This means that if you put it on vibrate, and put it in your pocket, you have to remember when you take it out, to put it back on ringer, or you will miss calls. Same goes vice versa. If you put it in your pocket on ringer mode, it is easy enough to miss a few calls. I hope Samsung gives that upgrade in the next phone. I currently use mine with a Jabbra headset, and the equipment works well. My only complaint is that when you are driving, and you dial a number, it begins connecting. Sometimes if you close the phone too soon (I still haven't figured out what that is!), the phone will not dial out, or will disconnect your call. Other than that, the headset mic works real well. The 8500 is $50 more expensive than the 3500. So what do you get for the $50? You get a much smaller phone, a better looking phone (especially the silver version!), and you get a phone that you can put in your pocket when appropriate, and not have it stand out. You also get a slightly better display screen than the 3500. Functionally, the phones use almost the same menu system, and operationally they are almost identical. Is it worth the extra fifty bucks? I thought so, but that's only because I like have cool toys. If you would rather just have a functional phone, and can deal with a slightly larger phone, the 3500 is for you. If you need to have something cool, and with a little "snazz" to it, than the 8500 is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90511 2001/8/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small generally easy to use good menus phone book using a headset can be awkward possibly susceptible to heat damage see update at bottom The Bottom LineIt's at the state of its art. Although it doesn't have all the bells and whistles available now, those can wait until their technologies mature. Full Review Be forewarned, this is my first cell phone. Naturally, I've known plenty of people that use them daily (and some that don't even have a land-based phone), but having just started in the Marines in Washington, DC, this is the first I've ever needed to be reached at any time. I've been impressed. Clarity is good -- better than my regular phone. Reception is just as I've expected from looking at Sprint's PCS coverage maps, although I have had an occasional problem keeping a signal while inside a certain part of my centuries-old workplace. Voice dialing works well. Well enough, in fact, that other people can speak the same words and make it work, although that could be a drawback -- use some other word besides "work" to prevent your friends from making prank calls to your boss. ;) Battery life seems acceptable to me, although I did buy an extended battery for longer trips out of town. I blew most of the standard battery while traveling to Massachusetts and talking to my girlfriend (I should've turned it off while on the plane). However, with the plan I'm on, it didn't cost me any extra, and that's what I've liked best about using a mobile phone and its nationwide minutes. The web browser thing is marginally useful. If I were to just track stocks (which I don't) or check weather (which I do, but I use much more information than is offered), it can be good. But, the most I've ever used it for is to check my Hotmail account, and even then, the limitations of a numeric pad prevent me from bothering to write anything. Seems pointless to try to use an instant messenger application. There is no game on the phone, which is fine with me. There are also, by some people's standards, a limited choice of rings, but that's OK, too. There are enough rings to differentiate between the people I hear from the most. And, although some lament the lack of a vibrate + audible ring feature, I don't see the logic -- why have a phone do both when the intent of a vibrate alert is to be silent or to be noticed in a loud environment when an audible alert would be missed? One reviewer has mentioned that the icon animations slow down or stop, thinking that it was a fault of the processor. The main menu's animations do indeed pause after a period of inactivity, but nothing's wrong. Instead, it seems to be a power-saving feature, much like on modern laptop computers -- the processor stops churning when it's not needed. As far as size goes, it's not quite as small as it seems, although it's still darned small -- small enough for me to carry inside my uniform hat ("cover" to us military types). But, it feels good, and it's not prohibitively small. It still fits my face, and the keypad is a useful size. Drawbacks are largely limited to accessory availability. It's new, and it's not a Nokia or Motorola, so one needs to do some digging to find the good stuff. But, the stuff that's out there is worthwhile, and nobody I know goes out to buy ten different carrying cases. Update -- A couple weekends ago, I was at Ocean City with my girlfriend, and left the phone in the car. For whatever reason, the next time I tried to use it, the microphone simply didn't work -- I couldn't even get it to recognize my voice (if the heat of being in the parked car all day long damaged it, there was no notice about high temperatures anywhere in the product literature). I took it back to Radio Shack (although not the same shop where I purchased it), and got it back, fully repaired, in just over 2 weeks. No charge for the repair (a $6 part with $55 for a half hour of labor), but I wonder how much more quickly it would have been fixed if I took it to a Sprint store. Anyway, I missed it, and it's back. Sure is nice to make cheap long distance calls back to my hometown. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90510 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact versatile vibrate mode i can t think of anything er um hmm Full Review So you're in the market for a new mobile phone? Stop right here. You've found what your looking for. I've used audiovox, motorola, niokia, and samsung phones. When I joined Sprint PCS (great service, BTW) five months ago, I bought the Samsung 3500. Word of advice: BUY THE INSURANCE. I didn't. So when my 3500 was run over by a car, I was out 150 bucks - and phoneless. I went in the shop with my mind set on a cheap replacement. Then I saw it. The 8500 called my name from across the store.... come to me, Cristin...I'm voice activated, web ready, and very cute (very small, in man terms)... yes, I cost $200 dollars, but I'm worth it... buy me.... So I did - and never regretted it. After 4 months, I feel naked without it. It has a memo button (which I use for my grocery list) so you can record voice memos to yourself, or record a phone conversation! Voice activation is handy when you're driving. Not that I do that often ;). It recognizes the name EVERY time. The 8500 is light and compact, easy the read LED, and has many helpful functions: caller id, call logs, identification ring, alarm, world clock, built in vibrate mode, calendar, web browser, calculator, and more! The clarity is better than my cordless phone at home, and several people have commented about that when talking to me on it. I hardly ever recharge it because it has a super long battery life. And did I mention that it gets major attention from everyone who sees it? If another hi-tech phone comes out, I'm sure I'll stick with the Samsung SCH-8500. It has unbeatable quality and durability (I've dropped the poor baby many times). Go ahead and invest in the SCH-8500. You'll never want another phone after this one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90509 2000/6/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size gadget like features automatically makes you a trekkie 5 voice recordings max no holster automatically makes you a trekkie Full Review Samsung has come out with some great phones lately. This latest feature-packed phone crams what its predecessor had, and adds a few more - all the while shrinking the overall size of the phone. The best and most interesting features of this phone are voice recorder, voice dialing, large LCD w/EL backlighting, multiple alarms, calculator, schedule planner, web browser/capability, battery life, and size. ***SIDE NOTE*** This is the same review as posted as Samsung 850. The model was not set-up when I first wrote this opinion, and the model name field omitted the last '0'. I do have a few gripes however. While the 8500 was able to achieve the 'look and feel' of a StarTac, it does not have a plastic holster of any kind that supports it. I feel that this accessory is the one thing that is missing, which makes it pale in comparison to the StarTac. It is compensated by its much lower price however. The voice recorder was first available on the SCH-2000, was included in the SCH-3500, and now the SCH-8500. This is an extremely helpful and function feature, as it allows you to not only record a quick (one minute) memo to yourself, but you are able to record your call in progress. This is helpful in a sense that you do not need to 'jot down' a phone number, address or directions while you are on the call - just record it. Note that the recording is one-sided (it records the person whom you are speaking to), for an unknown reason - probably legal. It emits a tone every few seconds to alert the other party that they are being recorded. My only gripe here is that this model is only able to store five recordings, versus ten on previous models. All in all, this a great phone with too many features to list. If you do pick up this phone, and would like a case that has a belt clip, yet keep the whole package small - I recommend picking up the CellSuit from Body Glove. It has a neoprene material that stretches around, and has a minimal amount of clear plastic on top of the keypad. It has a low profile belt-clip, and retails for about $15. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90508 2001/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 small horrible software flip requires two hands poor volume The Bottom LineDon't buy it. The software is poor, speaker volume is insufficient, and battery life isn't grand either, not to mention how hot the phone gets. Full Review As an interlude, don't be dismayed by some good reviews. Features such as voicemail being your "virtual answering machine"....well, to say the least, that's not an exciting feature. I would expect voicemail capability on a phone, and it's primarily a network function. This phone does not seem to be designed by people who use cell phones. I will issue my arguments point-by-point of what I find bad about this phone. The issues I address are navigation, the software, battery life, speaker volume, and clarity. The main comparison is to the Nokia 6190. 1. Navigation. The navigation buttons are not conveniently located for getting around. One must move the thumb too much to go from OK to MENU to CLR to the up/down/left/right arrow keys. They are not well placed for navigating with only one finger. 2. The software. One of the main issues I have is that after setting an option in the software, it takes you back to the home screen. This is rather annoying when desiring to make multiple changes. I must navigate through the menus for each change I want to make. It would be much better if, after making a change, the software took me back to the menu where that change was made. This is how Nokia does it with their phones....why can't Samsung do it that way? 3. Battery life. Talk time on this phone isn't grand either. The Nokia phones get 3-5 hours of talk time, whereas the Samsung gets 2-2.5 hours. Part of this discrepancy lies within the differences between Sprint's CDMA network and GSM networks. However it would maybe get a little better talk time if half the battery power weren't wasted in heat. If you're ever stranded in the wild, one of these phones will make an excellent hand warmer if you can call somebody. 4. Volume. The three volume seetings (low, med, high) for the speaker are insufficient. On the lowest setting, I can only hear the other party when I'm in a quiet environment, such as my home. On the medium setting, I can hear the other party when riding in a car. However, on the high setting, I can't hear the other party when in a noisy environment such as a club or a bar. The phone is useless if I can't hear the other party. Nokia's 6190, however, will blast my eardrums off when on its highest volume setting. I have a couple friends who are DJ's at clubs and they talk all night long on their Nokia phones and always hear people....whereas in a much quieter restaurant I can't hear the other party with my volume on high. That's unacceptable. 5. Clarity. I'm not sure whether this problem is a Sprint problem, or a phone problem. However, I sometimes hear people with horrible echos. I will call somebody and it will sound like they are in a tin can or something. Poor poor quality. Overall the phone works, most of the time. However it's the part time failure of the phone that bothers me the most. I had my Nokia 6190 for two years without any issues. I could always hear the other party, the software was a breeze, the battery life was more than sufficient for my needs, and its signal reception were excellent. The SCH-8500, however, within a day I decided it is a crappy phone. The software annoys me, the phone heats up too much when talking on it, and half the time I can't hear the other party. Not to mention that they never seem to be able to hear me, either..... And if you've read this far, it is rather annoying that, to flip the phone open, it pretty much requires two hands....which makes the phone much more difficult to work with than a non-flip phone. Yet the phone is still larger than some of the Nokia phones. I would never recommend this phone to anybody. Unfortunately for Sprint's network, they do not carry Nokia phones. I have limited experience with the Sanyo phones and find their software to be superior, however I'm not sure about the phones themselves. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90507 2000/8/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 not too expensive battery life lots of features size voice activated dialing can be frustrating when it s wrong Full Review When I bought my Samsung 8500 my plan was to try it out for 14 days and then return it. Having worked with Samsung products in the past (and having been unimpressed)I was just going to "test drive" the phone for a few days since I had heard that this phone would better than the phones before it. That was 4 1/2 months ago. I love this phone. It's small enough for me to wear like a pager, yet the screen is large enough for me to browse the web and read email. Samsung has always made phones that had lots of features. The problem was they usually had weak signal strength. Not so with this phone. I drive all over town, using between 1600-2100 minutes each month and only drop calls occasionally. Speaking of features, I love this phone's features. The phone allows you to store 20 names and numbers that work on the sound of your voice. You simply open the phone and it asks you who you want to call. Another feature that I use more than Voice Activated Dialing is 4 Digit Dialing. I type in the last four digits of the number in my phone book that I want to call and it calls that number. The phone has a calendar that I use infrequently because I use a Handspring Visor (you can read my review of that as well), but I have played around with it and found it easy to use. I'm most impressed with the phone's battery life. I mentioned before that I use between 1600 and 2000 minutes each month. I only have to charge my phone for a few hours a few times a week and I never have to worry about the battery life. I don't even keep my cigarette lighter adapter in my car. Having said all that I have to say this. The phone's not perfect. I do drop calls at times, but that's expected. The biggest source of frustration is when the Voice Activated Dialing doesn't work right. Saying "Jim" sometimes calls Jeff and saying "Jeff" sometimes calls Jim. I've only had difficulty with it on short names, so I try to work around that. If you're a gadget lover, you'll love this phone. I know that I do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90506 2000/3/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 receives great signals great sound difficult to use headset close flip The Bottom LineBest flip for Sprint's service, but the headset interface can be a little tricky. Full Review The Samsung 8500 (Black or Silver) is the best true "flip" phone available for Sprint PCS. This phone has one of the best ability to receive a great signal in an area where the signal might not be that strong. Allowing it to receive 3 to 4 bars of strength, while some of the others may only recieve 1 or 2 at best. This phone also has a good backlight, similar to the "indiglow" technology, which lights up the whole back screen, and not bars or light bulbs along the side (which can cause glare) making it easy to see when it is dark out. The phone also comes wireless web ready, which gives you access to news, stock quotes, shopping, sports, weather, or just about anything else available on the wireless web. The menu structure on the phone I have found to be easy to navigate through and very self explanatory. Making it easy to use even for the most novice of users. One of the only faults I've noticed with the phone is the inability to easily be able to talk while the flip is closed (i.e. while using a headset). Making it difficult to use a headset and have it in the holster (it won't fit in the holster while the flip is open). There is a way to change this, but I haven't been able to figure it out (I don't read manuals! ;-) Accessories (Car adapters, leather cases, holsters ect..) are pretty extensive. Most stores that sell the phone also have these in stock, and the rest being easily accessable through your provider's accessory line or web site. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90505 2000/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 alert light navigation display compact antenna battery volume control reception slick long battery light slippery reception losses needed replacement late voice mail web buttons poor provider rates service The Bottom LineIt is worth the buy but only if you can affort Sprints lousy service. Be careful, I had to replace mine and they didn't ask any questions. Full Review Phon Cons: I want to put the cons first because I had some trouble with my phone and had to have it replaced. Thank goodness it was only 9 months old and under warrenty. The phone acted fine for 6 months but then after, it would shut off on me. I would have it fully charged and flip the top down and then when I opened it, it wasn't turning on. It is supposed to turn on automatically when you flip it up. Also once in a while if I was simply dialing, I would press a number and it would shut it off. The phone wasn't set to do that and it can't be and I never abused the phone, it was in perfect condition. Sprint said maybe the battery was defective so I took it in. Since it was still under its one year warrenty, they replaced it with no question which was good but then it was too easy, maybe other 8500 phones had this same problem and that is why, I have no idea. I noticed that when I got the REPLACEMENT, they buttons worked better in that they had a click sound after pressed. My phone didn't have that. I am pretty sure it did in the beginning so I don't know if it wears off or what but I noticed this. Sprint Service Plans and Customer Support is poor: SERVICE PLANS ARE A RIP OFF. They had a plan for $35 for 250 day time minutes which they call anytime minutes from 7am to 8pm. And then 1200 minutes after 8pm and on weekends. This is bad because I live in California and my parents and family live in MI. There is a 3 hour time difference so when it is 5pm in Cali, it is 8pm there. So in order for me not to use my daytime minutes I must wait till 8pm. Well, that is a major drawback because a lot of my family and friends work and it is a pain when I have to call them at 11pm their time. Also, I was trying to find other IT jobs while working and was moving a lot so I used this as my primary phone for voice mail. So my 250 minutes turned into an average of 400 minutes. Even if I wasn't using it as a primary phone, 250 minutes is nothing, just like on internet, 50 hours goes by before you know it. so if you go over, each minute is .40 each so my bill was so high. I finally had to switch to the $75 plan because they give you what they should in the first place, 1000 anytime and 1000 night and weekend minutes. At least this way it is split and I am paying $75 not $200 because I went 200 minutes over my 250 minutes like in my previous $35/mo plan. SPRINT HAS THESE NON-EFFECTIVE MID RANGE PLANS that increase your daytime and night time but the real factor is your daytime. They only increase it $10 and only give you 100 more minutes for anytime. Those are the most important in my opinion. So be careful, when they say "We can give you 1000 more nights and weekends for $10 more" beware, you will never use more than 1000 minutes on nights and weekens unless you are a teenager in love. Just pay your $75 plan and don't worry about going over the lousy 250, 305, 450 anytime minute plans they try to rip you off on. I am sure they are making enough money to give you more for YOUR money but you know how the world works now. SPRINT TECH SUPPORT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ON THE LINE. Yes, their web site is useful to view your account but a lot of times you need to talk to someone. Good luck, you have an average hour wait every time you call them. Their standard message says you have a half hour but every time I called, it is AT LEAST an hour. Their support is decent but it is not worth the wait. The CONS on the PHONE itself: BUTTONS ARE HARD TO PUSH. They are flat, not raised and very soft so you have to push quite hard or with your fingernail sometimes. Please get a headset no matter what phone, especially smalls ones like this when driving because if you kill someone, you will wish you never called about your dinner that day. Don't use a phone at all when you are on the road if possible, I understand there are times it is useful though but don't take someone else's life in jeopardy from some material thing that isn't near worth a life. THE RECEPTION IS GOOD BUT IS LOST QUITE OFTEN. This may because I live in California but it also does this no matter where I am, at work, outside in the streets, etc. I constantly have to keep redialing to keep conversations going. IT IS HARD TO VIEW THE WEB. The display is just too small. I don't think cell phones will do well with the web just because of that fact alone. Also, you are paying $10 a month for something that is hard to view, just use your computer at home. Also because the screen is so small, you only see text and it is hard to type things in and takes a long time to download pages or type stuff in. You will find this more frustrating then useful or user friendly and will cancel your web plan just like I did. It has no Java scroll menus either which could maybe help. IT IS EASILY DROPPED. I am not clumsy, just that this thing is so small and smooth you better put it in your pocket and not try to juggle this and other stuff you are carrying at the same time. Just because it is small doesn't mean you can carry it in on hand while carrying a grocery bag in the other, it slips out easy. It has happend 2 times to me and is frustrating. It depends how careful you are also so I have learned to not juggle stuff with it in my hand. Phone Pros: THIS PHONE EASILY FITS IN YOUR POCKET WITH LESS WEIGHT AND BULK. I am one who doesn't even like to put a wallet in my pocket but this phone is small enough that I feel somewhat ok with it there. It is very light and the battery lasts long and is charged fast in your car or at home. I would say it takes about 45-60 minutes to fully charge it again but if you have it connected to the charger in the car, you can talk as long as you want but the charging time will be doubled since you are using it when charging it. BATTERY CHARGES FAST AND LASTS LONG. The battery is small and charges fast in the car or at home. If you are in the car, you can talk as long as you want when charging but of course the charging takes 2 times as long. I figure about 45-60 minutes until fully charged again. The base for home is nice. GOOD RECEPTION MOST OF THE TIME. The reception is clear when it doesn't cut out. Again quite often you just loose the reception for some reason when you were talking very clearly. RED LIGHT AT TOP FLUTTERS WHEN YOU HAVE A VOICE MAIL MESSAGE. This is nice so you don't have to call your voice mail to check. It also plays a chime when you have messages. 3 SOUND LEVELS DO THE JOB. This is all you need and they are set perfectly. You don't really need any in between levels. It is easily changed along with the ring volume on the side navigator toggle button EASLY NAVIGATION. Aside from the web, it does although provide nice navigation to your phone numbers and settings Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90504 2000/8/28 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 can store lots of numbers small neat features disappear in analog mode have to program numbers by hand Full Review OK, this is my first cell phone. I got it because it was small enough and cheap enough that I would actually carry it around. In general, I'm pretty happy with it, but for all the oohs and aahs I read about, it is not all that. In Analog mode, the following features don't work: 1. Calendar 2. Voice Memo 3. Alarm 4. Clock This means not only that you can't add new things to your calendar, etc, but you can't review previous entries either! Same with your voice memos. Let's not talk about the fact that you can't sync any of these features with Outlook or any other real calendar--thus limiting your phone calendar to a toy and marketing gimmick. Also, the feature programming has a lot of inconsistencies, esp. with regard to going back or deleting with the Clr button. Countless times have I wanted to change something in the previous screen and been kicked out to the idle state (thus losing any intermediate input). Despite living in a town of 300,000, I drop (outdside, non-moving) digital calls somewhat frequently and look to see that the "signal strength" is at 4 bars. "Signal Faded" is what it says. This phone does feel significantly more robust than the Star-Tac's of friends. For that reason alone, maybe you chould choose this one. But don't read driving directions into your phone, then drive outside a digital cell--you won't be able to listen to them out in the country... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90503 2000/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small lots of features long battery life web browser unusable ui a bit clunky Full Review The 8500 is a good phone for those users who want a small sized, feature-rich phone with few compromises. While the small size leads to expected difficulty with a small display and small controls, in general Samsung's consumer design experience shows through and makes the phone easy to use. I am switching to the 8500 from the Sony Z100 phone after I broke the Sony's display and could not obtain a replacement. The size of both is similar but the Samsung has far more features. Both phones were using Sprint PCS as the carrier, your available features will vary with your particular carrier. The 8500's voice dial feature is one of my favorites. Along with the hands-free "ear bud" headset ($15), I am able to use the phone while driving without taking my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel longer than it takes me to press the single button on the handset wire and say "call work" or "call home". I do miss the ability I had with the Sony phone to see the phone display without having to flip open the phone since the Samsung's protective cover is over the display while the phone is closed. This is especially annoying when I want to see the Caller ID information for an incoming call. With the Sony I could just glance at the phone while I have to flip open the 8500 to see. The Samsung 3500 phone does have an "always visible" display but is a bit larger than the 8500 and has less features. Another disappointment is the "MiniBrowser" web browser built into the phone. Except for the very small amount of predefined web destinations (Yahoo!, Bloomberg), etc, the browser is all but unusable. This is primarily due to the extreme difficulty in typing in any text-based information using the 12 key keypad. Truly accurate typing requires multiple keypresses per letter. Even with the almost magical "T9" input mode which tries to recognize English words from combinations of single keypresses of the 9 digit keys (0 is used for the spacebar) your effective typing rate is 1 character a second. Combined with per-minute charges for just being connected to the web make "browsing" a very dissatisfying experience. In its defense web browsing can be useful if you need to get local movie times, or even stock quotes or weather, but there is certainly much room for improvement. The 8500 can also be used as a mobile modem, but the $99 cost of the necessary cable is quite out of line for what you get. There is also an additional charge from Sprint for the ability to use the modem connection on the phone. Battery life from the standard included battery is very good. I routinely get 2-3 days of standby usage (highly dependent on talk time used), with 1-2 hours of talk talk from a single charge. Charge time is also excellent at about 1 1/2 hours for a full recharge. Unfortunately you have to pay extra for a small "travel charger" as the one that comes with the phone is unwieldy to bring on the road. There is also a longer life (and bigger size) battery available for about $100. The 8500 is dual mode - able to use digital and analog carriers - but use in analog mode results in much less battery life than in digital mode. The phone is user-settable to prefer digital or analog or best available service. The phone also includes a large phone book. It has 229 entries, plus the ability to have Work, Mobile, Home, and Fax numbers for each entry and have a customized ring for certain numbers when identified by Caller ID. There are 14 different rings to choose from. The controls on the phone are OK, with the usual up and down arrow keys and the rocker switch on the side of the phone that is also the volume used to navigate scrolling lists and menus. The Sony's thumbwheel interface was much much better and easier to use, but I've never seen it on any other phone. Overall, the 8500 is feature-rich, compact, and has a good balance of usability for its small size. At $200 it is also not a wallet buster and makes it a good all-around choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90502 2000/4/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a web browsermany other features long battery life light so many features it requires a 122 page instruction book The Bottom LineSimply put, this phone will meet your every need without weighing you down or costing more than $200! Full Review In The Beginning Two months ago, I had to do it. I had to surrender to the world of portable technology and admit that I needed a digital cell phone. I looked at various brands, Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung. The Story Continues Fortunately, I chose a Samsung SCH-850. I was impressed by its small size, low weight (only 4 ounces) and incredible battery life (3 hours talking, 100 hours standby). Simply put, (because I was not a cell phone expert) I chose this phone because it was the smallest and felt the lightest; however, fortune smiled upon me and I have a great phone! Features All the features the phone offers amaze me. As a matter of fact, I have yet to use them all. However, I want to point out some of the features I have found helpful. One of my favorites is rather simple. I can decide how to answer and hang up the phone. For example, I can set it to require me to push "end" to hang up or I can set it so I need only close it. Similarly, I can set it to answer when I open it or require me to press "send." What I have done is set it so I can open it without answering it; yet, hang up by closing the phone. Therefore, I can look at the caller ID to see who is calling before I decide whether to answer; yet, I can still hang up quickly. More Features Other great features I have taken advantage of include a Phone Book, which can store 229 numbers; Voice Dialing, which stores 20 people I can call by saying their name; a Vibrator, so I don't interrupt my professors (they don't like that); and a Web Browser. It is nice to be able to log onto the web from anywhere; I can even check and see how many people read this review! With my service provider, I have call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, voice mail, and three-way calling. The phone can do all this and maybe even more (depending on the service). And Even More Other features I have not had a chance to take advantage of include a scheduler (I have something else for that), a calculator (it is easier to use a regular calculator), a world clock (I am happy with my watch), and a display that can be changed from English to Spanish (I got a C in level one Spanish; I never pushed it further). Therefore, I don't avoid these features because they don't work; rather, I don't use them because I don't need them. The Happy Ending I now have an easy time keeping in contact with people. There is no longer that lag time when I'm on the road or out to lunch. After all, that is when everybody tries to reach you, right? I give this phone my highest recommendation. It provides impressive features and at $199, it is cheaper than many larger, heavier phones selling for $230+. I'm Not Alone! Also, I have spoken to our deliveryman who has one. He is just as pleased as me so this customer satisfaction is not a one-time incident. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90501 2001/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy text entry feature packed small hard to open with one hand just as thick as the 3500 The Bottom LineGreat little phone that's packed with cool features like voice memo, voice dial, web-browsing, and dual-band capabilities. Full Review For the past 6 months or so, I've had the Samsung 3500, a wonderful phone in its own right - it was feature packed with a great price - I couldn't wait to see what Samsung would come out with next... Suffice to say, when I saw that the 8500 was selling at the local electronics store, I went down and made an impulse buy (the 3500 will be ebay-ed shortly). My first impression is that although it's smaller (in height width and weight, it's essentially the same thickness as the 3500 (due mainly to the lithium ion battery, which seems oddly thicker than you would expect). So what are the benefits of owning this phone? Well, if you intend on using this phone for Sprint PCS's Wireless Web, I HIGHLY recommend it - As many of you may already know, text entry into phones with a standard keypad is cumbersome - to enter a simple word like "movie" you typically have to press the numerical sequence "6,66,888,444,33"... not very convenient when you're writing an e-mail or entering an address at mapquest over your phone (not to mention all the extra minutes you burn up doing this!)... Well, Samsung came up with a brilliant idea - To my more than pleasant surprise, the phone has something called "t9 word" - an amazing feature that allows speedy text entry from the 1 through 9 buttons on the phone - how does it do this? To explain, let's say you're entering "movie" again - you simply press 6,6,8,4,3 - and the phone automatically recognizes that of that sequence of numbers, only a few words are possible, and automatically lists the most popular word from that list - if you weren't trying to enter movie, just press the zero key, and it will scroll through the other words - (like "motif") - VERY nifty feature! - It makes writing e-mails form my phone a practical exercise, not just an emergency option to send brief, often cryptic e-mails... (ie "yes dinner good 730 night..." - no more caveman sentences...) Besides that, all the nifty features of the 3500 are still with us - the voice memo recorder (although the capacity is cut in half on this phone - no big deal - 5 one-minute messages are enough for the average user) - and the voice dial, which seems to work well if you're in relatively quiet quarters... The "Indiglo"-type display is nifty and easy to read (thanks in part to the fact that its a little bigger than the 3500's) - One of my only complaints of this phone is that the screen is hidden when closed (unlike the 3500) - I got used to using my 3500 as a watch, so now, whenever I check the time, I have to open the phone - no big deal... Also, it's a little difficult to open this phone with one hand - when are they gonna make phones with spring-loaded openers? - How cool would that be? Oh well, for the price, I guess you can't really complain, considering all the other features... UPDATE - AFTER 8 Months of Ownership... Well, after living with this thing, I can safely say that I still love it! My only complaint - the built-in calendar and organizer is too cumbersome to deal with on a day-to-day basis - I would like it if Samsung (or Sprint PCS) sold a PC link cable and MS Outlook compatibility. Besides that, the lil bugger is still going strong, with a solid build and good battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 (199 w 50 rebate) 90500 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pim voice dial great battery life awesome look doesn t have a select button on the side of the phone no biggie Full Review As a former StarTac lover, I must say that this cell phone is AWESOME! I recently decided to give the Samsung 8500 a chance after being a loyal StarTac user for years. The main reason I decided to switch was because I really needed a phone with a PIM that I could use to set appointments, keep track of special events etc. I was hesitant however because I didn't want to sacrifice the long battery life of the StarTac. Let me just say I have been pleasantly surprised! I like a lot of the features of the StarTac but I cant believe for $249 Motorola couldn't have at least added an alarm!! Also after comparing the feel of the 2 phones I walked away feeling like the StarTac felt cheaply made compared to the 8500. The Samsung offers a larger, much brighter LCD display, which allows for more enjoyable use of the wireless web features and also has a much classier silver case. The Samsung also offers voice dialing, AND a voice memo feature! Studies show that if you use your cell phone over 1000 minutes a month you should really consider using a headset of some type to reduce any "risks". I am on my cell over 1000 minutes a month, and I have noticed that Samsung makes much better ear pieces for their phones, even ones that include a one touch button for answering calls and placing calls using voice-dial. The StarTac doesn't. Overall, I would encourage anyone who is making a comparison between the two to DEFINITLY go for the Samsung 8500 over the StarTac. Oh yeah, one other thing about the Samsung, when you speak into the phone you cant hear yourself through the earpiece like on the StarTac, it takes a little getting used to but allows for much better clarity for both you and who you're talking to. Enjoy!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 90499 2000/8/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Product Rating5.0 a good small phone with all the essentialsthen some no fancy extras a bit pricey The Bottom LineIf you have the $200 to spend, and you want your phone to talk on, not play games or music with, then the Samsung SCH-8500 is the phone for you. Full Review After a year and a half of faithful service, I decided to retire my trusty Qualcomm phone. It worked fine, but it was somewhat bulky, and lacking in the features department. I was in the market for a new phone, something small enough to peacefully coexist with my keys in my pants pocket, and with enough features to justify the expense of a new cell phone. I eventually settled on the Samsung SCH-8500. I had looked at other phones, but the 8500 was the only dual-band phone that really matched my preferences. Being dual band was the most important criteria; where I live, Sprint PCS service can be spotty, and the last thing that I would want to happen would be for my car to break down in an area without Sprint PCS service. I had to pay a bit more because of that necessity, but it was worth the extra money to have the peace of mind when driving on the highway alone. What really impressed me about the 8500 is how tiny it is; you don't really get that impression when seeing it in pictures or holding it in the store, where it's attached to the huge security brick. The 8500 is roughly as long as my palm, and about half as wide, when closed. The clamshell design is a great feature for this phone. Given the small size, I can just toss it in my pocket and go; with my old Qualcomm, I needed to put it in a case with an attached belt hook in order to carry it with me, which not only took time but also was uncomfortable to sit with. Despite its small size when closed, however, the 8500 opens up to be even longer than my old Qualcomm, making for comfortable talking. The 8500 comes with 13 built in ring tones, including 9 standard rings and four songs. This is a good number, but there is no option to download additional ring tones, and most of the standard rings sound fairly similar. Still, there's a decent variety, and enough for most peoples' tastes. There are also options for 1-beep and vibrating ringers, for when you don't want to disturb other people around you too much. The vibration, though, isn't particularly strong; I doubt I would feel it in my crowded pockets, but for others, it might be just right. Other extra features include an automatically alphabetizing phone book (which is searchable as well), the ability to set particular ring tones to specific incoming numbers, and a calendar/date book. While I have a Palm Pilot, which is considerably easier to input than is a cell phone, for those without such a luxury, it's a handy tool. Just program your appointments in and the phone will ring to let you know that it's time to get to where you're supposed to be. Finally, the other feature of the 8500 that impressed me was its battery life. With my old Qualcomm, if I left it on in the car overnight, by accident, it's battery would be drained by morning. I've brought my 8500 with me to work, and kept it on from the second I left my apartment until the second I got back (about 10 hours), and it still had all its battery bars lit. It also comes with a nice desktop charger that can accommodate the phone plus one additional battery, and to charge from start to finish takes less than two hours. All in all, I'm extremely happy with my 8500. It doesn't play games, or sing 120 different songs, or anything like that, but it is a sleek, small phone with all the essentials. It's a bit on the pricey side, at $200, but it's definitely an excellent phone for the money. The 8500 is definitely worth looking into if you're in the market for a new Sprint PCS phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90498 2000/5/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent functions plenty of them excellent reception technical support for both samsungsprint pcs are in the dark Full Review Well, this is my second mobile phone. My prior one has been a Nokia 5160 from AT&T. That phone was good for the simple job it did and it did entertain me for a few minutes on train rides to and from places. I still use that phone, not as a phone, but as a nice alarm clock with snooze function. AT&T service was horrible as most of you know. Phone was durable but a little bulky and looked kind of awkward when you wear it on your belt. Now, on to the "important" information. I have had this phone for a month now. It works great. Battery life is just as good as a Nokia 5100 or 6100 series phone. Reception is crystal clear (then again, probably due to the service). Sprint PCS is my service provider and I would have to say, it's a great service for the buck. Ok, so you get dropped calls now and then, it goes into roaming in the oddest of places and then sometimes the same spot is PCS and not roaming. Customer service also takes an eternity of waiting on the phone. Other then that, service to price is excellent. The phone itself is nice and compact. Not ugly either like the StarTAC (sorry StarTAC fans, the StarTAC looks ugly). That metal shield on the front of the phone is great looking (have no idea why it's there other then for looks but I like it). Functionality-wise, it is feature rich. Samsung in my opinion is the most bells and whistles for the buck manafacturer of mobile phones next to Nokia (you have to love the little games on those Nokias). I'm talking about 250 numbers memory. The phonebook also has a sub-list of different numbers (home, work, etc.) for each person/contact. There's the popular Samsung voice memo (extremely entertaining for recording funny tidbits the other person says on the spot while in a conversation or just for, well, voice memo functionality), voice-dialing for 20 numbers (imagine a serial killer is chasing you, then you flip open the phone and go "help!" into the phone and shazam, it dials 911, waiting for an operator to come on is another story all together :P ), Phone.com's UP browser, a simple calculator, a simple PIM/calendar function, and you can fine tune options such as contrast, backlight duration, roam guard, dropped call alert, different rings for different incoming calls/messages, it has built in vibrate function, and it can be used as a wireless modem. I might be missing a few things but those are just minor details :P With the good there is always the bad. I do not know if it is only my phone or all of the phones but there's a bug in the Jump To Date function in the Calendar portion of the phone. The Jump To Date function is to me a minor function but the function refusing to work properly is like an itch that I can't get at. I tried calling Sprint PCS technical support, they don't know diddly squat. I then tried calling Samsung technical support, they don't know diddly squat. The problem here is that the phone is actually too new. None of the technical support staff at both Samsung nor Sprint PCS are knowledgeable about this specific phone. Going to a Radio Shack is pointless as they don't carry this model yet. A Sprint PCS center is a good place to go but most of them do not carry this model yet either. People, check your phones and see if your Jump To Date function works with any date above 12 (like 04/13/2000, 04/12/2000 is no problem, but when it's 13, or any number above that, an Invalid Date message is displayed). Other then that little complaint, great phone. Buy it. It's 200 dollars, with that price you have two choices, StarTAC (much less functions and it's pretty ugly) or this great phone that's easy on the eyes and has a plethora of functions to boot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90497 2000/11/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of features light small works only with sprint pcs Full Review Introduction I am a former user of the Samsung 3500 (my review of that: ) which I found to be a pretty decent phone. It was my first digital phone and I used it with the Sprint PCS service. Back then, I attributed most of the phones shortcomings (all of one) too Sprint PCS service itself. That one shortcoming, in my opinion, was signal strength. Essentially, lack thereof. However, after getting the Samsung 8500 I realized that the lack of signal wasn't entirely due too Sprint PCS. This leads me pretty well into my first point… Signal Strength This is easily the biggest advantage that the 8500 over the 3500. I use this phone in Western/Central New York (between Rochester and Syracuse generally) and I find the coverage to be…good. It isn't great, it does still have dead spots, but it is far and away better than its previous brother. I find that if I switch the phone into Sprint PCS mode I get better signal coverage, and much better battery life. I believe the reason the signal seems to be better is because the phone isn't so predisposed to search for analog mode when it briefly loses the digital signal. One slightly annoying thing about this phone, and I do chalk it up to Sprint PCS, is that sometimes my girlfriend will call me, get my voicemail, and call back 2 minutes later and get me. This has happened in area where, although I wasn't looking at the phone, I normally have good signal strength. This tends to be a minor annoyance to me anyway. One positive thing for signal strength though is Sprint's National Network. They don't charge you if you leave your home area as long as you can get a Sprint PCS signal. Over Thanksgiving I took a trip out to Springfield, Mass. and was happy I was able to make calls from there as well. The Sprint Network covers almost all major metropolitan areas very well. In fact, for most of the trip down I-90 to the Mass Turnpike I had signal. The only power area was near the NY-Mass border. Battery Life The battery life on this phone is nothing short of exceptional. Much like the previous Samsung phone, it has the typical battery icon display in the top right of the screen. It basically is divided into 3rds so it gives you four levels of battery life (empty is also a level). I think both phones are rated at the same batter life (168 hours standby, 2-3 hours talk) but this one seems to last longer anyway. As I said earlier, I attribute this mostly to the fact I no longer have the phone in dual band mode. This saves a significant amount of battery life. As you may or may not be aware, it takes more power to transmit and analog signal than a digital one. Therefore, if the phone is switching back and forth, even occasionally, you will run your batter down faster. Despite that though, even in dual band mode this phone is good for at least 3 days, the most I've tried it. Display The phone's display is certainly a high point for it. I don't have the manual anymore so you will have to excuse this guess, but I think I read that it has a display of 320x240. That seems about right. The Samsung sight lists it at (Graphic 5 Line LCD(1 Icon line + 4 text Lines ) which is a certainly a good summary. Either way, it does 4 lines of text resolution very well. This is very important for the wireless web which this features (more on that later). I also like the Indglo-style back light on this display. Most cell phones have that green which I never saw a problem with until I saw the blue on this one. Just a cool feature though. I think it may consume less power too. I would think that is why it is used on watches… Menu Structure The menus of this phone are also easy to use and, typical of this phone…flashy. There are 8 main menus to the phone: 1) Calls 2) Phone book 3) Messages 4) Roaming 5) Calendar 6) MiniBrowse 7) Voice Dial 8) Setup/Tool The "flash" part comes in the little icon on the left that takes up about 1/3 of the screen. For instance, the MinBrowse icon is that of a globe with a satellite revolving around it. Kinda cool. It is almost useful too because I often find myself look at the pictures and not the words. Voice Dial This is certainly one of the snazziest features of the phone. Voice dial is a carry over from the 3500, and works exactly the same. You record the name you want to associate with a number (i.e. Home) and enter the number. There are two options here 1) the phone can always say "Who Do You Want to call?" when you flip it open 2) It will just do it when you press and hold "Talk" I find the latter more useful because I often open the phone for reasons other than to place a call. You can store and record 20 such names in this fashion. Voice Memo Much like the prior version, this phone also has which I find useful. I used to use it on the 3500 all the time when I head songs on the radio I liked and wanted to get. I believe the last phone's voice menu was on continuos thing though. And I think it held up to 30 seconds of record voice, maybe 1 minute. I forget. Anyway, this one has a slightly improved memory at 4 memos of a minute each. The button to record is still conveniently located on the outside of the phone. This is a feature you don't see on too many phone at the current time. Calendar I like this a lot about this phone. It sort of takes the place of a PDA in that you can add not only phone numbers in the standard phone book, but appointments as well. Even if you don't add appointments (I mean, am I that busy??) you can use the Month View to see ahead. I hate thinking to myself, "What day of the week is Nov. 30th, etc..) Also, I keep my grocery list in the To Do List. All of this is facilitated by the next feature… T9 Word One final, unique feature worth mentioning is that of the T9 word capability. Essentially, you only have to press each button once for a word. For instance, say I want to type the word: ford into my phone. On any other phone you would hit 3,3,3,6,6,6,7,7,7,3. On this one, you just hit 3,6,7,3 and it deduces that the word you really wanted is: ford. If this isn't the word, you can hit 0 to see the other words you might have been trying to type (dose, fore, dope, empe…). Yeah, I know what you are thinking, I have no clue what that last word means :-) You can also disable this function if you wanted too. Wireless Web This is my favorite feature of this phone. With wireless web you can write email, talk on AOL Instant Messenger (rather slowly), check the weather, buy stock, get directions, get sports scores…its goes on and on. It is all text based, but the information is there. It's great. I've never felt more connected. I think this is 50% of the reason I am so excited about this phone! You can configure what you get on your phone from the Sprint web site (http://www.sprintpcs.com) and that is what you see when you bring up your MiniBrowser. Durability The overall design on the phone is very compact, and durable. It is a flip top phone like the 3500 was, but unfortunately you can't see the screen when it is closed like you used to be. This is a small point though compared to everything else you gain. Overall I've never seen a better phone than this basically. It is small, light, durable, full of features, gets great signal, and is good on battery life. I know I will be more than happy with this phone from now until the end of my year contact with Sprint. Probably beyond! Although, I'll tell you in Nov 2001…there is always something new! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90496 2000/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 every feature is perfect i dare say there are none Full Review I hold in my hand the greatest cell phone I have ever seen. Compact, sleek, durable, great sound, great battery life, and well, great everything exists inside this hard plastic shell. Want a new phone? Look no further. Durability/Design Try to break this thing, I dare you. At first, I was afraid that the flip-back design would wear at the hinge and become loose, but so far so good. This phone is the most durable that I have had and it will certainly last longer than you need for new technology to come out. It's compact design, essentially folding in half, allows it to double the durability and cut the size in half. Very clever, Samsung, very clever. Clarity It's like the person on the other end is standing right next to you, speaking through a noise-reducing filter in the middle of nowhere on a perfect day. I have yet to find a place where the sound was even remotely fuzzy. Living in Malibu for a semester, and being behind the hills with no cellular tower in sight, it was difficult for many of my peers to even get a decent reception. But I was truly the envy of them all because my Samsung sounded sharp and clear regardless of my location. Portability The design of this phone allows you to fold it over in half, making it extremely small and easy to carry. It will fit practically anywhere you want to put it. The flip-back design also helps push away radiation from your head (or so goes the theory). Battery Life My cellular plan is 350 anytime minutes a month and part of the reason I talked for 586 minutes is because my battery never seemed to run out. It could easily last three hours of talk time and who knows how long it would go idle. Bottom line, you will never have to worry about bad battery life with this phone. Other Features -Ring choice: I'm not sure how many rings there are, but there are more rings on that phone than friends of mine, or people that put me in their WOT for that matter hehehehe. This phone enables the user to put a different ring for every person that calls so that you can have an audio version of caller ID. -Voice recognition: Simply record your voice saying "home" or "office" and from then on, all you have to do is say the word and your Samsung phone will dial it for you. This feature is especially handy when driving or when you have your hands full. -Phone book: There are various menus on the Samsung phone, some of which I have not even used, but the most helpful is the phone number listing. This feature is far from unique to the Samsung phone, but the menu where you store all of your numbers is easier to find on this phone than any other I have known. In addition, the keypad and screen are well-sized and easy to see in the dark, the antenna actually stays up when talking unlike many phones, and the phone turns on and off at the flip of the lid, making talking with one hand very easy. All in all, there is nothing negative I can say about the Samsung phone from my experience and I would Highly Recommend this cell phone to everyone, from the busy executive to the trendy teenager. Trust me, this phone's for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 90495 2000/7/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of menus incredible phone book perfect voice dialing no simultaneous vibrring lack of escalating ring Full Review I recently purchased the Samsung sch-8500 and so far it's been a wonderful phone. I love everything the phone has to offer. But two things that the phone doesn't have are making me seriously consider canceling my service. First off, the phone works wonderfully. It's heavier than the other Sprint phones offered, but it's still light enough to not be noticed. Navigating through the menus has a short learning curve, and once learned becomes intuitive. The voice dialing is perfect and has yet to fail me, even in a noisy car going 70mph. The phone book is nifty. It stores names, and then 6 numbers (home, work, mobile, etc) per name. No more "Scott - work", "Scott - pager" entries. The voice clarity is wonderful. I haven't had a dropped call yet, though there have been times when the phone has not rung, even though there is someone standing next to me calling me on his cell phone. Not the phone's fault (I think). On to the things I really don't like. I used to have an Ericsson LX788. While a sturdy phone, it didn't have a lot of features. It did have two things the Samsung is missing. A) Escalating ringer. It starts off low and then gets louder until answered, voice mail, etc. B) Simultaneous vibration and ringing. What do these two things do? You NEVER have to worry about the volumne of your phone again. Think about it. How many times do you change the ring volumne of your phone? When your in your car, it's high, then you go into a friend's place and you lower it (or you should, it's polite). With the Samsung I have to open it, lower or raise it, then close it again. Annoying. With the Ericsson phone I never had to worry about it. The Samsung phone is really, really nice. But my main point of a phone is for it be out of the way until I need it. I don't want to mess with it until I get/make a call. The lack of those two features is going to make me return the Samsung. If you can live without those features, then this phone is wonderful. Get it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90494 2000/6/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great durability solid phone flip phone great design great menus on sprintpcs not the greatest signal battery life isn t a nokia The Bottom Linei never give anything excellent, but if i had to pick any cell phone, this would definately get it.. too bad sprint is so terrible. Full Review this phone was my second cellphone.. but it truly was the best one that i head, out of the many many that i've used. the only thing i hated about this phone, was that i had it on sprintpcs. yes, sprint was awesome when i first had it, but after all the marketting.. and all the users signing up it turned into the worst service imaginable. whenever i have to call someone in my area on a sprint, it takes me at least, at least, 8 calls to get through.. it the very worst when it comes to nighttime, because everyone is using their long distance, and right when you get out of work.. try gettin' a call through around 5, its a nightmare. back to the phone: what a great phone.. i love flip phones, just because i hate picking up the phone by accident, when its in my pocket. a flip phone will *never* make an accidental phone call from boucing into something. flip phones truly are the best type of cell phones. this phone was up there as one of the first with voice dialing.. and believe me, it was the coolest thing on the phone.. i used it all the time in the beginning, but as time went on, i got sick of it and used just the dialing. the phones menus are really nice, i mean.. they're not nokia's menus.. but they're the best right after. the thing they kill nokia on though is the way the screen looks.. does nokia thing that old ugly nintendo game boy color is cool.. we don't like screens that look like celery. instead, samsung uses a nice nice nice nice blue color.. truly the best color for a screen on a phone. plus, as i've said before, the best feature a phone can ever have, is the one touch ringer off, which this phone has.. but so do nokias.. anyway, its a great feature. i hated the antenna though, the thing was terrible.. i don't like having to pull up an antenna, and for me to get good signals, i'd have to leave the antenna up, and in my shirt pocket. i hated that. the flimsy little antenna would *always* get bent.. i never bought a new one, but the thing was anoying.. it was like a flimsy straw. the battery charger for the phone is terrible.. i don't like the connector they have.. i mean, if you bent the thing by accident, the little clip part that was in the phone, would still be stuck in there, and my god was it a pain to get out. all i'm saying is, if your going to charge it in your car.. you better be careful, and pull it out smoothly. but the desktop charger was a great thing.. i always left it on the table, so that when someone would call, i could see it.. i wouldn't have to hold it up like you would on a travel charger. one terrible thing is the lack of phone ringers.. after using a nokia, you get used to having a choice of like 40 ringtones, as opposed to 8 or so. but the good thing was, if you wanted a specific person to get a certain ring, that was no problem, the menus made sense. you could do it easily. but htere was always 8 rings, so people had to share (but ya'know, there's always one person that will get a specific ring.. and that's why i like the way its set up) i haven't had the phone for over a year now.. but i can truly say it was the greatest phone i've ever had.. too bad its on sprint. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90493 2000/7/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek solid build feature packed small buttons sound quality in la Full Review Granted that I am not totally hip to the new Digital cellular revolution, but I have been a cell phone user on and off for the past seven years. Phones have improved tremendously from the ages of all analog wireless service. My new Samsung SCH-8500 is on the Sprint PCS network and I enjoy using this phone. It is very light weight and sleek, but yet battery life is quite amazing. The phone has so many options and features that I wonder many times how they packed all that in such a slender package. The Graphic display is clean and crisp, and is viewable under most lighting conditions, except in direct sunlight. The display has a glossy cover which is difficult to keep clean. The phone has many features, too many to list. It has distinctive rings, vibrating ring, voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, mini-web browsing, voice dialing, and the ability to switch settings according to your preferences and so on and so forth. The phone is well designed and is solidly built. The one negative about the design is the size of the buttons. Most are small, and hard to press quickly, especially because there is no travel to them. When you hit a button, it registers your input, but the button itself stays put. I would rather have buttons that move similar to a home phone, but this type of phone design would probably necessitate a larger form. The battery life is plenty, but I wish that the phone would give me a better idea of the life left than just using three bars. A percentage figure or a few more bars would be helpful. On average, it seems to last about two days on standby. The voice clarity is less than expected, but that could be because I'm now in LA. Almost everyone has a phone here, so I judge the voice quality to be much worse than what I experienced on my analog phone about 5 years ago, but in Pittsburgh. The voice quality is excellent in less metropolitan areas. I had a 30 day trial period with this phone, and came to like it within that time. Most phones are all very feature packed and easy to use, but make sure you have enough time to decide before getting locked in with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90492 2001/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large screen small overall fantastic clear sound can t browse just any website The Bottom LineRun your whole life through one device? This can about do it. Full Review This is truely a phone for techno-geeks everywhere. I previously had service with Alltel and was using an Audiovox Dual Modem phone on their network (see previous review). The service was decent ane reliable but didn't come close to what I have now. My contract with Alltel running out recently I decided to switch to Sprint PCS and get this Samsung 8500 PCS phone. It's probably the smartest decision I've made. Not only is the service and phone cheaper than what Alltel offered (this is due mainly to discounts through my employer), but the features I got back were much better. The first thing about the 8500 is the size. It's small, not much more than an 1" thick, 3" long, and 2" wide when folded. With an optional belt clip it can be securely attached to your belt and will hardly feel the weight of it on your belt. The antenna of the phone can be retracted, though in my service area the signal seems to be good enough that I don't have to retract it in order to use the phone. Also when you hold the phone you get the sense that it's well built, it doens't feel flimsy and the flip top when open feels very secure when you talk on it. Features Voice Dialing - A very cool option where by just flipping open the phone and saying someones name the phone will automaticly dial that person. Mini Web Browser - My favorite feature. This browser can connect to the internet (using your PCS minutes) and go to any website that has been designed for a wireless phone. Such sites include Yahoo, Amazon, AOL (you can chk AOL mail too), Hotmail, Bloomberg, and more. I have successfully sent and recived e-mail with this phone on Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL. Text Paging - Your phone has an e-mail address where you can recive text pages. Any person with a standard e-mail client can e-mail your phone with 100 character message. If a friend wishes to take the time, he/she can go to the sprint web site and use the web client for sending PCS messages to a phone to write a message longer than 100 characters. Calander & More - Other features include a day by day programable calander with alarms, calculator, memo system where you can record quick voice memos, ~15 different rings that can be programed for different functions, and all the standard phone services such as Caller ID, Call Forwarding, and Voicemail. This phone is nothing short of awsome. If you are considering PCS service and you can get a good deal on the Samsung 8500 get it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 90491 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 aol buddies checking email long list of navigation small screen Full Review A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for the 6 months of free cell phone enabled internet service for my Samsung 8500 phone. By signing up for 6 months, Sprint waives the $10/month access fee for 6 months (I actually made sure to put a reminder in my Samsung 8500's phone's calendar to remind me on month 5 of the trial to cancel it if I don't want it anymore). So when you connect to the web from your phone, you are only using your minutes up. Taking advantage of the new plan Sprint offers, (500 peak minutes + 1500 (!) offpeak minutes TO ANYWHERE FROM ANYWHERE if you sign up for a year's plan), I feel that I can now try this internet feature especially if I utilize my offpeak minutes. I figure I have 1500 minutes...I might as well try this feature out. (I consider myself an active user of my cell phone and while I've had the new 1500 offpeak minutes for one month so far, I still had 600 minutes that I didn't use at the end of my last cycle...so I figured I have minutes to spare.) So far, I have used my phone to go onto the web to check email on my yahoo and hotmail accounts. I have also communicated with AOL IM buddies. Right now there are many great things you can do by connecting to the web using this phone: ------------------- 1) EXTENSIVE MENU OF PLACES YOU CAN GO/THINGS YOU CAN DO: -messaging -games -aol -amazon.com -yahoo -msn mobile -fidelity -my wireless web -@spring pcs -what's new -finance (related sites) -shopping (related sites) -travel (related sites) -entertainment (related sites) -news and weather (related sites) -tools and reference -people -sports -web portals -business -Go to... (you can type the site you want to go to and if it's web enabled, you will go to the site) So far I have visited the aol, yahoo and hotmail portals to check email and aol buddies. (as I experience more I will update this epinion). One good thing is that you can go onto the sprintpcs.com site and bookmark your favorite sites so that when you go onto the web, you can go to sprintpcs and visit your bookmarks so that you don't have to locate them/retype them whenever you want to go there. 2) CHECKING EMAIL So far I have found the following useful: -"yahoo": I have connected to my yahoo account to check email -"go to..." allows you to type in any web address. I have used this to type in "hotmail.com" to check email. While you can check email, it only displays a limited amount of characters. I have found that I was able to read some of my email, but not all. In addition, as you may suspect, this phone does not support any type of images or attachments that may be in your email. ...Perhaps in 5 years...? :) 3) BUDDIES ON AOL IM If you have an aol account, or AOL Instant Messenger, you can connect on this phone and see if any of your buddies are on. You can then proceed to type messages to them.0 4) TYPING WORDS A really cool feature to connecting to the web on this phone is that instead of pecking each specific letter out to form out a word, in the "Alpha" mode, you can type out a word using the appropriate number keys and the service will attempt to sort out the word for you. (for example, if you are trying to spell out the word "from", you would hit the #3 key three times to get the "F", then you would hit the #7 key three times to get the "r", then you would hit the #6 key three times to get the "o" and finally you would hit the #6 key once to get the "m". Now all you have to do is hit #3, #7, #6, and #6 and it will most likely recognize that combination as the word "from". I have been doing this for a while and for the most part it writes out the appropriate words. While I have just begun to use this service (and I will update this epinion as I do more), it is a bit clunky: -The navigation is basically one long list of places to go that you need to scroll through to get to. -There's a little lag time (not much) between going from screen to screen. -The other negative is that the screen is a web phone screen! ...so it's relatively small... but it's a new way of communicating on your web phone and allows you to access email and aol buddies. I definitely recommend trying this feature out as it is free for 6 months AND you can use some of you 1500 off peak minutes! Try it out and give it a shot! Please make sure to rate my epinion. Make sure to check out my other extensive epinion on the Samsung 8500 phone: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free for 6 months 90490 2000/6/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 call id voice command talk about durable clarity small not as many features as sanyo scp 4500 The Bottom LineRead my 'Verdict' Full Review I got a new plan with Sprint PCS, no more CellularOne, I finally said bye to my anctient Nokia. So, I decided to buy a Samsung SCH-8500. I heard plenty of good things about it. So, I bought it. To this day, I like the phone, but after using the Sanyo SCP-4500 for a day, I regret it. Well anyway, here's what I found with the Samsung SCH-8500: Price: It's a good phone for the price. You get the features that you need and want such as Caller ID, voice activated dialing, and wireless internet. Though, you can get many more features for the same price with the Sanyo SCP-4500. But, the Samsung SCH-8500 is a smaller phone. So, it depends whether you want a do-it-all phone, or one that is nearly indestructable, small, and has some features that most people will need. It's your decision. The Samsung SCH-8500 was worth the $199. Samsung makes high quality phones. Plans: The Samsung SCH-8500 is a cellular phone that is used with Sprint PCS. I find Sprint PCS to be an excellent plan. I use it now, and my parents also had it for a while. Some relatives and close friends also have Sprint PCS. They only have good things to say about it. Most likely, you won't be dissapointed with Sprint PCS. They have a great line-up of phones. The Samsung SCH-8500 is one of them, and so is the Sanyo SCP-4500 which is an incredibly popular phone, and the most highly rated one at epinions.com now. Durability: I give some abuse to my phones. I nearly murdered my old Nokia 5120. Well, I haven't been able to place many dents into the Samsung SCH-8500! I've dropped it a few times, and put it into my pocket with the car keys! I haven't been able to scratch it yet. The call quality has also not gone down ever since I've accidently been dropping this phone constantly. I'm quite clumsy with small objects :( Anyway, the Samsung SCH-8500 can go up against some serious abuse! Give it your worst, then make a call. It will be as good as ever! Quality: The Samsung SCH-8500 is a high quality phone. I have recieved very little static. That means that the internal components of the Samsung SCH-8500 should be good. Also, I've subjected it to constant abuse. It has yet to fail me, or to never fail me. This is a very high quality phone! Samsung is known for their high quality cellular phones, the Samsung SCH-8500 is no exception! Battery Life: The battery life on the Samsung SCH-8500 seems to be a bit weaker than the battery life on the Sanyo SCP-4500. It lasts me around a couple of hours of talk time, then I gotta recharge. Still, the battery life is much better than other phones that I have seen. It should be ample for you. If you really live based around your phone, you may want to look into Motorolla phones or Sanyo phones. They offered longer battery lives. Navigation: I found the Samsung SCH-8500 to have an easier to follow menu than that of the Sanyo SCP-4500. The menus on the Nokia cell phones can be a bit clumsy, but very easy to use. Samsung's menus are easy to use for most part. I had no problems with using the Samsung SCH-8500. The menu was easier to use than the menu of the Sanyo SCP-4500. Clarity: I decided to make some calls on my Samsung SCH-8500. I decided to start up in Chicago and follow the same path home and back that I took when I reviewed the Sanyo SCP-4500. Well, the Samsung SCH-8500 seemed to have a somewhat clearer signal overall than the Sanyo SCP-4500. It wasn't a very big deal though. But for all of you who are looking at the Samsung SCH-8500, the Samsung SCH-8500 has great clarity. Features: The Samsung SCH-8500 does have some nice features, but doesn't come close to the Sanyo SCP-4500 regarding the features. Here are some of the most important features: Caller ID - With Caller ID, you can screen all your calls and see who is calling. I love it very much. I don't know how I managed to live without it! You can always not answer to unwanted calls! Voice Dialing - This is a very cool feature demonstrating how lazy we all got. You can say someone's name, and then the Samsung SCH-8500 will dial it for you. A neat feature indeed. Wireless Internet - This is a neato feature. You can surf on some special pages. You can write e-mails through it or do your shopping on it. The Verdict: The Samsung SCH-8500 is a very neat phone indeed. It's very high quality. It however costs the same as the Sanyo SCP-4500, and doesn't nearly incorporate all the features that the Sanyo has. The Samsung SCH-8500 however has all of the features that you will need such as Caller ID, voice activated dialing, and wireless internet. It's also a virtually unbreakable phone, while the Sanyo SCP-4500 is much more delicate. If you're a heavy cell phone user who doesn't need alot of bells and whistles, then the Samsung SCH-8500 is a good choice. If you love features, then consider the Sanyo SCP-4500. The Samsung SCH-8500 indeed a good phone. It fits my lifestyle nicely. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90489 2000/1/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sprint holster good for carrying phone jabra earpiece w wire microphone good jabra plastic earpieces get lost easily body glove cell case doesn t clip onto belt very well Full Review Since I've had my Samsung 8500 cell phone (almost 9 months now), I have researched, purchased and now found the best accessories for it: the Sprint holster and the Jabra earpiece with bendable wire microphone. ----------------------------------------------- SPRINT HOLSTER and BODY GLOVE PHONE HOLDER REVIEW The Sprint Holster is by far the best accessory for carrying your Samsung 8500 on your belt. This holster snaps onto your belt and you simply insert your phone into the holster and it locks into the clip. I move around a lot and it doesn't slip off. When the phone rings, you just snap it out of the holster. Note that it doesn't simply slide out of the holster you have to snap it out. This holster costs $9.99 and it seems to be a hard item to get (Sprint was on backorder with it). However, try going to a local Sprint PCS store and they should have it or be able to order it for you. Before I had the holster, I was using a black cloth Body Glove cell phone holder which conveniently clips onto your belt. It was OK but one problem with this holder though is that sometimes it falls off the belt. Definitely get the holster..it's much better. ------------------------ JABRA EARPIECE REVIEW Regarding earpieces for this phone, I have not yet found an earpiece I LOVE. I did find one I like though... First, a few months ago, I purchased the JABRA EarSet (with the microphone included WITHIN THE EARPIECE) for Cellular, PCS & Mobile Phones ($40). With this headset, I lost about 4 of the original 6 ear gels that came with the kit. The ear gels don't stay on the ear piece! I fit them on and then the slightest move makes them fall off. I had spoken with some co-workers at my company and they too have had the same problem. I even BOUGHT more Jabra eargels and I even crazy-glued one onto the ear piece and it too finally came off and got lost. Additionally, many of the people I called had problems hearing me when I use the Earset. (they say my voice is muffled) Several months after I bought that earpiece, I finally found one I liked. Believe it or not, as of recent (12/1/00), I went back to the JABRA earpiece...but this time I purchased another one of their products in which there is a separate microphone by the earpiece that is on a wire that you can bend and direct towards your throat. It costs about $30, but it seems to be good and the people who I speak with can hear me! In terms of those annoying plastic neon colored pieces, I removed them and actually took a foam earphone cover I had from a previous walkman earbuds and placed it on the earpiece. It works great and it fits nicely in my ear. (you can probably purchase these foam covers at Radio Shack). The one functionality that this particular earpiece is missing is a button on the wire that allows you to automatically answer phone calls without having to press the "talk" button on the actual phone. Please make sure to rate my epinion! Here are some other epinions I have on the Samsung phone: -Best Phone For Sprint Service: -6 MONTHS FREE CELL PHONE INTERNET SERVICE: Give it a shot! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): varies 90488 2000/6/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 accessories voice dialing capability size battery life frequently dropped calls lack of good airtime log overheating The Bottom LineAlthough there are a couple of good features, inherent in the design of the SCH-8500 are flaws which affect the primary use of the phone...as a phone. Full Review The Samsung SCH-8500 arguably has one of the better form factors for personal cell phone use on-the-go. It's closed face design is good for those 'not-so-graceful' moments we may all have when the phone happens to inadvertantly jump out of our briefcases and on to the ground. The voice activated dialing system is a nice idea from the phone manufacturers for those who are on-the-go and a safer alternative (although using cell phones during vehicle operation is not recommended, and in many places illegal) for those that must maintain communications with parties while on the drive. By using a headset designed for use with the SCH-8500, at the press of a button on the headset, one may simply say the name of the person they have pre-programmed into their call list (this however may take some working, and perhaps some creativity to avoid dialing the wrong person, as voice matching software is a developing area). What I think would make the phone more useful is a more pro-active voice operated system which would interpret numbers by voice in order to dial those who are not in the call list. An accessory designed for this phone (packaged by SprintPCS), a neoprene case ($19.95) with belt clip, is an even more effective way to protect those scurrying little phones. However, access to the phone with this case can be quite unwieldy as accessing the phone requires several motions simply to answer a call, perhaps resulting in missed calls. In addition, this case provides no access to the headphone jack on the side of the phone for hands-free use. The only case which provides this access, and allows for simple opening/answering of an incoming call is entirely inadequate for protection of the phone -- such a design can be improved upon, both protecting the phone and allowing for easy access. Other accessories (chargers, hands free kits, AC adapters, etc.) for this phone are plentiful and reasonably useful. The battery life of the product (2-2.5hrs standard) is in rather short supply, mostly wasted in an inordinate amount of heat given off by the phone. The phone tested never reached the advertised 2 hr talk time on the standard battery. In addition, the phone was prone to dropping signal more often on this battery, the cause of which is not understood. There is an extended-life battery ($59.95) that is advertised to support 5 hours of active talk-time. Although in testing this product, reaching roughly half of the advertised battery life, it was far less frequent to experience dropped calls. Dropped calls, as mentioned above, were frequent, and annoying. And when comparing the tested phone with the same phone purchased by 4 other users, on different cellular/digital providers, the reports were the same. This phone simply has a penchant for losing signal, perhaps through overheating or some other unknown problem. While for a casual user, dropped calls may be, at least, a nuisance. For a business user, there could be much more profound results. And for the $200 price tag, there are other makes/models that would perform the job much more adequately. This phone does have calendar and To-Do reminder support as well as World Wide Web connectivity. But considering the price of using the service, I could certainly wait to read my email when I get to the home/office. The phone could also use an airtime log spent inside/outside a programmable peak/off-peak limit. This would help with keeping up with minutes..as the providers themselves often have trouble keeping their records updated (ever ask an agent for your true balance or overrage? compared that to an online balance or airtime tracker or maybe another billing agent -- I've seen as many as 5 different balances -- and it can be frustrating and confusing). Bottom Line: Redesign the case, nix the fluff, add a good, detailed airtime log, improve signal handling, improve power handling and battery life -- ditch this phone :) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 90487 2000/10/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great clarity small no data sync Full Review It is funny really. People see me talking on this phone and immediately assume that I am talking on a Startac. Oh contraire! The 8500 is Samsung's answer to the Startac. Flip phones are getting more and more popular because of their small size and ease of use. But is in fact the Samsung 8500 better than the Startac? Is it worth the extra cost that you would pay instead of getting a cheap Nokia? Flip phones in general are neat. I try not to use that word too often (yes it makes me sound even more like a dork) but the term really applies. Who doesn't want to flip open their phone to be able to talk to someone? Like Kirk you feel like a chick magnet…ready to seduce all alien women with a simple gesture. I personally feel that the flip phone is worth the extra price. The small size is obviously the main reason. I can fit the 8500 in my pocket with no problem (and with carpenter pants it is even easier, just use the leg pocket). Not only that, the screen and keys themselves are protected from any kind of damage. So now that we have established that the flip phone is the way to go…what does the Samsung 8500 have to offer to the game? Aesthetics: The Look This is what first attracted me to the Samsung 8500. I personally think the 8500 looks very sharp. There are two styles: black and gray. I actually own the gray (to be honest, I don't know that I have ever seen the black and it may not be available anymore). The screen is very sharp and easy to look at. With the backlit screen (you can choose how long the screen will remain lit to conserve battery life) you will have no problem seeing anything on the phone. The keys themselves light up as well. My only minor gripe is that sometimes the keys themselves are somewhat hard to find without looking at the phone (they are not raised very high off the face of the phone). Durability: Can it take a drop kick? I have now had the phone for about 4 months now and the phone still looks like new. I use this phone for both business and pleasure so it takes both the travel well (cramped laptop cases) as well as long nights at the bars. The façade of the phone amazingly has no scratches on it. The keys still have their "click" and all work well. And astonishingly enough the antenna is still attached to the phone! Functionality: Does it have the features I need? Ok, this is what really matters right? Will this phone be able to do all that I need it to? The short answer is yes, this phone will do everything you need it to. The phone itself will store 99 different names with 6 phone numbers per person. This is a GREAT feature that all phones should offer. Most of my friends and business associates have so many numbers I have trouble-keeping track. With this phone I can keep mobile, home, work, pager, fax, and miscellaneous all for one person! Not only that, you also have the ability to have 10 talk dial numbers stored! Basically you can flip open the phone (and you can configure this different ways) and say the person's name and it will dial for you. The 8500 is also wireless web compatible. Menus are as easy to navigate as any other phone and I find have no problems entering text. There is also a memo feature of this phone. You simply press the button on the side of the phone and talk and it records it for you. However, this feature could use some improvement. Currently you can only store 5 different 60-second voice memos and you can't append existing memos. If instead you could just record 300 seconds worth of memos it would be much better. So functionality-wise does this phone have any weaknesses? Unfortunately the answer is yes, the phone does have some weaknesses. First of all you can't sync the phone with either your computer or a PDA. With all of the phone numbers I have in my phone this would be nice for backup purposes. Also the Samsung has limited PIM capability. The PIM features would be greatly improved if syncing were supported. As it is the PIM is hard to use a lot of text to type is never easy. Besides, I am not going to enter in my PIM data in two different spots. Lastly, I would really like a speakerphone as some of the new phones offer! Overall: Should you but it? Yes, you definitely should buy the 8500. With all of the features it has I consider it a great asset for both personal and work applications. Battery life has never been a problem (it has gone three full days without a need for recharge) and sound quality is superb. Heap on the fact that this is a Sprint phone (IMHO a very reliable phone provider, and the best in D.C.) and it is a win-win for everyone. Of all of the phones out there this is one of the best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 90486 2000/11/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small light solid construction annoying rings sprint service ugly Full Review I interned for the Samsung Telecom department when I was in college for one summer in Korea, so I know that Samsung makes great phones. However, I was always partial to Nokia and Motorola when it came to my own personal use. I cancelled my AT&T service the other day because they were too expensive, and shopped around for a phone. My husband and I walked into the Sprint PCS store and were going to purchase Star-Tacs when our eyes landed on this phone. It is better constructed than the Star-Tac---it's not made of the flimsy light plastic that tends to break so much. I've had flip phones in the past where the cover broke off because it wasn't constructed well. I don't think I'll have this problem with the Samsung phone because the construction is so solid. The cover also closes with a nice, decisive snap, which I like. The aesthetics of this phone are nothing compared to the 3500 model, which my sister owns. I think the 3500 is a much more attractive phone, because the 8500 is a true no-frills design. The only great thing about the design is that it is so compact. Of course, this phone also has the oh-so-convenient voice dial. Nothing else can compare to this option. I went to another cell phone company yesterday and they were going to charge me $3 extra per month for the same option. With Samsung, it's free. The phone is also feather light and smaller than the Star-Tac. Although I have yet to see a nice carrying case for this phone, I'm sure they'll think of something eventually. One feature I really don't like about the phone is the choice of annoying rings. They have many many different options, but "Fur Elise" and "Ode to Joy" are not tunes that I want to hear coming out of my purse. Why can't cell phone manufacturers come up with something more soothing? Samsung's ring options are extremely high pitched and grating on the nerves. But besides that, I love this phone. It's small, light and has a great backlight. Although I don't have service for Sprint PCS for about a mile outside my house, after that, the signal is fine. If you are looking for an alternative to the Star-Tac, which EVERYONE owns, get this phone because you won't be disappointed. ======= I just looked at a British fashion mag and saw the Motorola "V" phone, which is NOT AVAILABLE IN THE US! It looks JUST LIKE the Samsung but doesn't have the voice dialing. The Samsung also holds a lot more phone numbers in its memory. Just some more reasons why the Samsung is better than the Motorola~ Update 4/17/00 Well, I've had the phone for several weeks now and so far no problems! The battery life isn't wonderful, but it lasts for a full day before I have to recharge it, which isn't a big deal. I leave my phone off a lot, so I've only had to charge it once a week. My husband leaves his on all the time, and he charges about twice a week. The phone is very clear--much clearer than the Nokia phones I've owned in the past. However, I still have to yell sometimes if I'm roaming. It's pretty sturdy because it bangs around in my purse all day with no carrying case and there's not a single scratch to be seen. Please note that I've changed my durability rating from a 4 to a 5! The Motorola "V" series just started marketing in the States, but the phone with the similar look to the Samsung retails for $300-$400, which is twice the price of the Samsung!! That's insane! Granted, it has a holographic display, but it still doesn't have voice recognition and for the number of features it has, I would pick the Samsung over the Motorola any day. I think that I definitely got my money's worth with this phone... I actually had a phone call from someone a few states away who was looking to buy a new phone because of this review, and I hope that this update helps you make an even more informed buying decision. ============= Update 9/15/00 It's now been 6 months since I've had this phone, and I'm still very happy with it. The one big minus right now is the fact that Sprint PCS has no coverage in for a half mile radius around my house, so I can't receive calls at home. But besides that, the phone has held up EXTREMELY well. I finally got a leather carrying case to protect it but took it off because it made the phone bulky. I hear that the leather cases are good for protecting your head from the radiation, but I don't think it really matters. My phone still looks as good as the first day I bought it. Because the phone uses a much better grade of plastic, it is very difficult to scratch. Unlike the more popular silver 3500 model, this phone does not get absurdly hot during long conversations. But this phone still doesn't look as feminine as the 3500. I've also found that the battery life is getting shorter as the months go by. This has been easily remedied by bringing an extra charger to work and letting it charge on my desk all day. Six months later, and I love my phone as much as the first day I bought it. I still think that it kicks Star-Tac butt anyday! ====== Update 10/6/00 I dropped it on the sidewalk by accident. It bounced four times. The phone still looks new. I can't believe it. The cover is still fine and not loose at all. Talk about good construction. ========== Update 11/6 I've been using the wireless web feature. It's actually pretty convenient if you're unable to access your email from where you are---at least I can check my Yahoo! email and now that I have Instant Messenger on the phone, it's great when I'm at a conference or some place where it's inconvenient to call. It's relatively slow, but as a expensive alternative, it's ok. However, it's a huge pain to type anything using the phone keys, so I wouldn't recommend using it unless you are in a real bind and have no other choice. The games are terrible and a waste of precious minutes. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 90485 2001/1/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable construction means i won t be breaking this one so many features that it s a bit confusing The Bottom LineWould recommend this to anyone looking for a phone to keep for a while. I like the phone more than I like the Sprint PCS service, but that's another epinion... Full Review I didn't want to do it. I had resisted for the longest time; committing to a cell phone was more relationship with electronics than I wanted to have in my life. I was happy, I was free, I was unreachable when I wanted to be unreachable. Unfortunately, the day came when the inevitable happened: I was out of the office and my boss needed to speak to me immediately. He took care of the emergency; however, when I returned to the office that day, he pulled me aside and said, "The time has come." I looked at him and knew that my cell-less days were over. All of my colleagues have cell phones; talking with them made it easy in trying to figure out which one to buy. After hearing their recommendations, I had decided on the Samsung SCH-8500. It had all the features I wanted, not too much of the stuff I didn't care about, and it looked hot. My decision was sealed a few days later when I received an email from our office manager; Sprint PCS was making an offer for both a discounted phone and service to my company, and the Samsung SCH-8500 was one of the phones included in the offer. Rock! I paid $60 for the phone, which currently lists at $199. Not bad. CONSTRUCTION The 8500 is totally stylin! It's small enough to fit in my coat pocket easily, yet doesn't get lost in my bag when I stow it in there. It's light (approximately 4 oz) but it has enough heft to feel comfortable in your hand when using it. The keypad buttons are of a reasonable size and I find them very easy to work with. Samsung has designed a phone that I would bet will long outlast many other equally stylish phones on the market. After 4 months of hard use, there are only two minor scratches on the brushed silver front casing, and none on the back. I don't own a carrying case for this phone, and luckily, don't feel the need to get one, thanks to this design. Another great design feature is the flip hinge. This piece is designed so that the holders of the hinge, on the outside, are part of the body of the phone, while the inside part is longer than most I have seen, and is completely contained. This translates to mega-durability because these pieces cannot crack, which would render the phone useless. I don't worry when I flip this phone open. FEATURES This phone has lots of features to play with! The total group of features is detailed on their website at http://www.samsungmobile.com/mobile/products/cdma/sch8500/features.html. The phone book is great, and is the feature I use the most. Included in the phone book are 250 autodial slots and 20 voice dial slots (just say the person's name to call them.) The voice dial feature is very cool but I have found it somewhat difficult to use, depending on where I am and the level of noise around me. One thing that could be improved: the phone's clock is synched up with the service network, meaning that i cannot use it to tell the time if I am in the subway or somewhere else that the phone cannot receive service. This can be mildly annoying when waiting for a train, but becomes greatly annoying when I am late for an appointment or otherwise pressed for time. However, the alarm is LOUD and has now replaced my travel alarm clock when I am on business trips. I really like the voice memo feature, and use it constantly. Particularly wonderful is that I don't have to be in the Sprint service area to use voice memo, and that you have 10 minutes of recording time, which is plenty. The voice mail is cool except it takes too long to get to the messages through Sprint PCS network. Since you are paying by the minute when you access voice mail, you should just go right to your messages and not have to listen to the same welcome message that comes on each time. Using the PIM is tough because of the way you type with it, by cycling through letters on the phonepad. This can take some time, but how else would you do it? Voice recognition will be the next step in dealing with this issue; unfortunately, the 8500 isn't set up for it just yet. I have yet to try the wireless web feature; it's too expensive, and what's the point? I'd rather go online using my laptop and get the full web experience. Additionally, my service provider (Sprint PCS) charges extra for the wireless web access, and I am reluctant to give any more cash up to them than I already do. I truly love the ability to switch through ringer settings quickly from the outside of the phone, so I don't have to turn the phone on to shut the ringer down. This makes life very easy when you're in a movie theatre and remember JUST as the previews end that you forgot to turn the ringer off. USING IT The sound quality is generally very good on this phone. I've only had a few instances where I had any type of echo or ghosting on it, and when that does occur, it didn't last for the entire call, so it was bearable. On the whole, it's pretty decent reception. The menu displays are designed well; they are intuitive and easy to use. The backlight display makes it easy to use this phone regardless of the light conditions around you. Battery life is reasonable: I charge mine overnight every day, and leave it in the charger when not using it at home. I have only run out of juice once, and that without having charged it the day before, which isn't too bad, but I'd like a longer life battery, anyway. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90484 2002/7/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 withstands weartear lets you go online durable i want spiffy ringtones The Bottom LineBuy it if you want a nifty phone that lets you do all sorts of fun things instead of paying attention in class. Don't if you need cool ringtones. Full Review Well, actually it's my pet. My computer is my baby. I got my Sprint PCS Samsung SCH-8500 at Circuit City on a whim. I'd never had a cell phone before, and I decided I needed one right at that moment. I took it home and immediately began playing with my new toy. It was fairly easy to set up (which is really more of a reflection on my provider), and I only had to consult my manual a couple times. Some of the features I use most often: ~~~ Wireless Internet This alone is worth spending the money on this phone. It gives you access to Yahoo, CNN, Google, AOL Instant Messenger, and even lets you chat in little wireless "chat rooms." All the addictive, time-killing bliss of the Internet, packed into one little phone! Yay! It's also fairly easy to type; it comes installed with a little program that guesses what you're trying to type, so most of the time you don't have to peck out 7-4-4-6-6-6-#-6-6-3-3 just to spell the word "phone." Now you just have to type five letters. The only downside is that sometimes the words overlap and you'll get a totally different word. It's easy to circumvent this, though, by typing another word that begins with the same one. If I try to type "bus," it comes out, "cup," but I can write "buses" and delete the last two letters. It sounds complicated, but hell, so was Epinions when you first joined, right? It becomes second nature. Seriously. AOL Instant Messenger is nifty because it works with the phone's text messaging feature -- which means you can close your phone, and when the person writes back, the phone will beep as though you'd received a page or a text message. Cool, eh? Calendar I love that this phone lets you set up a little appointment book. It also has an alarm clock with a cheery ring annoyingly chipper enough even to drag you out of bed in the morning. My only complaint is that there's no vibrate alarm; if your phone is on vibrate, the alarm will just be silent. Phone Directory The phone stores up to... 200 names, I think. You can store multiple phone numbers for each name, though only one can be set as the official speed-dial number. You can also "prepend" numbers, so if you generally have to choose from a phone menu, you can set it to automatically press the extra numbers. The little flashing light I absolutely adore this. When the phone rings, when you get a page or a text message, and when the alarm goes off, a little red light flashes on the outside of the phone. This is extremely helpful if you're like me and tend to lose your phone in the bottom of your purse/backpack/bedroom. Sure, hearing it helps, but it's wonderful to look into a dark backpack and say, "THERE IT IS!" I've saved myself from missing so many calls this way. Data In If you've got a Palm Pilot, you can actually buy an extension that plugs into the bottom of this phone and lets you use it as a phone jack to connect your Palm to the Internet. This is WAY spiffly, especially if you're like, in airports or something like that, where you have long periods of time to kill. Lock Pretty basic; you can set a code so that you have to input a PIN when you turn on the phone. Calculator I like that my phone has a calculator, but I don't like that you can only do one calculation at a time. If I add two numbers and get a result, and then I want to add a third number, I have to retype the sum. Example. I want to add 3+3+5. I have to do the 3+3 first, get my sum of 6, and then re-enter 6+5. It gets to be a hassle, so I don't use the calculator often. Shortcuts You can use the arrows on the keypad to cut to different features on the phone. The left arrow puts you in the calendar menu, while the right arrow gets you online. The up arrow gives you your phone directory in speed-dial-number order, and the down arrow gives you the directory in alphabetical order. The phone can be really LOUD at times, but there's a volume control on the side. There's also a button you can use to record short voice-memos, but I don't use this often. The phone has no games. :-( On the bright side, if you've got lots and lots of night and weekend minutes, you can play all sorts of games online. Yay! Also... buy an extra battery. Seriously. There's no way this baby's lasting you all day with only one battery, unless it's off most of the time. However, two batteries should be sufficient to get you from morning to night without recharging. The battery charger has two slots, and you can stick the entire phone into the top one, since the battery goes on the back. Charge 'em overnight, and you're all set. One more downside to this phone is that you can't have it burst out in "Toreador" or something in the middle of class. This is actually rather nice... but I wish I could program Sarah McLachlan songs into my phone like my friends do with their Nokias... then again, their Nokias can't log them onto AIM. *grin* Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160something 90483 2000/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use solid build lightweight small size potential for antenna problems The Bottom LineA no-frills mobile phone which is built upon already proven functionality offered at the standard pricing. Full Review Korea's Samsung has produced in the SCH-8500 a no-frills mobile phone unit with straight forward functionality and relative ease of use. Things which are a plus for business-minded mobile phone consumers. Although mobile phone technology has evolved since the introduction of the SCH-8500 encompassing all kinds of frills in the form or graphics, games, personal calendaring, lots of colorful snap on covers etc. the simplicity of the SCH-8500 still holds it's own for those who seek a mobile phone which is to be used primarily for making and receiving calls. Physical Characteristics The SCH-8500's physical appearance is roughly based on the flip phone styling of the Motorola StarTAC with some improvements such as a single button menu key and an LCD capable of 5 lines of text, 124x68 graphics, and a status bar full of icons allowing a single glance to reveal the status of many of the phones settings and easy manipulation of menu options. The size of this unit is an asset as it can be slipped into a shirt or jacket pocket (or clipped onto the belt in it's holder) with minimal inconvenience. Construction appears solid although one might run into problems with breakage of the protruding antenna (see my StarTAC reviews). Functionally and Battery Life This is a dual band/dual mode phone meaning that it can switch between Digital (CDMA 1900mhz) and Analog (AMPS 900mhz) depending on signal availability. Battery times for the standard Lithium Ion battery are 3 hours talk time and up to 150 hours standby time in digital mode (in analog mode is considerable less) and 5 hours talk time and up to 9 days standby for a single charge with the extended battery pack in digital mode. General Features Basic features include flip answer, choice of 13 different rings or silent mode with vibrate, any-key answer, multi-language support, customizable banner, headphone or earphone support, and various keypad options such as backlight on or off or changing the delay time for the backlight etc. Advanced features include voice activated dialing for up to 20 locations (in digital mode only), voice memo which actually allows you to record a phone conversation up to 5 minutes long, voice and text message service, and security authentication. Memory Storage The Samsung SCH-8500's internal phone book will hold 229 alphanumeric entries. 9 entries can be set up for 1-touch dialing, 90 entries for 2-touch and the remaining 130 are accessible with three touches of the keypad. Call list for the last 10 incoming, outgoing or missed calls. Other Other capabilities which depend on network availability are wireless internet, e-mail, fax and messaging. All things considered this isn't the most cutting edge mobile phone unit on the market and it's not currently the best priced either, but it is built upon already proven functionality and bypasses regular bunch of frills usually targeted at the average consumer and maintains the reasonable functionality inherent in targeting the business minded consumer. So for reliability and ease of use this phone achieves what a mobile phone should without a lot of wasted extras which only increase the chances of something breaking. A recommended purchase for business or consumer use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90482 2000/11/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very easy to use wireless web convenient size sprint service snafus Full Review Type of Cell Phone User I Am - I'm on a 500 minutes a month plan. - I use my phone primarily for social, rather than business reasons. - The Samsung SCH-8500 is my first cell phone. - I did TONS of research before buying this phone (on Epinions!) Here's what you should know before you get a cell phone, and specifically, the Samsung SCH-8500: Know What's Most Important to You There are a bunch of different reasons to get one cell phone over another. Take a look at the list below and ask yourself what your top 3 priorities are: -- Size of Phone -- Battery Life -- Reception -- Associated cell phone service -- Features -- Wireless Web -- Dialing Convenience -- User Friendliness -- Price The factors that weighed most heavily in my purchase of this phone were: -- Size of phone - small enough to fit in your pocket, but not too small that you can't dial easily -- Wireless web - it's not Star Trek yet, but it is powerful and easy to use -- User friendliness - big, bright screen, GREAT menus, VERY user friendly. Here's the lowdown on all of the factors: Size of Phone Small enough to fit in your pocket, but not too small that you can't dial easily. There are smaller phones on the market but this phone was designed well and it's size does not impact its dialing usability. I love that I can just drop in my jeans pocket and not worry about it. Battery Life Good but not great. Heavy users will have to recharge almost daily or every other day. Infrequent users, like me, will recharge about twice or three times a week. Reception The Samsung SCH-8500 is sold with the Sprint PCS service. The reception is clear, although some claim that AT&T's service is clearer. Associated Cell Phone Service Don't fool yourself -- Sprint is not the most reliable service on the market (AT&T is.) However, the price is right with Sprint and the service has been there for me when I needed it, which is all I ask for. Occasionally you get a dropped call, but you learn where the trouble spots are and deal. If you are a business that needs 24/7 service, Sprint may not be your option. If you are a social butterfly that needs to get in touch with your friends after dinner, don't worry... Sprint will take care of you just fine. Features This phone has plenty of them. From voice recognition dialing, to voice memos, to built in calendar, to a calculator, to a built in vibrating ring option, this phone is packed with features. The best are the voice dialing option (20 voice dial numbers can be stored... convenient when driving!), the voice memos (convenient as well when driving!), and the built-in vibrate ring. Other phones require you to buy a separate vibrating battery. It's fantastic when it's built in, so you can take your phone to the movies and not worry about disturbing people around you when it rings. Wireless Web It's got it, and it's great. There are a lot of critics out there of the state of wireless web. Here are some reasons why I'm a fan: 1) I will never look in the paper for movie showtimes again. Wireless Web makes going to the movies on the spur of the moment a convenient reality. 2) I forgot an address of a restaurant I was driving to and used the wireless web to get its address in 2 minutes. 3) It's fantastic for up to the minute information (e.g., sports scores, stock prices, presidential election information :) 4) It's great for checking email or just browsing when you're bored at an airport, carwash or anywhere else. For entering words or addresses, you do have to push each button a number of times to get the letter/number you want to show up. I'm pleasantly surprised to say that this multiple-punch dialing does not bother me at all, and I seriously thought it would. You get used to it quickly and it's easy to use. Dialing Convenience Very convenient. The buttons are a good size, and even if a woman has longer nails, the rubbery buttons are easily punched. AND, the backlighting is very good making dialing in the dark easy. User Friendliness New to the world of cell phones, I didn't want to take 5 weeks to figure out my phone. I mastered this phone in a couple hours. It's just easy. Big, bright screen. GREAT menus. And very easy to adjust the volume naturally with the hand holding the phone. Also, it's extremely easy to pull up phone numbers alphabetically or by entry number. VERY user friendly. This is one of the best reasons to get this phone. Compared to the Motorola StarTAC, this phone is FAR more intuitive. Price $199. Not so cheap. However there are rebates offered by Sprint all the time, and with these mine came down to ~$149. The good news is that you get what you pay for. This phone is worth the extra cost. Buyer Beware... 1) The voice memo features -- and voice dialing, etc -- only work in digital service, not analog service areas. This means if you record a voice memo about a street address in the city and drive out into a rural area and want to play that memo... you can't. Hasn't been a problem for me ever, but it's good to know before you buy. 2) Sprint's service is infamous for the no-ring-I-have-a-message? routine. Occasionally, you will find that your callers will be sent directly into your voicemail, which would be frustrating if it happened all the time but it doesn't. Minor annoyance. 3) The minutes-left countdown clock feature needs to be reset each month manually by you. Fortunately, Sprint has a free number you can call to find out how many minutes you have left, so it's not that big of a deal. REASONS TO GET THIS PHONE Convenient in size and function, extremely easy to use, and wireless web capabilities. Every person I've talked to that has this phone -- and there are a LOT of us out there -- is happy with it. I honestly don't know of anyone that doesn't like the phone. REASONS TO AVOID THIS PHONE You don't like the thought of having Sprint's service. It's good, but it's not great. If you MUST have the clearest calls around and the reassurance of call reliability all the time, try AT&T. You'll pay more, but you'll be paying for that reassurance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (after rebates) 90481 2000/4/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features size can be a little too small sometimes Full Review It reminds me a tri-corder. Those of you who watch Star Trek know what I mean. My husband does and therefore I know. This phone is totally awesome. Recently, I had an emergency in an area where I wasn't in range on my single band Qualcomm 1920 and swore I was getting a dual band phone. My husband insisted that we get new phones - ones that would last us awhile. We just got the other phones last year. So, at lunch yesterday, he asked if I was going to go get my phone. That was all I needed! Within an hour, I had purchased the Samsung 8500. Don't look for it at Radio Shack: those guys think it is still only a picture on the internet. Haha. Go to a Sprint Store. This Phone is terrific. It comes with a dual-slot desktop charger, a standard lithium ion battery ( I plan on upgrading this soon), a hand strap and a limited warranty. OH yeah and the user guide and terms of service. Yada yada yada. Now on to the good stuff. This phone weighs 4.8 ounces. I just weighed it. It folds down and is about the size of a beeper. The standard battery that comes with it provides 3 hours continuous talk tim or up to 120 hours standby on digital network. On analog, it is 50 minutes continuous, and 15 hours standby. I programmed mine so that when I open the phone, it says "who would you like to call" . You simply say the name of who you want to call and it dials the number for you. No more looking for buttons to push while driving down the road. (This is a very serious subject right now and soon driving and talking will be illegal without the use of hands free kit.) You can record up to four one minute messages or reminders. The phone book in it can hold 229 names with up to SIX different phone numbers per name! That is a total of 1,374 numbers in memory! Plus, I don't think that the voice dial numbers count either. You can put a name and number in voice dial and it doesn't have to be in the phone book. You can store up to 20 names in voice dial. Therefore, you can tecnically have up to 1,394 numbers...not that I will ever have that many but it is nice to know the option is there if I ever want to sit down with a phone book... LOL It even has a personal information manager. It has a built in calendar to record appointments and to do lists. It also has an alarm clock, a world clock, a countdown feature and a calculator. WOW!!! I was going to buy a hand held PIM but this has about all I needed for right now. Did I mention that it is INTERNET READY??? Now I can check my flights from the road instead of calling before I leave and hoping in an hour the status doesn't change. You can check stocks, anything. You can also receive and send email and faxes. Talk about the lap of luxury. Email on the road. I can't wait. This phone has been very easy to learn to use and have had it only one day. The only downside to it is that it is so small that it doesn't fit between your ear and shoulder too easily when your hands are full. But the size makes it great to fit in your pocket or purse. Plus the ear piece closes as a cover so it keeps it cleaner and acts as a keypad guard. You can also program it with a security code so no one else can use your phone. It is has very clear reception. We use Sprint with our phones and no one can ever tell we are on a cell phone. Their great service with the combination of great digital phones manufactured by various companies are wonderful. I love the new features this phone offers. Plus being dual band - if I break down where there is no PCS service, I am still covered. That is a relief. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 90480 2000/6/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception size size voice dial is not what i had hoped Full Review Summary: Good phone, rugged, good reception, voice dial feature is not really good unless you are in a quiet environment. PIM is to hard to use. Receives both digital and analog. Currently very popular and hard to find. A very good choice [Last updated 6/10/2000]. I am about to start traveling. A lot. It was time for a cell phone. Before purchasing anything, I generally do a lot of research. This purchase was no exception. I started out with service providers and came up with Sprint PCS. They get high marks for customer service (the rating I saw had them listed at number 2) and have generally good coverage. ATT has better coverage, but they have over subscribed some markets (see: ) NYC, in particular, and use a slightly worse technology. I believe it is TDMA. I don't think any other major carrier uses this technology. In contrast, Sprint, and most other carriers, use CDMA. The upshot is that if you use AT&T, your phone can not be used on any other network. If I don't like Sprint, this phone will let me change pretty easily. I really don't like having things bouncing around in my pockets. In terms of picking a phone, I wanted small and lightweight. Initally. Web access was not important to me (I was wrong, I really like it). Other than that, the most important thing was reception. Sprint is currently running a deal where web access is free for 6 months and they give you 50 bucks credit on the phone. The StarTacs were in the choice set, but have gotten generally mixed reviews. In addition, they were kind of expensive. Here is the URL to one of the other SCH-8500 reviews that makes the comparison more explicitly (see: ). Sprint is charging around 250 bucks for a Startac. On the upside, the Startac Timeport will interface with Outlook. On the downside, reviews say that is difficult to use the synch software. People on epinions also complain that they break easily. I was poking around at Point.com and found another small phone, the SCH-8500. BTW, if you are seriously looking for a cell phone, go check out Point.com. They have a lot of data. Some of it is not quite up-to-date, but it is a good site to get a feel for what is out there. Onto the Phone. The phone is small. I mean really small. And light. It is probably not the lightest phone on the market, but much lighter and it would blow away. It is just under 4 ozs. It fits in my pocket without any problems and does not bother me. The downside of the small size is that the keys are tiny. I have a little bit of a hard time dialing. My fingers are not particularly big, either. If you have big fingers, this is not the phone for you. The battery is not great. If you can find it, I would buy the extended life battery. I recharge the phone whenever I walk into the house. The charger is good and fast. I have never run the phone all the way down, but it charges from 1/3 to full in about an hour and a half. [update: this was the first day I forgot to charge the phone and it ran out of juice at noon. I probably spent 30 minutes on the phone the day before and have been using the PIM a lot. Second update: The battery life does seem to get better as I use the phone. I can basicly go 2 days without charging] The reception is generally good. I have some problems when it rains. Durham does not have the best coverage, but the phone works noticeably better when the weather is clear. If you are in Seattle, this is not the phone for you. In addition, the phone will not always find the PCS service, even when available. It tends to stay in Analog mode unless I turn it off and on again. I have done this three or four times and gotten a solid digital connection every time. I don't quite get it, but it has not been a major hardship [update: I spoke with Sprint and they tell me I need a "prefered roaming update". This means I have to go to the local Sprint store and have them revise my roaming software. I should get to it this weekend. I'll revise this sections once I know how it works.] In terms of usability, the phone is good. I have only had to break open the manual once. The calculator was a little hard to use. The worst part was getting the service set up and that took only 10 minutes. Not the phones fault. The phone has a PIM that is fairly good, but really basic. About the only thing it will do is remind you of appointments. I wish it would synch to Outlook, but it does not. In order to enter text, you have to push the keys multiple times to cycle through the letters. This method is cumbersome, but I think we are stuck with it until voice recognition gets better. I have been using the PIM pretty actively. It seems to drain the battery. Even still, it has been useful. The mini-browser is about what you would expect. The only site I go to is Yahoo. Not great, but usable in a pinch. I suspect I am really going to like this feature when I start traveling. I have checked my email through Yahoo and it worked fine. If you are a tech savvy exec, you are probably going to want a web enabled phone in the near future. This is as good a choice. I would suggest going to Yahoo and signing up for My Yahoo!. The site is already part of the phone's menu system and they work pretty well together. Now the voice recognition. For me, this was a disappointment. It has not work well in noisy areas. I have found that I tend to use the call log and my speed dial setting much more than the voice dial. If you want to install the phone in a car (there is a hands free, car kit), then this feature might be useful. The phone has a number of ringer options including multiple rings, beep once, and vibrate. I also like the fact that the volume, beep, and vibrate can be controlled by two buttons on the outside of the phone. I do like the ability to toggle between ringers quickly. Last feature that I want to mention is the voice recorder. You can store 4 minutes of speech. Good when you meet someone and want to record their email address. All in all, I am happy with the phone and would not have made another choice. I will post updates as I use it. Here is the link to the manufacturers page. http://samsungelectronics.com/mobile/products/cdma/sch8500/features.html Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (on special) 90479 2000/10/27 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice feature light price Full Review Im a fan of cell phones and I think that the way technology is going these days hardly anyone will be without one in the future. The benefits of having a cell phone can range from emergencies and just for convenience. Just about any one of any age can benefit from owning one. If your in the market for one, the Samsung SCH-8500 offers a user a lot of benefits. Features The phone is light and flips so that it can be easily carried around. The menu displays are simple to get the hang of. If you have ever used a cell phone before you can figure out how to navigate a menu rather easily. I really like the voice memo and voice dialing feature. The voice dialing works well. The voice mail is really convenient for a person who can't answer the phone for what ever reason at the time. You can go back and check your message that you may have received when you was unable to make it to the phone. It's like having a built in answering machine, which is a really nice feature on this cell phone. The miniBrower allows you Internet access. Its amazing how technology is going these days and I see in the future that the cell phones are only going to perfect this type of technology to do even more. The multiphone book is also a great feature. You can store a number oh phone numbers in which you can look up at any time using this phone. This really comes in handy considering the fact that if your not home and need a number of a friends you can simply look it up on the phone once you have it stored. This is very convenient. The personal information management feature has a calender and can be used as a planner. In Conclusion This is a quality cell phone with some nice features to it. It is light in weight and does fit well in your pocket. The features are easy to use and the menu display is easy to read. The clarity of this phone is wonderful and works just as well if not better then any other phones i have used to date. With the way technology is going today these phones keep improving I would recommend looking at the price and the features of a cell phone before you go out in the market to buy one. This phone is a nice phone and I would recommend it but I would also check and see if you can find a phone that is even more advanced for the price before you decide to do so. Recommended: Yes 90478 2000/10/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial ease of use portability looks ring tones Full Review I have been living on and off in Florida for some time now and have noticed that many people here have cell phones. At first I thought it was some kind of status thing and that they were really not all that important as far as daily usage is concerned. I have found though that with the start of my new internet business that I am often needing to take or receive calls while I am on the go. Therefore, I sucked in my pride and decided to get one recently. I received a quality price on this phone from Samsung and a good calling plan so therefore I purchased the device and thus far I have not been disappointed. The phone has many great features. The first of which is the fact that it is very light and has great portability. It will easily fit into the users pocket and there have been no personal problems with bringing it along on almost any occasion. Furthermore, this phone has a great new feature which I have found to be very impressive and usable. This feature is called voice dial. It allows the user to speak a persons name into the phone and immediately call them through this. The phone is set up so that it recognizes the users voice and will call the number of the person spoken. Of course this needs to be set up; however, the time to do thid after reading the instruction manual is only about a minute. The battery life of the phone is around a day which I have found to be comparable to many other similar models. I usually charge it twice to three times a week. Furthermore, customer service with Samsung has always been a breeze as their representatives are always eager to help. Most importantly, I have found that the connection is usually uninterrupted and static-free. Really the only things that I dislike about the phone are its looks and ring-tones. The aesthetics are not really very appealing as the phone looks like a blob of grey and is really devoid of any meaningful color schemes. This is not really a problem as I was not purchasing this gadget as a means to be more attractive. Furthermore the rings that the phone produces are mostly little jingles and songs. I have found these to be somewhat weird and slightly annoying. It is somewhat unprofessional to be sitting in a business meeting when your phone rings and a rendition of "Row row row your boat" starts to play. The more standard rings to the phone are somewhat high-pitched and are also somewhat annoying. All in all, though, I love this phone. It works well, fulfills my needs and I did not have to pay an arm and a leg for it. There are also some nice calling plans available to the user from Sprint. Call them to see which plan will be better for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90477 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 elephants are attracted to it lightweight slick has no velcro Full Review In Marvien with an E's absence from Epinions he wondered upon a new job, one with neon lights and fancy slogans. The world of cell phones and hookers, ok not so many hookers but enough to get by . Yep, good ole Marvien is spreading friendly brain tumors around this peaceful little world. In an earlier review I told you people about the marvels of the Samsung 3500, but now I come to you with amazing news about the new Samsung 8500. If you're looking for a great little cell phone, this might just be the one you've been looking for. Much of the Samsung 3500's success came from it's unique look and feel, so you can expect the same with the 8500. The major difference in style is the adjustment in the way the phone flips open. Many people have had problems with their 3500 breaking apart because it relies on two smalls hinges to support the flip. The new model puts the display onto the flip and joins the phone with one big hinge. What most people are have noticed is that the 8500 keeps the original chrome and space age look to it. The new phone is able to shed a little weight though. The 3500 weighs 5.5 ounces, while this model only weighs 4.5. Features -Store up to 229 numbers -9 different ringer tones, 4 musical rings -Vibration Alert: phone will shake instead of ringing -Voicemail: kind of an answering machine for cell phones, a system designed to keep messages -Caller Id: See who is calling you on the display of the phone -Alarm Clock -Wireless Web: Explore the Internet on your phone, but don't expect to be surfing at a fast pace -Calculator -Headset Jack: Hook a headset to keep from having to hold the phone up to talk -Voice Activated Dialing: Say a name and have the phone do the dialing New Feature -Calendar: Allows you to keep track of your appointments simply by keeping your cell phone handy. Also lets you leave yourself small memos and messages. Once you pop your phone up the phone will display that month's calendar along with the time and another small message of your choice. Talk Time And Standby Time The battery life on the new Samsung dramatically improves upon the previous edition. While the Samsung 3500 had a talk time up to 150 minutes, the 8500 has one of 180 minutes. The major difference is the standby time which happened to be my one major disappointment in the 3500. The Samsung 8500 has a standby time of 120 hours which means you can just leave the phone on for around six days without having to charge it up. Now the Samsung 3500 has only 45 hours of standby time which comes to be about 2 days you don't have to worry about charging it up. This dual mode phone is great to have because of it's clear digital signal, and it's ability to switch over into analog for any unexpected emergencies. The phone comes with an owner's manual which informs you on how to go through the activation process, and it also comes with a desktop charger. A leather case, DC adapter, Extended battery, and Headset are also available for this phone if needed. The price of this phone is a little expensive, but with this kind of quality it's worth it. Price is around $199. You can also look at it this way; replace your home phone bill with your cell phone bill. My home phone bill is usually $40 a month, while my phone bill is only $20, so I just shut my home phone off and use the cell phone instead. Now, I'm sure you're not convinced by all the little facts and trivia I've presented, so I have drawn up a little list to close the deal. Top Ten Reasons Not To Buy A Samsung 8500 1. You can retire and use the two hundred dollars on jogging pants and velcro shoes. 2. What do you need a cell phone for? You don't know no one, ya dummy! 3. Think of how many shoes laces you can get, no wait velcro. 4. You can buy a one cent phone and stuff the rest of the money in a pillow case to eat later. 5. You'll get kicked out of school for hitting people over the head with a cell phone. 6. Animals don't like cell phones. 7. You'll never get to date a smurf, but maybe you'll get Barbie. She's a sucker for a materialistic man/woman. 8. You already have a cell phone. 9. Birds like shiny objects, so you'll probably get attacked daily by a mob of birds. 10. Cell phones are for yubbies. Yeah, that should seal the deal pretty good. I guess I'll slide back to my desk and watch reruns of Oprah. If you have any questions about your cell phone, don't be afraid to approach the loveable little Marvien with an "E." Marvien with an "E" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90476 2000/6/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice recognition pim features hardware Full Review As wireless technology continues to grow by leaps and bounds consumers are continually introduced to new cell-phones that are sleeker, more powerful, and utilize the latest in chip technology. Well, enter Samsung and their latest contribution to the wireless market the SCH-8500. The SCH-8500 is a beefed up version of a successful line of Samsung phones featuring web browsers and voice recognition technology. It's offering a lot of punch at a relatively low price ($199). Let's start to examine this phone. How does this phone operate? The Samsung SCH-8500 "Samsung" is a dual-band tri mode telephone. It operates on digital frequencies of 1900 and 900 mhz and an analog frequency of 900 mhz. What frequency the phone operates on depends on where in relation the phone is to a tower. When the phone is far away from a tower it will "roam" and switch to the analog band. This is an automatic feature although it can be switched manually from the keypad. The chip that powers this telephone uses the technology known as CDMA or (Code Division Multiple Access to all you computer nerds). This is the language of the future and streamlines data transfers quickly and effectively. CDMA technology is how Qualcomm rose to prominence and in two years will plant itself as the dominant chip in all wireless phones. Some companies such as Nokia or Sony still use TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) chips though their abandonment of this technology is becoming rather obvious. The Samsung phone is powered by a lithium ion battery. On average, the phone will allow you to talk for 170 minutes continuously and will hold its power for up to 150 hours away from the charger. The phone comes with a cradle to charge the phone and accessories are available where you can charge the phone in your car or charge a spare battery. Unless you are a heavy talker however, a single battery should be sufficient. What are the features of this cell-phone If your into convenience then this Samsung phone brings a lot to the table. While this phone has everything you would expect a high-powered cell phone to possess (e.g. voice mail, caller ID, three way calling, 13 distinctive ring tones, and call waiting) this phone also gives you many features that will leave you smiling. For starters, it has an extensive phonebook. This telephone is capable of storing up to 250 numbers with each number allowing you to enter up to six lines of data. With that much information, odds are you won't spend a great deal of time clearing out old numbers. This phone also sports the very James Bond like feature of voice recognition. The phone can store up to 20 numbers that can be dialed on command (e.g.call Fred). Now, the speaker isn't highly sophisticated and if you're in a crowded room it might have trouble recognizing your commands, but imagine using this in your car. Voice recognition, I think, brings a new element to auto safety and the telephone. Voice memory also allows you to store up to 10 one-minute messages on your phone. Consider this like a portable dictaphone. Now this is a great feature if you meet clients on the move and want to remember critical facts, or if you want to set reminders to yourself throughout the day. Let this phone be your portable Palm. It should be noted that this phone also has a calendar setting, a to-do list, and the ability to tell world time. All this is grouped together with the voice recognition and memo recording into convenience features known as "PIM." "PIM" are the primary features designed for user convenience and I have to say that Samsung comes through with flying colors. The appearance of this phone is stylish and sporty. It weighs about 7 ounces. The phone sports a flip top covering which folds over for keypad protection. The phone is small and easily fits into the pocket of a user. The phone has a large backlit LCD display that lights up in an attractive Indigo color. It is easy to read in the daytime or at night. The minibrowser works fine, but still leaves much to be desired. Internet access is simple and available for an extra fee (check with your local distributor for applicable rates). Navigation however, is somewhat more complex. It's easy enough to get stock quotes or check sports scores but that's about it. Moving back and forth between pages in tiresome. The minibrowser also allows you to check your e-mail, but this is also troublesome. It's easy enough to receive mail, but just try to send something off. A sophisticated appreciation of Morse Code is in order to type text on this browser. Really, I'm not that far off here. Now, I don't particularly blame Samsung for the weakness of this minibrowser. This technology is really in it's infancy and I don't think there are any phones out there now that have a good version of wireless web. It's more of a gimmick now than anything else. Final thoughts about this Samsung cell-phone Quite an impressive product really. Versatile, cost effective, loads of features, lightweight, and relatively easy to operate. The hardware is sound and the company is reputable. If you use the phone often I would consider purchasing a spare battery, but the need for accessories here are minimal. Customer support is available online or by calling a 1-800 number in the manual. If your looking for a digital dual band all-purpose phone then the Samsung SCH-8500 is worth your consideration. It's an impressive piece of equipment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90475 2000/10/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny extremely lightweight feature packed not many different ring tones all the features could be confusing for a first time user Full Review I bought a Samsung 8500 Sprint PCS phone last weekend from a Sprint store in Atlanta, GA. Beforehand, while I was debating which phone and which cellular service to purchase, I asked both my father and my uncle, who was in town for the weekend, about their opinions on their current phones. My uncle's response when I asked him whether or not he liked his phone (a Samsung 8500) was, "Well, my old one played 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame,' and this one doesn't." I think he mentioned that about a dozen more times in the next day or so before I left. Okay, I feel that I owe you a little bit more detailed list of pros and cons than just that. The Samsung 8500 is really more like a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) than it is a mere phone; there are so many features and options that sometimes I can't remember where a particular one is located. The main thing that everyone raves about with respect to the more expensive Samsung models is their voice dialing capability. Yes, you really can program the phone to dial a particular person's number just by saying their name. It's fast and easy to program, and it actually works quite well (except in crowded rooms or other loud places, for obvious reasons). While at first I thought this was just a frivolous extravagance of little use, I've since realized that it can be very useful indeed. For example, if you want to make a call while you're driving, the combination of use of a headset and use of the voice-activated dialing means that you can call someone without ever taking your eyes off of whatever you're doing (e.g., driving, which most people aren't good enough at with perfect concentration anyway). The three features with which I was primarily concerned in shopping for a cell phone, however, were size, paging/messaging capabilities, and durability. 1. Size Had I wanted to use a trite catch-phrase which has already been tremendously overused (and which was never all that funny in the first place), I would have titled this section, "Size DOES Matter." Fortunately, I elected not to do that. Even so, it's true. What I wanted from my new cell phone was the ability to carry it around in my pocket like I've done with my pager for the past several years. Weighing in at only about ten ounces including a standard battery, this phone is certainly light enough to carry in a pants pocket, or even a front shirt pocket; and, at a tiny size of about 3 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 3/4", it won't feel like there's something growing inside of you which is about to burst out, like Sigourney Weaver in Alien. 2. Paging and Messaging Capabilities As I mentioned before, I've had a pager for several years. It is rather unsurprising, then, that I have gotten used to having people page me. The only downside of this aspect of the phone's capabilities is its apparent inability to have the ringer for text and voice mail messages to remain on while the primary ringer is off. (If anyone knows how to do this, please leave a comment -- I'd be very interested in knowing how, if it's possible. The instruction manual didn't say.) Ideally, since I only have so many minutes per month, I'd like to turn the ringer off, let all calls (unless I'm expecting a particular one) roll through to voice mail/paging, and then call back those whom I please. Fortunately, however, this phone does have caller ID, so I can still screen my calls in that way. The Samsung 8500 has both numeric and text paging capabilities as well as the ability to receive voice mail messages. When you receive a new message, you can read it immediately if it's text or numeric, and you can listen to any voicemail message with a single touch of a button. 3. Durability The first question I had for the salesman at the Sprint Store with regard to the Samsung 8500 was, "Is it durable?" He responded to my question by saying, "Oh, yeh, of course," while slamming the model phone against the display table extremely hard, several times. To my surprise, there was not a single scratch on the phone after all that abuse. Always wary of a trick, however, I asked to make a call on the phone afterwards -- and believe it or not, I was actually able to do so! Of course, the Samsung 8500 also has the ability of connecting to the Sprint PCS Wireless Web, but I have yet to do so. In all likelihood, I won't ever try it, or at the very least not until my contract changes. While it's high in "Look what my phone can do that yours can't!" value, it has little practical use. The wireless versions of those website companies whom have chosen to create one are usually difficult to navigate and it seems to just end up being a huge waste of time. If you don't believe me, just think about trying to browse the web with a four-line, dot-matrix display. Yeh, you see what I'm saying now. So far, my overall impression of the Samsung 8500 has been that it's basically like a far sturdier version of the Motorola StarTac. The Samsung 8500 appears to be very sturdy, and I would recommend it to any prospective cell phone buyer who wants the latest and greatest and can shell out the cash for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 7825 Samsung SGH-V205 90642 2004/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact clarity turns itself off occasionally I have loved this phone for many reasons including clarity. My ONLY problem with this phone is that it goes off every second and I don't know if it's a problem with the battery but not long after i got the phone this happened every once in a while now it happens as soon as i close it. Besides that i loved everything about this phone. I don't really care for the picture quality which is terrible. 90641 2005/12/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 cool designgood sound quality in polyphonics mmf bad camera quality expecially in night modemobile os application not stable Samsung SGH-V205 overall design is similar as Samsung SGH-V200.The only difference is the twistable LCD panel.The camera quality is poor and lack of bluetooth.Infra red syncronization take too much time to load data.In addition, when load the phone book and sms to PC via infra red, it need to start from scratch load from first contact to last which takes time.I encounter problem when using this model where there are incoming call but shown different number in the phonebook.When kept load and unload polyphonics ringtoens to the phone for more than 10 times the whole mobile application crash and i need to reinstall the whole application from Samsung.However Samsung mobile good in polyphonics which have good quality of MMF polyphonics ringtones. 90640 2004/1/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size battery life attached phone weight ringtones clarity no blue tooth no zoom in or flash function on camera I hate to admit it, but this is the first phone I have ever received in my life. I'm 18 for pete's sake. But what can i say, this is definitely a good start. HECK, this is an awesome start for a first phone. Anyways, this phone is excellent. It's small, light, and is unique in thousands of ways. A definite good phone for the price. You want clarity, you got it. You want cool ringtones, you got it. Do you like taking pictures, you got it. The camera is attached to the phone which is a big advantage to some of those detachable camera phones. Furthermore, this phone is not a cheap piece of crap, this phone is a well built piece of our modern day technology. 90639 2007/3/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 pictures are decent lightweight headphones uncomfortable no voice dialing no bluetooth option I would not pay for this phone, it is not that great. I was glad it came with the contract. The sound quality is not that great, you can't connect to the computer for downloads. For a standard, basic phone it is okay. 90638 2005/3/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 usable not junk features superior lcd versatile connectivity weight shape balanced only the price My Wife, Son & I Have Been Packing Samsung V-205 Phones With T-Mobile Now For 3 Years. Greatest Phone In The Free World ( if you know how to use it ). Both My Laptops Have IrDa And Using T-Mobile Internet Software, With NO Version Upgrades, For 3 Years, We Connect To The Internet All The Time, And My E-Mail, And Instant Message, And Picture Message, And Search Using T-Zones, And Make International Calls, And Text And E-Mail From/To Our Phones And Laptops And Other's PCs. Yeah, Most Low End PCs Have No IrDa! Get A IrDa Dongle, Or Get The Readily Available Software Kit W/Cable That Connects V-205 Direct via USB For FULL PC Interface, $37.00. "Mega Ring Tones" ONLY. Mine Blasts The 007 Theme Song! Wife's Plays "Monday Monday". Wife Dropped Hers On The Lawn 2 Days! Worked Fine. Every Single Person I Know With Cell Phones Envies My V-205 LCD Screen. No, Wife Does NOT See My "Private" Wall Paper Collection! Our 3 Year Old Models All Show Little Signs Of Wear And Are Very Much Still On The Tech End Of Cell Phones. I'd Pay Ransom If It Were Stolen. DrZETROIT. 90637 2000/7/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color lcd picture phone 40 polyphonic ring tones no profiles no voice calling The Bottom LineGreat phone, great price. a few complaints, but pretty damn good Full Review This is a great phone for a reasonable price. I purchased the phone for $120 with T-mobile service. I paid an extra $20 so it would be unlocked so I could use it with Cingular or At&t if I changed services in the future. Comes With Well the phone I bought actually came with 2 batteries, the phone, a belt clip, ear piece (works really well), your standard adapter. LCD screen There is an lcd screen on the front telling you whos calling, if you received a message, and shows the time and date. Everything is great, cept taht you need to open the phone to turn on the light. You can activate the light through any buttons on the outside, so it's a serious pain in the butt if you just want to see what time it is. Ringtones The ringtones are amazing. 40 polyphonic ringtones is the best on the market today. It's like an acutal song playing on your phone. No compliants there. Camera The fact that the camera rotates 180 degrees is very useful too. On the panasonic gu-87, if you want to take self portraits, you need to look in those this crappy plastic mirror on the front of the phone. Lame... It's really cool that the camera rotates, because you dont have to move the phone at all akward angles (so basically you can take pictures of people without them knowing that youre taking pictures of them) The picture quality is OK, not great. Yet for a camera phone, its clear enough for you to see whats going on. Other nifty things I'm sure all the other reviews talked pretty much about everything with the phone. I'll try to include things that no one really mentioned. A cool thing about this phone is that you can answer the phone by simplying opening it (the clamshell that is) This phone being still relatively new, it was hard to find a case. I don't like those stupid cases where you have to take the phone out of, I wanted a case that would fit snug around my phone like a glove. I ended up getting a case for a different samsung phone, which works really well, but i need to remove it if i want to take pictures. The games are pretty lame. They are super slow and choppy, cept for the virtual pet game. Not much to say, because the games simply suck. Battery life is pretty weak. It will die in about a day, (if you talk a lot that is) I suppose this is the price you gotta pay for a big lcd screen. So don't forget your chargers if you ever go anywhere. Reception is alright, its better than my ericson t86i (I don't know if I have the right number, but it's the first ericsson color phone) I used the phone in Taiwan, and it works just fine. Hahaha so the phone's not lying when it's saying that it's triband Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90636 2000/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 65 000 color tfd main display t zones internet capable sms templates built in digital camera can not assign caller id images no speakerphone vibrates while being charged no standard ringer The Bottom LineThis phone will catch people's attention in public whether it is its sleek design, downloadable polyphonic ring tone, or its built-in camera feature. Go out and treat yourself today! Full Review To answer my review title, it's both! This mobile phone, offered by T-Mobile, is both a cell phone and a digital camera. One great thing about the camera is that it is built right into the cell phone's sleek design. There are no attachments needed! The quality isn't all that great, but what do you expect, its primary use should be making calls. I am very happy with the camera feature on the Samsung V205. Purchased about a week ago, I bought this 3.39 oz. mobile phone after a lot of research. I got a killer deal on the phone because I signed up for a new contract. The T-Mobile store I bought it at matched Amazon's advertised price of $149 after mail-in rebates. Even better, T-Mobile just gave me the price of $149 without the hassle of any rebates. Other then the fantastic price and the awesome camera, this phone has a bunch of other handy features. Calendar, to-do lists, currency converter, available to hide your caller-id, SMS templates, downloadable ring tones, and caller groups. I like the last two a lot. This phone accepts Monophonic as well as Polyphonic ring tones. Polyphonic ring tones sound better because they use more then one tone that makes them easier to recognize. Caller groups are cool too because not only can you search by caller group, but you can also add a distinctive ringer. I don't know about you folks, but I like to store my favorite restaurant's phone numbers in my SIM card phone book so I can call in take out. Well with the Samsung V205 wireless phone, you can view individual groups by choosing Group Search out of the Phone Book menu. Now I can list all of my restaurants in alphabetical order with out having to search my whole phone book. Hmmm, what will I be eating tonight? Now what do I really dislike about the phone? The ringer selection sucks! If you want any standard ring, you can't have it. There is no standard ring. All of the included ringers are really loud and annoying. Now if I could only download a standard ringer... That's about it; nothing else really bothers me about the phone. One thing I must add, Samsung includes two batteries with this phone along with a nice ear bud style headset and a belt clip holster. I definitely recommend this phone for the price I paid! Do the research; it's well worth it in the end. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90635 2003/12/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 an excellent phone packed with what a user would need of a mobile handset poor ringtonesno java gaming no bluetooth The Bottom LineAn excellent phone with a good quality camera. Full Review The Samsung V205 is one of the more innovative phones on the market. Although it has now been superceded by the tremendous Samsung E700 and the Nokia N-Gage phone come console, the V205 has the technology to support any users requirements and provide quality to boot. General: The V205 uses all the more recent mobile breakthroughs such as an integrated camera, multimedia (picture) messaging and polyphonic ringtones. All these gizmos add multi functionality to a mobile but naturally, as with most breakthrough technology, there are drawbacks. The WAP internet on the phone are fairly fast as they can now be GPRS enabled but speed does seem to differ depending on your network signal. Up to 10 favourite sites can be stored on the phone and accessed easily. The sound quality of calls on this phone is excellent and allows for clear and unbroken conversations. The clam style shell of the phone also removes the accidental calling if keypads are not locked: one problem Nokia phones suffer from. The contact book on the phone is good too. It allows for 500 numbers to be stored additionally to the SIM card. It also has the ability to store e-mail addresses and have more numbers stored under each contact name, denoting whether the number is a mobile, business or home entry: clever stuff! Camera: The camera is probably the best I have seen thus far from all manufacturers. It provides an excellent picture quality in good lighting but fails in the dark due to no flash being included; not even the colour intensity helps here. The V205 lacks the zoom function of the V200: one that is very useful. It allows the user to focus in on certain pictures when far away and get a closer image. However, do not expect miracles as the zoom magnifies at a fairly poor standard and allows for adequate but not tremendous closeness. The main benefit of the V205 camera is that it is rotating. The 180 degree rotation allows the user to turn the camera away to someone else or towards the user and still have the ability to view the current image on the phone: very smart! Ringtones and screensavers: The tones given on the phone are appalling to say the least. They really don't make you want to receive calls or messages. On the plus side, the sound quality is nice and more tones can be downloaded and saved to the phone memory. The message tones cannot be changed, leaving a circus style intro to every message received. The screensavers included are a nice touch. They are not quite what personal computers have but they are a step up from the original Nokia introductions. Colourful constellations with flashing stars on a pleasant blue background are the highlights of this function. Usability and Battery Life: The phone usability is excellent. Menu systems are clear, colourful and guide the user to the area required. The shortcuts on the phone are also facile to use and allow the user to jump to specifically set areas of the phone instantly, such as a new written message or the alarm clock. Battery life is not too good unfortunately. When Samsung invented this phone with all its excellent features they forgot to make sure the battery could stand all the colour and tone usage. With heavy usage the battery is likely to last a day at the most and with moderate usage a few days if you are likely. Package: The V205 comes with two batteries, one slim and one standard, which is useful considering the poor battery life: maybe Samsung realised what they had done! A data cable is also included which allows for uploading camera pictures and saving contacts on a PC if the right software is downloaded from the Samsung site (70 MB worth!). The V205 is also a useful tool for combining this software with a laptop and accessing the internet through your chosen network's internet service provider: useful for receiving e-mails on the go. Overall: Overall the phone is magnificent. It performs as a useful piece of technological kit and there are no qualms on the camera and general phone performance. The only disappointments have to be the abysmal ringtones and the poor battery life, but if you have a wap ringtone site available for free and are home each night, your phone will be a more than essential tool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90634 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use great 65 000 color screen great clarity great sounding ringtones cool camera annoying sms no ring vibrate feature poor camera clarity slow web browser The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone, just because i have yet to see the clarity be beaten by any brand besides samsung. Not worth $300 though. Full Review I just purchased the tri-band samsung V205 from my local T-Mobile store as an upgrade to my S105, a similar phone. So far, i've had no problems with the phone. Its got GREAT clarity, The camera was the main feature that attracted me to this phone. Coming from the S105, there were only a few differeces to this phone. Ringtones: 40 chord polyphonic ringers, an upgrade from the 16 chord ringers on the S105. They sound AMAZING. Camera: The swiveling camera attachment, which is really useful for those moments where you wish you had a camera and you dont. Now I do! The clarity on the camera isn't the greatest, but is good enough. One problem is it doesn't have a zoom, which is a major drawback to taking some pictures. Another problem with the camera is that its always exposed, so its inevitable that it will get dirty. Text Messaging: If you are a heavy SMS (text message) user like me, you'll despise this phone. It doesnt have a personalized dictionary like in most nokia's, so if you like to use a lot of different vocabulary, your gonna have a tough time using it. Also, one very annoying thing with the SMS is when your writing a message, and you need to erase something, you'll sometimes accidently hit the end key which erases the entire message, making you have to start from scratch. Internet/Email: GPRS is quite slow, similar to the S105. Emailing pictures can also be a challenge. The phone can save email addresses, but when your going to send the picture, you cant access them! this seems kind of foolish to me, having to type in the email address every time you want to send a picture, but thats the way it is. Don't even bother trying to utilize the AIM built into the browser, its ridiculously slow and nerve wracking. Screen: The phone has gotten a lot of "oohs" and "ah's" due to its INCREDIBLY bright 65,000 color screen. I can even use it as a flashlight in the dark its so bright! Ease of Use: The phone is pretty self explanatory. If your coming from a nokia, you should have no problem. The key setup and menu setup is extremely similar. Phone Book: You can add up to 250 entries on a regular sim card, plus 500 entries into the phone. Also, you have to store phone numbers as 10 digits, otherwise when you get a call it wont show up as the persons name, rather their number. same goes for dialing, you need to dial 10 digits if you want the name of hte person to show up, otherwise you can dial 7 digits, and in your outgoing call log it will only show numbers, not names. Complaints: The phone will not ring and vibrate at the same time. Only one ringtone does this, and you can download certain ringtones to do this, but the phone is not initially programmed to do so. The vibration also can be too light and you can miss calls this way. The phone is also a little boxy, the S105 is a lot sleeker. The service light is also placed in a stupid area right underneath the external LCD, unlike regular flip phones having it on the top right. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 90633 2003/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 variety of features solid feel sensible menus camera did i mention the camera can t set progressive volume rings no voice activated dialing no picture caller id The Bottom LineCam features alone make it worthy. It's entirely the opposite of ubiquitous. Although not perfect nor the most versatile phone ever, it's certainly the most fun. Full Review The Samsung SGHV-205 is a wonderful GSM/GPRS phone that will please the biz, serious, or casual user to a veritable plethora of features. Enjoyment is only limited by your imagination and perhaps your wallet versus calling plan. It comes in an easy to use, well-rounded brushed silver package. My bet is you never imagined a phone this small could do so much! (No, I don't work for Samsung or T-Mobile) Got features? Top dog here is the camera but it's not just a gimmick or the whole story. I have a Sony digicam for hi-res work but who wants to tote that around? The V-205 takes extremely crisp, well focused pics under all but near dark conditions and stores them as jpegs (max approx 100). The e-mailed image is good enough to do some enlarging at 352 x 288 pixels. The cam design goal was obviously utility and here Samsung did an outstanding job. Although you can't zoom in our out, the field of view is close to that of a pocket film camera, fixed focus from a few inches to infinity, roughly the same as a 50mm lens. You can swivel the hinge integrated cam toward you or behind the phone and invert the displayed image via the up/down key. You can't capture moving video but the display in camera mode is in full smooth camcorder fashion. To take a picture you simply click the cam icon button below the display which makes a camera shutter noise and freezes the image for your review before you choose to save/cancel/send it. Photos (or inbound e-mailed jpegs) can be set as wallpaper. Pictures taken with the camera can be e-mailed to any address easily without entering your e-mail menu (i.e.- T-zones), or sent to a phone number via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) with sound and text added. If your network supports MMS (began Oct '02 here) and your pals have a MMS compatible phone (like an Ericsson T68) your fun doubles. With a data plan of say 10Mb ($9 here) you're set for at least several hundred image transfers. If you want to be a stealthy photographer you can hold down the bottom right keypad button (#) to enter phone silent mode (no sounds at all) and snap an image or delay shutter release for 10 seconds for that candid or 'join the group' moment. Remember to always get a model release, LOL. I've especially enjoyed the camera thus far, the possibilities are near endless. Three way calling is simple to use and can become 6-way if you can follow written instructions. Best unexpected benefit is signal reception and audio clarity are tremendously improved compared to our T68i and even better than our Nokia 3390 and 8290, probably because of the external fixed antenna. It's the best practical gadget I've ever had...and I've owned a dozen phones. Easy to use? I've only had it a couple of days but found customizing it to my tastes a breeze. Screen visibility is great even in full sun and all but flat angles, unusual for a color LCD. Menus for all features scroll up and down and have animated common sense graphics that show you in small letters what the next up/down menu choice is. You can set menus up in a filmstrip nostalgic format as well. Ringtones provided are nice but the web has so much to choose from. Polyphonic multi-voice tones sound so good they embarrass most phones and possibly the user if they blast in the wrong place so do us all a favor, be discreet. I believe any midi file can be sent and used as a ringtone but I haven't explored that yet, the manual doesn't mention it. Downloading tones from our service provider is simple and foolproof, they're automatically saved so you can't mess up. Another plus is the display menus have labels just above 'softkeys' at the bottom right and left of the display that prompt you what function they perform using large easy to read text. I found them easier to understand and definitely easier on the eyes than the methods and micro-text of our T68i. The organizer is one of the most sensible I've seen with an intuitive simple menu and To Do list, no need for the manual here. You can set an alarm to have the phone power on and wake you, customize SMS, MMS, and just about every notification using any beep or whir imaginable and some that aren't. The 12 built-in animated (not kid-cartoon like) wallpapers give pleasing choices like lake, sunset, clocks, aquarium, any zodiac constellation (which counts as one). Although you can't set a picture to pop up when caller ID recognizes a number in your phone book, you can set up to nine different groups with specific ring tones and icons for each group. You can then assign phone book memory entries to a group and in a workable way, provide unique caller ID notification (family, work, your choice). The folded external display is more than adequate and tells you all you need to know, even message notifications. T-zones and web surfing is pretty quick and nearly transparent. By simply holding down the 'T@' button in the center of the 4-way scroll 'doober' you enter or exit GPRS WAP. E-mail and AIM was already set up on the phone. Once e-mail is set up through your service provider you can be notified of incoming e-mails from your provider address (usually your phone number, the @ symbol, and the provider e-mail client name and extension, i.e.- blahblahblah@tmomail.net) plus up to eight external e-mail accounts you choose. Although I haven't tried it yet, it may even be possible to synchronize with MS Outlook contacts, calendars, etc. Three interesting time-waster games are provided and once you get the hang of the 'buttonology' are sort of fun, one resembles the Sims. If you're an extremist, you can even connect and play against others via GPRS. GPRS connection for your browser, e-mail, etc. doesn't count as airtime but does count toward your data rate plan (called T-zones here). Think of it as a dataphone (GPRS) and a telephone (GSM) in one. Got dislikes? A few. As I said in the summary you can't make ringtones start off soft and get louder with each ring. The holster is tough to use, good idea, but the release button is too small and takes a crowbar to operate. Aftermarket may be the answer but choices are limited on this new model. I found that by the time I could whip it out, sometimes the call had gone to voicemail, that's even after 'quick-draw McGraw' rehearsals. If you want to use the wrist strap you can't use the holster as the strap hole is where the holster grabs the phone. I can't get the Samsung provided earpiece to stay put but it is loud and clear. It's hard rubber and round with a bulge that may fit some ears well but not my Dumbos. I tried several aftermarkets to include a sweet Jabra but they're too weak even with the phone at max volume. Samsungs button on the handsfree device can answer, hang-up, or redial the last number if held down with the phone idle. The tethered rubber cap for the headphone jack can be a bear to remove, especially without nails. The charger port at the bottom has a rubber cover too but not tethered, it will probably be lost soon leaving a mini-canyon. No bluetooth...no big deal, other technologies may trump it soon. IR port is there if you need it, seems a better option than a data cable. Phone book fields are limited to 16 characters. That's not a problem until you realize e-mail addresses often exceed that so you can't store them if they do. All are livable minor flaws IMHO. 19 Mar 03 Long-winded Update: After using this phone a couple of weeks I'm still in love. The polyphonic ringtones (up to 40 simultaneous voices, most I've seen out there are 16) can be a bit overwhelming but that doesn't deter my thumbs up. You can have it vibrate first and then ring but not both at once, ring, or just vibrate (my wifes fave). Even on it's first discharge cycle the Li-on battery did good (almost 3 hours talk, 4 days overall but off at night) and got a bit better after that. It comes with a spare batt anyway but it must be in the phone unless you have an optional charger. I too learned the IR port is about useless and a data cable through Samsung is about the only way to get data in other than e-mail, looks like Outlook synching won't work. I tried e-mailing myself a ringtone (.wav and a midi) but only text came through, all tones sent by my carrier T-Mobile worked 100%, must be some software lacking here. There are actually 10 caller groups not 9 as I said above. The cam excels at portrait shots and has adjustable brightness, it has no flash but it does fine without. It's a bit too wide for scenery work but I hope no one buys it for those Grand Canyon memoirs anyway. Daily, "would you believe this" type shots are a cinch. Sent messages are saved in your Outbox until deleted. It bugs me my work e-mail address can't be stored in the address book as it exceeds the 16 character limit. I found a workaround by splitting the address between two entries, sending the message to both but first deleting the semi-colon seperator in between, how's that for creative? The handsfree earbud still won't stay put. I tried various earpiece covers -- foam, rubber, clothespin-ouch! I recommend ditching the hard to use holster and get a nice leather case. Office D' sells one meant for a tiny LG brand phone that fits perfect without blocking the cam. With all that negativity behind us I must say this phone works in places my T68i never worked before, it's really that much stronger RF wise. Folks I call can actually tell I got a new phone. I thought they were kidding until I did some quit pulling my leg testing myself. Menu arrangements and flow just make more sense to me on the V-205 than our Nokia (3390, 8290) or Sony-Eric (T68i). It all comes down to test driving and picking one you can live with. I found a functional toy that will last me forever, or until the Nokia 3650 (full motion vid capture) is released in the states, LOL. If you're new to T-Mob and buy from Amazon you can get $250 back dropping this phone to $100. It's a fine phone at any price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349 90632 2005/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear large screen no bluetooth The Bottom LineA competent phone Full Review Although I was fairly happy with my old Nokia 3310 there comes a time when a mobile phone upgrade becomes a necessity. I wanted a high spec phone that had WAP access so that I could check travel reports and football results while out and about, I also fancied some snazzy polyphonic ringtones and Ifd always liked the look of flip phones that close to form a more compact unit. After much research on the internet I decided on the glorious looking Samsung V205, and Ifm thrilled that I did. I have always had pay and go phones as I like the fact that I only pay for the time I use the phone with no contracts and monthly fees to worry about. I tracked down a Samsung V205 on the network I wanted, and paid the $399 necessary to make the phone mine. What`s in the box Well quite a lot actually, obviously the phone itself along with not one but two batteries, this is a good idea as you can have one battery charged at all times for quick changeover and minimal fuss. Of course both batteries need recharging so a charger is also present. An earpiece and finger strap are next on the list with a plethora of manuals, instruction leaflets and warranty brochures the last items included in the box. A SIM card is also included from your chosen network provider, but I was able to use the SIM card from my Nokia 3310 and thus keep the same phone number. What are the main features of the phone The features of the Samsung V205 are many, including: - World Wide Triband: -which enables the phone to be used anywhere in the world thanks to band selection technology. The Samsung V205 will work on GSM 900, 1800, 1900 or a combined 900 / 1800. The phone simply searches for the best available band to use when it is switched on in a new country. Rotating Large Colour Screen: - The Screen on the V205 is 3cm by 4cm and displays 65,000 colours in crystal clear LCD. It rotates and flips in any direction to optimize viewing for the inbuilt Java games or the camera. Rotating Digital Camera: - The CCD (charge-coupled device) rotating camera means that images are crystal clear and can be captured from any angle. The 180` rotating lens means you can also take pictures of yourself and save or send them as required. Up to 100 352 x 288 Pixel pictures can be saved on the phone itself and used as wallpaper or in photo messages. 2x zoom and brightness adjustment ensure the pictures you take are of the very highest quality. Polyphonic Ringtones: - Twenty-five of them to be exact, and the option to download a further fifteen. All of the ringtones are crisp and clear to add a little personality to the V205 WAP: - A real selling point for me, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) allows the user to access special WAP designed websites to find out a wealth of information from travel bulletins to sports results. The Phone itself The Samsung V205 itself is silver in colour and weighs in at a nimble 105 grams, with dimensions of 90.5 x 47.5 x 23(mm) this makes it an extremely small and thin phone. Talk time is between three and five hours with standby battery power at an acceptable one hundred to one hundred and twenty hours. The memory of the V205 is large with the capacity for one thousand phone book entries, one hundred MMS text messages and up to five Java games up to a total of one hundred kilobytes each, add to this the one hundred picture storage outlines earlier in the review and the V205 is a master at keeping plenty of your information on tap. The Samsung V205 also has plenty of gPersonal information Managementh, including a Calendar, a Scheduler, a to do list, Once/Daily/Weekly alarm, Vibration alert, World time, Calculator and a converter. Call management features record the last twenty missed calls, the last twenty dialled numbers as well as cost per call and call time in minutes and seconds. Add to the mix some animated wallpapers and easily navigated menus and the Samsung V205 is peerless in the world of mobile technology. A Brief Look at the Menus The menus on the V205 are pretty self explanatory and are accessed with a single button push and the up and down keys on the phone. The first menu is titled Text Messages and consists of the inbox and outboxes as well as templates that can be pre-saved to save time. The next menu is called Picture Messages and has exactly the same sub categories as the text messages menu except they deal with pictures instead of words. Next up is Call Records and this menu deals with missed calls, recent calls, dialled calls and call time, basically all of the information you could want regarding your recent phone calls is here. Camera is next on the list and this menu is a lot of fun. The user can decide whether to take and send a photo or just take it for storage on the phone. A My Photos option allows the user to browse all of the photos stored on the phone in a thumbnail gallery with the option to set any picture as the wallpaper for the V205. Sound Settings is where the polyphonic ringtones are stored and chosen by the user. Other sub menus such as ring volume, alert type (vibrating, ringing or silent), keypad tone and incoming message tone are also here. Phone Settings deals with the behaviour of the V205 itself, with greetings message, language and security issues such as PIN numbers all available for modification from within this menu. Organiser is fairly self explanatory with the options contained therein to set the date and time, to use the calculator and to work out currency exchange rates. An alarm and to do list is also available. Network Services enables the user to select how a network is searched for (either automatically or manually) as well as call barring settings and caller ID information. As its name suggests Funbox is where all of the frivolity is to be found, the WAP browser is accessed from here with its favourites and home settings. The games are also here with the four included (Bubble2smile, Fun2link, Ultimate Golf Challenge and MobileChess) all fun to play once the controls have been mastered. Any and all downloaded ringtones and wallpapers are also stored here for easy access. Last but not least the gMy Servicesh Menu lets the user know which network provider(s) the phone is connected to. All of the menus are smooth scrolling and brightly coloured with animated pictures to compliment them, a real pleasure to navigate through. My Personal Opinion of the Samsung V205 Well, to put it simply I love it. The Samsung V205 is a pleasure to use; it is small enough to fit comfortably in the pocket yet loud enough to hear in a noisy room when it rings. The polyphonic ringtones are crisp and clear and the largeness of the screen in comparison to the overall phone size is beautiful in its clarity. The buttons are easy to press even with my large fingers with single button access to both the camera and the WAP service. The open and shut mechanism feels strong with a warble emitted upon opening or closing of the phone. The camera is easy to use with clear pictures the like of which I have never seen from a camera phone. Battery life is good, with the two batteries included taking a mere three hours to fully charge. Finally, the inclusion of a data cable is inspired; it enables me to back up important SIM card details like phone numbers or texts to my computer, the software that enables this to happen is quick to load and easy to use. Would I recommend the Samsung V205 then? You bet I would, I recommend it like I have never recommended anything before, I urge you to go and get one, it really is a dream mobile phone. www.samsungmobile.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90631 2003/4/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good design intuitive layout styling bright main display convenient swivel camera ir port is useless no pc connectivity limited picture options no bluetooth no voice dialing The Bottom LineThis phone has excellent hardware design. But the built-in firmware is substandard and doesn't exploit the full potential of the phone. Mainly the camera, IR port and PC connectivity. Full Review Take a look at more pictures of this phone, on My Buying Decision. I recently upgraded to a family wireless plan and had the need for an additional phone. I was not entirely convinced that having a digital camera in a cell phone was such a great idea, considering that the resolution is terrible and I already had a great digital camera in my My rational intellect finally lost to the gadget geek in me, but blames T-Mobile for their ad nauseam advertising. So far my favorite phone has been the . The Layout. The layout of buttons makes it very easy to quickly access the most common and popular functions. The keypad has the standard alphanumeric buttons in addition to the dial, hang up/power on-off, cancel/clear and four directional navigation buttons. The 4 navigation buttons can also be custom set for one button access to your favorite functions. There are four additional specialized buttons for WAP browser, Camera, Soft left and Soft right keys. The soft keys are for selecting functions on the display. On the side of the phone, is a headset jack, an IR port, and two volume-control buttons, which can be used to scroll through the V205's menus. The digital camera lens is attached at the center on the hinge between the keypad and the main LCD display. What's HOT: Small size Sleek and attractive design / styling. I was amazed at the small size and feel of the phone in my hand. It was extremely light even with the battery and holster. The brushed silver finish enhances the sleek clamshell design. People with small hands will love it with the slim battery installed. But my caveman mitts demand the additional size of an extended battery. The buttons have a pleasant blue back light that can be turned off or set for short duration to preserve battery charge. The shiny chrome trimmings make this a very attractive package. Large color display. The main display is a large LCD screen, capable of 65000 colors, backlit and super bright. It displays the various icons on top, graphics and text in the center and Softkey functions at the bottom. This works very well even outdoors on a bright day. There is also an onscreen menu option to adjust the brightness level. The resolution is 128x160 and at 65k colors, the images almost jump off the screen. External display on cover. This shows incoming calls or messages, alarm reminders, battery / signal strength and current date/time. It is blue backlit when the phone rings or is in use. Convenient digital camera. The camera captures images with a 352x288 pixel CCD sensor. The camera lens is located on the large hinge and can be swiveled to face the front or the back of the phone. When turned towards yourself, the image is inverted. You need to press the arrow up/down to turn the image right side up. To take pictures, the large LCD acts as the viewfinder. The small external LCD does not do this. Hence the phone has to be flipped open to use the digital camera. The phone makes a simulated shutter release noise when you take a picture. The pictures taken in daylight were very clear and bright. Those taken in low light were very grainy and blurry. The brightness can be adjusted before taking a picture by pressing the arrow right or left buttons. There is no Zoom option what-so-ever. The phone has a capacity of storing up to 100 pictures in JPEG format. The resolution of images is 352x288 pixels and file sizes range from 7-12KB. This size is great for MMS and wireless messaging but looks terrible on a PC. Image transfer options to and from a PC are very limited. Differences between the SGH-v200 and the SGH-v205 models: - Samsung sells the SGH-v205 in North America. It has 25 Polyphonic ringtones included and the camera does not have any zoom feature. - In Europe and Asia, Samsung sells the equivalent SGH-v200 model, which has 40 ployphonic ringtones included, and the camera allows for the image to be reduced or enlarged up to 20 different levels. 10 levels for enlargement, and 10 levels for reduction in size. I had a friend in Israel, e-mail me various pictures at different enlargement levels, for comparison purposes. The digital enlargements did result in excessive pixelation. WAP browser and wireless messaging. I found the WAP browser to be quick and responsive. The phone allowed me to save links to some of my favorite sites as bookmarks. Sending and receiving of pictures, text/mms messages was quite easy. The menu was easier to explore and navigate with the softkeys and the four directional buttons. The only limiting factor to my enjoyment of the wireless web, was the substandard and spotty T-Mobile GPRS service. Multi colored service light below external LCD window. Initially I found the multi colored flashing LEDs to be tacky. But they serve an important purpose. When you are in a 'silence required' environment like a meeting or a movie theater, the service light flashes rapidly to give a visual call/message indicator. It can be preset to flash in different color RGB color combinations. Solid blue is the best and brightest choice. What's NOT: Lousy Substandard Firmware. Although I found the phone hardware to be impressive, I felt that the firmware was severely lacking and did not exploit the full potential of the phone. There were many minor quirks, which just seemed like careless programming. For example, one option for the service light was solid pink, but when selected the service light was solid blue. When I called Samsung technical assistance to address various connectivity issues, they said that the firmware is preliminary and that they may be issuing updates to address consumer issues including added functionality. Very limited picture options. Once you get the phone, you will enjoy taking pictures for a few days, but then you will hit a wall. What can you do with all those pictures inside the nice little phone? It turns out, VERY LITTLE. You can attach them to MMS and e-mail messages and send them to your friends or yourself, set them as wallpaper, but that is it. I couldn't download them to my desktop, notebook or my iPAQ Pocket PC handheld. I couldn't even associate a picture with a phonebook entry. And if you really want to capture moments and memories, do it with a real camera like the . Useless Infrared Port and No PC connectivity. Typically the IR port is supposed to allow for convenient wireless transfer of data between various IR equipped devices. Samsung technical support claims that the phone is capable of synching with MS Outlook, using the IR port. After exhaustive testing, I found that the IR port on the v205, cannot be used for anything. I couldn't transfer pictures between my IPaq or my notebook and this phone. I did succeed in making an IR connection between the v205 and my HP xt375 notebook, but it wouldn't let me upload or download any data. I have over 150 contacts on my SIM card. I was hoping to be able to manage and sync them with MS Outlook. I even purchased a $60 USB data cable, hoping that it would solve my problem. I downloaded and installed the 'EasyGPRS' software, as instructed by the Samsung level-3 technicians. They swore that this would allow me to sync my address book to MS Outlook. No dice. At the end of a week full of aggravation, I reached the following conclusion. Forget about connecting/sync to a PC and Samsung technicians are a waste of good oxygen. All Samsung needs to do is write device drivers for Windows. This would enable automatic image file downloads and sync with Outlook, as soon as an IR connection is established. But that would be too simple. No voice activated dialing. Unlike my , I cannot associate a voice tag to individual phone book entries. Voice activated dialing is invaluable for individuals who need to make and receive calls while driving, exercising, working etc. No Bluetooth capability. I cannot use my Bluetooth is slowly becoming a standard for local wireless connectivity. It can be used to wirelessly connect and sync various peripherals and small electronic to each other. I have found a wireless hands free headset to be very convenient and practical. This phone does not support it. Holster design could be better. Although I found the retention mechanism to be very sturdy and secure, it won't accept the phone with an extended capacity battery. No regular ring tones. Call me an old fogey but I was rather embarrassed the first time I was in my bosses office and my phone started to sing a jingle. The phone is capable of polyphonic or melodious ring tones. There are about 25 various ring tones included, but nothing that sounds like a plain old ring. I thought I could download some from T-Mobile online, but all they have are tons of more junky funky teenager tones. Wake up T-mobile. Teenagers cannot afford this phone. The Bottom Line. Samsung has excelled in the hardware design of this phone. But the built-in firmware is substandard and doesn't exploit the full potential of the phone, mainly the camera and IR port. The v205 is an easy to use camera phone. It adds digital imaging to the convenience of wireless messaging and wireless web. But lack of PC connectivity is a serious handicap. Overall, I cannot recommend this phone when there are other significantly better models available. (, ) Included Accessories. - Slim Li-Ion battery, 720mAh capacity, - Standard Li-Ion battery, 900mAh capacity, - Travel charger, - Hands free headset, - Holster, - Wrist strap and - User manuals. Specifications. Mode: Tri-band (GSM 900 MHz; 1800 MHz; and 1900 MHz) Dimensions: 4.3" x 1.8" x 0.9" Weight: 3.4oz Talk Time: 2.5 - 4 hours (Slim), 3 - 5 hours (Standard) Standby Time: 100 - 120 hours (Slim), 120 - 140 (Standard) Main Display: 128 x 160 pixel, 65,000 color TFD display Other Features. Caller ID, Conference calling, Voicemail, Multimedia and text messaging, Alarms, Internal phone book can store 500 entries. Calendar, Calculator, To-do list, Currency converter, Wireless Web access, Three games, 25 polyphonic ring tones,(but no regular ring tone) Vibrate mode, IR or infrared port. ============================== Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349.00 90630 2003/4/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 games good sound small light takes pictures great functions expensive no standard ring picture quality somewhat lacking The Bottom LineAn excellent phone if you've got the loot. And if you've got the loot, how about sending some this way? Full Review It doesn't seem like so long ago that phones as multifaceted as this were follies of minds who had spent too much time watching Dr. Who outsmart the murdering trashcan army of the Daleks and envied Captain Kirk's ease at macking on the green chicks. Phones that can take pictures? Nonsense. Play games? Foolishness. And surf the web too? Poppycock. Phones are for talking - nothing more. Not anymore. Earlier this year, Samsung introduced the Samsung SGH-V205 Digital Camera Phone, easily one of the sharpest of these new ultra-versatile phones available on the market. With a compact stature of 1.8 x 0.9 x 4.3 inches and a weight of 3.4 ounces, it makes less of a bulge in your pocket than the average set of keys. However, the sleek look of the phone will guarantee that even if you don't want to holster it to your waist like it's a gadget you stole from Batman's utility belt, it wont be spending much time hidden in your pocket. The SGH-V205 sports a cool silver-gray rectangular clamshell design with a large hinge that houses the built-in rotating camera. On the top outside lid of the phone is the extremely sharp aqua external display. This display keeps track of all the normal cell phone info, such as battery strength, time, date and the caller ID data. Users can also choose to take the pictures taken with the phone and set them as wallpaper. The side of the phone houses the headphone jack, an IR port (which strangely cannot be used to transmit pictures), and the volume buttons. At the bottom is the terminal for direct connections to your PC or to other compatible units. Flip open the phone and you'll see that the inside is visually appealing as well. On the inside of the lid is an extraordinarily sharp color display that reads almost as well in extreme sunlight as it does in the dark. This 128 x 160 10-line screen utilizes what Samsung touts as "Hyper Color," beautifully sporting 65000 colors as opposed to the 256 and 4096 of some other units. This large, vivid screen will definitely steal your breath away the first time you see it. Unexpectedly, this substantial vivid color display helps make uncomplicated menu navigation easier as well; menu selections require no inhuman effort to read, thus allowing for less confusion and mistakes. Obviously looking out for the larger-handed members of the populace such as myself, a large, easy-pressing number pad, four-way directional pad, and menu buttons are positioned opposite the screen. Taking pictures with the unit is a relatively uncomplicated process. The camera rotates a full 180 degrees, so positioning the unit for that perfect shot shouldn't be difficult at all. Snapping photos requires little more than a few button presses. If the photo ends up being too dark or too bright, the push-button 10-level brightness control allows the user to manually adjust the brightness level. Once you've got the jpeg photo looking just right, you can email it directly through the phone or transfer to a PC for storage or additional touch-ups at the "Samsung Fun Club" (no funky mouse ears required). A laundry list of information management functions is integrated with the unit, including a calculator, calendar, alarm, and currency calculators for the international traveler. Each is designed to work intuitively, so there will be no incessant fumbling through instruction books to figure out the nuances of any these functions. For those who simply must maintain their virtual umbilical cord to the internet, the SGH-V205 sports GPRS Class 8 technology, enabling high-speed e-mail and MMS capabilities. It's microbrowser offers WAP web surfing and allows for downloading of games and other applications. Pictures taken with the phone can be sent through the connections as well. And if you get bored with work or web surfing, you can boot up one of the three included games: X-Flighter, Space War, and My Pet. Despite this multitude of bells and whistles, this phone still manages to be a miser with the juice. The Samsung SGH-V205 has a talk time of roughly 4 hours, and an impressive standby time of 100 hours. The long life bodes especially well for those who live life with the cell phone darn near glued to their ears, or the absent minded types who constantly forget to recharge. Unfortunately, Samsung did miss a couple of "gimme" features that would have made buying this phone a slam-dunk for potential consumers. Strangely, the SGH-V205 does not come with a standard ring. While the creative types have loads of giggles and chuckles from the assortment of 25 monophonic and polyphonic ring tones available, all of which can be assigned to different callers (imagine a dirge for your mother-in-law), but the plain-Janes will notice the absence of a standard ring. There is room for up to five additional tones though, so this lack of a straightforward ring should not be much of a problem. Also, while it is cool to be able to take pictures with your phone, the actual 352 x 288 resolution and overall photo quality won't rival anything you can take with your digital camera. Though at $399 (price may vary depending on plan), the Samsung SGH-V205 Digital Camera Phone may be priced out side of some folks' budgetary comfort zones, those with the money to buy this amazing device should definitely give it a test drive. It's a remarkable multi-function phone that's just as at home in the office or on the town. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 7826 Samsung SPH-I300 90673 2003/12/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 web browsing caller id touch screen program options reception the hours of teasing edured from co workers size weight price availability I bought this phone a year ago and was very satisfied with it. It took a while to find one but when I did I was happy with my purchase. I was happy for a bout 20 minutes. When I started using it I felt like I had a VCR strapped to my face instead of a phone. For something so flashy its features didnt realy impress me much. I would not recomend this phone. I think it is a waist of money. And it is not worth the hassle and impossible to fit in your pocket which makes the fact that its a portable phone totaly useless. Stick to something small and simple. 90672 2004/9/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 palm phone lots of software available speakerphone screen hard to see in direct day light battery life I just recently purchased the I300 off of EBay for about 40 bucks and I must say so far it was the best forty dollars I've ever spent. I'm glad I have the luxury to read up on all the tips and tricks on using this phone. So far I've been able to download a slew of nifty programs for my phone. There this one that I just downloaded that allows me to control all my remote controlled devices via the IPH300. I can open and close my garage using my phone ... how cool is that. The only flaw to me is the amount of battery life this thing uses. I could usually go a day or two with out charging all of my other phone and now with this I have to charge it everyday. I also haven't been able to find a whole lot of accessories for it ... this could be because it's about 3 years old. If you are looking for a palm and a phone together and can live with the bulkiness of this phone then this is your phone. 90671 2000/4/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 palm in cell phone in one you have to get a serial to usb converter no usb cable available The Bottom LineThe basic Palm user will be fine, but the 8mb will not be enough for extra softwares. Full Review This phone is awesome, but small details were not carefully considered. It only has 8Mb and is not expandible. There is not a plastic holster available. NO Usb cable available, which is standard on computers. The screen has a hard time being seen in direct sunlight. The Palm software is not upgradable. The phone is only available thru Sprint PCS. If your female, makeup will coat the screen. The modem on the phone is only 19.2. The phone is not compatible for future 3G systems, so when Sprint goes 3-G next year the phone will be obsolete. The concept and the phone is great. Since it is the first version Samsung came out, maybe they will fix these issues on a future version. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.99 90670 2000/11/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full web browsingemail access combines color palm cell phone no usb syncing sprint does not provide smtp services for sending email The Bottom LineDoes a great job of integrating a full featured digital phone into a color palm device. Full Review Lots more info at http://www.sphi300.com The only device out right now that basically combines a Palm VII and a digital phone while adding color. I upgraded from a Palm VII and a StarTac phone to this device. You can use any PQA that the Palm VII devices use with this phone. The I300 is much faster when downloading content than the Palm VII was. You browse ANY web site in full color, downloading all the graphics and text you want. Use Eudora to check all of your different email accounts easily. It allows you to use the phone in speakerphone mode so you can talk and use the palm portion of the device at the same time. You can even record your phone conversations and/or personal memos. Things that would be nice to have: USB Sync capability Compact Flash Slot MP3 playback capabilities Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.00 90669 2000/3/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen size all in one device speaker clarity ringer volume price The Bottom LineIf you have a Palm and a Sprint PCS phone, buy this and replace them both! Full Review I bought this phone back in December 2001. I was holding back a little because I felt it would probably be too big, the reason I didn't make use of my Palm was that it didn't fit in my pocket easily, so I was hoping this would fit a little easier. When I opened the box, I couldn't believe how small it actually was! It's so thin that it fits in my front pocket of my jeans easier than my old SCH-3500 phone did! Besides from the size, there's nothing small about it. It's got all the wonderful palm features and a phone to go with them. The phone and palm are fairly well integrated, there are a few things that could be better, I'll continue adding to my review as they come to mind in the future. Trust me, I love this phone, but let me just point out a few of the things I feel could be improved. First of all, the ringer, on the loudest setting, is not loud enough to wake me when sitting next to my head and I'm sleeping. I'd definitely like a louder ringer. Secondly, the speaker clarity could use a lot of work. I generally get around this by using the hands free option, but when I'm forced to talk on the phone using the speaker, i often have trouble understanding what others are saying. The Battery Life is wonderful when the phone's in use in digital mode, but when it's going in and out of analog, the batteries drain quickly. The same can be said when using the full color palm screen a lot. However, this isn't an issue as it comes with two batteries in the box, so you can always have a fully charged one available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 424.00 90668 2000/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 a nice integrated phonepalm device with many cool features bad button placement touch screencall do not mix well The Bottom LineGreat screen and a functional palm pda in one. The rest can only get Better! Full Review The new Samsung SPH-I300 is a real useful phone and pda for those whole really need both and dislike carrying two items or worst yet leave one behind. For the many pro's the phone/pda has the many, many con's it has. The worst problem I found was that while on a call if your cheek touches the screen touch tones are sent to your callers ear. The screen can be turned off from 30 seconds to 3 min. I tried the 30 seconds and it still was not short enough. Equally annoying is the phone button on the side of the phone. Your thumb rests on it in your right hand to hold the phone or your index finger if held in your left hand. If you hit this button while on a call you hang up on the person. Now they already know you do not know how to operate your new phone because of the beeps in their ear and then you hang up on them. perhaps a software update will help some of the correctable problems but a new design with better button placement will really make this a premier product. The first to market does not always win, though the first to market that really works well will set the standard that others will follow. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 90667 2000/3/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great convergence of a phone pda excellent reception great palm os pda none The Bottom LineIf you own a wireless phone and PDA, sell them on EBAY and buy the Samsung SPH-I300. This is one powerful, well-built little device. Full Review I purchased the Samsung SPH-I300 from CompUSA since they had a promotion giving away a new DVD player with purchase of this phone. I used it as a PDA for a week and then activated Sprint PCS service over the Sprint PCS Website. This device rocks ! Sold my Sony PDA and Voicestream phone immediately. Now I only carry one device - and what a device it is ! I live in Albuquerque NM and have had all the other carriers and a variety of phones. This phone/PDA is the best phone and Sprint PCS is the best carrier of them all. Reception has been rock solid. Calls go right through and are rock solid. I have not had one dropped call since I started service. On Voicestream I got dropped 3 or 4 times a day. My experience with Sprint PCS customer service has been good over the Web using the Sprint PCS Website. 24 hour response on questions and adjustment requests to my account. I signed up for a Total Digital Connections Plan and the Voice Command and Web are awesome. Sprint is way ahead of all the other carriers when it comes to technology. This phone has excellent reception and clear, loud audio. The PDA works great, the included ZIO Golf Game is very cool on the color screen. My dreams have been answered. This is a perfect device that I had been waiting for for a long time. The "WOW" factor is big - everyone wants to check out your phone - you get alot of stares from curious people. Keep up the great work Samsung ! Note: Sprint PCS in my region is operated by an affiliate called Alamosa PCS - I have heard some negative things about Sprint in other regions, but they certainly don't apply here. Alamosa PCS is doing a great job. I added the $10 no contract option with Sprint PCS and highly recommend this as it allows you to cancel at any time as well as change calling plans any time you want as they come out with more minutes, more off-peak hours ect. No risk that way. What are you waiting for - BUY THIS PHONE NOW. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.99 90666 2000/5/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 all in one solution impress your friends no buttons for dialing dim in sunlight The Bottom LineSolid solution to combining technologies of a phone and a palm. Full Review I have had the I300 for a little over a month and I am satisfied with it. I no longer have to carry a phone, a palm and my wallet, I just carry the I300 with the leather case that came with it to hold my credit cards. The biggest gripe I have is not having the keys to dial numbers and answer and complete calls. This can be very distracting if you are driving and are trying to dial a number or answer a call. The speaker phone works well but always resets to the lowest volume (inaudible) for each call answered, which means you have to turn the volume up each time make or answer a call. All the palm functions work great including the integration of calling from your address book. The screen is bright and easy to read except in sunlight. I am a little worried about durability because my cat knocked the I300 off my couch and it took only a 14-inch fall. I picked up the I300 and the screen was flashing and the system could not be used. I shudder to think what would happen if I dropped it from my hand while standing and it fell 48-inches. In order to use the system again I had to erase all data and reset the system. I had backed up my info and it was restored when I hot synced, but if I were traveling this would have been a problem! You can expect the battery to last about 48 hours with light use, half that if you are on the phone for more that 30 minutes. That is about every thing that I have experienced thus far. Overall I enjoy the I300 and would recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 475 90665 2003/3/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great execution stylish usability is first of its kind offered by samsung could use improvement The Bottom LineThis smart phone for Sprint PCS can be used with little compromise. Full Review Perhaps you may be able to relate - You empty your pockets at the end of the day and realize that you're carrying around way too many electronic devices in your pockets. Enter the SPH-I300... a great solution for Sprint PCS customers which does a great job integrating the features of both a Palm Pilot and Cell phone. As with all "combination" devices, the SPH is geared towards one function a bit more than the other. In this case, I feel that the Palm functions were preserved over a provision of hearty cellular phone functions. Users who are used to a palm pilot will find almost no learning curve to transitioning to the I300. The size is also very nice as it is as cumbersome as a single palm pilot and is only slightly larger than most traditional cell phones. Reliability has been superb. I drop this thing all the time on hard surfaces and it continues to function without problems. The screen is very rugged, and has resisted scratches in spite of heavy use (screen protectors are available). The construction seems very tight, and an absence of moving parts reinforces the feeling of superior construction. In function, the "phone" has simply become an extension of the Palm OS, and you will almost treat making phone calls as another program that runs on your palm pilot. There is a small LCD atop the phone that gives traditional "cell phone" information, as well as an antenna protruding from the top. Aside from this, there are no buttons or switches that you find on normal cell phones. This being said - the phone works very well once you get used to the "touch screen buttons" and Palm OS address book. Integration was done very well. Once the controls are learned, everything is intuitive. Features are packed in and everything is customizable. Swappable batteries (the phone ships with 2) and an separate charging / sync cradle are very useful. I usually have to swap for a fresh battery at the start of each day to insure usability for the entire day. I will agree with other users, the list of problems is short, but can really hinder your use of the phone. The screen has poor contrast and is hard to read out doors in sunlight. This is especially important since screen visibility is required to place most phone calls. A lack of a thumb-wheel (instead, up and down buttons are offered) makes scrolling along a list of names slightly difficult. Browse to http://www.smartphoneforums.com to find a community dedicated to this (and similar) phone/PDA combos. I would like to add that I gave Portability high marks due to the fact that this phone is a lot easier to carry than a regular cell phone plus a palm pilot. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 315 90664 2000/12/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 tight integration between palmphone fragile lacks expansion slots inferior case options The Bottom LineAlthough I';m critical of the I300, I';m not down on it. Just be aware that it';s not perfect. In three words, I dig mine! Full Review By profession, I assess PIMs and wireless devices for use in the enterprise environment. Previously, I had a Palm VII and traded up to the I300 because it integrates the Palm OS with a mobile phone. After working with it for a week, I've decided that I really like it. Here are the pros: the PIM features integrate nicely with the phone and can access and/or be synchronized to corporate groupware. Additionally, it has a speakerphone, a voice recorder, and a couple of WAP browsers that work well (particularly Blazer) plus it handles a host of other features associated to CDMA/PCS services. On the down side, the case that it came with is cheesy and has no belt clip, and the one that you can order as an accessory is simply a holster - the phone must be removed entirely from it in order to use it. Also, it feels a bit fragile. While my old wireless phone has been dropped down stairs and hit by a car when I dropped it crossing the street, it keeps on running. This is due in part to the protective case that remains on the unit at all times. I fear that if I drop the I300, it will shatter like glass. The edge connector that mates with the cradle is protected by a tiny rubber strip that will likely be lost in a short time. The sound quality on the phone is marginal even when the signal level is 100% - the beginning and ends of words frequently get clipped. I have yet to figure out if this is a network issue or if the device's internals are overtaxed by running the Palm OS and phone simultaneously. After playing the HarBall game and seeing the graphics momentarily seize at frequent intervals, I think it might indicate the latter. Another issue is value. At $500 a clip plus the expensive monthly fees, there are a lot of cheaper, albeit less convenient alternatives. Finally, a word of caution: if you intend to use this with your corporate groupware (ours is server-based Lotus notes), be prepared for a challenge to your technical savvy and your patience. Getting addresses from my groupware to the Sprint address book required four separate synchronizing operations. Even then, the results were mixed because of inconstancies in field names between the various programs. If you use MS Outlook/POP3, synchronization should be much easier. Once I did get it setup and synchronized to the voice command, I was thrilled with the results. Features I'd like to see included in future offerings are expansion slots and a standardized edge connector to allow for connections to peripherals such as a keyboard. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 90663 2002/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact convenient good display visibility clarity true multi tasking marvel keylock minimizes errors durable when dropped silver slick finish makes easy to slip out of hands 8mb limitation accessories hard to find The Bottom LineSamsung SPH I300 is a do everything/anything device. Outlook power users look out, because this device will keep you on the pulse of things! Buy it and simplify your life. Full Review Measurements: 4 3/4 inches tall X 2 ¼ inches wide X ¾ inches thick. What's in the box: 2 stylus writing tools, 2 BST0359LE Li-ion batteries that provide about 2 hours of constant talk time each, a vinyl hand carrying case, SPH I300 devise and a CD-ROM with Palm Desktop Software, user Guide, Software link to Microsoft Outlook, Color HTML browser & Zio Golf Game applications. Recommend a person web surf, to locate & download the HotSync v3.5 instead of using the older version supplied with the SPH I300. Additional Accessories: Cigarette Lighter Adapter, Extended Life Battery $59.99, Leather Belt Clip Case. Computer System Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME or NT is what the CD jacket reflects, but I have tested these applications with Windows 2000 Pro and it works just fine. IBM-Compatible 486 or higher, 8mb or RAM minimum, 16mb recommended, 20mb of disk space, VGA or better monitor, CD-ROM drive, mouse, one available Serial port. Compatible with Desktop to Go and Documents to Go. I haven't tested Sprint's enclosed software on XP Home or Pro yet. I also wish to test a folding palm keyboard with this device and compare compatibility, but I will…update forth coming. Excellent Engineering: Charge both batteries at the same time while doubling as the Serial port data transfer device. Charging the telephone while turned on, does not damage the LCD display, unlike the first Nextel i1000plus, that tended to burn out the display in 12 months. Functionality is excellent. Display is bright/clear and easily adjustable. Like all LCD devices, sun/shadows can make the display hard to read, but one simply adjusts their position to correct this minor issue. When comparing strictly to the new cell phones, the over all size is a bit large, but when comparing to the average Palm Pilot, it's smaller & more functional. UPDATE 03Sep02: This phone takes a real beating, I've dropped it off the roof of a one story house, on concrete from hip level, and on asphalt in the parking lot. The battery pops out, but put the battery back in, power it up and no issues what so ever! All the data is there, the screen seems fine. It's a really tough little device. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 469.99 90662 2000/10/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception light nice implementation of the palm oscell phone small screen hard to see screen in bright sunlight The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a Palm Cellphone this is the one (for now). Full Review Using the Kyocera Palm Phone as a benchmark for these type of PDA/cell phone devices, the Samsung i300 is a winner. The Good: It feels like a phone in your hand, not a brick. Good consistent reception. Phone is easy to set up and use, even one handed It's light, and begs to be taken everywhere you go. Color screen, although it seems washed out at times. The Bad: Hard to see screen in bright sunlight. This can be a problem when dialing if you can't see the buttons (There are no hard keys). Sync cradle is serial in a USB world Screen is narrow which may make it difficult for users with large hands to use. Seems fragile Pricey...at $499 its no bargain. Convenience does have its value though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 90661 2000/5/31 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tri mode cell phone color palm pilot web email in a small package outlook synchronization poor speakerphone pickup dim screen in sunlight graffiti writing requires some practice The Bottom LineA great color PDA and an excellent cell phone all in one small, portable package. Full Review I had been wanting one of these for several months, I almost held off when I heard that Samsung is coming out with a new version of this phone, but that appears to still be many months away and will have mainly cosmetic changes. I've been very happy with the purchase. The convenience of checking email from anywhere, getting online to do searches, and keeping all of my ToDo lists, contacts, and appointments with me in one place is incredible! The phone is very small, only slightly larger than a traditional cell phone. Now that I've gotten used to it I can't imagine not having it around... There are a lot of PalmOS applications out there, so don't limit yourself to the software that comes with the phone. I downloaded the Eudora email client and the ToDo Plus package and use them instead of the built-in applications. The Graffiti writing system takes some practice, I've had the unit for almost a month and I still find myself backing up and rewriting characters pretty often. But it's better than carrying around a separate PDA with a keyboard that too bulky to fit nicely in your pocket yet too small to use effectively. The cons are pretty minor. In bright sunlight, you'll have to shadow the screen to read it very well, though in reality how often do you use your PDA in bright sunlight? Also the speakerphone has pretty good volume, you can lay the phone on the table and still hear pretty well from across the room, but the voice pickup on the speakerphone only works when you're really close, like within a couple of feet. You can buy these in stores for $500 with lots of enticing rebates, but the rebates are only good for new SprintPCS customers. Since I was an existing SprintPCS customer, I decided to check eBay and picked it up for $349. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349 90660 2000/4/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 comes with two batteries easy to use combines palmcell phone devices well accessing numbers not using the stylustakes too long with scroll buttons The Bottom LineSimply put the I300 Samsund PDA phone is quite an amazingly functional machine, allowing you to organize your contacts and notes in one easy to use machine. Full Review I have owned the Samsund I300 since the day it was released. Samsung has made this the first truley pocketable size PDA phone by doing away with the keypad found on other models, all of the access to phone numbers are done one of three ways. You can simply dial by touching the screen, use the voice activated dialing, which works well for 20 numbers in memory, or you can use the scroll or stylus to simply tap on one of your listing in your phonebook. As with all samsung phones you can dial the last 4 digits of any number in your phone book as a shortcut and it will complete the number on its own. I find myself dialing directly from the keypad the majority of time, scrolling through sometime hundreds of listings takes far too long. I use the stylus to locate and dial numbers deep in my listings. The screen is very bright and clear, not quite the quality of the lastest color palm handheld devices but completely usable. The unit only displays 256 colors so don't expect to see photo realistic pictures on this screen. Samsung packs two batteries in with the unit, I use both the phone and the palm continously through out the day and it needs charging at the end of the evening, but I am a heavy user of cell minutes. Talk time is about 2.5 hours. There really never is down time with 2 batteries, one can always be charging at home and simply swap them when you can. Samsung gives you a carrying case with the phone, I find it rather bulky and cheap, making the phone to difficult to answer quickly, I purchase Samsung's leather holster which works much better and doesn't add to the size of the phone. The phone it self isn't very large considering that a fully function palm device is integrated with it. Overall I am very happy with this phone, is an incredibly useful tool for those who already carry a palm device and a cell phone. No more charging two devices, or looking up the number in your palm to dial in on your cell phone. Internet access from Sprint has never been better. The phone easily allows you to check your POP3 compatible email where ever you go. Samsung also packs in Handspring's Blazer software allowing full blown internet access to any website. The phone is limited to 19K download speeds which is too slow for full color sites, but it does allow you to turn the color option off allowing respectable download times of websites. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449.99 90659 2000/2/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it s a topic of conversation one less item to carry first generation product still has major flaws The Bottom LineI'm stuck with it. In hindsight, I'd wait two more generations or go with the Treo for now. Full Review The more I use the I300, the less I like it. It chews through standard batteries, and the extended life battery doesn't fit in the provided carrying case. Actually, the darn thing is such a thick brick that it's hard to carry anyways. Other form factor issues concern the touch screen. It is a pain to dial--one either uses the stylus, which means using two hands, or risks scratching the screen. It is also a pain to speak on: my ear keeps on turning the speaker-phone at the worst possible moments. Buttons are placed so that just carrying the I300 around turns on the PDA. On one occasion, the vulnerable Voice Dial button pressed and the phone thought it recognized my manager's name; he wondered why I was calling him late on a Saturday night. Whoops. As a side note, the voice dial is only useful if you're in a quite place. Otherwise, it gets really confused. (I ask for "Home" it dials "Mom".) There is no natural protection for the screen, which does scratch. A clamshell design, like the Treo, would have made more sense. The Palm OS for the I300 is still at 1.0. It needs an upgrade. Not only does it freeze far too often, but there are a million small details that make using the phone a pain. For example, I looked up a friend in the Palm address book and asked it to dial their home, which it did. When I got an answering machine, I decided to try the friend's cell phone. To do this, I had to once again call up the address book, re-search for my friend's entry, and then redial. There was no simple "back" function. Similarly, using "Call Waiting" is confusing, and is likely to disconnect at least one party if not both. The battery on the I300 has a tendency to slip out of position. On a recent business trip I found that the battery had been 2mm open for the entire length of the train ride--3 hours, and that my entire Palm had reset to zero. Fortunately, when I got home I was able to restore everything except the voice dial with a "hot synch". Unfortunately, that was 3 days later, and I was stuck for those 3 days without my calendar or contacts. The worst thing about the phone, though, is that it simply isn't a good phone. Voice quality is poor (both sending and receiving), and reception is horrid. I've stood inside a Sprint store where other phones had 5 bars of reception while my I300 had none. (The Sprint technicians had just tested my phone and assured me that it was working perfectly.) Finally, the I300 is not really well supported by Sprint. This may have more to do with Sprint, but is a factor in considering the purchase. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500 90658 2000/10/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 8 mb 1 os 3 5 great speakerphone thin color all in 1 stylus problems a little too big some problems with 3d party apps bugs The Bottom LineThis is a fabulous phone. It blows the Kyocera 6035 (the only other Palm/phone combo) out of the water. Full Review I've only been using this phone for 2 days, so my review will be somewhat limited. First, let me say this: the pictures on samsung.com don't do this phone justice. It's a lot smaller than you think -- especially if you were turned off by the Kyocera 6035 brick (like me). It's thin, light, and the color screen is incredible. Go to the store and demo it before you decide not to buy. The Palm/phone integration is fabulous. You just click on any entry in your address book and it dials. It divides the entries into two sides -- click on the left to read the whole entry, edit, etc. -- click on the right to dial a number. Very cool. The major phone pain is that there are no keys, you just have to touch the screen. If you have really big fingers, you probably won't be able to do that at all. Or, if you have long nails, you will scratch the screen. I worry that mine will get scratched, so I actually used a "write-right" protector from my Palm V on the screen (I cut it down to size with a scissors). That has allayed my fears about damaging my 2 day old $500 phone. One nice note. If you buy from Sprint at least, you get 2 batteries, 2 styli, and a leather case (the case is cheap and you'll never use it). That makes you feel a little better about spending $500. But when you factor in what this replaces -- a 8MB color Palm and a cell phone -- it's a steal. If you've been waiting months this for phone (like me), trust me, you'll love it. I've had a few problems with the stylus (it's too big, doesn't fit right) and the antenna (it's loose). And about 1/3 of my 3d party apps didn't work on the Samsung (weird). I reinstalled some and about 1/2 of those were okay, so I'm not worried. All the programs I couldn't live without work fine. Another minus is the serial cradle (what's that about?, it's a USB world). But the Palm/phone integration is truly spectacular. There are just a lot of little things you wouldn't expect them to think of, but they did -- like you can add speed dial entries right from your address book with a drop-down list. Or you can dial from your address book with one hand using the side buttons. And the speakerphone is really, really loud and clear. I really hope companies start coming up with 3d party apps to integrate with the phone, too (like a program that would let you see pictures of who is calling -- i.e. a digital photo you would link to caller ID). One caution: don't buy this phone to surf the web. It's painfully slow. With the exception of synching Vindigo (a great restaurant/movies program) or an emergency email, I doubt I'll ever use it. But the phone is well worth it without that capability. If you use Palm OS, this phone is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 90657 2000/8/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 best phone pda you could ask for it s the best technology can offer will freeze on you bigger than most phones The Bottom LineThis is a superior machine. PDA and phone in one. Full Review Here's what happened: I had a Qualcomm phone that lost its antenna and I wasn't getting any calls coming in on my phone (the caller would be sent to my voicemail and a half hour later, I got a message) - not only that, I foolishly threw my PDA in the air, trying to catch it and of course I missed. So I needed a new PDA and phone. I killed two birds with one stone - and my wallet got killed too - and got probably the last cellphone I'll ever buy. The Samsung i300 is a fantastic piece of machinery. I had thought about buying the Treo, but they gave me a hassle in buying it cuz I had a check card and not a credit card. Their loss and my gain. Besides, I've heard reviews that Treo had terrible phone reception because Handspring makes PDAs mainly. I bought the i300 at Radio Shack where they had a $100 mail in rebate - on top of the fifty dollar discount from what Sprint was offering. I bought it and the batteries (you get two) WORKED RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!!! Amazing! I walked over to my Sprint store to get it activated and I was using the phone less than an hour after buying it from the store. Virtually no hassle at all. I had a hard time getting connection from the i300 to my Mac, but I bought a simple SCSI/USB adapter which did the job. I can record phone numbers immediately, I've used my PDA while on the phone with a person, the quality of the sound is excellent, I've found the battery life to be superior (of course, you're gonna burn battery life if you're playing games on the phone - and some games cannot be downloaded and played on yoru PDA like Tetris or Galaga) - I've left my phone on for two days without charging it, and I've had no problem with it at all. I went on vacation at Yellowstone and the phone did drop some calls, but in most areas it worked. The design is a bit big, but it's sturdy and the screen isn't glass like my old Handspring model. The buttons on the display are big and there's a button on the side in which you can get quickly go to the phone mode to make a call. I actually feel ashamed showing this phone to friends as they roll their eyes. If you can afford the price, you'll love this. It's two machines in one - both working in harmony as one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 90656 2000/11/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 dial from address book all in one device appsgames on the go cost color screen could be better don t change batteries hard to see in daylight The Bottom LineAll in all, it's a good device. People really think it's cool and want to check it out all of the time. If you have the loot.... it's a winner... Full Review I got the I300 back in January 02. I have had a chance to play with and use this device a lot. I am an engineer... pager, phone, palm, laptop.... I had more gadgets than Batman... many of you know what I mean. This purchase was an attempt to eliminate a few items. Works and feels like a palm..cool. screen is a little smaller but it is really not a big deal...ok I can deal with that. Cradle charges phone and extra battery at the same time. Palm capabilities are true to form. Most palm apps work fine but there are a few exceptions.... not sure why... it may be related to the graffiti area which is hides when using the phone... who knows... The biggest problems for me are changing batteries, using speakerphone.... I often lose information and need to re-sync when I do change batteries. I am use to it now and rarely change batteries. I don't remember this being the case when I first got this phone. The speakerphone requires a delicate tap on the screen at the right position.... you really need to use the stylus or have mini fingers as a matter of fact the same thing holds true for most phone functions... calls logs (ie missed, messages, etc).... bad design Samsung. When you are using the phone who wants to always grab the stylus. Sound quality is good and dialing is a breeze from the address book and there are applications which make dialing even easier. Try FingerDial... awesome program for the palm phone user. Accessories are becoming more available for this device... I love my case, which looks like a regular phone case and is leather. Not that cheesy thing that comes with this $400-$500 phone. I also added an extended life battery... a must have. For accessories, I used: www.accessories4samsung.com & www.factorydirectcellular.com the first one is a samsung authorized dealer.... the second one is where I got the case from. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 90655 2000/4/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 nice deskstand cheap old technology obsoleteuseless web browser The Bottom LineOld technology, A cheap way to find out what all the PDA 'hype' is about. Full Review It's April 2006, and I just upgraded to a new PDA, so this review is about the old unit. I've always been a late adopter of technology. Not because I'm a Luddite, but because new technology is so damn expensive. Take this phone, new it cost over $300, but I got it for about $50 on Ebay a couple of years ago. I don't know if you can get this anymore, and them CongressCritters have mandated e911, which means if your phone doesn't tell you where it is it can't be activated. So I think this is now obsolete, but I'll post a review anyhow for those who are even slower adopters than I! The Phone: The screen is color, but be warned, this is an older phone. Compared to newer phones, the color is washed out and it's hard to see the screen in direct sunlight. To be fair, even the screens on the newer phones are hard to see in direct sunlight, but geeks like us don't need to go outside, right? Action games (i.e., Galaxian) are hard to play because the moving figures are blurred. However, the phone itself is quite rugged. I have dropped it a few times. If the battery pops out, you lose all your phone numbers, programs etc., but the phone still retains its phone number and still functions. It's a good thing you can back up your data to a PC! It's not small, about twice as large as a regular phone, and it's heavy, thus it's not 'pocketable' but, it works OK in a suit jacket pocket. It's also harder to lose! As a phone it works OK. Sound levels are good, I usually don't use the highest setting. There are a few ringtones built in, and that's it, no tone upgrades. As before, the screen is hard to seen in the sunlight, so answering outside is somewhat iffy. The speaker phone works, but voice quality is not clear. Often I had to stop what I'm doing, and pick up the phone to understand the caller. There is no 'real' keypad, calls are made from the palm address book, or from a keyboard drawn on the screen. Not very tactile, thus difficult to dial when driving, but were not supposed to do that (right??!) Because almost everything is accessed via the screen, you can inadvertently call someone when you put it in your pocket. About a year ago, I found the 'lock' button on the screen to prevent this. (It's a tiny icon on the bottom of the phone screen) The included charging/Synch desktop stand is sturdy, big and heavy. It's nice to have place to drop the phone onto my desk and have it charging and ready to sync. I just got a new PDA phone (treo 270) without a stand and this is probably the biggest peeve I have with it. Where do you put the cord when it's not plugged in, 2 hands are needed to plug it in and now I spend some time under my desk looking for that dang cable! The PDA: The biggest advantage to this unit is the Palm PDA. This is my first PDA phone, and I'm sold on the concept. All my contacts are backed up on my PC, and backed up on CDRW's. And when I bought my new palm PDA, synchronizing to the new phone was a breeze. I wish all phones were this easy to use. The Blazer software is actually obsolete. The Blazer company went under recently, so you can't access web pages anymore. But, this feature was pretty much useless anyhow. I tried web browsing with the unit, but it was very slow, even without images. Plus, you pay for connect time. Besides the palm contact features, I mostly used the free downloaded able games to waste time while waiting. The only games I permanently installed was "Lode Runner", and "Same Game". I also got a suite of card games called "Patience" off the net from SourceForge.org", which has several other freeware palm programs. I also got a neat bookreader program from here called "Weasel" which I actually use, which is free and easy to use. The Gutenburg internet library has many text books (older classics whose copyrights have expired) which are free to download and read. I never used the e-mail stuff. I didn't need it. Summary All of the above peeves are because I got a newer phone. To be honest, if I hadn't seen the newer phone I never would have noticed these 'problems' and I probably would still be happily using it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90654 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception great color can be a little confusing at first The Bottom LineAn incredible all in one solution for the person who wants a palm and a phone. Full Review Finally! After NeoPoint put out their 1000, after LG put out the 3000, and after Kyrocera put out the 6035, there is a PDA/Phone that I can say is a really good unit. Samsung has always been one of the leading manufacturers of mobile phones. From some of the first dual band phones, first flip phones, where the flip was more than a decoration, to the first MP3 phone. Now, the I300 continues the trend. Packaged with not only the usual accessories (home charger/synch station, manuals, stylus, and software) it also come with a second battery ($60 value) and a leather case ($15 value). Sure, you're spending $500 on the phone, its nice to get something a little extra back. Samsung handsets have (almost) always been durable, and with great reception. Most of them last, and will take quite a bit before it quits out. The I300 is no exception. The full 16 color display is bright, and easy to read (but I can see where sunglare can hinder that). The palm functions are seperate from the phone functions. The phone can be off, but the palm can be on, and vice versa. While both are on, if a call comes in while you're in a palm function, it will pause the software and jump over to the phone. The phone itself is pretty durable. Where previous PDA phones would quit out after one drop, the I300 seems to be stronger than the others. Bang it around a little, and it still works good (just be careful of the large unprotected screen). The size is a little large, but still more compact than the smallest Palm device and a small phone, and its just one thing, not two. No cords to buy to connect them. No extra software. Nothing, just the I300, and you're ready to organize, surf the wireless web, and make calls. Recpetion on the handset is great. Samsung phones have always been able to get good signals, probably the second best I see. Calls are clear. Battery life can be great, if you remember to turn off the screen. It also has a caller ID display on the top, so when its on your belt clip, you just have to look down to see who's calling you, instead of fumbling around to take it off your clip. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 90653 2000/11/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 large touch pad with full function palm os high quality digital phone legible screen you ll need to use the stylus to make phone calls if you have big fingers The Bottom LinePhone is featured packed! Give yourself a little time to learn how to use all the functions and you'll probably wonder how you got around life without one. Full Review It's the perfect stocking stuffer...oh, wait a minute...I think you'll need to stuff one of these in your pocket before the holidays arrive. Because everyone knows, 'Santa' will be busy communicating with the elves to fulfill those holiday wishlists, setting up and tracking orders, calculating totals expenses for labor, and making appointments to visit with the little children. He can' be late, he's got business to conduct, meetings to attend and he'll be busy. Very busy until the end of this year! Samsung's got the perfect solution for all the jovial, rotund guys wearing bright red jump suits with cotton trim cuffs and that smug snow colored beard...The 1st PDA/PCS phone!!! I'd like to call it a modern day miracle that weighs approximately 6 ounces. This futuristic device performs lots of functions, I will break it down into three different sections "basic" and "advanced" and "neat things to try." BASIC: Make digital phone calls Accepts pages and voicemail to answer calls for you when you can't answer them. (must setup this service with Sprint PCS) Digital voice recorder. *Calculator *Scheduler with alarm (and snooze) *Memo pad ADVANCED: Record a conversation that you're having with the caller. This phone recognizes voice commands. (must setup this service with Sprint PCS) Caller id capable, 3 way call and call waiting features. 25 different ring patterns and vibrates too. 99 speed dials Address and phonebook are integrated into one. The 'find' feature works much like it does in Windows(tm), type part of what you're searching for and your Palm pilot looks up the information for you. Transmit data (Called 'HotSync') between your home computer and this PDA/PCS phone. (i.e. your address book) NEAT THINGS TO TRY: Check email and surf the wireless web with a really cool browser. (download this from the www.sprintpcs.com website) You can run a Gameboy(tm) emulator so that your phone behaves like a Gameboy and play games with it. The really nice thing about buying this phone is it comes complete with everything. 2 stylus pens, leather case, 2 phone batteries (so that you can swap them), the actual phone and home charger with serial connector. About the only thing that I can think of that you might want to get for this phone is a car charger. These are not yet available (but, I'm sure it will be soon). The holidays are just around the corner, so if you don't pick one up for yourself, make sure you let someone else know that you would like the SAMSUNG SCH-I300 phone. If you have questions, just drop me an email. Thanks. Wondering how I got mine for $400? Drop me an email, I might be able to get you one at that price or possibly lower. *=uses the Palm OS 3.5.2 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 90652 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 worth every penny well thought through designfunctionality small lightweight as the m505 is 500 but is perfect meld of phonepalm The Bottom LineIt condenses what you carry, meets your needs better and lighter than a laptop, and worth the money in what you won't have to buy. Full Review The Samsung SPH I-300, or PalmPhone as I will call it is probably the greatest meld between a Palm PDA and a CDMA Sprint phone. This phone is about the thickness of the m505, and a little bit taller, but this is by far the finest product that uses a Palm OS and has a color screen. Sure, the m505 has the SmartCard slot - but if 8 MB of memory is just not enough for you, then I question your uses of your PDA. The sleek curves on the side hint at a "sexier side" to the phone, and I will admit that this metallic plastic does rival the brushed aluminum finish of the m505. I thought that the 256 colors would be a real loss to the 65K colors of the m505, but let me tell you - this baby more than makes up for the little loss of color. From voice dialing to vibrating for appointments to checking my corporate email on the phone, this is by far the finest unit to come out of Sprint in probably two years. If you think that you would not need an "all-in-one" unit, then you have no idea what you are missing. I have owned almost every Palm at some point - the PalmPilot Professional, the Palm III, the Palm IIIcE, the Palm V, the Palm Vx, the Palm VIIx, and the m505. Let me just say that this little I-300 puts every one of these other PDAs to shame. What is the real beauty? That I can use it as an all in one. This is by far worth the $500 that it runs right now. You must understand that for a comparable phone and separate phone, you would be looking at around $550 - $700 depending on what you got, so that $500 doesn't seem so bad at the end of the day. It is light, it is small, it comes with an extra battery, and I could not be any happier with it. I encourage you to buy it today - it crosses platforms even...It will work on Mac and Windows - pretty nice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 90651 2000/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 palm pilotphone in one unit may be inconvenient if you don t want to use a palm device The Bottom LineExcellent phone if you use a Palm Pilot for organizing your stuff; otherwise, get a simpler phone. Full Review It's been a few months since I purchased a Samsung SCH-I300, so the new-gadget thrill is pretty much over. As it turns out, I use the PDA features of this phone every day, and the phone has proven itself to be quite useful. I use this phone with the Sprint PCS service. This phone is really for Palm Pilot users. If you use a Palm PDA for organizing your stuff, this phone is quite useful. If you do not use or do not want to use a Palm device, then this phone may be a bit of a nuisance for you. That is because this phone has a large touch screen that needs to be handled with care. You can't pop this phone into your jeans pocket like you can most other phones. If you basically want a good cell phone with some minimal PDA features, I recommend the Sanyo 4700 available through Sprint PCS. If you do use (or want to use) a Palm, than this phone is extremely convenient. The integration of the Address program and the phone is extremely useful. While most phones only allow you to store a name and a few phone numbers, the I300 allows you to store full address information. You can also store quite a few phone numbers for each addressee. Also, you have all of the wireless features available to Palm PDA's including Internet browsing and text messaging. Because the phone utilizes a large touch screen instead of a keyboard, I recommend using some of that clear plastic overlay available for Palm Pilots to protect the screen. (I had to cut out the right shape for the I300 screen.) Also, even though you can use your fingers to dial, I recommend using the stylus whenever possible to help keep the screen cleaner. If you must use your finger, a touch of the fingernail is better. As a phone, the I300 has most of the latest features available for cell phones including voice dialing and a speakerphone. You can use the Address program to do stylus-free dialing using keys on the phone (almost but not quite one-handed), you can program voice-dial entries for one-handed calling, or you can use speed dial numbers by touching virtual keys or picking from a quick list of speed dial numbers with your stylus. I heard nightmares about the battery life of this phone, but those nightmares haven't come to pass for me. I get 2-3 days of fairly busy usage before needing to recharge. Keep in mind that batteries have to support a color touch screen, PDA memory, and the digital phone. Samsung provides you with 2 batteries in the box, and the desktop charger/HotSynch module can recharge the phone and the spare battery simultaneously. I particularly like the HotSynch feature which allows you to synch information in the PDA with software on your Windows-based computer. You simply pop the phone into the cradle and push a button to synch up the phone with your desktop software. I actually like the Palm Desktop software as a calendar, to do list, and memo pad. This is an extremely useful item if you're committed to the Palm way of doing things. It's a really cool phone. If you don't want a full-fledged Palm device on your belt, you may want to go with a simpler phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 90650 2002/7/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very high on the cool constructed well combo pda actually works scale expensive takes some getting used to only works with sprint s pcs service The Bottom LineIf you want a combo PDA+phone, this is it. If you aren't seeking that combination, buy a cheaper and smaller phone. Full Review Background My writer/director wife had become a two-fisted double-barreled gunslinger. She'd often find herself with her PalmPilot III open in one hand and her Nokia 8260 cell phone in her other hand, thumbs tapping at the respective keypads furiously. "Why do I bother entering names & phone numbers in my Palm," she'd be complaining, "only to have to re-enter them manually when I want to call them on my phone?" Her question is, of course, the impetus for what is sure to become a burgeoning wave of "convergence" wireless phones. Samsung and Kyocera were two of the first out the gate, offering cell phones that ran the standard PalmPilot operating system [and used the same basic Palm user interface]. So I decided to buy her one of these products to replace her two-fisted madness. PDA, shmeDA What, not particularly interested in a combination PDA + wireless phone? Then I suggest you save five hundred bucks and a learning curve and buy a regular cell phone, something tiny and nifty from Motorola or Nokia. The expense of this Samsung phone is worth it if you want your PalmPilot literally embedded inside your phone. Or if you want one of the coolest-looking wireless phones currently available -- then go ahead :-) Samsung's vs. Kyocera's There is no contest: Samsung's PalmPhone (my nomenclature) is waaaay better than Kyocera's. The Kyocera is cheaper by hundreds but is physically bulkier, aesthetically uglier, and lacks that "way cool, dude!" envy factor. By contrast, the $499 Samsung is slick-looking, feels good in your hand (though it's a big wider than most contemporary cell phones), and has a 256-color screen that's almost the dimensions of a regular PalmPilot. How cool is that? People will see you use the Samsung and want one. That won't happen with the Kyocera. (I am aware of a Motorola wireless phone that has Palm-synching capabilities but not the true, actual PalmPilot UI/screen. So Palm data but not the Palm UI to access/manipulate it? Why bother.) Does convergence work? Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical, but after a few weeks of use, I have to say that the I300 mostly lives up to its promise of convergence. My wife actually has given up her old PalmPilot [and, obviously, her old Nokia cell phone] and now uses the Samsung solely. The I300 runs the standard Palm OS and the UI will be familiar to anyone who knows how to operate a PalmPilot. The phone comes with a CD-ROM containing the HotSync software and a golfing game you can play on the phone when bored. The desktop cradle is not only a charger for the phone, but it holds an extra battery (included!) and acts as the hotsync cradle, too. Very slick. (Note: The sync cable is serial not USB. That's a small negative.) The surprisingly bright color screen operates just like a PalmPilot's screen: you use the plastic stylus to click and select and write. Works just like a PalmPilot, even the same Grafitti handwriting recognition interface. (The stylus stores securely in a slot on the left back side of the phone. The phone's antenna protrudes from the right edge of the unit.) When you toggle from the Palm display to the Phone display, the screen turns into a virtual phone keypad with phone-specific icons along the bottom row. Operating the phone, then, takes a bit of learning and practice -- and you really should use the stylus, not your finger -- but you get the hang of it pretty soon. I actually think it feels kinda Star Trek, dialing your wireless phone like a PalmPilot. What, press my fingers onto plastic keys? How 20th century! :-) Where convergence *truly* kicks in is when you look up a Contact within the Palm, you want to call that person, and you select "Call" with the stylus. The phone simply dials that person and you hold it up to your head and talk on your phone. Simple, easy, logical, perfect. No more two-fisted Palm-in-one-hand, cell phone-in-the-other! And, yes, as a straightforward regular PalmPilot, the I300 works fine. Same UI, same input system, even has an infrared beaming functionality just like regular PalmPilots. However it eats up the battery fast because of the color screen and phone componentry, but, hey, keep it charged/synched. Other nifty features Worth mentioning: + Full wireless Palm functionality. Pay Sprint PCS the extra $5/month and you get full wireless Internet access. Thus, the I300 can operate just like the wireless-enabled Palm VII. I'm going to download AOL's wireless PDA app so that my wife can check her e-mail while standing in line at the bank. *That's* nifty. + This also means that you can, using the installed Sprint PCS Web browser, surf the Web live from this phone in a much nicer display than on most cell phones. You'll get a 14 kbps-speed connection at best but that's the breaks. Remember, full color display. + Speakerphone! Why don't more wireless phones come with built-in speakerphones? How many times have you been on a call and needed it to be a speakerphone? Tons! Also, because the I300 is a PalmPilot, too, there will be calls when you need to take notes or enter a Contact or Appointment *while talking* and you simply toggle to speakerphone to do that. The quality of the I300's speakerphone is very good. + Extra battery included! Again, why don't all wireless phones come this way? + A small second LCD display on the top edge of phone. This display shows phone-specific status such as signal strength, voicemail indicator, callerID, etc. so that you needn't be looking at the full front screen. It's also placed so that key status can be seen while the phone is slipped into a vertical position within a belt case or something like that. + Holds about ten minutes of audio recording (your voice). You can use this like one of those executive handheld recording memo things. + Using the audio-record function, you can input voice-activated dialing. Like most voice-activated dialing systems, it works 75% of the time. You have to speak it exactly like you did it when you recorded it and it must be quiet around you. + Analog roaming when you move out of the PCS coverage area. Downsides These negatives are worth mentioning: - Compared to, say, a Nokia 8260, the I300 is physically big. It's not huge, but it's not the sort of "wow, that's TINY!" phone that are available nowadays. I think it's about as small, however, as you'd want to make a PalmPilot phone -- or else you couldn't view and manipulate the screen easily. Note to Samsung: When designing the new version of this product, retain the screen dimension but make the case way thinner, like a Palm V. - As noted above, the sync cable is serial only. You'll need to buy a USB adaptor. - Old PalmPilots never had memory slots but today's Handsprings and Visors and new Palms all have memory expansion slots. The I300 PalmPhone doesn't. 8MB of memory. That's all ya got. - Sprint PCS only. If you like this service, congrats. If you don't, you're outta luck. (Personally, we've had better service/coverage from ATT Wireless on other phones. But the PCS ain't bad, and I know some folks like it.) - Cost. I got a bunch of rebates when I bought the phone and activated the service at the same time, but still, spending five hundred bucks on a wireless phone is a lot today. If you figure it's actually the cost of a phone and the cost of a PalmPilot together, it hurts less.... So ... buy it? Overall, my review is positive and I'd endorse the product. In addition to all the tangible benefits described above, I have to note that this phone is freakin' cool. The large color display, the ability to use your PDA and your phone simultaneously in one hand, the speakerphone, and the nice form factor all add up to a communication and organizer device that just makes people go "that's way cool, dude". There's a huge "I want one" factor. Still, my main recommendation is that this is the phone to get if you really need that PDA+phone combo. Otherwise, save some money and get a smaller, simpler phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 90649 2002/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent merging of 2 technologies into one cool product screen quality in bright sunlight serial based hot sync cradle The Bottom LineOverall, this is a worthwhile purchase for those who use their Palm device and their cell phone a lot. The single device is better the sum of it's parts. Full Review When I first heard of this product, I was skeptical that it could live up to the hype - having used the Handspring Visor Phone, but not the Kyocera. The Visor phone was sooooo bad, that I was tainted, but I knew a lot of that had as much to do with the GSM providers network (Cingular)as the funkyness of the phones functionality. Well, the hype is more justified than most marketing hype - this phone is the first legitimate contender for a usable merging of 2 technologies. First, let me give you some background: I have had cellphones since 1989, and have been constantly upgrading them, over the years. I use the phone primarily for business, and use approx. 1000 mins. per month (good thing the cost of minutes has steadily been coming down). I travel a lot, mostly by air, and needed a network that has nationwide coverage - in practice, not promotion. I was last using a Nokia 8260 - 3.4oz. phone, on ATT Wireless Network. As for the Palm devices, I've had them all: Palm Pilot, Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm V, Palm Vx and Palm VII. My last Palm device was the Handspring Visor Prisim (color) along with the OmniSky wireless data service. I'm virtually paperless, and rely on the Palm OS to run my life - or do I run my life with the help of the Palm - it's blurred these days :-) So, the prospect of combining these 2 devices into 1, was attractive. This is a fully functional solution. The Palm side is the same as using a Palm VII, in that it has all the benefits of the Palm OS, plus wireless browsing and email. As with the Palm VII, the email is passive, you need to check email to see if you have a message. The one way around this is to use Alerts, up to 160 characters that will display instantly on your phone. People send you these messages vial an email address (your phone number@ messaging.sprintpcs.com) and you get 100 messages per month included in most Sprint PCS airtime packages. I use it for traffic and stock alerts from Microsoft's MSN Messenger service (a free service from Microsoft MSN). Browsing sites like MapQuest, making rental car reservations, checking flight times/reservations, is pretty easy, but at 14.4 KBS, the speed is slow. But if you need the info/access and there aren't alternatives, it will suffice. The Phone functions are for the most part, well thought out. Voice activated dialing of up to 20 numbers, works 90+% of the time, which is still a decent amount of errors, but functional enough for daily use. As a hint, make sure to record more than a single word for the voice dialing, it reduces the error rate substantially (instead of "home" try "phone home"). The speed dialing is good, though cumbersome to access with one hand. The speakerphone capability is one I use regularly, and can't say enough about. I've had conference calls while driving in my car, and the speaker is loud enough for people in the back seat to hear. The microphone is good and filtered out some of the background noise, but don't expect perfection. Dialing from the Palm contact list is quite easy, and intuitive, you can even do this one handed, but i wouldn't make a habit of it. Dialing from the contact section of the Palm is simple, each number in a contact's address has a little phone icon next to it. To dial that number, just select the icon next to the number you want to dial. Finally, using the keypad, which is touchscreen only, works fine, and to my surprise, doesn't cause the oils from your fingers to get the screen all dirty, like it would on a regular Palm device. The screen itself is slightly smaller than a Palm device, but that isn't too noticeable, and the trade off is that the size of the device is smaller. A nice feature on the screen, is that the Graffiti area of the screen disappears when the telephone keypad is displayed, allowing the "keys" to be bigger when you are dialing. When you go into Palm functions, the Graffiti area appears on the bottom of the screen. The one odd feature that does seem to be missing, the ability to copy a number from the Palm side, and paste it into the phone, to dial. This is helpful if you are looking up a number via the web browser, of if you get a phone number in an email. I actually have to write the number down on a piece of paper and then either dial it directly on the keypad or type it into a new contact, in order to dial it. Strange that the Palm browser doesn't let you copy text into the phone application?? Overall, this is a worthwhile purchase for those who use their Palm device and their cell phone a lot. The single device is better than the sum of its parts. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 479.00 90648 2000/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 beautiful design 1 device for everything great battery life caller id on top display unreadable in sun large size no add on memory email difficult The Bottom LineIf you have $500 to spend, and don't want to wait for the newer Samsung palm phone to come out, get this one! Full Review I have never been good with PDA's. I buy them, and they end up sitting at home, or in the car, and I never use them because I hate to lug them around with me all the time. Also, all the previous ones I have owned did not come with rechargable batteries, so the battery would always die, and then I wouldn't use it because I was too lazy to buy a new battery, and by the time I did that I would loose all my data and have to reload it. Enter the Samsung I-300. Finally I found a device that incorporates my cell phone, and palm into one sleek and sexy looking device. When I first saw it at the Sprint store, it was love at first sight. I knew that this was the phone for me. The phone was activated in the store, and to my surprise, the battery already had a partial charge so I was able to immediately begin using my phone. :) When I got home, I opened the box, and to my shock and amazement, the phone came with an extra battery, a leather case, an extra stylus, and a charging cradle to charge both the phone and the extra battery at the same time. This is definately the most accessories I've ever got with a phone for free. The charging cradle also acts as the docking cradle for the palm, which hotsyncs with your computer. I can not say enough good things about this charger - now I never have to worry about putting my phone on the charger when I go to sleep at night. I just check my phone daily, and if the battery looks low, I swap it with the one in the charging stand, and I never run out of juice! The standard features of this phone work really well. Call clarity is great, the speaker sounds crisp and clean as would any normal cell phone. Reception is standard Sprint quality, I have compared my phone to my friends who have Sprint and we usually have the same number of bars on the phones, so there isn't much to compare there. The microphone actually sounds a lot better then any phone I've ever owned, my friend tells me my voice sounds much cleaner on this phone then it did on my old Nokia 8260. Also, the phone has a built in speakerphone, which is very handy if you have been put on hold for an indefinate period of time with your favorite company! I love the onscreen dial pad. It's really nice not to have a bulky keypad attached to this phone, you just dial on your palm screen. It looks cool, and it works very well, with or without the stylus. The only thing I do not like is that the screen gets dirty real fast with your fingers touching it, and also it gets very dirty from the oils on your face, so you constantly have to clean the screen. I recommend that you get some screen protectors. The phone also has a cool display on the top which shows you the time, date, battery life, and signal strength. When someone calls this display shows you their number. If you miss a call the display shows how many missed calls there are. One cool thing about this phone too is if you miss a call, if there is only 1 missed call, it will show you the number right on the display without having to navigate through any menus. Speaking of menus, this phone does have a lot of options and menus. I really love the call log menu. This shows all your received, outgoing, and missed calls. I can not honestly say what the limit is on this list, because I have calls on the list dating back to a month ago, and I am just amazed at how much data this phone holds! Unlike my Nokia which only held the last 10 missed calls. And it also shows you the date and time the call was placed, received, or missed, which is very handy if you're trying to locate a number you dialed last week and don't remember the number, but you remember when you called them. The phone has a lot of built in ringers, and customizations. I wish you could set a custom ringer for each person that calls you, but unfortunately, you can only set ringers for "with caller id" and "without caller id".. meaning it will ring one way if they are in your phone book, or another way if they aren't. Moving along to the palm functions - it is running the same standard PalmOS that your normal Palm devices have - and it has 8 megs of memory. Unfortunately, the memory is not expandable because there are no slots for a memory card. I am sure the built in 8 megs of memory is more then sufficient to store all your contacts, apointments, etc, but if you start loading apps onto the device then you might run out of room. From what I can tell, this device runs almost all of the "Web clipping applications" from the Palm web site. What does this mean to you? It means you can install mapquest, or wells fargo, or any of the hundreds of available web clipping apps, and get information on the go, all part of your normal Sprint plan, and you don't have to pay the extra 39.95 a month to Palm.net for access to these services, like you would if you bought a stand alone palm! That, to me, makes this a very valuable item. As far as the speed of data access goes, it's 14.4kbps from what I can tell. Your results will vary based on what kind of signal you have, and how congested the network is. It usually takes about 30 seconds for my AOL email inbox to come up, or to check CNN.COM or another site. As an email device, I am extremely disapointed. I was expecting this to deliver my messages directly to me, like the blackberry does, but I was sorely disapointed. The only way you can make it work is to use your sprintpcs.com email address. Your phone will not deliver the message to you, it simply tells you that you have a new message, and then you have to go on the wireless web and get your message, which of course costs airtime. Using AOL instant messanger was no better then using email on this device. You have to sign on to wireless web, go to the aol menu which is a few levels down, and sign into messanger. Then, from there, you can disconnect from the wireless web, and you will remain signed onto AOL which is pretty cool. BUT, when someone sends you a message, you must re-connect, go to the aol menu again and view the messages. This is very cumbersome, and also eats up airtime. If you want to reply to the message, you also have to use airtime while you spend time writing out the message with the grafitti. Can you see where all this would add up quick and cause you to go over your minutes?? The bottom line about the data services of this phone is that they have not matured enough to be usefull to those of us who are heavy data users. If you want to use your phone for email or AOL chat, I would strongly recommend you look elsewhere - or even a seperate device like the blackbury for aol or the Palm i705. Overall, though, I am very satisfied with my phone. It is nice to have ALL My phone numbers, synced up with my PC at all time. It's also nice to have the notepad when i want to write down the name of a movie that someone recommended me to go to see. The voice memo feature is cool because I can record reminders (up to 10 minutes long each) into the phone for playback later. You can also record your phone calls, if you are on the phone with someone you push the record button and it will start recording... This can come in handy. :) Would I buy one again? Maybe if the price was $250, but for $500, I would have to say I paid way too much for a fancy toy. If you have $500 to blow on one of these, go for it, they are very fun, and they get a lot of looks too. You can probably find one on ebay for $250-300 since the new 3G Treo phone is out now. Some things I would like to see them add to future models of this phone: hotsync via usb (currently it's only serial, and that is very slow), a brighter and crisper (maybe 24 bit color) display that can be seen outside in the sunlight, memory expansion slot, and upgraded email/chat capabilities that allow true 2 way text messaging rather then going through the wireless web. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 90647 2002/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good browser palm software color screen 2 batteries all in one device freezes regularly serial connection it s a brick screen on sunny days The Bottom LineIf this were earlier in 2002 I would say buy one. With all the new phone announcements, WAIT! You'll probably get a faster, smaller phone! Full Review First, lets discuss what you get in the box: 1- Phone 2- Styli 2- Batteries 1- Wrist strap 1- Leather foilding case 1- CD with drivers 1- Manual The phone- After you get past the brick like shape, you realize that it is fairly nice and also realize that you now can carry one device instead of your cellphone AND Palm Pilot. The buttons are in the same place as all Palm devices and the only thing that strikes you a little odd is you do not see the standard keypad. The keypad is actually virtual and will not appear until you turn on the phone. I'll talk more about the usefulness of the phone later. The Styli- Not much too discuss other than the fact that they give you 2 metal, nicely weighted ones. They also fit into the phone nicely. The usual pin screws out of the back if you need to soft reset. The Batteries- All you need to know is you get 2 and you WILL need them! The wrist strap- I guess if this were a camera or a small radio it would make sense, but it's not!!! The leather case- I don't like it. There is no belt clip and no easy way to carry it. During the week, you can put in your briefcase or jacket pocket. Weekends, GOOD LUCK, there is no easy way to lug this phone around. Luckily, Samsung sells a better, more useful case on their website. Also, when you register the phone with them you get a discount on any accessories. It is disappointing that Samsung includes the folding case. The CD- Worked well, was easy to install and most importantly, I was able to transfer all of my old files into the phone from my Palm Vx. Worked with little effort. The manual- Was fine. If you already use a Palm you will find the phone to be fairly intuitive. Now for a little more detail on the phone. Once, you get used to holding it in your hand you find that the placement of the buttons is pretty well done and you can control the phone using one hand. There are buttons that control dialing, call waiting, hanging up and all fall nicely under your fingers naturally. The only part I found to be a little difficult was actually having to dial a number while driving. I usually use my thumb to do this while holding the phone with the same hand. Often, I find myself hitting the wrong number. You have to be dead on with the virtual keypad. For web browsing, use the standard browser, the color one is terrible. The standard browser may not be color but you know what to do intuitively and it gets you where you need to go fairly quickly. The color browser does not offer as many options and with pictures you will waste your minutes waiting for pictures to download. You can also control your browsing with the buttons on the side of the phone. The Palm software is the same as what you would get in any Palm with benefits. The Palm software and the phone talk to each other. You can actually dial directly from your address book. You simply go to it, highlight the .person you .need to call and pick what number you want to call and press a side button to dial. The phone then places the call. Also, you can create speed dial entries and voice dial entries using your address book as well. These are all very useful features and save a few steps. Some other things I like about the phone/palm are: - Although it's shaped like a brick, it actually fits nicely in your hand. - You can actually shut your phone off and still have use of your Palm. - The looks you get from people looking at you talking to your Palm. - Built in back up battery is good for at least 24 hours. Things I don't like: - I still wish it were smaller. - I too often get software faults and have to reset the phone. It happens a couple times a month and once I had to do a hard reset losing all of my data. Luckily it was backed up on my computer. - The screen is difficult to see in bright sunlight. - If you use the Palm regularly, you will need the second battery before the end of the day. This means you need to carry it. Your only option is to buy the car or travel charger, otherwise you will be without thee phone and Palm. I guess the thing to consider about this phone is that it is one of the first more successful attempts at combining your phone and Palm. There are more to come, and the Handspring Visor is one example of one that came later and gets a little closer to getting it right. Lastly, I like the phone/cell concept and will probably never go back to using 2 when I can combine them into one unit. As long as the prices don't get too crazy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 90646 2001/11/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 converges phonepda no more carrying two devices excellent sound quality speakerphone palm phone integration not 100 yet screen could use a bit of help The Bottom LineAfter years of waiting, I am finally able to get down to one single device on my belt. Thank you, Samsung! Full Review Hi, you can call me Batman. At least, that's what my friends have taken to calling me from time to time. Why do they do this? Is it because I'm a wealthy multi-billionaire with a secret crime-fighting alter-ego? Hardly. Is it because I'm usually carrying around so many things on my belt that it looks like the Bat Utility Belt? Yes. I've grown accustomed to it. Being self-employed, and a computer specialist, I've always been burdened with carrying around pagers, cell phones, PDAs, tools, etc. So, when I learned that Samsung was coming out with an integrated PDA/cellphone combination, I was ecstatic about the possibilities. Background Ok, first off let me set the scene - I'm a big fan of Palm. I got one the first month they came out back in '96 and I haven't ever left it. Quite simply, I depend on this unit for my business. So, none of the other PDA phones were of any interest to me. Also, I had seen some of the earlier "Palm/Phone" combinations. They were ugly, heavy, and impractical (in my opinion). The earlies of those devices - the Q phone - wasn't much more than two devices glued together that shared a common LCD screen. Having used a Samsung phone for the past two years (SCH-6100) and been very happy with it, I was curious to see how Samsung would do with this new unit. Integration First, let's talk about the integration between these two units - something that most people are probably wondering about. I'd say it is "very good" at this point. We're not at "excellent" yet for these types of convergence devices, but we're getting there. The standard Palm address book is replaced in this unit with an SPH-I300 aware address book. It looks and feels the same as the regular address book, except that you can tap on numbers or icons to dial right from your address book. Very cool. If a call comes in, it uses the address book to try and look up whose calling, and then display the name for you. This integration alone is one of the most important reasons to consider a convergence unit like the I300. An entire market of software has cropped up for synchronizing contact numbers between your computer/PDA and your phone. You need to buy their software. And then a special cable. Yuck. One address book, one contact list. That's how I want it to be!! Also, one other nice feature of the integration is the system clock. The clock for the Palm is set based on the time signal that the phone receives. This can be handy if you travel a lot, and set up meetings in different time zones. Flying from DC to LA, and you've got appointments at 10, 12:30 and 3pm? No problem. Put them into the Palm datebook at their correct times. Once you reach LA, the phone will change the Palm's clock to the local timezone - and you'll hear the alarm reminders at the correct time. Phone-related Stuff On the phone side, the sound quality from this unit is excellent. Far better than my SCH-6100, and I'm still on the same carrier network, driving the same routes I always did. The fit and finish of this phone is also up to Samsung's standards of quality. The size of the phone is not awkward, it fits rather nicely in your hand. If you're familiar with any of the more recent Samsung phones (6100, 8500, etc.) they've basically taken their entire interface and rewritten it to work in the Palm environment. Voice mail, voice dial, etc. etc. all function basically the same as either of those other phones, but with a Palm-style interface on a large screen. Having that large screen is definitely awesome - finally, I can read an entire text page without having to scroll up and down! Having the speakerphone and voice dial capabilities on this phone is also a huge plus. The phone has a headset jack that is conveniently placed, and the Samsung earbud has a button on it that allows you to activate the voice dialing system without touching the phone. Again, this is the same as with the 6100, and 8500 - but they are very nice touches! Palm-related Stuff This unit has an 8mb color Palm built into it as well. When I got the unit, I put it in the included sync station and synchronized it with my desktop. All of my applications and contacts instantly came across - no fuss, no muss! The hotsync cradle is serial (USB is faster) but this is not a major drawback in my book. The color screen on this unit is fair. It's not the best I've seen, but it's definitely better to look at than monochrome. I was coming from a Handspring Visor Prism before getting this phone, so I admit I was a bit spoiled by having the best color display available in the market. Hopefully the color Handspring Treo (out sometime next year) will finally merge a phone with a high-quality color screen. If you're familiar with laptop LCD panels, and the difference between "Active Matrix" and "Passive Matrix" screens, I would say that the SPH-I300 is definitely in the latter category. If the color depth of the screen is important to you, please take a look at one first before buying. Wireless Internet Ah, the best thing about this phone! Open an application that needs wireless connectivity, and instantly it connects to the Internet! Email, Web, AOL Instant Messenger, directions, stock quotes, weather, whatever you need - you can get it on this phone. But, it's slow. That's not a failure of the phone though ... typically cellular networks are very low bandwidth - high-speed wireless Internet just isn't here (yet). Decision Points In postings I've seen from people considering this phone, they generally focus around a few key issues - let me address those here based on my experiences: 1. Lack of physical dial-pad. So far, I don't have a problem with this. The virtual dial-pad is easy to use, even one-handed. I thought I would end up mis-dialing a lot, but that hasn't been the case. I actually kinda prefer the virtual pad over the physical pad, although I'll have to see how that works out while I'm trying to drive and dial at the same time. (Author's note: Well, it would seem that I'm receiving criticism now from readers for admitting that I dial my phone sometimes while I drive. I must have irked the handful of people who never ever dial their phone while they're driving, always signal before changing lanes, never try to squeak through a yellow light, etc. Hey, I admit it, sometimes I dial the phone while driving. I'm being honest about it. But, in the spirit of promoting safety on the road I'm here to tell you that you should try to use voice dial whenver you can. This dialpad is a bit tricky since you can't "feel" your way through the numbers while keeping your eyes on the road.) 2. Fully-exposed screen. This hesitation usually comes from Kyocera 6035 owners. My response - hey, it's a $500 device. Take care of it, just as you would anything else you spent that kind of money for. The unit seems quite durable, but I will still always carry mine around in a case. Sometimes, people are concerned about this from the "facial grease" point-of-view. Simply put, your face is almost resting right against the screen. There's no way around it with this device, you're going to have to keep the screen clean moreso than a regular Palm. You may want to consider purchasing screen protectors for your unit, if you decide to purchase one. If you are a female, and you find that your makeup is always getting over your existing cellular phone, then you'll have a real hassle with keeping this screen clean. 3. Battery life. Hey, you're trying to run two devices off of one battery - you're going to have a bit less battery life because of it. The Sprint PCS site says that the standard battery is rated for about 100 hours of standby time (4 days). That might be a bit optimistic on their part - but if I can get two days out of a battery with light-to-average use, I'm ok with that. To make things better, Sprint includes a second standard battery in their packaging of the I300. The synchronizing station (which is also the charger) can charge both the phone and the extra battery at the same time. 4. Screen visibility. It's been a problem with color LCD screens for some time - visibility outdoors in direct sunlight. Laptops have this problem, so it's no wonder that PDAs would have the same problem. I've found that the screen is readable outdoors, but if you spend most of your day outdoors this might not be the right unit for you. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I guess?) I spend most of the business day indoors, so this is not an issue for me. 5. Reliability. 24 hours with this unit, and only one crash so far -- on Album To Go (which sync'ed over from my old Handspring). So, I removed that application and will find another to take its place (how cool is that, looking at family photos on your phone?) I do have lots of other applications installed, however - all my PQA's from when I owned a Palm VII, AOL Instant Messenter, Eudora Email, Life Balance, some games, Phone Mate, etc. etc. No problems so far. 6. Size, feel. I was shocked when I took this phone out of the box - it's a lot smaller than I expected. I was accustomed to my SCH-6100, which is a tiny phone. I knew I'd have to get accustomed to carrying something bigger, but this isn't too bad! Especially considering that I only have to carry one device now. That's the review so far. Check back at this location, as I'll be updating this review over time as I learn more about this awesome phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 90645 2002/5/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features crisp clear it s a color palm screen in daytime battery life The Bottom LineIf you have or want a PDA in your phone, this is it! The integration is great - both the phone and the Palm work very well. Full Review After about six months of using this phone, I think I am ready to write this review. I used the Kyocera smart phone for a few months before getting the Samsung, and, wow, is this so much better! The basics This is a digital/analog phone with an integrated color Palm OS. The screen is a tad smaller than a standard Palm, but is bright and clear. The grafitti area is actually part of the display which gives the applications a bit more room. The hardware buttons are the standard Palm buttons, but the phone dialing is from the Palm touch screen. This takes a bit to get accustomed to it. Sometimes the response seems a bit lagged or my fingers mash the wrong number. The phone comes with a sync cradle/battery charger, software, two batteries (it should come with five batteries the way it sucks them down), and a manual. The screen is clear and bright - sometimes a bit hard to see in daylight, but otherwise easy to look at. The wonderful parts of the phone are . . . Well, it is a color Palm! How cool is that! If you like to be the center of attention with cool technology gadgets, then this is the phone for you. Just check your email on it while in line at the bank and you will draw quite a crowd. If you already have a Palm, then this is the easiest way to get a new cell phone and not have to input all of your phone numbers. I have been using an original U.S. Robotics Palm Pilot 5000 for over six years now. To input those phone numbers into the phone was a simple sync. The sound is crisp and clear - much, much better than the Kyocera. Also, the Kyocera flip lid was a pain - but that tends to be a personal preference. Reception is good - average I would say - and the antenna extends if you need to try for a clearer connection. The phone As one would expect, the phone includes a number of top notch features - voice dial, speaker phone, several ring tones, vibrating ring, call logs (incoming, outgoing, missed). There is a standard headset jack so you can drive responsibly either with a headset or by using the speakerphone. This phone has not been any better or worse with reception and clarity of calls. I use it exclusively as a digital phone, so I cannot speak about the analog quality. You can dial directly from the Palm address book, but I have found this to be a bit awkward. The problem is really that to try to do this without the stylus is very difficult. In fact, that is probably my biggest gripe with the phone - it would be nice if more features were available by finger tip rather than stylus. The Pilot Oh, what fun to check several email accounts on my commute to and from work! I use the free version of Eudora to check four POP email accounts. I can browse the Web with any of several Palm browsers. I can even use Telnet or VNC to remotely control my workstation at work! The Palm has 8MB - enough for most of us, even the heavy application users. It runs OS 3.5.2. I have not tried to upgrade because I have heard of trouble using a non-Samsung version of the OS. Since the OS is tightly integrated to the phone, this makes sense. The Interent access is really what makes the phone and Palm integration worth it. For the extra $5/month, I can browse all I want using my standard minutes from my calling plan. The connection to the Internet is about 80% reliable - meaning that I can connect on the first attempt about 80% of the time. Sometimes, I will have to make repeated attempts to connect, and in some areas it seems impossible. The speed is an adequate 14.4 Kbps which is fine for the bits and pieces of browsing and email I do from the phone. The downside No, the phone is not perfect. The battery life is horrendous. Perhaps I have a little electron vampire inside my phone, but I usually get about one day of use from the battery with minimal calling use. I think it is because I pick up an analog signal at work most of the day, and that sucks the power faster. Still, though, when I am in purely digital land, the battery life is not that great, either. If you turn off the phone, and just use the Palm, you can get several days from a single battery. I have done this for a couple of weeks when I left the country. The charging stand/cradle. Kyocera had it right with the separate power supply and sync cradle. They were not married together. With the I300, you need to take the whole kit and kaboodle with you if you want to charge on the road. That means you get to lug around the cradle and its attached serial and power cord. Which leads me to another point . . . Why serial and not USB? Maybe there is a good reason for that, but I can't think of one. Overall Why to get this phone? * You want to look cool (or like a total geek)! * You want to use a PDA as a phone. If you do not want a Palm or PDA, then save some money and get a different phone. * You already have a Palm and want to easily move your stuff to a phone. * Well, it is a color Palm. Did I mention that already? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 90644 2001/8/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ergonomically designed color screen very cool more palm than phone list scrolling in particular low battery life some phone functions are awkward The Bottom LineSo -; if you are a heavy Palm user who can afford $500+ in order to ditch your cellphone -; go for it. Full Review So close!! Four months ago I reviewed the Kyocera QCP6035 Smartphone and said at the time it needed one more release and a color screen. Samsung so nearly got it right. But, to quote General Schwartzkopf "Good enough is sometimes good enough". To put the bottom line at the top - this phone is good enough for a combo Palm and Phone. Unlike the Kyocera (http://jcare.epinions.com/content_18750869124) which was really a phone with Palm functions, the Samsung I300 is in reality a Palm with phone functionality. If you use your Palm more than your phone - say 60/40 or greater, consider this as your newest gadget. I personally referred to it as my Palm and not my Phone. At First Glance One of the advantages of my profession is that every now and again I get to try some neat new piece of technology for free. So I got to test the Samsung I300 for a several weeks to check out its capabilities. The #1 advantage of this device is that you can ditch either your current phone or Palm, saving some unsightly bulges in your pockets or pocketbook. The #2 advantage is being able to call/email your contacts directly from one device. Just like the Smartphone almost everywhere I used the Palm at least one person approached me and asked me what it was. Score another point just for the super-cool factor. Samsung will be launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign for this Palm over the summer. Sprint will be offering it at somewhere north of $500 - so it will certainly be an expensive toy. The Look Picture a Palm IIIc with a knobby antenna on the top of it, a speaker above the screen and slightly curvy sides. Its lighter than the Kyocera and feels right when nestled in my Palm - the ergonomics are good so far. At the bottom of the device are the standard four Palm buttons and up/down rocker switch. Strangely enough, pressing one of these buttons didn't power-up the unit like a regular Palm. Again departing from Palm convention, the on/off is on the right hand side. On the left hand side is a phone control button and up/down arrows for scrolling. The idea behind these is to allow scrolling through the address book using just a single hand. I had great trouble with this both getting the scrolling started and stopping in the right place. Your fine motor skills need to triumph over your coarse skills to use this piece of widgetry. Two-handed it's a breeze, but aren't most things in life ?? What else ? A nice touch is a small screen actually on the top of the Palm that's shows the phone stuff like signal quality and battery level. Clipped to my belt, this little screen always seemed to be at the wrong angle and I could never read it without grabbing the Palm and tilting it. Ah well. The rest is standard Palm stuff, a sync cradle/charger, stylus - of course, an IR port for beaming and a jack for a headset so you can be one of those obnoxious people in airports who always seem to be holding a conversation with an imaginary friend. How is it as a Palm ? It's a Palm - slightly bigger to account for the speaker and the knobby antenna. But it does everything you would expect a Palm to do - and in color. To me, color is the ultimate luxury in a Palm device - it makes distinguishing data on the screen so much easier. Many people complain about the washed-out nature of the screen and its definition, but remember what you are paying for - its not a PC, it's a Palmphone. You also have web access and can get at a good deal of Internet functionality. I really didn't spend much time using this aspect of the Palm. How is it as a Phone ? The phone is only as good as the network - but compared to my regular cellphone it provided equal service and clarity whenever I cross-checked between the two. Volume was good and I detected no tinniness or bass overtones. You dial manually by tapping a virtual keypad on the Palm screen. You dial automatically by either selecting a number from the address book (which is why scrolling is so important) although bouncing through several pages is a pain. You can also voice-activate up to 99 regular numbers. Many reviewers have complained about the voice recognition capabilities of cellphones. I experienced no problems - maybe because of my distinctive Brit accent. Final Thoughts Battery life was distinctly average - I am a heavy PDA user during the day, and the color screen really does drain the batteries. So - if you are a heavy Palm user who can afford $500+ in order to ditch your cellphone - go for it. (Note you can also read a non-epinions review of this Palm in the Aug 30th edition of the WSJ by Walter Mossberg. ) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500+ 90643 2000/5/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive case impressive color display good phone features 8mb of memory power hungry very expensive The Bottom LineThe price may keep you away, but the 'cool' factor may suck you back in... Full Review The night was ... sultry. Even within the air conditioned confines of the local Starbucks coffee shop, the humidity of the early spring heat wave made its presence known. Sweat glistened on the foreheads of those retreating from the heat; searching for some refuge in a cup of iced coffee. As I sat in a secluded corner, sipping my dark Columbian brew while reading the latest novel to come within my grasp, I gazed across the way to a man who was fiddling with a Palm digital assistant. From my vantage point, I could make out that it was one of the later models, a color one at that. Perhaps the m105 I thought to myself, but something looked strangely out of place with it. Dismissing it with a shrug, I returned to my novel and my "Danger - liquid is hot" beverage. A scant moment later, the sound of a ringing cell phone sliced through the humidity-filled air. With a bit of annoyance, I raised my head to glance at the offending party. It was the same gent who was fiddling with his color Palm, except now he took the same Palm device, raised it to his ear and uttered "Hello?". I shook my head, saddened really, as I suspected that this person was clearly in his own dream world - answering a Palm unit as if it were a phone. I couldn't help but wonder what his life must be like when he exits his fantasy world for the bitter taste of reality. But my pity for him began to waiver as he continued to have his fantasy conversation, in a louder and more robust tone. Then, adding to the delusion, he told the 'party' on the other line to hold for a moment while he checked his schedule on his phone. He brought the Palm down from his ear, hit a few buttons with his stylus, found the segment of data he was looking for, and confirmed a date with the 'caller'. "Poor, poor soul," I whispered out loud. When the faux conversation ended, he placed his Palm Phone down on the table, stretched his fingers, and took a sip from his own cup of brew. Somehow, my gaze was still focused on the Palm resting on the table when I caught a glimpse of something I didn't see earlier - an antenna. Just then, it rang again - the Palm was ringing, and the owner picked it up, said 'Hello' and began yet another conversation. This time, the thought that this might really be a phone and Palm combination struck home. Perhaps he wasn't delusional. Perhaps he wasn't in his own fantasy world. Perhaps he owned what would clearly be a gadget freak's dream come true - a full-fledged color Palm and Cell phone combination. My interest and curiosity was piqued. When the conversation ended, I quickly arose from my secluded seat and approached the man with the mysterious electronic gizmo. Excusing myself, I asked if that truly was a cell phone and Palm hybrid. Smiling, he displayed his gleaming trophy, indicating that it was made by Samsung, and that it was called an I300. Amazed and dumbfounded for not being aware of such an item before, I thanked the man (and apologized internally for my incorrect musings of this gent) and returned to my own seat, coffee and novel. But the bug was soundly implanted. I had beheld a technological marvel that was clearly unique, impressive and difficult to ignore. Until I did some of my own research on it and discovered it's lofty price - roughly $500. But the price is the only real issue I have with the I300. So let's get to the review, shall we? And thank you for indulging me with my little semi-dramatic introduction. The Samsung I300, as alluded to above, is a combination cell phone, with built in speaker phone and voice recorder, and fully functional color Palm PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Now, the notion of a combo phone/PDA isn't new, but this is really the first time an official Palm (and color for that matter) has been synched up with a phone. The combination allows you to do anything you normally could do with a Palm, but with the addition of the cell phone feature, you can now also browse the web (via Openwave UP4.1), send email and perform other wireless connectivity tasks. And with the included 8MB of memory, you'll have plenty of space to store all of your phone numbers, addresses, applications, games and more without fear of space limitations. Since the I300 was developed in conjunction with Palm, it is wholly compatible with all Palm-OS based applications and it employs Palm's OS 3.5, plus some features from Release 4.0. Its color screen, based on the Palm IIIc, has a 256 color display with the addition of a small top viewer for calling information such as caller ID, time, roaming and power indicator. For those of you unfamiliar with the applications available through a Palm PDA, you'll be treated to such features like hand writing recognition, an extensive address book, multi-tasking scheduler, a to-do list, a memo pad, calculator, clock and more. With simple PC synchronization via a hot synch cradle (included), you can easily download other Palm applications, OS updates and more right into thw unit. Also, infrared wireless sharing of files/data with other Palm devices is also supported with the I300. Since this is primarily a Palm PDA with a built in Cell Phone, all of the cell-phone related features (like dialing, phone book, options, etc.) are accessible either via the Palm's touch screen, or through one of the buttons near the bottom. Integration between the Palm's address book and your phone book are as seamless as you would expect. I had no problems browsing through dozens of entries, finding the right one and auto dialing it. And speaking of the phone, depending on your service, it works about as well as any other digital cell phone. The addition of a speaker phone option is a definite plus because without it, you're essentially forced to place the touch-screen up against your cheek when holding the phone in its customary position. This will lead to you constantly cleaning your screen, but it's an understandable downside to an otherwise impressive tool. And if you're worried about the antenna - don't be. It's fully retractable for when you're not using the phone features. Even fully extended, it doesn't take up much room at all. Battery life, unfortunately, is no where near as efficient as you might expect with other digital phones. The reason, essentially, is the back-lit color screen. It is a power hog and, as such, you can't expect to get much more than 2 hours of talk time (if you're lucky) and roughly 12 hours of stand by time. Not bad, but certainly nothing exceptional. Additional, and larger/heavier batteries are also available, but they do take away from the otherwise slender dimensions the I300 boasts. All in all, Samsung has done a wonderful job of marrying two viable technologies into one attractive and useable device. The addition of a myriad of accessories proves that Samsung is dedicated to supporting this product, but the astronomical price, which hasn't dropped much over the I300's life, will keep all but the elite from obtaining one. But if you're in the market for both a PDA and a new digital cell phone, consider the I300. It'll likely give you everything you're looking for in both, while taking up less space in your briefcase/purse/pockets - well, you get the idea. Thanks, as always, for reading... -John Samsung I300 Specifications • Full Features Speaker phone • Internet access (UP4.1 compliant) • Web clipping • Voice dialing (20 numbers) • Speed dialing (99 numbers) • Categorized phone book • One touch vibration converting • Call logs • Any key answer • Power save mode • 3 emergency numbers • Call restrict • Various ring tones (10 ringers/10 melodies) • Dimensions (H x W x D in inches) 4.9(125mm) x 2.28(58mm) x 0.82(21mm) in. with Standard(Slim) Battery Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 7827 Samsung SPH-N200 Silver 90695 2000/1/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 style screen size durability no voice recorder different battery to old phones The Bottom LineTheir is a reason Samsung flip phone are among the best sellers. Consider this version 2.0 of the original hit Samsung 3500. Full Review As an existing SprintPCS customer I had to replace a broken Samsung SCH-3500. The N200 has all the strong points of the 3500, with a couple much needed improvements. I'm going to gear this toward those planning on upgrading, and make reference to the 3500 as a comparison. Size: The N200 is smaller overall, allowing you to pop it in all but the smallest pockets. For me the smallest phone is not always the best phone in terms of comfort. While compact enough for convenience, it is still large enough to hold on a shoulder. Display: The display screen now takes up more of the face of the phone. This allows you to see more lines of text at one time. This comes at a cost however, the size of the text is smaller than that on the 3500, however once you get used to it, it is fully readable from an arms length. Flip: The weakest aspect of the 3500 was the flip, and it's ability to break. On the N200 they have designed the flip to eliminate the chance of wearing out the wire that connects the earpiece to the main part of the phone. To me, flip phones are the best design out there, it protects your keys from being accidentally dialed, and keeps the phone size to a minimum. Battery: The slim battery that comes with the phone lasted the advertised time, as long as you remain in digital mode, and have the vibration ring off. Not so good: There is no longer a built in voice recorder (as in 3500). Batteries from your old 3500 will NOT fit on this phone. The earphone jack is on the top of the phone, not always the most convenient. Overall: If you liked the 3500 (and a lot of people did), then it is worth getting this phone, as they did learn from their mistakes. While your batteries wont fit the new phone, your car, and travel charger will. Price: Shop around, I found this for $120 at Staples (of course if you get this phone with new service you should be getting it for free). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90694 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 metal flip slightly smaller than 3500 bigger phone book sounds better retail price is too high my first one was defective The Bottom LineGood replacement for 3500 users, fixing some flaws. Plenty of features and looks good. The $179 price is too much, but shop around, I paid $129. Full Review This phone is an updated version of Samsung's 3500. Users may know that this phone was great EXCEPT for the fatal flaw: a flimsy flip that eventually cracks and breaks off (I know 3 people this happened to!). The new N200 cures this with a metal flip. The rest of the phone will be very familiar to 3500 users. The menus are the same, the features are the same. There are a few more ring choices and a LOT more phone book memory. 238 entries, with up to 6 numbers for each! The earpiece can be turned up louder, and sounds better (on both ends) than the 3500. The slightly smaller size is nice. I don't use the web stuff so I can't speak for that. I must point out that some of the info epinions lists for features is incorrect. It DOES have caller ID, ring selection and vibrating ring. You can even select specific rings for people in your phone book. Okay, now the bad stuff. I bought this phone last week. It worked for 3 hours, then would not connect any calls. It ran the battery down in 3 hours. I took it to the Sprint store and they said it was defective, so I got a new one and it has been fine. The battery lasts like it should and everything seems ok. I hope it was just bad luck on my part because I really like this phone! Also, I'm not to sure about the "joystick" like navigator button. It's not very ergonomic and it seems likely to break eventually. We'll see. The bigger display is disappointing; the text doesn't seem any bigger, just spaced farther apart. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 90693 2000/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 call clarity comfort good design wap browser The Bottom LineThis is a great phone and the next generation is already out with high speed color web access. Time to upgrade soon! Full Review I have owned 9 previous models of cell phone from Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Audiovox. This was my first Samsung. I was never too hot on Samsungs other consumer electronics products so I was a bit leery when the kid at best buy told me this was the best phone. I wanted to cheap out and buy the $49 audiovox. Well the little twerp was right this phone rocks! The clamshell design is very well thought out. When closed it protects you from accidentally dialing a number and protects the keypad from dust and debris. When open the phone fits very comfortably up to the ear. It is the most comfortable cell phone I have owned. Call clarity is excellent on this phone and no it's not sprint. My previous spring phone was very tinny. This one is comparable to a regular land line. The volume control on the side is handy during the call and when not in a call this toggles the ringers from silent to vibrate to low, medium, or high ring. The web browser is a WAP browser. It's slow and cumbersome even with the tiny joystick control on the phone. It's suitable for checking your e-mail or very short quick notes. Don't count on using it to get directions or anything else. It takes so long to download even short web clippings that it is not even worth it. Phone book functions work well, battery lasts a long time. Build quality is solid. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90692 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 features somewhat easy to navigate color great size high priced easy to lose the belt clip holster doesn t hold the phone The Bottom LineThe belt clip and User Guide needs improving. Redistribute new and improved User Guides to current owners. Add an internal address book to this phone. Full Review The belt clip/holster doesn't hold the phone too well. My phone has fallen out of its clip several times leaving it scratched up a little. You'd think that if Samsung could make a cell phone that costs $150 that they could make a better clip/holster. This is my second holster, too. The first belt clip broke and I didn't notice it until I tried to place the holster back into the clip. The "User Guide" needs to be a little more informative. Example: "Auto-Answer". What it's function? One would think, "To automatically answer the phone". Your choices are, "car kit only? YES" and "car kit only? NO". Wow, that really tells me something. So with my hands free plugged in, and the wind in my hair, I am cruising the 100 mile round trip to my job everyday when the phone rings. I take it out of it's clip and flip open the phone to answer. Not so "hands-free" after all, I think to myself. One other thing, I would like to see an address book added to this phone. It may sound far-fetched, but think about it. For those of us who have to carry a personal phone, a company phone, a company pager, personal keys, company keys, a wallet, papers (briefcases, attaches, purses), pocket change, pocket knives, pens and other miscellaneous items...Do we really have room for another data storing device such as PDA's? Hand-held or not, it's more to carry and more to remember! I already feel like some kind of Techno-Rambo-Geek every time I dress up for my in-office type job! I have more communicating/locating and data entry/storing devices on my belt than the US Government has in their GPS and Tactical Unit's homing device supply cabinets! I look like some kid that forgot to take their Ritalin that's bouncing off of walls like a rubber ball in a concrete room when I get near warning signs of explosive devices, and "please turn off two-way radios". There's has to be a simpler solution! If it's just a simple upgrade to this phone that would allow it to store addresses internally. Other than that, I love the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90691 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 price improved design the flip part is sturdier phone yness none for what i wanted but the reception is not as good as my 8500 The Bottom LineIf you can get it free, go for it. If you have to pay full price, you could do alot worse for the money - like Sanyo. Full Review It was time for my wife and I to move to 2 phones. We had happily been with SprintPCS for several years and wanted to maintain that account, but didn't want to spend alot of money for a second phone account and were looking at pre-paid card phones. After checking everything out, we decided to simply add a phone to our SprintPCS account (had an old Qualqam from earlier phone upgrade) because it was only $20 a month to do this - cheaper than any other method. When we got to the store, the Samsung SPH-N200 had been reduced $50 to $149. On top of that, Sprint was offering a $50 bonus to buy any new phone. On top of that, the store was offering $100 off on any new phone. When you add it all up, that means this phone was FREE. Beside the above mentioned feature (FREE), it is a nice little phone. If I could complain at all, I would say that the receiver isn't as strong as the Samsung 8500 that we use as our other phone. It's still very good, but seems to find all the dead spots in our house if the antenna isn't up. All I look for in a phone is "phone-yness" - how does it perform as a phone - calling, talking with other people. This phone does very well in that category. It doesn't play games or program the VCR... I have other equipment for those functions. If you want a phone, this is a good one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90690 2000/1/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 simple interface for common tasks good battery lifesignal acquisition cumbersome interface for advanced features signal indicator too optimistic The Bottom LineJust try to get more bang-for-the-buck in a Sprint PCS phone . . . it won't be easy. Full Review Prologue: From Sony to Samsung I have been a Sprint PCS customer for two-and-a-half years; the company's rate plans and coverage area fit my lifestyle wonderfully. I've had few concerns, and the ones I have had have been addressed by customer service in a competent manner. The Samsung I purchased replaces a Sony Z100 I started service with in mid-1998. When I originally bought the Sony, my top must-have features in a phone were a compact size and a vibrating ring. Unfortunately, it was hamstrung with only a 24-hour battery life on standby. It was like Dracula -- if it failed to make it home, it would be dead when morning came. :D My signal reception was also poor compared to my Sprint-using cohorts that opted for larger phones. I mention all of this so you know "where I come from" as I write this. A Phone That's Easy to Live With Now, assuming that you have come to this review with Sprint PCS as your carrier of choice as well, I will tell you why I think this Samsung N200 probably belongs in your hand. When I decided to shop for a new phone, my must-have features now included longer battery life and better reception. Of course, it still had to be compact and have a vibrating ring. The N200 has all of these covered. The interface, which includes a mini-joystick (compare to the "eraserhead" TrackPoint from IBM ThinkPads) is a breeze to navigate to commonly used functions. The two side buttons let you quickly cycle through ringer options; in comparison, the Sony had these buried three menus deep. The "keyguard" feature, which prevents accidental keypresses, automatically reactivates after every call when you close the "clamshell." (My Sony required that I manually set "keyguard" on after each call.) How well were my battery and signal concerns met? Well, I dared myself to leave the phone off its charger for two consecutive nights, and the battery indicator was only missing one bar. I have yet to test the limits of the talk time. The phone is also proving an ability to acquire and keep signals more effectively than the Sony ever did. At home, I used to not be able to hold calls from anywhere by the south side. The Samsung has problems just in the very middle of my home. However, I have noticed that I have dropped some calls when the signal strength indicator was showing a healthy (3+) number of bars. I'd say the Sony was at least being more honest about telling you that you were likely to drop a call. A Phone That Wants To Run Your Life The N200 has covered all the basics when it comes to what you would expect from just a phone. However, Samsung and Sprint PCS does not stop there. There are some very advanced features just under the surface. The first and foremost is Sprint's Wireless Web. I'd say it works fine, and there's a good variety of content providers for the browser. The text messaging feature also works fine. However, using a phone keypad for text input is inevitably a clumsy experience. In addition, the cost of these services will escalate your phone bill rapidly. This looks like Sprint's ticket to padding their revenue stream, although I must admit that checking the forecast from Weather Channel or grabbing an NBA score every once in a while is cool. Also in the "cool" category is an appointment calendar, but of course it suffers from the same text input snafu. Samsung has built in a voice dial feature (independent of the one Sprint offers for all phones). I tried it out and was disappointed, because after more than a handful of names were recorded, the phone began to complain that additional entries sounded too much like existing ones -- I'll just stick to speed dial. The one bonus feature I do appreciate is the four-function calculator. Numeric input is naturally straightforward, and I like to be able to quickly determine the price per ounce of that box of Tide on the store shelf. :) A Phone in Living Color (well, at least two) In a refreshing change from all the silver and black phones out there, this one is accented in a handsome metallic blue. (There is a silver version too.) Overall, it is a great package. A price reduction and discount from Best Buy dropped my price to $105, and unless you actually want to orient your life around your phone, there simply is no reason to look at anything more expensive. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 105 90689 2000/10/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 big improvements made over previous models a little pricey at 180 now no tri mode capability The Bottom LineGreat improvements made over the 3500. Easy to use, great quality and great signal reception, but at $180, its a little pricey. Full Review When we got in the Samsung N200 we were a little reserved on promoting this handset. We saw the problems that the 3500 had, and were afraid that since it had a very similar design, the same problems would pop up. We expected to see a lot come back quickly. Lets just say in over 2 1/2 months of carrying this handset, we've seen extremely few come back due to malfunctions. Less than 5%, which in the electronics industry is great. The handset itself is a flip-up model. The flip has the earpiece on it, and the display is visible if the flip is up or down. The display on the handset is good size, and the backlight illuminates the display rather well at night (keeping it on a lot will wear down the battery life, just like any handset). The shape of the phone is slim, soft and sleek. It is very lightweight for its size, and can easily be carried on a beltclip or in your purse or coat pocket. The menus on the handset are easy to follow, but finding the "OK" button and being able to use it can be a little tricky to get used to, it being on a joystick-style control. Luckily, if you're a previous samsung user (6100 or 8500) the menu structure is almost identical, and very similar to the M100 and 3500. The battery life on this handset is good. Samsung promotes 3.8 hours talk time, but in reality, you'll probably get close to 2.5 - 3 hours (which is normal). Standby time is stated at 130 hours, but in reality, more like 90-100 hours. We've tested these phones and they are able to pick up a good, strong signal, reducing dropped calls, lost signals, and extending battery life a little. Sound quality is the same as other phones in its class, little to no static, but that is mainly based on the service. The flip itself seems stronger than its previous model, the 3500, which had a tendicy to break easily. This flip seems more durable and less likley to break. And for the wiring inside the flip, another nightmare with the 3500, seems to be almost gone. The handset also has voice activated dialing and a universal headset jack, which allows safe usage while driving (if you have to!). It also has a scheduler, phonebook, wireless web access, and many different ringers to suit your mood. Voice memo is also handy for those 'I need to remember this later' times. A great piece of news, if you're upgrading form another Samsung phone (2000, 3500, 6100, 8500, Uproar M100) a lot of the more expensive accessories will work with this one, like a car charger, travel charger, universal headset, and a portable hands-free kit (the one that looks like a car charger)possibly saving you some big bucks in accessories you won't have to purchase! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 90688 2000/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 an improvement over its predecessor sturdy stylish it is a bit priceysomewhat too signal happy The Bottom LineBottom line.. forgive Samsung of their mistake as they obviously have learned their lesson with this model. A great phone all around, just wish it was alittle less pricey. Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 was Sprint's most popular and widely praised phone. People flocked to the spaceage looking phone and was quickly Samsung's best seller. I was even dazzled enough to buy one as soon as I realized I needed a cellphone last summer. My review of the SCH-3500 can be found here: Ah, but how quickly times have changed. As the rave reviews on the SCH-3500 began to stop, the negative feedback started arriving. It appears Samsung rushed this phone to get it out to the market in time for Christmas '99-'00 that it didn't work out all the kinks with this phone. As anyone who has owned the SCH-3500 will tell you, the flaws begin popping up. The wiring inside the earpiece was poorly made and after a couple months of usage it begins to become erratic. Erractic to the point where you have to adjust the earpiece once in a while in order to hear the person, although they can hear you fine. The two handles connecting the earpiece is also prone to pop out of its socket, something one could perceive when you touch it, as it does not feel as sturdy as other phones. Months later, boy did Samsung learn their lesson. With months of engineering, out came the N200! Available in Metallic Blue or Spaceage Silver, it initially was priced at $200.00, about $50.00 more than the SCH-3500. A bit pricey for a phone, but well worth it. For starters, Samsung fixed all the problems that hanged over the previous model. The wiring is thicker and better places, the handles are more sturdier you can actually feel the improvements on it, and the paint seems to resist wear and tear better. The N200 has all the features that the SCH-3500 had and more. They increased the display screen allowing up to 5 lines of text and more characters per line, eliminating the annoying thing that hampered their predecessor. Also, each name can store more than just one phone number, which I thought was a great addition. We all know some friends who we need to either call them at home, on their cellphone, their pager, ect. ect. The battery life on this phone is better than the SCH-3500 too, both in talk and standby time. The desktop charger is designed alittle bit boxy, but works and functions nevertheless. Only little quirk I have is that this phone tries its best to find the best signal sometimes, you get more, "searching for service.." inside buildings and such than you would with the SCH-3500. Overall, I am throughly satisfied with this phone. I wish I just had the foresight to buy warranty for the SCH-3500 so I could replace it with this phone for free instead of paying for another phone. I bought this on E-Bay new though, so I ended up saving about $75.00. Ended up buying it for $125.00. Although this phone is extremely stylish, as time goes on so does the novelty with it, as it no longer as the, "OHH! AHH!" coolfactor the SCH-3500 once did. But for anyone who has never seen the SCH-3500, you're bound to get those here and there. I recommend this phone to anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 90687 2000/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 well designed features easy joystick navigation sleek casing somewhat pricey may measure signal strength inaccurately The Bottom LineWell-designed and well-constructed, the Samsung SPH-N200 Blue is an excellent phone which, despite a high price tag, certainly earns my recommendation with its robust features. Full Review A Review of Samsung's SPH-N200 I purchased this phone about a month ago, and am very pleased with it. I look primarily at three things when searching for a phone: aesthetics, features and functionality. I've divided this somewhat lengthy review into those three areas as well. If all you're looking for is the bottom line, check the end of this review for the final verdict. Thanks! Aesthetics: Before purchasing this phone in December of 2001, I used an Ericsson R280LX for over a year, so I had grown accustomed to the Ericsson's 6-ounce, 6-inch frame. Thankfully, the SPH-N200 is much more compact--about 2 inches shorter and over an ounce lighter. For the technical-minded, the actual dimensions are 4.3" x 1.9" x .9", with the phone weighing in at 4.7 oz. Essentially, the SPH-N200 easily fits in my pockets, and is light enough to be barely noticeable--a definite plus. The phone itself comes in two colors, a metallic blue and the industry-standard silver. Personally, I opted for the less conventional blue, as it seems that 90% of all the cell phones I see fit into one of two categories: either they belong to the Nokia 8200 family, or they bear that monochromatic silver casing. The "clamshell"-style flip will be familiar to fans of the N200's precursor, the 3500. The phone's LCD is visible at all times, so you can see the Caller ID of an incoming call without having to open the phone up--another plus if you like to screen your calls for any reason. Features: One of my greatest gripes with my previous phone (the aforementioned R280LX) was that it lacked a 'vibrate' mode, meaning that I had to turn the ringer off when in class or any other noise-sensitive area, causing me to miss a number of calls. The N200 bears no such flaw, allowing you to set the ringer to one of a number of settings, including the standard off-low-med-high volumes, as well as high+vibrate, vibrate only, and 1-beep. You can cycle through the ringer settings very easily by using the volume keys (set on the side of the phone), a much-appreciated function for those of us used to volume settings buried multiple menus deep. There is a total of 26 ringers (including the silent, vibrating ringer), so you can certainly be distinctive in that department as well. Unlike its Nokia brethren, the Samsung N200 does not allow you to download additional ringers from the net (to my knowledge, anyway), but it is a minor inconvenience, if anything. One of the most user-friendly aspects of the phone is the innovative joystick navigation system. Rather than have separate buttons for "up" and "down" or the like, the N200 has a single joystick that you thumb up/down/left/right to navigate about, and then depress like a standard button for "OK". The joystick--along with the "Menu" and "Clear" buttons--allows you to perform most actions without having to open up the flip. A total of 238 entries can be stored in the SPH-N200's internal phonebook (for example, "Joe"--up to 12 characters long), with up to 6 phone numbers per entry (Home, Work, Mobile, etc). You can also assign a personal ringer to entries as well. Entering data in the phonebook (and in the N200's internal calendar) is painless with Tegic's T9 (as in Text on 9 keys) data entry system. Type in the keys of the word you want to enter (for example, 2-2-8 for "c-a-t"), and more often than not it'll come up with the correct word. If not, simply hit the "0" key to cycle through other possible words (in the 2-2-8 combination, for example, you would see b-a-t as well as c-a-t). Navigating through the phonebook is fairly straightforward, and you can quickly access your phonebook (auto-alphabetized) by moving the joystick down in standby mode. (For the curious, joystick-left shows you calendar entries for today, joystick-up gives you a numerically-ordered phonebook, joystick-right lets you access the wireless web, and joystick-OK brings you to the Messages menu, where you can check voicemail, text messages and web alerts.) As hinted at before, the N200 is web-capable. When I signed up with Sprint, I opted in to three months of free wireless web access, which I primarily use to check movie times and so forth. A special version of AOL's Instant Messenger software is pre-installed on the N200, so college students and IM-fanatics rejoice: you can send and receive messages on the go, albeit in a somewhat clumsier manner. One caveat about the wireless web: surfing the web and instant messaging use up your plan's minutes, so be aware of that. Any driver can tell you that talking on a cell phone and driving make a dangerous combination, but if you must, the N200 allows you to store up to 10 numbers for voice-activated dialing. After first storing the number (with your voice message, such as "Call Mom" or the ever-popular "Phone home"), you can dial the number by simply holding the Talk button until the voice prompt, and then speaking your pre-recorded message. Keep in mind that this is an internal feature of the phone, and is separate from the voice-dialing service offered by Sprint PCS. Functionality Sprint PCS rates this phone as having about 3.8 hours of talk time and 130 hours of standby, and I can't say for sure whether or not the N200 meets that. However, in my personal usage I have noticed that the battery life seems fine, and I haven't had it die (or come close to dying) on me yet. Keep in mind that battery life is primarily dependent on two factors: the signal strength of your reception (it takes more power to maintain a signal in a weaker zone), and whether or not you are on a digital or analog network (digital consumes less power, and the Sprint numbers assume a digital network). I use the phone primarily in an area that gets pretty good Sprint coverage, so I can go for extended periods without recharging if need be, and my calls seem to get very good reception. Reception tends to be more dependent on the provider than the phone itself, but I have been told that I sound quite clear when on the N200, so I would say that it scores high in this category as well. The only problem I've experienced in terms of reception is that I have noticed that when the phone is in my pocket for extended periods, it sometimes will drop signal, and will go into a "Searching for PCS signal..." mode when I take it out. Somewhat annoying, and also a little odd, since it will at times do this in an area that the phone receives 3/4 or 4/4 bars of signal strength. The Final Verdict: I bought the phone a month ago, and I am happy with it. It is clearly well-designed, and I like the ease of the joystick. A lack of games and a somewhat high price tag (~$150) might turn away some prospective buyers, but I think it is easily one of the better phones in today's market. The only negative aspect that I have noticed is the odd signal-strength problem, but that may be specific to my phone and/or the area in which I use it. On the basis of my positive experiences with the phone, I give it my recommendation. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90686 2002/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish large display built in voice dialing more joystick navigation some still find it too bulky no customizable ringtones a bit expensive The Bottom LineAn excellent option if you're looking for a cellphone! The list price is somewhat steep, but it can easily be had for $129.99 or less, making it an excellent value. Full Review I don't know what the "N" in N200 stands for, but it might as well stand for "next generation". Samsung's SPH-N200 is the next step in the evolution of its best-selling SCH-3500. Its appearance is largely similar to that of the original, but it weighs a mere 4.7 oz. compared to the 3500's 5.4 and has been trimmed down from 4.4" x 2.0" x 1.0" to a more manageable 4.3" x 1.9" x 0.9" - all this with the benefit of a bigger screen. The basics... I own the blue version, but the N200 can also be purchased in a more conservative silver. Both sport the flip-up earpiece of the 3500, but this has been improved so that the joint is much more sturdy than in its previous incarnation. I was pleased to find that the earpiece doesn't "give" when the phone is pressed firmly to your ear (as is often necessary in crowded places); the old 3500 and Touchpoint 1100/2200 feel as if they will snap in half if too much pressure is applied. The cover also serves to protect the keys from inadvertant dialing. Sizewise, although it appears almost anorexic compared to its predecessor, some may still find the size of the N200 a bit bulky. Personally, I find that if the phone is made too much smaller (e.g. the Touchpoint 2200) it becomes more difficult to grasp securely. The N200, with its easy-to-use joystick controller and ample buttons, is very easy to dial and navigate with one hand. This N200 further benefits from an expanded LCD (128x96 pixels) which can display 6 lines of exceptionally sharp text against a green backlight which allows for easy readability even in the brightest of conditions! The phone ships with a cradle-style recharger which includes a second slot to allow for simultaneous charging of the phone AND an additional battery. Speaking of which, the N200 comes with a standard lithium ion battery which is rated at 3.8 hours of digital talk time and 130 hours of standby. I can't say that I've actually timed this, but I've definitely gotten up to over 180 minutes of talk time in a single call (it's ok, we hadn't talked in almost two years!). A more expensive extended life battery can be purchased which boasts 5.3 hours of digital talk time and 192 hours of standby. However, this does increase the total weight to 5.5 oz, and analog times are considerably less in either case. Finally, the N200 is a dual-band phone. In reality, I have yet to use the phone in analog/roaming mode. It costs more in terms of battery life and airtime! Besides which, digital service is now pretty much available in all major markets and along most major interstates. Still, it's comforting to know that you have that option in case you and your '85 Toyota Camry get stranded in the middle of Montana. Features galore! This is where the N200 really shines! - The address book stores 238 entries and allows up to 6 different numbers for each entry. These can then be "speed-dialed" by entry number (1-3 numbers). - Built-in voice-dialing! This means that you don't have to worry about whether your carrier offers this service or how much it costs! The entire voice recognition process is performed by the phone! Very handy when using your phone on the road... not that I condone such behavior. - A wireless web mini-browser that allows you to view text versions of selected popular web sites. Most of these allow you to access information such as e-mail, news, weather, movie showings, stock quotes, and sports scores. Far from full web capability but can be quite handy, especially if you have more minutes than you know what to do with! (Special cables and software can be purchased to allow dial-up access on your laptop's modem using your cellphone. These tend to run around the $50-100 mark. This offers full internet capability, but is limited to about 14.4kbps.) - A hands-free functionality jack. This accepts any headset with a standard 1/8" jack. Very convenient. It's surprising how many new phones need a special headset for hands-free use. Then again, not so surprising once you see how expensive those headsets are. - 20 preset ringtones. There are also 3 that are supposedly customizable. However, I haven't been able to figure out how to do so, and one gentleman who emailed Sprint's customer service was told that this option was disabled. It goes without saying, then, that you can't download ringtones like you can with the Nokias - a cool feature. A vibrate mode is also available. - The N200 also sports standard caller ID, three-way calling, call forwarding, incoming/outgoing/missed call logs, and an airtime tracker. Unfortunately, the airtime tracker is really only useful if you take the time to record the total airtime at the start of each month since it only keeps a running tally for the LIFE of the phone. Would be much more helpful it the counter could be reset. - Other features include multilingual functionality, a built-in calendar, a calculator, a to-do list, and data-sync capabilities with Microsoft Outlook. Unfortunately, I haven't had occasion to use any of these features to date. Performance (it's what counts): Although results seem to be quite variable, I have been quite pleased by the performance of my SPH-N200. Compared to my previous Qualcomm phone, it does a better job of pulling in a signal from the basement of my office building or from inside the parking structure. You have to be realistic, though. There are simply some places where signals just can't reach. Nevertheless, the N200 does an admirable job. The antenna doesn't seem to contribute much, but it does help in some dead areas. Sound quality is very clear as well, and the volume can be cranked up to the point where it's practically acting as a speakerphone! Hands-free use is easy enough. The standard 1/8" jack lets me use the same headset on my home cordless and my cellphone, and friends tell me that they can't tell whether or not I'm on the hands-free kit. My only gripe is that my ear sometimes starts to hurt after I use the phone for 30 minutes or more. That's dependent on anatomy, though, so others may not have the problem. Besides, switching ears or using a hands-free kit makes it a moot issue. Conclusion Really, the Samsung SPH-N200 gets high marks all around! The only potentially negative thing I can think of (other than size, which is a matter of taste) is that it does not allow for customization of ringtones and downloading of ringtones from the internet. Hardly essential, but it's a fun little feature that my friend's Nokia has. (He likes to rub that in.) The list price of $179.99 is a bit on the pricey side, but you can easily find deals for as low as $129.99 - even lower if you are signing up for a new plan. I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed with this phone. Few others offer the same combination of style, user-friendliness, and features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109.99 90685 2002/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 at least mine was well it s blue laden with useless features worst reception imaginable no downloadable ringtones The Bottom LineStay away from this phone at all costs! Full Review I bought this phone the very first week it came out, and at first I was only a little disappointed. I had "upgraded" from a Sanyo SCP-4500 (a fantastic phone, in my opinion) to this new Samsung because I was enamored with its looks. That was my first mistake. Never buy a utility such as a cellphone based solely on its appearances. Upon activation of the phone and transferral of my plan, I began to immediately notice the phone going from "Sprint PCS" coverage area to "Analog Roam" seemingly at will in areas that I had never had problems getting coverage in before. After reading the manual and discovering that the phone chose the strongest signal out of the two, and would switch at will to "give the best coverage," I immediately switched it into "Sprint PCS Only" mode, and that seemed to cure the problem, until later in the life of the phone. As time went on, the phone would go into "Searching for service" mode, and many times would need to be turned off and on again to "discover" a Sprint PCS signal. Dropped calls were the norm, as opposed to the rarity, due to poor signal strength. This occurance, along with others, did not bode well for my opinion of the phone. Some other detracting features of the phone were the refusal of the built-in voice dialer to accept a voice label for a number, and the overall poor quality and clarity of both the speaker and the microphone. Many of my phone conversations were interspersed with the phrases "huh," "what did you say?," and "Good Lord, I hate this phone!" The overall fit and finish of the phone was also sub-par. The phone weighs an excessive 5+ ounces, no matter what the box may say. Dust getting behind the glass of the LCD is quite common, even if the phone is in a case of some sort. The battery is damn near impossible to remove without a strong will and a strong disregard for the wellbeing of the phone. The small rubber screw covers on the flip cover are apt to get lost, and the small oval "Samsung" logos on the wrist strap will be gone by the end of the first week of owning the phone. The joystick control of the phone is one of the few features I DID enjoy, but it could've been executed in a better manner. Pressing the stick inwards will eventually result in the joystick breaking, and doesn't serve the ergonomics of the phone well at all. The joystick might've been better implemented with two seperate "OK" and "CANCEL" buttons. All in all, I'd recommend staying away from this phone at all costs. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90684 2002/2/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great size even for big hands stong battery joystick navigation flip design maybe a little confusing at first The Bottom LineIt's not perfect, but will do more than you expect for the price range. I love it. Full Review I picked up the Samsung SPH-N200 from a vendor here at work whom our company has a contract with. So from the start this was great deal. I go the phone for free, so no sticker shock for this epinions review. I'm not going to be redundant and go over the basic weight/signal/design specs. This review will be from a user point of view as opposed to a "window shopping" point of view. My service is handled thru Sprint PCS here in Harrisburg, PA. So far, the reception and call handeling of the service and this particular phone is great. Coming from Verizon, who's phones and service left something to be desired, this was a nice change. The N200 include a dual charger (fits the phone and an extra battery though charging both at the same time will lengthen the charge time of both). This is a great idea, but I think it would be a bit large for traveling. Also included is a wrist strap, and a manual. The manual is very comprehensive, which is a plus if you really want to use this phone to its potential. Part of my deal included wireless web service. This is one area where I was concerned. Having used Verizons wireless web I was very disappointed in the technology as it provided nothing useful at all. I was in for a change on Sprint's network. Along with email, sms and games, the servies includes a wap version of AOL's Instant Messanger. This is pretty awesome, and keeps me intouch with lots of people, really easy. Lets not forget though that this is an add on service. (It will cost after the trial period, not sure how much as I haven't had the time to check on this) Also provided is a sprintpcs.com email address which can be used from your phone or from the sprintpcs website provided for your phone number. Again, very useful and fun. The phone itself has a number of well layed out and useful options. Ring tone selection, muting, volume, email/sms messaging can all be accessed w/o opening the flip cover and w/ one hand. However if you want to type a message, you will need to open the flip, it's about as clumsy as any other sms phone. The joystick navigation is alot like a trackpoint on some laptops and make navigating the menus for setup and your address book painless. Just point down and your phone book shows up, press right and you can hop on the wireless web etc, very cool. The screen is fairly large, clear and very easy to read, the backlight is bright and usefull in light or dark. The phone is barely noticed when in my khaki pockets where as my old Qualcomm phone would weigh them down. Thats a big plus. Unlike Nokia, there are no ringtones to be downloaded, however the tones provided (26 of them) are interesting and on high volume VERY LOUD, you will not miss a call cause you didn't hear you phone. I've seen complaints about dropped calls on other Epinions, I haven't had this problem so far so I wonder if it's due to the service area those users might be in. In fact I'm quite impressed with the clarity of the phone and the strengh of signal. I haven't been anywhere yet (aside from up in the mountains) that I didn't have a full signal indicator. Overalll this is a very good phone for the average user who wants a few more extras but doesn't want to pay an arm and a leg. Shop around and you may be able to find the phone for lest than its usual $100-$150 price tag. Heck if you work for EarthLink then it's free. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90683 2002/7/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large screen joystick one touch volume control difficult to remove car recharger socket cover does not fit well in case The Bottom LineYour satisfaction depends on the deal that you get. I paid $50, and the phone performs better than some $100 phones. Full Review Most people blame the clarity of calls on their phones, when in fact the service provider, your position in relation to an antenna, your surrounding, and if applicable, the earpiece all contribute. Even in big metropolitan areas, with ANY phone, there'll be "black holes", areas where reception and clarity aren't what they could be. These problems do not necessarily have to do with the phone itself. Since this is a review of the phone, I'll just say that when I'm not in a black hole, reception is clear and dependable. As for the phone itself, I manage to not expect the same functionality as a $500 Inspector Gadget phone that is good anywhere in the world, all the while doubling as a Swiss Army knife. I managed to get a good deal and paid $50 for the phone, and the phone has met my expectations for a $50 phone. As with any flip phone, if you clip it to your belt, you'll find the phone opened at times when you reach for it. Just be careful; that's all there is to it. The flip design doesn't allow the phone to fit well in a case, especially when you open it. But unless you're trying to flip open the phone Mission Impossible style with one hand, you'll be fine. I like that the microphone plugs into the top of the phone, unlike my previous Nokia. This is when you're using the earpiece while clipping the phone to your belt, or recharging the phone and using the earpiece at the same time in the car. The cover for the car recharger socket is a tiny rubber piece with a lip for pinching. The lip will inevitably be torn, at which point you WILL need a Swiss Army knife to remove the cover. Not a big deal if you just leave the cover off. As for the electronic features, the only complaint I have is that the maximum number of characters for name storage is 12. So all the Jack Anderson and Jill Mitchell you know will have to have their names shortened. Again, not a big deal unless you can't remember your friends' last names. Ring tones is not comparable to other phones I've seen, but as one reviewer put it, if I shouldn't be deciding on the choice of a utility like a phone on appearance, ring tone probably shouldn't be a factor either. This is a Sprint PCS phone, and for $29.99 a month, I get 2500 night/weekend and 200 any time minutes. I also get free voice mail, messaging, call-waiting, 3-way calling, and the ease of viewing and paying my bills online at SprintPCS.com. I also received a free earpiece, car recharger, and case as part of the deal. Not bad for a $50 phone that includes a $10 rebate for activating your phone yourself online. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90682 2000/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use great reception fast charge voice activated dial sometimes iffy The Bottom LineThis phone has great reception, very clear sounding voice, and is fun and easy to use Full Review This is the second cell phone I've ever owned. After having repeated problems with my previous phone and service (a Nokia and Cellulink), I decided to make the switch and go with a Sprint phone and service, since their service is available to me at discounted rates through work. I love this phone! The phone is easy to use and the multi-number phone book is just great. Instead of having to have four or five different entries for those people I know who have cell phones, home phones, dorm phones, pagers, and work phones, I can enter all the information in one spot to eliminate the searching. There are 250 speed dials and a fast search to find the names quickly in the phone book. I think this is a very nice change over the normal phone number memory. Distinctive rings are something I use a lot. You can set the phone to ring different depending on who's calling. My phone rings one way if work is calling, one way if friend A is calling, another if friend B is calling, and another if my mom is calling (you get the idea). This lets me know who's calling before I even reach for my phone (or get up to get it, if I'm at home) I have Wireless Web service on my phone (the specs on eOpinions say this phone isn't web enabled, but it is) and its an interesting service. It sure doesn't compete in any way with the regular internet, but if you're just looking to get top news headlines, your stock quotes, or a few short e-mails, its fine and a great way to kill time! Another feature I like is the page feature. You get a sprint e-mail address and someone can be online and "e-mail you" and it sends you a numeric or written page so friends and family can send short notes to your phone! I've dropped this phone a few times and it hasn't even scratched. I'm a klutz and I was a little worried about breaking the flip piece or breaking the retractable antenna, but they seem very sturdy and I haven't had one bit of problem. While Voice Command (a service that allows you to command via voice your phone to just about anything) didn't come with the phone, Voice Activated Dialing did. Great for people who are driving or have their hands busy, just hit the talk button and say "Call John" and away it goes. While this feature is fun, unless you say the name nearly exactly (to the breath) how you recorded it, it has a hard time recognizing your voice. Also, if you have to press talk to get the phone to dial, it would be just as easy to program those numbers into a 1-9 speed dial so you could just call said person by pressing down the number. Oh well, its a fun feature I guess. The battery in this phone seems to die down quicker than my Nokia, it has a stand-by life of about 4 days tops and a few hours straight talk time. The good thing is though, since the battery is lithium ion, it doesn't hurt the battery at all if I charge it when it is still relatively charged. In fact, unlike other phones, you could plug this phone into the charger every night before bed and not worrying about wrecking the battery, thats nice! All in all, I really like this phone and I think you will too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 90681 2006/4/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 calendar reliability volume control clarity no games wireless web The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone if you are looking for reliability with excellent sound and volume. Full Review This is my first review here, so I will make it about something I am familiar and very pleased with. I purchased the original Samsung N200 phone when it first came out. The main purpose was for the contacts and calendar functionality, which were going to assist me with my day-to-day planning. I paid almost $200 for the phone, the data cable and the PC sync software. Connecting it and getting it to "work" I must admit was fun and easy. I say "original" phone because I am currently on my second N200 phone. My first phone fell into a river (actually it was me, with my phone attached). I thought the phone was completely dead and purchased a new one, only to find out the phone DID survive, but the battery did not. I purchased a new battery and was able to sell my original phone in working condition. I must say I was rather impressed. Allow me now to describe the features of this phone along with the pros and/or cons of each: Flip Phone: - Can close the lid and not have to worry about locking the keypad. Can rest in your pocket and not have to worry about your phone making unauthorized calls. - Can lift the lid and immediately answer the call. - Allows for a smaller carrying device. Navigation Button: Pros: Has a small button in the middle that can be moved up & down or left & right. This allows for easy navigation through the menus and allows you to view your contacts and calendar on quick demand. Cons: If sand/dirt gets in the button, it's not easy to clean out and it makes the button virtually useless. Top Light: Flashes when there is an incoming call or voicemail message. Wireless Web: Pros: Allows you to check weather, stocks, send and receive email and much more. Cons: Can be costly at a per-minute charge, depending on your service carrier. It is a bit slow and not so easily to navigate through. Phone Book: Pros: Allows you to add a name and multiple numbers for your contacts and view them on your computer once synched. You can synch with devices and software, including Microsoft Outlook. Cons: Contacts must be added in phone first, if you create them in your computer they do not synch over well to the phone. Calendar: Pros: Allows you to create a "to do" list and events for each day. You can also set yourself a reminder for each event. You are allowed to see by the month and each day that has an event will be underlined. Cons: You can only view each event one by one and not by the entire day. Countdown Timer: This allows you to set a countdown for days, hours or minutes. Alarm Clock: Pros: You can set up to 3 different alarm clocks and set the tone for it, so that you don't confuse it with your ringer. Can be set once or daily. Cons: If you're a heavy sleeper like me, where not even the train passing by is going to wake you up, don't use the alarm for that. It goes for about 4 minutes then stops. Ringer: It has a variety of ringers/tones that can be set for your calls and alarms. Set them according to a contact, long distance, roaming, etc. The Samsung N200 also has a variety of accessories than can be purchased. There is a desktop charger that will charge the phone and an extra battery. You can purchase various clips, headsets and an additional battery for this phone. And speaking of battery, the life on it is amazing; you can get about a couple of hours of talk time from one charge. Finding a phone that has great volume control and clarity can be difficult. This one, however, is the exception. I must say the level of volume/clarity on this phone is outstanding. It would work great for a hearing-impaired person such as myself. The volume button is on the side, which makes it easily accessible during phone conversations so you don't have to pull the phone away from your ear. Overall I rate this phone a 9 out of 10. There are definitely more pro's than con's. If you are looking for something small, with a good display, battery life and clarity, this is the phone for you. Hope this helps, Michelle 4/17/06 **UPDATE** I first wrote this review in January of 2003 and I just wanted to give an update. I still own the SAME phone, though I have had to replace the battery a few times because the OEM batteries seem to be a poor design. It's hard to come by an "original" battery. The OEM battery is comprised of two pieces that over time seems to wear down and eventually pull apart, thus causing the battery to loose contact with the phone. So don't waste your money on the OEM batteries, find an 'original' one. The reason I had to replace my original battery was because it got thrown against a a wall and the battery broke, along with the antenna. I was able to super glue the antenna and you can't even tell it was broken, still works great. Even though this phone doesn't have all the fancy games, pretty colors and a camera - IT WORKS!! It's been banged up and dropped, opened and closed thousands of times(hinges still work great) - I have continued to have NO problems from this phone. I have had friends/family try to convince me to update to a NEWER model, with features. Yet, I see so many of them replacing their NEWER phones every 3-6 months because theirs broke. Their display went out, the hinge broke, the buttons don't work, the sound quality has faded - but I've had this phone for over 3 years and it still works. So when and if this one breaks down, I will buy another N200. I don't know about you but I need a phone that works - I can't be without a phone for a few days while it's in for repair/replacement. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 90680 2000/12/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great sound quality really a powerhouse little phone packed with features great reception no games battery life might be a trifle suspect The Bottom LineA great little phone---the price has finally come down, and with its features and styling, I highly recommend it. Full Review I recently purchased an amazing little cellphone: The Samsung N200 Blue for use with Sprint PCS wireless service. I had needed a new phone for a while, and had my eye on the n200 because of some positive word-of-mouth and online window-shopping. But until recently, this phone had been priced at $179 before mail-in rebates, so I had been holding off until the price came down a bit. And lo! it finally did. While checking out my local Radio Shack one day, I noticed that the phone had been drastically reduced: I bought mine for $99, before a $30 mail-in rebate. FIRST IMPRESSIONS First of all, the phone is quite attractive. It is small, but not too small, has an appealing clamshell design and a large viewscreen. It features an easy-to-use joystick feature that makes navigating its menus a breeze. And to top it off, it has a cool metallic blue color that makes the whole package look quite stylish. One good thing about the clamshell design is that it allows you to see who's calling you without opening the phone. The viewscreen is large and clear, and is easy to read thanks to the very clear text. You may also navigate the main menu without opening the phone, as the menu key, the clear key, and the navigation joystick are all located above the flip. Once you open the clamshell, you are greeted by the standard cellphone stuff: A talk button, an end button, and the standard number keys. The design is friendly and accessible, and I think that even novice cellphone users (how many of these are there nowadays?) would not be intimidated by it. FEATURES The phone has a wealth of features. Apart from standard cellphone features, the n200 sports an alarm clock, automatic time and date set, a personal calendar and to-do list, voice-activated dialing, wireless web browser (with subscription), and a comprehensive phonebook that allows you to input several different phone numbers for the same name. That's handy nowadays, when most people have home, work, mobile, and pager numbers. The calendar feature is very appealing to me. It's as functional as the calendar you'll find on most PDAs, allowing you to program events for specific dates and to set alarms to remind you when something important is coming up. I use this feature heavily already, and it's easy and intuitive to use. Likewise, the to-do list function is handy and easy to figure out. The wireless web is fun too. When I signed up for Sprint PCS service, it happened to be the last day to sign up for a free three-month trial of wireless web. After that, it will cost me $5 a month, and I think I might just spring for it. It has all the standard mobile web services---like sports scores and news, financial news, search function, etc., plus one thing I didn't expect. It has AOL Instant Messenger built in, and will import your buddy list automatically (when you sign in with your AOL IM username and password). I love this feature. I can check my buddy list anytime to see who's online---especially handy when I'm at work and can't log on. FUNCTIONALITY AND DURABILITY So far, the phone has functioned exactly as promised. Signal strength is excellent, and in my limited travels, I seem to have excellent Sprint PCS coverage in my area (suburban Philadelphia). The reception on the phone is impressive---incoming and outgoing. Yesterday, I was at a noisy carwash and needed to make a call. Even though there was a high level of ambient noise, I was able to hear the other party quite well, and they too were able to hear me clearly. I also made a long-distance call and was surprised at the clarity. The phone is only partly responsible, true (the network has a lot to do with the clarity of calls), but I've talked on plenty of cellphones that simply do not have the clarity of this one. As for the durability, that remains to be seen. However, the phone has a solid, high-quality feel to it, and as long as I take good care of it, I see no reason it won't last me a good long time. It is not heavy, but not insubstantial either, and the clamshell flip has a satisfyingly tight feel to it. One minor quibble I have with the phone is the battery life. It is advertised as allowing for up to 138 hours (more than five days) of standby time, and I think 2.8 hours of talk time per full charge. I don't think this is the case. I used my phone sparingly for two days after a charge, and the battery indicator was down to one bar---signifying I'd need a charge soon. The phone comes with a two-slot desktop charger, but I'd suggest a car charger too, and perhaps an extra battery just to be sure. OVERALL Overall, this seems to be an excellent little phone. Its features, clarity, durability, and design all seem to indicate a winner. And with the recent reduction in price, I'd heartily recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90679 2000/12/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 joystick makes going through menus a blast has meny pda features t 9 word guessing software is annoying doesn t measure signal very well The Bottom LineGreat phone with some capabilities of a PDA. Full Review I've had my Qualcom 2700 for about a year and a half now, and it took tons of falling, kicking, and smashing against the walls. But just when i thought the phone was indistructable and left it on the gym floor, somebody successfully landed a dumbell on it, breaking the monitor and barrying 150 numbers inside this digital wonder. I've had my eyes on Samsung N200 for quite a while now, so whout much thinking, I went to the Sprint PCS store, and laid out $170 for my new digital friend. Overall, the phone is great. It's loaded with features, and with the joystick going through those features and menus is as natural as using a computer mouse. Never the less, I'm going to start with a few annoying things that I don't like about the phone, so those things don't catch you by surprise if you decide to buy it. It doesn't measure signal very well I have a very bad reception in my house, especially on the first floor (where I'm sitting right now), and I know that if someone calls me right now the chances of the phone ringing are about 50/50, and if I pick up the phone, I'll be lucky to get 10 seconds of "broken-up" conversation. However the phone is showing 2 bars (out of 4). My old phone used to "not lie" about the signal and show zero bars in situations like this. Delays Here are a few examples: (1) To get phone book alphabetic listing you can just click the joystick down from initial state. Very convenient, but it does take about 2 seconds to bring up the listing. While the listing is being brought up you cannot start typing the name (no keyboard buffer, I guess). Same thing happens when you're saving to-do list items, or calendar events. The phone shows "storing" sign for about 2 seconds. I'm almost used to having to wait a little by now, but in the beginning it was very annoying; my old phone also had some delays, but I was able to press keys, and commands would go into the keyboard buffer. "T-9" software By now almost all phones have some kind of software that guesses what you type as you go along. Seems like a great idea, but for people who've learned to use the regular "alpha" mode - (ex. Press 2 twice for "C", or press 3 once for "A"), T-9 is just annoying. Here's how it works on this phone: when you're in the phone book, default mode is alpha, but for calendar, to-do list, countdown, etc… default mode is T-9, which means every time you enter a new to-do item or calendar event, you have to press -menu- -joystick-down- -joystick-ok- to enable alpha mode. Despite for the 3 things that I mentioned above, the phone is great, and I would not trade it for any other phone that Sprint PCS has to offer. Here's why: Joystick If you look at your fingers when you're going through menus on the regular phone, you'll notice that you spend most of the time moving your fingers from key to key, and very little time actually pressing the keys. With joystick your thumb stays in one place while pressing -up- -down- -left- -right and -OK-. This makes going through the menus about 3 times faster then on phones which have -up- and -down- on the side of the phone and -OK- somewhere in the front below the LCD. Calendar tools The phone has a calendar with a monthly and daily view, to-do list with priorities and dates, countdown, and alarm clock with 3 different alarms. It's not as convenient to use this Also there is a calculator with +,-,/,* operations, comes in very useful. Ring tones This phone has tons of ring tones, and you can assign different tones to regular, roaming, with/without caller id calls, voicemail/wireless web notifications, and even assign different rings to different people on your phone book. Design The phone sits comfortable in your hand, or you can press it between the ear and shoulder when driving (now days illegal in New York state). The key guard lid can be easily pushed up with the thumb (with some flip-phones that's a problem). Buttons are nicely lit up, and spread out enough not to click the wrong one by mistake. Battery Life Honestly - I haven't skipped a night without charging yet, but through a day the most I lost was half the charge (if the indicator is accurate, still to be tested). Headset Jack Headset jack is very conveniently located on the top and if you have a headset with a built-in button, you can use it to take calls, or use voice dialing. Voice Dialing In addition to SprintPCS voice dialing (that costs extra) this phone can memorize 10 names to dial. While driving, this could be a very convenient feature. Voice dialing doesn't work perfect - some names are more easier recognised then others. Also if you have a deep voice it won't work as good for you as people with higher tone voice. Durability So far I only managed to drop it about 4 times, so far no problem. Let's see if it'll live to see its hundredths drop. Oh, by the way, if you buy it from Sprint PCS store, they automatically register you for a Samsung 1 year warranty, no paperwork to fill out. Dual Band One more thing - this phone is a dual-band, which means that if you're ever outside the SprintPCS network, you can make roaming calls on thousands of cellular networks around the country. Comes in very very useful. The Verdict Dispite of the few things that I didn't like about the phone, I can't think of a better phone for under $200. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 90678 2001/11/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the size flip up super packed features are enough to make your mouth water the price might make that mouth quite dry too The Bottom LineIf you want a phone that will give you a truckload of features and the durability too, this is your phone! Full Review Starters: Let me first start off by saying that the gal who wrote the first review for this phone has done a wonderful job! Her epinion was actually what gave my decision to purchase this phone a lot of weight and I am glad that I took the chance. It's a great phone! Once upon a time… There was once a guy named LifeStar who adamantly proclaimed for years that he would never get a cell phone until he ABSOULTELY needed it. He was sick of all the friends who got their first phones when they were still in high school. To make a long story short… pigs learned how to fly and that very hot place wasn't very hot anymore… Inquiry: So, what prompted me to consider getting a cell phone after all those years of self-denial? Well, it started with my sister asking me if I was interested in getting a cell phone and plan with her roommate. Apparently, her roommate saw the Sprint PCS deal of getting 2 phones and receive 100 dollars off the price. Therefore, she wanted to know if I was willing to get a phone with her. When I asked my sis the price of the plan, it was quite reasonable. Though in the end I didn't get the plan along with her, I still got the phone. Purchasing the phone though, it all began with me just thinking about getting a phone… As I did my research, I became increasingly excited with the thought of getting a phone. After all those years of self-denial, I've come to a point in my college career where not being reachable was becoming a bad bad thing. This especially was true during the summer as it was hard for my classmates and I to coordinate our availability to work on projects and problem sets. Oh yes, having my friends not able to reach me was bothersome too. The phone: So, what prompted me to get the Samsung N-200? Well my sister's roommate was planning on purchasing 2 3500's, the precursor of the N-200. When I looked up the specs of the 3500 and then the N-200, I realized that the N-200 had much better features and I would rather buy something that hasn't been already out in the market for close to 3 years. Some of my requirements for my phone was it had to be small and not clunky like other phones I've seen before. It also had to have a some kind of PIM (Personal Information Management) built in. Having a calendar and a to-do list would definitely help me keep up with my projects and other activities I was planning on doing. The small size and weight definitely helps as I am a commuter student who takes the train to school everyday. Having something big and bulky on my belt or in my pants would not be fun at all! So when I came upon the Samsung N-200 that was being offered through the Sprint PCS plan, I was very interested to say the least. However, as an experience and savvy shopper that I am, I had to go and check out the reviews for this phone and make sure that it was the real thing. One of those reliable sources I checked out was on epinions of course! I found one fantastic review on this phone and she definitely gave me many more reasons to consider getting this phone than the rest that were being offered through Sprint. Features: What I really like 1. Flip up design - This gives the user the ability to check the date & time, incoming calls, signal strength, battery life without having to lift up the cover. This design allows the screen to be clearly seen and with the joystick feature, you can use many of the menu options without having to lift the cover. 2. Larger screen size - I checked out this phone at a local Best Buy and compared it with the 3500. The screen on the N200 is much larger than the 3500's. It also displays crisper text and somehow those Samsung engineers were able to squeeze in more lines of text too! 3. Joystick - I know some people have complained about this feature b/c they feel that the joystick is too small or clumsy for their fingers. I, on the other hand, feel that this has to be one of the most enjoyable features on this phone. I just simply use my thumb and select what I want to do. To me that's a whole lot simpler than using dumb arrow keys on your keypad! All I need is one thumb while some of my nokia buddies have to use 2. 4. Weight & Size - This phone comes with a standard weight of 4.7 oz! That's pretty light for a phone that has features up to boot! Another plus was that it has a small handprint so it doesn't feel clunky or big when I'm holding it. It's also very stylish as it has a very chisel kind of look and feel to it. It just feels good to hold and have clipped on your belt! 5. Comprehensive phonebook - This is something that caught me off guard. When I read the specs on this phone at first, I thought it should only hold 238 phone #s. That isn't the case though! It lets you hold 238 names! For each name, you can input 6 different phone #s under it! Now I can't say that I've used 238 entries yet, but I have 50 something names now, and many of those have their home, cell, work, and pager #s under them. Definitely a worthwhile feature for those who have many friends, classmates, family, business contacts. What I disliked 1. Text input - One of my minor complaints about the phone is the text input algorithms that is used for the PIM system. One of the features on this phone is that it has a thing called the T-9 text inputter. This little program is suppose to make it easier for one to punch in event names, to do names, and other things into your PIM system. It does this by trying to guess what you're really trying to type. So if you type in a certain key combo, it will assume you're trying to type the word "Stop" maybe. However, this is a real annoyance to me! The problem with this idea is what if the user wants to input short hand messages for himself? There is only so much space on the large display you know! I don't know if one can turn this annoying feature off, but it sure gets in the way for me when I'm trying to do short hand names for my must do lists. 2. Strength-signal - Now I know this is a major consideration for people, especially for Sprint PCS people as we all know that our coverage isn't all that great sometimes. Well, overall this phone has good signal strength. I usually get 4 ticks on it, but that's because I live in Boston and Sprint has a pretty good presence on college campuses. However, I know that the moment I go underground, I lose signal faster than a bunny would have kids! The phone also seems to be bent on getting you the best possible signal for its user. Not a bad thing right? Well, it is when you're still able to talk to the person on the other line, but then your phone goes into the infamous "Looking for service" message b/c it believes the current signal strength could be better! Other features: The other features that I didn't include in the previous section ought to be mentioned. With all that was listed above, it also has: -7 different types of ringer settings (Including the wonderful vibrater!) -25 different ring tones (Great for those who love Mozart) -3 settings on how you would like to answer your phone (flip on, talk button, or any button) -Voice activation (great for those people you would rather say the name instead of the #) -Wireless web browser Overall performance: I have been using this phone constantly from day 1 when I got it activated. Hey when you got 2100 night minutes, you better use them! The battery life and the ease of use has made it a pleasure to use this phone. With an added headset that I got on my own, I really feel like a Borg connected to some sort of comm. system! It's so light and portable around my home that you can see me walking around talking to open air, but it's really just me on the phone. This phone has seen late nights working over programming projects, talking with friends, and making calls to co-workers and such. After 3-4 months of use, this thing still feels new, and I believe that it will feel that way for a while to come. When you hold this phone, it really feels more like a one-piece unit, even though it is a flip up. The way Samsung made this phone really gave it a sturdy construction feel and you could probably drop it on the ground a couple of times and still have it go ticking! (You may try at your own risk! I'm not responsible for what happens though! Conclusion: I have to say that I am truly impressed with my phone! It has really helped me stay on top of my game when it comes down to contacting project members, friends, and family. Having most of the people I know in my phonebook and that each # is a thumb stroke away is great too! The overall coverage and signal strength have treated me well, and the built in PIM was more than I expected. I definitely recommend that you take a look at the N200. Yes, I know it is expensive, my unit cost like 179 after a rebate turn in, but I also know that it will last me at least 2 years if not more. This is one of my best purchases and I am very glad that I listened to a little birdie named Vein. Her words of wisdom and experience definitely gave me the info I needed in order to make a wise choice. So I can only echo her comments, GO GET IT! Thanks y'all! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 90677 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use good design no games The Bottom LineHighly recommended phone. Full Review I am able to write epinions on several different cell phones because of fairly bad luck in our home with them. Let me begin by saying it's definitely not the phones fault. It would be a people thing. Phones at our house tend to be bench tested in ways I know their designers never envisioned. phones in the toilet, going in the pool, thrown out car windows, sliding across tile floors like hockey pucks, etc, etc. It seems that some trajedy befalls each and every phone in my home within about 90 days. Thank GOD for insurance is all I can say. My latest model is a Samsung SPH-N200. I no longer get attached to my phones. For reasons known only to Sprint PCS whenever I request a new phone via insurance, I never get the same model. I always seem to upgrade. This works for me. Maybe they know I'm writing about them here. Who knows. The Samsung SPH-N200 is available in 2 colors for those of you who need your phone to have some designer qualities. Personally I could care less what color my phone is as long as it rings. What is more important to me design wise is how it fits in my hand and against my head. The Samsung is well designed and easy to use. This phone does have a unique feature that I've never had in a model before, an itty bitty joystick like thing. The itty bitty joystick allows you to navigate you menus very easily and when you land where you want to be, just push it and your selection is activated. I think Samsung calls this apparatus a "toggle stick" or something. I like joystick and it will be referred to here as such. How The Phone Works I think we're all pretty familiar with the use of a phone by now.... 1) Either you dial a number, it rings and they answer or 2) Someone dials your number, it rings and you answer it.... There are several ways in which those things can be accomplished, which I will go over in the features area. You will either have your phone activated for you at the Sprint PCS store or you can activate it at home by calling over the handset. I did the later and it took only about 3 minutes to have the phone up and running. Out of the Box The Samsung SPH-N200 comes with an AC adapter for use in the home, a users manual (I don't read them) and a little wrist strap. The N200 has an LCD window that shows you the date and time and a greeting line. The greeting line can be Sprint PCS which is what the phone says out of the box, but with a few button pushes you can have it display whatever you want.... Mine of course reads.... DaleJrFan. This would distinguish my phone from the two identical ones in the house, but of course they belong to a Earnhardt Fan and a Jarrett fan so should they be laid down in close proximity I can just look right at them and know whose it is. You should charge your phone first thing out of the box, preferably before calling Sprint PCS to activate it. This will lengthen your battery life (according to Sprint). Creature Features Voicemail - When you miss an incoming call, your voicemail will pick up. You know what voicemail is (I hope), it's the 90's alternative to an answering machine. Afterall we would look pretty silly carrying around this little tiny phone with a huge answering machine attached. So thankfully someone invented Voicemail. After you receive a message the phone will display an easily seen little envelope icon that tells you you have some sort of message. You can also change your personal settings so that your phone will beep an alert as well until you listen to or view your messages. Other icons that rest at the top of your screen are a signal strength indicator, a battery strength indicator, an analog indicator and a vibrate icon to tell you your phone is in vibrate mode. Text Message - Folks can leave you a text message or page also when they reach your VM. When you receive a message, just press your joystick and you will see a message window. The window tells you which type of message you have voicemail, text/page, or a web alert. You will also see an erase option at that time. After you listen to or view your messages, the envelope icon should disappear. I'm Flippin' I like flip phones and the N200 is just such an animal. I prefer them since I carry my phone in my pockets a great deal and this protects the keypad. Of course it does have key lock like many other phones, but I like the flip action. Not only can you perfect the fine art of flipping your phone to look ultra cool, but you can configure it so that it answers when you flip or so that you still have to push a key in order to pick up your call. I like this Samsung because unlike many other flip phone models I do NOT have to open my phone to see who's calling or the date & time. I can see the window with the flip closed. When I'm done with my call I can either push end or do the ultra cool clip, snap, done thing. After all it's all about phone style right? Help me. Button, Button, Who's Got The Button There are the standard 1-9 buttons on the phone, accommodated by the # & * keys. There are also your typical talk and end keys. I like it that all the keys are very self explanatory, menu, clear, 1-9. You know what they do by looking at them. I once had a Motorola Startak that you had to use a shift key to access many functions. That was ridiculous. This phone is too easy to use. Toggle Me Conveniently located on the side of the phone is a toggle switch that allows you to toggle your volume.... :) You can press it up or down to adjust your ringer volume while the phone is not in use or use it to adjust your earpiece volume when it is in use. Who's Calling Please The phone has caller ID and a Phone Book. The N200 will hold up to 238 entries & up to 6 phone numbers for each entry. The phone book is easily accessed by using the joystick or just pressing menu and the 3 key. You don't have to use the joystick thingy if you don't like to. I like key-shortcuts and use the menu-3 option more. Combined with your caller ID you can set unique phone rings to calls.... when my husband calls from his cell phone, which is entered in my phone book, by phone rings with a menacing tone. I realize then, that is is a call I don't want to miss and can ID the call without even having to look. You can do the same thing. Ringer Types You have your standard 10 cell phone type rings and several catchy little tunes like Dixie Land, Fireworks, a few marches, Oh X-mas tree, etc. I think a few might even be Mozart or Beethoven for those of you into such fine culture. Pencil Me In The N200 has a calendar as most of it's competitors do. You can do a day view, set alerts, get a month view, jump to specific dates, create a ToDo list or set a countdown to some really exciting date. Spiderman Doesn't Have A Web LIke This Personally I hate accessing the web on a phone, but I suppose many of you out there must do it or they'd quit putting it on the phones. If your plan includes wireless web you just start your browser and you're off to your cyber world. VoiceDial The Samsung works with voice dial as well as another other phone I've experienced.... which is basically not at all. Unless of course you set it up in your soundproof room for use in your soundproof room. Which is where you will need to be in order to get voice dial to work correctly. Hypothetically you are supposed to be able to speak "call bob" and the phone will then dial you Bob's number. What usually happens is you end up screaming "call Bob" for 5 minutes, never get connected and either dial the number yourself or throw the phone out the window. Do you Roam Far From Home? If you're a wanderer you may find it necessary to change your roaming settings. This is easily done from the Roaming menu and you can set it for Sprint PCS, Analog or Automatic. I keep mine in Sprint PCS since I don't have a roaming option and I will know if I will be incurring roaming charges. Security The N200 has several security features as well like key lock, phone lock, special numbers, phone book erasing, etc. You will find some of these features very useful if you're paranoid or maybe just careful. All in all this is a great phone and one I highly recommend. It has also been my lucky phone. This phone was left in a public bathroom at the Daytona Pepsi 400 in July. Some wonderful person turned it into security for me and I actually got my phone back from an even with some 150,000 people at it. I guess I'm glad I had my DaleJr phone and I'm glad a Gordon fan didn't find it! I had my key lock enabled so even if someone had attempted to use it they couldn't, but they could accept an incoming call, which is how I found it. Maybe the Samsung SPH-N200 will break my bad luck streak with phones, I'm hoping so, I like it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 90676 2004/5/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features size price battery easily detachable small means it s easy to misplace or lose wireless web access pricey The Bottom LineThis is a very good first cellular phone. Full Review The Samsung SPH-N200 that I ended up buying online from the Sprint Cellular Online Store is a knockoff of a more popular Samsung phone, the SCH-3500, which was Sprint's top-selling model until recently. However, the SPH-N200 has a larger phosphorescent green screen, is shorter, slimmer, lighter, and generally has more in the way of features than its immediate forerunner. The tinier size makes dialing numbers easy, and navigating the phone's menu with just one hand is not all that tricky. It fits nicely in my pants pocket, but you won't be asking if I'm just happy to see you... lol. Besides minor changes to the screen, this Samsung phone also has a nub joystick, something the SCH-3500 lacked. The SPH-N200 comes in your choice of midnight blue or metallic silver and offers added functionality, as well as as a super user-friendly interface. Some of It's Features: @ airtime tracker @ alarm clock @ AOL instant messenger @ calculator @ calendar @ caller-id @ countdown @ four digit calling @ keyguard (very important feature!) @ missed call notification @ multilingual capability @ phone book (holds 248-names) @ security (locks the phonebook) @ to-do list @ twenty preset ring tones @ two-way text messaging @ vibrate mode @ voice-activated dialing @ voice-mail @ wireless web browser You'll probably want to carry the 146-page guidebook that comes along with the phone around with you for the first three or four weeks, or at least the wallet-sized shortcut cards, because there's no way in heck you'll put a dent in memorizing even a fifth of the capacity of the possible key combinations available with this feature-laden phone. When I went shopping at the Sprint Store, and later that night when I ordered mine online, Sprint had a meager selection of models, but I am very satisfied with the phone I picked, I knew it was just the right model for me. If you're looking for a Samsung phone that's moderately priced, then I think you should definitely consider this model. As I mentioned in Part I, The SPH-N200 (starting range $150 to $200) only cost me about $100 because of a $50 discount offered by the Sprint sales reps. I get fairly good reception out of the phone, other than when I'm in my home. I frequently have to go outside or to a window when I want to place an outgoing call, and this has become slightly annoying, but other than this small hindrance I have mostly only good things to say. Once in awhile it will drop a connection, necessitating another call and wasted airtime. I have no other cellular experience to relate it to, so I figure this is normal and comes with the territory. I usually have no problem connecting to the PCS network. The phone has switched me to Analog Roaming only 2-3 times, but never when it was crucial. Once, a few weeks ago, I was on an errand to the corner convenience store around midnight, and when I tried to pull the phone out of my jacket pocket in the store, I grabbed it in exactly the wrong manner and the battery released into my hand while the phone fumbled to the floor, but it survived. Also, in a different instance, I drove off with the phone on either the roof or the hood of my Dodge Neon, and didn't notice it was missing until later the next day. I couldn't find it inside my house, but I did eventually find it ringing face-down in my driveway, a little sandy & none the worse for wear. I was fortunate in that it slid off just far enough for me not to run over it when I came home later that night. I wasn't worried though, as I had bought the replacement warranty insurance, which is like five dollars a month. A true no-brainer. The SPH-N200 has a long battery life. I have gone 5 or 6 days at a time without charging the phone. Supposedly it has a talk time of nearly four hours before the battery is drained, but I have gone nowhere near the limit. I think the longest call I've ever placed on my phone was about 35 minutes. Due to bad timing, I heavily used the wireless web feature on the phone the first week I had it because my laptop had crashed and it took me a few days before I had time to get it going again. When Sprint called me and told me after one week that I had already surpassed my monthly credit limit, I knew something was amiss. I then wisely laid off of that feature, but I did then end up switching to the $80 monthly unlimited nights & weekends plan. The wireless web is a nice feature to have -- but you better use it very sparingly, because it could set you back a pretty penny if you sign up with the wrong plan. Just remember, wireless web on a cellular is no substitute for a real computer. The second bill I got had $400 of erroneous charges, but Sprint soon realized the error of their ways, and the third bill they sent me was the correct total for the second and third month combined. I now pay the bill online through the Sprint website, which makes my life a lot easier since I hate envelopes and stamps with a passion. One last caveat, if you are ever tempted to create an "name@sprintpcs.com" email account with your Samsung phone, don't let your mailbox fill up, because retrieving your password is hopeless if you can't receive an email in your inbox, and it's nigh to impossible, okay, hell, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, to get anyone at SprintPCS to return an email or a phonecall to you unless it's about your bill. Unhappily, the cellphone can only be charged in its large desktop cradle, which would not be convenient for those interested in being mobile a majority of the time. These few drawbacks aside, I think you'll find that this is a very commendable product, even though I strongly dislike Samsung's kooky & cloying commercials. (125/2,257) See Part I for the Lowdown on the Sprint PCS Online Store that I purchased my Samsung Model SPH-N200 from, two months ago. FEB. 5th UPDATE: I am very happy to report that I am still happy with my phone, and that Consumer Reports has rated my phone No. 1 in their February 2002 issue. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90675 2001/9/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight sturdy great options at 199 still more than most are willing to pay The Bottom LineFor the cellular phone user wanting the best features in a sleek clamshell design, the Samsung SPH-N200 should be the first choice phone. Full Review Shopping Around In mid-August, my beloved Samsung 3500 began it's last weeks of life. At over a year and a half old with heavy usage, I figured the time would be here sooner, rather than later. When the speaker of the phone began dying with increased regularity on calls, I went to Staples, intent on replacing my 3500 with a Motorola V2267 cellular phone, at a cost of $99. I'd been lusting after Samsung's update to the 3500 model dual band phone, the SPH-N200, since the release of this dual band phone was first announced. In attractive colours of blue and silver, it featured all of the things I loved about the 3500 while including such updates as a stronger clamshell connection, a larger view screen, and more software features, the SPH-N200 still featured the design I fell in love with - a clamshell phone that gave the user the ability to see who was calling without physically opening the phone. Despite this severe lusting for the replacement to my Samsung 3500, when the phone finally was released in mid August, I decided I could wait for a price drop from the starting price of $199. From afar, I liked the basic design of the Motorola V2267, thinking it would suffice for half a year until the N200 was a more reasonable price. When I saw it up close, however, I was disappointed. In addition to the lack of a clamshell design, the V2267 ran on only sub par NiMH batteries, a technology I thought was long dead. Reviews of the phone said it tended to run hotter than other phones, have dismal battery life, and was a general pain to use. Likewise, even I couldn't fall in love with the cute peanut shaped design for dual band capability with buttons too close for my small girl fingers to hit properly. Visa or Mastercard? Knowing I needed a fully functional phone, I picked up one of the blue Samsung SPH-N200 phones that had just arrived hours ago. I hoped I wouldn't be disappointed. Samsung's new phone had all of the features common to the other popular models - the 3500 and the SCH-8500: •Clamshell design, perfect for being carried in purses •Dual-band capability for Sprint PCS networks, including roaming on other PCS CDMA and analog networks •Built-in web browser, wireless mail software, AOL Instant Messenger software •Wireless modem capability to hook up a laptop computer modem to the phone in order to download mail or perform other tasks •Built-in voice command, saving a provider charge to be able to pre-program a name with a number - when the phone is opened, simply speaking the persons name dials the number •Backlit display with contrast controls •Built-in phone book for 238 name/number combinations - each name is allowed up to 6 different numbers; automatic speed dialing from the phonebook can be set up •Built-in calendar with to-do lists, timers, and event schedules •Vibrate mode for calls, allowing for the phone to remain on in meetings In addition to the features found on other Samsung models, the SPH-N200 expanded on modern technology to create their newest release: •Predictive text entry for entering names and events into the phone book and calendar •"Joystick" button for navigation for easier movement through the menus •Backlit keypad for easier calling in the dark •4.7oz weight with the standard battery (the 3500 was 5.5oz) and dimensions of 4.3"x1.9"x0.9" (with the 3500 at 4.4"x2.2"x1.0). •128x96 pixel LCD screen How I Love Thee… From the start, I could see the improvements over the 3500. Unlike the older phone, this phone felt sturdy when the earpiece was against my ear, thanks in part to thicker metal connectors attaching the clamshell to the body of the phone. The clamshell had no give when pressed against my ear, unlike the 3500 which had a bit of give, even going as far as creaking when it was pressed against my ear. Besides the clamshell connections on either side, the quality of the SPH-N200 seemed slightly higher. Some reviewers reported screens being scratched easily, due to the large size. Despite the fact that my phone is usually at the bottom of my purse, no scratches can be seen, with the phone looking as it did on day one. While I've not dropped the phone yet, it overall construction seems equal to that of the Samsung 3500, if not surpassing the older model. I have no doubt that it too will survive many falls. I have less confidence with the metallic blue colour, however, after years old silver phones; it was time for a change. Of course, never mind for you serious types - this phone is available in both silver and metallic blue. While the weight and size difference of the 3500 and N200 may not seem significant on paper, each little bit does add up. The size of the N200 felt better in my small hand, with the reduced weight being extremely noticeable when the phone is in my purse. Because I'd been using the Samsung 3500 for such a long time, it took me a week or two to fully become accustomed to the joystick type movement of the navigator "button". Those with larger fingers may have trouble with selecting the correct option, however, my significant other, who has much larger fingers than I do, had no trouble operating the joystick. I've heard that it is often hard to select the right option even with smaller fingers; however, I only found this to be true in the first week after my purchase. Battery life with the standard packaged battery was stated to be 3.8 hours talk time, with a standby time of 130 hours. From my heavy usage so far, I've gotten somewhat more than the stated battery life if I've not gone into roaming mode at all during that charge "period". As with any mainly digital cell phone, battery life in analog roam or service (or when the phone often switches between the two) will result in a lower battery life - the Samsung SPH-N200 is no different. This phone has a ringer has 25 different rings - from beeps in different tones to whole classical songs. As with other Samsung phones, the rings can be different for each event - a call with caller id, a call without caller id, voice mail, text messages, alerts, and data/fax alerts can all be configured to different songs or tones. A huge plus on the N200 is an ability to shut the ringer off. With the old 3500, a ring could be stopped for voice mail, however, nothing could stop a ring save answering the call. By simply pressing either of the two volume keys, you can turn the ringer off in a snap - especially handy for those in class who forgot to silence the ringer. If the phone is set up to not auto-answer on opening the flip, pressing the End or OK key also will serve the same function, albeit while taking more time. Handy for business users of the Samsung N200 is a mute feature, allowing the person on the other end of the line to be unable to hear what's going happening on your end. With two simple key presses, a call can be muted or un-muted in seconds. Testing… Testing… As with any cellular phone, the signal you get is mainly up to the carrier's tower position. However, as anyone with cellular experience knows, different phones get different ranges. Before I purchased my phone, I'd heard of a decreased range of strength, when compared to the 3500. While a cellular tower two blocks away made signal strength at home a non-issue, a dead spot not too far away was of some worry to me. Thankfully, I learned through experience that the SPH-N200 seems to have better signal strength than other Samsung phones. An important call was made to me while I was on my way to the dead area. While still in the car, the voice quality did degrade by the time I parked in the "dead" area, however, both sides of the conversation were still able to understand one another. An experience like this would have not been possible with my Samsung 3500, which would have dropped the call as soon as it go to the "dead" area. I have noticed the phone seeks an analog or digital roam signal more often in buildings more often than my old phone did - I believe it's possibly due to the N200 attempting to make a better quality phone in buildings than would be possible on the Sprint PCS network - still an annoyance, however, if a building you work in is affected. Oddly enough, however, is my experience at my university - in the basement of a building where my old phone never had a signal, I often have a perfectly useable signal. Ultimately, your mileage may vary depending on the building construction and tower placement. The End I often swore I'd never be a "guinea pig" for a new cell phone - I wanted all of the kinks worked out before I spent money on a phone. However, this Samsung SPH-N200 was just too cute and powerful to pass up. Unless this phone is your only phone, hold off until discounts on the phone will bring the price down - however, if you frequently use your phone or have a cellular phone as your home phone, the SPH-N200 is a perfect example of a brilliant cellular phone. I used to think a phone better than the Samsung 3500 could never be found - that is, until Samsung one-upped themselves and released the SPH-N200. So far, so good - I couldn't ask for a better phone. For the cellular phone user wanting the best features in a sleek clamshell design, the Samsung SPH-N200 should be the first choice phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90674 2000/1/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to navigate tons of useful features very classy lookfeel price The Bottom LineDefinitely a must have! It's just too easy! Full Review In searching for better reception, wide coverage area, better plan and better price on a cell phone, I stumbled upon the Samsung SPH-N200. No, I didn't actually trip and fall per se, but yes, I did fall...in LOVE! After regaining my regular heart rate after a small bit of sticker shock, I asked the guy behind the flashy smile to show me what a price of $159 could do for me. He corrected me right off the bat in saying, "Well ma'am the $179 is what the retail price is but we're offering $30 off." Oh, how wonderful. (What do I look like I'm made of money?) Anyway he pulled out the display model and began showing me some of the features...what could be shown without actually activating the phone. I was impressed! "Would you like blue or silver?" Wow, different colors! I'm thinking, I'm thinking, oh too many decisions! "Gee, my husband purchased the silver one a couple weeks prior so I probably ought to go with blue." The flashy smile turned to gold as he now knew I was hooked. Ok, some of you may be asking why I had so many questions if my husband already owned the exact same phone. You were wondering right? Well, he uses it for work most of the time so I'd never actually seen or used it. He never really talked about it, thus, out of sight out of mind. We walked to the counter and he got my phone activated in just a few minutes and began going through the features with me. I was simply amazed at what all this phone could do. Would I even want or need my phone to do all these things? I doubt it, but it sounded good. I got to choose a password, which would be used to lock or unlock my phone depending on what I had it set to do. Easy enough. But the whole time I'm thinking to myself...setting up my voicemail is going to be a major pain in the you-know-what, it always is. He looks up from the computer and says, "Now whenever you're ready to activate your voicemail all you do is push this little button with the envelope on it. It will walk you through the entire process." What? This must be a joke, it's never that easy. Well, folks I'm here to tell you that it is. One button. Done! There is such a large list of features on this Samsung SPH-N200 that I simply can't do them justice here. But these features aren't just for the techies in the world. Some of them are very logical and easy to navigate and understand for the common....mom! (I have 5 children, I have enough to worry about without spending hours getting my phone programmed properly.) Voicemail When a message is waiting you get a blinking envelope on the display screen and a light beep (if you set it up) and a blinking light. Toggle Switch This reminded me of the day of Atari. Am I old? Anyway, it's fingertip friendly and all you do is move it from side to side or up and down until you get where you want. Then just click it. Flip Feature The phone can be set up to answer an incoming call by simply opening the flip, pressing any button or pressing TALK. This also ends the call, by closing the flip cover. Phone Book This unit can hold up to 238 phone book entries with up to 6 phone numbers for each entry. Each entry can contain up to 12 characters. The phone book is very easy to access using the MENU button and then the toggle switch to move up and down. Volume What happens when you're expecting a call but not in a location that should hear a ringing phone? You either have to turn your phone completely OFF or race to answer it before anyone starts grumbling right? With this phone you can choose to have the ringer on low, medium, high, 1 beep, vibrate, high & vibrate or off. Think church or movie theater folks! Caller ID This a standard feature on most phones but what I really like is that it's displayed without having to actually open the flip cover. You can even set the tones to ring specific for callers with and without Caller ID. Tones There are several to choose from ranging from a series of beeps or actual song tones. You can customize this feature into specific callers get a specific ring, voice messages having their own ring, as well as faxes and alerts all having their own tone. Very good idea, especially if you aren't wanting to hear from the ex-spouse! Calendar I'm old fashioned I guess, I still carry a day planner. This feature holds no interest for me but it's nice to know it's there if the need should arise. Voice Dial Once you have specific phone numbers saved you can set them up for voice dial, which means hands-free dialing. I do use this feature although it doesn't work as well as I expected. If you're in a background that has any other noise it doesn't recognize your voice as well. I use this rarely since it's easy enough to use the toggle switch to find the number I want to call. Wireless Web Another feature that is useless to me. I have no desire so burning that I need Web access badly enough to pay an additional charge and try to read it through a display screen on a cell phone. Like I said, there are tons of features and I'm sure most, if not all, would be very useful to someone else. I love what I do use and like knowing that my phone has left me some room to grow. Who knows, maybe someday I'll need that Web browser to check my stock prices. LOL When purchasing this phone I also purchased the car charger with it, which is a great add-on sale. Ask 'ol Smiley, he'll tell ya! I can plug it into my cigarette lighter in my car, then hook my phone into and it actually charges while driving. This is a great feature for me since my parents live over an hour away and cell phone batteries on roam tend not to live long. The phone also comes with a standard desk top charger in the box. That charger has 3 indicator lights on it: red, green and yellow. Red is lit when you put the phone into the charger, meaning it's charging. Green means it's at least 90% charged. Yellow means you're a schmuck and don't have the phone sitting just right and you need to correct it. Speaking of batteries. There is one Lithium Ion battery that comes with the phone. What the heck is Lithium Ion and what's so special about that? It means that you can charge the battery before it totally runs down. Pretty snazzy huh? The User Guide states that *the battery will offer 3.5 hours of continuous digital talk time (over 1 hour in analog) or over 100 hours of continuous digital stand-by time (15 hours in analog). Yes, the price is a bit out there, but now that I've been using it for several months I don't regret it. The phone is clear, easy to use, sleek looking and absolutely a dream to own! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 7828 Samsung SCH 3500 CDMA / AMPS Cellular Phone 90976 2005/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable with very good sound very good phone just a phone but a very rare voice dialing problems very rare I have used this phone heavily for a year and a half on the Sprint network. I have found exactly one dead spot (so far). The phone functions almost flawlessly. Almost? The only problem I have had is a rare recalcitrance to correctly voice dial. Battery life(for me) has not been a problem. Very tough phone- will tolerate being repeatedly dropped to carpeted business surfaces (not as soft as it might sound) Switches to analog networks if no digital is present: Nice if you really need it but can be expensive. You can easily remove this option if you prefer. I suggest you do unless you are traveling. Highly recommended 90975 2009/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone great features great deal hard to find voice activated dialing only works right when you open flip Full Review Recently I decided to purchase a Cellular Phone with Sprint PCS service. I chose Sprint PCS because of the cheap rates, no contract and excellent local coverage with no black holes. As I went through the complicated task of purchasing the actual phone I explored three possible options, the Qualcomm 2760, the Nokia 6185 and the Samsung 3500. First I purchased a Qualcomm phone through Point.com, I was fairly disappointed with the service of Point.com and I did not like the phone so I returned it. The return process took forever! First, I had to call Point.com and they sent me a return label, I had to wait one week for the label and then call Fedex to come pick up the package. I then decided to try my luck with the Nokia through Point.com, it was basically the same story and their information about the phone was wrong so I returned it. Then I decided to go to Circuit City and I purchased a Samsung SCH-3500, I love the phone and the Voice Activated Dialing, and now that it is set up and activated, I am 110% satisfied with Circuit City and Sprint PCS. If you are considering buying a phone I would advise you to head to the mall, and cisit the service counters where you can demo phones. Then shop around for the best rebate offers. I paid 149 dollars for my phone and I got a $40 Circuit City Rebate, a $30 Sprint PCS Rebate and a $50 rebate for shopping at Point.com, so overall not a bad deal. My advice, shop around for rebates, don't buy online without seeing the phone first and look for the rebates, they take a while to come but they're worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 - Rebates 90974 2000/6/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight small many feautures compact needs a slightly bigger readout for web browsing Full Review At $149 it neither the cheapest or most expensive PCS phone out there. I have had mine for about 3 months to use. Though the phone has many features, such as voice dialing and web browsing capabilities, it is easy to use because of easy to access menus. It it sturdy, I have already dropped it on the cement three times. It's a little scratched but it still works great. I would recommend a case, to help absorb some shock for the times that you do drop it. What I like most is the compact light weight design and the web browsing capabilites. I find myslef using it to retreive email, getting directions and movie times. It is a very a handy feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90973 2000/7/26 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 sleek looking nicely featured poor battery lifesignal strength indoors is terrible The Bottom LineThere are many better models of phones than this one.Don't waste your time and money charging and buying batteries cause that is what will happen. Full Review Had this phone for 13 months now and I can honestly say it's the worst phone I ever owned.The stand by and talk times I'm getting even in digital mode are only about 15% of what they claim in the manual. It has very poor ability to make calls indoors or in the vehicle dropping calls like crazy.I just purchased the extended battery and still only get about 20 hours of standby time with little or no usage.Would not recommend this one to my worst enemy. The problems seem to get worse with time and customer service will do nothing for you.Other companies make phones that will absolutely blow this one away. If you have a lot of time on your hands and don't mind being connected to the charger on an almost continual basis then this is the phone for you.I would hate to have to rely on this phone for any type of emergency. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90972 2000/7/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 huge amount of features none Full Review I was first attracted to this phone when I noticed my manager walking around with one. After playing with HIS phone for about two weeks, I had decided to upgrade my current cell phone to a more streamlined and advanced model. I didn't just set my mind on the 3500 SCH however... I did some shopping around and found that for the money there was nothing better when it came to features and service plans. Sprint was running a deal for 700 minutes a month at 40 dollars a month that i was not gonna miss out on as well. The number of features like voice recognition, call id and the minibrowser just make this phone a ... cool thing. :) I love using this phone and I also always get comments on how "neat" it is. You wont find a better buy for that price. The sprint service plans are also good and the staff is always there for help if you need them. Good luck. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90971 2000/1/1 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compact size sharp looks small display compact battery life Full Review The samsung 3500 could possibly be one of the best phones on the market. I reciently upgraded from a Touchpoint Dual band, Immediatly I noticed a huge decrease in the size of the screen and battery life. I couldn't last a day on a full charge. I make about 20-30 minutes worth of phone calls a day, and hardly mess with the phone to make the backlight come on. Also before I owned the Samsung 3500 I had a 2000 with simular problems. My phone is set to "Sprint PCS mode only", strangly enough when I go to my local mall the phone switches to Anolog. (pretty strange). Now you must be saying I have a defective phone, but I work for Radio Shack and have the ability to exchange my phone with ease.(which I did over and over) I spoke to Samsung Tech support and they sayed something to the effect that the Samsung line of phones are ACTIVE phones so when you are in an area that has little to no coverage the phone literaly kills it own battery looking for signal until it goes into battery save mode. Whatever that means......I like Samsung phones for their compact size,looks,and of course the voice recorder. But I think I give the Touchpoint another shot. P.S. I wish that Sprint would let you compose E-mail before signing on.... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90970 2001/5/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 vibrate ringer some quality features sleek design a few other bugs maddening unclear fuzzy inaudible sound The Bottom Linesporadic clarity is maddening. bad earpiece pivot design. there are better options with more features (sanyo 4500.) or save up and get an 8500. Full Review half a year ago, i was fairly satisfied with my new 3500. i was familiar with my friends' phones of various make and model, and my phone seemed comparable. lots of features i might even deem "cool," like voice-activated dialing, voice memo, and easily accessible volume control. i'm a classical musician and i'm friggin' fed up with cell phones ruining concerts, so i was ecstatic over the vibrate ringer (i think the sound of a cell phone vociferously ringing in public is the bane of all society - just ask my girlfriend.) i found it ridiculously easy to navigate the menu program, even before consulting the user guide. it's a cinch to move numbers around in your phone book and edit entries. the alarm clock is also surprisingly handy. everything's within a couple of key punches away (ideally, see below.) even with no personal, previous long-term cell phone experience, i learned my phone's many commands quickly and easily. it's also surprisingly durable. i've seen these phones tossed 8 feet onto concrete floors, enough to knock the battery out, and still work perfectly. all praise aside, i think there is a major design flaw in this phone. the earpiece flip has issues, and i think the pivots on "the flip" are suspect. a friend has this phone as well and the speaker only operates when the flip is NOT completely (1/8th inch) open. other people have mentioned similar problems to me. electric static is audible when moving the flip up and down, and the sound on my phone cuts in and out incessantly. i've confirmed it's not the signal. the 3500 is the sole phone i use in college, so the thing's always stuck to my face. about the 204,519th time you miss words in a conversation, you start to go nuts. trust me. it has a few other bugs. every now and then, keys don't do what they are supposed to do, eg. listing by alphabetical instead of numerical order in the phone book. i miss games, and multiple-number entries. the battery, while providing enough time for at least a 2-hour call (digital), does tend to get a bit warm during said call, that is, if you can stand having the uncomfortable earpiece against your head for that long. for now, i'm content keeping an eye on ebay for new phones, while secretly hoping mine will be lost/stolen. i'd have a moment of silence. then, i'd happily go buy a new, different phone. UPDATE: two days after i wrote this review, i brought my phone into a sprint pcs store and complained. i originally had my mind set on exchanging it for a different model/make, but since i could not, i opted for a brand new 3500. i have to give props to sprint for honoring my warranty and giving me no grief during the exchange. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90969 2000/1/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compact light no speaker Full Review The SCH-3500 is the BOMB! Every tiny aspect is awesome. After every call, it asks if you would like to automatically store the number... a convenience not realized until you have it- no more punching in long strings received calls. The LCD display is somewhat lacking compared the the Nextel i1000+, however the SCH-3500 display is much nicer than the StarTac display. The SCH-3500 has excellent reception, intuitive buttons, though occassionally the menus get so deep as to be confusing. So please Everyone go and buy this awesome phone. Mu opinion is that this phone has extreme capabilities. I love how you can connect to the internet. The only problem with the internet thing is that sometimes it is really super slow. But it is still cool for internet on the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90968 2000/3/2 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good features small size uncomfortable on the ear The Bottom LineA great small phone for the price. Full Review I have been extremely pleased with this phone and Sprint's service. I actually had to get it replaced once, but the hardest part about that was waiting in line at the Sprint store. They gave me a new phone and were even able to retrieve my stored numbers. The real reason I am writing this advice is to tell you about a cool accessories I found. A company called CCM makes something called the Navigator Plus Car Kit. The kit includes a cradle for you phone that plugs into your cigarette lighter. The cradle has a speaker and a microphone in it that lets you use the phone hands free. The speaker is surprisingly clear and I have yet to hear a complaint from anyone on the other end. When used with the voice dial feature of the 3500, you car is instantly transformed into a state of the art luxury vehicle. Luckily my my cigarette lighter is unobstructed. Some people may have trouble getting the unit to fit, but they do include an extension to help. I believe there are models for other phones as well check it out. http://www.ezcor.com/products/ccms3500.html It cost about $60. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90967 2000/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 this phone does everything even dials by itself p none Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is really very cool. My husband and I researched cell phones for awhile before purchasing in order to find the best deal all the way around. I am not extremely techno so all I cared about was the safety. I had watched a documentary on the rays from cell phones causing tumors and wanted us to have a phone with least risk. This phone has the antennae out the back which does not come in contact with the head. So we buy this phone then my husband shows me all that it does. Wow, this phone can hook up to the net, check e-mail, get the weather anywhere in the world, vibrate instead of ring, voice-activatedly dials numbers, keep track of the time you have spent, take messages, plus all the other phone features. If it could just walk my dog, I could be so much happier. We looked into getting one of the cell phones for 1 cent but they normally come with a larger deposit to set up so it actually comes out even and you get so many more features. This phone is through Sprint who has the best rates and service right now where the whole state is local for $2 more a month, 1000 minutes including long distance or 2000 minutes not including long distance is $75 a month. Very good deal. No hidden costs either because we have had a problem before where oh, oops, they forget to tell you that your plan rate only applies to the calls between 3-4 a.m. We got our bill and it was $100 more than what it should have and my husband had not gone over his minutes. We got our first bill already and except for the unbelievable state taxes on these cell phones, it was right on target. This phone is great! I now have piece of mind since I can talk to my husband safely when I want to and my husband has a nice new toy. I would definitely recommend this toy for your favorite man also. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90966 2000/7/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use well built tons of features wider than other phones Full Review I bought this phone as a recommendation from one of the guys at my local Sprint PCS stores. I really love it a lot! It's a great alternative to Motorola's StarTAC, because you can see the caller ID before you flip open the phone to answer it. When I bought this phone, the voice activated dialing wasn't that important to me, but now that I have it, I can't live without it. This phone actually ASKS you who you want to call. Saving phone numbers is really easy, and you can view your phone book sorted alphabetically (by hitting the down button) or by entry number (by hitting the up button). Reception seems OK, but it's hard to know whether problems are because of Sprint PCS, or the phone. The phone is very durable, and it should last a while. My friends' Nokia phones seem to lose their buttons easily, but these seem very good. They're made out of a durable plastic, not rubber. The vibrating call alert is perfect for me, I work in a museum, and I can't always take calls when I am on the floor, so it's nice to not have to continually change the ringer from high to off, I can just keep it on vibrate all day. One main drawback is that it is wider that other phones of this type, so they take up a little extra pocket space. I recommend this phone for anyone at all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90965 2000/2/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features size none that i have found yet Full Review This phone is an absolute must for moms on the go. I have three children under 4 years of age and this phone is so user friendly that I have no problems using it while we are out. The best feature about this phone has got to be the voice dial system. All I have to do is hold down the talk key and say the name of the person I want to call. No dialing, I don't have to constantly look up a number in my directory, and with three kids, this makes all the difference. It's so convenient, and easy to program. The compact size is a plus, too. I can put this phone anywhere, including in my pocket, and not feel like I'm carrying around my home phone. But it folds out to the perfect size. I would recommend this phone to anyone, but especially to moms for it's user friendly features that make it a very convenient phone to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90964 2009/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small if you re looking for a bargain basement phone that is light mini browser 200 phone number memory all this without giving up the features we all need like vibrate ring has tremendous battery time it s compact size means that the earpiece isn t very powerful if you frequently talk in loud situations like barsresteraunts then this phone isn t for you Full Review When I originally signed up for the Sprint plan a year ago I choose the bargain basement phone. At the time it was a good deal, 75 bucks. It was only when I started traveling that I really started to notice that my old phone wasn't going to cut it due to it's short battery life (80 min talk time, 30 hr standby). That's when I picked up the Sanyo 3500. The phone's a battery life champ, with a three hour talk time and a 134 hour standby time. In reality it's not quite that good but it comes pretty close. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (minus a 50 rebate for my previous phone) 90963 2000/6/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 too many to list earpiece volume quality Full Review I bought my sch-3500 after my Sony Z died (now THERE was a crappy phone!). So far, this one has been great. It has MUCH better reception. I live on the edge of a coverage area and reception is very important to me. It has been durable: in the 4 months I have owned this phone I have personally dropped it on the concrete, HARD, at least 6 times (yes I know they make belt clips, I have one now!) and it still works great, despite a couple of chips in the paint. I work in television, so the vibrating alert is a must, just remember to set the voicemail to vibrate, too! The voice-activated dialing is nice while driving. I chose it over the Star-Tac because you can see the display with the flip closed, which is great for caller id. I don't use the web browser, so can't comment on that. My only complaint is the earpiece volume and quality: it is a little tinny, and needs to be adjustable to a louder level. Overall, this is an excellent phone. 4 of my co-workers have gone out and bought them since they saw mine. Maybe I'm just a trend-setter:) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (minus $50 incentives) 90962 2000/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simplicitygood sized buttons button exposureoverall volume Full Review Tired of my AT&T service that with its seemingly arbitrary and random pricing model, I went with Sprint PCS and chose this phone. My decision was based partly on looks (I admit I am a techsnob) and the fact that it was dual analog/digital and had web access. Sprint service aside (it is fine for me) the phone serves the purpose I intended. The triple threat of text/numeric/voice messaging makes for a versatile device. I love the fact that I can get text messages in the middle of a meeting from co-workers without disturbing others. The web service is like all late 2000 devices/services a bit nascent but it is handy for finding things you are desperate to know - like what the Yankees are doing to the Mets while commuting. The 99 number phone book has all but replaced my Palm for phone access - the bonus of voice dialed access is especially helpful when carrying a briefcase AND a laptop AND groceries etc. The Vibrate function is especially nice considering you do not need a special separate battery for it - it does however eat up standby time every time you get a call or a message. My only real complaint about the phone is that the OK, Up/Down and Menu buttons aren't protected by the cover and can get pushed inadvertently in your pocket (or by your infant son). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90961 2000/11/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light many options none Full Review I don't think that I can say enough about this phone. It's light, compact, and sleek. It has every function you could possibly want in a phone. You have many different options for ring and can even set it on vibrate. My personal favorite option is the voice activated dialing. This is just the greatest thing in the world for those of you who look for ways to do less work. Just flip open the phone say the name of the person you want to call and you're connected. This great option remembers 20 names for you and over 500 names if you choose to pay an extra four dollars a month. The service I have is through Sprint pcs and the quality is great. I just took a trip from New Orleans to Boston and I could always find a clear signal. So if you're looking for a good phone search no further. The money you spend on this model is well worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90960 2000/3/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sexy lightweight great price dual mode capability limited length of names in memory small screen hard to navigate web learn buttons The Bottom LineAll in all, I'm sure there are better phones out there, but given what I paid for this and the fact that it's my first digital phone, I'm quite impressed. Full Review Ditching my year-old Nokia analog phone (on Verizon service) for Sprint PCS digital service on this phone was a great move. In comparison, this Samsung is much smaller, lighter, and has lots more features than the old analog phone did. With my 2 year service agreement with Sprint PCS, the phone was free! Features I really like on this phone include the flip-open form factor, the modern silver-tone appearance, the dual mode capability, and of course the size and weight. Battery life seems much better than the analog phone, in that in that I can leave it on for days at a time. On the negative side, this phone has only 5 lines on its display, which makes it button-intensive to scroll through web pages. Also, the buttons can be hard to learn, as their multi-functionality is not marked. Finally, the phone directory memory only allows 11 characters; I'd prefer more. I purchased a leather protective case and cigarette lighter kit on the web for about US$10, which includes a belt clip to make it easy to carry. I recommend going this route rather than spending US$30 for the "official" accessories. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 90959 2000/11/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact durable stylish none that i ve found The Bottom LineThis is a tough & durable phone, not the smallest on the market, but not at all bulky. I carry mine all the time! Full Review This is a great phone! I've had mine for well over 1 1/2 years and would recommend it to everyone. This phone has outlasted my friends phones, from nokia to startacs this is the toughest phone I've seen! This phone has all the features you could want, voice dial, web browser, big display, but the best is the flip up ear piece. Sure this looks cool, but it also serves a wonderful function...protecting the keys and eliminating those pesky calls from the pocket or purse, when the call button gets bumped on accident. This phone is polite and asks you who you would like to call when you open it, this really is a great phone! The only problem I've ever had occured with in the first three months and the phone just scrolled through all my saved numbers, I turned it off and it never came back on. I took it in to the Sprint store and was promptly on my way with a new phone. If anyone is looking for a new phone, at least check this one out! There are alot smaller phones on the market, but i've yet to find one this tough and durable! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90958 2001/11/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 this phone includes many cool features small enough to fit in your pocket many have had mechanical problems with the flip up ear piecegetting service The Bottom LineIf you baby your phone, there should be no problems. However, if you are a little rough on this one, it tends to be troublesome. Full Review I have known several people who have had this phone, and I have spoken with complete strangers who I see carrying it. The majority of all have had serious problems with the SCH-3500 after a short while of owning one. The only two problems I have heard about are with the flip up ear piece and with the signal. From what I have been told the connection to the ear piece via the swivels that allow the phone to "flip" become worn and lose. After a few months or more of use, it becomes necessary to play with the ear piece during a conversation to maintain hearing. This is the problem that most people with this phone whom I have encountered complain about. The other problem is with the signal. I have heard from multiple users that this phone receives strong signal when first purchased, but over time it has a harder than normal time maintaining PCS service. If you can somehow steer clear of the problems, this phone is actually pretty cool. It has a the voice dial function, where you can record a person's name and associate it with their phonebook entry. Then when you flip up the ear piece, it will ask you for a name. Simply say the name and it will call that person. There is also a button on the side to record memos, which could come in pretty handy. The phone really is pretty sharp looking as well. It has a sleek silver front and dark gray back, and really is pretty unique looking. I am not sure if the problems are due to misuse, but the large variety of people who I have communicated with about this phone and their troubles with it suggest otherwise. I would look at other options, such as the Sprint Touchpoint 2200, which has more features, costs only as much or less, but has fewer reported problems. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 90957 2001/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 just about every feature you need this phone dominates the others great reception standard battery could use more life but so could i very little The Bottom LineThe best cellular phone I've ever tried. It is reliable, full of features, and it looks and works great! Full Review First of all, this is my 5th mobile phone. After breaking a Nokia and a Motorola StarTak, exchanging an Ericsson due to terrible features and difficulty is usage, selling a Motorola due to bad reception and a lack of accessories (like a vibrating battery) I finally sacked up and paid some money for a great phone. My Samsung excels in just about every catagory I needed. First of all is is compact enough to fit right in my pocket, but when I flip it open, it feels comfortable to talk into. The ear piece is light and easy on the ear and because the battery and body of the phone open down, the phone is easier to carry (basically the heavy part is on the bottom). Second is the features. As soon as you open the phone, you are met with the voice dialing feature. Although it took me a little while to get used to using the same tone consistently, now I have it down and the feature works great, especially when driving. It is much safer than trying to look down and dial while on the road. The phone stores I believe 99 numbers which is more than enough for me, and the menu is easy to scroll through. The menus are easy to manuver through and saving numbers, recalling numbers, and checking missed calls are very easy. This phone also has internet access. I have been able to check sport scores, stock quotes and email with ease. While not a substitute for a Palm Pilot or Visor when it come to portable internet access, it is great for quickly checking on the essentials. The battery life could be better. I average about 2.5 days per charge, however, when traveling through areas with weak coverage, the battery tends to drain faster while the phone looks for service. This can be solved easily with a car adapter to charge while you drive, or an extended life battery. That battery, according to a friend with the same phone, will up the life to around 5 days. The reception on this phone is crystal clear, I use it as my primary line because I am in college and AT&T rips us off on campus. Surprisingly enough, customer service has been very friendly when I needed help setting up my options. Luckily, I have only needed to call due to my own confusion, not problems with my phone. Overall, I am FINALLY satisfied with a cellular phone purchase. This phone delivers just what is promises: great reception, tons of features, easy usage, and a very stylish phone. Now lets just hope all those cancer rumors are false. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 90956 2000/10/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 clear calls sleek small not many ring options Full Review Let me just start out by saying I was, until yesterday, a loyal Nokia user. I have had many different types of cell phones in the past but none have impressed me the way my new Samsung 3500 has so far. Last year, when I started service with Sprint, I purchase the Nokia 6185, the cool greenish phone. That phone did everything for me. But, I didn't realize how slow and out dated my phone had become until an unfortunate accident occured in which my beloved phone had to be replaced. Upon purchasing my Samsung, I fell in love all over again... This phone was sleek, silver and compact. The vibrating battery didn't extend out like my nokia, and the screen seems much clearer... I get faster button response as well as connection time... Seems as though I get a stronger signal with this phone too... I can even personalize it with my name on the screen so I can tell mine from any one elses. The only bad part I've seen is the lack of multiple rings which was a feature on Nokia that I loved. I use a cell phone quite a bit as I am always on the road and I am looking forward to my samsung, as I know it wont let me down... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90955 2000/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial great battery life small size no speakerphone Full Review The Samsung 3500 is one of the best phones on the market. It has great features like voice dial, multiple ringers, web-capability, and others. It is small and easily fits in one's pocket. It may actually be too small in that I sometimes do not feel the phone vibrate. Samsung had some great phones before this one. The major problem with those was the lack of battery life. The 3500 has about 5 days of standby. I am very pleased with this phone. The only feature that it does not have is speakerphone. The only comparable phone that has speakerphone is the Nextel i1000. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 90954 2000/6/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact stylish i don t like the battery charger that comes with it The Bottom LineThe SCH-3500 is a good choice. It's not as fancy as some of the newer, more expensive phones, but it does it's job and has all the features I need. Full Review Looking for a cell phone, right? The SCH 3500 is a great choice. It's compact enough to fit in a small purse and has a flip-up cover to protect from accidentally pressing the keys while in your purse or pocket. In addition, the functions are easy to figure out and use. It has one-touch voicemail access, voice command dialing (but this costs about $10 extra from the service provider), caller ID, vibrating battery, etc. The only problem with the phone is minor. I don't like the battery charger that comes with it. It doesn't just plug into the bottom of the phone like most chargers ...it slides into a big contraption. While on the charger, you can't talk on the phone and many times it is difficult to get the phone to slide into the groves correctly. However, this is just the charger, not the phone. Like I said, I really like the phone. On the other hand, the Sprint service is another story. From what I've seen, Samsung phones are often used with Sprint. One word of advice ...make sure you check out how Sprint's service is in your area. It works great in some locations, but is terrible in others. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $149 90953 2000/8/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great phone great deal none Full Review This phone has many features that I love. The voice dial, is a great idea. I also love the missed call feature. Lots of choices on ringer. Cool green/blue light up. Caller ID. Lots of accessories. Hands free set is great. We use it all the time in the car and come out crystal clear. The battery holds a great charge. The volume changes and it can get loud! I have never picked up another conversation and it is very lightweight and fashionable. It isn't too clunky or tiny. Great idea to let you look at the caller ID without opening the phone and answering it. Withstands being dropped and drooled on by children. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 90952 2000/11/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 weight great style ease of use breaks a lot Full Review I bought the Samsung SCH-3500 because I had seen one of my friends with it when it had just come out. When I decided to switch from Powertel due to lack of service areas, I was recommended to use Sprint PCS because the rest of my family had their phones and loved the service. I saw the Samsung phone and it had a rebate offer going on for Mother's Day, so I immediately bought it. I loved the small size, the sturdy flip part, and the ease of which you could use it. One of the best features is the voice activated dialing. It is sooo much safer when you are driving because you do not have to look down. I also use the hands free ear piece which plugs into the top of the phone and the voice clarity is amazing. Another great feature is the world wide web service. The phone is set up for this and all the keys are easy to use and learn. I would recommend this phone to anyone. In fact, my sister's boyfriend bought one because of how much I loved mine. The only things wrong with this phone is that they can break easily. I have had to get a new one because the ringer stopped working, then I had to get the 2nd phone replaced with a 3rd because the backlight stopped working. Other problems I have seen happen regularly would be that the batteries quit and you have to get new ones. Thankfully, all of these problems have been covered by my warranty and I have not had to pay a thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90951 2000/2/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use akward hands free use The Bottom LineThe bottom line is that if you are looking for a phone packed with great features, the 3500 is for you. Full Review I can do nothing but sing the praises of this cellular phone. I had previously only used analog phones and the difference that one experiences with a digital phone is incredible! I actually get better reception with my cell phone than I do with my portable phone! An added benefit of this phone is that it allows you to switch between digital and analog modes for those times when you are not within a digital zone. However, if you sign up for the Sprint PCS plan with the phone you should never have to rely on using only the analog mode. This phone is packed with features that you will absolutely love. I have to say that the most fun I had with it was programing in the voice dial feature. This feature allows you to open up the phone and simply speak the name of the person you want to call and the phone will dial it for you. While this may seem like a frivolous thing, it will come in handy for you when you are driving and can't, or shouldn't, look down to your directory searching for phone numbers. With up to 50 numbers allowed to be programmed into the phone, you should have no problem getting in all the names you need to. The phone is also web-enabled, allowing you to use a certain number of websites specifically designed to be seen on a small cell phone screen. Through the phone's web service, you can visit such sites as Yahoo!, Amazon.com, and AOL.com. Although the service is at times slow, and the screen small, it is convenient to be able to check your AOL mail on the run. In terms of portability, the Samsung 3500 is not exactly one of the smaller phones on the market but that does not make it unwieldy either. I choose to clip it to my waist using its holder and I can just forget about it. I also like the feeling of speaking into a regular phone with the classic design of the 3500. Unlike some of the smaller Nokias, you actually know where the microphone is and feel like you are speaking into it. I really like this phone and encourage you to try it out for yourself! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90950 2000/12/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small but not too small nice price voice dial nice looking known engineering defect flimsy The Bottom LineI have just had such a negative experience with this phone. Not a very durable piece of equipment! Full Review I'm on My 8th sch-3500 in two years. thank god I bought the 3.00 replacement plan. There is a known manufacturing defect in the phone that causes the wire in the hinge to crimp, and short out the earpiece. I live on my cellphone, and I seem to wear then out pretty quick. My parents are on their third, and to me, that's just unacceptable. Sprint finally agreed that there was a defect, and they're shipping me the follow up to the 3500... (I don't know the model, but it looks like a blue 3500) If you have had the same problem, go to a Sprint PCS store, and speak to a manager about the Plan B replacement. The only catch is that you have to be a subscriber to the lockton insurance they offer. but they will replace your phone with the newer model. The voice dial is cool, the earpiece is a bit soft, could use a bit more volume. The body of the phone scratches very easily, and the batteries build up memory very quickly. I have purchased two additional batteries brand new, and all three barely last me through the day now! I love the phone when it works, but all in all, if you're a worker bee who needs a somewhat durable phone, I'd steer clear of this one. The Motorola Clamshell is the best bet as far as durability. if you aren't too hard on phones, then if you like this one, getit... just treat it with kid gloves. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90949 2000/8/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice response email games calender Full Review I recently brought a samsung 3500 cell phone and I love it. I like the voice response feature and being able to check and receive email right on the phone. It was worth the money and the best part is the phone is so compact and light weight. Before this phone I had an Ericson 5160 and it felt like I had a small brick on my hip or in my purse. I think this phone style is very computer aged. The color silver brings the phone out. I am going to give my mother and father one for Christmas this year it is really a good buy. I purchased my phone from Best Buys, but I have seen the same phones at Ritz camera stores for a little cheaper. Either way it does not matter it is still a lot of phone at any price for a little money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90948 2000/5/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything about it none Full Review Look no further. The cellular phone that you have been looking for is right here. Don't get anything else. The Samsung SCH-3500 is the phone of 2000. It has voice dial, caller id, mini web-browser, call waiting, and may more options. One time, i left my phone on overnight, and I looked at the battery left, and it was FULL. I could not believe it at all. I left it on for three days straight, and it went down half way. The battery life is unbelievable. You can't go wrong with this phone. As for the plans Sprint offers, they are the best out there. I have the plan that give me 800 minutes off-peak and 200 peak time. A total off 1000 minutes, for only 30 a month. What is Sprint thinking. That is the best deal that is out there right now. I have never seen anything better than that. Why go for the phone cards, and have to worry about how many minutes you have left. You will never run out of 1000 minutes. I recommend with phone to anyone who is looking for a real good cellular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 90947 2000/11/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing stylish vibrator mode i guess that it has an antenna i don t like that Full Review Previously I shared a phone with my parents which is the Nokia 6185. Thats a good phone but everyone has a Nokia. Now since I am pretty much always on the move I needed my own phone. I went to my favorite store, Circuit City, looked around for like 2 hours before I finally wandered over to the cell phone section. I looked at three phones pretty much based around the Samsung. I looked at the Startac the Samsung SCH-3500 and the SCH-8500. I pretty much ruled out the Startac because when I previously worked for my neighor he would give me his phone sometimes which was the Startac this was when they first came out and I never saw one of them before. I don;t know if it was because he had the small battery or what, but whenever I opened the phone it felt like I was going to break the phone. So now it was between the SCH-3500 and the SCH-8500. The major difference between these two phones are that when the phone is closed and you get a call you can see who is calling you with the SCH-3500 because you can see the screen. Another difference is that the 8500 has a blue backlit screen which is nice, the indiglo I guess it is. The 3500 has green which is fine but the 8500 looks better with the blue. Ok so obviously I decided on the 3500 mainly because the price and the 8500 was sold out. With this phone you are limited to only the Sprint PCS plans. Their service is ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. Their is no static at all. It either clear or it breaks up and dies. Now the problem I find with this service is that it is spotty. I live in the New York City suburban area and even around here with tens of thousands of people live and use cell phones their are still dead zones which I don't understand. I still don't know if I would ever go to any other service provider such as At&T or Verizon just because Sprint is so amazingly clear. Clearer than my portable phone at my house. But in summary the phone is great with features like voice activated dialing for safer driving and convenience. And also vibrator mode which comes in handy mroe times than you may think. I do recommend this phone it is sturdy, sharp looking, and it is a perfect size to fit in your fifth pocket in your pants which I find very nifty. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90946 2000/4/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 accessories world wide web enabled design clarity sometimes clarity accessory connection battery life others The Bottom LineThis mobile communication device has all the necessary qualifications of a high-class unit that could be used for interchanging communication between 2 or more people. In other words... it rocks. Full Review I am semi-proud to say that I use the Sprint PCS Network rather frequently. Although this service is not particularly the best in some areas, it usually works quite well. The same goes for this phone -- although it works well sometimes, there are times when I feel like throwing it out of my moving vehicle and praying that it gets ran over by a passing steamroller. The "features" that cause this feeling of rage to happen are still excellent and wonderful features. As with anything, there are bugs in them. For instance, if you happen to use AIM (Yes ... it has AOL Instant Messenger!) make sure you sign out when finished ... completely. Otherwise, it is almost impossible to start the browser up normally as it was once capable of doing. Another problem I've had with this phone is the battery-life. You have all seen the commercials with people jumping up and down, screaming, "I can talk for 5 hours straight on my phone! What about yours?!" Well, needless to say, the phone usually does not stay on for 5 hours. Now, maybe if you leave the phone off and go back to it after 5 hours, you will have battery power left, but probably not. I had the battery "cleaned" (what exactly does that mean by the way?) several times and after a few good hours, the phone regains its lazy, sleepy personality. Typically speaking, I get around 1 1/2 hours of phone life without recharging. Clarity on mobile phones is a very important feature. Communication is the key in modern life and this phone usually exhibits exceptional sound characteristics. However, as with other things, the clarity fails sometimes and then everything goes wrong. You get the telltale signs of a bad reception. The fuzziness, the shouting at the other person, the looks of disgust from onlookers gazing at your loud, earsplitting, raucous, deafening, brazen voice -- these are all present. With everything considered about this phone, the good qualities outweigh the negative qualities by a lot. I love this phone. If I could marry an electrical device, this would be the one. My phone and I are going to live in marital bliss forever (that is until Samsung comes out with something even cooler). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 55.00 90945 2000/12/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight cute read on The Bottom LineCute, easy to use! I really like it, and it's worth a try! Full Review This is my first cell phone and I would have to say that I'm definitely pleased with it. It is a lightweight little gadget that is easy to use with minimal functions. I don't like cell phones with complicated menus and extra functions that I don't really need. This phone offers great (and important) features and none of the extra stuff to make you have a headache. With easy to adjust volume on the side, and voice dial options, dialing is a simple task, just record your voice and it will dial the number for you! Or, it has a comprehensive address book for you to flip through and look for the number you wish to dial. Also it has a browse the web feature that lets you check your email. This cell phone is really easy to use, everything is listed clearly under the menu options. Some features include ring type, key guard and view your missed calls. It has caller ID (so you don't have to answer to annoying people) and a feature I think is pertinent: vibrate, so you don't have to turn it off during movies, class or whatever even you're busy in. The reception is clear and loudness you can adjust to your own liking. The only thing I would worry about with this phone is its battery life. If you let it sit idle then it lasts for quite some time, but if you chat a lot, the battery doesn't last all that long. Probably 2 to 3 hours. Charging it is super fast, although the charger is very bulky! The charger is huge! It's not just a plug in, it is actually a stand... so it's not convienient for travelling. All in all, I find this cell phone to be a neat little gadget, durable and light. Couldn't have asked for more for my first cell phone. But note this: My friend also got the same phone as me but since it is a flip phone, he somehow damaged the wires attached to the flip and couldn't hear a thing. This hasn't happened to me, but I would take it into consideration! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 90944 2000/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 web browser great talk time voice memo no scheduler no games Full Review This phone is great! The voice activated dialing helps me call people when I'm driving and being busy with my life. The voice memo feature enables me to keep reminders for myself. The flip-close feature is also very nice because when I'm done with my call, I can just close the flip and it ends the call! It also has a good price. The talk time and standby time is very good also. The silver (titanium) color is also very appealing and nice. The phone book holds plenty of space for my friends and associates. The lock feature when I turn on the phone disables unwanted people from using my phone. This phone is a must have!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90943 2000/1/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the voice memo dial feature is the best great phone for the price the manual explains only 95 of features Full Review The phone is great. Especially the fact that the voice command dialing feature is flexible enough to record foreign languages. Another plus is the feature that gives you a warning beep when you enter or leave the coverage area. Sound quality is great. Some pple complain about the mic not being sensitive enough but for me its perfect for situations such as social event where there is lots of background noise. Compared to the Nokia 5xxx and 6xxx w/ Pacbell plan, Sprintpcs has the best reception quality. When I talk to land or other sprintpcs phones, everything is clear. But when I talk to pple on Pacbell plan (with nokia phones) I get a noticeable static hiss in the background. In addition from my past experience with pacbell and at&t, sprintpcs has the best sound quality. So the extra 1000hz makes a whole lot of difference. If you have any questions email me and I would be happy to tell you more. My phone came with Sprint PCS service and you can view my review of that in the <a href=' >San Diego</a> and <a href='>San Francisco</a> service area. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149-$70 rebate 90942 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use voice activated dialing great safety tool lightdurable digitanalog mode cell phone good looking hands free holder is not available yet the lack of availability of accessories is a problem Full Review This is an exceptional product. Recommend it? Absolutely! I switched to Sprint and this phone after using several other service providers and phones. Battery life, durability of the phone and national service was a key issue. The Samsung SCH-3500 lives up to my expectations in every category. I use mine extensively for business, and have found that when used with the Sprint system the phone performs outstandingly. I have since added two more phones now (one for my teenage son and one for my wife.) My wife is as non-technical as anyone can be. She followed the voice prompts to program her voice dialer, and set up the speed dial system with minimal effort. This good looking phone is also tough. In my travels, it's been dropped several times. While dinged up, it's not faltered once. My son ran his over with his car! What may have seemed to be an expensive accident turned out to be a minor problem. While the screen is cracked, the phone continues to work flawlessly. We tightened down some screws on the case, and continue to use. For a traveler, the voice dialer is a key plus. Twenty different numbers and names can be programmed in separately from the speed dial system, allowing the user to open the case, say a name, and be connected without taking their eyes off the road. The variety of ringers, including vibrate mode is an added handy. Whenever the user needs to silent the ringer, a button on the side of the phone allows the user to change the ring mode. With the window being viewable with the cover close, you can also see what mode the phone is in, message status and all key status' of the phone at one time. The ease, size, and reliability makes it the best buy for any user. Sprint service and support closes the package for all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 less rebate from Sprint - 99.99 90941 2000/7/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing versatile small durable has to be open to use voice dialing pricey for some Full Review When I got my license, one of the first things that my dad told me was that he was going to get me a phone to keep me on a leash. It wasn't a bad trade off since I would be able to call my friends and they would call me. I was surprised that my dad was willing to fork over the 149 dollars for this phone, but I think that it is a great phone. It looks great (everyone I know comments on it all the time). It is compact, easy to handle, durable (I've dropped it twice from about 4 feet onto wooden floors and it still works), net capable, and versatile. The best feature that I think this phone has is that its voice activated dialing performs really well. I have a headset that I use whenever I'm in the car and in conjunction with the voice dialing it allows me to drive, dial, and talk without taking my eyes off the road. I almost got hit by a driver because he was looking at his phone while dialing. The only problem that I have is that if I want to dial using the voice dial system I have to open it. If the ear part of the phone is up, it makes it hard to store in my car so thus it rolls around, I don't have a car cradle. Otherwise, this is a great phone. I love this one and I know that I'll be using it until something smaller, cheaper, and more feature packed comes along. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90940 2000/4/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nothing everything The Bottom LineAvoid the Samsung 3500 at ALL costs!!! Full Review Why would anybody want to buy the Samsung 3500? It is the ugliest phone I have ever seen! Not only is it ugly, but it's big, flimsy, and outdated, AND the earpiece falls off. All that, coupled with the pathetic battery life makes it the most horrible phone in the world. The Samsung 3500 should be avoided at all possible costs! One would probably have better luck communicating if they were to use pigeons to fly notes back and forth.. The only good thing that I can think of to use the 3500 for would MAYBE be a tire chock, that is if the poorly made, low quality plastic didn't collapse. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90939 2000/6/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 simple to use good for the first two month of usage high rated defected product somehow not compatible with its own service very low battery life The Bottom LineIf I were you, I'd rather pay extra on the 8500 model. I don't want to pay cheaper but with all this hassles. Full Review Well, when I got this phone, I was exited. At first, I had no problem using it. However, after couple months of usage, I became frustrated to the phone. First of all the bad outgoing voice. By that I meant I could hear the voice from the other end of the phone, but the person from the other end couldn't hear me at all. I've seen many people carrying this phone to the service center for exchange. Many of them had the same problem as I had. Second, the battery life was just too short. During a tradeshow that I went, I had to make some phone calls to customers and back to my office. After less than a couple of hours, it ran out of battery. The 8500 model doesn't have this problem. Lastly, in certain areas where I'd been to (Areas that are still under sprint pcs network) I couldn't check my voicemail automatically. I had to listen to my own greeting then press star then my pin. Very time consuming in this matter. Moreover, sometimes I couldn't even make a phone call even though I was in the Sprint PCS network. I don't recommend it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90938 2000/1/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 techie features voice activation battery life size the end button cannot be pressed without opening the phone Full Review I currently own a Samsung 3500 dual band Cellular phone. I am very impressed with this James Bond phone. Among many of its features is the 20 number voice activated dialing memory. Say a name, and type in the telephone number associated with it's name and it will dial it next time you say that name. It also has a voice recorder which can hold 60 second messages. These are very convenient features especially when your on the road. Another feature I love about this phone is the option for an ear piece so that when your hands aren't free, you can talk through a head set. This is a very impressive phone with 250 hrs stand bye. It is surprising that for 199$ you can actually turn this cellular phone into a portable modem for your computer. If you want to access the web and you don't have a computer use the web browser feature on the phone itself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90937 2000/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size battery life features price sprint pcs coverage spotty in some areas Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is the best wireless phone that I have seen for a long time. It is lightweight, small, and has every feature you could ever want. Although it's slightly larger than the Motorola Startac, it is also less expensive and you can see the display screen without opening the flip. Some other advantages this phone has over most are the voice recording and voice dial features. You can store 20 voice-activated dialing numbers and up to 10 minutes of voice reminders, notes, etc... It also has a 6-day max. standby time and 2.5 hour max. talk time with the standard thin Lithium-Ion battery, and comes with a 2-position drop-in battery charger. It has many other numerous features, including Sprint Wireless Web access (from the phone--no computer needed!), vibrating ring feature, 13 different rings, and the ability to set separate rings for calls, numeric pages, and text messages. This phone also has dual-mode (Digital PCS and analog cellular) capability so you are almost always covered. The only problems I have had with this phone are really not even problems with the phone but with Sprint's digital coverage...however, the service is constantly getting better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90936 2000/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 weight good display sizedesign voice dial looks battery life poor call signals Full Review When we bought this phone, actually we bought 2 of them, they were purchased because of the looks and the great features. The voice dial is a great feature when it works, but it tends to be finicky. IF you record a voice at a certain volume you must say it at the same volume for it too work. Background noise seems to stop the voice dial from working. From my experience with this phone, it is my first phone but my wifes second, we tend to notice the battery life is very poor. What also tends to happen is that once the battery gets slightly weak, there is a lot of problems with making calls. The batteries charge quickly. but need to be charged often. A lot of calls seem to end up in voicemail as well. Im not sure if this is a phone problem or a SprintPCS problem. For some reason, when we talk between the 2 phones it is very frustrating. We cannot hear each other, usually we end up calling to a hard phone instead. I have already returned one of the phones and replaced it with a new one. This new one seems to be a lot better. The other one has not had the same problems but it does have its share. Maybe being we bought them in the very first shipment is the problem. Maybe there were bugs that needed to be worked out. The phone very light, very easy to use, except Im not sure if I would buy a flip type of phone again. Having to open the phone all the time can be annoying. Most features can be accessed with only a few buttons to press. The address book is huge, I dont know 199 people so I will never fill that. The web browser is good, but I dont use it very often. I Do not think I would recommend the phone, although it is a pretty good phone. Maybe now there has been some updates to the phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 each 90935 2000/8/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 size features not durable Full Review I know that most people love the Samsung 3500. And why not? It's small, silver, has a flip and offers voice activated dialing. Even after all that, I wouldn't recommend this phone to anyone I knew. Lots of people that I work with bought this phone when it first came out. Soon after they bought their phones, they started experiencing problems with their earpieces, microphones, and batteries. The screws that Samsung uses to attach the flip up earpiece would come unscrewed, fall out, and leave the phone inoperable. Sometimes the earpiece would simply quit working. I know that Samsung has addressed some of the issues with this phone, but, working in the wireless industry, I know that there are still problems with the phone. If you want a really cool, stylish phone, try the Samsung 8500 (you can read my review of that as well) or the Samsung 6100. Both phones are HUGE improvements on the 3500. The phone would be great if it was more durable. It was a great idea that Samsung has since improved on. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90934 2000/2/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 light good battery life small flip part of phone is annoying The Bottom LineThere has to be a better phone out there. Look for it. Skip this one. Full Review I got this phone from Sprint for free after I broke my other (older) samsung phone. The Samsung 3500 offers everything you want including dual mode for analog or digital, a voice dial that is hit and miss, and vibrate for incoming calls and voice mail. I live in a big city and really have no need for the dual mode but for some who travel a lot may find this to be advantageous. The voice dial is still not quite there. If you happen to have your windows down in your car, your phone cannot pick up your voice, it has to be almost silent. When trying to record names for numbers, I have found it a lot easier to record short names. When I tried to record "Mom and Dad" the voice dial rarely worked. This is a nice function though when you don't have both hands free. What I don't like about this phone is that without the carrying case you will end up dialing numbers because you accidentally bumped your phone. I have already had a friend tell me that he received a call from me and could barely hear me, only I didn't know I had called him. Moral to the story: Buy a case. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 90933 2000/9/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loud ring countless features clear small none Full Review I have been a customer of Sprint PCS almost since its beginning. My first Samsung Sprint cellular phone lasted for over three years!! Last spring when I decided to get a new mobile phone, I knew that I would stick with the Samsung models since my previous phone had been so reliable. I bought the SCH-3500, and I was immediately impressed. I found that not only my phonebook was one push away, but that also I had a digital memo recorder and a palm-sized version of the internet. The SCH-3500 is now only around $100 and is worth every penny. The talk time is outstanding, the clarity and volume levels are exceptional, and there are plenty of useful features. For the money spent on the SCH-3500, I am completely satisfied with the whole package. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 90932 2000/4/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 shiny sleek bulky design bad quality sound Full Review I bought this mobile phone with an open mind. I am not new to the mobile phone buying, but things have started to change and I didn't want to fall behind with my old Motorola. So I went shopping for a reasonably priced high technology cellular phone. When I buy any materials, I don't buy it for the name, I buy it for the quality. So if something looks good(hence this phone) then I may not get the quality Im expecting. The phone's design is jeapordizing my thinking. I bought the phone because it was the coolest looking thing I had ever seen, and as a natural human instinct, I expected it to work. Now there are people who say the phone "plan" makes the phone, I beg to differ. I bought the best cellular one plan with this phone, with all the options(free long distance, e-mail, three way calling, etc.) and it wasn't the plan that failed, it was the phone. The color is very cool, but the shape is very clunky. The head is larger then the body which makes it a bulky contraption to carry in your pocket. It's so bulky in fact that when I drive I end up banging the phone on the steering wheel of my car. Another minus is the fact that the sounds quality from the samsung is horrible, it's like I'm talking underwater- you'll hear your voice a few seconds after you say something. Also theres no volume control wo when you need to hear more you can't. This is definetly not a phone I would use for business. One of the biggest technical flaws I can find is the microphone, when fully extended, its larger and longer then the top part of the phone, making it very hard to support the phone on your shoulder. I returned the phone, and the people at the store gave me a similar model, the nokia-600r, look for my review in that category. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300 90931 2000/4/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to handle durable clear sleek poor performance when used in a mall complex or office The Bottom LineFor emergencies and travel, it can't be beat. Think twice if using it as a primary source of communication inside an office complex or mall. Full Review I purchased the SCH-3500 in May of 2000. I was initially attracted to the look, a sleek, flip top, small unit. I soon became impressed with the standard features...web browsing, call waiting, voice mail, voice activation, auto dialing, voice activation dialing and many ringer selections...to name a few. Once I got past the look and features, I was not disappointed by it's performance. On the road, (in an auto), it performs flawless. No sign of static or dead time...unbelievable clarity. Now, take it inside the mall, that's another story...static, voice cut off, disconnection are at times a problem, not to mention having to be near a window to access the service. If you wish to use the phone merely for emergencies while traveling, it can't be beat, but if your intent is to use it inside office buildings or malls as a primary means of communication...think twice before buying. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90930 2000/1/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 large phone book voice dial wireless web lacks durability bulky out of date The Bottom LineI wouldn't recommend this phone anymore due to better options now on the market. The Samsung SPH N300 is the way to go if you want a great phone Full Review This phone has been a good phone to me but it certainly isn't the best phone that i've ever had. There are major design problems with the flip up ear piece and Samsung even knows about it. They have released press releases on the phone's lack of durability but they are never noticed. The phone does have a few very handy features including wireless web and voice activated dialing. It's an old but good phone but for the price other options remaining that are much better than this phone. Packed with a lot of features for a phone as old as it is, this phone would be a great buy for your typical average cell user. However, if you intend on using your phone for any lengthy amount of time this phone just doesn't cut it. The battery life is very low compared to other similar phones running on the same battery size. Also the phone is very prone to scratches and if scratched the LCD screen soon becomes too hard to see without the help of the backlight which drains the battery life more than twice as quick Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90929 2000/4/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 keypad is covered when closed wide array of features looks great sprint pcs service does not span the entire country The Bottom LineThis phone looks great, feels great, and sounds great. The battery lasts a long time and the phone is durable. Full Review I saw this phone in an advertisement and I immediately fell in love with it's completely unique look. The swinging earpiece covers the keypad when it's closed so you don't accidentally call anybody. Plus, unlike other flip-phones, the display is visible when the phone is closed! The flip design also allows a relatively comfortable way to talk: instead of holding a straight chunky 'stick', you are holding a thin device that has the mouthpiece relatively close to your mouth, not next to your ear like those tiny phones. The phone is web-enabled although I have never chosen to use that feature. It also has voice-command dialing which is pretty nifty. Just open the phone and say who to call. I don't use this either, but it may be to your liking. The voice memo has been pretty useful, too. Just record a memo of yourself talking, something you need to remember to do or something. The menu system for reviewing these recordings is very confusing, however. There are ten million rings for your amusement, and you can adjust the volume of each type of ring. You can have seperate (different) rings for calls with ID, without ID, voice messages, and text messages! There is plenty to adjust on this neat little toy. There is a security feature which locks your phone if you want. The battery lasts a very long time if you don't make any calls, but if you spend a couple of hours on the phone you will definitely need to recharge the phone before the next day. Overall, I am thrilled with the performance of this phone! The sound quality could be better, but it is very good considering that it is a cell phone :^) I've used a different phone that filtered the sound somehow, making it sounds crisper than this phone, but this phone (on the other hand) delivers unfiltered sound for a more realistic sound. This is a great phone. Unfortunately Sprint PCS does not blanket the country as they might have you believe. I get cut off frequently in New London, but in NYC it is _perfect_ Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90928 2000/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small light poor workmanship not durable Full Review I have used it for less than 1 month and the Active Flip is already giving me problems. The speaker goes dead if the flip is kept fully open. Talked with Sprint CSR on the phone, they sent me to Sprint PCS Center. The Rep. advised me to tighten the screw ( below the rubber padding near the pivot) and the problem has gotten worse. Even the screws used are poor they look they are going to loose their threading easily. No more made in Korea for me. The Leather Case with Belt clip that Sprint sells for this phone is poorly designed. To charge the phone you have to take the Leather Case off. Also, it is pretty difficult to put the case on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90927 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size features performance none significant Full Review I went from Bell Atlantic Mobile to Sprint PCS. I have been nothing but satisfied with Sprint as Bell Atlantic was an absolute nightmare. This has to be the best phone for the price. I am frequently in areas with no PCS (digital) coverage and am very impressed with the analog performance of this phone. As for digital, the sound quality is great and I've never lost a call. This thing is feature-packed, and I've impressed many people when I show off the voice recorder for memos and the fully-integrated voice activated dialing. It is also a web-enabled phone, so you can get emails and surf web sites. If you can get this phone, buy it. It's compact, light and very reliable. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90926 2000/4/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 functions easy to use small battery life Full Review This is the coolest phone ever. First time I saw this phone at the store, I knew this was the cell phone for me. I wanted something different. I didn't want a Nokia because everyone I knew had a Nokia. The is a great phone because there is so many different functions. I lone that I can scroll through the phone list alpha-order or numeric-order. I can just type in the entry in the phone book which corresponds with the phone number I want to call. Example. My friends number is listed in the phone book as 4th entry in the phone book. I just type in 4 and press talk. Very simple. The phone is small and styling. The draw back is that the battery life is short. The pro to the battery is that I do not need to buy a batter with the vibrate option. The battery has the vibrate built it. With Nokia, you need to buy a battery for about $100 to get the vibrate option. It is a great deal because you can surf the internet with this phone. I can get stock quote, weather, news and etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90925 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good sound quality lots of features minibrowser is useless Full Review This phone's got all the great gadgets available in cell-phones today, and it sounds great. It's dual band, so it works almost anywhere. The voice activation allows you to just say who you want to call, and the phone will dial. The MiniBrowser is not much, but the alarm feature comes in handy. I recommend this phone to people who call long distance often, and don't want to pay gaudy long-distance charges. Just make sure you live in a PCS service area before you buy it! The battery is remarkable; it lasts all day on stand-by, and recharges in less than an hour! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90924 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 looks great very durable great phonebook voicedial call volume needs a boost The Bottom LineIf you want a good phone, this is one...there may be others, but you won't go wrong with this purchase Full Review I bought this phone to replace a Nokkia analogue and have been really pleased with its performance. The built in web browser is awesome and really easy to use. The phone book is huge and easy to navigate. I've had great reception ever since switching (which was about 6 months ago) and the battery life has been good. I'm now down to about 2 days of continuous On with moderate usage levels. Just throw it in the included desktop charger overnight and you're all set to go again! Built-in alarm clock will make your nighttable one obsolete... It fell out of my pocket one day at a gas bar and the lady who I was helping use the air pump backed out of the spot, right over the phone. As I pulled into the spot, I saw it on the ground...Frantically opening up the flip, I realized that the thing wasn't even scratched, let alone 'broken'... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90923 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent none Full Review I have worked in the electronics and retail industry for over 18 years. In that time I have never seen a product as good as the Samsung SCH-3500. From the sleek design to the abundance of features the phone is an overall steal. From the voice recognition to the overall feel this phone has it all. Pick up the phone and it asks "Who would you like to call" Say a programmed response and you are talking to that person in no time. Although the phone is in short supply it is well worth the wait. I have not seen a product like this in many years and there is currently no other phone on the market that can compare. I have had my phone for 2 months now and am very pleased with it. In fact I like the phone so much that I signed up for Pac-Bell cell service even though I have had problems with the service given by Pac-Bel. Look at your local electronics store and you will fall in love. The average wait time is about 3 weeks however I am sure this will become shorter in the near future. Enjoy and god speed...... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.99 90922 2000/7/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activation feature compact stylish speaker goes bad after awhile battery life The Bottom LineA nice little phone to have, but be prepared for problems in the not-so-distant future. Full Review I bought the Samsung 3500 a little over nine months ago, and I must say I am very pleased. The clarity with Sprint PCS service is outstanding and the compact design of this phone is very stylish. I love the voice-activation feature.This is nice when I'm in the car and can't be bothered with dialing a number.Just program 30-or-so numbers that you call often and you can just tell the phone what to dial. Even though this is not Samsung 3500 specific, the Sprint PCS Nationwide Long Distance feature is also a plus. I have family in Chicago and Detroit and I shaved almost 75 dollars off of my monthly home phone bill by using my Sprint phone to make those calls. But,no machine is 100% efficient and this phone is no exception... The battery, after the first six months of use, will begin to lose charge very quickly. It will also charge quickly, but after about an hour it will be down from three bars (full) to one(almost empty). Also, the speaker will begin to waver and warble after about the same amount of time. During conversations, the person on the either end will become muffled, then normal, then gone completely. Take all of this into consideration when shopping for a phone.All in all, the Samsung SCH-3500 is a very nice phone. And at 149.99, (actually 99.99 with a mail-in rebate at your local Radioshack), it's affordable. I recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90921 2000/3/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear with design sensibilities to boot intuitive multi functional light haven t encountered any yet The Bottom LineGreat buy for the money: functional, stylish & easy-to-use. Full Review The 3500 is my first mobile phone ever. I didn't do much research about hardware prior to my purchase, but it was the least expensive phone for my service provider, while still being dual-band, and offering reasonable perks. Upon activating my phone, and truly becoming a member of the wireless community, I seemed to notice the SCH-3500 all over the place. A college buddy of mine has it, as does a friend of my significant other. Both of them love their phone. A guy I know back in the midwest has the phone and loves it. Basically, I was hit hard by synchronicity: wherever I went, I seemed to see the 3500. That the phone appeared to be everywhere I was is no coincidence; it offers quite a bit in a compact package and at a low price. Voice dialing is great, as is the built-in wireless web browser. (I was stuck in line for a movie that sold out, but I was able to find the nearest theatre playing the same movie, and order tickets, as I was walking to the new movie theater. Online.) The standard batter was enough to keep my phone powered up for an entire weekend, with about an hour of talk time. I have since opted for the extended-life battery, but it isn't absolutely necessary. Another nice feature is that the battery charges in just a couple of hours, too. Very nice. If you are in the market for a multi-functional cell phone, but don't have a bunch of cash to spend, I'd recommend the SCH-3500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90920 2000/1/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial good looking small only stores 20 voice dial numbers web browser not advanced Full Review I already have a Nokia 6185. It is only six months old, so I don't need another cell phone. But, when I bought this Samsung SCH-3500 as a gift, I was hard pressed not to give my Nokia instead. The Nokia 6185 is a great phone. It has a long talk time, pretty clear reception, stores up to 200 telephone numbers, easy to use buttons and logical menu structure. My phone also has the vibrating alert (an important feature to avoid embarrassment when your phone rings during a meeting) and the optional leather holster. The Samsung, however, is smaller, flips closed to protect the keys from accidental dialing, and has VOICE DIAL. It only stores 20 voice dial numbers, but that's pretty cool. It makes dialing much easier--and safer when driving the car. Just flip the phone open and say the name of the person whom you want to call. Storing the voice-dial numbers is fairly simple if you are used to entering telephone numbers in any other cell phone. The Samsung also offers a small web browser (for an extra monthly fee from your carrier), but you cannot do much in a 1" x 2" window. That technology is still in its early stages so far as I'm concerned. Depending on where you buy it, the Samsung costs about the same as the Nokia 6185. Overall, I'm pretty bummed that my Nokia still works...maybe it will have an accident and I will need a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 90919 2000/4/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light great sounding easy to use battery life could be a bit better Full Review I was referred to the Samsung by a friend who had Sprint PCS. He kept telling me what a great deal it was. But he had nothing but problems with his phone and service. I decided to look around on the internet. And of course, here. My findings were very informative. I was happy to find out that most of the people I spoke to had a good experience with their Samsung 3500 phone. I purchased my phone over a month ago and I am very satisfied. The calls are clear. You can record a memo when you are on the go. And the feature I like best is the voice recognition dialing. Which has worked flawlessly for me since I set it up the day I purchased the phone. For the 150 dollars I paid for the unit.. It is definitely worth the money. If you are looking into PCS and need a good sounding and inexpensive phone. I suggest you look at the Samsung 3500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90918 2001/8/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good features not to large or to small vibrating ring poor flip mechanism volume control not flexible enough The Bottom LineA decent phone, but there are many phones out there that are better. Full Review I was a big fan of the Samsung 3500 for the first few months I owned it. But soon after the flaws became apparent. The volume on some incoming calls just couldn't be increased enough. And after enough opening and closing, the ear piece speaker would quit working, and I'd have to re-position it to hear the person I was talking to.. The reception on this phone was great, but the problems continued. I brought it in and they replaced it with a new 3500, this one seems to have the ear piece problem fixed, but the volume still isn't loud enough for certain calls in noisy areas. It is quite durable, nothing on the phone seems very flimsy. The display is average, but has a nice font, not too large or to small for my tastes. The slim battery makes the phone a great size, but its battery life is quite a bit shorter then the battery that comes with the phone. The vibrate option works well, many other phones I've seen have a very weak vibrate option which makes it hard to notice that you are receiving a call. These problems have also plagued 3 of my friends who have all had their phones replaced due to the ear piece problem. It's minibrowser service works quite well and is easily accessible, it can also be used with the ear piece in the closed position. One last complaint is that turning the ringer off doesn't turn the message indicator beep off. This becomes a little bit of a pain if you are at a movie or a meeting, and turned the ringer off, if someone leaves a message it will ring loud, and annoy those around you. There is no quick and easy way to disable the ringer and the message indicator at the same time. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90917 2000/7/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrating ringer voice dial out of range at odd moments Full Review Some may say I'm crazy, but I actually compare cell phones to clothes. Cell phones, just like clothes, go out of style from season to season. Everyone wants the stuff that will make them look good, and that will make them stand out. I've owned my fair share of phones. From the first model Startac, to the Sony Z phone (it looked good, but it's battery life was poor). From the first time I saw the SCH-3500, I knew I had to have it. The only problem was, it was on back order from Sprint. I waited until mid-January to get my hands on one. So why did I want this phone so much? First of all, the voice dial feature is incredible. Flip up the earpiece and a voice says "Who would you like to call?" Simply state one of the names that you program into the phone (up to 20) and it starts dialing. It also has an incredible micro-browser, perfect for browsing the wireless Web on Sprint PCS networks. It is easy to compare this phone to a Startac. It has a vibrating call function. It does not weigh much. It's sharp. It's very 21st century. The difference between the SCH-3500 and the Startac lies within the price of the two and the looks. I prefer the titanium color of the SCH-3500 over the standard Startac black. The price of the SCH-3500, $150 through a Sprint PCS store, is about half of the Motorola Startac ST7867 ($230 through a Sprint PCS store). The phone also has a voice memo feature allowing you to store up to ten 60 second messages in the phone. It also has the standard caller ID capabilities and a headset jack. The battery has 2.5 hours of talktime and 130 hours of digital standby. The only problems I've had with the phone are sometimes the voice dial feature has issues with recognizing my voice. Also the phone likes to randomly say it's out of range of the wireless towers when it's simply sitting on a counter. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90916 2000/4/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap looks cool lots of features have had some problems with it Full Review I found this phone after my old Qualcom had broken. I walked into the Sprint store and saw this cool looking phone for a low price of 129.99 and I thought that I was getting the deal of a life time. Its a dual band phone, meaning that it operates on both the digital and analog services. The battery lasts for 2 days of use. And it only takes about 3 hours to recharge the battery from empty. Has really cool voice dialing option whcih lets you say a name and it'll dial a number assigned to the name. It also comes with a voive recorder. Its also a great size big enough to hold but small enough to fit into your pocket. But I have had problems with this phone. I have had to exhange it twice, both times I was having problems with the earpiece. Once they told me the connections on the flip up earpiece got crossed, and the second time the earpiece just stopped working all together. I would recomend this phone for its low price, I'm not too sure if anyone else has experinced my problems but overall its still an above average phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90915 2001/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap sprintpcs service is expensive The Bottom LineCheap, WEP ready, SprintPCS nationwide network Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is a great value. To start, time to name off the features. Dual-Mode - Good for analog or digital networks Phone book with 99 possible entries Sprint PCS Wireless Web Backlit display, 10 rings Sure, it doesn't have the many rings of the Nokia phones have, but it has enough to keep you from getting bored. Reception is excellent in most areas where SprintPCS is in service. When theres no service, as with many other phones, phone will go into Low-power mode, to save battery. Sound is clear, but it can be better. The volume is easyly adjusted with a side button, so you don't need to move the phone away from your ear to adjust the volume. One thing this phone has is style. Not everyone has it. It turns heads when you bust this out of your coatpocket and start talking on it. Battery life is on average with most phones in this class, of midsized phones. One can expect about 120 min of talk time in mixed digital conditions. Analog talk time is unknown. For $149, you cannot lose. Its a basic phone, and it also has wireless web if you ever would need it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90914 2001/1/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light powerful easy to use compact little confusing at first The Bottom LineI would use this phone. Has most the bells and whistles of the high dollar phones with out the extra price tag. Full Review My girlfriend just got this phone on the Sprint free and clear plan. I must say that this phone is very nice. A little challenging at first to use, but soon becomes a snap. Small, lightweight and style are just a few things that make this phone very powerful. It if was not for poor service in some area which is not the phones problem, would be the ideal phone for the person on the go. You can do whatever you need to get in touch or be in touch with others. Many accesories available for this phone make it easier to use then a real phone. Voice activated calling saves the time and distraction of punching numbers. Large display makes it easy to read and is all around a nice phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90913 2009/12/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 look size voice memo voice dialing Full Review The Samsung 3500 by far outpowers the competition with features that enable the user to feel more secure in digital/cell phone use. As part of the digital PCS network, I have experienced more dropped calls in certain areas than when I had my other more primitive Samsung. The analog mode of course will limit this from occurring. The browser is real good! Annoying at first to set up though. Compared to the Motorola StarTac, the 3500 comes out way ahead. Sprint is rumored to also be making a belt-clip for the phone similar to the StarTac's holster. The message(dictaphone) feature is phenominal if you are on the road a lot. The only drawback I have seen on the phone is articulating your words properly enough to get the voice-dialing to work Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90912 2000/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many features clear light weight good looking a little expensive makes annoying sound when searching for signal Full Review I was always against mobile phones. I wasn't really against them for any real reason except for the cost. The cost seemed to out-weigh the reward. Until I recently started using the SCH-3500. So What's So Special About This Phone? Well this phone has many positive features that make the cost worth the reward. The phone features a light up screen. The screen displays a name, date, time, battery power, service signal, and other options that might be turned on/off. I threw away my watch because of the clock on the phone. The are many other added bonuses that make this phone great. It's very light in weight. I put it in my pocket and barely even notice the difference between the phone and my wallet. The phone also has a million other features. It has voice mail, it can use voice dial, it has an address book, it has a variety of ringer options, and much more. The battery lasts for a long time, and it comes with a plug-in charger. I can not express how much I love this phone. If you're a busy person that leaves the house a lot you will love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159 90911 2000/8/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 looks cool falls apart Full Review This phone is the hot little unit of this past year, but don't bother. I purchased two of these phones at Christmas time and I am very unhappy with the performance and durability of this samsung phone. The hinges for the ear piece have fallen apart on me three times and the rubber volume button on the side has fallen out twice. Sprint on my last trip to the service center (which is about as fun as going to the DMV}has told me that the volume button is no longer coverd under the warranty and that this was my problem. How is it my problem that samsung has manufactured such a bad product? I have tried to exchange it for a better phone with no luck. The battery is also not holding up well at all. The charge is about half of what it once was. Do not buy this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90910 2009/12/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 rugged tons of features none yet Full Review I recently purchased this phone as a re-entry into the cellular market. In only a few short weeks I have really come to enjoy this phone. I have found this phone to provide a clear signal, a multitude of features and a robust quality of manufacture. The voice activated dialing is a nice feature--you feel like James Bond when dialing up with your voice. I even dropped the phone one time with no damage. The price point (I paid $149) is really reasonable not to mention I got a free accessory kit (case and DC adapter) and a rebate from Sprint when I activated the phone. I would highly recommend this unit. I have been very satisfied. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 less rebates 90909 2000/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice features battery life size hands free piece fries flip speaker Full Review Many of these reviews are written a few days after purchase, when flaws have not become apparent. How helpful is repeated entries of "I love this phone..I want to marry it...I want it s babies blah blah" See my specific "easy destruction flaw" the second follow up comment(2nd flylife post) to save your phone. Since I started this post as a negative comment I may as well comment on other shortcomings. -If the phonebook # doesnt have the area code the incoming call won't bring up the name. -Alarm does not work in areas phone roams to analog areas -(area dependent)in low analog areas phone will accept but not dial calls -in editing phone numbers the number must be completely reentered, and originally entered number dissappears -Voice dial entries must be entered manually even if the entry is in the phone book -no provision for calling card entry -no calculator -no individual incoming/outgoing/missed call log deletion -no games, pretty intro pictures or special characters in banner entry. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90908 2000/7/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 clear sound voice activated dialing that actually works durability The Bottom LinePerformance wise, the SCH-3500 is good phone. It just won't last long. Unless you baby it and leave it at home... so think twice before buying this one. Full Review In December 2000, my wife and I decided to get cell phones. We purchased two Samsung SCH-3500s. These phones worked perfectly--clear sound, good reception, and some cool features (like the built-in voice-activated dialing and audio memo recorder)--for about six or seven months. But like so many old rock stars, our phones had already seen their glory days and just looked old and beaten. A screw in the flip cover/earpiece fell out rendering the entire flip thing useless. So we replaced that phone through Sprint's equipment replacement service. Now, my wife's phone has lost the same screw and also has a useless flip thing. Basically, the flip cover/earpiece is a piece of junk that's barely attached to the rest of phone by a screw smaller than ones holding my glasses together. Since this phone is the opposite of durable, it lost whatever portability it had. We don't carry them in our pockets or on belt clips for fear that something might fall off. Besides falling apart, the screen and the phone itself scratch very easily. Maybe the gray body allows scratches to be seen easier... I don't know, it just looks bad. Using the phone and all its features is pretty straight-forward. The screen is slightly undersized, but it's still easy enough to read and the backlight provides excellent 'Indiglo'-like illumination. When using a headset, the three menu buttons allow you to place calls to numbers stored in the phonebook. However, you cannot end calls unless the person you're talking to hangs up first or you flip up the cover and press END. This sort of defeats the purpose of hands-free. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 90907 2000/10/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use stylish cant think of one Full Review I have had this phone for a few months now. It is easy to use. Simplicity is something we all need in our lives! The voice dial feature acts as a safety feature as well as one of convienience rather than having to go through the phonebook trying to locate where you may have programmed a number in. The look of this phone is stylish, as well as compact. Its not so small you are afraid you'll lose it, and not so big that its clunky. The web browser I haven't messed with too much, I don't have a lot of need for it. The clairity is awesome. That may be my carrier, Sprint PCS, but every time I have used people have thought I was calling from home. My main reason for choosing the phone was the voice dial and the look. Its pretty, Hey, I'm a girl! If you choose this phone you will love it. It is easy to use and like I said, the voice dial is the best feature, I think, cause you can call out when driving and not have to look at what you are dialing, you simply say a word. I love this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90906 2000/1/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 style size menu sound clarity don t get voicemails cuts off The Bottom Linelooks good, small, but real bad phone! Full Review I remember writing a review about my Samsung phone and it was all positive. I did not understand why so many people had written so many bad reiews about it. A year and 1/2 after my first review, I thought it would be fair to give you an update as my opinion has changed significantly. While I am still happy with the features and size of my phone, I have been very unhappy about the phone in general. Here's why: it all started about 10 months after I bought the phone, why? I am not sure. The sound is getting really bad, and the phone cuts off on a regular basis even in the middle on a large city or on a main highway where you would expect best reception. The phone simply won't work or will switch to the expensive Analog mode just 5 minutes away from my office uptown or near my house. I have missed important phone calls and this has made my wife pretty upset at times!!! I don't even get my messages sometimes which makes my wife very suspicious and furious!!!! When I do get them, it is sometimes 24 hours too late!!! Sprint refused to give me a new phone because it had been 10 months and suggested I buy a different one at full price! Another alternative was a software boost which is really a temporary fix until the phone acts up again! I have to talked to several co-workers and friends who exprienced the same problems and had to get a new phone. I hope this will help you in your decisions! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 90905 2009/12/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight voice activated dialing battery life falling short of specs Full Review When looking for a new digital phone, I kept in mind my wife's Star Tac and figured nothing would top its portability and relative ease of use. Then, I found the Samsung SCH-3500. I was wowed that it was lightweight, easy to carry, dual band and internet ready. But the voice activated dialing was the clincher and it works like a charm. Moreover, the clarity has been so good that most assume that I am calling from a land line rather than from the road. However, on the negative side, the battery has fallen slightly below company's specs, lasting no more than two hours of talk time. For me, this is really not a problem but others may want to invest in the extended battery rated for 3.5 hours. A minor negative is the optional leather case must be removed to put it in the recharger. Also, it can be tricky to place the phone in the recharger. It usually takes me a couple of tries to get it locked in place. All in all, I heartily recommend this phone to anyone. Its compact shape, sound clarity and internet readiness should meet the needs of the casual user as well as the cell phone junkie. And the cool voice activated dialing should satisfy any tech hound. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90904 2000/5/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small vibrate mode voice dialing charger works but not well designed Full Review This phone will last me a long time, because I love it. I purchased one for both my wife and myself, they are both working well. I like: It is small, will easily fit into my pocket The voice dialing feature works well, even in a noisy environment The battery lasts more than 24 hours between charges address book has a decent amount of memory displays the current time and date has a vibrate mode I don't like: The flip up receiver is a little flimsy, can sometimes turn off phone if pressure is applied accidentally I haven't found a decent leather carrying case The battery does last more than 24 hours, but I don't think it lasts as long as the specs (which say it should last much longer than that) The charger is not well designed, placing the phone in it is not easy I haven't tested: I haven't used the internet browser feature I haven't really used the recorder feature What has gone wrong: One of the hinges on my wife's unit continually comes unscrewed Recommended: Yes 90903 2000/7/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 wonderful features great phone it starts having problemsno one will fix them The Bottom LineThe phone is fabulous, but is not meant to last long term. Samsung and Sprint just don't mention that to the customer beforehand. Full Review I have one of these phones. And I have loved it until it started having problems. Problems that are apparently "known problems" regarding the fact that the earpiece gets to where you can't hear the other person talking, although they can hear you. I also have "origination" problems with my phone according to the Sprint store, although no one can give me a clue what that means. Samsung and Sprint just verbally shrug and say, "it's electronics." I've worked in radio for a long time and I know electronics - ones that are made well and taken care of well are not worn out in 18 months. They all seem shocked that I expected something I paid $150 for to last more than 18 months. I told the guy I had taken good care of it. He responded, "Oh, yeah, I haven't seen one this old come in that looked half this good." I guess it must be much more lucrative to work in the cell phone industry than in radio. I wasn't planning on replacing my phone every few months. Nothing dramatic has changed in the last 18 months, I had no reason to replace my phone yet. Except that its "known problems" will make it necessary before I want to. As for the phone, it has wonderful features, is great to use, has a nice display, long lasting battery power - everything you could want. If you only want a phone that will last for a limited amount of time, this is a great one. But if you expect your purchase to be your phone in the long term, better try something else. It's a pity. I love the phone and its features. I would have been content to stay with it for a long time if only it didn't have these "known problems" that no one seems to be concerned with correcting. Well, of course, you don't "know" when you plunk down your money. That information is on a "need to know" basis and I guess only the companies need to know you're buying something that has problems. After this experience I'll be hesitant to buy another Samsung product. Although, frankly, I don't know what to get instead. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90902 2009/12/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing light small takes time to program Full Review This little phone is the best phone I've ever purchased. It's light, compact, and because of the flip feature I don't have to worry about number locks. And for other ladies, it even fit into my small evening bag! I've gone through four phones in four years and would say I'm finally happy (and I'm picky). The voice-activated dialing is a GREAT new feature, especially since after January 1, 2000, it is possible to get a ticket for holding a phone up to your ear in a car while driving. Combine that with the ear piece and you're ready to go! I actually had a male friend try to use the voice-activated dialing on my phone after I recorded my voice into it (I'm female). The lady at the store didn't think it would pick up the difference in voice, but it did! I would recommend this phone just based on that feature. One drawback would be that it will take a bit of time programming all of your phone numbers and voice commands into it, but once you're done, you'll be really happy. Just know you'll need a few hours in order to set it up. I was originally comparing this phone with the new digital Motorola StarTac. They were around the same price, and roughly the same size. The Samsung won since it had the voice-dialing and had two digital modes and one analog - so it works everywhere. The real test was whether it would pass my gadget-loving husband and friend. To show their level of cell phone love, my husband has the Motorola/Nextel i1000 Plus (with the turbo dial, speakerphone, and direct-connect features) and my friend has the StarTac (digital) with the attached planner on the back. After their separate review sessions, they were both sold - and both wanted my new phone instead! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 - after rebates 90901 2000/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flip face durable small no games Full Review As a college student 1000 miles away from home I dealt with rather large long distance bills my first year. I started searching in the summer for a cell phone and provider that would meet my needs. As soon as I spotted the Samsung SCH-3500 I knew I had to get it. I love it's simplicity yet its ability to do everything I need in a phone. I also like the fact that it is a flip phone which makes it more durable and can be tossed in a backpack or purse without having to worry about buttons being pressed. The great thing about this flip phone is that even when it is flipped close you can still see the display without opening the phone. It is also small enough that I can fit it in my pocket when I go out to party on the weekends. Another thing I love about the phone is that it is voice activated which is very convenient when you are on the road. I haven't had any problems with my phone yet and I have owned it for six months now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90900 2000/6/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish useful affordable none The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for people who likes style, portability, and affordability. Full Review For those of you who are looking into purchasing a handheld phone with internet capabilities... this is the phone to purchase. When I first purchased this phone, I was skeptical about it because it looked stylish, and I figured that if it's affordable yet stylish that it would be a waste to purchase something that may break easily. Later I found out that this phone is the best phone I've ever purchased. It's durable, because of the many times I've dropped it on concrete by accident, as well as running it over with my bicycle. It was capable of withstanding great amount of pressure. It's stylish, and portable. It can fit in a pocket and be transported. The buttons are hard enough to keep it from being accidentally pushed. Also, the reception is clear, rarely did I experience difficulty hearing the speakers, and having someone have difficulty hearing me. It's also very useful if you like to know the news, weather, sports, etc. It's also very easy to use, no complicating menus, and it has just the right amount of buttons. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90899 2001/3/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of features that are pretty easy to use poor receptionfrequent jumping from digital to analog roaming The Bottom LineIt is a very attractive phone and does have some neat features but I would go for a phone with better reception. Full Review I used a Nokia 5160 on the AT&T network for 6 months after moving to Houston. My employer then purchased Samsung 3500's for everyone and put us all on the Sprint network. While I have had a very disappointing experience with Sprint I think that part of the problem is in the phone itself. I have many friends that use the Sprint service through Qualcomm phones and don't have any of the dropped call and voicemail retrieval problems that I do. In fact just last week I was in Denver with a friend and we were both using our phones in the car as we drove into a mountain tunnel. My Samsung dropped the call 100 meters into the mountain and her Qualcomm phone stayed connected all the way through. We were both using Sprint. Some of the features of this phone that I find useful are the vibrating ring and the internet access. The vibration setting is great for leaving your phone on in the theatre or during business meetings, but on a full charge the people around you will hear your belt buzzing. The internet service is very limited but does give you the option of checking your yahoo or aol mail accounts. The phone comes with a Lithium Ion battery and gets a decent amount of talk time (2 hours) if you are in a Digital Signal area the whole time. However, because of poor reception I am constantly going into Analog Roam which drains the battery in about 30 minutes. I normally average about 1 hour of talk time per charge. Keep in mind that I use this phone about 15 hours per week, I may just be putting a strain on the battery by having to charge it every day. Charge time seems to take about 45 minutes but I normally put it on the trickle charger at night and pick it up in the morning. As for the durability of the phone, I think it is made of military grade plastic. I have dropped this phone over 30 times and the worst that has happened to it is the battery pops off. All you have to do is slide it back on. Anyway, while it is a very attractive phone and does have some neat features I would pass it up if I had it to do over again. The most important thing in a phone for me is that it makes calls and keeps me connected until I hang up. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90898 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long lasting battery voice activated dialing small non Full Review This thing is so small and light I put it in my pocket and forget its there. It has clear sound and Sprints PCS system only makes it that much better. The phone has the ability to be trained to call phone numbers by a voice cue. For example you can have it learn the phrase "Mom" and then associate that with the phone number for your mom. It is not even dependant on your tone or your specific voice pattern. I jokingly dialed on a friends phone by saying his wife's name. We didn't think it would work but it did. Think how you could arm your children with a phone like this trained for calling home, police, fire etc. Plus with all the news about unsafe driving with cell phones what better way to promote saftey than not having to look at the keys??? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90897 2009/12/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 no contractincluded features limited free weekend minutes Full Review I have been using cell phones for over 10 years and it never ceases to amaze me how technology advances from month to month. The Samsung 3500 is my fourth cellular phone and it is by far the best. This unit is lightweight and fashionable and it has tons of features. I particularly like the caller id and the wireless Internet features. Both are useful and I make use of them almost everyday for personal and business use. This phone operates on a dual bandwidth. This means that I can connect to digital or analog lines that are set up within my service providers' network. Another attractive feature is the voice activation, just speak into the phone and viola! , you are instantly connected to whomever you've stored in the phone's memory. Finally, the phone is an overall exceptional value. For the price, it has all of the features and it is state of the art with its ability to provide wireless Internet service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90896 2000/5/24 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 good looks terrible battery life Full Review This phone was a HUGE disappointment from the time I bought it to the time I returned it (a total of four days). Two of those four days I had to return to the Sprint store for new batteries. This phone held a charge for a TOTAL of about five hours... whether or not I had the phone on, off, or in standby mode. The salesman even admitted that the available talk and standby time was greatly exaggerated in the phone's literature... most people got only about a quarter or half of the time promised by Samsung. The Samsung can have all the cool features and good looks in the world, but it does no good if you can't use it. From what I have read on this site, I am not the only consumer who has had problems with batteries on this model. I returned it within the fourteen day period and got the Sanyo 4000 instead (which I cannot recommend highly enough... GREAT, GREAT phone!) Save your money and frustration and buy the Sanyo 4000! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90895 2001/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life functionality ease of use sturdy none The Bottom LineIf this one ever happens to break I will be buying another one if available at the time. Full Review Over all the best phone i've used! Great all around phone with most of the needed features. Leave the calendar to the palm pilots or other devices. I feel anyone would be happy with the phone and the service! Sturdy, easy to use, good reception in 90% of areas, memo recorder, battery life and being able to see who is calling w/out having to open the flip/door. I have people ask if I liked my phone and ended up showing them all it has to offer and selling them on buying one for themselves. P.S. I have dropped this phone several times, the worst that happened is the battery popped off (8 foot drop). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 109.99 90894 2000/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrate voice dial large phonebook flip none i can think of Full Review I, like many people, saw this phone at work when my co-worker was using it and I loved it from that moment on. At the same time, I was having major trouble with my current provider, Cellular One, and decided to switch. This phone is absolutely marvelous. It's very sturdy and even through a few drops, is still intact and working in mint condition. The volume on it is loud enough for myself and its got vibrate along with numerous ringing tones. The flip feature is cool and the retractable antenna isn't annoying at all. It's got a large phone book and best of all, Internet access (limited). And much more of course... It is definitely worth your money!... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 - $50.00 = 99.99 90893 2000/8/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 hip small compact sleek rich featured can activate some of the features accidentally Full Review I switched to Sprint PCS from Cellular One in favor of a service which would be available essentially nationwide and would roll in long distance service and eliminate most of the roaming charges. Sprint features the Samsung 3500 among its phone offerings. It is a hip, sleek looking instrument; is very lightweight; has more features than I would ever have imagined; and is truly pocket-sized. I recently used the phone on a driving trip from Indianapolis to New Jersey, up through New England, New York, Ontario Canada and back into the states. With few exceptions, Sprint maintained service throughout the trip and the Samsung performed well. The unit draws attention everytime I pull it out. Its silver-plastic case is handsome and the "flip cover" covers the number pad and all but two of the function buttons, meaning you won't mistakenly dial someone as it jostles in your pocket. I really like the ease of programming and ease of access to its features. The voice activation dialing feature is well-designed and useful; it has a giant "stored number" directory; quick recharge capability; and has excellent reception and transmission quality. I don't have any dislikes, although I would have the flip cover conceal ALL of the feature buttons. I would recommend this cell phone to anyone ... old, young, techie, non-techie. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90892 2000/12/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 a lot of features stylish affordable flip signal Full Review I liked the features, looks, and the salesperson of Sprint that I bought the phone from. It is stylish and has a ton of features that are great. I do on the other hand find that I cannot use this phone in my home. I always lose the signal. No matter where I am in my house. I like all the features and the price was reasonable. I do not like that I have to be outside to use it. My husband has the same phone and has not had this problem too much. I also don't like how I have to be so careful with the ear piece. The wires run through the flip and you have to be careful not to break the flip which is fine and fragile. I would pay the extra few dollars and buy the next step up. No flip and a better signal. Great for people who need a small phone and are not going to rely on it for in home use. (I liked the plan I have for long distance and wanted it for that.) I am going to return it for a different model. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 90891 2000/5/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 voice activated dialing is helpful when you are in the car its cute sometimes turns completely off by itself incorrectly scrolls through numbers horrible reception The Bottom LineIt is cute, the battery life isn´t bad, and it is convenient. All of these things mean nothing if the phone itself does not work. Full Review I will say this is a cute little phone, very trendy, but that is about it. I love it when it works, which is rare. It is a good phone to carry around to make it look like you are cool but in reality, don´t even bother trying to use it. I have had problems with this phone pretty much since the day I got it. I can´t call my boyfriend who lives 3 hours away from me without it cutting him off at least 10 times during a 20 min. conversation. I have had to resort to keeping it on the charger, plugged into the wall, while I use it. Half the time when the stupid phone is working, the person on the other end cannot even hear me. I took it up to get it fixed, they concluded it was a faulty phone, then replaced it with a phone that was even worse. When I scroll through my numbers it skips from, for example, the first number to the 15th number then back to maybe the 3rd number, and so on. Kind of frustrating when I want to call entry #2 and I have to sit there scrolling for 10 min. wondering if I am going to get lucky and have the cursor happen to land on the number that I want. It also cuts off automatically while I am talking. Not just the reception cuts off, the whole phone cuts off. I found it also kind of disturbing when I went to get my phone replaced at the Sprint store, 4 people in line had the same phone and were all waiting to get their´s fixed as well. Hmmm...coincidence? I don´t think so. I have concluded that basically this phone is a piece of junk and has not been worth my hassle. Luckily, I was able to get 2 rebates on this phone so I didn´t end up spending an arm and a leg. If I had the choice, I would find another phone, but unfortunately I am locked into a one year agreement with the one I have. Too bad I still have 7 months left. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60 90890 2000/8/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight idiot proof great phone lots of features none that i know of Full Review This little cutie was my first ever cell phone and it's great! Not a small compliment coming from a self declared cell phone idiot who was one of the last persons to give up a rotary dial phone! This phone is SO easy to use that even I liked it! Small, convenient, a nice cover that protects it while I bash it around in my purse, and lots of extras to make it an even better bargain for the already relatively inexpensive price! If you are a "newbie" to cell phones and don't want to spend the weekend reading a stupid manual, give this phone a try! It has oodles of features including voice activation, voice recognition of phone numbers, a nifty memory feature, email and much more! Price is very competitive and it looks great. Folds up, is fairly light weight, and goes anywhere easy. Drawbacks? I haven't found any yet! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90889 2000/11/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life good looks many features bad connection to earpiece Full Review I bought the 3500 in May because I wanted the Sprint service, and it was the sleekest, most affordable phone available. I didn't know if Samsung made reliable products since this was my first, but I had a few friends that bought it and liked it. The phone is small and light, and easily fits in most pockets. The menu is very easy to understand, and the phone book is easy to access. Unlike the Startac, the buttons are big enought to keep from hitting two at once. There are a lot of features, like voice memo, wireless web, and text messaging, but these are available on almost every phone today. One unique thing is the ability to dial numbers by voice command, this can be helpful in the car. The battery life is good, as long as you are not on analog. In analog mode, the battery dies quickly. I live in a big city, but I have traveled across the US and I have had no real problem getting a signal anywhere. This phone is not invincible though. Just recently I have started noticing that the speaker cuts out sometimes when slight pressure is applied. This is because the connections are wearing out due to use. The phone is still under warranty, so if it gets bad I can return it. I would recommend this phone, but you should take good care of it. I recommend getting the hard plastic pager-style case to protect it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90888 2000/5/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to use many features doesn t work too long without problems The Bottom LineDon't go with this model because it will only be a matter of time before it fails on you. Probably at a bad time. Full Review I bought my Samsung about one year ago and found that it was a very good phone. The clarity was good, it was very easy to use (excellent menus), and it wasn't too expensive. However, shortly after getting it more and more people that saw me with this particular model told me that they had had problems with this phone. Figuring that some people just don't have good luck I didn't really worry about it, but I had problems too. Of the problems I have heard or seen firsthand about this phone: it turns off on its own, buttons not functioning, and ear-piece not working correctly. Mine phone has shut off on my every once in a while, which isn't too big of a deal. The real problem I have with my phone, which started about one month ago, is that 50% of the time my ear-piece (the flip-up part) doesn't work. The person on the other line can hear me, but I get very limited, if any, volume to their words. I cannot wait to buy a different phone, I hope that this helps someone else avoid problems with the 3500. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 w/ deal 90887 2000/9/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 attractive phone poor engineering in wiringdesign The Bottom LineDo not expect the speaker or hinge to work after a year. If you must buy this phone or the new SPH-N200, get the extended service plan. Full Review When I first bought this phone, it functioned perfectly. I was happy with its features and appearance. Shortly after the warranty period ended, one of the hinges began to crack. The spring mechanism was too strong for the plastic casing. I must add that I've always been careful with this phone from the time of purchase. When the hinge was almost completely separated, I brought the phone to a Sprint store to have it examined. The salesman showed me his personal phone which was the same model. The earpiece was entirely missing rendering it useless except when using a headset. He explained that the repair could be over $100. Because I had just started a new plan after my first year ended, I had another year to go. Transferring the pre-existing plan to a new phone would include costs of activation and the full price of the phone (rebates and specials do not apply). I was unwilling to pay $180 for a replacement, so I bought a gap-filling version of Superglue to repair the phone myself. It worked well, but after two weeks, I began to experience another problem. The speaker in the earpiece began to malfunction. The thin wire channeled though the hinge must be wearing away due to the opening/closing action. I can get the speaker to work by hitting the phone multiple times, but I must say that this attracts much attention from strangers. Defeated, I am currently looking for a replacement phone. The SPH-N200 is supposed to address the 3500's problems, but nothing has changed except that the hinge is placed at the very end of the arms. After this experience, I would recommend a phone with a one-piece design. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $150 90886 2000/1/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 very durable programming nightmare Full Review I had always sworn off cell phones! I didn't want anyone to be able to reach me 24x7. I didn't want to be chained to a phone where others could call me when they wanted and I would have to answer. Then at work one of my colleagues had this snazzy little phone. She told me the deal she received and I took my SO off to Best Buy to check it out. We both were very excited and couldn't wait... Here the REAL story begins. I was told that this phone was on back order and wouldn't be in for a month. All the deals would be off if I waited the month so I bought a more expensive phone after being advised to do so and then trade it in when the Samsung came in. I grumbled about the Nokia - It just didn't look as cool! *rolled eyes* I shouldn't have complained. I ended up falling in love with my Nokia. It was the best electronic toy I had ever purchased... Then the antenna broke! Apparently it just quit receiving signals. In disappointment I returned and asked for another Nokia. They said that the model I had was not available but the Samsung was! I accepted it with bittersweet emotions. I have now had this phone for almost 1 year. I still haven't used the Voice Programming because I don't want to have to retype in the numbers and names in order for it to work. I have used the Web Browser a time or two, but can not figure how to stop it from locking up (no ctrl+alt+del). The battery doesn't last as long as my Nokia and I don't like that the antenna is retractable. I didn't want one that moved. There are good points! 1. Everyone I meet loves my phone! 2. The phone is sooooo coool! 3. It is a very durable phone - except for the battery! The battery pops off very easily! All in all I would buy this if I were a teenager and wanna look cool and have the time to reprogram all the numbers with the voice feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Can't Remember Less than my Nokia 6100!!! 90885 2000/9/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small great sound easy to misplace Full Review This is the first cell phone that I have owned that i actually like. I have been a user of cell phones since the days of the bag phone, and I have always hated either the sound, quality or the size. But after ten or so phones I finally have hit upon the one I plan to stay with. Now Samsung has never been associated with extremely good quality but this phone has been great. I drop it routinely, I overcharge the battery and generally abuse it. Through all of that, it still sounds great! My friend got one on my recommendation, and he had problems with the wire to the earpiece shorting out. I have had no such issues but I include this as a warning to really heavy users that a flip phone might not be the best choice (too many moving parts.) The features of this phone are great, I am able to easily scoll through the menus without the manual. The internet surf feature I tried, it worked as advertised but I do not need surf the web 24-7 so I dropped the service. Other than that I use most of the other features of the phone from time to time and the work as advertised. I am thinking of getting a second phone for my wife and it will be another one of these beauties. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 90884 2001/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 packed with features best bang for the buck compact size battery life The Bottom LineIf SprintPCS service is available in your area, This phone is definitely the best bang for the buck out there. Loaded with features not found on other comparable phones. Full Review As I was shopping for wireless service (SprintPCS), I stumbled across this model, as my heart was set on a Motorola StarTac. The salesperson actually preferred it over the StarTac, stating it was more bang for the buck. Boy, was she right!! I purchased two of them, one being for my wife. I setup the voice-activated dialing feature (a real safety necessity, because I use my phone sometimes while I drive) and so many choices for ringing tones. It even has the vibrate feature that most mobile phones lack without purchasing expensive batteries. The flip-style case is very durable and the optional leather case makes even moreso. The LCD screen and backlight are highly visible and easy to read, even at night. One word of advice though, buy the car charger, as battery life with a smaller phone is nothing like that of a larger phone. It comes with a 2-slot desktop charger to keep spare batteries ready to go. Be sure to check out coverage area before buying any wireless phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 each 90883 2009/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fantastic ergonomicsfeatures clarity quality questionable Full Review My special lady friend is a doctor and she had to have a phone that would vibrate instead of ring. I wanted to be on the Sprint PCS network and we both wanted the backup of dual-band. That left us with one choice: the Samsung 3500. I was prepared to be disappointed with a phone I'd never heard of and I expected to pay a lot. After much searching on the web and in neighborhood stores I stumbled onto the deal of a lifetime: Ritz Camera in Washington DC is selling them for $49 after rebates. Here how it works: the price is $149 but they give you an instant $50 rebate so you pay $99 up front. If you buy a pair of them like I did, you pay $198 for the two of them. Sprint is running a rebate where they send you $100 cash if you buy a pair of phones! Net cost = $49 each for a pair. (I think the rebate for one phone is $30, still an incredible deal.) The phone is loaded with brilliant ergonomics and well-thought out features, but the best feature on the phone is the voice activation. When I'm driving on the highway I flip it open and say "voice mail" and it dials right in to my voice mail for me -- it enters the codes and everything. Another example is that when the lid is closed the up and down arrows are still available and when you press one it automatically brings up your phone book in alphabetical order, just scroll to the one you want and click the OK button to talk. Another great feature is the ability to receive text messages straight from the web, we use that a lot. Anyone can go to the SprintPCS website and page me. If they are super lazy (hi mom) they can even EMAIL directly to my phone. Sorry, first 100 characters only so don't email me chain letters. (I haven't used the wireless web features yet but that is a big plus, too.) If I have one concern about the phone its the signal quality. At this point I don't know if it's just the Sprint system or the phone. The signal in my apartment is often quite weak and I live 5 miles from the White House for goodness sake. I would agree with the person who said that the phone might be fragile -- I am a bit concerned about the flip open earpiece. Overall, a great phone if you can get a good price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 90882 2000/4/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features small battery Full Review This is one amazing phone with several amazing features you won't see on those ubiquitous Nokia 6100's. - It has voice activated dialing. It can recognize one, two and three syllable words (maybe more) and I've never had to repeat myself to get it dialed. - It has a voice recorder for those times when you want to record something to yourself. Mostly it's just a fun gadget. - It has a built in internet browser, but Sprint charges $9.99 extra to use this feature. I did not buy into it since then I would have to buy a plan with more minutes. - While it doesn't have as many rings as those clone phones, it does have a far more useful option, the vibrate mode. It also has all the standard features people expect from cell phones, including voice mail, caller id, phonebook etc. . . The best thing I like about my phone is that it is different from everyone else's phones here in LA. I've had a lot of fun just messing around with all the features as well. I think the only bad thing about the phone is that the battery life is quite low, it only has about 2.5 hrs. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90881 2000/8/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good price great design good ear piece hinge wear known for having bad shipments Full Review Well now that I got your attention I just wanted to let everybody know that the Samsung 3500 is an excellent phone only if HP tested at the store. The Samsung 3500 has been known to fail HP Testing (Hewlett Packard)right out of the box from the factory. The HP test runs a 15 minute diagnostic test that measures the RF (radio frequency) being put out and received from cell sites. If the phone does not send out a strong enough RF it will suffer from poor coverage and lots of dropped calls. On the other hand if the phone sends out or receives to much, the battery life will drop dramatically. HP tests are usually performed at corporate Sprint PCS locations and are a must. Before buying the phone make sure that they run the test and show you the printed results. If the phone passes, the you will have yourself an awesome phone time and time again. Going to the website or reading the other reviews will bring to your attention the excellent benefits of the phone. The only other thing I can say is that this is phone that should by well taken care off. If you're a little rough with your phones then you should really be careful as the hinge mechanisms on the ear piece have been known to come apart with time and mishandling. Otherwise, if you take care of the phone it should last numerous years and provide you with great reception time after time. The ear piece on the phone provides very clear speech that I think is the clearest of all the phones they offer. Try it out at the store before you buy it! You'll see what I'm talking about. The only thing I stress once again, is that YOU SHOULD HAVE THE PHONE HP TESTED EVEN IF ITS NEW. IT'S YOUR MONEY! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90880 2000/9/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 has many features works well just great none Full Review I have been through many cell phones and just got a Samsung SCH- 3500. I have been through my share of cell phones and this one really meets all needs. The cell phone has a flip up top which is excellent because it provides a protective covering over the numbers. There are also many many features that this phone has. To name a few: 1)Voice activated- You can program the phone to dial a number by just saying the name of whoever you want to call. With this feature you can set the controls to where you open the phone and it asks you "who would you like to call"? I find this great when I am on the road and don't want to be fooling around trying to dial a number. 2)Phone Book- In this part of the cell phone you can program so many name and numbers in. It is very easy to do and very nice to have. It is like your own personal phone book. 3)Sounds- you can set the ringing volume: high medium low or silent. It also has a feature to where it vibrates when someome is calling. This is great when you are in a resturant or busy place and don't want the ringing to call attention to you.You can also set the ringing tone differnetly for calls with or without caller id. There are about 10 differnt rings. An alarm is also on the cell phone. - Another cool feature is if someone calls you, after you finish talking to them you can save their number just by pushing one button. Their number is then saved in your phone book. - Voice mail is also a feature. But most all cell phones have that. - Another feature which is additional charges is that it has the web on the phone. I have never tried it but it is a cool thing! I have found this phone to be great and this I think is my last cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 90879 2000/5/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice design able to use while lying in hammock good quality sound sometimes has a hard time switching back to digital mode after being in analog The Bottom LineBuy it and be happy. Full Review This phone is GREAT!!! It has been a huge help to me. Has plenty of options to satisfy even the most endeavorous user. Voice dial commands very convenient. Web browser quick and reliable. Good security. Endless phonebook entries make for a sometimes confusing search, but the numbers are always there. Roaming security to make sure you do not riot your bill with those unhealthy roaming calls. Many ringers and various beeps to keep you entertained while in a lull at a restaurant. Changeable display. Definitely a good buy. It sometimes tends to have a problem with switching back to digital mode after being in analog. Problem fixed by turning the phone off then on again. Overall an excellent piece of work. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 90878 2000/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 slim reliable voice activation it s not a sleek as those new 600 phones Full Review Okay, I wrote a review earlier that never made it for some reason. Since I've bought this phone, I've convinced 3 other people to buy it and switch over to Sprint simply by letting them use it ONCE. VOICE ACTIVATION! How cool. Works well, too. I just flip it open and say, "Luis" or "Monica" and the pleasant female voice says, "connecting" every time. Rarely will it not recognize the word you are saying (like, if you are in the middle of the street and a Fire Truck suddenly wails by). The volume is good and loud, it's a comfortable fit on the face, has nice ring tunes, great features, works everytime (I think I've been cut off twice during a heavy snowstorm and once on the train when I went through a tunnel-- duh!). It has great reception in rain, you can even go on the internet if you're a lamer (though, a real computer would suit anyone better and WML is... um... stupid compared to HTML. Why bother? I figure if I want to know something, I can write myself a note on my li'l palm pilot... but, if you MUST go on the internet (or whatever), this phone is for you. It's really cheap for the quality you get. Blows the fliplid off the StarTac, too. The buttons won't wear out and you can thank your lucky stars that they decided to NOT discontinue this line. I heard they had made a certain number and they sold like hotcakes, but due to overwhelming response, reissued the phones. They are also safe as far as getting brain cancer goes. They have a nice little antennae that sticks quite nicely. Fits in your pocket. Works like a charm in the NYC area. I called California once with no problem. Roaming charges are rare on the Sprint network, too. I'm sure something will be out soon that I'd prefer over this... BUT, since I have this, I have no particular desire to sink another couple hundred bucks into a different phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90877 2001/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 good features nice design earpiece will wear out sometimes switches unnecessarily between digitalanalogm The Bottom Lineit'll work well for about a year. beyond that, it's trash. Full Review Update: the review below was written after owning the phone for about a month. Less than a year later, I was very unsatisfied with it. Let's see, where do I start? First, I have always taken good care of it, not dropped it, knocked it around, etc. Less than a year later, the connection between the phone and the flip earpiece had begun to fail. I had to experiment with adjusting the earpiece at weird angles to hear the person speaking. Then, sometimes when their voice did come through, it would disappear just as erratically. So many times I've said hello about 4 times before actually hearing the person on the other end. The buttons also randomly don't beep at times (not a problem, just further evidence of poor workmanship). One other thing...after several months of using the phone it started to give me headaches on that side of my head. I didn't use it for hours a day or anything like that either. Once after talking on it for 30 minutes (longer than usual) I found I had a bad headache. I went to sleep, and upon waking up the next morning, my head was tense and throbbed when I moved. I can barely talk on it for three minutes now without getting a headache. Just a word to the wise about phones in general. Original Review: I bought this phone because of its nice appearance and array of features. It is a dual-band phone, which means it can function either in digital or analog mode. This is especially helpful when you are out of reach of digital service. It is also relatively lightweight and small but feels sturdy in your hand. The battery time is very good - it usually lasts quite a few days and recharges rather quickly. The buttons are conveniently located and the menu options are easy to navigate and remember. Even the mini web browser function is relatively easy to figure out; even though the screen is relatively small, it is useful for small tasks like checking email or news if you have no other option available. The phone book function is also convenient and easy to use. You can view entries in either numerical or alphabetical order, and search for names or numbers. The voice dial programming ability is also very helpful and convenient. Another neat function is that you can personalize the display to read your name or anything you want. The phone also keeps call logs, of the 9 most recent incoming, outgoing and missed calls. This way you always know when a call comes in. One drawback I have found is that it sometimes suddenly starts "searching for service" and will switch into analog mode unexpectedly, even when digital service is available. This hasn't been too much of a problem though, and I'm not sure if it's a problem with the phone itself or my service provide (Sprint PCS). In addition, calls are sometimes dropped (although rarely) - in stores or large buildings, it is difficult to access the digital network. Another (small) problem is that when I'm out of reach of the digital network, in analog mode, I am not alerted of voicemails. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90876 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the many options sometimes the phone is too small gets lost in my purse Full Review I bought this phone with a Sprint PCS plan because I wanted better Digital/Cellular coverage. The main thing that initially attracted me to the phone was the voice activation numbers. You can have up to 10 numbers that are automatically dialed when you flip open the phone and speak. The phone is only supposed to recognize your voice to call a particular person. This is great if you need to use the phone while driving because there is no looking down at buttons to dial. I also love the fact that there is a button that you can push while being on the phone that will record your conversation for approximately 10 seconds. This comes in handy when someone wants to give you a phone number or address when you have nothing to write with. You simply press the button and it is saved so you can play it back as many times as you need. I believe you can save up to 99 recordings. The only thing I don't really like about the product is that if you don't notice that you have a missed call before you flip open the phone the message displaying you have a missed a call disappears. So before I use the phone I try to make sure I check the display before flipping it open. Anyone in the market for a digital phone should purchase this product. I have had 4 cell phones and found this to be the best one because of size and options. Although sometimes I believe the phone is too small because it gets lost in my purse! I would recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: Yes 90875 2000/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliability styling voice dial none Full Review As a sales manager, I am always out of the office, trying to return or make calls. I have been through more phones than I care to remember..Motorola (3), Ericsson, Qualcom (2). When I first saw the SCH-3500 I was impressed by its style, the active flip, large display and built-in voice activated dialing. My prime concern was reliability. After some due diligence, I felt comfortable in entrusting my clients (and my) life to this little gizmo. It has been pure pleasure! Voice quality is crystal clear, the phone is large enough to press the buttons..but still small enough to carry in a pocket. The voice dial is easy to program and is a real timesaver. The menu system is intuitive and concise. Most important, it has worked flawlessly over the past 5 months. I use 400 plus minutes a month and have put this phone through its paces. If you need a reliable, state of the art cell phone, with some nifty styling, you will not be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139 90874 2001/9/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 great looks features keyguard does not really guard you very delicate low battery charge life The Bottom LineGood value for your money, but only for a year. Then u have to throw it as the costs to repair are very high. Full Review **** Updated on 2nd April 2001 ***** I am taking back my recommendation on this phone, after my last one months experience. My 1 year warranty expired on Mar 4th and exactly a week after that, my phone's ear piece stopped working. Upon close observation I found that, if the flap is fully open and rests on the little pivots made for it, i cannot hear anything. I now have to push the flap from the back a little and hold it like that to hear anything. Looks like Samsung programmed it to break right after warranty. All this after I used the phone very very carefully. Imagine what would happen if this phone was with people who are little rough at using this phone. I think the problem is the flip open design. Upon prolonged use, the flip loses connection to the phone's main body and stops working. I visited sprint pcs store and they were just not helpfull. Even though it was just a week out of warranty and even though my friend was able to get this similar phone exchanged for a new one in Atlanta, they did not do it for me here in Austin. I called Samsung and they say it will cost $ 75 bucks to replace the flap plus one way shipping !! That is half the cost of the phone. To top that they said it will take 3 weeks to fix this thing. Add a week of shipping time to that, and that is a full month that I am without the phone. All the while during that month I cannot make calls and still pay Sprint PCS 50 bucks for my bill. So all in all I spend 130 bucks to get this thing working and be without phone for a month. Talk about hassles !! My next phone is going to be a flipless Nokio. They are sturdy and can take abuse. That's better than a cute little puppy, which has only looks but no long life !! ***** I have had this phone for a year now ( brought in Feb '00). The phone has worked great so far. Unfortunately only a week after it ran out it's initial warranty did it start misbehaving. I am not able to hear the voice from the ear piece properly, if the flap is fully open. I have to kind of hold and push the flap in the front to be able to hear. I don't blame Sprint for it, as it is out of warranty so they are not obligated to swap this one for a new one. But they did so for a friend of mine Atlanta. He first got the phone exchanged and then after a month or so got his battery too exchanged, both when he was out of warranty. So I guess if you run into the same problems, I would suggest going to different Sprint PCS stores in your area and trying out. The phone has neat features like voice activated dialing and little storage to store voice memos. I use the voice memo's to usually store the minutes remaining, at the ending of my billing cycle. The phone has a built in phone usage log, but that is not very accurate as the message shows. The log starts logging from the phone on the other end starts ringing. The phone also has data connectivity. I have used that when I was on call as part of my customer support job and it worked flawlessly. The built in web browser is a feature only for people who are not sitting in front of a computer for most of their day time. But I am a software engineer so have rarely used the phone to surf the web as it is very hard to navigate things with it's tiny buttons. Neverthless it comes in handy when I am away from a computer and have to check my email. I wish Sprint added a feature for replying to emails. My friend has a Nokia phone with Pacific Bell service and his phone has this feature without any extra charges. As for phone plans I have the 500 mins. for 50 bucks plan since a year and haven't decided to change to the cheaper ones that are available now, even though I am not in any contract. I feel Sprint is going back from their initial selling point of the plans being simple to the plans getting complicated !! I brought this phone primarily because I understood the phone plan. 10 cents a min. flat anywhere you call and anytime you call. But now with one rate during day time and one during night and weekends, it get's difficult to track your minutes usage. And it is important to track this because the rates for overage are very high. Sprint's website is the worst in the world in my opinion. It takes forever to log-in into your account. And most of the time the minutes used information is locked 3-4 days before and after the billing cycle. I got this phone for just 60 bucks after mail in rebates compared to the retail price of 150. The best time to buy cellphones is during Christmas as they come with zillion offers at a very low price. All in all if you are a kind of person who can handle things carefully this phone is for you. This is not a phone for people who handle things little roughly as this phone cannot take any abuse. There is one last negative thing about this phone. The phone has a feature called Keyguard, which one's activated will deactivate the keys on the keypad. The only way to activate it again is by pressing and holding the OK button. The problem with this it that, the OK and the MENU buttons are the only buttons which are visible when the flap is called. I have got burnt so many times by the OK button getting pressed when the phone is hanging against my waist and the keyguard get's released. It ends up dialing the last call you made or calling your voice mail and call being active till the time you see it !! I wish Samsung had thought a little about what is feature was for. So you have to be very carefull about this, otherwise you are going to see your minutes dis-appear for calls you never intended to make. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 60 90873 2000/12/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 on the go conversation memo recording only records incoming voice Full Review Ok everybody. I have read the reviews. I have heard the accolades, and I agree wholeheartedly that this is a phenom of a phone. I must say, however, that THE COOLEST feature was left out. The feature in question would be the ability to RECORD the VOICE of the person on the other end of the conversation. That's right, all you busy people in your cars can take notes on your conversation with the touch of a button! The 3500 will label your conversation memo with the number you called by default, (using caller ID), or you can name your newly created snippet. The only drawback is that when you're talking on the phone, the 3500 will not record your voice as part of the memo, only the person you are talking to. As for the negatives on this device, PHOOEY! There may be times when it is hard to hear someone on the line, but it is very seldom. I have had my phone for one year now, and dropped it numerous times. The "flimsy, plastic" construction has held up wonderfully. Not to be too harsh on my fellow reviewers, but this phone IS solid. Now if only Sprint PCS had a "no roaming anywhere" plan in Ohio... here's hoping! Take it from Seven, this phone is money well spent! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90872 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing great sound quality small lightweight hard to type with key pad Full Review I have had this phone for a week and I have completely customized it to meet my needs. The Voice Activation system has worked for me 100% of the time without dialing a wrong number and recognizing the name on the first try. I have used the personal voice memo many times and it plays them back very well. The sound quality is excellent with the Sprint PCS network. Sprint has a program now, that gives you free wireless web acess with any subscription. My only complaint is with the way that URL's are typed into the Wireless Web browser. It takes awhile to type and address with the keypad but once you save an address it is no big deal. Overall this is and unbelievable phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90871 2000/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 wake up service voice dial dual band none so far Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is great phone due to its many features and voice dial system. The reason why I bought this phone is because of the dual band feature, since in some places only the analog system works. This phone is also very small and fits easily in your pocket. So far I have had no problems with this phone. Another great feature in this phone is you can have it dial to your home phone as an alarm to wake you up in the morning. If you have Sprint PCS service with this phone it beeps at 50 seconds into the minute and allows you to hang up to avoid the next minute charge. People who travel from state to state should buy this phone for its dual band service. The reason I bought this phone is because I used to get cut off with the digital service only. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99-50.00 Rebate 90870 2000/6/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features compact futuristic fragile bad customer service Full Review I'm a big fan of technology and design. I had seen a couple of people with this phone, and my Fiancee noticed the gleam in my eye (directed towards the phone). She got me one for my birthday. It was the perfect gift. The SCH 3500 is really compact, easy to use, has tons of features (like wireless internet access and voice dialing), and is just a cool design all round. The only problems I have with it, are: you have to be very careful when carrying it on a belt clip. I scratched mine the 2nd day I had it and Samsung has been completely useless in helping me get it fixed. The scratch is on the plastic window and is driving me nuts. It will almost cost as much as the phone itself to replace the glass and the silver cover (both have small scratches). The other thing that bugs me is the voice dial. If you program it to respond to your voice, it defaults to that as soon as you open the lid. So, if you're going to dial a number you don't have set up for voice dial, you have to hit "end". It's a small annoyance, and at the moment, I have that feature turned off. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90869 2000/11/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 use flip phone size ringer button can be hit to change ring on accident to easy Full Review Simply put, I love this phone. I never even thought I would really use a cell phone so I never bought one myself. My girlfriend bought this so we would have one while traveling or making long distance calls to our relatives. We share it between the two of us with the one not near a phone taking this one just in case. Let's start with the basic description of this phone. It is metallic grey in color. The LCD screen is very readable in all lights. The buttons are large enough so you can read them but small enough not to be a nuisance. The buttons also light up so you can see them in the dark. The antenna is compact when not out and, not in your way when out. It is a flip style cell phone with the ear receiver on the flip part. This is one of the best features of the phone for me. When the flip is down the phone is small and manageable, when the flip is up the phone feels more like a regular sized phone which is a great draw for me. I am not fond of those cell phones that fit so small into your hand that it is hard to tell they are there. I wouldn't worry about the flip breaking too much. We use some care when using it put it is a very tough little phone. Now on to the more technical information. This phone is a Sprint PCS phone so you will need to use one of their plans. They have many plans that can be worked to fit your lifestyle so that isn't a big problem. It is also a dual band phone. A major thing if you live in an area not totally covered digitally. The wireless web can also be accessed from this phone. I really can't give an honest review of that feature. We used it once then realized it wasn't as handy as a computer. Maybe there are some uses for it but we haven't found any yet. One of the coolest features of this phone is the voice dialing. You can program up to 20 names to be dialed by voice command. This feature saves a little time putting the number in. It has 13 ringers and vibrate. You can choose different rings for calls in your phone book or out. The vibrate is strong enough to get your attention but not anyone else's like other phones. The phone can go about 2 days off charge, or around 4-hours of talk time. I recommend this phone to anyone that wants a quality phone but not one of those super tiny phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90868 2000/11/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 strong reception lightweight compact earpiece is not comfortable Full Review Happy to finally get out of a 2 year cellular contract. I was quickly sucked into a Digital phone plan. I had to pay out for the phone with this plan, which set me back a cool $150. This is one of the best investments I have ever made. The reception on this phone is excellent. This may not mean too much in a review because it's all up to the service you sign up for and the location you are using it in. Let me just say that I have never been cut off in the middle of a phone conversation with this phone. Even when this dual-band puppy switches over to analog (when I'm out in the sticks). The battery life is also excellent. Sporting the new generation of Lithium Ion batteries this phone, on the standard battery will give you over 72 hours of standby time, and roughly 3 hours of talk time. With an optional extended battery these time can double. The phone also come with a cool desktop charger, that will also charge an additional battery. Since this phone uses a lithium battery, you don't have to worry about battery memory or overcharging. New to this generation of phones is the wireless web feature. I really don't think that phones are ready for the web, but these companies need new features to sell. This feature is almost worthless, unless you have a lot of patience and a lot of minutes on your service plan. Typing with the number pad takes too much time, and the display screen on this phone is too small for the typical information that is downloaded. I have found it useful with driving directions, movie times and, I just recently started paying my Sprint PCS with it. For future models, Samsung should look into a larger display, and a miniature keyboard. The phone is also lightweight and when folded, is compact. the display is still visible when folded, so you can check the Caller ID before opening the phone. The interface is menu-driven and there are so many options, it will keep you busy for days. The best option this phone has, is voice dialing (which can be turned off, if it annoys you). When you flip open the phone, a female voice will ask (who would you like to call?), then you say "Home" and it calls home. Really cool. Hook this puppy up to a car kit and BAM. You're James Bond. It's also funny to program any name you want in there. Like "Booty Call" or "Call My B*tch." The possibilities are endless. You can also record reminder memos using the voice record button on the side of the phone. I don't use this feature much, but is nice to have. The phone also features a easy access phone book that stores 99 names and numbers that work together with your Caller ID. You can access these with the nifty up and down arrows located on the face or side of the phone. I have found that when using the phone much, that the earpiece is very uncomfortable, almost sharp and it digs into my ear. You'd think that they would have tested this before releasing it. I have purchased headset that plugs conveniently into the top of the unit, and I use that while in the car. The comfort is the only complaint I have about this phone. Compared to many other phones on the market, this is at the top. This Is Samsung's Flagship phone and is sure to be a top seller. Although at this time, there are few accessories for it, as more people pick up on of these phones, we are sure to see more interesting products released for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90867 2000/7/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features look price can t hear in noisy area volume too low Full Review I loved this phone. I waited for it, was on many lists in many stores because everybody was waiting for back orders for it. Now that I finally got my hands on it, I still love it... but like after you've been married for a while, you love the other person even though you now are aware of all their faults. This phone is wonderful in almost every aspect but one crucial one: forget having a conversation in any place where the noise is slightly over a light buzz. Can't hear in a restaurant, can't hear if your car radio is the tiniest it loud, in fact you can't really hear well if there is ambient noise. The problem is the speaker is in the flap and very susceptible to external noise. Other than that, this phone is sleek, gorgeous, nice featured and not too expensive compared to others. But if you often find yourself in crowded areas, fuggedaboudit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 90866 2000/2/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good looks compact flip phone style sleek web enabled earpiece volume voicemail alert The Bottom LineThis is a very popular phone, and it's easy to see why. With a good balance between price, performance, and looks- you're sure to be happy with the Samsung 3500 Full Review This is my wife's phone, but I've used it several times. I bought it for her because of it's features and looks and because of the flip design. After watching 60 minutes or something about the radiation in cell phones, I wanted a flip style phone for my wife. It supposedly aims the radiation away from your head! This phone is nice and small. I have carried in my pocket with no problem, even in my front shirt pocket. It has a nice feel too. Fits nicely in your hand. Although we don't use it, this phone is web-enabled allowing you to access certain webpages and email. A nice feature for people on the run! This phone has a nice feature on the ringing sounds. You can choose the volume as well as a "vibrate" setting and a "beep" setting in which the phone beeps only once for an incoming call. Only a few negative comments: Sometimes the earpiece volume isn't loud enough. Part of this problem has to do with the shape of it and the way it fits against your ear. A second complaint from my wife would be the voicemail alert. It beeps continuously while your checking your voicemail and then doesn't stop until you turn the phone off! Thirdly, the reception is questionable sometimes- but I think this is mostly a problem with Sprint PCS because we have the phone set to only receive a PCS signal (another nice feature- saving you from Roaming charges!) and Sprint doesn't have towers many places other than the interstate and major cities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90865 2000/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use lightweight reception is lacking a little The Bottom LineGood cell-phone, maybe a little high priced. If you really just like the way it looks, it works good enough to get. Full Review I have had around 7 different types of cell-phones since 1991. The Samsung 3500 is by far the lightest and most durable of them all. One reason I purchased it was the voice recorder and the voice dialer (allows you to say "DIAL HOME", or "DIAL PARENTS"). Now that I own it, I don't even use either of those features. I have all my numbers programmed in to one-number dialing. The only complaint I have is reception. A co-worker has the same exact service as me, and if we're on the elevator, his phone works, but mine doesn't. Same thing in stormy weather, or in certain areas outside Atlanta. As for the life of the battery, I have left it on over 48 hours before and was still able to use it the remainder of that day. I have no arguments about the life of the battery. Like usual, I purchased this item right when it came out, so I paid the full $200 for it. Lately I have seen it for under $150 after rebate. That is a more reasonable price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90864 2000/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 great features drains battery in off mode Full Review As mentioned in other opinions, this phone has all the great features of the Motorola Star Tac at a great price, BUT Samsung is having a 'battery discharge problem'. My initial purchase was on Dec.22,1999 from a local retailer chain in Southern California. It performed great and I loved it. A few weeks latter, after an overnight charging, I decided not to turn the phone ON in the morning. Latter that night I turn the phone to make a call BUT the phone was DEAD (no battery life). I thought maybe it didn't get a full charge, so I tried to repeat the same process....I did, and the result was the same. After my next overnight charge, the next morning I left the phone in 'Standby',...the phone lasted over 4 days. I said this doesn't make sense. So, the next day I e-mailed Sprint Support. They said to take the phone to the nearest Sprint Center and they'd take care of the problem. So, a few days latter I took the phone to the nearest Sprint Center. They checked the battery on there tester and it checked OK , but they gave me a new battery anyway. They also said they had not heard or any problems with this phone, but if the problem continues to return and they'd exchange the phone (Sprint admitted it had to be a 'phone' problem NOT a 'battery' problem). Well, it continued so I returned a few days latter. Because my purchase was under 30 days, Sprint said to go back to the retailer for a NEW phone instead of a refurbished one from Sprint. So we called the retailer from Sprint and I talked to the guy who runs the phone dept. I asked him he was seeing a trend with allot of returns for this phone. He said YES, ... THEY KEEP DISCHARGING THE BATTERY!!! I said I had the same problem. So I returned the 3500 for full refund and purchase the Motorola Star Tac phone. Bottom line...If you keep this phone in 'Standby' or 'On' to make a call you'll never experience this problem. BUT, If you should turn it OFF, the battery will be DEAD within 8 hours !!!! (Option, instead of turning the phone OFF you could just remove the battery...this will save the battery from getting discharged from the phone circuitry). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90863 2000/10/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent features with voice dialingoptional internet access modern durable light no fun games Full Review Light, affordable and well worth the money, this phone tops them all. I bought my cell phone for myself a couple of months ago and I was so happy with it that just a few weeks later I bought one for everyone in my family, totally 5 phones. I believe it to be by far the BEST phone for its money out there on the market. This phone has pretty much everything you need. It has a very clear and detailed display screen with a digital phone book that can store up to 99 names and numbers. It also has 13 different ring types from the normal ring, to short beeps to different famous songs such as Fur Elise and Song of Joy. It also gives the ability to browse the web on the screen. Although I personally have never done it, others have told me that it is very convenient and easy to use. But by far my favorite toys on this phone is the voice activated dialing. When you enter a person's name into the phone book, you have the option of creating a voice dial for that name, which means that you can open your phone, say that persons name and it will automatically dial it for you. You can't get any faster communications than this. It also has a memo key which is extremely helpful to those who forget many things such as appointments or even where you parked your car. You can even use it to be kind of a voice recorder, recording conversations and other such things. It can hold 10 one minute memos. This phone is also light, while being extremely tough and well built. I have dropped this phone numerous times and it still works perfectly fine. Also, the battery life on it fairly long. You probably only need to charge once or twice a week, depending how much you talk with it. The only downfall: No time consuming games on it for when you are really bored, but that's not real important. Whether you want a cellular phone for business or for pleasure, I highly recommend this phone to everyone. I promise you won't be unsatisfied. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90862 2001/11/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 fashionable lightweight lovable certain areas don t provide good clarity b c of sprintpcs coverage The Bottom LineWas a good phone until problems setted in after only after 8+ months. Full Review UPDATE ***11.05.01*** (see ) I bought this product in the summer of '00. I just got out of school, and with the realization of the partying, socializing, and everyday things teenagers do, I figure I needed a phone to keep in contact with friends with new things and to keep worrying parents unworried. After looking at a bunch of companies and what they offered, I saw that SprintPCS offered what I needed for a service plan. And why not I said, I have heard things about them, mainly positive comments. So off to my nearest Best Buy I went. I bought the phone for $149.00, but it had a mail-in rebate of $50.00 to use anytime at Best Buy. My experience so far this summer has been very good. The voice clarity is top notch. May get alittle bit fuzzy though when talking to another cell phone or a place where coverage is not fully serviced. The battery life is good, only having to recharge every other day. Basically, it works like a cell phone should work. I love the sleek design of this product. The silver painting makes it look like something from the space age. The design of the buttons were flawless in my opinion. I love how many types of rings were there. You can set a different tone for a person on your phone list apart from someone not on your list. That tells you off the bat if the call is important or not. The features are nice and plenty. Vibrating feature (mm mmm!), the phonebook can store 199 names, roaming block, minute usage indicator, alarm feature, multiple tone types, a voice recorder for people who can't remember things, and a voice RECOGNITION! YEAH! The phone ask "Who do you wish to call?". Program it to say, "my girl" and it connects to her number. What a neat feature. The only thing negative so far is that because it's so light, sometimes you forget you have it. I dropped it a couple of times, from my pocket or my leather case. The phone still amazingly works. The silver paint at one corner has scratch only a tiny bit, due to a heavy fall it took recently, but that is it! If you want SprintPCS service and you want something fashionable, this is the product to have. My dad has the StarTac and I outbeat him in fashion and feature. Although he does have a better case hehe! It's cheap too for the bangs it offers. Recommended to everyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90861 2000/6/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 rebates size price features voice quality poor text messaging menus Full Review As other reviewers have stated, this phone is a great value with the number of features and the size. You can even browse selected web sites, but at $.39 a minute it will feel VERY slow. I also couldn't bookmark a site (visto.com) which meant a very time-consuming connection logging in with the number pad. I had one of these phones which had an intermittent problem with outgoing call quality - a robotic garbling which made my voice incoherent to others (but their voice came through fine). Also had certain incoming calls which were silent on my end (but the caller could hear me). Replacing the phone through Sprint seemed to alleviate most these problems, though the garbled call happens every now & then. Sprint had a hard time confirming if it was the phone or the network (Los Angeles), but I suspect the phone. I use this phone 1500+ minutes per month & am otherwise very happy with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 90860 2000/5/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light high tech the cutting edge of cellular technology compact dropped calls as few as they are don t beep they just fade out Full Review Admittedly, I didn't want to spend $200 on a cell phone. But as a PR rep, I've become an image junkie. And this cell phone PROVES IT! I get at least 2 compliments on my phone each day, as stupid as that sounds, and that doesn't even BEGIN to describe the enthusiasm I maintain for this phone. Voice dial, a SUPREME feature, is fantastic. I flip open the phone, say CALL HOME or CALL LEE and there I go -- no dialing, no messing with buttons. As a firm believer that people DO NOT need to use phones while they are driving, I've found this feature proves helpful if needed and keeps peoples' eyes where they need to be -- ON THE ROAD. The standby on this phone is spectacular. The Samsung people claim its 150 hours, but I kept mine on 7 days straight with no problem. On day 8, it slipped down to one battery bar. Clear as a bell and rarely a dropped call, this phone is the ULTIMATE if you do business while you commute -- and I COMMUTE BY TRAIN. If you can keep the connection on the BART system (in the SF Bay Area) you're set. It's durable, too. I've dropped it twice -- once while I was talking -- and nothing happened other than the battery popped it. Popped it back in and it was good as new. The screen can get scratched, though, so if you have a case, keep it in one. It's worth the investment. Overall, a great phone. A DEFINITE BUY! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 90859 2000/6/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life looks great nice size great features only compatible with sprint pcs service The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to anyone who's looking for a nice alternative to Motorola/Nokia's line of phones. Full Review For 3 years, I had been using the same bulky Sony cell phone with my Spring PCS service. When the car adapter port broke on my Sony, it was time for a new phone. I was looking for a much smaller phone, with an array of useful features. I was ready to buy a Motorola Startac, but I decided on the Samsung SCH-3500 because of its unique design and lower price. Going on 6 months now with this phone, I've yet to have any problems. Great features of this phone include: ~Dual band technology (digital and analog capabilities) ~Memo recording functions (ten 10-minute voice memo slots) ~Good battery (up to 170 min talk time, up to 150 hr standby) ~Built-in Internet browser ~Data/Fax capabilities ~English/Spanish language option ~13 different ring tones plus silent vibration function ~Different ring - incoming call indicators ~Voicemail/pager/email indicator ~Desktop quick charger (second slot for extra battery) ~179 slots of phone number storage/20 voice dial storage ~User-friendly graphical interface menu function ~Last 27 number redial function ~Ear-microphone capability ~Scratchpad memory ~Call timers ~Caller ID The most useful features of this phone include voice recognition and wireless web. With voice recognition, I can just say who I want to call, and the phone dials their number. Though an extra service, wireless web has become an important part of my wireless experience. You get the first 6 months as a free trial, so you can test out all the great features of wireless web. With wireless web, I can check my email, weather, sports scores, stock quotes, etc. I would recommend this product to anyone who is looking to buy a PCS phone. Although this phone can only be used through Sprint, I believe it's worth every dollar ($150). Motorola's StarTAC phone sells for about $199 and it doesn't offer quite as many functions as the Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90858 2000/5/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 flip phone style small poor quality fragile bad sound The Bottom LinePretty face that wears thin quickly. Full Review Man, cannot say enough bad things about this phone. It was my first cellular phone. It had all the features, such as voice recognition, web enabled, small, flip style, sexy, etcetera. But it quickly showed that it was an empty face. Poor battery life, terrible reception, the hinged flip pad kept coming undone (the screws coming out), poor sound quality. I hardly used the voice recognition since you had to talk almost directly into it and since it wore down the batteries something fierce. Never used the web browser, didn't have the service. The back-lit faceplate turns off after a few seconds - regardless of whether you're still dialing/scrolling or not. I had terrible reception, often not being able to get reception when my wife's phone (same samsung phone) could. Service center told me there was nothing wrong with my phone. The screws on my phone kept coming undone. First the left, then the right. Had to get those small screws you would use for your glasses. My wife's phone also had one screw come undone and it messed up the earpiece so sound wouldn't always be available. Service center couldn't fix it since the wires are soldered directly into something in the phone (they wouldn't touch it). Had to complain and got a refurbish from Sprint PCS. Eats through batteries. Poor sound quality when it would work. Never could cradle it in you shoulder since people on the other end of the telephone conversation couldn't hear you. Had to be mindful of how you held it. Never again! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90857 2000/12/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks cool great features small design very poorly made faulty earpiece audio calls drop in metro areas Full Review I thought this was the best cellphone I had ever used when I first bought it. I was excited about all the built-in features, and I also loved the way it looked. However, after about two months of using it, the phone stopped working. It would turn on, and I could make calls and receive them, but the earpiece didn't work - my callers could hear me but I could not hear them. So, I went to the Sprint store, where I was told that this was a common problem with this model, and was given a completely new phone (same model). Again, after about two months of use -- and I should say that while I use my phone a fair amount, it is by no means constantly nor overused, and I keep the phone in a pouch in my bag to protect it -- the phone started acting strangely. I would be speaking to someone on it, and all of a sudden that person would start saying "Hello?? Hello? HELLO?". Then, if I moved the earpiece part of the phone around, sometimes, if I was lucky, they could hear me. Othertimes I cannot hear the other person, though this is less often. Both of these problems are annoying, but the biggest issue I have with this phone, the one that has caused me to *hate* it, is this: 99.9% of my phone calls get dropped. Yes, that is just about every single one. Each phone call I make or receive ends up turning into 4 or 5 phone calls, because they keep getting dropped. The error message on the phone is "Signal faded, connection lost" -- but I live in New York, NY. This happens regardless of where I am - uptown, downtown, brooklyn, upstate, long island... All places that should have great coverage. I am going back to the Sprint store this week, but this time I will not accept another Samsung SCH-3500; I want a different model. I hope that my review is helpful to some of you. I would avoid this phone, even though it has a lot of nice features (voice activated calling, wireless web, phone book, etc.). If the phone keeps breaking you cannot use those features!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90856 2000/3/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features good design sleek missed calls pieces falling apartdisabling some features The Bottom LineYes, this is a good phone for regular use. Full Review Hi I have been using this Samsung SCH-3500, for almost 10 months now. This phone is very good sometimes especially when you understand all the features and start to use them, they really become a part of your life. (I am talking about alarms, voice dial, ringer types, using the web..etc.). I fell in love with this phone and it is my primary phone right now. Thanks to Sprint for the 1500min/$34.99 plan. However, recently I am facing some problems with this phone. Users of this phone might have noticed a little rubber like strip under the speaker. It started to come off and one fine day I lost it somewhere(hopefully it did not get struck in my ear!!). There is a small metal strip under that and it fell off too, then that is when my phone started to behave like a bad boy!! The features that went bad includes 1. When I get a call, even it i flip the phone open it does not go to answer mode. I have to literally press talk. 2. Also, the keygaurd function will not work properly after this is lost. I called the Samsung Electronics to find out about this and I came to know that it is a "magnetic strip" that will make many of these features to work right and since this is lost the phone is going bad. However, i had a brief talk to Samsung Electronics and they said that I have to send the phone to them to get it fixed and this might take 2-4 weeks to get my phone back. As this is my primary phone i do not know what to do now!! If I send it for 2-4 weeks I will loose a lot of my personal calls and business calls. So my advice is to talk to Samsung and ask them to make the phones more durable and robust. However, I recommend you to go ahead and buy this phone as it has some very nice features.... Thanks Paul Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90855 2000/10/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent clarity dual band small but sturdy fair battery life Full Review I bought this product because i wanted sprint and a friend who i trust had tested the phone for several months and liked it. I have had no problems whatsoever with this phone. I have found it compact yet sturdy. the dual band option is nice. battery life is fair, as can be expected. the charger is a bit quirky, as you have to fit the phone in "just right" but it does the job. The voice dial feature is a nice touch also. I have also been told by people i call that the clarity of the phone is excellent and rivals a real land line phone. The web browsing features are useless at this stage of infancy of the wireless web. I have seen the next model from samsung, the sch8500. frankly, i think that even though the 8500 is shorter, is somewhat thicker and a bit flimsier. i'll keep my 3500 any day. I bought my phone for only $65 after rebates (it retails for $150). I bought it from circuit city during mothers day. it was selling for $150, but there was a $50 rebate, a $25 rebate and then a $10 rebate. I saw the same exact promotion on fathers day. My advice is to wait for the next holiday and check circuit city for a sale (president's day, labor day, groundhog's day, whatever). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 after rebates! 90854 2000/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 compact reliable crystal clear none Full Review This phone was given to me as a gift when I decided to go from analog to digital. What a gift! I have had this phone for about 8 months and have had no trouble at all. It is truly a fun and convenient phone to have. I cannot give pros and cons because I haven't a single con. But I will specify what I love most about this phone: - Small and compact. Easy to carry around. - Reliable. - Easy dialing. Semi-small buttons, but adjusted easily. - Excellent sound quality. - Functions are great! Love the voice dialing (which I use very often.) Battery could last a hair longer, but with the handy charger, I simply drop it in twice a week and I'm good to go. Anyone who uses digital service should buy this phone. You won't regret it... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90853 2000/8/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 caller id with phone closed small size receiver volume hard to control hard to find accessories locally The Bottom Linesmall enough to carry, big enough to use, clear enough to enjoy. Full Review Having had service with the local spin off of the Bell system for years, when it was time to move on to Sprint, the SCH-3500 seemed to be the most obvious choice to make. My first concern had to do with the functions of the phone - the SCH-3500 had more than what I was looking for - Web access, caller ID, small body to carry, full size when open, lots of bells and whistles. On top of all that, Radio Shack offered rebates galore. So far, which has only been 7 months, I am well pleased with the service from both Sprint and the phone. It was easy to find an earplug/mouthpiece for hands free. Since the phone asks who I want to call once I flip it open it is pretty hands free. On the down side, I haven't found a true hands free system locally. There is one on the internet I could purchase, but my car cigarette lighter won't support it. I am careful when using the phone because I don't want to find out the hard way that the flip open function may hyper-extend. I'm still trying to figure out the quick memo record function. The web is okay, I don't use it because it was a bit too slow for me- I prefer to use my PDA. All in all, I'm glad I changed service and knew what I was buying. It may be obsolete in a couple of years, but by then I may have flipped it open too wide, or scratched the face too much (since I can't find a good cover). My biggest complaint though - when on the phone in a noisy area I can't hear squat! I can't get the receiver / earpiece volume right. As the phone warms with long calls, the volume seems to drop. I have trouble hearing the person on the other end, and so do friends who own the same model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 90852 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact sweet light flip top can create a problem The Bottom LineThis is a reliable stylish phone with the latest technology. Full Review This Sprint phone has many great qualities! Starting with digital/analog capability. Nothing is nicer than knowing that you have the ability to use the phone just about anywhere in the US. The digital quality is simply amazing and just as clear as a regular phone. The analog quality isn't great but I consider analog use as only necessary in the case of an emergency. Voice command and number storage is another added feature to this phone. More numbers than you can possibly think of can be held in this little machine. The voice command makes for easier use and less buttons to mess around with. Web-capability. You can use AOL Instant Messenger with ease. It's not complete web access but you can look up News & Sports Scores. It just looks nice! Plain and simple, if you want someone to say "hey that's a great looking phone" this one will definitely do that. There's nothing wrong with a little style on a high quality machine. Of course like all phones there are many annoying rings to choose from :D We have had one problem with the wires in the flip-top wearing down and causing reception problems but Best Buy replace the phone with no questions asked. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90851 2000/3/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 the phone looks so money except it doesn t work still a good prop though Full Review I was extremely pleased with my new phone at first, little did I know that my enthusiasm would be short lived. I have had the phone for about 5 months now, and over the past two or so it has had a mind of its own. I intermittently hear my echo during calls, and frequently get dropped calls or no service available, when I live right across the river from Manhattan. My biggest complaint however is that the phone constantly will power off for no particular reason, even if a full signal is available. I'm not talking about a dropped call, the phone will completely shut down, more than 20 times in a row before I can catch a 5 minute window of availability. I'm not an expert so I don't know if its the phone or the Sprint service itself, but either way I'm not a happy camper. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 158.99 w/ a $30 rebate 90850 2000/12/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features colour battery life reception not the smallest or lightest but reasonable Full Review The Samsung SCH3500 is my third cell phone and is the very best by a long shot. I have had experiences with 2 Nokias (one was a loaner) and a Motorola and the Samsung is a much better phone overall. It is jam packed with all the features you could ask for (voice memo, voice dial, text messaging, internet, 99 number memory, dual mode, multiple ring tones/vibrate, etc) The phone has a very easy to use interface that is not confusing even for the beginner. The phone is very easy to set up (ie: adding numbers, setting voice dial, configuring internet) and that is a plus in itself. The reception is great, even in analog mode (which I usually despise), and signal strength is almost always full (even though I'm not in the best digital area). Dropped calls are non-existent and I have yet to experience any static during a call. The standard Lithium Ion battery is amazing and almost never requires recharging - and I'm a talk-a-holic. Recharge times are very reasonable -usually less than an hour. The battery is very slim and was a definite consideration for purchasing the phone. Most phones come standard with a Nickle metal hydride (NiMH) battery. Lithium Ion batteries are far superior since they hold a charge for much longer, take far less time to recharge, are thinner, and they are not afflicted with memory-effect. NiMH batteries need to be fully recharged before re-use, otherwise the next time you charge them, the "full" charge will be less than optimal. The SCH3500 is a very sturdy phone, especially considering that it is a flip open design. Usually these types of phones are flimsy (think Motorola StarTAC - I owned one as well)... but the Samsung is rather rugged and it has stood up to quite a few nasty spills without incident. The colour of the phone is really cool as well and is a definite eye catcher wherever I use the phone. Overall my experience with this product has been wonderful and that is why I am assigning it a five star rating. Recommended: Yes 90849 2000/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very trust worthyreliable kind of expensive Full Review I have a lot of friends who have cell phones they got for really cheap, but that is the problem- they got what they paid for. This is my first cell phone I have ever owned, and let me tell you, it is close to perfect. For the person driving in the car: You know how sometimes you look down to dial a number and you almost wreck out? Well, fear no more for this phone has voice activated dialing so you don't have to look down to hit the buttons. It also has a head set plug in that lets you still keep your hands on the wheel, and decreases your chances of radiation risks. For around 200 dollars (not including installation in your car) you can get the car kit itself that comes with a speaker and you can just set it in your car and don't even have to hold the phone. But that is too much money, so I just suggest getting the head set. For the person on the go: Do you use the Internet everywhere? Probably so... so why not have it at your fingertips on your phone? This phone has a mini web browser that allows you to look up basic information such as stock quotes and even your email. It also has all of the features you dream of in a phone- if you are in a library, just place it on vibrate. If you are not near your charger, have no fear because the battery on this thing lasted me a whole weekend with several long phone calls. It is also very light weight, making it simple to hold onto the phone without your arm falling off. Other features: the phone book can store up to who knows how many phone numbers. Currently I have over 30 numbers in there and it shows no sign of not allowing me to add phone numbers. The Bad: There are only a few problems I have heard with this phone... one is the flip up part tends to break off. I have not had this problem and I decided that the only way this must happen is if you do not take care of your phone. Common sense applies here- if you pay over $150 dollars for a phone... take good care of it. The only other problem I have with this phone is that it will not allow you to turn off the phone if there is a call coming in you don't want or if it starts ringing and you do not want to answer it. If it does have this feature on the phone (the flip part of it blocks all the number pads) please leave a comment and I would be more then grateful for this information. This is the best quality you will find in a phone... it is well worth the price and has a lot of safety features as well as convenient features that makes it a good buy. Occasionally it will cut out on me, but that has only happened twice. With this phone, you definitely get what you pay for. I highly recommend it. One other note- if you only get a cell phone to be "cool" and have one that no one else has... don't get this phone. Everyone and their mothers has it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90848 2000/10/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 many features not durable Full Review I was looking through my reviews and suddenly noticed that I had not written a review on Samsung's 3500 model phone. I find this amazing because this phone has been one of the biggest sellers for the company over the last 10 months. I also find it hard to believe I missed this phone because I know about so many problems with it. It might be better for me to write about it now, though, because Samsung has come out with better models since the 3500 that I can suggest. So here it is. Keep in mind while reading this that overall I enjoy Samsung phones. They are usually a leader with new features. I personally sell Samsungs about two to one over all my other phones combined. This model has its flaws, though, and I hope you will keep them in mind as you read this review. The Bad This review will deal mainly with why to pick another phone other than the 3500, and not the details and features of the 3500, although, the phone does have a ton of extras, its main selling points. Features like voice activation, vibrating ringers and its small size made it very attractive to many people, and for this reason the phone has sold very well over the last couple of months. The downside to all these great features is the phones durability. The phone has a large moving ear piece. Active moving parts in any phone can cause problems, but these problems are particularly bad in the 3500 model. Many phones have ear pieces that simply wear out in only a couple of months. Pressing to hard on the piece when you talk can also cause the ear piece flip to go inactive. Now, while I don't recommend dropping any phone, I do like models that can stand up to a little abuse. The 3500 is not that model. And while were on the subject, the 3500's antenna has a tendency to become loose and work its way out after time. This brings on the possibility of the antenna falling off and loosing it. The Choices Now this review is not to down Samsung. Since the 3500, Samsung introduced the 8500, a superior model. The 8500 has more battery, more phone book space, and a scheduler. It is also a lot tougher phone. The 6100 is also a great little Samsung phone, but with this model, keep in mind it a single band phone, so it can not roam. There are more durable phones out there, with all the same features, many at a lower price now, so I would say shop around before picking this model up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90847 2000/10/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent overall design tiny screen wirelss web keys Full Review As a former Sprint PCS employee, i was one of the first people in my Midwestern city to obtain the SCH-3500 last year. First let me say, the phone is stylish, has a very attractive case and is also quite functional. In addition to being a dual band phone, it also has wireless web ability. The web works well enough on the phone with two exceptions: 1. The screen is tiny, very difficult to read, and i dont have vision problems! 2. The keypad is also small and each key does triple duty for 3 letter of the alphabet, also there is a kind of shift key used to switch between alphanumeric and other characters like the often used "@" and "." used for e-mail. Overall i have only one other complaint about his excellent phone: The standard battery does not always last even 2.5 hours, i strongly urge you obtain the battery upgrade. The short battery life of the standard battery is made even shorter when moving in and out of analog and digital roam as this requires more power. This very popular phone is something to consider if you desire the wireless and are on a budget. they retail for about $150.00. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90846 2000/10/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 add on features size phone book space weak construction Full Review This Samsung phone is good overall. I upgraded to it from an older Sprint PCS Samsung phone, mostly for the size. Here's a run-down that you should read before buying this phone. Positives: -Small -Voice dial that doesn't require pressing a button to start -Long talk and standby time -Ear-piece adaptable -Huge phone book space -Has a built in alarm clock. This is more useful than you'd think--I use it when I'm taking a nap away from home all the time. -Call logs for last 10 numbers in, out, and missed -Voice mail light indicator -VERY durable. This phone has taken some nasty falls and still works. -Nifty recording feature for saving reminders. Negatives: -Flimsy flip phone connection. When talking, the top part of the flip phone squeeks as you press your ear against it. This is rather annoying. -Prompts you for voice dial everytime you open the phone. -Large address book doesn't let you scroll through numbers quickly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90845 2000/7/18 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 looks price features durability of flip screen size Full Review I have used a Samsung SCH3500 on SprintPCS since November of 1999. It was a DRAMATIC improvement over my previous phone (Sony CMZ100 also with SprintPCS). PLUSES ------ - The phone looks good - The design of the flip allows one to see whose calling before answering - The voice memo feature is not common and can come in useful - The dual mode feature is very useful, especially on roadtrips - Multiple rings and alerts - Web Ready MINUSES ------- - The screen is really too small to use the wireless web usefully - The flip contains the earpiece and is prone to break - The SprintPCS carrying case (not a Samsung product) causes the volume button to fall out (with repeated use) - Easy to cover the microphone while talking With the Samsung 8500 now available, I would recommend paying the extra $50 and buying the 8500. It has a better screen, is smaller, and has more features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90844 2000/6/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features affordable stylish voice recognition none yet Full Review I recently purchased this phone and I can tell you from past experiences that it is the best phone I've had so far. It is from appearance sleek and stylish, but has many features that make this phone the best around. First, you can save voice memos. Which for me comes in handy. I'm always forgetting something, or especially when I'm in the car, I can leave myself memos ranging from new songs that I like and intend on looking for to reminders for shopping lists. The memory for actual phone numbers is around 100-150 I think. It might be more, but I don't want to boast that it is without really knowing. It has voice recognition for 10 numbers which definately comes in handy. And, even better my service through sprint was running a special online that you could get the handsfree mic and earpiece for free! I'm not sure if they extended that or not, but it might have ended. You can access the wireless web if you have that option in your phone plan. Every feature on this phone is easy access which is almost a necessity in the car. And, it's quite durable considering I've dropped mine a few times. The battery has an excellent lifespan. I know there have been times I've charged mine once in 3 days and it's still going. I would definately recommend this phone to everyone I know. I don't know what I'd do without mine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90843 2000/11/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy helpful small none Full Review After moving into a new apartment, I found myself snuggling in for my first night's sleep. All of the sudden, a pit in my stomach arose, I had forgotten my alarm. How will I get up for work in the morning??? After debating whether I should get dressed again and push myself to the store or just trust my instincts to wake my up, I remembered there was an alarm on my trusty phone. I was so relieved and happy that I didn't have to get my lazy and tired body out of bed! Sure enough at 5:30 that next morning, I was woken up by a cute alarm from my phone. It's like my survival kit in the working world! So as you can see, I found that this phone can do just about anything!!! Voice activated dialing, Phone book, assorted rings, and great service. I have never been so happy with a cellular phone. I previously had a phone from another company that cost more money and was outdated and full of static. It was so big I could barely fit it in my glovebox :) This new phone fits anywhere and is sturdy enough to take anywhere. Trust me, with all of the gadgets and functions on this phone, it will never leave your side. One word of advice, though, don't invest in the "leather" carrying case for our favorite phone. $20 for nothing more than a plastic case with a spot of leather. Not helpful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 after discounts offered by the company 90842 2001/6/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size easy to read display attractive design intuitive use battery life The Bottom LineI am very happy with the purchase. Although I hit an initial snag, it was made right immediately & have since had no issues. Full Review I purchased my phone from Sprint PCS a few months ago. As far as I know, Sprint PCS is the only company selling this phone. So far, it has been great, with a few minor glitches. Good things Great sound quality (some of which is contributed to PCS network) Display is very easy to see. Green backlight is wonderful at night. Display can be read easily from all angles, even under direct sunlight. General use and programming is very simple. I haven't had to refer to the quick reference guide or manual for anything. Its obvious how to get the phone to do what you want. Size in general. That was a big selling point. Its by no means bulky or cumbersome. Sure, there are some smaller phones on the market, but I wouldn't want one any smaller. (a) general use would be difficult; and (b) I'd have lost it already. Integrated wireless browser. Very useful and convenient way to quickly check email, weather, stock quotes, sports scores, movie times, etc. Voice dialing. I've read a lot of complaints of users having problems with this feature. I haven't had any. I only have 3 numbers set for voice dialing, & may run into problems later, but it works as advertised so far. Vibrating ring option is part of phone - no special vibrating battery purchase. Design in general. The flip-style covers the keypad and prevents accidental dialing. Awesome if you wear it on your hip or drop it into a crowded purse. Durability (good part) - my phone has passed the "drop test" several times. At least 4 times onto pavement and 5 times onto carpeting. Still works fine! (maybe I should be more careful...) Quick charging time. Mine fully charges from a dead battery in about an hour. Specs say up to 2 1/2 hours with factory charger, but mine goes much faster. Drawbacks Durability (bad part) - After having the phone 2 days, the earpiece totally failed. No sound whatsoever. (This was before the 1st of many "drop tests"). Although I was a little upset that a brand new piece of equipment failed for no apparent reason, the folks at Sprint replaced the phone that day. Just walked into the store & they swapped the phones. No questions. It took all of 10 minutes & that included the time it took for the rep to set phone up. Battery life is not that great. Specs advertise around 50 hours of standby time in digital mode & 2 1/2 hours of talk time. Realistically, expect 30 hours of standby time in digital mode or about 1 1/2 hours of talk time on a full charge. In analog mode, expect 12 hours standby or 45 minutes talk time max. This is still better than older analog phone talk/standby times, but not what is advertised. Otherwise, no complaints!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 90841 2001/6/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reliable great features great style wish we had a selection of colors The Bottom LineStill a great phone! Full Review This is my second phone (using with the Sprint PCS). I used to have the Sony phone before, but I dropped it, and the damn jog dial came off. I was actually kind of tired of that phone anyway, because it wasn't getting good signal inside my room (I use the cell phone as my main phone, and I don't have a regular phone), and cutting out in the middle of the conversation. I had a couple of my friends recommend the phone to me, so I bought one. It has nice ergonomics; it fits very well within my dress pants pocket. I like the flip phone style, because the earpiece guards my head from the antenna (the source of possible harmful radiation that everybody talks about). I like the ability to silence incoming calls (which the Sony phone did not have) when it's inappropriate to receive the phone call (inside the hospital, the theatre, etc.). It has a good selection of sounds to choose from, and you can also assign different sounds to incoming calls, voicemail, pages, etc. The sounds are crystal-clear, and the amount of signal it sees in my room is much better than the Sony phone. I haven't had it cut me off in a middle of a conversation yet. Overall, it's a great phone. I wish I had bought it instead of the Sony phone. UPDATE 04 JUN 2001 I still have this phone, and I think it's still pretty good. Now I have the earpiece/mic thing, which I love. My girlfriend has the small, itty-bitty Nokia, and I love the fact that it's sooooo small, but the Samsung phone is still working like a charm. I'm sure now this phone is considered a bargain phone now in a lot of services... if you're considering getting cellular service, and money is an option, this is not a bad phone to get. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90840 2000/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durability compactness quality none Full Review To say I'm in love with this phone would be an understatement. It's light, durable, and easy to use with a clear display. It fits anywhere; is small and lightweight, but feels good in your hand. The Lithium battery seems like it goes forever on standby, and I have just purchased the extended battery so I only ever have to charge it infrequently. Call clarity is crisp, and the volume control is easy to use. When I first signed up with Sprint PCS, they were out of stock on this phone, so I "settled" for the Samsung 2000, which is a great phone, from what I understand, in its own right. However, the next day I went to a local store and found the Samsung 3500 in stock. I also looked at the Motorola Startac and instantly made a decision to go for the Samsung 3500, a decision I have not regretted. This phone is great for anybody who wants a durable, lightweight, easy to use and handle phone, with great call clarity and great styling. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119($30 rebate) 90839 2000/6/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception great screen ugly leather carrying case i like the silver phone all by itself Full Review I love my Samsung 3500. I bought it back at Christmas time - I was one of the lucky ones to get one when they were not making many. The salespeople tried talking me out of buying it - they tried talking me into some other little phone. I stuck to my ground and bought the Samsung 3500 and I am glad I did. What a great phone. It is so cool looking, and I love all the features. Did I tell you about the features? Voice Dialing, digital messaging, WEB service, indiglo back light on the screen. It gets great reception, and a very readable screen (even at night). I would recommend this phone to anyone. But wait until Sprint has one of their excellent specials. I got mine for $90 at Christmas time because they had such awesome rebates. And I love the batteries with Sprint - you can leave your phone on while it is charging & you don't have to drain the battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 90838 2000/3/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 decent battery life flip style good reception sturdy i haven t found any The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a good durable phone, please do yourself a favor and get this one. Full Review I really like this phone. I'm blind and so one of the main things that sold me on this phone was the fact that you can navigate through the menus with the number keys. it's dual band capability makes it easy to use even when I'm in a small town that doesn't have Sprint PCS digital service. It is very clear, and the reception is exelent. I have a severe hearing loss, so I say, if I can hear on this phone, anyone can. You can buy a regular or an extended battery for this phone. While it is not the most light-weight of the cell-phones, when you pick it up you can tell that it is a sturdy phone. It will show the number of the person calling you, but it will not show the name of the person unless you have added that person's phone number and name to the phone-book.One of my favorite features of this phone is the voice note taker or recorder. You can record up to ten minutes of notes in your own voice. This really comes in handy if you want to make a grocery list or something like that. to retrieve your recorded info, you just push a couple buttons and listen. It's so much quicker than having to write something down and then search for the paper later. Not only that, but in this modern day, most people forget everything, but they usually don't forget their cell-phone. So, chances are, you will have instant access to your notes. I showed this phone to my step-dad, and somehow he got on the internet with it and ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com. (grin) Another good feature on this phone is the low battery warning. It will beep about five minutes from the time that the battery will run down. You have a few minutes to finish your call. It has several notification options. It has nine ring tones and it also vibrates. It has an alarm-clock. (one disadvantage.) You can't set the alarm to vibrate. That's a real bummer, but it's the only one I can think of. (Honestly!!!) It has a scroll key so that you can access all the menu items without opening the flip. On this phone, the ear-peace flips up off of the buttons. I like this design better. The last phone that I owned was also a flip phone, but the part that flipped was closer to the mouth peace. The flip on that old phone was just a cheap little plastic thing that was forever coming off. You won't have to warry about that with this one. It uses a lithium ion battery. it has voice recognition dialing, and text messaging capabilities. I purchased this phone at the Sprint PCS store. It would have cost me $149, but they had a special, so I got a $50 instant rebate on it. I only paid $99! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90837 2000/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight easy to use clear conversations rare echo conversations in very limited areas costly Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 was a gift from my husband. Since I work nights and have teenage children, this seemed a must! I was given the opportunity to pick out my favorite type phone. I liked the compact size and light weight of the Samsung. The feature of turning my phone off and on by just a flip was a big plus! Since I would be using my phone while driving and mostly at night, I would not have to take my eyes off the road to find the "talk" and "end" buttons. Another feature I liked is, the phone book, here I am able to store important and often called numbers. Voice dialing, three way calling, mail box for messages, caller I.D., send a fax, select a ring for incoming calls,select a different ring for messages,or choose a vibrating mode,and call forwarding are all great too!I am very pleased with the clearness I experience when I am talking to another person. I usually can go two days before my phone needs recharging. All in all, I have been very pleased with my purchase and would highly recommend to a friend! A little costly, but worth it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90836 2000/12/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear sound easy to use small attractive non so far Full Review This was always my cry "but I don't need a cell phone". I felt that way mainly because other than going to work on a late night shift I rarely go out alone at night. I only live about five minutes from work if I walk and three if I drive. I always felt that, if I did have a cell phone it would be for emergencies only. The other reason I always made that statement is because there are so many different types of cell phones and pricing plans it just seemed like too much to think about. Well, as fate would have it I recently had that one incident that could have been handled so much easier and safer had I had a cell phone. Needless to say I got right on it. I asked around the office. I found that most of the people in my office, on all three shifts, had cell phones. There were all kinds of brands and lots of complaints. One young man had a phone and plan that he had purchased durig a promotion that has a referral system. He talked me into joining his plan. The phone is by Samsung. It's the Sprint PCS. I Love It. It is very small and very attractive. But, the best part is that it comes with all of these great features that are so easy to use. Aside from the usual features it has Internet Access, Voice-Activated dialing and Mobile Connection (can be linked to your PC or Laptop). The User Manual is "User Friendly". Everything is clear and simple. Each step for programming is concise and worked the first time I tried it. So far I am very pleased with the operation of this phone. I am sure that promotions and pricing plans differ from area to another. The plan that I have is 19.99 per month with long distance and 100 free minutes.The phone is free with this plan. For more information check out the Sprint PCS website at http://www.sprintpcs.com Recommended: Yes 90835 2009/12/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size features options cost Full Review LOVE LOVE this phone~ small, compact, but so versatile and full of every option you can think of. Love the fact that you can also connect to the internet too...Sprint and Samsung have far outdone themselves with this little phone. Easy to use, easy to handle, easy to remember all the different functions. The best part is that the first incoming minute is FREE!!!!! Also, i can get on the web site Sprint has set up and can text mail my husband so it doesn't COST us a dime! WHat will they think of next?? It holds a great charge and the reception is WONDERFUL! My favorite option is the voice recognition for a voice dial. Boy does that help with two babies and a 4 year old who always need your hands! Everyone should BUY this phone..there is nothing not love about it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189.00 90834 2000/3/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrate many more message dictation 10 1min none for me Full Review I am in auto sales and the phone has proved invaluable. now i rarely miss a clients' call. customers really do appreciate being able to contact me when they need or want to. With all the features of this phone, i feel it is the best phone on the market for the price. buy it! you won't regret it. I purchased mine at Circuit City and got a $50.00 merchandise card and a $30.00 mail in rebate from Sprint. So my net cost was only $69.00. the vibrate alert is great while in meetings, the movies, or with a customer. i'm thrilled with the 179 # and name phone book memory and the voice mail capabilities. the different and distinctive ring tones are fun too. I can also dictate up to 10 1-minute memos or reminders. WOW! what more could you want in a phone? WELL, how about browser capabilities! GET IT!!! you won't regret it!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00-50.00-30.00=69.00 90833 2000/10/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 digital analog huge feature set cheap price with rebate looks great poor quality phoneservice The Bottom LineStay away from everything sold by Sprint PCS. There is a reason why the guy in the commercial looks strung out. Full Review One day the Samsung SCH-3500 appeared. Wow-wee. It has every feature you'd want for the price and looks great too! So I spent the money. I liked it so much I bought one for my wife too. Then the trouble started. Sprint PCS couldn't set up my account correctly for 2 months. I must have had 10 phone calls with them after waiting on hold for over 20 minutes. Each time they said they'd fixed it, but nothing changed. And forget about their web site. Even on a T1 line, its performance is miserable and the answers you get via email are hardly adequate. I know I should have know better, but then I realized my wife and I needed more minutes, so I upgraded the plan. Of course, this phone call to sales made it right through. They described a plan to me on the phone which was perfect, but I had to agree to a 1 year deal. That was fine with me because the deal was great so I verbally agreed. 2 months go by and I get an outrageous bill, but I hadn't exceeded the minutes I signed up for. So I called and asked why they charged me for the minutes. The rep proceeded to tell me I signed up for a different plan and I'd have to pay for the extra minutes. When I explained my predicament, he didn't care stating over and over again "this is what's in the database, so this is what you signed up for". I said fine, then I am canceling my deal because that is not what the rep told me I was signing up for. He said, then you are breaking your contract and we will bill you $x. Then, the rep hung up on me! Now the kick in the gut....The ear piece started to fail on my phone 2 days after the warranty expired. I brought it into a Sprint PCS Store and you'll never guess what the dealer told me. He said this happens to this phone all the time and that it is not a very good phone. I asked him if there was some kind of recall on the phone with so many problems and he said "No". All I can say is....looks ARE deceiving. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90832 2000/4/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything is just right proprietary batteryi o port Full Review I bought my first cell phone six years ago, but this is the first time I've really enjoyed using one. This dual-band Samsung phone has features, features, features! The fact is that you can live and work just fine without all of the features of this phone. But why would you want to? Voice-Activated Dial This function sold me on the phone. It's easy to set up, recognizes only your voice and, on this model, is fool-proof. Lift up the phone's flip-up earpiece and a kind female voice asks you "Who would you like to call?" You say the name of the person you want to call, and it replies with "connecting". Before you know it, you hear "hello?" and badda-bing; you're talking to who you were trying to call. The voice dial is easy to set up, though I wish there were an option to just make a voice-dial profile from the regular phone directory (which is huge, by the way). To set up voice dial, you just follow the prompts the phone speaks to you… that's right; it talks you thru the process. You say the name, repeat it, and it has it recorded phonetically for recognition. Then you touch in the number and you're set! Don't be alarmed if it sounds like it didn't hear you correctly- every time you use voice dial it repeats the phonetic recording, which sounds like you saying just a syllable or two of the name. Trust me, it works great regardless of what you hear back. Readable Text Display I can't stress how important this is- If you are going to display text on a phone or device, you need to be able to read it! This phone does a fairly good job of this; there are four separate lines of text information available to you at any given time, plus the row of symbols on top. This means that when I am roaming with my phone in Vibration mode with the keyguard on, I can tell all that information at a glance, plus. There is also the matter of the wireless web capability; something I have yet to put into use, but I'm sure might come in handy down the road when I'm a mad tradin stock brokin fool… Music to Your Ears Though I have to say that the Nokia phones have Samsung beat in the area of ring tones, the Samsung has the capability of separate notifications between calls, voice mail and pages. I personally have it set to 1 beep for calls during a meeting and a super-loud Ode to Joy everywhere else, and the voice and page notification always set to vibrate- I figure if I missed the call I don't want to be bothered by the call or by Fur Elise (which formerly was the setting for voice mail on my phone until a rather embarrassing incident in the middle of a meeting with three Compaq executives and fifteen Account Managers- I had set up the phone to vibrate for calls, not realizing that I needed to set the other ringer too…). Fortunately, the ringers are easy to set up- the menu is much easier to deal with than even my last Nokia- I press a total of four buttons and I have a new ringer volume/type. Sound Quality No one can stress this enough. Digital phones rule for sound quality; and the Samsung is no exception. In fact, when I first got the phone, I found that if I had the volume up enough, other people could hear my conversation. The quality is very good for the size and weight of the phone. As far as digital cell phones go; I would place this phone in the top of it's class for sound quality. Long Lasting Battery "Dangit! I forgot my charger, and I'll be gone for four days!" Like I said, I've owned a lot of phones, and always seem to mess this up. Recently I had to go to Lincoln, NE for a funeral, and this happened to me. Thank God I had my Samsung. I left the phone on during the day, turned it off during the night, made over 10 phone calls and even stayed a day longer than planned… without the battery breaking a sweat. Seriously, it had over 33% power when I got home! That is just darned impressive. In addition, as you may or may not know, this phone is what is referred to as "dual-mode," meaning that it can be used in digital or analog service areas. The road between Colorado Springs and Lincoln is almost all analog. Analog uses up more juice than does digital, so I do believe the phone out-performed even what the manual said it would do. It's pretty smart like that. So it must take about five hours to charge, right? Try about 20 minutes. For real. Overall (Summary) This phone is nothing short of fantastic, and the Sprint service isn't too shabby (not perfect, but not like Voice Stream or US Worst either). The little features are nice, like an easy to use phone directory that is nothing short of huge, voice memo recorder (very, very cool when you're on the road and can't write notes into your PalmPilot), and the fact that it has a flip-up speaker which covers the keys. Add in a bright backlight that activates whenever you lift the flip-top and options for upgradability galore in a package that is about as light as a MicroTac (but not as flimsy) and you've got yourself a great value! The only problem I see with the phone is that in order to take the size and weight down, they had to use proprietary batteries and a different kind of I/O port so tiny that a light breeze would probably break it… but who uses those anyway? It's not like I'm patching my laptop through this thing to send a fax every day- some things can just wait!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90831 2000/1/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small dual band voice dialing slick tons of features no ear volume control Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500, Well, I knew it was time to get a cell phone again. I am always having to find a damn pay phone. To start this off, My girlfriend and I needed cell phones. We shopped all around for phones. Finding the best deals, and looking for a good quality cell phone. So after about a day of research we came across the Samsung SCH-3500. This phone is really good. It has a alot of handy features. It has Dual band. You can use the phone anywhere on the digital Sprint PCS NationWide network and other CDMA and analog cellular networks where Sprint PCS has implemented roaming areas. So you can really use your cell phone wherever you need too. The battery life on this phone is great. It lasts me about a week without charging. Thats with just about everyday use. It has a Voice Memo on it. You and record up to 10 (one-minute) messages or reminders to yourself. The phone has Internet Access. The Samsung comes equipped with a MiniBrowser that allows you to access the Internet to browse versions of popular Web sites designed to be read on your phone's screen. Ring Types: The Samsung has nine ring types, four melodies or a silent-vibrating ringer that prevents incoming calls from disturbing others. The cellphone has a pretty nice phone book. Stores 179 names and numbers and has flexible search capabilities enabling you to place calls quickly. The Samsung has a Voice Dialer. So what you can do is, program it so you only have to say the person's name and the phone will automaticly call them. Which is really usefull if you are driving, and you have to call someone. So these are the majority of the features on this great phone. We went with the Sprint PCS free and clear plan for $29.95 a month. Which includes a 120 free long distance free minutes. So I would advise that if you are looking for a celly, go with the Samsung SCH-3500. It really is a great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 with a rebate 90830 2000/5/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing flip cover great shape digital recorder built in none with the phone only with sprint Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is a communications device worthy of the name, a soft, cuddly little node that nestles nicely into your pocket, your lifestyle, and your dreams. The perfectly rounded shape feels like a nicely worn river rock; you will enjoy fondling it. The flip lid protects the keys from becoming depressed while riding along unused in your jeans, the voice activated dialing for 20 of your 99 phone numbers in the directory is a handy time saver, and the built-in digital voice recorder alone is almost worth the modest (compared to StarTac) $140 price tag. I am often felled by an elusive lightening-bold of transitory wisdom during times when I cannot put pen to paper, such as while driving or hurdling skyward on the Space Shuttle, and just by pressing and holding a button on the side of this phone I can record up to ten one-minute voice rambles. [While it would be cool to confess right now that this entire epinion is being "written" on my little wonderphone, the prosaic truth is that I am typing on the keyboard of a future epinion.] Most important if you have a four year old daughter like I do, you will be able to record her inventing brilliant ad-libbed kidpoems like this one I recorded recently: A pillow on my head with a pizza with a slug and a crazy little bug eating my nose. And then play that back all day long in your off-pink office cubicle to remember why all the pain is worth it. All of the features on this phone are easy to use without ever cracking the manual, and work as advertised. With a battery life of 2-3 hours talking and 130 hours on standby, I just leave this thing on all the time. You can also get an extra battery pack to swap in, and they're quite slim and light. The re-charging cradle could be a little less clunky and easier to engage the phone into, but if you absolutely hate it like my friend Quark does (though, like pesky little Mikey of the ancient cereal ad, he hates everything), then buy the optional travel charger (different from the car charger) for a more standard plug-in version. This, however, I haven't tried yet, so I could be barking up an abandoned tree. I haven't tried to use this yet as a wireless modem for a laptop (with optional $99 connector cable), but I did play with the built-in Web browser when I first got the phone in January. I was able to easily search Amazon.com to find The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Dubravka Ugresic and buy it with my 1-click account. Cool, until I got the Sprint bill with $11 extra for my hour of using this mini-Web browser. Needless to say, I haven't used that feature since. Speaking of Sprint, don't even get me started, as that's another epinion unto itself. Let's just say it could be better. Much better. I have learned to cultivate the twinkling daydream of Hope, hope that Sprint adds more relay stations, satellites or whatever to improve their spotty service. In the meantime, I cannot fault this phone in any way, which is why I give it five stars, though to the Sprint service I would only give two or three. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 90829 2000/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features stylish look i wish it came with a car charger Full Review This was my first phone and I received it as a Christmas present. I had always wanted one to make life more convenient overall. My phone has been wonderful in terms of its features (voicemail, voice recognition dialing, web browsing, alarms and ring settings, phonebook, etc) and the size is perfect, small enough to put in your pocket, but large enough to read the display and use the buttons. I have had nothing but great experiences with it and recommend it to everyone. I do think that if you need a phone for only local calling, this phone is a bit expensive for that. It IS perfect, however, for users who travel out of town or roam frequently. The one thing that i would like to change would be to have the phone come with a car charger and a home charger. Oh well! Despite that one thing, I think that this phone is a wonderful investment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90828 2000/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 portable easy to carry good battery life phone book can be hard to navigate through Full Review The compact Samsung SCH-3500 is the best! Six months ago, I would never have written a positive review on a cellular phone. I thought they were a luxury I could live without, and a waste of time and money. However, with increased business travel demanding me to spend more and more time away from home, I felt it would be more convenient to have a cell phone, especially in case of emergencies. I bought an outdated and bulky Samsung, but found myself never using it, because it was way to cumbersome and hard to carry with me. It was simply a nuisance to deal with. Two weeks ago, I decided to trade my old phone in for this newer, compact version, and I have carried it with me ever since. In fact, I have considered canceling my local phone service and making my mobile number my primary one. Here are the great things about this phone: 1) Light and portable 2) Relatively Inexpensive. With a Sprint PCS rebate, the phone only cost me $110. 3) Great reception, especially with digital service 4) Comfort. Although the phone is small, the phone flips open so that it feels as if you are talking on a regular phone. 5) Voice recognition. Simply say a preprogrammed name, and it will call their number for you. In a nutshell, this phone is wonderful. You will want to use it all the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 90827 2000/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small voice command dialing flip phone could break too small for some people Full Review Cell phones. It is kind of like the internet. Only the elite could afford it at first. Now it seems every house hold has the internet and 1 in 3 homes has at least one cell phone. This one here takes the cake. I have many friends and co-workers with this phone. Over 90% of them LOVE this phone so much that I have decided to go out and purchase one myself. Granted you must have Sprint PCS or a PCS service of sorts, this phone is great for that. So many features to choose from like: Voice activated dialing. Ringing features. Dual band (toggles from analog to digital) And many other features. All you need to do is go to this link here: http://samsungelectronics.com/mobile/products/cdma/sch3500/index.html And you will see everything about the SCH - 3500 as well as other phones that are on PCS service. As well as those to come. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90826 2000/2/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing awesome features good design no games like nokias Full Review I bought this phone because this is an extremely nice looking phone. It's very compact, and not too small. The design is awesome! The flip style is good so you dont have to put on a keyguard or accidently hit buttons. Oh, and three words... VOICE ACTIVATED DIALING! it is sooo cool, if your hands are tied or you're in the car, you flip it open and it asks you, "Who would you like to call?" and you say the name, and it dials. It is probably 99.99% correct too. Very convenient. It also has a nice standby, so you can leave it on for almost a week without worrying. And for those of you stock brokers/internet freaks, it has a minibrowser so you can still surf the net! cool huh? and the price is not bad at all! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90825 2009/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 in usabilityfeel better than nokias might not be as good as the sch 2500 Full Review First I want to talk about the not-yet-released Samsung SCH-2500, which looks to be great, utilizing a tri-mode for greater coverage. This could be a great leap for Samsung in the personal telecommunication market. But my phone is the SCH-3500, and I will talk about it here. This Samsung SCH-3500 is the phone that all kinds of people are raving about, and you'll find similar emotions here. I've only owned mine for about 3 weeks, but I absolutely love this little guy. I owned a Nokia 51something before I saw this Samsung. The first thing that appealed to me was the feel of it. Instead of it feeling like a block of wood, this Samsung feels more like a remote control...Like I've got control over it, and it will help me take control of my life. I also liked the face of it, and how the flip top looked and felt. I have been using it with Sprint service in the Chicago area, and I have been very happy with the service. But back to the phone - it of course has all the standard features, including Caller ID, Call Waiting, lots of phonebook entries (99), Automatic Redial, etc. Additionally, it has Voice calling, as it will recognize your voice, and who you want to call. The cooler features that I have found valuable are: 1) Voice memo, so you can leave yourself reminders. 2) It will keep track of how many minutes you have used, and even keep track of first minute free service. 3) Has an indicator when the call is dropped. 4) Can ring with flashing LED, or vibrate and ring (of course) Overall, I really like this phone, and it is not too expensive either. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225 90824 2000/5/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with features great price looks great flip top mechanism feels fragile Full Review I bought this phone purely because it looked different and it looked good. I've had this phone for about a month and I found the sound quality pretty good most of the time. However, you tend to lose reception once you go into some garages, elevators, or even in some bathrooms. I like the way this phone looks and I like what you get in terms of features for the price. The phone, however, feels fragile (especially the flip-top mechanism). I'm afraid to bang it into places in case something breaks on it. The voice activation features are really something and Web surfing with this phone is a snap. However, the screen is a bit small for surfing the Net. Finally, battery life is incredible (4.5 hrs talk time; 200 hrs standby), but only with the extended Li-ion battery which runs you an extra $80. As a first cell phone, this is a great buy for the many available features. However, anyone seeking something more sturdy, but willing to sacrifice some looks should go for either a StarTac or Nokia for a more durable unit and better overall reception. Bottom line: For the price, features, and look? You can't beat this phone. For sturdiness and durability? Probably opt for a Nokia. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 90823 2000/1/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy switch between vibrateaudible ringers voice dial it would be perfect if it had a little more lcd real estate Full Review For the past year I have been searching for a cell phone that would be small enough to wear(or fit in my pocket), thus replacing my pager. I thought I had finally found this phone when I purchased my analog Startac. However, with it's inability to show the LCD window when the unit is closed and no vibrate feature built-in, my Startac became a gee-wiz gadget that I showed my friends from time to time....but barely used. Fast forward to December 24,1999...Christmas eve for many, but not for me, Christmas had just been delivered to me one day early by the Fedex man. When I first opened the box and started handling the phone I was impressed by it's small size. The phone easily fit in to my pant pockets and was not even noticeable when I sat down. After 1 1/2 hours of charging in the included desktop charger I began to operate the phone. I began calling friends to test the sound/connection quality of the phone and it worked like a charm. Next I just had to try out the neat Voice-Dial feature. So without even referring to the manual I easily setup the voice-dial feature, using the intuitive menu system. To test the Voice-Dialing I just opened up the phone said the person's name and sure enough I was talking to my friend. Another feature which I didn't realize would be so practical when I purchased the phone was the ability to change from Vibrate to your Audible Ringer with the press (it is actually a couple presses) of the little black on the outside of the phone. This feature comes in handy when you go from wearing the phone (I use vibrate) to sitting the phone on your night stand when you go to bed (I switch to the audible ring). All in all I am extremely happy with this phone and the Sprint PCS service. Finally an inexpensive Gee-Wiz gadget that actually delivers the goods...all the goods. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 (After rebate) 90822 2000/10/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 large capacity phone book size features weight looks cheap plastic sound clarity fragile overall quality weak reception Full Review I bought this Samsung 3500 to replace my older and BIGGER phone. I was tired of carrying my heavy cell phone around, not being able to put it in my pocket. Even in my purse, it was not convenient. Basically, I was looking for a light and small phone for convenience. My older phone was well made, had lots of features, and a great sound. When i replaced it for the Samsung, I neglected to focus on sound quality, reception range, and the good look of the 3500 just made me forget about all other important attributes. it just looks like a gadget, a futuristic communication device, and I thought it was so neat! i had to have it. I did not know anybody who owned this phone. Still i bought it. I still love the the looks and the fact that I can slip the phone in my pocket when i don't have a purse or I can keep it in my purse without taking up all the room. So size and weight are a or THE definite benefits of this phone. At first I was happy with the phone period. Then After using it in different areas of the city, of the state, and travelling a it, I started getting disappointed. I did some research, red reviews on the phone, and discovered that many owners shared my unhappiness with the quality of the product and sound clarity. I live in Charlotte, (1million inhabitants) and in some areas of the city, driving on main avenues, the phone loses all reception, drops calls, and switches to analog!!!! What a disappointment! Then it started happening in other places where SPRINT PCS is offering PCS digital service! My older phone (with Sprint PCS too) worked fine in most of those areas! So I know the problem comes from the phone itself. FOR SOME REASON, IT ALSO SEEMS LIKE THE PROBLEM IS GETTING WORSE!!! i am not getting digital service or get cut off in areas where the phone first worked fine! Another concern is the overall quality of the phone like the material used, the way it is designed... The arms of the "flip up part" are very...weak, fragile.... The plastic is not too strong, and the arms are...shaky! it feels like they could break at any time! The screen is exposed and the transparent plastic covering it scratches easily. I am not rough at all with my phone but i still feel like I have to be extra careful with it in order to keep it in good condition for a while. Otherwise, The phone has lots of nice features, the best one being voice dialing. Just set up numbers with a name, and when you flip open the ear piece, the phone asks you who you want to call. Just speak one of the preset name, and the phone will dial the number for you. This is especially useful if you often make phone calls form your car. It allows you to keep your eyes on the road and could possibly save your life! (or someone else's!)This phone also has a web browser o access the internet and you can receive e-mails. VERY IMPORTANT TO ME, THIS PHONE IS A DUAL BAND! that's another very convenient attribute. I will not spend too much time describing all the features and describing the phone since other reviewers have already done that ad they are easily accessible from professional on the WEB. i merely want to share my experience with this cute little phone. Overall, it is nice looking and serve my purpose! After all I wanted something small and light! i got that, it is very convenient! However, I sometimes regret not having the sound quality of my older phone. I do get P. O. when the phone drops my calls where it should not! Like I said, I take care of my phone, don't throw it on my desk, in my car, don't drop it, nor put it in my pockets with keys or other sharp/hard objects. This phone is not for heavy or rough users, you have to be somewhat delicate. My phone is about 4 months old and is already scratched. Still it might be the perfect phone for some people: women, low frequency user, living in high populated areas, and travelling in big cities. it is not too expensive and it is easy to get a $50 discount on the net. As far as battery, it is adequate and above average. it doe snot requite too many recharge if you don't tal too much. Standby time is good. I usually charge my phone once every 3 or 4 days. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.95 90821 2000/7/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality features cool design network availability battery life msg waiting beep Full Review I bought this phone for both my wife and myself. She was pregnant at the time, and I wanted the clarity benefits of digital service with the availability of dual-band operation so that she could make a call from anywhere, any time. This phone served that purpose, and had many other features that a techie like me couldn't resist: voice activated dialing, wireless web access (which I NEVER use, and have since discontinued), wireless messaging, all in a small, lightweight, cool-looking body. I was an early-adopter, so I was inundated with "Wow, that's a cool phone!" when I wore it in public. No reason to buy a phone, but it sure makes you feel a little better about dropping $300 for two of them :) PROBLEMS: I have experienced several glitches with this phone, but I believe most of them are common to wireless PCS phones in general. Occasionally, I get "phantom" rings, with no caller at the other end and no call listed in my calls list. This has only happened about 5 times in about 10 months of service. Another glitch is the battery-life indicator. It frequently shows that I have a fully charged battery, but then after 1 or 2 minutes of talking says I need to recharge then dies. Usually turning the phone off and then on again will reset this "sticky" power meter, but it's a hassle. Another problem I now face after recently moving outside the city is the network availability. I live just on the verge of being out of range now (I can't get a signal indoors, but can when I walk outside). Granted I have moved 20 miles outside the city, but am less than a mile from a major interstate so I thought access wouldn't be a big problem...surprise! Sometimes I get spotty reception even in-town...not sure why, but the signal cuts in and out like talking on realaudio on a low-bandwidth connection. This may be due to interference of network problems, as it has usually happened indoors or downtown, but I didn't expect any problems such as this from a digital phone. Battery life is not as long as they claim. Period. WISH LIST: I wish there was a way to control the volume of the "message waiting" indicator...you can turn the ringer off or on vibrate, but when that caller leaves a msg it still gives this loud set of ascending tones 3 or 4 times. There may be a way to disengage this, but I haven't found it! SUGGESTIONS: Charge the phone frequently, and buy a car charger (cigarette lighter adaptor) because the battery life does not match the mfgs claims. SUMMARY: Overall, I have been pleased with the phone. It generally gets great reception, the voice-activated dialing feature is a huge plus and works well. I'll be glad when the PCS network is more ubiquitous however, and I need to buy a car-charger to make it a bit more convenient. Overall, I think it's a good phone, however. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 (w/ $20 rebate) 90820 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life voice activation dual band operation long long feature list clear clear sound quality web enabled true pocket size nitpicks clock readout doesn t show up unless you re in a digital service area signal more than occasionally blocked when inside tall buildings Full Review I finally bit the bullet and decided I needed a cell phone for various reasons early this year. In the Washington DC area I consider Sprint PCS the only provider to go with based on pricing/features and coverage area in the southeast, so my list was short to begin with. I'd seen the SCH-3500 (or maybe a previous version) before but it had one major strike against it then - no dual-band operation. Enter the dual-band 3500. It has wireless web access (comes out of your monthly airtime, as opposed to 'wireless web messages' which are the text messaging service - documentation is very unclear about this), can receive text messages via email or through a form on sprint's website, has voice-activated dialing and an optional and very slick earbud headset that amounts to a wired remote which allows you to drive and talk safely, and the battery lasts 5 days on a charge. It was a no-brainer. Using the SCH-3500 has been great sofar. It's as clear as a land line and has plenty of ability to raise the volume to drown out background noise. My friends all say they can hear me clearly too (sometimes more clearly than I hear them) even when using the headset, which does tend to drop the microphone under my chin instead of in front of my mouth. The wireless web browser (the standard phone.com WAP-capable software) works flawlessly, bringing in news, stock quotes, weather (the site I use most often) and even apparantly allowing e-commerce. At least two of my friends have bought the same phone after seeing and using mine and everybody has to stop and tell me how cool they think it is (and this is *before* most of them hear the feature list) The only thing I could still wish for would be a built-in personal organizer similar to the Neopoint 1000 or Motorola Startac organizer. I am a definite early adopter in this category and am already drooling over the (GSM-only, bah!) EPOC-based palmtop/cellphone/mp3 player already available in Europe. However, in my opinion the SCH-3500 is the best cellphone currently available in the US, even when you don't count the bargain price. When you add in the value factor, like I said earlier it's a no-brainer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90819 2000/6/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial web browser ergonomics lacks pimemail send Full Review This is the only mobile phone to own in North America. The feature-packed SCH-3500 has been out for roughly 9 months and it's only competition is Samsung's latest release, the SCH-8500 (currently recalled). With an outstanding list of features, adequate talk/standby time, splendid ergonomics and a great price (149.99), this phone continues to shine. The latest offerings (late to market) from ATTWireless and Ericsson add only T9 text enhancements (predictive spelling) and email-send features to their bulky entry. These features, and a PIM are all that the sveldt SCH-3500 lacks, and while some may want to send email, I simply use the microbrowser for web access. If I want to send email, the laptop connect software and cable allow me to at 14.4K. The ATTWireless offering touts a 9.6K connect speed max. The voicedial in addition to the Samsung earbud/mic create an effortless and safe combo for talk/drive situations. With a simple pressing of one button I can call any of 20 programmed numbers by voice. I never have to look at the phone as it sits in the passenger seat. I end the call by pressing the mic button again. The menu is intuitive and easy to master, and you don't have to open the flip to access the web. As for durability, either I am the luckiest clutz in the world, or this phone is tough because I've dropped it three times and it still sounds and works great. All in all, a strong and long lasting entry in the mobile phone arena for all but the technically challenged. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90818 2009/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small tons of features voice activated dialing static in reception icons do not respond in real time Full Review I bought this product to replace my old oversized analog phone. I travel a lot, so I appreciate its dual mode (analog and digital capable) and compact design. It fits into a pocket, purse, or briefcase easily. Caution: do not place near keys - the silver surface scratches and rubs off easily. The feature I like best is the voice-activated dialing. This way, I do not have to remember phone numbers or take time scrolling through the electronic phonebook to make a call (particularly useful when driving). There is a headset jack for hands-free use and more ringer sound variations to choose from that one would ever need. The only complaint I have so far is that there appears to be a lag time between clearing my voicemail box and the icon disappearing from the display (that indicates I have voicemail). There is an icon-indicator when I have voicemail. This icon does not go away until about 2-5 minutes after I have cleaned out my mailbox. Occasionally, the reception is poppy and staticy. Raising the antenna does not improve reception much. I look forward to investigating the web browser option to check sports scores and stocks on the go! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 144 90817 2000/7/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 web ready compact none Full Review First off, I dislike those Nokia commercials with the beeping tone. My mother has a Nokia phone, and I thought it was the greatest phone...until now. I am a college student at Boston College and since I am living off-campus this coming year, I decided to invest in a cellular phone. I visited websites, the local Cellular One office, and couldn't find any pricing plan/phone that suited my needs. Then, I came across the Samsung SCH-3500 phone. I was originally going to go with AT&T service plans, but they offered some cheap phones. So I decided to go with SprintPCS, which offered the Samsung SCH-3500. Before I continue, let me say that the internet is a great thing. I found my phone on a website with an $80.00 rebate. Then I received $50.00 off my first bill. It couldn't get any better. After I placed my order, I had my phone within 4 business days delivered straight to my door. The phone is internet capable, so if I ever wanted to surf, all I'd need to do is click a button. Also, the phone is dual-band, meaning it can receive digital and analog signals. The phone is reliable and full of functions. It's also quite small, not as bulky as some of the old phones I've seen. If you're shopping for a phone in the near future, I would go with a Samsung Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 90816 2000/1/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features small the flip thing feels a little delicate Full Review I have had about 5 cell phones and this is my all time favorite. It's the best phone I've seen on the market. It's really small so it fits easily in my back pocket but isn't so small that I'm worried about losing it. At first I didn't like talking on it because I felt like I was going to break the piece that flips up but I just had to get used to it. I had never talked on anything like it before. I love it's features--you can make it ring differently for people whose names are in your phone book or when it's roaming. It has quite a few different rings and my it vibrates, which is great because lots of times when I'm out or in a loud place I can't hear my phone ring. But, since it's small enough to fit in my pocket I can just keep it on me and feel it ring. The phone book is wonderful. It shows three names at a time on the screen so you can quickly scroll to the one you're looking for or you can just type in the first letter of their name and it will go straight to it. It tells you on the screen when you have messages and you can check them on your phone by just pressing the button that has a little mailbox on it. This is really a great phone and I recommend it to anyone. You will be very pleased and really enjoy using it. It's a really fun phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90815 2000/6/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 quality looks features not great for web Full Review When I decided to buy a new cell phone last fall I was looking at two things: durability and price. I'd gone through three different cell phones of varying price in the past four years and none had stood up well to day to day use. I ended up getting a really cool looking phone with some neat options at a much lower price than I was seeing from many similarly equipped models. At first I was somewhat wary about buying a Samsung phone. They don't seem to have the marketshare of the Nokias, Eriksons and Qualcomms. At the time, this phone was pretty new and there weren't many reviews of it. I shouldn't have worried. These phones are well built, have great battery life, and work very well. Mine has been sat upon and dropped a couple of times, and is still no worse for wear. One nice feature of the phone is it's web interface. Its kind of fun to be able to pull up web-enabled sites from the phone. However, the screen is kind of small for viewing much information and the interface for typing in URLs gets annoying to use after a little while. If you're going to do a lot of web surfing with your phone, you'll probably want one with a bigger screen that's been designed with more web activity in mind. The coolest feature of the phone is voice activation. You can store up to twenty voice activated numbers (out of 99 total numbers). After you record the name of the person you want to call or whatever other prompt you'd like to use, you can simply speak that prompt to the phone and it will dial the number for you. Its especially handy if you're using the optional hands-free kit or if you're trying to impress people. That brings to mind a potentially important point for a lot of cell phone users: impressing people. This phone looks cool. It has a nice silver color and an attractive form factor. When your friends start comparing phones, they'll be impressed when you pull it out. I know it's superficial, but hey, that's why a lot of people get these things in the first place. Basically, its a great phone at a great price. I don't think you'll go wrong with one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 90814 2000/2/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use numerous features having to use sprint pcs service Full Review I recently (last month) purchased the Samsung SCH-3500. And while I hate Sprint's PCS service, I love this phone. The sound quality is crystal clear, the features are extremely easy to use, and it has so many features!! Voice-activated dialing, the ability to connect to the internet, the ability to receive faxes, pages, voice mail, caller ID, the ability to have your phone ring numerous different ways to tell you whether it's a call with an ID, without an ID, a voice mail, a page, these are a few of the features. I have to admit, I had fun just playing with the features! And the fact that it is compact and light weight made it even better. I love the design, it fits into your palm very well and the fact that it's a flip phone is what initially prompted me to choose it. I also like being able to have my keypad protected. But with this phone, there is the added bonus of various security features, one of which is keylock. You can set alarms on it, including an alarm that goes off every minute you are in a call. The person you talk to doesn't hear it. I have to admit, I found that annoying, but if you are determined to keep a call to say, 5 minutes, it's good to have the feature on. You count that fifth beep and hang up. The price was more than what I wanted to pay for a cell phone, but I feel it was worth it. This is an excellent, high quality phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90813 2000/1/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 cheap don t know Full Review One day I just want to have a cell phone cause I never home, I go out and party all the time and I really want my parents and my friends can reach me anytime they want to. Since I hang out in the clubs most of the time I need a phone that is reliable and can notify me when people call. I went shopping for a new cell phone the other day. I saw this Samsung 3500 and only $149 and I thought it's really cheap compare with others. I asked the sell man the features on it,,oh my god, I really like this the "vibrate" when someone call, that is cool cause I can't hear the ring whenever i'm in the club due to the load music. and also does everything esle like surfing the net, check your email, and the battery is incrediable. One more thing is that , they also give you $40 mail in rebate and all the other stuff and when you sit down and caculated it, the phone only like $20. what can you ask for $20 now and day..I think this cell phone is cheap and reliable, I'm really happy with it so far. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90812 2001/3/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 compact lightweight love being able to see display when phone is flipped closed not very durable The Bottom LineGreat features, but not durable enough for me. Full Review I bought this phone in May 2000, so I've been using it daily for nearly 5 months. I'm a 100% travel consultant, so all of my personal and business calling is through this phone. The first month, I LOVED the phone; it was light/compact, very easy to use, the menus were relatively intuitive, the service was very clear and consistent. It was easy for me to carry in my pocket into meetings, the airport, etc. Slowly, but noticeably, after the 3rd month of use, the phone was having problems. The ear-piece would cut in and out on the phone, so you had to position it just right to hear the other person... now, after 5 months, I am lucky to get through a 3 minute call without the ear-piece quitting completely. I've also noticed my signal is lost unexpectedly quite a bit, and other "weird" things do/don't work with voicemail/text/notification, etc... Also, my reception inside large, corporate-type buildings was becoming non-exisitent. I wouldn't recommend this phone with people who are "rough" on phones... come on, we all know who we are... I'll be shopping this weekend for a new phone recommended to be a bit more durable. UPDATE 3/27/01: I replaced this phone with a Motorola TalkAbout T8167... I really miss being able to see the phone display while the phone is closed... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 90811 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating5.0 cool looking vibrating ring poorly constructedmenus are not well organized Full Review Well, as much as I researched this phone, I thought I would be completely thrilled with my purchase. I've had my Samsung 3500 for about 2 weeks now, and am taking it in for repairs to the hinged front and antenna next week. I am seriously thinking about returning it for another phone. My particular phone may be the exception to the rule, but overall I'm very disapointed in its quality and sturdiness. Of the myriad of problems I have had with this phone, the worst is the antenna. It only goes up about two inches, and then gets stuck. You have to wiggle for about 15 seconds to get it to extend to its full height of about five inches. Without the antenna being extended, most calls sound scratchy and distant. The flip portion has also come unhinged at one end. I am a gadget lover by nature, and generally have fun figuring out all of the little tricks of a new toy. I usually don't read the instruction manual until I have to and have found that for many devices, the menus and buttons make perfect sense without EVER opening the manual. Not so for the Samsung 3500. The menus are not intuative, and things are either not easy to get to, or aren't where they logically should be. For instance, I love that this phone has a vibrating ring, so as not to disturb others, but to turn this feature on and off you have to go through six steps! The phone itself is silver on the front and black on the back, and pretty cool looking in my opinion. It fits well into a pocket and is all in all a outwardly well designed phone. I am hoping that I have just recieved a defective phone, and that the quality of the phone I received is not common. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 (with service agreement) 90810 2001/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight good battery voice dialing feature voice memo feature everything none The Bottom Lineas of 10/2001, this is now old phone. Samsung's N200 replaces this phone... Full Review Samsung SCH-3500 with SprintPCS [Update: 9/20/2001] My phone is start to die on me now. It goes in and out of range more frequently, combined with the fact that SprintPCS does not have 100% quality service. Also, now about 50% time, it has hard time connecting to the PCS network. So, i could click the "Power" and it would say "Connecting to the Network." It sits there fore several minutes. I took it to SprintPCS store and tell told me that my reception thing is going bad. So, i think i need to buy new phone soon. Samsung I300 comes to my head... [Original Review] Many of my friends and I own PCS phones. In fact, I don't know any one who doesn't own cell phone. In fact, I currently work for a company who sells PCS phones and service plan, "the pink guy." [Equipment] Samsung SCH-3500 works with SprintPCS network. It features dual mode, digital and analog. Phone comes with long lasting battery and desktop charger. I paid $149 at BestBuy and I also got $30 mail-in rebate offer. [Run-down] There are many other popular PCS phones out there. In fact there are so many of them that it's really hard to choose because many of others phones are all good. But this phone sets itself a part from the rest. Samsung SCH-3500 has slick Titanium color design that fits right into your palm. Phone is attractive and looks different than many other PCS phones. Its light design is one of its best features. I previously owned SCH-1000 and Qualcomm PCS phone. They were bulky, heavy, and had fewer features than SCH-3500. I am glad to own this phone because it's really light weight. SCH-3500 comes with voice memo feature. It can record up to 1 minute of voice memo. This is extra feature that's not really needed or necessary. However, since the feature is on SCH-3500, I use it and I find it very useful. SCH-3500 also dials with your voice command. This is only found in Samsung PCS phones including SCH-2000. I think this feature really sets Samsung PCS phone apart from the rest of other phones. Voice dialing works about 80% of the time. The reason for this feature not working is if you were in noisy environment or you are talking differently. SCH-3500 also features what Sprint calls it wireless web. It basically has a feature where you can scroll through menus and get text messages. I hardly find this a web browsing experience, not fault of Samsung SCH-3500 or any other phone that has this feature. I find this feature not that useful. Overall SCH-3500 is the perfect PCS phone. Sure it doesn't have PDA features but that's why you buy PDAs, get it. [Update 01/11/2000] I have noticed that this phone goes out of range very frequently. I am not sure this is fault of SprintPCS or the Samsung phone. Even after software update, my phone goes out of range frequently. Often during the traffic rush hour, reception is very poor and cuts from the phone very often. Voice quality worsen as the clock goes from 4:30 PM to 5:00 PM. Another thing I noticed is the SpringPCS Store has poor customer service due to the fact that you have to wait forever to get any service. Is this typical of all PCS phone services or is this just SprintPCS Stores. Batter can up to three days without charging it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90809 2000/2/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing voice memo internet access none Full Review I have had the Samsung SCH-3500 for a while now and I think its a pretty neat gadget. When getting the phone it will only take you seconds to learn how to make a call it so easy and the menu options are just as easy to use. There are four major and unique features that are really needed for some peoples life and then again for others it's just something else for someone to fool around with. The first thing is that the vibration alert is built in. For most of us that is a must. I bet alot of you know how it feels when your in a meeting and all of a sudden your phone rings and everyone is staring at you. Having the silent-vibration effect built gives us $20+ to spend else where then a stupid vibrating battery. The second feature that I really enjoy and use a lot is the Voice-Activated Dialing. It lets you call someone with out touching a button. All you do is open the phone it says, "Who would you like to call?" you tell it the name and it does the rest its that easy! Of course you have to program it to that but hey that only takes thirty seconds whens it the long run it will save you minutes believe me. Its a whole lot easier than scrolling through tons of numbers. The third unique feature that I havent had the use for that much is the Voice-Memo feature. You can record of to ten(one minute) talkings. You can record while you are on or off the phone. From the few opportunities I've used this it's really handy while taking numbers or address and not having to find a pen and paper. The final feature that other cellphones are starting to get is Internet Access. I have not used this at all. I have the internet at home and have no use for it else where. Two other thing I really enjoy about the phone is its clarity and battery life and charger. The clarity is outstanding I move about my city alot and I haven't heard one bit of static yet. The battery is also great lasting 130 hours standby and when im done using the phone for the day I put it in the desk charger that it came Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 89 after rebates 90808 2000/3/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 great size design poor audio wiring poor audio The Bottom LineIf you don't plan to use the phone muich (emergencies only etc..) then you can go with this one, other than that, go with something more sturdy. Full Review I work as a tech for a large wireless company, and I'd hate to admit, but I see a lot of these coming in with warranty issues. First, though, the good. This phone is sleek, stylish, and looks great. The flip is a new design, with the earpiece in the flip, and a large display makes it easy for anyone to see. It includes wireless web, which gives you AOL Instant messenger, stock quotes, weather, news, games, etc.... It also includes a wide variety of ringers, and also has a voice memo and voice dial feature. The dual band feature is a nice addition, allowing you to use analog if you need to (you break down where there is no digital coverage). It is like having a good spare tire, unlike single band phones. The accessories for this, such as car adapter, leather case, and holster are widley available anywhere they sell the phone. Now, the bad. Samsung made a big mistake with this phone. The wiring that goes form the main part of the phone to the earpiece couldn't withstand much use. So, after only a few months of heave usage, or up to 8 months of light usage, these wires wear down, causing anywhere from poor, "staticy" audio to no audio whatsoever. Also, in earlier batches, the material used for the flip wasn't too sturdy, causing the flip to break after some usage (but this was fixed in later models). The phone isn't the best with picking up the best network signal available, and has been known to go into roaming even when there is good coverage where you are. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90807 2000/5/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 looks voice dialing clear button not on the outside small screen Full Review When I first saw this phone it was love at first sight and immediately had to buy it. I bought it used it and ended up returning it after a few days. At first glance it looks very elegant. But at such a low price point one has to wonder. One cost cutting measure was in the silver paint which chipped easily. Reception wise it was above average to the other SprintPCS phones that I've used. (Sony, Nokia 6185, Motorola Timeport, Sprint Touchpoint, Sprint Touchpoint Dual Band) The talk time is great, as well as the voice dialing which works most the of the time. Gripes I have about this phone are: 1) The screen is too small for reading my text messages. For those who don't surf the web or have text messages this won't matter. 2) Clear button not on the outside. When I saw that the screen was visible while the phone was closed I thought it was a great design feature. But Samsung stupidly left the clear button on the inside, so if I receive a numeric page and read it, I can't clear it unless I open up the phone. This somewhat defeats the purpose. 3) Poor menu. Samsung chose to keep this same menu through out all of their phones. Its clear and easy to understand but sometimes a little tough to navigate. I ended returning the phone and using my tried and true SprintPCS touchpoint dualband. For the money this phone is a great phone...but not having the clear button on the outside was biggest factor that made me return it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90806 2000/7/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 works great is niceloud maybe a tad bit big for some Full Review First of all, it looks cool, like some Trekker fantasy or James Bond thingy. With Sprint, I NEVER ever have problems in the tri-state area, especially NYC area. Works great, much better than those StarTacs everyone was so in love with at one point. Also, the buttons won't wear out like those others. Can go online (if you're a lamer) and receive email (I think, I'm not sure because I have no use for it). I got mine for $120 at Radio Shack. HA! That's cheap! I would buy this phone if I were you. Perfect size, in my opinion, but for those who prefer those itty bitty chrome things Nokia is making for $600, this would probably be too big for you. Fits in my TIGHT jeans front pocket (I don't wear those baggy pants). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 90805 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 you can keep it on the charger all the time there isn t anyway to overcharge the battery the accessories are too expensive Full Review The first thing that made me pick up this phone was the futuristic look and the size. While it's not the smallest phone on the market, it has the best feel and the best size for not getting lost. Once I started to play around with it, I fell in love with it again. The integrated web browser is Great!! I use it every Sunday while I'm at work to get the football scores. If you're on the internet, you can sign up for free with Yahoo Mobile and they will send the scores to you every quarter. This phone also has a Voice Dial feature. With this feature, you can program the names of your frequently called people into the memory bank along with your voice and when you're ready to call, just say their name and it dials for you!! The phone keeps call logs of the last outgoing, incoming, and missed calls as well as an air time log. One of the best features is that the phone is Dual Band. Which means, if you go out of the digital area, your phone will automatically switch over to the analog lines. My parents live right on the edge of the network, so my phone is constantly switching back and forth when I go visit them. I love this phone!! It's the best one I've had to date. Myself and two of my friends have this same phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 90804 2000/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 user friendly strong tons of features beautiful you have to buy everything else only a desktop charger comes with the phone Full Review When It was time to change my Qualcomm Q-Phone due to severe battery problems, I went to the SprintPCS center and checked out all the phones they had to offer. I wanted a small phone with a lot of functions that would stay "ON" for more than 2-3 days. Price was also an issue. It was impossible not to notice the small and shiny Samsung within a pack of PALM wannabe wireless web phones. Samsung 3500 offers a great contour design with tons of cool functions. My favorite is the "voice dialing" and the "voice recorder". All you need to do, to call someone, is to lift the cover and say the name of the person. It's recognition percentage is awesome, almost %100. It even accepts my friends voices, as long as they imitate my accent :). It has been almost 3 weeks now, and I've been using voice activated dialing extensively. The "voice recorder" is cool but I found out that I really don't need it. It's nice to have that feature though. I am very pleased with the way you can browse the menus and phonebook without opening the cover. So far I am very pleased with the original "slim" battery. The phone stays on for more than 3 days if you do not make frequent calls. They stand-by and call times listed on the box (and on the web page) are correct, unlike the Q-Phone. The phone is light but strong. It doesn't squeak all the time like my old Q-Phone. However the display is openly exposed and may be scratched. The desktop charger is hard to use. There are no instructions on how to slide the phone in and out, and believe me it is not self explanatory. I may be harming the phone trying to yank it out of the charger... Then again, I am an engineer and I don't see a better of getting the phone out! I like the ring options. You can assign different rings to different calls (Caller-ID, no CallerID, special someone...). I wish the rings were programmable (like the Ericsson phones). Finally, I can hook the phone up to my laptop and get internet access. You have to pay $99 for the connection kit which includes the necessary cables and software. SprintPCS offers this phone for $149.00, $100 cheaper than the StarTAC derivative Timeport. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90803 2000/9/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 built in voice activation slick voice recognition needs some work Full Review I first picked up this phone because of it's looks, who could pass on A metallic phone with all the curves of your dream date. But I fell in love with all its function. The phone has a decent storage capacity, but if you have hundreds of numbers you may have some troubles. The "flip-up" on this phone is the first one I've seen that does it right. The speaker is at the top of the cover piece and the mic is at the bottom of the phone, Finally the mic isn't sitting at my cheek, just so I can hear! But the real fun of this phone comes when you flip it open, say a persons name and have it dial for you, I've had many people stop and ask me about that feature, of course the downside is they ask you just after using your voice dialing. Now, granted the voice recognition is barely ok at best, I've had serious problems with it recognizing "s" sounds, and other soft sounds. The voice recorder is very slick, you only have 60 seconds of recording time, but that's plenty to record a number if you don't want to program it in right then, and the playback is fairly audible. It's also reasonably durable I've dropped mine 10-15 times from about 3.5-4 ft and it's still working great. the biggest drawback I've seen is a lack of covers tha protect the LCD, i've seen about 3 cases, but all leave the Lcd open for scratching. the service I've received has been great, my first phone developed a reception problem, I brought it to a PCS store and they took it and transferred the service to a new phone and I walked out 10 minutes later with a working phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90802 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 gadgets weight this phone is awesome size has a history of breaking Full Review I just finished writing an opinion on Sprint PCS and just knew I had to plug the phone that I purchased to use that service, so here it goes. The Samsung 3500 ROCKS!!! And I mean that like I mean to be alive. First the size is fantastic, even with the extended life battery it is pocket friendly for normal fitting clothes. Now if you like skin tights I suggest a holster for it in either leather or plastic hard clip style, whichever you prefer. Second would have to be the clarity, this phone gets better reception then any of my friends phones in any given area. Third is going to be the gadgets on the phone (let me count the gadgets) 1> Voice dial... need i say more 2> 99 auto dials that can be sorted alphabetically or numerically by their entry into your personal phone book 3> wireless web, if your service provider offers it 4> dual band 5> one key access for emergency dialed numbers 6> 5 min voice recordings (digital) for taking notes when paper and pencil is not available 7> multiple rings for different types of notification, i.e. one ring if the number is listed in your phone book, another if it is not, another to let you know you have voicemail, still another for your daily alarm (yes it has a daily alarm) and no special equipment to make it vibrate for those times that a ringing phone would be annoying. One last thing before i end this on a good note, the 3500 has a long recall history because of the flip part breaking. Just like other small electronics though if you take care of it then it will take care of you. The list is awesome as it is and Im still finding out cool things about my 3500 every day... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10.00 cost varies with service you purchase 90801 2009/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity size price voice dial technology durability availability apparently right now you re more likely to find a four leaf clover Full Review I have to admit that I had never heard of the SCH-3500 before I walked into Radio Shack. I guess I've been in a cel phone vacuum since my sons were born 6 months ago and I "misplaced" my old Qualcomm brick. But with the burden of parenthood and the renewed need for accessibility upon me, I capitulated and went into the local Radio Shack to look at telephones. First off, I needed to switch services; I was a Bell Atlantic Mobile customer, and was very dissatisfied with the service. I do a lot of traveling, so it is important to me that I have reliable national access, which put me solidly in the Sprint or the AT&T camp. Not to take you on my rather meandering path to realization, I decided to go with Sprint. I had to have a dual-band handset; digital is nice, but the reality is, sometimes you just can't get a signal, regardless of the service. Especially in Washington, D.C., where overcrowded cels and military activity make a signal tricky at times, I wanted to have the flexibility to make calls in an emergency. Of the digital/analog offerings I really liked the SCH-3500 design. I like the fact that the ear piece flips down to cover the keypad. I like the choice of rings (not nearly as extensive as those offered by Nokia, but more than sufficient, and it has a silent-vibrating setting). But I really liked three bells and whistles: the battery, the voice activated feature, and the internet "readiness". The battery is great. Billed as up to 2.5 hours of talk time and 130 hours of standby time, I have not seen numbers quite this high yet, but I was told that it takes about a month for the battery to perform consistently at this level. I have seen the times increase, and now can easily spend 1 hour or so a day and only have to recharge every two or three days. The voice activation feature is GREAT! I have used it in the car, in the mall, in the parking lot, on an elevator, and it has worked wonderfully in all of those places. It's great not to have to fumble with buttons for frequently called numbers. Closely attached to this is the voice memo feature that allows up to 10 60 second voice memos, which goes a long way toward alleviating the need for a pen and paper to jot a few hurried notes. Finally, the SCH-3500 is part of Sprint's burgeoning stable of internet ready handsets. I haven't activated it, but that is due primarily to the lack of offerings on the part of the service, not a reflection on the functions and features of the handset. But it is nice to know that I have the option without upgrading the handset (it does, however, require a $200 internet access kit from Sprint before it can receive internet transmissions). Ok, so maybe this really is the final note. The handset is also VERY durable. I weigh a comfortable 210 pounds, and on most weekends when I'm out with my sons, I usually slip all 5.5 oz of it into my back jeans pocket so that it doesn't poke them when we're playing. I've gone the whole day like this, standing and sitting at will, often forgetting to remove my handset first. To date there has been no noticeable where and tear or a degradation of performance as a result. Did I mention that the digital technology is manufactured by Qualcomm? I mean, you get the industry leader in technology, packaged with a feature rich set that I haven't seen another handset compete with yet. I guess this is my longwinded way of saying that I'm very pleased with the SCH-3500, and would buy it again in a heartbeat! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90800 2000/1/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cool features great reception sleek sturdy battery life is embarrassing sometimes The Bottom LineGreat phone with great reception. Sleek, sturdy, great buy. Full Review I decided to get this phone after many of the people I knew started buying it. I would always ask about it, and sure enough, they would always respond with good things. Then, my brother got it, and I knew that I had the same taste as him, so I bought it within the next week. I had never had a cell phone before, so you can assume I was really picky, and really cautious about buying one. I know more about this phone than the manufacturers probably know (haha, only kidding, just an example of how well I know it). Anyway, I bought it at Best Buy, where I asked an additional 1000 questions, and I got the perfect assistance you can expect from Best Buy. In the first week I had my phone I experienced no problems. Then, being the klutz that I am, I dropped it into a glass of water. But, surprisingly enough, NOTHING HAPPENED! It was my little miracle phone. I dropped an electric appliance into water. Either I'm lucky, or this phone is better than I thought. For the purpose of this review, I'm going to go with the second choice. This phone is exceptional. Maybe my favorite toy of all time. When I am walking around town trying to find out the nearest movie theaters, movies, and times, this phone gets the job done. I scroll over to my web-browser utility, click on the folder marked Entertainment, and click moviefone. I input my zip code, and bada-bing the phone acquires an accurate list of theaters, times, and movies within seconds. Another, handy dandy feature of this phone, is the ability to go on AOL. I was waiting in my doctor's office, and I had lots of people ahead of me. I thought, "Oh god, I'm going to be so bored!" But then, the most peculiar thing happened. It must've been a sign, my phone rang and I thought, "Aha, I can go on AOL to pass the time!" but first, I'm going to need to answer this call. It was a solicitor, but anyway, I got onto AOL, checked my email, and before I knew it, the receptionist called my name. Aside from those great moments, I'd like to discuss the rest of my phone. I'll admit, this phone isn't all good. The only thing that I can stand is the email writing. Nothing bothers me more than pressing the number seven four times just to get a letter S to appear on screen. Writing an email is like a project from this cell phone, I have to spend so much time just to write a simple "Hello, how are you?" But, if you think about it, it's not that bad because all people with cell phones without keyboards have to go through the same ordeal each time they type something on their phone. Back to the pros. I absolutely love the voice recognition. Goodbye dialing numbers to call someone, all I have to do is say the name, and it's ringing. The minor problem with voice dialing is that you can only have 20 people on it, and most people have more than 20 people they like to call. Another complete plus to this phone is the flip. I mean the color makes it look stylish, but the flip really makes a difference. The flip cuts the height in half, but most importantly, it's a permanent key-guard. My other friends with their Nokia phones always complain about the phone being in their pocket and having all the numbers dialed. One of my friends enabled the number 9 (the 911 emergency button) on his Nokia, and he accidentally called 911. Luckily he realized and called 911 back before they pinpointed his location and rushed to him. That backtracking was just another reason why the flip is great. The battery life on this phone is mediocre. Since the battery is lithium ion instead of NiMH, you have to train it. By train the battery I mean that you have to run out the battery power before you recharge it because if you don't it will think wherever you charged it is the lowest the battery can get. Then it will only charge your battery from that point to the top, and you will not use it to its full capabilities. The reception I get is always great. I mean, there are some points that my dual band fails me, but most of the time I have at least ¾ full reception. Since Sprint has the largest nationwide network, the Sprint-serviced phones get the most phenomenal, clear, reception of any other service on the market. The SCH-3500 is sturdy, sleek, powerful, and overall a great cell phone. If you are looking for this phone, I'm sorry to tell you that you won't be able to find it. This phone has been remodeled, and is now known as the N200. It's basically the same thing except it's a little bit smaller, comes in blue or silver, and it has a joystick in the middle. If you want a phone that looks great, sounds great, and works great, you should've checked out the SCH-3500. But now, the best thing you can do, is pick up the N200, it's just as good, I'm updating to it soon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90799 2000/10/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 tiny voice dialing awesome good quality short battery life slightly tinny sound lousy service breaks Full Review I bought the SCH-3500 during Sprint's holiday special, and it's my first phone. I've had it for about a month now, and it's been pretty good to me. The positives far outweigh the negatives, but here's a quick rundown on both sides. On the minus side - One common complaint about this phone is that the battery life of this phone does not live up to the claims. The documentation for this phone claims 2.5hrs talk time / 130hrs standby time, which may be true, as long as you leave it on standby the whole time, or make a 2.5 hr call as soon as you get it out of the charger. Personal experience has shown that 30-45 minutes of talk time over the course of 2 days on standby will be enough to run the battery down. This is fine if you're just using it to wander around town with, but if you're planning on taking it camping for several days to use in case of emergencies, you'll want to bring a couple of spare batteries or maybe a flare gun. So far, that's the only Major negative I've found. The sound quality is good; not stupendous mind you, but most of the folks I call can't tell I'm on a cell phone. The ear speaker is a little tinny, but you can't expect stereophonic high fidelity from something that weighs less than a burrito. 10/29/00 Update - I've had this phone 10 months or so now, and I went to use it the other day, and I noticed that the flip up arm on one side had cracked all the way through, which was kind of a hassle since I hadn't been treating it to any major stress. Then I went back to get is serviced and the service was no help at all. Apparently it takes a "technician" to issue the envelopes to send it back to the service center in, and needless to say, this was his day off, so now I have to make yet another trip back. What a hassle. If you need a rugged phone, skip this model. On the plus side - This phone rocks! It fits in your pocket without a problem. The voice-dialing feature is the coolest! Once you've got it programmed, you hit the Talk button for a few seconds, say the name of the person you're trying to call, and you're all set. The flip is handy also, you can open it with one hand, and unfolded, it's big enough to keep the speaker at ear level and the microphone at mouth level, which makes it more like a traditional phone. Also, it holds up to 100 numbers in memory, logs of your incoming and outgoing numbers, as well as a current balance of the talk time you've used so far. All in all, I'm pleased with the phone. It's only slightly larger than the Star-Tac (very slightly), has voice dialing, and costs $100 less. What more could you want? (Other than the Samsung 8500, which isn't out yet in my area) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90798 2000/4/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small good battery life problems with the key lock Full Review I fell in love with this phone I saw it in the display case at the store. There was this long line of the your standard black phones, and sitting right in middle was this little silver phone. It was small enough to fit in my pocket and exactly what I was looking for to replace the lumbering giant known as the Qualcomm 2700. The phone isn't short on features either. It's dual band, which lets you use the phone outside of Sprint PCS areas. The battery life is great as well. The standard battery provides 120 hours of standby time, and the extended battery almost doubles that amount. The phone also has a voice activated dialing feature. Instead of dialing a number or searching through the phone book, you can simply say the name of the person you want to call. You can only have a limited number of voice entries (10, I believe), and it can sometimes be tricky getting the phone to accept a name. For example, my phone wouldn't let me use some one-syllable names and if you have two names that are similar in pronunciation, it may confuse the phone. Another neat feature is the phone's ability to take voice memo's. Instead of finding a pen and paper to take notes, you can let your phone take them for you. The phone also has the standard array of features in most PCS phones today, i.e. wireless web, phone book, etc. I only have two real gripes with the phone. The first is that the keypad lock is too easy to accidentally disable. It's disabled by pressing the "OK" button for a few seconds. However, the "OK" button is exposed even when the phone is closed, and it's all too easy to have the phone in a position where the button is pressed down long enough and your phone starts dialing random entries from your phone book... The other gripe is the desktop charger that comes with the phone. It can be tricky getting the phone into a position where it will actually charge. It took me a few tries to get it the first time. There's a few other parts of the phone that visually look a little cheap (i.e. some of the buttons, the arms of the part that swings up), but the phone is in fact quite sturdy. Overall, a very good phone, and I have no problem recommending it to anyone. If you're looking for something nondescript, this isn't the phone for you (this phone isn't by any means flashy, but it's still different). However, if you're looking for something small and dual band, you can't go wrong with this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 90797 2001/7/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable lightweight issues with older phones The Bottom LineThe Samsung 3500 is a feature-loaded phone at the "right price". Full Review When I was looking to purchase a new dual band phone in December of 1999, I did quite a bit of research. There was a feature I had to have - the phone had to be a flip phone, first and foremost to prevent damage to the keys in my purse, in addition to prevent the need to constantly lock and unlock my phone. In addition, I really wanted the ability to see who was calling without opening up the flip; I needed a phone that would worth in both digital mode as well as analog mode; and the phone had to be small enough not to take up most of the room in my small purses. At only 4.4 inches tall and 5.5 oz weight, the Samsung 3500 offered by Sprint PCS had all of these features and more. This phone had it all - it was web enabled, a stylish silver colour, good talk time at 2.5 hours and good standby time at 130 hours, voice automated dialing, redial features, and a retractable antenna. The sound quality of the 3500 was also far superior to that of other phones I tried - beating even Motorola phones hands down. No other phone I tried out or researched had the amount of features the 3500 did for the cost - only $149. When the phone arrived at my doorstep two days after purchase from the Sprint PCS website, I was not disappointed. A few minutes was all it took to learn how to access the features on my phone, with minimal help from the instruction manual. I measure a products ease of use on how many times I needed to take out the manual; with only a few glances at the well laid out manual, I was good to go. The phone book was first configured - to my joy (and amazement) it allowed 179 numbers - each number could be up to 32 digits, with the description of the number allowed 12 characters. The voice quality was outstanding, even from indoors, and the volume went up quite high if needed. The display, a smallish 4-line screen (for text), was quite easy to read and was backlit when the flip was opened. In addition, as with the other configurable options, the backlight could be set in a variety of ways - from the light not coming on at all to the light staying on through the whole phone call. The main "ingredient" to get the phone up and running was free with the purchase of the phone - a desktop charger with room for a phone attached to the battery, and another slot for a spare battery not attached to the phone. Both batteries could be charged at the same time, without the fear of overcharging. A light on the charger would go from red to green when the battery was charged. Besides the visual indication, the battery would automatically quit charging itself any further, preventing many problems with excess heat, a lowered battery life, and even the possibility of fire. A hand strap that attached to the phone at the upper corner was also included, but seemed fairly useless - I didn't want to carry around a phone on my wrist all day, after all. The Samsung 3500 has a wide selection of rings programmed into the phone. Unlike some phones, however, new ring tones were not available for download (or programming). From classic songs to assorted rings, a new ring could be chosen for each type of call - this phone does allow for the ability to program a ring for calls that have caller id, calls that do not have caller id, calls you receive in roaming, voicemail messages, text messages, and pages. The main hassle with all of the options would be remembering which tone or song went with which option. Another "plus" to people in a classroom or meeting situation would be the vibrate feature of the phone - configurable to vibrate when a call or voice mail message has been received. Another added bonus to the phone most likely made business travelers cheer - the phone doubles as an alarm, allowing the ring or song of your choice to go off at a pre-set time. The other "plus" for the business traveler is in the form of a memo recorder - the 3500 will hold up to 10 one-minute messages at a time. An important feature of the phone has certainly saved many people hundreds of dollars. When in analog roam, each call made of received costs extra, in addition to your normal plan costs. To prevent accidental calls, the Samsung 3500 allows the user to set the phone to stay in the Sprint PCS area - disabling any roaming capability. If you would prefer not to disable the analog roam feature, you can set your phone to give an audible sound when it first enters analog roam, as well as when the phone returns to the Sprint PCS network. Of use to the wise person watching their minutes is the minute beep as well as the time tracker. The minute beep, when set, gives a quiet yet audible beep at every minute, allowing the user to loose track of time less easily than with no time indication. The time tracker starts when the number is entered and the "Talk" button is hit. It tracks the time on the display until you hang up, where it is viewable for a few seconds more. Because calls from the Sprint network are not charged if you hang up before someone answers, your time tracker will be slightly off, however, it's a good way to get the general idea of your monthly usage. It can easily be reset at any point you choose. The range on this phone is excellent. With the antenna fully extended, I was able to get a decent signal in analog mode from the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a favourite spot of tourists that has very few cell towers. Granted, the battery does not last very long when in talk mode on analog roam, but that was where the optional car charger came in handy. With my previous cell phone (a Motorola analog phone) I was never able to get a signal from almost the same spot, from the same analog provider. This phone has consistently been able to receive signals from the same provider when other phones have not been able to. This phone has terrific battery life, even with the non-extended life battery. I use my phone quite often and have it on all day (and night) - at most, I have to place the phone in the cradle charger for 3 hours every 3 days with fairly heavy usage. The battery life has been reduced quite a bit, which is normal considering the phone is now a year and a half old and still on the original battery. My Samsung 3500 is holding up quite well despite over a year of usage. I know there were issues with these first phones, but mine has thankfully not seen any of them. With the first production of these phones, the arm that attached the flip part to the main unit often broke (as was recently experienced by my significant other, also a 3500 owner). Under normal wear, many people reported volume getting dim over time, to the point that hearing someone on the other end was impossible. My phone has experienced neither problem, thankfully. The one-year warranty that is sold with all of these is adequate for the newer models, but often the older models broke just past that one year mark, forcing the customer to purchase a new phone. To top it off, despite dropping the unit from at least 5 feet off of the ground at least 3 times (remember not to try to hold a phone when the wind chill is -10 with no gloves on) there are no scratches on the face plate and only one small chip was created on a corner by the latest fall. The battery was knocked off in all cases of falling and I was paranoid my phone would no longer work - every time it turned on with no problems. I recently switched my Sprint PCS plan and thought for all of 5 minutes of changing phones to something "new and better" until I realized one important detail - there is nothing new that is better than my Samsung 3500 unless I switch providers and pay over $400 for a phone with a caller ID display on the outside. Because this phone has been around for longer than most, cheap accessories are readily available - leather cases, holsters with belt clips, hands-free car kits, earbud headsets, travel chargers, and wireless web kits for your laptop are all readily found. With the latest batch of 3500's having been corrected for the volume and arm problem, I highly recommend this phone. The Samsung 3500 is a small and compact phone loaded with features at the right price - perfect for anyone looking for a new cellular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90796 2000/2/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich compact durable an overall good value reliable stuck using it with only sprintpcs The Bottom LineI love this phone so much I'm trying to get my husband and parents to use them, too. Full Review I was a cellphone junkie. Every year I was getting a new cellphone provider and a new phone so I could be on top of the technology. I went through an old analog Cingulair phone, and was happy to see it go. Then when my year was up with Verizon I wasn't crying to see my StarTac go. About 14 months ago I got the Samsung 3500 when I switched to Sprint PCS. When the contract was up for the first time ever I kept the phone. This phone is a keeper! At one point last fall I had even lost the phone somewhere. This would be a great excuse to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest. I looked around and was surprised to find the Samsung was still not outdated. I ended up ordering a replacement one on eBay for $40 and I never regretted it. The phone is compact without being so tiny you can't hold it properly. In my opinion it was one of the best fitting phones for my hand. Too many phones try to either be inexpensive (i.e. big) or try too hard to be sexy (i.e. so small a child might have trouble using it). The 3500 was just the right size. I can talk on it for an hour without getting cramped. The flip-down design makes me feel as though the keypad is more protected when it's not in use. One thing I especially liked about the phone was the antenna; I can't seem to break it. I broke the ones on my other two phones just from carrying the phone with me everywhere. This antenna eventually got a little bit bent but it never broke or fell apart. The features inside the phone are amazing. The voice-dialing is a really neat plus I never thought I'd use. I can browse the web using the built-in webbrowser, and before I got my PDA I was using it on a limited basis for surfing the web. The Samsung 3500 was easily connected to my Sony Clie 760 PDA and it now gives me the access I need to the internet when I am on the road. Despite there being so many features, the menus are pretty well designed. The only drawbacks to this phone: I am stuck using Sprint PCS if I ever wanted to change providers. It doesn't have Infared (for linking to devices like PDA's). And the charging base is a bit clunky; at first I wasn't even sure if I was charging the phone right or not. Reception could be better, but it's hard to compare sometimes since this phone only works with one provider. I never know if it's the weak Sprint towers or it's my phone. Reception issues have never been a huge problem and in comparison to the other phones I've owned this one gets the best reception. Overall it's a good phone for the money. I'm trying to talk my parents into getting one when they sign up for cellphone service. Everyone should have one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 (used) 90795 2000/4/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life compact size great clarity the only thing i found that i don t like is that the phone sometimes cuts out temporarily during calls but this may be due to my local reception Full Review I bought this phone because I needed my own number, sharing an apartment and all, so I bought the Samsung SCH-3500 and haven't regretted it one bit. This product gives crystal-clear clarity and great mobility, as well as a ton of useful features. I carry my phone everywhere so friends and family alike can get in touch with me where ever I may be, and it's so light that I forget that I have it. Before I bought this phone I i didn't expect a phone battery to last that long, I thought one day, tops. but I was wrong: even the standard lithium battery lasts up to 4 days on standby, and if you get the extended life battery you only need to charge it once a week! I get compliments all the time about my phone from both friends and complete strangers. They say "where did you get that" or "you must be very happy with it." and why should I expect any different? There are tons of features on the phone such as voice-activated dialing for up to 20 people, a phone book that can store the names and phone numbers of 99 people, a lock to limit who uses your phone, 9 different ringer types and 4 melodies, e-mail and wireless internet capabilities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90794 2000/3/10 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 web enabled small voice activated portable very limited on the of rings it has tedious battery life The Bottom LineI give this phone a B+ it does its job and it does it well but it definitely loses points for lack of functionality Full Review I personally got my phone for $89 from radio shack because it was on sale. I was told it was an awesome phone and it was cheaper than the phone that I was going to buy, so I decided to go for it. One of the biggest complaints that I have over this phone is battery life. Since I am on the road alot I often need to use my phone and after the 3rd call or so my phone is dead. Thank God for car chargers! The phone is sleek and stylish and when I saw this I decided to go for it. I love technology and honestly wanted something nice to show off to my friends. (Luckily most of my friends are sporting Nokia phones)so I knew with this I would be one step ahead. However, when I compare this to the nokia phones I have to say I am a little jealous. This phone is supposed to cost way more than the Nokia's but it is less versatile. I am into how things look and how they "act". If it looks hightech than it should be. On my original phone (not this model) I had something like 29 rings. With this one i only have 4 songs and 9 rings. The songs aren't even good ones. My other phone played Joy to the World and songs that people knew including the star wars theme song. This one plays Fur Elise and kyungbokung. What is that about? I like gadgets that are fun. This one bores me. I can't change the face plate on it, the display window is constantly getting scratched from being shoved into my pocket and like I said the battery that came with it has the life span of a fly facing a windshield. There are nice things though. The web browser is a nice feature. I can get onto America Online and check my mail as well as check the weather for any zip code. But don't be fooled the web browser is actually costly so it is almost pointless to even have that feature. One nice thing is the voice activation on this phone. I can program it to call my friends so that whenever I flip open the phone and say their name it automatically connects. Very rarely do I have problems with the clarity of this phone. Infact sometimes people ask me if I am on my home phone because it sounds so clear. And when I go into a store and my friends phones are going into roaming or searching for their networks, mine is still operating like normal. All in all this is not a bad phone. But, let's face it. This phone is more for the 30 something professional who uses this for business or travel. Not too fun for the 20 somethings and under. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.00 90793 2001/5/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 useful cool fun attractive sound is somewhat inconsistent The Bottom LineIts great. The cool design and countless features makes this phone a great buy. Full Review What an amazing phone. I picked this baby up from a local Radio Shack, and I've never been able to put it down. But why? Was it the cool, sleek design? The clear calls? The e-mail, games, and news on the wireless internet? Or was it the glob of crazy glue that was in my hand at the time? Whichever it is, I love the Samsung SCH-3500. There's a million things to love, but since I'm a pretty lazy guy, I'll focus on just a few. First, the suave design. Unlike most flip-top phones, the 3500's design allows for the screen to be seen while the top is flipped closed. The advantage to this is that you can see who is calling on the caller ID, without having to go through the trouble of flipping it open to see the screen (hey, I'm lazy, remember?). Practically, this is useful so you don't even have to fully take the phone out of your pocket or carrying case to flip it open and see the screen, since it is always visible. Plus, you can access the menus of the phone with four buttons, the up, down, menu, and OK buttons, left exposed by the special flip-top (you may be worrying about those buttons being accidentally pushed in your pocket, but don't worry about it, its covered. Read on). This feature distinguishes the SCH-3500 from most other flip-top wireless phones. Besides the explicit screen, the phone has an overall attractive design, which you can see in the picture above. The attractiveness of this phone definitely adds to the fun of owning one of these phones. At the same time as being aesthetically pleasing, this phone lacks nothing in the special features. Getting back to the problem of buttons accidentally being pressed while the phone is in your pocket, there is a feature which nullifies this problem, and it's called "keyguard". What keyguard does is deactivate all of your phones buttons until the feature is deactivated. This is useful for when you don't want your legs or anything else screwing up your phone while you're doing your daily routine. When you want to use the phone, keyguard deactivates when you flip open the phone, or you can hold the OK button for a few seconds, and the feature will deactivate. WOW! Another cool feature that will leave your friends staring at their own phones with disgust is voice-activated calling. This feature allows you to program friends' names and numbers into the phone, so you can simply slip it open, say the name, and you're connected! Very la de da! Another very cool feature which I have been able to utilize a few times is the memo recorder. You press a button, and can store up to five recordings, up to one minute each. You can even label the recordings so you you can remember what they are later. The wireless internet is a feature that i love to use. It has links to most major websites, such as Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, some general news, games and features, and AOL. I personally use the AOL e-mail feature very often on my phone, and I love it. Some other features that I will mention are: the phonebook, in which you can enter over 200 names and numbers; about 15 rings to choose from, including vibrate; a call log; voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and three way calling; the SCH-3500 is a dual-band phone, allowing it to work almost anywhere in the US, and most major areas of the world; and the security features, which allow you to set up a code to enter the phone each time it turns on. There are LOTS of little toys to play with on this puppy. All of the design and features make this phone a force to be reckoned with. If you're in the market for a wireless phone, just try holding this one in your hand. Maybe there won't be crazy glue on your hand, but I think you won't be able to drop this one either. I wish you Good luck, good hunting, and a good future. Your faithful shopping assistant, Marc (Jfrink073) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90792 2000/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of neat features poor sound quality uncomfortable earpiece Full Review Looking at the pretty picture of the 3500 and the tons of features you get for the price makes you want to buy one. Well I was one of the first to buy one (Mid November 1999) for the same reasons and I wish I wouldn't of. The features are great but the earpiece is flat! Talking on a 3500 is like holding a piece of wood up to your ear. The way the earpiece is angled you have the keypad touching your cheek when you talk. The sound quality is the worst I have ever encountered. Dropped calls on a regular basis just 2 miles out of downtown Austin, Texas. I swear there is a little guy in my phone that turns on and off the mic during my conversations because my voice chops in and out on almost every phone call if I'm in a building. I have to walk around to get a "sweet spot" after saying "can you hear me now?" about 10 times. I know what you are thinking...It's just my phone. Well I'm on my 2nd phone because my first phone had a problem with the wire from the earpiece to the keypad. From the Sprint Reps this is a common problem. My 2nd phone was just as bad as the first. When I got my StarTac 7867 a few days ago I called my girlfriend from my office where I have called her previously with my 3500. Right away could hear all of my words without the chopping effect. So far my StarTac has not dropped a call or chopped words using it the same way as the 3500. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90791 2000/12/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 look sound feel functionality it s not free Full Review THE PURCHASING DECISION I needed a new digital phone, as I had moved to a new area, and my old phone was a dinosaur, and my old plan was expiring. I kept seeing this hot little Samsung phone, and I felt guilty, because I pride myself on buying items based on their functionality, but the ultimate coolness of the look and style of this product was swaying me. Nevertheless, I held my ground. Why? Because Sprint PCS digital service did not reach into an area where I travel frequently, meaning I would be doing an analog roam on those trips. No matter how cool, it wasn't functional, and there were other more economical calling plans on other services. But then it happened. The price dropped on the service, AND Sprint announced that service was pending in the relatively very rural area that I would need service. I wasted no time in picking up this little baby, and I have never regretted it for a moment, and I am one who is prone to a couple of weeks of buyer's remorse. THE FUNCTIONALITY The phone service is clearer than my land-line, I am never out of range anywhere in my Metro area, and I don't get drop outs. The sound is also good quality, and the receivers of my call never have trouble understanding me. The screen is always available, even though it is a flip UP phone. In its flipped up position, the speaker and microphone ends of the phone fit well to my face. The flip UP works simply and easily. (My wife convinced me that I needed a flip phone b/c of some interesting experiences we have both had by making unwanted wireless calls by accidentally bumping the "talk" button. I won't go into details, but one of my stories involves a men's room. :) WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT I love the way the phone works, and I love the way it looks. Did I mention that the phone has easy to use features and menus, including access to the Sprint PCS wireless web. I use the voice activation feature regularly. This modern marvel is also user friendly. There are no major drawbacks. As of now, I don't even use all of the several features, including the wireless web, but I love knowing that my phone can be used to access that, if I ever decide that I need it. ONLY FEATURE WHERE PHONE ISN'T EXCEPTIONAL Although the battery life is solid, I am a hog and would always want more minutes, but I am not complaining because the small battery is part of what makes the phone a very small package, which is another of its great benefits. ONE OF THE BEST PARTS One more reason I like my phone: Everyone I know admits that it's cool, and yet they realize I am not trying to be cool. It's the best. WHO SHOULD BUY THE PHONE The people who should buy this product is the vast majority of the public who need digital service where SprintPCS is available. Maybe some who need more minutes can find a phone with longer battery life; if you don't like flip phones, this won't work, and if you don't want people who see you using the phone to think you are cool, then this isn't for you either. BOTTOM LINE I obviously thought before my purchase that this was the phone and service for me, after doing weeks of research. Both the service and the phone have exceeded my expectations. The phone does everything I need and want and more, and it looks great doing it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 after rebates. 90790 2000/3/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 attractive design quite spiffy looking low sound quality in crowds low battery life inaccurate power indicator Full Review I purchased the Samsung after reading all the positive reviews on this website. I was, to say the least, disappointed. My two chief complaints are: 1) the battery life on the phone is pretty short. Moreover, the battery indicator on my phone did not accurately indicate the amount of power that was left. It would appear as if the phone still had quite a bit of charge left, but would go dead after a short conversation; 2) the fact that the speaker is located on the fold-over cover makes it rather difficult to hear the other person speak with clarity. You can't really press the speaker to your ear very hard, because the fold-over cover isn't all that sturdy. Moreover, the flat surface of the cover does not tightly fit over your ear so as to keep out the background noise. Imagine cupping your hand over your ear, but without a tight seam. Every conversation I had sounded as if I were speaking to someone in a club. It's not so bad when you're in a quiet environment. However, it gets to be a real problem in noisy conditions. All the background noise simply gets amplified to the point where it's hard to make out the voice of the person you're speaking to. I would highly recommend that anyone purchase the Sanyo SCP 4000 instead. The price is comparable, but it is hands-down superior with respect to weight, size, sound clarity, sturdiness, and ease-of-use. Moreover, the Sanyo allows you to save multiple numbers under the name of a single individual. With the Samsung, you have to establish a separate entry in the internal phone book for every number, which can be a real hassle if you have friends with numerous numbers to their name (cell, home, work, etc.). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 90789 2009/12/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features good price small profile retractable antenna can t feel it ringing in vibrate mode have to use sprintpcs service Full Review I did a lot of research before I purchased this phone, and among all the current choices, I think this has the best combination of features for its size. There are a few shortcomings though... What I really like about this phone is the profile. Small, thin, and easily fits in my pocket. The price was right too, I got two at Fry's Electronics, for $70 each after in store and mail in rebates. I was intrigued by the internet/web features, and the voice activated dialing. My opinions have slightly changed on the usefulness of those though. Let me just say that overall this phone is great, and you can't go wrong with it. But let me elaborate a little on the shortcomings.... First of all, the antenna. I almost didn't get this phone, in favor of the larger Sprint offerings, because of the retractable antenna. In fact, before I bought this phone, I asked the salesperson if I would have to extend the antenna to even have a good chance of receiving calls. He assured me no. Well, so far, let's just say that I _have_ missed calls because the signal was too weak, where if I extend the antenna, the calls come through fine. (Believe it or not, I tested this sitting at my desk at work, where the signal reception is mediocre.) I dislike having to extend the antenna, but overall, this isn't a major hassle, just a minor annoyance. Second, the vibrate mode. This is my "ring style" of choice for the workplace, especially during meetings. The problem is that I can barely feel it going off when it vibrates. I keep the phone in my front pocket, flush with my leg, and when it vibrates, it feels more like a tickle than what I would expect. My pagers from the past have nearly scared the hell out of me when they went off, with this phone, I barely notice it at all. However, I must admit, the ability to change the ring type with one button (volume button, when not talking on the phone) is excellent. There are a few other features of this phone which set it apart, the voice activated dialing, web features, and voice memo recording. The voice activated dialing is a nice feature, but I personally have not used it much. I personally would rather look through my phonelist in the phone, or punch in the number by hand. I also feel somewhat dorky talking into the phone to tell it who to call, but, that's just me. The internet features are very impressive. Believe it or not, you can literally check your Yahoo email from the stall of the bathroom. (Not that I have tried this... :)) Sure the screen is smaller than the bigger phones, but don't worry, it is still just as useful. A bit expensive though. Lastly, the voice memos are more useful than you may think. I personally didn't think I would need or use this, but more than once I have found it to be a lifesaver when I am driving and can't write down a thought. My only other gripe with this phone is the overall quality and coverage of Sprint PCS service, but that doesn't below in this review. :) Let me just say that in terms of cellular service, you get what you pay for. Or, to put it more directly, you don't get what you don't pay for. As a side note, the battery life is excellent, and the charger even has a holder for an extra battery so you can charge two at once. Overall: Great phone, excellent features (Internet, voice dialing, voice memo), great price Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90788 2009/10/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small design dual band good quality great features gimmicks limited address book new phones coming out soon may be Full Review Let me start by saying I love the Sprint Touchpoint.Let me add I hated the Samsung SCH-2000...in fact, it is the phone I traded in for the Touchpoint several months ago. It had horrible...well, that is another review. What I was looking for was a Dual Band phone similar to the Touchpoint, but with the size of a Motorola Flip. Also, I am very interested in data capabilities in the phone to allow connection with my Palm Pilot V. I like gimmicks, gadgets, things that look cool, things that work well, and things that don't break the bank. The Sprint SCH-3500 is all of these things. This size of the phone is what first strikes you. It comes in a compact silver shell with a flip up speaker, much like the ever popular Motorola phones you see clipped to your neighbor's belt. The color is a refreshing change from all the black phones you see today. It shaves a few inches off the size of the Touchpoint, but still manages to keep a crisp 4 alpha line display (plus icon line). The screen is certainly acceptable for what it has to do. Battery life has been above average. This is probably the factor I was most concerned about coming off my negative experiences with the SCH-2000. I have been able to go 4 days between charging the phone. This comes out to about 50 hours of standby and 1.5-2 hours of talking. That pretty much drains it completely, but that is fine for my needs. The charger fires it back up in about 1.5-2 hours. The sound quality is comparable to the Touchpoint as well. Some PCS to PCS calls sound a little...hollow? But I have always noticed that from time to time. It certainly isn't a serious factor. The SCH-3500 offers several "gimmicks" as mentioned before. It (in the tradition of the 2000) has up to 10 minutes of voice memo's you can record to yourself. "Note to self: Pick up bread and beer on the way home...." you get the point. You can also use this feature to record a call...not always legal, but helpful when a buddy is trying to give you directions to his new house. When you realize (in your car) that those instruction are horrible, you can hands free dial using the 20-entry voice recognition. "Call Frank". It is that easy. Speaking of address books, this phone has 199 entry spots (according to the box). Don't look for this phone to be your organizer Though...its phone book is only good enough for 1 line of text with 1 number. Go get yourself a Palm Pilot (see my reviews...ok, cheap plug). All of the other features are there...various rings including vibrate, text and numeric paging, data/fax options, caller id, 1 touch voicemail, call timers, alarm clock, one touch answering, security code options, backlight, etc. All in all it is a nice phone. Do yourself a favor. If you have a good phone, you can probably hold off for another year until some crazy stuff starts coming out on the market. But if you (like me) need a new phone now because you dropped yours into the Mississippi River, try the Samsung SCH-3500! I believe (at least through Sprint) you can presently get an additional $30 rebate...not a bad deal! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 90787 2000/7/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many cool features not found elsewhere quiet no games Full Review I have been a subscriber to Sprint PCS but did not get this phone until I saw it in action when one of my friends bought it. I was impressed right away. Aside from it's stylish looks it has numerous handy features that make it one of the more popular phones around. One of the features that sets it aside from other phones it's ability for voice recognition. Once you have a number in your phone book, you can record the persons name, then dial it again simply by restating the person's name. This can be handy with a headset while driving. However it does not work perfectly. It takes practice to get it to work because you must pronounce the name very closely to the way you recorded it. If you can tackle this barrier it can be handy. Other voice feature is the ability to store up to 8 minutes of voice memos. This is good for remembering little things to do. These messages are not stored on the phone themselves, but on Sprint's computers which means you must be in a digital service area to record or play them back. Don't think you'll be afraid of using this in fear of using up all your airtime minutes because it does not deduct minutes while using this feature. This feature can also be used to record phone conversations, which I have found particularly useful when getting directions to somewhere. One thing to note about the conversation recording is it does not record anything you say while doing this; it only records the other party. Another state of the art mobile technology it boasts is access to the Internet. This can be handy for checking email, news headlines, stock prices, or movie times. One feature I like of this is access to online yellow pages where you can, for example, search for pizza places in your zip code, select what you want, and press talk and it dials the number for you. Don't get sucked in to pointless surfing through this because access to the web DOES take airtime minutes. This becomes a concern if you wanted to use this to type emails which are slow and cumbersome entry with the 12 key keypad. Other neat features are the ability to send/receive faxes and data files with an add-on computer component and software. Again this requires airtime minutes and you must buy the computer package which is separate (and around $100 I believe), built in vibrating ringer alert, and a good battery life. I'm not sure what the rating is but the phone that came with my battery lasts about 3 days with charging and moderate use. There are three small things that bother me about the phone. It does not have a quick access to redial. You can press the sequence MENU, 1, 1, TALK, but I preferred the TALK, TALK access method of my previous phone. Also I have found at times it can be hard to hear on the phone because it is relatively quiet. Also, unlike the Nokia's, there are no games. I have found a few online games, but there is the airtime concern then. Despite these small drawbacks, I am not sorry I got this phone and am very happy with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90786 2000/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 affordable unique flip style dual band bulky compared to others Full Review The new Samsung SCH-3500 cellular phone is a must for: The Busy Executive, The average American rushing to meet errands, or for parents to simply keeps "tabs on their teens." In the new age of wireless Web the 3500 has it all. Access to over 13 different important aspects of todays society courtesy of the Yahoo browser. Get up-to the date stock quotes, review weather, check sports scores as well as info that is happening in our world today. Over 13 different ringers, as well as a vibrate feature which is available in public places as well as 7 different message tones. Short, sleek, and sporty the 3500 is easily portable. With a 4 hour talk time battery the 3500 is the perfect phone to handle today load, it is definitely a cut above the competitors and raises the bar for class. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90785 1999/12/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 number of phones in telephone book dropped calls earpiece malfunctions bad reception earpiece volume Full Review I am going to go against what appears to be the general consensus on this phone here, but first, a correction on the website's description of talk time and standby. The Samsung 3500 has a total of 2.5 hours of continuous talk time or 110 hours standby, not the 4.5 talk and 10 day advertised on this website. The 4.5 talk/10 day standby can be obtained only with the extended lithium ion battery which does not come standard with the phone and which costs an extra $70. PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS PHONE!! Since being forced to trade it in for my Motorola Startac it has been nothing but a source of stress and frustration. It is the hottest phone on the market right now but the momentum caused by word of mouth has caused many to overlook its negatives. Overall, despite the phone's "Clean/Tight" look, it is a cheaply built phone. My list of complaints is endless. I have had 4 different phones so far, my favorite being the Motorola Startac and least favorite being the Samsung 3500. Also, because of my occupation which I will choose to omit, I have had the opportunity to test all current models and hear customer feedback. Out of all current phones, the one with the most number of dropped calls is the 3500. The reception is also the worst....don't believe it when they tell you it is the 'service', not the phone. Different phones do have varying degrees of reception. This would be the biggest complaint on the 3500. Also, the earpiece is the worst of all current models. The car I drive is louder than the average car because of the aftermarket exhaust. I have had no problems with any other phone but have had to call people back because I have been unable to hear the other party, even when the volume is set to HIGH. Also, a more recent problem that has begun to occur in the past few days with the earpiece has been the need to toggle the earpiece to hear the person on the other line. If pressed too hard against the ear, the earpiece no longer works. I have only had this phone for roughly one month and the earpiece is already not working!!! The only pro to the Samsung 3500 is the 199 telephone numbers able to be stored on it (20 of which are voice activated). Please!, spend a little extra money on a better phone and if after reading this you still do decide to purchase the 3500, please buy the extended warranty that many retailers offer (Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shak). This way, you will have the option of switching the phone out for a different model when you discover what many are discovering now (as the phone has only been out for a few months). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90784 2000/7/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 name recognition technical support features none Full Review As I gaze at the reflectivity of the grey outer covering of my recently purchased Samsung SCH-3500, I become enthralled with the happiness it constantly offers me. I bought it at an Office Depot, one of the United States's more prominent office supply stores, and according to the Sprint PCS representative there, the SCH-3500 is one of the best cellular phones on the market. I was first impressed by the exterior of the phone, so small yet still comfortable to hold. It is a metallic grey with clear buttons and a fairly large LCD display. It measures roughly two inches across and five inches in height, excluding the one-inch antenna that extends to approximately four-and-a-half inches. In effect, those who are incredibly worried about contracting radiation sickness from using a cellular phone too much need not have such a concern when talking on this one. After getting over the external beauty of it, I began to investigate the features the cell phone possesses. I became amazed that cell phones could do such things as check my e-mail! I was most impressed by this feature, so let me detail it before any other. The phone comes with a MiniBrowser that allows the user to access web sites designed for wireless web connectivity. Sites such as CNN, Bloomberg, uReach.com, Yahoo! Mail, and many, many others have this ability. Imagine being able to check stock quotes, weather, and national news on your cell phone during the ten-minute break in the middle of your Political Science class. It's beautiful to have the world at your fingertips. If you're not impressed yet, I must tell you about the internally stored phone book. It works in a very similar fashion to a Rolodex, but it's infinitely more portable. The internal phone book stores 179 entries, including phone number and name. With this phone book, the user is able to dial numbers much more easily. For example, if I want to dial the fifth number in my phone book, I press "00" and then hold down the "5" until it beeps. This makes dialing, especially while driving, much easier, faster, and safer. The phone book also supports voice dialing. For instance, I have a friend named Scott. When I need to call his cell phone, I open the flip-top and say "Scott," and the phone recognizes my voice and dials his number. The phone allows 20 such voice entries. In effect, the traditional Rolodex can be rendered completely useless by this small piece of digital equipment. Another feature I found to be interesting is the ability to send and receive faxes and data files. I haven't experimented with this yet, but the Sprint PCS representative told me he's found these features to be of great use. By taking a rough estimate at the intellect and overall ability of the sales representative, I can also infer that it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out how to send and receive faxes and files. Now, for a little bit of technical information. The phone has the ability to operate on two bands: the Qualcomm CDMA band at 1.9 GHz and the AMPS at 800 MHz. The display has 5 lines, one of which is used for displaying icons. The standard battery is a 1000 mAh Lithium-Ion battery, and the extended battery supports 1600 mAh. The radio frequencies emitted from the antenna resonate at 1/4 Wave when down and 5/8 Wave when raised. I have fallen in love with nearly every one of my new phone's features, and as far as I can tell, it will be reliable until the end. Samsung generally makes quality products, especially in the microelectronics field. My advice? If you have any use for a cell phone, you may wish to take a look at this one because of its relatively low learning curve and its plethora of features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90783 2001/1/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 many functions sturdy very sleek looking great for the price not as many attachments available as with star tac Full Review When I first heard that Samsung made cell-phones I thought, "What does Samsung know about cell-phones?" but after extensive - and I mean extensive - research on cell-phones and service I decided to buy a Samsung SCH-3500 from Sprint PCS. This has been a wonderful phone! It has many facets like dual band, sixty second message recording, 140 name/number internal phone book, wonderful voice-activated dialing and a mini-browser function to surf the internet from your phone. It also includes all the nice basics that come standard to pretty much all cell-phones these days. I have been nothing but happy with this phone. I use the message recording for everything from to-do lists to grocery lists. The keyguard function is really helpful if you're worried about a button being hit and accidentally dialing someone. At ten cents per minute or $10.00 a month, I have yet to use the mini-browser function but will be sure to update my review when I do. When I purchased the phone I signed a two year contract with Sprint PCS and they deducted $100.00 from the price of the phone, so it ended up costing me only $50.00 total. I have heard, however, that Sprint no longer offers credits on phones, but only on service. Same thing if you ask me! Using it as I do as a business and personal phone, it surely gets it's workout, and so far it has truly stood the test. Several people I know have the newer Star-Tac models of cell-phones and have been happy with them, but as far as I can tell the phones themselves are head to head in quality and facets. The only plus to owning a Star-Tac is the availability of extra attachments like the clip-on organizer and so on (which I must say would be nice!). The difference in money is considerable when comparing a Star-Tac to a Samsung, and I haven't fallen short of anything when it comes to my phone. Samsung also has the hands-free system that has the earpiece attachment which sounds pretty cool too. Overall this phone has served me very well so far and I would buy Samsung again in a second. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 (with 2-year credit deduction) retail is $150.00 90782 2001/3/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 viewable screen w o opening phone voice dialing voice memo slim design battery life signal strength questionable can t program 2 numbers for 1 name The Bottom LineExcellent time-tested phone in an industry where change is king. No points for uniqueness, but does the job better than most. Full Review The Samsung SCH3500 has been out for at least a couple years now and Sprint still sells it for $150. That has to tell you about the popularity and staying power of this phone. The first thing you notice is the viewable screen design of this phone. It enables you to see who's calling you w/o opening the phone to take the call like the motorolas. Yet, the earpice still covers the keys to protect them. A very ingenious design, unless you're one of the unfortunate ones to crush the screen since it's not protected. Not that that's happened, but the possibility is there. The flip earpiece has a springy action to it so that it pops up when you lift it. Some may feel it's cheap, but I don't worry a bit that it may break. Once you open it, the phone defaults into asking who you would like to call. And this voice-activated dialing is definitely the most used feature on this phone. You simply have to record a name and number in its memory, and then repeat it when you want to call it. It compares your command to its list and if they match, it will play back what it has recorded so you can be sure it's the right one, and it dials the number automatically. This usually takes about 1 second. I've used the feature in a noisy lecture hall several times and it seems to have no problem recognizing it. Admittedly, it has a harder time actually recording the name the first time around. You must be sure to be in a quiet area when you program it, and try to avoid names that are short, or sound like another entry. For one syllable names though, I've found it useful to just add a word, ie "Call Home" instead of just "Home." It also has a voice memo feature to record memos up to one minute. This feature gets occasional use from me, but is nice to have when you don't have a pen and paper. Being a Sprint phone, it also can surf the web, although I have never used it for that. Being a "power" surfer, I really don't see the future for surfing on a phone. Simply too limited. The phone comes with enough ring variations and a few songs if you're creative. Not a Nokia, but who really needs all those rings anyway? I personally stick with the vibrate feature. The address book can hold up to 199 names, although it's not possible to program 2 numbers for 1 name--a definite shortcoming. Otherwise, features are pretty much on par with everybody else. Its reception is usually pretty good, although the signal strength meter doesn't really tell the truth. I find in areas where I get 0-1 bars, even though I still have "coverage," I'm not going to be able to receive calls. I can still hear the rings, but answering the phone simply wastes a minute of airtime. However, it is still able to display that you got a message, so it could probably work as a pager. Battery life could be better, although it could just be that my battery is old. Making just a few calls per day will knock the battery down a bar, and my phone can't go more than 2 days w/o charging, even when I turn it off at night. All in all, it's a solid phone that everyone seems to still want. It is probably one of the more popular phones on Ebay, where I found mine for $66. I've had no problems with a used phone and for that price, it's a great deal for what it has to offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 66 90781 2000/12/5 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 light small makes an attractive paperweight doesn t work Full Review I purchased my first Samsung 3500 after my Samsung 2500 was lost while out of town, I had it a total of about 4 weeks before I was forced to return it for the following deficiencies; unable to maintain signal, unable to establish signal, microphone worked intermittently and battery would not hold a charge. In order to add colour to these failures, I'll add one anecdote; on one occasion it dropped and would not reestablish a signal across the street from union station in Toronto. That's the center of the largest cell market in the largest city in Canada, at the base of the largest communications tower in the world. Not good. The battery specs list 230hrs standby in digital mode. I never got more that 72 and toward the 4th week was lucky to get 18 hrs. I returned the phone for warranty service, waited about 4 weeks and received a brand new phone, no questions. It's day three now with the new phone and I'm charging it for the 2nd time. (remember the 230 hr spec?) I understand from reading other reviews that many are happy with this product, I guess I got at least one lemon, and number two might be charging right now. I will say this for it, it's got loads of features and it looks cool. If that's more important than functionality and reliability then go ahead jump in, otherwise look elsewhere. BTW the Samsung 2500 which I had first was excellent! It would hold a signal in a mine shaft! If this second 3500 is a lemon as well I'm going to insist on an exchange back to the 2500. p.s the opinion details regarding durability and clarity don't really reflect my experience but the selections shown are 'the most correct' Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90780 2000/9/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 looks cool for extra charge provides limited internet access unreliable horrific customer service for problems Full Review I was so excited when I bought this phone, I liked the look and it provided internet service for an extra charge. My problems with it started about a month after I got it. The car charger stopped working. So for six months I just used the home charger that came with the phone. At six months the home charger stopped working as well. The phone just goes on and off for about an hour with a stupid beep every time. My first thought was, "I'll just call customer service". This isn't as simple as it should be. There is no number, that I am aware of, for service inquiries. It's all machines, no individual to help you. You have to go to the PCS Sales office. When I called the Sales office the guy who answered the phone sighed when he heard which phone I had. He told me "we've been having a lot of problems with that phone" He continued to lift my spirits by telling me that I had no recourse since the warranty on the phone was for 14 days. He said even if they could exchange the phone for another they couldn't because they have been waiting for an arrival of new phones for months, and had no idea when they were expected. I assume these were for the poor souls who at least were in a better position than me since their warranty hadn't expired and there phone had broken WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF PURCHASE. Since I paid $150.00 for this phone I decided to go to the Sales office anyway. Imagine my surprise and disgust when ahead of me there were five other customers all holding the Samsung 3500. Each person had a different problem. The title of this opinion was taken from the man in front of me who told the employee "This phone should be taken off the shelves, you guys know it doesn't work!" The technician took my phone in the back, then brought it to me and said it was a faulty battery. She then told me that my car charger was "a cheap giveaway", I replied that I had purchased the cheap "giveaway". She said she wished she could give me another one, but you guessed it, they are out of them as well. She did however charge my phone for me, as well as give me another charger. I asked her "Did you test my home charger?", She said she did and that it would work fine. Two days later SURPRISE! It doesn't work, the same problem persists. Now I have to go back and start over. Save your money, your valuable time and DON'T BUY THIS PHONE. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90779 2000/9/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good value performance quality poor button placement sprint service Full Review I really can't write an opinion about the Samsung 3500 without commenting about the Sprint service as well. So with that proviso here we go! I've had the phone for a couple of months now so have enough experience with it to write this opinion. This is my third Samsung phone so they must be doing something right. I have owned their 2000 series models and got pretty good service from them most of the time. This new 3500 model is, however, head and shoulders above the earlier models in quality and performance. The sound is clear and understandable and operation is easy as usual for the Samsung designs. I do not like the flip cover that leaves the OK/(message box), menu and up/down buttons exposed. Seems that I am always picking up the phone and some strange stuff is on the screen. An accidental hit on the exposed buttons does this. Most other features are similar to my last phone including the voice dialing feature and all work pretty much the same. I guess if it were perfect you could not buy one because of the long lines at the store! The battery is much improved and does indeed give you long service in the standby mode. Talk time is good also. Overall I rate it a good buy for the price and could recommend the Samsung Model 3500 as a good choice for either the new or experienced cell phone user. I am not so glowing in my comments regarding Sprint,however. While far better service is to be had than in the early days, I still have far too many call drops, echo, distorted audio, missed calls, and similar problems .At least the Samsung is polite enough to say "call failed due to weak signal" than the former abrupt "call dropped" display. I still have call drops when driving and pass from one cell to another and coverage in Oklahoma is still not good outside the major cities and away from the interstates. At least it is cheap--I have 1500 anytime minutes for $75 monthly and am not charged for the first incoming minute. For my business this is adequate if not generous. The current deals are getting close to what I have had for several years. This price is the only thing that has kept me on Sprint. They have a way to go to make cell telephones perform up to the level of wired systems in spite of the high cost of ownership if you use it very much. Someday--maybe! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90778 2000/7/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activation cute flip alarm doesn t go off if using phone only one color Full Review I've had the SCH-3500 since Feb. now, and it has been reliable thus far. It is small, I can hear who I'm talking to, and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg. There are only a couple of complaints I've got...it only come in one color, the champagne, which is nice for the first couple of months, but it is already starting to get a little old, and with the leather cover, you've got a choice of black , so not much variety there. The features cover alarm clocks, but if you need to be somewhere or leave at a certain time, don't be talking on the phone when you're alarm goes off because it doesn't notify until you end the call. Other than that the phone has options so that the phone will ring loudly and the ringing options vary. I really like the voice activation that can be used, however I don't appreciate my boyfriend being able to mock my voice and have the phone dial the number. I have also had several other coworkers test out the security of this feature, and several others have been able to mock my voice and gain access to my numbers that are voice activated. The security in that is not so great, however it is really convenient when I'm driving or my hands are full and I'm not able to dial. I also like the memo feature on the phone where you can leave a memo to yourself, but you have to access the feature to check the memo. There isn't any kind of system to advise you to check them, so if you memo yourself you better remember to check back with them as well. The phone overall is a very good phone in which i have excellent service and the battery lasts, and it doesn't take very long to charge as well. It is a good phone to use if the Startac really float your boat. It's a good flip phone with good quality. I've had no problems, thus far, but wish that it did come in red.... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 90777 2000/7/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 very compact light weight bad sound small display bad ear piece Full Review Two weeks ago, I was in search for the perfect phone(No such thing!). I knew I wanted to stay with Sprint PCS because I've had service with them before. I knew their plans very well and service in my home area was very dependable and strong. Also their were no contract agreements, meaning that I can drop the service whenever I want. While looking at the phones Sprint offered, I came upon the Samsung SCH-3500 as my choice. I was already familiar with the phone, a few of my buddies had it already and I especially loved the voice dial feature. Well, 2 weeks into owning the phone, I came upon some serious problems. The first problem with the phone, was the horrible echoing I kept hearing while in use. I thought that it could have been the area where I was using the phone, but it wasn't. Practically everywhere I went, I could hear the annoying echoes. The second problem I had was the flimsy flip-open ear piece. I didn't like the feel of the flip at all whenever I used it. It didn't seem very strong or sturdy enough to use for a long time. I thought that it could break easily, pressed up against my ear while making a 10 minute call. Third, the display was a little too small for browsing the web. At the time of my purchase I wasn't at all interested in using the Web Access option at all so, I didn't care to much about the screen size at the time. It's a great feature that I love to use but the display will just make you go blind! Lastly, the phone book was not very organized compared to the Touchpoint's phone book. With the Samsung phone, attaching phone numbers to the same person was a hassle. I didn't like having, "Erik Pager" or "Erik Cell" as two different entries. With the Touchpoint phone, under the name "Erik" you could store up to 5 different telephone numbers. This phone did have some good features. Voice dial worked very well with me, even in places with high background noise. It's very compact and doesn't bulge out of your pockets. Voice memo was very good. But that's about it. This phone falls way too short from it's sleek looks. I returned the phone a couple days ago in favor for another Samsung phone the SCH-8500. I simply love this phone, it's very strong and has all the features that I want. Voice clarity has been greatly improved in this version. I believe Samsung has taken in all accounts of the worse in the SCH-3500 and greatly improved upon it and came up with the SCH-8500. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90776 1999/11/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrates screen visible when closed dual mode long battery life not quite as small as the startac Full Review I used to own the Qualcomm Q phone. It was adequate, but had several annoyances (see my review of the Q-phone). I recently switched to the Samsung phone, and it is better in every way than the Q-phone was. They've found ways around every single annoyance I had with the Q-phone and added new features -- all for under $100 (after rebates - $30 in-store and $30 from Sprint). My only issue is that it isn't quite small enough to compete with the StarTac. However, it still fits in my pocket. To be more specific about the important features: 1. DUAL MODE! If you are not in the Sprint PCS network, it will switch to analog calling mode. The Q-phone & Motorola StarTAC are PCS digital network only. 2. The screen is visible when the phone is closed, so you can see the caller ID before you pick up the phone (also unlike the Q-phone & StarTAC). You can also set it to ring differently if the caller is in your list of stored numbers. 3. Battery life -- 2 and a half hours talk time, 4 days standby, just like the new Nokia series. *** There are also a bunch of cute, nice-to-have features, which in my mind aren't as critical: 4. Voice-activated calling -- store up to 20 of your numbers as voice activated and you needn't dial them, just say the name. Great for those of us who use the phone in the car. 5. Built-in Web-browser (but Sprint is still charging $120 a year for the right to use it, so I don't find it that exciting). 6. Minute counters that figure out what your bill should be before you get it, so you can see when you're getting close. 7. Auto-hibernate when it can't find a signal. When I was deep in buildings with no reception, my Q-phone would eat its battery in about 1 hour because it kept using all its power to find a signal. When this loses its signal, it only polls every once in a while unless you try to use the phone. As I mentioned at the beginning, the size means that it still fits in my pocket, but it's not quite as tiny as the StarTac. The reception appears reasonable (stronger than the Q-phone, about the same as the StarTac), and the sound is plenty loud. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 (after rebates) 90775 2000/12/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 free long distance features no contract usability style nyc reception bad short battery life Full Review You can't really write a review about a cell phone by itself, because a cell phone by itself it as useful as a doorstop without any service. So this is actually a review of the SCH-3500 and the Sprint PCS Service in the NYC Metro Area. As a background, I've used an Ericsson AF738 analog in the San Francisco Bay Area on CellularONE, then a Nokia 6160 tri-mode with AT&T Wireless Services in the NYC Metro area. This is my third phone/plan. =The Phone= First, the phone. I used to own a Nokia 6160 from AT&T Wireless Services. That was a nice phone, and a decent service (but locked into an annual contract and I wanted a web-capable phone). I decided to give Sprint PCS a try since they have no annual contract (+1 point), free long distance (+ another point), web-capable phones (+1). The Samsung caught my eye because of its stylishness. And also the flip "up" earpiece was a welcomed feature (my Nokia did not have a flip and it would dial numbers in my phonebook by accident if I sat in a wrong position). The address book is great, even though it assigns numbers to the entries, they are sorted by name alphabetically. Old Ericsson phones (I used to have an AF738 mini-analog) sorted them by entry #, and who in the world remembers whether you entered Sally at #50 and Bob at #38? The one-touch voicemail feature is nice. No need to enter a passcode when checking voicemail from your phone (unlike AT&T). There is a "voice-dial" feature where you flip open the phone and it asks "Who would you like to call?" and you say "Mom" and it'll dial the number for you. You can disable/enable this feature through the menu control, but you need to be in the Sprint PCS network to use it (i.e. cannot use in analog roam mode). The number pad is nice and big, the screen is big enough to read text. The buttons aren't as "touchy" and "cushy" like the ones on my Nokia 6160, but it's still better than the tiny ones on the Motorola Startacs. I wish the screen displayed more lines, for web-browsing, but I like the fact that when you have the flip down, you can still see the screen (unlike Startacs, for example), which lets you take a look at the time, or caller ID of the person calling you before flipping open the phone to answer it. The retractable antenna is a good thing, considering all the talks about radiation and cell phones: it points away from you, so it should be pretty safe. The rubber on the earpad makes it comfortable, and the strap holder is built-in, so you can accessorize your phone with cute little straps (usu. found in Japanese and Korean stores): Hello Kitty, or little bears, or ducks, etc. Perhaps not for the business professional, but great of students and teenagers for the cute factor. The phone is lightweight yet doesn't feel too light (Startac makes me feel like it's going to drop from my hands and it feels like a toy). I keep it in my pocket with the phone in vibrating mode (yes, vibrating mode is built in, a must for NYCers and people with the phone on at work). I like the desktop charger, which lets you charge an extra battery while you charge the phone. And it holds the phone in place too. The bad things about this phone: 1. Battery life: My Nokia would go for about 5 days with usual amount of calls without a recharge. This phone, on the other hand (I have it set not to roam (i.e. only in digital mode and only in Sprint PCS mode) will last the workday and would need a recharge: that's a measly 10 hours or so, with about 5 minutes of calls in the day (my average). One factor is that it's always "searching for service" because I have it set not to roam, and I'm underground for about 1 hour total in the day (subway, train, etc.) where the phone doesn't work [more on that under the service section]. 2. Desktop charger: Well, you see I like the desktop charger, but when you're travelling, it's too big. You miss the simple plug-in chargers. You can buy them as separate accessories, however. 3. Text messages: Whenever I get a page or text message from someone calling from another Sprint PCS phone, it doesn't display the text or callback number: it just says "PLEASE CALL" which is not helpful. This actually may be a service-related issue, not a phone related issue... 4. Ringer Tones: Not enough of them. Maybe I got spoiled because my Nokia had like 30 different ringer tones! But they should have included more tones, or let you program them. It's not an issue for me, as I keep my phone on vibrating mode all the time. =The Service (Sprint PCS, NYC Metro)= The Sprint PCS service in the NYC Metro area is not that good. Like someone else said in their review, ALL wireless providers in NYC need to improve their service and reception in general. Yes, Manhattan has a lot of tall buildings and a lot of people are underground (subways, train stations, etc.), but they just need to install alternative devices to allow cell phones to work! I mean, in Seoul, Korea (a major urban area), the cell phones actually work BETTER underground and in the subways! That's because they put wiring in the stations, something that NYC providers maybe don't have the money to do, or is hard to do (the subway system *is* over a 100 years old...). That being said, the coverage of Sprint PCS compared to other NYC Metro providers is not good at all. They have limited coverage in my hometown on Long Island, New York. They have NO coverage at Penn Station (LIRR Train Station, underground, at 7th and 34th Street) while AT&T and Bell Atlantic (Verizon) does: analog mode only. I *could* allow roaming on my phone, but why pay for service in an area where other providers provide the service without fees? This is the disadvantage of the "all-digital network built from the ground up" (TM) that Sprint PCS hypes in their ads. It's all digital. So they have no analog networks. You have to roam and use AT&T's analog network in areas where digital doesn't work, like in the subway stations, in Penn Station, certain areas of Manhattan, certain areas of Long Island. And roaming isn't cheap, as I found out. This is why I regret having switched to Sprint PCS. AT&T was much better in this way. Everyday, I hear and see people on their non-Sprint PCS phones talking away at Penn Station, while my phone is pathetically "Searching for Service" and depleting its battery trying to do so... In summary, if you're a commuter like me, don't get Sprint PCS, unless you are prepared to pay a lot of ugly roaming (analog) fees every month. Get a plan with a provider that owns both digital and analog networks (which is everyone else but Sprint PCS): AT&T, Verizon, GTE, etc. But, the advantage of the PCS network is for travelling people, busines people, etc. If I were to go back to the Bay Area (which has Sprint PCS coverage) and take this phone with me, I get charged no roaming fee, no long distance fee, and I get all access to my PCS services (voicemail, web, email, etc), as if I was in my "home" area. That is great! (Update 12/5/2000): Case in point, I had a layover at the Chicago O'Hare airport from my Seoul to New York flight. I turned on my phone, and yes I was in a Sprint PCS area, and I checked my voicemail messages, wrote a quick text message via the web browser, and made calls to New York, all without extra (roaming) fees or long distance charges. To be fair, AT&T does have a similar plan as well (OneRate) intended for business travellers, but it's much more pricier than Sprint PCS's. Again, the no-contract plans are a great idea, as I am a young person who moves around a lot, and I don't want to be stuck with old technology for too long. The way it works is that you pre-pay the month before the month you want to use the phone: the bill comes to you on August, for example, for you phone use in September. Any minutes you go over + those ugly roaming fees shows up on the next bill. The Sprint PCS website is good for managing your account, looking at your bill and minutes, and retrieving and cleaning up your email box. Online customer service is fast to reply and helpful. Phone customer service is good too, much better than AT&T's. =THE VERDICT= The phone itself is a great, stylish phone that is very usable. Battery life could be better, but it's a good value for a lightweight, small phone. If you're in the NYC Metro area, the service coverage and reception is not that great, especially for commuters finding themselves often underground in subway stations and Penn Station. But the no-annual contract plans and free long distance and free roaming within the Sprint PCS network makes it a good choice for business people and people on the move. If you're in a city other than New York, the plan is good. Friends in the San Francisco Bay Area say that Sprint PCS is the best service/reception out there, so that's a stark contrast from their service in Manhattan and Long Island, New York. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90774 2000/11/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 web accessvoice dialling bad reception bad support Full Review I bought this right when they came out and was really pleased it at first. The phone has great features like the voice recognition dialling and the internet access and the cost of the phone is very aggressive. What happened next was disappointing. I had the phone for about 5 weeks and I just wasn't getting great reception. Allot of my calls were being dropped and the voice mail symbol would not go away. I called Samsung and they were not willing to assist me saying that it is the responsibility of the store to help me. The store (Bell Canada) would not assist me either because I was over 30 days to do an exchange. I then called Samsung back spoke to a manager and was told once again that Samsung is not responsible for there own bad product. Go figure !?!?! Bell would only by able to assist me if I could part with the phone for approx 3-6 weeks while they send it in for repair. This phone is all I have and I can't do without it, so I could not get it fixed. I am still currently trying to find a way to have this phone repaired or get a new one. I have to say that Bell has no customer service qualities and Samsung should learn to have some kind of responsibly for there bad products. I have not dropped the phone or had any damage to it so I don't know why it suddenly had bad reception. So in conclusion I just want to say for the 2 good feature the phone offers you are giving up the most important of all and that reception. I've seen better and the salespeople should if they are honest agree. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90773 2000/10/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice activation sound quality Full Review Once I graduated high school, I knew that I would need a reliable phone to use at college in order to keep in contact with everyone. After doing quite a bit of research I decided this would be the best phone for me. The Good: Voice activation. When I heard this I thought to myself "how cool is that?!?!" This is such a great feature, all I have to if flip the phone open, say a name and then make the call. It couldn't get any simpler. It's easy to program and it hardly ever screws the name I'm looking for up. Second, I always seem to be getting good reception (It could be that I'm in a big cellular hotbed...San Diego) so I don't need to use the dual band (digital and analog). However if I really need it, it's there. The phone is also wireless web ready. This isn't included on my plan so I don't use it. There are countless numbers of ring types and about four songs. There is a vibrate mode when you're in quiet situations. Also the battery is pretty good. It lasts about six to eight hours depending how much you talk. Lastly, there is a memo just in case there's something important that you have to remember. The Not so good: Perhaps my largest complaint about this phone is the sound quality. It isn't bad, but the speaker is on such a thin part of the phone it isn't a good as it should be. Normally I can hear fine, the problem is though that there's too much treble and not enough bass. The second complaint I have is the key pad. It seems when I enter a number in real quickly it takes the display a little while to register the numbers in. Lastly, while this phone has a vibrate feature for incoming calls, it does not have one for incoming voice mail. There's been a few times when I've gotten unexpected voice mails when I thought my phone was on vibrate. While none of these problems are too severe, I know that I'll be looking for a phone that fixes these problems next time. Overall I am totally satisfied with this phone. I think for the price it's a great deal. However if you spend fifty dollars or so more you'll be getting an awesome phone and most likely not as many of these problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90772 2000/2/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good audio compact lots of features microbrowser gets annoying at times uncomfortable earpiece The Bottom LineFor the price, this phone gives you a lot of oomph with an overload of features Full Review I decided to get this phone with Sprint PCS service because I got fed up with Verizon Wireless and their faulty service. I was drawn by the free long distance, the wireless web, and their extensive coverage here in MA. I also had heard great things about the Samsung SCH 3500 and how it is an all-purpose phone. I was not disapointed. This phone has everything: voice dialing, voice memo, web browser, long battery, vibrator alert, dual band capability, and its all wrapped up nicely in a compact design. I particularly like the voice dial feature. This is not the feature Sprint PCS advertises on their TV commercials. This voice dialing is something you don't have to pay extra for. For this, you record the name of the person (or the location, like "home"), and enter the phone number. That's it! You can program the phone so every time you flip the phone open to make a call, it will ask you in a nice friendly female voice "Who would you like to call", you say the name and it will dial it for you. That's it! This is a convenient feature for people who need to make a call while driving so one doesn't have to take their eyes off the road to dial a number. However, this feature is not flawless. If you are in a crowded area, it might not recognize the name, and on top of that, it will not recognize every name. In recording names, I got somewhat frustrated by the fact it would not let me record the name "dylan" so I had to resort to his nickname "spooky" but that is a minor detail that I can get around. Also, while the Sprint Voice Dial service lets you record up to 500 names (or some unneeded number like that), this phone only lets you record up to 20. While this is more then enough for me, it might not e enough for hard core cell phone users who have nothing better to do then record 500 names for their dialing pleasure. But whatever floats your boat! One of the more pointless yet cool features of this phone is the voice memo feature. There is a little button on the side of the button that, when pushed, will let you record up to a minute of a voice memo. Pretty nifty, huh? Just speak into the mic and voila, a reminder that you have to buy soda on the way home from work. Well, maybe it's not pointless, but it's certainly a feature I wouldn't have missed. I still have yet to use it, but I'm sure it will come in handy later on in my life. My previous phone was the bulky Qualcomm 860, that I bought 2 years ago with my Verizon Wireless account so the wireless web is new to me and I love it. However, the service is not part of the phone, but is part of the Sprint network so I will keep to the browser itself. I don't like it. If you go to check your email on, oh let's say, Yahoo! It is very annoying to go to another website, you have to hold the CLR key down and wait a couple of seconds. I have gotten used to this, but at first it was very annoying. Another annoying feature is that typing is a real annoyance. To write a single line in an Instant Message of email takes 2 minutes! You might as well call the person up and talk to them instead of typing on the phone. It would have been better if the phone had some sort of voice to type software that would take your speech and convert it to text like that ViaVoice program, but alas, it doesn't. But again, that's a minor problem since I don't type on the phone all that much. But I do have one major problem with the phone: the earpiece. In all of Samsung's design glory in making this phone, the had to make the single most uncomfortable earpiece known to mankind! Just talking on the phone with that earpiece for 5 minutes hurts my ear. I don't even use the earpiece anymore; I just use the hands free headset you can buy extra at any Radio Shack. If you make short calls or use the hands free headset, it won't be problem for you. But if you want to make long calls with out the headset, good luck! Overall, this is a good, quality phone overloading with features. Just to sum up the features: Microbrowser, Voice Dialing, Voice Memo, Alarm clock, Vibrator Alert, Various ring tones (including musical), Data/Fax service, Phone Book, and a Call log Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90771 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great dual band phone only one person can use voice dial up feature Full Review I first went into the store to purchase a pager for those little emergencies that often arise. I ended up with this phone and a pager. I was happy that I did. Although this phone set me back 149.00 I was lucky that I went in when I did. I got $100.00 rebate.And only paid $49.00 for the phone itself. ( although I did add a few things for the phone like a leather case). which is extra I love the fact the main feature which is voice recognition dialing. The only downside to this is that it only works for the person who programmed it. I love the look of the phone. I bought a leather case for it as well which will save on the dings and dangs of everyday use especially when my 2 year old daughter drops it once in a while. (like it's her phone) I love the fact that my grandma can email me on it when I am not home and she knows it. I went with the lowest paid minutes plan there was at that time which was $29.99 for 500 minutes, which in turn breaks down to 250 daytime (7am-7pm) minutes and 250 weekend and evening minutes.And no extra charge for long distance calls.I no longer have long distance on my regular phone. I had my phone a month and still have around 300 minutes I didn't even use yet I have 2 days to use them up,, no rollover minutes here ( that sucks). I like that different phone rings you can choose from. The type of ring each call gets like with caller ID or without can each have a separate ring so you can tell my the ring whether or not to bother picking the phone up.For me if you don't display your number I won't answer. I like the other feature that enables you to choose whether or not a password has to be used to actually use the phone. So say if I am with my little sister who is 12 and LOVES to talk on the phone, I can turn on the security feature which there would have to be a password entered before she could use it,,,I LOVE THAT!! I have never had any problems with the phone as far as clarity and sound. And I travel alot on the road and the phone is Dual band ( analog and digital) which is great. Most places I do travel with, my OLD Ameritech Mobile phone would not have worked, this one works anywhere.(With the exception of hospitals) It don't work in them because with most hospitals you are not allowed. Its so easy to program. The phone sells itself.The fact that you can store up 99 numbers on this model is great (not that I know that many people. But if you are a business person with a lot of contacts and need that many this is a great feature. Also what I thought was nice was that you can record a memo on the phone, so you can replay it back. There also is a greeting that you can enter to have the certain greeting for you everytime you use the phone. I recently bought my husband this same phone I got me and put the greeting to tell Him that I love him, he liked that. :) All and all a great phone, great idea, great service from Sprint as always I wouldn't expect any less from such an outstanding company or product like Samsung!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 90770 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light phone good price durability quality battery design Full Review I purchased this product after being extremely frustrated with Nokia products. In the past, I was an owner of the Nokia 6185 and the 6190 as well as the Qualcomm 2700F (flip version). With these phones, especially the Nokia I found the quality of reception poor. I had taken these phones to my local provider thinking that it was the reception. They were sent to Nokia and returned with nothing changed. My calls would drop off, the phone wouldn't ring, etc. So needless to say, I went to another phone manufacturer - Samsung. The Samsung SMC-3500 is a well designed phone for the busy person. It has features and quality that is much better than Nokia phones. The quality of reception is great, the battery life finally fits in to my outrageous talk time and it's not abnoxious when it reminds you nicely that the battery is low. It also gives you a few extra minutes to finish up that call before the battery dies. A nice feature and handy for those who are active car and cell phone users is the voice activation feature. Once the phone is flipped up, a friendly voice says "Who would you like to call". You then have the option of speaking the persons name ie: "Mom at home" or just dial the telephone number. Voice activation can also be de-activated for those who do not like the feature. The only con would be the design of the battery charger. Nokia had a nice "quick plug" feature, and the Samsung battery has to "snap" into a holder, but it's a very space effective desktop charger to hold your phone and charge another battery at the same time. The quality of rings are nice and pleasing to the ear, instead of abnoxious rings that many Nokia phones have. Samsung chose a very "business" like manner with their ring selection. There is also a choice for "silent, vibe and beep" mode for those interested. The phone is definitely a good investment and a great looking addition. Even with new phones coming out, I still love my Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 90769 2009/11/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good battery life extremely portable good sound minor user interface difficulties Full Review Well, I liked the small size, the long battery life, the good sound quality, and the minibrowser, but I really got it because it looks nifty. The SCH-3500 is a mighty cute phone. I love that it can fit in a pants pocket and I can still sit down. That it's tough enough that after three weeks of rattling around in my pockets, it still looks completely new. But mostly I love flipping it open and closed, watching its little screen light up. The sound quality is generally excellent, when the digital signal is strong, though it tends to crackle and break up at medium signal levels. The speaker can be incredibly loud, which comes in handy on a busy street, but I'm glad there's a volume control right under my thumb. Voice dialing works just fine, though I wonder why they say it only works in PCS service areas. Do they store the voice samples on the network instead of on the phone? Hmm. It's not perfect. The menu system is a bit awkward. Why do they hide the key numbers for the top ten menu entries, making it take twice as long to learn the key shortcuts? Why does it take so many levels of menus just to set ring volumes? Why doesn't the call log include the duration of each call? (You have to go to a separate Airtime menu to get only the duration of the most recent call.) I want a single, easy to find menu to override all the ring settings (and there's about a zillion of them) to silence or vibrate instead. Information such as numeric pages, phone book entries, etc. is often strangely formatted on the display, making it hard to interpret. But on the whole it's okay. It wouldn't be pocket-sized without the flip, but sometimes it's a bit awkward to get it open. The batteries are great. I leave the phone on all day, and it sits in the charger at night for less than an hour before it's done. I can't think of any practical use for the minibrowser, but I tried it, and it works. Maybe someday there'll be a reason to use it. Unfortunately, after just three weeks I'm returning the phone because of the poor quality of Sprint PCS service in New York City. But that's a different story. (See Service Plans/New York/Sprint) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 90768 2000/10/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial design features sprint pcs service plan Full Review I have had my Samsung SCH3500 for 9 months now, and I used it for 6. I recently went back to another service provider, and will be selling my Samsung phone. However, I switched because I hated the Sprint PCS service, I loved the SCH3500! It is a flip phone, which I always prefer to protect the keys. The voice dial feature is very handy, especially while driving, and works well. This phone also has a standard 2.5mm headset jack, so you do not have to buy a proprietary headset. Other features that were nice but limited are the voice memo feature - it allows you to record short digital memos to yourself, but for some ununderstandable reason, it only works when you are in a digital service area. Battery life is so-so, but that is to be expected with a dual mode phone. If you always stay in digital range, you will have much better battery life than if you bounce around between digital, analog, and no service areas. The reception is outstanding with this phone - in clear areas with a faint analog signal, you can still make calls. I got a useable signal on the top of a mountain in a wilderness area in Colorado! Might be a good "peak bagger" phone to have. Overall, great phone - wish I could use it with Voicestream! I recommend this phone to anyone who otherwise likes the Sprint PCS service plans. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90767 2000/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery lifesignal retention make it lighter Full Review After selling Cellular phones for a living, i had become used to shoddy workmanship and options that were useless <ie: calender/PIM> so when i went to my friends store and saw this weird little flip-phone, i said to myself "oh great! :( another squeaky hinged flippy unit that will bust within 6 months!". He begged me to sign on to the local carrier and try this phone for a couple of weeks free, and if i liked it, i'd pay then. if not, i don't pay a thing! so what could i say to that, except YES! I charged the phone in 3 hours with the included desktop dual battery rapid charger, and off to Ottawa i went. (some 500 kilometers away, along a very sparsely cellular-covered zone) Along the highway, we actually never lost a signal once! i was surprised as all heck, due to the fact that 3 other models of phone didn't hold a signal very well at all on my previous trips a month earlier with the same cell carrier. The battery life was exceptional, and during my whole week long trip, i never needed to charge it, not once! When i returned to Toronto and saw my friend, he asked what i thought of it. i told him that if he tried to take the phone from me, i'd ask him to step outside! he couldn't believe that i had said that to HIM of all people! Here is my ratings (out of 10, 1 being terrible and 10 being exceptional): Ringer - 8 earpiece (handsfree earphone) - 9 " (normal flip speaker) - 9 sturdiness of flip - 10 battery life - 10 ease of use - 8 menu system - 8 signal - 10 TOTAL: 9 Extra Features: Voice memo/dialing/in-call record Web browser Data/Fax capable 179 memory locations (1 reserved for voicemail w/dedicated key) this little wonder is now my favorite phone, and i'd highly recommend it to anyone that asks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 (cdn 149.99) 90766 2000/1/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 styling long list of features none Full Review I received this phone as a gift for Christmas this year and I am ever grateful. This phone is as good, if not better, than talking on a home phone. Everyone I call says the clarity is excellent and I feel like I am talking on my cordless at home, but better because it lacks the occasional fuzzy background noise. I have not even begun to tap into all the features this phone has. The voice-activation is especially a nice touch, it can be programmed to ask for a name upon flipping it open, which saves hassle especially when your hands are full. It has an extensive list for programming numbers of family and friends which is so nicely displayed on the screen which shows the name/number. Not to mention the caller ID which is displayed when a incoming call arrives on the screen. The variety of incoming call rings is also a bonus, it allows programming to distinguish between known and unknown calls as well as voicemail! It has three levels of volume and in particular it has a vibration selection as well, to put an end to the annoying movie interruptions. This phone has it all for the price, everyone I show it to falls head over heels for it. A must have if you are looking for a sharp and most importantly resourceful cell phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90765 2000/5/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 feature packed stylish look lotta bang for buck no holster antenna prone to breakage Full Review I change phones every 4-6 months. When I changed to this latest and the greatest I wasn't disappointed. Moving from the Samsung 2000, I found the same features in a smaller and slicker package with the exception of the web capability. Good clarity and plenty of features makes a highly rated phone. This dual-mode phone offers data connectivity, voice recording/dialing, 179 number storage, great battery life, and a built-in headset jack. One thing worth mentioning about the three buttons exposed when the phone is close: they're made of hard plastic. Why is this so significant? Most phones before this model (including the SCH-2000) had rubber buttons with decal labeling. These buttons would be prone to rub-off if you tend to put this phone in your pocket, or anywhere there may be at least mild abrasion. Its happened to me, and it didn't look pretty. The SCH-3500 uses hard plastic with decals inside - no more worries of worn-out buttons. The phone fits nicely around the palm, but tends to a bit slippery in its design when you transition from ending the call to swing it around to put back into your pocket. Maybe its just me, but I dropped it a couple of times already. Nicely made phone, but there are two complaints I have. The first being its antenna which protrudes about an inch from the rest of the phone. It is prone to breaking, whether dropped, or sat on. I broke it with the latter method. I usually slip this phone into my rear pocket (a habit since the Motorola MicroTacs), and sometimes sit on it. Its not that the antenna itself that broke, but the bushel ring that holds the antenna inside. That meant, it was 'unfixable,' without sending it back to the manufacturer. The second has nothing really to do with the phone itself, but rather the accessories available. If you purchased this phone, you will find an accessories pamphlet listing the various add-ons you can buy. One being a plastic holster similar to the one for Motorola's StarTacs. This would be a must-have, as it makes the phone easily stored, and accessible, as well has eliminated my antenna breakage. Although listed, it is not available. There is a leather case you can buy that has a belt clip, but I found it very cumbersome. The case is stretched around the phone with the face exposed, and installing it was a small chore. Installing, and uninstalling the case every time you charged the phone didn't make it worthwhile to keep, plus the belt clip made the phone stick out too much from the belt and go it the way of things. Despite the two little complaints related to this phone, I still recommend this product. Its combination of durability (my dropping it), functionality, and clarity is well worth the $149 it retails for. I purchased mine for $129 back then, and the regular price may have dropped by now. One more thing to add that seems to be a recurring comment with the rest of the reviews here is that it does seem to draw positive comments on its appearance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90764 2000/7/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 size style features so so functionalityterrible battery life The Bottom LineIt's a cell phone that works but there are better options out there. Full Review The Samsung 3500 was the first phone I used with my Sprint PCS service and I used it for a few months before it was damaged beyond repair (read: run over by car). Since then, I've tried the Sprint PCS Touchpoint 2200 and now own the Samsung 8500. However, this opinion takes a look at the phone and it's major features as well as my review of it's performance during the time I owned it. I must admit that I was lured to purchasing this phone initially due to the great amount of promotion it was given by Sprint. The Samsung 3500 is the reason I joined up with Sprint in the first place! If they are willing to sell this phone as exceptional, why it certainly must be! Though it's a phone that works, it's far from exceptional. Size I particularly like how when it is folded, it's small and compact and easy to carry in a pocket or bag and when it is open and in use, it's large enough to actually feel like I'm using a phone of some sort. Address Book The address book is good in the sense that you can store lots of names, assign voice-dial settings to each one, and it alphabetizes the entries as well as sorts them by number assignment. My only gripe about the address book is that I like to include all the persons in my address book by last and first name. However, if you have friends with lengthy names, it won't fit on the LCD display. Clarity Clarity-wise, the other party could hear me well at some points and other times, my voice would be completely digitized and hard to understand. There were also times when I could barely hear what the other person was saying. This was an problem that occurred often enough to consider better phone options. Reception Reception is nothing to rave about. I rarely got full reception or full "signal bars" but I always got some sort of signal. I never experienced dropped calls or faded signals but, after owning the Samsung 8500, I realized that there was better reception to be had that the Samsung 3500 just couldn't get. Battery Life If there is anything to be wary of it's the Samsung 3500's battery life. It boasts 150 hours of standby time but I quickly learned that my phone would last 13 hours at most. When I first received the phone, I fully charged it before use. After that, I left it on until the battery was completely discharged before charging it again. Imagine my surprise at turning it on to use for the first time and it took only 13 hours before I got a low battery indicator! That is not anything close to 150 hours. Though the constant charging was a burden, it was survivable. I contemplated purchasing a new battery ($69-99) but at that cost, I was halfway to purchasing a new phone all together. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90763 2000/10/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sharp looking voice activation tough convenient may be a little too large for some people slightly costly Full Review I bought my Samsung SCH-3500 about 6 months ago. This is an excellent purchase. The cost of the cell phone was 149 dollars at the time and I believe that it's down to around 120 dollars now. This phone has been incredible. It has superb features, reliability, clarity, and it's tough! Some of the most notable features are as listed: Voice Activated Dialing - the ability to pick up the phone and say someone's name in order to call them is a wonderful safety feature as it is easier than dialing while driving. Mini-browser - accessing the internet from your cell phone can be extremely convenient at times. Vibrator Pack - the option for the phone to vibrate comes in handy when it is necessary to receive a call but it is inappropriate for the phone to ring or the area you are in is too noisy. Phone Book - up to 179 names can be stored in the phone book, each entry can have up to 32 digits and the associated name can have up to 12 characters Memo - ability to use your phone as a recorder, up to 10 minutes of total audio or ten 60 second memos can be saved at once Various other features include the size and weight of the phone being perfect (light and small but not so small that it's difficult to talk on), ability to receive voice mails, text messages or numerical pages, a multitude of different ringing sounds, a 3-way conversation option, caller ID capabilities and it comes with a dual-slot desktop charger. I mentioned earlier that it was a very tough phone. True Story - I accidently dropped it in a small crack that dropped 2 stories down. The phone bounced back and forth off of both walls for a two story drop before landing pinched between both walls on pavement. I ran down to retrieve my phone expecting it to be in several pieces. Instead, and to my surprise it had only one small scratch on it and was in complete working order. That is one tough phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90762 2001/1/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 packed with features at a good price stylish fragile flip mechanism sporadic sprint pcs service The Bottom LineIt's small, inexpensive and loaded with features, but rather flimsy. Full Review I've owned the Samsung SCH-3500 mobile telephone for a little over a year now. For $150, you get a fashionable, compact phone that's loaded with features yet easy to use. However, it has a few problems that prevent me from recommending it. First, the good: the SCH-3500 is one of the most stylish and compact phones on the market. The titanium-colored case just could not be more techno-chic. And inside the pretty case are a host of cool and useful goodies. I especially love the voice activated dialing. All you do is flip the cover open and speak the person's name you want to dial (of course, you have to train the phone first and program the number beforehand, but it's very easy to set up). The voice recognition is very accurate, with only a few miscues, especially when there's a lot of background noise. The LCD display is visible even when the phone is closed, so you can view the caller ID information without having to open the phone. There's even a built-in voice memo recorder. Finally, the phone is web-enabled, so right out of the box, you can use it to surf the Internet. Of course, I'm not sure why you'd want to view the Internet on a tiny phone screen. I've tried a few times, and the experience has been underwhelming. And now, the bad: The hinged flip mechanism, which contains a switch that activates the phone, is very flimsy. In my experience, the flip lasts about six months before it breaks, forcing you to replace the entire phone. I've read several other Epinions reviews that report this same defect. The first time this happened was during the one-year warranty period. Unfortunately, the replacement phone is suffering the same defect, after the warranty expired, so I'm in the market for a new phone again. In addition, if you're determined to buy this phone, be sure to check out Sprint PCS's coverage in your area with other users of the service. The coverage maps that Sprint publishes aren't terribly accurate, and I've encountered big gaps and spotty service even in major metropolitan areas. Analog off-network roaming, although an option with this phone, is very expensive. If you can live with the idea of having to replace this phone after a year and live in a big city with Sprint PCS service, then the Samsung SCH-3500 may be for you. Otherwise, you may want to take a pass. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90761 2001/1/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features batteries may wear out quickly The Bottom LineThis is a great phone at an affordable price. Anyone can learn how to use it, and it comes with a ton of features. Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is the phone you see on all those Spring PCS commercials. Yes, its in them all. Turns out, there's a reason for that. The Samsung SCH-3500 comes with all the features you could want in a cell phone. There's caller ID, call waiting, various ring tones, phone book, and voicemail. Which are all pretty much standard with any cell phone. But then, there's voice activated dialing - a real convenience when driving a car. But wait... there's more. This phone has internet access, and even a feature that lets you check your account statement and pay your monthly bill online. Talk about convenience. All this for the reasonable price of $150. So what about the monthly charges? It turns out that Sprint offers some great deals on various packages. My package offers around 400 minutes each month plus free long distance for only $30 per month - less than my normal phone bill. If you're willing to sign a service contract for one year, you can upgrade to better packages as well. There is one downside to this phone, however. The batteries on these phones tend to wear out quickly. I'm not quite sure how, but my battery actually swelled and would no longer fit on the phone. So its a good idea to buy this phone from someplace (like Best Buy) that offers a service plan and warranty. Overall, the Samsung SCH-3500 is a great phone - one of the most popular phones for Sprint PCS service. Yes, there IS a reason it's on all those commercials... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90760 2000/3/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 alarms duel mode options voice activate dialing large phone book vibrate mode voice memos certain security features disable the voice activate feature Full Review I bought this phone for all the features. What I never expected was all the positive comments about the appearance by everyone from associates to strangers. I never thought of the 3500 as being a really "cool" phone as far as appearance goes but everyone else seems to think so. A week doesn't go by that someone goes out of his or her way to ask about my phone. This usually results in a short demo and a look of "I wish I had one of those." Great looks aside, this is really a super little phone. Besides being small it uses a Lithium Ion battery which is extremely light but still packs a big charge. It is advertised to last a 120 hours on standby but I have found it to be more like 80 hours. Typical recharge is around 3 hours or so. Some of the features that attracted me besides the small size were the fact that it is a duel mode phone so you can use it outside the interstate corridors and metro areas. This was important for me since I often travel to the more rural areas of Oregon as a part of my work. Most all areas of the country are covered by the older "cell" technology. The cell mode will drain your battery much faster then the digital mode though so I tend to use it sparingly. There is also an additional per minute charge for using in most cases as well. My two other favorite features are the vibrate mode, so you don't have to make a fool of yourself when you receive a call in the middle of a meeting, and the voice activated feature. The voice activated mode lets you identify words with phone numbers so you can say "phone home" and the phone will dial your house. A great feature in the case that you need to use the phone while driving. The phone can use voice activation for up to 20 phone numbers. You can enter as many as 200 phone numbers in the regular phone book and the phone has an easy to use search feature the will get you to the right name in a hurry. A little feature that I have not seen get much attention is the ease with which you can navigate the menus and dial using the keypad. This is the only phone I have ever used that I can easily dial using only one hand. Another very important feature should you decide to call while driving. (I rarely do this but ease of use minimizes the chance of someone else swerving into me then I am all for a simple to use phone.) The one problem I have with this phone is that there is a glitch with one of the security modes. I tried to use a security mode that only lets you dial numbers in the phone book without having to enter a pass code. I figured since most of my calls are to numbers in my phone book this was a good balance of protection in case the phone was lost or stolen. My thinking was a thief probably would not be interested in calling my friends and family. However this mode causes the voice activation to become disabled, even though all the voice-activated numbers are listed in the phone book! You can also access the web with this phone but I have never used this extra cost feature. Overall this is a great phone and I would quickly choose it again if given the choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 ($129 with a $30 rebate) 90759 2000/12/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 neat features good design relatively inexpensive somewhat uncomfortable Full Review I first came across my Samsung 3500 phone by accident when my service provider accidentally sent it to me instead of a Nokia phone. It turned out be a big break on my part, since I think the Samsung 3500 phone is much better than the one I had originally wanted. The first great feature is the phone design. As you might know, phones like the Nokia 5000 and 6000 series have the keypad exposed without a cover protecting them. This means that sometimes you have to activate the "keylock" to avoid accidentally hitting numbers while the phone is in your bag. Other manufacturers solved this problem by making a phone that flips open, so that no keys are exposed. The problem with this is that you can no longer see the phone screen when the phone is not flipped open. Samsung solved this problem on the 3500 series by making the phone flip to cover the keypad, but with an open space so that it doesn't cover the screen. This makes the phone much easier to use since you can do things like see if you have messages or see who is calling before you open the phone, while the keys are protected when not in use. Another very nice feature is voice dialing. After setting up the system, all you have to do is open the phone and say the name of the person you want to call, and the phone dials for you. This is more than just convenient, it is much more safe if you need to call from the road (which you aren't supposed to do, but the reality is that people will do it anyway). The Samsung 3500 comes with all the other standard phone features from different ring settings to caller ID. The battery of the Samsung 3500 usually lasts me about 4-5 days, although I only leave my phone on during the day. The battery charger requires only about 2 hours to fully charge. Although I don't use this feature, the Samsung 3500 is compatible with wireless web service. You can launch a mini-browser get online if you pay for that service. My only possible gripe with the Samsung 3500 is that it is not very comfortable to talk on. When there is background noise, and I have to push the phone to my ear, one of the edges sort of jabs in an uncomfortable way. You can solve this by getting a "hands-free" device which consists of an earpiece and a microphone that connects to the phone (this eliminates any brain cancer risk too!). Overall, the Samsung 3500 is a good phone with a solid design. I recommend it to anyone looking for a simple but good phone for a good price. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 90758 2000/12/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 reasonably priced comes with desk charger not the best menu design Full Review I didn't set out to buy this phone, I set out to buy a phone and ended up with this one. My reasons for choosing it where simple: It looked decent, I could have both active flip *and* see who it is that is calling, It is small, but not too small, it has a mobile browser and it plays music for its ringer (only a few classical pieces, but hey good enough for me!). I can't really complain too much about this product. I am a bit of a clutz, so it has stood up extremelly well to being dropped, the display is very hard to scratch, but the flip part is fairly easy to scratch. It has been dropped a great many times, but it works fine. I am very much impressed. When in areas that don't recieve a digital signal its battery life is reduced and if you go into buildings where you get no signal then its battery life is significantly reduced. I have about 6 hours of classes in the same classroom where I can't get a signal. If I don't turn my phone of before class, then I will have almost no charge left at the end of the 6 hrs (durring which it is not used at all). I love the durability of this product, I can't rave about it enough. It looks like it might be flimsy with its little flip cover, but it is very soundly constructed. My #1 annoyance with it is the complete bonehead who designed the interface. There shold be a button available when the flip is down to bring you back to the last menue you where at. What happens is you can get stuck in a menu with no way out unless you open the phone and press clr. A similar problem is there with the missed call log. Most phones I have had allow you to scroll throuh the calls you just missed, but not with this baby. If you have missed calls it will tell you, and for a short time it will show you who you missed, but after a while it just tells you how many calls you missed. So if you acidentally hit a button (which will clear the missed calls from the display) or if you have a few missed calls (3 or so) you have to go the missed call log. Now this isn't so bad. Where it is extremelly annoying is the missed call log is organized by some mysterious system and not logicaly chronollogically starting with the last missed call. So basically it makes finding out who's call you missed a big hassle. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 Canadian 90757 2000/3/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight affordable many features short battery life especially on analog roam Full Review The Samsung SCH-3500 is one of the best phones on the market. I have owned Nokias, Motorolas, Ericsons, Qualcomms and Radio Shack brand phones. None of them can touch the Samsung SCH-3500. It is small and lightweight in size alone. How they packed all of those features in a package that small is beyond me. Voice dialing is extremely helpful when driving. The headset jack is great. It is the biggest reason I got rid of my Qualcomm. To plug a headset into my Qualcomm was going to cost a bundle because it did not come with a headset jack. The Samsung SCH-3500 includes the jack and located it in the right place...on top, not on the side like some phones. The controls are very easy to learn and maneuvering through the screens is a breeze. This phone can easily be handled with one hand. The best thing about the Samsung SCH-3500 is the accessories. Buy a kit and plug your laptop into the Samsung SCH-3500 and you have a mobile office. Or plug it into your PDA (like the Palm V) and you have a lightweight mobile office alternative. Or browse the web and your email right on the screen!! The web clipping features available today make the small screen perfect for any kind of browsing. In my opinion, this is the best phone on the market today. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.00 90756 2000/9/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 reliable fairly sturdy played out Full Review I bought this phone at the very start of this year, just before the cell phone craze and everyone and their cat seemed to have this phone. I suppose that makes me some sort of veteran. Overall I've been very happy with this phone but if you're looking for reasons to buy this phone, I suggest you consult the plethora of other epinions lauding this phone. Here are some things to temper their enthusiasm. 1) The Sprint-sold case for this phone is probably one of the worst inventions in the history of man. At first the case fit snugly, and required a fair amount of work to get it on - but I was willing to deal. (For those of you who haven't seen the case it holds the phone by its edges and has a belt clip). After a while though, the case started getting very loose. Then, one day running to catch a bus, it popped out of my case, hit the floor and bounced. To its credit, the phone was fine. This kept on for quite a while, and I think over the course of two or three months I dropped the phone almost a dozen times - once down a two storey escalator. Well, needless to say, the phone accumulated a bevy of scratches and dents. For the most part the phone held up well, and then two days ago, in my pocket, one of the hinges mysteriously broke - making the phone extremely awkward to use. Time for a new phone. The lesson: forget the case - you're asking for trouble. 2) Relative to the newest phones on the market, the 3500 is large, and bulky - forming an uncomfortable bulge in my suit pants pocket. 3) There's something fishy about the phone's software - fairly frequently when I miss a call, the phone doesn't tell me that I missed a call, nor is it listed in "incoming calls" (even though I clearly saw the phone ringing 3 or 4 times). 4) Lately I've started noticing the phone switches to analog roam in the middle of downtown Manhattan - while everyone else is yapping away on their cells phones around me. It isn't difficult to fix, I just have to power down and then turn it on again - but it's kind of annoying. Overall: A reliable, reasonably sturdy phone. Just don't buy the phone case. The price is pretty good, but honestly EVERYONE has this phone - pay the extra and get something a little different. Do you have any idea how confusing it is when you're on a bus and you hear your phone ring, and then realize, along with 3 other people, that its not your phone, but the bus driver whose got the same phone. I'm not even kidding. Please, please don't get the Samsung sch-8500. I'm getting that today and I have a feeling its going to be just as ubiquitous as its older brother. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90755 2000/5/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice design easy to use mini browser voice dial battery life The Bottom LineSamsung thought of everything here. Excellent features, Best seller, Nice design. Full Review Tons of features and a sleek design make this phone stand out among all others. The SCH-3500 is not only Samsung's best seller, it is also backed by Sprint PCS. Now lets break it down... Design The SCH-3500 was perfectly designed to provide users with the utmost comfort. The compact cell will fit conviently into the palm of your hand. It is light but sturdy. The outer shell is made of durable plastic to prevent any damage when dropped. This phone features the "Flip-Up" style for opening. The phone itself is a stealth gray color with a nice black keypad with numbers big enough to read. The buttons are firm to the touch, and will not wear like most cell phone buttons. There is also an head phone jack on the left side of the phone for head-sets. As we make our way to the back, we come across the battery. The battery last as long as any cell phone battery, the batteries lifespan depends on the amount of use one puts the phone through. Keeping the backlight on will also lower battery power. Features Clarity - The phone connects nearly everywhere without a problem as long as you are in range of the local zones. Voices can be heard without a problem, and you don't any annoying side affects like most phones. Sounds and voices don't echo on this phone, it comes through crystal clear...well, not crystal clear but just as good as a home phone. Voice Dialing - A nifty little feature added to more recent cell phones, it enables the user to program the phone so that when the user speaks, it will dial the number associated with the name. For example, if I want to call home, all i have to say is "HOME" and zing, zang, zoom BAM; it will connect me to my home phone number. Pretty cool huh? It can record up to 5 numbers. Caller ID - It is a nice feature, but beware of the surcharges on your bill at the end of hte month. Caller ID allows the user to view the caller's name before answering the actual call. This feature is found on most phones. Voice Mail - Set up a voice mailbox; and have friends or family leave you a message. You can only voice mail somebody when the phone is off. To retrieve your voice mails just press and hold the 'OK' button on the keypad and you will be directed to your mailbox. From their you can save or delete messages. And be creative, have fun with the welcome message. When friends call me, they listen to my version of 'WHASSSSSSSUP' before leaving a message. Address Book - The address book can hold many numbers and addys without wasteing valuable battery life. And you can also search for a friend's name, and the number and adress will come up. Accessories - Battery - Extra batteries start at about $70 dollars and can be purchased at Sprint locations nation wide. Shouldn't really need an extra battery unless the phone is under heavy use. Desk Top Charger - I have this bad boy. It charges your cell phone while in stand by mode. Charge it at night, and the phone will be ready in the morn' as you make your venture to work. Ear Microphone - It's all about "hands-free." The ear microphone plugs into the socket on the leftside of the phone. Clip the phone to your belt and use the microphone while driving. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 90754 2000/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 price features you get what you pay for Full Review I bought this (SCH-3500)cell phone because I started work in NYC and I travel home about every other weekend back to Northern Virginia. I needed a phone which will allow me to keep in touch with friends and family, and to call my business travel agent from Laguardia (when they inevitably screw me over and cancel or delay my flight for 5 hours...) This was my first cell phone, and so at first I loved it because it was so easy to use, voice activated dialing, phone lists, text messaging, etc. etc. why I hate this thing... RECEPTION After I moved into a new office (in NYC) I got worst reception. I would loose people (just about every time I called someone), or would not be able to connect, and people also had a hard time getting in touch with me. Originally I thought it was because of the fact that I was using Sprint PCS and the service was bad, but I work with 9 other consultants who all use Sprint PCS, and reception at our office for them is not a problem. CHARGER Another thing I hate is that Big Ass Plastic Charger they give you, I know this sounds like I am nit picking, but I don't want this hulk in my travel bag, why is it this big?? (cant they have a little cord like the star tac's?) i can't bring it to work or put it on my carry on, it is big and awkward. WEB ACCESS Also that "web access" doesn't seem to work (at all for me). I think I signed up for it, (Ohh it was easy to sign up), but as soon as I tried to use it to browse, I got nothing (unable to connect messages). I can't wait to get the bill so I can complain... SUMMARY To sum up, I think all of the features of this phone are nice, but in the end if you can't actually get in touch with someone and stay in touch with someone without getting cut off, what is the point? If you travel a lot, I also would not recommend this phone, you'll need to allocate space for that behemoth charger. If you are going to pay for good cell phone service, you might as well spring for a better phone which gets better reception (my co-workers use star-tacs, which seem to work nice). If you don't mind sacrificing reception, I've got a Samsung to sell ya... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90753 2000/10/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good features on the phone analog roam doesn t work most of the time poor reception drops calls Full Review I was so exited about my new phone, then I got it home and everything changed. I set up the voice activated dialing, which was really cool, but half the time it didn't work. You program in the name and number of the people you call the most, then when you flip open the hand set the phone asks you, "who would you like to call?" So you say the name, and then the phone is supposed to dial the number. Well about 60% of the time the phone would say, "That name can not be recognized." So you would have to do it again and again, or you would just finally have to dial the number. The real problems that I had was with the Analog Roam feature. This feature was one of the main reasons I bought the phone. See Sprint has a very small calling area, and a good portion of the time even when you are in there calling area you can't get service. But there are other companies in the area that do have service available in the area on there old analog towers. So the phone is supposed to switch to an analog tower. Now there are a couple of problems with this. One when you switch from the Sprint digital service to an analog roam you drop your call, then when you call back on the analog roam it costs you .34 cents a minute. Them when you are talking in analog roam if you come back into a sprint area your phone will stay on analog roam until you power it off an turn it back on. So you are charged .34 cents a minute for all of your calls if you don't log back to Sprint digital service. The main problem with my phone is that it never worked in analog roam, and the voice mail didn't work, and most of the time I would drop no less then 5 calls a day. I took the phone to the local sprint store and they ran a diagnostic check on the phone and told me that it would be about 2 weeks before they could exchange it, and they only had 9 coming in and there were at least 30 people who needed phones, it would be on a first come first serve basis. So I ended up getting one of the phones, and it had more problems then the first one. Well come to find out the phones that Sprint give you when you exchange a phone is a reconditioned one, not a new one. So these phones have already had problems in the past and have been sent out to be fixed then sent back for resale. Now if they fix there phones like they service them I know why none of them work. When I was in the Sprint store one of the 32 times I had to go to Sprint to take care of problems with my phone or my bill, and that is not a joke, there were 4 other people in the store to exchange there Samsung 3500. So anyway I got one of there reconditioned phones, and my voice activated dialing didn't work, nor did my analog roam, and I dropped a ton of calls. So I again went back to the Sprint store and they said they needed to run a check on it, and that it would take about an hour. So when I came back in an hour they had lost my phone. So they gave me another reconditioned one that didn't work. So I went to Office Depot where I purchased the phone and they exchanged it for a new one. I got the new one set up and the analog roam didn't work again, so again I exchanged it, this time at another Office Depot, and again the roam analog didn't work. This process of trying to get the phone to work right went on for about 6 months. My voice mail not working, my roam not working, dropping calls, being charged for phone calls that were with in my plan, and not one person being able to tell me why they can't get my phone to work right. So finally there was a person at the Sprint store that listened to me. The took a phone that worked right, and then downloaded the software from it into there computer, then they uploaded that program into my phone. Finally my phone was working and working right. After 6 months of hell and 32 trips to the sprint store and 9 trips to Office Depot my phone was working. Unfortunately that was only for about 2 months. Then I started dropping calls again, and it wasn't a small amount of calls, it was about 7 a day at minimum. So I again took the phone back in and they reprogrammed the phone with the new software they had in there computer. I stopped dropping calls but now my roam didn't work again. Now I was past the 14 day exchange period with Sprint, and the 30 day exchange period from Office Depot. So I was told by Sprint sorry your on your own. You can buy a new phone if you want, and we will give you a $25.00 credit for your old phone, or you can keep your old phone and we will put new software in it and hope that it works. Well it didn't. So I am no longer a Sprint customer, and I do not have a Samsung phone. I am with Verizon who gets my bills right, and I have a great phone from them. I have only dropped 1 call in the last 3 months. And my phone has never gone into analog roam. Do your self a favor, stay away from Sprint, and stay away from the Samsung 3500. You will save yourself a lot of time, money and frustration. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 Phone $75.00 month;y Service 90752 2000/5/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 amazing price fantastic design great features slightly awkward earpiece Full Review I've had this phone for 2 weeks now, and all I can say is "Wow"... My old Qualcomm brick recently bit the dust and I needed a new phone. I went to my local sprint shop expecting to pick up another Qualcomm phone used simply because I didn't have much money to spend. While I was there I was looking at their display models... ignoring price I was simply looking at feel, comfort of use and features. I saw the Samsung and immediately loved The Samsung is a dual band phone (important for me because I roam off-network a lot). The sleek design is more at home on a science fiction set than in my pocket (my dad's first comment is how it looks like an old Star Trek communicator) It basically the same size as the star-tac (a little taller and narrower... maybe an oz heavier). The features are impressive. 179 memory storage locations, voice dial, vibrate and MANY different rings, wireless web browser, voice memos... this phone has it all. The features do not make the phone however. Instead I think its greatest asset is its quality of build and "intelligent" design tidbits. Everything is easier to do in the Samsung... store messages, recall them, label them... The designers of the phone made accessing all these great features convenient and quick. Ring volume? right on the side of the phone (no fumbling through menus when you go to a restaurant/Movie Theater), number store? just press ok and then label (again, no stupid menus as with the Qualcomm). Incoming call? You DON'T have to open the phone to see who is calling (what I hate about the Star-tac). Need a number? Again, don't bother to open the phone, just browse your directory. It even goes to the extent of capitalizing the first letter of each word in your label for the phonebook... very convenient:) So there I was in the sprint store... drooling over this little beauty. I decided to ask the price... I knew I was kidding myself but hey, I could dream. 150 dollars... more features and a better design than phones twice its price... and within my price range:) I could not be happier. The battery life is decent, not great. But good for a charge a day, (with reserve in case I forget). The earpiece is also a little awkward and not as comfortable as the qualcomm... but hey, all things considered, you couldn't find a more perfect phone. If you need a new phone, this is the one. Hands down and no questions asked. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90751 2000/12/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small easy to use great features especially for the price only 3 volume adjustments slightly uncomfortable Full Review I received the 3500 after the Qualcomm phone I had stopped working. Sprint's equipment replacement plan worked well and soon I had a far superior phone. I think this phone is great, it is much smaller, the address book is very convenient with 180 locations (and you can scroll by number or letter). The vibrate function was perhaps the aspect of the phone I most appreciated, and although it uses up battery power at a much faster rate, I consider it a worthwhile trade. Several things make this phone a great buy. One it is one of the cheaper phones for sprint that has options like vibrating ringer, a good battery life and dual band (analog and digital). My roommate has the next model up and says the reception is worse and he likes that with the 3500 you don't need to flip open to see who is calling. The 3500 is also very user-friendly. When I tried to use my friend's Star Tac, I became lost in the number of options which had no real logical progression. Samsung has thought of a lot of little things that make phone great. For example, to change the ringer volume, you adjust the volume button on the side -- WITHOUT hearing each ring (typically you would have to go into Menu and Sounds, and to adjust you have hear each option, which is not convenient if you are trying to silence the phone immediately). My only small critiques are that the flip-top can be a little uncomfortable on my ear, and there are only 3 volume adjustments. The other minor annoyance is that when you turn off the ringer, that does not turn off the message reminder and dialing sounds. Vibrate mode should silence all aspects of the phone. On the whole I have been completely satisfied with the phone and anyone who wants a small phone that has features as good or on par with the more expensive phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Equipment Replacement plan ($35) 90750 2000/8/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features light looks great small price voice activated dialing signal weaker than older phone arms look fragile Full Review I have a Qualcomm 2700 dual band for my Sprint service. It has been a great phone: high quality, great sound, lots of nice & useful features... However, it is a pretty big and heavy phone, a little too bulky these days. I doe snot fit any pockets nor in small purses. So my wife hated it and always left it in the car instead of keeping with her which defeated the purpose of having a cell phone. Therefore I decided that I, well we, needed a new phone. I wanted something affordable, clear sound, and compact size. The phone also had to do voice mail, pager, call waiting and three way calling, features included in my plan, and pretty basics nowadays. My first choice was the Motorola Startack. Everybody has one and I assumed it was a good phone. But i did some research and found the Samsung 3500. It is almost as small as the Motorola, and certainly small enough for me. It looks great, better than the Startack, its standard battery offers about the same talk and stand by times, and it has a lot of great features. The Sprint PCS Samsung 3500 is sold for 149$; if you look around the web, you'll find discounts or it is likely that your employer has a national plan open for employees. I work for a large bank, and through my employer, I got a $90 discount on the phone. I paid $59 for this phone and it is worth 3 times that at least. The Motorola was 229 with Sprint. So I saved $80, more than I paid for the phone, and got a very good phone: Dual band Voice activated dialing: an awesome feature increasing safety when driving three way calling call waiting voice mail/ pager web browsing 9 different ring types (even music) alarm memo record and lots more. The menu is well done and is easy to access and operate. I just love the voice activated dialing. You can program (20?)numbers you often call and record a name for each of them. Once they are programmed, you don't need to dial the phone numbers again, just say the the word you recorded and it'll dial for you. No need to keep your eyes off the road to dial a number anymore! I have not had the chance to check out the mini web browser but I was told it does a good job for such a small and affordable phone. People who own this phone have had concerns about the quality of the arms of the flip section. They do seem a little weak but I don't think they'll be a problem if you handle your phone with care; the phone should be fine for regular use. if you are rough with your phone (!), then you may want to buy one without the flip up/down ear piece. Another concern was the battery not living up to expectations and manufacturers' specs. I fully charged my phone Friday night, then kept my phone on all day Saturday and Sunday, plus a little this morning. During that time I made four short calls, and played with the phone for at least two or three hours; setting up phone numbers, recording memos, playing with the voice mail and setting up my announce message, setting up my voice activated numbers, etc.. Well this morning, my screen still showed a fully charged battery. Finally, I was told that the signal would be weak and disappointing compared to other phones, above all my Qualcomm; that I would lose calls, and be roaming even in town! Well, I admit the signal seems a little than with my bulky Qualcomm, but is very acceptable. I am not sure the Motorola would do better. Considering all the bad things I have heard and the very compact size compared to my 2700, the overall quality and sound is excellent. I might buy the extended battery because my car won't take the cigarette lighter accessory and I hate to take my phone in the house to charge it (I forget it there! CALL ME BREEZE!). But that is not because the phone standard battery does not perform well. The only thing I need is the neat leather case with belt clip; however, there is no rush, this phone is so small that I' ve been keeping it in my pocket! Overall, it is a great looking compact phone with lots of features and great sound. I would recommend it for almost everybody. "heavy users" might need more talk time (buy an extended battery or) or a tougher phone. Sprint PCS has been a great plan for me and I have always had positive experiences with their customer service. Combined with the Samsung 3500, it is a awesome digital service. Hard to beat! The Sprint PCS calling area in the US is growing and cover a lot of cities. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59 90749 2000/6/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small durable clear sound none Full Review Dorky and cool at the same time, the SCH-3500 is sexy enough to draw friendly attention your way yet be usable at the same time. Unlike some phones, ahem, StarTac, the SCH-3500 is comfortable to use. It's size is great, small enough to fit into your pocket. Once opened, you can comfortably place the phone on your shoulder and use it in the same manner that you do your normal phone at home. While the size of the phone was enough to sell me on it, the Wireless Web features were enough to clench the deal. Picture this...you just finished wining and dining your overly chatty blind date and instead of heading home, you decide to hit the movies so you don't have to listen to their incessant banter, but you don't know what time any of the flicks start. Pull out the "oh, so sexy SCH-3500", go to Yahoo movies and find out when the recent blockbuster is going to start. This way you can be considered a humanitarian by biting your tongue and not saying, "hey, hey, hey, cut that string, chatty cathy." When the movie's over and you wake up the next morning, pick up the SCH-3500 and give your date the obligatory next day phone call, assured that you won't miss a word that they say because the sound quality is as clear as a cloudless sky. As for battery life, I've gone three days with occassional talk time without having to charge it at all. So, the SCH-3500's battery will last until your next blind date. I've got no beefs whatsoever with the phone and since it survives the day to day abuse I put it through, it's a phone that's going to last you for some time to come. Bravo Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 90748 2000/10/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool features display visible at all times good sound none yet Full Review I've had a cellular phone for almost two years now, so I no longer consider myself an amateur when it comes to the technology. Up until this week, I'd had the same phone, a Sanyo which was very reliable (even after having been dropped onto concrete from a height of several feet more than once) and had the standard features of a phone from two years ago. But some friends of mine began venturing into the world of today's mobile phones and I must admit I found myself a bit jealous. All the hip and cool new designs were the first to catch my eye. And the features! Wow! Wireless Internet. Digital calendar. Games. Text Messaging. And my favorite, Voice Activated Dialing! These new phones were also much smaller and lighter than the model I had. The envy grew. So I started investigating. The Samsung 8500 was a very cool phone. However, like most of its flipped out counterparts, you had to flip open the phone to see who was calling you. Not cool. That's when I stumbled upon the Samsung 3500! It, too, is a flip phone with all the advantages of such. However, the display is visible whether you're flipped or not. This is definitely the best of both worlds. I love the 3500. It has the Voice Activated Dialing, the phone book, the alarm, all the features I want in a phone including the compact and stylish flip, but it doesn't make me flip out to see who's calling. It also has a very convenient volume control button which is perfectly placed to allow you to adjust the ringer volume, or the earpiece volume while talking. The phone sounds great and gets even better reception in buildings than my old phone. I highly recommend it the Samsung 3500! And, by the way, I got a great deal on the phone by buying from a dealer through Ebay. I got a brand new phone with accessories for $110 when the phone alone retails for $149! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 90747 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small clear great features hefty price tag Full Review Only over the course of the last year have I found myself wishing I had a mobile phone, and look what happened: My brother gave me one. Good thing too, because left to my own devices, I certainly would have bought an unremarkable, mid-priced model, and not had the joy that I've experienced over the last week. This little beauty does everything I'd ever hoped a mobile phone would do. Voice dialing? Wow. Has a nice big directory for all the numbers I can imagine needing (I'm not THAT friendly . . .) and better yet, when someone who is in my directory calls me, the name that I entered in is what displays, so I immediately know who it is, and even if they're calling from home or their own mobile (which, doubtless, is not as cool as mine). Battery life seems good - though I haven't really pushed it, and never having had one of these before, I can't really compare. But it hasn't quit on me yet. I really wasn't interested in the web functions - if people need to talk to me, they'll call me - I really don't want just one more source of e-mail, and I could care less about sports scores (oh no!) - so I used my free option from Sprint to extend my calling radius to cover the nation. Sound is clear on my end, and so far, anyone I've called says they can't tell it's a mobile phone, so I'd say clarity is good. I really have no complaints about this phone - I promise to love it until something better comes along. I would recommend it to anyone contemplating a new phone that uses one for anything more than the occasional roadside mishap - as long as they can stomach the price tag. But look at it this way - you shouldn't have to replace it for a long time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90746 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing works fairly well battery life not as claimed though not bad Full Review After spending 2 years with a Nokia 6120 (and going from 150 mins or so a month to almost nothing, because the earpiece got hot after five minutes of use), I elected to jump ship to Sprint PCS. For the same money I more than doubled my minutes and got free long distance. The phone I chose was the Samsung 3500 -- a lot of guys in the office had them and seemed happy with them. And I've been too, so far. No real problems to speak of. A fair amount of the problem reviews for this phone I've seen have to do with either the service or not knowing how to use the phone. The phone does have a tendency to shift to analog (which means .34 cents a minute roaming rate) if the digital signal is weak. However, if you *read the instruction book*, there are simple and clear instructions on how to change the phone's settings to use Sprint PCS only. Have this as your default; change it if you're in a non-digital area. It's really not that difficult. The battery does seem to be less talktime than stated. That said, most batteries have given me less talktime than they claim. The SCH-3500's battery stands up pretty well -- I can go two days without charging; by the end of the second day the battery is pretty well done. That's substantially better than the Nokia 6120 this phone replaced (which, if turned on at 9 AM and left on all day, would be pretty well discharged by 6 PM that night.) And it's vastly better than the analog Motorola flip phone I had in my first trip around the cell-phone, which wouldn't last more than a few hours before needing to be charged. Voice dialing is a very nice, convenient touch. Keep in mind that voice-recognition software is not perfect and give it some help -- the phone may get confused between 'Mom' and 'Home' -- if you record these numbers as 'Mother' and 'Call Home', the phone will have a much easier time of it and you'll be happier. It's very handy when calling from the car when your car has a manual transmission. The durability seems great so far. I have a leather belt case for mine and keep it in there. Not a scratch so far. The vibrating ring is definitely a good addition for when you're in a meeting or otherwise don't want it to ring. One thing I would have liked to see on this phone is a 'no' button -- say someone calls you, you haul out the phone, look at the caller ID. Aaaah, it's that person who's always bugging you, you don't want to take the call. Problem is, if you open the flip, that's set to answer the call by default. (You can turn this off, of course, but it's inconvenient.) So you're kind of stuck with either sitting there with a ringing phone in your hand or taking the call. If there was a way to make the call roll to voicemail with the flip closed, that would be a nice way to handle it. Call quality has been absolutely sterling. Much better than analog cellular or even the 800mHz digital I used before. No static on any of my calls. One additional thing -- the phone does not indicate when it's being charged. While this isn't a big deal with a desktop charger, it is with a car charger -- you have no way of knowing if the battery is charging or not. This isn't a huge deal, but an indicator would be nice in the next model. This is the phone for cell phone junkies -- people always on the horn to someone or another. If you want a phone to just cart around with you in your car and only call Triple-A in emergencies -- it's not the phone for you. Get a prepaid analog, it'll be cheaper. But if, like me, you constantly have a phone on you and use it all the time, this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90745 2001/4/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small when folded but large when open vibrating alarm wireless web poor button placement doesn t travel well short battery life The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone unless you live in a metropolitan area with no dead areas, and then only for basic phone features. Full Review My wife and I purchased the Samsung SCH-3500 when we activated our service with Sprint PCS. We chose it because it was small but not too small. It is actually shorter than the Nokia 5100/6100(the only other phones I have used) when the flip is closed. But, the bonus is when you open the flip it is LONGER than the Nokias. This is great if you are like my wife and worry that the phone is too small to hold. It is also wider than the Nokias and this also adds to the greater ease of holding. This phone has several useful features: Samsung Voice Dialing seems to be a standard on all their phones. Actually it is more like sound dialing. It records your multi-syllable speech, grunts, screams, or any other sound you can make consistently. Then when you use the feature you just replicate the recording and it recognizes it and dials. This is convenient when using a headset while driving. You are given a second try if you don't get the inflections of your recording just right. Wireless Web is very handy for many things. I use it to check stock prices, sports scores, look up the price of a DVD on Amazon, play games, and check your minutes/bill. Sprint has even added the ability to pay your bill on your phone with a credit card or an electronic check. The display is only three lines long and about fifteen characters wide. This is fine for what I do. It is not optimal for reading news. If you think you will be reading a lot of long news stories look at one of the phones with seven or more lines. It can be tedious reading 40 lines of text three at a time. E-mail is also an option but typing is also tedious. If you want to use the e-mail feature I would suggest a phone with the T9 text recognition system. When it comes to customizing the Samsung SCH-3500 you don't have as many options as the Nokias. There are only thirteen rings compared to the 30+ for the Nokias but who needs all those rings anyway. Besides Samsung included a vibrating ring and a flashing red LED that the Nokias don't have. Because it is a dual mode phone you can use analog or digital networks. This phone allows you to set the priority of analog, digital, or whatever is available. Choosing digital only keeps you from incurring analog roaming charges without realizing it. There are not any games built in like other phones but you can find several more entertaining games on the wireless web. I enjoy the gladiator game. It is simple and lets you play with other phone users around the country (Think Ultima Online on the smallest scale possible). The only gripe I have with the phone is the battery. It does not have near the life of my old Nokia. I have to charge it every other day if I use it any. This is not long enough between charges. I used to go four days with my Nokias. I have been considering the double life battery for $58 but I don't think it will fit in my leather belt pouch. Update 4/3/01 I have changed this from a recommended to a not recommended. Having used this phone for several months I have come to the conclusion that I don't like it and would not recommend it to anyone. Battery Life I have to put the phone on the charger daily. If I don't let it charge for at least 30 minutes a day I risk a dead battery the next day. I get less than an hour real talk time when you include how fast it runs the battery down in standby. Button Placement The volume button is driving me mad. It is on the left side of the phone and is always bumping on things. Because it is raised it is prone to accidental bumps. This has resulted in the ringer being turned off more than once. I have missed calls because of this. Typically I leave it in vibrate mode. But, when it is bumped the phone vibrates once to confirm the current tone. This makes me think that I have a call when I don't. It also uses precious batteries. Wireless Web Viewing If you plan on using the wireless web for more than 30 minutes a month look for a phone with a better display. This display is just too small and is inadequate for real reading. Try to find a screen that can display at least five lines. There are newer phones that have larger screens. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 minus $100 in rebates 90744 2000/5/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great connection voice dialing internet connection very few Full Review The past year I've bounced from a Nokia to the digital Motorola StarTAC to this Samsung SCH-3500. The Nokia was fine, but I wanted something that would give me a wireless Internet. After 2 months of shotty reception on the hard to dial (sleek, but flimsy) Motorola, I settled for something new - and in fact a brand I never really knew manufactured phones. Now after 3 weeks of heavy use, I am indeed satisfied. The Samsung SCH-3500 has the best of Nokia and Motorolla. The body is easy to dial with one hand, the flip cover protects me from leaving unspeakable messages of myself singing in the car on other peoples' message machines, it connects to the Internet, and best of all - it has voice recognition for dialess dialing. I simply flip open the cover and the phone asks "Who would you like to call?" and I say something like "Aaron cell" or "Voicemail" and it automatically connects. Unbelievably easy - I wish they would allow more than 20 voice entries. Besides more voice entry options there is not a whole lot more I can complain about with this phone. It isn't as sleak as the Motorola StarTAC, but certainly sleek enough - in fact I think it's a lot easier to find this phone in my purse since it has a shiny silver sheen. I would recommend this phone to anyone who has been unhappy with the Motorola StarTAC (in particular) since I know most of my friends and co-workers are. I was significantly skeptical about the Samsung brand, but have been extremely satisfied with this particular purchase. Kudos to Samsung for a great product! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 147.00 90743 2000/10/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 convenient many options nice looking they re on backorder because so many need to be replaced billed incorrectly many people lost sound cant check voicemail from home phone anymore Full Review Hello all This is my first time doing epinions, so I invite all feedback. So yeah, before I purchased a cell-phone I wanted to make sure I kept all my options open. I looked to see what every company had to offer before I made my final decision, and Sprint won my love. Yes, it was Sprint. I was with Sprint for almost a year, but yeah we just broke up. I'm so upset. I gave all my trust, my money, and even introduced it to all my family and friends. Now I'm left with nothing. My bills are big, my phone is defective and there is no one here to help me. Would you like to know the whole story? If so I'll tell you- I wouldn't want you to go through the same pain. In November 1999 I purchased the newest model phone at Radio Shack, its was the SCH-3500 made by Samsung. Though it's a hot little phone, the quality is not-so-hot. I like the sexy color, huge phonebook, different ringers, voice dial and all those other flashy sellers to make people happy, however right now I am so not happy with that phone all together... First, you don't have to use up your minutes to check your voicemail, you can just save money and check it from your home phone. Just dial your number, and punch in your pass code when your voicemail picks up. Well this worked sometimes, but not in the last 3 months. It says "Sorry please try again later" but it works when you call from your cell and use up your minutes. Secondly, do not buy the SCH-3500. It isn't on recall, however everyone has been sending theirs in for replacements. Apparently everyone else has been having the same problem as me, the sound doesn't work (but SOMETIMES it does). So, when people call me I don't always hear them. It isn't a volume thing- there's just no sound at all. When this happens, I just give the number where I am at the time and hope the person can call me back at that number. Also, this means I can't check my voicemail either-remember? The only place I can check it now is on my phone with no sound. So much for emergency situations! So many times people have needed to contact me but because of this unreliable phone it was not possible to reach me. What if I was stuck somewhere in the middle of the night and have a phone that decides not to work that day? Because I purchased this not only for convienence, but for safety as well, I'm not happy. Hey! Good thing there is a one year guarantee on Sprint phones. So now I can replace this phone that lasted me 7 or 8 months with the same phone! Except the 2nd phone will be used or refurbished, you may have to pay a price difference, and the best part is that your new guarantee is for only 6 months- just short enough for you to be left with a broken phone in 8 months and theres nothing you can do about it. I was upset when they offered to replace my $149 phone with a cheap $79 phone. Larger, less options, and plain ugly. I paid for a nice phone (I thought) because I wanted a nice phone. Oh and one more thing- When for some reason they overcharge you one month and ensure you that it will be credited your next bill, and in turn manage to overcharge you even more again- there is absolutely nothing you can do. When you request to speak with the initial customer service rep they tell you it is impossible because there are over 1600 people working there. However, if you ask to speak with a manager there is never one available. Seems odd to me that out of 1600 workers there is no one in charge that can be of any help. Right now I can pay for a phone if I want a "better" one. I will have to wait for it to be shipped here, get a new phone #, lose all my voice messages because I dont have access to them, and still have to pay this months service even though I have no working phone to use this service. OR I can always just cancel and reconnect when my phone gets here- which will end up costing me another $29. Choose wisely and if you have any advice, questions, similar stories...feel free to contact me. Good luck Wendy wsg6716@rit.edu Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90742 2000/12/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing attractiveness dual mode size voice memo price antenna some call drops although i blame it more on the provider than the phone Full Review Well, I finally took the plunge a month ago, and purchased my first cell phone. Even though I told myself that it was strictly for performance, and not about looks and cachet, I found myself gravitating towards the more expensive models all the time. Then one day, I came across the 3500. Simply put, this is one of the best looking phones I've ever seen. The colour, the size, everything about it is perfect. But all that is useless if the price and the performance aren't there right? In this case, they are, and in spades. Via Bell Mobility promotions, I was able to buy the phone for only $130 Canadian, a price that NONE of the better phones could even come close too. So step one is finished. Step two, the performance, has other factors involved. The design of the phone itself is great. Without opening the phone, you can easily run through text mail, the web browser, the phone book, etc, due to the handy design which enables the screen to be viewed even while closed. The earpiece will take a little getting used to, but once you do, it will be comfortable for hours of talking. The actual number buttons are not my preffered type, as they are hard plastic, inlaid into the phone, making it difficult to punch numbers unless you look at the phone. Navigation thoughout the various menus is easily accomplished via the up/down key central to the phone, and the screen, while small, allows for a clean look to all the menus. Another nice feature of the phone is the voice activated dialing. Just program in a number and a corresponding name, and you can voice dial the number. This is EXTREMELY useful if you do a lot of driving while you use your phone, as you don't need to take your eyes off the road to dial. You simply flip open, and say the name of who you'd like to call. Another nice feature is the voice memo feature. While in digital mode, you're able to record up to 5 one minute memos. This is useful for things like directions etc. Some of the cons of the phone? I'm afraid that in time, the exposed screen may get cracked, and the antenna kind of looks out of place. Also, the earpiece volume should be able to higher than it does. Otherwise a GREAT buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 90741 2001/1/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear calls light small easy to learn to use many functions battery life less than advertised there are cheaper options Full Review In short, this is a great phone. To be honest, the main reason I bought the Samsung SCH-3500 because it was small and looked cool. At $130, it wasn't the cheapest of the Sprint PCS phones available, but all the less expensive ones were too large to fit comfortably in a pocket. I've used it quite a bit over the last six months and have no complaints at all - it has a lot of features, but not many superfluous ones, and is powerful yet very easy to learn to use. Calls are perfectly clear, and the phone feels very solidly constructed. The phone comes with all the standard features - call waiting, three-way calling, redial, and different ring volumes, including silent and vibrate. There's also a very useful voice-memo recorder and a lock code that can prevent anyone else from using your phone. The phone book holds almost 300 names, and it's very easy to enter, edit, and delete new names. You also have the option of using distinctive rings for different types of calls - you can assign different rings (only a couple of which are obnoxious) to roam calls, blocked-ID calls, voice messages, pages, and text messages. There are also several major features I've never actually used myself - an entire voice-activated dialing system, wireless internet capability, and a headphone jack. And the best thing about all these options is that they're so easy to use that you don't really even need the manual. The only downside to this phone is the battery life - in my experience it's much shorter than advertised in both active and standby modes. According to Samsung the battery is supposed to last something like 130 hours in standby, but I find that it fades completely in only a couple of days. And in active use the battery lasts only about 2 hours, as opposed to the advertised 4. For this reason it's definitely worth spending the extra $25-30 for a car adapter kit - it recharges the phone quickly and saves you the hassle of having to lug the AC adapter and charging stand around with you. Overall the Samsung SCH-3500 is almost ideal, both for high-power users with a lot of needs and low-demand customers who just need a mobile phone. It's not the cheapest phone on the market, but there are definitely more expensive ones that aren't nearly as nice. The combination of features, size, call clarity, and solid construction in is model makes it about the best you can do in terms of value for your money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 90740 2009/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 super compact internet ready menus can become confusing no speakerphone Full Review The new Samsung SCH-3500 cell phone is one of the newest to market, and it takes the best features of Motorola's best phones and wraps it into one smaller, more efficient package. Motorola's Digital StarTac and Motorola's i1000+ are two great phones. However, the Samsung SCH-3500 incorporates the StarTacs super-small size and the i1000+'s see-through cover and internet capabilities. Motorola managed to leave out good features on its phones: The StarTac doesnt have a see-through cover so you have to open it to see the caller id. The i1000Plus has the see-through cover, but Motorola left off the headset jack so you have to buy a separate adapter piece. Samsung noted these mistakes and made a much improved phone. The one lacking feature is the i1000+ had a speaker phone built-in and I have to say that was an amazing and useful feature. The SCH-3500 is built with ingenuity, every tiny aspect was well planned. After every call, it asks if you would like to automatically store the number... a convenience not realized until you have it- no more punching in long strings received calls. The LCD display is somewhat lacking compared the the Nextel i1000+, however the SCH-3500 display is much nicer than the StarTac display. The SCH-3500 has excellent reception, intuitive buttons, though occassionally the menus get so deep as to be confusing. With Sprint PCS Wireless Web you can access select WWW - internet pages, however this process is somewhat confusing and it is rather hard to cancel out of an operation or go "back." It is billed on a per minute basis and transmit speeds are at 14.4kbps so you will be using a lot of minutes for the most rudimentary of items such as one stock quote or one headline of news. Supposedly, if you have an Ameritrade account, you can log on and place a trade, but I still havent figured that one out. (Of course, I dont have an Ameritrade account but I stilled wanted to test the login feature and couldnt get it right.) You can use it to connect your laptop or PDA to the web using the Wireless Internet Connection Kit which retails for $99.99. (I think this is a total rip off as it is just a serial cable which shouldnt cost more than $29.99, but perhaps prices will come down.) The charger is a base charger, so you can charge the phone and a second/spare battery at the same time. I prefer Motorola's compact chargers that plug directly from the power outlet into the phone as they take up a lot less space. All in all, an excellent phone, probably one of the very best on the market along with the Nextel i1000+ and Nokia 8800. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90739 2000/7/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 does just about everythinghas wonderful reception short battery life Full Review I just recently signed up for Sprint PCS service, and as part of the package, I received this phone for $9.99. I originally chose the phone for its sleek look, but now it all the options I love. It would be easier to write about what this phone doesn't do, but that's the easy way out. FEATURES: Voice Recognition: You can program up to 20 numbers to be dialed VIA voice recognition. This is wonderful if you use it while driving. Just open the flip and say the name of the person you want to call. I love this feature. Text Messaging: This phone receives text messages and pages. This is a great feature to save on your minutes. If someone has a quick message for you, rather than calling you, they can send a text message over the Internet. The text messages have their own ring, so you know the difference between that and a regular call. Ring options: There are to many different styles of ring options to even mention. You can have a sperate ring for messages, voice mail, incoming calls, and incoming calls with caller ID. Which brings me to the next feature... Caller ID: This is self explanatory, and a much needed feature on any cell phone. You can chose to only answer the important calls, or if you are running low on minutes, just return calls from a traditional phone. Wireless Web: This is one of the features that really sells this phone. The wireless web enables you to get real time stock quotes, weather reports, news articles, and even check your e-mail with some companies, such as AOL. I haven't used this feature much, but I can tell you its handy, and the actual connections were surprisingly fast and smooth. Security: I love the phone lock on this, and you can also use key guard if you tend to push buttons while on the phone. The best part is, you can lock the phone, and allow it to call up to three different numbers without unlocking it, including 911. This is wonderful to limit the usage of the phone. Durability: This phone is water proof. I can't actually back that up because it is not one of the written features, however, I was stuck in a huge storm and the phone was flooded with water, and still worked perfectly. If you're a real gadget freak, get this phone. You'll be in heaven. This phone has so much, and I'm sure I left a few minor features out of the above list. My only complaint so far is battery life. My battery usually only lasts two days. This is not a big deal. When I come home, I set it on the charger, and I can even receive calls while its charging. The reception on the phone is very clear too. Even through that storm I mentioned, I could hear the people I was talking to with no difficulty at all. If you're looking for a good phone, with lots of features, ask about this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.99 90738 2000/8/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use features galore not as trendy as other phones Full Review When I signed up with Sprint for their new plan, I got this phone from them and I was a bit skeptical. I had used a Nokia phone before, which deeply liked, and didn't like switching companies, especially to Samsung(Don't they make microwaves?). Anyway, all I can say Nokia has alot to learn! This phone is features galore! Phonebook is nice and can store alot of numbers. Only grief I have with it is it was easier dialing via the phonebook with my Nokia than this, but I guess I just have to get used to it. The voice activated dialing is very sweet. You configure it(which takes about 30 seconds) and open the phone and tell it the command(which you programmed before). It's a great way to impress your friends or Dick Tracy wannabees. The minibrowser is also nice. Browsing the net on my phone is a timesaver. You may ask why in the world would someone need the net on their phone, but it is something you can really use. You can access a wealth of information. From Yahoo!, I can see movie times, descriptions, locations and directions. Also from Yahoo! comes a plethora of services from Yahoo!Mail to Yahoo! Finance. In addition, you get your own email address from Sprint, which is you@sprintpcs.com. Although you really wouldn't want to write a 3 page email to your mom on here, it is nice to use if you want to send out quick messages. The only thing I liked better about Nokia, was Nokia phones have alot more ringing options than the Samsung. However, the Samsung does have my favorite ring: Fur Elise. Also, it comes with a vibrator option standard issue. Nokia's require you to pay some $40 to get a vibrating battery. Speaking of batteries, this one is very strong. The company boasts hours of talk and standby time, but basically if you dont talk on it, the battery will last you a VERY long time. If you talk, you might need the charger more often, but all phones are like this. Another great feature is its durability. Face facts, your going to drop, sit, squeeze, drop, throw, crush and drop your cell phone alot. This phone takes a beating and keeps on ticking. Also, the clarity is wonderful. I dont know if it's Sprint, but I can make calls in places I never could before. Bottom line is its a great phone with great service. If your past the "Look ma, I can change the faceplate on my phone" stage of your life, then this is the phone for you. Recommended: Yes 90737 2000/3/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 wireless web small durable kinda costly Full Review I figured it was time to join the 21st century and get a mobile phone. Now, I'm a marketer's dream, because I often buy products because of what they look like and then suffer the consequences afterward. With this neat little phone, I was not punished for my peculiar buying habits. This Samsung, as I said, is little. It conveniently fits...well, just about anywhere, which is really a sought-after feature of mobile phones. This particular phone uses the Sprint PCS service, which has many features and is a great plan, and some of the phone's performance could be due to that. However, I know that the speaker on this phone, however small it is, is always clear and has good volume. The battery life, another important feature, is also top-notch. I had the phone off the charger for 3 days and the battery had barely taken a hit, which I thought was extraordinary. As good as all that is, the kicker on this phone has to be the Wireless Internet. This is an actual connection to the web, and, while sites are limited, the phone can give me useuful information on the weather, sports, news, stocks, etc. It's even capable of receiving email from Yahoo.com. The old Timex watch motto (it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin') can also be applied to this phone. After the 8-story plunge of my duffel bag (containing the phone) from the window of a Boston hotel (long story), the phone was still it's own self, not a scratch on it. Finally, IT LOOKS COOL! My phone is the envy of everyone who sees it. Oh yes, one problem: The cost. The list price of my phone is $150, but I paid ony $80 after rebates and whatnot. The cost can be defrayed by purchase at a store with cash-back deals. The Samsung is a great phone, for the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 90736 2000/3/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small size easy options wireless web service plan Full Review I purchased the Samsung SCH 3500 because of it's nice compact size and simple to use options. I previously had a big Qualcomm phone and it was just to large to carry around. The SCH 3500 is small and stylish, the buttons are big enough to press and the phone is wide enough to hold comfortably, unlike my friends with StarTac teensy phones. Though I haven't used all the features yet, the thing I like most about it is the easy ways to dial, which are great in the car. The voice recognition is really cool (though it doesn't work in very noisy areas) and the simple scrolling list of numbers is easy to get to. When I first signed up for my service plan I opted for the Wireless Web, mostly because it was "the cool new thing" - however I soon found out, it's pretty dismal unless you absolutely need it for stock trading or yahoo mail or something. I recommend against that option in Sprint service. Otherwise the service plans they offer with the phone are quite good, and most include all the nice extras like voicemail and caller ID. Since the phone has only been out a few months some places don't have the carrying case for this phone, however I've found that a Flip phone Motorola/NextTel case fits it fine. You'll need to remove it from the case to make calls, but it's good protection for the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90735 2000/2/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dialing solid construction lack of accessories battery life reception bulky charger The Bottom LineI can't recommend this phone because of poor reception, poor battery life, and other similarly priced options. Full Review I bought this phone from my local Sprint PCS dealer on February 6, 2001. I returned it and got a Motorola Startac on February 14, 2001. First, let me tell you why I chose the Samsung to begin with. There were two main things that I was looking for when I bought this phone -- compact size and the flip style. I was replacing a Nokia 6120 with this phone. I loved the Nokia but the one problem that I had was that I would accidentally push the buttons because there was no protection for them. It did have a button lock feature, but that was cumbersome to use. So with my new phone, I had to have a flip. The Nokia was also a little larger than I would like because I like to be able to slip my phone in my pocket. The final feature of the Samsung that I liked was the voice dialing feature. I talk on the phone while driving pretty frequently (I know, I shouldn't do that.) I have a headset that I use so that I don't have to hold the phone while driving, but I still have to look at the phone when dialing, so the voice dial feature was very appealing to me. The phone is also very well made. The flip feels very secure and has a nice strong spring action. Finally, the price was in the range that I was willing to spend ($150.) I was happy to find out that the voice dial works exactly as advertised. You program your voice dial numbers by speaking the name twice and it is then stored. When you open the flip, a female voice says "Who would you like to call?" and you then speak the name and it dials. VERY cool and very convenient. Unfortunately this is about the only aspect of the phone that I was happy with. The first problem that I had is that the phone came with no belt clip of any kind. That wouldn't have been a problem if I had been able to go out and buy one but that was not meant to be. I did get a holster type clip from a local store, but it did not hold the phone securely and the phone actually fell out of it twice. So, I took it back and got a leather case with belt clip. The only problem with this solution was that it make the phone bulkier than I like. While I am on the subject of size, let me address that. The phone is not huge by any means, but compared to my Startac, the Samsung is much larger. It is thicker, taller, and wider, and most importantly, significantly heavier. Don't get me wrong -- the Samsung is fairly compact, but I like a VERY small phone and the Startac fits my needs better. Add a leather case to the Samsung and it really is too big for my taste. But the last two gripes are the ones that made me return the phone -- the reception and the battery life. First, the battery life. When I first got the phone I charged it fully just as the manual instructs. I had the phone for less than a week and a half and in that time period, I had to charge it twice. More importantly, the average amount of time per day that I had the phone on during that week and a half was maybe an hour. It could be that the battery needed to be put through a few discharge/recharge cycles before it reached full capacity, but it still shouldn't have drained as fast as it did. As for the reception it was spotty at best. The day I decided to return it, my wife and I were eating lunch at a restaurant right in the middle of town (where the signal should have been plenty strong.) I attempted to make a call three times and it couldn't get a signal. I would hit the END button to end the call and the signal would come back. Try to dial again, and it would tell me no signal. The reception quality even when the phone was showing a full strength was equally poor. The Startac that I got to replace it is MUCH better, so is isn't a problem with the PCS coverage in my area. Last, the desktop charger that comes with the phone was not to my liking. I have enough junk on my desk already without adding a bulky charger too. I much prefer the type that has a transformer that plugs in the wall and a single cable that goes into the phone. I really wanted to like the Samsung because of the voice dial and its stylish design. I hated to have to get rid of it, but my Startac is much better in every respect. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90734 2000/10/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 popular voice recognition durable few special features awful reception in so many areas The Bottom LineI could have got more for my money, the problems with reception are a hassle, though voice-recognition is nice. Full Review I was a mere 19 years old when I purchased this phone and it essentially was a symbol of my independence. I was living with my grandma rather than my family, I was in my second year of college, and had a demanding job that somewhat required me to have a cell phone. All of that and I had an awful social life that had me on call nearly 24 hours a day, and I didn't believe that my grandma deserved to be my secretary. This phone seemed to be the logical solution to all of my communication problems that had been plaguing me. Now that I am 20 (more wisdom, age and experience…right?) and have had the phone for more than a year I digress about it. The Phone itself: Is compact enough to fit into the tight back pocket of my jeans, with just the antenna hanging out - I hate to carry a purse and if this phone would have meant that it would have been the end of it. It's a flip phone which at first I found to be a hassle, but the more I thought about it, it made sense, with the flip covering, I can't push buttons and accidentally dial up to Canada unknowingly wasting my precious minutes. The silver color is pleasing, though being the fashionable girl that I was (despite not carrying a purse), I was somewhat disappointed that I didn't get to change faces, a minor set back in the grand scheme, and that was a sacrifice I was willing to make for what I thought to be a higher quality of phone. There is a small pull out antenna that the fine folks at Sprint PCS (another review, another day) assured me I wouldn't actually need to pull out to get a better reception - they were wrong. The Battery and Charger: The battery is thin and compact and charges fully in only 2 hours from completely dead, this has been wonderfully convenient and isn't that what cellular phones are all about? Bigger, longer lasting batteries are available, but I see no necessity in it, at least not for my needs (which are comparable to most business people). The charger is fairly compact though it is a stand and not a plug in attachment deal. It has a holder on the front which charges the battery on the phone and the phone can be on and receive calls while charging. It also has a space in the back to charge an extra battery should you choose to go that route but honestly it really isn't necessary, a fully charged battery (depending on talk time) can last me about three days. The only time that I use the back is if my boyfriend is home, we can charge both his and mine at the same time (his and hers how cute). Reception: This is the part where I come to strongly dislike my phone. The service it gets is dreadful. In the past year I have traveled to a number of places in Central and Western United States and it seems to be my consensus. It seems that in any building, save heavily trafficked ones, I get horrible service, and with the digital service, it doesn't just have static, it cuts out words (both yours and the person on the other end) as well as cuts off the entire conversation. Now this is partially the service provider and partially the phone. Though I will say that my father too has Sprint PCS, and seems to be able to get service in a great number of places more than my phone, and his is practically ancient (thrills this old man to no end - they just don't build them like they used to he says when we're having a conversation cell to cell). In fact, my boyfriend, in an entirely different region from me, threw his across his room one night in a moment of utter hatred over the fact that he couldn't have a conversation that lasted over 30 seconds. In defense of the phone, it held together after this tantrum, and, in my opinion (which is what you're here for) works better than ever now. Features: Are significantly limited with this phone. There are no games at all. I was severely disappointed to get home and discover this. You can't even get them online. Speaking of online, it is Internet capable, however, I choose not to pay the extra money for that option and could have no backed opinion for or against it. The ring options are limited, there are only a few songs to pick from, and several of the normal ringing options I find simply obnoxious. However if you are a straight and narrow, there are rings that certainly can suffice. My favorite feature of this phone is the voice recognition. This is highly convenient for driving and talking (not that I or anyone else does this, but lets be honest…), no buttons to push, just flip the phone open and it politely asks "Who would you like to call?" you tell it and it finds the name and calls them. This was also fast and easy to set up, you just pick the number, say the name a couple of times, and magically it's done. It is able to recognize a lot of names too. This is the main reason that I put up with the other junk from this phone. I love the voice recognition. So that's my phone, I like it, it works for me - I find it quirky, but I probably wouldn't wish the hassles I put up with on anyone else. For the money you spend on a phone, there are far better deals out there in the same price range or less that are better quality and come with less pains. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90733 2000/10/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 cool looking bad battery life Full Review I first bought the Samsung SCH-3500 in early October 1999 when it first came out on the market. It was web-enabled, voice activated and it was compact and cool looking. I lost it in November 1999 and I got another one, though after I got it I felt like I should have gotten a different phone. The new one has lasted me 10 months now and it is pretty scratched up and I had to tighten a screw on the flip up part. I just had to buy a replacement battery because my battery life had deteriorated to last me about 1 phone call. The replacement battery cost me $100 at the same store where I bought the phone. Immediately, I regretted not buying a new phone. What is so bad about this phone compared to others? Nothing really- it isn't a bad phone- it just isn't a great phone. I do like the wireless web feature- I've only used it a couple times. I like the voice memo- that's pretty cool to record memos on. The voice activation is not really good- it has to be completely quiet around to make it work. Plus, you look like an idiot shouting into your phone. It might be good for some people on the road more, but it wasn't that great for me. One thing I truly despise about this phone is that the buttons- ok, menu and up and down are not covered by the flip-top. This is the most egregious design flaw in the history of cell phones. AND, the keyguard can be disabled by the OK button!!!! So, if you put it in your pocket, it can make phone calls without your permission. So, I say that if you are thinking about buying this phone, buy something smaller, lighter and better- you can get it all- and cooler looking too. This phone was cool when it came out, but since then, the phones have continued their improvement. It is not a bad phone, but I think you can do better. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 90732 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight voice dial durability size variety of ringtones battery life ease of use none that i can find The Bottom LineI just love my little phone and can honestly say - after a year of use -I have no complaints and no desire to get a different phone. Highly recommended. Full Review Last year, when I did some thorough research on phones and wanted to switch cellular SERVICE but not the cellphone itself, I found I was out of luck - I HAD to switch to a new phone. No new service provider would use my old phone. I went on a mad dash through the internet to find a phone that had voice dial (so I would not have to pay a service provider to record my voice dial numbers - at 99 cents for 2 numbers recorded!), was easy to use, and could be used one-handed. I wanted something lightweight yet sturdy, and something that didn't look like a toy. I already had a Samsung SCH-411, and after looking for anything and everything else available, I found myself back with Samsung, only with a much better model. I wanted to see the caller ID without having to open the phone (something not available with the next model up - it has no visible window plus it looks like Capt. Kirk would use it to beam up Spock and I wasn't into that look). I wanted to hear clearly and this one has a volume adjustment right on the side for use during calls. One thing I have to point out that I love is the ease of lowlight/nighttime use - there is a flashing red light (in addition to the ringer) that alerts you to calls (handy if you're driving and either the music is too loud or the ringer is off) and the keys are backlit for ease of dialing! Another handy thing is the Samsung SCH-3500 lets you hit "OK" when a call is coming in and you wish to silence the ringer (whether you want to take the call or not, you can shut the ringer off immediately). That feature lets you be a "less annoying" cellphone user in public. The voicemail is easy to retrieve with one button, the phone has internet access (which I used for the first 3 months under their free offer but cut it off when I had to pay - I just don't need it, but it would be useful if I needed email access when away from home or work), and this little guy is sturdy! The flip of the phone covers the main keypad buttons (and the ones it doesn't cover are lucite with the lettering inside so it won't scrape off from use or wear-and-tear), and I have dropped it twice with no damage at all. I know some people think the large screen will scratch easily or become difficult to see through, but I added a screen protector sticker (bought mine at Hot Topic, they are available at those kiosks at the mall as well) and have had no problem with scratches at all. I can remove it from the holder (which makes it bulky) and slip it into the tiniest evening bag for going out, or even into a pocket for a quick run to the grocery store. Highly portable phone! I got spoiled with the SCH-411's ability to have different incoming ringtones for different callers. This model does not offer that, but oh well, it makes up for it in other areas. Let's talk battery life: it has about 2.5 hours talk time, depending on signal strength. It's been less if the signal is weak, as if the batteries "try harder" to find the clearest signal for you or something. As far as standby time, this is the best I've seen - I have had the phone on for 2 days straight without charging it and have been able to receive calls that actually recharge the phone! Unlike my previous cellphones, this one drains the battery if it is turned off. You leave this one on and it has about 40 hours on the battery! Plus, when I make or take a call, the battery life goes back up! I can't explain it, but I love it! I was a bit hesitant at the $199 price tag, but they were offering $50 off at the time I bought mine, plus they threw in desktop and car chargers, a case and a handsfree system, so I took the deal and BOY, am I happy I did. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90731 2000/12/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 visible screen price no service contract functionality design great size faulty audio annoying ringer all wireless service in nyc still nervous unsophisticated voice dialing Full Review REVISED REVIEW - 10/16/00 This phone's audio quality has deteriorated due to from what appears to be flip construction. All audio circuitry must go through the flip pivots. Somehow, the flip has loosened up or something. About half the time when the phone is in use, I have to adjust the flip / earpiece until the sound comes in clearly. Sometimes I have to press it harder to my ear, sometimes I have to close down the flip slightly. It's very annoying and now I hate my phone. It makes it very difficult to check voice mail. I have not had any problems with other functionality but deterioration of this basic function has led me to search for a new, different phone. I keep this phone in my pants pocket most of the time which may add some wear and tear to the phone. Phone deterioration is still not acceptable. The flip design is supposed to help protect the keys and prevent miscalls when carried in a pocket or handbag. Thus, the flip should be sturdy enough to withstand daily pocket wear and tear. Samsung has no excuse. If something like this is happening to your phone, it's not a reception problem, it's an audio problem. Quit blowing off this problem like I was. I will let you all know what happens with Sprint customer service. The service is still good and cost effective for me - see Radio Shack Special: If you want to read about how this phone will perform under perfect conditions (as perfect as this phone will perform in the NYC area), continue reading my previous review. PREVIOUS REVIEW This was a huge step in my analog to digital transformation. Specifically related to phones, I ditched an analog Nokia (AT&T) for the Samsung - dual mode. This is my first digital phone. On the premise that you must have a cell phone in NYC, it was just a matter of deciding on Service Provider and phone. Choosing the phone has a lot to do with where I live. If you're from another part of the universe and you just want a PHONE REVIEW ONLY, scroll down to the middle. In NYC, you're limited to three major providers - AT&T, Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and Sprint. Omnipoint who? MCI Worldcom uses the Bell Atlantic network. Service is weird on Manhattan Island - maybe it's the tall buildings, maybe it's the cost of real estate for broadcast locations - I don't know. You can be standing in the middle of midtown and get no service. Bell Atlantic has been reported by publications and friends as the best provider for metro-NYC, although the most expensive service. AT&T sucks unless you are doing a lot of travelling around the country - where their service is better and their rates are good. There has been no good, nor any bad news about Sprint for the tri-state area. I decided to take a chance with Sprint. Sprint's or SprintPCS' major attraction to me is: no contract. Sprint makes it very easy for previously disgruntled users to take new chances. This was particularly agreeable to me because I was locked in an expensive analog contract with AT&T, which just really sucked. Sprint's phones are also reasonably priced. The Samsung SCH-3500 has every feature that you need, and is priced less than Motorola Startac and Nokia 6100 series phones, both as provided with contract from Bell and AT&T. Lastly, with technology moving so fast, who wants to be stuck in a contract with yesterday's phone? PHONE REVIEW On or around Feb. 2000, at J&R, where I buy all of my electronic toys, in the display, I saw all of the cell phones that my friends have - the Startac, the Nokia, etc. The Samsung stood out like a freak. It's was ugly on the shelf and it is ugly to me now, but at the same time, I'd never seen anything like it - a silver flip. I played with it a little bit, flipped it open and closed a couple times to see if the flip part of the phone would take some abuse. It appeared to be solid. The nice part about the phone, unlike the Startac, is that the screen is always visible. It kinda reminded me of the first Motorola Nextel phones with the flip window - the coolest phone upon release. You can check the time of day, which is updated automatically from the Sprint network, and you don't have to open the phone to know if it's powered on, and getting a signal. Another nice thing about the display is the uniformity of color. It is all green and not too bright. A very popular phone used by Sprint and Bell has blue illuminated buttons and a green screen - very nasty. The Motorola Wings phone is so bright, it will turn your whole face blue while you're thinking that you're clucking away, in style. The Samsung is understated and unpretentious. The Samsung has all the required features - dual mode, web access, and all the other phone basics like vibrate mode, distinct ringer, voice mail (VM) notification. It comes with a desktop charger with extra charging slot for spare battery (not incl.). One thing that the phone has that is unique is voice activated dialing. Unfortunately, this feature sucks and does not work well. The phone is not smart enough to differentiate similar sounds. Once I realized this, I stopped trying to use it. Don't make any phone choice decisions based on this feature. You can also use the phone as a memo-holder. You can record some small amount of digital voice recording. This is useless as well, but can be fun, especially if you want to blackmail your girlfriend. Distinct ring is important in NYC for the obvious reasons. It's idiotic when a phone rings in a crowded area and everyone starts digging for their phone. It does not give you as many ring options as a good Nokia, and the rings on the Samsung are a bit annoying - kinda shrill, rather than friendly. Vibrate mode is also essential. There are too many times when you will miss a rendezvous call when you are in a loud crowded bar, club or restaurant. Vibrate mode can be set for incoming calls as well as voice mail notification. It would be extra nice if the phone did ring and vibrate simultaneously. I guess that would be a strain on the battery. The battery takes about an hour or so for full charge and it will last about 2 days with no calls. It will only last for about 12-16 hours if you are using it constantly and going in and out of broadcast areas. I find that if the phone has to constantly search for the strongest signal, then the battery will deplete very fast. I use the phone for an average of 30 minutes per day and from the time I wake up in the morning to the time I go to sleep, the phone is dead and giving me the "low batt whine." I am considering buying the big chunky extended life battery or a second charger for the office. I never use analog (roam) mode unless I am travelling. If I can't miss a call, it's best to let the phone automatically search for the strongest signal - analog or digital. For the most, I leave it on digital so that I don't have to pay roaming fees and so that my caller ID and voice mail notification are always working - these are digital-mode-only features. I have almost every social number and some business numbers in my phone's phone book and I'm at about #120 out of an advertised capacity of 150. I'm not worried about going over this number. New numbers are assigned to unused slots so you can keep track of capacity. Caller ID works with your programmed address book. When the number of the caller registers in the phone, the phone checks your phone book and displays the caller, as you have it programmed. This works about 75% of the time. Sometimes a programmed number comes up without the caller's name. This is somewhat frustrating but I'm not that kind of person. I pick up about 90% of my calls regardless of caller ID anonymity. It does Minibrowsing on the web - OK, I have not yet used this feature. The sites to visit are limited and the service is costly. You can get a reasonable plan, now, for it, if you sign a contract with Sprint. Maybe I'll start using it when they start broadcasting phone signals underground in the subways - whenever that will be. You can also use this phone as a fax/modem. Never done that neither. Phone chassis is solid and everything is still intact. I have dropped the phone a couple of times and there has been no observable or cosmetic damage. The antenna, when retracted is not easily breakable. I don't even think you need to pull up the antenna, except to maybe avoid some alleged radio wave damage. Pulling up the antenna even allows a second for you to observe people noticing you before you get deep into conversation. I like this phone and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a third generation phone for a reasonable price. It's small enough to fit into a pocket and big enough for a normal person with normal sized fingers to operate. You can operate the flip with one hand without a lot of practice. I only wish that all phone services are better. All my friends and I agree - all wireless phone services still suck. It doesn't matter - Bell, AT&T, MCI, Sprint. They're still not stable enough to get rid of your home phone or land line and be completely digital. It's almost as if the phone companies know it so they can charge you for two services. It's what makes this a great little phone - you're not taking much of a chance with it. It's not a big investment, you don't have to sign an annual contract to use it, and it is an equal playing field - all services suck. By the way, I currently use the Radio Shack special service plan. This gives me 200 mins peak and 800 mins off-peak for $30/month plus taxes (+/- $42/mo). This plan is perfect for me because I am in the office most of the day or in the field where all phone use is reimbursable. Sprint off-peak starts at 8pm instead of 9pm for other providers, and I use the rest of the minutes for social calls. Not surprisingly, Sprint does NOT publish all service plans. It's all word of mouth. Just call up Sprint and ask for a plan that you heard about and they with switch you without much hassle. Of course they will try to sell you a more expensive plan. If you don't know, you betta aks somebody! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 + tax 90730 2000/3/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish voice dialing small great features can be a little difficult to hear sometimes but volume can easily be adjusted while talking Full Review I recently became a SAHM. I also work part-time for my dh's business. We decided that I needed to get a new cell phone. I needed one that was smaller (that I could easily throw in a diaper bag or purse) and one that was very easy to use while driving. Well, I was originally attracted to this phone because of its looks. I just think it looks very sleek. It's so small...I can even put it in my pocket. But, the features, especially the voice dialing is what got me...hook, line and sinker. I love that I can just flip open the phone and tell it who I want to call and be connected! I don't have to worry about trying to dial the phone and drive at the same time...and that is a definite safety plus for me (& my kids). I am able to save & store numbers that call me & numbers that I call with just a push of a button. I also like the ease of use with the caller id functions and voice mail. I can receive text messages too :) The phone has a variety of ring options/volumes. You can set different ring tones for voice mail or text messages. The battery has a very long life...once charged...can last 3-4 days without recharing. Of course, if you are a heavy user..you can probably go about 2 days between charges. Overall, this is just a very good phone that offers a great deal of versatility. I can't think of any features that I would want that this phone does not offer. I would highly recommend this phone to ANYONE who is currently in the cell phone market. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90729 2000/9/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 slim attractive affordable awesome user interface great sound quality antenna needs work speaker dies sticks in analogue roam mode too long Full Review <Update on September 19> I recently traded this phone in for a Sanyo 4000. Ack. I hate the Sanyo. This phone (despite its flaws) is sooo much better than the Sanyo. See my review of the Sanyo if you want a little comparison. I think I will be trading BACK to the Samsung ASAP. <Update on August 7> Hmm. How frustrating it is for me to have to write this. Even though I really love this phone, I'm beginning to have problems with it. Come to find out from a coworker, the wiring inside the speaker/earpiece hinge is rather delicate... and it breaks down over time. The sound on this phone cuts down to barely audible at times, and this is quite frustrating because the outside of the phone itself is extremely durable. I've dropped it numerous times now without any signs of wear (other than a little scratch). Sprint replaced my coworkers phone, and I'm happy to hear that they're being reasonable about replacing them, but this is still not something I should have to put up with. The signal quality doesn't seem to be as strong as it used to, seems as though the contacts in the antenna are also breaking down. I still get good reception most of the time, but the little signal strength meter keeps telling me to get lost. =) The battery time has not diminished though, and I'm quite happy about that. Seems like the LiIon battery they put on these guys was really well designed. My last little complaint about the phone is the fact that the keygaurd feature on this phone was _not_ well planned. The earpiece/flip/cover will shield the keypad from being messed with, but not the top three buttons (OK/VoiceMail, scroll, and Menu). Keyguard (when activated) can only be turned off by flipping open the phone or holding down the OK key. What good is keyguard if it's deactivated by an exposed button? Example: I put phone in pocket with keyguard on. Something presses against my phone, and holds down all three exposed buttons for a few moments. Keyguard is deactivated. Another little press through my pants (the OK button again) and I've dialed Voicemail. Ack. This has not happened _yet_ but given enough time, I'm sure it will. I would like to know what good keyguard is if it is so easily disabled in situations like that. Ack. Anyhow, that's about all I have to say about this phone after having used it for about 4 months or so. BTW, my coworker says that his speaker died sooner than usual because he had his phone set to vibrate 24x7. I guess the contacts/wiring aren't designed to be heavy duty like that. </Update> I've had enough experiences with other people's cell phones that I was beginning to dread the day I would have to get one of my own. Well, that day has come and I'm actually quite pleased with what I've ended up with. My vision of cellular phones (including PCS models) has been that of an expensive little gadget that's 3 times the price of a regualr cordless phone, and way worse sound quality. This phone has totally changed my perception of what a cellular phone can be. Let me just say though, that I in no way claim that you would recieve the same service quality I'm getting out here. The network provider I went with (possibly the only choice?) doesn't have it's network _everywhere_ yet, so coverage might be a little spotty where you are. I live in the SF bay area, and most providers try to provide the best coverage in the major metropol. areas, so if you live outside of town (or in the outskirts) your coverage may be less than perfect. This is no fault of the phone, and I hardly blame it for lackluster coverage. My house is located in the east foothills of the valley, so coverage can be a little flakey at times, but for the most part I'm able to use the phone while I'm at home. All the voicemail features, memo recording, caller ID, etc, work up here, and within about 1/4 minute down the hill, the coverage is rock solid. The phone delivers sound quality superior to 95% of the cordless 900MHz phones I've used, and its battery life is superior as well. It can be left on in standby mode and last for days, and usually gives me about 2 or more hours talk time on a full charge, but I don't normally use it that much in a given day. Every night I charge it, which does no harm to the battery, as it's a Lithium Ion type. These batteries do not develop a 'memory' like Nickel Cadmium (and even Nickel Metal Hydride to a certain extent) batteries do, so you don't need to worry about completely draining the battery. The included charging station is great if you have a second battery; it provides a slot to charge batteries without the phone, in addition to the standard cradle for use with the phone. The phone charges quickly, so if you do wear out the battery, it wont be very long before it's back in service. I have yet to use the built in minibrowser, as I fear the steep prices that are likely to be incurred... (I have nightmares of downloading programs through a palm 7, palm.net charges by the kb!) The phone provides voice dialling up to 20 different entries, as well as a seperate phone book feature that allows you to save many more numbers. The voice dialling is super for making calls in traffic, or for those frequently called numbers. I have my house and office on speed dial and it makes a huge difference during rush hour. =) Which brings me to the headset jack on the top of the phone... It's great, and the official samsung model is used, you can even answer the phone via a small button on the mic. (Think an earbud with a little inline microphone about 4 or 5 inches down the cord) This enables you to keep your phone clipped to a belt or inside a pocket and answer without needing to dig the phone out to flip up the earpiece. The one small little flaw in this product is the fact that it is designed to be low power... PCS and even 'regular' digital require very little power to operate. When the phone is in PCS or Digital mode, the phone has a great deal of standby time and talk time. In 'Analog Roam' mode, the phone will just suck the battery dry. On a short trip to LA and back, the phone was in analog roam mode for the majority of the journey. I placed a 15 minute call in LA (PCS), and also placed a 10 minute call in analog mode on the return trip. The battery was nearly dead after only 14 hours of standby and 25 minutes of talk time. Be aware that analog calls really consume juice... Also, when the phone is brought into some stores, the phone switches to Analog mode. Upon leaving the building, it can sometimes take more than 5 minutes to switch back to PCS for some reason. If that happens, just power cycle the phone and it should reconnect to the PCS network. I think I saw that in the users manual, so it shouldn't cause any harm to the phone. Summary: Great phone, looks really cool, and has excellent sound quality. Great buy for anyone in need of a good solid cell. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90728 2000/11/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 caters to the needs of every individual battery power goes out faster than gas in a 2001 corvette Full Review A friend of mine did not hesitate to floss his new SCH-3500 to me when it first came out last year. I knew that when he flipped open the phone and the words "Who would you like to call..." rang out, I had to get one. The MSRP is around $149.99. It's been at that price for quite some time at the local stores (BestBuy, Circuit City, etc.). Let me be one of the first to say, every penny is well worth it. I'll also note that you can find the phone, brand new, on the ebay and Yahoo! auctions sites for a fraction of the cost. I got the phone for $40 because my friend worked at the Circuit City, and was able to get it at that unbelievable price. I'll also like to say that my sister got the phone FOR FREE because she complained to Sprint about one of her old 2" thick Sprint (forgot the model number)broke down on her so they replaced it for her. So now that you know how to get the SCH-3500, let me tell you what I like and don't like about it. Keep in mind that that it's virtually impossible to have a pro without a con. I'm giving you my experience with this phone that I use repeatedly everyday. Voice Activated Dialing PRO: First and foremost, the voice activated dialing is so cool. Although I do not use it as much now, I still think that it's fun to have a phone that's so personalized. Programming it to understand your voice is unbelievably easy (it can be done in less than a minute). Con: Occasionally, you have to act as if you were a robot and repeat the same tone, volume, etc. you initially used to program the phone so it will work. Accuracy is around 75%, but who cares! Internet PRO: With this high tech lifestyle we live in, who wouldn't mind using the internet? I probably log on once or twice a day checking my email and occasionaly transfering money via paypal. I used the mapquest search every now and then too. Con: You can now use AIM on the phone. Unless you're really patient and don't mind hitting number 9 three times for the letter "z", then it's ok. Also, is it just me or does it take a pretty long time to switch pages? Menu PRO: The menu option on the phone is really user friendly. I didn't even bother reading through the manual because it is so easy to figure out what's what with the graphics and all. Con: Umm...nothing really! MISC. PRO: Great phone that's easy to use. It seems like you can do anything with it. It's the perfect size too: not too big, and not too small like some phones are nowadays. Caller id is a great feature that enables me to avoid unwanted calls. There's also an area for you to leave a memo to yourself! Con: Buttons are getting a little hard to push now after about a year worth of putting the phone through torture....but it's understandable. I don't seem to be getting as much coverage as the nokia phones do, but that has to deal with the service, not the phone. Battery seems to go by real quick. That is of course after using it about 1000 times a day! Why should you buy it? Young or old, it's a phone that caters to the needs of every individual. All this power (internet, voice activated dialing, etc.) fits in the palm of your hand. Even though new phones are coming out nearly every few months, I still wouldn't trade this in. It's simply the best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40.00 90727 2000/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 screen always visible great features slightly larger than the 8500 Full Review In the beginning, I thought I wanted the Samsung SCH-8500. It's tiny, flashy-looking, and boasts an event calendar that will keep you organized. The SCH-3500 is in most respects just as much phone, but I was attracted to the small wonder. Due to the Sprint store being out of stock, and then a weird snafu in returning the 3500 I'd bought for temporary use, I wound up having both phones for about a month and was able to compare them. If will give the 8500 a few pluses, but in the end I decided to keep the 3500 and have been happy with it ever since. Nice features of both: Light, well-built, hard to break. Dual band cellular/digital. Voice-record dialing that allows you to open your phone, say someone's name, and automatically be connected. Sensible interfaces, with an up/down toggle and an OK button, there's not much you can confuse. Browser built in for Sprint wireless web. Data port for use with compatible computers (acts as a wireless modem). Advantages of the 3500: Screen always visible: I can't emphasize enough how much this means. The 3500's readout is visible even when the phone is folded shut, which means you can place it on your desk, wait for it to ring, and then glance at who's calling without answering. The 8500 is like a clamshell. You would have to open it up to see who's calling, or to do anything else. I like being able to whip my 3500 out of my pocket and check the time without opening up the ear-flap. I also have the phone set to answer an incoming call whenever I open the earflap. I just think it's stupid to have to press "talk" in order to receive an incoming call. I just open the phone and start talking. BUT: I do have a chance to see who's calling before I open the phone. With the 8500, you would have to disable that answering feature because you would have to open the phone just to see the screen and decide if you want to take the call. Slightly better battery life: The box says 3.5 hours of talk as opposed to 3. I think it's because the 8500 is so small. Shape: although it is taller than the 8500, it's a bit thinner. Advantages of the 8500: Smaller & lighter: You can truly fit this thing in your jeans pocket with your overstuffed wallet. Unless you wear cargo pants all the time, this becomes an issue and the 8500 is your answer. It's smaller than a pack of cigarettes and fairly light as well. Fancier interface: The graphcial user interface on the 8500 is gussied up quite a bit, with animated icons and crud like that. I do believe that the screen is larger, or perhaps simply accommodates more characters. This is nice for longer names. That's about it. I will not count the calendar as a plus because I found it unusable. Maybe I'm spoiled by better PIM products on the Palm and on my computer, but this calendar was about what I would expect from a casio watch. Enter an appointment, and set a reminder (reminders can only be set for a narrow period of time, like 1 hour beforehand) and then go back to the month view. The number of the day where you entered a reminder is underlined. Very simple. No repeating events, no day-before alerts, no event categories. Plain. But the worst feature is the english text entry. Bleeech! The idea is simple. Rather than always having to punch a key three times to get the third letter on that key, the 8500 recognizes common words such as "hello" when you type 43556. You don't have to type 44335555666. Nice idea. Works terribly, though. Every time you try to type someting like "help Mom Sat" it jumps ahead, trying to finish your words for you, giving you something like "Hello Monday" I found it so useless I began turning it off. But LO! you can't simply turn it off once and be done with it. You have to turn it off each time you want to enter text. Forget it! I ditched the 8500 and saved myself about $50 by sticking with the 3500. It's got all the features of the 8500 that are worth anything, and one thing that the 8500 doesn't have: the ever-visible screen. I can emphasize enough how useful that is on a daily basis. If you buy an 8500 you will get sick of opening it every time you want to know what time it is, or to see who's calling you. If you turn it off to enter a movie, you'll have to open it up later to see if the voicemail icon is flashing. The 3500 makes these things simpler by showing you its screen at all times. And in all respects, it's a well-built, durable, feature-packed, flashy little phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 90726 2000/10/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 functional comfortable sleek ear piece could be more comfortable Full Review Style, durability, design and functionality describe this phone perfectly. I've used mine every day for nearly a year, and I couldn't ask for a better phone. I've tried many--at times I've had a Motorola Star-Tac, Nokia 918 and others. This one is simply the best. Nearly every feature is functional and easy to use--the wireless web through Sprint PCS is one of my favorite tools. It doesn't take long to become familiar with the phone and how it responds in the minibrowser function. This phone has been through it with me--I've dropped it several times and it has never missed a beat. I've never had trouble with the reception--I actually use the phone as my main business line (I'm self-employed) and I know I can count on its clarity and consistency. Other features of this phone that come in handy from time to time include the alarm, that sounds a selected ring at the specified time. Voice-activated dialing is the what the 3500 is probably known for, and it is everything it is hyped to be. It makes talking on the phone and driving at least somewhat more safe--you don't have to mess with dialing 7 or 11 digits while driving--just speak the name of a preprogrammed number and you are connected easily and quickly. The phone is sleek--it looks good. That, as silly as it seems, is an important feature of a phone in this age. Charging the battery takes less than 2 hours if it is completely dead--and that is if your phone is on at the time of charging. The battery seems to last forever--I think Samsung has underestimated the battery life by a couple of hours. I haven't found a cover for the phone that isn't awkward or somehow inhibits the functionality of the phone--I would suggest using it au naturale. Its small enough to fit in a back pocket or purse instead of using a tacky belt clip Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90725 1999/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 every featuremore ultra stylish quite small sprint as provider no scheduler no calculator Full Review If you have read my review on epinions of the Qualcomm Q phone that I've had (if you haven't read it, go ahead....I'll wait!), you'd know that I've been trapped in expensive-but-useless cellular phone hell. In the past few weeks, I've decided to look for a way out...a new phone that does what I want it to do and works (meaning a dual mode phone that would actually be able to connect to my service when I wanted it to). I was willing to consider any price as long as it worked well and had the top-of-the-line state-of-the-art features I was looking for. Naturally, stylish looks and extremely small size were critical, also. So I've been doing my homework. Motorola...too small (doesn't ergonomically feel like a phone), not enough features. Qualcomm...been there done that (fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice and call me a blathering idiot in today's competitive environment). Nokia? Yes, Nokia. Two phones. The newly available 8860 and the only-in-Europe 7100. The 8860 is way-slick. Very small. No external antenna. Chrome (ooohhh...chrome). The 7100 is way-much-slick. In fact, it doesn't get much slicker -- if you've seen the movie Matrix, you've seen the 7100. In fact, it plays a major role in the film. Amazingly groovy push-button snap-open slider. Medium-small. Navi-roller mouse-like input device. WAP compliant wireless internet microbrowser. Cool phones. Two problems. Though the 8860 is available now, it is available to the ridiculous tune of $800. That's right, $800. If it were honest-to-God titanium or platinum, that might make sense...but for CHROME? Fuhget about-it. The 7100 would be perfect...if I were willing to wait until some indeterminate time in the future. The 7100 is currently a GSM phone and will not work in the US. Nokia says it will be US-ready sometime in the future. I need a new phone this year. Not next year. Nokia was out. Then I saw the brand new Samsung. The SCH-3500. My heart went pitter-patter. It's beautiful. Not quite as aerodynamic and shiny as the 8860, not quite as Cyberpunk and radical as the 7100, but a real piece of art nonetheless. Champagne/Titanium/Silver coloring. Just a couple of centimeters larger than a StarTac. Small, sleek, and stylish. Talk about features? It's got everything I wanted and more! Dual band and excellent reception. Built-in wireless web microbrowser that works with Sprint and Yahoo's wireless web service. Vibration alert or a number of rings to select from. Optional serial connector to use the phone as a wireless modem for my Palm PC (I use a Casio E-105 and have been desperate to get a phone capable of allowing me to get and send e-mail while on travel). The phone supports caller ID...real caller ID including checking incoming calls against the internal phone book as well as service provider caller ID where available. Speaking of the phone book, the internal phone book stores 179 entries and has an excellent interface for finding or flipping-through entries. Naturally (given its web-capabilities), the phone also doubles as a text pager. Remarkably, the specifications claim an amazing 130 hours of standby-life due to the power-saving "sleep" mode. I have gotten nowhere near testing the true life (I tend to use the cradle occassionally), but let me tell you how free I feel from the 6-8 hour standby life of my Q Phone even with the extended battery! Allright...those are all the features I wanted. This phone even has some amazing tricks I didn't know I wanted but have fallen in love with! First and foremost comes the Voice Recognition dialing. Even with one-touch dialing, you have to look at your phone to make a call. This is both a pain-in-the-butt as well as a danger if you need to call while driving. You will not believe how amazingly useful and how amazingly cool voice dialing is! It really works! Even while driving at warp speed with the stereo on quite loudly, the phone has no problem making voice-dialed calls. Wow. The second feature I didn't know I'd want is the phone's build-in voice recorder. Ever get a good idea or thought about something you had to do but didn't have a chance to write it down anywhere? Ever look at those $100+ digital voice recorders and sigh with desire? Not anymore! This phone has a built-in push-button voice recorder for saving up to 10 one-minute messages! Wow again. Allright, it ain't perfect. I recently got my girlfriend a Touchpoint phone. It (and a few other phones) have some nifty features which would be nice. Built-in games like blackjack or minefield come-in handy while waiting on line in the bank. A built-in calculator comes in useful when I need to do some quick number crunching away from my computer, or for those who have a tough time with figuring out tips. Built-in scheduler features are handy for those without a PPC. However, there is a way around this one! You can use the wireless web service through Yahoo to use their online calendar service and send alerts to your phone. Not an ideal work-around, but it does work (I've programmed all my anniversaries and birthdays so I'll get a call on my phone to make sure I won't miss any vital dates). On to some useful How-to-use information: Accessories. I pretty much ordered everything. First, the leather case (the phone is definately small enough to feet in your pocket -- even in a pair of tight jeans), but I tend to like wearing my phone on my belt (and my heart on my sleeve). The leather case is one of two weak points in the SCH-3500 "System". It is NOT a case in which you easily slip the phone in and out -- it as an ultra-tight condom-like sheath that is as incredibly difficult (it actually takes me a few minutes) to put on. Not only that, but I have yet to be able to fit the case on the phone when I use the Extended-Life battery (a VERY serious disadvantage). The other big week point in the "System" is the base recharcher. It is VERY difficult to slide the phone in and get it charging (it has to slide in "JUST RIGHT', and the second battery sits-out in back like a giant sitcking-out-thing. Needless to say, I am not very happy about these two accessories. Given my horrific and scarring experience with my old Q-Phone (discussed in another review) where my standby time was about 6 hours...I bought the extended battery. It does not significantly alter the aesthetics of the phone and when it comes to battery life...longer is battery (I guess size DOES matter). The Q-Phone nightmare also led me to get the Car Cigarette Lighter Adapter. Between the two batteries (original and extended) and the lighter adapter I decided NOT to get the travel charger. Though I generally have a rental car when I travel (so I can use the lighter adapter) and though I have a normal and extended battery, I decided to opt for the travel charger anyway -- it's only $29.95 and I do a fair amount of business travel. Easily worth the money. The Hands-Free Earbud is actually quite nice with a very small microphone integrated into the cord and no reall need for clipping it to your shirt or lapel. The Wireless Web Connection Kit to turn your SCH-3500 is ridiculously expensive ($199) but the capability is worth it and it is a nice set-up and well-documented package overall. Bottom line? $149.95. Yep, $149.95. That's almost one seventh the cost of the just-slightly-more-sleek Nokia 8860. Also it's available today (though it is still hard to get, you can call around and find them -- try Best Buy...Sprint PCS stores say they should have them by 11/4/99). If you are looking for a phone that you need in the near-term (not at some future indeterminate date), and can afford the $149.95 price tag this one is an absolute no-brainer. Across every important metric the SCH-3500 has no equal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 90724 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 features are wonderful oh so pretty a bit on the weak side Full Review This has to be one of the nicest looking phones that I have ever seen. It is as sleek as it can be with out cutting out features, or performance. Right out of the box you fall in love with it. Samsung really did a great job of adding in neat features to this phone. First of all, and most notably, it has a feature called voice-activated dialing. You can store up to 20 numbers for it to dial just by you repeating some pre-recorded phrase. I guess you could say the name of the person or place that you are calling, but I am much more creative than that :) That isn't the only recording you can do with this phone though. You can remind yourself of important things with the built-in voice memo system. You have up to 5 memos each lasting up to one minute. That doesn't sound like a lot, but think of how much you can say in 5 minutes. You don't have to worry about a dead battery very often with this phone because the lithium ion battery that it comes with will allow you to talk for 2.5 hours or standby 130 hours when you are in a digital area. You may want to get a car charger if you plan to roam a lot though, because the battery isn't as strong for analog areas, just 45 minutes talk and 15 hours standby. Another great thing about this battery is that it won't give you that crappy memory effect that those old nickel cadmium batteries did. In other words, no replacing the battery every year. Don't forget, if you are reading this review to find your new phone, this is a dual mode phone. This means that you have the ability to use it when you get out of the digital areas. Otherwise you'll only have a paperweight. This phone isn't without its bad points. If you look at the flip for this phone you might think that it seems a bit weak. If this is what you are thinking than you are correct. Where I work we sell this phone, and it isn't uncommon to see one that has broken. We sell this with a 1-year warranty on parts and labor, and the option to get a longer service contract. If you have the option where you get it, be sure to spend that extra cash to save yourself from buying a new phone later. All in all, I recommend this phone for its all around usefulness and down right good looks. I do caution you that it might break if you mistreat it a bit. By the way, if you liked this opinion please see these other opions I have written on SprintPCS and other digital phones. http://maytwa.epinions.com/elec-review-719A-2D8442F3-399F7638-prod5 or http://maytwa.epinions.com/elec-review-11C3-2D868A49-399F7C0E-prod5 http://maytwa.epinions.com/elec-review-368-15C23BFC-3A10DCF8-prod2 Thanks Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90723 2000/5/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent ergonomics engineering aesthetics short car charger cord Full Review Like a bad date my relationship with the Samsung 3500 cell phone got off to a rocky start. She sure was pretty, but man - what a bunch of baggage! I purchased the phone off Ebay which was suppose to come with the following accessories: car, travel, and desktop charger, plus a headset and leather case. Not a bad deal for around a 180 bucks - or so I thought. Turns out the phone arrives minus two accessories. I email the seller about the problem and he basically says, "Tough luck buddy…ship the phone back." Was I going to trust this sheister to send me back my money? Not in a New York minute. So I swallowed hard, did the math and figured I still came out a head over purchasing a new phone with these accessories and began exploring the Samsung features - or so I thought. I try to unlock the phone to access all of those features and guess what? The lock code the seller gave me was wrong. I ended up spending about 20 minutes with Sprint customer support - which was exemplary by the way - to finally come up with the right unlock code. So what does this diatribe have to do with the phone itself, John? The point I'm trying to make is that from the onset of this deal I was biased to NOT like the phone. It was cursed! It had bad karma. (I pay attention to synchrocity.) But after I got over cursing my cell phone's previous good-for-nothing boyfriend my second date with the Samsung went much better. We've been a happy couple ever since and here's why: The Samsung is just plain sexy. It's svelte, light weight titanium colored case fits seductively in the palm of your hand. Just the right size - not so small it get lost among your other accessories in your briefcase or purse and not to big to be clunky to carry around. I suspect it's about half the weight of my previous phone and I don't miss those extra ounces one iota. The buttons appear to be pretty cramped, but in real-world use I don't ever recall miss dialing a number as a result of reduced button real estate. But the primary reason I focused on buying the Samsung was the voice activated dial feature. We've all heard the horror stories like the one from the guy who calls his fiancée' on her cell phone only to hear her exclaim, "Ohmigod!"- and then she proceeds to plow into the back of a semi truck and is killed instantly. Accident investigators pretty much concluded she was stupidly fiddling with her phone instead of paying attention to her driving. (Experience teaches us hard lessons sometimes.) I wanted to decrease the odds that I too would become another one of those pitiful statistics. Through the power of technology the Samsung lets you use your phone with a little more safety-minded intelligence - especially in your car. Here's how: Flip the phone open and it powers on. Push and hold talk - while keeping your eyes on the road please -and a pleasant female voice says, "Who would you like to call?" You tell it and it dials that number. Plain and simple. I've only had the phone not recognize my voice request on the first attempt on a couple of occasions. Its deafness was understandable considering the roar of traffic and wind noise with the T-tops off. Yet the Samsung is smart enough to ask you to repeat your request if it doesn't get it right the first time. That second time around it's never failed to dial the number. Do the math and you'll discover that adds up to about 25 fewer buttons you have to push with only 5 phone calls from your cell a day. Not only is that convenient it's just plain safe. Those few seconds of keeping your eyes on the road could save your life - or someone else's. And if you aren't in your car, forget about being embarrassed about asking your phone to dial a number - people could care less. Besides, who knows whether or not you are actually talking to someone anyway? Where the voice dial feature really comes in useful is if you access any of your financial accounts from the phone - the ones where you have to key in about 23 some-odd numbers before you get to the information you need like your account balance. Tie the voice dial feature in with the phones ability to remember an extended sequence of digits - with pauses - and with the push of one button you have instant access to your account information. Training the phone to recognize your voice is a breeze and you've got 20 spots for voice activated numbers. I've yet to use all the slots for my frequently called numbers. Of course the Catch-22 here is that you have to remember what your voice cue is. If you say, "Call home" and you've previously saved the voice dial activation for that number as "Call the house," the phone will of course, choke. I'm sure the engineers at Samsung are working on that for the next version of the phone because they've really done their homework in making this phone convenient and intuitive to use. I'm still learning about all it's myriad of features. For example, in the process of writing this review I pondered this question, "Okay….you can review the list of voice dial numbers on the phone, but what if you forget who that number belongs to?" Answer? There's a "Review" button on the voice dial menu. Push it and the phone goes over each voice dial number and repeats your voice activated link - or you can do so individually for each number. Now that's designing a phone with a human being in mind! The phone performs on par with my previous phone using the Sprint PCS service. However, I have noticed that that battery life is much more extended than my previous phone which is nice. As far as battery life and performance goes, make sure you have a charger in the car and at home and you'll never have a problem. (Fortunately these were not the two accessories the seller left out of my deal.) I have the desktop charger -the Samsung quickly snaps into an angled cradle there plus has a space for charging a separate battery. I also have the car charger. My only gripe about that accessory is that the cord isn't long enough. As far as bells and whistles? The Samsung has it all - including a mini browser - which I never use and could care less about - and text messaging - which is handy for receiving mobile email messages such as the weather forecast through services like the free Yahoo! Mobile. You've got a plethora of individual rings and musical tones you can set up, comprehensive call data, and security features. In these areas this is where the differences between cell phones begins to blur. The phone doesn't have any built in games like some of the Nokia phones do but it's a phone, right? The Samsung isn't supposed to be another adult Gameboy. And if you really want to get weird looks shout, "I beat my high score!!!" while punching buttons on your phone at the airport. An added bell and whistle that you might use is the voice memo feature. Let's say the wife starts rattling off a list of groceries as you fumble for a pen. Suddenly, you realize you've got your Samsung in your pocket. Pop open the phone, push a rubberized button on the side, push "2", then push and hold the first button again. You've got 60 seconds of recording time. Plenty of time for you to remind yourself about the milk and butter. Recalling the memo is a simple three step process as well. I don't use this feature much because I have a specialized device - the Olympus V-90 - that does a much better job because it was designed only to perform this function. But in the event I forget my Olympus recorder I'm glad I have this ability on the Samsung. If you were like me, you didn't have the foggiest idea how to go about setting up a second phone and canceling your previous one. A quick call to Sprint customer service answered those questions in a jiffy. I was up and running in a matter of hours with the new Samsung. I was also pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to turn in my old phone to Sprint. That's cool. So I hawked it on Ebay and knocked off another twenty-three bucks off what I paid for my new phone. Other accessories you might want to consider? I don't find myself using the leather case too much. It's simply more convenient to stick the phone in your pocket. But I might have used the headset that was left out in my Ebay deal as another example of a smart accessory to use while driving. The hands free kit is terribly expensive - 200 bucks at that Sprint website! For those who go on extended trips, the travel charger would be a good choice as well because it is smaller and more compact than the desktop charger. The Samsung 3500 is an excellent choice for a cell phone if for only one reason - the voice activated dial features. But it also excels in every other important feature that makes a cell phone convenient to use. It's priced right in line with other phones with similar features too. The phone is an excellent example of the marriage of modern technology with intelligent, human-oriented design. When I upgrade again, I will certainly investigate and research what Samsung has to offer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 (with accessories) 90722 2000/5/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 loaded with functions clear display long life battery perfect size quick charger easy to lose plastic cover piece limited to sprint pcs service hard to find a case that fits well Full Review PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: I mainly bought this phone for appearance. It's small (5.4 oz.), packed with functions, and is very unique. Samsung, a Korean manufacturer, has been making quality electronic products for quite some time. Their other lines of mobile phones also incorporates such functions as voice-recognition, microchip technology, and minimal battery consumption. FEATURES: This phone is packed with features such as: - Dual band technology (digital and analog capabilities) - Memo recording functions (ten 10-minute voice memo slots) - Good battery (up to 170 min talk time, up to 150 hr standby) - Built-in Internet browser - Data/Fax capabilities - English/Spanish language option - 13 different ring tones plus silent vibration function - Different ring - incoming call indicators - Voicemail/pager/email indicator - Desktop quick charger (second slot for extra battery) - 179 slots of phone number storage/20 voice dial storage - User-friendly graphical interface menu function - Last 27 number redial function - Ear-microphone capability - Scratchpad memory - Call timers - Caller ID TESTIMONY: I've had the phone for about three months now. I didn't really want to go with the Sprint PCS service since they don't offer very good coverage here in the Northwest (Oregon/Washington). Since I live in the Portland-Metro area where coverage isn't really a problem, I decided to go with their $30/300 anytime-anywhere minutes package. It's okay so far, but when I go to the coast, my PCS coverage is non-existent. I have to revert to analog coverage and Sprint charges me for it. Other than the service, the phone is great. I get good reception pretty much where ever I go and voicemail is very easily retrievable. Although I have not used the web browser function (Sprint charges a per minute fee for this), I went to the Sprint store and tested it. It works well, but if you need to type something, you need to use the buttons on your phone (pain in the butt). So, I guess if you REALLY needed to use the browser function, you could (to check sport scores, stock info, etc.). They have a leather protective cover that's available for this phone, but it doesn't fit the phone well and makes the phone look unreasonably bulky and ugly. I would recommend this product to anyone who is looking to buy a PCS phone. Although this phone can only be used through Sprint, I believe it's worth every dollar ($150). Motorola's StarTAC phone sells for about $199 and it doesn't offer quite as many functions as the Samsung. The fit and finish of the Samsung phone is clearly set apart from the Motorola counterpart. You can notice the different right away from flipping the earflap open. The Motorola phone seems like it will break, while the Samsung phone feels very sturdy. The only thing I found to be a problem was the small plastic cover that protects the car charger outlet on the bottom of the phone. When you take it off, it's very easy to lose. Samsung could have easily made this piece be attached to the phone so that it couldn't be lost. But this is something very minor and does not hinder the performance of the phone at all. Samsung has put a lot of thinking into this product and I'm looking forward to their upcoming line of phones in the future. Watch out Motorola, here comes Samsung! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90721 2000/6/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of extra features loud ringer good sound on calls somewhat heavy antenna sticks out vibrate could be better The Bottom LineVery good phone for the price, and the extra features were more than enough to seal the deal for me. Full Review When I purchased this phone about 6 months ago, it was top of the line, and highly recommended. I got it for $100 after a $50 rebate. I still believe there are rebates for this phone, so you'll probably get it for anywhere from $75-100. I think the phone is fantastic, and will discuss each part of the phone individually. Sound: If you have a good signal, the sound quality is really good. I've used this phone during a concert, and was still able to hear the other person clearly. This, however, was because I had a good signal. On the other end, I've never had anyone complain about not being able to hear me. The only time I had a problem was when I got some ketchup in the mic, because I'm an idiot. Size/Weight: The phone is not the lightest one out there, but it doesn't bog you down either. If put in a pocket or purse, you'll barely notice you are carrying it after a few minutes. The phone is probably 5 x 2 inches, and is 3/4" deep. The only bad thing is that the antenna sticks out from the phone, which takes up space that is not needed. Battery: The battery is the heaviest part of the phone, but it lasts a while. It can go for a day and a half without recharging, with occasional use during that period. The battery is as good as the one on my brother's $250 phone. Buttons: I have pretty fat fingers, and I find the buttons are plenty big, and are not too small to either see or press. There is enough room between buttons so you'll not hit two numbers at once. Ringer: The ringer has about 15 ringing types, for those of you who aren't satisfied with a normal ring. There are four volume types, and the loudest can be heard down the hall. The vibrate is mediocre. There are times when you can feel it, but if you are wearing baggy pants, you may not feel it. Extra Features: This phone is loaded with extra stuff. The phone offers web access, which is pretty fast, again depending on your signal. You can access your hotmail, ESPN.com, and many other helpful sites. Voicedial is another great features of the phone, and doesn't cost extra like some other plans require. If you are using the phone in the car, this is a very safe way to dial someone. The phone can also record five 60-second message, so if you want to record a grocery list, or where you are parked, this little memo device is great. Finally, the phone book is easy to program, and can hold either 50 or 100 names, I am only up to 38 right now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90720 2000/4/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 performance size features none Full Review After many problems with US Cellular and Motorola, I decide to switch to Sprint PCS, and needed to purchase a new phone. After reading many recommendations, I decided on the popular Samsung SCH-3500, and have never looked back! This phone has been an incredible value from the start. Its size and good looks have probably caught your eye already. While looks of my phone are not an important feature, I do get many comments from friends and others who say how "cool" it looks. It is very light weight and easy to carry around. The basic function of this phone is above average. Reception has always been consistent and of high quality. Battery life has been superb. Compared to my Motorola M70, this battery is infinite in life span. It also has a wide variety of ring types. Its extra feature make the SCH-3500 even more of a value. Its 99 name phone book is extremely useful. All of the phones features can be accessed and setup with a very intuitive and easy to use graphic interface. I don't think I've ever looked at the manual. The best feature of this phone is the voice recognition system. I simply open my phone, say "home" (or whatever else you program it to recognize) and the call is placed. This is not only neat, but convenient. It also makes making calls while driving, if you must do that, much safer. This is a great phone for anyone and everyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90719 2000/6/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 wireless service price appearance sprint coverage availability analog mode Full Review I've been using this phone for about nine months now, so I think I have a pretty good idea of the benefits and disadvantages of using this phone. Here goes: Advantages: Its very cheap, especially compared to other phones with Wireless Internet capability. Its a good size; not so big that it won't fit in your pocket, but big enough so that you can read the screen. Very stylish appearance. Long battery life and a fairly quick recharge time. Useful features and some nice additional features that may not be so useful, but are kind of cool (ie voice recognition). I can't stress the usefulness of the wireless web capability enough. For an extra $10/month, you can use it to look up phone numbers in Infoseek, get directions from Mapquest, read news and get stock quotes, check your email, check the status of your airline flights (although getthere.com's service is NOT very reliable), and do many many other cool things. Plus its a fun way to kill time or impress people at business meetings or at parties. Disadvantages: This has become a very trendy phone to own; therefore its somewhat difficult to find. And if you want to by additional accessories, you may have to wait a long time before they come. I ordered a travel charger, from the Sprint web site, and it took 3 months to arrive! The other disadvantage of going with the Samsung phone, is the fact that you have to use Sprint as your carrier. Sprint's not that bad, but their coverage area is scattered and not so good in some places. Finally, the last bad feature about this phone, is that it switched to Analog mode without warning you, then it sucks up your battery. I often discover the phone is in Analog, when it really shouldn't be (thanks to Sprint), and I have to turn it off or else the battery may not last for a full day. Overall, this is a very good phone. Especially if you want wireless access. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90718 2000/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small tons of features light easy to use small programing glitch Full Review After using two different style Sony digital phones in a one year period, I purchased the Samsung SCH 3500 and I have never looked back. Having never owned a Samsung product in my life, I was hesitant to invest money on one of their phones. I took a gamble, and it turned out to be one of the best rolls of the dice that I could have made. The phone is much smaller and lighter than any that I have owned in the past. You would think that smaller size would take away from the features and quality of a phone, but this is definitely not the case with the Samsung phone. I have more features on this phone than I have ever had on all my other phones combined. Even features that I will never even use, like the voice recording system. You can even connect to the internet with this little bad boy, although at $.39/minute with Sprint PCS, I doubt I ever will. The phone is VERY durable, taking lots of abuse. I treat my phones pretty hard, and with every other phone I have ever owned, I have had "loose battery syndrome." Not with this phone. Even with an after market belt clip affixed to it, the battery has not budged a millimeter. My only complaint is that the phone assigns incorrect names to incoming calls on my caller ID. This problem is sporadic, and I am pretty sure that it is more of a programing glitch than an actual manufacturer flaw. All in all, I am completely satisfied, and I am very glad that I chose this phone over its competitors. I would highly recommend that you do the same. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90717 2000/1/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 nice features great looking solidly build none major Full Review I left behind a digital Startac in favor of the Samsung 3500, even though I've never owned a Samsung product. The Startac, to my hand, felt flimsy and cheap, and the sound was mediocre at best. The 3500, in contrast, is solidly built, a much more comfortable size (the Startac is actually too small to hold comfortably) and sounds good. Perhaps the best feature on the 3500 is the voice dialing. It's recognized the spoken name nearly every time I've tried it, and not once has it dialed the wrong number in response to a voice command. I have a friend, however, that reports 50/50 performance with voice dialing. My complaints with the 3500 are few, but one thing I would have liked is the ability to have more than a 12-character name entry limit in the phonebook. It is usually impossible to put both the first and last name in the phone book. Also, if you enter a phone number in your phone book, and decide you also want to use that phone number with voice dialing, you must enter it again after recording the name. It's a little thing, but it would have been nice to be able to link both things together so, after recording the name, you could search the phonebook and link it to an entry. Aside from that, and aside from any complaints I might have with SprintPCS ($9.99 a month for 50 minutes of wireless web access? It could take 50 minutes to type in a URL using the keypad...) the 3500 has made me happy. As a true lover of precision, I am impressed with the feel of the buttons, and especially the feel of the flip. It is tight and feels tough. One other little thing. My Startac forever displayed the name of the cell phone company when in standby mode. The Samsung lets you change the display in standby mode to whatever you want. It's a little thing but it's something that makes the 3500 more fun to own. Oh, and the digital voice recorder, allowing you to save 10 10-minute reminder messages for yourself, is a great addition, negating the need to have a separate voice recorder. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90716 2000/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing easy to find headsets small does not work in malls or supermarkets The Bottom LineIt's a good phone, unless you need to make a lot of calls from large buildings. Full Review In October of 2000, I ditched my old wireless company (Cellular One, which has now morphed to Cingular Wireless) and signed up with Sprint PCS. The reason was simple -- more minutes for the same money. The phone I picked was the Samsung SCH-3500. Sprint has a ton of these phones. They're quite popular and have a lot of nice features. One of the most important, for me, was that this phone's earpiece did not get hot when I used it. (I have written an Epinion on my prior phone, the Nokia 6120, which suffered from this flaw.) The phone is small and easy to carry around with you in a jacket pocket or shirt pocket. The SCH-3500 has a lot of the features you would expect from modern cell phones. It supports Caller ID and has a voicemail indicator. It has a large phone book that is relatively easy to use once you spend a few moments with the phone's manual. It is a dual mode phone, able to shift between Sprint PCS digital service (2100 mhz digital) and plain old analog 800mhz service. This is pricey, however -- .34 cents a minute. That's Sprint PCS, not the phone, so it's not really a minus against the phone. You can set the phone to use only Sprint PCS's service and never shift to analog. I recommend doing this, because the phone has the habit of sticking with analog once it finds an analog signal. Call quality is great. I rarely get static or dropped calls. The sound quality in this phone is among the best I've tried. That is, however, when you are able to get a signal. In large buildings, usually supermarkets or shopping malls, the SCH-3500 often cannot find a signal. Since I refuse to pay Sprint's analog roaming rates, I often watch people in supermarkets and malls chatting away on their phones with some jealousy. Once my contract is up with Sprint, I may look elsewhere to get around this issue. (Sprint usually does not do contracts, but since I got a deal with them through my company and paid $10 for the phone, I'm stuck with them until October of 2002 or I have to pay them for the phone.) Battery life is also good. The phone can usually go for two days on a single charge, figuring it gets turned off around 10 PM or so. By the end of the second day, the battery is pretty well flat. Still, it's markedly better than the 6120, which usually lasted me about eight or nine hours. The phone's coolest feature is easily the voice dialing. Simply record a name, associate a number with it, and there you go. The phone can get confused sometimes, but it works well enough. It's a good feature to have while driving. While we're on driving features, it's also worth mentioning that the SCH-3500 uses a standard 2.5mm jack for its headset port. What does this mean to you? That it's easy to find headsets that will work with this phone. Some other phones have used their own proprietary interface, which limits your choices. Headsets are now the law in New York State for calling while driving, and it's a good idea anywhere you fo. All in all, the SCH-3500 is a good phone to have, unless you need to make a lot of calls from large buildings. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 90715 2000/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 perfect size easy to use can t hit buttons accidentally affordable sometimes the service isn t good glass screen can scratch easily The Bottom LineTry it, people won't believe that your on a cell phone! Full Review Overview This cell phone is just amazing. I am in love with it. The features and ease to use are just a few of the pluses of owning this phone. Also the Sprint PCS Service for the phone has very good prices and a decent service (better then many others). What can I say, I love this phone. Features The Samsung SCH-3500 has soo many features that it is hard to talk about them all. The first huge feature that I think is amazing is the voice command. You have to pay extra for this feature but you have 1 year to try it. This feature is when you program your voice in the phone so you don't have to dial. For example say you had a friend "John". "John" has a phone number 000-0000. What you would do is say his name and it would dial his number. It is just a really helpful feature especially when you are driving. The voice command only really works for your voice, unless someone sounds exactly like you. Without taking the trial year, this would cost $10 extra a month. It might not be worth that much but it definitely is worth a try. Next there is My Sprint PCS Wireless Web. This feature lets you access web sites from your phone. This feature is also $10 a month. If you want my word for it, go with a Palm Pilot or something of that nature if you want internet access. Any ways, in order to use the Wireless Web you have to program web sites onto your phone. If you visit one that you like you can always bookmark it. So basically it is just like Microsoft Internet Explorer. Price The Samsung SCH-3500 is not really an expensive cell phone. Well at least it isn't if you compare the price with the other Samsung cell phones. The retail cost of this phone is $150. Since I am special I only got mine for $75 (it's called connections). Service The Sprint PCS service is a very good service. Compared to Bell Atlantic or Verizon Wireless, Sprint has much more to offer. In my region, Sprint gets really good coverage, but it is scattered. Throughout my town there are a few places that I don't have service, 2 of which ironically are the two places where I live. The cost range from $19.99, $29.99, and so on all the way up to $79.99 which has so many minutes it is almost impossible to use them all. Setting up the service for the phone is also really easy. You don't even need to set up the service in the store. You just need the sprint phone number, service of at least 4 bars on the phone and your set. It will take about 5-10 minutes to do it too. Another great plus for Sprint PCS is that you can add phones to a plan. Doing this only costs $10 more a month. Right now I have 3 phones on my $79.99 plan. I am only paying $109.99 a month for 3 cell phones and countless minutes. It's amazing. Trust me Sprint PCS is one of the best plans out there. Go out and get this phone right now. Its amazing how smart the phone is. I am still astounded by how the phone can recognize only my voice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 90714 2009/11/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pretty portable good price great features none i can find Full Review Is it possible to love a phone? If you're Gadgetgrrl, of course the answer is yes. And I've yet to find a phone that merits my affections more than my new Samsung SCH-3500. With headturning good looks, great features, and a price point that's relatively easy on the wallet, the 3500 is a cell that appeals to both your head and your heart. After seeking an alternative to the nasty Nokias and AT&T "Unreachable" plan that have taken over Manhattan, I came across the SCH-3500 at the legendary Fry's Electronics store in Palo Alto. I was immediately struck by its light weight and stylish profile. After doing a bit of research, I bit the bullet and bought via the Sprint website. The fact that the phone was then unavailable in New York (it just debuted here last week) was of course an additional selling point for this card-carrying early adopter. When the phone finally came, I was blown away by its many features - which, for a change, are actually easy to use! Thanks to a rich array of easy-to-read icons and a simple menu and voice instruction interface, I barely had to open the manual before I was up and running with voice dialing of up to 20 numbers; a capacious 179-number internal phonebook; voice memos; voicemail; and caller ID. I didn't get the wireless Web option (it seemed a bit slow during a demo I tried), but that too is available for an extra $9.99 per month. The SCH-3500's sleek silver silhouette definitely makes an impression - I showed it off at a party recently (sad, I know) to much acclaim. The "flip" has a nice solid feel, and although the phone is quite a bit heavier than my recently retired StarTac 6500 (feel free to check out my in-depth review)it certainly won't tear a hole in your pocket or create an unsightly bulge on the side of your Fendi baguette. Voice dialing was an even better icebreaker - after you've "trained" the system by repeating a name into the receiver a couple times and then inputting the number, your words are immediately translated into action the next time you call. Although the system isn't bulletproof - background noise affects recognition considerably - it's still extremely convenient. Sound quality over the Sprint network was certainly adequate, and unlike my longsuffering friends on AT&T, I am actually able to make and receive calls on a fairly regular basis. Battery life is stellar - the SCH-3500 definitely keeps its promise of over two hours of talk time and close to five days of standby. Best of all is the price - at $150, it's one of the best deals in town when you add in its small size and many features. Adding it all up, it's the beginning of a beautiful relationship for Gadgetgrrl and the SCH-3500 - or at least until the next hot item hits town. When is that phone from The Matrix showing up, exactly? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90713 2000/2/20 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing small fits almost anywhere small so it can easily get lost in a woman s purse battery life The Bottom LineOverall I think this is a great phone, I have had very few problems with it. Full Review I bought this phone almost a year ago, and I can safely say that overall, I am really pleased with it. It's good because it is small, you can fir it in your coat pocket without any problem, pants pocket, wherever. However, you can easily lose it in a woman's purse that is filled with junk like mine is. I like how it has the voice activated dialing, it responds only to your voice or one that sounds like yours, my friend tried to be me one day to see if she could get it to dial my house and it did. I am not sure how she could get her voice to be small like mine but she did. This feature is good because if you are going to talk on the phone while driving then as long as you can open it safely you can just say who you would like to talk to and if it is programmed then you will be able to talk to that person without having to push the buttons. I am not saying that talking on the phone while driving is good, however, I think that if you can do so safely then I have no problem with it, I am always safe when I am driving and talking on the phone. I know there are a lot of people who become so engrossed in their conversations they are just not paying attention to what is going on around them, that is just plain stupidity. There is a negative aspect to this though, and that is you cannot enter a name that is similar. I have "Dave" programmed into my phone, and then I could not put "Dave's Cell" in there because it was similar. I am not sure why you could not put it, even though it was similar it was still a different entry. I think I should have been able to put in "Dave's Cell" Oh well.... This is a very durable phone, I cannot count how many times I have dropped it on the ground or a flight of stairs, other than the battery pack coming off sometimes it's held up really well, I thought for sure it wouldn't work anymore. Another good aspect is that it is a dual phone, it is both digital, and can switch over to analog when it does out of it's regular service, it's good when you are in a jam, and need to call someone. The calls are pretty clear, there really is not all that much static or interference of any kind. There are also a variety of rings, from ringer off to vibrate to beeping, to a variety of rings and songs, so yes you can take it to class and leave it on. Also there is an address book, an alarm, and when you turn it on it has whatever you want to say on it. Mine says "Silly Hen" as it was a nickname given to me, I know people who have their name on there so they know it is there's. I am not sure how to change it though, I forgot. It has voice mail capabilities, as do many phones, you just hit one little button and hold it for a couple seconds and you will be connected to your voice mail. There are more things to this phone, but I feel that these are the important aspects worth mentioning. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 90712 2000/7/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight easy to use travel charger is separate battery life Full Review I first saw the Samsung 3500 being used by a Sprint PCS employee, and the phone definitely caught my attention. I was in the market for a new phone, since my family was moving and my current cellular company didn't offer service at our destination. I stopped to find out more. The Samsung 3500 is one of the newer PCS (personal communication system) phones that offer dual-band cellular service, plus more. Imagine surfing the web- on your cell phone! Until we catch up to other countries that is- in Finland, you can call a cab or buy a soda out of a machine with your phone, but I digress. The 3500 has an attractive silver finish and flip design, leaving a compact phone that is small enough to fit in a purse of pocket. Unfolded, it still fits solidly in your hand, and feels comfortable while talking. Closing the phone will end a call, while opening it will answer an incoming call. To power on or off you simply press the "END" button. The backlit display allows easy viewing of current phone status. One glance lets you see the signal strength, battery life, and if you have a message. Roaming is clearly indicated; the three-line caller id screen makes it easy to see who is calling (useful if you are avoiding someone). The menu is very user friendly, showing up on the small display screen with just a touch of one button- menu. From there, you push the up/down button under the screen to reveal what each subdirectory title is. "Ok" will open the subdirectory, allowing the user to then scroll through the options for say, the calls log. Each option is clearly marked, with logical follow-through to lead to the next choice. Since finding the correct submenu is made simple, programming this phone can be done in a very short time, even if you don't have the user manual in front of you. Like many phones, the Samsung 3500 offers a choice of many sound options, allowing the user to set different sounds for incoming calls, messages, even roaming and alerts. Ring volumes can be set through the menu, or from a toggle button easily reached on the side. My personal favorite for ring type is "Fur Elise", though I find the vibrate option is better for most social situations. For $149, my phone came with an in-home charger and standard battery, and the optional travel charger is $15. The 3500 also has a jack located just to one side of the screen for a hands-free kit. Sprint sells the earpiece for around $20, but by searching different stores you may find a lower price. The battery offers a 2 1/2 hour talk time and 7 days standby in digital mode; this can be improved upon by buying the extended battery, offering 4 1/2 hours talk time and up to ten days standby. I haven't found any problems with the Sprint network, either in Washington state or Hawaii. Dropped calls are very nonexistent, occurring less than once a month. Overall I have found I really like this phone, and would highly recommend it to others. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90711 2000/7/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life small pcs service required Full Review I have been relatively satisfied with my Samsung SCH-3500 to this point. I initially bought it because I saw my roommate with it and I thought it was the coolest thing. The price, $150, was actually quite reasonable when it comes to cell phones, especially considering how small and feature-laden this little gadget really is. Aesthetically, this phone is one of the most pleasing I have ever seen. It is of the flip-type variety so it is quite small by nature. A feature I do like about this particular flip-style phone is the LCD screen however. Even when it is folded up, you can still see the screen in its entirety. Now, I guess this could be a downfall as well because in theory your screen might get scratched up, but that is another issue all together. In addition to the screen being visible, so are the four buttons used to navigate the menus and check voice mail, which further amplifies the convenience of the visible screen. While I am mentioning the screen I should also mention that it is a very cool screen. There is the status portion of the screen up top that displays signal strength, battery life, and a few other indicators (analog roam, etc) there is the actual text portion of the screen. It is capable of displaying up to four lines of text in very good resolution. Plus, when nothing is being displayed, it defaults to a message you can customize (in my case I just put my name) and the time and date. The time and date is pulled off the Sprint network when you enter the service area. I find this cool because I basically set my watch by this! And, for about the last thing I will say on the aesthetics, the construction is that it just looks and feels solid. The other really great feature about this phone is the voice dial feature. Every time you flip the phone open it says "Who would you like to call" and you can say a persons name and it dials it for you. Pretty slick. You can store up to 20 people's number in the voice dial feature. Right now all I need is 20 friends…haha. I believe for the most part the rest of the phone is relatively standard as far as features are concerned. You can store 99 numbers in memory, caller ID, call logs etc. Nothing else stands out in that manner. Battery life for the phone has always been decent for me. But I mostly only have experience with standby time. They say you should bet 180 hours standby time out of it and 2.5 hours talk time. From what I have perceived so far, this is true. It's pretty nice too because the battery is miniscule. One thing to be careful of is this however: these numbers are based upon PCS network characteristics. If you are roaming in an analog area, standby time drops way down…to about 80 I think. Maybe less. This is because although you aren't talking, the phone is still constantly communicating with the network, and having to use the analog protocol that uses more power. A few drawbacks about this phone…Sprint PCS. Heh, its not an incredibly bad service, but it is certainly a very restrictive service. This is a Dual mode phone, but not the dual mode phones you may think of Analog (AMPS) / Digital (CDMA) phones. This is an AMPS/PCS phone meaning it only works on the PCS network. It will work on an AMPS network but you are charged an Analog roam fee. This is only annoying in instances where you SHOULD be within the Sprint PCS service area according to the map, and yet you can't get a good signal. (see further below about reception) To the phone's credit however, you can set an extra option that will warn you before you make that expensive analog roam call. My last issue with this phone…reception. I think if you read any other epinions on this phone you will find similar sentiments. In fact, before I purchased this phone I went through about a dozen epinions and found that feeling in nearly all of them. Well, what can you do? It is a smaller phone so it seem they always have issue with reception. However, I would rate this one's reception to be slightly below average even for that class. As a whole though this phone has been pleasing to me since I bought it. I would certainly recommend it as one of the top phones out there. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90710 2000/5/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features stand bytalk time is outstanding none Full Review I have had this phone since November of 1999. I love this phone. It has so many great features. I upgraded to this phone from just a basic flip-phone. Sprint(my service provider) had some great specials going on if you purchased or upgraded to this phone. I figured why not? Have I ever been happy that I did! The phone is dual-band meaning that it is both digital and analog. This is great, because of traveling. I have been in places that are basically in the middle of nowhere. With this new phone I feel a lot safer, because I have the convenience of calling for help if needed. This phone also has voice-dialing; which is great for driving. You can program phone numbers and names into the phone. All you have to do is say the person's name and the phone automatically dials the number for you. Another great feature is that it has a mini-browser. You can check your email if you have a Yahoo account. They have added many new sites since I have gotten the phone. You can check travel and weather situations in different cities around the country and even some out-of-country locations. It also has movies, fashion, stock information, sports, and many other things. I almost forgot to mention the battery. It has great talk time and the stand-by time is unbelievable. I recharge this phone about every other day. Most of the time I just use my car adaptor. It works great. I know with my previous phone I was constantly recharging the battery. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone wanting a great reliable phone. Not too mention with so many great features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 90709 2001/1/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 comfortable to use great features good quality none that i ve experienced The Bottom LineSleek, functional, and fun to use, the Samsung SCH-3500 is my only choice Full Review How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. In December of 1999, I decided to buy my daughter a new cell phone for Christmas. I had already determined that it would be a Sprint PCS phone but hadn't really started the shopping process when my boyfriend came home with a Samsung 3500 he had purchased for himself. I instantly fell in love with the design. I know he does his homework well and he rattled off all the things this phone was capable of doing. He also told me that Sprint had a promotion going on with a $50 rebate on their cell phones. I decided it was time I got a cell phone too. I ran down to the local Radio Shack where he got his and was disappointed to find they were sold out. When I began calling around to all the larger electronics stores I learned of the immense popularity of this phone as everyone was sold out except one store in another town that had two left. I asked them to hold them and drove out to pick them up. Of course it didn't hurt that I saved $100 on the two phones from Sprint, but also received a $50 store coupon per phone. When I got the home I opened mine and took out the user's guide. Now I'm one of these people that loves instant gratification. In other words, I want to use it right now. Well that wasn't the case with this phone. To be fair, though, this was my first cell phone so I had to read the directions to even place a simple call. But there's a lot more to read if you want to take advantage of all the features of this particular phone. Features Flip phone styling Flip activation--when selected, phone activates when flip is opened Call waiting--with optional service Voicemail--allows personalized greetings Message services--text messages and numeric pages Fax and data retrievable Three-way calling Call forwarding Web MiniBrowser--with optional service Voice memo recording--stores 10 memos up to 60 seconds each Voice-activated dialing (I love this one) Backlit display (30mm wide x 19mm high)--shows signal strength, battery level, service and no service indicators, roaming, messages, analog mode, vibrator set, date, time, and when first turned on--its assigned phone number Internal phone book (speed dialing) Alarm--can be set up to 24 hours with optional ringer sounds Security lock Call security Call logs and airtime reviews LED indicator for incoming call us were messages Volume/scroll key Ringer/vibrator switchable Keyguard--protects against accidental keystrokes and power drains Dual battery desktop charger Standard battery included--long life battery available The above are the main highlights. But what I find most alluring is the size, shape and design of this phone. It's 4 5/16 x 2 3/6 inches closed and opens to 6 3/8 inches with one-inch width at its widest point. It also weighs in at only 5.5 ounces. When open it hugs and slightly wraps around the face and is extremely comfortable, however this may not be the case for someone with an entirely different facial structure. The standard operation of the phone is simple. I have mine set for voice activation. To place a call I simply open the flip, the phone asks, "Who would you like to call?" The phone repeats the name and connects. If it does not recognize the name it asks you to repeat it. There have only been a couple of incidents where the phone didn't recognize the name or location I was speaking but I can hardly fault it for that because one of them I hadn't programmed in, and the other I wasn't saying as I had recorded it...duuuuhhh. To answer the phone when flip activation is set, simply open the flip and say, "hello." Other operations such as retrieving messages, setting ring tones, recording greetings, etc. are a little more complex but not difficult. Like I said before, immediate gratification for me equals not having to read a manual. But it's a good, comprehensive, and easy to read manual so I give extra points for that. The call clarity on the phone is also excellent. I recall when my daughter first got her phone she remarked one day, "I hate this phone." I had anticipated this type of reaction from her since I know she doesn't particularly like gadgets and has no time or patience for learning them...just give her a phone with one button that lets her talk. That's all she's interested in. But over time I heard no more complaints and with $350 a month Sprint bills, I knew she was spending more than the average amount of time on the phone. Come to find out...she uses it almost exclusively. Having 3-4 jobs at any particular time and being home very rarely, it's become her entire communication center. It even survived an accidental dunking in the toilet. Once it was completely dried out, it worked fine! Her only criticism was having to occasionally tighten the screws on the flip, but with her amount of use that's not surprising. My phone has worked flawlessly since I've had it, despite being dropped a few times, so I grilled my daughter in detail about call clarity, dropped calls, and any other flaws in the phone yet she could find none. My boyfriend, however, did begin to experience a delay before his phone would pick up a service signal. We compared his and mine, side by side, and his did take substantially longer to acquire a signal. He took a trip down to the Sprint PCS store and after attempting to reprogram it, said they could not fix it. The warranty was up since we've had them more than a year so he asked to speak with someone at the main office. They checked his billing history, saw that his phone got only average use, so they promptly mailed him another one. I've had occasion to use this phone when with other professionals whose cell phone usage is a way of life and they all were impressed with the compact design and the ease of voice dialing. I also remember the day I got two injections in my right arm which made it go totally numb. I was driving a 5-speed that day and knew I couldn't drive home. As I was getting the second injection I slipped my other hand into my purse next to me, pulled out the phone and voice dialed my boyfriend at work to come and pick me up. The Doc was impressed. But since you must use Sprint PCS service with a Sprint phone, you can't really separate the two so I must just touch upon an important part of Sprint service. That is the unlimited long distance calling included with your monthly plan. I have a 29.95 plan, which includes 300 free minutes. This includes long distance calls. Since we never use all our minutes each month, we use our PCS phones entirely for long distance, dropped our long distance carrier and pay no monthly long distance fees. There's also an optional equipment replacement plan and an automobile emergency plan available at $4.00 per month each. The web service starts at $9.95 a month. I may never buy another Samsung microwave oven, but I'm sure smitten with my SCH-3500. I would have give this phone the highest rating were it not for the lone problem my boyfriend had with his which may have been just a fluke. So it rates a solid four stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 90708 2000/4/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 outstanding featuresupdated technology make this phone a great choice digital service areas are still growing analog can cost you extra money The Bottom LineIf awesome features in a light, compact design is what you're looking for in a digital phone, then I recommend it. The little bit of extra money is worth it. Full Review Having been out of the country for a while, I kind of lost touch with the newer technology phones. Digital phones were just coming into life when I left, and when I returned, they were everywhere! I had previously owned a cellular phone and didn't much care for it - the bad reception and the plan prices (I think I had something like 60 mins for $45) turned me off. After being in the states for about a year and finding out that it would be very convenient to have a phone for my job, I started looking and asking questions. My new boss owns a digital phone, and I had used it - I was very impressed with the quality and service plan. I did some on-line research on phones and plans, but was still unconvinced that it would be worth the money. A trip to Radio Shack to buy some speakers changed all of that!! I ended up buying a Samsung SCH-3500, and life is very different (and much more convenient) now! The SCH-3500 impressed me with its outstanding features. Design 1. My old cellular phone was one of the smaller ones at the time, but this digital phone has it beat hands down! It weighs a mere 5.5 oz, and the size is 4.4"x2.0"x1.0" - just slightly larger and heavier than a deck of cards. It easily fits and rides in my uniform shirt pocket without weighing it down. 2. The flip has been designed for maximum user efficency while still being functional. The flip was designed to leave the screen and three function keys exposed when the flip is closed. With the flip closed, you can access the menu options, scroll through the phone book, or access your voicemail and text messages. This will also allow you to screen your calls through the caller ID, as the name and number (if they are in your phone book) will appear when they call you - if you don't want to talk to them, simply leave the flip closed. Older model flips (and some of the newer models) have the screen on the inside, so if you got a call, you still had to open the flip to see who it was, thereby activating the phone to answer the call. The flip looks fragile, but in truth, it is very sturdy and takes the abuse - I've accidently dropped my phone a couple times with nothing more than a couple scratches. 3. When open, the phone has an ergonomical design; the flip stays at an angle to bring the mouthpiece closer to your mouth, unlike the older phones that were "straight", and made you feel like you had to press it into the side of your head so your caller could hear you. 4. A slight drawback is the antenna. The antenna base extends an additional inch above the phone, making the actual size about 5.4". The antenna itself extends another 3.25" when extended. I prefer the "stubby" antenna that doesn't extend. This is only a minor inconvenience though, and the truth is that I always forget to extend the antenna anyway, and haven't noticed a difference in reception on the few occasions that I have extended it. 5. There is a small button on the side that allows you to change the ringer volume - how convenient! When going to a meeting, I can change my ringer option between high, medium, or low volume, turn it off completely, or set it to vibrate instead of ring. 6. At the top of the phone is a headset jack. The headset jack is great when driving - I bought a voice-activated headset that I'll review at another time. For now, let's just say that I can drive and talk without holding or even touching the phone. 7. The last external feature is an accessory jack at the bottom of the phone that you can plug in a charger, connect to a wireless data device, or connect to a car speaker kit. Features 1. The top feature is the voice-activated dialing. You can record up to twenty different names and associate a phone number to it for this feature. Simply open the flip, and say the name of who you want to call, and the phone will dial it. This saves you the time of scrolling through the address book looking for someone's number. For example, when I want to call home, I simply open the flip, and the phone asks "Who do you want to call?" - I say "home" and the phone dials it. This is a great feature for those that like to make calls when driving - it saves the trouble of dialing the phone and diverting the attention away from the road. Even better is buying the voice-activated headset I mentioned earlier - press a button on the wire and it activates the phone - you don't even have to touch the phone. 2. Caller ID - almost the same as the standard caller ID, the difference is that for the caller to be displayed on your phone, it has to be in the internal phone book. 3. Call Waiting, Three-way calling & Call Forwarding - these are the same features that are on regular telephones, so I don't see a real need to discuss them here. All of these features are preset to "on", but can be disabled at the option of the user. 4. Voice memo - ever been somewhere and remembered something you needed to do and wanted to write it down to remind yourself later - and couldn't find a pen? There's a small button on the side of the phone that will allow you to record up to five one-minute voice memos. Simply open the flip, press and hold the button and record your memo. This is an incredibly convenient feature that gets a lot of use from me! 5. Voicemail - The phone can record up to 50 messages. The message options are voicemail, numeric page, text message, or mini-browser. You can even set a different ring to each type of message. 6. Internal phone book - The internal phone book holds 179 entries. Each entry can be up to 32 digits long (great for international calls), and you can assign a name to each entry up to 12 characters (Caps and lower case). The navigate key allows you to scroll through them either alphabetically or numerically. 7. Fax / data calls - You can hook the phone up to a PC and receive faxes or data files - This is one option I haven't explored (yet). 8. Mini-browser - Another option I haven't explored yet, so can't say much about. But, for an extra fee, you can browse certain websites that have been set up for this feature. Quality of Service 1. Digital vs. Analog - I love the digital service. The calls are clear and crisp, unlike the older cellular services. The only problem I have is that the digital service has large areas of no coverage, so you tend to go in and out of the service area (depending on where you live). If you leave the digital area, the phone will automatically pick up the closest analog service, but beware, there could be extra charges for this, depending on the service plan you have. The phone gives you the option to turn off the analog roaming service. If I ever end up somewhere outside the digital area that I absolutely have to make a call, I'll turn it on, but for now, I keep it off to prevent making an analog call. 2. I signed up with Sprint PCS - and got 2000 minutes a month with free long distance for about $50. I have pretty much stopped using my home phone for long distance calls - this plan covers them all. There's not much more I can say about the phone except that it is great!! It costs a little more ($149.99), but for the features I got, it was well worth it. Happy talking. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90707 2000/1/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing voice recording sturdy a bit heavy Full Review This is perhaps the best phone on the market right now. In terms of capabilities, the Samsung SCH-3000 is the leader in sleek and powerful tools for cellular services. This phone has a myriad of functions that are extraneous but fully practical. The main feature lies in its voice recall function. The SCH-300 is a Sprint PCS phone, that requires Sprint PCS service. It is web-enabled and is dual band--having both digital and analog service. Since cellular web services are only in their testing period, with not much real use, I would suggest to lay off of this pricey service. If you really want up to the minute information, I suggest purchasing a pager that gives you hourly stock quotes, financial news, sports news, etc. This is all in text form. I know this service can be purchased using Pagenet. But the downside of webphone is low transfer rates for wireless service. Until the US service providers change the infrastructure, users will only receive very low transfer rates at less than efficient speeds. Japan and Finland, I know are in the development and application of highspeed wireless service. So for now, stay away from the web minutes that Sprint PCS is trying to offer. The DCH-3500 does offer the web-enabled service. But stay away! Physically, the phone comes in a cool metallic grey color. The phone is a flip phone. Do not be worried that this flip phone will break off. Unlike the Motorola Startac's that competes with the Samsung and is not so sturdy or durable, the DCH-3500 should last. I do find annoying though that flip phones require the unnecessary step of flipping the phone and actually placing the phone to the ear. That is obviously a personal preference, so that should not deter those who like flip phones. In fact, the cover protects the keypad that lights up in the usual neon color. A great function of the phone is the ability to store numbers using the users own voice. Yes, voice recognition is possible!!! The user can program in 20 voice dial numbers by storing the phone number and the respective person's name. It takes a while for the user to accurately recall stored numbers. With background noise, often in a noisy car or subway station, it is very difficult to recall the voice number. Also, for some odd reason, the phone sometimes is buggy and cannot recognize the user's voice. But this is a value-added security function that serves to give more protection to the user. Instead of dialing out the number, where on-lookers can easily see, the user can simply speak the name that is stored. It does not necessarily have to be the accurate name. The phone has over 13 different ringers, as well as a vibrate feature along with 7 different message tones. Battery wise, the 3500 has a 4 hour talk time. Another important feature is the record button, that can be pressed anytime to record parts of a phone call. Overall, I love the Samsung 3500. Many of my friends own this phone and also give their approval for it. The 3500 is probably the best phone out there, with little problems in it. If you are Nokia biased or Motorola biased, I would suggest changing your opinion and try this neat tool out! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 90706 2002/10/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 fun functional features that will survive the rapidly changing technology known hinge defect short battery life The Bottom LineExcellent for those who really knows the benefit and capabilities of new PCS communication-3 years ago. Today. Don't be a sucker and buy this model. Full Review A Few Words from the Writer: This is my very first review which I have never publish before until now because the cell phone market changed so rapidly that I couldn't decide its worth of publishing when the product itself was about to phase out. By now, SCH-3500 is known to be a phone with known defect, it somehow seems interesting to show what I wrote when it was quite popular. Much of the original content is left unchanged. Please note that the picture shown by epinions may be incorrect. Critical Update: Lately, everyone I know hates Sprintpcs' customer service. I believe they may be right. But it was different in my experience because I had a Business account sales rep. When I experienced severe bad signal near Downtown Los Angeles near the Mellon Bank building, I told her about it and the problem was fixed within 2 weeks. However, I heard consumer's rep are rude and no help at all. Some experienced nightmare billing problems. So, if you do choose to use Sprint for other phones, be warned and prepared. Read your subscriber plan carefully. One more thing! Some large corporation offers reduced rate to the employees for Sprintpcs plan-take advantage of that if you could. Samsung SCH-3500 is unique in its overall appearance with its front silver coating and compact size when it first came out during the time when Nokia/Motorola dominated the market. Despite the newer and even smaller wireless handset that is widely available in competition against SCH-3500, I find it truely functional to fulfill my professional and leisure needs. Since it is only offered by Sprint, it is fair to say that the issue with coverage is worth addressing first. Then, subsequently the entire package of SCH-3500 will be discussed. Reasons I purchased SCH-3500: [Added: 10/03/2002] I first came to know about the phone in late 1999 when my girlfriend had to dump her motorola. I don't even remember what motorola model it was-it had this terrible battery cover and the batteries could not be charged separately from the set. The rubber buttons were super annoying because you have to press it hard and long time. So we went to Circuit City because Sprintpcs was on sale there. What got us was the price of the phone and the calling plan for something that had way more features than any other phone at the time. $50/Month 500 Minutes No Roaming no Long Distance additional charge (but read the fine prints) $150 for the phone set with $75 mail-in rebate No Contract/Cancel anytime without penalty No one at that time was promoting such a simple plan with so many minutes and with a phone that almost look as good as motorola startac. So shortly after she bought hers, I contacted a Sprintpcs Business Sales Rep and managed to buy 3 SCH-3500 with trade-in old Nokia (5160, 5190, old motorola) to lower the prices of the phones to $50/each. I made two of the phones share the same 500 minutes, and so it was $50 plus $15 for share plan and another $50 for the 3rd phone. I added $10 for wireless web and that enabled me to check the more accurate usage records through wireless web for either of the share plan phones. So what plan did I have before I switch to Sprint? Cellular West-which turned into AT&T later on. Something like 250 minutes with additional long distance and roaming charge for $50/month. I often ended up paying about $80 each month for overusage anyway. Experience: SCH-3500 is guarantee to have manufacturer's defect for the flip hinge after several month of usage. You are likely to experience intermittent sound from callers due to connection failure at the flip hinge coming loose-the hinge will actually loosen up enough for the flip to be rattling. How can I guarantee it? All 3 phones I bought plus the replacement and another two from my friends suffered the same exact fate. If you bought the phone brand new, you can have it replaced within a year from the day you purchased it at any sprintpcs store. Give them hell if they won't honor it. The Sprintpcs people I dealt with acknowledged its known defect. And don't let them try to fix it. Of course, today, you should just avoid buying this phone at any price even if someone pay you to use it. You won't believe this, but I am still using the phone despite of its hinge problem-my solution, use headset to call everytime. I cannot tell you how many times the wireless web and the memo feature made me feel like a genius. Hanging out with friends and relatives and suddenly, what's Laker's score? How's the Enron's stock doing? what's the showtime for Men in Black? In the middle of meeting or form filling process, can you give me 3 of your contact's addresses? How about their email? Here's something kinda funny. Because of all the defective phones, my friends and relatives have all switched by now. Therefore I ended up with a handful of batteries and chargers. Now I have a battery and charger almost everywhere-1 in car, 1 in office, and 1 at home. Coverage: Some great, Some very bad, some drop zone could be very disruptive and frustrating for those on the road (I use hands-free kit cassette adapter type). Calls could be dropped as it automatically attempts to switch between networks or PCS/analog. Typically, you can count on major freeways and urban areas. However, I have experienced weak signals going through tunnels and even within my own house. I have used it at San Francisco, Carmel, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Hawaii, LA, NJ, and experienced reliable service with almost no roaming except around Carmel. This applies to the wireless web as well. Actually, wireless web cannot function by roaming and must have PCS signal from Sprint [Added: 10/03/02]. Std Package content: handset, std battery, strap, base charger, user guide. Battery slips on to the handset firmly and easily. Battery can be charged while attached to the handset or by itself. If you have 2 batteries, the base charger can handle the spare battery and the handset at the same time. Charging takes anywhere between 30 min to an hour. Unlike Nokia, you will not find it desirable to just grab the phone and make or receive calls as it is charging because the base charger is bulky and has a short cord. However, if insist, one can make and receive calls while the handset is charging on the base. Significant functions: 1) Automatic as well as manually select Dual band PCS/Analog 2) wireless web 3) vibrate paging mode 4) voice dialing 5) 60 seconds memo recording 6) silent mode red light call indicator. Dual Band: If absolutely necessary, in the event there's no PCS signal and you need to call, chances are analog mode will save you because analog still have better coverage. Beware of your service terms so that you will not be surprised by the possible additional charges. Sometime it is better to set it PCS instead of automatic roaming because automatic setting will cut you off in the middle of your conversation if it detects weak signal occurence and will attempt to switch to analog. If you set it to only PCS, chances are you may end up no signal at all in the weak signal area, but that may serve you better by forcing you to relocate to a strong signal area. [Added: 10/03/02] Wireless Web: I cannot say enough things about this feature. I can say at least that this is very useful for those who loves checking stock quote, sports score, email messages, movie showtime, and all kinds of stuff. It's even better for those who use Yahoo and Hotmail extensively. Put your appointment in Yahoo calendar and set the reminder to call you at ##########@messaging.sprintpcs.com and you will be paged. You'll never miss birthday and anniversaries again. Save your free minutes and have people contact you via MSN messenger. Don't think it stores enough phone #? Don't worry, you can pull up any phone number on your Yahoo address book and actually call it. This dramatically expands the number of contact records you can access. What's more, you can pull up address information too if you entered it. All of these benefits plus the fact you can sync with Yahoo/PDA/MS Outlook/Lotus/Act, You would have so much redundancy that even if you forget your PDA or Laptop at home, you can still access the most critical information via your SCH 3500. Memo Recording: The 60 seconds memo recording is more useful than just a little dictation. The button is conveniently accessible by the index finger, and operates simply by keeping it pressed during dictation. It is best used in recording important conversation during a phone call. It has helped me dictate driving directions, flight schedules, phone numbers, or anything that you don't have time or the ability to write the information down. Voice Dialing: Very easy to setup and very reliable recognition. Although, it does get confused with names of similar sound and it's limited. However, Sprint offers expanded voice recognition service for additional monthly fee-something very important for folks who cannot deal with the painful process of learning gadget usage--like my Mom. Silent Vibrating Mode: The phone comes standard with vibrating mode enabling the phone to be used like a pager. Note that vibrating mode is built in the handset and not dependent of the battery. The volume can be easily adjusted as OFF, LOW, MID, HIGH, 1-BEEP, and VIBRATE by the index finger. Voice dialing and wireless web are the 2 winning features of this phone. If you own this phone, sign up for the wireless web because otherwise, you've got this neat function that's wasted. If you don't care for these 2 features, then this phone should not be your top choice. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 90705 2000/5/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great voice activated dial up accuracy mini browser capability light weight somewhat pricey Full Review I recently joined the Sprint PCS network and chose the Samsung SCH-3500 as my portable phone. My decision to purchase the Samsung SCH-3500 model was based upon two reasons: I liked the look and feel of the Samsung SCH-2000 model that one of my friends recently purchased, and I wanted the wireless web capability. Below are some of the phone's capabilities: You can set the phone's roaming ability so that if you are outside of the Sprint PCS network area, you can choose whether or not you want your phone to automatically access other CDMA networks or analog cellular networks. Turning off the automatic access capability might save you some money in the long run, but it will limit your ability to place phone calls in secluded areas of the States that are not under the Sprint PCS umbrella. Note: The following area is a trouble spot I have encountered using the Sprint PCS network - Westchester / Hillside (watch out for analog connections in this area). You can set different ring tones and volumes for message calls, voice calls, and roaming calls. The phone can record 10 voice memos by pressing an easily accessible button on the side of the phone. However, each memo can only be up to one minute in length. The greatest feature of this phone is its voice-activated dialing. You can set your phone to always ask "Who would you like to call?" whenever you flip open the phone and the phone always repeats back to you the name of whomever you spoke into the phone so that you can be sure that you are going to be calling the right person! The phone has an internal phone book at lets you store up to 179 names and phone numbers. In addition, if you received caller ID information when you received a phone call, you can immediately save the phone number into your internal phone book. If you are on a digital network, the phone can send and receive a fax or data file. The special feature of the Samsung SCH-3500 is the mini-browser. Basically, you receive only the critical aspects of the available sites with most graphics removed. I can currently access the following websites: - @SprintPCS - Funny.com - Yahoo! - Barnes & Noble - Amazon.com - FTD.com - Fidelity - Afronet - eCompare! - EMAZING.com - Bloomberg - Dictionary.com - FOX Sports - Ameritrade - GetThere.com - MapQuest - CNN - The Weather Channel - Infospace - Phone.com - Go2online - Go2money - Go2shopping - Go2travel - Go2scores - Go2movies - Go2news I can also try to access other URLs, but have not tried to use that capability as of yet. Navigating through the mini-browser takes some getting used to, but if you use the on-screen choices to move about the web, you should have no problem catching on pretty quickly. You can also bookmark your favorite pages so that you don't have to go browsing around, wasting valuable air time. The Samsung SCH-3500 weights approximately 5.5 oz. and can provide up to 2.5 hours of digital talk time and up to 45 minutes of analog talk time when you use the standard battery. Additionally, when using the standard battery digital standby time can be up to 130 hours and analog standby time can be up to 15 hours. The display screen has five lines (four lines of text and one icon line) and the phone uses a dual band: CDMA 1.9 GHz / AMPS 800 MHz. I recommend this phone to anyone who wants to join the Sprint PCS network! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90704 2000/12/3 Product Rating4.0 well built flip style solid reception battery life Full Review Looking for one of the best overall cell phones on the market? Look no further than the Samsung SCH-3500. This sleek, metallic-silver, flip-phone packs a lot of punch, offering a multitude of features at a very reasonable price ($149.99). I opted for the 3500 after comparing with other phones (Qualcomm QCP-2760), after taking the advice of my off-line buddies, and after searching on-line at various product review sites (deja.com http://www.deja.com/channels/channel.xp?CID=11939 ; productopia.com; epinions.com, etc. etc. ) Overall, I am very satisfied with this cell. Specs (compiled from the manufacturer's site) - Voice dialing - 20 listings Not really a feature you need, but this is very easy to set up and very cool. The feature recognizes three syllabled words without a problem. 99 Phone Book listings Might not be enough for some. The phone book can be searched alphabetically or numerically. Unlike some other phones, where you can store a couple numbers per user, the 3500 only allows you one phone storage number per user. - Voice Memo (8 minutes) Very, very cool feature. The feature clearly records your voice with little problem. - Caller ID - Alarm feature I've tried it a couple times. May not be loud enough for some. Very, very cool feature. Hit a button and start recording! Standard cell features - Call timer - Automatic Redialing - Call Forwarding - Call Waiting - Three-Way Calling - Ear-Microphone jack Perfect for hands-free communication. I bought a Jabra hands-free set, which enables me to drive and talk at the same time. If you're wary of getting a flip phone, I highly recommend getting one of these ear pieces. - Programming / Keypad Lock It took me a while to figure out that you have to press OK and MENU at the same time to disable to lock feature. - Scratchpad Memory - Mute Function - Last 27 Phone number Redialing Incoming, outgoing and missed calls are recorded with a date-time/number stamp -Wireless Web. Works well, but the text is smaller than the regular phone text…the service might not be worth setting up. I believe it runs about 30 cents a minute if you don't choose the free wireless web option. I suggest opting for Omni sky on your Palm V. -Lithium Ion Battery. Battery stays on tightly, unlike the Nokias, whose batteries were renowned for falling off, after the phone was dropped. See below, concerning battery life. -Dual band, CDMA technology. Tone & Display - Graphic LCD Display - Variable Font Size - Graphic Icon - Ringer/ LED/ Vibration Alert - 13 Different Ring Types ( 9 Mono tones + 4 Melodies) - Differential Ring - Incoming Call Indicators - SMS & Voice Mail Indicator - Roaming Indicator - Call Dropped Indication the Good --Above average sound quality. The 3500 works well in both quiet and noisy places. The volume set <low, medium, high> works well. I've tested other cell phones, <Startac, Nokia, Qualcomm> and the 3500 is comparable. --Cool, nifty features. See above. The phone offers so many features; some that are truly unnecessary. --Easy to use. It took me about an hour to figure out most all the functions, features. --Big, hard plastic buttons. The OK/Menu buttons differ from Nokia's soft, squishy buttons. They don't wear out as quick. --Adjustable green back light. Bright enough, but the Sanyo's indiglo backlight is much brighter. --Flip phone A bit bulky for some, but still small enough to fit into pockets. Some may like the flip style, while others may prefer the regular one piece phone. Beware of pressing the earpiece too firmly, and overextending the two attached pieces <mouth and ear>. The screw on the sides may come loose and your connection may break; if this does happen, you won't be able to hear the person on the other end. You can, however fix this problem by removing the grey, rubber plug on the back of your phone, and tightly screwing in the screws. -Allows you to disable roaming feature. --Can check remaining air-time using the Call Log feature. That is to say, you don't have to go onto the website or press *4 to check remaining minutes. --Vibrate setting! A bunch of the phones lack this feature. --Sturdy. Takes a licking, still keeps on ticking. There are a bunch of dents and scratches in my baby, but it still works fine. the Bad --Reception is not that great. Compared to the Qualcomm QCP-2760, the 3500's reception is weak. My brother's 2760 consistently reached four bars while the 3500 only received a weak 2 bar. --Works only with Sprint PCS, I believe. I had a bunch of problems the first month of service as Sprint botched up my plan. I called customer service a bunch of times, though, and they resolved the problems. Their online customer support service is expedient. They replied to my queries within an hour. Your ping time may differ. --Quite a few tones and beeps and ringer settings, but not as many as those Nokia phones. The 3500 does boast the Fur Elise, if you're down with that. <<<On a side note, if you do have a Nokia, check out www.yourmobile.com for some phatty ringer tones for your phone>>> --Recharger base is big and clunky. The Nokia recharger is small and compact. --Battery life indicator. There are only three bars to indicate battery life; many times the battery life bars do not reflect the actual minutes remaining. --Battery life is not as good as other phones; still, the battery life is above average. I charge mine every night. I also read the following from a fellow epinionator's review: <<<<<The Samsung 3500 has a total of 2.5 hours of continuous talk time or 110 hours standby, not the 4.5 talk and 10 day advertised on this website. The 4.5 talk/10 day standby can be obtained only with the extended lithium ion battery which does not come standard with the phone and which costs an extra $70. >>>>>> --Ubiquitous. You're not going to win originality points with this phone anymore. Most everyone I know has it. The 3500 is seemingly more popular than the much-loved Nokia. the Lowdown One of the best bangs for your buck, the sturdy and sexy Samsung SCH - 3500 is a keeper. Where to buy? This and many Sprint PCS phones are sold out. I bought mine on Sprint's website <sprintpcs.com> for $149.99; check ephones.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90703 2000/5/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 makes kirks communicator look like a pay phone sleek light voice dialing none i ve found Full Review Through a rather bizarre set of circumstances, I suddenly found myself with an excess of service packages I was paying for - and a decided lack of actual phones to use them. Serves me right for helping out a friend. "Kirk to Enterprise. Flog Spock." Having decided I hated my current phone(a Motorola M70) I thought I'd kill one plan, get a Sprint PCS phone, and consolidate. Now I dig on the teeny tiny phones - but price is always a factor, and I worried about the juice. A pretty phone with a dead battery doesn't meet the need. Ok, I got lucky. I was planning on a different, cheaper phone. Hey, I do ok, but 150 bucks to have people interrupt me over lunch seems a bit much. Thanks to a lucky Chance Card (Bank makes error in your favor, collect 200 dollars), those plans changed. Seems even the fine folks at Best Buy can make a boo-boo in labeling - so for 100 bucks, I finally captured some Federation technology. The Samsung 3500 is a wee phone indeed - smaller then a Star Trek communicator, and with more options to boot. When compared to my old brick of a phone, the 3500 weighs near nothing, fits easily into the pocket, and slides right out of it and under the car seat like nobody's business. It flips open to reveal recessed buttons that are easily accessible and logically placed - no fumbling for a scroll wheel or a function key. And the functions! Ok, most phones have Bach as a ringer type. And joy mode (err, vibrate mode for you folks without the pleasure) is getting pretty common too. Web browsing is the big 'perk' - go ahead, ask me the weather in Bora Bora. Dual band - fine, toss that in. Headset jack, sure, even if it sort of defeats the purpose. But Voice Dialing, now that is cool. You press a button, then say a word. "Home, James." Then you type in the number. Next time you flip the phone, you say "Home, James", and viola! Instant annoyed wife (um, well, I HAVE to show off my new toy, don't I?). Voice recognition is darn near the best I've ever seen, and mild background noise doesn't seem to cause problems. Take that, Captain Kirk! Sound is very clear, and juice life is rated at 180 hours of standby, 2.5 talk with the included battery. I haven't had it long enough to be sure, but I've had it on for the past 2 days and still show a bit above half on the meter, so I'll give them the benefit there. The 3500 is voice mail/text paging capable. It also can store 10 one-minute voice messages; though it seems to me if you cannot remember something, how are you going to remember you left yourself a message to remember??? Ouch. Ok, I'll stop that. Let me go back to web browsing. It's cool the first time. It's pretty lame after that. Download speeds are decent, considering its pretty much just text - but I just don't see blowing my talk time on sports scores when I have a 2,000 dollar DSL capable PC lying around the house. I suppose if you're trapped on a mountain somewhere, it'd be a way to kill time while you debated which of your fellow survivors you wanted to dine on, but it's really not the most practical thing in the world. I love this phone. It's light, sleek looking, and the voice dialing really rubs the Geek genes the right way. Sadly, it's a 150 bucks, so unless you have the same hung over salesman I had, you'll have to spend a bit more. It would be unfair of me to say if it is worth $150...but if someone made me go back to the store and pay the correct price, I'd do it. Of course, they'd have to find me first! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90702 2000/9/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 totally hands free capabilities lots of features none Full Review I have had a cellular phone for a few years now, but recently purchased the Samsung 3500 and LOVE IT!! It has a slim, compact design that is wonderful. It isn't too small though to where it gets lost in the bottom of my purse (a problem that I had with the Startac by Motorola). It also has a little red light that flashes when it is ringing, which helps to locate it. There are several ringer settings, including some tunes. One of the thing that I love most is the voice activated dialing. It allows you to store 20 names and phone numbers and then access them totally with your voice. The phone will ask "Who would you like to call today?" and you say the name - it repeats the name and then dials the number for you! If you need to write down a number and don't have a pen handy, there is a button that you can push that will record and retain 60 seconds of conversation (up to 10 times). Additionally, it uses a standard earbud/mic(there is no converter needed to use an earbud) making this a totally handsfree experience! Of course you can also store up to 179 phone numbers in the database. There are many setting to make your phone as individual as you are. There are several ringer settings including vibrate. You can have it beep you when you have an incoming voice mail message, too. It has caller ID and also has Internet capabilities. I have not ventured into that aspect yet, but plan to do so soon. it also has a long battery life. I put mine on the charger about two nights a week and it is on 24 hours a day! All in all - I love this phone! It will definately hold me till for quite a while! I highly recommend this phone to anyone that is considering buying a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 114.00 at Circuit City (on sale) 90701 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dialing not too small small sprint pcs service Full Review Although I am none too happy with my digital service through Sprint PCS, my cute, affordable, new acquisition has made the digital phone world bearable; in fact, it has even become (dare I say it?) FUN! A little over a month ago, I accidentally gave my old phone, the Qualcomm 1930, a ride to the store on top of my car. Unfortunately, the phone didn't quite make it there, nor did it ever show its face again. I knew it was time to suck it up and make a new phone purchase. As soon as I walked into my favorite place in the world, the Sprint PCS store (YUCK) this little beauty caught my eye. Unlike the majority of the mobile pohones available to day, this little guy is silver, not black. I knew that I would be much less likely to set this puppy down on the top of my black car and leave it there. The second thing that caught my eye was the price. It was a mere $149, much less than I expected to pay for a phone with such features. Let me premise this upon the fact that I am VERY picky with the pieces of metal and plastic that I hold up to my ear. My husband has a little Sanyo phone that is so small that I have to practically jam it into my ear canal to hear it. I liked the feel of the Samsung. The ear piece folds down to make the phone more compact, but I like the flat, cool feel of it on my ear. Many of today's phone have their battery right behind the earpiece, causing that part of the phone to get very hot while talking. That has not yet happened to me with this phone as th battery is in the part of the phone that you hold with your hand. The neatest feature of this phone, aside from the covered buttons that keep me from accidentally making calls while the phone is in my purse, is the fact that it has voice dialing. Yup, you heard me right! Once programmed, all you have to do to make a call is open the earpiece and speak the pre-programmed name of the person you want to call. I have gotten some wierd looks while attempting to make a call, but once people figure out that that's all I have to do to dial, they think it's pretty cool. In fact, this feature even works with the hands-free earpiece! I have been nothing but pleased with my new phone. This kid lasts nearly 200 hours on standby and nearly 3 hours talking. It's an amazing little piece of machinery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90700 2001/3/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality excellent call screening both micspeaker can t find a good headset The Bottom LineThis stylish and durable phone performs very well with excellent sound quality and an ample set of accessible features. A definite asset at work or home. Full Review From the title, you can probably tell I like the Samsung SCH-3500 cellular phone. This fact is actually kind of funny as I originally went kicking and screaming into the purchase of this cellular phone. You see, my work decided "I needed a phone". At first, their suggestion was that I carry a pager. After dodging this horror extremely effectively for months, I finally was given a "loaner" cell phone and I have to admit it did make my job easier almost immediately. However the digital reception in my building was poor, so I needed a dual mode phone which could switch seamlessly between analog and digital. The recommendation from Bell Mobility was the Samsung SCH-3500 Personally, I like being `unavailable' when in a meeting or at lunch or generally away from my desk. With the marvelous inventions of voice mail and e-mail, leaving and returning messages quickly has become a very effective way of life for millions of us over the past several years. However, a couple key features made this Samsung phone an extremely useful tool: • Caller ID • Vibrate Alerting With these two features, this annoying tool became very useful almost immediately. I almost always have the phone on vibrate mode and screen the call with Caller ID which let's meetings go uninterrupted unless I really need to take the call. Anyway, on to the specifics and my experience with the Samsung SCH-3500: Lightweight & Compact While the 3500 is not the smallest phone on the market, it does in my mind classify as small. I find the ergonomics very pleasing and the phone will slip into the pocket of my slacks comfortably. There is also an excellent coffee-coloured hard plastic belt/pocket clip which the phone slides in and out of easily that I would highly recommend. From the popularity of the phone, I will also draw the conclusion it is considered somewhat stylish. I know I find it quite a pleasant design. Functionality This phone has a ton of features (check the spec page for the full list), but by far the following are my favourite set of features: • Microphone and Speaker Sound Quality • Voice Dialing • Ample size and easily navigable Address Book • Memo taker • Caller ID display and Caller ID blocking Everyone comments on the quality of the microphone. I get a lot of "Oh! I didn't know you were calling from a cell phone" comments, and my co-workers have asked me the model simply because my voice comes through on their end so clearly. The speaker sound quality is ample enough such that I can hear most people in a reasonably noisy pub, and the ear piece is small enough that you can comfortably cup your hand over it if necessary. Oh did I say "pub"?!? I meant a noisy cafeteria... At first, I thought voice dialing was a frivolous feature, but for the very frequently called numbers, I have come to use this feature extensively. The voice recognition is not perfect however, and I would say I get it about 7 out of 10 attempts. My hint (actually the manual's hint;-): make the voice dial prompt sufficiently long. For example, to record a voice dial prompt for Bob, use "Bob at Work" and not a shorter "Bob". The one strange thing is that the voice dialing does not seem to be adversely affected by ambient noise. Even with a radio playing, it still easily recognizes "Bob at Work" most of the time. The phone book is amazing. Storage is easy from the outgoing, incoming, or missed call lists, or simply adding a new entry from the very easily navigable Menu system. The phone book holds 179 entries (#179 being reserved for the voice mail number) and entering the names is using the now common hit 2 three times for letter C mechanism. I should note also that the screen and the backlight are both very good, with sufficient options to configure the back light timer to save on battery life. I have even given up wearing a watch since I can always easily see the clock on the cell phone, even in bright sunlight. Oh yes, and battery life. I expect to get three solid work days out of this phone, two with a heavy volume of calls. Recharging is quite quick and I have not noticed any real degradation in battery life nor battery "memory" factor in the 6 months I've had the phone. The Samsung also has a voice memo recording function, where you can quickly record reminders to yourself such as a FAX number, or even a date to be added to a calendar at a later time. I have been truly amazed at how useful I have found this function. Everything from shopping lists, to reminders for work, to spelling someone's name. A very useful feature in my opinion. The mini-browser novelty wore off within the first couple of weeks, but I still use it to check movie listings every blue moon. My major complaint definitely has to be the headsets. I have tried two headsets now: • a plantronics head phone model and • a samsung ear clip model For both, the sound and microphone quality has left a lot to be desired. I have mostly stopped using the headsets since they provide only mediocre performance, leaning towards the poor side. Summary All in all, I've been very happy with the Samsung SCH-3500. The phone is durable, especially considering the beating and use it takes at work, with the only complaint being I lost a little rubber screw cover on the back side of the flip top arm. The reception, sound quality and effective call screening feature combinations make this an invaluable tool for work. Even so much so that I replaced my wife's personal phone (a older Sony) with a Samsung SCH-3500 so now the two of us match (how cute, eh? "Ack Barf!" to again quote Bill the Cat). "Hey - I thought you didn't like cell phones?" you ask. I never said I didn't believe in personal cell phones... ;-) And the Samsung SCH-3500 certainly satisfies both personal and professional cell phone needs very well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130.00 90699 2000/3/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very durable excellent features good clarity somewhat clunky window gets scratchedbecomes hard to see through The Bottom LineThe SCH-3500 is a perfectly wonderful phone, but I would spend the extra $50 and get the SCH-8500 instead. Full Review Ah, to pay $50 extra for the Samsung SCH-8500...or to settle for the somewhat less cool-looking and bulkier SCH-3500? If there's ever been an eternal question, this is certainly not it. That having been said, this is, however, something that may be worth considering, especially for those potential cell phone users who have their sites set on Sprint for a service plan. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of difference between the two phones; the 8500 is a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, flips open in such a way that it bears more than a passing resemblance to one of those communicator thingies from Star Trek. So, at this point, you may be asking yourself, "Do I really want to pay an extra $50 for coolness?" While I realize that some people are willing to pay obscene amounts of money just to have the latest and greatest, many people actually go to the trouble of comparison shopping. For those of you who fall into the first group, this phone is really, really, insufferably cool. It is so darn cool that people are constantly walking up to me and saying, "Wow, cool phone!" (No, seriously.) Okay, you guys can stop reading now. However, for those of you who actually want to know whether the Samsung SCH-8500 is worth the extra bit of cash, please read on. The major differences between the Samsung SCH-3500 and the SCH-8500 are few, but potentially important, and I'll outline them here: 1. Price. This is the most immediately obvious difference, as I mentioned above. The SCH-8500 can typically be found for $199.99 at your local Sprint Store or Sprint PCS authorized agent, whereas the SCH-3500 costs $149.99. Sprint seems to be running some sort of mail-in rebate just about all the time (when I bought my 8500 they were offering a $30 rebate), so you many want to take that into account when thinking about price. Advantage: SCH-3500. 2. Size. The SCH-3500 is quite small and lightweight at about 4.4" x 2.0" x 1.0" in dimension and about 5.4 ounces in weight, including the standard battery. However, at a feather-light 3.8 ounces with the included slim battery, the SCH-8500 is almost 1/3 lighter in weight than the 3500. What's more, despite what one previous reviewer said (I think he was jealous because he had a 3500 and not an 8500), the 8500 is almost a full inch shorter in height than the 3500, with only miniscule added width (+0.08") and depth (+0.06"). The 8500 is so lightweight and tiny that I am able to carry it around in a front pants pocket like a pager, which is a big plus for me. I'm actually not even constantly aware that it's there, either. It can even be carried in a shirt pocket, although you certainly run the risk of dropping it down a flight of stairs if you run too quickly or bend over forward too far (yes, I have done this; see #3). Advantage: SCH-8500. 3. Durability. That was actually a very nice run-in to my comparison on durability. If you're anything like me, durability is paramount when deciding on any kind of portable electronic device. Usually I can get a feel for how durable a particular piece of equipment is, if not just by looking at it, certainly by picking it up and toying with it a bit. It has been my personal experience and that of several other friends and family members who have one of these two phones that both the SCH-3500 and SCH-8500 are extraordinarily durable. One thing in particular differentiates the two phones in terms of durability. On the SCH-3500, the screen is completely exposed even when the phone's flip-down cover is closed, whereas the SCH-8500's screen is hidden inside when the phone is flipped shut. Since the screen is clearly the most immediately vulnerable part of the phone, and since I plan to carry my phone mostly in my pocket, I prefer to have the screen on the inside, where it's far less likely to be nicked or scratched. 4. Accessibility. This is a relatively minor point, but one that I feel bears mentioning nonetheless. Since the SCH-3500 has an exposed screen, it can be read more quickly and easily than that of the SCH-8500. This can be useful if you want to check the time or date, as I often do, or if you don't care to flip open your phone each time it rings to see who's calling (the 8500 doesn't, however, answer automatically when you flip it open, unless you set it to do so). Sure, there are a few other differences between the two phones, such as the fact that the SCH-8500's display is a bit more pleasing to the eye, but those that I have found seem to me to be equally as cosmetic and/or insignificant. What it boils down to is how much the three things I've mentioned above matter to you. Keep in mind that some of the criteria I've listed above were judged on what's best for me. However, I also tried to give you the reasons why each particular phone is best for me in each respect, so that you can see whether or not you agree. If the size is more important to you than price, shell out the extra $50 and get the 8500; if you like having an open screen and don't care much about size, save $50 and get the 3500. As with most things, it's purely a matter of opinion -- whichever one works best for you is the one you should choose. For more information on this topic, please also take a few moments to look at my previous review on the Samsung SCH-8500, which can be found at http://basilisk4.epinions.com/elec-review-71F8-86A0048-39DC71C7-prod1. Thanks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90698 2000/1/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks great sounds great listed in the review Full Review If you use or looked at Sprint Services you will find the Samsung SCH-3500 is one of the popular cell phones they have for the price and options on it. What sold me on this phone were the sleek slender design and the voice dialing. After reading the instructions it was a snap to put someone's phone number in and then activating it with your voice. You can program in 20 different numbers for the voice option. I have Dad's phone number in it and all I have to do is say "Dad" and it starts dialing the number. I do not agree with people using the cell phones when they are driving but, if you must at least with this phone you can keep your eye on the road when you want to place a call. You can also leave up to 60 seconds worth of memos and a total of 10 messages. To leave a memo or listen to one you will have to use it like you use the phone, placing it to your ear and mouth. You can make a phone book on it with 179 different phone numbers. It is easy to use; you will have to read the instruction until you get use to it. You can use up to 32 digits for each number and up to 12 characters for the name. A lot of people don't like the flip-up design, I do and when it is closed, it protects the numbers from being dialed. If you have ever had this happen to you, you will understand. On an older phone that had no cover, I had stuck it into my pocket and believe me it bumped against things and it made some silly phone calls that were on my bill. It is silver in color and the antenna will pull on out but I have great communications with it in. There is a headset jack on the top of the phone, there is no data port or IR port this means it is not designed to hookup to your computer. Though it is Web-Enabled, I haven't tried this feature. There are six ring volume settings and vibrating. You can also set an alarm if you wish. It is a dual mode cell phone that means it will work on digital and analog systems. It does support the following, three-way conferencing, voicemail, Caller ID, call forwarding, Call Waiting and Redial. In the Graphics Display you can also tell the following features: An icons for Signal Strength, Service/No Service Indicator, Roaming, If you have a Message, Analog Mode, if the Vibrating feature is on and the Battery Strength. It is a backlit display with five lines, four are text and the other one is the icons. There is a built in power saving mode that will automatically turn off the phone if there is no signal strength for 15 minutes. It is always looking for a digital signal first and if there is not one than it will look for and analog signal. It is 4.4 inches in length, 2 inches in width, 1 inch thick and the weight is 5.5 ounces, so you see it is small and hardly weighs anything. The Battery & Charger The Samsung SCH-3500 has a lithium-ion battery that should go 2.5 hours while talking on it and around 60 hours while in standby. You can get an extended battery that will go on standby for about 10 days and continuous talk of 4.5 hours. I purchased extra the car adaptor so I can charge it every time I get in the car, this way I can leave it in the car and not drag it into the house. A dual charge desk charger came with mine and it will charge two batteries at a time. Another nice feature is you can charge the battery in the phone without having to take them out. Price If you have ever done any cell phone shopping, you will know $149 is a very good price for a phone with the quality and features of the Samsung SCH-3500. I have seen a lot of rebates lately at different stores for a $30 mail in rebate for this phone. The one that about knocked me over was, about three weeks ago Radio Shack has a two-day sale and the phone was only $69 after rebates and a service contract. I was tempted to get a second one but something told me no. So shop around and if you are not in a hurry, you might find another bargain for $69. The Voice dialing is a big plus for me, the main reason is I don't have to remember a lot of numbers, just say the name and it will dial it for you. I like the vibrating part of it, over the years I have had a loss of hearing, I keep it clipped on my belt and when someone calls I can feel it vibrate, I find this to be more effective for me than the ringer. Another plus with the vibrating is you can have the ringer off, this is a plus in a meeting if you get a phone call, it won't disturb the meeting. The quality of the phone seems great and I do love the style of it. The flip-up design when closed protects the buttons from being accidentally pushed. The biggest con is having to pay the $149. Setting up the voice dialing can be a little tricky if you don't say what you want plain and clear. After a little practice it works fine. There is a lot that the phone will do, you will have to study the instructions a lot and then just play around with it until you are comfortable with it. Overall This is a small and sleek phone with a great sound. There is a lot to learn from the manual because this phone will do a lot for you. Once you get the hang of it you will wonder if you could live without it. If you are looking for a dependable, clear sounding cell phone, then I highly recommend the Samsung SCH-3500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 after a $30 rebate. 90697 2000/7/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 looks battery life wireless web range Full Review I was trying to race a rock the other day when a lumpy turtle caught my eye. The thing was smoking a pipe and winking at me. I started running towards the turtle to get a closer look, when my feet got tangled up in something and down I went. At first, I thought it was just another one of my clumsy fits, but then I spotted a rusty lamp. Oh, yeah a freakin genie! Now, I can write one of those reviews telling everyone five gifts that I would like. As you would expect I picked the lamp up and started rubbing it. I awaited my three wishes, but they seemed to never come. I peeked inside the lamp, and saw nothing. I kicked it, smacked it, and finally spit it in (I think that woke him up). Cell Phone Genie: Who dare awaken the almighty cell phone seller? Marvien with an "E": I guess that would be me. How about giving me my wishes now? Turn yourself into Barbie and give me my million dollars. Cell Phone Genie: Yeah, I'll give you your three wishes all right. Your first wish is for me not to kill you. Ok, and the second wish is for me not to turn you into Boy George. Marvien with an "E": Hey, those sound pretty good. I thought I'd have to think about these things, but it seems you've had your practice. Now, let's talk about that third wish. I think that I would like to travel the world or eat a pie. Cell Phone Genie: I tell you what, I'm going to give you three cell phones. Marvien with an "E": Now, that don't sound bad. Give em here! Cell Phone Genie: Now, if you can decide which of the phones is better, I will truly give you one wish of anything you desire. The genie handed me Nokia 282, a Samsung 3500, and a Motorola StarTAC 7790. A few seconds later the genie had disappeared, and so had that turtle. I was really looking forward to talking to that turtle too. Well, I guess I had better start on my mission to discover which one of these phones is better. I started with the Nokia 282. Kind of plain, but looks don't usually impress me too much anyway. The phone was kinda light in my hand, and I eventually guessed it weighed around 4.5 oz. Basic Features Battery Life: 100 minutes of talk time and 24 hours of standby time Memories (Phone Book options): Up to 75 names or numbers LCD Display: 3 full lines Cellular Transmission: Analog Accessories Hands-Free Headset, Extended lithium battery, Data Capable, leather case, car adapter, desktop charger, and a variety of colors (black, pewter, Satin Silver, and Velvet Indigo). After looking at this phone for a while, I decided it was time to throw this one to the ground. It had some nice little features, but the single analog system got me down. It never really did feel good in my pants either. So, down went the Nokia 282. Next in line is the Samsung 3500. A spiffy looking little phone. A gray spaceship design took shape. First, let me explain to you the basics of this phone. The Samsung 3500 weighs in at 5.5 ounces (once again my incredible guessing abilities pay off), and is 4.4" by 2.0" by 1.0." Sprint created this phone to be able to work in a digital area (frequency of 1.9 Ghz) and an analog area (frequency of 800 MHZ), hence the title dual band. As long as you are using the phone in the digital area the sound quality remains digital which cuts all static out of the conversation. It also means you are not roaming. Once, the phone switches to analog the conversation will cost you more and it will also have bad clarity. The phone has a better appearance than most flip phones, and contains a lithium ion battery which keeps the phone running for 120 digital standby time and 2.5 hour talk time. Features Battery Life: 2.5 hours talk time and 60 hours of Standby time. Memories: 199 spots for names and numbers Display: 5 lines Single or Dual Mode: Dual Any Key Answer: Yes 1. Voice Activated Dialing: One of the best features for us lazy people. This feature allows you to store a wide variety of numbers, and then be able to call them simply by saying their pin name. All you have to do is flip the phone open, and talk into the phone without using the keypad. 2. Internet Access: For all you web junkies out there this is a great feature. I'm too cheap to connect the thing, but I hear its great. Typing up e-mails and browsing the web may take a while to do, but it is possible. 3. Phone Book: The phone has a great amount of storage. You can record up to 179 names and numbers. If you forget a name or number simply go to the menu and go through the logs. 4. Ring Type: The phone also has up to four melodies or a silent vibrating ringer. The vibration mode is great for situations where you don't wish to disturb anyone. Smaller Features Voice-mail, Voice memo, Caller Id, Call Waiting, Three Way Calling, Mobile Connection, Digital talk, Roaming Set, keyguard, pager abilities, LCD screen light up, flip design which allows you to answer and end calls by using the flip, and a headset jack. What Comes With The Phone When you open up the box you will find the following items; 1. Hopefully, you will find the Samsung phone inside. If not you may want to contact the sales person. 2. Standard Lilon Battery 3. User Guide 4. Limited Warranty 5. Dual Slot Desktop Charger (allows you to charge the phone while on or off) 6. Quick Reference Card 7. Terms of Conditions of Service What Kind Of Accessories Can I get? 1. Custom Fitted Leather Case 2. Headset (allows you to clip a set of earphones to the phone and talk through a mike) 3. Extended Lithium Ion Battery 4. Car Adapter/Charger 5. Internet Provider For The Web Browser Where Can I Call If I Have Problems You can simply call the Sprint Hotline at 1-888-211-4PCS (4727) which happens to be open 24 hours a day. Or you can visit www.sprintpcs.com. By the way you activate the phone yourself, so this is where you might need to call Sprint for help. The only problems I've encountered with this phone is limited service area and I've had a hard time tracking down a car adapter to fit this phone. So, I think I'll keep this phone in my hand for a little while longer. The last phone on my list to play with was the Motorola StarTAC 7790. My freak mind told me the phone weighs around 3.6 ounces (one of the lightest phones made). Battery Life: 90 minutes of talk time and 55 hours of Standby Time. Memory: 99 lines available for names and numbers Display: 2-Line Type: Digital TDMA Hands-Free Headset Car Adapter/Charger Desktop Charger Leather Case One key answering, voice mail, caller ID, one touch dialing, low battery indicator, theft alarm, short message service, and a easy to use menu. Now, I liked many of the smaller features available in this phone, but it left a few things out. It had a shorter battery life than the 3500, no wireless web, and to me is just too small to use. I tapped my shoes twice and started yelling Samsung 3500. Sure enough the genie showed up. Cell Phone Genie: So, Marvien which of the phones did you choose? Marvien with an "E": You'd think you would use your ability to see because the only phone I'm holding is the Samsung 3500. Now, give me my one wish. Cell Phone Genie: Well, I should make you use your last wish to pay for those two phones you threw away, but I guess I'll give it to you for being a good sport. Marvien with an "E": Ok, my one wish is for that pipe smoking turtle. (and you people thought I would be wishing for a truck load of monkeys). Cell Phone Genie: Ok...I guess I can do that. You sure aren't the brightest egg in the world are you? Well, I solved the cell phone mystery and now it's time for me to have that nice little discussion with a turtle friend of mine. So, I'll be seeing you in my next review. Marvien with an "E" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 90696 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 functionality style quality voice recognition dialing price but it s a bargain compared to others in its class Full Review It all started when I spotted a colleague using this cell phone. I fell hopelessly in love at first sight. (With the phone, not the colleague.) The brushed metallic silver exterior, the compact size, light weight in my palm, yet heavily laden with the feel of Quality. I longed for the day it would be mine. (the phone, not the colleague... well, ok, maybe both, but don't tell my husband). Flash forward to an innocent visit to the local Radio Shack. I don't even remember why I was there, but I saw My Phone. I spent quite some time examining it in depth and hammering the poor Radio Shack guy with tons of questions. In fact, by the time I was done with him, he had agreed to join Epinions. It's not that I was in any way dissatisfied with my current Nokia 918 analog phone (http://creditexpert.epinions.com/./elec-review-74B5-603ECBE-385EAFCC-prod2), but my service agreement had come to an end and Comcast Cellular One was trying to rip me off... but that's another story. Anyway, I was in love and nothing could stop me. The Samsung SCH-3500 --Background-- There are two major types of cell phone service: digital and analog. Analog is the old fashioned crackley "are you calling me from your cell phone?" sounding system. Digital is the new technology with sound so sharp and crisp that it's hard to tell you're on a cell phone at all. Since digital coverage can be spotty and is only available in certain areas, it is wise to get a phone with dual system capabilities, especially if you want a phone that will always be able to call out in an emergency situation. I claim to have my phone for emergencies, but it's fast becoming an awesome convenience, and nearly a necessity, in my busy life. This phone is set up to work on the Sprint PCS (Personal Communication System) Network. I chose this service because of the fantastic deal I was offered. Can we talk? Yes! Because I get 800 minutes for only $30 a month! Also, Sprint PCS seems to have good coverage in my area. --Features of the Phone-- • The Flip Remember when flip phones first came out way back when? Well they were cool then, and they are even cooler now. This flip is awesome! The hinges are solid and well built. You can answer an incoming call by merely flipping the phone open. When in use, it also allows the phone to mimic the contour of your face way more than its straight as a board cousins, allowing for better fidelity for both you and your listener. When closed, the flip covers the dialing area of the phone, which helps prevent inadvertent calls. • Voice Activated Dialing Wow. This one of the funnest and most impressive features. You can program the phone to dial a number based on your voice command. For example, I flip open my phone and it asks me "Who would you like to call?" I say "Home!". And it does! I felt like naming my phone "Jeeves" after this trick, but it's a female voice. This is so nice when I'm in the car and don't want to take my eyes off the road to press a few buttons on my cell phone. The phone will accept up to 20 different entries in this mode. • Standard Cool Stuff These features are commonly available on normal phones, and are extremely useful on cell phones. The 3500 has 'em all: - Caller ID - Call Waiting - Call Forwarding - Three-Way Calling - Mute - Redial • Incoming Ringers Not only are there a multitude of ringer options from silent vibrate to Beethoven's "Fur Elise", but you can program all different rings to signify different call types. For example, calls coming in that are roaming (read $$$$) ring differently than normal PCS calls. This saves a lot of money by alerting me in advance and leaving me the option of not answering. You can also set a unique ring for different types of messages: Voicemail, Text Messages, and Numeric Pages. Additionally, you can differentiate your calls with and without caller ID. Options R Us with this baby. • Voice Memos You know how you think of a great idea while you're driving around but you don't have a pen and paper handy and anyway you can't take your eyes off the road long enough to write legibly? Well, here's the answer! This phone can record up to 10 voice memos, of up to 1 minute in length each, of whatever you want with just the touch of a button. The phone will label the voice memo with the time and date, but you can change it to an alphanumeric name if you wish. • Message Services This phone will store up to 100 messages! The messages are all time and date stamped and are easy to retrieve and save or erase. • Alarm This phone can also serve as an alarm! Whether you need a reminder to call someone or a wake up call while traveling, the 3500 is there to serve. Plus you get to choose another ring for this feature too! • Phone Book How about 179 numbers of up to 32 digits each with a corresponding associated name of up to 12 characters? Wow again! You can sort your internal phone book either numerically or alphabetically. I often look up a number on my phone rather than in my planner because it's so easy and convenient. • Call Logs This is very handy and a great way to control your costs. You can use this to get information on the last 9 calls you made, received, or missed. And you can also review your airtime. Airtime can be measured for the last call, or all the calls in the interval. You can reset the airtime whenever you wish. I do at the beginning of each month so that I can be sure not to go over my 800-minute allotment. • It Faxes too?!? Do you believe it? You can send and receive faxes! Of course, you have to connect the phone to a PC, but still, it's a phone for goodness sake! What will they think of next? • Minibrowser Need a stock quote or the latest weather? Check it out online with the minibrowser feature! Wowza! You can pull up all kinds of sites, but keep in mind it's going to cost you some dough, there's an extra charge when you go into browser mode. Also, don't do this while driving! You can even set up a file of bookmarks. No, I have not tried to pull up Epinions on the phone... yet. • The Desk Recharger It's really a cradle in which you can rest the phone and/or an extra battery. It's very nice looking and will compliment any decor. This phone fully charges in only several hours. • The Guide Book This TV Guide size tome is well written, nicely organized, and highly informative. It's makes taking advantage of all the features a breeze. A laminated pocket size mini-guide is also included. • Sprint PCS Service So far, so good. I've been treated very well by the customer care area each time I've called. I have not had to wait extended periods of time to get help and my billing has been accurate and fair, thus far. It's been rare that I have not been able to access PCS service in my normal travel routine in my area. I have only experienced pockets of a lack of coverage lasting for only a few moments on the road. I have not had to resort to analog use, which was one of my initial concerns. --How to Save Money-- The dual band is great for extended options in service, however, keep in mind that when analog airtime is used it presents an extra billing cost to the consumer. The 3500 gives you a couple of options to manage this extra charge: • Analog Service Warning You can set the phone to warn you when it is switching over to analog service. • Lock out Analog Service I have the dual modes so that I will always be able to call out in an emergency situation. I don't want to get hit with additional charges for switching off to analog in the middle of a call or if I happen to be out of the digital network for a spell. This feature locks out the ability to make or receive an analog call except in the case of calling 911. • Minute Beep This phone has a setting you can activate which will sound an alert 10 seconds prior to each elapsed minute you are on the phone. This is especially useful when you are calling long distance and subject to extra charges by the minute. • Airtime Tracking The phone allows you to see a compilation of all the airtime you've used during your set interval. Reset your counter at the beginning of each billing period to keep tabs on your usage. --Cell Phone Tips-- • Get the car charger You will not regret it. You never know when the phone will poop out, and if you spend a lot of time in your car it's an incredible convenience and a safety must. • Get some kind of case It will really help keep your phone in top condition. You don't necessarily have to get the expensive leather custom case. I keep this phone in a hard clamshell type eyeglass case in my purse to prevent it from getting smashed. • Don't play with your phone while you're driving How many times have you gotten stuck behind someone weaving back and forth, going too slow, and generally not paying attention to the task at hand because they were messing with their cell phone? Don't be one of them. It's not only inconsiderate to other drivers, it's downright dangerous. • Turn off the Ringer when Appropriate Like in the movies, church, romantic interludes, etc. Set the phone to vibrate. *snicker* • Report Drunk Drivers Most municipalities have a number, other than 911, that you can call to report drunk drivers you encounter on the road. Program the number into your phone. You could save a life. --Specs-- • Weight: 5.5 oz • Size: 4.4 x 2 x 1 (inches) • Talk Time Digital: up to 2.5 hours • Talk Time Analog: up to 45 minutes • Standby Digital: 130 hours • Standby Analog: 15 hours (these times are with the standard Lithium-Ion battery, an extended battery is available which adds approximately .5 ounces to the weight and doubles the times) • Display Screen: 5 Lines (1 line of Icons and 4 lines of Text) --Competition?-- Compared to the StarTAC, The Samsung 3500 is a far superior phone in my opinion, in many respects: features, workmanship, and manufacturing to name but a few. Not only that, but the 3500 costs LESS than the StarTAC, which is priced at $229.99! Motorola has also come out with a couple of new (read more expensive) models which appear to be basically enhanced versions of the StarTAC with more features emulating the 3500. These are the Talkabout at $249.99 and the Timeport at $299.99. The finish of these phones is remarkably similar to the brushed silver of the 3500. However, neither of these phones offer the voice recognition feature found on the Samsung. An upgraded Samsung model, the SCH-8500 is also available at $199.99. This phone is styled similarly to the all black StarTAC and contains a "personal organizer" in addition to all the SCH-3500 features. It's also smaller, if you can believe it, because the LCD window is actually in the flip. It is also an ounce lighter. But his phone lacks the shape and finish that turned my head on the SCH-3500 model. Also, I don't need these additional features... sometimes I forget that we're talking about a PHONE here! :) --The Downside-- • The Price I'm accustomed to receiving a free cell phone when I sign up or renew my service. So when I found out the price of this phone was $149.99 out of my pocket, I was not amused. I did get a rebate of $25 as some kind of special Mothers' Day Promotion, but still, I had to shell out $125. --In Conclusion-- I LOVE THIS PHONE! It's gorgeous looking, sturdy, light, compact, and high quality. It's easy to use, gives highly reliable service, and it's just plain fun! I am very happy with this purchase and highly recommend this phone to anyone in the market for a full-featured dual band cell phone. On an additional personal note (aimed at those near my own age) can you imagine if someone would have come up to us when we were kids and told us that this technology would really exist in the future? And to top it off, we would actually possess one of these phones when we got older? "Yeah!" "Right!" "Suuuuuure!" Well, that's part of why I love having it. I feel like I've got my hands on something that, in the past, was only available in the wildest of imaginations. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 7829 Samsung SCH-T300 90990 2000/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 attractive appearance reception problems The Bottom LineA piece of garbage if you ask me. Full Review I had previously used a Nokia 5190 (Fido) for 2 years with no complaints, except that it did not provide me with analog coverage. I was due for a new phone and decided to go with Telus and the T300. The second day after activation, I found that I could not dial out or receive any calls, even though the digital reception indicator was full ! When I used a land phone to call my cell, it would switch directly to my voice mail. When I tried to dial out, the display would continuously flash the words "Dialing" and then I would receive a "Call Failed" or "Call Lost" message. Technical support could not help me.I swapped the phone at a Telus corporate dealership for another T300. It worked fine the first day, then on the second day, more of the same. Now when I tried to dial my phone from a land line, there was a dead line signal or no signal at all (the reception indicator on my cell was full at the time)...it did not EVEN switch to my voice mail. Later when I got home, it worked again. Very frustrating..I do not recommend this phone to anyone. Keep in mind I did all this testing in areas that had a strong digital signal and in the exact areas where I commonly had used my Nokia, and I never had problems with it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 90989 2000/12/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception good internet options well made small can t download upload to phone without expensive option can t turn off some sound functions The Bottom LineIf you're a power-user phone geek this is it. Get this thing. Lot's of features for the money. Full Review I checked out a lot of phones prior to Samsungs new SCH-T300 and didn't find one with all the features of this phone. It has excellent reception and the sound quality is top notch. Works well in both digital and analog areas. The build quality of the phone is outstanding. When you hold this thing it just feels like quality. The display has very high resolution and is great for something this small. It shows WAP graphics and text with extreme clarity (although the fonts are sometimes a little tiny). The display backlight is perfect in all light situations. The keys are also lighted but they aren't as easy to see in low light situations (however in complete darkness they are very easy to see). The keys and joystick are very easy to use with one hand. Battery life is good for a phone of this size. It's got all the features of most modern cells (i.e. schedular, calendar, etc). One of my favorite things is it's voice recognition dialing. This thing really works! You train it (takes only a few minutes), tell it the phrase that you want to use with a certain phonebook entry and that's it. Now just push one button (or open the flip) and speak the phrase. Viola! It dials the number. Even works in pretty high background noise levels. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159.00 90988 2000/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sharp display very customizable great build quality easy animated menu unique call screening feature antenna when extended takes a bit to find sweet spot port cover The Bottom LineNear perfect. Make sure you put it on your short list if in the market for a candybar style phone. You wont be disappointed. Full Review Let me begin by saying I've had the phone for about 4 weeks now, so I'm still somewhat new to it. My conclusion so far is not perfect, but it's very, very good. I'll make it simple and follow a pros & cons description... pros- -easy to navigate menu system (somethings are very well buried though) -bright indiglo back lit screen -above average battery life (lasts 3 days w/ daily 30 min talk time & off at night) -about a 3 hour charge time -sharp display -strong vibrate feature -tight flip (absolutely no lateral movement when open) -very well-weighted and sized (i've had startacs!) -unique and very useful call screening feature (a bit hard to find at first) -can be set to save vmail to phone memory -side volume buttons -memo feature (quite easy to use) -great build quality (tight, solid feeling buttons and frame) -no need to open flip to take a call -voice recognition works better than most -very customizable -universal ear phone jack -comes w/ travel-sized charger -good sound/call quality -no unusual signal searching -animated idle screens (if you're into that) -animated menu system -calculator/scheduler (simple but useful) -can assign several #'s to same entry in phone book -menu system is hot-keyed to dial pad -one touch (and hold) silence mode -no software issues to date now for the cons- -some features are very well buried (i.e. retrieving vmail off the actual phone memory) -ridiculously long antenna when fully extended (thank god its rarely needed) -wasted one touch web button (numerous better uses for this button) -virtually flat earpiece (takes a few days to find and acclimate to the phone's sweet spot) -somewhat small buttons for those with larger hands/fingers -highest volume setting for ringer needs to be significantly higher (call volume is great, however) -virtually no accessory support (as of 12.21.01-but I believe Verizon is the only one to carry this phone so far and its very new for them) -tiny, easy to lose rubber port cover for charging slot (hands down my biggest beef w/ the ph. it's located on the bottom of the ph. just under the mic) -longer than average boot up time (if this can really be considered an issue) In my opinion it's a GREAT phone, easily a high 8 or 9. Many features including a rather unique call screening option and very sharp display. I stayed away from reception and that sort of thing purposely b/c that has more to do with location and provider, but in my area Ft. Laud/Miami quality of both is very, very good. The pros vastly out-weigh the cons on this one. So if you're looking for a candybar style ph, you'll be hard-pressed to find one better. (Hate that charger port cover though.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 90987 2000/3/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice memos dialing light weight sharp resolution design tri mode wide coverage low price awkward menu navigation little space for name to do list small buttons long antenna The Bottom LineFor the budget, aesthetic and PDA/high tech fans this is a useful toy with great excuses to replace your old plastic looking non voice activated phone. Full Review Reason of purchase: to replace my aging (battery dying) Sanyo 4500 Choices of Digital phones available: Samsung SCH-N150, Sanyo SCP-6000, Sanyo SCP-5000 Why I chose SCH-T300: 1.The rectangular, silver metal case design looks high tech and is in good taste 2.It's the right price range. I paid $140, headset, belt clip and cigarette lighter charger included. 3.It has three reception modes: AMPS 800mhz, CDMA 800mhz and 1900mhz, providing users with the widest coverage area as opposed to the light but single mode Sanyo SCP-5000. I was tempted by the light weight, but what's the point of taking out a sleek phone, dial a phone number, then the screen says, "not in service area"? SCH-T300 is reasonably light at 105grams. 4.Personal information manager (PIM) features such as 4 minute (2 voice memos, 2 minutes each) voice memo recorder, calendar, to do list, count down timer and alarm clock. It's handy when you don't want to pull out or forget to carry your PDA. 5.Voice dialing: 20 voice dial locations with superior sound recognition; Phone Book Features holds up to 500 alphanumeric entries, with maximum of 32 digits. You can enter 6 numbers per name (home, work, mobile, etc.) There are 15 melodies (mostly classical tunes) to choose from 6.High resolution big creen: VERY IMPRESSIVE black and white resolution and the screen size is great for web-surfing, short-sighted people like me. This phone, of course, isn't perfect for everyone: 1.People with large hands will curse as they press the keypad. 2.The central navigation button is too small, making jogging directions difficult. As a result, SCH-T300 menu is surprisingly hard to access comparing to competing models by Sony and Sanyo I used to have. Being a supporter of "no non-sense high tech gadget", I find this very frustrating. 3.The antenna is alarmingly long. Fortunately, reception is good in most areas so there is little need to extend it. 4.There is only 12 character spaces for name entry and 30 spaces for to do list. 5.The new T9 text input system is useless. It has a list of most commonly used words. When you key in the first letter, it spells out the rest for you. I happen to use less common words so it guesses wrong and presumptuously enter the word it "thinks" I want to enter! I end up using the conventional ABC keying system. Overall, Samsung SCH-T300 is a stylish phone with good features and performance at a great value. It's not perfect, but I will still choose it over other phone models. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 90986 2000/11/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice reception sleek solid built good phonebook scheduler low memory for events The Bottom LineI would buy it if it was 2002 again. I wrote this review as a tribute to good design and technology. Full Review I got this phone in 2002. And it has served me well for more than 2 years. It had amazing features for the choices that were available then. The only problem I had once, was that when I tried adding new events to my calendar, it would say memory full. I thought that was a problem with the phone till I decided to delete my past events and then it worked fine. I think the memory for storing the events is far too less. But if you delete you past events on time, that will never come up. I have also dropped this phone quite a bit, and still didn't have any problem. Recently the phone has started to act weird. After talking to a service guy, he said that the batteries on these phones as dseigned for about 500 cycles or recharging. So recently my phone fails to dial while making a call, or will not receive a call. It will look as if the phone is working and all is fine and you will find the phone is not working only when you try to dial someone. I have found that the only way to come out of it is to restart the phone. Once in a while, it would not start up and then I have to remove the battery and put it back before restarting. But all this I have been seeing only in a past four months or so. Other than this, I love the phone. It is old technology now, so maybe this is not a good buy in present times. But when I bought mine, I think this was the best for the price I paid. I never had any problems with the reception. And using the phone was quite a pleasure. I also like the cover for the keypad, which was easy to open with one hand while driving unlike flip phones. But now I have to move on to new technology. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90985 2000/9/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice size sound quality feel 2 way email web access battery life address book takes some getting used to long antenna The Bottom LineIt sounds great, it feel great in your hand, and it functions well. What more can you ask? Full Review I have been using the SCH-T300 on Verizon for 4 months now, and I am very satisfied overall. I live in Seattle, and use the phone primarily in Seattle and Portland, but have traveled to NY with it as well. The address book holds 200 names, and each name can have multiple numbers. This is much better than Nokia phones I have used in the past that need a separate entry for each name/number. The phone book only allows you 12 characters for the name, however. This is frequently not enough, and I have to make up an easily recognizable truncated name. Now that I'm used to the way the address book works, I don't have any complaints. Web access is text based only, but it serves my needs just fine. I use it to check my Yahoo email through MyYahoo. I also get weather stocks and news from time to time, and it works quite well. Just push one button, and you're on. There are plenty of ringer options to annoy those around you. The ringer could be a little louder however. I generally keep it on Vibrate. You don't need a special battery for the Vibrate option, which is nice. Calendar: I don't use it, as I have a Palm, but I played with it for this review, and it has all of the functions you would expect, and works smoothly. Voice Recorder: This is a great feature that I really love. You can record a voice message into the internal memory on the phone, and name the message to play it back later. It's great to take quick notes with. I use it to remind myself of a book or a CD that someone has mentioned, and I want to check out. You could call yourself and leave a message, but that would use minutes, so this is a great feature. Reception: I always have great reception with this phone. Even at just one or two bars, I am always heard clearly. If it's down to one bar, I pull out the antenna and it goes up a bar or two. No problems. The display is big and bright, and the sound quality is great. Verizon is the best telecomunications company I've ever been with, great customer service, no hassles. Overall, a good phone at a great price, with good service to match. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 90984 2000/5/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with many features stylish compact ringer needs to be louder hard to read display The Bottom LineWell made device with many features. Should cost more, but does not. If you are an average user, give the T300 a look. Full Review I've been a cell phone user since 1988. My first phone was about the size and weight of a brick. With each phone purchase, the size and weight of the device has gone down. My carrier offered me a special deal if I switched to digital service. Up till this time such service was more than I wanted to pay. I'm not one of these people that has a cell phone plastered to the side of my head every waking hour, so if I could get something more for less, I thought why not. The T300 caught my eye the moment I walked into the store. I always felt I was a Motorola fan, but there was something about this little phone. It feels good in my hand. Goes into a pocket easily. Takes up much less space than my old "flip phone". The voice dial feature is a big plus. I have a problem remembering numbers! Some have complained that you can't put more than one number per person. I solved that issue but just stating something like; "Mary's cell phone. Mary's pager, ect" Frankly I don't see why some folks have a problem with the phone book feature. I think it works well. The construction quality of the phone is very high. All parts fit as the should and gives the impression the phone costs more than it actually does. If I had to make some improvements it would be on the display screen. While the screen seems large, the fonts of some of the features are hard to see. There is no adjustment to change to larger fonts. While the phone features more ring tones than the Boston Pops, the tones are not loud. Frankly, with the phone in my car's console, I'm not able to hear it ring. A problem I did not have with the phone it replaced. I've noted that "ring 1" is the loudest of the group. I should say it is the least faint. There are phone that offer more, but cost a lot more. For the money I think the T300 is a "good buy". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 245 90983 2000/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great look great features none i can really think of The Bottom LineOf all the phones I have ever used, this is the first time I have no complaints. Full Review Last week, when my contract with AT&T ended, I decided to invest in a new company. AT&T had always been decent, but other companies such as Sprint and Verizon began to offer better deals and more enticing offers. Also, my ancient Startac was beginning to become a bit outdated, in terms of technology. Hearing good remarks on Samsung phones, I decided to sign a contract with Sprint and to replace my Motorola with a new release. And after having had a Nokia 5165 and a Motorola StarTac, this is the first phone that I had no complaints about. The Nokia 5165 was a bit bulky, and the overall shape was a bit too stoutly built. Another big problem was that the button to hang up was located right where my cheekbone was when I was talking, and thus I've accidentally hung up on several important calls. So I switched to a StarTac, which had excellent shape and a professional look. Unfortunately it did not offer nearly as many features as the Nokia had, such as games and customizeable tones etc., and it was a bit harder to use. However the main complaint was that the phone's reception quality was a bit below what I had wanted. Still, I liked the StarTac a lot, probably because it looked good and the better looking phones (call me vain, but I like aesthetic phones) cost over $300, which I was definitely unwilling to shell out. And for 2 years, my StarTac went wherever I went, and eventually into a cell phone store where I would find its replacement to-be. The Samsung T300. Now this phone had both the features of the Nokia and the stylish appeal of the Motorola. It also had a good reputation among my colleagues as being their #1 choice for its easy usability. The biggest thing, though, was that the reception was crisp from even my home (which is located by a series of entangling phone lines)! Realizing this I decided that it was time for a new phone. The quality of the new technology is not the only thing to be noticed. Its user friendly appeal and practicality makes it an ideal choice. When you receive a call from a new source, you are afterwards prompted as to whether or not you want to add it into your directory, which is incredibly easy to keep organized. Even I, who has very little ability to do anything in today's world of advancing technology, was able to navigate easily through this phone's database as it grew when I began to use it more often than my actual home phone. The comfortable shape (also my unlimited plan) made me WANT to use it, even when I had no one to talk to. The long battery life (it easily lasts for 3 hours of talking) allows for many important calls to be made, and the reception allows for super clear hearing. This is by far the greatest cell phone I have ever used (that was under $500), and I forsee that I will probably stick to this phone longer than I did with my StarTac. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 90982 2000/1/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 features looks screen price not a gsm phone world phone can t have more than one phone number per contact The Bottom LineI would recommend it 100%. It is an excellent phone that does not cost a lot, is cool with a lot of features and offers very good quality. Full Review A little background: I work in a store in which, among other things, I sell cell phones. I have all kinds of phones with all 4 companies that offer service in my area (Montreal, QC, CAN). Therefore, when I decided I needed to buy a phone, I had a lot of choice and good knowledge about the different brands/models. It should therefore go to great lengths to convince you that I chose this phone amongst all the ones my store carries. I wrote two reviews, for the hasty and the detail-oriented. -------------LONG VERSION------------- This might not be the most complete phone with all the cool features etc., but it's certainly unbeatable in its price range. The list price over here is 250$ with a 50$ mail-in rebate, and you can get additional rebates after that if you choose to go with a 1, 2, or 3 year contract. It is not the cheapest phone around, but is in line with the price of the other reasonably good-quality, feature-packed phones on the market here. Most of this bargain is probably due to Telus (the service provider), since the SCH-T130 offered by Bell is more expensive, even though it has less features. That covers the price, now what about the phone itself? Well, as I said, it might not have a color screen or full-featured Palm-style personal assistant, but apart from those, it's not missing much... It has (and I only list the features that I actually use) vibration, voice activation (say "call mom" and it automatically dials the right number), a big screen, dozens of different tones, the ability to download new ones from the Net (although Telus doesn't allow me to do that through their network), a scheduler, easy internet access (can't comment on that, haven't used it and don't plan to), active but not wired flip (more about that later), up to 400 names storage, voice memo function (which also lets you record a phone conversation), sms function, T9 text assistant, and some cool games. The phone works really well, I get signal (launch all ZIG) when I'm supposed to, but it's not a miracle phone, which means there are some areas where I can't get good communication, which is much more related to Telus than the phone itself. The quality of the phone is second to none, I already dropped it a couple times and nothing shows on the surface. You can feel that the unit is very well-built, the only gripe I have about the construction is the small pesky rubber thingy that cover the phone's recharge plug. Not only is it not attached to the phone (making it very easy to misplace it when recharging), but it is quite quick to fall off the phone when in your pocket or otherwise rubbing against stuff. The phone is very light and quite small too, despite the big screen. The buttons are quite small too, but with the voice activation and cursor (the little joystick you use to navigate the menus and play the games; really cool) it shouldn't be much of a problem, you won't use the number buttons all that often. The features all work without a hitch. The phone has no trouble recognizing who you want to call when using voice activation, and if it has trouble it asks you whether it is really that person you want to call, and you just say "yes" or "no". The screen is really big for a phone of this size, which might not seem like much at purchase time, but you really are glad to have that thereafter. The phone can display cool animations when turning on or off, or when staying idle. It can either display the date/time in two different time zones, only with digits, or both with an analog and digital display. The number of contacts allowed is ample (if you know more than 400 people on a phone call basis, you need a Palm and/or a break), as is the number of voice activation numbers (20) and memos (5 with a total of 4 minutes). The T9 text completion feature also works surprisingly well. They really thought of everything, for example you can set hyphenation to on or off (either 111-111-1111 or 1111111111). You can set the phone to auto answer calls, when you press a key, or when you open the flip. As soon as you have some voice activation entries, you just open the flip and it asks you who you want to call. Just a couple of the really nice touches all over this phone. The flip is active, as I just mentioned, however there is no wire or microphone inside of it, which prevents some of the contact issues seen with other phones such as the SCH-3500. One gripe about the use of the phone is that you can't add more than one voice-activated number for each contact. In fact, to add more than one number for a particular contact, you have to create the contact with one number, then go back and edit the entry to add another number. Therefore, if you wanted to have a voice-activated number for someone's cell phone and another one for the home phone, you would have to create two different contacts. Could be messy. The scheduler works well too, however it is limited in its functions, i.e. it won't replace your Palm if you use ti to its full potential. For me, however, what it offers is ample enough that I won't need a Palm or agenda. Oh, and the games that are included with the phone are pretty cool. -------------SHORT VERSION---------------- The phone is great, I love it, the features all work very well, the quality of the reception and of the construction are top-notch, it's got all the features you need and more, plus the cool factor is extremely high. PROS: pretty much everything is cool about this phone, but here are the best features: -voice activation that actually works -vibration -big screen -cool factor -the flip -the games are cool -ample memory (memos, contacts, etc.) -price -well thought-out cursor -T9 text works well CONS: they are minor, but here goes: -rubber plug cover prone to removal/loss -only one voice-activated number per contact -people might become jealous Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 90981 2003/5/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 sleek light stylish with screen out flip phone feature rich for the price small buttons pronounced dead after 13 months no charge indicator on the handset The Bottom LineExcellent compromise between features and price... provided it doesnt break. Full Review Update May 4, 2003 I've just now effectively pronounced my cellphone "dead" after 13 months of use. Everything works perfectly EXCEPT the microphone, which is dead, or disconnected somehow. Since the phone was out of warranty I've taken the phone completely apart and have had no luck repairing it... it just randomly decided to stop working and now here I am looking for a new cellphone. I've taken great care of this phone to extend its life for the full 3yrs of my cellphone plan's contract... and as such have decided never to buy another samsung cellphone without purchasing the extended warranty. I'd expect this from audiovox but not samsung. ---ORIGINAL REVIEW--- Wandering around dozens of Telus Mobility stores had me rather disappointed in the meagre choice of cellphones offered as subsidized phones by the company... One phone stood out above the rest for a good compromise between features and price... the Samsung SCH-T300. Finally, I came to the decision to replace my aging StarTAC with this phone. Things I first noticed about the phone: - Tons of features... everything from the 4 minute voice recorder to the scheduler to the games. - Good antenna... it didn't look like it was going to fall off or break apart like many phones on the market. - Convenient flip design keeps the buttons locked while in pockets or other crowded compartments. After owning the phone for over a month... Here are what I believe to be some of the key pros and cons... -------- MAJOR PROS--------- - Exceptional clarity with no static or echoing... this includes being in a crowded restaurant... - Sleek, light flip design keeps the buttons from being pressed while in my pockets or cubby holes. - Standby time is excellent... talk time is fairly decent for a phone of this size. - 4 min. voice recorder allows you to record phone conversations of, for example, directions or phone numbers, then easily access them later for reference... For those moments when you just can't find a pen. - Scheduler is handy for someone who doesn't have a very busy schedule. I'm not sure I'd want to be entering a busy schedule into this phone though... as typing on the small keys is difficult. - VERY customizable sounds including the ability to assign a specific ring to phonebook items. - Many ringtones and songs make it so you normally don't find someone else with the same ring in a crowded room. - Games can occupy a bored mind in a waiting room... they've come in handy quite a bit recently :) ---------CONS-------- So far I have really no major complaints about this phone - there are a few things which I would like to see: - From what I can tell, you can't purchase coloured or design face plates for this phone... silver is all you get. - The LCD is the regular green... for a phone this advanced, I would like to see one of the new coloured LCD's which glow a specific colour instead of green. - There is no beep or light or blinking display which lets you know that the phone is charging. There IS one on the end of the charger which you plug into the wall, but that part is not visible where I have it plugged in. ---------Conclusion--------- All in all, I've found I have not regretted buying this phone. It is a really great phone for the amount I paid for it. The cons mentioned above are really not enough to greatly affect my final rating of this phone... They are just things that I was more/less surprised that they weren't already in a phone this advanced. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 90980 2000/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome screen good reception loud ringer stylish wireless web strong vibrate menus need improving games worthless small buttons somewhat awkward in hand long antenna The Bottom LineIf you want Verizon (which you probably should), you will also want the SCH-T300. Although it has weaknesses, it is hands-down the best Verizon phone. Full Review In my opinion, Verizon has one major weakness -- phone selection. Verizon's selection of cutting-edge phones has always trailed behind Sprint's selection, the cornerstone of which is their phones from Samsung. Samsung phones have always been a favorite of mine for their technology, ease of use, and quality. So, when Verizon introduced the SCH-T300 into their lineup, I immediately took notice and decided to grab one. For a bit of perspective, my last phone (with Sprint) was the Samsung SCH-8500, an amazing phone that leaves little to be desired. It had wonderful navigation, good battery life, and awesome clarity. But the SCH-8500 is now yesterday's news, and has been surpassed by a host of new Samsung phones with some incremental improvements. In fact, many new Samsung phones seem to be simply repackaged SCH-8500's (i.e. the SCH-N150 available with Verizon). But this is not the case with the SCH-T300... With a gigantic new graphics LCD and a host of new features, this is an almost an entirely new phone from Samsung. First and foremost, the SCH-T300 simply LOOKS impressive. In standby mode, the gameboy-ish screen can display either some pictures (a forest, an animated cheetah, etc.) or a variety of time/date display options, one of which is a cool digital time readout with characters over 1 cm tall. This is great for looking at the time from a distance. The size and shape of the T300 is quite good; it has a very solid feel to its construction. The SCH-T300 is thinner and much lighter than the SCH-8500 and it fits in my pocket better. Unfortunately, the T300 does not seem to "sit" on your face as well as the SCH-8500 does and it takes a while to find the talking sweet-spot. Yes, the antenna is long, but I've never noticed an improvement in call clarity with the antenna extended, so this is not too much of a disadvantage. Nonetheless, even when retracted, the base of the antenna protrudes a bit too far for my tastes. Unfortunately, one of the major strengths of the 8500 was its awesome and tactile keypad, which has been replaced with a mushier and smaller keypad in the T300 which can be annoying if you have large fingers. Signal reception on the T300 is as good as it gets, but the call clarity of the SCH-T300 seems to be worse than on my SCH-8500. Nonetheless, some of this is the Verizon network and not entirely the phone (despite their problems, Sprint always seems to have the best voice quality). The microphone is not as close to your mouth as it is on the SCH-8500, so unlike on my 8500 I can no longer whisper or speak quietly and expect someone to hear me very well. Even the small nokias (i.e. the 8260 from AT&T) seem to have better microphone pickup than this phone, despite having a microphone that is even farther away from your mouth and having no "phone flip" to direct the sound. Navigation of the menus could use some improvement, but this does not get in your way of daily use. Each of the 10 top-level menu items is represented using a graphical icon, and you must use the rubberized "pointer" button to push your way through the menus. At first I didn't like this button, but after a while you get used to it. These menus contain seemingly hundreds of options, most of which you will not have to touch but it can be useful for customization. If you've ever used a Samsung phone, the menu contents themselves are not much different than with previous phones. Disappointingly, the phone book is not as good as the SCH-8500's. Displaying an alphabetized version of the phone book has significant lag compared to the 8500's (we're in an instant-gratification society!), and the phone makes poor use of its screen by displaying oversized characters for the phone entries. This allows the display of only four phonebook entries at a time, whereas the screen is easily capable of 10+ lines of text. At the very least, the speed dial has not been changed, and luckily I use this for most of my dialing. The wireless web is amazing on the T300. Displaying a full nine lines of text in wireless web mode, it's an incredible improvement over other phones if you use it frequently (like I do). The ringer options have improved on the T300. Not only is the ringer even louder than on the already-loud 8500, it has many more volume-level settings. The volume is easily changed by the navigation buttons on the side of the phone, a feature I've always loved. The vibrating ringer is extremely intense in this phone, much more than on the 8500, and when its vibrating it's surprisingly loud but you can't really hear it through a pocket. Some features that I rarely use on any phone are things such as voice dialing, voice recording, PIM features, and games. This is no different with the SCH-T300. The PIM functionality on Samsung phones are somewhat useless IMO, and the four (highly graphical) games on the SCH-T300 are also pretty worthless. To make matters worse, I cannot figure out how to turn off sounds on the games, which makes the them even more worthless in a classroom or meeting! The battery life on the T300 is quite good; I get about 2.5 days of standby and plenty of talk time. This is better than on the 8500, but not as good as some other phones such as the Motorola V120 and the Nokia 8260. From experience, the T300's talk time seems to be disproportionately better than its standby time, which is understandable considering its large LCD (backlighting traditionally consumes a lot of power) and its intense vibrating ringer. Despite its weaknesses, I must say that I would highly recommend the SCH-T300 for anyone considering Verizon. I've used about three phones from Verizon, and this one is definitely the best. This phone has bee available from Radio Shack for a while, and was recently introduced on verizonwireless.com. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90979 2002/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 pim web access voice activated dialing professional appearance trimode cdma slightly awkward user interface The Bottom LineThis is a phone with style and substance wrapped up into one package. Full Review I deviated from my normal course of purchasing a cell phone from a Verizon retail location, and actually went to Radio Shack to purchase this phone. I originally saw this beauty on CNET, where it was advertised as being available to the public this month. For anyone who loved the Samsung 6100, a gold-colored digital-only flip, on Sprint PCS' service, then you'll love this phone. The T300 is the 6100 with trimode CDMA/analog roaming capability. It's actually more comfortable against your face and head than the 6100, although its longer and thinner. It has an expansive phone book, holding more than 500 names and numbers. It has voice-activated dialing. It has a uniquely placed button for one-button access to the net, located to the right of the screen. It's also capable of downloading ring tones and graphics, and it's also 2-way text messaging capable. So what makes this phone shine over the other Samsung models available? Its looks do. It has the same panache as the 6100 and then some. Its exterior has a brushed, pewter appearance, however. It's discreet, thin enough to put in your pocket (.71 in. thick), and it utilizes the same flip as the 6100, although the T300's flip feels more solid when you open and close it. Other notable features include a vibrating ringer and a large screen display, capable of displaying 11 lines of text. This is particularly important when reading email messages and when web browsing. Samsung actually classifies the screen display as "high definition", although that may be debatable if you're defining high definition as something greater than legible. Undoubtedly, the screen display is very legible. Also, it has personal information manager (PIM) capability, including a calendar and alarm clock, and games. When speaking w/Samsung customer service about this phone, they indicated that it may be sold only through Radio Shack for Verizon's service. Why? Either this phone didn't meet Verizon's technical demands, or Verizon simply chose not to include it in its line-up, as the next generation of their data-ready phones are coming out at the beginning of next year. Until the 3G phones are available, seriously consider this phone. It's got style and substance wrapped up into one package. Update (Feb. 25, 2002): My opinion of this phone remains the same, if not better. Even with the new 1XRTT phones becoming available on the Verizon network, this phone remains my favorite for so many reasons. If it were 3G capable, it would be ideal. The only way I'm going to replace it is when its 3G cousin becomes available. Also, Verizon expects to be selling this phone directly from their retail locations by March. If you don't need the Express Network (1XRTT) speed, then seriously consider buying this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 90978 2000/5/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 email etc phonebook many well integrated features voice dialing small keys weak ringer volume The Bottom LineSounds good, right size, many powerful features, well-designed menu system, tri-mode, internet/data capabilities, reasonable price (almost free with 3 year contract) Full Review This is my first cell phone. But I have been investing in cell hardware companies for a few years so I am familiar with some of the technology. I needed to get a cell since I am starting a real estate sales job so it is my first "power tool". I researched providers in my area (Chilliwack, BC, Canada), and checked cell phone reviews on the Web before deciding on the Samsung SCH-T300, a feature-packed CDMA digital/analog phone. Send email to barriew at shaw dot ca if you want to compare notes on this phone. I would have preferred a Nokia GSM phone like the 3390 or 8390 but the GSM coverage here by Rogers AT&T and Microcell Fido is not fully developed yet. Telus CDMA/analog coverage is good. AT&T Rogers TDMA/analog network is also good, but TDMA is an older technology and will not provide access to data and the internet as well as GSM and CDMA will, and I wanted to have access to the latest tech toys, so I ruled out TDMA. Another factor in favor of CDMA is that in my area it runs on 800 MHz which I believe has much further range than 1.9 GHz GSM (10 km vs 2 km). The population in my area is low and I doubt that the GSM providers can afford to build many GSM base stations and towers. So CDMA with Telus was my choice. 1.9 GHz CDMA works in the big Canadian cities like Vancouver and will eventually be available in the boonies. There weren't any late-model Nokia CDMA phones offered, and Nokia does not yet have a good reputation for CDMA phones, although it dominates in GSM. The Samsung T300 phone is inexpensive, Cdn$200 or US$120 no-contract or with a 3 year contract, only Cdn$50 or US$30, so that was my selection, it is tri-mode so it works on 800/1900 MHz CDMA and 800 MHz analog. I was cautious about buying a Samsung phone, but I have had a Samsung TV for about 4 years and it works fine, and the phone store guys said the T300 was equivalent to more expensive Motorolas and their customers like it. I have read that Korea produces very good CDMA phones (Kyocera bought the Qualcomm phone manifacturing division about 2 years ago). The phone case is assembled tightly from quality plastic parts, and the "flip" hinge looks like it will last. The T300 seems more like a "city slicker" phone than one to be used in rugged and noisy environments but I know of a logger who has one and likes it. So far the main potential problem area is the weak ringer volume, especially when a leather case is used. The ringer volume is OK in quiet surroundings. The vibrate mode is also weak and cannot be used with the ringer tone. The keys are almost flush with the surface and spaced too close together, but with care they can be used reliably, and there is a click and tone to confirm key presses. The only reliability problem I have had so far is that once when I was browsing the T300's phone directory entries, it went totally dead and the screen went blank. Apparently it turned itself off, maybe because of a software bug it "crashed" like a PC. I was able to turn the phone back on and it worked fine, and the problem has not happened again. The display is big, almost 1.25x1.25 inch (3x3 cm). The phone is controlled by selecting one of 12 icons with a nifty notebook PC style joystick button that takes you into menus for call management, phone directory, mail, scheduler, voice dial setup, games, etc. You cannot change the sizes of the fonts used, but Samsung has selected fonts and sizes that do the job well, although legibility is a minor problem on some text-packed email menu displays. There is a voice recorder to place up to 4 minutes of voice notes or dictation in a number of user-named entries. There is a scheduler, calculator, and games, but I haven't yet tried these. The voice quality is good on both ends of the call. Not quite as good as a wired phone but very close, people sound a little "bassy" on the phone's earpiece. You can hear some low-level hiss and sometimes there are minor digital noises, echoes and other people talking in the background, I presume this is a network problem since it happens with other people's Telus CDMA phones (the TDMA phones in my area do not have those artifacts and sound good). I have tried using the phone while driving and the sound on both ends is good quality. The volume control range on the phone is good, but the two volume buttons take some getting used to, especially in a leather case. There is a full featured phone book which lets you set up speed dialing and up to 8 phone numbers per entry, for home, cell, pager, voice dialing, fax, etc. Only one of these 8 entries per person can be for voice activated dialing, which is a minor problem in the way the phone directory is designed. However you can also set up several separate phonebook entries for each person, and that is how to get more than one voice dial entry per person. There a few ways to quickly dial a number that is in the phonebook, including speed dial where you press one or two number keys, and voice dial where you just say the name of the person in response to a prompt from a female voice in the phone. Also you can just open the flip, move the joystick up or down to browse the phonebook, and hit the "Send" key to dial the person shown. Hitting the "Send" key works in some menus that show a person's phone number, to quickly call that person. Voice dialing works well, it looks like I will use this a lot, to make frequent calls to the head office and friends. You can have up to 20 voice dial numbers. It is easy to train the phone to recognize your voice (don't forget to use "train" to teach the phone "yes" and "no" if you have a T300). Voice dialing is requested by holding down the # key for 2 seconds. Also the phone can be set to automatically ask for a name when you open the flip. Very convenient, just open the phone and say the name of the person you want to call. Any key press will halt the voice dialer if you want don't want to use it. I tried the voice recognition dialing on similar friends names like "Tom", "Don", "Rob", "Ron", "Bob", and others, and the phone dialed them all correctly under most conditions, except at noisy parties. The phone tells you who it is going to dial by playing back the previously recorded name, and I was sometimes uncertain of the name that is played back. So for safety I decided to change the voice dial names to forms like "Thomas" and "Donald", and also add the last names. I use the voice dialer to control call forwarding, I have voice dialers for "call forward house", "call forward office", and "call forward off". You can do email or SMS text messages on this phone and it works well in the limited tests I did, email addresses can be placed in the dialing directory. Of course typing is quite slow on the phone, compared to a PC. I look forward to sending emails from a mountaintop soon. I have not yet tried the Web browser. Voice mail, pages, SMS messages, and email are nicely integrated into the "Mail Kit" menu system. Pages are handled as SMS messages, eliminating the need for a separate pager. While I have received email on the phone, I have not yet been able to send any, I expect this is just a minor problem that I will resolve soon. Generally you have to open the flip to use the phone, but there are ways around this. You can program the phone in the Setup/answer-mode menu to answer a call on any key press. The "menu" and "clr" button are always exposed, so you just press them to answer a call without opening the flip, which could be useful in a car. You have to make sure the other person hangs up to terminate the call, with this method. You can also make a call without opening the flip, by pressing the menu key for 2 seconds, and then use the joystick to select a phonebook entry to call. The battery life is good, according to other cellphone users I talked to. I did a test and fully charged the phone at 7 pm Friday, to be ready for a free-call weekend. Then I made about 100 minutes of calls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, always staying in digital coverage areas. The phone was turned off on Friday and Saturday night for about 9 hours each night. The battery became fully discharged about 3 PM Sunday, after about 44 hours of useage. So it looks like the battery will last 1 or 2 full days per charge when the phone is used frequently. I have run the phone for almost 4 days with light useage. The manual says the maximum standby time is 5 days and up to 200 minutes talk time with the standard battery. I have not done much testing of the phone's RF performance, but it looks like digital mode will work almost anywhere I go. I drove into the boonies and observed the phone switching to analog mode, but I did not make a call. I took the phone into a shopping mall where my friend's Nokia 6185 CDMA phone did not work reliably, and the T300 seemed OK, working in both analog and digital mode, although the signal level was low. The extendable antenna probably helps in these situations. One missing feature is that the phone does not tell you explicitly when there is insufficient signal level, I recently had problems using the phone in a "no-coverage" zone and I thought the voice dialer was malfunctioning, but there was just not enough signal, or maybe interference caused by a nearby non-Telus cellphone tower, and I did not notice the level was down to zero bars. All in all this seems to be a very good phone, with the weak point being the ringer volume. The extensive list of power-user features has been generally well designed so that they are useful and not just clumsy toys. Hopefully I will be using this phone and its features a lot, and it will last me a few years. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 90977 2000/6/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 most feature packedaesthetically pleasing phone for lowest price with great call clarity this is not a phone without faults despite all the great features The Bottom LineA great choice for any user who wants a good-looking/working phone without spending $200+. A little more consumer testing by Samsung might have brought it closer to perfection. Full Review When I saw the T300 I fell in love with it immediately (I've heard this from many other T300 users, as well). But let me go over it all in the "pros and cons" format: Pros: 1. Overall Build: great! Aesthetically pleasing. It just looks good, sturdy, and fun to use! "Cool" factor is very high. 2. Sound Quality: terrific - best I've heard so far. 3. Joystick: You use a mini-joystick to move through many different functions. It is nice and tight and works very well. 4. Screen: Large, and nice font, unlike lots of other cellphones! And nice that you can change it to different looks. 5. Menus: Animations are great and fun, and the system is user-friendly. 6. Flip: works great in answering calls - when you plug in a headset the flip can be closed without disconnecting the call. (Of course, to actually disconnect from the call, you have to open the flip and press "End.") 7. "Voice Call" (initiating a call by saying someone's name that you have pre-programmed into the phone): cool when you open the flip and a female voice asks "who would you like to call" and after you say the name, it is repeated in your voice (the one you originally recorded) and then the female voice says "connecting." This is a nice feature. It even works with the headset microphone! 8. Banner: There is a small rectangular box on the bottom of the screen into where you can customize what it says - your name/number, etc. 9. Charger: vertical (first time I've seen this where it fits in sideways and allows the other outlet to be freed up - great!); some have mentioned that they don't like that the red light on the top of the phone doesn't light up when the phone is charging; however, I am completely fine with the fact that the light is on the charger itself - works great! 10. Push Push (game): The other 3 games are so-so, but "Push Push" is fun and challenging - and you'll be surprised how often you go to play it. Based on all the posts about "Push Push" this is definitely the most popular of the games. Cons: 1. Battery life: a little better than some, a little worse than others - my Sanyo 4500 spoiled me 'cause it had awesome battery life. Will be purchasing an extended battery for this phone 2. Ringer: could be louder 3. Screen Text: some words/numbers are centered, others are not - especially the names you program in - there is no option to center them so, graphically, they don't come out right. 4. Menus: Samsung was a little lacking on priority in the order in which they've placed the menu choices - it would have been helpful if they had thought about a way to let the user put the menus in the order they like. Also, when you highlight a menu, and it does its animation, I wish they could have left the title of that menu up; sometimes I forget which menu I'm highlighting and sometimes the graphics aren't clear enough to tell. Also, when you change something in one of the menu items, say, a sound, or an entry in the address book, instead of bringing you back to that particular menu, you are brought back to the standby screen. Then, if you had wanted to do something else within that menu, or in the address book, you have to go through the entire process again. 5. Address Book: (a) you can only type in 12 spaces or characters for the name!, (b) there is no way to remove the listing of the speed dial number next to the names - this makes it very confusing when scrolling; speaking of which (c) when you press a key to get to all names that begin with a particular letter in the alphabet, it takes about 2 seconds to get to the names; compared to the Sanyo 4500, that's about 1.5 seconds too long, an eternity!; (d) you can't, for example, press "M" and then be able to scroll up to the "L"'s or down to the "N"'s; (e) it's a little bit of a process to go back and edit entries, and if you want to change one digit in a phone number, you have to clear the entire number and start from scratch - that's annoying if you've already programmed in a lot of "pauses" (if you've programmed it to enter codes when checking voicemail, for example). This is strange given that for editing the Banner, you can move the cursor back to change a letter anywhere in the entry. 6. Banner: As I said above, it's great that you can personalize this; but how do you center words on the screen - it looks strange unless you enter just the right amount of letters/numbers. The default banner, that listed the phone model, was perfectly centered - hm, is there a centering code I'm unaware of? 7. Earpiece Jack hole: it's fine, but the little rubber piece covering it is a little stiff in opening it, making it a little difficult to get the jack in; actually, I expect this cover to eventually wear out and break off someday. Not sure what the exact solution is to this, but there could be one. 8. Charger Slot: This has been written about ad infinitum, but I'll just add to the fray that not only is the rubber piece easy to lose, but on my phone it has already disappeared after I had removed and put it back only once! 9. Number Keys: Well, this is one of those things you just have to settle for and get used to if you want all the other features of this phone; true, the keys are solid and have a nice click to them, as one reviewer said, but they're just too damn small - I have to use my fingernails to press the buttons most of the time. This is why I was very close on going with the Audiovox 9100, which has good buttons (so did my old Sanyo 4500). It seems to me that they even could have made the phone a couple of centimeters longer in order to accommodate a larger keyset. However, as some have said, most cellphones are about compromise for each individual, so this is one that I could live with in order to get the rest of the phone's coolness! 10. Screen: As I mentioned above, it's cool that you can change standby screens; however (a) on the main one with the clock and time-in-box next to it, I wish I could keep the time-in-box, but change the redundant clock face to something else, some other graphic, or words maybe; (b) the screen choice where you get the time in jumbo numbers, there is shadowing of the 88:88 digital numbers - why couldn't they have made this screen nice and clean? On the other hand, the clock/time-in-box screen is prettier anyways. 11. Internet key: an easy-access, one-touch button to the internet. Nice that it's there, and conveniently-placed; although I tend to agree with another user that that button should have been a 'user's choice' button; that is, you can choose whether you want it to (a) go to the internet; (b) go to the address book (granted, the joystick does that, too), (c) be a speed button to your favorite menu item, say, games, for example. I'm not the type of user that uses the cell for internet. SUMMARY: The Samsung T300 is a great phone. Don't let my extensive paragraphs in the "Cons" section fool you -- they are, for the most part, trivial points. I looked for weeks for the perfect phone: there isn't one (and that's a subjective thing anyways). But the T300 comes close for those who are power users, who like gadgets and who like to have a "cool" phone - while not minimizing on build quality, call quality, reception quality - you get all of those. For those that can't decide between a flip phone and a candybar phone, this is a good compromise. It's really a hybrid of the two. CNET considers it a candybar phone, and I can see why, because the screen is always visible, but the flip on the T300 is functional, so I see it as a hybrid. Speaking of CNET they have the T300 on 3 of their Top 5 lists: Top Verizon Phones (#2), Top Candybar Phones (#3); and Top Cellphones (overall) (#5). I think that's pretty good. Indeed, there are some design drawbacks on this model, as I've listed above. It seems like Samsung was really thinking through the design process with all of the great features it has, but then didn't completely test it out with power users (or any user for that matter) because it's like (if you'll forgive an analogy) a well-designed house that has a few faulty pipes, a few wall problems, a missing door or a door where there shouldn't be one, etc. The only other thing I can think of is that they WERE aware of these problems but couldn't make it all work due to financial or space limitations(?). Despite the drawbacks, I really do like this phone and recommend it highly. (When I mentioned at the top that this phone is for the power user who doesn't want to spend over $200 - well, right at this moment, you can change that to $100. Verizon currently has a promotion on their website: $79.00, PLUS free accessories for this model. An excellent deal.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 139.00 7830 Samsung SGH-S105 91015 2004/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 the screen is fine what s the use if you can t get consistent sound on a mobile phone This is the worst mobile phone I have had the misfortune to buy and use. During the 6 months that I have been using this phone, I have needed to get T-Mobile to replace it 3 times (yes, I am on the 4th phone in 6 months). Basically, the headseat jack stops working after a couple of weeks of use, and the sound from the phonepiece cuts in and out so badly that it is impossible to have a conversation on the phone. T-Mobile continues to refuse to provide any other model phone, so the service/warranty does no good. They send out a refurbished phone each time -- and the refurbishing clearly is not working! Horrible phone and horrible service provider (T-Mobile). 91014 2004/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 bright color small ease of use low battery life It is small and looks nice. Reception is horrible and needs to be hard-shocked from time to time. Battery life is almost as bad as most Motorola phones. The phone lacks games and most other things that other phones offer now. 91013 2004/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 games tones looks screen unstable software Based on the second generation S platform Great: ->JAVA games!!! yeah but very difficult to download from pc. easier to download from the GSM networks but it means having to pay a hefty $$ for that. ->40 polyphonics!! another wow factor that makes better ringing tone. closer to the actual instrument. ->Stylish look. very nice design, perfect for ladies. Cons: ->unstable software. jammed once and lost all the phonebook, sms, tones, games etc. ->not so intuitive text messaging, compared to nokias 91012 2004/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 pocket sized battery dies quick bad reception volume sucks I bought this phone in April 2004 since then I have returned this phone 2 times. The 1st time because I was having bad reception the 2nd time because the LCD went out and I couldn't see the menu. I asked them if I could get my money back or if they could just send me a different type of phone and they tell me 3 strikes and then they would send me something else. I am going to call them again tomorrow because I can't even have a conversation with anyone on this phone, without being hung up on or not able to hear them completely. I hate this phone its nothing but trouble. 91011 2003/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small size flip cover comes with a second batteryother accessories ringerspeaker volume not very loud screen hard to read in bright light This is my 7th cell phone and I must say it has been the best performing phone I have ever owned. The phones long battery life, small footprint and color screen will be hard to match with other phones. Navigating the phones menus is fairly easy. I have also dropped the phone multiple times with only minor cosmetic damages. The phone is lacking in some ways that may affect some users. The color screen is hard to read in direct sunlight. Both the ringer and speaker volume is very low and hard to hear in a busy room. I have previously owned multiple Nokia phones and a few Motorola phones and would still pick this phone over any other. I purchased the phone from amazon.com for $200 with a $150 rebate. The total cost after the rebate with shipping was around $65 91010 2005/1/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 phone was of average quality rebate program is a fraud I mailed in my rebates totaling $150 for my 2 phones the same month of purchase. After a couple of months I called and was told that they never received my forms. I printed out new forms and mailed them in again, about month later I called them and they said that they had changed P.O. numbers, so I mailed it to the new P.O. number, about 30 days later I called and they said that the P.O. I was given last time was invalid so, I mailed it once again. This time I only waited a couple of weeks before I called, once again, they had not received my information. I spoke to a supervisor and got a fax number and faxed the forms and received a confirmation. When I called a couple of weeks later I was told that my offer had expired!!! As far as I am concerned, the Samsung rebate program is a fraud! 91009 2003/12/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 looks good package includes 2 batteryheadset color lcd size battery life on slim battery reception Color LCD Package includes 2 battery and headset I've had this phone for little over a year now and I'm seriously thinking of changing it. My particular phone seems to have a firmware problem since it sometimes fails to shut the lights when I close it and thus if I don't see this it will drain my battery in a matter of hours! Samsung support has been terrible at best. Reception is marginal at best compared to Nokia 6310i and on par with most of the Sony Ericsson phones. Battery life with normal (big) battery is OK and with the slim battery terrible. The color LCD is better than a lot of other phones but I've seen better. Size Reception 91008 2004/11/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent clarity lightweight many features bright lcd not as durable as most cell phones battery life Nice sleek and compact design, lightweight. Overall great appearance. Easy to read outside LCD screen. One of the nicest looking flips out there. 91007 2003/2/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent phone sleek full color tri band expensive no voice dial The Bottom LineExcellent phone, close to flawless, buy!! Its free- www.amazon.com ===ANY QUESTIONS: AIM ID: S105FAQ === Full Review This phone is an excellent phone, in fact, one of the best I have ever seen. The only drawback that I found is the price, but if you're willing to shell out $249.99, then this is the best for your money. This phone is relatively light, full-color, polyphonic ringtones, internet-capable and has an infrared port. Also this phone comes with two batteries, so you dont have to worry about buying an extra. The beltclip is also included, an it is the proper belt clip, not the cheap swivel one. This phone has an external lcd which scrolls the name of the person calling, and the internal full-color LCD which is thin and sleek. The keypad is extremly attractive and is easy to push the buttons. This phone fits 500 names on the phone, and another 250 on the sim card. It is also tri-band and can be used worldwide. The ringtones and images are expensive but if you email me, vishalpatel2003@hotmail.com . I can give you ways to get polyphonic ringtones, images, and unlock the phone for (A few dollars to cover the costs that i paid)). Some features include 6 java-based full color games, color calender, organizer, internet access, caller id blocking, and excellent 16-bit ringtone quality. ----Unlocking---- I have received several emails that ask what unlocking is, and ill explain it to you here.. Unlocking the phone releases the t-mobile only setup. This allows you to re-use the phone in the future with any service (IE cingular, att) whatever, instead of throwing the phone away if you cancel service with t-mobile. This is extremly helpful and useful in these states and in europe where they sell pre-paid sim cards. All you have to do after unlocking to use a different service is subscribe to your preferred service or purchase pre-paid sim cards, you snap the old sim card out, the new sim card in, and begin to use your phone. --POLYPHONIC RINGTONES, UNLOCKING, IMAGES-- Once again, I have unlock codes, over 3000 polyphoni ringtones, and images just email me and ill send you a cd with everything you need on it. Email me @ vishalpatel@cfl.rr.com ===ONLY $5.00 VIA PAYPAL, WILL SHIP OUT CDS SAME DAY=== §§§§-UPDATE-§§§§ THIS PHONE IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR FREE--VISIT WWW.AMAZON.COM Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249.99 91006 2004/11/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use features compact good quality screen sometimes hard to see in sunlight The Bottom Linenot a bad phone and does what you need Full Review Specifications: Network: GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 Dimensions: 88 x 46 x 23 mm Weight: 92 g Design: Clamshell Antenna: Stub Screen Colors: 65000 Screen Size: 128 x 160 px Navigation: 4-Way Keypad Phonebook Capacity: 500 Speed Dial: 8 names Memory: 300 KB Battery Type: 750 mAh Li-Ion Talk Time: 4.00 Standby Time: 100 Other Features: EMS and SMS messaging GPRS 16 polyphonic ring tones Screen Savers Alarm Clock Calculator Calendar To Do List Infrared Port About the phone: In short, this phone meets all my daily mobile communication needs and more. Samsung is one of the leading brands of cellular phones and the quality shows in this model. The phone is light weight and easy to use with relatively good battery life (recharge once a week). The 105 is a tri-mode phone and can be used on GSM networks. Although the 128 x 160 color screen is well lit and adds to the esthetics of the phone it sometimes can be hard to read in bright sunlight. The reception using TMobile as a provider is relatively good though service can be spotty at times. For the majority of road trips I have good signal. However, in many buildings I get nadda. The phone can be can be personalized with screensavers and ring tones. With the S105 you can access e-mail, send and receive AOL Instant Messages, find movie times and sport scores, play Internet games with other players. The good: -Compact -Easy to use -Many features: games, color screen, ring tones The bad: -Screen sometimes hard to read in direct sunlight Last thoughts: I would recommend this phone to someone else and I plan on using it for at least another year. Product link: http://www.samsungusa.com/cgi-bin/nabc/prod/hhcommerce/telecommunications/sgh_s105_features.jsp Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91005 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sound color batterly life clarity no personal caller id pic The Bottom LineIt light, durable, great sound, great color, what can you lose? its the best phone out there Full Review First of all I have used cell phones for past 4 years. First I had Motorola Timeport with Sprint, then Samsung( forgot the id number) then Nokia 8290 with Cingular, then LG 510 with Verizon. Till now my favorites were Samsung and LG. So when I was looking for new phones, I had three choices Motorla T720, Samsung S105, and Sony Ericson T300. I read many articals on Motorla T720, and was not satified when told that its batterly life was very poor, and the color is only 4k. Also the Sony Ericson, I think it has 256 color. The Samsung S105 had 65k color, and 40 poly sound, and came with two battery!! So I went out and got myself the Samsung S105. Battery Life so far, I think its the best out there. and If you need more it comes with extra battery. The screen on the outside of the phone is huge. It is really easy to read the time, and look at caller ID. If you have caller group, it shows the group pics on the screen on the outside. I am not sure if there is a way, but so far as I know there is no way to designate new pics to the caller group...sad but it does comes with neat graphics. Some people wrote on some sites there is no back light for outside screen, but THERE IS! you just need to press the button on the side for like a second. Graphic is awesome. It allows animated wallpaper. Currently I have cartoon rabbit( aka Mashimaro ) having problem with toilet on the wallpaper, and it cracks me up everytime I open up the phone. I tried downloading pic of my car in to the phone to check out how it looks on the phone. the picture looks amazing. Menus are easy to go through. I was able to learn the functions of the phone within hour with no help from manual. Since the screen itself is pretty big, the menus are also big and easy to read. Do I have problem reading small letters? no..but I like it so that I can read with no squinting or trying to find out what it said.. Also so far no lags in going through menus Phone books are simple and has very cute graphics. As simple the phone books are, searching and calling is so easy. The Keys do not have space so its kinda hard to find out what key is what with out looking. But after 2-3 days of using I got used to it, and have no problem there. Sounds... Amazing..40 poly sound .. and you can make the sound pretty loud too!!! I love how when I get a phone I get a pleasent music that does not hurt my ears...and when I get text messege I get some dingdong chime, and it is so nice. Weight.. Well I guess you can find specs from websites, but it is very very light. One of the most light phones I have used. I dropped couple times and no problem there... The phone has very good receptions, ofcourse this has to do with your location, but I get receptions where I wasn';t able to go beforE!!!! Hope this have helped Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91004 2000/9/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen numerical clarity size vibrating alarm not being loud enough but that s all i can complain about The Bottom LineDefinite recommendation: great phone at a reasonable price (less than $100 at most stores) Full Review I decided to purchase this phone a few months back b/c of friend's advice, and boy am I glad I did! I saw this phone at Amazon.com for $279 before $200 MIR, and had a $75 GC from Amazon, and thus got the phone for $4 AR (even $79 dollars seems like a very reasonable price for this phone), along with the 600min/month $39.99 package from T-mobile. As I am in the Baltimore area, I read prior users' opinions on T-mobile service with this phone in Baltimore, which they recommended. To date (about 4 months later), I don't have any complaints about the phone. I would say that 90-95% of the time, it works perfectly in my place of residence and work, with minimal drop-lines due to poor-signal strength. Another great thing about this phone is the hands-free set that it comes with. The kit's clarity is so great many times that the callers on the other end don't even realize that I'm on the road at the time. The kit also has a neat button which serves a dual purpose: completion of call/redial of last call. About the only complaint with using the kit is that you physically have to end the call by pressing the button, as just closing the flip phone doesn't suffice. My only real gripe (and it's VERY minor) is that the vibrating alarm doesn't vibrate enough, and has caused me a couple of times to not wake up on time, but the alarm on normal tone is really loud and is not a problem at all. Overall, as my friend did to me, I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is thinking about getting a durable, sleek-looking, fully functional phone that won't be outdated even 1-2 years from now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $5 (AR)Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91003 2000/9/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small beautiful screen comfortable great sounds smooth flip top i don t know if its worth the extra cost for the color phonebook caller id The Bottom LineUnless you REALLY want the color screen, I'd pass this one up and go for a cheaper phone. The phonebook is unintuitive, and I just expected more from this beast. Full Review I was pumped when all of these color phones started coming out. I wanted to get one so bad, and this is the one I bought. I'm a techie, so all these fancy toys are fun for me. I've been using this phone for almost a year, and honestly am pretty tired of it. I thought the color screen would be so good, but I'd rather get my money back and go back to a simple cheap phone that does the same thing, with less flare. The thing that really turns me off about this phone is the caller ID. You can put multiple phone numbers per person in the phonebook, but when they call from one of those numbers.. it just says there name - not WHICH number they're using. That annoys me because say somebody calls me from their cell phone, and I want to call them back. I have to go through the call log and actually click on their name to see where they called from. It just seems tedious, I wish it would display an icon or something to show which number they are using. Same thing goes for placing a call. In the phonebook you have a list of names. Within a name, you can have multiple numbers. So to call somebody, you have to find there name, click it, then find the number, and click it. I liked my old simple phone where I could just list say... "David (Cell)" and "David (Home)" and pick which one right from the phonebook. The sound quality of the phone is great, it picks up sounds easily and sounds like a house phone. No gripes with that. The ringer sounds great too, really fancy stuff. Honestly that's all there is to say about it, the games are slow and boring, everything is basically average. The replacable face plate is very cool though. In the end I wouldn't recommend this phone, I'd go for something cheaper unless you really want the flare. Any cheaper phone could get the same job done. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250 91002 2000/5/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish great colored screen compact low battery life low memory does not sync to outlook The Bottom LineIf you have T-Mobile, I'd definitely recommend that you buy this phone. It comes with tons of features and a blindingly bright screen that will attract attention. Full Review The Samsung S-105 is a great package at a reasonable price. I purchased this phone about 4 months ago and I have had virtually no problems with it. Though I paid about $200 for it, it can be bought for the low low price of $25 on Amazon or even free if you find the right sales; this, of course, requires the hassle of new activation. This phone comes with a plethora of features that aim to please the average user. This includes a 65,000-color screen, a great sounding polyphonic ringer, a basic but useful personal information manager, a large external screen, and two batteries. Also, this little guy is as durble as they come; I've dropped this thing many a time with no problems. For free, this is a deal that can't be passed up. Samsung seemingly missed a few details when putting this phone together, and though they are small, they have become increasingly noticeable. There are little things missing such as the lack of bluetooth capability, which is becoming more widely used. Additionally, the PIM doesn't sync to outlook, a major blow to me since I use outlook for everything. Otherwise, this phone is a very solid and wise investment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91001 2000/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 overall design color options poor screen no voice dialing buttons The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone if you need a reliable phone and would take advantage of extras like internet browsing. Very svelte - Very smooth - Very reliable. Full Review The Case (buttons, phone and button layout) I like how the case opens up. It's not nearly flat like the Motorola V60 and I like that. The phone has a satisfying flip action which isn't hard to open and not too easy to close, dare i say it... perfect? The volume switch is located on the left side and is not obtrusive. Headphone jack is located up top, great place. The external LCD display has a terrific blue background (hold down the volume when closed) which says the time and date and phone number if someone is calling you. Unfortunately the buttons needed work. The keypad is realtively flat and bunched together. The circular navigation pad is made of cheap plastic (you can hear it clicking by rubbing a finger over it) and the navigation buttons are ackwardly placed on around the navigation pad. It's not horrible but needed better planning. A person gets used to this (I came from using a Nokia 8290). Phone Software Options (menu options, gui navigation) Unfortunately this phone does not have voice dialing. Even the simplest phones have this option and it is missed but not a huge deal. The menu system is OK. Unfortunately you can only scroll up and down. Their are 4 directions on the Navigation pad... why couldn't they have taken advantage of this instead of hindering users with only up and down? Besides these two items, the software is quick. when typing in text, switching between capital letters, lowercase letters, and symbols is confusing because it seems to be different everytime. LCD Screen First, it has VERY good color representation. Much better than motorola's V72 (not sure, but the color version that resembles the V60). BUT their is horrible lag. On my 'tamagotchi' style game, the cat runs from one side of the screen to the other and ghosting effects are seen. Ghosting is also prevelant when quickly scrolling through the phone book. Unfortunately, like all other LCD screens, the screen fades badly when viewed in direct, bright sunlight. I don't know of one phone w/ a color screen that doesn't have this problem. We will have to wait for OLED cell phone screens to fix that problem. General Stuff This phone came w/ headphones, a clip case, 2 (yes TWO) batters (1 extended, 1 standard), and a string type attachment. Battery life is good, i routinely get over 3 hours talk time but beware that if you use features that have the backlight on for long amounts of time (playing games, browsing internet) that battery time will significantly decrease. I routinely recharge the phone each night besides my bed. I did not review reception and internet access because this would depend on your carrier more than the phone. I can say that even though my reception on my Nokia 8290 was excellent, the S105 is even better (same service - TMobile). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25 91000 2000/4/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 external display can download graphicstones comfy keys fit easy use great sound phonebook will not hold addresses no call grouping no voice dial or memo The Bottom LineThe s105 is more for those who want a great quality phone with a couple extras. Otherwise, it's a bit pricey for the lack of features. Full Review As phones go, the s105 is a great phone. It really is - just not if you're used to the many features most Nokia phones have. All I've had were Nokias (5160 & 6360), which I have loved not only for their ease of use, but also because they were always chock full of features. Come on - whether you use them or not - it's nice to know they're there! The only reason I don't have a Nokia now is because T-Mobile only offers the 3390, which is a step down from the 6300 series. My s105 is clear, has a good speaker, comfortable to use and also very user friendly. That is the most Nokia-like feature and one of the things I liked best. Unlike most Motorolas where you need a degree just to check your call timer, this phone is very straight-forward. I like that it has a large, readable color display with different wallpaper options. You can download graphics and polyphonic ringtones as well, which I've had a lot of fun doing. It's browser is quick and easy, with only minimal connection failures. (seems to have more to do with certain towers than the phone, for the record) Where I got spoiled with my Nokia 6360 is in the feature area. My s105 does not have voice dialing, nor can you record so many seconds worth of voice. I can't set up call groups such as friends, family etc., therefore I can't have a different ring for these groups either. Also, it doesn't have noise cancelling, which transmits only your voice, not background noise. As for the entering of text messages, it is very pokey and - I think - a pain. On my Nokia you just chose whether you wanted lower or upper case and went from there. You could capitalize a letter with just an extra keystroke, same with adding punctuation. On this phone, you have to go through different typing options: capital, lower, symbols, t9 (auto), and numbers. If you start typing in lower and need to capitalize something, you have to push a key until you're in "capital" mode, type your letter, and then push a key until you're back in lower case mode. As for the phonebook, you can store a home, cell and work number, as well as email, but not an address. My 6360 also had this capability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 285.00 90999 2000/7/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 external caller id time flip color doesnt last review based on 7 phones over 2 years please read very fragile The Bottom LineUnless you get a new phone every couple months and just want to try something new, dont bother. Full Review Alright, First off, this review is not based on my phone alone or a couple months of use like many of the reviews. I owned my phone for almost 2 years and know another 7 people who have or had this phone. I wrote my first review of this phone in a Hotmail link and lost it because I am dumb and didnt cut and paste. Therefore this review is going to still have the same info but more to the point, lol. Pros - Flip phone which is always nice because you dont have to lock and or worry about calls being made in your pocket or purse. Color, which isnt a big deal now as most phone companies are basically giving out color phones. As a college student I loved the alarm set up... there are three alarms, daily, weekend, and once which was great and I do miss. It is nice to have the external caller ID and time available. Outside of that the only other good feature is the customizable joypad for Quick Keys. Cons - Here is where it comes. Battery/Reception Bars - The battery only shows 3 bars which leaves you guessing if you have 30 min or 2 days of life left in it. The reception bars are very very sensitive (no matter what service provider). They would change up to 4-5 bars if you moved the phone a foot in one direction. Durability - horrible, after about a year the antenna broke off. This happened in 5 of the phones I know of. The battery pops off on the smallest of drops (I used to have a Motorola that I could kick a block and still have working). Programming Problems - Within 8 months of having my phone it would randomly exit screens (like in the middle of writting a text message). I know 2 people who went through a couple different sim cards, and had numbers erased from their phones for whatever reason. Overall, the phone has a few perks but they dont last. If you are a person who gets a phone every couple of months then you might want to try it just to see but if your like me and think a phone should last then dont even bother (and it is my understanding the upgraded version of the E105 isnt any better). I only got this phone because I knew the salesman and it was free. Dont even bother with it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 RetailRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90998 2003/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight slim cool blue back light big screen infrared ear piece volume not very durable plastic casing not many accessories The Bottom LineIf you can get this phone for free, get it! If you're not big on features like games, ringtones, and a built in organizer, then don't fork over the cash. Full Review I've had my phone for about two months now. I got it for free through an Amazon/T-mobile deal. I use to own two Nokia phones. Those phones were great cause they were tanks, but they didn't have as many cool features as the S105. I've dropped my phone twice from about 3 feet and it's still running strong. It has 3 fat dents from the fall because of it's plastic casing. My friend has a Motorola and those things are tuff. The only drawback is that they are heavy. There are not many accessories available for this phone. I just wanted to make a note of that for those of you that are into removable faces or crazy cases. For some reason the earpiece volume is really quiet. I've turned up the volume all the way when the call is active. I can hear the other person reasonably, but sometimes I feel like I have to shove the phone into my ear hole just so I can hear what someone is saying. The screen is big and I like the fact that you can customize the main screen's selection bar colors and the main screen's desktop. If you plan on getting this phone here are some tricks I've learned: - Don't buy the Serial or USB to S105 data cable. It's better if you use infrared or get an infrared adapter. I say this because it will be more versatile to have the infrared adapter than the data cable that only works with your phone. If you don't have an infrared port on your laptop or only have a PC, go buy an infrared port from Fry's or find one on ebay. Look up USB IrDA. Don't pay more than $40 for the adapter otherwise your getting jipped. - Look around online for places where there are WAP servers with free games and ring tones. Don't play around too much with the Samsung web pages. A lot of times they make you run around in circles and in the end want you to pay money. I was able to download 4 games. Right now I have 10 games total on my phone. I was able to fit 17 new songs on my phone. It came with about 22 ring tones. That's 39 ring tones. I fit 8 of my pictures on the phone. The phone comes with more pictures for you to use to set as your background. - I was able to find 500 ring tones for S105 on Kazaa. Do some searching around you should find something since this phone just came out. - The nice thing about this phone is you can get any midi off the internet and change it into your ring tone. Look for a program called Easy GPRS on the Samsung website. This program will help you get your pictures, ring tones, and other files onto your phone via the infrared port or cable. Recommended: Yes 90997 2004/9/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 nice looking phone excellent color display many features some dim spots on keypad screen on outside keeps going out no voice recognition The Bottom LineGreat deal! Sweet phone! Buy it now! Full Review Here's the spec rundown: Slim, stylish and in full color. You can personalize your phone with screensavers and ringtones that sound like real music. Using T-Zone you can access your e-mail accounts, send and receive AOL Instant Messages, look up movie times for your neighborhood theater, play Internet games with other players, get information on sports scores, the music scene and local events and more. This phone is also tri-band (GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz) which allows you to make and receive calls around the world. Basic info: Talk time: up to 4 hours Standby time: up to 92 hours Size: 88.5 x 46.5 x 23 mm Weight: 92 gr The Samsung S105 is loaded with the following features: Tri Mode - World Phone Polyphonic ringtones (sounds like real music) Calendar To do list Calculator Color Display Pictures (Screensavers and Backgrounds) WAP enabled Alarm Phone book Easy text input - T9 Speed dial Games Multi-lingual text display (English, Spanish, French) Conference calling Voicemail Call Waiting Vibrator Alert Built in modem The good: Some extras that I really appreciate are the internet access, calender, 'to do' list and the text messaging. Text writing with the T9 feature is very easy to use and works most of the time. As you type in words, the phone compares the key strokes and fills in the word. I'd say it works great 9 times out of 10. The phone book allows up to 750 numbers with 500 on the phone and 250 on the card. The 'groups' allow you to group the numbers into 10 different groups and you can assign a ring tone to each group so you have an idea whos calling before you even look at your phone. I have my 'business' tone set on the flat serious ring tone so I know when not to answer :) One thing I didn't know before I bought the phone is that the phone is IrDA compatible so you can do data transfer with your computer without a data cable. All you need is an infrared usb adapter. The so so: The holster could have been designed a little better. It is a little difficult to get the phone out of the holster easily. I used to have a Motorolla Timeport which was much easier to be 'quick on the draw' with. One advantage over the Timeport holster is that it does hold the phone shut. My Timeport always used to fly open. The bad: Considering all the features and the amount of numbers you can store, voice recognition would have been nice. But its not that bad, I guess. The price: Amazon.com was having a $250 rebate, so I couldn't pass it up. T-mobile would give you $50 if you got a plan over $35, but I'm a cheap a$$, so I got the $29.99 plan. T-mobile had the best el-cheapo plan at 300 anytime minutes, unlimited weekends and 1 MB of T-Zone transfer. You can't beat that! UPDATE: Screen on outside of the phone went out. Called T-Moblie and they sent a replacement phone and a postage paid return slip to send back the defective phone. I'm impressed! Lesson learned: store as much info on the SIM card as possible. I chose to store my numbers on the phone and it was a real pain deleting and re-entering the numbers on the new phone. My opinion has not changed regarding this phone outside of durability. UPDATE 9-9-04: Screen on front went out again! I know its been a while, but now the phone is out of warrenty, so I will have to buy a new phone now. Since I'm sure this model has been replaced with a new one by now, be wary of that front LCD on model X. Two times with two phones says something to me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 90996 2000/5/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound great color ringer internet no blue tooth The Bottom LineGreat phone - go for it. Not high on standby battery life, sucky internet, but overall a GREAT phone. Full Review So I dropped the AT& and just left myself with a T... TMobile, that is. So far, I have enjoyed my service with T. No complaints. This new phone is a really nice phone. Best sound quality I have had on any of my phones. When I am in the car, most callers can't tell I'm driving, even at highway speeds. The only way people can tell I'm driving is when I start going "I CAN'T BELIEVE HE JUST CUT ME OFF!" - The response is always shock that I'm driving... I love the full color display. The flip phone is something I have wanted since the wireless phone made it big - if I remember correctly, it was MaryAnne on the now cancelled CBS show, Cybil who made me want one. My biggest flaws with this phone are: polyphonic ringtones, no blue tooth, internet. 1. Polyphonic ringtones - pretty groovy to have an actual song play as a ringer, however, sometimes I just want a simple ring, not some synthesized thing. At least they have the T-Mobile jingle on there (minus Catherine Zeta Jones saying "Get More) 2. Blue tooth - I had the Ericsson T68 (yup - old school, before they added Sony to the name) - I loved that phone, and loved the blue tooth. I used the blue tooth headset once and was hooked. This phone doesn't have blue tooth capability. 3. Internet - I don't know if TZones just sucks big time, or if it's Samsungs phone browser sucking; whichever it is, YIKES! After having MMode on the T68, I am really loathing this service. MMode was so easy to navigate, everything laid out well. On here, it's more of a hit or miss situation. If I go to the wrong place, I have to exit out of the internet then re-enter. It's very annoying. All in all, I love this phone. So far it's the best one I've had. Sad thing is that each phone I get I feel the same way, it's the best until the next one - kind of the opposite of Office Space (Every day is the worst day of my life) I highly recommend this phone (and Office Space)... If you have to go through T, ask around... Some flaws with their network. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 90995 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full color screen light weight easy to use small slow at times no voice activated calling some sound problems The Bottom LineAlthough this phone may be a bit expensive, it it definitely worth it in the long run. It's sure to keep anyone entertained and it's quality will not disappoint you. Full Review This is an excellent flip phone, it's small and light in weight. The s105 has many features including a full color screen, text messaging capability, voice mail, call records, sounds, unique ring tones that sound like MIDI files. MIDI files are music files with just synthesized music, no words. You can have a background display picture, some of which are animated, or move. It displays the time and date. You can set up a welcome note for when you turn the phone on. It has a phone book which you can store up to 500 numbers on. This phone also features a SIM card (Subscriber Identification Module). A sim card allows you to save your phone numbers and other settings to the card instead of the phone, so when you purchase a new phone with a SIM card, all you have to do is put your card in the new phone and all of your settings are in the new phone. This saves you the time and aggravation of typing in all your phone numbers again. Also to save you time this phone features a smart typing system which makes typing a lot easier. Instead of pressing the 4 button three times to get the letter "I" you can just type the words as if you were using a keyboard and it automatically changes the text to what it thinks you are trying to type. The phone has some other features such as the "funbox" which has games and things you have downloaded. Also you can access the Internet to download new tones and backgrounds which you can store to either your phone or SIM card. The phone comes standard with 2 lithium batteries, each capable of 6 hours of standby time and 3 hours of talk time. It comes with the hands free device, a European outlet adapter, a wall charger, a wrist strap, a swivel belt clip, The SIM card, user guide, accessory guide and a guide to help you access the web. The lowest Price I have seen this phone for is $99.99 after mail in rebates. I paid $249.99 at a wireless provider store, after rebates. I have read a couple of reviews that say this phone is not good because it does not light up so you can see the time without opening the phone, however this is false. You can make the outer screen light up by holding the volume button for a few seconds. However the few flaws that I have found with this phone are that it does not have voice activated calling (You say the persons name you programmed in and it calls them instead of having to use the phone book.) Also when the phones volume is up to its maximum, sometimes the sound gets scratchy or echoes making it hard to hear. Other than that, this phone is top of the line.....for now. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249.99 90994 2000/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish design compact read my review but the keypad is a big con for me The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a simple yet stylish phone, get it. If you want comprehensive internet access, get a handheld/PDA. Full Review I'm going to start off explaining to you why I bought this phone. When I decided to get myself a new phone I had the following criteria that the phone needed to fulfill. 1. It has to be a flip phone. 2. It has to be aesthetically pleasing and at the same time practical. 3. It has to be compact. 4. It has to be less than $150 dollars (US). I didn't really have a brand in mind although I had a wonderful Motorola phone previously until I lost it. It was the most stylish, sexy, and very compact phone. Haven't seen it or an updated version of it since I lost it. And Motorola generally had some aesthetically pleasing designs. The phone I had prior to the Samsung S105 was a Nokia. I don't recall the model but it's the phone "everybody" has. It wasn't a flip phone. I decided to get a new phone as soon as my one year contract expired which was around July/August. Another determination factor for my phone purchase was the plans that were being offered by the competition. I won't bore you with the details but if need be, I would have left to sign up with another company if they had a nice phone and plan that suited my needs. To cut to the chase, I found the Samsung S105 phone. It's stylish, compact, and seems sturdy enough to survive in a bag with keys, books, Gameboy console, etc. Not to mention I only paid $100 for it. The dealer offered the phone to me at $149 and it came with a $50 rebate. It was perfect!! The phone comes with manuals, ear bud phones which do not tangle up like so many other ear phones, holster, an additional rechargeable battery, hand strap and charger with adaptor. The phone has a bright color screen that displays wonderful colors - amazing to see on a phone. Although you may not be able to customize the exterior of the phone, you can definitely personalize the contents of the phone. The phone comes with selections for wallpaper, window color, light signal color, and ring tones. The phone is also equipped with (3) games. And if you're not satisfied with what was included, you can download more selections from the company who you get your service from. The phone is web enabled which means you're able to check email, send emails, check news, weather, horoscopes, and find out what's playing at your favorite movie theater. The phone has a great way to organize your phone book by allowing you to input (3) contact numbers (1) email address per person. You have the option to save the info either on the SIM card or on your phone. You can also check to see how much storage you have left. What I didn't like about the phone or rather, what I found disappointing about the phone is the keypad. It is indistinguishable. It's a little more trying to dial the number with your thumb while holding it in the same hand - something I was able to do with my Nokia phone. While navigating or trying to call someone, I would press the wrong the button. When I try to call someone, I would press "select" button and when I was trying to select something, I would press the "dial" button. It was annoying. The "hang up" button was the same button for powering on/off, and it took a few more seconds for the phone to power on - longer than any phone I owned previously. The text is a little too big. I don't want others around me to read my messages, numbers, etc. I found navigating through the phone's many features at times confusing and frustrating. While trying to personalize the phone, I wouldn't be sure if I made a selectoin or not. And sometimes, when I cancel a seletion, it takes me out of entire menu back to the initial screen. And although the phone is web enabled, I haven't been able to really surf the net. The phone has a direct link to AOL mail, IM, and news features. If you don't have AOL, the phone offers their users with "internet" access to only news, weather, horoscopes, scores, entertainment, and movies via the company you've signed with. In order your you to be able to connect with an actual website, that website must be WAP (wireless web)compatible. So that was very disappointing when I found that out. The phone includes a manual that can explains how to use WAP on your phone however, I didn't think it was thorough in it's explanation. In any case, I do like the phone despite my negatives. The phone met my criteria so I can' really complain. And it's not so crucial for me to have web access while on go except when I need to find out about movie times. I hate calling that 777-FILM or movie phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 90993 2000/2/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen gprs high speed wireless world phone special hands free device The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a sleek phone with many features this is the one for you. Not recommended for your first phone or those looking for the basics. Full Review Welcome to another installment of boy I have to many phones. The Samsung S105 is one of the smartest phones to hit the GSM Network in quite sometime. Here is a rundown and rating on this monster. Battery Life With two batteries (from T-Mobile) including an extended life you have as much battery life as your going to need. Just keep both batteries charged and keep one in easy access just in case. (For Standard Battery) Information Gathered from SamsungUSA.com Talk Time Up to 4 Hours Stand-By Time Up To 100 GRADE: 4 out of 5 Reception With Reception close to a Nokia and much better then a Motorola its easy to say that reception should not be a problem. I was able to use this phone in the normal places I travel as well as many rural and out of the way that I thought that it wouldn't work at all. EASE OF USE With a bright color menu and large easy to navigate buttons its a breeze to fly through the menu options after you've learned where everything is on it. With a little practice I found myself able to run through the menu without having to look at the phone itself. GRADE: 5 out of 5 THE LOOK Phone are there to keep you in style as well as in touch and with this little beauty that shouldn't be a problem. Slim and sleek Silver design with a flip and outside caller ID. A full color screen as well as downloadable polyphonic ring tones and back grounds gives you the chance to customize the phone to suit you. FEATURES Large Color Screen High Speed wireless with GPRS (up to 114kbs) 500 name phone book with SIM CHIP Organizer Vibrate Alert World Phone (GSM 1900, 1800, and 900 mhz) AND Many more check out www.samsungusa.com for the rest of the features The Overall Like I said great little phone with world wide travel, Bright and stylish, and easy to use. Everything that you can ask in a phone without a truly high price tag. OVERALL GRADE 4.5 out of 5 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 90992 2000/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life weight features big outer screen huge color display design no voice dialing The Bottom LineI would definitely recommend this phone to anybody who is looking for a great new phone with a huge color-display, as well as many other great features! Full Review I just recently aquired a cell phone in which I would change forever the way I think about cellular phones. It was the Samsung SGH-S105. Something that I've rarely seen advertised was simply the best product I've ever encountered, when it comes to cell phones. The phone must sell itself for everything it offers and it's slick design - that must be the reason for the lack of advertising. The phone is very small in size. Using the extended battery, which is slightly larger in size than the other battery that it comes with (standard) it's still inceredibly small (when closed), which is always great. Even though the phone grows in size when the screen is flipped up, that is because of the large screen that it offers, in which I'll talk about later. Since I'm on the subject of size, weight falls into that category. Again, using the extended battery, which weighs slightly more than the other - as above, it's super light to go along with it's super small size. Battery Life. This is a subject which is very controversial, as some sites say one thing and others say another. Well, using the extended battery, on a full charge, it can last atleast 92 hours of being on as the manufacturer states. I've yet to use the standard battery so I can't tell you anything about that. But, it's not really need with the extended battery included as well. Now, here comes the best part. The gigantic, large color-display/screen! It is definitely the best on the market. It's very large (larger than any other I've seen) and offers a whopping 56,000 colors rather than the 256 or 4,000 that other phones offer. Might I mention that every feature offered on the phone is in color, and you can also customize colors, backgrounds, menu-styles, etc. all in which reflect the excellent color this screen provides! To go along with the huge color-screen is the outer screen that you can view while your phone is shut/closed. It is always very easy to see, with a huge display of the time and date as well as how much signal you have, battery life and if you've got the phone on vibration or not. Many people have reported that there is no light on this screen. THAT IS FALSE. If you hold the volume key, located on the side of the phone for just about one second, a bright blue light appears, making the screen even easier to read in dark areas. Every feature on this phone is excellent! From the calendars to the games - it's all great! I can't forget to add that between the phone and your SIM card you could store up to 750 numbers in the phone book! And for all of you who are game players. It comes equipped with 3 games, in excellent color and sound, plus with the internet capabilities you've got loads of other games, ringtones and pictures you can download! As for the reception - it's excellent! I've used T-Mobile for just over a year now, and with my previous Nokia 3390, there were some areas that I didn't get reception in which I now do with the SGH-S105! And with all the nice new reception I'm getting, I like to change my "service light" to the different colors that it offers. I couldn't believe I could make a little tiny light 8 or so different colors. The only part that was somewhat dissapointing was that Samsung, for some reason has removed Voice Dialing. Why? Who knows. But that would've been an nice addition to this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 279 90991 2002/11/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen size decent battery power keys almost indistinguishable by touch The Bottom LineFantastic cell phone that will surely please everyone from the gadget lovers to the globetrotting power cell phone users to the casual cell phone users. Full Review Samsung and T-Mobil have hit a homerun with the SGH-S105 mobile phone. As part of the new wave of color cell phones, the S105 distinguishes itself by having a huge color screen with decent battery life and solid build quality. And best of all, I got my S105 free from Amazon.com after $250 rebate from Amazon and $50 rebate from T-Mobile. (The rebates require that you be a new subscriber to T-Mobile and the service plan be more than $35 a month. Otherwise the phone is $400 by itself and no rebates.) The Phone: The phone is longer then the average folded phones. And when it is open, it can feel a little top heavy. This phone is most similar to the Sprint A460 phone, also from Samsung, but it is a little bit narrower and longer. It has dual displays and the display on the outside is large and easy to see. The antenna is not extendable and the volume control is on the outside. Under the volume control is an infrared port which can be use to download or upload information. Standard Equipment: In the box with the S105 are one travel charger with an international adapter, one regular battery, one extended battery, belt clip that can be turned, ear bud style headphone and user manual. The S105 is a world phone that uses a sim card. The sim card stores the phone information, like phone numbers and service providers, and it has to be installed before it can be used. In countries like China, there are prepaid sim cards which can be purchased and put into the phone. So if you unlock the phone, you can use the S105 overseas. Features: There are a ton of features on the S105. You have a choice of having a fish tank in your phone or the constellations in the sky by choosing the wallpaper of your choice. Most of the standard wallpapers are pretty cool to look at with good colors. And after you choose the wallpaper, you can change the color of the fonts and even the service light of the phone to match. However, the keypad is always blue. Think most cell phone's ring tones are boring? Not the S105. It has polyphonic ring tones and it sounds like real music. And new ring tones can be downloaded to suit your personal taste if the 20 standard tones are insufficient. The ringer volume is very loud and can be heard even in noisy environments, but the vibration is kind of weak. Have a little time to kill? Try the FunBox! Downloadable games with color that should keep most people entertained while waiting in lines. The standard games are pretty lousy but did I mention they are all in COLOR??? Display: The color screen on this phone is big. However, it is not active matrix so doesn't show very well in direct sun light. But with the silver surface of the phone, if you do try to read the screen with direct sun light behind you, you'll probably go blind anyway because it reflect light like a mirror. So as long as you hold the phone in a slight angle, seeing the screen shouldn't be a major problem when the backlight is on. And being passive matrix is also good because the battery lasts a lot longer. Phone Book: This phone has a great phone book, capable of storing 750 phone numbers or emails. 250 of which can go on the sim card and the other 500 in the phone's memory. Each one of your contacts can have multiple numbers and an icon next to the phone number distinguishes the number as cell, home or work. And you can have multiple phone numbers with the same icon with one contact. Like two cell numbers or two office numbers. Call Quality: Before I got the phone, I was told by some friends that Voice Stream, which is now T-Mobile, had bad reception in my area, Central Jersey to Princeton. However, I am having no problem what-so-ever with the S105's call quality and its ability to make or receive calls. Even in my office, where the signal bar is only one, the call still goes through. Complains My biggest complain about this phone is its numeric keypad. The way the keys are designed, it is almost impossible to dial a number without looking at it because the keys all feel the same. The keys are sufficiently large that dialing is not a problem and it has a nice soft feel to it but it is hard to distinguish if you hit the wrong one. The charge area on the bottom of the phone is covered by a small piece of plastic. When you charge the phone, this cover has to be removed before the charger can be plugged in. However, unlike the hands free plug on top, this small piece of plastic is not attached to the phone so you'll have to find a place to keep it if you don't want to lose it. This is annoying and I'll probably lose it sooner or later. And this would leave a fairly large hole on the bottom of the phone to collect dust and other debris. Names stored in the phonebook is limited to just 16 characters. It's probably enough for most people but I think it can be longer. Competitions Before making my decision to purchase the S105, I've also check out two Sprint PCS phones that are similar to the S105 in terms of features. Sprint PCS A500, also from Samsung is probably the hottest phone out there right now. The active matrix screen is bright and the A500 is also smaller and lighter then the S105. However, the battery life is not as long as the S105 and it's much more expensive. $200 on Amazon.com after rebates and about the same in stores as well. The other color PCS phone that was very good was the LG LX5350. This is also a nice phone. A little shorter and thinner then the S105. The color screen is also passive so it's like the S105 but the screen is smaller. The LG offers more features as well. It has voice dialing and voice memo. It even has a GPS positioning system. But the keypads and the build quality is worse then the S105 IMHO. Also, it was more expensive the the S105 after all the rebates. That's about it for now. I've yet to use T-Zone nor have I try to download pictures into the phone so these features are not covered here. However, as I get around to that, I will be sure to update my review. **Revision** 1. In the original review, one of the complains I had about the S105 had to do with the outside display not lighting up in order to check time in the dark. Upon further investigation, I have found that I was wrong. Turns out that if you hold down the volume control for a few seconds, the backlight would come on for the outside display. Sorry for the earlier mistake. Recommended: Yes 7831 Samsung SPH-A500 91045 2004/1/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 small looks good very disfunctional horrible software extremely buggy Got the phone last summer (June 2003) and it was great for about a month. After a month I had trouble dialing out. It would try and try and nothing would happen. I found out after "rebooting" (shutting down and restarting the phone) it would then dial out. I also realized it was not receiving calls either as when I rebooted there would be messages from missed calls. Now the battery won't charge. When I plug it in it starts to charge then stops and beeps constantly. I got a new battery and have the same problem. It will shut off automatically, beep, flash. Very Buggy. It is a 250 dollar piece of crap 91044 2003/9/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish color screen a real conversation piece small fits in pocket great reception shortish battery life Well I won't bog you down with the technical details that can be found in all the other reviews -- I'll just sum it up in four simple words - "I love my phone!" I've had it for about four months now, and I just don't know what I'd do without it. 91043 2003/10/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 coolest looking phone on earth shuts itself off on occasion without warning Bought this phone a year ago. Yes, it was expensive. Yes, it is (still) the coolest looking phone I've ever seen. I like the size and weight of it, it sounds good. I have no complaints about battery life, even with the standard battery. This phone has been buggy as hell though, and getting Sprint to do anything about it has been quite a frustrating experience. 2 weeks after buying this phone, it started shutting itself off without warning, and for no reason. I was on a business trip and was planning on using the alarm clock feature. The phone decided to shut itself off in the middle of the night, and therefore did not wake me up. After a 45 minute wait in line at the Sprint diagnostic center in Los Angeles, followed by a 1 hour wait for them to complete testing, they replaced the phone on the spot. Problem is, the replacement phone shuts itself off as well. I've talked to other users, some had this problem, some did not. 91042 2005/11/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 looks lack of quality of sprint networkcustomer service fragile lcd bad reception Sprint upgraded me to this phone when another one developed network-incompatibility problems. The A500 initially had a lot of charm. The external LCD, the internal LCD colors, etc. seemed to compensate for awkward menu navigation (hitting mute takes several steps, for example). After a while, I found out that the reception on the phone was pretty bad. Then one day the internal LCD just blanked out. Sprint network and customer service are well-known for their poor quality, but the A500's bad reception and fragile LCD make the entire Sprint experience rather unpleasant. I'm looking to switch to another company. The Sprint store is like a BMV, as someone noted in these reviews, their network is limited in its national coverage, and the phones they give me make life tedious. Do not buy the A500 or any of its relatives. 91041 2005/2/4 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 date are nice features the external display for caller idclock no regular sounding ringtones sound quality sounds a lil staticky at times As some others have reported, I am also having charging problem with the phone. Symptoms: the red indicator light cycles between on and off when I try to charge it, instead of being just solid red (solid red means it's charging okay) it will also beep constantly when I try to charge it while it is on - telling me that it is not charging properly. ==================== I've tried a new charger and battery to no avail. CONS: sound quality sounds a lil staticky at times - detectable static noise in the background in my conversations sometimes... annoying; my bros' Kyocera on the same Sprint network is crystal clear compared to this phone. And it seems to take forever to boot-up. A minute or more, it seems. The phone is now junk, as it cannot charge. For $300, I expected better than this. This thing only lasted 2 years. 91040 2000/1/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 slender light easy ability to download ringers nice color screen phone heats up after long usage The Bottom LineIf you have Sprint PCS as your provider, this is the phone to have. Full Review Phone is the best phone I found you can buy with the Sprint PCS service. It allows you to download ringers, pictures, wallpapers, and screensavers. The phone has space for 250 numbers in memory. It also allows you to create groups around your entered numbers. And store friend's URLs and emails. The phone is bilingual [Spanish and English] and navigates easily through the menus. It also includes the built-in talk feature for hands-free dialing, web surfing, and use of other phone features. The phone also has an external display so you do not have to flip open the phone to see who is calling. Only two downsides are the fact the phone pad gets hot after extended usage [usually after over an hour of straight usage] and the battery life during talk could be a bit longer. There is an extended life battery, but that defeats the purpose of the slender and light phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91039 2003/3/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 java slim awesome looking tft color screen especially interesting ringers lots of features among many other things no calculator lame games phone book so so battery life The Bottom Linethe a500 is a gadget-lover's phone. if you don't care about phone being cool and just want to talk, get some other phone, its too expensive. Full Review Good stuff: well, for one thing, the color screen is a TFT screen, not an LCD. It is much sharper with more brilliant colors, and i must say nobody can really complain about the screen because it is so clear and bright. of course it has nice looks, as everyone else says, so the phone style has no real problem. the interface takes some getting used to, mostly because i'm switching from my old v60 motorola phone, which has the "talk" and "end" buttons backwards. Everything about this phone is really good and you can probably read about all the good stuff in other reviews, so most of my comments will go to the "bad" comments about the phone. oh yeah, if the reception is bad, don't knock the phone, its not the a500, its sprint service, which is good at times, and horrible at other times. oh, and speed dialing is pretty cool, just holding down 1, or 2, and even double digit numbers, which my v60 phone couldn't do. oh one more thing. if you get this phone, make sure you use the Sprint Vision plan, if you want to be able to use all the features. its pretty cool. Bad Stuff: There really isn't much to say here, so i'm gonna crank out some really dumb little things that you might be interested in. External LCD: nice, but is pretty dim, and i don't know how to make the resolution better, if there is such an option. also, if you're in the dark, you have to flip open the phone to see the time or whatever, because pressing the little side button will not turn the blue light on like it did for the v60 phone. oh, and it doesn't display whether the person called from the home, mobile or whatever. it only displays the name. Antenna: pretty dang flimsy, but i guess you can't expect much more. most antenna's on phones are flimsy as heck. Battery life: for people complaining about this, the battery life is pretty decent for a color phone. just recharge it every night when you're sleeping, and you should be good for the day. yes, it sucks compared to non-color phones that use dim lcd and little energy to keep the phone running, but look what you get with the a500! Phone book: the phone book is actually pretty good. it stores names, birthdays, emails, websites, and all the phone numbers you can imagine into ONE entry. once again, compared to my old v60, which could not even store an extra number to one name, thats pretty awesome. my only negative for the phone book, and its a big disappointment, is... why does it store only up to 12 characters for the name entry!!! some of my friends last names go up to 10 characters. ridiculous. Games: sucks. don't play them, waste of battery life. the car game... is SO slow, unless i'm just imagining things. space invader, is okay. my ti-86 graphics calculator can run it better than this phone. i didn't care to try the 3rd game after. but yeah, who cares if the games suck right? phones are for talking anyway. Phone history: stores up to 10 missed calls, 10 dialed, 10 received. doesn't display the minutes of use, though, which i personally use frequently for my v60. doesn't show total minutes use either. disappointing. Text messaging: gotta go through the web to do it. that means waiting to connect and stuff. nope, don't like it. Ringers: to those complaining about no "classic" ringers, you CAN download it with vision if it bothers you that much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91038 2002/9/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating1.0 nice size hi res color graphics cool ringer no mobile home work icons in call history 12 character name field The Bottom LineA very cool, small, sexy phone that looks and sounds great. However, this phone is not user friendly and is worthless to me because it lacks basic functionality. Full Review With all the great new technology and multimedia features, one would expect basic functionality as a given. This is not the case with the A500. The contact name field is limited to 12 characters! I can not fit the last names of most of my contacts. There is a cool birthday field for the contacts, but, it does not show up on the calendar. If I scroll through the call logs, the name of a contact shows up if they are in my phone book, but there is no icon showing which phone number for the contact it is. Is it home, mobile or work? If I choose "view entry" from the menu, all I get is the same information in a different format.... NOT the phone book entry or an opportunity to choose an alternate number. The calendar only allows me to choose no alarm,10 min,30 min, 1 day prior. I can not set a custom alarm.... like 15 minutes if it will take me 15 minutes to get to an appointment. Also, I can not 'repeat' the event ... like 'wake-up at 7am EVERY day'. How about sync'ing with the PC? Well, it costs approx. $60 for the cable and software to find out. I thought you might be able to sync a contact manager, upload/download pics and ringers and games and such... maybe quicker and cheaper than over the SPRINT service...but I didn't want to pay the price to find out. I have grown dependent on my mobile phone to remember all the phone numbers, make them readily accessible, remind me about appointments and birthdays, wake me up in the morning. Checking stock prices, movie times, text messaging, and email are also handy, but not at the expense of the previously listed uses. I am very disappointed that with all the 'new' features of this 'vision' phone that there is such a lack of basic functionality and ease of use. 12 characters for a name?!?! That's absurd! .... This one is going back to the store 2 days after I bought it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 91037 2003/7/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the price is droppingfirmware upgrades are happening no oem installed hands free accessory The Bottom LineGo for it and get the newest best prices! Full Review I had been wanting to get a "modern" cell phone for some time now (that is, one smaller than your average camcorder these days). One of the main reasons holding me back was the thought of giving up my installed car hands-free system that performed so well with my previous phone (Nokia 6xxx). Unfortunately, Samsung has not (yet) released a similar system for the A500. And don't try to convince me that their "Zero-install" kit or the cheaper knockoffs are the same thing! When you've had the real thing, those cigarette lighter gizmos with the dongles and bad sound don't cut it!! But I found the perfect solution from a 3rd party outfit called Cellport, which makes a custom installed holder for the A500. Great! Not cheap (figure on $200), but one problem solved. The next issue I had with the A500, and MANY others have pointed it out too, was the lack of a NORMAL ring tone. Of course, there are the download opportunities, but I was looking for an OOB experience here. The good news is that the latest firmware upgrades to the A500 includes several (2 or 3) "normal" ring tones. Hurray!! If you don't have the latest firmware, my understanding is that your local Sprint store will upgrade your phone for free. Just call ahead to make sure a technician is available. And the final good news is that the price has dropped even for existing customers (that is, no new activation). I purchased the phone from BestBuy for $100 with a deal that required me to purchase two $10 accessories. And no activation or new line required! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91036 2003/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 fun interaction clarity navigation user friendly resolution battery life web browser errors that lock up the phone The Bottom LineNavigation, menus, fun, functionality worth every penny. More like a PDA than a phone. The web graphics are great. Smaller, better, must buy Full Review My last phone was a Samsung 8500. I liked that phone a lot until I misplaced it and was forced to buy a new one. I of course went with the color equivalent and have been more than happy with it ever since. PROS: The first thing I noticed of course was the color and graphics. This isn't just the only reason the phone is excellent but it does make it seem more like a hand held PC device than just an ordinary phone. I like that I can put in email addresses of my friends, multiple phone numbers for not only home phone and cell but also pager numbers and more which is very handy This phone is just plain fun. Being able to use a ringer that sounds like a chicken is pretty hilarious. One of the best additions is being able to download more backgrounds, games, etc.....like I said it feels more like a PC because you can actually interact with your phone, it is more dynamic and personal The menus make this phone much smarter and user friendly including a back button which makes it much more like a browser and windows interface. It also brings voicemail to may attention quicker because the outside display on the phone grabs my attention when I have a new voicemail. With my previous phone, I would miss the fact that I had voicemail because I didn't check it on a regular basis The phone is extra light. It is also so small and thin, I actually was worried a couple of times because I thought that I left it somewhere when in fact I had it in my pocket...I couldn't even feel it. I am very sensitive to items in my pocket, I don't like to put bulky items in my pocket such as my wallet, etc. and the one thing about this phone is it seems like it isn't even there and is very compact The antenna seems to be more solid, if you drop it, there is a solid piece on top which will protect it more The volume setting is very strong. You can turn this sucker up pretty good for anyone who is hearing impaired I like the big time display on the outside, it is easier to read and also on the inside at the bottom it tells you the time and date The calendar is more a true calendar and like a PDA in that you can set tasks for dates Not to mention that you can download software to your work PC to enable you to move your Outlook calendar items and send it to your phone's calendar items without having to physical connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable, it simply sends the data to Sprint's DB which sends it to your phone I believe The Web is good when you can find sites that support WAP. Not all websites support this technology so don't expect to be able to go to every web site out there until all of them get this ability. But you can browse basic sites like CNN which have pretty darn good graphics and experience on the phone's small display....very impressive and fun. I couldn't get mapquest to work so I don't think they are WAP capable yet. The Web is also pretty darn fast to download pages. Sprint has also improved the web package in that you only pay a small fee and this time, it doesn't take out of your anytime minutes (that is nonsense), you have unlimited Web time, they don't track it!!!! Now that is very fare! You can if you want, buy a digital camera that attaches to the side of the phone and then save the pictures on your phone. The phone charges quickly and like I said, the battery life really lasts long.....You wouldn't think so with color but it does last a very long time, more than my old Samsung 8500 The phone is very easy to read in the dark. Because it is color, it provides more brilliant colors in the dark The keys are all soft keys so they have a better feel for them They have old classic games such as space invaders which is excellent It is much easier to change to alpha to numeric characters or to select special characters. It takes less effort to put in non-alphanumeric characters since their navigation is much smarter and menus make it much easier than their older phones You can hold 200+ contacts and phone numbers ----------------------------------------------------------- CONS The keypad is very small, if you have big fingers, it may be harder to dial The Web does lock up if you try going to a web site that gives you an error or a site that is not WAP capable. Sometimes my phone simply freezes and I can't even turn it off and have to take out the battery. Sprint says this is the only way to fix that right now until they fix that error. Otherwise, I usually can close out of the browser if I get an error but sometimes after I do so, when I try to connect to the web again, it doesn't get there and I have to recycle (turn the phone off and on again) to get to the web again....these are problems I am sure sprint will smooth out in the next months but this doesn't prohibit you from enjoying it but I wish they would handle the error handling better The game graphics are not what you see on TV. While still decent, they are not as detailed as what it seems but still is pretty darn good and is smooth...I don't see any choppiness Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91035 2002/11/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large external lcd beautiful colorful lcd large voice dial is strange can only viewsave pictures sent using the sprint camera The Bottom LineOver all this IS a great little phone. If you want a phone that will turn heads, not forgetting about Quality, get this phone. Full Review I have owned the A500 for about a week and I'm loving it! First of all the color LCD is awesome! Much better the the Sanyo 5150 that I use to own. The clarity & reception is wonderful. Browsing the web and checking email is a breeze. I was please to find out that my hands free head set(which has the on/off button)worked well with this phone, which is a plus since it did not work with the Sanyo. I was also please to find out that the phone had a memo button hidden in the menu section. This is great if you're being given a phone number or say, directions and are not able to write it down. I also like the fact that I can set the alarm for daily use, I use this as my alarm clock. These were some features that the Sanyo had that I really enjoyed. The voice dial is a little different then the usual voice command that I was use to using. When prompted you tell the phone what command you want it to do, like digit dial or name dial. The only problem with this was that when I said voice mail the phone pulled up the voice mail menu and I still had to push buttons to hear my messages. I found out that if I went under voice dial from the menu and said voice mail (as the name) then I would enter my Sprint mobile number and push OK. The next time I pushed and held the talk button and was asked for a command, I would say name dial, voice mail and it would go directly to my messages and start playing them, not buttons to push and Problem Solved!! The only problems that I can find wrong with this phone is that the only way to get pictures onto the phone is to use the camera that is designed for it, Bummer! I wish I could just download them from my computer or be able to view them from my email. So, no picture caller ID, no viewing picture sent to through email. The commercials make you think you can just receive pictures, the person sending them has to be using the same camera also! I'm hoping that Sprint will fix this problem, I really don't want to walk around with a camera all the time. I have not had a problem with the battery, but I don't use this phone like a home phone, so my battery last a rather long time even when I'm using the browser. I did however send off for the free battery (a sixty dollar savings). The download ringers and things are cool, but you can only keep then on average for three months and you have to pay for them, a dollar for most for the ringers and screen savers,not much but still... If you find, say ringer that you really like, like I did, be prepared to pay for it, if they still offer it, every three months. But over all I can deal with these flaws, nothing is perfect, it's the quality that means the most! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91034 2000/4/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tft color display ringers wallpaper external display web display minor issues see below battery The Bottom LineThe Samsung A500 is the phone that you want, but don't necessarily need. It's for those that want all the newest features and a little style to go with it. Full Review Before I start, I think it's important to separate the quality of the phone from the quality of the network. This is my 12th phone on the PCS network and I've been to multiple markets and the one thing to keep in mind is that each phone works differently in each market. That said, in my market (Raleigh-Durham) the service is good, but could be better. Design The design of the phone is quite slick. It's very stylish and very usable at the same time. The phone appears to be built pretty solid and you don't get that "I can't bend or push this too often" feeling either. I only have two complaints. First, there is a 4-way directional button on the phone with a center button. It would be nice if the center button was the "ok" button instead of being some game button. Also, I really dislike have the up/down volume button where it is. It's hard to perform many tasks without pushing that button. Both of these issues annoy me, but are very minor in the grand scheme of things. Displays I really enjoy the color TFT display. It is amazing. I also enjoy having an external b&w display as well. The external display is reminiscent of non-PCSVision enabled phone displays. My only complaint is that the side volume buttons do not control the backlight of the external display. It would be nice to light up the external display without opening the phone or receiving a call or message. Features This phone is feature packed. So many features -- not a lot of time. The ringers are very different from any other phone. They are pretty much midi recording and they sound great. The Vision service is remarkable as well. You can browse WAP versions of websites and more. You can also download ringers and backgrounds for a fee. Using your own pictures on the phone is kinda tricky, but there are many websites out there that offer ways to upload images to your phone and they also offer free backgrounds and ringers. The voice activation feature is pretty impressive as well. It allows you say the name of a person to dial their number (you have to program and you only get 10 slots)or simply speak the digits of the number. Setting up voice digit dial should take about 6-8 minutes of your time...tops! There are many other features on this phone, but I decided just to highlight the biggies. For more info, check out the instruction manual at http://www.samsungtelecom.com/pdf/A500OG_080602_F1.pdf. Battery Now, my last section.... the battery. This is where I think the a500 is weakest. Samsung advertises a talk time of 3.5 hours and a standby time of 9 days; however, this is just not true. For the past couple of days, I have used the heck out of my phone to test its limitations. One day I talked more on the phone, one day I used the features and internet more, and a third day, I used a combination of the two previous day. If you are a talker and don't have access to a charging method (office wall jack/car cigarette lighter port) you are going to hate this phone. Talk time is about 2 to 2.5 hours, if you adjust your settings properly, have a good signal, and don't use the phone for anything else. Otherwise, expect to have about 1.5 to 2 hours of talk time during normal use. There is one thing that saves the a500 and that is the fact the Vision service doesn't have to be dialed in and therefore takes up less battery than the older Web-Enabled phones. Using just the Vision service, I was able to use this phone continuously for greater than 3 hours. I will give Samsung credit, however. They do offer a500 owners a free extended battery -- probably to address the battery issue. If you are a high minute user, you might want to invest in the desktop charger to charge both batteries. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91033 2000/2/27 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen external cid dual band voice dial less web features from vision than promised poor battery life weak signal The Bottom LineVery flashy w/ its design and color screen but lacking in the reliability department. Needs longer battery life and better signal strength Full Review I was offered the a500 as a demo phone for the company I work for. Having never used a Samsung flip phone I jumped at the opportunity. I was picking up lots of features that the Sanyo 6000 I carried didn't have. Unfortunately its a bit of a let down. The battery life is less than 1/2 of what I had expected. I find myself charging it everyday after about 1hr 15mins of talking. That is much less if I use the web or play any of the games. The voice dial is very awkward to use and set up. You must go through a lengthy programming mode for it to recognize your voice if you want it to dial numbers that you say. Unlike most other phones holding down talk doesn't call the last number dialed, it goes to the voice prompt, that took some getting used to. I will say that it is easier to see the color screen under bright light than my samsung I300 palm pilot was. But not as easy to see as the traditional monochromatic screens. I am also unhappy about the speed dial function, it sets itself up in the order that numbers are entered rather than letting you assign them. On the up side the navigator button at the top makes accessing the phone book, text messages and the scheduler very easy. Once a call is made the volume is almost too loud(good for me, I'm mostly outside). But the signal strength seems to be weaker than indicated on the display. I find the phone searching for service in places that none of my 5 other PCS phones have. I have difficulty getting a call to go out even if I have signal strength. For all of its flaws the A500 comes in a sturdy package that it pleasing to look at. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299 91032 2000/12/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish small color screen lightweight aggressive plan prices good sprintpcs coverage varies slow unstable significant browser errors vision is overhyped The Bottom LineA great phone to choose unless you are interested in browsing the web. The Sprint PCS Vision network that access the web is neither fast nor stable. Full Review Truth be told the A500 is actually a backup phone for my primary service. I have found myself using the A500 more and more lately for 2 reasons. The first is that Sprint PCS' network in Connecticut where I live is pretty good and coverage is solid (yeah, this depends a lot on where you live/travel so your mileage DEFINITELY varies here). Second, I like that the phone is compact and unobtrusive. I can wear it on my belt without hitting all the furniture in my office (a big problem with some of the other larger phones). The things that I like about the A500: Compact size: Definitely the selling point in retrospect. Camera phone: It is a bit gimmicky and low resolution - but I like it for the glimpse it gives us on what things will become in the future. Price plans: Sprint PCS has pricing that is at least as good as the competition. Downloads: I love being able to download ringtones and wallpaper (even if they are $$ from Sprint and expire in a few months). Now here are some of the problems with the A500: Vision: I can't understand what the hype is all about. The connection to the web is dog slow. Using some of the downloaded apps like Weather Channel is almost a 3 to 5 minute wait. Half the time the browser on my A500 fails to connect and I have to close it and re-connect. Browsing Web Sites: Half the sites you try to access generate some type of error. You'd think if the wireless carriers were laying out all this cash to build a network they'd come up with some half workable method to feed web sites to your phone. Personally all I need is a text translation. Save the fancy graphics for the broadband connected. Email: Why can't phone carriers understand that mostly what we (ok maybe just I) want to do is receive notifications of POP email coming in. Couldn't this phone be made to check the email and produce a POP UP message (presently you have to manually initiate a check of this). Incoming Calls: More of a wish list than a problem. I would like to be able to control the number of rings before the phone goes to voicemail and also be able to reject an incoming call and have it go to voice mail -- neither of which is possible presently. Lacks AOL Instant Messenger: I'm not a user however I know that some complain about the lack of ability to use AOL Instant Messenger on the phone. Summary: I think this is a nice, compact, all around phone. If I was looking at the A500 thinking that I was going to use it SERIOUSLY to browse the Web, I'd definitely re-think matters -- the T-Mobile sidekick is a far better choice. If you want the phone to check and reply to email the Blackberry is a better choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91031 2000/11/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ringers color display style second battery free battery life no mms or gprs slow message writing The Bottom LineThis is not a business phone, but trendy and stylish phone for young people. You will love to use it, even just to look at it! Full Review If you are from Europe, you will probably know this phone as Samsung SGH T100, and you'll probably fell in love as soon as you see it, wherever you are from. But wait a second, it might not satisfy you completely. It is sleek, stylish and you will be noticed wherever you go whith this phone. But its functions and specifications are not as good as you would expect for a phone in this price range. But that's also a thing that makes this phone an exclusive product. First thing that you will notice on this phone is its display, or should I better say, displays. The one outside is not in color but when you have a call or get a message it is lit with nice blue color. It can show clock, date, signal and battery strength. Outside you can also notice a service light which is blinking all the time and you can choose the color of the light. The one inside is real jewel, it can show 4096 colors on TFT LCD screen. It is fantastic and you can download any photo from your computer or the Internet and put it on your phone through the data cable that you get with the phone. Sounds are 16 polyphonic which means the sound of pressing 16 keyboards of instrument simultaneously. They sound great, but if you like monopoly sound you can download 3 and 2 composite tones. Alert of an incoming call or message can be with light only, melody only, vibration only, or Vibra Melody. This phone doesn't support MMS, but has picture messages which you can send to other Samsung and Nokia phone, but they are black and white and not very nice, by my opinion. In the package with the phone you get, beside phone and charger, additional (extended) battery, Earmicrophone, CD with more images and Ringtones that you can download, and Downloading Cable. You can store up to 500 names in the phone's memory, but you cant associate several phone numbers or e-mail with one name. You can set different ringing tones for every name in the phonebook. Writing the messages is not very fast, specially because for inserting the space, you have to press #key twice. I don't know why. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 430 91030 2003/1/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek small great color display very light nice phone free online downloads vision not reliable classic ringers not available through sprint detailed manual not included battery The Bottom LineOne of the few small color phones out there. Look for a good price though - they're not $300.00 anymore. Full Review Say goodbye to those "old-fashioned" monochrome cell phones for good! After you get this phone, you will wonder how you ever lived without a color display before. This is a real cool phone. A small, color phone - how could you go wrong? The cons I listed above really shouldn't sway you from buying this phone. The battery life can be a problem, but Samsung was offering a free extended battery when I purchased my phone. I never had to use it yet, but it's great to have as a back up. Even if they don't offer the free battery in the future, it's a good investment (especially for this phone). This is odd - the phone doesn't come with a complete user manual. If you're into cell phones, you'll figure out how to navigate through the phone. But, even someone like me who loves this stuff, took two-weeks to figure out that the phone has 'World Time' and a 'Calculator.' I figured it out by playing around. The manual that the phone comes with doesn't mention those two features and who knows what else I don't know about? You may be able to download something online, but come on! Sprint PCS Vision sometimes doesn't connect. An message like "Communication Error" is a familiar one. It's great that you can check email all day long without tapping into your minutes, but if you can't connect - what good is it? It seems like this is a problem that Sprint has to know about and I'm sure it will improve. If you're a gadget person, go with it, I recommend this phone - you'll definitely have a great time with it. I'd rather the look and the gadgets - so the fact that Vision doesn't work all the time really doesn't bother me too much. The sound is amazing on this phone! The ringers sound incredible, but...they're all song-like rings. For a small fee ($1.00-$2.00) you can download different rings (which all expire in 90-days or less) through Sprint. But currently, there are no classic rings to download from them. I'll keep checking as I'm sure they'll update. Screensavers are available by purchasing them too. Games are also available for a 60-90 day period ranging anywhere from $.99 - $4.99+. LITTLE KNOWN FACTS: Recently, I found a few Web sites where you can download this stuff for free without any expiration date! One of them is "www.a500hacking.com." Simple directions to download using their site. It is free, but an advertising banner will stay on a screensaver unless you join the site for $5.00/month (really a donation) for unlimited downloads. That's a fair price if you want to support that site. Another site, "3gfreestuff.com" is great too. No membership fee, no banners, bigger selection! Plus, with your free membership, you can upload up to five pictures (your membership only allows five) from your computer taken from a digital camera or just from the Web. You don't even need the camera attachment for this. The best one I found to date is "matrixm.com." This site has thousands of downloads - with about one thousand free downloads! Here you can find your classic ringers such as an old pay phone sound and a modern office phone ring. Free membership! Take advantage of all their free downloads without paying a penny! I'm sure if you search the Internet, you'll find more sites for free downloads. All-in-all...this is a great phone. I would definitely recommend it. Look out for deals! The phone was selling for $300.00 everywhere when I was looking. I found the phone for $229.00 at Staples (with a $75.00 Staples rebate). That's $154.00 I paid in the end. Some deals are for a free camera attachment, some are just flat out money rebates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229.00 91029 2002/10/22 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 size lcd display pictures with camera only geared towards kids teens 12 characters for names no normal ring tones The Bottom LineIt's not worth the price tag - yet. Full Review Two things attracted me to this phone. One was the color LCD display, and two was that it came in a small size that fits in my pocket. I've had this phone for a couple weeks now and while I am still happy with the display and the size, there are some MAJOR shortcomings for a $300.00 phone. The thing that I was most surprised with and find the most annoying is that there are no normal ringers on this phone. None! Since I am an adult and not a 13 year old I want my phone to make the traditional "ring,ring" sound, not play some stupid song that sounds like it came off a $50.00 keyboard. But that's all that comes with the phone! Other people have commented on how stupid it sounds as well. I usually just leaveit in my pocket on vibrate because I don't want anyone to hear it ring. I was hoping that maybe I could go to the sprint website and download a normal ringer, but unfortunatley they have 150 "songs". Sorry Sprint, but not every person buying this phone wants "Oops, I Did It Again" to play when their phone "rings". Another unpleasant surprise was that it only allows you 12 characters for people's names in your phone book. 12 is just not enough for a first and last name, let alone a company or whatever else you might need to put in there. Phones that cost a lot less and don't have as many "features" as this one usually take a lot more than 12. Again, for $300.00 you would expect much more. The LCD is nice but there is a problem with it concerning pictures. From the sprint commercials, I was under the impression I would somehow be able to upload pictures from my computer to the phone. That's not true though. As it says on their website, "At the present time, we do not support this." The only way you can get a picture of your own on their is if you take it with the $100 Sprint camera. C'mon! Who the heck would want to carry around a bulky camera that can only take pictures that you can put on your phone? Ridiculous. While those gripes are pretty big, there are some nice things about this phone that make it barely worth having. The LCD looks great as does the blue backlight for the keys. The phone in general is very cool looking and it fits well in your hand. The sound when making phone calls is also pretty good. I still get the occasional dropped call, but not as many as I did with my other Sprint phone. I also get good reception in my office, where many other phones don't get any reception at all. It's also very slim and I can put it in my pocket and not even notice it's there. So, having said that, would I recommend shelling out $300.00? That's a hard one, but I would have to say no. I'm not upset enough with it to take it back, but that is partially because I'm hoping Sprint will someday get its act together and make a normal ringer available along with the ability to put pictures from your computer on the phone. Then it would be worth it. But until then, you'd be better off waiting for the price to come down. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 91028 2000/10/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sprint pcs the best ring tones amazing a beautiful phone best tft screen nice features the battery gauge screwy sprint pcs vision battery life soso The Bottom LineOverall, HAPPY. Sprint gives alot of minutes at decent prices / Vision is worth it, be careful of hidden costs. get that free Samsung Battery, your going to need it Full Review I brought this phone simply for its look, but when i ordered it off e-bay it was a lot better then i ever imagined. I've never seen a color screen on a phone this small thats so vibrant and sharp. It makes surfing the wireless web less painful on other phones the same size or even Larger. And, for once, Sprint is pretty clear when it comes to making calls. (Amazing) But Im in the New York City Area, so if you life in the middle of nowhere or cleveland, tough luck. I can download hundreds of Ring Tones, screen savers, gmaes, even upload my pics to the phone and display it on screen. The games are so extremely addictive, i handed in my term paper late just because i was playing all night on this phone the night before. Its Super light and will last a long time in even the most harsh conditions. (just dont get it wet). The SPrint PCS vision system is the most advanced of any of the cell phone companies so your getting cutting edge technology (For now) Now for my gripes. The Battery life is less then steller because the battery they sent with it is soooo small. I was amazed that I could even talk on the phone for even an hour and a half. Samsung has relized this and offers a special free extended battery offer with the phone, and they ship it to you for free. My Second Gripe is with Sprint PCS Vision, it may look very nice, it may look stunning . . . BUT, They charge for almost every Ring Tone, Screen Saver, and game you download from the phone. Even worse, you only get 2 megs of download a month , go over that it'll cost extra . . that includes downloading all of which i said above, and wireless web (For Vision, wireless web does not go by how much time you stay online, but for the sizes of the websites you download)They have freebees but they suck. even WORSE each ring tone and screen saver costs a $1 to buy AND most have licenses to Expire after a few months of Use.. The phones dont come with all the memory in the world. (I wonder why) so be careful of what you download and the sizes. The phone itself is a little pricey but that should be expected with a phone like this. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 91027 2000/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent screen clarity small compact size frequent lock ups on old firmware pcs vision internet browser The Bottom LineOnce you get the firmware upgraded, you won't have many problems with this phone Full Review At first, I hated this phone. I was unable to place calls and I unable to use the internet. After living with frequent lockups for about 5 months and experiencing numerous connection problems, I was able to get the software firmware upgrade to version VI16. Now I love the phone. I never get lock ups. I am able to make and receive calls and usually I get a 1 call connection - meaning the first time I dial a number, It connects. However the internet browser built into this phone still is not up to par. I get a lot of page cannot be displayed errors. There are 3rd party programs that you can download to your phone to enable web browsing and I had a little more success with these. Plus's: the LCD screen is excellent. However if you are outdoors in the sun, then you will have a bit of difficulty seeing the screen. Aside from that, if you use the phone indoors or in darkness, the display is the best I've ever seen on a cell phone. The screen is so bright that sometimes I've even used the screen as a flashlight!!! The phone also has 300 # memory. However you can only store 12 characters in the name field spread over the first and last names. So if you have a friend with a name like JOSEPH SPRINTUSER, you will need to shorten the name to something like JOE SPRINT. This phone supports downloads of games and ringers and there are numerous web sites where you can download ringers and games to the phone. The phone has a lot of built in memory and I've never gotten an "out of memory type error" This phone will also connect to your laptop using a special cable from another 3rd party company and let you connect to the internet. I've tried it and it works and the speed isn't all that slow! This phone has free built in voice dialing, voice memos, and text memos. The phone also has quitte a few different volume settings for just about anything. For instance, you can have your main ringer set real loud and your voice mail indication tone be real low and you can have your text message ringer set medium. You can even use this phone as an alarm clock! My main complaint on this phone was the frequent lock ups and inability to place calls. However once the software was upgraded, it eliminated all these problems and now I can truly say that I enjoy using this phone and really have no problems with it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91026 2000/1/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 looks pretty cool nice ring tones terrible battery life The Bottom LineI wouldn't really recommend it other than simply as a phone. It does a lot of stuff, but nothing really well. Full Review THE FIRST DAY: Until I bought this phone, I was one of the few that always said I would never have a cell phone. I was perfectly happy with my landline, caller ID, and no message machine. This way, if someone called and I wanted to talk with them, I could just look at caller ID, and if I wasn't in the mood to chat, I could simply say innocently enough "I didn't know you called. Oops." I'm in grad school, and sometimes, it's better for me if people canNOT get in touch with me at their whims. Anyhow, last September, I was in Bestbuy wasting time while a friend was doing some shopping and lo and behold, I ended up at the sprint counter. I started looking at the phones and this fellow standing next to me says to his dad "this phone is sold out all over Boston." RIght then, the competitive animal in me came out. I had to have that phone. It was sold out--no matter, I HAD to have it. Anyhow, I go up to the sprint salesman and he says that he thinks they're sold out---then he looks again and he says, "last one." Of course, being the undisciplined consumer that I am, I took it. It was the first week the phone had been out and I paid $200 for it----somehow even though the phones were brand new, Sprint was discounting them. THE FIRST WEEK: So I buy the phone and take it back home with me---as it turns out, sprint requires a phone that's sprint to use a sprint service. So, I signed up for sprint even though everyone else in my family uses verizon---this was my first mistake--sprint service kind of stinks. I open the phone, get it turned on, and see this "fish tank" appear on the phone with a bunch of fish swimming in it. Really neat stuff. I then try and see how I can take pictures with the phone, and I look and I look and I look some more, but can't figure out how to take pictures. Then I read the owners manual, and lo and behold, find that the only way to take pictures is to buy a separate camera attachment. So no pictures. THen, I decide to go ahead and see how the internet service is. It's slow. Logging on just to get a connection to the net takes about 30 seconds, and it isn't as fast as being on a dsl line at all. Of course, this is the first handheld device that I've ever used for email, so I dunno if that's typical or not---but at the same time, it's kind of slow. It's almost easier to go home and use the email there instead of simply logging onto the phone. One more negative. The battery has no life whatsoever. It dissapears after about 8-10 hours (this is 8-10 hours of non talk time---if one talks, battery life suffers more). This is really, really annoying, so I call sprint and tell them my battery is defective. The guy on the phone mentions that the vision system requires more energy, so battery life is less than one would think, BUT there's a free battery that has extended life that sprint will send me. I'm happy for the moment---until I find out that everyone gets the free battery b/c the problems with the "original equipment" batteries are so endemic. The next day, I go to Bestbuy and spend $100 on the "camera attachment" It's like a mini camera--looks really cute, same grey color as the phone, except that it has this plastic attachment cover that breaks within a few days of my having the camera. Really made from cheap stuff. So I go to class and start taking pictures of my classmates. Kind of fuzzy, not great resolution (no way to adjust the focus on the camera), but still "I get to take pictures with my phone. Neat!" And then, when I want to actually see the pictures, I find that they're not really stored in the phone, but rather, on the net somewhere, so everytime I want to see a picture, I have to log onto sprint pcs and download each image. Really, really, a big, slow, pain. Now, the camera will store a couple of images, but if one doesn't have the camera and wants to show pictures to friends, one has to download the images. Still, b/c the camera was so "new" I didn't really seem to care too much about the problems with it. A few days later, I'm in a dark room in the evening, and the camera won't take pictures--apparently, b/c there's no flash, no light (or dim light) means no pictures. So in conclusion, the camera is really a gimmick. DOn't get it. A COUPLE OF MONTHS LATER: The phone works fine as a phone. THe extended life battery came in, unfortunately, it's made the phone twice as heavy as it first was and twice as big as well. So one is left with the choice of having a slim phone that only has 10 hours of battery life or a thicker phone with a long battery life. After the first month, the internet capabilities and the camera lost their allure---now, I just use the phone as a phone, and go to the net via a computer terminal when I need the net. This is a great phone just to say that you have it, but if you really want to use the capabilites or really are a technophile, I think it might be better to wait until the service is refined a bit. Everything's not really as streamlined as it should be. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 91025 2003/4/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 brilliant color screen small profile highly visible backlit keys crippling hardwaresoftware defects heats up uncomfortably during use short battery life mediocre reception The Bottom LineIn the rush to market, Samsung sacrificed quality and battery life. Samsung's first attempt at a US launched camera-phone should be avoided. There are better options out there. Full Review When I saw this phone I instantly fell in love. It is small, stylish, and wow that screen looks great! The flames of my passion for technology had been stoked. You know what they say though...the hotter a flame burns, the quicker it burns out. Such was the case with my A-500 experience. The honeymoon was great, but very short-lived. The A-500 is a slim, clamshell style phone and was the first of the Sprint PCS camera-phones offered. This was to be their crown-jewel in their lineup. And what a centerpiece it was. This phone has an incredibly vivid color display, unlike many of the color phones on the market that are very muted. It includes a calendar, alarm clock, PIM, and two different styles of menus to choose from. It has an external LCD display for caller ID which is a great little feature for those preferring clamshell phones. The keys utilize a VERY bright blue LED arrangement for backlighting. These make the phone very easy to use in low-light conditions and it doesn't hurt that it looks great. The phone also allows for internet access via the Sprint PCS Vision Service at speeds rumored to rival that of a dial-up connection from your home PC. And did I mention a camera? Yes, this phone will let you take and share pictures with an add-on camera...How, you may ask, can a phone that offers all of these features get such a poor review by yours truly? Here's how. In the three months that I owned this particular model of phone, I had to exchange it for a new unit a total of three times.As it turns out, I discovered while talking to my technicians at our repair center (I work off-duty at RadioShack 2 days a week) that there is a widespread problem with these units having cold solders that cause a major problem...the unit will spontaneously begin to cycle on and off and it is not a cycle that corrects itself or that can be interrupted. Can I just tell you how frustrating that is when you have programmed your phonebook the SECOND time just to discover you will have to do it AGAIN? Realizing that I may have just gotten one out of a bad batch the first time, I made sure the second one came from a different batch...same problem. Then THAT one did the same thing within a month (Thank goodness for the 30 day return policy.) And when I had it happen AGAIN on my third unit (also from a different batch) I had had enough. Now with some stories such as this you might read a line that goes something like this,"But when it worked, it was great." Not here. Aside from a crippling hardware defect, the unit's software (aka firmware) is also buggy and prone to causing the phone to lock up. When this happens you have to remove the battery and reboot the phone. Sometimes the phone will just randomly cycle off and back on. Not the best thing to have happen when you are in the middle of a conversation. Now that word, "conversation," brings me to the topic that is most important when talking about cell phones- reception. It is nice that the phone is color and accesses the internet and will let you take pictures, but ultimately, what REALLY matters is how the phone works as a PHONE. When describing this, one word comes to mind...mediocre. Truthfully, I rarely ever lost all signal anywhere with the phone but on the flip-side of that coin, I almost never showed full reception on the signal strength meter (Please keep in mind that these meters are somewhat subjective and vary wildly from manufacturer to manufacturer) and I would characterize better than half of my conversations on this phone as "static-y." Of course, I am somewhat long-winded (as if you couldn't tell by how long my reviews are) and I enjoy a long conversation with good friends. Unfortunately, such conversations aren't possible with this phone out of the box. It only comes with its standard slim-line battery and with that you can expect a maximum of about 90 minutes of continuous talk time. Now, these phones initially shipped with a coupon for a free extended-life battery that would offer about 2-2 1/2 hours of talk time (once you got it in the mail). I guess something has to be sacrificed in order to keep the sleek, sexy look but since I buy a phone to talk on, having a $300 doorstop doesn't help me when I need to make a call. Speaking of batteries, I have yet to see a cell phone that does NOT heat up when using them for extended periods of time. Simply put, it is going to happen due to the high draw of the phone (especially the color phones) and small size of these newer batteries. However this phone heats up to the point of being very uncomfortable against your face. It may also be a result of the high output LEDs used to backlight the keypad but whatever it is, I didn't like it. Basically what I am saying is this: If the phone worked as good as it looked, it would be the best thing out there. Unfortunately it appears that Samsung was trying to be the first to market with a CDMA color picture-phone in the US and they sacrificed quality in order to get there. In conclusion, if you are in the market for a camera-phone there are several other options out there for you (Sanyo 5300, the new Sanyo 8100, Samsung N-400, Samsung i700, and the upcoming release from LG just to name a few) that will fill your needs better and more reliably than this one. Not a good value at any price. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 299.99 91024 2002/10/29 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 beautiful screen 144kb sec internet access polyphonic ring tones free second battery lousy battery life The Bottom LineIf you have the money this is a good buy. Technophiles will love it because it's new, and people wanting clear calls will love it because, well, the clear calls. Full Review Three hundred dollars? Are you nuts? Who would buy a phone for three hundred dollars? Well, a lot of people. This phone is gorgeous. With an LCD screen this is the nicest image that you will find on a phone in the US. It's got colors, crisp resolution, and a really nice form factor. The keys are also backlit with a blue light, just like the A460. For simple looks this phone really can't be beat. It even sounds better than most phones. With the new polyphonic ringer system you can download all kinds of sound clips and music to use as your audible alert. (This just means that more than one tone can be played at a time, specifically this phone can play sixteen tones simultaneously. Previous Sprint phones only played a single tone at a time, hence the lousy representation of music.) For functionality there are also all kinds of features in this phone. I'll stick with the ringers for a second. In the phonebook of the a500 you can actually assign different ringers to different people. This is great if you have a few people you always want to catch (or avoid). The distinct rings will allow you to know who is calling without even looking at the phone. Of course the phone only comes with a few ring types, which means you'll need to take advantage of the internet capabilities of the a500. The a500 is 3G (third generation) compatible. This means that it takes advantage of 3G networks. Which, translated again, means that you get really good internet access. The old sprint phones got 14.4 kb/sec download speeds. The new Vision (this is Sprint's name for their 3G network) phones get up to (mind you that's "up to") 144 kb/sec. With this internet access you can download myriads of ringers, screen savers, wallpaper, and games for your phone. You can even surf the web. The built in search function will take you to google.com, and from there you can go anywhere. Mind you these phones only parse (i.e.: read) HTML. If you go to a page with flash, or some other special way of creating a website, then you won't be able to read it. The ability of this small phone to get around the internet is amazingly impressive. It even shows icons and images embedded in the pages. Moving on, and back a few sentences at the same time, I'd like to get to the games. This phone comes with a few games. While the racing game is terrible, there is absolutely no entertainment value; Monkey Ball by Sega makes up for that. This game is great. It's a puzzle game that requires a bit of dexterity in maneuvering the monkey around the board. If you don't like Monkey Ball, or the few other demos on the phone, you can always download more (for a fee). Another great feature of this phone is voice-activated dialing. This is on phone voice activated dialing, not through the Sprint service (which costs extra every month). This voice-activated dialing system can be programmed to recognize voice commands for calling up to fifteen different numbers; this is great for use with hands-free sets. One of the final features of this phone is the ability to add a digital camera. Taking pictures on the camera is simple, just point and click. Connect the camera to the phone and you can use the phone's email feature to send the pictures to friends, or simply upload them into your complementary Sprint photo album. These pictures are pretty good, 640x480 resolution. The only thing is that the camera is an extra $100. Samsung really wants your money. Moving on to the generics I must mention navigation. Navigating around this phone is very easy, if not the nicest. I like the way that the Sanyo 4900 has a spinning wheel for a menu, with the a500 you get a list which displays a different picture for each menu item. It's nice, but not the nicest. Aesthetics aside, navigation is simple and straightforward. There is a directional pad just below the screen with an OK button for making selections. There are also hot keys for jumping straight to the phonebook, internet, and various other commonly used areas. On the more basic side of the usability spectrum it is important to mention where the phone will function, and whether or not it is going to fall apart. This is a great dual-band (meaning it can use both Sprint's PCS network and regular cellular networks) phone that looks good and is nice and sturdy. While it is a flip phone, it's tough and doesn't feel like it's going to snap in half any time soon. The major disadvantage to this phone (other than the price) is the battery life. After about an hour or so this battery is tanked and it needs to be plugged in. Samsung knows this though and has provided a coupon for a free battery with every phone. All you need to do is call in, or go online, and you can redeem this coupon. Within a few weeks you should have your backup battery. This makes the phone much more usable and makes the $300 price tag easier to understand. I think this is a great phone. Because it's a battery hog make sure you redeem the coupon for the battery as soon as you can, and you might consider getting the phone at a RadioShack. RadioShack's warranty on the phone is $60 for 3 years and they replace the battery for free, if you have the warranty (which you paid for, so the batteries aren't technically free). It's a good deal because with the amount of charging these things are going to need you will probably have to replace the battery every six months or so. Still, this is the latest and greatest phone you can find in the US, so grab it if you have the cash. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.99 91023 2000/11/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small great reception lightweight looks awesome thin low battery life name display doesn t allow enough characters The Bottom LineGet it, it is worth the money just for the looks alone, and it very functional. Reception has been good everywhere I have used it. Full Review I purchased my A500 at Costco with a trade-in of my old phone. In total, this phone only cost me $60 but that is because I traded in my old phone at the time that I bought this one. I would recommend buying your phone at a warehouse such as this just because of the trade-in deals you can get. Without the trade-in the A500 would have cost $200 ($170 if you are a new sprint customer) Anyways, I got this phone after a friend of mine bought it and used it for about 2 weeks. I just had to have it. The A500 had all that I was looking for in a phone. After being disappointed with the LG phones not having a high ring and vibrate function at the same time, I was very happy to find that this A500 did in fact have one. You can also download ringtones, screen savers, games, applications and such from sprint's web site. You don't need a PCS vision plan for this, I still have my old sprint plan. The only catch is that if you don't have the PCS vision plan, you have to pay 0.05 cents per KB downloaded (something close to that). I was extremely impressed with the plasma type screen on the A500. No matter what angle you look at it, it is clear just like the HDTV screens, it does not fade from side to side like the N400. The calendar functions are very useful and easy to program. The clarity on the A500 is also great. I would rate at about the same as a US land line. However, it is not as clear as the European DECT technology phones (if you have had any experience with those). At the time this was the nicest phone that I could find to suit my functional needs, aesthetic as well. It is GPS compatible for some reason (I guess they might have a GPS plug in unit someday for it) although I doubt that I will ever use it. The only other con to this phone is that the text messaging isn't very easy to use; in fact, I haven't figured out how to use it yet. The sprint A500's text messaging is confusing, nothing like the Nextel phones and their "2-ways". Sprint needs to emulate nextel and integrate this 2-way SMS into their phones. I was told that Nextel currently has this patented, but I am not certain of that. Another complaint I have about this phone is the low battery life. Since there are so many colors and "extras," the battery wears down quickly. I would suggest buying a bigger capacity battery if you can't go more than a day without recharging. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60 91022 2000/12/18 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 awesome display lots of features looks great 10 char for names pictures require ext camera volume vibrate not separate settings battery The Bottom LineThe phone is pretty nice, great look & feel, unfortunately it has some interface inconsistencies and works only with Sprint, their PCS Vision service is disappointing! Full Review Well here goes, I have had my Samsung SPH-A500 and SprintPCS service for one month now, time for some feedback so that others may benefit by my experience. My review is long and detailed, but necessary as I found info out there to be conflicting and at least wanted to share my true experience. I admit I was blown away by the coolness of the phone compared to all the others out there. That plus the deal on the SprintPCS of unlimited PCSVision (internet capabilities), unlimited night&weekend, plus 300 anytime minutes for $30/month. So I bought the phone at Costco for $199, was cheaper then any other place, plus includes a 3-piece accessory pack, plus free voice command service for one year (normally $5/month), plus had the standard $35 rebate and free coupon for the extended battery, all in all, service and phone, the price seemed right! The $35 rebate isn't really a rebate, it basically offsets the $35 signup fee they don't tell you about, and will appear as a credit on your bill the second month, to keep you from cancelling during the first month, so it's a wash. Hmmm...where to begin...first I had to charge the phone overnight, then the next day called to activate the phone, was fairly painless, although the guy wasn't that friendly. It was nice to hear that the vision service was unlimited downloads and didn't count towards connection minutes while using it, I even called a second time to verify that was true. Then I tried the internet features, first trying email. My previous phone was AT&T and could only do the short messages, 108 char limit, was fun at times but very limiting especially when sending from a pc to your phone, like directions or something you wanted to save. Well the vision thing has a "full email" account so I sent an email from my pc to my phone with "testing" and it worked fine. Then I wanted to see what it was like for a more typical email and forwarded a stock market newsletter, all text, not huge or anything. The phone said "message waiting" and I saw it in the inbox, but when I selected it, that's when my phone experience went bad!! I got some kind of internal error message, kept trying different things but couldn't get to any emails after that including the first one that had worked. Then I tried the internet browser and every page came back with some error such as "MIC Error #208" (get used to that one!). In frustration I called it a night, and next day on my lunch hour called Sprint as I was still unable to do any vision activity and couldn't find any help on their web site or in the manual. Well my lunch hour turned into 45 minutes on hold before I talked to someone, then several of my questions resulted in being put on hold, and next thing you know it took 1.5 hours and I was late for a meeting, but didn't want to go through the 45 minute initial wait again. But the good thing is I made progress, and the girl was fairly friendly on the phone, told me a few good sites to get started. Basically when you get in that error state, you have to remove the battery to fully reset the phone, and then start over, which is a 90 second round-trip including reentering your login info, not too bad. But unfortunately in 3 weeks I've had to do that 30 times. They claim the flip feature on the phone has been tested 100,000 times and won't wear out...well I hope they've also tested the battery removal/replacement feature as I might end up doing that more then flipping the phone open! It turns out that there is an email size limit of around 8K, and although the server is supposed to reject it, it doesn't, and if you open it your screwed, reboot! And you can't delete it unless you can open it first, that's the only time the menu has "delete", so you have to go to their web site and you have full vision functionality there and can read and delete emails. Bad prank tip: if you want to cause your friends grief, just send them a large email to crash their phone, isn't that fun, maybe you can set it up to email every day automatically! Sounds virus-like! And I've since learned that attachments also crash the phone, not sure if its because they make the email too large, seemed the mail server should strip off the attachment but it doesn't, so don't sign up for any emails in HTML format either! Luckily the phone also has a SMS short mail option, but you're stuck back at the 160 char limit, slightly higher then AT&T. Oh, and unfortunately when you send a regular email with the phone, you can only enter a 128 char message body, hey wait, that's smaller then SMS messages? Anyway, I was back in business. During this learning process, I now have quite a collection of logins and passwords unfortunately, I should have made them the same, but one was created on the account by the guy when I activated the phone, that gets you into the pcs web site as a customer. Then you get another that you create for the pcs vision. Then another login id and password for your pcs vision email account. Then another for the pictures feature on the phone (something I'll mention later). And I can't remember for sure but I think one other feature required another password, plus you can have one to lock the phone, what a nightmare! I have yet to go in and make them all the same, not good planning up front on my part but who would have expected that? I did find an option on the phone to "remember" the pcs vision login, which was nice because at first I just hated having to enter that every time on the number keypad, surprisingly it was off by default. I next wanted to try the photo album picture feature, which was so highly advertised. Forget it, you can't do it unless you have the add-on camera attachment! I don't have it and have read all reviews saying its junk anyway, basically only buy it if it's free. But I feel somewhat scammed on this one, obviously they are blackmailing you into buying that or using the online account or something because it would be so simple to allow you to email these photos to your pcs account. By the way, even with the pictures, they aren't really stored on your phone, but are stored online in your personal photo album, and flipping through it with the phone would require each one to be downloaded each time. But ahhh, there is a compromise solution for the picture feature, its called wallpapers! You CAN send wallpapers to your phone, I've found several free sites, just crop/resize your pictures down to the correct size and use the site. Then in a sense you can show photos on your phone by going into the configuration section and selecting to change the wallpaper, then you can navigate through the pictures, and the good thing is they are downloaded to your phones memory so display isn't hitting the Internet to download each one. As to the Internet browsing experience, very disappointing! I guess it's just a fun toy, but occasionally I thought it would provide timely useful info. Maybe their 3G network (more accurately 2.5) isn't at its best yet, at least I hope so! To explain why it's bad, here goes. First off the thing has no cache, so on pages like the "home" page they provide, it has a few tiny icons to pretty up the page, you have to wait for them to download each time, thus slowing your surfing. Each page access seems very slow, mostly I'd guess some kind of connection time, then page download seems reasonable, but I'd estimate 20 to 40 seconds per page. And since a typical web page is broken into multiple pages on this phone so that it can handle it better, reading a full page requires sometimes 3 or 4 page loads. If only a small cache on this thing I think it would greatly increase performance, but then again hard to tell exactly what the bottleneck is. Then the part I've spent the most time on, using the Internet. It has a bookmark ability limited to 10 bookmarks, a little small..., so I decided I want one for each: weather, traffic, news, sports, several stock and financial, movie times, etc. I quickly found the weather channel and that works fine, bookmarked it. Then found CNN and ESPN, also bookmarked. But that's about it. I spent hours browsing all kinds of sites, mostly on my pc, looking for a few useful sites to bookmark, and got very frustrated. For example, even though Hollywood.com said it had wireless ability for PCS Vision, I couldn't find the URL to enter for over an hour, finally guessed it, something like mobile.hollywood.com, don't remember for sure. So then I had movie times, which is cool although slow. Next up, Etrade, once again they said they had wireless ability and specifically PCS Vision, but again it doesn't work. The Etrade site says to access the main menu, then click stocks, then etrade or something like that, but there is no main menu like that. Everything in this phone is more like a full browser and you need to know the URL. The tutorial help on Etrade's site shows a phone with perhaps some built-in menu that this phone doesn't have, I suspect the phone is too new, and the old phones had some built-in WAP menu. But again I think the URL is something like mobile.etrade.com, but when I enter that it seems to start to load, an "S" appears on the top indicating the browser is in Secure mode, but the page never comes up, I've tried a dozen times and different days. I guess the phone doesn't handle it for some reason, and I have checked that I have the most recent firmware on the phone V10. Well my dream of having my 10 best sites quickly faded. I guess I will occasionally try again to find useful sites but very disappointing. Most of the sites you hit with the built-in google search page, hit sites in the UK, I guess they are big on the WAP phone Internet. And yahoo mobile seems it might be cool....some day...unfortunately the help/tutorial online doesn't match what you will see on your phone, some features like directions, movies...are missing? And you can't get it to remember your account login, so you'll have to enter that each time. It's just hard to find good sites it seems, I think Sprint should have a "10 most popular web sites" on their pcs vision site, how hard could that be? Oh, and before I forget, one MAJORLY annoying design flaw with the phone is this, your finally browsing some web page, reading news or whatever, and the page is obviously bigger then the display, so the phone uses the volume up/down on the side to scroll a page at a time, nice because the arrow up/down line at a time would wear out your thumb, only problem is that the display is I think 10 lines, and the page feature scrolls 12 lines at a time, thus you miss one line, so reading requires page down, line up, read....page down, line up, read, etc...How could they do that? Didn't someone test the phone? Maybe the Internet feature wasn't working when they made it? What a blunder, but still its 2 buttons as opposed to 10 to get to the next page so you'll learn to love it. Next up, I was showing off my phone at work to a coworker, had hardly used the phone features at this point. First wanted to show off the ringers, which do sound very cool. Like others I would complain that there are no simple "beep" type ringers because when my phone does ring at work, it causes one of the panic situations because its so loud and obnoxious and can be heard for 1/4 mile I'd guess. Anyway, my co-worker tried to call my phone and I was standing there all ready, but it went directly to voice mail. Hmmm, signal strength was 2 of 3? So we tried again, and again, and the damn thing never rang. Well then I had her send me an email to show that feature. But after 10 minutes I had to walk off, embarassed of my new purchase. Finally 2 hours later the phone exploded with a melody that indicated an email was received, and everyone in the area knew it! To concentrate on the phone a little...it looks very cool, display is great, buttons feel good, but the navigational pad has a center button that you think would be "select" but its not, doesn't do anything except if you hold it for 3 seconds it connects to the internet. My guess is they decided it was too small for most people. So you have to use the OK and Menu buttons a lot. And there is a Back that I've hit by mistake several times, but no forward, resulting in sometimes starting over entering a URL, that takes a minute and I wouldn't recommend while driving. And the use of the OK button is different when on the internet versus doing phone features like adding to your phonebook, where it's a Save button. I've done that so many times by mistake and had to go back into the address book and select the entry I want to edit, then select edit, then I've recovered from the accidental Save. Poor consistency with the user interface, but not unbearable, you'll get used to it eventually. Another poor interface example is the voice dialing. You can't somehow select an existing entry in your phone book and record a voice entry to dial it....no, that would be too simple...instead you have to navigate to the voice dialing menu, then select to record, say the name, then re-enter a phone number to dial with that voice, another poor choice for design. And warning...you only get to have your top 10 voice recordings for dialing, so if you have more then 10 friends, you'll have to drop a few, who needs that many friends anyway? The battery wouldn't last long enough to say hello to each of them anyway. Yes, that's a slam, the initial battery lasts maybe 30 minutes talk, 45 minutes internet, maybe 2 days standby if you store it in the refridgerator. But luckily the free upgrade battery doubles that and they delivered it in a week, which was pretty responsive! Oh, and if your friends names are longer then 12 letters, you'd better rename them or enter by nickname or something because that's all you get. And although its nice to have several numbers grouped under a user name entry, unfortunately when someone calls you, you'll only get the 12-char name, not the phone number that they called from. I think its probably a conspiracy with Sprint so that you'll have to call each number for that person to track them down, resulting in 1 minute connect time for each call minimum! The display of the menus and such are pretty cool, very dissapointing though again about the no photo album unless you buy the add-on camera. Some of the pictures I'd want to put on the phone (maybe a total of 10 or so little ones to show it off), were from trips years ago, how can I go back in time and retake those photos with the attachment? What if I had baby pictures but the kids are now 2 or 3? I guess you could take pictures of your pictures perhaps. I would guess they will fix this and allow you to upload pictures if you follow some size and naming requirements, but they don't have it yet and don't hold your breath! They must get so many complaints about this! Next, how else to sugar-coat this, but entering text into the thing at any time is very slow and time-consuming. The T9 mode is pretty nice as it predicts the word with less keys, but I wish I knew early on that hitting 0 tries different words as the first one was quite often not right and I had to switch back to Alpha mode and enter that word the long way, but that's my fault for not reading the manual closely in that section. I haven't played much with the ringers, I uploaded a couple of them and it was pretty easy. But again they sound great, but can be obnoxious. I hope I don't someday forget and leave my phone on at a movie theater! And I think they call them "ringers" for a reason, the first few calls that came in, I'd flip open the phone, then raise it to my ear, but the ringer still goes for like 2 seconds after flipped open, so you have to be slow or the result is that blasting volume into your ear, resulting in your own personal "ringer" for a few minutes of pain. And I would like to always have it in vibrate mode, independent of the ringer volume, but unfortunately the settings are: off, vibrate but no sound, sound only with volume 1 through 8, then high volume with vibrate. So I can't have the volume at half plus vibrate, that sucks, pretty much have to put up with max volume or no vibrate. Ok, as to the Sprint PCS service itself. For the most part the connection area is about the same as my last phone, but as in the work example, for some reason even when it indicates full strength signal, sometimes it doesn't receive calls or notifications, so that's a pretty serious issue, someone will call, your phone won't ring, they'll leave a voice mail, then 3 hours later it lights up saying "voice mail" even though you had a decent signal the entire time, not exactly timely. I could just imagine: "John, call me back before 6 if you want to go to the game tonight" and getting the voice mail alert at 8. The reliabilty of the Internet connection isn't too bad, usually good, but sometimes can't connect. One thing to watch is the extra costs, as I'm SURE that's where Sprint makes their money. Like roaming or going over your daytime minutes, either resulting in the price going up to near dollars per minute...30 minutes over on one call and you've doubled your phone bill that month, ouch! And with the roaming, the phone has a nice feature to set whether to automatically or never use, so I set to never, in case I'm on the road and accidently venture into a roaming area. And don't be fooled by that initial deal of $30/month, its only for the first 3 months, then it becomes $40/month, plus at that time another $10/month for the pcs near-sighted vision service, basically $50/month. Average that out for the first year and its really $45/month, which I think is still slightly cheaper then my previous AT&T account at $55/month when internet is included there. The extra accessory kit isn't so hot. The belt clip is sooooo hard to get the phone separated, you'll need two strong hands when a call comes in. Luckily I bought a little leather case and it has one that is much nicer, and the case fits great except if you want to plug in the charger, or do the reboot as mentioned about in which case you have to remove it from the case to remove the battery. And the handsfree thing is junk, hard to hear for some reason, voices sound like in a movie where the kidnapper electronically alters his voice so as not to be caught, plus the cord is coiled like a spring and is pulling the earpiece out of your ear when stretched, but I guess you could hang the phone from your ear too somehow? And when that's in and you want to end a call and flip the phone shut, don't make the mistake of saying something like "what a jerk" because the call doesn't disconnect unless you push the end button or the button on the ear piece...flipping it shut has no effect, unlike without the ear piece in. And as to the Costco deal, I still haven't figured out how to activate the voice command feature without signing up for it online and probably getting billed for it, I guess I'll just have to call for that some day when I have an hour to kill. It's been a time consuming and frustrating experience, but I've somewhat gotten at least half of the things working that I'd hoped for. I don't claim to have even tried all of the phone features like alarm clock (I hear some people say it isn't working for them, but supposedly V10 of the firmware fixed that so I should be all set), or the planner, countdown timers, etc. Although I was old school with my AT&T phone, which lasted me 4 years, it did have something I really miss which was the #121 free feature, basically a voice-activated system where you could get stock quotes, weather, traffic, movie times, directions, etc, worked very good and I could do it while driving. Now I feel crippled without it, don't have half of that functionality, and certainly can't be typing while driving (I've tried and am sorry to those drivers I've run off the road while trying to get my horoscope) And to sumarize, I'm not sure if I'm recommending this phone or the Sprint PCS service, I guess it depends on your own personal pain threshold, and it would help if your retired and have lots of time to spend. Nice try everyone, but I can't wait until the Sprint 4G network comes out, along with the Samsung A600, maybe I'll be retired by then! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91021 2000/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight talk timehands free safety shape reception voice dialing internet size color none The Bottom LineThis is an excellent phone, and a great deal for the price. Accessories are being developed in full swing, and its certainly a slice of the future. Two thumbs up! Full Review A while ago, I had recommended waiting with the A400 till the A520 came out. That suggestion was based on two presumptions: #1 - The shape of the A500 would be odd to handle and carry #2 - The A520 would have color video capability While the second is still a possibility, I've got to admit that I let the slick ads get to me and finally get myself the A500 a few months ago. After continous use and experimentation, I do think that, if conditions permit - I'm going to stick with this phone for a long, long time. When the salesman (Good Guys) handed me the box, I was quite surprised at how thin and small the box was, and figured that the form factor was that way primarily because Samsung stopped shipping a desktop charger along with the box as it did for the earlier models (8500 & A400). Opening the box and putting the phone together had me move another notch up the "pleasantly surprised" scale. The weight and the feel of the phone rated four-and-a-half out of five stars in my opinion. With the included battery, the phone fit very comfortably in the palm of my hand - and in my pocket. My first call was to a friend's land line, from an area that I used to have trouble with reception / call quality with the A400. At the end of the call, I broke the news that I was using a cellphone, and was told, with deafening exclamation, that the call quality was excellent. The color screen and the overall menu layout seemed quite user-friendly, added to by the various little aesthetic tweaks in the mix. Phonebook entries could be given a picture from the included library that would show up in color on the internal screen and in monochrome on the external screen whenever the associated number was dialed, or was on Caller ID. Prior to buying, I had concerns about how the little external LCD could display an entire phone number and more. However, all that vanished after a few minutes of use. The external LCD works great, and the blue backlight does prove more comforting than the green backlight I'd been used to with the 8500 and the A400. All backlight functions could be controlled from the menu, of course. There's also a power-saver mode in there that lets you conserve battery life. One of the big factors in cellphone purchases that I tend to overlook is battery life. Over the last year, and notably over the last few months, I've begun to appreciate this more as my overall cellphone use has gone up. However, with a car charger and a travel charger (provided in the box by Samsung as the only charger), things don't get that restrictive since I'm never that far away from a power outlet. However, Samsung had an interesting goodie thrown in for free - a free extended Lithiun ion battery (retail value about $60) arrived via UPS within a week after making a phone call to Samsung. This battery is a little heavier, but doesn't really increase the overall form factor of the phone. I use the two alternatively, and do fine without having to get myself an extra charger. While talking about car chargers, the A500 does wonders with voice dialing. The phone allows for complete voice functions, including: #1 - Digit dialing using voice #2 - Recorded name dialing using voice #3 - Bringing up the phonebook using a voice command #4 - Loads more functions clearly laid out in a menu All you need is a headphone with a "Talk" button that lets you access the voice dial function. I had one of these from the A400, and it works fine. "Digit dialing" is quite amazing - I dictate numbers to the phone and it pops up alternatives if it thinks it didn't hear me right. This is one of the biggest plus points of the phone according to me. I can finally make calls while driving without having to touch the phone at all! Training the phone to recognize your diction and accent is an exercise that takes about 10 minutes at the very most. Accessories included with the purchase of a new phone include the camera, but I seemed to have let this slide. I did have the rebate coupon, but after using the many sites online that let you upload high-quality images and then get them onto the phone using the bundled, unrestricted data connectivity, I figured I didn't want a little camera around with me. Sprint's deal with unlimited "PCS Vision" for $10 is quite helpful. Also, since getting "online" doesn't take away minutes from your usual voice plan, its a big plus since I can be "online" using the phone right in the middle of the day without worrying about losing that time from my peak minutes' pool. Kudos to Sprint on this pricing policy! Back to the phone - signal strength and call quality are exceptional. None of my callers have been able to tell me that I've been using a cellphone - the clarity's that good. Voice memos are back with this model. There's a configurable "launch pad" that lets you assign a button to the voice memo function, and lets you record only the caller's voice for a maximum of 60 seconds. That's just one clip. I've recorded about seven clips so far and I don't know what the space restriction is! So, putting together the Internet, voice-dialing, color pictures and all the rest in a little, light, shapely form gives us the Samsung A500. For my money, I think its a great deal, and I think Sprint's running some great promotions on it as well. I've dropped it from a considerable height once, and - no trouble yet - touchwood! Looks like its quite a little bit of everything!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91020 2000/9/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent color display etc external caller id cool ringers cute appearance short battery life expensive The Bottom LineI was very impressed with Samsung SPH-A500 phone. I do recommend this phone to everyone. Full Review Since 1998, I've been using many different kinds of mobile phones in New York area. And, about two weeks ago, I purchased Samsung SPH-A500, a kind of mobile phone that I have always dreamed of. In Asian countries including Korea, a mobile phone such as Samsung SPH-A500 is pretty common nowadays. And, I have hoped that a phone like this would come out in U.S. as soon as possible. Finally, it did! First of all, this phone has really cool appearance. It is very sleek, stylish, and small. I recommend you personally go out to Sprint PCS store to check this phone out. This phone has a huge external caller ID so that you can check out who is calling you before you answer. Not surprised yet? Well, compare the external caller ID on this phone with others such as Motorola V60C, or Sanyo 5150. Their external caller ID's are much smaller than this. This external caller ID shows date, day, and time. Second, let us hear ringers. This phone has 16 chord. If you hear various ringers on this phone, you will get surprised and attracted. Again, 16 chord. You can even download many other beautiful ringers from the Sprint PCS website. When this phone rings, other people around you will look at you! Next, what a cool color LCD! This phone has a much brighter screen than other phones do such as Sanyo 5150. This color LCD could consume battery very quickly, but you can set the display to the energy-save mode. You can download many different kinds of screen-savers from Sprint PCS website. And, this phone has animated color display for games and screensavers. And... you can do voice-dialing. If you record other people's name on a specific number, you can simply say the name to dial the number. Or, if you are tired of pressing numbers to call someone, you can simply do "digit dial." Say numbers, and this phone will dial the number! Have extra money? You could buy a camera that goes with this phone. You can take a picture of something using this phone and even e-mail them! Well, one downside is that this phone is a little bit expensive.. $300. And, if you would like to take a picture using this phone, you need to buy a camera separately by paying $99. There is a rebate of $30 on the camera though. In addition, it has rather short battery life. The bright color LCD as well as luminescent blue backlit keypad could consume battery life very quickly. The Sprint PCS offers a free extended battery. Dimensions: 3.4" x 2.0" x 0.8" Weight: 3.6 oz. Talk Time: Digital, up to 2.5 hours; AMPS, up to 1 hour Standby Time: Digital, up to 9 days; AMPS, up to 15 hours   Color: Silver Main Display: 128 x 160 color TFT main display; up to 12 lines of dynamically sized text; 94 x 64 pixel external LCD Mode: Dual band/Tri-mode (CDMA 1900 MHz (PCS); CDMA 800 MHz; and AMPS 800 MHz) Wireless Protocol: CDMA Service Provider: Sprint Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91019 2000/5/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 beautiful sounds sleek style bright colorful display 3g network compatible lightweight runs java2 apps tiny size mediocre reception short battery life The Bottom LineStrong buy: great technology for a relatively low price Full Review I bought the Samsung A500 phone for a practical reason as well as to have a toy that I could play with when traveling or when bored. I wanted a phone I could show off to friends. A500 is ideal for that end. It also has a small form factor and is very light. I will not bore the reader with the standard features. The specifications are listed on the box/website. Instead I will concentrate on what makes this phone cool: 1) Runs on J2ME (Java2 Microedition). The phone can run Java code written in accordance with the Java2 microedition specifications. J2ME is an optimized Java runtime environment especially suitable for small devices like cellphones. In simple terms, you can write Java programs, put them on a web-site, download and run them on the phone. If this is not geek's dream I don't know what is. The phone has about 640K of addressable memory. The phone can connect to the internet (a temporary IP number is assigned to it when you go online). Thin client / server Java applications can be written and the the only limit is the amount of memory on the phone. Additionally, many developers have written various useful open source programs that can be downloaded onto the phone for free. 2) 3g Internet. Signing up with the Sprint Vision plan (extra $10/month) will give you internet access. I got unlimited internet for that price because I was a former SprintPCS customer. There is a built-in browser, which I am not too impressed with but then again, you can write your own browser and that is what is important. The built-in browser allows access to most web content as-is by transforming HTML into I believe XHTML and then rendering it on the screen. Certain web-pages that use scripts/ASP/security/etc will not come up but the majority of the sites will. Also, sites like wap.yahoo.com are tailored for wireless devices and load very quickly. Overall the 3g network is fairly robust especially when it comes to downloading files. On that note, it is possible to connect the A500 to a laptop and use it on the road by purchasing an aircard. 3) Polyphonic ringers. The hardware on the phone allows for the playback of beautiful and rich melodies. With minimal hacking, it is possible to play fragments of actual songs by converting MP3s into a format the phone uses. more details at http://xingtone.com on how to do that (registration required) 4) LCD screen. The screen on the A500 is both large and bright. Images can either be downloaded from your web-site or from various free web sites on the internet. The same goes for screensavers. SprintPCS actually has a service where you can download content for a fee but I think it is a rip-off. Just do it yourself. 5) Voice recognition. Dial phone numbers with your voice. Nothing new but doesn't hurt. 6) T9-algorithm. With T9, each key on the phone (0-9) only needs to be pressed once to type words. The built-in logic checks your input against a dictionary and guesses the word ahead of time saving on typing time. I found this useful for sending email or for entering in keywords into google. Only standard English words are supported. The only drawbacks that I have with the A500 is the short battery lifespan. Samsung shipped me a free extended battery which adds to the bulkiness of the phone somewhat but extends talk time to approx 3.5 hours. The standard battery only lasts for about 1.5 hours. Overall, the A500 was a worthwhile purchase. I bought the phone from amazon.com for $300 with a $100 mail-in rebate and a separate $50 rebate from Sprint as well as a free extended life battery worth $60. A good deal for a sexy cellphone with a decent microcomputer inside. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91018 2002/12/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 optional camera light weight did i mention it s beautiful beautiful clarity easy to use no regular ring pricey battery hog The Bottom LineI'd recommend it to gadget-lovers, but would tell my grandma to get something simpler. The good outweighs the bad--I LOVE this phone. Sleek, stylish, and fun! Full Review I really needed to upgrade my Nokia 5160, and considering AT&T didn't have any local numbers available, I also needed to change providers. After checking out other Epinions, I ran to my local Radio Shack to see if the A500 was all it was cracked up to be. My purchase and Service plan Oh, I was like a kid in a candy shop. The phone is a visual delight--small, sleek, lightweight, beautiful color display--definitely eye-candy for the technophiles. It didn't hurt that it came with either a $50 rebate or a free vision camera. With a $299 price tag, I could use all the freebies I could get. I took the camera, figuring I'd end up buying it someday anyway, and since it was priced at $100, it was the better deal. So, I loaded up on my new phone, my new service plan, and my new car charger, hands free kit, and the camera. Activation was a breeze; the only downside was that I had to lock into a two-year service plan to get "Free" activation (regularly about $35.00) and "free" pcs-pcs calling (regularly an additional $5.00 a month). The Sprint service is exactly what other's have said it is: just okay but better in Metropolitan areas. I expect that to change someday, but for now, the quality doesn't seem as good as it was when I used my AT&T phone. My plan also doesn't come with as many minutes, but I'll survive and limit my calls to nights, weekends, and other PCS users. My plan is about $40.00, with unlimited nights, weekends and PCS-PCS calls. I have 400 'anytime' minutes, and I'm on a three month free 'vision' plan, which means the use of the wireless web is not extra (I'm charged regular minute usage, not for data transfer). After my three months are up, I'll be paying ten dollars more for the same services. The good, the bad, and the beautiful The phone is pretty intuitive, save for the little blue button in the middle of the menu arrows. This has been mentioned in other reviews, and I absolutely agree with the reviewer's complaints. I often hit that blue button instead of the "ok" button, because it's just the intuitive thing to do. The antennae also feels a little flimsy, but I think that's just in comparison to the Nokia's bulky horse of a phone. Samsung does sell replacement antennas, so I'm guessing they may break regularly? Two more negatives: I am a little annoyed that I can't find just a plain, boring ring for this phone--I'm stuck with melodies or cutesy-rings. It would have also been great to be able to put the phone on low ring plus vibrate. The only vibrate options are vibrate or Loud-ring plus vibrate. On the positive side, the number buttons feel solid, voice dialing is EXCELLENT and easy, and this color TFT display (icon driven menus) I just can't get over! The phone also supports voice and text prompts in English and Spanish, includes an internal phone book with tags, a personal organizer, memo pad, voice memos, alarms, and the aforementioned PCS Vision Camera. It also supports TTY services, and the accessory options are terrific. For a bit more money, you can pick up PC Link software that allows you to manage the organizer information on your pc, but of course, you'll have to purchase the optional data USB cable in order to interface with your computer. I think, but am not sure, that one could use the phone as a wireless modem and run their laptop anywhere, but I'll have to try it to know for sure. A word about voice activated dialing and the other neat features: everything on this phone took a bit of playing around with to find. It's all there, but since the phone doesn't come with a detailed user's manual (you have to get it online), I had to explore all the menus to figure out how everything worked. I'm glad I did--the phone understand's my commands to "call home" or "call the kids" without even blinking. The salesman did mention the horrible battery life, so as soon as I got home, I logged on to Samsung's website and ordered the free extended battery. The battery makes the phone a bit less sleek, but it is definitely needed. The battery that comes with the phone gave me about an hour and half talk time in digital mode, and died pretty quickly when I played any of the games included (they're not very playable, by the way). The extended battery seems to be doing a bit better, with at least 3 hours of talk time. Both batteries charge fairly quickly, so plugging it in whenever I have a chance is useful. You can set the dimming options on that beautiful color display too, killing the backlight, which saves the battery life but makes the phone not as fun. Although this review is not about the camera, I have to mention it in just a bit more detail. It's very, very small, and the interface cord hides away. It holds 15 photos, and uploading them onto the camera and then emailing them is a breeze. However, the quality is very poor. I'll review that elsewhere, but I did think it was worth mentioning. I've already used the camera a number of times, and don't regret my choice (like I said, I would have bought it anyway), but it's really more of a neat gadget than a useful digital camera. Overall, I'd recommend this phone if you're into the latest and just have to have wireless web. If you're looking for a phone for occasional use, or to have on hand just for emergencies, skip the bells and whistles and go with something else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299 91017 2003/5/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish design plenty of strong features great display screens battery life slightly low navigation can be difficult expensive The Bottom LineSamsung's SPH-A500 phone is an excellent combination of style outside and features inside that will greatly please those who need its power. Full Review Because the cell phone industry is so fast paced and competitive these days, it really takes something out of the ordinary to attract the attention of consumers. Samsung attempts to do this with the extremely flashy SPH-A500, hoping that the obvious eye candy will at least raise a few eyebrows with shoppers. Luckily, this phone also has strong features to show off once you get past the exterior and display screens, making for an all around great buy. Overall, the A500 is a smart choice for both businesspeople who desire functionality as well as electronics junkies who crave innovation. Design Clearly, the A500 is designed to turn heads with its overall appearance. This sleek silver phone measures just 2×0.8×3.5 inches and weighs in at 3.6 ounces, easily delivering the portability you would expect from a cellular phone. The front of the phone displays a small screen which shows basic information (battery strength, time) in a clearly visible format, and also presents caller ID information when incoming calls are received. This allows you to easily check who's calling without needing to open the phone itself. When you do open the phone, however, you will find a vibrant 128×160 display screen that can't be beat in the current market. This full colour screen shows menus and other information crisply and precisely, making viewing clear and enjoyable. Added features like screensavers show off this display when the phone is not being used, some of which are truly awe-inspiring. The keypad is fairly well designed, with good backlighting that allows for dialling in dark areas. The keys are large and spaced out enough so that it isn't too difficult to find the right numbers in most situations, except perhaps for those with larger than average fingers. The positions and functions of the keys may take some getting used to, as some are not where they would most logically seem to go. Particularly the enter key, which most would expect to be the large blue key in the middle of the navigation pad, is mysteriously off to the side creating some inevitable mistakes even after using the phone for some time. Features This phone is loaded with all of the features that you could expect from a cell phone of this class. While many of these features are today standard fare where they would have been extravagant a year or two ago, they serve their purpose nonetheless. Cruising the menus you will find an organizer type calendar, a calculator, customizable ring tones, graphics, games, a countdown timer, voice dialling, recordable memos, and so on. Some of these may not be entirely useful, but it doesn't hurt to have a game of Super Monkey Ball handy just in case. And who wouldn't want to know the exact number of seconds until their vacation? Looking at the calendar and task list functions, it should be made clear that these will not replace the Palm Pilot of the savvy executive in the least. They may, however, prove somewhat useful for the average person who just needs to keep track of scheduled events. When you select one of these options from the navigation menu, you can enter a short description of the task, and the time which it takes place, leaving your phone to alert you just before that time comes. The full month view the phone offers is impressive, looking sort of like a full calendar you would see in Outlook, with the ability to select specific days to see the entered activities. The ring tones preloaded on the phone are rich and creative, with notable volume and sound range. You are certain to draw a few looks on the subway when a small symphony erupts from your phone, something you may or may not enjoy. Unfortunately, you're going to have to accept the recognition by default, as there are no "standard" ring tones readily available when you purchase the phone. Additional ringers can be easily download or sent to you by logging onto the service's website, but it is still questionable why Samsung would not load at least one basic ring tone back at the factory. The complete set of web features of the phone are standard, with nothing notable that goes above what is available elsewhere. Stocks, news, weather, and all other expected information can be easily accessed through the phone's web centre, as well as wireless messaging components through the phone's mail centre. These features perform their intended functions and do them smoothly, so those desiring connectivity from their phone should not worry in the least. Usability While this phone generally escapes the mistake of style of substance, the navigation system used leaves a little to be desired. Even after reading over the manual carefully and having some hands-on experience with the phone, it is still easy to find yourself lost or searching aimlessly at times. While sometimes it is the location of features that is confusing (the calculator is located under the calendar menu, for example), other times you may find yourself clueless as to which button will give your desired effect. It is easy to push the red end button when trying to escape a selection, where you should of pressed the back button, leaving you thrown back to the screensaver to start from the beginning again. Typing in words and characters using the phone's keypad is less than enjoyable, but this is almost to be expected from cellular phones today. It is problematic, though, that Samsung has placed unreasonable length restrictions on some fields; such as the name field which is limited to a maximum of 12 characters. Many of your colleagues will be shorted to "Stephen H." because of this, a minor inconvenience but still a simple oversight that could have been easily avoided. Battery life is a little low, with only a solid talk time of 2 hours available and a standby time of a few days. There is an enhanced battery with extra power capability available, an option which those who work long days may be necessary despite the slightly ruined form factor it brings. Personally, I found my service plan to be sub par in areas where previous cell phones have had little difficulty, but because this only applies to my small Canadian neighbourhood it can likely be overlooked by most others. When looking at the SPH-A500 as a package, the phone clearly excels in almost all of the areas one would desire from a cellular phone of the present day. The phone is a great combination of looks and functionality, and will surely be an asset to the image conscious. One must be careful, though, to analyze their own needs when shopping for a cell phone, as the price tag on higher end phones such as this could deter those with a budget. For those who truly need everything the A500 has to offer, it is a great option that few others can compare with. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275 91016 2000/9/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek best displays in the market stylish some interface quirks pcs vision service pretty unreliable The Bottom LineIt's a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for...at least with respect to the phone. Full Review The Samsung SPH-A500 is the flagship phone for Sprint's new PCS Vision service. The PCS Vision service is the first third-generation (3G) cellular network to launch in the US. The much-hyped 3G networks are supposed to offer a wealth of new functionality and services and the A500 is equipped with the necessary hardware to access these new features. Now, the A500 can be used with the standard Sprint PCS service, but buying an A500 without subscribing to PCS Vision would be like buying a Ferrari to do your grocery shopping. You need to subscribe to PCS Vision to take advantage of all the features of the A500. The Phone - Specifications Dimensions: 3.46" x 1.97" x 0.80" Weight: 3.56 oz Battery Life: ~2.5 hours talk time, 9 days stand-by time The Phone - The Good The A500 is an incredibly stylish phone. It is compact, sleek, and impressively thin. Samsung has deployed phones in Europe and Asia with the same form factor as the A500 for some time now. So, overseas, the sleek look of the A500 is fairly commonplace already. However, the US is a different story. It's no surprise that the US is behind other parts of the world with respect to mobile phone technology. While the rest of the world standardized to one cellular protocol, the US has allowed multiple standards and multiple networks to proliferate. Additionally, the US is much larger than most European and Asian countries and providing nationwide coverage is a much more expensive and daunting task. These two factors have made it difficult for cell phone manufacturers to churn out products quickly. Some people argue that all this competition hurts in the short term but will help the US become a leader in the long run. I'm not fully convinced with this argument, but I guess time will tell... Back to the phone - the most eye-catching features of the A500 are its large dual LCD displays. Clamshell style phones have recently been adding a second external LCD to allow the user to view Caller ID information without opening the phone. The A500 has the largest and best external LCD available today. When the phone is closed, the external LCD provides you with the time (in a HUGE and easy-to-read font) and date, and signal strength, battery life, ringer indicator and voice mail indicators. It is truly a technical marvel to behold. The only thing lacking is backlighting, which makes checking the time in dimly lit places rather difficult. When you open the A500, however, you will be confronted with an even more spectacular sight. The internal display of the A500 is an enormous 128x160 pixel TFT color LCD. The screen is sharp and bright and is so large that you can actually set wallpapers for the display. All the menus are presented with large fonts and colorful graphics. Is it extraneous? Yes, but I like eye candy. Often, like on many PDAs, color displays appear dull and blurry. But the display on the A500 is extremely bright and crisp and easy-to-read. I have heard some people complain that the screen is difficult to see under bright sunlight. I personally haven't found it to be any more difficult than looking at a standard cell phone display, so I have no such complaints. But the A500 isn't just about the displays. The phone also features 16-chord polyphonic sound that allows the phone to play some really fancy ringers. I personally don't care much for fancy ring tones, but I know some people really enjoy having very unique ringers. For those of you, the A500 will definitely not disappoint. What I did like about the ring tone capabilities of the A500 is that the phone allows you to set different ringers for different situations. You can assign different ring tones to calls with Caller ID and without, and even customize ring tones for each entry in your address book. I guess it's a little redundant, but I found it to be a nice feature. Additionally, the A500 supports voice dialing, voice memos and a 500-entry address book. I don't really use voice dialing a whole lot, but I do use 4-digit dialing. Basically, you type in either the first 4 or last 4 digits of a phone number and the A500 will try to match it to an existing entry in your address book. The phone also comes equipped with a planner that allows you to schedule events, create a task list, take memos, set an alarm, run a calculator, and set a countdown timer. Many of the features were once solely the domain of PDAs and other more complicated devices, but with technological improvements, they are now finding a home on mobile phones. The Phone - The Bad You'd think that having such a great display would open up the gaming possibilities. And to some extent, the A500 does. But for the most part, the much-ballyhooed gaming capabilities of the A500 are quite disappointing. The A500 comes preloaded with three games - CyRace (Demo), Space Invaders, and Monkey Ball. CyRace is a racing game this is entirely unplayable. Space Invaders is a simplified version of the arcade classic. And Monkey Ball is the mobile phone port of Sega's popular title Super Monkey Balls. With the A500's color display, these games look pretty good. However, this games play horribly. Let's just face it, it's difficult enough to punch the right numbers on the keypad, much less maneuver a little spaceship around on the screen. This brings me to perhaps my biggest gripe with the A500 - the user interface. Like all of Sprint's newest phones, the A500 comes with a 4-way directional pad with a button in the center. I figure that this is a nice way to navigate the menus - you highlight the desired item with the directional buttons and press the center button to select. Wrong. About the only time the center button does anything is in games. To navigate the menus, you'll have to use two other buttons labeled "OK" and "MENU". The only problem is that these labels are often incorrect. The function of each button changes with each menu, and often, there is no indication what each button will do. I've been using the A500 for a few weeks now and I still haven't really gotten a good feel for menu navigation. It goes without saying that there have been a number of frustrating moments. All I can say is that the interface designers really dropped the ball here. The other little quibble I have with the A500 is the battery life. Without a doubt, the battery life is shorter than my previous phone. I don't log too many mobile minutes, so it's not too big a deal for me. Plus, I'm in the habit of recharging every night. But if you're an active mobile user, the A500 might not pack enough juice for you. The good news is that every A500 comes with an offer for a free extended capacity battery from Samsung. You don't even have to pay shipping. But I guess you do have to deal with a fatter phone. The Service I must say that I have very mixed opinions about the PCS Vision service. What is good is that calls seem to connect a whole lot faster. Previously, it would take as long as 15-20 seconds for a call to start ringing. With the A500, my call is connected often before I put the phone to my ear. The Internet features of the service are also much improved. It's pretty quick and painless to access news headlines, weather reports, and sports scores. These aren't lifestyle altering features, but just nice conveniences. What's also a nice diversion is downloading addition games, wallpapers and ring tones to your phone. Note that these downloads are not free (some content is free for a limited promotional period). Though they count towards your quota of data usage, you will have to pay an addition fee to access this content. Ring tones cost $1 each. Wallpapers are roughly the same. Games range from $2 to as high as $5. This is basically how things work in Asia, so I wasn't surprised. But not everyone realizes that they have to pay extra for this content and Sprint conveniently hides mentioning this little fact in the fine print. Before you make the jump to PCS Vision, make sure you know what you're getting into. My biggest disappointment with the PCS Vision service thus far has been reliability. Sprint is definitely experiencing growing pains as it launches this new service. There seems to be two ways to manage a PCS Vision account - via Sprint's web site or directly through your phone. Either way, you can buy content, download it, and play with it. However, the problem is that none of these features actually work with any degree of reliability. The PCS Vision web site is periodically down and unavailable. And it seems that the ability to buy content through the phone is not implemented yet. While I can browse ring tones, games, and wallpapers via the web site, I have not been able to do so via my phone. Downloading stuff to the phone is also a mixed bag. The download functionality is not very robust and often results in corrupted files. When I signed up for the PCS Vision service, I was surprised when the operator told me that there would be no overages for the first few months. Now I understand why. Really, the main issue is that the PCS Vision service just isn't ready for prime time. When it works, it's pretty cool, but only when it works... Conclusions The Samsung SPH-A500 is a great phone. It is easily the best-looking phone available today and packs quite a bit of functionality into that sleek exterior. While there are some issues, I feel that they are relatively minor. The PCS Vision service is a different story entirely. At best, the service can be described as unreliable. At worst, it's probably better left unsaid. Of course, the quality of service will definitely improve over time. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 270 7832 Samsung SGH-R225 91077 2004/9/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 great for people who are not technologically sound snazzy lookslight show fairly simple ok durability only 3 download spaces for rings ok reception A while ago my mom decided that we needed a cell phone to share as a family, and said that we would go to the mall together to pick one out. As we approached the T-mobile kiosk, the R225m immediately stood out from the rest. My sister wanted the Motorola 330 (I think that's what it's called) but it wasn't as simple as the others. She decided on the R225, and once she turned it on, she loved the "light show", and the fact that it was fairly straight forward. She ends up dropping it alot, so whenever she turned it on, the battery shifted, shutting it off. Even so after we took it to the T-Mobile kiosk, and had it fixed, it was perfect. 91076 2003/10/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 bright backlight great reception easy to navigate battery life could be better I've had this phone for six months, and I couldn't be happier. Unless you need a phone that combines pda, camera, games, etc., I highly recommend this one. I've dropped it about six times so far, onto a variety of surfaces, and it didn't get so much as a scratch. The battery never popped off. I like the fact that I can program my own ringtones, but I'm a geek that way. The standard ringtones are a little boring, but if your only outlet for personal expression is your telephone's ringtone, I recommend professional help. The call clarity is pretty good inside (depending on the building), and fabulous outside. I've had a total of two dropped calls in six months (I'm on T-Mobile). The backlight is easily readable in any lighting situation, and when my power went out, I was able to use it as a rudimentary, temporary flashlight - it was that bright! The battery life is a bit of a downer, but not the end of the world - I get 2 days on a full charge, with about an hour of total talk time in that time. 91075 2003/12/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable excellent ear piece great reception lightweight small aim aol support except if you want a camera phoneinternet none I recently purchased the Samsung SGH-R225 with T-Mobile pre-paid service. I upgraded from my Nokia 5180i and believe me, it was worth it. When I first saw it, I couldn't believe how small and lightweight it was. But it looked out of my price range. Fortunately, a man working at the T-Mobile store let me upgrade to this phone free of charge. It was $80 for phone and service and I have 250 minutes with it. And many people think that this phone lacks in features but I don't see those features (camera etc.) being of any importance. It has excellent reception and I recommend it to anybody thinking of purchasing it. It is a wonderful phone and I rank it 10 out of 10 . 91074 2004/4/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 4 grey scale screen great polyphonics cheap free slow cpu high radiation 4 grey scale screen cheap/free My friend got this phone while I got my T100 from samsung. So we swapped phone and tested them. Found out that this two phone (t100 and 620) actually share the same hardware and software. The only difference is the LCD screen (t100 have 4096 color, 620 have 4 grey) Everything else is the same. Try this: To get the temperature type *#8999#228# Pros: ->A slim down version of the T100, thus cheaper price (often free) ->Same great polyphonics ->share the same accessory with the T100 ->my travel charger (original) takes 100-240 volts so no problem even when i travel to taiwan (110v) ->Slightly better game than the T100 ->slightly longer battery life than the t100 Cons: ->same slow cpu as the t100 ->could have better buttons ->prefer it antenna-less ->high radiation effect high radiation. 91073 2004/8/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cute screensavers automatic key lock is good having to switch between num modeabc mode sucks doesnt ring loud enough Its not a bad phone to get. The price was definatly right (free). I dont like the way that it sets up the phone book, but hey a girl cant complain about a free phone. 91072 2004/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight attractive case brilliant blue backlight web enabled has many useful features no color screen could have better sound quality The Samsung R225 isn't the best phone I have had - but for the price (FREE!) it is a steal. It has a very bright blue backlit screen as well as some great features like alarm, calendar/organizer, animated screen savers, and it is web enabled. I found it to be very user friendly as well. My only complaint with this phone is that the sound quality isn't consistent. If the user isn't holding the phone just right, sometimes they come across somewhat garbled. It is a very lightweight phone, and it is an attractive phone. If you don't care about digital photos and color screens then I would suggest the R225, it is by far the best I have seen offered for free phones. 91071 2004/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight durable easy to use not quite as high tech as some of the other phones these days I got the tiny Samsung because of the extremely attractive low cost that it boasts. It's simple to operate and has plenty of features at the same time. It's not heavy or clunky and it is actually a cute little unique blue phone. If you want a solid phone that is easy to use and is reliable, this phone will give you no problems. 91070 2004/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery bright backlight the little rubber plug that you have to lift to plug in the headset After being a verizon customer for better than ten years, I was convinced by a family member that I was paying too much and had "a lousy phone". We went to the local T-Mobile store, and within 30 minutes I was on my way home with the Samsung phone and an $18 dollar per month cheaper plan. This phone is pretty easy to operate, easy to read with the nice bright backlight, and has all of the features I need plus a lot I will probably never use. None the less, I have used the phone for about two months now, and have no complaints. The battery lasts long enough that you only need to charge it every few days, the signal is clear and the phone works in places where my other digitals did not. (Only the old analog phones seemed to have real power). I just use my phone for calls, (no games or internet) and it works. If this is what you want, I can't see any reason not to try it, particularly since it's free,(if you switch to the new service). 91069 2005/3/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 rugged quality construction features price poor reception We bought a family plan from T-Mobile and I elected the Samsung SGH-R225m for the organizer and vibration alert. I've had this phone now for almost 2 years. Of the phones we got (two being Motorolas) this one has the worst reception, but passable. In the last six or eight months, it has really declined in its performance as far as reception goes. All other functions seems to work perfectly. I believe the battery life has decrease some too. It has survived several accidental drops onto asphalt/floors without cracking. The snap-in holster is a good configuration for ease of access. The only real drawback is the ability to scratch the phone because it is fully exposed, but mine only has the normal use scratches. This phone has been replaced by the C225 with numerous upgrades (e.g., color display, t-zones, downloadable sounds), but I don't know about its reception quality. I may go for a Nokia as a replacement since I'm having these reception problems (even after SIM card replacement). Apparently Nokia has a reputation for good reception. 91068 2005/11/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 i liked the sgh r225 because it was very lighthad good design it had no web it had no colorthe buttons were too close together The Samsung SGH R225 I had for a short while, but I liked it very much. It has a sleek and slender design and fits in my pocket neatly. It is very light and has very strong signal reception 91067 2005/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use with more features than older model free phone great sound quality when wearing on a belt with a case non tmobile phone sometimes flips open Last week,after 28 months, my Samsung C225 phone stopped charging. As a discontinued model neither the phone nor the battery are still available. So back to t-mobile i went. This time i wanted a flip phone with a speakerphone. They showed me a sleek new one called the T219 that had all the features i wanted. Its just as easy to use as the older models. The sound quality is excellent-way better than the C225,and has many more features. It also holds its charge longer than the older model Not only was this phone free,i am getting paid to use it-t-mobile will be sending me $50. 91066 2005/12/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 it does the job without all the stupid frills that simplistic low battery alarm loudnot adjustable ringtones are annoying vibration is poor I liked this phone for the most part, it was simplistic, and didn't have all that crap that new cell phones have. The battery life worked fine for me (I used this phone for about 200 min./month). But, there are a couple of major things that annoy me about it: 1.) The ringtones are extremely annoying. 2.) The vibration never worked well for me. 3.) The low-battery alarm is really loud and you can't adjust the volume!!! So you set your ringer on silent, you know you set it, then BAM the battery is low and the alarm is on max volume. How embarassing. Then you get home, go to sleep, and BAM at 4:23 am you wake up because the cell phone, which is way over in some other room, starts blaring because the batteries are low. 91065 2005/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight fantastic battery life thin aim versatile small ring composer powerful sound quality This phone has a lot of different features packed into its tiny, virtually weightless frame. When I say weightless, I really do mean weightless. Picking up this phone is like picking up a hollow plastic skeleton. The battery life is very good -- 2 days in standby. This phone has so many different features. It has a calendar with an alarm that will display the text the you keyed in to describe the event on the screen. When it displays the text, you can dismiss the event, or delay it for 10 minutes. Another one of my favorite features that this phone has is AIM. It works very nicely with the built in T9 intelligent text entry system. This phone also had a ring composer. I have a book of Broadway sheet music, which I could then program into the phone (which was very simple to do) and use as a ring tone. This phone has "picture messaging" with built in pictures, which didn't really add anything to the experience. The vibrator is very strong. The sound quality is fair, but not perfect. This is one of the best phones I have ever owned. I love this phone. 91064 2000/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ergonomic small easy to use durable short battery life The Bottom LineIt's free, durable, NO PROBLEMS with signal (tacoma, wa), and incredibly light. As long as I remember to plug it in at night- It's a dream come true!!! Full Review Having used a Samsung in the past, I was quite inclined toward purchasing another. I figured out what service provider I wanted and then went on to choose a phone, hoping they had a Samsung available. After reading some reviews and looking at the specs online I noticed that T-mobile did indeed have a Samsung available. They actually sell it online for FREE but in the store it will cost you $70 or so. My next step was to go see one at the store. That confirmed my decision. I came back home, purchased it online, and received it two days later! The one thing I noticed about it at the store was that it was definitely a better quality phone than what it looked like online. It's also VERY light but feels durable and I also know from personal experience now that it's durable, having dropped it three times already. :) It's also very ergonomic for my small petite hands. Being a smaller petite woman, the phone fit my hands comfortably, even though it took a while to get used to the small buttons when dialing. The phone also came with the standard wall charger and a hands-free headset. I am not sure that is normal with all companies that sale the phone but that was a bonus for me. It also took about half an hour to go through the book and learn all the basics besides just dialing. For instance, learning how to program phone numbers into it, setting up the voice mail, picking what ring I wanted, and so on. I was also surprised to find out that it has a couple of games on it. My only complaint is the short battery life. The battery seems to last about a day and a half. It is my primary source of contact for all my friends and relatives so that might have something to do with it BUT you think it would last AT LEAST another day longer. I'm not sure what the actual "talk time" seems to be but as much as everyone calls me, I would say that it exceeds a lot of other phones. Not all, but enough to make the complaint insignificant. Overall, I am quite happy with the phone and just have to remember to plug it in at night. That solves my only problem that I have with it- the battery. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91063 2000/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use lightweight small blue light aol instant messenger ringtones battery life The Bottom LineI would definitely recommend this phone. If you don't need the newest features, and just need a phone, this one is for you! Full Review I got this phone to replace my Nokia 3390 (see my review on that beast of a phone), as it was too big, and far too heavy for my purse. A friend had this phone, so I was able to ask a few questions, and gather a few information before I purchased it. This phone is absolutely tiny. I carry it in my purse, and if it didn't ring once in awhile, I'd never know it was there! It has a small keypad, which is great for my small fingers (could be a con if you have large hands)! The LCD screen lights up with a bright blue. In a dark room, you can almost use it as a flashlight--it's that bright! It helps me find my keys in my purse very easily at night! The phone has some great cute ringtones, although it does not have polyphonic ringtones. It also features AOL Instant messenger, which I don't use very often, but it's a nice feature to have. The battery life is iffy on this phone. It lasts longer than my Nokia, but it seems like I have to charge it every other day or so. When it gets ready to die, it gives you about 10 very loud warning signals (which is unpleasant at 4 a.m.) to let you know that the battery desperately needs charging. The keylock feature is okay, but it seems to take awhile for it to get off of keylock so you're able to use your phone. My next phone will be a flip phone, as I like the style better than the regular cell phones, but if you're looking for a great, cheap phone, this one would be perfect for you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91062 2000/3/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 small lightweight short battery life annoying beeps calls get cut all the time The Bottom LineFind a different phone. The freebie deals are not worth the headaches this phone brings with it. Full Review This is my first cell phone so I may not be accurate with how good these types of phones are. However, I am overly annoyed with this Samsung phone's performance. The battery life on stand-by is gauged at 5-7 days by Samsung. However, the true stand-by time is about 1.5 days, so I have to keep this phone plugged all the time. Also, figuring others with different phones using the service don't have the same complaints, I have to conclude that this phone is very weak at keeping a connection. I constantly find my phone calls being disconnected and after six months of using it, I have yet to have a complete phone call without any disconnections. Also, while I am on the phone talking to someone, the phone constantly searches for service so that it can avoid those unwanted hang-ups I mentioned above. While it does this search, there is an annoying beep every 5 seconds to let me know it has found service. It is very hard to keep talking when that beep sounds in the middle of my conversations. I even checked the manual and have not found a way to silence that beep. I would never recommend anyone going for this phone simply because it's "free." I even got mine for -$50 after rebate... Still not worth the money back. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): -50 91061 2000/12/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good reception plenty of nice features it s free light phone not great battery life The Bottom LineLightweight phone with good reception at excellent price ($0). Full Review I had several Nokias and an Ericson T28 prior to this phone and I must say the menu operation for the R225 is similar, if not almost identical, to the Nokias (which is a good thing if you're use to the Nokia setup). The Ericson was in a world all by itself with the menu screens. The R225 is a light phone for it's size. If anything, it feels almost too light. When I first picked up the phone, I thought it was one of those case-only display phones. It feels almost 'cheap' for it's size, although it's not. The phone is quite sturdy (although I have not dropped it yet, but I'll be sure to update this review when I do) in it's touch and fit-n-finish. You can download three ringtones and compose two of your own. The composer actually displays a music sheet that you can write your own songs on and then listen to. This is different from other phones where you're composing based on letters and symbols. The phone also has 20 preset tones, none of which are anything fancy. The battery included is a 3.7V Li-ion battery rated at probably 750 mAh or so, since I don't seem to be able to get much than about 2 to 3 days standby. I had conditioned the battery per instructions, but for some reason, once the battery power drops to two indicator bars (it has three total), the power drops out within a day. I have purchased another battery for backup and I will advise later how that battery holds out. The phone has a built-in vibration function, so you don't need a separate vibrating battery or anything. The vibration/silent mode can be operated by the '#' key, while the phone lock function is operated by the '*' key. Both very convenient functions. The background display color and brightness is very bright. You could probably go camping and use this phone for lighting to look for close things. You can also change the color of the service light (located on top left of phone face) to blink, red, yellow, green, blue, etc. Not sure why this is, but it's a feature available. The reception is quite good on the phone, since the antenna sticks out over an inch. I feel the reception on this phone is far better than the Nokia 8290 (worse phone I ever had) and 3390. At $0, the price can't be beat. Feature wise, not great (only three games), but it does what it's suppose to do, make calls and receive calls. Recommended: Yes 91060 2000/4/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 blue backlightmultiparty background noise irritates people on other end The Bottom LineThis phone is only worth having for FREE. The cool blue backlight and multiparty call features are the R225's only redeeming qualities. Full Review I received a pair of Samsung R225 phones in the summer of 2002. I had been a nokia user for years, but reluctantly made the switch to samsung. The reason I say "reluctantly" is because I HATE the Nokia 3390 phone. I am a T-Mobile customer and to this day the 3390 is the only nokia phone available. I have a Nokia 8290 (my 5th replacement under warranty) which has been discontinued due to a faulty screen. The functions keys on the Samsung R225 are similar to the 8290, so I went samsung. I was so pleased with the blinding blue backlighting. I swear I use the R22g as a flash light sometimes (no kidding). This phone will hypnotize you right away with this feature. Don't be fooled, I mean it when I say that the backlight is the R225m's only redeeming quality. Well, I'll mention only one other great feature. The R225's multiparty functions are simply refreshing. If you're on the phone and another call comes in, you can select join and you've got a conference call. I think you can bring in 3 or 4 additional calls. Now it's back to the bad comments. I find it kind of strange that the phone will sometimes answer by itself while still ringing. This causes a great deal of pain in your ear if your on the other end of the phone. I know because the other phone that I bought for $39.95 was for my girlfriend. I have received several complaints about this from people calling in. It is not the sim ships. T Mobile couldn't believe nor understand this strange malfunction, but the went ahead and sent out a new pair of R225(M) phones. I like the AIM feature that has been added to the phone, but I'm still having the same problem with my handset. I'm on R225(M) Number THREE! My girl is doing fine with #2, but only time will tell. I have given up on this Samsung R225 and I might be giving up on T Mobile (after five years) if they don't get a better selection of phones for an AFFORDABLE PRICE. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 39.95 91059 2000/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size weight reliability ease of use now available free durability headset fails easily limited availability of accessories The Bottom LineIt does what I want, it does it well, and it does it under almost any conditions. With the exception of the weak headset, it really has no faults. Full Review Let me tell you where I'm coming from......When I look for a cell phone, I'm looking for a mobile communication device. Something I can use to keep in contact with my family & job. I don't buy it as a games machine, I have a PS2 for that at home, and a game-boy for travel. I don't buy it as an internet device, I have a desktop at home, and a laptop for travel. I don't buy it as a digital camera, I have a few of those, the lowest performing of which (1.3MPixel) can outperform any camera phone. If I want to send pictures, I'll use the internet, thanks! Therefore I don't look for any of these features in a phone, and don't see too much point in paying for features I don't use. I do look for something which, when it rings I can tell it's mine, and with which I can communicate clearly,oh, and I don't like flip phones. So why this phone? That's a story of evolution. I travel for work, but my do not have a company phone. Hotel rates for long distance are extortion, and so I need a cell with national service, and free roaming. Initially My wife and I had plans with Verizon, but in 2001 we were tired of $150-$400 cell bills monthly. So the hunt was on for a new plan. What was then Voicestream introduced the family plan, with 800 peak minutes per month, free roaming, free nights & weekends, and free Voice stream cell-to-cell. Too good to pass on, so we signed on. We purchased two Motorola T193 phones. A bad decision. A very bad phone, it had a Ni-Cad battery (memory forming), and such poor signal reception that we had to be outside at home to use them. We felt that perhaps this was a Voicestream issue, and grew disheartened, as we were tied for a year. after several months one of my colleagues joined T-Mobile, as Voicestream had morphed into) and purchased the Samsung R225. He was not experiencing the problems we had, and with the advantage of the SIM card, we could swap phones for a day, to "test drive". We had to change. By this time our year was close to expiring so we went to the local T-Mobile store, and upgraded. We also extended the plan by including another number for our daughter, and so purchased two R225's @$50 each, and a Samsung S105 for my wife @ $250 (she does like flip phones, and playing with the features). A year on from there and I have no complaints about the R225. The Li-Ion battery means I can charge when convenient, rather than only when fully discharged, and battery life is excellent. Even with regular use I only need to charge every other day. The Display is very clear (the blue backlight is excellent, really bright) and easy to read with sufficient space to show all relevant information (time, battery level, signal strength, call duration, etc). The menu's are well labelled and simple to use, and speed-dialling is simple too. I like the vibration option, I can normally answer a call before it rings, and I like being able to group callers (like "family & friends", "work", & "unknown") and attach distinct ring tones & signal light colors to each so I have an idea of who it is before even checking the caller ID on the display. I have used this phone in areas all over the United States, from Southern California to upstate New York, in temperatures fom -30°F to over 100°F, and only once had difficulty obtaining a signal. The phone has been extremely reliable, having been dropped several times, from as high as seven feet, and suffered no ill-effects. My colleague even had his fall unobserved from his pocket at work, and when found over an hour later it was in a puddle of orange juice under the machine he was working on. He dried it thoroughly, switched it back on, and it was good to go. If you go to the Samsung website, accessories for this are expensive, but buy shopping around (especially on E-Bay) you can get anything you want cheaply. Not including shipping charges, I paid $5 each for two spare batteries, $2.75 for a desktop charger, and $0.01 each for a replacement headset, and a swivel holster. Total shipping was $18, for a grand total of $30.79. My colleague paid $30 for a spare battery from the Samsung site, needless to say he now has an E-Bay account! With all batteries charged I can travel for a week, without having to take a charger. That works for me. The only downside I've found is that with a proprietary headset connection, your choice is limited to an in-ear type (not my favorite) and the headsets have been unreliable. I'm on my third in a year. As this is necessary for in vehicle hands-free use, I really think it ought to be better. Your not going to find replacement faceplates/batteries/headsets almost anywhere, like you can with certain Nokia models, but they are out there a great prices if you don't mind purchasing online. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91058 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable software no crashes or hangs robust earpiece connection cute styling good battery life durable rubber earphone cover difficult to remove cute styling doesn t sync timedate The Bottom LineThis is the best of the "minimalist" phones I've owned in the last 4 years. Full Review I love this phone. I've been using it for a couple of months, so I can say that it is both reliable and durable. I have had perhaps 7 phones now, and this is one of my favorites. It's battery life is among the best I've had - I can usually get through the whole weekend with moderate use without charging, though I'm pretty good about charging it each night. The phone is exceedingly easy to use. There are almost no features other than the essentials, so the menus are easy. Actually you hardly ever have to use the menus, since there are "shortcut" keys to get you to the address book, to check your voicemail, and to write an SMS message. The games are pretty lame, but they are actually a step up from my other phones. I've used the built-in ringtone programmer to give myself "The Simpsons", and it works pretty well - though it is quite basic. I use an earpiece, so I really appreciate the beefy earphone connection that the phone has. It has a ring of metal along the outside, and it makes for a very sturdy connection. In the past, I broke two Motorola phones by leaving the earpiece plugged in all the time - eventually the connector would come loose. I'm not sure if it works with normal earpiece connectors or not, but such is the price of progress. I've never had any crashes or software hiccups of any kind, it just seems to work. It has the normal "keyguard" feature like the Nokias have, which avoids the need for a flimsy flip cover. Unlike the Nokias, you only need to hold down a key to activate keyguard instead of flipping through menus. Overall, this phone is the best "minimalist" phone I've used. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91057 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great coverage very light lots of features 35 activation fee ring tones The Bottom LineYou can't beat the deal! It's worth trying it out! Full Review For the longest time I always wanted to get one of those cool color-screen flip type phones with the neat polyphonic rings. However, my bank account wanted something else. Before I got the Samsung SGH-R225, I had a heavy and bulky Nokia 5000 series phone. Not only was my phone outdated but so was my service plan. I had a pre-paid service which seemed like such a waste of money since I liked to talk on the phone a lot. It did discipline me use my minutes carefully but the amount of money I had to pay was equivalent to paying a regular monthly plan with more minutes. So I finally decided it was time to get another phone and service. One day last summer I was walking in the mall when a T-Mobile Rep stopped me and wanted me to look at some of the phones they were offering and rate plans. I was hesitant at first but I decided to see what it was all about since I kind of wanted to get a new phone anyways. I must say, T-Mobile (formerly Voicestream) has one of the best rate plans out of all the service providers. I ended up signing up for the $39.99 rate plan where you get 600 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends. Not only did I get a great plan but the phone I got was FREE and I didn't have to put any deposit down. Most people think the free phones are usually "cheapies" and no good. However, this phone is wonderful! It may not be a flip phone with a color monitor but it's got great features. The feature I like most is its lightness and weight. It's so light and small that it could fit into the smallest of small purses. It is also easy to find because of its bright blue background light. Some other useful features include its large phone number storage, which can hold up to 200 numbers, a calendar with a date scheduler, and AOL Instant Messaging. There are also extra features such as picture screen savers, games and a melody composer so you can compose your own tunes. And compared to my old phone, the battery life of this phone is great. I can talk on the phone for about two hours straight and still have a full battery. As long as it's charged every two days or so, you shouldn't have to worry about it dying on you. It's never died on me. Not only is the phone great but I get good coverage as well. I live in Northern Virginia and I get service everywhere except Fort Belvoir. For whatever reason, it seems to be a dead zone for T-Mobile. But other than that, the rest of the coverage is great. Some of the drawbacks, however, are the ring tones. I believe the ring selection isn't that great and they can sound annoying. Yet, that problem can be eliminated because the phone is equipped with a strong a vibrator. Sometimes I can hear the phone vibrate from another room. It is that loud! Other than that, I don't see any other problems with the phone. It has just about the average cellular phone user would need and more. If you are looking for a cell phone for personal use, I would recommend this phone for you. It's easy to tote, has great features and best of all, it's FREE!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91056 2002/7/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 bright lcd screen lighter than helium great quality sound tons of features bad ringer choices The Bottom LineBUY THIS PHONE YO! Full Review I recently got rid of my Nokia 3390 mobile phone, for its bad reception and heavy-weight. I got a new service and I go the R225 for about 30 bucks, and it was definatly worth it. Advantages: - This phone is one of the lightest phones I have ever held, lifting my old Nokia compared to this was like bench pressing a small dog. Its long lasting Lithium-Ion battery lasts long, yet is extremely lightweight. -The phone has a service LED light, that informs the user when he has cell phone service, the color of the light is even changable to different callers and messages! - It has a bright blue LCD screen with clock, date, called Id and a great menu setup that is very easy -Also the phonebook is also very easy to use, either by typing one letter of the name or the whole thing - It is also AOL IM adaptable, and after using AIM on this phone once, compared to my old phone it was aobut 8 times easier actually showing my buddy list! -Other features: Alarm clock, scheduler, 3 games,world time, speed dial pre-sets on keypad (1-9), about 20 different (bad) ringers, easy text messagaing Disadvantages: - This phone doesnt have many, except for the poor quality ringers, and the fact that the vibra ring, rings delayed so its hard to know the phone is actually ringing Otherwise, this phone is one the best values on the market now, its extreme light weight, bright screen, feature pack and great reception make it an awesome phone to own! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30.00 91055 2000/9/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 slim compact attractive free with purchase of cellular service contract poor coverage no solution offered by provider dropped calls The Bottom LineI would only recommend to someone who cannot afford a better cell phone, otherwise the dropped calls are unacceptable. Full Review The phone was free to me upon signing up for a 1 year contract of cellular service with T-Mobile. I signed up for the service online and chose this phone because it was free. I received the phone via mail 4 days after placing the order online. The phone is slim and compact and in my opinion fairly attractive. I like the blue light lcd background, the text is very easy to read in the window with the blue backlight on. It's small enough to easily fit into my pants pocket, or the breast pocket of my jean jacket. The sound quality within a good service signal is loud and clear. You can also adjust the sound level to your liking. I find the rest of the phone's menu features standard to other cellular phones under 100$. A con is that it requires more charging than previous cellular phones I've used. When the battery bars start to go, they go very fast. I have to charge it every night and not forget or I may lose the use of the phone the next day until the next recharging session. I used to be able to go several days, up to 5, with my previous Sprint LG1010. A huge disadvantage in the style of the phone is that the number buttons are extremely small in size and so close together. For someone who does not have dainty little fingers, this can be an issue. I have to clear and restart my dialing often because I am often hitting two number keys at once because the keys are so tiny. Forget playing Mole, a game featured on the phone, they keys are too small to play effectively. (unless you have the dainty fingers) I wish I knew if T-Mobile service in general was so spotty in coverage, or if it's the fault of the phone, I suppose there is no way to tell unless I had access to a more expensive cell phone and tried their coverage areas using that. With this phone, I experience most of Durham, half of Middlefield, and many parts of Middletown to have no coverage at all. The strangest part is when you have a signal, you make your call, you are having no problem talking to a person using your cell phone as the call went through clear and fine, then you switch the phone to your other ear, and suddenly your signal is lost and you cannot get it back again until you move it back 5 inches to your other side. To lose your signal by moving inches or feet is not a good thing when you are on an important call. I've learned to be VERY still when talking in an area that I don't have full coverage bars showing on the phone. Customer service by email regarding this problem has been unhelpful. They respond to my email asking more questions, I answer them and email the response back, then hear nothing. I write back inquiring what happened, and nobody had any record of my email. You repeat the entire process just to get no response, or a bot response which never addressed the original issue. I gave up trying by email. Customer service on the phone is polite, but have not been able to offer me any solution or remedy to the constant signal loss. Regarding almost no coverage in Durham, they say they offer service in Durham. I'd be happier if they would just admit that they have poor coverage there then I could stop blaming my phone and know the deal, but they'd rather convince me that my phone is fine and there is coverage in these problem areas and the problem must be me? When using Sprint, I had some coverage problems in the same areas as well, but not as bad. Some areas where I used Sprint for cell calls without trouble, I cannot do at all with this phone. Still, I cannot get an answer whether this is due to the phone itself or the provider's towers/coverage, if it would happen with any phone using T-Mobile I have no way to find out. Anyways, the phone is cute, works average, has terrible coverage and constant dropped calls. So in my final opinion, you get what you pay for. The phone is free. It's a good start if you are new to using a cell phone, but for important phone calls, and/or if you need to be able to be reached for vital matters, you may end up having to purchase something better later and if that doesn't help, even switch to another cellular company. Still can't tell if it's the company or the phone, I'm in the dark. Recommended: No Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91054 2002/8/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish design lightweight aim inside cool features has its own e mail address no internet no address book The Bottom LineI recommend this phone because it's so well designed and so lightweight, and it packs a lot of features into a small package. Full Review I recently switched from Verizon (with them almost 3 years) to Voicestream (T-Mobile) and saw an ad for free everything, including the Samsung R225m. I had wanted the R225m phone but balked at the $90 price tag, so I was thinking of getting one of the other free phones that comes with VS/T-M service. However, since the Samsung R225m was offered free in the ad, I happily chose that phone. Here are the pros and cons: PROS: --Stylish, small and very lightweight. Much smaller than my old Qualcom phone from Verizon. The blue backlight is very sharp looking and easy to read. I love the changeable service lights (I chose violet) and the screen savers (I chose the panda). It's nice and easy to fit in my pocket and doesn't go tumbling out like my old phone. The battery seems long lasting so far. I often forget it's in my pocket. --Cool AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and text messaging come with this phone. It's so neat that it has its own e-mail address! You can send e-mail to people, receive e-mail, send and receive text messages, and sign on to AIM and have your Buddy List from your PC on your phone, so you can chat with your friends online. And you have the option of upgrading your PingPong messaging for a small fee each month, which I did since I think I'll be using this feature a lot. It's cool getting an e-mail on your phone from someone. --Other features like the melody composer for ring tones (which I thought were fine) and the easy-to-use phone book make using the phone fun. Plus, I am quickly becoming addicted to the Casino game, which is essentially slots but is mindless enough to play while riding the train, waiting for someone, etc. It also has a calendar (Scheduler) that I'm still getting used to, alarms, world time, a clock, and a calculator. CONS: --My old Qualcom had a very extensive phone/address book that you could store numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, and website addresses, which I miss. It also had little icons for cell, work, home, fax, and pager numbers so it was easy to see who was calling from where. It was a lot like a little PDA. --I wish it had Internet access but then again you have to pay extra for that. I can get "On Demand Alerts" like weather, horoscope, lottery results, etc. so in a way you can still be connected, though there is a fee for each alert. I have already tried this and I admit they're cool. Overall, I highly recommend this phone, especially if you can get an awesome deal like I did. I think it's very well designed, very stylish, small and light, and does what it needs to with a dash of fun. Recommended: Yes 91053 2000/2/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very good reception battery life no color screen The Bottom LineA superb phone for someone on a budget or who does not need the "above basic" cell phone features. Full Review My old Sony Ericsson T300 recently had problems and T-Mobile offered to give me this phone as a replacement. It does not have all of the features of my old phone, but then again, I hardly used those features, so this was OK with me and better than having to buy a new phone. For example, it is not a camera-phone. But I almost never used the camera function of my old phone, and when I did I was disappointed with the pictures and the mechanism for transferring them to a PC (it was one of the early camera phones, I know they're much better now). It also is dual-band, not tri-band, meaning it cannot be used in as many foreign countries (though it still can be used in the majority of them). But I rarely go to foreign countries, so that's OK too. For someone looking for a basic phone with a few niceties and not looking to spend too much on a phone (I think both T-Mobile and Cingular offer it free to new subscribers and I've seen used ones sell for as little as $15-20 on eBay), it is excellent. I get excellent reception from it. The battery life has been good too. There is a good variety of ringtones (and you can download more). There is AIM capability (if you get the special R225M model....again I do not use this though so that doesn't matter). You can do basic Web functions if that is part of your mobile account; and finally, you have some games, calendar/scheduling, and call timers. One thing about the phone that will probably be a turnoff to many or make them think it is "obsolete" is the lack of a full color screen. The screen is a nice blue screen with black letters (which lets you see it in the dark without any trouble), an improvement over most "monochrome" phones. It still looks very nice, but it also means you cannot download most of the screensavers or wallpaper that T-Mobile provides for most of their other phones (I believe this is the only phone left that T-Mobile directly offers with a non-color screen). A final thing I do like that is lacking in newer phones is that there is an option to have something that sounds like a telephone ring for your ringtone. I have noticed in a lot of very recent phones that all of the ringtone options are some sort of musical number or sound effect. All in all, I think this is a great phone if you are looking for a cell phone for basic uses and don't want to do anything "fancy" with it. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91052 2000/10/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 cool looking good features lightweight can t get onto the internet ping pong messages don t always work The Bottom LineGood phone- lightweight, durable, and pretty darn spiffy if you ask me. However, if you want a phone with Internet capabilities, move on- this is not it. Full Review I always said I'd never get a cellphone. I hate when someone's phone rings during class, in the middle of a store, or even church! (My church had to put in their weekly bulletin a request to turn off all phones and pagers during the service, which I thought was amusing.) However, it came to the point where I actually needed one, and so I bit the bullet and went looking, and that is where I found this wonderful phone. I paid only $50 for it after a rebate, I think that it was about $100 originally. I don't use it too often so I looked for one that looked cool, which was a dumb thing to do but luckily a good mistake to make. I wanted to buy a more expensive, smaller Samsung phone where you could make your own ringtone. My husband bought the more expensive one and proceeded to scratch the front of it right away. I, on the other hand, have a quite durable phone which I discovered also has a function to write ringtones. (I wrote the Super Mario theme and the Sailor Moon theme on mine, so I am a happy camper.) This phone also does other nifty things. You can play games on it. You can pick which picture you want the phone to display (I picked the clock), and what color the blinking light can be- you can pick from red, orange, green, blue, and violet. I picked violet and get a great many compliments. And the phone is pretty. It is blue on the back and top, and silver on the bottom. The silver buttons match nicely. And the phone's screen lights up with a nice aqua-blue glow. It is very cool. But most of you smart people probably care more about how it works, so I'll tell you. It has fairly good reception, except at my school where there is a Sprint tower in the chapel's steeple (I got this phone with a T-Mobile/Voicestream plan), which makes it so that I can only make calls when I am outside or in the chapel itself. But anywhere else I go, I can call and receive calls with no problem. For the most part, calls come in clear, unless of course the other person's phone stinks or they mumble really badly. And if you are a silly person who has a phone but doesn't ever talk on it because you prefer instant messaging, this phone does that too. You can get a plan with a certain number of Ping-Pong messages (messages between cellphones) included, or you get charged a small fee per message sent. You can also use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to talk between people on other phones or even computers. That charges per message sent or received as well. I choose not to use that- I love the function, but I would too quickly run up a massive phone bill, which is really no fun. I have, however, tried the Ping-Pong messages, which tend to be finicky and unreliable. Sometimes they work perfectly. Other times they show up on the other end as a jumble of symbols. Sometimes they take hours to get to the recipient. And sometimes they don't show up at all. I would suggest to you not to use them if you have anything particularly important to say because they may not reach their destination. Also, sometime retrieving messages is tricky because the automated system doesn't recognize your password. This has happened to me once or twice. After a few tries, it has always been fine, and I have never lost a message as far as I know. The phone comes with a hands-free set (good for drivers!), a recharging cord (the battery lasts about 2 days if you don't make hours of calls a day), and a handy carrying strap. It also has a large information book so that you can figure out what all the buttons do on your phone and what to do if it breaks. And I am not completely sure, but I think that the guy who sold me the phone said that it has a positioning thing in it so people with the proper technology can track you (or your phone!) down. Like I said, I am not completely sure and not sure that I need to know. Also, it is a very durable phone. I carry it in my pocket or in my backpack, have dropped it on occasion, and I think that my kitten has tried to attack it. Despite all that, it sounds and works fine, and the only damage inflicted is a slight scratch to the finish. I haven't had any real problems with my phone. I can call other people by holding down one digit because you can program the phone to do that. Once you program a number into your phone, you can see their name on your phone everytime they call you, which is quite convenient. Calls come in clear, and reception is almost always pretty good. The only thing I don't like about the phone is that I can't get onto the Internet, which is another fun yet expensive feature that I probably don't need anyway. If you are the type who needs your news updates on the phone, don't be discouraged. For a fee, it will send you news and weather headlines, so you can be informed all the time. I think that this is excellent for someone who doesn't need a phone to program and control their life. In other words, it is a basic phone that looks really cool. If you need the Internet on your phone, don't get this one. But if you want a durable, fun, useful phone, this is the one for you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91051 2003/9/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight not necessarily for power users straightforward excellent on the basics euro compatible inexpensive not as high tech as other costlier models vibrating ring could be stronger The Bottom LineGreat if you want a solid phone at a low price, and aren't interested in an expensive gadget phone. Full Review I have used this phone for approximately 15 months on Voicestream (now T-Mobile). I think the 225 is a superb "basic" phone. Slim, light, great backlighting, and, in my opinion, good sound. Fits nicely in lapel pockets. It doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I think this phone is designed for a specific kind of user -- who only needs a rock solid phone in order to stay in touch. It has enough customizable features to make you happy, a pretty blue backlight, nice chassis, and most importantly, it has a relatively low profile. If you want gee-whiz features, such as a camera, games or an address book, or if you use a cel phone as your only telephone, this is not be the phone for you. With regard to preserving your phonebook-- the SIM card that you get with the phone solves the problem of having to reenter everything when you get your next phone. I LOVE the SIM Card technology! The setup features weren't as intuitive or as easy to use as I thought they should have been, but there are no deal breakers here (i.e. no reason you should rule this phone out) and they go away with time as you learn the menus. A couple of items that you can customize will contribute greatly to prolonging battery charge -- for example, the all-important key lock feature (vital on non-flip models), customizable backlight duration, key tones, and nifty service indicator light that you can shut off. I have never used the Calender feature, so I can't say if it's good or bad, and I am not sure if you can synch it with anything. (I use my Palm Pilot synched up with Outlook for that.) And anyway, I'm just old fashioned enough to think that merging phones with PDAs makes for one critical piece of equipment that you do NOT want to lose, so I'll take them in two different devices, thank you very much. Curiously, the little icon that tells you that you have a voice mail does not disappear when you check the voice mail. You have to delete it separately -- a minor annoyance that we did not have on our prior Samsung model on Sprint PCS. Perhaps this is something specific to the T-Mobile or GSM system -- I don't know. Basic text messaging is easy enough to do. The predictive text software seems easier to use than the version I've seen on some Motorola phones. Later models of the R225 have AOL IM installed if you want it. 3 way calling and call waiting are easy to figure out. I don't know if they're easier or harder than other brands, but I have no complaints. I have never regarded dropped calls or signal strength as a fault of the phone itself. I think that's more of an issue with the service provider, and I don't think T-Mobile has coverage everywhere they ought to be - but it's in their self interest ot expand coverage as quickly and widely as possible, so I'm not worried. Also, since the phone uses GSM technology, you can use it in Europe when you travel. This is an underrated feature, but one that should be mentioned. I am not sure if the other cel carriers (Verizon, Sprint, etc) offer European compatibility, but this was a selling point for me even if I don't go to Europe that much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91050 2003/9/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 free in most cases aol im client lots of features weird email setup no face protection have to manually set clockdate The Bottom LineWho can complain about a free phone with so many extra features? This is a great phone for a great price. Full Review When I was with MetroPCS I used a SonyEricsson T206 which was a pretty good phone, but I could not justify having to pay $40 per month for the level of service that I was using (and getting). So I went and started looking for a different and cheaper provider for my weekend and nights cellphone service (I have a company phone that I use during the day). What I found was T-Mobile for my area, for $22 per month I get 500 text messages, 500 minutes of weekend time, and 60 minutes of peak time. That was perfect for me. After paying $160 for my T206 I was not going or looking to pay a lot for my new phone, thank goodness for the Samsung SGH-R225 since it is a great phone and it is free. Hardware I have had two other Samsung phones and both of them were great phones. The original flip phone that I had from Samsung broke though and I happy to see that the R225 keeps the shape of their current flip phone without the flippy part. The phone itself is light and sturdy feeling (no creaking when I use the phone, that is a big plus). The phone is the same dark "Samsung" blue that most of their phones come in. It has a silverish top portion, complete with the silver and grey buttons to match. Overall the color scheme is very pleasing to the eyes. The phone comes with a large LCD display that gets the job done, it is easy to read and the blue backlight is bright enough to light up a room. There are the standard 12-dialing buttons then the Send, End, and Clear buttons. There is also up, down, and two soft buttons on the phone. Overall a nice layout for the buttons. The buttons themselves have a very solid click feel when I used them and because of that they give good feedback to whether or not I pressed a button. Without the flippy part of the phone the keys are unprotected and turning on the keylock is a must since I did not want my phone to be dialing numbers while in my pocket. There is a small antenna stub at the top of the phone that does not extend, it is just there. The blue backlight that lights up the LCD screen and all the buttons is pleasing to the eye, though it is a bit on the bright side - if you ever get lost in the woods without a flashlight, this phone's backlight will serve just fine. On the opposite corner of the top of the phone from the antenna is the service light. This is not a useful feature, but it is definitely cool for a free phone. The service light can be changed from the default blinking blue to a range of different colors from orange to purple to red to green. I'm using orange right now since it is not as bright as the default blue - the default blue is so bright that at nights I have to flip the phone on its face so that the blue light does not light up the whole room when I am sleeping. Software The phone has all the regular cellphone type software on there: Phonebook and games. Then there are the extra stuff like the America Online Messenger client and the Organizer. I do not have any real use for the Organizer since I have my Tungsten T, but the AOL Messenger client is very useful. It basically lets me sign onto AOL as my regular AOL IM handle. Then I look like I'm chatting from my computer (though there is a tiny little cellphone icon next to my name, which is kind of cute). It is a good way to keep in touch with everyone online without having to sit in front of the computer. Talking about messages, the R225 comes with T9 predictive text completion and that is a very handy addition to the phone. T9 is a way to type long messages on the phone using the 12 main dialing buttons without having to press too many keys. It basically guesses what you are trying to type as you type it, this works pretty well, but takes a little getting used to. And you'll need to start to learn how to use the + key (it's on the 0) to flip between words, since sometimes the guessing is not as good as it could be (like "home" comes out by default "good"). The phonebook is decent enough letting me search by name (push the down button) or by letter (push the right softkey from the idle screen). There is also the built-in speed dial functionality. The number one is reserved for speed dialing voicemail, but the rest of the number keys are mine to program. So, I just put the contacts in the specified number slot when entering into my phonebook, then when I want to call them I just push and hold the number for that slot and it dials right away. The R225 lets me associate not only a ringtone for a specific entry in the phonebook but also a service light color - very useful for when the phone is on vibrate and I want to tell who it is without looking at the LCD display. This is a very cool feature. Sound and Reception The sound on the phone is perfect. It is a very natural sounding phone without the tinny feel of the earlier Samsung phone that I had. It's too bad that T-Mobile's GSM service is somewhat limited. With the T-Mobile service inside my house I do not get the greatest of reception, though with most phones I do not get the greatest reception in my house. Outside I get great reception with the phone though it has a slight problem where I can hear a small echo from time to time on the phone which is very annoying. Otherwise the reception is good and I think it maybe more a problem with T-Mobile than it is with the phone. Quirks and Observations This is the first phone that I have owned where I had to set the clock and date by hand. All the other phones that I have used synched the clock and date with the service provider, apparently either T-Mobile does not have this type of service or this phone does not do the syncing, I'm leaning towards the latter. This is a minor annoyance though. The phone goes into an idle mode and there are a few things that it can display while in idle mode. First you can leave it in the default mode where it just displays "T-Mobile" and the time and date. What is annoying about this screen is that I can't change the "T-Mobile" banner, I wish I could personalize it, but oh well. Second you can pick the clock display which displays an ugly square clock while the phone is idle. Very hard on the eyes. Then you can pick from different animated wallpapers like kangaroos, an old house, or flowers. None that I really liked (though the hopping kangaroos are pretty cool in the beginning). I am now sticking with the plain default "T-Mobile" plus the time and date display for the idle mode. The games are: Casino, Hexa, and Mole. Casino is a slot machine game that is pretty cool. Hexa is a Tetris-like game that I still haven't took the time to figure out. Mole is basically a Whack-A-Mole game which is pretty entertaining also. Though I wish that Samsung would have included a game like Snake on the phone, I don't really care since Casino and Mole keep me pretty entertained. One quirk that I found was that my AOL client sometimes does not behave as it should. Sometimes I will try to sign on with full reception and it will just kick me off and complain about my password - which I punched in correctly. Then a few minutes later it will let me sign on just fine. This I think is a problem on T-Mobile's side and has nothing to do with the phone, but annoying nonetheless. Although the phone can send email replies, it cannot send the first email. Let me explain. There is no way that I have found to punch an email address into the phone. The only way to send an email to an email account is to have the person first send you an email to your phone. Then you can reply to that message. The phone does just fine with SMS messages to other phones though. This is the first phone that I have that uses a SIM card, which I find really cool since I can store all my subscription information, phonebook, and SMS messages on a little removable card that I can move from phone to phone. No more typing in phone numbers when I get a new phone! By the way, for all of you T-Mobile users out there, go to their website and sign up for an online account, not only do you get to pay your bills online, but they have a nice tool that you can use to send phonebook entries to your phone via an SMS message. This little phonebook tool comes in really handy when you don't want to type out everything on the 12 button dialing pad. The battery life on the phone is amazing, especially the standby time. I can leave this phone on standby for almost two weeks without having to charge it. I can talk on the phone for quite a while and the battery will not move down one bit. I am pretty amazed by the battery life on the R225. Conclusion Although the R225 is a free phone, I would not mind paying a few bucks for this phone. It is a well-designed sturdy phone that plain works. There are some very cool features on the phone that make it more than your ordinary-Joe phone. The phone is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes and has some good software features that make it worth having. The best thing about this phone, next to all the nice features that it has, is the price tag. For most of us who get the phone through T-Mobile it is free with any plan that is $39.99/mo or above. For the rest it is somewhere between $50 to $100 depending on if they are giving rebates or not. The T-Mobile representative can also work out a deal to get you the phone for free also if you bug them. If you are curious about my experience with T-Mobile's service, please see my article here: http://www.ultramookie.com/comments.php?id=513_0_1_0_C Update 9/29/2003 - Network time updates can be done on the T-Mobile network. It is just that the R225m does not have the ability to do it. - You can initiate an email from the R225m on the T-Mobile network. Just type in the email address as the first thing in the SMS message. Type a space then the message. When asked where you want to send the message, have it sent to "500". Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91049 2000/10/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Product Rating4.0 very bright back light good battery life cheap games suck The Bottom LineA good phone for the price you're going to get it at. Now someone needs to start making some JPop Ringtones for it. Full Review I was put into a predicament after having to move out of my apartment abruptly at the end of August. Once I moved into the new place, I had no phone and no email! I became impossible to contact. So, after much prodding, I went ahead and got myself a cell phone. Initially, I wanted a flip phone, so I wouldn't have to worry about my pocket making calls to Timbuktu, but apparently, my not using a credit card for the last 6 years has caused some questionable things to happen to my credit. Namely, that I can't get all the cool phone offers from companies. Instead of my flip phone, I got slapped with this Samsung, and while I wasn't ticked about it, I really had wanted something else. (BTW, I have a phone design that EVERYONE will be picking up, if only I could get just a company to look at it. Revolutionary, I tell ya.) Anyway, as soon as I got the phone, I did what any techy guy would do. I took it out of the box, and threw the manual away! With that being done, I set about to tinkering with the phone. Now, as a gamer, one of the most important features for a phone to have are the games. This particular phone has only 3 games: Hexa, Mole, and Casino. Hexa is a variant of Columns and is easiest played with you rotating the phone 90 degrees. Mole is a game of Whack-A-Mole with you using the keypad to whack the various moles. Casino's just a lame slot program. Not too much excitement in these phone games, and it didn't even have the phone classic Snake. When's someone going to make phone Artillery? While it didn't have any cool phone games, it did have some neat gimmicky stuff like the ability to change your signal light to any of *5* different colors! So if you want the little blinky light on your phone to be Green, Orange, Red, Blue or Violet, you can take your pick. I chose Violet, just because the back light's blue already, and the other 3 colors are just kinda blasé. (Is it just me or is that "é" the only cool thing about the French?) Anyway, speaking of the back light, the indigo blue light that emenates from this phone is really, really, bright. If I get a call at night and my phone's in my pocket, it's like one of my legs just turned blue. Another nifty little gimmick is the phone's Melody Composer. Unfortunately, most people on the internet who make ring tones don't make them for the Samsung, so you'd either have to make them yourself, or use the handy dandy Ring Tone Converter made by the guys at Code Workshop. The phone seems to do a decent job of getting reception, and I can leave the phone on for 2 days without having to recharge the thing. It's probably stay on longer if I turned off the detect signal light. Some of the phone menus are kind of slow to activate, and I disagree with the Phonebook option not just taking you straight to the list of your contacts. As it is, the screen it doees take you to does absolutely nothing. It's a wasted step. All in all the phone is a solid performer, with a lot of little features that put it just a bit above your average non-flip phone. Not sure about it's durability...if it starts falling apart on me within a couple months, I'll write about it. Can't go wrong with this phone at the price you get it for, though. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89 91048 2000/3/1 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy still working with my kids using it daily can hit the lock key without knowing it The Bottom LineWe have had two of these phones for over a year and have yet to have a single problem! Full Review Two of our cell phones are the Samsung SGH-R225. They were one of the free choices when we changed plans. We have had them both for over a year now, and have yet to have a problem with either one of them! WHAT THE PHONE LOOKS LIKE The Samsung SGH-R225 phone is 4.3 x 1.8 x 0.9 inches which makes it a nice size, not too large and not too small. We have a smaller phone and my husband hates it because the tiny buttons make it hard for him to use, he has no problem with this phone. The phone is blue and silver with the base being blue and the display and buttons silver. It come with a strap that you can attach if you want. We attached the strap to only one of the phones and that is the way we tell them apart. GETTING STARTED These phones use a SIM card and a battery. When we first got the phones, the employee put in the SIM card and since we have never had to do anything with them, I really don't know a lot about them. I do know that you can change your SIM card into another phone and all of your information (phone numbers etc) will go then be in the new phone. Other than that, all I can tell you is we haven't had any trouble with either SIM card and the phones are used daily. When we first got the phones, we had to charge the batteries for two hours before using them for the first time. We have two types of chargers, one for the house and one for the car. We have only charged them in the house a few times and I couldn't even tell you where those chargers are! When the battery gets low, we just plug them into the cigarette lighter in the car. That works the best for us because the phones don't work from our house (about 1/4 of the Island has no reception) and so we only use them on the run. My sister uses her cell phones at her house, so she uses the home charger but the car is more convenient for us. You can tell when the battery is getting low 3 ways ~ 1. The battery strength ICON will be down to one bar 2. You hear the WARNING TONE 3. The low battery MESSAGE keeps repeating on the display When the battery gets too week to operate the phone, it turns itself off automatically. We were given the house chargers with the phones and had to buy the car ones. They cost around $20.00 each. PASS THE MENU PLEASE There are 6 main categories to the menu map ~ 1. Call Records 2. Messages 3. Tones 4. Settings 5. Organizer 6. Games When I first got the phone, I put in my information to set up the voice mail and made a phone list. That was it. The only extra things I use are, the phone list to dial out and voice mail to access my messages. Other than that I may check the time but mostly I just use the phone to make and receive calls. It does have call waiting and caller ID so I am always able to see who is calling before I answer the phone but we keep the number so private, it is seldom a problem. Now my kids use the phones for a lot more ~ they text message back and forth, play games (there are 3) and take great joy in changing the ring tones! I mention them changing the tones because afterward, my phone is ringing and I have NO IDEA IT IS MINE! Finally after my purse is ringing over and over, I figure it out and answer it but it never fails that as soon as I get use to one ring, they change it to another. Cute. There are 25 ring tones and you can download even more ~ along with the vibrating option. THIS AND THAT • The weight, with the battery in, is 3.4 oz • The Battery is 1 Lithium Ion • The Talk time is up to 250 minutes • The Standby Time is up to 120 hrs ~~ ** ~~ ** ~~ 2BUZY'S FINAL THOUGHTS ON THIS PHONE ~~ ** ~~ ** ~~ I like these phones. One of the things I like the best is that they are simple to use and that after a year of daily use I have not had a single problem with either one of them. I cannot say that about other ones we have owned or our camera phones. It does not have all of the features some of the phones have, but it has more than enough for everyday use. It has a choice of rings, it tells you who is calling, it has call waiting, it lets people leave you l-o-n-g messages and has great reception even in a store on the middle of a mall when everyone else's phone fades out. And, if you wanted to, you could play games on it, set up an organizer, text message someone, use the alarm as a reminder or download pictures! The Samsung SGH-R225 phone has worked really well for my busy family and since we got them for FREE, I have no complaints at all! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FREERecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91047 2003/4/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 it feels durablehas decent features it was free it doesn t have voice commandthe reception is just fair The Bottom LineThis is a decent, average phone. For free I can't say much negative about it! Full Review I am reviewing my husband's cell phone, the Samsung r225. He had been using a pre-paid phone but we got a good deal through T-Mobile so he decided to get his own "real phone." We can talk to each other for free so we have switched phones just because I have wanted to see what it was like to go back to a non-flip style. Why I got it and what it has: Please note: This review is written by a layperson. I am not an advisor in electronics and getting a phone that vibrates was exciting for me. Any specs about this phone will be coming from the manuals that I have. Features, What it does and What it has: The r225 comes with a hands-free car kit, battery, what they call travel charger, which just means the phone doesn't sit in a cradle to charge and it came with a car charger. In addition, unlike my phone, which didn't come with a car charger or cover, his did. The phone is not one of the tiny ones. It is 4.3 inches long x 1.8 inches wide by .9 inches in width. (Mine is 4.10 inches x 1.64 inches by .68 inches) It weighs 3.4 ounces. The phone is blue and silver with an antenna that looks as if it is part of the phone but can be screwed off - they call that retractable. The type of battery it has is a 1 x Lithium Ion battery. You can talk on this phone for up to 250 minutes with a standby time of up to 5 days. I know that sounds like a lot but that would mean that for 5 days it isn't in use at all. I really like that it tells us when the battery is low by beeping. Of course I have learned the hard way to shut off the phones before bed unless they are being charged. I have been woken up more than once with a low battery warning sound. To attempt to make this review understandable to both of us, I will keep it simple and compare it to mine once in awhile. Basically, there are 7 (mine has 8) main functions and within those functions are options that will bring you to more functions. I will list them and a couple of the more important sub functions. ~Call Records: missed calls, incoming and outgoing calls, call time ~Messages: voice mail, read, write messages ~Tones: There are 25 Versus 47 which I have; melody composer (You can write your own tone); ring volume, alert type (including a vibrating-melody option) ~Settings: phone settings, greeting message, LCD settings security settings ~Organizer: Scheduler, alarm, calculator, to do list ~Games: Casino, Mole, Hexa ~AIM: Unlike mine you do not have to set it up through your provider. Just sign on but be prepared to pay. Check with your provider for the cost. It was $3.99 a month when I got my phone but we haven't opted for that feature on either phones. Of course the program that comes up when you open your phone or turn it on is the phonebook/menu screen and from there the rest of the "tree" is found. It does not have (Which I found I have come to love on my phone.) is the Voice Function feature on the menu. This feature has a voice command option. I can just say the name of the person to whom I am making a call and the phone dials the person. The phonebook can store up to 250 (Mine can store 350 numbers.) It can be used in English, Spanish, and French. It doesn't have a data port, which is the reason I chose my phone. That means that if someday you wanted to connect it to your computer (This whole thing boggles my mind!) you cannot. It is interesting, though. We have the same service provider and live in the same house. In spite of that, the Samsung r225 does not get as good reception as mine. When I look at it right now, the reception bars show 2 in this room while mine shows 3 bars. In addition, there are certain parts of town where the reception is bad even with my phone but with this Samsung, it is non existent. It breaks up more than mine does and in general the reception isn't superb. Durability and Warranty: The Samsung r225 feels much more durable than my flip phone. I did get a case for mine adding a bit more security. This one, though, feels much stronger. It doesn't feel as if it will break if dropped on the ground and there is no flip that could break off. It looks and feels more like my old Ericsson. The charger that plugs into the phone is sturdy. It is not flimsy like my former phone, the . There is a one-year limited warranty, which is spelled out in detail with the phone. My final thoughts: It is hard to find fault with a free phone but I do like mine better. The Samsung r225 is adequate if that is what your plan gives you. It has most of the bells and whistles I have and at least one I don't have. It is durable, easy to use and easy to program. This phone is a little "cooler" than mine is in that the signal light can be changed to different colors. I don't have that option. The blue for example is very bright so seeing the face will not be difficult at all! The buttons are easy to press and since I now know how to navigate around something with more bells than my old Ericsson, I have no trouble with this one. If you are not used to the displays and the way to go back and forth, it will take a little getting used to. It has other features I didn't mention such as the ability to give different people different rings, speed dial, personal information manager, headphone jack, scratch pad memory and a missed call indicator. Network Compatibility: GSM Wireless Network Capability Technology GSM 900/1900 Mode Dual Mode Please - don't dial and drive! In at least one state it is illegal to drive and talk. Please - shut off your phone in hospitals. Feel free to leave a question or comment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 91046 2003/10/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable gsm works in europe looks functionality low power consumption price travel charger not suitable for travel sound quality reception could be better The Bottom LineI like the R225 much better than my old phone and I am impressed with its design, durability and functionality. There is ... Full Review I had been a Verizon Wireless customer for 3 years and wanted to get a better phone and better sound quality. I am also going to Europe for vacation, so getting a GSM phone would be a good idea - I would be able to use the phone in Europe as well as in the US. So I got from T-Mobile (VoiceStream Wireless). The phone is free after rebate and the service includes free nationwide roaming and long distance. I got this phone because it was free, looked nice, was reasonably small and had a lot of features (including the ability to send and receive emails, text messages and even use AIM). Size and Looks The phone is small - much smaller than my previous Samsung - especially the battery. The R225 has an antenna that, unlike some other phones, sticks out about 1". Not a problem for me. The phone is quite light and can be put in the pocket. Four upper buttons are shiny (chrome-looking). Other buttons as well as the upper part of the phone (display surrounding area) are silver-looking. The screen and the buttons are backlit by the intense blue light with duration adjusted from the menu. This makes the phone easy to operate in the dark. But during the day it makes symbols on the buttons somewhat less visible. The phone has separate [Send], [End] and CLR buttons ([End] button also serves as power on/off when held for several seconds). It also has two "soft" buttons that correspond to functions that appear on the screen and two scroll buttons. GSM Unlike Verizon phones and phones of other companies that use CDMA or TDMA transmission standard, the R225 uses GSM, which is a standard used in Europe. In the US, I know that Cingular uses it as well as T-Mobile (VoiceStream) and I believe AT&T wireless has some GSM coverage. The R225 thus will work in Europe as well as in the US. I was skeptical about the GSM coverage, but so far has not been disappointed - the phone works well in downtown LA, Pomona, I-5 North of LA, San Francisco... Update: the phone worked extremely well while I was on the trip to France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. The GSM coverage was extensive and the sound quality was very good (I used the phone to call to the US from overseas). It also held charge well and did not require recharging during the 3-week trip (I only powered it up to make calls). The phone also allows connection to computers/laptops for wireless Internet access and features other data services. The R225 is a dual-band phone with one band suitable for the US operation and another one for Europe. Reception My old phone used to have problems with reception as well as sound quality. The R225 is good in this area - the signal strength indicator shows much better signal strength/reception than my old one. The transmission is digital, so there is no static associated with analog mode my old phone used to slip into for no apparent reason. However, the R225 tends to be less clear and more noisy than the . It also tends to drop/disconnect conversations more often than the does (both were tested in the same areas of T-Mobile network). In Europe (I used it in Poland, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy), the reception and sound quality were very good, much better than in the LA area. SIM The phone uses a smart card called SIM card. It is small, removable and is located under the battery. It stores phone numbers, subscription information, passwords, etc. Thus, it is easier to switch to another phone and not have to re-enter your phone numbers, etc. Text Messaging, Email, AIM The phone can send and receive text messages, emails and allows you communicate with friends on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). I tried out the AIM functionality and it was a bit difficult to use but it worked. If you already have an AIM account, the sign-on is straightforward. T9 The phone allows you use the predictive T9 text entry, which means you no longer need to press the same button several times to enter the words. You press the button only once, even though it may correspond to different letters, the phone analyzes your input and finds the suitable words in its dictionary. I found that it works well, except when I tried to enter "San Francisco" in the Schedule, it became "Ran Francisco". But other than that - it worked very well. Plus, I you can press " " (which is a also a Î" button) to switch to the next suitable word. After I pressed " ", the "Ran" changed to "San". Display and Service Light The manual said that the service light (LED) can be switched to different colors. I thought that the blue screen/button backlight can be switched to different colors, but nope. Service light is a small LED in the upper left corner of the phone. When you have service/reception, it blinks green (by default, you can change the color). You can change the LED color according to the person who calls you - the phonebook entries can have different LED colors assigned. The display is quite large and fits several lines of text as well as icons and pictures. There are some neat animations when you make a call. You can also make the phone display an analog clock when idle. Battery The phone uses a slim Li-Ion battery that supposedly lasts up to 250 min of talk time or up to 120 hours in standby mode. I haven't measured the standby or talk time precisely, but the battery definitely lasts at least several days. Charger The phone comes with so-called "travel" charger. I think they meant "domestic travel", because the charger only works with 110-volt AC. So you cannot use it in Europe - I will have to hope that the phone holds the charge throughout my trip - I will not be making many calls, since the roaming in Europe is $1 a minute. The charger has a plug at the end and does not resemble a stand in which the phone is put. It is just a piece of wire with a jack. Other The phone has an organizer-type schedule, but I find it less convenient to use than my Palm. There are several games, a bunch of preloaded ring tones, slots for downloadable tones and you can even create your own. The phone has its own phonebook (100 entries), but I use the one on the SIM card (250 entries) so it is easier to transfer it to another phone later if needed. You can lock the keypad by holding * for several seconds and unlock it later by pressing the left soft key and a *. One thing I dislike is that the phone goes into the mode where it displays whatever you select: the analog clock, a picture-screensaver or a standard greeting when idle and to switch to the "ready" mode, you have to press any button. In other words, to lock the phone you have to press any button and then hold "*". Also, to dial or go to the menu, you have to press any key and only then go there. My previous phone had voice dialing capability, but the R225 doesn't. Which is OK, since it didn't work all the time anyway. Bottom Line I like the much better than my old phone and I am impressed with its design, durability and functionality. There is room for improvement in the reception/sound clarity area, but overall it is a good choice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7833 Samsung SPH-i330 91088 2004/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 there are no pros for this device will not hotsync consistently it loses its usb port assignment upon reboot The I330 phone will not sync consistently using palm 4.01 hotsync. We have an array of pda's that hotsync without issues. But this phone, the I330 is a pain!! It loses its configuration regarding what port it is assigned upon reboot, then the settings in the hotsync setup must be changed accordingly. Usually it requires us to delete the device from the device mgr, and reboot, then reinstall ---I have tried the driver from the cd that came with the units, i have downloaded and installed new drivers, and I have applied a hotfix that was sent from samsung, and still the problem is not resolved. The desktops are new dell gx270's and have no problem with other devices. Avoid this piece of junk! 91087 2000/8/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact pda phone better than the handspring treo 300 hangs pretty frequently tough to find good accessories The Bottom Line- better choice than handpsring treo 300 - worth the price! Full Review - priced the same as Treo 300, this is a better phone that the handspring model. That phone used to reset quite often and lost its data - however even this phone "hangs" occasionally! I have had to do a soft reset, but luckily it retains the data after a soft reset - only twice did the phone hung on me for a long time. I had to do a hard reset on it! I had the phone in my back pocket and was at a amusement park in a wet ride. The phone got wet and got "stuck"! - the other MAIN downside I see as compared to the handspring treo 300 is the screen isn't protected. You HAVE to leave the keypad on. I have made so many accidental calls to friends (using the fast dial feature, because I accidentally pressed a key) that I have lost count - also if you try and hold the phone using your shoulder when your hands are busy you might end up hitting the "talk" key (done this a million times) which activates the 3-way calling! - I think this is the main disadvantage of this phone, that it has no protection for the screen at all! I guess this is the reason why Samsung adapted the flip phone design for their next model, SPH-I500 - the speaker phone is a plus as usual! - its good that samsung offers two batteries! - only other thing that sucks is getting accessories! There aren't that many available as yet! I love body glove covers for cell-phones as they protect the phones well. Still waiting for body glove to introduce a cover for this phone. The case that comes with the phone is a joke! It doesn't hold the phone that well. I have dropped my phone accidentally a couple of times while using the case. Its also not that user friendly. Finally bought a leather case which is actually for the SPH-I300! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 91086 2000/1/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything the alarm isn t that loud The Bottom LineI recommend this phone because it has anything you could ever want in a cell phone and more. A whole lot of features that I'm still learnin' about! Full Review The phone comes with a little battery that only has about 1 hour of talk time and it will only last you about day or so with mediocre use. It can come with an extended life battery that gives 4 hours talk and lasts for days, but that's all optional. The phone itself has a good resolution color screen, a sleek ergonomic style that's comfortable to use,it is also quite durable because I have dropped it a few times by accident with no problems And it's so easy to use, you do not even need to read the instruction manual that much in the beginning. You press buttons on the screen with only your finger too. The volume adjustment is easy as well, if you are right handed, and the reception is great. The address book holds alot of memory and also stores all incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, so you'll never anything. You can set up to 9 speed dial numbers and also the same amount of voice activated dialing features. It's so, cool it asks you, "Who would you like to call," you say the name or names and it dials you without a problem. It also has, outlook, calendar, address book, expense, calculator, security, memo, to do list, voice memo's, and games. With the sprint package you get sub hunt, seven seas, ZIO golf, mummy, Othello, bejeweled, atomica, and alchemy. Bejeweled is one of the best games ever. You can download games from the net easily also. The Internet function, that's called Blazer, is great for a handheld in my opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91085 2000/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 just what you d expect hope features are solid none The Bottom LineIf you are already a Palm OS user and hate to carry a phone and a handheld, this one rocks. It works great for me! Full Review I purchased this phone through Sprint PCS where I already had an account. I was a little nervous to buy it because some of the previous reviews on it. Items such as "hanging" and poor case. The case had me real concerned because, being a man, I don't carry my cell phone in a purse, it goes on my hip. Well, I'm here to reassure you. These issues must have been fixed. You'll notice that many of the reviews stating these problems were written almost a year ago. It's now September of 03'. I got my phone 3 weeks ago. I love the case it came with. It's solid, convenient, stable and it looks professional. I haven't had any problems with the phone "hanging" or locking up at all. The Phone: The sound is great. And the speakerphone feature rocks! I had this feature on a previous phone but you had to talk "in turn". It wasn't full duplex (in geek terms). This phone is and the sound quality using this feature is great. The PDA: I was already aquainted with the Palm OS and it is truly like someone married a rock solid Palm to a solid cell phone. I have no complaints here. If you are a user unfamiliar with the PALM Operating system and using "Grafiti" (Palm's shorthand for writing) it takes a little getting used to and you may want to consider something else if you aren't a quick learner. If you already know it, then you'll be pleased because it works exactly like any handheld with the same OS. I even like the games they include with this package! And I used to think that they were a dumb idea on a cell phone. But it's nice when you are waiting at the doctor's office and all they have is 2 year old magazines. ;-) Conclusion: I highly recommend this product! (read my caveat below) Even though I am a techno-geek and willing to work through many problems that other's aren't, I didn't have any. That said, I'm uncertain to promote this phone/pda to anyone who isn't tech savvy. Since I do tech support, I understand that what is easy for me may not be for someone else. If you are NOT tech savvy and you know who you are, you may just want to look elsewhere. No matter what sort of handheld device you are looking at, it requires that you be on the upper side of the "tech curve" due to the fickle nature of synchronizing between your computer and your handheld. If you are willing to learn and patient, then go for it. Tips: For Mac OSX users: It was easy moving from my old Visor to the i330, but you have to purchase a 3rd party piece of software called "the Missing Sync" for $29 to get it to work. Do a "google" and you'll find it. For Windows users: Make sure you name your new device the same as your old one. And don't install the new software until you do a last successful sync with your old PDA. THEN just reinstall over the old software. If you have a handspring, you should move the software/data from C:\program files\handspring to c:\program files\palm after your last sync with your old device. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91084 2003/10/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 large screen looks great combination phone screen gets dirty easily cpu speed slow large sized phone The Bottom LineRecommend. Best SprintPCS PalmOS Phone. Full Review My wife has this phone, and the Outlook addressbook/mail sync with the phone is excellent. We've always wanted a PalmOS cell phone to facilitate simplifying all of our things (checkbook, phone, addresses, etc.) The screen is bright enough for outdoor use (key feature) Some of the down sides, are that it doesn't compare in processor speed to some of the Palm devices out there (Tugstens), that operate over 100 MHz. This device runs with the Dragonball 66Mhz (rather slow for some of my applications that require large files (i.e. OliveTree). At first this is a dream compared to the SPH-i300, but after some use, it feels too bulky (esp for my wife), so the SPH-i500 looks more attractive. But for me, it feels like a business phone, so I personally prefer the bar type. A note on the wireless performance: Because it is a fixed antenna, it does not compare with some other older phones with extended antennas. As well, because of the noise generated from color screens, this also degrades the RF performance. In my area in Maryland, I rarely get full signal (especially because there are so many trees around). However for someone in NYC or something, you could get signal no problem. FYI, in general phone performance: internal antenna < fixed stubby antenna < extendable antenna. I have Sprint service, so basically that's what I would have to face anyway because of the higher frequency PCS signals. If I had a choice of carrier, it would be Verizon (they use a lower frequency, which enables the signals to bounce off trees and other landscape easier), but for Sprint, the phone performance is what I expected. Battery life is good for such a large LCD screen as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91083 2000/1/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 internet email very stylish excellent integration of phone very long wait for technical support sprint The Bottom LineThis is the one phone/PDA combination you've been waiting for! Full Review I admit it--I'm a technology junkie. I walked into Best Buy to browse and walked a little too close to the cellular phone section. The Samsung SPH I330 had just arrived and the employee asked if I'd like to see it since it wasn't on display yet. The moment I saw this phone/PDA I knew it was exactly what I was looking for. This thing is just about the perfect size. It is slim and small but big enough to be a PDA. It's light weight yet heavy enough to feel expensive. I bought the phone 2 days later. The phone itself is very easy to use. The numbers are displayed on the PDA screen and are large enough to easily dial tapping with your finger. Or you can set up voice dialing and just hold a button and say the name you wish to call. The speaker phone works great. Just lay the phone on your desk or lap and talk normally. Clarity is exceptional. I've had AT&T for years, which I've never complained about, but now with this phone and Sprint PCS--the sound is much clearer. There are some cool sounding ring tones built in that sound like the music that comes with online greeting cards--not quite CD or mp3 but much better than those Nokia tunes. The PDA works great-- It uses Palm OS 3.5 I'm not sure if the Palm OS is upgradeable to 4.1. Basically all PDAs Using Palm OS work alike so I'll just mention the extras with this phone. Since the palm is integrated with the phone, you can always get on the internet or check email. The web browser (Blazer 2.1) works great. It's different at first if your just used to using the web on a computer. If the web site uses frames the page seems to scroll down longways, one frame at a time (at least on several sites I visited). There is no java support. Graphics are good. I let my wife drive the van while I surf the web. Internet coverage is great wherever you can get Sprint PCS service. It seems to get decent coverage indoors. I believe the speed goes up to 153Kps although that seems slow to me after cable modem. I think the greatest option on this phone is the Sprint Business connection. For a fee of $5 per month you can set your home or office computer up as a "server" and have all your emails, contacts, calender appointments automatically sent to your PDA as often as you specify (Assuming the server computer is always attached to the internet with cable modem/ dsl etc). You can even specify a folder or files on your hardrive that you can have access to from your palm. You can also use any internet computer to access your "server" computer email and files. The process seems very secure. The palm will spend about 2 minutes generating a couple encryption keys to ensure a secure connection the first time you set the service up. I bought the Sprint plan with unlimited internet connection time ($100/month with 2500 voice minutes that can be shared with another phone, unlimited pcs to pcs calls and more). You can buy lesser plans with certain amounts of data stream allowed. Either way, the time on the internet does not use your voice minutes. Get the phone--you'll love it. Phone comes with two batteries, cool leather carrying case with belt clip, hotsink/charger cradle (that plugs into a USB port but uses a serial connection--I think that's why the support line is so backed up), and some CDs, wrist strap etc. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 91082 2000/5/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ir beaming fast internet browser great speakerphone good pda nice dialing thru address book no email facial oil no custom ringers no sms or chat freezing no alarm The Bottom LineIf your a computer nerd and can play with some 3rd party apps and customize the phone then its for you.I would say its an iffy for an inexperienced user! Full Review So the beginning was a little rough for me. I got the i330 and really enjoyed the options. It really is an amazing little piece. I had to download lots of 3rd party apps to personalize my phone and get it right. I needed an alarm clock that was loud so I got Airclock which works nice. In the middle of all that I crashed it 3 times losing tons of info. Thankfully my other palm had an ir and I beamed it back. I downloaded the eudora suite 2.1 and it works ok as I can get my email from my pop3 server. Sometimes like once a week I have to do a soft reset and when i do my internet and email stay connected. For chat I downloaded AOL AIM for palm and it work fine. Then I had to take it to Sprint to get the software updated for the echo, which corrected 90% of the echo problem. But this phone has lots more pros and I think its better than the plasticky treos as I have had both. Now that its all personalized and dialed in, it works great for me. I love the address book and usually I use the speakerphone 50% of the time cause its just that good. Samsung was very classy and includes two batteries with the phone, one is extended and I get near 4 hours talk time with it. The internet browser is fast and I can beam any info to my palm friends with no problem and even hotsync ir also. The buttons on the bottom are customizable and the Sprint voice recognition works great.I also use it as a internet connection for my laptop and get speeds at 60k-80k, a little better than dial up. The forums online really helped me dial in this phone. I also have some great web surfing for sports, news, weather u name it. This is the best phone I ever had! I really enjoy it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.00 91081 2000/7/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small color screenwell my external brain hot sync an pain in the butt The Bottom LineThis thing is the greatest handheld/phone ever! Full Review I convinced my wife that I needed to get a new gadget. This is what I purchased. This phone is freaking amazing. I will start with the battery: The phone comes with a small battery that has about 1 hour of talk time and will last you a day or so with just palm use. It does come with at the Sprint Store an extended life battery that gives 4 hours talk and lasts for days with playing games or organizing you life. The phone itself has a good resolution color screen and its sleek ergonomic style is comfortable to use. It somehow seems to be quite durable (I have dropped it on carpet from almost 6 ft with no problem.) The phone is ridiculously easy to use, you do not even need your stylus to press the buttons, and a finger will do. The volume adjustment is right at your fingertips, if you are right handed, and the clarity of reception is great. The address book is synced with the phone so you can index the person to call hit the little call icon and you are there. It also stores all incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, so you will never miss a beat. You can set up to 9 speed dial numbers and also the same amount of voice activated dialing features. It is cool it will ask you with the touch of one button on the side "Who would you like to call," you speak the name or names and it dials you without a charge (like with some other plans). It is a palm OS platform that is the only kind of handheld software I have used. It is all there, outlook, calendar, address book, expense, calculator, security, memo, to do lsit, voice memo's, and of course games. With the sprint package you get the following games, sub hunt, seven seas, ZIO golf, mummy, Othello, bejeweled, atomica, and alchemy. Bejeweled is one of the best games ever. You can download games from the net with ease and without many problems. The Internet function, which is called Blazer, is great for a handheld in my opinion. It does not use frames, which is somewhat limiting, but with a strong signal it moves faster than my old Pentium chip computer. Overall I think this thing is great! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 91080 2003/6/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features slick unit ease of use leather case very poorly made sprint pcs support people overwhelmed The Bottom LineGreat for early adopters, but not for your Mom yet. Support, especially, not up to the challenge. Case fell apart after 3 months, replacement very difficult, no aftermarket case available. Full Review The powers-that-be at my office hooked me up with a new cell phone for the new year! I unwrapped a shiny new i330 last Monday and entered the world of PDA phones. (I should mention that I didn't personally pay for the phone - the $500 suggested retail is from Sprint's web site.) **These are my impressions after one week of use. I will try to update this every couple of weeks until I have the phone completely figured out.** This phone is gorgeous - sexy curves and a large, bright color screen catch plenty of attention when I whip it out to make a call, look up a contact or note. And people really get interested when I start surfing the Web with it. The display, though small, handles most Web pages I've tried so far (scroll bars, if necessary, take you across and down the page). The browser doesn't handle frames or Java, and you have to scroll a l-o-n-g way to get through pages with a lot of text. Phone performance is nice and clear, just as advertised by Sprint. I now have my home PC, my work PC, and the phone synchronized with 336 names and numbers, and of course I can dial 'em from the Address Book. The voice-dial holds 30 entries and the two I have so far ("Wife, Work" and "Wife, Home") work like a dream. So what's not to like? Sprint's PCS support wore me down last week. I couldn't get their network to recognize my username and login for Web access. I made four support calls of 30-45 hold minutes and 5 technician minutes, which didn't solve the problem. Friday night I stayed on hold for 1 1/4 hours, then on the phone for 1 1/2 hours with one poor soul until we got the thing fixed. He finally had to hunt down a copy of the phone around his office, and we got it working 15 minutes after that. At this point I'll give Sprint the benefit of the doubt and chalk the slow responses up to way too many people buying PCS phones with cameras, etc. and needing help. It's the price I pay for being on the bleeding edge of PDA phones. It comes with a slim battery, a fat longer-life battery, a nice leather case and a desktop HotSync cradle/charger. I'd like to buy another cradle for home but nobody has the accessories for sale yet. Still, the long-life battery lasted from Friday to Monday, probably in use 3-4 hours, and only went down by 1/3 according to the on-screen meter. Final Thoughts: I use the "Mom" test sometimes on new technology. Could my Mom use this without keeping the support people (or me) on the phone helping her all day? So far, I'd have to say no. She'd return it to the store if she couldn't get phone help within 10 minutes. Geek Hat Trick: Went online Saturday morning with the phone and (1)bought a ticket to (2)Lord of the Rings, then sat in the theater (3)playing games on the phone waiting for the show to start. Update 1/25/03: Still loving the phone, having the Palm attached to my hip lets me keep my calendar close at hand. I can take notes and - this is handy - record voice memos to myself while driving! Last week I heard a radio commercial for something I wanted to find out more about, so I grabbed the phone and recorded the 800 number and Web address. I also have the Web browser set up with my local weather as the homepage (lots of sites now have content designed for handhelds) so I can pull up the radar no matter where I am. Yowza! Update 3/26/03: This gadget officially saved my backside a couple of weeks ago - I was at a location in the field and had forgot to bring a critical file to update their PC. I connected to my office PC via PalmVNC and emailed the file to myself by remote control. Without my i330, the day trip would have been wasted. Also, I was at a wedding reception during the Big 12 basketball finals, but I browsed to the PDA version of espn.com and kept up with the play-by-play action and score while I stood in the buffet line. Ya gotta like that!! ***Update 6/17/03*** Big Problem! The leather case has become the source of major headaches for me in the past couple of months. The closure is poorly designed - it has a magnetic catch, and the metal disc on the strap is not attached all the way through the strap. It's only attached to the soft felt-like fabric inside the strap. So after a few months of use, it detaches from the strap, which means you can't close the case any more. Plus, the plastic holster on the back flap of the case is only attached by a 1/2 inch plastic flap and some glue. When that glue gives way, the holster falls out of the flap and the phone just flops around. Further annoyance: the phone has been out for six months, and there is no way to buy a replacement case. Not from Sprint, not from Samsung. (There is a case for sale at Sprint stores, but its design is much worse - two straps tightly secure the phone and must be unsnapped to put the phone in its cradle, plus the solid cover must be unsnapped to answer the phone.) I had to spend an hour with Samsung tech support, and talk to a level 2 support technician, in order to get authorization to return the phone. Then I had to wait a few more days for yet another Samsung employee to issue me an RMA number. Then I had to mail the thing in, and wait another week for the replacement to show up. The replacement is here, and now that I know what to look for I can already see the metal disc starting to detach from the closure strap. The phone is still great, it's just a shame that something as simple as a leather case has turned the overall experience from a delight into a headache. I'd like to change my "Durability" rating to a 1, but that's not fair to the phone. I'll update again when/if Samsung or Sprint make a sturdy, user-friendly case available. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 91079 2000/4/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone cell phone palm pda combo all work as expected lots of 3rd party enhancements no sending sms messages by default some bugs palm os alarm not loud The Bottom LineIf you need/want a PDA phone, and you can talk the Sprint people into the $150 off deal, you'll like this a lot. Full Review After reading about these smartphones, and seeing my friends use different ones, I suddenly realized that there's really no need anymore for me to tote around both a Visor Edge and a cell phone. So, after months of following the two top Sprint smartphones (the Treo and the i330), I decided to go with the i330 mainly because the Treo is single-band only. I made the right choice. To me, bells and whisltes are gravy (I love them, but they do not influence me getting an item too much). What matters most is that something does what you'd expect. In this case, I wanted the phone to work well, and the PDA to do all the things a PDA should. On that front, I have very few complaints about this phone. The phone's clarity is as good as any Sprint phone I've had. If anything, I think the signal strength levels are more realistic than the other phones were. The battery life is great. It comes with both a slim and extended-life battery, and the charger/cradle can charge both at once. I plan to make it a habit of using each battery for a week at a time, so neither one goes unused for long. I think/hope that will make them last longer. The leather case for this is nice and sturdy, but it makes the phone very bulky. Then again, I didn't buy this to be a mini-phone. The first thing I did when I got the phone was to put on a Write Right screen protector. I highly recommend that since there is no other protection cover for the screen. As for the Palm OS, it does all I ask of it (datebook, to-do, address book, etc.) and the amount of 3rd party apps out there to enhance this is staggering. I really like how the address book integrates with the phone. Go to address book, look up a number, and dial it right from there. With the unlimited Vision service on my plan, I'll make more use of the internet applications features. SMS has it's issues (see below), but I found AIM for the Palm, and that's worked fine. The Blazer 2.0 browser has only crashed on me once. With a new phone, I expect there to be some bugs along the way, and there are. The good news is that for just about all of them there's either a 3rd party fix, or it's a known issue and Sprint claims they are less than a month away from a software upgrade. First let me tell you about the two issues that are fixable via 3rd party apps. They are that he Palm alarms (not the phone ringtones) were very low even at the highest level, and the SMS capabilities were one-way (receive only) by default. On the Palm alarm issue, admittedly my hearing is just a tad below average, but while I heard it fine in my office, outside I never heard it. But, after some Google surfing, I found a site that is dedicated to FREE upgrade applications just for the i330. The website is http://i330.nopdesign.com/ and the application that helped me here is called i330 Alarm Extension. What it does is attaches your phones text-message ringtone to any palm OS alarm. Solved all my problems right there. There's also a skin selector/changer there too for the graffiti area and the phone face, if you're interested. (Yeah I know that this is starting to sound like an ad for this site. Well it's not meant to be, but this guy's got some great apps that work!) The other issue - not able to send SMS messages - is solved for a $20 fee. That $20, spent at http://www.pdaapps.com/ will get you the product called I330SMS. This application sets itself up so that you can send SMS messages. The catch is that you have to use their server as the gateway, and if the Sprint Messaging site is down (it goes down every so often), there's nothing you can do about it. But, in many tests sending to both text-capable phones and email addresses, it gets the job done. It was worth it to me, and I have had reasons to use it as of late. Now for the bugs that are not fixed yet - the main ones for me was that some Palm OS settings (like alarm vibrate, alarm level) don't always take when you try to change them. Also, on the SMS front, I can receive notifications of one-way messages fine. But for Short Mail (two-way) I do not get notification. After a call and a visit to the Sprint Store, they told me that these were two of many known bugs, but that they are going to have a software release soon to take care of it. The downfall is that I have to call them to find out if it's available, they have no plans to notify us. I think that's dumb, but I went to Sprint over a year ago understanding that their support was sometimes questionable. One thing I decided to do was to do all my syncing via the IR port. After some initial playing with the cradle, I found it's pseudo-USB connection (it has to convert to a serial connection on the fly) was sometimes flaky, and also used a different port (COM4) than my Visor's USB cradle sis (COM1). For about $30 I bought a simple USB-IR Port adapter. It's a clean installation, and if you install that first, then install (or reinstall) Palm Desktop 4.01, it offers IR Port as it's own selection for the HotSync options. So my wife (who got my old PDA) can keep the USB cradle settings as is. Also, I can take this adapter to work with me, and sync up my Outlook calendar there and not have to spend another $70 on a second cradle. At this point I'd have to rate the i330 as the best Sprint SmartPhone out there. I know they are due out sometime soon with the i500 (I think that's for Sprint), and Kyocera is due out soon with a clamshell smartphone that's supposed to rock, but I'd feel very comfortable recommending the i330 to people. And when those new ones come out, the price on the i330 should drop, making it an even better deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 91078 2000/3/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 pda color screen phone integration quiet palm alarm bulky no jog dial can t sync with macintosh battery placement unprotected screen The Bottom LineSpend a little more money and get the more portable Samsung SPH-i500. The i330's bulk, battery placement, and touch-screen only interface are poor design decisions. Full Review I received this Samsung SPH-i330 as a free, refurbished replacement for my trusty Kyocera QCP-6035, which started having speaker problems after two years of hard use. The replacement was under Sprint PCS's replacement program, which costs $4.95 per month and is well worth it when using expensive phones such as these. I have been using this Samsung for 13 months now. The color screen is a nice feature, although it does become very hard to read in direct sunlight. Also, having an integrated Palm and phone is a major advantage over carrying around two separate devices. That's where my likes of this phone end. If I did not have the Kyocera before this, my list of dislikes would probably be a lot less. However, there is a clear difference in the design execution of the two phones, and the Kyocera was definitely better. For starters, the battery placement is terrible. It is mounted at the bottom of the rear of the phone and sticks out 1/4 of an inch from the rest of the phone. This creates a huge problem when you set the phone down on a desk or table because the phone tilts away from you, making the screen hard to read; you must lean over it. But what becomes really annoying is when using the stylus while the phone is in this position. When you write in the Graffiti writing area at the bottom of the screen, the phone rocks toward you when you touch the screen, and then rocks back away from you when you release pressure. There is a way around this, which is to use both hands (one to hold the phone and one to use the stylus). The unprotected screen is a major hassle if you like to put your phone in pockets like I do. I have never found phones of this size to be comfortable clipped onto a belt and the leather cases always seem to get in the way, especially with the side buttons. You can turn the screen off, but a single press of any button brings it back on, and the slightest touch on the activated screen presses the on-screen buttons. The screen is extremely vulnerable to damage. Plus, the screen is always getting greasy from facial oils and requires daily cleaning. The Kyocera had a thin panel that covered most the screen that could flip open to access the full screen. Not only did this provide protection, but it also had regular phone buttons on it. The Samsung's phone buttons are all part of the touch screen. If you have big fingers like me, this is a huge problem because my thumb covers four buttons at once! You have to be really careful when manually dialing and use the very tips of your fingers. Also, you can't dial by touch (not looking), so you must stare at the screen, which, as I stated earlier, is hard to read in direct sunlight. My old Kyocera had a nice jog dial on the left side that allowed you to access the address book directly, scroll through names, select and dial phone numbers. You could do this with the same hand you were holding the phone in and after it dialed, it returned to the phone screen. With the Samsung, you must get out the stylus, go into Palm mode, enter the address book, find the name, bring up entry details, press the little dial icon, and then put the stylus away. And the Kyocera also allowed you to scroll through call history and missed calls through the jog dial; the Samsung requires the stylus and two hands to do the same. Speaking of the stylus... it gets pretty loose after some use and if I turn the phone upside-down, the stylus falls out! The phone is pretty bulky. I was surprised how much bigger it is compared to the older Kyocera. The Kyocera also had a retractable antenna. The Samsung has a stub antenna that always sticks out, and it's nearly an inch long! The Palm OS installed on the phone is an older version and has quite a few limitations compared to a dedicated Palm. For me, the biggest limitation is the inability to sync with a Macintosh (the Kyocera could not either). I find it funny that a dedicated Palm has no problem doing this, but an integrated Palm/phone cannot. The Palm alarm is pretty quiet and it would certainly be nice if it was louder. You also cannot download any ringtones, so you are stuck with the stock ringers, which are not that great. I also have to use masking tape to keep the wall charger plugged into the phone, which makes the phone inoperable while charging. I won't hold this against the phone though... it is a refurbished unit. Overall, the phone does its job. But, I wouldn't buy one and I am currently looking for another phone. I really like the Samsung SPH-i500 flip PDA phone. It would solve the majority of my dislikes with the i330. Unfortunately, I am also looking for another wireless carrier, but Sprint seems to be the only one offering the i500. I have no problem with Sprint (I've been with them for nearly four years), but the new place I just moved to has practically no reception with Sprint phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 7834 Samsung SGH 600 GSM Cellular Phone 91091 2000/10/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrations small soft keys alarm none visible yet Full Review From all the cell phones that I ever had this is the one that satisfied me most. It has two soft keys that help you very much navigate through the menu very comfortable. Has vibrations thing very useful when you are somewhere where you don't want the ring of the phone to be heard. Together with the SIM you can store 200 numbers in the phonebook. The price of the phone is relatively moderate about 200$, not cheap but not expensive also. The phone has alarm so it's very useful when you are traveling and you don't have you alarm clock with you. Has very many other nice features like showing the time in different towns on the globe. The battery is LiIon and lasts for a couple of days or a little bit more on standby. And of course it is a very small phone. Definitely a good product and worthy product that makes the money you pay on it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91090 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 Full Review Hi guys, I had been using a Siemens S4 earlier & then shifted over to Erricson GF 768 & finnally started using SGH 600. It is quite light in comparision to other handsets in this price range & is quite functional and easy to use. It is a user friendly handset, it offers options like Vibrating alert etc, which i do not find in other of this range. It makes it easier to write messages with easy access buttons. I feel that this is a good bargain. The display of this phone is also quite good. I am also using a Sony CMD C1 which is also light as the samsung but is a little difficult to use due to the JOG Dial. I just love this handset & am certain that whenever I buy my next handset, it will be a samsung. Abhishek Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 285 91089 2000/3/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size shortcut button strong vibration voice recording short battery life can save only three messages poor clarity voice The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a budget mobile and you will not use the WAP but looking for ESSENTIAL FEATURES then put SGH-600 in your consideration. Full Review I bought this mobile in 1998-1999 for about $320 and I am still using it. Many mobiles in the market nowadays...but what is worth to buy??? When SGH-600 entered the market, you can rarely find a mobile having many features with a good price. Vibration voice dialing, voice recorder and small size are all features that were really difficult to find in one mobile at a good price. A TRUE STORY: worth reading One day i got out of my car and the mobile jump out of my car( it's my mistake) and swam in DIRT WATER. The mobile was on its face and half of it was covered by that DIRT WATER. Immediately, i removed the battery and started to absorb the water using my clothes. After that, i put it inside my car under the sun and leave it there for several minutes. When i started to turn it on, the screen showed LONDON and a strange time. The mobile is getting better day by day. AFTER MANY DAYS: - I do not have to turn it on by removing and replacing the battery again . - I do not have to change the time whenever i turn it on . NOW: - My sweet mobile is working just fine. However, even after all that i hate many things in the SGH-600. If there is a noise you will have to put the mobile inside one of your ears in order to hear the voice. The transmission and receiving quality is not good. The most thing i like in this mobile is the button - you can call it the magic button - at the side of the mobile that enables you to change from vibration to sound and the opposite by pressing it ONE TIME. Moreover, you do not have to open the cover to answer calls...you only have to press THE MAGIC BUTTON. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 320-373 7835 Samsung SGH-N100 Voice-Activated WAP Phone 91094 2000/6/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 games function keypad battery life too short The Bottom Lineif you like the keypad... Full Review The Samsung SCH-N100 is a great and "fully packed" phone. It's features include dual band modes, It's battery standby time is acceptable, it has a large LCD screen with caller ID, and has many crazy 47 preset ring tones + 3 customized! I find this phone easy to use, it has well-organized buttons and it's on screen display is very straight forward making it very easy to use all of its functions. The LCD screen is also back lit (green) which allows it to be seen very clearly in the dark. The phone also features many distinct rings and a volume control that has many settings; this makes it very easy to distinguish the ring of your phone from that of others. I think that you're the only one have those ring tones… The phone is also small and light, but the buttons on it are large enough to allow easy use. The phone fits in the pockets of pants very easily and is so light that it does not interfere with walking. Come with 11 mini games that I think you don need an extra gaming device like Game boy and etc… It was wap enabled, and supports voice dial, voice command (just "wap" when you want to!) Overall I think that this is an excellent phone and that it should definitely be considered when purchasing a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 268.50 91093 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the screens amazing i love it its tiny none The Bottom LineThis is excellent phone I would recommend to just about anybody! Full Review I was a lowed a free upgrade from my original Nokia 5110, and this was easily the best in my price range. As it was an upgrade I only paid about $40 - $50. I love this phone because it is so tiny! It fits easily into the palm of my hand. I love the active flip for which there are three options: Off - only answers and ends calls, Voice dial - when you open the flip it prompts the voice dial feature (which I use a lot) and finally Voice Command - this prompts the voice command feature. It has 47 ringtones - all of which are unique and brilliant! plus theres space to compose three of your own. The composer is excellent, it uses the real stave! The screen is the best Ive ever used, it is very high quality and the green backlight is brilliant. It is also an extremely smart looking phone. The Wap connection is the fastest Ive ever used or seen. You literally "Just say Wap!" The lithium 3.7v battery weighs next to nothing. I comes with a very smart looking neck strap for the phone. It also comes with the best handsfree Ive ever seen for a mobile. The sound quality is again the best Ive ever used! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 55 approx. 91092 2000/6/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 11 games simpleuseful menu convenient decent sensitivity good keyboard great quality of sound none infrared port 3 text lines on display bad battery life The Bottom LineThe telephone in common is a worthy replacement of SGH2400. The all functions the telephone executes perfectly. Full Review The model Samsung SGH-N100 has come on change to telephone Samsung SGH2400 and is one from the first business - class telephones of company. This is model of 2001 year. The complete set of delivery (except the telephone) consists of the accumulator, the fast charge device and 72-page instruction. The products of firm Samsung always were distinguished with reasonableness and care of the user. Appearance The telephone has small sizes (105 õ 42 õ 17.5 mm) and weight (83 g). This model issues in five color variants: Dark Gray, Blue, Wine Red, Green, Silver and Gold. The telephone is convenient lies both in a large man's hand, and in the refined female handle. From a left side in the telephone are arranged the keys-swing for adjustment of loudness and jack for sets hands-free, covered by a rubber stub. Above speaker places flashing indicator, which is possible to disconnect (if you desire). For example, it is impossible to make in telephones Ericsson. It is necessary only to be glad for such care of the user. Keyboard The telephone has 19 buttons: a standard digital board from 12 keys, two functional soft-keys, button "accept" and "cancel" call, two-position button of navigation and button of adjustment of a sound on the left side, button of loading WAP-browser, functionally combined with a button "cancel". The buttons "*" and "#" also execute function "left" and "right" accordingly. The keyboard is rather interesting: if to look concerning a plane of buttons, it is possible to notice that they are located layers. The advantage of the given construction that a lower layer of buttons is not touched when you pressing a button from a level above it. The buttons are enough tight; the stray pressing practically is eliminated. Display The telephone has the perfect polymeric graphics display with illumination, pleasing an eye. Resolution is 128 õ 64 points. The screen contains 1 line of icons, line of signatures to soft-keys and 3 lines of the text. The font size can be changed dynamically. The sizes of the display are insignificant (on a comparison with same Nokia), but at the expense of high clearness of an image all information on screen are mapped extreme clearly and precisely for any light conditions. When you turn on telephone, you see a picture with animation, then the salutatory inscription (it is possible to change it). On a screen the level of a charge of the battery (3 divisions), level of a signal (6 divisions) is mapped, and also icon vibrocall, if it is included. Then there is a title of an operator, date and time. Menu The menu in the telephone convenient and simple, it has unpersuasive animation. Each choice menu has number and is accessible by pressing of an appropriate button. Navigation in the menu a lot of time does not take away. The exit from the menu of any level is carried out a button "cancel". With the help of left soft key we shall hit in the menu. The moving on menu and scrolling of the text of the messages is carried out with the help of navigation keys. For exit from the menu the button "No" is used, for exit to the higher level the right soft key is used. In the first item of menu it is possible to find three separate lists for passed, made and accepted bells with the indication of date and time of a bell, telephone number and duration of the last talk (for made and accepted calls). Each list contains up to 10 entries. The following item of the main menu "Messages" ensures access to voice mail, SMS-messages, and also to the broadcasting messages. It is possible to create up to 5 templates for the SMS-messages. There is a system of predicative text entering Ò9 for writing the SMS-messages. The third item is "Voice functions". Here you can set up to 20 voice commands to the certain items of menu. The list, the truth, is impossible to change. It is possible to set and to hear labels for a voice gang (up to 20). The possibility of record of three speech reminders (dictaphone, common duration no more than 175 seconds) is stipulated also. In the following item "Tones" the signal of a bell (tone or tune) from 50 represented signals. Here there is the set-up of signal for the SMS-message: 10 tunes, single sound or silent light signal. Here it is possible to switch on\off a sound for pressing keys, to adjust loudness of a bell and to create the tune (up to three) with built-in composer. The synthesizer of a sound, built-in in the telephone is very qualitative. A sound of a bell is rather loud. The separate item is devoted also to settings of the telephone. Here it is possible to adjust contrast of a screen, to place one from 5 pictures (2 with animation), which will be mapped in a waiting mode on a screen of the telephone. Defect is that the pictures cannot be looked through before setting, it should be placed. Here the set-up of network services, parameters of safety (code of the telephone, check of a PIN-code etc.) are carried out. It is possible to edit the salutatory message, to select language of the interface, language of the voice helps and mode of input of the SMS-messages. The telephone book The Telephone book allows saving 99 numbers (apart from SIM-card). There is a search on the name of the user, possibility of appropriation of a voice label to any number (all up to 20 labels). There is a possibility of set-up of a personal bell for the certain user. It was possible to detect essential defect: if you numbers in the telephone book are noted in a "short" format (for example, 6õõ-õõ-õõ, instead of + 123456õõ-õõ-õõ), the telephone simply not finds out them, i.e. the name calling from the telephone book does not show. Sensitivity and quality of sound Sensitivity of the telephone rather quite good for its sizes, it is at a level of similar of other manufacturers (Ericsson T20, Siemens S35, Nokia 6210). The indicator of reception of the telephone is designed for 5 divisions and differs by "honesty". Voice codec is worked not bad, the sound is "warm" and "soft". Here Samsung can argue with Nokia, which telephones always distinguished the high quality of a sound. Tunes also one from best among heard. Others The telephone has also convenient alarm clock. It can be adjusted at the certain hour, at the certain day and hour and even on weekly operational mode. In the latter case you select the necessary days of week from the list and set time of a bell. For an alarm clock it is possible to select one from 5 represented tunes. Afflicts absence of possibility of using of an alarm clock for switched off telephone. WAP-browser is standard from Phone.com. The program modem allows receiving and to transmit data's with a velocity up to 9600 bits per second. In this telephone marks of the battery for some reason is failed. Therefore it true capacity has remained for me a riddle. Most likely, it was Li-Ion 500 mAh the battery, as in a mode of active operation the telephone is longer than two days at me did not live. There is a mass of games on any taste in the telephone. There is "casino", "race", etc. - total 11 games. The management is rather conveniently realized. It is possible to play even by one hand. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 7836 Samsung SCH-N200 91097 2003/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 rugged beautiful design choc ful of features can t make calls can t keep a call on the phone The Bottom LineSamsung is horrible... 'nuff said ;) Full Review Weight in ounces 4.7 oz. Dimensions 4.4x2.0x1.0 inches Digital Digital/analog Standby time 146 hours Wireless Web Yes Talk time 3 hours 50 minutes Model first available June 2001 FCC ID A3LSPHN200 SAR Rating (W/kg) digital 1.34 Technology CDMA 1900 AMPS 800 Mode Dual-mode Style Flip SAR Rating (W/kg) analog 1.19 The phone features alarms, different ringers (for different types of calls - blocked ID, Unavailble, normal calls, even allows you to program distinctive rings for people in your phone book - great for letting you know when you significant other is calling you!) a calender, Things to do list, internet access... you name it.. it's got it... since i've already had the 8500 (the supposed predicesor to this phone) the menu navigation for me was pretty easy... this phone contians a few more features then the 8500 (also from samsung - i reviewed that phone as well) but the performance isn't as good... they did, however, improve the charger that comes w/the phone. as far as a travel charger, don't get the ones they sell at the sprint store... they charge way too much... i went to Staples, and got a cheap one that charges the phone up nice a quick for the car! :) now this is my second sprint phone... i also have a Samsung 8500 (as i stated earlier), and let's just say both phones are horrible... The 8500 is better then the N200, but has a few less features... i get ALOT of dropped calls (on both phones)... signal (at 4 bars) every 20mins (or less) fades to no bars... and then jumps up to about 4 bars... very irritating... i did searches on the web, and it seems that samsung is known for their poor signal strength... and their inability to hold a signal in a less then perfect area... which leads me to why i'm going to buy the Sanyo SCP-4900... i've dropped both phones a few times (hard) and the phone keeps on going, it's well constructed... You may also find my helpful as well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 91096 2000/4/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life small easy to use small will someone make a belt clip that works please The Bottom LineNot perfect, but awful damn close. You *NEED* to consider this phone if looking for a replacement. Full Review This is my fourth cellular phone in two years. I began my Sprint plan with a thin Qualcomm phone, and after I broke that, I went to a Samsung SCH-3500. This phone broke after 6 months (due to constant flipping of the face, the speaker wire broke, and could no longer hear people when they called -- faulty design). I then went onto a Motorola Star-Tac, easily the best phone I've ever used. After dropping it about 45,000 times, it finally succumbed to my punishment. Off I went to the Sprint Store for another Star-Tac, when I was stopped by this little blue phone... ...I was skeptic at first, seeing as how my other Samsung phone lasted only a few short months, and this one shared the same basic design as the old 3500 did. However, it looked and felt a lot more solid, and I was assured by the salesperson that this phone did not suffer from the problem the 3500 did. What made me a little bit more assured of this is that I didn't even ask, it was a point that he made initially while introducing the phone's features. I then confirmed this detail online after I had come home with the phone. This phone set me back $199, as I did not qualify for any rebates or anything since I already had a plan. You can get it as cheap as $50 if you're a new customer, or it now retails for around $149-179. This phone is blue, but also comes in a silver color as well. Its biggest feature is the fact that you're able to see who is calling before you open the phone. This is because the phone flips up around the LCD screen, so it is always visible. The downside of this is that the screen can get scratched more easily, as it has nothing to protect it. Another great feature is Samsung's inclusion of a mini-thumb mouse. This is great for easily navigating between menus, and something that makes one hand navigation a snap. The screen is a nice and bright backlit green, and the keys light up nice and bright green in the dark as well. The standby time on this phone is about 5 days, and the talk time is roughly 3 hours with the standard battery. With the extended battery, these times go up to 6 days and 5.5 hours, respectively. This phone also includes other great features such as a PIM (calendar, scheduling, etc.), web browser, voice-activated dialing, 238 number phone book (with 6 entries per name), caller-ID, tons of ringer tones, and extensive call-logs. This phone is smaller and lighter than its predecessor, and that is both good and bad. It's good, obviously, because smaller and lighter is always better than big, clunky, and heavy (see: Nextel). However, dialing using the keypad with one hand can get a little too close for comfort, depending on the size of your hands. This phone has outstanding reception, being beat only very marginally by the Star-Tac (which would get me reception in the most underground bars, caves, raves, or subways). The ringers are very loud, and the vibrate feature is very nice as well, though sometimes you can barely feel it. The thumb-mouse is something that sets this phone apart -- navigation is no longer done with buttons on the side of the phone, or using the keypad, which is something that's very refreshing, and extremely easy to use. One major, major gripe with this phone is that they only make one holster for it, and the holster breaks more often than eggs at breakfast time. I've gone through 7 holsters in the 4 months I've had this phone, which is totally unacceptable. The concept for the holster is awesome, as I enjoy keeping the phone rotated 90 degrees on my belt, so that it does not poke into me when I sit down. However, the clip is not very solidly attatched to the holster, and even the slightest bend to the holster can force it to snap right in half. It will happen to you at least once, so keep a little extra money budgeted for extra holsters. A leather case is also offered, but I don't get down with them, so I can't comment on their effectiveness. This phone is a great phone, and about a million times more refined than its predecessor, the SCH-3500. It's small, light, easy to use, gets awesome reception (I've never had a problem with Sprint, and I live about 3 miles from Philadelphia), and looks stylish as well. As I stated, you can now find this phone much cheaper than what I paid for it ($199), and that makes it an even better deal. While not the best phone, it's close, and should definitely be at the top of your list if you need a replacement. You really can't go wrong with this Samsung, so please do yourself a favor and at least consider it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91095 2000/12/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 long use stand by time easy to accidentally hang up on a caller The Bottom LineFor the $179.99 price tag it has a lot of features and good signal. Full Review I recently changed services for my mobile from Verizon (thieves and scoundrels one and all in the Omaha metro area) to Sprint (confused, and uneducated liars except for the face to face people) and needed a new phone. I started out with one that was on sale for $9.99 and seemed to satisfy my few needs. THe phone was totally useless for a 1/2 mile area around my house so I returned it for checking out and updating. After 3 exchanges for the same phone they decided to upgrade me to the Samsung SCH-N200 at no extra charge. I've been using it for about a month now and still have the occasional loss of signal but not NEARLY as bad as it was with the other piece of garbage. Features that I like include caller ID (in spite of what this site says it is there and I use it) Long battery life I get just under 4 days of stand by time out of a single charge with minimal (30-45 min) talking time, and so far the most that I've used it continuously has been 56 min with only a drop of 1 bar on the charge indicator. The information at the store indicated up to 5 days of stand by time and 7 hours of use time to a full charge. Easy access volume buttons on the side for speaker or ringer volume. If in use they will increase or decrease the call volume. If no call is being made it will change the ringer volume with just a push of a button. Opening flip face answers incoming calls. This CAN be a negative as well if you accidentally close it though as it will hang up as well. Large variety of rings, 23 to be exact, including musical and sounds in general. Voice mail is an option that has come in handy several times. With SPRINT I can't see if there is any new ones however if I'm in roam mode without checking and paying the roaming fees. Call history for in-coming and out-going calls separately. Pre-pend option allows for adding the 1+area code to a stored number when you aren't in the local area any more. Safeguard feature checks to make sure that you want to make a call while in roaming mode to prevent accidental roaming fees. Dual band for Analog and digital signal offers wider dervice options when traveling. Features that I either don't like or have not tried out. The flip face that covers the buttons leaves the menue, clear, and navigator "joystick" exposed. I've almost used the web feature by accident before this way. The flip face hinges are exposed and may be damaged fairly easy if dropped on a solid surface (pavement, concrete, etc) The port for the hands free plug is on top center which allows for the cord(s) to get tangled in the antena. Voice activated dialing is also a feature but I have not played with it as of yet. I want to check and see if it is just a feature or if there's an additional charge as I've read conflicting information on it. Home charger can be difficult to fit if the phone is inserted to charge the battery. Sometimes it will slip loose and stop charging. My two cents worth in a nut shell This is a good functional mobile. The sound and pick up quality on it are considerably above average for the $100 -200 price range phones that I've tried (Mine and those of friends). It has more options than many others in the same price range. But it needs a little work on portability and durability. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 7837 Samsung SPH-A400 91106 2004/6/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 compact flip face givessqueaks loudly short life span which can be heard on other end Not even going into the horrible reception I get on this phone (I'm blaming that on my service provider), this phone is a poor piece of equipment. The nifty "flip" design causes a loud squeaking sound when I put the phone on my shoulder, which is obnoxiously audible on the other end. This started happening after I'd had the phone for just a few months. Don't buy it - splurge for a newer model. 91105 2005/1/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 small makes baby jesus cry doesn t ring when people call me battery dies horribly indoors I had a phone I loved. I had Sprint's replacement plan, with a $35 deductible. The phone I loved died. They sent me this phone. It makes the baby Jesus cry. On the plus side, nothing can kill this phone. That's so Sprint won't take it back. On the minus side, the reception is terrible; currently, 10-30% of my calls don't make the phone ring, even in 'known good' locations, with the phone reporting plenty of signal strength. The phone doesn't quite play well with text messages. The battery lasts about 24-36 hours. If I go into a building, it usually drops to 'searching for service', at which point, the battery is good for 4-8 hours, tops. Dunno. It's not so much this phone, but the fact that Sprint took my favorite phone ever, and replaced it with this. I will say I don't blame Samsung for this one. My 'favorite phone ever' also came from them. 91104 2005/11/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none bad customer service bad design The cell phone stopped working. Problem with power connection. They told me it was because of water damage and they could not do anything. There is a dye strip on the inside that was just fine. I showed them that it was fine and they said that doesnt always show that it was wet. So how do they know? I know, they make it up so they don't need to replace any phones... 91103 2006/11/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good connection when talking with others many featuresmultimedia possibilities battery dies quickly at work movies hospital many features and multimedia possibilities I've had this phone 6 months and due to the price will be stuck with it for quite a while longer. Upon start up, the signal dies for about 2 minutes, but is then fine. Reception is usually good. Trying to switch from one call to an incoming works, but then if you want to hang up with the other line - it hangs up on both callers. I find it very temperamental, but can deal with it. 91102 2000/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 signal holding strength voice clarity pim functionality form factor screen size none The Bottom LineAn excellent phone, with a great set of features and good sound quality. Full Review I used to swear by the Samsung 8500, until it suddenly started hiccuping one day, after about a year and a half of five-star service. The day onwards, things seemed to go in a downhill dive and I ended up getting myself the A400 a short while later. At first, I was a little let down, and the reason for that was primarily the fact that I probably knew most tips, tricks and tweaks for the 8500, and most of them didn't work on the A400. There was also this fabulous piece of freeware that was developed for the 8500, which allowed users to synchronize information between a computer and the phone, and I had it all working just right. Well, after playing with it for a while, I started liking it. It was smaller, lighter, held the signal well in areas that I had known the 8500 to give up, even in its youth, and the increased screen size real estate was a welcome plus. More text from incoming text messages could be displayed on one screen, and there were a lot more user-friendly and fairly seamless little upgrades in the phone's interface that had me smiling. I do have one rant - going from the 8500 to the A400. Its the loss of the ability to save voice notes. The 8500 had a button on the side that would allow me to either record bits of a conversation, like say an address that was being described, or a phone number, or the sort - and save me from having to dig out a pen, say when I'm driving. It also let me save little voice notes for myself as either to-do items or random thoughts. The A400 doesn't have this, and I don't like that! Otherwise, the backlight is nice and bright, the voice-assisted dialing works well, and the phone itself is small and light enough to be forgotten in a pocket. I've been led to understand that Samsung came out with a USB-powered data transfer cable for the phone, but I doubt if that also charges the phone while connected to a computer. I hope it does, but if not, I hope somebody from Samsung is reading this review and making notes! Other than that, its a great phone. I would also like to mention my opinion about moving up to the new set of color phones that have hit the market. I think that one should wait for the A520 - a phone similar to the A400 in form factor, but with an external caller ID screen, a color display, and potential capabilities including video camera compatibility. I get most of this information at PhoneScooop, so you're welcome to take a jaunt over if you're interested. The new A500 that has just hit store shelves has received a tepid response from the technical journalist / reviewer set, and I'm planning on holding off the purchase to an upgrade till the A520 comes out - probably around the end of the year. Also, as a final suggestion - I would also recommend that everyone getting phones like these pay the little extra to get themselves a replacement plan. As cellphones get smaller, lighter and expensive, its easier to lose or drop them, and the replacement bill can be quite large if one has to buy it all over again! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 225 91101 2000/6/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good looking phone bad reception The Bottom LineIt is a nice phone to own, but save enough money to get a new phone within a year or less! Full Review Have you ever dated someone who is good looking ... but end up being very disappointed and can't wait to find someone new? I love my phone. It was love at first sight ... but that love didn't last after my phone keeps on hanging up on my friends. I talk for a few seconds ... suddenly, my ear was hurting because I didn't know my phone hung up on my friends and they have to call me back ... so I was talking to NOBODY for good few seconds!!! The reception is so bad that my neck is in pain because I constantly move and tilt my head in a funky way! I love my phone and don't get me wrong ... but enough is enough! How can I have bad reception when I am standing outside (there is no way I can have bad reception there)??? Another bad thing about this phone is that ... if I have 3 miss call from 3 different people ... I can't see them ... I can only see who called me last. The only way I can see it ... is to go to Menu and go to "miss call" ... BUT let's just say I have 3 miss calls and it was the same person ... you can only see when was the last time that person call ... and not the previously call time. Personally, it is very inconvenience. Another bad thing about the phone is that ... if someone "short mail" me (if you use the phone internet), the ringer will see make annoying noise when you receive short mail or any type of web alert. I have tried put the ringer off, but NOPE! My professors were mad at me and thought I disrespect the class when I didn't put on vibrating mode or put the ringer off. Now I either have to shut the whole phone off or not bring it with me. The battery is not that bad. I can chat for a long time with it ... a good 3 hours maybe? I like flip phone and it has a nice silver color, which I like. I also like the weigh of my phone. I wish they would've gotten caller ID outside the flip so I don't have to flip to see who is calling. I don't think I like the alarm clock too much because it only rings once ... my old phones - I have to turn it off twice for it to stop (like a snooze button if you press your phone once) ... this one ... I have to set my alarm clock three times in case the first time doesn't get to me. There were numerous times I have been late going to class because I overslept! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91100 2003/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating5.0 fully functional phone for a great price light small lots of problems with wireless web sprint pcs customer service is slow The Bottom LineGreat phone, great price, great wireless service (except Cust.Serv.) Anyone looking for a small, versatile phone will not find any problems with the A400. Full Review UPDATE: This phone crapped out on me! I went to make a call (a rather important business emergency) and the keypad wouldn't let me punch anything in! I couldn't turn the power off, couldn't do anything. I had to pull the battery off and start it back up. No luck. Dead. I took it back to Circuit City for replacement with the SPH-A460. Some of you may have seen my review of the Kyocera QCP-2035a. I'm writing this review because I finally got fed up with the Kyocera (but mainly with Verizon Wireless service.) Verizon sucks, plain and simple. They offered me two plans: 3000 minutes for $45 or 45 minutes for $25. That seems a little unbalanced. Anyway, I'm letting my Verizon contract expire in December and I'll never go back to them. A total scam. ANYWAY, back to the new phone, the Samsung SPH-A400. I bought this phone for a few reasons: its small, its light, its got a HUGE display, and the price was PERFECT. I bought the phone at Circuit City for $120 with a $50 rebate. Great price. The ergonomics of the phone are wonderful, its a flip-style with large buttons, easy to navigate menus and like I said before, a HUGE screen. It has all of the usual features of a modern cellular phone, such as a phone book, an alarm clock, call log, calendar, one-touch voicemail access, and a full set of security features. This phone is also capable of downloading "wallpapers" and ring tones. Remember the Sprint commercials from the Winter Olympics? ("Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Shea...We're calling Jimmy). To my disgust, Low Rider is not an available downloadable ring tone. Anyway, you can get the ring tones and wallpapers, but you have to pay $4.00 per month for the service. I got a deal where the first three months are free, so I've been exploring. This brings me to a problem I do have with this phone: Wireless web. The service is unreliable and often broken. I kept getting messages saying "can't connect, call customer service" I was never on the phone with Customer Service for less than 30 minutes...it would take that long just to talk to someone. Sprint has an automated "Virtual Assistant" who you talk to in order to get your problems solved. I'd much rather talk to a rep right from the get-go, but "Claire" takes forever and insists on intervening. I did get the wireless web sorted out, but some days the web works, some days it doesn't. Very unreliable and inconsistent. Oh, and one more thing about wireless web. I got my bill yesterday...they screwed up and charged me for wireless web minutes (which they weren't supposed to do, I called and got it squared away) but the charge was $12.00 for 29 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Make sure you don't go over your alloted wireless web minutes, its horrendously expensive! As for the performance of the phone, its great, Sprint PCS service is availible in any city in the US. I even took it fishing in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and it worked out there too. Fantastic range. Battery life is great. I leave it charging at night and the phone gets down to one-bar around 10pm, right before I put it back on the charger. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 91099 2002/7/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 slim design durable sleek good battery life plethora of features sprint pcs network The Bottom LineAn impressive, feature-packed phone that I plan on using for quite a while. I only hope that Sprint PCS improves their network along the East River in NYC. Full Review Two months ago, after years of hanging on to my aging Sprint PCS StarTAC and seeing everyone around me upgrade to newer, sleeker phones, I finally decided that the time had come for a switch. After visiting various online sites, I headed to Circuit City to decide on a new phone in person. After perusing the 5-6 Sprint PCS phones that the store had to offer, I decided on the Samsung SPH-A400 and, thus far, have been very satisfied with my decision. PHYSICAL SPECIFICATIONS As you can see from the picture, the A400 is a sleek-looking flip phone with a matte silver finish. Measuring approximately 3.5 inches x 2.1 inches x 0.8 inches (not including the antenna), it is sufficiently small and thin to easily fit in a shirt pocket or small purse (not that I use small purses!). The antenna pulls out, although I'm not convinced that this action actually helps reception. A standard hands-free headphone jack can be found on top of the phone. The 4-level gray scale display is crisp, has a bright green backlight, and is about 1.5 inches long and wide (6 lines of text). The overall construction of the phone seems solid and durable. After two months of wear and tear and a few drops, the phone is scratch-free thus far. The phone comes with a charger stand, which is great for my apartment but a bit bulky for when I'm traveling (and if I traveled more often I would invest in a travel charger). The standard lithium ion battery is quoted to last for 3.6 hours of talk time or 168 hours of standby. I would guess that these estimates are about right, and I have only once had to recharge my phone during a conversation. FEATURES The A400 is a dual band phone (meaning that I can roam on analog networks when outside of digital service areas) that comes fully equipped with all of the basic features that most phones have now-a-days, including: phone book for 250 numbers, speed dialing, one-button voicemail access, multiple ringer tones, vibrate mode, and games. In addition, other nice features of this phone include voice-activated dialing (for 10 numbers), wireless web capability (although I've never used this function), text-messaging capability, a calendar (which also allows one to save "events," timers, and alarms), a to-do list, and a calculator. The voice-activated dialing is a convenient feature but occasionally does not recognize the name that I say, especially in the presence of even moderate levels of background noise. The A400 also works with global positioning satellite (GPS) networks, which in the foreseeable future presumably will allow one to access driving directions, receive traffic updates, and be located in case of an emergency. Navigating through these many features took a few days to get used to but is now very quick and simple. Overall, this phone packs a deceivingly large number of features into a small package. The only feature that I've seen in other phones that I would have liked to have is an infrared port so that I could beam telephone numbers from my Palm (which would have saved me the trouble of entering names and numbers manually). RECEPTION QUALITY As someone who does not have a land-line and relies solely on my mobile phone, I have been overall very happy with the quality of the connection. The phone easily allows me to adjust the call volume so the person I'm speaking with never has to sound as if he/she is 1000 miles away. In terms of dropped calls and static, please read below since I believe that they are more reflections of the network rather than the phone. VALUE I bought my A400 at Circuit City for $200 not including a special promotional $50 mail-in rebate. A few weeks after buying the phone, I noticed Circuit City advertising the same phone for $50 less than I had paid, so I stopped by the store and was credited the difference (because Circuit City has a 30-day price guarantee). So, in the end, I paid $150 and am waiting for a $50 rebate from Circuit City (which is "being processed" according to a recent e-mail). A FEW WORDS ABOUT SPRINT PCS I've been a Sprint PCS customer for many years now and have very mixed feelings about this network. I love the nationwide service, price, and automatic payment but have really reached my tolerance limit for dropped calls (only in my apartment) and poor customer service. With those dropped calls in mind, I strongly considered switching to Verizon or Voicestream when I was shopping for new phones. In the end, however, I stayed with Sprint PCS. This decision was partly based on my reading of various Epinions about all New York City carriers which failed to reveal a network that is clearly superior to Sprint PCS. I was also optimistic that a new phone would decrease the number of dropped calls (my hopes have been partially fulfilled and I experience fewer dropped calls than before). Currently, I rarely experience dropped calls when outside of my apartment but in my apartment this occurs several times per week. For a more in-depth opinion about Sprint PCS, feel free to read my Epinion "Pin drop? More like dropped calls!" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91098 2003/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 extremely intuitive small great reception some things take time to figure out if you don t like reading instructions The Bottom LineHighly recommended for those who don't quite know what they're doing and who really don't care. Full Review Preamble I've had this phone for 9 months. Prior to this, I had some chunky thang that broke on me. Well actually, I was in a mexican restaurant with my sister, and it fell out of my purse and hit the concrete floor. It sort of split into pieces. Really, I can't fault the manufacturer :). I dreaded having to purchase a new cell phone. It's just not something that excites me. I hate carrying around a cell phone but it's a necessity. My husband thinks he should be able to reach me at any time and my boss thinks that just because I'm in management, he should be able to reach me 24/7. Without doing any prior research, I marched myself into a Sprint Store, perused the models and picked me out a swell new phone. For this review to make any sense to you or - more to the point - be helpful to you, you need to understand me - the reviewer. Acknowledgements * I'm not a cellular phone expert. * I like my Sprint Cell Phone Service. * I'm high maintenance (this covers almost every aspect of my life). * Cell phones irritate me but are a necessity. * I've only owned four cell phones in my life. * I couldn't think of a more boring thing to review. Why I Bought This Phone For awhile, I had been eyeing the cell phones of other co-workers. I decided, based upon my own experience, that I didn't like the clunky one piece. My next phone was going to be a flip-top. Why? First, because it's small and will fit into almost any place I put it - pocket, purse, boot, shoe, etc... By the way, I'm not kidding. Second, I think flip-tops look incredibly sexy. I think it's a Jean Luc Picard thing although I can't be for sure. Mentally, I must have went into the purchasing decision with a list. I didn't realize it until I was there. On my list included: flip-top, the ability to store multiple numbers for an individual, multiple ring tones for many different situations, a big screen, a long battery life, and something that could take the abuse of being dropped time and time again. There are days when I'm all thumbs. Even though I went to the Sprint store thinking that I just wanted to get in and out as quickly as I could, once there, I took my time looking at each model. Like Goldilocks, I found phones that were too big and too small; too chunky and too ugly; too high tech and too cheap-looking. When I came across the Samsung SPH-A400, I knew that he was the one for me. They say you always know that moment when you meet the one you're destined to be with. Technical Specifications Weight: 3.5 oz Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.0" x .8" Technology: CDMA Band: dual band Analog: yes Games: 4 LCD Lines of text: 6 Phone book numbers: 250 Ringtones only through Sprint PCS's paid service Stand-by Time: 168 hours Talk time: 3.6 hours wap: yes SMS: yes DATA: yes Display: 4 "colors" grayscale e-mail: yes Fax: yes GPS: yes Languages: english and spanish Organizer: yes Silent or Vibrating alerts: yes Voice dialing numbers: yes You know what, it's not my job to tell you about each one of those features I just listed. When you purchase this phone, it comes with a 130 page user guide. Read that. Now, I didn't, but you know that's because I don't like following directions. If something isn't intuitive enough for me to figure out, then it's not worth having. It didn't take me very long to figure out what I wanted to change (by pressing through the menu items) and how I wanted them changed. Never underestimate the value of intuitiveness. So nine months later: * The silver casing is rough/tough/durable. Sexy too. * The keypad is just as immaculant as it was the day I flipped open the other side of the phone. * I still dig the way my fingers bounce off of the keypad rubber protective stuff. It just makes dialing out all that much more pleasurable. * I've filled my 250-name phone book up with 128 people. If I lose this phone, I'm screwed. * I've adjusted my ring tones for every possible scenario (recognized number, voice mail, fellow PCS user, etc...). * My battery still rocks. It continually meets or beats the minimum time in talk and standby. * I dig the 4 colored grey screen. * I've dropped it on many different surfaces and it took a lickin' and kept right on tickin'. * The reception is still the best among any cell phones I have been exposed to. * I have found new and unusual places to stash it on my person :). * The four games are lame. Or else I haven't figure out how to win. * Sometimes I will purposely freak myself out by changing the language from English to Spanish. I think it's a great way to learn a foreign language. * I love the vibrator mode, especially when I have the phone located somewhere on me. It freaks other people out and makes me laugh. * I love that I can see the last 10 missed calls, the last 10 outbound calls, and the last 10 inbound calls. Why? I dunno, I just love it. One thing that gets the men in my life moaning is that I don't use the web-enabled feature. I'm already addicted to email and I see no reason to combine the two pieces of technology. If people really want to get ahold of me they can call me and leave a message after the tone...beep! When I started my new job four months ago, my boss actually wanted me to have a cell phone specifically for work. I HATED IT! It was the most unintuitive piece of crap - and expensive I might add - that I went back to my sexy baby after only four weeks. So while you cellular phone snobs may think that I've wasted a lot of money by not using every single feature available to me on the A400, I say - so so, suck my toe. It's more important for me to have a phone that feels like a natural extension of myself. I'm a happy camper and that's all that matters so there. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 7838 Samsung SCH-N150 91115 2005/1/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 medium cool factor for younger people extremely reliable none whatsoever I bought 2 of these phones for my sons to use as they seemed to have the basic features that were right for them. The flip-down keypad cover plate made for no mistaken calls happening by being accidently pressed while in a pocket and the unnecessary charges that go with that. At the time, flip style phones were fairy expensive and this was the next best thing. The cool factor of these phones made for quick acceptance. When I bought these phones I had really no knowledge of the Samsung company, nor how reliable they would be. I bought extended warranties for both phones and soon realized it was not needed. Both these phones endured what is certainly abuse by any manufacturer's standards, being dropped numerous times, left outside, etc. There were absolutely no problems whatsoever with either phone and, as a result, we have just now bought 3 new Samsung phones which we all love (models A426 and E316). I'll be sure to let you know how they work out but I am confident they will be a hit, friends have bought the same phones and rave about their performance. Good work Samsung!! 91114 2000/3/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great features small voice dialing is not linked to speed dial in phone book a minor detail The Bottom LineThis is a great phone with great features and doesn't cost a fortune. I don't need a $400 phone as a status piece. Do you? Full Review If nothing else, I am a thorough shopper. This phone is awesome. I tried several other brands, and this is the one I stuck with. I use my phone very often, so I read everything I could find (including other epinions opinions)and was still vacillating between this phone and one other. Then I tried SamsungUsa.com. Not only do they describe the phone on the site, they let you play with a virtual phone and have an entire tutorial. If nothing else would show me how to use the phone and whether or not I would like it, this sure did. My signal is always clear, and my listeners often don't even know I am on a cell-even when I am in the car on the headset! And contrary to the epinions listings, it does have a vibrating ringer, caller id, voice dialing, web capability and more! If you still aren't sure, play with it on line, and then go hold one in the store. It's fun to have fun with something so functional! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 91113 2000/8/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 easy access phone book bad reception The Bottom LineDon't do it! Full Review The phone is cute and the features like the web browser, datebook, IM, and phonebook are very easy to use, but the reception is terrible. The phone drops calls all the time and it breaks up with a full set of reception bars showing on the screen. I am in the Los Angeles area, so there should not be a lack of reception as one might find in a rural area. Also, it tends to do some mystery dialing and mixes up the names and numbers in the caller id on an frequent basis. The battery now lasts 4 hours if I am lucky and I have only had the phone since April. I have had to replace it once and will be purchasing a new phone this month. It is not worth using. Buyer beware! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 91112 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound qualityone hand operationvoice dialingone touch headset compatible ringer is fairly quiet The Bottom LineGreat sound, great for one-hand keyboard operation, one-touch dialing and answering, nice feature set. Highly recommended. Full Review Well, I'm fairly new to cel phones. In the first few weeks my wife and I have bought (and exchanged) Nokia 5185, Motorola StarTac 7868, and bought and kept this Samsung SCH-N150. The Nokia was great, best interface of the bunch, best for one-hand operation, nice sound. We had some trouble with reception near our home only in the first few days, though it seemed to improve later. The only drawback of the 5185 is the size, otherwise, it's great; I still think about a final exchange back to that cheap (free with activation) but great device... The StarTac was small, with a horrible interface, and it was not designed for one-handed operation, which is essential to me. Although we never had trouble making connections at our house (unlike with the Nokia or Samsung), the sound was always bad regardless of signal strength, we had lots of dropped calls (none on Nokia/Samsung), and my wife and I both almost always suffered from ear pain after using the phone. Also, one of the highest radiation emission levels reported by various studies. My least favorite of the bunch. Finally, the Samsung... a cute little phone, great features, convenient size, flip but doesn't have to be flipped to see caller ID, some trouble with getting a connection or receiving calls (again, only in our house, for whatever reason; no problem anywhere else including in basements, etc.)... the important thing is, the sound is always GREAT, regardless of signal strength... the Nokia, and especially the StarTac, got really annoying if the signal was weak, but the Samsung, miraculously, never does. No dropped calls so far. Contrary to the summary here at ePinions, the phone DOES have a vibrate mode. I haven't used any of the web features, but voice dialing wortks well. The combination of the one-touch button on the headset and voice dialing makes this phone extremely convenient for use while on the go, driving, carrying things, running, etc. The only issue with the phone so far is the fairly low volume of the ringer (at max volume) compared to the Nokia or Startac. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $69 91111 2000/10/9 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 everything my battery keeps dying The Bottom LineI don't want to give up this phone but may have to if new battery doesn't work better. Full Review I needed a phone for the new car. I didn't want a cell phone but the new car broke down, at night, and I had no one to come get me. At least no way to call them. Finally found a nice person to let me use their phone. So we signed up with Verizon. I don't use all my minutes or any of that but I love this phone. The battery is bad so we are buying a new one but every time I ask about this the Verizon reps want to upgrade my phone. I don't want to upgrade I just wanted a new battery. Actually I wanted the indoor charger, my dog ate the indoor charger and so it's only getting a quick charge off the car charger. I did buy a new indoor charger but again I think it's only getting a quick charge. It came with a head set, car charger, home charger, phone, and I think case? But I like that I can just flip it open and tell it who to call. Or answer it by just flipping it open. It stores the numbers of calls that I have recently called, missed, and answered. It has tons of features that I don't use like text messaging and web stuff, games, a datebook and just other stuff. It works almost anywhere except in a Wal-mart store. Even my husbands phone doesn't work where we live in the woods, and he's also on Verizon. I don't lose calls, my calls aren't fuzzy. People can call me and I can call them without worry of disconnecting from my side. I don't want to give up this phone when it's time to either renew my contract or get a new service as long as I can get the (or new) battery to last longer then 5 minutes on talk time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $80.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91110 2000/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 voice dialing style easy to set silent mode good battery compact design moderately high price unable to download ringers or games The Bottom LineI really do like it well enough to recommend but the cost deters. Add download-able ringers and games or an easier phone book setup and it becomes a "no-brainer". Full Review I lost my cell phone of a year and a half. With half a year left on the contract, I needed a new phone. Verizon needed CDMA. They wanted me to pay full retail, but a compromise of a contract extension gave a $60 credit on any phone. So I looked and tested a few phones on display. The Pros (with minor negative comments that relate to the pros): 1. This phone looks good and had some nice features. 2. The voice dial is extremely nice. (Negative: although you can only store 20 numbers.) 3. The menu system has number shortcuts. 4. Extremely easy to set silent mode or exit from it. 5. It has a schedule and calendar that are pretty easy to use. (Negative: although there doesn't seem to be a way to delete an appointment) 6. Good reception. 7. Good battery life (much better than a Kyocera 2035) 8. I almost forgot about this simple feature impressed me highly. It's called T9 word. If you need to type "change", you press "242643" and the computer figures it out instead of having to type "222 2 66 4 33" like my Kyocera had to. A very nice touch for anyone who uses the phone calendar or web browsing or email. The Cons (with a few minor positive comments as they relate): 1. This phone is unable to download ringers and games. (positive: although the ringers and games supplied are pretty good quality for standard programming) 2. The phone book menu is slightly awkward to use. Much more so than my much cheaper phone that I lost. You do get used to it, but why should you have to? 3. You can't change covers. 4. High cost for some of the same sacrifices you would endure with a cheaper phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 185 91109 2002/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 plenty of features looks good easy to navigate interface awkward to hold becomes too hot to rest comfortably against ear The Bottom LineMay be worth a try if you live in an area with digital service. Just be sure you purchase from a place with an accommodating return policy. Full Review I purchased this phone from Radio Shack to use with Verizon Wireless in a borderline rural area. I chose it because it was reasonably priced for the number of features it offered, it was compact, and it looked sharp. Also, the sales person stated they had had almost no negative feed-back about it... just a couple of comments that it sometimes heats up a bit. I should have taken those comments more seriously. I have found that the ear-piece becomes so hot after 2-3 minutes of use that I must hold it away from my ear... the body becomes so hot that it is difficult to find a good way to hold it at all... I've tried to hold it by the mouth-piece, which is not hot, but because the phone is top-heavy by design, holding it at the bottom is awkward. I found sound quality to be quite lacking, this may be due to the fairly weak signal in my area. Callers' voices were often punctuated with static and I received complaints that I could not be heard well. To its credit, this phone dropped none of my calls, and I found the phone very easy to operate. I have never owned a wireless phone before and in the few cases when I did use them, I found them difficult to figure out. I was able to pick up this phone, make calls, save numbers, and change the ring, without opening the manual. I didn't explore the other features because I decided I would not be keeping it after just a couple hours of use. Radio Shack tells me that they believe this phone heats up so much because it is working with analog service in this area.. they state they do not believe it will heat up this much with digital service (which we won't have in my area for another year). Fortunately, they have told me they will be happy to exchange the phone for another make/model, which I will certainly do. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 39.99 91108 2004/1/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear signal games scheduler stylish can t download ringtones or new games The Bottom LineHas everything you'll ever need from a cell (and a lot more). Full Review UPDATE #2 One year and 8 months since I bought this phone... I finally traded it in with about 4 months left in my 2-year extended warranty. -besides the echoing, it stopped receiving incoming calls! All my calls would go right to my voice mail. -battery lasted a day or so on standby. UPDATE Well a year after I bought this phone, I'm ready to trade it in. It still works fairly well, but my husband has been keeping it in the car console where it gets super hot, so the antenna part is all bent up. Other problems with it a year later... -sometimes echos -the area where you plug your charger in has a cover... the cover has broken off. Some General Features: - Dimensions: 11.6 x 1.8 x 5.1 cm (4.57" x 1.97" x .84"). - 800/1900 MHz CDMA. -Approximate Weight: 129 grams (4.2 oz). -High-definition screen: 128 x 64 pixels. -22 Selectable Ringer Tones - including melody ringers, vibrating ringer and one-beep alert . - 140 hours of stand-by time (hours in a row you can leave it on for). -170 minutes of talk time (nearly 3 hours). -front flip (it's a flip-phone) that starts and ends calls. -headset connector so you can plug in your hands-free headset. -LED indicator that flashes to tell you about incoming calls or messages. -adaptor outlet to charge your battery (instead of that little round plug that you usually see, it's a chip-like plug). -the LED is green once the battery is charged, and red when it isn't ready yet. the display screen I've found that most phones have the same display screen: -signal strength (4 lines indicating how strong the signal is). -service indicator: showing that a call is in progress. - no service indicator: shows that the phone cannot find a signal. -roaming indicator: to show if you are using the phone outside of your regular service area. -new message icon: to show you have mail. -digital mode: to show you are in digital mode and not analog. you can only use the web browser and other message services while you are in digital mode. - vibrate mode icon: to show your phone is set to vibrate rather than ring. -battery strength icon: 3 levels of power shows how charged your battery is. menu features: 1. Calls: -can see lists of your 10 most recent outgoing, incoming, and missed calls. Can also check your how much time you've spent on the phone. 2. Phone book: - Can add up to 100 names. - Can add e-mail addresses. - Can make a number secret. - Can add categories (speed dial, home, mobile, office, pager, fax, and no label), relations (no group, friend, family, colleague, and VIP), and specific ringtones to your numbers. - can set the phone to automatically answer if a specific number phones you. 3. Web/MiniBrowser: -depending what carrier you get your service from, each browser is different. 4. Scheduler: -Schedule up to 9 events for the current day (can indicate a start and end time, can be alerted by an alarm before the event starts). -Can view a monthly calendar and schedule up to 9 events for any day. -To do list: the phone can prioritize up to 20 items. -Count-down: allows you to find out how much time before a scheduled event. Can create up to 20 countdown timers. -Can check the time in any time zone in the world. -calculator. -alarm clock. 5. Sounds: -can adjust the ringer volume, the voice volume, and the alarm volume. -can adjust the ringer time for calls, alarms, incoming data/fax, and schedule alerts. 6. Display: - control when, and for how long the backlight is on for. - create a personal greeting of up to 12 characters (mine just has my name). - set the language. - set time/date. - automatically hyphenate phone numbers. - view hardware and software versions of your phone. 7. Voice Dialing: - You can make up to 20 of your stored names in your phone book voice activated. Just say the name and it will call them (after hitting the star key). 8. Games: - there are 2 games. They kinda suck, but hey, they're games still. 9. Setup: - autoretry: your phone will try to redial a number if the connection failed the first time. -auto answer: will automatically answer your phone after 1, 3, or 5 seconds (this is handy if you have a headset). -tone length -network (set your preferred system). -data/fax: if your phone is hooked up to a computer, you can receive fax and data. You need a data/fax kit from your service provider. 10: Security: -lock mode: limits all outgoing calls except for 911, *911, and #911. -reset phone. the mail kit -8 menus: new messages, voice, inbox, filed msg, webalert, erase msg, msg setup. -Can send and receive text messages depending on your service provider. the things I like about it: -multiple ways of answering: either open the flip cover, press send, press any key, the "auto answer" feature that allows your phone to automatically answer after 1, 3, or 5 seconds. -pretty menu with pictures. -powersave mode: if the phone cannot find a signal after 15 minutes of searching, the battery will conserve power. -silent mode: just hitting the pound (#) key for 2 seconds will set the ringer to vibrate and no other sounds will emit from the phone. -shows a list of missed calls, if you have caller ID, it will display those numbers as well. -the phone logs your airtime (total, last call, lifetime, and erase total). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 95Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91107 2000/2/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 general feature set is good small flip cover decent menu system phone book interface a little hard to get used to The Bottom LineThis is a good phone for the cost... no built-in full PDA or MP3 player, but feature-packed and much better than cheaper price ranges of phones. Full Review Background ---------- I was looking for a phone to upgrade to from a Nokia 5185i. I wanted a phone that had a nice display, knew what the date was (Nokia phone didn't store dates), had messaging, vibrate mode, standard headset plug, and a decent phone book. My candidates were the Samsung N150 and T300, a few Motorolas, and a couple of Kyroceras. I kind of wanted a stylish flip phone as long as it displayed Caller ID / time without opening up anything. The other choices I was looking at cost anywhere from $100 - $200 with a contract renewal, so that was the price range I was in. Radio Shack had a special on this phone and I got it for $80 before activation charges ($110 after activation). Overall I am quite pleased and can recommend it. Interface ----------- I like the interface... it has some animation to it, which is a bit of a change from the 5185i. Phone Book I like how you can store a few phone numbers against each contact. It was a little tricky at first figuring out how to do this. You have to add a person and a number, then save it, then go back in to add more numbers. Because the Nokia didn't have this feature, I tried to call my boss one morning at work but accidentally called his home number and woke his wife up (WHOOPS) because I had mis-read my own contact naming convention for storing home vs work vs mobile numbers in a more limited phone book. A couple of things I didn't like were some interface intuitiveness irritations, for example when you highlight a contact field to edit, you have to hit hit the "menu" button to bring up the editing interface instead of the "OK" button, which would seem more intuitive. If you hit the OK button it exits the contact record and you have to go back in. I got used to it though. Also, the contact name is more limited than I would have liked... about 12 characters. Plus, when you're working with the phone book they cram a lot of stuff onto the screen, so the font size is a bit small. Messaging --------- I was able to send myself a text message from Verizon's site interface, and replied to it on the phone to my regular e-mail address. I haven't had a chance to do phone-to-phone text messaging yet, though I suspect it will work the same way. Ring Tones Standard fare... not as many as Nokia and you can't download your own, but the selections were okay. Plus, you can assign different rings to different events, such as a voice call alert vs a text message alert vs a voice mail alert. It also has a vibrate mode. Look, Feel and the Flip ----------------------- I like this phone because it doesn't feel cheap. It is small but it has a solid feel to it. The flip isn't flimsy and feels relatively tight. You can set various phone options for the flip (whether opening it answers a call or closing hangs up, etc). When the flip is closed, the phone is in a "locked mode", so if you want to access the big menu button, menu key, or OK key without opening the flip you just hold down "MENU" for a couple of seconds. This flip doesn't make the phone a true clamshell flip phone like the StarTacs, but it is enough to give a similar feel. The power plug is accessed by pulling out a rubber stopper, but the stopper remains attached to the phone so you won't lose it. I read a few complaints about the more expensive T300 that the plug wasn't attached. Voice Dialing ------------- I like the voice dialing feature. You don't link a voice dial to the regular phone book though... you just record the name of who you are dialing a couple of times, and when the phone thinks it can recognize it pretty well it has you bang in the phone number. I used to see this a lot on the subway... you always know when the divorced mother is calling the ex to pick up the kids because they always say "call Jerk". Anyway, the phone can hold several voice-activated numbers. To use it you can't just yell it into the phone... you hold down the '*' key for a couple seconds then it prompts you. This is good because you then avoid accidental call charges if you happen to say "I've got to call the Jerk today" to someone out loud :) Sound Quality Oh yeah, this is a phone, right? ;) Sound quality has been good... I have to turn the volume up to near-max to overcome car road noise but it was fine. Earpiece volume was a little low as well, but I wasn't familiar enough with the phone at the time to increase the volume while talking the one time I've used it handsfree so far. Battery Life ------------ The phone is rated at ~3 hours digital talk time, 140 hours standby. Since the full charge I gave it the night I got it, I haven't recharged it yet and it has been on a lot, including some analog roaming. Of course, all batteries are great until they get to be 6months-1year old, then it seems you have to charge them more. Other Stuff It has a calendar that you can set events for, alarm, calculator, two games. Headset plug is standard 2.5mm, which I wanted after dealing with Nokia proprietary plug hassles. This phone doesn't have replaceable covers like many Nokias do... I'll miss that because if I drop and scuff the Samsung I won't be able to simply replace the cover. There was a prior comment about heat... the only experience I've had so far was banging in all my phone entries (about 45 minutes) while it was charging. It got a little hot but I haven't noticed anything since. It might have been the battery getting heated during the recharging... don't know. Summary ------- This is a good phone for the cost... the next step up for me would have been the T-300 for a hundred bucks more, but this phone had most of the T-300's features that I wanted. It's a good mid-range phone. No built-in full PDA or MP3 player, but much better than the cheaper line of phones. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 7839 Samsung SCH-A310 Mobile Phone 91150 2003/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 gps emergency location feature 500 name address book internet ready bright screen big buttons small see review body for all cons Heats up. Freezes occasionally so that I'm unable to receive or make calls. I won't know the phone is frozen until I try to make a call. I have to remove the battery to reset the phone. Also, several friends have told me that my voice breaks up and cuts out when I talk to them. This happens often and usually if it is a 10 minute or longer phone call. My friends' voices also cut out often. The speaker often diminishes in volume in the middle of a conversation and then increases to its previous volume. As of yesterday, the mic does not work. Battery lasts from 8am-12am. Mostly in standby. I've had the battery die in standby mode from 8am-3pm. All in all, I liked my analog Nokia pre-paid phone better. I could at least depend on it for uninterrupted service and no software glitches. 91149 2004/3/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 works good as modem not reliable at all poor quality on voice The only thing that works very well on this phone is using it as a modem with my laptop. Never had a problem with this. Anything else is very poor... * poor transmission quality ( either I break up or I cannot be heard at all) *battery life (70 minutes talk time or 24 hour standby max (in digital coverage area....I could understand this if it was an analog coverage area) *ringers not loud enough and vibrating alert is feeble at best (useless) *dropping calls, never receiving calls, and receiving voice mails 2 days after they were posted. This is the killer for me. Then again this may be a flaw in the Verizon network and not the phone's fault. Other people I work with hate this phone as dearly as I do. It is not suitable for professional use at all. Following the example of my peers I shall replace this wannabe-phone soon. But then again, it looks very pretty and trendish. Once I have my new phone, I shall nail it to a wall. Great art deco piece. Needless to say I will never get a Samsung product again. 91148 2004/3/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 breaks into pretty pieces when smashed comes in a nice box i will never buy anything from samsung again sucks I got this horrible phone after my kyocera broke for the last time and I ended up smashing it. The nerd at Radio-crap said it was a work horse. Well within a few months the thing just wouldnt turn on. Radio Crack sent it out to Samsung and after a month I got it back and it work for all of 2 hours. And then the same thing, I finally gave up on it and went back to using an old broken phone which is better than this piece of crap! Plus I emailed samsung numerous times and they never responded. sucks I will never buy anything from Samsung again! 91147 2004/1/5 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 sleek style small size easy to use don t buy this phone unless you want to be aggrevated I, unfortunately, own a few Samsung products because I thought they put out a good product. Recently, after 5 mos. of owning this wireless phone, (that I rarely use) the plastic case around the LCD screen cracked where the phone flips open causing a loose corner and future problems on the phone. I wrote to Samsung USA about this problem and they basically told me to "blow it out my hair-do" without even looking at the phone or getting any information except what they could use for marketing. They told me "THE WARRANTY ON OUR PRODUCTS IS ONLY ON THE ELECTRONICS". Folks this means that the shoddy plastic and poor craftsmanship of the product is not covered and not their problem, but yours. I also have had problems with icons showing up on my display screen that are not covered in the users manual and take some time to play with the phone to find the hidden key to get them to turn off, if I can! 91146 2004/12/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 size not durable poor sound quality features not that easy to use This phone has been very unreliable. The sound quality is inconsistent, both on my end and on the end of the person I am calling. Frequently it sounds to the person on the other end as if I am muted and or there is a lot of static. Verizon "cleaned" it, and upgraded the internal software, but the problem persists. I use the phone for business and will never purchase another Samsung. 91145 2004/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 nice display feels great in hand intuitive buttons samsung is not much help if there is a problem documentation is not user friendly unreliable This was a great phone for the first six months that my wife had it. We had absolutely no problems with it. But then the hinge broke for no reason--the phone wasn't dropped, bumped, or mishandled in any way. We called Samsung, but they wanted a fortune to fix it! Verizon on the other hand was great; they agreed to replace the phone at no cost to us. We had a replacement in a couple days, but could not get the phone programmed correctly even with a Verizon rep on the phone talking us through the setup procedure. We took it to a Verizon service center and after much tweaking they got the phone to work. This second phone also worked great. For two months. Then the person on the other end of the call began to hear a lot of static which eventually turned into complete silence before we finally took it back to Verizon. We are now on our third A310, which once again works great. We are keeping our fingers crossed until our contract is up. By the way, this time the Verizon rep told us that the A310 has been a problematic phone. 91144 2005/1/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 relatively small compact unreliable flimsy not durable buggy interface poor customization options Not durable at all. My husband and I each have one. His flip-top cracked within a month of use to the point of almost falling off, and my outer LED screen cracked in about the same amount of time, rendering it unreadable. Very unreliable. No matter where we are at and what the reception is, the phone will lose calls all the time. It also cuts out frequently, sometimes making conversations impossible. The system has bugs, namely that, sometimes when we turn on the phone, it freezes on the Verizon welcome screen and the only way to fix it is to take the battery out, put it back in, and turn it on again. We've been disgusted with these phones ever since we bought them. 91143 2004/3/19 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice colors it is user friendly poor battery life phone gets hot poor ring tones defect in plastic This is the worse cell phone I have owned. I bought this phone in June 03 with Verizon and have had problems with the battery ever since. They replaced the phone once but not the battery, then they replaced the battery and it works better. It would go dead after 45 minutes. Now the the plastic case around the LCD screen cracked where the phone flips open on both sides. The person at Verizon tried to tell me I had left the phone open face down and put my elbow on it and that is why it cracked. I don't think so. I think it is a defect in the phone. I would never buy Samsung again. I am ready to throw it away and buy a new phone.. Also the phone gets very hot while you use it. 91142 2003/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large fontbuttons for limited vision users limited battery life I bought this phone for my elderly parents (with Verizon service in NY metro area) mostly because it had large screen fonts and buttons. However, the overall feature/function/performance of the phone is terrific. My parents are able to figure out the menu/command structure -- which is logical and well-thought out. Battery life seems adequate for *moderate* use. Mono-screen is just fine; good resolution. Receiver sensitivity seems good; audio quality just fine; transmitter power seems adequate (latter is a function of VZ tower network). Interesting to see Korean manufacturers (Samsung and LG) providing meaningful competition to other consumer electronics manufacturers (Japanese and Nokia). I wouldn't hesitate to buy this as a cellphone for a basic or advanced user. 91141 2003/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 pretty small battery ok great with extended battery multiple phone numbers for each phonebook entry ring tones too quiet vibrate is very weakcan t set it to both vibrate ring This phone has some good features, particularly the ability to store multiple phone numbers for each phone book entry. But the ring tones aren't loud enough, plus they sound pretty lame, and you can't download or program new ones. The vibrate mode is too weak to feel it in your pocket, and worst of all, you can't set the phone to vibrate and ring at the same time. All in all, I would not recommend anyone buy this phone. 91140 2003/11/23 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 small cant even depend on basic functions of makereceive calls I bought this phone when I switched to Verizon. I normally only use the very basics (making and receiving calls), but there was a good deal on this phone. I noticed that, as an earlier reviewer stated, that the phone freezes where I cannot make or receive calls. I took the phone back and Verizon replaced it. The problem did not occur again for a while, but it eventually started again. I have to disconnect the battery for a second to fix the problem. Not much of an effort, but I never know how many calls I missed because there is no way to know when this is going to happen. The battery sometimes will die within 2 hours of charging it even without any use at all. I asked Samsung if there was a bug fix for this, but they said I could send the phone to them for 4-6 weeks (with no loaner) and they might be able to fix it. I told them I would rather throw it in the trash and go back to a Nokia phone. 91139 2003/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 doesn t heat up light small compact great looking poor caller id poor clarity wallpaperscreensavers lack of ring tones The company I work for told me that I needed to pick out a phone that I would use solely for work. I had an older Samsung 8500 (I think that was the model) and that was the best cell phone I ever owned... never had a problem with it. So, with that in the back of my head I decided I would go with another Samsung phone. So, I picked out this exact phone to use here at the office. It was ordered via the web from the phone provider, and it arrived in a couple of weeks. I was amazed at how cool it looked when I took it out of the box. It was gorgeous! It wasn't too hard to setup, but I was disappointed by the lack of ring tones, wallpaper, screen savers, and clarity. Everyone I speak to says I'm always breaking up or they just can't hear me well. In summary, it's a great-looking phone but it doesn't do its job well at all. 91138 2005/2/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 voice dialing lightweight small too quiet rings plus all of above durability menus lack of ringtones reception Dropped calls (Verizon) switches back and forth from CellOne coverage which requiring dialing an area code so you can't use speed dial. Overall after 18 months I cannot wait to get rid of this phone and Verizon service. The durability has been a problem. Lack of ringtones and the ones they have are too quiet. Many times I can hear a caller but they cannot hear me. 91137 2004/2/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy menu options good text messaging unit hard to break not in color no speakerphone no camera basically a regular phone WITH A slick body and nice specs. this phone is designed for anyone. I used it for text messaging using the T9-word and it also has the colored LCD screen. I thought this phone was better than many other phones that came out during the time (even better than the color verizon phone). The phone allows you to have 500 phone numbers, which is incredible. I don't think anyone would use that much, but i don't know. Everything was to learn - all the menu options. I dropped the phone SEVERAL times, but it still didn't break, which is definitely a good thing. I only had a few scratches, and sold it to my best friend. It's in good hands. If i lost my new phone, i would definitely go back to this one. 91136 2004/2/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 none doesn t work We reupped with Verizon in October & this Samsung a310 piece of junk was our new free phone. I'd kill to get our Motorola StarTac back! We travel a lot between Nv, Az & Mt and were assured the 310 would work in these areas (Las Vegas being our home base) so far it doesn't work 100 miles south of LV in Az - an extended area. We don't get calls, phone doesn't even ring, messages don't show up until we go back to Vegas, most times can't dial out (call can't be authenticated according to the recording) & when we do get out it cuts off & the clarity & volume fluctuates too much. When we get real lucky and a call goes through and we're able to use some of our free weekend minutes - the phone heats up & the battery dies real fast - the StarTac never acted like that. I WOULD NEVER BUY ANOTHER SAMSUNG PRODUCT. 91135 2004/3/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 sleek look modern featurs phones break down in no time poor reception I purchased two of these phones in September 2002. The first one started malfunctioning after 3 months. I brought it in for repairs, and was told there was water damage, it could not be fixed. Then I found out that you have to pay full price for another one, according to the terms with your wireless provider. So I purchased a Startac on ebay (which has no frills but is one great phone). A couple of months later, the Samsung A310 was working again, somehow. My husband now uses it -- it does some funny things but it works. The second A310 I purchased, for my daughter, just died. That's less than 2 years. These phones are garbage!!! I'm replacing that one with a Startac as well. 91134 2003/11/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 haven t had the phone long enough to come up with pros poor service very vague on progress unable to make calls poor battery life Average, compact cell phone. The body of the cell phone is only a small fraction on why someone chooses a cell phone. I would like to write more on the body of the cell phone, but I have not had it in my possession long enough to make an accurate review. In fact I paid $249.99 for the cell phone 6 months ago and is in repair for the same problem for the 3rd time, have not had service of this phone for a total of 36 days to date with no end insight since the Samsung service people cannot give an accurate time frame for return. So the body can be great but the phone needs to be working. Who wants to pay that type of money for just the body??? There are other factors and unfortunately some are learned from experience. So right now I don't have a phone and I'm out $249.99. 91133 2004/6/18 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 cheap breaks often everything I've been with Verizon for 5 years and last year I got this phone. Since then I have had 4 of these phones. Verizon keeps replacing mine for free because it keeps breaking on me! I'm not rough with it, it just sits in my purse all day usually. The exact problems I had with it were my reception become poor upon getting this phone, the display window on the cover randomly goes blank, my caller id and calling waiting have been turned off randomly several times this year, the battery had to be replaced just after 6 months. One of the Samsung SCH-A310 phones I had made it so no one could hear me. I don't know if the microphone went out or what, but it was annoying. There's a reason why this phone is so cheap and why they don't even sell it in the store anymore!!!! If you are planning on getting this phone make sure you get insurance with it so that verizon will replace it when it breaks. 91132 2004/1/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the bright colors none I just got this phone the other day and I love it! It's a nice change of pace from my former cheap Nokia. On my other phone, my voice cut off and the other person's voice cut off as well. I mainly have a phone for emergencies and could no longer rely on my Nokia. 91131 2004/6/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 there are no pros it s a toythen not even that toy phones ring louder Why have a phone if you can't hear it????? Impossible to hear the phone ring if there is any other background noise at all. Verizon did admit it has low ring tones but too bad for me because I didn't notice that I had this problem before my 30 days were up. 91130 2005/8/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 permantly stuck in downloading modecant be fixed out of warrently will try a motorola next Dont ever buy a samsung phone. Mine worked for awhile now it is broke and out of warranty but to soon for my current contract. 91129 2000/3/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 front display caller id alarm voice dial calendar light weight color changing front battery doesn t last the time statedno ring plus vibrate feature The Bottom LineDon't buy it. It's cheaply made and won't last you more than a year. Full Review I am through with this product. I have had two phones of the same kind and it has changed my mind about flip phones. The first phone I had lasted one year and then the hinge broke from normal wear and tear. I replaced the phone through my insurance company. The second phone I had has given me a lot of problems. The microphone has gone out and the only way I can talk is through a headset. Also the phone recently stopped audio ringing. Now I can't hear when I receive phone calls but I can feel it vibrate. The one thing I didn't like about this phone was that it didn't come with a ringtone that also vibrated at the same time. In loud surroundings, I missed calls because I could not hear the rings. There aren't a lot of options when it comes to ringtones. The battery didn't last as long as stated on the box. In fact you have to charge your phone daily if you want to make sure to receive calls. This phone was my first and last flip phone. I loved the fact that it had an alarm, a calendar, voice dial, and the caller ID was also on the outside. The phone is user friendly and easy to manipulate. However, I'm ready for a new phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 w/ 2yrRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91128 2000/8/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cool much more easy to hold calendar large button clear calls feature rich pretty worst ringtones possible hard to use at first too quiet faceplates expensive The Bottom LineIf you want a good phone and want Verizon service this is a great phone. If you want something like true PDA fuctions or a color screen look elsewhere. Full Review The A310, my new personal companion. This phone now holds my contacts, scheduler and contact to the world. I am going to start by giving you the features of this phone from the perspective of what things mean to the end user. Digital (two bands I believe) and Analog Phone Text Messaging Internet Access 500 Number Phone Book 20 Voice Dial Numbers Voice Memo Voice Answer E-911 Abilities (GPS) 3 Games Polyphonic Ringtones Customizable Displays Planner Calculator (and more but features I know nothing about) I will break this down into a discussion of each of the above: Digital (two bands I believe) and Analog Phone: This means that you can connect to virtually every Verizon tower around. Including the old analog ones. Verizon by the way in the New York metro region seems to have the best support around. Often other people with their Att&t phones ask to borrow mine because they don't get a signal. Text Messaging: This is a feature I hardly ever use because we do not subscribe to text messaging. This phone would be good for text messaging because it has T9 word recognition which allows you to type words with pressing each key once. Text messaging can be a useful feature if you can't get a hold of someone and a voice mail is too much work or voice mail is unavailable. Internet Access: This phone has internet capabilities which I bet benefit from T9 and the easy to read display but we don't subscribe to it so I don't know for sure. 500 Number Phone Book: This is a great featuring allowing you to store almost every number you would every need in this little phone. This can be helpful for looking people up or for quick calling. E-mail addresses are also available to store. However keep in mind that it's a 500 number phone book. So, while you can store upto five numbers and an e-mail address under each name these count toward the 500 total. 20 Number Voice Dial Numbers: These allow you to record voice tags to correspond with numbers which can make hands free dialing possible or dialing without looking up the number. This feature spooks people sometimes when you just say "voice mail" into the phone. This feature works fairly well except you have to remember what you said and how you said it for this to work. For example I recorded the name "Camp Sagamore" for where I work and saying Sagamore didn't work because I forgot the word camp. This features biggest problem is that the manual doesn't describe how to work it with names already in the phone book. I had to do a google groups search to figure it out. Voice Memo: A nice feature where you can record reminders for yourself. I don't as of yet know how much the phone can hold I have not filled it up yet. Voice Answer: A voice machine type feature that allows you to avoid signing up for voice mail accept it doesn't allow for anymore than two rings before kicking in. There is a monitoring feature that allows you to listen to the voice mail as it is being recorded and then to press send to talk to the person. E911 Capabilities (GPS): This allows for emergency services to find you by GPS. However it doesn't act as a standard GPS device in that you can't see where you are. You can turn on the GPS feature to be active all the time however at this time no one really uses it outside of emergency services so you can save the battery life. (This feature is activated automatically on 911 calls). 3 Games: This phone comes with three games, Push Push, Fly Ribbon and Spider Hunter. These games are all pretty weak so you have to be really bored to play them. They also drain the battery. Polyphonic Ringtones: This phone has polyphonic ringtones (more than one instrument at a time). However they are two quiet and are not replaceable so you are stuck with them and they are often very annoying. The lack of a regular ring is a horrible oversight. Customizable Displays: You can choose a animation to use when turning the phone on and off and a wallpaper. Really just a gimmick. Planner: This phone has a small planner (20 appointments) however it can be useful in a pinch. The phone can do enough PDA functions for me not to need one of those. The planner benefits from T9 text entry as well. The only problem is that you can't set the alerts to vibrate rather then ring, a huge oversight. Calculator: This phone has a simple calculator built in. This phone's weaknesses are discussed below: Monochrome Screen Too Quiet No Downloadable Ringtones Too Hard to Use Monochrome Screen: This phone only has a monochrome screen and not color. However in my opinion color is overrated and a gimmick anyway. Too Quiet: The phone is too quiet and difficult to hear in extremely crowded places, both voice and rings. However the other end appears to have no trouble hearing you. Too Hard to Use: Some features are difficult to access. The manual is to long to use to quickly the phone would benefit from on screen instructions. However, this problem corrects itself when you use it enough. I almost wrote a Epinion giving this phone a 2 then decided I should "play" withit a bit more before reviewing. When I did that I learned of all this phones hidden gems and now have changed my review to accommodate this and have decided to give this phone a strong 4. This phone has been very durable, surviving a few drops. Battery life is okay but nothing special. I can't say much here as I have done no formal testing. "All We Are Saying is Give Peace a Chance" - John Lennon Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Verizon Deal 91127 2000/5/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 whisper mode feature caller id in flip with customizable colors menus reminder tones ringer The Bottom LineBuy it if you like to talk on the train Full Review This phone has one utterly fantastic feature: "whisper mode." Mine is set to use it all the time. I can whisper, talk normally, or shout, but I always sound the same on the other end. This means you can speak on the phone virtually anywhere and in any mood. Other pros and cons: Incoming sound quality: very clear, as long as you don't both talk at once. Ringer: Not loud enough. I frequently miss calls because I don't hear the phone ring. I've heard that there is a software upgrade that fixes this. I've tried the over-the-air software upgrade but it didn't help. I haven't gone to the Verizon store, however. Voicemail reminders: often arrive late and stay on after you've listened to all your message. Missed-call reminder: very annoying. You can turn these off, in which case you won't know you missed a call (see above) until you look at the display. Or you can leave these on, in which case the phone will beep at you persistently (every minute or so) until you press a key. There is no option for just one. Voicemail notification: a lovely tune, which usually gets comments from people nearby. Still, I would rather hear the phone ring in the first place. Menus: Very annoying and time-consuming. Press OK at the wrong time and you're back at top level. Press the wrong key when editing a phone book entry and you have to start over. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Battery: decent life, quick recharge. Vibrate mode seems to use it up a bit quickly. External display: the flip has a one-line display with a handful of colors. You can customize the color (in addition to the ring tone) for callers in your phone book. This is quite nice. --------------------------- Usage tips: 1. Always use whisper mode 2. Don't bother extending the antenna. You need the antenna, but length doesn't seem to matter. 3. Assign categories to the people in your phone book so that your caller ID will be colored accordingly. This makes it easier to decide whether to pick up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91126 2000/3/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 several s per entry individual ringtones color screens poor battery life flimsy flip part no download ringtones games The Bottom LineRecommended. Individual ringtones are the key selling point. Full Review This Samsung SCH-A310 mobile flip phone has all the capabilities in a cellular phone that I wanted. Now I know that it's cool that you can take your number anywhere now with all the mobile companies, but what you need to find out, is if they take your phone brand. The Samsung SCH-A310 is a wonderful little phone if you stay with Verizon. The two capabilities that won me over were: the differing ringtones per entry (I can tell who's calling from across the room, by their ringtone)and that each entry can have multiple numbers (ie: cell, home, business - that I don't have to scroll through each time.) Pros to this phone: You can change the outside and inside screens to different colors for either the day of the week, or the individual that is calling. (I dig the purple!) Call logs can be erased entirely, or just an individual call. The keypad is lit for visibility at night. The outside screen displays the number or entry, without having to open the phone. Somewhat lightweight. It has voice recorder for either directions on the road, or blackmailing purposes! (just kidding)It has a nice little notepad/scratchpad to hold useless trivia that could come in handy. Cons to this phone: POOR Battery life. Must be charged daily. No capability to download ringtones. (The salesperson was wrong when he told me it could!) If you jiggle the flip part of the phone, you can accidentally turn the phone off or zap off the screen on the outside display (requiring you to turn the phone off then on again.) Menu can be hard to navigate and remember. Games are boring. All in all this phone does the job. I am personally not a flip phone person, but I have warmed up to this one . NOW...as for my title of the review....I have accidentally washed this phone in the washing machine. And after 9 hours of air drying and blow drying, it turned on. It works like a charm. This was my final selling point. Although I don't recommend this at home...but now you know. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 239.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91125 2000/5/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 slip on faceplates look good reception nice size sound quality not the best ringtones short battery life can t download new ringtones The Bottom LineGreat, low-cost phone. I love flip-phones and did not want to shell out $$ for a Motorola, however I am now glad I didn't, because I love this phone. Full Review I have this phone through Verizon Wireless, and it is the best cell phone I have used up to now. This is my second phone and I have also tried other phones, parents and friends. It has great reception, and clear audio quality. It has vibrate built in, which is always nice. The blue color of the screen is unlike what I have seen on other phones, it really stands out and is easy to read. The outer LCD can be set to light up 7 different colors depending on day or who is calling. You can also set the phone to ring on certain dates/times to remind you of events using its scheduler feature. I use this fature EXTENSIVELY because of my short memory and forgetfullness. Even if you do not use it for scheduling, the scheduler is nice in that you have a mini calender on you at all times. You can also type in memos on your keypad that are stored in the memo menu. I use this for shopping and to do lists. The phone also has voice memo recording which I have not used extensively, but found useable if I needed it. The phone also has voice dailing, which i DEFINETELY use all the time. You can program 20 different phone numbers to be accessible by voice. It is very accurate at picking up the name you are saying. It is much more convenient than dailing or going through the conventional phone book menu of a cell phone. The phone book of this cell phone allows you to store several phone numbers for each person in it: Work, Home, Cell, Other, as well as email address. For me, this phone is almost like a PDA. (and I do have a PDA so I'm not just making a comparison to something I have never seen before) This phone also has text messaging, a feature which I do not use often, but when I tested it out, it worked quite well. This phone also has a mobile web browswer, I do not use this either, but it is nice to know I can use it in the future if I would like to. The phone also has removable outer faceplate covers if you want to customize it. The phone comes with a nice belt clip holster if you use those. I stopped using it because the phoen is so small, especially compared to my old startac, that I just put it in my pocket. This phone is also quite durable, I have dropped it several times, not small drops either, they were the kind of drops that made me think 'oh boy I broke my phone', however it still works just as well as when I took it out of the box. Only downsides to this phone: its ringtones are not the best sounding ringers on the block, and you cannot download ringtones to it, and the battery life could be longer. Overall, I would highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91124 2000/5/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 except virtually everything the ring tones are revolting you can t download replacements The Bottom LineFeature-rich, nice form package, and a good price make this a great value phone. Full Review DH & I had StarTac's for years, then his was dropped one too many times & needed to be replaced. I like for us both to have the same phone, so that we can share accessories. The verizon store was having a 2/$50 special on another phone, which was sold out so they were offering the a310 instead. We both like clamshell style phones - me because it has to live in my purse, DH because it has to be small enough to port all over the place and protected from random dust (he's out in the field quite a lot). There's a lot to like about this phone. It's good looking. The backlight on the keypad and screen is very easy on the eyes but bright enough to see clearly, and the duration after the phone is opened can be set to 15s, 30s, or always on. The tactile response of the keys is very good - you know if you hit the button or not. This phone has voice dialing - hold the * key down, and it asks who you want to call. It has a small screen on the outside of the phone so you can see who's calling, and a quick press of the outside rocker switch mutes the ring if you can't take the call at the moment. The phone is GPS-emergency ready, so when the 911 services are ready, if you call from this phone, they'll be able to pinpoint its location. DH reports vastly better battery life than the old StarTac. Reception seems better - I'm not dropping as many calls, and don't switch into analog as often. Sound quality is good too, and not as static-y as the StarTac's. On the adequate side: the menu's are a bit deep in some places - i would have accepted one or two more buttons in order to get quicker access to some of the functionality. e.g. there's a built-in voice memo recorder. i'd been thinking of buying one after taking a class that recommended it for capturing ideas, but i still haven't figured out how to get quick access to that feature. The vibrate setting isn't quite as vigorous as the StarTac's - though you still notice it. It's also got some built in games - always useful for those long lines in the grocery store. Also, although the sound quality overall is great, sometimes I've noticed a slight echo. Reducing the volume on the phone a bit has seemed to take care of this. And lastly, in the do-i-hate-this-enough-to-return-the-phone category: the ringtones range from the bizarre to the repulsive. There are 5 "ring tones" and 16 "music clips". The sound quality is fine - it's the content I find so objectionable. I can't imagine having my phone ring as the Can-Can, or as "Beethoven's 5th meets disco". Samsung spins this as "With the distinctive ring tones, you'll always know when it's your phone that's ringing." They have a point... StarTac's are ubiquitous and I often had that "is that my phone?" experience. I've had this phone for about a month now, and haven't heard anything even remotely like it. It took me about a week to get used to the least-revolting tone, and decide that I could live with that because I liked everything else about the phone so much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 for 2 91123 2000/6/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 cute fits easily into pants pockets that s about it makes you lookfeel cool defective casings functional nightmare buggy interface useless documentation horrible ring tones The Bottom LineI honestly don't know if there are any better small, lightweight flip phones out there, but I highly recommend you research them very carefully before you buy this phone. Full Review I really wanted a small flip phone that I could stick in my front pants pocket or slip into my purse without adding a lot of extra weight. Physically, this phone fit the bill. And it truly looks cool. But that's where it ends. Both my husband and I have these phones and we both have the same problems, so it's not just me. Where to start? The plastic casing around my display screen is cracked in two places at the bottom. My husband's has the same problem and a good friend had hers taped with duct tape for the same reason. When I took mine back to Radio Shack, they pointed out a ding on the outside of the case and said I must have dropped it. A physicist I'm not, but even I could see that the noted ding couldn't have anything at all to do with the two cracks in the case. My friend finally took hers to a Verizon Wireless store where she said they replaced the phone free and downloaded all of her information into the new phone. They apparently told her that they know of the problem but aren't advertising it or issuing a recall. I guess they figure if you don't complain, you can live with it. Fair enough. I have yet to find my way to a Verizon store because I live 75 miles from the closest one. Within two days of starting to use this phone, I managed to get some message on the front display screen that says "5 Voice Memo". I can't get rid of it. I've cleared everything out, deleted all messages, phone entries, memos, voice tags. I mean, totally cleared the thing and this display message just won't go away. I just want it to show the time like my husband's phone does. The documentation is totally useless and does not address this issue at all. You're supposed to be able to dial a phone number by selecting it from the Recently Sent list or the phone book and pressing send when it is highlighted. About half the time when I press send, the phone just goes back to the main display screen as if I had done nothing at all and I have to redial. The ringtones are atrocious. There isn't even one that sounds remotely like a plain old telephone and you can't get any others. If you want the William Tell Overture, you're in good shape. If you want the phone to vibrate in your pocket, it may, but you may not notice. I have to this my phone in my hand when I'm in a noisy location to know whether or not it's ringing. My battery seems to be keeping a decent charge right now, but it didn't for the first few months and my husband's will die after just a few hours. We have the same usage and charging patterns. This phone gets really hot when you talk for a long time. All in all, I don't know what I will get when I get a new phone, but it absolutely won't be a Samsung SCH-A310. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 29 w/serviceRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91122 2000/5/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 external display cool silver color small awesome blue backlight no download capability poor wallpaper displays horrible ring tones The Bottom LineDo not purchase this phone. It looks tempting but after a day or two of use, the lack of custimization (ringtones, volume, games)will drive you nuts. Full Review I went looking for a new cell phone about six months ago and saw a lot of options, when I found the A310 I was amazed at how sweet it looked, how light it was and above all I loved the completely blue backlight keys, and screen. It had a vibrating body, text messaging and web capability. After using the phone for sometime, I found (as I am sure you have read) that the ring tones were not loud enough at all. I was literally unable to hear it in my truck with my stereo on (which I could do with my old Nokia 3360), even with it in my pocket walking around you wouldn't know if it was ringing unless it was deathly quiet, even with the volume full blast. The ring tones it had built in were more like meledies, little tunes that at first sounded neat with its polyphonic ring tone capability, unfourtunatly, it didn't have a simple 'ring' option which I wanted and second all of the tunes were very soft and melodic, nice to listen to while your board, but if you are busy and you want it to alert you, it won't. The voice memo capability, web access, text messaging and e-mail capabilities were sweet. No problems, the battery was good. I could have it on for 3 days without having to recharge it, the external antenna worked beautifully, I could get reception in palces I never thought possible. It was durable and light weight. The games were even fun too. It was also extremely comfortable to put to your ear and talk for long periods. I do wish it had a speakerphone though. All of that aside, the key feautres that I needed: a loud ringer and a decent selection of tones was absent and because of that I would never recommend this phone to anybody. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 220.00 91121 2000/4/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 durable phone with no wasted frills reliable long battery life somewhat difficult menu minimal ringtones The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for those who put function before form and gadgetry. Full Review I bought my SCH-A310 in Jan 2003 (13 months ago) and it has been great. I like the flip-phone design and this one is sturdy. This is my first flip-phone because I always thought I would break them. Then I got tired of trying to fit a larger phone in my pocket, afraid of smashing it, breaking the antenna, etc. The flip design is also nice because I don't accidentally call people like I did with my previous cell phones. I also really like the silent (vibrate) ring. This phone is a good size. It is a little bigger than a pager and that is how I wear it. I bought a clip for it because I didn't like the original case or the case clip that was included with the phone. Like I said, this phone is sturdy. I've dropped it several times on tile floors, cement, etc, and no breakage yet (knock on wood). I have the standard battery and it lasts a long time. I am a medium-duty user, using about 100 - 150 minutes per month. A full charge lasts me a good three days and I always leave it on. The battery charges fairly quickly, a few hours to go from completely drained to full charge. And the battery is nickel-metal hydride, so it doesn't develop a memory like the Nicads of old. The monochrome screen is big and bright, really easy to read. There is also a small status screen on the outside (when it's closed) that shows the time, caller ID number, voicemail indicator, battery level, signal strength, and service available (roam, digital, analog). The buttons are pretty large and easy to press without accidentally pressing multiple buttons at one time. As I said, the screen is easy to read. No color, no camera, minimal games, but a large phone book capacity. Reception and sound quality are good. There is also a jack on top for a hands-free earpiece/microphone. It uses the common hands-free kits available at Radio Shack or other non-specialized stores. There is also voice-activated dialing but I haven't really used it. It is also web-enabled but I don't use it. As I said, there are minimal frills built into this phone. There are only three games that I've never seen before, generic semi-musical ringtones, no camera, no color screen. The things it actually does it does well. Remember when phones were for conversing? The menu is a little frustrating to navigate, but then I never really read through the million page owner's manual. I can get to the features I want. The phone book is pretty easy to use and stores 500 numbers (I think). You can set each person's home, cell, office number and also set which of those numbers is the default for that person, which helps with high-speed dialing. There is a two-way button on the side of the phone for quick ring-volume adjustment and earpiece volume adjustment when on a call. The only problem is that it's easy to accidentally turn the volume up or down when on a call because the button is located right where I hold the phone. The button is very useful for immediately silencing the ring, however. Handy for avoiding those inconsiderate restaurant or movie theater rings. In summary, I am very happy with my Samsung. I am not waiting impatiently for my two-year agreement to expire so I can immediately upgrade, like I've done in the past. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 -$50 rbtRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91120 2000/6/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 web access external caller id large screen poor selections of ring tones lack of customization weak volume The Bottom LineIt looks great, but that's about it. Average or below average performance in every area other than looks. Not recommended. Full Review I wanted to like this phone. I picked on up for my girlfriend and myself when we switched to Verizon. Unfortunately I now miss my old Nokia 3360. The Samsung SCH-A310 just comes up short in my book. It has poor call reception, average battery life, and a very low number of features. The included ring tones aren't very good, and there are only a few to choose from. To add insult to injury, you cannot download new ringtones. The ringer volume is pathetic. With the phone in my pocket, I usually cannot hear it when it rings even at the highest volume (vibrate works a little better, but only when I'm not moving around). Another thing I just noticed was that if you use the phone for more than 10 minutes, it heats up. Not a huge deal but my other phones have never done this. Other Pros: Using Verizon and a free WAP tunnel, you can get free WAP access, that is, it only counts against your minutes and you don't have to pay a monthly fee. (YMMV!) It does have voice dialing, GPS (only used by 911 I think), and it looks good. More Cons: Poor menu navigation, poor volume, allows for little customization, and weak reception. I had a Nokia 3360 and would rather still be using that ugly thing than this pretty P.O.S. It severely lacks in almost every area. Yet for all its flaws, you can't beat the price. I'll keep using it, but won't recommend it. Price listed is AFTER 25 dollar rebate Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 25 91119 2003/5/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality built in answering machine durable lots of features including a planner ring options a few quirky design flaws menu system is more complex than needed The Bottom LineThe Samsung A310 is a quality phone that has useful features and most importantly sounds great. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't "need" a color screen. Full Review I purchased a Samsung A310 in November of 2002. I consider myself a light user, but I like to use features to the fullest. This is a Verizon Wireless exclusive phone although I think that it could be used on the Sprint CDMA network. FEATURES First off this is a CDMA tri-mode phone so it can be used on analog 800MHhz or Digital 800Mhz or 1900Mhz. I seldom go without service. This phone has all the basic features, a 500 alphanumeric phonebook that stores up to 6 numbers and an Email address per person although each number counts towards the 500 memory locations. It has mobile-web, and SMS capabilities. In addition this phone can connect to the 1x network, which allows for download speeds of up to 128Kb per second although I do not use this feature. To type SMS messages you have T9 input, which is the best out there as far as I'm concerned (I have used Motorola iTap and after using T9 found it extremely archaic). The ringer on this phone is polyphonic, which basically means that it sounds great and it does, but there are no "normal" rings, which is a bit of an inconvenience. However there are tons of different options for different items (i.e. Calls, SMS messages, Web Alerts, Page, Planner, and Data/Fax in). I always know what is happening when my phone rings! In addition the outside display can change to 7 different colors or rotate the colors to be a kind of rainbow. I have it set so each day has a different color when I want to check the service/time/battery life that is displayed. You can also program different colors for up to 5 different groups so that when you enter a name you put them in a group and when they call the outside display shows the corresponding color. You can choose different colors for planner alarms as well. On my previous phone I didn't have voice dial and now I consider it essential. The only problem with voice dialing on this phone is that you can only store 20 "voice tags" and occasionally the recognition software dials the wrong number, but for the most part it is great and only takes the touch of one button. One feature that I have found useful is when I need to talk quietly I can switch the phone into whisper mode, which I think amplifies my voice and I can actually whisper and the person on the other end can hear me just fine. For me this phone seems self-contained. With a built-in answering machine there is no need for voicemail as long as your phone is on, which works really well for me because I don't have voicemail. It also has a few PDA features that I have found very useful when I'm without my Palm. The calendar lets you put dates in a LONG time ahead of time. IN addition there is a To do list, calculator, count down clock, memo pad (Which is great to just scratch stuff into on the run). There is a problem with the memo pad though, you can't select which memo you delete you have to delete the newest memo to the oldest memo, which is kind of a pain, but you can story quite a few. You can, however, edit any memo. There is an alarm clock, which can be set for once or daily, and a world time, which displays a map of the world and you can scroll across and see the time of different parts of the world. Another feature, which has been mandated by the federal government for carriers to provide by 2005 or something, is E911, which this phone also has. You can set it for all the time or just when you dial 911 because apparently there are supposed to be location based services to take advantage of the cost of implementing E911 I have not seen any yet. It also has 3 games, which I don't care about much. AESTHETICS I get complements on the compact, sleek and professional look of my phone quite often. The outside display is always readable and if it is dark then you just hold a button on the side to turn on the backlight for about 7 seconds and then look. The inside display is awesome. The bright blue looks great on the large display and keypad. The battery is tiny and the only thing that sticks out is the antenna, which I would have really liked to have been a permanent antenna instead of a retractable antenna because when you put the antenna down the service goes down with it. FUNCTIONALITY As Samsung claims the phone can sustain about 160 minutes talk time and 120 hours on standby. As far as call quality goes, it sounds great to the people call and myself. I can make digital calls with only 1 bar of service and have a clear conversation. I have had one incident in 375 calls where I heard my voice echo in the background, but other than that it has been clear. I can do everything relatively fast on my phone. The button on the side of the phone also functions as a way to scroll through menus, a way to change the ringer volume (It can be set to 5 different volumes, to vibrate, to 1 beep, and to silent) and when you are talking it works as an extremely easy way to change the volume, which is probably it's most valuable function. Turning things on like the answering machine and whisper mode are kind deep in the menu system and really should have been easier to access. The menu system is very logical and has some animation, but you can see 3 or 5 options at a time, which I like. I hate Nokia menus with all those useless pictures. To access the 10 last outgoing calls you just have to press send. Another thing I like is that when you are done typing a number if you hold the last number for an extra second it dials the number and Samsung has made speed dial available for all the numbers in the phone book. For number 152 just dial 1-5-and hold 2 and it dials the number. When receiving calls I have a difficult time hearing the ringer when it is turned down and the vibrate alert is useless when you are moving at all. But you can engage the vibrate alert by holding the # key to enter silent mode, which makes all alerts vibrate and silences the buttons on the phone. It is also a durable phone. I've dropped it at least 3 times and run into a wall with it on my hip. It has a scratch on the outside display and a few on the cover, but it is still all in good working order and the scratches aren't very noticeable. CUSTOMER SERVICE I have only had to call Samsung customer service once because my phone stopped letting me record my own greeting for the answering machine. I had to reset my phone, which resets only some of the basic user settings. It was a hassle, but I was satisfied. I found the people I talked to kind and they knew what they were doing. It did however take about a 1/2 hour to figure out how to fix my problem. THE ISSUES When you turn the phone on it makes this quick chirping noise, but then every time you lose service and then get it back the phone chirps. I don't know how many times I've heard "Your phone's ringing" and I JUST found out how to turn this off. It is the "Roam Alert" and now it doesn't make that chirpy sound! I don't know whether it is also because of where I live, but the phone's service meter sometimes jumps around and it is annoying, but when you put the antenna up you get a clear definite reading of the service quality. The bright blue screen can be a little too bright when you open the phone in the dark. I've used my phone as a flashlight in my car because it is so bright, but you really just have to get used to it. The phone cannot ring and vibrate. When you set a contact as secret and they call anyone can see their name, just not their number. If they send you a text message then anyone can read it, they just can't see the number that send it to you. This is a poor design by Samsung. Another really stupid thing about this phone is that if you turn it on in analog mode the time is not saved. If you live in an analog area the time on this phone has to be set EVERY time you turn it on. I have heard that people are bothered by the heat they phone generates and yes, it does get warm rather quickly, but the only part of the phone that touches my face is the speaker and my hand feels the heat, but usually I keep it in a case so I don't feel it. It may be an issue for some people. CONCLUSION The strengths of this phone greatly outweigh its weaknesses. This is, in my opinion, one of the last phones with this level of features that will be without a color screen. For those who don't want a color screen or need the battery life because they live in an analog area this is a great phone and I have used a Motorola V60i, this phones greatest competitor, and this phone is much better. I would certainly buy it again if I had to do it over again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91118 2003/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great colors sleek design clarity external caller id light weight menus could be more intuitiveno so deep The Bottom LineIf you want a cool phone with outstanding features, here's your mark! If you want to hear the theme from Mission Impossible everytime you get a call...get something else. Full Review Possibly, as another reviewer said, the last great non-color phone is indeed the Samsung SCH-a310. This clamshell or flip phone is one of the higher end phones that verizon is now carrying. It is a tri-mode CDMA phone that is compatible with their America's Choice calling plan. The phone is indeed very "chic". It is encompassed in a silverly metallic plastic with chrome accents both outside and inside the flip. You can also buy face plates for the front from you local store or eBay where the options run from clear plastic to tie-dyed background upon which pandas dance with the word "Love" written over them. (I promise, it's there...go check out) Anyways, the colors are amazing too. You can change the backlight of the screen to many vibrant colors (yellow, green, blue, light blue, orange, or purple). The text is always black and provides great contrast. THe Send button is lit green and the End button lit red to distinguish them. THe screen itself is very large and rectangular allowing you, at glance, to see everything. THe picture is very clear and the menus are animated (for those of you to whom that matters). I was surprised at just how large the screen is. There is no sense of clutter on it all. The phone has a great weight and is small enough to slip into your pocket or purse and go mostly un-noticed. It could be smaller, but if you want super tiny, chances are you aren't with Verizon. :-\ The reception in my area is impeccable...living in Metro Atlanta, Georgia....there is almost nowhere that I do not get a signal. I also have never had a problem while traveling even to the most remote of places. Battery life is not too terribly impressive. I did however switch the slot cycle to 3 and that improved it a bit, but I still only manage to ink out about 90 minutes talk time over a two day period. Which is OK for me. Onto my negatives...the first is a negative to some, not all. There has been talk here that the menus are too difficult. I believe one person said was an engineer and couldn't figure it out without much labor. While it is true that the menu system is not as intuitive as some, it is NOT that difficult, especially if you've ever used a cell phone. I reprogrammed my entire phone book (30 plus numbers) in under 45 minutes while watching a movie. It can be done. I think the reason some folks have trouble is that the phone book holds a RIDICULOUS amount of info. Which I love! It holds five numbers a person, has a slot for you to select a specific color and ringer to associate with that person, as well as making them a private contact. Very cool! But there is, as with all things, a learning curve. The other complaint I have is that some of the menus are pretty deep. For instance, to access whisper mode (a mode that amplifies your voice so you can whisper during a call...also extremely cool!) you need about 10 keystrokes. Maybe there's a shortcut that I have yet to find, but I don't think so. That is a bit of a pain, but it's not a feature that I am in the habit of using, so it doesn't bother me terribly. You've probably also heard that people are on their third or fourth phone. It is true that the phones were glitchy at first, but samsung has fixed the problems and now they work great. Lastly...ringtones. The ring tones are...well...odd...but they aren't awful and Samsung has added a standard ringer. I can't get over this ringtone issue...people buy phones for the ringtones...when did we as a culture decide that a simple "ring ring" was no longer enough and now we have to hear the latest R&B tripe everytime someone calls? But I digress... All said, if you want a good phone, get this one! Hands down...and for the price, you can't beat it! I got mine at Radio Shack, paid 50 and got a 25 dollar rebate from Samsung. That was of course with a two year contract. A phone like this, for two tens and a five? You can't beat that! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25.00 91117 2004/2/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception won t breakverizon has a huge coverage area relatively cheap limited extra features like new rings no camera or color screen The Bottom LineNot for those that want a phone that can play your favorite song with two tone speakers. Short of throwing it at a wall you won't break it. Full Review I was an avid cell phone hater for years. I thought they were stupid and useless. That was until I bought a pager. It was sooooooo annoying to get pages when I was away from a phone. Especially when people would page me, and than when I called, the line was busy. The price difference between pagers and cell phones, kept me with the pager. That was until I enlisted and land line phones became illogical. I decided I wouldn't hate, I'd appreciate. When I decided I wanted to own a cell phone I shopped around. When I say that, it is more like I asked my friend(tiggert12140, quick plug, if you are interested in cell phones, he knows more than anyone really should, check him out) which service would suit me best. I wanted the best coverage possible. Verizon is hands down the best. Their coverage area is huge. I almost never roam. That isn't to say that I don't lose service, but roaming is rare. I knew I would be moving and wasn't sure where to, so I wanted to get the service that I could count on working everywhere. It does! Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia and New York, it works and not just in cities. The phone itself doesn't have many bells and whistles. It can go on line, but I never have used this feature, as I didn't feel like paying an extra $20 a month. It came out before the camera phones struck like a thunderbolt, so that people can take pictures of people picking their nose. It has a black and green screen, so no color screen to to go surfing the web for porn. I never got that! The screen is not much more than an inch square, you can hardly tell if it is a girl or not! Anyway when the screen illuminates it is very easy to see in the dark. The small screen, when the phone is flipped together, can illuminate a variety of colors, which is useful when there is too much background noise to hear the ringer. When I bought the phone I was told I could down load new ringers off of a computer. However when I was going to do this I found out the damn phone isn't Smart Update Compatible, lying bastards! Sorry, so I am stuck with the choices that the phone came with. There is enough of a variety that it isn't painful, but it is disappointing. The sound card(is that what they are called on cell phones?) is pretty sad, it kind of reminds me of the first generation Nintendo. The alarm choices suck however. But I suppose that is the point when you think about it. One thing I don't understand is why the alarm/text message ringers aren't the same as the ringer ringers. I used to use text messages a lot! They are great for those times before 9 when you get charged daytime minutes. They are also great if you want to not have a long conversation with the person. Another use is for when you get bored with the person and don't respond. You now have plenty of time in which to come up with some excuse as to why. This way you don't have to say your reception is breaking up. How many times can you say that to someone? They take a little while to get used to, but once you are proficient you can type out a message pretty quickly. I stick with the ABC style typing, the other one spits out combinations of letters at random and changes them at its whim. I have been told it is quicker, but I have no understanding of how to control it at all. Probably the most important point when choosing cell phones is the reception. I also find it the most pointless. I see no quantifiable measure of antenna sensitivity for the different cell phones. At least not on the sales floor. This in my opinion is the only thing that a cell phone can do in this regard. The antenna must be able to pick up the signal before the amplifying circuits can make it big enough to hear. There should be a measure of the minimum strength of a signal that the phone can pick up and allow you to hear and maintain a signal. So basically your reception is based on the quality of your service provider. There are two main companies in my opinion, and it depends on what you want. If you are like me and go to a variety of different places, and want your phone to work in all of them, than you want Verizon. If you live in a city, and don't go into the rural areas very much, than you want T Mobile. T Mobile tends to have very good reception where it has towers and none where it doesn't. So none of that 2 bars thing, but they do have the free roaming plans. My phone gets horrible reception where I am! But I am also surrounded by radar antennas and concrete walls. I have to stand next to the wall for calls not to drop constantly. However I also have had one bar on the top of a mountain, after walking around with my hand in the air. I really wanted to check my messages OK! I can almost always get reception with at least two bars. It is a fairly reliable phone as far as reception goes. The sound quality is very clear and I almost never get static. Of all the phones I have used it is the most reliable. If you want a simple, but good phone this is that. I bought one of those stupid, after market, active antenna things. Don't waste your money! I didn't think it would work and it didn't. But I figured it was worth a try. The life of the battery is pretty good. I can talk constantly for over an hour with a full charge. When I checked there wasn't any better batteries available. That was like six months ago so maybe it is available now. Since I have to go outside, and freeze my butt off, to talk I tend to keep it to less than an hour. The game selection sucks! I have Spider Hunter and two other useless games. I have beaten Spider Hunter so badly that it couldn't save my high score. Which is pretty sad since I hate the game. But I was bored at work one day and we all know how that is. Don't expect Verizon to be cheap, it is the most expensive provider that I know of. But the customer service is really good. You can update software with your phone by dialing *228. You don't have to go to the store and have a tech do it, like Sprint phones make you do. Whenever I whine to the service reps they give me free minutes. Poor me I didn't know I was going over, waaaaaaa! I have 500 anytime minutes and I pay around $60 a month after taxes. But there are unlimited night and weekend and 1000 mobile to mobile. The mobile to mobile thing works great with long distance relationships! Saves you some money as I would always run over on minutes. It is hard to say I am running out of when my girlfriend is saying I am cheating on her! Which was a lot of fun trying to console her at a bar with my friends making fun of me in the back ground. I'll have to say this phone takes a beating! I have dropped it plenty of time on concrete floors. The screens are hardly even scratched. I thought flip phones were easy to kill, but this proved my wrong. She is light and durable. I don't think I can kill her if I wanted to. I did break the charger once. I pulled the phone off of it by accident and bent it all to hell. But I was able to bend it all back into place and a year later it still works! For $100, $200 minus a $100 instant rebate(whats the point with that by the way?), the phone wasn't a bad price. I believe it is down to $50 without any pointless rebates. Pretty soon it'll probably be free with signing up. If you want a cheap, reliable; quality phone this is the one. There a lot of extra features to keep you entertained, but it'll let you talk to your friends. *UPDATE* I guess if I really wanted to(which I don't) I could make this update another review. But it would be a sucky review and I would hate writing it. Anyway I bought a few accessories for this little phone. I now have the leather case(which is annoying), the hands free thing and the plug in charger for the car. The car adapter works fine, not that there is a lot to it. The hands free set is OK. It does the job, but the sound isn't 100% clear and the wires hanging all over are annoying. The leather case is a waste of money. However if you act fast the Verizon Stores(brick and mortar, not sure about online) are having a sale. The car adapter and the case for $9. Which isn't bad considering they are $20 a piece. Anyhow I don't like the case because it gets in the way. Dialing feels artificial. Notwithstanding it does look much better, the silver on black is great. The clip on is a good feature so that I don't miss as many calls, but it looks stupid. Overall I'd buy the set just to save $10 on the car adapter. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $100Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91116 2003/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish feature rich cute very good reception pathetic ring tones not as user friendly as i would like The Bottom LineFeature rich, cost effective, fun little cell phone. The pluses outweigh the little minuses, but you decide! Full Review The sad story. I was so happy and satisfied with my Kyocera 2135. Alas, an incident occurred where the phone's antenna had an unpleasant interaction with my dog's mouth and that caused some minor reception problems. Yes, just minor, surprisingly. It was a great phone for me! But my contract with Verizon was up, and I wanted to be upgraded (don't we all). I went into my local Verizon phone mart to look at both the Kyocera 2235, and see what else they offered. What I was looking for: * Flip phone if possible, so it would be better protected than my previous phone * User Friendly * Voice Activation * GPS when available * Reasonable price (under $100 and preferably with a rebate also) * Sufficient ring tones * Nice display and easily read by someone with "over-forty" eyes * Voicemail * Decent alert for incoming calls/voicemail messages * Retractable antenna for obvious reasons * Lightweight as I have carpal tunnel. * Vibrate or ring Those were the main things I was looking for. While at the phonemart I seriously considered the Kyocera, as well as the Samsung SCHA310, and comparable models of Motorola, LG. At the end I was stuck between the Kyocera 2235 and the Samsung. I went for the Samsung due to the flip phone and the GPS, but was worried that I might not be tech-savvy enough to deal with it, as that is usually a problem for me. The price noted on the box was $99.00, but I was able to get a $50 rebate (I just saw an even better rebate offered-05/02/03-keep your eyes open!). I did commit to a two year contract (I've always been told you are only held to one of the two years should you wish to upgrade, and get a new contract phone). Getting physical from the Samsung manual and website: This is a cute little silver phone. For you techie types, the display has the following: 128 x 128 pixel and has up to 12 lines of soft icons and text, graphic LCD screen External Display: 128 x 32 pixel graphic LCD, seven backlit colors Mode: Dual band/Tri-mode (CDMA 1900 MHz (PCS); CDMA 800 MHz; and AMPS 800 MHz) Wireless Protocol: CDMA Specs from Samsung website: With standard battery Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.0" x .9" Weight: 3.2 oz. Talk Time: CDMA, up to 2.7 hours; AMPS, up to 1.2 hours Standby Time: CDMA, up to 5 days; AMPS, up to 15 hours What I got: It came with a handstrap, standard battery, travel adapter, holster, and of course the user guide. The guide is rather small print, but is geared toward someone who doesn't know anything, so don't worry if you are not tech-oriented. Main Features: You can change faceplates if you wish. I'm pleased at this point anyway with the silver. You have the choice of 6 bell sounds, and 16 songs, and a few different screen images to add something a little personal. You can select one of seven colors for your different callers (perhaps work, friends, family, significant others, etc.) You can also pick different colors for days of the week, or rotate them. Choose English or Spanish. I haven't gone online with my phone but they claim that you can do so up to 10 times faster than previously. You will be able to send/receive email, faxes or brief messages to anywhere you wish. The GPS function will be available when 911 emergency location services kick in. You can see who is calling before you open the phone! There is a beautiful blue backlit LCD and keypad You'll find there is also an organizer, calendar, task list, scheduler and calculator. There isn't a tip calculator like I had on my Kyocera, and that is a minor disappointment. You can screen your calls as they are being recorded. If you want to take the call, just hit send! There are 500 phone book entries. There are so many features and perks with this phone, there are way to many to list here. My experience: True confession. I am always apprehensive bringing home a new "toy" that requires some technical ability. My sons are grown and out of the house, and I don't like to bug them. I feel I need to try and learn to do things myself, but I am always afraid I'll mess things up, they'll explode, who knows? The first thing I did was set up the ring. These ring tones are hideous. What were they thinking? It has more choices than my previous phone, but I hate them all. However, not a really big thing. I picked the least disgusting, and that was it. Next was the phone book. What a hassle. It was not user friendly at all, and I still haven't added everyone because it is so hard to do. The phone book on the kyocera was a piece of cake, even for me. The display is great for my eyes. I can easily see and make out the icons and the letters and numbers, so that is a pleasure. I appreciate the alerts for missed calls and voicemail. I haven't yet used the text messaging, internet options. I find the reception clear and crisp, and have had no complaints from friends or family, nor have I lost calls, except with one friend, and she said it was her phone not mine, or the location she was in. What I don't care for: I don't care for the selection of ring tones, the phone book and planner are not easy to use at all in my opinion. I have an issue with turning a phone on by hitting "end". A little thing, but easy to forget that is how it is done. My old phone allowed me to select vibrate and ring concurrently. This does not as far as I can tell so far. Final thoughts and recommendations: As you can see I do not love everything about the phone, but the overall appearance, lightweight and protective flip design, reception, ease in placing and receiving calls, dependability, make it a plus in my mind. My Kyocera was definitely more user friendly, but this has other advantages the other phone lacked, and I can depend on it more. If fantastic ring tones are critical to you, this phone is not your baby. If you need numerous games, this one just has three: Push Push, Fly Ribbon, and Spy Hunter. Overall, I recommend it for anyone who wants an attractive, feature rich little phone for a reasonable price that they can enjoy, and depend on. You may have an easier time programming it than I did. I am giving it 4 stars. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me or leave a comment. I am enjoying it and becoming more comfortable over time. By the way, don't judge the appearance by the photo here. Go to the Samsung website. That will give you the true picture, if you are unfamiliar with the phone/model. Thanks for reading! Suz Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7840 Samsung SPH-N400 91179 2004/5/4 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 too few to mention poor battery life poor reception screen freezes obsolete already after 16 mos We purchased 2 of these phones approx. 16 mos. ago from Sprint. After about 6 mos. one of the phones began repeatedly freezing in different screens. We were told to remove the battery to fix this, by the idiots at Sprint. Eventually the phone completely froze and was inoperable. We were told by the Sprint people that this is a common problem with this phone. I lost all my phone memory numbers and info., and had to wait 2 weeks for a replacement. The second phone began doing this a few months ago, and once again the advice from Sprint was to remove the battery. Now the second phone is completely frozen and inoperable. We are now told by the ever so helpful people at Sprint that the phone is no longer made. Big surprise, I wonder why??? No offer to replace it or any type of consolation. Just buy a new model.... So, if you're looking for a $200 disposable phone that will likely only last a little over a year, this is the model for you! Stay away from Samsung and Sprint, neither company stands behind their products. Obsolete already after 16 mos. 91178 2004/6/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 looks good but that s about it lousy battery lifenot recommended for it s unreliability I need to have my phone working 24/7. Many times I have missed calls as my phone either DIDN'T ring at my end, or went directly to my voice mail without my knowledge. I have even received voice mail notifications 3 hours AFTER the message was originally left!! Definitely the worst phone I have ever owned. 91177 2003/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 games web capability sensitive expensive can t send small text messages This is a good phone for a person who likes to play games, go online and for talking on. I think it has a nice design but is slightly expensive like most color cellular phones. 91176 2003/12/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good price durableergonomic short battery life with original battery slightly weak reception I have owned many cellphones from many carriers in the past 15 years but the Samsung N400 is the best one for the bucks that I have ever had it does have a few quirks but nothing that is excessive... The battery time is short but the extended battery is cheap and lengthens the talk time almost 3X . It does seem to have weak reception. but well within usability. 91175 2004/2/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 flip phone big color display the ability to work battery the basics reception While this phone looks pretty, has a big color screen, and other niceties, it lacks the basics: reception, battery life, and the ability to work. STAY AWAY!!! My phone rarely -- and by rarely, I mean almost never -- gets good reception. Even where I work in downtown LA, in a high rise, it gets bad reception. Many times, even without using it making calls, my phone goes dead within ten hours. Also, the phone will freeze like a computer and I'll have to remove the batteries 91174 2000/4/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone color screen camera capability the web no new ringers screen freezes The Bottom LineA definite neccessity for those who want a great phone and a good price. Full Review I am the type of person who loves technology, when something new comes out I am the first one to get it. I am a fanatic when it comes to cell phones, I must of been threw 6 or 7 different cell phones in only a two year period. But I must say after years of searching Ive come across the ulitimate phone, superior among all others. That phone is the Samsung SPH-N400. Samsung to my recolection has always come out with the best phones that Sprint stores has to offer, but the N400 is by far one of the best. The Samsung N400 is an excellent phone but although it carries many good features it has but a few negatives on its side, which I will discuss later on in my review. -Pros- -Color screen -web capability -download of ringers, games, and screen savers -speaker phone -camera enabled -great battery life -very duarable I must say this phone is excellent in features and durability. I have never dropped my phone but I known peopl with the same phone that I have that dropped it many many many times and still works like new. This phone has excellent battery time which can last about 2 hours, without charging. It has a very nice design, not to big and not to small and a large screen. -Cons- For me this phone has very few or no cons at all. My major concern about this phone is that it tends to freeze alot of the time. I thought that perhaps it was just my phone so I returned it to the store and exchanged it for another one, and it did the same thing. I never dropped the phone so I don't know why it would do this. I learned to deal with it, I just have to take out the battery and put it in again when it freezes. Honestly, this would be about the only complain I have about this phone. In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone. I got it at a very good deal since I have a good credit report I got the phone at $99.99, this phone retails at about $150 and for that price it is still good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 91173 2000/8/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 compact functional battery time The Bottom LineWorth living on the smaller cutting edge! Full Review I have just recently identified that I would save money in moving from Verizon to Sprint PCS. Perhaps recklessly I choose the new Samsung SPH-N400 over the much more established quantity the Kyocera 2255. Both are Band Mode Dual band/Tri-mode. The Kyocera has almost double the batery life (N400 is 2.9 hours talktime) but is slightly larger than the 4.25" x 2.04" x 0.82" Samsung. Yes I was sold on the size of the phone - I really dont like larger phones and battery talk time is not all that important for my general useage. Since the phone arrived with me I like the clear 128 x 128 blue display. Programming and menu options/icons are very simple and straightforward. If you hate instruction books then dont pick it up! I particularly like how the address book will store and appropriately label several numbers under one persons name (Work Mobile Home) . Internet connectivity is optional, a calender and alarm features are included (again very simple). Caller ID is Standrad as are 16-tone polyphonic (sounds very cool) ringers,10 melodies and 10 classic ringers. Ability to assign specific tones to individuals in your address book. Please know that this phone is not hooked up to Sprints ringers and screensavers service. The phone rings loud and clear when simply set on high from side bar and you also have the ability to use a vibrating ring or purely vibrate. Voice activated dialing is also avaliable and works reasonably well (As with other phones you have no chance with background noise). Option to click on regular plastic panel or create a flip phone protecting keys (although key lock option in menu). Calls I have had thus far are very clear I am informed that this phone uses third generation voice technology. Overall a promising compact and user freindly phone - but if you are on the phone all day may wish to look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91172 2003/5/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 clear speaker phone pcs vision capable blue backlit keys nice keypad layout color screen moderate battery life slow cpu no conventional ringers poor reception headset clarity screen not protected The Bottom LineOK for casual, non-business use. Otherwise go with something else. Full Review I purchased this phone as a second phone for my business. I really liked some of the features of this phone including the clear speaker phone which worked very well and allowed me to keep both hands free and talk at the same time. The color screen looks good. Of course the phone is PCS Vision capable, but the processing speed of this phone is slower than other phones I have used. The keypad layout is just the right size (not too small like some phones) and the backlit blue keys are great. My biggest issues with this phone were unfortunately my most important requirements; reception and battery life. In the first week this phone dropped me on ten different occasions while talking to clients and checking voice mail. This became a real issue. At work I compared this phone with a co-workers and he had 4 bars of reception and this phone had one bar or reception standing in the same location. The battery life is nothing to write home about and by the end of the day (less than 174 minutes of talk time) I needed to recharge the battery. Finally, the clarity of the headset is less than stellar. I've since switched to the new Sanyo 8100 (uses the new 6000 series Qualcomm chipset) which is smaller, has GREAT reception and clarity and so far the battery life has been good. If you need a phone for occasional use and do not plan to rely on it for any business critical needs the N400 should be fine, otherwise I would go with something else. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $100 91171 2000/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen wireless web flip part does not cover screen wireless web The Bottom LineIt's a good color phone for the price Full Review I have had my N400 for about six months now and I have to say that it's a decent phone, the price is right, most places you can get it for free after rebates. The color screen is vibrant, however the A15 has a much better screen. The reception of the phone is kinda poor here in Colorado Springs, mainly because the ground is not exactly flat, however when I was in Phoenix I had full reception everywhere that I went. I blue lighting behind the numbers is great and allows easy viewing when it's dark. I connect quickly to the wireless web (which really sucks) and battery life is good, but only when you use it to talk and not for games, internet, etc. As for the internet, well it really sucks, the only websites are PCS sites, which means you can't get the regular websites, there are places like CNN.com but as for regular sites, it won't allow you to connect. Back to the phone, it seems to be very durable, I have dropped it several times on concrete and other hard areas, not once have i had a problem with it, it has never frozen on me. Another good part is the downloads that you can get, ringers, screen savers, games, applications, however Spring charges you for these things, but I'm going to tell you a little secret, you can get all of these for free at www.3gupload.com, if you want you can make a donation. But everything on this phone is very good, although it's not the smallest phone, and by stardards it is in no way light weight, if your pants are not real tight or your belt is a little loose then you'll notice your pants almost falling down with every few steps. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 00.00 91170 2000/11/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 color display blue backlit keys screen not protected battery life size width difficult joystick The Bottom LineLook beyond the pretty screen and buy a phone that makes you look sensible. Full Review The Samsung SPH - N400... a piece of ingenious technology... or a piece of in-genious technology...I say the latter. I spent quite a long time looking at various cellphones, providers, services etc. etc. and disappointingly...I purchased the Samsung SPH-N400. Lets start with the positives. A colored LCD screen, looks very nice, great for searching the web. Blue backlit keys, great for seeing in not so good lighting, looks nice. DONE WITH POSITIVES. Now for the negatives. The battery life is disgusting thanks to the colored LCD screen, which by the way takes away from the professional look of the phone. Everyone wants a colored LCD screen, but for what? If you dont spend time playing games on your cellphone all day, a colored LCD isn't necessary, and who in their right mind actual spends a great deal of time searching the web on their 2inch cellphone LCD screen? Most use it for simple task such as email..stock quotes...sports scores...Why does everyone want colored LCD's again? Oh I remember now, so their phone can look like a teenager's toy, and they can recharge it constantly due the the LCD screen sucking up their battery life. NEXT. Large wide bodied phone...If you like your women "thick" then you might like this phone as well. The phone is wide and takes up space. Other cellular phones I've had never needed an entire pocket dedicated to it. This phone does. LOOKS. The phone looks ridiculous on your waist with the color LCD screen easily visible. Very unprofessional. DAMAGE. The phones nicely put together LCD screen gets scratched and is easily damaged. There is nothing protecting the screen, the screen is always visible. JOYSTICK. Good idea, bad implementation Samsung. The joystick is awkward, you can't put your finger on the top of the joystick and move it all around as you wish, or up,down,side,side as you wish...if you want to you move it down, you have to move your finger ot the top of the joystick and pull down, if you want to move the joystick up, you have to move you finger to the bottom of the joystick and push up... etc. etc. The A500 and A460 have an oval navigational pad that is excellent. The phone is not worth the money at all, and I can assure you that it will be discontinued shortly. Everyone yells about a colored LCD screen....what the hell does that have to do with signal strength, clarity, reliability, phone quality, professionalism...nothing. Look beyond the pretty screen and buy a phone that makes you look sensible. Unless you're a teenager not concerned with business appearance, buy this phone, if not, get something decent. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 91169 2000/12/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy learning curve speaker phone color screen compact size few ringers The Bottom LineIt is an awesome choice for a high schooler or college kid. Durable and fun; A great phone all around. Full Review This is my second cellular phone. My first, a Nokia 8260, does not even hold a candle to this phone. I have only had this phone for about a week now, but I love it. Before buying it, I came to this website to read what owners have said. I knew a couple people who had it before me and I messed around with it. I found the phone to be easily usable and very comfortable. So I made my choice, and bought the N-400. And I don't regret it at all. I bought the phone mainly for it's color screen and flip cover protection for the keys. The Nokia 8260 is not a flip, so I wanted to try a new phone style. I love the appearance of the phone. It looks simple, but interesting. I showed it off the day after i got it to some freinds, and everyone was crazy over it. I love the clarity of calls and the speaker phone is such a great feature to have. Most of the time I turn the speaker phone on and lay it on my bed next to me. I've had many 45 minute calls and I've been on speaker phone the whole time. The amazing part is that the person on the other end had no clue they were on speaker phone. A definite plus for this phone. Also, the Vision feature thru Sprint is a nice plus. It's not quite stable yet, but I can access CNN and get sports, news, stock, and other updates extremely easy. The only gripe i have, along with most of the other reviews is battery life. Being a college student, I use my phone a lot thru the course of the day. Definitely think about getting a battery upgrade if you use 3.5 hours of talktime a day. Otherwise, you'll be missing out on this phone as it will always be on the charger and not in your pocket. I bought a basic car adapter charger and it helps with charging issues. I researched about this phone for 2 weeks before I got it. I spent at least an hour everyday searching the net for reviews and comments. I am very particular when it comes to phones, as I had a few problems with my previous Nokia. This phone is definitely a great piece of work. I've had no problems with it yet, and I don't imagine I will, either. The phone was $180, minus an instant $80 rebate. Go out to any Best Buy, Circuit City, or Sprint Store and actually play with this phone before you buy it. Most likely you'll buy it soon after like I did. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100+tax 91168 2000/10/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 polyphonic sounds size lcd microphone were all problem areas i hate this phone case The Bottom LineDon't but this phone unless you plan on babying it - and trading up within 6 months. Full Review I've been a cellular user for 6 years - and had always bought qualcomm phones until this Samsung. I changed because Sprint no longer had a qualcomm phone - and i was guaranteed that this was one of the toughest, longest lasting phones on the market. I kept my last qualcomm for over 2 years. In less than 3 months, i cracked the outer plastic display screen - with it in my pocket. I have dropped it a couple of times, but that screen has never broken on any of my other phones. Within about 2 weeks of that, the color in the LCD starting fading - and it has reached the point that i cannot read the screen at all anymore. "Ink" blotches have started appearing on the screen as well. The phone still functions, though i should say that voice quality is not very good. Other people have a very difficult time hearing me, like the microphone isn't picking up or is defective. The location of the speakerphone is just right so that if i'm driving and holding it in my left hand, your finger falls immediately on it - convenient - until you activate the speaker without meaning to. After about the 3rd time in a single call - this gets really old. The battery life was spotty. Some days, i could talk forever on it - and still had plenty of power left. There were a few times when i had the phone off, or left it idle for the day - perhaps made one or two short calls - and it would die, such that when i got off work and needed to make a call - it would not even power up. I charge my phone every night - so that should not have been an issue. I did not like the keypad - it was easy to misdial, and the buttons were flush, such that it was very hard to dial with gloves on, and while driving - as you had to look at each number before and after you mashed the button. I did like several things about the phone. The ringer was great - polyphonic tones are cool. The speaker function was nice - when i chose to use it. The calendar function it had was also nice. Overall - this is the worst phone i have ever owned. I paid more for it than any other phone i've ever bought, and it was a total piece of crap. 4 months, and it's going in the trash can. I replaced it with the last model qualcomm i owned - the best phone that i've ever had - it's a used one - off of Ebay, but i'm quite confident it will last more than 4 months, and i paid $125 less for it than i did my Samsung piece of junk. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 152Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91167 2002/11/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good ergonomics nice speaker phone good call clarity poor battery life faded lcd screen slow processor speed The Bottom LineRoad warriors should be wary of the phone's limited battery life in analog conditions, but aside from that, the phone has many features to recommend it. Full Review This is a short review touching on some key features of the Samsung N400 that will color most a user's experience. Consider it an addendum to the more complete reviews on this site. 1.Battery Life. The first accessory the road warrior will buy for this phone is the car battery charger, the second is an extended battery. Within a digital network, the battery life is adequate, but the moment the phone enters analog mode, the battery begins discharging at an alarming rate. Road warriors know the true test of a cell phone is the analog experience, because digital coverage can be spotty when they need it most - like at airports and within office buildings. The battery charger that comes with the phone is travel size -- making in convenient to place in carry on luggage. 2.LCD Screen. The colors are rather faded, and the on board adjustments inadequate to coax a better picture than what you get from the defaults. 3.Speaker Phone. This is the best speaker phone implementations I've seen on any phone - cellular or not. 4.Sprint. A few of the phone's key features require interaction with Sprint's PCS web site. When I was last on the site, my impression was that they hadn't worked out all the bugs yet - some pages would freeze up and become inaccessible for a while. 5.Speaker Volume. Very loud. 6.Call clarity. Very good. 7.PIM. This is the first phone PIM I've actually found myself using on a regular basis. Nice alarm choices and scheduling. [In conjunction with the loud ringer, the scheduler makes the phone a good travel alarm clock]. 8.Ergononics. I find the joystick very useful (and fully configurable). The numeric keys are easy to access and well lit for low light conditions. The volume control is a little out of the way, but no real problem. Occasionally the keyboard lock gets undone when I'm carrying the phone in my pocket. 9.Processor Speed. Who cares about processor speed on a cell phone? Anyone using the on board java! Games play very slowly on this phone - you won't be using the color lcd for action games, but the phone is adequate for card & strategy games. 10.Tones. Almost all events can be assigned a customizable tone. Very nice -- I can tell if someone has sent me an email or left a message without having to look at the screen. And of course, you can assign callers individual tones for an audio caller id experience. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91166 2003/9/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 bright clear display wireless data modem nice loud ringers none of the pros actually work reliably software crash freeze samsung cust service sprint cust The Bottom LineBe prepared for crashes, freezes, strange behavior, broken power ports, rudely interrupted cut-off calls, scrambled phone directories, and lots of excuses from Samsung and whoever sold you the phone. Full Review I bought the Samsung N400 to get access to Sprint's PCV Vision data services -- e-mail by phone, cellular modem for laptop to get e-mail on the road, etc. I've always owned a Samsung cell phone -- from the old-fashioned bricks in the early days of Sprint up to the sexy SPH-A400 flip phone that I owned prior to this one. They were always durable, capable, easy to use, reliable, cheaper than the competition -- in short, a great value. When it came time to get a new phone, a Samsung was a no-brainer. And make no mistake, the N400 is a damn sexy phone. Svelte, lightweight, with data capabilities for both the screen and your laptop (browse the web and download your e-mail!), it's a sexy package. The polyphonic ringer is loud and clear. The phone flips open to reveal large, clear, backlit buttons that are easy to press and have a satisfying click to them. The built-in PIM capabilities are great, too. My N400 syncs with Microsoft Entourage on my Macintosh with no trouble at all, keeping me current on my appointments throughout the day. The 256-contact phone list is a godsend, and very flexible, allowing you to keep different ringtones for various caller types. Significant other calling? No prob -- give him/her a separate tone. Getting calls with "caller ID blocked"? No prob -- give them a different ring tone and let them go straight to VM. Battery life on this phone is below-average, probably due to the bright color screen. A car charger is a must for the road warrior. Reception is pretty good -- better than with my old A400, but less than that of the Sanyo 4900 that Sprint PCS stores can sell you (then again, the Sanyo is a big, bulky ugly phone, not a svelte beauty). The phone was fantastic -- for about two weeks. Then it died suddenly, with the screen constantly showing nothing but the Sprint logo, over and over. Sprint wouldn't replace it, sending me to Best Buy (who wouldn't replace it either without me calling Samsung and having a rep harangue the customer service person). This phone, according to Sprint, has lots of trouble with software, and I am worried that it will manifest itself again, even in the event that I quickly get a new one (my case is still being "processed" by Best Buy, so we'll see what happens there). I'll edit my review to include a long-term update after several months with this phone (assuming it's trouble-free). But for now, I have to urge caution to potential buyers, since the consensus at Sprint's own store, and other Sprint users I know, is that this is a potentially troublesome phone when it comes to software. And that's a shame. --- UPDATE: September 8, 2003 I am disappointed to report that things are not going well. In short, this product is JUNK. Pretty junk that kicks butt in theory, but junk nonetheless. I am now on my third handset. The second one got sent in after its software "crashed" rendering the phone inoperable. Now the third one that I have, after just a few weeks, suffers from a myriad of problems: 1) One in three outbound calls never goes out -- it just "freezes" or reports "Call not sent." Samsung sent me to Sprint for a "software update." Sprint blames Samsung. It's a big blame game. 2) The modem drops connections under PCS Vision all the time, without warning. 3) The phone "reboots" without warning in the middle of a phone call, dropping your connection. 4) The phone now refuses to charge properly without "jiggling" the plug in cord. It does this for both the car charger and the home charger. The skinny, cheap pin inside the phone appears to be EXTREMELY fragile and ready to break off. 5) The phone "forgets" and corrupts numbers and names stored in the directory. 6) The phone's speakers get confused, sending sounds to the speakerphone rather than the earpiece or vice versa, without warning or reason. 7) The phone's software support is miserable. Sprint's RealOne service only plays about 10 seconds of sound before the phone crashes or just loses a connection. 8) Reception is iffy, even in the same location. Sometimes you get a very strong signal, other times a very weak one. Everyone I know who has this phone loved it in the beginning and now hates it, without exception. When I was in Montreal with a friend at a Rogers Wireless store, the store manager did a double-take at the phone, and then told me his store no longer carries it because it's so troublesome. He told me it was typical for customers to go through three, four or more N400s due to software issues and quality issues. That's a REAL shame, and Samsung seems unconcerned about whether I am happy. They'll not replace this phone with a different model, they keep "fixing" it (and sending it back, only to have the same problems reappear after a few days). I was a Samsung phone loyalist, but am no longer. This afternoon, I am marching down to the Sprint store and buying the ugly but functional Sanyo 4900. Don't touch the Samsung N400 with a ten-foot pole -- you'll regret it. This svelte, sexy phone is a real dud, and ends my 7 year non-stop streak of brand loyalty to Samsung phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91165 2004/12/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 speakerphone small size flip style stops your ear from getting red if you are in kansas city it dosen t work The Bottom LineThis is a solid phone that will exceed the common users expectations. It has exceeded mine - UNLESS YOU ARE IN KANSAS CITY! Full Review *** UPDATE: When I moved to Kansas City, I started to get really crappy coverage, and started to use my wife's phone whenever we were together to avoid getting disconnected. This phone only works with Sprint service - consequently, I would not recommend this phone anymore. Otherwise, the other things I said about the phone are still true. Don't kid yourself. Everybody uses their cell phone differently. As long as you don't need to use your phone an excessive amount every day, this phone is for you. People complain about the battery life, but they are always people who either 1) use their phone three hours a day, or 2) want to go a week at a time between charges. This phone has a color screen. . . what do you expect? I've had a couple different phones since I started my Sprint service five years ago, and I have been pleased with both. I noticed the battery life on my old phone dying, and consequently the signal was getting weaker (this really does happen), so it was time to move on. Since I wasn't going to obsess over people's reviews (which I had done before,) I decided there were four things I wanted my new phone to have. . . . 1) Speakerphone. This was key. Now that I have all these freaking minutes, I find myself making routine calls to businesses that put me on hold (including Sprint!) using my cell phone. Having speakerphone helps. 2) Flip style that protects your ears from burning up. The N400 is the latest phone in this style, and it is the same as the SCH-3500, etc. Now, my ears don't get red and inflamed after a 20-30 minute call. Both 1 and 2 lend themselves to using the phone more, and both are realistic expectations when buying a phone. In my opinion people who complain about the "browser" not working the way they want it to need to get a life. 3) Size. This phone is the smallest phone that has speakerphone out there. This is especially helpful for people who want to carry their phone in their pants' pocket, but also useful for ladies who don't want to carry a purse with a brick in it! 4) Price. This phone did not break the bank. Sprint just marked them down to $179, and after the $50 rebate, which existing customers can qualify for if they renew their contract, and minus the $20 if you switch to sprint long distance at your home, comes out to only $109. That's freakin' reasonable. In conclusion, don't kid yourself. If you want a phone that you want to play video games and type research papers on, this may be it. But, more importantly, it is the best phone for people who are realistic. P.S.--The new phone did make a huge difference in reception. Of course, I didn't believe the guy at the Sprint store when he said "the coverage isn't splotchy, it's your phone." Who would believe a sleazy salesman if he said this? Well, with the 14 day money back guarantee, I took him to task, and it turned out he was right. You can stop waffling. Buy this phone tonight. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 109Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91164 2000/5/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone capability great styling voice quality ease of use attractive interface short battery life extra cost for many features The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a new phone that's feature rich, attractive, and reasonably priced, The Samsung N400 could be the one for you. Full Review With each cell phone I've owned (this is my third), I've moved a little bit further up on the technological scale, and I think I've come close to state of the art with the Samsung N400. To say this phone is feature rich would be an understatement. It does it all (although some things better than others.) Here's what I mean - Color display: Very attractive, nice interface look, with some animation, but no so much that it detracts from your ability to follow the menus. A little hard to see in direct sunlight, but not impossible. - Backlight and key size: Excellent features here. The backlighting is bright blue and makes the keys easy to see in low light situations. The key size is large enough to make the labeling easy to ready, and for most, the keys will be easy to use. This was not the case with my Nokia 3360 on which the keys were small and close together - a lot of mistakes happened. - Menus: Easy to follow, fairly intuitive, and self-explanatory. The phone uses a joystick device to navigate the menus which works pretty well, unless you have very large fingers, in which case you may have trouble using this feature. - Sound and Clarity: Of course, this varies depending on where you are in the Sprint service area, but for the most part the volume and clarity have been good - much better than the Nokia 3360 which always seemed to be faint and hard to hear. - Speakerphone: Great feature that works much better than you might think for a cell phone. Not recommended for use in noisy areas, but where it is reasonably quiet, the sound quality is really quite good, and both ends of the conversation can hear very well. Good volume control rocker button helps as well. - Phone Book: Name entries are limited to 12 characters which can be a problem sometimes, but otherwise this is a well implemented feature. You can assign home, work, mobile, and other #s to the same person at the same time, which is very handy. There's room for 250 entries (but each entry can accomodate multiple phone #s) so there should never be a problem unless you've got a thousand fans out there. There is a voice feature that allows you to speak names and have them dialed for you, but I haven't used it, because I'm paying for Sprint's Voice Command service ($5.00 per month) which offers more flexibility, and the ability to quickly enter a lot of names and numbers on their web site, rather than through the cumbersome method of doing it over the phone (which uses a lot of your minutes as well.) Voice command web entry also allows you to synchronize your address book with other devices, and or other sprint pcs phones (my wife has one as well, and I was able to basically duplicate the address book for her over the web.) Strangely, the manual that comes with the phone does not describe how to delete or edit an existing entry in the phones internal address book (I figured it out, but it took some time.) - PCS Vision Features: While I don't subscribe to these (again you have to pay extra each month) these features let you access the web, exchange images, and more. I can't comment on them since I don't use them. - Downloadable ringers, screensavers: You can download additional ring tones, screensavers, and games from Sprint's web site, but here again, there is a charge to do so (usually a dollar or so for tones, and screensavers.) There's a good collection on their site to choose from. I like the look and feel of this phone, it's comfortable to use, lightweight, and very modern looking. I worry a little about the LCD screen not being covered (the flip cover protects the keys, but let's you see the LCD screen for incoming calls, etc.) I was told by Sprint that the screen is very tough, and not to worry, but I'll let time be the judge of that. We have a family plan with Sprint, so both my wife and I were able to get the phones at a reasonable $49.00 each (vs the retail cost of $149.00). I've read that there are problems with the this phone freezing. So far it has happened once to my wife's unit (removing and then reinserting the battery clears up the freeze), and if this continues we will exchange the phone. Battery life is not great. With all the color and features this phone has, I suppose it's not surprising that the battery life would suffer, although given it's 2003 we ought to be able to develop better battery technology. Charging is relatively quick and easy, however (about 3 hours from nothing to a complete charge), and since this battery does not suffer from the bane of "memory", it can be recharged from any point without worrying about it. My biggest complaint is that many of the features (PCS Vision) require that you pay additional monthly fees to Sprint to use (web access, messaging, etc.) Given what we pay for cell phone service, and that you are charged for minutes over your allotted number, why not just let people have the service, but charge for the minutes used? Not worth it to me. Besides with the Voice Command service, I can get weather, news, sports info included as part of that service. Frankly I spend most of the day on the internet as part of my job, don't need to do it from a phone. In short, I'm very happy with the phone so far. If the "freezing" problem does not rear its head in both of our units, I'll feel as if I got a good deal on a great phone that's fun to use, and functional. If you're looking for a new phone, give this one a close look. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.00 91163 2000/12/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen speaker phone read review lots The Bottom LineDoes it's job as a cell phone but is half-assed in most other respects. Full Review I just upgraded to this phone after losing my Samsung 3500. The n400 is two generations ahead of that. I don't want to write an essay so I'll just cover it point by point. Ringers Many lovely, polyphonic ringers, almost all of them musical. But if you just want a regular cell phone ring (like I do) you're out of luck. Screen Looks good, nice colors. Not fantastic in broad daylight but readable. Different screens are generally graphically pleasing. What it could really use is some protection, a plastic cover or something. Phone book Limits entry names to 12 characters. This is inexcusably lame. Part of the reason for this is that the n400, like the 3500, still displays the memory location of each entry. Has anyone anywhere ever looked up a number by its memory location? Answer: no. It also has an inexplicable and annoying delay in going to names. The 3500 did the same thing. Lets you enter names in groups - I guess. There's no mention of how to do it in the manual. Which is too bad as I could really use that. Different phone numbers (cell, home, work, etc...) for the same person can all be entered under that person's name. Data entry The default system is something called T9 which tries to intuitively guess what you're trying to spell. In my experience it almost always guesses wrong and correcting it is anything but intuitive. So I always have to turn it off which is really annoying. Calendar Okay. Looks very nice. Setting up alarms seems a little needlessly confusing but you get used to it. The presets seem a little dumb; do you really want an alarm going off for an hour? Also it would be very nice if the alarms erased themselves after they were done. As it is, you have to go back into the calendar and do it. A couple of other points: if you're out of the Sprint PCS area the clock no longer works. No clock, no alarms. No good. Also, it would be nice if the phone notified you that you missed an alarm when the phone was off. It doesn't. Speaker phone Works well and very useful. Reports I've read elsewhere say that it has a habit of turning on by itself but I haven't experienced that. Two problems: 1, sometimes, even at the lowest volume setting, it's too loud. And 2, the volume control of the speaker phone is linked to the volume control of the regular speaker. So if you turn the volume of the speaker phone down, when you switch back to the regular speaker, it will be at its lowest level. If you switch back and forth between the two on the same call (as I sometimes do) you have to keep adjusting the volume. It's a real pain. Battery About what you would expect. If you're going anywhere for more than two days, bring the charger. Reception Works the same as the 3500 for me. I've had no problems in New York City but hit the usual dry spots in surrounding areas. Clarity Fine. You still get that little delay that leads to people stepping on each other in conversation but all cell phones seem to have that. Sprint Customer Service: Terrible. Whoever came up with the automated service rep Claire should be shot. There is nothing on earth more irritating. Once you get past her expect a good 20 minute wait for a human being. And expect to be put on hold several times after that. Downloads After two months I was finally able to download a screensaver, something from Men in Black II. I downloaded it because it was one of the few free downloads available. Other downloads are usually $1.00 for a ringer, $3-4.00 for the games. If you do decide to spend a buck for a new ring tone, one of the songs available from the nice folks at Sprint is called "B*tch." Wireless Web Slow and without any meaningful use for me. I guess there are some people who really need instant access to stock prices and sports scores, maybe this would be good for them. Games The games that come with the phone are all demos so you can only play beginning levels. I didn't really get into any of them. The screen and the buttons are too small. Keypad Fine. Nice blue backlighting. Documentation Incomplete. There's a note in the manual that says complete documentation can be found at sprintpcs.com. Guess what; it can't. Size and weight Okay, I guess. I find I have to adjust the position of the phone between when I'm listening to someone speak and when I'm talking. I also always feel like it could slip out of my hand. But maybe that's just me. Bottom line The color screen is nice as is having a calendar, imperfect though it is. And it does it's job as a cell phone. But far too many features don't seem thought out at all. There's a hell of a lot ot room for improvement here. GRADE: C- Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 91162 2000/12/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 has speakerphone decent music quality looks good reception phone s software freezes overpriced battery The Bottom LineStay away from this phone. It only looks good... Full Review I bought this phone because I need a speakerphone and color screen seemed like a nice touch. First week I was happy as I liked the display and the music that the phone could play. Unfortunately, these things can't compensate for some serious flaws in N400. They are: 1) Battery - probably the biggest problem because I just could not talk half of the time. The talk time is very limited - turned out at most 1.5 hours before a full recharge. Using vibrate signal cut the talk time to less than 1 hour. So you better learn to talk fast - or prepare to carry another battery with you... The battery was very unpredictable - it could be completely charged, and then it would die in 4 hours of standby (with good reception) without any reason! This happened at least once a month. Note that if there is poor reception and N400 is searching for signal - it will kill the battery in several hours. So, the battery is the worst I've ever used. 2) Reception turned out to be poor. That was partially due to Sprint's horrible network in New York City. At the same time, I had a case where my phone had poor signal, while other Sprint Phones worked... so I strongly feel the N400 is at fault here. The signal strenght indicator often acted in a bizarre way -it would fluctuate significantly, even if I did not change my position... 3) The phone freezes up. That happens in two ways - first - it seems to work but when you call someone - there is no signal even if you try several numbers and several times. Upon restart of the phone - N400 starts working again. The second way is more obvious - the phone just freezes and the keys and joystick don't work. Again, restart is the only way to fix the problem. I guess Samsung did not take their time to test the phone properly. 4) Sprint offered an $80 rebate on this phone. Surprisingly, the phone costs $180, so I actually paid $100 for such a poor quality product. OVERALL - please stay away from this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91161 2000/9/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of neat features very flashypretty more than any one phone should have The Bottom LineAvoid this phone at all costs. Lots of neat features but also lots of quality problems and design mistakes. Full Review I was given this phone as a warranty replacement for a Motorola I owned. I should have kept the damaged Motorola, even with the antenna broken off it worked better than this phone. While is phone is high on features is low on quality implementation of those features. First, the quality issues. While is has a speakerphone, sometimes it will get stuck in speakerphone mode and only removing and replacing the battery will restore it to normal operation. The charger supplied with the phone doesn't fit snugly in the socket on the phone so once in a while I grab my phone in the morning only to find that it has hardly any battery life remaining. Which brings me to my next point, the battery life is disappointing. Sometimes it has a hard time making it through a regular work day. Lastly, the rubber cover over the earpiece socket is next to impossible to remove. Next, bad design problems. There is apparently no easy way to tell the phone to not ring and to vibrate instead in all circumstances. It is easy to turn the regular ringer off but that doesn't silence voicemail or text message notifications. The phone book only allows a persons name to be 12 or few characters. I know people who's FIRST names are longer than that, not to mention their surnames. While on the subject of the phonebook, it doesn't allow me to designate two of a persons numbers to both be "work" or both "home", you get exactly one of each. The calendar/planner, while a nice idea, is not feature-rich enough to be useful. A major inconvenience for me is that fact that if the phone looses service, it looses the clock as well. How hard can it be to put a real clock in it so I can tell what time it is when I'm in the back of the bar? The last, and most minor complaint is that the phone comes with two "themes" for the look & feel of the interface. Both are cheesy. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91160 2002/12/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 looks great clear speakerphone reliable receptionbattery color lcd wireless web browser is slowsometimes unreliable The Bottom LineThis is a really nice looking phone with features and quality to go with it. Give it a try, you'll thank yourself. Full Review This is my third cell phone; my first was Samsung sch-3500, followed by a sch-8500. I liked the styling on the sch-3500 so I decided to get the third generation, Samsung N400. I find little to dislike this phone. My first impression was, WOW! This is a really cool looking phone, and for me, it's not too small or big. The only part I don't like about Samsung phones is the antenna piece portrudes about an inch. Pokes me wrong sometimes :D. I get really good battery life with this phone. Over 3 hours in many instances. Most of the time, I can get 3 days of periodic use without charging. The speakerphone was one of the baits for me. I really find it useful in the car or when I'm charging the phone while talking. This brings up a major topic. Previous to my purchase, many people had indicated a problem with the N400 speakerphone: they couldn't control the on/off of the speakerphone. I spent 5 minutes with the phone and figured it out. The speakerphone will be enabled automatically when the phone is being charged by the adapter. This is design intent -- whether it be a good one is subject to opinion. I have no problem with this feature, since If I could walk around with the phone on my ear and the power cord in, I'd probably forget and rip the plug out. The handset has a purple lighted keypad and a backlit lcd screen. These are both configurable to adjust their duration or on/off. The LCD screen is very readable and adjustable. If it looks washed out, you can adjust the contrast to suit your needs. I've seen better LCD's (like the Samsung A500), but the price will usually be higher. The LCD is very readable in direct sunlight. I believe the LCD technology is reflective since it performs it's best under direct sunlight. Also looks great when the backlight is on under low-light conditions. The only time when the screen seems "washed" occurs when using phone in shaded sunlight. One of the neater things about the design of the phone is the ability to use the wireless web or phone functions without opening up the phone, unlike the clam-shell cell phones. This is pretty neat if you just want to lookup a memo or contact. The N400 includes twelve settings for notifying you of an incoming call: off, vibration, 1-beep, 8 levels of loudness for polymorphic ringers, and a super powerful setting, polymorphic ringer plus vibration together. You can also assign specific polymorphic ringers and pictures to people in your address book. Whenever my family and friends call, their assigned picture, phone #, and their unique ringer is displayed! PCSPix.com allows you to upload pictures/ringers to the N400. The reception is good; I usually pull the antenna out indoors. The calls are very crisp and human-like. My sch-8500 phone was very "digital" sounding. The N400 is more like a regular phone line in terms of voice quality. The N400 is a Tri-mode phone: it covers more area than a non-Tri-mode phone. From speakerphone to ringer to handset, the N400 is really loud. I usually have the speaker phone and handset volume set to the lowest. In contrast, I would always set my previous cell phones to the loudest setting. Vision (the next generation wireless web) is pretty good, except it's very slow moving when used on the handset. I really enjoy reading news when I'm bored. I have used the Sprint PCS Connection kit or the USB Data Cable, and they both work with your Sprint Vision service. If you use them with Unlimited Vision, you can effectively have unlimited internet. I've tested download speeds up to 135kbps, which is way faster than 56k modems. But, be warned, that somewhere in Sprint's terms and conditions they indicate Sprint users with Unlimited Vision are not supposed to use the data cable. However, I have received my bill and they have not billed or charged extra for using the Sprint PCS connection kit and cable. And, I have confirmed with their customer service that I can continue to use the cable. The cable can be purchased for $20 from RadioShack (part#17-781). The best price for this phone was $29.99 after rebates from Amazon (1-year service agreement). I purchased it for 69.99, and I still think it's a good deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.99 91159 2000/3/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 it has a color lcd great extras like airplane modeorganizer pcs vision service should be free downloads should also be free The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a magnificent color phone packed with all sorts of features and innovative extras look not further this is the phone for you. Full Review Well I was so excited that I was getting this phone that I researched everything about it for 4 weeks before we went in and bought it. We went to Circuit City and tried out Sprint quality in our area by using a sample phone and were pleased that the quality was excellent eventhough we were talking from the inside of a brick building. The phone also seemed great especially with its color screens--Hey how many people today have color Phones? and the great little extras that came with the phone. First of all the phone was a great value due to the price at which we got it. We decided we wanted the family plan and so we went ahead and bought two phones. Guess what the price was? $0.00. No I'm not kidding that's what we paid for each of the $179.99 Phones at Circuit City after mail in rebate. Also we got two cell phone starter kits with a headset belt clip, and universal case all in a body glove steel case worth $29.99 for free also after mail-in-rebate. That was a total savings of $450 some dollars after taxes. Do you call that an exceptional deal or what? The phone was the greatest one I had ever used since the only other ones in my family were the old Nokia 5160 and the slightly newer but still (black and white) Motorola T192. The phone is packed with all kinds of features and due to its manufacturer being Samsung- one of the most reliable electronic giants in the world I knew I was getting a dependable and trustworthy phone. The phone comes with 3 games and one ringer (rather annoying in my opinion--its a chicken ringer!!:))One feature I really loved about the phone was the joystick like device in the middle. It is a revolutionary device. It felt like heaven using that to scroll through the menu rather than using flat buttons. The menu is also very well organized and there are motion cartoons that appear when you highlight each selection. For example you can see a satellite spinning when you select WEB under the menu. The phone also has great features like a world clock, calculator, organizer, and countdown. These features are very hard to find on most color phones let alone the old black and white ones. The phone is also very stylish with its flip style and attractive color. The volume control buttons and speaker phone are also very innovative. The size of the phone is a marvel considering all the features it packs inside.You will not believe how small the battery is-- Its funny thinking about how even the antenna of the first cell phone was probably larger than the height of this phone. What a way cell phones have come. I wanted to finally address some of the cons other people have written about especially the prevalent " Battery life is average at best for cell phones" or "Bad Battery Life". All I would like to say is that I never have problems with battery life as I can connect it to a charger every night. How hard is it to connect a wire to the end of the phone before you go to bed!! And like magic Wallah there it is your fully charged phone ready to go in the morning. Even for people on the go there are various travel and car chargers available and even extended batteries available. I believe that for most average users battery life should not even be the slightest concern when considering this phone. Another bad point about the phone is not really within itself but with the Spring service. I really hate having to pay for PCS vision and the downloads and I really feel no use for the phone without it. But I guess they want to make money off of everything don't they. Well I guess that's capitalism. (Don't see many color cell phones in China I guess!! but then I've never been to China). Finally, I think that this phone is one of the coolest color phones around now. It is available for a great price as they always have promotions and special offers. You just have to do some research and you will get this phone for free--I swear. So if you feel like you need to throw your old black and white phone or even the new defective color phone go out for the SAMSUNG N400. It is one of the most stylish and feature-packed phones out there and its always cool when you flip your color phone open in front of family and friends and you can take their picture with the add on camera from sprint. Well good luck anyway in your quest for phones. But if you liked this review then Samsung N400 is the way to go!!!!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91158 2002/11/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 form factor awesome screen battery life limited data entry for pda functions The Bottom LineGood phone for a first generation SprintPCS phone. If they can address some of the data entry and PDA entry limitations, it would be an awesome phone. Full Review In some shape or form, I've been using a cell phone for the past six years. I've used Motorola, Nokia, Audiovox and now I'm using my first Samsung phone. Do I like it? Yes. Would I recommend it to others? Yes. Does it have problems and limitations? Sadly, yes it does. Being a natural gadget freak and avid technology user I try to keep up as much as I can on modern technology. I have a high-end (at least it used to be) Sony Clie NR70V PDA that I love and will use until an even better model worth upgrading too comes out. When I was using T-Mobile, I started off with a lowly and gimmicky Motorola phone, then as I progressed up the payroll ladder at work I kept upgrading my cellphone. Like I mentioned I've used many phones before, including several Motorola phones. My first cellphone was a Motorola cellphone that was buggier than a Windows 95 system, and crashed just as often. I then progressed to an awesome Audiovox phone, that for it's time, had many features other phones lacked. My last phone I used before getting the Samsung was a Nokia 8290. It was an awesome phone with a lot of features and capabilities (even some the Samsung lacks!), but where I worked I did not have any or very little coverage. Other people around me could go almost anywhere in the building and get coverage, but for me a 20 foot walk from the windows and all would be lost. Having a father that has a heart condition, and a mother with other medical problems I need a cellphone where I can get coverage. That and prolonged problems and T-Mobile's lack of consideration or respect for pre-paid customers was enough of a push to get me to move to a different carrier. After a lot of research, and a special offer from SprintPCS, I decided to go with their $30 300 minute plan with unlimited PCS Vision for $10. So far, so good, but then again I only signed up a few days ago. This review isn't about the SprintPCS service, but about the phone they offer. When I went to Best Buy to look at the phones offered, I was very tempted by the Samsung A500. Before going though I had read reviews and for what the A500 offered it didn't match what I really wanted. Some of the features the N400 had that I liked included the speakerphone (safe for driving), and the ability to connect it to a computer with a USB cable and use the phone as a modem. The phone itself is rather light, and only two ounces heavier than my little Nokia 8290. Here is the amazing thing. With the attached sliding faceplate I use on the Nokia, it is the same thickness as the Samsung. If the N400 didn't have the antenna bulging out, it would be only a quarter of an inch (roughly) longer than my Nokia 8290! As it stands the N400 is almost as tall as my Sony Clie NR70V is long. The width of the phone could be compared to a pack of cigarettes, but a bit wider. Some of the nice things about the phone include the ability to lock the keys when the flip cover is closed, to prevent accidental useage. Of course there are the now standard features like voice-dialing, and silent alerts. The phone has a rather larger multi-state LED at the top that flashes with incoming calls. The vibrating alert on the phone is rather strong and can easily be felt in a pocket, but I wouldn't count on it being felt in a purse. Now, to the faults and problems with the phone. If you plan on using the PDA or day-planner features of the phone you'd better look elsewhere. You are limited to only a 32 character entry for events, tasks, and notes. That includes special characters like spaces and commas. It may seem like a lot, but it really isn't. For the name space in the Phone Book, you only have a space of 12 characters! Now, my old Nokia I could have about 20 characters for the name field, but that is all it could really hold. With the Phone Book application on the Samsung, it is a lot like a complete address book listing because you have sections for other numbers, fax, web address, birthday, whether or not the listing can be seen on the address book, what group the person belongs too and a lot more. I can live with the limited name field, but some of the other touted PDA features are not what they claim. The speaker phone feature is awesome, loud and easy to understand. I can put the phone down on a desk or the seat next to me when I drive and easily talk. The people on the other line can easily hear me as well. In a quiet room they can't even tell you're on a speaker phone. After using the phone for about a week, I realized the limitations it had (limited wireless web, PDA entry, address book entries) just kept adding up and marring the phone. For those who want a PCS Vision phone for sending and receiving pictures, it would be perfect. For those who want wireless web and more data oriented features (like PDA capabilities), the LG LX5350 phone may work better. It is the phone I recently upgraded too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91157 2000/6/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 comfort features does not heat up reception outside city limits battery life The Bottom LineA good phone that doesn't heat up if you live near Sprint Towers and work near them as well. Easy to use and comfortable but lacks geographic range. Full Review Alas, as often happens to favored toys of old, my old Samsung cell phone sprung a crack. Sadly, that crack was right in the flip part of the phone so soon the wires would break and the phone would be no more. I was so fond of that ole' phone that I used it as my only phone and only kept a phone line for internet service (much to the chagrin of say, my parents who kept wanting to know my land line number and were surprised I had to look it up in the cell phone). Imagine my distress when not only could they not fix said phone, but the model was new and improved and NOT IN MY BUDGET!! So, like a wayward budget councious travelor I tried the cheapest phone Sprint offered, the A460. And learned that sometimes money does matter. Not only would that sad piece of equipment not get reception inside my apartment, it heated up next to my ear in about 10 minutes and drove me so crazy I actually DID NOT WANT to talk on the phone for long. Luckily, Sprint lets you return phones if you don't like them. So, still not wanting to pay for this model I went so far as to try a whole new brand, although I was so unimpressed I don't even remember what brand it was. I finally caved, and got this phone which reminded me of my old friend. Unfortunately, as they have added some funky details, they have substracted from battery life, which we shall see as the journey progresses. The look: this phone looks (yes!) remarkably like the picture above. It is 4.25" long, 2.04" wide and .82 inches thick. When the flip top is opened it is slightly longer and fits nicely from ear to mouth (unlike some of the non flip top phones which make me think I need to talk louder to get the point across.) So I like the flip top. I have an average size face so I presume this would hold true for most people. The feel: The phone has a nice smoothe feel. It fits comfortably in one hand, even over longer periods of time (which the two other phones I tried did not). It DOES NOT heat up, which is absolutely one of the most important features to me. This is partly due to the position of the screen being on the main phone body and not on the flip part. It is lightweight and fits easily in cell phone pockets of most purses. The feautures: I am a low tech cell phone user so the extent to which I pay attention to the features includes the fact that this phone has: caller ID, the ability to set one ring for known numbers and one for unknown numbers (I have it cluck for unknown ones cause it always makes me and anyone around laugh), Call History, and a nice phone book where you can put someone's home, work, cell AND fax number. Other features it has which I don't use include: planner, e-mail capability, and web services. You do need to sign up for a service to enable use of internet services for the phone which is an extra fee per month. It has about 16 ring types which can be set separately for a known number, an unknown number, a roaming call and a message alert. Sadly, none of these rings are "normal." They are all either pieces of songs or funky rings. My old friend had a nice phone type ring to it , an option which is I guess, outdated. One of the rings as I said, is chickens clucking. This is just pain fun to use. The reception: I use my phone all over Southwest Ohio. My apartment is slightly outside the city of Cincinnati. I have had it cut out on me in said apartment about 4 times, which I was non too happy about. This may be due to me having moved farther away from Sprint towers. I can't get more than two bars of reception here. I also work in some pretyy rural areas so the phone goes into roaming a lot. The reception, when I can get it in roaming is good although there are some dead spots, especially in buildings. The trouble is, if I am in a dead spot the phone doesn't ring. But that isn't the phones fault, sprint needs to build more towers. The battery life: You sacrifice long battery life when you add things like web capability, which I don't even use. The bummer is that when the phone and I go into roaming (which is most days), if I use it even 5 minutes it will die out before I get home in the evening if I don't charge it in the car. It also does this by simply being carted into roaming if I don't use it which is really annoying. If you never go into a roaming area, which does happen some days, the battery life is fine. The conclusion: I like this phone, it was worth paying more for it but I really miss its predecessor. If you have Sprint and live near a city I would go for it. If you don't already have Spring and/or you live in more rural areas, I would shop around for an entirely different cell phone company. I will be when my contract runs out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91156 2003/1/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 pcs vision enabled unconventionalcool flip style versatility speakerphone color screen battery life is average at best for cell phones but better than my old sph a460 The Bottom LineThe color screen says it all. This is the next generation of cellular phone and it won't disappoint. More options than you'll know what to do with. Full Review I replaced my Samsung SPH-A460 with this phone because the 460's talk-time battery life was less than one hour fully charged. I got fed up with that and exchanged it for this new PCS Vision-enabled Color Screen SPH-N400. It's flip, but its not! This is a flip phone, but an unconventional one at that. The conventional flip phone folds in the middle and when opened, the screen was on one half and the keypad on the other. This phone is a refreshing departure from that tried and tested flip form. On this phone, only the earpiece flips up. The screen and keypad are on the same side, but there is no sacrifice in screen size or keypad size. At first sight the phone seems awkward and larger than normal flip phones, but this design quickly grows on you. Once that happens, then you learn about its functionality and versatlilty! What is PCS Vision? Since the SPH-N400 is PCS Vision-enabled, this means you can surf the wireless web in full color and full web-browser style, rather than the old black-and-white text-based wireless web style. A marked improvement on Sprint's part. You are able to download ring tones, wallpapers, games like Space Invaders, MotoGP and PacMan, and applications like Weather.com Wireless Radar, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and others. This can all be done through SprintPCS.com but you have to pay for what you find on their site. There are various other sites which offer free uploads (of your pictures and ring tones, in MIDI format) and free downloads (of already uploaded material from other users). I love the fact that I can upload pictures that I take and have them appear on my cell phone after dialing into their site. Simply amazing. That's enough for the PCS Vision. Now for the phone itself! The good looks... The phone has an external antenna, which is somewhat large but necessary. If there was no antenna, the phone wouldn't work! The screen is roughly one inch square with decent resolution (I don't know the exact number of pixels.) This is the most gorgeous feature of the phone though, as the screen is in FULL COLOR! I don't know how we ever got by with old black-and-white screens. Color just makes so much more sense and looks so much better. It's about time we've moved up to color screens in our phones. Funky colors The keypad and buttons light up with a blueish-purple tint, which is better than the classic cell-phone-green tinge that is par for the cell phone course. JOYstick Instead of a round button on the upper portion of the keypad which was used to navigate, this phone has a 'joystick' which performs the same functions. Move it up, down, left, right and push down for "OK". This is used to navigate through menus and to scroll/select while surfing the wireless web. Using the phone to the fullest The Menu options are: Call History Phone Book Messaging Web Downloads Pictures Voicemail Voice Dial Planner Settings KeyGuard Messaging Messaging is numeric or alpha-numeric pages that you may receive. You can also get your SprintPCS E-mail on this phone, which you can configure through this menu. Wireless Web Web accesses the Vision Wireless Web Voicemail manages your voicemail mailbox Voice Dial is one of the best features of this phone. You can assign a recorded value (name) to a particular phone number. I.E., you say "Work" and after setting up the voice dial (by recording your voice and assigning it to that particular number) the phone dials your work number. Great feature. Planner Planner is sort of like a mini-PDA option. I haven't explored this much. There is a calendar, calculator, alarm, countdown time, memo pad, task list, scheduler. I imagine if you hooked this phone up to a PDA through a data cable, you can transfer tasks between the two devices. Pictures! If you buy the SprintPCS Vision Camera ($100) you can take your own pictures with the phone. I have a digital camera already so I don't need this. The Settings A large menu of options. Display, sounds, internet, roaming, location, messaging, security, airplane mode, others and phone info. Display changes your display options. Same thing for sounds too. The location is a new feature with Sprint PCS phones. They can find where you are when you're using your phone. I've heard rumors that this option uses a lot of battery power, so I have it turned off. Even with it off, if I were to have an emergency, the phone still sends my location to 911 so they can come save me. A nice feature. Airplane Mode With this on, I can't make calls or recieve calls, but I can still use my phone. I guess this is so the phone won't try to find signal and disrupt airplane communications. Whatever. Others - here you can customize your phone even more. The Launch Pad (what they call the joystick) can be customized for the direction its pushed in. For example, if I push it up, that goes to my phone book. Left is calculator. Right is Downloads, down is Voice Dial. This can be changed to do just about anything you desire. This is also where you can change how to answer...whether on flip-open, hitting the talk key, or hitting any key (where's the any key?) Anyway, there are more options to play with, but too many to list here. A fantastically customizable phone. Strange Sounds The sounds leave a bit to be desired. They are MIDI tones, which sound like computer music. Most of the included ringers sound very stupid. I suggest searching the internet and downloading something that suits you better. (I just wanted a normal old-school cell phone beep beep, which I found and have currently installed.) Speakerphone...without the tin-can effect The speakerphone is a bonus option with this phone. I haven't used it much but it seems to work ok. A little crackly sound and the person on the other end can pick up a pin dropping or noise from you moving the phone through the air. They find speakerphone annoying, I find it useful. They can deal with the noise...like I say, if I'm using the speakerphone, there's a good reason for my hands to be not holding the phone. Conclusion I hope this phone's battery will last longer than the previous SPH-A460. So far I haven't been disappointed. This phone seems to be built well and has a plethora of functions and options which make it the most attractive phone on the SprintPCS lineup for me. I hope you agree. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 91155 2002/10/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone flip style polyphonic ringer pcs vision capable color screen not the greatest battery life The Bottom LineThis is my favorite of the new PCS Vision phones. It has great style combined with easy of use, nice features, and the perfect size. Go get it today. Full Review When I originally decided to buy a cell phone in October 2001 I had spent some time looking at the Samsung N200, but was drawn to the battery life of the 4700. Well my beloved 4700 was lost in July. I again spent some time looking at the N200. Unfortunately I couldn't find it in stock and so decided to get another 4700. Now I'm in a position where I get to play with cell phones all the time, and I even get a discount on buying specific models. One of the models I can get is the N400. I know that my new phone is only about two months old, but I have been blown away by the N400. There are very few differences between the N200 and the N400 other than the enhanced screen and internet features of the N400. Both phones are relatively the same size and form factor, with very slight differences. One of the great things about the N400 is that they kept the joystick style navigation. For those unfamiliar with the N200: there is a small joystick in the center of the phone just below the screen that is used to navigate the menus and activate the features of the phone (pressing the joystick in is the "OK" button). The menus on the phone have been changed, and updated. Instead of the basic black and "white" menus the user is now treated to a menu system that displays three options on the bottom half of the screen and an animated image for each option on the top half of the display. This is the exact same menu system as appears on the Samsung A500 (imagine that: same company, same software). Besides looking good and having a great navigational system this phone has a great form factor. It fits very nicely in my hand, with my thumb falling very nicely on the joystick. I can grab the N400, flip the phone open with my thumb and then use nothing more than that same thumb to do everything on the phone (okay, for volume control and speakerphone I use my index finger and middle finger on that same hand). It's wonderfully easy to use, and it looks good. Besides it fits better into my pocket than the 4700 did (even so I like to use the belt clip). As for features that are new and improved the big thing is the PCS Vision capabilities. I can access the internet at up to 144 k/sec (that's ten times faster than the 14.4 k/sec that the N200, or the 4700, got). I can also go to just about any website. The built in browser fully parses HTML so you can go just about anywhere. Heck, the default browser is Google (www.google.com). The new web features make the vision phones. I can do without the color display, but that really helps too. No longer is the web experience two toned. You now get the full experience of the internet. You get to see the images, the icons, and the colors. You can even use the optional camera attachment for this phone (an additional $100) and take color pictures with this phone so that you can email them or upload them directly to Sprint's site where you can access them from your computer (or another Vision phone). You can also use the Vision network to download games, screen savers, and ringers. This means that you can customize your phone and make it just the way you want it. You can also put on games for those times when you have nothing better to do and don't want to waist your minutes. Of course Sprint will charge you extra for the downloads (The price of each download is stated before you make the download and it is added to your next bill. You can choose to password protect the download feature so that random people can't just grab the phone and charge downloads to your account). The tie-in here is that you can download ringers from the internet and apply different ones to each phone number in your phonebook. In this way you can tell who's calling without even looking at your phone (unfortunately there is no way of changing the vibrate style, so you would have to have the audible ringer on to take advantage of this feature). There is even a built in personal organizer with this phone. It has a calendar that you can program to remind you of important dates or events. This is a really nice feature for remembering birthdays. While I've never actually used it to remind me of a birthday I do find that it makes a great alarm clock. If you are just interested in a phone for making calls then the N400 is still a great phone. As mentioned earlier it fits well into my hand and is a relatively light phone, but not so light it feels like a toy. It also has great reception. One of the nicest features, though, is that it is a kind of cross between the flip phones and the straight phones. The earpiece flips down to cover the keys, but the phone doesn't flip completely in half. This allows the phone to cover the keys, remain relatively small, and have the sturdy nature of the larger straight phones. While this phone does not have voice-activated dialing, it is TTY compatible. This means that you can use it to call TTY services, which is great for people that are hard of hearing, or deaf, and want to have the convenience of a cell phone. Combine this with the ability to send and receive text messages and this is a great phone for anybody who needs to use text for communicating. One last standard feature that the N400 offers is the speakerphone. I have become addicted to my speakerphone. I hate being on hold and being forced to hold the phone to my ear. With the speakerphone I don't have to worry about that. Of course I mostly use this feature when I'm just checking my voicemail, but I use in constantly and I don't know if I could go to a phone which didn't have this wonderful feature. The one real complaint that I have about this phone is the battery life. It has a battery life of about 2.9 hours of talk time (that's what the manual says, and it seems to be about right from my usage). Unfortunately I have become spoiled by the 4 hours of talk time that is standard for the 4700. However there is an easy (albeit monetarily backed) solution to this: Samsung sells an extended life battery that should kick the battery life of the phone up to 4 hours (I haven't tried the extended life battery myself, but I trust Samsung). So if you are currently a Sprint customer then you should definitely look into upgrading to a Vision phone. If you do this you should most certainly at least take a look at the N400. If don't have Sprint then you should probably compare your service to theirs and have a look at what you can get from the crystal clear PCS digital network. My suggestion is to go down to a RadioShack, grab the N400 and play with it. Then buy it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91154 2003/6/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of features bright screen terrible battery life too long to connect to wireless web bad reception The Bottom LineI am going to look for a new phone with longer battery life, which is my BIGGEST complaint. Full Review Well, I'll cut to the chase pretty quickly. I don't like this phone! It has bad reception, poor speaker phone, and terrible battery life. Also, answer these questions before considering this phone: Will you be using the wireless web very often, will you buy a keyboard to hook the phone to, do you have a lot of patience waiting for the web connection and will you be buying a camera to hook to the phone? If the answer to these questions is 'no' you should look elsewhere for a phone. I will be looking soon, also. Here's why I originally decided to buy the phone (and I won't include features that most phones have, like headset jack and signal strength indicator). -> Beautiful color display screen with crisp clear letters and numbers -> Clear Menu -> The numeric keypad indicates that the * is the shift key to make upper case letters in text entry mode, and the # key is for spaces. I could never keep that straight on the other phones I had. -> A charging light indicator on the top of the phone is red when charging and green when 90% charged. -> Option for Voice calling, but Sprint charges $5.00/month extra for this. Here's what is on the phone: Everything on this phone is menu driven which is kind of nice. Press the 'Menu' key press down on the navigation button (it has "OK" stamped on it) and you're given the menu: 1. Call History: (Missed, Outgoing, and Incoming call lists) 2. Phone Book: (Find, Add New, Group Setting, and My Phone #, Services) 3. Messaging: (to send emails via web) 4. Web: (to connect to the wireless web) 5. Downloads: (to connect to Sprint to download ringers, games, etc) 6. Pictures: (connect a camera or share pictures) 7. Voicemail: (connect to listen to voicemail or clear the vm notification icon from the screen) 8. Voice Dial: (options to set voice Dial) 9. Planner: (scheduler, to-do list, alarm settings, calculator, world time display, etc) 10. Phone settings: (Display, sound, internet, roaming, etc settings) * Keyguard: (set to prevent phone from dialing by accident) Call History: By going to the appropriate list, highlighting a particular call, and pressing the talk button the phone will redial. Phone Book:You can assign multiple phone numbers to a single person so the phone, fax and wireless numbers of one person or company are all in one place. Birthdays and email addresses can also be stored. The phone can store up to 250 individual phone numbers and each name can be up to 12 characters. You can also assign up to 99 speed dial numbers (one per name). I find it annoying to use speed dial because I usually can't remember that many speed dial numbers other than my wife's cell number and my home number. After that I'm lost. I will normally just click Menu->Phone Book->Find, then highlight the name and press 'Talk.' Also, it always seems that for people for whom I have more than one number, the number I want is not the one I assigned for speed dial. For instance, it seems that when I want to call my manager and I have the speed dial set to his home office, he always seems to be at the regular office. When I change it and then need to call, he's at the home office. I've gotten around this by creating multiple phone names rather than multiple numbers under one name. You can assign a special ringer for an entry which is cool because if your spouse or other person calls you can tell who it is by the ring. Web, Downloads, and Messaging: I have found that trying to type anything via the numeric keypad is a royal pain in the ..... and VERY time consuming so I have decided to cancel the unlimited Sprint PCS Vision plan ($10/month). Downloads: I don't play games on my phone so I can't comment on what's out there. If you choose this option you will get connected to the Sprint Vision Home page. You can then search for games, applications, and ringers (most all of them for a cost). If you have Sprint (I'm not sure if this phone is only available for Sprint) and you want a game or ringer, log on to the web via computer, choose and pay for what you want. Then go to the phone and download what you want. For example: If you bought a new ringer: Go to 'Downloads-Ringers-Get New', and you will get connected to Sprint. You will see a choice that says "My Vault" which will contain everything that you've paid for. From there you can download what you want. I believe it's fairly intuitive. Choosing what you want via your home computer will save considerable time from doing the search via the phone. There's some cool ringers. I downloaded Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven.' It cost me $1.50. There is an expiration by the way. It means that after the period (90 days for this one) it will no longer be available to you for download, but will be available for an unlimited time on your phone after you download. By the way, I asked Sprint if there were any ringers that were free. The representative told me in a hushed voice, 'none of us BUY ringers. We go to web sites and download them for free, though they are not supported by Sprint." She said to go to Google.Com and search for Samsung Ringers and look for web sites that provide free ringers. There are a lot of features to this phone and going through everything would take a considerable amount of time and probably bore you! I don't use many of the features because frankly I don't have time to learn how to use them. What has really disappointed me so far is the terrible...I mean REALLY terrible battery life on this phone. It is advertised to be 2.9 hours of talk time and about 168 hours standby. My fully charged phone gave me about 30 minutes of talk time and about 48 hours of standby before cutting off on me at work. That is extremely disturbing because I am on call 24x7 and have to have the phone operational at all times in case my customer calls. Sprint sent me a brand new phone and charger and I had the same problem. They sent me a free extended battery and it's slightly better but it still doesn't reach even close to the talk time advertised for the standard battery. As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, the speakerphone and reception is awful. I chuckled when I saw someone else's review indicate that the speakerphone was clear. I feel the clarity is terrible on the speakerphone...sounding a lot like the speaker at the drive-through at your local McDonald's. I have also had terrible reception and considering that I'm in the Orlando area I would expect no dropped calls and much better reception that I do get. Bottom line, I will be changing out this phone for another with no web capabilities, longer talk time and I WILL check out Epinions before buying the next one! UPDATE TO MY REVIEW I finished writing this review and when I got home this evening my wife wanted to know why I didn't have my cell phone on. Her calls went directly to my voicemail. The phone never left my side. I called Sprint and was told that my phone locked up and is a known problem with this model. Samsung is working on a downloadable software patch. This is one more reason to bypass this phone. Sprint is now replacing the N400 for me with a Sanyo 4900 which has gotten excellent Epinion reviews. Another update I finally got my Sanyo 4900 and I love it. See the review of that one at Now only if the Sprint PCS service and customer service was better, but hey, that's ANOTHER review! :-) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 after reb 91153 2000/3/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 screen speakerphone joystick pcs vision enabled joystick marginal battery life reliability issues screen The Bottom LineThe Samsung SPH-N400 is a cool phone with one fatal flaw. Full Review The Samsung SPH-N400 was one of the first color phones that worked with Sprint PCS Vision. It's no longer available from Sprint PCS, but can be purchased for around $100 on eBay. Even though it's older than a lot of the phones on the market, it still prove to be a great phone for some people. This was the first color Sprint PCS Vision-enabled phone that I've ever used. Here's what you should know about the Samsung SPH-N400. -Price- *The Samsung SPH-N400 can be purchased off of eBay for a little bit above $100 at about $120 to $130. This is much cheaper than buying a lot of the phones offered from Sprint PCS without signing a new contract. A lot of the PCS Vision phones go for $200+. So if you need a phone that can handle wireless web and also has some other neat features, then the Samsung SPH-N400 would be a pretty nice choice. If you're someone who doesn't take good care of their device, then the Samsung SPH-N400 isn't a good idea. It doesn't tolerate much stress like a lot of the other phones do. So if you've got a history of breaking cell phones, forget it. But if you're pretty responsible with your cell phone, then this would be a good idea. Compared to a lot of the other phones, the Samsung SPH-N400 lacks a built-in camera. It's fun for picture-mail but is definitely not a replacement for a digital camera. But Sprint PCS does offer a camera attachment for it which will allow you to take pictures if you really want to ($10?). Unlike a lot of phones offered, the Samsung SPH-N400 offers a built-in speakerphone which is cool. You'd typically find this on more expensive phones. Overall, it's a pretty good bargain, as long as you take care of it, I'll get to that later. -Dimensions- *The Samsung SPH-N400 has a pretty interesting design. It's a cross between a clamshell design and a candybar design. The only thing that flips is the plastic flip which holds the earpiece (No screen). This also helps protect the keypad... There are smaller phones that would fit in the pocket easier, or simply look better if you're looking for a much more compact design. Probably the nicest thing about this design is that the screen is very large. It's a lot larger than the screens you find on a lot of phones. It's much larger than the screen on my Sanyo SCP-8100 which also costed significantly more when I bought it. This screen should be ideal for surfing the PCS web since it's sort of a pain when you have such a small screen. But then again, the screen is the phone's largest drawback, more on that later. -Features- *The Samsung SPH-N400 is PCS Vision-Enabled which allows you to surf Sprint's wireless web. Then another thing which I find to be very useful is its speaker phone. The speakerphone works well and it's no problem to carry out conversations with it. I hear the people talking, and they hear me clearly on the other end. Also, it has a joystick navigation button which some may like and find easier to use than other navigation buttons. It's not much different than other phones, but the speakerphone and joystick allow it to stand out... At least from some... -Ease of Use- *The Samsung SPH-N400 has a pretty easy to use menu. It's very simple to access the phonebook and use the other features. The phone can be navigated with a small but useful joystick. Some may love this feature, some may hate it. I'm indifferent to having it. Overall, it's a pretty easy to use phone. It shouldn't pose any problems to any users. -Clarity & Performance- *The Samsung SPH-N400 handles pretty well on the Sprint PCS network. When I used the phone, it provided pretty clear and audible calls. It didn't drop calls. The volume level was satisfactory. It performs like any "good" phone should. You're not going to get a quiet phone that will drop numerous calls with the Samsung SPH-N400, so don't worry! Because with Sprint PCS, you can be heard loud and clear ;) -Battery Life- *The battery life on the Samsung SPH-N400 is fairly decent. When I used it, I was able to use it for around 2 hours, and then the battery seemed to have diminished. But when it was thrown in a charger, it was all good. There are phones with longer battery lives out there. So if you're on the go a lot, you should maybe consider something that'll last longer. One comment I would like to make is about car chargers. The power input seems to be the same as the kind used by Kyocera with some of their older phones (Not too familiar with them now). So rather than paying $30 or so for a car charger, my friend who owned the phone bought a Kyocera charger from Target for $1.97 and that worked. I like the power input since it's not one of those fragile ones, it's just like Nokia's. It's very easy to plug in the phone and charge it, even with your eyes closed! -So What's NOT Hot- *For around $100, this phone seems pretty good, right? Nuh uh... There is one pretty big flaw in this phone. It's the Samsung SPH-N400's reliability issues. Since this phone is only a "partial flip", the screen stays exposed. And let me tell you, this isn't one of those incredibly hard durable color screens. The screen is some cheap flimsy plastic that's just waiting to be scratched. So if you sit on the phone, you'll completely ruin the screen. If you cut through it, you better hope the screen doesn't completely mess up! When it does, you should get a new phone. If you don't have insurance on the phone, you've just lost yourself quite a bit of money. So if you're into keeping your phone in your pocket or you throw it around, beware! -The Verdict- *The Samsung SPH-N400 is a really cool phone with a large vibrant screen and plenty of features. For around $100, it seems to be a pretty good deal. But with its exposed flimsy screen, this phone is just begging to be broken. So that's why my rating on this phone is so low... Because once the screen is gone, so is your phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): ~100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91152 2000/2/2 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 stylish trendy it s cute lots of them The Bottom LineDon't waste your money - it's a science experiment. Full Review Finding the perfect cell phone is a task. You have to make sacrifices for one feature to gain another and it's a seemingly uphill battle to keep up with the technology and evolution that is cell phones. Having used Samsung phones in the past and having no issues with them - my boyfriend and I purchased the Samsung N400 with confidence. At a steep $179 - the Samsung has just about any and everything you would want in a cell phone (or other advanced gadget for that matter). It features a full-color display (128x128 LCD) that is not the best quality but it works and it looks good. It weighs in at only 4.0 oz and fits nicely into the palm of you hand. Couple that with the silver color and flip-face and it makes for a pretty attractive phone. Also one of the nicer selling points of the N400 is the built in speakerphone, we did find however that the quality of that wasn't as spiffy as the phone would appear that it might be. The connection was static-y and because you have to hold the cell phone or yell - it essentially defeats the purpose of having the speakerphone function. In addition to its small size - I like that the volume buttons are on the side and easy to reach without having to look at your phone. Don't let the size fool you - it is a fairly powerful little tool (actual dimensions 2in (w) x 4.3in(h)) - Other Features Of Interest - The N400 is fully equipped with a speakerphone, 3-way calling, a world clock, calculator, caller id, alarm, memo function, a countdown function, a 250 name phone book (that allows multiple entries for home, cell, pager, fax, birthdays and email), voice-activated dialing, screen savers, games, 20 different ring tones and a vibrate function. WHEW! In addition to all of that jazz - the N400 has a GPS (global positioning system) function that can allow you to be tracked in case of emergency. Also, if you're extra ambitious - you can feel free to buy the separate camera attachment and take pictures with your phone. The phone also is cable of surfing the web and text-messaging but I do believe those functions cost extra. The phone has a talk time of 174 minutes and a standby of 7 days and both work well. The talk time is relatively small for what I would expect from a phone that cost this much - but I'm sure having the color display drains some of the resources. One of the nicer little touches is that the Samsung recalls the last 10 entries of dialed, received and missed calls up from the regular 5 of most other phones. The backlight on the phone is brilliant and I like that you can set it to go off after a certain amount of time which saves you some battery power. The phone is supposed to have a power save mode but honestly, even when using it - I didn't see the change in battery life. - What REALLY Sucks About The N400 - Battery life - The battery life of the phone just isn't enough to justify the cost. 174 minutes of talk time (2.9 hours) is small but I suppose in actuality you wouldn't be in your car talking for that long of time or somewhere where it couldn't be plugged in to charge. Quality - I've had more than my fair share of issues with Sprint (who carries the service for this phone) but the sound just wasn't that special. I wasn't expecting Star Trek quality, but a little more than what I got. I also had tons of issues with the phone freezing. In the middle of calls, at the end - all the time. In order to reset it, the battery needed removal and this was an ongoing issue. I was told by Sprint associates that Samsung was aware of the problem and that they were working on resolving the freeze issue but were not sure when it would be resolved. To me that says volumes about Samsung. It says that they are interested in a quick dollar (much like Sprint) and that they'd rather put out an average phone than a great one just for the sake of getting it out while it's hot. Design - Here's where the N400 fails miserably. While it is nice that the phone is compact navigating it is a terror. I think I have fairly large hands (not Shaq size but not Mini-Me either) for a woman, and the toggle button that allows you to go up and down was just a nightmare. Also, while I liked where the volume controls were - you had to be careful because if you pressed too much or inadvertently put it in your pocket and hit those buttons - you could turn the ringer off. The N400 does have a keygaurd, but those do not work for the volume buttons. For me - it seems almost pointless to have a flip face phone that needs keygaurd, but I suppose that's one of those quirks. - Final Thoughts - Yes, the phone is cute and stylish but when it comes down to the nitty gritty - it just isn't worth the price you pay. Companies are still making strides in regards to color display phones and this is a phone that's a victim of experimentation. Maybe for a teenager the phone would be perfect but then I couldn't justify the cost. And because this particular phone is serviced by Sprint - it gets the big thumbs down. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91151 2003/12/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen address book perfect size easy to use crisp display flip styling doesn t work well in the grocery store or large superstores The Bottom LineAn attractive feature packed phone.. Now if only it would work in the grocery store! Full Review Over the summer I replaced my previous cell phone, a with the Samsung SPH-N400. My older flip phone had done me pretty well. But, I'd had it for something like 2 years and it was starting to drop calls. My husband had the same phone and similar problems, so we both decided to go and upgrade them. I selected the Samsung SPH-N400 for a variety of reasons including the fact that it had a really cool color screen and glowed blue. Yeah, Yeah - I know that is probably not a good reason to select a phone but its the truth. My phone cost around $150 at the local Sprint PCS store. About the phone To begin with, this is a flip style phone. I've had many cell phones over the years (Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung) in both flip and handheld styles. Personally, I prefer a flip style phone because when "flipped" open, there is an earpiece somewhat close to your ear and a mouthpiece somewhat close to your mouth. I just can't seem to grok the teeny weeny handhelds which when held up to your ear the mouthpiece is somewhere just past your earlobe. Also, with a flip phone the keypad is protected which is a necessary in my purse, pocket, diaper bag, or wherever my phone shall end up. Thus, my reasoning for sticking with the flip style. The features on the Samsung N400 are plentiful. With optional fees and accessories this phone can be a camera and also connect to the web. I did not opt to purchase the additional camera equipment or sign up for the web access. Personally, I'm around a computer enough at home to see the need to try to connect when I'm out. My phone is for personal and for use with my business and I just need telephone features plus a few extras. Phone Specifications: (from the Samsung website) Dual-band, tri-mode Full color display High luminescent blue backlighting of keypad Digital Camera Support -- with purchase of camera attachment Enhanced Polyphonic Ringer Sounds - over 20 options plus vibrate GPS-Enabled for location-based services of the future Internal Phone Book, Calendar English & Spanish text and voice prompts TTY compatible PCS Vision capable - messaging, web, ringers, screen savers, PCS Business Connection and games What I like about my Samsung N400 The Samsung N400 looks great. As I said previously, the looks of this phone were pretty much the reason that I purchased it. The phone itself is a grey/silver color and its a nice size. If you are looking for a teeny weeny phone, this isn't it. I've seen lots of smaller phones and even smaller flips. This phone isn't a big monster either. It only weighs 4 ounces and the dimensions are 4.25" x 2.04" x 0.82". I find the size of it to be just right for my small hands and also small enough to fit inside just about any purse or even the front pocket of my jeans. This phone has an awesome display. The display screen is color and lights up. You can choose from several pre-programmed screen savers, mine looks like an aquarium. Or if the ones that are in the phone don't suit you then you can download more of them for a small fee (last I looked they were $1-3 dollars each) on the Sprint PCS website. The same goes for personalized ringers. The phone comes with many to choose some (most of which are melodies, but one is of a chicken clucking), and the option of downloading more for a small fee. I really like that when you are dialing a number it reads out in large numbers on the display, ok more than large - they are huge. When a call comes in the caller ID numbers are also very easy to read. I can also assign special ringers to certain people or for certain types of calls to ring a certain way. For example, if there is no caller ID available to ring one way and another if the phone can identify who the caller is. I found it very easy to navigate the menu buttons and change my ringer, and personalize my phone's look and feel. Now, I'm not a dummy. But, I am also not the most technically minded individual. I'm sure there are features on this phone that I just haven't figured out and may never use. However, all of what I've wanted it to do has been quite easy to figure out. When I first got my phone I added in all the frequent phone numbers that I dial and then some. The phone allows you to set up multiple phone numbers per person (distinguished by icons for work, home, etc), assign people to groups, add in other info like birthdays and more. When you put in their names you can use both lower and uppercase and aren't restricted to some ridiculously low amount of characters per entry. My address book has around 40 entries and there is room for many many more. This phone charges very quickly and is fully recharged within 2-3 hours. When its charged the light on the top glows green. If its charging the glow is red. And, if there is a message in your voicemail this light blinks. What I don't like about the Samsung N400 The button to switch the ringer volume on/off or to vibrate mode is on the side of the phone and is easily bumped in my purse or pocket. There doesn't seem to be a way to lock this button that I've found. The speakerphone, which my husband thinks is pretty cool is not that good of quality. Anytime I've had someone on speaker they complain about static. Also, I feel like I have to yell for them to hear me. In the car its easier just to use an earpiece type of hands free kit then to mess with the speaker phone. The talktime seems low on this phone at around 3 hours or so. My phone has to get recharged every couple of days which seems to be a bit more frequent then my previous phone. I suspect its the color display and glowing blue keypad that are battery hogs. Last but not least, I continue to have the some problems maintaining a connection when I'm in big stores like the grocery store or superstores like Target or Wal-mart. I am not sure if this is the phone or my service provider (or a bit of both, perhaps) that causes this frustration. Overall Despite a few complaints on the Samsung N400, I really do love this phone. In the 6 months or so that I've had it so far it has held up quite well. (I've dropped it and had no troubles) and I use this phone daily. If you are looking for a phone with a lot of features on it that also looks great this just might be the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7841 Samsung SPH-A460 91225 2004/4/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 nice size everything else I do not know anyone who has had a good experience with this phone. Since I got it about a year ago, I constantly loose calls or people on the other end have trouble hearing me. The battery will run down in about 1/2 day after charging all night. Although Sprint's coverage has improved over the past 5 years, you would never know it using this phone. Stay away! 91224 2003/9/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 pretty phonegraphics gets hot poor reception not durable scratches very easily drops calls I just received this phone as an ERP replacement from Sprint. It is a new phone, not reconditioned. This phone has very poor reception compared with the StarTAC. I can not even get a signal while indoors. I get 2 bars on the Motorola phone. It scratches very easily and isn't as durable as the startac. I lost the startac while on my motorcycle and found it the next day minus the battery. Put another battery on it and it worked perfectly for another 2yrs. I wish Sprint offered more of the Motorola line of phones. 91223 2004/2/4 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 inexpensive easy to use small size battery life is too short heats up noticeably during extended usage I had been in the market for a flip phone for a few months. Originally I had owned two Sanyo 4000 series phones, which were great, but a little bulky. This phone was inexpensive, had only the features I needed in a phone, and was much easier to carry around. A good alternative if you don't see the need for a camera or speaker phone. However, I have also experienced a noticeable increase in it's temperature during extended use. As well, & maybe I was spoiled by my older phones which had larger batteries, but the battery life on this phone seems a little too short, and by comparison takes MORE TIME to charge than my old phones (they lasted a full day or so longer on average). Overall, I got what I paid for, but I think it won't be long before I'm in the market for a replacement. 91222 2004/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 convenient send to mailbox side buttons nice loud ring options after only 6 months of use the display area has gone blank Body is ok but why should I have to flip it open to answer a call when in ear phone mode 91221 2005/9/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 otherwise a decent phone poor longevity I had the phone for a couple of years and now the displays don't work. I can still make phone calls and receive phone calls but everything's done in the blind. I can't view the phone book or anything. The phone was never dropped or abused, and it had never gotten wet. I took it back to Sprint to have fixed but they couldn't fix it, which means I have to go out and buy another phone. For the money you pay for a phone, it shouldn't be dying after 2 years!! 91220 2003/12/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact menu s are user friendly ring tones acceptable clarity key s are too close together I loved this phone for its compact design and ring tones. It had Hockey Night in Canada theme song, and O Canada for ring tones!!!! That's awesome. The volume level is also a plus, easy to hear it ringing. 91219 2005/2/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good design menus buttons drops calls doesn t always list missed calls I like the size of this phone and the lack of a camera- phone companies should get the phone aspect functioning before they throw in all these extra features. This phone drops calls like no other. Even when in a full service area they just fade away. I have also had the problem of not being able to hear the person I'm supposedly talking to when they can hear me fine. The battery life on this phone has also declined rapidly. It used to be okay for a couple of days, all the way through a weekend, but it has declined to needing recharging daily. doesn't always list missed calls 91218 2004/3/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 slim featuregood looking weak battery bad reception lcd screen goes bad I have this phone for over a year, and all of a sudden the LCD screen stops working. I heard this is a very common problem with the phone, and since it happened past the 1 year warranty I'm stuck. Plus the reception sucks on the phone. Do not BUY!! 91217 2005/5/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 huge lcd screen okay battery life sleek body terrible ringers terrible menu style terrible screensavers confusing buttons This phone was a gift to me by a family member of mine. When I first got it I was soooo impressed by its sleek body and size. But then I opened the phone and that magic was gone...... First off the whole phone is cute but the buttons can get on your nerves. Trying to manuever the buttons is madness. The menu style is ugly and plain. And so are the given screensavers. Not only that, but the ringers are dreadful to listen to as well. A few months ago mines broke. And I have to say, I couldn't be happier. Now I have a reason to get my new N400!! 91216 2000/8/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 small design overheats drops calls The Bottom LinePoor reception, overheating and poor customer service would discourage me from purchasing this phone Full Review I've had this phone for 8 months now and wish I had never bought it. After 5 minutes on the phone the keypad (bottom half of flip) area gets extremely hot. The phone constantly has reception problems. I brought it into the Sprint store twice to get it fixed. Second time they replaced it, but would only replace it with the same model (contract expires in two months... here I come ATTWireless). Still having the exact same problems. When I called Samsung to complain about the overheating I was told it is not a "common" problem. Your face literally will sweat from the heat of the phone against your face but they deny that it actually occurs. My roommate has a cheap Sanyo that has no problems (she gets 4 bars when I get "no signal"). I'd stay away from this product altogether. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 91215 2000/9/12 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 large active inner screen outer lcd blue backlighting cheap 99 currently awful reception signal quick battery drainage The Bottom LineIn summary the main purpose of having a cell phone is to make and receive calls. In that sense the A460 fails miserably. I returned it after two days. Full Review My previous phone was an LG1010 that was doing fine until it got water damaged. I looked into getting a new flip phone at a decent price and was surprised to find the A460 with many cool features at such a low price $99, which suckered me into buying this awful phone. Unfortunately, the feature don't make up for the very poor signal strength of the phone. This has nothing to do with network traffic or area. I've used two other Sprint phones in this area and have had excellent reception and few dropped calls. My friend who has the old A400 was getting 4 bars while I had no service at the same location. Some problems with the A460 1. Low signal strength anywhere you go. 2. Switches to analog mode (roaming) in buildings. 3. Lots of dropped calls due to signal fading 4. Frequently receive voicemails without ever having the phone ring 5. Difficult to use and dial with the strange keypad 6. No "Normal" ringtones 7. Outside caller ID only shows 8 characters of caller ID Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 91214 2000/7/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable rings images lots of features lightweight small ringers not too loud feels flimsy The Bottom LineIf you want to be on the cutting edge of technology without throwing 600 bucks into a phone, this is definitely a great buy. Full Review I got this phone after my Samsung SCH-3500 had an unfortunate accident involving the ocean and no longer carried a charge. I ended up trading in my old phone and walking away paying only 50 dollars(Thanks Best Buy!). At any rate, this phone was a HUGE step up from the 3500. This one is totally customizable, featuring downloadable rings and images to give your phone a unique appearance. It also sports a trendy blue display and color scheme, which I've received nothing but compliments on. As far as usability, this phone is great. It works in places my 3500 never did. Using the web option is also a breeze. The phone features a one-touch web access button. The only downside I've found on this phone lies in its calendar option. For some reason my phone doesn't cooperate when trying to enter appointments on the phone, and I end up typing in some babble on it and hoping I remember what the reminder was for. But on the other hand, the 3500 didn't even HAVE a calendar option. It also have 3 different alarms on it, so I don't need to change it twice a day like my old phone. If you've got the cash to spend (retail $200) this phone is definitely worth it. As a sidenote, I recommend getting the Ringers and More option with it, and get the "CHiPs" theme and the "Pink Panther" theme if anything. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91213 2000/7/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 compact stylish unacceptable reception 3 unacceptable reception 2 unacceptable reception 1 The Bottom LineAvoid this phone. Good looks and compact size do not justify its substandard performance. Full Review I was an early adopter of the A460, buying one the very first day that it arrived in my local Sprint PCS showroom. The sales people were all gawking over this new phone, and for good reason -- it's a very stylish phone and some of the sounds it produces are amazing. I had read the reviews for the Samsung SPH-A400, and believing this model to simply be an upgraded version of that device (it's not), I plunged into my purchase without a hesitation. What a mistake. I soon noticed that I would often receive new voice mail notifications without ever having received a call. This was especially true when indoors, in locations where I never had reception problems with my old Samsung SCH-3500. For whatever reason, this phone has difficulty receiving calls -- even when the reception meter reads 2 or 3 bars. Figuring it was defective, I took it back to Sprint and they ran diagnostics before returning it to me with a clean bill of health. Apparently, it is NORMAL for this phone to have weak reception. I have never experienced so many missed and dropped calls. Only if I stand still while using it, can I confidently complete a call. Please do your homework before buying this phone; don't trust only my review -- read the others here, as my experience is not unique. While this phone may garner a lot of attention for its looks and sounds, it's simply not worth the frustration. A couple of more minor issues: 1. There is no standard ringer (all of the ringer options are polyphonic, which is nice, but there is no "regular" ring tone suitable for a business environment). 2. I agree with one of the other reviewers, that the flush keypad makes one-hand operation tricky... it's hard to find the keys without looking at the pad. 3. The rated battery life is exaggerated. I've found battery life to be less than stated by Samsung, however, this is not a big issue to me as I generally recharge daily. By the way, please don't confuse clarity with reception strength -- the clarity or sound quality of this phone is quite good. Unfortunately, its inability to hold on to calls earns it its "Avoid It" rating. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 91212 2000/4/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 beautiful rings if you re into them backlighting small light weight three alarms settable battery life heats up if that bothers you rings if you re not into them The Bottom LineGreat for its external display, light-weight, design, sound quality Full Review I have used this phone for about 18 months. I am planning on switching carriers and am a bit sad about leaving it behind. It's done a great job for me. I got this phone when I bought a contract with Sprint in the fall of 2002. I paid $49 for it after rebates, and let myself talk into paying another $50 for an extended warranty plan. I may go and use it for a new battery, as my current one is really not holding much power anymore. I chose this phone over others because of its external display, lightweight, size, and pop-open cover. Aesthetic: This is the most visually pleasing phone that I've seen so far. I am surprised at how much I enjoyed the beauty of this phone - (I had assumed that technical stuff would matter much more to me): It's got a slender design in a nice silver-colored housing, and the buttons light up blue. The displays' backlights (both inside and outside) also appears blue in the dark. Display: This phone has a display on the outside, and you can see who's calling before opening the phone. It's got nice backlighting and is easily readible in the dark. Menu: The menu is very easy to use. It's very straight forward: hit the menu button, and it'll take you to the top level of menus. As you hit the ok button on the menu you want to go into, it displays the next level of menu options. You can access the address book even while you're talking by simply pressing the menu key. Battery: I agree, battery life has gotten worse and worse over time. Maybe all cell phone batteries do that, but it is annoying. At first I could have it on for three days straight, and now it's getting low at the end of the day. On a positive note, the charger is small and very easy to take along, and plugs in lengthwise, so if you have multiple outlets, it will only take up one spot. Phone Temperature: as mentioned in other reviews, this has also been my experience: the phone heats up after talking on it for a while. This has not consciously bothered me, but probably (subconsciously) contributed to my decision to buy a headset to avoid the radio waves near my brain waves. And with a headset, of course, the heat is not an issue at all. Rings: It's been mentioned in other reviews that this phone has only weird rings, and I agree, though I find them rather funny than embarrassing. The sound quality is really nice (in case you care...). I've had a lot of fun with the tunes this phone will play. There is only one ring that's not a tune, and it sounds a bit too much like high bells. The other tunes may be a problem if you're prone to getting tunes stuck in your head after hearing a short phrase of one - in that case, you'll be doomed if you pick this phone. Alarms: This phone lets you set up to 3 alarms. For each of the alarms you can choose to set it to once or daily or nothing. The three alarms are a great feature for people who like to get rung out of bed several times before they get up, or if you want to set an alarm for an appointment. Games: I don't care about games, so I don't know if you can download more or not; the phone itself comes with three games. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91211 2000/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek midi ringers fits in pocket easily external window not a very good signal too new for accessories The Bottom LineGet this phone if you want a phone you can forget about. It is light, convenient, and fits almost anywhere. Otherwise, hold out for a phone with better product support! Full Review I have had my Samsung phone for about 3 months now. It has performed well for me, but it is frustrating...let me tell you why. I switched to sprint service to get that clear as a bell connection, but occasionally the phone will give me some wicket reverb/feedback that makes it literally impossible to talk on the phone. It seems to happen when you talk to more than one person a a time (two talkers on the other end of the line) or when talking to an answering sevice. I'm fairly certain it isn't the service (Sprint) since my wife has a different sprint phone and it has never happened to her. Another reason for swiching to Sprint was the great connection options to a computer for PIM management. But so far this phone has been on the market for 3 months and there are ABSOLUTELY NO USEFUL ACCESSORIES for it yet. Oh sure, you can get the car charger and hands free kit, but WHOOPIE! I can buy generic ones of those for half the price. As of right now I cannot connect to the internet through my phone (wireless web yes, through a laptop, no) or manage any of data because the right accessory hasn't been released yet. Rats. Also, I was told that Samsung had a great reception and so far, my wife's Sanyo has out 'signaled' my Samsung in every low signal area--Strike three, you're out! I do like everything else abou the phone though. It is sleek and stylish and fits in the pocket easily. The flip phone is very sturdy, as I have had some flimsy ones in the past. I like the external LCD that tells me the time and flashes the caller ID without me having to open the phone first. I also like the MIDI ringers. They are much more pleasing than the standard cell phone rings. They are softer though, and the vibrate function is not as noticible as other phones. Overall I would stil recommend this phone, because it does work well and my frustrations are mainly from an inability of the manufacturer to support is product with accessories. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91210 2002/7/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small slim great looking lightweight cool blue illumination flush keypad can cause miss keying The Bottom LineGreat phone, no reason not to recommend it after using it for a month. I even got a free headset with it because I was balking at the price. Full Review I bought this phone the same week it was put on display at Best Buy. There were no reviews here at that time, I am glad as I may not have bought it! Now it maybe that I am just happy to have an updated phone and am overlooking something because my last phone, a Sprint Touchpoint bought in 1998 has served me well until it finally needed replacing at the end of June, there is no comparison. First impressions: Wow, it's light! It's slim, and it's small. In fact it fit's equally well in my jeans pocket as it does in my jacket pocket. Sadly still not light enough for my shirt pocket, but close! The phone itself also seemed very sturdy, always a concern with flip phones especially as this one would be stuffed in my motorcycle jacket. Initial dislikes: Only two. 1. The keypad is almost flat, so it's not so easy to dial numbers without looking. 2. It's not easy to open with motorcycle gloves on After some use: Yes it does get a little warm after 10-15 mins. But why is this a negative? It's a good way to keep your hand and ear warm and toasty! :) Signal: No problems that I can see, it's better than my old phone Features: It has all the basics, I really like the voice enabled dialing, it works well for me. The outside display shows signal strength, battery, time, date and caller id, very handy, though I wish the battery indicator had more than three bars, it's not so easy to figure out how much power is left. Finally one of the deciding factors for me was the GPS location. Being a motorbike rider, you never know.... and it's nice to know a 911 call can pinpoint my location should they ever need to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 91209 2000/12/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 small size great looks dual displays keyboard is ok ringer needs to be louder The Bottom LinePerfect phone for casual user. If you have really big hands or need a workhorse phone, this phone is not for you. Full Review I've been a Sprint customer for about 3 years. I've always owned a Sanyo 4000. This has been a great phone, but the biggest hassle is its length. The phone always wants to fall out of my pocket. I'm lucky I haven't lost it. (Most Sanyo phones are still long, although some models are getting much thinner.) Because of this I wanted a flip phone this time, but I did not need a color screen or Vision. So the Samsung was the cheapest one out there that looked good to me. For the Christmas season they had a special for both new customers and current customers, so I got it for $49.99. The sales rep at the Sprint store I went to in Emeryville, California was horrible, so I ended up buying it through the customer service rep over the phone. I ordered on a Friday night, and received it in the mail on Monday. Great and fast. The good I love the small size, I can fit it into my pocket without worrying about losing it. The screen is big and bright, and I find it easy to read. The small screen on the outside of the phone is my favorite feature. It gives the battery strength, signal strength, and time. I'm almost thinking I don't need to wear a watch. When the phone rings, it becomes a Caller ID screen. Opening the phone, the screen and keyboard have a great blue light. Very hip and functional. Using it was not very difficult, the Sanyo had almost all of the same features. Good phone book, plenty of ringer sounds. Many other reviews have complained mightily about the musical ringers which are annoying, and a lack of normal ringers. In my phone, I had 2 or 3 ringers which sounded very professional and low-key. If you don't have ringer styles you like, you could go to a Sprint store and ask for a software upgrade. I'm not positive, but the upgrade is probably free, and includes normal ringer sounds. Otherwise, you need wireless web access to download other ringers. Reception is fine. I set my roaming mode to "Sprint PCS" instead of automatic, that makes the phone stick to one type of signal, and reduces dropped calls. There is one annoying dead zone right before the Caldecott Tunnel, but I almost never use the phone when I am driving. I live in the East Bay area. Anyway, that particular dead zone is not the phone's fault, Sprint has got to install a tower in that area. The calendar function is OK if you want to set simple alarms and you don't have too many appointments. It is not comprehensive if you are used to a Palm Pilot or Microsoft Outlook. While I don't love the keyboard feel, the features of each button are very good, definitely more features than my Sanyo. I especially like the volume control on the side of the phone. Battery life seems decent. It lasts for about two days before I recharge. I can't compare to other flip phones, so I don't know if this is normal. Overall, the phone has everything that I need from a cell phone. I don't talk too much on it, but I do use it everyday. Having things such as the external screen and the calendar make life a lot easier for me, and make the phone a less intrusive part of my life. I appreciate that. The bad Keyboard is very flat, so each key is not very distinct from the others. I have to look at the keyboard to make sure. Even the tactile bumps on the 5 key are so flat I don't feel them. Could be a big deal for those who use the phone a lot or have large hands. The ringer volume needs to be louder. Even at the highest setting, if I have the stereo up, am at a loud restaurant, or have it stuck in my jacket pocket, I can't hear it. Hopefully I won't miss any important calls because of this. The phone doesn't look that sturdy. I am going to buy a leather cover on Ebay to protect it. Even then, I wonder how long the body will hold up to normal wear and tear. Once again, I can't compare to other phones. Also, it does get very hot after about 20 minutes talking. Verdict I would recommend this phone for a low-priced flip phone. Good looks, very good basic features. If you have really big hands or need a workhorse phone, this is not for you, but for a casual user, it does the job quite well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 91208 2000/9/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 polyphonic ringers external caller id vibrate alert charging time customizable ringersbackgrounds battery time phone heats up reception in certain areas The Bottom LineAn above average phone, would recommend to a customer. The pros outweigh the cons. Full Review Well, I decided I needed to upgrade my Sprint phone and after purchasing the LG 1200 and using it for a week I took that piece of crap back and payed the extra 30 bucks and picked up a A460. I use my phone primarily for business, I sell cell phones and I needed a phone that would be very reliable. Pros - I love the external Caller ID on this phone my watch doesn't have the date and this CID screen lists the date. The polyphonic ringers are LOUD, I never ever miss a call b/c I didn't hear the ringer. Also if you have your phone sitting open on your desk instead of the ringer just blaring out, it gets progressively louder. I personally enjoy the ability to download new ringers and background screens from Sprint's Ringers & More service. The charge time on this phone is great it only takes like an hour and a half to get a full charge on the phone. The vibrate alert on this phone is wonderful. I sell some phones where if the phone vibrates in your pocket there is a good chance you might not feel it, not with this phone. It vibrates very hard. Cons - Well I told you about the quick charge time on this phone, on the other side of that coin the reason it charges so fast is b/c the battery life leaves something to be desired. I get maybe 3 hours talk time out of it, so on days when I think I will be on the phone alot I have to load up my phone charger in my briefcase so if I run low I can charge it back up. After about 20 minutes of usage the phone becomes hot. The heat is not enough to make me stop using the phone (I am using a hands-free set most of the time anyways). But sometimes it gets annoying. I get limited Reception in certain areas but I am pretty sure that has more to do with Sprint's coverage in those areas then it does with the phone's inability to get a good signal. Overall I think this is a good phone and I would recommend it to somebody considering getting a new phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91207 2002/7/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 very small light weight looks great external display lots of features sub par signal strength short battery life not upgradable to 1xrtt network The Bottom LineNot bad, but I will most likely return this phone and hold out for the next generation that comes out at the end of the year. Full Review Listen, this is the voice of experience. I have tried just about every phone Sprint has to offer (in a search for the perfect phone...that I'm not sure exists.) I went from the Samsung 6100 to the 8500 to the N-200 to the A-400 to this one, the A-460. I like the fact that the A-460 has an external LCD most of all. That is the only thing I didn't like about the A-400 (or the 8500, for that matter.) Unfortunately, after a week of using it the performance isn't what I had hoped. The battery life is much shorter than the A-400, which I think I could live with (I rarely run the battery down before I recharge), but it also doesn't get the best reception. It sounds crystal clear when I do have a signal, which is obviously a good thing, but I would like to have the same signal strength of my old 8500 or the A-400. I don't think it's a fluke the price of this phone has dropped from $199 to $149 to $124 in a two-month span. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 124.99 91206 2002/7/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 external lcd small size accessories hard to find no 3g chager design is poor The Bottom LineAvoid the all Samsung cell phone products. Full Review This phone was purchased by my husband for me as a gift. My old one finally bit the dirt. Press releases for this showed a small footprint, easy to see LCD, good layout of the navigation keys, along with 3G expandability when Sprint upgraded their network. Immediately, I tried to get the computer cable for synchronizing the phone with a computer along with a case. Everything I had read said not to buy Sprint accessories that the Samsung products were better. As it turns out the case was only available for approximately two days since the phone began shipping during the first week of June 2002. Samsung offers a 20 per cent discount on items if the phone is registered. But, there aren't accessories available because Samsung doesn't have any cables or cases. There's no way to even order anything backordered. E-mailing the company provided no answers. Calling a toll free number set up for purchasing authentic accessories didn't work. The people were polite but kept giving out incorrect information about when these products would arrive. They, too, cannot take an order for anything backordered. I now just throw the phone into my purse and let it get scratched. My husband pointed out that all the information said that the phone was 3G upgradable. The salesman also said it was, too. But, after having the phone over 4 weeks we found out that everyone had either mispoken or lied. It is not. When making calls that last over 3 or 4 minutes the back of the phone gets very warm, even hot. It's so hot that it feels as if I had put it in the oven for 15 minutes. The size is perfect. It's very small. The exeterior LCD prevents me from having to open the clamshell design to see who is calling. Reception is poor. Maybe when something gets to be this small that the reception goes down. Calls get dropped, I can barely hear some of the parties, and I've had complaints from callers that they can barely understand me. The owner's manual that comes with it is poorly written and it is huge and heavy giving the impression that it covers everything. A nicely sized Travel Charger comes with the unit. Since I am an executive at a large firm in the southwest I have to travel frequently. The AC prongs do not fold into the unit. Two of my office dresses have already been torn. My advice to women, and men, is to avoid this phone, Samsung cell phone products, and think about avoiding Sprint, too. After all, their materials said the phone was something that it wasn't. I've gotten tired trying to buy accessories from Samsung. They've taken the pleasure out of owning this product. In recent weeks, I've been talking to other people who also own this phone. They feel the same way that I do. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 91205 2002/7/14 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 very light weight looks great stylish external lcd signal strength poor battery life very poor reception runs hot after 10 15 mins The Bottom LineWait till it has been in the market for 3-6 months, gives Samsung time to figure out and fix the problems. And until CNET has written a review on it. Full Review I bought the A460 to replace the 8500 I had but I regret very much doing that. I should have just spent the $60.00 it cost to buy a new battery for my old 8500 which is all it needed otherwise my 8500 worked great and it was the best phone I have ever had. Well anyway, the thing that attracted me the most to the new A460 is the external LCD which was something I was looking for in a Samsung phone. It looks great, very lightweight and it had the same features and ease of use as my old 8500. But I was very surprised and extremely disappointed to find out that this new A460 did not out do my old 8500. The reception and signal strength was extremely poor and the it was constantly looking for service especially in areas where I know has great reception and signals. The battery life also was very disappointing, it didn't last nearly as much as it was suppose to and it ran hot after 10-15 mins of talking on it. It also took twice as long to recharge it compared to my old 8500, and it doesn't use the same type of chargers as my old 8500. And last but not least, the phone malfunctioned on me, it prevented me from making local Sprint PCS network calls, it kept telling me I was roaming when I knew very well I wasn't!!!!! Over all I regret ever getting this A460 that was suppose to be so much better and more advanced than my old 8500, and sadly I cannot get my old phone back because I bought it at Circuit City with the 3 years no obligation replacement program warranty which entitles me to just bring my phone in for replacement for a brand new phone no questions asked. Well Circuit City no longer carried my old phone therefore I chose the A460 but now I wish I hadn't done that, and Circuit City told me they can't get my old phone back because it gets sent back to the manufacturer as defective. Well there's good news to this sad story, I chose to buy the A400 instead and so far I am very happy with it, and it is definitely so much better than and blows the A460 away in reception, signal strength and battery life, so what it doesn't have the external LCD. My new A400 gives me the same quality, strength and reliabilty as my old 8500 except it looks different and so much lighter. It's too bad Sprint PCS chose to take the A400 out and no longer sell it because they chose to replace it with the A460 which they shouldn't have!!!! Lesson to learn is don't judge the book by it's cover!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91204 2000/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nice screen compact external caller id window screen flip cover broke easily ringer volume rocker switch does not work at times The Bottom LineIf you really must have this phone, I strongly urge you to buy a replacement warranty. Full Review I bought this phone about 2 months ago. I initially enjoyed the phone due to its small size, and the external caller ID LCD window. I do not recommend this phone for the following 3 reasons: 1. The flip part of the phone has a design flaw. The back cover of the flip part where the external caller ID is displayed broke. I you look closely at the design, when the phone is open you can see that the back cover rests against the backstop tabs. The problem with this is that the back cover is held together by two small screws which are held in place by plastic studs. It is the plastic studs that broke on the phone when applying normal pressure when holding the phone up to the ear. 2. The volume ringer rocker switch located on the side of the phone, does not work at times. I have to press it hard to get it to work. 3. The navigational tool is hard to use if you intend to surf the web, and the number keys are too close together. As a final comment, this phone at times had an echoing effect, and if you wish to add more than one speed dial number for the same individual, you must enter that individual's information in the phone's address book as a whole new entry for each speed dial number you wish to add. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 91203 2000/8/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice active clear light polyphonic sound lots of features stylish small two lcds keypad is well designed but small needs standard ringer The Bottom LineBest phone I have every owned. Feature-packed and light and very cool looking. Full Review First off - I would never blame or credit reception on the cell phone unless there is something inherently wrong with it - which I think one of the reviewers missed. I have had for example AT&T and Sprint - ironically both have the same dead spots in my area. I have only had one dropped call which I would blame on very weak signal. I have found the reception using my service provider to be very good and people have told me that it is much more clear than my old phone (Ericcson). This is the best phone I have ever owned - it is better than the Ericcson and Nokia's I've owned. It is packed with features and Samsung has really done their homework as far as ergonomics. Getting to addresses is a breeze (like Nokia) but they do a considerable number of things to get at phonebook and to get at phone numbers you have called that are in the phone history. I know when I miss a call and what time I missed it - unlike some of my past phones. The thing that you love about it ...right away is how light and small it is...yet it has a bigger screen then my Nokia or Ericcson which were bigger phones. It also has a external LCD which allows you via caller ID to see who is calling. If you have big fingers the keyboard will bother you - but I have become very use to it...but still others may be bothered by the compact keyboard. They do need a standard ringer - although I probably wouldn't use it. :) I do appreciate that it has a vibrate mode built-in...which I use. Battery life has been reasonably good. I run on the battery most of the day. I also bought an earphone for it (has one button) called the Body Glove. Voice activation works perfectly for me...I press the earphone button and it asks me who I want to call and I speak the name and it dials the number. (I am using Sprint). If I get an incoming call - press that single button and it deals with the context - it answers the incoming call and I can start speaking. At the end of the conversation - I click on the button and it hangs up the phone. Excellent notion of context. I paid $50 - bought it at CompUSA. Cost was $150 - CompUSA gave me a $50 rebate and Sprint gave me a $50 rebate. I have used the alarm clock feature when I'm traveling to wake me up. The polyphonic sound turns heads...people love it. I have both the battery charger for home and car...both work well. Perhaps this could be viewed as a weak point because of design - but hey they work. ...and of course I can't live without my Panda screensaver. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91202 2000/8/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compactoffers a large display screen beautiful blue back light none The Bottom LineThe Samsung A460 is a phenominal phone. It is light weight, compact, with crystal reception, and is oh-so stylish. Full Review I purchased the Samsung A460 cellular phone after seriously considering a large array of vision phones. This phone is the nicest tri-band phone I have seen. It offers endless capabilities, internet, voice dial, speed dial, many ring tones, and it is oh-so stylish. The key pad is awesome, and I love the animated screen. Even if your eye sight is failing you, not a problem the LCD is quite large. Even though the phone may appear to be quite fragile, it's not!! I have dropped mine several times, to my dismay it still looks and works superbly. I have heard several complaints about how warm the phone gets when speaking. It is no different than either of the two wireless phones I have owned previously. Reception is crystal and battery life (unless in analog) is standard. My recommendation is: Finely crafted piece by Samsung, depending on your wireless service invest in a car charger for those occassions when in analog mode. My service is through Sprint and unless you are in the Mountains analog mode is almost no existant. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 91201 2000/12/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very easy to use good reception nice price short battery life limited options The Bottom LineThis is an overall good deal for a starter phone, as long as not over $50 is paid for it. But don't look for fancy options or bells and whistles. Full Review I bought this phone just over a year ago in a special at Circuit City. The deal was the phone with Sprint PCS service for $49.99, and a $50.00 mail-in-rebate. A free phone didn't seem like a bad deal. I had never had Sprint service before, but I was in the market after a bad experience with Cingular and an older phone that had terrible service and no features. The initial setup with the phone was painless, and the directory was easy to add numbers to. It only took about 15 minutes to load all 60 of the numbers i had at the time. Once a number is in the directory, it is assigned a number in order of entry. To call the number, one only has to remember the one or two (or three, depending on the number of entries) number and hold down the last digit. Once I figured that feature out, i rarely dialed over 2 numbers to call anyone. With more and more use, it became even easier to use. The service it gets depends on the provider, but I always maintained crystal clear reception when near major roads and in cities with Sprint. The Sprint network rarely drops calls, and I even received and placed calls in Canada. The screen on the phone has a tendency to smudge, but it is easily cleaned, and the battery life began to drop after about a year of use. The phone has been dropped on the ground several times and the antenna was bent in one of the falls, but the service was not affected. It comes with an AC charger, but I purchased a car charger and leather cover for very little money on eBay. Features on this phone are limited, but the external caller ID proves very useful in quickly identifying callers. The display is a nice blue color, but the options for the background image (screensaver) are very limited (panda, dog, the time, and race cars). Overall, this is a very good starter phone for those not looking to spend a lot of money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91200 2000/12/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 weight size polyphonic ringtones start end chimes heat The Bottom LineThis is a good student phone. Full Review I was somewhat new to buying cell phones before buying my Samsung A460, so I researched this phone on here and in other locations. Having used my A460 for about 9 months, I have been quite satisfied with my purchase. I had read about the heat that this phone puts out after extended use, and that was my biggest fear when buying this phone. My only other cell phone had been a 2000 model Nokia that I used while living in a third world country, and that phone looked like a brick and heated up like a potato after extended use. The A460, however, has been nothing like that in terms of heat. First, the majority of my phone calls, I found out, were about 3 minutes or less. Only on calls of over 15 minutes or so does it heat up a bit, but really not that much to be a concern of mine. My other concern with this phone was its clarity. I had read that clarity was a problem, and despite the rare breaking up that users on the other end experience, I have found this phone and Sprint service to be quite nice. Polyphonic downloadable ringtones are great -- much better sounding than those Nokia monotone ringers -- but I can't seem to turn off the power on or power off chimes unless in silent/vibrate mode. But anyway, the size of the phone is great for putting in your pocket -- other people can barely tell it's there. Because it's so small it might be kind of easy to drop (that's why it's nice to use the long-but-unsightly cord-string that is included with phone purchase). If you are looking for a phone for moderate use (10 to 20 minutes per day), with limited features, this is a great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91199 2004/9/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 one good game sleek intuitive to use small for the us screen broke after a year vibration weak only works at max volume The Bottom LineThis phone does a lot of things well. Not exceptional in any one area, but overall it's a decent phone. Don't expect it to last more than a year though. Full Review I like this phone. Sure, it's monochrome. Sure, the web stuff is all text-based. But this is a phone, not a PDA. This phone has features I actually USE, and it's affordable and pretty sexy looking. The battery life isn't all that great, but it's still pretty good. The reception with this phone is much, much better than it was with my old Nokia. Even though there aren't a whole lot of them, the ringtones are loud and clear.The voice dial feature works perfectly, and I haven't had it misdial even once yet. The menus are easy to navigate, and the phone is intuitive to use. It's a jack-of-all-trades phone. It does a lot of things well, but it doesn't do anything particularly exceptional. Overall, a very good phone. My favorite part of the phone is the Push-Push game. It's a cell-phone version of a game known as Sokoban, or Boxy Boy in the US. It's a thinking man's game, and it's quite entertaining. It's usefull to kill time when waiting on friends, in airports, etc. However, this phone does have some annoyances that really bug me. The vibration only works when the ringer volume is either maxxed out, or muted. There's no way to get a ringer that doesn't startle me out of my boxers, AND vibration. Plus, the vibration is pretty weak. I can't feel it at all when the phone is in my pocket and I'm riding my motorcycle, and half the time when I have the stereo up in my car I can't feel it vibrate. Also, the phonebook is difficult to navigate. Just like my Nokia, one simply presses the down button to access the phone book. On the Nokia, I could then press the "4" button twice to go to entries that started with "H", for instance. This Samsung does this too, but unlike the nokia there is a 2 or 3 second delay before it goes to the "H" entries. Even though I store a *lot* of phone numbers in my phone, it ends up just being faster to scroll through them quickly. Or, if not faster, at least less fustrating. Finally, other than Push-push, the rest of the games suck. Spider is pretty stupid, and the ribbon game is pointless. How about Snake, Tetris, or Minesweeper? Push-Push (Sokoban) is great, but they shouldn't have stopped there. Honestly, though. This is a phone, not a videogame system. It does what it was meant to do, and it does it well. Plus, it was free after a couple of rebates from Best Buy. UPDATE: After a year of use this phone has seen better days. The paint is chipping off the case left and right, and now a problem has developed. When I close the phone and then open it again, the screen dies. I have to shut the phone off and turn it back on again (with the phone open) to get the screen back. Also, while my reception was pretty good initiall, I have since moved, and my reception has gotten very bad. I get dropped calls all the time. When my friends come over, even friends using Sprint but with newer phones, none of them have any problems with reception. So, it's time for a new phone already. UPDATE 2: The screen has died on this phone. Every now and then I can get the screen to turn back on by holding it at a certian angle and turning the phone off and back on again, but it's really a hassle. Reception has steadily gotten worse as I've used this phone, and now the screen going is the final straw. Sprint refuses to replace my phone with a newer model at no cost to me, and since my contract is long since up I am switching to AT&T Wireless. They offered a free phone, more minutes, and supposedly better reception for less money. I get to keep my number and I don't have to pay a dime up front. I'd rather switch to Verizion, but their phones are expensive, as is their service. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 77Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91198 2000/5/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 polyphonic ringers design compatability size external lcd battery life lcd backlight not bright melodic ringers The Bottom LineBest all-around phone on the market for it's price. Full Review So you want a phone, huh? This phone is currently one of the hottest selling phones in Canada right now. If the price fails ($279.00 CDN), then take a look how many 'kids' have purchased this phone. Well - not them, but their parents probably shelled out the cash...but it still doesn't deny the fact that this phone is quite the hot item, and with reason. What differs from this phone your other standard phone is the fact that the battery life and standby time is *typically* longer than most. With a talk time of approximately 3 hours and standby time of 6 days it sure starts off sounding like it's worth the money. With high definition pixels on a blue backlight which sometimes comes out as not being bright enough, this is more of an eye candy phone as opposed for it's function. I've noticed quite a few problems with the lcd external or internal not being bright enough - no worries, send it back to the point of purchase as your manufacturer's warranty covers it. Same goes for the battery if you find that it drains too fast. I believe this phone was the first to start the genre of having polyphonic ringers. Not a bad idea, because other manufacturer's are starting to follow suit. Because this phone is 'CDMA' technology, you don't have to worry about clarity or signal strength, it has one of the highest output in terms of network service. And if I'm not mistaken it operates at around 1.9Ghz - not too shabby. The phone contacts allow for over 200 multi-contact numbers with selective rings assign capability. Ringtone/screensaver downloads can be added to existing files already pre-programmed in your phone. I would have to say that this is one of the better all-around phone. Certainly worth the full retail price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91197 2000/3/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 size gets very very very hot The Bottom LineThis is the biggest piece of crap phone I've ever come in contact with!! Stay away!! The thing probably is giving me a tumor. Full Review I bought this phone to replace the 8500. The 8500 began to have origination (connecting calls) problems. I wanted to look at the A400 but Samsung delayed release in order to load some king of software onto it. I had until 08/31 to chose. So, home I went with this seemingly cool phone. Immediately I noticed this constant fuzzy noise (like snow on a television) with all calls. It was low but noticeable because the previous phone did not have the problem. Sprint Customer Care said nothing wrong. Ok fine. I noticed it also got warm. They said it was fine. I lived with it because I had a headset and could ignore it. Well about a month ago it began to turn off spontaneously. I'm guessing the heat finally melted something. I took it in 03/02 and it tested bad. They sent me a refurb. phone, which I received 03/04. I called to activate and noticed after 3 minutes, it started to warm up. Now, I must tell everyone, I never hold this phone by the bottom section. I hold it with 2 fingers at the hinge with 1 finger on the top to stabilize it. Anyway, I told the Sprint customer care person not to activate it and I took it to be tested 03/09. Besides the heat, this one would not connect calls. Lo and behold IT FAILED!!!! SUPRISE!!! Of course they also said they could not duplicate the heat problem. Sprint said would send another replacement. For some reason beyond me understanding, they had to active the refurb. I got 03/04 before they could order the 2nd refurb. Whatever. I was talking last night (03/11) and of course it got hot. For grins I got out a thermometer from the bathroom. I closed the flip and stuck the thermometer in between. It registered over 110 degrees!!! I can't say exactly how hot because the thermometer does not go past 110. I called Sprint tech sppt. and got the rudest apathetic jerk on the line. He acted like I was exaggerating. Needless to say I got no answers or resolution. I tried to call the center who tested it 3 times and no answer. I should get the latest refurb today. I'll have the same problem and this time I'm going to have to make a scene and make them give me a better phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 91196 2000/8/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to carryprotective from scratches i fear that this phone will get obsolete fast The Bottom LineThe SPH is Actually Quite Good considering how fast cell-phones, like computers, become obsolete within an average of three years. Full Review To start with, I like flip phones because of the way one can talk with them without screaming. I for one like private conversations, and I talk with both the speaker and receiver pressed to my face. I don't want to end up screaming into the speaker of a straight phone. Also, a flip phone will obviously help protect the keys and screen from grime and scratches when the flap is closed. The Samsung A460 (which I have) is a fairly advanced flip-phone, endowed with every basic amenity except colored screens. On the menu button one can find the usual phone books, game menus, records of incoming and outgoing calls, and all the other usual stuff at the press of a button. The small size of the phone mandates that the buttons be compacted together, with no space on the surface to separate them. Along with the Menu button and controls are a little confusing. There are ten different menu items, the usual stuff, including a menu item that allows the user to change the main screen, certain turn in and turn off sounds, and even the alarm sounds and timers to his every whim. That's right, the phone comes with its own alarm clock, in which the user can set the time and the sound or melody which will make him up at the appointed time. Also you can dive up individual phone numbers on a special database- and dial them automatically by pressing and holding a number that has been saved in advance, but if more than 10 numbers are stored up, I have to press two digits on the phone, then hold down the second digit for the extra number, For example, if the user has 14 phone numbers, and wants to call #12, he has to dial #1, and then hold down #2 for about two seconds before the connection goes forward. Of course once a user learns the basics it'll be easy. Another drawback is that the phone takes a fairly long time to charge up, especially if the energy in the battery is used up. Keep an empty battery phone charged up for ten hours, and it would still not be fully charged. If you're in a hurry, it's wise to turn the phone off before plugging in the adapter. The phone will inevitably recharge faster, and a red light on the little lamp on top will tell you when it's being charged, as will a a 'Charging' message on the little screen on the exterior. As for reception, it's actually pretty good, though by no means perfect. I always bring the phone with me for outside use, and it's perfect to use under the blue sky or the stars. Things get a little more hazy when I take it indoors. Generally it still works perfectly when it's used near a full window, but in an enclosed space such as a closet or bathroom it does get a little fuzzy, and it has to be moved around to an appropriate location to work properly. It also doesn't seem to work 100% flawlessly near turned-on computers either. But these are minor trifles, common to most cellphones. My favorite part about this phone is obviously the games, which I love to play. The games on the menu- and yes there are cute little video games- pretty much explain the nationality of the executives, engineers, and designers who made it. The game characters- yes, this cell phone has little computer games in its system, including one where a character pushes eggs around to certain points on a platform- are classic Asian-style anime. Samsung, after all, is a Korean-based electronics company. Recommended: Yes 91195 2003/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small compact even turned up high not loud enough ring tones The Bottom LineNot a bad first phone. Can't complain much, just now that we are seeing more phones with cameras and other fancy gizmos we should have shopped around more. Full Review Personal Testimonial: Well, I purchased this phone at Best Buy and they were having a promotion. We received 2 phones for free with a calling plan from Spring. So anyway, I didn't really have a preference, but my husband wanted a flip phone. Anyway, not a bad phone overall, but with all of the other features of other phones and plans, I wish we would have shopped around a bit more. For a phone to cut your teeth on not bad. The outer look: The phone is chrome with a window which displays the time and can be used as a caller id window, if your plan provides that. In the window it also shows the remaining battery power. When you turn the phone on it has "HI" displayed in the window. When you turn it off it has "BYE" displayed in the window. There is a volume control button on the left hand side of the phone and a small adjustable antenna. There is also an ac adapter port for charging as well as a usb port for downloading ring tones and such. Closed the phone is about the size of a large pack of dental floss. (Approximately 2 inches in width x 3 inches in length x 3/4 of an inch in depth) The inner look: Flip the phone open and there is a rather large display screen. (Approximately 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches). The button pad is about 1 3/4 inches in width by 2 1/2 inches in length. The buttons are chrome like the rest of the phone, with clear numbers and light up when phone is turned on. Turn it on: Hold down the END button until the phone turns on. This button serves dual function as the power on/off button. When the phone turns on there is a pleasant little tune played with a windmill spinning on the main display screen then the phone switches to the Sprint Logo (in my case). The main screen displays one of 4 built-in screen savers until you push the "menu" button. The 4 screens are as follows: sleeping dog with leaves blowing around it, a panda walking down the street, race cars zooming by and a nigh sky with stars and the moon with a LARGE clock displaying the current time. When you push the menu button you get 10 options, Call history, Wireless web, phone book, roaming calendar, voicemail, voice dial, sounds, setup/tools, games. Call History: Keeps track of outgoing calls, incoming calls, missed calls, airtime used and it can erase the history at the beginning of a new month. Wireless web: Allows you to access websites and read email using your phone. Requires an extra charge. Phonebook: Allows you to store up to 250 names, phone numbers and email addresses in your phone. The submenu listings under phonebook are as follows: Find name (search within your phonebook for entries), Add new entry, My phone #, Find entry(same as find name), group search (allows you to sort your entries into groups. Ie; families, colleagues, friends, etc...), Add email (add email to your phonebook to use in conjunction with wireless web at an extra charge), Services (provides assistance with your Sprint PCS account. Billing, minute usages, directory assistance, etc....). Roaming: Allows you to set your phone to roam if you fall out of the Sprint PCS calling area. (usually an extra charge applies). Calendar: Allows you to set appointments and reminders on your phone to keeo you on track. Voicemail: Allows you to listen to your voicemail, change your outgoing message, change options within voicemail, etc... Voicedial: Allows you to SAY the persons name and have the phone dial automatically. (extra charges apply) Sounds: Lets you control ringer volume (8 levels including vibrate), Ringer type (You have 14 built-in ringers and tones to choose from), key beep, tone length, alerts (extra charge - in conjunction with wireless web), Voice volume (how loudly you come across to the listener), roam ring (to warn you when you are about to make a roaming call). Set-up/tool: Display (what screen saver you would like), Security (enables you to use a password to protect improper use of your phone if stolen or lost), Call answer (how you would like to answer your phone. In my case with my flip phone i have it set to answer when I flip the phone up), Auto answser (not sure what that is sad to say. Should have consulted the manual I know, forgive me), Language (this phone displays text in both english and spanish), Calculator (you can use the phone as a calculator), Location ( you can set your phone up to use with on-star for help with locating certain destinations on trips. Extra charges apply). Games: There are 3 games included on this phone when you purchase it. Push push (tetris like games), Fly ribbon (keeping this ribbon from touching the sky or the ground using one button. Sounds easy? It's not), Spider hunter (modern day centipede but in reverse). Final thoughts: The sound quality is decent, though I personally don't have a proper frame of reference, being that this is my first phone. The design is very pleasing to the eye. Buttons are a little small for my husband, but I find them ok. Small compact, doesn't get in the way. But becareful, because you might lose it! :) I would talk more about my plan, but I will save that for a different review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91194 2000/7/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 easy interface small lightweight ring is not loud in public dial pad just a bit too small The Bottom LineA solid phone that will get the job done for those who don't need bells and whistles and just want/need to make/receive calls. Full Review When it comes to cell phones, I don't want anything fancy. I want a phone that is small, lightweight and useful. This Samsung phone fits the bill for me. It has a simple interface and is very easy to use. It is solid and durable and it performs exactly the way I want it to. If you want/need bells, whistles, a camera on your phone, etc., then you are going to need to look elsewhere. The phone does have the wireless web connection although I don't need it or use it. Also, least importantly, the phone has a neat deep blue light when you flip it open. Other features of the phone, which are all quite common in most phones, are the call history, the phone book, calendar, alarm and voice dial. It also comes equipped with three different games, Push Push, Fly Ribbon and Spider Hunter. All of the games are quite simple (and quite boring) but I don't really buy a phone so I can play games on it. My only complaint about the phone is that the ring is not as loud as I would like when I am out in public and the phone is in my pocket. If I had to be picky then I would also say that the dial pad is just a bit smaller than I would like. The phone does not have the ability to download different ringtones and it's selection is quite limited. Overall, this is my third Samsung phone and it is as solid and reliable as the rest. A quality buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91193 2000/10/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy easy to navigate good looking no sms function silly screen savers The Bottom LineI like it's durability and the sleek design. Plus the friendliness of navigation. Full Review What can I say? It looks sexy and feels sexy. The phone is thin and is different shades and textures of silver. I got it for looks, because let's be honest, the functions are somewhat primitive. Now when you just open the phone you get the idle screen and the image choices are not consistent with the sleek and sophisticated design of the phone. Between the "Race Cars", "Panda" and "Dog" I choose...the "Clock". The buttons are very pleasant to the touch and are easy to press, your fingers just sort of glide over them. The backlight behind them is electric blue - very nice. The screen of the phone is easy to read even at medium contrast or without the backlight. You can tell it is a quality device. It held up well for 6 months, even though it went flying to the concrete floor a FEW times. I also like the polyphonic ringers and the volume of them is very loud, so I have it turned to level 5-6 (out of 8) usually. You could set it to a "vibrate" function. It is very convenient to be able to assign a specific ring type to a person. The phone comes with a good amount of tones to choose from. It does have 1 drawback though. It does not have an instant message function. To be fair, none of the Sprint phones have it. You need to access the web (which you have to pay for) in order to sent SMS(Short Mail Messaging). That defeats the whole SMS point, which is to sent a fast short message. This could be a Sprint issue, so I will not deduct points for this disappointment. Overall this phone is simple enough to easily get used too and has a good amount of functions to be practical too. I really enjoy it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91192 2000/2/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 small size lightweight easy to read screen none so far except the annoying canned voice asking who would you like to call The Bottom LineVery good value for the price; reliable operation; long battery life; clear reception ---- FUN FUN FUN phone to use. Full Review First and foremost, I am not a "techie" and will not try to espouse the technical virtues of this phone, just give you an overview of how it works for me. I signed up for Sprint service approximately five (5) months ago after expiration of my contract with Cingular One, which was getting too expensive and had coverage area issues and the T-Mobile service which I next tried briefly. T-Mobile's coverage was even worse than Cingular, so I booted that service within days of receiving the (thankfully) free phones they were offering. But, I am getting off subject.... One of the promotions in place at the time I signed up for Sprint was the Samsung SPH-A460 for $149.99 with a $50 rebate, a free earbud, belt clip and vent mount as well as three (3) free months of wireless web. I ordered a basic service plan, this phone and away I went. The Samsung phone was an excellent choice: Lightweight, compact, clear and very cool-colored large display screen with caller ID visible when the phone is flipped closed, GPS locator, option of flip-to-answer, voice activated dialing and a myriad of ring tones. There are many other features as well, none of which I've even attempted to set up (text messaging, 250 available phone book entries, calendar, calculator, alarms, games, reminders, etc.). Although the user manual was voluminous, I managed to skim through just enough to learn how to turn it on, set my ring tone, turn on the GPS thingy function and record my voice-activated dialing selections -- since these are really the only functions I ever use. During the free trial period, I admit I never even tried the wireless web service and cancelled it once the trial period expired. (I told you, I'm not a techie and this is my PHONE not my PC.) The single drawback I've experienced is in the voice-dialing -- if you do not speak your selection EXACTLY as recorded, the annoying canned voice says, "I"m sorry, I don't recognize that name". More than once, I've tossed the phone in frustration. Luckily it's a hearty little thing and has suffered no damage. This phone has consistently provided clear reception, long battery life and is AMAZINGLY resilient. Within the space of one (1) week, it survived being dropped out of my car and left - partially submerged in snow and in below freezing temperatures - for a full day; followed by being in my briefcase when the bottled water sprung a leak. The night I found it in the snow, it was still turned on and working !!! The day it got "drowned", I simply took it apart, used some canned air on it and left it to dry for about 4 hours. I popped the battery back on and voila, it was fine and dandy. I've owned at least 9 cell phones (including phones for my kids in 'family plans') and had 4 different service providers. I seem to have lucked out with the combination of the Samsung SPH-A460/Sprint PCS and intend to stay with both for the foreseeable future. Last, but certainly not least, this phone is just darn FUN to use -- I never fail to feel like I'm using a Star Trek communicator and I LOVE my very distinctive ring tone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 91191 2000/7/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice design good reception features battery life lags in connecting The Bottom LineA great phone to have thats just right for any thing. Full Review In little over 3 months I've gone through 3 phones, not because of them being bad, but because of the service provider and features that I wanted to get. Cingular was a bad experience for me, so I opted for Sprint. My first phone, the LG 1200, was good at the time, but a month later I felt the need for Web connectivity, so I chose the Samsung A460. Remarkable phone when I got it, but for the time that I've had used it, it gave me problems and it gave me joy all at the same time. First of all the phone is a delight to carry and look at. It isn't too small and it isn't to clunky, though the rectangular shape might give off that impression. The keypad is very big and easy to put in the number that you want to put it so you won't mistakenly push a button you didn't intend to push. The navigation controls are nice, and may require a little time to get used to them, but once learned they are very good. I especially like the blue display lights and keypads, gives off that aluring feeling that you have a one of a kind phone. When making phone calls, I get good reception outside with moderate reception inside. Clear calls is what I most of the time, but on some instances I get crosstalk, hearing other people's conversations, which I thought was non-existent on cell phones, guess I was wrong. The phone, with Sprint's wireless web, lets you download nice ringers if you already don't like the default ones that come with the phone. Aswell with ringers, screensavers are nice, though the ones you d/l stay stationary, they don't move like the ones the phone comes with. With the goods settled, lets talk about the minor ills that this phone is plagued with. One that pops to my attention first is the very annoying lag the phone has when trying to make a call. I sometimes had to wait 6 seconds before a call was placed, and I thought that was pretty long compared to the other phones I've used. Also, the continous "searching for service" that the phone goes through, even outside in a wide open area. It just boggles my mind that it has to do that so often. The last thing is the battery life. Im not too nit picky about battery life because I usually charge my phone whenever I get the chance, but the battery drains too quickly for me. The 2.5 hours its suppose to have comes out at about 2, which is 50 minutes shorter than what Im suppose to get. Even my newer phone, the Samsung A500, lasts longer than it and its suppose to be a real battery hog. Maybe its just my phone battery, maybe. Other than that, the phone is alright. In conclusion, the phone is pretty good, and if you can stand the longer than usual connection time and continous searching for service, then this phone is a neat phone to have. I've enjoyed, but upgraded because the Internet connection was kinda too slow for me. Note: if using this phone as a modem for laptop or desktop, the fastest speed you'll get is 14.4k, since this is a 2G phone. Other than that, I have nothing else to say, enjoy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 91190 2000/10/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light portable effective stylish battery charge indicator not very useful The Bottom LineIf you are interested in a stylish, effective, light and portable cell phone, then go for it! Full Review This is my first cell phone. I find the reception to be acceptable to very clear, the earpiece volume to be more than adequate (it can be turned up to very loud!), and the display is fine. Reception in the San Francisco Bay Area is excellent. During a one hour phone call to Chicago, there was only two incidents of drop off in volume or communication - in no case was the call disconnected. The lighted keys are not only effective but very colorful. They have a good feel when pressing down - in other words, you know that you have actually entered a number. This display of the numbers is large. Despite other reviews, I have found accessories readily available online and at a discount to the Sprint or Samsung offerings which are at full retail and overpriced. The travel charger provided with the phone seems to be all I need since I wouldn't be inclined to use the phone while driving (I rarely use the car outside the city). The battery charge indicator can be misleading. Just recently it didn't provide ample warning of a low charge level when only hours before there were two bars showing and no calls made. Overall, the phone has been more than adequate for my usage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91189 2000/10/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 adequate features slim light battery heats up signal strength The Bottom LineIf you are looking for an inexpensive, light neat little phone, consider purchasing this one. Full Review Introduction: Having just recently purchased another Samsung phone, today as a matter of fact, I decided to review the phone that I just put to rest. This was intended as a replacement in the summer of 02 for my SCH 8500, which had been scratched up pretty severely and I hated the belt clip on it, which I used quite frequently since it as bulky in my pocket. Well anyway, after seeing my then girlfriend purchase this model (I coincidently bought the same model today that my now ex-girlfriend bought to replace her a460), I decided to go down to my local Nebraska Furniture Mart and purchase this phone. Looks: This phone on the outside is very thin and light, which is nice for people like me who hate bulky phones in their pocket. There is of course the antenna, which is retractable, and an external LCD display which I will get into later. Opening the phone, you see the main display and the keypad, which glows a nice blue color when activated. Features: Outside: On the outside there is the LCD display. The external LCD display shows the time, signal strength, battery life and the date. When a call comes in, the display shows the number and if they are in your phone book, the name of the person calling. This is a nice feature, so you can discretely, say, in class, pull the phone out of your pocket, see who it is and exit the class to take the call if need be. There is a button on the outside which is mainly used for the phone book and menu options when the phone is opened. Inside Looks: When the phone is opened, you are greeted by the blue glow of the keys (very cool) and the main display. This shows all the information on the external LCD display, but you get a few added things such as a background, where there are three default ones you can choose from, your greeting and weather the GPS chip in it is activated or not. Phone book: This part is pretty self explanatory. The phone itself can hold 250 phone numbers in the memory. When scrolling through the phone book (activated by pushing up or down on the navigation button above the keypad) you can either use the navigation button or the provided button on the side. Other Features: There are many other features that I don't really want to get into, but I wanted to mainly touch on the GPS chip and the ringers. The GPS chip in it is mainly used for the new e911 system. The problem with cell phones today is that when say, a car crash happens, with cell phones it's nearly impossible for the 911 operators to know where you are at verses a grounded land line. They are able to track you by cell site after a while, but in a major emergency such as when you are in a bad crash in the middle of nowhere with nobody around and you are pinned in your car bleeding to death, that time to track you may cost you your life. Well our buddies at the FCC decided to have the major cities install what is called e911 or enhanced 911. Basically the newer cell phones have a chip, which receives a signal from I believe one of 24 satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the earth. After triangulation, it can fix your position to inches. Well when the system is in place, if you are in a deadly situation like the before mentioned, you can call 911 and it will send your GPS coordinates to the 911 center and they can send rescue people to that direct location much faster. Even with the best non-e911 technology, you can only tell the cell site where that person is calling from. This chip they were talking about using it for directions and concierge services in the future also. If you don't want sprint knowing where you are at during all times, you can shut it off, but 911 will still be able to use it. The rings on here are many, but not special. There are 16 if I remember correctly, and most of them are stupid songs. But the newer software on them has descent normal rings, which I prefer to melodies. Performance: Overall, the phone does well. Outside, the signal strength is very good, but when you get into a building, that is a different story as with many cell phones. This antenna in buildings is horrible in some spots, but good in others. The battery life is okay for my usage, about 3 days before you hit one bar and need to recharge the phone. The phone as with most of them comes with a charger that plugs into your wall, and takes about 2 hours to fully charge from a nearly drained battery. What I hate about the Samsung's (my new A620 one does this too) charge cycle is how they don't show your battery progress, the bar just goes from empty to full and cycles back to empty. So if I am in a hurry, I know I have enough juice to last the night. I have to take the charger out to see the battery strength. However it's a minor incontinence. One more annoying thing about the phone, when you talk on it for a long time, the battery likes to heat up and it gets quite warm, not enough to burn you though. If you are in a building that has signal problems, go into your menu (Menu+Roaming+Set Mode) and set the roam to SPRINT PCS ONLY, so that you can avoid going in and out of roam which can charge you if you send and receive a call. Conclusion: This is a good phone if you are looking for a basic, non camera/fancy gadget phone. They could have a better way to deal with the battery heat problem, and have better reception, but overall it's a good solid phone. I bought it new at $200 in 2002 and when I was at the Sprint Store today, they were going for $129 without a new plan. They were much cheaper if you sign up for a new 2 year plan with Sprint. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91188 2000/9/9 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 nice menus well built light small backlight battery gets hot short battery life long time to charge The Bottom LineNo, I don't recommend this phone, although the battery life is the only REALLY bad thing about it. Fix that and it would be great. Full Review I have a love/hate relationship with this phone, and Sprint service. I love the size/shape/weight of this phone, as well as its menu design and the feel of the flip action (it's very solid, and does not "creak" as on my friend's Motorola T720). However, it does have problems. The battery on it will last one day if you use it frequently. If you don't mind plugging it in every night, that's not going to be a problem, and I bought a second (Samsung, not generic) battery on eBay that I keep in my pack at all times, just in case I do run out. The battery does become hot if you talk for more than 15 minutes, but it's not intolerable. I have a feeling that is a side-effect of the phone's body being so small. The standard battery that comes with this will take 4 hours to charge, which seems like a lot for how little time it gives you. My last phone (a bigger TouchPoint 2100) had a week on standby and it took about 2.5 hours to charge. I do like that it has a standard 2.5 mm jack for use with a hands-free earpiece, and that it has great blue backlighting. I find color phones have some improvements to make as far as readability, so the fact that this is monochrome doesn't bother me. I like the "shingled" or "stepped" number pad as well. This is NOT a Vision-enabled phone, but it does have the old-fashioned Wireless Web on it, which you can do different kinds of messaging with. You can also download ringers and screensavers with this phone, but I have not tried that feature as of yet. Some reviewers have claimed that this phone doesn't have any "regular" or "business" ringers, which is untrue. It has two ringers that are just basic, ordinary ringers, although they are polyphonic. But they are not "tunes", which I generally can't stand. Perhaps I have an a460 with later software installed than others. One final comment: The reception is decent. Many people have poor reception with these phones, but I should warn you that every cell phone will be slightly different - even if they are the same model. My other phone could not get reception at all in my basement but this one does. Sprint has bit to do with it, having signals that generally seem weaker indoors than most carriers. Why that is, I don't know, but if you get a phone with a particularly bad signal, it might be just that unit - exchange it for another one and you may get a different result. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91187 2000/6/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 blue lights weight style size very very slick gets very hot ringers battery life it s bad everything else reception keypad you name it The Bottom LineIf looks and portability is what you care about, this phone is great. If clarity is important and you are inside a lot, I would look elsewhere. Full Review If i didn't get this phone free with rebates, I would be steam-shooting-from-my-ears angry. This phone looks AMAZING. The keypad looks real slick but the number are real close together and makes numbers easily misdialed. Any of the ringers beside the generic ring would just be embarrassing to have ring. The generic ring isn't really even a ringer. It's more the sound of a ring recorded and played as a melodic ringer. It's is super hard to hear. However it does have a ring+vibrate function which is nice. The pixels on the screen are good and the blue lighting is cool. It's super thin and lightweight. I barely know it's in my pocket. The reception is either pretty bad or REALLY bad. I almost never have more then 2 bars of reception, even when I'm out in the open. And it's not sprints fault. Where my old Samsung SCH-8500 get 4 bars, the A460 gets 2...maybe. Luckily there is a feature on this phone that keeps track of the time if you lose reception. With my old Samsung if I lost reception I had no idea what the time was. In my opinion, this phone is all looks. Luckily I got it for free with rebates so it's ok. If I paid $129.99, I'd be stark raving mad. As for batter life, I only get about 24 hours of standby, talking severely cuts that down. Also talking on the phone makes the phone get really hot(probably cause the phone is so small there is nowhere for the heat to go). If you intend to talk for a long time on the phone, an earpiece is a MUST. If you DO get the phone, look for rebates. I ended getting the phone for free from Best Buy. I've usually see the phone for either free or around 25$ after rebates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 91186 2000/12/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek easy to use a variety of other features clear blue backlight outer shell tends to get scratched rather easily battery life is lower then average The Bottom LineStylish, and convenient, the phone is a good buy. This phone can work for a variety of different people. Full Review I started looking for A cell phone in March/03. I had seen a variety of phones from different companies and the ones that stood out to me were ones from Samsung. So after narrowing it down I chose to get either the Samsung Sph-A460 or the Sph-N370. After researching 'a little' I decided to go purchase my phone in October/03. When I first got the phone it was great, first ill start by talking about the most important feature of this phone, which to most is how it performs. Talking: The phone is clear and both parties understand eachother pretty well. The only places I have problems with the phone is in my basement and a few other areas. Usually to solve any problems you may have with signal strength you simply just have to extend the antenna and for the most part it will be solved. (Sidenote: I highly recommend whilst talking on the phone you have the antenna extended at all times, studies have shown that this reduces the amount of radiation you'll take from cellular phones) Main Features: There are a variety of features to go over, firstly the navigation. The navigation is relativly easy to use and straight forward. It takes awhile to use the short cuts but if you dont need them immidiatly I would say anyone has the ability to pick it up quickly. The blue backlight is sexy and creates some really nice visual effects. It goes well with the silver casing and makes things visible and easy to read. it would be nice if there was an option to have the backlight on the outer display by pushing a button or something but it doesnt light up the outer screen unless you open the phone. The Display is nice and big, which makes things clearer and gives you the option for more data displayed. It also gives you the option to have 1 of 4 different screensavers (Panda, Dog on porch, Race Cars, Midnight sky clock) and a banner to write something on. The Ringers are exceptional. Most people complain that there isnt a standard ringer, or the ones they have are to comical, however I find the ones they have are unique and even if there were a standard ringer I doubt id use it. The Ringers are crisp and clear and there are a variety to pick from. However if more musical ringers are not your style and ringers are important to you stay away from this phone OR purchase an extra ringer that is more professional. Outside Display: Works out pretty well, It lists pretty much everything the inner display does except it doesnt have a banner or display picture. Like ive said before itd be nice to have the outer display light up somehow without opening the phone but other then that its not to bad. A few of the extra features: This phone has vibrate mode, which is pretty good. My only complaint is I have missed a few calls even when it was on vibrate when I was in a loud setting. Vibrate mode works but you have to have it in a pants pocket, Ive tried it in my jacket one, but it doesnt do a thing. The Other extra features are just things like the internet and so fourth, they are nice but not super important to the phone, I will admit I use the calander and stuff quite frequently though. Now to my complaints, I will try to be thurough about what I find to be a problem with this phone. Firstly The display screen (outer, and inner) do get smudgy throughout the course of use. I usually have to wipe it off with a cloth every week or so. Most screens are like that but i do find it annoying. Scratches: Another thing is how easily i find this phone scratches. One occasion there was a nick on the phone that I couldnt recall how it got there. I just picked the phone up and i saw a nick. So I just forgot about it since it wasnt to noticable and moved on. The second time made me quite mad. I was at a concert and my phone was in my pocket with a dollar coin (Im canadian no dollar bills here) and when i took it out of my pocket there was a small scratch along the outer case. Since i was not running or jumping up and down and was just walking throughout the evening it made me question why the case would get scratched so easily. Battery Life: Yes while researching I read the dreaded reviews on the battery Life and how it doesnt stand up to what it should. Well to some extent I agree. The battery life is limited and if im on full batteries and Im having a long conversation with someone it wont last. Ive been on the phone with people for an hour or so and the phone dies. So my suggestion is recharge the battery often and keep an eye on the battery meter (you never know when your going to need it for a big convo). Heating up: Another big complaint was how the phone heats up after 15 minutes of use. Well I did experience this and It wasnt that bad. Its just warm really and its far from unbearable, so I wouldnt say its a huge issue and your ear will melt anytime soon, but be cautious about that as well. In closing, I love the phone, people compliment its looks all the time and it has everything I need. I love the looks, the use, and I find it to fit my cellular needs just fine. I listed the good and bad things so base your choice off of some of those, and one BIG word of advice, researching your phone is important but researching your provider can be even more important. Ive had quite a bit of trouble with mine, and I was a former telemarketer who did surveys for sprint (you may wanna do extra research on them ive herd a lot of bad things from well... lets just say large number of people). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 135Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91185 2000/8/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 stylish light small lots of functions on the external display easy to miskey keypad looks nice but keys are too close fragile The Bottom LineRun. It's sexy, but run. Take the $40 you will pay for a replacement when the A460 breaks and apply it to a nicer Sanyo unit. Full Review I puchased this phone in early July to replace my Sanyo 4500. I have owened 3 Sanyos and thought I would give a flip-phone a try. The Sanyo had proved bulletproof, but for the Samsung A460 seemed too sexy to pass up. The external display on the was the first thing to catch my eye with its signal strength, time and date, caller-id and battery indicators all on a rather stylish external display. Its the only display on my phone that works now. I just went and bought a new Sanyo 4900 to replace the A460. Why? The Samsung had decent reception, very sexy looks and the great display on the outside. Thats where my love affair with it ended. After using it for a few weeks, the keypad (extremely stylish as well) started to really bother me. It is simply not very friendly, and the keys are too close together, not to mention shaped like blocks in a pyramid. It is extremely easy to miskey. The keypad is well lit with a nice blue hue, but in the keys are so flat, small and weirdly shaped that I frequently misdialed. The inside screen was why I didn't even get this thing fixed and bought a new Sanyo 4900. I went to lunch one Monday and tucked the A460 in my pocket. Thats on great thing about this phone. It is small enough to go anywhere. I pulled the phone out of my pocked and the inside screen was cracked! I had not bumped into anything with the phone in my pocket, and I had never dropped it. The LCD panel was spidered, and unreadable. The phone worked fine....but the display was unusable, which made using the call history and phone books impossible. I had paid for the equipment replacement when I activated the phone, but I was going to try and get this covered under warranty. After all, I didn't do ANYTHING outside of normal use. I went to the Sprint PCS store in Overland Park at Town Center and after waiting in line for an hour I was told that the phone wouldn't be warrantied. That I had obviously cracked the glass due to neglect or droppage. The phone itself didn't have any external damage. I had noticed soon after I got it that the large internal screen was not very well supported and flexed quite a bit when opening and closing. I was told that it I should use the equipment replacement program and pay the deductible on the phone. I had just paid a premium for this phone a few weeks earlier, and I was not about to pay another $40 and be without my phone for several days just because of a design flaw. I was told that maybe I shouldn't have had it in my pocket or other tight place, or that maybe it had been exposed to heat that had cracked it. Hmmmm. Let me get this straight, I can't carry my phone in my pocket (not to mention purse or bag), and I can never leave it in my car. Wow, wasn't told that during purchase. Again, I was told to try the equipment replacement program. Design flaw? Yes. Design flaw. The LARGE (which did look nice) display on this phone is NOT supported well enough to prevent breakage. How do I know it wasn't just me? I've run into several people who had the same problem and paid the deductible to get it fixed. They also claimed that it happened through normal usage. The phone hasn't even been out 2 months. I talked to the Sprint PCS rep at the Best Buy where I bought my Sanyo and she said she knew a guy who was on his third A460 in 2 months for the same problem. She knew several others that had the same issue ans well. Hmmm. Until I heard that I was about to send it in for the repair and pay the deductible. But I usually keep my phones 1.5 years. I wasn't about to pay a damage deductible on a phone that was less than 2 months old, and broke from normal usage. Not to mention taking a chance on needing it repaired every 2 months for $40 + $4 a month. I did the math. I bought a new Sanyo 4900. Stay away from this phone and all other Samsung Phones with large internal displays. They will treat the breakage as "abuse" and not normal usage. You will be forced to pay for a repair that wasn't your fault. And remeber, this could happen the first day you have this phone. Sprint will tell you that YOU broke it. Any breakage of an LCD panel is YOUR fault. Next time you are in a store with one of these, twist the top of the screen and see how fragile it is. Now think of that phone in your pocket or purse and buy a bulletproof Sanyo. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 155 91184 2000/11/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great screen clarity small lighting sexy thin battery life isn t great but acceptable The Bottom LineA proportionate blend of aesthetics, ergonomics, and performance in a minute piece of art and technology. Anyone should own this phone. Full Review I took the time and looked at many cellular phones before making a purchase. AND, in the end, the Samsung SPH A-460 was my phone of choice. Positives: The phone is simply beautiful. It won't get attention like the Motorola V70, or the Toshiba 2320 (numbers might be off), but it will get attention, especially in a dull or dark place where the blue back lighting really shines. When you get a call, and your phone rings with a customizable downloaded ring tone, or a polytonic ringer tone that no one has heard before, hey automatically look your way. THEN, when you flip open your slender shiny silver cellular phone, they are taken aback by the ergonomics. The entire phone is shiny and silver, and it is all illuminated by a beautiful blue glow. It is small, lightweight and easily fits in various pockets with the exception of shirt pockets. All the buttons on the phone are flat, if you hold the phone in front of your face opened, and look straight, you can barely, if at all, see the buttons...they're flat. This phone is a piece of art. Now for clarity and reception. I have not had any problems with clarity or reception. People who call me sound loud and clear, and people who i call have never even said "what was that," which is the common reply when someone is difficult to understand. I have even asked people how they felt about my sound, and they said it is great. Simple as that. Great. Various people post negative things concerning this phone, but lets not confuse user error, and user ignorance for a faulty product...pressing the cellular phone against your ear so hard that the top breaks off is clearly user ignorance and error. I have dropped this phone from head level ( I'm 5'10) to the concrete sidewalk, WHILE IT WAS OPENED!! AND I have yet to see anything break or stop working.. or course there are a few scratches, but nothing noticeable unless you look for them. Someone mentioned screens cracking...I have yet to hear of this anywhere except this message board. Negatives: Yes, the phone does heat up somewhat after about 20min. of use. BUT it is nothing unbearable, it is just noticeable. Someone said something about the phone being brought out the oven...that is preposterous and very idiotic. The phone is fine when it is warm, it is not uncomfortable to hold, it is just noticeably warmer than before, but to continue talking on it would not cause you to feel discomfort. People on these message boards exaggerate alot for some reason, and it is really quite sad. Yes the battery life is not the best, but it sure isn't the worse, and it is quite acceptable. Unless you're a top executive running helter-skelter, the battery life wont give you any problems, and those people who do run helter skelter, usually have two or three batteries anyway, regardless of the phone they're using. I don't understand why people would want to use a cellphone as an adequate calender in the first place. BUT the calendar on this phone is acceptable, but of course it isn't PDA quality....let us be realistic here....IT IS A PHONE ....not a hybrid PDA/Cellphone. Charging Time: Many have made negative comments about this phone, personally I have no problems with the charging time, because the phone charges when I'm sleeping...PEOPLE HELLO!!! this is a LiIon battery...you dont have to use it all up before you recharge it...so why does the time it take to recharge concern you this much?? just start charging it whenever you want, regardless of the batter indicator...People complain about finding products for the phone, but there is a website, the Sprint Store, and other sellers like best buy, circuit city, radio shack etc.... i have found no problems in find products for the phone... Big Picture: This is an extremely intelligently crafted phone. It proportionately blends aesthetics, ergonomics, and performance in a minute piece of art and technology. Anyone should own this, and Sprint has amazing service, quality, and their monthly plans are excellent. People complain about find products for the phone, but there is a website, the Sprint Store, and other sellers like best buy, circuit city, radio shack etc.... i have found no problems in find products for the phone... BYE THIS PHONE NOW!!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 162.74 TOTAL 91183 2000/9/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight portable compact design sexy looking dual lcd displays poor reception poor battery life slow charge time The Bottom LineIt's a very sexy phone. I would only recommend it though to someone who doesn't use their phone a lot, and doesn't mind recharging all the time! Full Review Recently my trusty old Samsung SCH-8500 started seeming a bit old in the tooth compared to all of the "new and improved" phones, so I decided to go out and get an upgrade. Since I was extremely happy with my 8500 (a great phone, by the way), I decided to try to get something very similar. As I was looking at the phones in the Sprint booth, it came down to the very sexy Samsung A500 (very pricey) and the Samsung SPH-A460. Since the A500 was $299 and the A460 was on sale that day for $99, I settled on the A460. The A460 is a flip style phone much like the venerable 8500. This "upgraded" model has a larger and arguably clearer display. It also has an external LCD display so that when the phone is closed, you can see the Caller ID of any incoming calls. The external display also shows signal strength, battery level, and some other functions. I was very intrigued by the external display and it is one of the best features of this phone. The A460 is very light (at least compared to my old 8500. It's also quite a bit thinner. Smaller and thinner are usually better, and in this case it makes portability even easier. The 8500 was just about too thick to carry in a pocket (without having a big bulge). This phone, however, will easily fit in my pocket and is hardly noticeable (both by me since the phone is so light, and from the outside because there is no phone bulge). The keypad, like the rest of the displays, has a blue backlight. I tend to like the blue backlight better than the lighting on the 8500, but the problem is it's not an even light distribution. The LCD screen displays are great, but the keypad has some "fringing" around the edges (the keys at the corner don't get lit up near as much as the ones in the middle). This really isn't that big a deal, but just something I notice at night... Another bright spot was the voice clarity. People told me that I was much more clear on this phone than the 8500. Now for the bad news.... Given its small size, light weight, great features (including external display), I was very excited to start using this phone. That's where the disappointment started to set in. First, the charging is MUCH slower than my 8500. It seems like my 8500 could charge in practically no time, even if I was talking on it. This phone though, took quite a while to fully charge. I could live with that, but it was disappointing. Next up, battery life. I had hoped for about the same (or better) battery life as my 8500. This thing barely will go a day without needing to be charged (assuming my normal use of about 1 hour of talk time)! And since the recharging takes so long, it's quite inconvenient. I must say I was very disappointed at that combination of long charge time and short battery life. I guess it's a bit understandable considering how thin this phone is. Probably not much room for battery... I've seen some reviews mention having reception problems. I haven't had any trouble with mine. It's been about the same as my 8500. However, I did notice that the reception level indicators are consistently lower on the scale than the 8500. I've had about the same level of lost signals, etc. I haven't really had too much other trouble with this phone. My biggest complaint is the power, or lack thereof. If this would charge as fast as the 8500 and last about as long, it would be wonderful. With its pitiful battery life, it's not going to last long in my house. I'll probably have to end up switching over to the Sanyo 4900, since the Samsung A500 is still way overpriced... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 91182 2000/5/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 screen on front small size flip open reception screen picks up grime heat after long use battery time The Bottom LineIf you can afford a camera phone or something with cool features, I'd go for that. Otherwise, this is an affordable flip-phone that has some decent feature, but flaws too. Full Review I recently purchased this phone at a Circuit City mobile phone kiosk after looking over many other phones. Before, I had a large Sanyo phone that, while packed with features, was heavy to carry and bulged in my pocket. Having had the phone for two years, I felt I had put enough time into it to upgrade. With the small size, bright display, and affordable cost, I purchased the phone. Here's my view after 5 months of use. The Good Small Size. To anyone who's had a behemoth phone (like an old Motorola), this is a great phone to carry, weighing only a few ounces and easily fitting into a shirt or pants pocket. To even someone who's owned a newer phone that is still large (not flip-open), this is tiny. Some may fear they'd lose it, being so small. Actually, I have lost it a few times. Being so light, it easily slides across the bucket seat next to me and ends up in a crevasse or underneath, and when it rings, I almost cause an accident to retrieve it. Flip-Open. Before, I always had to use the Key-Guard feature to stop my leg from pressing buttons on the phone, making calls I didn't even know I was making. With the flip-open feature, I save myself from making those calls. Plus, it makes the phone smaller. Some may not like having to do the extra work to use the phone, but it gives my fingers a workout, making them slimmer and sexier. Screen On Front. Having a display screen on the front of the phone is a nice feature, letting you see the time, date, battery life and reception, as well as telling you if you have missed a call or have a voicemail message waiting. When a call comes in, it tells you the number and name (if programmed in), also lighting up in the bright blue color of the internal screen, letting you easily see the number. Other Features. Blue screen is bright and easy to read. Vibrate feature comes standard on most phones today, and the vibrate on this phone is strong, though sometimes not strong enough (if in busy environment, like a club) as I have missed phone calls from time to time while in my jean pants. Games are few and not that fun. Ring tones are many, but still annoying. You can download more from Sprint website, but must pay to get them. Other features found on most phones are also found here: wireless web, calendar, calculator, though none of these really garners any notice. The Bad Battery Life. As many others have reviewed, the battery life lasts about a day when used on a regular basis. Charging takes quite awhile to get a full charge, on average 3 hours for me. Nothing upset me more than having the phone die while waiting for an important call. Purchasing another battery is an option, but you should be able to go for awhile while using the phone without needing another battery. Heat. After using the phone for longer than 10 minutes, the phone begins to heat up, making your ear and head sweat, and making it quite uncomfortable to use. Switching from ear to ear only makes both sides of your head sweat, and when you pull the phone away, you have to wipe it down with a cloth to further view the screen. Reception. I'm not really sure if this is because of Sprint, or because of the phone, but even in major metro areas, the phone can cut out. Sometimes the reception bars are full and this happens, other times it's empty when it shouldn't be. I've yet to ask Sprint about the problem, waiting for it to become a bigger problem (for now, it's just a hassle). Screen I'm always having to wipe it clean because of the sweat or hair or basically anything that seems to get attached to it. A pain, but I still like the screen, I just hate wiping it off. The Lowdown Cool phone if you're upgrading, though soon enough you'll probably want to upgrade to something with a longer battery life, more features (like Camera or Color) and better service (some of us are stuck with certain providers and certain phones). Knowing this, at least when you go into the store to pick one out, you'll be able to lift it up, know its cons and see if they outweigh the features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 91181 2000/7/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 nice layout lightweight small stylish heats up quick okay reception battery life The Bottom LineIt's good looking, but if you need it in an emergency, you'll probably curse the battery for being drained so fast. Full Review It's so amazing how fast the technology develops in this field, to make things smaller and thinner and making it more prone to lose these phones as well. That's where the conspiracy lies. However, on the materialistic issue, this Samsung 460 is phone that I think is more looks that real practicality. When my old Sanyo 4500 that I had for 3 years lost it's edge, as I couldn't read the display anymore after dropping it often when drunk, I decided that I needed a phone that was just as thick as a phone book. I really hated such big phones, but I guess it's good we still don't have the cell phones that people used to carry the battery backpack and such. I chose this phone because I complained to Sprint about stuff to get a free phone, and this is pretty much what they gave me. No complaints for $25, since I kept my contract with them. When I got it, I couldn't believe how small the thing was. The phone is about 4 inches long, 2 inches wide and about .75 inches thick. I knew right away I was going to get a bad battery life out of this thing as the battery was so tiny. It's less than 3 ounces too, so it's like nothing in the pocket, so that was a big change for me. When I started to program the phone, the menu layout was easy to use to go to certain parts and change this and that. It took me a long time to program the phone numbers in as it wasn't laid out well for easy entry of numbers, so it might be a pain for others too. The rings...you know, I hate it when I hear such crappy imitations of these songs on my phone. These are still cheesy, so I just stuck with a basic ring on it like they should have. The last thing I need to hear is a monotone rendition of "Gin and Juice," (which is not this model by the way). The phone gets a decent reception, but it could be better. My Sanyo got a better reception inside my house than this one, so I miss that too. The phone's ergonomics are great as the mouthpiece is right next to your mouth for once, so you get through pretty clear in that retrospect. The keys are easy to push as well and are laid out well. The sound quality is better than previous models, so you can make out someone better in noisy crowds or while driving with the window open. It has a data input to surf the net if you want (though it will be slow as this is not PCS Vision) and a convenient top-mounted headset input. The volume adjustments on the side are also convenient to set the ringer off-vibrate in a second, and to make the caller louder as well. The display eats batteries when lit it's cool, deep blue, but it's easier to read the dual displays when someone calls to make it quite legible. The images are dumb to have when you open the phone as a stand-by thing; Nightfall, Cars, a dog shaking something off his head or a Panda. The games are interesting, but not worth playing. Where's the real games like Blackjack and Poker? The phone does get warm after about 15 minutes of yipping, so watch out for that, plus the battery drops a bit after a 20 minute call (reports show the battery lasts for 2 hours of digital talking, but I think that's BS). The phone has the location device via GPS, so in 911 calls and other future uses (such as directions and restaurants nearby) you can find them (coming soon). It's stylish, but just a phone really that's small and still gets mediocre reception. The calendar feature and stuff like that are on it, but no color screen, camera or other things. Not worth the asking $125.00, but worth just $25...that's for sure. If you want a phone to just talk to people, get this if you want, but something that has a better battery might be better if you are getting a phone for your kid as we all know they never charge the thing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 25.00 91180 2000/6/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 size construction feature set ring tones overheating ease of use The Bottom LineThe ridiculous ringtones are enough to steer me clear of this phone. It also suffers on ease-of-use and tends to get hot with heavy usage. Full Review Samsung SPH-A460 Samsung is a company which has built up a decent reputation in electronics in recent years and they seem to have the potential to produce some practical and reliable products in the mobile phone market. My normal phone from work is a Kyocera, but when that phone began to experience some issues with establishing a connection, I was given a spare Samsung SPH-A460 and this is what I found out. Specs and Features The SPH-A460 is a CDMA phone, with Dual Band/1X Tri-Mode capabilities ad is GPS enabled. It's a medium sized (as mobile phones go today) clamshell style phone and has a small LCD in front and a larger graphics capable (128 x 128 pixels) LCD inside both of which feature a pleasant blue luminescent background when lit. This phone features WAP UP 4.1 for web browsing (which I admittedly don't use) and voice dialing of up to 20 locations. Battery life (for the standard battery) is rated for 2.4 hours talk time in digital and 1.3 hours analog. Standby time is up to 7 days (15 hours analog). The extended battery will increase digital talk time to 3.5 hours (1.7 hours analog), and standby time up to 10 days (21 hours analog). Other Features The phone book on the Samsung SPH-A460 features storage of up to 500 multi segmented contacts each with 6 fields of information including home, work, mobile, pager, fax number, and an additional field for miscellaneous information. The phone has a to-do list, a countdown alert, a world time converter, calculator and calendar, supports voice answering, and comes with a game (push-push? - haven't tried it). Construction and Ease of Use The size is reasonable for someone who often likes to slip their phone into their pocket as I do. The construction looks solid enough and the key pad is well designed with hard plastic, well sized keys in which the number light from behind. Navigation using the key pad is convenient and simple. A four-direction navigation key is provided, as well as an internet hot-key and a menu key. The antenna can be pulled out of a hardened housing which protects it from breakage and the recharge jack is of the single circular plug type for easy plugging and unplugging. The front LCD conveniently displays caller ID information and the time and an animation to indicate a call was missed. Sounds like a great phone so far. Well for the most part it is... with the exception of a couple of things which depending on your particular experience with cell phones and your particular requirements might be considered minor... or major flaws. In my experience, having had a number of cell phones now, I am cognizant that there is always a slight learning curve when acquiring a new phone in order to learn the shortcuts and be able to navigate the menus. But I have had enough different brand phones by now to know very quickly whether the phone is intuitive or not. This phone is not. Coming from the Kyocera (which was easy to pick up on) this phone is a throwback to a time when you'd put a couple of hours aside and sit down to become familiar with your phone. The menu system is not easy to navigate intuitively (like on the road at night when you can't see what your pressing) and a simple thing like dialing back a number that just called might make you throw the phone out the window first in frustration. Of course there are shortcuts and the procedures and menu navigations aren't difficult, they're just not intuitive and have to be learned. For me this is an unnecessary inconvenience when compared to phones where this wasn't the case and thus I rate ease-of-use rather poorly on this model. The other big thing (and this was the showstopper) was that the ringtones are downright embarrassing on this phone. I believe there are something like 16 standard ringtones that come with this phone, but I have no idea what they were thinking when they decided on the selection. There is no standard business-type ring tone and only one which isn't some type of annoying little tune and that one sounds like a pop-diva's doorbell ringing with a shuffle beat in the background. Not sure which market they were shooting for, but it surely wasn't the one I'm in where you're likely to be in a meeting or a public place and could do without everyone around you making annoyed faces at the stupid sounding ringtone coming out of your phone. Of course other tones can be downloaded, but who has the time or wants to buy the accessory cable to do that. I consider this a major con as it actually affects my willingness to use the phone. Conclusion Overall a solidly built phone with convenient physical attributes and a good set of features, but loses points for not being intuitively easy to use and having unbearable ringtones. (I'm told that Samsung has improved on the drawbacks of this phone to some extent on newer models and they certainly would have some potential if not for the cons mentioned here). Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129 7842 Samsung SGH-N625 91228 2000/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 aesthetically pleasing can be inconvenient when set on combination vibrationtone The Bottom LineGreat for the person who doesn't have too many responsibilities over the phone and likes to be trendy. Full Review I've had this phone for about 8 months. I have dropped it a few times and did not cause any functional problems. However, the face was scratched badly after one fall on cement. The reception quality is pretty good, I usually get more reception than most phones in bad areas. This was even before I replaced the factory antenna with a titanium extendable antenna. The buttons are very small, I often hit the wrong button when I need to dial a phone number. It has voice activated dialing that is usually accurate unless there is loud background noise. It is difficult to browse the telephone directory, especially when you have the voice activation function on because the quick button has to be set at either voice activation or the directory. There is sufficent memory for most people. Unfortunately, there can only be one number per listing. The is an internet option which comes in handy, the capability is limited for browsing the internet but you can easily read your email. Responding to your email however, is better done with a computer. You can set the rings and colors for different people when they call and I have found this to be a useful feature. You can also set vibration only, tone only, or vibration and tone. The combination isn't optimal, instead of ringing and vibrating simulateously like Nokias, it vibrates first for two rings and then switches over to tone for two more rings. Sometimes I miss a call because I hear the call too late. Searching for a tiny phone in a purse isn't easy either. The alarm can be set for daily or at certain times, but there is no morning alarm or snooze capability. There are 5 screensavers as with most Samsungs, mine included a nautical setting, a puppy, and fireworks. It's not the best phone I've ever had, but it's not the worst either. I don't know if I'll ever get another Samsung, I will probably try another brand next time. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91227 2000/2/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 simple tiny sleek pricey The Bottom LineOnly worth the money, if the price is under $100, otherwise way too expensive considering the other phones on the market. Full Review I've had this baby with Cingular since the first week of November '02 and I knew I wanted her since I first laid eyes on it three weeks prior. What first caught my eye was the small size, at 3.9" x 1.7" x 0.8", she's a very tiny little thing and able to fit in even my smallest purses. Not to mention weighing in at only 2.9 oz makes her virtuallly invisible. This could be a pro or con depending on the user of course. For me since I'm relatively tiny myself, it's great. For a well-grown man however, he might look a little ridiculous with this tiny phone held up to his ear. The screen was average. The blue backlight was a nice change from the typical green backlight of most cell phones I've used, but it looks a bit dated now that there are numerous full color screens on the market. The polyphonic ringtones are great. Most of the ones included sound wonderful, though I did have problems trying to use a data cable to download other ringtones. I was actually flat out unsuccessful. Talk time is about average, about 2 hours at a time. I don't use my phone that often so I find that charging every other day is sufficient There are quite a few features, such as an alarm, calendar, calculator, text messaging, WAP browser, voice command, world time, 6-color LED to let you know who's calling, personalized ringers to let you know who's calling, and my favorite and most used .... auto keypad lock. There are too many times when I've called people because I forget to lock my keypad, with this phone, not once has it happened. I've also dropped her a few times, with no internal damage. Sure the silver paint chips off a bit perhaps even dents some, but what phone wouldn't? She still worked just fine. As far as clarity, it's as good as Cingular allows it ... and that's a separate story altogether. When there's adequate signal, the sound is great, sometimes too great that I have to turn the volume down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 91226 2003/1/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small light custom lights one name one number in phone book battery life The Bottom LineDon't be seduced by it's looks! There are better phones out there. Full Review I just upgraded my wife's cingular phone as a surprise and am now regretting it. Originally I wanted a Nokia as it felt right and was cheaper... but it was out of stock, so I listened to the store owner and bought the more expensive samsung that all the women supposedly love... Right, just call me sucker. :) Actually my wifes initial impression was good, she loved the size, seems the store owner was right, only after a little use did the phones problems become clear. The Good: It's tiny and light.. it's almost too small. The service light can be customized to show different colors for names, so you can tell at a glance who is calling. Quality is good, the case is solid and the phone has a nice feel to it. Reception is excellent. During a recent trip to Mammoth Mtn over Christmas, the phone stayed in service about 90% of the time, even whilst skiing. It had my Sprint PCS Samsung phone soundly beaten as I had very poor service despite it being tri band. No pull out ariel. Is it just me or does this really make a difference. I am on my cell phone and reception is bad.. so I pull out the ariel and it seems to make no difference other than make me feel slightly better? Anyway, this new Samsung has no pull out ariel, so it's back to head bobbing and leaning to feel like you are improving the connection! :) The Bad: Battery life... it's terrible. I am about to take it to be tested, so this maybe just bad luck. I will update this review when I know more. In some cases the phone is not lasting even a day with about 30 mins of talking and it's supposed to have a three day standby! Very weak Phone Book. I don't understand this, my phone can hold six numbers per name entry, here comes the same maker and they go back to one name, one number. I suppose you could argue that it's just as easy to enter two numbers with a home, work, cell prefix but still.... Other Features We have the games, the calculator, the calendar (does anyone actually use these on a phone?) 3d Ring Tones so you can set your required tune to specific numbers. (I still say a simple ring is more effective) Comes with a wrist strap a you can purchase the usual plethora of cases, car chargers etc. The phone is also Dual Band, and will pick up service around the world (mostly) I know it works in Europe! I got the phone for $150 with a one year contract agreement. ***** UPDATE ***** 01/14/2003 I took the phone to Cingular, they could not test the battery, it seems that was a false statement made by customer support. However they did without question give me a new battery so we shall see how that goes. Look for another update in a week or so. 01/16/2003 It must have been a bad battery, the phone is now retaining it's charge, it would already be out of power by now and it still has plenty. Whew. Still not a big fan of the phone though. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 7843 Samsung SGH A300 GSM Cellular Phone 91235 2004/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small twin screen sound samsung support battery life signal strength I had this and the A530 and they both have pretty much the same problems. They are small and look nice on appearance but that is as far as it goes. Reception is awful compared to the other GSM phones that I have used. The only phone worst than this in reception is Panasonic GD55. Battery needs to be charged every couple days compared to my T68i that need twice a week. 91234 2006/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 stylish not enough features yes this is a stylish phone but the features are not so great hey. but if you just looking for looks then this is for you. 91233 2000/11/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 small very stylish twin screen sound awful os signal strength The Bottom LineIf you want something cool, and aren't bothered by lack of features, poor quality of signal & sound, then this phone could be for you. Full Review I recently upgraded my phone to the A300e from the Nokia 7110. Firstly, I was amazed by the size & weight, and in particular the stylishness of the phone. However, it soon became apparent that "all that glitters, is not gold!" The phone book is awful. It is not anywhere as good as the Nokia. Whereas on the Nokia, I could have 5 phone numbers under each name, I know have to have 5 separate entries. Also, you are resticted to about 12 characters for a name, so it is difficult to label different phone numbers for the same person. Probably the worst oversight, is that you CANNOT bookmark items when WAP browsing - how ridiculous!! If you want to add something to your favorites, it means you must type the URL and then save it. To complicate matters, you have to switch between 3 modes to enter any special characters (such as /*-?). The only redeeming feature, is that the last browsed WAP page stays in cache to be viewed when you next use the WAP browser. Another annoyance, is that the predictive text will only work in capital letters, so all text messages using predictive text look like your SHOUTING. The phone comes with 48 different ring tones. But before you get excited, they all sound awful, and very similar. At least they provide a ring tone composer, though I recommend you download the software from their website to do this on a pc, as it is much easier. Finally, I find the signal reception far from acceptable. Living in the country, as I do, I find that I frequently lose the signal, and have static on the line (a problem I have never had with the 7110). Also, the sound is very tinny, and the volume must be kept quite low to avoid this. Perhaps the lack of signal strength is due to the small battery - I don't know. I can accept the low battery life, as it does have a small, lightweight batery (and also comes provided with a larger, spare battery), but I do not think that one should have to compromise his/her quality of phone signal if they want a small phone. I shall be returning this phone, and taking a look at the Motorola V66e. Which seems to be superior in everyway. Such a shame that this good looking, stylish phone is such a dog Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 120 91232 2000/4/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cute dual screen good signal ring tones battery life clarity The Bottom LineOK for nights out etc easy to carry looks good but not for heavy usage as battery is awful and clarity of calls. Full Review So from the beginning...i got this phone as i wanted something stylish and functional. stylish i got unfortunately function was comprimised when i chose stylish. OK so it looks cute when someone rings and it displays a cute little symbol (heart, house, friends etc) and it lights up in blue and flashes a red light at you, but open it to take the call and it all goes down hill. My phone always has good signal (used in all areas of the country UK) but the clarity is awful, many callers complaining that they cant hear me so i end up shouting. This is my first and major bug bear. Another is that the phone can only hold 10 text messages this means i am frequently having to delete messages. Text messaging is also a pain as it does have predictive text input but doesn't know even some of the most simple words which i could cope with if i could add them to the dictionary but this would obviously be to logical and this phone isn't. So onto ring tones i know it has a composer but tunes aren't easy to add like the Nokia are and the volume of ring tones is also inadequate when you think how most mobiles are used in areas such as busy workplaces, tube stations, bus stations, in cars, etc it make it impossible to hear. Unlike the Nokia this phone vibrates three times then rings they aren't joined to ring and vibrate at the same time which to me seems completely ridiculous. The message tones are bearable but they don't have a vibrating alert. Another of my major bug bears is that to make the phone completely silent you have to go through all the tones to turn to none and again on the message tones. i do realise that you can press 'C' to put it onto silent but this diverts it to vibrating which is just as noisy. some silly little quirks: i cannot stand the alarm tone although it does certainly wake you up and also it has a blue light on the front, green back-lighted screen and amber keys could they not make a decision?? And the battery life i thought people were being petty when they warned me but i will eat my hat and say you were right. over all its a OK phone but not for any sort of heavy usage it purely is made for looks. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 91231 2000/4/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size irda connectivity ease of use compactness short battery life weak vibrating alert The Bottom LineA more sober and professional phone than Nokia efforts; it is light and compact and performs well, but its lack of games may make some potential purchasers look elsewhere. Full Review I bought the Samsung SGH-A300 mobile telephone because, above all, I required a compact phone which would easily fit in my pocket without being a nuisance. Features: A 'clamshell' design, the samsung incorporates a large green matrix LCD screen on the inside, facilitating WAP internet access, and a blue matrix LCD screen on the outside of the flip, enabling one to see who is calling before one opens the phone. The phone can be set to answer calls both when the shell is flipped open, or be forced to wait for a button press before the call in answered; the former setting allows for a rather useful one handed flipping open-talking-flipping closed action, though. Criticism has been levelled against this phone for it lack of features compared to, say, certain Nokia models. The phone has a multitude of ringtones, plus the ability to compose your own - it does not, however, use a 'Nokia' standard format ringtone entry system, but Samsung's own system. This doesn't pose a problem, however, since there are plenty of ringtone converter programs available on the net. Unlike many Nokia models, this telephone also doesn't have any inbuilt games. This also seems to have attracted criticism, however, it all depends on what kind of functionality you want from your phone... if you want the kind of compactness and ease of use you don't get with a Nokia, choose this model. If you want to play games, then don't. This phone also features an IRDA port, and software is available from Samsung's website to enable you to interface the phone with your PC. This is highly useful, as it enables you to archive/backup/alter all aspects of the phone/SIM memory, including phone numbers, text messages, customised ringtones and schedule tasks. The phone also has an in-built data modem, where the IRDA port can also be used to link directly with the IRDA port on a PC/laptop and used to access data services/the internet. Useability: The phone is more usable than comparable Nokia models, which tend to have fiddly menu selection systems... the Samsung system is quite obvious and straightforward, and while maximum benefit can only be gained after reading the manual, the phone is quite useable without doing so. The predictive text system is inferior to Nokia's attempts, and while on the whole very good and superior to 'manual' entry, there are some notable gaps in the phone's inbuilt dictionary, and it isn't possible to add one's own custom words to that dictionary either. Functionality: The phone is very compact, and serves its purpose well; phone calls are as clear as any of the current generation of phones. It's performance is somewhat marred by the short battery life. The construction of the phone on the whole appears pretty good; certainly better than the plasticky construction of many other manufacturer's efforts. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91230 2000/1/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish small sexy none found The Bottom LineIf you take the time to read the manual and learn all the features, you'll never buy another phone. And it looks SO cool. Full Review I can't believe the previous review on this phone. I disagree with absolutely everything that he says. The phone is v small, v stylish and v sexy. The dual screen is crystal clear, and has a v high resolution. I especially like the graphics you can assign in your phone book to appear when certain groups of people phone (eg Friends graphic for when friends phone). This appears on the outside and inside screens. The menus are simple to use and easy to navigate. The two 'soft' keys are excellent and refer to the menus on screen, and the four-directional buttons are a doddle to use too. I can't believe anyone found it difficult to use. The menus are graphical, as well as semantic, so you know exactly where you are at all times. You can even set up your own shortcuts for frequently accessed features. Although the manual is huge, it is worth reading it to get the most out of all the many features that the A300 boasts. The predictive text, for example, can be used in upper or lower case modes: just press the * key to toggle between them. YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOUT. And you can insert symbols by using the down key - read the manual! I find the signal reception to be excellent (London, UK) and the clarity of the reception good too. As for WAP - who needs it? Ok, so you can't bookmark pages, but so what? WAP is so useless that I've never ever had a need for it. There are two batteries supplied - one slim (lasts about 2 days), one larger (lasts about 4 days) and both are very light. There really is nothing at all that I can fault this phone on. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 pounds 91229 2000/6/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 compact stylish a bit on the girlie side The Bottom LineThis is not the phone for everyone. But if it's what your looking for, this is the one for you. Full Review The best way to describe this phone is as a tiny little girly flip-phone. If that is what your looking for, this is the phone for you. Tiny: it is very very very small, and will fit in the pocket of some of the tightest fitting jeans. Perfect for a night out on the town, when one doesn't want to carry much. girly: The phone comes with a character (a little witch or fairy which greets you when turned on and says goodbye when turning off - although this character might be different on different phones). The buttons are tiny and only those with the smallest of fingers can easily use them. Alternatively one can grow his/her fingernails long and use those. Flashing lights: The flashing light on the front is very cute but can also be a bit disturbing if placed in pocket as it is bright enough that others can see it blinking. Some of the ringtones make use of the flashing light as it synchronizes the color changing lights with the sound. Sound: polyphonic ringtones!!! This makes a world of difference to the funkiness of ringtones. Navigation: I still prefer Nokia for the ease of navigation. It takes some time to get accustomed to this phone, but once done, it is easy enough. Battery Life: It keeps going and going and going... I don't tend to charge it for days on end and it never seems to run out. Durability: I've dropped it many times and it still works fine. Not even scratched. Clarity: No worse than any other phone I've tried, but not the best. Flip: OK so I love the flip feature. It just seems nice to be able to flip off a conversation. Recommended: Yes 7844 Sanyo RL-7300 91242 2004/12/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 this phone is a great asset easy to usenavigate speakerphone difficult to use with background noise This phone is rough, rugged and ready to use. The menu is easy to navigate and the phone is easy to learn. This phone made an impression on me during the time I used it. The speakerphone did lack some, as you would not be able to be understood if there was any kind of background noise on either side. Did not get much opportunity to use the ready link due to lack of contacts with the RL service. At a good price point for PCS phones this is easy for anybody to use. 91241 2005/5/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 battery life works ok with most phone centric web sites decent speaker phone inconsistent call quality poor audio quality lack of intuitive user interface I've owned one of these for 8 months in the San Francisco bay area while subscribed to Sprint. During that time I have had a number of problems with dropped calls, poor audio quality from the "ear piece", and find the menuing software ANYTHING BUT intuitive. The area where I used this phone includes: Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Hollister, Gilroy, San Jose, and most of Santa Clara County. Pro's: Good battery life, good "basic" phone, works ok with most phone centric web sites, decent speaker phone. Con's: Poor audio quality, lack of intuitive user interface, slow response to key presses, inconsistent call quality (many dropped calls outdoors with no obstructions). [please excuse double posting of pro's and con's in this review, but 15 words was just not enough to get the message across.] Some of these issues could be attributed to Sprint's service area, but overall, I believe it is the phone because a Samsung V660 worked better in most instances at the same locations. 91240 2006/6/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 i cannot think of any expensive but cheaply made etc looks durable but isn t battery fades with use I do field work and am on the go all of the time. I got this phone because it is rubberized and seemingly durable. It isn't. All surfaces on this phone that appear to me metal, are actually plastic. This includes the rivets on the face, which broke on my phone after about 6 months of use. Also, the hinge broke in 2 places after about 10 months of use, so that I now have to use both hands to hold the phone together when I try to talk on it. Reception/signal strength are good, but that is the Sprint network. Battery life started out good, but faded to the point that it must be charged daily. This phone sucks. 91239 2006/11/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 durable sides rubbersleek design slightly less durable than expected I initially chose this phone because of the rubber sides--I drop my phones a lot. So, almost a year later, my phone probably looks better than any of my previous phones. There aren't the normal scratches on every corner that I had become accustomed to. Unfortunately, the phone isn't perfect. The faceplate on the inside of the phone falls off on occasion and also has an imprint of the round menu button. This is only cosmetic, but somewhat annoying nonetheless. There is no camera on it, but that's only a minor annoyance...I knew this when I bought it but didn't think it was essential. More recently, my husband broke the antennae off. I suppose I'll blame this on my husband, but with its durable appearance I would have expected to allow my husband to touch it for more than five minutes without it breaking (I make him sound like he's two, don't I?). I like the phone...I'm just mildly irritated with it at the moment. Thank god for insurance!! I knew I bought it for a reason! 91238 2000/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 outside display rubber lining grip speakerphone battery life call log history alarm mode The Bottom LineAll in all, if you have no need for a camera cell phone and are looking for a tough flip phone, I'd recommend this one. Full Review I switched from AT&T a year ago to Sprint. My previous experience with cell phones were mostly Nokia and a couple run-ins with Motorolas. Sprint doesn't have much of a Nokia selection (they deal mostly with Sanyos and Samsungs - the latter which I have a personal ban on) so I had to start doing my research. My fear with flip phones is that I'll flip it open...and out of my hand in the process (I know, it may sound stupid, but that was a fear) so the rubber lining drew my attention to this phone. And have you ever noticed how phones, after a while, the paint/plastic on the edges will start to wear down, like your once-all-silver cell phone now has an antiqued, worn-down-black-on-the-edges look to it? I've had this phone for a year and don't hae to worry about that thanks to the rubber grip. Some of the features I knew I wanted were a speakerphone for whenever I would have to deal with waiting on the phone, and and an outside display was important (I'm too lazy to want to flip the phone open unless it's a call I want to take). And the voice activated dialing was a nice bonus feature. I liked the sporty look of it, and know that I personally do not need a camera on my cell phone. Oh yes, and Bruno (my nickname for the dog companion on the phone) amuses me still. Of course it's battery life is not nearly as long as any of my previous Nokias, but it's still quite good and I've always kept a cell phone charger in my car. And I know people complain about the speakerphone quite a bit, but this is my second cell phone with the speakerphone and if you ask me, it does it's job in letting me know that an actual person is ready to talk to me, so I'm fine with that. After a year, I will say I'm quite happy with my decision still and hope to keep it for another year, at which point I will probably become bored with it. I love that the ear receiver volume can be easily turned up or down while on the phone. The only complaints I really have are that you can't just set an alarm, you actually have to set it up in the calender as an alert and although the outside of it has held up quite well, after a few months, the inside navigation button has worn a slight arch onto my inside display (presumably from scratching it every slightly over time?). But it doesn't hinder the readability of the display, more of a minor cosmetic blemish that I personally find annoying, but do overlook. Last thing I wish was more detailed would be the call history - it would be nice if it kept note of every time and every call made (like if you called your mom on Tuesday then again on Friday, it'll erase the log for Tuesday's call and just keep note of Friday's call). But for some people that might not be a big deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91237 2000/6/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sturdy construction good rf performance displays not readable in sunlight composing e mail is tedious The Bottom LineGood phone - compact, light-weight, good performer, and plenty of features to satisfy most users. Full Review I've had the Sanyo RL-7300 for about a month, operating on Sprint PCS. I like it. It's rugged, looks neat, and performs well. Compared to my old Motorola TalkAbout, signal reception is clearly superior - I'm not experiencing drop-outs at near the rate of the old phone, and can use it indoors, which was problematic with the TalkAbout. Sound quality when held up to the ear is good, although the maximum volume is a bit weak for noisy environments. The speaker phone works well, and those on the other end of the call report that my voice sounds very clear. The main display is of sufficient resolution for anything I need. Outdoors, even in hazy daylight, it's pretty much impossible to read the screen, so you are well advised to have important contacts set up with voice dialing. The secondary display is visible when the phone is closed, and it shows signal strength, battery condition, time, and identifies the caller. Backlight timing is configurable - minimizing the time that backlighting is on goes a long way to save battery life. Indoors, the backlight is not really all important - the dark state is very readable. The menu structure is intuitive and easy to use. Navigation is by a large button that moves the cursor up-down-left-right by pressing the rim and selecting a feature by pressing the center. I have small hands and sometimes miss, but find that control adequate. The phone provides a lot of settings for adjusting sounds and alarms, display options, etc., so it's easy to set the operating characteristics as you want them. The phone can be silenced for dining out or the movie theater by holding the volume decrease button on the side until "Silence All" displays. Voice-activated dialing is reliable - always selects the correct contact. I've already canceled the PCS Vision service. Internet connection speed is just too slow to be of much use. Many useful applications (like maps) requiring paying an additional monthly fee on top of the already steep $15 per month Sprint charge. Receiving e-mails is nice, but composing a reply using the telephone keypad is very tedious. This phone does not have a camera, which was a preference for me - in-phone cameras are not permitted in many facilities where I travel. Battery life is typical of most phones I've used, but minimizing the display backlighting is a good practice. The 7300 has a data port that allows downloading contacts and calendar entries from Outlook with third-party software. The calendar will alarm if configured to do so. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91236 2000/8/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 rugged good looks good battery excellent reception poor calendar function no camera size The Bottom LineIf you need a phone that just works, you can't do better. This phone is solid in all departments and has really stood the test of time. Full Review Service I use SprintPCS... many people have a love/hate relationship with Sprint, but when it comes to value, signal and service I have been completely satisfied. In fact, I have been with Sprint since 1998.</p> Making Calls I previously used two Samsung phones, and a Motorola Timeport (Startac-like) with Sprint. The RL7300 has had the best reception of any Sprint phone I've used. I have had very few dropped calls and very clear connections. The speaker is so strong i usually keep it on the lowest setting. The keys on the keypad are well spaced (I have big fingers) and make dialing easy. The phonebook supports all kinds of contacts (home, cell, work, fax, data, email, no label...) and it is very easy to navigate.</p> Features The speakerphone is the "feature" I use the most. There is a dedicated button on the phone to turn the speakerphone on or off, so it's easy to use. The menus are really easy to navigate; the main menu is completely graphical and the submenus are ordered lists. The one feature that I think is lacking is the calendar. It is really ugly, and the interface is kind of clumsy. The to-do list helps make the calendar a little more useful.</p> Texting I use the text message feature all the time. My one grip is that I haven't figured out a way to make T9 (predictive text) the default input for text messages. Otherwise, the text message interface is quite powerful. Similar to an eMail program, you can create folders, view sent messages, save drafts, send to multiple recipients...</p> Looks The outside of the phone has really held up. Yeah, it supposed to be "ruggedized", but most small electronic gadgets tend to really show their age. Most of the phone is unpainted plastic or rubber and, unlike those "sleek" silver phones, there is no paint to get scratched off. The screen on the outside is very readable, and the screen on the inside is beautiful. All around this phone looks good for a rugged phone.</p> Battery Life I tend to average about 20 minutes a day on the phone (600 a month) and about 20-30 minutes using the web or playing downloaded games. Usually, the battery lasts 3 days before recharging, even after a year of use. Browsing the web seems to use a lot of battery -- so be warned.</p> Overall All around this is a really solid phone. The call quality is excellent, it has a ton of great features (no camera), and it truly is tough. If you are looking for a phone that will last, you can't do much better. If you're looking for all of the latest features, go elsewhere.</p> Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7845 Sanyo SCP-4900 91273 2003/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 durability reception battery life voice calls speaker phone slow internet speed loud keys rather bulky I've owned the SCP 4500 before, and I really like the following features: -When someone calls in, the phone says "Incoming call!" Even after 4 years on the market, the SCP 4000 series still turns heads! It's also distinguishable from other phone with their generic ringing. -Battery life. Like the SCP 4500, the battery life is extremely long (about two weeks standby)? What I don't like are: -For some reason, my car power adapter does NOT work with the existing case for the phone (the case is too fat for the plug to fit in). I have to remove the case just to plug it in to my car adapter. -I can't see the screen in direct sunlight. I have to use my hand to cover the screen. -the 3G internet service is SLLLOOOOOW. I used to have wireless web on my non-3G phone, and it was much much faster. I'm not very pleased with my "high speed" internet service, although it looks cool. 91272 2003/9/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great interface pc connectivity great reception lots of features screen could be brighter I bought my 4900 when Sprint first started coming our with Vision-enable phones. This phone impressed me from the start. With a user-friendly menu system, speaker phone, an optional USB connectivity kit, and terrific reception, it is very hard to beat. I added one of those internal antenna booster things, and the reception got even better. I could get a signal inside a concrete building in the basement. The screen could be a tad bit brighter, and I wish there was some way to turn off the annoying bling sound when you confirm menu options or turn the keyguard on or off. Also, make sure your ear is directly in front of the speaker, otherwise you can't hear a thing. Overall, it's a terrific product. 91271 2003/12/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 crystal clear reception clarity tv like screen it s like having a phone pda in one features price a little high at 299 but it s the best phone i ve ever owned This phone is great.... it's just perfect. The color screen is amazing... it's like a television, it's so clear and bright. As for clarity and reception, excellent... it's like talking on my home phone... it's so clear... no breaks in the conversation or cutting out during a call. And, the reception is top-notch. I travel A LOT for my job and this phone never fails. It gets a perfect, clear signal in the mountains, in basements. And, the features are great! Downloadable ringtones, voices, sounds. You can download games and software to use on the phone. It's like having a phone, Gameboy, and PDA in one! It's extremely lightweight and the batteries never wear down. I can't say enough about this phone. I've had over 10 cell phones in my life and this one is the absolute best! Spoil yourself and buy it! I paid $299 and it was worth every penny. 91270 2003/12/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent battery life color screen strong reception signals slower processorcolor screen handles less colors than the newer camera phones Right now for new customers the Sanyo 4900 is free with sprint. You definitely can't beat that price. It comes with a color display, outstanding battery life, and many great functions (internet, calender, 300 person phone book, and polyphonic ringtones just to name a few). If you want a color 3g phone for cheap, you can't go wrong with the Sanyo 4900. 91269 2005/11/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice display good reception all around good phone easy to use battery pops out easily finish dullsscratches easily I've used this phone through Sprint for the past 3 years. The reception is always good, and it rarely drops calls. My girlfriend has the same Sprint service, and she has all sorts of problems. I attribute it to the phone, since hers was a cheap "free" one. The battery lasts a long time, and the features are easy to use. I have big hands, and the buttons on this phone are easy to find and push. Some flip-style phones I've found very difficult to use. This phone is a bit bulky, but that doesn't bother me. One thing I don't like about the phone, is how easily the finish scratches off. Also, it has some sort of "automatic batter eject" feature. If you drop the phone from any height, the battery flies in the opposite direction as soon as it touches the ground. haha! 91268 2005/1/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life convenience of speakerphone internet service is slow no camera I've had this phone for the past two years and have enjoyed it. I'm in the market for a new phone now because it's archaic relative to today's newer phones for the same price as I bought this phone for several years ago. For ~$200 today, you can get a camera, speakerphone, color display, and customization options like ring tones & games. Sprint PCS internet access is unexplainably slow (every Sprint phone is plagued by this slowness, however). My recommendation: Buy this phone if you're on a budget because it costs much less than it did when I bought it. If you have extra dinero, many other phones offer extra features, bigger displays, smaller size, etc.... that is, if you want those features. 91267 2007/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 quality reception sound durable numerous accessories readily available from web vendors firmware upgrades easy doesn t have a built in camera not the most stylish While this is not the world's most 'stylish' phone, I do find the uni-modular (one-piece) design to be both highly functional and highly durable. In fact, during a recent visit to my provider for billing purposes, the lady at the service window remarked that her father had the exact same model -- and that these were relatively indestructable, as he was always dropping his phone yet it kept on working! After having minimal success in previous years with other models, I finally stumbled upon the Sanyo scp 4900. As a result I have been using the exact same cell phone now for 3 years, day in and day out, and have gotten rid of my old landline (hopefully for good). I have worn out one AC charger and one standard Li-ion battery to date, yet the phone itself is still going strong so I keep replacing these easy-to-find parts. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Keep up with your provider's firmware updates, as this greatly enhances any phone's overall network performance. Also, I use a hands-free headset and the phone itself lives in a leather belt case, which prevents accidental droppage, both in and out of use. 91266 2000/12/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color long battery life seems compact enough for me downloads costare licensed for 90 days only variable reception quality The Bottom LineAt $49, it's a steal. Sprint PCS is also a better cash value than what I've read of Verizon's... Full Review Maybe I'm not well versed on the latest phone models, but this thing is smaller than phones I'd seen a few years ago. I think it's very compact. Haven't had the ideal opportunity to test the microphone yet, but if it's anything like the quality of the speaker then I'm most impressed. More than impressed. And it's in color. The screen is VERY nice indeed. The built-in cutsie animations for when the phone rings are worth the price themselves. When I do get a call, I'm tempted to not answer and watch the cute animation run. This COULD be a negative mark, it depends on your point of view - and who is trying to call you too! :-) Battery life is exceptional. The web service is, um, interesting but nice if you must have it. Problem is, you have to pay to download something (images cost $1 and are licensed for 90 days only. For something that's 1" by 1" in size, this is a sheer ripoff.) The casing isn't as seemingly durable as models I've seen in the past, but looking at other modern phones they're all comparable. If reception is good (4 bar strength) then there's no problem. In my apartment, the range varies from 2 to 4 bars. When the bar level changes, I seem to momentarily lose reception quality. Maybe that's normal for cell phones, I haven't used one in over 5 years. The price was $49 with activation, but I ALSO spent $55 for a 3 year extended warranty plan (that includes free annual battery swapouts) and $45 for a high quality earphone, car battery charger, and belt holster as well. Overall, I'm happy. It does the job well, and the screen is wonderful to look at. (When I first looked at the thing, I wondered why a color screen was needed at all. But it's much easier on the eyes than the usual green/black variety!!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 91265 2003/2/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good range bright screen long battery life sounds great lighted buttons long clip placement The Bottom LineWith the long battery life, great screen and incredible reception, this phone is a steal! Especially since you can easily find it for under $50 Full Review I replace a Sanyo 5050 clamshell phone with this one. I used to miss the clam shell design, but I have gotten used to this. The screen on this phone a lot brighter and the colors are more vivid. Having the color makes it much easier to use the phone, and navigate through menus. While using the phone you get great sound, and a strong signal most anywhere. There is a definite difference in the strength compared to my old 5150. I never thought I would use the speaker phone that this has, but it comes in handy very frequently. I do have some problems with this phone though. If you want to add a belt clip, like the ones you stick on the peg, its hard to find a good place for the peg. There is no flat surface on the back of the phone other than where the speaker for the speaker phone and ringer is. I was left to put it over the battery cover clip. Some may say that that is silly to put it there, but you'll see why I don't mind in a bit. Also, the keys are not as bright as they should be. In the dark, you can see the keys, but there is a little strain involved. I wish they added more lights to light them up. As I mention before, I put a sticky peg over the battery clip. I can do this because the battery lasts FOREVER! I get a huge amount of talk time, and also lengthy standby. I would STRONGLY recommend this phone to anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91264 2000/3/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 reception lite charger battery life when browsing bulky The Bottom LineA great phone with great reception, but bad navigation features in the menu. A bit bulky Full Review This is my third cell phone and I am still with sprint PCS. I like their service plans. By far this phone has had the best reception and call quality. Here are some highlights of the phone. The following are the great features. 1. Excellent reception. This phone works in places where other Sprint enabled phones won't work 2. Clear call quality, even in remote areas. 3. Color display means you can play around like a kid. 4. The browser provided has a smart navigation. 5. Standard Ring tones, with the chicken sound being a neat one. 6. Speaker phone for hands free operation. No need to get a hands free kit. 7. The phone comes with a light charger unit; you don't have to get a travel charger. Some disadvantages 1. The keygaurd does not disable all keys, the * key gets on even if keygaurd is enabled. This might not be big deal as it does not do any harm. Just thought I will say it 2. In most phones if you press talk it shows the last dialed number, then you using the arrow keys you can navigate through previous calls. In this phone you cannot do that. You have to go to Menu, Call History to do it. 3. Can store only 9 speed dial numbers. In Samsung you can speed dial 99 numbers. I feel this as a great disadvantage not be able to speed dial more than 9 numbers. Hard to navigate find names and dial numbers. 4. Sometimes, I mean rarely the call quality is not clear in speaker phone. So far in my 4 month use it has happened 2 times. 5. The phone is bulky in terms of cell phone standards. In general, If you are the one who is looking for a phone that will have great reception and service get this phone. If you are the one who wants easy navigation and more features. This is not the phone for you. Maybe the next model will be better. Also, the call quality is great, better than the previous model. The battery life is ok as long as you use to talk. It really drains when you browse the web. I am not sure is it with the browser applications being heavy or whether the batter life is really that bad. But since the charger is light, it will fit in your carry case or even a handbag. You can carry it any where. So you should be able to charge it back in 2 hours with no hassle. Now if you are travel person, you might want to get a car charger that will help. This phone is really ideal for people who travel, as the service and reception are great. Even though the phone has excellent reception, I could not rate it more than average as the navigation features on the menu are really bad. I would only recommend this phone if you stress overly on call quality. In all, I would say shop around, play with the phone make sure you are comfortable with features before getting it. Good luck. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $90.00 91263 2000/12/30 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life reception quality excellent color screen limited time for downloadssprint customer service The Bottom LineA great phone that in the end will perform in the way that really matters, great reception and battery life. Full Review After some 12 years of cell phone service one gets to really understand what really matters in a phone, initially after reading some reviews of how bulky some felt this phone was, I expected something on the same scale as my old Motorola brick phone, instead I was surprised to find a compact and light phone with excellent reception and a great color screen. After only a few days with the phone I wondered how I ever got along without a color screen, it's so bright and vibrant and easy to see even during the day. Besides the screen I love this phones polyphonic ringers, the rings that it comes with range from OK to pretty good,and the speaker phone feature works well, even from inside my car while driving, another benefit of owning a speaker phone is that that same speaker is used when the phone rings, one of the most frustrating things about my last phone was the poor ring quality, it was hard to hear unless the ringer volume was turned up to the max. this phone does not suffer from the same problem. The negatives have more to do with sprint than the phone, number one, you can download all sorts of rings or pictures on to the phone, but most are only good for ninety days, after that sprint wants you to pay for the same download again,(give me a break)my monthly cell bill should be enough, number two is Sprints apparent lack of uniformity of customer service, when I had problems with access to my PCS vision, the customer service rep had a hard time trying to get my wifes phone(I purchased two), working. When I had the same problem on mine, the second rep figured out the problem almost right away. Overall I highly recommend this phone, it's obvious that Sprint is almost giving the phone away and probably taking a loss in the hopes of getting more more people to sign up for their new 3G network technology, I paid just 50 dollars per phone with 100 dollar instant rebates, you just can't beat that. I also recommend getting a carrying case, Sprint offers one called the body glove for the 4900, it's very compact and adds very little to the outside of the phone, yet will keep it looking new for a very long time, take it from me, my three year old flip phone also has a case and looks brand new. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91262 2003/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 color screen price bulky size The Bottom LineWhile it surely doesn't have the cellular sex appeal of the higher end Sprint Pcs Vision enabled phone, it makes up for it in terms of functionality and price. Full Review Very recently I mosied on down to my local Sprint Pcs store for my next cellular phone. The allure of colored screens and low monthly rates were simply too compelling to pass up. And, at $49.99 with a $100 instant rebate, there was simply no way to go wrong with this phone. Now, on to the phone. 1. The screen is very nice and bright, the real selling point I'd say is the menu screen with rotating menu options to choose from. 2. The web feature is rather weak, getting online and using it successfully is quite laborious and not worth the effort. 3. The buttons on this telephone have a solid feel to them, more like a telephone than your standard shoddy cell phone. The menu button is also easily manueverable as well, nice for those with bigger hands. 4. Alas, the biggest complaint about this phone is its size. While it isn't a flip phone, its weight is comparable to those that are. If you really want a lightweight phone (but don't mind compromising for a non-color screen) I'd opt for the Sany scp-6000, 6200, or 6400. They are the epitome of the "candy bar style," the cell phone most resembling a normal landline phone. So it doesn't have the sleek figure of the higher priced Spring phones, so what? This phone actually feels like a real phone. (priceless if you ask me) 5. Also, the reception on this phone is unheard of as far as cell phones go, it has a 3G qualcomm wireless chip which is a newer technology. After all, this is what really matters. 6. The battery life on this thing is a godsend. The battery will last for approximately 4 hours talktime, and up to 18 days on standby. 7. What a steal.Instead of breaking the bank on a cell phone that might be somewhat reliable at best, invest in a phone that actually feels like a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91261 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent voice dial feature intuitive menu excellent reception speaker phone speakerphone function needs improvement placement of speakerphone volume control buttons are awkward The Bottom LineExcellent phone, especially if you're looking for a speakerphone functionality (although this feature needs improvement). All around a very good performer - you won't be disappointed. Full Review Excellent phone, but as always, there's room for improvement. It has the best reception capability to date in the industry. Sanyo/Sprint's menuing system is easy and intuitive. I had the Sanyo SPC-4700 (another excellent phone) and upgraded to the SPC-4900. I like these two phones because of the speaker phone feature. There are two features on the SPC-4700 that I miss. Simply, the placement of the speaker button and volume control buttons. On the SPC-4900, they are awkwardly located and my hands are small to average size. Men with larger hands will find the placement of these two buttons frustrating. The only other complaint that I have with the phone is the full-duplex speaker phone. It's great for listening to recordings or when you're on hold. However, when attempting to speak to someone, the conversation can become frustrating for the party on the other line depending on background noise and if you have the tendency to speak before the other party has finished their sentence. You really can't talk simultaneously and hear what each other has said, which is what the full-duplex feature is supposed to allow. Comparing the SPC-4900's speaker phone capability with Motorola's I-90 phone (which I also have as a work related phone thru Nextel), the I-90 speaker function actually performs excellent. That's the only good thing I can say about Nextel/Motorola phones because everything else can't compare to Sprint/Sanyo. I love the voice dial feature as well. You can easily program "Call Nick" and it dials it automatically. Furthermore, you can set the phone so that it tells you who is calling (assuming you have that number programmed in your phone). That means when you receive a call, you can have your phone say "Call from Nick". So you know who's calling you while the phone is ringing in your pocket. On the SPC-4900, this feature works great - a little better than the SPC-4700. BOTTOM LINE: I've had a number of Sprint Phones including the top of the line Sanyo and Samsung units. I've moved away from the flip phones because of my requirement for a speaker phone (although newer Sanyo models plan to integrate speaker phones into the flip models). If you are a Sprint PCS customer and don't have a Vision account (allowing you to access the web), I suggest saving yourself some money and check out the Sanyo SPC-4700 on Ebay. You can get a great deal for $20 or less and get everything you need including home and car chargers. The SPC-4700 buttons are placed very nicely. If you have the Sprint Vision plan, the SPC-4900 is a great choice. I just recently bought mine in Nov 2003 (yes, well beyond the production end date). But it's a great phone and I paid $79 brand new on www.ritzcamera.com. I noticed today they no longer carry it. Found it on Ebay as well but for more money. I like the phone, but, there is room for improvement. With that said, you won't be disappointed if you buy this unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91260 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 weight speakerphone easy to use can be used as modem voice dial battery life downloads costexpire battery falls out when dropped The Bottom LineIts a buy for those on the road with a laptop and a data cable who need a long lasting quality phone/modem. Full Review This is the best phone Ive had. Super long battery life - I only charge it for about 1 hour a week, excellent reception, online capability is the best feature (vision), and the speaker-phone and games are better than average. I can use it on-line as my modem - this is so cool. Now its not super fast and it can get a broken connection, but let me tell you how it saved me on the road when I needed some info - I just hooked my laptop to my phone via the data cable and I was online in the middle of nowhere going down the road. Looked up maps, where to stop and eat and saw what the news was. Wrote an email all in the middle of nowhere. The web browser on the phone kinda sucks. The websites available online for the phone are limited to stock updates and cheesy sound bite stories. It is only useful when you have a plane delay and lots of time to waste. Takes more time to download the phone than a real webpage on a laptop The phone is nice...its so light it feels like the battery is missing. Some of the bad things are the on off switch is weird as is browsing the menu - but you get used to it. The reception is the best phone Ive used and yes, it does make a difference to put up the antenna. I dropped my home phone after I got this phone (extra bonus - no telemarketers). It has all of the features any phone should have (address, phone number, scheduler etc) Maybe the next generation will have better features, but this phone met all of my expectations and exceeded them in some areas.... Hope you have the same expereince. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91259 2000/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life clarity color display none yet The Bottom LineGet it...you won't be disappointed. Full Review We recently switched from AT&T to Sprint for our wireless provider. We didn't have any problems with AT&T, but Sprint offered more with their Free and Clear America shared plan. Sprint was offering 2 phones for $50 - either the Samsung A460 or Sanyo N400. After reading the so-so reviews here and at Amazon for these 2 phones, I decided to shop around a little more. I came across the Sanyo 4900 which had rave reviews, so decided to get 2 of them at $50/each after instant rebate. After using the phone a couple weeks, I'm thrilled with its performance. The color screen is great, and the menu system is easy to navigate. I've hardly had to reference the user guide. Since we are now using our wireless phones for long distance calls, I was worried about how I would sound to the person on the other end of the call. Those worries have been put to rest. I've been asking the person at the end of our conversation how my phone sounds. On more than one occasion I've had responses of 'crystal clear' or 'could have been a corded phone as far as I could tell'. The battery life is almost unheard of. I've talked on it for 4 hrs without any problem. I think the standby time is around 15 days, so you don't need to connect the charger every night like some phones. Some reviews have made comments about the bulky size, but I don't have a problem with the size at all. I had a Nokia 5160 previously and this phone is considerably smaller than that. Maybe if you're switching from a flip-phone style it might seem a little big. I actually prefer the non-flip phones, but that's just personal preference. I didn't get the Vision option, but I can still access the web on a $.02/kb charge. I've tried it out a couple times and it seems to work pretty well. Seems to be about as fast as a dial-up connection, maybe a little faster. Not something I'll use too much, but a pretty cool feature nonetheless. I've only used the speakerphone once, and it worked really well. Again, probably not something I'll use extensively, but another great feature. The bottom line is I feel this is a great phone and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91258 2000/6/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 awesome battery life color display integrated speakerphone menus not as slick as samsung s slightly spotty button backlighting a smidge large The Bottom LineIf you aren't after a camera or zoolander-tiny phone, this one does a lot of things very well and is reasonably priced. Full Review This replaced my aging Samsung 3500. I know my batteries were old on that phone, but the battery life on the new Sanyo is nothing short of phenomenal. I can easily cover three days of mixed use before getting into the final battery bar. The speakerphone isn't perfect- the mic works OK but can get caught out with background noise in a car. But just having the audible speaker to check voicemails and wait on hold is very useful. The screen is nice, but it seems like they could have done more with the menu icons and layout. The battery meter is ridiculously small with only three divisions. A lot of the fonts could be a little more stylized to give it a warmer feel (there is a certain ASCII-ish feel to some). And I miss Samsung's numbered (direct access) menu choices that keep you from needing to scroll through unused functions to get the ones you use often. The backlighting on the keys is just OK, and looks like it was a holdover from a previous generation phone. It's totally usable, but just not very saturated. My only other gripe is that despite an almost-mind numbing number of changeable audio parameters (power-on tone? Come on!), you can't change the tone for a daily alarm, which is something I regularly use and would actually care about modifying. I'm still on a non PCS-Vision plan, so I haven't tried all the bells and whistles associated with that. The battery doesn't get nearly as hot as my fiancee's Samsung or friend's Motorola. This phone is a very solid performer for those not obsessed with micro-flips and cameras. I would recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91257 2000/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception cool features long battery life speaker phone mic works poorly on off button The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a new phone or like techno-gadgets, then this phone is for you! Full Review I've had the Sanyo 4900 for 2 weeks now and I love it. I am currently working in an area on the fringe of PCS service. My Motorola Timeport 8767 was intermittently on the PCS network. The Sanyo is on the network 99% of the time in the same area. The phone is considerably clearer than my previous phone, has longer battery life, picks up signal better, and has many more features. The color screen is easy to see even in direct sunlight. The menus are easy to navigate and are laid out in a rational manner. The only gripe I have is that the power on/off button must be held down for almost 5 seconds. Voice dialing is awesome. The phone book is what you'd expect. The calendar/organizer is great. It's not up to PDA standards, but is very useful to remember meetings or phone calls. The typing interface is a little awkward and it takes a little getting used to. I have ended up playing games on the phone much more than I expected. I recently downloaded a blackjack game that has me hooked and is great while I'm waiting for connecting flights. I also downloaded a ringer that I like. The phone already includes several unique ringers. My favorite is the voice ringer. If the incoming caller is in your voice dial, when it rings the phone will verbally state who is calling in your voice. You can select different ringers for different people. The downside to downloading from Sprint is they charge $1-4 dollars for each download! There are a few free to try downloads, the majority must be paid for. After paying for Vision service I expected free downloads. Many of the games are only good for a certain period before you must download them again. LOOK FOR MY UPCOMING REVIEW ON SPRINT PCS! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91256 2003/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ability to hold onto signal takes a little getting used to but don t all phones The Bottom LineAll in all... I must say this is hands down, THE BEST PHONE I've ever owned! Full Review Well, I've had Motorolla's, Sony's, Nokias, Samsungs (reviewed the Samsung 8500 and N200), and finally came to the Sanyo 4900. Now I've had Sprint for almost 3 years, and I know where I do and do not get signal... this phone has virtually wiped those x's off the map!!! I can make and receive calls in prior "dead spots" and I can also hold onto calls while traveling through these sketchy areas. I live on Long Island (NY) and just the geographic nature of the island is not conducive to cell phones... get close to either shore, and forget your cell phone, you can't use it... however, this phone makes it a bit easier (a bit.. ok, maybe ALOT easier!!!) The one feature I absolutely love about the phone is the ability to screen calls. There's 3 buttons on the left hand side of the phone (2 volume, and 1 memo/screen button). let's say you receive a call from a blocked caller ID (which I HATE!) and you refuse to pick it up... well you can hold down this screen button for like 2 seconds and it picks up the call, plays either a pre-recorded message telling the caller that you're not available and that they can leave a message after the tone, or if you choose to, you can record your own voice telling the caller that you do not accept blocked caller id's and they can hang-up and dial *82 and your number again. At any time during the "SCREEN" you can push talk and talk to the caller... it's like having a answering machine for your cell phone... (It's also great for kids when their parents call, and they want to see what their parents want w/o talking to them if necessary!) Next thing... speaker phone! let's say you forget your "hands free" device... your driving... *ring ring* "CRAP!" are you going to risk the $45-150 ticket for talking on your cell while you drive? not anymore!!! hit the "speaker" button and "viola!" your now talking in your car w/o your hands free device... now keep in mind it is speaker phone, but the quality isn't bad at all... UPDATE: 12/24/02 Phone worked so well, that I got the same exact one for my girlfriend! We share a Vision plan, and let me tell you, the ooohs and aaahhs over ringers, games and screensavers is awesome. To give you an example, I managed to get a picture of my girlfriend on my phone, and everytime she calls me, her picture comes up. We're currently enjoying the 3 months of free Vision. I think after the three months we'll cancel it. After about a month I hardly download ringers or other things. The internet is much nicer then it was with the old Sprint phones I've had, but I constantly have computers around me and I always have my phone so I can call up moviefone to get movie times. It's hard to chat (ie. to type "hello" on ANY phone, you have to type 44 33 555 555 666... now imagine having a conversation with someone...!!!!) i'd rather just call them instead! You may also find my helpful as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 91255 2000/9/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 polyphonic rings large screen color screen excellent battery life downloads aren t all free a little bulky a bit pricey if you get it full price The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone for anybody who wants flashy features that are still easy to use. Full Review I've been with Sprint PCS for a bit over 1 and a half years now. My old phone was a Motorola StarTac. After that phone, my Sanyo 4900 is a luxury. The polyphonic rings are impressive and pleasant to listen to. The color screen is bright and high-quality. I use the calender as an alarm clock. I only wish I could personalize the sound used for the calender alarm. I find the navigation to be easy, and even though I'm not usually adept at rocker switches, I can use this one just fine. This phone is extremely customizable, from ringers and screensavers to color scheme and a shortcut function. What really surprised me was that even though it has a larger, color screen and all kinds of fancy features, the battery life was even longer than my plain old StarTac. I suppose if I was constantly using the speakerphone, or playing games all the time, the battery would drain quicker. But, the phone usually stays in my purse, going for days without needing a recharge. Another feature I like is the SMS messaging. Since this is a Sprint-PCS Vision phone, I had to get a vision plan, which includes wireless web. I haven't done much with it yet, but I do know that you are not charged per message, like with some other carriers, just for wireless web airtime. It's convenient for when I don't want to make any noise, such as during a concert. I can set the phone to be completely silent, so that it doesn't even vibrate, and send a message without even disturbing the person next to me. When I was deciding on a new phone, I had in mind a specific list of features, and the Sanyo 4900 delivered on all of them, exceeding my expectations. Besides that, it's half the price of the other Sprint phones that came close. I managed to get in on a deal that gave me a $100 discount when I added a second phone to my plan. Even so, I would have paid the $179. I think it's worth it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91254 2000/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery life good reception color screen vision content is lacking screen color is limited The Bottom LineA Vision phone that won't break the bank and gets good reception. If you plan to do lots of downloading you might look to a more expensive model. Full Review I have only been with Sprint PCS for a year and half but once I saw the new color phones I had to get one. My contract was already up so I got it for $49 with a new 1-year contract, I'm partial to the candy bar style phones anyway so I was happy. The salesman handed it to me and told me not to use the Internet for at least 24 hours or I would risk messing it up. The first thing you will notice is the bright color screen, take note though it's only a 4,000 color screen so your photos will be dithered and may look a little funky. The main menu is very cool with the scrolling buttons, unfortunately the sub-menus aren't as cool but still easily navigated. There are several included ringers but only one or two actually sound like a phone. The ringer quality is quite impressive, it doesn't sound like those first generation 'downlaodable ringer' phones but more like computer midi files. Of course the phone also features a phone book, calendar, calculator, and world clock. The built-in speakerphone is a nice feature and 'airplane mode' will allow you to turn off the phone so you can still play games on a long flight. The buttons on the side of the phone allow you to control ringer volume from highest to vibrate or even off when you're not on a call and speaker volume when on a call. The voice services button is immediately below those and is also easy to use. There is a small blue button at the bottom of the keypad which allows you to switch to speakerphone when on a call. SprintPCS has really touted their new vision service as the best thing to happen to mobile phones and this phone is tightly integrated with the web. From the main menu you can scroll to the web button and get on the internet. The phone will advise you that charges will be incurred, however right now most plans include unlimited vision service for $10/month. Click 'ok' past that and you're at the 'Vision Home' page, blue hyperlinks and all. You can navigate to several websites from CNN to the Weather Channel complete with little color images. This is when you realize you can't navigate to just any website on the net and the services offered by Vision are at this point fairly limited. You can download games and ringers but Sprint wants to charge you for them. There are several sites that offer free downloads (http://midlet.org/wap - choose 'generic') though. At first glance you're wondering where all that bandwidth for Vision is, when you download a game over 20k you'll see it actually downloads quickly but page-to-page navigation still seemed a little laggy to me. After you download a game/application you can return to the main menu and select 'Downlaods' and then the appropriate category. Then select the program and choose 'run' the phone uses J2ME (Mobile Edition of the JAVA language) and it takes from 5 seconds to about a minute to load some games/applications. The phone has about 600k of user-accessible storage space which is more than it sounds, most games are 10-30k. But if you start uploading tons of pictures for photo-ringers you'll eat that memory up in no time. The phone itself gets good reception, even better than my Touchpoint 2100. It gives you the ability to analog roam in case your stuck in an analog only area (of course roaming charges will apply). I did find the earpiece speaker (not speakerphone) leaves a little to be desired but it's not junk. I haven't done an exact measure on battery life but it seems to be good and the Lithium Ion battery charges pretty quickly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91253 2000/10/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone feature packed easy to use intuitive menu very long battery life fantastic reception a little larger than some non flip phones a little longer start up time The Bottom LineWell worth searching for and buying this cell phone while there are still some available. Pay any price....you will not find a better phone anywhere! Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4900 Dual Band Cell Phone is no longer being made, but there are still some places where it can be purchased, including eBay. If you are in the market for a new cell phone for the Sprint PCS service, I highly recommend that you do some searching for this one. This is by far the BEST cell phone I have ever owned! It has a full color display with up to seven lines of text; a built-in speakerphone; internal phone book able to assign up to 500 numbers and up to 300 email and Web addresses; speed dial; PCS Vision enabled; and many, many more features. The best and most important thing about this phone is that it has the clearest and sharpest reception of any phone I have ever used. I have used it in concrete and steel buildings, basements, tunnels....you name it.......and the reception sounds like I was talking on a land line phone. The battery life is outstanding, the intuitive menu is easy to use and the features are more than you can ask for on any cell phone. In addition it can be used on the Sprint PCS Vision network for emails, messaging, web, games, additional ringers & screensavers etc. This is not a flip style phone and it is a little larger than some other brands, but I have not found that to be a problem. I do not like the flip phones anyway, and I purchased a very neat horizontal leather belt clip case which allows me to carry the phone very comfortably. The only small fault I could find with this remarkable phone is that it takes a little longer than normal with most phones to turn on. But we're only talking a few seconds longer. I don't know why Sanyo stopped making this phone, but as I said, there are still some available and I guarantee that you will not find a better cell phone anywhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91252 2002/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 many features enhanced phonebook phone log long battery life instant recording color web navagation awkward lots of buttons battery breaks free if dropped The Bottom LineIF YOU DO NOT NEED THE INTERNET, GET THE 4700, IT IS A BETTER, MORE SIMPLE PHONE AND THE NETWORK FOR THE 4900 IS SLOW. Full Review **** Update*** Recently Sprint went to unlimited Vision time which is good/great. Navagation is now not a download MB question and you can surf at will, albeit clumsily. Get the replacement plan for the phone, it scratches easily, and does not bounce well.... I am a phone person, I am partial to the Sanyo line of phones, and owned the 4000, 4500, and 4700 before. This is the natural progression, but it took some big steps ahead. Maybe too big for the network and software.... The color screen and menus are good to better, but there are almost too many buttons on the phone now. Simplification is the next evolution, and retention of features. The instant web access is unnecessary. It is the best phone I have seen, but Sanyo is one of the best that I have seen, if not the best, and Im a phone-o-phile. You will not be disappointed with 99% of the features such as voice activated calling, personal screen saver or picture to caller association, the games are great, but I dont use them. There are little fees and stuff associated with them, but they are nominal. Sprint changed the web usage meter and usage is a bit cloudy as it is in Mb used not minutes, and the phone plans for 3G phones went up $10!!! I am VERY impressed with battery time, and the web is what you get on a 56K dial up, but not all sites are ready for the browser this phone uses, although they will be in the near future. Hotmail people are waiting. Getting peripherals has been a pain, and it has gotten pretty scratched up. The GPS for 911 is good, but GPS is cool and needs to be expanded for other application, such as bar location or directions. Nobody has this as far as I have seen on a phone-phone, not including the PDA-phone. Buy it if you liked the 4500 or 4700, but expect a learning curve with all the new features. It is worth about $100 after rebates, but consider the 4500 or 4700 if you want the great phone with less geek edge to it. It is a pretty shiney object for most people and a waste of cash. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 91251 2000/12/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 flashy trendy new features large color screen call screening too big for some The Bottom LineWhile this unit scores points for its trendy new features it makes a great phone for anyone. It's $49.00 price point is unbeatable. Full Review Sprint PCS is offering the Sanyo SCP-4900 for just $49.00 after a $100 instant rebate in most areas. Compared to the existing Sprint lineup there should be no question which phone you select. This phone has all the latest trendy features including a very legible color screen, the ability to download custom ringers ($), games ($), and screen savers ($), easy access to Sprint's internet email, syncing with your PC, and my favorite - call screening. The color screen is capable of 4,096 colors and I found very legible in _most_ lighting conditions. This beats looking at a tired green LCD screen. It immediately adds wow factor when someone sees your phone which can be complimented by custom "wallpapers" and "screen savers" which can be downloaded to your phone for a small additional fee ($1-$2). Here's a tip: listen to the ringers on the Sprint PCS web site before purchasing. There is no fee for this! For further customization, purchase the $29.99 PC sync kit that allows you to edit/view your phone contacts/calendar/todo on your PC. Even cooler is the ability to assign a custom picture to an incoming caller. (Attach a photo of your fiance to her name in the photo book) For techno-geeks Sprint provides an email address associated with your phone. Set up Outlook Mail filters to forward important messages automatically to your phone. I'm working on configuring my X10 home automation to automatically e-mail my phone if there is motion in the house while I am at work. My favorite feature? An internal "voice mail" allows you to listen to incoming voice mail messages as they are recorded. You can then pick up the phone without needing to dial the caller back. It's about time there is voice mail screening! :) I use this feature every day when mom calls; it's important to here the tone in her voice (angry vs. offering money) before accepting a call. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 91250 2000/5/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 loud good battery life nice display clear speakerphone poor reception easily damaged heavy bulky The Bottom LineNeat features poorly executed Full Review After living with the 4900 for more than a year, I've drawn the following conclusions: Poor durability - The silver coating on the front of the phone scratches easily. Accidental drops can damage the battery clasp mechanism. Nokias are far superior at handling this sort of abuse. Buy a case. Good battery life - Battery will last for days, as long you don't attempt to use the wireless Internet service. Missed calls - As my wife will attest (we both have 4900s), many calls simply don't get through and will appear as missed calls hours, or days, later. This maybe a problem with the Sprint PCS service in my area. Poor reception - I've heard that this phone is supposed to have excellent reception. I've experienced an OK to poor reception, regardless of the indicated signal strength. This phone has a neat trick: the signal indicator will show 5 bars. Once I hit the "Talk" button, all 5 bars disappear and the phone disconnects before placing the call!! Again, this could be a Sprint PCS service area issue. Chunky Monkey! - Don't think you can slip this phone into your pocket and be on your way. The phone's dimensions will cause an unflattering bulge and the weight may cause you to inadvertantly "drop trou." Overall, it's decent phone, but I've owned better. Sprint is giving the phone away with new activation; I'm looking forward to the end of my service contract so I can replace it with a new Motorola, or perhaps a Treo. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91249 2000/11/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life call receptions much improved over my other phone earpiece is my only complaint The Bottom LineCell phone basics are call quality, excellent battery life and easy to use. This phone has all of that and much, much more for a great price! Full Review OK, let me give you my run down on what I think of this phone..... First, the reviewers and some of the users have balked at the size of this phone. For the past three years, I've used the Qualcomm QCP-2760, which, for those of you in the know, was their slim phone. Very thin and convenient to carry. I just got my SCP 4900 a week ago, and this phone is smaller in dimensions and just a tad thicker. I like a phone that FEELS like a phone. I've never liked flip phones cause they've always felt too flimsy for me. This phone is solid and feels great in my hands! Second, let's talk reception. I also agree that I'm getting better reception in the work place and home where my other phone was lacking from time to time. I've even managed to continue conversations in stairwells and elevators, where many other phones lose their signal. Third, call quality. My friends all say that they can not tell that I'm on a cell phone as my calls come through crisp and clear here in Orlando, FL. Speaker phone IS actually full duplex on this phone. Speaker works like a charm as well. Fourth, features and functions are on the ball! I love the menus and the access to everything. I surf the web on my phone now more than ever. I do agree that the web speeds need to be faster, but when I think about the access times that I was receiving on my previous phone that wasn't java enabled nor had a color display, I find the times to be the same for a whole lot more data to pop up. And as time goes by, Sprint will have the speeds increased as the network matures, so I can forgive the slight delay. In closing, let me say that when 3G was first announced, I researched the available phones at the time and when it came to the display in the store of this model, I played around with it for almost 45 minutes. This was back in the beginning of August. Now I own one. I can't be any more satisfied and have found my new toy for the next few years until Sanyo improves upon this model. As a matter of fact, the only thing I can see them improving is indeed the ear piece. Otherwise, Sanyo, keep up the great work. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91248 2003/6/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 spacing of buttons sound quality signal strength battery life a bit bulky The Bottom LineIf you can handle this phone being a larger than some of the chic flip phones it has all the features and quality you could want in a cell phone. Full Review I didn't originally plan on purchasing this phone. I had actually gone into the store planning on spending twice as much on one of those "cool" little flip phones. The thing that swayed me in my decision was the fact that battery life really isn't that good on some of those smaller phones and, the salesman swore by this phone. About the battery life, about the signal strength and quality. I figured I had 14 days to return it if I didn't like it so, I really had nothing to lose. Once I got the phone charged up and working, I spent hours checking out all the cool features and filling up the phone book. The color screen is nice and it's big enough that you can read a few lines of text without having to scroll down at every line. Navigation is pretty straight forward too. Go into the main menu and curse up or down until you find what you're looking for and then open up sub-menus. With a little looking around I found it rare that I even had to refer to the manual for anything. The calender function is adequate. I think it stores 100 events which, should satisfy most users. You can have events occur once or repeat weekly, monthly, yearly and so on. I also appreciate the alarm on the calendar. It's saved me from forgetting things a couple of times already. Surfing the web on the phone is pretty straight forward. There's a web button above the talk button, hit that, wait a minute or two and, up comes a homepage. You can navigate from there or there are other options to access bookmarks or enter website addresses. The fact that you can assign different ringers to different functions and, different people in you phone book is nice. Plus you can download even more ringers, screensavers, games, etc., for a small fee. Don't underestimate the games either. While they may not be up to PS2 caliber, a simple game or two is a God send when you are waiting somewhere with nothing to do. This is a nice added feature. Another nice feature is the built in speakerphone. While I'm one who usually hates speakerphones due to their lousy sound quality, this one is actually pretty good. I have no trouble hearing people on it and, my wife actually said if anything, I sounded a little loud on it. Lastly, I like the keys and the placement of them. On a lot of the phones out there, the keys are tiny or, right next to each other so dialing errors are common even if you're looking right at the phone. The keys on the 4900 are raised a little, spaced out nicely and give a positive click when each is depressed. Overall, a good solid phone I can heartily recommend. I've even dropped mine a few times and, it's none worse for the wear and tear. What else could you ask for, especially at this price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 91247 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 internet access it has brilliant color 300 name phone book none so far The Bottom Line A great new you color PCS phone that you don't have to pay a fortune for, that does all the things of expensive phones. Full Review I have been a cellular service user for some many years. I have seen many excellent cellular phones since I have been using cellular. I didn't realize until now how much better a color phone is. I use Sprint PCS as my carrier and recently I decided to get one of their PCS vision enabled phones. I looked at many and settled on the Sanyo 4900. This phone has so many features that it is hard to comprehend I will try to tell you some many features and let you try it for yourself at your local dealer. Other PCS carriers also use the same phone as this is. It offers a whole new way to look at wireless. Let me give you a few of the basic features of this phone that I like. afterwords, I will give you more detailed information. The first thing I like about this phone is that the viewing screen is large enough to see what you're doing and a color is brilliant and excellent. It has many features on the front where the keypads are located that make it easy to operate. You have large keys especially good if you have large fingers like me. Yet the main menu button ,the clear key, telephone directory, the scroll button. It also has a way of button, and a back button. The tall button is green And the end button is red. The phone also has a built-in speakerphone which I love. It alleviates the need for a headset or a hands-free Kit. You can hang in on your sun visor and talk away and the quality is excellent. Here are some of the other great things about this phone. 1. Has full-color display large vibrant, LCD icon driven display, with up to seven lines of text. 2. built in speakerphone for hands-free operation. 3. Calendar, you can create appointments and view your schedule you at a moment's notice. 4. Internal phonebook which holds 300 entrees, each storing seven numbers for a total of 500 numbers and up to 300 E. mail and Web addresses. 5. Multiple languages, supports English and Spanish. 6. Dual band 7. longer battery life, digital mode up to 4.5 hours of continuous talk or sixteen days continuous standby. Analog mode up to 2.5 hours continuous talk time and 23 hours standby Time 8. supports T. T. Y. 9. messaging for sending and receiving E. mail and instant messages or chat 10. ringers, has 30 built in ringers to choose from or download others 11. Games, many available on Internet mode. 12. PCS business connection, you can access Microsoft outlook or Lotus Notes & Co. E. mail without connections 13. screensavers, many to choose from These are just a few of the great things about this phone. I particularly liked the speakerphone. The phone also has crystal clear voice. The quality is excellent. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91246 2003/12/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 amazing battery life call quality screen plastic weak large size The Bottom LineIt's great, fantastic buy it now. If you want sleek sexy and slender go buy something else. Full Review Being a Sprint user the selection of low cost phones is pretty limited, the flip phones are either expensive or dysfunctional. In the Sub $100 range you have a choice of two. I was lucky enough too own both the Hitachi P300 and the Sanyo 4900 for the same period of time. It was an arangement with www.freecellphoneguys.com. Me and my wife shared a family phone plan and were allowed to test both phones since I was unsure which was the best, then swap out for the phone I preffered. So for the most part this is a comparison between the two. STANDARD SPECS Hitachi P300: Weight 3.6 oz and a 3.5 hour chat time, 10 days standby Sanyo: Weight 4.6 oz and a 4.5 hour chat time, 16 days standby These are the stats you are given and they pretty much stand up in use, though not accurately measured, no stopwatch here. Another imnportant thing which can modify these stats is the existance of a long life batter for the Sanyo getting 7 hours chat and 2x days standby, albeit adding a little more thickness and weight. Regarding the size and weight of the two phone, it is noticeable when holding one in each hand, but the hitachi slips nicely into your pocket, where the Sanyo has the "Is that a cell phone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" kind of feel. SCREEN: Hitachi P300 It was fine long and sleek, clear and well coloured, holding 8 lines of text, with a top band showing Reception, Battery life and time (while in menu). The bottom band indicating the effect of the left select button. Quite alot of information for such a screen and slim elegant typeface. Sanyo 4900 Screen holds 7 text lines and 1 top line displaying reception and Battery life (while in menu). This allows the text to be thicker and more legible than P300, I didn't miss the other line of text, plus the back colour helps. RECEPTION During my time with both phones we tested them in Tampa bay Florida and along the way to Atlanta Georgia, this covered many weak spots. At one point along the way my phone lost signal and 30 minutes later services returned and messages piled up. Signal quality was Great in Tampa Bay while my new accomodation in Atlanta Cell to Cell comunication received some static and dropped words. This phone maintained reception all the way on the trip though quality was poor in the areas P300 had non. When we arrived in Atlanta reception quality was better, initialy I thought it was just the Sanyo having lower lvls required to hit the reception bars displayed on the phone, this still may be true, but in each situation where there was poor reception the Sanyo 4900 came ontop calling the same number, but this was not a massive improvement it however was noticeable. SPEAKER PHONE This appeared to be the same quality on each. I think only realy useable when in a home and having a comunal chat. On the road the background noise obscuring conversation making us mimic the Verison advert "Can you hear me now?" The major problem is the vibration from the speaker on the back of the phones. Everyone could hear a sound quality drop when it was switched to speaker phone, Sanyo being easier to get there with its one button click. KEYPAD The Sanyo is slightly wider offering larger buttons, but on the Hitachi they are certainly not the tiny flip phone size. The P300 does however sport a realy funky mini joystic which I preffer over the circular pad which most other phones go for. My favourite kind of pad is the one that looks like a cross between scales and roof tiles, no space is wasted offering the greatest surface area for making sure you hit the right buttons. WEB This has minimal use, slow and cubersome, but I don't mind since it is never hard to get on the net when you want with a computer. This is a phone, not a camera, not a web tool. DURABILITY (modified 12/18/03) Sanyo4900 only After having this phone now for 6 months i can give some feedback on its durability. My wifes phone has been dropped several times and has remained intact, but it has suffered a crack along the screen from pressure while leaning against something. This does not seem to be an uncommon occurance either as, while working at a resteraunt i see a number of mobile phones on tables, and one I saw sported an almost identical crack on the screen which suggests a common weakness. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91245 2000/10/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek stylish candybar style phone with great reception lots talk timeloads of features antenna is huge almost as long as the phone when fully extended The Bottom LineIf you like cool phones at a reasonable price this baby's for you. Full Review I'm a phone fanatic! I love Cool phones and Sanyos are one of my favorite indulgences. I've had the Sanyo 4500, 4700, and now the 4900. The 4900 is the best of the series so far. I skipped over the 5000 series as they were too expensive and something just didn't' seem right about them. I bought this phone on auction with free shipping, which was hard to pass by. You can now buy this phone for 12 interest-free payments of $14.99 at the Sprint store online. If you are also picky about what you buy, you'll be prepared for the frustration or elation of the phone's idiosyncrasies. Is it just me, or are the Sprint Phone Catalogs getting more vague about their features? I have had this phone for a few days and have spent quite a bit of time discovering its features with little help other than the Internet and my husband. THE PHONE SIZE: The device is slightly smaller in length complimented with slightly larger width, including a larger display screen. In simple words, it's shorter and fatter than the Sanyo 4700 and 4500. If you are used to those two phones, it will take a little getting used to. It has a deceptively bulkier appearance. But it's actually pretty light weight. I don't notice it in my purse as much as its predecessors. The phone has a straight, candy-bar silver style. This phone provides talk time of up to 4.5 hours and standby time of up to 16 days. I've used up the battery voraciously in the first few days of using it constantly, but as the novelty wears off, I know I won't have to charge it as much. The phone weighs 4.6 ounces It is 4.88" x 1.89" x .98" in dimension. ANTENNA: I can put my thumb and forefinger around the whole of the phone, but less comfortably than the other two, which was an obsessive-compulsive irrelevant measure of the device, but something I noticed right away. The phone's antenna is larger than the Sanyo 4500, and 4700. The entire antenna when pulled up to its full length is about the size of my small-woman hand. The phone itself is about this same length. When the antenna is down in place and you look at the back side of the phone the antenna component is the size of my thumb. I'm not kidding! The antenna is protruding and bulky. If you place the phone down on its back side (antenna side down), it wobbles to the touch which is noticeable and annoying. Oh well. BUTTONS: The buttons on the phone are very "clicky". You can hear the clicking if it's quiet enough around you - which is most of the time if I can help it. If I wanted sound when clicking the buttons, I would turn on the Key Beep Volume off, oh wait I already did that. They keys are just a little noisy for my taste. MENU/OK: When you click it, you will see the: Call History, Phone Book, Messaging, Web, Downloads, Voice Mail, Settings, Calendar, Voice Services, Tools/Extras, Phone Info, Key Guard choices on the menu. You can change this view to either the cool graphic or the text. The Right Navigation button takes you to the phone book, and you can set the Left Navigation to a shortcut. I have mine on Downloads. ONE-TOUCH VOICE MEMO along the side of the phone allows for up to eight 18-second voice memos or incoming caller messages MORE FEATURES: SPEAKER PHONE: My husband says he can hear me just GREAT when I call using the speaker. He says it sounds like I am talking into the earpiece. YAY GAMES: I don't play many games, but if it's a novelty you want to show off, it's not very impressive to have to wait one and ½ minutes for a game to load. I timed them. It takes THAT long the first few times using it, even if you have the game downloaded. That's too much time. That's about as much time as I would actually spend playing the game itself. The games are "ok" as far as games go. The phone comes with Crab Catch, in the TOOLS/EXTRAS Section and in the DOWNLOADS: CyRace, SEGA Monkey, Space Invaders. RINGERS: Don't be surprised if the first tones you hear are bad, very very BAAAD. They SUCK! The phone itself comes with 5 of the worst possible tones. Think retro. But once the phone is fully charged, you get the full 19-ringer range with lots of cool choices. There are one or two that are the same as the Sanyo 4900. You can choose from "La Bamba", Foster's "Dreamer", "The Star Spangled Banner", Schubert's "March Militaire", Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", Debussy's "Arabesque", "Nedelka", Brahm's "Hungarian Dance # 5", "Rodeo", "Birds", "Toy Box", and Ringer and Voice (for incoming calls). You can download ringers that will take some of the allotted storage (limited) space. Most are $1 to $4. I found a place called http://www.midiringtones.com. You can also go there to test your own ringer and download others. There is also software that allows you to download ringers for your pc without paying for the download. FutureDial SnapMedia is the software. It's priced at $29.99 with a sync cable sold separaely for the same amount. When you download from the phone itself, you can choose ringers by genre: Animated Pop Rock Rap Hip Hop Disney Movie/TV Themes R&B ESPN Country Sports Sound Effects" Under country there is "On the Road Again" and "Always on My Mind". I downloaded "Hey Baby" from another section, but couldn't get it to work. Actually there are few that don't work. Under TV Themes I downloaded Gilligan's Island. Too cute. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but when I download a ringer and try to assign it, it takes me to the first screen saver my husband downloaded, "How Ya Doin?" I think the problem is that my PCS Vision has not kicked in properly. I've been on the phone with Sprint 5 times already since the initial activation trying to get to sign in to the PCS Vision on the website from my pc. I'm afraid to call them again, as I hear there is a $3.50 charge per customer service call. But that's another epinion. Much to my chagrin, Britney Spears's "Oops... I Did It Again" worked just fine. Just my luck, but my middle school students will like it, hmm? CALL HISTORY stores your last 20 incoming, outgoing calls, and missed calls. You can erase any of these at any time. When you click to "VIEW" your calls in the Call History, you are provided with the already-displayed information. It's a worthless function. Unlike the older models of this phone (4500), the Call History will not record the duration of the call for later viewing. I don't know why this feature would be removed other than to require the user to call in (and use more time) to determine how many minutes are remaining. PHONE BOOK: It stores up to 500 numbers and 300 email/web addresses. I only have 100 names stored. My guess after the first 300 it doesn't allow you to include the email/web addresses. I won't have that problem as I don't have that many numbers to add. You can assign information in any of these categories: HOME, WORK, MOBILE, PAGER, DATA, FAX, NO LABEL, EMAIL, WEB, RINGER, and IMAGE. If you have only a mobile or pager number for someone, you have to click through to get to the one you want when you call out. There are a few extra steps there. It's not a big deal if you have speed dial which you can assign for your top 8 frequent callers (2-9). You can assign different ringers and images to each of the names in your phone book. I haven't used the image feature yet. SCREEN SAVER: The phone's original screensavers (especially the animated ones) are SKUNK. I thought I would like this feature, but the image is not discernable with the back light off. It looks as if the phone has all kinds of grubby fingerprints moving on your phone. So I did download screen savers I like. The animated ones still don't look that good once they are in place and the back light of the phone is off. The categories for choosing a screen saver are similar to those of the ringers. There are lots of cool ones to purchase. DISPLAY: I don't have similar phones to compare the cool color screen display to. At first I thought it was cheesy, but it's still way ahead of it's time with the depth of color, and for the price, it's not bad. I paid this much for the Sanyo 4500 and 4700 without all these features. ADJUSTABLE FONT SIZES: You can use this feature for Notifications and Browser. (4 selections - Large, Normal, Small, Smallest) -I thought you could choose different fonts, but they're not there yet. ADJUSTABLE DISPLAY: From the display button, you can change these features: Set Back Light (LCD/KEY always on/off, 8,15,30 seconds), Greeting (Customize or use your User Name), Colors choose from: ( Forest, Sunset, Evening, Dawn or High Contrast) Contrast (Lowest to highest) Animation (for Standby, Outgoing Calls, or Service Search) Incoming Calls (you can choose from a variety of colors or download new) Stand by Display (Screen saver, Calendar, Time {large}, World Clock, or Off) Main Menu (Graphic or Text) Sleep Mode (Off/On) The LOCATION (Global Positioning thingy)feature can be turned off or On but the icon is always on the display screen whether you want it or not. ROAMING Set to: Sprint, Automatic, or Analog. CALL GUARD can either be placed off or on. MESSAGING: You can click for Pop-up Message if you get incoming calls during Game Applications or Browsers. Like the 4700 and 4500, you can set the phone on Any Key Answer and Auto Answer PERSONAL PROFILE: this feature lets you store your name, blood type, birthday, address, 2 phone numbers, and 2 email addresses, Kind of spooky - like I would like anyone who finds my phone to have this much information on me. ELECTRONIC ORGANIZER: a scheduler/calendar and to-do list with function alarm reminds the user to make important calls, and helps to keep track of important events. CALL SCREENING: It acts like an answering machine to allow you to listen in as the caller leaves a message. This supposed 3G is understandably slow. Web pages take time download on the phone. I still like it better than text only. The Support for the new plans is soooooooo lacking. I called about problems with my pcs vision and ringers. One rep told me I'd have to call from a land line and have the phone programmed. (BS) and in another case, I was told PCS vision was not set up by the previous reps I'd called in the 3-day period!! Stop the insanity! All in all, it's a great phone. This is my third Sanyo phone and I look forward to the latest and greatest of 'em all. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91244 2003/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life good speaker phone screen too dark during sleep mode The Bottom LineIf you are trying to decide between this and the Samsung N400, it's no contest; This is the one to get. Great battery life!!! Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4900. What a great phone compared to the Samsung N400 that I traded in. See my review of that one at . Some basic info: Full Color Screen: Pretty, but not nearly the clarity of the dreaded Samsung N400. Weight: 4.6 ounces a little heaver than the Samsung, but not noticeable to me. Battery Life: (drum roll, please) STATED 4.5 hours talk time, 16 days standby. I can't believe those numbers, but this phone goes into sleep status very quickly to save the battery. This is SOOOO much better than the Samsung! My battery ran out yesterday and I didn't even remember when I had charged it last. Speakerphone MUCH sharper than the Samsung This phone is SO much better. It is also menu driven and very similar to the N400. Here's what is on the phone: Press the 'Menu' key press down on the navigation button (it has "OK" stamped on it) and you're given the menu: 1. Call History: (Outgoing, Incoming, Missed Calls, and Erase History lists) 2. Phone Book: (Find, Add New, My Phone #, Speed Dial #'s, Long Phone Numbers, Services) 3. Messaging: (to send emails via web) 4. Web: (to connect to the wireless web) 5. Downloads: (to connect to Sprint to download games, ringers, screensavers, etc) 6. Voicemail: (connect to listen to voicemail or clear the vm notification from the screen) 7. Settings: (Sounds, Display, Internet, Location, Roaming, Messaging) 8. Calendar 9. Voice Services: (Voice Memo, Screen Call, Voice Dial) 10. Tools/Extras (PC Sync, Calendar, World Clock, Crab Catch) ·Keyguard: (set to prevent phone from dialing by accident) Here's explanation of some of the features of the phone (without going into basics like explaining call history, how to turn the phone on and off, etc). Phone Book The phone book can store up to 500 numbers in 300 entries (multiple numbers per entry) and each entry can have up to 16 characters which doesn't truncate names like the Samsung did. This phone also has abbreviated dialing where you can dial entries from your phone book with only the last four digits of the phone number. Speed dial is only available for digits 2-9 which is much less than the Samsung which allowed 2-99 but, as I said in my review of the other phone, I can't remember that many speed dial numbers anyway so 2-9 is fine for me. This phone has something called 'Secret Internal Phone Book' entries. You can use this option to hide a phone number though the NAME will still be displayed. To edit the entry you need to enter a 4 digit lock code that you create. Downloads I don't play games on the phone and other than a couple of ringers I haven't really downloaded anything. I think it can be confusing to download ringers. If you want to pay for a ringer from Sprint, go to their web site, pick one out, and after you've paid for it, it will be put in "my vault" where you have access for a limited amount of time (30-90 days depending on the license agreement that you're shown with each ringer or game). You can download it as many times as you want during that period and after it's on your phone it's yours. If you get a new phone after the expiration period, you'll have to buy it again. To download a ringer or game, you must go to the menu: WEB->More->then scroll to 'My Vault' and click. You will then be shown the current list of ringers or games that you've paid for. Highlight and choose the one you want and the rest is intuitive. I'm telling you this because I kept going to "Downloads->Ringers->Get New" which is another time consuming way to look for, pay and download ringers but doesn't show you the ones you already bought. Calendar You can use this to manage your schedule and set personal holidays and other appointments. I don't use this feature because I have a Palm Pilot on which I carry my life! :-) Voice Services This setting is used to set up and use voice dialing (appears to be an extra charge from Sprint), record Voice Memos, and set up Call Screening. The phone allows you to record up to 8 recordings with a max of 18 seconds each. Screen call allows you to answer incoming calls by using a pre-recorded or customized announcement. Now only if you could program that to happen at home for telemarketing calls!! Tools/Extras PC Sync is another way of downloading data into your phone. I don't understand it all, but it appears you need to purchase some extras to do this. The World Clock shows you various times around the globe based on the current local time. Press the left and right arrow keys to scroll through a number of cities from around the country and around the world to see the time. What don't I like? I can't get the ringer volume up as loud as I'd like. You can set it on vibrate and high volume, but it's still not as loud as the ringer was in the N400. Also, when the phone is in SLEEP mode and if you have keyguard on (to prevent calls from being made by accident), you can't see the screen until a call comes in or you press the "Back" key to turn off keyguard. And oh yeah, the other thing I hate about this phone...hmmm well there is NOTHING else! I highly recommend this!! An Update 8/28/03 Well, I've had this phone for a while now and there are a couple of things I thought should be in this review but I didn't know earlier. First of all, I still like this phone more than any of the other phones I've had over the years but, there's some things that I wish they would improve on. 1) The ringer is not as loud as I'd like. As much as I hated my old Samsung phone, when I was in a crowd I could always hear it and for some reason, the vibrate function on the Samsung seemed better. I have had a difficult time hearing the phone ring. I keep the ringer set on "High/Vibrate" 2) Almost every other phone I've had 'beeps' when the charger is plugged in. This phone does not. It would be nice to hear that sound so I know the phone is correctly connected. I thought my phone was charging in the car the other day but then when I got out I noticed that the battery didn't charge. It turns out that the charger was not completely plugged into the cigarette lighter. OK, I COULD HAVE actually LOOKED at the screen of the phone to see if it was charging, BUT the screen stays dark in SLP mode and also when the keyguard is on, so it's hard to see. 3) I'm beginning to notice that the battery on full charge is not lasting nearly as long as it used to and it's only a few months old. I was told that with this battery there was no memory meaning I could charge it before it was depleted, but I'm finding that talk time is decreasing dramatically now after being fully charged from the wall charger. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91243 2000/8/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 color display play games check your e mail the price of 179 The Bottom LineThis is a new type of phone with the color display that will change the way cell phones will be! Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4900 dual band cellular phone is an innovation led by Sprint. This phone has a full color display with seven lines of text and colorful icons on it. This phone offers so much with colorful games, wireless Internet and so much more. The Sanyo SCP-4900 is made for Sprint's PCS Vision applications. The Sanyo SCP-4900 is the lowest price of $179 for the new Sprint PCS Vision phones with the color display. ~~~ Sprint's PCS Vision Applications ~~~ Here is a short summary of what Sprint has in mind for the use of the Sanyo SCP-4900 cellular phone. Business Connection For Business they will offer security to wireless data through use of the phone. Games Now you can play full color action games on the phone. Imaging for Business To be able to transmit wireless digital images for business use. The Internet To use the Internet wireless with full color on your phone. Messages For leaving and answering messages through the use of any PCS Vision phone. Photos To be able to view color photos on your phone and share them with your friends and family by use of the phone. Real-Time High-Speed Connectivity This is to improve the speed wireless for Laptops and PDAs. The Ringers This is to be able to download different ringer sounds from Sprint's services. Screen Savers Download screensavers for use with the phone. ~~~ The Sanyo SCP-4900 ~~~ Color Display The display is 4096-Color LCD in a size of 1.7 inches. You can read up to seven lines of text with 15 characters for each line. Battery Life The standard battery that comes with the Sanyo SCP-4900 has a Digital talk time of 4.5 hours and a standby of about 384 hours. In the Analog talk time it is cut down to 2.5 hours. You can buy an extended battery that will give you 7.5 hours of talk time and 600 hours of standby time. Ringers The SCP-4900 uses a Polyphonic Ringer with 16-chord ringers and melodies. You can now personalize this phone for different sounds and alerts plus a different ringer for each of the names in the voice dialing memory. You can also download different ringers from Sprint's services. You can also set the phone to vibrate when you get an incoming call. Power Save Mode When you get in an area that is not serviced by Sprint the phone will automatically go in the Power Save Mode to preserve battery life. Calendar The phone has a built-in calendar that can be used to set up appointments or if you just want to review your schedule of the day. Security The SCP-4900 lets you enter a private code so no can use it unless they know the code. Voicemail The touch of one button gives you access to your voicemail messages. Dual Band The SCP-4900 can be use both analog band at 800MHz and digital band at 1.9GHz. Phone Book There is a built-in Internal Phone Book that lets you store up to 500 phone numbers, 300 web addresses and 300 e-mail addresses. The SCP-4900 comes with the ability to play games in full color on the phone. You can download extra games from the Internet. Photo Caller ID You can set up the phone with photos of the people in your phone book and when it rings it will display their photo making it easy for you to identify the caller. Global Positioning Satellite Right now it only works if you dial 911 to give your location in case you need help. In the future they hope to be able to use it with maps to see where you are and where you want to go. Other Features Bi-Lingual Supports both English and Spanish TTY Technology Device Compatibility for the hearing impaired Built-in Speakerphone Voice Activated Dialing (30 Names & Numbers) Voice Ringer for all names in the voice dialing memory Voice Memo Recorder for recording caller's voice or dictation (8 Recordings x 18 seconds) Voice prompts (voice alarm, auto answer, voice memo, voice dial) Supports 3rd - Generation Voice and Data Java TM (J2ME) WAP 2.0 Browser CMX Animated Ringer Caller ID Speed dialing Voice dialing ~~~ My Thoughts ~~~ The Sanyo SCP-4900 is new and after seeing it I knew I had to play with one. The phone is available though a Sprint dealer and it requires Sprint service to us it. The phone lists for $179 and from now until 9/28/2002 you can get a $50 rebate from Sprint when you purchase this phone. I found the phone to be nice but I did need a carrying case that I could clip onto my belt. I set the phone up for vibration while on me because I do have a hearing problem. In the car or house it is set up to ring. I place a piece of Velcro on the carrying case and in my truck, that way I can stick it to the location of my choice and it would sit there still. When using the speakerphone during driving is very helpful to keep your mind on the road, I still prefer to pull off to the side of the road and use it the conventional way. The clarity of the phone is good except when I am in the factory that I work in, where most other cell phone do not pickup good either. I really like the photo ID because it is easy to glance at the color display to see who is calling you. I also enjoy the voice dialing to my most popular calls, it works really well. As far as the games, well they look good but I use a phone for a phone. If you have children on a trip it could keep them entertained. The color screen is very impressive especially when viewing a photo. Having 7 lines of display is also very nice with the colorful icons on the screen. I am looking forward to more use of the Global Positioning Satellite on my vacation trips in the future for mapping. I have used this phone only a few days, there are many features I haven't investigated yet and many new things I will come across. For now I must say the phone is very impressive and a must checkout from your Sprint dealer. Thank You for reading my review! Ron (surferdude7) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 7846 Sanyo SCP-4500 91373 2005/1/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 too many to list can t think of one I've had this phone for 2 years, in fact, I've replaced my original one with the used ones from Ebay. (I damaged the original one's battery holder). It may not be the most advance phone ever, (no camera) but this phone is best suit for men who don't like a tiny phone. Its battery (on stand-by) can last for days and I also bought 2 desktop handfree speakers for my car and home. http://www.cell-phone-accessories.com/sppcssa40scs.html This phone also accept an external Antenna. http://www.wirelessemporium.com/store/catalog/product/details.asp?itemid=2488&refer=froogle Sprint offers a great deal (after 7PM all calls are free!) for your money and with a desktop handfree speaker, you can use it instead of your regular phone. 91372 2000/11/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 slim it looks great stylist need more features that ordinary phone has Full Review Sanyo 4500 is my 6th phones. I love this phone very much but it lacks many features that many typical phones have. The phone doesn't keep track of minutes used. Also, the ALWAYS ON option for backlight is missing but it does have ALWAYS OFF. It's like a roach motel where you can only check in but not check out. Moreover, when I connect the phone to the wall for charging, it doesn't even beep or squeak to confirm that the phone is being charged. So, if you are looking for a typical phone then I suggest to get something else. It's not worth the $200. But if you are looking for style and look, then this phone is great. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 215 Tax Included. 91371 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features small long battery cannot customize sounds no call log Full Review I had a Sprint Touchpoint for the longest time but I switched to this Sanyo. Everyone else has touched on the features but the two things that it lacks for me is first, within the call logs, on other phones they have an option to view or reset your airtime. This phone does not tell you how many calls you have taken or how many minutes for a particular month or billing cycle, kinda of annoying at least I was used to it before. Also the alerts. I use my phone as a back up alarm clock everymorning and the beep it lets out is horrible, I want to be able to customize the ringer type for the alerts. Other than that, it's small, light and when you program someone in on a voice dial when they call you back it's very cool. For example, when I say Julie into my phone it dials her. When she calls me a voice on my phone says: "Call from: Julie" and the julie part is in my voice that I had recorded. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free (lots of rebates) 91370 2000/10/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 strong construction durable has all the goodies small display not as compact compared to flip phones Full Review I have been using this phone for the past month and thus far I am quite satisfied with it's performance. I especially like the speakerphone option which lets you talk to someone using the phone like a walki-talki. I can also surf the web with this phone (check stock quotes, weather, sports, etc..) Furthermore I can have friends email messages straight to my phone, I recieve the messages as text messages which display right on the phone. I have not had any problems with reception thus far even though I use it in the city with tall buildings and radio signals streaming everywhere. There is one beef I have with this phone is that the size of the display is quite small compared with it's competition. If you use your phone to surf the web and recieve text messages a lot then I would recommend a phone with a larger display. You really have to squint when you read a lot of messages and text. You could maybe look at the StarTac Timeport or Samsung flip phone if this is important to you. Overall I give this this phone a 2 thumbs up since it does everything a year 2000 PCS phone should do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91369 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality speaker phone vibrate ringer voice dial wireless internet compact size battery life i ll let you know if i find one Full Review I bought this phone because of the reviews on epinions and because of its many features. This is the best phone for the money you can use with Sprint PCS right now. I love the speaker phone option, because it lets you keep the phone away from your head. Thus no radiation concerns. It also allows you to talk hands free. Also has voice dialing, and voice memo. Call clarity is excellent, just like a land line. The blue back light display is very easy to read. Vibrate ringer mode is a must have as far as I am concerned. Talk time is great too....between 3-4 hours. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 after rebates 91368 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent quality reliable glowing backlight reception speakerphone telescoping antenna The Bottom LineOffers everything that a lot of cellular phones fail to provide. Full Review When I decided to switch Cellular phone carriers, I was able to take advantage of an excellent $100 rebate off either 2 Samsung models of this Sanyo SCP-4500. I opted for the later and have been quite content with my selection. To start off, the reception of the phone is amazing, as I have continuously been able to receive calls within thick concrete facilities. The back-light is impressive, having similarities to the same illumination structure as the infamous Indiglo watches. This enables the user to clearly see the phone better at dusk and prevent any misdials from occurring as with traditional cellular phones. One feature I was impressed with was the ringer tones, in comparison to what Nokia and Ericsson offer. Sanyo uses a polyphonic sound technology to give the ringer a fuller sound and to hear a better rendition of Mozart, Chopin or even a replica ringer to a phone in the earlier part of the century. The speakerphone is a useful option that I have used several times and offers an amazing sound quality not seen on any other cellular phone. Not only that, but I have dropped this phone from about 4 feet above to such materials as slate and marble, and to my surprise, it stayed intact. The antenna is telescoping, which makes it prone for breaking off after a while, but I've had my phone for 6 months and no problems have arisen regarding the antenna. This phone is a great purchase and I highly recommend it to anyone in the market for a phone with almost every feature (as it even has games and a planning calendar with alarm options). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91367 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sound quality speaker phone odd shapesize of phone Full Review After reading reviews here and elsewhere, I narrowed my choice of a new dual-band phone down to the Sanyo 4500 or the Samsung 8500. I really liked the speaker phone capability of the Sanyo, and thought that made this phone worth trying - despite the odd, pocket-unfriendly shape. The fact that my wife's cell plan expires in February and she could easily use this phone in her purse helped too! I tried carrying the phone in my front pants pocket - that lasted about 1 week. Then I ordered a leather holster and belt clip from Sprint for $15 and that works great. Not only does the phone fit better on the hip, but in the car you can clip it onto the visor and use the speaker phone as a very viable hands-free alternative! I have used the phone around Columbus, OH and the coverage and sound quality is good. I recently traveled to Tampa, FL which seems to be quite well served by Sprint. If you travel the US, this phone and a Sprint national plan are a good combination. I took the wireless web option, and find it handy if used as designed. Certainly not a good surfing tool, but very useful for quick check of e-mail, finding movie theaters in a strange town, and getting driving directions. I've had the phone over 1 month and am quite impressed with the battery life. The phone is on all day every day, some calls are made every day, and the wireless web is used semi-regularly. I recharge the battery on Saturday nights and there is usually more than half the juice left according to the indicator. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 (minus $100 rebate) 91366 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 perfect size for a non flip phone great speaker phone easy to navigate menu maybe big for some battery life text is bigrough looking The Bottom LineGreat phone for its price. The right size, great features and recommended for anyone! Full Review I purchased this phone since it was the only phone at the time I purchased with it's speaker phone feature. Good Stuff! First of all, the speaker phone is great, works like a charm and it can be set to a high level of volume for any outdoor use. The keypad in the middle allows you to navigate the menu quickly & efficiently. The red LED at the top is great way to let you know an incoming call or a new voicemail. The keyspads have a very nice feel, easy to press & does not slip since it's made of rubber instead of a plastic. If you also like to check emails & surf the web this is a quick way to check your home/personal emails and read some news. The ringtones are set & cannot be modified although they have some nice pleasant ringtones installed. Unlike the Nokia's, the phone will tell you the duration of the call. The display is rather large on a text size though you can see the battery life indicator, your customized name/title, antenna singal bars, date & time with quick menu located at the bottom half of the screen. This phone was designed very nicely to preven any fat-fingering (even if you have a big finger!) with it's buttons positioned just right. The unit is fairly light for its size. The Cons: The battery life isn't as good as other phones on the market. You maybe able to talk for about an hour but compared with Nokia's, you may be charging your phones more often, depending on the use about every two/three days. The antenna is kind of bulky, I never really used it unless the reception was bad. With certain service you may get a bad reception on this phone in rural areas. I don't know why they installed a plug for the headset jack but it's a bit annoying while you're trying to quickly insert a headset. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.95 91365 2000/1/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice ringer loaded with functions battery life bulky framecheesey silver color The Bottom LineThis is a great cellphone for anyone from a beginner to a pro. You can't go wrong with the awesome power packed group of features Sanyo offers. Full Review I have had several phones in my lifetime. Lets just say I owned the very first motorola brick phone. The 4700 is a great phone for any cellphone user. It comes packed with many features. How could you turn your nose up the speaker phone feature? This is great if you're like me and spend four hours a day commuting. Voice dialing frees up alot of time and gives your more time to concentrate on the road --wow press one button and your call is as good as made. The calendar is a nice little toy to play with. It offers you the peace of mind to know that your phone will manage your day. You can set your reminder alarm to go off anytime before the big meeting. All your business contacts will want your phone! Now the not so great aspects, This phone is a little larger than I like...(I know this says alot from a guy who owned a motorola brick phone.) The phone is sometimes hard to transport. If Sanyo could find a way to knock a inch off the height of this phone it would hands down be the ultimate in wireless phones. Im not a huge fan of the silver color of the faceplate. My wife loves this color but its just not for me. Overall this is a phone worth trying. I seem to see alot of them on ebay for a fraction of the cost of retailers. If you can find a great deal take advantage of it as this phone retail for $149.99 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119.00 91364 2000/8/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature richfairly durablegood battery life does not fold up somewhat larger than the competition The Bottom LineThis phone would have been a strong contender even if it cost twice as much. Full Review I find this phone is exceptionally rich in features. The dual mode (analog/digital) gives good coverage in US and Canada, which I recently benefited from on a trip to the southern U.S. Some of my favorite features - Vibrating mode - Voice dialing - Speaker phone. (A good one too.) - Capable phonebook. (Can store multiple phonenumbers and email as well) - Distinctive ring for voicemail, text and voice call. - Caller ID call history. - Battery lasts about a week with low usage. Charges in about an hour. - Superb backlighting. So, what's wrong with it? Not much. Personally I'd like to be able to set up distinctive rings for various entries in the phonebook. (There is a voice ring function on the phone, which uses your recorded voice dial entry to announce the caller. This is only good if you feel a need to announce to the public who is calling you at any given time. Myself, I'd prefer just a distinctive ring.) Depending on my service provider, voice quality ranges between crystal and crummy, I think this is a function of available bandwidth as opposed to the phone. I also have a problem with sudden "fade-outs" and subsequent loss of connection, again I think this is my provider that doesn't handle base-station handover very smoothly, because this is a problem *only* in certain areas between base-stations. I bought an original Sanyo earphone/mic at Walmart for about $12US. This has a button that allows me to answer the phone, or make voice dial outgoing calls without touching the phone itself. Bonus! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 91363 2000/12/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear connection long battery life attractive fragile antenna The Bottom LineAs long as you are not overly rough with your phone, this offers great reception and great functions. Full Review At first sight, this phone looks sleek and classy. Its silver exterior gives an impression of quality. Yet, this quality extends beyond the superficial attributes of the phone. I chose this particular phone because it was included in a Sprint PCS plan. The features it offered such as voice dial, one-touch voicemail access and others were attractive. However, the basic function of the phone is also quality. The reception is clear, and the battery life is long-enduring. The special kind of battery used in this phone is convenient, since you do not have to let it completely drain before recharging. The speaker option is also handy, for hands-free calling, although the reception is not the clearest with that option. The only negative aspect of the phone is the flimsy antenna. It seems fragile, as if it would be easily broken, although, mine has not broken. The retail price for this phone seems a bit steep at $130-$150. However, with certain service plans, a drastic discount is given. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $49 discount 91362 2000/12/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 backlit screen is nice very sleek with awesome features awfuli do mean awful sound quality you cannot hear the party you ve called The Bottom LineSave yourself the frustration that I've been through in the last 2 days. DO NOT buy the new 4700 (replacement of the 4500) Full Review I recently purchased a new Sanyo 4700 to use on the Sprint PCS network. I have been a Sprint customer for nearly 2 years and have been very satisfied with my service. I have been using an awesome Nokia phone all of this time. Well, the Nokia started giving me some problems and I decided it was time to get a new phone. Much to my disappointment, Sprint no longer sells Nokia phones. I bought a new Sanyo 4700, which is the replacement for the 4500. I was even told by a Sprint customer service rep on their toll free number, that this phone is great. Well, evidently that rep is too busy keeping me on HOLD to actually USE her phone. The sound quality is absolutely THE WORST that I have ever heard (or should I say NOT HEARD). Sure, the phone looks good and has some awesome features, but let's face it, the purpose of a phone is communication. The two aspects of telecommunication are speaking and HEARING and Sanyo has fallen way short of satisfactory on the second one! Even with the volume turned as high as it can go, you CANNOT hear the party that you are speaking with. And the speakerphone is totally useless. The whole point of a speakerphone is to enable the user to go hands-free. Well, in speakerphone mode, your party cannot hear YOU. I took the phone back to the retailer where I bought it and exchanged it for another 4700. Two new Sanyos in as many days, same problems, which tells me its the phone and not the user. Bottom line: Gadgets are nice, but did Sanyo test this thing? I mean, I'm only 35 and I am not hearing impaired. After my refund tomorrow, back to Nokia for me. I hope I can find one that is PCS compatible, because Sprint sure doesn't have them. As a matter of fact, Sprint doesn't have much of a selection at all when it comes to handsets. DON'T waste your time on this phone! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 91361 2000/10/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 menus sturdy phone book search no minute minder no clock Full Review When deciding between the Motorola StarTAC ST7867 and the Sanyo SCP-4500, I could not find a features comparison list other than the short one on the SprintPCS site., so I downloaded the manuals for the phones and did a comparison myself. I used the categories from a LetsTalk comparison, and skipped items where there was no difference. My impressions on the phones came from these comparisons, other reviews ("flimsy antenna on the Motorola", talk with a salesman ("Sanyo is sturdier, has better menus"), and reading the manuals. I liked the Sanyo menu navigation and phone book finding methods (whole word single tap, several character multi-tap, voice activated) better than the Motorola method (single character mult-tap followed by scrolling). Here are the results, separated by a semicolon: Motorola StarTAC ST7867 (Sprint PCS); Sanyo SCP-4500 (Sprint PCS) Price with plan $149.99; $179.99 Weight (w/standard battery) 4.2 oz.; 5.5 oz. Talk Time 252 min; 240 min Standby Time 170 hours; 288 hours Minute Minder Y; Auto call Sprint Warranty One year; ? System Busy Auto Redial Y; N, press Talk twice # of Display Lines 4 text lines, 2 icon lines; ? Memory Slots 99 names, 4 numbers per name; 300 names and numbers, 9 per name Ringer Options 9 ringer tones; 7 ringer melodies, voice, vibrate Call Timers last call, all calls; N Call Log 10 outgoing, 16 incoming; 10 outgoing, 10 incoming, 10 missed Keypad Lock N; Y One-Touch Emergency Dialing Y; N, use speed dial Clock Y; N Dimensions 3.7 x 2 x 1 in.; 5.3 x 1.73 x 1.11 inches Voice-Activated Dialing N; Y Data Synchronization Free Internet sync by fusionOne; N Speakerphone N; Y Design Clamshell; Box Distinctive Ring for Select Callers N; Y Multiple Numbers per Name 4; 9 Alarm N; Y Calculator N; Y Games N; Y Calendar N; Y Voice Memo N; Y Scheduling Capability N; Y To Do List N; Y Customizable Ring Tones N; Y, Voice name Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91360 2000/11/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything is easy to usethe funtions are great can t have vibrateringer on at the same time Full Review I had a nokia 6100 series and I had it all customized. Hours upon hours of searching the internet for face plates, housings, buttons, light, attennas and all that jazz. And finally I got a combination that I really wanted but I was missing vibrate which is really usefull in class. I know that the clearnet 6100's have vibrate in their phones but not Rodgers/Cantel. So I need to find a vibrate battery, and I found that they were expensive, so I trashed that idea. Also the service was really bad were I go to University so I decided to change services providers to Clearnet. I found that their service was excellent and that their plans were the best for me. I had an extra mike hanging around so I decided to get a plan for it (not knowing that the mike has really expensive plans) When I went to the Clearnet Store I noticed this phone the Sanyo SCP-4500. And I was like WOW so I asked the lady there, she told me everything about it and I was impressed. Its like the mike but slimmer and better looking also it had a whole bunch of other useful stuff, voice dial, speaker , games, voice memos and lots more. The phone is nice and light and the battery was excellent. So I dumped my mike phone and got this one. But I did have trouble with it, I guess I just got a lemon. I got it home drained the battery and started charging it like the direction said. But the battery could not hold a charge and I spent two days charging it. So i went back to the clearnet booth and told the guy what was happening. They were surprised and gave me a new battery and said that should fix it. So i went back home and tried it again and to my surprise it still didn't work. Being my second time going back I was getting mad, they were going to give me another charger but I was like NO, so they gave me another phone and this one I have works fine. So in the end I'm a happy camper. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 153 canadian 91359 2000/9/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of promising features but most fall short of the promise The Bottom LineIf you just want to show-off your new toy over coffee- buy it. If you want to use it to communicate- Pick a different phone!!! Full Review After several years with a Motorola Star-Tac I decided it was time to treat myself to some new bells and whistles on my Sprint PCS system. I didn't like the fact that the 4500 was double the size of my Star-Tac, but the features lured me into pulling out my Visa card. Since then, most of my conversations center around phrases like: "Hello? Can you hear me? Hello? Is that better?" While the voice dialing is a nice feature it only works about 70% of the time with accuracy. 30% of the time you may get WHO KNOWS WHO from your voice-dial directory. It's always an adventure!! The "Speakerphone" feature borders on useless if there is ANY ambient background noise- like in a moving car for instance!! Somehow it's not "two-way" like a regular phone- most like a walkie-talkie at times and one is tempted to say "Over" after every phrase. 50% of the time the other person can't hear me or vice versa. VERY disappointing! The display is CRAMMED with information and for anyone over 40 is challenging to read- to put it mildly. Overall... I wish I had kept my "unglamorous" but oh-so-dependable Star-Tac instead. Your Mileage May Vary- but... don't say you weren't warned!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 91358 2000/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 durable battery life speakerphone sometimes hard to hear people speakerphone has problems every oncea while The Bottom LineIts invincible! Full Review I bought this phone when it retailed for $200 and have been very pleased with it. Firstly, I have a tendency to break things, i'm not very careful with electronics, but this one has held together through all the times i dropped it, stepped on it, kicked it out of a car, or accidentally left it in my back pocket and sat on it. Its very very tough. Secondly, the features are very nice, the speakerphone works better than any i've used on a home phone (you can listen and talk at the same time) and i've been able to check my email with the wireless web service. And I got sick of all those really bad sounding song rings, but this one actually produces harmonies... a nice change from the single tone songs. And with all that, I can go without charging the phone for about 4 days(and i tend to do a lot of talking on the speakerphone), not bad. The downsides are that occasionally the person you are talking to on speakerphone cannot hear you, its a slight annoyance... Its a little chunky, but i have big hands and the small nokia or ericson phones are hard for me to hold on to, so i like the size. A smaller person might not, though. Also, your ear must be places correctly to hear people, sometimes that too is annoying. And the worst thing about it is that it uses sprint, and it seems their service has been dropping in quality recently. Most calls never reach me, even when i'm in the service range and my phone says that it has signal. Instead my callers are routed to my voicemail. Its very very frustrating... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91357 2001/1/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 long battery life good screen lots of features speakerphone squareish shape expensive The Bottom LineBuy one. Feature for feature it packs alot more than other phones and has great battery life. Also, if you need a speaker there is no other choice. Full Review This phone is easy to use and packs alot of talk time in digital mode. Don't talk too long though in analog because you will run out of time. The screen is very easy to see with the blue light and it has alot of memory to store 300 names. This phone also has voice dialing which makes it alot safer when on the road. The speakerphone feature is my favorite which allows you to talk and be heard like a high quality wired phone. Overall a great phone with 2 flaws. 1. The shape is pretty quare. 2. It's not the most comfortable shape. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91356 2000/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 standard headset jack near perfect speakerphone durability battery life excellent features antenna is a little flimsy The Bottom LineCan't lose with this phone. It's a great value with great features and performance. What more can you ask for? Full Review I've had about seven cellular/mobile phones over the years. I've been happy with phones before, but this one -- the Sanyo SCP-4500 is, by far, the best phone I've ever had. Standout features include: Long battery life I only charge my phone 1-2 times per week. When I use my phone on a regular basis, I can still get by with 3-4 charges per week. It doesn't take long to charge and really hangs in there when I need it to. Excellent speakerphone This is the best speakerphone I've seen. A group of us used in in a 3-hour meeting to conference someone in. Reception was crystal clear (for both sides of the meeting parties). I also use the speakerphone from time to time when I drive. I actually laid the phone in the passenger seat and held a full, flawless conversation. NOTE: You won't have this type of success with the air conditioner blasting away or driving with the window down. The noise from the airflow will create a crosstalk effect and the other party won't be able to hear you. Reception/Clarity This phone reception is absolutely remarkable. I drive through areas that used to drop calls on my previous phone. I very seldom drop calls on this one. It passes through those previous "dead areas" like a champ, without me raising the antenna. If there's one aspect of this phone that could be improved, I think it's the antenna. I thought it was going to fall out once. Otherwise, it's excellent! Miscellaneous The keyguard, vibrate and ringing mode options offer great values in flexibility. I also get a lot of comments about the ringer -- how crisp and clear it is. By the way, there are lots of ringing choices to choose from and the volume settings fit my lifestyle perfectly. If you need this phone to ring LOUD it can oblige! :-) Just thought I'd share a couple of benefits/highlights of this phone. It's a great choice if you can get your hands on one. Last week or so, Sprint PCS was offering a huge rebate on this phone (up to $100). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91355 2000/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 full duplex speaker phone it works with one touch speaker activation voice activated dialing still have to use the microwave to cook popcorn until the scp 5000 The Bottom Lineif you want true hands free without the hands free kit, this phone is for you!! Full Review Full duplex speaker phone allows for awesome hands free talk at the push of a button (easy to hit without looking too!) Full duplex means you can receive and send voice data at the same time. Half duplex, which is what all other cell phones with speaker phone capability have, is like talking on a CB or a walky talky. One person has to finish speaking for the other to be able to respond. This makes a WORLD of difference! The 4500 is simple to use, no manual needed (unless you were born before 1930) and the Voice activated dialing makes it like I am just telling my secretary to dial a number for me. I hit the large blue "Speaker" button, then I say "Call wife at work"....it rings...we talk....but with awesome clarity, I dont know of a LAN line phone with speaker phone that works as well as this one. If you spend a lot of time in your vehicle this phone is definitely a great value. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91354 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 clear web spkr phone robust features not a flip phone solid as of 2 17 2001 there is a known crypto key problem with wireless web browsing The Bottom LineDon't be an early adopter of some expensive over rated flashy phone. Get this one. For the price and the quality it can't be beat. Full Review When shopping for a cell phone I was really apprehensive about what I was stepping into. I researched everything, service providers, hardware features, ratings...everything. The Sanyo SCP-4500 is perhaps one of the best phones out there on the market today. Although it debuted months earlier than this article was written, it is still leading the pack. When this phone was brand spanking new, you could have conceivably paid US$230 for it easy. However, since newer technology, and flashier phones are out there (ie, ones that play mp3s, etc.) you can snag the SCP-4500 for around US$140 (though I paid US$180) these days. We're talking an awesome phone here. You can use voice dial, store tons of names, email addresses, scheduling, custom rings, caller id, the little ear piece doo dad, speaker phone, wireless web, text paging, chat, email, you name it this little power bar of a phone has it. You may be also thinking, "who's gonna browse the internet on a cell phone". The answer: no one really. Wireless web is pretty much a catch phrase in my opinion, but you will find yourself using it to check news, movie showtimes, stocks, account balances, and other little handy dandy stuff. I certainly wouldn't browse msnbc or anything with it (short of a few breif news excerpts). Best of all, this phone is meaty. It's not like one of those sissified clam shell flip phones. If your an American like me, you like big things that you can grip and use. Little petite things should be reserved for cell phone users abroad. Size matters. One other thing though: upon speaking with a SprintPCS technician (which is the service provider for my phone) I discover that there is a problem with the crypto key used for wireless web browsing. It uses a key to authenticate the phone I beleive and allow it to use the wireless web, however, the SCP-4500 will sometimes inadvertantly reset this key, so you have to call in and have them send you a new one. A minor annoyance, and it rarely happens, there will be a software fix for this soon. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91353 2000/3/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 plenty of features easy to use small size no built in timers The Bottom LineI suggest to buy the phone and only using the features you wish to use. The speaker phone feature is very useful. Full Review I have had my two Sanyo 4500's for two months without any problems. I have travel with other people on the same network but with a different brand of cell phone. My Sanyo 4500 would always have about the same range while traveling so I cannot not complain about the range it has since it seems to be comparable to the other brands range. The phone has more features than most will use as with other upper end phones. Once you have gone through all of the features in the manual you will find the phone is actually pretty simple to operate and change as required. My wife had no trouble with operating her Sanyo 4500 and this was her first cell phone. I use the voice call and speaker phone features while driving for improved safety with just the press of one button. I have also used the speaker phone to allow others to take part in the conservation at the same time which has proved to be a big plus. One of the features I do not require is the web connection feature. Maybe others will find the web connection part useful. The calendar and calculator feature comes in handy sometimes. I find the battery life is not as long as advertised just as I have found all the other brand phones I have used. The Sanyo 4500 battery life does meet my needs with some to spare. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91352 2000/11/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good sound through the handset speakerphone needs work for car use Full Review The Sanyo is a good phone for the most part. The display is one of the clearest I have seen, the sound quality is also good in a relatively quiet environment. There are only a few concerns I have with the phone. One, is with trying to use the speakerphone in the car. It sounds great, but, unfortunately, my voice sounds garbled. I believe this is due to being in the car. I have a pretty quite car (2000 Grand Prix) but folks had trouble understanding my while I was on the road. I even tried plugging a mic in 1/2 way ( this allows the speaker phone to still work without using the handset mic) but I still didn`t think the sound quality was good enough. This was very disappointing. I also compared the signal strength of the Sanyo 4500 to the Samsung 8500. The Samsung 8500 would read 4 bars where Sanyo was only showing 2 which leads me to believe the Samsung has better reception. My last concern is more of personal tastes. I felt the phone was a little too big. I am used to flip phones and was willing to switch to this phone if the speakerphone would have worked better in the car. The Sanyo looked like it was well made, and I thought the menu system was well organized. I liked the mouse button in the middle to navigate with. If you like this phone, look at the SprintPCS page on the net. They list the phone for $179.00 where the stores have it for $199.00 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91351 2000/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small light great sound quality confusing menu long Full Review I have been a longtime Sprint PCS customer and this is the best Sprint phone I've had by far! The best thing about it is its size. It's small and light, and most of the time I forget I have it on me. But it's not so small that you can't handle it and speaking on it is very easy and the sound is very clear, the best sound quality I've heard on a cellular phone. This phone has more features than most people would probably use. Voice recognition dialing, one touch dialing, good backlight, speakerphone, headphone jack, games, keyguard, choice of many rings, etc. The menu can be somewhat hard to use as it is long and has lots of options. The phone book is organized very well with the option to designate more than one phone number per name. For example, you can label a number home, mobile, pager, work, etc. all under the same name. The battery is lithium-ion and lasts for days and days without recharging and when you have to recharge, it only takes a few hours. This is a great phone and I would recommend it to anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91350 2000/4/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use built in speaker phone great clarity very cool looks sharp none that i noticed The Bottom LineYou will not be disappointed if you buy this phone. The built-in speaker phone, voice-dial, excellent clarity, and ease of use make it a great choice, and an excellent value. Full Review I've owned many different cell phones over the last few years, and the best I've found by far is the Sanyo 4500, using Sprint PCS Service. First, it looks sharp. Next, the sound clarity is excellent, as good as or better than any I've ever tried. (About on a par with the Touchpoint 2200, and much better than StarTac or any Samsung phone I've tried.) Another great feature is the voice dial feature built into the phone. I have about 20 names programmed into the phone and it understands my commands almost always on the first try! The feature that really sets this phone apart is the built-in speaker phone. I didn't really have high expectations that this feature would really work that well in actual use, but I was wrong about that. The speaker phone is excellent; I use is on almost every call I make. I have the phone on my car dashboard, connected via a magnetic mount. (The phone must have a high metal content as it sticks easily to any magnet.) I just speak normally as I drive, and both me and the party I am speaking to understand each other quite well, with very good clarity. No separate microphone needed. The built-in speaker phone equals or exceeds any separately purchased portable speaker phone I've ever used (and they cost $60 or more, and are very cumbersome to work with). The speaker-phone, combined with the automatic voice dial feature makes calling from your car phone extremely easy and about as hands-free as you can get. The phone also has a headset jack, which you might want when you are in really noisy traffic conditions. But 90% of the time, the speaker phone is more than adequate to carry on a conversation while driving. This phone has so many features, including wireless web and great sound and music selections. All this, and it's still incredibly easy to use. I'd highly recommend this phone to anyone who wants a top-quality. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91349 2000/3/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 long battery life bellswhistles good reception very limited speaker use inconvenient shape The Bottom LineAverage is the best word to describe this phone. Don't let the features fool you. There are better phones out there. Full Review Originally I had ordered A Motorola Startac with my plan. Even though it was a fine , compact phone that suited my purposes well I discovered that most of the time I was using it during off-peak times and these calls were lasting 1hr or more. Obviously holding your arm up to your ear for an hour or more is very uncomfortable , so I purchased the Sanyo solely because of the speakerphone feature. Unfortunately the speakerphone doesn't work as well as advertised and is useless in a noisy environment such as a car . In fact it only works well in a totally silent room and needless to say that this kind of atmosphere is rare. Due it's shape ( narrow and thick rather than wide and thin ) it feels uncomfortable in my pocket whereas the Startac and most other phones I've use do not. Also the buttons can be accidently pressed when it is in my pocket. The biggest problem here is when the talk button is pressed ( happened many times ) as this starts the voice dail. Another minor negative is the retractable antenna. You need 2 hands to pull it up which is not convenient when driving or other situations where you have only one hand free. Reception is greatly reduced if you use it with the antenna down. I prefer the stubby type antennas. Overall Reception is better than the Startac especially in fringe areas and voice quality is slighly better. Here is a list of some of the features. 1. Calander reminder - useful but a little tedious entering the info 2. Voice record - Very useful , for example take down notes while you are driving. 3. calculator - Not useful , too tedious to use. 4. Voice dail - Useless , it doesn't work when you need it most which is in the car . This is due to the noisy enviroment. 5. Wireless web - Useless to me but some might find a use for it. 6. Solid construction - This phone can take some abuse. Not a bad phone but I think that the Touchpoint 2200? speakerphone is a better choice mainly due to it's shape that should sit more comfortably in your pocket and the stubby antenna instead of the retractable. In a nutshell. Thumbs down mainly because the speakerphone doesn't work to my expectations and thats the only reason that I bought it. I should have saved my money and kept the Startac. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 180 91348 2000/2/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 has all the features you could want comes with no accessories pricey The Bottom LineThis phone is the BEST out there. Full Review I have had quite allot of cell phones since I turned 18 in 1988. And this is the best one by far. My last one was a Nextel i1000. The Sanyo has 300 slots to save phone #'s. And the longest battery life of any phone I saw, and I shopped around. The phone has the most features of any phone I looked at. I have dropped it a couple of times with no ill effects at all. It gets most of my voice commands almost every time. The only time it doesn't work is when I try to show someone how cool it is. My favorite feature I did not know about is when someone calls you that you saved his or her name in voice it says, "Phone call from 'person calling'". That is great, I don't even have to look at the display. I still haven't figured out how to get the different rings to work yet. I totally recommend this 100% Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180.00 91347 2000/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sound quality appearance size delicate antenna Full Review The SCP-4500 offers a few new features over its sibling, the SCP-4000. The 4500 is the same size, but has a sleek metallic case that adds contrast to the buttons. One of the best features of this phone is the built in speaker-phone function, since many states now consider it illegal to hold a phone to your ear while you are driving. If you need immediate privacy, just press the large "speaker" button to switch back to the ear-piece. Since this is a digital phone, the sound quality is superb; there is also the analog option for when you are roaming and can not get a digital signal. The large function dial offers the user convenience of operation, and the menus are laid out distinctively well. The mini-browser allows for on the go internet surfing or email checking. Some of the other cool features in this phone are the multiple ringer functions and call management. The phone is extremely light, and the battery lasts for about 3 to 4 days standby. This phone is one of the flagship phones for Sprint PCS, whose company offer many tempting offers to complete the operation of this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91346 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 great features bad signal reception Full Review I thought this was going to be a great phone... Dual-band, SPEAKERPHONE, VOICE DIAL, large display, cool IndiGlo, long battery life, WAP. These features are nice and are really cool (although bad User Interface design) it should sync with Outlook though. But, I didn't buy the phone for features, I bought it to use as a phone. Unfortunately I didn't realize that not all phones are created the same as far as reception of signal. Even though I use this in a Metro area the reception bars rarely fill more than 2 bars, even downtown. I've since read that Sanyo phones are notorious for bad signal reception compared to other CDMA phones. Luckily I'm still within my 14 days to exchange this model. I'm trading it in for the Samsung 3500. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 169 91345 2000/12/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size technology only available in chrome face plate Full Review Clearnet's new Sanyo SCP-4500 is definitely a technological marvel! I recieved this phone two days ago as a Christmas gift and I must say, what a wonderful gift it was! I basically use this phone for emergency purposes. First of all, Clearnet is offering a special on this new SCP-4500 for the holiday season. It is regularly $129.99 but now you get a $30. That is a pretty good price for Clearnet's newest model. This phone is dual mode which means that it is digital and anologue. You get both for no added charge. Not only is this phone very modern looking with its chrome face plate, it is also very small and compact. It has added features with no extra charge: caller ID, call-waiting and voice messaging. There are also special built-in features that come with the phone: speaker for hands-free talking, very cool voice-activated dialing, a voice memo recorder, a calendar with alarms, games, and environment settings. The SCP-4500 is also Internet ready whenever you decide to activate it. It has 12 different kinds of ringers and vibrate, including new Three Chord Melody Ringers. You can use this feature called Environment Settings where you can also adjust the light on the key pad, backlight and volumes. You will have approximately 3 hours of talk-time and up to 7 days of stand by time in digital coverage areas. The memory bank has the capacity to store up to 300 phone numbers, including 7 multiple entries for each contact. This SCP-4500 is a little compact computer that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 91344 2000/11/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich length of battery ease of use no sync tools yet Full Review I recently acquired the Sanyo SCP-4500 phone and am very impressed with its ease of use and features. I've found the use of the voice dial feature to be fantastic in traffic (always simplify dialing and ALWAYS wear a headset in traffic) and the auto answer feature is a bonus. Other phones I've had over the last year lacked several of these key features that I look for as I spend a lot of time in traffic and have to rely on my phone to get business done. Other great features are the extended length of air time and standby time on both battery types. The great backlit screen is excellent when using the phone in poorly lighted areas. The only drawback I have is the availability of software to synchronize my phone with my PIM. If Sanyo would better collaborate with FoneSync folks (or other sync tools) to not only synchronize phone numbers but extended contact info, calendar & tasks, I could literally do away with my palm device and live with my phone more easily. Aside from that, great product Sanyo!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91343 2000/3/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 voice ringer excellent speaker phone ringers none The Bottom Line The features for this phone are enormous too much to handle at first but well worth it Full Review When I first saw this phone I thought that it was probably a phone that looks cool but has no actual cool features.Boy was I ever wrong. I am a college student and am always on the go so when I'm on the road I need a dependable phone. This was my first cell phone so I was totally new to alot of the features this phone has to offer such as :voice ringer, voice activated dialing etc. The feature I love the most is the voice ringer. On my phone I recorded clips from my favorite songs and made those my ringers for certain calls that are stored in the phone book. With this feature I don't always have to reach for the phone to see who is calling just listen for the voice prompt and decide if I want to take the call or not.Which brings up the one touch answering and the option to have the phone auto answer after three rings not to mention the option to program eight numbers for one touch speed dialing. The speakerphone works great. Being that putting the handsfree kit on is not always the best method for talking for a few seconds when driving. the clarity of this phone is excellent whether using speaker phone or holding it. The ringers for this phone are great too. Most phones have ringers that have the same tone for the ringers and do not very alot and get pretty annoying(such as Nokia's..sorry it had to be said). But this phone has the Nokia's beat with it's sleek design and it metallic finish. The Sanyo scp4500 is a tough cookie as well, once i dropped it on a concrete floor and the sucker didn't even have a scratch on it. the features are tremendous with the calender,the ability to recieve pages and text messages, the key pad lock which is a great help when I have the phone on my belt clip in class.The enviroment settings for the phone allow you to customize the phone depending on your location. If there is any phone i recommend it is definatly this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91342 2000/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speaker phone battery life internet voice dial call clarity needs a better written manual but you can get it takes a little longer to readunderstand some of the programing Full Review The 4500 model is terrific. I had to buy another phone when my dog ate the antenna off the one I had. I looked at several new models and found all the features I wanted in this one. First was the speaker phone which is great in the car and when hands are busy doing something else. I found the speaker phone clarity to be really clear with just a slight delay. Second was the voice dial which is really great when driving. I really liked the jack for plugging in an earbud for talking and listening, I found this works great in a noisy enviroment. The memo digital recorder built in works great for me to record quick directions when I am going someplace I do not know for sure. It comes with built in vibrate mode for meetings and when you do not want it to ring which brings me to the selection of ring types. I have mine set for mozart on calls coming in that show the caller and a space sound for unknown callers. I have used the voice announce for calls when I have my hands full and it is a blessing in its own. It has a really great selection and you can set each mode different. I have actually used the built in calculator a few times and the calender/reminder is really handy for me to keep track of doctor appointments. The one touch voice mail button to check voice mail is always great so you do not have to press and dial a number and that is where the speaker phone is great. I found the display may be smaller then other ones but the clarity more than makes up for that in I can read any text messages clearly without squinting and I wear bifocals. If you want the latest phone and are like me want all the "toys" but can not afford a super expensive phone then this is the one. It has all the "toys" and you will find like me these things actually are very useful and can make some tasks easier. And do not forget the battery life, I am not a heavy user and I get over a week on 1 charge, way more than I got before on my older one. If you want a really great phone and all the toys and internet access than this phone is for you and at a price you can afford without selling your mom and family. Compare and you will like this phone and its price for all its great features that really work like they should. Recently I am seeing this phone on promotion for 139.00 dollars after 50.00 rebate through Sprint PCS dealers here in Indiana. Another thing is that not everyone uses a PDA and like myself just need a quick simple memo and appointment reminder, this is perfect. However for those with heavy appointment schedules and such then the PDA is still a requirement and then this phone is a great second to that Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 91341 2000/8/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone games etc calculator many different rings price The Bottom LineThis is a great phone to have if you are shopping for a new one I recommend it. Full Review The reason why I said that if you live in New York then this phone is for you, is because, you may or may not know that Governor Pataki signed into law that you cannot talk on a cellphone that you hold. This law goes into effect on November 1, 2001. When this law goes into effect there are a few options that you have..You can go out to Radio Schack and purchase hands free equipment, but frankly, I would not feel like fooling around with a headset while driving, I would just rather hit a little button and talk. This is exactly what I would do with the Sanyo SCP - 4500, as it has a speaker phone with it. After the Governor signed this law my mother purchased this phone and I liked it and I thought that it would be worth me purchasing. I was right I really like this phone. The phone is small, which my boyfriend does not like but I like because it will fit into my purse very nicely. There is also the basic call history menu where you can see the calls you've made, received, and missed. There is a menu button for your messages from voice mail, page or text messages and browser messages. You have the usual phone book so that you can store numbers you frequently call. You can set your roaming mode which you can set to only Sprint PCS service, automatic which will switch while outside Sprint area or analog. If you choose to pay for the wireless web it has that as well. Although when you sign up for the service that can be a free choice instead if long distance or extra minutes. This phone also has a calendar, and environment button, say you were in a meeting, you set it in meeting mode and the ringer goes to vibrate, there are also games, 2 of them, crab catch and slot machine, and also contains a calculator and many many rings that you can choose from. The clarity of the phone is great, everything comes in clear, unless there is a break up in which case it is really bad you cannot even hear the person you are talking to, although that does not happen to me much. The cost of the phone for me was 149.99 and I had a 25.00 rebate which made the phone really reasonable for me. I would highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 124.99 91340 2000/8/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 amazing battery life neat speaker phone great buttons excellent sound a little long thick in size The Bottom LineGreat non-flip phone option for Sprint, with good Web access capabilities. Great buy for anyone drooling over other, newer Sanyo phones that are out of their price range. Full Review The best thing about the Sanyo SCP4500 are the buttons -- many people underestimate the power of buttons, but the Sanyo's buttons are great. Add to that: some really good sound, a good mid-range price if you throw in a $50 coupon (Amazon) or a service reimbursement from Sprint, a neat speaker phone option, and a good, bright Indiglo-style display -- it's a phone I highly recommend. For those of you considering the less expensive Touchpoint 1100, having used it a lot, I recommend the Sanyo instead unless you really need the smaller flip-phone size. Buttons/Interface: Very intuitive, whenever you make a call, the screen has further details on how you can switch to speaker phone, mute or three-way call - this is in contrast to many other phones out there who leave you high and dry without giving you access to carrier features. The 4-way pad in the center of the phone is quite useful for navigation and a lot easier than other phones that have them on the left of the phone. The Keyguard is easy to access by using the pad as well (and keyguard is essential for this non-flip phone). Size: A little on the big side perhaps (this is no Qualcomm brick, but be prepared for something that looks more like a Nokia from a year ago), but I think the battery life and screen size advantages are more than worth the tradeoff. Screen: Good-looking Indiglo backlight, 5 line screen that's really easy to read (writing is pretty big). My one complaint here is that I wish it were easier (I'm not sure you can, if so I haven't figured it out) to change the font on the phone, but it doesn't appear to be possible. The 5-line screen makes reading text on Wireless Web pretty easy, though it's not quite as good as the new thin Sanyo is / will be, will definitely suffice for the next year at least. Battery life: The real winner here -- I've left this phone on for days on end without noticeable drain. Has the longest standard battery life of any phone I've used. Web/typing: Comes equipped with Tegic T-9, so typing in words in wireless web/messaging applications is really easy. The phone's resolution is perfect for the current bevy of WAP sites you'll find right now. Overall, I highly recommend this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 91339 2002/7/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very clear very durable great speaker phone excellent reception a little bigger than others The Bottom LineI recommend this phone to anyone and everyone who wants something with good reception and ease of use! Also great for the traveler with a handy built in hands free! Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4500 not only has a cool looking slim silver design but it also has the awesome reception to go with it. This phone will go to its absolute limits to get a clear signal for you and it even picks up an awesome signal while in roaming! The speaker phone design is very to use and is also very clear and load enough that the caller and the receiver have excellent sound. This is an excellent feature for the person who is always at the wheel or always multi tasking while carrying on conversation. The LCD screen has a bright aqua backlight which is not irritating to the eyes and is great when you are trying to fumble with your phone in dark places. The key pad is also equipped with a light up display for easy night dialing. The large LCD screen provides great space for surfing though your phone or even on the web! This phone is very durable and solid and can uphold large amounts of use and should last the average consumer quite some time! It has a lithium Ion rechargeable battery which can hold a charge up to 8 days on stand by and 4 hours of talk time! And being lithium ion you don't have to replace your battery as often! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91338 2000/4/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone tons of features features make it complicated to use The Bottom LineIf you like features, you will have fun with this phone. If you are Joe Average phone user, find a different phone. Full Review This is the phone that I have been using for the past 2-1/2 years. The main reason that I got it was for the speakerphone, but I found that I very rarely used that option. Voice dialing seemed like something I would use, too. But that was also something I rarely used. I only used those functions when someone would say "cool phone!" Then I would have to show off all the features. But to be honest, most of those features are not all that useful. The handset has a nice feel to it, because it is not too small, but if you are not careful about speaking directly into the handset's microphone then the other party will complain about the clarity on their end. I also noticed that this phone has excellent reception compared to most. My friends would frequently ask to use my phone because it got reception when theirs were dead. Now, the drawbacks. This phone has a ton of features... a good thing, right? Not necessarily. Many of them need to be set us in order to use them. For instance, voice dialing and voice ringing. These names and numbers must be programmed in individually even though they already exist in your phone book. Then the phone must sample your voice two times for each entry. Then when you are all done, this feature will only work with your voice. It's a pain to set up, as are many of the other features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91337 2000/10/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 bright screen speakerphone perfect choice nice menus even though it isnt wide design a little chunky its pretty thick The Bottom LineIf you want a solid phone that has many features to make it personal to you, then this phone will do the job and even clean up after itself too. Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4500, now a retired model, is still functional after all the technology that has come out in the past year or 2. Many phones have been given facelifts and redesigns, but this one could be put on the market right now, and still sell out. The sound quality on this phone is amazing. It sounds just like a standard hard-wired home phone. Many conversations have begun with, "Hey, why dont you call me on your cell phone?" The menu layout and home screen are nicely designed. There is 1 line for the system icons, 2 lines for "title" and date/time, and then 3 lines that scroll through the phone features. One of the menu items in particular that has come in handy for me is the "Call History" Menu. Under this menu you will see four options, "Outgoing," "Incoming," "Missed," and "Clear History." Within the first 3 options you will see a list of 10 numbers, respective to each category. Another menu that has tickled my fancy is the "Environment" menu. This feature makes it easy for you to switch between different ringers and environments. If you are in a meeting, you can choose the "Meeting" environment, which will turn off all ringers. If you are outside, it will turn the ringer volume to high, making it so you can hear your ringers even on the streets of New York. There are other options, including an option for a custom environment, where you can change each individual ringer and volume, and create your own "banner." The phone's speakerphone option makes it easy to talk without paying attention to the phone. Simply press "Speaker" and you are promted with a woman saying "Please say the name" followed by a beep. You can now say the name of one of your saved Voice Memo entries. Once you are connected, you can talk to the person from across the room, and still carry a good conversation. The Games included on this phone are "Crab Catch" and "Slot Machine." Crab Catch is a game where your objective is to catch all the apples as they fall, while avoiding forks. This game can be very addictive, even though it is not a standard game like nibbles. once you get accustomed to it, you will be pleasantly surprised. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91336 2000/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wireless internet tons of features terrible ringers The Bottom LineThis phone is a breeze to use, and I definatly recommend it to anyone who is in the market for a wireless internet ready phone. Full Review Let me start off by saying that this phone is the coolest phone I've ever played with. I Got this phone free from my sister when she got a new one. Also we used a Sprint PCS referall program to get a $20 credit to our accounts. But anyway back to the phone. Every Day Use: Sanyo's phone is a breeze using. It saves as many numbers as you could have, has over 20 speed dial numbers. And has many features such as the external volume control, and speaker phone buttons wich make it so easy to use. The numerical keypad buttons may be a little on the small side, but I haven't really had much problem using them. I really like the fact that the directional pad in the top center area of the phone is far more easy to control then my past Kyocera. I have never had the option pad go anyway but the way I want it to go. But I would have to say that my favorite part of the everyday use features of the phone is the easy to read blue backlit screen. No matter what time of day it is, the screen is super easy to read. Wireless Web: The wireless web is pretty easy to use here, I had never used wireless internet before, and I had absolutely no problem at all dealing with it. You just scroll down to the wireless internet option with the directional pad, and hit OK, and your off to the wild world of wireless internet. So far I have mostly used this for looking up sports scores or certain statistics, but I have been known to occasionally wander. It is almost as addictive as the real thing. Also ther are a boat load of other fun things you can do with this phone as well. You can log on to AOL Instant Messanger with this and chat online with your buddies. You can hold mobile to mobile text messaging. You can even send and recieve email from the phone. What I Don't like: Well although I am extremely happy overall with my new/used phone, ther are a couple of qualities of the phone I have really become frustrated with. First the fact that to set the keygaurd, you have to scroll through the menu and set it. I had really become attached to the automatic keygaurd on my old phone. Also I would like there to have been a better way to look for numbers instead of again going to the option menu and finding numbers using the dial pad and directional pad. Overall I really am happy with my new phone, it has amazed me since the day I got it. It is a great phone and I strongly recommend it to anyone in the market for a new wireless internet capable phone Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 91335 2000/11/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 new features price Full Review The Sanyo 4500 is based off an older version (3500), which is also available from Sprint PCS. I really am impressed with this new version, with new features like built-in speakerphone, voice activated dialing, and an awesome voice ringer with memo recorder system you will see why I think this is truly one of the best phones on the market right now. The Sanyo 4500 also has a color change from black to pewter (looks really sharp). Another feature that is not new to this phone but is worth mentioning is the minibrowser. The minibrowser will allow you to surf the wireless Internet all on your phone. With T9 Predictive technology you can write words and sentences faster using your phones keypad. With PCS technology this phone will work on the Sprint PCS network. I've see this phone listed anywhere from $179 - $199. If your in the market for a new wireless phone and you are in a Sprint PCS network you should strongly consider this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91334 2000/9/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery nice display open face allows it to get smashed The Bottom LinePurchase this phone if you want a phone with great extras and a very large screen. Full Review I recently bought this phone because of all of its features. The features are great, such as the address book that allows you to put in phone numbers as well as e-mail addresses and other pieces of information. A speaker phone is a very unique item for a cell phone but it is pretty cool. However the phone's shape allows it to get damaged a little too easily for my liking. Some people might think that it is not necessary to have a flip phone but for all practical purposes it will save you a lot of grief if your phone has some level of protection from being bumped or scratched. I am an 18 year old and use my cell a lot and it gets a lot of wear and tear and this phone's display got smashed on the third day I got it, so now I have a cell that flips together, for me it is better but if you are not worried bout damaging the phone then this is a phone that has great options and very good clarity. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91333 2000/6/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 features in general ringers display speakerphone heat reception battery life accessories The Bottom LineFeature-Rich...just don't call anyone! Full Review This will be quick. I originally had the 3000 and it rocked. Honestly, best phone I ever had. Then I gave it to a friend, bought a Startac. Good Phone, BEST Accessories, Cheaply made.....which leads me to the 4500. I had high hopes coming from the 3000 experience. I maybe kept it 2 weeks before I sent it back. Listen, a phone is only as good as what you want it to do, right? Well, what do you want your phone to do? Make and receive calls right? Well, this phone is so hyped up on features, the simple "making a phone call" feature is dropped out. This phone can do everything from keep your schedule, to record memos, to walking your dog.....well okay, maybe not that much. But seriously, this feature-rich phone is focused on one thing. FEATURES. It's great it has a speakerphone, too bad it disconnects all the time while you use it. The display looks great! Sure, until you notice you battery is dead after only an hour. Oh, but it's so cute and small! Well, you may be surprised. After making a couple of calls on it with it up to your ear; then the thing reaches about 200 degrees and starts to burn off your ear; then you start to sweat into the phone and all over it; the phone starts to lose it's appeal. I really had nothing but problems with my phone. I would hold my phone up to my friends who is on the same service provider that I am on, and her phone had full bars, I had one. I took that phone ALL OVER the state of Florida within a week and a half, and I got nothing better than 3 bars. If you want pretty rings, bright displays, and a loud speakerphone.....this is the phone for you.......but if you if you want to make a call on it......better think about it more. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91332 2000/5/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots more insane battery life cool looking phone gobs o features only 2 weak signal speakerphone doesn t always work correctly The Bottom LineTONS of features + an incredibly stylish package = one superb phone. if you have decent coverage and hate recharging your phone often, you cannot go wrong here. Full Review i've used a samsung SCH3500 (see my other review) for half a year as my only phone line. well i was fed up with that bundle of problems so i got a sanyo SCP4500. boy... what a SMART MOVE. first of all, upon side-by-side comparison, the sanyo actually makes my old samsung look squat, fat, and stupid. the physical appearance of the sanyo is very chic, very mod. the dark titanium finish is gorgeous, especially in contrast to the chrome around the large display. unfortunately, while looking extremely cool, the chrome is quite susceptible to scratches and that's why i don't give it the highest durability rating (it also makes you wonder how the heck nokia 8860 owners keep the finish in good shape.) it's small candy-bar shape makes it easy to jam into pockets and forget out it. the amount of features are off the hook. this phone has all the features of my old samsung, plus more. it's very impressive, yet i doubt i'll ever use half of them regularly. i can't imagine a situation in which i'll need to hear my phone announce to me by name who's calling, but it's nice to know it can if i want it to. same goes for my opinion on voice dialing (i just don't use it.) i like the ringer options, which includes vibrate and 5 tones. additionally, if you like musical ringers, this your phone! it has 7 pretty decent polyphonic choices, each complete with tempo preferences. it's relatively easy to program, edit, and locate the multiple-number entries. this phone also has a calculator, 2 games, and a calendar - all things missing on my old phone -complete with a schedule book and "to do" list. while i wouldn't suggest throwing out your palm pilot, you can keep track of basic appts and the T9 word guesser function does offer occasional help while entering items on this menu. it takes a short while to tweak the "environment" modes to your personal tastes but once you do, i think they're a great addition to this phone. you can choose from silent, meeting, outside, and one custom setting, all of which can be altered to make your phone behave exactly as you'd like in different situations. nice touch. i've talked for 2.4 hours straight and only lost one battery bar on the indicator. this phone supposedly has a 4-hour talk time/12-days standby. i'm not so sure about that standby figure, but i do know this: the battery on this phone has already outlasted my samsung battery during conversations. but in places where usually my samsung usually got 4 signal strength bars, my sanyo only gets about two. sometimes you get a bit of fuzz in the background as well. i bet sanyo prioritized long battery life over signal sensitivity, and i also think it's overkill. also, the speakerphone doesn't work well if there is ANY background noise. period. in a completely silent room, it works OKAY. tends to echo, either way though. but overall, i'm extremely pleased with this phone and would definitely recommend it to anybody. it's worlds apart from my old samsung 3500. the long list of features and immaculate styling makes this a great phone for anybody. i got mine at auction for $110 so i have absolutely NO complaints about the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 110 91331 2000/1/2 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 indiglo back lighting poor speaker phone clunky The Bottom LineIt works. But I still recommend you shop and talk to others and read other reviews from here! Full Review The Sanyo SCP 4500 looked like a great phone. I had already purchased several different cells phones for the sprint pcs service...but was told by associates and sprint reps that the Sanyo 4500 was a good phone. I will say that it does work better than some of the other brands that I have tried with sprint cellular network...however, as far as a cell phone goes.....I was definitely dissapointed. The speaker phone seems to work ok if you are in a room that will produce no other sound other than your voice speaking into the phone. Otherwise the person you are talking to on the other end will probably tell you that you sound terrible and that you are dropping words from your sentences. The battery life is so-so. The back lit display is really the best thing going for the phone. I have noticed that the phone does seem to react strangely after a prl update. Several times it has taken a day or so to allow the phone to ring...or to display a icon that I have awaiting emails. I keep hearing from other sprint customers that these are all normal problems...and that the newer versions of the Sanyo phones seem to resolve more and more problems that may actually be an issue from the carrier sprint. In closing...if you have chosen sprint and need a phone that work better than most of there current line...This one should be fine. However, if you are expecting great sound...or superior battery life. I would definitely look onward and also advise checking with friends and other cell carriers. Since the time I signed up for sprint service I have not had any luck with there retail stores or service departments in resolving any issues that arise. Good Luck! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200 91330 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone no alarm clock The Bottom LineBuy this phone if you are not a electronics junkie, because it probably has more gadgets than you will ever use. Full Review The Sanyo 4500 can be either a great phone, or it can just get you by. For the price there is no complaining about this phone. For someone like myself that is into the latest and the greatest options, the Sanyo, just doesn't cut the mustard. Not because it isn't a great phone, because it is. The 4500 just doesn't have the options I'm looking for. In today's market every cell phone company is trying to add features to their phones left right and center. This is because of people like myself. Speakerphone - 8/10 My favorite feature of this phone was the speakerphone, but low and behold that feature was used up and outdated soon after I used it. The speaker is a great safety feature and is great when you can't be holding the phone all the time. Reception is good, and about 80% of the time people could hear me well in return. Indiglo display - 10/10 Nothing is more frustrating than trying to play with a contrast setting. Menu's - 6/10 The menu's are a little confusing, and really hard to scroll through when you first get the phone with the stiff arrow button. There are a few options on the phone that I still have never used, some of these could have been cut out. Features - 7/10 Features such as environment settings are alright but when are you going to use these. Most of us will either set a phone to Vibrate or leave the ringer on. A calculator, how lazy has our society become. I don't think I have used this yet. The call history is pretty much a standard feature now a days. The 4500 has a great phone book, with the option of both voicedial, or 1 thru 4 digit speed dial. The ring tones are limited, but you do have the choice of changing the tempo. Reception - 9/10 The 4500 gets better reception than my old Audiovox, My friends Timeport, and my girlfriends Nokia. I even find that this phone gets service in basements where other phones on the same provider are dead. I think out of about 500 calls I have only ever had 4 or 5 drop off. Overall - 8/10 Like I said earlier as long as you are not looking for the newest and latest features, this phone is great. I would be keeping this phone if I didn't make the mistake of walking into the mobility store and seeing the new toys. Note: Phone was bought in Canada, and is on Telus Mobility plan. Paid $149 CAD Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 91329 2000/12/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activation speaker screen size wireless web t9 text size Full Review Something about that chrome color just makes me smile when I look at my Sanyo SCP-4500 phone. I look at other phones (my friend purchased the Samsung 3500, and while chrome, it's not entirely the same). It makes me think of The Matrix, and the color of the phone Neo had. I always wanted a phone like that...but alas, it's not something too easy to find (the Nokia 7100 is the phone, but it just came out, and I heard it wasn't such a good buy). In this phone, however, there is much more than looks. This phone is all about features. What's good about it? Like I said, features galore with this puppy, which runs from about $160 to $200. Getting a great deal from Sprint, I got a $30 mail-in rebate, $50 instant rebate, and a $50 service credit on a future bill (so basically, $130 in rebates). That was a nice part of getting the phone, but it doesn't really say why you should get this phone. And too be honest, I wouldn't spend $180 for this. I'd only get it if you can get enough in rebates to get it under $100. Honestly, I wouldn't spend more than that for any cell phone, regardless of the features. The features I'll cover are: speaker-phone, voice activation, wireless web, other special features. First off, the thing that sold me on the phone was the speaker-phone ability. With the touch of a centralized blue button, I can set the phone down and easily hear and be heard while driving. No more do I have to hold the phone up to my ear, or deal with the cords for a headset. And surprisingly, the speaker works really well. People say they can hear me quite well. It can't be too far away, but in the seat next to you, or in your hand are a few good places to put it when using this feature. Voice activated features also make this a very attractive purchase. You can say a name and it will dial the number for you. If you have a few numbers in your phone book, this isn't too big of a deal, but when you've got 99, it can be quite a hassle. You can also record 10 thirty-second reminders, which I've used quite extensively to remind myself of something after a class. The wireless web is very cool, and very addictive. I can sit and play with it for hours (which kills the battery, and my minutes). Thankfully, the phone has 3.5 hours of talk time (160 standby). I can adjust the sites in my bookmarks through the sprintpcs.com website, and there are plenty of interesting sites out there to surf (with many more to come, I'm sure). I can check my email with the wireless web, as well as use AOL's instant messenger, Short Mail Service(SMS, used through ICQ). I can shop on CDNOW and other cool stores, and buy tickets at Ticketmaster. A few other features I like are a Calendar feature, where I can put up to 99 events or alarms...kinda like a PDA, but just a little harder to put stuff into. A little calculator is also included for those times when you just need to calculate the tip or do a little quadratic equation calculation. The backlight is also very nice, because instead of the drab green, it's a aqua blue, which is very easy to read and very cool when you're viewing in the dark, cause it makes people look over, wondering what you're looking at. :) Whats the problem? There are just a few, and they aren't anything too big. First off, the T9 text feature is a pain in the butt. It's the same thing you see when entering in a website on netscape or IE...trying to figure out what you're going to enter in for the website as you enter it. However, with it being so difficult to enter in stuff in the first place (a telephone keypad just ain't the place to write a novel from), you pretty much just wanna turn it off. It has yet to get the word I wanted. Enter in Show and it gave me Rhino (go figure). The phone is also a lot bigger than most phones out there now. This is good and bad. Good because it fits better on your face, and allows for a bigger screen. Some people like the fact that you talk into the mouthpiece, and not into your cheek. Its like holding a small remote control in your hand, basically...same round shape. I guess this is why they added the speakerphone, so you don't have to hold it if you don't want too. Bottom line I really love this phone. I'm very glad I didn't compromise and get a cheaper phone. To not get this now, and then a few months down the line figure out that I should've gotten all the features then, would be a pain, I think, cause you invest so much. Bottom line, if you want a phone with all the features you can get at this time (reasonable features, not stuff like MP3 or a camera), and don't mind it being a little larger than some phones, go with this one. You won't be dissapointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.00 (after rebates) 91328 2000/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life handsfree via earpiece of speakerphone voice recorder hyper sensitive microphone occasional re dials required The Bottom LineOverall the phone is great. The speakerphone and voicedial are a thumbs up. The occasional redials are a thumbs down. However, the ups far, far outweigh the downs. Full Review This is by far the best phone I've ever owned. I've had a Nokia 6100 Series and a StarTac 7167 before. The features on this Sanyo 4500 are far more useful. I mainly use it while on the road b/c I'm in outside sales. I truly enjoy using the speakerphone. The caller is easy to understand and as long as you talk in a clear and concise tone, they can understand you too. The speakerphone also comes in handy during a conference call w/ 2 or 3 more people. The battery life is terrific! It lasts an average of 4 days. And I do use it about half an hour daily, and that's just calls. There's also a couple of games to pass the time, Crab Catch and Slot Machine. I use the Voice feature to 1) Record verbal notes (10 spots; 30sec each) 2) Voice Dial my friends, even works via speakerphone (There's 30 spots) 3) The phone says who is calling if you have the caller on voice dial. Recharging the Li-ion battery only takes about 2 to 3 hrs to charge from empty. That's pretty quick especially when you are on the go. Some faults of the phone though are a very sensitive mic. that picks up wind noise when using the spkrphne outdoors. I occasionally have to redial a number b/c the connection, eventhough it was successful, is garbled. When I call a second time immediately after it's clear...weird. This can be costly b/c the call did go thru and thus took a minute from my plan. I don't know whether it's the phone or the area that I live in. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 91327 2000/10/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 charger speakerphone fantastic battery life high contrast display no ringer vibrate mode The Bottom LineI liked it so much that i bought it...again! Full Review I purchased my phone rather cheaply off of eBay -- it was $65 for a used phone, with a cosmetic crack on the screen -- and I was very happy with it. I had previously used a Nokia 5185, about which I didn't have any complaints. However, when I started to use my 4500, it was a whole different world. Instead of having to charge my phone every night, I now charge it every four or five days, because of the fantastic battery life. The display is much brighter and easier to read than my Nokia's -- the indiglo-like color really makes it stand out, no matter where you are. Even without the backlight, the screen is very large and easy-to-read. I'm sure everybody already knows of this phone's features, so I'll just glaze over what I think stands out. Battery life -- I can talk for about a continuous hour and a half, and still have two (out of three) bars of charge left. A full charge with the included charger takes about 45 minutes. Battery charger -- instead of a clunky stand charger, Sanyo gives you a light travel-type charger, that folds into a 4"x3"x.5" box. This means that you can easily pack it in an overnight bag, or even your pocket! Great idea. Speakerphone -- very handy feature which I find more useful than I originally thought I would. If I'm cooking and I get a call, I can still use both hands! Voice dialing -- a feature that is both useful and fun. Fast-forward a couple of months. Suddenly, my dependable Sanyo 4500 refuses to make and receive calls, and drains its battery in a day! I brought the phone into a Sprint store, who told me that, although my phone is still under warranty, the crack on the screen voids the warranty! Even though the phone was fully operational for months after the crack was there! I had no choice but to buy a new phone! I looked at the newest phones that Sprint had to offer, but I couldn't find anything that could match the features of my Sanyo 4500. In the end, I bought another Sanyo 4500, this time a new one, off of eBay for $80, and I have not regretted it. I do have a few very minor gripes about the phone, however. First, you can set the ringer to either a tone or vibrate, but not both at the same time. Second, although the menu system is good, it's not as intuitive as Nokia's: sometimes I find myself going back and forth in menus to find what I'm looking for; with my Nokia, it was "obvious" where to go. Nokia's menus are further enhanced with their number-navigation system. Third, and this is really the only thing that I miss from my Nokia, the games on the Sanyo are rather boring, if not irritating. The unfortunately-named Crab Catch game, and Slots are more frustrating than fun; I could kill hours with Snake, on my Nokia. Finally, the voice quality is good, but I have heard better -- the Samsung 6500, for instance. Still, the sound quality is nothing to complain about. The 4500 is being replaced by the 4700, which addresses the ringer + vibrate issue, and also includes more voice dials (30, as opposed to 10), as well as other minor tweaks. All in all, if you're looking for a candy-bar style Sprint-compatible phone (which I prefer, because you can prop it on your shoulder), then give the Sanyo 4500 a chance. You won't be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80 91326 2000/10/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nothing like my wife crabcatch game reminds me of my wife Full Review Now you might think a title like this is just a little on the mean side, well, you haven't met my wife. She is a beast of a woman, but we will get to that later. First, the phone. The 4500 is Sanyo's latest model and it has a ton of features. This phone can do more than my wife ever could, and while the phone can talk, it doesn't nag me. First, the 4500 is voice activated. I can just tell the phone what to do, or who to call, and it does it, no questions asked. I can assure you my wife has never done anything I have told her to do. Plus, the phone is a speaker phone, so I can enjoy hands free comfort. Now here the phone is very similar to my wife, since I haven't got to touch her in years. The phone has a great battery life as well. The phone can last for 4 hours of talktime and twelve days on stand by. My wife once stayed in bed for twelve days, but then she did a lot more than 4 hours of talking, barking out commands at me. The phone is dual band, so it will work almost any place you can go. My wife doesn't work any place I've been. The phone also has great reception all over the country. My wife hasn't wanted to travel ever since her weight prevented her from fitting in our truck. The 4500 has features you wouldn't believe. A huge phone book, a bunch of cool ringers, a mouse button that lets you move through the menu with ease, and caller ID. It also has two games you can play, one is called Crabcatch, now this does remind me of my wife, but you don't want to here about that, trust me. This phone is sturdy as well. You can be rough on it and it will hold up just fine. My wife, on the other hand, I make one little comment about the 93 pounds she has added and she's crying like a baby. All in all, this phone beats my wife hands down and it doesn't have inlaws. Now in defense of my wife, she only eats about 100 bucks worth of twinkies in a month, while the 4500 set me back 199.99. Disclaimer I know their are people who will NR and SR because my review is not commonplace, as they have done to many of mine already, but just ask yourself how much you enjoyed reading this as compared to most reviews. If it helps, I am not even married, it is just for entertainment. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91325 2000/12/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight easy navigation keypad not as compact as a flip phone Full Review A while back I was in Business Depot (Staples) playing with the demo phones while waiting for printer ink service. I came across the Sanyo 4000 and what struck me right away was the feel of the keypad. Not so much the position but the actual feel of the keys when you pressed them. It wasn't the squishy "have I fully pressed that key?" feeling that I got from sampling the other phones. The Sanyo was deliberate and concise. As a product design graduate, that was my first impression. Months later, when I went to purchase a phone I naturally looked at the Sanyo, but this time it was the 4500. Same basic phone but packed with a lot more features. Overall, I like the way that the default screen displays the time, date, a user defined message banner and all phone options with a simple scroll. The blue coloured screen is very easy to see and the font is no problem to read. The voice memo recorder is an extremely handy tool. Although I would have liked the option of recording a voice memo into a calendar date, rather than just having the text input. The different ringer tones are decent but I would have liked more options such as a simple tone for an incoming call. The phone does have these tones, but they can only be used for incoming messages and not for voice calls. I found the Mozart and other similar ringer tones a bit much, but a neat option I guess. In the end, the price was one of the best features. With a drop in sticker and the rebates, I was able to pick it up for $100 Canadian. I then purchased the pay & talk plan from ClearNET and was talking in no time. On top of that, surfing the internet is free until the new year. Definitely a good deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60.00 91324 2000/3/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception easy to use great backlight largecan be a little bulky voice dial isn t too great The Bottom LineIf you want the best, buy this phone. It is definitley worth the $180. Full Review I am a technician for a large wireless phone company, and I own this phone, so I am going to give this e-pinion from two different aspects, consumer and technician. Consumer Side: I bought this phone a few months ago, and I haven't had a single problem with it yet. The menu structure is extremely easy to follow, and large text allows me to be able to navigate through the phone with ease. It also uses 'Indiglow' technology (instead of lights) to light up the display, which eliminates glare from lightbulbs, and brightens the screen a lot better than standard lighting. I've also seen other phones, which can't get reception in areas near where I live (using the same service), but this phone hasn't failed me, getting 2 o 3 bars of signal strength. As for the battery, I have left mine on, non stop, and without charging, for over 11 days and the only reason I charged it was I knew it wouldn't last the night. Its not that I use my phone (My last bill included over 200 minutes of talk time and over 450 minutes on the wireless web). The phone has wireless web capabilities, allowing you to browse the web through your phone, checking stock quotes, news, weather, email, AOL Instant Messenger, games, etc... The phone also has voice services, including voice memo recorder, voice dialing, and voice ringer (Incoming Call from ....). The voice dial isn't too great, but I think that is also due to the technology isn't optomized as of yet. As for size, the phone is a little large, but I have a leather case with a belt clip and it doesn't bother me at all, but I can see ow the size can be a turn off. Technician side: I've only seen 5 of these come back in my 4 months as a tech. 3 of them was because of personal preference (they didn't like the size, or service wasn't available where they live). The other two were legitimate warranty issues. So, that means my store had 2 bad phones out of probabally 400 we've sold in 4 months. Also, looking at warranty lists, where other issues other than standard issues are explained (such as broken antenna, cracked screen etc...) while some manufacturers could write a book on theirs, Sanyo's 3 models (3000, 4000, and 4500) have NONE. That's right, there have been no serious issues with any of these phones. Programming the phone is simple, and rarley fails, while software and PRL (preferred roaming list, what reconizes towers and optimizes networks) have only had a few fixes since this phone's release. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91323 2000/3/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight versatile slim tons of features attractive it tends to get a bit hot if using for several hours in a row The Bottom LineIt is versatile and attractive and easy to use. Has lots of great features and easy to upgrade for anyone of any experience level. Full Review I decided to purchase this phone after spending several weeks looking for a new phone after my previous Nokia was stolen. Here's why I like the phone and it's features. The LCD screen is clear, and easy to customize with a few simple steps. It is large, but doesn't take up half of the phone. The buttons are large enough and easy to read and light up in the dark when pressed. The keypad easily locks to prevent unwanted dialing. The ringer has 6 different volume settings including off, and vibrate. There are at least a dozen different rings to choose from, and you can choose different rings for identifiable rings, and unidentifiable rings. It will also speak to you and tell you if you have new voicemail. The address book has over a hundred slots for names. In addition, you can program in the home, work, mobile, data, fax and email for each person. Entering phone numbers and names is simple and quick. Sending a text message or email on the wireless web feature of the phone is simple. The phone has a feature that will "guess" what word you are attempting to write, and it's usually correct. You can also add words and names to it's memory. The wireless web feature is easy to use, although it's a bit different then using a computer, if you have never used the "wireless web" feature of a phone. My two favorite features of the phone are the voice activated dialing and the speaker phone. The voice activated dialing is activated by the phone, not the wireless service you subscribe to, so there is no additional charges. The voice activated dialing is easy to set up, and works without fail. The speaker phone is incredible handy while driving or if you need your hands free. You can buy a "handsfree" kit, but it's not necessary with the speaker phone function. It sounds a bit muffled if there is a lot of background noise around you, but definitely clear enough to understand. You can also program short cuts on the keypad. For instance, you can program the #3 key to call home, so you just dial 3 and press send, and it will automatically dial whatever number you program into it. The instruction manual is definitely thicker and more involved than others I have seen, but it is easy to wade through and understand. I was using most of the features in the first few days of owning my phone. It is incredibly durable. I dropped it into a full sink with the water running, and after letting it dry (and using a blowdryer on it for a few minutes) I recharged it and it worked fine! I highly recommend this phone for someone who likes features and versatility, and doesn't mind spending a bit more for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91322 2001/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great non flip well featured phone with newer technology others will follow might be too much phone for some voice activation poor with background noise The Bottom LineThis is an advanced phone with many great features. Other companies will follow the advances of this phone. Full Review I love the new features of this phone. I wanted it from the outset of the phone. It sells for 179.99-200 dollars minus discounts. I use the features such as internet, voice activation calls, memo recorder, but I LIVE by the speaker phone vibrate mode ringer mode (I hate ringers), and the longer phone battery life. I recommed this phone to feature lovin' people, and advanced phone people. It is a lot of phone, but it is also a good phone, and not a flip phone. It is taller than a Nokia, but slimmer. People who did not like this phone, were NOKIONS, who do not use a phone, need a phone, or hate technology. If you like to play games on a phone DONT BUY THIS PHONE. If you like millions of different ringers, DONT BUY THIS PHONE. This phone also uses standard earpiece technology, 2.5mm jack, which allows for easy accessorizing, although the plug, and leather case are specific to the phone. The SPEAKER PHONE IS KEY. It can be loud, is easyily turned on, and volume is controled on the side of the phone. --The speaker is diametrically opposed to the mic, which is bad -- I like to check stock quotes, hotmail or yahoo mail, and kill time with the 6 months free internet. I will not keep it most likely when the time is up. The voice recorder can record voices in a room or the person talking on the phone (not your part (voice) of the conversation. I have used it a few times. The phone book is good, maybe a bit too PDA like with email address, but the call history is still 10 calls from incoming, outgoing, and missed. Voicemail is easy. You can set different environments to allow different ringer and alerts for different situations, good feature, never use it (rarely). I have used every feature of this phone, most people will not. I owned the Sanyo 4000, it is good add a speaker and it would be comparable. This phone is bigger, slightly than the 4000. Buy phones as a pair with comeone, and get at least $50 store credit. For $100 this phone is the best phone out there. In fact they are releasing it for Verizon now. The SPRINT network had the $34.99 deal, great for 1 person, I would get the $49.99 deal, and add a phone for $10 for the 2000 minutes at this point. I use SPRINT in NJ, NY, MA, PA, CA (SD, LA, SF), NV, Mexico(TJ), OPIONION --- ARE YOU GEEK ENOUGH FOR THIS PHONE?? **** I used the price after rebates and in store rebates, nobody pays $200 for a phone. I got $100 off the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $80 91321 2000/6/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 fun functional too much to do The Bottom LineAn excellent buy! Sleek and useful, and a little bit fun too! Full Review Since getting to know my Sanyo SCP-4500 phone, I have come to love/hate it all at the same time. The love part is easy, I have all sorts of bells and whistles. An easy-to-see clearglo screen that means no more squinting or stopping to turn on the dome light, internet access that can really help out in times of need (like needing a quick list of restaurants when you find out the one your're at doesn't accept checks) and, most importantly, an easy-to-navigate menu. If you're like me and have a memory so full of other information that remembering to push G5NP to check your voice mail is too much to handle, you'll love this phone. The Dual band is nice if you live in the middle of hicksville (like me) yet work in a metropolitan or slightly busier than hicksville area. The real "biggy" for me is the voicedial and speakerphone feature. I think this is a handy feature for those who aren't interested in buying hands-free kits. It's a good way to reduce dialing while driving or multi-tasking risks, which, if you watched Dateline on 6/20/01, you know actually reduce your driving skills to that of a drunk driver. The hate part comes in only slightly, actually. I hate the amount of time that it sometimes takes to find what you are looking for on the wireless web. Also, when leaving the phone on to receive phone calls I sometimes find myself talking to someone located in my phone book. The buttons, designed for easy dialing, sometimes lead to unintentional phone calls being made. The potential for danger here is obvious--when you get off the phone with someone and start talking about them the last thing you want is for your phone to have redialed the number for you on speakerphone. Along with the above-mentioned features, there is your basic and easy-to-use calculator, 2 games (crab catch, and a slot machine game). These aren't the most exciting if you're of the playstation 2 generation like me and like a lot of excitement, but they will help alleviate boredom while sitting in a doctor's office or airport (20 minutes after your scheduled appointment or flight). Overall, I think this phone is an excellent buy, with Sprint's ever-expanding service area and push to stay on top of the market. This phone offers you everything you need in one sleek little package. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): work perk 91320 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size sound quality weight extending antenna Full Review My girlfriend bought me this product because my last two mobile phones fell apart. I'm not rough with them, they just fell apart. I've had this product for only a few days and have noticed a huge quality difference. The sound quality is superb, in comparison to the Nokia 6188. I rarely loose signal around my home. This is a welcomed change, as my old phone couldn't keep a signal almost anywhere. There is a seamless transfer from analog to digital, and vice versa. This phone has great sound quality on the Clearnet system. When using the phone, there is no echo, and the people on the other end of the line can hear me fine. The speakerphone feature comes in loud and clear, with little distortion. This product utilizes some of todays newest technologies. The voice recognition, and ringer are marvelous. the voice recognition is excellent, while the voice ringer is a life saver. If you have saved a voice dialed number, you can set the phone to ring with that persons name. This allows you to screen your calls without having to look at the caller ID panel. The speakerphone is great. I hate driving and talking on the phone, but when I have to, I can switch on the speakerphone, and keep my hands on the wheel. The best thing is that I don't have to look like an idiot with an ear-piece. The menu is easy to use, I didn't have to open the manual to figure out how to use the phone. The phone is light weight, and is slim enough to fit into a pant pocket. my only complaint is that it has an extending antenna. I find these antennas easy to break. In my opinion this phone is much better than the nokia 5100's, and 6100's that I have used. it is slim, sweet, and looks great. Any one who wants an affordable, high quality, easy to use phone should consider this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 after mail-in rebate 91319 2001/12/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone cool styling voice memo poor reception fairly weak battery The Bottom LineIt's a decent phone. Very easy to use and some helpful features. Maybe upgrade the battery after a year of use. Full Review I bought this beautiful phone over a year ago when I first started my cell phone service with Sprint PCS. I chose the SCP-4500 model instead of the SCP-4000 model because it was a little larger (I am prone to losing important things like cell phones) and for the speakerphone feature. I also thought it would be more reliable and durable than those flip-phones which would probably fall apart in my hand one day. At the time, I paid the full price of $199 for the phone but since I was beginning a contract with Sprint, they were nice enough to take $40 off the price. They are much cheaper now. It's got some great features but also some downfalls: The menus are clear and easy to use. I pick up some people's phones and can't figure out how to dial a number. But this one is simple. But I hope you're not into games on a cell phone 'cause the SCP-4500 has two poor ones--one slot machine and some silly crab catcher game which makes no sense. Buy a GameBoy instead. I've used the speakerphone with positive results. Most of the time, the person on the other line has no idea that they are on speakerphone, unlike most home telephones. The voice dialing comes in handy and the phone generally only recognizes MY voice as opposed to other people's voices, which may serve as a security feature. When there's no pen and paper around, just hold "TALK" and you've got 30 seconds of voice memo recording, which could be easily accessed later. I've found that the phone's shortcomings lie in it's poor reception and fairly weak battery. I live in Atlanta which is a large, strong coverage area for Sprint PCS service, but when compared to other people's Sprint phones, I seem to recieve the weakest signal. Even driving on open highways in some parts of town, I lose the signal completely and my calls have been dropped. But ask around and see how strong your Sprint service is in YOUR town before giving up on this phone. Over the course of the year and a half that I've owned the phone, the battery has become steadily weaker. Soon, I will probably upgrade to a stronger battery, but meanwhile, I take my AC adapter or Car charger on long trips. The SCP-4500 will treat you well for the most part. It's got a great design and will even survive a short drop or two to the pavement if that ever happens. If you're buying one, try to get it for under $100. Rebates and special offers should help. Good luck! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 159 91318 2000/2/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 awsome quality once learned battery durability easiest phone to use menu listing is not logical scratches show on silver case The Bottom LineBest phone out there, dont need the gadgets? There is allways the SCP-4000, but $30 extra is worth it. Full Review I work at RadioShack as an employee, In my two years there, I have seen many evolutions in cell phone technology. I have sold everything from the Bag Phone, to the Nokia 8290's I have also sold four different carriers of service: Sprint, GTE, SouthWest Bell, and Cingular I like Sprint the best, but check coverage in your area first. GTE, SWB, and Cingular change their minds, and seem to have a poor level of service when dealing with customers. I own this phone and love this phone. (By the way, over 90% of the employee's also own this phone) I am a gadget freak, but I will leave most of that info out here. For a consumer standpoint, you must look at services first. SprintPCS will always have the coolest, gadget phones out there, because they have built their own network. This network allows for phone to be simpler in design, smaller, clearer, and have longer battery life. The Sanyo4500 is the best "Bang for your buck" phone. At least in my area the phone is only $179.99 Now before you say, "Well other phones are only $10, or $20, the Sanyo 4500 has many things that you will not find on many others. Features: -12 DAYS!!! Stand-by, 4 hours talk time It holds up to this very well, the talk time is rated with full signal strength, plus it's a Lithium ION battery, no worries. -Speakerphone: On the road? On Hold? Hands Full? Press one button to initiate a call, put the phone where you can hear it and your good to go! (Oh and it's VERY VERY loud) -Voice Dialing: Press the button; say the name, that's it. -Voice Memo: Press and hold the button, records up to 5 minutes. (30second blocks, these are memo's not lectures) -Voice CallerID: The coolest feature, have the phone on your belt, both hands full and still know who is calling. Great for when your late to work, and can't take your eyes off the road. -Calendar: The only thing you will probably have with you well you need to record and important date is your phone, plus it will remind you. -Alarm clock: WAKE UP!!!!!!, Louder than any home alarm I have ever had, all I use now. -Calculator: No more little credit card calculator that breaks, this one is built in -Game: Bored in line? Play slots, or CrabCatch, or surf the web for more games. -Environments: Need your phone to be quite, musical, or LOUD, just set it in one of five different sound modes. -199 number memory. Keep anyone you call, good for pizza places. -Durability: This phone can take a BEATING and keep on ticking, so far it has fallen out of my car, been tossed against a wall by my nephew (Hard), and been sat on, banged against, and smacked while in my pocket. (And it never lost power) -Wireless web: Out on the town? Find the nearest movie, resturant that is good, ATM, Check the price on that new gizmo you just thought didn't exist. -If you're mobile, student with laptop or PDA, then you will love the nearly hidden feature of the Connection Kit. Be on the road anywhere and get a wireless 56k connection from you device to the Internet. Cons: Scratches show on chrome (mostly from payment) Menu is listed such that the most used functions are in the middle of the list so you have to scroll a lot. Overall compared to any other phone out, under any carrier, the Sanyo 4500 is the absolute best. It has insane clarity; it is loud, no more finger in the other ear. (Most of the time I have to hold the phone away from my head while I turn the volume down). Speaker phone makes it easy to use even when busy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91317 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight lot s of cool features for a great price must be technologically literate Full Review My fiancé bought this phone for my birthday... and I must say, I'm a certified "GEEK" with this phone. It's great, that's all there is to it! Some of the phones many features include: • Built-in Speakerphone • Voice Activated Dialing (30 Names/Numbers) • Voice (announce) Ringer for all names in the voice dialing memory • Voice Memo Recorder for recording callers voice odictation (10 Recordings x 30 sec) • Voice prompts (voice alarm, auto answer, voice memo, voice dial) Incredible Battery Performance (Digital Mode) • Standard Talk Time: Up to 4 Hours Standby: Up to 288 Hours (or 12 Days) • Extended Talk Time: Up to 7.5 Hours Standby: Up to 432 Hours (or 18 Days) Personal Information Manager • Event Calendar • To Do List • Alarms • T9 (Tegic) Predictive Keypad More Outstanding Features • Three Cord Melody Ringer • ClearGlo™ Large Size Blue Backlit display with contrast control • Vibrating Ringer • Dual Band/Dual Mode • CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access Technology) • Wireless Web • One Touch Voice Mail • Multiple Voice Alerts • Security Number Locks • Travel Charger Included • Navigational Key • 8-Number Speed Dialing • 10-Number Call List • Caller ID Capability • Power Saver Mode I use this phone with the wireless web option on the Sprint PCS service. My reception is great, the clarity of calls is wonderful and customer service is outstanding. If you read reviews that are negative about this phone, it's safe to say that the person is obviously technologically illiterate! Don't let anyone tell you this phone isn't good-----it's not----IT IS GREAT! It's all you could want in a phone and more... especially for the price! YOU GOTTA HAVE THIS PHONE! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91316 2000/12/13 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone cute small light voice feature glitches Full Review -Let me preface my epinion by stating that I am not a business woman or a techie. I live alone and attend school at night, so my main reason for wanting a mobile phone is for a sense of security. I use my phone about 10-20 times per week. If you are looking for a phone to travel with or to replace your right hand, this review may not be very helpful in your decision.- I previously owned a Samsung phone, but when it fell on the floor and broke, I started looking for a new one. My Samsung had the Voice Dialing feature and since the phone was great before it fell, I planned on purchasing another Samsung to replace it. I started researching the manufacturer's website, as well as Radio Shack's and Sprint PCS' website. I narrowed my choices, and went down to Radio Shack (BTW, the store I purchased both phones at was located in the Great Mall in Milpitas, CA - there staff is great!). The salesman assisted me in comparing the Samsung, Motorola, and the Sanyo. The deciding factor was that the Sanyo 4500 was the only phone that contained the Speaker Phone feature. This phone has tons of features (Wireless Web, Event Calendar, Voice Memo, Calculator, Games, Voice Ringing, etc.), unfortunately, I don't need or use them all. I do use the Speaker Phone, Event Reminder Alarm, Phone Book, Voice Dialing, and Environment feature quite a bit. 1st Gripe: The Voice Dialing is VERY fussy with me for some reason. For instance, I will say "Bryan", wanting it to call Bryan, BUT, it will call "Mom". And then, when I actually want to call "Mom", it will dial "Work". This happens more often than not and I need to take it in to Radio Shack to have it looked at. 2nd Gripe: The Voice Mail icon has not gone away in about a month, and I don't have any new messages waiting. I will need to have this looked at as well. I have owned the phone for about 6 months now and although I do like it, I think the Samsung's Voice Dialing was superior to the Sanyo. My next phone will probably be a Samsung. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91315 2000/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 functional features speaker prettylegible blue screen voice activation easily activated keypad although that can be overridden with an easy to find keyguard that turns them off Full Review I finally caved in to peer pressure and my jealousy of friends who flipped open their cool cell phones like little Capt. Kirks. So after checking out reviews posted here and elsewhere, I got the 4500 and had a blast spending a Saturday programming my new phone in lieu of washing the car, mowing the dog and talking the lawn for a walk. I was able to load in the numbers of all my friends, business associates and, since that really only took less than an hour, loaded in numbers of complete strangers from the phone book, based on how funny their names sounded. Well, it kept my wife at bay. Seriously, it was quite easy to program and has quite a lot of memory for each individual's home, work, mobile, pager numbers and even e-mail address. The useful features set this unit apart from the competition. It is easy to use, thanks to design components that are practical rather than "gee whiz" - interesting but in most cases useless. Although I'm not sure what I'll do with the slot machine and catch-the-crab games. The buttons are large enough to press without error. By far the best things about the 4500 are the built-in speaker and voice activation that enable hands-free (or actually one-touch) use in my car. I simply use the clip on the back of the leather carrying case to temporarily attach it to my visor, allowing me to detach it when I leave the car. I would otherwise have had to spend about $500 for a hands-free setup to be installed in my particular car. These savings immediately offset the cost of the phone. The microphone works well enough for my mother, who is deaf as a post, to hear me speaking to her from my car, a feat I haven't been able to duplicate in person. The built in speaker delivers volume and clarity. Scrolling through the menus is a simple and direct task. It's lightweight. With its Internet functionality, I can check my Yahoo account, synching up with my calendar and checking my e-mails from wherever I am (the Internet use is an inexpensive additional-cost option). The battery charge lasts forever. And all my friends are jealous. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): appx. $200 but received a promotional discount of $50 from Sprint at time of purchase 91314 2000/12/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception long battery life very stylish a little pricey as phones go but compares with much higher priced models Full Review I bought this product mainly because of an in-store trial. I went to my local PCS store, they let me make a call on the 4500, and I was so impressed with the sound quality that I came back and bought it that afternoon- it sounded as good as the phone in my house. I've owned it for about 2 weeks, with about 15 minutes of talk time a day, and I haven't had a single dropped call or instance of static. The phone book option is great, you can now have multiple numbers for the same person, and each is coded with an icon for home, work, mobile, email, pager, or web address. The ringer options and vibrating ring is nice to have around as well. The speakerphone is a really nice feature. I had the same reservation that many of you probably have about it- was it just for show, or does it really work? Well, it works, and much better than I expected. The sound quality is surprisingly good, and the volume goes up loud enough to hear even in traffic with the phone sitting on your dash. The microphone was my main concern about the speakerphone, so i tried it out myself- I had my girlfriend use the speakerphone, standing about 3 feet away, while I listened on the other end, and it sounded as if she wasn't using a speakerphone at all. This phone has plenty of bang for your buck, even if you don't feel like surfing the net in traffic. I haven't used the wireless internet options yet, but I'm still very pleased with the value for money I got with the 4500. For a higher price, but not too high, you get a top of the line phone with excellent reception, good battery life, and ability to handle the internet features if you so desire. This is an amazing phone. The list price is high, (i paid $200 initially), but because of rebates offered at the time i recovered half of that $200. Not bad for a phone that isn't going to become out of date soon. It will serve you well for a long time, and looks great to boot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 (after rebates) 91313 2000/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 style many cool features a bit overwhelming for people who haven t had a cell phone before Full Review I have to say, I read a few other reviews of this phone, and I mostly agree with them - in fact, I would recommend that you read them too because I don't plan to address every feature of the phone in this review. So if you feel I've left information out, check one of the other reviews on the list. The phone is light, convenient, pretty, and has some nice features like the voice-dialing and the speakerphone. Another cool feature is the "environment" heading on the menu - depending on where you are (class, work, a bar) you can set the phone's sounds and lights to the appropriate level just by selecting one of the preset environments on the phone. You can also customize this feature. One thing I love is that if you enter a number into your voice-dialing, and you receive a call from that number, the ringer says "call from...(name of person, in your voice)." I'm always tempted to program my mom's number as "Speilberg." A few things do bother me, though. Now, I might just be an idiot, (I'm generally pretty competent with technology, though) but I can't get the lovely musical rings (they really are lovely - Bach and Mozart and Pachibel, lots of depth of sound, harmonies, etc.) to work. I've tried a number of times to set the rings, and each time, the phone tells me that I have set the rings, and then when I get a call, the default ring (which is nice and futuristic, don't get me wrong) sounds. Also, the signal isn't as strong as some of the PCS phones that my friends have - we'll be walking down the same street and I'll be on analog roam and they'll have five bars. The fact that the phone is dual mode is convenient for the city where I live, because there are more than a few signal-holes around, but you have to be a little careful or you could end up spending a ton on roaming charges. Back to the voice-dialing, which I'm obsessed with - like all voice-dialing has always been, it's oversensitive, so if you're walking down the street trying to use it, you may find yourself repeating "Mom!" over and over again while people stare at you and then just going to the phone book option out of frustration. The crab-catch game is a great way to run down the battery if you have one bar left and don't want to charge it until it gets down to zero to save battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91312 2000/2/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 indiglo display backlight speakerphone solid features sleek design does not include charging stand can not hear yourself when talking The Bottom LineIf you're not ready for flip-phones or are tired of using them, this is a solid phone worth a look. Make sure you don't mind the few flaws I've described. Full Review I've wanted one of these for awhile now. I first wanted the 4000 model, but they didn't offer it at Best Buy and I had a warranty there from my last phone (Touchpoint from Denso/Sprint) and I wanted to take advantage of it when my phone needed to be replaced. The main thing that attracted me to these Sanyo models was the indiglo display. I know it sounds like a weak feature to focus on when looking for phones, but I was tired of the standard green backlight display... the cool blue indiglo is much easier to read. Haven't you noticed that watches all now have that indiglo style of backlighting? I will say that the 4000 model has a brighter backlight than the 4500, but the 4500 model is plenty bright. Also, even though they are roughly the same size, the 4000 model feels slightly more comfortable in the hand than this one does. The 4500 also has more features and is better overall. Battery life on the 4500 is longer too. Ultimately I am happy I got this model over the 4000. That said, I'll go into features and what I like and don't like about the Sanyo SCP-4500. First off, this phone has the best ringers I've ever heard... great classic songs from famous composers that sound more like the actual song than just the melodies. The only problem is that there aren't enough of them. There are only 7 songs to choose from and I only really like 3 of them. It would've been nice to have a few contemporary tunes or at least twice as many to choose from. Also the basic ringer styles sound more like alarms than ringers - it would've been nice to again have a few more to choose from. At the same time, the basic ringer styles that sound like an alarm clock are good because you can set your phone up as an alarm clock if you're on the road somewhere and need that kind of a wake-up. They are LOUD. You won't miss a call even if your car stereo is turned way up. You'll hear these ringers. The speakerphone feature is great. It works really well. You can carry a conversation in the car even with the windows rolled down (in mild traffic and not on the freeway). It's occasionally hard for the other party to hear you, but certainly no worse than any other speakerphone. I hate being on speakerphone as I'm sure most people do, so use at your own risk (the risk being the potential loss of friendships). Along with the speakerphone feature, you get voice activated dialing. This isn't an extra service you have to pay for, it comes on the phone. You can apparently get voice activated dialing on any Sprint PCS phone, but it costs extra as a monthly fee. With this, you simply press a button and a female voice on your phone asks you to say the name of the person you would like to call... you say the name and it dials... pretty slick. You of course have to set this up on your phone, but it only takes a few seconds for each person. Also, with this phone, you don't have to say two words for it to work. Another PCS phone with this feature makes you say two words (like "Joe man" or "Joe Smith") which can get confusing if you have to remember what you said besides their first name. It's a great feature, no complaints. There are many other features on this phone that you can look up (like how many numbers you can store) that are standard on most phones. Nothing really remarkable. I won't bore you with all that detail. If you look at the picture, you'll see the button layout (except for the volume buttons on the side) and how slick it looks. You can also go into a Sprint store and handle it for yourself to see if you like it or not. I want to tell you what you won't know until you get it home. So, on to the things I dislike about this phone... The reception on this phone is great. Better than my Touchpoint. I haven't dropped a call or gotten much signal loss since I've had it. However, you almost have to have the antenna up all the time. If I have the antenna down, the signal gets pretty weak in certain areas around town and people will complain that I'm cutting out. Also, the worst thing about this phone is that I can't hear myself talking in the earpiece. On a normal phone you can hear your own voice as you speak and if you get cut off you stop hearing your voice so you know something is wrong. With my other PCS phone, if I was cutting out, I could tell because I couldn't hear my voice in the earpiece. On the 4500, if the signal drops or I start cutting out, I have no way of knowing unless they tell me because I can't hear myself. Also, the signal is so clear that unless they are talking or have some sort of loud background noise going on, all I hear is complete silence and I wonder if I've been cut off. I find myself saying "hello?!?" a lot if there's a pause in the conversation. Perhaps the reception and clarity is TOO good. Another thing I find really annoying is that it didn't come with a charging stand. I have to plug the cord into the bottom of the phone and lay the phone on its back to charge it. My Touchpoint came with a charging stand. What really ticks me off about it is that when I went into the Sprint store, the display for it had it on the charging stand which made me think that it came with one. I knew the 4000 didn't come with one, but I think the 4500 should have. To top it off, Sanyo is selling it as a $49 accessory. They sell the desktop charger stand along with the cable knowing full well that owners of the phone only need the stand. They also will sell you an additional cable for $39. Why can't they just sell you the stand for $10 and call it a day? If you get this phone, you're also going to find out that you'll need to keep the keyguard feature on all the time. If you shove the phone in your pocket or purse, you'll probably bump a button... and it'll most likely be the "Speaker" button which will activate the voice dialing prompt. It is also lacking in the game department. I know most of you don't buy PCS phones for the games, but there might be one or two people out there who are interested in that feature. The 4000 model has a game called "Crab Catch" which is like Atari's Kaboom (if you can remember what that was like) where little things drop down the screen and you move your little crab character left and right and try to catch them. It's cute, but won't give you hours of entertainment. The 4500 has that game as well, but it adds a game called "Slot Machine" which just gives you the option of how much to bet (1, 3 or 5) and then some numbers and symbols move around the screen and if you win you get points. It's really lame - to be blunt. If you're really into games, you can go online with the wireless web and play games online. I would've preferred to have more ringers and no games or else a few better games than these. Aside from all that, it's a full-featured, compact, light-weight, slick-looking, sturdy little phone. I'm pretty happy with it. It's only $129 at Best Buy and that's certainly a bargain. It's surely one of the best non-flip phone on the market (if your carrier is Sprint). I hope you found this review helpful... I know I didn't go into great detail on the many features of this phone, but all of that information is easily available and I simply wanted to inform you all about the things you don't find out until you get home with it. Recommended: Yes 91311 2000/3/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 many feature sets quick phonebook searches smart button placements voice ringer bright display pull out antenna horrible sound quality terrible speaker phone really long power cycle times The Bottom LineNot recommanded. The main selling feature, the speaker phone, does not work properly at all. Also I personally think voice quality is #1 priority over features, which this phone lacks. Full Review Rushed for production. That is all I can say about this phone. While sounding like the most advanced phone on paper, in practice this phone has a lot of catch up to do. That said, this phone does have a lot of features that are quite useful (full specs can be found at http://www.clearnet.com or http://www.sanyo.com), the most unique being the voice ringer. This feature will actually alert you who is calling by saying the caller's name (ex: if Joe Momma is calling, then it will say "Call from Joe Momma"). Of course, the name has to be pre-recorded by the user, but nonetheless, it is very hand to know who is calling without having to look at the display all the time. Just imagine when you're sleeping or watching TV, and your phone rings. If you perfer just regular melodies, you also have the option of speeding up or slowing down the tone. The worst part about this phone is the speaker phone. Let's just get this cleared. It does not work very well. Period. It seems that the speakerphone is only half duplex and when both parties are speaking at once, the conversation gets cut off. I found it extremely frustrating to use and stopped using it after awhile. Sometimes the other party got really ticked off too. Another negative apart would be the sound quality. Voices sound very mechanical and you can tell it's a mobile phone. I know there is a lot of positive opinions about this phone's sound quality on this site, however, those people have not tried a really good CDMA phone yet, that is why (ie - Motorola Timeport P8167). The reason why I said it seemed like a rushed phone is because the battery is does not even fit flush. It is actually the same battery carried over from SPC-4000. Also the screen resolution has not increased, while the screen itself has. It seems like SPC-4500 was a quick filler because while SPC-4000 was a good phone, it lacked feature sets. So they came up with this one, except Sayno did not refine the final product. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 93.00 91310 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life menus display a bit bigger than the scp 4000 Full Review Sadly enough, I've had way more cell phones over the years than I'd care to admit. Some of the things I look for in a cellular phone are it's size, how easily one can access its functions, battery life, and features. This is a fancy big brother to the SCP-4000, a phone that should be at the top of your list if price is your #1 concern. I'll be brief and get to the reasons why I love this phone: --The display is the best out there, bar none. The black text upon very bright blue background is a great combination. In fact, Sanyo has patented this display technology. --Battery life is exceptional. Limiting my phone calls to under 20 minutes a day this phone can go 5 days without a charge. No phone I've ever used (I've used at least 10-12 different phones) comes close to this kind of battery longevity. --Size. Although its a big bigger than the SCP-4000, it's still very narrow. It also avoids using silly flip-open screens like those dreadful Motorolas. There is easy access to locking the keys so you don't have to worry about accidentally calling somebody as your phone is in your purse or whatever. --Menus and accessibility. The software loaded in this phone is top-notch. The menus are VERY easy to get around and all laid out very logically. My mother, who isn't exactly a techno wizard, managed to program all her friend's numbers into the phone within an hour. She had her Nokia (with its antiquated menu software) phone for almost a year and could never quite get it set up the way she wanted it. --Speakerphone and voicedial. The speakerphone works really well and voice dial works exactly as advertised. I don't use either of these features often, but they work just as well if not better than the other voicedial phones. --Signal quality. Excellent. For a Sprint phone, the voice quality was great and I nearly always managed to get a signal with this phone. --Ringers. The ringer alerts play though the speakerphone so they are much more rich-sounding and not as "tinny" as all other cell phone ringers are. This is a little feature that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. You simply cannot go wrong with this phone. If your local store is sold out of them, you can purchase them straight through the Sprint website. I had mine sent to me in about 3 days. Many of my friends are very envious of my phone. They like to brag about how great their Nokia phones are but once they get their hands on my phone the response is nearly ALWAYS "Boy, I wish I could get out of my contract with__________". Puts a smile on my face every time. I know I did the right thing by buying this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91309 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial high number holding capacity speaker phone woes battery drains like mad when on analog mode Full Review First off let me say that I hate Cell phones, I hate them I hate them I hate them. Who in their right mind want to have everyone in the free world able to get ahold of you any time that please? Not me. But, in this day and age with all the high tech fast moving extra super immprotant jobs that people have today, it's almost a neccesity. So why not have a little fun with it. I got ghit phone from a private dealer, and it only cost me $40, and that was including activation, I had to sign a 2 year contract, that i can buy out of for less that the retail price of the phone so, I'm winning either way i go. This phone has all the pretties. It has games and wireless web, calculato, voice activated dialing, 200+ number holing copacity. And it has another really neat function, that i'm still not wuite too sure about. And that is a Speaker phone. I know in my state thay are in the process of passing laws that limit cell phone use in cars, and that you must have a head-set. This is a great law, and should have been passed a long time ago. This phone elminates the need to buy a seperate and sometimes costly seperate device. But, the speaker phone is not with out it's own problems. The speaker is on the back side of the phone and has ajustable volume. but the microphone that you speak into is still the on the front of the phone. this will caus eyou to either have a muffles sound to your call from laying it face down and yelling, or haveing muffled reception when laying it face up. So it mught be worht it to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy the seperate head-set. as the phone does have an outlet for it. Another probelm is, if you do travel, and you get out of your PCS service range and swith it into analog, you'd better hope you have another batter all charged up or a charger near by as the battery withh drain in very little time. I do like the voice activated dialing and the amount of numbers you can put into voice dial it higher than on other phones. You can program up to 30 numbers, and on most other phones it's only 10-15-20, so if your a lazy paerson, thats a good option. I also like tha navigational button, with the 4 directions, it's very help full in accesing other menus on the phone quickly with out having to select 12 other sub menus first. Go Sanyo. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 91308 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many nice features excellent battery life lightweight yet durable sprint network needs to add additional digital coverage The Bottom LineIf you want the best SprintPCS phone, buy the Sanyo SCP-4500. Lots of features and nice add-ons! Full Review I never thought I'd give up my Touchpoint phone, but I finally found a phone that can replace it! The SCP-4500 is attractive-looking and lightweight, yet seemingly solid. Apparently, the lack of size and weight works in its favor (with me) because I've dropped it 3-4 times and it's still intact. Fits in my pants pockets just fine and I rarely remember it's there until it rings. Features abound on this phone: Three "Environment" settings *Normal(ringer and backlight) *Meeting(vibrate/no backlight) *Silent(you get the picture) Web & Text messaging Speakerphone (probably the best one I've seen so far!!) Voice command dialing Web browser Multiple ringer types For the most part, this phone can be operated hands-free other than the initial touch of the speakerphone button. The voice command feature even works pretty well when you have the speakerphone turned on! There's also a wireless kit ($50) for this phone which allows your SCP-4500 to act as a wireless modem for your laptop. I've found this handy many times while sitting in an airport. (Oh, and I can't say enough about the battery life on this phone. I've actually gone an entire week without charging the phone and it's on 24X7!). All in all, this is now the phone to get if you're using the SprintPCS digital network. Lots of features, not too big, fairly lightweight, and nice add-ons make it a very attractive buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 185 91307 2000/2/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight small luminated keypad battery life isn t that long talktime somewhat expensive The Bottom LineThis phone is for people who like having a lot of power while mobile. It's a tad expensive, but if you're in the market, definitely go with this model. Full Review During the holiday season I decided to pickup a new cell phone. I researched the various cell phone companies rigorously and eventually decided to give my money to Sprint. The next decision I had to make was which phone? All the good phones cost 150 dollars and more, so it was really about what I wanted to use. Well, I came across the Sanyo 4500 and everything became much easier to figure out. The phone is quintessentially one of the better phones on the market right now. From its longer talk time and standby to its blue LED display, it offers quite a few features that most other phones only dream of giving you. I'll explain some of these things and hopefully you'll come away with a better feeling for this phone and just cell phones in general. Benefits: It's a fairly lightweight and small phone. Even with a leather case on it's still pretty comfortable in a pocket. The blue LED illuminates the phone very nicely in dark situations and also illuminates the keypad (which some phones don't do). The phone has the nice middle keypad which allows quick maneuverability through menus. The big TALK/END buttons allow one to easily start/end a conversation without much frustration in finding the keys or hitting the wrong key. There are nice volume adjustment buttons on the side that allow you to change your volume of the ringer/earpiece at any time (yes, even during a call). The phone has very easy menus you can follow to do just about anything you could possibly imagine doing with a phone. It also has a voice memo recorder which can record minutes of sound in case you need to remember something later. The phone also has calendar you can use to setup dates/important alarms and whatnot. These features incorporate a small memo/palm pilot into the phone. The phone also has a 14.4k modem built in so you can use it in conjunction with the wireless web kit (59 dollars) on your laptop to check your mail. Drawbacks: The phone costs 179.00 dollars. The phone has a fairly nice battery, stating around 2 hours of talk time. I've noticed that sometimes the battery doesn't last that long. I'm considering purchasing the bigger talktime battery since the smaller one just doesn't seem to give me enough time without recharging. Of course, I use the phone quite a bit and do a lot of online surfing on the phone so that might be a cause for the drainage on the battery. The blue LED, although very attractive, does drain the battery quite a bit so this might be something you want to consider. The neat feature is that you can turn off the LED so during the day, you don't waste battery on illuminating your phone when it's not very necessary. Overall: I think that if you are someone who likes to use your phone for various things, such as calendars, voice memos, online web, you will like this phone a lot. If you don't think you're going to use any of those features, then you might want to consider another phone, perhaps something a bit less expensive. The phone is intended to incorporate everything a normal businessman/woman will ever need in a portable electronic unit. It has the sleekness of a nice phone and the power of a palm pilot. You will not be disappointed with this phone because of all of its features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91306 2001/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with features the battery lasts forever no downloadable ringtones a confusing menu big bucks The Bottom LineIf you're a gadget fiend, and want all the features available, this is the phone for you. Full Review I decided in late November that I wanted a new cellphone. I didn't need one, per se; but I wanted one. Being a gadget dork, I figured it was time to trade up to a web-enabled phone. After a lot of comparison shopping, and conferring with my friend Dennis (fellow gadget dork, and a pennypincher to boot), I went with the Sanyo SCP-4500. It's soooo cool -- sort of a pewter color, with chrome trim. It's screen is a soothing indiglo-ey blue, such a nice change from the sallow green/grey screens out there. It has speakerphone, voice recognition, web access, a calendar, games, a calculator ... tons of features. It's got one of those universal menu/selection buttons at the top of the keypad. It's sort of a reverse-teardrop shape, and unlike most buttons it has four-way navigation (up, down, right, left). Which is useful for all the choices the menu provides. But I don't know if it's because I'm a lefty or what, but a lot of the time when I hit the down part of the button, it moves to the left choice. As I say, it's probably my own d**ned fault, but it's a little annoying just the same. Like I said, the phone is loaded with features, all of which are accessible from the menu. Which is pretty tough to wade through at first -- so many choices. But after a while you realize it's three steps down to your phonebook, four steps down to call history, and so forth. I wish there was a way to customize the menu so that your preferred choices appear first, but there isn't. The battery life is nothing to sneeze at. I received the phone on December 1st (today's January 25), and I've had to charge it a total of three times -- honest. Granted, I'm not one of those people who has my cellie on all hours of the day, but I still use around 350 minutes a month. That's talktime and webtime, but the phone is still on a lot more than that. The reception is good, although I believe reception has a lot more to do with your service provider than it does with your phone. Speakerphone is a very nice feature to have, lets you keep two hands on the wheel while talking on the phone. I'm frankly amazed it isn't standard on all cellphones. It works better the closer it is to your mouth, so I usually prop it up on the dash rather than having it on my lap. A few people have been surprised at the size of my phone (it's roughly the same size as the Nokia 6100-series), but to tell the truth I looked at a few of the teeny-weeny ones, and they were too darn small -- I wouldn't be able to dial with my thumb on those tiny buttons, and chances are it'd get buried in my purse and I'd be unable to find it when I needed it. The Sanyo is the perfect size for me. There are nine or ten different ringtone selections, standard ringing and a few classical ditties. But the phone I had before had 35 standard tones, and the ability to install more, so I'm a bit let down that Sanyo doesn't have the capability to customize the tones. I'm going to miss my phone ringing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" when the Red Sox are in town. I paid $179 for this phone through Sprint. While it's a bit more than I would have liked to spend, I'd say it's absolutely worth every penny. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91305 2001/5/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 reception display speakerphone sound quality stand by time long in length less than adequate network The Bottom LineA great phone on a mediocre network... Full Review Folks: My trek through the wireless world continues. Having been a Verizon, AT&T, Nextel and Sprint PCS customer, I've ended up, once again w/Sprint PCS and, now, the Sanyo 4500. Why you ask? Verizon has the best coverage, but so-so call clarity. Nextel has great clarity and speakerphone capability, but limited coverage and expensive rate plans. AT&T has great customer service. Sprint PCS? Sprint's improved their coverage tremendously in the DC area, has made their calling plans very affordable and attractive (e.g. $49.99 for 1,000 [500 anytime + 500 nights and weekend] minutes), and they have comparable call clarity to that of Nextel. The phone? Apart from the fact that it's larger than some of the most popular Sprint PCS phones (e.g., Samsung 6100, 3500 and 8500), it has every possible feature you could ask for in October 2000. First, it weighs only 5 ozs., yet it feels comfortable in your hand and against your ear. Second, its reception is on par with that of any Motorola phone I've used. Technically, according to Sprint PCS and their current coverage map, I'm not suppose to receive a digital signal in my neighborhood, but do so anyway without any dropped calls. I'm about 5 miles away from a tower, and not within its line of sight. Third, the sound quality is exceptional and loud, including that of the built-in speakerphone. It's a full, duplex speakerphone, which means that you can simultaneously engage in a real conversation, without missing a word from the other party. Be wary, however, of the fact that the speakerphone is a power hog which will greatly reduce your stand-by and talk time. This phone is rated at over 200 hours of stand-by and 4 hours of talk time. Fourth, its navigation menus are extremely intuitive, being as good as any Nokia on the market. Fifth, it employs an "Indiglo" type of backlight on the display, making it extremely easy to read both in direct sunlight and in the dark. Finally, it looks pretty sharp, being encased in a pewter, facial exterior. The additional features include a PIM, calendar, 2 games, voice-activated dialing and ringer, and, of course, a web browser. For $199 minus a $50 service credit, it's a great deal. Sprint's significantly improved their coverage and customer service, since I last used them, which was about 1 year ago. If their lack of digital coverage concerns you, then consider another CDMA provider, such as Verizon. If you've got Sprint PCS coverage in your area, then consider them for their affordable rate plans and clear calls. One last thing, don't let the Sanyo name fool you. This phone's quality is exceptional, and rivals that of the big time players, such as Motorola and Nokia. It's larger than some other phones, but that's because it packs so many features. Enjoy! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91304 2000/3/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek small it works well cool no built in pda The Bottom LineThe best phone on the market today is the SANYO SCP-4500! Full Review The Sanyo SCP -4500 is a very nice piece of technology. Only the Nokia Communicator is a smarter cell phone (and that thing is HUGE!). SANYO has cleverly anticipated many features that cell phone users would want in a current phone. Although the cell phones in Asian countries like Japan are far more advanced than those in the U.S., Sanyo has, at least, raised the stakes here. This phone is small enough to put in your pocket (although, it is not quite as small as motorola's very popular flip phone). It's also dual band so you can roam onto other networks if you lose your digital connection. But, what really sets this phone apart from all of the rest is its consumer friendliness. Sanyo actually listened to customer complaints about how these cell phones start dialing numbers when we put them in our pockets or bags. This phone has a "Keyguard" feature that can be activated before you drop your phone in your pants. If keys get hit accidentally, your phone will not start dialing random numbers or allow folks to inadvertently overhear conversations in real-time because your phone was turned on accidentally. Sanyo also understood that folks need their hands free to do driving when they are in their cars. Hence, this phone is voice activated and has a built-in speaker-phone. Driving couldn't be easier. I mean, well, using the phone in the car while parked couldn't be easier. You get the point. This phone is digital so you get all the bells and whistles that come with digital services; three-way calling, wireless web, instant messages, games and even a small calendar. About the only thing this phone does not have is access to an American cell phone service provider that could allow you to use this phone when you travel abroad. Strangely enough, I have been able to roam with this phone on services in Canada and Asia, but this is not exactly an authorized use of the phone. As for battery life? On digital service, your battery will last what may seem like a lifetime. 18 days on one charge on standby. If you are a heavy user of the phone, then, of course, you are going to want to charge it more frequently. And, if you roam on analog networks because of poor coverage from your PCS provider, your battery life drops to about as long as one phone call. Stay away from analog at all costs. This phone has a feature where you can block the analog roaming, if you want. Do you need a phone that provides a built-in method for hands free driving, a speaker phone, a voice activated calling system, and a way to download your e-mail? This phone has got all that and more AND it's easy to operate! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 91303 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 memos calendar backlit screen voice mail clear reception voice activated dialing speakerphone high price Full Review When searching for the perfect PCS phone, I came across the Sanyo 4500. Complete with voice-activated dialing, speakerphone, tons of cool rings, a calendar with memo features, and so much more, this phone will make others stare and drool, which is why I purchased the optional leather case; great for protecting one's phone from others drool. ·FEATURES The Sanyo 4500 packs lots of convenient features. Ever tried to see the names in your phonebook in the dark? Problem solved with the backlit screen. But why find a friend's name in your phonebook when you could just say the name and let the phone do the dialing? Since the purchase of this phone, I have never missed a doctor's appointment. When scheduling an appointment, I simply put the date in the phone and set it to ring the day before the appointment. Caller ID lets me decide whether or not I want to talk to the person calling. If the caller is in my phonebook and assigned a voice prompt, I can hear the name of the caller after the ring. This allows one to hear who is calling without looking at the phone to see who is calling. The Sanyo 4500 also has voice mail and paging features. If one is in a movie and has the phone turned off, the caller will have the option of leaving a voice message or a page. Reception from the Sanyo is amazingly clear. People you call will not believe it when you tell them you're calling from a PCS mobile phone. There is absolutely no fuzz or crackle during conversations. ·CONS Aside from the price, I have yet to discover one flaw with this phone. ·MY ADVICE If you are one who likes to keep up with technology has the need of making phone calls on the go, or if you just like to have people stare and drool at you (face it, their looking at your phone, not you) then this is the phone for you. The Sanyo has many desirable features that make it easy to use and a joy to have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91302 2001/3/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 long battery life feature packed travel charger non flip style cost very poor signal strength The Bottom LineMy biggest fault was signal strength but that may depend on your home area. Full Review Initially, this phone swept me off my feet. I am a gadget fanatic and I loved all the features it had to offer. Here is a quick outline of what I feel are it's shining features and tragic flaws. You will note that I write in the past tense because as of yesterday I put my phone out to pasture and opted for a Samsung 8500. UNBEATABLE FEATURES (not characteristic of other PCS phones [as far as i know]): 1. Indiglo-type backlighting. I am so happy that more devices are coming with this feature. The contrast and light were well balanced and adjustable based upon user settings. 2. Weight. This phone seemed to weigh nothing. My previous phone was a Nokia 5160 which had the same shape but was not even close when it came to weight. 3. Battery life. This phone never seemed to need charging. how can you ask for more than that? 4. Remote security. I have been told that you can send a text message to the phone to deactivate it (through the internet) if it gets lost, etc. Very nice! 5. Travel charger. This may seem petty but the small size of the charger was terrific! You can easily carry it with you without devoting a lot of space to it. TRAGIC FLAWS: 1. Signal strength. For some reason the Sanyo phones seem to have trouble with signal strength. I held my phone right next to friend's Samsung phones in locations all over Portland and I would ALWAYS have 1/2 the signal strength. Something is wrong with this picture! Perhaps it has something to do with the Portland network? The folks at the Sprint store didn't seem to have any information for me when I asked about this though. 2. Volume buttons. While talking on this phone I always fumbled for the call volume buttons. I was never sure if I had my finger on the button to increase or decrease the volume. 3. Speakphone. This is a great feature, in theory, but it's operation was only marginally effective. You had to make a concentrated effort to remember that only one person should speak at a time. I did like the feature when I was dialing a call or calling my voicemail. This way my hands were free and there wasn't the hassle of subjecting another caller to the nuances of the speakerphone. 4. Ring options. I know that some folks find the ringers this phone offers pleasant but I felt like my options were very limited. The classical tunes didn't really do it for me. 5. Speaker size/placement. When I first got the phone I had times where I was holding it to my ear and thought I had lost the call because I could not hear the conversation anymore. Actually I found that the speaker was just small and that I had trouble keeping it placed over my ear. After only a month I assumed that the signal strength issue was a problem with my phone so I returned it. Well my replacement had the same problems. At the time I also thought that the vibrate function was broken but later found that the vibrate mode's "volume" is initially set to OFF. Somehow that does not make much sense to me. Well after two months my replacement 4500 started having trouble making calls. Over two weeks it degraded to the point where I could not make any calls at all. I could accept calls, but one-way calling is not my ideal way of communicating. I brought it to the Sprint store and they allowed me to exchange it for a Samsung 8500. Oh, the beauty of signal strength! With the 4500 I had to shut the phone off at my girlfriend's house because it kept searching for the PCS network (I guess there was a powersave function I may have been able to activate). Well the Samsung 8500 gets 2 to 3 bars of signal and I am now a happy guy. Buy with caution and heed my remarks. It might be slick and effective in your hometown. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 91301 2000/5/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice dial size clarity ring battery life phone book speakerphone kinda clunky looking size weak signal at times The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a great full featured phone, don't mind the costs too much or the size then this is the one to get. Full Review Recently purchased this phone to replace a Startac. It was a difficult decision between another Startac and this phone, as I was worried about clarity and size. For some reason I was drawn to this phone and I am glad I purchased it. Its not the best looking phone out there, but you quickly learn to appreciate its looks...it grows on you. Looks aside though this is a great phone. It is as clear if not better than the Motorola even while travelling. You will love the phone book, especially if you had an older phone. It allows you to store several numbers including an email address under a single person. You will especially come to like the voice features. Not only does it dial a number by you just saying the name, but it also announces who is calling you. No more scrambling to read who it is that's calling. And if you are like me and kinda hate holding the phone up to your ear especially when driving you will totally enjoy using the speakerphone. I tested it out and you can have a clear conversation with the stereo going and being about a yard away. The battery life will probably blow anything that you have away. I've had it on standby made several 10 to 15 minute calls over 9 days and the power bar still showed 2 bars. The only thing I don't like is the size. Its small and light but it does get a bit bulky in your pocket, especially if you put it in a case to protect it. Oh, and one other thing I've noticed, it doesn't quite hold its signal as well as the Motorola I had. But even when its showing only the antenna (no bars) you can still make a crystal clear call. My Motorola could never do that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169 91300 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 new options speakerphone voice dialing a stronger signal battery life is less than expected The Bottom LineLots of features, pretty good quality all around, I would buy it for my mom if she needed a phone. Good luck! Full Review I am one of those people that analyses ever aspect before I make a purchase...this is especially true with my cell phones. Previously, I owned the Sanyo 4000 and I loved it. It was my first cell phone and I felt Sanyo did a quality job. When I heard they upgraded it, I was excited to try the new phone out. Let me just say, I was not disappointed. Sanyo has taken the 4000 and made it rank right up there with the Touchpoints (considered the premier Sprint phone by many). It has every option you could ever need including Wireless Web, a calender, a to do list, you can even store web pages and email addresses in the phone book. Over all I am impressed with the new speakerphone addition, its really a nice option when you are trying to reach a company and you are waiting on hold. It allows you to concentrate on other things (like driving). The voice dialing option is a neat sounding option, but to be honest, I never use it. Its much more convenient to program the 1 key dialing and just hold down four. I also found that it isn't the most accurate option, but it does work. I have found that my new 4500 has better clarity and fewer dropped calls at my house (this was a problem with the previous version). The phone was a good buy to me for this one reason alone to me. I have been disappointed with the battery life of my phone. It is supposed to get "12 days" of life which we all know the listing is about double what an average person can honestly get with any phone. I have gotten 2-3 days at most, I may have my phone tested to see if the battery or phone has a problem though. I have talked to others that have gotten around 5 days. The phonebook with Sanyo's phones are by the the best in the industry. You can store up to 7 numbers, email addresses, or web pages for each person and you have about 100 people listed. No one these days has just one number so this allows you to list everyones numbers. Other cool options: Remote security (lose the phone you can call it and put a security code on it), environment settings, call reminder, there are just too many. The phone is not perfect, but it comes real close. Some might think its a little expensive, but its a pretty average price for a Sprint phone. If you are looking for a great phone with a pretty good carrier (sprint) this one is a winner. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91299 2000/12/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 functions clarity slight big sizeno aftermarket stuff Full Review It's been 3 weeks now, and I've become a cell phone addict since I went shopping for a new cell phone service. I had a Nokia 5160 with AT&T, tried the Voicestream Nokia 8290 and 6190, and now have a Sanyo 4500 and my fiance has the Startac 7867. I love this phone technology! So here it goes... The Sanyo 4500 is the best looking phone IMO of all the phones Sprint offers..period. I really like the Indiglo face. When looking at the pictures of the 4500 I was expecting cheap silver that after use will flake off. The silver/pewter looks of high quality. The buttons are ok. I like the nokia buttons better. You don't feel a click like the nokias' when you punch in the number. Build seems pretty sturdy overall. I really don't like pulling the antenna out when calling, after being a Nokia user for 3 years. But I guess it cuts back on radiation, so that's good. So I've put my Sanyo through some pretty good tests. First off, when you get reception, it sounds amazing. Really really good. Very often I'm mistaken to be at home with my cordless. Remember how the digital cordless, non 900mhz. phones sounded? It sounds better than that and comes real close to the 900mhz. Bad thing about Sprint, is sometimes I don't have reception. I notice holes in my neighborhood big time now. If can't afford to miss calls, Sprint is not be the way to go. I have a feeling that my phone picks up reception a little better than the Startac. But not that much better. The startac is great too, but I don't think I can talk on it for very long. If you can miss a couple, Sprint, is good. My complaint about the 4500 is it's hard to determine if whoever calls you is a stranger or a friend. Voice recognition can be difficult for the first 3 sec. With AT&T it was better. I'm sure it has to do with frequency. The one thing that drove me away to Sprint is the damn compression everyone uses...esp. Voicestream and AT&T. You really can't tell if you've lost the caller or not. If the caller stops speaking, you think you've lost them. My Sanyo doesn't do that. Much more natural. That's the big difference between Sprint, Voicestream, and AT&T. I've used the Sanyo in stores, and very Loud Bars. I really couldn't believe I could talk in a bar. With AT&T and Voicestream, I had to go out. Way to go Sanyo/Sprint! I bought this phones so I can keep in touch with people while I'm on the go. I don't care about games or the Calendar. I have a Palm for that. I really wish it had an IR port, but more importantly I wanted a serious convenient phone. The speakerphone is cool also. Not very useful in my convertible though. If you had a top on your car, I think it would be very useful. The quality is on par to those Panasonic Speakerphones you could buy at Service Merchandise. It's surprisingly loud. I'm happy with the Sanyo. I wish it had accessories like the Nokia phones, but it doesn't and I don't think it ever will. So, my rating goes as follows.... #1 Sanyo 4500, #2 Nokia 8290, #3 Startac, and #4 Nokia 5160. Overall, if you're in business, I'd recommend this highly. It's simply a good phone. If you want something cool to show your friends and don't talk much, Nokia's good. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 + tax 91298 2000/10/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speaker light headphone jack looks battery charge blue screen price Full Review I bought this new phone a few weeks ago and I love the thing. I used to use one of the original Qualcomm phones and even tried a newer, slimmer Qualcomm and a Samsung flip phone, but nothing could compare. All these phones are used by the Sprint PCS system and if you are going to go with the best mobile phone carrier, you might as well get the best phone. I decided to get the phone because I am worried about the effects of radiation on the brain over a long period of time. With this phone you can combat it a number of ways. First, the antenna comes out, to give you a little more protection than the Nokia I used in another plan. Secondly, the phone comes with a head/ear phone jack (On the upper left side). If you decide to go with an earphone, you can do that without a large contraption that would be needed on an older phone. Lastly, and most importantly is the speaker itself. The speaker keeps your head completely away from the phone. You can talk into the speaker from even a few feet away in a car or not-too-noisy location and have a clear conversation with someone (Volume adjusts by up/down rubber keys below the earplug). The phone is very light and has a sleek, futuristic look about it. The display has a blue back light as well, which makes for great contrast in all types of lighting. The phone is pretty easy to use with a 4-way direction key above the numbers and between the "talk" and "end" keys. Above that is the "speaker" key where you can get the speaker to turn on in an instant instead of fumbling around with menus. This phone is all about convienence, besides getting to the phonebook where you must push a few more buttons than most phones. I can store several numbers and an email address per person and it labels which is which. The phone holds several hundred numbers. You can also voice dial numbers after a little training of the phone to get used to your voice, very handy in a car. Again convienence and safety. You can even store a few numbers most often used as well for easy dialing. The battery lasts forever it seems. It can go about a week without recharge on standby with occasional calls and a supposive 3 hours with continuous talk. The phone can even vibrate instead of ring too, but then you would miss out on all the cool rings and beeps (you can control tone and pitch for them). The games on the phone aren't too good. You get a "crab-grab" and slots game. Overall, the phone is great looking, easy to use, safer for driving and for your brain, very light, holds tons of numbers, easy to figure out, the screens are not tough on the eyes... what more do you want? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91297 2000/7/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of battery life lots of features sometimes weak reception sound quality is decent but not fantastic The Bottom LineGet it. Full Review I bought this phone to replace my Motorola Startac 7760 Dual Band phone (which had Verizon wireless service). The #1 thing that was driving me nuts with the Startac was poor battery life. My fiancee recently sold her car, and while we wait for her new car to arrive (and are down to a single vehicle) I decided I can't be bumming around with a cell phone that has a dead battery half the time. The thing that immediately attracted me to the Sanyo SCP-4500 was the awesome battery life. Review after review reported that they were getting fantastic battery life with this phone. I loved the idea of charging up the phone and actually getting over a week of standby time (I am not prone to charging my phone daily and I also go days without getting a single call on my phone). I can happily report that the battery life on this phone is superb. It did take several charging cycles for the battery to get to full potential... now this thing goes forever. My phone has been on continuously for 3 1/2 days and reports a full charge still. Some reviewers have reported that they are not getting the best battery life. I suspect that they have not cycled the battery a few times. Other things that will drain the battery more quickly would be the phone switching to analog roaming (often), use of the backlight and PIM functions, or making phone calls (remember, talk time is only 4 hrs). Aside from the excellent battery life the phone has some other outstanding features for a phone in this price range. The wireless web features work very well and are handy for when you need to look up a phone number, or get a short email while on the go. The phone also has a full PIM (Personal Information Manager) built in to it. The PIM won't replace your palm pilot but does make it handy to not have to carry a 2nd device with you ALL time time. It can handle reminders, has a great phone book (that can remember 5 phone numbers per entry as well as a web page and email address) and can do to-do lists and calander functions. The phone also has a speaker. The speaker is a nice touch. So is the voice dialing and voice prompting. It's great to have the phone ring and say "Home" to know where your call is coming from before you even pick the phone up. The phone's ergonomics are quite good. The "candy bar" shape fits quite well into a pair of pants or a jacket pocket. I actually found my Motorola Startac TOO small. The buttons were hard to work and it was difficult to work the flip with one hand. Additionally it is uncomfortable trying to hold the bottom of such a small phone when you have man sized hands... in comparison the Sanyo is "just right" ... small enough to fit in a pocket, but large enough to feel like you actually have something in your hand when you make a call. Some have reported erroneously in their reviews that the phone is missing a keyguard to prevent buttons from being pushed when it's in your pocket... this is incorrect, it does have this feature. Reception quality on the phone is decent but not outstanding.. I think they prioritized battery life over reception... which is fine, the phone still tries to boost reception when taking or making a call. Sound quality is not as good as my Startac, but I still find it accepteable especially for the short type calls that most of us make on cell phones. All in all I am very satisfied with the device... it might take some time to learn the features but you have a single product which can fit the needs of almost anyone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91296 2000/8/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid phone with highly usable menusgreat quality some cdma echo issues gimmicky features aren t that great The Bottom LineIf you don't want a flip phone and may be making calls out in the country, this is a good phone. Full Review Having worked at Sprint PCS in the past, I had some experience with this phone before I bough it. In fact I chose not to even look at other phones or services because I knew I was spoiled by the quality of the phones and especially the service. Calling this phone a "web phone" is really doing it a disservice. Yes, it is web enabled, but its more of a phone than a wireless web tool. My Experience I bought this phone right as we were moving from Kansas City to Phoenix to make up for the fact that we had disconnected the phone and would be on the road for a matter of days with the delays in activating service once we settled. The phone arrived already activated in the box. I was able to call and make reservations from the road in the moving van for where we were going to sleep that night. I purchased my phone off of the web since I had already played with all of the phones at work and in the stores. I would suggest doing this even though the site can be down right unresponsive at times. I didn't have to deal with any sales people and some of the marketing ploys that PCS uses to entice you become evident when you look at them on the web. The phone is about the size of a Snickers bar and is fairly tough. I've dropped it a number of times and it still works. Battery life is impressive. With a normal amount of work talk and "I'm on my way home" calls, the battery lasts for close to a work week. If I make a few long distance calls, which are free for my plan, I may have to actually charge it during the week. Since the phone comes with a travel charger and not a charging base, it is somewhat of a pain for me to charge it since I tend to plug it in in strange places as opposed to my desk. I tend to forget to take it with me in the morning. The lack of a standard belt clip from Sprint PCS makes it a pocket phone. Its rather large for a pocket phone and I tend to leave it in conference rooms since I take it out of my pocket when I sit down. Why I bought the SCP-4500 I bought the SCP - 4500 because of the good experience a coworker of mine at Sprint PCS had with the 4000 model. We got to test phones and he tested that one. He may still be using it to this day actually. I also knew that I didn't want a flip phone that I had to open to see who was calling. This was the phone that best balanced out price and quality. Go much lower in price and the phones tend to be really crummy quality -- too much higher and you start to waste money. I just can't justify spending the money for any of the StarTAC phones from Motorola. What I like about the phone The menu system was really easy to learn and made sense, unlike the Nokia phones. Apparently this is a cultural difference between the American mind and the European mind. Sprint PCS has a segment of the company that focuses on usability in the software and hardware of the phones. All of the Touchpoints use this custom software, so do the SCP model Samsungs. The Nintendoesque "Mouse" makes the phone a breeze to use - another throwback to Sprint PCS usability. The buttons on the phone are very tactile and I can tell when I have pushed a button even when I have my stereo turned all the way up in the car. Although I no longer use the wireless web as much as I did when I worked at Sprint PCS, I have found that reading long paragraphs on the small screen is remarkably easy to do. I don't have an explanation as to why, but I really had no trouble making sense of the sentence structure and paragraphs. What I dislike about the phone The speakerphone isn't that great. The phone has a noise suppressant that mutes the phone when you are not talking to cut out wind noise and other background noises. Unfortunately, the phone has trouble recognizing when you talk and the phone is resting on the seat or your desk and it sounds like you are talking through a phone with a bad cord that cuts off several times during a sentence. I simply don't use this feature anymore. Typically the need for this is in the car, and an earpiece/microphone solution is probably a better solution anyways. The voicedial feature takes a lot of programming and is actually subpar to the software solution that Sprint PCS provides with its VoiceCommand service. This is a pay service, but it comes with some really cool features. I just can't justify the time it takes to set up the voicedial feature of the phone. It has trouble recognizing what I say anyways. Also, this is the first time I have run into what is called CDMA echo. Sometimes when I call someone my voice echos back in my ear a half a second later. The person on the other end doesn't hear it, but its like talking into a stadium PA system. I think this has more to do with the service than the phone due to its name. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 91295 2000/10/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great interface qualities speakerphone voice activated dialing longest battery life to date minor software glitch potentially confusing menu Full Review When Sprint PCS first began, about 4-5 years ago, they had 6 phones in their lineup. Now, as of October, 2000, they have a couple dozen, all excellent phones with unique qualities. The Sanyo 4500 now is a great addition to the lineup. Along with the standard features available on all PCS phones, the Sanyo 4500 has special, unique features that make it worth the $199 SMRP. The first notable thing about the Sanyo 4500 is its classy look. It is shaped and styled as a one-piece handset, not unlike Sanyo and Nokia standard wireless handsets (as opposed to the flip-tops and clamshell types brought out by Motorola and Samsung). While flip-tops are styled for looks and to be compact, they are more susceptible to sound issues, i.e. hearing through the earpiece. This is not the issue for one-pieces like the 4500. In fact, as an experienced wireless individual, I have found that the 4500 provides excellent sound quality as a one-piece. Aside from the receiver/microphone setup, there are other aesthetic qualities that make the 4500 pleasing. Its metallic hue follows the form currently running, of making a phone "shiny" so that it has an element of being "cool." Personally, I strive to separate myself from "cool" looks, because it won't be cool for long. Practicality is often sacrificed for such coolness, as can be found in the Samsung 8500, which has been plagued with several troubles. In the case of the 4500, however, the hint of coolness is there, happily married with practicality. One feature not found except on the 4500 is the lighting. As with many newer phones, the keypad is lighted, but Sanyo has added an innovation found in the backlight. it may not seem like much, but once you get tired of the standard black-on-green screen of standard wireless phones, you'll understand. Perhaps it's because black-on-green is too reminiscent of the primitive computers which displayed one color for text, green, on a black screen. The 4500 introduces an Indiglo-like backlight. In the dark, it sparks up blue. It provides excellent readability in darkness, and soothes eyes tired of black-on-green and the strains to read it. The internal features of the 4500 carry on the handset's practicality meshed with stylishness. There are 9 ringer types, including MIDI tunes of Bach, Pachelbel, and Schubert. Also, the ringer can be set to vibrate or "Do Not Disturb," which keeps the phone silent, rolling calls directly to Voicemail. The ringers can be customized for calls with Caller ID, without Caller ID, pages, text messages, and voicemail. Also, a notification can be set so when, for example, a call comes in, a voice sounds, stating "Incoming Call!". Other features include One-Touch-Answer and Keyguard. With One-Touch-Answer, an incoming call can be answered by pressing any button, not just "Talk." Keyguard, when set, locks the keypad, so that if your phone is banging around in your bag or stuffed in your pocket, a random hitting of keys won't get you a $200 bill for a call to Zimbabwe. It is not password-protected, so this is not to be used to bar others from making calls from your phone. In addition, the 4500 provides easy menu navigation and access, with an amorphous direction button on the front that takes you through the menu, and a quick access volume adjustor on the side for your ringer. Software-wise, the 4500 has the latest SPCS software and is wireless web capable, with a minibrowser set in. There are two games (to occupy your time!), Crab Catcher and Slot Machine. The phone is dual-band, which means that you can use it even off of the Sprint PCS network, either through digital or analog roaming. There is also an option in the menu that allows you to choose whether the phone can roam or work only on the PCS network. Personally, I keep it on PCS-only, to avoid inadvertent roaming charges, but for people that may stray from the PCS network, the advantages and capabilities are there. Also, the phone has Voice Activated Dialing programmed in. A distinction should be made between VAD and Voice Command. Both are features offered by SPCS. However, they are distinctively different. Voice Activated Dialing is standard voice recognition: you program in a phone number, and then say the name that goes with it, training the phone to connect your voice saying a name with the corresponding number. It's good for speakerphone and hands-free calling, but the phone will only recognize the voice of the person who programmed it in, but it may not even then if you have a cold. Voice Command is the third generation in the technological development of voice recognition software. It's network-based, which means it's not IN the phone, but managed through the network. Numbers can be programmed in through the phone itself or via the internet SprintPCS.com website. Additionally, anyone's voice will be recognized. No voice training, no worries about letting your friends or family use it, and you can use it even with a cold. While VAD is limited, Voice Command is quite advanced, including a recognition vocabulary of 200+ words and growing. Voice Command is good, but some may not feel it practical to spend $10 monthly to use it (the service's cost), even if it stores up to 500 numbers. VAD is free, included on the phone, and holds 30 numbers. I know that I don't need more than that. So, VAD has its conveniences, and thus, the 4500 provides it. Overall, the Sanyo 4500 is an excellent, aesthetically pleasing, practical wireless. It is one of only 3 PCS wireless that currently have speakerphone, and it has THE longest battery life, with 4.5 hours of talk time and 12 DAYS of standby! But, there are some potential drawbacks. The menu is extensive, and MAY be confusing. Using the games drains the battery quickly. The phone isn't very size-economical, but this is made up by its usefulness, durability, and features. One issue that I know has "attacked" 4500s is an inability to select a ringer type. If you choose Pachelbel's "Canon in D" to play when you get a call, it selects it, but reverts back to the original ringer type. This is just a minor software flaw, and if you take it to a PCS store, they can fix it in about 5 minutes. The Sanyo 4500, despite these minor things, is a great phone for any person, and will definitely stand strong in the wake of new developments in wireless technology, refusing to become obsolete before its time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91294 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 terrific battery life voice dialing great reception oblong awkward shape The Bottom LineVery good voice dialing recognition! Speakerphone is a great convenience. Phone is a little bulky. Full Review The SCP-4500 was my second phone. I only had it for a few days before I gave it to my sister, but in those few days, there were some highlights of the phone that I thought were pretty neat. Features This phone is packed full of features! The voice dialing recognition of this phone is superb! The phone even recognized a name that my sister spoke out, even though I was the one that initially recorded the name. On my previous phone (Samsung 8500), I sometimes had to repeat myself for the phone to recognize the name, but not with the Sanyo 4500. Another wonderful thing on this phone was the speakerphone. This was a large factor in my buying the phone as I am in my car driving a lot. The speakerphone offered handsfree operation without the need for an annoying earpiece. The 4500 lacked a life timer. I often check how much I've used my phone and the life timer is a small yet important feature to me. Physical The only thing that irked me about this phone was that it looked a little strange. The phone is oblong and doesn't fit comfortably anywhere. It's long and a little fat so it would create a bulge in my pocket and cause discomfort. The phone does have a stylish design and layout of the buttons does make the phone look nice, but the physical shape of the phone itself doesn't satisfy me. Sound The sound quality of this phone was great. It sounded almost like a landline. The speaker was very powerful and the ringers did not sound like your regular phone ringer. It was more like a ringer on steroids, offering "3D" sound. The best I've heard from any cellular phone. The speakerphone also had pretty good clarity, but at certain positions it was hard for the other person to hear you. Display The menu also irked me. It was always open, on the main screen of the phone instead of being hidden away and being pulled up when you pressed a "Menu" button. It took up about half of the screen space and made the display look ugly. Like a computer screen, I like my mobile screen to be as uncluttered as possible. The backlit was really soothing to the eyes. I enjoyed the bright greenish blue tint. It was pretty unique as I had never seen this color before on a backlit. It was very easy to read in the dark, good for night driving. Web Enabled The Sanyo 4500 was also web enabled so I could go on AIM and chat with my friends whenever I did not have access to a computer and wanted to pass the time. And with the web becoming more a part of our everyday lives, having the ability to connect to the net through your wireless phone can be a great convenience for many people. The Sanyo 4500 is a wonderful phone FULL of features and impeccable battery life! If you don't mind the shape and size of the phone, the Sanyo 4500 is a perfect match for those on the go who want the latest and greatest features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91293 2000/6/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 so many features clarity etc price speaker phone even more features not so easy to use The Bottom LineRead my 'Verdict' Full Review This is an incredible phone, I just don't know where to start! First of all, I don't own this phone, I actually use Sprint PCS with a Samsung phone. The Sanyo SCP-4500 is one of the newest phones in the Sprint PCS line-up. My cousin who spends much of his day on the cell phone traded in his ancient Sprint phone for a new Sanyo SCP-4500. It looks like this is today's hottest phone, and epinions's too. Anyway, he let me use it for the day because he gets very many minutes for free. Here's what I found: Price: I couldn't believe the price. $199 for the Sanyo SCP-4500! I was once looking at buying the Nokia 8260, but that phone was small and lacked many features. Plus you had to pay extra for the vibrating battery. The 8260 had a sticker of $199, now that is a lot of money. With the Nokia, you're paying for the name and size. Now, with the Sanyo SCP-4500, you're paying less, and getting much more than what you asked for! It comes with so many features, I just couldn't believe that this phone sold for $199. It's a better overall choice than a Samsung flip-phone, but the Samsungs felt more compact and easier to carry. If you spend your life on the phone and use it as a PDA and for voice mail, then the Sanyo SCP-4500 is for you! You can't go wrong with it! Especially at this price! Plans: The Sanyo SCP-4500 is used in the Sprint PCS plans. With those, you get wireless internet, and also you get Sprint's 'Voice Command'. With that feature, you say the name of the person who you want to call, and then the phone automatically dials the number. A nice feature for all you busy people. I use Sprint PCS, and I am very happy with them. Other alternatives are Verizon wireless which can be cheaper, but it's for families. Another comparison is Nextel, but Nextel is quite costly. Sprint PCS is a great provider, I'd actually consider buying the Sanyo SCP-4500. Durability: The Sanyo SCP-4500 seems to be a solid phone. I wasn't able to scratch the screen that day... Well, that's good. Some phones that I have tried are built cheaply, such as Audiovox. Look good on the inside, bad on the inside. The Sanyo SCP-4500 is look good on the outside, and look good on the inside. Quality: The Sanyo SCP-4500 doesn't have a cheap feel to it at all. I have tried the Nokia 7260 also, and it feels a bit cheaper. The Sanyo and Samsung phones are very good quality however. Everything just seems excellent. You aren't paying a lot, but you sure get a lot of quality! Battery Life: You can get about four hours of talk time on the Sanyo SCP-4500. That's quite a lot, and that's more than some other phones that I have seen. The battery life is quite excellent. If you need a phone that will last you quite a bit regarding the battery life, then the Sanyo SCP-4500 is a good choice. It uses a Lithium-Ion battery. So, you can recharge it, just like on all phones! Navigation: Here comes the bad part. I got a little stuck. I was utterly lost for a while. But, I was then able to find my way through. I did find the left and right buttons to be a little less responsive than the up and down buttons. I found phones from Nokia, Motorolla, and Samsung to be easier to use. Because the Sanyo SCP-4500 has so many features packed into it, it may be harder to use than other phones. I prefer the Nokia menus over any other. This phone might not be a good idea for beginners, they should try some easier phones. But, of course you have to learn things anyhow. You will eventually get the hang of it. I did... This shouldn't alter anyone's decision whether they will buy the phone or not. Clarity: The clarity on the Sanyo SCP-4500 was surprisingly good. My cousin works near downtown Chicago, so I tried it there. Just a little static here and there, but it fared much better than other phones that I had in the past. I walked down Michigan Avenue, and didn't get cut off once. The call was very clear. I walked into some stores, a little more static, but still superior compared to other phones. I took the rapid transit, and yet no disconnections and minimal static! Wow! This phone was quite clear. I went back to my house for about 30 minutes with it. I tried it at the park across the street, and no static! The Audiovox that I tried here died completely. Well, you get more than what you pay for. This is one clear phone! Features: Oh yes, I was amazed at how many features there were on the Sanyo SCP-4500. Here they are: One-Touch Voice Mail - On the Sanyo SCP-4500, you can press just one button, and you can access your voice mail account. I use voice mail a lot. On some other phones such as the ones from Nokia, you have to go through whole unwanted menus, etc... Speaker Phone - I haven't seen many cellular phones with speaker phones built in. Well, the Sanyo SCP-4500 has got it! That means that you can talk without holding the phone! This is good if your hands are busy a lot, or if you're in the car driving. Voice Dialing - The Sanyo SCP-4500 can dial numbers that you have. You just say the person's name, and it dials for you. A very nice touch. Good for people that are on the go, and don't have time. Vibrator - The Sanyo SCP-4500 can vibrate, so you'll know when someone is calling you, and you won't have to interrupt the other people around you! You often have to buy a special battery in some phones which can be an extra $50 or more. Speed Dial - Put in eight numbers, and it will dial them when you press a button. Dual-Band - The Sanyo SCP-4500 is a dual-band phone. You can use it when there are digital signals, or if there aren't any, it will automatically switch to analog signals. You can roam anywhere you want with the Sanyo SCP-4500! Wireless Internet - The Sanyo SCP-4500 has wireless internet. You can surf the net on this phone, you can do your shopping there or do other neat things. Plus more features... The Verdict: The Sanyo SCP-4500 is a very neat phone. It's probably a "Perfect Phone". It doesn't cost too much, and yet has so many features. It's also a dual-band phone that has a solid design, and most likely has high quality internal parts. So, if you're a very busy person, I think that you'd more than love this phone! Is it a best buy? Yes. Is it the best in its class? By far. It's a businessman's best friend! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91292 2000/10/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speaker phone long battery life stylish design affordable voice activated dialing especially with a leather case on slow switching between digitalanalog mode thick phone The Bottom LineSmartest phone for under $200- Cdn and with the speaker phone you can talk hands free in the car. Comes handy in NY! Full Review Hello First Impression Firs let me apologize for this opinion which was my very firs or second posting on this web site. Got low ratings for this. I really had no idea how long an ad/opinion should be and what people expect from your ad. I get the picture now and I also got the Sanyo SCP-4500 last October and this is my first cell phone. I love it! To tell you honestly I was looking into phones before I made up my mind on this phone and I found nothing that would compare to this set for the same price range. Main features The best thing I like on this phone is the speaker. When I drive and the phone rings, all I have to do is press speaker and turn the phone upside down because the speaker is on the back of the unit. This way I can talk hands free while driving. Way too cool. Mini web browser which I never used. The other this is the voice memo. You can record your own voice for later reference and play it back as many times as you want for your self or for others. I also like the huge memory. This phone remembers 200 names with phone numbers and E-mail addresses. Out of this 200 record, 30 can be activated by your voice. You have to teach your phone and than all you have to do to call someone is to say his/her name and this phone will dial the number and makes a connection for you. Likes Things I like the most in this phone are: The design. beautiful ring tones. I love the black/silver color combination. The phone looks very high tech. The other thing is the speaker phone and the third one is the big blue display which can be seen in dark and daylight as well. let's don't forget about the battery life. I can go a week before recharging this phone. talking in an average of 3 to 5 minutes a day can go a week before you have to recharge the battery. If you decide to play games and enter allot of phone book data, your battery will drain faster since the phone uses it's background light during such operations. Dislikes There are a few annoying things about this phone that are not preventing the average mobile phone user to chose this unit over the other brands or models. Firs is the phone's thickness. This phone is anything but flat. It looks great but it is thick and kind of heavy too. I would never put this phone in my silk shirt's packet! :-) Imagine that. I have a leather case for it which makes it even thicker. Else: The phone has a weird design. The head set has to be exactly on your ear to be able to hear anything out of it. This cell phone is slow. It turns on slowly, it turns off slowly and it switches between analog and digital mode very slowly. That's all. Reception is ok depending on your service provider. I had a very few disconnection. mostly when being in underground garages, etc. The facts Cool, Cool, Cool! Lots of phone for your bucks. Speaker phone, 200 names in phone book, Big blue screen, Long battery life, also battery charges up fast. Voice memo, etc. Better than most Nokias out there. Once I dropped the phone and the battery flew away. Now I have a leather case for it which makes it look too big however provides great protection from dust, dirt, scratches & damage. I recommend this phone for the above average cell users. It's got so many features, I don't use half of it but you might do. Enjoy it! :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 91291 2000/1/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 appearance features minor annoyances for phone junkies Full Review I hope I don't talk myself out of it! My husband and I usually buy a pair of the same phones. I wanted a change this Christmas, though my Sprint PCS Touchpoint was just about everything I could want in a phone, I was ready for a new look and some bells and whistles. Here's what I've got. Now, I've only had the phone for close to two weeks. But I figure, it takes less time than that to embrace a good thing or hate it. Let me start with the downside. Though I love this phone's sleek appearance and features, I was a disappointed. There are some annoyances that I'm still getting used to. I poured over the phone's feature to hope it owned up to what I (and hubby) already had..it didn't in some respects. The Call History of the phone includes the date and times of Outgoing, Incoming, and Missed logs, but it does NOT included the duration of those very calls. This was a feature to which I was accustomed. Once I let my phone out (which I do) I can't tell at a glance what the duration of those calls was. Boy, my brother's going to have a field day with it, and I won't be able call him on it right away! Also, I'm concerned about the phone's durability. I haven't had any drops with it yet, but I hope it holds up. Its delicate appearance makes me a little skeptical. My Sprint Touchpoint took a number of hits and kept ticking pretty darn well. My nephew who's the designated family klutz with phones has recently broken two of his (older models), and his insurance won't cover him for another year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one. I'm not a fan of the dangling antennae. Yes, it's supposed to be safer due to the proximity of the utility, but if you're into appearances, it really takes away from the coolness of the phone. Think: deer caught in headlights. The phone has a great face, but there really are too many buttons on the surface of the phone. Many phones have an obscured, out of the way power button. This phone has the power button on the lower, left-hand surface of the phone. This wouldn't be anything of a big deal, but the surplus buttons clutter the phone. For example, the TALK and OK buttons could execute the same functions as could the CLR and END buttons. Many a phone has functioned and looked great while housing fewer buttons. The games are nothing spectacular. I lean towards the Slot Machine over the Crab Catch, but the games really do drain the battery, especially if you use the back light during play. The High Battery Consumption Warning reminds you of that risk every time you choose to go that route. The AC Adapter charger plugs directly into the phone. Mine did not come with a desktop charger that I was so used to. I may break down and pay the $40 for the desktop charger, as I was bummed out that the phone didn't come with it. The voice services features of the phone are great, BUT as far as I can tell, if you use the VOICE RINGER that chimes, "Incoming Call from ****", (your programmed name), or if you use the VOICE PROMPT, "Please Say the Name", (to voice dial) then you can't use the tones and melodies that the phone has to offer. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I've played with it to the point of exhaustion and the voice features appear to override the ring types. The default ringer applies for voice service functions. You can't use those features AND have the lovely chimes you may want. The ringer alerts play though the speaker phone which is something I have to adjust or get used to. The beeps and tones are either too loud (ringing) or too low (voice prompt) so it will take some tweaking. As you may have noted by now, I'm rather particular with my phone. I like to have control over the phone's operations and that does take some time with this model. The melodies are quite lovely (Chopin, Strauss, Mozart, Pachelbel) but I think that in a crunch to find out who's calling, the melodies may not be distinctive enough to distinguish for the untrained ear. Sometimes in a meeting, or with lots of everyday noise when I hear an incoming call all I hear is "tone". Oh, the melodies are lovely, but the tones are terrible! I haven't found one that I like...other than the VOICEMAIL #3 and START UP Tone A which are only available for those functions. Also, the "beep" for voice activation appears to be consistently lower than other tones. Without the voice prompt, you could find yourself repeating names in public places..a little embarrassing until you've set things just right. If you're married and have a competitive husband (I do) who loves his phone (He does), you have to know what you're talking about (I hope I do) to defend your position some times (I hope I don't have to)! This may one of those times! So here's what I like about the phone: The sleek appearance of the phone is very trendy! It's a little long but the width of the phone is about the round of my forefinger to my wrist - rather small! I can carry this phone in my purse and hardly feel the extra weight at all. In fact, I forget I have it with me! The display panel of the phone was a selling point for me. The back light color is unique and fashionable. I like the ANY KEY Answer function. I haven't gotten used to that one, but I'm looking forward to it. The speaker phone didn't matter to me at first, but I surely do use it a lot, especially when on HOLD or calling the bank for late breaking news! I plan to use it for parent conference calls with my students.. The speaker is on the back of the phone, but the microphone is on the front. This makes me leary about garbled reception, but so far it's worked fine. I LOVE the voice activation dialing. I've programmed many numbers already! The centered mouse makes for easy navigation, though the arrows don't appear to "loop" in both directions through all the features. The signal and charge on this phone are great! Despite some minor annoyances (every phone has them at some point), this is a great little phone for a trendsetter, business exec, or anyone who likes new and cool items...I took a risk buying this phone. I think I like it enough to hold it up to hubby's dying breed (Touchpoint). If I don't like it I can always revert..nah! This one has definite built-in cool! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91290 2000/2/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 pim bright backlight auto answer voice dialing speakerphone intuitive text input some of the menu organization no mailing address area in contacts The Bottom LineBuy this phone if you need a functional phone with many practical options and very few useless ones. Full Review I've only had this phone for 3 days now, and I already have to write about it. Certain to return in a few months with updated info about real life battery usage and clarity over different networks, this review will showcase this phone's many useful, and not so useful features. First, I'll quickly explain what I needed in a phone. I'm not a constant talker and I don't need a phone because it's cool to have a cell phone ring at the bar letting everyone know I'm hip on technology. I needed a phone for two main reasons: 1) to keep me in touch with my fiance. I have an hour car commute and often work late, and she takes the train into NYC often with train delays. And 2) for a simple to-do list. I know, I should buy a palm right? Not yet, the technology is too immature and everything I wanted in a handheld lead me towards buying a laptop. ************************************************************ EXPLANATION OF REASON #1: I'm mostly finding myself needing to make calls in my car which I am TOTALLY against. So I wanted to find the best compromise between safety and convenience. Here's what the Sanyo SCP-4500 has to offer. A) SPEAKERPHONE- loud and clear, both speaking into and listen to the speaker. This option is accessible anytime, with a button directly under the screen. B) AUTO ANSWER - this will allows you to set a number of rings (1,3,off) before the phone automatically answers the incoming call. If you're trying to hide from your boss during those "sick" days, this might not be the best thing. But now you don't even have to touch the phone to answer it. C) VOICE DIAL - I know "voice command" is offered on most of SprintPCS phones, but this one does it without adding any options to your service plan. It will allow you to dial up to 30 records in your phone book simply by recording your command once and then saying it anytime. D) PHONE BOOK - it allows multiple numbers per entry (work, home, fax, mobile), plus an email address which you can use to send email from the phone and a web address which you can browse, from the phone if you have wireless web. However, my problem with this feature is that the entry for the name only allows 16 characters and there's no area for mailing address (not that big a deal). ********************************************************** EXPLANATION OF REASON #2: Recently I've been looking into buying a handheld and found nothing that was everything I wanted and nothing I didn't. What do I need an MP3 player for in my $600 handheld if it can only store 5 songs? Get me? So I ended up realizing all I needed was something to organize my tasks for the day, remind me if I missed something, and to set up recurring tasks. Here's how this "phone" doubles as a "PIM". A) CALENDAR - you can view the current week dates with an asterick next to any dates with "events" associated with them. B) EVENTS - click on a date to add a scheduled event or call alarm (see below) with a date, start time, end time, alert, and recurrence associated with it. C) CALL ALARM - schedule a call you need to make, with a phone number, and an alert associated with it. D) TO-DO LIST - clicking on any date in the calendar you can view your to-do list. There, you can add an item or convert it to a scheduled event. It's good for short "memory joggers", that will remind you of what you have to do, not a LONG task description. And my one big problem with the to-do list is that it's down 3 button clicks (see Menu Organization below). E) T9 DATA INPUT - this is an intuitive typing scheme Sanyo employs that I was VERY scheptical about at first, but quickly found to be a much better, although not perfect, way of inputing regular words and "sentences" OTHER PROS AND CONS: A) MENU ORGANIZATION - I think Sanyo people could have done better with the organization of menu items, that would be more effecient. For example, to get to the TO-DO LIST you need to go to CALENDAR/DATE/TO-DO LIST. That's three clicks. While on the top level menu items, theres: DISPLAY, SOUNDS, and SETUP, which ALL could have been grouped under ENVIRONMENT item. However, once you are in a section the choices do make sense about what you can do next. B) ONLY TWO GAMES - This is a definate PRO! I do not want to pay almost $200 so I can waste away my batteries playing stupid mind numbing games. That's what game consoles were made for. But if you do like to play games, there's a "Crab Catch" where you have to catch falling "things" and a "Slot Machine" (yes, exactly like it sounds). C) CALCULATOR - a convenient calculator allowing you to do simple computations on. Don't think you'll be doing trig problems on this one. But hey, it's usefull. D) RINGS - there's about 15 different rings available on the phone. 5 tones and another 8-10 "songs". Usually useles and only prove to be annoying in the theatre, but through the SETUP and ALERTS, you can specify different rings for differnt things. If the call coming in is in your contacts, or if it's a restricted number, etc... many options (tone, song, song tempo, volume, key volume, key tone). Oh, forgot to mention my personal favorite and a MUST for my purchase, VIBRATING ringer. E) VOICE RING - this goes along with rings, but I had to separate it. Using caller ID and your phone book, you can have your phone speak the name of the caller for a ring of an incoming call. pretty simple.. but really cool F) PRESET ENVIRONMENTS - you can set and save pretty much all the options that go along with ringer and display as a named preset. G) ROAMING ALARM - notifies you that you are out of your regular service area H) WIRELESS WEB - pretty cool, forget reading anything longer than short info. Good for movie times, other web mail (Yahoo and Hotmail), purchases (although I don't know if it's secure), and some other cool stuff. And I think that's about it.......... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91289 2000/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features price size Full Review The Sanyo 4500 is finally here. I have waited months for this model to show up here on Epinions so that I can review it since Sanyo makes my favorite phones. Sanyo has followed up their 4000 series with an even better phone. Sanyo has packed so many features into this little baby, it would be crazy to try and list them all here, but leave it to me to try. THE BASICS While Sanyo is not that well known for making wireless products, they truly make a great phone. Their models test better than any other phone on the market, and the 4500 is no exception. This phone has added features from the old Sanyo model that, in my humble opinion, make it the best phone on the market. The main feature Sanyo added is the voice activation combined with a speaker phone. There is no more buying car accessories to turn your phone into a hands free device, it is built into the phone already. Even surpassing other models with speaker phones, the one touch access of the 4500 is the easiest system to use, all you do is press the speaker button and a voice asks you who you would like to call. Just say the name aloud (you do have to program this name in the phone.) Do you need more? Well, the 4500 has it. The phones battery has a four hour talk time, and an amazing 12 days of standby time. The phones display holds five lines of text, and screen has a blue backlight, for easy reading. The phone also has Tegic T-9 text input. This input system allows for easier data entry for the phone book and wireless web. It remembers common words and adds these words with less keystrokes. The phone also comes with, as all PCS phones now, caller ID, enhanced voice mail, call waiting and three way calling. The phone also has wireless data. With this data feature you can surf the web directly from the phone, or run your laptop computer with it (the phone does take a 99.99 adaptor for laptop usage.) These are the points that are easy to name, the features go on and on, though. For an example, if your phone gets stolen, you can call your phone and have it lock itself so that no one can use it. You can record 10 voice memos of directions or phone numbers. The phone contains a calender and alarm system as well. With a vibrating ringers and a ton of different ringer sounds, the list is endless. The Downers Now I'm not going to give you just the upsides to the phone, that wouldn't be like me. So, here are a few of the not so great things about the phone. First, the price. Sanyo phones usually are on the low end as far as price goes, but this model tops out at 199.99. Not near as much as some phones, but a bit pricey for Sanyo. Second, the phone is a little bigger than most new models. At 5.3 x 1.73 x 1.11 inches, and 5 oz., the phone is one of the larger on the market. Both of these two down points can be attributed to the amount of features the phone possesses. The Wrap Up The phone comes with a AC adaptor, lithium ion battery (no memory with this battery,) and a user guide. The phone is a dual band model, meaning it will switch to analog service, if there is no digital service available, so it will work almost anywhere. The reception on the phone is the best out their, since the phone works of of CDMA digital, the highest quality wireless frequency. This is a phone that you can't go wrong with, it does everything (including two video games,) and since it is Sanyo quality, you won't have to bring it back. Well, it looks like I won't succeed in listing all the features, oh well, I guess you will have to find the rest for yourself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99 91288 2001/6/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cool backlit lcd well built packed with useful features expensive flimsy antenna learning curve The Bottom LineI recommend it because it has so many potentially useful features, and is built well. Full Review My Cell History I got my first cell phone when I graduated from high school in 1993. It was a gray Motorla flip phone (I think everyone knows the one I'm talking about). In recent years, I've maintained that I would not become one of those people who always carries around a cell phone, as it has become the thing to do. In the past year, a lot of my friends and acquaintances have been nagging me to upgrade to a newer phone. I hesitated because I just got it for emergencies and such, and had no real need for a new phone. However, I have been mulling around, looking at various plans and options for the past several months. At work this past week, an email came out saying our business phone service provider (Sprint PCS) was offering a special promotional deal to the company employees. (25% off all monthly plan rates, 30 additional minutes anywhere time, 2 free accessories, no activation fee, and up to $190 off a phone) That pretty much sealed the deal for me. The Phone When I went and talked to our service rep about the plans and such, I was looking around at the phones, and they all looked…. Looked cheap. I glanced over to this plexi-glass display case, and there it was. The Sanyo Dual Band 4500 phone. I knew instantly that was the one I would be purchasing. After going through some paper work, the next day I got my NEW phone! I was so excited! I'm still excited! Initially all the features and whoop-tee-do of the phone were a little overwhelming, but I've gotten over the learning curve in 2 days time. You can too! First of all, I learned the dual band business was important because, it will let you use either an analog or digital tower to make calls... because not all areas are covered digitally. So it would pretty much suck to be somewhere and not be able to call because you had a single band phone. Let me give you a brief rundown of what I like about this phone (aside from the looks). 1. True hands free operation - once you program it, you can tell it who to call, and use the built in speaker phone to talk while driving etc. 2. It talks to you - "Bridget is calling" or whatever, once you associate a name with a number and tell it so. 3. Backlit everything - The LCD and all the buttons light up when you turn it on or do anything 4. LCD Size - it's nice and big and easy to read. 5. Ring options - Volume - Loud to soft, off, and vibrate. There are also numerous ring tones.. everything from normal phone rings to musical bits and pieces. 6. Phone book - it holds like 300 numbers, which is just about how many I have. Each person can have numbers for home, work, cell, and pager, as well as email addys too. 7. Calendar/event function - it's like a mini-PDA. I don't have a PDA, so this feature will probably be useful to me. You can store important dates and set it up to remind you when they arrive. 8. Web ready - yes, I can get online and download info and text surf. If you have a lap-top you can use this phone as a modem and get online at 56K… in your hotel room for instance. 9. AOL IM - it is suppose to be able to do this too, but I haven't tried it yet for fear of addiction…. 10. Size - it's not outrageously small, but not big either. It's just right. (see below) What I don't like: 1. Names in address book are not listed alphabetically. At least, I haven't figured out how to get it list them that way yet. If someone knows please tell me. Lol 2. 2 games - Something about crabs and slot machines. Where is the worm game????? 3. Flimsy pull out antenna - the rest of the phone is built like a tank, why the fishline style antenna? 4. Menu stays on all the time - it never goes away. Someone else alluded to this too. It's not a big deal. Now let me say, those 4 items are what I consider nit-picks. They do nothing to detract from the usefulness of the phone itself. Overall the phone is very well constructed., the operating system is pretty straightforward. I read some epinions where they said it was put together hastily and things about the battery not fitting flush with the body, but this is not the case with mine. Maybe Sanyo went back and corrected this problem or something, but either way, I'm saying it does not exist on my phone. It feels good and solid when being held and not flimsy like some of the less expensive phones I looked at. (which is another pet peeve of mine… I don't like -teeny tiny- small phones where the mic is like on the side of your face instead of near your mouth… you know what I mean? Another thing I read on here was that people were complaining about weak signals and reception and not being able to pick up good inside buildings etc. Now, I believe that is due in part to the service providers cell towers, Not necessarily the phone itself. I haven't had any problems like that… yet. Also, I don't know of any cell phones that work perfectly inside buildings either. Options The phone itself comes with an AC adapter you can plug into the wall to charge it. In addition, I was able to get a free car charger and leather case for mine as part of this promo deal. I know those things are cheap, but hey, it was free! Battery The manual says it can go 4 hours continuos talk, or 12 days on standby. That's good enough for me, and I imagine good enough for most people. It seems to charge pretty quick too. I completely charged mine in a little over an hour. Plan Pricing This has nothing to do with the phone, but just thought I would tell you anyway. With my old phone I was paying about $22/month for 60 minutes of talk time; which equates to about $0.37 a minute. Under my new plan (1230 minutes/month for $27)it works out to about $0.02 minute. Conclusions At this point ( 2 days into it) I am extremely pleased with my new phone. It has everything I've always wanted (part of which is through the provider) . . .caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, 3-way calling, free long distance. The voice automation thing is totally awesome. The phone looks cool , but is not so outrageous that it turns a lot of heads. I would highly recommend this phone to people such as myself who are looking to upgrade from an old cell to state of the art in one simple step. As a side note, the manual for the phone is a couple hundred pages thick… and it's all in English! I was expecting to flip though it and see maybe 1/3 English, 1/3 Spanish, 1/3 Japanese. The point is, there is A LOT to this phone! You've got some bedtime reading to do! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 91287 2000/11/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 style size durability features few ring choices The Bottom LineIt may be hard to believe but this cell phone has given me no trouble and receives my recommendation to anyone looking for an upgrade or first cell phone. Full Review I have reviews about 5 of the phones I have owned in recent past, and I am now proud to say that this phone is by far the greatest phone I have ever owned. It's simple, easy to use, stylish, and durable. Here's a breakdown of what can be found in this review: 1)Looks/style 2)Features (standard) 3)Features (optional) 4)Talk time/ Sprint wireless service **************************************** 1) Looks/style: As you can see from the picture, the Sanyo SCP4500 is a small phone, with no folds or bending features. The display screen lights up automatically when you enter a darker place and is always easy to read. This phone features a large button that is used for scrolling the various menus and features. It also has a speaker phone on the back allowing for more audible sounds and increased range. 2) Features (standard): There are numerous features that come standard on the phone, most of which I will try and list here. I have yet to experience any trouble or difficulty either finding or using any of these features. Custom rings (although not a large variety) Speaker phone option with headest plug-in Expandible antenna Time and date automatically on display Easy-to-use menu with the following options: Call History: Incoming, Outgoing, Missed Message Voicemail system Phone Book Wireless Web Calendar Environment Sounds Display Security Setup Special Voice Service Keyguard A more detailed description of the less obvious menu choices: Phone Book: This feature allows you to label phone numbers as "home" "work" or "mobile" and automatically displays the name on the caller ID if that number is in your phone book. Very handy feature, and it also allows you to add an email address (for those wanting wireless capabilities). Environment: Let's you choose from options like "outside" or "meeting" regarding sounds etc., to help avoid embarrassing yourself in class or a meeting. Security: The place to set a lock code on your phone. Special: Install a game or use the calculator here. 3) Features (not standard): I do not have wireless web on my phone, but Sprint allows you to have such options at an extra cost. You can send and receive email as well as other wireless capabilities. All of these options can be added at any time and many come with a one month free trial. 4)Sprint's service: Once you buy your phone, all you have to do is call the number and have a Sprint representative guide you through the process of setting your phone up. Two of the great selling points for me were the statewide long distance and the online account options. Sprint allows unlimited calling to anywhere in Texas (for me) from inside the calling area. Also, to make sure that I do not go over my alloted minutes, I received a free online account page where I can see when my minutes turn over, how many I have left, and I can even pay my bills online. Another great feature of this phone is the almost ludicrous battery life and talk time. They advertise 12 days of idle use (and I believe them) and over 4 hours of talk time (which I also believe). I never have to worry about being away from my charger because, simply put, this phone will do the job. The phone only cost me $50 (as opposed to $150 regularly because of a special being held for first time Sprint customers. There are a few other phones discounted $100, but only for a short time) The only real negative I have with this phone or the plan is the ringer. It may sound trivial, and in the long run it probably is, but the Sanyo SCP4500 has only a few ring options, and they sound, for the most part, very annoying. It may be hard to believe, and it certainly was for me, but this cell phone has given me no trouble and receives my highest recommendations to anyone looking for an upgrade or a first cell phone. Thanks for reading (I'm finally back writing again!!!) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50(w/rebate) 91286 2002/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent voice quality quality construction superb battery life poor instruction book looks too much like a nokia not very small The Bottom LineThe Sanyo SCP-4700 is an excellent quality phone with superior performance. It may not be as small as a StarTac, but it works as well as one. Full Review If they use cell phones in Heaven, I believe wholeheartedly that everyone there is now and always will be talking on Motorola StarTacs. I feel that this phone represents the epitome of perfect cell phone design, and it has just enough features to make it good at what it is -- a mobile phone -- while not having so many that it's complicated and overdone. So why am I writing about the Sanyo SCP-4700? Having been a Sprint customer for nearly 2 1/2 years, my StarTac that I've had since day one has developed several problems, and I had to send it to Motorola for service. I bought the SCP-4700 to use in the interim, and I'll probably just use the Sprint add-a-phone option when I get the Motorola back and use both of them. First of all, the SCP-4700 is the newer replacement for the SCP-4500, which is why I classified this review here. Most of these comments also apply to the older phone, but if you go phone shopping right now it's the 4700 that you're going to be looking at, unless you buy something secondhand. The SCP-4700 is an excellent mobile phone. It is easy to use, with a great menu navigation system that makes all features easy to access and change. The voice quality -- both what the user of this phone hears and what the people you call hear on the other end -- is superb. I hate to admit this, but it does have a little better fidelity than the StarTac. One somewhat annoying feature, however, is that this phone has no "sidetone." Sidetone is the quality of all normal wired phones, and some cell phones, in which your own voice is fed back to you just a little bit through the phone's earpiece as you talk. It helps you to adjust the volume of your speaking so that you are neither shouting into the phone nor talking too quietly, making it easier for the people you call to understand you. This cell phone and many others have no sidetone, but the Motorola StarTac does have it. This makes it feel slightly unnatural to talk on this phone for long periods of time. The speakerphone included on the SCP-4700 is an incredibly handy feature, however, and it works remarkably well. Placing the phone a few feet in front of you on a desk or table and talking normally, your voice is transmitted clearly and very audibly to people you talk to. Sometimes it's difficult for them to discern that you are even using a speakerphone. The only place where this feature would not work so well is in a vehicle that was particularly noisy, or if were driving with a window open. In those situations you could use one of the familiar mobile phone headsets, for which this phone has a standard jack. Signal quality and indication is very accurate on this phone. On the StarTac, at times the signal indicator shows that there is sufficient signal strength to make a call even if there isn't, and that results in occasional dropped calls, and the annoying digital "trash can quality" in which your voice sounds to the person on the other end like you're talking from the bottom of a trash can. TCQ is almost unheard of on this phone, and so far in two weeks of usage I've not had a single dropped call. That's fantastic performance. Battery life is another of this phone's positive features. So far in two weeks I've charged mine four times, and that's leaving the phone on all day, making many short and moderate length calls. The battery is still new, so I'm finding that its life is a little longer each time I charge it. Stated battery life specs are 4 hours of talk time or 12 days standby. Impressive. This is a pleasant change from the StarTac, which has a small battery and needs to be charged every day if you talk on it much, or every couple if you mostly just leave it on in standby mode. Then, of course, you get to the big gray area of features for features sake. There are many different ringers, including various musical interludes. Cute, but it's hard to hear some of these if background noise is high, so I stick to one of the standard ringer-type sounds. Plus, you have to think of what you're going to look like to people around you when your phone starts playing "London Bridge" when you get a call. Just a minor point. Ringers can be customized to sound different for calls with a valid caller I.D. reading, those with unavailable caller I.D., and those in which the caller I.D. has been restricted to read "private." This is nice because you do not even have to pick up the phone and look at it to know if it's someone you actually want to talk to or some nuisance call from a telemarketer or similar. The phone also can be set to vibrate instead of ring if you use it in locations where a ringing phone could be an annoyance. One nice feature that's not fully implemented, or which has a glitch in it, is the "environment" setting. You can put the phone into a "silent" mode, or a "meeting" mode, among others, and the ringers and other sounds are adjusted to compensate for these locations and their special needs. For instance, the meeting mode silences the ringer and key tones. But the problem is, when you use this feature, all of your pre-set ringers and other settings are lost when you set the "environment" back to normal. I looked for assistance on this issue in the thick instruction book, but found it not very helpful. For one thing, the index is pathetic, and does not have a comprehensive listing of what's in the book. The table of contents isn't a lot better. I know a lot of people are saying, "Who cares, I don't read that book anyhow." Okay, but if you do need to look something up, it's nice to know there's somewhere to go in which you can find the information. I blame SprintPCS for the quality of this book more than Sanyo, because it appears that Sprint has authored most of it. One other factor about this phone that's taking me some time to get used to is it's size. It's no StarTac. Instead of the small, convenient, pager-sized belt clip which holds the StarTac, this phone does not come with any type of case or holder. Sure, I can buy an aftermarket one, but the only ones I've found are big walkie-talkie looking cases that to me are unappealing. Even though I use a cell phone, I don't want it to be something I have to think about. With the StarTac, I could clip it on my belt in the morning, and then basically forget it was there -- until I needed it, when it was handy. Plus, if you get a leather case it will block the speakerphone speaker, meaning you will have to remove it from the case to use that feature. I just carry mine around in a shirt pocket. Some excellent features that the SCP-4700 shares in common with the StarTac are one touch dialing of voicemail, a nice text-based phone book that is tied in with the caller I.D. so that numbers programmed into the phone's memory will show up as the name you stored them under if that person calls you, wireless web capability (which I do not use on either phone), the ability to receive short text messages, roaming security features to prevent you from making roaming calls by accident, and convenient side-mounted controls to adjust the receiver volume during a call. The Sanyo's display screen is large and easy to read, and the user can select the amount of time to leave the backlight on, from always off to 30 seconds. Of course, longer times make dialing at night easier, at the expense of some battery life. With this phone's long-life battery, the use of the backlight is unlikely to shorten the operating time significantly. Overall, the SCP-4700 is an excellent phone at a moderate price. In addition to the features above, it appears to be tough and quality constructed. I'm still partial to the small size of the StarTac, but the performance and features of this one are as good or better than that model. Considering the fact that my StarTac has not been 100 percent reliable, this one may make up for its bigger size by being more robust and sturdy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91285 2000/10/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone size voice dial battery cost on the upper end of models Full Review The time came when I needed to replace an older Sprint phone. The old phone's battery was just not taking a charge, the sounds was starting to have drop outs, and it was having a harder time locking on to the signal. I looked at a number of new phones including the Samsung 3500, Samsung 8500, and the Sanyo 4000. I already owned a Samsung 3500 which worked great but a number of newer models had come out since that purchase and I wanted to keep an open mind. Some of the features I had to have where long battery life, dual band, good audio, and voice dialing. Features in some of the newer phones I had on my wish list were speakerphone, enhanced phone book, and small size. Only the Sanyo 4500 fit everything on my list. First, the Sanyo 4500 is light. It is just slightly heavier than the Sanyo 4000 which is known as a very light weight phone. Second, the Sanyo has a very long life battery. It is rated at 12 days of standby time in digital. This is a little optimistic as it assumes strong signal with no talk time used. Typically I find that I can go 5 to 6 days with 5 to 10 minutes of talk time a day. Charge time is 2 to 3 hours with a mostly dead battery. Additionally, the Sanyo 4500 has very good audio quality. At least as good as a quality cordless phone in your home. The 4500 has an enhanced phone book able to store multiple phone numbers per named entry. This is very handy for people that have work, home, mobile, and pager numbers. No longer a need to have multiple phone book entries for the same person. The 4500 also has a nice feature called voice dialing. With voice dial, you train the phone to dial certain phone numbers based on voice commands. For example, you can train the phone to dial your house number when you just speak "The House" or any other phase you care to use. Going along with this is a feature called voice ringer. When turned on and you have an incoming call from a phonebook entry which used the voice dial option, the phone will ring and also announce "Incoming call from The House" or whatever phase you trained the 4500 for. No need to look at the called ID to see who is calling you now! The last feature I want to mention is the speakerphone. This is not a gimmick but a true working feature. You can place the phone in speakerphone mode, put it on your desk and use it like you would a business speakerphone. The sound is loud, from a larger speaker on the back of the phone, and the microphone picks up voices easily. Great for making group calls or when you just do not have a hand free to hold the phone. The phone comes with an AC adapter similar to other units travel chargers. Also included are the usual manuals and Sprint guides. Overall, this is a great phone and well worth the purchase. With promotions you can even find it cheaper than the list of $199. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91284 2000/3/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 ummm none too fragile poor reception too confusing The Bottom LineNot at all worth the money! Full Review Let me start by saying that I do not own the Sanyo phone, my roommate does. I thank my lucky stars every day while I hear her cursing her phone that I went with the Nokia (see my review). This phone has got to be the most confusing piece of technology I have ever come across. There are so many buttons and features that one needs to be a rocket scientist to navigate it. Even the main screen is confusing with five or six different commands crunched on to that tiny screen. This is definitely the type of phone that you buy, then go home and study the manual as though you are cramming for a final exam. In terms of durability, again the Sanyo fails miserably. This phone is so fragile that even a slight knock or bump may leave you without service. My roommate dropped her the other day. As she bent over it fell out of her pocket and on to the floor, a total of about a 12 inch fall. Her phone did not work for several hours after. It would turn on and then shut itself off. This went on for about three hours and as she prepared to go buy a new phone it finally came on and actually stayed on. Reception is HORRIBLE and I can not stress that enough! There is rarely a day that I do not hear her curse because she is cut off in the middle of a call. Her signal is lost often and there is no rhyme or reason to it. It happens when she is in the car, the house, sitting outside in the yard, or at work. According to her, she loses 4 out of 5 calls a day. While she is on the phone, clarity is poor. When she calls me, one of us is constantly telling the other that they are breaking up or that there is a lot of static on the line. The look of the Sanyo is as confusing as the features. There are so many button on this phone it is like a computer. This may be a plus for some people, but for those like me who are not technologically advanced and like things as simple as possible, this is definitely a downfall. I would not recommend this phone to anyone. There is not really one good comment I can make about this phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 89 91283 2000/5/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 unlimited featureslight as a feather i have found none maybe a slightly annoying ringer The Bottom LineThe best phone I have ever used...and I have used a lot of different cell phones. Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4500 is by far the best cell phone I have ever seen or used. Although it is the very first cell phone I have ever owned, I have used many different models that my parents and friends own and they just cannot compare to how great this cell phone is. I recently felt I needed to get a cell phone and chose Sprint for my plan. When I went to the Sprint store, I asked for the salesman recommendation on a phone to purchase and he pointed me in the direction of some Nokia 600 series or something. As I was looking at it, the Sanyo SCP-4500 caught my eye and I knew that I would be buying it after seeing how small and lightweight it was and how many features it had to offer. I will take a minute to list its immensely great number of features now. It has a calendar, a phone book that holds over 100 names, a calculator, 2 slightly boring games(crab catch and slot machines), voice activated calling, speaker phone, web browsing with chat (AOL IM) capabilities, custom environment types, many different ringers, back lit function that makes the screen glow when it is activated, key guard, call history for past 10 missed, incoming, and outgoing calls, roaming capability and it is both analog and digital. If I left out any of the great features it has to offer, please forgive me, because there are just too many to remember. While I have owned this phone, I have noticed that it is pretty durable, because I have dropped it many times onto the pavement of my driveway and all that happened was a slight crack in the protective screen and no internal damage. Also, I have found that it gets incredible reception when the antenna is up and I have had trouble getting a reception only once when I was in the mountains in Arizona. The only feature I haven't mastered on my phone is the voice activation feature that truly will make this cell phone hands free. Oh yeah, I forget to mention it has a headphone jack for you to plug in you headphones. Also, the battery is extremely long lasting and I have not found myself needing a second battery ever and I have never run out of power. Overall, I would have to say that this phone is the best phone on the market and I have tested out pretty much every Nokia model there is and this phone still beats it out. So if you are looking for a phone and you are a Sprint customer, look into the Sanyo SCP-4500 and you won't be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.99 91282 2000/3/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of gadgets speaker phone price The Bottom LineThe Sanyo 4500 crushes it's cell phone opponents with a variety of gadgets. The phone is a luxury among communication today. Full Review Do you have a cell phone? Well, I'm not sure about you (yeah you with the funny looking eyes), but almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays. You see people talking at work, on the bus, in school, around the house, and even while driving. I was at an intersection the other day and I watched for the secret little conversations. Out of ten cars, four people were chatting on cell phones. Now as cell phones become more and more popular certain problems arise. What is the best cell phone for my money? Should I be concerned with talking and driving at the same time? Will this phone even work where I live? These are just a few of the concerns I'm sure many people face when they begin to shop around for a new cell phone. In this review I will be reviewing one of my favorite phones, the Sanyo 4500. This phone has been out for a few months now, and is becoming quite a popular one at that. Now I'm going to start off by telling you that the most common price for this phone is around $179. Yes, you can get phones for a penny, but if you're looking for a real phone don't waste the penny. So, just how big of a phone are we talking about here? Well, you don't have to worry about carrying those bricks around anymore. The Sanyo 4500 weighs only 4.9oz, and is around 5 by 1 inches. The phone is primarily light gray with a chrome ring around screen. Digital/Analog Phone (Dual Band) Battery Life: This Lithium Ion (vibrating) battery is truly one of the longest lasting batteries out there today. In your digital mode the phone can last up to 4 hours of talk and can last an amazing 12 days of standby time. In the analog mode the phone will hold up for 1.25 hours and 10 hours of standby time. Now, there are always special cases when it comes to battery life. You have to take care of the battery in order for it to perform properly. Leaving your phone in the car over night or during the day can kill the battery. The heat will prevent it from keeping a charge. You should also run the battery all the way down at least once a month to keep the battery in full performance. Speaker Phone: One of the most amazing features on this cell phone is the built in speaker phone. This is a great feature considering all of the cell phone related accidents we hear about today. The speaker phone is even voice activated, so all you have to do is hit one button and say a name to dial. The speaker phone works like it does on your home phone system. You hit the button and start the conversation. I'm sure many of the upcoming cell phones will opt to have this feature. Personal Info: This phone is full of space. It allows you to keep vital dates on it's very on calendar, voice memo's, and written text. If you need to leave yourself a memo either type the message in or record the message into the phone. Voice Activated Dialing- Turn the phone on and say a phrase to call someone Vibration/ Ringer Options- Allows you to have the option of a variety of tones or vibration. The vibration is great for school and meetings. The ringer options included incoming calls and messages. Let's you select a different ring for messages and incoming calls. VoiceMail- one touch and your messages are here Games- Crab catch and slot machine Phone Book- can store hundreds of numbers Wireless Web- You don't have to be near a computer to be surfing the web. Get your e-mail, look at the final scores, talk to some friends, and even check out the local forecast. Wireless Web does not include all websites. Caller Id- Whenever you receive a call the number will appear before you. If you have the number stored in your phone book it will appear under that name. Voice Memo- leave yourself a daily memo Keyguard/Security- Put in a password to keep others from using your phone. You can also use the keyguard feature to keep your phone from calling by mistake (hitting the keys while the phone is in your pocket). Power Save Mode- Keeps your phone from wasting away your battery. Call Log- Helps you recall incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. Area of Use: Now you'll probably want to know if this phone can be used in your neighborhood. You can use the phone anywhere in the Sprint PCS calling area. The phone is a dual band phone, so you can pretty much use the phone anywhere. You should be aware that roaming charges will occur if you use your phone in the analog area. You should try to stay in Sprint's digital calling area. The phone will allow you the choice of cutting off the analog mode, and at anytime turn it back on. This is what I usually do to avoid the large phone bills. Accessories Available: Leather Case, Car Adapter, Data connector, Headset Well, is there anything wrong with this phone? For many of you the price is certainly a problem, but if you are really thinking about purchasing the phone I'm sure the price will eventually drop. Some may be taken back by the silver look of the phone, but you can easily cover this up with the leather case available. I have seen a few of these phones with cracked faces which can point to weak casing or reckless owners. Other than this I am unaware of any major problems with the phone. I must say that I'm impressed by the quality and performance of the Sanyo 4500. Marvien with an "E" Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91281 2002/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone tons of features voice dial menu s are confusing especially if you re an ex nokia user The Bottom LineWith so many features to choose from you should never get bored of the Sanyo 4700 unless you try to read the included manual. Full Review Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Verizon Wireless' newest campaign has officially replaced the annoying Wassup! Thank God I'm a Sprint PCS customer. We don't even have to ask if anyone can hear us, because they can. Okay, that's enough of my criticism of advertisements from competitors - I'm a brand new spakin' Sprint PCS customer and I'll tell you why I made the switch from old Ma Bell to Mr. Pin Drop…..4700. Note: Currently Epinions only has a topic for the 4500. According to the Sprint salesman they are virtually the same, except that the 4700 sports a different silver look and a few other minor changes such as including a vibrating ringer. The GOOD - Where's The Beef. Sanyo's (Sprint's) 4700 is a small (5.31 x 1.73 x 1.11 - 5.0 oz.) cell phone that packs quite a punch. It's has more features than most consumers will ever use. Even for professional business men such as myself - I'll probably never use all of the features it contains. But, it's nice knowing that they are there in case I ever desire them. At a $129 price tag (I bought mine during Sprints $70 off special promotion) I didn't see any other cell phone out there on the market that came loaded with tons of features, was small and compact, looked cool, was inexpensive, and offered the feature I've always wanted on a cell phone. A speakerphone. I'm on a Speakerphone? Yep, the Sprint 4700 comes with a speakerphone on the back. As is the case with much of the phone, the speakerphone measures only 8 dots by 7 dots (dots = those little holes on the back of the case) but this speaker packs enough clarity and volume that it can easily fill a room with an audible signal. The first time I used it I was amazed how at full volume I and everyone else in the room could hear the caller - the caller could hear me/us - and even better it didn't sound like I was about to put a crack in the speaker's cone. However, as is the case with most speakerphones, you may want to remind your caller that they are indeed on one and therefore should get used to talking in turn. If both parties try to speak at the same time - the speakerphone will cut in and out and make it seem, especially to the other party - that the reception is going bad. Voice Dial. Voice Dial is nothing new. Most cellular companies these days offer it in some way. You program in a vocal name and then type in a number. Then, all you do is speak that name into your cell phone - and your cell phone dials that number. I have even seen some cell phones that support this feature by having their users record names and numbers on a web site that the phone accesses each time you initiate a voice dial call. The 4700 however comes with Voice Dial included (in fact in most cases Sprint PCS will try to sell you their alternative service on top of the 4700's own built in service - so you'll have to remember to cancel it once you receive your first bill). Even better, with conjunction with the built in speakerphone, the 4700 will announce in a clear female voice; "Incoming call from" and then say the name of the caller in your own voice that you recorded previously. Voice Dial also allows you to simply push "Talk" once or "Speakerphone" once and then say the name of the person you wish to call or press "Talk" or "Speakerphone" twice to redial the last number. Wireless Web. As is the case with most phones these days, the 4700 supports the WAP. Access to specially designed websites and services on your cell phone. You can search Yahoo, talk to buddies on your AOL IM buddy list, check out places to eat, get driving directions, check sport scores, find out your local weather, and even have the top news delivered to your cell phone. Many of these features require users to have a pretty hefty monthly charge - or, you can pay as you go which I think runs around 30 cents per minute of usage. I've used the WAP for about 10 minutes so far - but soon it lost its usefulness. Some out there may find more use for it - and I may find more use for it during certain situations - but overall, I don't have much use for the WAP. I Have The Power. The 4700 will last about 3 hours during continuous talk - unless you are traveling through multiple service areas. The box states that the phone will last around 4 hours - but I think they are considering that if you charged your phone and then immediately started talking on it for four hours straight. Most of unplug our phone from the charger, drop it in our pocket, drive here and there, and then use it occasionally. All of that "stand-by" figures in to how long the phone will actually last during a conversation. Also, I've noticed that if you are traveling through various service areas (over mountains, etc.) the 4700 will switch from finding service, to searching for service, to finding service again. High on top of the Grapevine (mountain range that separates Los Angeles from the rest of California) the Sprint PCS 4700 spent several minutes trying to find service - and during that time my battery indicator lost an entire bar in the process. The Little Phone That Could. Okay, here we go. The 4700 also offers one-touch speed dialing, one-touch voicemail access (hold down 1 on your keypad to access - can be turned off it you so desire), Caller ID (including various ringer tones to let you know when you have received a Caller ID identified call compared to one that is blocked), something called Tegic T-9 Text Input (supposed to match your keystrokes with words in its database to reduce the amount of punching to type using your phone), Voice Memo (record shopping lists into your phone - 10, 30 second messages), 5 lines of text on the display, In Roam Block (when on, your phone will prompt you "are you sure" when making and receiving a phone call while in Roam), Digital and Analog reception (phone can receive calls on both frequencies - although analog greatly reduces your battery life), Programmable Environments (program an environment such as meeting, outside, in bed, etc. and the phone will alter it's settings - ringer type, volume, etc. to meet your specifications), and Enhanced Phone Book (you can store five different numbers for one name - entry - in the phone book and even assign each number a "H" for home or a "M" for mobile. There are many more features, but I've run out of steam. The BAD - How in the Heck. Did I mention that this phone was loaded with features? Did I mention that it is the little phone that could? Well, did I also mention that with all of these features comes a price. It's confusing as heck to figure out. The instructional booklet that accompanied the product is of very little help. More than likely who ever wrote the book was confused with the phone while trying to write a clear step by step analysis. There are numerous menu's within the phone, and then menus upon menus underneath main and sub menus. In some cases the phone will have even more menu's depending on what you choose in other menus. And through it all it will of course (as it should) ask you "are you sure, etc." with each choice you make thus increasing the number of buttons you have to push to get what you want done in the first place, second place. "Into the Woods, into the wood, and home before dark". One Antenna In Need of Viagra. According to the salesperson, I would "never need to raise my antenna". He even showed me how excellent the reception was on his own phone (yeah right, there's probably a cell tower on top of the store's roof!). Being Mr. "I want to fool around with my new toy" I tried and tried to raise the antenna on my phone. It stood up for about 2.3 seconds and then is slid back down. So, I tired again. And again. And again. And, each time, the antenna went limp and slid down. Of course, after a while I became Mr. "oh I am so stupid" when I realized that you need to pull up on the antenna a little more till it locks in place. Once in that position the antenna will not fall back down. It does, however, remain rather flimsy. So much in fact that I'm afraid one day it might break off. Hopefully not anytime soon. Co-Coo. Perhaps this can be changed - but for now whenever I receive a text message, my phone feels the need to remind me every minute or so that I've received one by uttering a Co-Coo three or four times. I've gone Co-Coo just trying to figure out how to turn it off (see How the Heck in that regards). The NOT THE PHONE'S FAULT - Since it's a part of my phone - in the wireless sense - I thought I'd include this here. If you use Yahoo's Mobile service - take notice of a few things. Yahoo Mobile only allows you to choose the maximum number of times they will contact you in a day. Sprint PCS however charges you by a total number of text message in a month. Figuring out the equation, I can receive about 5 text messages a week and have them included in my monthly charge. But Yahoo's lowest selection is 10 per week. Also, I've noticed that at times Yahoo sends several text messages all at one time. One morning while at work my phone went Co-Coo over and over no matter how many times I hit the Clear button to shut the damn thing up. I ended up turning off the phone before my boss went Co-Coo and called me in for Co-Cooing. The BOTTOM LINE IN OVER 30 WORDS - At the price I paid - I couldn't be happier with Sprint's 4700. It has tons of features, some of which someday I might actually use. But the choice is mine. I love the fact that this phone has a speakerphone. I can answer a call without having to take my hands off the wheel for very long - and I can hear the caller loud and clear. Voice Dial is a saint (although it has had problems recognizing Fred from Craig). And, the wireless features may come in handy one day - if I ever happen to live in a populous enough town where I may actually have a choice where to eat dinner instead of Big Bob's Bacon Buffet. The VERY FUNNY SPECIAL NOTE - One of my co-workers just used my phone using Voice Dial and when prompted to say a name to call, he said into the phone "Phone Sex". To my and his surprise - it dialed. My Aunt Ce. So take note, that at times this phone may dial incorrectly. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59.00 91280 2000/3/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 built in speakerphone dual band feature packed cost The Bottom LineGreat phone, for those with some extra cash. A little extravagant, but with tons of cool, little features to play around with. Full Review The Sanyo SCP-4500 is one of the most recent additions to the Sprint PCS lineup. As a matter of fact, the SCP-4500 is one of the very few mobile phones available at the present time which can possibly match up to my Samsung SCH-8500. Basic Features - The SCP-4500 is a dual-band phone. Basically, all that means is that this phone can place and receive calls on both a specific digital frequency (1.9 GHz) as well as analog (800 MHz). This is important because it allows you to take advantage of the greater clarity offered by a digital network, while still allowing you to roam on older, analog networks when no digital signal is available. - Battery life. Sanyo's webpage estimates that the standard included Lithium-Ion battery gives you a digital talk-time of four hours, and a digital stand-by time of about 12 days. If used solely in analog mode, you can expect a talk-time of about 1 1/4 hours and a stand-by time of about 10 hours. Of course, these numbers can be somewhat misleading. The only way you would have any chance of getting anywhere near four hours of talk-time without recharging the battery would be to put a fully-charged battery into your phone, call someone right away, and stay on the phone until the battery runs out. Any time spent in stand-by mode decreases the amount of remaining talk-time you can expect to have without recharging, and vice versa. Likewise, the second you move into an area where your phone goes into roaming mode, the phone will begin to use more power. On days where you have to go in and out of your service area repeatedly, even if only for a moment or two each time, you can expect to get significantly less than the listed amounts of time out of your battery. - Speed Dialing for up to eight different phone numbers. At the touch of a button, you can dial any one of your speed dial numbers. - One-Touch Voice Mail Access. - Voice-Activated Dialing. You can program up to 30 different names and numbers into the SCP-4500 for the purposes of voice-activated dialing. Then, simply speak the person's name, and your phone will automatically dial the number you've previously programmed in. Your phone will even say the caller's name when one of your voice-dial entries calls you. Try showing your co-workers this little feature around the water cooler one morning. - Vibrating Ringer. - Personal Information Manager (PIM). All this basically means is that you can store names, phone numbers, events, and to-do items in your phone. This is the next logical step in the clear path of convergence between cellular phones and PDAs. The PIM aspects of the phone also feature something called T9 predictive text, which basically means that the phone tries to guess which word you're trying to type. The potential advantage to this feature is that, at least in theory, it allows you to hit just one key for each letter, regardless of which letter you wish to type. The potential problems with this idea should be pretty obvious; needless to say, it does not quite work to specifications just yet. Size As far as size is concerned, the SCP-4500 is a big winner, measuring in at only 5.31" x 1.73" x 1.11" in size. Nor will you have to tighten your belt a notch in order to wear this five-ounce wonder on your waist. In fact, this phone is both compact and lightweight enough for most people to carry in a front pants pocket. If you like the type of mobile phone which flips open and shut (such as the Samsung SCH-8500 or the Motorola StarTAC), then that's one strike against the SCP-4500. Some people prefer the flip-up design because of its smaller size, while others prefer the more traditional, non-flip design for other reasons, such as not having to open your phone to check the caller ID for an incoming call. Unfortunately, since the screen is exposed on traditional mobile phones such as this one, it will get scratched pretty easily unless you purchase some sort of case for your phone. Cost If there's one drawback to this rather excellent phone, it would have to be the price. At $200, you really have to want the Sanyo SCP-4500 to choose it over some of the much cheaper models available. Basically all cellular providers, Sprint included, offer at least one perfectly serviceable phone which is extremely inexpensive or even free when you sign a service agreement. Often, one can purchase an excellent phone for as little as $50 or so. Having said that, most people will probably find it at least a little bit difficult to cost-justify this expensive toy. Overall The Sanyo SCP-4500 is really just an extremely cool phone. It has all the standard features you'd expect, as well as enough bells and whistles to keep you enamored of it for at least a month or two. The only real question is whether or not, after the honeymoon is over, you'll regret having spent two hundred bucks on this thing. I doubt I would. I mean, it's really cool. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91279 2000/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek sexy high performance expensive of course Full Review The Search Continues… I didn't want a cell phone, I needed one. Far be it from me to be left in the dust of any show-off race, and so I sold my soul and decided to finally get myself a cell phone, the must-have accessory of the year. But which to choose? Being an Internet junkie, I knew that I wanted something web-enabled. But there were so many choices! The only solution: to borrow all of my friends' phones and take them for a 3 day test ride, just to see how they fit. Well, testing the Sanyo SCP-4500 was like finding myself behind the wheel of a Jaguar, and I liked it: The Upsides 1.Reception- The scary thing is that the reception on this cell phone is better than my cordless at home, we're talking about pin from clarity here. There's no buzzing and static with 4 or 5 bars, and the quality is consistent and excellent. Along the same lines, the volume had great range, going up to the ear-shattering volumes necessary to overcome angry DC traffic, and managed not to distort heavily when I started to up the decibels. It's the first phone I've seen with that kind of consistent clarity. 2.Appearance-Let's all be honest here, one of the biggest factors that goes into choosing a cell phone is how it looks, or more importantly how you'll look with it. The SCP-4500 is a cell phone that any man could be proud to carry. This thing is smooth as silk, with a sleek design and soft metallic look that reminds me of a top-shelf Lexus with all the bells and whistles. We're talking the James Bond of cell phones here, not pretentious but obviously stylish and cocksure. If the accessories make the man, that's a message worth sending… 3.Screen-The screen is large and in charge, with easily readable font that makes it possible to operate the phone without holding it to your face. And that helps you save face… As for the screen light, this thing is even cooler than Indiglo. The screen is backlit in a warm aquamarine, which provides more than enough light without being harsh on the eyes. Just a detail, but it adds style and comfort in one fell swoop. 4.Battery Life-You're not going to believe this! In standard digital mode you can get 4 hours of talking time out of the SCP-4500, of 12 days worth of standby. In extended mode those numbers skyrocket to 7.5 hours of talk time or 18 days worth of standby. Let me tell you something: If you've been standing by for 12-18 days, they just ain't calling you back. 5.The Luxuries: *Speakerphone-This is a very cool feature, though not especially practical. It's best for those of us who use their cell phones even when they're alone, or if you were driving a car perhaps. Either way, it's still a lot of fun. *Voice Activated Dialing-Feel like calling Bob? Just tell your phone and he's on the line in seconds. This feature won't just impress the pants off your friends, but in tight quarters it will save you the hassle of fumbling through your number memory. *Voice Recorder-The phone provides space for up to 10 recordings of 30 seconds each, perfect for those quick and witty "note to selves" that got Norm McDonald in so much trouble on SNL… *Voice Announcements-Bob calls you back? Your phone will tell you it's Bob on the phone if he's in your dialing memory, which makes it the most intuitive for of caller id out there. *Calendar-No need to explain this. A lifesaver for those of us who're lucky to remember what month it is, not to mention daily schedules. *Vibrations-For those who still have enough shame in this techy world to be embarrassed by a loud ringing phone in public, the SCP-4500 can be set to vibrate to announce incoming calls and messages. The Downside For me, the one deterrent of the Sanyo is the price. While I did want a bit of a yuppie status symbol, 200 big ones for a phone is just too much for me, especially considering how little I end up using it. This is definitely a luxury item for those who have too much discretionary income, or for those whose constant cell phone use make those luxuries a necessity. The Final Verdict As much as I loved it, I turned down the Sanyo SCP-4500 for an Ericsson, mostly for economic reasons (I got a great rebate deal). However, I would still highly recommend this phone to anyone looking for the Lexus of cell phones. Decked out with all the options and a smooth design that makes Shaft look like Bill Gates, this baby will have every other cell phone in town drooling over your equipment… To let me know how if you're enjoying my series on cell phones, drop me a message on my Ericsson by writing a quick one to 2404603594@mobile.att.net Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91278 2000/3/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception sleek lightweight lots of other features speakerphone may have more features than you ll need no timer speakerphone muffled if laid down The Bottom LineGreat phone with lots of features, perfect for the frequent traveler or heavy phone user. Negatives are minimal, and this phone will grow with your needs. Highly recommend! Full Review Unlike some other items in my house, I don't go through a lot of cell phones. I select very carefully, and buy phones that are close to the top-of-the-line at the time I get them…. Although of course they're rapidly outdated by the time they wear out! In the past ten years, I've only had two cell phones, so when my phone wore out last fall, it was a tough decision on what to buy next. In the long run, I skipped all of the flip-phones and phones with features I figured were cute but unnecessary - and found almost the perfect phone for me. I bought the Sanyo 4500 Sprint PCS phone. Specs and Stuff This is a small but solid phone, far smaller than my last phone but a little thicker than some of the ultra-thin flip phones. It is 5.3" long, 1.7" wide and 1.1" high. It weighs only 5 ounces, and has a silver body with a five-line display on the top, retractable antenna (that actually retracts well, unlike my last one!) and a slew of fancy features. These include: · Backlit display, which lets me see the screen when it's dark or dim lighting · Auto Answer and Any Key (optional) which automatically answers your phone after one or three rings, or which lets you answer by pushing any button (respectively). These both can be turned off if you prefer. · Keyguard, which is my favorite feature. This lets me lock the keyboard so it cannot be accidentally activated (either by items it's resting against in my purse, or by the ever-helpful prying fingers of my three-year-old). If the phone rings, I can answer it normally, but the phone automatically goes back into keyguard mode when I finish the call. · Easy scrolling - there is an up/down/sideways scroll button on the front, which allows me to go through the menus, phone book, etc. far easier than with my old phone which had a dial on the side that I had to turn and push correctly to set. · Environmentally sensitive - I say this tongue-in-cheek. It does have a mode that allows you to set the phone so it is sensitive to your environment, choosing between Normal, Silent, Meeting, Outside and Custom. This lets you change the ringer type, ring volume, backlight and alarm settings. · User alerts, like for missed calls (a visual indicator) and new messages, including a display on the screen and a red light on the top of the phone that blinks when it's ringing and when there is a new message. · Wireless Web compatible - allows the user to browse the web from their phone. You do need a special wireless web connection kit to connect your phone to a laptop, if you want to do that. · Messaging - you can get alphanumeric messages and pages on this phone, just like on a pager. · Speakerphone - although I just got to this feature, it's one of the things that sold me on this particular phone. In these days of lawsuits and reckless drivers, it's nice to be able to check my messages or dial a number on speakerphone and not tie up my hands. · Caller ID - I can see the name of the caller when I get a new call, as well as those who try to call and get me via call waiting. While I had call waiting on my last phone, I didn't have it for call-waiting and was forever flipping back & forth only to find out the other call is a sales call or wrong number! · Calendar & To Do List Memory - this is rather boggling on a cell phone, but if you want you can program your to do list and calendar into the phone. You can preset the phone to alarm for specific events or to change environment automatically for specific times, as well. · Voice Memo - gives you the ability to record 10 verbal messages of up to 30 seconds. I occasionally use this to remind myself of something specific that I don't want to forget. I even used it to document some prices in a store one day when I was comparison shopping for a major purchase. · Good standby & talk time - The specs say 288 minutes in standby, and 240 minutes in talk mode. I've seen the battery drain at about this rate, and the indicator lets me know when I am getting low. I seem to get about 3 days of usage out of it per charge cycle, although I keep the phone on and in Keyguard mode most of the time. · Optional Roam Settings - since this is a digital phone, this mode lets me choose whether or not my phone will automatically switch over to analog when I can't get a digital signal. This allows me to control my spending and also alerts me so I can switch over manually to keep talking or make a call, if it's urgent. · Detailed phone book - I can enter up to 300 names and numbers in my memory. One feature I really like is that I can put in multiple numbers for the same person, with annotations on what each is…. But it's only listed by name in the phone book. So I can put in my husband's office number, cell phone, pager and secretary, as well as his email address if I'm so inclined, and each will be filed under his name in my address book. · Voice Dial - this phone actually has voice recognition. You program in a specific name or words to go with each number that you want to activate this feature for. For example, if I hit talk and then say "HOME" it will dial my home number automatically. All in all, this is pretty cool, especially if I'm driving and don't want to scroll through a long list of names. · Games & Calculator - I will admit that I haven't spent much time playing games on my phone, but it's pretty cute that they're there. There are two games that I can see; these are Crab Catcher and Slot Machine. I did notice that these take quite a bit of battery usage. There's also a calculator that you can use in a pinch; I carry one with me so this isn't a feature I use. · Customizable tones - I can set the ringer volume, type of alarm, type of ring, etc. to meet my specific needs and/or current mood. This is a cute feature that I don't use a lot, after setting up my initial preferences. · Easy Volume controls - there are toggles on the side that allow you to adjust the volume (for the speaker, the ear or the mouth) up or down. This is great for increasing the volume when it's loud in the background, or decreasing it when someone is yelling on the phone. · See your own number - this may sound silly to you, but for all of us who occasionally space out on what our own cell phone number is, this is a fabulous idea. On the menu, you can scroll down to "my number" and it will show you your phone number. · Quick Charge - this phone seems to recharge completely in only about 2 hours; this is far more quickly than my old phone recharged! The Sanyo 4500 comes with an AC adapter, but the car adapter and desk charger are sold separately. Where Improvements would be Welcomed… Overall I'm thrilled with this phone; however, there are a couple minor areas where it could be improved. These include: · No call timer - this is something I have depended on for the past ten years, and without it I'm lost. The call-timer allows the user to track their exact airtime usage so there aren't any "end-of-month" surprises! My old phone not only had an overall timer, but you could reset it each month so you could proactively track your usage versus your calling plan. I really miss this feature on the Sanyo 4500. · No Redial Button - this is another feature I used regularly on my old phone. On the Sanyo 4500, I can go to call-history and hit talk on a specific older call, or hit talk and okay and it will automatically redial the last number I called. · Fuzzy Speakerphone - the mouthpiece is on the front at the very bottom, and the speaker is on the back. If I hold the phone up near my mouth, the caller will usually be able to hear me clearly. If I want to drive and listen, though, I can do so well until I need to get the other party's attention. The quality of the receiver if it's lying down on the console, or even in my lap, leaves a lot to be desired! On the other hand, I have no problem hearing the caller even if the phone is on my lap -- it's just not good for them to hear me. If you only need it to pick up your voicemail, or can pick up the phone to talk to people, it shouldn't be a problem at all! · Call Waiting not always as patient as it needs to be! With call waiting, the phone beeps at you when another call is trying to come in. If my first party is yapping, though, it's sometimes hard to cut them off and grab the other call before it quits trying me. Instead, I often (accidentally) end up conference calling in someone I don't mean to. · Dropped Calls - I will say that as a positive, this phone is 1000% better than my past phone (which was also a Sprint digital phone) in terms of reception. It's so much better at not dropping calls that I suddenly realize that a lot of the blame was the phone, not necessarily Sprint! Nonetheless, it's disappointing that any calls get dropped, and hope Sprint will get on top of that soon! Overall Assessment This is a great little phone; in fact, I liked it so much that I picked one up for my husband as well. He uses a belt clip on it and can still hear the speakerphone effectively, I have found that it fits beautifully in my purse and with the Keyguard mode on, I don't have to worry about the keys getting pressed. It's lightweight enough for me to carry everywhere, and the reception is crystal clear. I can get about 3 days of normal usage (calls plus Keyguard mode). My complaints, for the most part, are fairly minor - the speakerphone is not perfect, but it's a lot better than needing to use my hands and/or getting a ticket for talking on the phone while driving. There is a headset jack on the side, which I forgot to mention; so it is compatible with that if you didn't want to use the speakerphone due to privacy concerns, etc. The extra features like wireless web, calendar, environmental settings, numeric and text paging, digital and LCD displays, etc. are all features I liked in far more expensive phones. I love that I don't have to flip it open, as I watch those I work with try to do this graciously (rarely successfully!). I would definitely recommend this phone, as I said, I already recommended it to my husband. If you are an unsatisfied Sprint customer like I was for three years, I might suggest that you try this phone out and see if the problem is really Sprint, or if it's just the phone (like it was - for the most part- in my case!) I paid about $170 for this phone, but got a $100 rebate (for two phones) and a $100 service credit as well so the end price for two phones was only $70 each. I have never written a cell phone review before, so please forgive me if I've rambled and/or left anything out. I hope I've given you good information on which to base your decision. Please leave a comment below or email me if you have any questions that I might be able to help you with! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 -rebates 91277 2001/7/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the speakerphonevoice dialing features are great for people always on the go for the average person there are many features you will not need to use The Bottom LineA cell phone for the person who has everything or for the person who wants cell phone plus so much more. Full Review Want a sleek, stylish and functional cell phone? I highly recommend the Sanyo SCP-4500 for the following reasons: 1. The Sanyo SCP-4500 is lightweight with a sleek design. The screen is a lovely blue-green color that provides a sufficient amount of contrast and light to make it easy to read the display while still being easy on the eyes. The weight of the cell phone was an important feature for me since my purse already weight about 5 pounds and I am always lugging around a diaper bag as well. 2. I have found the reception on this phone to be excellent. I had another Sprint phone which I was less than satisfied with. I was constantly dealing with static and interference from the start. This phone not only provides great reception and clarity I am able to adjust the volume according to the environment and noise level I am encountering. 3. I have a bad habit of forgetting to turn my phone off after running errands. With my old Sprint phone I would often be caught in a situation of a dead battery when I actually needed to use the phone. Since the battery life in the Sanyo 4500 provides a minimum of 4 hours talking time and 12 days of standby I have yet to encounter dead battery syndrome. 4. The main reason my husband bought this phone for me is the speakerphone and voice activated dialing features. I am a stay at home mom so I mainly use the phone while running errands. For safety reasons my husband wanted me to have these features so I would be able to concentrate on driving without having to fumble to dial a number or hold a phone to my ear while taking or making a call. 5. The enhanced phonebook feature is great in this day and age where so many people have several contact numbers. This phone book allows you to enter a phone number for home, work, a mobile phone, a pager, data number or a fax number as well as an e-mail address and/or web address for each entry. A few of the other features of this phone which I must admit I really have not used yet but I am sure I will come to appreciate are: 1. A voice recorder which allows you to record up to 10 short memos/messages to yourself . 2. A calendar where you can enter in appointments. 3. A vibrate feature as opposed to having the phone ring which can be especially useful in situations such as being in a movie theater but still wanting to be available for the babysitter to contact you. 4. Wireless web access. 5. Two games to play ( although this does eat up battery time) 6. Voicemail This is a great phone for someone who like gadgets and a lot of features. Many people, myself included will find that there will be features of this phone that they will never use, but the features that worked for me made the price of the phone well worth it . Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $199 91276 2001/3/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 super cool looks easy navigation gobs o features great quality including speakerphonevoice dialing gobs o features can be a little overwhelming at first The Bottom LineOnce again, I've researched them all, and there ain't a better phone than this one. Trust me. Full Review As I've always said, I'm very careful about any purchase I make. However, when I'm making a buying decision for someone else who trusts my judgment, I am all the more cautious. Well, Mom needed a phone, and guess who was picking it for her? Yep, yours truly. So, the hunt was on. I'm a happy owner of this phone's predecessor, the SCP-4000. Frankly, I've never regretted my purchase. I was really conflicted at the time on which phone to buy. After I bought it, I quickly realized I could not have done better for myself... that is, until the SCP-4500 came along. Like a dumb fish, I was suddenly lured by its futuristic metallic sheen and all its gadgetry. Sadly, I wasn't about to plunk down the cash it cost to buy the phone and activate it (BTW: Sprint PCS requires that you pay an activation fee when you buy a new phone, whereas AT&T does not). Still, like the good son that I am, I was happy to do my mother a favor by steering her towards this phone. She's not... how do I put it... technologically inclined, but I still felt that this was the best phone she could buy, bar none. * * * * * * * * OTHER MODELS CONSIDERED: * * * * * * * * Yes, we did look at all the phones in the Sprint PCS store, and they all received a fair shot. They were as follows: Samsung SCH-8500: This was the toughest call for my mom. She wanted the convenience of a flip phone, but there were two strikes against this particular model. For one, it costs $20 more than the Sanyo. No big deal. However, strike two came when a Sprint representative came over and whispered "don't buy that phone, Samsungs are returned here all the time". That did it. Sure enough, I walked over to the service department and I found out that three of these phones were being serviced that day. I was also informed that a couple SCH-3500 models were being repaired as well (whew... I had once thought of buying that one for myself!). We believed the representative because the Samsung was the most expensive model there (so why would she tell us that without us asking for her opinion?). In addition, the Sanyo had better battery life, and basically had more features. Motorola Talk-about: This phone interested my mom a little bit, but I remembered some of the negative comments I had read on Epinions.com, and told her to stay away from it. She asked the same representative about that phone and she said that there weren't problems with returns per se, but customers complained it was a little complicated to use. That scared my mom away! Denso Touchpoint: The Denso phones were nice, but to put it simply, they didn't "do" anything for either one of us. We finally moved on to the Sanyo. ... and oh, what a phone it was. In the end, mom bought the Sanyo (with a $50 instant rebate printed from the Sprint PCS website), and has been happy with it ever since. It's taken her a while to learn the darn thing, but in all, she really loves it. She lent me her phone for a week, just so I could get a good feel for it. And here are my impressions... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * EXTERIOR: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Side by side with the SCP4000, the SCP-4500 is taller by a centimeter or so, and thicker. It's heavier, too, and whenever I carried it around, I could feel it in my pockets much more than my SCP4000. For those who don't know how big the SCP4000 is, it's often been compared to a Snicker's bar. Still, without question, the SCP4500 is a cool looking phone. Its silver finish, large blue display, and visible speakerphone on the back have gotten plenty of "oohs" and "aahs" from my friends. I'm also glad that Sanyo kept the four-way navigation button. It makes cruising through the phone's many features a breeze. Build quality of this phone is top-notch. I can vouch for the quality of these phones because I've owned the SCP4000, and have been pretty rough on it. I've dropped it in parking lots, I've sat on it, I've rammed it into walls... and it still works like a champ. The SCP4500 feels like it can take on the same abuse. When I went from phone to phone in the Sprint store, I could really tell the difference in craftsmanship... no other phone feels as solid as the Sanyo does. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * CALL CLARITY: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If this phone has a good signal, the clarity is very good. I won't mislead you by saying it's like a regular phone, because it isn't. The person you're talking to usually sounds kind of "digitized" and every now and then there are little half-second pockets of silence. Plus, conversations with this phone are kind of half-duplex. By that I mean you usually cannot be talking while the person on the other side of the line is talking. Conversations are in more of a "walkie-talkie" fashion. Still, every single cell phone I have ever used sounds like this. Cell phones have improved immensely, but they still have a ways to go before catching up with land lines. * * * * * * FEATURES, FEATURES, AND FEATURES: * * * * * * If you think I'm going to list off all the features this phone has, you're crazy. There's just too many. I'll name the major ones of interest. Speakerphone! Even on regular phones, speakerphones aren't as good as when you use the phone regularly. Sadly, such is the case here. When you use the speakerphone, you really talk in "half-duplex". Plus, sometimes people will complain that your voice gets cut off when you talk to them. Even so, this feature is no gimmick, guys. I've used it numerous times. In the car, it works great... no need to put on one of those headsets (although this phone does have that capability). The quality isn't as good as if you used the earpiece, but it is still a very, very useful feature nonetheless. This was one of the features that sold my mom on this phone, and she's glad that she went for it. Voice Activated Dialing and Voice Memo: I listed this feature next on purpose. Put simply, the only time you ever have to touch the phone while you're driving is to press the speaker button. Then, you can use the voice dialing to call someone and use the speakerphone to have the conversation! You know the drill: you program someone's name and number into the memory (there's 10 slots for this), and then all you have to do is push the "speaker" button... a female voice asks "please say the name"... you say the name as you programmed it and presto, the number is dialed. This feature has never messed up on my mom, and I never could fool it in my week of ownership. This is no gimmick of a feature either, guys. It's very useful, and an important safety feature when driving. The voice memo feature is nice for storing 10 one minute reminders to yourself. Long life battery: Supposedly, the battery has 12 hours of standby time, which is the best that's out there right now. We haven't gotten that kind of battery life out of the phone, but a good 5-6 days of casual use go by before the phone needs charging. The speakerphone drains the batteries much more than when the earpiece is used, as you can imagine. Cool ringers! Show me a phone that's got better ringers than this one and I'll buy ya an island. The little melodies on this phone actually have harmony and percussion to them. They are plenty loud, too. Best of all, they aren't near as annoying as the Nokia ringers (sorry, Nokia owners, no offense). You can even modify the tempo of these songs. Mom's favorite is Pachelbel's "Canon in D". Unfortunately, you can't download new ringers... :( Wireless Web: You might use it, you might not. I've had it for over a year now and love it. However, one mistake lots of people make is to assume that you can browse all of the Internet. Unfortunately you can't yet. Right now, it's only the web sites that participate in the Wireless Web networks. Still, you can do so much stuff. To name a few things, you can read the news, check your stocks, check sports scores, buy movie tickets, buy airplane tickets, check the weather, receive and send e-mail, and even bid on eBay. (Unfortunately, when you use the Web, Sprint deducts it from your minutes. AT&T doesn't.) Scheduler and Planner: It's a basic weekly planner that allows you to write events. It's equipped with an alarm to remind you of them if you want. It even has a "call reminder"... if you have to call someone at a certain time, just enter it in the phone, and then when the time comes, the phone will beep, and the number will be drawn up for you. All you have to do is press "talk". Multi-storage phonebook: I can't say enough about this feature. My SCP4000 has it too, and it's great. No one has just one phone number these days. On other phones, you'd have to type stuff like "John Doe home" and "John Doe work" and so on. All the numbers stored under one heading is convenient and faster. Environment Settings: You can actually choose preset settings like "outdoors", "meeting", and so on to modify how loud the phone is... not just ringer volume, but key beeps, receiver volume, and even whether the backlight turns on or not. KEYLOCK! My SCP4000 has this feature too, and it's indispensable. When activated, accidental button pushes are ignored. This is good for when the phone is in your pocket or a purse. Remote security: Talk about nifty. If you lose your phone, you can send a text message to it through the internet, and it will activate its "security mode". This will prevent others from finding your phone and running up your phone bill. Most cool. I wish I had that. T9 Predictive Text entry: In case you don't know what this is, it's a convenient way to enter text into your phone. This is mostly for the purposes of typing stuff on the Wireless Web (which this phone does have), but it's also useful for entering phonebook names. Once the phone "learns" a name that you type in the phonebook, it adds that name to its dictionary. The way T9 text works is that the phone anticipates what word you are trying to type. Let's say you want to type the word "phone". Type the numbers that have those letters on them, and the SCP4500 anticipates what word you're trying to type. Sometimes, you might type keystrokes that could spell out more than one word. An example, is the word "cat". Both "a" and "c" are on the number 2, but this is no problem. Just type the keystrokes 2-2-8. The phone chooses "act" as the word, which is wrong. But, if you press the number 0, it chooses the next word that could be spelled by those strokes, spelling "cat". With my SCP4000, I can type, but to spell cat, I have to type 222-#-2-8. I know this may be confusing you. If that's the case, go to a Sprint store and try it. Note: Studies have shown that T9 text entry is faster and more accurate than alpha typing. * * * * * * * * * * * * WHAT DON'T I LIKE? * * * * * * * * * * * * I usually don't like it when people are too positive in describing their products. Well... yeah, I've been singing nothing but praise so far, haven't I? But seriously, I've really, really tried to find things not to like on this phone. I honestly cannot come up with anything too bothersome. My very minor complaints are as follows: Speakerphone sound quality: I've mentioned this shortcoming already, and it's my number one complaint. It's still useful, but can be a headache. So-so signal strength: Sadly, this phone suffers from the same problems my other Sanyo has, which is merely adequate signal strength. If I go deep into buildings or underground, the phone loses its signal. Meanwhile, my friends with other Sprint phones are chatting away. This isn't a huge problem because 9 times out of 10 the phone does fine. But it does have its hiccups. Bigger size: While still small and light compared to many other phones, the SCP4500 ain't no Tiny Tim... that's my phone, the SCP4000. I guess I had just gotten used to carrying such a small phone around that when I started carrying something a little bigger, I took notice. A little confusing at first: When you first start using this phone, it's easy to get lost in the vast array of menus. It's not a confusing setup, mind you. It's just that there is so much stuff that this phone does that it is a little overwhelming at first. Still, I had the phone for a week without the manual, and I figured it all out on my own. Most importantly, MY MOM figured it out. Believe me... if SHE can do it, YOU can do it........ no offense, Mom... Lame games: I told you I was reaching... the games on this phone are pretty blah. There's a crab game and a slot machine game. Play them a couple of times and you're tired of 'em. VERDICT: WOULD I STEER YA WRONG? THIS ONE IS TOPS. Deciding to recommend this phone to my mom wasn't the easiest thing, you know. I wanted to make sure I picked the best one for her. And honestly, this phone really was. If you don't think you'll need so many features, you just might be wrong. My mom is not very demanding at all. In fact, when she bought the phone, she thought it had a few too many frills. She now uses almost all of them and can't imagine using another phone. Yeah, I'm a Momma's Boy, I guess. And if this phone was good enough for Momma, then it's a keeper. EXTRA INFORMATION: - Another Sanyo phone is coming soon, and it can actually download MOVIES from the Internet. Problem is, it costs over $500. So, the SCP4500 is a safe bet for now and won't be replaced anytime soon. - There are plenty of eBay auctions and online retailers selling these phones. I advise that you be careful buying used ones... make sure you know everything there is to know, and make sure the phone's been deactivated. Also, be on the lookout for rebates! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 - 50 reb 91275 2000/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight hands free looks great none The Bottom LineLooking for hands free clarity with a myriad of bonus features...look no further. Full Review While searching for a new phone to replace my two-year-old heavyweight, I began my quest by touching and feeling all the new models at my local Sprint store. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that along with holding each phone, I reviewed many epinions from the many talented authors. In the end, I purchased the Sanyo SCP-4500. This decision was based on the need for a hands free, lightweight phone with clarity and ease of use. The SCP-4500 offers this and more. First off, the dimensions of this phone are 5.31 X 1.73 X 1.11 and weighs only 5.0 ounces. Frequency of this phone is PCS CDMA at 1.9 GHz, which really does not mean a thing to me, but what is important is almost all my experience has been near perfect. The final point was hands free operation both from dialing and speaking. The features listed above were the selling point, but this little communication piece offers a myriad of other bonuses. The standard battery (included) runs up to four hours of talk time and twelve days of standby and charges to full capacity in about three hours. The buttons are sized correctly and offer easy navigation. The phone book can hold up to three hundred entries and each entry can hold up to seven phone numbers, e-mail address and/or web addresses. You can program the optional speed dialing for the eight most frequent numbers that you call which allows you one button dialing. Need to leave yourself a note….the phone also allows you to record up to 10 thirty-second messages. The display is easy to view and in backlight mode it can be read from a fair distance. Navigation through the fourteen menu options is simple and painless. A large button on the face of the phone quickly allows you to scroll through all the following menus; Call History, Messages, Phone Book, Roaming, Wireless Web, Calendar, Environment, Sounds,Display,Security,Setup, Special,Voice Service,Keyguard. It should be obvious what the first few menu options do for you, but let me explain some of the others. Wireless Web, yes you can surf on this phone, but why. Calendar, wow I can program appointments, tasks, and other information, well I use my handy PDA. Environment, this feature allows you to design how your phone responds to different settings. You have five options, Normal, Silent,Meeting,Outside, and Custom. Each of these options lets you program the volume and ringer from LOUD to vibrate allowing you to not get stared at during those times where you shouldn't be receiving calls. Sounds, well have fun choosing from about 15 different ringer types. Display, you can edit the display contrast, brightness and greeting. Special, well the phone contains a few games and a calculator. Keyguard, is one button locking of the phone to prevent calls from going out. It should be noted that you can always receive calls in keyguard mode and disabling the keyguard takes only three seconds. I saved Voice Service for last as this is my favorite. In this menu you program the phone to recognize YOUR VOICE to dial numbers, leave notes, and record voice ringers. Hands free and loving it. Yes, once you program the phone, dialing a number is as simple as touching the speaker button and saying "home". Once the phone dials the number you are now able to speak and hear the other party by means of a clear speaker and microphone. I have tested this feature many times and as long as the world around you is of a normal level, you can speak into the phone from a distance of approximately three feet. The speaker on the phone is located on the back so you will not have a good experience if the phone is lying down on your car seat, I suggest the optional clip to hang the phone from the dash in your car. Overall programming this phone takes about an hour, depending on your phone book entries. All in all I started my phone with 27 phone book entries, 8 speed dials, 7 voice dialing, and 3 reminders in the calendar. I must admit, choosing the ringer types is the most fun, but once your done playing I think you will opt for a fairly normal ringer. Bottom line, this phone has been wonderful. The clarity and connectivity has been superior and the style somewhat of a fashion statement. Do yourself a favor, if you want to keep your hands on the wheel and make others on the freeway think your talking to yourself check out this phone. Thumbs UP! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91274 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 a good phone amazing features that are technological marvels will you surf the net from a phone too much phone Full Review Web enabled phones are upon us and might be all the rage this Christmas- or will they? What are the positives and what are the negatives when it comes to web enabled phones? Should you buy one? What is with my title? Ah, all questions that I hopefully provide clear answers for. First of all, a web enabled phone is basically another way to surf the internet (though limited in scope) and another way to get into your wallet/purse. In my opinion, the Sony SCP-4500 is a very nice cell phone with a lot of cool features that other phones do not have. The cool features do not even take into consideration the ability to surf the internet. Here is a glimpse at what the SCP-4500 has to offer: THE PRODUCT: * Web enabled cellular phone * CDMA technology (the latest and greatest- for now) * 240 minutes talk time/288 hours of standby * Radiation rating of less than 1.4 W/kg (first I have seen this) * Just 5.5 OZ of weight (Careful or a fly might fly away with it) * Built in speakerphone * Voice activated dialing * Memo recorder * Personal information manager Yes, the phone is loaded with just about every gimmick that you can possibly imagine. I have not included all of the gimmicks, but just the sampling that I did include shows that this baby is fully loaded. Does all this stuff work? Do you need all this stuff? Yes, it does work and no, you do not need all of this. What I like about the phone: 1. The speakerphone is a great touch. How annoying is it to hold a tiny cell phone between your shoulder and ear? Now you do not have to do so. A nice touch and also a safety feature for those who insist upon chatting while driving. 2. The voice activated dialing is also a nice touch and, again, a safety feature. However, I have to wonder how lazy this country has become if we cannot even page through our digital phone listings. A nice touch, nonetheless. You can dial by simply saying the name of a person after you have input the number and the system recognizes your voice. 3. The information manager is a great feature, but only if you do not already live and die by your PDA already. Many people who will use the information manager already have a PDA that they swear by. In my opinion, it would make all the sense in the world to switch everything over to a cell phone/PDA combination. Why not consolidate all of your important information? 4. The voice memo feature allows you to leave yourself up to five minutes of messages. Again, a nice touch for those of you will use the SCP-4500 as a phone/PDA. 5. The voice mail function is a one touch system rather than the often annoying and confusing multiple touches that many phones now use. For instance, I now have to enter a four- eight number password on my older phone in order to get into my mailbox. Why and how annoying. If it sounds like a lot of aspects of the SCP-4500, I do. The features are great and usually easy to setup and master. The voice activated technology is something to behold. However, the reason I titled this the way I did is that there are so many useless aspects to the SCP-4500 that you may find yourself wondering why you needed all of this. Here we go: 1. Who really needs a web enabled phone? With a screen that is smaller than your driver's license do you really see yourself surfing the net? Do you realize that you are limited in where you can surf do to the slow download times that exist? Are you really so addicted to the internet that you need to surf while on the can? In the car? Waiting for the bus? Yes, some people will want to surf anytime and anywhere, but do you really need this? 2. The ringer options are cool, but please. You can program your phone to ring a certain way for each of 30 people who call you frequently. In other words, if your wife/husband calls you can have the phone in a funeral tone (kidding). If your child calls the ring will be different from your spouse. Have we become so lazy that we cannot even look at caller id- which is a feature? Additionally, how long will it take you to input all of this and then remember who is who? A cool option that really is not needed. 3. CDMA technology is already beginning to lose favor among the technological elite. Yes, CDMA is the best technology available to the masses. However, there is a new technology that is not too far down the road that will make CDMA obsolete in a few years (The new technology name is escaping me at this point in time). I realize that a few years is a long time, but not when you are spending $200 for a phone. 4. The memo recording device is great, but also annoying. Why? For the simple reason that you cannot go for five minutes straight. You cannot even go for a minute straight. The SCP-4500 permits you to record for 30 seconds at a time. In other words, if you have a long memo, you will have to stop after 30 seconds and then pick up where you left off. THE PRODUCT STRICTLY AS A PHONE: The SCP-4500 serves as a good phone when you strip away all the extras. I find that it is clear most of the time and very light. The battery says you can talk for four hours without charging and I wonder how they came up with that figure. I have not made it over three hours. As a cellular phone without all the bells and whistles, the SCP-4500 fits in with the crowd but does not stand out by any means. WHO IS THIS PHONE FOR: The SCP-4500 is a potentially great phone for a select group of people. Who are they- techno geeks and those who must have the latest and coolest thing. I am a pretty busy business man and I can tell you that I do not need, nor want, all the options that this phone provides. They are simply not practical, nor useful. However, to some people this will be the perfect phone. In my opinion, the SCP-4500 would be much better is they forgot the web enabled part. Like I said before, who wants to surf the net on such a small screen and who needs to be on the internet all the time. Yes there are some people who meet this description, but about 99% are not addicted to the internet. Eliminating the web capabilities might shave $50 off of the purchase price and still leave the features that are useful. Therefore, I would recommend waiting for a phone that combines a PDA with a cellular phone. The SCP-4500 basically does this, but then the web browser is added and makes it overly expensive. Find a phone that combines the attributes that you are looking for. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 7847 Sanyo SCP 6200 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91382 2004/8/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good value for unit cost flip tops are more convenient Have owned Model 6200 for almost 2 years. Performance has been satisfactory although the Menu selects are tiresome; particularly if you need to go down 3-4 levels. The height/length of the phone is an inconvenience. I will be switching to a flip-top configuration as this will more easily fit into a pants pocket. Carrying the SANYO in a shirt pocket is risky as it has a tendency to fall out. I've had that experience on more than one occasion while fumbling around at airport security checkpoints. Cell phone carrying cases that can accommodate this phone do not alleviate the length/height of the phone nor do they appreciably improve the phone's portability when worn on one's belt. 91381 2004/4/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ans size size small buttons This phone has been wonderful to me. It is just about as light and small as cell phones get. Mine has held up for nearly 2 years. This is quite a feat because it has been dropped hundreds of times and even fell in a full sink. My first complaint with this phone is that you can not push the buttons well with gloves on. This is due to the small size of the phone which is also its biggest asset. The paint has almost completly worn off of the edges of the phone (but that is only cosmetic). 91380 2002/7/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great price eye catching durable slim hard to find accessories gets hot when talking on phone awkward buttons The Bottom LineIt's a great buy for the price...(Retails for $299.99, but I got it at RadioShack for $100.00) Full Review Coming from the user of a Samsung 8500, I was a little hesitant to buy a phone that was not a flip phone. I wanted the next step up from the 8500, but it was too fat (wide), it was wider than my 8500, but it was slimmer. I have a friend that has the Sanyo 6000, which is only a single band phone and the 6200 is dual band. What I immediately liked about the phone was that it was so eye-catching. I mean that I get compliments all the time about how cute my phone is and it's a great conversation piece, literally! It took some time before I was talked into purchasing a phone that was not a flip phone. I had come to idolize those with flip phones because it was something like being as cool as Captain Kirk flipping open his e-diary and uttering the words, "Stardate 7104, Spock and I have..." That was really cool. Well the 6200 doesn't give you that feeling, but it does make you feel as if you are on the verge of being selected for the next "Matrix" movie with it's sleek shape and low profile buttons. Speaking of the buttons, they are a little difficult to get around and the menu has plently to scroll through, but what good it that if you are driving in some states that require a hands-free kit. You might say, then use the voice-activated dialing, cool, but you can only put so many names and numbers on that with most phones. My point is that you have goo-gads of information to scroll through for simple pleasures of a wireless phone, that's not cool! Speaking of accessories, THEY ARE HARD TO FIND. I mean a nice looking, functional case was hard to find, desk-top chargers are hard to find. I have never had this much of a problem locating these things. The only other draw back to this beautiful piece of equipment is that the phone gets hot after about 20 minutes of talking. I guess that is the phones way of letting you know that you talk time life is quickly dwindling away. One great thing about this phone...it is durable! I accidently dropped the phone off a kitchen counter and when i went to pick it up I accidently kicked it across the kitchen floor (about 10 feet)...Pele would have been proud. Can you hear me now, is what I said when I finally picked up the phone and looked at the face of the phone, which was face down, and not even a scratch like you would find in your grandpapas Frank Sinatra 78! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 91379 2000/1/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tiny little phone packed full of extras a sleek downloadable ringers are a little quiet The Bottom LineBest cell phone I've owned - packed with useful extras. Full Review After countless phones, I have finally found one I love! The phone sounds very clear - and gets excellent reception. The big test for me is my parking garage and the elevator - none of my pasts phones worked in these locations...until I got the Sanyo. It has yet to drop a call. The battery life has blown me away. Mine has been lasting far beyond what I expected. I've talked for over 2 hours straight and still had battery life left. I've also kept it on for 4 days without charging it and it was good to go. The ringer selection is great. I also bought the Sanyo multimedia kit. I was able to take a picture of my dog and transfer it to the phone to use as wallpaper. I also uploaded pictures of my family and friends and they pop on the screen when they call. I like the green or orange color selections - they make the phone look really high-tech. I have used a lot of the extras. I keep my appointments in the calendar - and set reminders. I have also used it as an alarm clock. It may not have a full color screen, but if you just want to do basic things on the web, like check your email, this should be fine. I've used it to send messages, check tv program times, sports scores, etc.. I don't know what I did to stay organized before I had this phone. It's slim enough to put in my back pocket - but large enough that I feel like I can listen and talk without having to adjust the phone back and forth. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91378 2002/7/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very light weight super slim high resolution display 3g compatible awkward button placement reception downloadable ringers has problems The Bottom LineLightweight, thin, long battery-life + gimmicky features. Portability of the phone makes it worth the $ but don't expect much from the advertised downloadable ringers/images. Full Review I purchased this phone as an upgrade from Sanyo's SCP-4500 which was an excellent phone with little to no disadvantages. Recently, the 4500 has been replaced with the SCP-4700. This review is intended to give you the information you cannot obtain from merely looking at a list of specifications and without physically testing the phone. If you are interested in looking at full specs, checkout www.sprintpcs.com. Notable Features: - Downloadable Ringers - Downloadable Images - New Ring Tones built-in (w/adjustable tempos) - High-resolution display (w/adjustable resolutions) - 2 back-light colors (orange/green) - Voice-activated dialing - Voice memo - Calendar w/scheduling reminders - Single-name access to multiple phone numbers In theory, the phone allows you to download ringers from sprint directly using the phone's web-browser. Or alternatively, you may download the ringers by logging onto the sprintpcs website and selecting which ringers you wish to download. These ringers are then sent to your phone via a wireless web message which you respond to by selecting the message and downloading the ringer using wireless web access. To perform this function the cost is: 1) deducts from Standard airtime minutes/Wireless Web minutes (costs more if you don't have a wireless web subscription) and 2) downloadable ringers subscription. The downloadable ringers subscription limits you to a certain number per month. Note that I said "in theory." The reason is, I have never ever been able to get this function to work. Even though I did everything Sprint said to do, in the end, it was too frustrating to try any longer since Sprint gave me conflicting stories on their reasons. Here are the explanations: 1) downloadable ringers has system issues which are being worked on, 2) the 6200 is incompatible with the downloadable ringers system currently in place and a software upgrade must be performed (only problem is, there is NO software upgrade available), 3) the phone's web browser is having authentication/negotiation problems. I know this is a long explanation for the downloadable ringers but I'm just stressing this because if this is the primary reason you are purchasing this phone, don't expect much. Using the same aforementioned system, you are supposed to be able to download images to your phone which may be assigned to specific caller names or functions. Again, never got this to work. - New Ring Tones Cool ring tones which even include things like a sampled cat meowing or a dog barking. Interesting but not effective in getting my attention. On the same note, the maximum volume of the ringer is pretty low in comparison to the 4500. PROS: - Thin/light This phone is so thin and light that it fits nicely in a shirt pocket. - Dual band + 3G Supports Sprint's digital network + analog roaming. Most cellular companies are upgrading to the 3G system which is generally faster in wireless web access and provides other benefits. This phone clearly states "QUALCOMM 3G CDMA" on the back so you're ready to go for future technologies. - High resolution display This is a great feature which lets you see more on the screen than with most other phones. It's especially useful for when you are browsing the net and you have long pages of text to read. The display is selectable between 3 resolution settings. - Single name phone book As with other Sanyo cell phones, the phonebook allows you to save one name and include multiple phone numbers and other personal information for each person. So instead of scrolling through "john work, john cell" you just select "john" and select which number you want to call. If the line is busy, you can select the MENU button and select an alternative number to call. - Voice dialing Works very well and allows you to program a number of names into memory and associate them with numbers in your phonebook. Works just like a standard memo recorder. Can record memos having a length of 18 seconds each. I do not know how many memos can be recorded overall however. This is likely to be largely dependent upon total phone memory usage (phonebook, scheduling). - Battery life is very good From my experience, the battery lasts at least 2-3 days without requiring a charge. Pretty good for such a slim battery. - Call Screening There is a function which requires callers to first say their name when they call so you can hear who is calling before you decide to talk to them or no. I think it's kinda rude but the function is there for you. - PC Sync Allows you to upload your phonebook and even ringers/images. But you must purchase the Sanyo Multimedia Master kit which comes with software and a cable for your computer. Never tried it so I can't comment on this. CONS: - Downloadable ringers/images do not work (see above) - Button placement/menu functions are awkward. While the phone is indeed one of the lightest/thinnest phones available today, there are drawbacks to this design. First, one of the most common functions I use on the phone is the keyguard disable/enable function. To enable the keyguard, you must press MENU/UP ARROW/OK. To disable, you must hold down the CLR button. Both of the MENU and CLR buttons are placed at the very bottom of the phone which makes it very inconvenient to activate these buttons with your fingers while holding the phone (the phone is so thin, you almost have to hold the phone at a tip to press the buttons). Second, the 3 button combination to activate the keyguard is ridiculous. Why can't it just be a single button I hold down? - Confirmation tone is annoying Everytime you complete a function on the phone or disable/enable keyguard the phone emits a sweeping chime which becomes extremely annoying after awhile. Not exactly, a good phone to use discreetly. As far as I know, there is no way to turn this off. - Phone gets extremely hot! After about 30 mins of use, the phone gets so hot it's uncomfortable. I use an earpiece now for extended phone calls. - Can't hear yourself when you talk! I don't know how other phones are, but Sanyo's recent trend is to remove the ability to hear your own voice through the speaker. Sounds strange at first because you can't tell if the caller can hear you but you get used it after awhile I suppose. - Weak signal strength The signal strength of this phone seems much weaker than the 4500. I noticed much more instances of digital noise and cut outs while talking on this phone where I previously did not have such a problem on my 4500. There you have it. That was my list of gripes and praises for this phone. Sometimes I wish I kept my SCP-4500 because it was very loud and had strong connections. Overall, the phone is nice and provides lots of features even though they don't work well sometimes. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 91377 2002/9/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 super light thin cool ringers big screen great signal quality bad phone book long expensive accessories poorly placed buttons The Bottom LineIf you're not looking for a 3G data phone, this is probably the best Sprint phone you can get. Full Review My last phone was a Touchpoint 2200 made by Denso, who later exited the mobile phone market. It had problems with weak signals. My wife's 2100 worked much better in those situations. When I recently moved, I discovered that my new house was in a Sprint PCS "dead zone" and I couldn't get a signal at all inside my house or even in front of the house. I could walk 20 feet down the street and get a perfect signal though. So my phone became pretty much useless at home. I had changed my plan in February, so I had several months left on my contract and had to stick with Sprint. So I did some research, focusing on phones that seemed work better than others with weak signals. The word from both my local Sprint PCS Store and the Sprint newsgroup was that Sanyo phones were best at getting weak signals, so I focused on them. I was very interested in the new Treo, but $500 is a lot to pay for a phone and it would require me to switch to a more expensive plan and sign on for another year, which is exactly what I didn't want if I still couldn't get a signal at my house. I went to the Sprint store and explained my situation. The guy there said it might just be the phone's list of cell networks that it uses, took it back and upgraded the list. So I drove home and tried it. It still sucked. I drove back and got this phone. I've been using it for about a month now and I like most things about it. But there are some weak spots, especially when I compare it to my Touchpoint. Signal I'm happy to report I can make flawless calls in almost every room in my house. This was my #1 feature and the one I'm the most happy about. The extendable antenna seems to help, but it's also a pain when you try to grab the phone out of your pocket, only to grab the antenna and pull it out rather than pull out the whole phone. Unlike the 6000, this phone has analog roaming as well. It also has 3G voice (not data), so theoretically it should be able to use that for even clearer calls. Weight This is the most noticeable feature of this phone. At 2.3 oz, at first I could barely feel that I even had the phone. This was actually a problem because I kept thinking I had lost it! But that novelty has worn off now and somehow it seems heavier than it was when I first got it. If you take out the battery though it weighs almost nothing and it's hard to believe that this slab of plastic does anything! Design This phone is definitely an attention getter. People will want to grab it from you and play with it, amazed at how thin and light it is. It's basically an obelisk, but with the antenna protruding out from the back at a weird angle. I don't understand why the antenna couldn't just come straight out the top, but it's not much of a problem. Maybe they're trying not to fry your brain. The phone does get warm after a few minutes of use. Jamming all those electronics into such a thin case has costs! It doesn't bother me though. If I'm on the phone for a while, I'll usually plug in a headset. But I'm looking forward to using my phone as a ear warmer in the winter! The worst design decision on this phone was to put the menu and clear buttons at the bottom of the phone. Most functions use the directional pad and softkeys, but some things require you to use the menu and clear buttons and it's a long reach to get them. It's very awkward to go back in menus. This is partially because this phone is longer than most phones. Durability It seems to hold up well, though I dropped it once and got several scratches and cuts on the plastic on the sides. Nothing that would affect function, but enough to bum me out. Accessories It comes with only a travel charger. The desktop charger is a steep $80. I like to keep my phone on vibrate when it's in my pocket, but obviously that doesn't work when it's on a table charging. My Touchpoint was smart about this - when it was in the charger it would override the vibrate and turn on the ringer. This phone forces me to switch the ringer setting all the time (luckily you can do this just by hitting the up and down buttons), which I mostly forget to do. Display It's large! The backlight color can be switched from green to orange, though the backlighting on the buttons remains green. The green backlight is brighter. The backlight flickers and dims slightly when the phone is a lot of power, like when using the web or dialing. You can change the font size on messages, and get even more lines. There are screensavers (downloadable) and animations while it searches for a signal or connects. The included ones aren't very exciting and I turned these features off. Phonebook The weakest feature by far on this phone is the phonebook. First and last names do not have separate fields, so unless you awkwardly type in your names in "Last, First" format you can't sort by last name. Of course, this would cause havoc if you tried to sync these entries with your PC. Making the problem worse is the lack of folders in the address book. That's right, all your names are in one big list, first names first. What a mess. Editing the address book is also cumbersome. There's no way to add an entry using the right pad shortcut. The address book seems to be optimized for editing, not dialing. I don't know about you, but I dial a lot more often than I edit numbers. For example, it always lists lines for each of the different numbers per entry (home, office, mobile, etc.), so you often have to scroll through several lines to get to the number you want. You can't set a default number for each entry. Then, if you want to actually dial the number, you have to reach over to the talk button, instead of hitting the more intuitive OK button. The OK button makes you edit the number. If you accidentally hit OK, then you have hit OK again, then the right softkey to save your non-changes, which takes a few seconds because it insists on playing a sound and showing an alert that your changes were saved. What were you trying to do again? Ringers Lots of crazy ringers. The meowing cat ringer is so good that cats will freak out near you when you play it. It must be some kind of cat distress call because real cats run around frantically looking for another cat. You can download more with the Ringers & More service (extra $$$) or use the sync cable and Sanyo Multimedia software to transfer midi files to your phone. Haven't tried this myself. Other notable features No speakerphone. Never worked well on my Touchpoint, so I guess it's OK. Voice dial, voice memo (only 18s per memo). Wireless web works well. Only one game, crab catcher, which is OK. Strange that there's only one compared to most phones today. Secrets There are some secret menus you can get to on this phone. These may screw up your phone, so be careful and don't change anything you can't change back. To get to these menus, go to the main screen that displays the time. Enter ## and then the number, then hit the menu button and select save phone#. That should get you in. For the service menu to change your phone number, the number is 261554. For the debug menu, the number is 040793. This menu appears to indicate that this phone CAN do 3G data. Airtime menu: 8463. (After your phone resets, check the call history menu for a new airtime entry that shows your total number and time of calls!) Browser IP Setup: 2769737. Vocoder: 8626337. If you enter a wrong number, your phone will immediately shut off, but you can turn it right on again, no harm done. But again, be careful. Conclusion Overall, a great phone if you're not looking for 3G data. The guys at the Sprint store said that no one had ever returned this phone because they didn't like it. I believe them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91376 2002/8/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish small multi chord ringers 3g voice capable durable lightweight feature packed buttons produces heat during lengthly calls The Bottom LineFor a sexy phone that's feature packed and will definately outlast your need for it, the Sprint PCS Sanyo 6200 is for YOU! :) Full Review To start out, I'd just like to say that the Sprint PCS Sanyo 6200 Wireless phone is the coolest phone I have ever owned! For those of you who haven't seen this marvel, first allow me to describe it to you... The phone is 5-inches tall, with another 3/4inch for the retractable antenna. It's less than a HALF-INCH thick, and weighs only a few ounces! It's a sexy silver color, and made out of titanium, not plastic. What makes this phone so great? Obviously, size: You can slip this beauty right into your pocket, your purse, or my personal favorite....comfortably right in the breast-pocket of my dress shirts! And it's EXTREMELY comfortable to carry! Durability: The phone is made of titanium. I drop mine at least twice a day, this thing hasn't even scratched. For those of us who are a little more demanding on the physical structure of our phones, having a phone that's made out of a space-shuttle-style metal is quite the advantage! And the silver color looks VERY cool, too ;-). Features: This phone has it all... Voice-activated dialing, scheduler/calendar, address book, calendar, a game, Wireless web capability, Call-screening, and a PC-Interface capability. Yes, that's right, you can connect the phone to a PC to download both ringers and wallpapers. It also supports the Voice-Memo feature, convenient for leaving yourself notes while on the run! More technically, the phone is also 3G Voice capable, for the newest upcoming technology released by Sprint PCS. Ringers: The phone has an absolutely awesome ringer. Whereas most phones come with that old 1-tone ringer, that sounds like NES(Nintendo) game music, this one is great. It's got a multi-chord ringer, so it sounds absolutely awesome! You have to hear it to believe it. It comes with ringers as bizarre as a Cat's Meow (which is great for scaring people! :)), your basic ringers, and also the capability to download more if you desire to do so! CDMA Quality: The phone is dual-band, CDMA Digital and AMPS Analog. As of now, it's only available as far as I know with Sprint PCS Service. The call quality is phenomenal. It's crystal clear, and at least living where I live, I've never experienced a dropped-call. It sounds CRYSTAL CLEAR. Battery Life: The phone has been getting for me about 3.5-4 hours continuous talk time on a full charge, or up to about 10 days Digital Standby Time. Awesome! Display: It has a large display screen, with a switchable Neon-Green or Bright Orange Backlight Color. And of course, it also has support for a Hands-Free Earpiece. Now okay okay, let's be fair, the few cons. It's thin. To some, it could be easily lost. If you have big hands, it might be hard to hold on to. The buttons are moderately small, another troublesome factor for big hands. Try a demo in the store to make sure it'll work for you! As it's such a small phone, when you talk for awhile, over 30mins or so, it starts to get warm on your face. It doesn't bother me so much, but I've heard some people unhappy about that! I love my Sanyo 6200, and my Sprint PCS Service, and I'd highly recommend the phone to all :). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 91375 2000/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light attractive long battery life gets burning hot with use The Bottom LineBeautiful and stylish, light and powerful, but gets alarmingly hot with use. Full Review First things first -- this phone is beautiful. Everyone agrees. As far as design, look and feel go, it's the tops. It is what is sometimes referred to as a "candy bar" phone because that's about the size that it is. It weighs next to nothing and I could stick it in my bag, or the pocket of my pants, and forget it was there. I have no complaints about the look, size or feel of the phone. In fact, that's what I miss the most. I would get compliments on the street. It was the envy of everyone I knew. I had this phone from September 2002 until a month ago, and during that time it never failed me. The sound clarity was excellent, the button design was intuitive. Everything basically was in the place where it made sense for it to be. The phone book was easy to use, the screen was bright enough to see anywhere, and the ringers were amazing. In fact, one ringer was the sound of a cat meowing, and whenever it would ring, my real cat would go crazy. It also had a dog barking ring and many MANY more. You could assign a specific ring to someone in your phone book, a neat trick, especially if you want to avoid picking up. Also, it's kind of entertaining when your husband is calling and the sound is a dog barking. The phone also allows you to do some internet things. Mind you, it does not have a useable browser, so forget going on ebay. BUT - you can check your aol mail (although writing back is quite a trick on a phone pad), you can get aol IM's, you can check your Sprintmail (if you use Sprint) and you can get news, weather and sports scores. I was also able to get travel info on the phone, which turned out to be very convenient when I was in one airport worried about the connecting flight in another. All of these "channels" - news, weather, travel - are preprogrammed into the phone, so it connects quickly and easily. You will use up your airtime this way though, so keep that in mind. When I had this phone, I also had a Treo 90 from Handspring. I was able to purchase a cable that connected from the PDA to the phone. This allowed me to actually go on AOL from my PDA and use the keyboard to type -- the cell phone acted like the modem. This was a neat trick, and the cable was inexpensive. (You can get them for almost any cell phone at www.supplynet.com). Eventually, however, using the combination got to be too much of a pain, and I've since upgraded to the Treo 600 which is a cell phone and PDA combined. What do I miss about my Sanyo SCP-6200? - The size (light as a feather, small and thin) - The look (unusual and attractive) - The ease of use - Battery life - LONG. The phone could go 10 days without a charge if you just left it on 24/7. The more you talk, the shorter the time between charges, but still you could talk for 4 or 5 hours before it would run out. A remarkably powerful battery for such a small sized device. What do I NOT miss? - My burning hot ear. Yes, this is a serious problem. I saw it mentioned in one or two other reviews, but I think they may have minimized what a problem it is. The phone gets HOT. And it doesn't take long either -- 5 minutes and your ear will be sweating. 10, and you'll be switching back and forth from ear to ear. 15 minutes and your ear will be burning. I never tried more than that, I was afraid my ear would melt. The heat made me concerned quite frankly. We really don't know what the long term effects of holding a strong radiowave device to our heads for long periods of time will be... and somehow having a really hot phone against my head made me more worried. This is a serious design flaw, and I hope that the company will find a way to fix this in the future. Yes, you could use a headset -- but that kind of ruins the advantage of the small size, and starts to make it more inconvenient. I liked the phone, I really did, and I'll miss it in some ways, but the way it heated up was very disconcerting. So although I give it high marks for looks, battery life, useability and sound, I can't say that I would recommend it to a friend. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91374 2000/9/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ultra small light stylish durable well designed excellent feature set otherwise there really is none ringers could be a wee bit louder The Bottom LineThe Epitome of what a portable phone should be. Full Review I was drooling over the prototype of this phone years ago when I saw it at CES in Las Vvegas. Finally the 6200 is released with dual band ability and better battery life. That plus the $127 price tag on a refurbished model at Radio Shack Sealed the deal. To me this phone is the prime example of what a cell phone should be. It is so nice and so refined and so ideal that there are no faceplates and other sometimes tacky add-ons needed since it is almost perfect just as it is. I also purchased a car charger and a Connection kit with software for this phone. I got the connection kit for $39.95 plus tax and $8 shipping direct from sprint and got in the very next day in the mail (fedex) The Car Charger I got on ebay for $1 plus $3 shipping :-) Lets get to the phone. Physically the phone is idealic in nature. Ultra Thin without being so thin that you fear snapping it in half. it does not "feel" like theres nothing in your hand. it feels just perfect. Some may not like how the Antennae "extension tube" disturbs the lines but I think they add to it. and then you hold it in yuor hand and realize your finger rests in that nook where the 2 parts smoothly meet like it was designed that way (and probably was) Oddly this nook works for right and left handed folks even though it is not centered. the phone is less than 1/2 an inch think Width wise it is as wide as it needs to be and no more. Some phone are too crammed with a thin keypad and a wide border around the edge. this phone is as narrow as those other phone but the keyboard utilizes the full width of the body. I have some pretty massive hands (6'3" 360pounds) and it fits me like a glove. that is impressive considering how small this phone is. (1.5" wide) Length wise it is taller than it needs to be from a technical point of view but the PERFECT height from an asthetics and usability point of view. It makes it look even more elegant and slender than it already is. a Nice tall screen with plenty of room without resorting to ultra small resolutions. (8 lines 15 character per line 4 shades of gray) the mic is near you mouth instead of in your cheek. Keypad layout. this area was my only gripe. The menu and clear buttons are oddly placed at the bottom. I see why since there is no room left. I would rather them have placed the "web" button on the bottom (I will never use this feature) and place the menu bottom under the screen with the memo button (already there). This is an extremely minor gripe. Simple personal preference. one who uses the wireless web feature will probably prefer it the way it is. after a half a dozen times you forget that its down there and it is natural to use it. The Structural makeup of the phone. The phone is silver in color. not tacky but a nice well refined silver. parts of the face are a magnesium alloy for durability and aesthetics. The Keypad - this is a favorite of mine. The Keypad on this phone is nothing short of totally ideal. Perfect as far as I can tell in every way. The keys are silver backed but translucent so they illuminate with the backlighting. So in daylight or night time they look perfect and never out of place. I said silver backed because the keys themselves are TRANSPARENT smooth plastic. the "printing" (nubmers letters etc..) are UNDER the smooth clear buttons. when you think about this it will HIT you all of a sudden if you have had previous cell phone experience. The printing will never "wear out" or "rub off" making the face of the phone look nasty old and ugly. Kudos to sanyo on this excellent design feature. The 5 key has a dimple on it making non visual dialing possible. once you feel the dimple you know you are on the 5 in the center of the number pad. The center OK button nested in the middle of the 4 way toggle is the only surface printed button BUT it appears to have a nice clear enamel coating on top of it to protect the printing. Illumination This is another area where I think this phone excels. the entire keypad lights up a soft green. The screen illuminates exceptionally bright in either Soft Green or Orange. I like the orange but prefer the extra brightness of the green. a little personal tid bit, it would have been nice if the keypad also changed to orange when you changed the screen to orange. but this is very minor. Ontop of the phone is a red led that illuminates when it needs your attention such as a call or voicemail etc.. The backlighting is customizable further in how long you want it to stay on. 8,15,30 seconds. always off or always on. I have it set to 30 seconds. I would have preffered one more option. always on sometimes. IE when I am using the phone stay on all the time. then goto 30 seconds when I finish a call. This would simplify finding the end button to finish a call. Again a very minor nitpick. Other Misc Physical attributes. It has an extendable antennae. I find I rarely have to extend it though in my area. right at the top on theleft side is the now standard 2.5mm headset jack (thanks for not requiring funky bulky inconvenient adaptor sanyo) On the back next to the antennae is anothe rubber covered flush port. I am assuming some kind of tech hookup diagnoistics port. it is flush. I only noticed it cause the cover was rubber and curiosity got the better of me :-) on the botton is your "contact patch" jack for the charger and serial adaptor cables etc.. Power The phone uses a very cool very thin extremely tiny battery pack. In this miny pack they managed to jam 860mah of lithium power at 3.7volts. This is enough for over 3 hours of talk time and a week of standby time. An extended life pack is available (ebay about $20) that is a little thicker out the back but I see no point as the normal pack is more than sufficient at least for someone like me. On removing the battery you realize that the phone is only a little heavier than the battery pack !! I would "guess" at the ratio being %60 phone %40 battery mass wise. The AC power supply is impressively small and portable. as is the DC power supply I aquired from ebay. The phone charges very quickly (so far in well under 2 hours). I believe it is rated at 3 hours from a totally dead battery for the AC supply. The cable is nice and long and thin without being frail. Glorious Features At first when I rattle off the features one may think that is not too impressive since many phones have these features. This is until you realize that this phone has these features INTERNAL !! IE "NO EXTRA SERVICE OPTIONS" from your supplier are required ! Voice Command You can program upto 30 voice commands and attach them to numbers in your phone book (the phone book can hold 299 entries and has MANY fields for each entry), 30 truly is more than enough for just about ANY individual out there. I am not even using half of them. Setting it up is very simple and it is astonishingly accurate. It has yet to fail to properly reognize my requests except when I had the car radio too loud :-) in these cases it does not make a mistake it simply can not hear me and tells me so. Screen Calls This is essentially VOICEMAIL INSIDE the phone !! You can set the delay from 1-16 seconds (how long it will wait before picking up) so I leave it at 16 seconds except for example if I got into a movie theatre. I then set it for 1 sec. it rings a microsecond "blip" that I can just barely hear so I know I got a call but no one else hears this and it takes a message. they can leave upto an 18 second message. I know it can hold at least 5x 18 second messages. it was not full and I simply did not try to put anymore on it. I would imaging holding a dozen maessage shoudl be doable (I will have to try it sometime and see how many I can get into it) The sound quality is very nice. You can also record your own custom "greeting" into this feature. you can also LISTEN in. just put the phone to yoru ear and you will hear them leaving a message. if you want to talk you can simply hit talk and you will be talking to the person who is leaving a message (hence why its called call screening) Although most providers give you vmail for free some do not AND on all of them you have to CALL INTO the system to GET your message and this consumes AIRTIME minutes. Call Screening is in phone memory so you just hit the memo key (just below LCD on right) This memo key also allows you to record yor own audio memos into the phone such as where you parked your car or a phone number on a forsale sign etc.. It has primative PDA functions as well. the address book can sync with outlook but not the calendar data (it has a calendar that you can set appointments in etc..) as well as a surprisingly handy calculator. It also has some crab catch the falling things game (boring to me as I am not a gamer) and a world clock (nice) Sound and Pictures ! Another cool feature is Ringers and Pictures !!! I can upload custom "midi" ringers as well as images via the computer connection cable. I can attach images to people in my phone book so for example when my brother calls and it recognizes his caller ID it displays this on the screen as well as his picture. I can also assign custom "ringers" to each person. So when my friend david calls the phone meows and shows me a picture of his face. :-) very cool !! this kind of "customization and of personalization" is the kind of stuff I want in a gadget like this. These features make the phone MORE userfriendly not cumbersome and tedious. My normal ringers are the Yapappa song from Ranma 1/2 or the A-Team theme song :-) The phone has a pleathora of other options and features. above I listed the primary features or features that differentiate it from other phones. Gripes and growns This is an unusual gadget. Normal my reviews even when stellar for the object come off as nasty sometimes. I tend to find a lot wrong with things and even though they are usually "minor" hence why I say read the whole review. I found surprisingly little wrong with this gadget. It truly is almost perfect. One thing that bugged me in the beginning was the tendency of the phone to get a bit warm in the ear piece after talking for some time. Not dangerous painful or uncomfortable at all. Just worrisome. I have since found this is "normal" for this phone so my worries are gone. Although images are very nice it would have been nice for them to have more than 4 shades of grey. even 8 shades would have been magnitudes better. It would be nice if the call screening "audio memos" were "attached" to there respective caller id entries so I could "return" a call with a button push. they may very well be but I have not found this connection. this is a minor nit though since I will usually recognize the people and can just press talk and speak there name to call them back with voice dialing. My only other nit is I wish the phone was compatible with other service providers. although I have had no problems with sprint. Even though there plans are the worst deal (dollar per minutes in monthly planes etc..) they still give me far more minutes than I am likely to use in a month by far. where I think I will run into trouble is when I travel. sprint has far less coverage than say verizon and they charge 69cents a minute for roaming. Ouch :-) alas I do not travel every week or anything like that. Another nice feature is that I can dial into the internet with my own internet provider with the cable connetion and it will only consume my normal airtime minutes. Some services charge you extra if they see you using a modem even if you are not using there proprietary internet connection services. How well this will work I am not sure as I have not tried it yet. The future If I were to have a hand in designing SCP-6200 version 2 these are the changes I would make. Do not change the physical dimensions of design. swap the menu and web buttons. make the keypad change orange as well. or add a color screen if that can be done without making it ANY thicker at all. and lastly make the ringer just a teeny bit louder. internal ringers are plenty loud but some midi ringers not optimized for "phone" use are a bit on the low volume side. Otherwise the phone is perfect as is. I am sick of the push for all in once devices that are too limted and or too complex. When I want a phone I only want a phone. The Sanyo 6200 does this gloriously and with style. All its amazing "gadget" features once activated are "transparent" to the user. they "enhance" the expreience transparently without adding day to day compelxity bulkiness or annoyance. Well Done Sanyo.! Epinions ratings below are not nearly detailed enough so here are clarifications. Durability although NOT indestructable it is very well built and will easily outlive itself if properly cared for. Clarity Sound is impressive. Not stellar make me stand up and say wow but I never have a problem hearing anyone. My father when I first called him was quite impressed as well with how I sounded to him (he goes through a lot of phones so he has some experience here) Portability Easily an in the shirt pocket with no bulging or sagging of your shirt phone. do not stick it in your pants pocket especially your back pants pocket. for as well as this phone is built it IS only .46 inches thick plus in your back pocket is begging for it to be stolen. it weighs just over 2 ounces !!! Battery Life Rated at 3.5 hours talk time (over 7or8 I believe with the extended battery) and a week standby on normal battery. So far my experience agrees with these numbers. Bottom Line If you want gadgety features like web browsing and remote controls and funky face place then no don't get this phone, However, if you want a classy phone that excels in every category as ONLY a phone and does it with quite refined style then this is without question your phone. although this will browse the web who wants to do it on a tiny lcd screen ? I could never figure that one out :-) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 127.00 7848 Sanyo SCP-5300 91400 2004/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good camera flash screen on the exterior of phone speed dial can only have 8 phone numbers This phone is pretty good. I have been using it for almost 6 months now, and I only have a few things I don't like about it. The camera and flash are great, as well as the caller ID screen on the outside. My major complaint with the phone is the speed dial. My previous phone (Samsung 8500) would allow me to have as many speed dial's as I wanted. For example, I could type 29 then the talk button to call my roommate. With the Sanyo 5300, I can only have the numbers 1-9 reserved for speed dials, and number 1 must be the voicemail. Other than this limitation, I really like the phone. Its battery life is great, as well as its reception. 91399 2007/3/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 only 30 w sprint s special offer camera durability size Not a bad phone at all. However, technology is always changing and the phone was outdated as soon as I bought it. That is all technology though. What can you do? 91398 2000/11/12 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 reliable poor keypad made daily use it s demise The Bottom LineThis phone is actually not best for anyone unless it's free. But if I had to choose, it looked decent. Won't get you any dates though. Full Review As I look for a new phone, I decided to see how my old phone rated and was quite surprised at how generous some people are regarding ratings. I am quite perplexed at how this phone is rated so high. The phone offers several functions; however, they are cryptic to find and is poorly executed. The best phone I have ever had is the Motorola timeport and, for its time, surpassed the competition by far and was in its own league. My wife was still using it until a recent mishap ended it's 5 year run. Man, what a great phone. I challenge any other phone out there to have the same reliability and longevity. But I digress, lets get back to the Sanyo. Its usability severely killed it. Keys were difficult to dial and when it comes to everyday usage, the touch is essential. Also, The keypad lighting was horrendous. Night dial was pretty much done via touch and the fact that you couldn't adjust the phone's display lighting made using it at night like suddenly turning on the lights. On the good side, it was pretty reliable. I wouldn't purchase this phone again as I am moving on to Nokia. We'll see how it fares to my trusty Motorola. Bar any silly unrecoverable accidents, it should last into the next decade... it better! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): ?Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91397 2000/1/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 cute screen saver ringtones camera crappy reception cant touch the antenna The Bottom LineI would not buy this phone again for the price I paid! It really was not worth 200 bucks, if it was on sale maybe a consideration. Full Review As a previous owner of the sanyo 4500 and then the 4900, I decided to get this phone after I dropped my old 4900 in the toiled and it died. My previous experience with sanyo has been good so that fueled my decision to purchase this phone. The good stuff... 1. When you open the phone the little "Mi Amigo" comes out. He is a little alien cartoon screen saver type thing who comes out and entertains you for about 30 seconds doing different things every time you open it (Mine seems to be partial to riding a skateboard). 2. The camera is a cool feature and you can even take a picture when the cover is closed and see what you are taking a picture of on the little screen that is on the front of the phone. 3. The screen on the front is also good because it shows you who is calling. 4. The polyphonic ringtones are awesome. I downloaded Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," and it is the actual song with her singing and everything. I was surprised and thought it would just be a cheezy little tune that sounded like the song. 4. You can store pictues of people so when they call you their picture pops up on the screen. The bad stuff... 1. You CANNOT touch the antenna or you will either loose your call or it will be extremely fuzzy. This is totally annoying because I cant do the shoulder hold with the phone and have both hands free. 2. The sound quality is pretty bad and the phone breaks up a LOT! (this could be the sprint network, not the phone though) 3. My phone often times won't even ring, it will out of the blue tell me I have a voicemail or a page without even having a missed call. This is also extremely annoying. (this could also be the sprint network, not the phone though) 4. Sprint customer service is absolutely terrible, dont even bother trying to call them to fix a problem! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91396 2000/10/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 camera phone pricey The Bottom LineLove it! I don't leave home without it. Not only b/c it's my cell phone but it's a great camera too! Full Review I first bought this phone about 3 months ago. I was instantly and thoroughly impressed by its cool interface...both colorful and detailed. The navigating window categorizes the menu by pictures and titles which you scroll through with ease. The buttons are all clearly defined for their functions. I was very happily pleased...so much so, that when I recently misplaced my phone...I had to buy another one. Probably the biggest appeal for me was the inclusion of a camera. At least 3 of my other friends also have this phone and it's perfect for catching those special moments out on the town. How many people leave home nowadays without their cell phone? Not me. So, with this phone, I always have a camera on hand and ready to go. The quality of the pictures are also better than expected (640x480) at high resolution. AND, you can even zoom up to 16x! SprintPCS has also made it so easy to retrieve your photos online through its Vision Service. With a couple clicks of the buttons, your pictures are uploaded to Sprint's site making room on your phone for more pictures! The phone book stores information for up to 6 numbers, email address...and you can even add a personal ringer and photo. When the person calls, the photo not only is displayed on the main interface but also on the screen on the outside of the phone. You don't even need to open the phone to see who is calling! There are multiple ringers included with the phone and more that you can download...and if you're savvy enough, you can create your own. This phone has so many other cool functions including downloadable games, voice dial, calendar w/alarm, email and shortmail! What more could you want? I must say I have been very pleased...and well, it was good enough even my mom bought one. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91395 2003/2/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish great color screen good construction no speaker phone poor ear volume The Bottom LineIf you want a new toy that really is quite novel, and also very practical, I would definitely recommend this phone. Full Review What an amazing idea, combine a cellular phone and a digital camera into one package. I bought this phone about a week ago and have really come to like it very much, if for no other reason than always having a camera around for all of those times you wished you did, but did not. The phone, as a Camera Now don't get me wrong, it is not the most amazing camera, it is not even really good. It takes pictures at 600 by 480 resolution, which limits them to a certain size on the desktop before they get so stretched out they are impossible to see clearly. It does have standard Digital camera features such as light level adjustment, color tone and so on. The flash really only works at a short distance, and the 4x and 16x zoom is more of a novelty than anything else, ( you have to decrease picture quality even further to use this feature ). However, all of this having been said, it is still a great little camera for capturing things at the spur of the moment, and most importantly, the most amazing feature of the phone is the photo ID system. You take a portrait of someone in your phone book, then attach that picture to their name, and whenever they call you the picture shows up on the external display, simply marvelous. The phone, as a phone The phone itself is really well done. Great reception everywhere that I have gone, even in places I did not used to get reception. It is of good construction as well, with a very sturdy feel to it. It will not come open in your pocket, and is overall very well designed. It has about every feature that is available on phones these days, text messaging, email...etc. It does not, however, have a speakerphone, which would be nice, and it can sometimes be very difficult to hear people if you do not hold the phone ear piece directly in front of your ear. The phone is packaged with 2 batteries, regular and extended, a nice touch, and the extended battery lasts for quite a long time, longer even than my old sprint phone. Technology really is getting impressive in this industry, with this phone at the leading edge at the moment. I am sure that as this idea catches on someone else will come out with a version that has a better camera, that is the nature of the game, however, this was the first, and is very well executed, and surprisingly enough, it is new technology, yet it really does work. I have had no problems doing whatever is is that I wanted to do on this phone, and that to me is a selling point in and itself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 91394 2003/4/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vivid color screens solid feel in your hand a quality low res camera excellent reception it is a little large for a folding phone dimly back lit keypad The Bottom LinePricey, but if you tend to stay with the same phone for a while and want a quality camera phone with great features then this is it. Full Review Ok, I admit it. I am a techno-geek. They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery, but so far it hasn't helped me. So, for now I still clamor for newer, cooler sleeker gadgets and my newest purchase (aside from my DVD recorder...review to come) is my Sanyo 5300. I was impressed from the moment I opened the box. The unit struck me as very aesthetically pleasing with it's large front screen and matte silver finish. More impressive was the fact that both a standard life (approx. 2 hours talk time) and an extended life (approx 3.5 hours talk time) battery were included. Once I transferred my number into the new phone and powered it up, the fun really began. The screens are nothing short of gorgeous, offering the user a rich color experience. Holding true to form, Sanyo's menu interface is easy to navigate but not as intuitive as it could be. Previous Sanyo users will know what I mean. If you aren't a previous Sanyo user, don't worry, there isn't much of a learning curve. Sanyo's use of color graphics to enhance the menus make it enjoyable to click through and see what the phone has to offer. The 5300 includes a calendar, Personal Information Manager, calculator, PC synchronization (with additional cable that is not included), and a world clock. It also offers "voice services" such as the ability to record voice memos for later use (18 seconds each), a call screening feature (to see if you REALLY want to talk to that person calling you), and voice activated dialing. The biggest and most unique feature however is the camera. The 5300 is the first camera phone introduced in the USA by Sanyo. It includes a VGA quality camera for taking and sending e-mail quality (I stress E-MAIL QUALITY here. 640x480 is the best it will do. Perfect for sharing and viewing, not so good for large printing) photos via the Sprint PCS Vision service. The camera is very easy to use- just point and click. It allows you to adjust the picture quality (high, medium, and low), color, white balance, and even has the ability to take black and white or "antique" finish pictures. The built-in flash is perfect for low light conditions where your subject is within 3 feet of the camera and works quite well. It is a high output LED and isn't intended to light up a room like a full featured camera's flash would. The phone also allows its user access to the web via Sprint PCS Vision. This web experience is good, or I should say as good as it can be on a phone. Basically, the internet developers need to now catch up with the phones. What content that is available out there looks good on this phone's color screens. The browser is quick and easy to use(by wireless phone standards) and the phone has plenty of storage memory for you to customize it with screen savers, ringers, games, and applications. The most important feature though is the phone's performance as, well, a phone. Sanyo once again has produced a phone that gets excellent reception in less than ideal conditions. Sound quality is great, though there are reports of some units having very poor volume on the earpiece which is corrected via a software update. My phone shipped with that updated software so this has not been a concern for me. Like all cell phones, the 5300 does get warm after extended use, but not so warm as to make it uncomfortable. The batteries provide more than adequate talk time and do so without adding significant weight to the phone. My biggest gripes about the phone are relatively minor. First, I find that the green LEDs used to illuminate the keypad are not bright enough. This is bothersome at night or if you NEED to make a call while driving and don't have the number set for voice dial. There are aftermarket LED conversions you can pay to have done, but they cost about $100 and void your warranty. My other complaint is one of size. Simply put, it is a little too big. When you consider all the features it includes though, this is not a big concern. Besides, it is still significantly smaller than my old Sanyo SCP-4500 (also a great phone) and it clips right to my belt. In closing, let me say this: This is a wonderful phone, but it is not the ideal phone for everyone. It retails for $399.99 and (only) NEW customers get a $50 rebate. if you are looking for a camera to play with as a toy, you may want to hold off for the Sanyo 8100 being released this summer ( a lower-end and less expensive version without a flash). If you have a work-related need (and can write the phone off on your taxes) or don't mind expensive toys, then I think you will be very satisfied with the 5300. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 91393 2003/2/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 solid construction built in camera w flash tft color display ringers low volume earpiece did i mention price price 399 99 size The Bottom LineIF you must have the latest, and you need a digital camera, Buy it. Just remember, sumth'in better is always just around the corner. Full Review In July of 2001 I wrote an Epinions review for the Sanyo SCP-5000. At that time, the Sanyo SPC-5000 was the first telephone in the U.S. with a full color (256 colors) display. Well now its Feb. 2003 and Sanyo is back! And I am happy to report Sanyo has finally addressed two of my key concerns with the original SCP-5000. Display and battery life are improved! In fact the new SCP-5300 has two color displays! And a built in camera! 1. The color display on the new SCP-5300 is brighter and is more vivid. The new phone has a 2.1" LCD internal screen, as well as an external 1" 65k display. 2. Sanyo now includes both an extended life and standard li-on batteries. Battery life was a major consideration in previous generation color phones. In addition to the great displays, advanced battery packs, and a built in camera function, the phone is also easily customizable. The major drawback is definitely the size. But between the built-in camera and the huge display, I'm not sure how they could have made it much smaller. It's not huge, but it's thicker than my last Sprint phone (Kyocera 2255) by a good margin, which will make a noticeable bulge in your pocket. The interface is kind of fugly, but it's easy to use. The 5-way navigation keys are great. The two soft keys and the web and camera shortcut keys are also similarly great. The number keys, however, are flat and mostly flush with the phone. This makes it a bit harder to feel out the keys, The side keys are oddly located on the right side, making them difficult to press while holding the phone with your right hand. They are also small and recessed, which prevents most accidental key presses, but makes them quite difficult to press intentionally. The polyphonic ringtone speaker is located on the back. When you hold the phone,the natural position if for your index finger to bee right over the speaker grille, blocking the sound almost completely. This wasn't a major issue, but made it difficult to hear confirmation tones and other alerts. The Sanyo-5300 includes an wide collection of ringtones, some of which sound really incredible. I downloaded the "Knight Rider" T.V. show them. Its awesome! As other Epinion reviews have pointed out, the speaker volume is unusually low, even at the highest setting. This could be a problem in noisy environments for some people. When released in Nov. 2002 the Sanyo SCP-5300 marked the first color phone with a built in camera in the U.S. market. Sanyo, it seems, likes to be first! This phone pretty much has everything thats avl. right now: PIM (personal information management), camera (with flash!), web access, dual band/tri-mode. But can you afford it? If you can, this might just make you the coolest guy/gal on the block.... Until, next year. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 91392 2000/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 solid construction small form factor beautiful display phone goes off line when camera is active awkward user interface poor arrangement too many features The Bottom LineExpensive toy for people that thing they need the coolest. The problem is you're forced to stay on the Sprint PCS network which is horrible. Full Review The SCP-5300 is likely a stunning engineering achievement. It's both an analog and digital PCS phone for the Sprint PCS system in a delightful little package that features an integrated digital camera, flash and two color LCD screens. Construction is solid (perhaps better than any other phone currently available). But, alas, the phone shouldn't be your first choice, or even second. My experience with this phone suggests that Sanyo may be tops in cellular telephone technology but lacking in the usability department. The phone's user interface is awkward. Navigating, for example, the camera features is quite easy until you begin to realize there are little oddities all over the place. Snap a picture. Send a picture. Simple enough. Snap a picture, save it to the phone and then try and send it to someone. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes is seems impossible. Other features of the integrated camera suggest that this is one odd device. For one, the phone disconnects whenever you're in camera mode. Why? Seems kind of goofy. If your goal was to marry a phone with a camera - why disable one while the other is being used? Sure, there may be technical reasons - but consumers don't care about that. Perhaps the biggest problem with the SCP-5300 isn't with the phone but with Sprint PCS and their PCS Vision. This is one service and company in need of help fast! I've been a Sprint PCS customer for several years. After repeated problems and experiences with the 5300 and their new PCS Vision I decided to give up my long-held phone number (Powell and FCC shouldn't have given into the cell phone industry and delayed portable cell phone numbers until 2003!) and move to another carrier. Here's why: Sprint PCS has one of the worst web sites out there. It's slow, has poor navigation (just try using help...NO SEARCH!) and frequently doesn't work. In Seattle their service is poor in places you would expect great service: Pioneer Square downtown, Kirkland, Bellevue... you name it. And because they have the "biggest all digital network" you get screwed everytime you need analog. Roaming charges mount up if you let your phone operate in "automatic" roaming mode. Failing that - you simply don't have service. Couple poor web site navigation and performance with exceptionally poor customer service and you'll end up with an agonizingly frustrating experience. PCS Vision really is a joke. Speeds are not even close to what are promised. The SCP-5300 frequently was unable to complete web-related tasks. There's NO EASY WAY to download your own images to the phone (there are instruction you can follow - but they're not at all consumer oriented - and you have to search for them on the net on your own). Sprint even stopped selling the data cable to the 5300 because they realized laptop users were using it as a wireless modem and racking up nearly unlimited data usage. Without the data cable you can't download images, data, address book entries, etc. Talk about frustrating. But the real reason you shouldn't consider the SCP-5300 is because it's nearly $400. At even half that price it would still be expensive. Grab a less expensive phone (with another carrier) and pick up a good digital camera. You'll be much more satisfied. This combination - due largely to Sprint PCS's failing, isn't ready for prime time. If you determined to try it out - give it a run for 14 days. Just be sure to save your receipt! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399 91391 2000/12/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 camera features flash second battery large screen bulky crappier than the 8100 The Bottom LineYou can do better than Sanyo SCP-5300, especially for the price. Full Review When I was switching back to Sprint, I had the choice of two phones. I wanted to pursue Sanyo, so it was either the Sanyo SCP-8100 which was the phone being advertised then at only $99.99 with activation or the much more expensive Sanyo SCP-5300 which had the neater camera and larger screen size. Well, I ended up with the Sanyo SCP-8100 thankfully, yet about a month later, my best friend switched from his dying Samsung N400 to the Sanyo SCP-5300 which he bought for only $130 at Costco. He let me use the phone for large amounts of times on numerous occassions, and here's what I found with the Sanyo SCP-5300. -Price- *The Sanyo SCP-5300 to this date costs $229.99, same price as the Sanyo SCP-8100. As long as the 8100 will cost around the same price, the 8100 would be a better option any day. The price tag currently isn't all too low, I mean yeah you do get a nice phone with some neat features, but it's aging and has worse performance from what I experienced than the Sanyo SCP-8100 and the Samsung competition on the Sprint PCS network. I think the price tag is large, and it's not worth paying so much just to get a low resolution camera and get a sub-par phone. You can really get a much better quality phone at the same price or maybe for a bit larger. As for Samsung, you'd do better with the Samsung VGA1000 which will only cost you a little bit more money, but personally, the Sanyo SCP-8100 is probably the best buy in this range. -Dimensions- *The Sanyo SCP-5300 is longer than the Sanyo SCP-8100. Wow, that can get annoying. Smaller is better. I always loved the fact that my old Motorola v60t was so tiny, and the Sanyo SCP-8100 I have isn't that much larger... But the Sanyo SCP-5300 is just so long, it didn't feel that comfortable carrying it in my pocket, where I like to carry cell phones. Well, I don't know if you'll care all too much about the size difference, but the Sanyo SCP-8100 is definitely smaller, so maybe you'll like that better and find it more convenient. -The Features- *A powerful selling-point I presume is the camera on the Sanyo SCP-5300. It has a zoom and flash, which gives more versatility than the Sanyo SCP-8100 or Samsung VGA1000. However, the picture quality is nothing but poor. Believe me, these camera-phones won't be getting anywhere close to the quality level of a digital camera, and that's why I have a 3.2 megapixel digital camera to take pictures. Other than the camera, the Sanyo SCP-5300 also has a larger LCD screen than the Sanyo SCP-8100. Sure these two things may make one think that it's superior to the 8100... But let's read on. -Ease of Use- *The Sanyo SCP-5300 is more annoying to use than the Sanyo SCP-8100. Everything on the SCP-8100 seems to be much better located and close together. The interface on the Sanyo SCP-5300 is more scattered, and I definitely spent a longer time navigating and using the features of the Sanyo SCP-5300 than the 8100. Overall, the 8100 is more user-friendly than the 5300. -Clarity & Performance- *This is yet another downfall of the Sanyo SCP-5300. Overall, in the same areas, my Sanyo SCP-8100 offered more reception bars and better clarity. Also, the Sanyo SCP-5300 dropped more calls than the SCP-8100. I was also not a large fan of the ear piece on it, I've heard louder phones, so in loud and crowded areas, you may have trouble hearing the person on the other end of the line. Whether it has the camera and the larger screen, a phone is a phone, you're supposed to make calls and hear people clearly. Sprint PCS is a great digital network, and the Sanyo SCP-5300 simply failed to deliver the greatest possible clarity, the 8100 performed better. -Battery Life- *Ok, here's one area where the Sanyo SCP-5300 does perform nicely. It also comes with an extended life battery, which gives it a longer life-duration than the Sanyo SCP-8100. However, with the default smaller batteries, both phones offer a pretty good battery life. However, if you're away from a charger much of the time, then the extended-life battery may serve you nicely. -The Verdict- *The Sanyo SCP-5300 does have some nice aspects to it, but it seems to be outperformed by its smaller counterpart, the Sanyo SCP-8100. The Sanyo SCP-5300 may have a camera with more features and a larger screen, but that still doesn't make up for its worse performance as just a phone. It had worse reception and dropped more calls than my Sanyo SCP-8100. If you're trying to decide between the two, the Sanyo SCP-8100 is a better buy, and definitely look into Samsung, the Samsung VGA1000 does offer better performance than the Sanyo SCP-5300 too. Sprint PCS is a great network, and the PCS Vision is neat, so be sure you find a great phone to make it work at its best for you, and there are better than the Sanyo SCP-5300. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 130Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91390 2003/4/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great gimmicky phone that will get you some attention at public places i ve experienced quirks bad camera should not be a combo The Bottom LineGreat phone - bad camera. Results in the phone being a poor value. Full Review Updated April 10, 2003 ... I added the "Problems I've Had" section. Overview: There is always a trend where manufacturers find gimmicks that grab users' attention but rarely fits any pragmatic need for the end user. One could easily cite examples ad nauseum of this in practice, and the Sanyo 5300 should definitely be on the list. But, I'll leave generation of the list up to your imagination and continue my review of this "phone." At first glance, this phone looks similar to Sanyo's other clam-shell offerings. It is sleek and stylish. It is rather small, and offers a nice LCD display. Most features are what you would come to expect from a cell phone that costs around $200 - $300. However, this phone costs $400 (This is the current price being quoted me by my local Best Buy). Users are led to believe that the premium paid goes towards a camera that will pitch their life for the better. For such a high price increase, one should expect to be blown away with features and usability that far surpasses a regular phone. But with the Sanyo 5300 the only extra is a low-resolution camera. I'm not going to go over every feature and do some in-depth analysis of this phone. What I'm going to do is tell you what I think of it based on my normal use of the phone. As a phone, the 5300 does very well. My daily use of the phone brought no problems (until recently... more about this later) However, service is not flawless as I still experience all the hiccups with dropped calls and pockets of poor reception that plagued me with my previous cell phones. Navigation and address book features are almost identical to most modern cell phones. Also, Polyphonic ringers and support of the Sprint PCS Vision service are a great bonus which add some fun to how the phone functions Another thing that I like about this phone is that the phone comes with 2 very nice batteries (one being larger and of higher capacity than the other). Both batteries offer astounding battery life and talk time. Treating this phone as a communication device, I find no shortcomings to the Sanyo 5300 in terms of clarity and talk-time. Last, this phone has great style and looks. I also really appreciate the build quality. Sanyo puts great reliability and quality construction into their products, and this is no exception. The phone's finish has held up very well in spite of me carrying the phone in the same pocket as I keep my keys. I do not use a cover or carrying case with this phone, and it has no visible scratches on it at all. This may sound alarming, but please note that the pictures it takes now are the same as when the camera was new. Before I continue, I should point out that perhaps my expectations are askew. Prior to this phone, I had another combination phone. The Samsung SPH I300 ( ) has the functions of a Palm Pilot merged with a cell phone. If someone spent $400 on the I300, they received all the usability of a Palm Pilot along with a very full-featured telephone. The end product was both novel and practical. The I300 is an example of integration providing value to the consumer. Situations changed and I ended up with the Sanyo 5300 to replace the SPH I300. The result has left me fully disappointed. My concern with the Sanyo 5300 is how poorly the camera performs and integrates to the phone. I currently own a Canon Powershot S230 as a point and shoot camera, but I thought it would be great to simply have a cell phone without needing to carry two devices. However, the camera on the 5300 is so poor that I feel Sanyo should not have even bothered trying to graft it onto one of their cell phones. It is worthless and adds very little value to their "phone." I make this statement with 3 main observations: 1) The camera rarely results in a picture worth saving. Even in "high resolution", the image is usually too small or grainy to be used for anything. The quality of image is on par with the first run of personal digital cameras released many, many years ago. 2) While using the "camera", your phone won't work. It's not that phone calls are disabled... but the phone itself must exit the PCS service area in order for you to shoot pictures. I cannot stress how poorly this reflects the level of integration achieved. If they could not make it so that the devices functioned only by intruding on the other - they should not have even bothered selling it. 3) Sharing pictures is not as convenient as the commercials would have you believe. Even though this routine is rare, it usually takes me over 3 minutes coupled with many failed attempts to "upload" a single image for sharing. Even when it works, the result is meaningless. I am disappointed with Sanyo's attempt at a "camera / phone", and I would not recommend this phone to anyone. There are many very small, lightweight digital cameras that do a marvelous job at taking great photos. While a separate camera will definitely have no integration to your sharing pictures, users experience no loss since the sharing of images on the 5300 is almost useless. And, there are also many cell phones out there that offer the 5300's phone-features for much less cost. Problems I've Had: This isn't a fatal defect, but it is annoying. Anyway, I've noticed that setting the phone to vibrate mode or silent doesn't seem to always put the phone into vibrate or silent mode. I've placed the phone in my pocket where the vibrate icon was clearly visible when the clam-shell is open or closed. However, the phone will then proceed to just play the ringer at its loudest volumne anyway. This is pretty annoying when you become the "punk" who has their ringer on in an indoor venue. I've even had the phone on "silent" where the "Silence All" bar is clearly visible ... and it still plays a ringer. No, I'm not drunk when this happens. I've been at work, at home, or at the movies when this happened. Also, my attention span when I'm at work is pretty good... my phone vibrating is known pretty quickly. I very confident that I can feel a vibration in my pants. This slight quirk is starting to really annoy me and has greatly diminished my like for the device. It was about 3 weeks ago that I have noticed this happening, and it is such a weird problem that I don't know what to make of it. I would have rather the phone just "die." than to have quirks. This is probably just a problem with my phone in particular, but neither Sanyo or Best Buy want to claim that it is a flaw which warrants a repair or replacement on the phone. I think they believe that it is user error on my part. I don't know anyone else with this phone who has experienced a similar problem. Summary: When money is important, who should get this phone? I think this is a neat gadget, but I like to get value out of gadgets too. I can't recommend this product to someone in the market for a new PCS cell phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400 91389 2000/3/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great features good camera with you at all times a little bulkier than other phones out there pricey The Bottom LineWith an incredible array of features, great web integration, and an onboard camera, the SCP-5300 is the next generation phone we have been waiting for. Full Review A month or so ago, around my birthday, I decided that my old Motorola Startac just wasn't cutting it anymore. I had friends that had recently purchased new phones, and I wanted features other than the very basic phone book and simple calling that my trusty startac provided. My first impulse was to go with the Samsung A500. It was the phone my friend had, and it seemed pretty nice. At $300, it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but I'm definitely a sucker for gadgets, so it was easily justified. When I went to Best Buy that day, just to look, I first laid eyes on the Sanyo 5300. The BUILT-IN camera immediately drew me to it, and the big, bright, beautiful color screen dazzled me. Whats more, the $400 phone was being offered for only $300 ($250 if I was a new customer). What began as a recon mission ended with me carrying my brand new phone home. Interface As soon as I got it out of the box, I started to play with it. My first reaction was the quality and depth of the interface. The buttons are laid out very well, and do what you would expect each one to do. The menu is very good, and is categorized by pictures. Soon, I was navigating solely by picture, without even reading. I found it very intuitive. The web browser amazed me, as it can navigate NOT ONLY WAP (mobile phone) sites, but also just about any site on the web. Granted, many sites are painless to use on such a small screen, but I would much rather cope with a hard to use full-site than not have that functionality at all. I found that the start page of the phone was good, however, I chose to replace it with the start page created by sprintusers.com, which I found to be even more helpful. Cool Features For a gadget freak like me, this phone is a dream come true. It has all the goodies that have now become standard, such as voice dialing, custom ringers, phone book, etc. However, I was impressed by the extension of the standard things. Phone book - Has room for 6 numbers, email address, personal ringer, label, and photo. You can set the phone to automatically display the photo when that person calls, effectively creating photo-caller id. Ringers - I don't know if this is the case with other phones, but the ringers used by the 5300 are nothing more than standard MIDI files. Yes, that means that the musically inclined can create their own ringers, and the not so musically inclined can download (assuming you check on the legality of such) just about any ringer for your phone. No longer are you limited to the few ringers available for purchase. In addition, I discovered a new, extremely cool thing about this phone. If you download certain tools, you can even turn MP3 files into ringers! Right now, I have actual songs, with lyrics, as my ring tones. See a full tutorial on sprintusers.com. Voice dial - Nothing new here, but you are about to select ANY number from a person's entry in the phone book (many phones ONLY allow the first or home number to be used.) In addition, I have found that this is an excellent system. I have had problems with other phones before, but the 5300 voice dial works just about anywhere, regardless of background noise. Calendar/Alarm - The calendar/alarm feature is very much like any phone would have. T9 input makes entry very quick. Unfortunately, the alarm only goes off for 5-6 seconds. Not a problem for me, but maybe for the hard-to-rise types. Email/shortmail - This is a feature I use extensively. When you are in a movie or meeting, friends or co-workers can simply email you, and you will silently receive it instantaneously on the phone. You can then respond, all from the silent and discreet location of your lap. Camera - Finally, the feature everyone buys the phone for. The camera is very well implemented on this phone. It has a good resolution (obviously, you are not going to be hanging these pictures on the wall) for what it is (640x480), and the ability to zoom (digitally) up to 16x. However, perhaps the best feature of this camera is the integration with SprintPCS Vision service. I have had an EXCELLENT experience with this service. The camera feature allows you to take several pictures on your phone (16-20), and, if desired, upload them directly to Sprint's site, effectively giving you unlimited capacity. Alternatively, you may choose to shrink them down to the size of your phone's screen (which makes the file much smaller) and save them in the photo wallet. I have not filled this yet, but I have heard capacities up to 70 pictures in the wallet. Final Thoughts Although the price may be steep for some, the potential of ALWAYS having a camera with me, in a very compact size, was very attractive. I have found the picture quality of the camera to be very good, and the quality of the phone overall to be outstanding. The screen is the best on the market, the interface is exceptional, the integration with PCS Vision is remarkable, and the possibilities are endless. Free services such as 3upload.com and Sprintusers.com allow you to easily upload data (pictures, ringer, and games) onto your phone, providing a very customized and useful experience. Certainly, I have no regrets about purchasing this phone. My one suggestion to those that tend to keep the phone in the pocket with keys and change is, however, to buy a case for the phone. I immediately got one, because I am paranoid about change or keys scratching the lense. Other than that, the phone is near perfect. Best Buy Sanyo SCP-5300 $300 with $100 instant rebate Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00 91388 2002/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 designdid i mention features two 65k displays lots of features some customization limitations the big 400 pricetag The Bottom LineIf you have extra cash and want the ultimate toy/utility combination, this is a wise (and addicting) investment! Full Review I think I'll say that again -- "Wowzers!" Sure, I could have bought several things with $400, perhaps even sponsored a child in Africa for that kind of money -- but this phone is anything but just a simple way to communicate. Before I get into all the added features, let me just say that the phone at face value -- a cell phone -- works very well. It's organized and clear (for the most part) and its reception and quality are great! The phone is very good about telling you what it's doing and lets you customize these alerts (for the most part). OK, on to the goodies! The phone has a nice 2.1" LCD internal screen, as well as an external 1" 65k-screen, and isn't afraid to use them. You're instantly greeted with stunning graphics and after a little setup with your provider, you're on your way! This phone just has so much that I don't know how to address each feature. I'll try a list with everything, good and bad, below: * Shoot digital pictures (640 x 480 pixels) with a built-in VGA Smart Camera, then share them through Vision. The camera isn't a heartstopper quality-wise, but it sure gets the job done and is always a handy and fun addition to any social gathering :) Built-in flash improves picture quality in low-light conditions. No PC or additional battery required. Also, auto-focus 4x and 16x digital zoom! * Voice activated dialing is built in! No more paying Sprint $5/month to use it! Say the name of the person you want to call and the number is dialed automatically without using the keypad. * Did I mention the 2.1" Vivid 65k-color TFT LCD? It's awesome! Big enough to show plenty of options and is handy for our favorite camera functions! * Advanced text messaging system. Everything is built into a 'MESSAGE' button. It would be nice if it had a less complicated system and if your phone numbers from your address book were automatically inserted in to your messaging system, but it's still a powerful feature nonetheless. * Stores up to 500 total numbers in the phone book. Enter up to 300 contact names with up to 7 phone numbers per name and up to 300 e-mail and web addresses. All of this is done through one screen, which also contains options like 'Custom Ringer' and 'Custom Image.' You can also associate and view Voice Dial entries. * The call log is very detailed, well organized and useful for adding new incoming numbers to your new phone. (Yes, I used the word new twice in rapid succession :/) * "Carry your calendar wherever you go so you can create appointments and view your schedule at a moment's notice. A simple calculator and game is included." That's what Sprint says, and they're right. A calendar (that synchronizes with your sprintpcs.com account) is included, however it's a bit cumbersome to use to its fullest potential -- lots of typing. * The phone goes in to Power Save mode automatically when not in a service area. * Fun ring tones, however you can't get new ones without paying (very few are free, there is no utility to compose your own or easily upload from a PC.) * No games. Rather, no FREE games. You have 4 crippled demo versions of games. You'd think they'd want to put some on such a cool phone. This isn't really a big point, however I thought you should be aware that downloading a game will cost you. * At least the 'Downloads' function is centralized and is easy to use. * Phone is fairly verbose in telling you what's going on (roaming is clearly states, and options are given to help you keep charges down). * The menu system boasts the screen rather than the options it holds. It's difficult to scroll through captionless images, one at a time. The option to change the menu to a list is somewhat tricky to find. * You can only customize so much appearance-wise, and the options aren't organized too well. Some useless features (ie, viewing your 'Phone Info') are given their own menu, when display functions are hidden and crunched together in a Settings menu. * The phone, however, is very small, light and sleek - impressive considering everything that it comes with. The 4-way button that surrounds the menu button is surprisingly accurate and the keys, while a bit small, are logically placed and access functions quickly. * Approximately 2.7 hours talk time or up to 10.4 days of stand-by time in digital. Not too shabby for all the things you can use it for! Be wary, the camera eats your batteries very quick. Pros: * Camera provides hours of fun :) * Impressive battery life, given its features. * I'm not too sure if this is just my phone, or Sprint's service too -- but the sound is clear, even with few (or no extra) signal indicators. * Dual LCD monitors are helpful, fun and sharp. * Powerful functions included, standard items such as phone books and call logs are souped up and programmed nicely. * One-touch access to many of the features (web, message center) -- truly a phone for the digitally connected! * Comes with a second battery for the die-hard talkers among us. However, the included charger only includes batteries connected to the phone. Cons: * Menu system is tough to work, and pops away quickly. * Outer LCD screen is too dark to read and backlight shuts off to quick. * Some menus are tough to get to, inconsistent interface (the center menu button doesn't always bring up menus, you have to use the upper right push-button when in Vision mode and some other modes) * Manual is a disappointment and the starer CD that comes along just tries to be too helpful -- and fails. * Vision's already clunky Web interface can be difficult to browse using the browser. * You can only customize the display/colors/banners so much. * Did I mention I could have gotten a new wardrobe for the price of this phone? ;) Overall, this phone is the best I've ever used. Sure, I paid for it - but the features, size and durability make it #1 in my book. The cons aren't too cumbersome and seem like no bother at all when you think of all the other goodies you're getting with the phone. The verdict: If you have $400 laying around -- go for it! You'll have hours of fun and when you actually have to make/take a call -- you'll be surpised at how easy it is. Note: Currently, you cannot activate these phones via the SprintPCS activation site, and must call Customer Service. Apparently the software is too new for the web service to recognize. Let's just say that waiting on hold for 30 mins to activate the phone kind of took away the initial magic. However, after everything was set up -- it was nothing but smooth sailing! -- P.P.S. My good buddy, eopinions user jmwilhelm has given me the following useful link: http://www.sprintusers.com/focus/ - upload your own images/ringers! Woohoo! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 349.99 91387 2004/3/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size features to please most anyone ease of use few bugs volume delicate casing still sprint The Bottom LineThough I don't use this phone to its full potential (email and messaging not really used), the basic function of this phone for talking if flawless. Full Review Ok, cycle through my reviews and you'll see more or less a review for every phone I've owned. They all offer insights and experiences from someone who literally kills phones for a living. So a little a background is in order (as usual). My company uses Sprint, a company which I vowed never to again use for my personal plans. I despise their service and customer service. But I'm forced to deal with it for work so why not make the most of it. Prior to this phone I used the Nokia 3585 which served me very well. I never had a problem with this phone, but sadly it ended life recently when I was fielding a call while riding on a Paladin tank, we hit a nasty rut, phone flew out of my hands.. onto the ground and could not survive under the treads of the 55,000 pound tank. I was sad. I may have even cried. I made the dreaded call to our Sprint rep to report the loss and find out if I could (praying) get another Nokia 3585. I could not, there was not one available but he assured me that I would much enjoy the rugged durability of the Sanyo SCP-5300. After much hesitation I agreed, flip phones don't usually last more than a month under my ownership. Time to put the 5300 to the test. First impressions- Well, military folks and government folks take note.. Camera phones are banned at some installations. Thankfully I'm able to get mine into where I work, but not a great way to start out a cell phone relationship. The casing reminds me of a Star Trek gadget and while it is very nice and appealing to the eye, the darn thing was scratched to hell before I even took it out while testing military equipment. I did end up buying a leather case for it, which you may want to consider if you're like me and have a tendency to throw it in your pocket along with your keys or put it anywhere conducive to scratches. It has long been my opinion that mobile phones should be able to withstand the harsh environments we subject them to and never really understood why these companies make phones that so easily get beat up. User interface is absolute simplicity. Ok I admit, I take a phone out of the box I power it up and I go. User manual?? huh.. what's that? I powered this thing up, had my phone book loaded in no time, had pictures taken and saved to screensaver in seconds, got my calendar for the month set and even managed to download Sweet Home Alabama as my main ringer. Voila. By far the easiest phone to use I've ever owned. The Good- I have more storage in this phone per contact then I have ever had. I can save addresses, emails, phone #'s, and mug shots now for each person in my phone book. This has become very handy and made my PDA virtually useless. The main color screen is big, bright, and clear. Very nice job Sanyo. One handed operation all the way. Very useful and big plus to me. I can do anything that can be done with this phone all the options with one hand. Convenience at its finest. Reception: No dropped calls in 2 months of ownership. Is this possible? Now I have yet to take this on long distance travel with me, though a trip to Austin is in the making so we'll see. But I applaud Sprint/Sanyo here, I have no dropped calls and geographically, my work area is pretty remote. I have been in areas where the signal was nil but wasn't on a call. So unsure of how it would perform there while talking to someone. But so far so good. The bad- Volume: ok.. not all of us are deaf. Even at the lowest talk volume, I have to hold the phone away from my ear the vast majority of the time. The volume is just too loud. I could be riding open air on a piece of machinery with unrestricted diesel power plant grumbling away and still have to hold the phone away from my ear. I don't get it. I have yet to turn the volume up above the first bar. I'm scared to think how loud it is at the highest lvl. Juice: I have to carry a spare battery with me, one just doesn't cut it for me. I talk about 3-4 hours a day on my phone and I'm usually out of juice before I even head home for the day. This is something I'm accustomed to so I really don't mind, but to some it may be a pain. Advertised battery life can be found at the Sprint website, so I won't bother. But heavy talkers should keep a spare battery handy. Small keys: very nitpicky of me, I know, but the number keys are tiny. If I have to dial a number not already saved in my phone book, I misdial 9 times out of 10. I guess the relatively small size of this phone calls for these small keys but it is a pain for me. The undecided- Camera- ok, the camera function is a novelty. It is easy to use, point and push, if you don't like the picture discard it and take a new one. Save the ones you like to wallet and then off you go. I have not been able to share them or send to anyone else despite calling Sprint several times about this problem. Now I've learned that dealing with problems when it comes to Sprint is hit or miss, so never look a gift horse in the mouth. My phone works great for talking so I let it be. I don't always have a camera on me to catch something I want, but have found that almost half the pictures I take with the camera on this phone have to be retaken anyway due to poor quality. So yes, you have a camera at your disposal anytime you want it, but it may or may not take a picture worth keeping. The verdict- Well, it has been dropped, it has been out in the dusty test track, it's been in water, and it still works. So this to me is a success. Despite the rather worn look of the casing and the volume issues, I'm hoping this phone stands the test of time as I've grown rather fond of its usefulness. I use this phone to talk, not for email or messaging. So I can't give insight into those features, what I can say is that I've gotten a few spam text messages which I've called Sprint to complain about. Spam mail is bad enough on my yahoo email account, the last thing I need is spam on my cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91386 2000/2/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 extra battery sleek stylish easy to use feature rich price heats up difficulty hearing basic features games The Bottom LineIt's easily worth the money if you're a gadget-head. The camera feature is just a novelty though and you may want to go for a more sensible phone. Full Review I've had this phone for a few months now. I upgraded from the Sanyo SCP4500 which I was quite happy with. I think Sanyo makes excellent phones. This is no exception. I'll do my best to avoid commenting on things that you can see for yourself if you simply walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City to see one in person and focus on the stuff you only know once you own it. As a phone, it does its job. The phone comes with 2 batteries. One is slim and compact and the other is beefy and holds a longer charge. So far I've used the sleek one the most and even that one lasts a really long time. I'm not a huge talker (about 600 minutes a month), but I leave it off the charger for 4 or 5 days at a time. That's pretty impressive to me. I thought it would be a battery drainer compared to the 4500, but it's really not that bad. If I use it for games or playing with the camera alot, I have to charge it after 3 to 4 days. Basically what I'm saying is the batteries are great. Basic features - the interface is easy to navigate through - it's the same as on other current Sanyo vision phones. The keypad is very easy to use - and I don't have small hands either. The screen is nice and big and bright. There's a smaller screen on the front when you close the phone that is also in color. The camera - it's a simple built-in camera. There's flash and digital zoom and you can close the phone and take a picture of yourself (seeing what the camera sees in the mini screen). It's really nothing more than a novelty feature... however, it does take decent pictures - even in low light. It's a nice ice-breaker and if you like, you can assign photos to phone numbers. This might be useful when out at a bar meeting people ;), or when meeting clients, or when shopping for homes or cars. There's endless uses for such a thing really if you put your mind to it, but don't expect to eventually print out these photographic masterpieces - the quality isn't THAT good. The flash works well, but not great. If the subject is close to you, it's fine. Once you start taking pictures of someone from 15 feet away in a dark area, the flash simply isn't powerful enough. Oddly enough, I haven't experienced any red eye. The zoom feature is rather useless. Well, I do use it. It's just that since it's digital and we're talking low resolution to begin with, things get pretty pixelated. The camera menus seem to drag their feet at times as well. A few complaints - The charger that comes with it is just the kind that plugs into the phone - it would've been nice to get a stand-up charger so I could charge both batteries at once... that's not too much to ask for a four hundred dollar phone. The earpiece isn't very loud and it's difficult to get it aimed just right at my ear canal. It's really easy to muffle the speaker with my ear. Trying to listen to someone while in a noisy area is quite difficult. The SCP 4500 didn't have this problem at all. That's not to say it isn't clear as a bell because when I am in a normal environment, I can hear people very clearly. People I talk to say that I come in loud and clear as well, so the mic seems to work well. The keypad lights up a dull green which is pretty lame since blue is the new green. The games that come with the phone are all nothing more than demo versions, and the backgrounds and ringers that come with the phone are dull and boring. You can download plenty of ringers, backgrounds and games though, so this is hardly a problem except that downloading stuff costs money... I expected at least one or two full games to come with my phone at that price. I guess that's what my Xbox is for though. ;) The phone heats up after 20 minutes or so of talking. It's not scorching hot, but it does get a little warm against my face. I've had worse. Another possible caveat is that you lose the ability to receive calls while you're using the camera feature. This may be a big turn-off for some people, but it doesn't bother me. The instructions tell you not to touch the antenna while in use and I try not to, but it does seem to get in the way a little bit. I urge you to handle a flip phone for yourself to make sure it will be something you like. They're not for everyone. I went from a candybar phone to this tiny flip phone. The fact that this one is so much easier to carry around more than makes up for it being a bit more uncomfortable to use. I'll admit that I seem to have alot of complaints about this phone, but they're all really minor to me. Overall, this phone is the best I've ever owned. I'm glad I bought it. I traded away a speakerphone feature (on the 4500) for a compact phone with a vivid color screen with a built-in camera. This phone is for people who like to have the newest-latest technology... people who are into gadgets and gizmos. This phone is alot of fun to own. If your phone is your life or your business, then I'd suggest waiting for the next generation of camera phones because they're only going to get better... for now though, this is the best. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 91385 2004/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 double batteries good shape reception games lcd screens camera not much b c of the color lcds batteries drain faster than my v60 The Bottom LineThe title says it all. Full Review Two of my friends own this phone, and I have done extensive research on it. So even though I don't own it, I have spent much time with one-games, pictures etc. The Tale of The Tape The Batteries The phone comes with two batteries. That, in itself, makes the phone sweet. I mean, who couldn't use two batteries? And the Lithium-Ion batteries last a good bit of time. My friend says that even after a day of heavy talking, he can go another day without charging the batteries. Mind you, this is a camera phone with a color display too. But it does get better. Size and Shape The phone is a manageable size; roughly 3.5 inches tall and a little less than two in width. It's not as small as my Motorola v60, but this is a camera phone we're talking about. The shape of the phone isn't very sleek looking in my eyes, but it's not an eyesore either. The Screen The title is incorrect. It should be screens. There are two color screens. A one inch one on the exterior of the phone, and a 2.1 one inside the phone are the screens. The exterior, smaller screen, displays a picture and the time, date etc. The interior one tells you the basics again: time, date, bars of reception. You can also make a picture you have taken, your wallpaper for the interior screen. From the interior screen is where you navigate to your phonebook, camera, games, and so forth. The screen is very readable and is not hard to navigate. The Buttons Keypad is the more professional sounding word, but I like buttons...yes the buttons are good. Spaced out evenly; not like the crazy Nokia keypads. The set up is like a basic phone. However, you can get a little confused at first. Some buttons that look like they correspond to one option end up being for something else. The Antenna Awesome. Awesome is the best word to describe the antenna. My Motorola v60 has the most flimsy antenna ever. It has broken off twice already. The Sanyo is sturdy enough and has a nice rounded tip to it. The Applications The phone book is very easy to use for the Sanyo. But I guess phonebooks are easy to use for most phones. You can customize your numbers with the Sanyo a little bit more than the average phone. The games are much better than your typical "Snake", "Video Poker", "Memory, or "Falling Numbers". This is when I spend the most time with my friend's phone: to play the games. I don't know why I use it so often, but it passes time. My friend downloaded the games (and paid for them too), and I'm glad he did. Golf is incredible. Plus, the color screen makes any games ten times better. Voice activated dialing is on the Sanyo for 30 phone numbers (max.). I never use text messaging and so doesn't my friend. So we both can't really say how good or bad this application is. (We're too cheap to pay extra) But how bad/good can it really be? One of my favorite features on the Sanyo are the ringtones. For this phone, you can have Polyphonic ring tones. Polyphonic ringtones sound much more realistic than the classic MIDI's and so forth. The Camera Well this is the main draw of the SCP-5300. The camera is located on the exterior above the 1 inch screen, and adjacent to the flash. The camera shoots in 640x480 pixels. The quality isn't really bad. But remember, this is a phone. You're crazy to think that this camera will take you award winning shots. But it is fun to use, and quite easy. Three presses of buttons and you have yourself a picture. You can discard the picture after you've taken it, or you can save it. The coolest part is that a picture can be taken with the phone closed. You can preview it on the 1 inch screen then snap one. This feature enables you to take portraits. Reception Well what good is a cell phone if you can't talk/listen clearly? All of the special features are great, but the quality of the reception should be priority numero uno. My friend's phone is on Sprint, and he has very good reception with clear calls. But there's a catch. He always seems to be in Extended Network. And a lot of time he is in the dreaded Roaming. However, the clarity is still good, but his phone bill isn't doing as well. He uses it in central and eastern Florida. OVERALL: B+/A- It's a fun phone to use that has good reception. Enough said. Other Information from the Sanyo Website: http://www.sanyo.com/consumer/communications/SCP-5300.htm: -SANYO's first Tri-Mode Phone -Built-In VGA Quality Digital Camera -Flash - High Luminance LED -WAP 2.0 -Java Fully Supports Sprint PCS Vision™(J2ME MIDlet) -Enhanced 2.1 inch 65 thousand-color TFT LCD display -Quality 640x480 VGA photographs -Zoom capability up to 4X and 16X -User Controlled Color Tone (Antique, Black & White, Negative) -User Controlled Brightness (Auto, or 9 Step Manual) -User Controlled White Balance -(Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, or 9 Step Manual) -PictureWallet Stores Favorite Pictures on phone for offline viewing and slideshows -Snap pictures and instantly assign photos as caller id, or screensaver Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125 w/rebateRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91384 2005/1/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of features nice ringers camera flash a big plus easy to use nice looks sprint vision expensivequirky battery life not that great sporadic signal slightly large The Bottom LineEven though the price has fallen considerably, be warned: this was Sanyo's first cameraphone and some details are rough around the edges. Full Review Since the cell phone boom, I've been a Sanyo Man. My very first phone was the Sanyo SCP-4000, and when it came time for my mother to buy a phone, I heartily recommended the SCP-4500. I was very happy with my SCP-4000: it was reliable, well-built, and easy to use. Yet as time went on and new models came out, I suffered from slight phone envy. So, when the SCP-5300 came out with a camera and built-in flash, I was sold. Now that I've had a year with this phone, I can give you my impressions. WHAT FEATURES DOES THE PHONE HAVE? Well, the phone has been around a while so there are definitely more sophisticated phones out there. Still, the SCP-5300 is most certainly cheaper than when I got it: I'm seeing it on eBay for around $100... I got it for double that, and that was with a $100 discount for renewing my contract with Sprint. These phones are coming out with so many features that it's almost exhausting to write out all the features - and probably just as exhausting to read them! Aside from the camera that shoots up to 640x480 resolution pictures (with available digital zoom on lower resolutions), this Tri-Mode phone comes pretty feature-packed, including an extra long-life battery (that's two batteries total), a large color display, multi-tone ringers, Sprint Vision capability (more on that later), Standby Time 245 hours / Talk Time Up to 162 min, calendar, alarm clock, games... these things are really like mini-computers nowadays. For more details on features, check out one of the many other fine reviews in this section and you'll find what you're looking for, trust me. I am of course open to any e-mails with questions or will answer your queries in the "comments" section on this page. WHAT'S TO LIKE ABOUT IT? I like many things about this phone... Ease of use: The SCP-5300 isn't as easy to use as my SCP-4000, but the core structure of navigating the menus and phonebook is intact. The main menu can be in graphic form or in text form... choose text! The graphic form, while pretty and full of scenic pics like the Statue of Liberty and the Egyptian Sphynx, is downright counterintuitive. Still, it's otherwise a breeze to use once you get the hang of it... I didn't need the manual when I first got the phone and I haven't needed it today! Lord of the Ringers: Ha! Man, I'm creative... or not. Moving on, the SCP-5300 comes stocked with some pretty nice ringers. The cool part is, you can download any midi file from a computer (I actually downloaded some of my compositions!), and you can download various ringers from a plethora of websites out there (some charge, others don't). The only problem with the musical ringers is they're not as loud as the shrill sound of Ringer #1 on the phone, which is far from musical! Unfortunately, as it's the loudest it's the one I use. If someone special like the girlfriend calls, however, you can preset your phone to have a distinctive ring for her. So, when she calls me, I not only see her picture on my phone but I also hear a ringer that I had set for only her. (Everybody together: "Awwwwwwwww!") Camera: If you haven't jumped onboard the cell-phone camera craze, you probably think it's just a gimmick. Nope. This camera has been a lifesaver at times, and is certainly a wonderful feature to have. The flash is pretty pathetic as it only works if the person is really close to the camera. As I hinted above, you can assign pictures to incoming calls for a particular person or you can set these pictures as the background wallpaper for your camera. With PCS Vision, you can also send photos to other sprint phones or to someone's e-mail with relative ease, as well as upload them to your very own online Sprint Pictures Album for later viewing online (that is, when Sprint Vision is working). Convenient features: I can't tell you how many times I've used the little things, such as the alarm, the voice memo recorder ("pick up mail"), the voice dialing system (just say the name of someone you want to call and it does it for you), and the calculator. They're everyday lifesavers, and I'm glad my phone's got 'em. Features like the Sprint PCS Internet Browser are indispensible for checking on the weather, movie times, sports scores, stocks... you can even surf the text of any internet site... and including full use of Google! I do wish there were an easier way to just enter an internet web address, but I guess that will come with time as the technology improves. There are even some features I haven't used regularly (okay... never), such as "Airplane Mode", which prevents any outgoing calls, incoming calls, or online access... (hmm... maybe I have used that feature... when I turn the phone OFF!) UPDATE: I have recently learned how the Airplane Mode comes in handy... to play games! Can't believe I hadn't thought of that. Okay, so maybe "Airplane Mode" IS a good thing, then! Durable! I've dropped this phone more times than I can remember, and it still works like a champ! I even dropped it in the toilet for a second... don't ask... just know the bowl was clean), and it still works fine (after a few treatments with Lysol)! WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE? Well unfortunately every product has its Achilles Heel... (no I haven't seen the movie Troy yet!) Sporadic phone signal: One great thing about my ancient SCP4000 phone was that my phone signal was reliable: either I had a good signal, or no signal... there were no unpleasant surprises. With the SCP-5300, I don't know what to expect sometimes. I could have a good 3-4 bars of signal and then suddenly I lose the call. When I look at my phone, there are no bars left, but then if I wait a few seconds suddenly the bars reappear: 1 bar, then 2, then 3! What's up with that? It doesn't happen that frequently but when it does it's annoying. This may have something to do with the service here in Florida, but just in case you've been warned. Quirky Sprint Vision Service: Okay, I'm paying $15 a month for this service, and it doesn't work a lot of the time. All the cool stuff I said about sending text messages, e-mails, pictures, and surfing the web means nothing if the darn service doesn't work, right? Well it happens, folks, and more often than I'd like. When you try to connect to the web it takes forever before it finally tells you "network timeout" or "network busy, please try again later". In Sprint's defense, it's gotten more reliable, but even so, there are lots of kinks to iron out here. Another thing: sending text messages is a chore. First you have to log on to the phone's internet, type the message out (at least it has T9 text entry), and then send it, waiting for the internet to process the information. I've seen some Nokia phones that send text messages instantly without having to log on to anything or wait for a message to process. That's the way text messaging should be! Quick 'n' easy. Why Sprint hasn't jumped on this is beyond me. So-so battery life: Okay, maybe that's a bit optimistic... how's lousy? I still have to charge the phone every night or I'll find my phone gasping for air (battery acid?) by the following evening. ... Definitely not as rosy a picture as the folks at Sanyo would have you believe. The extended battery is certainly better, lasting a good two days of regular use without requiring any charging. Of course, then you have to lug it around... and you can forget about wearing it on your belt when it's on! Slow camera: Yeah, having the camera is cool, but it's also slightly laborious to use at times. For instance, you click a picture, but it takes a good few seconds before you can actually see what pic you took. On newer Sanyo phones, this isn't the case. Also, when you save a picture, it's labeled by date or by some other alpha-numeric stamp, such as Image277777978501. How the heck can I tell which pic is what without having to scroll through all of them? You're given only one opportunity to name the pictures, too, and that's right after taking the picture. Problem is, even when you name the picture, the label doesn't stick and you never see it again. In my judgment, Sanyo was in such a hurry to be the first ones to come out with a camera phone that they let these minor details slip. There are other camera phones out there with much friendlier everyday functionality, believe me... they just cost more. Size: Of course, cell phones have gotten smaller and smaller over the years, and this phone is no exception. But by today's standards, the SCP-5300 is a heffer, weighing 4.1 oz (upper middle-of-the-pack), and can feel a little bulky, especially if you use the long life battery. It's the price you pay for having a beautifully large viewing screen. Flat plastic buttons: Alright, while I'm getting nit-picky, let's talk about these things: the buttons. On my SCP4000, the rubber buttons were slightly raised, and it was easy to tell when you had pressed 'em. Plus, they were well-illuminated at night. These buttons are tough to press without hitting an adjacent button, and they're poorly lit at night. VERDICT: THINK OF IT AS THE "BETA RELEASE"! Almost immediately after the introduction of the SCP5300, Sanyo made another one, the SCP-8100. Even though it had no flash for the camera, it was definitely an improvement over the 5300... it's easier to use, the battery lasts longer, and it operates much faster than the SCP5300. As I said before, I think this camera is the product of Sanyo's haste to be first in the cameraphone market, and the little problems would have to be ironed out later. From what I've seen from the new phones out there, I'd say Sanyo has done that. Don't get me wrong, because I'm not running to the nearest store to replace my camera... the price is certainly right nowadays and I therefore recommend it. As soon as the price falls for some of these new phones (oooooo... video phones!), I might be tempted to part with this one. That won't be for a while, though... UPDATE! 12/04 The hinges have now come undone and the camera won't stay open without me propping it. Time to get a new one. Wow... how long did this phone last me? One and a half years? Look elsewhere, shoppers. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91383 2000/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the web games analog digital cell phone with camera the pricecharging system The Bottom LineIf you can afford the price tag then this phone has many options to offer! Full Review The Sanyo SCP-5300 is four devices in one, a Phone, a Camera, a Web Browser and for Entertainment. This is a nice phone but it has a steep price tag of $399. The Phone The SCP-5300 is a flip-open design phone that measures 3.75 inches high, 1.89 inches wide and 1.09 inches thick. It is a 1.9 gigahertz digital phone and a 800 megahertz digital/analog phone. Sanyo provides two batteries with this model, a standard battery and a high capacity battery. The 2.1-inch TFT LCD main screen can display 65,000 colors, this is really nice. The screen makes it easier to read messages and phone numbers, this screen is on the inside of the phone when you flip it open. There is also a 1 inch color screen on the outside of the phone. The keypad is designed nicely, the keys are slightly recessed. I have to be more careful pushing the keys to avoid making an error but this keeps you from hitting two keys at once. The phone has polyphonic sounds, which means it has multiple voices or tones. This means the sound is more realistic than the beeping produced by most mobile phones. You can download custom tones like that of a movie film. Sprint sells them but they can be found free on the Internet if you look around. The Batteries Two batteries are provided with the SCP-5300, the Standard Lithium Ion battery and a High Capacity Lithium Ion battery. The Standard Lithium Ion battery has 1000mAh with 2.7 hours of digital talk time and 10.4 days of digital standby time. Analog talk time is down to 1 hour and 12 minutes and analog standby time is 12 hours. The High Capacity Lithium Ion battery has 1380mAh with 3.8 hours of digital talk time and 15 days of digital standby time. Analog talk time is down to 1 hour and 42 minutes and analog standby time is 17 hours. The Camera The built-in camera gives you up to 640 x 480 VGA photos with a zoom capability up to 4X and 16X, plus a built-in flash. The flash is a High Luminance LED that is not much to talk about, only about a 2 feet range. There are a few setting that you can make like Brightness, White Balance and Color Tone. The 640 x 480 gives you about 16 photos before the built-in memory is used up. Two lower settings are available of 320 x 240 which stores about 46 photos and 160 x 120 which stores about 79 photos. The only good part about the camera is being able to take a photo anytime you wish as long as you have your cell phone with you and instantly sending the photos back and forth to friends and family. To print a photo is not the best idea, I printed a 4 x 6 inch photos from the 640 x 480 setting and all I can say it is fair. The camera part is like an added toy, if you want it for good quality photos, I suggest buying a decent digital camera. The Web Browser The Sanyo SCP-5300 uses Sprint's 3G data network that is supposed to be faster. Again here the color LCD is a nice feature but the 2.1-inch TFT LCD main screen is too small to do much Internet surfing. The good part of being able to use the Internet directly on the phone is you can download extra ringers, games, wall paper and photos directly to the phone. Reading your e-mail is OK if it is a small one, but if you get an e-mail with say 100 words it is too time consuming to review. The Entertainment For entertainment it is nice to have the color LCD, it does provide for some nice colorful games like Tetris. They do offer games that can be downloaded at an extra cost but I am sure someone on the Internet will have some extra games for no cost to download. For game playing the only thing I saw for me that was a problem was using the small 4-way pad and buttons. Bottom line it is one of the best phones I have seen with games that offer a better quality. Other Features A voice-activated dialing for up to 30 persons A Phone Book that holds up to 300 entries, up to 500 phone numbers, up to 300 e-mail addresses, and up to 300 Web Address entries. Electronic Organizer with Scheduler & Calendar and a To-Do List USB Interface & PC Synchronization Built-in Answering Machine for Call Screening, you can interrupt and talk anytime Three CMX Animated Ringers plus 7 melody ringers and 8 standard ringers It also has a vibrating ringer mode Photo ringer ID let you use a photo or wall paper for a phone number when it rings in WAP 2.0 supports images of JPEG, BMP, WBMP and PNG Thumbnail photo review Logs the last 20 calls Built-in calculator Java ready Overall The Sanyo SCP-5300 cell phone made for Sprint is an excellent phone as far as the phone part. The phone produces a nice clear sound that is easy for me to hear since I do have a hearing loss from factory noise. The phone is easy to use with my favorite being the voice-activated dialing. As far as a camera, it is just a toy and is not meant to print up any quality photos, as far as a web browser it works fairly good, just the screen is too small for me. For entertainment well this is one of the featured toys on it that I feel is better than fair, because of the quality of the games that look better than I have seen on any cell phone as of today. It is a nice cell phone but not worth the $399 price tag! My biggest complaint is they provide you with two batteries but to charge them they have to be in the phone. Two batteries should have a separate charging unit. Here are some of my Phone reviews! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 7849 Sanyo SCP 5300 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91402 2004/11/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use inexpensive color screen camera full of features bulky not as attractive as the other phones out there kind of big Overall, I think this phone is a decent one. It has decent signal, I hardly miss any calls, and it doesn't cut out on me much at all! Not only that it isn't as expensive as some of the other flip phones on the market right now. 91401 2000/5/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 packed with features including a handy camera great phone hard to find volume on side without looking just a bit bulky The Bottom LineDespite being a tad bulky, I'm very happy with my purchase. There is no doubt, this is the best phone I have ever owned. Full Review As always, I'm reluctant to purchase an expensive toy unless I know I will use it. This Sanyo phone is just that, but as I use my phone for well over 8000 minutes per month, I could justify spending money on a good phone just as I have on a good mattress. The Sanyo SCP-5300 has all the features you want in a phone and more. You may now see the newest Sanyo picture phone for much less money, but you don't get 640x480 picture resolution. On the subject of the camera, I didn't think I would use it quite as much as I have. Pictures can be candid or posed for and if you close the clam shell, you can take a picture of yourself while monitoring in the smaller screen on the front. The great beauty of the camera is, once you take a picture, or several, you can upload them to your account with a few clicks, freeing up your memory for more pictures. The phone itself outperforms my previous Samsung in reception. The phone can also be set to remind you of events, or simply to remind you to call (your mother will love that). During travel, I used it as an alarm, and it was perfect. You can assign specific ring tones to people as well as pictures. I'm on Sprint and have free Internet access included, but navigating the net on any phone can be frustrating. Also, the text messaging on this phone is web based, meaning you need to wait for messages to load, and unlike other services/phones you can't read the messages while talking on the phone. Assigning a number to a name is very easy and adding multiple numbers to each name is also an easy task. Instead of paying for downloaded ringers, you can purchase a data cable (on Ebay) and download whatever you find on the net doing a search for ring tones. Also, this gives you unlimited Internet access on your laptop when you travel (Sprint). I love that feature. No other accounts needed, it just plugs in, keeps the phone charged and gives you access. Battery life is great, and actually charges very fast, even as you speak on it. Don't forget to purchase a car adapter. You get a slim battery and a bigger one for back up, but neither will charge out of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 7850 Sanyo SCP-5400 (RL2500) Cellular Phone 91409 2004/12/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 has speaker phone excellent sound quality easy to navigate more features than could ever use low battery life compared to other phones i ve owned I bought this phone because it was one of the few decent phones at Sprint that didn't come with a camera. It turned out to be a good buy. This phone has more features than I could ever hope to use, but I like the unique speaker-phone option this phone has. It also has a fairly easy-to-navigate menu, and the keypad controls are easy to use. 91408 2005/7/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reliable compact extremely durable intuitive ancillary services are poor ready link such as pcs vision I have had this phone for almost two years. I have dropped it so many times that the silver coating is nearly worn off, but it still works! Extremely durable. Sound quality is excellent, and speaker phone is not awful. Very easy to use, and the voicedial feature works beautifully (don't have to subscribe to Sprint's voicedial service--save$$). The graphics are nice, if not a bit too cute. Battery life is almost a bit disappointing. Buttons are very intuitive. Reception is great. The Sprint PCS Vision features are unreasonably slow, and their text messaging services are very confusing. In analog mode, which happens very seldom, it tends to turn into a waffle iron. I am up for a new phone soon, but I think I'll pass. I like this one. 91407 2005/12/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 graphics clarity no text messaging I just received the sanyo SCP-5400 cellular phone as a replacement for the the Sanyo 4920 cellular phone. I am now on my fifth phone from sprint over a six month period. I can't seem to find text messaging on my phone so i am hoping it has that capability or else i will be right back at the Sprint store fighting for a new phone. I do like the graphics on the phone but it does not have as many features as the 4930, and i was told this is an upgraded phone. I am still trying to figure that out... 91406 2000/3/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 great internal lcd brightcolorful easy to use menus battery life is terrible not enough people using readylink The Bottom LineIf you want ReadyLink, don't need to take pics with your phone and are willing to recharge often. Full Review My experience with SprintPCS was satisfying enough that I wanted to stay with them but was in dire need of a new phone. I know this isn't a SprintPCS Store review, but let me just say, shopping there is no picnic. I've seen more honest salespeople in used car lots in the middle of Northeast Philly. In the end, I bought two SCP-5400s over the internet for my wife and me. At the time, it seemed like a good buy to pay $300 per phone with a $150 rebate on each but then came to find two months later they were selling for under $100. This flip-style phone comes standard with a Li-ion 3.7V battery. In this configuration, the phone is both light and small. It has a 3/4" x 3/4" LCD on the front which gives you most of the critical info you need: the time, date, battery status, signal power and Ready-Link status. Open up the flip and you find a 1 1/4" x 1 3/4" LCD that is both bright and colorful. The buttons are nearly flush with the body of the phone, so while they're well laid out and easy to navigate, its very difficult to dial without looking at the buttons. It has a nice 5-way rocking button above the dialpad which allows navigation through all the phone's functions: menu, address book, messaging, downloads and setting. The real feature that drew me to this phone was the Nextel-style ReadyLink system. I looked at Nextel and just wasn't impressed with their phones or their coverage at the time. SprintPCS offers great coverage and now, the ReadyLink system much like Nextel. The problem is: nobody else has ReadyLink. At this point, the only other person I know with ReadyLink is my wife! It has proven to be handy and convenient and using it does not draw from your call minutes. Of course, with this type of system, you need a speakerphone and this is one of my favorite features. The speaker is clear, can be quite loud and can be used for any type of call, not just ReadyLink. The SCP-5400 comes with volume control on the left side of the body just beneath the ReadyLink button. On the right side of the body is one single button designed to either mute a call with a quick touch or end the call completely by holding for a second or more. The design of this button drives me crazy. It's tiny, measuring about 1/8" x 3/8" and is so flush with the body-side that you can barely feel it, once again, needing to look at the phone to find the button. My absolute, number one complaint about this phone has to be its power management. As equipped with the standard battery, the specifications show 162 minutes of talk time and 96 hours of standby time. In the real world, I'm lucky if I get half of the talk time and more than 48 hours standby. I upgraded to the extra-life battery and both talk time and standby time are little improved. The local SprintPCS store admitted the speakerphone uses battery power at a tremendous rate but, even without excessive use of the speakerphone, in my epionion, this phone's battery life is terrible. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91405 2000/7/16 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 bright great internal lcd colorful easy to use menus not enough people using readylink battery life is terrible The Bottom LineReasons to buy: If you want ReadyLink, don't need to take pics with your phone and are willing to recharge often. Full Review My experience with SprintPCS was satisfying enough that I wanted to stay with them but was in dire need of a new phone. I know this isn't a SprintPCS Store review, but let me just say, shopping there is no picnic. I've seen more honest salespeople in used car lots in the middle of Northeast Philly. In the end, I bought two SCP-5400s over the internet for my wife and me. At the time, it seemed like a good buy to pay $300 per phone with a $150 rebate on each but then came to find two months later they were selling for under $100. This flip-style phone comes standard with a Li-ion 3.7V battery. In this configuration, the phone is both light and small. It has a 3/4" x 3/4" LCD on the front which gives you most of the critical info you need: the time, date, battery status, signal power and Ready-Link status. Open up the flip and you find a 1 1/4" x 1 3/4" LCD that is both bright and colorful. The buttons are nearly flush with the body of the phone, so while they're well laid out and easy to navigate, its very difficult to dial without looking at the buttons. It has a nice 5-way rocking button above the dialpad which allows navigation through all the phone's functions: menu, address book, messaging, downloads and setting. The real feature that drew me to this phone was the Nextel-style ReadyLink system. I looked at Nextel and just wasn't impressed with their phones or their coverage at the time. SprintPCS offers great coverage and now, the ReadyLink system much like Nextel. The problem is: nobody else has ReadyLink. At this point, the only other person I know with ReadyLink is my wife! It has proven to be handy and convenient and using it does not draw from your call minutes. Of course, with this type of system, you need a speakerphone and this is one of my favorite features. The speaker is clear, can be quite loud and can be used for any type of call, not just ReadyLink. The SCP-5400 comes with volume control on the left side of the body just beneath the ReadyLink button. On the right side of the body is one single button designed to either mute a call with a quick touch or end the call completely by holding for a second or more. The design of this button drives me crazy. It's tiny, measuring about 1/8" x 3/8" and is so flush with the body-side that you can barely feel it, once again, needing to look at the phone to find the button. My absolute, number one complaint about this phone has to be its power management. As equipped with the standard battery, the specifications show 162 minutes of talk time and 96 hours of standby time. In the real world, I'm lucky if I get half of the talk time and more than 48 hours standby. I upgraded to the extra-life battery and both talk time and standby time are little improved. The local SprintPCS store admitted the speakerphone uses battery power at a tremendous rate but, even without excessive use of the speakerphone, in my epionion, this phone's battery life is terrible. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91404 2000/9/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 external lcd pretty slim external ring silencer a few buttons are not well lit no sms text messaging The Bottom LineIf you're trying to stay under $300 and you don't care about text messaging...then you should absolutely buy this phone immediately! Full Review :::::| intro |::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I use my cell phone very often, so most of the things I care about tend to be the small, hard-to-learn-about features. Over the past 6 years, this is the best cell of the four I've had. So let me start telling you why... :::::| text messaging |:::::::::::::::::::::::: This phone does not support SMS text messaging. I had no idea what this meant before I bought the phone, so I just want to make sure you do. SMS test messaging means that you can quickly send a text message by doing the following: 1) Go to a small text-input screen from some menu on your phone, and enter your message...along with its intended recipient. 2) Send the text message. With this Sanyo phone, you must use other methods to achieve text messaging... Sprint's "shortmail" in my case. This means you must access the internet from your phone (which usually costs an arm & a leg to include with your monthly plan)..and then send a 'text message' via the internet site. This takes longer and is an overall huge hassle. Receiving text messages with this method is also completely cumbersome. I've also had instances where text messaging didn't quite work when I tried it across different service carriers (Sprint to a ATT phone, etc). So if text messaging is something very important to you, I can say with full confidence that this phone is not for you. Luckily for me...I only use text messages maybe once or twice a month. :::::| speakerphone |::::::::::::::::::::::::: I don't use the speakerphone, and I don't think you will either. But every once in a while, I have found myself in some unique and strange situation where it has indeed seemed like the best way to make/take a phone call. I suppose it is a useful feature to have on your cell phone...and it does definitely work very well if you want it. The speakerphone can even be activated when the flip is closed. This is useful if you're too lazy to flip open your phone to answer...or if you don't feel like putting it to your ear. You could conceivably use the speakerphone as a handsfree technique for use in your car. Although, I have tried that, and the person on the other end usually complains (or at least comments on) the reduced quality of the reception. The best use I've found for the speakerphone is to use it to check voicemail, while I am typing something on the PC. But you still have to push the occasional button for that too...to navigate the automated menus, etc. :::::| other features |::::::::::::::::::::::: One feature I always look for in a cell phone is an easy and quick way to adjust the volume of the ringer. This phone certainly has that--the rocker switch on the side of the phone can be quickly pushed to adjust the volume to one of the following settings: --Silence All --Ringer Off --Vibrate --Level 1 --Level 2 --Level 3 --Level 4 --Level 4 + Vibrate In case you didn't notice...there is no setting for a "Single Beep" ring. This setting is useful for me when I'm at work...and no I've lost it. But no biggie- this variety of sound levels should be enough for you to pick something out. The same button is used to adjust the volume of the receiver when you're on a call. The rest of the buttons & interface are fairly intuitive...a couple of the buttons don't light up very well, but you learn where they are anyway. The retractable antenna is nice; if you don't need it then don't use it. But who knows, even if it improves your reception at all...it's worth having! Another thing worth mentioning is the few extra buttons that you probably won't use. The new readyLink technology is out I guess...and they put a button on the phone for it. The button for that is bigger then just about every other button on the phone. That's pretty ridiculous...but luckily it's tucked on the side of the phone so after a day you'll forget it's there anyway. :::::| style & appearance |::::::::::::::::::: You gotta look good when you're talkin on your cell, right? Well this little gizmo definitely has a few bells & whistles that your friend's cell phone won't. 1) While on a call, the external LED light can be programmed to flash through a rainbow of colors..or one color...or maybe something fancier. 2) That same external LED can be programmed to flash specific colors depending on who's calling, etc. 3) The external LCD can flash photos of who's calling...this is becoming more common but not aaaall the new phones have this. 4) The screen is much bigger than your average color flip phone, and the keypad is lit up with lots of relaxing blue electroluminescence...this is guaranteed to make even your most jaded techie geek smile. In addition, this phone is slimmer than your average color flip phone...which adds to its sophistication. Can't say much for the color though....greyish silver plastic is weak. Anyway you look at it. :::::| everything else |::::::::::::::::::::::: Somehow, the external LCD is recessed just slightly...this allows the screen to be much more safe from scratches than one may think. There are a few strange things about the interface that I should mention. 1) If your ringer volume is set on VIBRATE, and you plug your phone in to charge...that overrides the setting somehow and if you receive a call it will definitely ring at volume level 1. Maybe this sounds nitpicky, but if you're in the middle of a meeting and your Love Shack ringer starts blaring--well--then we'll see who's laughing then. 2) The date is not displayed when your phone is in standby. I don't know about you...but my cell phone serves as my quick "What day is it?" calendar-at-a-glance...at least when I'm at a bank or something. You'll have to push a few extra buttons on this little guy to make it spit out a calendar or date. 3) It is extremely difficult to type in a number while you're on a call...then save it after the call. Maybe this isn't something you do regularly, but when you're on a phone and someone gives you a number...and you're without paper--good luck! For some reason, on this phone it's just difficult to pull off this trick without accidentally ending the call. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 279Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91403 2000/12/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 speaker flip phone nice look great menu color screen easy to use readylink not practical battery life not durable quality of speaker phone The Bottom LineGreat features, looks great but doesn't hold up to normal use. Full Review I received my Sanyo SCP-5400 (RL2500)cell phone as a replacement from Sprint PCS when my stopped working suddenly after having just shy of one year of use. Because I was in need of a phone right away and the Samsung phone was not available they gave me the Sanyo - a better phone, at no additional cost to me. My experience with this phone The Sanyo SCP-5400 (RL2500)cell phone has all sorts of great features and looks cool. I prefer flip style phones and this is a fairly compact one in an attractive silver color. It has a nice color display screen and you can download (at a charge) additional screen savers and what not. The same thing goes for ringers, games, etc. The phone came with plenty of options but Sprint wants you to spend more money souping the phone up with all sorts of useless custom bells and whistles. The phone retails for around $150 (I believe) but like I said, I got it under warranty for free. I really liked the menu and directory system on this phone and found it very easy to use, navigate and store numbers. I never did figure out or set up voice dialing - but that option is available. The phone can connect to the internet (at a fee) but it is not a camera phone. One of the things that the sprint guy went on and on to me about was how this phone is ReadyLink Equipped. What that means is that you can use your phone similar to a walkie talkie and "beep" other Readylink users and carry on conversations. These conversations don't use up your airtime or minutes, so if you have friends/family etc who also have Sprint PCS phones with Readylink then this is a good thing. For me this was pretty useless since my friends/family either all have phones with a different company or their phones don't have this Readylink feature on it. Plus, the readylink really affects your battery life and eats it up. So if you do use Readylink you probably should consider getting the extended life battery. I had very good luck with this phone in terms of reception, clarity of calls, etc. I didn't have a problem with calls dropping out and signals fading except for the usual times when I was driving and going through mountain areas, etc where it was definitely to be expected. This phone has a built in speakerphone for hands-free conversations. I found that I could hear people just fine when I had them on speakerphone. However, word from the people that I was talking to was that my voice cut out and was not good quality when I used this option. I ended up not using the speakerphone much and doing the illegal talk on the phone while driving or plug in an earbud/mouthpiece handsfree kit. From the get-go I had problems with this phone and a short battery life. I'm a gabber and I use my phone quite a bit while I'm out and about. This phone just would eat through a battery almost daily and end up on the car or home charger. I am not sure the cause of the short battery life, but I suspect its the fancy backlit display, the screen savers, buddy icon, etc. I really found it annoying how often I needed to charge my phone up and how often it would lose its charge when I wanted to use it - but found it powered down and unable to place a call. Ultimately the battery or something with the charging system/port led to the death of my Sanyo SCP-5400 phone. With under 6 months of use this phone died on me. It no longer will retain a charge or even power on, so I've replaced it and upgraded to a cameraphone. This was a decent phone while it lasted. It definitely has some nice features but lacks in others - no camera, poor battery life, poor speakerphone quality. Because of the durability issues, I just cannot recommend this model. Other Cell Phone reviews Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): freeRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7851 Sanyo SCP-6000 91419 2000/3/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very small lightweight great reception first few batches shipped with bad software The Bottom LineIf you don't need (or ever think you'll need) the analog, and have the $250 for it, I'd say go for it! Full Review Sanyo has always been one of the best wireless phones that Sprint has offered. The 3000 was the first phone from them, and did great. It hasn't been sold in over 2 years, yet you will still see a lot being used today. The 4000 was the first phone ever to be sold through Sprint that passed the very strict Sprint quality tests with a 100% rating (wow!). The 4500 gave the 4000 a silver face plate and a speakerphone. 5000 a color screened clamshell. 4700 3G voice capability. Next came the 6000, America's thinnest phone. The 6000 is sleek, stylish, even would be concidered "sexy" to a lot of users. Its thin shape allows you to carry it anywhere, and most people might not even know you have it on you. Its smooth design lets you hold it without any sharp edges stabbing you, either in the leg while its in your pocket, or in your hand while you're using it. The display gives you the option of having either an amber backlight or green, both work great, just your taste decides. The screen also is a good size for displaying numbers, phone book entries, wireless web pages, and the games built into the phone. Although tit is a single band handset (only will pick up 1900MHz CDMA network, no 800MHz analog), it gets great signals where it is available. But, to warn you, I've been told that some of the first batches shipped with a bad software version, but that is an easy fix. Bring it to a store, and they'll update the software in the phone for free (you might have to wait a little while, though). Sound quality is great, and the volume is easy to adjust. Now, don't let the sleek style give you the illusion that its fragile. I've seen people try to break it, without excessive force. For the most part, it took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. This is one tough little phone. Battery life, like most Sanyo phones, is great on the handset. Charge it once every couple of days (normal usage, short backlight setting, no vibrate ringer, etc..), but I always say, just plug it in at night, while you're asleep. You won't need the mobility then. :) Sanyo has kept up their track record with the 6000, great cutting edge handsets that will not disappoint you. I'm sure we'll see Sanyo leading the pack with the latest and newest phones in Sprints lineup. I can't wait to see what comes out next! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 91418 2000/1/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light weight super slim is it really in my pocket ring vibrate combo only with high vol The Bottom LineAll of the ";assumed"; cons being given, this phone is pretty much flawless!! Full Review Well, I've only had this phone for a week now, but I must say that it definitely rocks! Everyone who has seen it for the first time is like "Holy s&#t!" and "Does that thing really work?" In response to the other reviews posted here, yes, the battery life is short. Yes, it only works with Sprint PCS. Yes, it is relatively expensive. Yes, it is only single-band. The way I see it, however, these are all assumed "cons." All of these aspects are pretty obvious before you lay down any $$, so if any one bothers you more than the benefits that you can get from this phone, then don't buy it. And, there are benefits aplenty. * Clarity and sound is impeccable - neither side of a conversation can tell it's not a landline. * Really the battery life is pretty darn good for only a 540 mA battery - I've had phones with 2X as much capacity that lasted just as long (so far, I've found that a few 30 minute conversations, plus a bunch of short talks, plus playing with the interface means that you will have to charge the battery that nite) - anyway, Sanyo does make a like 900 mA extended battery that really doesn't look that much bigger than the standard, if you really need more time between charges. * The weight and thickness are unbeatable for carrying it around in your front pocket unnoticed. * The interface is pretty intuitive and user-friendly. * It has a little speaker embedded in the rear, so sound reproduction for rings and other event sounds is impressive. * Has like a million bells and whistles, like changing the display color from green to orange, displaying pictures for events or with caller ID, etc. My only cons were that it felt too light when I first started using it (I got over this very quickly) and the only ring + vibrate combo that you can choose is with the ringer at high volume. So, all of the "assumed" cons being given, this phone is pretty much flawless!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91417 2002/6/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy ultra slim voice dialing large phonebook calendar 1 9 ghz only expensive extras if you want to synch with computer The Bottom LineDon't hesitate to buy the 6100 as long as you don't travel between cities - get the 6200 if available! Full Review I extensively research everything I buy so there are no surprises once I get an item home, and my cell phone was no exception. Not only did it have to LOOK good, it also had to PERFORM well - and the Sanyo 6100 has fit the bill perfectly. The only better phone would be the 6200, which unfortunately wasn't available to me - not only does it have analog capability, it synchs with MS Outlook! THE POSITIVE: I've been using the phone for well over a month now, and there are no complaints about it yet. I love the fact that it's so slim, it disappears into any pocket - and despite the slimness and lightweight nature of the phone, the metal construction is quite sturdy. The voice dialing feature works fantastically well, even when driving with the windows down. The phone book is large and holds several different numbers for each individual, and the buttons on the phone are large enough to not make too many mistakes when dialing. Call clarity is very good, although there occassionally seem to be a little feedback of my own voice - no biggie. THE NEGATIVE: The battery life isn't huge, but this is the trade-off for having such a slim phone; I find that I only need plug it in every 2 days - NOT a hardship. The 6100 operates on the 1.9 GHz digital network only, so it only works in larger cities - if you do a lot of travelling between cities, this phone is not for you. The cable to attach the phone to your computer (to download extra ring tones and synch with some programs) is pricey and I just couldn't justify getting it - particularly when other reports I read said it didn't work too well. All in all, a great phone which I haven't regretted buying for even one second - and it sure turns heads! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 65 91416 2000/3/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 slim wow factor ability to upload multimedia reception full of features lightweight design no analog battery life sound quality sub par pc sync extra expensive The Bottom LineI recommend this phone because it is fashionable, well built, and will last. Full Review My Samsung SCH-3500 finally gave out and I had to replace my phone. I first bought the Sanyo 4700, but I returned it because it was just too big. I saw the Sanyo 6000 and fell in love. The slim design was the big selling point for me, but I also liked the calendar feature and the ability to upload pictures and ringers to the phone. Something I never had with any cell phone. The reception on the 6000 is far superior to my old samsung or my older Qualcomm. I could actually make calls from my suburban house (I got no reception with my two older phones.) But, unfortunately, the 6000 isn't perfect. The battery life is horrible. I had to buy the extended battery, which doubles the thickness of the phone, defeating the purpose of the slim design. Also, when I talk to people, they complain that there is an echo and the audio quality is poor, although I hear them fine. Maybe it is the Sprint PCS service or the phone itself, but either way, it detracts from the quality of the phone. My last final complaint is the PC Synching option. To do this, you have to buy the Sprint Wireless Web Connection kit, which adds 60 dollars to the already expensive $300 phone. Another complaint, but it doesn't affect me directly, is the analog roaming. There isn't any. It only offers a digital connection, and that can affect some people in rural areas. But if you live in a city or in suburbia, you should be fine. Other than that this is a fine piece of technology that will last. The phone is well built and will withstand drops, and friends picking it up and looking at how cool it looks. You shouldn't be disapointed with this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91415 2000/10/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality build intuitive super sleek clear display many useful features pricey no speaker phone no analog band marginal battery life The Bottom LineIf you want excellent style, many features, exceptional build quality and can live with so-so talk time on a single band phone...this is it! Full Review I knew I really liked the look of this phone...but I also knew the looks came at a price. It's single band, and I like dual band phones. It doesn't have a speaker phone, and I wanted one this time around. I heard the reception was a little problematic. And it was fairly close in price to the Sanyo 5000, which comes with a color screen, is dual band, and comes with a coupon for a free extra-capacity battery. Well, I got the 6000, and I love it. I've only had this phone for about a week, but everything from reception to battery life has been a pleasant surprise. I know the previous reviewer had mentioned problems with reception, but my phone's reception has been exceptional. The design is excellent. The web features work well, as do the memo functions. The orange screen is nice with Halloween around the corner, but I prefer the green screen. There are many features I haven't tried yet, but everything I have tried has worked flawlessly. The owners manual is informative and easy-to-use. And, as a bonus, EVERYONE that sees this phone loves it. I picked up the Sprint leather cover which adds some protection, looks pretty nice (but not as nice as the uncovered phone) and also adds a belt clip (which I'll probably never use...it is easily removed but a little round nub sticks out which detracts a bit from the sleekness of the profile.) I also got the car charger, which comes in handy and is a necessity for me. Standby time is reasonable..I've gone several days making a few medium-length calls each day without recharging. However, if you are a heavy user you will probably want to pick up the high-capacity battery. Sound quality is great, but the ringers could be a little louder. A nice selection of ringers is included, though, and you can add more (as well as pictures) via a sync cable & software...I haven't done this yet, though, so I can't say how well that works at this time. All in all, I'm very happy with this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 91414 2000/3/23 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use clear call quality thin stylish features galore battery life seems a bit short soft ringer volume The Bottom LineA stylish phone that is also a solid performer Full Review The following review is on the Sanyo SCP 6000 single band phone used on the Sprint PCS system. What I was looking for was a phone that was light, small, worked well, and was stylish. I think the Sanyo 6000 fits into all these categories the best of all the Sprint phones. Appearance: Thin, lightweight, and stylish. As other reviews have stated it probably is the thinnest phone available so far. It fits easily into my shirtpocket and my pants pocket. It is so light you will barely notice that its there! Its a great looking phone as its alloy face, matching plastic (feels like good quality plastic), raised crystal keypad, and bright green or orange backlight will be sure to turn heads. Phone Functionality: The phone works great as a phone! I had a previous Sanyo (4500) and while it had great features, I disliked the fact that it was not very good at picking up a signal. Sanyo seems to have listened (as that seemed to be a recurring complaint) and made improvements to its newer phones including the 6000. The signal reception is great, I would say as good as my old Motorola 8767 Startac. This is a good thing because this phone is a Single band phone only. This scared me a bit as I had always purchased dual band phones to make sure when I travel the phone would work. But Sprint's coverage area seems to have been increasing so I did not think this would be an issue anymore. Besides, I've come to realize that Single band doesn't mean "No Sprint service - no service at all" as the phone will still roam on other services that Sprint has an agreement with. Sound quality is a lot better than the above mentioned Startac and one of the best sounding phones I have ever had. It is clear and you don't get that hollow echo sound. Plus I have heard that the person you are calling can't even tell you are on a cell phone - now that's clarity! Although this phone has a ton of features (probably more than you need - calendar, voicedial, etc. etc. etc.) it is an easy to use phone. The menu system is intuitive making use of a large scroll pad to navigate. You don't really need to read the manual if you've had similarly featured phones in the past. All the keys are well placed. The keypad is raised and while some have had problems using it, I haven't found it difficult (I am not a big person though 5' 10" 165) So if you have big fingers you may have a problem. The screen is large and easy to read with or without the backlight. The font size is user adjustable and I found the fonts to be crisp and easy to read. The backlight choices are great, but I think the orange doesn't really allow you to read the text as clearly as the green. And for all you ringer fiends this phone has some great tones and notifications plus I believe its compatible with Sprint's downloadable ringer service. Other personalization options are the screen backrgounds, start-up tones, and graphic that displays when you are making a call. However if you want to use anything other than what is supplied you need to also purchase the data kit. The Cons: Only a few things: 1. Relatively short battery life. I find myself recharging after moderate phone usage (20 to 60 minutes per day) after about 3 days of leaving the phone on. Hey but its thin so I guess that's the trade off. If this is a real problem Sanyo offers a slightly thicker extended battery 2. Low Ringer Volume. I find that the ringer volume is not as loud as some phones, if you want to make sure you hear it it needs to be on the loudest setting or set to vibrate. 3. Overly sensitive voice dial feature. In order for the voice dial feature to work properly you need to be in a quiet area ie, in your office with no radio or co-workers talking. As it seems like this is one of the more useful features of this phone it seems sad that its non-functional in the typical environments you would use it - driving or in someplace with background noise. Other than those problems its a great phone. It looks like it will keep me satisfied for longer than the 8 months or so that I seem to go before switching phones. Its expensive if you buy it directly from Sprint so try to find it on sale elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 91413 2001/10/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great display incredibly thin intuitive menu systems too small for some hands battery life reception problems price The Bottom LineIf features and size are among your top priorities, you can't go wrong here. Full Review Ok, I have to be honest with you. The first time I saw this phone in real life my jaw hit the floor. This is far and away the sexiest cell phone I have ever seen. Being the techno-junky that I am (and my Sanyo SCP-4500 getting scratched up) I decided to replace it with the brand new SCP-6000. Since I am sure Epinions readers did not come here to read my flowery prose I'll cut straight to the heart of my review. This phone's size is such that it is extremely portable. I don't like belt clips so I usually like to put my phones in my pockets and this is the first phone I've had where I can put my phone into my pocket without looking like I am perhaps a bit too excited. The price of this size, unfortunately, causes many problems. The thing is just TOO small. I have normal-sized hands yet I feel like I am trying to type a lengthy email to a friend on a calculator when I am using this phone. Whereas with my last few phones I could just let my fingers dance from one key to the other to dial this phone demands your attention. Keystrokes must be made carefully and deliberately. A more serious problem with the SCP-6000 is the reception issue. The only other person I know who has this phone is having the same problem I am; namely, the reception stinks. Even while getting a full "5 bars" indicating a very strong signal from Sprint, the quality of my voice communications was shoddy. Communications were dotted with barely-noticeable (but still noticeable) "clicks" of silence, an indicator of poor reception. Furthermore, voice quality is rather tinny and not as rich as the SCP-4500, which is for my money still the best cell phone available in North America. Yet another issue is battery life. The phone is so thin that the size of the battery is incredibly small. Battery life suffers because of this: you will be lucky to get more than 1 1/2 to 2 hours of life out of the phone before it needs a recharge. Now for the positives! This phone has an *excellent* display. I am very pleased that cell phones have finally moved beyond the terribly simple and plain displays of yesteryear. The SCP-6000 has a very sharp high-definition display, the benefit being that you can fit much more text onto the screen than cell phones that came before it. Making things more interesting is the exceptionally bright backlighting of the display which you can actually *switch* from an emerald green to a pumpkin orange. The phone has a great assortment of ringers that are far better than the standard tinny "bell" sounds that most cheap Nokias and older cell phones have. The ringers are quite distinctive and if you are at lunch with a bunch of other people who also have cell phones and your cell phone rings, there will be no doubt whom is being called. Unfortunately, the tiny ringer speaker on the SCP-6000 cannot be pushed to play at the high volume the SCP-4500 (for instance) so you might find yourself using it in the included vibrate mode when at a loud gathering or party. In terms of comfort, the phone is very comfortable considering its thin size. The menu system will be familiar to anybody who has used a Sprint PCS Touchpoint or older Sanyo phone and is still the undisputed champ of cell phones. It is quick, easy to learn, precise, and extremely flexible. The directional pad on the SCP-6000 is small yet I had no problems whatsoever using it to manipulate my way through the Wireless Web functions of this phone. The calendar and calculator features of this phone are very handy to people like myself who have no need for a Palm Pilot. The advertising on the box mentions that one could download pictures as well as ringers on this phone but I have been unable to find a place to get these customizations onto my phone. This might be due to the fact that the phone is still very, very new. The SCP-4500 was such a wonderful phone that I had (unreasonably) high expectations for the SCP-6000. While my complaints regarding the SCP-6000 are real and valid, I am willing to stick with this phone to see if a software upgrade might help improve the reception on my phone. The other faults of the phone (small key size and battery life) are easily outweighed by the positives; specifically, the size. I can put this phone into my shirt's pocket and not even know it is there because it is not only so thin but it is so LIGHT. Size is high on my priority list and if it high on your list as well, I highly recommend this phone. If you don't care so much about size (you carry phones in your purse or belt clip) then I would suggest the more robust SCP-4500 instead. Last but not least is price. At $300, this is among the most expensive cell phones sold in the US. Addendum 10/14/01: After working with Sprint it appears that most of the reception problems I am having with my phone are due to an old software version. The software has been updated and my reception problems have been somewhat cured. It's still not 100%, but it is much better than before. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91412 2002/1/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 ironic ringer light sexy tiny fair reception sprint only expen ive earpiece speaker The Bottom LineIf you got the cash and the desire, the SCP-6000 is a sexy little engineering marvel, despite a few quirks. Full Review For those of you who've read my review of the Qualcomm QCP-2760, a year ago I called it "the Kate Moss of cell phones". Well, my new SCP-6000 makes that thing look like a hippo. In fact, my mom's husband has one of those really tiny 8260 Nokias that are all the rage, and it even made his phone look strangely brick-like. (I mentioned that the one advantage his Nokia has over my Sanyo is that the more he uses his phone, the stronger he'll get.) Let's be honest: the main reasons why someone would buy this phone is because it is an attention-grabber-- it definitely grabbed my attention the first time I saw it. It is *amazingly* thin and super-light. The engineers who worked on this beauty are grossly underpaid, whatever their salaries are. But once one gets by the shiny, sexy, attention-grabbing aspects of this cell phone, there is the practical issue of actually using the thing, and that's where it's small size becomes something of an issue. First of all, the buttons are rather small, close together, and made out of a smooth, hard plastic that makes dialing without looking somewhat difficult. Pressing either of the two lowest buttons-- Menu and Clear-- almost requires using your other hand, and those buttons are used more often than the two soft keys below the display (more on this below). This phone has a ringer option that sounds *exactly* like the ringers on the old bell rotary phones. The sweet irony of hearing an old rotary phone ringing in your jacket pocket, then pulling out this futuristic Sanyo, is just too perfect. Like most people, I enjoy little doses of irony in my life, and this one does nicely. There are also the standard Nokia-style beeping mini-concertos, but I'll stick with my Ma Bell rotary irony for now. The fact that this phone only works on the Sprint PCS network wasn't a deterrent to me, as I already had an account with Sprint, and I simply transferred my number to the SCP-6000. If you're not currently a Sprint customer however, I'd read some of the Epinions on Sprint before switching over. For me, Sprint in the SF Bay area is a pretty good service with decent pricing. This phone is also only a single-band phone, namely it doesn't support analog roaming. As on my previous Qualcomm, I never used analog roaming, because I felt it was an unnecessary per-minute expense, but it was at least nice to know I had that option, should a digital signal not be available, such as out in the woods-- see my previous epinion for details (link on right side that says "More Reviews by tritium_pie"). In short, analog signals travel much farther than digital ones, and if you needed this Sanyo to call AAA when your car breaks down on a remote country road, you'd be better off flagging down a passing motorist. A dual-band phone (like the QCP-2760) on the other hand would be able to make the call. My previous Qualcomm had 99 speed dial options, whereas this Sanyo has only 8, which is kind of a bummer, but the internal phone book of this phone is far more intuitive than any other I've seen. The multi-function "Ok" button, surrounded by the 4-way selector button allows for surfing through the myriad of internal menus quite easily, but often to activate those menus, you have to stretch your thumb down to click on the "Menu" button. I wish they had put it a bit closer to the middle of the phone, or used one of the soft-keys just below the display. The left-hand soft-key is used for quick access to wireless web services, which I'm not very interested in, but the right-hand one is a handy 18-second voice memo recorder. I've used that a few times when I was driving and needed to remember something for later. If they could've switched the "Web" and "Memo" softkeys with the "Menu" and "CLR", I think it would've been a bit more useful. The SCP-6000 also has a feature I like to use but not tell anybody about, which is voice mail screening. Yep, when you have an in-coming call, you can set your phone to answer to voice mail after a few seconds and listen to the other person. There are times when this comes in handy, and the nice thing is that if you do what to chat with them, you can just press talk and you'll be connected. I had read some reviews complaining about the battery life with the standard Li-ion battery, so when I got my SCP-6000, I also purchased the extended-life battery. I've found that the regular slim-profile battery actually has pretty good talk and standby time, and considering how small it is, the amount of talk-time I have is actually quite amazing. The extended-life battery is about double the thickness of the standard one, and that thing lasts forever! I honestly don't think someone needs that unless you're talking almost two hours a day (with nightly charging), or you go more than 3-4 days without charging (at about 15 min of talk-time/day). (These figures are my best guess-timate, as I generally talk about 10-15 min/day, and charge every 2 days.) One of the few complaints I have about my SCP-6000 is the ear speaker. In quiet areas, I find it perfectly adequate, but I tend to do much of my studying in coffee shops, which can be pretty noisy. On my old Qualcomm, I was able to chat without any problem in even moderately noisy areas, but with my Sanyo, I've found that I keep moving it around to get the sound right. The speaker itself is just a single, small hole, about a quarter centimeter in diameter. It seems to make the sound come out in a narrow cone, that can be quite loud so long as you have it pointed directly into your ear canal. But since the SCP-6000 is so narrow, the unexposed parts of your ear are also able to pick up sounds and direct them into your ear canal. (Covering the other ear didn't help.) So, when it's noisy, I find myself pressing my Sanyo closer to my ear to try to block out the extra sounds, but really only results in much louder garbles mixed in with the general coffee shop ambient noise-- and I can't say that the coffee shop I was in was especially loud either. When it's noisy, my phone instincts told me to press it closer, which really only resulted in a bit of pain (!) and some ringing in my ear for half an hour. Something to think about if you're planning on using your SCP-6000 in convention centers or other noisy venues. That said, in moderately quiet situations, I've found it ideal to hold the Sanyo about a centimeter from my ear, and it's easy enough to find the ideal spot. All told, I'd say I'm pretty happy with the functionality of my SCP-6000, and as a neat looking techno-fashion statement, this beauty definitely hits the mark, despite it's 3-bills pricetag. So if you decide to buy this phone, when somebody says to you "Wow! That's a neat phone!" out loud you might say, "Thanks" but remember to say to yourself "I paid a chunk of change to hear you say that." --- As I did with my previous Qualcomm, as I use my phone more and discover more of it's features and quirks, I add them to my epinion, so check this space once in a while for the latest on my SCP-6000!... update below. 21 Jan, 2002- I'm finding that the sound that comes out of the ear speaker can really be difficult to aim properly into the ear canal in somewhat noisy situations. The only way I realize that it's not positioned just right is when I say something and when I expect the other person to reply, I don't hear anything, or I hear maybe some garbled speech. This can be really annoying. I've never had to be so conscious of where and how I'm holding my cell phone. If this continues to be an issue, I'm toying with lowering my "Clarity" rating from Average to Below Average, although I believe "Clarity" was meant to be about the reception. Anyway, buyer be-aware (but not quite yet "beware"). On a positive note, I'm really liking the vibrate feature in this phone. I can't believe what they were able to cram into it's diminutive dimensions! 5+ on Portability, for sure! And it's still an attention-getter. People are always commenting on how small it is. Not that it's worth an extra $100 or so to hear that, but hey... 29 January, 2002 I'm now lowering the "Clarity" rating to "Below Average" because the sound coming out of the ear piece can be difficult to hear properly in even moderately noisy situations. I am having to concentrate too closely to hear what the other person is saying, often adjusting and shifting the phone, whenever I'm in a slightly noisy public location (and yes, I do have the volume turned to it's highest setting). It can be annoying. To be precise however, in terms of "Clarity" as in signal strength, I have been pleasantly surprised at the this phone's ability to pick up a strong signal, even in an elevator shaft in the heart of an office building. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300.00+ 91411 2002/6/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ultra lite weight perfect for carry in front pocket above average lcd display below average battery life a few others The Bottom LineErgonomics wise, the Sanyo SCP-6000 is the best phone ever available. Full Review I have carried the Sanyo SCP-6000 for close to a year now. This review is going to concentrate on my opinions and experience. I will focus mostly with the things that bother me. If I don't mention it than consider it to be at least decent. Keep in mind that even though this review might seem negative, this phone is the best 2g phone available. FYI: Picking a phone and then a network is idiotic. You need to find the best possible service that is offered in your area and then decide on your handset based on what that provider offers. Which network cell phone operates on should not be considered a plus or a minus unless the network is technologically inferior. Currently all of the major 2g networks provide very similar "best case" results. The 6000 is a single band phone, which I admit was a slight disadvantage. I live in Miami though, and dual-band is irrelevant. Check out the slightly heavier scp-6200 if you need analog. Ergonomics: This is the biggest thing that the 6000 has going for it. 2.29 ounces translates into lighter than you can feel. In addition, this slim profile phone will never protrude from your pocket. The antenna is really good, you don't usually need it, but when you do it pops up about an inch and a half and does not look stupid like a lot of other phones. It is very sturdy and would take a lot to break, unlike the Motorola TP8767. The overall feel of the phone is sturdy. Mine has a few nicks and scares but has held up well. Battery: This is the most talked about shortcoming of this phone. The standard battery is only rated at 550mah. That is fairly low. The phone itself is fairly efficient, the battery is just tiny to fit the slim dimensions of the phone. Still, it will get even a heavy user through a day of talking. Interface/Use: The thing that I hate most is that there is no silent mode. You can suppress the ringer, but button presses still make an audible noise. This is a problem when trying to connect to the web in a library or classroom like enviroment. The keyguard is pretty good and necessary. It does sometime deactivate in my pocket. But not very often. The ringers are pretty good. Some of them are not loud enough for my tastes, but there are enough for your normal rings and alerts plus a few for distinctive callers. The display is great. I do not like the orange, it looks funny with the other buttons glowing green. (A girl I know who recently got the phone actually likes the contrast because it is similar to her U Miami colors) The vibrate is loud, I don;t like this. It is a good strong vibrate but it is audible. Some phones provide a viscous vibrate without being loud. The overall interface could be better, it is not bad but it will not win any awards. The Neopoint 1000 is still the top dog imo. Feaures: The PIM is only good for minimal use. Entry can be slow and clunky even with the t9. It is still a useful feautre to remind you to make a call. The call screening feature is cool. I use it for unknown or private calls. It lets the 6000 play a message recorded in your voice, and records up to an 18 second message. You can hear all of this through the earpiece. The two things that bother me with this feature are that the 18 seconds is much too short, and many messages get cut off. And you cannot hear the other side until after your message is finished playing. (I tried to setup a message that tricked callers into saying their first sentence, by using a recorded "hello this is Rob" and then a delayed "leave a message after the beep") All-in-all this is still a pretty cool feature. The 6000 is a great phone, the exterior/ design is superb. The interior/ actual function is good. If you are looking for a 2g phone on the sprint network and live in a well covered digital area, this phone will be tough to beat. At the new price of $199 before rebate, this is a killer deal. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 235 91410 2000/11/16 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 full of well organized features service only available on sprint s network poor battery life The Bottom LineThe limited carrier option puts the Sanyo on my ';not-recommended'; list. Full Review Sanyo has moved an interesting direction with their newest phone the SCP-6000 as they are avoiding the trap of making their phones too small in terms of its height. What Sanyo has done with the SCP-6000 is put their newest Sprint PCS offering on a major diet, creating one of the thinnest, lightest phones on the market. Thinness aside, however, after some long tests with this phone I feel that Sanyo is still somewhat lacking in the ergonomic department. The fact that this phone has only been made for Sprint's 1900MhZ PCS system also will be a major turn off to many consumers as Sprint's system is quite lacking in network quality compared with some of the other carriers. Needless to say, Sanyo is giving us a small glimpse of features and style that is normally not found in domestically available phones. Ergonomics and Style I am quite happy to see that at least on phone manufacturer out there realizes that when you reduce the size of a phone too much it actually becomes an inconvenience for the consumer. I have found that the height of the SCP-6000 (5 inches) is perfect as it places the mic with in range of you mouth when speaking. Other phones like the Nokia 8890 have shrunk their phones to the point where the mic actually is placed somewhere next to your cheek. Sadly, however, Sanyo has put this phone on too much of a diet. The SCP-6000 is only about 1/3 of an inch thick which is about the size of 4 credit cards stacked. While many people are drawn to phones that are very small, like this Sanyo, there are ergonomic drawbacks. My biggest complaint after two months of testing is holding this phone for long conversations actually becomes uncomfortable as the phone is so think it does not rest against the back of your hand like many others. All the support from this phone comes from your fingers holding the sides. After any conversation that lasted over 15 minutes my hand quickly became tired and sore. This problem is exaggerated even more if you try to have a conversation while holding the phone between your face and shoulder, as many people do. The problem of this phone being too thin for long conversations can be remedied by using either the optional headset or by purchasing an optional case with a belt clip. The belt clip actually adds about an inch of additional support to the back of the phone. It is not surprising that such a thin phone is also one of the lightest available. The SCP-6000 only weighs about 2.2 ounces. Unlike other extremely light phones, however, the 6000 does not feel fragile. Sanyo uses a magnesium alloy faceplate instead of the typical plastic metal colored faceplates of their competitors. What this gives the consumer is not only a very good-looking phone, but also the true, cold feel of metal that reassures you that this is not a toy in your hand. The button lay-out is very similar to the Motorola V60 even though most of the functions work very differently. I appreciate the clean and simple lay out as it is easy to learn the functions for quick access. Like Motorola's V60, Sanyo has placed two programmable soft keys right below the display. Initially these soft keys are used to access the menu, they can be programmed to quickly access commonly used functions. Although this is not a quick process, the pay off in having this feature is worth the trouble. All of the numeric keys are slightly recessed and made of a hard plastic instead of the soft plastic that is found in most other phones. I personally did not care for this as it made the keys more difficult to locate when not looking at them. I am glad to see that Sanyo has backlit their buttons as to easily be seen in the dark. I have not seen this done this well on a phone since Motorola's old 8000 series phones. Display and Functions Normally I include information on the display of the phone with the ergonomics and styling section. With the SCP-6000, however, there are so many unique features on its display I felt it deserved a place in the functions category. The display on the SCP-6000 is rather large and is probably the clearest display I have seen outside of some 3G models that have yet to be released to the public. (If anyone has seen the phones available in Japan they will know what I am referencing.) The display can be set for standard LCD, backlit green, bright back lighting (also in green), or orange back lighting. You also have the option of zooming in or out on the display for easy reading. The best part about the display, in my opinion, is that you can customize a `wallpaper' on the display using software that connects the phone with your PC. If you wish an image of your grandchildren just scan the picture or download it onto your PC and with the conversion software from Sanyo, you can turn the picture into one that you can put on the display of your phone. Unfortunately, even though it was included in my demo line, I believe the PC Link software will be an optional purchase for most consumers. In addition to just having a `wallpaper' on your display, the SCP-6000 has the capability of having what they call picture caller id. Using the aforementioned software, you can download pictures of various individuals onto your phone and store them with their number in the address book. When that person calls you, instead of their number displaying, their picture will actually show on the display. You can download up to 20 images for use with the picture caller id. The address book on the 6000 will hold up to 300 detailed entries (or 500 number-only entries). Not only can you put the typical name and number, but the address book will also hold information such as additional numbers, categorized by type, addresses and e-mail addresses as well as up to 5 lines of notes for each entry. Of course, the SCP-6000 is wireless-web capable and accessing the web with the 6000 is easier than with most phones. Just hitting the OK button in the middle of the phone will almost instantly log you onto the web. Sanyo has done an excellent job in integrating their functions with each other. If, for example, you have a URL stored in your address book, you can access that URL directly from your address book (as long as it is WAP capable, of course.) As with many phones out now, the SCP-6000 has customizable and downloadable ringers and all of the other standard features such as caller id capability and SMS messaging service. Unfortunately, Sprint has yet to fully release a working SMS service, so this function will not be useable for most at this time. The 6000 does offer one function that is not found on too many phones, a voice recorder. With the touch of a button, you can record up to 2 minutes of voice notes. I am finding that this has become one feature that I cannot live with out with any phone that I regally use. Service and Operation Quality With all the great features offered on the SCP-6000 the one area that it truly fails in is its service and operational quality. Most of the problems found here, however, have more to do with carrier issues as they do the phone. Sanyo chose only to make this phone for Sprint's 1900MhZ CDMA digital system. As many can see in the reviews here, Sprint's system is one of the most lacking in coverage across the country. The problem is Sprint chose to use a different frequency CDMA digital system that other digital carriers, thus restricting callers to only be able to work on their system. Add into this the fact that this phone is only a single mode, with no analog capabilities, and you have a phone with greatly restricted service. If Sanyo made a multi-band version of this phone, or made a model that would work on the 800MhZ CDMA frequency that most other carriers across the country use, then the poor service quality of this phone would not be an issue. The area of operational quality is another area that the Sanyo SCP-6000 has a lot of room for improvement. Sanyo advertises a battery life of about 150 hours standby and 2.5 hours talk time. I have found that those numbers are about half of what they advertise. Considering other digital phones can give users about 20 hours of talk time, these numbers are very blow par. I attribute these numbers to the features such as the complex display that require much more power. Overall I can only suggest that one consider the Sanyo SCP-6000 if they live in a town that has complete Sprint PCS coverage and do not plan to travel. At a retail price of about $300, this phone is in the range of the top-of-the line Motorola and Nokia phones. In the feature category, the Sanyo far exceeds either the Motorola or Nokia, but in terms of service quality, the limited carrier option puts the Sanyo on my `not-recommended' list. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 300 7852 Sanyo SCP-5000 91432 2000/12/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 wireless web outside lcd color lcd lots of features big buttons compact size cost battery life The Bottom Linetwo stars because of the battery life and cost. Full Review I seem to get a lot of that type of comments now-a-day. In fact, many times when I talk to people, I often catch their eyes glanced down at my cell phone. You can't blame them, the Sanyo SCP-5000 is a very attractive phone - the color, the size, and when you flip the phone open, the COLOR LCD. Aside for the above, there are a few gripes I have for Sanyo to improve. 1. The battery life - the compromise of compactness really kills the battery life. I find myself always having to recharge the phone at night. And of course, whenever I forget, I find my phone in the morning shut off - out of battery. Now I sometime charge my phone during my commute to work. Thank god for the car adapter. 2. Cost - I received this phone as a gift - my poor friends... For $499, it's just too expensive. Sanyo is targeting the early adopter anyway. 3. Phone use - on the freeway sometimes it is difficult to listen - even at maximum volume. It could be just me, but I find the Nokia's better. other than that, I think this is a nice phone. There are a lot of features that I like on this phone, like the address book, the wireless web, the calendar, and the easy navigation. However, I probably wouldn't buy it because of the cost. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499+tax 91431 2002/7/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color display bright screen midi rings kinda big lot of money The Bottom LineWay too much money, but what a fun phone to have. Full Review Some people are saying that this phone is like a PDA, but it is not. There is a phone that is like a PDA, but this is not. The phone does have a calendar and contacts like most phones, but it is very limited. The rings on this phone rock. The rings are actually midi files. You can buy the cable and software for $80, but it's not worth it. You can download new ringers from sprint, but it's not the fastest procedure. Like most other expensive devices that are elaborate, the only difference other than some need features, is that you can show off your phone. To me, that is not worth the money you pay for it. I personally paid $170 because I got it on employee discount. Its worth it then, but not if your paying $300. Save you money for a new phone when a new technology comes out. As far as sprint goes, I have had some problems with their customer service. To solve most problems, just ask to cancel you phone, and they will usually try to do what you ask. For example, refund the customer service charges, add more minutes to plan, or what have you. But don't abuse it. If you want to add pictures of your friends when they call, its nearly imposable. You have to buy the expensive software and cable that I was talking about earlier. Again, not worth it. Are you actually going to open your phone when a call comes in to see who is calling?? Their name is on the caller id. Plus the caller ID screen turns colors. How fun it that? My paint on the top of the phone is rubbing off after 1.5 months of having the phone, so I can't say its the most durable. Good luck with whatever phone you decide to buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 91430 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color lcd screen small good reception short battery life expensive The Bottom LineBuy if you want a cool phone with superb technology and clarity. Don't buy if you want a phone with large battery life and is pretty expensive! Full Review I bought this phone three months ago, but have wanted it for the past 6 months. I've had about 4 different cell phones and all which have been Nokia (inluding the 8260), but this phone definitely outpaces them in reception, versatility, and capabilities. You can use this as a personal web computer, because you can surf the internet with this web based phone. For only $5 more a month through Sprint, you can have wireless internet capabilities. The real cool thing that led me to buy this phone is the ability to download pictures from your computer onto your phone. You can download pictures of your friends and family and associate them with a number so when they call their picture pops up on the phone. The cord that allows you to do this is sold seperately through Sprint (about $60). This phone has most of the cell phone essentials, like caller id, large phonebook, voice command dialing, and vibration mode. Because this phone has a color lcd screen, it takes more battery to power it. Thus the battery life is much shorter than a regular cell phone would be. I probably get about an hour and a half of talk time, and a couple of days of standby mode. Plus you pay a lot more for this color lcd and wireless web connecting phone. I recommend this phone now more than ever because of how much the price has come down over the months. I have seen some people buy this phone for about $500, I was fortunate enough to find a deal for $275 through Sprint online. Even though the battery is mediocre, the color lcd is awesome and the fact that you can surf the internet for only $5 more a month in most Sprint plans is also a great capability. Overall I would rate this product as a buy with it down to the price its currently at. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 275 91429 2000/8/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 nice ringtone user friendly cool features nice looking great phone book implementation costly only 256 colors poor battery life The Bottom LineNice looking gadget you can get in N.America at this time. Full Review This is a pretty good phone overall with "almost" all the features you want. Calendar with TODO list and reminder, world clock are pretty good examples. Game is the weak point although I don't play game on the phone at all. Voice dialing is pretty handy and accurate. MIDI ring tone beats all the other phones with only those cheesy beeping sounds. Talking about customizing your ring tone. :) Be prepared to spend extra on buying the extended battery because the thin one is just not enough for regular usage. On the other hand, the technology is just too old. Japanese have been using this phone 2 years ago. The new models in Japan already has built in camera in it. America's gadget is just too outdated, as always. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91428 2000/8/11 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight small dual lcds sleek large screen solid construction high cost comparatively low battery life The Bottom LineThis would have been an even better phone if it didn't suck up battery power so fast. Great for bragging rights. Full Review The SCP-5000 is not a practical phone when you weigh its cost and benefits with other competing phones. But, really... who ever said the SCP-5000 was targeted to practical people? This sleek and beautiful phone is really made for gadget freaks. People who just want to show off; to make people look in envy and salivate. There's nothing wrong with this, though. I'm one of these people. The engineers at Sanyo has carefully crafted this work of art to appeal to the world of the vane. The SCP-5000 carries beautiful clean lines and curves in a perfectly small and tight package. The sub-LCD screen provides just the right amount of information to the user, such as the signal strength, time, battery life, sound mode, and whether or not you have messages (both voice and text). The LCD screen can glow in orange or green, depending on circumstances. One nice feature of this is that text messages received can scroll across the screen so you don't even have to flip open the phone to be able to receive them. Convenient. The history of calls or messages can be quickly viewed using the scroll buttons on the side of the phone. When you flip open the phone, the first thing you would notice is the large 256 color screen. The screen is actually an LCD screen using a similar reflective side light technology found in PDA's such as the Compaq Ipaq. The color images on the screen is of relatively poor quality, but the fact that it has color at all would put it near the cutting edge of technology. The combination of a larger screen and higher resolution allows the phone to display many lines of information in different font sizes. This feature is quite important to me as I receive quite a few email messages that I would like to read without scrolling down at every word. The screen itself is relatively dim, however, it can be seen in just about any lighting condition (thanks to the reflective technology). The only major downside I can see on this display is the sidelight really sucks up a lot of battery power. So if you want to save your power, I would suggest that you turn the sidelight off. I won't get into too much detail about many of the features of this phone, as they are quite comparable to many of the other competing phones such as the Samsungs. However, I would like to point out that this phone can attach to your PC computer via a serial cable to download image files and sound files. Aside from a good wallpaper, the ability to download image files is not very useful in my mind. The advertisments brag about the phone's "photo caller-id" capabilities, but really... by the time you receive a call, the phone is in your ear before you can admire the beautiful 256 color pop-up images of your wife or girlfriend. However, the ability to download songs onto your phone that can play multiple and simultaneous notes is a real plus. You can finally get quality, multi-tone melodies on your phone and do away with the boring monotone rings of other phones. Other than that, the rest of the features on this phone is quite similar to the others. Just don't expect too much out of the battery life if you are going to use the display light often. So, is the high purchase price really justified for this phone? If you are a practical person, you would definately say no. However, if you are like me (a person who feels a need to own a phone that no one else has....and a need to look good with it), you would say "YES" with a proud and stern voice. The SCP-5000 is just too beautiful to pass up. And life is too short to be like everyone else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 91427 2000/12/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 midi rings design photos on the screen color eye catcher battery lifethe new 5150 successor price The Bottom LineExcellent upgrade now to the 5150 for $100 less at $399. Well worth the price and you'll be the envy of friends and family. Full Review I understand this is a review on the phone and not the provider. Still, I need to state SPCS is not the top choice for providers. Also, I'm VERY VERY upset after spending $500 on a NEW phone and being told SPCS just added the Sanyo 5000 and will not replace for another 9 months. Then 2 months later discontinuing the 5000 and adding the 5150 for $100 less!! Now to the review of the Sanyo 5000: I've had the 5000 for 6 months now and love the phone. I've got to say it's a very cool phone. Sound quality is as good as I've heard on any of the recent phones I've used (i.e. just fine). Reception is no better or worst either. I'm comparing it to Samsung 8500, Startac, Sony and the new v60 from Verizon. Build quality, though a bit plasticky looking, is pretty solid. I like how the lid opens with a solid 'click'. That said, let's get to the real reason to buy this phone - the color screen. It's bright and crisp. Having a color screen on the phone now makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to get one with out. There is an improvement on the 5150 to make the screen backlit like a color palm PDA, rather the side lit like a Compaq Ipaq. This makes it much brighter and vibrant, but less easy to see outside with the light off (though under direct light you can still see what is on the screen). Battery life is fair and let's not forget the ringers. Yes, it does have vibrate mode which can even be set to ring and vibrate too. Something I wish the 8500 had. The ringers themselves are musical tones, midi rather than electronic beeps. The specs say it does 16 tone audio. Some of the musical rings sound like the actual song if not the muzak version of it. Menu navigation is pretty simple and there are some other less important features I won't waste your time mentioning that are neat in a gadgety way. A very worthy upgrade, in my opinion. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 91426 2000/9/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 awesome color screen very light good show off phone extremely expensive no good option for extended battery very poor battery life The Bottom LineIf you want a light phone that's easy to carry, and fun to show off, this is the one. But you also better have $500 to burn! Full Review So much has been written and said about this phone, but I will go ahead and put my experiences with this phone into the mess. I have been using this phone since it first came out in August, and overall I'm pleased with it. It's important to bear in mind that I did not pay for this phone, so one of the most important things that anyone has to consider in deciding to buy this phone, is whether or not they have something else they can do with the $500 this phone will cost them. There are a lot of phones for about $250 less that can do everything this phone can, but without the color screen. That's a tough fact to ignore. The aspect of this phone that really surprised me was how light it is. The phone is lighter than anything else I've ever picked up, and is real close to the weight of the Motorola 8162 (Vader phone). The size of this is not as small as the that phone, but it is smaller than the V60. In any case, it also makes the best use of space on the phone for the screen, in that it has the largest screen of any phone I've seen yet. The phone also has lots of flexibility in setting up the various options for this phone; you can have things beep, not beep, or play various sounds instead. In general, other than the color screen, and the ability to upload photos into the phone, this phone doesn't do anything that a regular phone can't do. This has all the features of the Samsung 8500 (the phone I previously had), and doesn't really offer much more in terms of functional features. It has voice dialing, 300 address numbers, separate phone numbers for each addressee (cell #, home #, etc.), a web browser, etc. To sum it all up, the only reason to buy this phone is if you absolutely need a light phone, or want a good show off phone, and have nothing else good to do with $500. If that's the case, you'll be pleased with this phone. Otherwise, you can find many other fine phones on the market that will give you the functionality of this one, without some of the frills. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 91425 2000/7/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 the lcd screen on the outside the color screen is cool the battery life is a bit annoying The Bottom LineTHE BEST PHONE THAT IS OUT GREAT FEATURES, SMALL, LIGHTWEIGHT COLOR SCREEN AND COMES PACKAGED WITH EVERY THING YOU NEED Full Review This phone is the best phone on the market even better than the last phone I had the Sanyo 4500(please read that review by me). The first thing you notice about this phone is the color display, it is great. the 2-inch color display makes viewing the web a whole lot easier than the normal green screen. When you get text messages it just is a breeze to read them even in the dark. The navigation of the phone is a whole lot easier as well working from menu screen to menu screen is no problem. You can also customize the color of the the screen, you have four choices each getting dark as you go down the list I chose the color sunset it is easiest to see. The second thing you notice is the price tag a whopping $500. But I choked it up and shoveled out the money. Now when you go home and open the packaged you hear about the photo caller i.d. and the down loadable ringers(20 photos 20 ringers) you first think a very hard phone to work with but was a breeze to finger out. All functions are common sense. The lcd on the exterior is great for seeing the callers info and determine if you want to answer the call or not. What is also a great feature ids the voice memo option(also called call screening), if a caller calls after a few seconds the memo pick s up as a answering machine and at anytime during that recording if you want to answer you can interrupt and answer the call or if not let it play out and listen to it later. The LCD screen also gives you a notification of new memo's. The ringers for this phone are great but you can download others too. Two of them can be over 100kb and the other 18 can be only 20kb just to let you know in advance. The software for this is included as well as a holster. The picture quality for the phone is great but don't use dark photos use brighter photos with a lot of lighting or the face looks to be smudged out without the sufficient lighting on the picture. This phone is loaded with features. The voice dialing in my opinion is great recognizes the name even in the loudest places. Reception for this phone is great too I live out where the signal is very weak but i always can get on the web and make calls. And speaking of the web with the the soft keys for the phone you can browse the web a whole lot faster and as well as move throughout the menu faster. also has a instant internet key and instant email for the soft keys. The battery life is good if you keep the phone closed but once you open it and use the menu options for a while the life drains and that is the same way with talking on it as well. But my Phone came with a coupon for and extended battery so this is no problem anymore. So all in all go out pay the $500 (or you can get it for $350 if you look out for auctions on the web) and be able to show of the the very lightweight and small phone that has the features that makes this the best phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 91424 2002/4/6 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 sharp display crisp sounds lots of features photo caller id below average reception sloppy hci doesn t take full advantage of capabilities The Bottom LineThis phone is well suited for people that habitually buy impractical things because they feel like it. Full Review After 4+ years of being ignored by Sprint, I received 2 free phones in the mail last week, a Samsung A400 (based on the 8500) and a Sanyo 5150. I decided to activate the 5150 because it was so much cooler than the A400, even though I had a hunch that the A400 would work better. I still have the same hunch, but I'm happy with my new phone anyway because what it lacks in practicality, it makes up for in razzle-dazzle. BASIC PHONE ROLE I'm sorry to report that the 5150 is a cellar dweller in this important category. Without question, it is the worst phone I've ever had with respect to: -making and receiving calls from my apartment (this is ironic because the reason Sprint set me up with the free phones was to solve this problem); incidentally, my Samsung 8500 was the best performer in this regard. -calls getting through to me (as opposed to my voicemail) when I have service. I've already missed several calls when four signal bars were showing. -timely notification of new voicemail. -ease of accessing phone book. The phone book is a pain to get to and numbers tend to disappear when you're copying them down unless you click another button. I suppose this problem is really just a manifestation of a larger issue; this phone is not very user friendly. -visibility of screen. The LCD is very difficult to read when the backlight is off. Additionally, the miniature display (on the front of the phone) only lights up when someone calls or you open the phone, which means it's difficult to check your signal strength or the time in poor light without opening the phone. I noticed others have complained about the battery life of this phone, but this hasn't really been a factor for me. Perhaps, I've just trained myself to keep my calls as brief as possible though. GADGETRY I'm still learning how to use all of the 5150's advanced features so I can't comment in great detail on this topic, but I can offer a few observations: -I'll never take full advantage of features such as messaging because Sprint charges hefty usage fees for them. -the 5150 definitely isn't a PDA, which is a shame because I think it has almost enough raw muscle to fill this role. -T9 character entry is nice, but entering email/web addresses is tedious. -the wireless web is still a waste of time, even with a fancy screen. AESTHETICS You don't need me to tell you that the 5150 looks, sounds, and feels good. That's the main reason people buy it. CONCLUSION The Sanyo 5150 falls short of even the most primitive cell phones in terms of basic functionality and the features it has that other phones don't really aren't very useful, but.... .....it still makes me smile. Recommended: Yes 91423 2000/7/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 in color silver sleek showing off the technology just starting in the us the high price isn t worth just having a color screened phone The Bottom LineExcellent showcase for new wireless technology, like color screens, but altogether not worth $500 just for a color screen. Full Review The Sanyo SCP-5000 is definitely a phone that would cause envy in your fellow wireless-using friends. The first week that I had it, I barely got to use it, so many people were playing with it, oohing and aahing over the nifty little features that it offered. In the same way that many people were google-eyed over the Samsung 3500 when it first came out (including myself), this phone draws attention. It's sleek, smooth, and silver, three of the things that I love in my gadgets. And it is not just aesthetically pleasing. It has a color screen, boasting 256 colors, something that no U.S. wireless phone has been able to produce until now. Color screens aren't so important in Europe, but they are commonly available in Japan. On more than one occasion, I have had friends present phones that they or their family have gotten while living in Japan. Sadly, these phones aren't compatible with America's wireless standards, so they couldn't actually be used, just admired. But now, Sprint PCS has given an option other than the mundane black-and-white (actually black-and-green) screens we have all become so accustomed to. The Sanyo 5000 offers: Color Screen As stated above, the Sanyo 5000 gives to America the 256-Color Screen. The colors aren't just for naught, either. All sorts of things can be done with them, including setting several different Environment settings, like what can be done on Windows. You can set the color scheme for the menus, fonts, and backdrop. Downloadable Images The Sanyo 5000 comes with a data connection kit, thus making you able to connect your phone to your computer to download images and ringer types. The images can be used as wallpaper, as well as some things listed below. Altogether, 20 images can be stored on the phone at once, in standard ".jpg" format. Photo Caller ID With the images that you download on the phone, you can create phone book entries and attach the images to up to 20 of them. That way, when one of these people calls you, the jpeg file you chose for their entry will pop up, as well as a text listing of the caller. You can have a picture of your mother pop up when she calls, or a picture of a beer pop up when your favorite drinking buddy calls. Downloadable Ringers MIDI files can be downloaded onto the phone. MIDI ringer types are common on Nokias, but are making their debut on America's Sanyos. A typical ringer can play Alanis Morissette's "Hand in My Pocket" or the classic "Bicycle Built for Two". In addition, with the correct software, you can make your own MIDI creations on your computer, and then transfer them to your phone. An industry analysis has found that there are already over 8 billion ringer types out there in the world, and the amount is ballooning exponentially. Screensavers Another use of the images you download to your phone is for use as a screensaver. Although current technology nearly completely makes screensavers a moot point for actually saving a screen, they can be nice to have. And both static images and animated ".gif" files can be used as screensavers. Wireless Web Capable As many of Sprint PCS's more recent phones, the Sanyo 5000 has wireless web capability. Of course, current wireless internet is restricted to text-only, so the color capabilities don't lend much to this facet. These aren't the only features that make the Sanyo 5000 a nifty little phone. There is the external caller ID, which is only available on the TP1100 otherwise. It has voice-activated dialing, which is very primitive considering you can receive Voice Command free as a network feature with your Sprint PCS service. Voice Command is the 3rd generation voice recognition, twice-removed from voice-activated dialing. Check it out...very nice. In addition, it is a structurally-sound flip-top phone, as opposed to the Samsung 3500, which has experienced numerous defects due to the wires being routed through the hinges in the flip of the phone. There are some issues that the Sanyo 5000 has that raise some questions, however. For starters, the battery is not that strong. Altogether, it only supports up to 2 hours of talk time. Standby time is standardly at 120 hours, but this is with the assumption that the backlight isn't on, which is the only way to "admire" the colors that the phone has to display. Of course, 2 hours of talk time won't happen, since standby time will be mixed in-between calls. Thus, about 1 to 1.5 hours of talk time is to be excepted. Altogether, it really isn't useful for extended use without being connected to an AC Adaptor/Charger. Games aren't an important facet of my phone usage, but it is nice to have something to play with when sitting around waiting for an appointment, etc. The Sanyo 5000 has Crabcatcher. The same game found on some of the older Sprint PCS phones, just with color. You'd think that such an advanced phone would have some cool games. The biggest down-side to the Sanyo 5000 is the price. $499.99. That is very steep for a phone that's only truly outstanding feature is that it is in color. It is a nice phone, with sturdy construction and useful features, but so is the Samsung 8500 or the Sanyo 4500. A color screen is not worth paying $500 for. It seems that the technology points towards the future, with things that future phones are going to come with standardly, like the photo caller ID (look for this in the very near future). But color isn't so important to a regular wireless phone user, and a gadget lover may be intrigued, but will surely feel buyer's remorse. As I said at the start, I didn't get a lot of usage on the phone for the first week, because so many people wanted to play with it, but after that first week, they all grew tired of it, and by the second week, so did I. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 91422 2000/7/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 flash appeal quality outer caller id display color screen weak voice dialing weak battery life pull out antenna high price tag The Bottom LineThis phone is so goddam PIMP, what's more bad@zz than a 2 inch color screen. Go check it out and see for yourself. Full Review Well I'm not going to bullshiet you about this new Sanyo phone. It's WAY TOO EXPENSIVE! No one in their right minds would buy this phone, but why did I do it? Well... One look at its 2 inch LCD screen and its myriad of features I immediately fell in love. I'll break down some of the more "impressive" features here: 1) The color LCD display. This is by far the pimpest feature available on any phone today. It's 2 inches long for easy web surfing and provides enormous WOW factor. True, I have agree with that one other reviewer about how the WOW factor goes away after a while, but I don't care because few few people have this phone. I just hate how I go out and see 4 or 5 people a day talking on their 8200 nokias. Its original, its pimp, and its so badazz. 2)Wallpaper/Caller ID pictures. I love this function, you have the ability to download pictures with your computer and put it on your phone as a background wallpaper, or as a "picture caller id." Needless to say this is also very pimp. However you can't download an animated screensaver, I have no idea what that dumb@zz reviewer was talking about. 3)Outer caller ID display. This is pretty pimp, it shows you who's calling and displays info such as batter life, signal strength, etc. Plus it lights up in amber/green when you get a call/receive a message/etc. It's just a crazy light show, very tite. 4)Morning Driving ringtone. I luv this ringtone, it really makes you want to take a drive. It's just funny, go check it out. 5)Color LCD, oh did I mention it's 2 inch COLOR SCREEN yet? Okay, there are a bunch more features but I don't really care because those are just like the ones off all other phones, you can read about them on sanyo's website. Anyways, this phone is bad@zz and I totally recommend it if you can afford it. It's not a practical phone, come on, who really needs a color screen. Plus the screen eats up battery life but who cares, mine came with a coupon for a free extended battery from Sprint. Well another unfortunate downfall for this phone is that it's only offered with Sprint PCS. I personally think Spring blows (read my other AT&T review). The company is only around 4 years old and it's growth is tremendous. However, due to its young age the company owns very few towers thus your coverage suffers and you get A FCKING LOT OF DROPPED CALLS!!!! Be ready for a lot of beep beep beeps, cause thats the sound the phone makes when you drop a call. But a plus for sprint is that it's clearity is pretty amazing when you do get service, its like a land line. Oh another crappy thing about sprint is that it does't own any of its own analogue towers, so it charges you to use your phone in analogue mode. Anyways, back to the phone. Yea it's a great phone, well built and it's excellent quality can be seen easily. A quick side by side comparison of this sanyo with other phones and you can see how better made it is. It works just like any other Sanyo or Samsung phone but with a better build quality. Good luck finding one at a local electronics store, word is even the Spring stores are backordered. A great choice, expensive, but you get what you paid for. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 91421 2001/7/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 compact user friendly wireless web enabled color display web not in color cost 499 99 wont sync with pda computer battery life The Bottom LineThe direction mobile web phones are headed, with a few drawbacks Full Review The Sanyo SPC-5000 is the first telephone in the U.S. with a full color (256 colors) display. The 2 inch display allows for up to 12 lines of text. The display is clearly viewable in daylight and at night due to the fact it is backlit. The Sanyo SCP-5000 is compact (3.74 by 1.93 by 0.94 inches) and light (3.5 ounces) The phone itself is a flip type and features a second, external LCD that lets you view caller ID info, battery, time and other info without flipping open the phone. The color display (and included cable) allow you to upload up to 20 images to the phone from your home computer. The images can be used as wallpaper (similar to the desktop on windows) or the images can be attached to the internal phone book allowing for "Photo Caller ID". You see the image of the person calling instead of just their phone number. The software and serial cable included are very easy to install and use. The software also allows for MIDI ringer melodies to be set on the phone. MIDI ringer melodies are available practically everywhere on the net for free. The phone comes with several to choose from already built in. The Sanyo SPC-5000 has all the latest features you might expect, they include: voice-activated dialing, voice memo, Spanish/English menus, caller ID (also displayed on the external LCD), four-way rocker navigation key, a vibrating ringer, voicemail, 1 game, calendar, a world clock, and wireless Web access. The wireless web does not support color. Unfortunately, Sprint PCS doesn't include any synchronization software to enter phone numbers or calendar information into the SCP-5000 from you PDA or computer. I have found the Sanyo SPC-5000 to be user friendly. Most functions are intuitive(I didn't crack open the owners manual once) I have owned several Sprint PCS web phones over the years and would describe the signal strength of the Sanyo SPC-5000 as average. Sprint PCS coverage in my area is quite good. The real drawback to this phone is its most outstanding feature: the backlit color display, it uses too much power! The Sanyo SCP-5000 standard battery has a CLAIMED talk time of 2 hours and a standby time up to 120 hours. I only managed to get about 1 hour and 30 minutes talk time. This is an average while using two different Sanyo 5000's over a week. Sprint offers an extended battery for an additional charge of $79.95. The Sanyo SPC-5000 offers a glimpse of where cell phone technology is headed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.99 91420 2001/8/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight compact sleek design photo caller id external lcd pda functionality battery life no address book synching The Bottom LineIt's cool. It's in color. It will replace your Palm. Buy it. Full Review General "Hey man, that IS a cool phone, can I take a look?," my friend asks. "Sure," I say, gingerly handing it over. "Holy cow, this is so light and who's picture is that on there?," my friend exclaims, after opening up the clamshell. "Oh, it's just me and my family." "Wait a sec, how much was this phone?" "$500 bucks," I casually reply. "WTF!?!?!, Are you crazy?!!." Yes, I paid $500 for the Sanyo SCP-5000 and it was worth every penny for the head-turning value of the phone alone. The first mobile phone with a color LCD to arrive in the United States, the SCP 5000, a Sprint PCS exclusive dual-band phone, will not disappoint the high-end cell phone user looking for multiple functionality from their cell phone. Aside from placing and receiving calls, this Sanyo gem also has a calendar of events to schedule meetings and important functions, a phonebook that stores email addresses, voice activation, downloadable MIDI rings, customizable wallpapers and photo caller ID, among a plethora of other features. How Sanyo fit these features into a phone this size is an accomplishment beyond me. On top of that, the SCP 5000 is by far and away the prettiest and sleekest phone on the market right now. The Look C'mon admit it, we're all superficial to a certain extent. We all want to be popular and well-liked. The SCP 5000 isn't going to get you a date this Saturday night, but the phone that a July issue of ESPN Mag calls the "it" phone to have among professional athletes, certainly will garner its share of "ooohhhs and ahhhhs" among your friends. It is in for lack of a better term, a beeeyoootiful phone. At 3.7 by 1.9 by 1.1 inches, the SCP 5000 is a bit trimmer and smaller than other flip phones. It weighs just 3.5 ounces, less than Motorola's StarTac, Timeport, and Talkabout. This is of the utmost importance to me. I hate carrying around bulky items and I hardly feel the SCP 5000 when it is my pocket. The purplish silver metallic exterior gives the phone a modern, understated elegance. The external LCD is a lifesaver as the caller ID allows me to see who's calling without flipping the clamshell. It makes it a whole lot easier to screen my calls. There is also a headphone (hands free) jack and navigation buttons on the side that serve different functionality depending on what action the user is doing (for example, when I want to silence the ringer without opening the phone, I just hit one of the side buttons and the ringer is immediately muted) The 2" internal color LCD screen is complete with color and wallpaper customization. The larger screen allows for a highly viewable web interface that previous phone could not offer. The Features There are hundreds of actions that this phone can perform (voice activation, ring types, vibrate alert, volume control, web access, games, etc) and for me to describe them all would make me sound like a Sanyo infomercial, so I¡¦ll just talk about my favorite ones. If you want to see ALL of the technical capabilities of the phone, you can visit the Sanyo homepage. Photo caller ID: Do I really need this? Probably not, but it¡¦s such a cool feature. I can download images the included synch software and associate up to 20 images to contacts in my phone book. When they call, their picture pops up in the color LCD. Downloadable MIDI rings: Right now "Brown-eyed Girl" plays on all incoming normal calls and "Margaritaville" plays for incoming unavailable calls. I can download up to 22 different rings and associate them to contacts or different types of calls. It's almost like having caller ID for caller ID. When I hear a certain song, I know who's calling me! PDA functionality: The SCP 5000 will not replace your Palm Pilot, but it will certainly go along way towards giving you a phone with tremendous PDA functionality. The phone book stores up to 900 numbers and 600 email addresses and URLs. The calendar offers full month in advance event scheduling with customizable alarm intervals. The SCP 5000 also stores voice memos, text memos, all while making the navigation very easy to learn and use. The SCP 5000 also employs this special T9 keypad technology that tries to predict what words you will type based on what was typed before. Security:The SCP 5000 also offers security features. You can lock both the phone to prevent accidental outgoing calls (except to emergency numbers), and the keypad. You can also lock the side keys, set different call restrictions, erase your call logs, or store numbers in a secret location. The best part is, if your phone is lost or stolen, a special feature lets you erase your personal information and lock the phone by sending a SMS message from your computer or PDA. Sound For the 3 months I have owned the phone, the sound has been crystal clear and the signal strong. Any lapses in service are due to poor Sprint coverage and not because of the phone. I experienced the same thing with my previous Sprint phone, a Motorola Timeport. Web Usability The 2" color LCD is a vast improvement over the grayscale 4 line display of previous web-enables phones. Set the font to small and the SCP 5000 can fit up to 10 lines of text in the browser. This makes for reading so much easier and less cumbersome. The 4 way navigational keypad is instrumental in navigating the web. It acts as the mouse and the number pad they keyboard. The side buttons also allow for additional navigation. While the SCP 5000 employs the old standard WAP browser, it takes on a different feel for this phone as the web menus and pages are easier to navigate. As mentioned before, the T9 technology makes the usability of this phone unmatched compared to any other phone on the market. The Sanyo was very intelligently designed and the user will see that as soon as they start using the phone. Note: Web service is different based on the wireless carrier. Sprint offers a very comprehensive web service that has its own starting menu. Users can now check email, movie times, news, sports, weather, etc. The Criticism Whenever a product breaks the mold and strives to be as ambitious as the Sanyo SCP 5000 is, it will undoubtedly garner criticism to go along with praise. While the SCP 5000 is still a 5 star phone in my review, there are things that can be improved upon and I hope to see these things in Sanyo's next attempt. 1) Battery life - The extended battery will be your best friend if you are a heavy user. The 2 hour talk time and 5 day standby are a little weak. A day of heavy usage and your battery will be on life support. Of course, Sanyo had to sacrifice the battery life to make such a small, sleek phone, so I'm not complaining. 2) No Address Book Synching Software - While the software allows the transfer of images and rings from PC to phone, users must manually enter in phone numbers and contact information using the phone's keypad. I see this as a possible hot fix for Sanyo in the near future. If they can write software to transfer compressed data, I see no reason why they can't figure out how to transfer text. 3) Cost - Some will see $500 as unreasonable and I list cost here not because it's an issue for me, but because it may be an issue for many others. You will not find another phone on the market that can do what this phone does and look as good while doing it, hence the hefty price tag. I didn't buy a Palm Pilot because of this phone, it actually made economic sense for me. This is a decision to be made based on each individuals needs. 4) Sorry No Mac Support for the synch software - Bummer! The Apple faithful get screwed again. 5) Sprint PCS Service - you guys know... In Conclusion Would I recommend this phone? Not for everyone ¡V but for those who love the technology, for those who are in business, Sanyo has a phone here that will more than impress. I personally love it - even at $500. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.99 7853 Sanyo SCP 4700 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91435 2004/1/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery life the best signal strength very durable if dropped size size matters to some lack of games This is a fantastic phone. Sanyo's are the number one Sprint phones as far as reception, quality of conversation, durability, and battery life. While some people might think it a bit bulky, this series isn't that much bigger than Sprint's other phones. Ask any sprint representative and they'll tell you, these phones outlast Samsung's and anything else anyone comes up with. I've been very pleased with mines. The only thing that might come close to the type of quality you get from these phones might be the Nokia's. But with them, battery life isn't as lengthy compared to the Sanyo SCP-4700. This phone even outdoes some of the newer phones out there. This is a top quality phone. 91434 2004/2/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 speaker great battery life very rugged not a lot of latest features size This was my first cell phone purchase about 2 years ago. After reading reviews that raved about this phone, I decided that battery life was more important than all the other seldom used features. I have to say that the SCP-4700 did not disappoint. I have talked over 3 hours straight on it and it still had a charge. It also keeps a charge while not in use for about 5 days. It's also very rugged. I have dropped mine a few times and it always bounces back. reception is very good as well. I highly recommend this phone if you aren't shopping around for a flip-phone model. 91433 2000/10/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability1.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 speaker phone clear sound sturdy yeah styling size size The Bottom LineWould be great phone it wasn't as big as a cordless home phone. Full Review Currently I am having to use my moms cell phone since I am changing plans. Even though this is just temporary, I already dislike this phone. Sound, Ringers, etc. You can hear cristal clear on this phone, most of the time. The phone also includes speaker phone which is good if you're driving and don't want to distract yourself from the road. The ringers on this phone honestly are horrid. There are around seven or eight. They all sound the same to me. The range from a high pitched ring to 'London Bridge is Falling Down'. Not my choice, maybe some people like those types of ringers, but I really hate having them ring, therefore I constantly have the phone on vibrate Size and Styling With all honesty, this has to be one of the biggest cell phones now days. It's not quite a "Zach Morris cell" from Saved by the Bell, but it is quite big. The styling of the phone isn't all that bad, the buttons are big enough, and around the display screen is a silver trim which is somewhat attractive. But with the phone being nearly as big as the cordless at my house its a major turn off. I was embarrassed to have it out in front of my girlfriend. She saw it and jokingly said to me, "Why did you bring your cordless to school?" Yes the size is horrid Reliability and Battery Life This phone is tough, period. I have dropped it so many times on accident(so you think ;) ) and it never breaks like a normal flip phone. The battery life on the phone is very good. The talk time is around 4 hours constant, and 4 days standby which is pretty outstanding. Overall This phone would be great it if wasn't for the size. If they(Sanyo) can make phones with the same build quality, but smaller with better styling they'd be top-dog. Even if it is temporary, I can't wait to get my old small phone back! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): lonerRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7854 Siemens CT56 91442 2004/6/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use great small size long loading time vibrate option is iffy I bought this phone as a replacement, and I love it! It's ultra-compact, easy to use, and great on battery life. My favorite option on this phone is the 'hands-free' mode that you can use, which acts as a speakerphone. However, there are some downsides. The loading of the phone's options - such as big items like games, or even to turn on the phone - take a long time to accomplish (during which my phone 'freezes' and you can't really do much from it). After it shows the 'welcome' screen - the one shown on this page - it takes ANOTHER minute or so to load in the phone book. Not good for emergency situations. Overall, it's a nice phone once you get it on - but getting there is where the hassle lies. 91441 2005/8/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cool design small size no color screen I love this phone. It is one of the best ever, it is small and light but still loaded with features. I have always been a fan of Siemens products, and this phone is a good example of how well there products are made. I have dropped this phone a lot, and it still works fine. The orange backlight is cool as well. 91440 2004/1/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy to use can be hard to hear on This is a great little cell phone. It is small and fits into the palm of your hand. It is really easy to use and easy to store in a purse or pocket. I like the vibrating options and the easy to use layout. Highly recommended. 91439 2000/6/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very small light easy to read keys speakerphone excellent reception too small The Bottom LineUnbeatable execution by Siemens. Blows away every other phone in terms of clarity, size, and ease of use. A big thumbs up! Full Review I purchased this phone to replace my Sony Ericsson T306. Best move I've ever made. This Siemens phone is ultra-small and ultra-light. I can hardly tell it is in my pocket. Although it is small, the buttons are large enough that it isn't difficult to use them. The screen is also a good size and very easy to read. The orange LEDs illuminate much better than the usual greens or blues. The phone is packed with all the usual features, all intuitive and well made. The polyphonic ringer produces some really cool ringtones and even plays sound effects! My biggest gripe with any phone is usually the reception. Not this phone. Everything is crystal clear and the signal never drops out. My friends have often asked if I am calling from a land line...the quality is that good! So far the battery life seems to be excellent. I left it on for several days straight and still have well over 50% of the charge left. Even after fiddling with ringtones and games, I still have more then enough power. I only had a chance to use the speakerphone once but I must say it sounds excellent. I don't sound echo-ish on the other end and I can understand the caller perfectly. A big thumbs up on good execuction of a speakerphone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75.00 91438 2003/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone great reception small menus price The Bottom LineIt is the ULTIMATE phone for ANYONE! I recommend it to everyone. GET THIS! Full Review WOW! That is all i can say about this phone! I bought this phone on ebay for about $120 bucks as an upgrade to my old crappy Motorola 331g phone that I bought before. This phone is SUPERIOR to any phone i have ever owned! It is very small, fits in any pocket, gets great reception (better than my HOME phone actually), and it has a great polyphonic speaker on it as well. The phone has everything you could ask for. Here is what i thought about them: Pros: 1) Small and very unique 2) Polyphonic speaker for great ring tones 3) Has a built-in speaker phone for a hands-free conversation 4) Has a built-in web browser, SMS, games, organizer, and a phonebook 5) Gets great reception everywhere...even in bad weather. It doesnt sound robotic like most cell phones, even on the speakerphone is sounds loud and clear and nobody as asked me "DID YOU PUT ME ON SPEAKERPHONE?!" because there is no echo or anything. 6) Battery life is perfect, i only have to recharge every 2-3 days or so with average usage...this is a GREAT thing Cons: 1) Not one of those "free phones" that comes with Cingular, so you must dish out some money for this one, but it is WELL worth it, i promise you'll love it 2) The menus take some getting used to. You must do a bunch of button presses just to get to something as simple as your SMS inbox. It does not bother me anymore thought, as I have gotten used to this and am very comfortable with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120.00 91437 2000/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to customize durable easy to operate small long games load times hard to retrieve a phone number The Bottom LineThe CT-56 broke the mobile phone paradigms in my case. I'm not only inviting but kindly begging you to check out this mobile phone. You won't be disappointed Full Review I've have always used Motorola since the first day I bought a mobile phone. Ads led me to believe they had the best range, battery life and were strong enough to withstand falls; nowadays I beg to differ. Buying the CT-65 was a change of paradigm for me, which proved to be the right choice the minute I started using the phone. First I had to wait the 12 hours to fully charge the battery, then the magic of the Siemens CT-65 started to show. With my Motorola I had signal blackouts in many part of the city. Now with the CT-65 I only have blackouts in underground parking lots. Signal strength is always full. After a few minutes of operation I discovered the polyphonic tones making you mobile able to reproduce almost every sound of planet earth so you may never think your mobile is ringing when is not. I never thought Internet on a phone could be so easy to use. The dictionary comes with 7 languages being able to download other and saving words not included. This not only helps Internet browsing but SMS writing. Regarding battery life, for me it lasts 3 days which is an improvement (I tend to use the phone 10 times more than average). The phone also carries a feature to fully discharge the battery before charging it. In short term battery recharge takes longer, in long terms battery life get improved exponentially. Quick access buttons, they represent an improvement. Siemens found a way to have 14 quick access to features, 10 of them fully customize them, giving access to all your need with just punching a button or two. SIM phone numbers are also reachable with maximum 4 keystrokes (if you know the location). On the other hand, accessing Phone or Secure database is kinda hard. Customization is easy. You get to change everything from tones, logos, background, even you get to have a wallpaper. You can even download from the Internet by calling your ISP or by GPRS. It has appointment book, list of things to remember, notes, anniversaries, alarm clocks and at least two other ways of helping you remember things you usually do with plenty of memory for that matter. I'm kinda reckless regarding phone care, so from time to time my phones fall to the ground, meaning I need a strong phone, able to withstand heavy duty. As of now this phone have fallen more than 6 times and yet I have yet not seen a scratch. Travel with this phone is a blast, even thought the CT-65 comes only with 1900 band, when traveling abroad you can ask for the CT-55 with is a perfect copy of this phone so you can have the same features all over the world. At last but not least, the ergonomics allow you to listen perfectly only if you place it on a certain position, then again this position is so comfortable you don't feel anything. My purpose with this review is not talking you into switching from your personal, preferred cell phone brand. I just want to let you know there's another mobile phone on the market that you should check out before buying a new cell phone. I have left out many cell phone features on purpose so you get to discover them. Go today to your GSM store of your choice and check it... you'll see I'm right. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): FreeRecommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91436 2000/2/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small size simple to use long battery life clear sound front face plate scratches easily slippery back plate The Bottom LineWhen you have no though and in need of a small cell with clear sound, the A56 will stand by your side. Full Review Introduction to the Siemens A-56 The Siemens A-56 / C-56 Cell phones belong to a wireless phone category; we call "candy-bar phones" Why? Because it looks like a candy bar and it does not open like flip phones do. These phones do not have a sticking out antenna on them either. There are folks out there whom use only this type of phone due to its ease of operation and portability. I am one of them. Currently I use a Motorola V-400 Flip Phone as my company's communication gateway. Let me tell you, I am less than impressed with it. Please check out my review on the V400. Back to the Siemens A-56, when you have one of these phones on you, people would not know or notice, until you start talking on it. You never have to worry about how you place it in your pocket, or weather the antenna is sticking out or up or down. Just like a candy bar! The German company Siemens have been around for a long time and they are known for their high quality products. Especially in the medical field. MRI machines, sterilizers, etc. They currently rank number # 2 on the wireless market for quality and popularity. Perhaps not so much in North America, but more in Europe, Africa and Asia. Yes #2, and this means ahead of Motorola, Sony-Erickson, Samsung and LG. Nokia is still number one. First look When you see this handset on a picture, like a Web- page or such place, you'd never realize how small this phone is. This is only until you actually hold it in the palm of your hand. I can hold this phone in my hand and close my fingers around it. Voila. The phone is gone; I mean you don't see it because it fits in my hand closed. By the way I don't have very large hands. Most A-56 models in North America were released in two colors. Blue and silver / gray combination. I have the silver one and still using it once in a while until I receive my brand new Siemens A-65. Another review is to follow this one after I received my A65, which will be a World phone and have color screen. Ok, about the A-56, yes. A small phone with tons of features you actually use. How nice, ha? When talking on the A-56, it sounds like if I was talking on a landline. This is due to the phone's superior earpiece. Outstanding performance when it comes to sound quality. The ringer sound is not as powerful, but provides adequate loudness to hear it even in noisy environment. If that's not good enough, than please use the vibrate alert, combined with sound. The buttons are rather small on this phone, but easily operable by anyone. Even with folks with large fingers. The screen is backlit with orange background color and black letters / characters. There is also some animations in the phone. Quiet nice from an affordable, often free with a plan handset. The A-56 also supports MMS Multimedia Messaging System. This means, that besides regular SMS, you can also send animations to another GSM phone, perhaps attach it to your message. We have this set activated with the Microcell Communications (FIDO) service. Now merged with Rogers / AT&T Communications. Each time I switch phones; I just take my Smart card (SIM) out of my phone and install it into the new one. This way the phonebook and message logs remain on the card and I can continue normal operation on the new phone without having to re-program all the phone numbers all over again. This phone has all the basic features most wireless phones have, like alarm clock, calendar, phonebook, games, time & date, call display, call waiting support, SMS, MMS, changeable Face & back plates. Speed-dial for fast access to your most important numbers. What to like about it Gotta like the small size. Very easy to use and learn menu system. Long battery life. Fast battery recharge, Removable face & back-plates, GSM network capability allows you to roam from other countries while abroad. Alarm clock can be setup to wake you at certain days of the week. MMS Support in messaging. Crystal clear earpiece sounds like landline. This phone is also cheap. Meaning cost very little. I got mine for $15- as replacement for a Nokia 3390 which had a weak battery after about a year of usage. Many times your wireless carrier provide you with this handset for no charge at all, when signing a contract with them. You also have to like the weight of the phone. Just a few ounces. Can't even notice it's in your hand. Dislikes Well, not too many things here other than a list of the things this phone doesn't have, but hey what do you expect from a phone that's free or costs just a few dollars? Just to list a few things that would be nice on this set: Polyphonic ring-tines, color screen, blue tooth, camera, tone composer, infrared access, and maybe a larger screen. Here are a few things that can be improved on this phone without adding more features to it. #1 Different screen material. The screen scratches easily on this phone, so you have to be careful with it. #2 the material the phone's back plate is made of. Why am I saying this? Well, you place this phone on an uneven place and the thing will slide right down and fall on the ground / floor. Siemens should of thought of this when designing the unit and they could of install a small rubber button sort of slide stopper at the back of it. I've seen this on other phones. #3 is the face and back plates. They don't line up evenly when on. You can tell by looking at the phone from the side that this phone has a front and back plates separate because the plates don't line up well. I never had mine come off or anything. This is just one more thing, which can be added to the little annoyances most electronics come with. Conclusion This review also applies to the Siemens C-56 mobile phone because the two are very identical in shape and features. I highly recommend this GSM phone to those who require a reliable wireless communication device and can't afford one. When sound quality and battery life is crucial to you, look no further than the Siemens A-56, C-56 and their brothers & sisters for that matter. Many folks prefer a cell that can easily slide into a purse or any pocket. Well this is one of those little wonders for you. Thank you for reading and rating this review. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7855 Siemens SX56 Mobile Phone 91447 2004/10/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 nothing it did not work mobile doesn t work then all the cons I bought a Siemens C62 phone and since the beginning I been having problems to send messages and receive calls. I sent it to repair and after several times sending it to Siemens technicians and receiving back with the same problem, finally they told me (I don't know) that mobile motherboard was changed because was the same problem. Then I sent it again to the Siemens technical service and they told me was a problem with my network operator but I don't believe it. I have been using the same SIM card and same network with different mobile brands ( Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Alcatel ) while they were " repairing " it (long time) and never had any problem. Also I decided to change of network and it is the same!!! Conclusion: Siemens are bad, never going to buy anything from Siemens again. I waste my money because Siemens did not want to give me another phone or my money back. And I am not the only one that has this opinion about Siemens :-( You can find lot of Internet forums where there are people complaining about this mobile phones Siemens never again. 91446 2000/2/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the screen is big enough for aging eyes to see only one gadget to carry it took hours to sort through it the palm data did not convert easily The Bottom LineThe ATT service is built out in our area. Be sure coverage is adequate in yours.... Full Review The SX56 combines all the functions of my Palm Pilot, even with it's upgraded software, and my digital phone. I stopped carrying my PDA just because it became too bulky. Now I have all that information with me when I have my phone. Moving data from my Palm to the SX56 was not easy. Although, I may have chosen poorly when I exported the information. It took hours to sort through all the information and put it in the correct database fields. The color screen is big and easy for old eyes to see without glasses. Customization seems endless as you can import your own pictures for background etc. The case is a bit big but not as big as a PDA and a phone. The provided belt clip is a great design. Hard buttons are great to aid in navigation. All the often-used features have a button that turns on the PDA portion of the phone while leaving the phone off if desired. Since the phone and the computer are separate, the unit can be used on airplanes etc. We received a special price for having ATT as our cellular provider for a long time. Buy yours directly from them if you have had their service for awhile. My wife and I both have one and we love them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450.00 91445 2000/1/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 many features syncing to pc stylish lots of add ons battery life not too big face hitting buttons on screen when talking hands free receptacle plug just sits in hole The Bottom LineYou can't go wrong with the SX 56. Full Review Feeling it was about time to upgrade from my 4 year old Sanyo SCP-4700, I stumbled across the Siemens SX56 on sale for $100 at the AT&T store. I was a bit intimidated since this was my first NextGen phone (and first Palm type device). As such, I'm not an expert on these but felt I needed to add a review since I myself used epinions for guidance when checking out potential phones. I've had the SX56 a few weeks and am loving it more and more! It has many capabilities: web browsing, emails, notepad, reading ebooks, games, playing movies, playing mp3's, etc. and considering everything it can do, the stock battery hold its charge better than my old Sanyo! The reception is incredible. I was so used to dropped calls with my Sanyo on Sprint but haven't had one yet with the SX. A great feature is being able to sync everything to your PC, either through infrared or the included USB adapter. The PC sync dock can also be connected to a power source, so I usually sit the phone in the dock and let it charge while I am home and don't have to worry about battery life or updating my shared files before I leave. Just grab it and go! One of my concerns for buying a PocketPC was the size. My Sanyo was a nice size that didn't really get in the way. But the SX56 is very comfortable in the pocket or in the hand while talking. Very slim and stylish. My other concern was the screen being damaged, but my phone came with a leather carrying case which is decent. I've since found an InnoPocket metal case that adds more protection (not to mention looks very tactical and space age along with the SX56!). Add-ons are abundant: from accessories you can order right from AT&T like a foldout keyboard or a slip-on thumb-board, to many programs and games you can find online. I found a few sites with minimal searching that had a bunch of stuff to download. So far the best is www.pdagold.com. The only negatives I have found so far are: (1) The hands-free port cover is a tiny plastic plug that is not attached to the phone, making it easy to lose and a pain to figure out what to do with it when you're plugging in your ear piece and (2) My face accidentally hits buttons on the screen when I am talking without my hands-free. You can close most of the windows while talking so this won't happen as much, but this is requiring me to have my caller wait a second while I do that. There probably is a work-around for this that I haven't figured out yet, but I've found myself using the earpiece more and more. All in all I am very happy with the SX56, and am glad I went with it. It didn't hurt that the saleswoman at the AT&T store also uses one of these herself (for the record I went in looking for the phone specifically, she didn't even have to push it on me). It may still be on sale for $100 if you hurry! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91444 2000/12/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 phone each works well pda mp3 player all in one bulky poor manual awkward no bluetooth or wi fi expensive phone network patchy at present The Bottom LineIf you want the lightest possible phone, and don't carry a PDA, avoid this unit. For me it solved many problems at once. Full Review AT&T is slowly (very slowly) building a new-generation wireless network that will permit web surfing and email from a telephone. The Siemens SX56 takes good advantage of this capability. It has a large screen (large for a telephone), good sound, and can show photos and even movies. It will become even more valuable with time, as other developments catch up with it. An example is the future emergence of a tiny memory card (SD) that can hold enough data (1 gig) for an entire feature-length movie. When that happens (soon) it will be possible to turn this phone into a theater. I'm particularly eager for IBM to adapt the translation software it has developed for some Compaq models--this program takes English sentences the user types in and produces spoken translations in several foreign languages. This will be better than any dictionary and adds no weight to one's travel kit. Whether this unit will ever be capable of speech recognition (e.g. Via Voice, or Dragon) as well remains to be seen. Then we'd have the kind of device that has been a staple of science-fiction movies. Perhaps this will be a job for a future, more powerful version. The PDA side of the SX56 works very well. It syncs with Outlook and tones remind you of appointments. Since all "contacts" are stored, you needn't copy out a telephone number. A tap will do. I have ditched my former PDA and carry around one less gizmo. The SX56 is a decent telephone (AT&T's new network is probably responsible for the failures to communicate that have arisen). The phone bud and microphone make conversations possible in noisy places. The big drawback in using this phone is the lack of buttons. You have to tap on numbers displayed on a screen, which requires not only two hands but the removal and deployment of the stylus, unless you have a talented fingernail. This gets old very quickly. Speed dialing probably helps, but I have not mastered that---there's no manual, only a set-up guide, and so far none has been posted on the internet. (I assume that this is coming. At present the only instructions are in the unit's memory, under "help", and these are hard to navigate.) The inputting problem will probably be alleviated when the thumb keyboard becomes available, though at $90 it is too costly. A large fold-up keyboard will also become available, but it's as big as the phone. No camera attachment has been announced. A pity, given the big bright screen. The SX56 requires proprietary stereo earphones, and these are not yet available, so I cannot rate its performance as an MP3 player. The sound capability (and speakerphone) have some other benefits, though, including an infinite choice among ring tones---just make a .wav file (or copy one from the thousands on the internet) and sync it to the SX56. I had a trumpet fanfare going for a while, to the amazement (and annoyance) of bystanders. Now I've switched to one of the tone that comes with the unit: a 1940's telephone ring. For those old enough to remember how these sounded in the movies, the ring is a delight. I think it will be possible to display photos accompanied by the voices of the people in the picture (via .wav files, perhaps recorded using the SX56's own recording capability---again, too bad there's no camera). But I haven't yet accomplished this, since there's no manual. The manufacturer seems not to have spotted this use. Movies will carry their own sound. The lack of bluetooth and wi-fi is unfortunate. It will not be possible to use bluetooth-connected headphones or to print or sync or type through these radio waves, nor relay pictures or videos from a separate camera to the internet; and email and the internet cannot enter except through the expensive AT&T phone system, rather than the free wi-fi. It would also have enabled me to sync with my secretary's computer, to update calendars. But not to be. Other units now appearing have one or the other or both, though they lack this unit's other virtues. Perhaps it will be possible to add these through the SD card slot, but thus far nothing like that is on the market in the US. I wish the SX56 were as small and light as the Ericsson 68i that I traded in to get it, but if you want a screen that just isn't possible. The size and weight are bothersome but, given my preferences, necessary evils. Siemens's next version should put buttons on the back side; use the 400Mhz processor and improved screen that are appearing in the new Compaqs; and add memory, a camera lens, bluetooth, and wi-fi. Or, Compaq should add a phone and camera to their new PDAs. Until that Swiss Army Knife of a phone appears, I'll be very happy with this unit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 91443 2003/5/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 solid construction speakerphone fantastic outlook sync color screen flat profile tons of available software needs a reboot nowthen general lack of buttons case volume button The Bottom LineThis is a definite winner. Finally, a phone, PDA, portable storage device, gaming platform and book/magazine all rolled into one device that can slide into your pants pocket. Full Review The SX56 is a true convergence device. For a lot of you that have been waiting to have your cake and eat it to, a slice just showed up. While no device is perfect, this one has a lot to be said for it. This review is on the phone and software. I will save my AT&T service comments for another review. As far as the service relates to the phone, AT&T has the latest version of the phone software on the phone (3.14). Based on what I read in the forums, T-Mobile equipment is on an older version and it has caused some problems. I have to say one thing about AT&T's GSM service in Texas. If you travel very far from the major metro areas on a regular basis, GSM is not for you. It has worked well in town for me and the GSM plans are much more attractive price-wise. Other than that, it's like most cellular service, hit and miss. Before I start on the phone, let me give you my background. I have had a Nokia 6160 for about 5 years. I have never owned a Palm or other PDA prior to the SX56. I carry my phone in my pocket. I don't like wearing them on my belt. The clips break, phone falls off, etc. I had a Nokia 6360 for a short period of time (about 3 weeks) before it was stolen. I liked the 6360 because of the Outlook sync features. I have to say that they pale in comparison to the SX56 functionality, but more on that later. Finally, I am never far from my phone cradle or car charger, so my battery has never dropped below half. I probably make five to six 10 minute calls a day. I use the Pocket PC portion a lot. I have owned the phone about five weeks. Before I start, a detailed 138 page manual in pdf format can be found here: http://www.my-siemens.com/com.aperto/MySiemens/Files/Addon/an/us/ms//usermanual_1025.pdf You can find out most of the hardware and software details there. If the link does not work just go to the Siemens site and do a search on the SX56. I will limit my comments to a brief overview and my related experience. SX56 Hardware What's in the box: - The phone itself. - A vinyl case (I wasn't impressed) - Two extra styluses - AC power cord - Earbud and microphone for hands free - USB data cradle that the power cord plugs into. - Power cord adapter that allows you to hook the phone up directly to an outlet without using the cradle. Makes for lighter packing if you don't want to drag the cradle along. The battery is already attached to the phone. In fact it is attached with 4 screws. Interesting design. You don't have to worry about it coming loose. Just a note to new users, you have to turn on the phone (button on top) to activate the phone. It comes with a half charge, but will not charge until you actually turn it on. Hardware: The AT&T version is silver. I do not use the case for it. I carry it 'naked' in my pocket. It is a little heavy for a shirt pocket, but not a suit coat pocket. I do not use screen protectors either. A friend of mine used one on his IPAQ and the screen was never quite the same after that. I do carry a lens cloth with me to clean the screen periodically. The unit is slim, which for the pocket is a good thing. It feels good in my hand. I am 6' male. In one of the other reviews, the reviewer said you needed two hands to dial. That's not true. I can hold the phone in my hand and dial with the pad of my thumb using just one hand. It requires no more dexterity than my Nokia did. The software phone buttons are quite large and easy to hit. They don't take a lot of pressure. You can even press and hold a number to call up a speed dial. I have been advised by several people that fingernails are not good for the screen. I don't know why this is, but you should use the stylus or the soft pad of your finger. The screen is bright and easy to read. You can change the font if have to. The backlight is strong and bright. If it times out, you can just tap the screen to turn it back on. I can read the phone easily (i.e. Microsoft Reader ebooks) in bright sunlight. The screen has been subjected to most abuses I can think of and seems no worse for wear up to this point. The stylus in the antenna. This is a nice feature. It unscrews to produce a stub that you can reboot the unit with. Very thoughtful considering most Microsoft products rely on rebooting to clear problems. Probably something I won't see fixed in my lifetime. I actually loaned the nub end to a Blackberry user that had to reboot her system so it comes in handy sometimes. There is a card slot in the bottom of the phone that will take a postage sized memory card up to 512MB (yes you read that right). Just be warned that while the 256MB card is about $60, the 512MB is about $400. You pay for bleeding edge. I actually stripped a 32MB card out of my IPAQ MP3 player and it worked fine after the system reformatted it. You can use the card just like a giant floppy disk. I keep ebooks and maps on mine. I also use it to move large files between computers. The only problem here is that the card is spring loaded and there is no cover door. I have had it pop out once or twice after grabbing it out of my pocket. A small door here would be helpful to keep lint out and the card in. The power/data cable also hooks into the bottom. When you use the cradle, this works pretty well. The ear piece is also on the bottom. I don't use the earbud or headphones. The jack had a rubber plug that I proceeded to lose on the third day I had it. It is not attached to the phone and it is quite small. I put it in my pocket and that was the last I ever saw of it. There is a volume button on the left side of the unit. The power button is on the top, as is the IR sensor/port. The buttons are made of the same stainless steel as the case. I think they will be quite durable. There are four other buttons, one each for the Contact list, Calendar, phone on, phone off. Finally there is a four way button/toggle that lets you scroll or page depending on the application. You can assign the buttons to different functions if you like. My only complaint here is that the volume key is a button. You have to press it multiple times to increase volume or to turn it off. It's function is circular in nature. As you press it, the volume increases until max, then the next press turns off the sound, the next turns on vibrate and the next turns on the sound and then increases with each press. A wheel would have been more helpful here. It's aggravating to 'miss your stop' and have to key through the whole sequence again. Of course you can use the stylus, but why should you have to? Finally the sound. This unit can act as a speakerphone. This is a wonderful feature! By pressing and holding the 'phone on' button, the phone will go into speakerphone mode. You can take notes, look up contacts, check the calendar or perform any other program function while in speakerphone mode. This is great. If you take a note during the call, the phone time/date stamps it and if the person is in your contact list, it will add their name and phone number. I have to warn you that the ringer is not loud. The vibrate is a bit light as well. I have tried to set it to the loudest ring level, but it's equivalent to about a medium on a Nokia. The phone conversation volume is more than adequate, as is the speakerphone volume, it just seems like the ring is not overly loud. You can use any .wav file for ring tones, which really opens up your universe. It may have something to do with how the file was recorded. I may try to record a louder version of my ring tone and see what happens. Software: This is where the phone really comes into its' own. This unit uses the Pocket PC operating system, so all of the software that works on a Pocket PC will work on this device. That's a big universe. It also uses the Arm processor. That is something you will need to know when ordering software. Standard programs: - Phone software - Pocket Excel - Pocket Word - Image Viewer - Microsoft Reader - MSN Messenger - Solitaire - Calculator - Inbox - Contacts - Calendar - Infrared receiver - File Explorer - Internet Explorer - Notes - Tasks What I added: - Pocket Streets - Fonix VoiceDial Some of the items above are self explanatory, so I will only review certain ones that have helpful features. Phone Software: Consists of the dialer, 99 speed dial locations, dialed/received/missed calls. The dialer allows you dial from the keypad (there is a backspace key for mistakes), contact list, speed dial or call list. You can activate a speed dial by pressing and holding the speed key. For two digit numbers, you press the first number, then the second number and hold. You can filter the dialed/received/missed calls list as needed. Additionally, you can call up the notepad and recording software from the dialer just by tapping them. The dialer can be engaged by hitting the 'phone on' key or from the menu. Your contact list contains all the information your Outlook contact list contains, so you can tap any number in the record and it will dial that number. As you know, most people seem to have four or five numbers now. There is one quirk here I have to mention. For some reason, if you us 'p' (used for the pause in the dial sequence), it will change it to a digit 0 on it's own. The network does not understand this (like when you want to tag your voicemail password onto your number) and will not complete the call. I've seen this problem in the forums and I don't think there is fix for it yet. Pocket Excel/Word: Not much to say here. They are the pocket version of the software you have come to know and love(hate). They do allow you to download and read e-mail attachments. Very slick. It also allows you to carry important documents around in soft copy and be able to access them without powering up the old laptop. There is a Pocket version of PowerPoint, but I have not used it yet. You can get an eval copy to try it out. Make sure you have that extra memory card. Image Viewer: Let's you look at the standard image formats. Food for thought, you can save that Yahoo map as a jpg or bmp file and take it with you. Microsoft Reader: This is the best thing since sliced bread! Now you can take your novel with you. Hell, you can take all your magazines, novels and manuals with you. Have to kill some time at your kids volleyball tournament, pull out your phone and read a book. I love this feature. There are tons of free ebooks, but you can get the latest novels in ebook format. So now you can leave the phone, PDA and book at home. The type is very legible and backlit. I can read in the dark (airplanes or restaurants). It remembers where I left off and I can search the text. You can also download a free version of the dictionary from Microsoft to allow lookup. The Reader is a great feature that I have really enjoyed more than I thought I would. MSN Messenger: I don't use this. I guess I'm getting old. This just doesn't seem to be a good method of communication for a handheld device. Inbox: This allows you to download from any POP3 e-mail account. You can do multiple accounts. You can limit the e-mail to 1K to 3K so you can get the gist of what the message says. You can then mark the important ones for downloading in their entirety. You can set the interval for checking just like your regular software. Sending can be somewhat problematic. Most Internet/web based e-mail systems do not allow people not on their systems to send mail, so I was only able to send mail via one of my five providers. If this is important to you, you may want to check on this. Receiving was fine on all accounts. Please note that you can use your browser to call up you web mail and send that way, but it's a bit awkward. Internet Explorer: The only thing I have to say here is that the software allows you to optimize your browser. You can turn off animation, applets, audio and video. AT&T charges for e-mail and browsing by the Kbyte, not the hookup time. So you will want to limit your download size by removing images and other extraneous items. There are many sites that are optimized for hand devices. You can get news, weather, movie times and just about anything else, optimized for your screen. There is also some software out there that will allow you to use your screen in profile mode, which is much better for browsing. I have used the internet portion for about a month, but discontinued it because I did not use it nearly as much as I thought I would. If you want e-mail, you will have to buy internet service. AT&T was about $20 for 8 MB of data. A little expensive for what I would use it for. The download speeds were comparable to 56K dial up speeds if you have everything turned off (images et al). So quick enough in a pinch. ActiveSync: This is the SX56 PC sync software. It works just great. It has file explorer on it, so you can drag and drop files, or cut and paste them between your device and your PC. The Outlook sync is wonderful. You can sync your home and work computer. You put the device in the cradle and you can control which items you want to use (Contacts, tasks, inbox, calendar, files). It will sync up both devices. It allows line by line resolution of conflicting data, something that Nokia software does not do. It keeps good track of what's updated, so conflicts are few. You then can take it from work to home and then it will sync up the home computer with your device and your work computer. This is a great feature. Contacts/Calendar: Full feature, full view. You have everything you had in your Outlook Contacts and Calendar including notes, addresses, e-mails, all numbers and categories. The calendar offers all of the standard Outlook views. This device does not come with voice dial. I bought Fonix VoiceDial which works great with this unit. VoiceDial requires no training and is very accurate. Accessories: You can buy a few accessories. I bought the car charger that also allows you to power the unit off a 9V battery in a pinch. I also bought the USB cord. This cord allows the unit to charge the battery via your PC's USB port, in addition to being a data cable. If you don't feel like dragging the cradle around, this is a good light addition to your bag. This is a long review, but I like to cover things that are important to me, and I hope to you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 7856 Siemens S46 91466 2003/11/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 versatilereliable communication with good audio still waiting for siemens rebate after 12 months of excuses Phone works well in rural US with no GSM coverage using TDMA and low signal strengths and also in cities and overseas on GSM. Recommend it if you need to communicate reliably. On the minus side Siemens seem unable to issue the rebate after 12 months I am still waiting for it, after numerous excuses. Also do not pack phone in carry on as buttons are sensitive and if someone disturbs your carry on bags the phone will and has switched on. 91465 2004/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great sound quality durable works in useurope few accessories no repair options non standard earbud I've had my Siemens S46 for about 10 months now. I selected this phone for the tri-band feature, because it could work in both non-GSM areas in the US, as well as Europe. I have AT&T service, which seems fine (though I wish it were less expensive in Europe at $1.29/minute). As far as quality, signal, and "works when I need it", this has been better than any phone (including some Nokias) that I've owned. On the downside, it has a non-standard plug so you can only use the factory earbud. The design of the earbud is such that, if you use their belt clip, you'll wear out the wire where it enters the plug (I'm on my 3rd earbud now). Also, at some point I lost the #1 key, and Siemens can't replace it without at least a $100 repair (so I use a pencil to dial #1). Despite these issues, I'd buy this phone again...the sound quality and durability (must have dropped it on pavement at least 20 times) are outstanding. 91464 2003/2/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 wap direct sync with ms outlook tri band lots of features sms enabled screen easily scratched clunky directory system no bluetooth amber screen no color The Bottom LineDependable, but clunky interface and lack of color outweigh the tons of great features. If you feel comfortable with technology then it's acceptable, but only as a freebie. Full Review I got this phone for free from ATT Wireless. I take many trips overseas and got sick of being incognito with my archaic four-year old Samsung. It was recommended by a friend that is an IT guy. He punishes his phones and since this phone was to come with me on my multiple international trips, I took his advice. In my reviews, I tend to focus on some of the "intangibles" that make or break a product in my mind, so I don't concentrate on a lot of technical details. This is a reasonably tough phone. I've witnessed my friend's S46 withstand numerous falls onto the floor of a bar (don't ask), and mine survived two weeks in SE Asia (see my reviews) without a sweat. The design is good, but like all newer phones, it's tiny and hard to cradle in your neck. The antenna is like a clumsy wart on the left rear and makes it feel awkward in a pocket. There are smaller phones, but I felt they were too fragile. The screen is amber. Easy on the eyes in a dark room, but the quirky cuteness fades and you long for the battery-draining color screens. It's a trade-off. Long battery life and amber, or battery-killing color. Your choice. Battery life is not as good as I'd hoped. It charges quickly, however. I managed to get about 12 usuable hours out of it, but this was not constant talk time. I'd say it's on par with most other phones I'd had. The phone's real weakness is the menu. The phone is crammed with features (you can look these up in prior reviews where they are nicely described), but accessing them is a pain. You have to navigate through several directories and subdirectories to get to a certain feature. This is offset by the fact that the number keys can be assigned menu functions as "hotkeys," though. There is no bluetooth compatibility on this phone. Kind of a drag, but it came out before bluetooth really became mainstream. It will be a serious weakness in this phone's marketability in the future, hence it's a freebie now. The hands-free ear plug inserts into the bottom of the phone which is the same inlet for the re-charge and USB sync cable. It's a lousy location for the insert since the phone will sit on the plug when resting in your pocket. The phone has an IR (infra-red) port to beam information (i.e. your phone number) to another phone. Nice feature. It has SMS and WAP capabilities, although the internet use is rudimentary and I'm shutting mine off. This phone has a calc, alarm clock, currency converter, stopwatch, and tons of other knick-knacks if you can find them in the menu. In terms of the Tri-Band usefulness, I give this phone high marks. I used it in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Cambodia. It worked fine, although getting the dialing sequence for international calls was tough at first. The shakiest service was obviously in Cambodia where their cel network can be clogged at peak time. Another strong point is the fact that with an optional USB cable, you can use the Siemens sync software to download your entire MS Outlook phone list. Not a bad deal. Of course, you need to transfer your important numbers to the SIM card manually. You can also label certain entries as VIP's and give them a separate ring tone. Would I get this phone? Only if you are very techno-savvy and need all of the features. My feeling is that if you just need a basic phone, opt for another color brand with bluetooth. It's not bad for a freebie, however. Update 2/26/03: Just wanted to add a couple more helpful comments. First, the screen needs to be protected by a piece of plastic laminate. I used the Palm Pilot shields and a razor blade. Works great. Second, in terms of downloadable tones and screens: ATT Wireless' homepage offers no options for these. They are available for the Nokia and Ericsson phones, however. You can upload a custom .bmp file from your computer, however, for use a screensaver. The file size is quite limited and I haven't used this option. My-Siemens.com supposedly has instructions on custom tones, but I didn't feel like dealing with the registration process. The phone has about 40 tones in it already and I really don't like those annoying little songs. Just a plain old ring does fine for me. Recommended: No 91463 2000/2/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 comfortable design amber backlight good signal great design for actually talking for extended periods dense menusfeatures bad accessories design no analog tdma signal The Bottom LineIf you want the widest range in North America, with great design, signal strength, and are able to adapt, then grab one of these. Full Review First, before we rate this phone, let's keep this in mind, it's a GAIT phone and should only be rated accordingly. Bearing that in mind, I LOVE this phone. I previously had a Nokia 6340i and I have to tell you, it isn't half the phone this Siemens is. What I like: Design: The design is great, not just for looks, but hold it in your hand, imagine actually having to talk on it...it fits great. Great design. And I love the semi-rubber design that makes it sort of "grip". Signal: This phone has great reception, on both GSM and TDMA. On GSM, I actually had people not realize I was on a cell! The TDMA is great to. I found myself getting four to three bars where I had only one or two. (On two Nokias and one Motorola) Features: This phone has great features, voice dialing, address book, phone book, intuitive text... Things I don't like: No polyphonic rings. The port on the bottom of the phone is the same for EVERYTHING. Ac, DC, hands free...you have to buy an adaptor if you say, want to use a handset while plugged into your AC. This to me is the only thing I really don't like, BUT, it's really small in the grand scope of things. But lets be frank, the main reason people don't like this phone is that it's its own thing. It doesn't use the "standard" way of design that Motorola, Nokia and Sony/Ericsson use. The overall use is simply different. Like anything else, once you get used to it, it's a great phone. I think just a lot of people are used to a certain way a phone operates, and have been too hard on this phone. The battery life for me has been great, and unlike the Nokia GAIT phone, you can choose the band (GSM or TDMA) as well as a preffered one. This is what makes this a great phone, it's perfect in this day and age where GSM isn't quite where it needs to be. It gives you options. Sure it doesn't have the bells and whistles as a straight GSM phone has like color screens etc, but it's practical and useful. The only thing that could be a problem is being in an area that uses analog TDMA, which by this time next year probably won't exist on the planet. Sorry guys in Kansas and Kentucky. Go get one! For reference, I've used: Nokia 3640i, 8265, Motorola v60 and returned them all until this one finally satisfied me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 Fr w/ R 91462 2000/5/8 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 ummmm i can makereceive some phone calls thats about it from at tthe phone itself nothing but trouble The Bottom LineBEWARE OF THIS PHONE AND AT&T!!!THEY ARE 666 Full Review I got this Phone in the middle of March 2003. At first I thought it was awesome, until just over 1 month of ownership-thats when the problems broke out. My phone started shutting off by itself as if the battery was dead, but when I turned it on the battery was fully charged. At first I thought I had accidentally turned if off and didn't remember, But as it happened a couple times a week(sometimes more than once a day) I knew there was something wrong. When I talked with AT&T over the phone they said there wasn't anything they could do-there wasn't anything wrong. I came to find out later that was a bold faced LIE. THEN, My phone started displaying "Drive Error" when I tried accessing my Phone numbers in my address book, after which it would kick me back to the home screen. I no longer had access to all my phone numbers for business and personal use. I did a little research online and found that this was also a known issue on some phones with an older Software version. Once again I called AT&T to try and resolve the issue-after a few phone call drops I finally was able to speak with someone who would acknowledge the problem. They sent me a replacement overnight (which took 5 days). Now i have the replacement, do the problems stop? NO!!! When got the phone I no longer know when I'm roaming because the display doesn't show the correct AT&T/AT&T Wireless. This is also a known issue-IF its not programed correctly by AT&T. I've tried speaking with 3 Customer Service reps, to get this issue resolved and they haven't a clue what to do. YES THERE IS STILL MORE!!!! The first night I had my replacement phone I charged it all night, when I woke the next morning, the phone was dead-I couldn't even turn it on with the charger attached. It seems as though there is a Short in my replacement phone. I took it to my local AT&T store and they gave me a used battery, because they said all it was is my battery. So my phone went dead again last night, I tried charging it again, with the same result. Is it my battery? I think not. This phone is a piece of...(you can put your own expletive in place). I originally went with AT&T because I had heard so many wonderful things, service, reliable, great phones. AFTER SPENDING weeks On the phone, on the net, personal troubleshooting, and talking to a local rep, I've conclude AT&T is....(Again put your own expletive). After my year is up I'm going to Verizon-I know they're good, honest, reliable people/business. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 91461 2000/3/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 great reception dual band good battery life audio too soft loses data disastrous user interface crashes keys dying The Bottom LineFully featured but not very usable; serious reliability problems and defect rate; neither manufacturer nor seller stands behind this product. Full Review I signed on to ATT wireless last year and bought a little Siemens GSM cellphone for use in the Boston & Berkshires. It turned out quickly that the salesman had steered me wrong, because only TDMA service is available out in western MA. I went back and they were happy to sell me a Siemens S46, a dual-band phone. The S46 is much larger, but has a much better antenna, so reception is pretty good over a wide swath of the state. During calls, the phone works pretty well. On every other count, this phone is a disaster. My experiences: (1) Reception is excellent in cities but the audio it puts out is not loud enough to use on a busy or windy street. The earbud improves things a bit, but don't lose it -- there's a proprietary connection and a replacement will cost you $30 for $0.50 worth of hardware. (2) The user interface is amazingly unfriendly. The phone has tons of features, all buried deep within a counter-intuitive menu tree. You have to press a surprising number of keys to do anything. The saving grace is that a power-user can program each key to do a special function. But anything I haven't programmed takes a long time to find in the menu tree. (3) The S46 occasionally crashes, turning itself off spontaneously without going through the proper shut-down sequence. This is not good if you carry it around so that people can reach you in emergencies. Thrice I lost data this way. ATT's bulletin boards were full of complaints about this, but there was no response from ATT or Siemens. I tried customer service at both companies, but ATT referred me to Siemens and vice versa. Ultimately I had to trade in my S46 for another, which seemed to be more stable. However, just recently the replacement crashed in the middle of a call, wiping out my entire addressbook. (The S46 has a phonebook on the SIM and a separate addressbook in nonvolatile memory, and you have to manually switch between them -- dumb!) (4) After several months, the keys started going balky. The 4,7,*,#, and 9 keys work in maybe 1 out of 3 keypresses. Recently the # key died entirely -- very bad news because you have to press it to unlock the phone when it goes into screensaver mode. It's still under warranty, so here's hoping that ATT/Siemens will be helpful. However, I'm waiting almost a year now for the $50 rebate that came with the phone, so I don't expect them to be too responsive. The S46 is custom-configured by Siemens for ATT. In the course of Googling "S46 problems" I found out what this means: the phone is "locked" so that it can't ever be used if you switch to a different wireless network. Evidently there is a workaround that involves turning it on inside a radio-proof bank vault -- not very practical for folks like me. Although ATT customer service has improved a lot lately, ATT has "accidentally" overcharged me three times in 10 months of service (evidently this is a common way for utilities to enhance revenues), so I will most likely switch to a new carrier soon and throw this $150 phone away. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91460 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 size clarity reception amber backlight earpiece car charger set up battery life The Bottom LineAll in all this is a great phone packed with everything that you could want in a cell phone. Full Review I have never owned anything other than Nokia phones. I switched from the Nokia 6360 to the Siemens S46, and so far I'm really pleased with this phone. I did have to take the time to sit and read through the user guide, because of the way the menu is layed out. After doing that, I found that it's pretty easy to find everything that I need. This phone is absolutely loaded with the latest and greatest features, and once you've read the userguide you can take full advantage of the features offered. My brother has had this phone for a year now and he has nothing but praise for it. He says the only problems he's had is reception on Cornelius Pass in Oregon. As far as I know everyone has problems with reception there. I have had no problems at all with the reception. Actually in some areas it's been better than my Nokia 6360. To me the biggest difference between the Nokia 6360 and the Siemens S46 (other than the menu) is the battery life. With my Nokia I charged the phone maybe once every week and a half (my average us is 500 min per month). I charged my S46 on Monday, and it's early Friday morning now and my battery is half gone. This is really just more of an inconvenience than a complaint. So I would suggest to anyone wanting to buy this phone to definately buy the car charger. Which leads me to my only complaint. The car charger/earpiece set up! If you buy the car charger you'll have to spend additional money for the adapter so you can use your earpiece while charging your phone. I can't understand why they made a phone with only one portal for everything. Other than the charger/earpiece set up...I think this is an excellent little phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91459 2003/3/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound quality great battery life reception cool looking yellow backlite lightweight 100 rebate for a beginner can be somewhat confusing at first The Bottom LineThis is an All Around great phone. This particular phone spells QUALITY. If you look for quality at THIS price $0, no one can beat this. Full Review The reason why I love this phone so much is because it made the whole difference in the world in my ATT reception problems. Before this phone I used to have am Ericsson T68 and what a piece of #&$& that phone was. Literally I was getting almost no signal anywhere and I thought that ATT baby GSM network was to blame. As soon as I got S46 all of my reception and call drop problems were eliminated. First off, the phone is a multi-band phone (this is the only 1 multi-band ATT offers) and can work in ATT GSM and TDMA network. I've had this phone for over 3 months, and I sincerely don't remember if I ever needed to switch to TDMA network. This phone in itself is a miracle. Anywhere I go I get very good GSM reception. I never have problems with it. Battery life is very good. It lasts me about 2-2.5 days and I talk A LOT. Controls might be something needed getting used to at first, but once you do, it'll be a snap. Looking at the price you realize that this is a REAL bargain. You get the phone FREE after a $100 Mail In Rebate! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91458 2000/7/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great menu selections infra red connectivity voice activation multi band gsm tdma too thick heavy slow automatic mode switching gsm tdma The Bottom LineBuy it. Learn the manual very carefully. You'll enjoy it, until the next gizmo shows up. Full Review I had the Siemens C56 for about two days when I discovered that a GSM only phone has poor coverage in many areas. I replaced it with the S46. I'm not a cell phone junkie. I'm a casual user. I buy one every three years. I know very little about other modern phones, but as is, the S46 has so much to offer. For example: voice activation (very socially impressive), There is a nice office suite with calendar, address book and appointments book (to mention a few). You can connect the phone to your PC through the serial port, or you may use the infra red option which is great. PDAs work directly with irda only. The GSM's sound quality is superb. When the GSM signals are poor, as it happens in my office building in Manhattan, I switch to TDMA only. Battery life is great. The charger is very light and small, designed correctly to fit any outlet, being a universal charger it works on 110 - 240 volts - when you use GSM overseas you don't need a converter. I haven't checked yet the text messaging and all the Internet options. You must read the manual very carefully, all 110 pages of it, word by word. This is a must. You will discover all sort of options that will fit your needs. I don't like the size and weight. It's a tad too bulky to carry in the shirt pocket, the belt clip is nice and secure but it doesn't look cool....Switching modes (GSM/TDMA) can be done automatically or manually, although automatically it might take up to 30-50 seconds, especially when I get out of the subway (where no cells phones can work).BTW this is an ATT exclusive phone. I'm not disappointed I like the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 91457 2000/1/21 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 color of screen amber is cool bad phoneit must be stopped this is a bad The Bottom LineBe afraid. Be very afraid. Full Review This is my 3rd Siemens S46. The prior two died, and this one is headed in the same direction. (side note: I am "stuck" with my Siemens S46 for the time being as my provider will not credit me the purchase price and get a different brand.) Battery life is random. On many occassions the phone will switch off while fully charged (while on standby). I was told this is a known bug, so maybe the people at Siemens are working on it. Still, can you imagine waiting for a call only to find your phone shut itself off a long tim ago while sitting idle on your car seat? Dropped calls plentiful and call quality are poor. I travel to a dozen states frequently, so I've got a good sampling of many markets. Often those traveling with me have the same cell provider, but a different phone. In those cases, I have noticed that they have a stronger signal, and better call retention. That is anecdotal evidence, but there is no question that my call quality is far less than other brands I have owned. The notification of new voice mail / messages is often done behind the screen saver, and is often silent. That means you miss them. Last complaint. Ease of use? Try 12 "clicks" to change the volume. Yes, 12. So if you walk into a restaurant and try to turn the phone to mute, good luck you'll be awhile. Note to Siemens: put ring volume on exterior buttons like all your competitors. Unfortunately I didn't hit epinons before I hit the store. I remembering the Sales guy saying that the menus can be "a bit confusing at first b/c the phone does so much". Shoulda read between the lines. The phone has pretty much the same features as every phone on the market....but getting to those features? Bring your manual. ( I think other epinions people have mentioned this too). There are much, much better phones out there. Don't get fooled by the amber "cute" screen. I did, and I regret it daily. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 91456 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life dual digital network support lots of features menus are not laid out like most us market phonescan be confusing The Bottom LineUnless the size difference between this phone (quite small) and some of the ultra-small Nokias is a problem, this phone is far-and-away the best choice. Full Review I got the Siemens S46 from AT&T when I switched to a GSM/GPRS plan (from TDMA). The cool thing about this phone is it's one of two (the other is the Nokia 6340) phones that work both on TDMA and GSM/GPRS networks. Once you figure out how to navigate the menus, they start to make sense. An evening with the owner's manual works wonders. This phone has everything, calculator, currency converter, a calendar (which, annoyingly, always displays the week Mon-Sun rather then Sun-Sat; rather curious since Germany also uses Sun-Sat calendars), voice dialling, and a voice memo function that will also record phone calls (great for Linda Tripp, or to not have to write the shopkeeper's directions to his shop) The rated standby time is 250 hours on GSM, 150 on TDMA. I can't verify this since I am often in brick or concrete buildings in a fringe area where it's always searching. The rated GSM talk time is 300 minutes, which seems underestimated; a 2-hour phone call hardly made a dent in the battery gauge. Charging takes about 2 hours with a car or AC charger, and you can, of course, use it while charging. This phone has taken a few spills onto concrete and asphalt. The plastic case shows small dings, but the phone still works fine. GSM call quality is second-to-none. Were it not for caller ID, people often wouldn't know I was on a cellphone. In my area, AT&T has GSM radio gear on all their towers, so I've used it for about 2 minutes on TDMA. It should be at least as good as most TDMA phones (within a few months, AT&T should have GSM radios on all their towers, so TDMA will only be used while roaming anyway). The signal strength gauge is very pessimistic. My calls from my living room are crystal clear with 2 of 5 bars. This phone has *no analog* radio at all, nor does *any* GSM phone currently on the market except Cingular's Nokia 6340. Keep this in mind if you often travel in areas with analog-only coverage (these only exist in the West. East of Colorado and west of Nevada, 95 % of the USA has TDMA and/or GSM coverage). This phone is available only from AT&T and Rogers (Canada). (The other review on this phone is by a guy in France. He must have a different phone altogether, since Europe never had TDMA coverage at all and has no need for this phone). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 91455 2002/12/13 Battery Life1.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it looks cute the review is all about this The Bottom LinePlease, don't buy it!!!! Full Review This is the second Siemens I have -- I must have thought that the first experience wasn't bad enough. But I went ahead and got a second one because I thought that the first failure was just a fluke and this was a more updated version and (yes, I am cheap) they were giving this one away for 1 euro with the service. In France, without the service, I think it goes for about 75 euros. Unfortunately, I was wrong and this improvement is no improvement at all. I had the same problems with the old one. Ok, so it has some useful, basic functions like textos (this is common in Europe, not sure if it has reached the US yet, let me know and I will elaborate on this if necessary), it lists last calls, duration, etc, it has an alarm clock, a sort of organizer, notes, games, different noise profiles for different environments, one-touch dial and vibrate mode. My phone is blue, and ok, it is cute-looking. THE CONS (here they are): What it doesn't have is a CALCULATOR! This might not be as shocking to some people, but one of the things I depend on my cellphone to have is a calculator because I am a model and, I don't know if you heard, but we can't do math. Yes, the phone is very small (the touches are too small for my tiny fingers), but it is incredibly heavy. The most important thing is that it hasn't an incredibly weak battery life. This is a pain in the butt as I really depend on my phone for my work and having to carry around a charger everywhere is not as fun as you would think. The last Siemens I had lasted 2 hours tops, without talking. This one about 30 minutes with talking, which is largely insufficient. The sound is horrible as I can't understand anyone that I talk to on this phone because there a sort of vibration, as if something were loose inside. The games that I have on it (3) are terribly monotonous and don't function well. I never have complete reception, wherever I may be, especially in my own home where I have none. This is a pain because I have no fixed phone. However, many of my visitors DO happen to have reception in my home -- this is particularly infuriating! They do have cute little heads you can put on certain people that call, but, hey, what's the point?! Also in the "notes" section, you are only allowed 3 lines, what's the use?! And to finish off, there is a horribly low number of ringer-music you can choose, what is worse than that?! Ok, you want more, too bad, these are all the faults I found with this phone, and personally, it is enough to persuade me never to buy this cellphone ever again, for the second time. I hope it has convinced you. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 1 91454 2003/10/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 full featured light tri band early versions had bugs The Bottom LineIf you want a cheap (free) phone which works in other countries the S46 is for you. Full Review Background I was a longtime AT&T subscriber, but my old Ericsson RL280 was near the end of it's life (dropping your phone half a dozen times on asphalt/concrete can do that)and it just so happened that in September of 2002, AT&T had just introduced their next generation (GSM/GRPS) in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Since it was brand new, there were some great plans being offered. Rate Plan and Service Coverage I'm going to touch briefly on the service plan and coverages. The reason is that Siemens S46 is only offered through AT&T for now, and you should really consider a phone and the rate plans/service coverage as a package. I pay $34.99 a month for the Multi-Band National Network plan. The plan includes 300 anytime minutes with nationwide long distance included. The promotions I got for signing a one year contract were: - 200 additional anytime minutes (for a total of 500) - 3,000 night and weekend minutes (unlimited were available for signing a two year contract) The National Network plan allows you to use both the next generation GSM/GPRS network and AT&Ts older TDMA network nationwide. In addition, the phone can also use the Cingular TDMA network and the Rogers Wireless network in Canada for $0.49 a minute. The coverage in my area is pretty good but not perfect. The big plus about the phone is that it operates on the GSM band that's used in Europe and much of the rest of the world. You do need to contact AT&T in advance and request the feature. Be aware, though that roaming varies but is generally $1.29 a minute in Europe and $1.69 a minute in most other developed countries (for calls within the country and to/from the US, calls to third countries cost more). Be aware, that you WILL be charged if someone calls your number and it goes to voice mail (which will happen even if it's turned off, once you've registered with the foreign network by turning your phone on). So DISABLE your voice mail before you leave! Phone The S46 is a really a pretty useful phone. It has a wealth of features including: - Digital Multi-band TDMA (800/1900) and GSM (900/1900), no analog - GPRS with built-in modem- allows customers to transmit data at higher speeds - Voice Dialing and Command - up to 20 names - Microsoft Outlook™ and Lotus Notes™ Synchronization - Two-way Text Messaging - Outstanding battery life (see above) - Ring Tone Composer - compose melodies on the phone to use as ringers, 39 pre-programmed, 3 create-your-own - Voice and Conversation Memo Recorder - record up to 80 seconds of conversation - Calendar with alarm list - Internal vibrating alert - Infrared - Tegic T9 predictive text - Profiles - normal, noisy and quiet environments - Clock with alarm and date - Calculator - Currency converter - Fun - Games, downloadable ring tones and graphics - MP3 Player - play your favorite MP3 tunes with the optional MP3 player accessory My comments are the following: - The synchronization with Outlook is nice, but requires an optional $50 cable (interestingly the software is free and comes with the phone) - You get a free high quality hands free headset with the phone. It's one of the nicer headsets I've used and the microphone is excellent. - The phone when in TDMA mode uses the battery at twice the rate when in GSM mode. Summary Sure some of the other next generation AT&T phones are sexier and have more features. But as the Verizon ad says, the phone you have is only as good as the network it's on. For now, with AT&T still rolling out GSM, I like the ability to use both networks. Also, this phone works overseas in more countries than the other next generation phones (which are typically limited to the Americas and parts of Europe). Finally, while I paid $100 (after rebate), it can be had now for FREE with activation and a one year contract. It's not the most stylish AT&T phone, but IMHO it is the most useful. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91453 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lithium ion battery data cable multiband digital coverage hold feature programmable buttons amber screen is bright but lame button not layed out great menus unintuitive The Bottom LineGood phone for business, packed with features, but has a lame look that will not impress any techie friends you may have. Full Review I am a two-year AT&T customer being happy with the dual band TDMA/analog phone that I had, a Nokia 8260. Lately, I had been having a lot more dropouts and poorer service with my Nokia than usual. Since I was in the mall, doing some Christmas shopping, I ended up wandering into the new AT&T store. I talked with the guy at the store, and he told me that AT&T was making some changes in the network. After looking up my account, he mentioned that I could get (2) new phones, since I have been with AT&T for a while. I looked at all of the new phones, and really wanted one that had all of the play toy features, like a color screen and polyphonic sounds, since I am a gaget freak and my friend has a cool phone from Verizon. The only problem is that I use the phone during the day for work, and I love coverage more than anything else. Even my friend with the Verizon phone does not have the coverage that I have gotten with both the Nokia and the new S46. In my area, the AT&T digital is pretty good, but with TDMA, my whole state (Connecticut) is completely covered. I asked the guy at AT&T if there was a phone that could do both...he told me there were two, a Sony and the S46. The Sony looked kind of like a playtoy, and he mentioned that the S46 would work better on the AT&T digital network for some reason...so I chose it. I have had the phone for a couple of days now, and have gotten some good benefits, and a couple of surprises. Instantly, I noticed that the sound quality and volume was WAY better with the S46 than my Nokia 8260. One thing that I really liked about the Nokia is that the Nokias have a good interface that is easy to understand and fast to use, and the phone was nice and small physically. This small size was good for conveinence, but did not lend itself to sound quality, although I used it for business for two years. The S46 is a nice size, big enough to hold in your hand, but not too big that its a pain to wear. So, for phone quality, the S46 has it. I have noticed that the sound quality on the TDMA network sounds a bit muffled as compared to the GSM. I have noted many cases, just in the first few days, where I would not have had GSM coverage, and was glad that I went the the dual-mode S46. Battery life seems to be just plain superior over my old Nokia. It's been a couple of days now without a recharge, and overall reception has been better, although there still are some dropout spots now and then. There are some problems though, some of which can be worked around. The S46 is a very well constructed, rugged phone (hell I dropped it on the first day yikes!) but there is something with the screen, it scratches too damn easily! I scratched the screen on the first day slightly when I went to put the phone in the belt cradle that it comes with while I was driving. I had the phone oriented wrong and the screen hit the cradle. The next day, I went back to the store and bought a nice Body Glove vertical case that is working out well, and protecting the screen well. The cradle that it comes with is awkward and useable for like the first day...and that's it. Buy a covered case or lens sticker first thing. Although the reception is good and the sound quality excellent, the headset that the unit comes with is completely useless completely cheap. It sounds like you are talking into a glass bottle, and it is soooooo bad that people were complaining to me while I was trying it out on the first day. I will have to find out where else I can get a headset, although the S46 is not widely supported as yet by the aftermarket guys. The biggest problem I have with the unit is the menus and the button placement. The buttons are not layed out logically, and the menus have a lot of paths, as the phone has a ton of features. I think that the menus and buttons need to be layed out in a more logical way (you have to dig through a lot of menus to get some options which is a pain) and I am not really keen on the amber screen. I just don't really like the amber color compaired to my old Nokia's pure white screen. Since I am an engineer, I figured a few ways that the menus could be re-organized and optimized. I worked around many of these problems bu using the programmable keys feature, which is a very good one. What really slows me down is that I hate having to press one key to get the phonebook/address book and then having to press another set of keys to scroll through the book. I have worked around this with the "voicedial" feature which is really cool and useful, you just hold a button down on the side of the phone and say into the phone who you want to dail. The phone has been right on every voicedial I have placed yet which is amazing to me. This feature really works around the multi-button dialing shuffle that I was not used to on the Nokia. As for getting used to the phone from the Nokia, sometimes I end up pressing the wrong button on the phone when it rings. On the better note, you can program many of the keys and you can tell the phone to use "any key" to answer, which is a feature I just found out about in some deep menu, and turned on. The last problem, is something that may or may not be the phones fault. AT&T claims that there is no roaming at all in the state of Connecticut. I just wanted to verify that, but network messages on the phone are sometimes unclear. It says "AT&T Wireless" in GSM and "Extnded Area" in TDMA. I think that in CT, AT&T roams over Cingular TDMA wireless, but I am not sure. We will see on the next bill! I might talk with the guy at the store. Despite these faults, the phone has been working for me for work, where my customers think that I am on a landline. They no longer can tell if I am out of the office or at work, which is what I really wanted to accomplish by getting a new phone. This is the most appreciated feature of all, and is really why you get a phone for in the first place right...to talk on?! I dig the Internet features too...its really easy to get the local Weather report and stock reports...now only if AT&T would give us some free data with the plan...that would be cool. My migration plan for cell phones is to wait over the next year to see if the AT&T digital network grows. If it does, then I will cash in on my next AT&T free phone...one that has the sound quality of the S46 and but with a better screen. Getting the S46, you really can't ask for many more bells and whistles, although some of the features can be clumbsy to use. Siemens has to improve the de-bouncing of the keys on the phone. If you dial very fast, sometimes the phone will not register the keypress. It is also a bit awkward unlocking the keyboard because of this. Although the keyboard unlocks in a similar way as the Nokias (pressing # and then option key), there is an added feature that allows you to turn off the ringer by holding down the star key. Unlocking the keyboard on the S46 is slower because you have to first hold down the # key and then press an option key. The hold down period is a drag. I expect overall, that due to sound quality and the IR data link/modem cord that the phone is going to be excellent for business over the next year or so. Don't get it if you want to impress your friends. It's kind of like buying an Oldsmobile or Buick when your friends are driving Acuras. You have more room in your car, but it just does not have the pizzaz...you have more coverage with the S46 (a lot more) but its just not that sexy. It's a downright work horse. Good luck in finding a phone that is right for you. Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91452 2003/5/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception battery life menus might be somewhat confusing The Bottom LineWorks great and very reliable even though not the best looking phone Full Review I used quite a few phones including Nokia, Ericsson, LG but none of them I liked as much as this one. I think it has to do though with the quality of the signal and AT&T is very good in Los Angeles area. Technical specifications were given in the other reviews, so I will skip them here. 1. Reception This phone can be used both in GSM and TDMA networks. TDMA voice quality is not very good but sometimes this is the only signal you get and it can be very helpful. GSM voice quality is great and so is the coverage. So far I can't talk only in the underground parking structure of my office. Because of the external antenna the signal strength is constantly good: 4-5 bars, sometimes it is 3. It is still possible to talk on two but some words might be dropped/chopped. A friend of mine has T68i phone and my signal seems always stronger. 2. Battery life In the beginning I was a little worried that the battery didn't last for a long time. One reason for confusion was the timer (look below in minor drawbacks) but the reality is that Li-Ion batteries need some time to get to their full potential. Now after 6 months of use my battery lasts about 4 days and 2 hours of talk or 5-6 days with about an hour of talk. I am very happy with that. 3. Features This phone has a good organizer that can be synchronized with Outlook. If your computer has an infrared port, you can synchronize it without any cables. Also, you can exchange ring tones and phone book entries with others who have the same phone via infrared. The keys of the phone are customizable and can be used for different shortcuts. The choice is limited to phone number, internet, bookmarks, calendar, alarm clock, calculator, currency converter, new SMS, illumination, Hide ID, GPRS, IrDA (activate infrared), games, calls missed, calls received, inbox, outbox, favorites, business card. Not all of this are important to me, but calendar, internet, new SMS can be really useful. Sending SMS and email is similar to the other phones and pretictive text input work really good. 3. Internet This phone adopts GPRS protocol which allows a user to connect to internet theoretically up to 171 Kbps but in the reality it is probably about the same as a regular modem (30-50Kbps). Unfortunately you cannot use your own internet provider and you have to use AT&T which is expensive. I don't normally use internet on the phone so it is not a concern for me. 4. Some minor drawbacks - Timer. All calls timer doesn't count the time for incoming calls, only outgoing. This is how it is done in Europe - you don't pay for incoming calls there. I called Siemens about this and they confirmed that it is a mistake and they cannot fix that. This is only useful to estimate battery life. Let's say your phone out of battery in three days and the timer shows only two hours. In reality you probably talked 3-4. A little trick: press *#05# to find out the total number of hours you talked on this phone. - Ring volume is low. Sometimes when I don't have vibration on and I am outside in a shopping mall or restaurant I miss calls because I just don't hear the phone ringing. - It relatively durable (I dropped mine several times) but it scratches easily. - It is not really international phone - it has only 800 and 1900 MHz frequency. 1800MHz is used widely and this phone doesn't support this frequency. With Siemens many people seem to have love or hate relationship. I like Siemens products and this phone is no exception. If you didn't like other things made by Siemens maybe you shouldn't get this phone. 6 of my friends and 5 of my coworkers are using this phone and we all are very happy with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91451 2000/5/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 infrared capabilities compact decent buttons poor battery fragile navigation buttons are clumsy terrible ui heavy The Bottom LineGot the phone for free (rebate) and now I wish I had paid for a better one; it's fragile, heavy, poor coverage and battery, hard to use. Full Review BACKGROUND I've had a variety of cell phones over the years from Motorola to Nokia and Panasonic. About a year ago I had given up on my Panasonic and opted to get a smaller, more durable cell phone. AT&T was running a special rebate in conjunction with Siemens on the S46 - a full $100 rebate that would leave me with a free phone. Combine that with the sales rep's assurances that this was a high quality, extremely tough phone and I was willing to give it a try. PROS (1) Compact. The unit is relatively small and it easily fits in a pocket. (2) The keypad is pretty easy to use even though it is small. (3) I'm really struggling to find additional positive comments. Ah - IR port. If you have an Infrared port on your computer or laptop, you can sync your outlook contact list with the phone. A nice feature that will save you a lot of time punching in names and phone numbers. CONS (1) Battery life. The battery life on this unit is quite variable. If you are in an area where you have GSM coverage all the time then you will see a decent battery life. If you are like me and you don't live in the perfect coverage area and you bounce between bands, this is not the phone for you. When this phone moves off of GSM, the battery is fully consumed in less than a day. If I spend the afternoon in our computer lab, a fairly well shielded room in the center of our office building, my battery is almost completely drained in a few hours in stand by mode. Otherwise you may get 2 to 3 days on a charge. (2) Poor navigation buttons. This may be attributable to being used to Motorola and Nokia designs, but the navigation buttons on this phone do not make any sense. There are two buttons for "select" and "cancel" that are similar to any other phone, but there are two navigation buttons that are customized by the UI. Typically they are used for moving the cursor up and down, but in other cases they take on special functions. A single button with four directions (up, down, left, right) would have been much easier to use. Again, this may be due to my past experiences with phones that had this sort of button layout, but I hate the navigation buttons on this phone. (3) Menu design is not intuitive. The menuing system on the S46 is terrible. There are a ton of options, but I can never seem to easily find key items like how to reset the time (more on this later in the reliability section). I've had to resort to memorizing the numeric values for a screen; if I want to get to the alarm clock feature I have to got to menu item "3-3-3". It will take me a whole lot longer to try to remember the names that Siemens gave these features than it does for me to memorize the numeric value. (4) The battery door clamp is not durable. A pet peeve of mine is the durability of a design. The battery door on the S46 is pretty bad. The plastic just below the clamp is cracked and the door does not function that smoothly. Not a big deal, just an annoyance. (5) It's pretty heavy (for a phone). For as compact as this unit is it is really heavy. Not a good thing if you tend to be rough with phones as the added weight makes it a bit more susceptible to damage when dropped on the floor or tossed on your desk. (6) This "rugged" unit is not rugged at all. I admit, I am hard on my cell phones. My past two phones, a Panasonic and this one, have not held up well at all. My Nokia on the other hand was a heck of a unit. I dropped it in the snow in a field in Wisconsin, ran over it with a 4-wheeler and found it the next day no worse for wear. Forget about doing that with the S46. It fell out of my pocket when I was getting out of my car. It fell a whole 2 feet and the antenna shattered and the case cracked. The antenna is now held together with blue masking tape. I must admit that I get comments on what a cool looking antenna I have :) (7) Reliability The biggest drawback for me is the reliability of the S46. I have found that it shuts off intermittently and it loses it's time and date settings every few months. The service capabilities of the phone are limited, however this may be due to the GSM service that I am using. I am supposed to have GSM/digital coverage, but this phone is definitely worse in terms of coverage than my previous digital model. People find it harder to reach me on this phone than on my past ones. RECOMMENDATION If you are gentle with your phones and if you don't care about menu usability, this may be a good phone for you. If you drop your phone every once in a while or if you accidentally toss it onto your desk here and there, this phone will not work for you. It is heavy, unreliable and counter intuitive. Granted, some of the reliability issues may be due to the service provider, but this is my fourth phone in the same service area with the same provider and the quality is much worse now than ever before. Bottom line: I would not recommend this phone to anyone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100 (0)Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91450 2000/9/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 appearance ir sync with computer customizable keys battery life nothing at all The Bottom LineThis phone went far above and beyond the call of duty as a free-with-contract item. It's become one of my favorite tech toys. Go for it! Full Review I've noticed that most reviews of this phone focus, as a con, on the menu layout of the Siemens S46. Therefore, I've chosen to focus on this particular feature more than the others for my review. I decided, a few short months after turnin 18, to get rid of my prepaid cellular service and sign on with AT&T. This phone was free with a $100 mail-in rebate, so I figured I might as well go for it. Additionally, the guy who sold me the plan and the phone (who happens to be a friend of mine as well), mentioned that this phone is tri-mode, while the "cute" flip phones have issues with that feature. The S46 is fairly small and professional-looking. Unlike the ever-popular Nokia phones, you can't change the faceplates to hawaiian flowers or chrome or any such thing; it's just matte silver. This phone functions just like any other cellular phone from the outset : dial a number, press the large, easy-to-find button in the center top of the keypad, and hold to your ear. Talk. However, this phone can do so much more. It uses SIM card technology, which stores your account information and your phone book on a little chip, so that if you decide to upgrade your phone, simply pull out the SIM card and pop it in to a different phone. I've actually done this with a friend for fun, and it works perfectly. In addition to the typical telephone keypad, there are three buttons on the sides of the phone, as well as two sets of buttons above the 12 keys of the phone pad. Above the phonepad are a Phone Book, Begin Call, and End Call button. Press the phone book button to - amazingly enough - access your phone book on your SIM card. Press it again to access the address book (which is stored on the phone itself, not on the card). Press the Begin Call button, which has a blue phone icon, to dial a number. The Third button, with a red phone icon, not only ends calls, but will take you back through menus or, if you press and hold, will bring you back to the main screen of the phone. It also serves as the power button. Above these three buttons are two "softkeys". They serve as arrow keys when in the menus and other features; little icons on the screen indicate what their specific purpose is at the time. However, the lefthand softkey can also be customized. This is where the issue of "THE MENUS ARE SO COMPLICATED I'M PULLING MY HAIR OUT TO GET INTO THE WEB BROWSER" comes into play. Press the button once, and it brings up a screen for you to customize the function of the button. Mine is set to "Favorites". Similar to the "Favorites" of your web browser, this function will bring up a list of menu options and phone numbers that you use most frequently. You can choose what items to add, such as the SMS (text messaging) inbox, calculator, address book, calendar, etc. I never surf through the multiple menus anymore; i simply use my favorites button. You can also customize the 1-9 keys in the same manner, so that pressing and holding will open either menu items (ie the calendar) or work as speed dial buttons. The other convenient, menu-free button feature of this phone lies in the buttons on either side of the 0 key. The lefthand one, with a bell icon, will turn off all ringtones and message alerts simply by pressing and holding. By the phone's default settings, this will enable the vibrate alert for phone calls and text messages. The right hand button, with a key icon, will lock the keypad, to prevent from accidentally calling numbers when the phone is in your purse or pocket. The main screen (displayed when the phone is not actively in use) is common enough - it shows antenna reception, battery life left, the current date and time, and an indicator of your cellular phone service. In my case, it says "AT&T Wireless" when i'm in my calling area, and "Extended Service" when I'm roaming. Underneath the date and time, where the customizable key is that I mentioned, various icons will be displayed depending on what's happened...there's icons for new text messages and voice messages; if these icons are displayed simply press the button below them to dial your voicemail box or go to your text message inbox. An icon of an envelope overlaid with an exclamation point will display if your phone is in a roaming area. The other, slightly more techie, feature of this phone that i love is the infrared capabilites. I can connect this phone with my laptop via IRdA and transfer over text messages and voice memos to my computer for archiving, and i can transfer ringtones to my phone for free - no more 99 cent fee per tone! In other areas, the battery life is exceptional (i've left my phone off the charger for five days before and still had enough battery life to make calls), and the reception is excellent. The only complaint i've had about service and reception has been unrelated to the phone and entirely on the end of AT&T's wireless service. The phone does not include a car charger, but I bought one at a mall kiosk for $15 that works just fine. The included belt clip is extremely secure; there's no risk of the phone popping off when you sit down, as with some flip-phone clips. One more important thing - everyone drops their phones, right? I've been known to literally throw mine across the room on accident (long story), drop it on brick and cement and ceramic tile, and this thing had help up to every bit of abuse i've put it through. The plastic over the display is remarkably unmarked, and there are almost no cosmetic flaws due to my own irresponsibility. The most noteworthy feature is that the battery cover and battery do not come off easily, so if you drop your phone, you won't have to worry about breaking any part of the battery connects or cover. All in all, if you're signing up with AT&T Wireless, this phone will serve all your needs and in many areas is free with a contract - no need to pay an extra $150-$200 for a "better" phone! Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91449 2000/5/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 sim card long battery life lithium ion battery not very user friendly not very durable The Bottom LineThis phone is packed with good features that other inexpensive phones don't offer. However it lacks some of the basic usability other phones offer. Full Review Why I got this phone: A few months back my Motorola phone was stolen and I needed to replace it ASAP. I didn't have much money so I needed to purchase one that was cheap or free if I renewed my contract. When I arrived at the AT&T store I learned that a lot of their newer phones only worked on the GSM/GPRS network, a new cellular standard that was just starting to be used. Unfortunately, since it was new, the coverage for the GSM/GPRS network was spotty in my area - not nearly as good as what I was currently getting. At the same time, I didn't want to go with the older standard, TDMA. Since the Siemens s46 was the only phone in my price range that offered both it seemed like the logical choice. Features I like: - The Lithium Ion battery. I absolutely did not want a NiMh battery. The difference between the two in a nutshell, is that a NiMh battery remembers charges so if you constantly put it on the recharger when it is only half full the battery will think that half full is its maximum capacity and only charge it that much all the time. Eventually the battery becomes trash. Lithium Ion, on the other hand, can be charged with the battery anywhere between full and empty without damaging the battery. - Good battery life. - The fact that it can run in both GSM/GPRS and TDMA modes. - The infrared port. I was able to send phone numbers from my Handspring PDA to my cell phone with little difficulty. - The fact that it has a SIM card, which can be used to store my account information as well as address book. With this feature I could take my small SIM card out of my phone and put it in a friends phone (assuming my friends phone had the technology for SIM cards) and then make calls on their phone using my account and my minutes. - Good reception, rarely lose a call. Features I dislike: - The face scratches easily. - The menus are not very intuitive. Perhaps I am just used to Motorola phones, but I had a hard time getting used to all of the controls. - Many of the basic functions are buried deep in the menus: for example turning the ringer off, sending a text message, or using the phone book. - It has two different phone books: a phone book and an address book. The 1 press button will take you to the address book which doesn't hold phone numbers to make calls from! Conclusion:: This phone was ahead of its time. It offers many features that the larger phone companies were only using in their high end phones at the time. When I was shopping, s46 was the only phone under $100 to offer a Lithium Ion battery. None of the other cheap phones would operate on both the GSM and TDMA networks. It was also offering SIM cards when only the very high end phones offered them. Additionally, few phones come with infrared ports. These are all excellent features that are well implemented in the s46. They give the phone a very competitive edge. However, in exchange for the features I feel that the phone lacks some of the basic things, such as being user friendly and durability. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 91448 2000/3/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 has some cool syncing features with outlook the most unintuitive piece of crap that i ve ever had to deal with The Bottom LineUgh! It pains me that I have to use this on a daily basis. Full Review Preamble When I started my new job five months ago, I already had my perfect . But see, accounting is fussy and they wanted me to have a separate phone that was exclusive to work-related phone calls. Grrrrrr.... I didn't get any choice on the phone that was picked for me ("company standards") nor the plan (but more of that in another review). What I got was the Siemens S46. Technical Specs I've included all of this info because Epinions doesn't. * Network frequency - Dual band TDMA 800/1900, MHz Dual band GSM 900/1900MHz * Voice encoding - Triple rate * Weight - 4.34 oz. * Dimensions (LxWxH) - 4 5/8 x 1 3/4 x 7/8 inches * Display - Full graphical, 6 lines by 16 characters plus one softkey line, amber backlight * Stand-by time - (with standard battery) Up to 150 hours TDMA, up to 200 hours GSM * Talk time - Up to 2.5 hours TDMA, Up to 6 hours GSM * Standard battery - Li-Ion 850 mAh * Charging time - Approximately 2 hours * SIM card * Mobile Internet Access * Address book - Fully featured, up to 400 contacts * Telephone book - (SIM card) * Telephone book in the phone * Voice Dial * Built-in data and fax modem * HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) * SoftDataLink * Infrared interface (IrDA) * Voice and conversation memo - Up to 80 seconds * Organizer - Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes synchronization of calendar and address book * Microsoft OutlookTM synchronization * Lotus NotesTM synchronization * Reminder list * Date and time in display * Alarm function * Calculator * Stopwatch * SMS (Short Message Service) * Intelligent Typing (T9) * Redial list * List of calls received / missed * Date and time stamp for missed calls * Softkey programmable * Call wait / call hold * Conference call * Call forward * Display call timer and cost * Keypad lock * Ringing tones * Melody composer * Silent Alert (vibration) * Calling Line Identification (CLI) * Games Why I Hate This Phone So Much As you can tell from the technical specifications, the Siemens phone has a lot of cool bells and whistles. And that's probably what attracts the "phone" crowd to it. It does just about everything but fry an egg. Physically, I have no issues with the phone. It's lightweight, easy to carry, and looks fine although it does sort of have that look of older phones from 5-6 years ago. Reception is usually very good. Drop-off's don't occur much and it's very easy to hear other people talking to me. I really like the fact that I can download my Microsoft Outlook Phone Book into the phone (through software they include) without having to type it all in. I like the fact that if I'm in a boring meeting, I can send messages though my phone to other people. I also like that I can receive these messages :). This is the first phone where I have used the internet features. It took me about three months before I got the hang of using it and compared to your computer/keyboard, it's clunky, but it does the job. Other than that, I hate this phone. I'm not a phone geek. My needs are very simple. I want something that is easy to use. Things that I use a lot like adjusting the volume, changing the ring tones, or putting the phone on vibrate, should be easy to use. It's not! I have to go through a bazillion menus just to find what I want to change. I have never clicked so much in my life!!! It took me about three weeks to figure out the voice mail, three months to figure out how to turn off the keypad from clicking, and four months to figure out how to change my ringer tones. I promise, I'm not stupid. I'm just an everyday girl trying to make her way in a cell phone geek world. The direction booklet that came with the phone was of no help. I've had this phone for five months now and I still can't find my way through it. The End Usually when I give a star rating to a product, I try to be objective about it from A to Z. I may not like one feature about it but usually, I can see the good in other things that it has to offer. With this phone, every single positive pales in comparison to the one negative that makes me crunch and grind my teeth on a daily basis: lack of intuitiveness. It fails big time and is the reason I do not recommend this to anyone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 7857 Sprint Products Group Sanyo SCP 4900 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91471 2004/1/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 strongest signal of any sprint phone does not have the longest life This is a great phone. I owned it for about a year before it went bad. It is great for the web and games. I really liked the speaker phone feature, which was what brought me to the phone in the first place. I now have the newer 8100 and miss the 4900. The 4900 has the best signal of any sprint phone. Anyone who works there can tell you. If you live in an area were sprint has weak service you will really like this phone. If you just want the best phone that sprint carries with out the camera this is it. Even though it went out on me after a year (which seems to be how long most phones last) it is the best phone I have ever owned. ~one should know I am very hard on my phones, banging and scratching them 91470 2004/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery big screen navagation wheel need keygaurd to not dial no text messaging Batteries die young, but NOT on this phone. Makes for excellent landline replacement of home phone. It is a bit bigger than some, but it really is tough. I cracked the glass and passed it through the washer and it survived... No text message function!!!! The newer little 4929 has text mesaging.... but less battery time 91469 2004/4/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size visibility reception text messaging is difficult keypad sensitivity This phone was recommended to me by the Sprint PCS people(who used this model themselves) because I was so tired of getting poor reception. I have been very pleased with this phone and I discovered from another happy owner that you can get free updates every six months with this model. I love the big screen and the image and sound (ringer) capabilities. My only complaint is the sensitivity of the key pad even when key lock is on. 91468 2005/4/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life reception speaker user friendly it has been discontinuedthey are hard to come by The Sanyo 4900 was my second Sprint phone, and boy did it spoil me. This phone is incredible. The Signal Strength is probably the most impressive feature of the phone. I have been able to receive & make calls on the 4900 that other people have not with other carriers AND with Sprint service. The battery life is another great feature of this phone which is incredible compared to most wireless phones. The speaker on this phone is great, as with all Sanyos, and the menu on the phone is simple to learn, and easy to read. As you select certain options from the menu they actually expand to make them easier to see. The best compliment to this phone is that people have chosen to carry this phone for many, many years, deciding not to upgrade to another model but stick with the 4900. It has been discontinued and the newer model is the 4920 which is a little more compact, and has the push to talk feature, but I still would rate the 4900 higher. 91467 2003/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent reception sound quality 4 096 colors display voice memo dialing speaker phone none The Bottom LineI would highly recommend this phone, great price, and the best reception of the SprintPCS family. Full Review I bought this phone in order to use Sprint's Vision service. First off I should mention this is my second Sanyo phone. My first phone was a Samsung 3500 which had terrible reception indoors. The outdoors reception was fabulous, but if you have to go outside every time you want to make a phone call. That can get on your nerves. Now for a little of my cellular back ground. I first decided to try Sanyo after my suitemate ( a suitemate for anyone who might not know is the person who live next door that you share a bathroom with, Yes I am college student living in one of those great dorms with that no so great cafeteria food :( ) I noticed that he would always enter my room on his cell phone sit on my couch while talking to his girlfriend. I could never understand how he could move all around with his cell phone, while if I wanted to make a phone call indoors I had to lean up against my window. Making sure the antenna was touching the window other wise I would not get service indoors. I asked him 'What service do you have?' He replied 'Sprint' I was so confused, I could not understand how some one with the same service could get reception where I could not. After doing some research on cell phones, it seems that Sanyo phones seem to have better reception than Sanyo. I believe this brand has the best reception of all of Sprint cell phones. The first Sanyo I owned was the SCP-6200, then bought the SCP-4900. This is the best phone I have ever owned. The color screen is really nice; the price was not bad at all. My original Samsung cost 50 dollars more that this, but the Samsung came without the great reception of Sanyo. This phone also has a 500 number phonebook. The speaker phone is great for the times you are hold with customer service, or just checking voice mail. It can hold 500k of downloaded applications, ringers, and/or screen saver (which should be called Wallpapers), which can get filled up pretty fast when you download as much as I do. It is also one of the loudest phones I have used. Most of the time in a normal everyday environment medium low is fine. During the day most time the receiver volume is on Low, or Medium-Low. At night when you are with a group of people or headed out for a night on the town, Medium-High, or High will suffice. Hope this is helpful Email or post any comment you might have or question you would like me answer. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 7858 Sprint Products Group Sanyo 5300 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91475 2003/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 ok camera neat features long battery life good reception a little loud gets hot ok camera I bought this phone about 3 months ago and it has performed very well...despite being dropped a couple of times! The camera is not meant to take great pictures...but that's not its sole purpose! Sometimes, when you talk on it for over 20 minutes, the phone can get pretty hot. But for the most part, I like the phone. It has good features and lots of neat downloads as well as ringers and screensavers. One of the things that I don't like about the phone is that it is very loud. Even at the lowest setting, it is still fairly loud sometimes. But for someone hard of hearing, this would be the perfect phone! 91474 2004/9/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 weight ringers features color screen size scheduler is not as great as a palm I have terrible luck with cell phones. I have actually had so many, I have lost count. I have dropped them, submerged them in water, lost them, and worst of all- bought the Consumer Reports 'Worst Purchase Possible' phones. My last phone actually failed the diagnostic test at the Sprint store. I can honestly say I did some research before buying this phone. I love the features, color screen, and camera. I can organize my phone book easily. Sadly, I have dropped it a few times, but it keeps on ticking! Just what I was looking for! 91473 2004/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 camera cool little features size looks price service To start off I think this is a great phone. It has some really cool features including the ever popular camera. It doesn't take the best pictures but they aren't to bad for a cell phone. It also has some cool pictures and downloads. It makes it very easy to send and receive text messages unlike some other sprint phones. The service for sprint phones aren't very good in my opinion unless your in the city, but this doesn't fare to bad. Overall I think its a good buy with very little to complain about besides Sprint's service. So if you live near a city with good coverage it's a great buy but if you live out in the country like me you might think about getting a phone with a better coverage area. 91472 2004/4/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sprint quality service digital camera sanyo quality product price cost of sprint service The Bottom LineA really fun all around phone! Full Review Sprint's amazing coverage combined with a Sanyo built cell phone with a built in camera - now that's a winning team! I purchased mine at a local Radio Shack which was a good experience. The service was good and the sales person was really knowledgeable about the product and service. Perhaps that's because the sales person was my girlfriend?! And not only did I get a discounted price on the phone but I also got a discounted service plan! (*NOTE: Don't expect to be cut a good deal like I was. Also, the phone is regularly listed at $399.99 but goes on sale for far less.*) I was getting really tired of my service through TMobile. Their coverage is crap (which is why it's so cheap) and their phones aren't all that great, mine was a cheesy little Nokia that was free with the service contract. Why pay $40 for bad service with a cheap phone when I can pay $50 for awesome service, coverage, and the hottest phone on the market?! Did I get suckered by Catherine Zeta-Jones? No!...(*shifty eyes*) I love flip phones. I think there is a certain amount of style to them that no other type of cell phone can offer. Not only that but this is just a great looking phone anyway. This phone is loaded with features! Yeah, so not only is this a phone...but it's also a camera and a portable internet browser all in one! I'm surprised that camera phones have taken so long to migrate to the United States, they've had them in Japan for years! Enjoy SPRINT's all digital, all PCS network - built from the ground up! Features & Such: The 5300 is a dual-band PCS phone. The screen is 2.1", which is pretty good sized in my opinion, 65K-color display. It has a great photo caller ID that lets you know who's calling without opening your phone. It is displayed on the "back" of the ear half of the flip phone. As with most cell phones you can send and receive numeric and text messages. You also get free one-touch voicemail access. The voice activated dialing feature, which improves safety while driving, is really handy in numerous situations. It can get annoying though if you are in a rush and it doesn't recognize the command - but that doesn't happen much. Of course, I've only used the voice activated dialing a few times. I hate talking on the phone while I'm driving so I never call while driving and rarely pick up either. The best thing about the 5300 is without a doubt the digital camera function. The only differences between this and Sanyo's other Spring PCS phone is the flash and the digital zoom feature. The resolution is 310,000 pixels and can be either 640x480, 320x240, or 160x120. You zoom either 4x or 16x, which is pretty impressive for how small the camera is. The flash is a powerful LED light that has a cool 5 or 10 second timer function. Other variables are white balance, color tone, and adjustable shutter volume. You can store up to 500 phone numbers in your phone book. The 5300 can also store 300 web and email addresses. There is also a calendar, which I rarely use. Occassionaly I'll set a reminder for myself but I wouldn't rely on this as your sole reminder. The ring tones are probably one of the funnest features of the phone! You can download songs from a very extensive list online. I have set mine to have a unique ring for everyone in my phone book. This is a great customizable touch but can be confusing if you have a ton of people that call you, each with their own ring... I haven't, and probably will not, use the internet access feature. Mainly because I don't need to. But it is also fairly pricey. I already pay enough as it is for cable internet (And I'm interested in trying the super-fast cable internet but it's like $95.00/month). My girlfriend has the same phone since she's a Radio Shack employee and she never uses hers either. But I suppose for business people it may come in handy. The games are good, but I don't often play those either. But I do like the screensavers! Talk time tends to run me about 2 hours or a little less. And that is talking non-stop. I've only had a few conversations that were that long. One was a political discussion with my grandmother - not fun. Anyway, you can expect a decent stand by time of about oh 36 hours. Sanyo claims more but I find myself having to recharge every night. One thing I need to do is get a case for my phone. I don't want the camera lens getting scratched in my pocket. That would pi$$ me off. That would certainly put a damper on my ability to shoot and share good pictures with friends. The only bad thing about this phone is the price. Nearly $400 for a phone? If I hadn't gotten such a good deal on mine I might not have been able to get it. I had originally set out to get a phone that was $200 or less. But I may have been persuaded by the really great features of the phone. Size: 1.9" x 1.1" x 3.7" Weight: 4.1 oz Battery: Rechargeable Lithium Ion Warranty: 1-Year I think the 5300 is a great addition to the phone/camera market. There has been an amazing revolution in cell phones since the first suitcase sized monstrosity! Pretty soon we may all be carrying around Zoolander sized phones with amazing features of high quality. Or not... What do I know?! The Last Word: Hopefully, I answered some of your questions. If not I recommend seeing your local Radio Shack they are great and often have good sales. I enjoy this phone immensely! It is way better than my old feature-less Nokia. I would very, very highly recommend this phone to anyone that is willing to shell out a few hundred dollars. I use my cell phone exclusively (no home phone) so I figured what the heck! The service plans are great and the coverage and quality of service are outstanding. But their customer service could still use some improvement even though Sprint's new CEO has made a great improvement in the company. Be sure to visit: www.sanyo.com and www.sprint.com If my review needs improvement to get a VH rating, leave a comment and let me know!! Thanks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7859 Sprint TouchPoint 3000 91478 2000/11/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 performance sturdy construction design outstanding features complete detailed user guide excellent pda lacks full color display not pcs vision capable The Bottom LineThis phone is loaded with very useful and user friendly features. I highly recommend it to anyone who could use a great cell phone/PDA device. Full Review This is one incredible cellular phone and PDA combination device. I've been using this phone for nearly a year and I still have not used most of the excellent features this phone is packed with. Two days ago I pulled out the user's guide for this phone and starting experimenting with some of the features. I was totally blown away by how useful this phone really is. I have used the calculator, world clock, and wireless web features pretty often since I bought this phone, but until recently I didn't know that I could actually use the sketch pad to jot down notes and save them in the phone until I want to retrieve the note. I think this feature is really useful and it's so easily accomplished. This phone comes with a plastic stylus that slides neatly into the rear of this device. This stylus is used to touch various icons on the screen. By pressing these icons, you can launch different features in the PDA section of the phone. This stylus can also be used as a writing instrument. I launched the sketch pad feature and simply jotted a note just as if I was using a pen and a piece of paper. Now here's the cool part, you can jot down multiple notes, save them, and retrieve each note individually. There is also a memo pad feature where notes can be typed in via the onboard virtual keyboard. Another great feature on this phone is the speaker phone function. You can use this feature by simply lifting the display cover and automatically the phone becomes a speaker phone. It's great for hands free talking, especially while you're driving. The Sprint TP3000 PCS Phone has so many useful features that the user guide contains nearly 300 pages of explanations and instructions. There is a learning curve to get full use of this device, but I think it's well worth the time spent. Some of the primary features included in this phone/pda are; speaker phone, voice recognition dialing, speed dialing, contacts, date book, to do list, memo pad, sketch pad, phone book, world clock, pc sync, data/fax transmission, and wireless web browsing. I have configured my Sprint TP3000 PCS Phone to connect to AOL mail. I just hit the web button and almost instantly my email is displayed on the phone's screen. I can then select the mail that I want to read, read it and save it or I can delete it. I can also delete any email before opening it. When I want full internet access, I connect my Sprint TP3000 PCS Phone to my lap top computer via a serial cable,( I had to purchase the wireless web connection kit separately) and the phone becomes a wireless modem. This allows me to sit on the beach, in the park , or in Barnes and Noble's café and surf the internet, chat, or even send and receive faxes. Now one might think that a device with all of these feature must be fairly large and bulky, but this phone is not. I have seen smaller PCS Phones, but I think this phone is the ideal size. It's large enough to be comfortable in my hand and while I'm using the PDA features, but it's small enough to slip into my pants pocket or even into my shirt pocket, although it is a little heavy for the shirt pocket. The performance of the Sprint TP3000 PCS Phone is incredible. I have gotten close to five hours of continuous talk time and still had battery power. The reception on this phone is crystal clear. Yesterday, I took the phone in to have the software and TRL upgraded at the Sprint phone center. The free upgrade took 30 minutes. It's very important to have your Sprint PCS phone upgraded regularly. This keeps the phone's performance and capabilities at maximum peak level. This phone is made of a very tough alloy material and it's constructed well. The screen is monotone but it's contrast level is adjustable. It's very easy to read whatever's displayed on the screen. I really can't think of anything that's lacking in this phone except maybe a full color display screen and the new PCS vision capabilities. Since some of the newer PCS Phones have color displays, this model can be bought for much less than its original price, if you can locate a Sprint dealer that has one. I bought my Sprint TP3000 PCS Phone during a special close out sale at the local Sprint Store. I got this fantastic device for the unbelievable price of $129.00. This phone/PDA is worth at least twice that amount and I left the Sprint Store, singing and dancing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 91477 2002/3/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 multi functional easy to use i ll let you know when i think of one The Bottom LineThrow away your date book and your PDA device--you won't need them anymore. Full Review I'm a bit of a techno-phobe. I don't like being dependent on computers or email for work, though 95% of my work concerns one or both. I don't like beepers and I pity the person who can't go anywhere without their cell phone. God forbid they're cut off from work or their significant other for a couple of hours. I like my solitude, I suppose. When I took command of a company, all the other commanders were insistent that I get a cell phone. "You'll need it," they said, for all the emergencies and trouble my soldiers would get into. I refused. "If the Army requires to me to have a cell phone, they'll issue it to me," was my response, and needless to say, a cell phone was not forthcoming. I did not want my life disrupted by the compulsion to answer a ringing phone. I resolved not to get a beeper ever, which is merely a portable answering machine. I would only get a cell phone for emergency purposes, in case I was stranded on the highway and needed to call Triple A, or for me to use to call other people, not as a very long leash for others to interrupt my life. My husband, of course, had other ideas. He worried about my 30-minute freeway commute as well as the long drives I undertook, rather frequently, to see friends in other states. He also wanted to be able to get in touch with me at any time (he's in a different state, so it's not always easy). My husband insisted on buying me the Sprint PCS TP3000. Why I Picked This Phone A friend of mine, visiting DC from Saudi, had run across the Sprint PCS TP3000 and bought one for herself. Though she did not have the phone activated for service, she purchased it anyway because of the features. The Sprint PCS TP3000 is also a PDA. I was more inclined to choose this phone over other models because it isn't just a phone. My husband's philosophy was if the phone had other features, I was more likely to keep it with me. Goodbye Day Runner! I'm a fairly organized person. I kept all my appointments, addresses, to-do lists, account and password lists, etc., in my Day Runner so that they'd be available whenever I needed them. I was used to putting my appointments, tasks, and business contacts into Outlook at work, but my personal appointments, etc., were not yet automated. Now I use my Sprint PCS TP3000 as a date book, address book, and everything else I used to keep in my Day Runner (except the pocket for spare Coke machine change). I experimented for a few days, leaving my Day Runner at home and relying solely on the Sprint PCS TP3000 and found I didn't need my little black book because I had a little grey phone with everything I needed. Appearance The phone has a keypad on the front for making calls underneath a view screen with various menu items. The front also has a large silver button with arrows for moving the cursor left, right, up or down to choose selections on the screen. Four black buttons surround the silver button labeled: OK, Clear, Web, and End (which is also the Power button for turning the phone on and off). This phone is larger (thicker and longer) than many of the cell phones I've seen recently. However, I prefer the length because it's easier to speak into the speaker with out yelling. I'm also afraid of losing a phone that's any smaller. It still fits quite nicely into my purse or the cargo pocket of my work clothes. On one side of the phone are volume buttons. These volume buttons only control the volume of the ringer. The audio volume is controlled through the environmental settings on the phone. There are two ports: one for the cable to sync with a PC and one port for a hands free device which I did not purchase. A stylus fits nicely in a small slot on the back of the phone. The screen has an indiglo-like appearance and lights up when the phone is in use. When the cover keypad is flipped up, the full-size screen also lights up and will stay lit as long as there is activity on the screen or will re-light if touched by stylus or finger. I have my phone programmed to switch off the indiglo light after 15 seconds, but this timeframe can be shortened or lengthened in the environmental settings. Features Cellular Phone: Yes, it's a phone and I have used it to make and receive phone calls. Phone calls can be made by the keypad which I normally use, or the Phone option on the main menu. I will not go into Sprint's service in this review but save that for a later epinion. Speaker Phone: If you are on a call and need to use the speaker phone, flip up the keypad and the speaker phone function is activated. Because of this feature, I did not feel the need to purchase a hands-free device, though use of the speaker phone is not feasible when the background noise is loud. Call History: The Call History tracks incoming and outgoing calls as well as missed calls, the date and time, number, and duration of the call. One can also add a Contact entry from the Call History section if that number is not already listed in the Contacts. Messages: My service includes voice mail and the Message section gives a text recap of the voicemail—who called, phone number, and time and date. Date Book: The date book has day, week and month views. Appointments have a date, start and end times, alarm option, repeat option, attendees list, location, and description of the appointment. The alarm option can be customized to ring a certain number of times or tune. Contacts: Contact entries are listed alphabetically with tabs to the section you wish to view. Contact information includes: first name, last name, home phone numbers (multiple), work numbers, mobile numbers, pager numbers, email addresses, ID Ringer (different rings for different people), group (friends, family, business, etc.), address, and notes (such as birthdays or directions). Once you've entered a contact and her phone numbers, when you select her from the list, a phone number list pops up first with the option of calling. If you don't want to call, then click on the details button and it takes you to the rest of the items about that contact. To-Do List: I use this feature extensively. I list the things I need to do and the dates by which I need to finish them. My one gripe with this feature is that there is not a repeat option for my tasks. The things I need the most reminders for happen on a monthly basis: far enough apart that I don't need to look at them everyday, but often enough that I need a recurring reminder. Once tasks are "checked" as finished, they go to the bottom of the list and will only be erased when the user deletes them. Memo Pad: I store a lot of general information in my Memo Pad. The Memo Pad entries are also large enough to accommodate directions to someone's house or meeting place. I already have over forty entries in the Memo Pad for reservations, account information, passwords to myriad internet sites, etc. Sketchpad: If a drawing is more conducive to what you need, this feature works quite well. I'm not much of an artist so I don't use this feature very often. The Sketchpad does have a text feature and a grid feature as well as curvy line, straight line, line-break, and box options. Calculator: Standard and self-explanatory. World Clock: I use this function to keep track of the time difference between where I'm located and Germany. PC Sync: After loading the software onto my laptop, I can sync my PC with the phone at any time through a cable (all provided with the phone). I tend to not write my business appointments in the phone so this is a great feature and saves me the time of "double-booking" myself. Though I haven't used the PC Sync in this capacity, I would think it's great for a couple to keep track of each other's appointments and social activities, or the kids' without having to manually input the information into the computer and the phone and a PDA, etc. Loading the software was easy and took less than ten minutes. The program "took" the first time and I haven't had any problems with it. Browser: Though the Spring TP3000 has a web-enable function I did not opt to activate this feature (I believe I can do so at anytime when I press the Web button, but I also get a message that other charges will incur). I get more than enough email at home and at work to need it on my phone as well. Environmental Settings: I customized my settings (or rather my husband did and left me cute little messages). The options include: sounds, security, display, setup, roaming, formats, general, owner, and stylus. The phone can be programmed for abbreviated dialing within one's area code. Charger: The charging unit bears mentioning because it has a slot for the phone and a slot for an additional battery. I charge my phone every night and it's rarely powered up for cell phone use during the day because I work in a building where the signal is blocked. When I've gone on long trips, the phone has enough power to remain on for at least three days (reputedly up to 130 hours, but I have yet to test this limit). Of course, if you're talking on the phone, the power is depleted more quickly. General Gripe: When typing in addresses or notes that go onto a second line, sometimes the cursor jumps to the front of the line instead of continuing along with the text and I end up typing in the middle of the first word at the beginning of the line. While this is annoying, I haven't figured out why the cursor does this or how to fix it--yet. The keypad, when using the stylus to type in information is set up like a typewriter/computer keyboard. This took a little getting used to. Symbols (*, %, &, etc.) are set up in a configuration I was not accustomed to but after using the phone awhile, I'm familiar with it. Numbers are set up like a phone key pad in all features. Overall This is a great cellular phone because it's also so much more. I don't have to carry around a date book or a PDA device because all the information I need is in my phone. I feel much safer on the highway knowing that help is a phone call away, rather than relying on the kindness of strangers. I moved this review from the Sprint PCS TP120 category; at the time I posted my review originally, the epinions database did not have a separate category for the TP3000. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 395 91476 2002/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use not upgradeable for more storage The Bottom LineIf you want to take along a cell phone and a PDA but don't want to carry both, check out this 2 in 1 phone. Full Review Sprint has put together a cell phone and PDA in one small package for the person on the go. It measures 5.2 inches in length by 2.2 inches wide, 1 inch thick and only weighs in at 6.2 ounces. This is slightly larger than the other cell phones today but if it was much smaller the PDA function area would get too small to easily view. This is also a digital only phone, meaning it will only receive & send digital phone calls and no analog calls at all. When you first look at the phone it looks like most normal phones with the dialing buttons on the outside front of the phone. You will see a screen for showing most everything you see from your phones at home (Caller ID, Numbers you are calling & more) plus you can see your calling history, manage your contacts and set your preferences. Flip over the lid that has your dialing buttons on it and a larger screen will appear the size of 2.3 inches in length by 1.6 inches in width. This is you PDA area for a memo pad, date book, sketch area, to-do list, calculator, synchronization functions and a world clock with different time zones. In this area you can still use all the features of the phone. It has a backlit screen that shows two rows with icons in it for you date book memo pad and so on. When the lid is closed it goes back to the phone mode only again. The Battery The battery seems to hold up rather well for about the 3.5 hours of talk time they recommend, now if you go to sending and receiving e-mail it seem to cut that time down considerably. Stand by time is rated at 135 hours, so if you don't use it much you should be able to have a charged battery in the phone from Monday through Friday without having to charge it again. The Lithium-ion battery included takes about two hours to charge with the include Desktop Charger/Sync Station. Keyboard The Sprint Touch Point 3000 cell phone has built into its proprietary operating system a virtual keyboard. This is an easy to use keyboard but it is time consuming to use. I find it useful for setting up your address book and taking small notes, but when you are trying to write a lengthy e-mail it takes you a lot of time to do. Nice it is there, just slow to use. The Pros The big Pros of this phone is having a cell phone and PDA together in one unit instead of having to drag along two different units. It is easy to operate and seems user friendly. The price isn't bad right now at $199 plus there is a rebate, not long ago it was over $300. The Cons The main cons all seem to come from the PDA features of this phone, I guess we need to remember it is meant as a phone first and a PDA second. Can't upload any new applications to use with the PDA. No infrared port No handwriting recognition tools No memory upgrade Some uses for the PDA and Internet access E-Mail, send & receive Get stock quotes Check your weather Get sport scores and more Other Features 99 speed-dial numbers 20 voice-activated numbers Headphone jack Built-in speaker Caller ID to see who is calling you. Power Save Mode when you are not in an area that has digital coverage. Security Lock to prevent others from using the phone. Voice-Mail Messaging Call Log Enhanced for checking who has called. Phonebook PDA functionality contact list has storage for about 2000 entries. Options on the phone included with Sprint service call waiting, three-way calling, and caller ID. Call forwarding can be used but it is extra. Overall Overall it is a good value with some nice added features for being a phone. Now if you are a regular Palm or Visor user you will probably be disappointed with the PDA use on this phone but, remember it's first function is being a phone not a PDA. I find this phone handy for keeping notes on the go and checking my e-mail when on a trip. If you sign up for Sprint they will give offer you 3 month free of their Internet service and then after that it is an additional $5 per month. As far as the phone itself, well it is easy to use and the calls are crystal clear. I love using the voice-activated numbers that you can program in the phone, this is faster and easier than hunting the number up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 7860 Sprint Hitachi P300 91483 2006/6/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception durability battery ringer switch calendar address book web gui no real power save mode power consumption few games preloaded I've used this phone with Sprint service for over 3 years now. It is a great phone that is web enabled and holds incredible amounts of information in the address book, including 200 entries with name, 5 phone numbers, email, birthday, group, custom ringer, custom light sequence, custom screen image, URL, memo and BLOOD TYPE! You can download ringers and games. The calendar is pseudo-PDA. I really love the three-way environment switch, which allows silent all, outdoor ringer and indoor ringer (silent) with a simple switch that works with the key lock engaged. I can't believe the durability of this phone. I thought the joystick wouldn't last, but it still works great. The only problems I've had is the antenna broke off and I replaced it and I will need to get a new battery fairly soon. 91482 2003/10/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 best nearly smart phone outstanding functionality it works best reception of any vision phone screen on while charging only single band reflective chrome around screen washed out screen The Bottom LineThis phone has great reception and features. You can hear well and be heard. Combine that with a great PIM and onboard email and you have a winner. Full Review This is an excellent phone in all respects. The only real negatives are: 1. It is a single band phone 2. Many people prefer flip phones 3. Screen is dull compared to a500 and the 5300 4. The chrome strip around the screen can reflect light back into your eyes if you try to look at the screen in sunlight 5. When charging the screen is on, and the keypad backlighting is off - it should be reversed. The bright screen will light the bedroom at night, so I charge it in a drawer, while the lack of backlighting of keys while charging means that to use the phone in the dark you have to unplug the charging cord first. Now for the good standard stuff: 1. It is very well made. I think I'll have this one awhile. In real life it has now survived being dropped multiple times, and it is very durable. Edit- After nearly a year, still excellent fit & finish. No squeeks or loose parts. 2. RF is outstanding, and is probably the best of all the Vision phones. It edges out the 5300 in comparisons I personally have made. I was able to get digital reception about 20 miles from the nearest tower. Furthermore, the "bar" guage is pretty accurate, and drops predictably from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 to 0 as your drive away. Contrast that to the Sanyo which claims to have 3 bars, then suddenly goes to 2 then 1 then drops service. 3. PIM is outstanding. It holds more names and numbers, as well as more information about each person, plus the ability to classify them, and sort on that classification (as in familiy, business, customers, doctors, or whatever classifications you define yourself). After finding a person in the PIM, you can call them, or if you prefer, email them. 4. On board email capability. You can access any POP3 server, and download up to 70 emails into the phone. This is much faster than web-based email. 5. 3G interface is very good. Web pages and downloads are much faster than the 5300. I've heard that when used as a modem, it is also much faster than a Treo. 6. The user menus are very friendly, as well as more professional and less game-like than the other phones. 7. The screen isn't as nice as the 5300, but it is adequate, and significantly better than the 4900. Unlike some other color screens, the screen is easily readable in bright sunlight. 8. It is much smaller than the 4900 9. It has excellent battery life, beating all the other Vision phones except the 4900. 10. With the onboard email, and the ability to handle attachments of up to 100k (if you adjust from the default of 10k), getting pictures or ringers into the phone is a breeze because you can just email them and they are there. 11. The speakerphone is outstanding, and the best I have ever used on a cell phone. Even when using it in the car, people have said I sounded very clear. There is a trick to turning it on. Once you have dialed a number and hit the talk button, hit any number, then the left function key. This is much faster than going through the menus, and you don't have to look at the phone to do it. 12. The ringer/midi sound on it is great for a phone. I went ahead and downloaded some 40k midis to test it out and they all sound great. It has way more bass than the 5300, and sounds surprisingly good. 13. A nice 1mb of memory. 14. A nice scheduler, notepad, to do list, and calculator 15. In my original posting, I commented on the extremely low SAR rating (radiation absorbtion) which was rated at an incredibly low .41 W/kg, while most phones are in the 1.3 range. This was based on the initial tests submitted in April 2002, and was documented in the initial manual, at page 177: https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=239366&native_or_pdf=pdf Apparently there were some revised SAR tests done in October 2002 which showed much higher numbers, more like other phones: https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=279063&native_or_pdf=pdf In these tests the maximum SAR level is 1.58 W/kg if the phone is used on the left ear, with the antenna out, and the antenna tilted back against the head. The SAR ratings are much lower on the right ear, and with the antenna tilted away from the head. Now for some extras: 1. A light sensor - If the phone is ringing in a dark place like a pocket, when you pull it out, the phone notices the light, and quiets the ringer. This is great in a meeting. It should be standard on all phones. 2. It has a funky multi-color blinking light that can be used for caller-id - different persons can have different colors and patterns associated with them. This could be useful is some bizarre circumstance, I suppose, such as a truckdriver at night who sets it to flash red when his wife calls. In a noisy environment the light might be easier to detect than a custom ringer. 3. An environment switch. On position 1, all calls ring, while on position 3 no calls ring. On position 2 a user defined variable selects which calls ring, and which go directly to voicemail. 4. It includes a jukebox, which allows you to play up to 30 minutes of MIDI files that can be played in sequence, or randomly. 5. It has the capability to send PIM data to your computer via .vcf files. I don't know much about how to use this feature yet. 6. When typing, besides a menu for "symbols" there is a menu for dropping in pre-defined text strings, such as "http://" or ".com". You can edit these text strings to be whatever works well for you. Things I wish it had: 1. More than 1 email address per person 2. When you get a call and want to save the number, the ability to add it to an existing entry, instead of having to write it down, 3. When looking up an entry in the PIM, if I'm looking for "Smith", I'd like to be able to enter 764 and narrow it down, instead of just entering 7 and scrolling down. 4. The ability to snych to a computer via email - why should you need a cable unless you want to use it as a modem? In summary: This phone has a great PIM, and great email capability, making it a Nearly-Smartphone. I have seen a few people buy this phone and move up to a Palm phone because they want an even smarter phone, and one person move up to the 5300 for a camera and better display, but no one has had anything negative to say about it. It is a great phone, especially now that the price has been reduced. It isn't particularly flashy, but everything it does, it does well. If you stay in digital areas, need a pretty smart phone to hold a lot of information, but don't want the size of a smartphone, this could be the phone for you. If this were a flip phone with a bright screen, everyone would clamour for it. Now that the price has dropped, these should fly off the shelves. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 230Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91481 2000/10/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 the best vision phone available to date not very many ringers The Bottom LineIf you want a light, dependable, color screen 3G phone packed with features, buy this phone!! Full Review 1. Loud and normal ringers 2. Loud and clear speakerphone 3. Great signal strength and reception 4. Awesome display (think A500 but bigger) 5. Colored lights when ring and color coded caller id great 6. POP3 email access easy to setup and worked first try 7. buttons and phone feel well built. 8. intuitive phonebook and menu system It comes with about 10 regular ringers and 4 melodies. You can change the tempo of any of them though, that's kind of cool. and of course, you can download ringers. the melody ringers sound like 40-chord ringers but I'm not sure if they are or they are just 16-chord. The little light on the back of the phone is cool. You can set the colors to phone book entries (or a combination of colors) and it will flash those colors when that person calls. Also, the little light flashes when you're talking on a call too. It looks pretty cool for bystanders. I love the environmental switch. There are three settings. You can customize only one of them but to turn the ringers off you just flip the switch instead of going through the menu system. The light sensor is cool, also. When it's bright, the ringers ring softer. When it's dark (in your pocket or purse, etc), the ringers automatically ring louder. POP3 e-mail access is awesome. You can compose, send and receive email through your existing ISP account including Yahoo!, and various other services. I'm pretty sure it uses your Vision Kbs though because when I tried it, I saw the little lightning Vision icons working on the phone. It's got some pretty cool wallpapers and screen savers also. I like the one that's a wallpaper picture of the sun coming over the horizon. Goes well with the color scheme of the phone. I've used the speaker phone a couple times so far and it seems to send and receive great. Again, I don't know whether it's full or half duplex and, frankly, I couldn't tell so it doesn't matter to me. Sounded great and conversation flowed naturally. Buttons feel good, not cheap. Phone is longer than the 4900 by about 1/2" but it's way lighter (even lighter than the N400) and thinner also and feels comfortable in my pocket (I don't like belt clips). 200-entry phonebook is really 200 CONTACTS, unlike other phones which are 200 numbers. (Example, one contact with 5 phone numbers is counted as using one contact, whereas on other phones that would be 5 entries) So on my N400, the 53 entires became 28 entries. You can enter tons of information per contact also (ie. addresses, multiple phone numbers, birthdays, etc). Ive had similar signal strength as I did with the 4900. Call are clear and I have two bars at my house (where I struggled to get one on my N400). The screen is TFT like the A500 just bigger. Bright and beautiful! Menu system is easy to use. there are buttons for checking email (via POP3 access) directly on the front of the phone. This phone is lighter than all the other Vision phones also. The candy bar style doesn't hurt it's portability at all. I haven't found any bugs or annoying traits in over a week of use. Gets an A+ from me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 299.00 91480 2000/4/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 superb speakerphone excellent battery life very nice screen noise cancelling rugged browser performance is sluggish pricey no analog fall back The Bottom LineAn excellent telephone with a superb speakerphone, only drawback is sluggish Web Browser Full Review I used a P300 for about 6 months, and very much like it as a telephone. Audio quality is excellent, the noice cancelling is so good that people often did not realize I was driving in a car (amazingly, sometimes even when I was driving with the top down). The speakerphone is very useful and made the phone extremely valuable when working on the road; more than once I held conference calls from my car, hands-free, and I often used it at home. The screen is a very sharp and bright TFT color LCD; in normal room lighting it is excellent, and very good even in daylight. On this particular phone, the full-featured browser is a little slow especially when browsing richly featured web-sites, but it was able to render a lot of web pages that I didn't expect. The downloadable wallpapers, ringtones and J2ME applications worked very well. Audio sound quality is excellent and more than adequately loud. J2ME applications looked good on the sharp color LCD and performed well, though the joy-nub isn't exactly the right control for playing Pac-Man. The light sensor can control the screen brightness and automatically reduce the ring volume when taking the phone out of a pocket, very useful. Battery life was consistently excellent, 3+ hours of talk time, even with a fair bit of web-browsing included. Since the case is unpainted black plastic, dropping the phone would not leave huge gouges or chipped paint. I dropped it a few times and you can barely tell, the unpainted plastic seems to 'heal'. The large address book works very well. Since it's Hitachi's first phone in the US market, it seems that the dealers don't like to stock accessories for it, which is too bad. It's a great telephone for voice service and decent for data use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 300 91479 2000/7/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweightfunctions well as a phone The Bottom LineBuy a good flip phone if portability is important, otherwise buy the Sanyo 4900. Its just that little bit better. Full Review Being a Sprint user the selection of low cost phones is pretty limited, the flip phones are either expensive or dysfunctional. In the Sub $100 range you have a choice of two. I was lucky enough too own both the Hitachi P300 and the Sanyo 4900 for the same period of time. It was an arangement with www.freecellphoneguys.com. Me and my wife shared a family phone plan and were allowed to test both phones since I was unsure which was the best, then swap out for the phone I preffered. So for the most part this is a comparison between the two. STANDARD SPECS Hitachi P300: Weight 3.6 oz and a 3.5 hour chat time, 10 days standby Sanyo: Weight 4.6 oz and a 4.5 hour chat time, 16 days standby These are the stats you are given and they pretty much stand up in use, though not accurately measured, no stopwatch here. Another imnportant thing which can modify these stats is the existance of a long life batter for the Sanyo getting 7 hours chat and 2x days standby, albeit adding a little more thickness and weight. Regarding the size and weight of the two phone, it is noticeable when holding one in each hand, but the hitachi slips nicely into your pocket, where the Sanyo has the "Is that a cell phone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" kind of feel. SCREEN: Hitachi P300 It was fine long and sleek, clear and well coloured, holding 8 lines of text, with a top band showing Reception, Battery life and time (while in menu). The bottom band indicating the effect of the left select button. Quite alot of information for such a screen and slim elegant typeface. Sanyo 4900 Screen holds 7 text lines and 1 top line displaying reception and Battery life (while in menu). This allows the text to be thicker and more legible than P300, I didn't miss the other line of text, plus the back colour helps. RECEPTION During my time with both phones we tested them in Tampa bay Florida and along the way to Atlanta Georgia, this covered many weak spots. At one point along the way my phone lost signal and 30 minutes later services returned and messages piled up. Signal quality was Great in Tampa Bay while my new accomodation in Atlanta Cell to Cell comunication received some static and dropped words. This phone maintained reception all the way on the trip though quality was poor in the areas P300 had non. When we arrived in Atlanta reception quality was better, initialy I thought it was just the Sanyo having lower lvls required to hit the reception bars displayed on the phone, this still may be true, but in each situation where there was poor reception the Sanyo 4900 came ontop calling the same number, but this was not a massive improvement it however was noticeable. SPEAKER PHONE This appeared to be the same quality on each. I think only realy useable when in a home and having a comunal chat. On the road the background noise obscuring conversation making us mimic the Verison advert "Can you hear me now?" The major problem is the vibration from the speaker on the back of the phones. Everyone could hear a sound quality drop when it was switched to speaker phone, Sanyo being easier to get there with its one button click. KEYPAD The Sanyo is slightly wider offering larger buttons, but on the Hitachi they are certainly not the tiny flip phone size. The P300 does however sport a realy funky mini joystic which I preffer over the circular pad which most other phones go for. My favourite kind of pad is the one that looks like a cross between scales and roof tiles, no space is wasted offering the greatest surface area for making sure you hit the right buttons. WEB This has minimal use, slow and cubersome, but I don't mind since it is never hard to get on the net when you want with a computer. This is a phone, not a camera, not a web tool. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 79 7861 Sprint TouchPoint 2200 91520 2000/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 best reception along with clarity durability for high usage users a little on the larger side compared with many new phones Full Review This is perhaps the best mobile phone that I have ever purchased. It is by far Sprint's best phone as it has the maximum range and voice clarity for a Sprint phone. Another feature that separates this phone from others is that it is quite durable, able to stand daily usage without problems with the hardware. Even though the phone is a little larger than others it makes up for it in its hardiness and ability to take a beating. I drop this phone at least twice daily and have never had any problems. If you are a heavy mobile phone user who appreciates good reception and a phone that can take a beatin' the Sprint Touchpoint is definitely the phone for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91519 2000/11/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 games large screen size voice dialing scheduler handling phone book sometimes signal could be better The Bottom LineI bought this phone for baby emergencies and couldn't be happier. Full Review Let me preface this buy saying I am a compulsive researcher before making any major electronic purchases. The fact that I needed two phones as my wife was expecting a baby only solidified this fact. After reading consumer reports, epinions, scouring the web and gauging peoples own experiences around my office I settled on this phone. Went to the Sprint store and bought two of these phones which retailed at $100.00 (I think prices vary from store to store so look around). There was also a special of $50.00 off each phone so that was even better! We've had it for about a month now in the Washington, DC area and love it. While the signal isn't as strong as my co-workers Samsung 8100 Sprint phone, it really has never been an issue. Most of my calls are quite clear with the occasional need to ask someone to repeat themselves. I've even had people who didn't even realize I was on a cell phone. Using the standard sprint earpiece makes things even clearer! What can I say, phone and buttons feel great. The screen is large and the backlight works. I can't believe the amount of functions you can use it for...too many to list here. When I head down to the Metro it changes right over to Analog roam and gets a full signal. Obviously more expensive to use then, but it is nice to know it works underground in an emergency. In the house and in buildings it works pretty good. I've noticed that if I'm in the internal part of a building it doesn't get a signal but that's too be expected. Fortunately, I work near a window. My wife works inside a concrete encased federal building and doesn't get anything...but in the lobby it works great. Don't know what else to say, but I would recommend this phone to anyone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 91518 2000/11/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 this phone is very reliablethe voice features are fun to play with the only thing negative i can say is that the games are horribly silly The Bottom LineIf you can find the kind of deal I found on this phone--at Radio Shack--you should definitely run out and get one. Full Review I recently found the Touchpoint 2200 on sale at Radio Shack for $49.99. I had seen this phone many times before for a much higher price, about three times that. I was interested in the built-in speaker phone option, and the large display. Prior to purchasing this phone, I had a Nokia 6185, which was ok, but had problems getting service in many ridiculous locations. The TP2200 not only gets better service in many areas where I had little or no service before, it is a bit smaller, and much lighter. The games on the phone are not worth playing, but I'm not one to spend much time playing them anyway, so that is not important to me. The speaker phone option is fun sometimes, but after the first few days of owning this phone, I rarely use it. The phone has many interesting/fun rings and you can even record your own rings, memos, and many voice commands. The phonebook is a bit more complicated than on other phones. You can set up folders with different numbers with specific rings for each folder. You can record voice dial, punch in up to 100 speed dials, and even have multiple numbers and notes under one listing. If you can find this phone on sale, it is definitely worth the money to pick it up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 47.03 91517 2002/2/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 just about everything battery size styling leather case dumb voice command somewhat interprative no talkie on base The Bottom LineYou "Schion, what's a good cell phone?" Me "I'm so about the Sony TP 2200, it's not even funny." Full Review I purchased this phone form Best Buy, under the Sony's special 'Here's a hundred dollars, for no good reason" offer. So, I paid $150, got a $100 back, and a $50 gift certificate from Best Buy, yay! This is an excellent phone, I've heard of reception problems, but never experienced them myself. The phone features voice command, web messaging, a cheese grater, good battery life, and some sort of tactical nuke launching ability (I kinda skipped that part of the manual). The voice command is very nice, though I did run into problem. I have an ex-girlfriend and a person that I was a little more than friends with, lets call them Jessica and Erica. My conversation with the TP 2200 went something like this. Me: *activate voice command* TP 2200: Say voice command. Me: Call Erica. TP 2200: Calling Jessica. Me: AH! No! TP 2200: Beginning transmission of embarassing personal information. Me: NO! End transmission, end transmission! TP 2200: Transfer complete, enjoy. Me: Curse you! Ok, I embelished a little, but it was disturbing, and it couldv'e been hella worse. Other than that, it's nice to say, "Call home" and have it call home. Plus, I can put insults in for my friends names if they displease me, "Call F**Face", and it calls! All the functions of the phone are easy to use and are completed quickly. The only thing I couldn't figure out, is how to save an incoming phone number, and load it into a phone book entry. However, I've not completely read the manual. The manual is fairly helpfull, but for the most part, the interface is so intuitive, you don't need it. I like it's styling, it's comfortable to talk on for long periods (three hours I've done)easy to program, carries well, and has that cheese grater. You can't talk with it on the charge base, and the leather carrying case kinda makes it look dumb, but other than that excellent. Addendum: Durability is apparently not a factor when making cell phones. I had this thing about six months and then the battery/cell phone connection got damaged somehow. I then had a new feature called, "Stupid phone shut off again.". It would power-off anytime pressure was applied to the battery, and since the battery is on the back of the phone opposite the numbers... I'm sure you can guess the 'fun' that involved. Additionally, the gents at Best Buy informed me that it, "wasn't an uncommon occurence" and, "we've been having a lot of those in lately, with the same problem". These comments lead me to believe that it's more a systematic problem then anything else. Cheers. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 sorta 91516 2001/1/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 strong vibrating battery longest new smaller size very loud ringer color none The Bottom LineProbably the best phone out there for sprint customers... Full Review This has got to be the best phone I have ever used. It is a total difference in comparing it to the old touch-point. This new phone has features upon features. Speaker phone is great and you can leave messages with the built in recorder. The ringer is nice and loud and has the option of recording your own personal ringers. Ii comes in a new teal color and the size is a lot smaller than the original touch-point. and it does not have that annoying flip. Sprint really came out with a nice phone. I have had the phone for about two months now. So far no problems, I get clear reception and the dual band feature is hardly needed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 249 91515 2001/7/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large lcd display crystal clear reception all over the united states only 1 color teal expensive speakerphone feature needs work voice recognition needs work The Bottom LinePersonally, even though their are some features that haven't been yet perfected, the phone is promising. Overall what counts for me is reception, and it has plenty of that. Full Review I have tried several different phones and nothing comes close to the consistent clear reception I get with the Touchpoint 2200. I use Sprint PCS as my service provider and they are really one of the best services I have ever used. The phone does have some negatives, for instance, the speakerphone feature is voice activated. This feature is suppose to discern when the other person on the other side is fully done with his/her sentence. Instead, all the other noises interfere with this process and you cannot get a word in edgewise because it picks up every little sound and does not allow you to continue the conversation. Another problem is the voice recognition dial. The voice recognition feature is useful but it has its quirks. It doesn't always recognize the name you are trying to convey for it to dial, even in a quiet ideal setting. I recently traveled on a small vacation to Florida, New Orleans and Dallas, Texas. I had absolutely no problems with reception in any of those locations. Clear uninterrupted reception seems to be this phones middle name. Of course, their are occasions where you get cut off, depending on location. But I can say, from personal experience, that they are rare occasions. One very useful feature is the group save phone number feature. You can save several different phone numbers that can be associated with a single person's name. For instance, the person has a work number, cell number and a home number or pager. You can add all these numbers under one particular person's name. Normally you would have to add all the person's numbers separately from each other. One more thing I would like to add, try not to get the original leather case from Sprint for this phone. A generic one offers more protection. The actual leather case that you can buy from Sprint has no plastic shielding that protects the LCD. Here are some features that the Touchpoint 2200 offers: Dual Band, Digital and Analog Calendar/PIM Caller ID: Yes Multiple Ring Options: Yes Product Weight (oz): 4.50 oz Standby Battery Life (in hours): 200 Talking Battery Life (in minutes): 225 Vibrating Ring: Yes Web: Enabled Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91514 2000/4/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 read above older phone so therefore it does not have a color display screen The Bottom LineI even dropped this phone 20 ft down onto concrete and not a scratch was found!!!!!!!! I love this phone more than any boyfriend I ever had! Full Review This phone was way ahead of its time when I first received it almost 5 yrs ago!!! It's now considered a bit antiquated in terms of style and design, but I would still be using this phone if it were not for the service provider... 50% of my calls were dropped due to the area I lived in so I had to switch service providers. And now I'm left to find a phone that surpasses the 2200 touchpt features, and so far after 2 weeks of research...I've been unsuccessful in finding a phone with the one feature that the 2200 touchpt has THAT NO PHONE SEEMS TO HAVE. This feature allows one to record a voice memo (i.e. doctor's appt) and then plug that voice recorded memo into the phone calander on a specific date and time so when the appt arrives, the phone rings an alarm 15 mins before the appt. You can record memos of numbers, addresses, to-do lists, or if you're kids are misbehaving and you don't want to forget to pick up your sister at the airport at 6pm...grab the phone quickly and record "pick up sis at airport" and plug into calendar all in a matter of 15 secs...and then tend to your misbehaving kids w/o worrying about forgetting to pick up your sis at the airport, because your trusty phone will remind you of your tasks!HOW GREAT IS THAT! This phone was part of my hip for so long that now I'm having withdrawls and it's only been 1 week since I've switched service providers. Furthermore, since I've had this phone for 5 yrs, I've not had to use a post-it or any notes I was introduced to this phone. What's so surprising and disappointing is that I have not found ANY PHONE that has this particular feature...I thought technology was suppose to improve...so i was actually expecting to find this feature on every phone in addition to other great useful features that I didn't have with the 2200...but so far my research has come up short. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE IF ANYONE KNOWS OF THIS FEATURE TO EXIST IN ANY PHONE, PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT: WEBARINA@YAHOO.COM Thanks!!!!!!!! Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91513 2000/1/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 full featured including speaker phone poor reception compared to similar phones Full Review In September 2000 I finally gave in a purchased my first cell phone. I picked this phone because I like the features such as speaker phone, voice dialing, and the memo recorder. I considered a Sanyo with similar features and a catchy skin, but this phone felt more substantial and solid in my hands. In the 3 months I have owned this phone I have not been disappointed. All the good points mentioned in previous reviews are correct. I'm gonna cut to the chase and give my one gripe about the phone: it doesn't get as good a signal as other comparable phones. I occasionally lose signals while indoors, and in some areas of the city, outdoor signals aren't good either. I'm guessing that the fixed, snub of an antenna has something to do with this. All and all, this is a great phone and a great new toy for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 91512 2000/6/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small large screen lightwieght many features expensive The Bottom LineIf you have $180 and are looking for non flip phone and want to be on the "cutting edge" of technoligy than the TP2200 is the phone for you. Full Review Ive had touchpoint 2200 for the past 6 months and I have yet to have any problems with the phone(I cannot say the same with sprint's billing but that is another story...) The TP2200 is just the right size in my opinion I dont like flip phones to much and I do not like some of the smaller flimsy phones. But the TP2200 is a nice balance between size and bulk. The TP2200 screen is very large for a cell phone. This phone has just about any feature that you could want such as over 20 different ringers including vibrate(but vibrate supposibly wears down the battery faster) and if you think the phone does not already include enough annoying ringers you create custom ringers at Denso's website which is the company that manufactures the phone for sprint and you can also download some already made ringers there too for the pleasure of those around you,a speaker phone that is built into the phone that is actually pretty good, it has also has a planner, 3 different games(they are not that fun though even for phone games), it voice recoginition built in to it which is actually a pretty cool feature and it impresses people quit easily, it comes with a phone book that contains enough space that it would be impossible to fill unless you were to put everyone on the white pages on it(not that ive tried that or anything...it makes me feel popular),it has recorder in it so you can take notes or record any commantary that you might have about your busy life, speed dial,dual band, voice mail and countless other features built into it(some are actually usefull i think). The meat of this phone if will is that this phone is basicly based around the "Wireless Web" which is something that is just gaining momentum over here in the states but are cell phone using counterparts in Japan love it and there phones are several generations ahead of ours but you can tell your friends that you are a trend setter. The large screen is great for looking at the script pages on your phone(I do not recomend this activity while you are driving or doing any other activity that requires the use of your eyes/and or fingers)although the wireless web is in its infancy here and you can practicly count the amountof wireless web sites that are avialible but the number is increasing and that feature is one that I use more often than I call people(that doesnt mean that I have no one to call I really do)Although the wireless web in no way replaces your home computer for internet use and its blazing 14.4 modem is adiquite for the primative text web sites that are currently avialible it is sometimes convient to use the wireless web to check stocks, Aol instante messenger,sports scores,weather,email,move times,directions, and any other vital piece of information that you cannont live without. The TP2200 comes standard with a Lithium Ion Battery that gives you theoreticly 3.75 hours of continous talk time or up to 200 hours of continous standby time in digital and 25 hours of contious standby and 1 hour of continous talk in analog mode, I have never even come close to running out of juice so I cannot tell you how it actually performs in the real world(nor would I be able to give you an acurret represtaion of that)but there are many factors that determine the amount of battery life that you have like useing the vibration ringer and supposibly useing the wireless web uses more energy than normal calls but, agien I have had no issues with running out of life but another thing to note is that I rarly leave my phone on so obvisly I am not the person to ask about anything that remotly concerns battery life. I do not really have anything negative to say about the TP2200 other than I found it's $180 price tag a little pricy, when most phones are practicly given away by service providers granted that this phones is at a higher tier than most phones that service providers provide for nearly free or sometimes for free I still think $180 is a lot of money for something that is exposed to so much abuse. Another grievence I have with the phone and that has the potential to be health risk is that this phone rates very high on the amount radiation that is allowed to be ommited by cell phones. Although there is much debate over the severity of the health risks that cell phones posses it is still a factor that deserves consideration when looking at all cell phones. But with the exception of the price issue and the radation issue. I really like the TP2200 and would recomend it to anyone looking for a non flip phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 91511 2000/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 large screen top quality speakerphone the screen scratches easily smaller phones available Full Review I bought this phone after the local laws changed and required that you use some form of a hands-free device. I tried the thing in the ear and hated it. Driving around with something in your ear wasn't for me. I saw the 2200 and fell in love with the speakerphone feature. So far, the reception has been great, the features are great and many (go to the Sprint PCS home page to see them all) and the speakerphone is good and easy to use. The only issue with the speaker phone is that you have to wait for the other party to stop speaking before you start talking. The phone lets you know when they are speaking by glowing red. Green when you can speak. Another great feature is the use of the Web. This phone has a big screen, one of the biggest, and while you can't see tons of info, there is more than most phones. I had a Nokia 6160 and this phone feels sturdier and definitely smaller and lighter. Not by alot but just enough to allow you to carry it in your pocket without weighing you down. Then theres the option of recording your own rings. Now everytime my phone rings it says "I love you Daddy". Also, the volume is good. For those of you that attend regular meetings, there is a vibrate mode which I have used a few times. One thing that I really enjoy on the phone are the voice commands. For example, depending on where you are i.e. a meeting you simply push a button on the phone and say meeting and the phone will shift to vibrate mode. This certainly beats having to scroll through a menu. While I usually don't play games on my phone, it's kind of a nice thing to have. Especially when you are traveling and bored. I like the football but there are others as well. The color of the phone is OK, not great and the phone doesn't stand out in a crowd. If that's what you are looking for then this phone is not for you. The other thing that I have noticed is that the sound quality, while it is fine, is not up to the same level as my Motorola. I would like the sound quality to be better. Don't get the idea it's muffled or distorted, it just isn't equal to a land line. I have asked the folks I've talked to if the quality on their end listening is good and they have all said it sounds like I'm calling from a regular phone. The bootom line is if you want a quality phone that works well and has tons of features then this is the way to go. I can go on and on but the bottom line is it's a great phone and if Sprint service is good where you are going to use the phone, buy it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179 91510 2000/12/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 features quality made pricey Full Review After selling Sprint PCS phones, and other companies cell phones for 7 months, I pretty much know what's good and what's bad. This is good. Very good. I went with Sprint because of the crystal clear calling you get from them, everyone who talks on this phone says "Wow, it's so clear." That's because Sprint has the only nationwide digital network built from the ground up, and it shows. Anyway on to the phone. This has so many features, it's hard to count. Built in speakerphone, nice bright lighted display, voice-activated dialing, 3 programmable ringer options, plus the 30 or so other ringer choices, the ability to record up to 4 minute memos or whatever, plus the to-do list and calculator feature, this baby is almost like a personal organizer. Not to mention the Wireless Web, that is actually quite handy, when you want to see the latest movie, or stock prices, both which I use about once a day. Quality. This phone is rugged, built to last. It's small, but your not gonna lose it. I see no other phone that compares to this one, if your going with Sprint. It's the latest and greatest by far. Voices come in clear and loud, no static whatsoever. I like how the antenna is built in, and you can't pull it out, nice feature. Conclusion. Pick yourself up a brochure, and once you read about it, it's clearly the one to get. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 91509 2001/10/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 huge display t9 text recognition packed with features super battery life rugged only works with sprintpcs a bit pricey but worth it The Bottom LineThis phone absolutely raises the standard for what a phone should do...!! Go pick one up today. Full Review *** UPDATE - Oct 20, 2001 *** Last I checked, you can now get this phone for around $129.00. You have no excuse now...definitely well worth it...!! *** END UPDATE *** For anyone who must have the latest and greatest features in everything they own, this is the phone for you. This phone is not free, yet it is reasonably priced and well worth the few extra dollars. Some of the many features include: - A very large, clear digital screen with backlight - Call logs for Incoming, Outgoing, and Missed calls - Phone Book to store telephone numbers, street addresses and two e-mail addresses (very handy when you need to find Mom's address for that Mother's Day card) - Easy to use mousepad that makes the phone and menu navigation very easy to use - Various ring tones and sounds (including vibration and customized sounds) - Speed dialing AND 4-digit dialing feature - Calculator (I USE THIS ALL THE TIME) - Games feature (includes blackjack and football) - Clear, crisp reception - Compact, pocket-size design, very rugged and NOT A FLIP PHONE - Built-in speakerphone that is very clear and allows for hands free operation - Headset compatible - Built in Voice Memo Recorder (AWESOME...!!) - Voice command support - Wireless Web (a must in today's world) - Battery life is out of this world - T9 text entry - Dual Band I use this phone all day long and have loved it. Calls are crystal clear and this thing holds a signal and charge far longer than advertised. With the wireless web, I can retrieve airline gate information on connecting flights before I get off the plane. I can even send and receive email (I use Yahoo, but many others are supported). For the ultimate in connectivity, reliability, and features, this is the cream-de-la-cream. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179.00 91508 2000/8/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 weight feel great size great phone book features great speakerphone long battery life sprint only The Bottom LineI love this phone. It's the best I've ever had and I have no plans to replace it with any of this new crap that's coming out. Full Review This phone is so old now that it's hardly worth reviewing. You can get it on eBay for practically nothing and accessories are getting harder to find. Forget about buying accessories in the store for it. I bought this phone in probably late 1999 or early 2000, meaning that I have now had it more than 5 years. This is a long time to own a cell phone. A year or so ago, I was contemplating color displays and new wireless web functionality and I thought it was probably time to buy a new phone. Soon, though, a couple of people at my company got a very snazzy new phone that uses Microsoft Windows Mobile and has all the new features... camera, video, e-mail, full graphical web browsing, etc... we decided to get one for me too, so that solved my cell phone problem. I figured I could drop my Sprint service and just use a work phone. So I got the phone in the later stages of Christmas shopping season, when I was running all over town buying gifts and calling my wife from parking lots and stores a great deal. I couldn't stand that phone almost immediately. I found that I was really missing my phone, and over the next several months, I came to really appreciate the Touchpoint 2200 for what it is. It's a great phone. The new phone that I got from work tries to be everything. It can play music, play videos, record videos, take photos, surf the web, everything. Oh yeah, and it also tries to be a phone. So it's not a very good phone, because it has too much other stuff to think about. My Touchpoint 2200, on the other hand, is none of these things (although it does have simple, text-based wireless web capability, which is cool when you need it, but I hardly ever use it). This phone is simply a really great phone. It sounds great, works great, the phone book is great (multiple numbers for each person, all labeled with H, W, M, F or nothing to indicate which number is which). It has a very good volume control and speakerphone. The rings are very good and unique -- I never hear my rings from other phones. In fact, I've never seen anybody else on the street with my phone. It's pretty durable, because I've dropped it numerous times over the years and it's still ticking. The battery on it is unbelievable, even after all these years it's good. But when the battery was new (and I just got a new one, too, so I have 2 now), it lasts for a really long time and charges very quickly. I love this phone, I love it, I love it, I love it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 91507 2000/11/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 tons of great features not as powerful as other sprintpcs phones Full Review This is one of the newest and most fully featured products in the SprintPCS lineup. The cool, and sometimes very useful goodies that this phone comes equipped with make this a fun phone to own. My now ex-manager, who is definitely a gadget lover, bought this phone about two months ago (just for the personalized ringer option I think). Now, every time the district manager calls him for a gripe session, the phone proudly announces a ten second excerpt from the song "take this job and shove it!" This gives him, and all of us a welcomed but brief moment of hilarious distraction from our daily grind. Sadly enough the features of this phone, granted they are many (though I won't bore you with a complete run down of what is already said in the product description) don't out weigh the simple fact that it doesn't get the greatest reception. Standing side by side with him my phone will get 1-2 bars of signal where his flashes the insanely annoying Now Roaming indicator. If you happen to be wondering why roaming lights are so bad, imagine your normal per minute rate on steroids and pumped up to about $.69/minute. You may or may not agree with me about my rating of this phone, but I base many of my opinions on the utility of the product. A phone that fails to accomplish its most basic function where similar phones succeed is, in my book, not a good buy. Just in case you are curious, my phone is a dual band phone (as is this one) made by Motorola (the StarTAC 7867). If you are interested, I have a review on it that you should be able to reach either by the following address, or by checking in my list of epinions. http://maytwa.epinions.com/elec-review-11C3-2D868A49-399F7C0E-prod5 Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): about $250 91506 2003/6/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear reception so easy to use my technology impaired dad can operate it small size no downloadable ringers The Bottom LineYou wont regret buying this phone! Full Review My TP2200 was my very first cell phone. I am still using this phone. I keep searching for a new phone...simply for a change...but I havent found one that compares with mine. Its very easy to use...and with so many different features. Did you know you can assign different ringers to different people? You can create folders in your phone book. Work, Family, Friends, etc. Then assign a specific ringer to each folder. So you always have an idea who is calling before you even look at the caller ID. Or you can even go more specific then that....give people their very own ringer....you will know who is calling without even having to look! You can also set different ringers for new voicemail alerts and browser messages...roaming calls can even have a distinctive ringer. For each phone book entry...you can put in many different numbers. You can give each number a label...Work, home, mobile, pager and fax. You can also set call alarms for each entry....let the phone tell you to call Mom on sunday at 7pm. You can sort the entries in your phone book to sort with last names first, or vice versa. There are 3 buttons on the side which are very handy. If your phone rings while in class, or in some other public place, and you want to silence the ringer easily...no buttons and menus to fumble with. You just press one of the side buttons and the ringer is silenced. Those buttons also let you change your ringer volume easily...you press the top one to turn it up....press the bottom one to tune it down. The battery life is awesome. I've had friends comment on how they could never talk for hours on their phone...the batteries would never last that long. I spend hours on my phone....worrying about a dead battery is never an issue. The speaker phone is handy when checking voice mail. I have never tried to have a conversation with it though. Somebody else said you could not talk while charging...because the cell phone sits upright in a base. Well, there is a way around this sort of...but a headset...you wont be able to move far from the phone...but if you are just sitting there....it works well. The phone feels sturdy. I've seen so many cell phones that just look and feel so fragile. That is not the case with this one. I've dropped it many times...and its as good as new. Its comfortable to hold. I absolutely love this phone. Update: I recently bought a new phone. The Samsung N400. Read my review on the new phone: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 91505 2000/2/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 overall good design still can not turn off caller id The Bottom LineBest phone for the price. Full Review I just bought 2 of these phones. Sprint and Qualcomm just about got the cellular phone design correct. I have had several different phones over the past few years and this is the best I have used so far. Most of the features are listed on the box or literature. I have only listed disadvantages since those features are not as easy to find. The weight is not noticeable but I would prefer if it was a little thinner. The size is acceptable considering the large screen size and smaller would have problems with fitting everything on the front. The touchpoint is already smaller than the earlier versions and any smaller would make it to difficult to use. Sprint added an extra button which has no use that I can determine. Now there is both and END and CANCEL button where one button would do the equivalent with no lack of capability. The menu is okay (better than most I have seen) but still a little difficult to find options the first time that you want them. The speaker-phone feature was not a selling point for me and I am glad since it seems to work marginally. Listening is fine, but talking is difficult. It does not have the flip feature, but I did not really care for the option in previous versions. The main disadvantage from my point of view is that it is not possible to turn off caller ID without entering a *67 on every phone number. That is very poor designing. Overall it is a good design with an acceptable compromise between weight, features, and cost. Greg G. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160 91504 2000/8/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 large screen calendar pim multi entry phonebook many advanced features voice dialing less than perfect reception larger size weight than many phones The Bottom LineIn general, the Touchpoint 2200 is an above average phone with many features, and worth the recently lowered price of $149 (especially with frequently offered rebates). Full Review Sprint Touchpoint 2200 (made by Denso Wireless) The Sprint PCS 2200 is a generally well-designed and full-featured phone. The styling is attractive and contemporary; it's a rounded, curvy shape, a dark green color, with rubber side accents. It has a much larger screen than most phones, with an easy to use menu system, and a "mouse-like" thumb control for navigating the menu system. The phonebook has multiple entries for each name, that can be tagged as Work, Home, Mobile, etc. The phone has a very usable calendar, that can store scheduled appointments with reminder alarms, and can show schedule views by month, week, or day. Of note is the fact that your schedule alarms will sound even when the phone is turned off; this is a feature that seems obvious (how useful is a reminder, if you don't hear it because the phone is turned off), but no other phone I'm aware of has implemented this, other than the $400-$500 "smart phones". The keypad is comfortable, and the phone uses T9 text input, which allows you to type more intelligently without multiple keystrokes. The phone also offers voice services, including voice dialing which works very well, voice memos, and the ability to use a voice recording as a ringer. The 2200 has a jack for a headset, and it has a serviceable built-in speakerphone, useful primarily for listening to voicemail or music on hold. Also, sync-ing software and a cable are available through FoneSync and Sprint, that allows copying of phone number and calendar data between the phone and a PC, so that you can move data from a PC program like MS Outlook into the phone, and view the phone data on a PC. The couple of down sides to this phone are: The weight and size of the phone are a bit larger than many of the modern small and light modern phones, although not excessively so, and not considering the large screen and speakerphone. However, the phone is not the kind that can inconspicuously fit into your pants pocket. Also, the phone reception is good, but not as good as some other phones, like Samsungs; in areas other than very large metro areas with excellent coverage (NYC/LA/SFO), you will notice frequent minor drop outs, and rarely see full signal strength. In general, the Touchpoint 2200 is an above average phone with many features, and worth the recently lowered price of $149 (especially with frequently offered rebates). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 135 91503 2000/2/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life small lots of features awkward to hold voice activation not always reliable The Bottom LineGet it if you'll use all the features. Otherwise, opt for a cheaper phone. Full Review This is a great phone. It has features that I didn't think I'd use but I do now. Voice activated dialing, the speakerphone, programmable rings, the tools (i.e. calculator), and even the games were just extras at first. Now I can't imagine going without any of these! The games are great for waiting rooms or while my car warms up. The calculator is great for banking, figuring out tip, etc. The speakerphone isn't great for conversing but when you are on hold (or listening to your mom go on and on), it is very useful. The rings let you know who's calling without even looking at the caller ID. The voice ring (where you can record the ring) is good for at least laughs. All of my friends are very impressed with all these features packed into such a tiny phone. Speaking of tiny... I only have two problems with this phone. First is not really the size as it is the shape. It can be very awkward to hold comfortably. And forget about resting it on your shoulder. It'll slip right off! Luckily, I have small hands, but I can't imagine a person with bigger hands using this phone with any comfort. Secondly, (and this is a small 'con') this phone takes a little too long to power up. After holding the power button down for 3 seconds, it takes approximately another 30 seconds to a minute for the phone to be ready to use, depending on the service area. It doesn't sound like a long time, but in an emergency situation, this could be a big problem! Overall, I love the phone. It is not for those with big hands or for those who are buying it only for emergencies. I use it in place of a landline and recommend it to most people. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91502 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large screen easy to navigate with one finger or should i say your thumb no swivel belt clip made for it have to get generic stick on The Bottom LineFull of features, large screen, cool voice command features. Sprint/Denson needs to make a belt clip for it. Full Review I've had a Samsung 3500(don't buy), A Motorola Startac(got rid of), and now this one in 1 year. So far I really like this phone. You don't see everybody with this bad boy so you feel unique. It's easy to use and packed full of features. You can practically navigate around the whole phone with your thumb! Sound quality is good for a phone with a flat earpiece(I prefer a more comfortable earpiece). Battery life is the best I've seen. This thing can be on 24X7 for 3 to 5 days! I have never had a problem having the battery die on me because I talked too long. Hands down the best phone I've had so far. The wireless web is now once again easy with the navigation button(unlike the motorola startac). The voice command menus are great and I love the dial by name. You can also set the phone in voice mode where is someone calls you your phone will say: (girls voice) CALL FROM (your recorded voice) BILLY BOB. Neat to know who is calling if you can't look at the display. The speaker phone is not that good. You have to look at the light and when it's green then you can talk….sort of takes the point out of a speakerphone. It's good for checking your messages in the car without having to put your earpiece on. The only thing I dislike about this phone is the company that makes it is not making a swivel belt clip...I had to get the stick on one. If this one was to break I would get another one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 91501 2000/7/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 lots of features for the price easy menu navigation advanced address book reception terrible The Bottom LineMake sure you thoroughly try the Touchpoint within the period of time that you can return the phone for a replacement (14 days at Sprint stores I think). Full Review I bought this phone based on the great advanced features it included for a reasonable price compared to other phones with similar features. Phone is also pretty highly rated by other Epinion members. On first use at home it was immediately obvious that it's reception was not nearly as good as that of my wife's Samsung SCH3500 but I gave it the benefit of the doubt since we live in an area that doesn't always get good reception. However, after trying the phone for several weeks in various locations it was obvious that reception was not up to par. It would fade out easily and made holding a conversation nearly impossible in most circumstances. So, I returned to the Sprint store where they ran a diagnostic check that showed the phone acceptable. They decided while I was there they would update software in the phone. In the process of updating the software they fried the phone and offered to give me a replacement. Touchpoint 2200. Since I really wanted this phone I figured maybe a replacement would work better. Replacement was no better than original so I trudged back to Sprint store and exchanged the Touchpoint 2200 for a Samsung SCH3500 which I know from my wife's experience is a phone that gets good reception in our Sprint area. I realize that the 3500 doesn't have an outstanding record for some Epinion members but I couldn't justify the extra price of the Samsung SCH8500 for the relatively few feature improvements it has over the SCH3500. Also, I checked with several other users of the SCH3500 and they have had good experiences with that model. I really wanted to make the Touchpoint 2200 work for me since it has an excellent address book, speakerphone, battery life etc. It just failed in its basic function of a phone. I couldn't make dependable phone calls on it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 91500 2001/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 small sizemany features web feature not usable at this pointkeypad not protected calls from pocket The Bottom LineGood digital phone, but choose something cheaper that doesn't include the web access. Full Review Like everyone in Northern California, I was caught up in the wireless web frenzy of late 2000. And, after a trip to Tokyo seeing hundreds of teenagers working the little buttons on their phones to send instant messages to their friends, I figured I could get a web-enabled phone that would replace my Palm Pilot and Blackberry pager. Unless you have the patience of Job, you will not use this phone to surf the Web more than once per week. And here's why: 1. Typing on a numeric keyboard is mind-numbingly slow even if you want to type "thanks" or "hi" or "I Love You." Try it on your phone at home a few times just to see how much you could endure. Add in the complexity of spaces and punctuation, and this is not a messaging device. 2. Whether it's phone.com (the service that provides the web access to Sprint I think), the Sprint line, or interface with the featured web sites, access is slow and sometimes you can wait 2 minutes before moving on to the next screen. You can only receive about 5 sentences at once into your phone, so a message of any length has to be downloaded numerous times for you to read it. You clearly have to be sitting with absolutely nothing else to do before you would read your email this way, because... 3. You are paying for web usage by the minute after the free minutes you probably got with your phone. The "free" web minutes are only good for the first 6 months so after that, it's anyone's guess as to how wildly expensive this pastime would become. So, I recommend against this or any other web phone for the moment unless you absolutely have to stay connected to the web and have space in pocket or purse for only one device. The Blackberry does a far better job of always on messaging. And for shopping on Amazon, forget it! That said, it's a cute little phone and it's easy to capture phone numbers into it. It's probably just better to wait for better technology to come along in this case. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 249 91499 2000/7/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 easy to use interface features speakerphone clarity reception did i mention reception The Bottom LineYou'll be driving yourself crazy trying to figure out under what conditions you'll get good reception. Full Review I currently have two plans (yes, two plans) one for Verizon (which I use a TM510) and Sprint PCS. I owned a Touchpoint 2200 for a few days before taking it back in exchange for a Samsung 8500. Why I Picked This Phone Initially I have been a person who has a preference for the crafty "flip" phones but I saw the Touchpoint 2200 and its loads of features and decided to give it a try. Ease-wise, the phone is great! It's very similiar to the Nokia in it's user-friendly interface and non-extending antenna. The phone comes with scheduler, address book, speakerphone, calculator, and games. All these features alone would warrant serious buying consideration. In terms of clarity, the phone is exceptional. The times that I was able to use it, it was comparable to landlines. Also the battery life is exceptional, it could be on standby for great lengths of time (days) before needing to be recharged. However, let's get to the brunt of this opinion ... the cons. Why I Took This Phone Back I am a person who looks for clarity and reception as the main deciding factor in phones. Though the calls came in clear, I was lucky if the calls came in at all. I realized that I wasn't getting the same number of "signal bars" on the Touchpoint as I have in places past with other phones. I live in DC and when I am outside, it's practically a guarantee that I will get full signal bars on every call (at least, that has been my experience with every one of my previous phones). With the Touchpoint, I consistently got one signal bar and there were times where I would be walking up the street and have some reception in one block and absolutely no signal the next. Being a person who likes to feel that I can use my phone whenever and wherever, I don't feel confident that I can rely on this phone to work when I need it to. Since I could barely get reception outside, inside was an even greater endeavor. Standing by windows, trying to find some "magic" reception spot in a building, etc. all proved futile. The speakerphone is a neat feature. However, while I could hear the other party chatting away, when it was my turn to talk (it's not a full-duplex speakerphone) I had to scream what I was saying and they still couldn't hear me. If I have to use that much effort to talk, why bother using the speakerphone at all? If anything, it's good enough to use in listening to voicemail, something that doesn't require me speaking into the phone. Overall, if you are looking for a basic phone that's easy to use like the Nokia 5100 series, go for it! If you want a phone you can rely on, look elsewhere. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99 91498 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 good voice quality comfortable size poor voice dialingdoesn t sync poor microbrowserpoor support The Bottom LineGreat basic $100 phone for $200. PIM is useless. Phone can't sync. Cumbersome microbrowser The vendor and manufacturer support is non-existant. Full Review I bought my Touchpoint 2200 back in October after talking extensively with a Sprint rep about the features. I also bought the Dual Sync station for the phone. Complaint 1: When it all arrived, I found that there was no software for the sync station. After 4 weeks, 27 calls to Sprint, 18 calls to third-party vendors that Sprint told me to call and countless hours of frustration, I found out that the software doesn't exist. Even to this day (mid-March) the software for syncing the phone doesn't exist. Sprint has never responded to my letters and the reps *never* return my calls. This is more of a complaint against Sprint, but since they're the only PCS carrier around, this is relevant to any Touchpoint 2200 users. Denso (the manufacturer of the phone) also doesn't respond to any email or phone calls. There is no way that I'm going to enter 200 contacts into the PIM through the keypad. I'm using FusionOne through the microbrowser instead. The built-in PIM is useless. Complaint 2 If you program voice dialing from the phone itself, it won't work with a headset or through the speakerphone. if you program it through the headset, it won't work through the phone itself or the speakerphone, etc. The only way that I've been able to get it to work is to put my finger over the microphone of the handset when recording the voice dialing. That way the signal is distorted enough to match on all devices. Unfortunately, this means that I can only have half a dozen voice dialing entries before they start to overlap. (ie: Home and Mom, Bob Smith and Stock Tips, etc.) Complaint 3 No documentation for SMS features, phone interfaces, etc. Complaint 4 The microbrowser is horrible (though this is common to a lot of phones). You have to wade through reams of menus or spend 5 minutes entering URLs to get to any site. While you can setup bookmarks, you can't store userids or passwords. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 229 91497 2000/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 call quality is a1 not terribly expensive great battery life speakerphone takes getting used to but still alright Full Review I have finally decided to go out and get a new phone. After the faithful service of my Samsung 2000, I've decided to upgrade to the Touchpoint 2200. This is a great phone! The battery life is unreal, I got the phone almost a week ago, and I have yet to charge it! I always thought that on my other cell phones that the call quality was good. This phone takes it too a whole new level. Perfectly clear all the time. This phone doesn't fade in and out like most do. It hasn't lost service since I've had it once, that is unreal when you consider how much of a sketchy service area Sprint PCS has around me. My old phones used to search for service all of the time. Features: This phone is also a full featured speaker phone. It doesn't have the best clarity in the world, but still, its a very useful feature and can really come in handy if you're in your car and don't want to worry about getting into an accident. Just lay it on the seat next to you. Also, it has a vibrating function which allows the phone to either ring or vibrate or both! This is a great feature, as it allows you to utilize both which most phones do not let you do. I'm not exactly a cell phone person, I use them for making and receiving calls, and am certaintly not a fanatic about them, but I reccomend anyone looking for a new phone to buy this one, HANDS DOWN! Compared to the other ones at around the same price, this is the better phone all around. BUY IT! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 91496 2000/10/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life easy navigation large display speakerphone size The Bottom LineThe best phone that I could find for use with Sprint PCS. Full Review I previously owned a Samsung 8500, but that got lost. I think it fell out of my pocket in a cab, and I couldn't find it despite trying to call the phone and call the cab company. So I was on the market for a new phone. I had to stick with Sprint PCS because I was still within the one year service contract that I had signed with them. I ended up buying the Denso Touchpoint 2200 and have owned it for over 7 months now. Some of the things I looked for in a phone: - Easy to store phone numbers. This means storing multiple phone numbers under the same name and marking them as "mobile", "home", "work", etc. - Easy to navigate menus and go to things like call logs, the keyguard, etc. - Reasonable battery life so that I don't have to carry a charger with me when going away for a weekend. - Clarity of reception. This depends not only on the phone but also on the service. Sprint PCS is acceptable most of the time, but sometimes the signal strength is really bad. For example, the phone is unusable at home because I have zero signal strength. But if there is a signal, the phone works fine. - Reasonably portable so that it fits in a pocket if I need to carry it on my person. I could have gone with the Samsung 8500 once again (I was fairly happy with that), but decided to get the Denso Touchpoint 2200 because it had a speakerphone. The speakerphone is of reasonable quality, it is half-duplex which means that you can either be talking or listening but not both simultaneously. It is hard to use the speaker phone while driving on the freeway because of the road noise. (Maybe I need a better car!). The battery life was also reported to be better and I have found that to be true. The downside is its size. Because it doesn't fold like the Samsung 8500, it is quite a bit bigger but only slightly heavier. The menus on this phone are intuitive and very easy to navigate because it has a mouse-like button. It has a "keyguard" feature which disables the keypad for times when the phone is in your pocket and you'd rather not be pressing buttons and making accidental calls which can sometimes get embarrassing! The phone also sets the time to the local time automatically. The Samsung 8500 had that feature as well. When I bought it, Denso also gave me a hands-free car kit and car lighter adapter for charging the phone. My phone sits in the car pretty much all of the time. Overall it is a great phone. I'd have given it 5 stars if it were smaller and lighter. Portability is not one of the greatest virtues of this phone, but since I tend to leave it in the car most of the time, this is not a big deal for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 91495 2000/11/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 a phone you can trust for its functionalityconstruction understated Full Review If you're looking for an experienced Sprint PCS phone adviser and want someone to share their recent experience with their equipment and service, read this review. __________________________________________________________________________ I'm new to the Sprint PCS service. I am not new to cellular phone use. I know what I like and I know how things should function. I've dealt with three Sprint PCS phone so far: Samsung-8500, the Motorola V Phone, and the Touchpoint 2200. Which one have I committed to? Here's my story. Samsung Episode: I first bought the Samsung 8500. I liked the silver color and wanted to try out a phone with the clam shell design. If you read my review on the Samsung, I really liked the way it functioned: 1) the menu system was highly intuitive; 2) the phone felt solid in my hands; and 3) it had the features I wanted in a phone. Everything was great until I realized that whenever I was inside a building, be it at school or at the supermarket, I would get weak connections. Simply put, the phone cut out a lot. Now as a consumer and as a guy who is afraid of commitment, if I'm going to sign up for a year and pay my dues monthly, I want a phone that's going to work inside buildings. I realize that reception is not guaranteed indoors, but they're not guaranteed outdoors either! The V Phone Episode: I switched over to the Motorola V phone. The reception was definitely better. The Sprint technicians really are out of touch with the science of signal strength. They told me that all signals pick up equally for all models of phones in their lineup; however, from my experience, not all phones are created equal. The day I got the V phone, I happened to have a dinner date at Wild Ginger with my girlfriend. Holding that little phone was great; hardly felt like I was carrying anything. The signal bars were solid and my calls never faded. However, after a couple of days of use, I could not come to grips for paying $400 for a piece of plasticky electronic equipment that "crackles" when you squeeze it lightly in your hand (the "M" sticker on the cover was even set crooked). I came to the conclusion that being a poor college student, I don't have time to worry about the durability of my phone so I passed over this one. The V phone is flimsy and the interface is not nearly as developed as the Samsung or the Nokias. And if you mess one up, there goes $399.99 (unless you have insurance, but still, there is a deductible and monthly payments, plus you only get a refurbished phone should you lose/break your old phone). The Touchpoint 2200 Saga I sent the V phone packing and ordered the Touchpoint 2200. I saw one in a Sprint PCS store. Manufacturing Quality--The color is a dark teal in bright light, but everywhere else, it looks black. The phone is about half an inch shorter than the Nokia 6100 phones and it has rubbery grips on the sides of the phone. If you had all three phones in this review in hand, the Denso-manufactured Touchpoint 2200 is definitely the durability winner. Menu System--There are too many features to list. First of all, the menu is almost as intuitive as the Nokia system, yet the Touchpoint menu actually gives you more features. Aside from normal phonebook with the ability to list multiple numbers under one name and the ability to one-touch speed dial. You can hold more than enough names in the phonebook entry. Voice Activated System--You can record memos, you can assign recorded/standard ringers (Waaaaassssssaaap!) to specific numbers, you can even connect voice memos to specific events scheduled in your personal information manager. Also, there are specific commands programmed into the phone that you can train. Let's say you're going into a meeting and want your phone to go to the "meeting" setting. All you do is push the side Voice Menu button and when the phone prompts you to give it a command, you say "Meeting" and it will change to that new setting. Speakerphone--I use it a lot. I hate holding the phone up while on hold as it tires my arm out, especially during driving. Just highlight "Speakerphone On" during a conversation using your nifty mouse navigation button and there it goes. Phone Ringers--The ringers don't sound chintzy like the Nokia/Samsung models. They have a more subdued, acoustic tone to them which I like. They have all the classical music formats as well as other, more silly ones. If you really want some attention, try recording "Waaasssssap" and put it in the high setting while studying in a cafe. You will get a reaction, I promise you. Battery Life--The battery life is equivalent to the Nokia models which are known for their long lasting usage stats. I consistently use up 1000 minutes a month and I end up charing the phone every other day. Wireless Web--You can buy stuff from Amazon.com and check out sports scores with the WAP browser. I've sent e-mail through my Yahoo! account and it's fairly quick as the Sprint PCS phone does feature the T9 text input function (just punch the numbers where the letters are once so if you wanted to spell "Snoop Dogg" you'd punch in the number for S once, and then N once, and then O once, and then O again, etc). Reception--In buildings, as I've told you earlier, I consistently got poor connections with the Samsung 8500. However, I believe the newer software and hardware features in the Sprint PCS developed Touchpoint 2200 goes a long way in improving call quality. I actually trust my phone now. Even with no bars in the signal meter, I am able to make calls. Overall, the phone will get the job done. While the design isn't the prettiest out there for all you faceplate changing people, for me personally, the understated, compact look of this durable phone does it for me. I've committed to the Touchpoint 2000 and that's not an easy thing to get out of me. So go ahead and check it out. The thing will get the job done, period. We're talking high quality here. The price is over $200, but in this case, you truly get what you pay for. Good luck on your search. I hope this review helps you a bit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 91494 2000/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 speakerphone web enabled phone book voicemail indicator variety of ringers yet none The Bottom LineThis phone is light, compact, easy to learn and use, and perfect for anyone who wants a durable phone at an affordable price! Full Review Oh how I do love cell phones. I've owned many, mostly Nokia, but recently I switched to Sprint and by doing so, had to buy a SPRINT PCS phone. While there was a nice, large variety of phones to choose from, I was instantly drawn to the Sprint PCS Touchpoint 2200. I was small, compact, and the buttons were quite large for a smaller phone. That's something that you don't see too often. A few of the phone features include: *It's Dual-Band! What this means is this Sprint PCS Phone can be used anywhere on the Sprint nationwide network and on other select CDMA and analog cellular networks where Sprint PCS has implemented roaming agreements. *The Enhanced Internal Phone Book lets you assign multiple numbers to one Internal Phone Book entry, so one person's phone, fax and wireless numbers are all in one place. Enter up to 300 phone numbers in 120 different locations in Internal Phone Book! *It's your Personal Assistant! You can set and track up to 100 scheduled events, 15 call alarms and 20 to do items. *Is variety a key part in choosing your phone? Well this one has got it! Assign one of 29 different ringer options and 3 personalized ringer to any Phone Book entry so you can tell who's calling just by the ring. *Enhanced Call Logs: Captures last 10 incoming, 10 outgoing and 10 missed calls. *A voicemail indicator-That is, when you receive a new voicemail, a message comes up on the screen, "1 NEW VOICEMAIL", and also sounds an alert. *Voice Command-You can press a button on the side of the phone, and quite promptly a life-like voice says, "NAME OR COMMAND, PLEASE?". You can say the name of the person you want to call, but you must have already programmed it when you entered the number into the phone book. (You can also go back and edit the voice command for each number.) *Go hands-free! Speakerphone allows the phone to be used in hands-free mode without use of additional equipment. *Hable Espanol? Never fear this phone supports both the English and Spanish languages. A simple setting lets you select the language used for menu items and voice prompts. These are only a few reasons I think this phone rocks! If you're looking for a phone that can keep up with your busy schedule and demanding life, you've got to choose this one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 91493 2000/12/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light long battery life bellswhistles voice quality patchy web service very patchy Full Review Oh I have resisted getting a cell phone for so long. Just another awful yuppie trapping - who wants the office to be able to get hold of you at all hours? But the life of a travelling consultant made getting one mandatory, and Sprint seemed to have the best national plan that I could find, so I bought one of these puppies for $220. There's a $30 mail-in rebate that I need to mail. It's really light, but fairly large compared to some I've seen. Also looks fairly shock-proof. What I really do like is that it will charge completely in under two hours, and seems to last forever. Voice quality is good when you get a strong Sprint signal. I've found coverage to be really dodgy in Phoenix, one of the towns I travel to all the time. My roommate tells me I sound like I'm talking through a tin can on it - there again I have nothing to compare to. Bells and whistles galore. Speakerphone (not duplex and really annoying). Voice commands and dialing (pretty cool), HUGE phone book - this thing must have more RAM than a Palm. Calendars, alarms, games, silly custom rings. Being a geek I find the text messaging incredibly useful. You can receive short emails on the phone - wonderful for things like airline alerts. The Wireless Web feature looks cool, although I have about a 50% success in connecting to it. All in all, a useful little toy. Now if I could just avoid giving the number to my colleagues. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 220 91492 2000/10/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great quality battery extra s speakerphone should be removed Full Review This phone is just about the best phone they can possibly make. There are very few things if anything that I dislike about the phone. Call Quality This phone has great call quality. I have been in movie theatres, malls, my house, my car, and inside stadiums (closed and opened) and I have yet to have a problem making or recieving a call. I have seen the phone say "searching for service" 2 times, both times inside a tunnel (under water!) Battery This battery might just last forever! I have gotten it to last 5 days, w/ it staying on over night, and using it about 20-30 minutes a day. No need for a car charger, just charge it 1-2 times a week! You can't beat that! Extra's (other than stuff that acts like a normal phone does) This phone is a PDA. I don't care what anyone says, this phone is not going to replace your PDA. However, for a college student like myself, who really doesn't need a full fledged PALM or whatever, this phone will do the job. This phone has a function that allows it to VIBRATE and RING at the HIGHEST volume. That is a great function. The battery seems to last just fine when using any of the options. Read the SPRINT website for anything else about the phone, b/c everything it says is the abs. truth. THERE IS ONE NEGATIVE :( The speakerphone on the SANYO 4500 is better than that of the TP2200. The speakerphone on the TP2200 doesn't seem to be DUPLEX. If it is, it doesn't work well. BOTTOM LINE GO GET THIS PHONE NOW...ur still here? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 91491 2000/1/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 it s fun excellent range of features sprint pcs system is overloaded Full Review The Sprint PCS Touchpoint 2200 phone is a beauty. For a gadget lover, it is especially nice. The phone is excellent with the voice recognition and internet browsing. Though I have had recent problems in retrieving Yahoo email using the cell phone. I have not run into any other site problems. This one is particularly annoying in that Sprint and Yahoo are partners... The range of goodies/ accessories in well stocked but a bit pricey. Since the Sprint store chain is almost the exclusive provider of these goodies, supply and demand are in rampage mode. Now the bad part. Sprint is over saturated in several markets, leaving the user with non-completing calls, especially in Major Metro areas like Reagan airport in DC. Occaisonally when crossing from one cell to another - you get dropped if the new cell is overloaded. There are also surprising Gaps in the Sprint PCS service areas as well. For example, on the top two floors of the Sheraton in New Orleans, don't bother trying to use the phone. No signal strength. When there is some getting through, it still won't let you on the system. So much for being in one of the highest buildings in the area.. The phone is worth the price and alot of fun, but the service behind it, leaves much to be desired. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280 91490 2000/3/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery lifesmall sizelarge display4 digit call speakerphonevoice dialing The Bottom LineCheck ebay for this phone, you will get a good price on it. That is where I picked up mine and I have been very happy with it. Full Review Let me start by saying I have had this phone for 3 weeks now and it is a great phone. It is small, cool looking and lightweight, everything you would expect from a newer model phone. I have been a Sprint PCS customer for 3 years and I bought this phone to upgrade from my Qualcomm 2700, which was a decent phone for its time. The TP 2200 is an excellent phone. Positives: I already mentioned the small size, which is great....but small size doesn't mean short battery life. I have had this phone on 24hrs a day for 4 days now and have talked a few times on it and it still displays 3 bars(out of 5) for the battery life. WoW! Battery life definitely won't be an issue. The huge display screen is great, the font size is easily readable. I'm not sure if this is standard with the other new PCS phones, but I LOVE the last 4 digit dial feature. Simply you dial the last four digits of the phone number and hit OK and it dials the number you want automatically. It's great I use it all the time. This feature works when you save numbers into your memory. There are ton of other features like a bunch of different songs and ring types, a few games like blackjack and a scheduler...I don't really use the browser so I can't comment on that, but I don't see why you need to go onto the internet with your cellphone anyway. Negatives Voice Dialing works sometimes, but generally other people's reviews are accurate it isn't that great. But that shouldn't be a reason you buy a phone in my opinion. Speakerphone is great for checking voice mail in the car and it is loud.....however conversations just outright suck using the thing. That technology needs to be improved, but I did find it useful in the car checking messages. As for the review with the lack of swivel clip, you can find those cases at Radio Shack for $30, I have one and its the best case out there. I got the generic phone charger for like $5 on ebay and it works fine. I had a generic leather case too, but I recommend the radio shack one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140.00 91489 2000/10/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 everything the color choice Full Review Ok, so maybe the saying is sliced bread, but sliced milk gets your attention a little better. The Sprint PCS Dual Band Touchpoint 2200 Sprint has done it again. Sprint PCS has their Touchpoint model phones made just for them, and they throw everything they can into them, and the 2200 is no exception. It would be pointless to try and list all that this phone can do in this one review, so I won't try, but I will give you a summary of what sets this phone apart. First, the Touchpoint has a speaker phone built into it. The phone works handsfree, so there is no need to buy a headset. The phone does have a headset jack, though, if you still want to use one. Next, the phone has a ton of ringer options. Now, you might say there is no need for all those ringers, but the Touchpoint allows you to program a specific ringer to a specific number. For example, if your spouse calls, you can know who it is the without even looking, because they will have their own special ringer. You can also program your own ringers with your own voice, to say anything you want, up to three. The phone also has a personal scheduler in it, wireless internet, and you can activate the phones features with the sound of your voice using the phones voice command. But... I said I would not waste your time listing a ton of features on the phone (and it does have a ton.) So let me move on to how well the phone works. The phone, like I said, works with Sprint PCS service. This means it works off of CDMA digital technology. What this means is that it works off the best available digital service, which lets your phone have the clearest reception possible. Keep in mind, though, Sprint does not have service everywhere, so make sure the phone will work where you need it to. The phone sounds as clear as your home phone most of the time. The phone is also durable. It is the most indestructible phone on the market. So if you are rough on your phones, this could be the model for you. It also has a 200 hour stand-by life on the battery, that's about 8 days, and that is just the standard battery, so you can use the phone all you want without having to worry about if the battery is going to die on you.. Just A Few More Ok, so I fibbed a little. Here are just a few more feature, in easy list form... 1. Video Games. 2. Voice memo recorder (helps if someone is giving you directions.) 3. Phone book holds 300 name in 120 spots. You can store more than one number for each person. 4. The phone is light and small. Can fit almost anywhere. One downside, the phone only comes in green, but there is a blue model in the works. So there is one little downside on color choice, other than that, this is one of the best phones out there. I can guarantee, if you have the Touchpoint 2200, nobody will have a phone with more features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229.99 91488 2000/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 battery life phonebook weight features reception wireless web color choice voice dialing speakerphone size The Bottom LineIf your on sprint, it's the best phone available. Yet it could have been much better if they fixed the speakerphone, voice dialing and web features. Full Review I've owned my touchpoint about a year. It's a good phone, but in my opinion it could have been a lot better. The phone is full of features like games (football, blackjack, dice, memory), a calculator, voice activated dialing, a very good phonebook that has great detail, custom ringers, call logs, wireless web, text messaging, email, and several other small helpful features. My only problem is that they didn't really refine those features so they all work properly. The speakerphone and voice dialing features are just annoying. This because they only work 70% of the time. Plus the speakerphone is half-duplex not full duplex like every other speakerphone out there. If you're not familiar with term, it basically means it works like a CB. You can't talk while they other person is talking and vice versa. This can get confusing and annoying. The wireless web is slow, and not user friendly, same with the text messaging. I rarely even use it. Otherwise the clarity of the phone is great, and the other features that do work still make it one of the best phones sprint has to offer. My battery seems like it lasts forever and the phone is very durable. I've dropped it a lot and no problems (just make sure you use a leather case with a shield for the screen). I did wish they made it in more colors (like the Nokia) and perhaps a bit smaller in size. It weighs very little, but it's a bit too tall. Hopefully when Sprint releases the next version of the phone they will cleanup those little problems I mentioned. Then it wouldn't just be the best phone o the Sprint Network, it would be the best phone available period. All in all, if your on Sprint and need a phone, this is it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 175 91487 2000/7/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception great phone book size battery life speakerphone The Bottom LineIf you not a gaudy person who's just looking for a great everyday cell phone that will never fail on you, the TP2200 is the phone for you! Go Sprint! Full Review Hey, I've never done a review, so I hope this is a good one. Anyhow, I've had my TP2200 for about two weeks now and I really love it. It's such a cute little phone with alot of great features. I've gone through a good deal of sprint phones and I seem to like this one the most. First I had the Samsung 8500, a good phone, but I hated having to open my phone to screen the calls. Then I had the Samsung 3500, it had the open screen so I thought I'd give it a try. Not a good idea, people constantly complained that they couldn't hear me on the other line. So i went to the Sanyo 4500, I really liked this phone alot too for those thinking about it. The only thing is that this phone is quite delicate. A little too gaudy if you know what I mean, looks more like a futuristic remote control for the year 2030 than it does a cell phone, a few too many buttons for me and the control operations were a bit to complex. It's also alittle too large for me. So finally I decided to go for the touchpoint 2200. I wanted something a little more compact, but not too tiny that I could barely hold. Stylish, but not gaudy. I got exactly what I was looking for. Here are some of the things I most enjoy. PHONE BOOK: The phone book is great. It's so thorough. It's very detailed, you can assign ringtones to any individual number. This is good when your away from your phone and can only hear the ring, you'll automatically know who's calling (so you know whether to run for it or just stay put if you know what I mean). The sanyo 4500 does not have this feature which I was a little dissapointed by. I also like the variety of ringtone on the phone. Some annoying ones as always, but some very cute ones. Plus they have recordable ones as well. RECEPTION: Reception on this phone is really great. I pick up good signal in rough spots which is always a plus. SIZE: As I mentioned before I really like the size of this phone. It's not as small as the 8500, but definitely not as clunky as the Sanyo. It fits in the palm of my hand (and I have small hands) so that's definitely a good thing. VOICEDIALING: The voicedialing feature is always great. Let's your hands be a bit more free. BATTERY LIFE: Battery life is great. I've talked for about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours straight at one time on it and only 1 little notch gets knocked off. I charge it very seldom and I can talk forever. CONS: SPEAKERPHONE The speakerphone is NOT the best in the world. Not duplex. Lucky for me, I really don't have much use for it. I would really recommend using a headset or just buying the portable handsfree car kit if you own a car. But if your like me and really don't have alot of use for the speakerphone, don't let this be a set back. Just a minor flaw in a great package. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 (yup) 91486 2000/2/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to use light good battery life several The Bottom LineTREAT IT LIKE THE PLAGUE! I wouldn't recommend this phone to my worst enemy, well, maybe... Full Review OK, let me explain myself. I did not own this phone, but my mother did, and I spent some time using it. The phone came out of a big bulky package. It was the Summer of '01, and my mother got sick and tired of "Pay-as-you-go" phones. She decided that it was just too uneconomical to keep buying those stupid phone cards, since she never really used that phone, and after a while, those stupid cards would expire, and your phone would be disconnected. So, on to Best Buy we went, for something that I really can't remember. Then, my sister and I tried to get my mother to buy a new cellular phone. Since everyone else had denied her, and told her that she had to pay $500-700 for activation, she decided to try Sprint PCS. She had heard the commercials, and all the hype. What made it worse, is that my sister had bought the same phone, a month earlier, and my mom seemed to like it. So, there was this phone, still available for sale. It offered Wireless Web, a Speakerphone, Phone Book (Something her OLD Motorola Tele-Tac 250 didn't have, or if it did, I never knew how to use it), Ringers! (Not downloadable, but Customizable), and several other features. Now, enough with the story, here's the major reliability problems with the 2 Sprint Touchpoint 2200s that we had... After about 5 1/2 months, I dropped the phone. Well, when I picked it up, it had no screen (LED Lights, but no LCD Screen). How undurable. I had dropped that big bulky Motorola so many times, it had shell cracks, but he screen was still operating. So, since it was still under the year's warranty, we sent it back in for a replacement. We recieved a reconditioned phone, and we thought all was well... Until November of '02. The reconditioned phone had lasted a year, and we were geeked. We THOUGHT it was going to last forever. That's when the problems happened again... This time, it was the reception. Several calls would be dropped, some would take over 5 minutes to go through the Sprint PCS system, and in some spots, no service at all. Things seemed to clear up, in December, so she didn't buy a new phone. Then January of '03 struck. NO SERVICE ANYWHERE! No signal bars, and it was ALWAYS Searching for service. ALL possible calls that could be made were dropped. People began to get angry (Me.) at my mother, because they (Me.) thought that she had hung up on them (Me.). So, this led to a new phone. Then, the screen died...AGAIN! This time, no LED lights, or LCD screen. Now, what a crappy phone. The first one's screen DIED, with no possible way to recover it. The second one's screen just died, after the signal started to drop, so, nothing could be seen. Now, they have stopped production on this phone, and for good reason. I still see them on eBay though, and if you are thinking about buying one, STOP THINKING, and find another phone. Oh yeah, my sister's phone? The exact same model? Is in the trash for the same reasons. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 91485 2000/7/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 rubber buttons cool green color easy to read durable compact broke when dunked in toilet The Bottom LineAll in all I recommend this phone to anyone who needs a compact, feature loaded, durable phone. Full Review Imagine my dismay to find my favorite cell phone sunk in the bottom of the porcelain God. With a 2 1/2 year old in the house I find a multitude of object dunked like a donut in coffee and this one was probably the most upsetting. Even my honed bowl fishing skills couldn't save my Touchpoint 2200, and I don't blame Sprint for this as I don't think there's a phone out there yet that will endure a bowl expedition, if there is, someone please email me with the make and model! So now that I've explained the demise of my favorite phone I will let you in on why it received that dubious distinction. I've had probably 7 cell phones in the last year and this one was the greatest because of its prior durability and ease of use. This phone from the time it left its box was so easy to use! I think I only had to look up a feature use 1 time in the accompanying manual, which I might had Sprint provides with all their phones, and are very well written. The features were so easy to use because the on screen displays make sense and are easy to get to. Other phones I've used were far more difficult to customize and enter data into. The Touchpoint 2200 as I stated is loaded with features. You have a phone book, voice commands, calendar, it's web configured, and you can even record up to 4 minutes of voice memos. As I said this phone is fairly durable, far more so than my other phones. I 'm pretty touch on cell phones especially with the help of my 2 year old and praise the cell phone insurance God! I did however drop this phone from my hands to the sidewalk and the screen cracked but the phone was still active and useful, it didn't need replacement as I found I could live with the cracked screen for awhile. The face of the phone is your typical cell phone face and with a contrast setting you can change it so it's easy to read in different environments. The screen is a longer screen so if you're reading a text message you have to do a little less scrolling. The phone also has 3 buttons on the side for easy changes of settings and for using voice commands. I really liked the way this phone cradled in my hands, it really had a great fit! I also like the hunter green color. There were just enough buttons on this phone, not too many and not too few where you had to use a function key! They are easy to read and being made up of rubber made them easy to use and none of that finger slipping business occurred. I do like the buttons on the Touchpoint 1100 better as they are even easier to read and larger, but these suited me fine. The large function type button at the top and center made scrolling through menu options and reading text easy to navigate. One of my favorite features of this phone was the voice command feature, which sprint has on most if not all of its phones. Setting up voice command is easy, just push the bottom button on the side of the phone and you are directed step by step how to enter your data. I do recommend that you enter your voice data in an environment that is fairly quiet. If you don't you may find it difficult to get this feature to work well or correctly. I also recommend that you don't enter entries that are phonetically similar. For example my voice recognition had a very difficult time discerning mom from bob... so in front of mom i said... "call mom" and then I only had to remember to use "call" when voice dialing mom. You can also use the voice command for entering the web, checking weather and bookmarks, scheduling and view phone book entries. Another favorite was the quantity of quality ringer types, while this may seem corny or unimportant to many users, to me it's a very important feature. There's nothing more frustrating to me than finding myself trying to figure out if it's my purse ringing to someone else when all phones around seem to sound the same. I like the selection of distinctive rings this phone provides. I found the sound quality on this phone excellent, and it got great reception. The antenna on this phone isn't one that pulls up and only extrudes about an inch from the top of the phone. The battery life is excellent unless you use vibrate a great deal or browse the web. The 2200 ended up costing me nothing after signing a year contract, with Sprints rebate. Without this I think the phone runs around $99. All in all I recommend this phone to anyone who needs a compact, feature loaded, durable phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0/99 91484 2000/6/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Product Rating5.0 voice activated dialing sound quality voicemail caller id size shape you cannot talk on this phone while it is charging in its base The Bottom LineThis Sprint Touchpoint 2200 cell phone includes so many easy to use features that will make using this phone an enjoyable experience. Voice activated dialing is a plus Full Review My girlfriend and I were discussing our husbands' success with their cellular phones just last night. It seems that her husband has already crushed two of his cellular phones by sitting on them in the car. My beloved husband drove his car off while the phone was on top of the hood. Then, he left his phone in the classroom (middle school teacher)over a week long vacation and what do you know, it was gone when he returned for it. So, due to their "loss" of phones, they have been able to upgrade their phones to a newer and better model, while we very careful and responsible women are stuck with the old, heavy and lackluster original model of phones!!!!!!!! My husband came home with the Sprint touchpoint 2200 model just the other day. Another electronic toy! And wow, this one is just fantastic. This $250 phone cost him $99. Always be on the lookout for rebates or special buys at the Sprint Store. By the way be sure it is a brand new phone and not a refurbished one. Size and Appearance: First, the weight and size of this phone is a plus. It is wide enough to fit comfortably in the palm of the hand. (About 1 3/4 inches). It is 4 1/2 inches in length. There is just enough weight to know you are holding something, but it if FAR from heavy and cumbersome. The exact weight is 4.5 ounces. The color is a deep dark teal green. Unlike my old clunker of a Sprint cell phone, this one has a rubber antenna that does not have to be pulled out. It stays just where it is, which protrudes one small inch from the phone. Features Galore: The screen on the phone is a 1 1/4 by 1 1/4 square. The lettering is smaller than what I am used to, but it is certainly clear and legible. It displays the time, date and a title that you may wish to display on top. The menu works with easy to use rubberized buttons that allow you to scroll the menu and chose o.k. to go to your desired place. For example, Scroll to "call logs" by using the up and down arrow button. Scroll logs will be highlighted. Then, press "o.k.". This will allow you to see the incoming, outgoing and missed calls by displaying their numbers. The main menu of the phone also displays "Messages". This is where you can access your voicemail. If you are using the computer and tying up your main phone line, people can call the cell phone and leave a message, even when your cell phone is off. Text or voice messages can be left on your phone. Voicemail can also be accessed with the press of one button. The third and most important feature on the main menu of your phone is the phone book. Entering numbers is as easy as can be. Simply follow the directions on the phone. You will enter a name along with the number. It will automatically alphabetize your names by first or last name. Simply scroll down using the arrow button to find your number. Here is a tip. If there is a number you call very often, simply put an "a" in front of the name and it will be first on your list. Caller ID will allow you to see the name of the person who has called you as long as the name is one you have already programmed into your phonebook. If not, caller id will only display the phone number of the incoming call. The feature that is absolutely brilliant is the voice activated dialing. It will allow you to "train" your phone to respond to your voice alone. It will actually dial the phone number of the name you speak into the phone. For example if I want to call "mom", simply say "mom" into the phone and your call will be made. The speaker also allows you to record messages for yourself. A great way to use this feature is if someone gives you their phone number, simply say and record it into the phone. Play it back later when you are ready to enter the number into your phonebook. You will also be able to change your ringer into a message. What I mean is it can be programmed so that whenever I call the phone, instead of ringing, it will sound a prerecorded message that I speak into the phone. Imagine, I call my husband's cell phone from home, and instead of ringing, my voice will sound, "Honey, pick up the phone!" The Sprint TP2200 also allows you connection to the Wireless Web for the cost of one phonecall on your plan. You can also conduct Speakerphone calls. The touch of one small button will allow you to mute this call if immediate privacy is needed. Cons: One negative of the phone is that while you are recharging the phone it sits in an upright position on a base, therefore, you are unable to use the phone while it is charging. The phone does, though, charge very quickly and the charge lasts a long time. All of these features are useless if the sound quality of the phone is inferior. Not the case, The sound is static free and the voices are clear, not tinny or muffled. Sprint has really done it this time with the Touchpoint 2200 cellular phone. I recommended to my husband that he insure this phone so that when, oh, I mean if he breaks or loses the phone, it will be replaced. You know what, I would like one of these phones for myself. I am feeling a bit clumsy lately. I sure hope I don't "accidentally" sit on my old cell phone while driving to the market today. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 7862 Sprint TouchPoint 2100 91524 2004/1/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great battery lifethe web access you can t down load ringers or graphics This is a nice little phone. It's small in size and has very good battery life. I like the speaker phone because I have a phone holder in my car and it's great for hands free. I love the voice activated services and the sequence game. 91523 2000/10/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 web access speakerphone feature lighted keypad good battery life compact voice dial feature antenna nub inhibits pocketability speakerphone is only half duplex call quality varies only one color The Bottom LineFor in-car use, you can't get much easier than this without resorting to a hands-free kit. Very thoughtful in design and features! Full Review I bought this phone to replace an old Sony model that broke after four years. Predicting a lot of car use, I was delighted to get such a feature-laden phone for the price. It was small, light, and provided many nice features such as: voice dialing and memo recording, a phone book that stores multiple numbers and address, Web access, and a neat speakerphone. I love using the speakerphone when in the car and not have to mess with a stupid earbud. I can speak normally and hear my other party clearly. No, you can't talk personally when the phone is charging on a home charger, but you can use the speakerphone. The only downside is that it works in half-duplex mode where you can only talk or listen (like a walkie-talkie but without the 'Talk' button). But the indicator light at least tells you its status (red for listen, green for talk) and is good enough once you get the hang of it (though I don't recommend using it when talking to a motormouth...you won't get a word in edgewise! HA!) The voice recognition is another great feature for the car user. Instead of fumbling for the keys (which are lighted for in-the-dark use), I press one button on the side and say who I want to call. I can store 10 voice dialed numbers plus many other voice commands such as redial and turning on/off the backlight option to conserve the battery. The backlit keys are good-sized and the thumb-arrow key is great for phone and Web searches, though its function varies when doing Web surfing. Extra volume buttons and the voice command button are on the side for use while you're talking and contoured so you know which is which by feel (important in the car). Finally, the one piece design means I don't have to flip open the phone to talk on it. I can program it so that pressing any key will answer an incoming call. My only gripes are that the phone is only offered on the Sprint PCS service. I would use it on another service if it was supported. Plus the big antenna nub prevents me from being able to pocket it comfortably. The games on it are good enough to pass the time but not great. And accessories for it are few and far between. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 91522 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life small size easy to use buttons confusing voice dial set up poor speakerphone problems switching between roamservice The Bottom LineThe bottom line is that this phone serves it's purpose, but may make your phone bill rise because of Analog Roam. Full Review This is a review of the Sprint TouchPoint 2100 phone, which I have had for over a year at the time of writing this review. First off, lets start where it counts. Voices ARE clear on the TouchPoint 2100, which is a definite plus. There are multiple volume settings to choose from, depending on your locale and person you are talking to. The voice on the other end tends to be easy to decipher, at least when you are on "regular mode". Once you turn on the speakerphone, that is a different story. The speakerphone quality is poor, and it is hard to make out what people are saying even in the best of reception times. I avoid using the speakerphone at all costs because of this. As far as the phone design itself, the Touchpoint 2100 excels. There are many options to customize your phone, with different modes for easy volume/ringer changes (for instance, Fun for everyday use, and Discreet when you need your phone to be quiet). This makes keeping your phone on at all times easy, since you don't have to adjust each setting manually. Also, the phone's vibrate feature works well in every situation, so you know when people are calling you. The phone's easy to use keys make misdials a thing of the past, and the lcd screen is clear and durable. I have used this phone without a case for a year, and have yet to incur one scratch on the lcd screen. The worst problem I have with this phone is reception in buildings. Many buildings tend to have low "drop" ceilings, which cause my phone to lose service and go into the expensive Analog Roam setting. After leaving a building like this, my phone often requires turning it off and on to regain Sprint PCS service. This is annoying, but I have heard it is common among Sprint phones. However, if you have an important call that you have to take and are in Analog Roam, expect to pay Analog Roam rates even if you are right next to a Sprint Tower. Overall, this phone serves its purpose. I am not actively looking to replace the phone, but I'm not saying that I'll keep this phone forever. Sprint has made a decent phone with a few quirks, but if you have the patience, this phone is for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 91521 2000/5/2 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great design compact nice cost clarity is a problem The Bottom LineI believe the price is good, it's light, has a good ringer, but can be touchy with the clarity and the calculator. Full Review Sprint TP2100 dual cellular phone All right, lets get down to the basics. When I first saw this phone, I was attracted to its compact design, color and the fact that it had a discount on it at the time, though normally, the phone costs about $100.00 dollars. Not a bad price, at all. I just loved the semi, big buttons and the little arrow pad which made it really easy to use. I would rate the aesthetic design of this phone a 5 out of a 5. Now, for the inside of the phone. It has quite a lot of goodies to explore. In the display window, it conveniently shows you the time and date, how much battery life you have left, (in the upper right hand corner), and the menu from which you have various options to choose from. You can look at your recent calls; it tells you about the incoming, outgoing, and missed calls that have been logged on your phone. A great feature to see who is calling you. Next, if you have this, there is the Wireless Web, so you can connect to the internet through your cell phone. I personally haven't tried this because there is a charge that comes with it, but you can. Moving forward, you have your very own phone book with names and speed dial. I definitely use this feature so I don't have to remember all those phone numbers. Most phones have voice mail and this one is really great. You don't have to worry about missing calls, instead who ever it is will leave you a message and then you can get back to them, but be careful. When too many messages have been saved, they will be automatically deleted. Make sure to write down any important messages you receive as soon as possible. And can you believe it, the phone even comes with several games; Blackjack, Football, Sequence, Dice, and Sketcher. Not the hardest games out there, but hey, it can keep you amused for awhile. Now, comes the Tool box, where you have your very own calendar that can remind you with a ring when a special occasion will occur, of course, first you have to input the data. Duh. So, how about those voice services where you can record memos to buy that gallon of milk you keep forgetting to get? Play them on the speaker phone or privately, it is your choice. Now, this phone comes equipped with a calculator, but beware, if you don't keep moving the arrow pad, your calculation will disappear! Poof! Just like that! Believe me, it's happened to me when I was out shopping. It's not very amusing when you are in the middle of going shopping and you go to add your 30th item and realize the total cost for your groceries is only $0.99. It's freaky. O.K. Continuing onward, you also have a stopwatch, a To Do List, Language, and Security Settings( Be careful not to lock yourself out of you phone. Remember your security code!). Back to the menu, you have the Settings for phone, sounds, headline(Sprint PCS), display(back light and such),auto Key Guard( I have not used this, but it's probably so no one will use your phone without your permission. Just a guess.), car use, and advanced settings. Probably not wise to mess with those, unless you know what you're doing. And finally, you have roaming and Key Guard. Boy, that was a mouthful, but there is more. Lets, talk about clarity. With the speaker phone, the voice on the other end comes out pretty clear, but when you are actually trying to talk to someone you might need a hearing aid to help. Many times I've had to ask the other person on the other end of the line to speak up or repeat themselves. It's simply hard to understand what they are saying. I don't have a clue what causes this, but it can really be annoying. Plus, the life of the battery is pretty long and I have had no complaints there. The phone also comes with a battery charger to plug into the wall. I would have to say that overall this is a good phone to purchase with lots of extras to play around with, but it needs a little bit more work to fix the kinks. The design is great, it's compact, easy to use, long battery life, great loud ringer, various modes to choose from( vibrate, ring volumes, etc) but does need some work on the clarity and calculator. Hope this helped everyone who is thinking of getting this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 7863 Sprint TouchPoint 2110 91527 2000/4/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 portable flip style voice activated wireless web button is easy to bump The Bottom LineExcellent phone! I would recommend to anyone! Full Review I purchased this phone about 6 months ago, and I am very happy with it. It is easy to use, and has good battery life, which is important to me since I always forget to charge it. My favorite function is the voice activated dialing. It is so helpful for making phone calls while driving, because I hit a button on the side, and say the name of the person I would like to call. It has one touch button to call voice mail, and to use wireless web. The wireless web function is the only problem I have with the phone. Because the flip on the phone does not cover the wireless web button, I have called it a few times, and wasted my minutes on it. The phone has a speakerphone built into it. Seems like a nice function since many people have to buy kits to do it on other phones. I personally have never used it. There are different rings on the phone. Most of them are songs, and you can set different ringers for different people calling. It makes it nice because you know who is calling without having to look. Because I have two small children, I have this phone take a beating. It has hit the floor with a terrible thud, but still remains in perfect condition. The cost of the phone is a definite steal. I have paid much more for a phone, and it was terrible quality. I have not had a problem with the phone, and don't expect to. I personally recommened this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 91526 2000/1/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 voice memo battery life excellent keypad voice activated dialing hard to read display selection wheel is temperamental The Bottom LineGood value phone with a nice set of features. Full Review I have had my TP2110 for 1.5 years, and think highly of it. I get 3 hours of talk time easily, it's small but not so small that doesn't have good "hand-feel," I find the gray shell handsome, and the sound is better than my previous Nokia. The voice memo feature is great when riding in the car. No need to write notes that get lost. Also, the four-digit dialing is very useful. Key in the last 4 digits of a number, it will be dialed. The flip style prevents accidental key activation, though the web key on the face is easy to hit -- which can cost money. Navigation is done through a wheel, which is a bit funky. The only other negative is that the screen when displaying the phone book is hard to read. Each person in the phone book can have multiple numbers (Mobile, Work, Home, etc.). They use the first letter (e.g., M, W, and H) to identify the type of number, but they put a box around the letter. M and W look a lot the same with that box, especially if you're driving. Here's the best testimony I can give. I bought a 3-year warranty with the phone from Circuit City. The battery is finally giving out (with ~1500 minutes per month mind you), and I probably won't use the warranty. Circuit City doesn't stock or supply replacement batteries; they give you a new phone. I don't want a new phone! I will probably buy new batteries. It's also fairly rugged. I drop it on a sidewalk -- then kicked it accidentally. It got scratched but still works fine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 91525 2002/7/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 almost a pdaphone combined loaded with features larger than my last The Bottom LineAll the features you want, excellent digital service and a good price. Full Review because I've always been happy with my Sprint service. I do like this phone, although it is a bit larger than my last Sprint model. I do like the large lit display. It has many excellent features like a phone book, memo recorder to leave yourself messages, calendar and calculator. I wish the light would stay on longer, it goes off after just a few seconds and comes back on if you hit another key. I also like that you can see who's calling you without having to open the phone. Makes that caller ID feature all the better. The wireless web is easy to configure and use, although other than to check my email assigned to the phone, I don't find it worth the minutes used up to browse much. The speaker phone feature is handy since in NY we are not allowed to use wireless phone without a speaker phone device. It is much clearer than other hand free devises I've tried with my old phone. The batter charges very fast and seems to hold a longer charge for me than advertised. Using the optional car charger, it charges nearly a full charge for me on the 25 minute drive to work. Over all a thumbs up, I like this phone a lot. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 7864 Sprint TouchPoint 1100 91538 2000/4/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features small compact bad signal The Bottom LineVery lightweight phone, I would recommend this to anyone. Full Review Ive always dreamed of having one of those great small phones, I mean they are adorable so I came across the Sprint Touchpoint 1100, had everything I ever dreamed of. Pros: -Lightweight. Being compact may depend from person to person. Personally I love small phones. Sometimes you can forget that you even have it with you. -Many features. Can hold up to 99 phone numbers, it is Internet Capable,Digital phone, mouse pad, large screen, and has varies options for many things, if I begin to name I would run out of space :) -Clarity. This is by far the only phone that Ive come across that has great clarity. You can go just about anywhere without it cutting you off. Cons: -Battery time. I have never used my phone for more then an hour and I always have it recharging so I wouldnt know how long the battery last. But my boyfriend has the same phone as me and he says the battery is awful, at times we can be talking and it would just cut us off. Last words: There arent many bad things to say about this phone, so I would defintily recommened it to anybody. The phone, I believe, now runs for about $150 depending where you buy it. I got mines for 10 dollars because I signed a special 2yr aggrement with someone on ebay (a bad decision though), 200 dollars is not bad for this phone though, its very nice and have various features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 91537 2002/8/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact phone with basic essentials on display of front flip cover sprint customer service stinks The Bottom LineI would avoid Sprint customer service (The PCS is So clear), but if you can get the phone on another provider, go for it. Full Review Now I've been begging for a cellular phone, but I didnt want the monthly bill. So I did some looking around and came across this phone Touchpoint 1100 by sprint. It was a "precash" phone and you add money to an account as you go. Well I got this phone for graduation because of its amazing features, for a prepaid! 2-way calling, Web-browser, caller ID, and a huge capacity phonebook were a few of the many features on this phone. I couldnt believe it, this was too good to be true. The phone is built (I know I've dropped it enough :-) It was too good to be true. I dont want to get off the subject, but I called Sprint customer service the day I got it (Friday) I was on hold for about 1/2 hr before I got someone on the line. She talked me through the activation. Toward the end there was a snag, it wasnt accepting the code from Sprint to start programming, Oh nuts. I tried again saturday with the same results. I even went to Radio Shack, but they only sell the phones, not fix them. So I ended up returning the phone and getting the same one. I get the new phone home, I call Sprint, only to find out that because they are updating their system and activation could not be done. Grr. I dont anger easily but my blood was starting to boil. I left the phone alone sunday because there was nothing I could do. Monday I try calling and I got this real useless voice recording. So I've decided to take the problem to them. I get in my car and drive 1/2 hour to the nearest Sprint store. I wait in line and I told the lady what my problem was. She told me she couldnt help me and she directed me to a direct line to the Sprint customer service. well I talked to a service rep and she was nice and the phone activation seemed to go ok. I followed her instructions to a tee. I got home and left my phone off for 2 hrs like she said. after the 2 hrs. I'm happy. I go to call and an operator says "this phone is not yet activated. "AHHH" I call the customer service again, listen to the machine 3 more times, wait 45 mins, talk to 3 different people. Followed their instructions. Left the phone off, went to work ,came back, and few, it finally worked, Monday night, at 10:00 Other than that...the service is clear, the phone it self is great, and the features are cool. I hope this wasnt too long, I just want to let you all know the trouble I went through. Maybe it was just me, but I have also heard from other people that Sprint's customer service stinks. Thank you Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.96 91536 2002/7/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small but hard to lose good interface excellent reception some strange glitches mediocre sound quality The Bottom LineThere are better phones out there, but not for this price. That said, this isn't right for everyone. Full Review I bought my TouchPoint 100 when it first came out, because I had just lost the phone I had been using previously. Because it looks like the more expensive Motorola flip phones, but is even smaller, this phone gets a lot of attention, but the fact is, it's more style than substance. First the good: The phone is small and light, and I am partial to the silver tone as it makes it harder to accidentally leave it in the back of a cab. It has a large number of available rings, and allows me to set individual rings for types of calls and specific callers in my phone book. I love this feature, because it means don't even have to look at my phone most of the time to know if I want to take a call. Battery life on this phone is excellent. It charges quickly, and doesn't need to be recharged for days when I use it lightly, but I can also get 2 - 4 horus of non-stop talk time, when I'm calling a friend long distance. Now the bad: The sound quality isn't great. It's tolerable, but the Nokia's (my previous phone) are much much better. And getting the phone to sit in the charger correctly, isn't always easy, and having to reposition it over and over can strip the battery connectors over time (I got a free replacement battery at the Sprint service center when this happened though). The calendar function, while well developed doesn't have an alarm loud enough to truly wake me up (I like to use my phone as a travel alarm when I'm on the road for business) and the games are boring compared to the Nokia options. For it's price, this is a great phone, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who finds themselves hard of hearing in any way. Otherwise, I'd say if this is what you can afford, go for it, otherwise, consider a Nokia. I should also note that I've dropped this phone dozens of times, and it's fine. once the shell did pop open, but I was able to snap it back into place without problem or damage. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 91535 2000/2/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 user friendly size retrieving stored numbers major software problems clarity The Bottom LineIf looks were the only issue at hand, then the Touchpoint is great. If you want a reliable phone, you may want to look elsewhere. Full Review I'm easy to please. My cell phone is my only phone and I want something that works. Looks aren't important, size and reliability are. I first bought the phone to replace the aging Sony I had originally gotten when I signed on with Sprint. When I bought the Touchpoint it was a gem. The small size and packed features were very attractive. It worked fine, even had clear service in buildings, some tunnels, and even some underground Metro stations. Then, 8 months later, things started going downhill. I noticed people on the other end of my call asking me to repeat myself more and more often. So I spoke louder. This wasn't the answer. I brought the phone to be looked at and there was nothing wrong with it however the technician told me I could use a software upgrade. Sure, why not. Took under 20 minutes and I was on my way. The next day, the phone began to lock up after calls. And I mean lock up. After hitting the end call button, it would freeze. I would have to take the battery off and put it back in to regain a working phone. I brought it back to the Sprint store and again, no physical problem with the phone but my software needed upgrading. Funny, I said, I just had it done last week. The technician assured me this was a new software version and proceeded to upgrade my software. As I'm leaving, I make a call to be sure it works, and it does, call goes through, but freezes at the end. I bring it back to the same technician, in it's frozen state, and I'm told it will take a few days to work properly. Well, the point to all this is: I no longer am with Sprint, after over 3 years of loyalty. I couldn't justify paying over $200 for a new phone when supposedly, there was nothing wrong with mine. I've had the same phone number (my only phone number) for over 3 years and because of the problems with this phone and how Sprint dealt with my problems, I terminated my service. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91534 2000/2/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 compact phone colourful antenna does not stay up sprint pcs customer service roaming is not available The Bottom LineThe phone is compact and cute, comes in many different colours! Would avoid if you enjoy talking on your mobile. Full Review Wanted: A Compact Phone The time had come, where dragging my large non-digital cellular phone had become a drag. I was in the market for a new mobile phone, and I wanted something compact. Since Im securely locked into my million year contract (Note for people thinking of going with Sprint PCS: Everytime you switch plans, your 2 year contract starts over.), I was pretty limited to what kind of phone I could get. I also wanted to spend less than $100 dollars on a phone. Upon inspection the choice was Sprint 1100. The phone now comes in 3 colours: silver, blue and purple. Being a girl, I decided to go with the purple. What was even better was the week that I went into the Sprint PCS store the phone was on sale for 50 bucks! A Love Hate Relationship What I love about my mobile phone is that it is compact, girly stores tons of entries in the phone book, a few ring tones to switch between and offers a phone screen saver to save energy on the phones battery! The battery has such longevity. I have left my phone on for 3+ days before, and the battery is still on and working. That is great for people who sometimes forget to turn off there phone at night! What I hate about this phone is that it only works within the Sprint PCS network. What the salesperson forgot to inform me of was the fact that this is an analog phone - so it doesn't do ANY roaming. When the phones antenna is retracted for better reception, the antenna does not stay up. It falls back into the phone! So, if you are in a bad reception area often times I have to hold up the antenna manually. Which can get quite annoying if talking for long lengths of time. Also, not the phones fault, but Sprint PCS Customer Service sucks. I have waited for over 40 minutes to speak with someone before. I've had a CSR hang up on me! (And I wasn't even angry, I just had a question!) And when you do get them on the phone they aren't very helpful. Blab blab blab If you love to blab, this is not the phone for you. My advise is to get a compact digital phone that doesn't have an antenna! For the price I paid I shouldn't really complain, but I don't want people to make the same mistake I did! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 91533 2000/6/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 size extra lcd battery life coverage features microphone The Bottom Linegood phone, bad microphone, reboot-prone. there's many better ones out there now. Full Review I've owned 4 sprint cell phones. Most, I haven't had many problems with (except the original qualcomm with flippable earpiece... 5 warranty replacements) The first thing EVERYONE has complained about with this phone was the horrible microphone quality. I agree. You can't hear my voice, I have to yell and be very conscious of the phone's orientation or suffer the "what? could you speak up?". Second, it restarts itself. It will reboot at random times when left on. The first generation sprint phones would stay on for weeks, but I'm told that I should reboot the newer ones daily. Are they running Windows CE on these things now? Most of the time, it will turn itself back on, but don't count on it. Sometimes it will turn itself off in your pocket and you will miss calls. Third, the phone charger. It looks nice, but uses a funky side-clip that takes a few trys to get it in the dark. I typically charge it while i sleep. I've listed my problems with it first, but I must stress that it is an okay phone. The reception is actually quite good compared to my last. Sprint has great coverage in San Francisco, but this phone seems to drop calls almost never. Tons of features (webbrowsing, calendar, alerts, ...) The top-mounted extra lcd is excellent. You can read the caller id & time without opening it. The volume control on the side is convenient and allows you to quickly set the vibrate mode & earpiece volume (for people that yell) The battery life is excellent. It would be the best phone I've owned, except for the rebooting & HORRIBLE microphone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49 91532 2000/4/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small compact none as of yet The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone who wants a reliable cell phone. Full Review I received this phone 2 months ago and have had nothing but good luck with it so far! I got an offer in the mail one day for this great deal from Working Assets, where the phone was free and you got 1200 minutes a month for $34.99, which isn't a bad deal, although I've seen better. My credit isn't the best, but I wanted to give it a try anyway, because I'd been wanting a better, more reliable cell phone. I applied online and 4 days later, I get the phone in the mail. It was already activated, charged and ready to go. I found that service to be great, because it saved me so much hassle in taking care of activating it myself. The phone is small, about 2"x4" folded up, I can carry a small purse and it'll fit without a problem, or I can carry it in my hand or in a pocket and not worry about losing it. Its very lightweight as well. As for durability, Its been fine for me these past 2 months, but I am careful with it. So I would say durability depends on the person using the phone, not the phone. This phone offers a variety of features, including voicemail, caller ID, several different rings to choose from, volume control, 2 games, and my favorite, Wireless Web. I've used this phone just about everywhere, in the car, store, laundromat, bank drive thru and I've always been able to get a signal. I've only been cut off during a call one time and considering how much I've used it in the last 2 months, I think thats great. The phone holds a charge for about 4 days with regular use. I'm writing this on Sunday morning and the phone is still halfway charged and it hasn't been on the charger since Wednesday night. I would recommend this phone to anyone whos looking for a small compact, reliable cell phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 91531 2000/4/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 caller id outside of flip lightweight comes with hands free multi feature small no custom ringtones average reception The Bottom LineMore than you expect for the price. Great phone, i highly recommend it. Full Review After owning a Nokia 5190 for several years, I decided to upgrade. I'd always wanted a flip style phone, so my choices were limited, especially being with Cingular which only had an Ericcson phone as a flip, which was not appealing at all. I decided to switch to Sprint PCS after hearing several good things about them. I chose the Touchpoint 1100 for a few reasons. First, it was the smallest phone available, yet looked very sturdy, which it has been. 2nd, it had a Caller ID screen on the outside of the flip, which is excellent. (This also displays the time, date, signal strength, batter power, and scrolls any alerts you have set up in your calendar!). Third, the display screen inside is very large and easy to read. And finally, the phone offered several more features than my old phone, which I'll talk about a little later. The phone easily fits in the palm of your hand, and is so light weight it is incredible. You really feel like its a modern piece of technology. Occasionally this works against you, if you try to cradle the phone between your ear and shoulder, forget about it, it's just too small. But Sprint saved the day by providing you with a hands free earpiece/mic combo for free with the phone, which I've been using more and more. It is very convienient. Having the outside display has been amazing. It doesnt get any more convienient than just glancing at your phone to see whose calling, and deciding whether or not to open it up and accept the call. As well the Date & Time are prominently displayed, along with signal strenght and battery power. All a seconds glimpse away for this info. I'll add here also that the battery has been great. The power lasts quite awhile. And even nicer is with the Lithium Ion battery, it can be recharged anytime, where as with older style NiCad batteries, you were only supposed to charge them after they were fully drained. The charging time on the LiIon battery is about 2 hours, half of the charging time on my old phone. Definate thumbs up on the battery. The inside display screen is great. The bottom half is your menu, showing 3 selections at a time. (Phonebook, calender, etc., or a list of names if in the phone book, etc.). Its easy to see, and the lenght of time the backlight comes on can be set up in the phones options. Speaking of options, wow! I'll just start off by saying the only option I'm missing is not being able to download custom ringtones at all. That being said, the phone has terrific options. Call History, Messages, Phone Book, Calendar, Wireless Web, Sounds, Display, Security, Setup, Calculator and Games are your choices. The highlights are: Phonebook - can store several numbers for each name. You can store 99 names. Wireless Web - this was much cooler than I thought. Access your stocks, traffic, news, sports, whatever. Sounds - there are a lot of tones stored in the phone, and they are all pretty good. Games - it has Blackjack!!! What can I say - it's been great. It had alot more than I was expecting, and I've been nothing but happy with the phone. Treat yourself... don't cheat yourself!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.000 91530 2002/6/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 flip phone small size good range of features takes many keystrokes to operate menu can t ring vibrate on same settings The Bottom LineExcellent performer in tiny package!the Touchpoint compares favorably to others by Samsung, and Nokia! Full Review I had been using a Nokia 6185 for some time, and although I loved the menus on it, I found that it was getting to be too much of a beast compared to the tiny phones everyone was carrying around. I wanted to stick with SprintPCS because they get the best reception in my apt in Los Angeles, so I was forced to pick a Non-Nokia phone. And I'm glad I did! First of all the design of the phone is excellent. It's very compact, one of the smallest flip phones out there (only the Touchpoint 5250 is smaller currently) and it has an easy to read display, including a caller ID, signal strength, time on the outside display when closed. The display on the inside is very easy to read, and the backlight turns on automatically. The strengths of the phone include it's wide range of options for phonebook. You can have a single person with 3 different phone numbers instead of inputting them all individually under separate listings. There are custom ring settings, although you cannot compose your own ringtones or download new ringtones. The ringtones are nice, but are not as high quality as on the newer Touchpoint 5250. There is an included Calculator, Blackjack & puzzle games. There of course is a vibrate "ringtone", but unlike the Nokia phones, you cannot have the audio ringer AND the vibrate feature on together, which I would have preferred. The menus although full featured, and very intuitive are somewhat "deep". It may take 4-7 buttons pressed to find someone on your address book and call them. The Nokia menus are much easier to navigate thru (on the Nokia 6100 or 3360 series). Signal strengh is better than I expected in this small phone, about the same as the Nokia 6185 that I had before. Voice quality is also very good, esp. when used without a headset. I had no problems connecting all over California on the SpintPCS network, and very few dropped calls. If you have a problem you can take the phone to Sprint and have them do a PRL upgrade that updates the Firmware in the phone to find more Antennas. Battery life is good, needing to be charged about every 2.5 days with average use. The package includes a cradle style charger which I like, compared to most phones which include a plug in style charger. I wish they would have included the car charger and headset in the package though. Overall the phone is very easy to operate and I am very happy with it. Someday I may trade up to the 5250, because of it's more compact size, better ringtones, and overall style. The Touchpoint 1100 is a solid value that is well worth the money! Final word of warning... If you decide to get a car charger, Avoid the temptation to get an el cheapo $1 charger thru semi-reputable sources on Ebay. I had one, and it was junk!! I just got a quality third party one from Belkin @ Best Buy. You can test your existing charger by disconnecting the battery, and simply plugging it into the car charger. If you can power the phone on, and the battery meter gives full charge indication, you have a good one!! BTW, a great case is made by Body Glove, the "Ion" series! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 91529 2002/4/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lets me do what ever i want to it i want to touch it all the time The Bottom LineSo I named my phone Mercury. It's always good to give things a personal touch. Full Review I threw my car into park, locked the doors and started up toward the front door. I didn't really know what would be waiting for me. However, I knew that the encounter awaiting me could go either way. With butterflies in my stomach I let myself in. The front room was empty so I started up toward the bedroom -- I knew that he would most likely be there. My heart started to race as I could sense his presence. I looked up and our eyes met for the very first time. Mercury knew I had been waiting impatiently for him for over three days. I looked over at him and sighed with relief. His calm, cool and collected demeanor made me feel as if I might lose control. I had played our first encounter over and over again in my dreams. I glanced at him with a sheepish grin and could feel my heart pounding as I reached for him. It took all the power in me not to hastily undress him and use him like I wanted to so badly. I moved him closer and kissed him gently... then pulled away. This day, filled with passion and excitement, was the best day of my life. Finally I was going to experience Mercury and all that he had to offer. I took him into my hands and caressed his body. Having him so close made me feel light-headed. Passion pulsed through my body with every beat of my heart. Running my fingertips ever so gently around his sleek figure, I wanted so badly to see what this God could do. The possibilities were endless now that I had Mercury with in my grasp. Mercury's power was too fierce for me to avoid. I tried to will myself into saving our playtime for later. I wanted to talk. I wanted to hear the clarity of his words. I wanted to make sure that he was THE ONE. No matter what I did, Mercury's power was far greater than I had ever imagined. He overwhelmed me and I lost myself. Without realizing it, I was touching him in ways I should not have been. Playfully, I extended Mercury's staff to its fullest. I felt myself beginning to lose control. I couldn't resist anymore! I spread him apart as far as he could go and feverishly placed my head in his special nook. Resting my head against him, I rubbed him up and down my temples, letting my hair spill over him as he began to power up. I looked at him again and began to play like a puppy with a new toy. I pushed his buttons... one by one. With every push it became clear to me that he would do whatever I demanded of him. I gently caressed his portals and made sure that he was ready for action. As I plugged him in I could see that there was no turning back. He started to whir and squeal with delight as I placed my mark upon him. I entered his memory and did things that he'd never forget. I navigated through his mind with ease, learning what I needed to do -- all the while watching him as he sat back and enjoyed the ride. I found his sweet spots and pushed them one by one until I connected with him in a way I had never connected with anyone before. Everything became so clear, so simple, as we waited in anticipation for the climax of our journey. Working harder and harder, he kept reminding me that he would not let me down. Vibrating and ringing, pulsating… faster and faster… until… we reached our climax together. When we were finished, I gently caressed his nook and sweetly pressed him closed. I licked my lips and wiped the sweat from my brow. Mercury is all mine now. I would never have to depend on another again. His power so fierce, the hard lines of his body, the connection we made… Sprint Touchpoint 1100. Every woman should have one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 91528 2000/1/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone great features great tiny size great battery life desktop charger is too big for vacations no vibrate ring mode The Bottom LineBuy this phone if you want a durable, feature-filled, long battery lifed, nice looking, loud ringing phone. Full Review INTRO: Let me begin by stating that I've had this phone for over 2 years now. While 21 is considered to be late in life for getting a cell phone these days, I had always decided I didn't want to be "tethered down" by a cell phone that people could always reach me with. When I finally bit the bullet and decided to become a cell phone user, thank God I chose this phone to start with. Just for comparison's sake, I actually purchased the Samsung N200 phone before this one and owned it for about a week (which is about the time it took me to realize that the flimsy keypad cover/earpiece probably wouldn't last me all too long). So in essence, I traded it in for the TP 1100 for peace of mind because the 1100 seemed to be more durable. While I can't say how long the N200 would have lasted me, the 1100 is in fantastic shape and could easily be mistaken for "nearly new." When I went to trade in the N200, I was torn between the TP1100 and the TP5200, which was the new kid on the block. What swayed me towards the TP1100 is that although the rings on the TP5200 are really cool and sound more like a little jukebox than a cell phone, they were too quiet. Even on the highest setting, I couldn't hear the rings that well when I turned on the ringer in my pocket. The TP1100, on the other hand, had more cell phone sounding rings, but there are a few (like the Turkish March) that have some really high pitched tones and are easily heard in pretty loud background noise. The SINGLE BAND issue: I admit I was reluctant when I first purchased this phone because it's single band (digital) and all the other phones selling at the time were pushing the double band idea. Basically, single band just means that I can't use this phone to switch to analog mode and "roam" and pay extraordinary prices when I'm between big cities. And this is a negative? So I decided to go for it, and I've never had to look back. Of course I've been in places where I don't get a signal (the drive from Kansas City to Eastern Oklahoma runs through some extremely barren areas), but I had my girlfriend by my side on that trip and her "high tech dual mode" phone wasn't getting signals in the exact same places. What this phone DOES do is allow you to "roam" on other digital networks if Sprint doesn't cover an area. Of course, you still pay those extraordinary prices, but it was worth it when I was in Argentina and able to use THEIR digital network to call a number by just dialing the local number!! That's downright amazing, if you ask me... SIZE: So this brings us to the main reason I chose this phone after returning the N200. This phone is small, and I mean really small. I don't have the size specs memorized (yeah right), but I can compare it to .... well, nothing is exactly like it in size, but just imagine a bar of soap and this phone is a little bit thinner, a little bit shorter, and a little bit skinnier. Okay, bad analogy, but let's just say I can put it in my pocket with very minimal bulge and have never chosen not to take it with me due to size. FEATURES: As far as features, I can put it simply. This phone is virtually flawless. It does everything I would want a phone to do and more. It's going to be painful upgrading to a new phone someday because I doubt it will be as well laid out as the TP1100. I can dial anyone in the phone book by pushing only two buttons. I can play Blackjack and some weird puzzle game to pass the time when I'm bored in the airport waiting for the delayed flight to leave. I can set the phone as an alarm to complement the other two alarms I have set to make SURE I wake up. I can use the phone as a calculator (okay, that's not all too impressive, but you'd be surprised how often you need one). This phone is a flip phone, but the important thing is the external caller ID screen. I've read reviews in the past where people said that dust got into it and after a few months they couldn't read the number. All I can say is they likely got a defective phone, because while I can see a few specks in there, after 2 years of pretty heavy use, there's no obstruction to my view in any way, shape, or form. And not only does the screen show the number of the person calling (or the name if they're in your phone book), but it also shows the battery life, how much of a signal you're getting, whether or not you have voicemail or an AIM message, and if the phone is on vibrate or ring mode. Speaking of battery life, it's really quite impressive on this phone. I've taken it to North Carolina before for the weekend without the charger (although, to be fair, it wasn't that I had that much faith in the battery... I just forgot it). It lasted the entire trip without turning it off once, although by the time I got to the airport at home it was beeping with a low battery warning like no other. Of course, there's no camera on this phone, and the display doesn't have 250,000,000,000 colors like the ones selling today, but it does what a phone is supposed to do: it lets you call people and lets them call you. WIRELESS WEB: Don't get me wrong, though. This phone isn't an archaeic relic from the early 90's. It does have the wireless web, which I recently started using again since I'm out of town. You can stay logged onto AOL Instant Messenger 24 hours a day and then only use minutes when it tells you someone just sent you a message. I don't recommend it for long term chatting on AIM, though, because typing sentences with a keypad system is downright tedious. But again, this is a cellular phone, not a laptop computer. FLAWS: There are a couple things that cause this phone to get a "virtually flawless" rating and not a "100% flawless" one. This phone doesn't have a "Vibrate & Ring" mode. I really liked that about the Samsung and it would definitely make it impossible to miss a call if I could get it to shake and ring together. Fortunately, as I said before, there are rings that are loud enough to make this a non-issue. The other flaw is that the only way to charge this phone on the road is to take the desktop charger with you. I suppose you could buy a car charger, but for a long trip it would be nice to be able to take just a cord to plug it into the wall instead of a desktop charger that's literally bigger than the phone. The rest of the time, though, the desktop charger is great and it takes less than a second to plop it into it once you get the hang of it. CONCLUSION: I'm not sure how useful this review will be since this phone is getting older and older, but if you're not looking for a new-fangled phone and you see this one available, go for it. I can assure you that you won't regret it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0(with plan)Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 7865 Sprint TouchPoint 5200 91555 2003/11/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life very small nice rings stylish roams easily scratches easily I haven't had many problems w/ this phone. I've had it for about 2 yrs. It was a gift. It's very cute and small. I personally think it's a "girly" phone, just because of the color and the ringers. I can talk on it for hrs w/o charging and it will still have battery life. It has some nice features i.e. calculator,games,calendar,voice memo,web,lots of ringers to choose from. I do think it scratches easily. The first time I dropped mine some of the paint came off and now it has a big black mark on it. It won't work in certain stores I go in, but that's with any phone I think. Overall I really like the phone. I'm getting a new one, but not because this phone is bad. I think it's a good buy if you're not trying to keep up with all the latest stuff. 91554 2004/4/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size games basically everything colors no color screen which isn t really bad I ordered my phone through Liberty Wireless which is a company associated wit Sprint. Any way my phone is working fine so far. I believe it will be working as long as I keep it. The only problem is that I don't have the web yet because Liberty Wireless is having some difficulties with the technology. I will have it soon though.I don't understand why some people say so many bad things about this phone when they haven't even had it that long. Everything that people say bad about the phone I believe are good things in my book. It all depends if you know what you are really talking about. 91553 2000/11/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 great look very clear very small seems a little flimsy The Bottom LineIf you want a very small phone, this is the one. Full Review I have had this phone for around a month and I really do like it. I guess I like because of its size. It is very small and I usually carry it around in my front pants pocket. The vibrate feature is nice so I don't cause interruptions in meetings. It has quite a bit of features I and I use the voice calling feature every day. I can simply say "voicemail" and it will call my office voicemail and enter the passwords for me. I can say "home" and it will call my home. I have only used the built in digital recorder a few times. I usually record where I park at the airport so if I forget, I can go back and listen to the recording. I have been told by the people that I speak with that the sound quality is outstanding. Many time I have been asked where are you calling from because it is so clear. The phone does seem a little flimsy. I would be scared if I dropped it. So far, I have taken good care of it and there is no problems. For such a small phone, the keypad is actually designed well so that you don't have problems entering phone numbers. I would recommend this phone if you want something very small. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 91552 2000/11/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great style reasonable price big clear screen ultra compact ringtones too cutesy poor speaker quality poor signal strength forget about the vibrate feature The Bottom LineIf you want great style in an ultra compact phone, this is it. If sound quality and signal strength are also important to you, look elsewhere...maybe the Samsung M100 Uproar. Full Review I purchased this phone 2 weeks ago mainly for the small size and cool design. Everyone who sees it has to ask about about it. It has many great features including wireless web, voice dialing, calendar, etc. but...I had read many places on the net where customers complained about the speaker quality. I decided to try it anyway. They were right. The speaker quality is about the worst I've heard. In the med-high and high setting the sound is annoying. It sounds distorted and and sounds like your are speaking into a tin can. At the high setting, the speaker vibrates the aluminum casing. I sometimes need the volume high when walking in downtown or while I'm on the bus commuting to and from work. When I sent an email to LGIC (manufacturer of the TP5200) about this defect, they responded by saying I should just turn the volume down. What the...? Also, signal strength is weak or non-existent in some areas where there should be no problem. The signal is weaker than my previous phone (Ericcson T28) and my wife's phone (Nokia 8290), especially in the downtown buildings or in mall stores. These other phones (Ericcson and Nokia) were using VoiceStream so I don't really know if it was the phone or the service that caused the poor signal strength. One more complaint. The ringer volume is low even on the high setting. I frequently miss calls when I'm on the bus or in a moderately noisy area. The vibrate feature is little help since the weak vibration is not felt unless you are seated (and not driving on a bumpy street) or standing still. OK, one more thing. The TP5200 comes with a lot of different ringtones, but many of them are cutesy little songs you would never select for fear of embarrassment if someone heard your phone ring. There is no customizable ringtone option so your options are limited. If you are male, the ringtone option is even more limited. Unfortunately, Sprint doesn't have many other good phones to choose from if you are looking for compact size and reasonable price. I'm currently debating whether I should return the phone and buy the Samsung Uproar. It is also compact and comes with a built-in MP3 player, and it has a reputation for very good sound quality and signal strength, even in underground garages and elevators. The TP5200 would never come close. The Uproar is about the same price as the TP5200, however the style of the Uproar is much less appealing. It is very boxey and kind of retro in style. Tough decision but I'm leaning toward.....returning the TP5200. I want to stay with Sprint for the service, but I will not stay with Sprint if the phones don't have the features I want. The cellular service industry is too competitive (at least here in Houston) to settle for a phone you don't like. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 91551 2000/1/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 need i go on great reception looks clarity voice activation how did i live without it weight none The Bottom LineWith the safety features, great design, light weight, clear clarity and reception this phone currently blows away anything on the market right now! Full Review I've had cell phones for years, and thrown away so many in search of the perfect cell phone. Alas, after my years of persistance I have found it with the LG TP5200. Who the heck is LG anyways? Well, after some stout research I find out LG is a major korean player in leading electronic equipment such as tv's and dvd players. But what about motorola, nokia and the really big guys? Well, LG is a even bigger company worldwide, with more technology, but we're just getting a taste of what this company actually produces. First off, in appearance, nothing compares to the 5200...nothing! Everyone goes crazy for this phone when they see it. At only 3.5 oz it is easy to hold and just put in your front pocket as the folded width is also quite slim. I found it really made the difference driving or doing something else because less effort is needed to hold the phone. Speaking of driving...how many times have you looked down to find someone in your address book only to really find out that some jerk just decided last minute to make a left? It's dangerous and I think it's all happened to us at one time or another, but with the voice activation feature all you have to do is open the flip and say the name and it automatically dials it for you (beam me up scotty). This is so incredible that you'll feel how did you ever live without it. Well I must admit, I was intimidated by this phones features, but it was all so easy to do and program. The instructions we're easy to follow and if you had a few cell phones before it's an even easier time of it. It's an enjoyable experience none the less to learn the phone entirely. As far as clarity goes this is the best phone in that department also. It can be very loud or adjusted to a lower volume setting. Reception has been great so far (better than my motorola or my nokia) and the battery is better than the usual cell phone batteries that die in a 60 minute convo. The phone book is easy to get into by the touch of the left button; you're in, and it's easy to program many numbers and multiple numbers with the same person. You can set multiple ringers and songs for different individuals. Like for example, when my boss calls it plays "turkey in the straw" and i always know it's him with out even looking at the phone. If he tried to trick me with another line I can avoid him by looking at the nice window on the front with caller id so i don't have to flip open the phone to see who it is. Another nice feature and it keeps your eyes less on the phone and more on the task at hand. All in all I think you'll realize that LG is a serious contender in the cell phone world and if you can get your hands on one or switchover you'll be glad you did!!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 91550 2000/12/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cools games great phone great size signal strength is very deceiving rings are sort of annoying The Bottom LineGreat phone. Full Review I have had my phone since 10/12/01. The first thing I noticed was the signal strength meter. When I got home, my Samsung 3500 had a full signal, where my new LG phone had 50% signal. I realized something was up when the LG phone died in the same place on my drive into work, as my ole' reliable Samsung. After doing some research online, I found out that all signal meters aren't created equally. There are different ways to determine the actual signal strength. This has to be the case since I really haven't had any problems with this phone in regards to dropped calls. The ringer isn't the best. I don't get into all the MIDI tones. Just give me a plain old ringer. The games are pretty cool (for a phone). The battery life seems VERY good. I paid $199. I think that's a little steep. The build quality doesn't seem as sturdy as the Samsung, but so far its held up just fine. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 91549 2000/12/19 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size features low radiation level weight sound quality weak vibrate The Bottom LineA dependable phone with many features. Overlook some of the small faults and you will enjoy this phone. Full Review I just purchased this phone after having a Motorola Timeport. I really liked my Timeport, but after doing some research online I found that the Timeport emits an SAR Level of 1.53 W/Kg of radiation. SAR means, Specific Absorption Rate. That means that 1.53 Watts of radiation per kilogram (I'm not sure if this is body weight,but you get the drift). For those that don't know, the most a cell phone could have to pass inspection is 1.60 W/Kg, so this is really cutting it close. The 5200, on the other hand only has .73 W/Kg. Cutting the frequency by more than half as much. Since this is my ONLY phone (I don't use have a landline as a college student to cut back expenses), I decided to buy this phone and save all the Gamma and Microwaves from being compressed into my ear. Not to harp on this, but this was a big deal to me and my parents. I've read all the gripes about the sound and reception and all that, and while I've found the sound to be a bit distorted at times, it's still clear and audible. The weight is excellent, it's so small and portable. I must say my biggest peave is that the vibrate ringer is very weak. I can barely feel it with it on my holster attached to my waist. This is a pain, but I usually keep the ringer audible. The ringers are a bit cutesy which is okay for me as a girl, but there is a standard ring if you don't like all of the hoopla Jingle Bells stuff. Overall, I really like this phone. I mostly use my phone to call out. If I miss a call because the vibrate was too weak, then just call them back. No big! I definitely reccomend this phone, it's portable and durable. But moreso, it's one of the safer phones out there as far as radiation levels go. Good to keep in mind. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 160.00 91548 2000/10/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 ergonomics phone book layout size earpiece sound quality vibrating ringer is somewhat weak The Bottom LineIf you live/travel in a market with STRONG Sprint coverage, this is an excellent choice Full Review I evaluated both the V60 and TP5200 as they are both similar in size and functionality. Both local carriers (Sprint and Alltel) offer comparable plans (Sprint 350/2000 @ $40, Alltel 350/1000 @ $50). I am sure the V60 offers additional features I did not identify, but I could not justify the $400 V60 cost vs. the $100 (after $100 rebate) cost of the LG piece. The 5200 external display offers signal strength and battery level, additionally the sound quality of the 5200 is extraordinary - it can play at almost speakerphone level, with a full rich tone. The internal screen of the 5200 displays 5 lines of data vs. the V60's 3. The 5200 offers muliple phone numbers per name and a full month view in the scheduler. I also like the alarm snooze function in the 5200, the V60 does not offer this. One draw back is the vibrating ringer of the 5200 is not as robust as I would like; the v60 is quite strong. Signal reception capability of both appear somewhat similar (with the V60 having a slight edge), but that is difficult to confirm as the Alltel signal is 800mhz vs. Sprint's 1900mhz - the lower frequencies "seem" to push further. I did find the "voice command" capability to be significantly "better" at recognizing my voice than other Sprint phones I have tried. All in all I found the TP5200 to be a phone one should consider when looking at the latest clam shell format phones. I only wish the 5200 was available in black. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $100 91547 2002/3/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish nice ringers small external caller id good battery life too small The Bottom LineGood phone, very expensive but so small and stylish, it is worth the money. Full Review I recently got this phone because my old phone which was a Samsung 8500, broke, but luckily I had a protection plan on it through Best Buy. They no longer had anymore 8500's but they gave me $200 towards a new one and that's how I ended up with this one. The TP5200 has a lot of nice features. The animation throughout the menus and starting up the phone as well as shutting down the phone is some really nice eye candy. With the ability to store a HUGE amount of phone numbers, including many labels for each number. There is now the ability to label something as Home 1, Home 2, Office 1, Office 2, and etc. The ringers are in a huge amount, with many nice tones to choose from. Some of them were a little weird and some of them I would never put on my phone but it is cool to have them there none the less. The external caller ID is the nicest feature about this phone. Being able to tell who is calling without even flipping the phone, is a wicked cool feature that is very handy. The menus can be a little hard to navigate through at first but once you get the hang of it, it is OK. The menu includes access to the World Wide Web, your call history, your phone book, a scheduler, roaming settings (you can set the phone to only work as long as you are not roaming), your general settings, voicemail, voice services (to set your voice activated dialing), a calculator as well as 2 games: Comanche 2 and Black Jack. Overall I would say I am very pleased with this phone. It has an excellent battery life and I never seem to go down even a bar of life, while using it the entire day. The phone comes with a desktop charger, which I prefer as opposed to just a plug. The price of the phone is a bit steep but if you go into stores like Best Buy, you can usually get rebates from both the store as well as Sprint PCS. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91546 2000/4/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of features small lightweight very stylish flip top easily broken horrible warranty program ringer stops working occasionally The Bottom LineDon't waste your money on this phone or Sprint! There are plenty of other phones that are just as cute as this with better warranty programs and better service plans! Full Review I bought this phone in April of 2002 strictly because of its looks...BIG MISTAKE! I guess I am disappointed with not only the phone but with the experience I have had with Sprint since I received the phone. The ringer occasionally goes out on it and I took it to Sprint. They said because there is a small, almost nonexistent scratch, the warranty is void. Therefore, I miss numerous calls because the ringer (for no reason and with no warning) decides to hibernate for about a week...then it just miraculously begins working again. The phone is so small, that you must have some kind of case on it to protect it and to keep from losing it. Me, being a woman, it is too bulky to fit in my pocket and too small to go in my purse and I usually have to dig in my purse to find it when it rings. By the time I find it, I have missed the call. So I purchased a case (from Sprint) with a belt clip so that I could clip it on my purse. Unfortunately, the case does not completely cover the sides of the phone and you will get a scratch or two on the sides which will cause the warranty to be void (another complaint I have). But the case is also really bulky and causes the flip-up part to flip open just from being barely touched. Then, because you don't realize it is open, you bump or walk past something (say in a store with racks of clothes) and the flipped up part grabs and begins to break apart from the phone. I went to Sprint about this and they said that since the phone was "bumped into something" it couldn't be repaired (even though I have insurance on it). Therefore, I now have a $200 broken phone not even 2 months after I purchased it. The phone is actually really cute and I get a lot of compliments on it. But it seems to be cheaply made and not very durable. With all the phone service plans with free phones out there, this is really not worth the money I paid for it a year ago. I thought that since I was paying $200 I would get a phone with great technology that would last (since everytime I bought Nokia, I would have to pay to upgrade it about every 6-9 months because it wouldn't be compatible with the service). I also thought it would be durable...its not! On top of that, Sprint has nickel & dimed me on my bill since I have had service with them. It seems like they want to charge you $3 just for "thinking" of calling their customer service! Then, the bills are always incorrect and they will argue with you until you just say forget it. I have been anxiously waiting for my contract to end since about 2 months after I got this phone because it is not worth it at all! Please avoid this phone and Sprint at all cost!!! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 199 91545 2000/12/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 display size stylish menu set up ring tones sound quality reception The Bottom LineGood for someone who wants a great-looking phone, makes quick calls, and lives in an area with a strong Sprint signal. Does not work for long calls or when traveling. Full Review This phone was my very first cell phone. Understandably, I was attracted by the flip-style, external display, fun color, etc. When I discovered all the different ringer types, I was in love. The sound is absolutely amazing. It doesn't have that high-pitched tinny sound that other cell phones tend to have. Plus the lights on the outside flash when you receive a call. Very cute. The displays (external and internal) are big and easy to read. The buttons are large considering the entire phone is not very big. I like the menu layout. The phone book is alphabetical and you can store multiple numbers for each person. While I do love this phone, I have come to realize that it doesn't fit my needs. The phone is great to carry around; it is light and gets tons of compliments. However, the reception is poor. I can be in the same place with a friend who has a different Sprint phone. Mine will be out of the service area while she is talking away. The battery is likewise very poor. I don't think it even matches the claim on the box in terms of minutes. I could perhaps deal with these two problems, except for the last difficulty -- the sound quality is very poor. It is hard to hear the other end even under the best of circumstances, nevermind when you are out and about. For a quick conversation, this phone works fine, but if you attempt to have any sort of normal conversation, it doesn't not work well. It is also awkward to hold against your ear at the precise angle necessary for the best sound. I honestly hate to give this phone a bad review and I've hesitated for a while about getting a different phone. But at long last, I have decided to trade it in. I'm going for an older clunkier model but am willing to sacrifice style for function. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 91544 2000/11/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 stylish easy to store small outer screen good ring tones comfortably sized keys internet access light you can y get cool accessories for this phoneit s pretty expensive The Bottom LineThe bottom line is this: If you want a lightweight, durable, and stylish phone with internet access and great reception this is the phone for you. Full Review Although you can't buy any really cool accessories for this phone, like for the Nokias, you get great service. When me and some family friends where out at this outlet mall in hagerstown(middle of nowhere)I would turn right and left and all I would see are people complaining about not getting any service. I was a little worried because I needed to call a friend to make plans for that night. Later that day, to the amazement of many around me, I got a call. It was my friend and I could hear him loud and clear. Before this I was thinking of changing to Nokia, but ill be a Sprinter for a while longer because of this and the pros that I,ve already told to you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 91543 2002/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to navigate menu s price ringtones vibrate excellent looks small size indiglo screen good reception a bit thick cheap designed cradle The Bottom LineOverall, one of the best small-sized phones available. Lot's of options, easy to use, and good looks/reception makes this phone a truely enjoyable one to use. Full Review When my trusty StarTac decided to die, I was on the lookout for a new phone. I definitely wanted something small, elegent looking, and that was different from the rest of the crowd. I finally remember this small flip phone I've seen in the store. I started to do some research on it, and realized it was the phone for me. It had everything I wanted, plus more. And, with rebate for $75, it was definitely a steal too! The Touchpoint 5250 is an extremely small phone, that is packed with features. While being a little thick at 1 inch wide, it's small width and height make up for it. It features 2 displays, one on the outside which displays vital information, and a larger, easier to read display on the flip part of the phone. The keys on the side are very useful for volume of tones and voices, however these buttons require a little effort to push them in. No big deal. The phone features, IMO large keys considering the size of this phone. The phone has an Indigo-like backlighting scheme, so it is a pleasure to view at night (as well as day). Also, having built in rumble (as opposed to some Nokias) is great. Some things I didn't like about the phone... The phone is a little bit thick at 1 inch. However, with such a small footprint, it surely doesn't feel like an inch when in the pocket. Also, the cradle seems to scratch the phones casing a little bit (it's more the battery than the casing). This could show a lot of wear/tear on the phone if you keep it for a long time. Also, the cradle's design is a bit cheap, and poor. I think they could have designed it a little better. There are no major things wrong with phone, so on to the good things! ;) The biggest thing for me was the design and size of the phone. The Touchpoint exceded both of these criterias. It was small, very elegant, yet simple. Oval at the base of the phone, and more straight at the top, it shows that it was well designed with simplicity. With a touch of teal/blue, it adds to the elegance and looks of the phone. The phone looks as good as opened as well as shut. Another factor for me was features/options, and this phone has plenty of it. Web capable, voice dialing, PIM management, and even some games adds to the features. The menu's are easy enough to navigate, and you'll notice that you get faster and faster at them each time you use them. The phone also features an Indigo-like backlight, which REALLY helps. It makes the phone look really nice/elegant in dimly lit locations. Also, another cool feature I liked was the outside display. It shows things like signal strength, battery, date, time, number of missed calls/phone number of current caller. Perhaps the biggest factor... signal strength. Living in Highlands Ranch, there is no place to get signal. However, surprising myself... I can walk around my entire house, and get reception. It works in most places of HR, so I was very pleased. Likewise said, just because I get good reception, doesn't mean you people up in the plains of Nebraska will... ;) Customer Support is right on par. The few different people I've talked to are very friendly, and helped me out right away. Getting the phone setup was a breeze. The person asks for serial number, tells you to do a few things, and you are ready. I must admit, the automated menu is annoying when calling, since sometimes all I want to do is talk to a representative, but you get to them eventually. ;) Overall, the Touchpoint 5250 is an excellent phone. Getting it at $75 makes me love it all the more, however feature-full, and no real nags on it, this phone is a keeper until U.S.A. rolls out the 3G networks. With it's small foot print, excellent screen, and good reception where I live, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable, elegant, and small phone, the Touchpoint 5250 will definitely exceed your expectations, and make you happy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 91542 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 dual lcd s lightweight compact excellent sound quality many useful features love it or hate it color scheme weak vibrate mode bulky charger The Bottom LineAn attractive phone with useful features. A smart shopper can find this phone at a reasonable price. If you like its looks -- buy it! Full Review When it came time for me to join the 21st. century and finally get a cell phone of my own, I decided to go with Sprint on the recommendation of my entire family. While researching their selection of phones, I read some good reviews of the TP5200. When Sprint offered a $30 rebate on the TP5200 and $100 in service credits for ordering a phone and service plan online, I jumped at the chance and signed up. My pre-activated phone even arrived, via UPS second day, a day ahead of schedule! The photo of the TP5200 on Sprint's website (also used here on Epinions.com) doesn't do the phone justice. It makes the phone look like it's teal and dull gray. The "gray" body is actually a brushed silver color. Yes, the antenna is white. Yes, it doesn't quite match the rest of the phone. No, I don't think it's a fatal fashion mistake. Personally, I like the color scheme of the phone, but I can see that it wouldn't be to everyone's taste. The first thing you notice about the phone when you pick it up, is how light and compact it is. This really is a "carry anywhere" phone. It fits very comfortably in a small shirt pocket. The keypad is compact, but doesn't feel cramped to my hands, and the mouse key makes navigating the menus a snap. The dual LCD's are a great design feature. The inner display is large and easy to read. The outer display lets you monitor the battery life, signal strength, date and time, and caller ID without having to open the phone. In fact, you can answer and end calls by just opening and closing the flip, and still screen calls with the caller ID. Very handy. When talking on the phone, the TP5200 conforms to my face comfortably. It doesn't feel overly short like some of the compact Nokia models I've tried out in the past. It's comforting to feel the microphone hovering close to your mouth and not hiked up by your cheek. The speaker has plenty of volume and clarity so that calls don't sound garbled. I don't think you can expect any mobile phone to sound as good as a land line, but I think the sound quality of this phone is excellent. I've dropped very few calls with this phone, and seem to get good reception even if the signal strength indicator is down to two bars. The controversial white antenna is kind of short, and I have yet to notice any improvement in reception with the antenna extended. A lot of the time, I don't bother extending it. I haven't had a long conversation and run down the battery on my phone, so I can't comment on the real-life talk time. The specs for the TP5200 claim that you can get up to 150 hours of standby time (about 6 days) in digital mode. I've found that with no analog roaming, and with light use, I can get around 8 days of battery life between charges. This is significantly longer than the manufacturer's claim. (Your mileage will probably vary, though.) The TP5200 is loaded with enough extras to keep any gadget head amused for a long time. They include: A 199 entry phone book. Each entry can contain up to 5 phone numbers. Numbers can be labeled whether they're located at home, office, mobile, etc. Voice activated dialing. Up to 50 numbers in your phone book can be dialed simply by speaking a voice tag into the phone. With this, you don't need Sprint's voice dialing service. A voice recorder that can store up to four minutes of memos. Both voice activated dialing and the recorder can be accessed via a small button on the side of the phone. A calendar and appointment book. I've found this to be useful for keeping track of appointments and special occasions. You can also use it as an alarm clock and even select from a variety of rings. 25 different MIDI ring tones and a vibrate mode. The ring tones vary a lot in volume. Some of the musical rings can be heard just fine on medium volume. Some of the more standard rings have to be cranked up to maximum to be heard clearly. Also, the vibrate mode is very weak. You have to be carrying the phone in your pocket to even feel it. If you're occupied with an activity, like driving, it's easy to ignore completely. It's all-too easy to miss calls with the phone in vibrate mode. Also included is a calculator and a couple of so-so games. The phone is also wireless web ready and can be used as a wireless modem. I neglected to sign up for a free trial of wireless web service, so I couldn't test the phone's browser. The only other quibble I have with this phone is that the included charger is a bulky "base station" type. If you have to travel a lot, I wouldn't feel comfortable taking it along. A compact travel charger is another $50 or so. In all, I'm very happy with this phone. Its outstanding portability allows me to take it anywhere and stay in touch. With the phone book, and scheduler, I'm in no hurry to get a PDA. No phone is right for everyone, but this one is for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 169.99 91541 2000/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight very small good phonebook features great ringer tones antenna reception vibrating ringer shape The Bottom LineI don't think you get as much as you're paying for. This phone performs admirably, but leaves something to be desired. Full Review I would like to start out by saying that I have had the pleasure of using, in one way or another, most of the popular cell phones out there. Consistent with this, I have also become very familiar with most of the service providers out there. That being said, this review concentrates on the Sprint TP5200 (manufactured by LGIC) for use with the Sprint PCS network. INITIAL IMPRESSION: Size is very important to me, and this phone is small! If you need an unobtrusive phone, this is one to go with. Don't let the small dimensions fool you, though. The display on this phone is large and bright, and the external LCD is very handy when you want to see who's calling or just want to check the time. The buttons are large and have a solid "click" to them; however, the two external side buttons seem rather flimsy and feel like they might break or stop working. I have a problem with the antenna--it's plastic and frail, and honestly I don't think it contributes much to the phone reception. Finally, this phone seems solidly built and well constructed. PERFORMANCE: This phone has so-so performance where I live (Stamford, CT outside of NYC). I get average reception wherever I go; as previously stated the antenna doesn't seem to contribute to the reception. The phone fits well in your ear. However, sound quality leaves much to be desired. The calls all sound a bit scratchy and no matter how much you adjust the volume, the calls always seem to be too loud for the speaker. Battery life is good for a CDMA phone, with light use you can get away with about 3 days of usage. I like the battery meter; it has 5 indicator bars which gives you a better idea of the battery life than a standard indicator would give you. The ring tones, while not integral to the performance of the phone, are fantastic. You have never heard anything like this in a cell phone before. It's like getting your first Sound Blaster card for your PC when all you were used to was the 'beep' coming from the internal speaker. The calendar manager is decent; I doubt many people will use it as it is not fast nor intuitive. But if you absolutely need a reminder, it will do. The phonebook function is pretty good. You can store several numbers per name, which is helpful. Also, you can store up to 15 characters per name--good if you want to include entire names instead of 'Bob P.' One problem--in order to use numbers other than the default for that name, you have to select the number, verify your selection then press talk. There are a few more steps than necessary here. OTHER COMMENTS: Sprint has once again chosen to go with the big "home base" charger. I find that these things are bulky and are very bad for traveling. When inserting the phone, it is not clear where the correct stop point or method of insertion is. I feel as if I'm breaking something by putting the phone in it's cradle. As for the shape (mentioned in the Pros/Cons), this phone seems kind of thick compared to other "small" phones, such as the Nokia 8200/8800 series. This makes for a rather large protrusion in the pockets of your pants. I would rather the phone be wider and and slimmer, than narrow and deep. I have a feeling that this problem can be solved with a "slim" battery, but I have yet to see it. All in all, this phone is a "bells and whistles" phone, but I have to admit that I've been left unsatisfied. Others might like this phone but I think it's a little too much money for what you get. It might be worth $150, but even at that price there are other phones out there that have proven to be solid, dependable performers. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 91540 2000/10/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 comfortably sized keys stylish very compact excellent ringer tones external lcd expensive confusing menus The Bottom LineIf style and size without caring about the cost are your thing buy this phone!... Otherwise, I would look somewhere else. Full Review I just bought this phone a couple of weeks ago on Sprint's on-line shopping site (Incredible customer service. Got my phone 'Next Day' at no extra-charge!). The size and weight of this phone was the selling point. The stylish colors were catchy (Except the antenna's color. It is white and it doesn't go with the Silver/teal body). The picture at the site showed a rugged-plastic feel. To my surprise, when I got the phone, The phone didn't look as it did on the picture. This phone color scheme seems to be targeted to the young-female consumer. One of the nice features this phone sports is voice-activated dialing, which saves me the $10 a month that Sprint charges for its version of the feature. You can store up to 50 voice prompts. The phone book is great. It allows a storage of 199 address entries. However, each address entry allows 8 numbers. This allows you to store 2 home numbers + 2 office numbers + 2 mobile numbers + 2 Fax Numbers + 1 Pager + 1 Data (email) for each phone book entry. The Scheduler is basic, very difficult to use one. The calculator is nothing out of this world and the games are not the greatest (black jack and a helicopter game). It has a voice recorder which can store up to 2 minutes. t can be accessed while you are on the phone too. The external LCD shows the name and number of the person calling (Caller ID),Battery charge life, Date and time, signal strength, voicemail and message received notifications. The ringer tones sound superb. Better than any phone in the market. However, the unit "rattles" if the volume setting is at medium or high. It also comes with a "vibrating tone". The keys are perfectly sized. Not to big, not to small which is surprising for the size of the phone. Overall, this is a great phone. However, the price is a bit to high. I wouldn't recommend this phone for business users. You can get a better scheduler for the same price. This phone is targeted to the casual user who wants the latest technology willing to spend a few bucks more. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 170 91539 2000/10/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 many nice midi ring tones very compact reception sound quality The Bottom LineThe earpiece on the phone will drive you mad. Sprint & LG claim it's not a defect. Save your money. Full Review Don't ever buy a phone just because it looks cute. It might be cute but it might also be crap. Which is the case with this phone, unfortunately. Sigh. I had high expectations for this phone when it first came out. Back then, about a month ago, the price was at $249. Lately I've found it $100 less, for only $149 at Circuit City. It might be because these weren't actually on their best seller list. Here are the reasons why and furthermore, why I ended up returning it the next day. The number one thing I hate: sound quality on the earpiece. Argh, just gag me already. It sounds terrible at the loudest setting, which vibrates the phone. Turning the sound down a bit will help but calls still sound bad. Sound quality is very hollow, as if the other end were talking through a tunnel or a paper cup. I've read other people's reviews in other forums about this particular phone and they complain about the same sound problem. It's true. It really sucks. I heard that the older model tp 1100 sounds way better than this one. I'd have assumed a new phone would have improved sound. I was wrong. I had a tm 510 for a while (the verizon version of the tp 1100) and that phone's sound quality was excellent and held a signal very well. Which brings me to the reception on this phone. The antenna does nothing to improve reception, and it only measures about an inch when extended. This phone, compared with my Kyocera 6035 or tm 510, does not hold reception very well. Don't expect to successfully use the phone inoors. You probably have to go outside to make phone calls because at 1 or less bars of signal, calls will start cutting out, even with the antenna extended. And why did they make the antenna white? It could have been silver to match the phone maybe but white? I'd expected the phone to come with at least a carrying holster as did my tm 510. But no, it wasn't. You're going to have to buy that separately or carry it in your pockets. I'd attach a carry strap on the phone but to say the least it doesn't even come with that either. The size and weight of the 5200 is improved though, measuring and weighing less than the previous models, the tp1100 and the tm510. The ringtones are in midi format and kind of remind me of an ice cream truck. There are over 20 to choose from and are pretty loud at the highest setting so you will definitely not have to worry about missing calls. The phone book is alphabetized, which is an improvement over the tm510, which was organized only by order of entry into the phone. The screen is also a bit bigger and brighter, fairly good for using the wireless web. The new openwave 4.1 browser is installed in this phone. I might be wrong but this phone may be one of the new 3G technology phones but I've only heard that around. It also comes with 2 games, blackjack & comanche, this helicopter game. A basic 2.5mm handsfree unit can be used as well. The outer display showing time/caller ID/battery & signal level is also helpful. Indiglo lighting is another plus. I really wanted to keep this phone but I just couldn't stand the sound and the fact that I kept having to go outside to make/take calls. Even the demo sounded bad. So if all you want is a cute mini phone, that's basically all you'll get with this novelty. It's not a very strong/reliable performer when it comes to basic cell phone usage. Save your money, folks. Sprint has some new phones just around the corner...and Verizon has yet to release their version of the 5200. We'll see how things go. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149 7866 Sprint SCP-5150 Dual Band Cell Phone 91560 2000/4/20 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice color screen small poor battery life The Bottom LineI got this phone because it was recommended to me, I also recommend this phone to anyone else--especially those who rely on it for work. Full Review I got this phone because a friend of mine had it and he liked it. After getting one for myself, I couldn't agree more. Other users have complained about the battery life, which I'll grant is not excellent. However, it seems that those who complained about poor battery life seem to use their phone a lot more than the average user. Only once since I got this phone--about a year ago--has it shutdown due to a drained battery. Further, I have since learned that there is a newer battery that is actually smaller and longer lasting than the one I have, if you want to upgrade it. (The same guy who recommended the phone to me in the first place has the newer battery and never gets a low battery warning--and he uses his phone much more than I do.) Also on the battery issue, the low battery warning seems to come on way before the battery is actually about to die, which can be a little irritating. I'm always afraid I'm going to lose the battery when the warning comes on, but I've made about 3 calls in a row while the "low battery" warning is on, and it's never completely drained out. There are 8 speed-dial buttons, and I only use 7 of those anyway. (There are 9 if you count the dedicated voicemail speed dial one). The ringers are really good--and they are programmable based on who is calling (from your address book) or if it's a restricted call, or whatever. Other phones out there have about 99 speed dials--and I never used them. They also make you assign a speed dial to every entry, which also means you can't just view the address book in alphabetical order, which is what I would rather do to begin with. I freelance in Manhattan, so my cell phone is what I work off of. This phone goes with me anytime I leave my apartment, and stays on 24/7. I'm also really rough with it and have actually dropped it 3 or 4 times and it still works as well as it did the first day I got it. The silver finish chips off, but that's also because I don't use a holster with it--I carry it in my pocket every day, which is one of the reasons I bought the phone in the first place--I can't fit any of the star-tac model phones into my pocket, so that's why I've never bought one. It does seem to get hot after you use it for a while, but that doesn't seem to affect the performance at all. The screen is great and I really like the color--even though it's just kind of an eye-candy feature. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 280 91559 2000/11/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 a durable flip phone that resembles the samsung 8500 it gets hot after 20 minutes of usenot enough speed dial locations The Bottom LineI feel the best flip phone from Sprint PCS for the money! Full Review I loved my Samsung 8500! It was very simple to get around the menu(s), easy to get numbers from my phone book quickly, clear and free and easy to push buttons. The Samsung phones seem to be awesome with reception. I have never needed to use any type of booster sticker/antennas or such. Samsung's technology seems to be top shelf. With all that said, let's get down to business with the Sanyo line of phones or more specifically, the 5150 phone from Sprint PCS. Right off the back, this phone has way too many menus to get to simple things like the calculator or even your speed dial settings. The phone's speed dial settings only allow you to hold 9 numbers and I know that I speak to more than that during the day and would like to be able to put everyone in my phone book on speed dial. Sanyo tends to give you a limited number of speed dial numbers with their phones, but that's okay. the 5150 and it's big brother, the 6000/6200 keeps your phone book is in alpha order instead the order in which you entered numbers. Samsung does just the opposite! The keys on most of the new Sprint phones from both Samsung and Sanyo seem to have there buttons more flush with the face of the phones which can be a little awkward when you are trying to dial 911 for an emergency. However, these sleek style make the phones look all that more graceful when sporting them around town. My biggest gripe with this phone is the color screen. Even though a lot of phones are moving towards that feature, it can be down right unless outside on a sunny day. The glare from the sun will just blind the view of the screen at almost all angles. My biggest applause for the 5150 is the durablity of this phone. Most flip phones I would be scared to drop for fear of the screen separating from the key pad. Well I have had my girlfriend sit on this phone, by accident of course, while it was open and the phone is still going strong like Brett Favre in the 4th quarter down 34-8 with the flu and a weak knee. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 91558 2002/8/13 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 pretty colors bad reception bad battery life expensive outdated technology The Bottom LineSteer clear of this phone. The technology is outdated, the price is WAY TOO HIGH and the battery life and reception is unacceptable. Full Review Intro: My cell phone is my life. I live an ambulatory existence in Manhattan and have not had a land line for the past 2 years, so without my cellphone, I would be cut off from the world. Since migrating to Sprint PCS 2-years ago (which I have had a great experience with in NYC), I have gone through 3 phones: the Sanyo SCP-4000 (loved it), Samsung Uproar (loved it) and the Sanyo SCP-5150 which I've used for the past 6 months. I don't mind paying big bucks for the latest phone with the coolest new features, because it's something I have to use everyday. However, in this case, shiny new stuff is not always better. Wow Factor! Like everyone else who bought this piece of silver turd, I was drawn by the "wow factor" of its BIG backlit color screen and pretty silver finish. However, the color has almost NO functionality on this phone. Yes, it makes the address book and menus look pretty, but wireless web is still text-only, and the color is just window-dressing on a phone with the exact same functionality of the monochrome ones. If you want a color phone I would recommend checking out Sprint's brand new line of 3G compatible phones, which start at $179 and support full-color java games and web browsing. The one legit color feature that this phone has is the ability to download pictures and use them in your caller id. However, you have to first purchase a $179 connectivity which is impossible to find and unavailable at ANY Sprint store or dealer in Manhattan! Not that I would pay $179 to look at grainy pictures of my friends anyways! You would think that when creating a phone that originally retailed for $499, Sprint would include the software and cable for you. Nope... Also the phone looks much better on the box and in pictures. It scratches and chips very easily. The design of the phone reminds me of a retro-future look. Like something you would see in an episode of the original Star Trek style. Not exactly cutting-edge. Basically it got old very fast. Personally, I think the design of the SCP-6000 and 6200 is much nicer. Sounds Good! One thing I love about this phone... Ok, the ONLY thing I love about this phone is the ringer tones. Instead of the annoying 4-note ringers you hear all over the place, you get symphonic tones, classical songs, even animal noises that sound like the real thing. You can also set it to say "bye-bye" in a baby voice when you power off. Wait... Sounds Bad! OK, so it has cool sounding ringers, but how's the clarity and reception? Well, out of the 3 Sprint phones I've used, the 5150 has by far the WORST reception of the 3. With the 4000 and the Uproar, I was able to make phone calls from the desk at my office and inside most buildings, but not with the 5150. I even bought one of those gimmicky stickers that are supposed to improve reception. Unfortunately it did nothing. When I'm outside, calls for the most part sound on par with the other phones I've used, but I've gotten 3-4 times as many dropped calls since switching over to the 5150. Feels Funny The buttons have very little give so it's very hard to tell if you've actually pressed a button sometimes. I always have to look at the screen to double check. The scroll-mouse thingy is kind of neat with the OK button in the middle. I use wireless web A LOT. So I prefer phones that have a good tactile response. The Uproar had tiny buttons which made it a little difficult to type SMS and IM messages quickly. The 5150 has bigger buttons, but they are very slippery and don't have a good feel to them. Nothing lets you know that you've pressed a key so often I find myself spelling things wrong which can be a little annoying. Out of the 3 phones I've used, the 4500 had the best keypad by far. The Worst Part About It Battery Life stinks. Here's a summary of my average day with the 5150: I leave my phone on while at work. I start the day at 9am with 3 bars of battery life. By 5pm I have 2. On my bus ride home, I usually go online for 2 minutes to check my Yahoo! mail, I go down to 1 bar. After logging off, I'm down to 1 bar. I make a phone call to a friend to confirm dinner plans, and by the time I'm home, I get 0 bars and a "low-battery" message. =( Standby time from my experience is no longer than 48 hours. Talk time is around 90 minutes. Problem is, the backlight sucks even more energy out of the paltry power supply. I even bought a spare 3rd-party slim battery, to carry around in my back pocket just in case, but that thing gives adds no more than 1 hour of talk-time. Closing Statement As of 8/13/2002, Sprint still sells this phone for $299, which is approximately what I bought it for 6 months ago. It wasn't worth the price then, and with the release of the new line of 3G compatible phones, it is certainly not worth it now. The new 3G phones start at a lower price, have the same color screens, more ringer tones, and you can now browse the web in color and play java-based Sega games in full color! I had a chance to demo the new Sanyo 4900 ($179) 3G-compatible phone for a day, and noticed much improved battery life and reception. Unfortunately the 3G network was not up and running at the time, so I was unable to test the new "high-speed" web browsing features. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 230 91557 2002/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek durabilty light external display flip big color screen many menus color display eats battery life not vision enabled The Bottom LineWant a sleek color flip phone with Vison like features, without the associated monthy fees and hefty price tag? Then this is the phone for you. Full Review Chapter 1 The Phone Purchase: After reading the epinion reviews on this phone I was weary about purchasing it. It was a toss up between this phone and the comparable color LG that is also offered by Sprint. As of now (November/December 2002) sprint is offering the LG for $149.99, after rebates from $200, and the Sanyo for $100, after rebates from its original $200 price tag. Experienced Sprint customers will say that they are not eligible for the rebates, as they are existing customers. Apparently enough of us did, because the rebates NOW DO pertain to customers that, 1) Have been a customer longer than 6 months, 2) Are in good credit standing, and 3) Are willing to sign the Sprint "Advantage Agreement" stating that they will stick with Sprint for another year. Let it be known I purchased my phone at a Sprint PCS store, NOT a reseller, so these "specials" may not be available at say a BestBuy for instance. For the average existing Sprint costumer this criteria is fairly simple to fulfill, AND you don't have to switch to a newer plan. (If you choose not too, although Sprint is now offering unlimited nights & weekends again.) That being said I was looking at paying $149 for the LG vs. $99 for the Sanyo 5150. Going into the store I already had a bias towards the little Blue LG phone. Previously I had worked for Radioshack, so I was fairly knowledgeable about cell phones and their features - and I never really was a fan of any phone put out by LG. Although they were all flip models (all I ever buy in a cell phone), they had a "cheesy" or cheap feel to them, coupled with poor menu systems, and a design that seemed to be more focused on cuteness that young pre-teenage girls would appreciate rather than myself. (A 20 year old, male college student) The newest LG color creation was no exception. Off the bat the Sanyo caught me with its looks and overall feel. I am a sucker for superfluous technological eye candy, and this phone supplies plenty of it. I previously had owned a Samsung 8500. A GREAT phone. And for my next cell phone, I basically wanted a beefed up 8500. Unfortunately Samsung has gone the route of the 3500 series phone. Most of you may be more familiar with the N200 or the N400 design of a partial flip with a fully exposed screen. If they had the N400 in an 8500 design, I'd buy that hands down. But unfortunately they do not, maybe someday. The next best thing is available though for all you 8500 aficionados: the Sanyo 5150. Again being a previous cell phone salesman (*shudder*) I liked Sanyo cell phones - not for their design (the 4500 series phones are HUGE), but for their intuitive menus, and excellent reception. Contrary to what everyone believes, cell phone reception is not solely determined by the quality of your cellular service provider, but also by the quality of the phone. As a rule of thumb, on Sprint service, anything Qualcom reigns supreme. Phones with Qualcom chipsets (Samsungs, Sanyos, LGs, and of course Qualcoms) get excellent reception, followed closely by Motorolas, with Nokias (even though they haven't been on Sprint in years) bringing up the rear. The percentage I would estimate as 80/20. With 80% being service, and 20% being phone. For any of you unfamiliar with Sprint service, they are, alas, one of the biggest players, with the smallest coverage areas. If you do not live in a major metropolitan area, they are not the service for you. So anyway, I'm in the Sprint store, playing with the LG and the Sanyo. If it had not been for Epinion's reviews I would not even have given the LG a second thought - but the LG WAS highly rated, much so more than the Sanyo that I did end up purchasing. For all its praises the LG fell short in my book compared to the Sanyo. I just couldn't stand the design at all. My cell phone is my sole connection to the outside world. I have not had a landline in over two years, and I knew I would need a phone that would make me completely happy. I'm sure the LG has excellent features and reception quality, but with its bulky design, heavier feel, smaller screen, and down right ugly looks I was sold on the Sanyo. Now that being said, please realize that I had purchased the Sanyo heavily based on an ergonomics / ascetics standpoint. I felt mainly that it looked and felt a lot better than the LG. The Sanyo was comfortable in my hand, had a bigger screen, bigger buttons, and was easier to flip. (Something I find important because out of shear laziness and convenience I like to be able to whip my phone out with one hand and be able to dial. Mostly while driving.) Realize the Sanyo does give up a few features to the LG that you should be aware of, also too you may find the design much more pleasing than myself. The LG is compatible with Sprint's latest network of Vision technology or 3G. The 3G networks provide better reception and data transfer over a cellular device. The Sanyo has 3G Voice capabilities, you would see comparable reception with the Sanyo vs. the LG and other 3G phones, but it lacks the data aspect of Sprint's "Vision" Internet. The Vision feature allows users to view just about ANY web site as they would on a regular computer at home, and enjoy speeds as fast as a regular dial-up modem. Sprint Users without Vision can only see websites that are WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) enabled at a 14.4-baud rate (which is fast enough for text). In other words if you don't have Vision, you get text based internet allowing you to only get things such as sports scores, movie times, weather, directions, and some shopping sites. Vision was not a be selling point for myself, as I get along fine with the basic text based internet, and the extra $10 a month price tab for the added Vision feature is a bit steep. Even though the Sanyo is not Vision enabled, you don't miss out on all the Vision features. The Sanyo can download ringers, and pictures via either a data cable accessory, or the Sprint Download service. I have heard the data cable is a scarce commodity and can be quite expensive. It is possible those that have purchased them did so when they were in great demand, as of now I have seen them for $29.99 in various online stores. In comparison, the Sprint Download service it $8 a month, with the 1st three months free now. Since the Sanyo was $50 cheaper than the LG (a very big difference from its debut price at $499.99), it "felt" better to me, and I wasn't interested in Vision, I choose the Sanyo. Cost vs. features the Sanyo 5150 is the way to go. Chapter 2 Actually getting the phone: Great! I made my decision and told the Sprint Rep. I was ready to buy the Sanyo. Apparently that's what a lot of other people have decided to do also as I was informed the particular store I was in was completely sold out. Expect this phone to be hard to get now, especially around the holidays. So I check out SprintPCS.com, the phone's not even listed on the site. I then call customer service, worried that I had missed out. After weeding through "Claire" Sprint's newest abomination of customer support - ***BEGIN RANT*** Anyone that has recently tried Sprint Customer Care knows what I'm talking about with "Claire". And if you don't Claire is Sprint's computerized female representative. She is enough to give you a headache trying to find any sort of information. I simply cannot stand how companies are making this switch over to the latest technology fad of "saying what you want". (Amtrak does this too) The tried and true touchtone menu systems are a thing of the past. Costumers can simply "say" what they want, and computerized reps. such as Claire will get them exactly what they need. Sound great? Except when I was asked "What do you want?", and then replied "A new Cell Phone." that was a command Claire was unfamiliar with, requiring even more time and aggravation, ultimately leading me to the wrong department, only to be transferred by a REAL human representative. ****END RANT**** I had found out that Sprint themselves had sold out, and the phone was on back order. Undaunted however (when I want something I want it NOW) I went to two more actual Sprint PCS stores in my area (Resellers do not carry this phone, only Sprint) and finally was able to purchase it. Chapter 3 Using the Phone: Now for the real test, actual phone usage. Many things you will read by other reviewers are true on this phone, others are just misinformed. Yes the phone's display does have a tendency to "wash out" in extensive daylight, but any and all color phones do that. So if you want color expect that. (Adjusting the contrast helps a lot.) Yes the phone's battery dies somewhat quickly. Color is a big drain on a battery. Its like leaving the refrigerator door open: know what you want, and get it quickly so as not to kill your battery with the pretty colors, or set the backlight to only a few seconds. Yes the phone does have a tendency to get somewhat "warm", but realize this is after a lengthy conversation, and for those of you that worry, the phone has a low cancer rating. You can check the ratings for many phones at ZDNet.com and search: "cancer ratings on cell phones". After touching on what many other Epinion users have said, lets get to the meats and potatoes of actual phone usage. First off - MUCH improved reception and clarity. PCS has always been known for its digital quality and clarity, but as I'm sure many other Sprint costumers can sympathize with, the signal can be shoddy, and sometimes go in and out. So far NOT with this phone. My main cellular usage cycles between two areas, in Boston where I go to school, and in my home of central Connecticut. With this phone in comparison to my 8500 I see a small improvement in areas of Boston. There is better reception in my apartment, and better clarity. (It even works in *SOME* parts of the subway system now.) But the big difference was at home in Connecticut. Areas that had fringe PCS coverage, or a weak signal on my old phone are now full bars, and excellent coverage. Based on this and my other experiences with the phone, I believe those of you that have been frustrated with areas of weak signal strength, should get better coverage now. The phone is also highly durable. Being of a flip design makes it so. I am abusive to my phones, that's one of the reasons I definitely need the screen on the inside of the phone, rather than exposed on the outside. (That and the screen stays cleaner.) I've slammed the phone against walls, dropped it, and even sat on it - its still going strong. One of the greater testaments to this phones strength is that I mountain bike with it on. Yes I realize it is December - the dead of winter in the Northeast, and No I am not crazy. It's fallen in the snow (something I definitely would not recommend), been jostled around violently, and fallen with me off my bike. Aside from a few scratches, its goin good. Battery life: With sparring use of the color screen, I see about 3 days without having to make a run to the charger. Sanyo states 8 days standby, and about 3 hours talk time. Understand that with everything else in marketing it is all relative. Just like your favorite cookies are "reduced fat" by decreasing the serving size, a cell phones battery will last longer when you DONT TALK ON IT. C'mon, what's the point of a phone if you can't talk on it? But yes - that's the only way you will get 8 days outta your phone is if you keep it closed and use it as a paperweight. Each minute you talk on the phone you lose about an hour of standby time. So with regular use, expect three days. All phones are like this (with different ratios); no one ever gets a full week unless they hardly ever talk on their phone. Ease of use and features: This phone has features galore, but you will sacrifice ease of use for them. Expect to navigate through 2 or 3 menus just to call someone (unless you have them on speed dial). But with that, each person can have a multitude of information associated with his or her name in the phone book. (Home phone, mobile phone, work phone, fax number, email address, data number, web site, and no label.) Along with the beefed up phone book, each user can have their own picture appear when they call. So now you can see your Mom's beautiful mug when she calls. As well as downloading pictures, wallpaper, and screensavers, of your family, friends, and whatever else you want, the phone allows downloading of ringers. You can send any MIDI song you want to the phone either via the (sold separately) data cable or Sprint's download service. ****UPDATE**** After contemplating using Sprint's Download service vs. just buying the Data Cable, I decided on the Data Cable. Mainly because its a one time fee of $29.99, and not only do I get all the same features as Sprint's Download Service, I can also use my phone as a wireless modem. I'd suggest grabbing the cable, its pretty cool. (Its a serial connection, there are USB cables, but they are not included in Sprint's "Web Connection Kit".) You can take any picture off your computer and send it to the phone, as well as any MIDI file to be used as an alert or a ringer. LOL - now my phone rings to "Mission Impossible". ****END UPDATE**** Finally I'd have to say, contrary to many Epinion user reviews, I am happy with this phone and would recommend it to anyone looking for similar features I have listed above. If you need Vision go with the LG, its a good price for what it does, or if you've got around $400 to blow, go for the Samsung A500 - its insane, and for those of you that want a nice phone with no color check out the basic flip Samsung, I think its the A400, its the one thats 50 bucks. But if you are willing to spend a fair amount of money ($99), want color and cool features without paying extra fees a month for Vision, the Sanyo 5150 is an excellent choice - get one while you can! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 91556 2002/7/14 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight color screen stylish filled with neat features compact doesn t come with the data cable The Bottom LineThe Sprint SCP-5150 is well worth the price, containing neat features such as a color screen and picture caller-ID. Full Review I have gone over to the dark side. Due to an utter lack of inspiration, I'm here writing an electronics review for my cell phone rather than a detailed essay of the music playing in the background. I am actually quite surprised no one else has written about the Sprint/Sanyo SCP-5150 yet, as it is currently one of the top selling cell phones in America. Epinions has this under the Sprint heading, but technically, it's made by Sanyo, exclusively for the Sprint PCS digital network. I have had mine for two months, and I must say this little jewel was quite a jump up from my very basic Nokia 5165. While my Nokia was a nice beginner phone, I liken it to, say, a used Ford Escort while the Sanyo 5150 is new Lexus. This baby is loaded with some really fantastic features, and it most certainly looks cool. When I pull it out in a group of people, everyone wants to hold it, play with it, watch it work! This is rather amusing, I must say, as I never really expected this reaction from a cell phone, especially among fickle young adults. Essentially, the SCP-5150 is the newer version of the SCP-5000. They share the same flip-top body style and several features. However, I have no first-hand knowledge of the 5000 model, and I don't think they still sell it, so this review will focus solely on the 5150. The Phone: The SCP-5150 is tiny, only 4.11 inches long (including the stubby antenna), 1.81 inches wide and .83 inches thick (or, should I say, thin). It has a sleek, matte-silver tone casing with a shiny silver "swoosh" on the outside that looks like something out of Star Trek. The phone is very light, 3.4 ounces, and virtually disappears inside a handbag or backpack. While I've never gone out with it in my pocket, you could if you wanted to and wouldn't be bothered because it's so light. Inside, the buttons are a decent size for a small phone. I like the separate "talk" and "end" buttons, which eliminate any dialing confusion. Also, there is a 4-way directional arrow pad, an "OK" button, and 5 other buttons used to configure the phone. The phones comes with Sprint's "medium battery", which will work on standby for approximately 5 days, although I keep the phone in the included charger every night and have yet had it run out on me. The talktime for the battery is between 2 and 3 hours, fair enough time for an average user, though I wouldn't mind an extra hour or two. Features: The SCP-5150 is loaded with features. If I listed and commented on each and every one, this review would be 10 pages long. Therefore, I will give an overview of the main features and the ones I use most. First and foremost, like its predecessor, this has a 2'' color screen (256 colors), something relatively new to cell phones in the USA. This, simply put, is very cool. Say goodbye to boring ole black and grey displays. It has 10 lines of display and really good visibility, except in the brightest of sunlight. Now, you may be asking yourself, what good is a cell phone with a color screen? Well, coupled with the other features, it makes this phone highly customizable. For example, the font and font size and color are all changeable. If you are able to get your hands on the compatible data cable, it allows you download any picture (after cropping it with their software) to be used on the phone, up to 20 images in all. With this, you can assign pictures to certain entries in the address book so that when that person calls, the picture pops up on the screen to produce a picture caller-ID. These images can also be used as the background or "wall paper". Here is an important note, though: the data cables are extremely difficult to obtain. They do not come with the phone, and they have been out of stock for months. After a month of dying to try out this feature, I broke down and bought one in an online auction, though it wound up costing a ridiculous amount of money. Having already spoken about this, the phone also has caller-ID, even though epinions says it doesn't. Trust me, this has caller-ID. Like I said, with certain people, their picture pops up when they call, and with everyone else, just their phone number. Related to this is the second, external screen. On the outside of the phone, there is a small screen that functions as a caller-ID when the phone is closed. This is very nice, because I don't have to open up the phone to see who's calling. If I don't want to answer, a button on the outside can shut the ringer off. While the phone comes with a standard selection of ringtones, opting for Sprint's "Ringers and More" package allows you to download up to 8 MIDI ringtones a month. This might not seem like a lot, but I've found that it's a good number. Downloadable ringtones are nothing new, though they weren't compatible with my old phone, so I get a kick out of hearing You Give Love a Bad Name, by Bon Jovi, every time someone calls. I haven't gotten around to this, but different rings can be programmed to play when certain people call. Contrary, again, to epinions, the SCP-5150 also comes with a vibrating ringtone, which I keep on most of the time because the high volume setting is sometimes hard to hear in crowded settings. The call screener requires incoming callers to state their name before giving you the option of answering the phone or not. Some might find this to be rude, but in my city, the Sprint service is very popular and the screener eliminates the annoying "wrong number" callers. The phonebook can hold up several phone numbers for the same person and up to 300 entries, which is quite sufficient. There is also a calculator, which is great because I don't have to carry around a separate calculator for my checkbook. Also, the calendar is convenient for remembering important upcoming events and provides useful reminders. I have never used this feature, but the phone can be used as a wireless modem, but again, this needs the data cable. If I ever need to use this, I will edit my review to include something more substantial about it. The anti-feature I have yet to be able to get the wireless web browser to work. Apparently, I should be able to check my email, get sports scores, etc. But nope, nada. This could be due to the free trial of the wireless web that I was supposed to get with my plan. I'd rather use my airtime minutes to talk, and I really don't need this feature, but it would be cool to try. Again, if this ever works, I'll edit this review. Other remarks In the two month I've had the SCP-5150, it has only dropped one of my calls, and that was while in a car. The sound is very clear, more than on any cell phone I have used. While the sticker price is a whopping $299.99, you will never have to pay this much. I bought my phone at a Sprint store and, along with my plan, the phone was $79.99. This still might seem like a lot, especially since many cell phone service providers offer free phones, this phone is well worth it. Also, to repeat a previous comment, this phone is only available with Sprint service plans. Sprint is pretty much concentrated around bigger cities, so if you live out in the middle of nowhere, far away from a big city, this phone will probable not be in your options. I am giving the phone 4 stars because I had to pay an arm and a leg for the data cable, which ought to be a standard feature. Otherwise, I highly recommend the SCP-5150 for anyone who wants a high-tech, fun cell phone that looks cool and has some very neat, customizable features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 7867 Sprint Touchpoint 5250 Cell Phone 91562 2004/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial exterior id screen small easy menu screens ringer isn t very loud vibrate mode is too soft charger base This phone is now at the end of it's life and it has served me fairly well. see the details for more info. 91561 2002/11/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 voice dialing cool features nice design external lcd small size ineffective vibrate mode some design flaws poor reception dropped calls The Bottom LineIt's a tiny package with a bunch of problems. Unless you're fixated on getting a small phone, look elsewhere. Full Review I confess the only reason I picked out this model is because of its tiny size. I upgraded from a Sprint Touchpoint 120, which was a solid (although old) phone, just too bulky for my dainty little purses or even most pockets. A problem with such a small phone, however, is that it becomes much harder to find buried at the bottom of a bag when it starts ringing. Although I've decided to stay with this model because I value the small size so much, if there are other considerations for you then I would not recommend it. I'll start by saying some nice things though. The voice dialing feature is pretty nifty. I like the design, silver with blue accents, and red lights flash when calls come in. The antenna is white and rubbery though, and is prone to looking dirty very quickly -- it also is retractable instead of fixed, although I never bother to pull the antenna out for calls. The body and contacts where the battery charges are also very easily scuffed. Because of the small size, those with big clumsy hands may be prone to dialing errors, given that such a small keypad and keys are not very compatible with big hands. The external LCD allows you to see the battery life, reception, time, date, and who's calling before opening the flip. Having upgraded from an older Touchpoint model, I have a good basis for comparison here. The reception, sound quality, and dropped calls are much more problematic with the 5250 than my old model. I will be in areas with somewhat marginal service and my phone goes into analog roam mode, even though people next to me with Sprint phones still have their regular digital service. I've had more dropped calls then before, and people sound much more "mechanical" than what I'm used to hearing. The desktop charger is a big tricky, when you go to re-charge it will light up red or green, but sometimes the light blinks and the manual does not explain why. It takes quite a bit of work and re-positioning the phone to get the red light to stop blinking in order to properly charge it. Another problem -- when you're in the middle of calling someone back (because your call just got dropped, which is often), and they call you back, and you have the phone to your ear, instead of nicely beeping at you to interrupt your outgoing call, the phone RINGS. LOUDLY. SO LOUDLY you can hear ringing in your ears even after you've answered the phone. This is just poor design. My previous model would know what was going on and switch me over automatically or beep quietly to let me know. At least the ringer is loud enough though, previous models of this supposedly were too quiet to hear from another room. However, the vibrate model is very subtle. My previous model, I could hear or feel the phone vibrate in my purse, but this one is so gentle you'd have to have it in a pocket. On a belt clip, if you were wearing jeans, I'm not even sure if you would feel it. The software design is faulty at times. When listening to my voicemail, it forces certain features on you and it's not clear what each of them are. Also, when I hit "7" to delete a voicemail message, the phone prompts me to call the person who's "7" on my speed-dial -- same for other commands. So I had to remove people from the speed dial numbers that are also common voicemail commands b/c I kept accidentally calling them. It doesn't seem to understand that when you're in voicemail, the numbers you hit shouldn't take you to your speed dial. Here is the nitty-gritty: Retail cost: $150 Dimensions: 3.54" x 1.81" x 1.06" (the body is only about 3.25 inches long when closed, not counting the antenna). A bit thick but short enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Battery Type: Lithium Ion Battery Life: ~3.0 hours talk time and 8 days of stand-by time in digital mode (this is an optimistic estimate reported by the manufacturer). Weight: 5.74 oz Features: -Caller ID w/external LCD -Web Browser -Power Save Mode -Area of Use: This is a dual-band phone. You can use this Sprint PCS Phone anywhere in the Sprint PCS Network, on other selected PCS, CDMA networks and on other analog cellular networks. -Voicemail: One-touch access to voicemail messages. -Calendar/scheduler. -Messaging: Receive numeric and text messages. -Enhanced Call Log: Recalls most recent outgoing and incoming numbers, including missed calls. -Security Lock: You can enter a private code to "lock" your phone so others can't make unauthorized calls or gain access with your phone. -Internal Phone Book: Holds 99 entries with up to 5 numbers per entry. -T9Word: This feature tries to guess what word you are entering as you enter in keys. This really does not work at all and is a pain in the butt to get around. -3-way calling -Voice dialing: Program in a "name tag" for people in your phone book, and you can just push a button, say their name, and it'll call them. I use it all the time, don't even know what my friends' speed dial numbers are anymore. -Recording capabilities: Can record up to 4 minutes of a conversation, can also record voice memos to yourself. Kinda neat if you're Linda Tripp. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 70 (eBay) 7868 Sprint Products Group Samsung SPH N400 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 91572 2004/9/30 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 when the display isn t showing looking for service the clock is always right crap crap crap I hate this phone. My wife and I both choose this phone when we signed up. She got lucky and left hers on the roof of the car and when she back tracked were she has drove it was run over. I have to leave my home to use the phone and lord forbid I enter any type of building and have to make a call. You can forget it. 91571 2005/9/22 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 sometimes makes calls terrible service terrible battery life dropped calls I've owned my share of phones, but this ones takes the cake. Never have I had so many dropped calls, lack of service and lack of battery life, from a phone. There was really nothing good about this phone. Don't buy it, and if someone gives you one, give it back. 91570 2005/5/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 sprint service battery life signal I bought this phone in Decemeber of 2003. Already a month into my useage of the phone I realized I made a bad choice. First of all I received poor signals from whenever I tried to use it. Another family member is one the same plan I am on and she had no such problems with her signals thats how i know it was this phone. Second the battery dies pretty qucikly. After about 3-6 months after having this phone the battery life shortened almost instantly. The phone would go from lasting to days to hours. At the end of my ownership it would be a good day when it would last 12 hours. Lastly, the phone isn't durable at all. I am a college student so I don't keep the phone in top shape but a cell phone shouldn't be literally falling apart within a year of buying it. About a week ago I finally sold my phone and purchased a new style phone and I couldn't be happer 91569 2000/10/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great screen sharp design tons of customizability good features battery life could be better mediocre reception The Bottom LineFor my needs this is a great phone. With a few accessories its perfect. And the customizability is a hoot. Full Review I grabbed this phone shortly after the color screen phones came out. I liked the design and feature set. After using the phone for nearly a year, here's my take. This is a great phone, but it's not perfect. Then again what phone is? With a little time and effort this phone can be customized more than most will need. The polyphonic ringers sound beautiful, the ability to play voice ringers is great too. You can assign different images to people in your phone book, as well as custom ringers. The nifty little camera attachment is a nifty toy. Not worth the cash they were trying to get for it, but I picked it up as a special deal in the sprint store. Gotta say it's worth the cash I spent on it. A lot of the reviewers seem to have a lot of problems with this phone, but I can't see them. This phone has proved to be durable, solid, customizable, and just fun. Now the iffy part. It is a bit hard on the battery. I expected this considering the backlight necessary for the screen take a bit of juice, but it's a bit more than I expected. Though with a car charger, who cares. I almost always have enough charge. Reception, well is mediocre by my standards. Now I need a phone with good reception, this phone is the only phone I have. I made the leap to only using a cell a few years ago and haven't looked back since, so signal is important. Compared to the Nokia 6185(great phone too) the signal strength is similar. A lot of the reviews say the signal sucks, but I'm inclined to think they are being overly critical of a phone they don't like to begin with, but that's me. ;) All in all would I buy it again? In a heartbeat. With the camera and the data cable and a holster it has fully integrated itself into my lifestyle. I only wish it had shipped with a cigarette lighter charger, but all in all its great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 179Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 91568 2000/12/7 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 cool looking doesn t notify of messages bad battery life terrible phone sometimes doesn t ring at all The Bottom LineDon't get this phone, even if it's free. You'll regret it and end up spending more for something that actually works. Full Review I have had the Samsung N-400 for about two years now and I hate it. Every day I'm amazed at how bad this phone is. I started noticing problems after about the first week (when the novelty wore off). I would buy a new phone, but my contract with Sprint is almost up and I don't want to renew it just to get another phone. Service The service on this phone is horrible. Part of that is Sprint's service, but not all. My husband also has Sprint but with a different phone, and there are obvious differences when the problem is with Sprint and when it's my phone. Getting calls and messages About a third of the time when someone calls, it doesn't bother to ring. When it does ring, it is sometimes for about half a ring before it goes to voice mail, which leads me to believe that it's been ringing on the other end for a while. This phone also never tells me when voice mail messages arrive. On occasion it will say there is a new message, but when I check my voice mail, the message is several days old. I try to remember to call the voice mail periodically to check messages (often there are a dozen or so, because it hasn't told me about them). At this point, I have actually told people not to leave me messages because I don't ever get them in a timely manner. Battery life My other big gripe is with the battery. I conditioned it properly by charging it all the way up and letting it drain all the way several times. Yet from about the second month I had it, a fully charged battery *might* last 12 hours on standby. If I use it at all, that is drastically reduced. Currently, I plug it in overnight, unplug it in the morning, and by the time I'm driving home from work, it's already giving me a low battery signal. Granted it's now been about 2 years, but it has been doing this from about the 2nd month. Don't bother Don't buy this phone. It's so much more trouble than it's worth, even if you get it for free. I have actually talked to several people with this same phone who have all these same problems! Now that my contract is nearly up, I plan to switch to another phone service and get a new phone through them. But I've learned my lesson and I'll check reviews before deciding on a phone! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 180Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91567 2005/12/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great color screen speaker phone not many new features freezes once in a while The Bottom LineThis is a great phone if you love technology. Full Review I bought this phone because I had an older model of this same phone and I wanted the color screen. I just had to try this one out. I have been using this phone for about eight months and I think that they can still improve on it to make it more solid. Ok, since I am a bit of a technological freak I will try out any new item that comes out. I waited about three months after this phone came out to purchase it and when I did, I was a bit disappointed. After looking at all the feature and clarity of sound, it is no better than its previous models. Sometimes I think that I would have been better off with the older model that I used to have. There are barely any new features. Almost 95% of the features already existed in the previous model. The only feature I did not have in the older model was the speaker phone; that's about it. I use this phone everyday and I charge it everyday, so I hardly ever get a chance to see how long the battery lasts, but last month during my sisters wedding I was so busy that I didn't have time to plug it in to the charger. And to my surprise the battery life is very good. It lasted me a little more than two days without charging. I was very happy with that. Now the new full color screen and the ability to download ring tones and graphics are the only cool features that I like on this phone. Other than that, everything else is the same, but they made it look different. It is basically the same phone with the same features but more extra stuff to keep you busy for a while until you are done playing with it. FEATURES Battery Life: Standby: Up to 168 hours Talk Time: Up to 175 minutes Battery Type: Lithium Ion Band: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 / AMPS 800 Dimensions and Weight: Depth: 0.8 inches Height: 4.2 inches Width: 2 inches Weight: 4 Ounces Phone Book Capacity: 250 entries Ring Tones: 20 Warranty: 1 year Other Features: Text Messages Voice Dialing Alarm Clock Calendar Reminder Internal Browser (WAP) Voice Recorder Data/Fax Capable EXPERIENCE Now since most of the phones are free after mail-in rebates, there is only one major catch that I came across: the one or a two year service plan contract. Sprint also gives you an option when choosing a service plan to not sign a contract, but then you will have to pay $10 extra per month with your phone bill. I signed up for a two year contract and got PCS-to-PCS Unlimited Minutes FREE of charge. I did this because I have a three year warranty with Circuit City for this phone and if anything goes wrong (or lets just say I don't like this phone anymore) I can exchange it for another one and renew my warranty for another three years. I am fully covered with the two year contract because I do not have to switch service plan (and warranty) when I switch phones. CONCLUSION : Well if you are like me and have the need to try out latest technology then go for it and try it for yourself, but if you want something with more new features then buy something else because this is the same old thing. The good thing is that the price dropped down to $0 after mail-in rebate now. Copyright vchand 2005, All rights reserved. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 149.99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 91566 2003/11/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 color screen thin speaker phone light weight exposed buttons hard to navigate sprint customer service bad quality phone The Bottom LineI would consider another company than Sprint, don't believe the commercials like me! But if you get Sprint, try a camera phone. Full Review I decided on this phone because of the clam-shell design, the small size, the color screen, and the price. As a cell phone goes it's fairly average. Unlike other products, I don't think I really need to go into how the phone works. You dial, hit the green button and have a conversation. (I will go into the nature of the Sprint service later though.) The phone, however, is light weight, thin, and has a built in speakerphone. But the cons about this phone have far out-weighed the pros. Although it has a clam-design, desired by females due to the nature of purses, it still has buttons that can be activated with the "shell" closed so you can still accidentally dial phone numbers or change settings on your phone like the volume by mistake. The only way to solve this problem is to turn on the annoying key guard (if I wanted to do that I wouldn't have gone for the clam-shell), but with the key guard on you can no longer get the time and date from your phone with the clamshell closed, as it just reads "Keyguard" instead. The shell also leaves the screen exposed so it can get scratched up in your purse or pocket. I bought the phone aware of that though. When the phone doesn't have a signal, it goes into "searching" mode. Instead of just having no bars or saying "no service" there is an active color screensaver with a turning arrow that goes around and around while it says searching. It could do that for hours. It looks cool, but the screensavers run the battery down so much faster. There is no way to change this or turn it off. The joystick/OK button on the phone is small and hard to manipulate with large fingers. I often have to hit ok multiple times for it to work. The menus, especially in the phonebook, don't make logical sense either. You can set an alarm on the phone but you can't turn the alarm on under "settings" you have to go under the planner. Editing phonebook entries takes multiple tedious steps and the speakerphone is VERY easy to activate during a conversation as the button is right where you hold your thumb. Another annoyance is the lanyard hole. It is almost impossible to get the lanyard through it because it is so thin, flat and badly shaped. Also, the data port on the bottom that connects the camera has a foam-like cover that is not connected to the phone and comes out easily. If you actually need to use the port you will lose the cover pretty quickly. My largest complaint about the phone itself is just the quality of it, and my largest complaint about Sprint is their customer service. The first phone I received from Sprint had a bad microphone and dreadful battery life. People couldn't hear me talking, I had to shout, and I'd lose all power in the phone every other day even if I hadn't used it. They wouldn't exchange the N400 over the phone when I called customer service, I had to take it into the Sprint store. I took it to there and waited in line almost an hour. They took the phone back for a "diagnostic" and another 20 minutes later came out and told me the phone was not repairable and I needed a new one. They mailed me a new one and I had to bring it back to the Sprint store for them to transfer the service and the settings between the phones. You guessed it another hour and a half visit. That particular phone had different problems. This one would drop a call if the phone got less than a 3 bar signal. It wouldn't even place the call if it had 2 bars or less showing. The battery on this phone was worse, it would go through a full charge daily. (I believe these other phones they sent were refurbished, even though I had originally gotten a new one.) So of course back to the Sprint store where I went through the same thing all over again. 2 more hour and a half visits. I finally got a decent phone with a good battery, it can go 3-5 days without charging, and people can hear me, I can hear them, and I can place a decent call even with just one bar. I just can't believe it took me 2 months and 6 hours in the Sprint store to get it! The worst part was that out of each of the 4 times I was at the Sprint store, at least 2 other people showed up with that phone with problems that weren't fixable. There is clearly a problem with this model that Sprint won't address, and they refuse to give us a credit towards a new phone no matter how many times it breaks. The Sprint service itself leaves a lot to be desired. I get spotty coverage in Austin, and the signal will often get weaker and stronger even if you're just standing in one place, which I found odd. They change their rate plans a lot, but this is fairly common. If you find a plan you like don't change from it. They'll lock you into another 2 year contract and you can never get your old one back. They locked me into another contract when I moved, which I was not very happy about. I got divorced and moved back to Texas but if I wanted to change phone numbers to my new area code I had to sign up all over again. The "Vision" service I thought was horrible. Like the menus on the phone, the Vision menus were hard to navigate and things weren't in logical places. I would often get disconnected in the middle of transactions and pages would take forever to load. And unlike the text browser in my AT&T phone that could pull up almost any webpage, this phone could not. You could pretty much only use the sites that were sponsored by Sprint and it was very hard to get your external email that way. I cancelled the service quickly (and never got to use picture mail). Overall, I would not recommend Sprint to others and I would steer people away from this phone if there was another option. I don't think any cellular company is perfect but they could certainly make some improvements. In May I'll be trying out Cingular. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 91565 2003/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 cute design downloadable ringerswallpaper battery life reception The Bottom LineIts not worth the money. Looks arent everything. Full Review I bought this phone when I decided I wanted a color screen and the option to download ringers. My last phone was the Sprint Touchpoint 2200...I loved that phone. But it no longer offered what I was looking for. (My dad is currently using that phone, and loves it) Well, I was so excited when I got the phone. I showed everyone my cute phone. But the novelty wore off...and to be honest, I almost took it back that first week. Somedays, I wish I had. ********************* Vision My first problem was with the Vision. I was on the phone with Sprint daily because my Vision wasnt connecting. They assured me that once they worked out all of the kinks, it would be okay. They did get it to work right, but it wasnt what it could have been. I was always having problems connecting, or would get a browser error and have to restart it. I gave the Vision 4 months, the first 3 months being Free, and then decided to cancel my Vision services. I didnt think it was worth the $10 a month they wanted for it. I also didnt like the fact that Sprint wanted anywhere from 99 cents to $3.99 for each ringer, game or screensaver you downloaded. And to make matters worse, in 3 months, the game expired, so if you enjoyed the game, you were forced to buy it again. I recently discovered that there are websites out there where you can download all you want for free. Sprint will just charge you for the usage (if you dont have Vision on your phone)...so many cents per KB...and in the end it comes out a LOT cheaper. So I'm still getting new ringers and screensavers. But instead of paying $10 for the Vision each month, and the price of the ringer/screensaver/game. I am paying like 91 cents. A bargain if you ask me. www.mbuzzy.com is one of those sites. Now more about the phone.... **************** Address book My big problem with the address book is that you are only allowed 12 characters for the name. Thats not 12 characters for the first name...and another 12 for the last. That is TWELVE total. Not nearly enough. The address book allows for 250 numbers. And for each address book entry...you are given a spot with a cute little icon next to it for home number, work, pager, mobile, fax and an extra with out a label. There is also a place for an email address, a URL, and a birthdate. One thing to keep in mind is this....if you have a Home, Work and Mobile number for one person....that counts as 3 of those 250 you are allowed...not just 1. You can organize these entries into 4 different groups...family, friends, colleages, etc. (these groups can be renamed into whatever you like) And then assign different ringers to each group if you choose to. You can also assign different ringers to individual entries. So a specific ringer will tell you its your Mom calling. You can also select an image for each entry. So instead of just the number of the incoming call...you get a picture too. Takes caller ID to a whole new level!!! **************************** Call history I dont like the way this one works at all. It has a Missed Call, Incoming Call, and Outgoing Call log. And thats great. But my old phone...if you missed 3 calls....the first one being John, then Betty, then John again....it would show all 3 calls in the call history. So you knew John called twice. But THIS phone...it only keeps one entry for John...the later one. ************************** Messaging Well that gives you 3 choices... Shortmail - pretty much Sprints version of text messaging. The big problem there is to retrieve your test messages, you have to get on the internet. Too time consuming for something that should be fast and easy. Email - every vision account gets an email address. And this is where you would go to retrieve those. Notifications - when someone sends you a numeric page...they will be found here. ******************************* Planner I dont use this section very often. It offers... * a task list - 32 character limit * memo pad - 32 character again * alarm - 3 of them You can choose the ringer to go off at the specified time. And can also choose to have it go off just once, or daily at the specified time. * calculator -self explanatory * world time - this is kind of cool, but I always forget its there. It will tell you what time it currently is in other parts of the world. * countdown - you can put in your anniversary...and it will tell you exactly how many days, hours and minutes you have to go. * set time - I never had to use this, my phone keeps track of the time pretty well on its own, but I guess this would come in handy if you were going on vacation and going to be in a different time zone. ******************* Volume Control This phone, like my old one, also has volume control buttons located on the side. If the phone is ringing, and you press the button, it silences the phone. That really comes in handy when you cant answer the phone but dont want to listen to it ring. The volume control has different levels to choose from. It has two Level 1's. The first is just a Beep...the second is your normal ringer. And it goes all the way up to Level 8. Again it has two levels here too. Level 8 with just a ringer. And level 8 with Vibrate. It also gives you the option to just have it on Vibrate. *************** Speakerphone There is a button on the other side of the phone which will turn on the Speakerphone. I have never used this feature for actual calls, so cant comment on clarity. But do use it occasionally to listen to my voicemail. It seems to be okay. *********************** Reception and Battery Life This phone has the pull out antenna. I dont like that about it. And even with the antenna extended, it doesnt get the reception I got with my touchpoint. My Touchpoint worked well anywhere. With this Samsung, I have trouble getting a signal in the back of the super market and especially in Wal-Mart. As for battery life, I went from a phone that had over 7 hours of talk time to one that has less than 3...so of course I am not happy about it. The old phone had a desktop charger which was big and bulky...but this one just plugs right into the bottom and is very easy to wrap up and take with you. With my reception being so bad though, my phone always seems to be searching for service...and that kills the battery quickly. Other Stuff This phone offers the locking feature. You make up a 4 digit passcode and can restrict calls being made until that passcode is entered. Airplane Mode....not sure what that is...but this phone has it. The option to change the way the phone is answered. You can set it to answer calls when you flip it open, press the talk key or press any key. Auto Answer - this is great when you are driving and have a car kit/headset. The phone just answers its self. Language- English or Spanish are the options. And last but not least...it gives you the Keyguard feature. You can also send and recieve pictures with this phone. But you will have to buy the digital camera from Sprint. I already own a digital camera, and didnt see the need to buy another one just for my phone. This phone is really customizable. You can really make it your own by choosing which picture you want as your wallpaper. I uploaded a pic of my dog to mbuzzy and have it as my wallpaper. And besides the ability to download whatever ringer you would live, it comes with 20 different ringers to choose from.(10 melodies, 10 ringtones) I've had this phone since November...and I'm getting used to it. I had to buy a case for the phone because although the keypad is covered, the screen is always exposed. I didnt feel comfortable just throwing it in my purse unprotected. The phone isnt built like a standard call phone either, so I couldnt just pick up a cheap case at the local Wal-Mart....I had to go to the Sprint store and buy one specifically designed for this phone. The phone looks good though...and it feels sturdy. It fits nicely in your hand when you are talking. My phone does tend to get warm after talking for more than 15 minutes though...I'm not sure if thats normal or not. And thats it. Would I tell you to buy this phone? No! If I seen you about to purchase this phone, would I try to stop you? Most likely! The phone looks good....but it isnt worth the money I paid for it. One Side Note.... www.mbuzzy.com also lets you upload your own images and midi files so you can then download them to your phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179 91564 2000/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 color screen world time battery life looks cool clam shell design service coverage 2 year contract speaker phone not user friendly The Bottom LineYou're probably better off with a different phone and service. Leave comments for any additional questions. Full Review Intro I stopped by the sprint store cursing myself for buying another phone. I bought a clam shell design phone that Pfted out on me. Probably because I dropped it a few times... but I stopped by the store to see if I could get a replacement. I saw the Sprint N400 and my eyes got bigger than my wallet. I was mad at my previous sprint phone and made the worse decision possible. I bought the N400. Don't get me wrong, the N400 is a very nice phone, but not nice enough for the price I paid for it. The features and everything just don't add up to the $175 that I paid for it. Features -Color screen: it's a novel thing for the first few weeks, after that the novelty wears off. -Speaker Phone Mode: there's a button on the side that you can press and you have instant speaker phone. However, you can barely understand anything the other person is saying, and the speaker is in the back of the phone? good work you genius sprint engineers. =P -Polyphonic ring tones: Again, it's a novel thing to have like a 12 piece orchestra whenever your phone rings, but the novelty wears off after about 2 weeks. -Multiple alarms: there are 3 alarms you can set at different times, which can be very useful. You also have a bunch of different alarm ring tones you can choose from which makes it easy to remember which alarm it is sounding for. -Large capacity Memory: It's got a lot of storage space for all of my phone numbers. I've used about 100 slots of memory for names and phone numbers. -Text Messaging: You'd think that with all these high tech phones, text messaging would be simple and easy to navigate, but it is not. My biggest complaint is that it is hard to find the text messaging, and difficult to understand how to send a text message. It is definately not user friendly. I hate to read instructions, but you'd have to go to the instruction booklet to try to understand what you're doing. Even after reading the directions, it was still extremely hard to figure out weither or not I had sent a text message. Plus... You can't have too long of a text message, because there is simply not enough memory for a long message. -Vision Plan: This includes the camera ability, along with the ability to send pictures to other people via internet and from pcs to pcs. I haven't tried the attatchable camera, but when I do get it, I'll update this review. -Calculator: It's very difficult to find the calculator. I had to navigate through several menu's MENU < Planner < Calculator to find it. I don't like the way it works either. It's a quirky calculator that seems to give wrong answers. -Customizable Interface: this basically means you can customize your arrows (up down left right) to automatically jump to a certain item in your menu. IE press left and you have your calculator, press up and you have your phone book directory... etc. Design Asthetic: This phone is a very nice looking phone, it's got some good blue buttons, and it's big and flashy, but I'm not sure if you'd really use it to try to score dates or anything. Practicality: The size is a little large compared to the newer phones that have been coming out lately. The clam shell design protects the buttons, but if you have no leather case, it doesn't protect the screen. It's also very difficult to flip the phone open using one hand (IE when you only got one hand free in the car, cuz you've got yer beer in one hand and your electric shaver in the other... it's just a duby trying to answer your phone at the same time.) Sprint Service / Clarity : If you've read my previous review, you know how much I loath the customer service. The sprint mobile service is not that bad, I use this phone in the bay area, from North Fremont to around Downtown San Jose. I actually get horrible reception in the middle of San Jose State university and I'm charged Digital Roam if I use it there! So... I'd check with someone with sprint service where you're going to be using the phone most of the time to find out how their coverage is. The 411 Directory service is one of the best ones I've used so far. (well, actually the only one other than Cingular) They are very helpful and can even help you find directions too. The only problem with buying a sprint phone, is that you have to now sign up for a 2 year contract. 2 years! that's like signing your life away! Once you're in it you can't get out of it without paying like 150 dollars. Even if you cancel service with them because you are a dissatisfied customer. They still charge you. I know, my friends have tried. Features: 8/10: it's got most of the features a new phone can have, exception is you have to buy the camera seperate, but then again you can easily upgrade versus ones with cameras built into the phone. Design: 5/10: Too big to be both practical and asthetically pleasing. Clarity/service: 5/10: It's good in some places, but in places that you'd expect full coverage ie downtown San Jose, they'll do their worst and charge you for Roaming. Overall: 18/30 Summary: Go with another service. My friend has a sony ericson that has the best speaker phone I've ever used. It's clear and both you and the other person can understand each other. The N400 is nice and flashy, but for the price, it's not really worth it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 175 91563 2000/7/17 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 cute tv screen i got money back after rebate small custom features short battery life many features i won t use ring is too low The Bottom LineA cute phone with lots of features but the short battery life really makes it a pain to use. Full Review I bought this phone primarily because it was free after the rebate offered by Sprint and, because I bought it at Best Buy, I got another $20 to use at the store. So, Best Buy gave me a $20 coupon for buying it. Plus, Sprint had a plan that was low cost and worked for me so my decision didn't really take into account all of the phone's features at the time of purchase. WHAT YOU GET This phone will definitely qualify as one of the cutest phones on the market. The phone has a cute little screen at the top. The screen has a screensaver with fish swimming by. There is a small plastic panel that covers the phone buttons but not the screen itself which is visible, yet unprotected, when the phone is not in use. The screen displays the time, battery life and the connection strength. You can also read the menu of features on the screen. Another cute feature: some buttons glow blue when you use the phone. The phone comes with a charger that can plug into a regular outlet. Set up is easy. You just install the battery, which comes separately, into its slot in the back. HOW IT WORKS First of all, and this was confusing, you have to push the "end" button to turn the thing on. When it is not on, you don't hear it ring. The other confusing part is that when you disconnect it from the charger, it turns off. So, you have to remember to turn it back on. Placing a call is easy. You just dial the number and push "talk." Receive a call is just as easy. When it rings, push the same button. To hang up, you close the flap to cover the buttons or push "end." OTHER FEATURES If you have a lot of time on your hands to use this phone, there are lots of features to play with. Voicemail: You get voicemail with your service. If you miss a call, you might get a message on your screen that you have voicemail. However, this feature is not reliable and you have to dial in and check. Address Book: There is an address book but you can't under full names, maybe only 10-15 characters. The address book also includes auto dial. Call History: You can see incomming and outgoing calls. The calls will be labeled with a name if the phone number is in your address book. You can spend a lot of time inputing the numbers on the tiny little number keypad but it takes time and some dexterity and I only entered a few numbers I use frequently. Settings: You can change the volume of the ring, which even on its highest setting can barely be heard in my purse or in a crowded or loud area. There are several songs to choose from. You can also set it to vibrate. Planner: Here are lots of features that might entertain you if you have time on your hands. There is a scheduler, task list, memo pad, alarm, calculator and other minor functions. Remember, there is no letter keypad, just the numbers, so it is difficult to type information in. To type on the number pad, you hit a certain key a number of times. For example, to get a "C," you hit the number 2 key three times. It takes so long to enter information that you are better off with pencil and paper. Lock: You can set a security code that must be entered before anyone can use the phone. Extra features for more money: With Messaging, you can send messages with shortmail, email and notifications. You can access the web through the phone. Vision You can sign up for an additional service that lets you download screensavers, different rings and games. If you call Sprint you can get a trial period free, after that it is $10 a month. They also charge for indvidual downloads. I haven't used this additional feature because I like the fish screensaver and it is not worth $10 a month for me to take time to get a new screensaver. RECEPTION Reception is just okay. A small, flimsy antenna can be extended about 4 inches but it doesn't seem to improve reception much. I have been with other people who can receive calls when I get no reception so I think there are probably better choices out there. BATTERY LIFE The battery life of this phone is awful. Even without use, it barely lasts a day. Expect to charge it every night. Occasionally, I am conflicted when I have forgotten to charge the phone because I know the battery is running low. Do I turn it off to preserve the battery in case I need to make a call later? However, turning it off diverts all calls to voicemail. Or do I leave it on so the baby sitter / school / husband can call if there is a problem? Since my main use of a cell phone is to be reachable in emergencies, this was not the phone for me. The bottom line is that this is not a great emergency phone since you can't leave it on all the time unless you remember to charge it. When it is charging you can't use it. So, you will not be able to receive calls 24/7. It is also not a great phone for someone who talks alot because making calls burns the battery even faster. At best, this is an occasional use phone better remembered for its looks than its performance (sounds like some of my college dates). CHARGING Charging is easy. You plug the charger into the wall and then the small end into the phone. The screen indicates the phone is charging. Another annoying feature is that the phone can't be used while it is charging. I usually charge mine overnight, although it seems to fully charge in about 2 hours. DEALING WITH SPRINT To activate the phone, you have to call sprint. The number is included in the packaging. The activation went fine and took about 15 minutes. My only complaint is that I was not able to get a phone number that had the same area code as my home number. The billing process has been a little more difficult. I was initially billed for a month I didn't even own the phone. When I called to inquire (10 minute wait on hold / 10 talking to the rep.), the customer service rep. told me it was fixed and to throw away the bill. When I got the next bill, it had the outstanding balance from the incorrect bill. I called again and it is supposedly fixed but the third bill has yet to arrive. In any case, I had to spend about 40 minutes in calls working on their billing errors and I am still not sure if it is corrected. RECOMMENDATION I bought this phone because it was free and cute. However, I don't use all of the features and in hindsight, I wish I had bought one with better battery life than a cute fish screen. Don't even think about buying this phone unless you plan to charge it every day. If you talk frequently, the battery will not hold up. There are some cute features, but many I don't use. If you plan to invest time customizing your phone you may use more. Anyway, I don't think this was the phone for me and it is just okay. I can't recommend it to others unless you get the same deal I did. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 7869 Sprint SPH-N200 Dual Band Cell Phone 91574 2003/4/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 beautiful design rugged choc ful of features can t keep a call on the phone can t make calls The Bottom LineSamsung is horrible... 'nuff said ;) Full Review Weight in ounces 4.7 oz. Dimensions 4.4x2.0x1.0 inches Digital Digital/analog Standby time 146 hours Wireless Web Yes Talk time 3 hours 50 minutes Model first available June 2001 FCC ID A3LSPHN200 SAR Rating (W/kg) digital 1.34 Technology CDMA 1900 AMPS 800 Mode Dual-mode Style Flip SAR Rating (W/kg) analog 1.19 The phone features alarms, different ringers (for different types of calls - blocked ID, Unavailble, normal calls, even allows you to program distinctive rings for people in your phone book - great for letting you know when you significant other is calling you!) a calender, Things to do list, internet access... you name it.. it's got it... since i've already had the 8500 (the supposed predicesor to this phone) the menu navigation for me was pretty easy... this phone contians a few more features then the 8500 (also from samsung - i reviewed that phone as well) but the performance isn't as good... they did, however, improve the charger that comes w/the phone. as far as a travel charger, don't get the ones they sell at the sprint store... they charge way too much... i went to Staples, and got a cheap one that charges the phone up nice a quick for the car! :) now this is my second sprint phone... i also have a Samsung 8500 (as i stated earlier), and let's just say both phones are horrible... The 8500 is better then the N200, but has a few less features... i get ALOT of dropped calls (on both phones)... signal (at 4 bars) every 20mins (or less) fades to no bars... and then jumps up to about 4 bars... very irritating... i did searches on the web, and it seems that samsung is known for their poor signal strength... and their inability to hold a signal in a less then perfect area... which leads me to why i'm going to buy the Sanyo SCP-4900... i've dropped both phones a few times (hard) and the phone keeps on going, it's well constructed... You may also find my helpful as well. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 91573 2002/7/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 keys are covered light weight very easy to use reception sound quality marginal when too far from towers The Bottom LineBetter phones to be had than this one. Don't fall for it. Compare before buying. Full Review This phone was bought as a replacement for an older Qualcomm phone that accidentally went swimming. When I had to replace my phone, I didn't really do my homework. I hadn't checked out the various reviews on the different phones. I had seen this phone at a local Radio Shack and the salesperson gave a very convincing demo of the phone. It had all the features that I wanted in a nice sized package. The salesperson had one himself and stated that he had never had a problem with it. He even let me try it out in the store. The reception in the store was fantastic, clear sounding and had full signal strength. So I bought my very own. The phone was very easy to set up and use. The problem came when I tried using it at work. The reception in the store was so good, because unbeknown to me, Sprint has a tower less than 1 mile from our Radio Shack. Once I got to work, it was like somebody had flipped the cell towers off. (Nearest tower at work is only about two miles away.) As soon as I would walk into my office building, I would receive no signal. The phone would start searching for a service area. I even switched it back to analog roam with no luck. I took it to Sprint they have repeatedly upgraded the signal strength and tested the unit. They state that it is working just fine. My old Qualcomm would average 3 bars no matter where in the office building I was located. This one I have to go outside to use and even then if the wind is blowing just right, I still don't get any signal. My wife and I were recently traveling in the OH/PA area and we both took our phones. While in the Cleveland area (a covered area) I could not get any signal at all. My wife's 4 year old Samsung did just fine. While we were in the Pittsburgh area, I would average two bars of signal strength to my wife's four. Overall, the sound quality is Ok if you are near a tower. Too far away and you get a double voice effect. On some occasions, your own voice is echoed back through the ear piece. Reception is terrible inside of structures. I know of three other people at work who have this same phone and they all have the exact same problems. The phone does have some good points to it. The phone book is very easy to utilize and allows you to store multiple numbers per name. The display while tiny is very easy to read. I also like the fact that the flip ear piece covers the keys when not in use, thus helping to minimize accidental phone calls. Battery life is very good as long as the phone is spending most of the day looking for a cell tower. The phone does seem to be durable. I have dropped the phone and had it knocked off of my desk a few times. It once took a fall of about five feet onto a cement patio and survived with nothing more than a scratch on the back battery cover. Bottom line, I wish that I had done better research on this phone. If I had, I wouldn't have bought it. I think it speaks volumes for the fact that when I bought it, it was one of Sprint's newest phones. Now less than three months after I have purchased it, Sprint doesn't even sell this phone anymore. You figure it out. :) Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 7870 Trium Mars 91578 2004/4/19 Battery Life2.0 Portability1.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 associates fax mobile phone email number under one name too many I almost fell in love with it during my college days. The design is cute and I can choose between the Mars or Neptune. Both of them are the same, only differ in color and casing. The functions are good enough for me but there are simply too much gripes: 1. No composer, cannot download from pc/network 2. really long antenna, protruding in my pocket 3. loose battery casing, cause jams 4. mysterious hangs 5. non-customisable screen 6. hard to get accessories. 7. bulky. Pros: 1. stores email address, phone, fax number under one name 2. intuitive direction controls 91577 2004/12/28 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 durability ring tones size price no games Well, to me everything is fine about the phone.It seems like the trium phone that people have, has problems.I remember i had three trium phones exactly.One seems to have a sound problem with a game, The other hangs at mysterious moments with a sound being endless and the third one is OK but it has no games for entertainment.The one problem i have with my phone is having no games. 91576 2000/5/6 Battery Life4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 smallish size great spec cheap nothing but trouble The Bottom LineDO NOT BUY THIS PHONE!!! Full Review I bought my Trium in 2001, after about 3 hours use the phone started freezing up at random and the only way out was to remove the battery (which is loose fitting)and re-insert it, after getting fed up of this, I returned the phone to Trium with the battery and charger for repair under the warranty, the phone was "updated" and only the phone and charger were returned, After six weeks explaing to vodafone that the battery was sent to them, they finally sent me a new battery, The phone now freezes up about once every two days and even cut off during calls, I would return the phone to trium but the warranty is up. Now the phone only manages to recieve a call 1 in 3 times. I would certainly NOT recommend anyone to buy this phone And if you are thinking that I just got a "bad in the batch" phone, all the people i know that have the trium mars, all have had trouble with it. There are also other problems such as the design of the charger plug, all the phone needs is the slightest movement and the charger springs out FINAL VERDICT: DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE!!! ah well, Back to my trusty Panasonic G520 Oh yeah, the calls always echo Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 70 91575 2000/4/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price size durability ring tones lack of downloadable ring tonespictures The Bottom LineA cheap and cheerful, durable phone with great sound and ringtones, ideal for those on a small budget. Full Review Having owned numerous mobile telephones over a the last few years, some that fell to earth with a crash and died there and then, some that simply wore out, others that got lost or just weren't up to the job ,I stumbled across my little Trium 110,a phone that was going to prove my longest owned phone to date and the most practical and loveable. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help I need a phone and I've got no dosh!! It was christmas 2002,my Nokia 330 had just fell from my pocket onto the floor and cracked the case and screen(dang).Two weeks til Crimbo so the coffers were at an all time low ,but I still needed a mobile(I have an Autistic child who's school often have to contact me urgently). Desperate times called for desperate measures ,and having failed to find a descent second hand set in the paper I set about finding the cheapest phone I could in town. As I had also damaged my sim card I had to also consider the network I would go on to as well, as I mentioned my phone was basically for emergency contact so I needed a reliable service to go with the phone. An additional requirement was that it was a pay as you go phone and not on a contract. Choices Having browsed round a few local specialized phone shops, electrical stores, argos and woolworths I discovered three sensible phones for under £50, The Trium 110,Motorola C520,Sagem MC920. Immediately my eyes were drawn to the Trium and the Sagem as their size and aesthetic qualities were more to my tastes .Further inspection swayed me heavily to the Trium because of the amount of features and options that it had and the fact it was being offered on the Virgin network, one I felt was reliable. Cost Woolworths were offering the best deal on the Trium with a special deal if you bought a £10 virgin top-up card at the same time .Paying £10 for the top-up card and £39.99 for the phone with a Pay as you go Virgin sim (including free £5 air time) seemed like and excellent deal and I quickly made my purchase. Getting my new phone home With my new boxed little phone grasped tightly in my hands I rushed back home to have a play. Charging my unit up, setting it up and finding how to operate the basic functions was very easy, partly due to the easily understandable phone and network guides that were supplied ,and in no time at all I was discovering just how many great features this phone had. Features Supports downloadable ring tones Polyphonic sound (incredible) Office tools- Scratchpad (for making notes) Alarm clock Auto switch Calculator Currency converter WAP (internet access) 4 Games Phone book (stores 99 numbers) Internet menu for easy wap access T9 text feature for sms (predictive text) EMS(messaging including text, icon and music .Suitable for such occasions as birthdays etc,) Composer (for composing your own ring tones) Reminder (for special dates/occasions) Vibrate mode (for the bored housewife ;-) ). Multi choice display wallpaper (a choice of different pictures/icon themes that can be displayed on your phone-especially good if you have more than one of these phones in your house as each person can have a different theme displayed) Integral ariel (no visible/protruding ariel) Hands free built in 999 dial without sim (even without a sim card fitted into the phone you can still dial 999 and 112 the international emergency number) Dual band (so it can be used abroad) Voice box with own recordable message feature (for recording your own messages) is supplied as standard with your Virgin SIM pack Whilst all of these feature can be useful ,to me the most outstanding ones are the ability to dial emergency services even without a sim card ,the alarm clock (as it is essential to me),the optional display themes and of course the polyphonic sound. The polyphonic sound means that not only are the ring tones far more realistic ,but they can achieve a greater pitch range and play multiple notes at the same time, giving way to some amazing and lovely ring tunes. The choice of display themes has been great too as i was so impressed by my Trium that last month I went back and bought hubby one too .I have a lovely little dolphin that splashed in and out of water on my main screen, whilst hubby has an endearing little cartoon phone ,so we never get our phones muddled up. Aesthetics and durability Measuring approximately 6" x2" x 3/4 " ,it is quite compact yet big enough to be able to hold and dial on comfortably. They keypad whilst fairly small has distinctive keys that are easy to press correctly and feel durable. The whole feel of the phone is solid yet not chunky and weighing in at 3 1/2 oz, is the most robust yet attractive phones I have had the pleasure of owning. Two drops on to solid floors and one skim across the car park (as it flew out of my handbag), backs up my feeling that it is indeed a solid and sturdy little fellow. With a grey back mettalised with glittery pigment and a silver and blue front that is lightly covetous ,it is stylish too. Even the charger that comes with the phone is relatively small and sturdy. Performance Fully charging the phone takes little more than a couple of hours and leaves you with at least 10 days standby time and a good many hours talk time, currently I have never actually run it out of power. Using it is easy, as is accessing it's features. Reception is clear and the volume controls are very effective. Conclusion This little sweetheart promises to deliver a multitude of options and extras, which is exactly what it does and with style. If you can pick one of these up on offer for £40 it will be the best mobile for your money that you can get. If you can't get it on offer and have to pay £50,it will still be the best value for your money .I would have been happy with it if it had cost a fair bit more than I paid as it easily competes functionally with its most up to date competitors that are the high price end of the market. ~ ~ ~ Thankyou for reading ~ ~ ~ Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 38220 Nextel i205 350766 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 size push to talk key lock battery life The Bottom LineThe key lock feature and battery life could be improved. Full Review I use the Motorola i205 for my job. I work at manufacturing facility that uses Nextel's push-to-talk feature; so the phone is much better than carrying a CB radio that shares some of the physical properties of a brick. Several people at the plant have Nextel "radios"...these do look like the CB radios that police officers carry. Those things are "bricks". I also have cell phone service on it which makes me even more accessible (maybe not a great feature for some people). One nice feature...it can store phone and radio (push-to-talk) numbers to the same contact name. For some reason, caller id only works for the push-to-talk numbers. Nextel must charge extra for phone caller id. Number of bars I do not have a firm grasp on the phone's ability in remote areas. It is used mostly at the plant site where Nextel installed extra tower(s) in close proximity to handle the load. This would be difficult to judge unless you walk around with guy from the Verizon Wireless ads and several different models of phones. It not only depends on your phone...but your carrier...in the US anyways. The service providers do not share all of their towers. Battery It is a lithium ion cell, but it does not last long. The problem appears to be the phone...not the battery. The backlight is energized too easily...and for long durations. Key lock I do not like the accessory that allows you hang the phone on your belt. This phones is small enough to fit in my pocket...but smaller would nice. The key lock does not disable the power button; so I've retrieved the phone...and only to discover that it is powered off. The key lock disables the power button on my personal phone (another brand). Games It has three: Othello, BlackJack, and Mindblaster. The last one is a memory type game. If you are not familiar with other two, just ask someone that enjoys board games and makes frequent trips to Las Vegas. Conclusion I do not consider myself a "techno-phile". I still have my 25" TV (BTW, my only TV) from college...and yes, it is color TV with a remote control that does not look like a flashlight or something from the first Star Trek series...but it is not a flat screen either. For the readers that have only seen a Black/White TV stuffed away in your grandparent's basement or garage, quiz your parents or aunt/uncle. They will probably be able to guess my graduation within a few years. So, it the basics for me: Voice mail (not really a phone feature...it depends on the carrier), long battery life, and easy to use. Sorry Motorola...I can not give this phone an excellent rating. I've used other phones and this one is a lower performer for me. If the battery life and key lock issues were addressed, it would make a difference in my rating. Recommended: No Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 350765 2000/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 small very durable lightweight short battery life The Bottom LineExcellent choice for a first time cell phone user, or for that rare breed of person who just wants to use their cellphone to make PHONE CALLS. Full Review Activating this phone was no problem. They just put the card in and gave it to me. It didn't take 9 hours. You can download ringtones, just like any other phone. My phone allows me to play blackjack, othello, and mindblaster (I don't know if all of the i205s do that) and it has a GPS positioning system. It also has a feature called one touch direct connect you assign this to a person on your contacts list and you can then press the PTT (push to talk) button and talk to them. That's a lot better than having to dial their number.Another thing it has is Nextel online. It loads pretty fast unlike most cell phones that you can go online with. Ring tones include: Jazz ology: a Jazz ringtone, not that great Merengue: a really cool fast ringtone, my favorite Vanish: such a peaceful ringtone Ringer 1: a normal ringtone that sounds like a house phone Ringer 2: the same thing as ringer 1 except lower pitched Ringer 3: only good if you assign it to your messages Ringer 4: the same thing as Ringer 1 except higher pitched Ringer 5: a ring tone that sounds like it was from a robot Ringer 6: Mi Re Do, Mi Re Do like they taught you in music class Ringer 7: another normal ringtone Ringer 8: beep beep beep a very annnoying ringtone Ringer 9: a lot like ringer 6 Ringer 10: BEEP BEEP BEEP a louder ringer 8 Ringer 11: ringer 1 except in a way higher pitch Ringer 12: another normal ring tone Vibrate: the phone vibrates The games include: Blackjack: the classic card game, you vs. dealer Othello: a game where you have to flip tiles (black and white) over and at the end of the game, whoever has the most tiles on the board wins. Mindblaster: guess codes made by the phone (similar to mastermind). Pros -low price -very durable (I've dropped it about a thousand times and it still works -large contact list (600 entries) -ringtones and games -small and lightweight -nextel online -recent calls list Cons -my brother has this phone and his won't recharge -service is pretty weak -moderatly short battery life The only other "con" I've noticed is that when I went to New Hampshire the service was completely gone no matter where I was. Whether I was in the car, at the hotel, or in the woods, I couldn't find a signal. When I did find one, it went away very fast. Also it is not a great phone unless it is your first phone because if you've had other phones in the past, this will not seem like an upgrade, even though it is a great phone. Accessories that come with the phone include -charger (usually takes 3 hours to charge it) -battery pack -owner's manual Accessories you should buy -belt clip or some kind of case -car charger (because the phone dies pretty fast) -headset If you haven't bought this phone yet and want to you should, you might not even have problems with the service now that nextel and sprint have joined. If not, there's still a lot of other great phones that have Nextel and Sprint as their service plan. Also, for those of you who don't know, this phone was made FREE by Nextel after the Hurricane disaster for victims trying to reach their families, as well as discounting monthly rates for those families. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 350764 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good signal light weight sound quality small cheap small buttonssmall lcd that is hard to read at times The Bottom LineGive these to your employees... Full Review I recently had to switch phones with one of our employees because I usually stay in the office and that other employee is always in the field. He got my Nextel i530 and I got his Nextel i205. I have always liked phones with color screens, cameras and other cool features like Bluetooth and broadband internet, but I had to settle for this because its for work use only and plus I have my own Razr V3m now. We usually purchase these phones from the local Nextel store. THE PLAN : They gave me the $45.99 plan (same as before) that includes 500 anytime, unlimited nights and weekends, included nationwide long distance, and unlimited walkie-talkie minutes. This plan also has free call hold and waiting, 3-way calling, and voicemail. The owner of our company does not like contracts that much so he signed up for a one year plan. THE PHONE AND FEATURES : This i205 is designed like a candy bar so it fits nicely with my office. Since it is an old phone, it does not have that many cool features that I would be interested in. So I just let it sit on my desk until it rings or I have the need to use it. On the other hand, this phone does have internet capabilities and email access. This phone is about 5 inches in height, 2 inches in width, and about 1 inch in depth; it weighs just 5.1 ounces which is really great. You can easily slip this phone in your pocket and not feel a thing because it is so light weight. This phone is small enough to fit easily in your hand or your pocket. There are volume and a Push To Talk (PTT) or Direct Connect (DC) control buttons on the upper left corner, while the top right has the jack for headphones. The speakerphone button is on the very bottom under the "0" button. Buttons on the keypad are small, but big enough to get the job done. You can make calls quickly and easily with this phone. If you have been using mobile phones for a while now, then do not need to worry about anything as the basic features are the same as any other phone. Most buttons are in places you would expect them to be, but the speaker phone button is on the very bottom of the phone. There is a backlit monochrome LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens that will show you everything you need to; it is about 1.5 inches diagonally. Although the screen is easy enough to read in most lighting environments, it is too small when you use the Web or e-mail features. Navigating through the menus on this phone is somewhat of a challenge because the four-way toggle and two soft keys are very small. While the buttons are easy to use after you get the hang of them, the text-driven menus are dull and hard to read. On the other hand, the backlit keypad buttons are well designed and spaced. This i205 has a fair amount of useful features, regardless of all the downsides. The phonebook can store 600 contacts with multiple entries for each. You can also set unique ring tones for each contact. There is also a built-in speakerphone, a WAP wireless Web browser, vibrate mode, text messaging, and call waiting available on this low-end phone. FULL SPECIFICATIONS : Modes: iDEN Weight: 5.10 oz Dimensions: 1.90 inches (W) x 4.8 inches (H) x 1 inch (D) Battery Life Talk: 165 minutes (2.75 hours) Standby: 101 hours (4.2 days) Battery Type: Lithium Ion Display Type: LCD (monochrome) Phone Book Capacity: 600 names and numbers Mobile Web Browsing: Yes Messaging: Text/Voice/Data/Fax/Mobile Email Speakerphone: Yes Multiple Numbers per Name: Yes RECEPTION AND QUALITY : Well, I only use this phone in my office and hardly ever take it out in the field, but it has great signal and voice clarity. The employee who used this before me said he never had signal problems when he was out in the field. The sound quality was great both inside buildings and out in the field. The speakerphone sound quality also is good. BATTERY LIFE : I usually run about 3 to 4 days of standby time; talk time was about 2.5 hours which okay for this low end phone. I usually have to charge the phone every other day or so as I use it quiet a lot during the day. I never had an incident where the phone was out of juice in the middle of the day with my normal use and recharging. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE : I have been using this phone for about two months now and I am very satisfied with it. It is not my first choice for a cell phone, but since the company was giving it to me for free, I choose not to complain; better than having no phone. This phone is very reliable and it does not look and feel cheap. This phone gives me long talk and standby times too. The signal strength of this phone is great compared to other older phones I have used in the past. I have noticed clear call quality and louder too (but Nextel is always loud); the speaker phone is excellent. The menus are somewhat easy to navigate through without getting lost, but you always have the manual that explains everything but without much detail. If you really need detailed information I suggest researching on the Internet and reading reviews like this. FINAL THOUGHTS : This Nextel i205 cellular phone should be your second for work phones. I like to use this at work because it is well built, the signal strength is great and the phone is extremely reliable. So if you have a company (big or small) and want to give your employees phones to keep them in touch--I suggest you get these cheap and reliable phones that will last you for a long time. SOME OF MY RELATED REVIEWS : Copyright © vchand 2006. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 350763 2000/3/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 size push to talk key lock battery life The Bottom LineThe key lock feature and battery life could be improved. Full Review I use the Motorola i205 for my job. I work at manufacturing facility that uses Nextel's push-to-talk feature; so the phone is much better than carrying a CB radio that shares some of the physical properties of a brick. Several people at the plant have Nextel "radios"...these do look like the CB radios that police officers carry. Those things are "bricks". I also have cell phone service on it which makes me even more accessible (maybe not a great feature for some people). One nice feature...it can store phone and radio (push-to-talk) numbers to the same contact name. For some reason, caller id only works for the push-to-talk numbers. Nextel must charge extra for phone caller id. Number of bars I do not have a firm grasp on the phone's ability in remote areas. It is used mostly at the plant site where Nextel installed extra tower(s) in close proximity to handle the load. This would be difficult to judge unless you walk around with guy from the Verizon Wireless ads and several different models of phones. It not only depends on your phone...but your carrier...in the US anyways. The service providers do not share all of their towers. Battery It is a lithium ion cell, but it does not last long. The problem appears to be the phone...not the battery. The backlight is energized too easily...and for long durations. Key lock I do not like the accessory that allows you hang the phone on your belt. This phones is small enough to fit in my pocket...but smaller would nice. The key lock does not disable the power button; so I've retrieved the phone...and only to discover that it is powered off. The key lock disables the power button on my personal phone (another brand). Games It has three: Othello, BlackJack, and Mindblaster. The last one is a memory type game. If you are not familiar with other two, just ask someone that enjoys board games and makes frequent trips to Las Vegas. Conclusion I do not consider myself a "techno-phile". I still have my 25" TV (BTW, my only TV) from college...and yes, it is color TV with a remote control that does not look like a flashlight or something from the first Star Trek series...but it is not a flat screen either. For the readers that have only seen a Black/White TV stuffed away in your grandparent's basement or garage, quiz your parents or aunt/uncle. They will probably be able to guess my graduation within a few years. So, it the basics for me: Voice mail (not really a phone feature...it depends on the carrier), long battery life, and easy to use. Sorry Motorola...I can not give this phone an excellent rating. I've used other phones and this one is a lower performer for me. If the battery life and key lock issues were addressed, it would make a difference in my rating. Recommended: No Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 350762 2000/2/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 very durable lightweight small short battery life The Bottom LineExcellent choice for a first time cell phone user, or for that rare breed of person who just wants to use their cellphone to make PHONE CALLS. Full Review Activating this phone was no problem. They just put the card in and gave it to me. It didn't take 9 hours. You can download ringtones, just like any other phone. My phone allows me to play blackjack, othello, and mindblaster (I don't know if all of the i205s do that) and it has a GPS positioning system. It also has a feature called one touch direct connect you assign this to a person on your contacts list and you can then press the PTT (push to talk) button and talk to them. That's a lot better than having to dial their number.Another thing it has is Nextel online. It loads pretty fast unlike most cell phones that you can go online with. Ring tones include: Jazz ology: a Jazz ringtone, not that great Merengue: a really cool fast ringtone, my favorite Vanish: such a peaceful ringtone Ringer 1: a normal ringtone that sounds like a house phone Ringer 2: the same thing as ringer 1 except lower pitched Ringer 3: only good if you assign it to your messages Ringer 4: the same thing as Ringer 1 except higher pitched Ringer 5: a ring tone that sounds like it was from a robot Ringer 6: Mi Re Do, Mi Re Do like they taught you in music class Ringer 7: another normal ringtone Ringer 8: beep beep beep a very annnoying ringtone Ringer 9: a lot like ringer 6 Ringer 10: BEEP BEEP BEEP a louder ringer 8 Ringer 11: ringer 1 except in a way higher pitch Ringer 12: another normal ring tone Vibrate: the phone vibrates The games include: Blackjack: the classic card game, you vs. dealer Othello: a game where you have to flip tiles (black and white) over and at the end of the game, whoever has the most tiles on the board wins. Mindblaster: guess codes made by the phone (similar to mastermind). Pros -low price -very durable (I've dropped it about a thousand times and it still works -large contact list (600 entries) -ringtones and games -small and lightweight -nextel online -recent calls list Cons -my brother has this phone and his won't recharge -service is pretty weak -moderatly short battery life The only other "con" I've noticed is that when I went to New Hampshire the service was completely gone no matter where I was. Whether I was in the car, at the hotel, or in the woods, I couldn't find a signal. When I did find one, it went away very fast. Also it is not a great phone unless it is your first phone because if you've had other phones in the past, this will not seem like an upgrade, even though it is a great phone. Accessories that come with the phone include -charger (usually takes 3 hours to charge it) -battery pack -owner's manual Accessories you should buy -belt clip or some kind of case -car charger (because the phone dies pretty fast) -headset If you haven't bought this phone yet and want to you should, you might not even have problems with the service now that nextel and sprint have joined. If not, there's still a lot of other great phones that have Nextel and Sprint as their service plan. Also, for those of you who don't know, this phone was made FREE by Nextel after the Hurricane disaster for victims trying to reach their families, as well as discounting monthly rates for those families. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 350761 2000/9/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good signal small sound quality light weight cheap small buttonssmall lcd that is hard to read at times The Bottom LineGive these to your employees... Full Review I recently had to switch phones with one of our employees because I usually stay in the office and that other employee is always in the field. He got my Nextel i530 and I got his Nextel i205. I have always liked phones with color screens, cameras and other cool features like Bluetooth and broadband internet, but I had to settle for this because its for work use only and plus I have my own Razr V3m now. We usually purchase these phones from the local Nextel store. THE PLAN : They gave me the $45.99 plan (same as before) that includes 500 anytime, unlimited nights and weekends, included nationwide long distance, and unlimited walkie-talkie minutes. This plan also has free call hold and waiting, 3-way calling, and voicemail. The owner of our company does not like contracts that much so he signed up for a one year plan. THE PHONE AND FEATURES : This i205 is designed like a candy bar so it fits nicely with my office. Since it is an old phone, it does not have that many cool features that I would be interested in. So I just let it sit on my desk until it rings or I have the need to use it. On the other hand, this phone does have internet capabilities and email access. This phone is about 5 inches in height, 2 inches in width, and about 1 inch in depth; it weighs just 5.1 ounces which is really great. You can easily slip this phone in your pocket and not feel a thing because it is so light weight. This phone is small enough to fit easily in your hand or your pocket. There are volume and a Push To Talk (PTT) or Direct Connect (DC) control buttons on the upper left corner, while the top right has the jack for headphones. The speakerphone button is on the very bottom under the "0" button. Buttons on the keypad are small, but big enough to get the job done. You can make calls quickly and easily with this phone. If you have been using mobile phones for a while now, then do not need to worry about anything as the basic features are the same as any other phone. Most buttons are in places you would expect them to be, but the speaker phone button is on the very bottom of the phone. There is a backlit monochrome LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens that will show you everything you need to; it is about 1.5 inches diagonally. Although the screen is easy enough to read in most lighting environments, it is too small when you use the Web or e-mail features. Navigating through the menus on this phone is somewhat of a challenge because the four-way toggle and two soft keys are very small. While the buttons are easy to use after you get the hang of them, the text-driven menus are dull and hard to read. On the other hand, the backlit keypad buttons are well designed and spaced. This i205 has a fair amount of useful features, regardless of all the downsides. The phonebook can store 600 contacts with multiple entries for each. You can also set unique ring tones for each contact. There is also a built-in speakerphone, a WAP wireless Web browser, vibrate mode, text messaging, and call waiting available on this low-end phone. FULL SPECIFICATIONS : Modes: iDEN Weight: 5.10 oz Dimensions: 1.90 inches (W) x 4.8 inches (H) x 1 inch (D) Battery Life Talk: 165 minutes (2.75 hours) Standby: 101 hours (4.2 days) Battery Type: Lithium Ion Display Type: LCD (monochrome) Phone Book Capacity: 600 names and numbers Mobile Web Browsing: Yes Messaging: Text/Voice/Data/Fax/Mobile Email Speakerphone: Yes Multiple Numbers per Name: Yes RECEPTION AND QUALITY : Well, I only use this phone in my office and hardly ever take it out in the field, but it has great signal and voice clarity. The employee who used this before me said he never had signal problems when he was out in the field. The sound quality was great both inside buildings and out in the field. The speakerphone sound quality also is good. BATTERY LIFE : I usually run about 3 to 4 days of standby time; talk time was about 2.5 hours which okay for this low end phone. I usually have to charge the phone every other day or so as I use it quiet a lot during the day. I never had an incident where the phone was out of juice in the middle of the day with my normal use and recharging. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE : I have been using this phone for about two months now and I am very satisfied with it. It is not my first choice for a cell phone, but since the company was giving it to me for free, I choose not to complain; better than having no phone. This phone is very reliable and it does not look and feel cheap. This phone gives me long talk and standby times too. The signal strength of this phone is great compared to other older phones I have used in the past. I have noticed clear call quality and louder too (but Nextel is always loud); the speaker phone is excellent. The menus are somewhat easy to navigate through without getting lost, but you always have the manual that explains everything but without much detail. If you really need detailed information I suggest researching on the Internet and reading reviews like this. FINAL THOUGHTS : This Nextel i205 cellular phone should be your second for work phones. I like to use this at work because it is well built, the signal strength is great and the phone is extremely reliable. So if you have a company (big or small) and want to give your employees phones to keep them in touch--I suggest you get these cheap and reliable phones that will last you for a long time. SOME OF MY RELATED REVIEWS : Copyright © vchand 2006. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7659 AT&T Siemens S46 GSM / D-AMPS Cellular Phone 86730 2006/9/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 small cheap small cheap Simply put, this is not an intuitive cell phone. Keypad commands simply do not flow. A fussy, tiny complex, mess. Prove it to yourself - try sending a simple text message. Good luck. Otherwise - a standard cell phone. Robert. L Montreal 86729 2000/7/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 great technical specifications hand free headsets break frequently frustratingly complexinefficient user interface annoying The Bottom LineDon't buy this phone unless you need world audio and internet coverage with TDMA backup in North America. Full Review This phone looks great on paper, and indeed it is full of features. GSM is nice: I have roamed in Europe and Australia, including sitting in a tent on a beach in Australia using it as a modem to check my Canadian e-mail. It has decent audio (send and receive), the data is usually 38.4 but can be as high as 115 kbps if reception is strong and the local tower supports it. Reception is good; it can be configured to automatically find the best signal, automatically switching from GSM to TDMA (almost never required since GSM coverage in the U.S./Canada is getting better every day). Or you can lock to a particular carrier and stay with that carrier, even if it is not your "Home" network. For example, I have AT&T Wireless as my carrier, but they have lously GSM coverage in Irvine, CA. Cingular has great coverage in Irvine. In auto mode the phone wants to find the AT&T signal even though it's much weaker than Cingular's. But since Cingular and AT&T have agreed to carry each other's GSM traffic, I lock my phone to Cingular while in Irvine. Talk time with a new battery is 5 hours/5 day standby. My battery is 18 months old and now lasts about 2-3 hours, 2-3 days standby; I can get by with 3 days between charges if I don't use it much, 2 days normally, or every night during heavy usage times. Technically, it this phone is everything that is advertised. However, the user interface is absolutely atrocious. I have almost thrown this phone out the window of a moving car, or against the office wall -- literally -- in frustration with the user interface. I don't know where to start, so I'll just list a few quibbles as they come to mind. It requires far too many button presses to do the most trivial tasks. For example, when you receive a text message, there are 4 programmable buttons available to the S46, which could be programmed, for example, to "scoll up", "scoll down", "next message", "delete message". Instead we have scroll up and down, one unused button, and one menu button which brings up a menu where you have to scroll through 5 items to delete the message. Since deletion is the most frequent thing I do with a just-read message, I need a total of 7-8 button clicks to delete and go to the next message. This is impossibly dangerous to do while driving, and annoying to do even while walking. This is a general problem: grossly inoptimal use of available buttons, gross over-use of scrolling through long menus containing mostly useless and non-context-sensitive menu options. The only other phone I've had was a Motorola 120c. It was technically inferior but had a much more pleasant and easy-to-use interface. Furthermore, I had to go through 5 replacement phones in the first month. On the first the buttons didn't work; on the second GSM mode didn't work; on the third the audio was terrible; on the fourth there was no reception at all, and on the fifth I finally got a working phone. Or maybe it was the sixth. I lost count. The hands-free headset sucks as well. The foam pad always falls off and gets lost, and without it the sound is terrible. And it only lasts for a few months of intermittent use before the wiring gets flakey and the whole headset needs to be replaced. AT&T Wireless replaces them for free since they know the headsets are prone to problems, but it's still annoying and time-consuming to return to the store every couple months to get a free replacement headset. I keep this phone *only* because of the GSM mode, which is useful for roaming around the world, combined with TDMA fallback for North American where GSM coverage is slightly spotty. Once GSM coverage gets as good as TDMA, you can be sure I'll put this phone to the sledgehammer and get a nice GSM-only phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 200Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7660 Audiovox 9155GPX 86738 2003/12/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap speaker phone that works good gps for 911 to locate you if needed needs 1200 mah needs longer talking time needs more memory volume is too low Well, I like the product because it was cheap.. well $0 to be exact. All I needed to do was tell Verizon Wireless that the people next door were offering the phone for free and they hooked me up. Talk time is horrible, but what do you get for $0. Phone is getting quieter over this last year. I have it on full volume and find myself pressing the phone harder and harder against my ear to hear people. -Trak0r 86737 2004/8/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good reception great battery light small easy to access all features no frills no text messaging no games Good Reception Easy to access all features small light This phone is for a person who doesnt need polyphonic rings, who doesnt need games or "cool features". This phone has all the basics and works wonderfully, with long bettery life and great reception. No Games No Text Messaging 86736 2005/10/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 tri band cheap good size flimsy not good reception This phone is not the best i have used. It has some interesting features but for the most It is a tri mode and is very cheap. However it shows. The quality isnt that great and it feels as though it could break easily if dropped. 86735 2007/1/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 really easy to use durable antena broke off eventually sand gets in keys I live in CA and I skateboard a lot, so I was hoping this phone would last me more than a few bails. Turns out, it made it more than a year and a half, which isnt shabby for a phone this big and chunky. The monochrome screen is a little boring, but it was massive cheap so I figured maybe it'd last for a little while. A decent investment if you arent looking for a phone with a lot of frills. 86734 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 speakerphone voice dialing lower price needs longer battery life The Bottom LineGive this phone a try. The speakerphone and voice dialing are its best features. Full Review I just want to start out saying that my decision to buy the 9155 was based upon some limiting factors. I wanted to get Verizon's America's Choice plan for its long distance coverage and I could only spend about $100. These are factors that you will have to deal with based upon your needs. Now that you know the conditions under which I made my choice I will go over some of the features. My favorite feature on this phone is the speakerphone. I use it often with few problems. I can hear just fine and the other person can hear me well too, but you need to find a good location for it within the car so that it does not move around as you drive. You have to get creative with this and unfortunately Audiovox has not made any simple adapters for this purpose. I hope some day they will. The voice dialing is also very useful and I use it on a regular basis. The phone has never misunderstood me unlike my wife. Another problem I see with these two features is the effort it takes to activate them. I like to be able to simply operate the phone without looking at it and with little concentration. Both features operate with a single button push, but you need to know where they are. I wish that there was a little bump on the buttons so I could feel them like brail and know that I am hitting the correct button. I do not know how other phones perform these things so you might want to check it out. The menu system seems fine to me and I have learned to navigate without any problems. The sound quality is like that of a land-line when your signal strength is maxed out and starts to get tinny when it is not. The only real detractor is the battery life. I wish it was longer. I can get about 2-3 hours talk time. The standby time is only a couple of days. I normally turn off the phone whenever I am home or at work in order to prevent running down the battery. You have to keep in mind that this is somewhat expected because of the small size of the phone. I would just prefer a longer battery life. I like this phone and I think you should give it a try. It may not be the ideal choice, but you always have to factor in your calling plan. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86733 2000/11/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features price ergonomics battery endurance The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a reasonable priced mobile phone. Full Review I purchased the Audiovox 9155GPX as part of a package from Verizon Wireless that included a mobility pack, w/ auto charger, belt clip, and Jabra ear piece. The purchase was based solely on price. It was by far the lowest of all the dual/tri mode phones offered. I have owned no other Audiovox products. I wonder if they repackage other mfrs equipment since there is a sticker on the side of the phone which says "Qualcomm 3G CDMA" . In summary, my experience with the phone is positive. The reception is outstanding. The display is acceptable for this type of phone. The weight and overall size are also acceptable. I'll get the negatives out of the way. Ergonomics. The menus and soft buttons used to access functions are clumsy to go through. For example, on many Motorola and Nokia phones keypad lock and unlock functions are toggled through " Menu -> * " . Simple to remember and perform. The 9155 makes you use F->1->1 . Not a very big deal, but just a departure from the norm. This function is timing sensitive as well. Kind of irritating when you need to make a call quickly. There are several other examples that I could cite where more thought should have gone into the layout of commands. Battery endurance is not as good as I had hoped. It seems like with every other charge the battery life is adequate. Otherwise, the battery discharges quicker than hoped. The 4 way function button (the silver one in the center) can be annoying to use at times. The external microphone port has a rubber cover which can be very difficult to remove. This will be the first part to go. Positives It's a decent phone for the price. It fits well in the hand. Overall, it's easy to use. The outgoing and incoming sound quality are good. The AC charger is small and lightweight. The function button does have a positive use in that it allows the user to traverse through an array of various email related symbols fairly easily. This is versus the linear method of the motorola phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 46 86732 2000/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 feature rich tri mode good performance stylish menu interface could be easier to use The Bottom LineGreat value for the dollar. Long list of features with an affordable price tag. Full Review Allow me to begin this review, as I do all of my reviews on cellular equipment by mentioning that I have worked in the corporate sales department of Verizon Wireless for six years this month and have seen and experienced everything under the sun when it comes to wireless communications. What a great opportunity Epinions provides to share the information I've accumulated over the years with the rest of you. I've also written reviews on the Motorola V60, Kyocera 2135, etc. I'd also like to point out that the point of my reviews are not to list all of the features and benefits of a particular phone, because that is common knowledge that can be obtained anywhere. I would rather provide the behind-the-scenes information that can only be gathered by working in volume with these handsets. Well, enough said, let's move on! The Audiovox 9155 is a newer model of the Audiovox line that now incorporates the GPS feature for tracking assistance in an emergency situation. Nice feature, but you may be able to save a fair amount of $$$ going with the 9150 which is identical to the 9155 minus the GPS transmitter. Take this into account when purchasing. The 9155 is manufactured by Toshiba. Few know this. Audiovox is simply a marketing name and has truly never manufactured anything to speak of. Over the years, the Audiovox line has proved itself to be reliable and affordable, making it perfect as an entry level unit for our customers. The 9100 series really shines in this respect. As a matter of fact, the 9100 was probably one of the most trouble free phones we ever carried. A real performer. It's too soon to tell whether or not the 9155 will live up to this precedent. The 9155 has a solid track record thusfar. I just closed a 17 line deal with a company that purchased 9155's for each of their lines. I just received feedback from the controller at the company that all of their guys love the phone. Their technicians are able to set the phone next to their work site and utilize the speakerphone for two way communication while they do concentration specific work. I should mention that no feature was left out of this model. It includes voice activated dialing, vibration, web browsing, GPS transmitter, and speakerphone, just to name a few. According to those I've heard from, the speakerphone is loud enough to conduct a conversation in the car while driving, provided the windows are up. On the flipside, another customer recently returned the 9155 for the Motorola Startac 7868 and then, ultimately, on to the LG-510, due to the former two phones being "difficult to program". Ironically enough, this customer was in the technical department of her company. I have heard some complaints regarding the ease of programming of the Audiovox line. If this is going to be a real issue for someone, I generally recommend the Kyocera line that are especially easy to program numbers into. I will admit, the 9155's interface to stored numbers is not quite as polished as some other handsets. It is manageable with some practice, but many want a phone they can dive right into. We receive very few of the Audiovox phones coming back to us. People have taken very well to the line, especially our corporate customers that are able to get these phones at a substantially lower cost. You'd be hard pressed to find a phone will all of the above mentioned features for the price point of the 9155. It truly is a bargain in today's market. One last point I should mention is that I have occasionally seen Audiovox phones heat up when in use, specifically around the earpiece. If this occurs, beyond a "warm" level, I would recommend exchanging the unit while in the 15-30 day grace period and then make sure the new one is not having the same problem. This problem is sometimes initially overlooked, but eventually drives people crazy. Better to nip it in the bud when you can exchange it for a new phone rather than a refurbished one. Well, with that said, I would like to once again recommend the Audiovox 9155 as a great value. With all of the features of phones three times the cost in a compact, portable size, you truly can't go wrong. Enjoy! Recommended: Yes 86731 2002/8/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive blt in speakerphone clarity web enabled lightweight somewhat difficult navigation on webaddress book flimsy antenna The Bottom LineI'm tempted to give this phone five stars, and may eventually do just that in an update. Time will tell. Full Review BACKGROUND: Before I plunge into my review on the Audiovox 9155GPX Tri Mode 1X CDMA Phone, you should first know a little about me and my particular needs and criteria in choosing a cellular phone. I've had a cell phone for the past 7 years and don't use it very often. I'm a mother and have been in college for the large portion of these 7 years, and simply wanted a way for childcare providers to reach me if something was wrong with my kids. I also wanted a cell phone to be able to call for help if my car broke down. I don't make many casual calls like "Have we already seen this video?" or "Do you want chicken or pizza for dinner tonight?" I also don't make a lot of business related calls like "I'm running late for my 4:00 appointment, can he see me at 4:30?" or "What will the late fee be if I pay my bill tomorrow?" I've had 2 cell phones in the past 7 yrs. and have been happy with my service at Verizon, but my cell phone was so big and bulky it looked like one of those old-fashioned 2 way radios. The battery life was non-existent, rendering my phone obsolete. I didn't know diddlysquat about cell phones, but knew that I needed a new one if I was going to continue with the cell phone service. TO MARKET, TO MARKET: Before I went shopping, I got on the internet and began gathering information to see if I even NEEDED a cell phone, and if so, what type of phone and service I needed. One site had a cell phone quiz, which asked some questions about usage and personality (?) It then gave recommendations on what it deemed the five best phones for me. The results were the Nokia 8260, a couple of Panasonics, an Ericksson, and a Sanyo. One thing I listed as a priority was a small-sized phone, as I was sick and tired of schlepping around a big phone. Another feature I was looking for was "ease of use". Because I keep my phones so long, I wanted a long battery life and updated communications capability. Last, but not least, I wanted a fairly inexpensive phone. I was willing to pay up to about $80 and no more! From my reading on this topic, it was suggested that one should shop for the wireless service FIRST, and THEN shop for the phone. So before I fell in love with a phone, I wanted to make sure I got a service I was happy with. There is a Radio Shack right around the corner from me, so I decided to start there. They carried a little, tiny, Sprint flip phone (my friend had one of these, and they easily fit in your pocket!) that I'd seriously considered. I had discounted the idea of buying a phone and then buying a calling card because the minutes cost a lot more and I'm sure I'd forget to buy new cards. This would completely defeat the "emergency" use. The salesman there was so nice and helpful --- actually TOO NICE!! Basically, he advised me that if I was satisfied with the service from Verizon, I should check them out because I could save the activation fee if I was already a customer. I walked out a little confused and pondering the commission structure at RadioShack, as I trundled down to the Verizon store. This Verizon store was the same store where I'd purchased my current phone. What was REALLY weird, was that the manager and the salesperson were the same ones that had been working there 3+ years ago!! The manager helped me, and he's a real soft-sell type guy. What I'd learned from the communications information I'd found on cell phones is this: Analogue - Antiquated, but sometimes the only available service in rural areas. CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) - A digital service that is fairly widely used these days and identifies its users by individual codes. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) - Shared cellular channels by time intervals (kind of on its way out, but still widely used in many popular phones such as the Nokia 8260). So what does all this mean in "real life"? Talk to me like I'm 5 yrs. old!! The manager at Verizon explains it this way: In North Carolina (my state), there are still a lot of rural areas where only analogue signaling is available. If I'm worried about my car breaking down in a rural area of North Carolina, I would want to consider a phone that has the capability of transmitting analogue. Scenes from "Deliverance" are running through my mind. Okay, I am!! Add this to the list of "need to have". Now for the CDMA/TDMA conundrum………Hmmmm. Seems that if TDMA is falling out of favor for the digitally enhanced CDMA, than I need to go with CDMA! He shows me a several phones that offer the "Tri-mode" feature. In other words, these phones have all three communications capabilities. Okay!! Sounds like a good idea, but I bet it's gonna' cost me!! I weed out all the phones that seems to big and bulky, and then all the phones that are out of my price range, and finally come down to the Kyocera QCP 3035e and the Audiovox 9155GPX. Both of these phones will cost about $49 (new) with a 1 yr contract. The Audiovox has a vibration feature and a built-in speakerphone with voice recognition that the Kyocera doesn't have, so the Audiovox wins out. Another decision breaker is that the Kyocera isn't as ergonomic and is a little heavier and longer. I know that this sounds crazy, but the Kyocera had an "angry" look about it. Both have web-browsers, which I decided I really needed to have (look in the dictionary under: compulsive behavior). I knew that this was a lark, but what the heck! It would be nice replacement for the 4-inch thick yellow pages in my back seat and I DO use e-mail a lot. With the WAP feature (web enabled), I could catch up on my email while sitting in waiting rooms. After deliberating over the "local" calling package and the "national" package, I finally opt for the national (knowing that I probably won't need a lot of long distance calling capability, but that it will make my husband happy). Additionally, I purchased a battery-charging adapter that plugs into my lighter for about $17. OPERATOR, GIVE ME PENNSYLVANIA 6-5000!: Okay, let the games begin!! I've never been a "cell phone" person and could hardly even remember my number most of the time. Now, I'm sitting on a rocket and have no idea what I'm doing. Here are the features and specs for the Audiovox 9155GPX: · Tri Mode 800 MHz Amps, 800 MHz CDMA, 1900 MHz CDMA · 1xRTT Compatible* · MSM5100 Chipset · WAP Browser: UP 4.1* · Data Capable (up to 144kbps)* · GpsOne · Multilingual - English, French, Spanish, Portuguese · Caller ID* · Enhanced Speed Dialing · E911 Call · 7 Line Display with Adjustable Text Size · 11 Melody Ringer / 4 Ringtone Selections · Memory Alpha Scroll and Search · Enhanced Phone Book with 99 Name and 297 Number Memory · Voice Activated Dialing · 2 Way Short Message Service* · T9 Text Input · 2 Way Speakerphone · Vibrating Alert · Three Way Calling* · TTY Capable* · Voice Mail Notification* · 5 inches x 1.8 inches x .8 inches · Weighs 3.8 ounces (I got these specs from the Audiovox Home Page at http://www.audiovox.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/product_mainpage.d2w/input?prrfnbr=1306761) First, I wanted to check out the menu. The Audiovox 9155GPX menu button is located in the center of the phone just under the read out window and this is the launching button for most of the features. I'm not going to go into great detail about the mechanics of this phone, but let's just say that this menu button allows you to look up phone numbers, get on the web, program different types of rings, program voice-recognition for speaker phone, etc. This phone doesn't have games as I have no need for them. The Audiovox 9155GPX has 15 different "melodies" for rings, that range from familiar classical pieces to more contemporary tunes. The menu button is fairly large and easy to operate. The phone book feature is a tad cumbersome. Phone numbers can be assigned by name (storage for 99) or they are assigned a number (storage for 297). For phone numbers with assigned numbers, such as 1,2,3, 4, etc., you either have to remember the number assignment or go through a somewhat tedious task of scrolling for it. I decided that I'm going to use the voice activation to avoid this. Programming voice activation for phone numbers is a simple task requiring just a couple of button pushes and verbally announcing the name of the person into the microphone. If I decide to call my children's school, all I have to do is put the phone into the speaker mode and say the name of the school and it will dial the number. Nice, huh? I guess it's best to have a system for voice retrieval, like always using first names or last names, or some other consistent pattern. The Web feature is kind of cool, but I'm still in learning phases on this feature. It's really pretty easy to retrieve e-mail, but the web browsing is a little trickier. I think that this feature will improve over time, but right now it's a little clunky. This phone doesn't have the enhanced, rich, graphics, it's a text-based browser. The problem is that you have to scroll and scroll to get to what you're looking for. In reality, I probably won't use this feature a lot (but I kind of knew that when I bought the phone). The vibration feature is nice, and I wish I'd had this in my old phone. It would have been great to have the subtlety of a vibration over a ringer when I was taking college courses. It's very embarrassing to have your phone ringing in the middle of a lecture. It's also very easy to summon this feature (a button press or two). My husband thinks it's sexy to picture me using the vibration feature (sigh). The built-in speakerphone makes it possible to talk hands free while your phone is sitting on the seat next to you. I LOVE this feature and it will probably be the way I use this phone all the time. I'm easily distracted I'm afraid, and have avoided using my phone while driving to prevent an accident. With this feature I'll feel a lot more comfortable talking and driving. The Audiovox 9155GPX also has the E911 feature, which allows emergency rescue operations to locate you if you are in trouble. Hmmm…….will I WANT to be located? My husband likes this feature though (wink). I really HOPE I won't ever need to use this feature, but I'm glad it's there anyhow. I read some reviews on this phone AFTER purchasing it, and it seems that most people are happy with the clarity of sound found in the Audiovox 9155GPX. I haven't had a chance to really test its limits, but will be vacationing in an iffy digital area soon, so I'll soon find out. Just for local calls, the clarity is awesome!! This phone also has caller ID, but don't they all now? I haven't done a whole lot of callbacks from caller ID numbers yet, so I can't comment on this phone's effectiveness in that area. Am I, perhaps, unpopular?? The battery life is advertised by Verizon as up to 150 hours standby (Digital) and up to 125 minutes talk time(Digital). Both the guy at RadioShack and the manager at Verizon claim these estimates to be very conservative. I haven't yet tested either usage or battery life to it's fullest extent yet, but I'm sure that I will eventually. I'm always lousy at keeping my phone charged. I believe these times listed are average or even better than average than most phones in this price range. YEAH, BUT IS IT CUTE?: Mmmmm……this phone isn't as cute or stylish as a lot of others. It does have a couple of faceplate colors that can be purchased separately, but they're nothing special - just different colors. I've heard that they're a bit tricky to change out. I'm perfectly happy with the brushed metal, "granite" color faceplate that the phone came with. This phone doesn't have the "quality" feel of the Motorolas, but it does feel sturdy for being a smaller phone. Nothing "flips" on this phone, it's a basic, exposed, interface. The keys are big enough to manage, and it has a choice of blue or amber for the read out window. To be honest, I haven't attempted to change the blue color to amber - I kinda' like blue :) There is a retractable antenna, but already, the antenna doesn't want to stay extended. This could pose a problem and I may have to look into this. Some of the phones I'd tried were so tiny they felt awkward. At 3.8 ounces, this phone is almost featherweight compared to my old phone. It's a little long to slip into your pocket at 5 in., but because it's longer it feels more like a real phone! I am really happy with the appearance and feel of this phone. There's nothing teenybopper about this phone's appearance. BOTTOM LINE: So far, I'm very happy with my Audiovox 9155GPX. I'm anxious to see how it performs in long distance travel and in more rural settings. I also have some more tinkering around to do with the web browser and phone book to fully appreciate all this phone has to offer. I'll give you an update down the road to let you know how it's holding up over time. For now? This is a feature-laden phone that is compact in size and weight and doesn't cost a lot of money ($99 new without a service contract). Good clarity, enhanced web capability, voice programming and dialing, and the tri-mode prompt me to highly recommend this phone to anyone with needs similar to my own. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 7661 Audiovox CDM8900 86758 2004/7/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 applicable from cdm 8600 small form factor easy to use warranty turnaround too long relatively poor quality Comment applicable to 8600. Within 6 months #7 key got stuck. Warranty is fine - but it takes 2-3 weeks for turnaround. Huge pain to be without a phone. Also caller-id and stored format in memory don't seem to be in sync .... as a result, name of caller does not pop up even if phone number is in memory. If you save the incoming number then caller id seems to work with name. Overall, phone is OK - but I would probably just buy LG or Samsung if I was using a Korean manufacturer. 86757 2004/5/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 battery life seems good design verizon wireless forcing their name to blink on the display I've been shopping around for a new phone for a while, trying to find something that compares to my Motorola V60C that I've had for 2 years. I ordered this Audiovox phone from Verizon Wireless because it had the speaker phone (I previously tried the Kyocera slider, which was a decent phone, but I could not get used to the sliding part). I swore I never would buy another Audiovox after a negative experience, but a few people have said good things about them, so I decided to give it another try. The biggest turnoff of this phone is that Verizon Wireless has their name flash on the screen on & off with the time/date when the phone is closed and in standby. I find this extremely annoying & spoke with both VZ Wireless and Audiovox and there is no way to stop it. Also the speakerphone is weak & the buttons are too sensitive when navigating around the menus. So the phone is being sent back & I will wait for the new Motorola to come out which hopefully will be soon! 86756 2004/6/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 looks goodgot a lot of fancy featuresflashy looks can hardly hear on the speakerphone A speakerphone is very important to me, as I can have my whole family conversations with faraway friends and family, plus very usefull when driving. But I was disappointed to find a speakerphone that was extremely weak. My Earlier Motorola 270 had a extremely powerful speakerphone which I found very convenient. I'm returning this phone, just for the speakerphone. 86755 2004/12/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clear digital photos small buttons This camera phone is amazing! All the features you could ever want, camera, color screen, superphonic ringtones all in a nice small package. This is the phone to get if you are into Virgin Mobile's Pay As You Go pricing. It is top of the line! 86754 2004/9/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 long battery life poor picture quality I was looking to get into a camera phone, and unfortunatly found this one, supplied by US Cellular. I formerly had Sprint for the advanced technology, but moved to US Cellular for the coverage area where I travel. In spite of being web capable, US Cellular does not support it. On the small screen you cannot see how crappy the pictures are until you download to your computer either by the optional data service over the air or the optional connecting cable to USB on the computer. My friend has a camera on his PDA, and for being the same size lens, his PDA pictures are much sharper. I took it back to the store to compare to other identical phones to see if mine was defective, but the other ones in the store had worse pictures The battery life covers several days, I never turn it off anymore. It has a different ring when it's roaming, and a different ring can be assigned to people in your phone directory. Reception was good. It also covers old fashioned analog systems if you are roaming way out of your home territory 86753 2005/5/29 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 camera phone low battery life design quality of pictures This is my 3rd Audiovox phone and just like the other two I got rid of it as quickly as possible. The ringer sounds funny. The ear piece is unclear. The phone is made so cheaply one can tell when you use it for the first day. Not to mention how many lost calls I got. The only reason I am still using the other Audiovox is Virgin Mobile doesn't use any companies except for Kyocera which is complete garbage. 86752 2005/2/20 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 user friendly camera ringtones short battery life The phone's camera is definitely first rate and very user-friendly. Once you turn on the phone, press the button on the side of the phone to turn the camera on, and press it again to take the photo- it's really that simple. The phone's screen shows exactly the image you're shooting, so you can't screw it up! The picture quality is very good especially for a camera phone and the added flash is helpful in low-light situations . You can store up to 100 pictures in the phone's memory. It has a Full Color Screen with an EASY to navigate menu system. It's simple from here to program your phone numbers and voice dialing Superphonic Ringtones which allow you to use ACTUAL songs and audio clips, not the digitized versions that most phones use. The phone itself has a very limited battery time, the multimedia applications can drain the battery very fast, so be careful. Other than that, the phone is fantastic. 86751 2005/2/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 lots of stuff quality life batt call volume reception If you want a phone with a lot gimmicks and features, this is it. Too bad it doesn't work well as a phone. Call quality is Ok, but volume never seems to go loud enough. Reception is poor, about half as good as my previous motorola phone. Battery life is crap, too. If you talk a lot, it will barely make it through 1 day, again about half as good as my previous phone. Yes, it has a camera. Picture quality is ridiculously poor though, why bother? I am seriously thinking about activating an older phone someone gave me and junking this piece of crap. 86750 2006/2/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 easy to use breaks I purchased my phone through a deal at my office less than 1 year ago. I got the phone for free however, I had to sign a two year contract. I had been happy with the phone. It did everything I needed it to do. Unfortunetly, that was until about three weeks ago. I started out to run some errands and my phone would not power up. I went by the Verizon store and they said that the phone was dead and would need to be replaced. I had to go to another Verizon store to get a refurbished replacement phone. I had my refurbished phone for about two weeks when Unlike my first phone all it would do was power up then cut off and power back up again. You had to take the battery off to stop this. I'm now on my third albeit refurbished phone and just wondering when it will break. Maybe it won't. Lets hope not. 86749 2000/6/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception flashing lights customizable look durable easy to use speakerphone is kinda sketchy verizon wireless banner quiet ringtones The Bottom LineI recommend this phone as long as you don't expect perfect pictures and you are ok with missing calls because of the quiet ringtomes. Full Review I love new gadgets and I get a new cell phone about every 6-9 months. When I was looking for my most recent upgrade, I was looking at the CDM8900 and the LG camera phone that Verizon has (don't know the number...vxsomething, i think). Anyway, I went with the CDM8900 because of a couple reasons: 1) a lot of my friends had the LG, and I didn't want to be part of the crowd. 2) the salesperson told me that the CDM had better reception and more features 3) I like the blue flashing lights on the side. Overall, I am very please with this phone. It is customizable, not just with your display settings, but with flashing batteries and faceplates as well. This was a big plus for me b/c, as i said before, i like my phone to be different from everyone else's. I like the camera function, and while the LG's camera is of higher quality, this one is just fine for my needs. It is not an extremely high quality, but it is durable. I have dropped the phone quite a few times, and it still works perfectly, whereas my friend with the LG dropped it once, and had to have it replaced. The silver body does show some wear and tear from being in my purse with my keys and such, but that can be avoided by using the case it came with. i didn't use it, though, because of my faceplates. It doesn't come with too many ringtones, but it is very easy to purchase others. However, even its loudest setting for the ring isn't that loud and i frequently miss calls when the phone is in my purse. reception is pretty good, although sometimes it will drop calls randomly and reception can vary drastically even when you're not moving. The fact that Verizon has made this phone its own personal banner really bothers me, though. the biggest con of this phone, and something that I have complained about on multiple occasions, is the fact that Verizon Wireless and the date/time on the front of your phone are constantly changing every 5 seconds, and trust me, EVERY time you look at your phone to see what time it is, it's going to say Verizon Wireless...VERY ANNOYING!!! But overall, I love it, and am very pleased with the functionality and ease of use. Highly recommend! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86748 2000/9/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 intuitive menus great phone very durable decent speakerphone good ringer verizon wireless message every 5 seconds useless camera The Bottom LineA good phone that is now greatly discounted at Verizon. I would recommend this phone for a low cost, feature rich choice. Full Review In December I purchased an Audiovox CDM8900 cellphone through the Verizon network for my wife. It was a Xmas present. I upgraded her Motorola T720 phone to this stylish new (at the time) color camera phone. Nowadays they are coming out with new phones every month so at the time of this reading the phone is somewhat dated but still on sale (excellent buy and price) at Verizon stores and online. It is an average size phone and its color screen is very well lit and impressive. The screen, menu functions, and usability are all there. Sound quality for the caller and their party is excellent, and battery life is about average for a phone of this type. It has a speakerphone that provides reasonable call quality although the volume is a little low. It has many aftermarket accessories to choose from too. The phones ringer while not the loudest I have heard is still very good. Nothing beats an LG VX4400 for a kick-butt loud ring but this phone does ok. It's ringer speaker is on the outside and can be heard easily, which is a vast improvement over its smaller brother phone the Audiovox CDM8600, of which I bought for myself in May. The phone also has a novelty camera attached. I call it a novelty camera because its VGA resolution is substandard and pictures taken with the camera are grainy even in good lighting conditions. The pictures produced would not be ones you would want to keep or share. The phone is very durable. It has been dropped several times and is also a frequent plaything for my one year old daughter. These harsh conditions would break many phones but this one takes it with aplomb. Now the bad.... A big drawback is the phone displays "Verizon Wireless" on the outer LCD once every five seconds usually at that critical point when you want to view the time and not be reminded which wireless carrier you chose. "Oh yeah, thats right, I've got a Verizon Wireless phone. Thanks for telling me every five seconds!". Although this can be removed through some tinkering with the Auto-NAM settings (not recommended) I am sure this will end up in higher bills as the phone now stands a good chance of not recognizing local/roam settings. All in all, it is a good phone if you can get over being constantly reminded you are with "Verizon Wireless". For those of you who are interested, here are the specifications to the phone: CDM8600BA Tri Mode CDMA2000 1X Digital Telephone with Color Display for Verizon Wireless Features: Tri Mode - CDMA/Analog/PCS Operation Dual Displays - Inner STN Display with 65K Color CDMA2000 1X Capable* Get It Now Featured* Web Browser (UP 5.0)* TTY Capable* T9 Text Input GPSOne Capable* Data Capable (up to 144kbps)* Built-in Speakerphone (2-way) Voice Activated Dialing Schedule / World Clock / Stopwatch / Calculator Vibrating Alert Multilingual (English / Spanish) *System Dependent Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86747 2000/9/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good battery life big memory packed with features small size packed with annoying features try before you buy The Bottom LineTry this phone's features before buying. Compare common functions before signing a contract Full Review My old Moto phone would no longer charge so I decided to get a new one, and the Audiovox CDM8900 looked sexy with camera and the color screen. The salesman said he had one - so how bad could it be? Well, not bad, but certainly annoying! First, the good parts. The battery life seems good, and reception seems no worse than any other with Verizon. I am not Consumer Reports, so I can't give a precise measurement. Now the ugly. Just turn on the phone. It always plays a little greeting that can not be turned off. This is annoying after the 3rd time. There is also a chime when the phone is turned off. How about just a beep? The phone has room for 400 names, each with 5 different numbers. Now I can put EVERYONE in the phone. Problem: there is no way to specify which number is called first. Since I use my phone for work, I have to look up a person, then scroll past their cell and home numbers to the work number. Annoying. My old Motorola did not have this restriction. It also has speed dial - just hold down a numeric key and it will dial a person who you specify. But once again, it calls the first number associated with the name, which is usually the cell phone. So when I hold down the 8 key, the phone always calls my cousin's cell phone, not home phone. Annoying! You can't program all 10 numeric keys. 0 is not available and 1 is harcoded for *86 - voice mail. But I like to program in the password and a 11 to listen to the first message. I had to program speed dial 9 for this, because the #1 speed dial is locked. Annoying! Being a polite guy (except when writing reviews) I like to keep my phone in vibrate mode - called Etiquette Mode on this puppy. My old Moto would remember the mode when it was turned on, but not the Audiovox. Annoying! How is that Camera? Kinda cheesey. The resolution is 640x480, low enough that you will never save any pictures outside of the phone. A little annoying. The resolution was good enough to read the numbers off of a credit card during an over-she-shoulder shot. Not that I would do something like that! What good is a camera phone if you can't send photos to someone? When you go to send, the phone assumes you want to send to another phone, and asks for a number. Don't know the number - you can look it up in the phone book. But, most people don't have camera phones, so I usually want to send to someone's email. There is no way to look up someone's email from the directory. Annoying. Sending text messages was easy, especially with the T9word mode which guesses the word when you spell it with the keyboard. But I am not a messaging phreak, so this is not as useful to me. One quirk about the battery. It has 4 bars, but it is definitely not linear. The phone show 4 bars for 80% of the battery charge, 3 bars for the next 15%, and 2 bars for 3%. If you see 1 bar, you have about two calls left. The charger is deceiving as it will charge from 0 to 4 bars in 5-10 minutes, but take up to 2 hours before the phone says that charging is complete. The flat keys take some getting used to as it is a little harder to find keys by touch. Now I am used to it and it is less ... annoying. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 140Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86746 2000/5/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen battery speakerphone call quality verizon banners get it now lack of customizablility The Bottom LineWith all the bells and whistles on it, remember that it is a phone, and as a phone, this is a fine product. Not perfect, but it does its job Full Review After my previous phone of two years, a Motorolla v120C, decided to stop receiving calls, I decided to take advantage of my upgrade and treat myself to a "trendy" new phone.Here are the basics. Flip phone, camera, speakerphone, calculator, world clock, alarms, calender/event scheduler, stopwatch... other assorted goodies.I like the way the phone gets great signals indoors and underground, and has some signal in places where I never could get a signal before. The antenna is sturdy and shouldn't break off in a pocket. The speakerphone (whose downside I will get to later on) is very convenient, and in a quiet setting, is a great feature. Battery life seems to be fine. I am told that with speakerphone or normal microphone the quality exceptional. It also has voice recognition, but I haven't used it yet.While I am happy with the phone and plan to keep it for some time, it is not perfect. The #1 thing I can't stand is that the outside LCD screen will flash between caller id/time and "verizon wireless". It is really rediculous, it says verizon on the phone 4 times, and it doesn't even say Audiovox once! An Audiovox rep said they were working on a software fix, but for now it is a headache. Also, "get-it-now" is a corporate monopolistic ripoff. They charge you for downloads and airtime, so use it during nights/weekends. And while its main job is a phone, let's face it, backgrounds, ringtones, games, etc. can be pretty fun. Especially when the tones that came with the phone are obnoxious, the backgrounds are of clocks and games were nonexistant. To further the Verizon bullplop, you cannot change the startup/shutdown banners or sounds, even though there is an option for that in "settings". As far as hardware goes, the speaker can be a little tinny and distorted at high volumes. One last quirk is that the speakerphone is located on the outside of the clamshell, while the microphone is on the inside. This means that if you want to hear and be heard at the same time, it may require some careful placement of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86745 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 many usefulhandy features hard to configure high learning curve The Bottom LineI can't recommend this one based on my experience; however I've only ever had 2 cell phones and others may be as bad or worse. Full Review As other reviewers have given detail on the features themselves, I will focus on the problems I have had while using it. Configuring & using this phone is much more difficult than it ought to be. I wanted to like the phone since it does everything I need, but it annoys me in small ways every single day. In a nutshell, the user interface (UI) was clearly designed with more attention paid to how it looks than to its usability. The most egregious examples follow: * When I hold it in the picture-taking position, my index finger is naturally directly in front of the camera lens. I have to shift to a less comfortable holding position to take a picture. * When the phone finished charging, it turns off! Even if it was on when you plugged it in. And you cannot turn it on when it's charging; you have to unplug it. I've missed important calls because of this. * When a call comes in, the front screen says "Verizon Wireless" for 5 seconds, then the incoming number for 5 seconds, then "Verizon Wireless" again, etc. You have to wait for it to stop saying "Verizon Wireless" to tell who's calling. When no call is coming in, it does the same thing with the date/time, meaning you often have to stare at it for 5 seconds just to tell the time. * You have to read the manual to find out how to use the speed dialing feature (press & hold the speed dial number). And speed dial numbers aren't set by editing the contact's info; you have to go to a special speed dial menu & then go back & find your contact. You can't set speed dial 1 either, that's reserved for your voicemail (which is often a very short sequence of numbers anyway; personally I never make a speed dial for voicemail) * The "do this thing" and "cancel it" buttons aren't consistent throughout the user interface. You always have to look at the screen to make sure you're pressing the correct button to do what you want to do. * As a subset of the above, occasionally the Cancel option is not even listed and you have to guess - for example, pressing 'CLR' often means 'go back one step', but when you're in a text box it means 'erase the last character I typed'. 'Go back one step' in this case is the hang-up button, which otherwise means 'exit to the main screen'. None of this is listed on-screen. * There are too many button pushes in many areas. For example, the Mobile Web menu takes you to a second menu that has one option, Connect. Why not just connect directly? * You can't change the text displayed when nothing is going on, it's always "Verizon Wireless" (which you are probably already aware of). There's a "Greeting Message" you can set, but it's something different - I've never actually been able to find where that is shown. There are many other minor annoyances of this kind, almost all of which are indicators of insufficient usability testing of the phone's UI. A new version of the software would have the ability to correct many of them, but it's not clear whether this is in the works or not. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 70Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 86744 2000/3/27 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 it looks pretty with flashing blue lights sparratic powering off poor reception frequently dropped calls random battery drainage The Bottom LineThis phone is Junk, poor all around performance Full Review I bought this phone when it first came out and have had it for over 2 years. 2 years of frustration. Let me point out that two things are needed for me to be happy with a cell phone. 1. Good reception and call clarity *Failed 2. Good battery life *Failed Afterall, this is a phone, and that should be its primary goal- to field my phone calls.... The phone seemingly has great features- but I am not going to touch on the features because several things about this phone render it trash. This phone drops calls and powers off - loses its signal... when other nearby verizon phones have a solid signal... need I say more? Ok, I normally don't get a viceral response about things, but... I bought this phone for like 169.99 after rebates - the retail price was $419. ANYTHING that you pay that much money for, should work well in at least its basic functions for at least two years. From the moment I bought the phone I experienced poor reception and from time to time clarity of calls was awful. This could be just verizon coverage - but I doubt it because I live in metro ny area so coverage should be great (and none of my friends have experience the dropped calls and lack of signal as I have). My friend bought his phone the same time I did (the same phone) - and his broke after dropping it twice. Mine has had loose pieces rattling around in since I dropped it from around 2ft off a couch onto a carpeted floor while it was in a leather case. It still worked, but I have had samsung phones in the past that could take much more of a beating. Also - My phone would be fully charged and I would pick it up and it would be powered off, with a toasted battery - for no explainable reason. BEWARE OF AUDIOVOX Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 169.99Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86743 2000/5/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 great phone don t use verizon The Bottom LineDon't use Verizon with this phone (or any phone as far as I am concerned) Full Review I bought this phone only to experience a tremendous amount of stress. Verizon's software for the CDM8900 has a bug that WILL NOT allow it to receive ANY call from a blocked number. This means if the caller has elected to block their number from caller ID this phone will not be able to receive the call. The caller will go direct to voicemail. My home phone is a blocked number as are many of the people who call me frequently. This may not be an issue for some people, but for me it is. I only discovered the problem after many hours listening to the help line tell me that it was a "reception" problem and that there was no other possible reason some calls were not received. Eventually an employee of the store that sold me the phone found that there had indeed been a technical alert to the Verizon help desk employees and others in the field, that this particular phone could not receive blocked calls, and that a fix was forthcoming. Verizon employees had not read the memo, and thus tried to convince me that I had a reception problem. They are writing the "fix" to the software that will be ready by the summer of 2004, but in the meantime they continue to market this phone with no mention of the software problem. Obviously I returned the phone, but since it was Verizon, and they have VERY weak or nonexistent customer service, I had to call several times to remove the 2 yr contract extension on my account. I am looking for other carriers now. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86742 2004/9/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dialing camera many features great reception color screen poor speakerphone flat buttons verizon banners The Bottom LineI recommend this phone for people who want all (or most) of the features for not a lot of money. Mainly a good phone, but the few oddities are livable. Full Review SEE UPDATE BELOW... We purchased two of these phones from Verizon and are basically happy with them. One phone had to be exchanged after it froze and would not recover. I can tell that the operating system on these phones is sensitive. Many features abound on the phone - calculator, world clock, stopwatch, alarm clock, voice memo recorder, event planner (like a mini-pda) Voice quality has been great. It also has exceptional range. We used to have LG TM-510 phones which I thought had great range, but this phone will work where the LG wouldn't. The speakerphone only works in a quiet location. If you turn it up all the way, the distortion is horrible. The camera function on the phone is neat, but I haven't used it much. It is fun to assign pictures to people that call you frequently, but that's about it. The outside caller ID display is a bit difficult to read. I turned up the contrast and it helped a bit. The internal color display is very good. Most annoying thing is the Verizon Wireless banner that alternates every 5 seconds with the clock on the outside caller ID screen. When I look down to see what time it is, I have to wait for the banner to cycle to the clock. But the biggest problem is that when someone is calling, you have to wait for the Verizon banner to cycle so the caller ID shows through. I gave up and set the phone not to answer when I open the flip, so I can see on the internal display who is calling me. I have heard that it may be possible to delete these banners, but I wouldn't risk it because the phone may freeze again! UPDATE - I have found another design flaw with this phone - While I find it a bit annoying, I think most people can live with it: The phone has three "Recent Calls" lists: Missed Calls, Dialed Calls, and Incoming Calls. If your phone rings, and you don't answer the incoming call, the number will show up on your Missed Calls list. But if you press the Ignore button while the phone is ringing, the number does not show up in your missed calls list or any recent call list, so you can't call the person back. I also found another quirk with the phone, but nothing that really affects functionality seriously. The first problem is that on occasion, the phone will randomly turn off and turn back on again (this only has happened while I have not been using the phone). Could this be Verizon updating my phone's software and it restarting (just like Windows)? After all that, I still am very happy with these phones and would purchase them again. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86741 2000/8/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 lightweight flip phone with camera compact quirky features that you can t disable unusable picture quality useless speaker phone poor battery life The Bottom LineOverall it's not bad, but there are far better offerings today. Its useless camera, sub-par battery, and poor reception make it mediocre at best. I wouldn't buy it again. Full Review I've had my Audiovox CDM-8900 for about a year now, and I still have somewhat mixed feelings about it. I won't spend much time here detailing the standard features of this phone, as you've probably already read about them elsewhere. To review a bit though, this is a relatively compact, lightweight (3.5oz), color display, CDMA tri-mode flip-phone with a built-in low resolution camera, speakerphone, Verizon web capability (via Get It Now), a reasonably intuitive menu system, and a versatile phonebook. I bought this phone when it was a rather new offering from Verizon, so it was a bit pricey even after a $60 rebate. Incidentally, Verizon actually charged me $60 for this rebate some months later, claiming that it was invalid since I never signed my contract. I had in fact never received my contract, nor did I know I was supposed to sign one, and it took me over 3 months to get them to send me a new copy that I could sign to get my $60 back. In the end it actually took a nasty letter sent directly to the corporate office, along with a complaint to the FCC to finally get a copy of my contract, but that's a whole other story. Back to the phone...Camera phones were rather new when I bought my 8900, and I specifically chose this model because of its picture-taking capability. The only other available camera phone then was a pricier LG whose shape I really disliked. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how poor the picture quality would be, such that only very close-up photos of people's faces are of sufficient quality to actually be usable. I wouldn't have shelled out the extra cash for a camera phone if I knew the quality would be so poor. If you're just looking to use your photos to identify incoming callers then perhaps the CDM-8900 will work for you, but don't expect to be able to actually take "photos" with it, as you see people doing in commercials. After a few feet the poor resolution prohibits getting any useful pictures. Although it has the capability to store a great deal of photos on its internal flash memory (32mb), the CDM-8900 doesn't come with a data cable! So if you want to transfer photos to your PC you're out of luck, unless you shell out another $15 or so for a cable. I bought one for a bit less on eBay; Verizon's special kit costs quite a bit more, and doesn't seem to come with anything extra to justify the inflated price. There also doesn't seem to be any other way to transfer photos from this phone, aside from e-mail, which of course costs money through Get It Now. There is no IR or Bluetooth capability, and no removable memory card. The CDM-8900 is rather quirky for several other reasons too. First, it comes programmed to play a really annoying little jingle when you turn it on, and another, different jingle when you turn it off. It also shows a strange hot air balloon animation when you power down, while playing its awful tune. To date, I cannot figure out how to turn this "feature" off. There are also a few other annoying features that I was finally able to disable, after a great deal of research and effort, such as the "Verizon Wireless" banner on the outside LCD, which makes the display useless for the usual purposes like checking the time, remaining battery life, signal strength, or caller ID. This phone also comes set from the factory to make an annoying fake camera shutter sound whenever you take a picture. I disabled these two "features" by purchasing the data cable and downloading BitPim, a free software package that allows you to actually mess with the operating system of the phone and change "secret settings" like these. It's a bit risky, as many of us have ruined our phones this way, so I would not recommend it unless you really know what you're doing. Incidentally, this is a way to get around the paying for ringones issue, but again it's tricky, and not recommended for novices. As you can see, this is a quirky phone that can be rather annoying at times. The color screen is one of the highlights of the 8900, with its bright, vibrant colors. It's a TFT 65,000 display, like many laptops. Viewing it is never a problem for me, even in direct sunlight, although as expected the colors get bleached out a bit by the sun. The smaller, outside display is considerably less useful. It's an optionally backlit black and white sort of display, and you have to hold one of the volume buttons for what seems like an eternity before the backlight will actually turn on. It's quicker and easier to just flip open the phone! This is yet another annoying "feature" of the CDM-8900. Anyway, it's a really nice screen, but it seems like overkill to me. I'd rather have the extra battery life than 65,000 colors, especially when the camera resolution is so poor that ten colors would be more than enough! And speaking of flipping open the phone, after just a couple months of rather light use, the flip portion of my 8900 has come loose. It still flips and springs open/closed the way it did when I bought it, but now it makes an annoying creaking sound when I press it to my ear, forcing me to hold it in an awkward way by the flip part instead of the base. As others have noted, the speakerphone is rather poor as well. There's no reason to beat a dead horse, so I won't comment on that further. I've also had problems getting good, consistent reception with the 8900, despite being in a rather well-covered area of the Verizon network. Friends with different Verizon phones get superior reception here. And battery life is rather poor by my standards. Granted, talk-time has decreased since the phone was new, as the battery has aged a bit, but I shouldn't have to charge my phone every two days when I barely use it. Overall it's not a bad phone, but in hindsight I wouldn't buy it again if I had the choice. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 100Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86740 2000/6/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 phone book price reception ease of use camera screen having to download only with telus online some animationssounds can t be changed The Bottom LinePhones keep getting cheaper, and they have more and more options every month. This phone has the most sought after options in a small package that is affordable. Full Review I have owned my Motorola v120c for over 2 years now and recently I came to realize it is not quite cutting it anymore. I decided about a month ago that I needed to upgrade. Unfortunately, Aliant works here in Nova Scotia have been on strike for a while now. This makes doing any business with the company very time consuming and difficult. Also, the phones that Aliant offers do not particulary impress me. After deciding I would try and sell my old phone, I happened upon the Telus booth in my local mall and fell in love with the Audiovox 8900. Telus offers the same packages as Aliant, plus great extra features, and more importantly, much better phones. I picked up the 8900 a few days ago and I have it customized quite well now. There is something very satisfying about opening the flip phone and talking through a phone that allows the other end to actually hear you loud and clear. The reception with this phone is about 1000 times better than my previous phone, and it stays in 1x digital mode pretty much constantly. As mentioned in other reviews, there are a lot of options with the phone, but all the buttons are located in spots that are easy to access and make sense. The Camera button is on the right side and pictures may be taken with the phone open or closed. When closed, a preview shows up in the external LCD in black and white of course. But still a great feature. The antenna is very flexible and sturdy and helps reception a tiny bit, although most of the time it is not neccessary to use it. The Camera itself is on the back of the phone, near the top, angled at a 45 degree angle if you are holding the phone vertical. The only problem with this location is that when I hold my phone to my ear, my index finger lies directly over the camera lens and I am afraid it will be scratched or constantly smudged. The external LCD has lots of information and is fairly easy to read in the day time. It always shows signal strength, battery life, the date and time, the various modes of operation (1x, analogue, etc.), and it also tells you which mode of ringing is selected (ring, vibe, dnd, etc.), as well as notification of messages. Alternately, you can make the external LCD display a simple analogue clock. The screen is very easy to read and is quite stunning. Much better than those on the LG phones I tried out at Telus. The keypad is well laid out, although the directional keys are sometimes a bit hard to use with my clumsy thumb. The "up' button is also hard to press from time to time. Otherwise, the keys are exactly where you want them to be, and within a few hours of using the phone, you will have all the button presses memorized (eg: Menu->5->1->1->1 to change your ringer, etc.), and you'll most likely have played with the different, fairly limited and lame ringtones and images that are included with the phone. The phone is completely customizable, but to do so you have to get images, ringtones, games, utilities, and animations, from the Telus site mytelusmobility.ca. It's a great site and downloading is very easy, but you do have to pay to use it. Usually $1.50 for a ringtone, plus $0.50 download fee. Images are cheaper, and games are more expensive. When you go into the settings to change your images and sounds, and so forth, your options are divided into categories including Default (ones included with the phone), Images (images you've downloaded), Photos (pictures you've taken with the camera), and so forth. This makes it extremely easy to navigate and find the right ring or image. As mentioned in a previous review, the phonebook in this phone is incredible. Not only can you add multiple numbers for each person (cell, home, work, fax, pager), you can input email and other information. You can then assign a speed dial to numbers, as well as voice dial. I haven't used the speaker phone too much. I feel sort of silly when I use it. All I can think about is the people on The Apprentice using their cells on speakerphone in various Limos and such, looking fairly stupid. I can understand if someone else really needs to hear the conversation, or if you're on hold with tech support or other annoying things like that. Otherwise, I just use the phone like it is meant to be used. =) There are a lot more options, but I've gone into quite a bit of detail already. If you get this phone, I don't think you will be disappointed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 72Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86739 2004/4/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 phone book clarity compact easy to navigate menus reception limited included ring tones The Bottom LineAudiovox CDM8900 is a compact flip phone that is easy to program and use. The reception is good and the features work as stated. Full Review Recently it was evident that our current calling plan wasn't the best option for our family unit. We were satisfied with the service received from Verizon Wireless but knew that changes needed to occur. After browsing the online site and speaking to a representative, we decided to visit a nearby storefront. This proved to be the best option because the sales representative was able to work better deals than those available online (we were told this was due to the fact that we were existing customers in good standing). After discussing our needs in comparison to plans available, we signed up for the National in-Networking plan and selected three new phones. Previously I used a Nokia 5185I and a Qualcomm 2760. As is typical with electronics, technology has advanced and it was quickly evident that our gear was, well, obsolete. A friend of my daughters had pointed out that my Qualcomm was bigger than their house phone. I wanted a petite (yet sizable enough to use) flip phone. Although camera capability wasn't mandatory I (secretly) wanted it. It was important to me that the phone has tri-mode capability because there are times when we travel through analog service zones. After discussing my cellular needs, the representative recommended the Audiovox CDM8900. The listed retail price far surpassed the $70. sale price that the rep quoted to me. After redeeming a $70. rebate, my cost for the phone was $0. Or was it? This **deal** included signing a two-year agreement with Verizon. However considering that we have been satisfied with Verizon (for years) I was comfortable doing this. Plus I can change minutes or plan, I just have to stay with Verizon for two-years or pay a $175. penalty. The Audiovox CDM8900 is a CDMA2000 Tri Mode Color Display Phone with Camera. Overall I am pleased with the Audiovox CDM8900 and recommend it. I feel that this phone is easy to use; it didn't take me long to figure it out and program it. This phone is compact enough to carry in a pocket or purse. I am impressed with the clarity of reception and can quickly adjust the volume via a button on the side of the phone. The LCD screen is sharp and the camera is simplistic to use. I like the blue back lighting on the keypad, making it easy to dial in dark or dim areas. Considering how restricted the phonebook was in my old phones, I really appreciate the options offered in this one. I have customized ring tones for certain contacts, allowing me to quickly know if I need to answer the phone (for example if I am waiting for a call from my daughter) or if I can finish the task at hand. For a small fee I can add games (Tetris cost $5.99 for unlimited use). The battery charges quickly and offers acceptable usage time. It took me a little while to get used to the display indicators, but I appreciate them (signal strength, roaming, service indicator, message, digital mode, battery, mute, silent, emergency call, voice memo, etiquette, schedule, ring mode, dormant, fax only, data only, GPS Icon, 1X, scratch pad, unread web messages, UP browser...). The 'ettiquite mode' is simple to activate/deactivate. Also I like the blue lights that flash when it rings (circular, located on both sides of the phone). A minor complaint I maintain is with regard to the ring tone selections. There are five bell tones, ten music tones; I wish more (or different ones) were included. However you can obtain more via use of Verizon's Get It Now service. Also I feel that it is important that you don't purchase this phone thinking you are obtaining a digital camera. While the camera feature is nice, it doesn't hook up to your computer nor does it take good nighttime photos. Also, although the speaker phone capability works it isn't always clear. Details The primary color on the Audiovox CDM8900 is silver. This phone measures 3 ½" (4 ½" including antenna receptacle or 7 ½" when antenna is extended) x 2" x 1" when closed and 6" x 2" x ½"-1" when opened. It is compact enough to fit into my pants pocket or to wear in the included belt-clip. Although it is small, it is still comfortable for use; the earpiece and mouth piece offer a good span and the shape is comfortable for me to hold. Unlike the Nokia 5185I or Qualcomm 2760 that I used to own or the Nokia 3589i and Kyocera KX414 that my husband and daughter currently own, this phone does not allow me to sandwich it between my head and shoulder while attempting to free my hands to talk. However hands-free conversations are easily achieved when using a headset - albeit a separate purchase. Function keys and the primary navigation key are located at the top of the primary surface, send | clear | end buttons are next, followed by the alpha-numerical keypad. I am pleased with button placement. It is my opinion that the menus are easy to navigate making it simple for me to customize this phone. I appreciate the phonebook capabilities. Whereas my old phone allowed one phone number per contact, the Audiovox CDM8900 allows me to enter the contact name, select a group, and enter the mobile, home, office, pager, fax, e-mail, wireless address, ringer, msg. ringer, graphic, and memo. I have a different ring tone for certain contacts (some selections are individualized (my husband and daughter), some are group set (work contacts & dance team)). Rather then bore you with the details of the multiple ways I have customized my phone, I will summarize by saying that the phone book capabilities are one of my favorite features. The camera lens is located beside the antenna and earphone/microphone jack (all are on the top end of the phone). There is a camera operation key on the side of the phone or you can operate it via the primary navigation key. The up and down keys allow you to change pix size (640x480, 320x240, or 160x120) and the left/right keys allow you to change brightness. I have successfully taken pictures indoors and outdoors but please note that there is no flash, so the camera doesn't take good nighttime pix. Also you need to realize that there is a .25 per photo send charge. This feature has allowed me to share a few pictures with family friends that otherwise wouldn't have been captured. So I am overall pleased that this phone has this feature. Certain features require use of Verizon's Get It Now service. I have utilized this service to add a couple games and browse ring tones. Charges for this service vary, depending on the application. This service is easy to navigate/use and the connection speed/download time is impressive. I am not able to comment with regard to the text messaging feature due to the fact that I haven't used it. However a close friend has this phone and claims that text messaging is simple and efficient to utilize. There are multiple features on this phone. I suggest visiting: http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=12840&langId=-1 ==========****====****====****====****========== Included With Purchase: Audiovox CDM8900 Lithium Ion Battery AC Charger Belt Clip Wrist Strap User Manual Quick Reference Guide Welcome CD Features: Weight: 3.5 Ounces Standby Time - Up to 212 hours Usage Time - Up to 193 minutes Tri Mode Operation: 800 AMPS/800 CDMA/1900 PCS CDMA2000 1X Capable Built-in 300K Pixels Camera Downloadable Ringers, Games and Images Web Browsing Capable Photo Album Data Capable TTY Capable Voice Activated Dialing 2-Way Speakerphone 2-Way Text Messaging Phonebook with 300 Entries Blue Keypad Backlighting Dual Displays - Inner TFT Display with 65K Color System Dependent Family Affair Other Phones Thank you for reading! ©2004 Lisa_J Recommended: Yes Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7662 Audiovox CDM9000 86811 2000/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small durable clear sound good design no good ring types occasional echo effect Full Review I bought this phone through the Verizon wireless program and was quite impressed by its tri-mode capability. I was disappointed to find that although the phone provides many ring type options, I couldn't find a ring type that was even halfway decent. Also, I noticed when calling others with the same model phone, a small echo effect is present. However, the Audiovox 9000 proved very durable. One evening, I was caught in the rain with the phone in my pocket. The phone was subject to substantial moisture, but continues to function as well as ever. I also like the design and menu interface. So, other than the small flaws previously noted, the 9000 is lightweight and durable with clear digital sound quality--overall I would recommend the Audiovox CDM-9000. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.99 86810 2000/6/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice look feel long battery life flimsy antenna The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a phone that's easy to use and figure out, this would be a great place to start. Full Review Overall, I have been pretty satisfied with this phone. I used to have a cell phone that rarely worked, but this one is much different. Pretty Lightweight, very durable, and a long battery life are the best qualities of this phone. I was very impressed with the battery life of the phone. If you use the phone often, no need to worry because it comes with two batteries anyway. It has a handy address book, web enabled, and is easy to learn. It is a great phone for newbies. The only drawback that doesn't really involve the phone is the tech support. The tech support seems that sometimes they are as new with the phone as you are. This is a good choice for a first phone. If you are slow at figuring it out, it comes with a handy instruction manual that covers everything in pretty good detail. I've had to refer to it a few times. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 86809 2000/11/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 size voice activated dialing ease of use none plastic feels cheap Full Review I having been using the product for several weeks now and can only find good things to say about it. Calls are clear and crisp, dialing is simple and straightfoward, and there are many other features that make this product very much worth your money. Voice activate dialing - simply say a word and the phone automatically dials the number, no extra charge Web access - check your email on your telephone Computer Internet access - use your cell phone for internet access on your laptop Ring types- choose from 16 different ring tunes ( a lot of fun) Talk Time- 190 Minutes Size - compact, not as small as motorola startac but small As you can see, this phone is a very excellent buy, and i would recommend for all but the most demanding users. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 (with service) 86808 2000/10/15 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 drop in charger incredible difficulty of use Full Review I had been with Sprint PCS, but I needed a plan with more minutes that was cheaper. I use my cell phone for everything and have no land line, so having a good phone is important, and this is a damned bad phone. It could do everything my old phone could do, but it took an extra three or four steps. Nothing is simple with this phone. Everything requires you to go through three or four menus. You can't change the banner, navigating the menus is difficult, navigating the address book a major pain, everything is a pain. Also, the battery was loose, and always felt like it was going to fall off. In addition, I had trouble getting the damned thing to turn on after I'd turned it off. About the only thing to recommend it is the drop in charger. Otherwise, save your money and get a better phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 145 86807 2000/11/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 small voice dialing lithium battery vibrating ringer clear sounding gotta find a belt clip somewhere Full Review I went to the Verizon store looking to replace my beloved Sony Zuma 200, that I had smashed in my van door. Ouch. I was considering a Nokia 6000 series, but I found this little wonder (CDM-9000) to be slightly smaller and lighter. Since I only had to pay sales tax on it, I figured why not? I previously owned an Audiovox CDM-3000, and was pleased with the features, even though it was like carrying a brick around. This 9000 solved all that. I think the small size is wonderful, the clarity is superb to any other phone I've had, and the battery life is great. It even has voice activated dialing! ("Kirk to Enterprise" dials my house.) You can program strings of numbers as well, so when I call the bank, I push one button and my account info and password go right in. One-touch access to voice mail and text messaging. 15 different ringers, vibration mode, alarm clock and countdown timer. Also headphone and data port jacks. Like I'll ever use that. 99 record phone book, up to 20 voice dialing entries. Wireless Web enabled. SMS messaging. Drawbacks? Well, an included belt clip would have been nice. Who should buy it? EVERYONE. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 86806 2000/6/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 phonebook ease of use n a The Bottom LineA great phone for one who simply needs to talk. Full Review I have had my Audiovox phone for the past 2 years. I had purchased it due to some travel plans taking me away from home during the summer months. It enabled me to enroll in a 1 rate plan. The phone is very functional for my needs. It stores up to 99 numbers in a phone book directory. It allows for a voice mail. It has 14 various ring types that allow you to differentiate between various callers. When a programmed caller rings you, their name and number appears. If a non-programmed number calls, the number will appear. The timer feature allows you to track your minutes so that you do not over extend your monthly allowance. The volume is fine. Callers are easily heard. The size of the phone fits easily into my pocket or into my wife's purse. I recharge it nightly and have encountered no problems with the battery. It probably has more features. I just haven't discovered them yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 86805 2000/5/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 number saving voice activated caller id price a little static The Bottom LineEverything you need feature wise. Excellent Battery life. Small and light. Full Review This is the third Audiovox phone i have purchased. It is very easy to upgrade your phone for a reasonable price. I had my last Audiovox for three years before it went to phone heaven. I simply took it to the cellular dealer and traded it in for the newer model. Keep in mind this is not a free trade and you do not get any money for your old phone but you do get a reasonable price for the new one. It was about fifty dollars plus your calling plan which was also very reasonable. This phone has many features, almost too many to use. The main aspects being caller-id, voice activated calling, web access, 15 different rings, vibrating ringer, etc. The newer version has the new features of web access, more rings, and voice attivation. The new phone has considerably less static in calls also. I have used many other other phones that my friends and family have and by far this is a better value. The Startrack may have less static than this phone but it also costs much more or you can pay a $100 more for a phone with the same features as this Audiovox 9000 phone and only get the luxury of playing some old school boring games. This phone has everything you need and more. The battery is also excellent. It will last easily 2 days with average talk time with out recharging. It is an average sized phone and is not very heavy. It slips into any pocket and is not noticed. I often have to check to see if it is still there. It is by far worth the money. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 Upgrade 86804 2000/3/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 many features small battery glitches tech durability The Bottom LineBuy a Nokia because with the audiovox, you will inherit clarity problems, technical delays, and poor reception. Full Review The AudiovoxCDM9000 is an awesome little gadget; until the day you realize your phone's many little annoyances and tech. problems. The Phone Itself The Audiovox phone itself is great, and I would highly recommend it to those in search of a cell phone. It features quick dial, scratch pad, call-waiting, voicemail, text messages, keypad lock, call timers, and web browsing. With a 99 slot reserved for your friends' numbers, this phone has everything you need to spoil yourself. The body is also very appealing to the eye. Its groovy, slim design features a lightweight, 4.8 oz. battery. The phone also has 15 ring types to chose from. By holding the * key down, a voice command dial can be set up. "Call Ben," is all I have to say and my friend is soon enough on the other end of the phone. If you have trouble getting up in the morning, you can program your phone to wake you up with its alarm feature. I prefer having someone call me in the morning, but either way, you will be up by a needed time...or will you? PROBLEMS I was having the time of my life with this phone while it worked correctly, but now I find myself with a ton of annoying little problems. I woke up late for school one day and thought, "Wasn't my girlfriend supposed to call and wake me?" I checked the phone, and it said that I had no missed calls, so I figured she screwed me over. I got on the bus and the voicemail alert popped up and I had like six new messages dating to a week back. What took so long to get these? I prompted the voicemail command, and listened to the messages, all were basically the same..."Mike, why aren't you answering your phone?!" I called my girlfriend back on her cellphone, and in the middle of our conversation, my phone hung up on us. That was just a beginning; now the phone has terrible reception, I have to jam my mouth to the receiver for the other person to have a chance to hear me, and I have to wait weeks to get my voicemail. The phone material is also pretty cheap. The screen on my phone cracked and I don't know how that happened since it is in a leather case and in my pocket all the time. And now, the battery screws are loose and i have to manually screw them back in with a tiny screw driver so I can charge it up at night. I thought my phone was defected or something, so I talked with others on-line if they had a similar problem, and many said they did. The AudiovoxCDM9000 looks cool, has all the cool features, but to me personally, is a bad luck charm. I inherited a phone with a ton of problems. I can't wait until my service contract is over so I can go get a Nokia or something. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): Contract 86803 2000/2/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very comfortable to use there is a pause before the second person answers The Bottom LineIf you need a phone 24/7, this is the wrong type. If you need it for once in a while its great. Full Review We have never really used a cell phone before, but when one was necessary for finding a job, we bought a plan from Verizon Wireless receiving the phones of Audiovox. So far, we have been completely satisfied. Especially we enjoy using the voice activation. There is good clarity and using the phone is a delight. One of the cons about using this, is that when you talk, the person on the other line doesn't seem to respond as fast, even though they say it exactly when they hear the other person. Cell phones that I have previously used have all been very stable at keeping a conversation. Something that I enjoy about the phone is that the battery lasts for quite a while. This means you do not need to recharge it every night. The battery will last for at least 7 days before a recharge is really needed. Although, the phone doesn't have as many options as I would like. For example the voice mail system does not work. The long distance is free, talking between another phone within your plan is free, but only for 3 months. Otherwise it as really been a pleasure. If you need a phone that you're going to use for a 24/7 usage, you might want another type. But if you need it for once in a while usage, this is a great phone to keep in mind. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 86802 2000/10/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 weight dedicated voice text mail buttons voice recognition key pad size Full Review I had been using a Nokia 2160 for the last year. I hated everything about it, so it would take quite a good phone to impress me. This one did. Verizon was offering an upgrade deal where I could get the CDM9000 for $20. I jumped at the opportunity. I like the voice activated dialing and the quickness with which it attaches itself to the digital network. Programming was easy after reading the directions once. The phone fits easily in my pocket and is VERY light. There are dedicated buttons for voice and text mail--I found these very useful as I subscribe to both of these features. The only thing I don't like is that the key pad is very small. But in a 4.6 ounce phone, there isn't much room for things like that--voice activated dialing takes care of it. I can't imagine a better phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 86801 2000/6/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features large display can t easily adjust the volume while using the phone The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone to anyone who needs advanced features like the voice-activated dialing or the vibrating ring. It's dependable, reliable, sturdy, and has a very clear signal. Full Review I bought this phone when the Sony that I'd had for two years broke. I was skeptical that it would be as durable or dependable (afterall, it's not Sony), but I didn't really like any of the other phones I had to choose from. The next day I was telling anyone who would listen how wonderful this phone is. Even today, over a year later, I'm still fascinated by all the little goodies it has. It has caller ID, a vibrating ring (convenient for when you're at the movies or in a meeting), web access, voice-activated dialing, 15 different rings, a 99 number address book, and you can even assign a memorized number a special ring. The best thing about this phone, though, is the reception. I've never had this phone cut in and out on me, like most cell phones. The range is better than it was on my last phone and this one picks up in places that my old phone wouldn't. The clarity is the best that I've ever heard on a cell phone - no fuzziness and I never sound like I'm talking in a barrel. The other thing that I like about this phone is the battery life. I only charge my phone once every two or three days and I've never had the battery die on me. The thing seems to last forever. When I do charge it, it only takes about an hour for it to get a full charge. This phone is perfect for someone who likes to have options, likes a phone that's fun to use, and is relatively compact and light weight. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129.00 86800 2000/10/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life light you might accidently call them if you phone is unlocked be careful of whos name you say Full Review I purchase this product after reviewing the products available from verizion. I decided to use this phone because of its battery life and its compactness. It also is a trimode phone. It will work if you in analog service only and in digital service areas. This phone is easy to use. I have not read the directions yet but I have found it to be very easy to use. I read the directions only once to see how to lock the key pad. The only thing I did not like was the auto voice dialing. Only because I dialed a number by accident and the receiver heard me talking bad about the company they worked for. Thus I learned how to lock my phone. Another BIG plus is it capability to link to your Palm. I have heard of other phones that would be better for my business but for the cost of this one item, it has proven its self as a valuable tools for my business. I practice safe driving when I use the phone. I use the ear piece regularly. I volume is never too loud and the other caller can hear me fine. I would recommend this product to a busy person. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.95 86799 2000/12/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy none Full Review Being in the cellular field, seeing all the junk that comes out I am Finally happy to say "This Is A Great Phone". Toshiba makes a solid ESN board, Followed by Dynamic cdma chip by Qualcomm, That makes for clarity only seen by land-line phones. The Web Browser is easy to follow even though wireless connections are still slow and the VAD(voice activated dialing) Makes it safer to use in a vehicle. A single pin car charger makes it fool proof to charge. The headset jack is universal so it is very easy to find one at any local dealer. The lcd is large enough to see and the ringer is loud enough to hear(Vibrate alert is strong enough to feel) Go and get it You will be pleased! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 86798 2000/10/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrationor ring web accessibility voice dial price Full Review My cell phone got stolen while I was on business in Las Vegas Nevada. I liked my Audiovox CDM-4000 so much that I wanted to step up to something better. I purchased the Audiovox CDM-9000 for it's extra features and because of the excellent reliability that I had found in the CDM-4000. This phone does everything! I wanted a cell phone that vibrates and rings and let's me choose between those functions. I wanted to be able to do voice dialing on the most frequent calls I make, this phone accommodates that too. This wonderful phone also has limited Web accessibility making it a great information tool also. The price was a bit steep, but it's functionality has made up for that ten fold. The user manual was clear and concise. I learned most of the commands for programming in a few hours. I would recommend the Audiovox CDM-9000 to anyone who is on the go and needs a good phone with a long battery life. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 86797 2000/9/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 looks great small great battery light weight tons of cool features none Full Review One of the most popular phones these days is the Audiovox CDM4000. Most of my friends have that phone, and it's a good phone, but for people who want a lot from a phone, and who like cool stuff... this is the phone for you. First of all, it looks much better than most other phone, it is metallic blue and is small, and light weight. It's got tons of cool features like voice-activated calling and it gets great reception where other phones don't. The battery last well and everything else about this phone is great. It has tons of cool features, like special rings when certain people call and many, many, other customizable things. This phone is also internet-ready if you choose to pay for it. This is a great phone for people who don't just want a regular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 86796 2000/3/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 special rings for special numbers what good is a warranty The Bottom LineDon't get it if you've had a more reliable phone before...get the newer model of the one you had. Full Review After having a Nokia phone for 2 years I decided that it was time to update. So, I made my way to my Verizon man and he recommended this cool new Audiovox 9000. I said ok thinking if I was getting a $200 phone it would be great and I'd have it for a while....WRONG. After six months it suddenly decided the stop charging the battery. Got a new one. It still didn't help. So, I had my Verizon dealer send it to Audiovox to be fixed. I was excited to get it back because no one likes loaner phones. I got it home plugged it in to charge and nothing! It's now back at Audiovox being fixed. What I'm upset about is....a $200 phone, six months old, still under warranty, and they want to give me a refurbished one. What the hell are they thinking. Their company sold me a defective product and they want to give me another one that was once defective (and I've used refurbished products before and had nothing but problems)! I am not happy about this and would not recommend this phone to anyone(or the company) I'd recommend and old analog that 5 pounds before this phone. At least the old analogs still work. Guess I'll go back to the old Nokia. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $249 86795 2000/10/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life light weight voice activated dialing Full Review In the past year I have owned the CDM-4000 and CDM-3300 and was given as a gift the CDM-9000 about one month ago. I love the fact that it is Tri-mode I can use it in more places in Digital mode. This phone offers enough space in the phone book for all the names and numbers I need as well as Voice Activated Dialing feature for up to 20 numbers, however be warned not to use similar names at all(I now use only last names of people). This phone is very light I sometimes forget it is in my pocket. I love the fact it only takes 2 hours maximum to charge fully. Being able to look up incoming and outgoing calls with duration of call has also been helpful in keeping track of my minutes I have used from my calling plan. I have found this phone to be user friendly, it is very easy to find and use any feature even without using instruction manual. The price of the CDM-9000 I thought was quite reasonable compared to other Tri-Mode phones available in my area. I have yet to try the web browsing as it is not available in my area yet, but I can't wait. Everyone should have this phone especially if you travel or talk on your phone quite a bit. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200 approx. 86794 2000/1/4 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 feature rich poor reliability Full Review For several years now I have been a cellular power user. I use a headset and spend over 1500 minutes per month on the cell phone. When I purchased this phone I was enamored with all the features and ease of use. July of 2000 I purchased this phone. In October, I experienced my first problem. Some kind of loose connection and people could not hear me talk. Unless the headset was being used. Verizon sent me a replacement. Ok not a problem, I had to manually re-enter all of my memorized phone numbers and off we go. Back to basics and I am happy. December 2000, more problems. If people want to hear me I must raise my speaking volume and still it sounds like a whisper. With and without the headset. No problem, Verizon sent me a new phone. One week later with the new phone, same problem and now I am beginning to become unhappy. Verizon to the rescue, another factory refurbished phone and away we go. I have had this phone for 1 week and there is a problem with the connection to the headset and people can hear me but I can not hear anyone else. I can't be the only one out there that has had problems with this model, considering I am on my 4th replacement in 6 months. Recommended: No 86793 2000/8/21 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 vibrating voice activated dialing verizon service net ready crystal clarity menus are hard to navigate sometimes Full Review WARNING: THIS REVIEW IS QUITE THOROUGH!!! **(Updated 8/20 W/ Paragraph breaks! yay!)** Please feel free to email me and ask me more specific questions, I'd love to help someone make a decsion regarding a wireless phone or phone service! I purchased this phone about 3 weeks ago, when I realized that verizon wireless was going to be the only option (only quality option) for a wireless carrier when I go to college at pepperdine in malibu, CA. Granted this phone is going to cost you in the neighborhood of $190-200, but has all kinds of features I love, most I haven't even learned to use yet!!! First, the voice activated dialing: very helpful, stores 20 names for this feature, but if some names sound similar, you might find yourself talking to people when you didn't mean to! Obviously, this is a small discrepancy, and the voice dialing is great, you simply hold the " * " key and your phone says "name, please." and you speak the name of the person you want to call, and it matches up with your recording of the person's name stored in the phone. This phone also has a great vibrating feature, which makes it great for an important phone call when you might not hear the ringer, or don't want to attract attention. Mobile Web: now, understand that you're not going to get all sites on your phone, as I understand the site must be in a certain format. But! I went to the msn mobile site and signed up for great alerts, so I now have my phone set to alert me 15 mins before every mariners game starts (obviously, can be used for any sport, any team), and I also have it set so I get an alert everytime I get an email sent to my hotmail account. The alert tells me the name of the sender, and the subject, then if I choose to, I can hit the "web" button to access my hotmail account, and read the full email. These alerts can be customized so that you're only alerted if the email is from a certain sender, etc. (Check out www.mobile.msn.com!, huge kudos to msn for that!) You can add a "text messaging" feature for free, which you need (oops, I forgot to mention that)before you activate all the msn alerts, but is free, and the only charge comes if someone calls your phone, gets your voicemail prompt and chooses to talk w/ an operator to make a custom message ($.60 per message). It's also possible to send an email to your mobile phone number@airtouch.net, and the email comes up on your phone. I find these emails get cut off abruptly, but it's probably a problem with my settings...so, instead, send friends/family to airtouch.net to type in your phone number and message (120 characters) to go direct to your phone. This phone is CRYSTAL clear, it's absolutely amazing. Now, I'm sure if you're considering this phone, you might also be considering the "tri-mode" star-tac phone: ST7868W, but for the Verizon national "one rate" plan, it was either the audiovox cdm 9000 or the motorola star tac). DON'T GET THE STAR-TAC! The motorola phone is a piece of junk. It basically feels like a cheap toy in your hand, but for a better review, check out someone else's on that phone but you'll find that the motorola is MORE EXPENSIVE for its comparable features. My understanding is that motorola doesn't have the voice activated dialing, and I do know that my audiovox doesn't store 4 numbers per person, but I just make different entries, no big deal! ("bob's home," "bob's cell" etc.) I also have great rave reviews about verizon (airtouch) service in the seattle area...but unfortunately there's no category for the seattle area yet. So feel free to ask for my opinions on verizon too! PLEASE feel free to contact me if you have questions or feel free to correct me if I am factually mistaken somehow! Thanks! -Brady New email: malibu_ken04@hotmail.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 130 (with rebate) 86792 2000/4/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good size phone features easy to use web feature not practical The Bottom LineReliable and fairly easy to use. Battery life and quality of connection as good as any other phone I've used. Average phone, but who needs anything more??? Full Review I was forced to purchase a new wireless phone when the one I had seemed to short out and die. My current provider is Verizon and I had very little choice when I went to purchase a new unit. Some looked to cheap and some were just way over my budget. Some were just plain too bulky.... I finally settled on the Audiovox CDM9000. The price was not out of the water (only $80 since I had a plan with Verizon) and it was really just the next coming of my recently fried phone. For the most part, this phone is the same as my old Audiovox phone. The biggest difference is that this model is web enabled. At first, I thought it would be a neat little addition to add the web option (only $7 or so a month). A month later, I cancelled the web service because it just was too impractical. In fact, I never was able to even set up my username and password. I spent a lot of time typing in a user id, password, phone #, email address, etc etc etc, trying to set up my account -- it was just too much of a hassle. It takes too long to type things in on a phone keypad -- I am sure it is true for any other web enabled phone. I couldn't imagine trying to write an email to someone on this thing! Besides, if I need to get in touch with someone THAT badly, I can use the PHONE! Anyway, the sound and connection seem to be a little better with this phone that with the previous model, so if you can get a deal on it, you cant go wrong with this phone. Battery life is pretty good and the menus are relatively easy to navigate. As a phone, it is pretty convenient -- as a web browser and emailer, its not worth the trouble. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 86791 2000/9/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 earphone jack lightweight voice activated dialing connects to e mail web ready buttons can be hard to figure out Full Review Web-ready, connects to e-mail, lightweight and Voice Activated Dialing. What else could you ask for? Well, an easier interface would be nice. I think the techies got together and thought they were being smart by doubling up on the functions of the buttons. In the meantime you sit there thinking to yourself, "Why is the Power button and the End button the same? If I end my phone call and hold the button down too long I turn the phone off. And why aren't those buttons labeled? And why is the #1 button red and all the others white?" All I can say is make sure you fully understand the manual. Aside from that, this phone works beautifully. The earphone jack is a great feature that I take advantage of all time. It's easy to set volume levels for ringing, listening, etc. There's plenty of functionality to keep you going with this phone for some time. And at $99 when I activated it with Verizon, it was the right price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86790 2000/9/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 user interface feature packed hands free build quality dismal web access Full Review I purchased the CDM-900 to replace an aging Nokia 6120. Right off the bat I liked the added features and light weight of the Audiovox. The voice dial and standard headset plug make using the phone with your hands full a breeze. The menus and large well-lit display make using the phone easy and intuitive. The phone also includes CDMA web and email access. Add to that a louder ringer (adjustable) and an included vibrating alert and you have what seems like a well rounded phone. After using the phone for a while, I have run in to a few limitations. The light weight comes at the cost of durability. My Nokia felt much more solid and did not "creak" as much on your hand. The Audiovox just does not seem to have the same build quality as the Nokia. I have not had any problems, and the phone did survive a close encounter with the pavement with only a slight scratch. I'm referring more to the "feel" of the phone. The usability of the phone is top notch, everything is easy to use and seems right at your fingertips. I would pretty much tell anyone to forget using a cell phone for web access. Typing even a simple email or reply is a tedious and slow process, that makes you just want to hit delete and give the person a call. My provider also counts any web access, be it composing an e-mail message or using the highly limited web browser, against your plan minutes. So don't upgrade solely based on web access, you will be disappointed. I have also had occasional problems with reception or the phone not ringing but still receiving a voice mail indicator. Overall, it is a good phone that I am happy with, but I think there may be better choices out there. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 86789 2001/9/6 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 slim good display full featured to the max can t recieve new tones The Bottom LineIf you're thinking about getting this phone, get it. Just be careful of your contract and actual cellular phone plan and rates, that's where they'll screw you. Full Review I have seen and used a lot of cell phones during my college career, and I hate to sound cocky, but my phone is the bomb. I originally had the Audiovox CDMA4000, and when my plan enabled me to upgrade to the 9000 for free, I was like Boo-yaa! You can ask my friends, I was bragging about my new phone for at least a week, no joke. I know opinions on style will vary, but personally I think this is one of the best looking phones out there. It is very slim for pocket transportation, but not too small like those almost pager-size phones which are kind of awkward to talk on and easy to accidentally drop. It does have an extendable antenna, but does not need to be extended unless a stronger signal is needed. There is just a killer list of great features with this phone. It has clicky buttons, which i love, is easy to navigate though, has a great multi-line display screen, multiple tones and songs (which get pretty loud), a vibration option, 99 address storage, comes in very clear (listening and talking), alarm clock option, voice activated dialing (which is really not the best though), the list just goes on, I still find new things every once in a while when I toy with it, so yes, it's definitely got its pluses. I do not even use the web abilities of this phone so that a whole other positive that I cannot even comment about. I have had it for a little under a year and the battery life is pretty decent I would say. I have dropped it on concrete a few good times and other than very small chip marks it has held up strong. I take it every where pretty much and use it for my primary phone while I am away at school. I don't know what else to say other than Audiovox rocks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free w/ plan 86788 2000/11/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 lots of features trimode lightweight clear sound no faceplate even trimode doesn t work in some areas The Bottom LineIf it's free go ahead and take it... but don't pay for it, there are better phones for your money. Full Review When I started working at the company I am now with, they were nice enough to give me a Cell phone. I had never had an Audiovox before, all of my previous phones had been Ericsson and had faceplates on them. After being here for a year I've begun begging for a different phone. It's not that it has any major problems with it... It's just annoying. Complaint 1) The lack of a face plate. I know that this phone has a key pad lock... but as often as I am on it, I almost never set it. And invariably when I fish my phone out of my purse it informs me that it has called someone (Usually the most inappropriate person possible for example it called my boss's home while I was drunk in a bar) The worst is when it tells me that it has called someone 40 minutes ago, got an answering machine and just stayed on... this must cost a fortune! And don't think this is a once in a while kind of thing... this is a couple times a week at least. (Yes I'm an idiot for not using the key pad lock) Complaint 2) If you have it on an airplane... the battery will go to 0 by the time you get to your hotel, I'm not sure why this is, but it's the only phone I have had that does this. Complaint 3) You can't buy changeable face plates without ordering them. Now I don't go looking to make a fashion statement with my phone, but I dropped it in a parking lot and scratched it up... and instead of being able to buy a new one, I have to keep using my ugly torn up faceplate. Complaint 4) Even trimode won't work in the area's where our terminals are. If I'm in our Tunnel Hill terminal I can't receive phone calls until I travel 5 miles north. I also can't tell if I have a message until then. (This may be a service issue, I'm not sure) Complaint 5) It doesn't have any games on it... my sister's phone has tetris and my boyfriend's has pong... mine has... voice activated dialing that doesn't work very well. Complaint 6) The voice activated part of the phone works once in a blue moon. To the point that I never bother with it. Complaint 7) No text messaging... at least not any that I have been able to get to work. Sure I can receive them, but I want to send some back! Complaint 8) You cannot get a belt clip made specifically for this phone and it is too big to be put comfortably in a back or front pocket. If I put it in my back pocket the top sticks out and the antenna catches on things. So I have to either carry it in my hand as I go from meeting room to meeting room, or I have to bring my purse with me, which is annoying. Okay so the phone isn't all bad... It works as a phone rather well. I can store 99 numbers in it... maybe more I haven't figured out if when you put 2 numbers down for the same person if that counts as one or two slots. Apparently you can do all kinds of internet stuff on the phone, however it's not set up on mine as I have no need for it. I also use this phone as my one and only alarm clock, it works wonderfully, though it wouldn't be loud enough to wake my boyfriend up. As long as you aren't on a plane the battery will last for 2-4 days with out needing to be recharged. All in all if you need a phone, and they are offering this one for free... Go ahead and take it, just make sure you use the key pad lock. If you have to pay for it, I'd invest in one of the newer phones that allow for text messaging and have a faceplate on them. Recommended: No 86787 2001/6/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 fairly durable phone with lots of neat featuresgadgets web enabled no good speakerphone options phone has been through repairs hard to get certain parts The Bottom LineIt is now discontinued. I don't know anyone that has the 9100 and the Verizon techs haven't had the phone long enough to tell me that its good. Full Review I have already written a full review about Verizon in the Verizon Kansas City section. Now I will go through the phone I am using with my local Verizon plan here in Kansas City. I originally brought the phone for $70 in the downtown Portland store. What sold me into this phone was the value of the phone for the features you were getting versus the Motorola Startac 7868 which was about $100 more at that time. The phone has great features. Voice activated dialing. You push the asterisk and the phone will say, "Name Please." I will say, "Parents Home," or "Parents Cellular," and hopefully the phone would say "Calling Parents Home or Cellular," in the voice you projected. Sometimes the phone won't recognize it and say, "Speak More Quickly." Just have to play with this feature till you got it to work. I like the feature though when it does work. It stores 99 sets of phone numbers, up to 2 in each set and you can program the name of the person with the letters. Good enough for me. It has 4 different rings and 11 melodies to play when an incoming call is coming in. So you select that accordingly. I have used the regular ring and the Yankee Doodle Dandy song. You can also program the phone to play a particular ring or melody to a specific phone number. It also has caller ID which worked fine in the home area but not always when roaming.. Again see the Verizon review. Also has an alarm, countdown timer and it's a tri-mode phone which means it can be used on the Verizon National Plan. Tri mode means that it can roam on CDMA 800/1900 and analog modes. This phone looks for a digital signal and if it cannot find one, analog. So not necessarily the strongest signal. Battery power is great although when I first got the phone, the battery could not hold a charge. It was replaced with a new one about a month after I got it. I would say I get about 4 days standby in digital mode. In analog mode, the battery drains a lot quicker. Got the car charger and it works great. Takes about 2 hours to charge. Optimum battery time though will be obtained if you turn your phone off and charge your battery at home. Callwise, the other party can hear me just fine. I have traveled and managed to keep the call in just fine even without signal strength most of the time. I have experienced a few drop calls and no ring on the phone while roaming but believe it was the Verizon service. Most of the time I can hear the caller well, although it blurbs from time to time. So satisfied there. Let us go through some of the problems with the phone as well, besides lackluster service at times with Verizon in that case no phone would work. I have had the ear piece loose or not being able to hear as loud as other phones. I tested an acquaintance's 9000 phone and her phone was louder than mine. So I have had to have that repaired. Also the ringer didn't work properly so I had to have that repaired as well. Two weeks later I am still not convinced that the ear piece is loud enough because consumer reports in Feb. 2001 rated this phone to be above average in loud places such as a bar. I think it is only average at best. I have experienced a few drop calls to date which I guess is normal with .6 watt phones. Why did they stop making the 3 watt phones. I had an OKI 1190 bag phone 5 years ago with Ameritech service in Ohio and I never dropped a call with it. This phone can be a good phone when it works properly but for now I give it average at best with Verizons service. This phone now is discontinued and the 9100 phone is now out which is a little bit smaller than the 9000 and has no voice activated dialing and it has a one way speakerphone. Why is Audiovox or other companies still creating no phones with 2 way speakerphone access especially when driving. It is very difficult to get parts for the 9000 phone. I have had no luck as well in independent parts such as a speakerphone box for the car (can be used for all phones). The sound just echoes. I have had also no luck when I was able to get parts such as an external attenna to boost analog service. To date from what I know of you can't boost a digital signal. I think Verizon makes a car kit which maybe a 2-way speakerphone set for the car but it is more than the price of the phone, about $200. Now with New York on the verge of being the first state not to allow talking and driving, I hope Verizon pushes for 2-way speakerphones. I would like to see them carry that soon such as the Sanyo 4500. That is a good phone. My friend has one with Sprint and loves it. As soon as there is a phone with 2-way speakerphone access in the car, I will ditch this phone and buy that instead. Or if Verizon starts to carry the 3 watt phones, I may buy one of those. Reception is not that great in roaming even with this tri-mode phone in spots. Today on 6/28, I again took the phone in and had 2 chips loose and a bad speaker again. This was the 4th or 5th time the phone was going to be in for repairs in 2 months. And Verizon says I cannot switch phones until the contract runs out in 9 months. Truly a lemon in the making. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 40 net price 86786 2000/12/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 web access light small long life battery none yet Full Review Well, yesterday was the first day using my web browser. The digital network for verizon has been up and running since about DEC 22 2000 and I have been pleased by the battery life of this phone. I just set up my web access. this a super option. Verizon has a sync option with outlook. I have all my address book on my phone now. This should help me in my job tremendously. The audiovox 9000 has just enough features to keep my satisfied. I also like the way I can program certain numbers to have the own distinct ring. the voice activated dial is OK. I was worried about it dialing on accident, and sure enough the first time I was talking bad about someone it called them when I said their name. very embarrassing. LOL this phone it very useful. I use an ear piece hand free accessory, and it works great in the car. I can keep both hand on the wheel and watch wild drivers. People look at you funny cause they think your talking to yourself. Over all this phone has lots of features more that I'll write about later. I'm still learning all the stuff. I think the web stuff will be cool. It has so far. I give this phone the thumbs up. -------------------------------------------------------------------- .............Focusing On Your Future............... Tom Romero / Realtor Associate cell phone tomromero@myvzw.com email tom@tomromero.com website tomromero.com RE/MAX Capitol Properties 213 West 18th St. Cheyenne, WY 82001 307-635-0303 x 21 Serving Cheyenne, WY, Laramie County including the towns of Albin, Pine Bluffs, Federal, and Chugwater. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 up grade 86785 2000/11/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 so many cool options you gotta read up on the manual Full Review I was given the Audiovox CDM 900 as a graduation gift before heading off to college 6 hours from home. And let me to tell you, this is phone is definitely a great gift for You or for anyone. You can do just about anything with it (within reason of course). You can store phone numbers and have each number under a certain ring so you know by the song or ring who is calling you. Voice mail is also another great option. It also houses Secret Memory in which you can store a secret number. And for those who are paranoid about someone stealing their phone and using it there is a phone lock in which you must enter your special 6 number password to gain access to the phone. Another way cool option is the web browsing option which, unfortunatly i don't have but if I did i would use it. Voice Activated Dialing is totally awesome. You register your voice and whatever numbers you want under the persons name * (for example: 308 555 7769 Jon) and you would store it and that would be it. And next time you want to call Jon boy instead of dialing the numbers you just say "Jon." and Voila!! Did i mention that this phone is pretty hardy? well my roommate had stepped on it twice (errr... what it was doing on the floor i don't know) and I've dropped it in the parking lot numerous time yet it still functions with awesome clarity!! And it goes anywhere discreetly because it's so wonderfully light. This phone is great and if you do take all the time to have all the options established then you got yourself one heck of a phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 86784 2001/1/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent display great features great sound quality battery life not as long as stated no extras like calculatorgames The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a great Tri-mode phone, and can get it fairly cheap, it's well worth it. Full Review If you're in the market for a good cell phone, I would highly recommend the Audiovox CDM-9000. I had been using a Motorola Startac 3000 for about 2 years, and didn't have too many problems with it, but my little rural area finally got Digital service, and the Digital service was actually cheaper than my old analog service, so I decided to change. I will admit, going from a phone that the Wireless company gave me for free, to a phone that retails for about $200 was a bit intimidating for me. However with the service plan I was choosing, I would only have to pay $50.00 for the phone. Since I calculated that I would be saving over $10.00 a month on the new digital plan, I figured it would pay for itself fairly quickly so I decided to do it. I'm not an investment banker, or a stock broker, so the internet, fax, voice and text messaging features are kind of wasted on me, but I knew I wanted to go ahead and get a phone that had those capabilities incase I decided I would need to use them in the future. I really just needed a good, small, digital phone with a great battery capacity to keep me in touch, something most everyone needs these days. I will say that even as great as this phone is, I think there are probably other tri-mode phones out there that are better, however the Wireless provider that I signed up with only had a choice of 2, and this was the better of the 2. My Father recently got a Nokia 5180, and it seems to be all around a better phone, has more features, and better battery life, but doesn't sound as clear as the Audiovox 9000. One other thing about the 9000, it says it has 7 days of standby time for digital mode, I've never gotten more than 4 days worth, so that's a major drawback there. I'll list some of the 9000's major features: Vibration mode 15 ringer settings up to 198 phone number storage (99 with alpha phonebook listings) menu search/navigation one touch dialing The list goes on and on, and many of the features are the same on many other phones, but the one feature that I really liked (from a gadget standpoint) was that it had voice recognition dialing. I thought this would be great for when I'm driving, and I don't want to have to punch in numbers, or be scrolling through the menu looking for the number of someone to dial. The phone will allow you to record your own voice for up to 20 numbers, that will allow you to recite the name you record, and dial that number. You enter the phone number and alpha description (set a distinctive ring if you like also) and then you can record your voice entry for the number. A computerized woman's voice will sound through the ear piece asking you `name please'. At that prompt you speak the name (or whatever word(s) you want, up to 2 seconds of speaking) you want for that number. The phone will record what you've said, then the voice will come back and say `again' prompting you to repeat the entry to make sure they sound similar enough, if not, it will ask you to do it again until they sound similar enough for the voice recognition software to recognize the entry. I was absolutely astonished at how good the voice recognition was. Things like the pitch of your voice really didn't matter too much, but tempo did seem to have the most effect on the software getting a good match. However, if you happen to repeat the entry, a bit differently than the way it was recorded, the phone will either ask you to repeat the entry, so it can try to match it again, or it will ask you what it thinks you were trying to say. For example, if you record the word `home' to have it dial your home, and you also have an entry of `mom' or `phone' or `harry', entries that start similarly or that have common vowel sounds, the phone will prompt you with the closest matches to what you said. So when the woman that lives in your phone says `did you say `mom'? You can say into the mouth piece `no' and then it will go to the next possible match and say `did you say `home', and when it gets to the right one, you simply have to say `yes'. I've found the phone has no problem understanding `yes' and `no', and you don't have to pre-record those words. This feature is great, but as I said before, it's more of a gadget than a necessity, as most all phones have the 1 touch dialing feature where you hold down a key for 2 or 3 seconds, and it will dial the number associated with that key, which is actually faster than activating the voice activation mode (done by holding down the * key for 2 seconds), but it's not nearly as fun. This is a great phone, if you can get it cheap, I wouldn't spend more than about $50.00 for it, only because I know there are better phones out there for the same price, if not, a bit more or a bit less. Do some shopping around, if this one is available to you, and the others look like duds, you can't go wrong with this one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86783 2000/4/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy layout dependable good reception most places wap sucks as usual vm button does not as one would intuit to go vm The Bottom LineIt's a slick phone with an iron body. Full Review Sure, the Audiovox 9000 isn't as tiny as a lot of the newfangled phones out there, but it does pack a punch for what it is. It's slim (no more than 3/4" in the thickest part) and fairly long (about 5" or 6"). The size of the phone is nice in that you do actually feel like you're talking with someone. On the very short phones (like the 3" ones), I never feel like the other person can actually hear me so I either keep moving the phone to my mouth (and away from my ear) every time I talk, or shouting and annoying the heck out of the guy on the other end. With the Audiovox 9000, this problem is fairly eliminated. The microphone comes down to exactly mouth level and you can still keep your ear on the speaker. The layout (key layout, now) is pretty intuitive. I've never been a big manual reader, and I was able to kick up this phone in no time. Doing administrative tasks (like setting your phone to receive a different phone number) is nigh impossible, but that's probably one thing you do once in your life, if that. Unlike the single-button Nokia phones, this phone has two buttons: one with a green phone and one with a red phone. It's not too hard to figure out which does what. Destructability: last Friday, my ex-boyfriend called me and we got in a huge argument. Ok, more personal info than you need. However, it's an important part of the phone durability test. We hung up and I threw the phone across the room pretty hard onto the wall. I am not a weak girl. The battery flew off from the phone and both landed on different sides of the room. I marched over to the phone, picked it up, walked over to the battery, re-attached the two and called my best friend. Drama, yes. Durable, absolutely. Ah yes, and the battery life is fantastic. I frequently forget to plug it in for a day (sometimes two) and it's ok. One thing that fairly dissapointed me was that the voice mail key (the small envelope) just takes you to a display showing you how many messages you have. Not overly helpful unless you're just idly interested in the number of vm's you have and don't want to check. The other small gripe that I have about the phone is the V+ key. This is the one thing I still can not figure out about the phone. Whenever I press it, the phone veritably yells on its little LCD screen: "EMPTY V+ KEY" Ow. Can't we be a little more sensitive? Yes, I'm kidding. But it does kind of make me wonder what key feature I'm missing. Ah yes, and the WAP. Well, as we all know WAP sucks and there is nothing that will ever change about that for as long as we live. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 86782 2002/11/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating2.0 small lightweight good battery life voice activated dialing battery comes off phone accessories are somewhat expensivehard to find The Bottom LineSeemed like a good phone at first, but as time went by it became a piece of junk. Will not buy another Audiovox phone. Full Review Now that voice activated dialing is not longer considered "New Technology." There isn't really much to brag about with this phone. The accessories are very hard to find unless you buy them from the place you get your phone. This, of course, makes them more expensive than items for Nokia or Motorola phones which are more widely available. My main problem with this phone is how quickly it has fallen apart. Literally! The battery makes up over half of the back of the phone and is help in place with a sliding button thing. You place your finger on it and slide it up. At first it was secure, but after about six months it started getting loose. We NEVER removed the battery from the phone, so it wasn't from excessive use. It gradually got looser, to the point where barely touching the switch on the back would dislodge the battery from the phone and shut it off. This happened several times in the middle of conversations. Now, it just pops off whenever it feels like it unless you place a finger or thumb on the back to hold it still. The plug-in jack for the charger is also acting up. Several times the phone has needed charging and we would plug it in, only to check it later and find out it wasn't charging at all! We've missed several phone calls due to the battery dying when we thought it was being charged. I'm also not very impressed with the menus on the phone, they seems clunky and it's hard to find the options you need right away. I'm used to Nokia and Motorola (v120) menus where things seem to be much better organized. The last cellular provider I used offered a choice of a similar style of Audiovox phone, a Nokia 5100 series phone, or a Motorola v120. I chose the Motorola. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 86781 2000/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use tri mode no flip top Full Review Actually, I didn't buy this phone but I am very happy with. My star tac got mangled and I wanted to change services so when I went down to the new service store, this is the phone they offered me. It was free!! I didn't know if I was going to like it, but I love it. I found the phone easy to program, lightweight, tri mode and it can hook up to your computer with a cable adapter. The phone came with a battery charger and I only have to charge it about once a week. I run the battery about 20 hrs a week and recharge it as soon as the displays goes down one notch. The battery is lithium, which makes this charging possible. Another function I like is to change the ring tones. That makes it separate from other phones ringing. I'm sure it has a lot of functions that are the same as any other mobile phone, but I like the size of this one and the way it fits in my hand. I would recommend it to any one looking for a mobile phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Promotion 86780 2001/4/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 exceptional sound great battery life lightweight web browser enabled voice activated dialing long needs a more user friendly menuing system The Bottom LineSolid phone, but Verizon has better trimode choices available... Full Review This review is not only about the new Audiovox CDM 9000, but also about the new, consolidated wireless provider, Verizon. Both have exceeded my expectations... First the phone... The 9000 is a well constructed trimode phone, operating on CDMA digital cellular, PCS and analog. It's light (approx. 4.8 ozs.), attractive, and as thin as the Qualcomm Thin Phone. The battery life takes me out to almost 5 days (digital only). The sound quality is exceptional, because it uses the new Qualcomm chip set. The signal retention has been great, especially in rural areas. The only drawbacks are its menuing system, which is not very user friendly, and its length (approx. 5.4 inches long). Aside from these considerations, it exceeds my expectations in the categories that matter: sound quality, signal retention and battery life. Additionally, it has one-button access to voice activated dialing, and a web browser. Now about Verizon Wireless... I'm a former AT&T Wireless and Sprint PCS customer. I always hoped that there would be a national carrier offering CDMA services across a broad geographic area. Verizon is that carrier. Bell Atlantic Mobile, a partner in the Verizon merger, claims that they have up to 8x's more towers erected, than does Sprint PCS. Their claim appears accurate, as their digital coverage in the DC area is extensive, and with few deadspots. It's Verizon's extensive coverage area, and trimode capability that converted me from Sprint PCS to their service. Verizon's rateplan is competitive with Sprint PCS, albeit a little more expensive ($75/600 anytime/anywhere minutes). However, if you factor in having absolutely no roaming charges with your national coverage, and a footprint many times larger than Sprint's, then Verizon becomes a clear winner. Their customer service is well informed, and responsive. Overall, both they and their phones have converted me to their side of the wireless world. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 86779 2000/2/23 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 tri mode easy to hear voice activated dialing good size battery life can t send text messages The Bottom LineI'm happy with this phone because (1) conversations are loud and clear, and (2) the phone has many useful features. Full Review I remember my first mobile phone. It weighed a couple of pounds, was about as big as a small briefcase, and you needed a shoulder strap to lug it around. Now that I think about it, you can hardly call that mobile! The Audiovox CDM 9000 is certainly not the smallest phone around. It measures about six inches long (including the antenna when it is down), about ¾ of an inch thick, about 1 ¾ inches wide, and weighs less than 5 oz. It's a nice size, fits easily in a purse or pocket, and is comparable in size to the more popular Nokia phones. Why did I pick this phone? Well, the Audiovox was one of the free phones offered by Verizon Wireless when I signed up. I picked the Audiovox over the other choices because my sister and my brother both recommended it. My sister has used her Audiovox all over the US when she travels on business. She has been in some pretty rural places in Idaho and Missouri and has never had trouble with reception. My brother was also pleased with his phone, and he liked the voice-activated dialing. I know my sister and brother pretty well, and they are hard customers to please, so I figured if they were satisfied, I'd be satisfied too. After I received my Audiovox CDM 9000, I needed a couple of days to learn about all the features and some new terms I was not familiar with: Tri-mode means the phone can operate on two digital frequencies and one analog frequency. CDMA is the technology that temporarily assigns unique codes to digitized conversations; channels can carry up to fifteen conversations at a time by distinguishing between these codes. Voice-activated dialing enables the user to place a call by speaking the name of the person rather than dialing their number. I realize that list is hardly a complete glossary of terms, but those were the terms that were new to me, so I thought I'd include them in my review. The other features should be more familiar to even the casual wireless user: The phone book feature stores about 99 numbers with names. The user manual makes the phone book seem complicated, but after entering 2 or 3 numbers, I think anybody can get the hang of it. The included slim lithium ion battery is suppose to get about 170 hours standby time when operating in digital mode. In my own experience, I go about 4 days in standby mode, only talking on the phone about 3 or 4 minutes total, before needing to recharge. I wish battery life was a little better than that. I'm already considering the extended battery. The CDM 9000 is also capable of receiving short text messages. However, it can't send text messages which is a little disappointing! The phone also includes a web browser. However, I did not sign up for this service with my carrier. The CDM 9000 gives you four lines of text on it's screen which, although clear and easy to read, is really only good for stock quotes, sports scores, and maybe checking the weather. I just don't see the web browsing feature as being very useful to me. There are just two more points I want to mention. On the plus side, conversations are not only clear but also loud. I've had a lot of trouble hearing on other phones, but on the Audiovox CDM 9000, I don't even have the volume to the maximum, and I can hear fine even in noisy places. On the negative side, it's way too easy to accidentally hit one of the buttons while carrying the phone around. There is no flip top protecting the key pad. The only solution is to enable the key pad locking. When the key pad is locked, you can still dial an emergency number and answer the phone, but in order to access the other features, you have to press F-1-1 to unlock the phone first. Overall though, I am happy with this phone. Recommended: Yes 86778 2000/7/5 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great performance easy to read screen no external antenna jack Full Review Having been a customer of Verizon for a year now, I finally qualified for a new phone at the reduced new customer cost. My previous phone was the Motorola SC3160. That phone was horrible. I couldn't see the screen, I couldn't hear the ring and nobody could hear me when I spoke to them. It was definitely time for a change. Verizon now has a single rate plan where there are no long distance or roaming charges anywhere in the United States. If you have ever made a call from a location out of your home area, you know it can become very expensive, well over $1 a minute by the time you are done. I knew this was the type of plan for me. The plan requires a new tri-mode phone instead a dual mode phone and Verizon now offers 2, this Audiovox and a Motorola Star Tac. I considered both. The Star Tac is cool but has some drawbacks. First, the buttons are very small and hard to work with. Second, the screen is small and hard to see plus when closed, you can't see who is calling unless you flip it open. Third, although a lot of people swear by them, others really hate them citing performance and reliability problems. Fourth is price. The Star Tac is very very expensive. At the store, I was able to make a test call on the Audiovox. It was excellent. They had no live Star Tac for a demo. The Star Tac was $249. The Audiovox $149 plus an additional $50 rebate making the total cost $99. After using the phone, I am glad to report I love it. The screen is big and very easy to read. There is a choice of standard ring types and melodies and whichever you choose is easy to hear when the phone rings. It comes with a vibrating option as well which is easy to turn off and on. The phone is slim and light and the battery charges in 2 hours or less. The buttons are a good size and easy to use. Best of all, sound quality is excellent. I haven't received any complaints of people not being able to hear me and incoming sound quality is excellent too. One really cool feature is voice activated calling. You can have up to 20 of the entries in your address book tagged as voice activated. To make a voice activated call, you simply push the * button and then say the party you are calling into the phone. This works remarkably well. So far, it has not made a mistake. It is a novelty that will probably wear off but it's amazing that this technology has been built into such a small device. I only have a few negative comments about the phone. The first is that there is no jack for an external antenna. This is a tri-mode phone built for people who will be using the phone in many different areas. They will probably be in their cars a lot so it makes sense that many of those people would want to be able to use a car mounted antenna. Also, I personally like phones that have a flip cover over the keypad. It prevents them from getting dirty and accidently pushed. Because this phone doesn't do this, you need to manually lock and unlock the keypad all the time. It's a small inconvenience which did not stop me from making the purchase though. So far I am very happy with this phone. The Star Tac was definitely not worth the $150 price difference. The CDM9000 is the best cell phone I have used yet and hope to get a lot of good service from it. It is full featured and easy to use. It may not be as sexy as a Star Tac but I need a phone to make phone calls and that's what this phone does ... very well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86777 2000/9/21 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 vad feature is cool my battery drains very quickly Full Review My father bought this telephone for me in late July as a "going away" present. I was heading off to school, and he wanted me to have some form of communication should my car break down, which has been known to happen (read: he wanted to keep tabs on me). This is my first phone, so I really did not know what to expect. I must say I totally love it. One of the coolest features on this phone is the VAD (Voice Activated Dialing) feature. This telephone has some sort of voice recognition thing in it and as a result, you need only speak whatever word you have saved to dial a particular number. For example, in order for me to call home using my phone, I need only to press the VAD button and say "Home." The number is then dialed. The memory function of the phone is great, giving you more room to store names/numbers than the average person will need. It is way more room than a guy like me, with no friends (I am only kidding) would ever need. I do have to admit to one problem I have with this phone. The battery life is virtually non-existent. I don't know if there is a problem with my particular phone or battery, or what the problem is, but the battery will not hold a charge anywhere near the 190 hours worth of standby time listed. I keep my charger right by my computer, and when it is not charging the phone is normally sitting by the computer, so it is possible that something is going on there to quickly drain the battery. That takes care of my favorite parts of the phone, and it's one problem, but what about the actual phone? Is it easy to use? Is it clear? In two words: yes, yes! The phone is LIGHT and relatively small so it can go ANYWHERE, and the menu system is as easy as pie! Also, this phone, to me, is clearer than my brand new cordless phone I use. Technology has sure come a long way in that regard. In summary, if you are looking for a phone with a lot of cool features (vibrating battery, VAD) and also fairly light? This is the one for you, it's not even very expensive! Just go buy this phone, and show it off to all of your friends. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 86776 2000/12/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 good reception large screen not intuitive will break Full Review This phone was handed to me as a company phone. I have been a Nokia user for years now and I have always enjoyed its intuitive menu system. At first the Audiovox phone seemed like any other phone. All the basic features these days are standard, so I wanted to dig for the "power features". The Good: - The phone has an incredible battery life. Never ran out of juice on me. - The connection is very good, but it always depends on where you are and who the provider is. Sometime it beats my GSM phone in availability of service. - The screen display is large and easy to see. - Voice activation is very good - Vibrating feature very useful - Web features. The Bad: - You cannot tell whether you receive messages. Occasionally my voice mail indicator on the screen says that I have no new messages, when in fact, I have over 5 messages on my inbox. Usually the green light blinks, but I learn on how not to rely on that. - The menu system is rather cumbersome. I found myself lost a few times. - The V+ button and the envelope buttons didn't work quite well. If you tried reading the manual, you must have had some difficulty in setting it up. - The manual is poor in making it simpler. I can see people having difficulty in operating this phone. - The Antenna is retracteable. A thing of the past? - Choice of ring tones is rather limited to a few "normal" ones. - Not shock-proof. The visor broke on the first fall. I have half LCD now and no insurance. Overall, I seem to be a bit biased towards new phones in general. But after using cell phones for years now, I believe that I can be a good critic in terms of useability/features and usage. The CDM-9000 is a good phone in general, but I'd prefer a Nokia over it. TC Recommended: No 86775 2001/1/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight loaded with features sleek none that i have noticed The Bottom LineAlthough a little pricier than other phones, the CDM9000 offers excellent features and great ease of use. Full Review Unlike the wife's Nokia that I rated earlier, the Audiovox CDM9000 is a nice featured phone and easy to use. This Tri-Mode dual band phone is loaded with all the bells and whistles. The phone features all the regular stuff such as speed dial, phone directory, etc... But add to that Voice Dialing with the press of one button, a feature that makes it nice while driving. Allows you to say "Call Joe at work" and it does it. So far without any problems. Comparable in size to the Nokia, the 9000 fits in my front pants pocket, with the keyguard on, you don't have to de-activate it to answer an incoming call. The phone offers 15 different ring tones for those who like to change their spice in life, and offers the vibrate mode for the nonintrusive concious minded.It has been on 3 days now and still has 3/4 of it's battery left. Comes with a desk charger as well as a direct plug. The car charger is an option. So far the phone has performed without missing any calls. One even received in an elevator. The web features are there, however, I have not used them. The programming and menus are straight forward, and can be navigated without having to constantly see where you have to go in the menu structure to do what. This makes the phone good for even the beginner. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 189 86774 2000/9/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 wireless web quick battery charge voice dialing tri mode can t figure out how to log outin on web sites once logged in once Full Review This was my first cell phone so I was a little nervous about spending so much on this phone. But, it has more than exceeded my expectations. It is small and light-weight, and I thought it was one of the more attractive phones available. Plus, because this phone is tri-mode, it allowed me to join the single rate plan with Verizon Wireless, which lets me make calls anywhere in the U.S. to anywhere else in the U.S. without paying any roaming or long distance fees. One of the best features of this phone is the voice recognition dialing. This is the easiest way to dial, especially when you are driving, which is not such a good idea in the first place! It charges very quickly. The longest it has ever taken is about 4 hours. I was also surprised by its durability. I got in a car accident about three days after I got this phone and it went flying! No worse for wear, the cell phone came out of the accident with only a few scratches. Another thing I like about this phone is its wireless web capabilities. This really came in handy when I was on vacation and needed stock quotes. I can even read my hotmail with it! The only complaint I have about the wireless web is that I can't figure out how to log in as a different user on a web site. It seems that once you've logged in the phone remembers your username and password and automatically logs you in the next time. This save a lot of typing time, but it also makes it difficult to use two accounts at one website! So far my calls have been of reasonable quality. I thought mobile phones had a little better quality in general. Overall it seems a little better than some of the other phones that my friends have. I would recommended it, especially if you are considering Verizon Wireless' Single-Rate plan! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86773 2000/12/23 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 super battery life lightweight small only 4 regular ring tones other 11 are melodies Full Review I got this phone on a 2-year agreement with Verizon Wireless. It's a small, lightweight phone that has lots of small features. I considered this over a StarTac that was $50 more. The phone is quite sturdy. I have never had to pull out the whip antenna as I get excellent reception in stationary position. This phone has wireless web, messaging, distinctive ringing and voice-activated dialing. I chose not to activate the wireless web, however I do use messaging. It's handy for short messages, stock alerts and weather reports however it's limited with Verizon to 100 characters. The voice-activated dialing is "ok", but I really don't have a use for it. I just use quick dial for important numbers instead of going through the trouble of holding down * and saying the name. The distinctive ringing is very handy. I can know whose calling without looking at the caller ID. This is very handy on the road so I automatically know whose calling. One certain ring tone could mean its mom, another work, and another home. Don't underestimate the simplistic convenience of this feature! The display is pretty good. It has a strong backlight. The interface isn't as spiffy as my friend's StarTac, but this is a cell phone, not a PDA. This phone has only 15 ring tones. 4 are ring tones; the others are songs. I would have wanted more regular sounding tones over melodies unfortunately. The battery life on this thing is great. I left it on for 4 days once 24hours/day with no problem. I of course normally leave it off during night so I only need to charge it once a week. This would be different if you go into an analog zone often. Charging is extremely fast. The phone was short-charged in its package and it took 30 minutes to bring it to full charge. This phone's charger is not just a wall adapter, but an actual block you stick it in. This is something I greatly appreciate. I like being able to stick my phone into something. I've never had a dropped call; reception is clear, battery life excellent. This is an excellent phone for the price. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86772 2000/3/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy phone to use even for a first timer a feather light battery life could be longer can t change the faceplates The Bottom LineQuite simply a great phone with a lot of options and features. It is light and very simple to use. I have one, i would know. Full Review The Audiovox CDM9000 is my very first cell phone. When i was out shopping for a phone i needed something light, with a lot of options and maybe a few little extra's here and there which are kind of neat. The CDM9000 was exactly that. Its not too big, (smaller than Nokia) and is also very light compared to many other brands. The entire panel lights up at the touch of a button and is very visible during the day or in the evening. As you could imagine, there are many options that come with this phone. There is an address book which hold up to 99 names/numbers. There is voice activated dialing for up to 30 names/numbers. A History of outgoing and incoming calls is available. And also a 'scratchpad' is there to put information in when you need it. This phone has 15 different ring types and also a vibrator mode which is very useful. The phone may be locked so that only you can dial and receive calls. One option which this phone has that i havent been able to use yet would be the web browser. This phone is web-capable and that could be very useful for certain people. However i havent used it yet. The phone has a retractable antenna and comes with a desk recharger. This recharger can recharge the phone while it is ON or OFF. When on, it takes only a few hours to recharge depending on how full it is. While when off, it takes only about 30 minutes to come up to a full charge from empty. That is all good and dandy, but there may be one or two small things which aren't too hot about this phone. If you are into changing faceplates as on the Nokia series phones, youre out of luck. The CDM9000 doesnt have interchangeable faceplates and you are pretty much stuck with the metallic blue/grey color. And as for the battery, it lasts quite a while depending on how often the phone is used. But as in most cases, it could have a longer life. I have gone 3 days w/o recharging it and it worked fine. But make sure you keep a spare charger around you for emergencies. To sum this all up, this is my very first phone and i am very pleased with it. It is light, easy to use, and very useful. If you ever need triple A, 911, or anyone, you can always reach them with the CDM9000. (providing you carry a good phone plan... but thats another opinion!) ~john :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199 86771 2000/9/14 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great sound many cool options easy to use weak atennea signal at times Full Review I got this phone just a few weeks ago and so far so good. Although I have never been a fan of Audiovox, I really like this phone. It has many options and is pretty durable. FEATURES The CDM-9000 has many options that appealed to me. It of course has the programable phone book that can store names and numbers. It has a variety of security functions so that only you can access you phone. But these are nothing special. What I really like about it is that it has voice command dialing; this means that you just hold a button for a few seconds and then say the word or phrase that you programmed for the number you want to call and that is it. Another nice option that instead of ringing you can set the phone for vibrate; I use this option when I'm in class. The view screen is very well set up and easy to see. It has an adjustable backlight which is a neccesity at night. One of my favorite features (although not very unique to this phone) is multiple ring setting. This phone can do everything from a normal ring to playing happy birthday, to Beethovans 5th symphany. EASE OF USE I really like the way the keypad is setup. It makes for really easy navigating through options. Saving info in the phone book is very easy and the phone almost walks you through it. After only one quick glance at the instruction manual I had pretty good control over all the available options. The voice dialing is very easy to use and responds to your command very well. SOUND AND SIGNAL I have never had a problem understanding anyone with this phone. This is very possibly because I live around the Twin Cities in Minnesota and there are many many towers all around so my antenna signal is usually very strong. One thing I have noticed that there are areas where my signal will be rather weak when my friends Samsug cell phone will have a full signal. This is the only place that I have found that my phone has been less than par. DURABILITY My phone has been through quite alot in the short time I have owned it. It has been dropped, stepped on, and bumped against countless objects, and still works perfectly. The other night infact it fell out of my pocket outside and wasn't rescued till the next morning. This means that it lived through dew, 30 degree temps and the whole time it was left on. Which reminds me of another good part of this phone, the battery lasts and lasts. OVERALL This is a very nice phone even though it may not be the most popular or expensive brand; the phone still works great and has many cool options. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 86770 2000/4/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 different rings lots of room to store names great features easy to use battery life not to long The Bottom Linelots of features and memory Full Review I was heading off to school, and my parents wanted me to have some form of communication should my car break down, which has been known to happen.This is my first phone, so I really did not know what to expect. I must say I totally love it. One of the coolest features on this phone is the VAD (Voice Activated Dialing) feature. This telephone has some sort of voice recognition thing in it and as a result, you need only speak whatever word you have saved to dial a particular number. For example, in order for me to call home using my phone, I need only to press the VAD button and say "Home." The number is then dialed. The memory function of the phone is great, giving you more room to store names/numbers than the average person will need. It is way more room than a guy like me, with no friends (I am only kidding) would ever need. I do have to admit to one problem I have with this phone. The battery life is virtually non-existent. I don't know if there is a problem with my particular phone or battery, or what the problem is, but the battery will not hold a charge anywhere near the 190 hours worth of standby time listed. I keep my charger right by my computer, and when it is not charging the phone is normally sitting by the computer, so it is possible that something is going on there to quickly drain the battery. That takes care of my favorite parts of the phone, and it's one problem, but what about the actual phone? Is it easy to use? Is it clear? In two words: yes, yes! The phone is LIGHT and relatively small so it can go ANYWHERE, and the menu system is as easy as pie! Also, this phone, to me, is clearer than my brand new cordless phone I use. Technology has sure come a long way in that regard. In summary, if you are looking for a phone with a lot of cool features (vibrating battery, VAD) and also fairly light? This is the one for you, it's not even very expensive! Just go buy this phone, and show it off to all of your friends. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86769 2001/1/7 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use looooong battery life ergonomics are not in my taste but better than some others Full Review This is an update to my previous review, now that i have become a bit jaded to having a cell phone. I still like the phone, it does everything I want it to, it's a phone. I have found that i really don't use many of it's features however, such as he voice activated dialing. It's so much faster for me to just use the function pad (four directional arrows that allow you to navigate the menu choices) and go to the number of whoever i want to call. I also don't care to use it for wireless internet, so I wont comment on that here. I purchased this phone about four months ago to save money on long distance calls within my state of Florida. By getting 900 minutes with Verison for $40 a month, and free calls within my state, I thought I could save a bit of cash. The only problem with my plan was this phone was $200. Ouch. I guess that ruins my plan. But Wait! Audy (my salesperson) came to the rescue! The way he explained it is he would take the cut on commision and give it to me for half of that. Hmmmm. Sure! Not only that but he also managed to find a rebate coupon for $50 from Verison! Wow! So that's how I got such a great deal on the phone. When I finally had time to start setting up the phone and programming numbers in, I realized I didn't have the instruction manual! No problem! This phone is actually user friendly. The menu's are easy to navigate and most of the phone's options are fairly self explainatory. By the second day I had the ring selected, all of my phone numbers entered (some with different ring types), and even gave all of the numbers I called most a voice clip for easy dialing (or lack of it)! That has to be a testament to how easy (most) of the features are. After I finally got the manual I figured out what all the other stuff in the menu meant, only to decide that I didn't really need to know anyway. When am I going to switch my DIGITAL phone to analog? I'm not. I would now like to break down the ratings for this phone and mention other gripes and the more uncommon things people rate such devices on: 1. Absolutely the most positively annoying thing to me is it's small size. I know, that's seems quite odd, but I would like to have a phone with a bit more meat. I have large hands, and i want something that fits better in them and is more comfortable to hold up to my ear. As i said I use this phone for in-state long distance calls, most from the comfort of my room. After 30 mins My arms can get sore holding this thing up to my ear. It's also obvious that ergonomicly this phone was designed to be in the palm of your hand with your thumb on the function button (mentioned above). This must be very convienient for wireless surfing on the web, but I would prefer something different. Overall 3. 2. Battery life, very good. I leave my phone on all the time, and can talk for a couple of hours without having to recharge, I have only ran out of talk time once. It wasn't a big deal. Overall 4 3. Ease of use/menus- this phone is very easy to use. As I mentioned before I had it all figured out pretty early on, without a manual. One gripe with the menus is with the message button. Whenever I choose not to answer my phone, or can't get to it, my phone does all manner of things to let me know. This can be annoying. Naturally I hit the message button to make it stop, and I get a time stamp and the code to call my voicemail. What? I have a separate voicemail button. It's programmed to hit *86, and then my 4 number code. Needless to say I don't want to have to go through a whole dog and pony show with my phone just to get a message. 4. Included features- this phone does all kinds of things. Many of them I don't and will never see myself using. I have started to use the vibrate function, however, along with using the function "button" (still part of keypad) to quickly select what I want my phone to do. For example, I now hit F (right arrow of keypad) and 11 to lock the keypad before I put it in my pocket. Overall 4.5 (rounded up to 5) 5. You all want to know how it sounds right? Well since most of you will be using this phone with a Verison wireless plan like myself, I'll add that. I often have trouble hearing certain people on this phone. As always I don't have a problem with static, but I think the issue is the ergonomic aspect I discussed before. The phone is physically not large enough to reach from my ear to my mouth and that sometimes makes it difficult for me to communicate. I imagine the could make the speaker a bit better as well. As for the plan I have only been dropped a few times, and no static. Overall 4 (this may be a bit harsh) So after adding the above mentioned Items all together We get a perfect 4 (after rounding 4.5 - 5). I belive this more accurately reflects how I feel about the pone but I will leave it in my Love It list. I hope this format helps more than the previous review. let me know if i should include anything else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 105 before rebate 86768 2000/10/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 ease of use good battery life none i ve found so fa Full Review I used a Motorola SC-725 for quite some time. After years of dedicated service, the battery wouldn't hold a charge anymore and the screen was getting fuzzy. To top it off, I dropped the poor thing and it shattered into several pieces. My carrier is Verizon Wireless f/k/a Bell Atlantic Mobil. Their tech service said it was absolutely beyond repair. I asked if I could replace it with another Motorola SC-725, but the salesperson laughed and said they don't make that model any more. The salesperson did ask me what features I needed. I needed one with a phone book and one that has a vibrate feature. He offered me the Audiovox CDM-9000. Not having time to do any comparison shopping or shopping for various features, I took his suggestion. Being excited about my new purchase I told my youngest son and my stepson all about the great features this phone has. They both said that Audiovox is "the pits" (their vernacular; not mine) and I should return it right away. Well, children don't always know best. I've had this phone for about a month now. 1. The phone book was very easy to work with and I was able to enter all my entries in just an hour or so. 2. The vibrate feature has certainly come in handy. I must say, however, that there are so many ringing tones and so many volume levels, that I don't always need to turn that feature on. 3. One feature I wasn't prepared for at all was the voice-activated dialing. My daily commute is rather long, and if set up properly, this feature is excellent, especially when used in conjunction with the earphone/microphone. 4. This model also has web service and e-mail features available. Although I don't yet have a need yet for either of those features, if they are as easy to use as the rest, I have no doubt they will be excellent. All of the claims that Audiovox made about this particular model are true. The battery lasts as long as they say it does. I only have to recharge about twice a week during normal usage. The sound quality is much better than I expected. The size is very convenient. (My biggest regret is that I lost the paperwork to send in for the $50 rebate.) This phone is much better than I ever anticipated. Even my doubting children have decided it might be their next cell phone purchase. If you're in the market for a new cell phone, I would seriously consider this model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150 86767 2000/6/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 light all the features fantastic battery none Full Review I had a Motorola phone for a few years and the main thing I hated about it was that the battery was terrible, and the on-screen user interface was slow and hard to use. I finally decided to get a new phone and I spoke to all my gadget friends and cell phone wonks and got their opinions. They mainly pointed me to the Samsungs for cool features and the Nokias for a super battery. You're probably getting the same advice from your friends. But I wanted both (features and battery life)! I decided to take a chance on the Audiovox CDM 9000 due to its Nokia-like battery life and its Samsung like list of features. The best of both worlds! Also, I figured I'd forge new ground in my circle of friends by being the first to try it out. Also, the phone looks awesome! Let me tell you, I am extremely happy with this phone. It's as light as the Samsung (under five ounces) yet it doesn't have that "Star Trek" flip up thing going on. I am a big guy and those "flip ups" don't feel right when I'm talking on them. After just an hour or so of charging the phone is at 100%. So far I leave it on 24/7 and I used it at will and only have to recharge it twice a week. Its very easy to enter phone numbers into its directory and you can store two phone numbers per person in it. In other words, for your friend Joe you can have his home number and his cell phone number stored, so its really twice the storage capacity they advertise it as since they don't mention this in any of their ads. Also, it has a number of ringer tones and besides the obvious selecting a default ring, you can also tell it to sound a different ringer depending on who is calling you. If one of my friends calls me it sounds "Camptown Races". If my boss calls it sound "Beethoven's Fifth". If my parents call it sounds "Happy Birthday". That is extremely useful - just by the ring you can know who is calling you as you search for your phone. Of course the caller ID will tell you exactly who is calling you once you have the phone in hand. The features are plentiful and easy to navigate through. You can search for phone numbers in order or you can enter "Jo" and get every phone that has "Jo" in it. The voice recognition is great! I can just say "Home" and it will dial my home number for me. Plus it has a vibrating ring included (the Nokia's require a different (and more expensive) battery to vibrate). It is web ready but I haven't tried that yet. So overall - I say go for it!!! You won't regret it. You'll get all the hot features any other phone has, and you'll also get the killer battery life only a few phones have. Chris Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 129 86766 2000/10/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 calls are clear feature rich settings rich font size frustrating web interface slow Full Review I bought this phone almost entirely for the web feature. I noticed many opinions not touching on this feature too indepthly, so I will attempt to answer any questions the reader of this opinion may have. The Pros The calls are crystal clear, it does seem to need the antenna up sometimes, although in most cases the only thing that seemed lacking with the antenna down was background music and sounds. It is nice and compact, I find it fits into my pocket very well, and although the buttons are fairly small. It does not seem to hinder or cause any frustrations. I found the buttons on the 9000 to be nicer then the 4500 since they have the slightly rubberish feel to them (the 4500 has plastic buttons). It has fast and easy access to Text & Voice Messages by two different buttons on the top, very nice for those who want to read messages easily. The Voice recognition works really well, I have yet to have it dial the wrong number from misunderstanding me. Although you do have to hold the button for longer then I would want to (3 or 4 seconds). There are a great deal of options for ringers, including the ability to control volume for the ringer and key pad (4 different levels). I've found the first level to be loud enough to hear, but not embarrasing if it goes off in the middle of class. The menus are really well put together, in an hierchy manner, each one is associated with a number so it can be quickly accessed, but is also available by using the up, down, left and right roller button in the middle. I have also heard the Tri Mode does help to keep your data connection, especially through the Web interface. It is definately a feature rich phone. There are so many options and settings available: -phonebook (with voice activation) -15 ringers including 4 plain & 11 melodies -secret memory (to hide phone numbers) -link dialing (to enter multiple sequences of numbers) -call history -distinctive ringing (for different callers) -automatic answering (after a # of rings) -voice & mail messages easily accessible with two buttons -call timers -web timers -vibrator -data connection (including web access on phone) -tri mode -lockout for those who want security The Cons I definately have to agree with some others on this one, the font and size cannot be changed and it is definately a bit too big. Text Messages can be frustrating, I wished the font was smaller so more could fit on the screen. You tend to have to scroll quite a bit with this cell phone. The timers are frustrating, there is no way of resetting them after the month's end, all you have is last call, incoming, outgoing, total calls & web timers. I find the phone to not follow a consistant standard. the Web interface uses the text message button to go back a page, if you hit "left" it takes you right back home, where you must go back through the entire process again. Whereas in Text Messages "Left" takes you back a page. I wished it would have maintained a consistant standard. However you do get used to it after awhile. Also the phone does tend to feel fragile. The battery moves slightly when your hand touches it and it creeks sometimes when holding it. Not a major problem, but for some people, it can be a little annoying. Web Interface Pros I've been fairly impressed with the Web Interface. The font and size is much smaller then the regular font of this phone, and I find it a good enough size between viewing easily and not too small. For those who pay per minute (like myself), all choices are able to be selected via the key pad or through the roller button (up, left, down, right). This saves you time scrolling through the list which can take some time when you visit the website repeatidly. It does remember Usernames and certain passwords (but not all) In my stock portfolio, I've had to change my password to be more cell phone friendly because it prompts me for it every time. Web Interface Cons The web is *slow*. The best analogy I can provide is that of a 28.8 Modem. Remember the days of loading a page with that (including graphics)? It feels roughly the same speed but of course without graphics. This thus can rack up charges for those who are paying per minute. It is my opinion that this will speed up in the future so it should be more viable. Although most people know it, the Web Interface does not show graphics yet. As a pro, I mentioned it saves the username and some passwords. The problem however is that once you've entered it, you cannot change it, at least only some websites allow the change, others keep the old username in memory. Right now, I'm finding the web interface limiting, I still cannot check email through my carrier. It is up to the carrier to provide the services. I do hope however that they will be adding more and more as time passes. In Conclusion I have not been dissapointed in this phone. The phone provides a huge amount of features, and offers a lot to me. I do however still feel that the web interface is only at it's beginnings and will improve at a very fast pace. It's still not very viable to use for most. Stocks is the only reason I find useful and was the reason I purchased it. It is definately worth finding a carrier that provides unlimited time on the web with a minimum charge, you go through minutes very quickly using it. Most of the problems I've found with this phone are based in the digital services, text messages, web interface etc. The calls have been extremely clear when the antenna is up. No dropped calls. If you are looking for quality of calls, audiovox is well known for it and this phone stands up to that quality. For those looking for the Digital Services Side, I think you may want to wait (especially if entering a contract) for a new phone to come out with a faster interface and a few bugs worked out. A Comparing between the 4500 and 9000 can be found here: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86765 2000/8/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 voice dial phonebook size battery life tri mode none worth highlighting Full Review Purchased this phone retail a couple of months ago (July, 2000) since I was an Airtouch customer and didn't qualify for the new phone reduced pricing. Did get some discount, I guess, it cost me $245. I very much like the phone. It is easy to use, the voice dialing is great in a vehicle with a headset - no more looking at the keypad instead of the road! The sound is good - not land-line quality, but hey! It's a digital phone! Some of the digital ringy-tingy sound when in an outlying area, but always quite acceptable. Others have never mentioned that they even know I am on a cellular - not like analog simplex. The setup is easy - had a bit of trouble with the initial set-up of the web, but nothing bad. One phone call and tech support had me going. The one big problem I had with the phone is two weeks ago, the person I was talking to said, "Hey! I can hear you, but I can't understand what you are saying." and we ended up terminating the call. I had no luck connecting for a full day so I called customer service on another cell phone. They did some trouble shooting with me - had me re-set up the system, move to another area, etc... They decided that there was a hardware problem, and that since I was in the warranty period, they would fix or replace it (with a reconditioned unit). I chose the "Rapid Replacement" program where they send you a replacement phone and you send them back your old one. I have to tell you - customer service is exactly what it was - I had a new phone THE NEXT DAY! The replacement I got was in BRAND NEW condition, it was programmed with my information and all I had to do was put a battery on it and call an 800 number. Bingo! I was in business! Anyway, a potential terrible experience turned into a very satisfied customer - of VERIZON - the AUDIOVOX still remains under suspicion due to the initial breakdown. Back to the phone - the talk time is great, and I purchased an extended 1900 mAh battery (BTE 4000 Lithium Ion) which extends my talk/standby time to a ridiculous amount! I was in Oregon for 5 days and never had to charge it. I had talked over 4 hours on it when I got home and it was still going strong! They estimate 14 days (340 hours) standby and 6 hours talk time with this battery - I believe it! I was always in a digital zone. Analog takes much more power. The screen and keypad are both well designed. Lots of options as to display (3 or 4 lines, contrast, etc...) The graphic indicators are all easy to understand and the back light works very well and is configurable as to duration and function. Phone book will hold 99 entries. One thing I miss from my old Nokia is the ability to program a number, then put in a special character to indicate a pause, then program more numbers. That makes for a dial, wait for the message, send the codes and retrieve voice mail automatically entry, in the phone book. The Audiovox lets you "Link" numbers, so when your voice mail asks for your password, you push the send key and it transmits the next set of numbers. This is okay, just a little more cumbersom. Charger base is good - only lets you charge one battery though. The power cord for the desktop charger unplugs and you can plug the phone directly into the cord - nice for travel (if you're going to be gone for over a week! Awesome extended battery!) Overall, I am quite optimistic - the combination of this phone and the Verizon service plan should last me longer than my past phones and plans! I've owned AT&T, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola phones - to date, this Audiovox is the friendliest, best sounding and most functional. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 245 86764 2000/8/28 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy lots of features for a lot less money these days lightweight long battery life paid a lot more just a few years ago hard to adjust volume while using The Bottom LineIf it works with your choice of service provider, this is an excellent choice for operation, durability, and the really cool alarm feature. Full Review Just a few years ago this phone was the hottest thing on the market for digital connectivity. It carried a price tag of over $100 and was considered worth it for the features. Today you can get one of these for under $30 or less with a trade-in or incentive plan. Bargain!!! The phone works with the Primeco/Verizon digital network systems and a handful of others with surprising reach for such a small phone. Another positive is the miserly battery use. This phone can usually stay off the charger for a couple of days on standby or a day and a half with moderate use and still have enough juice to wake you up in the morning. Did I mention that there is a very functional alarm feature on this baby? My cell phone has been waking me up for work dependably for the last 6 months now. Along with all the other sounds it can make for the customized rings, this is a really feature filled package. Once you enter a number in the phonebook database, which is relatively easy to do without much reference to the instructions, a distinctive ring can be selected that will alert you to who is calling without having to look... or answer. This is the ultimate caller-id. There is even an ominous version of Beethoven's 5th "da da da daaaa" which is perfect for incoming calls from the inlaws. In a protective leather case, the phone becomes a little hard to line up with your ear. As with most of the "lightweight" class of digital phones, the 9000 and 9100 series can be hard to hear unless you have the thing lined up just right. I recommend a hands-free earpiece that any accessory store can provide for about $15 to eliminate the need for ear-searching during calls. The addition of a hands-free earpiece also eliminates the one other detractor to this model. The volume adjustment is on the center of the faceplate. If you need to raise or lower the volume during a call you will have to take the phone away from your head to reach the control. This also tends to add time to your call which, after all, is what the phone company's want... so they probably asked for this feature. One good thing about the lack of moveable parts... no rotating dials, no swinging doors to open (or snap off). All the buttons are rubberized pushbuttons that take a lifetime to wear out. This style of phone, according to the repair departments of most Verizon stores, is the lowest repair and maintenance style available. That means a longer life and fewer problems. Cool! Having dropped my phone to the concrete from waist level more times than I care to mention, I can verify that the phone can take a licking and keep on... waking me up in the morning. Did I mention the alarm feature? Can you guess that's one of my favorites? Have I labored the alarm point enough already? There is a great text mode feature also that allows you to receive text messages much like an upscale pager. This can save on your talk-time if you have an office that invests in the software and connection fee to allow text messages straight from a PC to your phone. Overall this is a great digital phone that uses battery power wisely and gets the word out with clarity and style. Of all the choices out there, unless full web access is really critical to you, this is the one I'll be using for some time to come. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120 86763 2000/11/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 affordable slim voice recognition clarity Full Review This was my very first cell phone buying experience. What decisions to make! Luckily I went to Verizon who made it easy. They had this Audiovox cell phone on special, so I snatched it up. What I liked about it, by looks, is how slim & light it is. Once I started learning about all the features, I knew I made the right decision. First of all, it is a Tri-Mode web browsing phone, although I haven't attempted that part yet. Other great features are the option for the phone to vibrate instead of ring, 15 different rings to choose from, an easy to program & easy to use phone, voice recognition dialing, stores numbers you want to keep secret. All of the options on this phone are very easy to set up. It is also very durable. I dropped my phone on a tile floor, and not one thing broke. Another great thing about this phone is the battery. This thing will stay charged for a very long time. It also doesn't take very long to charge. I think the most it took me, besides the initial charging, is 30 minutes. The only negative thing is the quality. A few people have told me it sometimes sounds like I'm under water when I talk to them from my cell phone. I honestly do not know if it is the phone, or if I just had a bad connection. If you are looking for an easy to use, easy to carry phone, this is the one for you! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86762 2000/10/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone none yet Full Review I live in a very rural area and I need a cell phone because of car problems. It is necessary in our area to have a cell phone. If you travel for miles and there are no homes or business establishments and you need help. Well you may just forget it. I broke down one time and a man helped me and he had a cell phone. After this flat tire we decided it was time to pick up a cell phone. I am on my forth phone now. This new one is great. I can say a name and it will automatically dial the number. This means less distractions while driving. I have 150 minutes of long distance and no roaming charges anywhere in the U.S. This is really great when I travel. The phone tells how many minutes you have talked and also gives a total amount so you can watch your time. This is a great feature. It has a built in phone book with numbers that you can call when you need someone. I do not have AAA programed in this phone as yet but it will be soon. I am not sure of all the features but I know I can connect to the internet with the pound key. Soon I will be able to tell where the stocks are going up or down. I think the internet feature is great. There will be email messages on the phone. There is voice mail on the phone so that people can leave a message and you can retrive it. I am not sure of all the keys as yet because I have only had the phone over a week. I think this phone holds its charge better than any other phone. I do not need to charge it after a few calls. I had a Sony and it was a piece of junk. This phone is very easy to use and I would recommend it to people with small children. If there was a problem the child could get help with the voice ativated dialing if it was taught how to push the button. There is a caller ID feature so that you can call the people back if you miss the call. I do not know what else anyone could possibly ask for with a digital tri-mode phone. The design is great and you can read the screen very easily. The phone has a clock and an alarm if you need a special time remembered. The phone has speed dialing and 3 way calling and call waiting. I have not figured this out yet but I will in due time. If you are considering another cell phone this one is really great. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 86761 2000/12/6 Product Rating3.0 it s a phone it works audio dialing bigger than a credit card Full Review A FREE Phone and Voice-Command Dialing?? Hand it over! If you read my last review, you already know about my troubles with SPRINT. That said, I work with Verizon on a daily basis and was happy to listen to what deals they could offer me both on new SERVICE and a NEW PHONE. It didn't take much coaxing for me to switch my current plan to Verizon and the Audiovox CDM-9000. Here's why: The Features Well, it's billed as Audiovox' `first Tri-Mode Web Browsing wireless telephone'. It features 800 MHz Amps/CDMA and 1900 MHz CDMA Tri-Mode operation for `enhanced nationwide service coverage'. Wait, you say, give it to me in layman's terms, Kyhiera! Ah, yes! I am NO scholar of electronic toys. Didn't I just tell you that I killed my relic Nokia? Okay, so basically what this means to me is that this phone is a new, improved, groovy phone… There are all the old, standard features that my older phone included (quick dial, scratch pad, call-waiting, voicemail, text messages, keypad lock, call timers, etcetera) as well as a multitude of others… Let's see, the phone book on this tiny, lightweight (4.8 oz) beauty has 99 memory locations for Names/Letters (`alpha') and 198 locations for numbers and, get this, I can voice-command dial this puppy! That's right, all I do is HOLD DOWN the (*) key and wait for the prompt - then I say `Prince Charming' (or whatever) and the amazing thing just dials! Whew, now there's simply NO excuse to get in that car wreck on the freeway and my brain is free from all the strain that remembering, dialing and scrolling require…hallelujah! There's a bevy (15) of annoying ringer options though I am still using the standard telephone ring -- with five people holding cell phones in our house, I have NO problem noticing this distinctively plain ring. There is a Lithium Ion battery that generates 3+ hours of talk time and about 7 days of standby time on a single charge. This is something like triple the capacity of my older, larger, heavier Nokia 2170. Here's a good comparison: the Audiovox CDM-900 phone is to my Nokia 2170 what CDs are to 8-tracks. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE old reel-to-reels, LPs are still something worth holding on to and I maintain an excellent 40lb. tuner which was probably made in the late `60s and still powers up 6 speakers with incredible clarity. But I digress (odd, isn't it?). Back to the Audiovox… Some additional nifty features: · Clock Alarm to alert you to programmed alarm time · Countdown Timer to alert you when programmed timer expires · Dual Number Storage to store two telephone numbers in one phonebook address · Distinctive Ringing to distinguish specific callers · Secret Memory to store a secret number accessed by code · Link Dialing to link groups of numbers to be sent in sequence · Web Browsing (when operating in Digital mode) to access internet websites from your cell phone Just like most phones, you can add on all the standard optional accessories such as the carrying case, extended battery, cigarette lighter plug-in charger, Handsfree car kit and earphone microphone and data cable - but simple as I like things to be, I received mine with only the basic AC Adapter, Desktop Holder and Wrist Strap that came with my service plan, compliments of my amiable Verizon rep., Kirk. Functionality The little rubber keys are small, which took some getting used to…but if I carry this phone in my purse, I don't have to worry that I'll accidentally make a call. They are set into the phone fairly well, making it more difficult to `mistakenly' dial this phone. The Send and End buttons are color-coded: A green handset for `Go' and a red for `Stop'—which is also the button you HOLD to turn the phone ON and OFF. Rcl gets you into your phone number list to scroll through the memory and is also the left-arrow key. F Is both the `function' key and the right-arrow key. There are also Up and Down keys which make scrolling through the features fairly idiot-proof. Sto stores phone numbers, names, etc. in the memory and Clr clears digits from the display or from memory. There is also an Envelope icon to review text messages. The LCD Display is nothing out of the ordinary and programming this phone has been a breeze…even for me. More information can be found here - http://www.audiovox.com And the final clincher(s) on this sale: Cost Though I'm told this phone sells for around $300, my phone was FREE!!! (I'll be submitting a Verizon service review on THAT one very soon…) Clarity Time to put the featherweight to the test… I headed down to Diamondhead. Surf was about 5' yesterday and the waves were lined up beautifully... I sat on the stone wall overlooking Cliffs and felt it necessary to spout about the beauty of this place to my very good friend and fellow epinioneer who resides in San Francisco, California. Ah, lucky me. With my new phone the call was clear. No static at all, a little bit of an echo which could be the fault of the wind and reverb off the cliff walls. I certainly haven't had that same echo on other local calls. On my friend's end, she noticed that the sound was clearer than it had been on my Nokia and there was noticed no echo at all so we gabbed about life and the like for a good 20 minutes. I love my new toy, but I'll let you know if anything changes... Recommended: Yes 86760 2000/10/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sleek voice recognition very lite internet browser voice recognition on only 20 out of 100 phonebook entries Full Review I usually go through phones like candy. But there is something about this phone that is different. At first I thought it was kind of big, changing from a StarTac, but eventually it grew on me. It has many up-to-date features that come in very handy. 15 ring styles, including 11 melodies and vibrating alert. 24 character alphanumeric memory. Individual, cumulative, and audible call timers. Any-key answer and automatic answer. Mute control. Voice mail access button and many other common features that most common phones carry now a days. Now lets get to the features that make this phone a wonderful companion. - Built-in Microbrowser - Modem function - PC synchronization - 30 text messaging/SMS locations - Voice Recognition - Dual-Band - Dual-Mode - Tri-Mode The Built-in Microbrowser acts like a web page but at smaller scale. It will not display images but anything in text format, it will handle. Most important, any HTTPS or other secured sites can be accessed and even logged in to. It remember passwords which help in not having to input account verification info all the time. It is a bit tricky getting out of sites completely but it is not a bad trade off. Also it can be somewhat annoying having to type long WWW addresses using the keypad. Though practice makes perfect. Another nice feature is the Modem function and PC synchronization. Again, bit tricky getting it to work proper the first time with you PC but after proper configuration, it's a breeze. It lets you download and upload your phonebook. You can also send and receive email and faxes. All from the comfort of your phone. One of the most exciting feature for me is the Voice Recognition. It lets you call anyone in your phonebook by just saying the name that you programmed for that phonebook entry. This saves time not having to go through the phonebook to look for a number, nice to know when you are driving and can't pull over. Though you can only use this feature on 20 out of 100 stored numbers. Hopefully this will change in the future through software upgrade. Also the Tri-Mode feature provided wider area coverage by your provider. If you are one that travels often, then this is the right phone for you. Regardless of where you are, you can be assured that there will be a signal when you need it most. It somewhat cost a little more while in these areas but hey, at least you can use it. The Li-ion battery has 3 hours of talk time and a bunch more hours of standby. It doesn't acquire memory so it can be charged anytime and you don't have to wait for the battery to drain before recharging. Of course, there are many other standard features like backlit illumination display & keypad. Audible battery and strength indicator alert. Clock with alarm. Missed call indicator. Caller ID. Roaming indicator. Voice mail/text message indicator and volume select/display for keypad, ear piece, & ringer. Reception is also very clear and it does not sound like you are in a tunnel. Low missed calls ratio and hardly any redial attempts needed. Overall this is a great phone and for the price, considering everything you get, it's not bad at all. I highly recommend this product to busy executives that often commute and of course, us more, "just wanting the newest gadgets", kind of people. I can tell you, this is a great phone for anyone, no joke. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 Promo Special with provider 86759 2000/11/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 full featured lighweight just a couple of minor flaws Full Review Update: A couple of people have corrected me on my comments about the voice-activated dialing. You can, in fact, activate it by holding down the * key until it prompts you. However, I am still not thrilled with the feature. First of all, you have to hold down the * for about 5 seconds- a long time to lose the use of 1 hand if you're driving. Second, I frequently have trouble getting it to understand the name I am trying to say (and I only have 3 names programmed into it, so it's not like it has that many to choose from!). ---------------------------- I recently got my Audiovox CDM 9000 phone for free when I signed up with Verizon Wireless. This is now the 3rd wireless phone I've owned- all three have been "freebies" when signing up for cellular service. This Audiovox CDM 9000 is by far the best I've owned. Features -- Tri-Mode- works with digital, PCS, and cellular. Basically, chances are you'll almost always have a signal. -- Web Browser- This phone has a built in wireless web browser, however Verizon is currently charging $7 a month (plus airtime) for wireless web, which I consider too expensive, so I have not tested this feature out. -- Data Capable- With an adapter, you can hook the phone up to a laptop for mobile internet access. -- Other, fairly standard features such as multiple ring types, vibrating ringer, voice activated dialing, and address book, etc. -- Scratch pad- Ever been on a call and have someone give you a phone number, and you don't have a place to write it? Just type it into the phone while you're on a call, and it will automatically be stored in a scratch pad for later retrieval. -- Compact and lightweight- the phone is very thin, and weighs only 4.8 oz. -- Full featured. This phone really does have all the little bells and whistles you could possibly want from a mobile phone. They really didn't scimp on things, for instance the address book is incredibly robust. You can do things like link numbers from 2 entries together, and insert the hyphens wherever you want in the number. I have yet to figure out why you'd want to do any of those things, but they're there nonetheless. I also LOVE the scratch pad (see my description above under features). -- Great battery life. The owner's manual claims a standby life of 170 hours, and talk time of 12 hours on a full battery. I don't talk on my phone all that much, and find that I can generally go about 4 days without charging it. -- I can actually hear it! My previous phone, a Nokia 5160, had a major flaw- it wasn't nearly loud enough. If the phone was in my purse or a jacket pocket, I wouldn't hear it ring. And even with the volume on its highest setting, the voice of a caller was barely loud enough. Forget about having a conversation while walking down a noisy street. The Audiovox doesn't have that problem at all- the ringer and voice volumes are more than adequate. -- High learning curve. When I first got the phone, I found that the procedures for navigating through the phone's menus and features were very different from any phone I've used in the past. Now that I'm used to the phone, it's not that bad, though I still find myself screwing up occasionally and getting annoyed. If you are a gadget-phobe, however, you may find this phone frustrating. -- Voice activated calling is useless. I was excited when I found out this phone had it. I almost never talk on my phone in the car (I swear!) but I thought this feature would be great for those rare times when I need to make a call. However, it's not just like you can press one button, say "Call home" and voila. You have to navigate through a menu system to get to the place where it will listen for your command. It's really no easier than just navigating through your address book and dialing the number that way. Conclusion Overall I love this phone, and highly recommend it, especially if you can get it for free with a wireless plan. It really is a very full-featured phone, with very few problems. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 7663 Audiovox CDM9100 86818 2002/6/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light 2 way duplex speakerphone thin gps ready stellar sonicsreception voice activated dialing mediocre user interface lacks the panache of other verizon phones The Bottom LineThis phone does it well -- it sounds great, is loaded w/features, and you never get a dropped call. Full Review COSMETICS Although it's sleek, thin and capable of faceplate replacement, it still lacks the panache of other Verizon phones currently on the market. For cell owners who prefer a non-flip style phone, this is acceptably aesthetically pleasing. It's too bad, however, it doesn't have the appearance of the Samsung SCH-N300, which is a real eye grabber. USER INTERFACE (UI) Where Audiovox continues to drop the ball is in their execution of a user interface. Although simply laid out, it's still a product of an engineer at the plant, and not an actual user. Audiovox may want to take Nokia's lead in this department and come up w/a usable interface that's idiot proof. I will say, however, that its UI isn't any better than the LGIC 510, which seems to be equally difficult to use. SONICS AND RECEPTION This is where this baby shines. Without exaggeration, the sound quality on this phone, as evidenced by my friends and family who serve as guinea pigs in my perpetual cell phone experiment, is as good if not better than a landline. It's crystal clear to the point where it's indistinguishable from a landline connection. Also, its reception (RF) is solid. I have not had one dropped call, and I've been able to retain a signal in traditionally weak signal areas of the DC metro area. EXTRA FEATURES Compared to its immediate predecessor, the CDM 9100, Audiovox has made some significant improvements. The speakerphone is truly 2-way duplex. The 1 button web access key is misleading. This button simply puts you into a submenu for the internet, without directly accessing it on one key stroke. Consider it to be a shortcut key, rather than a 1 button access key. For those of you who want to use this phone as a laptop/PDA modem, then you've picked the right phone. It's 1XRTT compatible. One of the compelling reasons I purchased this phone is because it's equipped w/GPS location capability. This means that if I'm stuck on BF Highway 101, and have no clue where I am exactly, the phone is capable of broadcasting my location to an emergency operator to an accuracy of within 30 feet. This invaluable feature should give comfort to husbands/boyfriends who want to ensure the safety of their spouses when traveling. OVERALL It's a good looking phone, with outstanding sound quality and reception. However, it doesn't have the panache of other current, Verizon phones like the Motorola V60c or the Samsung SCH-N300. For sonics, reception, and features it gets 5 stars. For appearance, 4 stars. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86817 2000/5/31 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 simple no voice dialing anymore The Bottom Linenice, but get the 9155 now. Full Review I'm not going to repeat anything that user jarhead has already mentioned. his comment is very thorough. wanted to mention a couple of things. you can get a nice belt clip for this phone in www.verizonwireless.com search under 'equipment, accessories, then select 9100 from the audiovox drop down list. it's 14.99 but well worth it. basically, it has a clip that screws on to the back (no more having to bulk up your phone w/ a sleeved case), and comes w/ your standard button release belt clip. also, IT DOES NOT HAVE VOICE DIALING. I miss this feature. It helped a lot when I was driving. lastly, you have one way speaker feature by clicking on the v+ button. one way meaning that you can only listen. this is handy only for listening to your voicemail. I think they just released the 9155 and don't even make the 9100 any more. that has 2 way speakerphone, and yes, voicedialing! check this out for 9155 from verizonwireless website: Express Network capable with Mobile Office Kit CDMA Data Capable 4.1 Openwave Web Browser Two Way Text Message Capable TTY Compatible Built-in Speakerphone (two-way) Voice Activated dialing 7 line, high resolution LCD display 99 alpha/297 numeric entries in Phonebook 4 Ring Tones and 11 Melody Ringers with vibrating alert Multilingual (English/Spanish/ French/Portuguese) User Changeable faceplates OTA Capable Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85 86816 2002/8/25 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 no comment confusing low capabilities audiovox has been bought out by kyocera The Bottom LineMy final recommendation on the Audiovox CDM9100 is to skip it and find better (Because there is!). Full Review I had this Audiovox phone for about 6 months before I went running back to the store with my piggy bank in hand trying to find a true quality phone. If you are a person that's looking for simply a "phone," this is it. When someone calls, it rings. When you dial, it calls. Other than that, the phone is -sorry to say- a disappointment. There is low capability marked all over the place (no alarm clock, calculator, countdown timer, games, stopwatch, corny ring tones, no computer connectivity, no 5-Line full bitmap display, no contact list with multiple listings per entry, etc.). Recently, the increasingly popular Kyocera Corp bought out Audiovox. This means that the phone will no longer be mass-produced in the years to come (it is, to say, a dying breed). If you are looking for a phone to fit today's lifestyle, I must refer you to the Kyocera 2235**. Currently, I own the phone and must say it is the best on the market today. It is lightweight and jam-packed with so many capabilities in one cool package. The only thing that attracted me to the Audiovox was the appearance, which I must also say, is a bit deceiving. If you would like to change the faceplate, you must take the entire phone back to the store, have them unscrew the current faceplate, and screw the new one back in. Save the gas money to the store and buy a phone with instant access to changing the faceplate whenever your mood changes! Overall, on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being tops), I would have to give the Audiovox CDM9100 a 4. Folks...."There's Better Out there!" **Check out my CoMpLeTe review on the Kyocera 2235 Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $69.99 86815 2000/3/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life large screen size durable bad shape middle of the road reception The Bottom LineIf you need a phone, but have a tight budget, the Audiovox 9100 is a good choice to go with Full Review The Audiovox 9100 wireless phone is a good way to keep in touch without emptying your wallet. With a low $100 pricetag, the 9100 is a very attractive model handset for the beginner to get into, without spending a lot of money. The handset may be a little large, but the readily available accessories, such as a swivel-clip leather case, make it easy to carry around with you. The backlit keypad makes it easy to see, and the large screen allows you easily see the numbers you are dailing making sure you're dialing the correct number and easily see phonebook entries. This handset also has different faceplates available. I've seen a blue, red, and an "American Flag" faceplate, but I'm sure others either are, or will soon be, available for the handset. All the other "standard" accessories are available for it, car adapter, headsets, etc.. Reception is good with this handset, it won't rank up with the high end handsets, but compated to the others in its price range, its a great deal. Sound quality is good with the handset, and microphone quality is also pretty good. I'd recommend the Audiovox 9100 handset to anyone who would like to either replace an existing handset, or to get something new, without breaking the bank. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86814 2002/4/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 loud ringer battery life easy to use great sound awkward size 1 way speaker 9100 only faceplates hard to change The Bottom LineI can't say enough good about this phone. As long as you're not stuck on flip phones and want a good cheap reliable phone give this one a serious look. Full Review Audiovox has done quite well with these 3 new phones. I had a chance to test the 9100 about a year ago before it was being released, I've only played with the 9150 (the 1xRTT version of the 9100), and I am now testing the 9155GPX (same as the 9150 with GPS in it for E-911 use). To start off these phones look great. They resemble the previous 9000 model but are smaller and lighter. They also come with faceplates that you can change to personalize your phone. They are somewhat lighter than any previous model. You can put this phone in a pocket without feeling uncomfortable, although you will not forget it is there. The menu remains similar to previous Audiovox phones made by Toshiba (3000, 4000, 4500, 9000), with little or no difference. Any user who is used to one of these phones will easily transition to the 91XX model phones, but new users will find the menu simple enough to adapt quickly. The phones have a 4 way navigation key set in the middle of the phone, with the right side accessing the menu, the left side accessing the phone book, and the up and down arrows controlling the headset/speaker volume. There are also 2 soft keys that correspond to words at the bottom of the screen. From idle these buttons correspond to redial on the left, and web on the right. These will change as you use the phone in different ways. The 9100 comes with a 1 way speaker built into the phone. 1 way speaker means that you can hear without holding the phone up to your ear, but you must still speak into the microphone. This I found few uses for, in fact the only use that I found during a call was that it made it easier to listen to voicemail, especially when driving. For the newer 9150 model Audiovox saw the benefits of the 2 way speaker phone, and found a way to fit it into the future models, so both the 9150 and 9155 GPX have 2 way speakers. A big positive about having this speaker is that the phone rings through it. The 15 available ring tones sound great through the external speaker, and the volume is definitely loud enough for people who may use the phone in a somewhat loud environment (This is something that I complain about with just about every phone I use, so I was very happy with the ring through the speaker!). On the other hand, if you need the phone to be silent, it also comes with a vibrate option, so it provides the best of both worlds... turn the volume up when in loud areas and don't worry about not hearing it ring, or when you can't have your phone ring, put it on vibrate and still get your calls. I can't stress how happy I was with this ringer... I actually found myself turning the ring volume down. I have never had to do this. The battery life for these phones is a bit above average. I am a very heavy cellular user, I can wear batteries down multiple times a day, and this one I was happy with. At some times I found myself charging on the way home, but only really needing to charge at night. This also makes me very happy. So far we have a phone with a great ringer and great battery... it gets even better. The phone works extremely well, even in poor signal areas. Many times throughout the day I find myself in an area where I may have only 1 bar of signal, and sometimes no bars whatsoever. With 1 bar of signal I found sending and receiving calls and SMS messages no problem. I did notice a bit of a delay receiving SMS messages when there were no bars of signal, but to my surprise I was still able to send calls and SMS messages, so apparently the signal strength indicator is not quite accurate, but it's better to be off in this manner, rather than showing good signal when it really is only marginal. Now on the topic of signal strength there is one little footnote. The antenna on this phone is overly large. The antenna is actually longer than the phone... I really see no need for this, when it is pulled out it really reminds me of a fishing pole. Well, under normal circumstances there is almost no need to pull the antenna out, but it is worth noting. Speaking of SMS messages... I found the system very easy to use. Audiovox utilizes the T9 predictive text entry, which I have lately become a big fan of. It makes it easy to type whatever you have to say without having to press multiple buttons multiple times. You will also see nice little displays on the screen when you're sending your message (if that interests you..?) and you will also get a confirmation notice which is a nice touch. Whenever you send a message, a copy is saved in your outbox which you can always access just by pressing the envelope key. This also comes into use when you receive a message, you just hit the envelope, select inbox, and then select the message you want to read. Very simple and straightforward. That covers the over all usage of the phone... now on to something more important to many. The phonebook. The phonebook is just like that of any of the previous model Audiovoxes. I don't know why, but they continue to store the numbers in numeric order.. Speed dial 1 then 2, then 3. This really bothers me since I'm a Motorola freak, and I'm used to the phone book being in alphabetical order. You can only store 1 phone number per entry (still stuck on the Motorola thing), so being in numeric order you may be searching for quite some time before you come to the right number. Especially if you're like me and have no idea what number you store people at. You can search the phone book if you think this feature works for you. I've never had much luck with it, but I suppose if you hit search, then begin to type in the name you can pull up what you're looking for that way. To wrap it up... The difference between the 3 phones and which I would recommend to who. First of all, they are all CDMA phones, so AT&T is out, Voicestream is... any company that is not CDMA is out. The big companies you will see promoting these phones are Verizon, Alltel, and Sprint (At least in my area). The phone is Tri-Mode 800Dig/Analog and 1900 PCS. This allows you to take part in the National Plans that are offered, or Verizon's growing America's Choice Plan. So, depending on what you're looking for from your phone here is what I would recommend. To make it easy, if you want one of these phones immediately, the only one available is the 9100. The other 2 have not been released to the public yet. The only thing the other 2 will offer you is a quicker connection to the internet. This is not quicker or more advanced mobile web on the handset, but a quicker connection when using the phone as your modem for our computer. So if this is not you, the 9100 is fine (and will probably be much cheaper). Now the only difference between the 9150 and the 9155GPX is that the 9155 GPX offers a GPS service so that 911 dispatchers can use the GPS satellite systems to track the user (or at least the phone) within a couple feet of its exact location. This is something that the FCC is pushing for right now because 911 must rely to heavily on user description of where they are, and the lengthy process of the cellular provider tracking information on specific calls, which is very ineffective. It is the way of the future, but depending on what you need from your service you may not want to part with the extra $$$. I know I wouldn't. Understand this: THE GPS SYSTEM IS ONLY FOR 911 DISPATCHERS. THIS PHONE WILL NOT TELL YOU WHERE YOU ARE OR HELP YOU IF YOU ARE LOST. It may be possible in the future to have a setup where you can get directions based on where you are with an operator who can track you with the GPS system, but that's not available right now. Anyway, I think that covers it. If you have any other questions feel free to email me, or post the question in response to this review. 2 Thumbs up for each of these new Audiovox creations! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): NA 86813 2001/8/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light looks good excellent soundsignal quality small great battery life does not have voice dialing as opposed to cdm9000 The Bottom LineGreat phone. No unnecessary options that do nothing but add to the cost of the phone, and all the functions that I actually use. Full Review I had the Audiovox CDM9000 with Verizon for the past year, but unfortunately it got soaked in water and died a terrible death :( I really loved that phone, but since I had the option to upgrade my phone at the promotional price and since water damage to my phone was not covered by the warranty, I decided to try the CDM9100. First thing to mention about CDM9100 is that all the accessories for it are totally different than CDM 9000, which means that if you are planning to upgrade, you will need new car adapter(if you use it), and you won't be able to reuse the battery from CDM9000, the new battery is completely different. The only accessory that I was able to reuse was the headset (still the 2.5mm jack) LOOKS: The phone looks basically like the CDM9000, except it is silver in color, and you can change the faceplate to personalize it. Right now I was only able to find 5 basic colors for the faceplates, but I am sure that more will be available soon. It is also a bit smaller and lighter than CDM9000. The screen on CDM9100 is capable of more lines, and in my opinion is MUCH better than the one on CDM9000. The font is much cleaner, and there is support for up to seven lines of text. The phone is not as small as the clamshell-style phones like STARtec, but it is small and light enough that I almost forget that I am wearing it. SIGNAL: Just as good as CDM9000(which was great) ADDRESS BOOK: Capable of storing up to 99 numbers, which may be a problem for some, but it is plenty for me, especially since I can store both home and work numbers under the same memory address. There is also an option to store an e-mail address along with the 2 phone numbers. The address book supports the new T9 predictive input, which I personally find useless, but some people like it I guess. You can still search the address book alphabetically, or by keyword. Overall, very nicely done. WEB ACCESS AND TEXT MESSAGING: Never use it, so don't have a clue. BATTERY LIFE: Excellent with the standard 750 MAH battery, plus you can buy an extended 950 MAH battery to get even more time out of it, and it does not increase the size of the phone. I believe that the extended battery is third-party though, so it's at your own risk. My only gripe is that they apparently got rid of voice dialing on CDM9100, which is a bummer (it is also possible that I am just too stupid to figure out where they hid it ;P) However, I never did get it to work on CDM9000 with the headset, so it's not that big a deal for me. Overall, I think it is a great phone, it has all the options that I need, and none of the useless stuff like FM radio (Motorola v60c). I highly recommend it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86812 2002/2/11 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 almost everything is great faceplate difficulties 1 way speakerphone The Bottom LineFor the price you pay you get an excellent looking, feeling, and functioning phone that sounds excellent too! Do yourself a favor and go buy this phone! Full Review I recently received an AudioVox CDM-9100 and cell plan for my birthday. This is my first cell phone and plan. Although this is my first cell phone I have found it extremely easy to use. That which I haven't been able to figure out on the phone I can quickly find by looking in the manual. So far I have had the phone for about 2 months. This is just a great phone! FUNCTIONALITY I have heard all about the signature quality of AudioVox phones and I cannot contradict them! I have had nothing, but clear calls and excellent clarity. One of the great things about the CDM-9100 is that it is tri-mode, which means it will work on Digital 1900MHz and 800Mhz or 800Mhz Analog when digital isn't available. I am often in an area where digital service is not available and I really appreciate the fact that this phone works in all modes. Also you can set an alarm to go off when you change modes, which I think is great. There are a quick 2 beeps and you know whether you are in Digital or Analog. I have used Nokia phones and I don't really like their menu system, but I really enjoy the AudioVox system. There aren't dippy pictures that waste my time, I can see 4 menu options at once. In addition in the upper right hand corner of the screen the key code to get to the area of the menu that you in is shown. This is nice, when you access things often. I don't' even have to look at the screen to get to my call history - F41. I like to send short messages on my phone and with the T9 Text input capability you can write an entire Email in about 2 minutes as opposed to the old way where to write "write" you had to press - 9-777-444-8-33. With T9 all I have to press is 97483. One downside to writing messages is that they can only be 160 characters (letters, numbers, spaces, and symbols). The phonebook is easy to use as well. You can "address" each person so they have a unique number code (1-99), which makes looking they up in the phonebook VERY easy. I organized my phone with family in the 50's and friends in the 70's, 80's and 90's. You can also search the phonebook by putting in the first letter of someone's name. Another thing I like about the phone is that while you are talking to someone and want to take down a number you can put the speakerphone on and type the number into the phone. This number is saved and you can look at it when the call is over. Another helpful aspect of the phone is that with the ringer I will NEVER miss a call due to its volume. If I'm in a large crowd I will turn up the volume and I will ALWAYS hear it. I can also turn on the vibrator, but one of the biggest design flaws is that you cannot have the phone ring and vibrate. That does however make it easier to turn off the ringer and turn on the vibrator. It takes the two-second pushing of a single key to toggle the vibrator and ringer. There are "soft keys" which are two keys just below the screen that are really helpful. They let you pick other writing options besides the default and go to the symbol list when writing. And when navigating menus are great to have as well. I haven't used the browser on the phone because I don't want to pay for it, but they are used for that also. The actual buttons on the phone are quite pleasing to the touch. They seem very durable and one thing I really like is that if you accidentally press two or three at once for some reason they will not register on the phone. They buttons are not all bunched together, but evenly spaced and because of the size of the phone and buttons, I can operate the phone with one hand. And in digital mode I had operate it for a long time due to the battery life. In analog the phone will only hold a charge on standby for 15 hours, which is a little in convenient, but in digital modes 170 hours! AESTHETICS The CDM-9100 is a palm fitting professional looking phone. I have gotten many comments on how great my phone looks from colleges and friends. Also the screen resolution of the 9100 is so much nicer than the 4500. A friend of mine has a 4500 and it looks terrible. When I got the phone I was SHOCKED to see the size of the battery. It was so small and it makes Nokia batteries look like phones themselves. With the battery being so small the phone is the perfect size. I can talk for quite a while and still be comfortable. DURABILITY So far this phone has lived beyond my expectations. I have dropped it on three occasions, but two of the drops were onto carpet. The third, however, was onto a concrete floor from my hips (The fall wasn't cause by an accessory, I wasn't using one, but my clumsiness) which is a little over three feet and the phone works without a single problem. The phone itself feels strong as well. THE WEAK POINTS There are only a couple things, which I find poor about this phone. First off the speakerphone that I mentioned earlier is only one way. So you can hear who you are talking to, but they can't hear you. The only practical reason for this that I can think of is when you are taking down a number or with my cellular service carrier, Verizon Wireless, I can check and see how many minutes I have used and what my next bill will be (All by recording). Because AudioVox isn't too mainstream there aren't very many faceplates available, and because the 9100 is new even fewer are available. However they are available online for $20. The faceplate is fairly hard to remove in my opinion. You have to unscrew it, which is very simple and the tiny screw stays in the phone. After you unscrew the screw you have to take a quarter and turn it until the plate literally snaps off. The faceplate is fine, but because I took mine off there is a wear mark on the top of it from where you turn the quarter. Unlike Nokia phones this phone doesn't have any games, which is something I can definitely live without. CONCLUSION For a beginner or experienced cell phone user this is a great phone, that looks good and works like a charm. It doesn't have anything that is a waste - Everything included has a purpose. For the price that you pay this phone is unbeatable. UPDATE - I dropped the phone again, Still perfect! And a friend commented on how great the phone sounded when they used it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 89.99 7664 Audiovox Toshiba CDM 9500 CDMA2000 1X / AMPS Cellular Phone 86826 2004/5/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating2.0 speaker phone does not work as designed Good phone, but has major software flaws with wireless web application and email access. You cannot access many popular sites using this phone wireless web, including ebay. Also, there is a problem with how it access AOL's email system. You can get to your AOL email, but the phone will only display the first screen of the message. The other text disappear as you scroll down the message and you can't read the rest of the text. Verizon and Audiovox are finger pointing at each other and the consumer is stuck with a phone that doesn't function to spec. 86825 2004/12/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 excellent screen gets decent reception big compared to other flips pretty solid phone not flimsy limited gadget features ringers aren t loud limited battery pretty big compared to others This is a pretty good, middle of the road phone. I've had mine for about 5 months now and haven't had any problems. The battery isn't great, but there's not a lot that are. Won't blow you away with features, but the price is ok (what you'll pay on eBay anyways...) Its a little bigger than most flip phones, which can be a good or bad thing depending who you are. The menus take some getting used to, but they're easy to learn and easy to use once you learn them. When extended, the antenna (its as long as the phone) provides a good laugh. 86824 2004/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 reception looks voice quality screen standard battery sucks but beg for extended life bat ive had this phone for about 6 months and i have loved it. i have alltel service which is the best service in the US. the only complaint i have...or had was the battery. thanks to the guy at alltel i got a hookup with the extended life battery. 86823 2000/12/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 solid construction feels good to use great signal strength lack of side controls extra battery or headset required for 60 min day talk time The Bottom LineGreat phone for many. Tough, durable, and able to access web/email while on the go. The battery life is the trade off for the great color display. Full Review When I started writing this review I was listing all the features and describing everything like the others reviews here. But I got tired of the duplicity and decided to just highlight the unique things that I noticed. So, please read one other review to get the full scoop. First there was a little disagreement on the battery life. It maybe fine for a phone with a big color monitor, but I couldn't live with this phone if I hadn't purchased the extended life battery. The extended life battery came with a new cover so it integrates in with the phone while adding an additional 1/8" thickness out the back. If I only used my 3 minute "Hi honey, I'm coming home now" call, then the battery is no big deal. But on those days when I spend about 3 - 20min calls talking to clients, I have to plug in for a bit at home before going out to dinner if I want any evening use. I did find that if I plugged in the hands-free headset in and closed the phone (shutting off the color screen) then I had more than double the battery life. (Phone engineers, why don't you shut the screen off after un-use??? not just the backlight...) -- Ok, enough of the battery musings. Durability? Yes, definitely. After dropping it on to concrete from 6 feet more than once the phone still works like a champ. And I too like the construction of the hinge for the flip top, it has a solid feel and snap to it that makes it fun to use. Signal strength? Very good. I live where my providers signal strength is weak. My wife's phone always looses connection at home, but my trusty Audiovox CDM 9500 hangs on just enough and I can talk and rarely drop a call. Extra Features... As expected this phone has a good selection. This is what I found boring to re-list. Any spec sheet can tell you them. What I found useful was the alarm feature and the ability to change the Ringtone used for the alarm. I now use my phone for my alarm clock. See, I sleep sound and get used to the tone of my alarm after about a week. So, even a loud alarm doesn't work. I have finally found an Alarm that wakes me. When I really need to get up in the morning, I just change the ringtone for my Alarm on my phone, and the new sound catches my attention in the morning. I also like setting different tones for different callers, It is nice to know who is calling from 20 feet away. Whets negative about this phone? Besides the battery life, I have to really think. Oh yah. I set my phone to auto answer when I open it. But, if don't want to answer the phone for whatever reason, I have to let it keep ringing because to silence the ringer I would have to open it. So, side controls for volume would have been the icing on the cake of this great phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86822 2000/3/4 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 display easy to read display caller info with phone closed poor functions design battery life excessive key entries needed voicemail access The Bottom LineI would not buy this again: marginal durability, poor battery life, poor feature designs, Overpriced, difficult to use. Full Review My Nokia that was over 5 years old was run over by a truck, I was no longer able to read the display so I had to replace the phone. After using the phone for a short time it seems to have been overpriced and lacking in multiple areas: First encounter was the constant need to keep recharging the battery. My old phone only had to be recharged about once a week, the Toshiba needs to be recharged at least once a day. This has forced me to carry a charger in my pocket, the good thing is that the contacts fold down to make it more portable. Next I attempted to use the features of the phone, to find out that everything seems to take multiple steps to use. Gone is the single key and quick look up functions I had been used to. I have found the control keys and phone difficult to use, because of the poor layout and phone application design. I wanted to program the phone for one key voicemail, only to find out that the phone is not capable of doing it in a single calling step. The codes available force you to have to initiate the call, wait to hear it answered, then initiate the remainder of the string to enter the voice mail system. Since it only allows you to enter back to back pauses, nor does it offer a pause function that waits until the number is answered, nor does it offer an extended pause to assure that the number is dialed and answered; it forces you to dial your voice mail in two parts. The address book is also lacking the ability to store address information, something that helps when you have similar names or business numbers that one is saving in the phone. The answer with flip open feature had to be turned off, as it resulted in multiple calls being hung up. Attempts to grab the phone would cause the phone to try and answer and then hang up, even though I had not flipped the phone open. The backlight does not stay lit long enough to be useful The car charger cord was defective from the box, and I was almost unable to remove the cord from the phone due to the defect. The menu layouts do not seem to consider what features are used more frequently, resulting in an additional demand for scrolling to the options that I want to use. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 179Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must! 86821 2000/4/27 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 easy buttons solid construction big bright screen intuitive operation a little thick no side buttons The Bottom LineA phone worth committing to because it performs today's best technology excellently, and will serve you well until major advancements arrive and prove themselves. Full Review You are reading the words of someone who has had virtually every new wireless device that's come down the pike, so believe me, I know what's out there----and I feel comfortable saying that this phone is the foundation, a solid beachhead for the next generation. I mean that it's not just another attempt, or a half-baked effort to make a little progress. This phone represents a commitment to be the best at this important time in cell phone technology---right before true and complete smart phones are here for real. I had the Kycera 7135, and finally gave up on it (read my epinion review) when Kyocera demanded I give them $700 UP FRONT before they would provide warranty service. That phone was the leading edge of smartphone techology, and it is a dismal failure. So, you go one step back and you find the best phone at the end of the NON-SMARTPHONE GENERATION, and this is the phone I belive in. It is not an organizer and does not have a Palm OS. What it has is: -an amazing big colorful screen -a finally designed case that opens and closes like an expensive car door -solid, tactile buttons -back lighting on every key that matters -easy and fast access to the web -vivid intuitive operating system making very good use of soft keys -decent battery life, excellent considering the bright, big screen -very well thought out navigation, with great buttons that give you instant control over ring/vibrate, voice mail, speaker phone and voice-command. There are two negatives. First, there are no side controls, which is really a big flaw because you cannot control anything related to a call in progress without taking the phone away from your ear . For example, you can't control the headset volume while you are talking or listening. I'm always amazed that these engineers always have one fatal flaw that you would think had been instantly recognized by them or anyone who tested the phone. Second, the phone is a bit thick, not so much that you'd avoid it, but 1/4-3/8 inch shaved off would have made it perfect. The actual size of the phone is wonderful---not a little bitty thing like the Motorola 60 series, but a serious device that looks and feels like it belongs in the hands of a professional. Battery life, complained about by other reviewers, is no problem. I use the phone extensively, over 1000 minutes a month, and have never run out of juice during a day. And you can always carry an extra battery, although you can't charge it outside of the phone, another silly oversight. Voice activated dialing is pefect, easy to program, although you do have to input the voice, then go find the name to attach it to, an extra step you wouldn't think is necesary, but no big deal. Speaker phone is fine for office-type environments where you can hear easily. The antenna is great because the stub is totally solid, unlike the Motorolas, which constantly break off. You can extend the 9500 antenna and it is well-sprung and secure, but I've never noticed a difference, so I don't ever extend it. I think this is a professional device which is the best of its breed. I'm sure I'll replace it within 6 months as the new Nokias and Sony Erricson's start arriving, but especially for those who buy something because it works well and they keep it a long time, this is the phone worth committing to. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149 86820 2003/3/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 ringers reception lightweight screen speaker no outer buttons battery life long phone The Bottom LineDefinitely recommend to everyone who wants a phone with great clarity and is full of features. Again I have to say the large display is amazing to look at! Full Review I've had the phone for over two weeks and it's simply perfect. I have had countless cell phones, over 12 in the past two years. The phone incorporates the features and qualities of all twelve. To top it off, its been the only phone to work in my neighborhood where there is a hole in Verizon's network. Can you believe it? I get a signal where there's a hole in the network coverage. The phone has the sound quality of the LG-510 but better, the speaker phone of Motorola 270c (maybe not as clear), and the LG 4400 color screen, but its brighter and much larger. The phone also has a great GPS feature, the ringers sound unblievable, the menus work super fast, and the voice dial is the best yet, of all the phones out there. Currently Verizon offers three color flip phones: LG 4400, Audiovox 9500, and the Motorola 720. I've used the LG and Audiovox 9500. I orignally started with the LG but I took it back to exchange for the Audiovox 9500. LG Comparison: The LG has a great screen and longer battery life with a talk time of three hours; the outer lcd display was awesome (very large and you can change the backlighting color); and the buttons on the LG has a better feel since they were made out of rubber. The LG is also smaller and more compact. However, the ringers always sounded distorted to me, and the inside screen is on the small side. The LG also doesn't have the speakerphone like the 9500. However, if you like a more compact phone go LG. Both phones wieghed the same, I couldn't tell a difference. Both screens are super sharp and the menus are easy to use. However, when it came time to the final choice I had to go with the phone that had the speakerphone, the large display which looks simply astonishing, and the phone that has the sturdiest feel. QUICK NOTES: Something everyone should note is with almost all color phones right now, battery life is going to be short. The LG does have better battery life than the 9500, however the 9500 has a much bigger and brighter screen which leads me to assume it sucks up more battery power. However, I find the battery to be pretty good, it lasts me all day during the week from 7 am to 9pm. I make about 7-15 calls a day, about five minutes each, and I check my mail a few times daily. On the weekends, when I use a lot of my unlimited minutes I plug in the extended battery I bought. The extended battery lasts me all weekend, with a good three hours of talk time, usually a little more than three hours. The extended battery doesn't add much depth to the phone at all, only about 1/8". The phone has the sturdiest feel to it, compared to all flip phones Verizon has to offer. The hinge is solid and clicks when you close it with no movement. The phone doesn't feel flimsy like the moto. T720. The LG felt very sturdy, still not as solid as the 9500. I trust that if the phone ever fell it would be fine, the cover also doesn't scratch so easily as my old LG-510 did. PROS: (IN A NUT SHELL) -BEST DISPLAY on the Market -Speaker Phone (Not the greatest in noisey environments) -Reception -Ability to hold signal in weak areas -External Caller ID -Easy Menus -Menus move fast -Simple User Interface -100 Voice Dial Entry's -Voice Dial works perfect, no cinks -Great easy to use phone book -Calendar -Ringers are much better than any other phone. (When I'm at work and my phone rings, people think its a radio somewhere in the office.) CONS: (Few cons, that really are insignificant) -No external buttons to "mute" calls -Longer then most flip phones by .2" -Speaker Phone isn't as good as the 270c but still works great -Battery life (that can be fxed by purchasing the extended battery) In the end, the phone is unbeatable in my book; for right now. I"ve used so many phones over the past two years, and my search has ended. I've had the: Kyocera 2035a, Nokia 5185, Motorola V120, Moto. 270c, 2 Star Tac 7867s, Timeport 8767, 2 LG TM-510s, LG-V1x, Samsung n150, Samsung t300, LG 4400. (I've recieved these phones from work and I bought a few on my own for me and my wife.) Verizon's customer service has been rough for me, and to stay with them they gave me a $100 credit on my account, I also recieved a $100 rebate on the phone, and the phone cost $150. So the phone was free and I got $50. I also got there current online promotion and was able to get a free extra battery and leather case. I paid an additional $15, and they gave me a free extended battery instead of the standard battery. *******READ COMMENT SECTION FOR REVIEW UPDATES******** *******POST ANY QUESTIONS***************************** I Actually timed the talk time I recieved for both phones and they are as follows: Standard Battery I got: 93-100 minutes (1 Bar = 31 minutes) (When signal was low I got up 93 minutes. When I had a good signal I got better battery time) Extended Battery I got: 175 minutes - 185 minutes (3 Bars total, 1 Bar = 55 minutes) REMEMBER: Altering Settings a little bit can also really improve battery performace. (ie. Put power save mode to "1 minute") Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): -50.00 86819 2000/8/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 nice color screen lack of software for color screen 95 minute talk time The Bottom LineUnless you're dying for cheap color, there are better phones than this one. Full Review The Audiovox CDM-9500 (known as 9500 throughout the rest of the review) is an OK phone. It has nothing special about it, nothing that makes it stand out in an already crowded cell phone market. And to compound this, the phone has some serious issues to boot. This is the phone that my company issued me after I snapped my Motorola StarTac in half. No, don't be afraid, I was not mad, I had the StarTac cradled between my ear and shoulder (don't do that) and it snapped in two. Bad Steve! I have been using this phone extensively for more than six months. And with my heavy business traveling in the first five of these six months, I have run an average of 3200 minutes through the phone each month. Now that's a lot of phone usage! Hardware The 9500 is a flip phone that errs on the side of being thicker than most. The marketing fluff lists the phone as 1 inch thick, but it does "grow" thicker than this, more to the growing part later. The 9500 has a brilliant color screen, which I think is the best thing about the phone. But, the built-in software has nothing to actually show off the screen and worse yet, my provider Verizon does not give out anything free to show off the screen, more on this in the software section though. The screen is able to show 65k colors, but in direct sunlight the screen borders on useless. I have problems when I use this phone outdoors because it is a bit difficult to see in direct sunlight. There is also a small LCD window on the outside of the phone that serves to show time/date and also caller ID when the phone rings. The phone itself is a solid performer. The RF performance of the phone is above average and the phone survives the RF hell that my house creates - if a phone can work in my house, then it is a good RF performer. The antenna is something that needs to be mentioned. When free phones like my have a short half inch stub for an antenna and performs beautifully, how come the 9500 has to have an antenna that is a good six and a half inches when extended? That is the first thing that anyone notices about the 9500 is that the antenna is so long. Just because I am used to it, I extend the antenna whenever I answer my phone or make a call. I really do not think that the antenna makes that much of a difference though. I may just leave it hidden from now on. The phone is a 1XRTT/CDMA phone. For all non-cellphone types out there this means that the phone is able to operate on CDMA networks like Verizon, AllTel and SprintPCS. Currently, I believe the phone is only offered through Verizon (under the Audiovox brand name) and Alltel (under the Toshiba brand name). The 1XRTT (1 x Radio Transmission Technology) portion means that this phone is able to operate at high speeds for data needs. One should be able to get between 40-60kbps transfer speeds (about 5 times faster than dialup modems). If you get the data cable kit from Verizon to hook the 9500 to your laptop, you'll be able to get high speed Internet access through your phone in areas that support 1XRTT (meaning metropolitan areas, not rural areas). The 9500 has your standard 2.5" headset jack on the side of the unit, it is on the flipping part of the phone though. I still don't understand why they placed the headset jack on the flipping part of the phone, it just feels weird if I have a headset connected and I have to flip open the phone. The phone also has speaker phone capabilities, which work if the environment is not too noisy and has come in handy quiet a few times. Now, here are the issues that I have with the phone. First, the keypad is flush with the phone. Therefore it is very hard to dial the phone without directly looking at the keypad. Where as with my R225m I can just feel around and find the right keys, and then work from there. Second, there is no side rocker. I love side rockers, yes the R225m doesn't have one either, but my R225m was free! The side rocker lets me change the volume of the ring when I am not on a call and lets me change the volume of the call without having to take the phone away from my ear. With the 9500, I have to not only remove the phone from my ear to change the volume, but the phone insists on pulling up the speaker phone volume also when I push the up/down arrow to change the call volume. Third, the battery that is included stinks. I make a lot of calls during the day and the included battery does not last me even half the day. I had to go out and get another $60 high capacity battery to get me through the day. The default battery is a measly 650mah battery, the extend life battery is a better 1050mah battery. The extend battery though is thick and comes with its own cover. This makes an already thick phone "grow" in thickness to about an inch and a quarter or so. That makes for a huge bulge in ones pants if they don't use the holster, and it makes for a big bump on a belt if you do use the bulky holster. Software The built-in software does what a phone needs to do and that is it. The use of the color screen is little to none. Sure there are a few (three, I think) colorful backgrounds, but after that the color is really not used. There are no frills like games that come on the phone by default because Verizon wants to make money on that stuff and forces me to pay through their "Get It Now" program to buy games to play on the phone. I have not bought a single game, nor will I because I have my Palm Tungsten T and also because I think it is ridiculous not to have even one free game on a color phone. The phone comes with a massive phonebook that can accommodate 500 phone book entries. Each entry can have up to 5 phone numbers and 3 email address associated with it. The phone also features T9 predictive text, which comes in handy when sending text messages around. There is no AOL Instant Messenger client built-in though, which is disappointing. But I am glad that the SMS facilities are not as bad as the SprintPCS SMS facilities. There are also facilities for calendaring, surfing the web (who would do that on a tiny screen though?), and downloading backgrounds and ring tones. This is mostly standard fare stuff when it comes to basic cellphones anyways. There is nothing too special here. Again, the phone is a no frills phone and the software itself follows that directive. That is where I come to the bewilderment of why there is a battery draining color screen on this phone if it is so basic. If it meant that I could get another hour or two of talk time on the phone if I didn't have the color screen, I would have been happy to forgo the color screen. Final Verdict The Audiovox CDM-9500 sells for $49.99 on Verizon's website. Is it worth the money? Not really because you have to keep in mind that an extra battery (extra $60) is needed to get past this phones measly 95 minutes of talk time per charge. This is a basic phone that just happened to be blessed with a nice color screen. Everything else is standard fare and ho-hum. It is not worth the money when the $19.99 Motorola V120e offers all the same capabilities and also gives 206 minutes of talk time. If you want cheap color, this maybe the phone for you, but in the end it will cost you a bit more to get the actual performance of a cheaper monochrome phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 7665 Audiovox CDM135 86835 2005/10/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 free if you think that s a pro bad reception very low on options ugly interface low ringer Had this phone with my verizon plan cause it was a free phone.Really regretted taking this phone cause if i wanted to change the phone then i would have to renew the contract.The battery life is really low and i had to put this phone on constant charge all the time.The ringer was inaudable so i had it mostly on vibration.Very limited options and ugly interface.Bad reception.My calls usually went to voice mail even though my phone was on.I'm sure there are better free phones out there.When my plan expired i changed phones and put this phone back in the box FOREVER.DONT GET THIS PHONE! 86834 2000/3/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 semi small cheap semi lightweight not reliable The Bottom LineDon't bother with this phone!!! Full Review I received this phone for free with service signup. However, after a week of owning it, the ringer mode would every now and then (and without me touching the damn thing!) switch to vibrate. Which caused me to miss some very important calls. Then a month later, the phone all by itself would heat up and the battery power would drain within 10 minutes. I thought this was just a bad phone, but after talking to other cdm135 owners (it's a common first phone), they had similar experiences. Bottomline: do yourself a favor and spend a little extra $$ to get a phone that will work. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free 86833 2000/5/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 attractive styling light well made small ringer volume inadequate connectivity not the best i ve seen The Bottom LineThe Audiovox CDM-135 is a good phone in most respects, but the weak ringer is a real problem, at least for me. Full Review I have one of these nifty little "mini phones" neatly packed away in its box after being used for less than a week. Not to be unfair, the CDM-135 is as good a phone as most people could want in most respects. It's easy to program and use, call quality is more than adequate, it's web enabled for those who care about such things, and it features all the standard bells and whistles normally found on phones in this price range. (MSRP $199) However, I ended up packing mine away and opting for the CDM-9000, also from Audiovox, for one very compelling reason. While I really like the 135, you can't hear the damn thing ring! Standard ring tones aren't very loud to say the least, and melody tones are practically inaudible even at maximum volume. Yes, it has a vibrate function, but that's not strong enough to be a real attention getter, either. The CDM-135's overall quality requires that I give it a high rating, but the coolest phone in the world isn't of much use if you don't know when somebody's calling you, and for that reason, and that reason alone, I can't recommend this otherwise very nice little phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): $49.95 86832 2000/12/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 well rounded economical compact none The Bottom LineSolid performer Full Review I had made up my mind to buy this, but the reviews here about the volume of the ring bothered me. Nonetheless, I went ahead with the purchase, and was pleased. The sound is not super loud, but is more than enough for any average user. I have found that if you set the ringer tone to 'Symphony no. 5', the sound clearly comes across even over a loud car stereo. All other phone features are robust of course. Fits well in hand, Very light, nice form factor. I am a happy camper, and am saving my money for a future palm-PDA combination. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 86831 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features light weight small size good battery life limited selection of accessories available could ring louder The Bottom LineOverall, I love this little phone. Easy to carry and use. If you NEED a phone to ring loud, shop around. Full Review When we upgraded from our old analog service and Motorola Piper "flip" phone, I never realized how much nicer the new digital phones were. Audiovox has produced a very nice product here. This phone is small, which is nice, but even more importantly, it's very light. You don't even notice this phone when you take it with you. It has some nice features too. I like the built-in vibrate alert (on some phones, you have to buy a special battery for this). I also like the red LED on top that flashes when a call comes in. It's handy if you turn the phone to "silent". It has very good battery life, even with it's thinnest battery. It seems to hold a signal well where I live too. Another review I read on here about this phone stated that the ringer isn't loud enough to be usable. While I agree it should be louder, I think in most situations, it's fine. I guess if you're frequently in noisy places, or drive a convertable, it could be a problem. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 w/service 86830 2000/4/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life perfect size excellent call quality text messaging archaic phone book setup vibrating ringer a little weak not enough ringer options The Bottom LineIf you want a dependable phone that is durable and light, this is it. Full Review Prior to purchasing the Audiovox CDM135, I owned a Motorola V series 8160. I paid $425 for the motorola, thinking it was the best cell phone on the market. I could not have been more wrong! I have never had more dropped calls or weak signals before in my life! I originally thought the weak signal was because of my provider, Verizon, but it was not. It was the phone. After owning the 8160 for less than a year, I began having mechanical problems with it. The area on the phone where it shows you your signal strength, battery life, and voice mail notification went blank for no reason one day, and never came back. That's when I began my search for a "new" phone. Fearing that I would again be burned by purchasing another big ticketed phone, I decided to buy a used phone. I did some research and found the Audiovox CDM135. I bought it online for a pretty good price ($35). My first reaction to the phone was WOW! After using a $425 phone for 8 months and having nothing but problems, the extremely inexpensive phone has been a God send. The call quality is great, the phone rarely has to roam, and as far as I can remember, I have not had a dropped call. I once had the phone on for over 24 hours without charging it, made several calls, and the battery still was not dead (the Motorola doesn't last half as long and seems to "roam" at least 3 - 5 times a day). I wish I had found this phone earlier. It would have saved me almost $400! My complaints are few. One of the few things I liked about the Motorola was the phone book. It stored up to 100 entries on it and you would be able to save up to 5 numbers on each entry, versus the Audiovox which holds up to 99 entries, with only 1 number per entry. You also don't have any "smart buttons" to get to the phone book on the Audiovox. You have to hit the menu button, then hit phone book, then decide how you want the phone book accessed i.e. by name, or location. Another downside of this phone is the ringer. First the vibrating ringer. It is a little weak. Also, the "ringing" ringers are few and far between. Giving credit to Audiovox, this is an older phone and at the time, the available ringers on this phone were about all that was available. Even the ringers on this phone beat Motorola, who to this day have the same boring ringers that they have had since digital phones hit the market (they still have the ringer from the analog days programmed in their phone!). Overall, I would recomend not just this phone, but Audiovox phones in general. They truly seem to have their act together! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 35.00 86829 2000/12/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 loaded with options light weight nice size display can t lock keys to prevent accidental dialing ringer not loud enough The Bottom LineGood phone at a good price. There's no reason not to buy it. Full Review To be honest, the only reason why I bought this phone was because it was offered with my cell phone plan for free after rebate. For a "free" phone, I think the Audiovox-135 is pretty darn good. It has some good features like vibrating-alert and a good caller ID system. The clarity of my conversations have been very good as well, and even in areas with low reception, I have been able to carry on a conversation without a problem. I don't know if that is because of my plan carrier, or the phone, but I thought it would be nice to mention nonetheless. I really like the fact that it is lightweight--I can slip it into my pocket without feeling bulky like the Nokia I used to have before this. Now that New York has hands-free while driving laws, I have purchased a hands free device which plugs into the jack in the phone, and it works pretty well. The battery-life is decent as well. Not great, but decent. With respect to durability, I have dropped it once on an asphalt parking lot, and it stood up fine without any problems at all. Now the cons-- the ringer needs to be louder, plain and simple. If it's in my pocket, I can't hear it, so I need to use the vibrating alert. Even in the car with music on, I have almost missed calls. Also, I have yet to find a way to lock the keypad. There is some feature that asks for a password, but I can't figure it out yet. I just want something where I need to punch in a key or two and unlock the phone because in the 3 months I have had the phone, I have made 2 accidental calls with the phone in my pocket. Despite these shortcomings, this is a fine phone. I would recommend it to a friend if they were interested. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0 (rebate) 86828 2003/5/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight fairly rugged good call quality good price no key lock to prevent accidental calls unintuitive web navigation The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a solid digital phone and aren't concerned too much about web access, then this phone is a great buy. Full Review This phone is small enough to fit easily into almost anywhere, but not so small as to make it difficult to use when you would like to make a call. The screen is large enough to give you plenty of information (date and time on digital networks, voicemail alerts, missed call information, web access if you want it). The phone itself is pretty rugged and I have knocked it around quite a bit and found that it has continued to work without any problems. The only thing that has happened to the phone is that during one drop a small crack appeared in the view screen The keys are easy to read and are responsive to the touch. I do not find myself often dialing the wrong numbers or having to delete accidental numbers while I am dialing. One very big problem I have found with the phone is that there is no key lock. I often have the phone in my pocket and almost everytime I pull it out and it has dialed some nonsense number or connected to the web. I never wanted the web access and I finally had to call Verizon and have them shut it off so I wasn't charged when I logged on. I explained the problem to them and they said that it happens fairly often - you would think that would tell Audiovox to put a key lock on the phone. There are plenty of other options on the phone, even if the Key Lock option is missing. You can change the ringer type and volume, change the volume of your key punches, enter tons of phone numbers, track your missed calls, dialed calls and answered calls. The missed call manager is a bit odd to use. When you miss a call, the screen will tell you (eg. "1 missed call") and to see what the call was you have to cancel out of that screen and go into your phone log, find which missed call it is, then punch that one so the information about the call comes up (phone number, time of call, etc...). I have voicemail so I don't bother with trying to figure out missed calls, if it is that important they will leave a message and I will get back to them. But the weird way to find out the information about a missed call is annoying since I am naturally curious to see who has called me in the past. The phone is web enabled if you can stand using it. I received a three month trial with the phone when I got it and I probably tried using the web access 2 or 3 times. I just could stand using it. The screen does have space, but for web information, you are constantly scrolling to read more and the navigation while on the web is not always that easy. You can use yahoo messenger or other messenger services, but again, very hard to navigate and who wants to sit there trying to figure out which keys to press to get the right text. I wouldn't suggest this phone for someone who is looking for a phone just because it is web enabled. Call quality on the phone is great, especially in areas of digital coverage. Without the digital coverage, quality is fair, but better than the average cell phone. I find myself using the this phone more often than my home phone while I am at home because the quality is comprable and I have strong digital coverage at the house. For those worried about radiation waves...there is an antenna that extends out from the phone and away from your head. Much better than those phones with the built in phones. ************ 2/9/02 Update I have found that there is a key lock on this phone. If you hold down the "#" key it will go into key lock mode. To get out of Key Lock you have to enter your password, which is the last 4 digits of your phone number. You can also put the phone into 'manner' mode which will cause it to vibrate when there is a call, instead of ringing. You can do this by holding down the "*" key. To put it back to the normal ring mode, just hold down the "*" again. --- Other Cell Phones I have reviewed: LG VX4400 - Nokia 5180 - Motorola V120c - Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 86827 2002/5/29 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 thin simple to use has what i want lacking some features that i don t really need The Bottom LineIf you're looking for something reliable, simple and cheap.. this phone's for you :) Full Review Last year on my bday, I got my first cell phone :) It was only to be used in emergencies, but of course that policy has changed since I got it. My parents bought me the Audiovox CDM135 b/c it came with the plan they signed up for. Now some people would say this phone is outdated. Those are the same people that are always buying the newest and the best and the smallest cell phones. I, however, think this phone is perfect for me. I don't know much about Cell Phones, but I think that each phone goes with only 1 particular service. Well I use Verizon (Can you hear me now?) I have no real plan, I just pay 10cents per minute, 15cents during peak times, and that's it. That works for me. My total bill is never more than 20 to 25 dollars. The Look It's just a simple gray/black phone with buttons. Nothing special. You can see the picture above. You cannot buy flashy covers for it.. but I think that's great! It's cheaper :) and the entire phone is nice and thin. Not bulky like a lot of phones I see. The Screen The screen is very easy to read. You've got your signal indicator in the upper left, your battery indicator in the upper right, menu button bottom left and mail button bottom right. In the center of the top there is an indicator to show if you're phone is calling, or if it's hung up. It also indicates if you are out of you cannot make a call (due to low signal or something like that). Next to the mail button, there is an image to show whether your phone is on ring/silent/vibrate. This is useful so you don't have to look at your settings everytime. You can set your phone up to say any 16 char banner message along with the current date and time. This is the most reliable time since it's coming straight from Verizon (you don't set it yourself) Or you can display a Map of the World, but I haven't figured out why you would want to. Secret Features I call these 'Secret' b/c there things I found through experimentation, and I didn't see in the book that comes with the phone. I list these before all the other features for those of you who already have this phone. If you know of any other 'Secret' features, please leave a comment! One feature that I discovered is what I like to call the 'Happy Face' feature. When you press and hold down the star(*), a message will appear that says 'Manner Mode On' A little Happy Face will show on your screen next to the menu button. You're probably saying, "Hmmm.. that's cute. But what's the point?" Well at least that's what I said. So I did a test, I called my phone. Turns out that when you are in Manner Mode, your phone is set to vibrate, even if you had your ringer on. This is great :) You can go into a meeting, put the phone in manner mode, and when the meeting is over, you can hold down the button to get out of Manner Mode. This feature saves you from having to go through all the menus in order to change the ringer setting. Second you can 'Lock' your phone.. but you can do this with most other phones too. If you press and hold down the pound(#), your phone goes into a lock state. This locks your phone so others cannot use it. It also helps so you don't accidentally call someone while you're walking. To get out of lock mode you have to enter your 4 digit password. (The default password is the last 4 numbers of your phone) Those are the only 2 shortcuts I know, comment if you know more! Navigation Finding items in this phone is quite easy. I prefer the numbered menu's on this phone over the picture ones that other people have. When you hit the menu button, you are brought to the main menu. you see items 1 - 3, and you can hit the arrows to go up and down. Hit the previous button returns you to the previous menu, or to the main screen. You choose the item you want by hitting the corresponding numbers. Once you get good at the numbers, you won't even have to look at the menu, just press the correct numbers to get where you want to go. *Shortcut* - no matter what menu you are on, hitting the Red Hang up Button will exit the menus and quickly return you to the main screen. You do not have to hit previous to get all the way back. You can easily scroll through your phone book by using the gray section in the center of the phone. This way you can see all your phone book entries (up to 100) without going through any menus. Numbers 1 - 9 can be dialed using one-touch dialing (just press the number and hold it for a sec). Numbers 00 and 10-99 utilize two-touch dialing (press the first number, than press and hold the second number for a sec) It may take a while to memorize what's in the 100 spots, but it's well worth your trouble when you need to make a call :) Menus So what is in all these menus? Here's a little tree structure for you ;) (in words not pictures) I wish they would have had one of these in the book. I still don't know what all the functions mean, so leave comments if you know! Thanx 1 - Phone Book 1. Call Logs - Keeps track of calling activity (1) Missed Call - Logs the numbers/times of all the calls you missed (2) Answered Call - Logs the numbers/times of all the calls you answered (3) Dialed Call - Logs the numbers/times of all the calls you dialed 2. By Location - Jump to a certain location in memory 3. By Name - Type in some chars and search for someone's name 2 - Setting 1. Auto Retry - Change how many times your phone will automatically call a number if you aren't getting through (1) Interval - set how long to wait between calls (2) Repeat - set how many attempts should be made 2. Auto Answer - Turn it On or Off 3. One-touch - Turn One-Touch dialing On or Off (why would you want it off though??) 4. Voice Privacy - Choose a Mode to keep evesdroppers away. 5. Backlight - Set how long the backlight should stay on for. 6. LCD Contrast - set the Contrast on your screen 7. Logo Display - Choose 'Date' or 'World map' as your logo. 8. Web Idle Time - (I don't use the web features) 9. Language - Choose a Language for your menus. 3 - Tone 1. Ring Mode - Choose between Ringer, Bell, Silent, Etc 2. Ring Type - Choose from/hear the 13 ringer sounds. 3. Keypad - Turn Off or On the keypad beeps. 4 - Timer 1. Last Call - How long was your last call 2. All Calls - How Long were all your calls combined 3. Home Calls - Times calls in your home range 4. Roam Calls - Times calls in your roaming range --NOTE - Timers can be reset (further down you'll see)-- 5 - Special 1. Schedule - without going through it all, you can schedule things and set alarms for them. 2. Stopwatch - a stopwatch! 3. Calculator - A simple calculator 4. Biorhythm - Get a biorhythm for today, or a bday. 6 - Alert 1 - 5 - Turn alerts On and Off for various things such as a beep every minute you're talking (keep track of your minutes) and other such alerts. 7 - Data Service I don't really know what these options are for. 8 - Change System Refer to number 7 above. 9 - My Number Forgot your number? Well here it is! 0 - Security Sign in to access these features (default pass is the last 4 digits of your #) 1. Auto Lock - Decide when to lock your phone. 2. Change Code - Change your password 3. Change Banner - Change the banner displayed on your phone. 4. Restrict - Yes/No... Why?? I don't know? 5. Reset - Yes/No... Yes resets all settings (i think) 6. Clear your phone book/ schedule/ call logs. 7. Version - See the version of your phone in case you ever need to know! Voice Mail You can easily see if you have any knew voice mails by looking at the menu under the envelope icon. I don't use voice mail so I always see 00 :) Web Access If you want to pay more, you can get web access. I don't know what that entails so you'll have to check into it yourself (or see if anyone left a comment!) Battery I didn't set a battery life, b/c I've never talked that long... I usually have it on for days and days without recharging it though. Price I paid 0 for it b/c it came with the plan I got.. I don't know how much it cost on it's own, but I believe it's now free with the plans from verizon (not for sure though) Lacking One thing I wish it had was a Name displayed with the caller Id. It does display and store numbers that call your phone, but no names. I've seen my friends phones that do show the name IF that caller is in your phone book. So you can look at the screen at see "Suzi Calling" However, on this phone only the number is displayed. This feature alone won't make me buy a newer phone. That's all I can think of! I'm sure it's enough for you to see this phone is useful, without being too complicated. If you have any questions, leave a comment :) Recommended: Yes 7666 Audiovox PCX 1100XL CDMA Cellular Phone 86839 2000/2/11 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating3.0 nice wood touch many rings slow menus cheap design errors with earphone bad reception The Bottom LineI'd buy a better phone that will last longer. Full Review I've only owned this phone for 8 months and due to an earphone error, (me not being able to hear the conversation) I'm throwing it away today. I mean when I first got this nice looker, I thought I scored a neat litte phone. Then once I started putting numbers into it, the menus slowed down to a near dead pace! I mean it seemed a little TOO slow. Anyway, I'm pretty bad on cell phones, so the antenaa fell off of this phone - but still worked pretty well. Then even after more use, the earphone started going out and I couldn't hear anyone on the other end. Without the wireless web and other new features, where is this phone going? Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 86838 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 many features easy to use great battery life minute usage goes fast have to keep putting in password to access certain features The Bottom LineGreat easy to use phone for a low price. No confusing features. Full Review I received this phone as a Christmas present. And man, what a great present it was. This was my first cell phone to call my own, so it was a big deal to me. This is also a great phone to start out with, because it's easy to use. It's very compact and easy to carry around. That's a very important feature because most of us need to cart our phones around very easily. One problem I always used to run into when using cell phones, was that while they were in my pocket, a whole bunch of numbers would get pressed when I sat down etc. and the phone could accidentally make some calls. Luckily, this phone has a security feature on it that will lock all the buttons from being pushed. This is an awesome addition and prevents any unnecessary minutes being spent. Of course, this locks all features from being used so if you need to adjust something, you do need to enter your password. This can get tedious after several times, but it is worth it. Other great features include choosing your own melody, caller id, auto dialing, and more. And another great addition is the long battery life. The battery can stay charged for over 2 days, and it charges at an extremely fast rate. In almost one hour, it can be fully charged. One of the cons however, is the speed of minute usage. There are no "first ten seconds free" or anything, and each call is rounded up to the next minute. So you do have to be careful about your minutes. But overall, it's a great phone and a great price. Minutes come in blocks such as $30 for 100 minutes and $50 for 250 minutes. Easy stuff to work with. So I recommend the Verizon Audiovox phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86837 2000/6/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 easy to use compact not very durable slow in response time The Bottom LineGood budget phone but those who want higher quality, look elsewhere. Full Review First I will start out by saying I am on my second model of this phone. I currently use the Verizon phone service. I previously used a sony model phone back when Verizon was a mere thought and Primeco was the major authorized retailer. Shortly after the merger and production of the Verizon corporation I had purchased this new Audiovox phone. At the time of purchase it was $150, but was sold to me for $80 + the trade in of my older phone. Other phone available were Nokia & Motorola models priced much higher. At first use the phone was great, but after about 5 months of daily usage, the phone's volume control seemed to go in and out. I would have it set for a suitable volume and when I would place calls, some calls seemed to be extremely quiet. I would adjust the volume and a few minutes later the same call would be screaming loud. This may be service related though. I returned the phone to Verizon and they gave me a replacement. It has been 4 more months and the same problem has occurred. The response rate on buttons is very slow as well. When you press a button it must be pressed hard for it to perform the action. When you use the volume control on the side of the phone, there is a 3 to 5 second delay before you can press another button, otherwise the command you choose will not go through. This makes it very hard to obtain voicemail messages when the sound fades out. One thing to keep in mind when buying cellphones is that what parts of the phone can break easily? My previous phone had skipping problems with a menu wheel. This Audiovox phone has push button controls for menu advancement and has no problems. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 80.0 86836 2000/2/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 slim size sound quality multiple phone numbers for one name entry single mode phone The Bottom LineAn excellent choice if you use the phone within your provider's home network. But note that it's a singe-mode phone, so if you roam, check the limits with your provider. Full Review We got this phone free with rebate by signing up with PrimeCo in Chicago 1-1/2 years ago. It was our first cell phone, and at that time, any phone was good as long as it was free. It turned out to be a great phone. Rather than list every feature in owner's manual style, here are the best and worst of our experiences with this phone: Best Benefits: 1. Great sound quality. - The sound is so clear, it is actually better than our home phone. Probably a large part of this reason is due to the cellular service. PrimeCo is based here in Chicago - maybe that has something to do with the great reception. In any case, we've had friends use our phone and say the same thing about the great sound quality. 2. Slim size & lightweight. - Weighs just 4 ounces including the lithium ion battery. Fits into my husband's dress shirt pocket w/o weighing it down. Slips into pants pockets, purse pockets, etc. Love that! - The Nokia 5165 is advertised as "less than 6 ounces," and we thought 2 ounces was no big deal, but there is a very big difference. The Nokia 5165 is fatter, bulkier, taller, wider, heavier, and looked and felt less refined and unsophisticated. It weighs down and sags in all the pockets that the Audiovox PCX1100XL could slip comfortably into. 3. Multiple phone numbers per name entry. - I can store up to 3 phone numbers (and 1 email address) for each name entry in my phone book. Next to the name, if you have stored a cell phone number for this name, there is a cell phone icon; and if you have stored a home phone number for this name, there is a house icon, a building icon for office number; and "@" symbol for email address. (If you have just a cell phone number stored, then only a cell phone icon appears.) You select which number you want by moving down the icon list with the * and # keys. As your cursor lands on the icon, the actual number appears below it on the next line. - I don't think the order of these symbols can be switched, or prioritized. The order is cell, home, office, email. The default number (the number that will dial if you do no scrolling/selecting and just press talk) is the first one listed. (So if you have just a home and office number stored for a particular name, you have just a home and building icon, and the flashing cursor is automatically on the home icon.) - This is much better than having separate entries for, say, mom's home, mom's cell, and mom's work #. Worst feature: 1. Single mode operation: - We are switching phones because we now need to be able to roam nationally, and this phone cannot do that. It's not an error with the phone, because it is built as a single-mode phone. This was good for us before, when we intended to use the phone only locally. But our needs have changed, and in order to roam nationally, we need a multi-network phone (check with your provider to see what the geographical limits are with single-mode phones. If it's PrimeCo, you cannot roam with this phone. Bigger companies with larger networks may be less restrictive.) We've really only had good experiences with this phone - we've dropped it a few times and it withstood that. It did freeze on us a couple of times over the 18 months that we've had it, but it was easily fixed by taking out the battery and putting it back in, with nothing lost. We absolutely love the clear sound, slim size, light weight, and especially the multiple phone entry. This last feature is one that we cannot do without anymore. (We got a Nokia 5165, but when we found that it didn't have the multiple phone entry, we sent it back. We ordered the Nokia 3360 instead, which can store only 2 phone numbers per name. Apparently, a lot of cell phones don't have this great feature. Instead, they're packed with useless things like games and tunes.) Recommended: Yes 7667 Audiovox CDM135XL 86841 2000/5/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleek stylish nice bellswhistles ergonomically correct good clarity well constructed buttons a bit small for the large handed menial web browsing multiple steps accessing menu The Bottom LineI recommend the CDM135XL to anyone who is considering the other name brands. By the way, If you are into sending and receiving E-mails try this one. Full Review A funny thing happen 2 weeks ago at work. My celluar phone was stolen. I guess a week ago I wasn't laughing, because all my numbers that I had store from the past 2 years had been programmed in my phone. I won't mention the name of the phone. Let's say it was a "QUAlity" phone that provided good "COMMunication" :) Nevertheless, I had the phone replaced 3 days later with the Audiovox CDM135XL, I was a bit skeptical about this phone, because I have had friends in the past who've had some problems with their Audiovox phones. Having said that, the apprehension was there at the time. My cellular representative had assured me that the Audiovox 2 to 3 years ago was different than the Audiovox of today. So, I broke down and went for the phone. My first reaction to this phone was that it was aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The silver casing, big screen display, and nice illumination was definitely an eye catching experience. Coming to my senses, I had to know would this phone meet my needs and cut the mustard from a communications standpoint. After 5 days of using this phone, I have to say it is a real winner. True-Audiovox has had an overhaul!! The clarity is good, the phone number storage is above average, and the construction of the phone is real solid. Not flimsy like the other cellular phones I have eyeballed in the past. This is a Man's phone with Style. Ergonomically correct with a dash of amenities to get you flying in the communications lane. Audiovox you've done well! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 150.00 86840 2000/2/27 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 has the important features durable great performance inexpensive no peripherals available relatively big The Bottom LineFor someone who doesn't care about aesthetics and just wants a solid, affordable cell, this is the way to go. Full Review The day I decided to, and ultimately did (I'm quite spontaneous) purchase my cell phone was a decisive one; for in so doing I not only secured the ever-important "business line" for my fledgling web design business, but I also became `cool'. Got free long distance, too. Sure enough, many of my friends followed suit, and before I knew it there was a veritable network of college kids driving erratically around Albany with a cell phone to their ear. The roads may have been more dangerous, but hey - if Billy and Sally hooked up, we knew about it immediately. Funny thing is, though, once everyone had their own cell phones, I suddenly didn't feel cool anymore. In fact, upon comparing my phone to everyone else's, I felt remarkably un-cool! People had phones that fold, that play Mp3s, that fit in the useless little weird 5th pocket-within-a-pocket found in most pairs of jeans, even phones that stand up and do a jig every time someone calls. Me? When I signed up for my cell phone plan and was asked which phone I wanted, I replied, "The free one." Upon being told that there was no free one, I simply replied, "The cheapest one in the store." At the time, I had expected a phone roughly the size of a Cadillac, but luckily I walked away with my $20 Audiovox gem here. In all fairness, the phone isn't bad at all. In fact, it's quite good. The nice chap at Verizon assured me that all of the phones have the same capabilities as far as signal strength and whatnot are considered, and that what you pay for with more expensive phones is design and features. And indeed, my phone has gone up against the big boys and come out a-shinin' when it comes to things such as range and holding a signal. So if its features that you pay for, and I didn't pay for much, what did I get? To be honest, I got a pretty decent amount of stuff. The phone - Ted, as I would've named it if I were the type of person who names a phone, which I'm not - has the requisite 99-number memory phone book, direct dial, call logs, etc. It also boasts text messaging, though that only works when it's in digital mode, which it seems to almost arbitrarily decide to come in and out of. The phone offers web access and voice activation, though both are services you have to pay for. Volume on the phone is absolutely ridiculous; at full volume, it becomes something of a cross between a speaker phone and a PA system. Battery life is respectable, though the damn battery always seems to die at the most crucial of moments - you all know what I mean. The charger is a rather clunky cradle as opposed to just a cord, but whatever - it's tucked back on my desk, so I don't notice the size. The size of the phone itself is relatively big, but not too bad- it slides nicely into any pocket, and is very thin. Keylock is easy to use, and prevent such debacles as when I accidentally sat on the phone and called Albany from Atlanta, accruing no small amount of roaming charges. That was fun. There aren't many peripherals for the phone, so if you want one of those crazy covers that makes your phone look like something from the Matrix, you're out of luck. I have a car charger and a hands-free earpiece, but that's just about all that's available. We're not dealin' with a chic phone here, folks. When it comes right down to it, this is a damn solid phone for $20. Aside from odd Transformer-esque properties, you get pretty much all the same features as with the more expensive phones, as well as the same performance. I can't think of anything funny to end this with, so I'm going to go have a taco and call people on my cell phone. It's the cool thing to do. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20 7668 Audiovox CDM8100 86845 2000/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 large screen compact inexpensive awkward menu layout sub par sound The Bottom LineThe CDM8100 is a really good phone for it's price... a definite for the the budget-minded. Full Review After spending a few tedious years (and a half dozen phones)with another not to be named carrier, I switched to Telus and picked up an Audiovox CDM8100. First off, this is a really inexpensive phone. I paid $49.00 CAD ($32.00 US) for it, and out of all the phones I've owned, this one definitely has the most bang for the buck. It's got a large display, a long lasting battery (I've gone days of reasonable use without a charge), it's light-weight, and most importantly... one button keyguard activation! This was the one feature I was hoping for, as my last phone required a complex string of button presses to activate and deactivate. Also, the CDM8100 allows you to answer the phone while in keyguard mode... I don't know how many calls I've missed while fumbling around trying to get the keyguard unlocked just to answer the damn thing. Another one-button feature that's quite keen is the manner mode. Just hold "*" and the phone automatically turns off all sounds and activates vibrate mode. That's not to say that it doesn't have a few problems... but isn't that the case with most things? The main issue I've had with this phone is navigating the menu. Options are laid out very awkwardly, and it usually takes at least two different button presses to activate most of the options. While this isn't much of a problem when using some of the minor features (such as the calculator or stopwatch), it can be a bit of a pain when accessing voice mail... I wish they had dedicated a button to voice mail as opposed to activating the web browser. Another issue that has been brought up is the arrangement of stored phone numbers: the only way they can be stored is in the order that they are entered. Those who like their numbers stored alphabetically will have a problem with this. Personally, I don't mind - I tend to enter numbers in my phone in order of frequency - but I figured I should mention this none-the-less. The only other complaint I can make about the phone is the sound. All the calls I've made so far have been clear, but have an abnormally "tinny" sound to them. Despite these few minor problems, this is an exceptional phone. I liked mine so much I bought my girlfriend one for Christmas! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 32.00 86844 2000/9/17 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 on one touch key guard big screen on great graphics durability web enabled awkward charger not the best reception but good The Bottom LineI think it is a great phone for everyone. It has a lot of features, but simple to use. Full Review This phone is Great for people that love the features but don't want to read a manual. I picked this phone up once the battery was fully charged and it was so easy to use all of its features. The only thing I could not figure out is this Bio-Rhythm thing. One touch Key Guard: This is a very convenient option. Just hold the pound key and you keys are guarded. Web Enabled: I love all the web enabled features on this phone, there Msn Messenger, E-mail, 411 Look up. This service is at a cheap rate. Text Messaging: I know this feature is on a lot of phones but I thought I would just bring it up just say I love it in class. I can sit there in the middle of class and talk to my friend in silence. One Touch Silence: I love this one touch silence is great, If You want to silence your phone with out going to a profile window. Just hold Star and your phone will shut up until you tell it. Durability: I dropped this phone from my second story balcony once, I was killing myself because I thought I just busted up $90.00. I picked it up and called my house right after. Charger: The charger for this phone is awkward, it is a desktop charger. You gotta kinda stick it on the charger push it in just the right position to get it stuck. Reception: The reception for this phone is great but not when you bring it in to a building. This is mainly the service providers fault (Telus) not the phone. I bring the phone into the first story of my three story school and I go in and out of service areas all the time. All the other levels are fine 2-3, Its just that first level. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 86843 2000/12/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 large text screen very compact nice silver colour not a user friendly menu very loud ringer not easily customizable The Bottom LineI would not recommend this phone because of it's non-user friendly design. Full Review This is the first review I have written but I felt compelled to do so after purchasing this product. I previously owned a Nokia 6188 which was alright except for the fact that it was always dropping calls and it wasn't web-ready. I am on the Telus network system so I decided to switch phones as I switched plans. I bought the Audiovox CDM-8100 because of its price ($49.99 CAD) and of its looks (very small, beautiful silver frame and large LCD screen). I thought I was going to be very happy with the phone but I was not. Let me first discuss the pros of this phone. The Pros: This phone has a longer than average battery life, which is good. Again, it has a large LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) which is very usefull, especially if you have poor eyesight. It has a beautiful physical design, silver and grey, quite light and comfortable to hold. That's it. The cons: This phone is not very customizable. With the Nokia you had the option of using different profiles which had customizable settings for the ring, tones, alerts, etc. This was very useful because i could switch profiles depending on where I was (i.e. church vs. nightclub). The Audiovox cannot be customized in the same way. There is the option of changing the ringer volume, keypad tones, etc., but they must be manually changed EVERY TIME! This gets rather annoying. Also, the menu seems quite easy to understand at first, that is until you delve deeper and try to use the sub menus, then everything goes downhill. There are options that have names that mean nothing to me..like "DTMF Type" or "BIORHYTHM" ....now this would not be so bad if the User Manual explained what these things are for but it doesn't! It only tells you how to activate it. There is also no online help from Audiovox. Another quite annoying and frustrating feature is the phonebook. This phone can only store 100 numbers. While this may be enough for some, for me (who had 145 numbers stored in the NOKIA that holds 200) it was a small shock! But I quickly got over it and figured that I could somehow erase 45 numbers. Then I tried to store a number....what a nightmare! While it's nice that you can input a person's name and you can store their home, office, mobile number and email address, you are forced to store the entry into a numbered position (i.e. 05). This makes it very complicated to search for a person's name since you cannot sort alphabetically. The phonebook also only displays the list of names and you do not have the handy "name + number" option that you had in the Nokia 6188. There are other things wrong with this phone, like the way it's charged, inability to download rings, limited features, and annoying navigation key, just to name a few but that would require way to much space to write it all down and this review is long enough as it is. Final Word: If you can ignore the awful cryptic menu, or find a decent manual that explains each feature properly, then this is an okay phone to have, plus it's cheap to buy.....which leads me to the phrase, "You get what you pay for". It's too bad the designers didn't think of user navigation when designing the software for the phone. It had the potential of being a really great phone. Oh well.....gotta find a new phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 31.77 86842 2001/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 versatile sleek cute slightly tedious sometimes annoying The Bottom LineThe Audiovox CDM 8100 is a great phone to use, or to give as a present. I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't joined the cell phone age. Full Review First off, this is my first review, and thank you for taking the time to read it. Bear with it, please. =D Well, I've been the owner of a few phones, and I just recently bought the Audiovox CDM-8100 from Telus ($150 CDN/$90 USD) for my girlfriend's birthday present. In general, if you are looking to get a new phone at a decent price, this is definitely a great entry-level phone. On the box, this is what they say are the features of the phone: Tri Mode, selectable Ringers/Tones, 100 Phone Book Locations, French/English, Scratchpad Memory, Stop Watch and Calculator, 10 call history, Wed Ready, and up to 225 Minutes talk, 170 hrs standby. So what makes this phone stand out as an entry level? Well, first of all, it gives a wide range of features and things to play around with. Alarm, Calendar, Stopwatch (that's a first. ;D), Biorhythm are part of that list. The face is huge (and I mean about 2-3 times the size of a normal cell phone face, about 3cm x 3cm), with huge numbers and letters as well. The display panel tells you everything: Mode, the banner, date, time, signal strength in 5 levels, one-button mailbox access, and ringer setting. There are many different types of alarms and alerts you can set (for example, a warning that says signal strength is fading out). It has a lot of features to keep someone entertained. What do I not like about this phone? The very annoying "Key-Guard" lock system. On the Nokia and Sanyo phones, just press up, enter. To unlock, press and hold, or press two buttons. On the Audiovox CDM 8100, this is what you have to do: Press Menu, Press 8, Press 2, Enter. To unlock, press 1, 2, 3. Pewf. That got annoying after the first time. Don't confuse it with autolock though. That locks the phone down completely. One thing that also got to me is that when you are accessing the phone book, sometimes it will say "Reading Memory, Please Wait". Takes about 1/10th of a second, but there was only 10 numbers in it at the time. If there is a hundred, goodness, it'll take a second! May as well pull out my palm pilot! ;D Sarcasm aside, there are flaws in the phone book as well. I can't organize my phone book by names. It instead, goes by the number slots you assign it. However, since I'm primarily a techie-teenager, most of these are just convenience flaws, and are easily overlooked. I think this is a great phone for anyone as a gift, or starting out. UPDATE: December 16, 2001 Well, there is some other functions I just found out about my phone. Remember I said that to turn on keyguard, you have to go through a very lengthly process? To do the exact same thing, press and hold the "#" (pound) sign! And there is a manner mode too! Manner mode simply turns the ringers and sounds off, and turns on the vibration mode. To turn this on/off, press the "*" (star) sign. Very nice. Oh yeah, the product is pretty durable. My girlfriend dropped it about 10 times since we got it. Very nice. Too bad I still can't figure out what the Biorhythm does. Sure, it tells us the life flows and stuff, but what happens if the Physical aspect is a negative? ;D In Conclusion I believe that this phone would make a GREAT Christmas gift to someone who does not have a phone yet. Merry X-mas 2001! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90.00 7669 Ericsson R380s GSM Cellular Phone 86849 2000/8/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 pda functionality tons of features maybe too much of everything The Bottom LineOne of the best solutions for "business on the road" Full Review That's it. You do not need PDA, Laptop and mobile phone. You just need Ericsson R380. I just bought one and I think that this Eric will stay with me for few years. My job responsibilities include frequent travelling around. Now I will not have to carry 2 kilos of laptop and PDA. Fortunately I had not bought new PDA before R380 came out. I saved quite a lot getting mobile phone and PDA in one for just over 300$. And I will never miss an e-mail, because I have no time to boot up laptop. Now I would like to mention few advantages of this phone: handwriting recognition - R380 recognized even my awful handwriting. sexy flip/cover - That's the best part of all T-series Erics and now they continue this tradition in R380. I had T-18 before and I bought it just because flip. e-mail - Very easy synchronization with Outlook. You can not only recieve mail everywhere but easy add your address book and calendar. Excellent feature. unified messaging - Ericsson have combined SMS, e-mail and fax in such small box that I wonder how it manages to deal with all that. very long SMS - sometimes I enjoy writing long SMS and it is very cool to receive few pages long SMS autentification - You feel quite safe when you know that if somebody wants to use your phone will be rejected R380 have not lost other classic Ericsson features - if you have used any Ericsson you will feel comfortable with R380. I like this phone. If you have chance - test it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350 86848 2000/1/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 nice build email client design great call log fantastic call quality not possible to install after market symbian programs closed system The Bottom LineIf you travel between the UK and USA like I do, its a great tool. Great email client,amazing call log and very very impressive call quality. Full Review The Ericsson R380 World is a great phone, although I'm not totally convinced it deserves the title of PDA phone. Unlike many PDA type phones, it does not allow you to install new applications, Ericsson made the system closed; the phone uses the EPOC 6 (symbian) platform and there are literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of compatible software all over the internet, enabling you to add programs and functions to the phone. Having said all that, what the phone does have works well. The built in email client is easy to use, downloads headers first, giving you the option to scan sender and subject prior to downloading the complete email - useful if you receive alot of junk emails (who doesnt?!). You can setup multiple email accounts too. The WAP browser lets it down. Whilst I'm not personally a big fan of WAP, I do appreciate it has its uses, the R380 browser lacks compatibility with alot of todays sites and without the ability to upgrade or add a new browser you may not be able to browse the sites you want. The missed/dialled/received call log is stunning. Not only does it list calls in catagories of when they were made (calls made today,this week,this month and before this month) but it also details if they were answered, duration, date and time of call - excellent, very impressed with this. Call quality is superb. The mettalised chassis of the handset(without getting too technical) retrieves signal in even the most fringe coverage areas and provides great voice quality. Very very good. I tested the handset in an area where somedays you just about get a signal and not only did I get a signal, but I was able to make a call of pretty good quality. The phone is coming up to 3 years old, but I have to say I like it. Its strange how colors and designs change, swap around even. Take TV's for example. Silver TV's used to be much more expensive than a black TV's, now its the other way around. Black is the new silver! Same with phones. Now the mid to high range phones are all black. My opinion has never changed frankly. I've always been of the opinion that silver looks cheap and does not wear well. I purchased my R380 World for $60 ! A Bargain for such a great, classy piece of technology and at that price its not worth waiting - get one! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 60Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86847 2002/12/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great combination of pdaphone low price heavy large doesn t have full functionality of either a pda or a phone The Bottom LineFor BASIC PDA and phone functionality, this is a great buy at the current prices. I love this phone! Full Review This phone has exactly the features I want: a GSM world phone, plus basic PDA functionality. I find the phone to be excellent overall. One word of caution: this phone is a combination PDA and cell phone. It has a good spread of features from each category, but does not do everything from each category. As a cell phone: The phone is really designed to be used in "open" mode (with the keypad opened and the full PDA screen available), dialing from the contact list in the PDA menus. It will do some functions with the keypad "closed", but they are very basic and more difficult to use. The phone lacks some common phone features (I traded up from an Ericsson T-28, and all of these are available in the other phone). First, it doesn't have profiles, which are used to automatically set various features. Second, it doesn't have individual selectable rings for each phone number. Third, when accessing the "closed" mode recent calls, it lists the phone number instead of the person's name (the T-28 lists both). Fourth, for some reason, the phone did not list the correct carrier for my area (showed Pac-Bell instead of T-mobile); but the phone was on the right network anyway. Fifth, while there is a graphic battery meter, the phone does not have a detailed time remaining/battery status in either mode; I was used to getting an estimate in hours & minutes. And you should be aware that this phone was designed in 2000; if you want fancy musical rings or other more "hip" features, you won't find them here. For example, the phone does not support GPRS, so setting up the internet and WAP was a bit difficult; I had to call T-Mobile tech support several times before it was all working right. Other features go beyond a standard cell phone. First, the phone has a really good call log, which does list all calls, including who, what number, and duration (sorted by today, this week, this month, and before that - neat!). This is available from the "open" mode only. Second, the phone book is actually a PC-style contact list, with multiple phone numbers, E-Mail, and Internet addresses for each person. Third, in "Open" mode, the phone has amazing call conferencing capabilities. Fourth, the SMS is really great; it has an easy to use screen (write via Palm-style handwriting recognition or via a small virtual keyboard. This input style is available to all "open" applications.). And there is an option to concatenate SMS messages, so as to send more than the standard 150 characters. Fifth, the calendar is VERY full featured (with fields directly matching my Outlook calendar). Sixth, the phone has super internet capabilities (for a cell phone), with the large screen allowing for really good WAP browsing. Seventh, you can send and receive E-Mail (IMAP or POP server). And, of course, last but not least is the PDA style entries; instead of entering phone numbers, WAP addresses, etc., via a small cell phone keyboard, you use a stylus. Also, I should mention that the contact list is available for dialing from the "closed" mode, and will list all phone numbers associated with a contact. Then you dial the one you want. The PDA has a couple of good features. The R380 will sync with a PC using the included software. This allows the user to backup and restore, as well as to sync the Contact List, Calendar, and Task list. The interface works well and the PC software is sufficient. It uses only a serial cable, even though the phone has an IR modem (the IR is used to communicate with other devices that accept vcards). The calendar, contact list, and task list work well and are easy to use. The phone syncs up with Outlook, Lotus organizer (version 5.1 is included on the CD), and several other programs. It will also sync with Microsoft Exchange servers. The only capability I have personally tested is the Outlook "pst" file sync. The manual says it is compatible with Windows 98, ME, and NT SP5, but I am having no trouble using Windows XP Professional. Now the drawbacks to the PDA features. This is not a full PDA. It does not have any capability of adding RAM, and comes with 1.2 Mb. I am finding this quite sufficient for my calendar (6 months ahead). However, once the limit is reached, you have to delete something to get more space. You should be aware that, while you can access programs and games via WAP, you can't download them. Also, you can't upgrade the software (Ericsson dealers can upgrade the firmware, although at this date I doubt there will be any more updates). So what you see is what you get. The PDA features that ARE included work really well. As far as basic phone features, the sound is fine, and it seems to have about the same reception of signal as my T-28 (perhaps a bit better). I like the extra length; the T-28 was too short for my ear-to-mouth length. This is a very heavy phone, but that is because it is made of METAL rather than all plastic. The thing is built like a tank. The only possible weak point in the design is the hinge where the keypad "opens" and "closes". It seems sturdy enough to me. The phone battery lasts for about 4 hours of talking, but I don't think it will last more than a couple of days with standard PDA use. I ordered a second battery and dual charger. I found this phone in numerous places new, unlocked, for about $100. I also saw one for $79 plus shipping, which is what I bought. I definitely think the phone is a great buy at these prices. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79 86846 2002/5/10 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great combination of a cell phone mobile internet browserfull featured pda prohibitively expensive The Bottom LineThis full-featured phone/PDA is a wonder to use, but it's also a wonder as to who'll lay out the cash for one... Full Review The Ericsson R380 is the one of the first fully integrated devices that offers the convenience of all the best features of a mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA), as well as Mobile Internet Services. The R380 virtually eliminates the need to carry a number of mobile devices because they are all packaged in the size of a standard mobile phone. Combining international roaming in over 120 countries on five continents with WAP services that provide Internet information, the R380 WORLD is an incredibly innovative mobile phone and Internet tool. On-the-go consumers can easily stay organized and connected anywhere, anytime. At first glance the R380 looks likes a mobile phone, but open the flip and the large, graphics-rich, touch-sensitive screen reveals a wide range of communications and personal organizational tools. With a touch of the stylus, you have access to email, the mobile Internet, and an electronic organizer. The WAP services on the R380 provide access to Internet information in a format specifically designed for mobile devices. Consumers can securely dial in to their corporate network to access and send emails. It is also easy to visit favorite websites for useful travel information including maps, weather forecasts and flight information or program the R380 to automatically receive updates on the information that fits their lifestyle such as traffic reports, news or sports scores. The R380 World's integrated PDA tools include calendar, contacts, notepad, and a voice memo. Using the contacts, one can initiate phone calls and send text messages directly though the names, numbers and addresses stored in the smartphone. The active calendar has audible and visual reminders as well. Editing "to do" lists and contacts or replying to messages is simple. The R380 offers the option to use the stylus on the touchscreen and virtual keyboard or simply write on the screen since it supports JOT® by CIC for easy and natural handwriting recognition. With compatibility to applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus, the R380 gives the option for data (calendar, email, contacts, to-do, and notes) to be synchronized with a PC and can automatically update new entries from one device to another. Most importantly, data is always protected. The R380 keeps all stored data, even if power is lost, unlike other PDA devices. The R380 also offers the finest features of a mobile phone. The Voice Control feature allows calls to be placed or answered using a voice command. With the speakerphone option, one can speak on the R380 at the same time as checking their schedule or while taking notes using the notepad application. The R380 is new, so it remains to be seen how dependable these phones/PDA combinations will be. But if my experience with previous Ericsson phones is any indication, then the R380 should last a long, long time. The downside? You know there had to be a downside. And it's the price. Ranging in the mid $400 range, the R380 is clearly not for everyone. But if you're someone who uses the combination of cell phones, mobile internet and PDA extensively, then having all of those components in one handy package may be well worth the price. For me, it was nice to test this phone for a week, but the price was simply to prohibitive to offset its convenience factor. Phone specs follow. Thanks, as always, for reading. Phone Specifications * Alarm * Authentication * Built-in modem * Calculator * Calendar * Calendar and Contacts synchronization with Microsoft Outlook or Schedule+, Lotus Notes or Organizer. * Choice of 22 display languages * Clock * Combined list of successful, unsuccessful, received and rejected calls * Contacts * Games * Handwriting recognition software * Infrared connection * Key lock * Notepad * Phone * Phone book * Send and receive SMS messages up to 39,015 characters * Speed Dial * Supports Voice Dialing * Symbian EPOC operating system * Unified messaging - e-mail SMS, fax via SMS * Voice Answering * WAP services and Mobile Internet Access * WTLS Security Class 1 & 2 * World clock Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 450 7670 Ericsson T20s GSM Cellular Phone 86853 2000/6/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use to boot great battery life clear reception not entirely slim fitting pants pocket suitable The Bottom LineThis phone is ideal for the female on the go. Not sure how it is for a male, but enough product reviews are written with them in mind! Full Review It is often difficult to find a phone that combines ease of use and a good pricetag with a LONG battery life, that in no way resembles the portable clunkers seen in early episodes of Beverly Hills 90210. Thankfully, such a phone now exists. The Ericsson T20 is a small, sleek phone that I am not embarrassed to answer when I have company. What's more, it is definitely female friendly, but let me explain what I mean... Many phones are impossible to use if your nails extend anywhere past your fingertips. Usually great dexterity and tenacity is required in order to press the ridiculously small buttons. I was initially choosing between this and the Nokia 3310, but found that my gloriously long and freshly manicured fingers were unable to press the 2 button without also touching 1 on the Nokia. Even though the buttons on the T20 are the same size, the orientation of them on the (slightly) wider handset mean that I do not have to use the very edge of my thumbnail to press them. However, with voice activated dialling available for up to ten numbers, you may not even need to touch the buttons! The boring colour availability of many phones is also a drawback. Not only does the T20 come in a beautiful silver-white colour detail, but Ericsson have also produced alternative colour panels. Perfect for whatever your mood may be. Be warned though that these accessories are not cheap. I purchased a hands-free set when I bought the phone, and it wasn't cheap. I can't tell you how much it was in US$, however it was $49.95 in Australian dollars (although given the exchange rate right now, that probably equates to a steal). Likewise, the estimate of the price of the phone in US$ below is an approximation, as in Australia, the system works a little differently. Other features are the games (more than just snake, memory, and logic) which include Tetris (!!), the ring tones with the option to personalise your ring, vibration alert (for when you are at a club and can't hear the person you are talking to, let alone your ringing phone), WAP and MP3 capabilities. The only drawback I have found is that the streamlined shape with a rather large aerial is not altogether pocket friendly, with a tendency to not go in, work itself out once it is in there, or dig the aerial so far into you when you sit down that you wonder if you will have to surgically remove it. Other than that though, this phone is a winner, and will last you until the next technological breakthrough comes along. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 155.00? 86852 2000/5/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good reception great battery life big antenna somewhat bulky The Bottom LineIf you are looking for battery life, easy menu and clear reception, get T20s and you will not be disappointed. Full Review I have owned a lot of Ericsson phones. I however believe this is the best so far. To make a short list: I have owned GF768, T10s, T28s and used T18s for a while. I have also used mobile phones from other manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic and Alcatel. My general feeling (until T20s arrived) was that Ericsson phones always lack in reception compared to other manufacturers' phones. Well this is not the case with T20s. T28s has a lousy reception especially where signal conditions are not very helpful anyway. T20s manages to achieve good clarity even when the signal is not good enough. The phone is somewhat bulky. The aesthetics will not fit everyone, but its something you can get used to. It looks compact enough but in a close examination it is plastic all the way. I wouldn't advise you to drop it, its weight will probably cause it to get damaged easily. The weight comes from the Li-on battery, which is 1150 mAh. This is one of the greatest capacities ever encountered on a mobile phone. It gives me about 6-7 days of operation (15 hours per day) I've never owned a phone with that long battery life (not even my nokia 7110). The menu system looks very similar to the T28s. Some menu entries were added (like the WAP part) but previous owners of T28s will feel at home. It responds faster than the T28s menu though. The keyboard has small keys, but they are adequately spaced and have a good feeling when pressed. They are hard plastic, not rubber. This makes SMS writing very easy, since they are very responsive. When writing SMS you can hold the # button to switch between languages (You select input languages from the settings menu) This is very convenient. All the usual stuff of Ericsson phones are present on this one: Profiles, multiple ring signals (including 4 user melodies), vibration alert. There are also 4 games: E Maze (Pacman like), Balpop (Arkanoid like), Erix (nice one), and Tetris (same as T28s). There is also WAP. I can hear you say the screen is too small for WAP. Though this is true, keep in mind that it has a very good resolution and excellent EL backlight. Scrolling will be necessary however. Another plus of this phone comes from the available accessories. You can get the chatboard if you are into SMS a lot. I also believe the MP3 handsfree is a great idea and does not cost a lost compared to a stand alone MP3 player. I have no idea of its performance however. Comparing the phone to its natural contender, the Nokia 3310, I prefer the menu system, the battery life and type (3310 has a Ni-Mh battery). T20s lacks calendar functions and picture messages though (watch for T20e which has picture messages). All in all a great and inexpensive phone that will not give you any trouble. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 180 86851 2002/12/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive wapvoice recognition in an attractive design with high brand value excellent reception cigarette package design may turn off some no smart vocabulary for sending text messages The Bottom LineThis product is recommendable to anyone who requires the latest technology from a reputable brand without wanting to pay $400 or more. Full Review As my old mobile phone - an Ericsson S868 - died in a haze of blue smoke after 2 years of faithful service (which included surviving maltreatment such as dropping it in a pool of water), I was forced to go on the market for a new mobile phone. My top selection criteria were as follows: 1. Major brand - i.e. Ericsson, Nokia or possibly Motorola. 2. Not too expensive (i.e. max $150). 3. WAP -- to access e-mail and news from off the Internet. 4. Something different from what the mainstream was using. Initially, I viewed the Ericsson R320s as a natural replacement for the S868, but for various reasons my operator would not sell me that phone at a price below the $150 mark. The remaining alternatives within my desired price-range seemed to be the Nokia 3310 and the Ericsson T20s. As the latter supported WAP and had not yet entered the mainstream, I decided to go for that one. Let me summarise how the Ericsson T20s differs from the Nokia 3310: Disadvantages: 1) Texting facility lacks graphical messages. 2) Texting facility lacks predictive vocabulary. 3) No express-on covers. 4) Has a visible antenna. Advantages: 5) Comes with a Lithium-Ion battery - needs recharging about once a week if only in light use. 6) Supports WAP 1.1 7) Has better reception than the Nokia 3310 because of the visible antenna. 8) Supports multiple call profiles, changeable at the touch of a button. To me, disadvantages #1 #3 were not really disadvantages. I like to think rather that these options are primarily minded on the teenage-audience, who view their mobile phones as toys, and since they have no serious purpose for using their mobiles, they need to be distracted by being able to send mindless graphical messages, and by changing the colour of their phone. Disadvantage #4 was in my opinion outweighed by advantage #7. I buy my mobile phone in order to use it for talking, not for the aestethics. Thus, only disadvantage #2 was really a trade-off in my opinion. And surely this was outweighed by all the advantages offered. The phone in use Having used the phone for a month, I can add that the three-line display is a little bit smallish especially for WAP, but it is somewhat outweighed by the high resolution and the ease of navigation using the slider-scroller in the left side of the phone. The buttons may be a bit small or hard to press for some people, but since the telephone supports voice recognition dialling this may only be a concern when using WAP and texting facilities, and even then it could be countered by purchasing an Ericsson Chatboard available for $25 or less. The phone seems sturdy enough to last long, although the foldable lid may represent a potential weak spot. When unfolded the lid does however improve enormously on the ergonomics of the "talking experience", as the microphone is conveniently close to the mouth for people to be able to hear what you say without any background noise at all. The design is attractive in my eyes - resembles a rounded package of cigarettes with an antenna and a display. However some people may prefer the stick-like quality of the 3310. Finally, please notice that the technical details as reported by epinion are NOT entirely correct for this phone. It does indeed support multiple, individualised ring tones - just choose 4 / 1 / 5 / 4 from the menu. UPDATE November 24th, 2002: The Ericsson T20s is no longer being offered for sale by most retailers. However, you can still find it offered for sale at such places as eBay and for that purpose, I have extended my review with information about the handset's robustness: Having used the phone for more than 18 months I can say with some confidence that this phone is rather robust despite the mostly plastic casing. I have dropped it quite a few times, but the casing has remained solid and in one piece. The antenna only has a few scratches on the surface and the lid, which I feared would be the most vulnerable spot still opens and closes without any problems. Of course it feels slightly more loose after 18 months of wear and tear, but certainly not as much as I would have feared. All in all, I still recommend this handset to anyone especially for the low price that it should be available at by now. I had my firmware upgraded once in the lifetime of the phone and seemingly this only had superficial, cosmetic effects on the phone. UPDATE December 27th, 2002: My handset finally broke a few weeks ago: One of the plastic hinges connecting the flip cover to the base of the handset broke while I was busy folding up the phone. I managed to get it back together using superglue but decided it was time to purchase a new handset anyway. However, since the electronic components of this handset still work without any problems I have decided to keep the T20s as a second phone that I can use when I go places where I would fear losing my new, expensive handset for one reason or other. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 140 86850 2000/6/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 light cute loads of features cannot receive ringtones by sms The Bottom LineVery cure to look at, excellent features and a great battery. What more do you wnat? Full Review Let's be honest with each other. How many of you use all the features you have on your mobile phone? I know most phones these days have got 20,000 different ring tones, vibrating alert, the ability to send text messages to 10 people at the same time, predictive text messaging, a diary containing 100,000 names and numbers (OK, a slight exagertaion, but you know what I mean!) oh, I nearly forgot, lots of games and some even have WAP, but how often do you use the vast majority of these features? The answer is probably not very often. A mobile phone is mainly used for making and receiving calls sending and receiving text messages. Anything extra is like the icing on the cake, very decorative, occasionally of use but ultimately ...... So, why did I buy the Ericsson T20 instead of any other phone, particularly if I'm a cynic and think all phones are the same? Well, it's quite a complicated thought process, so bear with me as long as you can. First of all, I like the way this phone looks. There's no getting away from it, this phone is cute. It's a little bit shorter than the ubiquitous Nokia 3210/3310, about the same width, and a little bit stockier. But it does look exceedingly cute and endearing. It has a coloured front panel that comes in a (small) range of colours. You can't change the facia like on the aforementioned Nokia's, but again, how often do you really feel the need to change the facia on your phone. Let's face it, what colour your phone is does not affect it?s performance! The Ericsson T20 just looks a little bit different, and I like that. If I tell you I own a Mini Clubman Estate and a Morris Ital car, and I own an iMac, not a PC, you'll understand that I like to be a little bit different than the norm, so in the case of my mobile phone, anything that isn't a Nokia is a good start, and anything looking that bit different is a bonus, and the T20 certainly fits the bill. The second thing I was after in my phone (despite what I've said above!) is WAP capability. When I bought the phone I was quite excited about being able to access the 'mobile internet', thus needed (wanted!) a WAP phone, and yes, you guessed it, the T20 is WAP enabled. Having had the phone for a few months I can count on the fingers of my hands the times I have used the WAP facility, and those times were through sheer boredom on a long, quiet night shift. As you may have heard WAP is not all it cracked up to be and I certainly wouldn't buy a phone now just because it has WAP. What else did I need? Ah yes, a vibrating alert. Not for any kinky reasons, I work for the Ambulance Service, and it would be a little bit embarrassing to have my phone bleeping out the Star Wars theme tune whilst I'm performing CPR on somebody's grannie. So I need the discretion of vibrating alert, and this phone provides that. OK, there a few calls important enough that I need to know about the straight away, but it looks more professional to not have my phone ringing every 5 minutes (if only I had that many friends!). And that's about it. Apart from that I wanted a phone that could make and receive calls, send and receive text messages, and store a few numbers, and all mobile phones can do that, so I suppose I plumbed for the T20 based on how it looks, not the most objective way to pick a phone, but I seem to have got away with it this time. Why? Well, the phone performs extremely well. It is a flip front phone, and calls are answered just by opening the flip, which I find extremely handy (OK, my 'active flip' as it is known doesn't work any more after I threw the phone across the room in a fit of anger, but the less said about that the better!). The phone also holds a battery charge for a long time. I?m not going to go into the published stand by and talk time figures, because what the manufacturers claim and what happens in reality are often two completely different things, but I only need to charge the battery every 5 days or so. Obviously if you talk to people more than I do you will need to charge the phone more often, but it certainly has the best performing battery of any phone I've ever owned or used. It has a couple of handy extras (stop the presses, a mobile phone with a USEFUL extra!!!). There is a calculator, an alarm clock, a stopwatch and a timer, all of which can be surprisingly helpful, especially the alarm clock, brings my collection of devices used to wake me up in the morning to four, I sleep quite heavily sometimes! The T20 has all the usual features you would expect to find in a modern mobile phone. There are 10 different built in melodies, and 4 that you can set yourself. Unfortunately you can't get new ring tones by SMS (one of the few advantages of having a Nokia phone) but you can enter the notes yourself, so you can either make up your own little ditty, or enter a tune that you've found on the internet. You can set up personal ring tones for different people, so you can recognise who is calling by the sound coming from your phone, and ignore as appropriate!!! Another item missing is predictive text input. Unfortunately you do have to scroll through and type all the individual letters in every text message you send. In someways this is good as predictive messaging can get a little bit annoying if the phone never predicts correctly, but it does mean messages can take a little bit longer to write. On the positive side, if you find you are constantly sending the same or similar messages, you can set up some templates to save you typing in the same information every time. This is another one of those features I never use, but some of you out there might find it useful. You can also set up 'Groups', a set of people who will receive the same text message. Useful if you have a large group of friends you need to contact to say 'Be down the pub at 7.30!', but absolutely no use to me as I've only got one friend! (Altogether now, awwwwwwww!!!!) What other 'helpful' and 'essential' features does this phone have? Top of the list must be Swatch Internet Time. You've probably not heard of this, but it was a scheme put forward by Swatch (surprise surprise, given the name!) to split the day up into 1000 equal units, rather than minutes, days and hours. Part of this idea was that Swatch time would have no time zones, everyone would run on the same time. Needless to say, given the lack of publicity and the fact that very few people have heard of it, this idea has not taken off yet, so this is one of the more useless features this phone has! You can choose from 29 different languages for menu items to be displayed in. This might be useful if you happen to speak 29 different languages, but is of absolutely no use to me, as I only speak one. This is probably more a tool for the manufacturer, as it means you don't have to have differently programmed phones for different markets, you can sell exactly the same phone in many different countries, as rather than having to reprogramme the language in the phone, you just have to select the correct one. You can choose to have Voice dialling of up to 10 numbers. Fine in principle, but it really only works in quiet areas, and it's a bit embarrassing saying 'Dad' or 'Bloody Mother-in-Law' in a loud voice just to make a call, and it does seem to take longer to use the voice-dialling than it does to find and dial the number from the memory. Still, good way to show off to your friends, and if you are really evil you can set it up to respond to all sorts of dastardly statements when dialling certain people, such as 'W$%ker' when dialling your boss etc. What else, I'm running out of features, I've been through all the ones I use. Ah yes, it's a dual band phone. I won't get too technical here, but dual band means the phone will work on two different frequencies, 900 and 1800 Mhz. This won't affect you in this country, unless you want to change network from say Vodafone to Orange (these are British networks that run on different frequencies). But it is very useful if you want to use the phone abroad, as subject to a roaming agreement, you can use the phone on a greater number of foreign networks than a single band phone. Again this is probably a feature that is more useful for the phone manufacturer than the consumer, as it allows them to make one hone for use on all networks, rather than one model for use on 900 Mhz networks, and another for use on 1800 Mhz networks. There are the usual selection of rather useless games. It doesn't have Snake, but there is a pac-man clone, which you can use to while away a few seconds waiting for the bus. One final thing (don't groan, this won't take long). There is a QWERTY keyboard available you can attach to the bottom of the T20 to help make writing text messages and accessing WAP pages easier. You dont get one of those with a Nokia! They cost around $20, and if the phone looks cue, these things a really, really, really cute! Beyond all this there isn't much more I can say (there probably isn't much more TOO say, I've been wittering for so long!) The important points to remember about the T20 are:- 1. It has a great battery life 2. It has a vibrating alert 3. Most importantly it looks really, really cute. Apart from this, most phones really are all the same. Chose what's best for you. I really like this one, but there is plenty of choice out there. Do some research, think what you want in a phone and choose wisely. Good luck! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): GBP20 7671 Ericsson R520m GSM Cellular Phone 86858 2004/2/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight bluetooth great accesories gsm for today standard it is big Hi !! I live in Mexico city, and i found this little marvel in a small shop downtown. it was a great offer, it cost me $ 10.00 !! it is my first cell phone, and it has been a great buy !!! has Bluetooth, IR, a great phone book and is very light !! I´m happy with it !! ;D Oh, i forgot !!! it is GSM too !!! and the accesories like the ericsson MP3 makes it a great partner !! 86857 2003/3/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 every feature a power user may want slow menus hard to find on the market big The Bottom LineThe size will certainly be a factor for (not) choosing the phone. Ton of functions and being the last "Made in Sweden" model make it very special. Full Review I love big phones with impressive specs. I'm especially proud with the Nokia 7110, which is now almost impossible to buy. The waterproof Ericsson R310 was another jewel in my collection. So being spoiled by the Nokia 7110, I decided to find another phone, mainly because I wanted to test the Bluetooth everybody's talking about. R520m was the phone with enough feature, geek look and good price. So, here are my impressions from using it for a couple of months. PHYSICAL APPEARANCE When you hold it for first time, you'll notice three things. First, it's bigger than almost any other phone. It has extremely long silver body, additionally elongated by its thick black antenna. Second, it's thinner than almost any other phone. Its slim Li-Pol battery is the reason. And third, it appears to be unbreakable. The front side of the phone is made by hard metal-like plastic. The back is an aluminum plate almost half a centimeter thick. There is a button on each side of body - the left being two-directional arrow-key and the right activating of the voice recorder features. The front side is pretty populated. The screen is big (actually the same size as R320, predecessor of our R520 precious). There are lots keys - Yes, No, C, Properties, four arrows + the default number buttons. PHONE FEATURES You can always check the tech specs of the phone, but here's a summary of the things, which are not obvious in the spec. It has voice recorder, which can contain up to 96 seconds of recorded sound in low quality or 36 in high quality. This is user-definable, but the low quality is good enough if you speak with normal voice. R520 also has a speakerphone. You can use it when you play the voice memos or to speak with someone from distance. Actually, the speakerphone is just your phone speaker playing louder. The good thing is however that it automatically detects if your ear is near the phone - then it switches the speakerphone off. This is possible thanks to the motion detector. It is automatically activated, when you're in speakerphone mode. When you move the phone away, you can resume the speakerphone mode. Another unique feature made possible by the motion detector is to snooze (delay the alarm clock) just by waving your hand over the motion detector embedded near the speaker. The alarm is also quite flexible. You can have the phone ring recurrently at 9 am only in the working days for example. The calendar has lots of options to tickle with, but it's generally boring and hard to use, if you don't synchronize it with your PC. The phonebook is spacious - according to the spec it can contain up to 500 entries, which tends to be default with all business class phones lately. With every name you can save several phones, email and address. The name itself contains two parts - first and last name. It's also possible to transfer the business cards you've created to PC or to another phone through IR or Bluetooth. The Bluetooth itself is fine. I overestimated the possibilities it gives but that has nothing to do with this phone. We're in 2003, and still there are very few phones with that feature. I think this is partly because Bluetooth is just too difficult to configure and use. MENUS AND INTERFACE The first thing you need to remember about this phone is the Context menu button. It grants you access to different options (Delete, Bookmark, Refresh, Rename, etc.) according to your position in the phone operating system. For example, when you write a SMS and press, you have a quick way to insert different objects - pictures, melodies, etc. Otherwise, it's just your typical Ericsson tab-driven menu - if you work well with Windows, you'll surely make your way though this phone. The 4-grade grayscale screen doesn't make any difference. Here's the place to say for hundredth time that all the menus are SLOW. This is a problem with all the Ericssons I've seen - T20 and T29 being exceptions. I really hate to open my SMS Inbox for example - it takes about 30 seconds... A feature I miss a lot from my Nokia 7110 was the ability to arrange up to 100 of your messages in many custom folders. R520 is far from that - it can store up to 30 messages in its Inbox. Period. NETWORK COVERAGE AND SIGNAL QUALITY Nothing much to say here - I love the sound of this phone, it's crisp, loud and clear. I have coverage in everyplace my Nokia has. You'll never be disappointed in that respect from the phone. BATTERY This really depends on your local operator - here, with my provider (MTel Bulgaria) the phone takes 4 days to eat the battery. I have about 10 minutes of talking per day. CONCLUSION Having said all this, I must assure you, this phone is superior in technical terms to almost anything made before 2002. The size... well, it could have been smaller, but if you don't like clamshells phones like me, and hate those little Motorolas which can easily slip through your fingers, while you talk, it will be OK with you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86856 2000/1/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 bluetooth excellent audio rf quality battery life motion detection price large size makes carrying on ones belt or pocket impossible discontinued The Bottom LineBuy it before it's no longer available, read about it on the popular web cell sites, people that have owned the phone love it. Full Review I'm a bit of a cell-phone-aholic, I literally have a box full of cell phones which I no longer use. I'm not interested in taking pictures with my phone, or having fancy ring tones or color screens. I want phones which sound great on both ends, hold a signal, have extensive battery life, and a few features that a phone should have, like a good phone book, Bluetooth, alarm clock and tri-band GSM for international roaming. The R520m is packed with features, but lacks the colorful screens of the newer phones, no picture capability and no polyphonic ringer. The menu's are not as intuitive as on a Nokia and take a keystroke or two more to get to the most commonly used information. One feature that every phone should have is the ability to store more than ten numbers, which are dialed or received. The R520m will store thirty numbers and not repeat the same number in memory. It also has the ability to auto lock the keypad, very handy, not having to lock the keys each time you finish a call. Of course, this is one the strong points of flip phones or clam shells, they lock when close them. There are really four things that impress me with the R520m. It outperforms my other phones hands down with its incredible reception. I can receive and make calls in the subway station, at train level in Manhattan, I have tried this with my Motorola phones, both a V60g and P280, no signal, no conversation at the same location. At the interior of buildings in and around Manhattan, the phone shines, it sounds like your on a land line and the other party thinks so too. The battery life is also outstanding; it displays the amount of standby and talk time with the press of a button. With the extended lithium ion bhc-10, the times are listed as up to thirty days standby and twenty-four hours talk time, although your mileage may vary, times anywhere near these would be exceptional. This phone is by far the best deal on the market today, at $86 on many web sites, new, in the box, not refurbished, it has features only found on much more expensive phones, like Bluetooth and motion detection. I personally don't mind the size as I have "pocketable" wearable phones, like the v60g. But if you want a dinky phone, don't order this one. It's built like a brick, although it is very light. The screen is very clear and I find the buttons have excellent feedback. It's comfortable to hold and talk for extended times. The motion detection allows the speaker phone to automatically go off when you put the phone to your ear, so you won't go deaf. Speaking of the speakerphone, it's not too loud, in fact it's almost unusable it's so quiet. The sound emanates from the same speaker you put to your ear, not a separate loud speaker like other phones. It could be used in a very quiet environment or if your on hold and don't want to hold the phone to your end. The motion detector also allows you to get an extra 10 minutes sleep by waiving your hand near the phone. It puts the phone back into snooze mode when the alarm goes off. It has a built in modem so using your palm or pocketpc to dialup an isp is easy to setup. I had it up and working on a dialup connection to Bellsouth in a matter of minutes using an IPAQ with the infrared connection. In summation, if you're looking for a good business phone at an incredible price, this is it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 88 86855 2004/5/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 bluetooth price amazing features big for today not intuitive unstable The Bottom LineIf you need these features (specifically Bluetooth), this is an adequate phone. If not, look elsewhere. Full Review I recently purchased a Palm Tungsten PDA which has built in Bluetooth capability and was looking for a phone to replace my Nokia 3390. I looked at the Ericsson T68 before deciding to go with the much cheaper (although bulkier) R520m. My conclusions? Well, first let's go down the advantages/disadvantages, because that's really where you need to go to figure out if this phone is for you. Advantages First off this phone is SUPER thin. And the battery that comes with it looks like it's practically NOTHING. It really is amazing how small that sucker got, and stll has respectable talk/wait times (about 3 hours of talking/5-6 days of standby). The features on this phone are fabulous. Just to name a few: Speaker phone (which automatically turns off when you bring the phone to your face) Bluetooth connectivity Voice memo Alarm Games (lame ones, but addictive) Datebook Enhanced phone book (which allows you to input more names than will fit on the GSM card) Infrared Port WAP and GPRS capability Text messaging Tri-band Voice dialing In short, this is one very impressive little phone...on paper. My experience is that this phone also gets very good reception--much better than the Nokia 3390. Plus, since it's an older phone, you can get this one CHEAP. In short, it's a very capable little product. Disadvantages But that's not to say that there aren't some real disadvantages to this phone. It's thin, but it's really broad. Two or three years ago, this would be a mini-phone. Now it's bulky. I wouldn't want to walk around with this in my pants pocket (jacket, okay). Also, it's an Ericsson phone. It's always been my opinion that Ericsson phones were made for people who didn't mind going through a few more keystrokes to get what they want done. Nokia phones are just more user friendly IMHO. With Nokia, user manuals are pretty useless because you can pick up one of their phones and figure it out quickly. For the R520m, I was buried in the manual for the first two days trying to figure out how to change the ringer, how to put a call on hold, and easy stuff like that. I still don't know how to use the speakerphone very well (like how do you transfer from speakerphone to headset and back to speakerphone in one call). My second generalization about Ericsson products is something I've always heard, but now can attest to from personal experience. They're just not as stable. I've had to turn off my Ericsson to allow it to reset itself (yep, a reboot on a cell phone). Granted, in the six months I've had this phone, I've probably had to do it about six times, but that's still six more times than I ever had to do it with my Nokia. Plus, after a barrage of e-mails Ericsson's tech support, I've never been able to use the Bluetooth with my home computer. Now, it works beautifully with my PDA and the Jabra headset that I got. As a matter of fact, the integration between the Tungsten and the R520m make it worth the purchase alone. But sometimes it works a little too beautifully with the headset. When you make a call, it asks whether you want to take the call in the headset or on the handset. Even when I've told it I want to take it on the handset, it still transfers it to the headset. Frustrating, and it's made even worse because there's not an intuitive way to transfer a call between headset and handset. I end up just losing someone when I try to do this. Plus, this phone just doesn't feel like it's built to hold up for that long. The plastic housing feels like, well, cheap plastic housing. I dropped my phone in the parking lot the other day and it put some big dings in the side of it. It wasn't a very high fall, either. Pretty disappointing. One note about the PDA-like functions on this phone. They're very adequate, but if you're looking for a PDA, get a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Cell phones make lousy PDAs because you have to key stuff in using a series of key presses in combination with some well timed pauses. It's pretty nerve wracking, and you can't sync things up with your home computer very easily (if at all). Plus, look at the size of your phone display. How much information can you really put on that? Very little. The point of a PDA is something you will use. Believe me, you won't use this for long as a PDA. Also, realize that this is an older phone, which means Ericsson really isn't all that keen on supporting this product. Try finding any information about it on the Ericsson web site. It's there, but it sure is buried. The bottom line. So do I recommend it? IF (and only if) you're looking for a cost effective Bluetooth enabled phone, this is DEFINITELY the way to go. You get all the bells and whistles of the other phones (and then some) with this one, plus, if you have a Bluetooth headset, the bulk of the phone is pretty much a non-issue (put the phone in your briefcase/purse--it'll work just fine). BUT, if you'd never use Bluetooth, find something else. I'd highly recommend practically anything from the Nokia line. This one is just too busy, and user unfriendly. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 86854 2000/3/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight great battery life w monitoring speakerphone too easy to power off while in pocket buggy bluetooth implementation The Bottom LineA good phone for a serious professional, but not without its quirks. Full Review I have used an Ericsson R520m for about 6 months, and it is close to the best phone that I have ever had. It has a comprehensive set of features, including Bluetooth (which was the main selling point, so I could use it with iSync and Clicker on the Mac) and a pretty good speakerphone. What's more, it has an extremely impressive battery life, and also has a status monitor which tells you more or less exactly how much standby and talk time you can expect at any given moment. As far as phones go, it's quite capable, with voice dialing, automatic profile selection based on time of day or attached accessories (for example, plug it into an Ericsson car holster and it'll switch to the "car" profile), and with a nice, loud speakerphone which also has a proximity sensor to automatically switch to normal volume levels when you put it to your ear -- which also doubles as a handy way to interact with alarms. Unfortunately, it's not without problems. First off, the Bluetooth implementation is a bit buggy, and sometimes crashes the phone's OS. Additionally, pairing the phone with a Mac requires that you initiate the pairing from the phone, or else iSync won't recognize its address book functionality. Also, leaving Bluetooth activated severely impacts the power consumption; with Bluetooth disabled, the phone can go 5-6 days between charges, but with Bluetooth enabled it must be charged every night. However, the biggest nuisance by far is that the phone's operating system provides a "quick power-off" function which is activated by holding the power button down for 10 seconds (which is quite a bit longer than it takes to remove and reinsert the battery). This function activates whether the keypad is locked or not, which has caused the phone to turn off while sitting in my pocket on numerous occasions. It seems like such a worthless "feature" which causes more trouble than it could conceivably solve... Still, all in all this is a good phone available at a good price, and is a great choice for people who want a Bluetooth phone but don't care about cameras or color displays. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7672 Ericsson T68 GSM Cellular Phone 86861 2004/5/9 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 life batt small weak signal awful screen resolution slow response more of a show off not a comm Okay, it's got all the gizmos a cell phone can have. But communication wise it's sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never had a good conversation when ever I'm using this phone. I've tried a lot of comparison and I've found out that cheaper phones perform better than this phone. I'll give it -neg. 10 in communication and -neg. 5 on display and response, It's so slow. 86860 2000/8/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 lightweight low profile color screen outstanding battery life horrendous user interface The Bottom LineIf you've got other options, take them. The T68 is a step down from every other phone I've had (including the ones from 5 years ago). Full Review I was enticed to get this phone because it was one of the first with a color screen, it was light, had a large memory and an outstanding battery life. After purchasing this phone though I've realized that my priorities were not in order. The phone is very light and small, and the battery life is very long. These things are wonderful about this phone and they are basically the only reasons I still have it and use it (other than the fact that I can't get an inexpensive replacement without purchasing an additional contract). The cons however, far outweigh the pros. The phone is more or less unusable. You cannot store numbers of people you call or who call you without memorizing them or writing them down. From there you have to go into the phonebook and choose "Add Contact" and hope that your memory of the number will last long enough. This is my biggest complaint about the phone. I NEVER add people's numbers because it is such a hassle. The phone has a huge amount of memory but it is useless if you never add any numbers (I added all of mine using the Bluetooth sync with my Powerbook). The next worse thing is the lag time between the push of a button and the phone's response. This lag time is probably a little under half-a-second and becomes really noticable any time you plan on pushing more than two or three buttons consecutively. It is unacceptably slow. Finally, the reception is terrible. I love the fact that it doesn't have an external antenna, but the price you pay for that is lousy reception; I rarely get more than two out of five bars while my friends with the same service consistantly get four or five in the same location. The phone definitely has its plusses but the minuses outweigh them. The battery life is second to none - no doubt about it. We all know how annoying it is to go from a "full charge" to a "low battery" in minutes and with this phone you will never even think about the battery again. As I mentioned above, the phone is Bluetooth compatible which is awesome if you have a Bluetooth card for your computer. At this point though, I think most of the phones have Bluetooth. The phone is also very light, but these three pros are not sufficient to overcome the hassle that I feel every time I use my phone. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 30 86859 2000/9/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 color screen tri band great battery life bluetooth menu a bit confusing in the begining The Bottom LineNice to have even though you may not need all the feature. Full Review I'll try to make this a sharp and short review. First, this is not for those people who does not like to explore new things. The menu shows as icons and you must navigate using a tiny joystick. Pressing the joystick means 'ENTER' or committing a YES in a dialog. It does not take to long for me to master the menu navigation. Infrared communication works well with my IBM Thinkpad and able to synchronize my Outlook contacts using the supplied XTNDConnect PC software. This is extremely useful if you want to keep your contact organized. Every person/contact in the list could have more than one number like for home, mobile, fax, and even e-mail address. The infrared works well too with my Palm m505 to send/receive SMS. I also like the personalized ring tone for each contact. Without even looking at the caller ID, I can tell whether the caller is my wife or my boss. The idea of showing certain picture representing a caller is great to tease your friends. Show to your colleagues that Mr. Bean's face to appear when your boss call, that's a lot of fun! Bluetooth feature is great! It tested well with a bluetooth printer during one expo here. Transferring images captured by a Nokia 7250 is no hassle via bluetooth. A HP iPaq Pocket PC connected to my T68i can surf easily via GPRS. Changing logo and ringtone never been easier using my Palm m505 with a free software called FunnyPhone. Battery life is more than enough for my usage. Three days in a single 7 hours charge is still achievable even after I use the phone more than one year. My only complain is its slowness. When I press a button, sometimes I don't get immediate response. When scrolling through phonebook, you can easily overshot. Mine was originally a T68 then upgraded the firmware to T68i. Now it is MMS capable and able to take a snap on camera. Besides, upgrading the firmware can help to increase performance. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 7673 Kyocera KX414 86871 2004/8/2 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating1.0 looks good software bugs terrible reception The KX-414 looks good. It's small, curvy and light. That's about as far as it goes for the high points, however. The reception is terrible. I am on a family share plan, so I am able to directly compare a phone's reception to others on the same network in the same place, and this is the worst I have seen in a while. On top of that there are several software bugs. I replaced this phone under the one-year warranty several times and every unit I received would lock you out of the menu items randomly, requiring a soft reset. This phone is made for the teen crowd. It looks nice, and if you use your 15-day tryout in the city you will never notice it's horrible RF. I suggest getting the Nokia 3589i instead. It gets the best reception you will ever find, barring the new v710 possibly, and it's priced just about the same. 86870 2005/7/1 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 stopwatch etc the most useful thing about this phone is the tools functionality timer sadly temperamental functionality awkward key sizes uncomfortable for long conversations I've been using a Kyocera KX414 for almost 2 years now, and I cannot wait to get another phone. I got this one by default, as the first phone didn't work in this area (see upcoming review of Verizon service). This phone is supposed to function in digital and analog modes, but it rarely does. The ring tones do not work (IOW, no matter what ring tone I select, it insists upon using the annoying Kyocera tune, which is difficult for me to hear when the phone is in the next room). Tech support at Verizon is mystified about this, and recommends that I take it into the nearest store (25 miles away). Battery life is poor, and the phone grows uncomfortably warm if conversations last more than 10 minutes. This phone could have been better, but I think that Kyocera went on the cheap. I suspect that this phone was designed primarily for teens, who are likely to be more interested in amusing screen savers than in reliability or consistent functionality. This phone came free with a new Verizon account -- and I certainly understand why. I can't imagine paying for this thing. 86869 2006/11/8 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 compact handy replacement part not available for sale I have a Kyocera SE 44 bought through Virgin Mobile. The phone has functioned fine. Recently the tip of the antenna broke off. It took me about a minute to remove the assembly. I went to the Kyocera website which really sucked. Finally I was able to find reference to the one repair site authorized in the U.S. I contacted that site, and I contacted Kyocera in an attempt to BUY the assembly. I would be able to reinstall it in 2 minutes. This would save me the cost of the repair, the cost of shipping and the down time involved. The part is not available for sale. The tip breaking off may very well be a design flaw. I find this very unsatisfying and feel it is enough reason that I would never buy, or recommend that anyone else buy a Kyocera product. 86868 2004/9/3 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 relatively user friendly free with contract poor range between towers poor battery life poor call quality The Bottom LineI would not own this phone any longer if I could get better model at the promotional prices offered at signing. Full Review *ORIGINAL OPINION* May 31, 2004 When going from a 4 year old Nokia cell phone to a new Kyocera Phantom phone, you'd think you'd get better reception, longer battery life, better range, and a more user friendly phone. I have had the Phantom phone for 5 months now and it has not met my expectations. I have the rare opportunity to use my old phone and my new one simultaneously because I still use the old Nokia 5165 for work. If I lose a call on the Kyocera in a "dead" spot(of which there are many), I can call the person back on the Nokia and have no problems. This is very aggravating. Another bigger aggravation is the poor battery quality. I can charge the phone all night long on AC current and the next morning the phone will die during a 25 minute conversation. When I restart the phone, I can make another 25 minute call and it will die again, ad infinitum. This problem has been there from the outset and drives me nuts. The phone is relatively user friendly when you ignore the other two problems, but the WHOLE POINT of a cell phone is to be able to make calls in remote areas without having to find a phone booth. It can be the most user friendly phone in the world and still be a piece of junk if you cannot make calls. I have finally gotten so annoyed with the Kyocera Phantom phone that I took it back to US Cellular for a warranty return. I got the same model phone as a loner until they determine whether or not they want to give me a different phone. If you live in town and rarely get more than a couple miles from a tower and you buy the car charger and have it on you at all times, this phone might be ok for you. In the end, a free promotional phone is a free promotional phone. I just wish I had put forth the 50 or a hundred bucks to buy a better quality phone. *UPDATE* September 3, 2004 Shoulda wrote an update a couple months ago when everything was said and done but didn't get around to it. The loner phone had just as poor quality as my phone. I cancelled the repair request because of this fact. When they received their loner back, they claimed I had caused water damage to it based on the water sensitive indicator behind the battery and tried to charge me 100 bucks for it. I had to do a lot of running around and calling around to get this charge off my bill. If you ever get a loner phone, make very sure the strip behind the battery does not have any fuzziness to it. If it does, refuse to accept it and demand one without a damaged strip. I saw it was fuzzy when I got it but neglected to say anything to the salesperson. Anyhow, I have gotten so fed up with this Kyocera that I have bit the bullet and bought a used Audiovox phone for 80 bucks. This phone is marginally better for reception and much better for battery life but but nearly as good for user friendliness. I rarely drop calls with this phone. By the way, I was out with friends for pizza Wednesday night and some of them have gotten Kyoceras since I've posted this. Not a single one of them is satisfied. Every one of us would like to get our Nokia 5165's back, they had much, much better reception. I restate my opinion that this Kyocera would be ok if you kept a charger on you at all times and never got too far from a tower. Other than that, it's junk. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): free w/contrRecommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86867 2000/5/31 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating3.0 simplicity of use durability battery life screen size range The Bottom LineThe KX414 is a good, basic phone but lacks in battery life and range. Full Review I had a Motorola flip-phone, but I lost it, so I had to get this one because it was cheap. I immediately noticed the battery life was much shorter than my old flip-phone, only lasting about 2~3 days during average use. It has gotten worse as time goes on; after a year and 2 months it only lasts about a day and a half. The main reason that prompted me to write this review is that the place where you plug the charger into the phone broke recently. The little piece of metal in there broke off while charging, rendering it useless. I was very disappointed that such an important item on the phone would break. All of the ringtones that come with the phone are pretty bad, not to mention you only get 6~7 of them. It also does not come with games, but you can download them if you have verizon. I find the controls and menu easy to navigate, you can customize the menu any way you want it and make shortcut keys. The range is slightly below average, but acceptable for such a cheap phone. This phone has a very durable plastic shell, its never cracked or broken anywhere through all the abuse I have put it through. One other quirk of this phone is what happens when you leave it on for long periods of time, such as 3+ months. Things wont work, like you could press OK to get to the menu, but then it wont let you go anywhere on the menu, or one time it displayed the screen up-side down. All of the problems are fixed when you turn it off and then back on. The KX414 is a good cell phone for the money, just don't expect too many features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86866 2000/7/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 cute nice no frills phone durable barely operates in analog mode can t tell the time if no reception echo The Bottom LineI would recommend the phone for people who aren't asking for much, but would like something reliable when they're on the go. It's perfect for that. Full Review Overall, this was a good phone to start out on. I was one of the people who put off getting a cell phone, and I was adamantly against the bells and whistles (I won't buy any crazy packages, I don't need fancy ring tones or email, and I use maybe 5 text messages a month, tops). I'm just now switching it up for something new, not because I had a problem with the phone, but because I enjoy novelty. I wouldn't be disappointed if I had to stick with this one for the next 2 years. (I still haven't received my new phone yet, so who knows, I may end up keeping this phone another 2 years anyway) My biggest problems with the phone were pretty mundane - I didn't like that I couldn't add a number to an existing contact without manually entering it (like when someone calls you from a different number than you already have, you can't just save it to the person), I had an occasional echo depending where I was, and it heated up after about 10 minutes of chatting. I was disappointed that I couldn't use the alarm or clock features if I was in a no service area. Also, after I had it a bit, I noticed I had to charge it about every 2 days, and I'm not one to talk on the phone much at all. When it's searching for a signal, you're bound to end up with a low battery. It's supposed to be able to operate in Analog mode, but unless I was in 1X territory, it wasn't worth even trying to make a call. It would be nice if it had a built-in game or two, and the keypad felt like you had to be somewhat forceful, but now I'm just being nit-picky. There's plenty about my phone that was a-ok. I wont' say I "loved it!" because it's just a phone for goodness' sakes, but it really did do the trick for what I needed it for. I needed a reliable phone to act as my primary home phone and to use for my frequent trips btwn Vermont and Pennsylvania. It's been great for both. I was able to find an included ring I could handle, a background that wasn't cheezy, and navigating it was fine. Most of the calls I had that were dropped were in areas that my friends got dropped calls with their much fancier phones. It was a great starter-phone for someone who really wasn't into the texting/bluetoothing/watch tv on your phone thing. I just needed to talk to people, get voicemail reliably, have a decent address book of people, and receive the occasional text message. This phone has been great for that. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 73Recommended for: World Travelers - Works Anywhere and Everywhere! 86865 2000/9/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 inexpensive handset that has good battery lifeclear call quality verizon mandated features reduce options small size restricts usability The Bottom LineReasonably priced phone for people with few dollars to spend. Full Review "You get what you pay for," many like to say. Often that holds true when it comes to cell phones. But is it wrong to critique an inexpensive phone, like the Kyocera KX414? Surely, after more than a decade of focus groups, market research and plenty of customer feedback, phone makers should capable of producing phones that work well and are easy to use. Often then do. But too often a good phone is hampered by the manufacturing obligations stipulated by the [evil] service provider. Let's take a look. Cell phones have gone through many stages, but the one that seems rather constant is the continual effort to produce smaller phones. With a reduction in size come some natural tradeoffs, like shorter battery life and smaller screens and buttons. New battery technology has improved battery life, but it,s hard to overcome problems like screen and key size when there are physical, not operational limitations. All features and limitations have to be viewed relative to the cost of the phone. With that in mind first let's look at a few of the limitations and negative features of the KX414, which is a CDMA tri-mode phone available on Verizon's website for $19.99, with a two year contract. The Negative The backlit color LCD screen is small (only 104 by 80 pixels). When the backlighting turns off, the display is virtually unreadable. Even with backlighting, in bright sunlight the display is very difficult to read. Although the KX414 has a four-way toggle pad, designers completely missed the intuitive concept of allowing a user to navigate from superior directories to sub-menus with the right and left arrow keys. Instead, the user has to use an "OK" and a "CLR" button to change directories. This usually requires using two hands, or at least taking your thumb off the keypad and moving it to another key. (Incidentally, Audiovox uses this method and it works very well and allows for quick menu navigation). When it comes to the menu, it's very annoying that you can't customize the order of the menu options, for example putting the "settings" menu first on the list and those menu options that are used infrequently on the bottom of the list. Perhaps the biggest "sin" Verizon committed was assigning shortcuts to the left and right nav keys that the user can't change. Further, these shortcuts are blatantly self-serving: the left and right nav keys open the web browser and connect to Verizon's BREW site, where you can download apps...for a fee. At the least they ought to have allowed these keys to be reassigned if desired. Which leads to the next gripe... Because there is only one open key to assign a shortcut to, you are limited to just one of the two or three things most cell phone users do frequently: change the ringer volume or lock the keypad or reviewing recent calls. These are things people do very frequently, and should be able to do quickly, with minimal keystrokes. Instead, it requires diving two or three layers into the menu to make the desired change-shame! And speaking of keys, yes, they are small, and very closely spaced, which makes it difficult to press, even for people with nimble fingers. With those complaints aside, let's explore some of the features that deserve praise. The Positive Though small, when backlit the screen is bright, and colorful. Despite having a backlit screen, battery life is a generous 7.5 days standby and 3.5 hours talk time, and so far it's performing as advertised. The small size of the phone means it fits easily into pockets, purses, briefcases etc. Using the Fast Find feature, the user can search for phone book contacts from the main screen by pressing any alpha-numeric key. Then entries for all the letters on that key appear in alphabetical order--a very easy way to find a number! The phone's software automatically adjusts the speaker level based on ambient noise. This feature works well. When using a headset, a feature can be enabled that allows the user to answer the phone with a voice command, a cool feature that allows you to keep your hands truly free. The Tools menu includes some useful things like, an alarm clock, calculator, timer and stopwatch, but unfortunately the phone is also littered with seemingly useless programming clutter like the Doodler drawing program (more effort than it's worth), backgrounds and screensavers. The trend with many phones today is to showcase each menu directory with a giant icon that takes up a good portion of the screen. Luckily, some savvy software engineer made sure to allow the user to replace these icons with a traditional text listing that allows more info on the screen. Additionally, most Settings menu items are followed by an "Information" prompt that explains what that setting controls--informative and very useful. The Final Word Having explored some of the pros and cons, and from my experience using the phone, my impression is generally positive. The KX414 is inexpensive, small, fits well into the palm of my hand, offers good call clarity and battery life with some modest additional features that generally overshadow the negative and annoying restrictions that Verizon has imposed. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 14.99Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86864 2005/10/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 nice basic cell phone with excellent receptionbattery life none for us The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for basic communications, but look else where if you need ever feature possible cell phone feature. Full Review Last summer it was time to upgrade our cell phones. Having been satisfied with our Verizon for almost 3 years it made sense to stick with them. So I headed to the mall in search of a basic, free (or nearly so) cell phone. I selected the Kyocera KX414, also known as "Phantom." The Basics The KX414 is a compact one piece phone. It is about 4 ½" X 2" and is less than 1" thick. The fixed antennae extends 1" beyond the case. With the battery installed it weighs just under 4 oz. The phone works in both digital and analog modes. In digital mode you can get up to 180 hours of standby time and 3 ½ hours of talk time from the lithium ion battery. Performance in analog mode is significantly less, which is to be expected. In analog mode you get up to 20 hours of standby time and 1 hour of talk time. A standard AC charger is included with the phone. Our phones came with a Quick Reference Guide, a Welcome CD-ROM as well as two 55 page User Guides, one in English and one in Spanish. The phone case is silver but you can purchase additional face plates. It comes with a silver-blue face plate standard which surrounds the 1 ½' (diagonal) color screen. Several different color schemes, wallpapers and screen savers are built in. The number pad is backlit to make it very easy to use in low light conditions. Beyond the number pad there is an OK and CLR(clear) button as well as a dial and disconnect. The disconnect button as toggles the phone on and off. There is a cursor button in the middle to navigate the menus as well as serve as a shortcut key. It comes with some nice additional features, those that I have used include the stopwatch, tip calculator and alarm clock. The phone is programmed with several polyphonic tomes. More can be downloaded directly to the phone or by connecting to a PC. Depending on your service provider the phone can be wet up for text messaging, web browsing and e-mail. This phone is available for use with CellularOne, Cricket Communications, Qwest Wireless, U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless service providers. The phone stores up to 200 phones numbers with contact information. Phone numbers can be classified as business or personal and different ring tones and screen icons can be assigned to them. Each contact can have up to 6 phone numbers, 2 e-mail addresses, 2 websites and 200 characters for comments. Numbers can all be set up for speed dialing or you can scroll through a list. The phone can also be set up for voice activated dialing. Our Experience We have not had a phone connected to our land line in over 3 years so our cell phones are our primary means of communication. That makes stand-by and talk time were the critical features I was looking at. It also had to be easy to use with minimal extra features to confuse my husband. Price was also an issue. When I went to the Verizon store it was clear that this phone met my three primary requirements. It had some of the longest stand-by and talk time, probably due to the fact that the phone is not filled with features we would never use. The offer at the time of purchase was 1 phone for $9.95 and up to three more for free. It made my decision very easy. We are both pleased with the performance of our phones. While I have never actually timed the battery life I remember to charge my phone once, perhaps twice a week. I have never had the battery run out in the 6 months we have had them. On average I talk about 15 minutes a day so it does not get a lot of use. Reception is excellent throughout the northeast. I am quite impressed by its indoor reception. With our previous StarTac phones I could not make or receive a call in our local mall, unless I was near the atrium roof and they only worked at the front half of my regular grocery store. The only place locally I have been unable to receive a signal was at a large indoor sports arena. We did run into some trouble using our phones when on vacation in North Carolina. Just a few miles outside of Raleigh and we could no longer make phone calls, even when the phone switched automatically to analog mode. We also noticed the significant drop in stand by time. Since I don't wear a watch I rely on my phone for the time and date, so I did have to be careful to keep it plugged in when I was not carrying it with me. This was not much of a problem as I used the phone's alarm clock feature so I ensured the phone was plugged in at night. Our ability to make phone calls in the area was limited, but looking at our provider's coverage area map that would be expected where we were staying. I was a little disappointed with what Kyocera calls "games." It is really just a doodle pad for drawing pictures. While I could download games for an additional charge, I just haven't bothered. I did download a ring tone for $1.99 and I found the process to be very easy and the download itself was very quick. The menus are well laid out and intuitive to use. In fact I just realized as I was writing this review neither of us ever opened our set of user manuals, both were still shrink wrapped. Everything from voice messaging to storing contacts we obviously figured out as we went along. One of our favorite features is the ability to set the up direction on the cursor key as a shortcut button. With young children in the house, my 18 month old in particular likes to play with my phone. I just hold the cursor up for 2 seconds and the keypad is locked so I don't have to worry about her making calls to China. My husband is a fulltime student so he uses his short cut key to put the phone in silent mode while he is in class. There is a recall on some batteries provided with some Kyocera phones. Both of our phones were effected by the recall. I simply filled out a form on-line and about 4 days later we had two new batteries. We also received two pre-paid envelopes to return the counterfeit batteries. The only accessories we have purchased was a set of faceplates. Since my husband and I have the same phone we have on more than one occasion grabbed the wrong phone. I returned to the store where I purchased the phone to buy a faceplate. They were out of stock but he offered to order them for me. I paid $3.15 for a set of three face plates (red, bright blue and a black and white check) and they were drop shipped from Kyocera directly to my house in about 4 days. Other accessories available are hands-free car kits, holsters, leather cases, windshield mounts and earpieces. Extra batteries can be purchased for about $20. Final Thoughts My husband and I are both pleased with our phones. They are lightweight and small, but not so small that they are difficult to use. They fit easily in a coat pocket, my diaper bag or the stroller tray. Our reception is excellent and the battery life seems to live up to the claims. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.95 / 2Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86863 2004/5/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 acceptable ring tones sleek design didn t include games The Bottom LineThe Kyocera Phantom KX414 is an excellent option for teens, students and adults that don't want a flip phone. Our teen daughter really likes it! Full Review At the same time that I purchased my new cellular phone, two additional phones were obtained, including the Kyocera KX414 - for our teenage daughter. It was obvious to her Father and I that time had arrived for her to be armed with a cellular. She has various extracurricular activities and is a competitive hip-hop dancer. Dance competitions require travel and the classes for such sometimes require her to utilize a combination of bus transportation and walking. I want her to be able to dial "911" and for her to be able to reach us and vice-versa. Our cellular phones are on a America's Choice Family SharePlan with in-Network Calling. She is a responsible young adult, so this works well for our family unit. Naturally I wanted her to be included in the phone selection process, yet conflicting schedules made it necessary for me to select the phone. The Verizon representative suggested the Kyocera Phantom KX414 - a Get It Now Color Phone. Her immediate reaction was favorable, unlike the raised eyebrow (of dislike) that she gave toward the Nokia 3589I that her Father obtained (which she thought was 'too big'). The Kyocera Phantom KX414 has a Color Display, Polyphonic Ring Tones, Changeable Facemask, Voice Activated Dialing, and several other features. I agree with the sales representative, who stated that this phone is functional and fashionable. This phone is primarily silver with an accent of blue, via the facemask. These masks are easy to change. This phone has a stub antenna. The phone is small (4.45 in x 1.89 in x .91 in) and lightweight (3.52 Ounces) enough to fit in her purse or jacket. Because my daughter was slated as the primary user, I felt it was important for her to program the phone; however I sat beside her. She glanced through the Quick Reference Guide and then used the User Manual and Welcome CD to familiarize herself with the phone features. She quickly grasped how to program the phone book, customize the color display and select rings/tones. My daughter programmed in contact names. The contact directory is sizable, allowing you to store up to 200 contact names. Each contact name will hold up to 6 phone numbers, 2 email addresses, 2 websites and a 200-character comment section. Unlike my Audiovox CDM8900 this phone offers a nice selection of normal business like ring tones, music tones, and - of course - additional ring/tone selections can be purchased. This phone can be set to ring, vibrate/ring, or just vibrate. The vibrate only mode is a good option for school hours or during other times in which she doesn't want 'noise' interruptions. I will mention that I thought this phone included a couple games, but realized after purchase that you have to utilize Verizon's Get It Now service (extra charge). Certain other features require use of Verizon's Get It Now service. We have utilized this service to add games and browse ring tones. Charges for this service vary, depending on the application and you are charged airtime. This service is easy to navigate/use and the connection speed/download time is impressive. Although I have used this phone several times, my daughter is the primary user. Her initial positive reaction has continued. She really likes this phone! It is my view that the Kyocera Phantom KX414 is a good option for teens, students and adults that don't want a flip phone. However I want to mention that my husband doesn't like how this phone fits his hands, claiming that the phone feels small and the buttons are awkward. It appears as though this phone will be durable, as it has already survived a few drops. The battery charges quickly; although I haven't timed it, I know that my daughter plugs it in every third evening and unplugs it in the morning. Product specifications claim that the included battery will hold a standby charge of 180 hours/7 ½ days or 3 ½ hours of talk time. It is hard to judge precisely how close actual time is because my daughter also uses this phone to play games. The conversation clarity is good and we haven't had any challenges with reception, even in some areas that previously challenged my old Nokia 5185I or Qualcomm 2760. The LCD - 104x80 pixels - is acceptable. My daughter really likes the animation feature. Also the blue back lighting for the keypad makes it easy to see the alphanumerical keypad. This phone offers Text messaging and has predictive text-input (20 templates*). Auto-text templates allow the user to quickly input and send common messages such as: Have a great day I'm going... I'm at... Where are you? What are you... Busy Please call me What's up Running late Need directions What should What are you I love you Got your message Will call later Thank you Hi there Recently when our power was out the alarm clock was an appreciated feature. Other features include a calculator and calendar options. ==========****====****====****====****========== Included With Purchase: Kyocera KX414 Phone Standard lithium Ion Battery Power Adapter User Manual Welcome CD Rom Quick Reference Guide Manufacturer Claim: "Say hello to your new comrade in communication. A phone as unconventional, unconstrained, and uninhibited as you. Here's what we're talking about: optional user-changeable mask so you can match your phone to your mood, or your mood to your phone; an optional sport clip to attach your phone to your backpack or purse; text messaging with funky animation; downloadable screensavers and enough built-in polyphonic rings to satisfy even the most boring situations. And with voice-activated dialing, a calculator, an alarm clock, a stopwatch, web access and e-mail capabilities, living your life, planning your weekends, and calling to extend your curfew just got a whole lot easier." Features: Weight: 3.52 Ounces Dimensions : 4.45 in x 1.89 in x .91 in Standby Time: Up to 180 hours Usage Time: Up to 3.5 hours 65K STN Color Display Brilliant-blue backlit display and keypad Optional user-changeable masks CDMA2000 1X technology: download data at speeds up to 153 Kbps Up to 25 ringer types plus vibrate alert - Choose your own song from built-in polyphonic ring tones or simply download something new. Contact directory stores names, addresses, notes and phone numbers Supports multiple language options Headset jack TTY and TDD enabled for the hearing impaired Contact cartoon alert for incoming calls, games and downloadable screensavers Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) capable so you can spice up text messages with cool animation. Predictive text-input software for rapid text entry Voice-activated dialing: Press a button, say a name - and you're connected. Web access and the ability to send and receive e-mail. Built-in contact directory, scheduler, calculator, alarm clock and stopwatch. GPS locator (As per product brochure) Additional Information: http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/phantom_phone/phantom_feature_benefit.htm *"Text Messaging templates provide pre-set text that can be used to quickly send common text (SMS) messages without typing the message itself." Family Affair Other Phones Thank you for reading! ©2004 Lisa_J Recommended: Yes Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 86862 2004/9/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 changable faceplates all the features the average user needs nice color screen no direct buttons for volume control navigation can take some getting used to The Bottom LineAll in all, for someone who's not a tech person, the KX 414 is a great phone to have Full Review A basic all-around cell phone with an excellent color screen, great ring tone choices and good reception and call quality, the Kyocera KX414 makes a good first cell phone or a replacement for someone who doesn't want to be bothered with the latest and greatest whiz-bang features. The time had come for my partner to replace his aging that had been dropped in a bucket of sanitized water and had the antenna broken off. I had become tired of him trying to read the almost non-existent screen and him trying to get a signal without the antenna. Of course, he told me that it was fine, but considering it was my family phone plan, I had enough and we were going to switch his number to a phone my brother had given me to replace the dying one. Instead, when we got to Verizon, they let us know that the Kyocera KX414 was on sale and we could get a whole new phone for $20. I didn't even let my partner say anything and handed over the credit card and soon he had a new phone in his pocket. 414 Basics Signals, Coverage and Call Clarity The KX 414 is a CDMA tri-mode phone, able to pick up signals in the IS2000 digital mode, the IS95 digital mode and in analog mode. Generally in most areas you'll be able to find one of those signals to make a call on. The IS2000 is the best, while analog is the weakest and most prone to static and lost calls. Here is Massachusetts, most coverage is the IS2000 with pockets of analog - the phone easily switches between modes and is generally invisible and seamless to the user. The phone has a good ability to pick up signals - my partner immediately noticed the increased signal strength on the KX 414 versus his older phone (even when it had an antenna). In many places he couldn't make calls because of a week or non-existent signal, he is now able to make and receive calls. To me, the signal acquisition seems about equal to my . During phone calls digital signals are the clearest, even with a weak signal. Static is minimal and generally if coverage drops off - the phone merely cuts out and drops the call, instead of filling with static and trying to stay connected. With analog service there is noticeable static in areas with weak coverage, but in areas with better coverage, the static is less noticeable. Voices are clear and easy to understand on the KX 414, as is your own voice on the other end. Battery Life and Talk Time The KX 414 is rated for 3 ½ hours of talk-time and I would guess that it's probably off by about a half an hour or so - you'll likely get about 3 hours on a full-charge. My partner regularly uses the phone and on a single charge, with average usage, the charge will last about 2 days. Standby is rated at almost 7 days, but we've found after two or three days of not charging (without using it - since he loves to forget it in his car) the battery strength is quite low and it needs a charging if you don't want it quitting during a phone call. Screen The KX 414 comes in a grayscale model and a 65k color model. We picked up the color model. The colors on the screen are bright and clear and can be viewed with or without the backlight on. In darker areas, the backlight is required to see the screen and in sunnier, brighter spots, you may have to shade the screen to see it clearly. Size and Weight It's a small phone, even compared to the older Motorola V120c that he had. It measures about 4 ½ inches in height, just under two inches in width and just under an inch in thickness. Its total weight is only 3 ½ ounces, which is light enough to easily carry, but not so light that you'd forget that you have it in your pocket. There is no flip feature to the phone - the keypad and screen are always exposed and ready to use. Ring Tones There are a multitude of polyphonic ring tones available on the phone - from a basic telephone ring to music and nature sounds. My partner chose the cricket song for his ring (don't ask), which is a cross between a cricket chirp and a musical note. Basic Phone Programs The KX 414 offers the basic services most other current cell phones offer, including a contact list (a phone book) that can store people's phone numbers, names, email and address, voice activated dialing, multiple language support, a vibration mode, a headset jack, calculator, stop-watch and web and email access. Cool Features There is the ability to attach a wrist lanyard to the phone so that you can keep it tied to a bag or any other object to help from losing it. The faceplate of the phone can be removed and replaced with other faceplates for a different look. Animations are available to let you know that you've received a text or voicemail message. For those who wish to pay extra, ring tones, screensavers and pictures can be downloaded to the phone. Carriers In the United States, the largest carrier offering the KX 414 is Verizon Wireless. Cellular One, US Cellular and Qwest Communications also offer the KX 414. For Verizon customers, you can access Verizon's "Get it Now" service, which offers more games, ring tones, pictures and animations, along with other information services (news, sports scores, etc.) for an extra fee. Hands Free With the standard headset jack, any standard wireless headset can be used with the phone. With the voice-activated dialing - you barely have to touch the phone once you've got your headset on. Navigation and Instructions The menu structure of the phone is navigated with an "ok," "clear," and 4-point rocker button. It is generally the navigation structure of most cell phones - the top-level menu allows you to choose from several choices including contacts, setup, messages and more. From each choice, you are then presented with several lower menu options until you reach the section that you are looking for. It's fairly intuitive, but for someone who's never had a phone, it will take a little while to get used to and to remember what falls under what on the menus. The owner's manual is simple and basic, going over the features of the phone and all of the menu details. I'd suggest anyone with the phone take a few minutes to read through the manual to figure out all that it can do. How's it work? Compared to his old phone, a brick probably made better phone calls - but seriously there is a noticeable improvement in his cell phone call quality and the level of coverage where he is able to make phone calls. The calls are clearer and he can easily see the screen. We've had it now for several weeks without problem. Unlike the V120c, the antenna is built into the phone with a small non-movable stub sticking out - it shouldn't break off like the antenna on the V120c was apt to do. The screen appears to be scratch resistant - the weeks of being in his pocket have yet to do any major damage to the screen and I haven't noticed any major scratches in the faceplate or the screen itself. There is an easy to use keylock on the KX 414 - otherwise because the phone doesn't flip close and cover the keys, it would be easy to accidentally dial and call a number. He's happy with it and even said to me the other day "thanks for getting me a new phone," and I just smiled, thinking back to all those times he was trying to decipher the screen or complaining about not having a signal and just smiled to myself, since he was the one who kept telling me "I don't need a new phone." Final Thoughts All in all, for someone who's not a tech person like my partner, the KX 414 seems to be a great phone to have. There's enough in there for him to do what he needs to do (store numbers, change ring tones and maybe download a new screen picture or two), but isn't so filled with features that he's lost in trying to figure out what anything does. Cell Phone Reviews / / / Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy 7674 Kyocera QCP 2035 CDMA / AMPS Cellular Phone 86901 2005/7/30 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 alarm w timeremail feature extra large font colorful features button dials could be louder This phone is attractive, unusually functional with the built-in alarm clock and timer feature. It is colorful and light-weight. I especially love the "large font" feature, because it saves me extra steps reaching for my reading glasses. Of course, it doesn't flip or fold or take pictures. Who cares? It works great, and that is the important thing. It has a phone-book, ring tones, speed dial, message alert, and other great features,....too many to list. This phone is so very functional in meeting my standards. Inexpensive, doesn't always mean inadequate. This phone rocks! I give it 5 stars. 86900 2006/1/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 incredible resistance to heavy blows a conversation piece loyal great reception not as fashionable in 2006 I got this phone in 2001 and it is still with me in 2006. This truly is the soldier of all phones. I regret to inform the reviewers however, that because of failing battery life in its later years, i will finally be trading in my Kyocera QCP 2035 CDMA for a new one. It may not be flashy, have a camera or have text in colors but mark my words, this phone will never let you down...or it wont until 5 years later. 86899 2000/7/30 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 definetly worthwhile for the price not very durable The Bottom LineI would reccomend this phone to someone else, but mostly just because it was so affordable. If you don't mind spending more, go with a different model. Full Review I got this phone on sale for about $50, so I really didn't expect it to blow me away. However, it did have the two main options I was looking for (an alarm clock and a silent vibrating ringer) so I figured it had to be worth at least fifty bucks. What I've discovered since then is that I have mixed emotions about this phone. Its not incredibly well made. I dropped mine in the grocery store and all the pieces (face plate, battery cover, battery) came flying off. Now to be fair, I put it back together and it did still work. I also had to return my first QCP-2035 because of a deffect with the display. One line of pixels didn't light up. When I exchanged it, the salesperson told me that they had unfortunately had a lot of problems with these phones and I maybe should consider a different model. I stuck with it though, and I haven't had anymore problems although I am somewhat living in fear. Also, although I'm not sure if this can be attributed to the phone or to my service, I sometimes get a very annoying echo when I talk on it. This happens more than half of the time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 86898 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great bellswhistles high resolution screen crisp tri mode capability with verizon quirky but not ugly styling material quality not quite up to nokia standards The Bottom LineGood reception, customizable faceplates, tons of features like a vibrating option and internet browser. Best of all, its CHEAP! Need I say more? Full Review I have owned several mobile phones in recent history including the Nokia 252, the Ericsson 280LX, and the Audiovox CDM-4000. I will tell you right away that this phone is easily superior to each of those phones and most of the phones you can buy. Hey, I sell these things so I should know which is the best right? The first thing I usually think about when I'm looking for a new phone is the way it looks. You know, if it looks cool or not. Now, don't let this little phone fool you. It may look a little strange (as do all Kyocera/Qualcomm phones) but it packs some serious value. Besides, if you don't like the color it comes in or the way the keypad looks, you can purchase new ones in a variety of different designs and colors to suit your needs. (Tip: look for accessories like this online, they are SUPER cheap that way!) Anyway, on to the next item that is usually important on everyone's list: reception! Now, of course reception is going to heavily rely on the type of service you choose, and with that in mind I strongly suggest you get this phone with Verizon Wireless, that way you will get a tri-mode model. Basically, tri-mode means more digital signal for you. Bottom line: with this phone you will have more opportunities to be utilizing a digital signal and its superior sound quality and security, a definite plus for any mobile phone user. Ok, step three on our path to picking a mobile phone: ease of use. A phone can totally be frustrating if it's not easy to use right? Nokia has reigned as ruler of the "easy to use" phones for as long as I can remember and Motorola has always required the user to learn a new language to use their phones properly, despite recent improvements. This Kyocera phone will suprise you, its ease-of-use is right up there with the masters at Nokia and you'll be utilizing all of this phone's features in no time at all. This phone even has descriptions on nearly every feature ON THE PHONE! Now THAT is neat! Ok, maybe this factor shouldn't be so far down by list but here we go: quality. I wouldn't say this phone is exactly comparable to such tried and true models as the Nokia 5100 series or the analog 252's. However, I have dropped my phone a good number of times and it has held up well to my normal wear and tear. In result it gets a passing grade from yours truly and besides, it has a one year warranty anyway right? Last on my list here happens to be features. Now I hope your only factor in determining which phone to buy isn't by what video games the phone has. Regardless, this phone is chock full of all sorts of features. Of course it has got all of the standard stuff, including a very nice lithium ion battery, a 200 item address book which can also hold e-mail addresses and websites, a vibrating option and a calculator. However, some features that it has that I feel should be mentioned are its auto-keyguard feature, which turns on your keyguard automatically after sitting idle for a specified time. Another neat feature is the "smart sound" system, which alters the volume on your earpeice depending on the amount of noise-interference around you. The excellent high-resolution screen will make all of this even better. Oh yeah, and yes this phone does have an internet browser for you junkies out there. Ok, that's enough rambling. I really suggest you at least go give this phone a look. It may look a little weird but hey, its a great package for a great price! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86897 2000/2/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 clarity is exceptional lots of unexpected features key guard must be used to prevent accidental calls The Bottom LineDoes everything it should....and more. Full Review I'll keep this brief..... When choosing the cell phone for my calling plan I made sure I was making the best choice. The Qualcomm/Kyocera 2035 was the easy choice. It was the lightest, cheapest, and had the longest talk time. When I talk on the phone (even with a headset) the other caller can not tell I am on a cell phone. I too can hear well. If you want a you phone to look good you can even buy a colorful faceplate. I have dropped the phone 2 times on pavement and it still works great. This is an exceptional phone that should give you years of service. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 86896 2001/3/7 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 good battery life good reception poor durability menus can be difficult The Bottom LineThe Kyrocera 2035 / 2027 is a good phone to go with if your budget isn't too big. Full Review The Kyrocera 2035 (same as the 2027) is a newer that has been put out within the past few months. The phone itself is a dual band phone (allowing you to pick up a digital signal and an analog signal). This is a great feature to have, just in case your car breaks down where there is no digital coverage. (Without it, calling AAA can be a loud scream away!). It also has wireless web access, giving you access to email, AOL Instant Messenger, Games, jokes, news, weather, sports, etc... The menu structure itself can be easy to get through, but will take a little getting used to, and learning how to activate it isn't as easy as it seems. (But once you get it, you won't forget!). The phone itself does about as good as a job picking up a good signal as the average phone, but is a little sensitive to dead zones (small areas of no coverage). The nice feature of this phone (very appealing to younger users) is that you can get different colored face plates. he 2035 Comes in Charcoal or Blue, and I have seen the 2027 in Frost. Face plates are also available in frost, blue, "infusion" (purpleish), red, and orange, and they usually retail about $10, which isn't too bad. A drawback is that the power plug in the phone and the headset jack look almost identical. The power being on the bottom, and the headset jack being on the side, near the display. This usually isn't too big of a problem, but plugging the headset into the power jack bends (and usually breaks) a cord inside the jack, and Kyrocera has decided NOT to have this covered under warranty. I don't know what happens if you plug the power into the headset jack. Other than that, the phone is good, face plates are a little flimsy, but mounted on the phone properly, this shouldn't be an issue. I have seen a small issue with broken antennas (weather or not it is covered onder warranty all depends on who you talk to!). In its price range (usually about $100) this is probabally one of the better phones to go with. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 99 86895 2000/7/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 light great features excellent voice clarity not a must though could be a little more attractive The Bottom LineIf you want a phone with alot of great features and great sound quality, then go with this one! Full Review I have the Kyocera QCP 2035a. Granted, this phone was made especially for Verizon Wireless, it is the same phone as the 2035 and 2027. I will post this opinion in the 2035a section also. Now for the phone; This phone has alot of features along with functionabililty. First of all, this phone features the T9 predictive text input entry which allows for faster sending of emails and text messages, provided that you have the service from your provider. Second, this phone has 15 ringers and a Vibe and Ring, Lamp only, Vibe Only, or just ring. All these ringers provide for a variety of different rings for different moods. Third, this phone features available interchangable face plates which usually sale for about 10.00 bucks. This used to only a Nokia thing until Audiovox came out with it on their CMD-9000 model, now Kyocera is doing it. Fourth, this phone features a 4-way directional key with lets you navigate through the phone's easy Menu system, and also makes it easy to play the phone's addictive game "Brick Attack", which is the old Atari game Arkanoid. Fifth, this phone's contact directory is expansive. It can hold 200 people, along with 5 numbers for each person and availbility for putting in the person's email address and address, also a note about them. Some people were &%$ching about this phone's battery life and how it only can be in digital stand by for like 5 days, well, if you need it to be without a charger then you deserve to have your battery "suck." My battery doesn't go down quickly, but I am also always in a digital mode but, still, even when I have been talking all day, meaning about 3 hours, my phone is still holding about one charge mark out of four. I think it will be okay if you just put it on the charger. All in all, I think this phone is a great phone, but I guess it could be a little more "attractive." Its' still a great phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86894 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 battery life good vibrate function many faceplates rather large size ring tones mostly silent no calendar long antenna when extended The Bottom LineA good cheap phone with many features, but smaller ones with better features can be found. Full Review Well I purchased this phone about a year ago when the antenna broke on my Nokia 6185. I have a plan and still do with PrimeCo. They are mostly based in the Midwest. This phone has served me well but there are still some things that irk me about it. I will start off with the good. The battery life is excellent. Sometimes I will forget it on all night and the next day I will still be able to make many phone calls. It surprises me how much talking it takes to drain the battery. Reception is quite good on this phone. This is where it had my old Nokia beat hands down. Many times when I extended the antenna I was able to get service where I thought I couldn't. The text and graphics on the phone are also large and easy to read. Another thing that I liked about it was the ability to make contacts for several phone numbers. Say you have three phone numbers for your friend. Rather than having to enter three separate numbers under three separate entries, you make a "contact" for the friend and enter the numbers under there. This was a big improvement over the Nokia. Also you are able to add other kinds of info for the contacts. You can add physical addresses and email. Also notes. The T9 Rapid text, allows to insert text much faster. If you are into having many different faceplates, this is a phone for you. There are many colors available for this phone. I would estimate over 30. Also Kyocera offers many accessories to this phone. However they can be rather expensive. Now on to the bad. One of the first things I noticed about this phone is the lack of different rings. The Nokia had many different rings (over 40) but this one has about 13. They're not that bad but many of them except the standard ring can be hardly heard even on the loudest setting. Another thing that I have noticed is that there is no calendar built in. That would have been a nice addition. One thing that I found over time was that dust and debris gets UNDER the faceplate. I always wondered why my screen was dusty until I changed the faceplate and realized there was all this dust IN the phone. I am very surprised about this. The extendable antenna is also rather long meaning it could get bent easily. However it does help in situations with low reception of a signal. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 150 86893 2001/7/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear calls attractive detatchable face plates compact size nice price none The Bottom LineThis is a great cell phone for new users and old hats alike. It is sleek and attractive -- with a little attitude. Full Review I bought this phone online a few weeks ago, and it is already attached to my ear and has a nice home in my bag. It is so incredibly light and portable; goodbye clunky cell phones! This type of phone can only be activated with Sprint PCS service, I believe. OK by me; I'm already very satisfied with the carrier quality. The only downside would be if one day I decided I didn't like PCS. I'd be stuck with this phone. But, at its attractive price and the frequent rebate offers, I wouldn't lose too much money. Overall, I'd say this phone is a good investment. The phone has many nice features and is VERY easy to use. I especially like the options to change faceplates because the neon blue one that it came with is not the prettiest. One of my other favorite features is the Tip Calculator! It calculates different percentages of your restaurant bill and tells you what tip you should leave. WOW! It even splits the bill! This comes in handy very often! For those interested in wireless Web browsing, this phone has the capabilities. Sprint offers this service through a plan selection and extra charge, or at a charge-per-use fee. (I found this out accidentially!) If you choose to use this feature, it looks as if it could be really helpful and convenient. This phone also has messaging capabilities to other PCS phones, also at an extra monthly charge. This would be a great feature if you had a friend with a PCS phone. Receiving text messages does not take away from you monthly minutes; however, composing them does. But Sprint offers a nice service in which you can compose your messages online and send them at no charge or cost to your overall minutes. At first I was disappointed with the games the phone offered. Every so often when I'm stuck waiting somewhere, I like to pass the time with a silly game. However, the Pong-style Brick Attack has grown on me and I've gotten really good at it! This is a good starter phone and even a good professional phone. Very charming and sleek -- but with a little attitude. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 with plan 86892 2000/3/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 customizable face plates standard vibrator ring easy menu system hard to assign onetouch dialing The Bottom LineGreat phone for the person who's on a budget. Fully loaded with features that are mostly easy to use. Full Review I've had this phone for three months now from SprintPCS. I paid $99 for it, which is the cheapest phone available. I've had NO problems with this phone. From Sprint you have the choice of two different faceplates, but they have many more available on the Kyocera web site. It's a tad thinner than the Nokia 51xx and 61xx's also. I have a GREAT battery life I generally get about 3.5 days of battery life with casual usage in digital coverage. It's ability to pull in a weak signal is average, I have used some phone that pull in a better signal and some the pull in a worse signal. One last thing about the phone number storage, it's really easy to use, just hard to assigning the one number dialing feature. But it's nice you can store multiple numbers for one person and select if it's a home, cell or work number. Plus you can choose if the person is a business contact or a personal contact and you can choose different ringers for those categories. I would say this is a great phone for somebody who needs an entry priced phone with some nice features, and they aren't interested in after market accessories from it. They are available but only directly from Kyocera's web site. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 86891 2000/5/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life well rounded inexpensive time consuming menu no extended battery plain looking The Bottom LineGood value and quality for the money. I would consider this phone oriented more towards the non-business casual user who doesn't need to have the coolest and most fashionable electronics. Full Review This cell phone is a good all around performer. I spend about two thirds my time (1000 min/month) in analog coverage. The digital reception is excellent and analog very good. Although, I have a difficult time getting 9 hrs out of a fully charged battery with less than 30 minutes worth of phone calls in an exclusively analog area. Unfortunately, Kyocera doesn't offer a larger battery. Due to this, I am considering moving to a Kyocera QCP3035. This has extended battery options, voice dialing and more memory for contacts. I like the phone in general, but I am going to list my peeves about this phone. DISLIKES: No Voice Dialing No Hotkey for Voicemail (It takes 5 button presses) No Extended Battery Options Weak Reception Volume on my Plantronics Headset (Model: M145) Battery Life Indicator is not very accurate, although most cell phones are not Recent Calls Option only keeps 15 numbers Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86890 2000/5/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 batter life voice quality features cheap none The Bottom LineIf you're into brands, the tiniest technology, and paying a bunch for a phone, don't buy this phone. Full Review My third Sprint phone was a Samsung 3500, it was the worst phone ever, but I suffered through it because I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for a cell phone. I happened upon an ebay auction for the 2035 and won it for $39. I received the phone and fell in love. So much that I bought another one at auction for my wife. The phone book is great. It allows you to enter multiple phone numbers for the same contact, and it also allows addresses and email addresses. The batter life is much longer than the Samsung, and I find that it gets a better signal. I was experiencing lost calls all of the time with the Samsung. I also like the changeable faceplates. I bought three different ones on ebay also. Every time I put a different one on, every one at work asks, "Did you get a new phone?". Bottom line is this is a quality phone with top line features and performance. Why pay over $100 for a Nokia, Samsung, or Motorola? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00 86889 2000/5/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight long battery time inexpensive ability to change face plates not to many faceplates currently out The Bottom LineThe bottom line is that the Kyocera 2035 is one of the best investments for a cellular phone. Full Review The Kyocera 2035 is a great cellular phone for those who are looking for an upgrade from the current phone that they have whether it be digital or analog. I am cellular sales representative and by far the Kyocera 2035 is a great investment in the ever changing cellular industry. I bought the 2035 for both of my parents and they absolutely love the phone. Why you ask? The 2035 has about 2 1/2-3 hours of talk time and a standby time of 2-3 days. Although it is not a flip phone, the keyguard is relatively easy to activate. The menu for the phone is straight forward and easy to use. For all those out there that like to change the personality of the phone, the 2035 is versatile in the fact that you can change the faceplates. However, Kyocera is the only one that currently makes the faceplate, but be on the look out for after market products to come. In addition, for being inexpensive, it comes with the wireless web browser. Typically you cannot find a web browser on many inexpensive phones. In my opinion, there are no major cons that standout in my mind. And each of the 2035's that I sold have never come back. Kyocera which was formerly Qualcomm makes excellent phones. They are known for there durability, commitment to excellence, as well as the quality that goes into the phone. Many people are hung up about how cute the Nokia phone line is but how expensive it can get. I believe that the 2035 is even better the Nokia line of phones. When shopping for a cell phone remember to keep in mind that it is about the bells and whistles that come inside the phone, but rather the quality of the product as well as the battery time. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10.00 86888 2000/8/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight super low price not as flashy as some others The Bottom Linea great phone at a great price!! highly recommend!! calls are clear, the battery life is great...what more do you need?!?!?! Full Review so i had a startac for my first cellphone and thought it was too small and was afraid that i had lost it every 5 minutes...then i switched to a qualcomm thin phone (qcp-860) and liked it a whole lot. when a friend got this phone i was interested because a lot of the things i liked about the thin phone are to be found here. (they are both made by qualcomm/kyocera this phone is a great combination of value and functionality. there really are no trade offs. you've got it all here - the phone vibrates (on the 2035-a), it has a nice selection of ringers, a full functioned contact manager (names, addresses, work/home ##s (more than one each, email etc )a few games, timers, and lots of other things to kill time on the train ride. it also includes the standard WAP web browser if you choose to use it ( i dont) i have seen this phone in action for quite a while and the best thing about it is (over the thin phone) that it has a standard mini plug for a handsfree headphone adapter. the thin phone had a proprietary connector that was impossible to find and way over priced. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 86887 2000/3/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 wireless web 200 contacts memory small changeable face plates easy to use flimsy antenna ringer could be louder The Bottom LineYou can't beat the size and price-go get one! Full Review This phone has features o' plenty! I guess the big deal with it is the wireless web-but to tell you the truth that isn't why I got it. I got it because my old phone was an antique,it's small,nice-looking,and the right price. Here's some features: you can put 200 people's names,addresses,e-mail,and five phone numbers for each person. You can also classify your contacts as 'business' or 'personal',and program different rings for each. The Kyocera keeps your last 20 or so most recent calls stored and has missed call alert. I do wish I could set the ringer to be louder-I miss calls from having the radio too loud in my car sometimes,but then I also miss a call occasionally when I'm not doing anything loud. The tools setting is cool-there's a calculator,tip calculator,stopwatch,alarm clock,and a game-Brick Attack. In the top left of the screen there is a letter to let you know if you're using analog cell mode or digital(D or R). You can set up a three-way call if you'd like(oooo)and the phone comes with a Lithium Ion battery that doesn't lose its charge too fast and doesn't need to be charged all the time(I charge mine every few days). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86886 2000/7/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 anywhere great reception menu s a bit confusing The Bottom LineExcellent choice for the money. Full Review If your looking for good reception, and lots of options, this is the phone for you. I was impressed at the duration of the battery in this phone, I have owned a few phones before, and if you forgot to charge them at night, it was useless the next day. I have actually gone 3 days without charging this phone. I have been in buildings where all of my co-workers can not use their cell phones, and I can still make and receive calls. This phone is slowly becoming a tool that I depend on for many things. There is a tip calculator and a check calculation feature that I use every time I go out to eat. One negative to the phone is that it comes with no accesories, so the belt holster and the DC charger cost almost $60. The other negative is that when a friend was using it, he accidentally engaged online website brousing, There should be a lock out feature for the brousing, and if there already is, I can not find it in the menu's. In summary, it is a good all around phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86885 2000/1/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 price ease of use slightly flimsy Full Review There are a lot of inexpensive phones available for Sprint. As I walked into the store, I was set on purchasing a Samsung flip phone that had gotten great reviews. Then, I spotted a small, Nokia-like phone: the Qualcomm/Kyocera 2035. On impulse, I purchased this phone. Of course, the large 200 number address book, the tri-band capability, and the wireless web features helped make my purchase easier. At first, I was disappointed, when I realized that I wouldn't have service in my Philadelphia dorm. However, I talked to friends on other plans, and Verizon and AT&T phones didn't get service either. We realized that it was the simple architecture of the 100-year-old dorm. That said, when I'm home in New York, I have incredible clarity: more so than I am used to with other cell phones I have used. Phone use is a breeze! While the menu button at first was slightly confusing, the keypad is arranged so it is very easy to handle whatever you need to handle on your phone. Buttons press easily, but an automatic keyguard can be set to prevent you from pushing buttons accidentally. The display is clear and easy to read. Other features of this phone include a handy tip calculator, a stopwatch, and bricks! The phone furthers it's Nokia-like design by having a removable face plate, though i believe that as of now, only 4 other colors are available. Talk time and battery life have been great in the two months I have this phone. Charging is quick, and I tend to get two days between charging. This is certainly a great phone, especially for the low price. As of now, I believe only VoiceStream and Sprint carry the phone, but both seem to be advertising the model. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86884 2002/7/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap durable reliable clear calls simple to use design doesn t have a calendar or other fancy pda like tools The Bottom LineAll in all, a very high quality phone with great reception, analog or digital, great sound quality, and simple to use, but extensive features. Full Review I bought this Kyocera 2035 phone with my Verizon wireless plan. I like Verizon's plans even though their phones aren't as flashy as the competetor's models. I have had this Kyocera phone since June of 2001 (over a year ago) and have had no problems with it. Every 2 or 3 months, it will lock up or act weird, but the most I have had to do to fix a problem is take the battery out and put it back in. Speaking of the battery, the battery life is excellent. I have had the phone on nearly all weekend without a recharge, using it for calls occasionally and still didn't drain the battery. The screen is clear and the menus are easy to use. The hotkey dialing is a huge help and makes dialing while driving very simple. The size is nice, fits into a pocket, but isn't so small it is flimsy or toy-like. Faceplates easily interchangable so it is impossible not to find a color you like. I wish I had a phone with a calendar on it, but they are all quite expensive. This phone serves my needs well though and has all the standard features you want in a cell phone: phone book, alarm clock, calculator, text messaging (with recognition software that guesses the word based on buttons pushed...really quite cool, makes text messaging very easy). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 40 86883 2002/9/20 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 good battery life very durable excellent sound quality keys easy to accidentally press low ringer volume The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a reliable, reasonably priced cell phone, this is one of your best bets. Full Review The Kyocera QCP-2035 is a very reliable phone offered at a good price. Many of its features are only available on more expensive phones. Major advantages: - Sound quality is excellent (this may partially be a function of my service provider's network, which is Sprint PCS). - Wireless Web/Data functionality. You can view news, e-mail, etc. from the phone's 3 line display, assuming your service provider supports it. With the optional data cable, you can connect it to a laptop and browse the Internet from anywhere you can get a cell signal. - Durability. I keep my QCP-2035 in a leather case, and have accidentally dropped it onto concrete from a height of about four feet several times. Despite falling face first, the phone has not suffered any damage at all. - Good battery life. On Standby, the phone will last for several days. I have been able to talk for over three hours at a time using a fully charged battery. Some problems with the QCP-2035: - It's easy to accidentally push the buttons. This isn't a big problem as long as you remember to set the keyguard each time you place the phone in a bag or on a belt clip. - Ringer volume is way too low. I have missed a number of calls simply because I could not hear the phone ring in a semi-noisy environment. The vibration function is not strong enough, either, I have missed calls in that way as well. - Not the most stylish phone. It looks pretty basic, and faceplates are only available in a few colors. Some of the other features that the phone includes is a large address book, which can hold phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses, notes, etc., a calculator, an alarm clock, a countdown timer and stopwatch. The phone also includes one game, Block Breaker. Additional games can be accessed over the Wireless Web if your carrier supports it. Overall, I am very happy with this phone. After you get used to its minor shortcomings, the phone will serve you well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 75 86882 2000/11/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 enough features small not highly atractive ring tones The Bottom LineRead the review...it's in there. Full Review Here's a breakdown of all of the features I have on my Kyocera QCP 2035. You will find that while it may not be highly impressive, it is a good quality phone. 1) Contacts- In this section of the phone you can enter all of your important and even not so important phone numbers. Each phone number can be listed as personal, business, or left as neither. Once this is done you can get and alphabetical list of numbers by using *View All*, *Business List*, or *Personal List*. You also have access to *Speed Dial* and *Find Name* to look for a particular person. The phone book is very complete in that you can also enter email adresses, addresses, URL's, and additional notes. 2) Recent Calls- Here you will find a list of the last 15 calls to and from your phone; what time the call was made; and the duration. It will allow you to identify which of the incoming calls you have missed. You may also use this screen to return calls by highlighting a number and pressing the green dial button. 3) Settings- Here you are given options for silencing the phone; Key Guard; Roaming; Sounds; Display; Security; Extras; Messaging; and Accessories. Under the Sounds menu you can determine whether the phone will ring or vibrate, volume, ring type (15 to choose from), key beep volume and length and type, earpiece volume,and smart sound. You can use the display menu to decide how long the light stays on, language, and format. Here you can even change the message on you screen while the phone is at rest. 4) Tools- This item give you access to an alarm clock, two calculators, a stop watch, a countdown clock, and basic little computer game to help pass time when you're bored. 5) Messages- This is where you can check and call for your voice, text, and web messages at the push of a button. 6) Wireless Web- This of course is your access to the net. Although I am satisfied with this phone my main concern is that ring volume has a very narrow range. It would be if I'm not in the same room or the radio in the car is on I may or may not hear it. The buttons are a little small but that is the price you pay for a small phone. The antenna does little to clear up difficult reception and usually just gets tangled in my hair so I usually leave it down. And if your attracted to the most "high-techy looking" phones this one falls a little short, but I wouldn't say it was ugly. As for duribility... It was thrown (hard) across the room once and bounced of the door and still survived without a scratch (although I wouldn't suggest trying that). Overall, I'm pleased with the phone and would recommend it to others. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 86881 2001/1/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating5.0 really small bad reception The Bottom Linebest phone ever had Full Review This is my first e-pinion, so please bear with me... I was using an old Sony CMB1201 for about a year, and was getting thoroughly frustrated in the poor quality of the phone and the dropped calls. Time for a new phone! But being a graduate student, I don't have the same kind of liquid assets that might allow me to go buy the newest greatest gadgets out there. So after about 2 months of looking, and researching, I was about to settle on a StarTac when low and behold I walk into the Sprint store and see this brand new Kyocera/Qualcomm 2035. So a day later I come back to the store and buy this handy new little phone. Clarity: I find that immediately my calls aren't dropped nearly as often-although I do find that I can't get through sometimes, but that's to be expected from me, since I work in the Science Research Building at school, and there's all sorts of intereference; but when I'm out and about, I rarely get a dropped call at all- and the clarity is awesome compared to my old phone. My wife immediately noticed the difference when I made my first call the next day. Fashion: And of course, there's that changeable faceplate. Only Nokia had them, but now this little phone has got them too! Web Browser: I'm not on the wireless-web (yet) so I really had no need for a web-browser, but it's nice to know that it's there, and while I was at the store, I used it and it seemed quite easy to use. I like the cross cursor key, but it took sometime to get used to the "enter" button. Menus/Address Book/Options: The menus are easy to figure out, and as with all new products you need to sit down for a couple of minutes to figure out where everything is. The address book is a definite plus, it's not only easy to enter names and numbers but they are easy to retrieve AND can add extra numbers, address, and e-mail addresses for each entry! You get a timer, stopwatch, calculator, tip-calculator, and the classic game Arkanoid (brick) included. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 56 86880 2000/5/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 sounds great light small tons of features flimsy antenna The Bottom LineI'm not saying this is the best phone out there, but when you take into account price, features, talk time, etc...It's worth a look. Full Review I'd been using a Nokia 252 for the last year, but since it's analog only, I upgraded to a digital phone this year. I only had 3 to pick from that went with the nationwide coverage plan I was looking for: Motorola Talkabout, Motorola StarTac, and the 2035. The Talkabout was awkward feeling and just plain ugly, and the StarTac was out of my price range, being nearly $200 even with a 2 year contract. So I went with the Kyocera 2035. I admit I was a bit skeptical since it was only $10, but I figured why not. After using it for a few days, I am glad I bought it. It's small, light, has great battery life, sounds just as good as any land line phone, and has yet to be unable to acquire a digital signal anywhere I've been (not bad for rural Nebraska). The phone has a ton of features including the usual contact book, multiple ringers, caller id and so forth that you find on most newer phones these days. But it also has some features that many phones do not have. Such as the ability to store multiple numbers per contact, along with home addresses and other info. The calculator, tip calculator, stopwatch, and alarm clock are great features. It even has a game to keep you occupied when you're stuck waiting with nothing to do. The phone is web enabled, although I don't personally use that feature. The only negative thing I've found so far is a rather flimsy antenna. But that's been the case with all Qualcomm/Kyocera phones I've seen. And in my case, I don't even need it as long as I've got a digital signal. If you do happen to break the antenna and can't get them to replace it under warranty, the cost is only $10 anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. All in all this is a great phone that I'd recommend to anybody. I'm looking forward to putting it to good use. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.95 86879 2000/3/8 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 interchangeable colorful face plate options dual band great price a multitude of features flimsy antenna The Bottom LineI would recommend this phone. It's jam packed with features and the price is very reasonable. Full Review I went into SprintPCS to get a new cell phone as I had lost my old one. I had my heart sent on getting one of the flip phones because my purpose was to have a phone with me in the event of emergencies while on the road somewhere that had a protective cover over the dialpad. To my surprise, the phone I wanted they were out of. I took a look at this Kyocera and thought well, it has a lot of features and it's reasonably cheap at the price; the bargain I was looking for. The phone is fairly small, not bulky at all measuring 5.1" x 1.8" x 0.8" and weighing only 4.4 oz. The phone cost - $99.99. It comes in electric blue or grey (more of a charcoal color) BUT, you can purchase interchangeable faceplates in a multitude of different colors (Lymon, Tangerine & Infusion)to personalize the appearance of the phone with your personality for $9.99 each. It has a Lithium Ion battery that lasts 3.5 hours in digital mode or 120 hours on standby. I charged my battery two days ago and it has yet to lose any charge because I use it only for emergency purposes or when I'm expecting an important phone call and will not be at home to receive it. This pleases me. The other nice thing about re-charging the battery unlike some of the older phones is, no bulky chargers that require you removing the battery and setting it into a base to re-charge. This has a single charger slot that you plug an A/C adapter into right on the side of the phone. The A/C adapter comes with the phone. It also has a slot for a "hands free" car kit ($59.99) right on the side of the phone as well. Just plug the adapter into the side of the phone and you can keep your hands on the wheel instead of attempting to talk (holding a phone) and drive at the same time. I didn't opt to buy that accessory because I have a headpiece (microphone/earpiece) that came with my speakerphone I use at home so I plugged the adapter into my telephone and WALLA, it worked beautifully. It's a standard plug in slot. You can opt to purchase a travel charger ($19.99) as opposed to using the A/C adapter but why would you? It takes twice the time to charge the phone using the travel charger than it would if you used the adapter that takes up less space when traveling. You can also opt to purchase the cigarette lighter adapter ($19.99). In the future this might be an item I will purchase but for now, I didn't need one because I use my phone so little that the battery stays charged for 120 hours as the phone is in standby. For an extended road trip/vacation I would definitely purchase the cigarette lighter adapter. There is also the standard desk top adapter that can be purchased for $29.99 but like I said, why? The A/C adapter works perfectly fine and takes up no space on the counter while recharging. Why add one more item to counter space that might be in short supply? Of course, you can purchase a leather case for $14.99. I guess if I was wearing the phone on my pants while at work I might opt to buy the leather case but because I don't clip it to my clothing I did not purchase this accessory. If you use your phone on a regular basis then I'd advise you spend the extra $15 and get the leather case. Another accessory is the Wireless Web Connection Kit ($59.99). This includes all the hardware and software to use your phone as a wireless modem. Again, an option I don't have use for but many others might. Phone Features: This is where I was extremely impressed. For such a small phone, it is packed with very useful features. At the main menu you can scroll through the following menus: Wireless Web Contacts Recent Calls Settings Tools Messages Phone Info Each menu comes with an icon for information. If you are having trouble understanding what a specific feature does, you can scroll to the information icon and read a little description and instructions on how to program/utilize that feature. Wireless Web: This allows you to access the internet by dialing directly through your phone using it as a modem (with the optional Wireless web kit I mentioned above). Not a feature I forsee using however, it also will connect you directly to SprintPCS's website if you are looking for information to help you setup features on your phone. This phone works as an address book NOT just as a phone directory. I set up an account for each person I keep information on in my bulky planner/address book that I carry around in my purse. WOW, I can now get rid of one more item in my pocketbook. What a TREAT! I lose 4 pounds of weight in my purse and replace it with 4.4 oz. of telephone! Once you setup the initial telephone number for the contact you can then opt to add additional information about that person including - email address, home address, mobile phone #, pager # and even NOTES, complete with their own identifying icon next to each entry! Here's another neat feature. You can set each contact up as either a personal contact or a business contact. You can choose which telephone number you want as the "primary" number to reach each contact. What that means is when you choose a contact to call, whichever number you indicated as the primary number will be the first number your phone will dial when attempting to call that contact. Neat HUH? I thought so but then again, I'm easily impressed by these electronic gadgets! Worried about running out of space for contacts? Don't worry, the phone can store over 200 contacts! The purpose for specifying whether a contact is a personal contact or a business contact is because you can set the ringer up to sound a distinct ring for personal calls and another sound for business calls. That way if you receive a personal call while you're busy at work you can ignore the call and let it go into your voicemail. Recent Calls Menu: This is self explanatory but incase you aren't familiar with what this means, your phone logs all of your recent calls incase you missed a call or want to go back and find a number to return a call you can scroll through your most recent calls. The phone also asks you whenever you get an incoming call that is not programmed in your contact list if you'd like to save that number as a contact! Very cool feature! Settings Menu: You guessed it, this is the heart of your telephone. This is where you set up all kinds of options. The different menus inside the settings menu include: Silence All: Here you have 3 options, No (normal) meaning don't silence the ringer, Yes, (vibe only) meaning silence the ringer and vibrate the phone and Yes, (lights only) meaning silence the ringer and only light up the phone panel when a call comes in. Keyguard: This feature sets your phone to go into keyguard mode meaning that your phone will lock and you will have to enter a sequence of numbers to unlock the phone for use. I like this feature for this phone because you must use the sequence of 1,2,3 to unlock the keyguard. This is great for me to know that when my 2 year old wants to play with my phone (she's intrigued by the neon light panel) that she can't easily unlock the keyguard and make a call to China. With her father's phone you just have to hold down the "end" key and it will unlock your keyguard, something our daughter has been smart enough to figure out! With this phone, she's not old enough yet to know that pushing 123 in sequence will unlock the keyguard! Nice feature for parents with small children. The settings for keyguard include having it engage after 15 seconds, 30 seconds or 1 minute after the phone is sitting idle. You can also opt to turn the keyguard off completely from this menu. Roaming: Because this is a dual band phone meaning it will first look for digital service and when that is not present it will then look for an analog service, this is where roaming comes into play. Roaming (analog services) start eating up the minutes on your phone and running up the bill! The options in roaming include: Set Mode: SprintPCS - only connect when you're in a digital service area Automatic - look for digital service first, if no digital service then look for analog service Analog - only connect using analog service Sounds: Sounds are fun. This is where you setup your ringer for personal or business contacts and a multitude of other useful sounds. You can setup a distinct ring for personal calls and business calls so you'll know the difference when you hear the phone ring before answering the call. A neat feature when it's after hours and you don't want to take a call from a business contact! There are 10 different standard ringing sounds, 2 songs, 1 whistle, 1 sport and 1 charge! sound to choose from. Here you can also set the ringer volume. You can also setup the ring type (vibrate & ring, vibrate or ring only). You can also select the volume of the beep and the length of the beep in this menu. The beep is how loud the sound will be when you are dialing or using any of the keypad buttons. You can also set the earpiece volume if you are using a headset or hands free kit that can be optionally purchased. Missed Call alert is the sound you choose to alert you in the event you missed a call. Smart Sound - I LIKE this feature. When smart sound is enabled the phone will automatically detect the volume setting based on the background noise around you. I find this to be a very cool feature! No more screaming into the telephone when you're out in the bar because you can't hear the other person! Minute Alert - Alerts you with a short beep 10 seconds before each minute passes during a call. Display Options: Backlighting - determine the length of time you want the backlight to stay lit on your phone. There are 5 options to choose from. My Banner - Change the banner on your phone from SprintPCS to your name or whatever else you want your phone to display when not in use. Auto Hyphenation - As you enter phone numbers, hyphens will be inserted automatically when enabled. Language - English or Espanol Time/Date Format - 4 options of how you want the time/date to be displayed Main Menu View - Display the main menu in small icons, large icons or text list Security: Lock Phone Use - Never, On Power Up or Now. This feature allows you to set a lock number up on the telephone and whatever one of the 3 options chosen above, your phone will lock anyone out from using the phone unless they have the lock code sequence. This is a great feature in the event your phone gets stolen, the thief cannot use it unless they know the lock code if you have it set to "Now". If it's set "On power up", once the phone is turned off, when it's turned back on a lock code will have to be entered before calls out can be made on the phone. Extras: 1-touch dialing - Works just like speed dialing on any house phone. Program in particular numbers for one touch dialing, assign the contact a number and press only that number to make the call. Web Guard - Requires confirmation prompt to start/exit the internet browser. 4 prompts to choose from - at start, at exit, both, none Data/Fax Calls - Required to accept incoming data or fax calls on some systems. Voice calls cannot be accepted if this mode is enabled. Tools Menu: Alarm Clock - self explanatory, works just like an alarm clock when set Tip Calculator - Enter the amount of the bill, the % of tip you want to leave and let the calculator do the math. If you're splitting the bill with friends, enter the amount of people and let it divide to calculate the amount each person pays Calculator - Self Explanatory Countdown - Self Explanatory Stopwatch - Self Explanatory Brick Attack Game - Use the paddle to deflect the ball up into the bricks until they are all smashed. Limit Calls Out - Limits calls to emergency contacts and saved contacts only (great for your teenager if you don't want them running up the bill). It will still allow incoming telephone calls to be answered even when the limit outgoing calls feature is enabled. Change Lock Code - Self explanatory Erase All Contacts - Self explanatory Erase Recent Calls - Self explanatory Phone Reset - Resets all phone settings to factory defaults Because I just recently got this phone, I know there are a few more features I'm not completely familiar with but what I can say is this. For the price ($99.99) of this phone, even without all the optional accessories you can purchase, this phone is packed with useful features. I don't think you'll be disappointed! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 86878 2001/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent battery life as well as good receptionclarity doesn t look as cool as my star tac antenna is kind of flimsy The Bottom LineA really great all-around phone with only a couple minor quibbles. Full Review I first came into contact with the Kyocera 2035 when my Star-Tac had to go into the shop. They didn't have any Star-tacs to give me as a loaner so I was stuck with the less than cool looking 2035. At first I didn't care for the phone. I was used to having my phone compact and on my hip. The 2035 was small but lacked a belt clip. I was concerned about buttons being pressed and/or called being made while I carried the phone in my pocket. Overall I was generally unimpressed with the phone...at first. Going back to the Alltel store, the service tech showed me the joys of Key Guard, a feature that locks the keypad when the phone is on standby so that the buttons can't be accidentally pressed. This relieved my fears about unwanted dialing. I was still skeptical about the function of the phone but those fears were laid to rest quickly. Soon after the I got the phone I had to leave town on a family emergency. During this time my phone saw dozens of calls. It was used inside and out, while the main land line was being used. The phone effectively gave us another phone line as my Dad's phone couldn't get a signal where we were. The 2035 not only got a signal but a strong one at that. Calls were clear enough that my Grandmother had no problem using the phone (after I showed her how to dial). Receiving calls were as simple and easy as with any other cell phone I've used. Throughout all the calls, incoming and outgoing, the phone never dropped a call due to battery life. Granted, I made sure to charge it nightly but now that my girlfriend has one, she can go several days between charges and make several calls before the low battery message shows up. The only way she kills the battery is by leaving it on in the hospital where she works. She can't get a signal in the hospital building so it's constantly trying to search for a signal. That will kill the battery pretty quickly. The phone she has is the 2035 as I had as the loaner. It's a tri-mode phone (which makes it better than my Star-Tac) meaning that it will receive analog and two types of digital signals. I received the phone free when I added a second line to my calling plan. I chose this phone based on my prior experience with it. As far as features go, I'm no expert. I'm not big on extra doo-dads on my phone so I don't go nuts over a hundred different ring tones. This phone has maybe a dozen different ringers. It will also to the wireless web stuff, but I don't have that on my plan so I've never used it on the phone. Settings on the phone are easy to get to and adjust. It takes a little getting used to how the menus respond, I kept exiting instead of choosing, but once you get the hang of it you're golden. There are a couple features that can and did come in helpful. There is a calculator as well as a TIP calculator, which can be very handy if you're not real good at figuring out how much of a tip to leave. It also has a breakout-style game. This is a very easy and simple game but when you are stuck in another town with no car and no entertainment (as I was during my family problems) even this game can occupy your time nicely. My main complaint with the phone is that it doesn't come with a car-charger. Most of the time this isn't a problem because the battery seems to have an excellent life but they're always nice to have in case of emergency. Fortunately we picked one up for ten bucks at Wal-Mart. Recommended: Yes 86877 2000/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 dual band easy to use could be more attractive Full Review I bought this phone for my husband on the Sprint PCS free and clear plan 1500 minutes for $34.99 a month. As soon as I got it home I took it out, began charging the battery, and playing with it. I got it with an employee discount for $19.49, so I couldnt pass up the price! It has a multitude of features that I found interesting. The tip calculator has come in handy a few times already! Aside from any sort of not necessary features, such as the brick game, my husband has not dropped a call yet, and has had remarkable service with it. Though that is partly up to our coverage area. He has not had to do any kind of roaming. The phone isnt the most attractive looking peice of equipment, but has faceplates one can purchase if you choose to do so. It is dual band, which means if you have no digital signal, you can use an analog signal if necessary, but beware, this will be charged to you at 39 cents a minute. It has many different ringers, some really cute ones that a lot of phones do not carry! I would recommend this to anyone who doesnt want to invest a whole lot into a phone. At the time I am writing this, the phone normally costs around a hundred bucks, but is currently on special at Radio Shacks for $60 off in store, with a $30 mail in rebate, so your final cost is $10. You cant beat that price! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.49 86876 2000/11/30 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great features changeable faceplates lightweight clear calls plastic is squeaky Full Review This is my first e-pinion, so please bear with me... I was using an old Sony CMB1201 for about a year, and was getting thoroughly frustrated in the poor quality of the phone and the dropped calls. Time for a new phone! But being a graduate student, I don't have the same kind of liquid assets that might allow me to go buy the newest greatest gadgets out there. So after about 2 months of looking, and researching, I was about to settle on a StarTac when low and behold I walk into the Sprint store and see this brand new Kyocera/Qualcomm 2035. So a day later I come back to the store and buy this handy new little phone. Clarity: I find that immediately my calls aren't dropped nearly as often-although I do find that I can't get through sometimes, but that's to be expected from me, since I work in the Science Research Building at school, and there's all sorts of intereference; but when I'm out and about, I rarely get a dropped call at all- and the clarity is awesome compared to my old phone. My wife immediately noticed the difference when I made my first call the next day. Fashion: And of course, there's that changeable faceplate. Only Nokia had them, but now this little phone has got them too! Web Browser: I'm not on the wireless-web (yet) so I really had no need for a web-browser, but it's nice to know that it's there, and while I was at the store, I used it and it seemed quite easy to use. I like the cross cursor key, but it took sometime to get used to the "enter" button. Menus/Address Book/Options: The menus are easy to figure out, and as with all new products you need to sit down for a couple of minutes to figure out where everything is. The address book is a definite plus, it's not only easy to enter names and numbers but they are easy to retrieve AND can add extra numbers, address, and e-mail addresses for each entry! You get a timer, stopwatch, calculator, tip-calculator, and the classic game Arkanoid (brick) included. My Gripes: My only gripes about the phone (and they are pretty minor) are that if you hit the menu button twice you may get connected to the wireless-web inadvertently, but there's a slight safeguard for that through prompts; and I find that the plastic of the phone itself is a little "squeaky" which might explain the lower price - but I haven't had it long enough to know and it seems like a solid piece of equipment. Battery Life: The Li-ion battery is small and powerful, though, keeping its promise of 120 hours standby and 210 minutes of talk time. This is certainly a keeper. In fact, my little brother ran out and got one two days after he saw mine, and he's been loving it too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86875 2000/11/26 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 lightweight great features changeable faceplates exceptional clarity the cross navigational key in the middle is uglythe sendend buttons are weird shades of redgreen Full Review For anyone interested in a cheap web-enabled phone this is definetly the way to go. I picked this one up at my work a few days ago and I have just been blown away at the many features this phone has to offer. We all know that the popularity of Nokia cellular phones exploded because of a just a few things: 1. The changeable faceplates. The Kyocera 2035 is the first phone since Nokia (to the best of my knowledge) to offer a solid, user-friendly changeable faceplate. 2. The overall ease of use - the Kyocera is certainly not a difficult phone to use but I wouldnt put it in the hands of a 4th grader either. 3. The games: the Nokia 5185 came with 3 games: Memory, Logic, and Snake. The Kyocera comes with one but in my opinion its better than all 3 of Nokia's put together. Its the old "Arkanoid" game that was also called "Block" in the arcades a long time ago. A very Atari-esque game, but addictive nonetheless. On top of that the 2035 also includes a Rolodex that will store 200 "contacts". Each "contact" card will hold 5 phone numbers, a street address, an email address, and a note. It also allows you to classify your contacts as business and personal and set different ringers for each contact type. Where the 2035 really excels is where cellular carriers are trying to focus at this point: Wireless Web. When you press the menu key on this phone the first menu option actually is Wireless Web, which pretty much says to me that this phone was designed specifically to have that as the secondary purpose (the primary of course being calls). The battery on the 2035 is exceptional. It comes equipped with a small, yet surprisingly powerful Lithium-Ion battery. Having a Li-Ion battery means no more waiting for the battery to go dead before you can charge it, and a long life in a small, lightweight unit. Finally, a quick look at what the phone was actually made for: making and receiving calls. Since all of the parts for this phone are made by Qualcomm you can expect no less than the highest quality from it in all areas, especially reception. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 86874 2001/1/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lithium ion battery contact manager handy tools no option for a larger battery Full Review I am really surprised at the quality of this phone. That is a lot coming from me. I thought I would never be happy with anything other than a Motorola or Nokia cellphone. I have always had a cellular telephone since about 1991. Over the years I have owned phones from Panasonic, NEC, Motorola and Nokia. (No need to worry about brain tumors though, I primarily keep the phone for emergencies only..) For the past two years I have owned the Nokia-252 (a great phone too!) but recently I had to re-negotiate my contract. In my area they penalize you with higher rates if you have an analog only phone, so I was faced with selecting new phones for my wife and myself. Unfortunately, since I am a full time student again I was also challenged with a very limited budget. Luckily I was presented with a decent selection of phones under $100. While the asking price of the 2035a (same phone as 2035, just has custom verizon faceplate) was a little steep for my budget at $79, it was covered by a $40 Verizon rebate. This made it a very affordable $39!! This phone is loaded with features. The add-ins come close to classifying it as a basic PDA in my book. I love the contact manager that allows me to save names and addresses with multiple phone numbers. The phone allows you to classify each number under an individuals name with icons that represent work, pager, mobile, home, and fax. It will also allow you to classify a contact as business or personal and assign different rings for each. The phone also includes an alarm clock, calculator, tip calculator, count-down timer, and stopwatch. I especially like the tip calculator that will total your bill and then split it among any number of people. The area I am in now is fully covered by digital service. As a result I can go days before the battery indicator even begins to show a drain. Reading on the news groups I have discovered that battery life has been an issue for some people with this phone. As with any digital dual band phone, the battery life is great in digital mode but it will suck it dry in no time in analog mode. That is just one of the byproducts of the digital revolution and product miniaturization. The phone and batteries are a lot smaller than they were even 2 years ago. I would suggest that anyone working in building or living in fringe areas where digital service is not always 100% either turn their phones off or switch it to digital only. This will prevent the phone from switching into analog mode constantly. Also be sure to enable the beep on any network change. This will cause the phone to alert you when it drops to analog or switches back to digital. This will help you troubleshoot battery drain problems. Being a student I am also very happy with the built in vibrating alert option. Nothing upsets a professor more than a cell phone or pager going off. Another great feature is that this phone can act as a modem for a PDA or portable computer. Kyocera offers a data connectivity kit on their homepage that contains the software and interface cable. It also has a utility that will sync the contact list with your desktop PC. I am very pleased with this phone. The sound quality is great. The battery life is great. The features are plentiful. Tips on accessorizing the phone: Since the phone is so new, accessories are hard to find. Do a search on Ebay for Qualcomm 2035. Also, go to the Kyocera home page and register with their accessory store. They will give you a 15% discount on your first purchase and you will get email discount offers as well..... http://www.kyocera-wireless.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00 86873 2000/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 compact nice colors very easy to use antenna is flimsy The Bottom LineKyocera phone has great clarity and very lite wieght. Great features and functions. Full Review I really like my new little phone the Kyocera 2035. I purchased this phone when I purchased my sprint pcs mobile service. At the time I got my phone they were having a rebate deal of a 50.00 rebate. The phone was priced at 100.00 plus tax, which came to 107.00 with a 50.00 rebate. So the phone actually only cost me 50.00. I thought, geez this is a little phone, I wonder if it will work right or if I will get good reception. Well It does work very well and I get awesome reception. The Kyocera 2035 phone has great features. It has an internal address book which lets you put in phone numbers, email addresses, home address and business address. It had different ringing sounds you can use. Chimes, songs, like out to the ball game, a regualar phone ring and a couple of others. You can even set the ring for different numbers so you know who the caller is. Buisness or pleasure rings. If the caller whom is calling your phone is in your internal address book their name will appear on your phone when they call you. So you know who is calling you before you answer the phone, If you choose to answer the phone . The phone also comes with a game called the brick game. I personally don't play it because I don't like to waste my battery power. But it is there if you choose to use it. You also have access to the web from your Kyrocera phone. That to also has additonal charges. But it's nice to know you can use it if you like to. The phone also has speed dialing. You may add names and phone numbers in your address book and choose a number to use for your speed dial number. Very handy in case of emergencies. The battery holds a charge for about five days. I charge mine every couple of days just to be sure it has a full charge. The dealer told me you can't over charge the phone because when it is fully charged it will shut down the power supply to the phone. The phone will tell you charge is complete when it is fully charged. There is a setting tool that allows you to change the contrast, ringing volume, size of the numbers, numbers your phone is allowed to receive and a few other functions. It is very easy to add or delte items from your phone. The menu key allows you to make easy access to any of the phones features. The talk key on the phone is green. The end call key is red. Just like a stop light. Green is go, red is stop. Very easy to use and see. There is a button on the phone to retrieve your voice mail messages. Which is also very easy to use. It has an envelope on the key. When you have a voice message your phone will beep. (or do what ever you set it to do) The only problem I can see the phone may have is the antenna. It is very flimsy. It doesn't stay extended. You have to keep pulling it up. Luckily I haven't had to use it. I get good reception without the antenna. All in all, the Kyrocera 2035 is a great phone for the price. It has many features and functions. Caller seems very clear. A great starter phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86872 2001/9/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price compact options small buttons antenna The Bottom LineIf on a budget and need a sense of security for unexpected times, this is a great item. With 99% of places requiring additional number, this is a good choice. Full Review Due to recent emergency events my husband and I realized just how much a Cellular Phone could come in handy. I had owned a dinosaur 5 years ago. Those big, bulky and heavy devices that looked like the original cordless phones. So comparing to previous experiences with such phone, this was not only appealing but also, easier to use. I purchased this phone through a local Sprint sales rep. in El Paso Texas. They gave me a decent deal of $100.00 and NO contract. That is what we were looking for. Contracts are not for us, mortgages and vehicle payments are enough. And easily within most budgets, including ours. Though recently we have canceled our Sprint Wireless Phone service, next review, the phone itself is excellent. Features *Standard 1-9 dialing buttons and * # *RED power button, for ON and OFF *GREEN call or hang-up button *Up, Down, Left and Right cursor position *1/2 X 3/4 LCD screen *Back Space/Previous Screen Key *Enter/Select Button These buttons are very small. This is perfect for people with small hands. If you have nails this is much harder to operate, especially if already occupied. My husband and I both have above average size hands, so though the phone fits well, the buttons are hard to manage with accuracy. Ear Piece: Excellent voice volume. Being on both your home phone, or on this phone, the voice sound is not only extremely clear but also a pleasant level. Though I do not recommend blaring the radio and expect to still hear as well. Microphone: As well as hearing. I could hear on any phone very well what was being spoken. The only thing I found annoying with this is with all small phones. Your head is a certain length, and you have to have the speaker on your ear to hear. So why do they place the talking slot so it fits next to your cheek? Because of the distance from your mouth to the slot you may feel impelled to YELL. This is NOT necessary! Speak with normal voice please, or your listener will be more than the person you are speaking to. But those next to them AND you. We have used this on extremely windy days, up to 60mph, and not even then did we hear the wind whistling cutting out on the sound quality. Battery Use and Every Day Abuse How often have you dropped your phone? Be it corded, cordless or a little 2lb phone? Many times walking out of the store with my hands full, kids running through the parking lot and one screaming did the phone ring. This little piece of technology has stood up to even my abuse. Dropped on concrete, lost at the bottom of a purse (that is bad for those of you not experienced with such times) and passed back and forth from child to child. Still, not a scratch, dent or loss of durability. For a year it has been used several times and no complaints in that department. The battery itself is out standing as well. For four days it was left on (purely accidental) and still held a charge long enough for a short (5-10 minutes) conversation. Fully charged, good for at least 120 minutes talk time and so far has lasted me five days just being on. Talking time does drastically reduce the battery life so be sure to keep charged for those emergency times. To recharge simply plug in the cord, provided, into the hole and other end at the wall and let charge over night, or at least 8 hours for maximum usage. Though I do not have the car lighter charger, I do have a power converter which we used for the long drives. Antenna This has served no purpose for me. It does not stay up and when I have managed to get to stay positioned for more than a few minutes, it has never once picked up a signal any better than if it was 'put away'. When carrying it slips in and out and is pretty much useless. I wonder, was it really needed to make the phone look like a phone? Extras LCD screen shows a green soft glowing back ground. Pictures for easy up to date information. Such as battery charge, reception strength, easy access Menu screen and mail (voice, fax or email) notification. Three different notify options. *Ring *Vibrate *Ring and Vibrate Combined Each ring having its own loudness, type (musical or beep), and numbers of rings. Same options available for Mail notifications so you may want to set one different from the other for obvious reasons. Under Menu you have to choose from: *Wireless Web *Contacts (View All, Add New, Find Name, Speed Dial List, Business List, Personal List, Information. Will hold Names, Numbers and Addresses of SEVERAL entries. Icon options as well.) *Recent Calls *Settings (Silence All, Keyguard, Roaming-Analog or Digital, Sounds, Display, Security, Extras, Messaging and Accessories) *Tools (Alarm Clock, Tip Calculator, Calculator, Countdown, Stop Watch and the game Brick Attack) *Messages *Phone Information (Phone's Number) The game, though slightly generic, is a good time pass. When you are in a long waiting line at the store or the kids are bored with waiting. Tip Calculator great for the out to dinner surprise tip amounts. (As a waitress for many years prior, I know how confusing it can be to people.) This phone is very standard size and style so getting alternative slip covers is easy to find. To change the face plate is just as easy. Snap off and snap on. It is a fairly universal phone for the not so technical person. Though I am NOT happy with the Sprint service, this phone was a great purchase. I was told that the crystal is not compatible with Verizon. I am not looking into purchasing another phone, but sometimes you do not have a choice for quality. If you have a great Sprint Service in your area and on a tight budget this phone is a great addition for anyone on the go. With kids in school, work emergencies and every day away from home scares I give this a go ahead for an honest purchase. © All Rights Reserved 2001 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100.00 7675 Kyocera 2135 86917 2003/11/14 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 durable easy to use lightweight attractive changing the faceplate is slightly challenging no other that cons i can think of I purchased this phone earlier this year, and I was pleasantly surprised by how lightweight and durable it is. I have the tendency to DROP things, and I have dropped this phone many times, and it's still in excellent working condition! The menu is easy to navigate through, with no tricks or surprises or not knowing how to get from point A to point B. The buttons are kind of small, but not so small that dialing becomes challenging. Its appearance is nice, however, the faceplate is kind of hard to get off if you want to change it. Once you do remove the faceplate, it's a snap, so to speak. Otherwise, I would suggest purchasing this phone to anyone. :) 86916 2002/7/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 good user interface design good ergonomics bad sound quality The Bottom LineCute enough for a short fling, but not dependable enough for a lasting relationship. Full Review ...I couldn't get past the bad sound quality. This is a neat little phone. Kyocera did a great job designing the user interface: the menu is easy to navigate and logically layed out. The display is very easy to read, and icons are easy to decipher. Buttons are well spaced and easy to press, and the four-way navigation key has a good feel. I really wanted to like this phone... However, the sound quality was pretty bad. It was tinny, distant, canned, "digital"-sounding. People definitely knew I was calling them on a cell phone, and I could barely hear them on my end. In addition, the chassis shape was all wrong: the edges on either side of the earpiece were raised, and dug into my ear. I traded this one in for another unit to see if the sound problem was specific to the unit I had; alas, it's a design problem. Due to my limited experience with the phone (about four days), I can't say anything about battery life or reception, but the sound quality was a deal-breaker. So (after two or three days with a Motorola v120) I ended up getting the Kyocera 2235 instead. Too bad. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 86915 2000/8/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality features ease of use a bit bigger than some The Bottom LineGreat phone for anyone looking for an easy to use, reliable, and afforable CDMA handset. Full Review Allow me to begin by mentioning that I have been working as a business accounts representative with Verizon Wireless for six years. I have seen many different models come and go and I feel that there's no better arena by which to share my opinion than on Epinions. I should mention that the Kyocera 2135 has been a tax only phone in our department or a $15 plus tax model for quite some time now. Retail consumers don't be upset by this, as this model is a great deal even at a much higher price point, but our corporate customers get an increased break on the price as a result of being a volume subscriber. The point of mentioning the price is the fact that I have sold a great deal of these in the last six months or more. Note: given the fact that I have had limited experience myself with this model, I am basing this review on the tremendous amount of feedback I have receieved. The 2135 is manufactured by Kyocera, a company that is the equipment division manufacturer for the well known Qualcomm Corp. Their phones are no longer produced under the Qualcomm logo, but rather Kyocera, a Japanese entity. All of the reps in our department carry the older, Kyocera 2035, which is very similar to the 2135. The Kyocera line has proven itself as a dependable and reliable. I must add that I receive very few headaches from this model and for that reason, I encourage it. The 2135 weighs only 4.55 ounces, which would be considered below average in today's marketplace. It is 5.0"x2"x1". From this perspective, it is a little larger than some, but it remains a manageable size, fitting in a pocket or purse easily. It is what is considered a "tri-mode" phone, which means that it includes analog, 800 Mhz CDMA digital, as well as 1900 Mhz CDMA digital. All of Verizon's newer models are tri-mode. The packaged battery provides 4 hours talk time and four to six days of standby time. These are lab specs, so don't be surprised if yours ends up being noticeably less. This is true of just about every manufacturer's specs. I can go on about the features, but you can find that information anywhere, particularly at your local retailer. The point of this review is to share information you can't find on-line or in a store, and that is, information regarding what type of real world experience people have. Despite my previous statement of intent, I do want to mention that the user interface of the Kyocera is perhaps one of the easiest to use from any manufacturer. A perfect model for an older person unfamiliar with electronics, or anyone wanting a simple, easy to use cellular phone. The menus are easy to navigate and storing names and numbers is a snap. The easiest of the easiest in this model. Now, on to the performance of the phone. I work out of the southern California market, which is what this information reflects. Out of all of the models I sell, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, etc. The Kyocera 2135 is one of the top performers and is the least to come back of any model I currently offer. As a matter of fact, one company that had purchased a dozen plus phones from another manufacturer was calling regularly with complaints about their guys sounding like they were underwater and a plethora of dropped calls. I switched all of their lines out to the 2135 and I never heard from him again, except to tell me that the phones were working great. The voice quality of the phone is one feature that most people comment on as being a real plus. Very natural sounding. Something many people do not know is that Qualcomm is the originator of CDMA technology, and it stands to reason that their equipment division would be the supplier of phones that would interface best with our network. Many of the problems that other types of phones have, the Kyocera line seems to be somewhat immune from. This is not to say that it is a perfect model, but it does perform very well and keeps people very satisfied. Another thing to take note of is that the 2135 will show a lower signal strength in many areas in comparison to other models. This is not to say that it is truly getting less signal, but rather that the amount of signal it displays may be less than what another phone will. This concerns some people, but the bottom line is whether or not you can dial out, not how many bars of signal you may have. Overall, the Kyocera 2135 is a strong contender in the marketplace for people wanting a reasonably priced phone that is easy to use and reliable. I would recommend this phone over Nokia and most Motorola models. Recommended: Yes 86914 2003/4/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 great features like text messaging easy to use buttons noisy bad choice of ring tones The Bottom LineGreat phone. Buy it. Full Review This phone is simply the best cell phone you can buy. It comes with everything you will ever want or need in a cell phone. I guarantee that you will love this phone! Check it out: Size: The Kyocera 2135 is about 5 inches long. It is not a big phone, but it is not as small as the new Nokias, which is a good thing because they are so small you can hardly use them without getting sore. This phone fits perfectly in your hand and can easily be carried in your pocket. Look: This phone is really cool looking. Some people say this phone is ugly and weird looking, but I cannot see it in mine. It definately looks better than the new Nokias. Features: This phone is loaded with great features like web browsing, two games(in some models), text messaging, e-mail, caller ID, voicemail, stopwatch, countdown timer, tip calculator, regular calculator, and a 200 entry phone book. And with some plans, downloadable ring tones, which is good because the included ring tones suck! Sound: You can hear your calls very well on this phone. I hardly notice an interference when using it. I have noticed that even though the phone indicates you are getting a weak signal, you can hear your calls perfectly. Cons: I really cannot complain much about this great phone. But every great item has some bad points. The main thing here is the sound the buttons make when you press them. They make an annoying "click" when pressed. Another weak point is the ring tones included with the phone. They all are bad and if your plan does not allow you to download ring tones you are stuck with them. Since you can make your phone vibrate instead of ring, this should not be a big problem if you hate the ring tones. Other than these two really small problems, this phone rocks! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $59.99 86913 2000/10/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good options good battery life easy operation good size volume too low reception isn t always good The Bottom LineI would suggest this phone to just about anyone. It's one of the best out there. Full Review When I came in to get my most recent phone plan I traded in some very old analog phones. I didn't really feel like spending too much money so I asked what the best deal on a phone they could give was. The salesman said that he could give me this Kyocera 2135 for free. So this was the phone I took home. The Kyocera 2135 is much better than my previously owned 4 year old phone. The Kyocera is a great size, the menus are easy to see and easy to navigate through, and the battery life is great. The only problems with the phone are the lack of volume in the ear piece, the loud ringer, and the reception isn't always so great. This phone is the perfect size to fit just about anywhere.. about 4.5 inches tall, by about 1.25 inches wide. It is small enough to be convient, but big enough that it won't easily get lost. With the smaller phones, they can be lost very easily because they slide inbetween things and just aren't noticable. The menues on this phone are very user friendly. It took no time at all to learn how to use every feature on the phone without even bothering to pull out the maunel. The battery life on these phones is wonderful also. If I don't use the phone, it will stay charged about 3 days. It has lasted as long as 6 days in a row sitting in my car. If you talk on the phone quite a bit I suggest charging every 24 to 36 hours. The volume when someone is talking on the other end is very low at it's loudest. I can hardly hear the person I'm talking to sometimes. Also, the ringer volume is extreamly loud on the phone. You have a choice basically of silent or painfully loud. The reception on this phone is pretty good. It doesn't have as many rough spots as some phones, but more expensive phones by the same manufacuter on the same plan in the same area have better reception by far. Overall I don't have many problems at all. I would suggest this phone to anyone that just wants a phone for general use. If you don't really care what you get and you just want a phone that works and will serve you well, this is the one for you. A good phone for the 'poor college student'. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): free 86912 2000/4/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 tons of great features light weight small size keys easy to bump if guard not on The Bottom LineCheap phone that has all the goodies. Can't say that about the Nokia phones. Full Review In my search for a new wireless plan, I decided to go with Qwest wireless and the Kyocera 2135. I had Voicestream and a Nokia 2190, 5190, and 6190. Detect a pattern? The Nokia phones are great looking and have some nice features, but they don't hold up for more than a year or so. I know people that had Kyocera (or Qualcomm) phones for 3 years or more, and they were still working. I ordered my phone the first day it was released for sale, and I only paid 49.95 for it and it had great features like vibrating ring, web and message access, Lithium Ion battery vs. the Nokia 5100 series that has no web access, no vibrating ringer, and Nickel Metal Hydride battery that wears out faster than Mom-in-law's welcome in her visit to town. The phone is smaller than the Nokia 5100 and 6100 series, lighter than as well. For a phone under $100 it's the best phone on the market! 2 others I know ordered this phone after using mine, thoroughly happy as well. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 86911 2000/9/15 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating1.0 features available price size battery life stinks very poor quality durability stinks The Bottom LineSpend a little more and keep your sanity. I have told others who have had the 6065 and the 2035 like me previously to avoid the 2135. Full Review I have owned 3 different Kyocera Models Before and all of those were of good quality, durablity and easy to use. Which led me to purchase the 2135 Model. After 3 replacements and 4 battery changes, all with in less than a month. I can not recommend this phone to anyone for any reason. If you welcome trouble and want to try your patience then go ahead. The first one would not hold a charge, so went back to Verizon and they replaced battery, The second Battery was only good for 15-20 minutes talk time and then no juice. So went back again. They gave me a new phone and new battery same thing all over again. Third phone and battery same story. While the phone had the features I wanted at a very good price, the poor quality led me to abandon this model. I did stay with Kyocera, only this time opted for the 2235 Model. Egads this one would not even charge at all. So went back again and they gave me a new 2235 and checked to make sure it would charge right. So far still happly with the 2235. I would say Kyocera appears to be going with the lowest bidder on parts for manufacture of their phones now. Too Bad. Don't buy the 2135 go for the 2235 or the 3035 Models Verizon was very good through the whole deal and worked to make it right and keep me satisfied. I paid $29 plus tax and 2 year service agreement. I did receive credit for the 2135 towards the 2235 price. 29 Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 29.00 86910 2000/4/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 good basic phone without a lot of useless features sound quality is only so so The Bottom LineIf you want a good basic phone without lots of frills, this is a winner. Want looks, size, flashy features or brand name? don't waste your time with this Full Review I had an Audiovox CDM 4000 for my Verizon Wireless service and was completely satisfied with the phone. Unfortunately it wouldn't work with their new natiowide service, which required a tri-mode phone. I looked at the phones available and unenthusiastically picked the Kyocera 2135 after the Verizon Wireless 800-customer service folks recommended it. When I went into a Verizon Wireless phone store, they kept steering me to the 2135. The phone operation is straightforward enough -- pretty much like most other cell phones today. During the first few calls I made, everyone asked what was wrong with my phone because it sounded so bad to them. I tried the phone for a week, then took it back to a phone store and they even said it sounded crappy! They gave me a new one and it seems to work OK. Overall, the phone is good, but not great. Battery life is very good, sound quality is good, and reception is also pretty good. If you want a good, basic phone without lots of features you won't use, don't care much about looks (this phone IS pretty ugly!), and don't want a phone so small it's useless (like some of the new Nokia phones), then this phone will do whatever you need. If how it looks, brand name or size is most important to you, stay away from this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 86909 2001/11/7 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 abundantwell thought out features useful excellent voice quality great price still new few faceplatesaccessories available right now The Bottom LineIf you're looking for an inexpensive, good quality, feature rich phone, this is it. You can't go wrong. Full Review First off, the technical information displayed by epinions for this phone is wrong. To correct it: - This phone DOES have Caller ID. - This phone DOES have Multiple Ring Options. - This phone DOES have vibrating ring. - This phone IS web enabled. - The product height is not 1.89 inches - it is 5.07 inches. I recently subscribed to the Verizon Wireless prepaid service and this was one of 3 phones being offered. I asked the salesman at the Verizon store which phone he would recommend and he said definitely the 2135. I had already done a good deal of research and compared it to the Nokia 5185 and from what I could tell, the 2135 edged it out overall. I also purchased the handsfree kit for it. I got the phone home and set it all up. After I started going through the manual in depth, I could see that there were MANY nice little convenience features that I didn't even know about. The more I played around with the setup options, the more I like this phone! Although it is a feature-rich phone, the menus are well designed and very intuitive. I had no problem immediately setting things up and hardly had to crack open the manual for anything other than the more obscure options. Whoever designed the interface did a great job. The phone itself has a nice solid feel to it, yet is still reasonably light: 4.4 oz. Even though it is slightly thick, it fits surprisingly well in my pocket. However, if you're going to be walking around with it a lot, I'd recommend a swivel belt clip (they are very inexpensive). The keys are a good size and spaced nicely so you won't get many accidental key clicks. The keys have a very well balanced amount of pressure required to click them - not a mushy feel, but not a real "clicky" feel - kind of in between, but just right in my opinion. You get good solid feedback on all keypresses. You also have the option of making a sound when you press a key - you can choose between 2 different sounds and various volume levels for the key clicks alone - or you can turn sound off altogether. Nice! I won't go into all the options and features of this phone, but here is a summary of some of the more useful ones: - 1 touch speed dialing (up to 99 numbers!). - macro keys for one touch access to commonly used functions like ringer volume. - organize your contacts (up to a whopping 200!) by business or personal and assign different ringer tones for each. So when you have a business call it will ring differently than a personal call (if that's what you choose). - downloadable ringers (optional data kit required - costs $45). - many options for controlling power consumption features like backlighting, volumes, etc. - all the perks: tri-mode (analog, digital, PCS), voicemail, caller ID, text messaging (incoming and outgoing), paging, data/fax, web enabled. - nice options for keeping you informed of current signal status such as customizable alerts when you start roaming or are in a no-service area. - other useful options like alarm clock (with snooze), timer, stopwatch, calculator (even a tip calculator which is kinda neat). The Kyocera web site has a very nice section devoted to this phone and the online interactive demo is awesome and shows you virtually every feature. I'd highly recommend taking a look if you're contemplating buying. You can find this at http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/2100_phone/2100_phone_series.htm Overall, for the amount of features packed into this phone, I'm thoroughly impressed at how logically it's all laid out and how easy it is to access everything. Even entering contact info or text messages is as smooth as silk and logically designed. There are many shortcut keys for often used options which are very handy. It doesn't take long to get familiar with this phone despite the number of features. They really seem to have thought through the design well and every little detail is handled excellently. Little options and conveniences you'd never think of have been included. I found myself saying, "hey - that's a great idea," a lot while playing with the options. Although I've only had the phone a short time, the range seems excellent. The battery recharges in no time flat and seems to last for a reasonable amount of time if you don't go too heavy on the power-hungry features like backlighting, etc. Because the phone is so new, there are not a large number of accessories available for this phone, but the ones that are available should cover 90% of your needs. I'd guess that more accessories will be added and eventually it will have a nice set to choose from. I'm in NY, so a handsfree kit is a must. Luckily they have 2 to choose from. I got the portable one and am very happy with it. Good quality. The external microphone works great. Calls made using the handsfree kit came through crystal clear with only a small amount of background noise from the vehicle (which is to be expected in a car). The handsfree kit was $59 - not too bad. I do have some minor issues with this phone: - The faceplates available are ugly (in my opinion). Why do faceplates always seem to be wild bright colors like flourescent orange or lime green? Yikes! All I want is a nice dark gray or black or even a dark burgundy or midnight blue, but amazingly, none of those "normal" colors are available (makes no sense to me). The phone I got came with a bright blue faceplate and I really don't care for it. However, that's only a cosmetic issue and the performance of the phone FAR outweighs how it looks. Hopefully they add new faceplates in the future. - I'd like to see more ringer tone options. The phone has 15 built in. About a 3rd of these are melodies rather than ringer tones (I HATE phones that play a tune!). Of the ringer tones available, they are so-so. - Although you can download additional ringers from the web (nice feature), they only have a few available currently and they are ALL melodies. Yuck! It would be nice if you could create your own tones, but that is not an option. Also, to download extra ringers, you'll need to purchase a data kit which costs $45. Not worth it unless you are synchronizing your phone with your PC on a regular basis. Summary: Overall, this phone is a tremendous value. I'm extremely satisfied with it and would highly recommend it to anyone who needs an inexpensive phone, but that still has advanced features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $54 86908 2001/12/29 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 low cost much more amazing features totally configurable absolutely nothing The Bottom LineI have nothing but great things to say about this phone as you read in my review... check it out today! Full Review I bought a new Kyocera 2135 for the Verizon Wireless [Freeup] plan a few weeks ago after deciding to switch from AT&T's Free2go Wireless plan. All I can say is "wow, what a change!" The AT&T plan came with a Nokia 5165 cell phone, which was a very easy to use first cell phone. The features seemed to be pretty good, and I had no problems with the service. (see my Nokia 5160 series review) After playing with the Kyocera 2135 phone for a night I realized how much better it really was, as you will learn in this review… It pretty much beats my old Nokia in every way possible! Verizon's service is also terrific, but I will stay on the topic of this Kyocera phone. Value The cost of this phone varies by service, but for the [Freeup] prepaid plan the cost came out to be $69.99. ($99.99 - a $30 mail-in rebate, or you could chose to receive $50 in minutes for the phone instead.) Phone kit also includes $15 in minutes. When I bought the phone, Verizon's computer systems went down across the country. For my patience, I received an extra $10 off the price of the phone, and a free handsfree kit, a $15 value. My reason for switching services was I found that I could sell my old phone on Ebay, and after rebates on the new phone break even. As it turned out, I got a (brand new) better phone, better service, a free handsfree kit, and made $2.00 by switching phones. Not bad! Features After reading my Nokia review, I realize how great I thought that phone's features were. The Kyocera 2135 phone, however, has everything my old phone did and more. My favorite part is the tools section, which includes useful applications such as an alarm clock, tip calculator, calculator, stopwatch, and a countdown. The only game, brick attack (pong), is actually pretty fun, unlike the very basic snake game on the Nokia. Now, for the actual calling features. Another feature this phone features is a call monitor, which gives you the date, time, and duration of any call you make or receive. Other phones have similar features, but can be very confusing about when the calls took place, and they don't give the duration. The phone's menu is terrific, and very easy to navigate using the four way navigational key directly under the display. From there you can control any of the settings, which are unbelievably configurable. You can change the sounds the phone makes, ringer type and volume, change what alerts you receive, many display options (backlighting, icon size on menu, shortcut keys, contrast, and even language your phone displays), you can completely configure your voicemail, message and page notifications, view any of the call timers, and more. Another very cool feature on this phone is two different styles of ringing. For example, you can make your friends have one ringtone, and your work contacts have another… good to know without even picking up the phone. The text messaging on this phone is terrific, and very easy to use. Send short messages to other phones, pagers, or even send and receive email from your phone! The Kyocera 2135 is also wireless web compatible, but since it's not included in my service I don't know enough to report to you. There are a few more very important features I left out. I'll start with the phone being tri-mode. (2 modes of digital, one of analog) All calls have been completely clear, static-free digital so far. Can you believe it, digital calls on a prepaid phone! Phone features a 200 number address book (double the size of Nokia's) which lets you store a person's name, number, email address, and classify them into the personal or business categories which I talked about before. Also features Caller ID, multiple ring tones, and a choice to have a vibrating ring. That is NOT an extra vibrating battery like others, you can actually chose to have your phone vibrate! Appearance and Feel This phone is terrific at both appearance and feel! First off, the design is great, and the phone fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. With an indent on the back for your finger, the phone feels like an extension of your hand. The size (5.07 in x 1.89 in x 1.02 in) is just right for many users. Faceplates come in many great colors, and the phone includes and extendable antenna. I'd say the best part is how light the phone is. Weighing only 4.55 ounces, the people at Verizon Wireless even have to double check that the battery is in. If you're anything like me, you'll be checking constantly to see that you didn't loose your phone because you just can't feel it there! The five-line bmp (bitmap) display on the Kyocera 2135 is very clear, especially with the adjustable contrast. After switching from the Nokia 5165, the appearance and feel of this phone is, in my opinion, the biggest change. Accessories Here is where some people have problems with this phone. You can find everything you need from your wireless store, or Kyocera.com. Faceplates come in many bright colors such as transparent blue, orange, and green, along with the dark colors like gray and black. You'll also find handsfree kits, carrying cases, chargers, extra antennae, and anything else you could ask for. The only thing is since this is a relatively new phone, manufacturers of the no-name, but very cheap, parts have not made any faceplates for it. If you shop for phones or accessories on Ebay, you'd know that if you type in the phone's name you are blasted with 300+ results for faceplates, chargers, etc, and only a very small percentage are actually made by the phone's manufacturer… not so with this phone. I've gotten five results at most for the Kyocera 2135. Conclusion This is a great phone for anyone! Low cost, very easy to use, has tons of features, and is both completely cosmetically and technically configurable. I don't even know what to say… no matter who you are, if you're looking for a phone, the Kyocera 2135 is for you! My review of Verizon Wireless and their [freeup] plan can be found here: Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $59.00 86907 2002/2/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lightweight so many features flimsy antenna ringers could be better The Bottom LineTri-mode, lightweight, feature-rich (with features that I'd actually use), and just plain fun...I LOVE this phone! Full Review How I Ended Up With This Phone: I got this phone when I switched my cellular plan. I started out with cell phones around 4 years ago, when Verizon was still Bell Atlantic. I had a small Ericsson flip phone that I loved mainly because of the vibrate feature. After awhile I broke the display case, so I got a new plan and a new phone, a Motorola SC3160. I hated that phone. It was bulky. It was heavy. The menus were so confusing and I could never remember how to get my voicemail. I always had to look it up in the manual. I disliked using that phone so much I never even bothered to memorize my phone number. Well, a couple of months ago it dawned on me that I was paying over $40 a month (including phone insurance and taxes) for a phone that I used for maybe 20 minutes a month. I checked out Verizon's other plans, as well as those from the competitors, but even $29.99 (plus taxes, putting it over $30) a month seemed excessive to me, given how infrequently I used it. Then I began looking into pre-paid plans. It came down to Verizon's pre-paid plan and that of Voicestream. I chose Verizon because, among other things, you have at least 30 days before your minutes expire (60 days, if you spend $30 or more, and 200 bonus weekend minutes every time you spend $50 or more). With Voicestream's cheapest pre-paid card, the minutes expire after only 15 days. So, I knew pre-paid would make more sense for me, etc, but I didn't do anything until my Motorola broke. I took it into my Verizon store, but because I had insurance, I'd have to file a claim with the insurance company and pay a $50 deductible to get it fixed. So I said screw it, cancelled my plan, and signed up for FREEUP, Verizon's pre-paid plan. There was a choice of 3 phones for the FREEUP plan. I can't remember the third one, but it was really nice. Unfortunately, it was also over $200, so it was out of the running. So, it was between the Kyocera 2135 and the Nokia 5185. Luckily, I had come to epinions and done my homework in advance, and read how people were every bit or more satisfied that they had chosen the Kyocera over the Nokia, plus the Kyocera was cheaper, and it came with a $30 rebate. So I chose it for my FREEUP plan, and I'm definitely glad I did. The Pros: First off, it has so many features.... Contacts List: Keep all your important phone numbers together Speed Dial: Nice for the lazy or lethargic (that's me!) Messaging: So cool! Good for when you're stuck in a boring movie/play/lecture and you want to talk with your friends but don't want to disturb others. Web Browser: Not available with FREEUP, can't comment on it Alarm Clock: Useful for when you're on the road, just in case the hotel one breaks Tip Calculator: Great feature! Comes with 10%, 15%, 18%, and 20% tip options, and it will also split the bill for you Calculator: Useful, and one less thing to carry around Stopwatch & Countdown: Not actually sure when I would need to use these, but it's nice that they're there, just in case Brick Attack: a Breakout game, my favorite kind! Optional Lock Code: So nobody but you can use it Key Lock: To prevent accidentally dialing a number Vibrate Alert Caller ID 15 Ringers: Ringer volume is adjustable, of course, and on the loudest setting it really is very loud, so I don't imagine many people would have much trouble hearing it. Customizable Greeting: The phone comes programmed to display Verizon, but it's easy to change that (you just need to keep it to 14 characters or less) Call Logs: Tell you both the numbers that you've called and that have called you, and also the number of minutes you've used. Personalized Rings: You can divide your contacts into Business and Personal. Then, you can assign different ringers to the Business and Personal contacts, so you can tell just by how the phone rings the category the caller belongs to. Smart Sound: You can set the phone to automatically adjust the volume depending on how loud it is around you. Information Icon: Really nice plus! For many, many of the phones' categories, you can scroll down and click on the Information icon, and it will tell you what the feature that you're looking at is/does, so you don't have to look it up in a manual. It also has an alert that warns you about 4 minutes before all your minutes expire. It's really easy to get more minutes, by the way, you can do it online or call Verizon and do it over the phone. Battery life is about average/good, I'd say. Playing Brick Attack or leaving the backlight on too long will use it up faster, but that's adjustable. The battery doesn't take too long to charge and, unlike my sister's Motorola, you can charge it anytime, you don't have to wait for the battery to drain. Clarity is great. I was having trouble setting up my voicemail (the Verizon store neglected to give me the special PIN number I'd need to access my voicemail), so I called customer service. The woman I talked to was really nice and helpful, but of course she needed to put me on hold for a minute. When she did, I panicked because I heard absolutely nothing. That is, with my other phones, there was almost always a light "crackling" or static, even when nobody was speaking. But this time, it was completely silent. I thought my call had been dropped until she came back on the line. That's the first time I have ever experienced that kind of clarity on a cell. Resources are yours for the asking. Kyocera has a great website that is actually useful. If you lose your manual, you can download it from their site, or you can take a look at their support and FAQ sections. Most likely your question would be answered there, as they clearly show you how to perform almost all of the phone's functions. They also have a demo of the 2135, as well as other models, so you can see before buying how the phone looks and works. The URL is http://www.kyocera-wireless.com I have been having so much fun with this phone! I really like the tip calculator and alarm clock functions, but I've been having the most fun with messaging. You can send e-mail to anyone with another 2-way messaging phone or with an e-mail address. It does take awhile because each number on the keypad stands for 3 letters, and then there's capitalization, etc., but it's still a great feature. Plus, you can register with Verizon's v-text.com, choose a nickname and have your phone's e-mail address as yournickname@vtext.com. Pretty easy to remember! I've both sent and received messages to my phone to test it out, and it takes less than 10 seconds for them to get through. Plus, you can set the phone to alert you (or not, depends on what you want) whenever you get a message. You can also have Verizon's Mobile Messenger send you daily messages of all different kinds, including news, weather, sports, entertainment, trivia, cooking/parenting/fitness tips, etc. The Cons: The antenna is very flimsy and I think it would be really easy to break, so I don't use it. The ringers are not that great, in my opinion. You can set them to be quite loud, but I find that most are just not that wonderful to listen to. You can download more, but you'd have to pay around $40 for a special connection kit. It doesn't bother me nearly enough to shell out the extra money. The menus can take a little getting used to, but once you understand what everything is (and it really doesn't take long to understand), it's very simple. The power and send buttons aren't marked power and send, they're little green and red telephones, but that's not too bad. It would be nice if the faceplate Verizon chose weren't this bright blue color, but I can live with it, and I can always check e-Bay for new faceplates, if I want. I do wish that Brick Attack would vary its levels and make it progressively harder, but that's really quibbling now. This is a phone, after all, not a Game Boy. Finally, the up/down/left/right arrows are all on one button, so sometimes I hit down when I mean to hit left or right. Not a big problem, though. Price/Value: The whole package (phone, $15 SETUP card, $15 activation fee) cost me $121, but I got a $30 rebate on the phone, so it comes to $91. That still seems a lot to me, but considering that a) I won't be getting any more bills that include taxes and surcharges, b) the REUP charges will average $15 a month (maybe $25, if I start using it a lot more), and c) I got 200 bonus weekend minutes when I signed up, it turns out to be very reasonable in the long run. Plus, I get a really cool phone to boot! Bottom Line: Remember how I said in the beginning of the review that I disliked my previous cell phone so much and used it so rarely that I never even bothered to memorize the phone number? Well, believe me, I've got my new cell number memorized, my friends' and family's numbers are in the contacts/phonebook, and I don't step out of the house without my Kyocera. I LOVE this phone! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 91 w/rebate 86906 2000/5/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 too many to list but my fave is it s functionality accessories hard to findstill somewhat expensive The Bottom LineGreat cell phone for those looking for an affordable, easy to use and attractive phone. Full Review I'd been without a cell phone for almost a year. I got taken with a prepaid plan last year, and was wary about getting into another trap like that. But the need came about for me to buy a new cell, and I broke down and got the Kyocera 2135 thru Verizon's FreeUP prepaid plan. Mostly it was an impulse buy, since I needed the phone and was not in the market for a set price cell plan payment every month. I wasn't expecting to get many bells and whistles with the phone, just something that I could use for emergencies. Boy was I surprised! The Kyocera 2135 has many great features, my favorite being the text messaging capability. After your phone is set up at the store, you need to go to www.vtext.com and set up your messaging account. From then on, you can receive emails up to 160 characters long from anyone with email access. This comes in extremely handy for me since most everyone I know has access to email and it's only .05 cents per message in or out. The phone also has web browsing capabilities which I have not yet taken advantage of. Using these services cost air time, and I don't have a need for that yet. You can get news bulletins, weather and other information sent directly to your cell phone though, and this could be a handy feature for some. The Kyocera 2135 also has great reception, even while roaming. I happen to live near the northern boundary of my service area and received a call from someone while the phone was in analog roaming mode the other day, and the reception was crisp and clear. My old phone cut out constantly even while still in my home area. Ease of use is another great feature of this phone. It was very self explanitory, and I started using the phone straight out of the package. It has a very easy to use menu for storing contacts (both phone numbers and email contacts), changing your sounds for rings and pages and even blocking out certain numbers and silencing. I also like the fact that the phone is Caller ID capable, and I can tell who is calling. I like to chose how I use my minutes and this phone allows me to ignore a call if I don't want to talk. I also can't get over how comfortable the Kyocera is to use. It's very ergonomic, and it looks good as well. The Kyocera 2135 stores up to 200 contacts, which I'll never fill up, but would come in handy if I had that many friends. ;0) It holds a charge for a good 48 hours, and that's leaving it on that whole time. I don't use the phone very often though. I have not yet purchased the car charger for the phone, but I charge it at home every other day and leave it on all day, and shut it off at night. I've not had any problems with the battery running down yet. Another one of my favorite features of this phone is that it costs very little. I purchased my phone for $100 at Radio Shack, and it came with a $30 mail in rebate or a $50 phone card good for $50 worth of minutes. I chose the minutes, so actually the phone was only $50. Although I can't find any affordable accessories that I would like right now. (car charger and leather cover/clip), I would have to say that I am very happy with the purchase of my Kyocera 2135 phone. I would definately recommend it to anyone who would like an easy to use, affordable, prepaid type plan. I have also heard that this phone can be switched over to the monthly payment cellular plan as well, which I most likely will take advantage of when the need arises. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $100-rebate 86905 2001/12/31 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 email top talkstanby time more crammed with features reliable excellent ergonomic design none that i see The Bottom LineIf you get this phone, you will be greatly pleased. Good features, good signal, email, web enabled, voicemail, under $100. What more could you ask for? Full Review I got the Kyocera 2135 for the Verizon Wireless [FREEUP] plan for Christmas and I love it! This is my first cellular phone, but I think if I could have any cell phone, I would still pick this one. I did some research and I found out that this is the best (also the cheapest) phone that the plan has to offer. The plan offers either the Kyocera 2135, the Nokia 5185i or the LG- TM510 (I think that's) the name. In this review I will tell you about the great features of this phone and why it is one of the best phones out on the market! PRICE I'm pretty sure this phone varies by service and you might be able to get it for about $25 with a plan, but for the [FREEUP] plan the price was $99.99. You have a choice of either a $30 rebate off the phone or $50 in minutes for the phone, and I chose the $50 in minutes. The Nokia phone is $125, and the LG- TM510 was $225, which is too expensive so I didn't even bother considering this phone. FEATURES First of all, you have got to love this: CDMA Talk Time: up to 4 hours (the Nokia is an hour less) CDMA Standby Time: up to 150 hours (6.25 days) That by itself is amazing. This smooth phone is crammed with features and I will summarize the best features: -an Address Book, which stores a remarkable 200 contacts (twice as much as Nokia phones). It can store their number, email, address, URL and note. -Speed Dial (up to 99 numbers) -Vibrate Alert (if you silence your phone, you can make it vibrate so that you know you have a call) -Caller ID -15 ringers -Trimode (CDMA digital PCS, CDMA digital cellular and analog- three modes of network coverage to keep you connected practically anywhere) -the Tools Section: it includes an alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, calculator and a tip calculator -Two-way Messaging- you can send and receive text messages to other Verizon phones or send and receive email -4-Way Easy Navigation Key -Call Monitor, which gives you the date, time, and duration of any call you make or receive -Voicemail Number -it's Web Browser compatible (but the [FREEUP] plan doesn't have it) There are some more interesting features. There are two different styles of ringing. When you save a contact, you classify them business or personal. The two different groups have a different style of ringing, which is neat. You have many display options (backlighting, icon size on menu, contrast, English or Spanish and much more!). Finally, this phone has 1 game. It's not that annoying Snake game, which every other phone has. The game is called Brick Attack, and it is basically Pong. You think that's a lot of features that are listed in this review already, well there are many more but I will probably bore you out if I go into further detail. APPEARANCE AND FEEL The keys and nicely spaced and a good size, and just in case there is a Key Lock option. And if you don't like the beep when you press a button, you can make your phone make a click or completely silence it. I love the appearance of this phone. It's stylish and colorful, yet this professional. It fits well in my hand. The size is 5 in long x 1.9 in wide x 1 in thick. I think it not big, but not small, just perfect. It weighs 4.55 ounces (129 grams), so I can barely feel it in my pocket. The 5-Line Display is very clear. ACCESSORIES I'm not a big fan of accessories. The only accessory which I have purchased is a leather case+ belt clip ($16.99). But from www.kyocera-wireless.com you can get various faceplates, headsets, handsfree car kits, charges, etc. RECEPTION The range seems excellent. I have been having clear, static-free calls. The only time that I didn't receive a signal was in the 3rd level of a huge garage. At home I get a decent signal, but anywhere else I get great signals. The battery fully recharges in about 2 hours. CONCLUSION Overall, this phone is awesome. I would greatly recommend it to people who are looking for a feature-jammed, inexpensive phone. It's very easy to use, looks great, has the best features, which is unbelievable. Whatever you are looking for in a phone, the Kyocera 2135 has it so go out and BUY IT! You will not regret it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.99 86904 2004/1/15 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 good selection of features could be a nice for those new to cellular phones not very sturdy looks a little on the cheap side expensive accessories The Bottom LineIf you''e looking for a dependable cellular phone but don't anticipate using it very often, this would be a good pick. Not for those who live on the cell phone! Full Review I purchased a Kyocera 2135 as part of a Verizon Wireless Pre-Paid Cellular offer. I was given a pre-paid card, the phone and a charger for $99.00 plus a very sizable rebate from the manufacturer. I wasn't too excited about the phone since it looked - to me - a little goofy. At the time this was the only phone that Verizon Wireless offered with their pre-paid plan so I was sort of stuck with it. Wouldn't you know it - a month after I purchased it they upgraded and added another phone that you could purchase - a much nicer looking phone. I've been through three of these so far and while I will openly admit to being hard on electronics - I wasn't tossing them down step, at walls or jumping on them. If you are looking for a phone that will give you the ability to communicate with others when on the road then this is a good pick however if you plan on doing a lot of talking on your phone - do yourself a favor and look around for something a little more sturdy. Getting started with the phone is fairly easy but I do suggest that you read through the instruction manual that is provided. If you are like me and instructions aren't something that interests you - sitting down and playing with the different options is probably the best way to get the feel of this phone. The size is 5 inches [length] x 2 inches [width] x 1 inch [depth] so you won't be dealing with one of those small mini / micro-phones that get lost when you toss it in your bag. My phone has a removable blue faceplate with silver accents. You can pick up a different colored faceplate [orange, clear, solid black, yellow etc] with prices ranging from $14.99 - $19.99. The antenna extended a little over four inches and collapses into the top portion of the phone. The antenna is pretty sturdy but will get easily bent if you aren't careful - make sure you press it all the way back into the base [you will hear a faint click when you do so] before putting it in your purse or backpack or you might just need to purchase a replacement. Features Caller ID The Caller ID service that you get with this phone only allows you to see the telephone number of the caller - not the name. While this isn't a huge issue there have been times when I've had to stand there and say I know that number ... but who does it belong to? If you program in names with telephone numbers in your address book / contact list it will show that name with the incoming call. This is nice but if someone is calling from a payphone or other number you will still have to sit there any play the guessing game. So far I haven't had any trouble with the Caller ID feature however there is no way to block a number so if you have a stalker you'll have to deal with it yourself. Voice Mail This phone comes with voice mail but I have never set it up [bad me]. Having the pre-paid plan I didn't want to have to deal with wasting minutes calling in to see who left me a message. I can just as easily scroll through the "recent call" list and see who called. Any call that you do not answer is denoted with a small phone icon and "X" that is blinking. From what I have heard the voice mail is easy to use and set up - but for me it just isn't something that I want to get involved with at this stage in the game. Screen The backlight feature [lime green] helps if you want to have your phone completely silent, if you can't seem to find it in your knapsack at night or if you need a little help getting your key in the door. The brilliance of the backlight isn't extremely powerful but it will allow you to make calls at night or when a bit of light is needed otherwise. There are five lines of information on the phone: icons, display banner [programmable] time, incoming calls and menu. The contrast of the phone can be changed to suit your needs and preferences [from within the Tools section]. The screen information is easy to read and in most cases you won't need to sit there and move the phone around to read the lettering. I haven't experienced any glare from the screen - something that my older phone was completely guilty of. 15 Ring Tones Before you even ask - no - this phone does not allow you to download ring tones from the internet. That is something that I asked about several times before I purchased the phone and no one could give me a straight answer. The tones are average but somewhat generic. You can program the phone to ring certain tones for business calls or personal calls but I never bothered to sit down and do this since I'm not a "cell phone" person. Alert Modes This part of the features section is a little tricky to master but after sitting down and playing around with it for about fifteen minutes I finally figured it out. You can have the phone in normal mode where it will right and light up you get an incoming call additionally you can have it silenced where it will vibrate and light up. Play around with the settings and you can have it completely silent so the screen just blinks. It would take me about an hour to sit here and explain how to do this but if you want to know how, please feel free to email me. Additionally you can adjust the volume of the ringer from a pleasant little ring to something that will scare you out of your skin. Keyguard This is something that I highly suggest that you enable if you plan on carrying your phone in your purse or backpack. This locks the phone so that if something accidentally presses against the keypad, no number is dialed. To unlock the phone simply press 1-2-3 and you are free to use it. You can have this set to automatically go into keyguard mode when a call is completed or on a timed basis [30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes]. This can save you from wasting minutes and should be considered a complete necessity if you have a prepaid plan. Tools The Tools section of the phone allows you to use the calculator, find out how much to leave for a tip, set a countdown timer in case you need to be out the door in a certain period of time, stopwatch and one game - Brick Attack which is similar to Pong. The Tools section is packed with little goodies so make sure you explore this part of your phone. The calculator isn't the easiest to use but it sure is nice when you need to do some quick math. The tip calculator allows you to enter the total amount of the bill and then choose what percentage you wish to leave as a tip [10, 15, 18, 20 or other]. It also gives you the option to split the bill, choose the number of guests and the final amount to be paid by each party. Text Messaging This phone allows you to send and receive text messages that are typed out on the keypad. I have only sent a few messages and only received one so I am not an expert in the area. For those of you that are going pre-paid the fee for using the text service is .05 cents to send and receive. Messages can be stored for an unlimited amount of time in your file box located under the 'messages' section of the phone. To the best of my knowledge you have to be on the same network as the sender or receiver for this option to work - but the newer phones from Verizon may be different. Allotment Timer [this is added for those who are purchasing the pre-paid service] When you go to place a call you will hear a message telling you how much airtime you have left in your account. Occasionally you will hear messages about promotional offers [purchase a $50.00 card - get 200 free weekend minutes]. When your time is running low [less than ten minutes] you will hear a message that plays for about 60 seconds telling you that you need to recharge soon, where to purchase them etc. You can skip over this message by pressing the star [*] button. Battery Charging With this phone you also receive a charging unit. This plugs into the bottom of the phone and usually takes about 90 minutes to give it a complete charge if the phone is dead. If you have completely drained the life out of the battery the screen will go blank and you will have to wait about ten to fifteen minutes to use the phone. You can use the phone while it is the charge mode however you may lose a call if you stay on too long. When your phone is charged to its capacity you can expect to get about 200 - 220 minutes of use out of it however this depends on how old your phone is and how much use the battery has seen. After about six months you can expect that 200 - 220 minutes to drop to about 180 - 200 minutes. To get the best charge you should occasionally allow your battery to completely deplete itself and allow it to charge to capacity. You will get a small beep when the battery is getting low as well as a message on the screen. The battery pack doesn't get overheated either. Some phones and chargers would scare me to death since the power pack that plugs into the wall would feel like it was ready to burst into flames while charging. Phone 1 The first phone that I got lasted about three weeks before the address book / contact list started acting up. I would enter numbers, names, information and it would store it but when I would go to access the numbers - the address book / contact list would be empty. This also happened with the Pong type game that comes with the phone. The game would start and the ball would hover mid screen and do absolutely nothing. I returned it and after 20 minutes of waiting in line I was told that there were no replacements available and to come back in three days. When I went back the next week I was told that since I purchased the phone with a pre-paid plan I had no warranty. Yeah, sure, get me the manager. After a heated debate, in which I mentioned calling one of the main offices, I was handed a new phone. All the information [display screen, phone data etc] was transferred and I was on my merry way. Phone 2 Not being content with having a cellular phone, I stopped by the Verizon Wireless store to pick up a headset. I detest talking on the phone to start with - let alone a cellular phone. You'll never catch me chatting away while doing 80 on the freeway either. The headset cost $45.00 and I was told that this was the only headset that would work with the phone. Looking back I now realize that this is a complete crock of bull. The headset worked great - that is until the small receptacle into which the headset jack gets plugged into sunk into the side of the phone. There was no way to plug the headset into the phone so the newly purchased headset was basically a complete waste. After stopping by the same store that I purchased the phone from I was livid. Not only did I have to wait in line for about twenty minutes but I was given the same old song and dance about the pre-paid plan and that I had no right to ask for a replacement phone. Get the manager. After another fifteen minutes I was presented with another phone - instead of just giving me the newer phone that they offer for the pre-paid plan [must be a tri-band phone] they handed me another Kyocera 2135. Realizing that I wasn't about to argue for another hour to get a newer version I gathered up all the junk from the new phone and left. Phone 3 This one has survived but I can't use the headset with it since the plug broke the same exact way as phone # 2. I started thinking that maybe it was the headset - maybe it was the wrong size or type for this particular phone. I took it back and talked to one of the guys that works at the Verizon kiosk at the mall and he told me - to my face - that "those phone are complete junk". He looked at the headset and told me that it was indeed the correct item to use with this phone. I am at my wits end with this thing and thank god I only use it once or twice a week. The next phone I purchase or lease will be one that has a better track record than this one. Is It Just Me? I asked around and there seems to be a split decision amongst uses and owners of this phone - some seem to really love it and others loathe it. I think I am in the middle since I don't really use it all that often these days. This is for the casual cellular phone user - someone that wants it for emergencies or for short two minute conversations. If you are a heavy talker this phone just isn't a viable option. When I had over a thousand weekend minutes I used them to call people who were out of state since the rate was the same - after about fifteen minutes your face gets all sweaty [this wouldn't have happened had the headset jack worked properly] and it starts to slide all over the place. This would be a great phone for teenagers since the maximum you can talk on it is about twenty minutes before you start to really get frustrated with it. The Bottom Line Overall I am not all that impressed with this phone. All the sales people said that this was their most requested phone - I now understand that "most requested" must include all the people that lined up to return it for a replacement phone. Since I am a very light user of the phone I can't imagine what torture the heavy users went through. Maybe I just got a few bum phones - possible the entire run of phones had defects. Who knows? The customer service people sure don't. The bottom line is this - talk to people who own cellular phones before you make a purchase. This is the best way to get a feel of what the phone can do, the options and if it is right for you. I hate to say that sales people are the last people that you should talk to - but you really have to question if they are trying to sell you the best phone for your needs or just the one that will net them the most commission or help to meet the established sales quota of the office. As always, thanks for the visit! ^V^ Freak ^V^ © 2002 Freak369 Related reviews ... Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): See ReviewRecommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86903 2002/12/2 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great reception user friendly web ready rich with features ergonomic fit flimsy antenna small buttons not too many accessories yet The Bottom LineThis is a great, reasonably priced phone even for someone who is not tech-savvy. It has all the bells and whistles, good sound, and is overall an excellent choice. Full Review Well, actually I think this is an excellent phone for anyone. I hated, absolutely hated, my last cellular phone, and couldn't wait until my contract was up, and I could get a different phone. I am so untech-savvy it took me almost a year to figure out how to get my voicemail messages. I don't tell you this to prove I'm blonde, but to tell you the difference in "user-friendliness" between the two phones. My previous phone was one many people like, the Motorola StarTac (review to come in the near future). I wanted a cellular phone that would be easy for a non-techie type (like moi) to use without accidentally deactivating it, almost changing the number (I love my number) setting alarms inadvertently, you get the drift. People consistently suggested two different phones, the Nokia or the Kyocera (previously know as Qualcomm). Both are excellent in my opinion. Obviously the Nokia is the better known of the two, but I decided to get the Kyocera instead. The most important features I was concerned about were the ability for me to easily use it without a problem, ergonomic feel to it as I have carpal tunnel syndrome, and I also hoped for keys where I could easily see the numbers, letters, icons. I have my cellular number on my resumes so I felt compelled to stay with Verizon; now I just heard on the news that pretty soon we will be able to keep our number, and go to whatever company we want. Oh well, I just signed another one year contract. I started thinking about purchasing the Kyocera after speaking with a couple of friends who have Kyocera/Qualcomm phones, and received encouragement from the salespeople who told me the Kyocera is the easiest of all the phones for someone who is not tech-savvy. Add all that to the great ergonomic fit, and I was sold. I wish the keys were easier to read as my vision isn't great, but it isn't a problem. Features from brochure/packaging: * You can customize with various face plates. I love blue, so I got the frosted blue face plate, and I am happy. * 15 ringer choices (or you can import more off the internet). I'm not concerned about the ringer, so I'm happy with the one I selected. You can also set the buttons to either beep or click, or make it entirely silent and you can set the length of time you wish it to beep, click. * Four way navigation for easy menu access (much easier than my previous phone which just confused me) * Internet ready- You can send and receive email, access the web (I don't want the extra charges, so don't use this option personally) * Two way messaging - send and receive text messages * Great tools! This is a terrific feature, and includes a calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch, countdown timer, and a tip calculator. You just plop in the percentage of tip you want to leave (10%, 18% or 20%) and voila your phone tells you how much to tip the waiter/waitress, etc. Dividing a dinner bill between two or more people? Not to worry, your phone can help with that too! * Directory will hold up to 200 phone numbers, names, addresses, notes, you can divide the contacts into personal or business, home, cellular, work. * Trimode-CDMA digital (800 MHz and 1900 MHz) and analog at 800 PCS, CDMA, digital cellular and analog (800 MHz),three modes of network coverage that will help you get and stay connected basically anywhere. *Call Monitor-Check recent calls, or all calls to see how long you spoke. I really enjoy this feature. *Caller ID Nitty Gritty Details: Battery information from packaging: This phone comes with an internal and removable lithium ion battery that will last approximately 150 hours. You should allow eight hours initial charging time, and the talk time on this phone is 240 minutes. True confession- I never charged it for eight hours as they instructed me (okay, so I am rebellious). I just charge it with my cigarette lighter charger when I am driving around. I have never run out of talk time. It is like the energizer bunny. It just keeps going and going and going. Dimensions from packaging: 2.0" Height 1.0" Width 4.55' Weight Awesome Settings Options: I won't bore you with all of these choices but believe me this phone (for a reasonably priced phone) has it all, and even I can figure it out! Game: I am not into games, so the fact that this phone just has one available did not deter me from this phone. The game it has is Brick Attack. Optional Accessories listed: Battery, Cases, Chargers, Color face plates, Data products, Hands free. My phone came with the usual charger. I purchased the dark blue face plate, and a leather case to protect it. I also purchased the cigarette lighter charger. What I like About This Phone: The phone is attractive, lightweight, and fits very comfortably in my hand. The ergonomic feel is wonderful. The tools available on the phone are terrific, and easy to use. I normally fight using manuals, avoid directions, but am not intimidated by the book or the phone itself! YEA! I love all the available options, the choice of ringer or vibe, the option of dividing phone contacts into personal or business, you can adjust length and sound of beeps, the 15 ringer choices. The most important thing for me is that the phone is easy to use and figure out. The sound quality is very good. I have not lost any calls, nor have they faded out. I have not had any static-laden calls at all. I had those problems constantly with my previous phone. Oh, oh, if you have "over=40 eyes" as I do, you can adjust the size of the font, so you can easily read numbers, names, other information. There Are A Few Cons: The antenna is very flimsy, so will fall down regularly, but I haven't found it effects the sound quality so this is minor for me. The buttons are not as easy to read as I would like (for my over 40 vision), so that is an issue for me, but is outweighed by the pluses. Additionally the keys are easily hit, if you are not careful. Final Recommendations: People who should not consider this phone are those who wish to play numerous games on their phone, or have a desire for extensive accessories. I strongly recommend this phone for anyone, but in particular those of you who are intimidated by technology, and basically are clueless. If I can use this phone easily, trust me anyone can! So, if you are looking for a very good phone under $100, this is an excellent option. I can't speak to durability, as I haven't had the phone that long, but I would suggest getting a leather case for protection, just in case. I give this phone 4 1/2 stars, and absolutely love it! Thanks for reading! Suzi http://kyocera-wireless.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Tax only 86902 2002/11/27 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light weight feature packed phone inexpensive excellent battery life none The Bottom LineConsidered an entry-level digital cell phone, this one can stand up to the big boys on most points. Full Review Long time powerhouses in the cell phone arena like Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson are all taking a strong look at the relative newcomer to the scene - Kyocera. And why not? With phones like the 2135 - a Nokia knock-off to some, but loaded with more features and a longer battery life, Kyocera is clearly here to stay. The Kyocera 2135 is a standard 'candy bar' styled digital cell phone which offers a full reign of features including text messaging, vibrating battery alerts, WAP browser capable, downloadable ringtones (up to 15) and a host of other features you wouldn't expect on a cell phone - like a calculator, stop watch, alarm, countdown and more. With its green-backlit LCD display, allowing up to 5 lines of information, the Kyocera 2135 reveals all the relevant information you need when placing a call, sending a message or just maneuvering around the menu system. Tested on Sprints global PCS system via Virgin Mobile USA's service, the Kyocera 2135 worked exceptionally well. The clarity of the calls was impressive - on par with phones far more expensive than this one. Calls were rarely dropped, even when I was traveling deep in the heart of New Jersey where there are few cell towers to be found. Battery life, especially stand by time, is simply outstanding. Easily handling a 7-day period of powered-on standby time and well over 3 1/2 hours of talk time, re-charging the Kyocera 2135 on a very regular basis will never become a serious issue. And unlike its Nokia counterpart, Kyocera's battery itself is small, compact and very light - allowing the 2135 to be diminutive and a breeze to carry and utilize. Heck, it's only 4.5 ozs. Storing contact information - full contact information like names, email addresses, multiple phone numbers per name, etc. is a breeze thanks to Kyocera's intuitive menu structure and text-entering system. Worried about running out of space? Don't be. This phone can hold up to 200 names with 4 phones numbers each. Navigation through the menu system works well via Kyocera's 4-way 'pad. Up, down, right and left (what else would you expect?) are handled effortlessly. And while the rest of the buttons on the keypad are somewhat small, depressing them - and knowing that you depressed them - works rather well. There is a built-in antenna with the 2135 that can be manually raised and lowered. The antenna itself is moderately thin and does have a feel of cheapness, for lack of a better term. However I've found that using the antenna in the extracted position really isn't necessary (in my experience). For the most part, this phone can pick up the incoming signal just fine with the antenna tucked away in the belly of the phone. Depending on the service you select with your Kyocera 2135, you'll get from 1 to 4 games included with the phone. And there are literally dozens of different face plates you can choose to customize your 2135 to your specific needs. When you consider that digital cell phones today are slowly going up in price - easily topping $100 or more - the Kyocera 2135, nicely priced at around $60 or less, is a clear winner. Coupled with Virgin Mobile's service (see www.virginmobileusa.com for more information) and you have a superb way of keeping connected. A full list of features is supplied below. Thanks, as always, for reading. And Happy Thanksgiving to all. -John Basic Features * User-replaceable faceplates allow you to change colors to fit your mood(sold separately) * Access the Web, send and receive e-mail* * Send and receive text messages* * Contacts directory stores names, addresses, notes and up to 200 phone numbers * Productivity tools including calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch, and countdown timer * Connectivity Toolkit software lets you download custom ringers and import phone numbers and contact information (data cable required, sold separately). * Ergonomic design; comfortable to hold and carry on a conversation * CDMA digital PCS * Four-way navigation key for easy menu access * Vibrate and backlighting alerts * Up to 15 ringer types. * WAP browser provides easy viewing of many of your favorite web sites specially formatted for your phone * 5-line, full bitmap display * Supports multiple language options * CDMA Talk Time: Up to 4 hours * CDMA Standby Time: Up to 7 days Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 59 7676 Kyocera QCP 2035a Kyocera 86954 2004/2/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life durable features none I love this phone, digital or analog CDMA and PCS capable. Data and Fax capable. I have a family share plan, and own 3 of these phones. I drop my a lot never a problem, my phone is over 3 years old has over 12,000 calls on it and it still works like the day I bought it. 86953 2000/6/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 strong signal good call quality long battery life lightweight menu not very user friendly The Bottom LineIt's a very good phone for the price - high quality calls, long talk time, strong signal. It definitely improved my opinion of my Verizon service. Full Review I bought this phone to replace a Motorola StarTac because I was having many problems with dropped calls and I wanted a tri-mode phone at a reasonable price. Overall, my experience has been great. Call clarity is good and I almost never have a problem with dropped calls. What I like best about the phone is that it picks up a signal in many places that my StarTac did not. I recently used it when traveling and had no problems in the roam mode either. I like the fact that you can put a key guard on to prevent calls from being made accidentally. The phone also came with an earpiece which is great when driving and I never seem to have a problem with the battery running down. My only real complaint is that I don't find the menu to be as user-friendly as some other phones - the first option is for web-browser instead of phone book and its not always easy to find what I'm looking for off the menu options. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 86952 2000/8/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 size displaydata connectivity features seems a little thin when talking for long periods of time The Bottom LineThis is a great phone for anyone... I should know. :-) Full Review I've had many mobile phones over the years, Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung and Audiovox to name a few. I went from the Samsung 850 (see my review) to the Kyocera 2035a about a year ago and I really like it. I'm really into gadgets, especially electronic ones, so when I am looking at getting a replacement phone it must have features and ease of use. I tried many different phones before choosing the Kycocera, this is what made me pick it over the others: Price, features like 2-way messaging, web, e-mail, calculator, tip calculator, number of address book entries that could be made (as well as separated Business/Personal options), and Tri-Mode service. What I really like about the phone is the way the contacts are stored and categorized. You can assign one name to many different numbers, e-mail addresses, postal address, fax, pager, mobile, work, etc... and have speed dialing for some or all of the phone numbers. The two-way messaging is also very nice. This allows you to quickly send/receive a short message to/from someone's e-mail or compatible mobile phone. This also comes with some built in default messages to speed the process up even more. This phone has many ringtones, as well as silent and vibrate options and quick menu driven access which can also be customized to your liking. I can't say enough good things about this phone, there are however some things I should point out that I do not care for... First, even though the phone is pretty durable, it feels like it could break... Second, dust tends to settle in the screen area behind the faceplate (which by the way is also customizable and easy to replace)... All-in-all, this is a great phone and I wouldn't still have it if I didn't think so. I tend to get a new phone every year, but this time I think I will wait an extra year to replace it. It has everything I need/want in a phone right now and the quality is pretty good. I also forgot to mention that the data connectivity part is pretty cool. I can sync the phone up to my computer and add/remove contacts in the address book from my PC. This has saved me a lot of 'thumb skin' due to the fact that I had to have the phone replaced because I dropped it. All I had to do is sync my new phone up and viola! All my 100+ names and numbers were back! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 149.00 86951 2000/7/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 price features for the price availability of accessories little flimbsey battery power antenna isn t stubby The Bottom LineA great phone if you want to stick with Verizon, for a good price, with a lot more features than more expensive ones on Verizon anyway. Full Review Well after a million or so trips back to the Verizon store with my startac 7868 phone I decided to sell the startac for $200.00 on ebay and buy the Kyocera 2035a for $39.00. Ususally I don't trust the sales reps, but since Verizon in my opinion has the worst phones out of all the cell. companies and I still had a year and a half left on my contract I took this one. I was actually very sceptical since it was a 39.00 phone. I mean I paid 300 with change for my startac which didnt even last 2 months without a repair visit. Well I took the phone home and well I was surprised at first. I saw a site I havn't seen since a couple years ago with my Nokia on the SNET (now cingular), a calculator, and a game! Well I liked the calc, the tip calculator is rather simple but helpful still, countdown, stopwatch, and the game is amusing for those boring times waiting and sitting in the car. I also liked the fact that this phone had the exchangable covers that go for like 5 dollars on ebay. I bought the wireless laptop adapter kit so I can surf the net on my laptop hooked into the phone. I was mostly sceptical since I like didn't trust the name, Kyocera, didn't sound right. But I was surprised to find alot of accessories on ebay for it. I also liked the lcd with the picture menu's they add a little more "slickness" to the phone. Now for the downsides. I think the phone is a little flimbsey, like when you sqeeze it it squeeks but that not a big deal. The battery is for about 2 days standby, I believe it was advertised as 4 but thats also no biggy. The big con is that the antenna is retractable unlike the stubby antennas that don't retract in todays newer phones. However this phone has treated me well for over 6 months with no problems and I think it is a great buy, I'm happy I sold my startac because this is a gazillion times better. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00 86950 2000/12/3 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 face plates web access vibrate small screen Full Review The Newest Qualcomm "Kyocera" 2035a product is in full force. It is real light and Tons of great features. There are some downfalls to this great new little phone. Pros- It is very light weight and easy to carry in a pocket. It is web capible with easy to follow web instructions. There are many neat settings like calculator, tip calculator, One video game (break out), Vibrate alert, You can change the face plate to some really cool colors and it is easy to change. Here are the cons- Small screen, Menu keys take time to get used to, The battery sits behind a small plastic shell and lays on the esn board. All in all it is a solid phone with few flaws. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 119 86949 2000/7/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 features price voice clarity no voice dialing The Bottom LineI definitely recommend this phone as being very high quality, and full of features for its low cost. Full Review Just bought my Kyocera 2035a at the Verizon store yesterday. Haven't put it down yet. I don't understand one comment made about "voice clarity" by another reviewer. This phone has fantastic clarity and less dropping than another model. My wife's new LG V111 is going back to the store today as we both sound like tinny robots on it from either a landline or cellular call. The Kyocera provides a beautiful rich sounding voice, extremely clear. The only possible lacking feature would be voice command dialing. At $49 dollars, I'm quite happy with what it does offer. The one touch dialing, the ability to assign phonebook entries different classifications and those classifications different style rings, the ease of adding new entries to the Contacts list, all superb features for a phone at this price. Another negative comment I had read was the ringer not being loud enough. I don't drive the L.A. freeways with my windows open and the stereo blasting, nor would expect to hear much of anything over the noise if I did. Nor would I expect a cell phone to automatically lower the stereo volume and close the windows, nor have a gong loud enough to overcome the cacophony of driving in such a manner. But, I can hear the phone ringing over the background noise at a crowded Disneyland, which really impressed me last night. The brick attack game, while not a high-tech game, was very entertaining while killing time waiting for the Disney Electric Parade to reach us at California Adventure. Over-all, I am quite happy with my Kyocera phone at this time. I didn't care for the gold faceplate, so a $19.95 purchase of a blue faceplate gave me a color I'm quite happy with. The choice of colors to start would be nice, although they would probably be stuck with a lot of gold faceplates then. The full-band headset which is convertible to the hang on the ear style at $39 provides a very comfortable, and noise eliminating fit. $14 for a belt clip, and $29 for the car charger. So the initial $49 did add up a bit, but only because of items I wanted. This is a high quality, low cost (initial price) cell phone chock full of easy to use features. I haven't given my phone a name yet, but ... as time goes on, who knows. I can't comment on battery life yet as I have not had the phone that long. But I know that there are many items which detract from battery life, such as my liking the loud ring, loud volume, playing with it, and so forth. I do like the fact that I can charge the battery at any time, not having to drain it first as with my previous 2-year old Audiovox. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49 86948 2000/4/18 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 cheap feature filled good battery good os ugly The Bottom LineTake it, there's no better deal out there. Trimode, web enabled, good battery, medium size, good screen Full Review Like the Beast in "The Beauty and the Beast", the Kyocera 2035a is a gem inside, but fell off of the ugly tree on the outside. Aside from its looks, the features that it has more than make up for any cosmetic defficiencies, and if that isn't enough to convince you, the Verizon $30 price tag should. I'm sure that even without the discount its cheap. So, it is trimode ie.. works in all CDMA bands available, plus it has analog capabilities. So, it's an adventurer. It has wireless web access with a 4 line screen and has T9 predictive text entry so it actually is no different in that respect, than some higher priced units. Aside from that, you can associate more than one number with a name which allows you to have office and home numbers of various people without having to type in their names multiple times (unlike Nokias). It's got some interesting tools like calculator, tip calculator, a game, a stopwatch and a timer. It has the other usual stuff most phones have. The graphical display is actually pretty impressive considering the size and cost of the unit. You can see some detailed graphics ala gameboy type resolution. Not to mention it has interchangeable faceplates to make an ugly phone somewhat more interesting to look at. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 86947 2000/12/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 full featured long battery life in digital areas easy to use antenna is useless short battery life in analog areas The Bottom LineOverall, I have been very satisfied with my phone. I would strongly recommend it to the casual cell phone user. Full Review I was up and running with this phone right away. It is very easy to program and operate. It has a large LCD screen that is back lighted nicely for operating in the dark. The programming is menu driven so it is easy to find what you want such as choosing which of the many rings you want to hear, choosing the vibration mode, or finding Uncle Wally's number. If you have a ton of numbers saved, the search function will come in handy also. The battery will last for three days in a digital area with occasional use (60 minutes). If you are in an analog area the battery will last maybe a day with the same use. The biggest draw back of the phone is more related to my service provider, Sprint, because of their lack of coverage. I find myself turning my phone off whenever the phone informs me I'm in an analog area to save the battery. FEATURES: Menu Driven Program Multiple Ring Options Vibration Mode Option Retractable Antenna (Don't bother with it) Wireless Web Feature Calculator and Tip Calculator Alarm Clock Stop Watch and Countdown Brick Attack Security Settings Fax/Data Capable Spanish Capable Headset Jack Auto Answer And many more I'm probably missing Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 100 86946 2001/11/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features multiple rings great phone vibrate alert not so attractive squeaky The Bottom LineGood phone, lots of accessories and features. Great choice for first phone. Full Review I have written another epinion on Sprint's version of this cell, but, remember, these are the same phones, just with different startup animations/logos! In any event, I have been using my Kyocera 2035a for about 4 months now, and I LOVE IT! I also just found out, that not only can you get faceplates (besides the ones provided by Kyocera) by visiting www.blueridgewireless.com, or www.actionwireless.com. I have also found you can get a lighted antenna for this cell. I havent tried it out yet, but I will soon. I talked to a representative at Kyocera (1-800-349-4188+option 2), that using the Connectivity Tool Kit (found at www.kyocera-wireless.com) you can put different rings on your cell, provided that you have this toolkit, and also that you download the ringers from the Kyocera website. It has been 4 months and I am still impressed by this phone. The calls are always very clear, the other person can hear my just fine, and also, this cell gets reception where you wouldnt think there would be any. When I'm in class, I get a reception while there's still a floor ahead of me, Im not near any windows, and there are metal objects all around me! I have to say that the 200 name contacts book is very impressive, its got room for 5 names/addresses/email addresses for each contact, and you can group them by "Business", "Personal", or not group them at all. If you set these different groups, you can make your cell ring a different way for each group. For instance, I have my family in "Business" and my cell rings in Song 1; I have my friends in "Personal" and my rings in Whistle; for all the other people, I have my cell set on Standard. Its a great feature to be able to group your contacts!! This cell has one game, but it practically blows Snake and Memory right out of the water because it's a replica of the old Arkanoid game for Atari! I love playing "Brick Attack" as it's called on the phone at lunch or when the teachers not looking!!! You can send two way instant messages with this cell, as long as the other party hasa two way handset or is sending from some type of software. You can send email, its just like sending a text message. Your cell can access the internet, as long as you have purchased this service from your service provider. Usually, most cell providers will allow you to send text messages, along with recieve them for a small fee per message if you prefer not to purchase messaging services from your provider. This phone's battery will last for about 3.5 hours if you start out on a full charge...I believe that the digital standby time is 5 days. I will check that, but it is something close to that. This cell has a roam ringer, so if your roaming, your cell will ring a special way, it also has a minute timer, so 10 seconds before the call time reaches 1 minute, the cell will beep (this feature is not automatically set, you have to set it your self.) You can make your cell notify you when your change to roam or when you get out of digital...again this feature is not automatically set, you have to manually set it. You can set up to 99 speed dial numbers. The number 1 key is automatically set for one-touch voicemail checks. If you have voicemail, you can program the number required to check your voicemail to the number 1 key, and all you have to is hold the 1 key down and then you will be able to check your messages. You can limit the calls placed to only people that are in your contacts list. You can lock the keypad automatically after 30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes, or manually do it by holding the up arrow key down until the message "Keyguard on" is displayed. This phone has a whole lot of features, and a whole lot of accessories to go with those features. This phone packs a punch! **UPDATE** I'm sorry to inform you, but you cannot download any ringers to this cell using the Connectivity Toolkit. It was a mistake by the C.S.Rep. In any event, I am still using this cell, I love it. I have found that the vibrate feature isn't very attention-getting. I can barely feel the phone vibrating in my pocket. If anyone would like to share their experience with this cell, please email me at bushersphfinkel@houston.rr.com. Have fun reading your Epinions!! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50.00 86945 2000/2/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use good battery life call clarity is excellent flimsy antenna The Bottom LineIts a very good phone that is easy to use and has many user friendly features. For my usage, on evenings and weekends, it is an excellent phone. Full Review This is my third cell phone and its the best yet. While I don't use the web access feature, the calling features are easy to use and I have had no problems with clarity or battery use. I am not on the phone that much each day so I don't even charge the phone everyday, but I can talk for any length of time and I haven't had any problems yet. I like the phone book or contacts directory. I don't have to remember any speed dialing numbers, I just look up the name and hit the dial button. I have also dropped the phone a couple times and it doesn't have a scratch on it. The graphics are clear and the use of the phone is easy as far as changing the settings. Nice vibration only feature when I am at a movie but don't want to miss a call from the sitter if their is trouble at home. Lots of choices for ring selection as well. The phone is small and lightweight. Keyguard feature keeps you from accidently dialing out. I would almost prefer it to be a little longer. The antenna does seem flimsy to me however. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 86944 2000/10/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 many options clear powerful harder to use than nokia The Bottom LineA great phone, after you get used to the menu system Full Review I received my qualcomm qcp 2035a for free, as my old nokia would not function on the verizon network properly if I left Kansas City. The old nokia, (I don't know the number, it was one of the cheap cookie cutter ones that everyone has) would not pick up signals in my hometown, although it did well where I work in Kansas city. I got the new qualcomm, and boy did things change. This phone is very powerful. On my way to my home town (4 hour trip to Illinois) I was almost never out of service. Compare this to the old nokia, which was out of service about half the time and its impressive. Even when the phone was only registering 1 bar of service I could make and receive calls and hear them clearly. This phone is for the person that lives in the boonies and wants a digital/analog (supports both, switches between the two) phone that will be in service on those country roads. The phone is well put together, and very solid. It has an extendable antenna, which is nice for that extra little boost. The display is easy to read, and plenty big and bright. (helpful at night) The phones only major drawback is its difficulty of use. The nokia was so simple anyone could use it instantly, but this phone takes some getting used to. I think qualcomm could follow nokia's lead, but after you get used to the operation it is not as bad. The battery is very small and concealed, but seems to last forever. Right now the phone shows two bars left, and it has been 3 days since it has been on the charger, with many phone calls made from it. Every other phone I have ever had pooped out after a day or even 4 or 5 longer calls. Verizon (my service provider) attributes this to the fact that the phone easily hooks into there network, and so it never has to struggle to get service. I don't know if this is true, but my battery life is great! Of course the phone also has more features than my old one, with a vibration ring setting, a business as well as personal phonebook, caller ID, and, a very cool feature, web access. Although I do not use it (I didn't order it in my plan, only email) I think this is a good option. My old phone only had email, but this allows you to view limited web pages on your phone. All in all, this is a good phone. Plenty of options, power, and clear calls mix to provide cell phone heaven, but only after a couple of weeks when you get used to the non nokia menu system. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): Free 86943 2000/5/8 Battery Life2.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 cute cheap nokia like look horrible reception did i mention horrible reception cheap build The Bottom LineAvoid. If someone offers the phone to you, free, run the other way. If a friend offers it to you, free, consider finding a new friend. Full Review I had experience with three of these phones. I purchased one when my workhorse Samsung SCH-8500 was stolen (*that* phone was a little heavy but indestructible...). I liked the look, it was kind of cute (??), and seemed nokia-like. Which is what all sprint users are jealous of - the ubiquitous and ever-modifiable nokias! - Reception - The phone worked decently for about a month. The reception was initially ok. Outside of the Sprint store, that is. I had almost NO signal at home. I constantly got fast-busy tones. I would often (3 to 4 times per day) have that annoying echo problem that seems unavoidable with Sprint PCS. E.g., you dial, wait, phone says it connected, then you say "Hello?" and just get your own voice echoing back. No connection. All Sprint phones seem to do it. The Kyocera would do it repeatedly, on consecutive call tries. I was so fed up, I think I broke the thing. Not difficult given it cheap build. I was given another one for free (cousin - he must have hated me!). Same issues. No reception, short battery life. I pawned it off to my father, a cell-phone novice, and he was so frustrated, he gave it back to me - this even though I was paying for his service! This phone caused endless frustration and irritation. It is a year later that I write this review, and I am *still* upset thinking about how horrible this phone was. Do yourself a favor, get ANY other phone rather than this one. A phone that you have to carry in a bag. One of those 1980's ones with the huge rubber antenna. Anything. Pay a little more and get something else. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 85 86942 2000/12/15 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 distinctive ringers see desc battery life cheesy ringers imho Full Review I finally upgraded from my older Qualcomm phone. This is the phone I was waiting for. The old phone was bulky, I was really growing tired of it. The fact that I was made fun of for having a huge phone didn't help either. :( I have cell service with Verizon/PrimeCO, and the phone works just as well as my old one, as far as service is concerned. In the south Florida area, I have never had problems with the service/phone. Rarely do I get out of area in the service range, and if I am, it happens in warehouses, and such. The features on the 2035a are quite nice. My favorite is the distinct rings for personal and business calls. You can save phone numbers in the memory banks, which when called from, will distinctly ring the business ring, or the personal ring, which you get to set. There's also an alarm clock and a cheesy arkanoid game. Why did I not get a Nokia? Well, I just don't like to fit in. But secondly, the battery life is much longer than most other phones, with a 5 day standby mode, and 3hr talk time. I can leave town for the weekend and not worry about battery life. In fact, I'm opting not to buy a car charger....for the time being anyways, and the fact that they want $30 for it, I think it's a bit absurd. In many ways, this phone is a Nokia copy cat, adding all the features that were missing from Qualcomm phones. Alarm Clock, a cheesy game, cheesy ringers, etc. It also has a calculator, tip calculator, web browser, smooth menu browsing, and a vibrate mode. The phone comes bundled with an earpiece, for hands-free driving, perfect for driving. Did I mention changeable faceplates? This phone was not designed by an engineer. For that I am happy. It's an innovative phone with easy to use features. It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to figure this one out. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50 86941 2000/6/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 neat extra features ease of use call clarity none so far The Bottom LineIf you're looking for a phone small enough to put in your pocket, yet loaded with features, this phone will meet your needs without breaking the bank. Full Review Six months ago I went shopping for a new cellular rate plan as I had one of those "every minute counts" plans that was quickly blasting through my phone budget. My husband had just gotten a new cell phone through his job, one of those "fold in half & put in your belt" type phones that at the time was approx $250.00. I liked the phone, but didn't like high price. I called his corporate representative and the rep highly recommended the Kyocera 2035a over the flip phone. At a price of over $200 cheaper, and with a promise to allow me to change phones if I didn't like it, I decided to take his advice and go with the 2035a. I couldn't be happier with my decision. I *love* this phone. The address book feature was easy to setup and use (though I would recommend putting your contacts in during a couple of sessions instead of all at once), ), and the menus are easy to scroll through. The phone has a keyboard lock feature that prevents you from accidentally placing long distance calls when the phone is in your pocket, and also lets you to set an optional password that has to be given before accessing the setup features or placing a call. It's also easy to put the phone in a vibrate or light mode which comes in handy more often than you'd think. Mine came with the basic goldish color, additional face plates are available. The phone comes with a cord for quick recharging, mine is generally back to full charge within a couple of hours, and faster chargers are available. Spend some time reading the owner's manual and trying out features. In addition to the address book, I regularly use the timer and alarm mode as well as the calculator, and occasionally play "brick attack", which is the game that comes along with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 86940 2000/4/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 good looks nice features great value no calendar pim lack of shortcuts The Bottom LineA great phone at a great price equals a winning product by Qualcomm/Kyocera. Full Review I have had 10 wireless phones over the past 5 years, including the Samsung 8500, Nokia 6180, Sprint's Touchpoint. I must say that the new Kyocera 2035a racks right up there as the best phone, especially for the money. First, this is a nice looking and feeling phone. You can customize it (ala Nokia). It feels good when you are using it, whether you are talking or using the menus. Also, you get plenty of great features. You get Wireless Web capabilities, as well as Messaging. I love the ability not only to put multiple phone numbers for a contact, but also the address, e-mail, web URL, and notes. You get some nice tools like a tip calculator, a stopwatch and countdown timer (which phones should have), and even a little Breakout game. Reception is clear and the phone is also easy to use, once you get used to its unique style. Of course, you're getting good quality with the Qualcomm/Kyocera brand as well. I did wish they would have added a calendar function, and there is a lack of shortcuts to navigate the menus and access different tools. Overall, for the price, this is an excellent choice! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19.95 86939 2000/1/1 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 lots of features light attractive gold face plate standard Full Review What: Kyocera QCP 2035a CDMA Digital Trimode mobile phone. Verizon Wireless edition. (formally Qualcom) Where: Harrisburg, PA Verizon Wireless mall kiosk (formally AllTel) And now...the review. On the recomendation of the sales rep I chose the 2035a after not having a cell phone for about 3-4 years. My first was a really horrible Audiovox. The 2035a is very light at 4.41 oz w/ the battery. The phone it self is built on cmda technology which means its secure signal wise. The lithium ion battery pack is small and give a pretty respectable 3.75 hours of talk time or 5.5 days of digital standby time. It includes a web browser and email capability, though I haven't had the chance to try it out yet considering the Harrisburg, PA area doesn't go wireless web for Verizon till Febuarary 2001. I will getting this feature and updating the review to cover this service when available. I had the choice of the Nokia 6160 and the LG flip. The Nokia was heavier and did not offer web browsing at all. My Impressions: I love this phone. I really mean it. Its menu system could use a little improvement in the settings catagory but all in all it is quite easy to use. I am aware you can download ringer tones and melodies for other phones but this one comes with an interesting array of 15 ringers. You can also adjust the keytones and volume. I would definately recommend this phone to anyone on a budget. The screen is a decent size and coupled with the light weight and clear sound during calls is quite impressive in this price range. The phone is what I would call "cute" however the standard Verizon gold face place detracts. I will be ordering a different color later on from the Kyocera.com site later. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 31.97 86938 2001/1/22 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 stores 200 contacts including snail email addresses vibrate alert nice features surprisingly poor battery life even in digital mode The Bottom LineA phone with nice form and features significantly handicapped by dismal battery life. Light users only please! Full Review Cool features: 200 contacts including addresses is nice. Available Connectivity (see web address at end) kit lets you load/edit contacts from your PC and lets you use the phone as a CDMA wireless fax/modem. The interface has its pluses and drawbacks. I agree with other opinions that scrolling to find a name is clumsy --initially. On the other hand, this phone lets you group all information about one person together so that when you find their name, you have their home, cell, work phones plus e-mail and regular addresses at your fingertips. Very handy. The ability to store/recall email and regular addresses is very helpful on the road or just at the post office. Speed dials 99 contacts, not 8 like the Nokia 5100 series. Wireless web works fairly well but Verizon makes it expensive. The Keyguard feature is great. It can be set for 15, 30 or 60 seconds after last use so it locks the keys against accidental dialing in your pocket or purse. Call clarity/reception is fine. Phone does sometimes drop calls even where Verizon's network indicates 4 signal bars (strong signal). Lots of choices for ringer tone. Allows ring or vibrate or both when receiving a call. The voicemail feature is intelligent: It uses the #1 key, but when you push it, it only dials the voicemail if you have messages waiting. It will show "no messages" if you dial when none are present, saving you an airtime minute here and there. It's a darned shame the battery life is dismal if you talk. Lots of standby time but even in Chicago, with only digital network use, I've never gotten above 45 minutes talk time. I've changed the battery to no avail. Light talkers will be fine. Others need the car cigarette charger ($24) or a second battery ($69) from www.kyocera-wireless.com. No extended life battery available for the 2000 series phones. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 50 86937 2001/7/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 interchangeable faceplatesa vibrating ringer small lightweight cheap too very easy to use doesnt get a very strong signal when travelling The Bottom LineThe best phone for the money. A lot better than most of those higher priced phones as well. Buy it! Full Review I'd like to start things off by saying that I work for Qwest. I sell cell phones, and the phone that I always recommend/sell is the 2035a. We sell it for $79.99 or $49.99, depending on if the customer has a certain package on their home phone. So what I'm trying to say is I talk about cell phones a lot. Probably too much. I've compared all the diferent phones that we sell and have come to the realization that this is the best phone for the money. I admit paying 80 bucks for this phone is a kind of high. I actually went and bought this phone about a week ago through Verizon. It was $29.99. I probably wouldnt pay more than 80 for this phone. OK. Now to actually tell you about the phone: This phone is really easy to use. The large 4-way directional button is simple. Here are the menu options on the phone: Web Browser - Let's you browse the internet somehow. I'm yet to use this feature but i've heard good things about it. CONTACTS - I especially like how contacts work. A contact is one person. In each contact you can store that person's home, second line, cell, and pager number. You can also store their email address, street address and even a note about them. You can store up to 200 contacts. You can access all of your contacts by simply pressing down on the directional pad when you are on the Main screen of the phone (the screen that displays the name of your phone, time & date) It automatically arranges your contacts in alphabetical order. You can edit each number in to a "number type"( home, cell, pager, etc), and for each type there is a diferent icon. You can choose a number for each contact to be that person's primary number, meaning the number it'll call when you select that contact and hit send. When you are scrolling through your contacts there will be little icons to the right of the names. The icons are little cell phones symbolizing the persons cell #, a picture of a house symbolizing their home #, and so forth. You can move the directional arrow to the left or right to switch from calling their diferent numbers. RECENT CALLS - Simply displays the last 15 calls you either made or recieved. Will have either an arrow pointing to the icon of your cell phone meaning the call was inbound, or to you, or it will have an arrow pointing from the icon of your cell phone to the name of the person you called. If you missed a call, there will be an X between your phone icon and the name/number that you missed. SETTINGS- here there are 10 diferent settings to change: Silence sounds? - silences all sounds including incoming calls and message alerts. The phone is still operational. You can choose from 3 diferent choices: No, normal; Yes, vibe only; or Yes, lights only. Keyguard - Lets you change around how your keyguard works. Normally to activate Keyguard you press and hold up on the directional arrow for 3 seconds. You then press 123 to deactivate it. It's kind of nice so you don't accidentaly make a call while the phone's in your pocket. The options is the KeyGuard menu: Guard now - activates keyguard. 30s Auto Keyguard - activates keyguard automatically after 30 seconds of no use. 1min Auto guard - (self-explained) 5min Auto guard - (diddo) Auto Guard off - prevents phone from automatically going into KeyGuard mode. SOUNDS - In this menu there are 13 diferent sound settings to configure: Call Ring/Vibe - Allows you to set your phone to ring only, vibrate only, or vibrate then ring. Ringer Volume - lets you adjust the volume of the ring. Ringer Type - Lets you change your ringer type. There is a nasty standard ring, then there are 9 other rings as well as 5 other songs to choose from. Roam Ringer - Uses a special ringer sound to indicate when an incoming call may be subject to roaming charges Key beep volume- lets you adjust the volume of the beeps the phone makes whenever you press a button. Earpiece Volume- (self explanitary) Kay Beep Length - set the length of the beep the phone makes when you hit a button Missed Call alert- alerts you when you miss a call by beeping - choose to enable/disable Smart Sound- A really nice feature, Smart Sound autmatically adjusts the volume during a call, based on surrounding noise levels. (Enabled/Disabled) Key Beep Sound- Select if you want your phone to beep or click when you press buttons Business Call Ring- lets you choose a ring for all your business calls (calls you classified as work numbers in your contacts) Personal Call Ring- The ring all calls will make except for work calls. Minute Alert - Alerts you with a short beep 10 seconds before each minute passes during a call. DISPLAY - 7 diferent display settings: Backlighting - lets you choose the length of the backlighting (disabled; 10 sec; 30sec; 10 sec & in call; 30 sec & in call) My Banner- lets you name your phone (name will appear on the main/standby screen) Auto-Hyphenation- As you enter phone numbers, hyphens can be inserted automatically) Language - English/Spanish(Espanol) Time/Date Format - change the format or way it displays the time & date Main menu view- lets you choose between large icons, small icons, or list menus. I prefer list menus (No icons, menus are simply in lists) Display Contrast- Lets you change the display contrast. SECURITY - lets you change around the security setting - you must enter your 4-digit code to enter this menu. There are 6 diferent menus: Lock Phone Use - Blocks access to all featurees and dialing (except emergency numbers) A password is needed to unlock the phone. Limit Calls Out?- Lets you limit the calls out to only contacts Change lock code- change yo 4 digit code Erase All contacts - (self-explanitory) Erase Recnt Calls) - (self explanitory) Phone reset- resets all phone data Call Information- tells you how many total minutes you have used your phone (Recent calls timer/All calls timer/Browser Timer) Network - 5 difere3nt settings: Digital or Analog?- Forces the phone into digital or analog mode only Roam Option- restricts all calls while roaming Roam/Service Alert - Alerts you when you switch from either digital to analog and when you are roaming Privacy Alert - Alerts you when advanced CDMA technology is lost (CDMA technology is the same the military uses; very hard to trace and listen in on. qwest uses CDMA as well as verizon.) Data/Fax calls in - Required to accept incoming data or fax calls on some systems. No voice calls may be recieved if it is set to anything other than "coice only." confused? i am. Extras - 2 diferent extras: 1-touch dialing - Allows you to quickly call a contact's phone number without pressing send. To use, enter the speed dial location and hold the last digit for 1.5 seconds. Browser Prompt - Prompts you before when you select browser before you actually connect. I like this because many times i have accidentaly selected the browser and have been saved by the prompt. Message Settings - 6 diferent menus; Voicemail number- Holds the phone number to retrieve messages from your mailbox. This number can be automatically setwhen you get your first voicemal notification or can manually set it. Pressing "1" then send from the time display is a shortcut to check messages. Auto-Erase text - when enabled it automatically erases old text messages when memory is needed. Voicemail alert- choose the diferent ways to alert you when you've got mail New Page Alert- choose how you want to be alerted when someone pages your cell. Message Alert - choose how ya want2 be alerted when you recieve a text message. Internet Alert- choose how you want to be alerted when you get an internet update or message Accesories - 3 choices: Power Backlighting - choose if you want backlighting always on or not Headset Ringing - Choose if you want the headset or the phone to ring when you have a headset in Auto Answer - when enabled it automaticaly answers your phone after 5 seconds when you get an incoming call. TOOLS - 6 diferent tools: Alarm clock, tip calculator(lets you figure out what a tip should be; enter in the amount of the bill, % you want the tip to be, and the number of people you are dividing the bill into) calculator, countdown, stopwatch, and Brick Attack. (A very entertaining game) MESSAGES - lets you check if you have any voicemail or text messages, also view your inbox and outbox for text messages. PHONE INFO - Provides you with a number to call for info on your phone... And that's about it for the phone features. So to wrap it up, I'd just like to say once again that this is the best phone for the money. Even if you pay more than $30 it is still well worth it. With all the features this phone offers, including the vibrating ringer, interchangeable faceplates, extended-life battery, and internet capability, this is one great deal. But you don't have to take my word for it, just check out all the other opinions recommending this phone. Keep in mind that when people say that they hate their phone because they can never get a signal it does not mean there is anything wrong with the phone. It probably means that the phone is only digital and therefore cannot pick up a signal because there is no digital signal in many areas, especially when you are travelling. The 2035a is a dual band, tri-mode phone, meaning it picks up 2 types of digital signals AND analog signals. So unless you plan on never taking the phone out of your house, you'll probably want a phone that'll pick up a signal almost anywhere. That phone is the Kyocera 2035a. UPDATED 07/19/01: I have been using this phone for over a month now. While I am still happy with it, I have found a few flaws. This phone seems to never get a signal when I'm more than about 20 or 30 miles away from Waterloo, the city I live in. My brother has the same phone and he sometimes gets a signal and I won't...so maybe it's just my phone. I am planning on buying one of those signal booster things and I'll see if that helps. Also another thing I don't like: The Ringer Volume isnt very loud, even when set on max. Its normally not a problem, but when you are somewhere where there is a lot of noise around, it becomes harder to hear. Other than that I'd still say this phone is more than worth the $30 I paid for it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 86936 2000/3/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 internet lithium battery features small without being too small features read internet require extra fees The Bottom LineThis phone fit my needs perfectly. Read the review and decide for yourself if this is the phone for you. Full Review I've had my Kyocera (Qualcomm) QCP-2035a for a year now and its been a great purchase. I go to college in the middle of nowhere and I have to drive through the heart of the Adirondack mountains to get here and to get home to Albany. Four years ago when I started college, there was no cell service in the mountains, so having a phone was useless until I came to civilization. Once cell towers started to pop up in the mountains, I decided getting a cell phone would be a smart move for safety while I'm traveling. This phone hasn't let me down yet. The QCP-2035a is small, but its not so small that it would get lost between the sofa cushions. That was a big deal for me because I tend to lose small objects. A flip-phone was out of the question. As far as memory goes, this phone seems to have plenty to store my phonebook. I probably haven't used much of it up yet, which will be nice for when I have a lot of names and numbers to put in it. The phone's menu has the following options: Web Browser Contacts Recent Calls Settings Tools Messages Phone Info In each of these menu items, you will be able to change virtually anything you would want to on this phone. There are several ring tones, from generic to extremely irritating. You can choose to have the phone vibrate, ring, or vibrate then ring. Very nice features indeed. The phone also remembers all the calls you've made recently, which is nice if you can't remember last night for whatever reason. Other options in the Settings menu are: Silence All Keyguard Sounds Display Security Call Information Network Extras Accessories These settings control everything about your phone and there are a lot of options, too many to list. The Tools menu includes a calculator, timer, tip calculator (for those dinner bills that stupify you) and a game that is just like the old Pong game for Atari. This phone is compatible with both Analog and Digital signals. Its reception is very good. I've never had a problem hearing someone on the other end and I haven't had any complaints about how I come across. I have a feeling that this phone will give you a good reception or no reception at all. The range seems to be adequate as well. This phone has decent security measures as well. I have it protected by a keycode that I have to type in each time I turn the phone on in order to use it. That way someone can't charge long distance roaming fees to Turkey to my account. Battery life is very decent. I am not sure how long the Lithium-Ion battery would last while talking on it, but there have been times where I've turned on the phone and forgotten about it for two days only to find it with still some battery power left. I was impressed. One of the nice features for all of you trendy teenagers out there: This phone is so popular that you can find all different color faceplates for it just about anywhere that sells faceplates. I've upgraded to a slick polished aluminum faceplate...it looks really nice. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 85.99 86935 2000/12/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 you re able to change the banner light weight clear reception accessing voice mail is bothersome there s a small selection of ring tones The Bottom LineThis phone will work for almost anyone out there, but will probably come in more use for businessmen, and the teenagers should stick with the nokias. Full Review The first test that I performed on the cell phone was the comfortness of pressing the buttons, which is probably one of the most important aspects of a cell phone. I chose the Kyocera QCP 2035a over the free phone that came with the plan because when you push the button in, you can actually feel the button being pressed in, which is very reassuring. The phone itself has a very quality feel to it, which is an important factor to think about when purchasing one. After passing the button test, the next important test of course is reception. Perhaps the most annoying thing in the whole entire world is when you're talking to someone who has a cell phone and you're struggling to put their words together. I can't stand that, so I was prepared to return this phone right away if that was a problem. The phone impressed me immediately, when I made my first phone call in poor weather, and I almost forgot that I was talking on a cell phone. So it passed the test of reception, and the rest are just bells and whistles. Creating a phone book and saving phone numbers is incredibly easy, and for once you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure any of it out. Another important feature of this phone, especially for movie go-ers, is the silent or vibrating feature. There is also a keyguard so that buttons do not get pressed if the phone is in your pocket or purse. Accessing voice mail can be bothersome because you have to go through more then you should have to just to hear a five second message. There is a "Tools" section on the phone that has an alarm clock, a normal and a tip calculator, a countdown feature, a stopwatch, and a fun game called brick attack. You don't necessarily need these features, but it's just icing on the cake for this phone. Despite its drawbacks, the phone is very reliable, and looks good too. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 86934 2000/3/12 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 universal headset web enabled nice timers alarms email light awkward user interface phone can t run from adapter alone costly accessories The Bottom LineIts a useful and cheap web enabled phone that does email. Be careful of a low battery in analog mode. Carefully compare the 2035 and 2035a. Accessories are costly. Full Review The first week I had the phone was a honeymoon. It did everything I wanted. It worked great in the car, at work, and at home. I could surf the web at lunch, get emails in the car, and send text messages to my wife's older Qualcomm phone. The battery life seemed fine too. I was even thinking about returning the car charger and extra AC adapter. I was sure I'd keep the phone. Then—the second week. The honeymoon was over. It's amazing how quickly you see the shortcomings in something you loved the week before. The first thing I noticed is that replacing the gold faceplate costs more than the phone ($20 for the plate, $19 for the phone with any plan)! Then I noticed that composing even short emails is difficult with the T9 keyboard. My incoming emails got truncated without a hint that I was missing information. It turned out that "surfing the web" was more like "wading the pond". I found my way to Amazon.com but the only paths available were predetermined. I could look up Sci-Fi, but not Asimov. There seems to be no way to actually enter a URL from the phone. The second week ended in a real disappointment when it powered down in the middle of phone call from the car. Apparently, the battery has to have a reasonable charge to talk even with the external power supply connected (this never happened on my Nokia 6161 using Cellular 1). The phone also has some expensive tastes. The accessories seem very expensive to me. The Sprint web site has the same accessories from 30% to 50% cheaper than any other place I could find. However, since Sprint didn't sell me the phone, and I don't think they'll sell me the accessories (I'll try). Here's some sample prices I've seen from the Verizon authorized retailer (I may be recalling this inaccurately, you should check it out for yourself): Car Adapter: 19.99, Second Charger: 29.99, desktop cradle: 24.99, and (here's the most offensive one) $99.99 for a cable and software to connect the phone to my PC! At this point I'm looking at the prenuptials very carefully. Maybe it's the in-laws that bother me. Verizon offered a lot of flexibility. I was really swayed by the ability to try the phone for 15 days and switch plans for 90 days without penalties. At this point, I have 24 hours to either annul the marriage or live with the reality of imperfection. I've literally spent 25 to 30 minutes with customer service trying to understand these problems and have gotten nowhere. They keep referring me to busy numbers or dropping my call after 5 - 10 minutes (At least the phone tracks that well). I finally figured out that I can create a set of URL's on-line and then choose them from my phone. Technical Service could have saved us all a lot of hassle had they known that. Would I recommend this phone: Yes, if you want a lightweight phone, need to send or receive an occasional text message, want to keep an eye on your portfolio, and don't need the accessories. I have to admit that the phone itself is competitive on a price/feature scale. However, if you find your self making a lot of analog calls, want all the peripherals, or are afraid of being stranded with a low battery, then you may be better off getting a different phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 19 86933 2000/2/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 easy to use tri mode phone sounds clear none really The Bottom LineThe point I am trying to make is that it's a durable, reliable, excellent phone. If you buy this phone you won't be disappointed. Full Review Well, as you might have guessed from the title, I have no idea how to say the name of this phone, nor would I know how to spell it if it weren't written on the phone. But, despite it's odd name, it's a great phone - packed with features and easy to use considering. I got this phone for $20 - actually I got TWO of them for $20, if you can believe that, from Verizon when I signed up for their wireless service. The phone came highly recommended over Nokia phones by the employee at Verizon, he called these "excellent phones" and the Nokia Garbage. I don't know if that's totally true or not, but this phone has been excellent so far. FEATURES: For those of you concerned with colors, style, etc...This phone goes with the rage to change colors; the faceplate is interchangeable - if that's important to you. It has memory for plenty of speed dial numbers, plenty of stored contacts, and along with that you can classify all of your contacts into business or personal. You can further classify phone numbers for each person, example: You have "Bob" in your contact list, but Bob has a cell phone number you reach him at, a home number, a work number, a fax, and a pager number - well you can list all of those numbers for him, then assign each one their corresponding type, and then a cute little graphic pops up that indicates what type number it is. That way, later on, when you dial Bob at home, you just look for the number with the home graphic by it, and your in business. It's a clear phone, with all sorts of controls. You can control volume, ring type (lots to choose from), etc, etc...the list goes on and on. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00 86932 2000/12/16 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 seems relatively sturdy lots of features good sound lightweight small not very cool looking The Bottom LineA good solid little phone with good sound quality. But someone needs to improve Brick Attack! Full Review I didn't want a cell phone. I think they're aggravating and dumb, and the last thing in the world I want or need to is be any more readily-accessible than I already am. The thought of being hounded by my phone when I'm out in my garden, or away from my home, or out walking along the street, is extremely unpalatable to me. After all, I have a good answering machine, e-mail, a very excellent mailman, and a husband that's so wired-in that I sometimes think I'm receiving e-mail in my back fillings if I stand too close to him. (Seriously, the man can hardly keep his pants up with all the electronic gear he totes around!) I hate with a passion the entire notion of being followed around by my telephone and its insistent demands - I don't even answer the darn thing at home unless there's someone I'm hoping to hear from. Not to even mention all those obnoxious yuppies walking around (and even worse - driving around) attached to their phones: how rude! how self-important! how annoying! So a cell phone was clearly nothing I was in the market for. Besides the "on general principles" objections, the things were clearly aggravational; they sound bad, they cost money, they're another piece of stuff to lug around, the various "calling plans" are confusing at best, they look like they'd break the first time they slid out of your pocket, they're easy to lose, and who needs yet another bill coming in? And then came two events, in close succession: Sept. 11, and an emergency trip to Philadelphia. On Sept. 11, I was booked on an early-morning flight home to New York from San Francisco, along with my 70-year-old (and similarly technologically-challenged) parents. When the planes crashed and the airports closed down, we were stranded on the far side of the continent from our homes, glad that the three of us were together (we had just celebrated their 50th anniversary, with my California siblings) but distressed at being across the continent from my husband and children. Well, you've all seen the news reports from those days, and you can imagine the scene: stranded (although fortunately with our luggage and in a hotel room, rather than in an airport with all our clean underpants already checked through), hours-long lines, massive confusion as to when/if/where/how we'd be able to get home, phone lines jammed, pay phones crowded...Well, it all worked out eventually, after a lot of sweating and uncertainty and "OK, you wait in line while I go try to find a phone to call ___", and we made it home safely. Less than two weeks later, I got a phone call from my newly-launched daughter in Philly: she'd fallen at work, thought she'd broken her arm and maybe her coccyx, been turned away from the Emergency Room at the nearest hospital, no car, no friends, no doctor, no food in the house...clearly a case for Mom to come help out despite Daughter's protests. Fine, no problem, glad to do it - only one problem: her only phone is a cell phone, the kind young people with no credit ratings get where you pay in advance for "minutes", and of course her minutes ran out as she was making her SOS call, and she had no way to get more. (And we think that the job of parenting ends when the kids leave home? No, it just gets less convenient and more expensive.) So, after a suitable period of worrying with no way to reach her, I loaded up my little blue Beetle with groceries and headed down to see how I could help. At which point, I too was stuck with no functioning phone - until I figured out where & how to buy more minutes, there was no way to call doctors, stay in contact with my husband (who was checking out various healthcare facilities on-line), arrange the things that needed to be arranged. OK. I got home after a few days, to find that my dear husband had already bought me a cell phone, so that the poor sweet man wouldn't have to put up with this sort of incommunicado situation we'd been in twice within the month. He had worried about me a lot when we were separated, especially given the climate of fear and uncertainty that was prevalent in those first couple of post-attack weeks. I had fretted about not being able to accomplish the many organizational tasks that needed to be done by phone during both of these episodes. So I was willing to accept that the dreaded cell phone was about to become a part of my life. So the phone he chose was the Kyocera QCP 2035a. He knows everything that could possibly need to be known about such things, so I'm sure he chose well. (I, on the other hand, have less than zero interest in electronic gadgets.) This is a man who does computer-connection for a living, and the guy could probably orchestrate and execute the command system for a nuclear attack from his own cell phone on the way from the grocery store to the gas station; certainly he is able to hook his own cell phone into his computers & those of the university where he works and somehow have access to them via his little phone. I don't need all that - I just need to be able to make and receive phone calls. The Kyocera QCP 2035a has a lot of "features": I don't know what most of them are for. I don't have mine rigged to talk to my computer, but it has the capability to do so somehow. It takes messages (although I discovered on a recent trip to DC that I don't actually know how to retrieve my messages). It stores all the phone numbers of my kids and family and anybody else I put in, and it dials them up all by itself. It has a "tip calculator" - equally useful for figuring out what a sale item will cost on X% markdown, and a variety of "settings", which I don't know what any of them mean and therefore I don't mess with. There's a calculator in there, and a clock with alarms, and all kinds of stuff. The phone sounds pretty good from both the sending & receiving ends, especially compared to some other cell phones I've talked on. (Except sometimes the phone just cuts off for no reason I can figure out - I don't know if that's a function of the phone itself, or of the "service", or if that's just normal with cell phones, or what. Seems like a drawback to me.) Its little antenna seems like a pretty flimsy thing, but my DH assures me it's fine. Clearly, I'm not really what you'd call "intimate" with this cell phone yet, but so far it doesn't bother me too much. And I don't really feel qualified to say much about it. Except for one thing: Brick Attack. This is a little game that comes with the phone. You find it at the end of the "Tools" menu. I have become addicted to Brick Attack, which is a problem because, as a game, it has some serious flaws. Brick Attack is a very simple ping-pongy kind of thing - there's a paddle (a bar that you move back & forth across the bottom of the tiny screen), and a ball (a dot that roams around at varying speeds, pretty much at will, which you try to hit with the paddle), and the "bricks" (various configurations of small boxes that turn black when you hit them with the "ball" once and disappear when you've hit them twice. The goal is to knock out all the little bricks, and you accumulate points - the longer you can keep the ball in play, the more points you get. Eventually you run out of turns, and that's that. Now, I'm here to tell you that Brick Attack is a dumb game. Given that, and given that I'm hooked on it, I can tell you that this is a game in need of some serious improvement. It's slow, except for random times when it suddenly goes crazy, and the "ball" moves most of the time in very predictable and easily out-maneuvered pathways. So it's not very challenging - which it ought to be, if it has to exist at all. And there's no progression of skill levels from game to game; while within each game it gets more difficult the longer you play, each time you start a new game you have to work your way up to the challenging part from the very beginning. Boring. Since I got this phone, I've spent a lot of time playing Brick Attack - in airports, waiting in lines, even sometimes at home for no good reason - and this is the aspect of this phone I'm most familiar with. Have I softened my stance on cell phones since becoming an owner of one? Well, no, not really; they have their uses, and when you need one you need one, and under those circumstances it ought to be a functional and sturdy piece of equipment. So fix up the Brick Attack, and I'm sure this would be a perfect phone - if it weren't, I'm sure my DH wouldn't have chosen it for me. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): gift 86931 2000/12/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 cheap lots of features terrible reception strength terrible call clarity awful software ease of use Full Review I bought this product because I formerly owned the Qualcomm Thin Phone. I loved the Thin Phone for its design element, particularly the long slender thin design which allowed for it to fit easily into my pocket yet made it easily "talkable" in my big hands. I went with the Kyocera 2035a because I needed a phone with a vibrating battery and headset features. At the time, this was best price for the most features and I had had good luck with previous Qualcomm/Kyocera phones, so I though this phone would be great as well. I have now used this phone for a little over a month and a half and have encountered numerous problems. First, I find the user layout extremely cumbersome and unintuitive. Particularly bad is the lack of an easy "find" function on the phone's welcome screen. Instead, in order to find a number from the welcome page, I have to scroll thru every number in my book. In order to "find" a number, I have to enter the phones menu, scroll to the phone book icon, select the find function, and then finally type in the first few letters of the name and then hit the enter button not once but twice. This process is cumbersome to go thru and extremely dangerous if you need to find a number while driving. On past phones, I've been able to find a number right from the start page. Secondly, the voice clarity in this phone simply does not compare to my previous qualcomm or any of the motorolas. in fact, the voice clarity is downright bad--I often encounter excessive static even when I have four "digital bars" of reception. Third, this may be related Verizon but I think not, my phone seems to go into a "standby" mode after long periods of inactivity. I know this because the phone will stop takiing incoming calls after long periods of activity despite the presence of four digital bars of reception. THe phone then "reactivates" itself when I make a call, afterwhich I can receive calls for a few more hours. The reason why I think this problem is phone related is because I had NEVER had this problem with my previous Thin Phone on verizon service. Finally, the battery life of this phone comes nowhere near the five day standby time. This phone has AT MOST 3 days of standbye power and that's pushing it. For average battery life, I get two days when I am in all digital areas and something like 12 hours when I mix digital with analog signals. The goods of this phone, it has all the features that you could possible want in a phone except for more ring tones, which is not a big deal. These pluses of a feature rich phone are overshadowed by major flaws in other areas. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 39 86930 2001/1/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 lithium ion battery contact manager handy tools none that i can find Full Review I am really surprised at the quality of this phone. That is a lot coming from me. I thought I would never be happy with anything other than a Motorola or Nokia cellphone. I have always had a cellular telephone since about 1991. Over the years I have owned phones from Panasonic, NEC, Motorola and Nokia. (No need to worry about brain tumors though, I primarily keep the phone for emergencies only..) For the past two years I have owned the Nokia-252 (a great phone too!) but recently I had to re-negotiate my contract. In my area they penalize you with higher rates if you have an analog only phone, so I was faced with selecting new phones for my wife and myself. Unfortunately, since I am a full time student again I was also challenged with a very limited budget. Luckily I was presented with a decent selection of phones under $100. While the asking price of the 2035a was a little steep for my budget at $79, it was covered by a $40 Verizon rebate. This made it a very affordable $39!! This phone is loaded with features. The add-ins come close to classifying it as a basic PDA in my book. I love the contact manager that allows me to save names and addresses with multiple phone numbers. The phone allows you to classify each number under an individuals name with icons that represent work, pager, mobile, home, and fax. It will also allow you to classify a contact as business or personal and assign different rings for each. The phone also includes an alarm clock, calculator, tip calculator, count-down timer, and stopwatch. I especially like the tip calculator that will total your bill and then split it among any number of people. The area I am in now is fully covered by digital service. As a result I can go days before the battery indicator even begins to show a drain. Reading on the news groups I have discovered that battery life has been an issue for some people with this phone. As with any digital dual band phone, the battery life is great in digital mode but it will suck it dry in no time in analog mode. That is just one of the byproducts of the digital revolution and product miniaturization. The phone and batteries are a lot smaller than they were even 2 years ago. I would suggest that anyone working in building or living in fringe areas where digital service is not always 100% either turn their phones off or switch it to digital only. This will prevent the phone from switching into analog mode constantly. Also be sure to enable the beep on any network change. This will cause the phone to alert you when it drops to analog or switches back to digital. This will help you troubleshoot battery drain problems. Being a student I am also very happy with the built in vibrating alert option. Nothing upsets a professor more than a cell phone or pager going off. Another great feature is that this phone can act as a modem for a PDA or portable computer. Kyocera offers a data connectivity kit on their homepage that contains the software and interface cable. It also has a utility that will sync the contact list with your desktop PC. I am very pleased with this phone. The sound quality is great. The battery life is great. The features are plentiful. Tips on accessorizing the phone: Since the phone is so new, accessories are hard to find. Do a search on Ebay for Qualcomm 2035. Also, go to the Kyocera home page and register with their accessory store. They will give you a 15% discount on your fist purchase and you will get email discount offers as well..... http://www.kyocera-wireless.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 39.00 86929 2000/4/24 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 makes me strangely happy people might laugh at your love for the inanimate The Bottom LineBuy it. I love this phone--my friends say I get a little smile on my face every time I reach for it. Full Review Going into a Radio Shack(or similar store) bores me stupid. When I bought my TV, I brought along a male friend who did most of the talking. I want a DVD player, but I refuse to buy it without the advice/approval of said friend. In high school, I mostly used my graphing calculator for playing Tetris. In short, I'm not technologically savvy. But I wanted a cellphone for this summer, which I plan to spend starving in LA. And I started to really want a cellphone. I named my cellphone Julian. Why? Well, because after leaving the Verizon booth at the mall, I looked at my little pale gold phone and decided that his name was Julian.(his full name is Julian Rosco.) Yes, I am an idiot and one you probably shouldn't trust about anything more complicated than candy buttons. Still, bear with me. Moron that I am, I've found Julian very easy to use. It did take me awhile to find the speed dial option, but you should also remember that I come from a family that will die before opening up a manual. It can be a pain to scroll through the lengthy menus, but it's not that big a deal.(yet. Julian's a very new addition to the family) Despite his wussy name, Julian is a stud. His battery has, so far, been running quite well and at full strength even after being on for a long time. Still, his real test will come during the 3 day drive across the country... The tools on the phone are what have caused envy from close friends. The day I bought Julian, I sat down with a friend(the one who came along to buy the TV) and we scrolled through Julian's ringer options. 9 different rings, 2 song options, "Charge", a little sports sound, and whistle. I eventually settled for the opening of "Ride of the Valkyries." On the same frivolous side, there's also a calculator, a tip calculator, an alarm, and a game. The game is what caused my friend the most envy. Because my cellphone has a very low tech game and his, which cost much more and has a color display, did not. Speaking of the display, it's still easy to read in painfully bright light. Remember the Game Boy? And how you had to have the exact right angle of light to see the stupid screen? Julian has the same color capabilities(none), but as long as there's some form of light, you can read his display. And if there isn't any light, he'll light up when you push a button. I read one review in this section complaining of clarity. This surprised me because, in my experience, Julian's been as clear as a land line phone. Actually, clearer. The phone in my dorm is always staticy, while Julian's nice and clear. I also like the fact that Julian isn't a flip phone. I don't want something bulky, but, for some reason, I'm not really a flip phone fan.(probably because I'm an idiot who likes little face plates) Even so, he's a good size, about 4.4 ounces, and fits nicely into my purse.(I even gave him his own pocket) If you do fall into the "idiot who likes things that come in pretty colors" category, you might want to go Nokia. It's more common, so there are dozens of bootleg and otherwise face plates for you to choose from. (Kyocera's website does have more options than the Verizon stores I went to) No, Julian isn't a phone that will impress everyone at the next board meeting. He doesn't really radiate "business professional's cellphone." But he's a great starter phone. Or an inexpensive phone for anyone who wants/needs one. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 86928 2000/11/14 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 small easy nice looking phone missing good pim features Full Review I'm a wireless web developer, so when I looked for a phone to purchase, I paid very close attention to navigation and usability of the phone, including the web browser. I researched many different phones, and it seemed that the navigation of the 2035 was by far superior to many other makes/models. However, it's not even in the same league as my old SprintPCS touchpoint phone (which I'll really miss, but Sprint coverage in my area is very spotty). I find the navigation on this device is good, but that's not saying much, as I feel that most of the interfaces on cellphones are designed by out-of-work VCR designers. Good Points of the phone: Small, compact Decent battery life (not terrific, but not bad either) very easy navigation lots of slots for phone numbers (multiple numbers per name) good reception T9 text entry is great changeable faceplates (tho none exist yet) Bad points of the phone: Web browser does not support images, even though the misleading hype says it has a "5-line, full bit-map display" "mark site" and "bookmarks" menu items DONT WORK on verizon system. In other words, there is no way to bookmark a site from the phone. Sound quality is a bit tinny. buttons are small and hard to use if you have large fingers Ringers can not be modified (no downloadable ringers, etc) can not assign rings to names in contacts no charging cradle supplied (comes with a cord you plug into the bottom) lack of PIM features In short, it's a great phone for most people, but power-users may want to go with something like the Samsung SCH-850 instead. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 9.99 (with 1 year contract) 86927 2000/4/11 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 quality features tools none The Bottom LineIf you want a great phone for the money, the Kyocera is the phone to get. Full Review I just recently purchased the Kyocera 2035a from Verizon Wireless. I own a wireless accessories store in Minneapolis, and see most PCS phones. For the price, I feel the Kyocera is a great choice and great value! PRICE With a one-year service agreement, you can get these phones for next to nothing from an independent dealer. You can also get them directly with Verizon for $59.95. BASICS The phone is very lightweight, yet seems durable. The battery lasts for at least 3 days standby, although be careful if you are roaming in an analog region. Reception for the most part is very clear in digital regions, while analog reception is good as well if you are roaming. It now has a vibrating alert. You can even change the face plate on the phone. TOOLS Kyocera took the success of Qualcomm's Thin Phone and added some needed features. You now get the ability to add multiple phone-numbers and other info to each contact. Wireless Internet is also included. A messaging feature is handy, albeit a little difficult to use until you master you to change from regular text input to T9 predictive input. Of course, you get goodies like a little game, tip calculator, and more. NETWORK Working with several companies, I favor Verizon. They are rated #1 in Minnesota for quality, and it shows. Reception is far better in the metro, especially in buildings. The Kyocera works with all calling programs, since it is a tri-mode phone. OVERALL This is a great entry-level phone. Kyocera has continued the quality product that Qualcomm was known for, and I appreciate the new tools and features. I would recommend this phone over the old Nokias, Audiovoxs, or cheaper Motorola models anyday. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 86926 2000/2/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 clear lcd nice looks ion lithium battery internet enabled durable small good price hard to use not nearly as clear as other cell phones in the same class The Bottom LineRead my 'Verdict' Full Review In search of cell phone plans, I was trying Verizon Wireless and Spint PCS. My whole family was getting hooked up with Verizon and Sprint PCS. So with Verizon, I bought a Nokia 8260 and a Kyocera(QUALCOMM) QCP-2035a. I have known of Qualcomm before Kyocera purchased it, and the Qualcomms were good, cheap, but very large phones. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is a total exception. The Kyocera QCP-2035a was a very sleek looking phone, which was also enabled with wireless internet. Wireless is a cool feature that I've been looking into for a while. So after using this phone quite a bit, here's what I found: Price: The Kyocera QCP-2035a costs around $80. It defiantely costs more than the Nokia 5120 which is a basic phone in many major plans, and costs much less than the Nokia 8260 which I also purchased along with a plan. The Kyocera QCP-2035a comes in at a price with very cheap web enabled phones. Anyways, if you don't need the maximum effects of wireless internet and want a small good looking phone, then the $80 for this phone is well worth it. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is a high quality phone that is quite durable, the $80 is worth it. If you need maximal usage from wireless internet, then a Motorolla along with Sprint PCS is definately a better buy. Plans: The Kyocera QCP-2035a is used with Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless is a major company that covers all of the US. Most people are connected to either Verizon or Sprint. So if you get Verzion Wireless as a cell phone plan, you could use this phone. I haven't seen this phone being used with CellularOne or AT&T though, so Verizon Wireless looks to be the major carrier of the Kyocera QCP-2035a. Durability: Like other small phones in its class, the Kyocera QCP-2035a is a solid phone. It's built to last for a long time. But, it can't withstand heavy usage like the Nokia 5120 which I beat up pretty bad, and it still works great. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is more delicate than the Nokia counterparts. If you need a phone that you'll carry around and beat up a lot, Nokia may be a much better buy than Kyocera(QUALCOMM). Quality: The phone itself is built at pretty high quality levels. Just from looking at it, you can tell that this is a high quality phone. If for example you're putting the Kyocera QCP-2035a from Verizon Wireless against the Audiovox CDM-130 from PrimeCo, there's no comparison between them. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is superior to the basic phones of PrimeCo. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is clear most of the time, but it generally has more static than the Nokia phones of the same class. Using wireless internet on such a small phone is no problem at all, though I personally hate the navigation. The small LCD can get annoying with using internet, but it's managable. I have found the navigation on Nokia cell phones to be better and higher quality than the Kyocera QCP-2035a, the Kyocera is quite hard to use. Overall, this phone is built pretty well and solid. Size: The Kyocera QCP-2035a is a very small phone. Much smaller than other web-enabled phones. It's slightly longer than the Nokia 5120, but it's thinner. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is very easy to use, I often barely know that I'm carrying it. It's much easier to carry around over a Sanyo or Motorolla web-enabled phone. Battery Life: The Kyocera QCP-2035a has an ion lithium battery that lasts for a very long time. The Kyocera QCP-2035a lasts longer than the Nokia 5120 or any other similar phone. The battery life is usually over 3 hours. If definitely is the best in its class for battery life. Navigation: Navigation on the Kyocera QCP-2035a really lacks compared to other phones. I found this phone very hard to use in the beginning, and hard to use still. The buttons are very different from Nokia, and the interface is completely different. For most normal users, using any feature on this phone is very hard, I still can't figure out how to use it properly. Using the wireless internet on this phone is also harder to use than on Sprint PCS with those larger phones. If you want an easy to use phone, this isn't a good choice and you should stick to Nokia. Clarity: The Kyocera QCP-2035a is clear for most part, but it has constant light static. It has more static than Nokia cell phones. The voice quality is also worse than that of Nokia cell phones. This isn't the clearest phone on the market. The Verdict: The Kyocera QCP-2035a is overall a nice phone. It looks nice and is built solid. It's also internet enabled, and is priced less than other web enabled phones. The Kyocera QCP-2035a is hard to use though, and also lacks in voice quality compared to its Nokia counterparts. The Kyocera QCP-2035a isn't anything compared to the Nokia phones. If you need a phone with internet, small size, and small price, than the Kyocera QCP-2035a is a good buy. Stick to Nokia though, Nokia is superior in every aspect compared to this phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.95 86925 2001/7/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features accessories small tri mode excellent ergonomics good clarity long battery life expensive batteries antenna seems flimsy but easy to replace if broken The Bottom LineThis is a lot of phone for the money. It offers the most bang for the buck that I've seen. The positive easily eclipses the negative. Full Review I recently purchased this phone from Verizon as an upgrade to my rate plan (I had an old OKI 1325 from the TeleGo plan) and I'm very pleased with it. My rate plan went from 100 analog minutes a month to 150 peak and 2000 weekend minutes a month, plus free Nationwide long distance from my generous home plan area. And the monthly rate plan is $5 less than the previous plan. This phone is small and lightweight and the keys are easy to use, even with a case over them. The phone fits well in my hands and the screen is easy to read as well. Contrary to what I've read in the "more info" section of some websites, the keypad does light up on mine, which I find essential. I've carried the phone in my pocket with it off and never had the keys activate. I've since moved on to a case with a belt clip, more on that later. The text increases in size (doubles?) when entering a phone number, which really helps to see it. The main screen also displays the battery indicator, I had to go into the menu to see it on my previous phone. For those who like to customize, the display settings offer myriad choices, such as letting you enter what you want displayed when your phone is on stand-by (banner). I've never connected to the Web on my phone, so I don't know how it displays that. The call timer automatically displays the duration of the calls, both sent and received. As far as features and accessories go it has so many, I hardly know where to begin. Different color faceplates are available, in case you don't like the one it comes in. Mine is champagne, or what I assume others call gold, and I like it. I've seen so many colors and styles of faceplates, I can't even begin to list them here. If you bought them all you could easily go for weeks without repeating a color. 15 ringers plus vibrate mode is more than I need. You can't download them like with some phones, but the number is more than enough for my needs, my old phone had only one. You can also select different rings for calls you have designated business or personal in your contact list. It has a plethora of alerts, so many I can't list them all. Some can be customized, letting you choose how you want to receive alerts from voicemail, pages, text messages and the Wireless Web. The options for that are varied, including having reminder beeps or vibrations every five minutes until the message is acknowledged, and choice of low or high volume audible alerts. Other alerts can be real money savers, like roam/service alert. I have mine set to alert to any change in service, so if I roam or lose digital and go to analog, it beeps. These alerts help me be aware of extra charges and conserve battery life, as analog drains power at a faster rate. It also alerts to loss of service, the call quality is usually so clear that you might not be aware the call has dropped without it. All alerts can be set to light up the phone or vibrate if you desire, by using the "Silence All" feature. It has the ability to list 200 contacts in your phone, and designate them as home, mobile, pager, fax or work. Really handy to have that. The speed dialing is awesome, easier than my old phone, as is the one touch dialing. Calling a number from the contact list is as easy as highlighting it and hitting the green "send" button. Text entry is not difficult, and options on that include T9, though I've used only the standard alpha. The Smart Sound feature is useful. It automatically adjusts the earpiece volume based on the noise level around you or the other person's voice volume level. This comes in handy when on the road, no distraction or struggling to hear. It also helps when talking with those who are very loud or soft spoken. You can still manually adjust the volume with this feature on. The alarm clock feature is a real plus, any place your phone goes you have one. The calculator and tip calculator are neat tools also. Haven't used the game (brick attack) as I rarely play video games and that is the least of my criteria for a phone. This phone is Internet ready, though I have no plans to use that now. It also has text messaging, which I may use at some time in the future, haven't yet. With my rate plan it's ten cents to send and two cents to receive a message, as I pay nothing per month for this feature. Other rate plans are available for those who send lots of messages. You can designate the message as urgent if need be and the icon for it (envelope) will flash. Messages may be sent to and from email as well as to other compatible wireless phones. I've been told sending between an email address requires Wireless Web Service, I'm not sure. Sending between phones doesn't though. Call clarity is excellent with this phones, the CDMA Digital is outstanding. I've used TDMA and GSM phones that my friends have, and the quality is at least as good or better than those. It also has PCS and Analog capability, and I've tested it in Analog (has a feature in the menu under network that lets you switch to Analog for the duration of one call and automatically switches back to digital) and it's sounds better than my old OKI 1325. I use it mostly in the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area, and have lost about five percent of my calls (dropped), all indoors in weak signal areas. It does have excellent clarity in digital mode even where low signal strength is indicated, and works well indoors in strong signal areas, usually close to freeways. The battery life is outstanding so far, with stand-by of four days while talking about 45 minutes in those days. When I talk a lot on the weekends, the stand-by is about two days and the talk time about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. If I leave it off until I place a call, I can talk for the promised 3.5 hours! I've done this three times. Compared to my OKI 1325 battery life, this exceeds the three batteries I had for it put together! It has a standard 2.5mm ear jack on the side of the phone, as well as a data port and charger jack. It can be used with a cradle charger too. There are numerous accessories on the market now, try the Kyocera Wireless store online, Verizon has accessories too. I don't recommend after-market stuff, especially anything electrical i.e. batteries, chargers or plug-in accessories. This phone requires the Hands-free Car Kit accesory to use auto answer. I purchased a belt clip at RadioShack, an authorized Verizon dealer, but it was a generic-universal that stuck on the back of the phone. I let it "set" longer than the instructions said to, and it fell off the phone while putting it on my belt the first time! Thank the stars my phone didn't drop at some time while wearing it, with my luck it would have fallen in a puddle or I wouldn't have noticed it. I then purchased a leather case with a clear plastic key and display cover from a Verizon store. The sales guy said the belt clips (even the Kyocera kind, which clip to the phone, no adhesive necessary) still break a lot because they stick out more and people walk into things, occasionally damaging phones. So my experience is go OEM, or manufacturer's authorized only, and then ask the experts about those products. I think this phone will be fairly durable, haven't had it long. It is light weight, and that scares some people. I have two friends with this phone, both of whom treat it like they are in a combat zone and it's G.I. issued military gear, dropping it frequently. They have not damaged their phones by dropping them so far, but one friend damaged his by forcing the headset plug into the charger jack. He got it confused with the Nokia 5190's way of using a headset (there is a headset icon on the 2035a phone by the headset jack). He had to replace the phone as he bent the pin in the middle of the charger jack with the ear plug, the ear plug is not hollow like the charger plug. Read the manual, and go to the Kyocera website and view the demo, it's more detailed than the schematic in the manual. You know the saying about assume? Better safe than sorry. A final bit of trivial info; Kyocera gets their name from the city in Japan where they are HQ'd (Kyoto) and the fact that they first made ceramics. Junk food type info I know, but hey, I figured I'd add some calories to this review. I hope this review helps ya'll (Texan talk for all of you) as much as the ones I read here on the 2035a and the 2035. Thank you to everyone who reviewed or replied to those reviews, good or bad. You helped me more than any company write up could have. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 29.99 86924 2000/11/10 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 low price compact excellent voice quality vibrate mode none Full Review I have recently acquired two Kyocera 2035a phones (the "a" apparently designates a custom model for Verizon with some slight cosmetic changes from the 2035). The service is Verizon local (state of Illinois) coverage in the Chicago area. The Verizon coverage in Chicago is provided by the former Ameritech Cellular system. The 2035a is a tri-mode phone (CDMA 800 and 1900 MHz and analog AMPS 800 MHz) to provide coverage throughout the country on Verizon's many constituent systems. The Kyocera 2035 is the entry level model in Kyocera's first line of phones to be introduced since they acquired Qualcomm's phone business last year. It is priced for volume sales (I paid $10 for each phone after a $100 subsidy for a two year service contract and a $50 mail-in rebate). In some senses it is the successor to the excellent and popular Qualcomm "Thin Phone" line (QCP-860, 1960, 2760). In my opinion, this phone is a worthy successor. The 2035 offers comparable voice quality (which is excellent), and fixes all of the deficiencies of the Thin Phone line. The 2035 includes a vibrator and a standard 2.5 mm headphone/mic jack - two drawbacks to earlier Qualcomm models. Physically, the 2035 is one of the most compact phones on the market - shorter and less wide than the older Qualcomm entry models, and only slightly thicker. Battery life is not compromised; it has proven to be equal to or slightly better than the Thin Phone line in my experience. The 2035 also includes a number of "frills." It includes an alarm clock (why don't all cell phones include this feature!), a calculator (awkward, but functional), a stop watch, a count down timer, and a clever tip calculator (a good nerd activity at lunch!). Like most new cell phones, it includes a number of PIM capabilities (address book with multiple phone numbers, etc.). I don't usually find PIM features on phones to be all that useful, and I don't have any PC synchronization software for the phone yet, so I really can't comment much on these features. My wife, who is very picky about ease of use, reliability, and small size, is satisfied with the phone. My kids like the built-in break-out style Brick Attack game. The display is very clear. Although is it necessarily small, the graphical capabilities of the display are used to make readability better than found in many larger phones. For example, when dialing a phone number, the dialed digits are displayed in an excellent double-size format which makes entering phone numbers much easier. Customization of sounds and display features according to personal preferences is more than adequate. To accommodate the small size, the buttons are fairly small, but the tactile feedback is excellent. A choice of beeps or short clicks (my preference) enhance the feedback for key-presses. I found the menu navigation scheme to be somewhat non-intuitive at the beginning, but once you understand the model, it is quite easy to use. It is quite different from previous Qualcomm models. To compensate for the limited face area due to the small size, all menu operations are condensed onto two buttons (basically ESC/Back and Enter/Select) and a left/right/up/down selector common to many newer cell phones. Numeric navigation of menus is not supported. Most menus have an (i) information entry to get help, and the resulting text is surprisingly informative. Phone book entries are easy to set up. Text entry (e.g., for phone book names) defaults to a leading cap letter for each word, which greatly speeds entry in my opinion. Assigning speed-dial numbers to phonebook entries is quite non-intuitive, and you might have to read the manual to figure it out. It appears that there is no easy way to assign speed-dial numbers as part of the initial phonebook entry creation. Navigation of the phonebook, however, couldn't be easier. From the initial screen, pressing the up or down toggle scrolls through the phone book entries. Simply hit Green/Dial to dial the number. Several people have found the power on/off sequence to be confusing; there is no separate power button; the Red/End button is overloaded with this capability. Again, it is confusing at first, but after you know what to do, it is obvious. Web browsing is as good as can be expected on a small display. There is little differentiation with other phones. Regarding battery life, I notices that the battery life was terrible after the first complete charge. However, after fully draining the battery and then fully recharging it, the battery life seems to be as expected. Depending on conditions, I would expect to see about 3 days standby time or a couple of hours talk time. Expect to charge it at least every other night, and you should never have any problem. There is no larger battery available at this time. The included manual is adequate, but nothing spectacular. It is basically a menu walk-through, so you'll probably figure out what you wanted to know on the phone before you'll find it in the manual. My wife, who likes manuals, found it to be worthwhile enough to read, but not great. Availability of accessories is extremely limited on this new model at the time this article was written. Kyocera's accessory web page promises a wide selection in the future. A final note - for people looking for high-end phones with lots of bells and whistles, you may want to wait for the Kyocera 30xx models due out around YE2000. While slightly larger, they include a big screen, voice activated dialing, and a speakerphone mode. As a basic model with a low price, the Kyocera 2035 offers many extra features and corrects all the deficiencies of older Qualcomm models. A couple of notes about the Verizon service: 1) Initially, I was not receiving voice call pages for incoming calls (missed about 80% even with 4 bars of signal strength!). I called Verizon, and they changes the default number of rings until my phone forwarded to voice mail, and there is no problem now. It makes me wonder why they don't set it this way by default! 2) Verizon's voice mail system is not well integrated. You have to dial your number or *86, and then hit "#" to escape and enter your PIN (which must be 6 digits!) every time. Speed dial entries can help, but it is still a pain. They should take note of other carriers' integrated voice mail systems (e.g., Sprint). 3) As with many cellular systems, penetration of the signal into buildings can be poor. If you set the phone to beep when the signal is lost, you will discover that it is losing CDMA digital service all too frequently, thus resulting in extra searching and (worse) dropping to analog AMPS service, which KILLS battery life. You may want to consider setting the phone to "Digital Only" mode under the Network menu if battery life is a problem. 4) Verizon chose a really ugly gold face plate for the 2035a, which really detracts from an otherwise stylish phone. Other changeable color face plates are supposed to be available in the future as add-ons, but they are not available yet. Sprint has chosen much more attractive Blue and Charcoal versions of the phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 86923 2000/11/24 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 features size gobs of options much less battery life than promised Full Review My wife and I have these phones. Two matching ones. Why did we get them? Battery life! Older, analog phones have MUCH shorter battery life than newer, digital ones. So I saw the ad in the paper for a nice "family plan" that allowed unlimited calling between the phones and a reasonable amount of other airtime for a reasonable amount and got them from Verizon Wireless for $10 each (which can be misleading, since, if you lose or damage the phones, they're something like $120 each to replace -- Otherwise, hey, why not stock up?). First off, the feel. They are light phones, and are obviously fairly cheaply made, but passably so. I first picked it up without the battery and was horrified. The battery gives it some needed bulk. With battery, the phone is still lighter than my Palm V. The antenna is a silly, flimsy extendable doo-hickey that would almost certainly break under any sort of rigorous use; I pretty much just leave it down all the time. Buttons are seemingly nice enough, without extensive travel, and they have a solid, reassuring 'click' feel to them when pressed. Turning the phone on is an exercise in patience. One would expect a phone to be ready to go when you hit "Power." Not so. My estimate is a 10 second boot time for these suckers. It's like watching Windows load. Navigation through menus is intuitive enough. There is a four-directional joypad in the top center of the device, similar to the photo above. However, instead of hitting the center of the joypad, or else a separate button in the center, you must hit the top right button as "enter" or "ok." Not intuitive, but it doesn't take a 180 IQ to learn to use, either. You can alter the splash screen (one of many, many options to change on this phone ... great for gadget freaks) to suit your needs. I put my name on my splash screen, and my wife's on hers. This allows us to tell whose is whose. But, with the long boot time ... Immediately from the first screen, you scan scroll directly down to your contact list to dial a number. The entry of numbers is very tedious, since you must actually use the abc def ghi available on the phone as your keyboard. Don't even get me started on capitalization and punctuation (which, if you're suitably nerdy/gadget freaky enough, actually does matter)! Once you've gone through data entry tedium, a nice touch is that you can specify what sort of contact the number is. So, if you want to be able to call your wife at Work, Home, and on the Cell Phone, you enter the three separate entries, then the phone places an appropriate icon near the name so you know which number you're calling. Easy to use and understand. The phone is "web enabled," but due to the ludicrously high cost of mobile web access and the general uselessness of the web to these devices, I have not used these features at all. Think about it: Even entering one login and password would, to the best of my ability to estimate, take at least 3 minutes. Now, that's not just three airtime minutes; that's three web minutes. No thanks! From the settings menu, you can change ringer settings, keyguard settings (more on this later), sounds, display options (such as the splash screen setting mentioned before, graphic size, time formats, etc.), security features, and a couple more obscure features. The tools menu is where all the toys are. Here, you'll find an alarm block, calculator, tip calculator (and tab splitter), countdown timer, stopwatch, and Kyocera's answer to Nokia's snake game, Brick Attack. The snake game is WAY better. But, if you're buying cell phones for the games, why not just get a Palm Pilot? This phone is also able to receive text messages from the internet as well. This might cost a lot, so look into your cell phone's rate plans for this sort of functionality. It's nice, though, if you don't want to carry around a pager in addition to a phone, and you know that whoever's sending you messages can do so from the 'net. This phone's got vibrate alert, and that's swell. Too few phones do. Battery Life. Here's where we run into trouble. For some reason, despite having line of site to seven, count 'em, seven communications towers, my wife is frequently not able to get a digital signal while at work. So, if she makes the mistake of leaving her phone on all day, standby time goes down to a couple hours because the dual-mode phone switches to analog mode. Make sure you can get the big "D" in the upper-left corner near the signal strength indicator if you expect battery life to even come close to what is advertised. Overall, I'd say we get about half of the Kyocera claimed battery life. Despite this, it's still pretty nice that it's a Lithium Ion battery, which eliminates "memory" and self-discharge problems of NiCd and NiMH batteries. Again, though, if you damage or lose a battery, they cost around $70 retail, so watch out! Overall, the phones are definitely an improvement over our older, larger analog models. We recommend them. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 10 86922 2000/12/17 Battery Life1.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 3rd party accessories menu display cheaply made case low battery life The Bottom LineIf you make a lot of calls stay clear away from this phone and take a better brand such as Motorola or Nokia. Full Review I recently received the Kyocera QCP 2035a phone as a replacement from Verizon when they switched their signal equipment, obsoleting quite a few of the phones their customers had. I received the phone new but have had some ups and downs. Pros: -- The display is very easy to read, Icons and menu items are displayed quite big. -- There are a number of useful tools such as a calculator, pong game, notepad and than the standard address book and mailbox tools. Cons: -- The outside casing of this phone in my opinion is very crappy. I have tried different faceplates but they tend to fall off quite easily. If you need to remove the battery for any reason, the phone quickly falls apart if your not careful. This may be good for attaching new faceplates but I would rather own a phone that's solid without many loose parts. -- The phone does not seal very well. Since the phone has loose parts, I have had problems with dust getting stuck in between the outer shell and the unit itself. This makes the screen hard to read and I often have to remove the shell and wipe the dust out. -- During normal use the phone squeaks alot. By squeaking I mean while holding the phone the outer shell squeaks and is not very flexible. -- Call hang-up speed. This may be the phone, it may be my carrier (Verizon) but when I press the end key to hang up from a call, it takes anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds for the phone to return to the main menu. This can be a bit annoying if your making multiple calls. The only way I have found to get around this is to press the end key multiple times after ending the call, but if pressed too much it will also turn off the phone. This phone in my opinion does not live up to the standard that a basic cell phone should. It was free from Verizon as a replacement but in my case I would have rather wanted to stay with the Audiovox phone I was previously using. It was alot more solid and reliable. I mention use of 3rd party accessories in the pros list. This phone does not come with a cradle, just a ac adapter/charger that plus into the bottom of the phone. Verizon cells the accessories but they are very costly. I have found that compatible 3rd party accessories work just as well without the high cost. Battery life was also an issue for me. I found that I needed to charge this phone every night when I came home. I make an average of 2 to 4 calls a day and the total time for all of them is never more than 15 minutes. I also leave the phone on from 8am till 6pm on standby. When I would return home at 5pm the battery would display half to less remaining energy. In my opinion, this is unacceptable. I talked to 3 Verizon stores and was told by all of them that this is normal for this model phone. 2 than tried to sell me a $79 extended battery. I'd hope that the initial battery that comes with a phone would last alot longer. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 86921 2000/9/21 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 easy to use fun features like changeable faceplatesmultiple ring choices long battery life will not ringvibrate simultaneously some rings on highest volume are hard to hear The Bottom LineFor the money, you can't beat this phone for features, quality and especially battery life. It's cool and a safe bet. Full Review I was using a Nokia 252 (analog), but signed a new cellular contract which required a digital phone. I had previously had 2 Motorolas, a big old Teletac and later a Startac, which I lost and replaced with the Nokia. I was completely satisfied with the 252, which was one of the most popular phones when I got it. I hated to give it up. The day I went to pick out my new phone, the lady had completely programmed an Audiovox for me, when she mentioned that, if I ever wanted to upgrade to the nationwide calling plan with Verizon, I'd need a tri-mode phone, which the Audiovox was not. It was divine intervention. The least expensive tri-mode phone they had that day was the Kyocera 2035a and that is what I got, thank goodness. I have been completely satisfied with it, so much so that, when I lost it, I replaced it with an identical phone. The Kyocera has an amazingly long battery life. I have left it in my purse for 3 days without recharging it, and it still had juice left. I recharges very quickly with both the cigarette lighter and the wall outlet chargers. I have rarely had any trouble getting a signal (maybe 2-3 times) and the reception is very good. Although some people seem to have trouble with the interface, I find the menus very easy to use, and I really didn't even have to look at the user manual to figure out how to set things up. The keypad area is small, but, as a woman with small hands, I have no trouble with that, either. I also enjoy being able to change the faceplate and having about 15 ring choices, although I find some of the rings hard to hear when I have the phone down in my handbag. The main thing that bothers me about this phone is when it is set on vibrate/ring, it vibrates first, then rings. I would really prefer that it rang and vibrated at the same time. My voicemail answers after 4 rings, so if I have it on vibrate/ring, I only hear it ring one time before the voicemail answers. The vibrate part is a nice feature, of course, if you're someplace where you don't want your phone ringing and making noise. The people at my local Verizon provider told me that the 2035 is as good a phone as any they sell in terms of reception and quality. A lot of them use it themselves, so that indicates to me that it must be a good phone. Several of the ones who don't use it said they might have bought it if they had it to do over. It isn't the fanciest cell phone on the market, but it has some of the features that you find on more expensive phones. For the price, you can't go wrong. I'm very pleased with mine. I considered replacing my lost one with a Motorola, but the people at my cellular provider discouraged me and said if I had been using the Kyocera, I probably wouldn't be happy with the performance of a Motorola, which are way overpriced. A friend signed up for her first cellular plan recently and got this phone free due to a special they were running that day and she is also extremely happy with it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $60 then$80 86920 2001/7/26 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 adequate range easy to use power simple features will not broadcast in buildings battery life short The Bottom LineA good everyday phone if you're out and about, but if you need more power or longer operating time, keep looking. Full Review I was recently issued a Kyocera (Qualcomm) QCP 2035a cell phone for work purposes, and have been using this particular model extensively over the past month. Here's my analysis so far. The QCP 2035a model is a lightweight, streamlined cell phone with a wide variety of features. Powered by Verizon wireless, the voice quality ranges from very good to excellent, depending on outdoor locale. I live in the Raleigh/Durham area, and have never been in a dead spot anywhere in the Triangle. It is remarkably easy to use, and is not burdened down with a lot of extra features. One other item I like about the phone is how easy and intuitive it is to program. Thee are very few settings menus, making personalizing the phone rather simple. Within minutes, I had my name on the display setting and the keyguard on (a must for this phone, where the buttons are exposed), and was ready to go. The phone also ships with an instruction booklet, but a quick glance through it will give you any information you need. Some cons: The battery is very small, and is prone to overcharging, resulting in shorter and shorter lifespan for your battery. I would usually have to recharge the phone after about 2-3 hours of use. Luckily, I have the car charger unit for when I need to use the phone while traveling, but this might be inconvenient for you who travel extensively without a charger or backup battery. Also, possibly due to a lower powered battery, the phone is severely limited in broadcast power. I work in a basement office, and will seldom if ever receive signals down there. I understand that maybe this is too much to expect form a cell phone, but my Motorola i1000 phone works fine downstairs... All in all, a very good phone for everyday use. If you need more power or longer battery life, however, I'd keep looking. **Note** Unfortunately, I am not able to give any information on the web-based properties of this phone, as my business does not subscribe to that particular service. Sorry. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): none 86919 2000/2/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 non folding lightweight call time does not automatically display The Bottom LineThis phone has all the advanced features, but inexpensive enough for those of us with only simple needs. Full Review When I announced to my husband that I was planning to get a cell phone, he groaned. But I'd saved some money to purchase a phone and had already figured $20 a month for service into my household budget, so what could he say? At my local Car Toys, I signed up for Verizon wireless service and purchased a Kyocera QCP 2035a for $29.99 (I've seen the same phone retail for $49). [The Verizon plan, by the way, provides 75 minutes for $19.99, a much better deal than Sprint's 20 minutes for the same price.] The Kyocera phone stores up to 200 phone numbers, as well as addresses and email addys, features a vibrate option, 15 ringer sounds, and three service modes: CDMA digital PCS, CDMA digital cellular, and analog. Because battery power is used faster in analog mode, the phone beeps at me as I move in and out of digital service areas. I assume this beeping feature drains the battery faster, as well, but it is nice to be alerted. At under five ounces, this phone is lightweight, fits comfortably in your hand, and doesn't fold up. That's handy if it rings while you're driving - unfolding a phone in a superfluous extra step. Now, I don't like to use a cell phone while driving, but sometimes it's necessary to take a call on the road. For example, last month I took my son to the emergency room and on the trip down I was waiting for a call-back from my husband to let him know what hospital we were going to and what time we'd get there. If you find you need to take calls while driving (and you don't own a hands-free system), make sure you use a non-folding phone, keep it within easy reach (don't leave it in your purse), and practice using your cell phone buttons (especially the call answer button) without looking at the keypad. If you're like me and initially decided to purchase a Kyocera phone as a lifeline in emergencies, then don't get sucked in by the fact that it offers web access. Minutes can accrue at an alarming rate when you're checking email or checking a stock quote. The Kyocera also offers "productivity tools" like an alarm clock, calculator stopwatch, countdown timer, even a brick-attack game. But if battery life is important to you, I'd recommend sticking to the calculator in your checkbook and the watch on your wrist. I keep my phone on four to six hours a day, making 1-2 calls per week, and I find that I need to recharge the battery about once a week. In digital mode, the battery promises 3.5 hours of talk time. The Kyocera QCP 2035a comes with a pearlescent-gold removable faceplate. For $19.99, you can purchase a separate faceplate in a wide variety of colors: marine blue, charcoal metal, millennium silver, sapphire blue, sangria red, emerald green, clear frost, ice blue, midnight blue, limon green, tangerine orange, magenta, platinum, iris lavender, or ruby red. I would think that if pearly-gold isn't for you, probably one replacement faceplate should be satisfactory, but the Kyocera marketers respectfully disagree. Their website offers combination packs, such as the Wintry Duo (emerald green, sangria red) and Trio (sapphire blue, ruby red & platinum) faceplate sets. You can also purchase other accessories like a leather case [$19.99], a car power adapter [$24.99], a single-port desktop charger [$29.99], or a PC connectivity tool kit [$79.99]. My biggest complaint about the Kyocera is that, in order to check your total minutes of used-up call time, you must scroll through the menu to Settings, then down through five options until you reach Call Information. This is tedious and time-consuming - certainly not something you can check with a quick glance. If I were in charge of cell phone design, I'd have Call Information displayed at all times on the main screen. Of course, with Verizon, all calls are rounded up to the nearest minute, so the Call Information, accurate to the second, will be slightly lower than what you're inevitably billed. Otherwise, this phone has met my admittedly simple cell-phone needs. Voice clarity on my end has been the same or better than my mother's standard digital phone provided by Voicestream. If you can find it for under $50, I'd feel comfortable recommending the Kyocera QCP 2035a. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 30 86918 2000/12/30 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 lots of features compact size vibrate mode battery charge indicator declines unevenly price is higher than other cell phones The Bottom LineThis phone is small and easily portable, and it has dozens of convenience features. Full Review When I found out recently that I was going to start teaching college, I decided that it would be a good idea to make sure that my students had an easy time reaching me with questions and concerns about study material, homework, tests, etc. I already have a personal e-mail address, along with a university e-mail address, so I felt that my students would have no problem getting in touch with me. Still, I realize that there are some people who don't have a computer or who have limited access to the internet. For this reason, I decided that it was time that I gave in and purchase a cell phone. I had put off buying a cell phone for several years, mainly because I felt that I didn't really need one badly enough to justify the $35 monthly service fee. But with my class, I now had a good, solid reason to justify the purchase. I have owned stock in Vodaphone Corporation (the parent of Verizon) for a long time, so it made the most sense to go to Verizon to sign up for service, and to select a cell phone. After looking around for a short time, I decided that the Kyocera QCP 2035a was the phone for me. Features of This Cell Phone: There were many other phones to choose from, but I liked the features on this phone the best. Let's take a look at a rundown of some of this cell phone's specific features: Small Size: This phone is very compact in size, measuring only 5 inches in length, 1.75 inches in width, and .75 inches in thickness (13, 4.5 and 2 centimeters, respectively). It doesn't fold in half, like some other cell phones. It's all in one piece, and it's small enough to easily fit in your pocket. Battery Life: Kyocera powers this phone with a lithium battery, which must be recharged periodically. There's a battery symbol, on the crystal display panel, that indicates the charge level of the battery. Within the battery symbol, there are 4 dark bars. If all four bars are lit, then the battery is fully charged; if three are lit, it's lost a portion of the charge, and so forth. When fully charged, you can talk on this phone for about 3 hours. If you don't use the phone at all, the battery will still lose all of its power, in about 3 to 4 days. Contacts: If you have some phone numbers that you frequently call, you can store them in contact area, for easy access. This phone will store up to 200 different phone numbers, and it displays them in alphabetical order. If you have a large number of contacts in storage, you can scroll down the entire list, or select "find name" from the menu, and enter all or part of the person's name. A list showing all the matching names will display. Settings: There are lots of different setting options on this phone, and I find that I am still discovering new ones each day. You can select among 15 different ring options, or vibrate- only, if you don't want to hear any ringing. You can also control the ringer volume, key beep volume, and the ear piece volume. If you don't want any sounds at all, you can select "silence all", and you will never hear anything from the phone (except, of course, the person you are talking to), even when you press the keys to dial out. If you happen to miss a call, it will tell you so on the phone's display panel. You can then select the option to view recent calls, from the menu, and it will show you the phone number of the individual who was trying to reach you, along with the time of day that the call came through. Security is a concern to many people, so the makers of this phone have installed a few options to protect your privacy. This phone allows you to place a lock on the phone, so that it cannot be used without entering a special code. There's also an option to limit outgoing calls to only include those from the contact list, and an option to immediately erase all contacts and/or recent calls. Tools: Kyocera equips this phone with several tools that can come in handy from time to time. There's a calculator, an alarm clock, a countdown timer, a stopwatch, and a game to play, called "brick attack". Don't expect to find trigonometric or financial functions on the calculator. It's just a simple calculator, offering the four basic mathematical functions (add, subtract, multiply, and divide), along with a negative/positive key and a few memory keys. Sending/Receiving Messages: If you have a voicemail message, it will first be indicated on the front panel of the phone, where it will say "voicemail messages", preceded by the number that are in storage. Once you press clear, the message will go away, but an envelope symbol will remain on the panel, until you retrieve your messages. Once a message has been retrieved, you can reply, erase, save, or add the person to your contact file. When you send a message, you have an option to leave an automatic callback phone number, which will then attach itself to all of your outgoing messages. There are other options, too, like a delivery receipt. This feature will send an alert to your phone, when your recipient listens to your message. You can also flag a message to be delivered on a specific date, in the future. Web Browser: This feature will only be applicable if you have purchased internet service from your wireless service provider. If you have this service, then you can use the phone to access internet sites. Final Thoughts: I have been using this phone for about 2 months now, and it has suited my needs just fine. It probably has more features than I really need, with a cell phone, but its nice to know that these features are there, in case I ever need them. The front panel of the phone always shows the current date and time, along with special icons that indicate the battery charge level, voicemail alerts, etc. These settings can be changed, but I like having the date and time on constant display. If I forget my watch, I can just pull out my phone and see the date and time. I did have one annoying problem with this phone, when I first made the purchase. On the panel of the phone, it would constantly say "searching", which meant that it was having trouble finding a phone signal. This happened no matter where I was calling from, including from my own house. And when the phone was in this mode, I was unable to use it, for either outgoing calls or incoming calls. I took the phone back, explained the problem to the technicians, and they replaced it right away, with no questions asked. I have had no problems since. One thing that I don't like about this phone is the battery life. Specifically, I don't like the way the battery charge display declines at an exponential rate. Like I stated above, a fully- charged battery is good for about 3 hours of talk time. There are four bars on the battery icon display, that indicate the charge level, but they do not represent an even amount of talk time remaining. The first bar will take about 60 minutes to disappear. The second will take about 45 minutes. The other bars fall even more quickly. So, if you plan on talking for a while, you need to make sure that you have plenty of charge left. I have used the phone when there were 2 bars left, thinking that I had plenty of time to talk. But my phone quickly fell to one bar, and then gave me a warning beep that my battery was about to die out, all in less than 45 minutes. The overall battery life is better with this phone than with others, which is good, but I would like it better if the bars were evenly distributed, with each one representing about 45 minutes of talk time. This phone normally sells for about $70 new. I was able to get mine, as part of my sign- up deal with Verizon, for only $20. I could have chosen another less expensive phone for free, but I wanted more features than those free phones offered. One thing that I really needed was the vibrate feature, which is something that the free phones did not have. So far, I'm satisfied with my Kyocera QCP 2035a cell phone. I haven't received very many calls yet, since only a few people have my cell phone number. But I expect that number to increase shortly, when I start teaching college on January 2, 2002. When that time comes, I will probably become an expert on all the messaging features, contact features, callback options, etc. While I'm teaching my students about money, they will be teaching me, in an indirect way, about all the advantages of owning this phone. My purchase of this cell phone was primarily for practical reasons, but now that I have it, I don't think I could survive without the convenience of wireless service. The Kyocera QCP 2035a will be a permanent occupant of my front pocket for a long time! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70 7677 Kyocera QCP 6035 87000 2004/2/24 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating5.0 cheap basic pda features monochrome screen inability to upgrade the os no sd cf or bluetooth It's been two years since I got this phone, one of the best purchases I've made. If you are looking to take your computer with you, this is not the hybrid to get. If you want your calendar, contacts, tasks, email messages with your phone - get this. I paid $100 at best buy (with sprint activation). Paid another $50 to buy Chapura's pocket mirror pro (to compliment pocket mirror) so now I can sync my outlook subfolders (intellisync may be better). Downsides are the inability to upgrade the Palm OS (3.1.5), the monochrome screen, no sd of cf card slot and no bluetooth support. Other than that I can't see any reason to upgrade to the $500-$600 models that are out there - unless you have the dough. Yeah, so the new ones come with a camera that gets you less than 1 megapixel, are smaller and have a color screen. I'll wait until the competition forces the price down or the features up. 86999 2004/9/12 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 tough useful reliable palm os ong battery life no color screen large heavy this is a tough and useful phone. it has enough memory and doesn't crash all the time like the newer model (7135) the drawbacks of this phone are that it has no color screen and is large. the newer model is smaller and has a color screen, but because of that it has a fraction of the battery life and a delicate operating system that crashes often. some other problems i have with the phone seem to be the faulty software created by verizon (my carrier) to run the phone side of the device. that software (firmware) and the people who install it at the service centers are less than reliable. the service centers often are incapable of instaling the firmware at all and those that can, sometimes install it incorrectly using old corrupt versions. 86998 2002/7/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 play gamestalk on the phone surf the web get organized nothing that would keep me from buying it again The Bottom LineGreat product all around! This is the phone/palm I've been searching for. Makes working fun! Full Review I am a small business owner and decided that perhaps a Palm device was what I needed to get organized. After carefully checking out ALL of the Palm type devices out there, my head was swimming. I couldn't find the one that had everything I wanted. I walked into Verizon to check out the SmartPhone. Best thing that happened to me! Since I didn't have any previous Palm experience I can't compare products, but I can make clear calls, check email, store my address book and day planner all in ONE place! Is it a little bulky compared to other tiny cell phones, yes, but it's not as bulky as my day planner/address book! I also downloaded some organizer software to even further my organization! Plus I also downloaded games, kills time the fun way when you're waiting at the airport or waiting for appointments! The battery life is great in digital areas. Went through some analog areas and the battery discharged very quickly, but in digital areas it lasts a long time. It was easy to set up and easy to add on to. I'm still finding new uses for this great product. It has speakerphone, voice dialing, speed dialing all of the things you'd wish for. The ringer isn't very loud and you can't download ringers, but it does have a vibrate option. I will admit that at first the size of the phone was a shock, I was used to VERY small. I've had 5 or 6 phones in the last two years...this is my first experience with Kyocera and Palm, I'm sold! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 449.99 86997 2001/11/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 integration poor integration ergonomicsvery weak ringer size The Bottom LineIf you absolutely need wireless Internet connectivity, this will do the job. Ergonomics are poor, however. Full Review I have had my Smartphone for two months now. Prior to that, I owned a Handspring Visor Deluxe, but balked at the high prices of Springboard wireless data adapters. So when I lost my cell phone, I just decided to get the Smartphone instead of a conventional phone. The combo is not entirely successful, however: - It seems slower than the Handspring, and less responsive. Perhaps because the PalmOS is emulated on top of another PS that handles the telephony functions - You need a bulky serial cable if you want to use it as a wireless modem for a laptop. IrDA or USB are not available - One of the killer features should be the ease of accessing your Palm Phonebook to dial numbers. While the Smartphone is very good at letting you choose between work/home/cellular numbers, accessing the functionality using the tiny rocker switch/shuttle is very clumsy (for some obscure reason, they made the almost useless "phone Status" command the default menu item; it takes a rocker click, a rock down and another click just to get to the phone list). - The ringer is very weak, both for phone calls and messages. I keep missing calls because I can't hear the phone through my jacket pocket! This in itself is the reason why I am going to return this phone. - Reliability: it seems making a wireless Internet connection is enough to crash the PalmOS with an error message that requires rebooting. I never had as many crashes with my Visor (at least, not once I applied the memory patch). Most of the misfeatures in the phone are related to compromises required to fit PDA functionality in a cell phone, but the poor ergonomics (poorly designed phone menus and weak ringer) are simply the result of poor design I thought the bulk of the phone would be the big issue. Surprisingly, this turns out not to be the case in practice, but the ergonomics and crashes are what keep me from heartily recommending it. Unfortunately, until Bluetooth becomes a reality, this is still the best wireless handheld solution I found. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500 86996 2000/10/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability1.0 Clarity2.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating1.0 serves two purposes in one good voice command phone part can be tricky to operate with one hand heavy poor reception The Bottom LineIf you are looking for a PalmPhone look at the Samsung i300. It's smaller, lighter, easier to use, and has a color screen. Full Review I was very excited about this phone when it was introduced. Finally one device for my Palm and my phone. Set up was fairly easy since I already owned a palm. The voice dialer is excellent too. The problem with this phone is in everyday use. The main flaws of this phone are that it's heavy and awkward to carry around, and it gets poor reception. It doesn't fit in your pocket well at all, especially if you are wearing shorts. And, it feels like a brick in your hand. The other problem with the phone (at least with Sprint in the Washington DC area) is that it gets poor reception...even on bright sunny days. I've been with Sprint for a few years and I've never had a phone fade out like this one. Another annoyance is that it is very hard to use this phone with one hand. This phone was a nice idea, but its just not practicle for everyday use. There are better alternative palmphones out now, so I'd avoid the Kyocera. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 86995 2002/11/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability2.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 price down to 99 nowconvenience speakerphone is hard to hear blackwhite display The Bottom LineFor $99, a real steal in a combo PDA and Cell but heavy. New version (7035) is now out. Full Review When I paid $250 for my 6035 I thought I got a bargain. Now I see them down to $99; that's less than most Palm devices by themselves. This is a nerdly phone, no doubt. But as one who used to have to carry two beepers, a Palm VII and a cell phone, this is a godsend. The battery lasts a good week on standby and recharges completely during my 45 minute commute via the 12V adapter. As a phone it is bulky but not overly so. I have big hands, so your mileage may vary but I don't see this as a big issue. A few Palm apps don't run on the phone but I have not seen many. Not a huge issue for me. As far as carrying it, I found a plastic holster for $9 that fits on the belt that works great. The wireless Web has saved by butt several times in airports (during a delay as your plane is coming to the gate you can book more flights.) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86994 2001/12/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 syncs great with outlook web access big screen speakerphone quiet ringer slow contact lookup bulky clumsy side switch sprintpcs only The Bottom LineFor the first entry into the Palm-Phone market, this phone performs admirably. I did not have a Palm before but had always considered one -- now, I am a believer. Full Review The Kyocera smartphone performs great! The integration of the Palm features with the phone features was done very well. While some phone features are lacking, it is not enough to change my opinion -- but I do expect better next time! The speakerphone is very useful, as are all of the Palm features. The size is somewhat daunting, but what do you expect if you want two devices in one package? A $15 leather glove with accompanying belt-latch is a great add-on. Although SprintPCS is the only provider, they did give excellent service when my phone broke -- they sent me a new phone and the conversion of all the Palm info was fast and smooth. There are not enough ringer options, and the ringer is not loud enough. The voicemail button has never worked, but it is very easy to program one-touch dialing for that and many other phone numbers. Finding contacts could be much simplified, even by changing the order of the menu items. Overall, this is a great device that I would recommend to anyone who wants to quit carrying a phone and a Palm -- have it all in one package! A color screen would be nice, but the backlight works great and the battery almost never runs down. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400.00 86993 2000/4/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 excellent size good integration stable upgradeability The Bottom LineBuy it, it has it all, better than any other phone or palm on the market. You can wait for a year and MAYBE buy something better, but why? Full Review I have finally switched off from my Qualcomm PDQ onto this fantastic device. Don't let anyone tell you the screen is too small, this thing is the perfect size. And larger, and you'd have the problems you have with the Visor Phone, or the earlier PDQ. Any smaller, you wouldn't be able to manipulate anything. Face it, you can;t please all the people all the time, but I am super-pleased. The only thing missing is the expansion slot, but with everything else packed in here, that is probably too much to ask, and probably won't be used. This thing has 8 MBs, more than enough for palm apps. I have used palms for 4 years, so I have accumulated 200+ apps. They are all installed on the 6035, and not one has a problem. It hasn't crashed yet (like the old PDQ). Let me highlight a few things, as many have covered this in detail. The PQA integration is excellent, I have upgraded the browser to SSL, and that works flwalessly. It is the perfect size, not really any bigger than a "non-smart" phone. The web connections are quick (14.4-19.2). Hooks up easily to your computer as a wireless modem. The speakerphone is loud and clear, and as a bonus it will hold 3 minutes of voice messages. It does voice dialing (in the phone, so you don't have to train your carrier, just the phone). I mean, really, they packed it all in there, and there isn't one thing I would realistically change... Buy it! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86992 2002/6/29 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 effective combination of phonepda you get what you pay for complex could be simplified would have paid more for some amenities The Bottom LineA long leap down the road to convergence. Full Review I had a cheap phone and no PDA while I waited for this model. Unpacking it, I was happy with the form factor. With a headset, the user can be on the phone and take notes simultaneously. Who wants to fry their brain and wear their arm out holding a phone to their head, anyway? While the $540-ish (with tax) price tag was fine, I would like to have seen 'deluxe' packaging with improved accessories. My home computer has only one serial port, occupied by a modem. The fact that the stand is not a USB interface is, frankly, mystifying. CompUSA came through with a gadget to turn a USB port into a serial port for me. How about an adapter to enable those cool keyboards (or do they already work?). The documentation is in a PDF. That's OK, but I would have been happy to pay for dead tree format. What would be nice on the ROM would have been some tutorial movies to illuminate some of the features. There is enough here to swamp the neophyte. The Palm OS is great. Graffiti is a well-crafted tool. The other applications, Eudora, AvantGo, and the Outlook Portal, installed easily. I sent myself a test email to an earthlink account with relative ease. Who needs SMS? I have Outlook2k at home, and *hack* '97 at work. The contacts list failed to upload to the .pst file on my work machine, and the error codes are obscure. Haven't been annoyed enough yet to fix it. There is potential to improve the features of this product. I bought my father (a poster child for the technologically challenged) an Audiovox phone, and was able to boil checking voicemail down to pressing the same button three times in succession. As long as this is a 'smart' phone, I'd like to see it able to do that. I know that Metrowerks makes a compiler for the PalmOS, but I don't know if the phone's API is amiable to customization. Probably not, due to fraud concerns. Lastly, accessories cost too much. Setting this up with charging stands at work and home, batteries and all, is going to be around $200 or so. How about a package deal? 12Aug01 Digging around the Chapura website, I found a little nugget regarding the Outlook portal. If you have the flip shut and use the jog dial to browse contacts, the phone OS trips up the PalmOS, and the contacts will no longer synch with your desktop Outlook until you open the batter compartment and give the phone a soft boot. Work-around: open the flip to view contacts. Kyocera will supposedly update the PalmOS, but not in time to be useful. And here's another gotcha on the jog dial: when you toggle down six times to 'messages', push, and see 'voice', you might think that it would dial your voicemail account number you set under 'Prefs' for 'phone'. After an RTFM session, I discovered that you press the envelope icon with the flip shut to make that happen. I still like the Audiovox feature that let me set my dad's phone to dial voicemail, enter the account, and the password by entering all three numbers, delimited by a '+' symbol. Yes, this is an abysmal way to manage security, but there is nothing that special going on, anyway. So, Kyocera, if any of your engineers read this, tell them to get hot. 29Jun02 Yesterday the keyboard and USB cable arrived in the mail, answering two of my early gripes about the phone. Both had their own CD, and both installed without problem. After configuring the phone as a modem, I was curious that using the Windows modem diagnostic provides no useful feedback. The documentation shows how to use Hyperterminal to tell if the phone is OK. Again, a little more documentation for the technically inclined would seem possible. In data mode, the phone did dial my ISP, but didn't establish a connection, but that might not be the phone's fault. The keyboard is a great item. Now, I am a keyboard shortcut freak ( you don't want to see me in MS Word ), so I could have enjoyed maximal ALT+hotkey gymnastics, but I'm aware that we're getting a lot out of 16Mb of RAM already. The keyboard feels great, implements useful functionality, and probably ought to come with a 'Pro' bundle, including dead tree format documentation, whenever that 7035 rolls around. My understanding is that this keyboard will be compatible when that 7035 (as previewed on c|net) gets here, which is a Good Thing. Thanks, Kyocera. BTW--how soon a real CDMA/GSM/GPRS uberphone? Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 86991 2000/8/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating3.0 wow what i ve always wanted pdaphone in one horrible quality phone The Bottom LineWait a few months to see what the competition does! Full Review When I first read that Consumer Reports had rated the Kyocera 6035 as the best possible wireless PDA, I jumped on the internet to begin researching. It seemed like a really neat product and I was drooling at the prospect of having a full-blown PDA along with a cellular phone. I picked one up for $400 and then the problems began. First, I had a terrible difficulty getting the phone "activated" by Sprint. They said that the phone wasn't behaving properly and made me go through some hoops and after about 30 minutes spent on the phone waiting, the 6035 was finally activated. After activation, I was still never able to call *2 and check my minutes because the phone kept saying "Activation Failed". Having a PDA was more wonderful that I had dreamed it would be! However, I found that sometimes when I used the stylus to tap on the screen, my clicks wouldn't register or they would register only after a 2-3 second delay. This made usability a chore sometimes. The backlit display is very unusual in my opinion- I did not like it. The portion of the display that is visible when the flip up seemed quite vulnerable to the elements to me- I fear I would have scratched it up if I carried the 6035 around with me often. Everything above I can live with...but in addition to the above, the 6035 had horrible voice quality. Voices of others were very mechanical sounding (compared to my current Samsung PCS phone). And if I was indoors, the static level was quite disturbing; sometimes it sounded like the other party was standing outside in a rainstorm! This is unacceptable given that my cheap Samsung phone never sounds bad like this. So I reactivated my Samsung phone (without any issues, took 30 seconds on the sprintpcs.com) and promptly returned the Kyocera. My appetite for a better implementation of this idea has been whetted.... Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400 86990 2000/4/21 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 long battery life voice dial speakerphone doesn t run all palm apps speakerphone sound less than great The Bottom LineIf you're looking for an organizer and a cell phone on a budget, this phone is hard to beat. Full Review I was getting tired of carrying around a palm and a phone so I purchased the QCP 6035 (Sprint PCS service) from Officemax when they dropped the price to $250. I have no real regrets about buying this phone. Before buying this I was carrying around a Motorola Startac. It was a nice phone but the batteries didn't last too long and it's signal power left something to be desired. The 6035 goes for days on end without a charge and offers at least a marginal reception improvement. On the palm side I miss a few of my games and oddball apps as the 6035's version of the Palm OS isn't perfect. I've also noticed it's a little bit slower than the Palm Vx. As for durability the 6035 is a tank. I've dropped this phone twice. Once on pavement from about 3 feet down when I bent over. No damage. The second time I dropped it from about chest height to hard concrete. The battery case popped off and the battery came out. Put it back together and it worked without a problem. Still I'd recommend purchasing a leather case with a clip to keep the phone from flying out of shirt pockets. For me this phone has been a blessing. If you can live with black and white and some minor application incompatibilities this phone is a great phone and with prices as low as $150 these days it's at a great price too! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250.00 86989 2003/1/4 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 all in 1 wonder great palm integrationbattery life terrible sprint kyocera service to fix major bug no usb port The Bottom LineGREAT concept with 1 major bug, 1 shortfall (no USB) but ONLY get this phone if you can use Verizon. Full Review Overall the integration of the palm capabilities into the phone is perfect (lack of USB port and cable accepted - so add $49 to your purchase for a home-grown solution). With nearly 1000 outlook contacts, plus multiple applications, in the 8MB phone, I still have 79% of memory free. Battery life is superb (5 days is 'real', plus sync cradle automatically drip feeds battery). I have had some complaints about my sound quality - but it's hard to say if that's the Phone or Sprint. Size is bigger than the trend - but you truly only need 1 item. No more phone pilot. The biggest hit against the phone is a major bug (searching contacts from phone-mode forces you to reset every time you want to sync), that Kyocera can't help with (though acknowledge) due to contract limitations with Sprint, and Sprint are quite frankly impossible to deal with in a rational fashion - can't tell me if there is a bug, and if so which store can fix it. AND Sprint don't seem to see this as an issue! Plus when I call they ask me to tell them my sprintpcs website password to talk to them - real secure there. They then 'settle' for your social security number. >> Note - bug finally fixed (very painful and long lead time) but was fixed. Overall phone works great - in fact I can ONLY now use a phone wiht Palm OS built in. Kyocera has still been very very slow with new add ons (USB to Serial traveling cable) and more importantly an update to this phone which works with Sprint adn/or in most regions. Poor execution can drive me nuts! Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 357 @Staples 86988 2000/8/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 reception battery life crashes but saves data large body size build quality The Bottom LineDespite the flaws, it's a very useful device for anyone who uses a palm and phone separately. Full Review Like many gadgets that make big promises, you can't tell whether the Kyocera 6035 is right for you until you buy one. It works for me, but at the expense of several unexpected disadvantages. Advantages: 1. Excellent battery life. I have gone several days without needing a charge. I am tempted to leave the charger at home for weekend trips, but I haven't screwed up the courage yet. 2. Excellent reception in the New York City area. I used to use a sprint PCS phone in NYC, and reception in Manhattan was awful. I switched to verizon plus the kyocera, and no longer have any trouble. 3. Integration between phone functions and palm functions are well thought out. Finally, you can have one list of phone numbers on your PC, Palm, and phone. An unexpected benefit is the ability to put someone on speakerphone and be able to look something up on your palm. This phone can even categorize your calls and output them to a spreadsheet on a pc. If you need to expense your calls, this is amazing! It will pay for the phone in short order because in the past, I have never bothered going through the fine print of my phone bill to strip out business related calls. Disadvantages: 1. Palms crash. My IIIxe crashed all the time, and would lose all the data in it. The 6035 crashes too, but a reset doesn't erase your data. Thank god. When you're away from the host PC, a 6035 crash doesn't leave you without your info. The downside is that I suspect my 6035 after a crash will duplicate information on my PC. Notes, addresses, etc. It doesn't do a complete duplication, but still some. I haven't figured out the pattern yet. To avoid this, I have the PC overwrite the 6035 after a crash. I lose the data created on the 6035 since the last synch, but at least I don't have to dedupe my contacts list. 2. The build quality isn't as high as I would like. Under heat, sweaty hands, or some other mysterious force, the buttons can go a little loopy. Nines can become three's, etc. When the phone is having a fit like this, I use the number interface on the screen to dial. After the phone has rested in a cool dry place for a while, everything reverts to normal. 3. The size may be too big for some people. For me, the battery life and palm functions are worth the step up in size though. Conclusion In my opinion, the 6035 is the fruit of a wicked battle between the marketing people and the engineers at Kyocera. There are so many clever, tiny things that work so well, I can't imagine that the big clunker problems were unnoticed. Somewhere on the drawing boards of the Kyocera keiretsu, the engineers have designed the perfect phone. However, the marketing people cheapened up the design to lower its price point, and voila, we have the 6035. It's a great idea that survived the corporate meat grinder. It's worthwhile, but better manufacturing and sturdiness would make it amazing. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 86987 2000/2/9 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 everything you need is in this phone lot of wonderful tools good battery life perhaps a little bit bit but it is the compromise with the palm The Bottom LineNothing to say... This phone is really nice. Full Review When I receive this phone, I was very anxious to discover the new functionalities of the Palm. What is really great is the interfaces from the Palm and the phone. "Minutes" installed (a free software. It will read your call history log and calculate your billed minutes in both peak and off-peak categories, as well as estimate your period end totals...) you know exactly what you do with your phone... but this is here only one facet of this phone ! If you search a little bit through Internet, you will find tons of great software for the Palm and lot of utilities (try my personal web site http://pages.infinit.net/ve2ymm/). For the people on the road, you can easily track your agenda, phone in the contact manager, etc... there are no limits... About the battery, you can speak on the phone during 3 to 5 hours continuously, and what is very cool is that the battery is the same for the Palm, just recharge it... You never loose the softs in the palm because they are in a special memory, and if you crash, all the data will be saved on this special memory AND of course, in your computer ! You can upgrade your phone and your Palm with the different patchs available on Internet... The screen is fragile, you can find special protector to protect the screen (like all the palms). I love this phone, of course you could find now color screens with the new I-300 Samsung phone but the battery life is really better on the Kyocera 6035. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 86986 2000/5/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 battery life user interface integrated palm os uses palm style inverse backlighting bigger than small cell phones The Bottom LineIf you carry a Palm and a phone, get this instead. Full Review I've always struggled with how to deal with a Palm device, a laptop to check email, and a cel phone. Finally, with one thing to carry (and one set of recharging gear when I travel), this phone does it all. It's got all the phone features you'll ever want (speaker phone, speed dial, etc), but you can also easily surf the web and check email. And because it has the Palm stylus for input, you're not stuck typing messages with the phone keypad (awkward at best). Best of all for me, though, is that when I synch it with my computer, I have a complete and up-to-date address book integrated into the phone. No programming speed-dials in multiple places -- it's great. Find a number in the Palm address book, click and it dials the phone for you. It is a little bit bigger than some of the phones out there, though that doesn't bother me much anymore. The backlighting is a little cumbersome (like the Palm V, it inverts the screen) as well, though it certainly helps preserve the battery (which lasts quite well on this device). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 500 86985 2000/3/10 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 very convenient a palm pilotphone in one real web browser looks nice despite the hefty price 549 99 no carrying case or accesories included The Bottom LineA must have! Two great tools in one with a real browser! Put your Palm Pilot and regular phone on eBay and get one! Full Review I must say that I am thrilled with this phone, besides the fact that its a Palm Pilot as well! It has all the features of a Palm, it even has indiglo back light. The best thing about it is it's internet service. This is as real as it gets folks! I mean you have a mini web browser with scroll bar, etc. It's not like the Sprint ones or the other ones that claim to have internet capabilities, this phone makes them and all others before this look like a joke! Connection is equivalent to 56k, it is significantly fast! But NO accesories, nothing, just the cradle, I was walking around with it in my hand, since I could not find a sleeve for it. The one Kyocera manufactures is ugly and plain, it's just a bag, which makes it look like you're carrying a camera, might as well use one from a cheap camera instead of spending the $25.00 plus s/h they want for their "bag." I had one professionally hand made in Mexico from nice soft black leather with a see through window and belt clip, very high quality and beautiful, makes the phone stand out, looks like it was bought at a store. I might just start selling them myself. If interested email me at clonedimage@hotmail.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 549.99 86984 2000/10/8 Battery Life4.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability1.0 Product Rating1.0 integrated palm pilot does not work four phones dead in a week The Bottom LineJunk! I had FOUR of these die in less than a week! I wouldn't touch another Kyocera 6035. Too big and heavy anyhow. Full Review I was using a Motorola Star Tac on the Sprint Service. Droppping calls and bad reception in metro Atlanta. Supposedly the heart of Sprint PCS "Clear Choice." Called Sprint and told them to just cancel the service (contract was up). They said that they would give me one month's free service and a Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone with integrated Plam Pilot. I agreed. The phone arrived two days later. When I sa, "The Phone," I mean that is ALL there was in the box. No manual, no charger, no software, no PC link. And this is a complicated phone! I called to complain. After another very long wait I was told that they had to "send me what's in the warehouse" and the best Sprint would do was to offer me a $30 credit and I could get a charger at Radio Shack. I did. Three days later the phone (#1) died. Screen froze up. Went to the local Sprint store. They said that they could not fix it and gave me a new phone. Phone (#2), died 2 days later. Back to the Sprint Store. Another brand new phone (#3) with all accessories. I was a little loud! The third phone died one day later. Now these are all the Kyocera 6035 $499 phones! The fourth (#4) phone lasted less than two hours. Wonder if my ex-wife works for Sprint PCS, the Clear Choice? Truthfully I have not had one of these smart phones work long enough to evaluate the Sprint service, but it does begin to dawn on me that something is wrong! How could I get FOUR bad Kyocera 6035 phones in less than a week. I have had cell phones for years. I know how to take care of them and none of these were in anyway abused. Proper charging -- the battery indicator was at "full" every time the phone froze up . . . . . I am beyond mad. All I can say is that Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone is awful! Worst phone I have ever (tried) to use. I am going to email Kyocera and ask them to resolve this. Is this why these phones are going on sale? Office Depot has them on closeout for $229 off the list price of $499. Has Kyocera made the "Lemon of the Ages?" Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 499 86983 2000/4/12 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 palmos with real web power power management is great no expansion module slot ugly case that cost extra The Bottom LineA must have for Computer Power users and PalmOS users. Highly recommended for the technical savvy individual. If you can't program the clock on your VCR avoid this one. Full Review I got my Kyocera SmartPhone from Verizon about three weeks ago and I just have to say that it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made. I have yet to hit a web site that I can not access using the Endora browser that came bundled with the PalmOS. I have used it top track bids on Ebay and get directions from Yahoo map amoung other things. The voice recognizer is great there was no hassles training the voice calling feature. Now I just say my clients name and they are one the other end of the line in no time. The palm portion is great. I had a Palm IIIx and all my apps are ported over and working fine. The infa-red is very reliable I have beamed programs, business cards and used it to print out quicksheet invoices with printboy using the HP drivers. This is the best part, rechargable batteries! I set my Kyocera SmartPhone on the cradle and it charges up. Power management is great. I have never even been low on power, even after two busy days of using my smartphone. And when I do charge it up it only takes two hours to get the battery back to 100 percent. If you have the opportunity replace that cell and PDA combo with a SmartPhone do it because you will be much more efficent with one powerful device. When using the SmartPhone as a wireless fax/modem for your computer the documentation doesn't tell you that the driver is only installed if you use the Kyocera Version of the Palm Desktop so if you are a previous Palm user you can use a the genaric driver or get the driver off of the Kyocera disk. The only really bad thing about the SmartPhone is that the case is horrible looking, it should be a crime to put such a beautiful device into such an ugly case. Hopefully some third party will soon fix this minor problem. I would also like to see a expansion module in the future. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86982 2002/4/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 all in oneable to integrate phone needspalm databases no memory chip The Bottom LineGreat starter phone and PDA. Full Review Visiting my local Sprint Store, I began pricing phones to replace on that had a broken flip speaker. I came across many that were able to access the Internet, I was impressed but somewhat put off by their prices even with the $70 rebate offered at the time I signed up. There were two larger phones that I was looking at one with a color display and one with BW. I asked the difference between the two and the Salesman said that the Kyocera was and older model and everyone was moving to a color display. The color palm phone was $499 and the Kyocera was $149.99 with a $70 rebate. There was not even a second thought. A cell phone and palm pilot for $79.99. The phone part: 1. It has a very small input speaker that makes you have to talk pretty loud, which is somewhat embarrassing. 2. The speakerphone quality is very clear and makes driving much safer. It is just one button on the outside of the phone to activate. 3. You are able to use your phone book on the palm side, tap on the number and it dials it for you. Very convenient. 4. Voice command is easy to use and works well; I have not had it dial the wrong number yet. 5. 11 ring types and the ability to down load more when Hot sync'd. A strong vibrating setting that is much more discreet. 6. Volume control on the side of the phone that toggles easily and the user is able to do it without having to look at the phone. 7. Call history is convenient so if you miss a call it still stores it so you can find out who called. 8. The scroll on the left side of the phone also allows you to access information in your address book without having to flip open the phone, also nice for driving. The palm side. 1. Easy to switch from Icon mode to tab mode. 2. Sync with outlook, so you can walk into the office and get all of your messages on your palm. 3. Fax/Data transmission, send and receive documents with ease. Not fast but reliable. 4. E-mail and Internet, not as easy to use and very limited, but able to get sports score and stock quotes clearly and regularly. 5. A good amount of memory, I have not even scratched the surface. 6. Able to download many systems, games, utilities, and such from the Internet on your computer. 7. Organize your life. A very easy to use date book and to do lists standard with the stock software. It has an interface that you can see your schedule and your to do list on the same screen. 8. Very good battery life, I have to recharge 1 time every other day and that only takes 1-2 hours. 9. You are able to beam information to another palm user, which allows you to send business cards or play another user in real time chess. 10. Windows like interface that is very easy to understand and get comfortable with. 11. Some of the settings are deep in screens. You really need to either play with it for a week or two or actually read the owners/instructions manual. Overall I feel that this was a great purchase. It was cheap, it has everything I could want (except a color screen and an external memory chip) and performs great for a first time smart phone user. I cannot wait to see what the future holds! Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 86981 2000/4/13 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating2.0 great speakerphone good cell phone in durable housing really bad screen with frustrating backlight options The Bottom LineA great Cell Phone/PDA with the emphasis on Cell Phone. But the poor screen renders the whole unit an overpriced loser. Full Review Kyocera seemed to be first to the market with a Cell Phone / PDA combination. It's initial price coupled with the fact it did not work with Cingular kept it out of the question. Sprint service in the area was good in most areas but very bad from the house. In September, Sprint's signal quality suddenly shot to the top of intensity. Who knows where the new tower was constructed...Sprint seems to be putting up a lot of those lately. The cost for the Kyocera 6035 had dropped to $450 with a mail-in rebate so it seemed time to take the plunge. As a phone, the unit works beautifully. I've no sympathy for complaints of "bulky;" I prefer a bulge in the pocket to constant misdialing that comes with those "oh-so-compact" flip jobs. The speakerphone is an absolute dream. It has replaced the line-line's unit at home for conference calls. "Green button to the left" = call; Red button to the right = hangup! Yes! Much better than the Nokia "one button tries to do it all" concept I've used with Cingular. Inside, the address book is easy to set up via either a PC interface or by using the stylus. The screen seems rugged. Having to type in addresses and phone numbers once and then being able to use them for either application is the basic reason I bought the unit. That being said, I'm sorry I did. Let me preface the following remarks with the fact I need to use reading glasses. In medium light, you can barely read the Kyocera screen. Last night, we passed the unit around to four people at a table in a restaurant and none of us could decipher what was on the screen. The screen's backlight stays on for a maximum of 30 seconds maximum...just enough time to ALMOST get the information you need before having to start over. There is an option to keep the backlight on all the time if it is plugged into a power charger...but how many people do you know bring a power charger into a restaurant or carry one with them while walking down the street? In short, I will probably be purchasing another cell phone/PDA in the future and it's a shame. Kyocera has everything I need and want...but I just can't see it. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 450 86980 2002/7/2 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 palmhandheld in one unit still a bit bulkyreception goes inoutno expandability The Bottom LineI would recommend the phone to anyone that carries both a palm pilot and a cell phone. The functionality is their and they will only get better as time progresses. Full Review I have had this phone since it first hit the market. My service provider is Verizon. When this phone first came out, I was excited by the prospect of having a Palm and a cell phone in one unit that actually was specifically designed not as an upgrade but as one unit. The features of the phone are pretty much the same as a Palm Vx except that the screen is smaller and the quality of the screen is definitely not the same. The way that you look at your address book and dial from there is very intuitive and easy to use. The browser is not really functional but the email program included works fine as a previewer of your messages. Memory is always an issue and I wish that the phone had the ram available in some of the newer phones. The refresh time is also not as fast as the newer phones but the battery life really cannot be beat as I have yet to run out of power in the phone. Syncing is a breeze and works the same way as the palm pilot. Support issues would be my only concern as Kyocera always refers you to Verizon and Verizon always refers you to Kyocera and questions do not always get answered clearly. The usb sync cable is the way to go as it is much faster than the serial cradle and when you have over a few thousand contacts it works great. I sync with Act versus the Palm desktop and would recommend it if you like to track appointments tied to the people in the most efficient manner. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 399 86979 2000/2/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 very versatile full featured phoneemail web browser all in one at a good price screen is hard to read no protective cover The Bottom LineGreat solution for those who do not yet benefit from the latest wireless technology available in the new handheld computers but DO have good cell phone coverage. Full Review If you live in a remote area without benefit of the newest Bluetooth technology but want portable internet and e-mail access, this phone is definitely for you. After looking at many handheld computers in local electronics stores and being told the technology for portable internet access just wasn't in our area yet, I discovered the Kyocera 6035 Smartphone through my cell phone company, Verizon. This phone is a full-featured Palm organizer with a fair amount of memory, and it quite handily accesses the internet and my e-mail account through the Eudora e-mail and web browser software provided with the phone. Admittedly, this took some fiddling with network settings and a few calls to Verizon--but that's just me. I'm a great candidate for the "Internet for Dummies" books, so, trust me, if I can set up this phone for internet and e-mail access, so can you. The standard Palm features include an address book, appointment book, "to do" list, expense list, calculator, etc., along with handy phone features like text messaging, voice mail, speed dial, and voice dial (where you can "train" it to dial a number simply by speaking into the phone). You can even record short voice memos. The 6035 Smartphone does everything I was looking for and more and I'm very satisfied (for the time being). That said, I'll list a few cons that, while irritating, I can put up with. The screen is small, as you would expect for a combo cell phone/Palm, and very hard to read in anything but bright, direct light. Adjusting the contrast doesn't help much. I've had to stop using it at home in the evening where the light is much dimmer because struggling to read the screen is just too difficult. In regular, bright daylight or in an office setting, it is fine. Also, the Smartphone does not come with any kind of case or screen cover and I have already scratched the screen from carrying it in my purse. I know many cell phones don't come with a cover, but since this is a combination Palm/cell phone with a touch-sensitive screen, I am surprised that Kyocera didn't provide some kind of protection for it. Even the inexpensive Zire Palm I bought my daughter has a protective cover. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 200.00 86978 2000/7/1 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 great battery life pda functionality cell phone in an acceptably small package acceptably small means bigger than would make most happy jog dial is moderately annoying The Bottom LineFor those of you looking for a "smartphone" and who aren't willing to pay the half grand that the other guys are asking, the Kyocera 6035 is an excellent alternative. Full Review I bought the Kyocera Smartphone because I, like many others, frequently use both a PDA and a cell phone. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if someone made a cell that had a Palm OS built into it?". Well as if someone was reading my thoughts, Kyocera developed the QCP-6035. THe phone is built on a Palm 3.1 operating system (OS). It has full PDA functionality, including organizer, address book, expense account management, games, and whatever else you can cram onto it. It has also a complete battery of cell phone functions. The neatest thing off hand is that you can dial a number straight from the address list in the Palm. Previously, I had to look up the number in my Palm pilot and then dial it on my cell, this phone eliminates that step. The phone has the capability to download and install a Eudora suite so you can check POP email (much like Outlook Express) as well as browse the web, but only in a text format. (no pics) As far as the features of the phone go, the phone is phenomenally loaded. Features galore, as it were. And with 8mb of storage space, I can't imagine running out of space in my contact list. It even has an onboard speakerphone...very cool! The few complaints I do have are minor. The first is the volume. Both the speakerphone and the earpiece volume could be louder. In crowded areas where there is a lot of background noise, it is at times difficult to hear the person on the other end. I really dislike the "jog wheel" on the side...it controls mainly volume, but can be depressed to access a menu. Many times, it gets accidentally depressed and I end up make a voice memo of me walking through the mall or something inane. It also has a sloppy feel to it. THe final point of contention is the size. Immediately I should say this: it is smaller than a phone and a Palm in your pocket, so in that instance it does save space, but it still seems very large. It doesn't fit well in your pocket and if you were it on your belt on a holster it makes bending over a chore at times as it digs into your hips. I know miniturization is a fine art, but I think it could have been smaller as is evidenced by the new 7035 flip. All said, the phone is a great deal now and it does exactly what it is supposed to and quite easily I might add. Very user friendly and intuitive to PDA minded folks. Maybe even to the "un-initiated" ;o) Sturdy construction has withstood my abuse and the phone continues to chug on. I would definately recommend this to anyone looking for a combo phone that is very functional and to anyone who isn't willing (as I am not) to pay a cool half grand for newer model just because it is in color. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 125.00 eBay 86977 2000/5/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 most comfortably sized pda phone combo backlight is ok for phone functions but useless for palm apps The Bottom LineA Best Buy. There is no better combination of PDA and phone available at this time. Low prices available now clinch the deal. Who needs color? Full Review I have resisted getting a PDA for some time because I didn't think it was worth the hassle of carrying another device and I didn't think I would use it enough to justify the cost. Then I found the Kyocera Smartphone. I've tried some of the newer PDA phones such as the Treo which have nicer color screens but they are much wider, even if they are short. This width makes them uncomfortable and cumbersome to use as a phone unless you use a headset or hands-free kit. The Kyocera 6035 is only a little wider than an average-sized cell phone. It feels right putting it to your ear and fits comfortable in a shirt pocket or on a belt clip. The other big advantage over the other PDA/phones is that it has physical buttons for the phone functions instead of only a touch screen. You can make calls and answer calls without having to pull out a stylus. Sure you can use voice dialing on the PDA/phones to avoid using the touch screen, but I dial plenty of numbers that I don't call often enough to program a voice dial for. As a phone, it is excellent. Battery life is several days with normal use, signal strength is good and the phone functions are intuitive enough to use without reading the manual. As a Palm OS PDA it is equivalent to a Palm V in features. The memory is adequate (8mb)and all the Palm Apps I've tried have worked fine. The only compromise is having to flip open the telephone keypad to get to the touch screen and the slightly narrow screen, a minor thing to me. The battery life is much better than my friends get from their Palm devices. The backlight reverses the contrast of the display when in use which makes it very difficult to read small text, but the phone display has larger characters and is easily read with the backlight. When I want read an e-book or read email at night I just sit under a light to read. Finally, the web features are wonderful. The included Avant-go web page caching service and wireless web browser work with almost any web site, whether or not it is designed for mobile access. Try that with one of the cell phones that offer internet browsing! The email client works great with standard POP3 accounts and can send or receive email while mobile. You can even download an AOL Instant Messenger client and chat with your online friends. I got this phone with service from Verizon Wireless. With a 2 year contract they offered a $150 dollar rebate which brought the Smartphone price to only $99.95, less than many cell phones. If you're in the market for a phone or PDA be sure to check these out before buying anything else. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.95 86976 2000/12/22 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 no major problems great idea a phonepda in one large for a phone small for a palm The Bottom LineThis device is great, mine was inexpensive and is has everyday usefulness. Many people have cell phones and want palm pilots; this is the perfect solution. Full Review I had read about the Kyocera Smartphone before I decided to purchase a cell phone and plan, but, I always thought it was out of my price range. But, when I actually visited the store, I noticed that it was on sale for about $100; making it cheaper than all but one other phone in the store. I played around with the Smartphone and came up with some reasons I liked it and some reasons I didn't like it. I have found many of my original problems and noted benefits at the store have held true today. Positives: The Smartphone is both a phone and a PDA, this means that you have at your fingertips, at all times, your calendar, all your contacts, instant access to the web, and any other applications you want to add to the version 3.5 Palm OS and a fully functional mobile phone. I have found that being able to carry my Palm everywhere, fairly comfortably in my pocket has made my life easier. This is true of all Palms, but most are larger than the Smartphone, and I find it hard to believe that many people would carry both their phone and palm with them everywhere they go. The smartphone is also a great phone. It has many hard to find features like voice-activated dialing and also has the basics such as a speakerphone and shortcut keys for volume, voice mail and a quick find for phone numbers. By simply flipping the keypad half-cover, you have a fully capable palm pilot. I have had no problems with clarity or losing calls on this phone. I sometimes have problems with the speakerphone, only because I am in a loud setting or I am not speaking loud enough into the microphone. The battery lasts me 4 to 5 days with moderate use. Sometimes the meter seems to tell me the battery is almost empty, when I may have 10-15 minutes of talk time left. I find this helpful because I never actually run the battery to empty, I am warned far in advance and have more warning to get the battery charged. Negatives: The number one negative of this phone is that it is a little too large as a phone, and a little too small as a PDA in comparison to the rest of the market. The phone is much larger than other phones and the PDA is a little smaller than other PDAs. I personally like the size of the PDA and do not feel that the size makes it harder to use, and I also don't find the phone to be to large to carry. I do understand that some people feel it is to big; I just feel that many people see the size and automatically discount it because they feel it is too large. Once you start using this phone, you will notice the size is not much of a negative. I quickly learned the size is just about right. I agree that some of the smaller phones may be slightly easier to carry, but they certainly can't come close to matching the Smartphone's features. The Smartphone may be a little heavier, but it is a lot more useful. I also like the size because the PDA portion fits right in the palm of my hand and is light to hold. I have also found that like most palms, the PDA sometimes needs to be reset, but that is mostly during long durations on the web. Conclusion: Overall, I would rate this device as very good. It certainly makes my life easier, and helps me remember important events. It also allows me to check mail and websites very easily. I have found the palm system of entering letters is much easier than typing on a phone keypad. I had to practice for a few days, but now I have no problems writing long or short texts. I also enjoy loading new software onto the Smartphone. When my friends ask me if my phone does this or that, I explain that it does, and if it didn't, I could simply go online and download that program. I have added a few games and other useful tools. I think anyone would enjoy this phone as long as the price is right and they are in need of a palm pilot. I paid $100 and would not pay more that twice that considering there are some great new phone/PDA combos that trump the Smartphone (the new Palm Tungsten is one that comes to mind). This phone has been out for quite a few months, so better and better phone/PDA combos are being released. But, for around $100, I doubt there is anything that comes close. I just wanted a high-quality phone and an intro level palm, that is exactly what I got. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99.00 86975 2002/6/15 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 functionality palm os flexibility not color no expansion capability big The Bottom LineA great combination of PDA and phone in a package that is just a little bit too large. Full Review I had a cell phone. I had a Palm OS PDA. I loved the PDA, but found I didn't use it enough, because I simply would not carry both the phone and the PDA everywhere. Then it happened. My cell phone broke. So, I picked up the Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone from my local Verizon store. After discounts and rebates, the phone cost $99. An amazing bargain for this device The Smartphone integrates a fully functioning Palm OS PDA with a cell phone. And the integration is good. You can access your phone book and make calls directly from there. Very handy. In addition the device features all the functions you would find in a typical PDA, including calendar, notepad, etc. And, since it is a Palm PDA there are thousands of programs you can load onto the phone when you sync it up with your computer. (A serial port sync. cradle is included). As a phone, the Smartphone works well. I have had no complaints with sound quality or reception. It's a perfectly fine phone. So far, I love using it. And, I find I use the PDA functions much more now than I did when I used both a phone and a PDA. It's very handy. One key feature of the phone is the ability to access the internet and check e-mail. You can use Eudora mail to get POP mail, and can access the web with Eudora web, or Avantgo, which was included with the Verizon software package. So, in a sense, this device combines a phone, a PDA, and even Blackberryesque access to email. (Though there is no thumb keyboard...you must use Graffitti style handwriting). The main downside of the phone is that it is huge. It's barely small enough to fit in your pocket, but it is much bulkier than a typical cell phone. There are smaller PDA/phones available, but not for the Verizon CDMS network. Nokia's Communicator and Handspring's Treo phones work on GMS networks, so are unavailable for Verizon customers. The screen is not color. And the backlighting is not the best. Furthermore, there is no way to expand the memory in the unit. The design of the phone is slightly odd. The screen is exposed, and I would definitely reccomend a protective case such as E&B Company's Slipper. Also, the ringer (which is customizable) is not very loud and can easily be missed in a noisy environment. Overall, the Smartphone is a smart way to combine multiple devices into one slightly large unit. And, in truth, that's a pretty good tradeoff. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86974 2000/9/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability2.0 Clarity1.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 a pdaphone all in one big anything but hassle free clunky The Bottom LineThe greatest invention since the laptop. Portability-telecom and digital information. Just be sure to double check on the service you'll get with it... it's not always worth it's weight! Full Review What happens when you leave a Palm-Pilot, some scented candles, a little Marvin Gaye playing in the background, and Kyocera's uncanny knack for cell phones? The Kyocera QCP 6035 - All in one PDA-Cell Phone. I have to admit, when I first opened the box I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. The smell of electronic parts and the glimmer of clear-coated plastic covers. It was the most amazing site I had ever seen. The Kyocera 6035 is a great toy for the novice, and a powerhouse all in one for the busy-on-the-go professional. Want to fax a document or send an email? Open the phone to reveal the palm pilot scratch pad. Take out the stylus, grafitti your message and send away. It's pretty much that simple. It's better than having a Palm VII, because you don't have to pay the insane price of wireless web... you'll already do that with your phone service. Of course, the pure excitement of having a palm pilot is enough to make you want to run out and buy a 6035 - but don't jump the gun just yet. I bought mine through Sprint PCS. Strike number one. Not only do they have the worst coverage, but their customer service also lacks a certain... helpfulness. I spent more time on the phone with them than with clients on my cell phone. When I tried to finally make a call on my phone, I was told that the software on the phone was outdated. Strike number two. When I tried to take it to the service center to update the phone... they told me they didn't have the hardware to update it. It's such a new phone on the Sprint network, they aren't even equipped to handle them. Strike three. Needless to say, I sold my phone on ebay for almost what I paid for it (Sprint wouldn't buy it back from me). Although I do miss the fantastic combination of a palm and cell phone all in one, I don't miss not being able to make calls. So I'll carry my palm pilot, AND I'll carry my cell phone - it's almost worth the weight. Maybe mine was an isolated incident. There aren't really enough of these running around right now (maybe because of the price). But I would bet that in a few years, there will be better phones, with better reception and better quality overall. My advice? Good things come to those who wait. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 399.99 86973 2000/7/26 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating2.0 great idea palm os was an excellent addition horrible contacts poor design The Bottom LineGo out, spend $150 on a good wireless phone, $200 on a Palm Pilot, and $60 for a connection kit. Same results, $90 less. Full Review When we heard the Kyrocera was coming out with a wireless phone with a fully functional Palm-style organizer in it, we were both, excited and worried. Excited that someone actually made a wireless phone, with the Palm OS built into it, allowing handwritten technology, and countless applications that can be added to the already expansive catalog of applications that come built in. Worried since 2035 and other phones that Kyrocea (formerly Qualcomm) has released didn't prove to be the quality that Qualcomm, the leader in CDMA technology, is capable of. The phone itself has a good speakerphone, though half-duplex, allowing you to have the phone in your lap, on your desk, and have a conversation without having to hold it up to your ear. Given the size and weight of the phone, that can be a very positive addition. The extra-large display, though smaller than those on the Palm Pilot and other PDAs, is huge compared to most wireless phones. This allows easy navigation though a wireless web and organizer features such as scheduler and phonebook. The biggest drawback that I've seen is the quality of the flip, and contacts on the flip and battery. The flip itsel seems weak and could break very easily with little effort. The contacts, on the other hand, seem to wear down in an amazingly short amount of time. If these contacts wear down, then you lose something. If the contacts wear down on the battery, then you might not get a good connection between the battery and phone, causing frequent poweroffs. The contacts on the flip tell the phone to turn off the Palm feature and turn on the phone. If they wear down, you'll always have the Palm features active and won't be able to use the phone (you will, but it will be difficult). Some contacts have worn down in as little as 3 weeks after purchase. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 500 86972 2000/10/25 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 all in one device backlight weight form factor The Bottom LineThe Swiss Army Knife of phones. Extremely useful device, mixing Palm & cell phone technologies seamlessly. Full Review 10/25/01I was at Office Depot last week and was browsing the cell phone aisle. I saw this phone and then glanced at the price tag, assuming I would see a price range of around $400. Holy Cow! It's only $229 now! I'll take it! Whipped out my card & took this gem home. Firstly, I thought it was sensible to get this because lately I've been hooking up my Palm m100 and my Samsung 6100 cell phone together to use the browser on the Palm. Although it worked, all those cables I had to tote around in my purse, plus the Palm and the cell as well, rather irritated me and took up too much space in my already crowded purse. The 6035 surely solved that problem. Now I only have ONE device to tote around. And people who see me using this phone always curiously peek over my shoulder, fascinated by the gadget. I feel like a secret agent. Let me get the bad stuff out of the way first. Size Ok, the SmartPhone is no Nokia 8290 for sure. It definitely is bulky at 7.3oz, similar to those older type cell phones from a few years back. But it definitely is smaller than the original Qualcomm pdQ, aka "the Brick phone". BacklightWhen I first turned on the backlight, I was hoping for an indiglo type of light. Instead, I was disappointed to see the inverted green on black lighting that I found so irritating on my Palm m100. This lighting is only good in really dark places, not for medium/dim lighting, such as in your car in the early evening. There are numerous hacks, however, that are found at www.palmgear.com that will take care of this lighting and invert it to the indiglo-esque black-on-green lighting. I've tried one of them (Backlight Hack) and it's a little buggy but it works. Radiation/SAR rating Sorry to say but this phone's not exactly low on SAR either at 1.41W/kg in digital mode. Yes the correlation of cell phones and cancer has not been proven yet but still. You may want to invest in a handsfree headset like I did (go with Plantronics or Jabra) or you can even use the convenient speakerphone on the 6035. What a nice addition. Serial sync cable I use an iBook dual USB, not dual Serial, mind you. It would have been very nice of the people at Kyocera to have thought ahead and made the sync cable/cradle's plug a USB instead of a serial. I have to use a USB/serial adapter to sync. Though it works, it is very slow. Sigh. I guess we can't have everything we want. Now for the good stuff. And trust me, there are plenty of good things to say about this device. I think of this phone kind of like a Swiss Army Knife. You can do so many useful things with it. Importantly, the address book is integrated with the cell phone so all you have to do is tap on a phone number and the palm will instantly dial it for you; you can initiate calls with the flip open or closed. The wireless modem inside is set at the basic speed of 14,400kbps. (I wonder if this phone will qualify for the 3G system in the future...hm..). It is a bit slow but gets the job done. The Eudora web browser which came with the phone works pretty well, although I am thinking of downloading the Handspring Blazer's new browser, which is getting good reviews. Make sure you have plenty of minutes in your plan when you get this baby online. So if you ever wondered "what am I ever going to do with 2500 night & weekend minutes?", well, here's your answer :) The phone goes into sleep/standby mode after a few minutes of inactivity, greatly extending battery life. This is a good thing. I've had the phone on for about 4 days and it still has 3 out of 4 bars of battery juice left. My only gripe is when it does put itself to sleep, I have to hit the backlight button on top to see what time it is or if I've missed any calls. The 6035 is also pretty rugged and sturdy. Mine already took a fall once and it survived without a scratch on it :) It still works fine. (Now I don't suggest you all drop yours to prove me wrong...) This phone is definitely a cure for boredom. You can download so many games, it's kind of like a mini gameboy. I have the Blocks/Tetris game i play when i wait in line forever at the bank...or I also read through my personalized Avantgo web clippings which i find very useful/entertaining. No more coffee & newspaper. Coffee & Kyocera's more like it now. If you've ever been in that situation where you need a paper & pen handy but can never find any around, look no further than this phone. You can quickly jot down your thoughts, lists, ideas, reminders, etc. onto the phone's memo pad. Simply flip the phone open, hit the memo button & jot away. The DateBook app works nicely as well and has alarms you can set for reminders. As far as the phone utilities go, speed dial, voice dial (30 entries), voice memo and speaker phone are all included. However, you must separately program your speed/voice dial entries. They are not part of the address book. The speaker phone is useful but is best used with the volume set to medium. At the loudest setting, the sound sounds quite shrill and piercing. Receptionwise, the phone holds it fairly well. It even competes with my Samsung 6100 b.k. (before Kyocera!! haha) which always had great signal. Sound quality from the earpiece is also very good and solid. A basic 2.5mm jack will also work with this phone so you don't have to worry about special adapters. Different ringtones can be set for specific people in your address book. The default ringtones however are, well, boring! They almost all sound alike. You can download new ringtones at: http://downloads.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=22002520010622181523%20&prodID=15613 http://downloads.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=22002520010622181523%20&prodID=15613 both sites are from www.palmgear.com. Note that the ringers are not very loud so most of the time, I am forced to stick with the Standard ring, which is the loudest. You can also create your own ringtones by signing up for the SDK (software developers kit) at the kyocera site, but it's for PC's only. I am a MAC USER!! =\ If you really want to stay up to date on this phone, I will suggest a very helpful and active forum. http://www.qcp6035.com is the unofficial homepage of the Kyocera 6035 smartphone. There you can ask all the questions and get all the answers you want. Right now, there are about 800 members. Sign up like I did! These are most of the pros about this phone. I might end up writing a novel if I write any more. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase. At $500, it was still a bit too high for me to consider. But at the price of $229, I quickly grabbed it. I highly recommend it to the gadget geek who needs another cool gadget to buy or to those who are willing to ditch their palm & cells and want to combine the two. This is a wonderful integrated device that kills two birds with one "phone." Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 229 86971 2000/8/3 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wireless internet access palmwireless phone in one unit wish it were even smaller minutes go quickly while surfing be careful The Bottom LineThis is the best if you want to reduce the number of devices you carry and access the Net and e-mail. Full Review Kyocera has come up with a winner in the 6035 Palm OS Smartphone. Imagine the functionality of a Palm VIIx wedded to a tri-band digital wireless phone, and you've got the 6035. It's triband: it can make CDMA, PCS and analog phone connections, as well as acting as a wireless CDMA modem supporting the TCP/IP protocol. You can use this phone to access the Internet both as a modem for your laptop and you can also use it as a wireless Palm PDA, a la the Palm VIIx, VisorPhone or Omnisky, to access the Internet directly as a wireless PDA. Very cool! And pages download faster than they do with a Palm VIIx. Open the flip, and you have a fully functional Palm OS PDA. The device has all (and I mean ALL!) the features of a Palm PDA: graffiti handwriting recognition, datebook, contacts, memo pad, to do and expense. If you've used a Palm, the Kyocera will be completely familiar to you in PDA mode. The unit is about the same length as a Palm VIIx, but noticably narrower, and a bit thicker. It has 8 megs of memory, and works with most all Palm OS shareware (including hacks) I've tried. Voice quality is excellent, and connections are reliable. Voice dialing works very well, and you can store 30 voice dial numbers (there are regular speed dial numbers too). You can also dial numbers from your Palm address book too- you don't have to enter them separately into the phone thanks to a good integration job. Battery life has been awesome for me-- I use the phone/PDA a decent amount, and charge it only 2x/week. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86970 2000/5/18 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 combines phone pim fax net all in one device none The Bottom LineIf you want an organizer and a phone, this is cheaper and easier to use. Full Review I've been carrying a cell phone, Palm V, and a modem for the Palm for the past two years. I travel a lot and liked the amount of information I could get with that configuration, but was frustrated by the poor quality of the AT&T system and the OmniSky wireless net. In addition, all the power cords for the various devices were cumbersome to carry and difficult considering the lack of outlets in most hotel rooms. Along comes the Kyocera Smartphone. I was wary of the price, and assumed the Verizon system would be just as frustrating to me as AT&T system. I was also apprehensive of changing my cell number. Let me tell you that all my concerns were for naught. First, the Verizon system is incredible. I have been using the system for two weeks now and I have not dropped ONE call. I used it from Maine to DC and have NEVER had problems getting a signal. Contrast that to AT&T where I would lose a call at least three or four times a DAY, and couldn't get a signal in the town where they are based. As far as my new cell number, all I did was change the AT&T plan to the $29/month plan and change my message to let my contacts know that the number had changed. No problems with that so far. Now, as for the phone itself. It's about the 50% bigger than the Nokia 5150, the phone you see everywhere. It's about 50% heavier too. If small is important to you and you don't have need of a Palm, this phone will be a disappointment to you. It's about 50% smaller and lighter than the Palm V/Ministrel modem combo or the Palm VII. So, in the grand scheme of things, if you need a phone and a Palm, this is actually smaller. The features are incredible, and yes, to agree with another reviewer the learning curve is a bit steep, even for someone who has been using Palms and the like for years. Unfortunately, I don't think they could have made it any easier to learn. It took me about 2 hours to get all the stuff set up the way I wanted it. Some of the cooler features include: Integration with your PIM info so that you can tap on a number and have it dialed. You can also save info directly to your PIM as you enter it. Let's say you get a call from someone not in your database. After the call, the phone asks you if you want to save the number, you click "save", and enter the contact information. Also when you dial a number you can do the same thing. No more writing down numbers on scratch pads. Voice and Speed Dial. You can enter frequently dialed numbers either as a Speed Dial or a Voice Dial. Hit the call button and speak the name and the phone dials the number. Internet and email. Eudora comes packaged with the phone, for an additional $6 a month, as compared to $39.95 a month for OmniSky. You can access MORE sites than I could with the Palm/OmniSky combo. You can access any email account with the exception of boxes behind firewalls. Alerts. With the internet package, you get access to myvzn.com, a neat web site that lets you set up alerts on any number of subjects. Every morning my phone beeps and tells me the weather, how my stocks are doing, and what the Red Sox score was. You get 100 alerts per month for free and it costs $0.10 for each extra. Data/Fax modem. The phone is equipped to be used as a data/fax modem, which is great if you travel with a laptop and can't access a phone line. I can now dial up my company's intranet directly from my car. All in all, the phone is a breakthrough. If you have a Palm or like organizer and a phone, this phone will make your life a lot easier. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86969 2000/12/6 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 compatibility with palmsthier applications good data storage internet connectivity large screen size monochromatic screen no downloadable ringtones The Bottom LineThe Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone is an ingenious combination of a palm and cell that provides users the power of the Internet and the functionality of a cell phone. Full Review It was midnight and I was standing at a train station wondering how I was going to get home. After calling a few disconnected taxi phone lines I knew that I was in a rut. That is when I first realized the true potential of the Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone. Using the phone's Internet capabilities, I accessed AOL Instant Messenger and was able to contact some friends who were then able to pick me up. This is just one of the many times the Kyocera QCP 6035 has saved me from trouble. This invention is clearly the first step in the new direction of the cellular business. I would recommend this phone to those who travel yet wish to stay connected with the world. The Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone is an ingenious combination of a palm pilot and cell phone that provides the user with the power of the Internet as well as the functionality of a cell phone. Being the first of its kind makes it revolutionary, but also curses the QCP 6035 with many drawbacks. If one looks around at almost any social gathering, he will notice a trend. Nearly everyone has a cell phone. From teens to the elderly, owning a cellular phone is almost the norm, and the more features one has the better. With hundreds of models to choose from and with each, a multitude of functions, choosing the right phone is difficult. The Kyocera Smartphone makes this choice easy. It has more features than most cellular phones on the market, and usage is not complicated like in other phones. Certain features stand out above the rest, giving the QCP 6035 its uniqueness from other models. The feature I use the most is the speakerphone option. With the touch of a button, the Smartphone converts into a speakerphone, working when the flip is both open or closed. I have used this option many times when driving or having conference calls and have found it easy to use with little distraction. Another feature, which can be combined with the speakerphone option, is voice-activated dialing. With this feature, the buttons on the keypad become a thing of the past. I have used this feature when in speakerphone mode and have found it to be very reliable. The voice recognition software within the phone does a good job of accurately recognizing the user's voice. Lastly, the feature I most enjoy about the Kyocera QCP 6035, though it is nothing spectacular, is the ability to make preset ring tones. With the incorporation of the address book, one can assign different ringers for different address groups. Thus, when a person from a certain group calls, the QCP 6035 will ring with a different tone, giving the user some idea of whom the caller is without having to answer. This can be beneficial when one does not want to respond to girlfriends, bosses, or coworkers. Though the features described are only the tip of the iceberg compared to the rest of the features the phone has, they are certainly the most useful. Another trend that has grown in the past 5 years is the use of PDAs. People ranging from college students to CEO's have been known to use these devices to manage their busy schedules. Kyocera saw this trend and incorporated it into their design for the Kyocera Smartphone. Recognizing the burden many on the go businessmen have when carrying both their cell and their PDA, Kyocera made it much easier for them. The QCP 6035 is run with a Palm Operating System, making the phone similar to a Palm V. Combined with the cellular capabilities, this lets one access the Internet and use numerous web products. PC applications such as ICQ, AIM, and even email can be accessed through the Smartphone's PDA interface. This has been one of my favorite features, since it allows one to be connected to the Internet even while traveling. Another feature that the palm side of the phone offers is data storage. This is extremely useful since whole word or excel documents can be stored on the phone, edited, and later transferred through serial or infrared connections. Up to 8 MB can be held within the Kyocera Smartphone's memory, making this a potential predecessor to the future of miniature computing. The last palm side feature that I enjoy is the phone's compatibility with other palm products. It would have been easy for Kyocera to create this phone and make it run off of their own operating system and be only compatible with their products, but instead they took the extra step. The Kyocera Smartphone can share data and use applications made for regular PDAs. Thus, one can go onto the Internet from their PC, and download numerous programs, games, and applications right onto the phone with no problems. Then, they can even beam these applications from the phone to a friend's Handspring. The use of the Palm Operating System gives the QCP 6035 its power over most phones on the market. Its Internet capability and data storage blow any regular Nokia or Motorola out of the water in the competition for connectivity. But, where the QCP 6035 has power, it also has weakness. Taking a task of combining a palm pilot and a cellular phone has its benefits as well as its disadvantages. Where Kyocera succeeded in creating a product that has numerous features that no other phone had upon its release, they parted from the current trends in phone design. One aspect of the QCP 6035 that has received complaints is the phone's size. Though it is understandable that a large size is needed in order to have a phone that has a PDA screen, there are alternatives. One idea may be to use the Motorola Two-Way approach; and have the QCP 6035 split in half allowing for more screen area, but less phone size. The size of the outer shell around the PDA screen can also be decreased making it resemble its new competitor, the Samsung SPH-I300. Another aspect of the Smartphone that can be improved on is its monochromatic screen. Since the thrill of black and white computing died decades ago with the invention of color, the same is true for monochrome. The new Samsung SPH-I300 has incorporated a color screen on its palm enabled phone, giving its users a more lively computing experience as opposed to the dull grayscale images on the Kyocera. Lastly, the final aspect of the Kyocera Smartphone that disappoints me is the lack of ring tones. An increasing business that plays off of the cellular market is the sale of ring tones. Many phones on the market allow for the downloading of ring tones; letting users hear their favorite song when they are called. Unfortunately, the Kyocera Smartphone is not compatible with this feature. It only allows for 10 standard ring tones, clearly not enough for those who want variety in their life. 10 ringers can get boring after months of use, fortunately the 6035 has a vibrate function. While the Kyocera does have some problems to it, its usefulness outweighs the hassle. For being the first of its kind, the Kyocera Smartphone successfully reaches the task set before its creators in being a sturdy palm enabled phone. The Kyocera Smartphone is definitely a requirement for anyone that needs to be connected to the world while on the move. Its web capabilities and awesome phone features have kept me out of numerous unpleasant situations; in my opinion, making it a reliable utility to everyday life. The phone itself has all the features of the top models out, and the compatibility of a Palm V. This gives it a strong edge over most phones on the market. Unfortunately, newer models are coming out and technology is improving, making the 6035 moving toward the obsolete bin. Since it has not reached that stage yet, and its price is dropping, now is the time to buy. I highly recommend the Kyocera Smartphone, it is the perfect combination of a palm pilot and a cellular phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86968 2001/6/19 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity2.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating2.0 palm pdacellphone in one isn t tightly integrated The Bottom LineYou don't need it. :) Full Review Although having a palm PDA embedded in the phone is nice, there's nothing wrong with carrying a palm AND a cell phone. What you get with this phone is mere convenience, nothing more. The main problem with this phone is the Palm operating system. If you're not familar with Palm, the OS is single threaded. This means that only 1 application can run at a time. Also, when you're online using the Palm PDA, the phone is useless (incoming calls go to your mailbox). And vice versa, if you're using the cell phone, you can't go online. When the dialpad is folded and the phone is in "phone" mode, the PDA is unaccessible. In order to access the palm PDA, you need to unfold the dialpad. If you go to your address book and decide to dial one of your contacts, the phone starts to dial and the PDA shows a dialing status screen, and you can't do anything else on the PDA. If you call Bob and want to tell him Alice's phone number on your PDA, forget it! You have to hang up before you can get to your address book again-- single threaded OS means one application at a time. What is the REAL advantage of having an integrated PDA into the phone? Only convenience. But the disadvantage is clear: 1) You can't upgrade the phone without throwing out the PDA. 2) You can't get a better PDA without throwing out the phone. Otherwise you're carrying 2 PDAs. I'm not a fan of Palm PDAs. I think Pocket PCs are better--- they're color, have clear crisp displays, and you can read books comfortably (yes I've read complete books on a Compaq IPAQ and the difference is BIG). The Palm display is like your old CGA monitors (the backlit display is a complete joke! Use the backlit display if you like your eyes being poked by hot burning coals). You can see block artifacts on the fonts. To make it worse, the screen of the SmartPhone is actually SMALLER than a regular palm ! In a nutshell, I'd personally prefer to carry a palm and a cellphone rather than the smartphone. The smartphone is nice and cool when you first get it, but once the technology high wears off, it's just an expensive convenience. Recommended: No Amount Paid (US$): 400 86967 2000/2/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 it s one device that has a lot of functionalitya good battery life no color display bulky ringer is a little soft The Bottom LineIf you need a palm and a phone don't get two devices, get one. Get the Kyocera QCP 6035! Full Review After spending two hours in the store, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the phone. Fairly pricey for a normal phone at $400, it is not that bad a deal serving as two devices in one package. The size took a little getting used to after a series of small phones I had before. Despite it being a bigger than other phones, I can often leave it in the front pocket of my jeans without much distraction. I was easily able to deal with the size of the phone once I got to the functionality. I downloaded a ton of palm applications (check out www.download.com, www.palm.net) and synched up my address book from outlook. I now had over 300+ contacts to call or email. The Kyocera works similarly to a Palm VII with similar wireless capabilities. I could download my POP3 email, use ThinAirApps to read my Hotmail account, get driving directions (did this only once; it's a little cumbersome), check my stocks(ouch!), and shop on Amazon (also a little cumbersome). I found it most helpful for occasionally checking email on the road. I am not an expert in graffiti(the Palm method of writing) so I could not compose messages very quickly, but I could easily check for new messages and respond if required. I loved the extra storage in my address book. Older phones required me to eliminate numbers that I rarely used only making it impossible to keep a very large address book. With the Kyocera I can hold hundreds (thousands probably) names and numbers. An additional benefit is that I have backed up all my info on my computer. With an old phone Sprint erased all 100 names and numbers on my phone and all they did was say 'sorry'. With the ability to synch that won't happen again. Another great thing is the battery life. With other phones I had to charge every night or live without a phone for a few hours. With this Kyocera, I can talk and talk and still have battery left over for the next day. Also, when you enter stuff on your palm or check stuff on your palm while on the phone you can use a speaker phone to keep the conversation going. That works well when looking at your schedule or looking up another number. It also works well in a loud area, such as a train station or bar. All in all I have been very happy with my phone and am content with keeping it for a while. I still have a little phone envy when I see the new Samsung color model or the slim V phone from Motorola. But for the most part I love my phone. The downsides, if I had to name them include the size, the fact that the screen isn't color, the occasional scratches on the screen, the signal (more Sprint than the phone I presume), and the ringer. That last one could be good, except for the volume. The ringer is customizable. I have the James Bond theme on occasionally. The downside is that the volume is low even at its highest setting. When it is sitting in my pocket while I am watching a TV show it can be hard to hear. That's it. Nathaniel Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 400 86966 2002/5/31 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 wireless web that is useful no need to carry 2 items pda phone big for a phone The Bottom LineThe combination of Palm and phone with wireless web access is tough to beat. I continue to be amazed at what this product is capable of. Full Review I've been waiting for years for someone to combine a full-function PDA with a cell phone. As much as I wanted to always have my PDA with me, I just couldn't bring myself to carry around another black (or silver) box. I've owned Palms and WinCE devices, but they have never managed to be enough a part of me to warrant the extra baggage. Now Kyocera has created a Palm Pilot with a phone attached, and it is everything I could have asked for. The Good ======== 1. The Palm OS & applications are the same as any other Palm OS device on the market, including the wireless web options on the Palm VII. This allows you to run any Palm application on your phone. You either like the Palm OS or you don't, and I don't want to get into that discussion in this review. But the fact that you can run any of the 100s of apps out there is a big plus. 2. Phone-PDA integration is very good. I can dial from my (huge) contact list, Calendar reminders pop up on the phone display, etc. I'm a programmer, and I must say that the team responsible for the integration of phone & palm did an admirable job. When the lid is closed, you can use the buttons on the side to scroll through contacts, etc. When the lid is open, you can use your normal palm apps to select a number to dial. There aren't many ways to couple phone and palm that aren't supported. 3. I have seen other reviews that talk about how the Palm's "single thread OS" means you can't do two things at once. Specifically how you can't talk on the phone and use the Palm functions and vice versa. This is hogwash. Yes, the OS is single threaded. But I have no problem receiving calls while in the middle of a palm operation or flipping open the phone to look up someone else's phone number while on the phone. The one thing you can't do is surf the wireless web while on the phone, since both talking and surfing use the same phone connection (duh!) 4. Many phones talk about being "web enabled", but with the tiny displays they are essentially useless. The web clipping apps written for the Palm VII work wonderfully on this phone and are quite useful (and cover a wide variety of real-time data). Check out http://wireless.palm.net/apps/ for more info. 5. Battery life is better than I expected, as long as I'm not in analog roam. If the phone goes dead, the Palm still works for quite some time (it requires less power). Eventually it, too, will give up the ghost, but I haven't had that happen yet. I have successfully run the Palm for more than an hour after the phone was out of juice. 6. Phone can be used as a 14.4 wireless modem (assuming your service supports this). This is great when you don't have a local ISP number and the hotel wants to charge you $10/minute for long distance. I put my phone in the cradle, told it to be a modem, and used my laptop to access the web. Okay, it's a bit slow at 14.4 but better than 56K at $10/minute. (This is no joke, the hotel really charged that much). The Bad and the Ugly ==================== 1. The phone is rather large compared to most of today's ultra-compact cell phones, but not much larger than a typical palm pilot. 2. Early versions had some reliability problems with the flip contact points, but this seems to have been rectified. I wear my phone everywhere without a case, and it is holding up fine (I've had it for 3 months now, so it remains to be seen how it holds up after a year or two). 3. You can't (currently) use any existing Palm hardware add-ons such as keyboards or GPS units since the cradle interface is different. I'm not sure why Kyocera did this, but if you're expecting to use one of these peripherals you will be disappointed. 4. Not all services support this phone. Sprint and Verizon do, and I'm living with Sprint service which I have mixed emotions about (see my Sprint review). But the phone performs well, and seems to be better at picking up weak signals than my previous Sprint phone (a Sanyo). 5. There is a bug that causes occasional synchronization errors if you are syncing with Microsoft Outlook. If you lookup a phone number from the phone interface (as opposed to the palm interface), the next time you sync you get an error message. To clear this up, you must do a warm reset on the phone. No data is lost, but this is a bit annoying. Kyocera/Sprint are supposedly working on a fix, but it is not yet available. I don't know if the same bug bites those who use Verizon. Final Thought ============= If you've always wanted a PDA with you at all times, but didn't want to carry two boxes; or if you carry both a phone and PDA, you owe it to yourself to check this phone out. If you are waiting for a smaller version, well let's face it. A Palm OS device can only get so small and still be usable. The display has to be large enough to read, and you need to be able to write/tap accurately. So barring some significant technology leap, they won't be getting much smaller. One last thing. Shop carefully for price. I bought my phone for $399, then found it on sale for $250 (!!!!) (and was refunded the difference --- Go OfficeMax!). A friend paid $499. Best Buy has it for around $375. So do your homework. UPDATE: I've seen this phone as low as $100 at Amazon.com, and that is BEFORE the new user rebate of $70! If you are a newcomer to Sprint (or are adding an additional "line"), you can get this baby for $30 after rebates. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 250 86965 2001/4/19 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 best of breed successfully offers phonepalm functionality in a handy solution eudora internet browsing does not support online secure transactions The Bottom LineThis is the best reason to buy a wireless phone.The palm functions as a regular palm.The phone has all the novelties. Full Review Assuming you are a very busy person, I will attempt to point the features and advantages of this palm phone, the best of its kind so far, in a very concise manner. Verizon Wireless first introduced this device in the market on March 5, for $499. It is the most recent attempt to merge a palm and a phone into one handy solution. If you are into really small phones, this is not for you. However, it is a better phone than the Qualcomm pdQ, lighter, shorter and thinner. Its featured with all the novelties of today's wireless phones plus many more attributes that differentiate it from the rest. The palm is what makes this a jewel. You can use it while the phone is off. You just flip down the keypad and the palm turns on. This phone includes a headset, which makes talking and consulting your palm a real nice experience. The palm has all the features of a regular Palm, although the screen is just a bit smaller, but it does not mean that you won't see all the information there. It is simply compacted and therefore smaller. But hey, it is fair since you are meshing a palm with a phone. Increasing the size will turn this into a big phone, and I am sure the designers tried as best they could to balance the size with the performance of the screen of the palm This phone enables the best Internet browsing and email access of its kind, through a Eudora configuration. Besides, many applications including American Airlines flight search, E*Trade stock program and others can be downloaded and supported by the Kyocera 6035. From the charging cradle, connecting through any other PC, palm, etc, you can synchronize data or programs. You can also exchange information with any other palm by beaming. You can access the address book from the palm or from the phone menu, which is controlled by a dial on the right side. Downside: the Eudora browser does not support secure transactions, yet. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86964 2000/5/26 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 isp access all in one convenience features speaker phone not too usable big The Bottom LineThis phone represents all the functionality of a full featured cell. Full Review I got this through Verizon for $100 (after rebates). For this price, this is great product. Of course you have to ask yourself if this unit is going to suit your needs. I was looking at a phone that would provide good telephone services as well as organizational features the internet accessibility is a big bonus. Phone quality. The quality is excellent. The incoming sound is good and the clarity from the phone is also exceptional. My wife and I each have a phone and we are able to communicate on the phones as if we were on regular telephones. The signal strength has been much better with this phone than my old Audiovox (where I would frequently drop out at my own house). Palm features The 6035 is a full featured Palm Pilot with OS 3.5 and 8mb of ram. 8 is not infinite, and unfortunately there is no way to upgrade, but it is enough for a lot of custom software downloads as well as organization space. The screen is slightly more narrow than a standard Palm, but I am finding that the unit is fairly sizeable as is. I think the current size is a good balance between portability and usability. To get your palm software, just go to Palm.com and go to the software section. Download the software to your PC and hotsync your phone. This will install the software on the phone for you. It's a snap! Internet / Data This phone connects me to my Earthlink account without problems. So I can access all the internet services without paying the monthly Verizon web charge… Nice! I have been able to send and receive my Pop email using the Eudora software. I have even used the Eudora web software (built-in) to access my Yahoo mail. The screen is sufficiently large that browsing text heavy sites is a snap. This is excellent news for those of you that are train commuters and like reading newpapers or other text heavy sites online. It also comes with AvantGo, which lets you download webpages and hotsync (download it from your PC) to get the pages while not wasting any minutes at all. The "clickable" wheel on the side of the phone is great. It features like a scroller on a wheel mouse. Other features It has two way text messaging ability. You can assign different rings to different callers. It has caller-id. It has speaker phone, but the quality is not terribly good. It has a headset jack though which is handy. The wheel on the side of the phone allows for quick access of the phones features. It has voice memo, that can save as many memos as you need (up to 8 mb at least). Summary This phone represents all the functionality of a full featured cell. It also does well integrating the features of the palm pilot with the phone (text messaging and quick dialing). It is a bit on the large side, but I can live with it. You will have to figure out if you can sacrifice the cute little package for the functionality that the size also confers. If you need a PalmPilot and a cell phone and don't want to deal with having to carry around both this phone is a great buy. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86963 2004/5/23 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 nice all in one package great features heavy poor backlighting The Bottom LineIf you need a PDA and a wireless phone, the Kyocera packages both very nicely. In this scenario, I would highly recommend it. Full Review I came across the Kyocera Smartphone while trying to find a PDA/Digital Phone combination for my boss. After narrowing my choices down to the Kyocera, I called our wireless vendor and he brought one over for us to demo for a couple of weeks. With the optional sync cradle, I was able to sync up my boss' Contacts, Calendar, Memos, and Tasks in his Microsoft Outlook profile on his desktop PC with the Kyocera. The software selected the wrong COM port during the install, but I easily changed it in the software settings. The Eudora Web Mail took several emails to the wireless vendor's IT department to get it working. It probably would have gone smoother if I had gone into one of their local retail stores and had a staff member configure it instead of trying to wing it myself. The phone reception is great, and I love the voice recognition dialing and speakerphone. The size of the phone takes a little getting used to, but that's one of the trade-offs for combining a PDA with a phone. If you're nervous about accidentally pressing a key while holding or wearing the phone, you can activate the keypad by pressing the backlight button at the top of the phone. There seems to be a "sweet spot" in pressing the button to activate the guard, but practice makes perfect. Even with the keyguard activated, you can still answer an incoming call and end it. While on the backlight button, the backlighting quality has room from improvement. The blueish glow reminds me of the early Casio digital watches that came out. The PDA functions are like most Palm Pilots. The Palm is instantly on when you flip the lid open even if the phone is turned off. This is especially nice if you are in an environment where cell phones must be off but you need to access information on your PDA. Despite the added features of the Kyocera, battery life is very good. By the way, the sync cradle has a spot to charge an extra battery even if the phone is in the cradle too. However, only one item will charge at a time. If you're looking for a way to keep from becoming a "Motorola Cowboy" with a phone and PDA hanging from your belt, then check out the Kyocera. If you already have an existing account with a wireless provider, ask if you can demo the phone for a few days. If don't plan on using the full functionality of the PDA, pass on this phone. It would be like driving down to the corner store for a gallon of milk in a tractor trailer when the family sedan would do. UPDATE 5/2004: After using this phone for over a year, I decided to switch to something smaller and lighter. The Kyocera ran flawlessly during ownership and was feature rich but other than sync-ing up with Outlook on my office PC, I never used the Palm features. The phone's weight became too much for me to live with on my belt so I ended up leaving the phone in the car. What phone did I switch to? Samsung i600 through Verizon. The size is much better, and it's not as heavy as my Kyocera but the ActiveSync software regularly bombs on my Windows 2000 PC and I have to keep reinstalling it. I have yet to use the MS Smartphone features it comes with. Once my company is done paying for this one, I'm switching to a much simpler LG phone like my wife has. I've come to the conclusion that all I really need are my list of contacts and a calendar packed into a lightweight phone that's not so small that it feels like I'm holding a toothbrush handle with my 2 fingers and a thumb. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 350Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable 86962 2000/4/3 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 fantastic features expensive horrible company to deal with for support slightly bulky The Bottom LineThrow away your Palm/Handspring your phone attachments and your cell phone and BUY THIS! You'll gain the freedom that you were suppose to obtain from the other products. Full Review Well, after many months of trying to figure out how I can get my database for my cell phone and my Palm (actually a Handspring) be the same...I figured out...It can't be done, easily. Now, before you going starting up Virtual PC and launching Outlook Express with a database that you emailed to yourself & imported just so you could sync using FoneSync or something... I've got a suggestion. I bought yesterday a KYOCERA SmartPhone...which WILL sync with mac and sync's well with Entourage. It's a very high end Cell Phone, Full 8MB Palm Device (Contacts, To Do, Calendar...and plenty of room to add applications), Cell Speakerphone (like the Motorola NextTel's), voice dialer, and voice memo recorder, and a VERY slick wireless internet device. I've been very happy with it. Though the con's: the installation for HotSync'ing the puppy took a few times and you need to follow the directions EXACTLY. Install PALM Desktop, restart, plug in Serial to USB Docking Station, restart, Change HotSync serial settings to PalmConnect USB, restart... And then it works. All that restarting... Ummm, I thought I had an Apple. :) I also tried sync'ing with the IrDa port... Though a bit slow...it worked fine. I'm very happy with it, and to no longer carry two devices---oh it's heaven for a road warrior like myself. Someother con's: It's somewhat expensive... $499.00 (but wait...keep reading). Verizion is the only Cell Phone company in the USA that is allowing the phone on it's network. Now if you're on the East Coast—no problem, better coverage then other Cell & PCS companies... but if you're one of VERIZION's new areas of coverage—you may want to really check on coverage. And not just the maps... CALL and ask where the towers are... Slightly large device (smaller then a Handspring with or without VisorPhone, or a standard Palm). If you used to have a Nokia 5180 (or was it a 5150) it's about that size. Very light and slim though... Footprint was used wisely. So about the price... Here are some things to consider... If you had a Handspring like myself and were thinking of getting the Visor Phone...you may want to wait. Many people are stating, though a nifty gadget the reception is crappy. Reviews are VERY mixed. And especially if you're not in an area with a strong PCS footprint...Like NY/NJ/PA/CN...etc... If you're in the market for a few Cell Phone & Palm... This is actually a COST SAVINGS (if you're a high end user). Or if you're looking to replace your current stuff......... For example, let's say a particular handsome road warrior happen to have a Tri-Band Motorola TimePort L7 series and a Handspring Deluxe with some nifty modules...Just as an example... If you were to sell them on ebay: Tri-Band: $150.00 - $200.00 Handspring: $100.00 - $200.00 (2 docking stations: 1 USB, 1 Serial; OmniRemote Module, 8MB Backup Module, and a Slipper Case) -------------------------------------- Total: $250.00 - $400.00 Cost of SmartPhone: $499.00 Remainder: $249 - $99 To me, that was a reasonable cost since I was looking to change my phone anyway (I no longer do any International Traveling and do not need the Tri-Band)... One other major plus--- The cost for Wireless Web on the device was CHEAP (less then $10.00 in my market). Unlike, Cingular/SBC, Sprint and VoiceStream... When I priced out all those services they were going to add another $30.00 - $50.00 to my monthly service. Icky, Icky, Icky Poo! There ya' go...Just wanted to share an opinion... Sincerely, Chris L. Aka: "Bear" UPDATE: 4/3/2001 I had some sudden problems sync'ing the unit with my MAC. After being on hold for over an hour with KYOCERA's customer service and exchanging a few emails I finally got an answer that solved the issue. If you've got a MAC and the 6035 SmartPhone and have problems sync'ing -- contact me before them...I'll respond faster. :) Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499.98 86961 2000/7/22 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 integrated palmtri band cdma phone no memory slot The Bottom LineDespite its smaller-than-usual screen, this integrated phone/wireless modem/Palm pilot wins my respect as the best phone on the market for internet junkies like myself. Full Review If you already carry a palm, like the idea of Wireless internet (like Omnisky), and require a mobile phone, this really truly is a godsend. Ok, I gotta admit. The Palm V I had was neat once it was bundled with Omnisky. To me, *ANY* PDA that lacks wireless internet connectivity is *UTTERLY USELESS* to me. I don't go anywhere that requires I carry an address book. A piece of paper to jot down a note is smaller and lighter than a PDA, and voice communication is a must. But I have a huge problem, I like to travel light. I love the convenience of Wireless email, so at one point I had the Omnisky unit and a Palm Vx. That was nice, except I still had to carry a phone with me. The Palm Vx with Omnisky made the unit rather large, and more than I wanted to deal with sitting in my pocket. Put that together with the fact that you had to charge THREE devices per night (The omnisky modem, the Palm Vx, and the mobile phone), and the clutter of wires made it impossible to deal with. And just IMAGINE if you needed to charge up in your car on an extended trip? Above all else, a mobile phone phone has now become a necessity, since it's the only way ANYONE can get in touch with you most of the time. About the phone I took a trip to my local Verizon shop (they're the only game in town in the Metro NYC area) after finally getting fed up with the dropped-call-o-rama at Nextel. When I first looked at the phone, I thought to myself "Wow, that looks big...", but I decided to take a closer look. I'm really glad I did. The store manager had a demo unit (working) there, and handed it to me. I picked it up, and immediately flipped it open. Nothing unfamiliar here. It's basically a Palm machine with 8MB of RAM. There's a couple of extra apps installed on the unit as well, such as Eudora mail and web. The first thing I did was configure my web server address into its configuration and tried to check my mail. Sure enough, it went out to the webserver and downloaded all my email. Nice. I took a look at the web browser portion of it, and it kinda worked, but seemed to barf more on different pages. Either way, I figure I won't be doing any surfing on a connection this slow (14.4k) or a screen this small. The screen is definitely smaller than a normal Palm unit. This seems to bother people in other epinions, but for some reason it really doesn't bother me. The display itself is very usable regardless of its smaller (2.5" square) size. There's the usual buttons like you'd find on any other palm unit. 4 Application selection buttons and a scroll-button (up/down). Also, on the side of the phone there's a scroll wheel which I find far more convenient. It also allows you to "click" or "tap" by pushing it in. When you flip the phone closed, your normal everyday keypad sits in place waiting for you to make a call. There's also a couple of extra buttons for the Speakerphone function (Nice!), the Messaging functions (Voicemail, SMS Text), Ringer config, and Contact lookup (also very handy). The rest of the buttons are very much standard fare. The unit itself seems kind of big when sitting in the display, but once you start using it you really start to understand how *small* it really is. This thing basically takes the place of a Palm Pilot, a Tri-mode CDMA phone, and a Wireless modem. It's also quite thin for a unit this functional, fitting quite nicely in your pants pocket (and certainly in an inside coat pocket). What I really like The palm portion of this phone is great, despite the small screen. While some people seem to think the phone isn't very integrated with the Palm, it actually is. Your contact list is accessible from the main phone menus. Caller ID looks up the caller's name in your contact list. The phone is actually the wireless 14.4k modem. The phone is actually quite light, even with the 1500ma standard battery. You wouldn't think so judging from the wide and long stance of the phone. The software *works*. If you need to check your email remotely, this is the way to do it. This phone gives you true freedom on the road. You can send and receive emails, sync your contacts and other info (I use "FusionOne" myself), sync with your PC at home with Netsync (works great!), even surf the web using Handspring's browser. Note that not all this software is included, and not all of it is free, but still, it's great to have that freedom on the road. And oh yeah, AOL instant messenger, ICQ and Yahoo!'s messenger - They all work. Mind you, I would use these on an "As needed" basis, since using the modem 24x7 will mean 1440 minutes worth of charges per day to rack up. The phone has a speakerphone function. I really liked this on the Nextel phones I had, and am really glad it's included on this one. The integration of the phone's contact list is nice, allowing you to scroll through all your sync'd contacts and make calls from there. There's also a voice record feature to take down quick recorded notes. While I don't see myself using that feature often, some others might. Note that these messages use the same 8MB as the Palm. Voicemail and Text entries are listed in a very nice Palm menu, allowing you to keep/erase them as you see fit. Nice to have even that organized. Battery life is exceptional, thanks to the huge 1500ma battery pack. Syncing and Charging is a dream. One sync cradle is all you need (and of course it's included). It charges the phone and allows you to sync with a PC's standard serial port. This is really nice compared to what i had to deal with when using the Omnisky/Palm Vx/Mobile Phone combo. What I DON'T like The backlighting is the same as the Palm Vx's inverse backlighting (text is lit up on a darker background). I'm sure you can use a Palm hack to fix this, I just haven't gotten around to it. Using the wireless modem to check your email burns up your minutes. While there's a lot of plans out there that give you tons of minutes, checking your email and doing other functions will undoubtedly burn up your minutes at an accellerated rate. Make sure you go for the next plan up :) Now, with this tight integration comes one final price. If you want to ditch the phone in a year, you're also going to be ditching your PDA and wireless modem. While this probably won't be a big deal with Verizon customers (since they're allowed to upgrade every 11 months regardless of contract length) it's something you should consider. Rating I'm gonna rate this one a 4. In order to make this a perfect 5, they would have to: 1. Change the backlighting to something more useful/usable (minor) 2. (and this is a biggie...) - Verizon (or any other company that supports this phone) should make some kind of Wireless Data option that allows you to use more data minutes under a standard usage plan... Heck, maybe even an unlimited plan. (minor to major, depending on your usage) 3. Drop the price $100. (major, this phone is expensive, even if you sign on with a 2 year contract). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86960 2000/4/17 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 great phone encompasses 2 devices in 1 never leave home without it serial sync cradle The Bottom LineIf you have a PDA and a phone, dump them and get this great all-in-one device. Once you do, you will wonder how one survived without the other. Full Review I have owned a number of digital phones and PDA's. Recently, my Handspring Platinum developed a cracked screen so I decided, after a lot of investigation, to buy a Kyocera 6035 SmartPhone. I found a, cheap at the time, used phone on ebay for $187. I say cheap at the time since the day I took delivery, I looked at the Verizon site only to find that they had dropped their previously high price of $400 to $250, and if you were a new customer and bought through the web site, you could purchase it for a mere $99 :-( Nevermind, I had my phone. After charging the phone, I got my first surprise when I contacted Verizon. Within a productive 5 minutes, I was receiving my first call from the customer service rep, confirming that I had followed the instructions properly, that she had given me to enable the phone for my existing account. Phone Details: The phone has all the capabilities that you would expect from a tri-mode digital phone. Various ringers are available, and with the use of your address book's categories you can configure a different ringer for each category. You can also download custom ringers, I recommend the aqualung ringer, since it improves on the otherwise quiet ringing that the phone offers normally. The phone has the ability to store a whopping 199 numbers in its speed dial, which is aside from the countless numbers and other contact details that are available through the PDA's address book. You can use your voice to make calls, the phone has a speaker-phone capability so that you can talk while entering details within the PDA. There are various short-cut buttons located on the front to allow you to go to your voice-mail, alter the sound settings and do a directory search. Finally, to navigate the various menus there is a jog-dial on the side which after an initial period of getting used to, works very well. It is comfortable to hold and use and not at all bulky, and the calls come in loud and clear. PDA Details: The real reason for me to invest in the phone was the promise of convenience that the device would offer me, by having both functions available. Well the promise has come true. Even though I have split the review into 2 parts, the PDA is well integrated into the phone. The screen is smaller than my old Handspring, but you get used to it quickly. You have the normal PDA functionality, Calendar, memos, calculator, address book and a general to-do application. You also get a web browser which is not limited to WAP portals or phone-only sites. An email client that you can hookup to your ISP's POP (to receive) and SMTP (to send) servers. You can get various Instant Messenger clients allowing to expand how you stay in touch. The thing that impressed me was the seamless ability to click on a person's contact information, telephone or email and link straight to an application to write them an email or short message service (SMS). Or, dial their number and be able to talk to them through the phone. The only danger is not being aware that a data call that you initiated to send an email or browse a site may still be open wasting valuable minutes on your calling plan. There is a very important website that I would recommend that owners of this phone to visit is http://www.smartphonesource.com. There are a lot of people with insights into all types of real-world experience with the phone. I would love to list all of the applications available, but I shall restrict it by saying that my all-important finance management software, Pocket Quicken, that I had on the Handspring installed fine on my phone. My only gripe is that the charging/syncing cradle hooks up to your PC via the Serial port. So, syncing is a lot slower than using a USB port. There are cables out there that allow you to hookup a serial device to an available USB port, but I do not have one to be able to comment on. Improvements: Things I would like to see are:- 1. A color version. 2. Improved backlighting, much like the Compaq Pocket PC devices, or even an Indigio backlight like those Timex watches. Cool Little Things: Things that I cannot do without are:- 1. The ability to take the phone out of keyguard mode by pressing the IR port at the top of the phone. 2. Holding down the mail button, and getting to my voice mail. 3. Being able to record voice memo's to myself. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 187 86959 2000/6/5 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 reduce carrying 2 items down to 1 feature rich no memory slots a little bulky for a phone The Bottom LineIf you're tired of carrying around both a Palm and a cell phone, the Kyocera 6035 is a cheap way to solve the problem. Full Review OVERVIEW I purchased the Smartphone 6035 because I was carrying a palm and a cell phone everywhere I went and it was becoming quite a hassle. The convenience of carrying only one device instead of 2 is well worth the investment in my opinion. I was quite impressed by all the features and integration that came with the phone. Many of them were unexpected perks. Besides the now-standard phone features (voice dial, speed dial, speakerphone, caller ID, 1/8" headset jack) the phone also comes with a voice recorder, integrated Palm cell-minute use counter, Palm.net applications, wireless Internet, Email and, of course, a fully integrated addressbook. One of the greatest features of an integrated Palm Addressbook is that inputting names, addresses, and phone numbers can be done via a keyboard and hotsynced, rather than having to use the 9-button letter system that most phones are equipped with. That saves an enormous amount of time, especially if you already have addresses inputted in MS Outlook. Finding and dialing a phone number works 2 ways: Open the flip and find it in the address book, then click on the phone number and the phone will automatically dial it. The other way is to use the knob on the left of the phone. This accesses the addresses in the Palm database, but integrates it exactly like the Nokia cell phones (press a button on the phone and you will jump to the name corresponding with that letter). If you turn the knob up, you will enter the recent call list. If you turn the knob down, you will enter the phone-integrated addressbook. The feature list is quite extensive, especially considering all of the downloadable Palm and wireless Palm.net software that is available (AOL Instant Messenger, AvantGo, Weather, MovieTickets, Ebay, etc.). The biggest problem is the size. However, I rationalize it this way: It's a bit smaller than my old Palm (Handspring Visor) used to be, and now I don't even have to carry that around anymore. Honestly, you get used to the size and it becomes a non-issue. The 6035 comes with 8 megs of memory. This is more than enough for the standard user who has a few addresses and a few small applications. Unfortunately there is no memory upgrade slot. If you need more than 8 megs, the new 7135 is probably more your speed. I've also found that there are a few Palm applications that have resulted in the 6035 becoming unstable and crashing. At that point, the only solution is to hard-reboot the device, wiping out the memory, and re-syncing all of the data back in. The worst application to cause this problem is AOL Instant Messenger. Since I've uninstalled that app, I haven't had any more problems. SCORE 8.5/10 Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 99 86958 2000/3/25 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 palmos compatibility pda phone in a single unit no apparent way to send sms messages dual os environment The Bottom LineThe integration of the PalmOS environment with a top-notch phone has raised the bar to a new level. Full Review I've been waiting for a product like this for a long time. The 6035 is not perfect, but I like it a lot. It's a phone and a Palm PDA in the same case. The first thing I noticed, which was a slight disappointment, is that the phone and Palm environments are distinct. The phone environment looks very similar to the Kyocera 2035, which I previously owned. When you open the flip cover, the environment suddenly becomes PalmOS. Close it, and you're back in the phone. To be fair, I should point out that these two environments have been integrated to a reasonably nice degree. The PalmOS environment knows a lot about the phone features, but the other OS doesn't seem to know much about the Palm. This isn't a real big problem at all, but I envision future versions of this phone which might run with a single OS. In terms of physical attributes, the phone is nice. I used to keep the 2035 in the front pocket of my jeans, but this device is just too big to do that. However, given that this thing replaces my phone and my PDA, the size is not objectionable. I daresaw it is smaller than a Palm VII, but I haven't measured it to be sure. The case is adequate, but I doubt it would survive a drop to the pavement. The buttons don't feel cheap. The device has a "shuttle" on its left side, which is basically a scroll wheel and click button. I think of it has a 1-dimensional mouse. I definitely don't like it as well as the one on the RIM 957, but it seems to work ok. It is mostly for the phone environment, but it works on the PalmOS side too. I'm right handed, but I'm curious how well this shuttle would work for a lefty. The unit has four quick-access buttons on the front, on the outside of the flip. These are handy, but I wish one of them was a shortcut to the voice recorder. I was pleased to discover that this thing supports recording of voice memos, but I would really like a shortcut key to take me directly there. The stylus fits very firmly in its place. I sometimes struggle to remove it for use. Two extra styluses (styli?) came with the phone. I also got a cradle and charger. The charger can be used separately, or it can plug into the cradle, allowing the phone to be charged while it is docked to your computer. I'm going to need to get an extra charger and a car charger. The instruction manual for this phone is unimpressive. I don't read manuals very much anyway. The phone comes with no case of any kind. I think I'm going to want one. A device of this cost should have at least some sort of drop protection. The PalmOS side of the phone is just as impressive as I would have expected. I have a very high opinion of PalmOS in general. The phone has most (if not all) of the usual PalmOS stuff, including calendar, TODO, expense, memo, and contacts. The contacts database is integrated into the phone feature set, replacing the contacts support which would normally have been supplied by the phone's OS. My phone had Eudora and EudoraWeb preinstalled when I got it. I don't honestly know if this was done by Kyocera (the manufacturer), Verizon (our service provider), or my company's MIS department (the folks who setup the phone for me). Anyway, these are really nice. Eudora is very slick, and I have used it to check my POP3 email with no problems. The EudoraWeb browser is also pretty cool, but I haven't used it much yet. It is a regular web browser, not WAP or HDML. You can access any website you want, but many sites just aren't going to look very good on a monochrome screen this small. I was a little disappointed to discover that these two apps require the initiation of a data call. In other words, the Internet features of this phone are not "always on". From the viewpoint of the PalmOS applications, this device is merely a PDA with a modem. It just so happens that the modem is running over the cell phone which is also present in the same case. When you launch the mail client or web browser and initiate something, the phone calls your ISP and launches a PPP session. Contrast this with the Palm VII or the RIM 957, which move data over wireless data networks like BellSouth. I'm not sure which I prefer. The problem with the 6035 approach is that I can't take a phone call while I have a data call -- it ties up the phone. Furthermore, checking my email is a bit heavier of an operation. Mail is not pushed to my device, like the RIM device does. On the plus side, using the cell phone like a modem yields a lot more bandwidth. Once the call is established, network operations are much faster than the pager networks could allow. Another poster claimed 56K access, which I would dispute. It's more like 14.4 or 19.2, as far as I can tell. But that's faster than a Palm VII, I believe. Another benefit of this approach is that any PalmOS networking application should work. I'm looking forward to installing a few third party apps on my phone. The first time I used EudoraWeb, it automatically initiated the data call, and I didn't realize what had happened. After I was done, I closed the flip cover and returned to the phone environment. Upon doing so, I immediately noticed the still-active data call. I terminated the call from the phone environment, and returned to the PalmOS environment (by opening the flip cover) to see what had happened. The PalmOS environment had crashed, requiring a soft reset. Later experiments showed that terminating the connection from within PalmOS caused no problems. Still, if this problem is reproduceable, I would have expected the QA process to catch something like this. The 2035 had a Text Messaging feature, which included the ability to send and receive very short SMS messages. Verizon provides a gateway which allows these messages to be sent via email or from a web browser. I like this feature a lot, because it means people can push an email to my phone, as long as they keep it really short. I use this feature somewhat like a pager. The 6035 has this too, but I am disappointed that I cannot find a way to send an SMS message, only receive. This would be a handy feature, since it allows the sending of a really short email without initiating a data call. The PalmOS environment has apps for Call History, Speed Dial, Dialer, Data/Fax, and Voice Dial. All of these were apparently provided by Kyocera, and they provide nice integrated of the phone features into the PalmOS world. The Data/Fax feature looks fun. I can apparently use it to send or receive a fax. The notion of receiving a fax on my cell phone is a bit of a mind bomb for me. I don't see myself using this for anything but fun demos. There is also a PalmOS applet called Messages. It allows me to review Text Messages I have received as well as retrieve my voicemail. This app is where I would have expected to find a feature which allowed me to send an SMS message, but I don't see it anywhere. I like the fact that the phone gets its clock time from the CDMA network. The 2035 did this too. When I travel, the phone adjusts itself for the local time zone. Cute. The screen on this device is smaller than a regular Palm, but it doesn't bother me. The screen has a backlight which works admirably. I keep having a slight difficulty with the dropdown menu in the upper right corner of many Palm apps. It seems that I have to touch the mouse twice to make the menu dropdown. This may be a minor problem with the digitizer on this phone. I've seen other people complaining of a similar problem, but I'm not sure yet if it is a design flaw of the phone. It's not a fatal one, if it is. I occasionally get the impression that the CPU in this phone is slower than a regular Palm. I can't confirm that, but I'm pretty sure it's not faster than a regular Palm. I can't comment much on battery life yet, since I've only had the phone for a few days. So far, I have been pleased. It's a lithium ion battery. I would have expected it to be more run down by now than it is. The phone supports a "speakerphone" mode. I've never used a cell phone as a speakerphone, and I probably won't do so. It just seems too weird. I consider myself a fanatic for these types of handheld devices. I've used four different Palms, RIM devices, Windows CE devices, and even the HP 200LX. I'm definitely an early adopter, but my expectations are become more like those of a mass market consumer. Every time I get one of these devices, I find myself wanting more polished usability and features. However, this phone is probably the best handheld I've seen to date. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 499 86957 2000/4/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 palmphone in one triband phone palm features on par with current palms no expansion poor palm phone integration very small screen The Bottom LineIf you can live with a very small screen and without a memory expansion option, this may be the Palm for you. Full Review I will be the first person to say that PalmOS devices should be small and lightweight. If they can't be with you at all times they lose much of their usefulness. I will also be the first person to tell you that the first attempt at an integrated Palm and phone, the Qualcomm pDQ, resulted in a heavy oversized brick. More than anything else, that was a big reason why the pDQ never took off - no one wanted to lug it around with them. Now let me say that the new Kyocera SmartPhone is not a brick. It isn't close to the smallest phone being sold, but it is in line with many other phone-only models. Kudos for a Palm phone that looks and feels like a phone. Unfortunately the price for that achievement is a very small screen. So small that its large bold font is smaller than the small font on a III-style device. It seemed even smaller than the m100/105 screen, although I didn't have both devices at the same time to do a direct comparison. If you have any problems with your vision, get eyestrain easily, or don't like a really small screen then avoid this device. That said, other than the tiny screen, Kyocera has produced a very engaging Palm OS device. Running OS 3.5 with 8MB of RAM on an ARM processor, from a technical standpoint the phone matches up well with other Palm devices on the market. The fact that it is also a triband phone working with CDMA, PCS, and analog networks is a nice bonus. The Device The SmartPhone is 5.6 X 2.5 X 0.86 inches (14.2 x 6.4 x 2.2 cm) and weighs approximately 7 ounces (208 grams). It isn't the smallest phone I've ever seen but it is by no means huge (it is actually smaller than the phone I use). There is a small dial on the left of the phone at a comfortable height to use with my left thumb. There is also a small LED at the top right side of the front of the phone. The IR port is on the top of the phone. It doubles as the Palm power button. The stylus slides into the back of the device on the right side. It's a long stick plastic stylus, quite comfortable to hold. The reset hole is actually inside the battery compartment on the bottom back of the phone and is big enough that the stylus tip will trigger a reset. The phone uses a Lithium Ion battery with a capacity of up to 180 hours of standby time. I have heard reports people can actually go from 4-5 days without recharging with moderate use. The phone has a flipdown lid that covers the bottom half of the device. When up, the device is a phone. When flipped down it becomes a Palm. Phone Features Featuring a speakerphone, last number redial button, and headphone jack, the Smartphone has most of the features expected in today's phones. The lid has all of the phone buttons including a power button, a call last number button, and the normal 12 phone buttons. There are also four buttons that map through to the Datebook, Address, ToDo, and Memo buttons located underneath. They map to find, volume, messages, and speakerphone respectively. Palm Features When the lid is flipped down, the device is a Palm. The Palm automatically turns on when the lid is flipped. As I already mentioned, the screen is very small. Unfortunately it has an inverted green backlight. The buttons are oblong, tilted, indented for use with the stylus, and recessed. Up and down is a single rocker also with indentations for use with the stylus. It would be difficult to game on the phone, both because of the button style and because the hinge of the flip lid blocks you from easily holding the device from the bottom with a hand on each side of the device (the position best suited for rapid-fire gaming). Unlike the other new Palm devices on the market, the Kyocera has no expansion slot. I realize that an expansion slot is less necessary for a device with automatic phone and internet capabilities, but I would still like to see some way to expand the memory of the device. 8MB just doesn't cut it these days. There are several OS extensions for the phone. The first thing I noticed in the Prefs app is that the General category is totally different. Instead of time, sound, and IR all of these preference dealt with time. The most notable addition here is that the device is timezone-aware. There is now a separate category for sound that adds the ability to choose visual or vibrating alarms. There are also new phone and wireless categories and a new registry category. These contain various phone and internet settings. Palm and Phone Integration I am very disappointed with the Palm/phone integration. When the lid is closed and the device is in phone mode the screen does not respond to taps. You must use the dial to control the phone menus. Although the phone uses the contact data from the Palm Address database, it is presented in a very phone-like interface. I would greatly prefer to see a shortened version of the actual Address application. There is certainly enough space for at least eight entries even with the lid closed. I'd also like to be able to click on a number and have it dial for me in at least phone mode if not from the Palm view as well. Syncing The phone syncs to the normal Palm Desktop. It comes with a serial cradle that has a separate power plug. You can also plug the power cable directly into the phone if you don't want to take the cradle with you when traveling. Conclusions Although it wouldn't be my dream device, I really like the feature set of the Kyocera Smartphone. It isn't perfect, especially in the areas of phone and Palm integration, but it is a vast improvement over the pdQ. The only real problem is the miniscule screen. The only major feature it is missing is an expansion slot. If you carry both a cellular phone and a Palm and can live with the small screen and without extra memory, the Kyocera may very well be an excellent option for you. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 549 86956 2000/4/5 Battery Life5.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 everything you need rolled up into one device a little big heavy The Bottom LineIt is worth a look, though. The tremendous functionality might be right for you, and a great first stab by Kyocera. Full Review I recently purchased a Kyocera Smartphone, the first day available actually, because I've been waiting for someone to finally combine the two devices that seemingly everyone has and uses together- a mobile phone and a PDA. I was impressed by the e-mail capabilities, and the fact that it incorporated the use of the Palm OS, which I have grown to rely on. The Specs The Kyocera Smartphone QCP 6035 is a little bit thicker than a Palm handheld, a little heavier, a little narrower, and a little longer. Confused? So am I- put it this way: it's too big to fit in your pocket comfortably, but you can fit it in your jacket. The "flip" has the keypad on the outside, and you need not open the flip to use the phone feature. The flip opens up the your Palm OS main menu, and functions exactly like a Palm thereafter. Overall, It's not too bad a size, considering that it is now the only device that you need. The Phone Feature The phone is a trimode digital CDMA handset. The "features" include a speakerphone, which I think is great: make a call, set on the table, and it's as clear as a regular cell phone (huh?). OK, it's not landline quality, but it's pretty good. There is also a voice-dial feature that you can program to call a number by voice command- pretty cool. The Palm Feature The Palm functions just like a regular Palm, complete with stylus and graffiti. The organizer has 8mb of memory, which is more than enough for your entire calendar, addresses, and to add extra software that you can now use for the wireless web. Phone, Meet Palm The added functionality of having the phone and the PDA together in one is great. How many times have you been walking down the street trying to look up a number in your palm and coordinate your phone in your other hand at the same time? Never? Ok, this might not be for you then. But if this sounds familiar, you'll really appreciate the convergence of the two devices. Simply look up an address that you want to call, tap the number, and it dials it automatically for you. Your call log is displayed by the number and the time of the call (handy if you need to do an expense report), and the Caller ID displays the name of the caller, not just the number. The Wireless Web Unfamiliar with the wireless web? This device allows you to send and receive e-mails and can interface with Microsoft Outlook, so you do not need a separate e-mail address. You can also browse your favorite web addresses, and although a little hard to read, can be helpful on the go with applications like MapQuest, or flight information sites. All wireless data functionality is provided through Eudora, but you have to buy a license to interface with Outlook ($30 for a lifetime license). The Hotsync Keep a lot of contact information in your phone? With the Kyocera, you can Hotsync all of your data and contacts so they are automatically kept up to date, just like with your Palm. Things to Know Setup was a bit of a pain. I had to license the Eudora software and get it working with my Outlook, which was no easy task. Then, I had to coordinate my incoming server with my office e-mail provider, and then my outgoing server with my wireless provider, and I had to figure this out on my own. Also, your time on the web and sending e-mail counts against your wireless minutes, and they get eaten up in a hurry, so be sure that you coordinate your wireless minutes plan accordingly. Checking e-mail is not an "always on" feature either, so you must manually go into your e-mail and select "Send and Receive" to send an e-mail and check the server for new ones. Also, data calls are not ended simply by closing the flip, you must be sure to press the End button, or else the call goes on, and you continue to be charged. Other Drawbacks Because the Palm screen also functions as the Phone screen, when you hold the Phone up to your ear, the oils from your skin will dirty the screen, which is unpleasant. The only way around this is to use the speakerphone or use an earpiece. Other than what I've mentioned, and the size and weight of the device, it's a pretty good new technology. So do I recommend it? Check it out and see if it is right for you. I gave mine to a co-worker, choosing instead the RIM Blackberry. They both have their pros and cons, but I chose the RIM because it is smaller and lighter, is "always on" and you can send and receive unlimited e-mails. I also like a smaller phone to fit in my pocket, because I don't always work. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 550 86955 2001/4/20 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 handles nicely good quality sound pda phone all in one color screen would be way cool should be 15 smaller no expansion slot The Bottom LineThis is so close to being a killer product. Next version will be awesome. Wait unless you really need this now. Full Review A Combo Digital Phone and Palm PDA all in one chassis. Be still my heart !! For two years since I took the plunge with my Palm VII I have been waiting for this device. I nearly strayed when the Palm IIIc and the Handspring came out, but I remained true and faithful to my goal .. As the old Chinese proverb says be careful What you wish for , your wish may come true To put the bottom line at the top - this phone isn't quite ready for primetime, but it is really close. All those Qualcomm engineers who left to join Kyocera should be proud of their first attempt. But it is just that, a version 1.0 piece of hardware and software. Give it 6-12 months to shake the bugs out or wait until they come out with an upgraded model and I say jump at it. At First Glance One of the advantages of my profession is that every now and again I get to try some neat new piece of technology for free. So I tested the Kyocera QCP 6035 for a couple of weeks to check out its capabilities. The obvious appeal of the SmartPhone is that it replaces a regular cellphone and a PDA - freeing up jacket or belt space. Considering the number of times I have had to perform the Palm to Phone shuffle when looking up a number this convenience is amazing. Just tapping a name in the address book will automatically kick off a phone call (or an email). This is what I had been looking for. Score one for the SmartPhone. Almost everywhere I used the phone at least one person approached me and asked me what it was. Score another point just for the cool factor. The Screen The screen is backlit green and black, which can be reversed by pressing down on the IR switch. It is smaller than a regular Palm - at least a Palm VII, but is the same size as the new m100 and m105. It is easily visible; even in sunlight, but only if you are looking straight at it. More than about a 15 degree viewing angle and its difficult to read - for example if you are trying to show a colleague something on the screen. Several reviewers have commented on the stylus being sharp and scratchy - but as I used one of my old custom Palm styli I didn't have a problem. The buttons - for tasks, address book etc are actually recessed into the frame, so that the flip top does not come into contact with them. How is it as a Phone ? We'll get back to the Palm piece later, but don't forget that this is actually a phone too!! I found the signal to be crisp and clear and liked the fact you can actually use the phone in speakerphone mode. It's a little tinny, but gets the job done inside a conference room - outside the ambient noise causes problems. It has all the standard features such as speed dialing, plug-in headset, various rings and buzzes for special numbers etc. Even with the Palm address book available I programmed in about 20 voice-activated numbers and it has no problems distinguishing the names. It also gives me some security as no-one else in the office can successfully mimic my Brit accent. So, as a phone - its pretty darn good. In terms of size it is of course larger than the average cellphone - I use a mini Samsung 8500 which makes the comparison even worse. The actual size of the Smartphone is just over 5 ½ by 2 ½ and about 7/8 of an inch deep. As I had so much data stored in the device its weight was just over 7 ounces. The extra inch or so in length really kills you, as it becomes hard to fit into a pocket or a pocketbook, but examining the logistics and screen size I'd say the engineers did a pretty good job. Back to the PDA Because I had read several other Epinions and magazine reviews I immediately upgraded the Palm OS from the 3.5.1 version shipped with the phone to 3.5.2. This was pretty painless and I didn't encounter any real problems with the OS. You also have to remember that the connection to the Internet or Email is not always on - you have to physically connect at a blazing 14.4k speed. You can access email through a variety of tools, but be aware you have to buy a perpetual onetime license to access exchange servers via Outlook. I used the email functionality to basically download header information for corporate and private mail - picking and choosing what I really want to see. Many of my colleagues, being permanently attached to the net at T1 speeds send very large emails so I had to be careful with what I looked at. Internet access is via HTML, WAP or standard Palm PQA web-clipping. I really didn't use it that much except to check some stock prices and figure out how delayed (again) my United Airlines flights were. Other Thoughts Battery life was pretty impressive - I am a heavy PDA user during the day, and wireless access really does drain the batteries. Although the lithium battery supposedly lasts 120 hours in standby mode - I managed 2 days of heavy use before recharging. There is no expansion slot in the device - another sign it is a 1.0 version. But as you have 8MB of RAM it can store a lot of stuff. You cannot play MP3 files or take pictures with it - but to me that is marketing fluff and nothing to do with a functional PDA anyway. Psst - don't tell anyone , but the SmartPhone slid off the roof of my rental car and smacked into the parking lot. No damage. The recessed buttons would be really hard to play games with. The Final Word This is so close to being the next cool and killer product. Unless you absolutely cannot wait or need to be the first person on your block to own one, I'd suggest you wait until the next version/release - hopefully that will be a little smaller and all the software kinks will be worked out. Its still worth three stars though as it does perform its basic functions and it is, for now, unique. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 456 7678 Kyocera QCP 2760 Thin Phone 87009 2000/4/25 Battery Life2.0 Portability5.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 sleekuser friendly phone the qualcomm qcp 2760 is a very lightweight the battery in this phone is very weak dies quickly The Bottom LineI would recommend the QCP-2760 because of it's good design and easy programming devices, it's very stylish, lightweight sleek design, and the cheap price. Full Review It was March 16, 2001, when i got my very first cell phone. My father bought it for me since i had just turned eighteen and had not established credit. Now if i would have been my father shopping for the phone, I am pretty sure that the Qualcomm QCP-2760 would not have been my first choice. But since having this phone, I can now say that is was a good choice, even it was only picked because it was the cheapest one that sprint had. The QCP-2760 is a very "user-friendly phone." It has built in caller i.d.,a button that automatically takes you to the built in voice mail system, after a short set-up procedure, it has an easily programmable phone book, and a call list which shows you calls placed, received, and the time and date of each call. The only guff I have with this phone is the very short time the battery stays charged. It only lasts not even a full day if you leave it on and talk on it occasionally. In the owner's manual, they do tell you about an attachable battery that you "click on" to your phone which increases charge time considerably. Cool I guess but that is an extra expense unknown to me at this point. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): $99 87008 2000/4/16 Battery Life4.0 Portability3.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 good clarity small dependable user friendly i love the built in battery wish antenna was built in not very stylish not many ringer types The Bottom LineGreat, practical phone to use. Clarity is great and the phone is perfect and simple! Full Review I've had my 2760 for over a year and although all my friends are carrying bright, wild phones, I'm glad that I can hear out of my phone and it's always been so trustworthy! I've dropped it I don't know how many times and it hasn't given me any trouble. Although, I haven't been soaked, I've stood in the rain and it got slightly wet and had no trouble. I like that it has a built-in battery (no more scotch tape) and that it's small but not too small to lose in a bag. I wish it had more interchangeable faces and covers and more ringer types. I also wish it had a vibrate feature and a built-in antenna because I hate having to pull mine up and down. Overall, a cool little phone. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 20.00 87007 2000/12/28 Battery Life2.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 great size talk time not the most attractive Full Review Qualcomm, who was bought out by Kyocera, has made a flat phone. This neat little phone fits nicely in to your purse, shirt pocket, or even back pocket, and leaves no embarrasing bulges. The phone itself is less than an inch thick, and about 6 inches tall, it's very lightweight, and has a nice appearance. The QCP 2760 is a dual mode phone, which means it has digital and analog channel features. It has a large screen that displays the date and time, and can even display your name. It also has a larger ear piece than most phones. This feature provides more clarity to the user. This phone has an internal battery that is never removed. The battery provides approximately 1 1/2 hours of talk time and about 3 days of standby time. Should you need more than this there is an external battery available for this phone to add more talk and standby time(although this item makes the phone very bulky). Ok so now that I have describe the phone to you, let me tell you my opinions on this phone. I work for a communications company so I was able to try this product out for free. I had a decent experience with the phone but in my department, this is one of the best selling phones. This phone is bought by all kinds of people: college students, business men and women, and just your everyday Joe's or Jane's. The general consensus on this phone is that it fits nicely in your pocket and it's easy to use. It isn't the most attractive and cute phone there is, but it performs great, and serves its purpose wonderfully. All in all this is a good phone for some one who is looking for a simple phone and doesn't need all those added features. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 165 87006 2000/8/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 thin light dual band good sound quality battery built in no built in headset jack wireless web function is very hard to use The Bottom LineVery portable basic phone. If you want to use a headset conveniently or need extras, look elsewhere. Full Review This phone is thin. That means it slips into a pants pocket and you hardly notice it is there. The sound quality is good. The volume can be very loud if you like it that way. This is a basic phone. You get all the basic options, such as many different rings and dual band. But don't expect games or calculators or such. It's just a phone. Well, it does have Wireless web, but its a real hassle to use. The phone is tough. I've dropped mine several times on concrete and it keeps going. Battery life is good for its built in battery. If you are an industrial strength phone user, you will probably want to buy a larger capacity battery that clips on the back. I've never needed it though. My biggest gripe is the lack of a built in headset jack. You have to buy a special adapter, but then the headset plugs into the bottom of the phone. Poor design there. I should be able to put the phone in my shirt pocket and plug the headset jack on the top. As a simple light phone, it does just fine. If you need more, look elsewhere. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 69.00 87005 2000/3/28 Battery Life5.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 the phone was practically free cumbersome to use at times The Bottom LineMy final recommendation for the QCP-2760 cell phone is that despite its minor problems, the phone has served me well. I recommend that you purchase this phone. Full Review QUALCOMM, the pioneers of CDMA technology unveiled this phone last year. It was the 2760 model. The model itself is quite stylish and well built. Here are the neat features: 1. Very sleek 2. Web enabled 3. Phone can work over 3 hours - on one charge 4. Can store up to 350 numbers 5. LCD Display 6. Digital/Analog toggling capability However there are some disappointing points too: 1. The signal gets very weak especially indoors 2. Connecting to the Web downtime is very slow 3. The ringer volume buttons also function as menu buttons. Sometimes you want to increase the volume and the buttons scroll the menu bar instead 4. Aerial not very sturdy, slips back occasionally Apart, from this the phone functions very well. The store where I purchased the phone for $79.95, gave me a $49.95 rebate toward my second bill payment, and also a $25.00 gift certificate in the store. I purchased the phone charger and the carrying case with this certificate. So after all was said and done I ended up getting the phone for $5.00 not bad. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.95 87004 2000/6/1 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 low price awesome sound quality thin perfect battery life not as long as i would like The Bottom LineThis phone has all of the features that anyone needs! Why pay more for a high priced phone when this is all you need? Full Review I first had the Samsung 3500, then a Nokia, then I had the Kyocera 2035. I basically just use the phone to talk, so why did I need to spend any more money when I can get everything I need in this little phone?? The biggest difference between the other phones and this one is that the screen size is big. You are clearly able to see the names and numbers that you are dialing. This was virtually impossible on the Kyocera. The menus are another key feature. The qualcomms have the best and easiest menus of all phones. It even has web capabilities. My absolute favorite feature of this phone is the scroll button on the side of the phone. Adjusting the volume is a key when you are on a cell phone. Again, on the Kyocera, you had to take the phone away from your ear and press the center button. The phone is the perfect one to fit in either a purse or pocket. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 70.00 87003 2001/11/6 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability2.0 Product Rating3.0 very user friendly lacks certain featuresthe charge connection is not very durable The Bottom LineGood to keep in the car for emergencies, but don't count on it to meet your daily cell phone usage standards. Full Review If you're the type of person who keeps a cell phone around for emergencies only, then you'll like this Qualcomm. For starters, it's very easy to use. I don't think I even had to pick up the manual to figure out how to use any of the features. It's very light and thin, so it fits well in a purse or in a suit pocket without bulging. It's reception is excellent (this could also be my cellular service provider, but I've had problems with other phones), and it charges fairly quickly. However, if you're anything like me, glued to a cell phone for work or other purposes, I wouldn't recommend this phone for several reasons: 1) Although it charges quickly, it's not very gentle on batteries. My new Kyocera phone will go for days being left on without it's battery indicator dropping down a notch. The old one (this product, the QCP-2760) would go through a battery in about 24 hours. 2) This particular model of phone down't have the best charging mechanism on the market. Instead of a typical adapter jack like you would use on a discman, it has a very hard to describe, "clip-type" plug on the bottom on the phone. It's very similar to the clips on backpacks: 2 prongs that you squeeze to slide into the receiving end. On the plug-in adapter, these prongs break very easily. Both of mine broke off within a few months. 3) No vibrate option. Your phone is either on or off. There are situations where I need to know if people are calling me, but I don't particularly want the whole world to know I'm receiving a call. Why the QCP-2760 doesn't have a vibrate option is beyond me. Like I've said, this phone is great for those who aren't heavy-duty cell users. It's fairly cheap, and has all the basic features you'd need. But if you need a phone for anything more than emergencies, I wouldn't recommend this model. Qualcomm phones are good, but this one just can't stand up to daily wear and tear. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 90 87002 2000/6/9 Battery Life4.0 Portability4.0 Clarity5.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating4.0 very thin very good reception lightweight clear hearinglarge volume span no built in headset jack no vibration The Bottom LinePerfect if you are not a "die hard cell phone user"; otherwise, the lack of a built-in headset jack will bother you at the extreme. Full Review I got a QCP 2760 in February 2001, because my service provider was giving it for free with a 6 months service contract and it seemed to be a good phone to me. It was my second cell phone, the first one having been a Nokia. When I got it, it was made by Qualcomm, but Qualcomm has since sold its phone department to Kyocera, which still sells this phone. General description -------------------------- The QCP 2760 is a very thin and lightweight phone. Its look can seem strange at first glance, but I got used to it and happened to like it. Its shape can make it a little bit uncomfortable when you hold it for some time, though. The screen is big but has only 4 lines display. It is not entirely pixelized, thus preventing display of graphics (so don't even think about games!). The QCP 2760 can both operate in digital and analog mode and has Internet capabilities, though limited. It is also data ready: you can use it as a fax-modem (for sending faxes and connecting to the Internet with your laptop, for example - but I had problems with this, see below). It has a good call history manager. Reception and hearing ------------------------ The first thing I have to say about this phone is that the reception quality is very good in both digital and analog mode, which should be expected since it's a 0.6W phone (advice: never buy below 0.6W except if you don't need to go out of town). The earpiece is bigger than what you can find on other phones: I don't know if it really helps to hearing clarity, but it is indeed really good. There is a large volume span so you can adjust it just the way you like or need. Ease of use This phone is very easy to use. What is quite useful is the scroll button on the left side which can also be used for volume control: simply touch it while you talk to make the volume go down or up (no need to remove the phone from your ear). Phone book and call history --------------------------- The phone book can hold 199 numbers and names, which was more than enough for me. The numbers cannot be categorized, though, so they all are in the same listing, which can make it long to scroll through until you find what you're looking for. There is a search tool for the book, but typing letters with a phone keypad can sometimes be longer than scrolling through the book, so... What I really like is the call history: the phone keeps a record of every call you've made or received, and it works like a phone book so you can quickly call back people you've talked to recently (providing you have caller ID service). Cool features * Progressive ring volume. You can set the phone to have a progressive ring volume, so you hear it at a "convenient level"; this can make up a little bit for the lack of vibration. * Internet: text only. Can be useful though to consult movie schedules, etc. * Caller ID: I needed to sign up for it with my service provider, but it is worth the cost; it is also very useful for the call history (see above). * Built-in fax-modem: you can buy a "data kit" which will allow your phone to become a fax-modem for your laptop, allowing you to send faxes and connect to the Internet from anywhere. I've tried it, but it didn't work well: I've never been able to send a fax and I've been able to connect to the Internet only a few times (I had to try many times before getting a connection). I work in the electronics field and my guess is that my phone is faulty. I couldn't afford sending it for repair (since it would have meant not having a cell phone for many weeks, which is a big no-no for me), so I returned the data kit and decided to live without this feature. Features lacking --------------------- * No vibration. * No built-in headset jack. So you have to buy an headset directly from Kyocera (VERY EXPENSIVE!!!!) or an adaptor from another company (I don't remember its name and it's not written on mine). You already know I chose the latter. The adaptor I bought was the only one I could find. It is very fragile (I had to buy two in less than one year) and offers poor sound quality. But it was not expensive and is better than nothing! Battery The QCP 2760 has a built-in lithium ions battery. I think the QCP 2760 was one of the first phones to offer this kind of battery (at least, I remember there was still many phones on the shelves not having such batteries when I got mine), so it could explain why the battery doesn't seem to last long when compared to more recent phones, but I can tell you it lasts far more longer than the one I had with my previous Nokia, which didn't have a lithium ions battery. You can expect the QCP 2760 to easily sustain a 2 hours and a half conversation in full-signal digital mode and stay on standby for three days (also in digital mode). Divide at least by 2 for analog mode. You can add an extra battery to the rear of the phone, which adds quite a lifespan! Two models are offered, and I suggest you the thin extra battery (which I bought): this one already makes the phone quite bulky, so I don't even want to think about the other. The thin extra battery will make your phone stay on standby for 7 more days (so 10 days overall) and allow you to have at least 5 hours long conversations (but, please, use a headset if you do so!!!). Finally... ---------------------- I would say that this phone is perfect if you are not a "die hard cell phone user"; otherwise, the lack of a built-in headset jack will bother you at the extreme. Paradoxically, it allows you to add extra battery (up to 21 standby days with the big extra battery). Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 0.00 87001 2000/12/17 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity4.0 Durability3.0 Product Rating4.0 durable cute in a silly way light no vibrate option tricky shape to squeeze against shoulder The Bottom LineTruly portable communication for not a lot of dough. If you have simple to middlin' needs, this may be the phone for you. Full Review This was originally posted 12/28/00, but the epinions database has been altered, making this review impossible to find except from my profile page. I am reposting it in the correct place. Thanks! Before I get started here, until about ten months ago I was very anti-cell phone. They were irritating little devices put on this earth to peeve me. Well, opinions change, right . . . Last spring I got a job as a long-term housesitter. There was no pay involved, but I didn't have to pay rent anywhere else and I could store my stuff in the garage/basement of the house I was taking care of. A few months with no bills and no roommates? Of course I said yes. What does this have to do with a cell phone, you ask? Hold on to your pants there turbo, the answer is right here. To do this whole moving/housesitting thing, I was going to have to give up my phone number. I move all the time (around the same town), but I've had the same phone number for almost ten years. Giving it up was something I was unwilling to do. How would anyone find me? Well, I called my friendly Qwest representative (quite possibly the only chipper person working for the entire company--for more info check out jennifernorth's letter to Qwest). Not only did he set up a "Remote Voice Forward" (or some such nonsense), but he convinced me that I needed a cell. The plan/phone came with a 30-day money-back guarantee, but after 30 days, I was hooked. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the part you've been waiting for--the phone review! A large part of my satisfaction comes from this silly little Qualcomm phone. Almost everyone I know has a far-too-trendy Nokia. I hate the darn things--too heavy, too bulky, too fragile. My Qualcomm weighs next to nothing, it's slim enough to fit in a jeans pocket, and I've dropped it more times than I'd like to count. This is actually too much phone for me. I really don't need a super dooper extra battery (plenty of talk time during the day, charge it while I'm sleeping), and I definitely don't need internet access/text messages on my phone. However, if there's anybody out there who does, this phone can take care of it for you. It also operates in both digital and analog modes--something I appreciate. I like to road trip alone, and I feel a bit more safe with a phone in the volv with me. I actually live in an area with poor coverage, and I haven't been anywhere where it doesn't receive a signal yet. The phone has storage for 199 numbers. Even though it's a pain to scroll through that many (I've only used 39 and it's already a pain), I no longer have scraps of bar napkin/business card/matchbook/etc. cluttering up my purse to remember my friend's numbers. There are only a few things that bug me about the phone, and they are all pretty minimal. The first is that the slim design does not lend itself to comfortable squeezing between the ear and shoulder. My plan includes long distance throughout the contiguous 48, so most of my long-distance chatting is on this phone. I also find the LED screen to be too big and silly looking. There is a whole heckofalotta space, most of which is unnecessary. Except, well, when you are doing something else and just need to take a quick glance at, say, the caller ID before hitting the END button to silence the ringer. Which brings me to my last issue. I really wish the phone had a "vibrate" option. There have been times that it is inappropriate for the phone to ring, but I would like to know that someone is calling. The ringer is easy to silence in a jiffy, but I would prefer to avoid nasty stares in public. (Don't worry, I'm not talking about the theatre or any such rudeness!) Plus, dontcha just love vibrating electronics in your pocket letting you know that someone cares enough to call? I live fairly close to the local airport, and if I'm sitting out back sometimes calls are dropped if the terminal is busy. I've also had some problems getting it to work in my favorite bar (located in a building that is under construction). This is a recent problem, so I think it must be construction related. Well, now I'm hooked on this cellular thing. I still don't talk while driving, and I hope that I'm respectful to those around me when it rings, but wow is this thing handy. The phone itself is capable of clearly allowing me to communicate with anyone, anytime. My favorite part of cellular life is that I no longer have those "near-misses" with my random, flakey friends. If I'm awake, I'm only a phone call away. In the year since I wrote this review, I have bent the antenna, travelled to areas with no signal (though not many), and experienced far fewer dropped calls. Still a thumbs up. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.00 7679 Kyocera QCP 860 Thin Phone 87013 2000/5/13 Battery Life5.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability5.0 Product Rating5.0 sturdy thin long battery holds lots of numbers buttons pretty small long The Bottom LineA great phone, unbeatable if you can get it at a good price. Full Review Let me start by saying that my phone is a Qualcomm QCP-860, not the Kyocera brand, which is the exact same thing, just bought out Qualcomm's handheld phones division. I really, really enjoy this phone. I enjoy it so much that I wouldn't really even consider switching to another cellular phone except if someone were to get me one of those cool Matrix-like ones that has the slide down microphone part. The thin-ness of this phone is really nice. I can just walk out the door, put it in my pocket and forget that I have it on me. This is of course until it rings, which has a few nice setting you can use. The ringers come in a few different musical/noise modes, some of which are very annoying, some of which are very normal. I prefer the normal sounding ring with the volume set on escalate to get loud with each ring. But some people I know (a lot of my friends), enjoy the rings that annoying everyone around you to death, and let everyone know that you have a cellular phone (those types of rings are available on this phone too)! The buttons on the phone are a little hard to use sometimes (like while driving), but this has to be the way it is so the phone isn't too big. Some other great things about the phone include its design. The way it is layed out, the phone is very easy to manuvere through the different menus and settings. On the main screen you will notice a menu and a book labled at the bottom with two white keys on the keypad directly below them. These keys take you to their aforementioned places in the phones memory. Menu allows you to change the things such as sounds, security codes, lights, and the display. The book allows you to see who is in your personal phone book, and add to it. When you dial a number, you always have the option to save it as the bottom of the screen, and by typing in a name, it will be saved to the book. Using hot-keys, such as *1 you can easily call the numbers in your book without having to remember all seven, ten, or eleven digits in the number. Once in the menu or book, you can use a neat little cursor-button on the left side of the phone to navigate. It's very simple, either up or down, placed very well on the phone to keeps with its slim feel. The menu screen is spaced out very well, and very easy to read. You get to put a banner across the main menu of the phone like "____s Phone" or whatever you wish. You can set it, as I do, so as soon as you hit a button to start dialing something or go to a menu, all the buttons and the screen illuminates in a green glow that makes the LCD display very simple to read. The battery on this phone is top-notch. As far as I've seen, it lasts practically forever (or 2-3 days) on standby. I think if I were to talk straight through for a long time using it, it would last for like 12 hours or something, which is pretty darn good, especially considering how slim the phone is. I remember those old cell phones that were like 2/3s batter and 1/3 actual phone in terms of thickness. This phone is the opposite, and that is what makes it so attractive. This phone is great, especially if you can get a deal on it from a service provider like I did. I paid around fifty dollars for it, but I've heard it got as little as forty, or as much as 120 dollars when purchased with a plan. The clarity depends on the signal strength, which depends on the service provider, but when it's at full signal, it's crystal clear. Once it switches from digital service to analog, service suffers a bit, but nothing too bad. I've had this phone for about a year and a half now and I just love it, don't know what I'd do without it. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 50w/discount 87012 2000/10/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability4.0 Clarity3.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating3.0 sturdy lacks features Full Review Whoa, who the heck is Kyocera? Well, they recently bought out Qualcomm's handset division. While Qualcomm will still be the leader in CDMA technology, they will no longer make the phones this digital service is used in. And who bought it? That's right, Kyocera. Right now, the only difference from the 2760, is the a piece of tape Kyocera puts on the box with their name on it. If you look close at the picture of the phone, you can still see the Qualcomm name written on the front, above the screen. Now, Qualcomm long made quality phones, phones that work great, with long batteries, and are almost all trouble free. Well, they usually did, they didn't quite hit the mark on any of those three items with the 2760, though. Now I know you are about to say, "You are reviewing the 860, not a Qualcomm 1960." Well, guess what? They are the same phone. So I hope I haven't confused you too much yet. Qualcomm phones were workhorses, and didn't try to match all the gagdetry of other wireless phone makers. Their 1920 and 2700 hundred series, while bulky and virtually featureless, were tremendous phones, with great reception and extended batteries. The 2760 model, though, did not live up to these standards. The phone still lacks features, such as a vibrating ringer and other small items many people have become used to (musical ringers, schedules, voice activation) but it also doesn't handle as well as its predecessors. Well, the Kyocera is of course going to have the same problems, for the reason that it is the same phone. The phone's battery life is only 2.5 hours talk time, compared to four on earlier Qualcomm models. The phone can lock up for no apparent reason (while an easy problem to fix, if you don't know the trick, you have to take it to a store.) The reception is also lacking. It does not perform as well as Qulacomm phones should. Qualcomm usually gives up small sizes and functions for quality and reception, but not this time. Now I can't talk all bad about the phone, while it does not handle as well as the norm for Qualcomm (and hopefully Kyrocera,) it does have its strong points. It is dual band, for added coverage. It slides into your pocket for easy handling, because it is only .7 inches thick. If you drop it once, it is not going to kill it, and the price is right. The phone is also internet ready if your service will handle this feature. The phone is also carried by quite a few services across the country, and this makes it popular and easy to find. I will say, though, without the quality of earlier models, the lack of features makes this phone a no go with a lot buyers, but if you are looking for your basic phone, for as little as you can spend, you can be happy, just don't expect too much. Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 79.99 87011 2000/5/22 Battery Life3.0 Portability5.0 Clarity4.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating4.0 light good reception hands free car kit a huge plus small can be buggy at times The Bottom LineWith the expanded battery, it competes with any other phone I've tried, and the hands free kit's features sold me. Full Review I have had my Qualcomm 860 for a year, and 21,000 minutes use later....it's still ticking! I am a headhunter, meaning my JOB depends on my phone. I put well over an hour a day on it on a slow day. And I love this model. I upgraded to this model from an Audiovox 4000, which I liked a great deal also, but would do it again. The Good - Clear reception, at all volumes. - Hardy, I've dropped mine more times than I can count. - I know some people don't like the side volume buttons,but I think they're a plus - Fits comfortably on one's shoulder, no weird shaping issues. - Large earpiece and mouthpiece, so you don't feel like you need to "aim" for the speaker when talking. - Comes in choice of several colors, including a deep cherry, a royal blue, silver, and standard black - Does have choice of ringers. - Available in dual and tri-modes now, I believe. - A very light, slim phone as is. The Bad - Does not have vibrate mode, or holster available like a Star Tac - Battery life without the extended battery (which is a separate accessory) was very lacking compared to my old Audiovox. With the extended battery, however, it is excellent! - It is very easy to dial accidentally if it hits something in your purse. Get used to using the keyguard!! - It has frozen up on me a few times, which I find odd. I think it just might be my unit, I've never seen the problem in other phones, and 3 of my friends also have them. The Indifferent The Qualcomm, in my opinion, is as good as other phones but not significantly better in tonal quality, range of features like call accounting, storage capacity, etc. Who would like it Most - Women, who wouldn't benefit as much usually from a belt holster like a Star Tac. - People who don't need a flashy looking phone. - People who want voice-dial capability on their car kit, which completely sold me on this unit. The Car Kit Ok, so the reason I decided on this model and won't change back. This was the only model phone I could find with a fully voice activated hands free car kit available. The car kit was $200., yes, pricy, but if you drive and use the phone a great deal, worth much more for safety reasons alone! When the phone is in its cradle in the car, you can "teach" it to recognize your voice. For example, you can type in the number 555-5555 and tell it that the word "home" is associated with that number. Then you teach it to recognize the words "call" "redial" "voicebook" (or search address book). When driving, if you want to keep your eyes on the road, you just speak into the air in your car the words "wake up" (a small mic by the visor picks up your voice). The phone will beep and ask you (via an underdash speaker) what you want to do. You then tell it to Call Home, and it does the rest. (You can also tell it to "call" and then slowly say the number out 5-5-5-1-2-3-4 if you haven't programmed it in.) The called party's voice comes in through the underdash speaker, and you talk into the air rather than into the phone to converse. This feature is worth a serious look for anyone who travels a lot for work or pleasure, and often used the phone while driving. Although the kit is an added accessory, it keeps you focused on driving, rather than holding a phone on your shoulder etc. It's the main reason I chose this model phone, because looking away from the road to dial was getting too dangerous for me. Marianne Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 120. 87010 2001/7/27 Battery Life4.0 Portability5.0 Clarity5.0 Durability4.0 Product Rating5.0 switches from digital to analog automatically long battery life small clear sound does not fold up The Bottom LineI love this phone and would get the same one again if I had it to do over. Full Review I don't talk on the cell phone enough to get anything that can be transmitted (grin) Security and safety are the main reasons I have a cell phone. I hate talking on a telephone of any kind but when I am out driving I want the security of having a phone available to me. I decided on the Qualcomm 860 The Statistics The phone only weighs 4 oz. which is the main reason I chose it. Very thin and compact fits perfectly in my pocket or purse. Uses CDMA technology which in plain language means clearer conversations. More security. Uses lower power levels. Switches from digital to analog which means you have greater access to more areas. Has a built in battery, I like this feature because the other cell phone that I used had a battery that kept slipping out. See . The built in battery allows the phone to be slim and trim. It comes with a phone charger that works great, and you can't overcharge it allowing you to use it with the AC at home instead of keeping it on the battery. The battery type is an internal Lilon battery. You can also purchase and use an external battery to give you longer talking time without recharging. Features Has four language options Stores up to 99 phone numbers Have two smart keys on the phone. They change screens according to the function you are using. Keyguard - protects against accidental presses on the numbers when it is turned on. Security option - when this is turned on you can only make emergency calls or receive incoming calls. This phone can handle voice mail, connecting to the Internet, caller ID and three way calling. I don't use these services but the phone is able to handle them all. Pros Internal battery Ease of use Clear calls Small Cons It doesn't fold up. Qualcomm sold their wireless business to Kyocera and their web site is http://www.kyocera-wirless.com For Standards and Safety Information you can visit the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association(CTIA) www.wow-com.com Recommended: Yes Amount Paid (US$): 199.00